Top 9 Ways to Improve Readability of a Blog Post

Be it that your target audience is students of 7th grade or you want to write in accordance with the SEO techniques. Readability is basically how easy, light, and enjoyable your blog is in terms of sentence structure and vocabulary. Often overlooked, readability is a critical factor in determining how many fans of yours will reach the end of your blog.

If you are looking forward to increasing the number of readers, customers, or shares, your blog needs to have an 8th grade level of readability.

Top 9 Tips To Improve Your Readability

Here are the top 9 tips that can help you improve the readability of your work tenfold.

1. Conversing with an Eight-Year-Old

Write your blog like you are having a conversation with an eight-year-old reader. It will help you keep the text simple and to the point.

According to a Washington Post, if you write a blog that is readable for the above 8th-grade audience, less than 50% of Americans will be the only ones able to read your article.

Unless your target audience is a group of people of a certain age or with specific expertise, you should stick to writing for 8th grade reading.

There are exceptions like technical blogs or medicinal purposes blogs tend to have difficult terminologies so the readability is not a concern with those kinds of articles. 

2. Write Short Sentences

Readability is majorly influenced by long, difficult sentences full of puns and idioms.

While the quality of the blog remains unchanged, readability decreases immensely.

Keeping sentences free of semicolons, colons, commas, underscore, and dashes reduces the difficulty of a sentence.

Sentences should end in not more than 25 words (maximum). While proofreading, streamline your work and focus on how long sentences and how short can you make them.

Short sentences are easier to read and readers only skim through them to absorb the meaning, less time is spent and the reader is engaged to read your blog till the end. 

3. Vary The Sentence Structure and Length

A monotonous pattern puts the brain to sleep and so short sentences below 20 words do not mean you write all of the sentences in 20 words precisely.

Variation is good and so is creativity. Keep sentences simple, short, and varied.

Do not be bland as you will lose all your favorite readers let alone boost their interest. 

4. Write as If You’re Conversing

The most prominent technique to make the reader comfortable and engaged all the time is to just simply have a nice informative and humorous conversation with them.

You’re writing a blog so think like a blogger and write like one. Be easy and informal because you definitely do not want your audience to think they accidentally landed on an English literary journal.

Conversations are way more interesting than articles and blogs, in fact, there is no comparison between the two.

Making the reader feel like they are simply having a conversation keeps them engaged and hooked to your blog till the end.

It might make them look for more blogs written by you if you are a great conversationalist.

5. Keep Paragraphs Short

By short, we don’t mean you cut down your 10 liner paragraph to 5 lines.

Keep all the paragraphs of approximately 2 to 3 lines. It helps support the ‘skimming through’ process of the reader and creates a sense of ‘easier to read’ in them.

It takes only 5 seconds for a reader to decide whether to give your blog a go or jump to the next one.

In that case, if your first sentence consists of 40 words and 5 lined paragraphs, your blog is doomed.

But wait, there is still something you can do. Ruthlessly divide sentences into two, two, or three parts (as needed) and divide the paragraphs as much as possible.

How do short paragraphs increase readability?

• Visually makes the content seem less daunting to read
• Sets a reader into a rhythm
• If you monetize your blog, more ads can be displayed without having the risk of ads covering the content. 

6. Setting Fonts to Bigger Size

To maximize readability, set a large font size in blog text so readers don’t have to adjust their zoom-in percentage or squint their eyes to read through.

Basically, all you need to do is take certain steps so readers do not have to put in much effort while reading your content.

Keep the text at 16 points although if you like, you can go up to 18 points as well.

7. Bullet Points

Including headers, bullet points, and numbered lists helps spread the content throughout.

Bullet points mean short sentences and are easier to read. Headers also help in further breaking the text and altering the reader from one idea to the other smoothly.

Don’t avoid them and don’t be afraid to use them as they do nothing but increase the readability of your blog. 

8. Using Images

Images are capturing, engage a reader, and enlighten them of an idea that the blog is based on.

Based on their interest it will be easier for them to decide if they like entertainment niche or medical.

They help your blog appear on image search engines as well. Through that, more and more readers from your targeted audience land on your blog. 

9. Ask Rhetorical Questions

Is this blog helping you out? Fingers crossed!

Asking questions, rhetorical or not, grabs readers’ attention and keeps them from zoning out even in an informational based blog.

You might relate this trick with that of your kindergarten teacher when she would ask a sudden question when she/he notices you daydreaming. 

Also read: https://articlesfit.com/tips-for-creating-an-seo-friendly-website/

Finishing Up

Use active voice, and include a subheading before 300 words. As long as you do all of the above you a4re good to go.

But not to forget, use your focus keyword in a subheading to make it SEO-friendly. If you don’t know how to make your blog SEO friendly, reach out to any affordable SEO company and they will assist you professionally. 

Happy writing and happy blogging!