Why do we have situations where one writer makes it to the top with their articles while others seem to experience difficulties trying to attract new readers to their website? What is the secret of success? What are the most common mistakes writers make that lead them to failure?
The secret is as simple as this: you need to create effective posts. Effective posts are the posts that draw attention right away and encourage readers to subscribe to your blog, channel, or mailing list. However, if you wonder what a useful post looks like, we cannot give you just one short answer. It is a combination of factors that generate interest of the readers in your blog or a website.
In this article, we will take a closer look and try to gain a better understanding of what makes your writing effective.
1. Start with an Interesting Title
This easy trick has a jaw-dropping effect. People who are intrigued by the title of your article are likely to proceed to the website and read the whole text. There must be something unusual and eye-catching in the heading to capture readers’ attention. On top of that, you have to keep it short. Remember a saying that goes “brevity is the soul of wit?” It applies here perfectly. Also, add at least one keyword to the title to make it search engine-friendly. So, keep it short and search-friendly.
2. Add More Links
Nothing encourages the readers to read more of the content on your website than an invitation. Therefore, add as many links as possible (but play it safe and do not over spam your texts with them). Whenever the information in a part of your article is related to some other information on a website, add a relevant link to inform the readers about a possibility to learn more. Links can increase your traffic, so don’t underestimate their power.
3. Only Post Quality Content
The content you post either builds up the image or ruins it. So, next time before you click the “publish” button, make sure to proofread everything and make sure it is your best work. Otherwise, it’s better not to post anything than to ruin your reputation. People should trust you, and it’s only possible with the best content possible.
4. Never Stop Learning
You have to be unique and outstanding; however, this does not mean that you cannot follow some great authors that have been where you are before. Use their examples. Moreover, if you are writing for a blog, make sure to subscribe to several leading bloggers of your niche to pick up their ideas, styles, and learn from what they are doing.
5. Use Software to Edit Texts
Editing can take up too much of your precious time. However, with the emergence of new high-tech software, it will no longer be a problem. There is plenty of programs and apps like Grammarly that will help you to detect and get rid of spelling and grammar mistakes. There are also apps like Hemingway that can help you to improve readability level of your texts which is a high priority for a blogger who wants to write compelling posts.
6. Interact with the Readers
You need to be open to dialogue with your readers. You can call them for action or ask them provocative questions. Do something that will establish close relationships between you and your readers. This can be beneficial to both sides, as eventually they can even tell you what they want to read in your blog.
7. Insert Bright Images
With the development of Instagram and other image-based social networks, people tend to “be there only for the pictures.” Therefore, if you are trying to expand your area of influence, try to add more visual content to be attractive to those who are not really into reading long meaningful texts and prefer short, catchy facts in form of the images instead.
8. Optimize Your SEO Processes
You need to gain better recognition on search engines like Google and Yahoo. There are several principles on how they choose which websites to feature first, and you need to be well-prepared to do what it takes to appear on the first search results page. That is why get professional assistance or do it by yourself, but optimize all of these processes.
9. Create Useful Videos
As it turns out, posts that feature a video with main points of the article in it are the most popular. The thing is that it is a much simpler task to watch a video than to read an article. Thus, people opt for the first. How else would you explain a growing popularity of video blogging and enormous revenues the people behind it have? So, keep up with this new trend and either make videos yourself or use the content made by other bloggers to insert in your blog.
10. Write an Impressive Meta-Description
Even though it seems to be just a tiny detail in all the writing process, people often do not understand the power quality meta-description has. The smaller it is the better, claim specialists. Its maximum size is 160 characters. Therefore, you need to come up with a description of the main point of the article that is short enough to not get cut off by the search engines, yet informative and descriptive. It is a real art, but practice makes perfect.
11. List Everything Up
One of the most important things about writing compelling posts is writing them in a form liked by most readers. As the experienced writers say, readers love lists as they present information in short and informative way. Instead of reading a huge chunk of information, a reader can read just a line or two from the list and get the idea. Therefore, if you want to attract readers to your blog, master the list creation process and you are ready to go!