By Denise Wakeman

When it comes to creating content, there’s a subset of four elements you want to pay attention to, and those are the four E’s: Educate, Entertain, Engage, and Enrich.

People go online for two reasons.  One: to find solutions to their problems, and two: to be entertained.  So you want to keep your content tightly focused on educating your reader about the subject of your expertise.   If you can educate with humor, you’re way ahead of the game. Let’s take each element and clarify how you can use it.

Educate. This element is straightforward. You teach, explain, or spell out how to do something. You’re providing information and knowledge. Write up case studies of successful clients or do Q&A posts, answering your readers’ burning questions about your topic.

Entertain. Being entertaining is an art and some are more successful at it than others. Humor can be entertaining when done well, and telling stories is a powerful way to entertain. Multi-media lends itself to entertainment. Use video (either create your own or find something appropriate on YouTube and comment on why it’s relevant) or audio to mix up the delivery of your content. Tying current events or celebrity gossip into your message can also be entertaining as long as it’s in alignment with your core message.

Engage. How do you motivate your visitor to go from passive reader to engaged reader? Ask provocative questions, post polls and encourage comments on your posts. When your readers click a link to comment, take a poll or request your free report, they’re no longer passive but actively engaged with you. It brings them one step closer to becoming a client or customer.

Enrich. This is about delivering something a little bit more than your reader can find everywhere else on the Web by including history, quotes from literature, or information from other authorities. Go deeper to really add something that’s going to wow your readers. Essentially, you want to make your reader’s life better in some way by helping them to save time or money, or by helping them to be happier, healthier, or wealthier.

If you can weave one or more of these elements – Educate, Entertain, Engage and Enrich — into a blog post, you’re going to have a powerful and compelling blog.

Denise Wakeman is an Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad. You can learn more about business blogging on Build a Better Blog. For more information on the author visit: Denise Wakeman

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