When too many people jump on the same bandwagon and do that once too often, the music tends to go off key and the wagon wheels give out.” (That was an observation I posted several years ago, criticizing the overuse of numbered lists in business blogs.)

For years before that, along with everybody else offering advice about creating powerful content for business blogs, I’d extolled the attention-grabbing power of lists. After all, not for naught was the cover of O Magazine emblazoned with the title “100 Things That Are Actually Getting Better” –the tactic must work.

And numbered lists do work - they freshen up content and make blog posts better organized, allowing us blog content writers to demonstrate ways in which what we’re selling and doing is better, deeper, and more useful than what the competition is selling and doing.

But if, in every other post you present, you’re falling back onto numbered lists and bullet points, the tactic stops being attention-getting and begins to get boring. With so many, many pieces of online text clamoring for readers’ attention, you want your posts to “go deep”, drawing not only eyeballs, but engagement and emotion. At that level, numbers and bullet points can be a distraction.

Next time your finger goes for the bullet point or number icon, ask yourself – have I used those enough already?

Remember to make today a really special day,
Rhoda Israelov
Owner, Say It For You
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