1. Include visuals
Try to include visuals in your blogs because it attracts more readers. You can use eye-catching images, screenshots or photographs that match your post topics. Giving your post a featured image will get people's attention more than any title you come up with. Don't forget infograhics – readers like bright informative posts with visual elements. It's rather simple to create infographics with numerous online tools.2. Know your target audience
You need to know who reads your blog to get more of the same type of people you read it. This is called your target audience. Chances are the more readers you have the more engagement you will get. If you know what people want to read, you can create content that will keep readers interested. If you are not sure what will keep your readers interested you can use survey tools like Qeryz.You can also ask your audience what they want to read about next. Readers can comment on your post to let you know. This tactic will automatically help with increased engagement.
3. Get a good comment system
In order to get comments and engagement you need an effective comment system. To find the best comment system compare your blog to others in your niche, especially the ones that get a lot of comments. Using the same system as other blogs like yours will make it easy for those readers to engage through a system they already know. You can also look at blogs with little or no comments and make sure you do not use that system.4. Ask for engagement
Ask your readers for engagement by showing your interest in their thoughts and experiences. Or encourage them to ask any questions they might have. Techniques like this will peak their interests and get them communicating with you. Once they do, be sure to respond to their questions and comments to keep the interaction going. When you start engaging with your audience on a frequent basis, they will be more likely to return to your blog more often for future updates.5. Guest writers
Get guest authors to create content for your blogs now and again. It's rather difficult task to find and hire good content writer, but collaboration with guest writers will definitely save you a lot of time and money. This will attract more readers than just having your own posts. You can benefit greatly from someone who has already made a bigger success of themselves by networking with them and asking them to do a guest post for you. This keep your blog content unique and different.6. Promote your content
Once your blog’s engagement has been improved you need to do that little extra to get it out to the world. Using promotion platforms makes this very easy. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter all offer promotional deals for your posts that will get it noticed by many people of the network. Create engaging content, you need to get it out there to make sure it receives the attention you seek.7. Email lists
Ask them questions about your blog and ask them for feedback in order for you to improve your blog. Use the subject line to intrigue subscribers and provide a body to the email that encourage subscribers to engage and communicate by clicking on links, visiting your website or social media accounts to leave comments.8. Social media
Sharing your blog posts on social media is a very effective way of increasing your reader engagement because these platforms were made to socialize on. The best way to do this is to create a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or YouTube page to share your blogs from your website. Having a Facebook page for example is a good way to increase traffic to your website. You can even add a ‘Call to action’ button to your blog’s Facebook page that can link readers directly to your subscriptions page on your website.9. Effective titles
There are many ways to make a headline that get your reader’s eye. A title must make you want to read more. This is especially true when sharing on social media, because the title will be all you see. Titles that get clicked on the most often starts with ‘How to’ or ‘Top tips to’. Others can start with questions. Remember to catch the gist of your article in the headline so focus on including the main keywords. Also make sure that your title delivers what it promises to the reader. If not, you might actually be deterring readers.10. Post length
Another aspect that determines engagement is the length of the content. If the article is too long no one will read it in entirety and thus will also not interact with it. So keep posts down to a few paragraphs and use short sentences too.
infographic source: expresswriters.
So many aspects can be taken into account when it comes to reader engagement. It really depends on what type of blog it is for and who the target audiences are. Teenagers will find reading material online in a much different way that an elderly lade. So keep in mind that you will need to experiment a bit until you find a combination of the above that works for you.
Linda Willson is a freelancer writer and researcher. She specializes on social media promotions, blogging tips and marketing strategies. You can catch Linda on Google+.
