You’re optimizing your blog post title and you do optimize the introduction paragraph. You are following SEO copywriting techniques and you receive decent traffic from search engines.
But somehow your content fails to engage your readers. No comments, no shares, and no email conversions. Heartbreaking…
So, what’s the problem?
Is your content boring?
Is your writing style a reason?
The problem is you never mind to optimize the endings of your blog posts.
Brace yourself cause today, I’ll show you amazing ways to increase engagement on your posts.
There you go…
9 Ideas to end a blog post for maximized engagement
1. Add A Call To Action
A call to action encourages a user to take a specific action. Most bloggers use it to encourage their readers to signup for their mailing list.
90% of your visitors will never return. So, how to keep them coming back?
Adding a call to action form or a popup button, you can increase your conversions as well you can retain your readers.
You might have an optin form for your mailing list that let people signup for your newsteller. Why not encourage your readers to fill and optin to your mailing list by including an optin form right below your content ending.
To make it even more rewarding, use content upgrades.
By including a content upgrade in your optin forms, you can increase your conversion rate by 6.52%. That’s what I do and here’s the data:
2. Summarize & Wrap The Content Goal
End with a conclusion.
When you are done writing your tutorial, guide, review or any kind of content, always try to write a summary of it.
Remind what the goal of your content was. Help your readers to consume every bit of your content in a nutshell. A summary shouldn’t be too long but it should help your readers to “take away” something.
When you publish a post that’s quite in-depth and long, most of your readers will immediately jump to find a short summary. Because people generally scroll-scan rather than reading a post, including a “conclusion” part would be great for them.
Some of the summary headings you can use are:
- Wrapping Up
- Conclusion
- Signing Off
- Take Away
- Finishing It Up
3. Include Bonuses
Who doesn’t love free gifts?
I add ebooks and cheatsheets at the end of my blog posts as a “free bonus.” They are insanely actionable for my users and add value to whatever content I’ve written above.
Adding a lead magnet such as an eBook, workbook, free download, etc., will let your readers consume more of your content. It also encourages my readers to engage in my post and subscribe to my mailing list.
4. Inspire
Inspiration is the key to ignition, an ignition to do something.
Inspire your visitors to do something. Help them change their mindset and solve their problems.
Even writing a simple line, “You can do [your post’s goal] if you have [coorgare or something relative],” can let your readers feel better.
And when they feel better, you’ll automatically see more shares and comments on your posts. It’s because they connect with you and your message.
5. Provoke or Dare
Provoking your visitors to do something. This is a controversial idea and it is up to you if you want to use it or not.
If you really want to do something really interesting, end your post while provoking the reader to take a step or do something.
Give a strong statement on any topic you are writing about and dare your readers to prove you wrong. You are gonna get a lot more comments than usual because people love to prove other people wrong. That’s a fact.
6. Tell The Reader To Contribute or Express
Your readers are real humans (in case you didn’t know) and have their own opinions, thoughts, points of view, and judgments. End your post like:
What do you think about [your topic]? Let me know in the comments section.
What’s your frank opinion on that?
Doing so will tell your readers you are open to debate. When they feel you value their expression and thoughts, they are gonna comment more often.
You can also ask them to contribute to your post. Sometimes when I write about the best tools, I ask my readers to comment on their favourite tools even if it is not mentioned in my post
7. Ask Something To The Reader
Ask a question, something or Anything.
Ask them to share your posts on social media and with friends. Request them rather than giving a robotic command.
Write like you are talking with your friend and keep asking casual questions in between like:
What do you think?
What about you?
What would you do?
Doing so will keep your visitors thoughtful from top to bottom of your post.
8. Indicate What’s Coming Soon (Build Suspense)
Suspense has made hundreds of movies a hit. It can certainly help you too.
If you occasionally build suspense at the ending of your posts, your readers will probably think about your content for days to come. They might even ask you through the comments section.
If you have an update coming soon, just give a glimpse of it. This will force the readers’ curiosity to jump out.
9. Promote Your Product (Make Money)
If you create online courses, you’ve published an eBook, promote it at the end. If you are an affiliate of some product or service, just mention how useful it can be for the reader or was for you (if you used it).
By including your product at the end of your convincing copy, you are giving your readers exactly what they want. They want a solution and if you’ve got a product that can solve someone’s problem, it will sell like free gold.
That’s all.
Let me know how these ideas helped you. What strategies you use to end your posts?
Hi AAYUSH, love your blog! This is the 2nd post I’ve read from Zest and you have some great ideas. I need to offer my free cheatsheets more often at the end of my blog posts and find a way to have them keep coming back. I have one scheduled for tomorrow that I’ll do just that – thank you!
Maybe a pop up too if it’s not too annoying. You really got me thinking with this post. Thank you!
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for actionizing my ideas. Yes, include a call to action in each of your posts, no matter if it is in a sidebar, posts’ end or footer. Just place it and watch the results.
Including a popup would work like a charm. Set it to appear at a 35% scroll cause I see my conversion rate at 6.2% at this point. Hope it will help you too.