Article Formatting Tips

Article Formatting is an extremely important part of writing online content that can make a difference to search engines and to people.

Here are some tips to help you impact both in a positive way. What will that do for you? It can help you be more profitable.

Article Formatting – Fonts

A script or colourful font could be difficult on the eyes. Keep in mind that people that land on your content are probably surfing for information. A decent-sized and standard font that’s easiest on the eyes will be something people are more likely to actually read.

Emphasis

Fonts can help you get your meaning across. By emphasising certain things with italics, with a bold or underline, with highlighting, or with colour, you can draw a reader’s attention to a specific word or phrase. This small but powerful part of Article Formatting can make a difference to your reader’s reaction. The right emphasis can help an idea or phrase really resonate with someone.

Paragraph Size

What would you rather read? One long block of text or short paragraphs? Bite sized information works best for web surfers who are scanning your content for interesting info. Shorter paragraphs (3-6 sentences) tend to result in people staying on the page longer.

Subheadings

When writing articles, breaking apart your paragraphs with a few subheadings will do several things for you. First, it’ll help your content appear more bite-sized. The anxious surfer reading the page can see what’s ahead and see that it’s relevant for them. Another reader will benefit from this as well – the search engine spider.

Search engine spiders scan your content, looking for ways of indexing it. Format your subheadings as <h2> or <h3> and not only will that subheading stand out but search engines will take more notice of it. For that reason, it can be a good idea to use keywords that you want to rank for in subheadings.

Links

Do you put links on your page? Developing a linking strategy for your site will not only help you gain good search engine rankings for particular keywords and increase popularity of the site you point to but they tell people where they can go to get more information as well. Links keep people on the site longer because they can see that if they click a link, there’s further info for them.

Other SEO Tips

Beyond formatting for readability and user friendliness, scan a completed article as if you’re a search engine. Look at the subheadings and each paragraph and see if there are plenty of words that relate to your subject matter. Try to have at least a related word in each paragraph.

Other Tips For Pleasing Your Audience

Scan the article again and think of your reader:

• Does that article have purpose?
• Is that article interesting and valuable?
• Is the beginning interesting enough to keep someone there until the end?
• Does it have a lot of fluff?

Each short paragraph should be important enough to be required for the article and toward the end you need to remember to try to lead your reader so that they naturally gravitate to somewhere on the page that will give them a chance to make a comment, or link them through to another page where they can opt in or can buy.

By applying the above Article Formatting tips, you will be well on your way to having a website that keeps your visitors happy, while building in some great SEO qualities.