5 Ways to Keep Blog Readers Engaged

5 Ways to Keep Blog Readers Engaged

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Are you struggling with keeping blog readers engaged?

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You get excited thinking about starting a blog, and you want to get started on it pronto.

After all, this big leap of faith is how a ton of entrepreneurs launch their blogging business and leave their 9-5.

You make a big plan, knowing that THIS is exactly where you are supposed to be, and who you are meant to be.

So you get down to it and create a full to-do list of what you need before you can launch your blog.

And you get on a roll. You don’t stop at the first task. You power through it, telling yourself “done is better than perfect.”

Because the planning stage is always the easiest for you.

But the moment you actually get into posting blog content, you start to shrink… NO ONE is reading my blog!

You hear crickets…

You just want to hide under a rock because you feel embarrassed.

Soon, you feel stressed out, and you don’t know if this was the right move at all.

If passion were the greatest measure of success, you know that undoubtedly you would be the most successful person on earth.

And you’re certain you’ve got what it takes to become successful, but you’re asking “when’s my next big break?”

“If I could just make/launch/create ________, then I would be able to…”

Contrary to popular belief –

Blogging is not about luck at all.

It’s not about waiting for that “big break” where you are suddenly made a lot of money.

It’s about a plan and a strategy that you can commit to repeatedly.

It’s about a system that helps you authentically connect with your readers.

It’s about building a blogging business- making money from selling eBooks, courses, products, affiliate marketing, etc.

If you’ve been looking for help and just want to get your hands on a clear strategy to follow…

And you know you’re the type of person who’s willing to follow through and do the work…

I have a solution for you:

  1. Read this blog post on how to keep readers engaged on your blog

AND

2. Sign up to receive this 6 Figure Blogging Secrets Masterclass that shows you exactly how to make money blogging (the right way).

Let’s jump into the post.

This page may contain affiliate links.  We only recommend products and services that have tried, trust and love.  For more information, you can read our terms and conditions.

1. Know Your Ideal Blog Reader

Ideal Reader Avatar = the one perfect, ideal person you’re talking to in your writing

This can also be known as…an ideal customer avatar and an ideal client avatar.

First, think about your ideal readers/customers, the people you love to serve, as a whole through your blog.

Then start listing down some things they have in common.

Literally write down every single trait like :

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Marital Status
  • Career Choice
  • Lifestyle Habits
  • Hobbies
  • Interests
  • Where they shop
  • Pets?
  • Things they worry about
  • Core beliefs
  • Dreams
  • Biggest Problems
  • Dreams and wishes

….Now you’re going to build a person, or character, who embodies everything you just listed.

You’re going to give this person a name, a full identity, and if you like, you can even find a stock photo online of someone you envision fitting the description.

This person you’re creating is your ideal reader/customer avatar.

The idea is to know your ideal reader SO very well in your head that you can easily empathize with her and step in her shoes at any moment’s notice.

You want to be able to anticipate what she likes, what she needs, and how she feels without thinking twice.

It is so important to know WHO you are speaking to in your writing so you can help her with what she truly needs.

When you talk directly to who you are trying to attract/ sell to on your blog, this will make it way easier to get someone to buy what you offer and purchase from your affiliate links.

This is such a great way to keep your ideal blog reader engaged on your blog.

2. Don’t Settle for an “Okay” Blog Website Design

In order to keep bloggers engaged on your blog, you need to have a professional blog website design.

There has never been a more critical time for good web design. Strong branding and polished web design have always been important factors of a successful business or blog, this has not changed. The difference now is that we are seeing businesses being forced to explore new and unique ways to reach their audiences. As a result, we are finding out just how much of an impact good web design can have.

According to Google, it only takes users 50 milliseconds to form a first impression of your website – and that first impression can have a ripple effect on a multitude of marketing efforts. A strong website design can set the first impression for visitors, benefits SEO, help build trust, encourage users to convert, allow brands to stand out among competitors, and so much more.

Ways a Good Blog Design Can Keep Blog Readers Engaged

Let’s break down the complex array of ways a thoughtful well-crafted website can impact your business and why it’s worth the investment in having a beautifully responsive website designed for your blogging business and how it will keep your blog readers engaged.

Then we’ll take a look at some elements that are a must in a good web design.

Good Design Sets the First Impression

As I said before, the time in which it takes a visitor to assess aesthetic and make a conclusion about your site is extremely fast – so you want to make it count. When a user lands on a site, good design can make them feel something. If the site looks modern, offers bright colors, and is well organized – it’s welcoming in visitors and encouraging them to stick around for a while (a.k.a. keeping your blog readers engaged).

If the site is dark and cold with outdated graphics and an extremely confusing navigation – why would anyone be inclined to continue on through the site?

First impressions are important, potential customers are visiting your site and are looking to get to know your business, if you get off to a bad start due to an unprofessional looking page with zero design consideration, trying to convince users to stay on your blog to learn about your offerings is going to be quite difficult.

In fact, according to Adobe, “38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive”. Just think about how many potential customers and dollars you could be missing out on just by having poor visuals.

38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive.

Builds Trust in the Brand

Along with making a strong first impression, a well thought out and designed website builds trust in your brand amongst visitors. Having strong, clean, and engaging visuals with consideration for user experience and your audience are all ways your website’s design can build trust within your audience and potential customers.

If a site looks dated, is not easy to follow, or looks to confuse or deceive the audience, trust will be lost and the chance of getting a user to convert drops drastically. Clean and simple web design can go a long way to reflect an open and transparent brand with nothing to hide. Guiding a user through the site with clear headings and call to action statements and buttons leaves the user feeling taken care of and can help build and enhance that trust.

Stand Out From Competitors

Having a beautifully designed blog website is simply a non-negotiable part of web design in 2021.

If you want to not only compete with your competitors, but stand out amongst the crowd of other bloggers, your site needs to be dynamic and thoughtfully designed. Strong branding and consistent use of fonts, colors, and creative layouts can easily make you stand out and surpass your competitors and demonstrate the professionalism in your company.

Standout from your competition with a well crafted website.

Take a look at the websites of your closest competitors – how does yours stack up? If you feel on par with your direct competition, look farther at the big names in your industry. While you may not be able to compete directly with them, you can have a website that is on par with theirs. When you emulate creative sleek designs of industry leaders, you set yourself apart from direct competitors and can draw up new business for yourself.

Elements Of Good Web Design

Now that we’ve established a few of the many reasons good web design is important and can have a major impact on any marketing strategy – it’s time to look at some specific elements that make a web design superior.

There are a variety of elements that can elevate a website from bad to good.

The following are a list of elements that help make up a good website design, but this list is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many factors that can go into creating a beautiful and professional website, but incorporating and considering some of the below items can do a lot to improve a site.

  • Navigation – An easy to use and understand navigation that leaves a user with no questions and is intuitive to their needs is essential.
  • Responsive Design – When a site automatically makes the necessary adjustments to seamlessly look good across multiple screens and devices.
  • CTA Buttons – Also known as “call-to-action” buttons, they need to stand out and be placed in appropriate places throughout the site and at moments when a user is most likely ready to take action or convert.
  • Colors – Establishing brand colors and following a 60-30-10 rule can create an ideal sense of balance. Follow this rule by consistently using the following formula – primary color 60%, secondary color 30%, and accent color 10% (and only in the most important places, allowing for specific site elements to stand out).
  • Font Style Guide – Typically just one or two font choices should suffice and having an established style guide for each header option capitalizing on different font sizes and weights can ensure consistency across the pages while improving readability and scannability of the site.
  • Animation – Used strategically and in moderation, animation can elevate a boring, flat, or still design, but if over done with too much moving on the site it can become distracting very quickly.
  • High Quality Images – Having beautiful photography can elevate any site. When images are grainy or stretched it’s distracting and can lose credibility with the users.

FOCUS ON YOUR BLOGS BRAND TO KEEP BLOG READERS ENGAGED

First of all, let’s chat about what the heck branding is: Branding is basically the feeling and vibe your blog/business gives off.

There are a ton of key elements that go into branding such as your name, slogan, logo, colors, and more. But there is also a different side to branding that conveys who you are, your voice, vision and values.

Branding is all about how you make your website visitors feel.

There are a lot of key elements to branding and you can read all about that right here.

But today we gonna chat about why you need to focus on your blogs brand if you want to look like a professional blogger….

Helps you stand out. No matter your industry or audience, you’ll always have competition. Branding helps establish how you’re different and unique.

Being yourself is a great way to stand out, and a great place to start building your brand. Though your competition might have a similar product or service, the way you connect and resonate with people will make you stand out and reach those your competition might not be reaching.

Creates a consistent experience. Consistency is essential for your audience to understand who you are and what you’re about. No matter how they interact with you, your audience should be receiving the same message.

Imagine a brand that’s fun and personable on Instagram, but on their website, they’re serious and hard to connect with. That kind of inconsistency gives your audience whiplash and will make them look elsewhere.

Builds brand recognition. Establishing a consistent message and look will give you a distinct style that people will automatically recognize as yours. Whether they’re scrolling Instagram or Pinterest, they’ll know instantly that the graphic or information is yours, making them more likely to interact and trust the piece. To create this recognition, you need to constantly and consistently be showing up for your audience through your feed, newsletters, Pinterest, the list goes on.

Sparks a connection. Sparking an emotional connection with your audience can be difficult but very powerful to your business. Emotional connection is what changes a prospective client into a brand enthusiast and repeat customer. An emotionally connected and invested audience is more likely to trust and buy from you, rather than from a random person they know nothing about.

Something I’ve been doing to build more connection is showing up in Instagram stories more. Overall, my audience has been more engaged and people are inquiring about my services all because they watched me on stories and felt a connection.

So now you know – If you want to keep your blog readers engaged on your website, you need to have an amazing website design!

3. Write Amazing Blog Content

HELPFUL BLOG POST CONTENT

In order to keep blog readers engaged on your blog, you need to write content that HELPS your ideal reader avatar.

This is why you need to know the answers to the questions…

What is my ideal reader struggling with?

How can I help my ideal reader through my blog content?

READABLE BLOG POST CONTENT

Readable content is one of the most important aspects of writing a good blog post. If you have ever clicked to read a blog post and couldn’t read it, you probably clicked right back off and searched for another, correct?

What kinds of blog posts do you find readable?

-Is the spelling and grammar perfect?
-Is it interesting?
-Is it laid out in a way you can understand?

The ultimate goal is to keep your ideal blog readers engaged and on your blog for as long as possible which is why having readable content is very important to take in account.

So how can we create readable content?

  • Taking your time to write the blog post
  • Checking all spelling and grammar using Grammarly
  • Outline all blog posts before you write so you have a clear
  • direction and so the blog post is laid out correctly
  • Edit and proofread at least 3 times
  • Have a friend read it before you decide to publish

Blogging is very time consuming. If you want a blog that will impress your ideal readers, clients, customers, and PR managers you are going to need to take the time to write amazing content they will love and understand.

This page may contain affiliate links.  We only recommend products and services that have tried, trust and love.  For more information, you can read our terms and conditions.

CLICKABLE BLOG CONTENT

Clickable content is any types of content that your ideal
reader will want to click on.

New blogger’s tend to believe that if they write content about themselves or their life that people will click and read it. Your friends and family may want to read, but will your ideal reader want to? Someone who hardly knows you? It’s not very likely.

Blog posts are not meant for it to be for us or about us. As blogger’s, we need to think about who we are directing the message to and we need to take into account what types of content they are searching for and reading and write our posts accordingly.

So how do we know what content people are searching for and reading?

MARKET RESEARCH

Market research is basically what it says-research.

We need to do strategic research to find out what our readers are currently searching for and clicking on.

The first thing we can do is to find what’s trending. There are
a lot of ways we can do this, but I wanted to share the ways I personally like to do this:

Hover over Pinterest Analytics button. You will then see a
“Trends” button.

Click that and it will take you to this place where you can
search on Pinterest some keywords to see if the post is
trending.

If the keyword is increasing then I would say it’s a good topic to write about.

Google Trends is a great way to do market research as well.

Just like Pinterest, you can find what posts are trending onGoogle.

Write about the content that is increasing in the amount of searches.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Do a regular competitor analysis.

What types of content are they writing about? If you know they have been a successful blogger for a long time now, it’s likely that they are keeping up with the trends.

Now, I would never tell you to go copy their content but it’s good to keep up to date on what they are writing.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

Head on over to Facebook and join some Facebook groups in your niche. A lot of people will post to the group and ask for help with the problem they are facing.

Remember when I said you need to solve problems? This is how you can easily find the problems that your ideal reader is having.

SCROLLABLE CONTENT

It’s undeniably easy to say that people in 2020 love to scroll on social media.

Your ideal reader is most likely going to be a scroller. They will scroll through your content and not read the whole thing.

We as blogger’s really need to take this into account and make sure that we are writing our blog posts in a way that our ideal readers will be able to understand the content even if they scroll through it quickly.

So how can we make our content scrollable?

  • With Headings
  • Breaking up text to 1-3 sentences.

Blog posts are not written the same as how you would write an essay in school. Your ideal reader does not want to read an essay. As
humans in 2020, we have become very lazy and we want to
know information as quick and as easy as possible.

An example of scrollable content:

Blog post readers usually scroll through the post fast which is why you need to have scrollable content.


As you can see, the text is broken up for people to easily read and they can also read the headings if they don’t have time to read the whole post. If they scroll, they would still get the information they needed.

LENGTHY CONTENT

Another important way to create good content is to make it lengthy because lengthy content can hold the best information.

Lengthy content is very valuable to your reader. It will show them that you are the expert in your niche.

When you show your ideal reader that you are an expert, it will make them wonder how valuable your paid content will be and it will make them have a desire to purchase your products and services.

Lengthy content is also needed for SEO, which we will talk about next.

Your blog post needs to atleast be 2,000 words or more.

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4. Offer Freebies

A great way to keep your blog readers engaged is to give your ideal reader value by creating freebies (opt-in incentives).

Having and growing an email list is SO important for bloggers.

In order to get subscribers and grow our list we need to provide something that our ideal readers, clients and customers want and need for free.

Some opt-in incentives could be….

-Workbooks

-Ebooks

-Printables and Downloadables

-Toolpack

-Email courses

-Tutorials

-Quizzes

-Lightroom presets

-Discounts

-And TONS more!

You ultimately want to think about what your ideal blog visitor wants and needs MOST.

Is it a free eBook that can educate them on a topic they are struggling with?

Is it a workbook that they can fill out and have a better understanding of a topic?

What does your ideal reader need most? That’s the kind of freebies you need to create.

HOW TO CREATE FREEBIES?

I create all of my freebies in Canva. It is a nice, easy way to create them and very beginner friendly.

There are a few things you need to incorporate when creating your freebies.

1-Value.

Like I said above, the freebies you create need to be valuable for your ideal reader. If your niche is about blogging, you wouldn’t create a cooking workbook freebie, right?

2-Branded.

Your freebie also needs to be branded-meaning the same colors as your brand, same fonts, and same visuals as your website.

You also want to ALWAYS put your blog name and website on your freebie as well to prevent from anyone stealing it and using it as their own freebie.

3- Set Up Properly.

Your freebie needs to look nice. It needs to look somewhat professional.

Now, I know it make take some practice. The way I practiced is by looking at other bloggers freebies and try to create the same layout as they did. I am NOT saying to copy their work or completely copy their freebie at all. Please don’t do this.

But take inspiration and see if you can try and recreate the layout and then try and make the freebie your own by tweaking things.

This is the way I practiced and it is how I learned to create good looking freebies.

CREATE A SIGN UP FORM TO GROW AN EMAIL LIST

Now that you have freebies and potentially have a free resource library to offer your visitors, now it is time to create a few sign up forms for the freebies.

It is very easy to create a sign up form in Flodesk and it is also very easy to brand it as well which is important.

Your sign up forms should represent your branding colors and fonts, too.

NOTE: Flodesk is discontinuing their beta test pricing of only $19/month. Sign up here to steal the deal before it’s too late.

WHERE TO PUT THE SIGN UP FORMS?

Literally everywhere on your website!

You want to make it as easy as possible for your ideal readers to quickly subscribe so you can grow an email list.

You want to place the sign up forms in these places:

-Homepage

-Sidebar

-Each page should have at least 1 sign up form.

-In your website footer

-Throughout your blog posts

-End of your blog posts

-Anywhere else you think is necessary

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO GROW AN EMAIL LIST?

The main reasons why growing an email list is so crucially important is because its YOURS. You own it and you don’t have any competition trying to tear you down like beating algorithms.

An email list will also have a WAY higher engagement rate than social media will. More people will open your emails and click on your links than they would if you were to post something on Instagram.

Pssstt, Instagram doesn’t even show your posts to half your readers.

You also need to think about your email list like this- Your email list is FULL of people who raised their hand and chose to receive emails from you. They are interested in you and your content.

This page may contain affiliate links.  We only recommend products and services that have tried, trust and love.  For more information, you can read our terms and conditions.

5. Use Video or Podcasts

Want a great way to keep blog readers engaged? Inserting Youtube videos or Podcasts episodes within your blog content.

If a blog reader doesn’t have time to read the entire blog post, she can simply listen to it in a Youtube video or Podcast episode while on the way to work.

This also helps build the like, know, and trust factor which is extremely important if you want to turn readers into customers.

Turn it into a Podcast Episode

Reading a blog post out loud in a microphone and uploading it as a podcast is the easiest way you can reach a new and larger audience. 

The blog post has already been written and published, so why not just turn it into a podcast episode so you can attract more potential blog readers, followers, customers, etc. 

You can even start a podcast for FREE by using anchor.com. It’s a simple, free, and super easy to use platform. 

I highly recommend that you get a Blue Yetti microphone to record your episodes, a pop filter from Amazon to have good sound, use anchor.com to record, and then use a free editing software like Divinci Resolve to edit your episodes if you need.

Podcasting may be a tiny learning curve but I think every blogger needs to be implementing this in their content marketing strategy for 2021. 

After publishing your episode, you can also embed your recorded podcast right in the beginning of your blog post just in case someone wants to listen instead of read. This is a great way of making blog readers stay more engaged and stay for a longer duration on your website which is super good for SEO purposes.

Turn it into a Video

The list wouldn’t be full if I didn’t mention video content because each blog post on your website can be repurposed into some sort of video. 

Simply talk about the main points that you provide in your article and share it on YouTube or Instagram IGTV. 

I know a lot of people don’t like to be seen on camera, but trust me when I say that it’s WORTH it. Videos help build the like, know, and trust factor which is extremely important for your blog readers to want to buy from you, your affiliate links, and most importantly, sign up to your email list and follow you. 

So what does the like, know, and trust factor mean?

Before someone buys from you they need to…

LIKE you

KNOW you

And TRUST you.

Video is the absolute best way to build this up so your audience wants to purchase what you have to offer.

Check out how I implement this strategy on my blog posts HERE!


And that’s it!

Now that we’ve walked you through our 5 actionable tips to help you improve your blog engagement, it’s now your turn to pick one from the list and see how things go. 

You may not see an increase in engagement from the start, but like with everything else, it’s all about having a long term strategy and a whole lot of patience. 

Now that you know how to engage readers on your blog, you might want to learn more about converting readings into subscribers or customers. If so, check out this post on how to make money blogging.

And don’t forget to sign up for the Make Money Blogging Masterclass for more helpful blogging tips!

Hey, I'm Genasys!

Blogging coach for ladies who want to turn their blog from passion to profits and make a high income doing what they love.

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