Appealing to the (Non)Reader: How Does Your Blog Measure Up?

As a print journalism major in college, I was required to have a minor outside the School of Communications. When it came time to choose a course of study, I realized that journalism was on its way to becoming digital and having some computer skills would probably be good when it came time to find a job. So, I choose Computer Information Systems (which later changed to an equally unexciting name: Information Systems Management). I’m pretty good with a computer, I’ve always been a bit of a geek deep down, but I have never had any interest in becoming a computer programmer. Unfortunately, the majority of the classes offered towards my minor were geared towards majors, and thus I sat through months of Visual Basic, Perl, and SQL. Pure torture. Thankfully, I also learned HTML.

The next phase of my journalism/Internet education plan was to take a class called Interactive Journalism. It was without a doubt the most useful class I ever took. I have used the skills and lessons that I learned in every internship and job since. The premise of the class was to prepare us for the shift to digital, because writing for the Web is different. You can’t just take the same story you would run in the paper and stick it online unless you don’t want anyone to read it. Here’s the secret: Online users don’t read, they scan. So, content has to be tailored to catch the scanning eye. Some pointers:

• Write an enticing headline that draws the reader in.
• Keep your paragraphs short, and resist the urge to use lesser known words or jargon.
• Make it a multimedia piece, including images and video whenever you can. This also provides interactivity, which online readers love.
• If your story is on the long side, break it up by including a Read More link after the first section, and/or with a hyperlinked outline at the top of the page. Online readers hate scrolling on forever.
• Along the same lines, divide the piece into relatively self-sufficient sub-sections, so that someone could read part of the article and still get the gist of what you’re trying to say.
• Put key words in bold to draw the scanner’s eye to them, and use other formatting tools like the bullets I’ve used here.

I took that course three years ago, and I still remember all of this. Now, the point of this post is not to give a shameless plug for my university (Quinnipiac in Hamden, CT) or my professor (Richard Hanley)…ooops…the point is to consider how many of these pointers I have implemented on this blog. True, a blog is different than a news article on a publication’s website, but I have the same ultimate goal: to attract readers. So, how am I doing?

• I try to write enticing titles, but they could probably be better.
• I think my paragraphs are usually a good length, and I only throw in the occasional “big word.”
• As for multimedia, I’m working on it, and the same for interactivity.
• One of the reasons I switched to this new layout is because I wanted to break up my content more. There’s no easier way to lose someones attention than to force them to scroll and scroll.
• Bolding is my favorite, so no question that I’m good on that one.

Clearly, these guidelines can be applied to a blog with some success. Obviously it takes a variety of things to reach your desired audience, but thinking twice about the way you write and the way your blog is set up could make a difference.

Do your own self-analysis. How many of these tactics do you employ on your blog? Do you think they’re worthwhile? Are there some you’ve never thought of before? What else do you do to attract readers?

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