Content Project: Keeping readers engaged and on page

Once you have someone on your page, channel or profile, the job becomes keeping them there long enough to deliver your pitch. Here’s a good example on how to do this.

In Episode #7 of my Bite Site Content Strategy video series, I likened good story structure to a professional cycling paceline. Each section (person) is lined up to pull everyone all the way through to the end. Here’s the video again, and check out that post for more tips on structuring:

On Bikerumor, my job is to keep readers engaged in a product tech story, because “time on site” is a key metric that helps us do better in search. My coverage of the 2021 Cannondale Scalpel mountain bikeĀ is posted here, and it uses properly structured formatting to keep pulling the reader down the page. Check it out and see if you don’t agree.

Keep in mind, anyone reading this is going to be at least marginally interested in mountain bikes and in learning about a new model or technology.

That’s the first hurdle you need to overcome. But if your customers are interested in you (they wouldn’t be your customers if they weren’t, right?), it’s safe to assume that as long as you’re giving them something of value (even if it’s just entertainment), then you’ve crossed that hurdle. After that…

Your job is to keep them engaged.

Intriguing photos can help keep people on page because they want to figure out what’s going on.

That’s where formatting comes in. In that Cannondale post, note that you will always see something other than basic text on the screen. There’s always something just coming into view that makes people want to scroll down a little further to reveal it.

Think about your current website content. Could you rework your sales funnel pages to pull people down to the “Purchase” button?

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