Did you know that the majority of people who come to your blog don’t actually read what you’ve written?
In fact on average over 60% of visitors will leave your site without getting below the fold!
But there are ways that you can stop this. Ways that you can make sure that your blog posts actually get read by the majority of your visitors.
And I’m going to share those techniques with you today.
The first is…
Make Sure You Aren’t Talking AT Your Readers
Talking “at” your readers is a sure way to make sure that they stop reading your articles.
People don’t like to be preached to. They want to have a conversation and get to know you.
This means that you need to make your posts personal. Speak to your readers instead of at them. Use words like “you” within your blog posts.
Use your blog posts to create a conversation with your readers and they’ll actually read what you’re writing.
Keep It Short
Most people don’t want to read really long blog posts. Yes, this goes against a some SEO recommendations. But are you writing your blog for search engines or people?
If you answered search engines then I would urge you to rethink. It’s people who are going to spread the word, people who will become fans, and people who will enable your business to grow.
Losing a bit of SEO perfection to make your blog better for people is absolutely the right way to go.
I have found that a minimum of 500 words is required, otherwise your readers don’t feel like they’re getting any benefit. But more than 1200 words takes more time than most people are willing to spend reading a blog post.
So keep your articles short, punchy and full of information.
Break Your Posts Up Into Bite Size Pieces
Your blog posts should be broken up into bite size pieces that are easy and quick to consume.
Don’t have long paragraphs.
Use short paragraphs containing just a couple of sentences. These are much easier to read on a screen.
Add in bullet points and lists where possible to break up the space visually and condense the information your providing into easy to consume pieces.
And, using headings, dividers and block quotes where appropriate. Don’t put them in just for the sake of it, but design your posts to be visually appealing and easy to consume.
Use An Easy To Read Font
You may want to be different when it comes to choosing a font for your blog, but don’t. It just makes it harder to read.
You should pick an easy-to-read font such as Arial, Georgia or Verdana and then make sure that you’re using a font size of 11 or higher.
Any smaller than that can cause strain on readers eyes and make it more likely that they will leave.
Always Finish Your Posts Properly
There are a lot of blogs out there whose posts just stop. There’s no summary or conclusion to what they’ve been talking about.
This prevents readers who are in a hurry from being able to get a complete summary of the post in just a few sentences. A lot of readers scroll straight to the bottom of a post to get the summary. If it’s not there they just leave, and may never come back.
For readers who have more time, putting a summary at the bottom will train them to continue reading and scroll down to the bottom of the post. This means more time on your website and more consuming of what you’re sharing.
Even if you can’t implement all of these strategies, just putting some of them into practice will see an increase in how much of your content is actually read by your readers.
What do you think?