Blogging is a pillar component to a successful search engine optimization campaign. If you want to succeed in SEO then blogging is your best friend. Although great content will boost your SEO profile, let’s remember that content should be written for your readers first. In this guide to creating readable blog content, we’re going to outline some important factors that you should consider when writing posts that impact your readers.
Content Should Be Written For Your Reader First.
It’s easy to forget that someone, at some point, will actually read the content on your website. Whether these people are your current clients or patients, or prospective clients or patients, someone is going to read it.
And the more successful of an SEO campaign you run, the higher the likelihood this content gets read.
When writing content there are 7 factors that we consider when evaluating content for readability, which are:
- Use of supporting images and mixed media
- Short paragraphs
- Concise sentences
- Active voice
- Strategic transition words
- Non-consecutive sentences
- Tiered content with proper subheading distribution
It’s important to remember that in some cases creating readable content doesn’t require all of these criteria to be met. They should simply be used as a guide for assessing your content readability.
Don’t do silly things, like demand things of your reader throughout your post in an effort to achieve “active voice”. Simply write your content and let your authority and expertise guide the process.
With that said, let’s break each one of these down.
Use of Supporting Images and Mixed Media
Rich media like images, video and audio recording (aka blog-to-audio) are vital to engaging your visitors. Through mixed media content to coincide with your text, your visitors will engage with your content and retain more of the information presented. If you can include video, we’ve seen that readers retain nearly 9x the amount of information within a message compared to text only.
Here you go. You’re reading an article about creating readable content and up pops an image of a golf ball on a green. Now, had this article been about “Top 6 Activities to Relieve Stress” and golf was the number one recommendation – assuming you’re good at golf and find it relaxing – then you’d certainly evaluate that image.
Images and video help your readers create an emotional connection with your content. They add personality and make messaging memorable.
Create compelling infographics, use impactful imagery that aligns with your reader and your content, create custom videos explaining the content in further detail. Also, add audio recordings of the text to help people read while on the go. Everything will help solidify your readers engagement, and gives search engines other options to display your content in search results.
Short Paragraphs
Although many educators advise that a paragraph should be no less than 3 sentences and at minimum 100 words; guess what, that doesn’t apply here.
The goal of every paragraph on a blog is to present the reader with short, concise bits of knowledge. Your blog is NOT the place for a comprehensive legal brief, or a full medical thesis. It’s a place that informs your readers and compels them to take action.
Paragraphs should be a maximum of 120 words. For blog writing, the adage of “more is not always better” absolutely applies. Keep it short and get to the point!
Concise Sentences
As experts in our fields, we all want to not only write about a topic that interests us, but also leave our readers a wealth of knowledge greater than that of which they arrived. Bad news is – they’re just not that interested.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re interested enough to read the article but the fact remains that they are likely skimming the text for the information that answers their query. They want to get to the point.
As a general rule of thumb, the typical recommended word count for a sentence is around 20 words. For this type of content, more than that is likely going to confuse them, and less will be considered thin, useless content. Shoot to keep your sentences short and you’ll never go wrong.
Active Voice
It’s important that you write your articles for your perspective. You’re the authority in your field. You maintain the expertise that your reader is seeking. Not only will active voice show you’re an authority, but it will also motive your reader to take action – whether that’s to contact your practice, or simply complete a task on their own.
It is important to include some passive voice as well. Passive voice will make the content read a bit more conversational and embracing. Ideally, the tone of the article will follow an “active voice” model, which ensures your content is explicitly portraying your expertise and answering their questions.
Strategic Transition Words
One great way of creating shorter sentences and paragraphs is by the strategic use of transition words. By using transition words you not only create a unique style within your writing, but also create an element of conciseness and flow within the content.
The use of words such as “in addition”, “furthermore”, “thus”, “as a result” and “since”, to name a few, will keep your readers moving through your content without chopping up your thoughts into fragmented sentences.
In case you need a refresher, Grammerly put together a great article to remind us of how to properly use transition words.
Non-Consecutive Sentences
Sometimes when we write we tend to find a rhythm. Occasionally you may find your starting to use the same word to start multiple sentences in a row.
Generally speaking, you do not want to sentence starters like “There is”, or “There are” and “It is” as they not only make writing sound weak, but also create a repetitive patter that can discourage your reader from continuing forward with the content piece.
Try getting creative with your writing. Read the content prior to publishing it, and if you can’t even engage yourself then it’s time to rework the article.
Tiered Content with Proper Subheading Distribution
In blog writing, writers often use subheadings (such as H2, H3 and H4 tags) to break up content into digestible chunks that flow naturally. An example of this would look like:
- H1 Title: When Are You Eligible for a Work Visa?
- H2 Subheading: Temporary Work Visa Categories
- H3 Subheading: H-1B Visa Process and Eligibility
- H3 Subheading: H-1B1 Visa Process and Eligibility
- H2 Subheading: Temporary Work Visa Categories
You get the idea. Instead of creating large paragraphs housing multiple related concepts, its better to simply breach related concept into it’s own content section.
This helps readers recognize different sections of text and to hone in quickly on areas of content for which they may already be searching.
Flesch Reading Ease Score
Developed nearly a decade ago by Rudolph Flesch, the Flesch Reading Ease score is a content rating system that reviews content and rates it on a scale of 1-100. This system measures of the readability of content, based on the average number of syllables per word and the average number of words per sentence.
The easiest way to describe this score is what grade level of education would be required to read your content. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read.
Once you’ve gone through all of your checks above, we recommend running your content through the Flesche Reading Ease formula. Although there are a number of great tools that can do this automatically, such as readable.com.
You should aim for a score of 60-80, meaning your content would maintain a reading level of 7th to 9th grade. This should appeal to most readers.
So that’s it! You’re one step closer to creating readable content that will entice both users to read, and encourage search engines to display in search results. Also, we know this is a lot of work when done right.
If you’re looking for a dedicated team to write comprehensive, enticing content for your practice, feel free to contact our team at Joseph & York, digital marketing for lawyers, dentists, doctors and finance professionals .
