This is a post about how to hook your blog readers in less than three sentences. Simply by reading this post after the headline, you have already shown yourself that the method I am about to describe works. I have been writing Blog material for some time now. The first blog type post I ever made was a game review for a rather old but great game I loved called Indigo Prophecy, for a web site my brother was running. While that was a long time ago, I have learned much in the interim years from then to now.Now I make a living as a writer and of course I get asked all the time what the best way to do this or write that is, by various readers, fans, and even people who just want to make fun of my latest hair cut or lack thereof. One of the most common questions I get asked is how to create a compelling article that will make people want to read it. The answer is actually a lot simpler than the question.
The best way I have found to get people to read your blog (advertising and etc. notwithstanding) due to content is just like writing a blurb for the back of a novel. You have maybe three sentences to ‘hook’ or capture the attention of your reader, before he or she will surf to another site for something of more interest. There are two basic ways I have found to get a high click-through rate on new posts. First, make sure you have a picture of some kind at the top. As a very wise man I know is always saying, “People tend to click on pictures, not on text,” so it follows that you want to have a picture that is both descriptive and compelling at the top of your post or article to grab the reader’s visual cortex and hold on for long enough to get them to read a bit. Then you have got to hook them with your words in the first couple of sentences. This is where my favorite ‘secret weapon’ method comes in to play. When putting up a new post, I will almost always place a ‘page break link’ just about midway through the second or third sentence, cutting off a half-formed thought and subconciously compelling the reader to click the ‘more’ link and get into the post proper. Now, this might seem under-handed to some people but it really isn’t, especially since I am being honest about it here. It’s just a method of getting people interested and it’s something that newspapers, magazines and other periodicals have been using for a long time, even if not in exactly the same ways as possible in a blog. The ‘trick’ is to put your page break link just after an adjective or descriptive term, which leaves the subject of that adjective as a hanging unknown in the mind of your reader and they become almost uncontrollably compelled to read further.
So, for example, you might start a blog post like this:
“I want to share with everyone what happened to me today. It was an ordinary day until I found this huge –[Click to read more]–”
See how that works? It’s a rough example, but it shows the basic idea. Don’t you have a compelling need to find out what huge thing the posting writer found? I know I do!
So there you have it. One piece of advice that could be invaluable for blogging. Now, once you have the reader in your post, it’s up to you and your content to get them to stay and finish reading. That should go without saying. I am not the right person to teach anyone how to be a writer, per se, but I can certainly tell you that if you use this method you are far more likely to get people to read your posts and not just the headline.
Leave a comment
No comments yet.
Heart Word Pages 
Leave a comment