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Writing UI: How to improve the readability of your content
Welcome to today’s issue of Efikó, a weekly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, with a focus on content marketing, writing, social strategy, and living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.
Hello 👋
How’s everyone doing?
This week has been something for me.
Three all-nighters. Ronan’s catarrh still rearing its ugly head.
But at least my immune system won the battle for my nose.
Today, we’ll be talking improving the readability of your content.
You’ll have heard me talk about the B2B content arms race. And you might have felt it reverberating around you.
Everyone is creating content.
Great content! Mediocre content! Manageable content!
Just write something. Stuff it with keywords and you’ll get some traffic trickling into your demand capture engine.
With this much competition for attention, brands/content marketing managers are prioritizing writers who create pieces that are easy to read and digest.
Submit an article with walls of text…mbanü 🤢
Here are some tips I use to ensure my pieces are more readable:
Readers want information quickly: Use bullet points to break up paragraphs. Add a summary to the beginning of your article. Make the first paragraph of each section a summary of the main idea that section contains. If they want more, they’ll continue reading.
Keep sentences short: This you’ve probably heard over and over again. Keep your writing tight and to the point. Strip out unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
Vary the length of your sentences: Arghh, but Dozie, you just said keep sentences short. Hold on my friends! Doing this adds pace to your writing. Still make sure to keep it punchy. And tight.
Think of subheaders as guideposts: Doing this helps skimmers (which is virtually everyone these days). It also breaks up your text.
Have clear headlines: Simple is always better than complex. Don’t send your reader’s brains into a vortex because you are trying to get too creative with your headlines.
No jargon: Unless it’s a technical piece, avoid jargon. And use your thesaurus to find synonyms to those long words, please!
Capisce?
If you read one thing
Jolade’s piece on marketeers who work for early-stage startups with a Money Heist analogy is a good one.
Content tools
A content tool I discovered this week
The Keyword Density Analyzer helps ensure you don’t publish keyword-stuffed articles.
Not Enough Writers
We’ll have our first Telegram knowledge session tomorrow. With the versatile Mr. Mayple!
Join us. And if you haven’t joined the community, sign up here!
Content writing jobs (Remote/Freelance)
And here’s a Google Docs link that also includes high-paying pitching opportunities
All the best folks. Please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this useful. 🙏🏾
My biggest takeaway this week 🚀
Don’t confuse overpaying with luxury.
What I’m thinking about
Abolitionist, author, and runaway slave Frederick Douglass on taking action:
"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
3 interesting facts to impress your friends
Queen Elizabeth II is a trained truck mechanic and driver.
Former US President Barack Obama is the first president to set up a Twitter account.
A village in India plants trees every time a baby girl is born.
What’s your biggest content marketing challenge?
Reply to this email. Let me know what you’d like me to cover next.
I read every reply.
Plus, if you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here. Or just hit the reply button.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Be good out there. If you can’t be good, be careful.
I’ll be back on 10/15 (I‘m on leave all of next week).
Dozie
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