As a Small Business Owner, one of the best ways to generate interest in your Business online is to create engaging and valuable content via a blog. Chances are, you already know this and, hopefully, have even gone one step further and created a blog for your Business.
By this stage, you may be pumping out blog post after blog post, but are you seeing the kind of engagement you’re looking for? After all, you’re putting a lot of time and effort into these posts, so you want them to be noticed by your target audience!
Due to the enormous number of blogs out there, competition is fierce and standing out can be a challenge. That’s why we’ve put together this list of helpful, simple strategies you can use in order to boost your blog engagement and keep your readers coming back for more.
1. Create a Captivating Headline
1. Create a Captivating Headline
You can write some of the most interesting and compelling blog content in the world, but if the headline is average or boring, then no one will want to read it. An entertaining or intriguing headline can do wonders to boost your blog engagement, as it immediately draws your readers in and gets them excited about the content to come.
Furthermore, it is typically the first, and sometimes the only, thing users will see when scrolling through your blog or searching online. This makes it crucial for the headline to be bold and eye-catching, as this is what will make your blog post appeal to your audience and stand out from the crowd.
A poor headline, on the other hand, will simply get lost amongst your competitors’ blogs, or will not seem worth your viewers time. Stand out, make a statement and appeal to something you know your target audience really wants to read.
2. Craft a Compelling Introduction
2. Craft a Compelling Introduction
Your blog visitor has been intrigued by your headline and has decided to keep reading – great work! But, unfortunately, the hard work isn’t done just yet. Crafting a compelling and interesting introduction is the next most important step when it comes to maintaining your readers’ attention and increasing engagement.
Ultimately, you need to think about your visitor reading your blog as an investment: they’re investing their time in your Small Business. This means that the introduction needs to tell them exactly why they should continue reading and what specific benefits they’ll reap if they make it to the end.
The best introductions will immediately grab your readers’ attention, explain how the post will help address their problem and provide them with a solution. You should also aim to have a likable, yet authoritative, tone that humanises your Business and gives you credibility.
3. Create Relevant and Interesting Content
3. Create Relevant and Interesting Content
It goes without saying that in order to increase the audience engagement on your blog, you need to provide engaging content. The good news is, that as a Small Business Owner working in a niche, you should have a pretty good idea of what your target audience is interested in reading about!
This makes you perfectly primed to create alluring and relevant content that offers your blog visitors something of value and adds to their overall online experience. A good way to do this is to create various kinds of content, including videos, audio and infographics, that will serve to educate them, solve a problem or entertain them. All of this can then be linked back to how your Business can benefit them.
Bland, dull and low-quality blog content will not only ensure low engagement, it will mean readers are unlikely to revisit your blog. With so many blogs out there, it’s all too easy for a searcher to simply click over to one of your competitors’ blogs and engage with their business instead.
Don’t give them this chance! Grab their attention with high-quality, educational and captivating content that has them glued to the screen. This will see them becoming regular visitors too your blog, which will not only boost engagement, but hopefully see them sharing and recommending your content.
4. Make Your Content ‘Shareable’
4. Make Your Content ‘Shareable’
Making your content ‘sharable’ by placing Social Media buttons on your posts is a great way to boost your engagement and drive traffic to your blog.
By making your content sharable in this way, you’re giving readers a simple way in which to spread your content across the web via Social Media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This will not only make that particular reader a ‘promotor’ of sorts for your Business, but also offers a free way for you to appeal to people who otherwise may not have known you existed!
It’s all well and good to have great content on your blog, but if it’s not being shared around online, it will simply stay stuck in the confines of your Website, where only a small percentage of people are likely to find it.
5. Increase Your Post’s Value with Images and Graphic Design
5. Increase Your Post’s Value with Images and Graphic Design
When it comes to consuming content online, the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” really does ring true. The human brain processes image up to 60,000 times faster than it processes text, making visuals extremely important to increasing blog engagement.
Interesting, well-placed images add interest and aesthetic appeal to a blog post, helping to emphasise your message and make your content more digestible. Furthermore, including high-quality graphic design within your posts can be the single best way to increase user engagement, as it increases the perceived value of your blog.
It could be beneficial for you to engage the services of a professional Graphic Designer, who can tailor make the perfect images to slot into your blog posts. These can be anything from professional-looking data figures to bright and vibrant cartoons that really captivate and entice your readership. These high-quality graphics will make your audience feel as though they are consuming something with a high value and help them to see you as an authority in your field.
6. Ask Questions and Respond to Comments
6. Ask Questions and Respond to Comments
It’s all well and good to hope your readers engage with your content, but sometimes it pays to ask them to do so. By asking your audience a question, you’re openly inviting them to interact with your brand.
Where you place the question and the kind of questions you ask depend completely on what your goal of the content it: whether you want them to leave a comment, ask their own question or even give you a small review about one of your products or services.
Once you do start to generate comments on your blog posts, it’s absolutely crucial to maintain this engagement and respond. By doing this, you are showing your audience that you value their opinions and are making more meaningful connections with your readership.
Creating completely engaging and captivating blog posts can be a challenge for any busy Small Business Owner. If you find yourself struggling to engage your audience on your blog, it could be helpful to enlist the assistance of a Professional Copywriter. Our skilled team of writers at Sites n Stores are able to create high-quality, attention-grabbing blog posts that will captivate and engage your audience. Give us a call today to find out how our Copywriters can best help strengthen your online presence!
