You crafted each word like an artist. You expected the post you are going to publish will double your audience engagement.
You invested a good amount of time to check if everything is right? And finally hit “publish,” and what happens?
Nobody reads them. No comments, no tweets, no likes, no sharing on Facebook.
This is enough to break your heart. You might be thinking blogging isn’t for you.
Actually, you’re wrong. Because the solution of this problem is a lot easier than you think.
Writing point-to-point and styling is all you need to increase your audience engagement.
Searchers are more impatience
A study of Neilsen, they found 70% percent of readers scan on the web and only 16% users read the web page word-by-word.
How about you? What do you do? When you look for an information on the web, do you read every page that you visit?
I bet, you don’t. You probably move to another page if you don’t find the answer.
We are living in a digital age, where to survive you need to be active and fast. Moreover, using gadgets have made people impatience.
So, what audience strategy can you use to attract more audience to read your blog post?
Make it short and sweet
To attract more audience to your blog you have to give up your boring writing style that you were using before.
Admit the truth, people scan web copy than reading.
Thus, instead writing a complex article, write short and factful content.
If you are covering a wide topic, produce it in smaller posts, than writing a jumbo post.
A smaller post will make it easy for your readers to understand the topic that you want they know. It will make them back for more.
Write a post that conveys your ideas in the flow so readers understand what is the post about.
If you are talking about fruit talk about fruit, not the cricket or politics.
Once you’re done with writing now it’s time to make it beautiful and improve its readability by using these 7 simple tactics:
Don’t get afraid to use white spaces
You have been heard that white spaces are bad for blogging. It isn’t true.
In fact, white spaces are the best friend of bloggers. Using white spaces between paragraphs and margins increased readability by 20%.
That’s why the brand like Apple doesn’t hesitate to use white spaces in its Ads.
Here are two ads one is from the late 70s that look a lot like an article.
On the other hand, fresher ad has a cleaner design sensibility and more visual room to read and understand.
Here are why you should use white spaces in your writing?
- White spaces increase readability
- White spaces offer better user experience
- White spaces give a chance to readers eyes to rest
- White spaces make users pay attention to the important content
White spaces aren’t always dangerous. Don’t get scared to use it.
Break up your content with compelling subheads
The internet has provided us speed. You can get any information with just one click, right?
But, do you know that speed has also increased impatience in online readers?
According to The Nielsen Norman Group, online readers will decide within 10-20 seconds. After opening your post whether they should stick – or whether they should return back.
The best weapon you can use to deal with it is subheading.
Subheadings make your content much EASIER to read.
Indeed, adding subheads to online articles increases comprehension by 12%.
Many writers are aware of it but they just throw away their subheads. And that turns out less effective.
On the other hand, descriptive subheading that shows benefit increase readership up to 25%.
For instance, your subhead is ‘Audience Engagement‘. Now, you can change it like ‘Using this crazy tips will increase your audience engagement by 27%‘
Go ahead and try this.
Use a lot of bulleted lists
You know your audience are busy people. They don’t have time to read your long post word-by-word.
However, they want to improve their skills, they want to learn fast but they don’t want to give the enough time.
You can’t blame them. Because 79% of online readers skim the page instead of reading every word.
Not only it’s your duty to help them, but also give the required information in a short period.
Here come bullet lists to help you.
- Bullet lists make it easy to process important information
- Bullet lists help users to scan important points
- It provides a visual break for your reader
- It grabs attention to your readers
Add relevant and helpful resources
When you create content you want to keep people on your web page as long as you can.
No matter how great your content is, still you need some other resources to put more weight on it to please your readers.
Adding relevant and helpful resources in your article can help you to deal with it.
Adding internal links back to your own topic related blog post will keep people on your site, and cut bounce rate.
Whereas, external links show that you have researched the topic and you want to mention other experts.
It doesn’t only entertain your readers but also add more value to your article.
Another great advantage of internal linking is if someone tries to copy-paste your content he will unknowingly offer backlinks to your blog.
Highlight important concepts strategically
Add more weight to your article by highlighting important concepts.
It will help your readers to scan your post and pick out the most important information at a glance.
Moreover, it helps them to prioritize content and increase visual consistency. It clearly defines where users can find what they are looking for.
Remember, don’t highlight everything, it will make you look like a dumb blogger. Only highlight the important facts and links.
Use the power of numbers
If you think that list posts aren’t useful anymore you are wrong.
As a matter of fact, list posts get more shares than any other types of post.
Numbers are the best way to grab attention and keep the reader oriented.
Take a look below I searched the keyword ‘six pack abs’ in the Buzzsumo.
Top three performing posts are list posts.
Any article that lists a number of reasons, secrets, methods, or ways will work because it makes a specific promise and readers get curious to know that. It works like a magnet.
You can make a post more engaging just by numbering your main points. Give it a try.
Read your content as readers
Once you have done with white spaces, numbers, subheads, highlighting, all necessary formatting re-read it again – see if anything left to include.
Will the reader get benefit with this post without losing his interest?
Have you brought the best information out of the web and formatted them into the words, the words that will bring your skimmers in and convert them into readers?
Final Thoughts!
To be a successful blogger, it is critical that your audiences engage with your content and convert.
It will only take 10 minutes to apply the above-mentioned audience engagement strategies. And if successfully apply these tactics your readership will be double.
How about you? What technique do you use to attract an audience to your blog and increase readership? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comment sections.
24 thoughts on “7 Incredibly Simple Ways to Double Your Audience Engagement in 10 Minutes”
Hi Umesh,
I agree with most of your points – readability, blank spaces, bullet lists…
However, I somewhat disagree with you on the issue of length – while “ordinary”, everyday posts should be “short and sweet”, a long and exhaustive “pillar” article can still “do the trick”, cannot it?
Also, a “jumbo” post is more SEO-friendly and more likely to generate traffic for a longer time, if I’m not wrong 🙂
Hi Andera,
You are right. But, if you are writing a jumbo post make sure it contains a log of information that provide value to your readers. Otherwise they will bore and leave without even complete reading.
Short paragraph makes ideas clear and don’t let lose focus on the topic.
Thanks for comment. Keep visiting.
– Umesh Singh
Thank you – I will 🙂
Hey Umesh,
You have made some great points here.
Most of the people don’t read the articles word by word. But if you have the catchy headings and the subheading then it would attract the readers.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Enjoy the day.
~Ravi
Hi Ravi,
Thanks for the comment. Almost 70% people never read whole post that’s why it’s crucial to add descriptive subheads in your article.
Subheads attract readers attention and keep them for more time on your page.
Hi Umesh bro,
You have captured almost many things I have learned from pro-bloggers on how to make your post legible and sticky.
I have been using ‘power of numbers’ as you exactly recommends. And also using various subheading features makes posts more attractive. If one can add styles to their designs, they gain more attention from the readers.
Besides those, you can also consider adding featured boxes to display your most important message or a link to another most important read.
Have a blessed day!
Hi Sherab,
Thanks for the comment. You are absolutely right, adding featured boxes is in trend and best attention grabber to the audience.
Have a nice day. 🙂
Umesh Singh
Hi Umesh,
I agree to all of your points that you have shared. And it is true that white spaces increase the user experience and more readability.
So, Thanks for the great share.
Hi Umesh,
This is truly golden advice for bloggers.
We so often hear about the long blog posts being good for SEO.
Maybe.
But the short ones, punchy, bullet pointed, white spaced ones… these are the ones that build engagement as you have pointed out so aptly.
And engagement is ultimately the best SEO strategy, besides being the best way to build a business.
You are spot on here, my friend.
-Donna
Thanks Robin, I am glad you liked it. 🙂
Hi Donna,
I am happy to see you here at my blog. Engagement is essential for any sort of business whether it is a online or offline business.
If we apply these little tricks we can double and triple our audience engagement.
Thanks for the comment. Keep visiting.
– Umesh Singh
Hi Umesh,
Before writing a post, we need to ask ourself first, what is the purpose of the article? And the point you made out, being in reader’s shoe is one of the greatest strategy one can ever count on.
You have got list which we need to keep it as a check list for writing post. A information bro.
How do you measure that you have had audience engaged? I do it with by checking bounce rate in analytics. Lower the bounce rate, higher is your audience engagement.
Good Day bro
Regards
Hi Umesh,
I’m big on each point. Well done bro!
I use ample white space to keep attention spans on my content, eBooks, course and image. If they see engaging content, they engage freely. But if I distracted them of course they’d exit stage left without chatting for a minute.
Ask questions at the end of each post. I ask 2-3 questions to punctuate all my posts and see some nice comment juice from this strategy.
Thanks!
Ryan
Hi Rayn,
I am always your fan and every time when I read your blog post. I learn something new. You are like Blogging Guru for me.
Thanks for your valuable comment.
Have a great health and future. 🙂
Umesh Singh
Hello Umesh
Great post! It was insightful and very informative. All 7 of those enhance engagement strategies were really important. I will definitely start using more bullets and numbers immediately thanks for this value packed post it’s definitely going to help enhance my engagement and I’m sure others.
Thanks Darrell,
I am glad you found it useful. Keep visiting. 🙂
Awesome tips in this post. I have recently started reading my own posts after they are published. This helps a lot because I often find misspelling and words or phrases that do not fit. If I can find a mistake, a reader sure can! Thanks for the great tips.
Hi Yandra,
It’s ok making mistakes in life, I do often make mistakes. But, I always try to learn form those mistakes and want to improve.
Thanks,
Umesh Singh
Great post, Umesh! I couldn’t believe the statistic that nearly 70% of readers do not read the entire article. Like you mentioned, it is important to write captivating subheads throughout your article so that the scanner can get an idea of what you are writing about.
I like to think of it as two posts in one. I make sure to include lots of value in my long form content, as well as high-level, punchy subheads that tell the story in short form. It is a real skill to keep readers engaged and interacting. Keep up the great work!
Hi Benjamin,
Thanks for your nice words. Yes, I agree it is an art to keep the readers on your page. Very few bloggers know this tactic.
Using subheads in articles improve audience engagement and send the clear message to the readers.
Have a nice day. 🙂
Umesh Singh
Hey Umesh,
One of the most critical objectives for content marketers is increasing engagement with website visitors. While the term has been around for decades, the concept of engagement has taken center stage in the digital age. In an era where multi-screen usage is nearly at saturation point among connected consumers, the problem of distraction is only going to get worse.
Valuable content can be anything so long as it helps our audience. That makes it difficult to define because that means what offers serious value will depend on the people that comprise your own audience.
Still, we can break it down to what all valuable content shares in common on a fundamental level to help you identify it. Engaging content, on the other hand, illicit a response. Our audience won’t be able to help themselves they’ll feel so strongly one way or another about our writing that they’ll be encouraged to take the time and effort to formulate a reply. Or they’ll feel compelled to make sure other people see what they’ve seen. Or they’ll quickly sign up for your email newsletter because our message resonated on a deep level. Eventually, thanks for sharing your worthy thought with us.
With best regards,
Amar kumar
Yes, Amar totally agree with you. It’s our duty to help our audiences and help them what they are struggling with. This is what increase audience engagement.
Thanks for the brief comment.
– Umesh Singh
Such a great post, Umesh. I like your page design so much as it gives a pleasant feeling while reading.
Hi Varun,
Thanks for the comment. I am glad you like our page design.
Have a great day. 🙂
Regards,
Umesh Singh