With attention spans growing shorter, content consumption habits are constantly evolving. This is why creating scannable content has become an important strategy for businesses, bloggers, and content creators.
Creating scannable content enhances the user experience and improves your SEO and overall content marketing efforts, ultimately driving more traffic and engagement to your website.
So, what is scannable content, and how can you create it?
Let’s discuss it!
- What is Scannable Content?
- What are the Benefits of Creating Scannable Content for SEO?
- How to Create Scannable Content in 8 Steps
- 1. Start with a Focus Keyword
- 2. Use Descriptive Titles
- 3. Organize Content into Sections
- 4. Break up Text with Multimedia and Other Scannable Items
- 5. Apply the Inverted Pyramid Style
- 6. Follow the Principles of Good Writing
- 7. Use SEOBoost for Content Optimization and Scannable Content
- 8. Use AIOSEO for WordPress Optimization of Scannable Content
- FAQs
What is Scannable Content?
Scannable content is a user-friendly format that caters to how people consume information online. It is designed to be easily skimmable, allowing readers to quickly grasp the main points and find the information they seek without reading every word.
This approach is based on extensive research by usability experts like Jakob Nielsen, who discovered that people rarely read web pages word-for-word. Instead, they scan for relevant information.
So, creating scannable content aims to optimize your content for maximum readability.
Content optimization tools like SEOBoost and the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress can help you create user-friendly and search engine-friendly content. These tools provide real-time feedback on scannability, keyword usage, and other SEO factors.
In the later sections, I’ll discuss using these for on-page SEO.
Before that, let’s understand how scannable content benefits your SEO copywriting.
What are the Benefits of Creating Scannable Content for SEO?
Crafting scannable content offers numerous advantages, both for your readers and your website’s search engine performance:

1. Improved User Experience:
By presenting information concisely and visually appealingly, scannable content enhances the overall user experience.
It makes it easier for readers to find what they need and encourages them to stay engaged with your content.
2. Increased Engagement and Conversions:
When readers can effortlessly navigate and comprehend your content, they will spend more time on your website, share your content, and ultimately convert into customers or subscribers.
3. Better Search Engine Rankings:
Search engines like Google prioritize user-friendly, high-quality content that meets users’ needs.
By creating scannable and easily digestible content, you signal to search engines that your website provides a positive user experience, potentially boosting your search rankings.
4. Accessibility and Inclusivity:
Scannable content is inherently more accessible to a wider audience, including those with cognitive or visual impairments, users of mobile devices, and those with slower internet connections.
How to Create Scannable Content in 8 Steps
Here’s an 8 step guide to creating scannable content for your online readers:
1. Start with a Focus Keyword
Before you begin writing, conduct thorough keyword research to identify a relevant and high-traffic focus keyword (also known as a target keyword) that aligns with your content topic.
Incorporating this keyword strategically throughout your content will help with content optimization and signal relevance to search engines.
To do keyword research and identify other key phrases, you should use SEOBoost’s Topic Reports feature.
Just enter your focus keyword, and it’ll analyze the top 30 SERPs relevant to it, dissecting each competitor across 24 specific content metrics.
Whether it’s content structures, keyword usage, or readability standards, these reports empower you to outpace your rivals and fine-tune your content strategy for maximum effectiveness.
2. Use Descriptive Titles
One effective way to make your content more scannable is to use clear and descriptive headings and subheadings. These help break up the text and allow readers to identify the main points quickly.
In fact, your page title is often the first thing that catches a reader’s attention, whether in search engine results or on social media.
So, craft a concise, descriptive title that accurately conveys the topic and includes your focus keyword. Aim for a title length of around 60 characters to prevent truncation in search results.
Here are a few titles that we’ve used at SEOBoost with the help of AIOSEO’s headline analyzer. This tool reviews and helps you refine your title by grading it against ranking metrics.

3. Organize Content into Sections
Structuring your content into clearly defined sections with descriptive subheadings makes it easier for readers to scan and navigate.
To do that:
- Use short, front-loaded subheadings incorporating relevant keywords and highlight the main points covered in each section.
- Incorporate ample white space to create visual breathing room and prevent the text from appearing overwhelming or cluttered.
- Use short paragraphs to make it easier for readers to digest information and navigate through the content.
- You can also use formatting techniques, such as bold or italicized text, to highlight important keywords or phrases in your content.
Here’s how we do it at SEOBoost to ensure that there’s a good mix of text and visuals that support one another:

4. Break up Text with Multimedia and Other Scannable Items
Long blocks of text can become boring and tiresome for readers, so break them up with visually appealing elements that enhance scannability.
Incorporate relevant images, videos, infographics, bulleted or numbered lists, tables, and diagrams to break up the text and provide visual cues for key information.
5. Apply the Inverted Pyramid Style
One of the methods that really helps me create good scannable content is using the inverted pyramid writing style.
The inverted pyramid style of writing places the most critical information at the beginning of your content, followed by supporting details and background information.

This approach mimics how people naturally scan web pages, allowing them to quickly grasp the main points and decide whether to continue reading or move on.
To apply the inverted pyramid style to your content, ensure you have an in-depth understanding of the content so you can structure it properly.
6. Follow the Principles of Good Writing
One of the best ways to create scannable content is by following the principles of good writing.
Use understandable English, concise language, short sentences, and paragraphs, and employ an active voice to enhance readability.
Ensure your content is accurate, well-researched, and provides value to your readers.
The best way of doing this would be to write for humans and not just for the search engines. While you can use AI writing tools to help create content, review it thoroughly later.
7. Use SEOBoost for Content Optimization and Scannable Content
Now that you understand how to create scannable content, let’s discuss how to use SEOBoost’s Content Optimization feature.
The content optimization feature analyzes the top 30 ranking pages associated with your keyword and presents a comprehensive report identifying opportunities to improve your content.
With SEOBoost’s editor suggestions, you can refine your article by highlighting essential elements.
Here’s what a work in progress looks like:

All you have to do is just put in your content or use the editor to write it. You’ll get suggestions in real-time on what to improve.
Check out our content optimization checklist for a complete roadmap to doing this easily!
You can also use the Content Audit feature to get a complete analysis report on older content.

You receive a comprehensive overview of your metrics within minutes. Input your keyword and URL, and our AI algorithms handle the rest.
It generates a report analyzing the most important ranking factors. This can be especially useful when updating content to make it scannable.
8. Use AIOSEO for WordPress Optimization of Scannable Content
Now, let’s discuss using The All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin to optimize your content if your content team uses WordPress.

This plugin analyzes your content and provides real-time feedback on scannability, keyword usage, title and description optimization, and other SEO factors, helping you create search engine-friendly and user-friendly content.
FAQs
1. How do you make content scannable?
To make content scannable, follow these best practices:
- Use clear, descriptive headings and subheadings
- Use bullet points or numbered lists to break up walls of text
- Incorporate white space and short paragraphs
- Highlight key takeaways in bold or italics
- Employ the inverted pyramid style, placing the most important information first
2. What is a scannable content?
A scannable text is formatted and structured so that readers can quickly skim and identify the main points without reading every word. It usually includes elements like headings, short paragraphs, bullet points, and visual aids to break up the web content and guide the reader’s eye.
3. How do you make a website scannable?
To create scannable content, do this:
- Use a clean, uncluttered design with white space
- Incorporate clear navigation menus and site structure
- Optimize content for scannability using bold text, bulleted lists, and simplifying complex information
- Use descriptive headings and subheadings throughout the site
- To break up text, incorporate visual elements like images, icons, and infographics.