'Never Ever' Blogging Tips: The Text Wall
Go back to your first blog post. Life seemed bright and full of meaning. Your sidebars were happily cluttered with unnecessary widgets and there was nary an About page in sight.
What did your post look like? Was it parceled out in easy-to-read chunks with font changes to emphasize key points and words? Or was it one big, fat wall of text?
Walls of text make it difficult to read your post. Don't let your website look like this.
Don't hang your head in shame! I understand. It's very hard to learn when and how to separate thoughts, especially for the barely interested internet market.
If you're here, that's the perfect first step to cease this extremely dangerous and traffic-killing habit. Just breathe, and be prepared.
Why are text walls so very bad?
Research these days tells us more and more that people scan. It can feel a little disheartening at first to find out that readers will most likely look at your blog post and not really read more than a few seconds worth of words. But all of your hard work! Your passion! Your determination!
When readers see a wall of text, they might try to read a few sentences. With few clear spaces between lines and nothing to keep the eye going, wall of text readers tend to get exhausted and give up before getting into the bulk of your great content at all.
Simply put: visitors won't read your wall of text.
Like many things in life, I recommend using this knowledge to your advantage. Just because people spend an average of 10-20 seconds on a webpage does not mean it's the end of the world.
Instead, this knowledge empowers you to make great change. For one, remember that your readers demand and deserve thoughtful, engaging content. For two, remember that your readers are busy/lazy, and can read faster if you chunk everything out. So do that.
Blogging Tips for the Wicked
1. Stick to the 5 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why.
Keep your ideas clear and easy to express. Although blogs do leave plenty of room for extrapolation and details, learn to master the basics before adding anything too extra.
2. Share one idea at a time.
Instead of communicating the depth of everything right away, use your post as a way to tell a story. Separate your thoughts into different chunks.
This isn't grade school. Please, no five paragraph essays here.
You're better off hitting enter too often than too infrequently.
One of the most valuable tools you have as a blogging: the enter button.
3. Take advantage of lists and bullets.
Break down what you want to say. Is it possible to separate your ideas out into list form at any point? Lists are far easier for people to read, especially when you emphasize the headings as I have in this post.
This isn't to say that you should only be writing compendiums of this and that. Instead, use short lists to visually separate chunks of text.
Here's an example:
"The Wildlfe Refuge in Ichefenokee struggles to stay open year after year due to:
- A decrease in government funding for wildlife programs
- Lower local interest and travel difficulties for tourists
- Travel challenges with the closed highway, Route 510
- Safety hazards from aging facilities and paths in disrepair
- Greater competition with the brand new theme park 10 miles away"
If I were to stick all of that information in one sentence, it would be very long and cumbersome to read. Instead, chunk it up!
The easiest way to bust down text walls is to hit the enter button. With these blogging tips, your readers will stay longer and enjoy your words instead of closing the page!
Are you a text wall writer? Have any tips for breaking the habit? Tell us in the comments below!