People actually do read content online, and new research is busting an old myth. This study is found on Editor and Publisher.com, by way of Bryan Eisenberg of Grokdotcom.com.

In a surprise finding, online readers finish news stories more often than those who read in print, according to the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack study released Wednesday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference.

When readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids.

The study also revealed that only half of online readers scan, the others are methodical in their reading.

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We’ve posted a new poll over on Next Level Biz Tips about ezine formatting.  Which do you prefer to RECEIVE: plain text or HTML (graphic images like a web page)?  It’ll take you about 5 seconds so please let us know how you like your ezines delivered.  Thanks!

Here’s a fact: traffic to this blog doubled this week, according to my SiteMeter stats. Of course, I did a little jig and tossed the cat into the air. And that wasn’t easy since I’m still recovering from back surgery and Dewey the cat weighs over 15 lbs. I’m thrilled.

What happened? Well, I wrote every day on the blog. I wrote significant pieces about writing great ezines, which is in fact the purpose of the blog. Then Denise gave my 17 Resources for Content post a boost over on her Next Level Biz Tips blog, which created a huge spike in visits.

What else happened? I used a provocative title (okay, I maybe got a little vulgar even). And that’s about all I can think of that was any different last week, which may have contributed to the increase in traffic.

Denise and I always recommend that new bloggers post at least 2-3 times a week, otherwise readers forget you and don’t get into the habit of coming back. (Many blog readers haven’t yet understood that they can subscribe to your blog and get updates either through RSS feeds or a subscription service that delivers updates to your inbox – if you need to, go to the Feedblitz subscription form in the upper right top and subscribe now.)

And if you want to increase traffic more, then write more often. Oh, and it helps if you have something valuable to say, and you are making a contribution to your readers by helping them to be a success.

The other thing you need to do is keep at it for a long time. Not everyone wants or cares about writing great ezines, so it has taken time to build up a significant number of readers. This blog is now 2+ years old. I care enough about the topic to write to an audience of 1. Many bloggers give up too soon.