Preventing Your Blog Posts From Boring Readers to Death
There are around 47 million blog posts published every single month, and that’s just from WordPress.com hosted sites. It’s hard telling how many are posted every single day combined, and attention has increasingly become a finite commodity. As you’re probably aware, keeping your site flowing with fresh, interesting content can be a serious chore. You can see your productivity pulled at from every which direction, and it requires a good amount of discipline to make things happen.
Everybody wants their content read and enjoyed, but sadly many blog posts face a boring death. Maybe they fail to grab a single ounce of interest, or they’re a poorly planned article that just needed more time. Whatever it is, boring is one of your worst enemies. Thankfully, you don’t have to be an amazing writer to keep readers latched on, and coming back for even more.
Write Like You Talk
SEO is serious business, and should not be ignored. Unless you are fortunate enough to receive a large amount of traffic from social media, search engines are your best friend. However, the importance of SEO often leads to an overfocus of basic rules, and best practices.
This leads to writing blog posts that come off forced, written more for search engines than actual human beings. Google may read or should I say “crawl” your site whenever something new is posted, but it sure as heck isn’t your target audience. Yes, optimize your content, but don’t forget you’re writing for humans, not robots (Tweet This). Write like you are talking to another human being, and having an actual conversation. Big words may be important lingo in your industry, but too much of it can be a turn off.
Write From Passion, Not From Quota
We have all heard you should blog so many times per week. The number is all over the place, but the main point is pretty clear: you need to be consistent. Consistency is great, but consistently publishing boring content will hurt you more than anything. Whenever you come up with new blog posts, the best tend to come from a place of passion.
If you are truly passionate about a subject or topic, it reveals itself. That passion can be infectious, and lead to higher quality content overall. Try not to feel so obligated to write a set number of posts every week. There is no magic number, and a couple great blog posts are significantly better than several so-so.
Don’t Be Afraid To Step Off The Beaten Path
In all of our lives, there are boundaries. For example, you can’t say that because it’s not professional, or you shouldn’t talk about this because some people might be offended. Obviously, you don’t want to become a shock jock, being controversial just to increase pageviews, but a little controversy can be a good thing.
It brushes the dust off your content, and people become more tuned in. In fact, when you break away from traditional norms and just be yourself, people can better relate. We’re not all constantly prim and proper, and we sure don’t enjoy reading the same boring content over and over again. Don’t be afraid to give your blog posts a little “kick” which could also lead to a kick in new or more active readers.
Photo credit: Cheryl Colan
