You don’t have to be a professional writer to create blog posts your readers will enjoy and find useful. You may have noticed when you read your favorite blog posts, news sites and other online content that you scan over the information instead of reading it word for word. This is true for the majority of online users so you want to write content that’s scannable, yet still allows the reader to absorb your intended message. Here are some tips to help you create blog posts and other web content that’s easy to scan:
Keep Sentences Short
Write sentences with as e word as possible. The structure should be active voice instead of passive. Passive voice can be too wordy and redundant, were as active voice sentence structure is more straight forward. For example:
Passive voice: “The pie was sliced by Imani.”
Active voice: “Imani sliced the pie.”
Keep Paragraphs Short
Have you ever come across a blog post or received an email with a long response that is made up of several sentences? It’s not at all scannable, and you may avoid trying to read it. As with sentences, keep your paragraphs short. They should be no more than about four sentences each. The grammar rules you learned in school don’t apply to web content – it’s perfectly acceptable to have one sentence stand alone as a paragraph.
Utilize White Space
Just as you should write shorter paragraphs to make your content easier for readers to digest, you should also utilize white space to break up paragraphs. Shorter paragraphs with white space between them make it much easier to scan content quickly.
Write the Same Way You Speak
You’re not writing an essay for your 11th grade English teacher, so there’s no need to be too formal. Write the way you would speak during a conversation with a good friend. Keep the tone friendly and conversational.
Tomorrow, part 2 of the Better Blog Post series will cover using headlines to grab your reader’s attention.
Muslimahs Working at Home was created to provide women with a financial alternative to earning an income outside of the home. Our objective is to share resources and tools needed to operate a successful, home-based business.
[...] Part 1 of the Better Blogging Series covered tips on how to make your content scannable and easy to read. Today we‘re discussing headlines. Headlines pack a lot of power whether you’re writing articles, blog posts, content for your website, sales letter or any other online and offline marketing material. When you read newspapers or magazines, it’s the headlines that grab your attention. A good headline gives your readers just enough information to decide whether or not to keep reading. When you create a title, or headline, don’t just try to be clever in an attempt to draw attention. If your readers don’t believe that they’ll get something from your content that matters to them, they’ll move on to the next article, blog post, etc. The best way to appeal to readers is to keep their interest priority. Appeal to them by: [...]
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Added, I really like your site!
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Thank you so much!
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[...] reached the end of the four part Better Blogging series. Part 1 covered writing content that’s easy for your readers to scan yet still digest important [...]
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So cool! Thanks.
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You’re welcome.
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