When it comes to content writing, it can be hard for many to predict whether the result will be successful or not. There’s no clear formula that would guarantee that your deeply-researched, thoroughly written content will turn out to be appealing to the readers. Or is there?
Sure, every case is unique. There are writers who start blogs as a hobby and quickly become very successful. There are people who start writing because they want to make money but fail to achieve the desired result.
But while there’s no unique recipe for everyone, there are still some tips that could you make your content more interesting and engaging. Here’s how you can do this.
1. Know who you are writing for.
Remember: even if you don’t see your blog as a serious business, there’s always a target audience. Moreover, it is very important either to come up with a vision of your desired target audience or to find out more about the existing one.
Not all writers actually want to write for certain people when they start blogs. However, if you do know who you want to write for, it’s always important to ensure that people who read your articles match this description of yours. If they do match, this means you’re doing just fine. If they don’t, you need to find a way to change your articles, tailoring them to the desired target audience.
If you don’t have any clear vision of a target audience, it’s still important to find out more about the people who read you. Knowing this will allow you to tailor your content to their needs, maybe changing your style a little bit or offering more valuable information to them.
Check out: Best places to find expert writers for blogs
2. Define your value.
No two blogs are the same. Yours too must have something that makes it stand out among others – and if it doesn't have this feature yet, you might want to invent it.
Think about what could make your content appealing to the readers. Why should they read your blog instead of many others in this niche? Maybe it’s because you have an amazing sense of humor and let it show in your articles? Or maybe it’s because you take beautiful pictures to illustrate your posts with?
Find that unique feature of yours and let it shine – people will love it.
3. Tell a story.
While it’s not a rule, this is what often differs articles from blog posts: people read the former mostly because they want to find something out and they read the latter because they like a person behind the writing. For example, while an article might offer some valuable tips on thesis statement writing, a blog post will also share some insights, personal stories, and so on – and that’s what makes it so appealing.
If you are a blog writer, this means that you aren’t limited by the style or certain guidelines. Make the most out of it. Don’t simply offer your readers information – tell some personal stories too. Add personal examples, small jokes, etc. Do your best to make your content look like it was written by a person, not by a journalist.
4. Always try to offer something new.
The internet is full of blog post ideas these days. Anyone can easily find what to write about if they do a small research.
However, what differs the best writers from the good ones is that they do not stick to the same topics the others do – they try to create their own. When you offer something that hasn’t been offered before, people usually react very positively to it – and are also eager to spread the information.
Think of something that hasn't been explored in your niche before (or, at least, haven’t been explored much). Discuss a new trend. Raise a controversial question. Conduct an experiment. Create your own tag or challenge. Start an online marathon.
Niches differ a lot, of course. What works just fine for one, might fail miserably for the other. But being a niche blogger, you probably will be able to predict whether a certain thing will work or not. So give it a try.
5. Illustrate your posts.
People usually react better to images: they catch the reader attention quickly, they are easy to view and understand, and they can tell a story of their own. That’s why making a post with images is always better than making one without them (as long as you don’t overdo it with the images, of course).
There are plenty of free and paid image stocks that offer you a variety of high-quality beautiful photos. All of them, however, have one big drawback: these images are used by other writers as well.
That’s why if you do want to make your content as unique as possible, consider creating your own images. Even if you don’t have a professional camera, you probably can take nice pictures with your phone and edit them with the help of special software (apps like VSCO, spark etc. can do wonders with mobile photos these days). You can also draw your own illustrations or create infographics (even if using one of the ready-made templates). Doing so will make your posts not only more appealing but more unique as well.
As you see, writing engaging content doesn’t have much to do with grammar and writing itself – it’s mostly about the attitude, the ideas, and the approach. Try following these tips and you’ll make your content better instantly.
Article courtesy: Jake Lester
Author Bio: Jake Lester is a Chicago native who is content writing expert.
1 comment:
Post a Comment