Quick question: what (if done right) isn’t supposed to catch someone’s attention in a piece of content?
A great flow.
If your article jumps from one idea to the next in a proper sequence, your readers won’t even notice that there is a structure to all of it — a structure that isn’t random, but something you carefully planned.
This is because the readers are having a great, easy-to-follow reading experience.
On the other hand, a piece of content with poor flow will stick out like a sore thumb. Your readers will instantly know that something is wrong. They’ll struggle to connect the dots, and they aren’t likely to continue reading this concoction of jumbled ideas.
How do you make sure that your content has a great flow, each and every time?
The answer is simple: a great flow is the result of a great content outline.
In this step-by-step guide, I’ll go over all the benefits of a content outline and show you the exact method I follow to organize my thoughts and produce a piece of content, which reads like a charm.
Why Use a Content Outline?
Guess what? A great flow is not the only benefit you get from creating a content outline before writing. In fact, content outlines improve your entire writing process, from idea to publication.
That’s why professional writers don’t start typing their draft without a content outline. Here’s why content outlines are essential:
Make Your Content Comprehensive
Comprehensiveness adds a lot of value to your piece. A comprehensive piece of content will always win in the battle with short, quick-snack type of content.
In fact, take a look at this graph — which depicts average content length for top 10 Google search results.