This is an age of the attention game, and it’s more important now than ever to understand how to make your writing more engaging.
Or, exciting.
It’s all about attention. Most online businesses (social media and many apps) are monetized based on the attention they get. In other words, everything you see on the internet is asking for your time.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Content
In the past, it used to be someone behind these things — people putting effort and time into writing or shooting videos — but nowadays, artificial intelligence can do a lot in a few minutes. In fact, you can create a hundred blog posts in a week.
But how many people read twenty blog posts in a week?
Some creators think content creation is a game of numbers. Think about it: if I create more content, will that increase my chance of getting more views?
Probably.
And when I say probably, I don’t mean to say quantity doesn’t matter, but not at the expense of quality, and this is where there is some confusion.
What makes quality content?
If you want a long-form answer, you can read my post about content writing.
But the short answer is quality content is
- Useful
- Targeted
- Engaging
Useful means it solved the reader’s problem. It treats the topic it sets to address and gives insight to help the readers understand it better.
Targeted means you’re writing for the right people. This post isn’t meant for YouTubers. It is not meant for people who want to know how to make an essay interesting, though they might find it helpful. The perfect readers are bloggers and people who create written content on social media.
Engaging: This is the hardest part. How do you make your writing engaging?
Well, there are different stages; let’s break them down into three.
Invitation
Structure/Appearance
Conversation
Provided quality is constant.
How To Make Your Writing More Engaging
First, invite the readers. This happens before they click the content, and you can do that with the headline, excerpt, and image.
After the invite is the structure. How does your content look? The structure of your content should be appealing to the eyes, too. Many white spaces in your content will suggest that it’s easy to scan. Adding H2 and H3 subheadings will also make it easy for readers to see the important subtopics they want to read.
Then, here comes the hardest part, the part that must be engaging: The body of your content.
Using Conversation Style.
When people say artificial intelligence replaces writers, they unintentionally admit to a few things. One, they don’t appreciate quality writing. Two, they really don’t know what quality writing means.
There is a thought process that follows quality writing, and it will always be difficult for AI to replicate it.
Can Artificial intelligence write better than what I did in this post?
The answer is YES. I have seen the content it can create, and I was blown away.
However, there is something off. The content from AI has a tone that is persistent for most content AI creates. Some people are good at detecting content written by Artificial intelligence by merely reading it. (This depends on how you use Artificial Intelligence or the tools.)
Now, let’s see how you can make the most of your content when writing so that you can get a little slice of the scarce attention these days.
Don’t just read the tips. Practice them and see how your writing becomes more engaging
9 Writing Tips To Make Your Content More Engaging
This subheading could have been the headline, but I had to think like humans and use something that stands out. If you check the search engine result pages, you will see a variation of listicle titles.
7 Ways to make your essay interesting or 9 Ways to make your writing more engaging.
I will admit that those types work. But it’s more likely to be drowned in the sea of similar headlines if I keep writing that way and using the same formulas that were invented before robots started writing.
Here’s how to make your content more engaging even if you’re using AI.
1. Write Interesting Headlines
The rule of headlines is just two. It should make your readers stop and read the next like or check out the attached image. And secondly, it should make them click on the link.
I didn’t make that rule. Joe Sugarman did. He was a copywriter, and one of the writing best practices he shared was ‘the work on headlines is to make the readers read the next line. The work of the next line is to make the readers read the next and the next and the next.’
You can write about 10 headlines and pick one for your post.
You can take this further or use AI to rewrite a sentence many times so it reads better or is punchier. That’s how to make a sentence more interesting.
2. Use a conversational style
Imagine you’re sitting with your prospects, and you’re having a chat. What will you say?
For instance, in this post, I have used some sentences as thoughts that are likely going on in my prospect’s mind.
Let me do that again as an example:
I use AI to write our content, and the engagement is better.
That’s very good. But be best assured. People might get tired of the style.
I mean, if you read AI content consistently, it gets really boring unless you’re editing and making the content a lot more human.
More human? What does that mean?
Humans are not robots. We are influenced by a hundred and one things. The weather or the annoying waiter can influence us. Sometimes, inspiration strikes, and we can’t even tell how we did something. I’ve written some content that I have no idea where the ideas come from. Here is an example: how to become a rich writer. Many people who read that have come back to read it. Which is to say, it’s profound and interesting.
So write those kinds of content more often, and you will see engagements improving. Write content that’s inspired by something personal. Write in a way that’s relatable to your audience. You can use the language of your city or dialect if that will work.
It’s important for those who want to know how to make writing more engaging.
3. Write It Like Music or Poetry
The other time I was saying some people can tell when you’re using AI. And that’s because of rhythm or cadence.
Poets understand how this works. They structure their writing in a way that it’s music to the mind. Soft, sweet, sensational, like you’re taking a sip from a glass jar. Then, follow it with a slice of cookie.
This is hard for the average writer or average human. But it’s something professional writers know.
Good writing has a rhythm. But it’s not the same rhythm for every post or article.
Good writing has a pattern. But it’s not robotic or stoic.
That rhythm, that cadence, that music, I have been using it since the beginning of this post. But I went all in under this point.
Did you notice? I bet you do if you can slow down and read point 3 again.
Want to know how to make writing more engaging?
Make your writing music for the mind. Don’t rush it.
You need to practice this many times if you want to learn how to write an interesting article.
You can start by doing copywork.
4. Use questions to buttress your points
If you check, I have been using questions in this post. And I’ve been tactically writing the answers.
You should do the same.
5. Break some grammar rules
Again, this advice doesn’t apply to how to make your essay more engaging. This is for content writers, bloggers, and social media marketers.
For instance, I have used a single paragraph mostly. Some phrases have been used as complete sentences, which your English professor would mark as a sentence fragment.
But this is not an English class. What we are doing here is marketing and selling and engaging people to enjoy what we write and make them come back because of how empowered and good they feel about what they read.
If you want to be part of the future of content writers and creators that will be remembered and celebrated, you have to ignore grammar rules sometimes.
One more thing, if you want your readers to keep reading, you should use words or terms they would use in everyday conversation.
My former editor once told me a headline is dumb. You don’t want to say that publicly or with a stranger because it’s offensive.
I won’t suggest using those languages to everyone, but if you can use some of the words that everyday users or people use, please do.
Sparingly, please.
6. Use humor
The funniest posts on this blog are the Alchemist Review and Why You Shouldn’t Hire Human Writers Anymore.
The humor is within the context of the topic. So, you have to remember that.
Those who use artificial intelligence know how hard it is for those tools to apply humor within the context of an essay or an article. (AI tools excel when they are asked to respond humorously or give a funny response.) So, if you use artificial intelligence, you can go over the content and look around for an area where some humor will work.
How to be funny? For many comedians, it’s natural. For most of us, it comes from reading witty or funny authors. Have you read Catcher In the Rye, Eat, Pray, Love, or Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime?
7. Have a writing voice
A voice is like the way you say things.
I have seen AI imitating some authors, and again, I kept being blown away.
However, it’s still hard or feels stale unless you constantly monitor what it writes. So, here’s what you do: add your voice. How would you describe something in your words? What’s your thought process? Add it to the content and apply that to most of your content. Let that ring through your entire blog or content.
When I read some content, I can bet who wrote them. And that’s because there is a pattern, word choice, and ideas they always try to communicate even when they don’t do it deliberately.
Find your ideas and values, and let them show through your content.
8. Use Stories
Stories are effective because humans love stories. It has been proven over again that we are designed that way.
So, tell a story. It doesn’t have to be long or take several paragraphs. You can tell a story in one paragraph or a few lines.
Learn how to write a novel Or how to use storytelling in marketing.
9. Prompt your readers
When was the last time you read something and said, ‘What? I don’t believe it. Let me try it?’
That’s a prompt. It looks like a call to action, but it’s not really that. It’s usually about entertainment.
Do you know if you put an egg between your palms and squeeze, without your fingers touching, the egg will not break?
YouTubers are very good at this type of thing. They will tell you something and show you what happens.
Facts can be a form of prompt. It’s like calling your readers attention to something weird. Use the type of facts or data that seemed unbelievable.
And, yes, this might seem unbelievable, but research says that ONLY 1 – 10% of people who read content for free usually share them. It’s like going on Twitter and seeing 1k shares on a post. Look closely. Such a post has a million views. That’s wild, right?
You can prove them wrong, though. Use the share buttons below to tell someone about this post.
By the way, you don’t have to do all this. You can simply hire me to do keyword research for you or handle your content strategy.
And talking about being funny, I wrote a book that’s quite intriguing. You might like it. Check it out: