You clicked. Now you see endless paragraphs. You scroll down to read a couple of headings. Do they trigger your curiosity? If yes, you scroll back up and start reading the first paragraph. Will it be worth your time?
Then you realize the text speaks directly to you. That makes you continue for another paragraph. To see if you can learn something new.
This article will teach you how to better connect with your audience. How to apply simple, yet effective techniques to draw the reader into your content and keep them.
You'll find out how to:
- Write articles that make the reader believe it's about them
- Structure sentences to keep readers engaged at all time
- Avoid that readers get hung up on the wrong things
- Write long articles that feel short and easy to read
Make your story become the reader's story
"You look at your beer. You notice that you haven't touched it. Usually, at this point, you would be deep into the second or third beer. What's different? You realize that you are enjoying yourself. This date is different. She seems interested. She asks questions and listens. It makes you feel good."
Whether you are on a date or reading an article, the same psychology applies. We like when people talk to us. We love it when the attention centers around us. It triggers a built-in psychological part of our brain. It makes us feel comfortable, appreciated and vital.
If you bring this mindset to the content you create, you will see that people find it more interesting. The reader will relate to your message and feel they are a part of your story. It's a simple, yet powerful technique to keep readers engaged.
Structure your sentences for maximum readability
Readers are lazy. I'm no exception. A useful trick to keep your readers interested throughout a long article is by varying the length of your sentences. Make some long. Others short. Some are neither long or sort. If you build up paragraphs the right way, it is hard for readers to quit. They get trapped in the "Just one more sentence" mind-game.
Here are some rules of thumb:
In the beginning. Keep it short. By doing that you give the reader an easy entrance to the paragraph. Follow up by providing a more detailed and lengthy sentence to explain your point. Followed by a short sentence. Or two. To keep them reading.
As you see in my example. I mix up the length to make it easy for the reader to keep reading. In general, try to keep your sentence as short as possible.
Heard of Ernest Hemingway? Hemingway was an American author. He was known for writing short sentences. Years later some people built a Hemingway app where you can grade your writing. You will get feedback on sentence length, phrases that are difficult to read, use of passive voice and readability. Go here and test it out for your next blog post. It's a great tool.
How to avoid that your readers get hung up on the wrong words
Hemingway was also known for "hating" adjectives. If he could avoid them, he dit. His reason was well reasoned. Adjectives make people think and visualize things. In cases, where you describe a person or an object, and the description is your main point, use them. However, in cases where an object or person is not your main focus, don't use adjectives.
Let me show why:
Peter placed a bid at 3,14. Two hours later the stock rose to 6,28, doubling his money.
Let's add some adjectives:
Peter, the newbie trader, place an ice cold bid at 3,14 and two crazy hours later the underrated stock rose to an all-time high price of 6,28 which doubled his hot burning money.
The risk you take by adding adjectives is that your audience get hung up on them and misses your point.
- Is it essential that Peter was a newbie?
- What made the bid ice cold? What does an ice cold bid look like?
- Why were the hours crazy?
- Why was the stock underrated?
- Why is his money hot burning?
Overuse of adjectives confuses the readers. They start thinking and visualizing parts of the story that was not meant to be relevant. They lose focus. Avoid using adjectives unless it provides value to your core message.
Keep it short
Peoples attention span is short. You need to deliver your message fast. One way of doing that is by removing unnecessary words. Words that don't provide value to your audience. Filler words.
Let me provide another example:
This is my first draft of the section above:
Peoples attention span is very short. Therefore you need to deliver your message fast. One effective way of doing that is by removing all unnecessary words. I'm talking about words that don't provide good value to your text. I call them junk words or filler words.
The original text contains 46 words and the final version 31. That's a reduction of 15 words in one paragraph. That's a 32% reduction. This article has 1 037 Words in total. With filler words, it would have been around 1 320. And no extra value added.
Here is a list of common filler words. Go to your last blog post and see how many of them you are using. Try to remove them and see what happens to the article. I think both you and your followers will like the result.
- Just
- Only
- Really
- Slightly
- Almost
- Seemed
- That
- Perhaps
- Simply
- Somehow
- Absolutely
- Basically
- Actually
- Sort of
- Kind of
- A little
- Very
I hope you found the article useful. Try to apply the tips to your own writing. This is the first post in a series of articles where I share easy-to-follow writing tips and techniques.
Follow me if you like to receive more easy-to-follow writing tips. Share and upvote if the article gave you good value.
Talk soon,
Stu