Blogging Elements

Content Readability: It Can Make or Break Your Blog

Posted on 10. Apr, 2009 by Ashwin in Content

If you looked at what a typical blogger or freelance writer would do to belt out content that is optimized for search engines, you’d notice that an inordinate amount of time and effort is spent in trying to get some of these SEO writing elements right –primary keywords, secondary keywords, long tail, keyword density and all that jazz.

Is your Blog Content Readable?

Ask that question until you are satisfied — as if you paid $100,000 for that blog content. Are you happy with it? Does it tell you something different, unique, path-breaking, interesting, intriguing or humorous or any of the combinations thereof? How would  you ensure that your content is readable?Do this:

Maintain and use a good vocabulary

Some people are natural writers and are blessed with an amazing repertoire of words. They would flash these words and brandish them with a flourish. A post called Write Better Content at SEOchat states that  most of your readers might not be up to that standard and that the reading levels of most readers stand at 8th grade level. It advocates the use of simple words whenever possible. Mike and I, at blogging elements,  don’t agree with it.

You see, one of the reasons people read is also to improve their vocabulary. People who read blogs aren’t kids. Why then, are we taking readers to be 8th graders? They might not be and If they aren’t, are we pissing them off? Readers are smart and have a broad range of vocabulary. They understand and if they don’t, they will learn.

If magazines and leading newspapers thought this way, can you imagine the resulting journalistic quality? If Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Entrepreneur and other such magazines and papers maintain a certain quality with the language, why are we acting as we know more?

Dont’ Write for The Search Engines

A search engine is only a tool. Users on the Internet use it to find information — nothing more, nothing less. If you intend to depend on it for your livelihood and write content that somehow throws up your website in a relevant search for a couple of months at best (after that you won’t know why it doesn’t show up there), your intentions aren’t exactly clever.

Don’t write for spiders, crawlers and critters.; don’t write for toads and eels. write for humans. Sway them with emotion, grip them with your charm.Use the power of the written word to bring more people to trust you. This should be read-worthy content.

Content online, especially blogs, must have that persona. Say something that resonates with some people; irks some; pleases some; motivates some.

When you do this right, you my friend, have a blog that is worth its digital space in gold.

Tags: Better Content, Blog Posts, Blogging, Blogging Basics, Blogging Tips, Content Readability, Content writing tips