5 ways to create engaging content

  • 1. Keep it perfectly balanced, as all things should be
Balanced Use of Textual and Visual Content
Source: Slideshare

What do we mean by this? Put simply, you have to strike a balance between the actual written content and interesting visuals.
Visual content makes up 93% of all human communication, and let’s face it, a lot of people skim read. So, you need to catch their eye with interesting visuals to make your blog sharable and generate backlinks.  However, you also need to utilise enough keywords to fully utilise search engine optimisation within your content.

We don’t just mean images, though. Visuals can mean pictures, infographics, and of course, video. The chance of an infographic getting shared on social media is 3x that of other content, and video is even more powerful, with 4x more interest generated when advertising a product.

  • 2. Keep it evergreen

Writing content that is relevant to the hot news topic of the day is a reliable way to generate clicks and shares, as a lot of people are actively going to be searching for that topic on search engines. However, this is a “one-time use” piece of content. The best way to think about a news piece is like a firework – it shines bright for a moment and then it’s gone.

An evergreen blog or other pieces of written content is something that does not age. It’s something that will generate clicks and shares slower than a news topic, but it will have a longer burn. Evergreen content can be a great foundation to prop up those fast burning newsworthy pieces, as it quietly generates those all-important pageviews and backlinks over weeks or even months.

  • 3. Include influencers

Nothing evolves faster than the digital world, and marketing has been rapidly changing alongside it. One of the most powerful tools available to any digital marketer right now is influencers. There are multiple ways you can potentially utilise their followers that go beyond just paying them to mention your blog.

It will require some elbow grease to research influencers that are not only relevant to your field, but also are known to share the type of content you’ve created, however, it will all be worth it if they share your content after you’ve tagged them. The power of this share speaks for itself in the potential pageviews and shares it will generate.

  • 4. Ask the reader for their opinion

There are multiple ways to achieve this, and which one you choose honestly depends on the topic and type of content you have written. If you’ve written a controversial opinion piece on something in the news, simply asking “what are your thoughts? Let us know on our Facebook & Twitter pages” can be enough of a call to action to get those comments rolling in.

But you can also create a survey or short poll. Facebook and Twitter have built in poll functionality which you can use when posting your content on social media, and you can even embed your poll in the article itself.

  • 5. Create guest blog posts & invite guest bloggers

One way to keep your content engaging is to have a variety of people creating that content, to get different viewpoints and opinions presented. People will often read a piece just because they’re favourite blogger has written it; they’re there for the writer’s personality as well as the content.

Having a small team of people writing can also help your content to not feel samey and stale.

One way to achieve this is to invite a guest blogger to write for you. This can be a fantastic tool – not only can you create content with little effort on your part, it will also expose your blog to a new audience and boost your SEO when the blogger shares the piece with their readers.

The same can be said for getting one of your writers to guest write on another person’s blog, especially if the owner of the website agrees for you to include backlinks to your website in the post.

Content writing is a deep and complex topic with a lot of nuances, but we hope that you have found this guide helpful. Let us know what you think!

Or, if you want more like this, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more insights into everything social media and digital marketing.