Every blogger wants their posts to attract more blog readers like bees to honey. When it comes to content, boredom is the kiss of death. With dull blog posts, there’s nothing to entice readers back. The secret to creating alluring content is understanding what your readers want to read.
While I could eat pasta every night, the idea of eating the same thing day after day would drive my husband crazy. The same holds for your readers. When they visit your blog to get their regular helping of your expertise, they want variety in their content diet. Therefore, you need to find new ways to serve your content so your readers find it enticing. Take a cue from one of my mother’s cookbooks, 365 Ways to Make Pasta. It has a year’s worth of recipes focused on a specific food to prevent your family from getting bored.
5 Ways to keep readers engaged
To spice up your blog posts and keep readers coming back for more, here are five ways to vary your content while staying true to your topic.
- Report the news. Think targeted niche newspaper. What information are your readers looking for? What’s your unique angle that makes it interesting even if the news itself isn’t so engaging? To keep it hot, dish out your market’s gossip because everyone’s always wants to be in the know. Consider how to be the National Enquirer of your category.
- Educate them. This isn’t the little red schoolhouse. Regardless of your topic, either B2C or B2B, provide useful, how-to information that readers need and want. Dig in and explain step-by-step relevant instructions. This type of content is great for product support. On this blog, the Actionable Marketing 101 columns fulfill this need. Charge up your presentations by using videos, diagrams and photographs to clarify points.
- Give your opinion. This is the modern spin on the editorial page or TV’s talking heads. Point of view, thought leadership and cause related blogs fit into this category. This type of blog is useful for showcasing diverse perspectives on a topic. Also, it’s good for getting guest bloggers to contribute.
- Entertain them. Across the digital and social media landscape, visitors consistently want to be entertained. What can you provide on your blog to lure them into the big top of your blog? Try humor. For example, I Can Has Cheezburger has built a media empire based on funny photos and related captions. Give your blog life with funny videos—they don’t have to be your own. Add another dimension with games and contests to engage your readers.
- Make it personal. This is the modern journal. If you’re looking to build an audience, it must contain more than a listing of what you did. Before you start, consider what makes your life worth reading about? Are you grapping with a difficult disease? Are you making a life change? Can others learn from your experiences? Mommy and daddy blogs fall into this category.
The secret to making your blogs alluring like honey for readers is to vary the type of posts. No one wants the same old content day after day. Therefore, add variety in terms of the type of content you present to keep readers coming back. To this end, using an editorial calendar can be helpful.
What else can make your blog posts like honey to attract readers and keep them coming back? Please add your suggestions in the comments below.
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
If you’d like to get some additional help and support with your blogging, here are some additional articles worth reading.
- Where’s the Beef in Your Social Media Content? [Chart]
- How to overcome Blank Post Syndrome
- 125 Free Blog Post Titles – Personal and Corporate
- Marketing Meets Branding: Why Brands Need Stories
- How to Find Stories Within Your Brands – 29 Ideas to Help You
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