The Number One Reason Food Blog Visitors Don’t Become Regular Readers

You’re a master of bringing in new visitors, but they just aren’t becoming subscribers. There’s one simple truth to why a new visitor to your site won’t return:

You aren’t solving their problem.

Readers return to sites that do something for them. Are they looking for new recipes? Do they need basic cooking advice? Or do they just need an easy read at the end of the day?

The first step to solving this is to define or niche. And I’m not just talking about “food blogger”. What kind of food blogger are you?

If you specialize in healthy recipes, ask yourself, “why do my readers want healthy recipes?” Do they want to lose weight? Do they have a cholesterol problem? Are they newly diabetic? Has a recent birth made them realize they want their child to eat better? These questions are the key to unlocking the potential of your audience. Find out what your readers really want to know and systematically provide that to them.

Focus on a single problem at a time. You build you authority regarding it, it’s easy to come up with new ideas or build on old ones, and you completely captivate your target market. Once you’ve built your audience as much as possible on that topic, you can begin to expand on it.

“So, what about those really big blogs? They don’t focus on anything specific!”

Larger blogs already have the audience to justify branching out. They’re the exception to the rule. Sometimes. Except in a case like Sally’s Baking Addiction. This is a woman who chose to be more than a food blogger — a dessert blogger. Now that her audience has expanded, and she has such a broad collection of desserts already, Sally includes smoothies, meals, and a bit of lifestyle blogging. Yet, the majority of her posts are still baking. And certainly all of her top posts remain baking.

If you want fast growth, pick a tight niche with a starving (har har) market.