What You Need to Know About Reader Engagement
Today most people walk around with smartphones in their hands and headphones on their ears. They take pride in their ability to multitask and many marketers believe that there’s nothing they can do about shortening attention spans.
At the same time, a trend known as binge-watching has been gaining popularity in the recent years. Binge watching is when people watch their favorite TV shows or movies for hours at a time. According to Variety, about 70% of people in the United States engage in binge-watching.
How is binge-watching possible in the age of shortening attention spans? The answer is very simple and it is of critical importance if you want more readers who are engaged: when people are interested, they find time and are able to concentrate on the object of their interest. Shortening attention spans are suddenly not an issue.
Because of this, keeping readers engaged starts with providing your content to the readers who are interested in what you have to say. Too many marketers and business owners are trying all kinds of tricks and gimmicks to get interest from people inherently not interested in what the marketers and business owners have to say. It is much easier to find those who are interested and deliver quality content to them than to try and generate interest when it is not there in the first place.
When you do find those who are interested, format your content the right way. Break it into simple, easy to read paragraphs. Have subheads, if necessary.
Today people access the Internet from all kinds of devices, operating systems, and browsers. Use the fonts and formatting that will work with the majority of devices and screen sizes.
Make sure you check how your content looks in most popular browsers. To keep your readers engaged, make it simple for them to consume your content.
If you do get targeted traffic of interested visitors yet they do not seem to be engaged, the issue is often about design and formatting, which is why you should be giving it a lot of attention.