Did you know that the key to keeping your readers looking at your content is simply to answer their question as quickly as possible?

Your clients are reading your content to find out key information, so giving them the answer up front and then expanding upon your point is arguably the best service you can provide.

In the last article I wrote for the Yardstick team blog page, I wrote about how you can convince more of your readers to click on the content you send out by email.

If you’ve followed my sage advice, you hopefully should be seeing a stronger click-through rate and more traffic to your blog pages.

But now, with that part of the mission complete, how can you get those readers who are clicking through to read for longer? Why will answering their question work to ensure that they stay engaged with your content? And what will keep them coming back for more?

Read on to find out why answering their query first is key, and how you can then keep their interest for longer.

Answering the question at the start gives your reader what they came for

Recently, I was having a discussion with a friend of mine who hosts a podcast alongside his mum. She’s an accredited sex and relationships therapist, and they talk about… well, I’ll leave that to you to figure out.

He was telling me how he’d discovered a new formula for creating TikTok videos to drive new listeners to his feed.

His system was two-fold:

• He’d noticed that the average watch time for his longer videos (by longer, I mean 45-60 seconds) was around 13.5 seconds. So, he created a video that was just 14 seconds long.
• He used the video to answer the question posed by the podcast title, and then asked new questions alongside it.

The result? He achieved his highest number of views compared to any other video he’s posted so far.

Now, I’m not suggesting you should be on TikTok, creating 13-second videos in which you rapidly explain what an ISA is or how pension tax relief works.

But, the point my friend makes about answering the initial question and then posing new ones is extraordinarily relevant to blog content.

The reason you write blog content to send to clients and prospects is to provide them with information, while demonstrating your authority on financial planning and advice. So, why would you make them wait until halfway through the content until you give them what they really want?

According to the Treetop, the average adult internet user’s attention span is just 8.25 seconds. Worse still, users will often leave web pages in just 10-20 seconds, having read 28% of the words on the page at most.

So, answering the query they’ll have – either from searching on Google or reading the headline in your newsletter – is going to be crucial, ensuring that those 8.25 seconds are meaningful. After all, you don’t want to waste their time, or yours.

Take a look back at my introduction to this blog. The original question you probably would have had in clicking this link was how to keep your readers’ eyes on your content.

You might now notice that what I did was answer that question straight away. I didn’t hold off and make you scroll to find it; I just told you the answer.

There is, however, one more thing that I did that hopefully means you’re still reading.

Pose more questions to keep that engagement

What I then did after giving you the answer was to pose some more questions that hopefully tickled your marketing curiosity. These questions were:

• How can you get those readers who are clicking through to read for longer?
• Why will answering their question work to ensure that they stay engaged with your content?
• What will keep them coming back for more?

If you’re still here, it presumably worked, because you came for the answers to these new questions, even though I’d already explained the rationale for the title within the first two paragraphs.

New questions are great, because people want to be empowered to make informed decisions. By giving them more to think about once they know the answer to their first query, you give your readers an incentive to keep going.

With financial planning content, posing new questions to answer very much comes with the territory, because there’s always something else to say on whatever subject you’re tackling.

For example, talking about pension tax relief? Then you’ll probably want to pose new questions about what happens for high earners.

Or what if your blog is about Capital Gains Tax? In which case, you can explain how it works, while also offering a further question of: “But what could you do to potentially reduce your bill?”

Perhaps the biggest benefit of doing so, though, is that it will keep your readers coming back because they know that you will answer their question.

You have an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, offering the answer to the title and providing the detailed insight they didn’t even know they needed.

Get in touch

You should now hopefully have all the answers to the questions posed in this blog.

If you’d like help writing content that answers your clients’ questions, while also having them reaching for the phone to find out even more, please email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call us on 0115 8965 300 to speak to us today.