Content production is undoubtedly one of the main pillars in the construction of a marketing strategy. . Therefore, it is important to think about content presentation techniques that go beyond the text.
Have you ever thought that comfortable reading can be a good strategy to attract new users to your blog and retain the ones you already have?
Stay with us and find out why scannability is one of the features you can’t miss and how to apply it to your blog!
Why is it important to think about scannability?
Reading a text on the Internet, be it a blog, a news website or a recipe, is very different from reading a book, don’t you think? This means that if you write very dense and long paragraph blocks on your blog, your reader will probably find it monotonous and may even abandon the text.
However, it is important to think that, even if users do not find very large paragraphs, since it is very possible that their reading will be slower, due to the fact that, on the web, in general, people tend to carry out other tasks simultaneously.
Multiple tabs open in the browser with other text and spreadsheets, email, instant messaging applications, social networks, streaming music or podcasts… are some of the factors that can disperse the attention of those who will read your blog.
For this reasonif the reader does not quickly find the desired content, your page may be left out. And you don’t want that to happen, do you?
This is where you can count on scannability as a feature that will help your audience more easily find and filter the content they are looking for on your page.
How to scan a text?
when you looked up the word scannability, no doubt you found this post as a reference on the subject, correct? When opening the page, you did a quick reading of the subheadings to see if what you are looking for is in this post. If this is what you did, you have simply scanned this text!
Scannability consists of this process. Every time a user enters a page for the first time, he does a dynamic read to identify if what he is looking for will be there. It also refers to the way you lay out writing and format text, features that will allow your reader to scan it.
The first thing to keep in mind is to understand how people scan text on the Internet, so you can prioritize the elements that should be more visible to attract the attention of those who will read your blog.
Are there scanning standards?
There are several templates to facilitate the scannability of a text, but according to nielson there are some reading standards that are more frequent among Internet users.
Standard in F, Z or Zigzag? How do you distribute your reading when you are in the text?
Standard in Z
This is probably the most common and traditional pattern, but it is not the most suitable for your blog if you want to better retain your audience.
This form occurs when the person reads the screen from left to right and then reads diagonally below until they come across a new subtitle.
This is because the page may be showing a bad hierarchy of content and the reader performs a “diagonal” reading to make it faster.
zigzag standard
It is very similar to the Z pattern, but this is used when paragraphs are further apart in the text layout. It’s more dynamic than the old standard, but it’s still not the best if you want your audience to be interested in reading the full text.
Standard in F
This occurs when people read starting at the top of the text, always reading from left to right. This type of reading prioritizes the most important elements of the text, such as the title and the first paragraph.
The difference is that, after reading this part, the person reads vertically along the left margin of the text, until he finds some information that catches his attention. The drawing formed with this type of reading resembles a letter F.
If your idea is to value , it is essential to take into account all the details that will make your text more scannable. So align your text to the left and put as much relevant information in the first few lines of each block of your blog post.
How does scannability help in SEO?
Perhaps you are wondering why this strategy is so important? Would it be just to make it easier for people who visit your blog to read? Or to improve the practice of dynamic reading?
These are some of the points that certainly make scanning possible. Although it is not a strategy that focuses directly on the ranking of web pages, this is a feature that can help, and a lot, when and achieve better positions for your website or blog in the main search engines.
First, text that has good scannability tends to have a short.
If you combine this with a good distribution of the chosen keyword throughout the text, you invest in attractive titles and subdivide the text into shorter paragraphs, in addition to increasing the duration of the visitor on your page, you will be improving the possibility that your blog occupies the first positions.
How to make your text more scannable?
So far, you have seen that scannability is a key resource if you want to attract and retain visitors to your blog, even improve the SEO of your page.
But if you have questions about how to apply this strategy to your texts, keep reading because we will tell you what you need to do to make your text more scannable. Check out 6 valuable scannability tips!
1. Use titles and subtitles well
It is the titles and subtitles that highlight the topic that you will address in your blog post, allowing the reader to get an idea of the content that they will find in each topic, even before reading the text.
They will also make it easier for the visitor to return to a point in the text that they want to explore further.
That is why it prioritizes direct and relevant titles and subtitles. In addition to being the first point for a good scan, it also collaborates for a better Google.
Remember to use imperative verbs as they suggest an action. And don’t forget to put the keyword whenever possible!
2. Separate the text into more paragraphs
When writing to an online audience, remember that it is not recommended to use large blocks of text to say what you need.
It is best to divide the text into smaller paragraphs, which will improve the reading flow of your blog visitor.
This is a technique that will make you deliver text with less visual clutter and much easier to scan.
However, pay attention to one important detail: it is essential to connect one paragraph well with another. It is not enough to create a large block of text and then randomly distribute it.
A paragraph must give a logical sequence to the previous one. Reread the text whenever necessary to make sure you don’t lose the thread!
3. Create lists, use bullets or numbers
This is a very important technique and it works very well for online reading. Your text can be better understood if you break it down into simpler elements, like the numbers or topics used in this post.
This same feature can be used in the development of titles and subtitles as in “Discover 6 tips to produce scannable content”.
4. Use bold, italic or underline to highlight
By knowing how to use these elements, you can direct your visitors’ interest and attention to the most important words or excerpts in your text.
This highlighting shows the reader the type of content they will find, this makes it, like headings and subheadings, much easier to scan.
The use of bold or italic font favors the clarity of the content. The underscore or tall box should be used with more caution.
In general, bold is used to highlight a word or piece of content that you want to show in a special way, due to its importance. In turn, italics can be used in quotations or foreign words such as scannable, which means scannable.
5. Use images, videos and infographics
Images such as images, videos or they not only help to explain or exemplify the topic, but they are also an excellent resource to divide the text and improve the ability of the audience to scan.
In addition to attracting attention, multimedia resources can often make it easier to understand more complex issues, leading to greater identification with your audience.
It is important, whenever you use images or videos, to take into account: the quality of the image, if it dialogues with the identity and of the text and the description that you are going to put.
6. Align the text to the left
Do you remember that earlier we talked about the patterns that people use to scan a text?
Aligning the text to the left, taking into account the F standard, will make it easier for your audience to read and significantly increase the chances of retaining it on the page.
How to know if your text is really scannable?
Have you followed all the advice we gave you here, but still have doubts about whether your text is scannable? Don’t worry. There are tools that can help you verify the scannability of your text.
tools like wordpress, Y they can be used strategically to analyze the scannability of your content, showing if your efforts are working, even if there are elements to improve.
You have seen that scannability, in addition to being a great resource to attract new visitors to your blog, also retains the attention of those who already make up your audience and even helps your page to be better ranked in search engines.
If you are interested in optimizing your blog more and more, be sure to check out our post with so that you write increasingly persuasive texts.
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