Jan’s Blog Writing Tip to Engage Readers
Below are before-and-after images of a tweak I made to one of Jan’s blogs at her site to make it more engaging.
For blogs like this, “story type” or “life lesson” blogs, I recommend the first paragraph be the dramatic point of the story. Then, continue into the story chronologically from start to finish.
Here’s the before image …
Remember, the more we get website visitors to read our articles, the more we bond with them – building the trust factor. And as you know when people have challenges to overcome or needs to satisfy, they will seek help from those they trust.
The tweak I made was to add a quotation in a larger font in bold to add a drama, add interest, and allude to something important later in the article.
That gets people to read more.
Here’s the after image …
You can see it at Jan’s site here.
What do you think? Like it? Got an idea to further improve? Love to hear from you.
But, how do you KNIOW your tweak actually increased engagement? I don’t see that you tracked or measured anything. You just made a visual change and have ASSUMED that it made a difference.
Tweaking things blindly–without measuring or tracking results–is waste of valuable time. You do your readers a disservice by not tracking results of your “before and after”, and encouraging them to do the same.
I agree that it’s important to track changes and results. Yes.
I disagree about the disservice comment.
These before-and-afters do a tremendous service – I’ve tracked it. 😉
Hi Kenn,
Thanks for responding! I think you misunderstand. I didn’t mean that the “before and afters” themselves were a disservice. What I said was that you do your readers a disservice by not tracking results and encouraging them to do the same (to prove the change was effective).
In other words, you’re telling them only half the story by not mentioning in your original post that you tracked the results of the change, and so can prove (by the analytics) that what you’ve said is true.
Otherwise, if you don’t mention tracking in tandem with making these changes (especially if you’ve stated that the change improved engagement) then you’re teaching your readers to make changes “blindly.”
As a busy entrepreneur, I for one know that making changes blindly would not be the best use of my time. As one of your subscribers, yes, by not mentioning the importance of tracking the results of those changes, you would have done me a disservice had I not already known about the importance of tracking the results of changes to confirm that the change does meet whatever goal has been set for making it.
I’m enjoying these before/after posts. Very helpful to get a visual of the improvements you’re making to these sites!
Yep, the advice is based solely on my experience and tracking is good move.
First get bigger numbers like visitors and list sign-ups and new client contacts.
Then get more nitty gritty once you’re bigger numbers are showing some results.
Thanks for the further detail.
I really enjoy the convo and learning.