How to Write content that gets read
Writing is hard. Writing content that hooks and retains a reader’s attention is groundbreaking.
I analyzed high quality blog posts from top content marketing sites and these are common elements throughout their blog posts that I try to implement in my writing
1. The Introduction
The Introduction of an article is arguably the most important part of it, if your intro doesn’t bang, the reader will not stick around long enough to see whatever interesting information you’ve compiled.
The key to nailing your introduction is making sure it is concise, insightful or interesting. This intro from Why Readers can smell fakes a mile away article by Animalz does just that.
The reason why this introduction from Animalz works is because it is relatable to the topic and to the reader.
If you’re confused while writing the introduction, these are angles you can use in your intro to make it pop
- A new insight
- A Question
- The Problem
- An interesting or funny fact
2. The Bigger Piece
The body of the article is the main part, that's where you show your knowledge, all information you've gathered from interviews and quotes from subject matter experts.
Take the body of the article to be a building project, you start from the base and make your way up while introducing new insights that supports your claim.
Use Simple Words
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a technical blog post for high level professionals in the AI, software space or a beginner blog post for a college student looking for basic info on freelancing, the words in your article must be easy to understand. Nobody wants to pick up a dictionary while reading an article- it’s not a novel.
Build trust
You build trust by understanding your reader inside and out beyond the avatar you were either given or made yourself. The best way to do this is to observe the reader in their natural habitat
- You look for groups where they hangout on social media
- Note the lingo they use
- Look at the questions they’re asking
3. The Conclusion
You’ve laid all the nuggets down, now what? You have to end the article. Resist the urge to do a “roundup" on the points you included.
You do not have to include a conclusion in every article but if you must then write a conclusion that inspires the reader to take an action, so this could either be a CTA for a product or a comment asking for their opinion.
To create content that gets read, you must take your reader on a journey. When you want to take a trip, what do you start with? Research
You research your destination, visa requirements, accomodations and tourist attractions before booking the tickets, packing and taking the trip.
That’s how content should be, it should naturally flow from one point to another making it easy to read while absorbing the information
