in

Love ItLove It WINWIN

How to Make People Read Your Articles

Have you ever wondered how successful authors, bloggers, and other content creators would get hundreds or even thousands  of views on each of their posts? Or sell thousands of copies of their e-books, some at even very high price?

What are their secrets? Read on and find out how.

#1 Give What the Fish Wants

I borrowed that phrase from Jomar Hilario's book Virtual Careers. If you are the fish, which bait would you get attracted to? A worm or a smartphone? I borrowed that phrase from Jomar Hilario's book Virtual Careers. If you are the fish, which bait would you get attracteyd to? A worm or a smartphone?

Those who do pole fishing are experts on this concept. They use specific bait for each type of fish in the water they are in. They still might catch a different type of fish, but using the right bait, will give them a higher chance of catching the right fish.

Simply, "give what the fish wants", means give what your readers / audience wants. What do they want to read? How would you know what they want to read?

How would you know what they want? Start with what interests you first. Chances are there are thousands of the 2 billion internet users out there who have the same interest as you. If you love the Game of Thrones, write a review after each episode. If you love to read books, same thing. If you are a photographer upload your photos, write some photography tips and tutorials. You can even write about parenting.

At first, it may take some time to find out what attracts your audience, but on a site like Virily, you can explore the categories and topics that you are interested in, and find out what the others are interested also.

Of course you don't need to stick to just one or two.

 

 

submitted by

#2 Use Intriguing title

Do you know how newspapers attracts their readers? Yes you got it, they often use engaging titles. Titles that would often trigger emotions, or that would tickle the curiosity of your readers.

Engaging titles are titles that have interesting adjectives, numbers (for contents with list), or trigger words like what, why, how and when.

I do admit I sometimes fail on this department. Sometimes I simply use a noun or a couple of nouns as the title of my posts. Result? I get less view.

Take a look at your previous works, take note of the titles of those that got the most views and compare them to the those got the least. Chances are those that got the most views have more engaging titles.

submitted by

#3 Start with some teasers

Most often, your first paragraph or a part of it will be shown on the preview.  If you want to engage your readers into reading your whole post (and get the view count), don't put the main point of your post in the first paragraph. Instead, think of a teasing introduction that would entice them to read the whole post and not just the excerpt. Or you may start with questions that your post would answer.

submitted by

#4 Use related and intriguing (or funny) image

Images would always attract more attention than plain text. Thus using related image would help catch the attention of your audience.

These are my 4 tips, based on what I have observed and experienced. Do you have some more tips? Feel free to add some. That's why I made this an open list.

Thanks.

submitted by

Add your submission

Image Text Embed

This field is required

Drop Images Here

or

You don't have javascript enabled. Media upload is not possible.

Get image from URL

Maximum upload file size: 8 MB.

Processing...

This field is required

e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwoKkq685Hk

Some of the supported services:

Processing...

Report

What do you think?

30 Points

Written by artbytes26

I'm a self-taught photographer and artist, hobbyist, nature lover, photo editor. and a self trained web designer and developer.

41 Comments

  1. Great advice here. BTW, do you know what that headline means, in the newspaper article sample you show? The one that reads: “Das ander Cevient der Schweiz.” I couldnt find the word “Cevient” on Google. “The other —— of Switzerland” . I am intrigued now!

  2. Lots of good points here. Not only do you present the concept, but you followed them in building out your blog as well. You’ve got a great concept to push out here. Now, I am curious what you think would be the value for a Virily user, versus a WordPress user and so on.

    • Well, for one, I realized (and was amazed) that Virily is running on WordPress. Though I haven’t verified it yet, since I have been using my android tablet most of the time. But if indeed Virily is running on WordPress, WordPress users and developers could learn a lot from this site, or at least be motivated that they can create a site like this.

      • I forgot my password a few days back and when I couldn’t log in, I had to request one, I guess. or something like this. Maybe, I might be have auto logged out, I don’t remember. But when I wasn’t allowed to log in, I got the familiar log in screen. And that’s when I found out that Virily indeed runs on WordPress.

        • I see. I realized Virily is on WordPress when on one occasion I encountered an due to a sluggish internet connection and I saw a familiar folde structure that starts with ” WP-“. I think I was supposed to be redirected but failed. 🙂

  3. To some professional bloggers, headlines or titles are one of the big factors that encourage readers to view their articles, yet in the case of Virily, a catchy picture is a big plus, since Virily is a blogging platform with inviting homepage where you can see lots of ostentatious photos and pictures all combined to enthrall the reader to open lots of articles…You did great for your blog…I truly agree…Excellent job 🙂

    • Indeed, Virily is a blogging platform. In fact, (correct me if I’m wrong), Virily is running on a WordPress platform. And yes, a good title matched with an eye catching image would increase the chances of your post being read.

      Thanks.

  4. Good points here. I am terrible at titles, as for the content, I just take people on my photographic walks, so I don’t know how much applies to me. I try to pick out a catchy title, then just end up talking.. or typing what I felt at that moment or some interesting facts.

    • I understand. Thinking of a catchy title is sometimes tricky, specially on photos. But I think Oscarp has mastered that department
      While I was in Redgage, Soulosphere has always a creative title for each of her photo.
      Maybe in time you (and I) would improve in creating catchy titles.

      🙂