How To Keep Your Reader Interested In The Content Of Your Articles

Good article writers aim to create content that has legs – that is, attract readers far into the future. Having invested time and energy in writing an article that’s interesting enough to keep your readers reading to the end, you also hope that people will read it long after you’ve written it. This article shows how you can produce interesting material that draws in your target audience, holds to them to end of the article, and draws in readers for months and years to come.
To begin with, we’ll assume that you’ve spent the necessary time researching the key themes and questions that matter to your niche. From your research you’ll have compiled a list of themes and topics from which you can produce a range of articles. The more thorough your research, the more in tune you’ll be to the mind-set and expectations of your target audience.
Within these core themes, there will be topics which are “talk of the day” i.e. current ideas and theories that everyone is talking about. Writing on these themes will certainly draw in immediate interest and is good to bring in new readers into your community as they go on to visit your website, blog site, or anywhere else you want to drive them to. This instant interest is useful if you have products and services that you want to promote at the time.
However, as an article writer, you want to be sure that the time and effort that you’ve put into writing your piece has an impact for as long a period as possible. This means you’ll need to also include perennial topics to which people want answers. Knowing what topics enjoy a universal and continuous interest, you can be assured that a good article will generate page hits and traffic to your destination sites for years to come.
So for example, if you were writing articles to do with parenting, you’ll know that inexperienced parents will always be concerned with the following issues: night-time sleeping; bed-wetting; weaning; toddler tantrums; sibling rivalry, and so on. These topics are of deep interest to parents who are going through that particular stage of parenting and the internet now provides a key source of information and support.
Once they have passed this stage, these parents will seek answers to new issues and concerns but as they move on, another generation of parents arrive, eager to find help and guidance as they go through the experience in their own turn. So while it’s valuable to write pieces which touch on the latest research and thinking on parenting & child development, strengthen your portfolio with articles with long-term interest. Your archives will have relevancy and interest to your community for years to come.
Having thought about what you’re going to write, use headlines and strong opening paragraphs to draw in your readers. Don’t over- complicate your article titles – follow the “does what it sense on the tin” approach. Make it easy for them to see what the articles is going to be about – with so much information competing for their attention, readers need to quickly judge whether your piece is going to be worth their time.
If it’s the right topic and area, then they will move on to the summary for more information. Your summary shouldn’t be overlong and should clearly outline the article’s intentions. If the summary indicates your piece is going to provide your potential reader with the information that they’re looking for, they’ll click through to read the rest of it. If they find that you’re not delivering on the summary promise, they’ll stop reading. So make sure that your summary is an accurate reflection of what the article is about.
For the body of the work, aim for a clear, clean and direct approach, especially if writing on a technical or instructional topic. Avoid writing over-lengthy articles and aim for something between 500-900 words. Accessible articles are successful articles – keep in mind the concentration span of your reader who might be pressed for time or facing other distractions.
If you’re comfortable with mind-mapping then you can mind-map the progression of your article, otherwise use bullet points to arrange the order of your key points. Re-arrange and re-adjust your order until you’re comfortable with the flow. At this stage, write a draft conclusion which ties up the themes you’ve covered. Refer back to your summary and see whether your conclusion and summary are compatible and logical.
When you’re comfortable with your framework, you can extend the bullet points/mind-maps into paragraphs. Shorter sentences are easier to read which encourages the reader to continue to the end. Brevity, simplicity and then delivery are your core objectives. If you have too many ideas and points you want to cover, consider breaking the article down into two or more articles instead.
In conclusion, a mixture of enduring and topical themed articles can drive traffic to your destination sites over a long period of time, and build your reputation within your niche. Unambiguous and highly relevant titles combined with explicit summaries will encourage your potential reader to read your content. Aim to deliver on focus and value (not verbosity) and your article is likely to be read to the end and even shared with others.