What makes a good blog post?

Formatting is Your Friend

Help yourself by helping your readers

They'll thank you for it.

(Really, they will)

You don't normally think about formatting when you think blog do you? A common misconception is you are just writing to write. Blogs are for putting your thoughts down on paper (or on screen in this case).  But do you know what formatting can actually do? It helps draw the eye. It helps the flow of your post. For all those people who have a hard time reading and only want the TL;DR, headings help draw the eye and give readers an idea what the post is about and whether or not they want to continue reading. Meaning, it's important what type of headers you choose. 

You may have noticed I have subsequently smaller headers above. they are listed a little different in Blogger than they are in programs such as Word or other word processing programs. Below, I wrote how each is labeled in Blogger and I've put the normal descriptions in parentheses.

Major Heading (Title) 

Heading (Subtitle)

Sub-Heading (Heading 1)

Minor Heading (Heading 2)

Bold typeface

Minor Heading vs. Bold

As you can see, bold is the same size as minor heading. Why would you choose one over the other? To be honest, it doesn't make a big difference in blogger. But it DOES make a difference in word documents, as it aids in creating table of contents and navigating your document. The word processing programs keep tracking of headings and shows them in outline style on the side. Also, headings are baked into the Paragraph. Meaning, you can't have a heading style and normal type in the same sentence.

Who does it benefit?

Accessibility is something everyone should always think about for anything they publish on the web. Did you know that mobile devices now account for nearly two-thirds of all internet traffic worldwide? How well do you want people to be able to read your blog? Someone could have vision issues, dyslexia, ADHD, or any number of other things that make it difficult to read. 

Font size

Normal size text is usually 12pt. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't show the exact point size of the font. They only have the following:

Largest
Large
Medium
Normal
Small
Smallest

Which of those are easiest to read? Which is hardest? In what circumstances would you use each type of font size? Normal is adequate, but you may want to consider Medium for the best readability in most reading environments. 

What do you think? Do you like Medium better, now that you see them next to each other? Yes, I think I do. Make sure to test your blog on multiple devices to check to see how they act in different reading environments.

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