Crafting a perfect blog post can be learnt via several tutorials. In fact, you could even gather a few clapping hands by just writing something mediocre. However, if you wish to win the hearts of the multitude, gain mass exposure, and want to write a blog post that cuts through the clutter, you definitely require more than just a humdrum tutorial. You will need an ULTIMATE GUIDE .
In this post, we present to you the Ultimate guide that you require to not just captivate visitor’s attention towards the post but also to retain them through the end of the article. More specifically, we will take you through a step-by-step guide that will allow you to create exceptional and readable articles which will eventually lower your blog’s bounce rate, meaning more visitors would be likely to stay longer on your site rather than just ‘bouncing’ back off.
So, without any further ado, let’s dive in and look at several strategies that you can implement immediately.
Create irresistible and catchy Headlines
Okay, first things first. If you would like for visitors to arrive at your site, the foremost prerequisite would be to create a quality headline that sets a clear intention, evidently directs, and lures the readers to click on the post.
Basically, an attractive and effective headline should possess these simple characteristics:
- It should trigger an emotional response almost immediately.
- It should be specific, unique, and should be infused with a sense of urgency.
- It should help in strengthening the content by the right keyword incorporation into it.
- It should offer the readers a feeling of reward and value.
- It might also include a call to action for users.
To create powerful, catchy, and clickable headlines, you will need to consider the following factors:
- Always opt for inclusion of specific numbers or data-points in your headline as it instantly grabs the reader’s attention and sets a clear expectation for them as to what exactly they are getting into.
Examples:
(a). 7 reasons why you should be choosing pastel colors for this summer (Specific number)
(b). 87% of students find this exam trick useful. Here’s why you should know about it. (Data-points)
- Boost up your content using ‘Power words’ which will make the readers all the more excited to click and start reading the article. Moreover, these Power words would give the readers an insight of how the article will be of value to them. Here are a few examples of power words:
- Tips
- Reasons
- Hacks
- Lessons
Provide Quality Content
Quality over quantity, always. This isn’t something new or different, rather it is something we all know, but writing good quality content is a must in retaining the visitors on the site for a much longer while than just skimming it off.
People are always enticed by detailed and value-packed content which will make them come back to your site more often than not. Articles that include step-by-step guides, list posts, and posts sharing tricks or secrets do wonders when it comes to keeping people stuck to your site.
Make sure your articles are comprehensive enough and provide in-depth information on the topic by covering all the details. Time-independent articles should be preferred as they are evergreen and always useful to the users.
Include images and charts
There is no one who doesn’t prefer visually appealing content. In fact, as humans, our brain fancies visual elements as they trigger various emotional responses which in turn make us more engaged and focussed on that particular task.
Visual aids like images, screenshots, and infographics make it easier to consume and explore difficult concepts and it gives the readers a sense of what you wish to convey. They would help you a great deal in captivating the user’s attention and make the content look more authoritative.
You can very well add these visual elements in your blog posts as far as you have the rights to use them in your post. Thankfully, a number of free stock photo sites like Unsplash and Pexels are available to solve the copyright issue that you might face otherwise.
User-friendly website design
Nobody would want to visit a website only to witness myriad pop-ups and ads, cluttered and terrible fonts, and glaring backgrounds. If you want your readers to stay on your site for long, then a clutter-free, organized, and user-friendly website design is imperative.
Having a simple and professional website design ensures that your readers explore different sections, read more content, eventually spending more time on it. But, what exactly is a simple design? Essentially, a website with minimal pop-ups and ads, basic fonts, clear navigation, and more of whiter spaces offers the best user experience.
Terrible website designs will shoo away your visitors as soon as they land on the site which will reduce your pageviews and thus enhance your bounce rate, and that is not at all advisable for your blog.
Here we have a few theme recommendations that you might want to check out:
Make your content readable and easy-to-follow
As humans, we have a really short attention span and so the readers will just scan and scroll away from your post if there’s even a slight difficulty in comprehending what you want to say. Therefore, your content has to be easily readable. An easy way to do this is to make bite-size sentences along with heaps of visuals and present it to your audience.
Some more tips to make your content more readable and highly user-friendly:
- Use subheadings to break down larger sections
- Keep your paragraphs short and use smaller sentences
- Use easily-readable and large fonts and sufficient line-spacing
- Use listicles wherever possible
- Bold important and relevant phrases
Make sure to examine your readability score of your content. Yoast SEO and Grammarly perform a great job at analyzing the degree of easiness to read a particular piece of text. Maintaining an easy-to-read blog posts is quintessential to entice the visitors and making them stick around for longer and consume more of your creations.
Include a Call to Action
Incorporating a call to action in your posts can ensure your reader’s retention for longer periods.
Wondering how?
Think about it. You can invite your readers to take action in the form of either signing up to your email list or by providing a free resource.
Examples
(a). Sign up for my email list to receive even more easy cake recipes—I’ll send 10 right away to your inbox!
(b) Check out my complete guide to traveling Australia on a budget and even more backpacker-friendly travel bonuses!
A call of action is usually included at the end of the blog posts, but you can also very well include one somewhere in the middle of the post where you feel it might be relevant.
Interlink your articles always
Creating good content isn’t always enough, interlinking them to your previous articles is something you should do as a routine task to make people stay on your site.
You can keep your old posts updated with the newest information available and also link them with the newer post that you have written. This way whoever reads any article of yours might just open the linked posts in other tabs and read it after finishing the existing one.
Interlinking your posts also has other perks too:
- Google tries to comprehend the relationship between different posts on your site when you interlink them and thus act as ranking signals.
- Your site’s bounce rate can be drastically reduced when the internal links are placed strategically.
Conclusion
In this article, we have attempted to compile all the easy, tried, and tested methods to entice, engage, and retain the visitors on your site which will ultimately turn out to be immensely beneficial for your blog’s growth and success.
How do you keep readers stay on your blog for longer? Have you tried and found success with any of these above-mentioned tips yet? If yes, then feel free to comment and let us know. We would love to chat with you.
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