10 Ways to Encourage Action with Engaging Content

The content you put on your website has a major impact on user engagement and your search engine rankings. You want all of the content on your site to essentially solve a problem so that it’s useful for your readers. It should be informative, but also a relatively quick read since user attention spans are short. There is a fine balance to ensure this works and employing proper strategies, like those that an advertising agency such as Shout Agency would, is a necessity. Once someone is done reading articles on your site, they should want to buy something, read more, or contact you, depending on the goals of your content.

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1. Keep Your Sentences Short

You want to use short sentences and actionable language to keep readers interested. Wordiness turns people away because they get lost in the content. You want to make your point, insert a period and move on to your next thought. A good rule of thumb to remember is to write using the vocabulary of a fifth grader- This keeps things simple and helps to ensure that you get right to the point without any unnecessary words.

2. Use Sub-Headings in Your Content
Sub-headings help to break up content thus making it easier to read. When you insert sub-headings, readers can quickly look at the article and zero in on the exact information they need. Huge blocks of text will quickly turn away the majority of readers because it is hard to read and it takes effort to find the pertinent information.

3. Use Second-Person Throughout the Content
When you use second-person in your writing, this engages your readers and it allows you to write directly to your audience. It pulls them in and tells them the actions they need to take to solve their problems. Third person is too detached and first person is too personal for business purposes.

4. Know Your Audience
You need to know who you are writing to in order to get the right voice for your content. For example, if you are writing with doctors in mind, you can use more technical language, but if you are writing for teenagers, you want your language to be simple, lively and fun. If you’re unclear about who your target audience is, there are many companies who can help identify them.

5. Use Power Words
Words that catch people’s attention and evoke emotion encouraging people to take action. Think about the adjectives and verbs that catch your attention and choose the ones that fit your target audience. Incorporate these where they are relevant in your article to make your content livelier.

6. Tell a Story
Starting off your articles with a short story adds a personal touch to what you have to say. In this case, it is okay to use first-person, but do so sparingly. Make sure that you work in things like statistics, facts and concrete points so that it is both interesting and informative.

7. Be Authoritative
You are the expert and you need to make this clear as you craft your content. Never use the word ‘opinion,’ because this makes people less trusting that your information is factual.

Source: Troy Thompson

8. Know Your Industry
To create content that is relevant, you must know your industry, the trends in it, and what potential customers and visitors want to read. Keep current with the latest news, products and services in your industry and write about these when it makes sense. You can do reviews for products and services, compare and contrast articles, and even write quick, punchy news stories on the latest developments in your industry.

9. Take a Break
There are going to be times when you experience writer's block, and this is perfectly normal. When you simply cannot find great topics or you are just having a hard time putting words to paper, take a break and walk away. Taking a 10-minute break every 60 to 90 minutes keeps you fresh and focused on the topic at hand.

10. Create Compelling Titles
Your title is the first thing that people see when they come across your articles in search results, and it has to make someone want to click on your article. Your title should accurately reflect the content of the article, should incorporate the proper keywords, and should be as short as possible.
Engaging content is not terribly difficult to write, but there are some guidelines to keep in mind! When all of your content is engaging, people will be more motivated to share your articles, comment on your blog posts, and read other pages on your site. You want to encourage action without being pushy so that people do not feel obligated to keep reading, but they genuinely want to learn more about your company and what you have to offer.

Engaging content is good content! Create content with sharability in mind and you'll have a popular post in no time.