How Do You Engage Your Readers? Part 1
You just wrote a wonderful blog and you are excited about the content. You can't wait to see how your readers respond. You click "Publish" and you are all set; ready to move onto the next blog that you need to write.
So what happens with your blog now?
How does it help you to grow your readership?
Does it just sit there or does it cause the reader to embrace it and actively respond to what it has to say?
How many people have made comments on your other blogs?
If you are having trouble answering these questions, then you might be missing out on the opportunity to grow your business by growing your readership and especially repeat visitors to your site.
We all know that it is hard to get a visitor to your site to stay long enough to read your material and maybe even sign an opt-in form or buy something from your site. Even if your site is well-structured and you have great content, if you are not encouraging your reader to interact with you in some way, you are missing a great opportunity!
What is this blog doing right now?
I am writing it in such a way to cause you, "the reader" to think and at least mentally answer my questions. I am guiding you down a certain path where you take ownership of the material and you actively participate in your reading experience.
You may not have thought about it in this way, but WA is set up in such a way that we are practicing this writing technique every time we answer a question here or leave a comment. When we write a blog we should be writing it to encourage the reader to interact and engage them in the subject. (just like we do here at WA)
To take it one step further, when we have comments on our blog we need to answer them in a timely manner and write the reply in such a way to further engage the reader to keep coming back and having a conversation with us. This will make the reader feel special and that we are writing and relating to them personally. (just like we do here at WA)
If done correctly, the reader is more likely to share your content with someone else and more people start to relate to your content.
All of a sudden you are getting more unique visitors to your blog. The bottom line is that you are writing and sharing with them instead of just writing. You are not just throwing a bunch of words on the wall hoping that something sticks.
Share with us some ways that you help your readers to interact with you? This will help all of us to learn as we share our unique perspective on this topic.
Tomorrow I will share with you some specific ways to engage your readers in your content.
See you then... Dave.
Recent Comments
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what do I do you ask just as I am doing right now I ask open end questions and I try to describe the post in away that lets them be a part of the journey .I make sure that I add little innuendos to liven it up and I just try to let them know that I am happy that they are here and reading my post (that is like my best part of the post ) and I always let them know I am there to answer questions and comments . and you know what the last thing I do ? Yep you guessed it a CTA all the best Max
You got it. When the reader feels that you have written it just for them, then you have a follower for the long term. thanks, Dave.
When people know you care about them, they will help you if you ask them. It's really simple. Develop strong relationships (read how to make friends and influence people, by Dale Carnegie). If you can do this, you will succeed.
Wonderful blog Dave it is about showing them the solution not telling them remembered that in one of the training modules
Thanks Loes, I was going to add some pictures but I did not. I will add something in tomorrow's post. Dave.
Hi, Dave. You are absolutely right! We need to engage with our readers in our site and not just giving them information. We need to actively engage with them by encouraging them to comment or ask questions simply by putting this phrase at the end of our blog: If you have questions or any suggestions, please feel free to comment in the dropbox below. Thank you. Or it might be like this : Thank you for visiting my site, Your feedback is very important so please feel free to comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day :) These are just 2 examples that I think of on how you can be fully engaged with your readers. Through engagement you can be assured that they will subscribe and follow your content. They could even share or commend your website to others who have the same interest. So, I do agree that Engagement is one key to online Success.
All the best!
Adel :)
Hi Dave and this is a very good way to get engaged with a possible customer and simply by asking in the blog if the customer would like to know more right???
That is one possibility. It depends on what your goal is for that particular article or blog. Does it just inform? Does it lead someone to take action such as sign up for a newsletter or does it guide them to a sale? It might be a blog or article that leads into another blog or article such as I just did on this posting by letting the reader know that tomorrow I will post information on "this and this".
I like the style Dave - with my site it is just a product for sale so very simple really but if you would have a look at my site and tell me what you think would be grateful http://perkune.com
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I totally agree and it definitely can be a challenge. During my career in IT I constantly wrote emails, letters and various documents. I found myself writing and rewriting to ensure I got the point across and asked the correct questions so the readers would respond.
It is a skill that can be learned and improved upon. Thanks, Dave.