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As a copywriter, you can imagine that I don’t really appreciate the phrase “people don’t read on the Web” being bandied about too much. Profession aside, it’s just not true.
In the later half of 2006, the Poynter Institute conducted an eye-tracking study to see how 582 people in four U.S. cities viewed their hometown newspapers (both broadsheets and tabloid format) and Web sites. That study indicated that people may read more of an article on the Web than in print, much to the delight of online publishers and bloggers everywhere.
Participants were given 90 minutes to read the newspaper or Web site as they normally would. The study examined how print and online readers navigate through the paper or the Web, how much do people read and how much readers remember.
The result were this:
- Online participants read an average of 77 percent of story text they chose to read.
- Broadsheet participants read an average of 62 percent of stories they selected.
- Tabloid participants read an average of 57 percent.
People DO read on the Web.
Quite a bit actually. But here’s the caveat: It’s just not in the same way that you’d curl up with a good book.
Well-known Web usability expert Jakob Niesen talks about the online F-factor. F stands for fast and also mimics the horizontal and vertical scanning patterns of online readers. People have learned to scan web pages at lightning-bolt speeds in order to pinpoint key information or quickly determine if a web page is relevant to their query.
What does this mean for online writers toiling over each and every precious word? It means writing differently for the Web in key areas:
Get to the point – Put the most important information first.
Use of headings and subheads – Your headings and subheads are a great way to divide up information as well as provide strong keyword prompts about that the next section may cover.
Start with keywords – Because readers scan down the left-hand side of the text upon initial viewing, make sure that information-carrying words come first.
Break up long paragraphs – Facilitate scanning by varying paragraph length and breaking up very long paragraphs into more digestible chunks of text.
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