Obviously, every blog writer wants people to read their articles. Why else would they write them? But what is the secret? Honestly, there isn’t just one. There are a lot of things that go into crafting a good blog article that people will actually get all the way through without skipping parts.
Come Up With a Catchy Title
Your title is your hook. If you can’t write a good title, no one is even going to click on your article. On the other hand, people have really come to hate clickbait titles, so you need to find a balance, and that isn’t easy. Brainstorming is a great way to get started. Buzzfeed writers come up with 20 headlines before picking one. When thinking of different titles, try to be specific and interesting. Consider if you would actually click on a link with the title you are writing. If the answer is no, it is likely other people won’t click on it either, so go back to the drawing board. If you are struggling, try thinking of different kinds of titles. Listicles, questions, and how tos are always going to be popular.
Put Thought Into Your Intro
While it may seem obvious, you need a good introduction. That is the first thing that people read. It is the first introduction to your writing and whether or not they want to invest the time into reading more. If your introduction is off the topic of your title, it comes across as inaccurate and sends people right to the back button. If it is boring, they may not want to read. If it has mistakes, they won’t trust your writing. You don’t have to make the introduction the best piece of writing you have ever done, but you do need to make sure that it does the job of completing the hook that the title started.
Appeal to Emotion
Cut and dry informative content may be useful, but if held up next to an article that provides the same information while appealing to emotion, it is going to lose out on readers every time. Engaging people’s emotions is a careful art. You need to target the right emotions for your piece. When you succeed the result is golden. When coming up with your article outline, decide what you want people to feel when they finish reading. Then, use that to shape how you convey the information. Tapping into emotions doesn’t mean they have to be super excited or angry at the end. They could feel satisfied, intrigued, or informed. It is important to know who you are talking to and how to get them to feel that way. Try writing from different and inspiring locations in order to invoke your own emotions. That will surely shine through in your writing.
Using these elements to boost your writing takes practice. Like everything else with running a blog, nothing happens overnight, so don’t give up if it seems hard at first or if you don’t think it is working. Just keep trying and refining your process each time.
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