How to Write Fun + Engaging Blog Posts that Your Readers Will Love

If you’re struggling to get genuine engagement and shares on your blog posts, I got your back! In this article, I’m going to teach you how to write engaging blog posts that your readers will LOVE.

When they love your stuff, they’ll share your stuff. And more shares equal more blog traffic. Yay!

 

WHY BLOG ENGAGEMENT MATTERS

 

We all want more eyes on our blogs. Blog growth can mean more impact and more income for our business. And when people engage with your blog, it tells search engines that you are AWESOME and that more people should see your blog.

Keep in mind, we’re talking about GENIUNE engagement here.

Search engines are smart (Google, Pinterest, all of them) and they can tell where your traffic is coming from and why people are engaging with your blog. Asking your mama to comment on every blog post isn’t going to do much good in the long run.

We want DIE-HARD fans!

People that continuously read our stuff, love our stuff, and share our stuff online. People that genuinely benefit from what we’re sharing on our blogs.

This is why we have to learn how to write engaging blog posts.

And here’s how!

HOW TO WRITE ENGAGING BLOG POSTS

First and foremost, you have to know WHO your audience is and WHAT they want to see from you.

And you don’t have to get crazy-deep into this right now, because your audience and their needs will get clearer as you start writing content and getting feedback on that content.

For now, it’s just important to think about WHY people come to blogs and WHY your kind of people will want to come to your blog.

So, here’s rule # 1 for writing awesome content that people will want to engage with.

1. REMEMBER WHY PEOPLE COME TO BLOGS

 

People are searching online for information, inspiration, and entertainment.

Think about it: things usually go viral because they are mind-blowing or hilarious or motivating.

This is because we are all searching online for something, and when that ‘something’ hits us at the right moment, we all go crazy and share it with the world.

We don’t need to ‘go viral’ to be successful, but we do need to understand how people think and act online if we want to write engaging blog posts.

Figure out who your ideal readers are and what they’re searching for online. This will help you decide what kind of content you should be writing!

Some ideas for questions you can ask yourself:

 

– Are my potential readers busy moms that can only consume small bits of information at a time (shorter blog posts, broken up into clear sections)?

– Are my potential readers well-educated business people that want to see detailed reports and analytics (long-form content with lots of charts and images)?

– Do my potential readers want to learn something specific from me, gain inspiration from me, or enjoy something entertaining that I have to share?

– Do my potential readers like images, text, video, a mixture of all of the above?

Keep adding to this list and answering these questions thoroughly until you have a super clear picture of your ideal audience and what they want to see from your blog.

If you don’t have an audience yet, that’s okay. Think of the POTENTIAL PERSON you’d like to draw back to your blog.

And make sure you’re being helpful to them in some way.

 

2. KEEP IT RELEVANT

 

Now that we know who we’re writing for and what they want to see from us, let me reiterate the most important thing you will ever learn in your blogging career.

It is alllllll about your readers!

Always and forever. No matter what.

EVERYTHING that you publish on your blog should be helpful and relevant to your target readers.

Doesn’t matter what I think. Doesn’t matter what your mama says. And it doesn’t matter what Know-It-All Joe blabs about in that blogging Facebook group you follow.

Figure out who your ideal readers are, what they want, and write LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of content that is relevant to them.

Do they care about the latest news? Incorporate some of that info your posts, if it’s relevant. Do they care about celebrity gossip? Go ahead and name drop here and there, if it’s relevant.

For example:

 

Did I ever tell you that I met the pro-wrestler Goldberg at a McDonald’s once?!

My first celebrity sighting ever. I was a young woman, totally giddy, and asked Goldberg to take a picture with me. HE DID! I have the proof!

After the picture, I stepped down off the curb and a car almost hit me! Goldberg SERIOUSLY pulled me back up onto the curb and told me to be careful, because ‘most drivers are not paying attention.’ I melted. Then I got into my car and drove home. The end.

Now…. That’s a TRUE story, it really did happen to me! But, is it relevant or useful or interesting to YOU in any way? The person that’s here on my blog trying to learn how to write engaging content?

Not really (although you might have gotten a kick out of the story).

The point is: make sure you are sharing information/content that is relevant to your audience and where THEY are in life.

Remember who you are speaking to, and make sure you’re giving them solid takeaways every time they are on your blog – not pointless ramblings.

3. SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES

 

Experiences shape our lives, and the experiences of other people can teach us valuable things!

Yes, we want to make sure that our content is RELEVANT to our audience, but we also want to incorporate our personal experiences and stories into the mix, to remind the reader that we are REAL PEOPLE.

In an automated world, it’s a pleasant change of pace to hear from a real person that has feelings, emotions, and experiences…just like you and me.

Would one of your biggest mistakes or biggest regrets be helpful in conveying your blog post message to your audience?

What about a lesson that you learned from your parents, or a professor, or a friend?

Incorporate personal experiences and real-life stories into your posts whenever they are helpful or relevant.

Want to write engaging content? Let your readers know that you are HUMAN and you have valuable things to share with them!

4. MAKE IT A CONVERSATION

 

Reading your blog posts should feel like talking to a friend. While you are technically doing the ‘talking’, you should be creating opportunities for your reader to pause and think, to nod along, to answer a rhetorical question.

The easiest way to do this is to remember the pattern of pleasant conversation: you talk, I talk, you talk, I talk…

Example:

Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about the best travel tips for parents with small children. You might start with ‘talking to your reader’ for a sentence or two, and then following up with a point that gives them a chance to agree, disagree, or pause for thought.

Something like this: If you’re traveling to Mexico with your small children this year, I have some life-saving travel tips that are going to save your sanity. I promise! But first I need to know, have you ever traveled with your small children before?

This is where your reader gets to feel involved, answer your question, and then continue to see what you have to say.

Not every blog post needs to be formulated exactly like this. However, you should make sure your blog posts are warm and friendly, like chatting with a friend or learning something valuable from someone you trust and enjoy talking to.

5. BREAK UP THE TEXT

 

Let me say it louder for the people that are skimming this post…

BREAK. UP. THAT. BLOG. POST. TEXT.

I’m not yelling at you, I promise. I’m just saying this in loud, bold letters so my scrollers can see it!

I see you, scroller.

Most of our readers are on mobile and reading crowded text on a phone is very unpleasant. You need to use super short paragraphs and lots of white space between paragraphs, so the text doesn’t look overwhelming.

If it looks overwhelming at a glance, no one is going to engage with your blog post.

Look at this example and tell me which one is easier to read (these are mobile screenshots):

 

Yeah, the one on the right is DEFINITELY easier on the eyes, lots of short paragraphs and white space between them to break up the text.

I know these little almost-paragraphs defy the English rules we learned in school – I was an English major for half of my college career and an English tutor for years and years and years.

I get it. It’s weird and feels wrong at first.

But, we aren’t writing for our English professors or for a grade. We’re writing for our readers and for search engines.

Google wants us to break up text. Readers want us to break up text. So, break up that text babe!

 

You can do it, I promise.

Side note: did you catch how many times I specifically spoke to you, acknowledged you, or asked you to respond (like a conversation) in this section?

Yup – that’s how it done!

6. USE A LARGER FONT

 

This goes hand in hand with point number five. There’s just no way around it.

Most of our blog readers are using their mobile devices to read and engage with our stuff. If you want people to enjoy and engage with your stuff, you need to make sure they can SEE your blog posts clearly on their phone, without straining their eyes.

Here’s a great article from Mediavine on the importance of a larger blog font.

If you want the cliff-notes, here they are: Google wants you to have a larger font size in your blog posts. Make sure your blog posts have a MINIMUM text size of 16px (pixels), ideally at least 18px, or larger.

And remember, 16px is essentially 12pt (points), which is still pretty darn small.

That blog post on the right side in the example up above is 18pt font size!

Bottom line: increase that font size and do it ASAP.

 

Here is an easy tutorial that shows you how to change your font in WordPress.

 

Related Posts:

How to Turn Your Hobby Blog into a Full-Time Job

5 Easy Ways to Protect Your Blog Legally

A Daily Blogging Schedule that will Help You Make Money

 

7. MAKE SURE YOUR CONTENT IS RELATABLE

 

This might sound like a repeat of point number one, but it’s definitely not.

Being relevant and being relatable are two different things.

Creating relevant content involves knowing who your READER is and what is relevant to them and their needs. Creating relatable content involves YOU being someone that your reader can connect with.

I recently watched a standup comedian do a skit about being ‘relatable.’

She joked that her friend didn’t think she was really relatable anymore because her life had changed so much since she had done standup comedy 15 years previous. Essentially saying that once you have “made it” in show business, and you have a lot of money, your experiences are no longer relatable to the average person.

Of course, it was a joke. But there is a lesson in there too! If people can’t relate to you and connect with you, they are not going to want to engage with you.

So, don’t speak to people from a place of entitlement or superiority. Don’t speak to them as if you “made it” and you’re giving them the honor of being in your glorious blogging presence.

Always speak from a place of humility and connection!

Can your audience relate to working late hours? Talk about it. Can your audience relate to newborn babies and explosive poopy diapers? Talk about it. Can your audience relate to the struggle of trying to pull themselves out of homelessness or toxicity? TALK ABOUT IT.

We won’t be relatable to everyone under the sun, and that’s okay.

Just try to be relatable to your target audience.

8. KEEP IT LIGHTHEARTED

 

Some content just isn’t lighthearted no matter which way you spin it, and that’s something that we’ll have to accept. If we’re writing about loss or deep struggles, it’s difficult to make that seem cheerful or humorous.

However, keep this one in mind for those times that you CAN be somewhat lighthearted. And be sure to intentionally search for opportunities to be lighthearted. It will help your readers to lighten up too.

There are always some unpleasant events and circumstances happening in the world, in the news, on the internet. All around us. If we want our audience to read our blogs, we cannot be knowingly adding to their stresses.

We should be refreshing our readers!

So, do your best to have a cheerful tone and an optimistic attitude in your writing, whenever possible. It will come across for your readers, and they’ll remember.

Once upon a time, I read a blog post from a woman who wrote about her mental health. The post was very honest and open, which is always a good thing. But it was also incredibly negative and discouraging.

I felt depressed after reading it. And I definitely didn’t get anything out of it that made my day BETTER. If nothing else, it made my day worse.

There is an exception to the rule, though.

If your blog is a personal journal and you just use it to share your thoughts with the world, then ignore these tips completely. Blog on!

But, if you’re trying to write ENGAGING content that your readers will love and share with others, you need to remember that your words do affect the people reading them.

What thoughts and feelings do we want to leave in their minds and hearts when they leave our blog?

Something to think about.

9. DON’T RAMBLE: STAY FOCUSED

 

Pretty self-explanatory, but let’s ramble about it for a moment, shall we?

All of your blog posts should have an end GOAL.

Remember what I said under tip number two in this article: it’s alllll about your readers.

They are here for a reason, and we need to lead them from Point A to Point B seamlessly. No rambling, unless this is a quirky part of your branding that your readers will fully understand and enjoy.

Your thoughts should flow from one to the next, and your reader should reach the end of your post saying, ‘that totally makes sense.’ Not, ‘what the heck did I just read?!’

How do we do this?

Start with an outline. Before writing your blog post, think about the end GOAL and jot down main points.

Let’s say your end goal is to help your readers save money on groceries. Awesome.

How many tips are you going to offer in the blog post? Let’s go with five. Perfect.

What thought are we going to circle back to at the end of each tip? Saving money on groceries.

Stay focused on the goal.

10. INJECT MORE PERSONALITY

 

More than likely, you need to add a little more personality and flare to your posts. We all do.

You might not know how to do this, and that’s why I’m here!

Injecting more personality just means showing off your personality, voice, quirks, and humanness a little bit more.

If you’re funny, be a little “extra” funny. Add more jokes to your post. A funny meme. A relevant GIF.

Use more anecdotes…more illustrations, more slang, more quirkiness.

Again, all of these things depend on you and your personality. You don’t want to “copy” someone else’s personality or quirks or writing style.

It just won’t work.

You have to think about your own character traits, flaws, stories, and life …. And find creative ways to inject them into your blog posts.

You want more engagement? Give people something fun and interesting to engage with!

11. ASK THEM TO ENGAGE

 

Last but not least, the most overlooked blog writing tip of them all.

Always ask your audience to give you something back at the end of your post.

This is sometimes referred to as a call-to-action (CTA). And if you did your job well, your blog reader will reach the end of your post and feel content with the time they spent on your blog… and if so, they will gladly engage or respond to a call to action.

So, if you want comments, ask them to comment. If you want shares, ask them to share!

Don’t be shy – your readers LIKE YOU and want to engage with you! Sometimes they just need a little reminder.

 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

 

I promise you, if you follow these 11 tips and really learn how to write engaging blog posts, your target audience will fall in love with you! They will engage with your posts, which will in turn, help you to grow.

Blog growth equals more impact and more income, and that is always a good thing!

A brief summary for you speedy scrollers out there:

Here’s how to write engaging blog posts that your audience will love: figure out who your target reader is and what they’re searching for online. Write content that is relevant and useful to them. Make sure it’s focused, relatable, easy to read, and full of personality! Then ask your readers to engage with your post at the end.

Boom – awesome blog post.

Be sure to pin this baby for later!

See what I did there?? Call-to-action, baby!