I have said it once and twice, and I will repeat it, “content is the most powerful weapon that you can wield.”

Through content, you can increase sales, boost your SERP rankings, increase brand awareness, and convince people to subscribe; there are countless other things that content is capable of.

You just have to decide what you want it to do.

Among the many ways you create content, engagement is the most sought-after way.

Creating engaging content requires a proper understanding of human behaviour, as to what would interest them the most and what would compel them to read a content piece till the end.

How to create engaging content?

Creating engaging content cannot be taught, but there are specific golden rules you must abide by and include in your content pieces so your audience can enjoy reading your content.

So, let’s begin.

Golden Rule 1: Balanced Use Of Textual & Visual Content

When you have visuals to express yourself, why use text?

See, if you leverage visual content, you automatically invite more backlinks, indirectly affecting your search engine optimization. But if you leverage textual content, you directly affect your search engine optimization and boost your search engine result page ranking.

When creating engaging content, you need to maintain a balance between textual and visual data because a content piece has to do justice to both. And visual content is an essential part of a content marketing strategy.

There are majorly three types of visual content.

Images: 

if you are writing an article, it is advised that you put an image after every 75-100 words because those content pieces get double the shares of articles with fewer images.

Images break the monotony of textual data that seems tiresome.

Infographics

When you have a lot of information to serve the audience, why not just make an infographic and help them understand and remember what we said.

Studies show that people pay more attention to information-carrying images (or infographics). Plus, the probability of an infographic getting liked and shared on social media is 3X more than other forms of content.

Videos

Now, videos are what we call the best of both worlds. Incorporating them into your content marketing strategy can do wonders. As videos combine information and visuals, they spread much information quickly.

Nearly 80% of marketers use video content in their marketing strategies. Videos are more likely to engage the audience because they seek this. There are 4X as many customers interested in knowing about a product through a video rather than an article.

Videos can even affect the revenue that your brand generates. Studies show that shoppers who watch a video are 1.81X more likely to purchase than the other non-viewers.

You must leverage every form of visual content in your content pieces to boost engagement. You can use GIFs as well.

Golden Rule 2: Occasional Host Contests

Hosting contests and giveaways is a move that is effective enough in boosting engagement with your audience.

You can hold several parameters of contests and giveaways. Let’s say your audience wants to enter a competition and win a giveaway; they need to give their opinion on some trending topic, or play the irresistible “test your knowledge” game, media uploads, etc.

You can also ask your audience to share a picture of your product and a review and assure them that some of the top `100 will be featured on your brand’s website.

Host them occasionally so that people eagerly await what you would come up with next.

Golden Rule 3: Keep It Crisp And On Point

The content you write has to be crisp and on-point, but you will still need to jump from topic to topic in seconds.

Give value and time to a subject that requires it; otherwise, try giving value to people in fewer words than usual.

Also, if you have long pointers, you can concise them in key takeaways and TL; DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read) because when people scroll through your content, they will stick around and read the Key Takeaways.

Golden Rule 4: Keep Your Content Detailed

In content, it is always a good habit to support your points with links so that if the reader chooses to know more about a particular part of your article, he can easily find and read about it.

Also, suppose you support your content with examples that help the audience understand a complex topic more efficiently. In that case, they will keep their content flowing and leave your site looking for the meaning of a topic.

Golden Rule 5: Be Creative

Lastly, don’t put any limitations on yourself or any sort of pressure. Try to remain calm and create content; you don’t have to use advanced or moderate vocabulary; you can create content and inform your readers about a topic using the most specific words in the English dictionary.

Also, remember not to stuff everything in a single paragraph. Divide your content, section by paragraph, pointers, and subheads.

It would be better to read than any other form of average content.

Closing Thoughts:

You can mend content according to your will and even be compelling enough to convince the reader to do something.

Creating engaging content is not tricky; you just have to focus on what you want to serve your audience. You have to make your content more accessible for people to understand, and you can do just that by using visuals, easy vocab, and linking.

Eventually, your efforts will generate more traffic leading to your website and boosting your search engine rankings.