Grabbing people’s attention online is getting harder all the time. Everyone is scrolling endlessly through emails, social media and websites. While there are other important elements on your page that grab people’s attention (think about images and/or videos), it’s ultimately the words that keep your readers’ attention.
How you write is as important as what you write. This post will give you writing tips that will grab your readers attention and keep it. But before we get to the writing tips there is one central principle for you to remember:
Centre your copy around your reader. It’s all about them. Ask yourself, “Is this going to help them?” Make their life better in some way? If not, go back and write again.
We’re going to assume that you’ve fixed your copy so it’s reader-centric. And now you need to amp up the style, format and writing.
How to Write Copy to Grab & Keep Attention
When you’re creating online content:
- Make your sentences short. No compounds, no extra clauses
- Make one point per sentence—keep your thinking and writing—uncomplicated
- Write short paragraphs (sometimes even one sentence – breaking traditional grammar rules)
- Add a call to action (CTA). Write in the imperative voice: for example, Get the Course, Subscribe, Download. These are all strong calls to action.
- Use subheadings—chunk and segment your content. This helps your readers scan and find the pertinent information that they are looking for.
- Use bullet points when writing out a list instead of writing a narrative. This is great for scanning which online readers do.
- Use Bolding or italicizing to make certain phrases stand out – this draws your readers’ eyes to them.
- Include links to other relevant pages or posts in your website – this creates a smooth user experience and you can guide your reader to where you’d like them to go.
- Know your keywords and use them strategically. (This tip is not really for your readers but for SEO)
- And a wordless tip about your copy: Don’t fear white space. Spacing between thoughts, paragraphs, images make your content easier for your readers to take in. You can use separators and spacers to segment your content. When you add these, you give your readers’ eyes a space to rest.
If you use these online writing tips, you’ll be on your way to keeping and then engaging your site visitors.
Have we missed any web writing techniques? What else do you do to super charge your web copy? Leave us a comment.