5 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Inviting
A plain old blog post just doesn’t get attention anymore. We all skim and read only the highlights - and sometimes we don’t. So how can you make your blog posts inviting to get readers to stay just a little longer on your website and read your content? Make it more readable and shareable with these five easy fixes.
1. Use Ginormous Images
In web design, the "hero image" is a huge trend. A big image at the top of a post draws people into the content and makes your blog post inviting. In fact, according to Buzz Sumo, “articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the amount of shares of articles with fewer images…”. So not only should you use big images, use them often. Oops, something I don’t do and have to put on that old to-do list - see always learning. And if you share your article to Facebook, you’ll get 2.3 times the engagement. If you’re wondering what size is good, I normally use the Twitter image size of 1024 X 512 for my featured image.
Blog posts with an image once every 75-100 words get double the amount of shares.
Want to make “branded” images? Use Canva to create a similar image to my ginormous image. Oh and find out how not make rookie mistakes on your choice of images. Please read How to Avoid a Nightmare of a Website: Images Not to Use.
How to Resource: Canva
2. Use Stellar Titles
Using good titles means your content will be read and shared more. But personally, I get so stuck on this one. In fact, my titles used to suck. But I've got a secret that has improved my titles and headlines tremendously. Now I'm not talking about keywords here, just good titles. By using CoSchedule's headline analyzer, you too can have stellar titles.
Here's an example below of my headline history for a title. See the bottom one rated at 52, this was a giveaway I had on my old website. Not good. Not good at all. But when I redo this giveaway, I won't use it and instead look at one in the 70's instead. Or even try some more. Just plug in your title into the tool above and keep a copy of your headline history. If you happen to use CoSchedule, you can also keep the headline history within your blog post. You can use your titles for marketing your blog post.
CoSchedule's analyzer rates your headlines based on their criteria. In this bottom headline, it rated my headline to have 20% power words. I try use headlines that are in the 70's. Of course. 80's and 90's would be even better.
3. Ready-Made Tweets
Make it easier for your readers to share your content nuggets on Twitter. With Click to Tweet, Social Warfare (my favorite) or CoSchedule, you can add a plugin to your WordPress post and create a nugget for people to share. It can also include your Twitter name and of course, have a link back to your blog post. Plus it helps break up the content and add more interest to your post. I love these and still get excited about using them. Oh, such a nerd.
Here's the tweet that will go out. You can set it up with hashtags, your message and notice my Twitter name is automatically shared.
How to Resources: Click to Tweet, Social Warfare, CoSchedule
4. Headers, Quotes & Images
Another way to make your blog post inviting is to add visual interest by breaking up your content with headers, quotes and the large images we talked about up above (did you read it?). If someone doesn’t want to read your whole blog post (and yeah, they often don’t), then can at least skim your article and get the gist. My blog headers and titles are in different colors and sizes and you can add quotes (similar to the click to tweets) within the post.
Add visual interest to a blog post by adding headers, quotes and large images.
5. Call to Action or Sign Up
Okay, so this is a pet peeve. I HATE when I land on a new blog or website and the first thing I get is a call to action that asks me to sign up. Buddy, you haven’t even earned the right to ask and you just interrupted me. However, if someone is reading your post and likes what they see, you can certainly ask them to sign up for your giveaway or subscribe to your newsletter. Depending on the platform you are using, you can add a call to action in the middle of the blog post (especially if it related to the post itself and not just a general signup) or at the end as well. And yeah, you have additional options for call to actions that I am not going into.
Here’s an example of a CTA (call to action) within the post.
And once someone clicks on it, another window comes up asking where the checklist should be sent to.
And/or you can also have a CTA at the end of the post (among other places) directing someone to subscribe to your newsletter or to download a giveaway. Here are a couple of examples.
This first one is for my Kick A Rock Stars monthly newsletter. Notice I don’t ever say “subscribe” because no one wants to subscribe or sign up. But they may want to be an insider or a rock star in this case. Oh a rock star and I don’t even play any instruments, do you?
This second one is for an actual giveaway that was related to the particular blog post. And yeah, you can click on them and join the rock stars or get your checklist.
Please note that you can also use your newsletter program to add CTA’s.
HOW TO RESOURCES: THRIVE LEADS, LEAD PAGES, INBOUND NOW OR NEWSLETTER PROGRAMS
Part two in this series of how to make your blog posts inviting is 5 Tested Tools Proven to Get More Prospects Online.
Wondering what you do after you create your post? Read How One Blog Post Can Make You Almost Famous where I review CoSchedule.
How can you make your blog posts inviting? What do you currently use? Comment below, please.
Get these tips and five other resources in this Online Marketing Conversion Tools Guide: How to Get & Care for Prospects.
Jo Guerra with Kick A Marketing is a WordPress web designer, certified SEO specialist, does rock star marketing consulting and writes copy that doesn’t suck-the-life out of prospects. She works with young-at-heart female prime time entrepreneurs. Her kickboxing name is JoJoStar.
The original article was published at 5 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Inviting.