We’ve all heard it before: people don’t read, they scan. But yet, we never really try and do anything about it. Or at least we never do anything effective about it. Sure, things like bold and italics do help, but they don’t solve the underlying problem that people don’t read.
Which is a problem for people like me. It takes a good couple of hours to write a WPShout post so I’d like to think it’s appreciated. Turns out I’m wrong; in this post we’ll find out how.
Competition?! You didn’t tell me!
I recently ran a competition on WPShout. No, not that one with the twenty or so premium themes up for grabs, but another, discreet one. It was in my post about backing up WordPress; I didn’t make a big thing of it on purpose as I wanted to make sure that only actual readers entered, not people who’ll come to the site, enter the competition and never come back. I thought if I made a mention of the competition in the opening paragraph then most readers would take a look.
I was wrong, again.
I find that astounding; you can usually expect 1% of people who view a page to leave a comment and usually these are the people who’ve read the article thoroughly and then have something to say. So it was a bit of a surprise to see that less than half of all commenters had read the whole article (although I’m assuming people who commented but didn’t enter didn’t see the bit about the competition).
Interesting. And the stats on how many people actually entered your contest is crazy! I typically scan posts as well, but recently I’ve been trying to “slow down” and stop living life so “fast paced” as if I have no time on my hands! It’s good to stop, read something all the way through, and enjoy it instead of inhaling it like a bag of candy, not really savoring the tastes.
I read the entire post but I will admit it almost killed me because I wanted to scan.
Well said.
I try and encourage “intelligent discussion” on Shout, often not approving comments which don’t offer any conversational value, but unfortunately the situation you describe is too often very true.
I didn’t even click on your backup post because I think I’m fine with my backup solution 😛
Yes, usually I scan the lengthy “English” post. If it’s in my mother language it’s easier to read every word.
I’d say even if it’s in yellow box, I may scan/skip if it’s quite long.
Headings can get my attention the most 😀
oh I read every word in this post, but when it comes to comments, I’m quite tired and start to scan again.
I did actually read the post (fully) might I add! I am relatively new to blogging as such but some useful tips here and I will try and implement some of them for sure.
P.s. I always read the entire post of someones blog, I did a post yesterday (very little text) in fairness but adding and resizing images and making sure it looks right took roughly 4 hours.
So I can sympathize with creating articles/posts!
Statistically, we all going to read this, word by word! What an inspirational post title 🙂
And who won?…….
Winners will get an email from me shortly.
I read the post word by word most of the time so I can fully digest the content. I do skim and scan other posts, if I find it interesting, then I’ll read it entirely.
[…] Statistically, you’re not going to read this. That’s the name of the blog post that struck me today. […]
I’ll be honest; I made myself stop scanning to read through this and it felt laborious.
This isn’t a criticism of your writing – it’s quite good – it’s more of a criticism of me.
I tend to open about 30 tabs a time and skim through them at a breakneck speed.
I agree with Thomas though, there are some sites that do a very good job holding my attention through all of their content.
Gawker Media instantly comes to mind.
Very eye-opening though, and embedding the contest details in a regular post is a great idea for rewarding loyal readers. I will definitely have to use this idea.
Just wanted to let you know, I tried to read the post word for word – and ended up scanning most of it. Yeah, I have a short attention spa… HEY a squirrel!!
Exactly what I woul
Oh the irony!
What really helps is good typography: I’m using always the reader’s font size and good contrast – and I never had the problems you describe. Maybe this could enhance your site too?
Without a user stylesheet I find your posts a little bit hard to read. If you wouldn’t offer a fulltext feed I wouldn’t even try.
I need to say that I read the whole post even if the layout was a bit confusing. But I need to agree to you: I face the same problem on my own blog. While I got around 20-30 unique visitors a day they are not leaving any comments. Any suggestions what I could do?
Encourage them to leave comments. Rhetorical questions. That kind of thing. If you actively go comment hunting, chances are it’ll work.
For the record I read that post and was aware of competition. I just wasn’t interested in it so saw no point in making my comment eligible.
Ok, I’ll admit, I scanned it, then read it word for word. I really should free up more time so I can read word for word. Cheers on the post.
You got my attention 😛
I’m using extra font for headings and bold for the key words.
Regards
Just wanted to let you know that I mostly scanned this post. 🙂
I read your post because you told me that I wasn’t going to read it. Then, you told me that people scan and don’t read. That sealed it! Nobody is going to tell me what or what not to read! Ha! I showed you!
…damn good article!
Touche…
I didn’t read the other article so luckily I wasn’t part of the statistic 🙂 although I admit I probably am usually.
Hope there wasn’t something I missed in this post…
Just wanted to let you know I read the entire post, word for word 🙂