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One of the most fundamental objectives of blogging is to make your readers understand what is on your mind. Irrespective of whether you blog about technology, entertainment or the environment unless your readers can grasp what your point is, they don’t care how much you spend on your blog’s domain name, logo or theme!
“If you can’t explain it simply enough, you don’t understand it well enough”
-Albert Einstein
The language you use – English, French or Hindi – is just a tool. Your knowledge of classic movie quotes, idioms, phrases and proverbs, vocabulary and fancy literary devices will only go so far in grabbing the attention of the readers. What really matters is the content you are offering: typically a solution to a problem, an interesting piece of news, something interesting from your personal experience or a tip for buying something online.
I have come across the phrase: “Content is King” on at least a dozen blogs, and I only read around 20 blogs seriously. So how do you make sure that your “King” is given adequate respect?
Let’s take a few minutes to go through some tips you can use to make your content easier to understand for the target audience:
Minimize use of technical jargon, and those which are unavoidable can be clarified at the end of the post.
Use shorter and more common words instead of letter monsters. People browsing the web don’t have the time to look up the meaning of every other word!
Use simple sentence structures and shorter sentences. Punctuate existing sentences and divide complex ones into multiple sentences which are easier to comprehend. Most people on the web are not post-graduates and have short attention spans – you don’t want them to forget the early parts of your sentence by the time they finish reading the whole thing! A typical sentence should be shorter than say 25 words.
Break up large paragraphs into smaller ones (say 100 words) and add sub-headings to make the objective of each paragraph clear. It’s definitely better to know what you are going to read about in the next paragraph!
Use flow-diagrams for sequential tutorials. It’s much easier to learn, remember and repeat a complex process when you have a simple sequence of steps to be followed rather than a page full of long-drawn sentences.
Re-read the entire post at least twice to make sure the above points have been taken care of.
Ask a friend, family member or trusted fellow-blogger who are not familiar with the topic to read your post before publishing it. You may realize that while the words are simple enough for you, other people might find them difficult!
What steps do you follow to make your blog posts more easily understandable?
We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
I’m a Generalist Researcher working on a Theory of Reality, Horticulturist, Blogger, Natural Systems Analyst and Amateur Architect