Great blog posts are made up of two things: content of value and craft. Great content is not as difficult to come by as it may seem – almost everyone has something of value to share with others. Craft, however, is more elusive and one must perfect writing skills to create magnetic articles. Don’t worry, even if you weren’t fond of writing in high school and used to pester you friends with “write my admission essay” requests, you can master the craft of readable and meaningful blogs, we promise.
One of the aspects of the craft is the skill to make your writing visually appealing. It’s not a secret that most readers skim through the text before they commit to reading it or decide that it isn’t worth their attention. Here is how you can use this habit to your own advantage – make people read your texts and linger on your pages.
Use Headings Strategically
The first thing your reader will notice as they skim through is headings. Headings are the main roadmap people use when building an outline of your text in their heads. Therefore try to make them short, informative, but also a bit tantalizing, so that your readers can’t help but be drawn in.
Apart from giving crucial information, they break the text into manageable pieces and provide a sense of order. People like order and patterns. Chaos is too overwhelming. There’s the reason why we have headings all the way down to H6.
Lists and bullet-points are also great attention grabbers, sheet breakers, and order creators. Use them to structure your text and make it more visually pleasing.
Always Caption Your Images
Did you know that image captions are among the most often read content on the web? How often do you put captioned pictures into your articles? I thought so.
Next time you add media to your post, spare a minute to caption it properly to reinforce your point and tease some ideas from your post. By not captioning images you miss another chance to convert a skimmer into a thorough reader.
Moreover, a caption will show that the picture is there for a reason instead of just being a random stock image you put in your post because everyone else is doing it. If the picture is captioned – it’s an integrate part of the text with a purpose. If it isn’t captioned – it’s just there for the sake of being there.
Bold, Italic, Blockquotes, Etc.
Let’s be honest, how often do you use those tools in your posts? My guess is not much. Too bad because they are very handy to highlight the important stuff. No, it’s not talking down to your audience. Instead, that’s catering to skimmers, who hop from header to header, from quote to quote. Those italicized phrases and blockquotes are hooks that will probably make the skimmer stop and take some of the important information in.
Besides, strategically placed and nicely styled blockquotes are as good as images. So if you don’t have access to relevant high-quality pictures, blockquotes are a great way to make your longread visually appealing and stylish.
Don’t overuse these tools, however, because highlighting too much is the same as highlighting nothing.
Paragraphs: Not Too Clunky
Rows of dense paragraphs spell boredom. However entertaining your content might be, if it looks as a monograph the majority of readers will just skip it. It doesn’t mean that the shorter the better. Longreads are a great form of writing in their own right. There are even entertaining websites dedicated to the format. However, long or short, your articles must be properly structured.
Keep one idea per paragraph and space them out to make sure your readers have a moment to take the idea in and move forward. Apart from being easy to digest, shorter paragraphs give your readers a sense of accomplishment. This little gratification encourages them to read on.
… But Not Too Choppy Either
Sometimes one-sentence paragraphs are a great way to break a monotonous rhythm of the text but they aren’t a silver bullet. You can find many articles on the internet that try to sound natural and bubbly but instead give the impression of a tattered stream of consciousness. That’s because some authors take all the “spacing out” business too close to heart and abuse it. I am not exaggerating. I even saw a contributor guideline requiring authors to make their paragraphs “no longer than four lines”, which is, of course, ridiculous.
Don’t break the natural flow of your sentences. If your thought isn’t finished – take your time and wrap it up instead of ending it abruptly because you are seemingly running out of the “allowed” space in your paragraph.
Conclusion
These are the basics that are nevertheless often overlooked by many bloggers. I hope I convinced you to use at least some of these simple but effective tools. Track the time spent by your readers on-site to work out which of these little tricks works best for your unique site and audience.
