10 top tips for creating the perfect blog

by MarketG Banned
1 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Although, when it comes to content marketing, 'content is king' - appearance is also critical and can make or break your blog in terms of attracting readers attention in the first place. Formatting your articles into attractive and reader friendly blog posts can be the difference between visitors who convert into leads, and readers who get bored before they have finished the first paragraph. Unless your blog looks inviting, attractive, and is easily readable, you're less likely to earn social shares or natural backlinks. In other words, failing to format can ruin your best intentions of growing an audience and subscribers, improving your SEO, and generating leads.

Anyway, good formatting is relatively easy and straightforward if you follow a few guidelines. Conceptualizing, researching, writing, and publishing high-quality content can be a fairly time-consuming process, but if you separate your content into easy-to-digest chunks and format it for publication, which can take as little as 15-30 minutes, the benefits far outweigh the time it takes to get it done.

Here are a few guidelines which will help ensure your blogs keep your readers engaged.

1. Use Sub-headers

Sub-headers are really important; in fact they are probably the most important aspect of formatting your blog. Check out the remarkable difference in the image below, where the same content is displayed both with and without sub-headers:

The section on the right is much more appealing to a reader but also, sub-headers are good for capturing the attention of search engines too.

2. Keep Your Posts Narrow

Using a Wordpress or Blogger layout with a particularly wide content column, could be detracting from your user experience. Pick a new layout, or adjust your column width. 80 characters should be a maximum width which will help keep up appearances, as can be seen in the images below:


3. Bold Text

Bold text is a great attention grabbing feature as long as it is used in moderation to highlight important sentences. Occasional bold sentences have a place in the perfect blog post, and can improve the stickiness of your content marketing.

4. Use the Right Images

Blog posts should always include at least one piece of visual content. Pick an image, infographic, embedded video, Slideshare or meme to catch the eye of your readers.
However, beware, not all images have equal effect. Marketing Experiments found in a study that pictures of actual employees have a 95% higher conversion rate than stock photos. Their conclusion was that there's nothing inherently wrong with stock images, but there is a problem with pictures that don't look believable. So, don't fill out your blogs with pictures of smiling models eating salad, especially if they don't enhance your content. Rather use images that compliment and further the message of your blog post.

5. Use Graphs and Charts


In technical industries or for blogs covering data-heavy topics, graphs and charts can be a crucial tool in helping marketers achieve results. Data visualization can break up the monotony of dry articles, and they're perfectly primed for sharing. Whether you're creating or curating graphics, they can add significant visual interest and depth to your blog.
The graph below is an example of data that's relayed in a visually-appealing and easy-to-share way:

Be sure to support your graphs with text to get the most SEO credit possible for including fresh research and facts in your content.

6. Use Lists

Most web users tend to skim instead of read in detail, so by using lists you stand a better chance of catching reader's attention.

Yes, love'em or hate'em; listicles are here to stay, and if you need convincing that modern blog readers love list posts, look at the ultra-popular websites Buzzfeed and Cracked. Whether or not you format your entire blog as a list, including bullet points, is up to you, but it can convey important messages to visitors who are just skimming your article.

7. Use Short Paragraphs

You don't need to apply traditional rules of composition when creating the perfect blog post. Short paragraphs draw emphasis to important points. Large sections of texts do tend to put blog readers off.

8. Leverage Text Call-Outs

Emphasising the subject and content of your blog or particularly important points in text call-out boxes adds some serious emphasis to your content:

Text call-outs can quickly become irritating to readers, but when used sparingly, they're a great hybrid of text and visual content.

9. Image Captions

When a website visitor starts reading a blog post, where do their eyes go first? To your header image, of course. Including image captions can allow you to hook visitors who aren't entirely sold on the idea of your article, and convert them into readers.
Your image caption should fit the theme of the picture, but it should also be descriptive of your article and engaging. Ask questions, include power stats, and strive to be intriguing. Image captions are nearly as important as blog headlines, so they shouldn't be neglected.

10. Use Multiple Sizes of Sub-headers

If you're writing a long or complex piece of content, consider including different sizes of sub-headers. Start your article off with an H1 tag, separate larger sections with H2 tags, and initiate paragraphs with H3 headers, a concept that's illustrated below:

The larger your header size, the more significance it carries for SEO. While some user experience experts recommend not exceeding 4 text sizes per page, don't be afraid to use multiple header sizes for formatting your blog.

So, there it is; don't let all that effort spent writing your perfect blog go to waste by not spending those extra valuable minutes on formatting! User experience matters in the age of content saturation, so respect your reader's time by using sub-headers, engaging images, visual content, varied text sizes and lists to keep them engaged and reading.
Let us have your comments on tips and techniques you use to format your blogs and content before publishing, and any experience you have.
#blog #creating #perfect #tips #top
  • Profile picture of the author Tim3
    Very nice,
    but before using the 'build it and they will come strategy'
    learn how to drive traffic to it first, otherwise you will have a nice-looking blog and nothing else.
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