What Do I Mean By Scannable Content?
Did you know that only 16% of people on the internet actually read each word, and….the typical reader comprehends about 60% of it? So, this in a nutshell, should tell you why it’s vital to your success to make your blog content scannable.
You are writing a blog to effectively communicate with your readers. Let’s take a look at your style and find out if your blog is easy to read.
What are some of the main things a reader is looking for?
They are looking for words or phrases, pictures and/or visual cues along with powerful headings.
Reading text from a screen is actually harder on the eyes than reading from a paper source. By making your scannable blog content, you will be inviting more to read your blog without ever asking them to.
How Do You Know If Your Blog is Scannable?
Do a simple test; have a friend who has not seen your site, take a look at your most recent blog posts. After about 30 seconds, at the end of each post, ask them what they had read, what was the message of the post? You will instantly have a send of how interactive your blog content is.
There are a few techniques you should keep in mind as you write, which will make your blog scannable and easy to read:
- Visual – Pictures are an important factor in attracting the reader. According to research, pictures will draw the readers’ eyes down the page. The key is to place your pictures in the area of content they represent, drawing attention to the keywords in your blog. If you have good visuals, the chance of them reading the full content is much higher.
- Formatting Your Text – You can make your text eye-catching by using CAPITALS, underlining, bold, italics, and different fonts to get their attention. Don’t go crazy with this, it can cause a bit of frustration if overdone. Also, make your font color, size and style easy to read, drawing attention to your key points.
- Bullet Points – Readers love bullets and lists, easy to read, and the information is to the point.
- Headings – Use large words in bold that can be a visual cue to the blog content, sub-headings are also helpful.
- Quotes – If you have quotes or key points, place [boxes around them].
- Keep the Ideas Brief – Keeping the information short and simple will allow you to keep their attention. By bringing in too many points, the reader can become overwhelmed with too much information.
The goal is to make great blog content that is scannable, if you don’t, you may lose your reader to another blog, one that is easy to read.
Has my blog been easy to read so far?
Check out the Posting Contest I have running: Click HERE to learn how you can win $100!
I'm an avid fan of your blog, and the content is always top notch - great reading. I'm always impressed with the variety of content and the way you get all the important steps outlined for processes, but still manage to keep it short and simple - few people do that quite as well.
Mike Purvis
Andy Fletcher
Todd Gross
This post explains something that i always think about.
Just writing 1000+ words thinking that everybody would be interested in reading it, is not enough!
You should have a style in writing, and that should actually make the readers read it well and understand the core point in it.
Good post Colin.
It is really true indeed. Blogging requires the blogger to draft every single posts before hitting the publish button. It is not easy to write a blog post that is effective and informative.
Actually every blog post is informative. But the main point in it.. is that you have to keep in mind how much a reader might actually read in the entire post. Just the headings? Understand it with the images?
That’s what Colin tried to explain.
Thanks for explaining to me what I already understood. What a way to pump up your number of comments.
Scannable… so true.. also the first sentence or title should be a teaser and the bsic is still keep it brief and simple BUT interesting!
kuanhoong,
I doubt Chetan is just trying to get his post count up. All his posts contain good information and his blog is also well worth reading 🙂
Am not sure if you are really going through my comments. Yes, the competition is catchy, but do you think am commenting only for that?
50 odd blogs i comment on, have no contest in them. So is there any reason i comment on all of them? I just do that to increase conversations and think that the fellow commentators would love in joining hands.
Anyways not sure what your mind was thinking.. so.. but still its not a way to pump up the number of comments.
Great info and insight here on this post Colin. I love that there are also people like Chetan who offer assistance and tell about their own experiences as well. This becomes helpful to everyone and we get to have feed back from and with each other – so to whom ever posts comments -there are those of us learning from all of you! Thanks a lot!
This site is becoming a daily stop in my routine and thanks to Colin and Chetan -I am commenting daily!
Karen
Kuanhoong,
Is there a way for me to get the info to look at your blog and Chetans? I am learning soooo much from this site alone and your comments in this subject area are intriguing. Would love to hear more from you both – so please keep posting your insights as they are of great value to me-so thanks!
Karen
So very true Colin. Reminds me of an article I was reading recently on the short attention span most people have. Particularly in a world of multi media with everything “on demand”, not to mention ridiculously low levels of literacy. Having an informative post means little if it’s not concise, bite size and well formatted.
Louise
This post has great tips. I have to change my style because I know my site is not scannable. My site is pretty boring after reading this post, lol.
I know I read other blogs, forums, and ebooks in this exact manner, and I only re-read to absorb if I think the info is useful or makes sense.
-kuanhoong, I would think Chetan was trying to pump up his post count if he posted one liners like, “great comment”, or the dreaded “me too” comments, but his comments are insightful, and I think Colin would have deleted his comments.
I honestly haven’t visited Chetan’s blog, but since Colin said it’s worth reading, I think I’ll check it out.