It is not always easy to write an engaging content. You see the cursor blinking on your monitor while you think what to type next.

You try your best to include the enticing words in the title and in the beginning sentence, but still you readers can’t seem to be reading the rest of your article.

Why is this?

There are many factors why a reader doesn’t read the entirety of your article. Some of those that are beyond your control. You can’t force them to read your article if they arrive your page for different purpose.

Internet users are always on a hurry. That’s why the Internet is oftentimes called Instant gratification, regardless whether reading articles or making research is part of their gratification or not. It’s the Internet and there’s no way you can make them read for a long time if they don’t want to.

Even popular and reputable sites that are worthy to be read still are not read in its entirety. But these are at least the only ones that have contents worthy to be read. Yahoo is very good at this. They make articles that are so tempting for a user to click and read the rest of that. Perhaps look at the pictures or want to know what happened from one shocking news or controversy. They are always intrigued what’s inside the article after reading the title.

Of course they already have names and these are already established companies that already have a payroll in its employees.

Take for instance Time magazine, CNN, BBC, ESPN sports, Reader’s Digest and the rest of the popular publishing entities that have prestige offline. You don’t need to get them hard to find. You only remember their names and just type them and you find them and read them.

Or perhaps some that have gained Internet popularity like Mashable, SEOmoz, Problogger, Techcrunch, and among many other famous blogs. The contents in these sites are sure you are going to read.

So what do you notice from contents of those popular sites? What’s the difference between their contents from those that are mediocre? Well, pretty obvious is the quality of the contents. Which will you prefer to read? SEOmoz blog or some PR4 SEO tips blog that have slight difference in quality of its contents? Of course you’ll read SEOmoz blog wouldn’t you? You prefer Mashable from Huffington post. Or probably your favourite blogs you bookmarked that makes you keep on coming back for updates. What’s going on with the blogger? What will he or she write next?

So how will you write contents like of those popular sites?

First, is you have to evaluate yourself as a writer. How much is your experience in writing?

Did you have a proper education or training in writing? Do you read books about writing such as Elements of Style by White and Strunk?

Evaluate yourself whether you just read contents online or you also read essays, articles, in popular newspapers and magazines, novels, short stories, and some other forms of Literature without the aid of the Internet technology.

Do you have a good command in English grammar? Do you know about vigorous writing? Do you read writing magazines such as Writer’s Digest?

It all boils down to the writer himself. You can’t create a great craft if you don’t have sufficient experience in writing. Or at least don’t have the talent.

It all boils down to what you know about the field of writing. Writing is not just about blogging where you just write your thoughts plainly like a diary or a monologue. Writing involves lots of rules in order to create an excellent composition, in order for search engines to rank your page.

Nevertheless, there are some points to ponder that I’ve also learned not just from the many years of writing but from the mistakes I’ve done that made my articles not worthy to read.

Revise, revise revise

After finishing one article it is always best to revise it. Go back to its sentences. Reread your article over and over again. You will see the mistakes as you go back reading it again. Polish it by improving the construction of the sentences. Remove unnecessary words. Make it as brief and as clear as possible for the reader.

Think about the quality, not the quantity

It is always better to take time musing about a certain subject for an article than writing this and publish immediately. Worse if you do it again and again. Write a bunch of articles and publish them just for the sake of updating your blog.

Brainstorm. Ponder these questions: why am I writing this? To whom am I writing this? Why do they have to know about this? Why should they believe me when I write this? These are the points that you have to consider to be able to get all kinds of readers, especially the critical readers. You don’t just write for the average people, but to those highly intellectuals and well educated professionals.

Organize Your article

Organization has always been essential in writing. One of the tricks is to include the headings, the h1 and h2 tags. A good SEO I must say. This is so that readers will not be lost while reading the article. They are guides or topics what to expect next on the article.

After constructing your sentences and paragraphs, you will then need to put them in proper order, whether at the beginning, in the middle or in the conclusion. For a long, 1-000 word post, you just to need to put certain points orderly. This way the totality of your post is understood well by the reader, even praised by it.

Make Thorough Research

To make your article rich and valuable you will need to explore different aspects of the subject. Whether this be about a product, a person or issue. An article with complete information about what you’re talking about is always worthy to read.

Write at least a 1000-word post

Although this may not be a good idea because you bore the readers reading the rest of your long article, ironically it is the best idea for readers to keep reading the article.

You notice you read a first page of a novel, you can’t stop reading what happens next. It’s because it is the way the writer writes. You are easily engaged. A novelist sees to it every sentence and every word he says tell a hundred stories. He/she sees to it every page is a turner.

So a writing a 1000-word or 2000-word article is a wise idea to let readers stay and read your long article until the end. You just need to be a very clever and articulate to create a good craft.
And take note that a long, rich, and well crafted article is ranked well by search engines than those that are say 400, 500 to 600 words.

I share you one last quote from Robert Louis Stevenson:

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.”