How to structure an article on WordPress to improve readability?

Do you have a WordPress site and want to create captivating, information-rich articles that rank well on search engines? The key lies in effectively structuring your articles. A good structure improves the readability of your content, making your writing not only enjoyable to read but also easy to understand.

Easy-to-read content is vital for ensuring a quality user experience, building audience loyalty and, what’s more, boosting your natural search engine optimization (SEO).

In this article, we’ll take you through the steps involved in structuring your WordPress posts effectively. We’ll give you practical advice on how to plan your content, take care of the layout, integrate attractive visual elements and make judicious use of SEO tags. Ready to improve the readability of your articles? Let’s follow these steps together.

Planning your content for smooth navigation

To ensure an optimal reading experience on WordPress, planning your content is essential. Carefully prepared content is more consistent, engaging and easier for your readers to navigate. Adopt these three steps to successful content planning.

Define a clear objective for each article

For each article you plan to publish, it’s essential to determine a clear objective. Ask yourself: what’s the main message you want to communicate? What action do you want your readers to take? What benefits will you bring them? Clarity of purpose will help you create content aligned with your audience’s expectations and needs.

Use a coherent hierarchical structure

Once you’ve set your objective, it’s time to structure your content hierarchically. Organize your information into clear sections and subsections, systematically employing headings and subheadings. This will not only make it easier to create a table of contents to guide your readers, but will also improve understanding of the proposed content. Don’t forget to include relevant keywords to boost your SEO.

Create a captivating introduction and summary conclusion

Every article should begin with an attractive introduction that captures the reader’s interest, succinctly presents the subject and objective of the article, and inspires the reader to continue reading. The conclusion should effectively summarize the content, reiterate the objective and key message, and encourage the reader to take action. Consider adding a call to action, such as a link to a related article, a special offer or a contact form, to keep your readers engaged.

Improving readability through careful layout

Once you’ve worked out the content of your post, the next step is to fine-tune its layout on WordPress. Layout, which encompasses the arrangement of text, images, titles and more, plays a crucial role in the readability, appeal and professionalism of your content.

Discover four essential tips for increasing the readability of your article with a polished layout.

Keep paragraphs short and airy

Compact, voluminous text can repel readers. Short, well-spaced paragraphs are therefore essential for ease of reading and comprehension. Ideally, a paragraph should be limited to 5 or 6 lines maximum, and present a clear idea.

The use of white space around paragraphs also helps to create visual contrast and rhythm in reading.

Use explicit headings and sub-headings

Headings and subheadings play a crucial role in organizing your content and orienting your readers. They must be self-explanatory, i.e. effectively summarize the content they announce, and follow a coherent hierarchical structure, with uniform typography, thus facilitating overall understanding of the content.

Integrate bulleted or numbered lists to enumerate ideas

Bulleted or numbered lists are excellent ways to organize ideas, walk through steps and highlight pros and cons. They add clarity, conciseness and visual appeal to your content.

These lists also make reading easier and faster, encouraging diagonal browsing, a common habit among online readers. Use the tags <ul> and <li> for unordered lists, and <ol> and <li> for ordered lists, to organize your ideas effacement.

Choose easy-to-read typography

Typography plays an essential role in the presentation and readability of your content. It involves choosing and organizing typefaces to enhance the aesthetics of your text.

To ensure good legibility, we advise you to opt for a clean, unobtrusive typography in keeping with the theme of your content and the preferences of your audience. Standard fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, or customized options available from Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts, are recommended. Be careful, too, to choose appropriate sizes, colors and alignments for your text.

Use visual elements to support your text

To enhance the appeal and informative richness of your WordPress post, it’s essential to integrate visual elements into your layout. These elements, such as images, videos, animations, graphics or infographics, don’t just complement your text; they make it more captivating and easier for readers to assimilate.

Below are four key strategies for making the most of these visual elements.

Insert relevant, high-quality images

The use of images is fundamental to visually enriching your article. They can illustrate concepts, evoke emotions, or simply embellish your content. Choose images that are closely related to your subject and that enhance your text. Choose high-resolution, well-lit and well-composed images. To do this, you can use royalty-free images available on platforms such as Pixabay, FreeImages or CCDMD, or use your own images after retouching them with tools such as Adobe Express or Canva.

Add videos or animations to illustrate your message

Videos and animations add a dynamic dimension that can illustrate your ideas in a more interactive and engaging way. Ideal for explaining a process, sharing a testimonial, giving advice or entertaining, choose content that’s brief, direct and tailored to your subject. You can draw on resources available on YouTube or Vimeo, or create your own content with tools like Powtoon or Animaker.

Integrate graphics or infographics to summarize complex data

When it comes to presenting complex data in an accessible way, nothing beats graphics and infographics. These effective tools enable you to reveal trends, highlight statistics, illustrate proportions or describe interrelationships in a visual and synthetic way. Make sure you choose simple, clear representations. You can use existing creations from specialized sites such as Statista or Visual Capitalist, or design your own with Piktochart or Infogram.

Create balanced spacing between text and visual elements

It’s crucial to harmonize the spacing between your text and visual elements in your WordPress post. Good spacing management, including margins, line spacing and paragraphs, contributes to the balance, contrast and rhythm of your page. Avoid spacing that’s too wide or too tight, which can alter the readability and aesthetics of your content. In addition, be sure to align elements visually with the text for overall coherence.

Conclusion

You now have all the resources you need to structure a WordPress article in a way that boosts the readability of your texts. Thanks to the methods mentioned, such as planning your content, taking care with the layout, integrating visual elements and optimizing your tags, you’ll be able to create captivating, high-quality articles that not only hold your readers’ attention, but also rank higher in search engine results.

By putting these recommendations into practice, you’ll see a significant increase in your web traffic, improved brand awareness and higher sales.