Whether you are a blogger, Internet marketer or copywriter, therefore,
making your content scan able is essential. Below you will find six steps to
accomplish that.
1. Use an appropriate line length
If your visitors need to move their eyes and neck to follow the words across
your lines, they are probably too long. There are many studies on this topic,
and most of them confirm that an ideal line should have between 400 and 600
pixels. You are aiming for 12-16 words per line, so it also depends on the font
and spacing used.
2. Break the text into many paragraphs
A friend of mine once said, “when you try to process an unbroken block of text,
it’s like trying to eat a whole apple pie in one gulp.” Use paragraphs
abundantly if you are writing for an online audience. Apart from improving the
flow of the text, it will also add some pleasant white space around your copy.
3. Use headers and sub headers
Headers and sub-headers can greatly improve the user experience. It will help
the readers to get an idea of what the content is about before they actually
read it, and it will also enable the reader to move back and forth between your
ideas easily.
4. Lists and bullet points, please!
You can’t go wrong with breaking down your content into ordered lists and bullet
points. Readers will understand your message much more clearly if it’s separated
into single elements. Secondly, lists also make very catchy headlines, since
people will know exactly what they can expect from the content.
5. Use bold and italics typefaces
Proper usage of the bold and italics typefaces can greatly improve the clarity
of your content. Use the bold attribute on words that need to be highlighted or
that are delivering important messages. Italicize the title of books,
publications, movies and so on.
6. Images are your friends
Apart from grabbing the attention from the readers, images can also help you to
structure your content more efficiently. You can use them to divide different
segments of the text, or to complement specific parts and elements
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It is widely known around the web that readers absolutely love partial
feeds. It is also widely known that readers like clicking on ads to generate
revenue for the blogger.
So take it from me… Disable full feeds. Readers don’t like them anyway. And to
make that revenue, display advertisements above and below the partial-feed
content.
Transparency is so Web 1.0. Readers don’t care about it, so why should you? To
get rid of any transparency, do the following:
Remove your “About” page.
Remove any pictures of yourself.
Remove all contact links and spoof your snail mail address on your website
registration.
Do not disclose professional affiliations.
Do not disclose paid reviews or product recommendations.
Remove the comment form.
Use a pseudonym.
