If you’ve ever installed Google Analytics or any web analytics tool that allows you to track how long readers stay at your site, you should find out that average web users no longer read what’s on your site. Considering the short amount of time they spend on one site, there is no way they know if the site is indeed useful or not.

Looking at results from various web site statistics, the duration people stay on a web site is mostly at around 60 - 100 seconds.

As the result, as a web publisher, creating a page that is easy to read and deliver the right message to the audience is utmost important.

According to Jakob Nielsen, a web usability expert, web users don’t read. In Alertbox for 1st October 1997 — I know it was old, and I predicted the numbers are even worse nowadays — 9 percent of test users always scanned any new page they came across, only 16 percent read word-by-word.

As a podcaster who also publishes episode notes to the blog or podcast site, you need to address this problem. Doing this correctly allows you to convert more web visitors into listeners and listeners to podcast subscribers.

Here are the tips to create content that works for scanning readers.

• Bulleted lists (like this one). People like to scan through list. It allows them to locate each different points easily. If the bullet is long, it is also helpful if you combine this with the right format such as highlighting key points in bold.
• HTML formatting. Most common formats and typeface variations, such as bold and italics can be used to emphasize on key points efficiently. Readers usually stop at these words and read. They may decide to read on if they find the point interesting. If you quote, make sure to format is as with the right tag (blockquote). There are some other tricks but these are the basic.
• Short sentences paragraphs. Readers tend to skip long paragraphs and see passages that are easier to read. Breaking down long sentences and paragraphs into two or more helps a lot. The idea is to present only one idea per paragraph and make it as relevant as possible.
• Sub-headings. Use sub-headings to give a hint about that particular section. Title gives the whole idea of the content, and sub-headings focus it more to the section level. In HTML these are the h2, h3, and h4 tags. Sub-headings are useful for long content. They give users the time to rest their eyes and draw attention to the content that follows.
• Deliver key points quickly. They call it the inverted pyramid style. It means that the greatest content weight should be delivered immediately. What follows after it is the rest of the content that is less and less important. Another variation is to put more important points again during the end of the page to capture readers who go directly to the end.
• Grab attention quickly. Another way to draw readers in is to start with compelling reasons why they should slow down and read carefully. This trick is what I learned from copywriting, which almost always starts with a story instead of asking for the order right away.
• Include supporting images. Images can be distracting but used properly they are also great eye candy. When people stop at the image, it is another opportunity to grab their attention. It is best if the image is supportive to the content.

Practicing how to format podcast show notes are important. After all the hard work and time you’ve spent to get traffic, the next thing you want to focus on is conversion. Don’t turn your efforts into fruitless activities by making this small mistakes.

Design of the page, while important, is less critical than readability. That may be surprising for some readers, but that is just the truth. The number speaks for itself.

Finally, podcast episode notes are also important component of a podcast to drive traffic from search engines and convert visitors into listeners and podcast subscribers. Read the podcast promotion article to get more ideas about promoting and marketing your podcast.

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