Blog! Yes! Blog

Have you ever been to a blog and thought that the content just stood out really well and it practically begged you to read it? But other blogs, reading is almost like a chore you have to suffer through so that you get the information you need? So here is how to make your blog content stand out above the rest, so that people can not help but read your content.

Killer title

First and foremost, you need a killer title. [insert link to creating killer blog titles articles]. If you can get a great title for your blog entry, it will bring many more readers to it in the end.

Font

Yes, there seems to be a temptation by bloggers - especially those who are writing personal or non-commercial blogs - to stick a non-standard font. Well, the sad truth is, that while you think it may look fantastic, readers could be having a hard time reading it and move on to something else. So stick with a standard font such as Arial, Verdana or Times New Roman, and save the fancy fonts for something else.

Color schemes

Make sure your color scheme is easily readable by your visitors. Red font on a black background is hard to read. As is light grey on white. So make sure what you are using is easy for people to read.

Formatting

Don not have your content columns too wide. You do not want the column where your content appears to be wider than a standard 800×600 screen. While not optimal, you can have your sidebar run of the side screen if you insist on a wider column, but try to have a width of about 500 pixels or so.

Cross platform checking

This is something many people forget to do - checking to see what their blog looks like on a variety of platforms and browsers. What looks fantastic in Firefox could fall apart in IE, leaving you with content that will not stand out regardless of what other things you do to it. So make sure it is formatting correctly in all browsers and platforms, not just the one you happen to use.

Paragraphs

Use paragraphs. While most bloggers use them, there is still a stubborn contingent out there that insists on creating blog entries that are practically one big run-on sentence with nary a break in sight. So make sure you break up your content into short and snappy paragraphs, which makes for easy online reading.


Bolding

You can bold the first few lines of an important paragraph, or even a phrase within a paragraph to give it more emphasis. Just be careful not to overuse this technique, because then people will stop using it to seek out the most important points or comments and it can actually make your entire article less-scan-friendly.

Subheadings

See those little words above each paragraph? Those are subheadings and it makes your article much more readable. Someone can quickly scan the points you have made and read them ones that interest them the most, if they are not reading them all. It also makes it easy for someone to find what you said when they return to your bookmarked article. Keep the subheaders short -Subheading is perfect, but if you chose "How to use subheadings effectively for higher readability", you just made it a lot more wordy and a lot less scan-friendly.

Photographs

When warranted, using photos in blogs can really draw the eye in, especially when they are well targeted to the article. You can either use open source or copyrighted images you purchase to dress up your blog entries. Do be careful to not just borrow other people's images or you could find yourself on the receiving end of a cease and desist, or worse, get a hefty bill for usage of an image without permission.

Blockquotes

You know those BLOCKQUOTE tags you see? On blogs that equals an indent, which can make it easy to tell when you are quoting other's content. Not only that, it breaks up the formatting so it does not look quite so monotonous.

In a word of what seems like gazillions of blogs, you want to give your blog every advantage possible to make it stand out as much as possible. So if you can make your blog more user-friendly by making some changes to how you present the content, you can end up with many more subscribers in the long run.

Article source: http://www.scribefire.com/2008/05/26/how-to-make-your-blog-content-stand-out/