On any given day, I wake up to an inbox overflowing with emails that come my way as a result of having subscriptions to 60 or so blogs.
Am I crazy? Have I lost my marbles?
No!
The reason is simple. I am a writer, and a blogger – and I am forever looking for quality writing on the internet. Writing that inspires me, or makes me laugh. Something that makes me stop reading for a minute, and sigh with pure bliss, something that actually gets up and walking around, so that I can savour my Aha moment.
This, to me, makes great content.
Something that makes me wanna read every single word – although I’d much rather prefer scanning. Remember the remaining 59 emails that need attending to?
Most people know instantly if something is indeed worthy of being called great content, yet they are hard pressed to define it.
Ask them if they are producing quality writing and they’d start scratching their heads.
Ask them to define quality content and you would lose them so fast you’d never know if they were even there in the first place.
Ask me and I will launch into a lengthy explanation…
You Had Me at Hello
‘You can’t ignore me’, shouts the first line of a well written piece. It’s something that will drag you in, even if you had about 30 seconds on you, before you log off and feed your kids.
It starts with something that entices you, it makes you curious. It pulls you in.
Sometimes a post could be slow to start and builds up, but on the ever changing world of the internet where everything has a shelf life of 12 hours or less, it’s never okay to take this chance.
Sure you can get a little lazy in the middle, or your ending might not put Harry Potters’ to shame but still you have managed to have the reader hang on enough to find out more. That is a job well done.
Don’t make it too long or risk losing your readers. Their attention spans can be worse than that of your two year old.
Once Upon a Time, in a Land Far Far Away ….
You will notice talented bloggers always start their pieces with a personal story or anecdote of some sort. This serves two purposes.
- It gets the readers’ attention.
- It makes them relate and stay long to find out more.
Creating a sense of connection with your readers is crucial to writing a brilliant post.
It might be that your readers have been there, or they know of somebody who has. It could be that they are sitting there nodding their head or that their faces are scrunched up in thought, wondering if the scenario could indeed come true.
Either way, your readers connect with you. They want to know more. They want to find out what happened and how your story will end. They want to keep reading.
You need to open up and share the back story to your post. You need to show everybody shades of your personality. If your reader catches glimpses of you – the writer – they are more likely to remember your post.
Make your posts lively, interesting and memorable and your reader won’t ever have enough of you.
Did It Take You All of 10 Minutes to Write That Post?
The great post is not all about the colour and the charm. Most of all, it must offer highly useful, well researched, well organized content.
But refrain from writing list posts that look like they have been churned out and spit out by a machine.
- 7 tricks to writing fantastic posts
- 6 ways you can get readers to read each post of yours
- Are you working in 8 steps to write killer content?
Sure these titles are good enough to arouse anyone’s curiosity. Heck, I have been guilty of looking myself – couldn’t resist. However, I never seem to remember a single word after 20 minutes of reading them, especially IF the post was written by putting together some information that is easily available everywhere, and has been shared for a gazillion times already.
Do a fresh take on the information please. Make it your own.
I am bound to read and remember if you have shared a story, explained why the list is important, and given me information with a unique perspective.
Otherwise I can see that it has probably taken you less than ten minutes to finish the job.
And That Brings Us to The End
Don’t leave your readers in a lurch.
Ask them their thoughts on your piece, invite questions, tell them to praise or belittle … in short, you need a call to action.
But most of all go back to your story and finish it.
Like, is this one of the posts in your inbox that is gonna be read today?
Would this make you think … heyy, what do you know, this girl might be right?
Or do you think ..what a piece of rubbish.. I can’t believe I spent 7 minutes reading all of that.
Either way, if you are up to here, then I have accomplished what I set out to do – have my readers finish from A to Z.
Maybe you could add to this question? What does, indeed, make great content?
image: spoony mushroom
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About Marya Jan
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