Back on Day #17 I shared with you some tips for creating content that’s engaging and easy to read. Now today we’re going to continue that discussion with even more tips for creating high quality content that’s easy to consume. Afterall, when content is easy to read, you’re going to have more people reading it, which means more people respond to the backend offers.
Now here’s the thing…
Whenever you create a piece of content, your hope is that people will read every last word of the content. But not everyone does that. People tend to be busy, and they have short attention spans. As such, plenty of people will simply skim your content, whether it’s an email, article, report, or something else.
Question is, how do you create content for people who are likely to skim it? Answer: you create content that highlights the main points. That way, people who skim it will still get the gist of the content.
Check out these ideas for highlighting the most important points…
Use Subheadings
The idea here is to break up your content with attention-getting, benefit-driven subheadings. You may use these subheadings to arouse curiosity, which will compel skimmers to read the text to satisfy that curiosity.
For example, you might have a subheading like this: “Are You Making These Dieting Mistakes?”
Or this: “The #1 Trick for Doubling Your Conversion Rate…”
Here’s the next idea for writing for skimmers…
Utilize Bulleted Lists
A bulleted list sets important information apart. Since bulleted lists are so easy to read (as opposed to a dense paragraph), even skimmers will read them. That’s why you should break up paragraph lists and format them into bulleted lists instead. (You can see examples of where I did this here in the guide you’re reading.)
Emphasize Using Text Mark Ups
Another way to emphasize important text is to highlight it in some way by using bolding, italics, underlining, different font colors, different font size (typically reserved for a subheading) or text highlighting.
Note: use these text markups sparingly. If you highlight everything, then your content will be a mess. It will look chaotic rather than polished. And when you highlight a lot of text, then nothing really stands out.
Insert Graphics with Captions
Polished, relevant graphics tend to catch a reader’s eye. Inserting a relevant caption alongside the graphic helps you emphasize an important point and/or draw the skimmer back into the text.
For example, if you’re creating a dog-training article, you might post a pic of a cute puppy. The caption might read: “Housetraining a puppy is easy… when you know this secret.” That caption hints at a benefit and arouses curiosity, which will get skimmers to delve into the content to discover this housetraining secret.
Bottom line: the key here is to create your content in a way that you emphasize the key points using the tips above. One easy way to tell if you’ve done this is to read ONLY the emphasized text. Does it tell the story all on its own? Is it sufficiently intriguing to pull a skimmer back into the text? If so, then you’ve done a good job with your highlights.
TODAY’S TASK: Your task today is to finish up your bonus materials for the first month of membership. Don’t worry about editing anything right now, because that’s what you’ll do tomorrow.