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Yes, Looks Do Matter: The Necessity of Well-Formatted Content

Despite what we’ve been hearing all our lives, looks do matter, especially when it comes to your blog.

How can a good-looking blog help your business?

When it comes to generating traffic for your site, a well-formatted blog is your not-so-secret weapon.

Sharp, attractive copy will…

  • rank higher with search engines than its sloppy, unattractive counterpart.
  • …entice readers into staying on the page for much longer than they would have otherwise.
  • …foster a clearer, better understanding of your product and/or services.
  • …send a strong message about what you stand for as an organization.

And that’s just scratching the surface! There are plenty of other benefits to a great-looking website.

What does well-formatted content look like, anyways?

The most important thing to remember is that writing for the web is different than writing for print.

When you create content for your blog, you want to focus on crafting attention-grabbing, informative headings. Underneath these topic headings, you should limit your paragraphs to about 80 words each, and include a healthy dose of whitespace. Honestly, viewers are much more likely to skim than read.

Additionally, you want to make sure that you’re interspersing a few of these SEO-boosting techniques:

  • Charts, tables, and images
  • Checklists, bullets, and lists
  • Various font sizes and styles
  • Bold, italicize, and underline
  • Eye-popping text coloring
  • Plenty of meaningful links

What Not to Do: A Case Study

Nobody wants to open their web browser, only to see something like this…

“Above all, don’t write a long, run-on paragraph that’s full of incomprehensible diction, awkward syntax, or grammatically incorrect sentences. Nobody will have the time, patience, energy, or brainpower that’s required to read it, especially if they’re trying to trudge through it in the middle of their already-too-long workday. They will lose focus, skip the material entirely, and move on to somebody else’s website, also known as your competitor. Who wants that? Nobody. They’re not sitting down to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace, nor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and therefore, you shouldn’t write as if they are.”

…do you see what we mean? Keep it simple!

Drop us a line at Stream Companies to get an edge in the world of content!

If powerhouse SEO numbers, lead-generating time-on-page metrics, and a more streamlined public image are what you want, then stunning copy is what you need. Reach out to Stream to get started.

Or, if you’re still exploring the world of Inbound Marketing, we encourage you to download our 100 percent free eBook, Inbound Marketing 101: Does it Actually Work? This guide can answer all your questions.