How to Write Engaging Blog Posts

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All successful bloggers have one thing in common—they all know how to write engaging blog posts.

But what’s considered to be an “engaging” blog post, you may ask?

Having written blog content for about 7 years now, in my opinion, an engaging blog post is one that:

receives a lot of comments
helps you generate new newsletter subscribers
and gets a lot of shares on social media

Wouldn’t it be great if every single one of your blog posts can accomplish all of the above?

Some of my articles have generated thousands of shares on social media. Here are some examples:

In addition, this blog currently has a subscribers base of over 20,000 people which is growing steadily every day.

The important thing to note here is that I’m not an English major and I don’t even consider myself to be that great of a writer. I simply learned how to write engaging content that keeps readers coming back for more. You can too.

I’m happy to share some best practices with you to give you a head start! Here are 5 tips on how to write engaging blog posts every time:

1. Know your audience

The first step to writing great blog posts is to understand your audience.

A common problem that I see with inexperienced bloggers is that they fail to understand what kinds of content their audience wants to read.

What ends up happening is that they write articles they “think” their audience wants to read, but then the articles get no page views at all. This was the case for many of the articles I wrote when I first started blogging.

Now, I do the research first.

In blogging, there’s something called “keyword research” which involves identifying what search phrases people are typing into Google. Keyword research is important, which is why I have an entire article written about this topic:

It’s important that you conduct keyword research to understand your audience better + at the same time, it will help you identify new article topics to write about.

2. Use click-worthy blog post titles

A good blog post title vs a bad blog post title is the difference between people clicking on your articles or scrolling right past them.

When I’m coaching new bloggers, the one piece of advice I always repeat is “put yourself in your readers’ shoes.” As it relates to blog post titles, you should only use titles that you would click on yourself. That’s how you’re going to get the most number of clickthroughs to your article.

Want to learn more about coming up with the perfect title for every blog post? Check out the article below.

3. Add Personality to Your Writing

In order for your readers to build a personal connection with your blog, they have to feel like they’re reading an article written by an actual person.

One way you can help your readers with this is by adding more personality to your writing.

A blogger who does this very well is Sarah Titus, a mom blogger. She’s been blogging for about 20 years now and it really shows in her writing style and expertise. If you visit any one of the articles on her blog, you’ll feel like she’s actually talking to you because she shares her experiences, includes emotions, and speaks from a first-person perspective.

People like to relate to other people, so if your readers can relate to you, they’ll be more likely to comment, share, and subscribe.

4. Spend More Time Writing Each Article

This one is probably a no-brainer, but it’s a good reminder that there is really no need to rush with your blog content.

I understand that sometimes you may be so excited to publish a new article that you may just end up publishing an article that’s “good enough.” In reality, there’s probably still a lot left you could do to improve it.

Did you proofread it? Did read it from your readers’ perspective to see if it would be engaging enough?

It’s more important that you produce quality content vs a higher quantity of poorly-written content.

I think if you look back at some of the articles you spent less time on, you’ll notice that they’re far lower quality than the ones you actually spent a lot of time on. The quality difference might also be evident when comparing the number of page views, shares, or even the amount of income generated.

5. Go Above and Beyond

As a blogger, your goal is to make your articles as great as they could possibly be. Otherwise, why even write content in the first place?

Your readers should always leave your articles satisfied. For example:

If you’re a fashion blogger writing an article about summer dresses in 2020, make sure your readers actually get to see a list of the CUTEST, MOST FASHIONABLE summer dresses in 2020.

If you’re a cooking blogger writing an article about the best cheesecake recipe, make sure your readers leave with a recipe for the MOST DELECTABLE cheesecake ever.

I think you get the point. Much like how you tend to make repeat visits to your favorite restaurants, which probably have amazing food and staff that treat you well, you want your blog to follow the same concept. Go above and beyond for your clients, and they’ll respond accordingly by commenting, following you, or sharing your content.