7 Steps to Write a Blog Post for Maximum Engagement

Blog posts are a great way to increase traffic to your site, but engagement is how you build a real audience. If your blog is up and running and the results are not what you hoped for, these seven steps will get you more comments, more shares, and more readers who come back.

1. Write an Engaging Headline

The headline is the most important element for getting engagement, because it is what gets people to click in the first place. So what makes a headline good? Our post on how to craft great blog post titles goes deeper, and these four types are the fastest place to start.

There are a few headline types that just seem to naturally lend themselves to getting the clicks.

• Secrets: Everyone loves a secret, and a headline with the word secret in it pulls the click. If you see The Three Secrets to a Successful Side Hustle and you are trying to start a side hustle, you are going to click, right?
• Fears and Mistakes: Pointing out someone’s flaws may seem a bit mean, but if you use it in a way that helps your reader, is that not a good thing? You see this in a post like 5 Mistakes New Bloggers Make. Anyone who reads it wants to be sure they are not guilty.
• CTA in the Title: Every blog post should have a call to action, because your readers need to know what you want them to do next. Putting it right in the title is a great way to increase engagement. Try something like Want More Traffic? Try This. Everyone wants more traffic, so that headline is a winner.
• Personalize: In copywriting it is usually better to use second person pronouns so the reader feels like the subject of the article. Sometimes first person grabs more traffic instead. A title like How I Earn a Full-Time Income Part Time From Home gets engagement because people want to know what you are doing.

2. Use Proper Blog Formatting

Blog posts have their own set of rules when it comes to formatting. A huge number of your readers reach your content on a phone. On top of that, a large number are going to skim the article for the information they care about.

This means your blog post has to be easy to read and easy to skim. People are busy. Many will not read an entire post. Others skim first, and if something catches them, they go back and read the whole thing.

Use these tips to make your blog posts readable and skimmable:

• Use short paragraphs. Even if a paragraph is only one line, that is okay. Try to keep them to two or three lines at most. Big blocks of text are a quick way to lose the interest of your reader.
• Use bulleted and numbered lists. Just like the one you are reading.
• Use subheadings. Subheadings break up the post and let the reader skim to the information they want to focus on.
• Bold important words and phrases. This helps your skimmers find the information you want them to see.

Just breaking the text into short paragraphs makes your post far easier to read. If you want more, we have a full post of formatting tips that make your blog posts shine.

3. Find Your Blogging Voice

Finding your voice can be hard, especially if you lean toward a more introverted personality. You might try to borrow another voice that you think is better or more relatable. That will likely come across in your posts as insincere.

It takes time, but you will figure out your own writing style and your own way of connecting with your followers.

Your blogging voice should match your brand and appeal to your target audience. Make it fun and flirty or serious and factual. Whichever one is actually you.

4. Inform Your Readers

One of the hardest lessons new bloggers have to learn is that their blog posts need to be for the reader and not for themselves. People may love you, but they are not going to spend their time reading about you.

Great blog posts help and inform your readers. They show someone how to do something, or how to do it better than they are doing it now.

5. Promote Your Posts

One of the main reasons nobody is reading your posts when you are first getting started is that nobody knows you exist yet.

If you already get a lot of traffic from social media or search, you do not need to push as hard. If you are a new blogger, kick it up a notch by sharing your content in social media groups and scheduling it on Pinterest. Promoting your blog posts deserves a deliberate plan, not an afterthought.

6. Always Add a CTA

CTA stands for call to action, and as covered above, it is how you tell your reader what you want them to do next. Subscribe to your email list, follow you on social media, or read another piece of content.

CTAs are also a great way to start a conversation with your readers in the comments section. Ask a question at the end of your post so that they want to respond. Then engage with them by replying. If you are not sure what to ask for, start with what you want them to do next.

7. Make it Simple to Leave a Comment

Avoid using frustrating commenting plugins on your site. Make it easy so the comments start flowing right away. Once they do, here is how to manage comments on your blog without letting them pile up.

That is it. Follow these steps and your comment sections will start filling up. Do not forget to reply to comments, because that is what builds real trust with a reader.

Speaking of comments, leave one below with your own ideas for getting more engagement when you write a blog post. What else works for you?

Here is the part nobody warns you about: none of this works if you only do it once. Engagement gets built by showing up again and again, and that is exactly what the Ultimate Blog Challenge is for. Thirty days, a daily prompt, and a group of bloggers actually reading and commenting on each other’s work.