The internet is a wonderful source of information, however due to the sheer volume of material available how can you make people read your blog over others?
Our head curator at Flair Headquarters would like to share with you the top 7 ways that will make her stop reading your blog…
The Title
Witty titles have their time and their place and yes, sometimes an intriguing title will make me want to find out more but most of the time if it’s too wacky I’m not going like it.
If I found your blog on Google then the first thing I’ll see is the title, if it doesn’t engage me or inform me of what it’s about then I am not going to click on your link. Simples!
No Pictures
Every time I’m faced with a long block of text that doesn’t have a bit of colour I cry a little inside. I’ll never read it, ever. I won’t even read it if it’s a topic I am interested in, instead I’d much rather spend another 10 minutes finding a more aesthetically pleasing blog. Strange but true.
Lack of Formatting
I spend a lot of time curating each week and I read a lot of blogs but am truly amazed at how many of them have no formatting. It’s very rare that someone will read a whole blog, it’s more likely they’ll try to find what they need by skimming the text or going to the summary at the end before deciding to read the whole thing.
If you have clear and defined sections to your blog entry then please separate them with formatted text, such as making your final statement a bright colour or making subheadings bold.
Long Paragraphs
Seriously, who gets excited when faced with huge blocks of text and who just can’t be arsed to read them. I know which camp I’m in – more short paragraphs please.
Complicated Language
I get it, sometimes the best word for your sentence isn’t ‘nice’ it’s ‘fabulous’, ‘tremendous’ or ‘stupendous’ and I say good for you! The English language is full of phantasmagorical words that should be rolled out as often as possible nevertheless, there are limits.
If someone were to start talking about their lethonomia* or use jargon that an average person wouldn’t understand then you bet your bottom dollar I’m not going to read your blog.
Think about your target audience and use the appropriate language, you could even get a client or friend to read it first to see if you are on the right track.
* lethonomia is a tendency to forget names – I’m pretty sure I have it.
Your blog is split over various pages
Ever read a blog where you have to click ‘Next’ at the bottom to read the second half? This infuriates me!
The purpose of a blog is to give me information swiftly and efficiently and if you have a ‘Top 10 …’ spread over 10 pages how am I supposed to get my information quickly? It might work if your post is mainly pictorial but for text blogs it seems pointless.
You’re better off having your blog on one page properly formatted to show the different sections.
Your Blog is too fussy
Your blog is a reflection of you or your company so of course you want it to be aesthetically pleasing, but if I can’t easily navigate your blog, or if it takes me 3 or more clicks to get to what I want to read then I will quickly become frustrated.
Also having music playing on your blog is almost always a bad idea. Easy to navigate doesn’t have to mean boring, you can jazz it up with your colour scheme and fonts but remember simple is really best and easy navigation is key.
The bottom line……
Now I’m sure some of you think that I’m being picky or frivolous with the blogs that I’m discarding and to you I say – it’s the way of the world my friends; best deal with it. There are more and more fickle people like me who have rapidly decreasing attention spans and are very choosy on what they spend the little time they have.
When you consider the sheer volume of data on the internet if they don’t like your blog there will be 50 other blogs to replace it.
