There is a Human on the Other Side of Every Click.

Did you just click this article? Then you are a human. So thus I am going to treat you like one, and work to engage you with this topic.
You may be viewed as just a "click" to some website owners, however. And that is part of the problem with the internet, and the content creators out there that don't full grasp the human element of their business. If you don't communicate in a way that is engaging, interesting, and that captivates your audience they are all ONE click away from leaving...in the same way they were a click to arrive.
That's the reality.
So today, I want to spend a few moments discussing how you can "humanize" your content.
You Are Not Writing For Google, You Are Writing for People.
The humanization part is something that starts before you create your content. You need to approach EVERY piece of content that you write, whether it is on social media or on your website, as though it is going to be a friend or a family member reading it.
You are NOT writing for search engines. That is where most people get confused when they sit down to write content. Of course you are focusing on getting ranked, but that is going to be the byproduct of your content being well-designed, very engaging, readable, and with a focus on the reader.
It won't be the result of you stuffing keywords throughout the article or trying to trick Google with some black-hat SEO techniques. That won't work, and that won't lead to any level of visitor comprehension or retention.
So my first suggestion when you write content on your website is putting yourself in the mind frame of a potential reader. If your best friend wrote that article, would you find that article to interesting, helpful, and engaging. If your answer is yes, then you have written yourself a very good article.
4 Simple Tricks to Increase Human Interaction.
There are some really easy-to-implement techniques that I used to make my content more readable, and to capture my audiences attention with more efficiency.
Let's have a look at FOUR of them.
- Research Before You Write. If you don't research and understand what you are writing about, it is going to be evident to your readers. Spending a little time in Google and reading content about a particular topic, can be helpful if you are not full confident with the subject you are writing about. You do not need to "write from the hip" to produce authentic and quality content. All the best editorials you have probably ever read were some most researched.
So spend some time acquainting yourself with the topic you are creating content around. Do a bit of research. It will go a long ways. - Use Conversational Speech. When you create content on your website, you are not writing an English essay. Sure, you want to come off with a sense of professionalism, we live in an age where people want to be entertained and they don't want to feel as though the content has been pulled from a high school text book.
Your delivery of your content is important to capturing and sustaining attention, and using conversational style speech can be a powerful tool to engage your visitors. - Capture Attention, Then Write About It. What is the first thing people see before they visit your website? Your article title. What are the subsequent things they see? Internal headlines with your content. You should be leveraging big, bold, and interesting titles within your content that foreshadow what you are about to chat about. So utilize titles internal to your content in the same way I have done within this exactly article.
- Show, Don't Just Tell. Visuals are important. We grow up reading picture books as children, and that never leaves us. Sure you can write content without any sort of imagery within it, but it will lead to far less engagement.
It is key though to utilize images to SHOW people what you are talking about, versus just using random images or images that have some sort of relevance. SHOW people exactly what you are talking about in image form, and they will comprehend what you are talking about with much more efficiency.
People Gotta Like You, To Trust You, To Buy From You.
At the end of the day, trust is established if the person on the other end of your content likes you. People like you if they think you are funny, if you are helpful, if you are interesting, and/or if they can relate to you.
So write your content in the way that checks off these boxes and you are going to be able to establish trust. Trust is the precursor to being able to "promote" products/services with ease in business.
In fact, if you have your audience's trust you can simply make product/service recommendations to them that will further help/benefit them. You don't even have to put your "sales hat" on, it will be a seamless approach to being able to convert your visitors into buyers. That is the ideal situation to be in.
So don't take a click for granted, ever. It could be your next customer, and a life-long customer on the other end of that click.
Are you writing for PEOPLE? If not, you need to make this your core focus within all of your content.
Scenario: I go through your lessons and decide I'm passionate about alternative energy solutions and want to affiliate myself to a company selling solar panels.
I have a personal interest so I can write from that perspective, but I cannot create an authoritative website: I'd run into legal issues giving electrical and structural advice as a non qualified hobbyist. So that limits me to writing "interest" pieces rather than technical pieces.
Obviously research is key but how does a person go about creating daily posts around such a static topic. I mean sure I could find masses of info on the new developments of solar (it's really quite exciting) but this stuff isn't even off the lab benches yet, completely non saleable and contextually non-relatable to the sale of home solar equipment.
Am I missing the point of a blog-based site by such a wide margin?
Or is it just that: Great if you're selling coaching/mentoring but not so great if your chosen product range/niche is not so dynamic.
Surely if you build frequent content and then just keep linking it back to the same affiliate links your site quickly becomes a self-canibalising mess just waiting to be de-indexed.
Forgive my uninformed newness ;)
That is why I hated most college courses I completed - even though I received high grades I could not wait to be done and finished with the classes.
They felt like wearing a straight jacket which artificially constrained my ability to write and say what I wanted to say how I wanted to say it.
The truth is most people do NOT want to read anything an English teacher writes because it is much like eating cardboard would be.
Fortunately, in my own books, articles, posts, courses, and other content I have no such limitations ; )
Best regards,
L.D. Sewell