Writing your first blog post is an accomplishment (yay you!), but writing a blog post and formatting it so it’s optimized for online reading are two different tasks. While it’s a complete overstatement and simply untrue to say people don’t read on the web, they most certainly do, it is true that before reading, they will quickly scan to see if they should read or not. The key to scannable text is to make the post chunky.

Here’s how to format scannable posts in 8 steps:

1.  Start clean

In your Word or Google Doc, spell check and then clear all text formatting, like numbers, bullets and indents. Online text doesn’t need the paragraph indent. Posts created with Google Docs usually copy over with links intact, however, you will still need to set them to “open” in a new window. 

2. Transfer text and fix spacing gaps

Copy and paste the text into your post. Fix any spacing gaps. You want to have one hard return between paragraphs and bullets/lists.  This creates white space.  You want your white space to be uniform throughout the post. Sometimes you will get spacing gaps around images. This is sometimes due to image size. Try resizing your image.

3. Keep paragraphs as short as possible

You have to consider that your post needs to be optimized, not just for people scanning and reading online, but for mobile readers too, so break up long paragraphs  — even if you have to tweak the writing to do so.  Super long blocks of text are a turnoff.  

4. Use subheads

Subheads are one of the easiest and most effective ways to create “scannability” in your posts and to highlight and preview content. Plus, when you format your subheads in header tags, like H2, H3, etc., they will contribute to SEO by helping search engines understand your content. Subheads formatted in header tags also make text more accessible to those who rely on screen readers.

Do not underline subheads (underlining is how links are made visible on many blog and web pages. Choose an accent color for subheads. This is a way to further enhance scannability by adding more contrast to the regular text.

5. Add photos/images

Images should be roughly the same size within a post.  The image at the top of this post is 600 px x 900 px. Large images can make it hard to scan without a lot of scrolling. Rule of thumb: use an image at the top of the post and then one (or more) towards the middle/end. Make sure you have enough white space between images and text.

6. Embed links using descriptive text

In addition to pointing to sources without having to use citations or bibliographies, links also add a visual element to your post that helps create scannability. Your link color/style is set within the theme. Links should be included within the post and not in a group at the end. Here is the WP help page: Follow these instructions.  Be sure to set the link to open in a new window. You always embed the link into descriptive anchor text, the word or phrase that holds the link, like I did above with the WP link. Don’t use “click” here or “read more.” The anchor text should be descriptive  — that helps readers understand what is at the other end of the link.

7. Avoid centering text

Centered text is hard to read, especially paragraphs, especially when readers are scanning. When centering short blocks of text, make sure that the lines are split evenly. Don’t leave one word orphaned on its own line.

8. Use parallel bullets and lists

Bullets and lists are a good way to make your text scannable. Ensuring they are parallel, meaning they all have the same grammatical structure, also helps readers quickly scan and understand the content. So items in a bulleted or numbered should all nouns, all verbs, gerunds and so on.

This list is parallel. Each numbered item begins with an imperative verb: Start, Use, Keep, Embed…

Confused? WordPress to the Rescue

Here is the support page from WP that illustrates the steps above. Be patient. You will experience frustrations and glitches. (You are using the free version and therefore you can’t control all of the fonts and features.) Just do your best and try to have some fun with the experience.  Even when you upgrade, you’re still likely to have glitches.