Master the Art of Blogging: 5 Tips For Getting People to Read Your Article
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So you have amazing content, but you are having trouble getting viewers to read your article. With a world of information at their fingertips, consumers have become extremely picky about what articles they will and won’t spend their time on – often times before they even read the first sentence. The title, format and flow of your article can make or break your chance of pulling people in long enough to start reading, so we’ve provided some tips on how you can accomplish this.
Tip #1: Tips, Lists, How-To’s & Tops will get you clicks
Take it from Buzzfeed’s success, articles written on tips, lists and top whatevers WILL get attention. The reason? Readers know immediately when they click on an article titled “Top 10 Ways to….” that the information is new, interesting, relevant, and to-the-point. They can guess how long they will have to spend reading it and can expect that it will be well-organized.
Tip #2: Break your article into chunks
This is important regardless of whether or not your article is a list (as described above). Readers need to see organization before they feel comfortable starting to read, otherwise they will get overwhelmed and leave the page. Break your article up into chunks of ideas or sub-topics so that your reader can easily navigate the page (just like how it’s done in this article). There should be an opening paragraph, followed by broken up sections within the body, and a conclusion paragraph to wrap it all up. These chunks should be sectioned off with headers to inform the reader what they can expect to read about next.
Tip #3: Don’t be afraid to make your reader press “next”
If you’ve ever read an article on WebMB or Yahoo!, you’ll notice that their posts typically stretch beyond one page. This is a great way to increase time on site. If you have a lengthy article, consider using something like this to format your page. If you think a slideshow is appropriate for the topic, use this format.
Tip #4: Images make everything more exciting
We all love pictures. When used within an article, they add another dimension of appeal to break up the text. Images that are relevant to the content will enhance it, especially if they can learn something from the picture first and then turn to the text for more context.
Tip #5: Include a call to action (CTA) in your conclusion
The conclusion wraps up your article by offering a brief recap of the main take-aways from what the reader just read. Additionally, your conclusion should have some kind of call to action, a suggestion for what the reader should do next. This can be telling them to visit your website, browse their products, give you a call, find more interesting articles on your blog, etc.
Wrapping it up
Although there’s no substitution for well written content, there are several other factors that affect a viewer’s decision to read your article. Having a good title, breaking up your article into chunks, utilizing “next” formatting, including images and having a call to action in the conclusion will set you up for success. For more insider tips and tricks, join our email list now!
