Improve your fact-to-fluff ratio
Readers are busy. Fluff takes space. Space takes time. So let’s cut the fluff and get on with it.
To cut the fluff, aim for a fact-to-fluff ratio of at least 1:1.… Read the full article
readers
Stop wasting web visitors’ time with puffery, hype
Web visitors ‘get visibly angry’ at verbose sites
Here’s an interesting dichotomy: Killing time is the killer app for mobile devices. But mobile users are in a hurry and “get visibly angry” at verbose sites that waste their time.… Read the full article
Squeeze the angle of a story into one sentence
Write it on a sticky note
How do you squeeze a big idea, more than 18 months of research and input from more than 3,000 constituents into a sound bite that expresses the whole purpose of your organization?… Read the full article
Writer centered vs. reader centered writing
Stop We-We-ing on reader
It feels so good to talk about ourselves.
Talking about yourself activates the same pleasure centers in the brain as food, money or sex, according to Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir and her colleague Jason Mitchell, whose research on the topic was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… Read the full article
Reading online hurts your web visitors’ bodies
Screen reading causes insomnia, backache — even serious illness
Yes, reading that blog post does make your butt look bigger. But mushy thighs are just one of the symptoms of screen reading.… Read the full article
How to develop fear appeals in persuasion
Avoid losing readers with these 4 steps
Fear appeals persuade. But they can also paralyze.
Strong fear appeals persuade … The stronger the fear appeal, the more likely it is to move your readers to act, according to 50 years of research and 100 studies reviewed by researchers Kim Witte and Mike Allen.… Read the full article
8 content writing tips and tricks to try now
Write better news releases, webpages and more …
Want to write more readable messages? Increase engagement on your webpages? Otherwise boost your writing skills?
As we plan our upcoming Master Classes, I’ve been creating a lot of new slides.… Read the full article
Why are subheadings important online?
Show the parts with subheads
Think of subheads as the icing on the cake.
Skimmers look at subheads to learn what content you’re offering on a web page, blog post or news release.… Read the full article
Avoid these common headline mistakes
8 approaches to avoid
What’s in a name?
A great headline can mean the difference between a story that gets read — or one that gets passed over.… Read the full article
Why is micro content important?
Because ‘readers’ don’t read
I’m often amazed at the amount of energy writers put into perfecting the sentence structure in the fourth paragraph of their piece when those same folks toss off a headline in the 17 seconds before happy hour on a Friday afternoon.… Read the full article