If you have your visitors on your blog, you want to keep them and let them browse around. You can do that by improving your blog design. That’s not today’s subject, we will improve the look and feel of your article.

Most important part you should learn from today’s topic is that you keep your reader focused on your content. They shouldn’t be bored.

Make your article look nice too. Photo by Araswami

1. Strong, Italic and Colors

One of the most important parts of webdesign or blog design is contrast. With a proper use of contrast you can draw attention to the parts you want your visitors to see (for example advertisements or your RSS link).

To make certain sentences or words stand out from the rest of your paragraph and content, we can use strong, italic or text with a color.

2. Paragraphs

As we have discussed before, the paragraph is a very important part of your content. The whole article visitors are reading is build on paragraphs.

The important part of your paragraph is that they shouldn’t bore your visitors. If people don’t like how the letters and words “flows” or “feels” they might skip that paragraph, or in the worst case move on and click the exit button. I suggest you read some tips for styling the paragraph.

You also have to make sure you don’t write paragraphs that are too long. You have to keep the attention on what is important. Usually I keep my paragraphs around 4, 5 or maybe 6 sentences, because that is the length myself am most comfortable with.

Paragraphs that are 10+ sentences “feel” like though and hard-to-understand content while if you keep your sentences shorter, it doesn’t feel like that and your visitors read the same amount of text.

3. Images

You are looking, right? photo by Kamoteus.

Using images in your article can make your post easier to read and scan and make it looks nicer. For example, if you align an image inside a paragraph you rebut the focus from the paragraph to the related image.

And if you use an image you should consider adding a caption below to explain what the readers are seeing. That makes it easier to connect the image to the content and that might help the reader to better understand everything that has been said.

4. Whitespace

Whitespace is the most underestimated part of webdesign and that while it has great power: it can make or break a design.

With whitespace you can make the content feel less cluttered and comfortable on the eyes. A very “busy” layout is less easier to read then a layout that adds enough space between elements. I suggest you read this article by A List Apart about whitespace.

5. Titles

Did you take a look at this article? It is separated in chapters, and all these chapters have a title that stands out and makes a structured article. With one fast look your visitor you can see what each chapter is about.

You can achieve a title that works by making the size larger, bolder and you could also add a color. You have to make your title stand out.

Smaller Tips

6. Lists – Organized data is very easy to read for your readers. With lists you can structure information and you can make it look good too.

7. Links – Make it easy for your visitors to see what are links and what are not. Do you remember those default colors? Why do you think the were styled with the colors blue, purple and red? People recognize them as links. You can use some other colors and styles, but remember to let them stand out from the surrounding.

8. Backgrounds – Another way to make some part of your post stand out from the rest. For example, if you have quoted someone you could make visitors look at it by adding a slight darker or lighter color (depending on your layout style).

Important notes

This article is all based on my experience on the web and how I read articles online. Everyone could have their slightly different ways and views and therefore everyone should be able to create an “article-design” that you prefer.

If you follow the basic rules or pointers given in this article you can produce a nice and structured article. Just remember you shouldn’t overdo certain things. Using bold sentences or colors will lower the effect we have been talking about.

After I have wrote an article about the writer’s block everyone could face, I thought of the subject “problem” I had to deal with some time back.

In this article you will find a couple ways and places to find the inspiration for your new article subject.

1. Subscribe to Related RSS Feeds

You should always know what the “competition” is writing about. Their blog topics interests you (or you should choose a different niche!), but also to gain ideas for articles. I don’t mean just copying their subjects and write a slightly different article, but seeing related articles can be a good source of inspiration.

2. Social Media

Are you an active user of Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious or any other social media site around? Browse around your Diggs, Stumbles and saves and you will find articles related to what someone in your niche (in this case yourself, because you liked those articles) want to read. Reading and looking on their titles might inspire you to produce an idea with the quality anyone in your niche likes.

3. Browse Your Older Articles

Usually in the beginning of your blog you know some subjects you want to write about or else you wouldn’t have started a blog. When you browse those articles again after some time, you might find a subject that you wanted to write about before, but you just forgot about it. Or maybe you just want to extend an article you’ve wrote in the past because your knowledge has grown.

4. Ebooks or browser bookmarks

My Firefox bookmark map ‘Resources’ is packed full of information because I tend to bookmark everything I see. If you bookmark all articles that interests you (or don’t have time to read it in full), you will have a tons of interesting information you can read. The same goes with those hundreds of Ebooks you have lying around but never had time to read.

5. Google Alerts

Google Alerts (BETA) is a cool tool you can use to get the latest ‘related to a keyword’ articles in your mailbox once a day or once a week. Currently, I have three different keywords I use to gather all different articles about your niche. If you order all those emails in one map in your mail-software, you will have a bunch of information you usually shouldn’t be able to find or know about.

6. 37 Viral Ideas

Skellie Wag has written an article packed full with ideas you can use right away. These 37 ideas can be used in all different niches and therefore this source is very valuable for anyone. You will find ideas you have also thought of, but many new ones. I just found this post and I will definitely check it out when I run out of ideas! Visit the article.

It’s very irritating to you and your readers, because they think you don’t want or can’t find the time to write an article, but you have the time! You want to write that great article, but you simply can’t find the inspiration to write that killer article.

Could you prepare for this problem? Or is there any solution available to get your groove back? There is not one solution, because people are reacting different to things, so here are a couple tips I have thought of that could help you.

1. Take enough rest – When you sleep well and you can concentrate on the work you have to do, you are less likely to get that writers block. With enough rest, you can focus on the job.
2. Writing schedules – Writing schedules might keep you out of trouble, because you are used to the time you have to write. You’ve built a writing discipline.
3. Take some time off – It isn’t very good to do another project right after you’ve finished something. You have to take some time off and switch your mind from focussed to relaxed.
4. Writing is a job – Many people (including me) love to write. It’s their passion and they don’t see it like work. But you should because if you see writing as work, articles are things you have to do as part of the job-description and you will do it with more ease because it is a must.
5. More projects – Some people like to work on different projects at once. They can switch their focus and that prevent them from getting bored with the projects. As a result, they will enjoy their work more.
6. Easy things – In a project or blog you always have tasks to do that are more easy then others. When you feel like you get a writers block coming up, you could drop that 10 page thick article for a while and start writing something that’s more light and fresh.
7. Unplug your internet – Disconnecting from the internet might help you to concentrate on the things you are doing. You can’t get distracted by your interesting IM friends or by Emails and that helps you focus on things you have to finish.
8. Take a shower – I usually take a shower when I just find myself looking at a text I just can’t finish without some inspiration. It just makes me and my head fresh and the inspiration comes back.
9. Write down posting ideas – When I am away from the computer, I usually know where to write about and I find the best subjects. But when I get behind that document those ideas are usually flying somewhere around my head and I can’t seems to remember them. Write ‘em down in a ‘idea-post’, or in your mobile phone as a memo. You will find yourself a great subject if you look at your ideas later on.

The conclusion

After those tips, we should never have to have a writers block again. But you all know how difficult it is to write quality articles all the time. These tips work for some people, but not everyone could benefit from everything what I have written down today. I hope a couple of you do though.

You should remember that we all have to struggle with this problem sooner of later and we will always get over it! It is a matter of time.

Just keep writing.