The post Why Nobody Reads Your Content and What You Can Do About It appeared first on ProBlogger.
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Q: How do people read the internet?
Answer: They don't read, they scan.
A survey of how people read websites found that 79% of users read a new page when they first see it, and 16% read it verbatim. Knowing this, how should bloggers write who want to reach and communicate with their audience?
Why do people scan?
Chances are that everyone who visits your blog is already a loyal reader. These new visitors will quickly learn that reading what you write is worth their time and money.
Studies have shown that reading on a screen is more tiring and around 25% slower than reading on paper, so scanning is becoming the most common method.
People read online by searching a page for individual words or phrases, titles, and other visual cues.
Is your blog crawlable?
It is very easy to check -
- Ask a friend who doesn't know your site to look at some of your recent posts
- Give them 15-30 seconds per message
- Finally, ask them what the essay is about
You will quickly understand how to communicate with your blog.
Techniques to make your blog crawlable
Good bloggers take this into account when writing and use various techniques to make their articles more readable.
Some of these techniques include...
8. Get your message across
If you have a main point, make sure you highlight it. A trap many of us fall into is burying our main content points so deep that we can't cover them.
(Actually, I removed this item from number 8 on the list.)
Get your message across in the first few sentences, if not the headline and opening line. You can expand later.
1. Details
ProBlogger provides anecdotal evidence:
- More of my posts relate to bullet points.
- It's written in an essay style rather than an equally long message
- This article has a list - 1 in 10 that you read
2. Formatting
Use bold , all caps, italic , underscore, italic , and period to underline text.
Do not cross while driving as you may hit your reader.
Also, consider changing the font size, color, and style to draw your readers' attention to your most important points.
3rd title
and subtitles
Big, bold words that act as visual cues of what's going on in the content are effective ways to draw readers further into the article.
4. Pictures
Studies show that readers' eyes are drawn to pages by images. Be smart with your main points (especially if they're closely related to the content) and you'll stand a better chance of getting readers to read entire articles.
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
5. Limit/block courses
Boxes around quotes and main points can also grab readers' attention.
6. Location
You don't feel like you have to fill every inch of your screen.
Instead, create spaces as they help readers feel less cluttered
And it grabs the reader's attention
For something in such a void.
7. Go straight to the point
Be concise with your points.
9. Find creative ways to reinforce your main idea throughout your writing
For example, this message itself is an example of using scanable to emphasize the importance of using scanable.
10. Don't present too many new ideas in one post
(I could give you more ways to do things that scan, but maybe 10 will do for now)
This avoids the readers being overwhelmed with simultaneous information
If you want to cover several related topics, check out a number of related posts.
If your site and posts aren't easily crawlable, you risk losing your readers to other blogs.
This article was first published on August 19, 2005 and updated on July 21, 2022.
The post Why Nobody Reads Your Content and What You Can Do About It appeared first on ProBlogger.