How to get people to read your content online - The Window to your Attention Questions Online
Sometimes participants had to be asked to try to find the information without using a search tool, because searching was not a main focus of this study. Users think waiting for downloads and search results is boring and a waste of time. More than half the participants mentioned this specifically.
I don't like to lull around," one participant said. Someone else complained about slow downloading of graphics: I don't like to see tons of pictures. Pictures aren't worth waiting for. Study 1 employed a novel measure of participants' boredom. Participants were instructed to pick up a marble from a container on the table and drop it into another container whenever they felt bored or felt like doing something else.
Together, the 11 participants moved 12 marbles: Participants did not always remember to use the marbles when they were bored. After Study 1, we abandoned the marble technique for measuring boredom. Instead, we relied on spoken comments in Study 2 and a traditional subjective satisfaction questionnaire in Study 3. Conventional guidelines include carefully organizing the information, using words and categories that make sense to the audience, using topic sentences, limiting each paragraph to one main idea, and providing the right amount of information. Anybody who makes a website should make the effort to organize the information," one participant said.
Several participants, while scanning text, would read only the first sentence of each paragraph. This suggests that topic sentences are important, as is the "one idea per paragraph" rule. One person who was trying to scan a long paragraph said, "It's not very easy to find that information. They should break that paragraph into two pieces-one for each topic.
Clarity and quantity-providing the right amount of information-are very important. Two participants who looked at a white paper were confused by a hypertext link at the bottom of Chapter 1. It said only "Next. We also found that scanning is the norm, that text should be short or at least broken up , that users like summaries and the inverted pyramid writing style, that hypertext structure can be helpful, that graphical elements are liked if they complement the text, and that users suggest there is a role for playfulness and humor in work-related websites.
All of these findings were replicated in Study 2 and are discussed in the following section. Because of the difficulties with navigation in Study 1, we decided to take users directly to the pages we wanted them to read in Study 2. Also, the tasks were designed to encourage reading larger amounts of text rather than simply picking out a single fact from the page. We tested 19 participants 8 women and 11 men , ranging in age from 21 to All had at least five months of experience using the Web. Participants came from a variety of occupations, mainly non-technical.
Participants said they use the Web for technical support, product information, research for school reports and work, employment opportunities, sales leads, investment information, travel information, weather reports, shopping, coupons, real estate information, games, humor, movie reviews, email, news, sports scores, horoscopes, soap opera updates, medical information, and historical information.
Participants began by discussing why they use the Web.
They then demonstrated a favorite website. Finally, they visited three sites that we had preselected and performed assigned tasks that required reading and answering questions about the sites. Participants were instructed to "think out loud" throughout the study. The three preselected sites were rotated between participants from a set of 18 sites with a variety of content and writing styles, including news, essays, humor, a how-to article, technical articles, a press release, a diary, a biography, a movie review, and political commentary.
The assigned tasks encouraged participants to read the text, rather than search for specific facts. For most of the sites, the task instructions read as follows:.
- Introduction;
- Browse by Topic and Author!
- Curata Content Analytics.
We observed each participant's behavior and asked several questions about the sites. Standard questions for each site included. This point was made by 10 participants, many of whom complained about writing that was hard to understand. Commenting on a movie review in one site, another person said, "This review needs a complete rewrite to put it into more down-to-earth language, so that just anybody could read it and understand. Some participants mentioned they like informal, or conversational, writing better than formal writing.
I don't like reading every word, and with formal writing, you have to read every word, and it slows you down," one person said. Exactly who the publisher of a particular site is-and who the sources of information in the site are-may be unclear to users. Therefore, the sources' motivations, qualifications, and trustworthiness are unclear. All of this causes users to wonder about the credibility of websites. Credibility was mentioned by 7 participants as an important concern.
When looking at a news story on the Web, one person said, "One thing I always look for is who it is coming from. Is it a reputable source? Can the source be trusted? Knowing is very important. I don't want to be fed with false facts. The quality of a site's content influences users' evaluations of credibility, as one person pointed out: For example, National Geographic has a quality feel, a certain image. A website conveys an image, too. If it's tastefully done, it can add a lot of credibility to the site. Users rely on hypertext links to help assess credibility of the information contained in websites.
This point was made by 4 participants. They help you judge whether what the author is saying is true," one said. While reading an essay, one person commented, "This site is very believable. The author presents several points of view, and he has links for each point of view. In this study, 10 participants discussed their preferences for humor in various media, and some evaluated humor in certain websites.
Overall, participants said they like a wide variety of humor types, such as aggressive, cynical, irreverent, nonsense, physical, and word-play humor. I like to laugh. I get bored while waiting. I would like something clever and crafty to read ," one person said in Study 1. A website containing puns word-play humor was described as "stupid" and "not funny" by 2 out of the 3 participants who visited it. A site that contained cynical humor was enjoyed by all 3 participants who saw it, though only one of them had said earlier that he liked this type of humor.
Given people's different preferences for humor, it is important for a Web writer to know the audience, before including humor in a site. Of course, using humor successfully may be difficult, because a site's users may be diverse in many ways e. Puns are particularly dangerous for any site that expects a large number of international users.
This was mentioned by 11 participants. Users like well-organized sites that make important information easy to find. The most important thing is to give them the information fast," one participant advised. I want to do it quickly," one person said about a site. Users also want fast-loading graphics and fast response times for hypertext links, and they want to choose whether to download large slow graphics. Scanning can save users time. During the study, 15 participants always approached unfamiliar Web text by trying to scan it before reading it.
Only 3 participants started reading text word by word, from the top of the page to the bottom, without scanning. Elements that enhance scanning include headings, large type, bold text, highlighted text, bulleted lists, graphics, captions, topic sentences, and tables of contents. One user from Study 1 who scanned an article but failed to find what he was looking for said, "If this happened to me at work, where I get 70 emails and 50 voicemails a day, then that would be the end of it. If it doesn't come right out at me, I'm going to give up on it.
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While looking at a news site, one person said, "This is easy to read because it uses bold to highlight certain points. People want to read things that are broken up. It gets the points across better. Consistent with users' desire to get information quickly is their preference expressed by 11 people for short text. One person said, "Websites are too wordy. It's hard to read a lot of text on the screen. I don't have time for gobbledygook.
I like getting the information fast. Many participants want a Web page to fit on one screen. One person said the following about a news story: I think it's better to have condensed information that's no bigger than one screen. Participants want a website to make its points quickly. When you are aware of the basic human needs, you can incorporate these needs into your writing.
You must feel their needs, wants and desires and write your headlines with passion and emotion. A good title gives the reader power and control over their choice to read or not. Influencing them to read is great, but I like titles that help me decide whether or not I should use my precious time to read it. A good title or headline helps me decide if this meets my needs at the moment.
8 Tips for Better Readability
Their article title drew me from the search results to their blog, and yes, they were helpful by referring me to another resource for more helpful information, but think through the process I went through to get to the goal: Do you see a mention anywhere on that list that said I was so grateful to the blog that directed me to the blog with the information that I came back for more from that blog?
Since there was nothing to keep me on your blog except a link directing me away, why would I come back? Research has found that on the web you have about 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. It means the visitor has enough content to distract them for a few more seconds, so hopefully they will stick around or return. The more content and value they find in those few seconds before they leave your blog can make them think about saving your page, bookmarking it, adding it to their feed reader, or adding the page to their social bookmarking service to return at a later time.
Is it for you? You were just a stepping stone on the path to my goal. Have content to support your post title. The odds are that in those few seconds, you increase your likelihood to create a relationship between you and the reader. They will pause, look around, see links to related posts, recent posts, categories, popular posts, and subject matter that may be of interest to them. If it is, they will be back.
The Research Study
Give them nothing to stick around for, they are gone for good. I found a lot of blogs I will never return to while researching this article. I found some that I will definitely revisit, but out of over 50 new websites and blogs I visited, I found two keepers. However, I did find some good articles to help you with your title writing beyond those included in this article.
Overview of Studies
The following articles offered practical information and tips to help you learn how to write headlines and titles better on your blog. Thanks for the great info! Thanks for the information. I could use all of the help that I can get. I am constantly looking for more information on writing. I write for a few online companies, so I understand where you are coming from. Even though I do some writing, I still am far from perfect. Lorelle — Thank you for all your knowledge and informative content.
It was very helpful and gave my readers another opinion. It is easier for me to write a book than come up with a title. It is especially hard not to write a paragraph instead of three or four words. You have hit the nail on the head! Titles and headings really are some of the most difficult parts of writing articles and posts! I find it especially difficult when submitting articles to ezine because they are so picky on what you can and cannot say… they have even run me around a few times because they thought my word usage was weird, but the way I was saying it was entered into Google more than double how they were saying it!
I will use it for my website. H1 titles are also important. Headings, H1 tags should be used so as to keep it distinct from the text of the page or post. It should be clearly understood. The purpose of using H1 tags is to make it readable and understandable. The heading clearly denotes the subject of content. It is useful for the reader just like the title of a book or chapter is given. And like you say it helps for the search engines.
I am guilty of trying to write only cheeky titles for my blog posts. I think it gets your attention. Along with all the usual considerations of clarity and strength in titles, effective blog titles also make use of search engine technology to help attract traffic. I can usually see in my blog metrics when a particular title is not working, or when it is highly effective. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where […]. This can be especially important if […]. I was stunned to see so many bloggers get the point that titles that make sense are more powerful than useless titles.
Lorelle, a pro on blogging and wordpress, wrote a great article on how to write effective headlines. These skills influence how the material is written and presented on the blog such as effective titles, strong keyword and search term writing, and structuring the content for the best search engine […]. Get rich quick schemes, blog to […]. Introduction For me every time I start writing I feel energised. Writing is a great way to express yourself and put your mark on the world. I have prepared this article so you would not trip on you first steps. Some things just must be consi….
So use subheads as you would any other headline, this means making them keyword-rich, usually words long and descriptive of the content beneath […]. This will help focus you on your headlines and their impact. Web reading,writing and headlines from Lorelle. A longer post with examples to enable you to pick apart what works and what […]. An underlying question in writing attention-getting headlines, though, […].
We could go on an on, but here are a couple of links that talk about writing […]. All letters capped, sentence structure, word count limits, specific titling styles. Or really go overboard and aim for that […]. Well-written and properly formed link text motivates action based upon your […]. Another article that took a long time to write was the two part series on writing effective blog titles and the technical side of making those post titles work for you in WordPress.
You can read more about this here. Write well-formed post titles that explain the purpose of the article and create an urge to click and your post slug will reflect […]. A well-written post title includes the keywords about the subject matter of the article. If frustrated with the results in a […]. Notify me of new comments via email.
8 Tips for Better Readability - Usabilla Blog
Notify me of new posts via email. Lorelle on WordPress utorials about WordPress, blogging, social media, and having your say on the web. There are two goals to writing an effective title. Help search engines help searchers find your article. The Art of Writing Titles When I first began publishing technical articles online, I wanted to stand out from the crowd with cute and clever names. But what about the web? Highlight benefits rather than features. Make headlines look easy to read. This leading expert on website usability explains how a title is more than just a lead-in for a story: The two main differences in headline use are: Great titles attract readers.
Here are some interesting statistics. But great body content with a bad or even marginal headline is doomed to go largely unread. Copyblogger provides these simple guides on writing headlines, headings, subheads, and bullets: Of course, Back is still the user's lifeline and is so frequently used that supporting it remains a strong usability guideline. Breaking Back was the 1 design mistake of and it's one of the top mistakes to this date. Harald Weinreich graciously provided me with the dataset detailing 59, page views.
After cleaning the dataset, I was left with 45, page views for my analysis. I was able to fit very nice formulas to describe users' reading behavior for pages containing between 30 and 1, words. For longer pages, reading became quite erratic. Obviously, users tend to spend more time on pages with more information.
However, the best-fit formula tells us that they spend only 4. At that reading speed, users can read 18 words in 4. This wasn't an eyetracking study, so we don't know precisely how users allocated their time on the Web pages. The formula in the chart above indicates that there is a fixed time of about 25 seconds, plus an additional 4.
Of course, the numbers are not "fixed" in the sense that they're always the same — these are averages. The formula seems to indicate that people spend some of their time understanding the page layout and navigation features, as well as looking at the images. Clearly, people don't read during every single second of a page visit. However, the total time spent on a page is definitely the upper limit of possible reading time.
Thus, we can calculate the hypothetical maximum number of words users would be able to read , if they allocated their entire page-visit to reading. The following chart shows the maximum amount of text users could read during an average visit to pages with different word counts:. This is a very rapidly declining curve. On an average visit, users read half the information only on those pages with words or less.