Upworthy has only been around for a couple of years now. Within those couple of years, it has become one of the most popular blogs on the internet. It has changed the game for advertisers and publishers and can teach you a lot about audience engagement. The site introduced ”attention minutes” as a way to assess how engaging its content was. The minutes showed just how long someone was spending on a page and determine whether someone enjoys the content.

Here are three things Upworthy knows about audience engagement.

It’s All About the Headline

The headline is one of the most powerful parts of content. Some of the more popular Upworthy headlines have something dramatic and intriguing, making the reader want to click to find out what the post is all about. It has been attacked by critics who believe that the site is just have click-bait headlines, but that isn’t true.

The truth is that good headlines that draw people in are a necessity. It’s that and the short description that people see on the search page or through a social media share. You want people to think ”what? Really?” or ”I need to know more” when they see it.

SEE ALSO: The Art of the Headline: 3 Tips for Headlines That Get Attention

Engaging and Interesting Content

Audience engagement is more than just getting people to click on a title and read something. The content needs to be interesting and make people want to reply. It should make them want to leave a comment or share that post with their friends, which is something that Upworthy has understood from the beginning.

There are different ways of doing this, but story telling is proving to be a popular option. People love a story that is linked to their problem. Start of the post with an introduction to the problem through a story, give the solution and then share the outcome in the end. As long as the outcome is left to the end, people will keep reading because they need to know it.

Write for the Audience

The premise for Upworthy has always been to write for the person, then the revenue follows. This is a very important part of engagement. People want to feel like the information has been written just for them, and not with their thoughts as an afterthought behind making money. This is a direction that the major search engines are taking too; relevancy and good quality are more important than stuffing keywords into the content.

Think about the problem that a person is facing and create content around that. Give them the solutions, the answers to a question or even the information they need to start their project; whatever the question or topic requires.

Upworthy has improved its audience engagement from day one because the site owners understand what people want. It’s worth taking a page out of the site’s book to help boost your own engagement. As the audience enjoys your posts, you will soon find the revenue follows, just like Upworthy did.