Your precious words. You know they\u2019ve got to be right to attract the audience you want.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve slaved over them, carefully crafting each phrase. You finally hit \u201cpublish,\u201d and what happens?<\/p>\n
Nobody reads them.<\/p>\n
No comments, no tweets, no sharing on Facebook.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s enough to send a writer into deep\u00a0depression, and wipe out motivation to keep producing great content.<\/p>\n
Think you need to spend another 10,000 hours perfecting your writing skills? Probably not.<\/p>\n
Actually, the solution may be a lot easier than you expect. Writing\u00a0less<\/em>\u00a0and styling your text so it\u2019s easy to read could be all you need to do to attract and hold attention.<\/p>\n Jakob Nielson\u2019s\u00a0seminal web usability study\u00a0from 1997 showed that 79% of web users scan rather than read.<\/p>\n Think about how you use the web. You\u2019re in search of information. And if you don\u2019t find it on the page you\u2019re visiting, you click away and look elsewhere.<\/p>\n The web is a \u201clean forward and participate\u201d medium. Television, by contrast, is a \u201clean back and let it wash over me\u201d medium.<\/p>\n What can you do to engage your readers so they lean into your content, stay on your pages and interact with your information?<\/p>\n To write successfully for the web, you need to forget some of\u00a0what you learned in Englishcomposition class.<\/p>\n Accept that people scan web pages rather than reading them in detail, and\u00a0work\u00a0with this reality rather than fighting it.<\/p>\n If you want to cover a complex topic, consider breaking it into a series of posts. It\u2019s a great way to keep people coming back for more, and your reader will find it easier to digest your content if they get it in portion-controlled sizes.<\/p>\n Structure your paragraphs in the\u00a0inverted pyramid style. This means stating your conclusion first, then supporting it with the sentences that follow. This helps\u00a0scanners\u00a0to move from point to point, and decide where they\u2019d like to dive in deeper.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve done that, use the following easy design techniques to make your content much more reader-friendly. It takes just a few minutes to turn a post from an overwhelming mass of gray text to something that engages the reader and pulls her in.<\/p>\n There are few easier ways to make your content more readable. Even complex content can be made much more reader-friendly with the simple introduction of lots of white space. Feature oneidea\u00a0per paragraph, and keep them short \u2014 three or four sentences at most.<\/p>\n And try writing some paragraphs with one sentence only.<\/p>\n One technique taught here at Copyblogger is to\u00a0write your headline and subheads first.<\/p>\n A strong headline (and therefore a strong premise) is vital to getting readers to come check you out in the first place. And solid\u00a0subheads\u00a0keep the reader engaged, acting as \u201cmini headlines\u201d to keep them moving through the rest of your content.<\/p>\n Make your subheads intriguing, but informative, too. Web readers have well-honed BS meters, so don\u2019t exaggerate or you\u2019ll lose credibility. \u201cCompelling\u201d is not the same as \u201chypey.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve written your subheads, review them to see what your reader\/scanner will understand if he or she reads only that part of your article. Is there a compelling story? Will they get the gist of your information?<\/p>\n Studies have shown that image captions are consistently some of the most-read copy on a page. Try pairing a strong image with a \u201cdeep caption.\u201d<\/p>\n Deep captions are two to three sentences long. That\u2019s long enough to intrigue your reader to dig in to your whole article.<\/p>\n Internal links back to your own\u00a0cornerstone content\u00a0will keep people on your site and reading yourbest\u00a0material.<\/p>\n External links demonstrate that you\u2019ve researched the topic and want to highlight other experts.<\/p>\n Good content uses both to expand your reader\u2019s understanding and add value.<\/p>\n Another advantage of internal links is they make it less frustrating when some dirtbag scrapes your content (cuts and pastes it to their own site without attribution).<\/p>\n Add emphasis to your web copy by\u00a0bolding<\/strong>\u00a0important<\/strong>\u00a0concepts<\/strong>. You reader will be able to scan through and pick out the most important information at a glance.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t highlight everything (which would have the same effect as highlighting nothing). Instead, emphasize the key points so the scanner can quickly pick them out.<\/p>\n Think those\u00a0numbered list posts\u00a0are tired? Think again. Numbers are an incredibly effective way to both capture attention and to keep the reader oriented.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t believe me, take a quick look at the \u201cPopular Articles\u201d on the right hand of this site. You\u2019ll get a mini-tutorial in some of the ways you can use numbers (and other techniques) to make a post more inviting.<\/p>\n You can often make a post more compelling just by numbering your main points. Give it a try.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve used subheads, numbers, bulleted lists and other formatting to highlight the key elements of your post, read through it again \u2014 looking\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0at the text you\u2019ve called special attention to.<\/p>\n Does the reader get the gist? Have you pulled out the most interesting and relevant words, the words that will pull your scanner in and turn her into a reader?<\/p>\n How about you? What are your favorite techniques for getting readers to lean in to your web content? Let\u2019s talk about it in the comments.<\/p>\n by\u00a0Pamela Wilson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your precious words. You know they\u2019ve got to be right to attract the audience you want. You\u2019ve slaved over them, carefully crafting each phrase. You finally hit \u201cpublish,\u201d and what happens? Nobody reads them. No comments, no tweets, no sharing on Facebook. It\u2019s enough to send a writer into deep\u00a0depression, and wipe out motivation to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":644,"featured_media":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,5,6,7,8,9],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-empower-network","tag-blog-daily","tag-empower-network","tag-make-money-blogging","tag-making-money-blogging","tag-online-marketing","tag-system-empower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/644"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/menelek2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Impatient searchers<\/h3>\n
Make it snappy<\/h3>\n
1. Embrace the line break<\/h3>\n
2. Break up your content with compelling subheads<\/h3>\n
3. Use bulleted lists<\/h3>\n
\n
4. Use deep captions.<\/h3>\n
5. Add highly relevant links<\/h3>\n
6. Use strategic formatting<\/h3>\n
7. Harness the power of numbers<\/h3>\n
8. Check your dual readership path<\/h3>\n