Blog writing has its specificities. If you want to succeed in blogging, you have to observe some rules and best practices that make your posts accessible to a wide audience. One key condition for blog posts to be read is to structure them correctly. 

Here’ how:

Make sure you have only an H1 Title

It’s best practice to use one H1 title on your post page. Not observing it might hurt your SEO and affect your rankings in SERPs. Also, it’s confusing for readers to find 2 titles of equal importance on the same page with the same content. 

You have to decide which of the title suits best to your post and keep it as the H1 for that page. It will be representative for the post and it will announce to users what they’re going to read about. 

In the post-editing phase, double-check the existence of only one H1 tag in your page. 

Use H2 titles for dividing content into sections

H2 tags are used for dividing compact text into meaningful sections. Each section should have its own subtopic and gather all data and information related to that aspect you’re speaking about. 

Unlike H1, H2 titles can be used as many times as needed throughout the post page. For a longer article, you should use more H2 title tags. 

They help to structure content and delimiting its main parts. It also helps to visually identify what the article demonstrates throughout the content, and how you drive it to a certain conclusion. 

If the content needs further structuring, consider adding H3 titles for subsections

If your article is pretty long, the content should allow for further structuring with H3 title tags. These tags mark subsections within the main section. You can have as many H3 tags as you want, in a section and in the article overall. 

Make sure the H3 tags have a different text style than the H3 tags, so users find it easy to distinguish between the two and follow your explanations. Usually, H3 text is smaller than H2 text and uses the same colour. 

Just in case you might need them, there are also options to introduce H4, H5 and H6 tags. H6 is rarely used, but H4 & H5 might be of help in case of a complex demonstration. 

Value white space 

As in web design, white space (or negative space) is important in blog posts, as well. It helps readers better focus on content and indicates them it’s content that matters. So, be careful to leave a line or two above and below each heading (be it H2, H3, H4 or H5), with more space between higher-level headings and the content above/below. 

When editing the article, browse through it as a usual reader, and see if you like it, its layout and its content structure. If not, it’s time to reconsider your post structure. Sometimes, it only needs minor tweaks and refines. These might help a lot overall, giving your post consistency and showing care for the reader. 

Don’t make paragraphs that are longer than 200 words (or 5 to 6 sentences)

Paragraph length refers to readability. It’s easier to follow concise paragraphs, with 5 or 6 sentences, than large chunks of text. It facilitates users’ understanding of the message and the quick read of the article. 

Also, if you use WordPress for your blog, and the Yoast SEO plugin, you’ll have a section dedicated to readability analysis + recommendations. If some paragraphs are too long, it signals it to you, so you can make improvements. 

The ideal sentence length is around 20 or 25 words

So, we spoke about paragraphs, but what about sentences in a paragraph? These should have 20 to 25 words. Of course, you won’t count every word in every sentence, this is mostly a matter of habit: to write clearly, concisely, in short sentences and paragraphs that are simple to follow and understand. 

Also, note that the “ideal” sentence is that length. You might use shorter ones, or longer ones if the text needs it. 

Consider kerning and line height

These two factors ensure good legibility of the text. They contribute to the text structure through optimal visibility and text layout. 

Letter kerning refers to the distance between every two letters in a sequence. It can be adjusted by a web designer when the blog design is configured. 

Line height refers to the vertical distance a line of text occupies in the page, leaving more or less distance from the text above/below. 

*Please consider structuring your post both for optimal legibility And readability. Legibility means the ability to read a text, and it’s influenced by kerning, letter spacing, typography, contrasting colors, etc. Readability means the capacity to get the message of the text, and it’s influenced by sentence length, paragraph length, and text division through H headings. 

In the end, the article should look easy to browse, read and understand

All the above contribute to the efficiency of your post. Well-structured, a post will be easy to browse through, easy to read and simple to understand. Make sure you fulfil all the conditions to write good posts. Some of the best, in fact.