How to make people scroll

Have you looked at LinkedIn recently? Amongst all the lies, bragging, self-promotion and made-up stories, there’s a trend occurring that goes a little bit like this:

Outlandish statement

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Line break

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Something that reveals the outlandish statement wasn’t actually true at all, but now you’re here, please read the rest of my GOD AWFUL content about why I’m so good.

It’s an old trick. It draws you in with a shocking headline, forces you to reveal the rest of the post to discover the outcome, then hits you with the hard sell when it’s too late to go back. It’s one of the thousands of reasons why LinkedIn is the deepest layer of hell.

If you want to encourage your readers to scroll down your content, there are better ways - ways that won’t leave them with sick in their mouths. Scroll down my content to discover what they are, you puppets.

Answer a question

The Q&A approach to content is a very popular SEO trick. People search for questions, the content answers them, Google rewards it. In the past two years I wrote enough of this kind of content to teach me two things: One, that it works. And two, that so much of the ‘information’ you find online is just written by hacks like me.

The trick is not to give the answer away straight away. Say. for example, the question was: What makes Ash Billinghay such a successful copywriter?

I’d probably write a bit of blurb as the introduction, reiterating the question a few times and setting up the need for an answer. Then I’d split the answer up into subsections, each one giving a different bit of information. They’d have H2s (smaller headers) like: How much experience does Ash Billinghay have as a copywriter? How does Ash Billinghay the copywriter maintain his excellent skin? Is Ash Billinghay the copywriter married? How much does Ash Billinghay the copywriter charge? (Spoiler: not enough).

These sections would help answer the initial question, while also posing further questions that people might search for. It’s all for SEO, but it does give readers a reason to scroll, and because you’ve scrolled this far, now you know.

Anchor links

You know when you’re looking for a recipe, and you find a website that tells you the entire life story of the writer, why they love the recipe, why the recipe exists, how to wear the recipe as a dress, and what the recipe got up to with its friends last summer? Awful, isn’t it? But that’s for SEO too, and the best ones (that care about your happiness) give you a nice anchor link to the bit you actually want to see. An anchor link is a bit of text that takes you to a specific part of the page you’re looking at, meaning you can skip all the tosh and they can still get their nice ranking.

If the main purpose of your page is to drive traffic to a product or a specific call to action, an anchor link is a good way to make sure they don’t get bored before they find it.

Tell a story

Another issue I have with LinkedIn is how it ruined the word ‘storytelling’. But when it comes to scrollability, it’s something that can really do the trick. Dave Trott’s excellent website does this very well, taking you on a journey with short, snappy writing that’s easy to absorb. It’s not a slog to get to the end, and the way it’s written makes you want to read on. It’s one of the big advantages of paying a professional copywriter to write your website, something I’d recommend for any of the points I’ve mentioned.

Whatever your subject, talk about it in an interesting way and people will want to read it. That’s why you’re still reading this now, right? Hello? Anyone?

Be weird

I love weird advertising. It does the main thing advertising should do: grabs attention, giving you something memorable that you’ll want to share with friends. The same is true of weird copywriting. This blog started with calling LinkedIn the deepest layer of hell and used the phrase ‘sick in their mouths’ in the opening section. If you’re my target audience, you’d have found that funny and still be here now. If you’re not, you’ll have clicked off. Weird attracts the right people. It’s something only a few brands can manage, but if you’re one of them, it’s a beautiful tool to have on your belt.

Keep it short, silly

I sense I’ve already rambled on too much at this point, but at least I’ve done it in short, succinct paragraphs. Nothing puts a reader off quicker than seeing a huge chunk of text before them. Break that sucker up and give it subheadings, then read over it again and delete half of it. Bitesize content looks more appealing, is easier to read and - most importantly for the sake of this blog - more likely to get scrolled through.

Finish with a call to action

Technically, you should also have a call to action right near the start and probably a couple scattered throughout the middle. But what you really want is a big, obvious one right at the end. This gives your readers somewhere to go next, and stops them getting there and wondering what the chuffing point was.

I could stick a call to action in here telling you to go and see my work, or read another blog about robot domination. Instead, what I’ve actually done is stick a call to action in that takes you to a video of Barney the Dinosaur, because I feel like you deserve it. Stay well. Come chat if your words need work, yeah?