Your readers can’t spend all day browsing your website any more than you can. They want to get the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of time. Satisfy that desire by keeping your entries to about 250 to 300 words each, such as in this post shows. You can always divide your writing up into two or more entries if what you have to say takes longer than that.
Break it up
A solid block of text is hard to read because the eye can’t easily find the beginning and end of important ideas. Break your posts up into several paragraphs that are about three to five sentences each. Use subheads to designate major ideas within your post. Note how much easier this post is to scan because of the paragraphs and subheads.
Use lists
When talking about three or more items, use lists that put separate each item onto each line. Precede each line with a bullet if neither order nor sequence is important. For example, use bullets for food ingredients or a list of states sorted alphabetically. Put a number on each line if you want to designate an order or sequence, such as with a list of top salesmen or the instructions for putting together your product.
For example, how easy is it to distinguish this list of formatting options for a blog: page layout, font style and size, line spacing, paragraph alignment, color scheme, image thumbnails, and video? Look at what happens to the same list when it is broken out into bullets:
- page layout
- font style and size
- line spacing
- paragraph alignment
- color scheme
- image thumbnails
- video
Examples
Check out these external blogs for examples that combine excellent formatting:
- Viget makes good use of bulleted lists and bold-faced text to designate topics.
- IronFeathers keeps its paragraph short.
- Web Designer Wall uses different fonts and colors to differentiate between headers. It also uses numbered lists as subheaders.
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