The Perfect Blog Format
By: The Blogfather
Tags: Blog Content, Blogging Tips, Website Content, Blogging, Blogs And Blogging

In todays world the average person has an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. Your blog format and the way your site is set up plays a huge impact on how long a reader will stay on the site. Developing a solid blog outline for each one of your posts can help you keep a structure that helps keep your readers engaged and lowers your bounce rates.

When someone clicks to an article they find online, typically they will read the main headline, followed by a sentence or two. Instead of continuing to read the blog post, they’ll scan the outline of the blog, read the subheading, and skip to the last few sentences. By examining the blog outline in this way, a reader decides if they’re going to read the whole article or leave the site. This is where having a strong blog format comes into play.

Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that your content will most likely get skipped and skimmed through. We’ve got an excellent guide on your blog format, followed by the best way to create your blog outline. It’s all about the engagement, power words, visuals, and emotional calls to action! Continue reading if you’re ready to start grabbing those headlines.

How to Demand Excitement and Interest With Your Blog Format Techniques

Crushing the Headlines

The headlines are one of the most dynamic elements of your blog format. Besides images and videos, the headlines will be the first thing a reader notices.

The Title

Start by coming up with an attention grabbing title. Titles that ask questions can quickly grab the reader’s attention. Open-loop titles work extremely well also. These are titles that leave the reader hanging in suspense. This usually leads to them NEEDING to finish the article to satisfy their curiosity. Here’s a good example of an open loop title:

“The Verdict is In On This Month’s Data: YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT WE FOUND!”

Don’t get too overdramatic with your headlines or oversell the article. If it seems over the top to you, most likely it’s over the top to your readers. Try and proof read your article from a readers standpoint. How would the headline tags you’re using make you feel? What emotional responses would they manifest?

The Subheaders

After knocking the title out, you can focus on the other main points of the article, such as your H2, H3, and H4 tags. A good article should have multiple headline tags of different size.

Typically when an article is skimmed, the headlines will be the only content that actually gets digested. An article’s headlines are your way of telling the reader what that blog post outlines. A reader can walk away with the main topics of your article, and what type of value they stand to gain from going back and reading the whole length of the post (which is exactly what we’re going for).

Using extra care and attention on your H1-H4 tags drastically improve your SEO as well. By making this step a habit, you’re killing two birds with one stone.

Pictures Need to Be a Focal Point of Your Blog Format and Blog Outline

The pictures that help make up your blog format are just as important as the headlines. Images pop and grab the readers attention faster than any other dynamic of a website. Pictures are visually pleasing, and typically trigger a positive emotional response from the reader. Don’t be afraid to go heavy on the pictures.

This doesn’t mean post a ton of pictures you found on the first page of image search. Each picture should have some thought put into it. Only use pictures that are extremely relevant to the content you’re writing about.

Ensuring that only high-relevancy images are used get used accomplishes two things. First, it helps your site rank higher in the search engines and helps tell Google what type of readers to recommend your site to.

If your site is centered around the fitness niche and you’re writing an article about the top ten exercises of 2021, but you post pictures of the top low sugar drink recipes, you’re going to confuse the algorithm. This is a sure fire way to not get your site indexed and ranked.

When you’re coming up with ideas for your blog format or drafting a blog outline, be sure to include ideas for the meta tags of your photos as well. This won’t help keep customers engaged on the front-end, but it could draw potential subscribers on the back end by way of SEO.

Use only the highest quality images possible. These images are clearer and more brilliant, which gives your site an extra boost of visual appeal. Put two websites side by side with the same exact visual content. One has in 720 and the other is in 1080. I know which one I’m going with every time. Your readers are no different. The blog game is all about producing quality content.

If you really want to put the extra effort in, take the time to post pictures of real people and real situations. Recent studies have shown that readers prefer photos of real people as opposed to stock photos. This simple hack can massively boost engagement and conversions on a website.

As a side note, be careful when you’re using photos and other content for your website. Be sure to check out this article with information you should have regarding the legal aspects of blogging.

Format Your Blog To Include Short, Concise Paragraphs

This is one of the most important blog format rules in my book. The goal of most bloggers is to turn their site into a lengthy, multiple page authority site on whatever their niche topic is. This is a great goal, and it takes A LOT of content.

However, keep your paragraphs very short. Each paragraph should be no longer than two to three sentences at the most. This is extremely important from a readability aspect.

Keeping the paragraphs of your content short help break the article down into small, digestible pieces. Remember, the average digital subscriber only stays on a page for about 30 seconds. Keeping their attention by breaking the content down into small sections will drastically decrease your bounce rate.

Choose Your Font Carefully

Large, flashy types of fonts are appropriate for certain websites. Especially if those websites are from the late 90s and early 2000s. I’m only kidding (sort of).

Larger, big-print style fonts with blocked letters and loud colors are not bad when it comes to using certain landing pages that have a lot of sales copy on them. But to be honest, even those pages are dying out as time goes on.

Trends are changing online (as they always do), and readers have shown they prefer smaller, more minimalist fonts that don’t stick out as much. In today’s internet world of fonts, I suppose less is more.

Utilize a Table of Contents For Your Articles

This goes along with having short paragraphs spread throughout your content. This is another measure to help ensure readability and smaller, easier to read sections as opposed to monstrous, thousand word essays.

Use a plugin like WordPress Elementor that has an awesome table of contents block available for use. The table of contents available in Elementor allows you to link to each different section individually.

This makes reading a lot more convenient for your subscribers, as they can freely skip between different passages, following along with the topics as they do so. By using this feature, it lowers the risk of having readers become confused when they’re reading a 5,000 word authority post that’s been shortened by an illusion.

That’s one thing that is actually very ironic to me. Current online trends show that people heavily favor humungous authority sites with a lot of content. That’s a ton of reading. It’s funny that this happens in a time period where people have the shortest attention spans we’ve ever seen.

By this data, you would think micro blogging and mini-niche sites would still run the market. But the times they are a-changin’.

Using Lists and Quotes

Using bulleted lists can be a great way to bring attention to your blog format.

Lists bring attention to the area where the reader sees the bullets or numbers

They’re broken down, using the same theory as short paragraphs

Make important points easy to follow and remember

“Using quotes and testimonials can be another creative way to bring attention to certain parts of your article”

Brandon Crawford

Author

Following these simple blog format tips and hacks can be a very simple way to engage your readers more. More engagement ends up turning into more traffic, which means more success for you as a blogger. Check back for part 2 of this article, where we cover Blog Outline.

Check out the full article at https://theblogfather.net/?p=179