How to Make Your Blog Posts More Readable
Have you ever come across a post title that startled your interest, but as soon as you got to the content you couldn’t read it? I did! And why didn’t I read the post if the title was so interesting? Because the content was too cluttered. Because no matter how valuable was the information, I simple could not pull my self to go through a labyrinth of words to find the good ideas.
When you’re offering quality information, are you willing to lose your readers because you did not organize your blog post the right way? It’s extremely important to have a better structure in each blog post, before you hit that “Publish” button, and by doing so, you will dramatically increase your blog’s readability.
What I need to find in a blog post
As I said, I often come across long, cluttered posts that annihilate the initial interest. I bet that most of them offered great insight on different matters, but, to make me read them it would have taken some of these elements to guide me:
- Write a short introductory paragraph and tell me exactly what I’m about to read.
- Make use of paragraphs and line breaks. Huge blocks of text are very hard to scan.
- Make use of lists. I’m a list fanatic. Lists are easy to scan and stand out of all those text blocks. Try to put valuable information in them.
- Whenever you talk about numbers and statistics, use graphics. It’s much easier for me to read and interpret a graph, instead of reading 2 paragraphs about percentages.
- Give me more things to read. In your posts, sometimes you mention things that are related to the topic, but you don’t want to develop more. Link them to a place where I can read more about them, preferably on your blog, but it’s OK if it’s elsewhere too (Wikipedia.com for example).
- Whenever you link to another blog post or website, use strong, descriptive text anchors.
- Ask me questions, smart questions. I love to put my mind at work, and if the question is interesting enough, I’ll answer in your comments, or even blog about it, giving you a free backlink.
- Create blog post sections and use subheadings so that I can jump between paragraphs of interest.
- Use basic text styles to make some ideas or elements more noticeable. Use bold and italics.
Conclusion
To achieve success in life or business, you need to be organized. A post is successful when it gathers more readers and backlinks. Organize it. Keep the important information clean and noticeable, and you will see not only more readers, but also more time spent on your blog and a lower bounce rate.
If you’re looking for more information on how to organize your blog post you should also read this article: The Proper Structure of a Blog Post.
Photo Credits to Jay Simons.
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Excellent post, I’ve often wondered where people go wrong, and since reading a post similar to this I completely changed my writing style all together!
Thanks!
Great post, Alex. I think the main point to take away from this is that it is not always enough to have great content. Content presentation is key, particularly online. Potential readers will be scared away if they see huge blocks of text. In short, make it as easy on the reader as possible.
Excellent write-up. I whole heartedly agree. Spacing between paragraphs can be a huge deal breaker for me too. I also like to see headings for sections so that I can find what I’m looking for more quickly.
You are absolutely right. And related to this i know smashing magazine looks nice but 100% on the left block + huge titles really bug me. Anyway … everything you’ve just said is usually done by responsible bloggers, but not all bloggers are responsible.
@Sam: Thanks!
@Eric: As always, you’re right.
@Corvida: Thank you! Unfortunately, not all people have a background in copywriting or graphic design, to know that sometimes, less is more and white space is a great reading guide.
PS: I like your blog very much!
@sfalx: I think it’s a bit too much to call inexperienced bloggers irresponsible. After all, that’s why we’ve put blogs like Blogsessive online, to offer our guidance, from our experience. As I said to Corvida, not everyone has experience with graphic design or copywriting. About Smashing Mag, I think they huge titles are a matter of personal taste.