Let’s talk about when breaking up is a good thing. No worries…I don’t mean breaking up a relationship, I’m talking about breaking up your wall of text in a blog post. Keep reading for 4 tips to make your blog post easier to read!
Formatting your blog posts makes it so much easier for your visitors to read. It also may keep them around a little longer. Let’s talk about that.
We talked about categories and tags and how those help your readers find things on your website. We even showed how they are like a cookbook. They break content into manageable chunks and are used to search within your site. (You can read about that on the post How to Organize Your Blog if you missed it.)
Today, try to think about an actual book rather than a cookbook.
When you pick up a novel, what do you notice? Is it arranged in any manner, or is it page after page of text, top to bottom?
Books are arranged by chapters and paragraphs! It makes reading so much more enjoyable and definitely easier on the eyes!
Let’s look at individual blog posts the same way. I know, you’re thinking, ‘but a post isn’t long like a book!’ You’re right, but it’s a good analogy, so we’re going to roll with it. We all want our blog posts to be easier to read!
In the real world, blog posts should be at least 300 words, according to all the Search Engine Optimization gurus out there. They can actually be as long as you’d like, or as long as you think your readers will stick around to read.
Not as long as a book, no, but long enough.
Make your post easy to read with these 4 tips:
Use Headings and Sub-Headings
By this I mean give your post headings and sub-headings. You can think of these as your book chapters. So within your post (your book) you’ll have headings (chapter titles). You can throw in subheadings to make it super easy for your readers to scan.
Using headings and sub-headings adds more white space. If set up correctly, they also guide the reader down the page. At first glance the reader will get an overview of what your post is about. The sizing of your headers and sub-headers also guide their eyes down the page.
Use Short Paragraphs
Keep your paragraphs and sentences short and easy to understand. A good rule of thumb is to aim for a reading level of fifth or sixth grade.
You wouldn’t want to pick up a book that was super above your understanding and reading level, right? Your readers won’t want to stick around to read a post above their reading level either. Since you have a variety of readers, make sure they all can read and understand what you write!
Use White Space
Another thing to keep in mind is white space. White space is basically the space around your text or images that is visually empty. (So if the post background is light gray, the white space would actually be light gray.)
Surround your words with white space by breaking text up into short paragraphs. White space gives your content room to breathe. Your eyes don’t have to work as hard to read, and your visitor won’t wonder where to look first.
Use Images
You can also use images throughout your post to break up a wall of text. This makes your post visually interesting. Using images that relate to and support your content also show the meaning behind your words!
You can also use images throughout your post to break up a wall of text. This not only makes your post visually interesting, but by choosing images that are related to and support your content, they also help convey the meaning behind your words!
These are just a few tips to make your blog posts easy to read, some more worth mentioning are making sure your font size is large enough to be read, dark enough to easily be read, and making sure your post content isn’t too wide!
Take Action
Type out a sample post using all of your available headings and a paragraph. Know what size each of your headings are set to so you can visualize creating hierarchy in your posts. Next to each heading, type out what it is. Then include a paragraph of text below, take a screenshot and have on hand when you create a post!
