What Makes A Guest Blog Teaser Compelling To Readers?
You’ve decided to try guest posting to boost your brand awareness and increase traffic to your website. But your work doesn’t end when your article gets accepted for publication. Many websites ask for a compelling guest blog teaser or summary that draws readers to click on your content. Afterward, you still have to promote your article on social media to ensure it reaches your target audience. If you’re wondering how to tackle all that, read on to discover insider tips on writing a great teaser for your article and then promoting it on social media.
5 Tips For An Attention-Grabbing Guest Post Teaser (Summary)
Guest post summaries—also known as teasers—help visitors understand what your article is about in a few words. They can be displayed at the beginning of your article, on the homepage of the website that has published your guest blog, or under its hyperlinked title on search engine result pages. Providing customized summaries increases engagement, improves the User Experience, and even boosts your SEO. Here are some pointers to help you write a summary that will leave visitors wanting more.
A summary informs visitors about what’s to come. But to capture their interest, you must be direct. You only have a few lines to convince visitors that your article is worth their time. Talk directly to the reader and get to the heart of the article. What problem are you tackling in this article? Do readers also face that issue? If yes, they should read to discover x solutions.
Considering that the main purpose of a guest blog teaser is to engage readers, questions are an excellent tool. Humans are curious by nature and want to know the answer to questions. Let’s say you’re writing about gamification in online training. Your hook question can be “How can you use gamification to increase user engagement in your online training courses?” followed by the promise of insider secrets.
Something you need to remember when writing summaries is to be truthful. You can’t promise something that you don’t plan to deliver. For example, you can’t mention solutions in the summary if all you’re going to do in your post is analyze the problem. You might get a few clicks at first, but your high bounce rate will negatively affect your visibility in the long run.
Think about it. If a teaser reveals all the important points of the article in 80 words, why would the reader take the time to read the full 1000? Teasers are the hook that makes you say, “I wonder what this is about.” So only reveal what’s necessary to grab the reader’s attention and leave all the vital details for the actual guest post.
A few sentences are more than enough to convey the essence of your guest blog. And they’re also just as much someone is willing to read when skimming through numerous search results for the specific article they want. Above all, remember that this small piece of text aims to be compelling, not informative.
4 Tips To Promote Your Guest Post On Social Media
Great news, your guest blog has been published! This means you can now relax and watch it gather comments and shares, right? Not really. For your guest post to reach its full potential, you can’t rely on the website alone, no matter how reputable it is. You have to promote it too, and social media is one of the most efficient ways to do it. In this article, we share 4 tips to navigate you through social media marketing to attract as many readers as possible to your content.
You might think that promoting your guest post on social media consists only of sharing a title and a link to the website. However, a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t going to be efficient, as each platform functions and appeals to its users differently. You have to adapt to their individual specifications, such as character limit, image sizes, and engagement techniques. Let’s take a look at some of them.
- Facebook allows for 10,000 characters, but only 480 are visible on the timeline, and its users seem to engage more with images. Therefore, you can draw people’s attention with an eye-catching picture that reflects the essence of your article, and add a summary from your guest blog in the text box.
- Twitter, on the other hand, allows only 140 characters and relies heavily on hashtags. Although you only have room for your guest post title, you can also create an original hashtag that you consistently use to promote your articles. This will draw more readers and ensure visibility for previous posts.
- Instagram is another platform where your hashtags and carefully picked images can gain a following. You can incorporate your main keywords in the hashtag to attract as many users.
- Finally, LinkedIn should be one of your obvious choices, as you probably already have numerous connections that are interested in your professional endeavors. Create an engaging post that invites users to read and interact with your guest post.
Some of the above social media platforms have communities covering just about any niche. And if you have worked on expanding your online presence before, you’re probably already a member of various social media groups. Use them to promote your new guest blog by sharing a teaser and a link. However, be mindful of community guidelines that may not allow promotional links. In that case, you can interact and engage with other members to attract them to your website and, in turn, to the websites that host your articles.
Letting readers simply move on to the next article after they’ve read yours isn’t going to help you rise in the social media ranks. For your content to gain visibility, you must ask users to share, like, answer a question or express their opinion in the comments. Adding a call-to-action takes up minimal time and space but can make a great difference in the success of your guest blog. Starting a conversation or getting reposted prompts social media algorithms to show your content to more users.
When sharing your content on social media, don’t limit yourself to your latest guest post. If you have older posts that remain relevant or touch on trending topics, you should share them. This way, you attract more readers while also providing some new material to your latest followers. Not to mention, the website will appreciate the increased traffic on guest blogs that have been published a while ago.
Conclusion
Promoting your content on social media is not a one-day job. On the contrary, it should last at least for a few weeks if you want to see any results. Social media homepages are flooded with content, and posts get pushed further down every second. Consistency is the only way to get ahead of that and have your content appear in front of as many users as possible. But armed with these tips for a successful social media marketing strategy and a compelling guest blog summary, you’re guaranteed to achieve improved reader engagement and increased ROI.
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