How to Make Your Readers Anxious for the Next Post

Yesterday on ahnternet, I wrote a post about how an artist that I’ve been waiting for finally released her second album after nearly over a year of hiatus. The moment I got my album in my hand, it was one of the most happiest moments of this year! I’m serious!

Then yesterday, while listening to the album, I was also thinking about what would be a good post to put up on BloggersWalk today. Instantly I knew that this was the post that I had to make. Popular blogs already have hundreds and thousands of subscribers anxiously waiting for the next post. However, that is a bit different with beginning blogs and bloggers. So, I decided to see what type of posts could attract visitors when you’re just starting out. Note that even if you are a long time blogger, you could still use these to attract even more readers.

Write a Series Post
Series posts are great at attracting the crowd. One of the most famous examples in the blogosphere is WPDesigner’s series post on creating a WordPress theme from scratch. As a reader these series posts are like a TV show or an anime series. The desire to know what will be next can be quite huge. Even if you spaced your series posts every other day, there is a great chance that your readers will visit your blog everyday secretly hoping that the next series post is out a day earlier.

Case Studies are Interesting!
Blogs are an informative website (most of the time), so case studies are a great thing to try out. However, as it takes a lot of work, I’ve noticed many bloggers including myself staying away from case studies. Nonetheless, like series posts, interesting case studies spread out over a few posts can have some great positive effects.

Comment Contests Rock
Competitions always attract a crowd, but comment competitions especially can get some people anxious to come and check out your latest post. A live example is Shoemoney’s comment contest where he randomly picks a commenter from that day and gives out a Shoemoney t-shirt. I genuinely like Shoemoney and what he writes, which is why I frequently comment on his posts. However, I’m sure that there are some comment freaks there too commenting for the t-shirt. Whether a genuine interest or not, these contests can definitely give you some nice exposure and some anxious readers.

Give a Short Preview!
You know how some series books have a little preview at the very end of the book as a little teaser? You know how movie trailers make you want to watch that movie even more? Same concept. If you know what you’re going to write about the next time you post, a little catchy preview at the very end of your post can go a long way. This has its ups and downs, but it certainly is a trick that you could use.

Try these tips out and tell me how it works out for you. If you have any tricks that you do to get readers to visit your blog on a daily basis, feel free to share them by commenting on this post!