Good content is the best first step you can take towards improving your search engine rankings. Content is what the search engines look for, it's how they know what your website is about, and publishing new pages regularly is one of the easiest ways to build your search presence over time.
Technical issues, like how fast your pages load and whether they look right on mobile devices, are also important. But they should be a one-and-done fix, and ideally should be designed into your website from the day it's first built.
Content is the long-term strategy to add to your website, keep it looking relevant (and alive) and help to expand your audience reach into new topics and new SEO keywords.
But it's crucial that you make your pages readable to human visitors, with clear structure and plenty of white space. In the end, it's human readers who turn into paying customers - search rankings and traffic alone usually don't make money.
In this guide I'll look at how to format a page for readability and why it's important to get this right when you publish new pages. By formatting for readability, you can make sure good content performs at its best.
Readability and User Experience
User Experience, or UX, is the overall quality of experience visitors receive when they visit your website. It includes practical things like whether your navigation works, whether your links are broken, and whether your page template displays correctly on their device.
Readability plays a big part in UX. A lot of online content is in the form of text, especially on a blog, a marketing landing page, an ecommerce product description, or even on pages like recipes and DIY how-tos.
If a visitor can't read your content easily, they're likely to click off and go to a different website. The time they spend on your page (or on your website overall) is called 'dwell time' and you'll usually find it in your website analytics reports, because it's important.
How does readability help?
Readability is part of UX by definition. Making a page more readable fundamentally improves its UX, and to a large extent this is something you can do using predefined formatting, so that you don't have to spend ages on the readability of individual pages.
There are several different aspects to formatting for readability. It's partly about content and partly about design. Here are some examples:
Design
- Column width
- Padding and margins
- Font size
- Clear contrast colour schemes
- White space
Content
- Clear structure (subheadings, bullet points etc)
- Short sentences and paragraphs
- Well-structured sentences
- Jargon/acronyms explained
- Good SEO keyword inclusion
That last point might sound surprising - how can SEO keywords improve readability? But actually, keywords do the same thing for human readers as they do for the search engine robots: they highlight the main topics and themes of the page and repeat them to help hammer them home.
Good SEO content actually improves readability, instead of harming it. That's why you should always hire an SEO writer who knows how to include keywords in a sensible, natural-sounding way.
Elements of Readability
Let's look at how some of the elements mentioned above help to improve the readability of your page. It's not always necessary to include all of these in every page - your content might naturally favour a slightly different structure or format - but these are a good way to start structuring a typical SEO landing page.
Column Width
Most people are used to reading pages of standard paper sizes like A5, A4 or letter. We have an expectation of how long one line of text will be. Go too far beyond that expectation, and content starts to look strange and becomes much harder to scan.
That's why most websites have a fixed central column width for their main content. Oftentimes, websites have a fixed width overall, and just show white or coloured margins to the left and right of that.
It can feel like a waste of screen space, but it's better for readability. With more people using mobile devices, it also helps to make your desktop page template look similar to the narrower, vertical aspect ratio of a smartphone screen.
White Space
Leaving white space around your text again helps readers to scan it without getting distracted by other page clutter. Your main page content should have plenty of white space in and around it (although obviously there's a sweet spot, to avoid content looking orphaned on the page).
Some simple examples of this include a margin around the main column, padding between paragraphs, and if it feels right, a small gap between lines in the same paragraph. Increasing your line height by even just a few pixels can stop text-heavy pages from feeling cluttered.
(NB 'White' space doesn't have to be white. If your website has a background colour, it's absolutely fine to show that background in the spaces between text. Just make sure the colour scheme overall has enough contrast that it's easy to read - and if possible, allow visitors to override it using their browser's high-contrast colour scheme, if they are visually impaired.)
Page Structure
This is the big one, and it's another reason why you should hire a website content writer if you're not confident about writing long pages of in-depth SEO content yourself.
In terms of your content, page structure is everything from headings and subheadings, bullet points and quotes, down to putting paragraph breaks in sensible places and even keeping sentences short. None of this changes the message of your page - in fact lists and quotes can reinforce the most important points.
Structuring your page can help to make your content more accessible to a less-informed reader. You're not 'dumbing down' your content, you're just displaying it in a way that's easier to follow, allowing readers to take a visual break and look away from their screen, without losing their place.
Jargon and Acronyms
OK, maybe your business is in a technical niche or an expert sector like science, engineering or law. That doesn't mean you can't publish content that includes specialist knowledge - in fact you definitely should be showing that level of expertise, if you have it.
But you can write out acronyms in full the first time you use them (e.g. the way I first mentioned User Experience on this page) or explain what jargon means before you go on to use it elsewhere on the page.
Some people will tell you to avoid jargon altogether. I don't think that's really necessary, as long as it's jargon that a reasonably well-informed audience will understand, and you include a quick definition upfront for anyone who's new to a technical term or niche concept.
SEO Keywords
I've said it once but it's worth repeating. The best SEO content writers can include difficult keywords in natural-sounding ways, multiple times in prominent places on the page. Keywords should ideally be in the heading, subheadings, hyperlink anchor text and so on.
This is at the very heart of on-page SEO, as those keywords help the search engines to understand what your page is about. If Google doesn't know what you're talking about, nothing else matters, no matter how fast or mobile-friendly your website may be.
But keywords also act as signposts for human readers. For example on this page, you can tell that I'm talking about readability and formatting, but also aspects of search engine optimisation and professional content writing - because those topics are signposted throughout the page.
Writing for Readability
Let's assume you've got a website design that lends itself to good readability (modern websites do this using Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, to define design elements like line height, font size, margins and padding across all your pages - speak to your web designer if you want to know more).
Now how can you write content for readability, to make the most of your investment in good page design?
It's all about applying the principles already mentioned above, such as sentence and paragraph length, sensible subheadings and page sections, and highlighting valuable content using bullet points and blockquotes.
Structure your content
Content structure doesn't have to be scary and it doesn't actually need a lot of forward planning. If you have SEO keywords to include, make sure you keep those in mind and try to write subheadings that feature your priority keywords.
Other than that, you can make it up as you go along. If you find it easier to write a full page of text without any subheadings, do that first. Then go back and add in a subheading every 100-150 words or so.
Short sentences can help with this. If you have a paragraph break every 25-30 words, it's a lot easier to find a suitable place to insert a subheading, even if you have to slightly reword the sentence that follows it.
Keep it simple
This is where an experienced content writer can really help. For good readability, you need your content to be simple - that is, short paragraphs, short sentences, shorter words where possible. Sentences should convey a clear point without running on into other issues.
At the same time, you may need to touch on some technical topics and expert-level information about your products, services or business. Striking the best balance between the two is challenging and it's one reason why I, as a freelance website writer with over 25 years' experience, prefer a plain English, conversational tone of voice that explains things as I go along.
You don't want your audience to feel patronised (and I find writing for CEO blogs and high-level law firms challenging because of this) but in general, clarity in your writing will always help your content to perform better.
Remember your audience
Finally, always keep your audience in mind. A good project brief should include at least a one-line description of the target audience. Think about age, educational level, technical expertise, and even factors like how long or short of a time they might have to spare when visiting your website.
Readability is, by definition, about writing for a human audience. Again there's a lot of overlap with making your content accessible to search engine robots, but never forget the human factor too.
If you're not confident, hire a freelance writer to help (I can proofread/edit pages you've written yourself, if you want to keep that authenticity) or use online tools like Grammarly to pick up on any obvious errors in your writing - just don't get TOO bogged down in the minor issues it identifies.
How to Get Started
To get started formatting for readability on your website, speak to your web designer about any concerns you might have with the way your pages look. Some simple steps you can take to improve your formatting include:
- Make fonts larger
- Make colours more contrasting
- Add formats for H1, H2 and H3 headers
- Give hyperlinks a stand-out look
- Add padding and white space
This shouldn't be something you have to do again and again. Once your CSS (your website's template/formatting) is set up properly, it should be applied automatically to all new pages you publish.
After that, it's just about writing content for readability. Use everything we've learned on this page, and make sure you know how to add the formatting to your page to make headings, bullet lists and so on.
If you can't do that - and a lot of people don't know how - hire a freelance writer who can upload content directly to your website for you. It might cost a little more to pay for the extra time it takes, but it should be cheaper overall than hiring a web designer just to upload new content.
To discuss anything mentioned on this page, or to hire me to write readable content for your website, get in touch with me today via email or social media, and let's get to building your website content.
