Strategy that makes your blog "A Better Option"

You may not realize it, but the font settings on your blog can have a huge effect on how many people read your content. And how many people read your content has a huge effect on whether a post goes viral. How huge? Well, by some accounts I’ve read, just one common mistake with colors could reduce readership by a factor of five. And if you’re not making that mistake, you’re probably making at least one of four others. So in this article, I’ll give you the five most important best practices for presenting text to keep readers glued to your content, and away from the old back button. Font size—16px minimum At the very top of the the pile of legibility problems is font size. Back in 2005, Jakob Nielsen reported that in a survey of web design problems, bad fonts got nearly twice as many votes as the next contender—with two-thirds of voters complaining about small font sizes. Sadly, nothing has changed since then. A random sampling of new blog designs at SiteInspire (a web design gallery sh

We all know the importance of optimizing your web content to ensure it’s targeted, effective, and aesthetic. But often we forget about one of the main pillars of successful copy — readability. If your content isn’t reader friendly, there’s no amount of witty words that will get your message across. When reading a book or an article in a magazine, we usually read word for word. Absorbing the entire text and then trying to filter out its essence. On the web, however, most of us scan information, jumping from one point of interest to the next, hoping to trip over some relevant facts. In fact, according to a study by the Norman Nielsen Group, your visitors will only ready between 20 and 28% of the words on your site. Depressing, right? So, to make sure your users are getting the most out of the content they do read, we’ve put together 8 guidelines to improve readability and, ultimately, enhance the conversation with your visitors. 1. Choose fonts wisely Let’s start with the most essential

The ultimate goal of text is to communicate; thus, text must be readable and understandable to the user. Understanding how people read and why they read the way they do is vital for creating an optimal reading experience. In this article, I want to highlight best practices that will improve readability and ultimately, user experience (UX) for your users. 1. Chunk Text in Sections How the text is arranged affects its readability. People usually don’t read text; they passively scan in an F-shaped pattern until something catches their attention. At this point, they become active readers. By segmenting text in sections (with one main idea per section) and using headlines and spacing to separate sections, you can help your readers scan text more easily. People usually don’t read text; they passively scan in an F-shaped pattern 2. Use Descriptive Subheadings Using descriptive subheadings gives your audience a frame of reference, which makes it easier to scan the text to find the points of in

Blogging is a lot like fishing. Some people do it all the time and never catch anything…while others catch everything. Why is that? You know better than to say it is luck. So let’s call it what it is…when you look around at successful blogs…whatever industry or topic…there are several undeniable basics to success. And it starts with blog posts that kill it…rather than get killed. But what kills a blog post? Here’s a list of 12 things…ignore them and you will have a tough time being successful. 1. Crafting cute, clever or confusing headlines (or really bad ones) Your headline is going to appear in many places. At the top of your post… In search engine page results… Feed readers… And subject lines. The goal of the headline is to stop readers cold and draw them into your post. You can’t do that if you use cute, clever or confusing headlines. You can stop readers cold, however, if you write headlines that are unique, ultra-specific, useful or urgent. Here are a few examples: 6 Lessons You

You’ve read the headline. You’re intrigued. “But,” you might be thinking, “Why didn’t you choose a different, more arresting image for this post?” Good question. First, because The Lede is a regular post series, and the graphic that Rafal created for us is a clear visual cue to our audience that a new episode has been posted. Second, because we are posting this episode a day early, meaning that the visual cue is extra important to let people know a new little audio gift is unexpectedly waiting to be unwrapped. But, if we didn’t already have an arresting post image logo to use for The Lede, we would have had to choose something else … something that would have seized attention, created an emotional response, and compelled a click. (Something like this, perhaps?) In this episode of The Lede, Demian and I continue our series on the 11 essential ingredients of a blog post by discussing: Do you want to take Robert Bruce’s side and argue against the usefulness of images? Tweet me and Demian

Writing a great blog post is a lot of work. There’s the planning, the headline, the writing, the rewriting, the rewriting, the rewriting. As the cliché goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. So why not let your images do some of that writing for you? When you’re trying to get the biggest bang out of a blog post (while putting in the least amount of work), it’s smart to let strong imagery do some of your heavy lifting. But what’s the difference between an image that works hard and one that just looks good with your blog theme? Images are steroids for your headline You may remember the immortal advice of copywriting genius Joe Sugarman: the job of the headline is to get the reader to read the first line of your ad. (And the job of the first line is to get the reader to read the second line of your ad.) Let’s face it, writing great headlines is hard. (Worth the effort, but still. Hard.) A great image can give your headline a big boost. The image might be beautiful, odd, heartwarming,

Using images on your blog or website isn’t as straightforward as it seems. You need to make sure you’re using them legally, and optimizing them so they’re working for you, not against you. Tips for using images on your blog or website. Here’s what we’ll cover in this post: Finding Images Use images legally Where to find images How to find photos on Flickr How to provide proper attribution How to find images on Photo Pin or Compfight How to choose high quality images Find images in bulk to save time Optimizing Images (for SEO & more) If you use an image at the top of your posts… Rename your images before you upload them Use the ALT tag Add captions to your photos Resize & compress your images before uploading Affiliate link your images Making Graphics Why make your own graphics Free tools to make images & graphics How to watermark a photo How to make a collage How to make a circle image How to take a screenshot finding images Use images legally A lot of people assume if they