Every good SEO content strategy focuses on high-quality content above anything else. That’s because the content is the core of search engine optimization and digital marketing. Its value has even surpassed the trend of stuffing articles and sites with large numbers of keywords to rank higher in search engines.
However, you can’t just come up with a random piece of text and expect great results. Your content needs to be original, actionable, and above all, engaging. This guide will give you 10 tips to create highly engaging content and answer some common questions regarding this topic.
What is Engaging Content?
Before we even examine how engaging content is achieved, let’s go over what we mean when we say that your content has to be ‘engaging.’
The most straightforward answer is that your content needs to be interesting enough to attract your readers’ attention. However, merely being interesting is not enough to compete with other content creators. There are several other factors you need to take into consideration to create high-quality content.
The general goal of writing engaging content is to reach some sort of result, whether you are advertising a product, offering service, or telling a story. Content marketers aim to get their audience to somehow interact with their content. Content engagement can take the form of amplified organic traffic, shares, comments, clicks, conversions, purchases, sign-ups, likes, mentions, opt-ins, and similar metrics.
Keep in mind that content isn’t the only text you write for your blog posts and articles. Content can also take the form of product pages, tweets, social media posts, guides, videos, lists, and more.
Contrary to popular opinion, coming up with high-quality content is nowhere near a piece of cake. It takes time and effort, but if you set aside your time to understand your target audience's needs and how you can give it to them, your content will improve in no time.
Tips to Create Highly Engaging Content
Now that you understand what engaging content is let’s see what you need to do to create it. There are several steps you should take to make sure your content is high-quality. If your content is bland and not interactive, your readers won’t take the time to go through it, which will result in lost money and time.
Here are 10 tips for creating highly engaging content that will help your online business:
1. Write With a Clear Goal
Before you start writing, take some time to really consider your content's overall goal. For example, are you writing and publishing blog posts to increase your organic traffic? Is your plan to reach a broader audience that will help you build your brand image? Is your primary aim to get your readers to buy a particular product or subscribe to your site?
Once you decide your content's main purpose, it will help you communicate a specific message to your target audience.
Apart from the most common content writing goals (such as ranking high on the SERPs (search engine results pages) and enticing engagement), content marketers also write interactive content to educate their audience, build links, and develop their brand.
How you will structure your content also depends on your goal. For example, if your online business deals with trade and e-commerce, you can write about various topics, from online shopping trends to product review pages.
The length of each blog post or article should depend on the content itself. For example, if you want to inform your audience about a particular topic, you can write content that can be up to a few thousand words long.
2. Think About Your Target Audience
The next step is to familiarize yourself with your target audience. It’s always important to know exactly who you are writing for. Just be sure to remember that one of the aims of your content should be to answer any questions your target audience might have. In combination with your overall target audience, you should begin to look at your local audience. This is where hyperlocal social marketing comes into play so that you can reach people in your geographic area in addition to those online.
If you aim to grow your target audience, then always start with tracking your current readers’ online behavior. You can use the data you collected to form profiles of your frequent customers.
Once you get to know your target audience, think of a strategy to make your content accessible to them. For example, if your target audience consists of people from the ages of 50-60, think about which platforms you can use to distribute your content. According to the Pew Research Center, an older demographic uses Facebook the most – even 72% of 50- to 64-year-olds prefer this app over other social media platforms.
This step is crucial if you run an e-commerce business. Analyzing your customers’ demographics and needs can help you figure out which products are popular and for what reason. This is also a great way of figuring out problems your online business might have.
To familiarize yourself with your target audience, even more, go to specific places where your readers/customers wrote some type of comments. You can also go through social media comments and messages, as well as product review sites.
3. Motivate Your Readers to Take Action
Apart from being engaging, your content also needs to be actionable. This means that your content is supposed to make your readers perform a particular action, whether it’s subscribing to an account, purchasing a specific product, or clicking on a link on your page.
If you run an e-commerce business and want to advertise a particular product, writing content about it is only the first step. While customers may read your content and decide to buy your product off the bat, they usually need more convincing.
To create actionable content, you should include a product description, list the advantages and disadvantages of that product, create a guide to explain how to use that product, offer alternative products, and give specific reasons why readers should purchase it.
Another thing you can do to increase the chances of your customers purchasing something is to make it accessible to them – in other words, make sure that the product is one click away. You can do this by inserting links in your content, which will take the customer right to the shopping cart.
Aside from links, you can also embed buttons all over your website. Just make sure that they are in plain sight and easy to comprehend.
4. Structure Your Content the Right Way
Engaging content has a lot to do with how you structure it. Even though what you write about should be your primary focus, think about how you compose your content.
Keep in mind that quality content is usually easy to understand – your readers shouldn’t have to struggle with reading your blog posts. Secondly, the formats of your content are also significant to a great extent.
To begin with, always keep your sentences short, especially in the opening paragraphs. If your sentences are too long, readers will quickly lose concentration and move on to something else. Secondly, break up your content into sections to make it more engaging. Add H2 and H3 headings between every couple of paragraphs as well.
It’s always a great idea to insert as much visual information as possible. You can also use numbered and bulleted lists to break up pieces of text into meaningful units that are easy to understand.
Don’t forget to use a decent number of keywords and key phrases throughout your entire text. To decide which keywords to use in the first place, use keyword research tools to determine the most common keywords your target audience uses for searches.
If you need help structuring your content there are tools out there that will analyze your competitor's content to see how they have structured theirs. Two of these tools are Frase.io and SurderSEO.
SurferSEO is an on-site SEO tool designed specifically for content marketers. Its SERP Analyzer feature scans the first page of results for your keyword. You’ll get data about average word count, keyword density, page loading speed, alt text, and more. Then, you can use that data to improve your content and rank above your competitors.
Frase is also a very useful tool to help content marketers streamline the process of researching and creating content.
5. Think of Powerful Titles
Your blog posts’ titles are what attract your readers in the first place. That’s why coming up with an engaging headline should also be on your to-do list. Enticing and dynamic titles are also known as ‘clickable headlines.’
There are different types of headlines, depending on the type of content. For example, headings can be used to inform readers, draw attention, show something, incorporate keywords, or get you to click on a link. Headings can also be questions, commands, news, guarantees, and similar active formats.
Keeping your titles concise, catchy, and SEO-friendly is the key. Here are a few tips you can use to optimize your content’s headings.
- Keep the length of the heading between 50 and 60 characters
- Use numbers or the current year
- Offer a solution to a problem or some sort of help
- Implement power words (free, because, instantly, new, you, etc.)
- Include the words ‘you’ or ‘your’
- Make sure you insert target keywords or long-tail keywords
- Use a strong positive or negative emotional sentiment
- Incorporate words like ‘what,’ ‘why,’ ‘how,’ or ‘when’
- When in doubt, just use this formula to create a headline: number + adjective + keyword + promise (such as ‘10 useful tips to generate more traffic’)
6. Aim to Be Original and Creative
This step just might be the most difficult one to achieve. Creative and original content is tough to find these days – everything you read on the internet has already been said by someone else. In fact, creating engaging and original content is one of the biggest challenges content marketers face.
Start with constantly researching your topic to find out as much information as possible. Limited knowledge will only result in a lack of engaging content. Secondly, just because another content marketer has already covered your topic, or used the same resources, doesn’t mean that it’s no longer an option for you. Just make sure to write your content in your own way.
Use personal experience to talk about a specific topic – personal experience is 100% original since it only happened to you. Adding your opinions and perspectives can also help your readers get to know you better. Placing a bit of your personality in your content will make your audience interact with your blog posts more. Therefore, you will slowly build customer loyalty while simultaneously growing your clientele.
If producing engaging content presents an issue for you, consider outsourcing professional content writers.
7. Tell a Story
As we mentioned before, how you write your content can even be more important than what you write about. The tone and vocabulary you use in your content will significantly impact your readers, which is why it takes a couple of seconds to either gain or lose their interest.
Writing very dry and dull chunks of text usually results in low traffic and adverse results. Apart from the fact that your content is supposed to be ‘easy on the eyes,’ it should also feel like your audience is reading a fascinating story. You should write this way because readers are more likely to relate to a story than an analytical text full of dry data.
Storytelling aims to evoke a positive or negative response, and it makes your readers relate to you as a content creator. That’s why this type of content writing builds customer loyalty.
It is entirely possible to write engaging content about a boring topic as well. The key is to use a conversational tone while explaining professional data. Anything can be communicated in the form of an engaging story – you just have to use the right words and intonation.
8. Make Sure Your Content Is Accurate
Even if you produce high-quality content, it won’t matter if you use resources that are outdated and information that is no longer accurate. If you make the mistake of publishing something that isn’t factual, it could have an adverse effect on your online business. Furthermore, you will lose readers and clients at a rapid rate.
However, this is easily preventable – you just need to take your research seriously. What does this mean? It’s incredibly easy to make up fake facts on the internet. Always make sure that you are using information that comes from a credible source. We recommend sticking to official and authoritative websites.
Another thing you need to keep in mind as a content creator is that information is constantly changing. What was considered accurate and relevant data five years ago may no longer be the case anymore. That’s why you should always use the most recently published data.
This also applies to your previous texts. So, for example, if you wrote a guide explaining how to perform a specific action on an app, and that app has been updated afterward, make sure to update your information as well.
Once your readers see that you keep your information up-to-date, they will trust your content and continue reading.
9. Use Visual and Interactive Information
Graphic information has a considerable impact on your content’s success. That’s because readers always prefer texts that include plenty of visual content rather than plain text. Therefore, diversifying your content is always a plus. Here are some forms of multimedia you can insert into your content:
- Data-driven visuals – Charts, graphs, tables, or any type of visual content that presents statistics in a clear, engaging way
- Photos – Images are the most common form of multimedia and can be found on almost every webpage. You can use photos that you had taken by yourself or free stock photos. Just make sure you are using quality images
- Video content – You can insert your own videos where you discuss the same topic. This is an excellent option if your online business has a YouTube channel as well
- Infographics – Visual representations of data, which consist of pictures, text, and charts. What’s great about infographics is that they are easily shareable on social media
- Lists – Readers prefer to read content that’s broken down into segments
- Quotes – Images with quotes are a great way to capture your readers’ attention. You can quote influencers or anybody that’s considered a well-known professional in your field
- Screenshots – They are especially useful if you are writing a how-to guide to explain how something is done on an app or program
- GIFs – It’s better to use them in light-hearted content where the writer uses a conversational tone
10. Interact With Your Readers
Getting your target audience to engage with your content is one of the few ways you can ensure their trust and loyalty. Here are a couple of things you can do to interact with your readers:
- Address your readers directly and ask questions throughout your content. It will make your readers feel included
- Make sure that your target audience can relate to your content. You can do this by researching your target audience and their online behavior before writing
- Use a CTA (call to action) at the end of your content. Doing this will invite your audience to interact with you
- Regularly reply to all of your readers’ comments and messages. Answer any possible questions they might have and address their concerns
- Send email newsletters to your subscribers regularly
If you create a shared experience and if your readers feel included, it will encourage them to engage with your online business more.
FAQs
How to Create Engaging Content on YouTube?
Video content is becoming more and more popular on the web. In fact, according to recent findings, an average person who uses the internet spends about 100 minutes watching video content every day. That’s why online businesses have been placing an increasing amount of content into videos.
However, the process of producing engaging video content is much different from the written content. The best place to promote your video content is YouTube. Not only is YouTube the most popular platform for watching videos, but it also provides influencers and small businesses a chance to make a name for themselves at a rapid rate.
Video content can take the form of vlogs (video blogs), product reviews, interviews, tutorials, Q&As, live streaming, giveaways, behind-the-scenes, webinars, events, personalized videos, and many more.
Here are some tips for creating highly engaging content on YouTube:
- First, familiarize yourself with your target audience. Research their demographics before you decide to film videos. That way, you will know exactly who you are talking to
- Make sure that the first 10 seconds of your video will capture your audience’s attention
- Keep the length of your video content from two to 15 minutes. According to HubSpot, the ideal video length for a YouTube video is under two minutes
- Be sure to post frequently – a couple of times a week should be enough
- Only discuss matters that are relevant to the topic. In most cases, your audience is interested in finding out specific information, not your whole life story
- Make sure your content is interesting, which will make your audience go to your other videos as well
How to Create Engaging Content on Social Media?
Social media marketing has been on the rise in recent years, with 3.8 billion active users. Not only are social media platforms ideal for promoting your content, but they are also a great place to grow your online business. As an online business owner, you can use various social media platforms to connect with your audience, boost your SEO, build brand awareness, and increase your organic traffic.
Here are some tips for producing engaging content on social media:
- Use visual information rather than plain text. In fact, 65% of social media users are visual beings. This means that they prefer to read text inserted on a photo than text in the post’s description
- Post photos that you took or created by yourself. This will keep your platform original and fresh. If you want to take pictures of your products, hire a professional photographer
- Post other types of content – charts, graphics, infographics, videos, etc.
- Always keep up with the newest social media trends
- Don’t be afraid to check out your competition
- If you run an Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter account for your online business, you can also include lots of hashtags to boost your traffic
- Post content regularly. Post on Facebook three times a week, and tweet three to six times a day on Twitter. When it comes to Instagram, you should be posting daily
Which social media platform you choose depends on the nature of your online business. Some of the best social media platforms for your business are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest, and many more. If you looking to automate your social media efforts, tools like Hootsuite can help you.
Why Is Engaging Content Important?
Content is the most crucial aspect of SEO content marketing strategies. If your content isn’t interactive, your online business will experience a rapid decline in organic traffic.
Creating high-quality content takes time, patience, and thorough research. Powerful content is a prerequisite for ranking in search engines and driving profitable traffic to your website. Interactive content also increases your engagement rate.
Once your website engagement is amplified, you can use the collected data from your audience to track your content’s success and monitor your track record on different SERPs. The data you gathered from your visitors will also help you determine whether your online business has flaws or any other aspect you can improve.
Engaging content also helps you improve your brand’s loyalty. Offering your clients a positive experience will make your audience interact with your content and understand it on another level.
What Is in a Content Strategy?
SEO content strategy is the process of developing a systematic plan to increase the amount of organic traffic on your website and boost your ranking in search engines. A well-developed content strategy can consist of many steps and factors to improve your website engagement. Here are a few tips for creating an engaging content strategy:
- Start a blog for your online business. It’s a great place to store all of your content and your keywords
- Figure out your target audience. Then, research your page visitors and clients’ demographics to find out what they need
- Decide what topics you are going to write about. Keep in mind that your topics have to be somehow related to your online business
- Do keyword research. This step is very crucial for a successful SEO content strategy. Figure out which keywords and key phrases your target audience searches for the most.
- Write engaging and interactive content. That’s exactly what we covered in this guide
- Optimize your content for your readers. This step refers to structuring your content the right way
- Optimize your keywords. Following your keyword research, insert suitable and valuable keywords in your content
- Keep your content up-to-date. Make sure you aren’t using outdated or incorrect information
- Promote your content on social media platforms
- Examine your results by monitoring and analyzing your ranking in SERPs
Highly Engaging Content Goes a Long Way
Producing high-quality content isn’t easy, but it’s necessary for the success of your online business. We’ve given you the best tips to create highly engaging content, now it’s up to you to make it happen.
Remember, do your research, set aside enough time to write, try to be original and creative, and make your content interactive in a way that resonates with your target audience. Once you’ve completed all the necessary steps, you will start to see an increase in engagement and organic traffic.
