Almost every day, a new blog is ushered on board with the creator hoping to attract a large audience. But, quality content to keep readers coming for more is another ordeal they are never ready to deal with. Maintaining an online presence is no easy task. Having a good blog and having content posted every day doesn’t keep an audience.
According to a research published by Invespcro blog on how much of the world’s population is online, it was noted that almost 3.010 billion people who are estimated at 42 per cent of the world’s population uses the internet on a daily basis yet every user is attracted to only a specific genre of information that interests them.
Another research by WordPress estimates that users produce about 70 million new news posts and 77 million comments on the posts every month.
Looking at the 2019 Bake Awards winners and a number of top blogs in Kenya, I note that, their content is at par, and they have content tailored for their customers which they use to constantly engage them. These bloggers have also invested in curating good content that attracts their readers.
Also, these blogs have quite powerful headlines that would fascinate any reader who visits their blogs. The information on the blogs is penned in utmost creativity and uniqueness which keeps shaping their online presence for the better.
According to an article on webhostingmedia.net on creating attractive website content, it notes that “creating good content is the first step in improving our marketing. When creating content, taking the most sensible approach makes it provocative and edgy in order to catch their eyes”
The article as well sums up a number of ideas on creating attractive content for your viewers for instance, as a blogger, you need to:
know who you are creating content for
While creating your content, you need to have a clear image of your target audience so you can engage them and have the content useful to them. Have preempted questions in mind about their personal preferences, their likes, their topics of interest and the impact of your content to them
brainstorm good writing ideas
Have a number of trusted advisers who can help you hold your ideas firmly. Let them have a final opinion on the content before you finally post it to your consumers.
Investing in yourself
While trying to get content that might work best for your blog, do more research as well as consult various sources to help you make your content as engaging as possible
Read a lot
Read books and publications that are relevant to the topics you are writing about. Summarize your readings and write essential notes on interesting phrases you would want your users to know about
Put basic assumptions and misconceptions to test,
There are tons of ideas and assumptions we’ve captured from the media sources others that we’ve learned through our upbringing which with them we make other assumptions on things we are not aware of which are far from the actual truth.
Write your own story
A good story gets a reader hooked to it and yearn to get more and more from it.
For instance, soap operas and dramas get viewers attached to them because of the story creation that revolves around emotions. While sharing your story, share your personal journey and the struggles you’ve gone through, people get invested in personal stories and like to follow them.
Write Powerful Headlines
A good, provocative headline will always spark interest in your readers. About 80% of people read your headlines and 20% will actually read your content. Create a headline that is nicely provocative and sums up what that individual piece of content is about.
Use Good Visuals
Images and videos communicate far better than the content itself. While putting up your content, adding images and videos helps you communicate faster as well as help the reader consume the information faster.
Also, ensure that the story and the image/video match to make it as compelling to the reader as possible.
Put Up a Good Conversation
Nor you nor anyone else would be interested in reading a post that is filled with the terminology they can barely understand. No one wants to know about how smart you are and how much you know about your field.
Put up a good conversation
Make your content look real by using a language anyone can easily read and understand. Very few people understand the normal generic terminologies. Write in a more natural language that looks more human.
Have a Sense of Humor
While humor can be used to keep your audience lively, as a writer you ought to be considerate of other cultural differences so that you don’t end up offending your audience.
For instance, using a bit of sarcasm with a comic flair is something that will make your visitors enjoy your content a whole lot more. Making fun of awkward situations or your boss is sure to get your content some plus points for humor.
Make It Surprising
There is a strong connection between viral content and emotion. Content that we find most engaging sparks feelings of joy, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, wonder or empathy.
You probably don’t want to make your much-beloved users angry or disgusted, but you do want to provoke an intense emotional reaction. Once they engaged with your content, they’ll want to share it with the first person that comes to their mind to ignite the same emotion in them.
Go with the flow
Have the ability to adapt to trends. Catching onto a trend during its first few waves will help you get the attention of your readers.
Mind SEO
Every time you publish a post, you’re adding a new page to your site that will be indexed in search engines. Pay attention to SEO by creating self-marketing content that Google will market for you for free.
Having a combining content that provides for people’s needs and good search engine optimization will ensure a steady flow of traffic on your website.
Make It Easy to Find
Good quality and relevant content are easy to find. You should make your content easy to find inside and outside of your site. So users should be able to automatically navigate towards it within your website’s interface and should be able to find it through Google search
Like having a search bar makes it easy for users to get their hands on content
that appeals to their interest and look through what you’ve posted in the past.
Make It Shareable
Write good content that can be easily shared by the reader. If people come across something they enjoy, they’ll want to sing songs about it or at least post it with their social media account. Especially if that piece of content says something about them.
Most writers’ goal is to get the reader’s attention, the article scrubs off attention as it is short-lived. Catching attention and holding is the constant battle of content creation that writers constantly ignore yet they have only a few weapons we have penned down at their disposal, added Webhosting Media.