What is it about top five, 10 or 20 lists that never gets stale?
Apparently folks just love seeing things ranked in order. Even if the list is “Top 10 Reasons Why Top 10 Lists Don’t Work,” people would still click on it and talk about it.
Whatever the reason, they work. Especially in a headline. If they didn’t, websites such as Buzzfeedand Cracked would’ve dissolved into nothingness years ago. They both took the list idea and ran with it, showing that Internet readers love numbers.
It’s not just about lists, though. Throwing numbers around in your writings is always a great idea. Like lists, numbers just give people something to hold on to. They’re something tangible to help you understand the piece you’re reading.
Understanding the world
Though writers often lovingly craft press releases and articles, the cold hard truth is that people are busy. They want to scan. Anything you can do to help your readers get the point of your piece and fast means that your reader will spend a little more time on what you wrote. Everybody immediately understands a top 10 list.
And it isn’t just top 10 lists. Readers just love numbers. For example, let’s say your blog post is about people in the area who read physical books versus on a device like a Kindle. Saying things like, “a majority of readers in the metropolitan area use a Kindle” isn’t that interesting. However, saying “61 percent of readers in our 2014 poll say they prefer the Kindle over a physical book” immediately makes the reader look at the numbers. You quickly get an idea of what the story is about simply from a few numbers splashed in there.
Also, consider the fact that most of the material we see on the Web is words. If there’s suddenly something that breaks up the “sameness,” like a number, it’s going to wave for attention from your readers. It’s a great way to bring your readers into your world and your perspective without overwhelming them.
