Write For Your Readers: Keeping It Clean And Simple

Photo by J Wynia

This is the fifth post in a roughly 10-part series I'm calling The Most Haunting and Profound Blogging Advice Series. I'm sharing blogging advice I've picked up from more established bloggers, different bits of advice which have haunted me profoundly since I came upon them. Read the introduction to this series here.

Some of the best blogging advice I've found has to do with how we as bloggers present our posts.

Presentation Matters

Blogging is a different publishing medium than more traditional types of media, such as newspapers or magazines.

Many bloggers are also writers for other mediums (as I am) and as writers we're generally more focused on writing and expressing our ideas than perhaps anything else.

Blogging adds another layer to how we present our ideas, though--we have to pay attention to how we present our posts themselves, by writing content that is easy to read.

Two bloggers who have really helped me to see that are James Chartrand and Abraham Piper.

James Chartrand, Men With Pens Author

James once told me that I should write shorter paragraphs and one line sentences and to use bullets and section headers--anything to break up my often typical long posts to make it easier to read on a computer screen.

He also encouraged me to write shorter posts.

If you look at this post from back in December (a long 1123-word post with no section headers and some huge paragraphs) and then compare it to today's 524-word post with bold section headers and much smaller paragraphs, you'll see that I've begun to incorporate these ideas.

Read James' recent post, How to Show You Care About Your Customers, for a great example of how to write this way.

Abraham Piper, 22 Words Author

Piper has written:

"Truth needs to be proclaimed, but trueness alone doesn't make what I have to say worth saying. I need to say true things well.

It motivates me to concentrate on presentation when I realize that badly written truth is almost as bad as being just flat wrong."

Piper really hits the nail here:

"Be familiar with the blog genre and write for it.

It will serve our readers if we write for the way they read, rather than the way we think they should read. More important than changing people's reading habits is getting them to read our content at all. That's how our message will spread—and that's the main point, right?"

In addition, Piper advocates writing less (which means shorter posts--check out his blog for an extreme example of that), using interesting and honest titles, and writing to be scanned.

He explains how:

"Here's a list of what will usually make text scannable:

· Putting your point at the beginning.

· Composing short, one-point paragraphs.

· Organizing with headers and sub-headers.

· Setting lists apart with bullets or numbers.

· Highlighting important words and phrases with bold or italics (but not all caps)."

Bottom Line

Blogging is a very conversational media forum and bloggers who want to be read and respected and who want to get their message out widely ought to write for that medium.

Write to be read, write for your readers--don't just pontificate with long, drawn-out paragraphs and no section headers. No matter how good your content is, if it's presented poorly, you really don't have any right to expect people to read it.

If you want your readers to respect you, you need to respect your readers.

I've Moved--Please Read

My new blog is Robust Writing, at robustwriting.com/blog

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The Most Haunting and Profound Blogging Advice Series: An Introduction