Is Your Blog Reader Friendly

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Is your blog “reader” friendly? Last week I went to the  Kevin O’Keefe’s LexBlog website and looked at the Top 10 in Law Blogs: LXBN March 12, 2013. I started reading the top blogs, not for their content, but simply to see how easy they were to read by an “old toad” like me. I want you to take a look at a few of them: Who Owns A Work E-mail Address? Hacking Medical Devices â€" Movie Plot or Realistic Threat? Criminal Trial of PCA Executives Officially Deemed “Complex” Which was easiest to read? Which was easiest to skim to determine if it included something worth knowing? I hope you want to make your blog “reader friendly.” If you are a blogger, take a moment and pull up your blog and then put my blog next to it. Which is easier to read? If by chance you think my blog is easier to read, what am I doing that makes it easy to read? I believe I am doing two main things that makes my blog easy to read on-line: Doing those two things has increased the white space in my blog. I believe white space makes it easier to read blog posts. It certainly makes it easier to read them on a computer, iPad or smartphone. Where did I get the idea of short paragraphs and more space between paragraphs? I first thought of it when I wrote my column for Roads and Bridges magazine. I believe the first editor told me that my column would be more easily read if I created more whites space using short paragraphs and subheadings. More recently, I regularly read Seth Godin’s blog. Take a look at the typical length of his paragraphs and the space between his paragraphs. I decided to do a Google search of readability and white space. I found a Gonzaga University (March Madness Go Zags) article:  Improving Document Readability. Number 1 on the list is: 1. Use Lots of White Space Empty space on a page is called white space. Good writers use headings, bulleted and numbered lists, and shorter paragraphs to increase white space and readability of their documents. I also found this Copyblogger post:  8 Incredibly Simple Ways to Get More People to Read Your Content. There you will learn about a study that found 79% of web readers scan rather than read. The study was done many years ago. I bet the percentage is even higher now. I know some lawyer bloggers feel that writing a professional lawyer blog is different than writing even a blog about blogging. Those bloggers feel they will be judged by their writing. They are right. One way readers will judge them is whether their blog is easy to read on-line. I argue that no matter how technical or sophisticated your blog post, white space still makes it more easily read. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.