How To Design Your Unique Style With These Content Style Tips

How To Design Your Unique Style With These Content Style Tips

How To Design Your Unique Style With These Content Style Tips

Designing Your Own Unique Style With These Content Style Tips

This information is important for capturing your audience’s attention and will help you with the even more difficult task of keeping that attention.

Let’s be real and NOT sugar coat it!

Internet users have a very short attention span and MOST of your visitors WILL be gone BEFORE you can bat an eyelash.

All it takes is a click or a search in their browser’s search box…and they’re gone.    POOF!!

It’s a sad fact, but there are plenty of things you can do to increase your visitor retention and keep them engaged in your content.

When in doubt, make things simpler, rather than more complicated.

Explain things in simpler terms.

Break it down into bit-sized hunks.

Provide more detail, but make the details easy-to-understand.

KEEP IT SIMPLE!

With that in mind, here are your style tips:

Get To The Point Quickly.

While traditional writing calls for the conclusion to be made at the end of the writing piece, you may find it more effective to introduce your conclusion at the beginning and then proceed to prove that conclusion.

Once again, short attention span means that your visitors want you to get to the point quickly, so they can decide if they should stick around to read more.

Write How You Speak.

The Internet is an informal place and as a business owner trying to reach your market, your goal is approachability and connection.

Online content is not a Master’s Thesis, a PhD dissertation or even a grade 8 essay.

Instead, write the way you speak.

In other words, be casual.

Be friendly.

Be approachable.

Of course, if you talk like a truck driver complete with expletives and you’re trying to convey the image of a sweet homemaking mom who loves to bake, you may need to make some adjustments.

The key to take away from this advice is to be casual, rather than formal.

It’s okay to break a few grammar rules.

It’s time for revenge on your grade 10 English teacher.

Yippee!

Writing for the web means you GET TO BREAK THE RULES! 

You can break the rules where it makes sense to:

Convey A More Casual Tone.

For example, you might occasionally use words like “y’all” or other slang to create content that is more conversational. (i.e. content that is written like you speak.)

To Simplify Sentences.

Avoid complex language, sentence and paragraph structure online.

This means sentences may actually begin with words like “and”, “but” or “or”.

Speak Directly To Your Audience.

Say “you” and focus on your reader more than yourself.

Remember that short attention span of Internet users?

If you’re talking about yourself…they tune out.

But if you’re talking to them and about them, they’re more apt to listen.

Of course, if you’re telling a story or giving an example, you will likely be talking about yourself.

But always turn it around and show that what you’re talking about applies to your audience.

In those cases, try phrasing like:

o “I don’t know about you…”
o “Have you ever had this happen?”
o “If you’ve ever…”

Avoid Jargon

Consider your audience when using certain terminology and define any jargon that you use.

By the way, the word jargon means the specialized language of a certain group, trade or profession.

Keep in mind that the reading level of the average American is at around the 8th grade level; so complicated vocabulary is unnecessary.

Of course, there will be exceptions, depending on the level of education of your unique target market and their level of understanding of your subject matter.

But when in doubt, always…you know…keep it simple.

Use Short And Non-Complex Sentences

Simple sentences are easier to read, particularly online.

If you find yourself writing complex sentences, look back and see how you might break up one long sentence into 3 or more short sentences or even some bullet points.

Use Short Paragraphs

Follow the same guidelines for your paragraphs.

Have only one very succinct idea per paragraph, but if the paragraph is long, find a way to break it up into 2 or more related ideas.

Reading on a screen is much more fatiguing than on paper; so break the rules where it makes things easier to read.

Engineering paragraphs is not just for easy reading, but for visual appeal and impact as well…

Paragraphs Visual Appeal

If you’re adding images, make sure there is a bit of white space around the images and don’t include long paragraphs surrounding images.

Paragraphs for Impact

Sometimes you can single out sentences or even sentence fragments to emphasize certain things for your readers.

Bolding, Italicizing & Emphasis:

Simple formatting like bolding, italicizing and even underlining key text can make content much easier to scan, read and your message can be communicated in a much clearer manner.

Illustrate With Images

Images can be extremely valuable to content.

They can draw the eye in and capture attention.

Images like charts and screenshots can illustrate concepts, show statistics, steps in a procedure and make content much more valuable.

Images can also create an atmosphere for your content.

Headlines

The headline is a critical part of your content.

It’s what they read first and if it doesn’t grab attention,  you may as well pack in for the day.

Capitalize the first letter of each word – making it easy to read and to command attention.

Use a large, bold font so the headline is immediately apparent.

Focus On Your Target Readers –

What will get their attention?

What do they want to know?

What will make them curious?

Make A Promise Or Offer A Benefit –

Let them know what they will receive if they spend 5 minutes reading your article.

What will they learn?

What will give them an edge?

How will they solve a problem?

Subheadlines

If you’ve ever looked at a page of plain text paragraphs on a page, it was probably pretty hard to stay focused on reading them, wasn’t it?

A subheadline is simple a smaller headline for a specific section of your content.

Subheadlines are your key to getting people to keep reading your content all the way down to the end.

Divide your article, blog post or other piece of content into smaller bite-size sections and include a bold subheadline at the top of each section.

That way, people who skim your page can be drawn back into reading your content.

Subheadlines might be descriptive, pique curiosity or offer a benefit.

White Space

Consider the blank white space on a page to be one of the very best friends to your content.

Reading on a screen is fatiguing and the white space around your content and between each section is key to making EASIER to read.

If your page is crammed with ads, long paragraphs and images jammed into the text…it is NOT going to get read.

Be liberal with your white space and you can’t go wrong.

Lists / Bullets Where Possible

Just like white space is one of your content’s best friends, lists and bullet points are its good buddy.

It is easier to read through a bulleted list of ideas or tips than it is to read long paragraphs.

Tip:  If your bullet points are longer than a short phrase, include a space between each bullet.

This extra white space makes it easier to read.

Remove Unnecessary Words

Never say more than you have to.

Your reader’s time is valuable.

Always READ through your content and eliminate excessive words.

Limit Excessive Punctuation

Look professional and eliminate HYPE by being conservative with your punctuation.

Limit the use of exclamation points and do follow the grammar rule of only one exclamation point per sentence.

Never do this!!!

The same goes for question marks. Okay??!!

Title And Description Tags

This is online writing; so don’t forget your tags that affect how your content ranked and how it is viewed in the search engine listings.

You want to ensure they include your target keywords and are enticing enough to click.

Whenever you’re creating or editing content, keep your readers in mind.

Imagine a person who clicked to your site and is ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

When you view your content; become that person who is only scanning the page and deciding whether or not she should stay?

DOES YOUR CONTENT GRAB YOU?

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To Your Success,
Joan Harrington

(*Editors Note: Source of this content…http://contentrix.com/studentfiles/week3/contentrix-lesson-3.pdf )