Pull quotes are a powerful tool in the publisher or blogger’s arsenal that can help to make content more engaging and interesting and help to sell important points in your copy. Learn what they are and how to use them here!
What is it that makes an article engaging or otherwise? What is it that makes you decide to continue reading a piece of content, or to simply ignore it and move onto the next web page? We might understandably make the assumption that this has something to do with the quality of the content itself: that we read the writing that is well written.
However, very often this is not true. Very often, we are instead mot won over by the content that is designed and displayed the best. Like so many other aspects of life, often that first impression is what is most important. In this case, it can be the difference between high and low bounce rates. This is where the pull quote comes in – though it has many other functions besides.
Well Designed Content
When we land on a website, it’s normally because we’ve searched for some kind of information on Google. Among the top results was this link, and so we clicked it.
Now one of three things can happen.
- We see the website and find that it looks well designed and useful, so we browse through the page to find the information
- We see the page and think it looks awful: poorly designed with large blocks of small text – we don’t trust the site to be accurate or interesting and so we leave
- We see the website and think it looks beautiful and fascinating. In fact, the content has been so well designed that we decide to spend more time and look around as much as possible
Our aim is to achieve that final result. We do that by:
- Using a large, attractive font
- Using a responsive design that will adjust to the size of the display viewing the site
- Using lots of headers and breaking the text up with bullets, short paragraphs etc
- Having a well-designed logo that expresses the tone of the site
- Using high quality images that also reflect the tone and nature of the content
All these things can have a big impact and that’s precisely the role of the pull quote as well.
What is a Pull Quote?
A pull quote then, is a short quote that is taken from your content and then used to break up the text in a large font. This is a quote from what you have written which will highlight that section of your text and draw attention to it – these are the buzz words, the most interesting and emotive sections and the key pieces of information. In some cases it can be used to either humorous or dramatic effect.
Either way, the pull quote serves to further break up the text without necessarily relying on having lots of images. It can also hint at information that is to come later, helping to keep the reader on the page and scrolling.
“A pull quote can be very useful for skim reading”
What’s more, is that a pull quote can be very useful for skim reading and help to show your audience what the content is about and what the tone and style is – this way, you can keep people on your page who might otherwise have left!
