How to Make Your Post More Attractive and Readable

That’s a good question – actually how do you make your posts more attractive and, thus, readable? This problem arises when you know how to publish your content using the post editor, but without knowing how it works. You’re a good writer, but your readers might not notice your great message if you don’t learn how to perform the most basic tweaks on your post template. Above all, the most important part of your blog is not the header or sidebar; it’s your post’s main body.

As I step inside FWD, I want to write a series of posts about “tweaking your template”. Let’s make the process simple, it’s not necessary to know how HTML works; let’s take advantage of the richness of your post editor.

How to Start?

It all starts when you think you’re ready to hit the publish button. Are you sure you want to publish it? After you have finished proofreading, you need to do a little makeover so that it will become more readable, more attractive, and more tempting. Use the preview button! You preview your post to proof read it further, to check misspelled words, etc. And you preview your post to make sure it will attract you. Does your message emerge? Or does the precious idea get buried somewhere within the post?

A Readable, Attractive and Tempting Post

• emphasizes the main idea
• make use of the sub-headings
• list ideas in bullets or image markers
• use block quote when citing quotations
• use quality graphics and enhanced screenshots

Let’s Get Started with the Basics

1. How can you emphasize your main idea? You can entice your readers to read further by giving them a reason to do so when simply looking your post. Emphasize main ideas by placing them in a box, or present them in a bullet list or using image markers, which I call a “tweaked list” post. By doing so, you give readers a direct presentation or summary of your post.
2. Sub-headings are important. It’s different than just using bold face type on your text. Style headings will emphasize your sub-titles.
3. There are several types of posts. List type posts are popular — like writing about a top 10 tips or tools. But you can also include a list in your typical article. If you write a long article, using a list will give your readers an easy way to pick up the most important part of it. I hate being lost in the midst of the crowds. Or just like the saying – “Do not drown your readers in the sea of words.”
4. Use the block quote function to include citations. By doing this, we can customize the post to make it more visually appealing just like I did.
5. Quality graphics make a difference. It’s always good to use original photos, but you can also download free images. Always remember to respect copyrights. In other words, place an attribution link somewhere in the post. To avoid passing your PR Juice, use “nofollow” tag. You can also upload some screenshots as well, especially for tutorial purposes – very resourceful – and you can customize it further.

How to Customize Screenshots?

This post primarily serves as an introduction for covering the basics, but I will give you some hints:

• Open a photo editor
• Go to the desired page and press Alt + Print Screen
• Paste it (CTRL + V) to the editor
• Crop the image (tip: use the window realism concept by picking up 1, 2 or 3 object of the screenshot to include in your post… do not use the entire shot)
• Resize it, but take note – image sizes are important. All you need to know: it will “become” a part of your content
• You can insert pictures, objects, numbers, lines, or text within your screenshot
• Name your screenshot, an important keyword will do and save it
• Upload to your post and make it SEO friendly by using “rel” and “title” tags

Please share your own tips with us, so we can try them too.