An average person spends 37 seconds reading a blog post. But the ideal length of a post is 7 minutes. People usually skim through the main points that answer their queries.

But,

Is it still possible to make them read your entire post and pay for your hard work?

Yes, it is!

All you need to do is add a pinch of every element we are going to suggest to you in this post.

Do you want to know how can you make the reader s gaze glued to your blog post? Keep reading.

1- Start with a killer introduction:

It decides whether your reader gets past the headings or keeps its gaze on the page until the end. Specifically, the first two lines are the real meat for the reader. If written well, they serve as a sticky trap and most likely make your readers glued to the post.

You can adopt one of the two rules; either PAS or AIDA.

Try to begin with a question or a problem that you know the reader is probably suffering from. You need to press the pain pulse of the reader to create a hook. You may also go for statistics (as we did) or a quote as well.

2- Use the bucket brigade technique:

If you notice the sentence in the introduction, we mentioned, “Do you want to know how can you make the reader s gaze glued to your blog post? Keep reading.” that was a bucket brigade. They create curiosity in your blog post and leave no way to let the reader click away.

Technically, they are just phrases but play a huge role in increasing engagement and minimizing bounce rate. It is the simplest way to create a bond with your reader and helps in making your content more conversational.

According to writing experts, “A piece of information using bucket brigades is designed to keep the reader s gaze on the page as he progresses from one line to the next.”

Moreover, it is undoubtedly the simplest way to turn dry content into an engaging one. 

You can find a ton of examples here.

                                                                                       Source

3- Dumb down your content:

Did you know that the average person reads at the level of a 7th grader?

So, always make sure that whatever you write in your blog post is in simple, easy-to-digest language. Never use complex sentences as they cause the reader to lose interest and will maximize the bounce rate.

This element is most probably the most essential one to improve the audience retention time on your blog post. By dumbing down your content, not only will you make your content captivating but also readable to a mass audience. Also, use easy vocabulary and write in an active voice.

4- Answer the search intent: 

Most important of all, write while keeping in mind your target audience and the search intent.

Write as if you are answering a specific question. You see, in this blog, we did not mention “what is audience retention and why is it important?” because we know that you already have the knowledge of audience retention and are now just looking to improve it. That is it.

Keep in mind who your target audience is and write as if you are addressing them directly. Answer the queries you think your reader probably has in his mind. Add links to credible sources.

Always add valuable information and avoid unnecessary ones to maintain the engagement till the end. 

Final words

Audience retention for bog posts is as important as for videos, in fact, it won t be wrong if we say “more than videos”. 

People nowadays prefer to watch videos than read blogs. So, it is very important to make every word of your blog read-worthy. Keep in mind the KISS rule; keep it short and sweet. That means you can actually write less and still be the best writer. 

Moreover, make your content spacy (like the one you are reading). Long sentences and larger paragraphs make your content look boring, letting the reader lose interest rapidly. Instead, you can chunk down the information to make it easy to digest for the readers. 

However, the more you write short sentences and concise paragraphs with lots of space, the more your content will look attractive. 

There are a lot more ways you can improve the audience retention time in your blog post, these four tips provide a great understanding to take your blog posts to the next level and rank high on google. 

What else would you like to add to the list? Comment down your suggestions.