9 Simple Tips For Creating Engaging Blog Posts

Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to consistently create ENGAGING blog posts for your audience.

This is a critical mission for the success of your content marketing effort.

With a lot of things competing for your reader’s attention, you’ll want your content to grab their attention and keep them glued to their screen reading what you have to say – instead of following the next distraction.

To achieve this feat, you have to create interesting and engaging content. Bland and boring blog posts does not do you or your reader any good.

In this post you will get some tips for creating engaging blog posts that will get your readers excited, ready to take action and coming back for more.

Writing content that captivates your reader isn’t rocket science – it takes some work, but it is well worth the effort for your audience and your business.

Creating Engaging Blog Posts for Your Audience

What if you could make some little tweaks in your writing that’ll make your content more exciting for your readers? Well … the tips below will help you do just that.

1. Tell Stories

“To survive, you must tell stories.”

Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

This quote nails it. You can rephrase the quote this way, “To survive as a content marketer, you must tell stories,” and you would still be correct.

Story is a powerful communication tool that cuts across cultures and civilizations, and is a core part of our human experience. We all have our stories. And we love to hear stories.

If you’re not convinced, remember the last time you were at a conference or seminar or any talk at all and you were getting bored and distracted?

Then someone’s about to tell a story… and you’re alert again.

How about your favourite classes and teachers from your school days? Probably they were classes taught by teachers and professors that adopted a storytelling approach in their teaching.

So you looked forward to their classes, even if it was just to hear them tell those stories you love to hear.

This blog post by Jon Morrow of Smart Blogger attracted millions of visitors and generated a lot of buzz because of the story element.

Indeed stories are powerful engagement tools.

You can share a personal story of how you overcame a challenge your audience can relate with. Or a fictional story that briefly describes your readers’ struggle and how it can be resolved – making them the hero of the story.

2. Include Examples and Case Studies

Make your writing easier to understand with examples and case studies. Include examples of people or organizations that are having success with the concept or idea you’re describing.

You may share your company’s success story like this example from HubSpot, or your client’s success story – show examples of your clients that have solved their challenges using the idea you’re describing.

Or you can share case studies of other industry players that are successfully implementing what you’re writing about.

Examples and case studies help your readers see that your idea truly works and it can work for their business or help them resolve their challenge.

3. Ask Questions That Get Your Audience Involved

Questions are effective engagement tools, too. Little wonder questions make good hooks in a blog post. You get your readers nodding “yes” from the get-go.

And it lets them know the benefit of reading your post upfront.

To keep your readers attention and interest, you can use questions in the body of your blog post, too.

You may have observed how webinar hosts keep asking questions that require “yes” answers or generate positive reactions.

Of course, they have good reasons for asking these questions.

• It allows them get feedback from the audience
• It gives the audience a chance to get involved in the webinar – because if they’re not, they’ll follow the next fascinating distraction
• Also, since many webinars have a high ticket offer on sale at the end, the host gets the attendees to say yes over and over again, so they are likely to follow through and say yes to whatever they are offering at the end.

This works because it taps into the psychological tendency of humans to stay consistent with a decision they’ve made earlier.

Imagine you could replicate a similar experience with your blog posts. And sure, you can.

While you won’t have the privilege of hearing your readers say “yes” as they read your blog post, you’ll still want to ask them questions that gets them to say “yes”. Or you ask a thought provoking question. This keeps them reading. But, they are not just skimming now, they have to pause to think.

With this level of engagement, if your post really delivers, they’re more likely to be excited about following through with your call-to-action and sharing your post.

But you’ve got to ask questions about what they care about. For instance:

“Do you want to learn how to write more in less time?”

“Do you want to learn how to repurpose your content and get the most value from your winning content?”

Sure, these questions will get a resounding “yes” from writers and content marketers.

How about, “Have you ever wondered how you can get more value out of your top-performing content?”

Understand your audience and ask the right questions and you’ll have your audience chanting “yes” wherever they are. And “yes” means they are likely to read further instead of clicking the return button.

4. Use Insights from Audience Research

You want your readers to be certain that the blog post was written for them – to address their challenges, struggles or help them do stuff better.

To do that, you have to know your audience. All the data you have gathered from keyword research, customer surveys, customer interviews, customer reviews and social media research gives you a good idea of your audience’s pains, challenges, dreams and aspirations.

Use this information to create engaging content for your audience – to create content that addresses their concerns. Content that is useful and valuable.

This kind of data-driven content strikes a chord with your audience. It feels like you’re speaking their language. And when you speak your reader’s language, you’ll communicate better.

It’s time to use all the data you have been gathering to create a remarkable experience for your readers.

5. Let Your Personality Shine Through

With millions of bloggers in the world and probably thousands or hundreds of thousands in your niche, how do you stand out?

You stand out by letting your audience get a feel of who you are. Let them have a feel of the person behind the keyboard.

No two bloggers are the same – even if they are in the same niche – just as no two writers are the same. Make your difference count. Make your voice heard. Bring your unique perspective to the table. Put your spin on your content – even if tons of blog post have being written about it.

You can share some of your personal experiences, preferences and interests that are sure to resonate with your audience.

6. Include Quotes, Charts and Statistics

Make your writing interesting with quotes from important people. They may be industry experts, thought leaders, authors or other prominent persons.

Quotes add flavour to your writing.

Also, include statistics and charts from trusted and reputable sources to add credibility to your writing. And allows you to be specific with your facts. For instance:

“Over 56% of B2B marketers struggle with generating content ideas consistently.”

This is more specific than “Many B2B marketers struggle with generating content ideas consistently.” And it packs more punch, right?

7. Use Colloquial

Spice up your writing with colloquial. Colloquial is a way of writing that is characteristic of familiar conversation.

Write in a conversational tone and use words that your audience are likely to use in daily conversations. This will make your writing more personal and friendly. Plus it makes it fun to read.

8. Add Analogies

Analogies will make your writing clearer and memorable. Relate what you’re writing about to everyday events your readers are familiar with. It will help them understand better. For instance:

“Developing your writing skills is a lot like building muscles. You work out consistently and your muscles begin to bulge gradually.

You develop your writing skill in a similar way by writing consistently.

Gradually, you’ll begin to see your writing improve.”

There you have it, an example of an analogy.

9. Use Similes

You can also add colour to your writing with similes. Similes draw comparison between two ideas.

“A simile can give your reader a nice jolt. He is reading along and suddenly you make a comparison that surprises him. It is electrifying.”

Joe Vitale, Hypnotic Writing

It’s way better to give your audience a jolt every now and then, rather than have them sleepwalk through your content.

Here’s an example. “Doing content marketing without a strategy is like trying to win a tournament without a plan.”

Conclusion

It appears you have accepted your mission. Of course creating engaging blog posts take extra effort. But  you’ll be rewarded if you can pull it off. You’ll get a loyal audience, more shares, more traffic, more leads, more sales and more authority in your niche.

Over to you. Do you have more tips for creating engaging blog posts? Share them in the comments section below.