Blogs have begun to grow in popularity as more and more people visit online writing platforms. It can be easy to obtain information on various topics by searching online for a link on a quick blog post. So what makes a good blog you might ask? There are a few qualities that can help some blogs seem more appealing than others.
- Layout
Blogs come in various shapes and forms, however it seems to be the blog pages with a clean, organized look that draw the readers attention. It can be seen in Lance Hosey’s article Why We Love Beautiful Things that people are attracted to certain layouts more than others. The Golden Rectangle is an example of this as well. This is the phenomenon that objects in the shape of a 5×8 rectangle grab people’s attention. Blogs that keep up with this pattern by applying photographs or paragraphs in this shape make it easier for readers to flow through the information. This shape also helps readers retain the information they are reading.
2. Media
Blogs can seem more appealing if they have images and graphics to go along with the writing. The images will break up the page more and make the page easier on the eyes for someone reading it. Adding an image that coincides with the paragraph can help the readers imagine what the passage is trying to convey. Using images and graphics can also make the webpage look interesting which will grab the reader’s attention. Buzzfeed is an online website that does a good job of balancing their words with media examples which makes it easy to fly through the reading.
3. Information
The depth of information on blogs can vary from site to site, which is a nice but annoying at times. Most consumers are in search for a quick solution. As Sean Michael Morris says in his article Digital Writing Uprising: Third-Order Thinking in the Digital Humanities, “Today there is no value to our writing except as it is made useful”. Unless the information on the blog is immediate and accurate, readers will most likely skip over the post and search for something easier to read. The immediate access to information online is what has led reader’s to be accustomed to find any type of information almost instantly.