Imagine you pick up a book \u2013 it\u2019s a single piece of content that you\u2019re very likely to read from beginning to end. A newspaper \u2013 there\u2019s more variety, but you\u2019ll probably read three or four articles in full. What happens though when you get to the internet and are swamped by choice?<\/p>\n
With the sheer volume of content available online, it stands to reason that people\u2019s reading habits are different in the digital world compared to the real world. There\u2019s far more sifting and jumping from one page to the next \u2013 so in order for content to be successful, it\u2019s just as important that marketers understand the mechanics behind optimising their websites, as well as the information visitors are interested in reading.<\/p>\n
1. Skimming and scanning<\/strong><\/p>\n The first thing to note is that you can\u2019t hold someone\u2019s attention for long. According to recent research by Microsoft, the age of smartphones has left humans with an attention span of only 8 seconds \u2013 shorter than that of a goldfish!<\/p>\n In turn, that means when people read content on the web, they have a tendency to skim and scan<\/strong> to find the information they\u2019re looking for. And if that information isn\u2019t immediately apparent, they will get bored and move on. So make sure key messages stand out in some way \u2013 whether that\u2019s with sub-headings, bullet points or bold font.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0They don’t want to scroll!<\/strong><\/p>\n With that in mind, think also about the information you\u2019re putting above the fold of your page \u2013 most people scanning a page won\u2019t scroll to find what they\u2019re looking for. That\u2019s not to say you should continue below the fold \u2013 research shows that when a user spends time looking beyond the initial cut-off, the probability of engagement increases significantly \u2013 but you need to get them to that point first.<\/p>\n 3. All about the intro<\/strong><\/p>\n By now, you\u2019ve probably gathered \u2013 the vast majority of people will not read your content word for word. In fact, a study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that only 16% of readers stick with you until the bitter end.<\/p>\n On the average web page, even engaged readers will only read 28% of the words displayed at most \u2013 20%\u00a0is a more realistic figure. With that in mind, make sure your introduction answers all the immediate questions \u2013 why should I read this? What will I gain?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine you pick up a book \u2013 it\u2019s a single piece of content that you\u2019re very likely to read from beginning to end. A newspaper \u2013 there\u2019s more variety, but you\u2019ll probably read three or four articles in full. What happens though when you get to the internet and are swamped by choice? With the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,399,420,404],"tags":[102,104,123,19,21,103],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-give-the-dog-a-bone","category-web","category-web-design","category-web-development","tag-content","tag-effective-web-content","tag-give-the-dog-a-bone","tag-marketing-tips","tag-mobile-devices","tag-website-content"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/shutterstock_192400145.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.givethedogabone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}