Because of the overwhelming level of information on the Internet we have turned into a nation of content skimmers. We are in a hurry and want our information served up fast-food style, so rather than battle this trend, writers of web content might as well make adjustments for this skimming style. For those who have implemented blogs as a part of their website, it is imperative that web readers be able to quickly skim the content and figure out what treasures of information the page holds. First and foremost, an engaging lead—which includes your title, opening sentence and lead paragraph—is absolutely essential to give your reader an overall idea of what will have been gained should they decide to read the content through to the very end. In order to create an engaging lead, ask yourself what value your reader will gain from reading your content then allude to that value in the lead.
One Idea Per Paragraph with Compelling Subheads
Once you are past your lead, you must determine exactly what you want to express within each paragraph. Although we tend to think of outlines as something our high school English teacher forced us to do an outline can be very helpful in streamlining your writing process and ensuring it flows as it should. If your paragraphs seem overly complicated, you could be trying to implement more than one idea, so keep the primary topic to one per paragraph. Sub-headlines give the reader a good idea about the content topic within each paragraph and also offer a convenience for readers who want to skip right to the part of the blog post that pertains to their particular issue or problem. Readers want to spend their precious time reading what is applicable to their lives, or what will answer their specific question.
Multimedia is Also Content
Content is not just your text, rather it encompasses all the various forms of multimedia you insert into a blog posting. You can break up a page of words with photographs which nicely illustrate a point you’ve made as well as bring a bit of color to the page. In some cases an image or a video can be just as descriptive as the written word, so when writing blog posts, mix up the forms of content you include in order to provide the information your readers want as well as giving their eyes a visual break. Bulleted or numbered lists also give the reader a visual break in the text while condensing the information they are looking for into a succinct block. Lists can be visually powerful and are much simpler to skim through than a paragraph, and while you can’t use them in all cases, many times they fit nicely into the content.
Make it Easy on the Eyes
The colors in your blog must never become an obstacle for your readers to overcome simply in order to get to the story. Too many bright colors can overwhelm readers so in general stick with cool, calming colors that don’t distract from your words. Try to stick with fonts such as Arial, Georgia or Sans Serif, simply because they are much easier to read, particularly in chunks of text. Make your headings, subheads and links easily distinguishable from the remainder of your content through the use of highlighting or bold letters. Once you’ve created a pleasing design for your blog and increased the readability, an increase in your visitors will reflect those changes.
