In today’s world, we are constantly being inundated with words, so it can be difficult to make content stand out. There is such a small window between grabbing someone’s attention and keeping it, so every word of your first paragraph has to make an impact. If your content fails to hold the attention of your audience, it could have a huge effect on your strategy as a whole. But all is not lost. In this blog post, we will cover four content writing tips that will help you to craft content that will entice your audience members and increase your readership.
Understand what Appeals to your Audience
When brainstorming potential content topics you should always keep your target audience in mind. In order to find out what is important to them conduct research into their pain points, the challenges they face and what keeps them up at night. Diving into the mindset of your audience and finding the answers to these questions will help you better tailor your content so that it appeals to your target audience. While in research mode take some time to look at what solutions your competition is offering. This can help you find ways to stand out and have a bigger impact. If you don’t create content that matters, what is the point of creating content?
Write your Headline First
Arguably your headline is the most important part of any content you produce because without a catchy headline no one will read the information that follows. There are so many different techniques to grab reader interest, but there are two in particular that have a high success rate. The first one is to use specificity or numbers in the title. Examples include “4 Reasons Your Emails are Going to Spam” or the title of this blog post “4 Tips for Writing Content that is Guaranteed to Increase your Content Readership”. The second technique is to have your headline pose as an attention-grabbing and relevant question. An example would be “Are Your Leads Stuck in the Sales Funnel?” By posing a question, you are enticing your readers and making them want to look for the answer.
Include Visual Aids
People are extremely visual creatures. Every day is an unrelenting barrage of words, which can cause minds to wander and has led us to become a society that scans things instead of fully absorbing them. Adding visual elements will help you to draw (and keep) the interest of your reader, ensuring that they take in your message. Visual aids extend beyond pictures, infographics, and videos. They include anything that makes your content easy to consume like the size and type of font that you choose. Visual aids should only be used when it makes sense, too many of them can veer towards distracting and annoying.
Have Your Pieces Playoff Each Other
Like everything else in marketing, creating content and building your readership is a journey filled with twists and turns. Picture the ultimate goal that you want to achieve. How will the content you produce help you get there? Will the content that you produce have similar themes, or will it act as stand-alone pieces? By weaving together repetitive elements you are finding new ways to convey your message, and the effectiveness of your content will increase. Linking blog posts and creating ongoing series are also ways to strengthen the foundation of your content. But don’t create content just for the sake of it. Your customers will be able to tell, and only content that has real value will be able to engage and encourage their trust in your brand.
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