Do you put a lot of effort into writing great content but getting no engagement? It’s time to find the ways to improve it. It can be in the form of blog comments, mentions on social networks, mentions on other blogs, or anything else. You can do that, and in this post, we will show you how.
What is Blog Engagement?
We define blog engagement as a way of getting your readers’ interaction with your posts. It can be leaving a comment, sharing your post on their Facebook timeline, or mentioning your post in a tweet, newsletter, or blog post.
Engaged readers are readers who are active on your blog. These active users are people who buy your stuff, read your newsletter, and become regular visitors to your website. These people are your most loyal customers, and they can also be your brand ambassadors who will help you reach other people.
Why is Blog Engagement Important for SEO?
Linking to a blog can contribute to SEO. If your visitors share your posts and leave comments, Google will notice that your blog is live and very active. Of course, mentions on social media will help your blog site as well. If your audience shares your post on social media or talks about it online, it will bring more traffic.
But how do you increase your audience’s engagement? How do you make sure people comment on your blog post and share it on social media? We will give you six tips to increase engagement on your blog!
1. Understand Your Audience and How You Can Help Them
Your readers are the foundation of your blog. So, it makes sense that you would need to understand who they are, what help they need, and how your blog can help them.
At a basic level, it is essential to be able to answer the question:
So, an example for a B2B blog could be:
My blog helps small businesses to get more clients.
Once you have answered this question, you can move on to creating personas for your target audience.
A persona is simply a profile of your ideal reader where you answer other questions related to demographic information, goals, challenges, and more.
What if you don’t have enough information about your target audience?
There are a few ways to get some great information to help you.
Analytics tools like Google Analytics are an excellent place to start for quantitative data.
Another good option is to find an online forum or community where your target audience is settling. Then, you can search through postings to find out what help people really need. And there’s a good chance you’ll find a bunch of great content ideas too.
Does your audience know how you can help them?
When someone comes to your blog and reads your about page or starts from here, they simply need to identify how you can help them.
2. Be Relatable
Always put yourself in the place of your readers. What “problems” are they experiencing? And what questions are they asking online? Make sure you focus on the needs of your audience, as this is what they will identify with and what they are looking for. It may sound simple, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of creating content about your products or services without considering what your customers really want to read. Instead, write in a way that relates to your reader and focuses on their needs.
3. Be (a bit) Controversial
People react to something when they disagree. So, if you want to inspire people to share their point of view on a particular issue, or if you want to start an interesting discussion:
- Don’t be afraid to be controversial.
- Make your statements a little more powerful and a little less subtle.
- Don’t overboard it, though, or you’ll have to deal with a lot of negative comments.
4. Include Something in Your Content That Others Don’t
Let’s say you want to write about a topic that has been written about many times before, such as creating a Facebook page. Before you start writing, you need to check out the top posts on creating a Facebook page to see what’s missing.
When you find unique tidbits, incorporate them into your posts. This tactic will ensure that you receive comments, social shares, and backlinks, as people will impress that you can shed new light on a familiar topic.
5. Choose the Best Comment System
Take a look at the best blogs in your niche, especially those that get many comments. What you want to see is the commenting system they use. If you notice that most blogs in your niche use Disqus, Facebook, or a similar system, you may want to consider using that commenting system for your blog.
Why? Because that’s what your audience is used to. If you already have a strong community like Moz, you can avoid a proprietary, login-only commenting system. If not, you need to go with the one most likely used by readers.
Alternatively, if you see a popular blog in your niche that doesn’t get many comments using a particular system, avoid it at all costs. The lower the barriers to entry for your readers to comment, the more likely they are to do so.
6. Promote Your Content
Once you’ve created engaging content, you need to publish it to make sure you get the attention you want.
Be sure to ask for engagement to promote your content. While you may eventually engage with offsite, as in the comments on your Facebook page, you’ll probably also find it on your blog when people are going to read them.
You must brainstorm some questions that you can ask your audience regarding your posts. All questions can be used when you are promoting your post on social media networks. For those who promote their content multiple times on social media networks, each question can be used to create a unique status update.
Using engaging questions is a great way to promote your blog posts in groups.
The questions not only encourage people to engage with your blog content, but they also help you promote your content in a way that will get you more traffic.
Improving your blog content commitments is a definite challenge every blogger must go through. Of course, there are more famous ones, but you can contact us if you want natural growth. Our brand marketing experts are here to help you with a FREE consultation call.