Hephzy AsaoluIt is a proven fact that not all the visitors who come to your blog will read the content. This fact was demonstrated by slate.com on the percentage of article content viewed. It was revealed that very few people actually read an entire article.
You can say those who scrolled to the end of your post are possibly your friends or relatives who want to make you happy.
The fact that people shared your article does not mean they actually read it. This is saddening, considering the amount of time it took you to produce a blog post. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There are things you can do to actually get people to read your blog posts.
- Use a conversational tone
The first way to get people to read more of your blog post is to make it look like you already know them. Talk to them the way you converse with your friends. You can use such words as “you” and “I”, just like the way I write here. The last thing people want to do is to read article as if they are reading theses or academic papers. That would be boring! When you write as if you are talking to your readers, your readers will understand you better, because it is easy for your readers to relate with what you are saying.
2. Break your posts into segments with subheadings, bullets, lists and quotes
It is easy for readers to read a post that is broken down into segment than one long form of content without paragraphs. It is easy for them to get your message by using lists, bullets, and quotes. Incorporating this method into your blog post will increase the time spent on your blog posts.
3. Reduce the length of your posts
The length of your articles matters a lot. I discovered that people read articles that are less than 1,500 more than 3,000 or 5,000 words articles. This is because most online readers have short attention spans. There are so many distractions online. As you read blog posts, you are chatting with a friend and trying to send a mail. At the end of the day, fewer people spend time to read your long posts. However, when you make it short and punchy, such as 1,000 words or less, you will discover that a lot of people will settle down to read your post.
4. Use less pictures
It is a good thing to capture your readers’ attention with good images from the beginning of the post. However, having too many pictures in your blog posts can be distracting. People tend to scroll to view all the pictures and leave the content behind. You will get more results by using less pictures, because your goal in the first place is for them to read your content and not to stare at your pictures. However, this is an exception for image blogs.
5. Add a conclusion to your blog post
Adding a conclusion to your blog posts is necessary to provide a sneak preview into your article. People who are not ready to read the entire post can easily read the conclusion of the post. You will be giving them a summary of the points on the page, just like I did at the end of this article.
When you consider all it takes to produce a blog post – the research, writing, proofreading and posting, it is saddening not to get people to read the entire posts. However, if you can follow the five steps highlighted above – Use a conversation tone such as “You” and “I”, break your post into segments with subheadings, list, bullets etc, reduce the length of your post, reduce the image in the post and add a conclusion at the end of the post – you are on the way to increasing the number of people who will actually take time to read your blog posts.
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