Does this sound familiar?
You’ve crafted a fantastic post using your very best ideas. You’ve done extensive research. You’ve checked to make sure the text flows perfectly. You’ve edited it until it’s flawless.
It goes live on your site, and you wait with anticipation for the likes and shares to come in.
Only, they don’t. Despite your best efforts, your post enjoyed, at best, a lukewarm reception.
What went wrong? It’s probably because you’re not creating the right content. The key to success is to find the secret to writing content your target audience wants to read.
Consider the Interests of Your Readers
You probably feel the temptation to come up with your own exciting ideas for your blog. After all, you’re passionate about your industry and believe you can make it attractive to your readers. However, things don’t work that way.
If you put your interests over those of your readers, you won’t maximize your likes and shares. It’s that simple. So the first thing to consider when writing a post is to discover what your readers are interested in.
So, where do you begin? Here are a few top tips for crafting engaging content that your readers are sure to love.
Give Value to Readers
The first question you should ask before sitting down to type is, “Why would anyone want to read this post?” Your readers aren’t doing you a favor. They’re only there for a single reason – because they’re gaining something valuable.
It might help to think of your posts as your product. It can offer readers practical value – for example, a “how-to” article. Alternatively, it could offer inspiration or a deeper level of understanding of a topic. Whatever type of value your posts give, they must speak to the reader on a personal level.
To harness this potential, you need to pinpoint a need in the marketplace. You must identify what your readers want to know. Once you’ve done this, you can create a piece responding to their needs.
It might help to look at charts and graphs that show the types of content that are most popular. The chart above gives a good idea of what the average reader is looking for.
How to Identify Engaging Content for Your Audience
Once you know the type of content your readers want, you need to craft it around their interests.
Take a look at this chart. You can see there’s a big difference between the levels of interest in various topics. While you can’t change your industry, you can tailor your content to intrigue and engage with your readers. You can try the following steps to hone your articles to meet the precise demands of your target audience:
- Find blogs that are popular with your target audience. Focus less on the blog’s name than on whom it’s trying to reach.
- Read the posts and find out which ones people shared often. Note the most-shared titles.
- Analyze those headlines. What do they promise the reader? These promises reflect your target market’s needs. You can then seek to satisfy those needs with your content.
Craft Your Headlines Carefully
Certain types of headlines are more interesting to readers than others. You need to use that potential to your best advantage. If no one clicks on your headline, you can have the best article in the world, but it won’t matter.
Eighty percent of people will only ever read the headline and move on. If yours doesn’t capture their attention, they won’t click through to the content. This means you need to be clever about crafting your titles.
You can use the headlines that you’ve researched earlier to help you here. You know which headlines have already enticed readers to click through to the article. Now, you need to decode the various promises those headlines encapsulate. Once you’ve done this, you’ll know the type of value that your target audience wants to find. The final step is to use that information to draft unique headlines.
The top headline phrases in the chart above will help you to do this most successfully. By raising the readers’ interest, with these teaser phrases, you can persuade them to read on.
Follow Up with Quality Content
Persuading readers to click through from your headline is a major part of the battle. But it isn’t enough to guarantee success. You need to follow up on this first victory with quality content that readers enjoy.
To this end, you need to deliver on the promise you’ve made in your title. Avoid fluff and stick to the point. If your readers find you haven’t delivered, they will dismiss your content as clickbait. It won’t help your reputation or help you achieve your objectives.
How can you deliver on your promises? You can use subheadings to help you.
Subheadings are a vital component when it comes to organizing your text. They give you a structure to work with and help to break up content into manageable chunks for readers.
- Begin with the topic that you’ve chosen that will answer your ideal customer’s question. This will be your headline and should capture his or her interest immediately.
- Next, add subheadings that answer that question.
- You should have one subheading for every block of 150 words. (i.e., three subheadings in a 500-word post). This is because 55 percent of people will spend less than 15 seconds looking at your content. It needs to be easy to skim. You can do this by having small chunks of text.
Ask Your Audience
Are you still not sure what type of content your audience wants to read? Then why not just ask? More blog writers these days are taking the step of putting their content in the hands of their readers. How can you do this? Here are some tips:
- Ask the community. Social media is an excellent forum for this. Engaging with your audience through Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms is helpful. Your followers can suggest ideas that they’d like to know more about. You can then follow up on their suggestions.
- Create a survey or poll. Create a list of topics you think your readers might have an interest in. Use that list to create a poll or survey. You can then add the survey to your e-mail newsletter and website and promote it on social media.
- Check the comments on your blog. Which posts are getting the most comments? Review those comments and determine what it was about those posts that inspired readers. You can then use that information to create more interesting articles.
- Check on your retweets. You can turn your most popular ones into blog topics.
- Check on your URL click-throughs. If you share links on Twitter, you’ll probably use a URL shortener, which saves space. You can see statistics about those shortened links. This will show you which ones your audience clicked on most often. Those are the topics that were the most engaging for readers. You can repurpose them for blog articles.
- Check on your engagement through Facebook. Which posts attracted the most attention? Which got the most likes and shares? Think about how you can turn those posts into equally engaging articles for your blog.
- Check on the click-throughs from your e-mail newsletter. This is another useful resource to tap into the things that interest your readers. The links that your audience clicked-through the most often let you know which topics your readers want to know more about.
These are all helpful ways to find out with certainty what your readers want to know. Once you’re aware of what they find valuable, you can tap into that potential. As a result, your posts will be more engaging, will attract the right readers, and will be more sharable.
Make Your Content Accessible
Once you’ve put all these ideas and tips to use, there’s one more thing to consider: Make your content accessible. If it isn’t easy to find, it won’t achieve its maximum audience.
Make sure your audience can navigate easily to your blog. Link on high-traffic pages whenever appropriate to your content. Share your posts on your social media platforms. You may even want to promote your blog content through paid advertising.
There is one more step: Keep the best SEO practices in mind as you create your content. Yes, you need to focus on creating content for your target audience. However, adding keywords to the body copy and headings will help search engines and users alike understand your content.
The Power of Desirable Content
When you create blog posts that your readers truly have an interest in, you can see amazing results. A helpful article isn’t just a one-time investment. It will compound over time and gain traffic in organic search results. If you dedicate time to crafting valuable content, you will certainly reap the benefits. Follow the tips that we’ve outlined here, and you’ll draw increased high-value traffic to your site. As a result, your business will grow and thrive.