How to make sure people read your blog posts

So, you want people to read your blog posts?

Of course you do! Hopefully, put time and care into crafting every word on your post. Checking that there are no mistakes. Putting your punctuation and capital letters where they should be, and not where they shouldn’t be. Good!

So, you want whoever reads the post to read it carefully, word for word.

But not everyone who sees your post will.

In fact, some people will only spend a split second on it. That’s not necessarily bad.
The fact is, people are time poor, and when they are online, they get all sorts of information coming at them from all sides.

3 ways to make your blog posts more appealing to readers

In terms of your own marketing, your blog posts should all be there to reinforce some belief or key message you want people have about you. Sometimes, even if they see that you wrote the post, and they can see what it’s about your readers will still get the idea – that you know about what you wrote about, or that you did the thing you wrote about doing.

Have a great headline.

This is a headline which when people see it, they feel compelled to click on it. When your post is shared on social networks, they headline is all people see.

While there are lots of hints and tips on writing good headlines – 2 rules apply above all.

Interest: The headline has to indicate clearly that there is something useful or interesting to read.
Clarity: People have to get a pretty good idea of what they will learn if they read the post – just from the headline!

Include at least one image in your post

Blog posts with images (photos, illustrations, diagrams) in them are more likely to be shared – and if someone sees a well-chosen image on the top part of your blog they will be more motivated to read on. Blog posts without images look boring.

Use subheadings that have meaning

Subheadings within your blog post break up the text and make the post more readable. People often skim read – especially on screen – and if the subheadings have information in them, then even skim readers will learn from the post. So, read your paragraphs, and see where subheadings can be put in. This will make the text more scannable and more people will read is (or at least scan it.

Examples of blogs with subheadings:

Share your posts on social media and in your email newsletter.

It’s not enough to “build it and they will come”. You have to have a sharing strategy for every post. One that comes naturally. I usually put my posts in rotation to share on Twitter. I also share them on our company Facebook page and on Google Plus, as well as in our email newsletter. And I use specific blog posts to share in my email signatures and on LinkedIn. This will bring new eyes to your post which would otherwise never have come across them.

And if you are doing the things above, your posts are going to already be much more well planned out and structured than the average.

Keep learning, keep improving, and share your post links below if you would like me to inspect your handiwork!