Be Brief!

If content is king, then a consumer’s attention span is his fickle, cruel mistress.

The always entertaining Farhad Manjoo over at Slate recently explored just how much content is actually consumed by visitors to their website every day, and the results are startling. Here are the big highlights of what they found (because we don’t want you leaving before getting to the good stuff):

• 5% of visitors to a web page will not look at anything other than a headline or photo.
• 43% of visitors will leave after reading just the headline or when they are required to scroll to get additional content.
• 64% of readers who engage will only make it halfway through most posts.
• Most readers consume supplementary media and little more.

Some of that sounds very scary to content producers. To make things a little clearer, here’s one of the many graphics that was put together for the analysis by the site’s partner, Chartbeat:

The Slate piece is definitely worth a read; it goes into detail about things like social media interaction vs. read-through and when/why links are shared in the first place. Here, though, we’d like to focus on how you can use this information to better generate copy that is more likely to inform and engage with the greatest possible number of readers. Because within this data is the key to creating content that has an impact.

1) Get to the point quickly: Your headline and lead are your first impression. This is where you hook the reader and entice them to keep going. Immediately after that you’ve got to give them a reason to continue sticking around.

2) Include media: In addition to the information generated by Chartbeat for the Slate story, every study that PR Newswire has done has shown that when your content includes media, you get more eyeballs and more engagement. Some kind of infographic is best, but any photo that illustrates your point will do. There is little that is as boring on the web as a screen with nothing but lines of text.

3) Don’t bury the lead: With an expected reader drop-off of 50% after your content’s halfway point, you’ve got to get all of your information out as quickly as possible. Even if you can’t be brief (i.e. if you’ve got a lot of information to convey), get to your point fast. The readers who stick with you will most likely only do so until the halfway point. Use bullet points and graphs right at the top, if possible. You’ll not only inform the maximum number of people that way, but you’ll also increase your chances of keeping them engaged longer.

4) Photos first, video for dessert: Post photos or graphs at the top, but leave video near the end. Readers who might not have otherwise will be more likely to scroll through to the embedded content.

And finally…

5) Learn from your past: Enlist the help of a competent analytics company to track who is reading what and for how long. Even basic information can be incredibly helpful. For instance, the people who stay with your content “below the fold” (i.e. they need to scroll or jump to a second page) are much more engaged. This is your target audience, and their size at that point can be used to gauge the overall quality of your content.

Great content will always draw readers, but in this day and age you need more than that. The old saying was, “Even the best writers need the editors.” In today’s world it seems that they also need good statistical analysis and UX designers.