Imagine the following scenario:
You’ve just finished writing your next blog post.
After a quick edit, you hit the “Publish” button.
And with a sigh of relief, you wait for feedback – tweets, shares, comments, etc.
But once again, you did not receive any feedback.
There are no tweets, no comments, and no social media shares.
So, what’s the problem?
There are two possibilities.
Either your writing isn’t as powerful as it needs to be, or your blog post formatting is just terrible.
Now, if you think that formatting doesn’t really matter or if you’ve never really thought about it earlier, I request you compare the following screenshot…
With this one…
Both of them have exactly the same text.
But which one you (or anyone) would prefer reading?
Example 2, right?
So, now that you know why formatting matters, especially in blog posts, let’s learn how to format your blog posts to make them more readable.
Below, I have shared 5 blog post formatting tips that will help you make any blog post instantly more readable.
5 Blog Post Formatting Tips to Instantly Improve Readability
Before I mention the blog post formatting tips, I’d like to also mention that I will be showing you how to follow each tip in your WordPress Editor.
But, if you’re not using WordPress for your blog, you can still use the same tips as most blogging platforms offer similar features.
That being said, let’s dive right in!
1 – Paragraphs
As you saw in the image of Example 2, the short paragraphs, the better. They help you add more white space around your content, which makes the blog post more readable.
In WordPress, adding short paragraphs is very easy. Just position your cursor to the end of a line and hit the “Enter” key on your keyboard.
This will allow you to create extra space so that your words can breathe more easily.
Pro Tip: The classic rule-of-thumb is, your paragraphs should not exceed more than 3 lines. So, whenever you see a paragraph with over three or four lines, you may consider splitting it.
2 – Subheadings
Subheadings, as you might already know, are quite important in blog posts.
They help bloggers to orient their readers within the content. And the good news is, you can easily break up any blog post into subsections to improve its readability.
Apart from this, subheadings also help readers to easily skim through the entire content of a blog post, which also ultimately prevents your blog readers from feeling confused or lost.
Now, in your subheadings, you can either use Title Case format, capitalizing the first character of all words in subheadings or just capitalize only the first word of your subheadings.
Both are fine as long as you maintain the consistency across all subheadings in your blog posts.
To create a subheading in WordPress, all you need to do is, select the subheading text as shown in the image below, and change its format from “Paragraph” to “Heading 2”.
As you just saw in the above image, first you need to select your Subheading text, then click on the “Refresh” like button on top, and then click on the “Heading” option to convert the selected text into a subheading.
As you click on the “Heading” option, you’ll see your text converted into a subheading as shown below.
Pro Tip: Next time you’re writing a blog post, it’s recommended to think about all subheadings in your post in advance. It will help you create a compelling post structure right from the beginning.
3 – Bold Text
Including a bold text at the right places can greatly help you to get attention on important sentences or information.
One quick example is the introduction part of this article. As you can see, I have highlighted certain texts to quickly call readers’ attention to important points.
However, keep in mind to not overuse bold texts, as it can also easily ruin the readability of your blog post.
To bold a text in your blog post, select the words you want to bold and click on the “B” button in your WordPress editor.
Upon clicking, the selected text turned into bold text.
Pro Tip: It’s better to avoid bolding one or two words as they can look choppy in your blog post. If you want to bold any text, bold the entire sentence for better readability.
4 – Bullet Points & Lists
Sometimes, it’s more readable to write a list instead of a regular sentence.
For example, the following sentence could be easily converted into lists.
In this article, we will discuss paragraphs, subheadings, lists, and bold texts.
But with bullet points, I could write the same sentence with increased readability like:
In this article, we will discuss:
- Paragraphs
- Subheadings
- Lists
- Bold texts
As you can see, bullet points make it easier for readers to consume content.
To create a bullet list in your WordPress, select 3 or 4 points/sentences and select the “Bullet List” icon from the menu as shown below.
As you click on the “List” button, the selected text will be turned into bullet points as shown below.
Pro Tip: Apart from bullet lists, you can also turn your regular sentences or points in your sentences into a numbered list. Whatever type of list you prefer between numbered or bullet, make sure to maintain consistency throughout your blog post.
5 – Follow Standard Heading Hierarchy
Following the heading hierarchy will further help you in making your blog posts more readable.
Heading hierarchy basically allows forming a well-defined structure in a blog post.
Here’s how you should use the headings hierarchy correctly.
Suppose you’ve 3 key points and 3 subsections for each key point, then your subheadings should be structured as below.
H1 – Title of your post
H2 – Key point 1
H3 – Subsection 1
H2 – Key point 2
H3 – Subsection 2
H2 – Key point 3
H3 – Subsection 3
H2 – Conclusion
Remember, H1 must only be used for the title of your blog post.
Concluding Thoughts…
I’m sure you must be aware of all these formatting features in your WordPress.
The question is, are you using them as effectively as you should?
If you’re not, I hope that after reading this post, you’ll make a habit of using them from now to make all your posts easily readable.
In fact, you can also go back to your old blog posts and apply proper formatting to boost their readability.
With that, I hope that you’ve found this article useful. And if you’ve any questions or thoughts, feel free to share them below.
