How To Make Your Articles Really Attractive And Easy to Read and Digest

No matter how good your writing is, it can still be an instant turn off

If you are new to blogging and online non-fiction story-writing, you may be making fatal mistakes with your writing.

Whether you are writing for the first time or a highly experienced offline writer, everyone can find themselves facing the same challenge: That no one is reading or engaging with your content.

The thing is that, unless you understand how readers read online, it will continue to be an uphill battle.

But here’s a secret…

It is 90% in the presentation, and 10% in the content.

Writing is not just about putting words onto a page (or a screen). It is a whole lot more.

So, if you feel like you are struggling to get your work read, or you simply don’t feel like you know what works and what doesn’t, then read on.

What doesn’t work in the digital space

Even if you have written all of your life, if the format you use is the standard essay-style or printed book-style, then you need to adapt it for the world of online viewership.

Long, unbroken paragraphs and flowing pieces of narrative do not work for these kinds of written pieces.

The reason behind this is that we look at online content in a different way from the way that we perceive a book. With fast internet speeds that enable us to hop between different tabs and search results, and social media that we can scroll through at speed, we habitually look at content on screens as something to skim over.

What does work

The Nielson Norman Group discovered in their research that only 16% of their test users read online content word-for-word, while 79% always scanned any new page they came across. The three components that they discovered to be vital were:

• Concise text
• Scannable layout
• Objective language

So, let’s break this down into easy-to-grasp concepts.

1. Concise text

Very simply, are you using minimal words to get your point across?

In the research mentioned above, it was discovered that, by reducing the overall number of words used and eliminating unnecessary words and phrases from pieces of text, it increased the readability rate by 58%.

If you are fluffing out your content with overly complicated descriptions and super-long sentences, you need to eliminate some of it.

People don’t want to read more than they have to and you don’t want to lose readers before they have read your remaining points. You know, the really good bits and the conclusion.

Be rigorous with your word count and make sentences short. If you find yourself writing a very long sentence, look for where you can break it into two or even three shorter ones.

Short, sweet, to-the-point, yet infused with your unique touch will score well on the readability scale.

2. Objective language

According to the findings of the Nielson Norman Group, changing promotional language to objective language increased its readability by 27%.

Promotional language is purely designed to sell an idea and has undertones of persuasion. Objective language states facts.

Promotional language can be used for a number of things:

• To sell products and services (your own or as an affiliate)
• To sell an idea or a perspective
• Within the headline, to get people to click on the article

I don’t feel that the first needs to be dwelled on a great deal since most writers on Medium aren’t writing content designed to sell products or services (although many bloggers do this through affiliate offers).

Selling ideas and perspectives is another thing. Of course, we want to tell people how they really should visit a certain place, or try a particular activity because we love it so much.

Or, we may want people to be convinced that a certain event or development is going to happen, and for them to, therefore, take some sort of action.

For sure, you want to express your enthusiasm about a particular place or activity, or your conviction that something is going to happen. However, the simple way to differentiate between purely promotional and objective is to clarify that these are your opinions and not fact.

As for headlines, we are taught that the headline is vital to getting potential readers to click on our article. Therefore, our headline is our one chance to sell our story and we need to come up with a really good and clickable one.

A headline will fall into the promotional category when it is clearly written for the clicks but is not reflecting a true statement, nor does it reflect the tone or theme of the article itself. This is immediately visible to the reader and, therefore, a turn-off.

The good news is that, with practice, coming up with good headlines that also authentically reflect the content of the article, becomes easier and easier.

3. Scannable layout

As an editor for New Writers Welcome — a publication that publishes articles of writers who are completely new to the world of Medium, and still learning the ropes of writing online — I regularly see stories submitted with barely readable layouts.

Bearing in mind that 79% of users scan every new piece of content that they open, before actually reading to digest, this is a major slip-up.

So what do we need to be aware of when designing the layout of our articles?

Variety

The Medium editor provides us with tools to break up our text and enable more of it to stand out.

We can make specific keywords and phrases bold. We can emphasise some words in italics.

We can use subheadings, both

major

and

minor.

We can use breaks as I used there 👆

And emojis, like I just did 👌

We can write short, list-style lines, Change the font style, Get creative with our poetic-prose Playing with the words As they flow out and onto the digital page.

We can quote others…

…like this.

Or you can use the quote tool to highlight your own words…

Your own words.

We can use images; not too many but just enough. And we can use GIFs.

You can even do this!

For more guidance on all of these different editing and formatting tools, you can read Medium’s guide on how to use the story editor.

White space

White space is still largely underrated by many writers online.

However, go and check out the top writers on Medium and elsewhere and you will see a common theme: Lots and lots of white space.

White space is what you get when you break your writing up into very short paragraphs.

These might be only one sentence long, or they may be two or three. But break them up as much as possible.

Each new block of words that follows a gap in the writing is an opportunity to get your readers’ attention on the words. A scanner’s eyes will always be drawn to the opening words of paragraphs.

More white space makes the reader feel like the content is easy to read and won’t give up.

On the other hand, little white space, along with line after line of text, will present an immediate problem for the scanner, and therefore, will put the average reader off before they have even read any of the content.

Experiment and find your formula

These are basic guidelines that can help you to organise your writing and make it easy for your readers to take in your content, absorb your message, and engage with it.

Hopefully, you can take these tips and apply them to your writing to get better results.

However, your writing is unique to you. You need to remember that your formatting, layout, and structure must reflect who you are and communicate that to your audience in the best way possible.

GIFs and emojis may not be your thing while wordsmithery may be. Use the tools that we have to bring out the best in your writing, with the right tone for you and your audience.

Don’t be afraid to play and experiment and see what works best for you.

And, if you have re-jigged a story to take on board some of these tips, then feel free to share the link with me so I can have a read.

Thanks for reading!

If you aren’t yet a Medium member and would love to have unlimited access to read the work of all your favourite writers, please consider joining through my referral link.

More to ponder on: