Most visitors that enter a site on a specific page, don’t read the page (completely). Instead, they will scan the page for something they are looking for, or something they find interesting. If they don’t find anything that is worth taking some time to read, the page will be closed and the visitor is lost in cyberspace.
This event can be quite a frustration to a webdeveloper or content writer. You do want your visitors to actually read your content, not just scan around and leave the page again. In order to do this, you have to grab the visitors attention in the first few seconds of their visit.
Photo by moriza
In my previous articles, I’ve mentioned this before. In this article, we’re actually going to improve your pages and content. This will improve the time visitors spend on your pages, it will improve your popularity and besides that you can improve your income (if you want to earn money via the internet).
Using these tips
Off course, these tips aren’t the only thing you should think about when writing or positioning content on the internet. Remember that the content itself is (and always will be) the most important.
If you follow these tips but your content suck, no one will ever benefit from the improvements you’ve made in your content. Make sure your content rocks and improve scannability with these tips and your pages will be of more value for your site;
- Important content goes up front
- Writing content in paragraphs
- Highlight keywords per paragraph
- Add headings to content
- Use supporting images
- Lists are easy to scan
Once you improve the scannability of the pages, people want to read more. And that’s what we all want, once we start improving our content, isn’t it?
0. Important content needs to go up front
If you visit other sites, and most people do, you want the most important information up front. That’s the reason why this tip is positioned above all the others, just to illustrate the importance of properly positioning important information.
The most important information has to be read first, so you need to make sure people do read that content. If they don’t, your content will fail on you and will not reach it’s maximum efficiency.
1. Write your content in paragraphs
If there is one type of content, that is absolutely not attractive to read, it’s those huge pages litteraly stuffed with text. When I do end up on such a page, it must have some pretty good content and I must be willing to read it, in order to do so. Most visitors will click the page away and go surfing elsewhere.
Dividing your content in paragraphs is a easy way to improve readability and help your visitors find their way in your content.
2. Highlight at least one keyword per paragraph
Once you highlight some keywords in each paragraph, a visitor can easily select the paragraphs that he or she wants to read. Make sure you highlight keywords that are relevant to the paragraph their in.
Improving the scannability of a page, also improves the number of visitors that will actually read your content, instead of scanning it. With proper highlighting of keywords, visitors are able to select the paragraphs they want to read and get the information they need, faster than before.
3. Add headings in your content
By adding headings in your content, visitors have the ability to select what content they like to read. Make sure you use headings that actually tell something about the content that is right under the heading.
Visitors usually have limited time to read, so you have to grab their attention while you can. Adding headings is one of the important things to do, as it helps greatly on making your texts more scannable.
4. Use supporting images, that do support your content
Having images in your content, can add some great value to the text. But you have to make sure you add images that do support the content they are in. Finding great images isn’t that hard, but you have to be sure that the images add value. If they don’t add value, don’t publish the content.
Images can also give the visitor information what the content is about. If done properly, you can make an image (in combination with a great title) tell more than a thousand words.
5. Lists are easy to scan
The ultimate way to give lots of information in a tiny space and a small amount of time, is a list. It doesn’t matter if it’s a ordered list, or a unordered list. Visitors are able to read/scan through lists in a few seconds and it can contain lot’s of information.
Since visitors don’t like to go searching for the information they need, so place the lists as high as possible.
Enjoyed this article? Share it with your friends via one of the social networks available. You want to read more of our articles? Feel free to subscribe to the Webhypes RSS-feed.
Back at the start of my career, I was told how to write documents to be presented to management. The formula works well with blog posts, too:
1. Write a short paragraph explaining what you are going to say - “This article will tell you…”
2. Write your content in sections, with an introductory paragraph for each section.
3. Write a short paragraph explaining what you just said and why - “In conclusion, Megacorp should start a blog because…”
Managers only ever read the introduction. If they’re interested they might read the conclusion.
PS - I like they way your numbered lists start at zero - are you a C programmer?
Great advice Andy!
This numbered list started at zero, because of the point that I was trying to make. Important content needs to be on top, that’s the reason I illustrated it by giving it number zero.
I program in C, C++ and C# but that had nothing to do with this!