When to Be Bold
Making keywords bold is a classic direct response technique that is often overlooked, or overused. When a reader sees a sea of black or grey type, online or off, it sends a message of undifferentiated text. It telegraphs to the reader to go away.
Breaking up copy with bold type helps the reader jump around to key words that help him/her quickly absorb what the basic message is. Then, he or she may go back and read more text if the bold words are intriguing enough.
It’s natural for advertisers to want to make too many words bold. The thinking is everything will jump out at the reader and it will all get read. Usually that is not so. Making too many things bold dilutes the contrast between regular type and bold.
Once you’ve made your key words bold, re-read just those bold words back to yourself to make sure they make sense when strung together.
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