How to Write Better Blog Posts With These Two Simple Tweaks
There is a lot that goes into writing a great blog post, or any written document for that matter, far more than we can discuss here. It would probably take several books to cover every nuance of a great blog post. But if there are just two tweaks that will help you write better blog posts so your readers read a post all the way through, they would have to do with the article's physical structure.
Imagine if you were asked to read a document that lacked paragraphs. That’s how ancient Latin was written. Actually, punctuation didn’t exist and even spaces between words were absent. Capitalization to identify the first letter of a word or sentence wasn’t used either.
Can you imagine if we were asked to read blog posts like that? In today’s fast-paced world, I have trouble seeing that happening. But while this is an extreme case, and no one publishes blog posts like this (right?!), it bears mentioning.
Technology allows us to live a faster-paced life, and with our busy work lives, we don't always have time to sit down for a thorough reading session. To keep up with today’s changes, we, as writers, need to acknowledge our readers’ need for user-friendly reading. That way, they can get in and out with the information they need to move forward in their lives.
So, when we want write better blog posts, we need to consider what will help keep readers engaged. One thing that will help is to keep paragraph length at a reasonable level. If readers are faced with a huge glob of text, they’ll likely become overwhelmed and move on to something less intimidating.
I once found a 29-line paragraph on a website. That's right…29 lines! That’s like putting about one-half of this article into one paragraph. That would be way too long.
Just like the Latin text example, this 29-line paragraph is extreme, too. But if your paragraphs run over 6 lines long on the web page, see where you can break them into multiple paragraphs. You won’t lose readers by having more paragraphs, but you can lose readers by making your blog posts too hard to read.
Let’s also consider the use of lists within a paragraph. Oftentimes, writers express multiple points within a sentence. For instance, to be a good writer, we need to learn how to draw our readers in, hold their attention, make them want more, and let them gain new knowledge on a topic that is important to them.
The flow is natural because it represents the way we speak, but from a visual standpoint, it looks wordy. At first glance, is it inviting? Does it make you want to read it?
It’s hard to scan the list with your eyes and take the information in for processing. But if we converted it into bullets, readers would be able to scan it quickly with their eyes and process the information more easily.
How does it look?
To be a good writer, we need to learn how to:
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draw our readers in;
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hold their attention;
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make them want more; and
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let them gain new knowledge on a topic that is important to them.
What do you think? Is it easier to read?
While we’re learning how to improve our blog posts, it’s important not to overdo a particular tweak. For the first example regarding paragraph length, we don’t want to make our paragraphs so short that each sentence becomes a paragraph. We also don’t want to overdo bullet points.
A lot can be said about variety. You don’t eat the same meal every night for a week, and you don’t wear the same clothes every day for a month. Variety in structure and style is key to writing a blog post that readers will like.
Use these two tweaks for writing better blog posts and see what happens with your readership.
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