How do I get eyes on my blog?

At its most simple, blogging is creating content that an audience can engage with. If you think of it that way, it’s no different to a news site, a YouTube channel or even an X post. Each of them is simply a platform for your content. The difficulty with sharing a blog, rather than a post, or a YouTube video, is that blogs tend to be made up of long form articles, which do less well on social media.

When was the last time you read a 500-word Facebook post?

Exactly!

Social media naturally lends itself to short, sharp ideas so a lengthy essay will get skimmed over.

Developing content you can use again and again

The solution is to create blogs made up of a number of different, smaller ideas, which can then be re-purposed for sharing on social media. The aim here is to take something from the article that’s eye-catching and snappy, to immediately draw readers in.

So, construct your blog post out of 5 or 6 key concepts, which you can use for a variety of different social media posts. That way you can share the same article multiple times, with each post distinct and attracting different people, all interested in different aspects of the same theme.

Eye-catching headlines

The headline is the obvious first thing that the user will see. It needs to be something that speaks directly to the audience to immediately grab their attention. It should be descriptive and clear, so the audience knows what they’re reading, and also short and attractive enough that people are encouraged to click on it in social media. On average five times as many people will read the headline of an article, than the body of text.

If you don’t have an attractive headline, there’s a strong chance nobody will be interested in reading the rest of the article. Use emotive language to describe the reasons a potential reader should come to you. Promises are also effective. There’s a reason clickbait articles frequently make audacious claims such as ‘this product will change your life!’. Of course it’s an exaggeration, and the audience knows that, but it gets their attention.

Images

Whenever you share the link to your post, the feature image will usually be included. So choose an image that’s the right size (your blogging platform will tell you) and is relevant to your article. A link with no image is significantly less likely to attract clicks.

The same image can be used as the image for your social media post but make sure you resize it for each platform.

Meta descriptions

The opening paragraph is the one which is going to end up showing up on social media and it’s vital that it conveys the right message. But there’s a cheat here – called the Meta description. If you define this, that’s what LinkedIn and other social media will show.

If you’re using a WordPress blog, there’s a plug-in that makes this really easy – called Yoast. I use it and it gives me lots of handy hints and tips to improve the visibility of my posts. Plus, it lets me set the Meta description. Handy stuff.

Make sure your Meta description summarises the most attractive aspects of your article (spend time on this – otherwise you might as well just leave the opening paragraph to do the work). Think about your audience, what they’re most interested in and what will get them to read on.

The hooks for future sharing

Your article’s key lines (described in the previous article) should give you the hooks for social media. Is it possible for you to turn each point into an intriguing rhetorical question for Facebook or X for example? Questions are a good method for attracting clicks and encouraging your audience to engage.

And don’t forget, keep your social media posts short and to the point. Give your blog the best chance of being shared as far as possible.

Happy re-sharing!

If writing just isn’t your thing but you’d still like to have a blog, we’ve got you covered. Our team of talented blog writers can create and implement regular and impactful content for you that speaks directly to your target audience – get in touch to find out more about our regular blogging services.