Writing a blog post takes time and effort. You carefully frame every sentence, optimize for search, and induce love into each post. But if your readers do not engage with it, all your efforts are in vain.
Learning how to write engaging blog posts is quintessential for your blogging success. It not just makes your content more readable but has several other benefits that make blogging worth it.
8 Benefits of high-engagement blog posts:
- Better search rankings
When you publish a new blog post, Google indexes it and serves it when a relevant search query occurs.
But Google does not give you the top rank right away. It tests your content; it sees how people interact with it. If the sample audience clicks and scrolls throughout the page, it signals Google of the quality of your content. Google then rewards you with a top ranking.
- More Organic Traffic
With improved rankings, you become more visible to a relevant audience.
When your title and meta description perfectly align with the search intent, people will click on your listing. This drives more organic traffic to your domain.
- Higher Brand Visibility
When you write engaging blog posts, you meet people at an emotional level. The value you deliver inspires people to share it on social media and link back to your content through their website.
This helps you build a brand presence that fosters trust in your future customers. Social proofing provides your visitors an extra boost of confidence in your quality and services.
- Improved Conversion Rate
When people spend a lot of time on your domain, you stand a better chance of converting them into subscribers or even paying customers.
Engaging content helps you keep your audience hooked. They find your blog post valuable and enjoyable. It’s human nature to want more of what we like, so people will want to associate with you through newsletters and other modes of communication, thus increasing your lead count.
- Better RoI Without Acquiring More Traffic
The more leads you to generate, the better the chances you convert them into clients.
High-engaging content increases conversion rate, which means you generate more leads from every 100 visitors. New leads translate to higher revenue from the same investment in content, thus shooting up the Return-on-Investment.
You need to make some changes in your approach to content to get these benefits. But before we touch base on that, we will show you how to find out the engagement levels of your blog posts.
Here are the 7 metrics to measure blog engagement:
- Count of Social Media Shares
When you write engaging blog posts, people find value in your content, and they share it with their audience. And the count of social media shares you get is a good indicator of how well engaged your audience is with your content.
You can find this metric from the different social media platform analytics dashboards. Alternatively, you can use Buzzsumo to collate social shares from all the platforms in one place. This step will help you identify your top-performing blog posts in terms of social engagement.
For example, the below screenshot shows the list of high engagement pages related to dog food. Alternatively, you can enter your domain name to identify which pages drive high social engagement.
- Count of Backlinks
Often, the content that gets social media traction also gets natural backlinks. That’s because quality content gets shared on all platforms. It’s not easy to get quality backlinks for free anymore, so a good backlink is a strong indicator of your content’s engagement potential.
To calculate this number, head over to Google Search Console > Links and check the external links section.
- Number of Comments
A strong signal of your readers connecting with your content is the number of comments you receive on your blog posts. When they find value, readers want to connect with you through follow-up questions and appreciative comments.
To find the number of comments on each of your blog posts, head over to your WordPress dashboard and click on Comments.
The In Response to column lists the blog post that received the comment.
On a side note: Please ensure you set up the Akismet plugin to ensure spam comments do not get posted directly on the blog post. You will get tons of such comments which will spoil the experience for you, authentic readers.
- Lead Count
The ultimate measure of an engaging blog post is how many leads it generates. Be it a newsletter subscription, or a download, if your content is enticing, your readers will go for it.
Ideally, as you produce more content, your lead count should go up. However, to attribute the lead generation to individual blog posts, use UTM codes for CTAs on individual blog posts.
- Number of CTA Clicks
If your readers like your content, they will click on your Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons. As you improve the quality of your content and make it more engaging, you should see the click-through rate (CTR) and the number of clicks shoot up.
There are 2 ways to track the number of clicks on each CTA
- Setting up individual UTM codes on CTAs of each blog post
- Setting up heatmaps, more of which we will discuss in the next step.
- Scroll Depth
Scroll Depth is the measure of how far down the blog post people scroll on average. This indicates how well your narrative holds the people as they scroll. A good scroll depth indicates high engagement levels.
To measure scroll depth, you need to set up Heatmaps. They are a color-graded rendering of your blog posts, they show what percentage of people scrolled to different folds of the post. You can set up Heatmaps for free using Microsoft Clarity.
After the initial set-up, let the tool collate data for at least 1 month to get a more averaged version of your Scroll map.
You can also get the Click map which shows where people click the most and what percentage of clicks are dead clicks – not a click on any of the hyperlinks, internal or external.
Source – captaim
- Pages per Session and Exit Rate
An engaged audience will not be satisfied with a single blog post. They will click on one of the links in the post or the header menu and visit other blog posts or service pages.
The measure of the average number of pages a reader visits each time they visit your domain is called pages per session. You want this number to be high for each post.
However, visitors will not be on your domain forever, they will exit to another website from one of your blog posts, or after they take an action.
The percentage of visitors to a page that exits from the same page is called exit percentage. You want this number to be low for blog posts, and high for your Thank You pages.
You can find the pages per session and exit percentage for blog posts on Google Analytics.
- Average Time on Page
Another telling sign of high audience engagement is the average time they spend on your blog post. An enticing post will hold your audience captive for a long time.
You can find this data point on Google Analytics.
We now know how to measure high-engagement blog posts. Next, we will cover how to write high-engagement blog posts.
9 Tips to Write Blog Posts that Keep Your Readers Hooked
1. Craft a Click-Worthy Title
Your blog meta title is the portal to your blog post. It’s the first thing people see on the SERP listings and makes the biggest impact on their decision to click on your link.
After writing the working title, put yourself in your reader’s shoes and ask these questions:
- Does the title clearly state what to expect from the blog post?
- Does it align with my search intent?
Rephrase your working title till the answer to both questions is a resounding YES!
You must write the title primarily for the users but you can’t afford to miss SEO opportunities. Make sure you include your primary keyword in the title as search engine crawlers peep into it.
Finally, ensure that you spice up your title just a little to make it more enticing. Add some emotion to the title to boost the click-through rate. Coschedule Headline Analyzer is a useful tool for that purpose.
2. Support the Title with Related Content
We talked about writing click-worthy titles, but you must refrain from writing click-bait titles. When you write titles that have nothing to do with the content, it hurts your brand image and visitors’ trust.
Always write content that supports your title. Remember, your content is the continuation of your title, they are two units of the same machine. When visitors land on your blog post after clicking on the title, they must get exactly what it promised them.
3. Inspire Interest with Introduction
Blog introduction is where you set the tone for the rest of your content. You have an opportunity to empathize with your readers by stating their pain points and promising to address them in your blog post.
You can be conversational or direct in your tone in the introduction but, you must carry the same mood throughout the content piece.
4. Tell a Tale
Every content piece must have a flow to it, and introducing a story element is the best way to bind your audience. You must develop a narrative while writing your blog outline. Establish what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Split your content into sections, each with a subheading. Each section can have sub-sections, all crafted carefully to carry the narrative forward. Every element, paragraph or sentence, should generate excitement for the next one to generate curiosity in your readers.
A story will keep your readers on your blog posts for longer and increase blog engagement.
5. Write Short Paragraphs
Once you have the narrative in place, plan to progress it with short paragraphs. Each of them should have a summary that contributes to the storyline. Also, paragraphs should segue into each other seamlessly.
Also, make sure you keep your paragraphs up to 3 lines in length. And longer, it starts to look like a wall of text that is difficult to comprehend. Shorter paragraphs allow for more white space that makes your blog posts look more visually appealing. And aesthetic content drives higher engagement.
6. Write Concise Sentences
As William Zinsser states in his book – On Writing Well, if you are ruthless enough, you can eliminate up to 50% of your text, without taking away emotion from it.
After you finish writing your blog post, take a look at the extra words in your sentences that can be eliminated. Once you get rid of the fluff, you are left with a shorter but concise and powerful sentence structure. You say more with less all while saving a lot of time for your readers.
Even though the writing style is personal and difficult to change, you will be surprised to see how a single glance can improve your sentence structure by leaps.
7. Add Media to the Mix
An effective way to improve audience engagement on blog posts is by adding images, videos, and gifs. They not just break the monotony of text but help you progress the narrative forward and help you put your point across more effectively.
In addition, the media grabs eyeballs and keeps the reader’s attention better than text. You can design your own images easily on Canva or pick stock images from Unsplash, Pexels, etc.
8. Include Original Research
The shareability of your blog post shoots up when you publish information that no other blog does. Other bloggers are always in search of data points that support their claim. And if you provide that, you earn tons of natural backlinks and social shares.
Every niche has a scope for primary research. Look into your industry and identify opportunities for finding information that other blogs lack. Invest time into research on platforms like Reddit or your existing audience, and publish your findings.
9. Craft a CTA Oriented Conclusion
The fact that someone reached the end of your blog post indicates that they are highly engaged with your content. But now is your chance to invite them to take the desired action. You can ask them to check out more content, download a lead magnet, check out your service pages, etc.
While writing the perfect blog post conclusion, make sure you include a Call-to-Action. This will boost engagement on your blog posts big time.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we discussed how to write engaging blog posts. We explored what blog engagement is, why you need engaging content, and how to create captivating content pieces that your readers love.
What’s your experience with writing engaging content? Comment below.