Does storytelling really work to write blog posts that engage an audience? Absolutely. This type of content strategy works exceptionally well and is why so many experts promote the practice. So, how do you incorporate storytelling into your content?
In reality, just about every kind of content can incorporate components of a good story. It works similarly to writing a book in that you have key elements that drive the narrative forward.
The amount of depth you’ll include varies based on the topic. But the most important thing you need to remember is to deliver a high-quality experience. I’ll explain a bit about that in a moment.
Why Add Storytelling to Your Blog Posts?
Storytelling is a way to engage your audience. It’s a way to connect with your reader on an emotional level outside of simply providing facts and information. I mean, no one wakes up in the morning with a hankering to read an IKEA manual.
Stories are capable of inspiring readers to take action in some form. For instance, a good story can influence someone to make a purchase, try a product, join your newsletter, or perhaps subscribe to your blog or YouTube channel.
The more engrossed someone is in your content, the more likely they’ll keep reading. And this part is great for search engine optimization. One of Google’s metrics is monitoring how long people stay on your site.
Essentially, you want people to stick around to read the entire “book,” considering your blog posts as “chapters.”
Important Facets of Storytelling
You don’t need to be Stephen King or Nora Roberts to put together a “gripping” tale in a blog post. While having decent storytelling skills is a benefit, it’s not necessarily a requirement.
That is as long as you include the basic structure of a story.
Setting Up Characters
I’d say most blog posts are centered around the reader being the main character. Then again, there are plenty of personal blogs where the author is the star of the show. Either way works to set up a character for storytelling in your blog post.
For example, I’m using a second-person narrative in this post as I am helping you (the character) accomplish a task.
Although I’ve never seen a blogger use a third-person perspective, I suppose it’s possible while making the content somewhat unique. Perhaps I’ll have to try that someday.
The Primary Conflict
Every good story has some kind of conflict. In most instances, it’s essentially good vs evil characters. However, in a blog post such as this one, the conflict is the character (you) not knowing how to craft something or accomplish a goal.
For instance, let’s say that you want to write a tutorial about using a specific plugin for WordPress. The conflict would be the visitor not knowing how to use that tool and would like to learn.
One of my most popular blog posts is about free writing apps for beginners. The conflict is not knowing what apps are out there and wanting to know which is best for specific tasks.
Progressing the Plot
It’s relatively easy to progress the plot when storytelling in a blog post. If you follow a logical path to conclusion, you can fulfill the needs of your reader. This is one of the reasons why I like setting up outlines in blog posts.
Taking this post for example, I am walking through the important parts of a story before diving into the meat and potatoes of it. That way, you have a bit of a clearer understanding of how to structure the flow.
The one thing you don’t want to do, though, is add “plot holes.” If it’s not relevant to the topic of the blog post, you don’t need to include it in your story.
Conflict Resolution
Most stories will provide a resolution to the conflict and how it made a difference for the main character. And if you’re reader doesn’t feel the need to continue searching for answers, all the better.
In the case of this tutorial, you should have a better understanding of how to incorporate storytelling in your posts. For me, that would be the best conflict resolution and the entire premise of why I wrote it in the first place.
The bottom line is that the “conflict” in the post should be resolved before the conclusion section. Then, the conclusion briefly recaps the content – usually with a call to action.
This is one of the reasons why I suggest to update your content regularly. There may be new points to add, or perhaps you thought of other ways to resolve the reader’s dilemma. It’s good for future visitors while improving your reputation with search engines like Google.
Google loves updated and fresh content.
How to Write Blog Posts with Storytelling
Now that you have a good idea about the important parts of a story, let’s put them all together. I know it might sound like a lot, but it’s actually not nearly as complicated as some might think.
For the most part, it comes down to writing with a casual and friendly tone while offering a logical flow of information.
What I mean by “logical” is that everything follows a clear and chronological path. For instance, you wouldn’t add advanced steps to a tutorial at the very beginning of the story.
Creating the Hook
The “hook” is perhaps one of the most vital parts of content. It’s what will influence a person to stick around for the rest of the story. This is true whether you’re writing blog posts or creating YouTube videos.
The hook is what will snag your audience.
To write a good hook, use an interesting anecdote, an attention-getting fact, or a question regarding the topic. As you can see from this post, I started with a question, which is one of the most common when blogging.
For example, let’s say you’re writing about using WordPress to build a website. You could start by saying how WordPress powers more than 43% of the entire Internet with a link to W3Techs, the site that monitors online systems.
It’s a fact not a lot of people know and the link acts as citing your sources.
Why don’t I add the link to W3Techs in the above paragraphs? Because the link isn’t relevant to the story I’m currently telling. In other words, you don’t want to link back to sites that don’t support the topic of your content.
Showing vs Telling
The difference between showing and telling a story is in the details. Highly detailed content “shows” the reader the story and helps them envision what is being delivered. This means you want to dive as deep as you can into the details of your topic.
This not only helps the reader understand the storyline of your blog post, but it also improves how Google indexes the content. The more details you provide, the more likely search terms will bring people to view your website.
When including the details, though, you don’t want to fill it with fluff. This means all of the lines in your content need to have a purpose related to the topic.
You can add personality and jokes throughout the post to lighten the material. But make sure they are relevant to the story.
Providing Examples
A great way to improve the storytelling of your blog post is to include examples, whether they are something you experienced or something to which you can link. And if you have your own data to back up a claim or evidence to show regarding your narrative, all the better.
I’ve provided several examples above that were mostly based on my own experiences.
Personal experiences often work better because they connect the reader to your content. It makes you feel more relatable. As such, there is an increased chance of pulling some kind of emotion to the surface.
If there is anything that can help solidify a good story, it’s being able to pull emotions out of your reader.
A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words
Pictures or images that are relevant to the content are quite valuable. In fact, content with visual elements is shared more often on social media than just plain text. So, when storytelling, a picture is easily worth a thousand words for your blog post.
Of course, this also depends on the quality of the image and whether it is relevant to the topic.
The number of pictures you’ll want to include depends on the topic itself. As you can see, I don’t have a lot of images in this particular article. But earlier today, I wrote a tutorial for streaming software that had around 20 to help accentuate the steps.
That way, the reader could connect the image to what he or she was learning. Not to mention that visual aids are vital for a good tutorial, especially if it’s something technical.
At the end of the day, you don’t necessarily need a massive collage of images for your post. But you want to include some images where it’s appropriate to accentuate what is written.
Add a Call to Action
Perhaps one of the most common tips experts give when it comes to content is to provide a call to action. That’s because they are very effective at prompting visitors to do something. It could lead to generating more income or gaining subscribers and followers.
For example, let’s say that I wrote a review about a new writing app that you might want to try. At the end of the review, I would put a call to action link or button saying something like, “Try This App for Yourself!” I might even use an affiliate link so I can earn a commission should the visitor buy something.
According to some statistics online, there is a 5.31% chance a visitor will click on that link or button.
There are all kinds of examples of how CTAs work. One company even increased conversion rates by 57.79% just by making the button larger and darker.
My point is that some of your content might center around products or services. Or, maybe you’re trying to build an email subscriber list. Adding the call to action after your story inspires many people to use it.
Write with Quality in Mind
Finally, the quality of the content is of utmost importance no matter what strategy you use. It’s not just humans you’re trying to engage, but you also want search engines to rank your post near the top of a results page. High-quality content does this for you.
So, what denotes high-quality content? In short, it means you want to be informative while keeping the story relevant to the topic. You also want to make sure the post is well-written.
Think of how publishers view a potential novel. If it’s not structured well and full of grammatical errors, they’re not going to put their name on the spine. You kind of need to view your blog post in a similar fashion.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to be overly anal about your work. After all, no one is perfect. Blogs have a lot more leeway than publishing a novel. Yet, a lot of the same principles should apply.
Some good tools to use, especially in WordPress, include Yoast SEO and the Grammarly Chrome extension. I’ve been using the two of these apps in tandem for a very long time and they work brilliantly.
What Stories Will You Tell?
At the end of the day, it’s not overly difficult to incorporate storytelling into your blog posts. A good rule of thumb is to write casually as if you’re writing to a close friend to either provide instruction or entertainment.
Using something like a visitor persona can help you connect with the ideal reader. What does that person want to know and how can you give it to him or her? That is essentially the basis of all blog content.
For more tips about writing in general, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I share everything I know and learn to help others succeed in their own writing journeys.
Do you see what I did there?
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