So you slaved over your latest blogpost – and nobody tweeted it or shared it on Facebook? Or perhaps you wrote a dozen new articles – and all you hear are the sounds of tumbleweeds drifting across your screen?
It’s harder and harder these days to capture attention – namely because attention spans are getting shorter as people are deluged with more and more things to watch/read/do.
Here are some fast tips to make your writing – shall we say – more readable.
Forget your honors English class and write like people speak. Not sure if you are? Try reading your writing out loud. If it’s awkward or stilted, work on it.
Break it up. Seriously. Ever get an email that’s a one page paragraph? Could you read it? DID you read it?
Hit the enter key like this.
Often.
Use subheads. People like to scan what they’re reading, and if something captures their attention they dig deeper. That’s why you want to add subheads to your blog posts and articles.
Not Sure What A Subhead Is?
It’s like a mini headline inside your article or blog post. See the line above.
Bold your important points. If you make your key concepts bold, the scanning eye will see them and often stop to read the complete sentence.
Use photos. Photos catch the eye like nothing else. Better yet, use photos that have at least one face in them. Studies show the eyes will linger longer on a photo of a face.
Caption your photos. The second most read copy on a page is the photo caption, so make it count. Don’t just write one or two words – think of it as a headline to generate interest. If you need two or three lines, go for it.
Use bullets and numbered lists. What’s typically the third most read part of a sales letter? The bullets. (No surprise – headline and photo captions are the first 2.)
Use links. Link to relevant info on your own website and to your research on external websites. Internal links keep your readers on your website longer, while external links show that you’ve done your research and know what you’re talking about.
Implement these simple tips and you’ll get more people paying attention to your content. With a little bit of practice, you might even give late night television a run for their money.
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