Forum Moderators: not2easy
...a Florida-based journalism school, found online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read while broadsheet newspaper readers read an average of 62 percent, and tabloid readers about 57 percent.
Must read article for text/content based webmasters. If anyone tracks down a link to an online version of the study, I'd dearly love to read it.
Studies like this can only help boost advertising revenue. It's not just about the hits, it's about how long the eyeballs linger on the page, and how the eye scans the page.
The study found about 75 percent of print readers were methodical compared to half of online readers.Methodical readers tend to read from top to bottom without much scanning around the page, read in a two-page view when reading in print, and re-read some material.
The inference here is that web readers do scan around the page more. Again, this is a definite bonus for advertisers.
Large headlines and photos in print were looked a first but online readers went for navigation bars and teasers.
I'd really like to see the details on this from the study. My analytics will show me what readers click on and how they navigate through the site, but it would be very interesting to see empirical data from an observational study showing how readers scan over a page, and what motivates them to click on a link.
