Loading...It is true that quality content is one of the essential characteristics of a successful blogger. It is also true that visually appealing content is very important since nobody will want to go through something that looks annoying and is a frustration to wade through. More importantly, the quality of your content is ironically less important than how it looks.
This bold statement should not come across as a surprise. You could write the greatest content in the world, but if its structure makes it unreadable, nobody will bother struggling through it. As a blogger, it is thus your duty to ensure that your content is visually appealing and that your readers have absolutely no difficulty reading it. Thankfully, this is not so difficult to do and only requires some common sense.
Use paragraphs
The first secret to making your content a joy to read is to understand how to use paragraphs properly. For online purposes, paragraphs should consist of at most eight sentences, but even that can be too much depending on the layout of your blog. Consequently, it is usually safe to stick to four or five sentences, which works great across all media and will be appealing even to people browsing your website on their models.
Moreover, make sure that your paragraphs are properly separated using HTML paragraph tags. Using other tags or other techniques to give the illusion of paragraphs may work fine on your browser, but could turn out very ugly on other devices.
Use headings
Paragraphs are not the only requirement for an appealing blog post. You also need to tailor your article so that it includes headings. These headings play two great roles that should never be underestimated. They allow you to indicate to your readers that certain paragraphs are linked, thereby enabling them to stick to a certain section of an article if they are only interested in the latter. They also work better at first attracting a reader’s attention as the page is loading.
Never use emoticons
There was a time when emoticons ruled the Internet. People would include an emoticon after every two sentences, and the article would end with at least three different emoticons to indicate his own mood and that of the article. This was also encouraged by visitors who would also include emoticons in their comments, thereby leading the blogger to think that his use of smileys was a great idea.
However, emoticons are one of the worst mistakes you could make in a blog post. They look extremely unprofessional and often require additional loading time, which may scare potential subscribers away. You can easily indicate your mood through words. Emoticons also have a thoroughly clumsy feel about them and may break the flow of an article, which is why you should never use them.