Would you know how many people are excited when they see that you have a new post? How many of them really love to quickly open up a tab and read your content as soon as a notification comes up? Your family and friends may feel happy to learn from your site, but what about other readers and followers, such as clients and prospects?
The key to making them rush and feel happy to read is to provide them with content that specifically addresses their needs. In this article, we will explore ten blog writing tips on how you can refocus your content on your readers.
1. Write to a specific audience.
To improve your voice, the secret is to write as if you are talking to a small group of people or only one person alone. You can think of your best friend or your mother so you can concentrate on giving out examples which they are able to relate to well.
Picture their perspective and start writing as if you were in their shoes. In every break of a paragraph, review the last sentence and ask yourself if you think your audience will agree or nod along with your thoughts.
2. Write professionally and personally.
There is a distinction set in writing in a professional, yet personal, tone. Avoid creating content with too much jargon or long explanations that might frustrate or bore your readers. Conversational content will make your post become more engaging, not to mention livelier.
Make your readers hear your voice. To practice this, you may want to get a recorder and record your voice while you talk the lines you are about to write. Then listen to the tone to test if it is convincing and friendly enough to carry a conversation.
3. Choose the active voice.
As what you might have learned in school, the passive voice can kill an exciting moment for your reader. Do not make the mistake of focusing on the action-doer as the subject.
Instead of saying “eBook conversion services should be considered by aspiring authors” (passive), write “Aspiring authors should consider eBook conversion services” (active). In this way, your reader will feel their presence as part of the content.
4. Chop long sentences.
Content that is filled with drab and dull sentences will make your readers lose focus. Stick to short and easy to read statements to capture the attention of your audience.
Avoid using difficult words and talk more about your readers to guide them through their reading experience.
5. Address them with “you.”
Using the third person is not recommended. This is one of the most important blog writing tips since your relationship with your reader must be built to make your content easier to grasp and understand.
To do this, using the words “I,” “you,” “we,” and “us” will definitely be more effective in keeping the conversation alive.
6. Ask questions.
Notice how this post started? Questions are a great way to make your visitors stay hooked in the content.
This is a way of making them feel that you are concerned about their state and are willing to share answers later in the body of the post.
7. Give out amazing facts.
If you do not know how to start an engaging piece of content, you can’t go wrong with providing interesting facts, statistics, and trivia to make readers pay attention.
These facts can be phrased in a form of questions, bullet points, or infographics. The point is to make them become more focused from the very start of your content till the end, without getting distracted.
8. Set the expectation.
Think of what your blog frequenters are looking forward to read, then set their expectation outright from the beginning of the post.
The title should be interesting enough to be clicked on and the rest of the content should keep them satisfied.
9. Don’t keep them waiting too long.
After writing long intros that explain what your readers can expect to get. Instead, get to the point of the argument immediately.
Do not wait for them to get hungry for information, as the tendency is for them to just scan through to the end of the article.
Thus, the faster you can feed them important details, the more they feel that the depth of the content is intended for them.
10. Add useful links.
Providing useful links at the bottom of the post, or in the middle for their further reference, will make your content become more reputable.
These sources should help augment their understanding and widen their imagination.
Conclusion
The main purpose of writing articles is not to make money or to increase traffic to your site. At the end of the day, you main goal should be to present inspiring content that is targeted to your readers.
Make sure to give them sound, actionable advice to deliver value and meet their expectations.
How do you like my ten blog writing tips that I outlined above? Do you think you need to refocus more on your readers yourself?
Do you have any of your own tips to add?
Please tell us by adding a comment to this article. 🙂
About the Author
Yyanna Reema Marquez is a student from the Philippines at St. Scholastica’s College, which is located in Manila. She is a social advocate, web enthusiast and a writer by passion. Her free time is spent surfing each and every weekend and watching the odd basketball game when time permits. You can follow her on twitter here: @itsreemarquez.
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