How to create engaging content – 10 simple tips to follow

Are you getting only a few numbers of views on your blog post? In the world of content marketing, creating engaging content is the biggest challenge for every content creator today.

Every blogger put lots of time and effort for creating every piece of content. If that content doesn’t engage your readers, they will simply leave your blog post and looking for another one.

No one likes their hard works getting wasted. Right?

Blog posts or articles are the best and effective way to build brand loyalty and trust among your audience. So your blog post must provide high-quality information, it should engage your readers and add value to them. To create engaging content, first, you need to improve your content strategy.

Here we have listed 10 tips to create content that engages your readers,

• Create attention-grabbing headlines
• Hook readers with your opening lines
• Write for your audience
• Provide high-quality content
• Follow 3 c’s in your content
• Tell a story
• Use visuals
• Include relevant statistics and links
• Make your blog post easy to read
• Make it easy to share

Create attention-grabbing headlines

Let’s start with headlines because your headline is the first thing that your readers will see. Headline allows you to entice your readers at the very beginning.

Even though you have a high-quality, unique, blog post without an attractive, magnetic, eye-catching headline, your content can’t engage your readers because 80% of readers will read headline text only.

Attention-grabbing, the compelling headline has the ability to make your readers read the content. An attractive headline makes your content successful and engaged. So it is important that your headlines should encourage your readers to know more.

Keep your headlines short and simple, use numbers, strong adjectives, negative superlatives, ask questions, provide a solution to a problem, and create a sense of urgency will help you to make your headlines attractive.

In our previous blog post, we have extensively discussed some tips to write attractive headlines for the blog post

Hook readers with your opening lines

Eye-tracking visualization study by Neilson Norman group shows that readers read the online web content in an “F” shaped pattern which means readers don’t read every word of your content. At first, they just scan the information of your content in the shape of “F”.

What is the  F – pattern?

• First, users read in a horizontal movement, start at the upper part of the content. Reading your headline and description of your content.
• Next, users move down the left side of the page and then the read second horizontal movement. Reading another eye-catching subheading or bulleted points.
• Finally, users scan the content in a vertical movement

The first few lines of your content will help your readers to decide whether they have to keep reading or not. So it is really important that your opening lines must entice your readers to read the full article.

Ask the reader a thought-provoking question, start with attention-grabbing quotes, promising a solution to a problem, explain the importance of the blog post, in your first few lines. If you hook the reader’s attention in your first paragraph, then you can increase the engagement of your content.

Write for your audience

If you want your content gets engaged, you have to create content specially targeted and write directly to them. Keep your reader’s needs in your mind while creating the content.

Find out who is your audience, what your audience wants to know, what is your audience’s interest, what type of content they prefer, and what the real issues your audience face.

While reading your content, your readers should feel that content is personally written for them and it should provide a solution to their problems.

You have to create a buyer persona to identify your target audience group. You can identify the target audience group by understanding some basic factors such as their age, gender, interests, hobbies, education level, occupation, income,  and buying profiles. You can conduct a survey or talk to your sales personnel to create a buyer persona.

Provide high-quality content

Create in-depth, high-quality, unique, informational content will help to make your content engaged.

Find recent, original, relevant updates and provide well-researched, accurate information in your content. It is not only for keeping your readers engaged, but it also helps you to increase your traffic to your content. So take enough time to create your content.

Share case studies, update and republish your old blog post is another effective way to engage your readers with your content.

Use powerful words, include some inspirational quotes, use analogies in your content to make your audience feel that your content interested.

Follow 3 c’s in your content

Follow the 3 c’s to write better content and the 3 c’s are,

• Be clear
• Be concise
• Be conversational

Be clear – your content should be clear, easy to understand, and it should always be straight to the point. Use only simple language, use an active voice, Don’t use fancy dictionary words, that might confuse your readers.

Be concise – keep your content short and sweet to maintain your reader’s attention. If you say the information in 2000 words, what you can say in 1000 words means, your readers feel that the content is boring and it is hard to follow as well.

Be conversational – make your content like natural conversation and write like, you are talking to a person. This will help you to make a personal bond with your readers.

These 3 c’s will help you to make engaging content.

Tell a story

Storytelling is another powerful way to engage your readers with your content. The real story by real people has the ability to hook your readers, and it will also help you to make a personal bond among your audience.

Share some interesting stories, your business history, inspirational stories, other people’s stories, and your personal stories or experiences will help you to connect with your audience effectively and it also makes your content highly engaged.

Personal stories allow your readers to feel that you are the right person or qualified person on that topic. Use emotional adjectives, create relatable and emotionally powerful stories that encourage your readers to read your content fully.

Use visuals

Use visuals are the best and effective way to create highly engaging content. You have probably heard this phrase, “ A picture is worth a thousand words”. That is absolutely right because we are visual by nature.

In fact, the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than the text, and 90% of the information transmitted to the human brain is visual.

Related post: Ways to use visual content to increase blog engagement

Types of visual contents you can use in your content strategy

Images - Use some relevant, quality images that make your content more readable. articles with images receive 94% more views than the articles without images.

Infographics – infographics allow readers to understand complex data easily. An infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than text articles.

Slide shares – in slide share you can combine visual content with text content. Slide shares are an effective way to keep your readers engaged with your content.

Animated GIFs – adding motion graphics to your content makes your content more interesting.

Videos – videos are the future of content marketing, and it is most engaging visual content than others.

Include relevant statistics and links

Include some relevant facts & statistics, and scientific evidence in your post from a reputable source makes your content more interesting. If your content provides accurate information, surely your readers will love your content.

Add statistics in your blog post makes your content credible. It allows your readers to feel that the content is well-researched and it will increase the readability as well.

Don’t forget to link to the source but make sure to link to the authoritative and reputable sites only and make sure that the statistics are recent & relevant.

If you want to create highly engaging content, try to conduct your own research, and provide unique information.

Make your blog post easy to read

You need to format your blog post to improve readability. Even if you have quality content, your readers leave your page immediately and look for another one if your content is not reader-friendly.

Here are some tips to make your blog post readable

Use short sentences - shorter sentences are easier to understand than longer sentences. In shorter sentences, you can avoid grammatical errors as well.

Use short paragraphs –keep your paragraphs also shorter and make sure that your paragraphs are no longer more than 3 -4 sentences. It is really hard to read the long blocks of text, especially in mobile devices.

Use bulleted points – bulleted points provide a visible break for your reader, and it will help your readers to follow the information easily. People love to read bulleted points and lists.

Use a lot of sub-headings – sub-headings used to break up the content, and it will help readers to scan the copy easily. Use white spaces between paragraphs for easy to read.

Use Bold and Italic – use bold and italic for important keywords to make them stand out. Make sure that the fonts are reader-friendly.

Make it easy to share

Use social media channels to promote your content that will help to improve your content engagement. Add social sharing buttons on your webpage and these buttons will help your readers to share the content with a simple click.

Don’t make it hard for your readers to share your content because they don’t have the patience to search the buttons. So keep your social sharing buttons are visible.

Conclusion

Of course, creating engaging content is not an easy task. As I have already mentioned above, it is the biggest challenge that every blogger faces today. But with some tactics, you can achieve your goal.

I hope these tips will help you to create engaging content. Please do share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below. Finally, remember that “practice makes a man perfect” so keep on blogging.