3 Key Ways To Turn Your Blog Into a Super-Resource

The Internet is changing the way people remember things.

Last year, a study led at Columbia showed that instead of remembering the actual information we learn online, we remember where we learned it. Because we trust that websites are more or less permanent, we often simply plan return to sites later to find facts when we need them, rather than memorizing said facts in the first place.

So how do you implement the right kind of stickiness on your own site? By quickly and clearly demonstrating to readers that your blog is more than a conversation – it’s a resource.

Image via BookWitch

Keywords help readers easily orient themselves and assert a site’s relevance. From there, they can provide clear leads for the reader to find what they are looking for.

Brainpickings Uses An Intriguing and Engaging “Explore” Guide To Give Readers A Taste For What They Might Find

Brainpickings does an excellent job at using keywords to hook and engage readers. The site, known for its quirky collection of creative intellectual pursuits, uses an “explore” sidebar to give readers a taste of its contents. This not only lets the reader know what is important, but it helps map what they may expect in the future.

Make Your Archives Accessible

By offering a clear and useful way to see old posts, a blog becomes a much deeper experience than its latest article. Therefore, a blog should make their content searchable in every way imaginable.

Bryan Boy, One Of The NowManifest Bloggers, Uses Archives To Increase His Content’s Entertainment Value

NowManifest, a style blog collective that hosts bloggers like Bryan Boy and Fashion Toast, does a great job maximizing its resources this way. The site’s posts aren’t time sensitive, so opening them up means more entertainment for their readers. Intrigued wanderers suddenly have hours of images, blurbs, and inspiration to digest – at no additional pain to the content creators.

Embed Your Juiciest Stuff

Give your reader maximal opportunities to interact with your best content by putting it on your homepage – even if your main site isn’t a blog. This gives users a taste of what you are, and will be offering, in terms of content.

Open Culture’s List of Essentials Gives Readers A Clear and Useful Roadmap To Their Site

A great example of this is Open Culture’s list of essentials. Their lists don’t overload readers, but excite them with a preview of their powerful insides. This way, a reader might have found the site for free online courses, but may come back for free textbooks.

Help your reader find what they need, while showing them your best stuff. Hopefully, they’ll leave with a good first impression of your site, but more importantly, a lasting memory of its contents.