You wrote a fantastic blog post, and felt proud of yourself for getting it done so easily – yet no one reads it or share it. Wondering why? It’s not because your content is not good, it is may be, your content is lacking a few important factors that drive engagement. Or it could be that you’re unable to create that ‘
Here’s how you can increase engagement and get a bigger chunk of readers for your blog content-
# 1. Introduce fresh perspectives in your content
As it is rightly said, ‘change is the only constant factor’. So this is what your blog needs. Think of variety of topics for your blog. Do not cover topics that are not relevant. You may also make use of different tools and websites to find the best topic for your blog. People read blogs to be entertained, educated, and informed. And if your content isn’t doing that, you’re not going to gain a following. There is no point stuffing your content with keywords and optimizing them for search engines. This might make your content rank higher in search engines but will never make people come back to your blog. The way people perceive your blog post should be your highest concern.
In a nutshell, try to cover different types of topics that are fresh, and relevant to the customer’s interests.
# 2. Combine text and visual content
Pairing visual content with descriptive text can create a true marketing force that leads to more interaction. Check out the following ways to use visual content to improve overall engagement
- Rather than creating infographics with statistics, cartoon icons, charts and graphs, try using well-done pictures and concise text to communicate what consumers are actually looking for
- So what if you’re writing about something as serious as tax preparation, banking and insurance? You can always present your boring content in an interesting way. All you need to do is, add human perspective to your business. For instance, you may use the company’s Facebook page to share a sense of humor with fun illustrations and jokes along with the content. In this context, H&R Block with approximately 380,000 fans on Facebook sees over 500 engagement per post by using the same formula.
# 3. Prevent skimmers from leaving your blog
It is a usual practice with readers to scan your content and decide whether it is relevant to them or not. If they find it relevant, they’ll stay and read the entire post or else will ignore. However, to make maximum number of readers stay and read your blog post, you’ll have to organize your content in such a way that users will find exactly what they need.
- Short, crisp and to the point headline always influence people to pay attention to your blog post. The more relevant and to the point they sound, the more likely readers will stay
- Breaking your content into subheads give the users a quick overview of the things you have discussed in the post
- Content formatting, of course, plays a major role in highlight your content. However, over usage of bold and italics in your content equals to highlighting nothing. Put emphasize on the key points to help readers pick them up quickly
- Once skimmers scan through the headlines and subheadings and find it relevant, they have the tendency to look for bullet points and numbered lists that help them with decision-making.
# 4. Add highly relevant links
No good content can go without internal and external links. This helps in displaying the reliability of the things you’re talking about and expand your reader’s understanding and add value to your post. Internal links to your own cornerstone content will keep readers on your site and reading your best materials. While external links demonstrate that you want to highlight other experts and have done extensive research for the topic. Adding internal links will keep on promoting other articles from your archives which will ultimately make people read numerous blog posts from your blog.
The most effective way to get more people read your blog post is to post your content on different social media platforms. Social media content marketing strategy spreads like wildfire. The current followers who are reading your content may also share it within their personal networks. Also, once you start posting your content on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn, don’t repeat the title of your blog post. Change the title and share a related thought to bring in more people. However, posting your content on social media is not the end of your responsibility. You need to think of interesting ways to attract reader to your post. For instance, you may ask readers to consider a situation or pose a question that will encourage them to click on your link.
# 6. Post content consistently
If people don’t know when you post, they’ll never know when to check it. Your readers shouldn’t have to play a guessing game when it comes to reading your content. Publishing content on a regular basis will encourage people to come back. This is a significant and sustained effort to build up a following. Whether you are posting 10 articles per day, or five posts a week, or updating your blog with something new once a month, executing it consistently will increase engagement to your blog.
# 7. Blog design does matter
Although content is the king but how you present a whole bunch of interesting text, pictures and videos together in a creatively pleasing way is important. Blog content is all about ideas, and ideas are meant to appreciate. It is your responsibility to facilitate this process. Hiring a web designer who can enhance your creativity by giving your blog a little style is a good idea. Blog design do play an integral role in maximizing readers.
# 8. Quality analyst is required
Writing is individual, but readers are many. Get an additional pair of eyes to go over your words of wisdom and correct the following errors, if any, before making them public is essential
- Grammatical error
- Incorrect text format
- Syntax error
- Outdated topics and irrelevant links.
If you know some other effective ways to blog successfully, share with us. We will appreciate your feedback.
Images: ”Gone Viral Sign/Shutterstock.com“
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