As a blogger, you hope that every visitor that makes their way to you blog spends enough time there to read every word of your latest post.

But the internet is not like the reading room at your local library. Nothing is quiet. Ads are everywhere. Email software pops up with new emails to read every half an hour. And it`s really hard to curl up with a laptop under the covers.

And the stats don`t lie. On average, internet users read only about 20% of the content on any page.

So, how do you as a blogger either keep your readers at your blog long enough to read a full post or make sure that they are getting the meat of the information you are trying to provide. One word: emphasis.

Look at some internet sales letters. You know the ones. They promise that you will make $1000 dollars a day a month from now, if only you buy their ebook.

Some of these pages are a mile long. Who would read all that? Probably the minority who don`t get ADHD when bombarded with the massive amount of options presented with an active internet connection.

But if you analyze a top selling product page a little bit closer, you may begin to notice something. If you only read the items that catch your eye, you get a pretty good idea of what the product is supposed to do and you may even reach for your wallet.

If you do, that`s good. This is exactly the type of sales page you need to be analyzing. What technigues can you steal from copywriter`s to use on your blog? There are many.

Pictures

A blog post with pictures has an edge over one with none. Pictures draw a reader`s eye. A picture at the beginning of your post may entice the reader to keep reading.

You may have noticed, a few blogs even use pictures of half naked women. Now, I wouldn`t take it that far, but if you are writing a blog about mens issues, that may be an option.

A picture further down in the post can break up monotonous blocks of text. No one really want`s to read a text book.

Lists

One of the biggest ways to get readers to read your whole post is using a list. List posts are often found on the hot pages of social news site for a good reason. They are easy to read. Each item is a bite size sentence. And bullets or numbers help guide the eyes down the page.

Formatting

Bold, italics and sometimes even a change in background colors will definitely draw eyes to a word, phrase or sentence. But this can get out of hand. Remember, we are looking at sales pages to get some pointers. We are not trying to make our posts look exactly like one.

Headings

If you start with an outline before you write a post, these can be easy. If not, it`s not that bad to find a few headings that define the structure of your post. In this article, a reader could get a general idea of what it is about just by reading the title and the headings.

If you have some main points you want to make in your post, put them in headings. Think of them as mini titles for each section of your post.

Short Paragraphs

This is a no brainer. Short paragraphs are easy to scan. Eyes that are moving fast across a page can easy get lost with long drawn out paragraphs.

While you can`t force your readers to read everything you have written, you can swing the odds in your favor a bit. Know the main points that you want to present. Make sure those are emphasized in one way or another. Provide some eye candy if you can. And break up the monotony. If they wanted the Encyclopedia Britannica, they would be reading it.