Content Marketing Isn’t High School English…
Techniques for making gold star content that people will actually read
Nowadays, it seems like every conversation that I have with people is about yet another Netflix or HBO series that I just haven’t had time to watch. One of the issues, it seems, with the new “Golden Age of Television”, is that people are incredibly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of content and new shows to watch on a daily basis.
The same thing is playing out across millions of Twitter and Facebook feeds all over the world. The rise of easy to use publishing platforms like Medium and Ghost means that marketing associates and CMOs everywhere are cranking out words and articles like they are paid by the word.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The right content phrased in the right way can get thousands of clicks and views that result in hundreds of click-throughs for your desired article outcome. (Not sure what an outcome is? Check out our previous article in this series!)
Here’s the thing though — there’s a lot of information out there on how to write technically, but not a whole lot of information on how to phrase what you’re saying. There are dozens and dozens of content guides that tell you to load your articles with SEO-friendly keywords, trend-based headers, and taggable content.
Wonderful, isn’t it?
We figured that it’d be useful to go beyond that and reach into how to actually write content that people want to read. Because, fun fact, nobody wants to read content that is JUST jargon and keywords.
Structuring an Article
Perhaps the most important part of any article is setting things up to be easily read and understood. Crucial to that is a basic sense of structure. Since the invention of the printing press, content has always started with a basic sense of structure.
Does that mean that your article needs a table of contents? Absolutely not. Unless it’s incredibly long, in which case, write an e-book. Because that’s a whole other portion of the content creation landscape that is worth exploring.
But for the most part, all you need to do is some simple stuff — break up your article into digestible and understandable sections, and then title it with easy to parse headers and subtitles. If you skim this article, for instance, you can understand the major thrust of what we’re trying to say in it just by skimming the headers.
Think back to high school or college, and doing the reading on something that you were vaguely interested in, but didn’t actually want to read all that much. Doesn’t that sound like reading an article for work sometimes?
Your readers, much like our own, tend to skim an article a little bit before actually reading it. In fact, a fair number of people who click on this article stopped reading it when they realized that they had to scroll down to keep going. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a global rule of content. So as a result, if you want people to get hooked, it’s much more important to have attention-grabbing title headers to hook people, than a catchy first paragraph.
Word Choice is Everything
This next part is going to sound a little silly, but bear with us on it.
Write short sentences with short words.
Here’s the thing — short words are easier to read. Short words are easier to understand. And short words increase your “read time”.
Let’s unpack.
There’s two components to this — the personal and the technical. The personal aspect of this is simple — people like reading simpler things. The average adult, for instance, reads at a 9th grade reading level. Beyond that, the average novel is written at a 7th grade reading level. Even Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea at a roughly 6th grade reading level. To that end, it’s more important to make sure your words are understandable than anything else.
Let’s move onto the technical reasons, because it’s actually a startlingly easy concept to comprehend. It’s as simple as this:
The more words you write, the longer read time you have on a Medium article.
Read times are huge in helping people suss out if they actually want to read your article or not. Writing a content-filled guide on marketing or something like that? You’ll definitely want a longer read-time. People are very much tired of being sucked into articles that have been boosted with excessive SEO only to be a short blog post or listicle that covers a mere fraction of what they’re looking to know.
But that’s not always the case. Sometimes you want something a bit shorter. Want a quick hit on a recent news piece? Nobody really wants a random Medium blog’s take on major news. If you’re getting clicked on, it’s for a quick read, not ground-breaking analysis. That is, unless you’re building your brand on ground-breaking analysis, in which case, see above.
The point is, using shorter, snappier words is not only a psychological strategy, but also a way for you to game your read count to get more clicks and reach. It’s a difficult tool to master, but once you do, it’s a perfect way to increase your views and reads!
Paragraphs are for high school English class…
Look.
I’m sure you write well.
I’m sure you spend a lot of time and energy crafting your sentences and making sure that they not only cater to a wide audience, but also give them what they want when the click on your article to read it.
But here’s the thing.
Nobody. Wants. To. Read. A. Wall. Of. Text.
It’s just that simple. It’s a rule on Reddit. It’s a rule on internet forums. Heck, it’s a rule on the INTERNET!
So take a minute as you’re writing and ask yourself, is it worth pressing enter right now?
A lot of people are trained in the protoyptical “expository essay” school of thought when it comes to writing things. It’s easy to see where that comes from — after all, most of us spent years in school learning how to take time to construct lengthy paragraphs and pages of exposition about the point you’re trying to make. When you take that into account, it makes sense why so many people tend to write what appear to be entire AP English essays when trying to explain a simple concept.
A lot of this comes down to where you draft. Many people draft their pieces in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Both are great platforms for full-scale writing, but fall short of the mark when being used for online publishing.
After you write something in either platform, you have to copy and paste it into your content-delivery system of choice, meaning that all of the aesthetic presentation quality of your content is lost. While paragraphs look fine in Word (that’s what we’re used to, after all), they don’t look good in Medium. Thus, drafting directly in your delivery platform helps you get a better sense for what your content looks like. You’ll find pretty quickly that the technical differences make what seems like a short paragraph in Word look like an entire wall in Medium.
Pictures are important
One final thought. Yes, the strength of your content should shine through your words and your words alone. But just like above, nobody wants to read an essay.
The first thing that people do when they find an article usually is to scroll all the way down to see:
- How long it is
- If their questions are solved at the end of it
- If it seems like something that they want to read
We’ve addressed all of these points above, but let’s drill down into point #3. Obviously, smart SEO and good title headers will help make sure that you’ve gotten people interested in the topic of what you’re writing, but when someone skims down, they’re looking for subtle signals that this content works for them.
What does that mean?
Pictures.
Pictures are a great indicator of what content you can find in an article. They show that you’re not about to read an academic treatise or screed on the topic, and give the reader an important aesthetic break in the content.
Most importantly, they help someone anchor their place in what they’re reading. It’s 2018 — expecting someone to read your article straight through without any distractions is pretty naïve. People get emails, texts, phone calls, etc that take their attention away from your article, even if just for a second.
To that end, pictures help people understand where they are in your content. They give an important sense of place, and they give an important sense of length. If you have a massive article broken up by frequent pictures, it becomes easier to approach. 1,000 words with 3 accompanying images looks about half as long as a 500 word article with only text.
Most important, though, is that your content shouldn’t just be bland stock images. Sure, they’re easy to grab and insert, but that’s the problem. If your readers see too many stock images, they’re going to assume (rightly so) that this is just another click grabber without any actually useful information. With tools like Canva allowing you to create custom graphics in seconds, or basic Flickr galleries, there is no excuse for including only generic imagery in your article.
Where does that leave us? Obviously every article and publication will have different writing styles. If you’re an aspiring journalist, for instance, very little of this was good advice. But for the vast majority of content marketers, these are the little hidden secrets that can take your article from merely getting clicked on to actually being read, engaged with, and driving your ideal outcomes!
This article was produced by Humanlytics. Looking for more content just like this? Check us out on Twitter and Medium, and join our Analytics for Humans Facebook community to discuss more ideas and topics like this!
