Reading a blog post or a web article should be easy. Some web pages have large blocks of text with very few breaks between them. When I see those, my brain does the TMI (too much information) dance and my eyes move on until they find something easier to look at.

When you try to process an unbroken block of text, it’s like trying to eat a whole apple pie in one gulp. You may be able to do it, but you’ll probably get indigestion or choke in the attempt. That’s why paragraphs are important.

Getting Attention

Web readers have a short attention span. That’s why you need to make it easy. As you write, remember that you are taking your readers on a journey from point A to point B to point C. Paragraphs are just one of the ways that you do this.

Web Usability

When I worked as an editor, I spent a lot of time making long paragraphs shorter and making sure that each paragraph had a point. This also works for web content writing.

All the advice I read on web usability suggests that you make one main point or cover one key idea in each paragraph. Then you expand on it a bit, then move on to the next one. That makes it easy for the eyes and the brain to process – and makes it more likely that people will read your blog posts.

Using Subheadings

There’s one more way to improve the experience for web content readers. Subheadings serve as navigational markers to tell readers what’s coming in each paragraph.

They can skip to the part that interests them, or get an idea of whether they need to read the article or blog post at all. Use subheadings and small paragraphs and your readers will thank you and come back for more.