They read 3.5% of the words on the page
Consider the numbers:
- 43% of people skim blog posts instead of reading them, according to Hubspot.
- 55% of people spent fewer than 15 seconds on an article, according to ChartBeat.
- That means people read about 50 words, on average, of a post, using an average reading rate of 200 words per minute.
- The average blog post is 1,416 words long, according to OrbitMedia.
Which means that audience members read, on average, 3.5% of the words on a post.
They don’t read the text. Instead, their “reading strategy” is to skim.
Which words do they read?
So how do you reach nonreaders with words? Put your message where their eyes are — in the microcontent and display copy.
So which words do they read? Your audience members look at magnetic elements, including:
- Bold-face text
- Callouts
- Captions
- Decks
- Headlines
- Links
- Lists
- Subheads
So put your message where their eyes are — in the display copy.
Pass The Palm Test.
So break up walls of words to make messages look easier to read.
In one study, Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne rewrote a New York Magazine post about New York City restaurants. They added more bullets, bold-faced text, highlighted key words and white space to break up walls of words and make the message look easier to read.
Audience members spent about twice as much time with the original page. But they remembered 34% more of the content on the revised page. But they:
- Understood 12% better
- Remembered 34% more of the piece
- Enjoyed the experience significantly better
Pass The Skim Test.
In another study, Neilsen Norman Group researchers rewrote a New York Times article about Nobel Prize winners. They made the piece significantly more scannable with:
- Subheads
- Bulleted lists
- Highlighted key words
As a result, audience members:
- Spent 3% more time reading the article.
- Understood it 12% better.
- Enjoyed it 7% more.
Not a bad return on a few bullets and bold-faced words!
How can you reach people who skim through your text?
How do you reach nonreaders with words?
Most readers spend, on average, fewer than 15 seconds on a page, according to a study by Chartbeat.
So how do you get your message across to skimmers, scanners and other nonreaders?
Learn to put your key messages where readers’ eyes are at Get Clicked, Liked & Shared — our content-writing workshop that starts April 18.
You’ll learn to write better listicles with our 6-step list-writing makeover. How to tear down the obstacles to reading your post. And leave with a simple search engine optimization approach that will help you get found while producing high-quality content.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
