Be honest.
When you think about dessert, what gets you more excited? A single scoop of plain vanilla ice cream, or the mountain of deliciousness known as an ice cream sundae.
A scoop of vanilla is OK, but it’s totally one-dimensional. After a few bites it gets monotonous and boring.
An ice cream sundae on the other hand is exciting, offering the palate an ever-changing symphony of flavors and textures.
The generous scoops of sweet ice cream, the fresh chunks of juicy fruit, the drizzle of silky chocolate syrup, the fluffy whipped cream topping, the generous sprinkling of crunchy chopped nuts, and don’t forget the cherry on top. Absolutely delightful! And good to the very last spoonful.
Now think about your author blog.
Is it a single scoop of boring vanilla ice cream or is it a taste adventure for your readers like a delectable multi-dimensional ice cream sundae?
In the world of self-publishing, your blog is your calling card and your greatest ally in your quest to connect with and build and audience. It works to attract and convert prospects into raving fans and paying customers over time.
To hold a prospect’s attention long enough to turn them into a fan and customer, your blog must be as “sticky” as possible.
The best way to achieve this is by making your blog more dynamic and interesting for your audience. It’s about turning a forgettable scoop of plain vanilla into a heaping serving of excitement that keeps them coming back for more.
If your blog is looking more vanilla than ever, here are some tips to turn it into a sweet, creamy, crunchy and delicious helping of awesomeness with a few simple steps.
- Use Images and Visual Aids Generously
Blogging is about communicating ideas through text and writing, but when it comes to making your blog more dynamic and interesting for your readers a picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Apart from breaking up large chunks of text and making your blog more visually appealing, images, graphics and other visual aids open up an entire new way for your readers to consume your content and get information about you and your brand. Images have the ability to tell a story and stir emotions in a way that words never will.
A carefully selected image relates powerful feelings and drives home a point in an already well-developed blog post. Images also help to drive more social media engagement by offering opportunities to share and pin interesting and highly relevant images.
Infographics deliver massive impact and work to communicate tons of information and value quickly and in a concise package.
GIFs, or Graphic Interchange Formats, which are short loops taken from longer videos, are a great way to add a punch of humor and more dimension to your blog posts.
If you’ve never thought about creating custom illustrations for your blog this is another great avenue to explore.
Having your own custom illustrations can make your blog stand out and be more interesting to your visitors because it offers a glimpse into your unique personality and helps you to connect and communicate in a creative way.
- Don’t Forget Video
While the last thing you may think of as a writer is producing video, it’s a great way to make a static blog more dynamic. Video increases blog stickiness and makes your blog even more consumable for a wider audience.
The way online consumers gather information has changed completely. Video is now the most consumed format of content on the internet and the trend shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
Consider the age of the dinosaur known as the banner ad. When is the last time you paid attention to one of those?
On the other hand, it’s very likely that you’ve watched at least one online video in the past 24 hours on your phone, laptop or tablet.
There’s really no way around it. If you aren’t using video, you are definitely missing out on adding more interest to your blog.
And if making videos sounds tedious, know that it doesn’t have to be.
It can be as simple as writing a blog post as you usually do and taking the major points out to create a PowerPoint presentation. Next, you can go through the PowerPoint using screen capture software and do voiceover as you progress through the slides.
Once you create your videos you can host them on YouTube and optimize the video descriptions so they will get found in the search engines by prospects looking for information on your blog topic.
- Offer User Opinion Polls
A simple and unique way to make your website more interesting, dynamic and interactive is by integrating user opinion polls.
Who doesn’t love having their opinion count? Especially on topics they are passionate about.
Get your blog visitors involved and find out what makes them tick by integrating opinion polls on prominent pages throughout your blog.
Along with making your readers feel like they are a part of a community and that you care about what they think, well-design user opinion polls can give you tremendous insight into which topics are most important to your audience. You can then use that as a guide for developing future content.
Updating your poll questions on a regular basis gives highly opinionated blog readers a reason to check back often for yet another opportunity to share their thoughts on a topic.
- Use Plenty of White Space
It may seem just a little bit too elementary to be effective, but the simple exercise of making sure that your blog pages have plenty of white space can give a big boost to how interesting readers think your content is.
Nothing puts a stop to a prospect wanting to explore your blog like running into a solid wall of text.
Blog posts that feature plenty of white space break up the text and images on a page making it much easier to read, enjoy and stay engaged.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter how valuable and entertaining your content is if no one can read it without getting overwhelmed and turned off by the way it is presented.
A generous use of white space keeps your reader reading and scrolling through your blog posts all the way to the end, while keeping them more focused and interested in what you have to say.
- Use Short Snappy Sentences
They say the job of a first sentence is to get your reader to read the second sentence. And the job of the second sentence is to get your reader to read the third, and so on.
Proper formatting is your friend as you strive to make your blog more dynamic and interesting. The length (or rather brevity) of your sentences can do a lot to make your blog posts more interesting and easy to read and consume.
As a writer, it’s very tempting to want to weave a complex tapestry with your words. You may find yourself stringing together sentences as long an undulating as a river. But want to keep your blog readers awake all the way through to your last sentence? Then keep the sentences as short and snappy as possible.
Making your blog more dynamic and interesting isn’t rocket science.
It’s a matter of offering content that can be consumed in several different formats, making it sparkle with your unique personality and presenting it in a way that makes it easier for readers to receive and extract maximum value.
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