If you’re like most bloggers, you’re always looking for ways to make your blog more interesting. After all, if no one is reading your content, what’s the point? Not to mention the sheer scope of blog site competition you face online, making it even more crucial for yours to stand out and draw in readers in any way possible.
In this article, we will provide 11 tips on how to make your blog more engaging for readers. As you read, you’ll learn how to make changes of varying size that can have a big impact on your blog’s success. These changes can pertain to visuals, your writing style, blog features, and more. We will also provide examples of how to implement these tips so you can get started right away!
Incorporate Multiple Medias
One of the easiest ways you can make any blog more interesting is by adding pops of color and motion to your articles and pages using various types of media.
The most common option would be to add visuals, like pictures, infographics, or even relevant memes.
While these are exceptional for drawing your reader’s eye and giving them a break from reading paragraphs of text, they’re usually stagnant.
Therefore, we recommend supplementing them with moving and/or auditory media, such as:
- gifs
- embedded videos
- sound effects
- automatic slideshows/photo galleries
If you want to go the extra mile, you could even create your own visuals or videos! However, if you don’t have the time or skills for this process, there are countless websites that offer stock photos, videos, and sounds you can use for free or purchase for a reasonable fee.
Keep Sentences and Paragraphs Short
Little turns a reader off faster than opening a blog article and seeing that it’s one huge, long block of text with no reprieve.
The quickest way to make your blogs more scannable while also providing readers with a sense of structure is to keep your paragraphs small by limiting them to 2-5 lines and/or 1-4 sentences and keeping sentence length to under 20 words.
This will make your text more SEO-friendly, digestible, and ensure that your readers don’t get overwhelmed by too much information at once.
Of course, you don’t want to limit your sentence and paragraph length at the expense of content quality. It is better to explain or express something well than to keep it short and simple.
The key is to find the sweet balance of being concise but descriptive.
Break Up Your Text
It might surprise you to learn that 55% of readers spend 15 seconds or less on long-form content like articles, which is why it is crucial to make your blog as scannable and attractive as possible.
In addition to short sentences and paragraphs, the key to achieving this is by adding structure and breaking up your text.
A structural way to break up blog text is by including various header types (ex. Header 1 for titles, Header 2 for subtitles, etc.). This will help you organize your thoughts as your write while making it easier for readers to find the section(s) that contains the information they want.
From there, you can sprinkle in other options, like visual media we listed previously, or create emphasis points in your sentences.
These could be a word or small phrase within a sentence that you want readers to pay particular attention to through bolding, italicizing, or even applying an external link (hopefully to another source of content on your blog or a monetized product).
Create a Narrative
Even if your blog posts are well-written and contain a lot of great information, they can still end up being pretty boring to read if they’re written in a dry tone or uneventful manner.
A great way to draw readers in and keep them hooked on your content is by creating a narrative/ telling a story.
This is partially due to the fact that when the human brain recognizes storytelling, it engages in neural coupling, which essentially activates the same parts of the brain that would stimulate if the events were truly happening.
As a result, people can envision your story taking place and are more likely to connect with its contents on a personal level.
Stories, particularly interesting ones, also trigger more neural pathways in our brain which increases a person’s ability to retain information.
So, the better your narrative, the more likely your readers will remember it well after they’ve left your blog.
This doesn’t mean that every single post has to be a fully thought-out story; just creating a brief narrative introduction might be enough to interest readers to continue on.
Find Questions Your Audience is Asking
It is always encouraged to create blog content that interests you because you are more likely to enjoy the process and go the extra mile to ensure it is of the highest quality that you’re capable of.
That being said, it’s important to consider your target audience when choosing content ideas as well.
A guaranteed way to make your blog more interesting to audiences is to answer questions that you know they’re asking.
Think about what they might be typing into the google search bar that intrigues you and you’re confident you can answer in a way that is better and/or more unique than your competitors.
Unsurprisingly, this process is going to require some research on your part for the best topics and keywords.
You can often find these by typing a keyword or phrase into the Google search bar and seeing what top questions or article titles appear.
You can also use Google Trends, Google Alerts, and various social media platforms to see what topics are currently trending that might match your blog focus.
Perfect Your Transitions
Another writing tip we have for keeping your blog content interesting and engaging is to perfect your transitions between paragraphs and topics.
An effective use of transitions will help your articles and other content flow smoothly while ensuring that your reader doesn’t get lost or confused along the way.
While the easiest form of transition is to use transitional words, such as “additionally” and “however,” amongst countless other examples, these aren’t your only options.
Well placed headers, lists, and even visuals can be used as effective transitions as well, as you move from one thought or topic to another.
Create Interactive Content
A vast majority of blog content found online is predominantly stagnant apart from the reader’s ability to scroll and click on a few tab buttons.
If you want to really stand out amongst the competition and keep people on your pages longer, try incorporating some interactive content.
Including interactive content on your blog is a great way to add an element of fun and excitement, while also giving your readers a chance to share their own thoughts and ideas that could benefit you or allow you to provide them a service.
The most common examples of interactive content include:
- Quizzes
- Surveys/polls
- Calculators
- Games
- Slideshows
Some will take more effort to create than others, but there are countless template options online you can utilize if need be.
Just make sure that whatever interactive content you create enhances your reader’s experience rather than being seen as a nuisance.
Use Examples, Quotes, and Statistics
A great way to spruce up some of your blog content and pique your reader’s interest is to occasionally add examples, quotes, and statistics throughout your writing.
Adding these elements to your blog increases your chances of the content sticking with the reader and remembering it later. Oftentimes, adding and citing a fact, statistic, or quote from a renowned source also adds credibility to your content and claims.
These snippets of content also tend to be much easier to share, either through word of mouth or virtually, than the rest of your content, which increases your chances of readers expanding your influence and encouraging their friends, family, and colleagues to visit your blog.
Enable Social Sharing
It might be tedious at times, but there’s no denying the power social media holds when it comes to expanding one’s online influence.
The easier you make it for your readers to share your content on their favorite social media platform, the better. Most popular blogging platforms, like WordPress, make this super simple with the addition of plugins or widgets. You can also find code snippets online that you can add to your site without a plugin.
While it isn’t required for you to have a social media account associated with your blog, it might be beneficial for creating a community with your readers.
If you happen to already have one in place, make sure you place a call to action somewhere on your blog for readers to follow you there as well.
Find What Makes You Unique
If you find your blog isn’t meeting your traffic goals, you might want to analyze what it is that you’re offering and how it compares to what’s already out there.
It’s important to understand what makes you unique and share your voice with the world. You want people to read your blog because it offers something special that they can’t find anywhere else. Maybe you have a unique writing “voice” or an unspoken perspective on debated topics that you haven’t seen articulated anywhere else.
If you write about topics that are already saturated in the blogging world, it will be hard to make your voice heard.
You need to think hard about how your blog is different from the thousands of other gaming or cooking or DIY blogs out there.
This is arguably something you should do before you even start your blog, but it’s never too late to rebrand or go in a new direction.
End With a Call to Action
A good habit to get into with your blog content is scattering “calls to action” throughout your written content and pages.
A call to action is simply a sentence or two that asks your reader to do something specific. It could be as simple as “Tell me what you think in the comments below” or “Join my mailing list for exclusive tips and tricks!”
You can place them at the end of your articles, along the sides or in the headers and footers on your blog pages, or even within images and other media on your site.
Incorporating calls to action encourage your readers to participate and interact with you, which benefits you in that you receive their feedback and support while simultaneously benefitting them, most notably by building a strong community.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few tips and tricks you can start adapting into your blog today to help make it more interesting for your readers.
Hopefully, within a few days of trying one or more of the options listed above, you’ll notice significant results in your blog traffic, reader feedback, and other goals you might have set.
