Many corporate bloggers and SEO content writers spend hours putting together carefully crafted articles that attract very little attention once they are published online. Having put so much time and effort into creating genuinely interesting content, it can be discouraging to learn that nobody seems to want to read it. Often it is not the subject matter or writing style that is to blame but the way the articles have been formatted. If you would like to attract a wider audience with your next content marketing campaign, follow the guidelines below when formatting your articles.
5 Ways to Attract More Readers to Your Blog Posts
There are a number of ways in which you can use formatting to make your corporate and guest blog posts more readable and more engaging.
- Break Your Content into Small Chunks – When it comes to making your content easier on the eye, white space is your friend. Rather than using dense paragraphs of 200-300 words, packed with facts and figures, use one short paragraph for each point that you wish to make.
- Use Sub Headings to Engage Readers – Breaking up your content into smaller chunks not only makes it easier to read, it gives you the opportunity to write more sub headings. Inventive sub headings will draw attention to what you have to say and help to ensure that visitors to your site do not leave as quickly as they arrived.
- Use Bulleted and Numbered Lists – Bullet points or numbered lists provide a visual contrast to plain paragraphs, making your articles easier to scan. Most visitors will start by quickly scanning your content to see if it contains points of interest so the easier it is for them to do this, the more likely it is that they will find the information they want and stay to read everything you have written.
- Bold Key Points – One of the most effective ways to make your key points stand out is to highlight them with a bold font. In this way, visitors will quickly be able to find each one and decide whether it is worth reading your content in its entirety. However, don’t overuse this technique because if you bold too much of your text it will have the same effect as if you had bolded none of it.
- Use Numbers for Greater Impact – You may think that numbers are overused in article titles but studies show they still represent a highly effective way to attract readers to online content. If you want people to visit your site and see what you have to say, use numbers in your headlines to improve click-through rates from SERPs.
Scan Your Own Content
Once you have finished writing an article, scan it as if you were a visitor to your site and see if the main points of interest are as visible as you would like them to be. For professional assistance with your next content marketing campaign, call or email Sustain Media today.