Both what I have heard about writing blog articles that become popular and what I have experienced in terms of the blog articles that I actually read and enjoy involve four things that boil down to the same point: make it easy to scan your article and still get what it's saying. People who really follow blogs (even me, who only follows a couple dozen) have a ton of posts to read every day, and in reality, they're not going to sit down and read every single one in detail. Make it short, sweet, and easy to read, with these key points:
- Bullets - Bullets clearly delineate the key points of your article. They're easy to scan because they separate out your points with white space and people recognize the start, and hopefully most important part, of your statement.
- Bold - Bolding a few terms also helps. Even bolding phrases, because when people scan or skim your article, they'll pick up on these bolded sections.
- Links - Links, too, are good scannable material. They're separated out with their (often) blue text and underline, which makes them easy to pick out and direct your readers to more information. This is a good way, too, to keep your posts short, and be able to offer more information to your readers if they want it.
- Pictures - Who doesn't love pictures? They're fun to look at and they're easy to scan. A picture's worth a thousand words, right? So how about inserting a picture instead of a thousand words I don't want to read through anyway.
These are all ridiculously basic things but I thought I'd share, in part in an effort to share with those who don't know these things, as well, in part, as a request to bloggers out there to make it easier to follow their blogs. I know you've got good stuff to say, but I just don't have time to weed through all your content. Make it easy to cut across the fluff to the real content. That's what the Internet's all about. Consumer is in control, and just wants to get straight to the good stuff.
