Three tips for writing for an online audience

Guest post by Roxanne
If you’re a writer, there is so much opportunity online. Here are three tips to help you make sure your writing style online will keep your readers attention until the end.

Headlines

People are busy and they don’t want to spend five minutes reading a post only to find that it contains a whole lot of rubbish content. This is why headlines are great. They can help break up your piece into more readable sections but they also make it easier for people to skim read. A lot of people will quickly scroll down a page to see the length of the piece and headlines will make it easier for them to also see what interesting points you have and encourage them to read the whole article.

Encourage feedback

If you’ve spent ages creating a great piece of content and have managed to get people to read to the end of your post, what happens next? For most people there is nothing else to do so they simply leave your page and never think of it again. Always include an actionable point at the end of every post. Ask your readers for feedback or ask them to share the post.

Vary the format

When people see a huge block of text on a site, it’s daunting and can often be enough for people to not even bother reading your post. Why not try mixing up the way you layout your writing. People love lists. They are easy to skim read and people can read just the title and the bullets to get the gist of your article. Graphs can display a lot of information in one easy to see image and are perfect for comparison data.

If you have a passion for writing, what’s stopping you from generating an income online utilizing these skills? A lot of people start by working from home in the evenings and weekends and slowly start to get used to writing for an online audience.

Do you have any other tips for the readers that have helped you write for an online audience? Leave them in the comments below.