Article Placement vs. Content. And, the winner is. . .

Expert after expert has claimed that the placement of an article is an indicator of whether it will be seen and read. That has been the commandment from my early journalist days working on a newspaper to current e-newsletter trends. The rule is that the article under the masthead wins the readership race. But, not so fast! We’ve been surprised to find that content is becoming the true star, or at the very least, can tilt the results in another direction.

Scrolling the depths!
In e-newsletters we’ve created for clientele, we’ve had articles that were placed at the very bottom of the email. . . where readers literally had to scroll to see them. . . earn the most readership. What did it? An intriguing headline followed by an interesting teaser. Then, paid off by excellent content. One winning headline read, CEO voted one of the women to watch! Of course, readers wanted to know who the CEO was and why she deserved to be watched.

Watch how you say it.
I’m not advocating putting your best articles at the bottom of your e-zine. But what these results have said to us is that content, coupled with a well-crafted headline, can certainly sway your readership numbers. And, it’s not always placement that determines a well-read article.