THE ART OF CRAFTING ENGAGING CONTENT
Nowadays, you will see both businesses and marketers trying their best to come up with engaging content. This is so because engaging content helps in grabbing the attention of maximum users. This further helps the brand stand out tall in the required market.
Obviously, in order to create engaging, marketers or businesses will ask their writers. But let us tell you (the writer) one thing, writing engaging content is not everyone’s cup of tea, it requires following the right strategies that this article will cover.
How Writers Can Craft Engaging Content – Useful Tips & Strategies
Below are some useful tips or strategies that aspiring writers can follow to come up with engaging content.
1. Understand The Audience
You can count this either as a tip or strategy, but let us tell you, its importance will remain the same for creating engaging content. To create compelling content, you (the writer) first have to understand the targeted audience.
Understanding the audience will involve getting yourself familiar with the following things.
- Who your audience is whether they are male, female, or kids.
- What profession do they belong to?
- What are quality standards and pain points?
- What kind of issues they are facing and how your content can help them?
When you have an understanding of all the things listed above. You will be most likely to end up creating content that will grab the attention of the audience – which is the primary goal of engaging content.
Now the question here is how you efficiently understand the audience. For this, you have to perform surveys or interviews (either physical or online) in the required market or niche. Apart from this, you can also analyze existing competitors to get an idea of what kind of content you need to create.
2. Perform In-Depth Research
As a writer, you also need to perform in-depth research about the topic on which you are planning to create engaging content. This is an effective strategy. Because research will provide you with the opportunity to get familiar with the latest and updated information that you can include in the content.
Besides this, performing research will also allow the writer to determine what and how others have covered the topic. Determining this will give an idea of what kind of information
Do you know? Readers mostly find content engaging and feel attached to it when it provides them with new or most recent information that they haven’t read before.
There are multiple tips that you can consider following to efficiently perform research. For instance, it is recommended to explore different sources to find information. And make sure to only refer to credible and authoritative sources, so that you cannot come across inaccurate data.
When you have performed thorough research about a particular topic. There is a strong chance it will be written in such a way that it will engage the maximum audience.
3. Always Start With A Hook
You may be familiar with a famous saying which is that “First impression is the last impression.” No matter how efficiently you understood the targeted audience and performed research about the topic, if you fail to hook up the reader at the start, there is a strong chance that they will move on to another content.
This is why it is considered an effective strategy to always start with your content with a hook. You should start with your introductory line or paragraph compellingly. But if you do not want to start compellingly, then you can also consider making users curious about what you have covered in the content.
Additionally, you can start with a statistic about the topic. This will leave a good impression on the reader. To provide you with a better idea about how an aspiring writer can start with a hook, read the example below.
Let’s say your topic is about “Global E-commerce Market Evolution in the Upcoming Years.” Then you can consider starting it like the one below.
“Do you know? By the year 2027, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach $8 trillion which is more than the GDP of Japan & India combined.”
When your content starts with a hook as shown in the example, it will be mostly likely to engage the readers for a prolonged period of time. And this is exactly the goal of engaging content.
4. Make Use Of Persuasive Or Powerful Words
This is obvious, to craft engaging content, you need to make use of persuasive or powerful words instead of boring ones. This will not only keep the readers interested in your content but also give a feel that it is written by a professional writer, resulting in an improved reputation.
Let us explain how you can make use of persuasive words. For instance, if you are planning to write the word “Good,” then you should write “Exceptional.” With this approach, you can make your content appealing to read for others.
However, it is important to note that you need to have a strong grip on vocabulary so that you can quickly and efficiently use compelling words. Apart from this, it also requires a lot of time and effort.
But what if you lack either a strong vocabulary or time? In this case, there is no need to worry, because online paraphrasing tools are here to help you. There are several paraphrasing tools available on the internet such as Paraphraseonline.io, Wordtune.com, and Paraphrasing.io that can quickly make the given content engaging without changing its original meaning.
To provide you with a better, I have paraphrased a piece of content with one of the tools mentioned above. The output I got can be seen in the image below:
So, the paraphrase tool has made the given content engaging by replacing words and phrases with their more appropriate synonyms. This is how you (the writer) can quickly make the written content persuasive.
5. Try To Keep Content Simple And Short
No matter how compelling words you have used in the content, if the readers do not understand them, your all efforts will be in vain. This is why it is considered an effective strategy to keep the content simple and short to craft engaging content.
In order to keep the content simple, you should avoid writing unique or too professional terminologies (words & phrases). Although, as a writer, using unique/professional words and phrases can show off your writing abilities, let us tell you, these can be effective in the long run.
That’s why, it would be good if you write words that are commonly known to average readers. Besides making content simple, you should also keep it short and concise, so that readers do not have to spend time reading it and understand your message. To keep content short, you have to avoid using unnecessary words and stick to your main topic.
6. Follow The Right Format
Following the right is a useful tip that can greatly help you in crafting engaging content. A content format helps the audience or readers to quickly find the required information without spending much time and effort.
On the other hand, if your content does not follow a good format, then no matter how well- written it is, the audience will not take an interest in it. So, it is necessary to follow the right format. For this, the aspiring writer can consider following the tips listed below:
- Write short sentences and paragraphs.
- Use bullet or numberings.
- Add tables & visuals to the content.
With this approach, you can efficiently your written content and make it appealing yet simple to read for the readers.
Final Thoughts
Grabbing the attention of the audience is the main goal of every content marketer and online business nowadays. Due to this, they ask writing to create engaging content for them. In this article, we have discussed some effective tips and strategies that you can follow in order to come up with compelling content.