When you run a blog, the best part is seeing its engagement soar. Increasing user engagement tells you that your content speaks to your target audience and gives them what they want. It’s an easy way to generate leads, build an email list, increase sales, and much more.

But what if you struggle to improve your blog engagement?

If you fail to refine your content marketing strategy, your blog’s engagement rates will suffer. A staggering 81 percent of business owners put content at the center of their marketing strategies. So if you fail to do the same, you put your brand way behind its competitors.

If you want to improve your blog’s engagement and see your conversions soar, here are three ways to get started.

Post Consistently

Think about your competitors. Do you think they publish content once a week or once in a while without a schedule? Of course not. The most successful blogs use calculated moves to improve their visibility in search engines and boost page views.

When you have a blog, you need to publish consistently so your target readers find your content and have tons to learn. If people visit your blog and see that you only post once in a while, they won’t feel like it’s worth investing in.

A recent survey shows that bloggers who publish content daily are likelier to report better results than bloggers who post a few times per month. It’s easier to grow your readership, position yourself as an expert, and increase conversions if you don’t consistently cater to your audience.

It’s easier to publish on a consistent basis if you create a content calendar. It puts everything in one place so it’s easy to see what gets published when. It also prevents you from posting similar topics too close to each other and repeating content.

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Publish Relevant Content

How well do you know what your readers want from your blog? If you aren’t quite sure, then that’s a primary reason why you don’t see the engagement rates you want.

To publish relevant blog content, you need to know your audience and know them well. When you take the time to provide solutions to their problems or help them understand a process, they’ll want to return to your site.

If you already have blog readers, start there. Dive into your website analytics and figure out where they spend the most and least time. Blog posts they spend a lot of time on tell you what subjects they’re interested in and need the most help with.

Notice where they bounce from your website as well. See if you can point out any recurring patterns, such as a certain topic they avoid. This tells you they aren’t interested in that category and you should move away from it.

Spy on your competitors’ blog and see what content brings them the most positive and negative attention. What posts do users engage with the most? What questions do they ask in the comments? What other problems do they have?

When you have enough information, you can turn it into buyer personas. These are customer profiles that help brands and blogs pinpoint their target market and create relevant, valuable content.

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Don’t forget to search social media platforms to see what your target audience is saying. What questions do they keep asking? What problems are they trying to solve? With more than three billion users on social media worldwide, you’re sure to find users who openly share what they’re looking for.

Optimize Headlines

A blog post headline is the first thing users see and determines whether or not they’ll click through to read more. If it doesn’t match what your audience is looking for, they won’t bother engaging further.

When creating headlines, make sure not to overpromise and underdeliver. The worst thing you can do is promise significant results only for customers to say your advice didn’t get them there. Craft headlines that are realistic and help the user find a simple solution.

To craft optimized headlines for your blog posts, you can:

  • Incorporate negative keywords. It might sound counterintuitive, but headlines with negative terms like “never” and “worst” perform 30 percent better than regular headlines.
  • Stay on top of industry trends. People flock to the most updated, relevant information, especially when they’re time-sensitive. Your blog can get noticed if it brings enough attention to the current happenings in your industry and talks about it first.
  • Use a headline analyzer. Headline analyzers analyze your headlines to ensure search engines favor them, they have the appropriate word count, etc.
  • Perform keyword research. For any blog owner, it’s a must to perform keyword research so you know what your audience is looking for online. This gives you endless headlines to use so you can improve user engagement.

Your Turn

Improving your blog engagement doesn’t have to be difficult. Though it may be challenging to get going at first, with these tips, it’ll be easier to reach your target market and give them content they can’t get enough of. How will you improve your blog’s engagement this year?