Freelance writers rely on being able to capture and hold their audience's attention. Your client has hired you to create compelling content that drives the reader to take action. If you can grab their interest, you're halfway there. But, in a world of constant notifications, distractions, and responsibilities, that can be tough. Here are 16 techniques you can use to punch up your content and make it worth your reader's time.
Inform, educate, entertain, or inspire your readers
While there's a lot of rage-inducing clickbait out there, I believe that valuable content broadly serves one or more of the following areas:
Inform: Let your readers know about something they'll find interesting.
Educate: Tell your readers how to do something specific and useful.
Entertain: Help your readers pass the time in a way that they enjoy.
Inspire: Create emotions in your reader that enhances their curiosity or well-being.
These are not perfect categories, and they're not mutually exclusive, but they're a helpful shorthand. For example, some pieces can be informative and entertaining, or educational and inspirational. While there's a tendency for low-value content to count on anger or fear, if you want to write something worthwhile, then these categories can be helpful.
So, if you want to grab attention, think about the intent of your writing. Then, you can keep that intent in the back of your mind as you're creating ypur work.
Define and write for your specific audience
This might seem obvious, but it's really important to understand who will be reading your piece, and what will make them care. For example, a piece on how a busy parent can find time to exercise will have a very different approach to how an HR department can optimize workforce planning. Before you start putting words to a screen, think about who your readers are, and the type of content that will appeal to them. Helpful questions to ask include:
What are the problems or pain points that your reader is facing?
What do they want to achieve or resolve through reading your content?
How is their attention span as they land on what you're writing?
What do they care about and how does your writing address that?
Are they looking to make a decision, buy something, learn information, or something else?
What's their current understanding of the topic?
What's their average reading level?
Asking these, and other questions will help you sharpen and focus your content on meeting those audience needs and holding their attention.
Use formatting to make your content easy to scan and read
How you present written content is vital. Best practices for online writing include:
Short paragraphs of two to four sentences in length.
Plenty of whitespace to allow the eye to rest between paragraphs and headings.
Careful use of hierarchical headings (H2, H3, H4) etc. to clearly segment content.
Bulletpoint lists for unordered content that's best presented in bite-sized chunks.
Numbered lists for ordered content that walks someone through information, step-by-step.
Use of horizontal lines, images, blockquotes, and similar elements to break up content.
Ensure your headings are on point
Headings and subheadings are essential for signposting a reader through your content. If you want to engage your readers, getting your headings right can be very helpful. You can experiment with:
Using action verbs at the beginning of your headings.
Making sure that your headings describe the content that's following them.
Keeping your headings focused.
Using a consistent heading style to ensure they stand out.
Play around with the voice and tone of your content
The style and tone of your content plays a major role in how readable it is. There are plenty of ways to create your own unique writing style, including:
Find a natural voice and style that you're comfortable writing in and develop that.
Experiment with first-person writing directly from your (or an unseen narrator's) point of view, using an "I" style of writing.
Talk directly to the person reading the content from a second-person perspective, using a "You" style of writing. (This guide uses a second-person perspective).
Develop feelings of inclusivity and shared experiences through a first-person plural writing style, including "We" and "Us."
Experiment with an "active voice" approach. This uses present and future tenses and active verbs to create a sense of immediacy in the content. (This guide uses active voice).
You can also switch between voices and styles within a piece to maintain interest. For example, although most of this guide is written in the second-person active voice, I've just switched to the past tense first-person.
Experiment with different ways to present your writing
You're not limited to writing a straightforward blog post or article. There are lots of variations you can use to create more interest in your writing. I've shared some below, but feel free to experiment further.
Use a Q&A approach or create frequently asked questions
What's a great way to get across a complicated topic? Break it down into the types of questions a reader might ask, then answer them. Not only does this demonstrate a good understanding of your audience, it's also great for SEO, as the questions can be identical or similar to what someone might type into a search engine. Writing an FAQ document is also a great idea, and you can even add such content onto the end of an educational guide or similar.
Move between different voices and styles in the same piece of content
I covered this briefly above, but changing the voice of a document can maintain interest. For example, you can tell a story in the first-person, talk directly to your audience using the second-person, and say what's happening to someone else using third person. There's nothing that says you have to maintain the same voice all of the way through a piece.
Switching tenses is another way to achieve this. Describe what happened in the past, what's going on right now, and what your reader can expect in future. Language is a great and glorious thing, so play around to keep things interesting.
Compare and contrast two or more perspectives and sides in your writing
You can approach one topic from multiple viewpoints. One strong example is explaining how things were before, and what they'll be like in future. You can also create "versus" articles, where you're pitching one perspective against another.
Have an opinion and use it in your work
This approach is best suited to editorial-style writing. Most clients probably won't want to have too much of your "personality" coming through in a piece, unless you already have a reputation for writing from a strong and interesting perspective. But, if a client does allow you to use your own voice, then stating your opinions can be a powerful way to set your work apart.
You might experiment with using humor in your work or making audacious remarks. Be sure to clear things with your client first, and ask if that's the type of content they want. If it is, go for it!
Speak to quotes, stats, and research in your writing
For writing where factual accuracy matters, quotes, stats, and research from authoritative sources can build trust in your content. You can also use this information as a springboard for your writing. For example, you can take a quote, then reflect on what it says and how it affects the content you're currently creating. If you do use quotes, stats, and other research in your writing, be sure to cite and link back to the original source.
Use similes, metaphors, and analogies to add flavor and spice to your content
Time to think back to your English classes! You might not have thought about the differences between metaphors, analogies, and similes for a while, but they're a powerful writing tool. If you're writing about a complex topic, you can use an analogy to contextualize what you're talking about and help the reader to grasp it. Similes allow for an easy comparison between the things you're writing about and what they're like. Metaphors restate your subjects as something else, and can really add some flavor to your text.
Create examples to share the context of what you're writing about
Context is vital to good writing. It centers the work and provides some background information to help readers accurately grasp your meaning. One of the best ways to add context is by using examples. For example ;), if you're writing about the latest thinking in electric vehicle development, you might give examples of what these advances mean in practice. Rather than simply discussing new EV battery technology, you can explain how it will add 50 miles to the range on a single charge.
Write from the reader's perspective
One powerful method is to put yourself in the reader's shoes and write from their point of view. This can be a difficult approach to master, because you're making a lot of assumptions about the audience, and if you don't get it right, it can feel artificial and false. But, if you've got a good understanding of the reader through something like your personal experience, or a well-developed marketing persona, you can create very authentic and compelling content.
Empathize with pain points and problems
Many readers want to solve a problem. They're looking for answers and solutions. Identifying exactly what those pain points are and then explaining a fix is a great way to build trust. Your client will probably have a good idea of what those problems are, and you can propose answers in your writing.
Go super in-depth in your guides and articles via "pillar content"
If you have the word count, and the client has the budget, then very in-depth pillar content writing can be attractive to detail-focused readers. Essentially, pillar content aims to cover a particular concept in an exhaustive way. Some pillar content can run to many thousands of words, and explain every aspect of the topic. This type of pillar content can then spin off into other articles and guides that build on the central concept.
A word of caution though. Because pillar content is long and exhaustive, you have to be careful to maintain the reader's attention. It's vital to use great formatting, headings, and the other techniques I've listed to keep them interested.
Tell a story
Everyone loves a good narrative. Find a way to turn your content into a story, and you'll hook and keep your readers/ Full disclosure: It's not a skill that I'm particularly good at, so here's a great guide to getting started.
Alrighty, I hope this gives you some strong starting points to grab your audience. Have any other approaches to share? Sound off in the comments!