Your page stats show that people are viewing your blogs, but why aren’t they clicking your calls to action? Why aren’t they commenting? Most importantly, why aren’t they booking?
If your guests are failing to engage with your blogs, it’s time to identify why. Here are 5 common reasons.
1) Your Headline Didn’t Cut It
The headline is the most important part of any blog post, but all too often it’s treated as an afterthought. In an online world saturated with news, thumbnails, vids, tweets and pins, you have just seconds to grab the attention of your audience. A compelling, well crafted headline will pull in your readers in their droves, while a bad one will lose them instantly.
There’s heaps of advice out there about how to create a really great headline that will resonate with your readers. The key lesson to learn is: if you want people to read your blog, you need to write a headline that sparks their curiosity first.
2) Your First Paragraph is Weak
If you’ve succeeded in creating an eye-catching headline, your guests will turn their attention to the first paragraph of your blog. These precious first few sentences should pull them, like a magnet, into the rest of the article. The best way to do this is to start with a story, a fun and surprising fact, or a promise that useful information is on its way for those that keep reading.
3) It’s Too Long
There’s a lot to be said for comprehensive, in-depth writing that takes your readers deep into a subject. But on the internet, short-form content still rules, so you should aim for short and to-the-point blog posts of 500 words or less. Make your content ‘scannable’ by breaking it up with subheadings, bullet-points and numbered lists wherever appropriate, and if you have just too much to say, consider splitting it into two posts.
4) You Focus Too Much on YOU
Although readers want to know about your property’s history, reputation and fantastic services, they care about themselves more. The number one question at the forefront of all online consumers’ minds is “what’s in it for me?” and as such, the posts that resonate the best will always be those that address your guests’ specific fears, problems and concerns.
5) You Didn’t Add Multi-Media Elements
These days, there’s a lot more to blogging than plain old text. If your blog isn’t generating the engagement levels you’d like, it could simply be that you’re not giving your audience enough to engage with.
As much as your guests love content that addresses their needs, it can sometimes take more than relevancy to maintain someone’s attention over the course of a full blog post. Sprinkling your posts with videos, GIFs and custom graphics where appropriate is a great way to make your content more interactive, driving clicks, comments and further engagement.
Like all things worth having, you have to work hard for your audience’s attention online.
How do you encourage your guests to read your blog posts in their entirety? Let us know in the comments below!
RELATED PAGES AND BLOG POSTS:
- 5 Basic Rules For Better Content Marketing
- How To Identify The Blog Topics Your Guests Want The Most
- 5 Ways to Get More Out of Your Blog (Without Producing More Content)
