TL;DR: Too long, didn’t read. When I was a writer, this was always a massive headache for me. How do you cover all you want to say in a single piece, knowing that there’s no guarantee anyone is going to read it?
The thing about it is that we content marketers live in a world of information overload, and it’s only getting harder with AI-generated content taking over. How do we cut through the noise and make our message stick?
The answer lies in mastering the art of brevity.
By writing concisely, you can worry less about the dwindling attention spans of your readers and turn this into an opportunity. Let’s get into how we can create efficient and effective content.
Key Takeaways
- The average human attention span is now just 8.25 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000.
- Concise content is about cutting unnecessary words and topics to deliver essential points efficiently.
- Brevity in content marketing improves reader engagement, comprehension, and SEO performance.
- Marketers should focus on being concise in headlines, social media posts, email subject lines, meta descriptions, and CTAs.
- Use techniques like active voice, simple language, and focused messaging to naturally create more concise content.
- On the Neil Patel blog, we’ve implemented strategies like key takeaways, jump links, and visual content to respect readers’ time and improve content accessibility.
- Get in the habit of revisiting and revising old content to make sure it’s more concise, as modern readers favor shorter, more scannable content.
Why Concise Content Matters
So what exactly is concise content? Think of it as an economy of words. Any words you don’t need or topics you don’t need to cover, you can cut out or cut down. A word saved is time earned for your reader— a good bargain. As content marketers, our primary goal is to engage our audience and convey our message effectively. Concise content is the key to achieving this goal.
Let’s get a little more into why.
The Attention Economy
We live in what’s often called the “attention economy,” where human attention is a scarce and valuable commodity. The average human attention span is now just 8.25 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. Every word needs to count. Concise content respects your readers’ time and makes it more likely they’ll engage with your message.
Improved Comprehension
When you trim the fat from your content, you’re left with a powerful, easy-to-understand message. Concise writing forces you to distill your ideas to their core, making complex concepts accessible to a wider audience.
Mobile-Friendly
Visuals matter, especially on mobile. Shorter paragraphs with concise messaging are easier to read on smaller screens. This improves the user experience and keeps your audience engaged. Over 54% of global traffic comes from mobile devices, making this scannable content more important than ever.
SEO Benefits
AI Overviews are still evolving, but a citation in one for a relevant query can do a lot to boost your pages. I’ve seen it myself! Concise, readable content is easier for search engines to pick up for things like AI Overviews and featured citations.
Don’t believe me? Look at this simple bulleted list:
This simple list, included in this article on finding source code, contributed over 50 featured snippets since 2023. Why? Because it’s early in the piece, is organized in a way that’s easily readable on all platforms, and there’s no fluff. Just basic instructions.
It pays to give people what they want, and fast.
In addition, it’s shown that content that is concise and to the point can improve engagement rates by up to 30%, which can help SEO performance.
Where We Need Content Brevity the Most
So, we’ve talked about what concise writing can do for your content. But where do you start? There are a lot of areas where you’re probably being wordier than you need to be. Here are some key examples,
Headlines And Titles
Your headline is often the first (and sometimes only) thing a potential reader sees. A concise, compelling headline can make the difference between a click and a scroll-by. Try to keep things short and to the point, clearly conveying the value proposition to the reader. For example, look at this blog title:
This is a specific topic: how working with a third-party CRO team can support your business. We knew when planning this out that a lot of businesses don’t even know outsourcing is an option. So rather than going with a cute clickbait style title, we went more direct.
Social Media Posts
With character limits and users’ short attention spans, social media is made for brevity. Each post should convey a complete thought or call-to-action in as few words as possible.
Let’s look at one of NP Digital’s recent tweets:
This is a great example of using brevity and detail at the same time. The first part quickly poses a question then answers it. Then, we concisely explain how the video gives more context to that answer. The copy here respects the reader’s time while also directing them on how they can do more.
Email Subject Lines
Like headlines, email subject lines need to grab attention quickly. A concise subject line can significantly improve open rates. Look at this recent email from Neil:
If you’re familiar with SearchGPT, this subject line lets you quickly know that the email will give you more insights on it. If you’re not, this instantly lets you know it’s important. That’s two different audience segments hooked in 6 words – good efficiency.
Meta Descriptions
Effective meta descriptions should convey what the page is about and entice clicks, all within a limited character count.
Remember that source code article I mentioned before? This meta description makes it clear what you can learn and that you can get through it quickly.
There’s also a practical reason to keep your meta descriptions short. If they go over 155 characters, they will get cut off.
Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
Whether in an email, on a landing page, or within a blog post, CTAs should be clear, concise, and compelling.
This CTA for our Ads Grader tool is a great example. Keeping it simple, this CTA defines the audience (anyone using Google Ads) and provides a value proposition (saving time and finding new potential in your ads). No need to be wordy here.
Executive Summaries
For longer reports or whitepapers, an executive summary is crucial to help readers grasp key points quickly. Let’s look at our recent Website Migration Best Practices report:
This copy is a bit longer than the other examples we’ve covered, but for a larger, in-depth report, this makes sense. Still, there’s a simple focus. This starts with a basic breakdown of what the whitepaper will cover, and some of the main takeaways for someone who wants insights but is short on time.
Concise Content Marketing Tips
Now that you understand the value of brevity and have a few ideas of what content needs your attention, what should you do? Here’s a list of tips to help you start thinking and writing concisely.
- Start with a Clear Goal: This may seem simple, but it can make a world of difference. What’s the one key message you want to convey? Keep this goal in mind throughout the writing process, and you’ll quickly find what isn’t relevant.
- Use Active Voice: Active voice is more concise by nature, and it makes your writing more direct and easier to understand.
- Active voice: The cat chased the mouse.
- Passive voice: The mouse was chased by the cat.
- Eliminate Redundancies: We sometimes get attached to certain phrases in our writing that really aren’t necessary. Good examples of this are expressions that either repeat info or just use more words than you need. For example, “at this point in time” can usually be replaced with “now.”
- Simplify Your Language: There’s always that temptation to flex your vocab muscles, but unless you’re writing for a specific, expert niche, content isn’t the place for it. Think of ways you can replace complex words with simpler alternatives whenever possible. This isn’t about dumbing down your content, but rather making it more accessible. If the reader needs to stop to do a quick Google search, they’re likely not getting to your main points or CTAs.
- Use Bullet Points and Lists: I love these, especially when presenting multiple ideas or steps. They’re easier to scan and often more concise than full paragraphs.
- Start Then Edit Heavily: It can be intimidating to try and get into a brevity mindset at first. That’s okay. Start writing your initial drafts as you always would. After writing your first draft, challenge every word and sentence. Ask yourself, “Is this necessary to convey my main point?” If not, consider cutting it.
- Utilize White Space: The “wall of text” is dead. Break up your content with short paragraphs, subheadings, and images to make it easier to scan.
- Use Specific Examples: What’s easier, describing something cool you saw on vacation or sharing a photo? Instead of long explanations, sometimes a well-chosen example is best to get your point across.
- Leverage Tools: This might be a bit of a hot take, but the AI revolution can be helpful with brevity. Use readability tools like the Hemingway App to find areas where you can improve conciseness. Even running your copy through ChatGPT or Gemini might be useful to get some suggestions. With that said, though, always review any sort of AI output before using or presenting it.
How the Neil Patel Blog Uses Concise Writing
What do these tips look like in action? I’ll show you. On the Neil Patel blog, our goal is not only to provide best-in-class digital marketing insights, but also to meet the needs of our readers.
Busy digital marketers are looking for a mix of important industry insights, good time to value, and the option to go deeper when needed.
Neil’s conversational, accessible tone is an asset in and of itself when it comes to brevity. He’s a master at saying what matters. With that said, our team has made some other adjustments to bring more brevity to our content.
Key Takeaways
Sometimes, you need to embrace a trend rather than try and stand against it. So, when our team noticed the TL:DR mindset cropping up, we decided to get ahead of it. The idea was to add a section right after the intros of our blogs that covers all the essential items in that blog.
This is great for AI Overviews as well as people who want to do a quick scan of a piece before reading further.
Jump Links for Table of Contents
We recently did some heatmapping research on our blog and found out that a substantial number of users were dropping off after the early sections.
To get ahead of this issue, we implemented Tables of Contents with clickable links to different sections for every article.
Originally, we only did this for our longer pieces of content. But whether your piece is 5,000 words or 2,000 words, it’s beneficial to let the reader focus on the parts of your content they value most.
More Visual Content
We’ve always used images, infographics, and screenshots to convey information quickly, reducing the need for lengthy explanations. By finding more opportunities to create things like infographics, we can cut down or cut out entire sections of text. This saves the reader time and creates an asset we can share on other channels like social media.
Writing these points out would make it much harder for a reader to understand what these data points are and what they mean.
Consolidating/Shortening Blogs
SEO and content marketing are ongoing tasks, and making sure our blog content is re-optimized and updated is a big part of what we do behind the scenes on the Neil Patel blog.
As I mentioned before, there was a time where longer-form content was in vogue. In the early days of SEO and digital marketing, longer content meant that you had greater value and more keyword opportunities. But times are changing, and fluffy content filled with keywords isn’t appealing to readers or Google’s algorithm.
As a result, when we refresh and revamp older content on the blog, one of our main areas of focus is finding ways that we can reduce the time to value for the reader.
Let’s look at a before and after for one of our most popular posts: What Is SEO?:
This original version is well-written, but it takes a lot of time before actually answering “What is SEO?”
This new version immediately defines SEO and describes the purpose and value of the article, before giving you the option to click to any section you want. Time to value is a lot lower this way.
Conclusion
Effective content marketing meets your audience’s needs, and modern audiences need to save time. Concise content respects your audience’s time while delivering value efficiently. Remember, conciseness doesn’t mean sacrificing depth—it’s about communicating ideas more effectively.
One good thing to always keep in mind is what your audience really needs and what in your content might keep them from getting it. That flowery intro might be exciting to write, but does it immediately offer value? Once you have this mentality, you’re ready to find ways to trim your content down to those key essentials.
By applying brevity to your content marketing strategy, you’re likely to see improvements in reader engagement, conversion rates, and overall content performance. Start implementing these concise writing techniques today and ensure your content cuts through the digital noise.
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