I’ll admit it, I am a habitual article scanner, and knowing that 79 percent of Internet readers read the same way, when I write a blog post I keep that in mind.

How do I do it? How do I keep the habitual scanners around to read more than 20 percent of an article—the average amount an Internet user reads of a blog post?

The best way to find the answer to the question is to learn from the best. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t start ripping apart your house for renovations with no experience. You will probably accomplish the teardown, but getting it back together without someone who knows what they’re doing—the project will likely never get done correctly.

You want to learn from experienced bloggers, bloggers who have a proven track record of success, and loyal followers.  

From reading and being a dedicated follower of some of the most successful bloggers in the world, I compiled a list of what I think are must-have attributes your blog needs to get readers to not only click on your blog post but actually read it.

5 Must-Have Attributes Your Blog Needs To Keep Readers Reading

• A Great Title: This one is a no-brainer. You need to hook your reader in with a title that says you’re not going to waste their time if they click through. An article title that is too vague will leave people thinking that the rest of the article is probably the same.  

• Short Paragraphs, Subtitles, and Bullet Points: You can’t stop people from scanner your article, but you can grab their attention and slow them down. If someone sees something on a post they think might give them a lot of information in a short amount of time, they might read a little more, and then a little more, then maybe the whole article.

• Utilize Infographics and Images: Through research, scientists have found that the brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than plain text. Just like I stated above, this can be a perfect way to slow down the average blog scanner by giving them a lot of information in a small portion hopefully encouraging them to read more and more of your post.  

• Links and References: Anyone can write anything on the Internet – fake news, made-up stats, rumors, you name it, there is a market out there for everything. But if you want your readers to take you seriously, you need to back up your claims and advice with links and references to reputable sources.

• Leave a Section for Comments and Feedback: This is huge for someone who is a habitual scanner. I often find myself skipping the whole post and heading down to the comment section first. Comments can tell you a lot about a post and if it is worth reading. Positive comments might make a reader say, “Hey, it seems like people have found some good information in this post, I’ll scroll back to the top and dig in.” Negative comments can sometimes help you as a writer by finding what people didn’t like—helping you make some adjustments in the future. But don’t take every negative comment to heart, some people don’t have anything better to do than belittle others.

“Content is King” Only If It’s Getting To The Right Readers

I remember often reading the old saying “Content is King”, but that is not entirely true and more so false. 7.5 million blog posts go live every day on the web. Out of those 7.5 million, how many of those blog posts do you think go viral or even get nearly as much attention as the writer would like? Probably not many.  If you want people to read your blog post, you have to know your readers and know where they are looking for information like yours.

Stay Consistent

Once you figure out SEO and how to promote your blog to the correct sources, your next step is to ensure you write a blog post that is structured to get people to read it and not scan it. If your readers come to your blog post and don’t find it appealing enough to read, they’re most likely not going to make a point to come back to another one. But if you make a memorable impression on your readers consistently, they might seek out your next blog post, add you to their reader’s list, and stay loyal readers.