SUMMARY: Tips to communicate online with lots of short attention spans
I'm going to follow my own advice, and keep this short!
Think about what you write online. Think about the photos you show, and the videos you post.
A good rule of thumb, I find, is to assume that people will pay attention to about half of it. That's if you do a good job! There's very little actual reading online. There's a lot of scanning and scrolling, however.
Now, what half do you want your readers to pay attention to? Here are a few techniques to make it easier to read your content online.
BULLET POINTS
Here's my prescription for the perfect web page: A short, punchy opening sentence or two, and ...
- bullet points,
- bullet points,
- bullet points!
GRAPHICS
Use images to help convey your message!
Use bold to highlight key words.
Be smart about fonts. Some fonts are eye-catching, but very difficult to read!
You would never write in white on a black piece of paper. It's harder to read white letters on a dark background, no matter how "cool" it looks.
Links also help catch peoples' attention.
Break up long paragraphs of text. Those things just become fields of grey that readers skip right over!
CONSISTENCY
What you show people is more likely to be taken in if they already expect it from you. If it's the right stuff, you will get bored of saying the same thing over and over long before they get tired of hearing it.
GET TO THE POINT
"Clarity is the new creativity," says master copywriter Roy H. Williams.
Get right to telling people what you want them to know. We're all exposed to lots and lots of messages every day; our attention spans aren't getting any longer. Do the math!
If you ask me, one of the most important skills to communicate online is ... the ability to write well.
REMEMBER THE WHITE SPACE
100 words all crammed together are harder to read than 500 well-spaced, well-organized words. Our eyes and brains use the white space around words to keep things organized and readable. Respect that!
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