This is one of those “we can’t believe we haven’t done an episode on this yet” — because it’s that important. Today, we’re talking about a blog formatting strategy that helps readers, search engines, and AI understand your content better.
- It’s not about your keywords.
- It’s not word count.
- And it’s not even about how often you post.
It’s about how skimmable your blog content is.
Readers don’t want to land on your blog and immediately feel like they’re about to read a college thesis.
They want bite-sized content, short paragraphs, bolded phrases, headings that make sense, and, of course, keywords.
Not only that, but here’s the truth:
- Google is shifting toward AI-generated results
- Your audience is skimming, not reading
- And search engines (and AI tools!) are pulling your content into their answers…
Blog formatting isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a need-to-have.
Key Takeaways:
- Why blog formatting is more important than ever.
- 3 blog formatting rules to follow.
- A course to learn this and other SEO strategies.
Why Formatting Your Blog Matters Now More Than Ever
Google and other AI features are scanning your blog to summarize and pull content into snippets.
Blogs that are well-organized, clear, and bite-sized are more likely to be pulled into featured answers. Who doesn’t want that extra visibility?!
AI tools (like ChatGPT!) scrape clear content to answer user questions. The better your blog formatting, the more likely it’s used.
Showing up on the “new Google” means you have to ditch the long paragraphs.
Even if that means hitting ‘enter’ way more often than you think you should.
Even if you don’t care about AI (or don’t believe in it), no one is reading every word.
People skim. We do it, your clients do it, and Google knows it.
A big wall of text scares people away. It’s difficult to skim and understand the content.
SEO is about user experience, so this matters a lot for ranking, too.
It’s always Google’s goal to provide the best user experience, and you want to be the website peopel keep coming back to.
Skimmability plays a big role.
Our 3 Most Important Blog Formatting Rules
Start following these blog formatting rules for new blogs!
And if you have time (or an assistant), go back through your old ones and give them an update.
#1: A Big Part of Being Skimmable is Your Headlines
Use structured heading tags to guide the reader and organize your thoughts.
What Are Heading Tags?
Before we jump into the formatting tips, let’s talk about heading tags—because if you’re not a web designer or SEO nerd, that term might sound like tech speak.
So here’s the simple breakdown:
Heading tags (like H1, H2, H3, etc.) are just labels for the titles and subheadings in your blog post.
Think of your blog like a book report:
- Your H1 is the title of the book
- Your H2s are the Chapters
- Your H3s are sub-points within each Chapter
Note: You should only have one H1 per blog (that’s your post title!)—and then use H2s and H3s to break everything else down like a helpful table of contents.
Ask yourself… Can you understand the blog just by skimming your headlines? That’s the goal!
#2: Break It Up With Bite-Sized Chunks
Ditch the long paragraphs. Turn it into three lines and a bullet list.
Bullet points, bolded text, and short sentences are the key to blog formatting and skimmability.
This also makes your content more likely to appear in “People also ask” and AI snippets.
#3: Make the Path to Answers Obvious
Use your blog formatting to present quick, helpful answers. It helps readers find what they’re looking for and gives Google and AI some content to pull from.
Think:
- FAQs or Q&As at the end of blogs
- How-to steps
- Definitions or examples (pulled out into subheading tags)
Google loves to pull quick and easy answers into featured snippets. This is a great way to earn extra visibility!
Don’t believe us? Browse page one of Google.
Almost every page ranking on the first page of Google follows this format.
Skimmable blogs aren’t just easier to read….
They:
- Rank better
- Get featured in search
- Work harder with AI tools
- Keep your audience engaged and increase time on site
- Actually convert traffic into customers (people take action when they stick around longer)
SEO On Tap teaches you exactly how to write content like this. And this summer, we will be recording a whole bunch of content around the world of AI and how to make it work better for you.
Join today to get the basics down, then binge our new content when it’s available!
Prefer to listen? Here’s the podcast episode!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify
FAQs About Blog Formatting
Oh, look! Here’s that little FAQ section we were just talking about 😉
What’s the ideal length for a blog post?
Write as much as you need to in order to thoroughly explain the topic. Sometimes this might be 500 words, and other times it could be 3,000 words. Focus more on the content and value you’re providing.
Should I use bullet points and numbered lists?
Absolutely! Lists help break up the content (especially if you have a lot of reasons, examples, points, etc.) The information becomes more digestible.
How long should paragraphs be?
No more than two sentences. Break up paragraphs into smaller sections to increase readability.
Should I include images or graphics?
Yep! This is another great way to break up the text and keep readers engaged. Just make sure your images are optimized for SEO!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
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