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Photos of brands and people on Unsplash
Q: How do people read online?
Answer: They don't read, but delete.
In a survey of how people read web pages, 79% of users first scan each new page they find, and only 16% read the phrase. Knowing this, how should bloggers who want to reach an audience and communicate effectively write?
Why do people scan?
Chances are, people who find your blog won't actually be loyal readers. These new visitors want to know if reading what I write is a worthwhile investment of their time.
Studies have also shown that reading on a screen is more cumbersome and therefore about 25% slower than reading on paper, making scanning the most commonly used method.
People read online, scanning a page for individual words or phrases, headings, and other visual cues.
Can your blog be crawled?
It is very easy to test:
- Ask a friend who doesn't know your location to see some of your recent posts
- Give them 15-30 seconds per message.
- Finally, you ask questions about the topic of their message
You will quickly understand how they have interacted with your blog.
Techniques to make your blog crawlable
Good bloggers keep this in mind when they write and will use various techniques to make their posts easier to read.
Some of these methods include…
8. Formulate the main idea in advance
If you have an important moment, do not forget to talk about it in advance. One of the traps many of us fall into is hiding key points of content where they are unlikely to be noticed.
(I actually removed this item from number eight on the list)
If you don't have a headline and opening line, communicate your message in the opening sentence. You can expand it later.
1. Menu
Here's the anecdotal evidence at ProBlogger:
- My posts containing the tag list are linked to many more
- Messages of similar length written in an essay style.
- This post contains an embedded list - You are reading #1 of 10 posts
2. Coordination
Use bold , shift, italic , underline , text and confirm.
Don't overwhelm or risk disappointing the reader.
Also, consider changing the font size, color, and style to draw your readers' attention to key points.
3. Title
and translation
Big, bold words that act as visual cues to what's happening in the content are an effective way to draw readers' attention to articles.
4. Photos
Research shows that readers' eyes are drawn to the bottom of a page with images. Place them smartly next to the main points (especially when they're closely related to the content) and you'll have a better chance of enticing readers to read the entire article.
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
5. Limits/Bulk Quotes
Frames around quotation marks and bullet points can also grab readers' attention.
6. Place
Don't feel like you have to fill every inch of the screen.
Instead, create spaces because they help your readers not feel overwhelmed.
It tends to grab the reader's attention
What is in this space?
7. Get straight to the point
Please summarize.
9. Find creative ways to reinforce the core of your message.
For example, the same post is an example of using covert technology to reinforce the need to use covert technology.
10. Don't offer too many new ideas in one post
(I could tell you many ways to create crawlable content, but maybe 10 of them will be enough for now)
This helps readers avoid being overwhelmed with information all at once.
If you want to cover many related concepts, consider a series of related posts.
If your site and posts are not easy to crawl, you risk losing your readers to other blogs.
This article was first published on August 19, 2005 and was updated on July 21, 2022.
The post Why No One Is Reading Your Content and What to Do About It appeared first on ProBlogger.