While blogging, it pays dividends to lay out the structure of your piece of content before you write it. The structure is the skeleton of your text, and preparing it has multiple benefits. Firstly, writing a text is easier when your structure is already there. Secondly, a clear structure helps readers easily read your post and grasp the core message. In today’s article, we’ll give you the best practical tips to help you to create an easy to read blog post text structure so you can keep your readers visiting your site.
Paragraphs and Sentences
Is there anything more off-putting than clicking on a blog post and seeing a big text block? You want to read it, but there is nothing for your eyes to grab onto. Try as you might. You find yourself skimming and not fully comprehending the content. So, the truth is that a digital paragraph differs from an analog paragraph. How we consume media online is different from how we consume media offline.
There was a popular post on The Slate a few years back called “You Won’t Finish This Article“. It shares data demonstrating that most people don’t even scroll down after they arrive at your post; they leave your blog almost immediately. The data published in The Slate estimates that most visitors read about 50% of your content. Looking at similar statistics from other sources, 50% might even be optimistic.
Short paragraphs make your posts more readable. Instead of starting a new paragraph when the topic changes, consider keeping your paragraphs a few sentences long and playing around with length and rhythm. Sometimes, you’ll have slightly longer paragraphs; sometimes, you might have a paragraph that’s only one sentence long for impact.
In addition, that’s not what your teacher taught you at school. Paragraph structure is more of an art than a formulaic science when writing online. The same rhythmic variation works well for sentence structure and length as well.
Headings To Create An Easy To Read Blog Post
Subheadings are an excellent way to break up the text while enhancing the readability and comprehension of your post. This sounds like something we covered at school now. Or maybe not? I admit it wasn’t until last year (after many years of blogging) that I used headings incorrectly. I thought the idea was to pick a heading based on size and appearance.
It turns out there is another layer to heading choice on blog posts. Heading tags not only enhance your blog post visually but also help organize the content of your blog. This helps search engines like Google scan and categorize your information.
You shouldn’t skip a heading level if you want to follow blogging best practices. As a result, it is a great way to write an easy-to-read blog text.
Heading 1 will already be used for your blog post title. When writing posts (or pages), you should use Heading 2 for post-sub-headings.
Then if you nest other sub-headings under that, you’d use Heading 3 and so on. You probably wouldn’t need Heading 5 onwards. Structuring your post with this hierarchy can also assist blind readers who rely on screen readers to access your content (find out more about accessibility issues in point ten).
Understand Your Audience to Create an Easy to Read Blog Post Text
Before writing a new blog post, ask yourself: What sort of reader would be interested? A blog about agricultural affairs probably will not have many readers interested in the latest gossip about a teen pop star. On the same train of thought, there is certain content that a user would expect to find on a specific page.
For example, when reading an article about airline credit card offers, the reader would expect a comparison showing the pros and cons of available credit cards. It’s your blog; you can write whatever you wish, but try writing for your readers.
Use Bullet Points to Create an Easy to Read Blog Post Text
People tend to skim blog posts before they decide to read it. That means you need to make sure to highlight your best information. That way, they can quickly see that your post is worth their time. Aside from subheadings, bullet lists are perfect because they’re straightforward to skim through. Here are some tips that we use to write bullet points that people will read:
- Firstly, express clear benefits. Think of bullets as mini-headlines.
- Secondly, keep your bullets symmetrical. 1-2 lines each.
- Avoid bullet clutter. Don’t write paragraphs in bullets.
- Finally, remember bullets are not sentences. They’re just like headlines.
Final Words
In conclusion, as you can see, there are several ways to make your blog more readable. These are what we think are the most effective, but I am sure you have your own.
