Step 1 – Follow the ‘Inverted Pyramid’ Model
Web readers decide whether your site has the information they are looking for in seconds.
To increase average time on an article or page, structure your content like an upside-down pyramid, or a cone;
With essential information at the top, and more specific, detailed content further in, ending with the least important information and a call to action.
Step 2 – Use simple language and sentence structure
On average, the attention span of today’s reader requires sentences to have 25 words or less, with a preference for sentences of around 14 words.
Ensuring your content is more accessible and easy to read will naturally increase your audience’s engagement.
Focus on simple language is key in content writing.
The Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate how difficult a passage (in English) is to understand using a specific set of indices including;
Reading Ease, Grade Level and more. Consider using a readability test to ensure that your writing is easy to digest and won’t overwhelm the reader.
If you are unsure how complex your writing style is, these tools should help;
–The Readability Test
–The Readability Calculator
Step 3 – Use an Active Voice
Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts on a verb.
Passive voice means that a subject is the recipient of the verb’s actions.
Using active rather than passive verbs helps to create reader-friendly sentences. It is more engaging to speak directly to your audience.
For example;
This statement, which uses the passive voice: “Using this service, over 300 leads were won by our client” is more difficult to read and not as engaging as the same statement in the active voice: “Our client won over 300 leads using this service”.
Step 4 – Make your text scannable
In addition to using the inverted pyramid model, make sure your text is easy to skim read.
When looking for a specific piece of information, most readers will scan the page to find what they are looking for, leaving the page if they don’t see it within the first few seconds.
- Instead of using text-heavy paragraphs, stick to easy to digest bullet lists.
- Organise your content using Headers and Sub-headers
- Always include “White Space”. -spacing out your text makes it more legible, and easier to read.
Step 5 – Use multimedia
A picture can speak a thousand words, and a video can say a thousand more.
Research shows that 90% of information processed by the human brain is visual and that we process visual information around 60,000 times faster than text (source).
Including images, GIFs, videos and other multimedia in your content to enhance and expand it will increase engagement and keep users on your page or post longer.
By following the tips above you can;
- Increase your skills in content writing.
- Improve your website content.
- Reduce bounce rate.
- Lift your articles higher in searches.
About Inflowing
Inflowing is a B2B marketing agency. We help B2B organisations do meaningful things with marketing – whether that’s getting more leads, more visibility, or supporting their sales teams.
We’re an experienced team of marketers with an incredibly strong background in B2B. To learn more about B2B and improving your marketing, check out our other blogs or get in touch.
