In the age where attention retention is more prevalent than ever before, getting people to read your blog is challenging. Luckily, improving the readability of your content is actually easier than you may think.
In this article, we’re going to outline the top four tips that you can implement right now to improve the readability of your blog posts and increase the number of returning visitors to your website.
Let’s get to it.
4 tips to write readable blog posts
Before we jump straight into our top tips to help you write more readable blog posts, there is one fundamental prerequisite that you need to be aware of. This is none other than keeping your audience front of mind the entire time. This has become especially important in the wake of Google’s Helpful Content Update.
#1: Use clear and concise paragraphs
The first tip is to ensure that you write clear paragraphs. A good rule of thumb is to begin a paragraph with your most important point and flesh it out from there.
Try to stay on point and avoid trailing your paragraphs out too much. Long paragraphs are very difficult to read, especially on mobile.
#2: Use understandable language
Sure, using complicated words with multiple syllables sounds sophisticated, but they are considered difficult to read and may disrupt content flow.
Limit your use of difficult words. If your topic is more technical and requires the use of more advanced vocabulary, that is fine but strive to make your content as simple to read as possible.
#3: Use transition words
One of the biggest issues for users is reading a piece of content and feeling like it’s taking them down a path to nowhere.
To mitigate readers feeling this way, make use of transition words that give direction to your users. Transition words are words such as ‘therefore’, ‘besides that’, ‘rather’, ‘while’ etc.
#4: Avoid repetition
For a piece of content to be attractive, it needs to have variation. What we mean by that is having no repetition. Alternate between shorter and longer paragraphs, use synonyms, and avoid using overly common words.
Bonus tip – Read your content out loud
One of the best things you can do after writing a piece of content is to read it out loud or get someone else to read it to you. Oftentimes things sound very different when reading them out loud compared to when you’re translating them from thoughts to words.
