Jun 10, 2014 / Beginner

Five Fixes to Clean Up Your Posts

Readers love easy-to-read, uncluttered text. Here are five quick fixes to clean up your posts and pages.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/batega/1596898776">Image</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/batega/">Josep Ma. Rosell</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a>)

While we offer tips for storytelling, social media strategy, and more, it’s important to point out quick fixes on the most basic level — such as common phrases to avoid. Below, we’ve rounded up five examples — from posting habits to customization choices — to watch for on your blogs.

1. Not linking your text

Take a look at this passage:

At my previous job in animation, I worked alongside talented compositors. (You can read about compositors here: http://www.media-match.com/usa/jobtypes/compositor-jobs-413172.php)

In your dashboard editor, you can link text in your post with the Link button, so there’s no reason to drop entire URLs into your post, as shown above. In a cleaner approach, use the Link tool to link a piece of text:

At my previous job in animation, I worked alongside talented compositors.

You also don’t have to tell your reader to “click on the link to learn more” (which we can add to our list of bulky, unnecessary phrases).

2. No breathing space

We’ve said this before: embrace the white space. You might write a stellar post, but if it’s published as one lumpy mass of sentences, the form overshadows your content, and people may not bother to read it.

Exhibit A:

It’s five in the morning on a Saturday. I don’t remember the last time I’ve sat in front of my computer to write, just like this, without interruption. Without having to think about anything else — my work, my husband, or any of the noise unleashed on other tabs in my browser. Time when I can sit and think and type and hope that, in these hours, a part of me — unaccessible at any other time — will make its way onto the page. I’ve come downstairs to my sofa, to my laptop. Always glowing, always waiting — rarely touched in quiet, intimate hours like these, when I’m up and automatic, when the day hasn’t seeped in, when the outside world hasn’t grabbed hold of me. I don’t know how long this lapse will last, so I’ll just type until I stop. For Roxana, the writer of “How I Get to Write,” coffee is part of this delicate, easily pierced space. The elixir of the imagination, she calls it. I once felt the same, but in the past year I’ve delayed putting on the coffee until later in the morning, or waited for my husband to wake up and do it. At first I thought I was just lazy. But now, I realize this lengthens the in-between state of free-flowing thoughts. It’s a bit of a game I play with myself: creating these magical hours to produce something — anything — unrelated to my waking world. Because once the day starts, my window closes. So here I am, molding jet lag into something productive and creative, carving out a bit more time. Squeezing out as much as I can between 5 am and 7 am, as dark turns to light outside of my window and this play time for my mind runs out . . .

This excerpt is from one of my favorite posts, “26 Hours,” merged into one suffocating paragraph. I wouldn’t expect anyone to read all of it.

The lesson? Insert paragraph breaks.

3. Too small or (too big) body text

In your dashboard, you can control basic body text styles. You can use the B (bold) or I (italic) buttons for certain effects, but you probably don’t want to bold or italicize large amounts of text:

So here I am, molding jet lag into something productive and creative, carving out a bit more time. Squeezing out as much as I can between 5 am and 7 am, as dark turns to light outside of my window and this play time for my mind runs out. There are not enough hours of the day, I’ve begun to think.

If you’d like to emphasize a passage, use blockquotes instead; placing an entire paragraph in bold is hard on the eyes and makes the bold tool less meaningful.

Likewise, don’t use the heading tags (like <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and <h4>) to make your body text bold or big — it makes your text clunky, distracting, and hard to read:

So here I am, molding jet lag into something productive and creative, carving out a bit more time. Squeezing out as much as I can between 5 am and 7 am, as dark turns to light outside of my window and this play time for my mind runs out. There are not enough hours of the day, I’ve begun to think.

To change the default font size (and color) in a post, you can use HTML in the Text Editor to adjust size and color. Heading tags like <h3>, used in the example above, are best used to insert headings and sub-headings in your posts and pages, using the Text Editor.

4. Excessive capital letters, exclamation points, and LOLs

Some of what we’re discussing today is a matter of style, as well as taste. You don’t have to make any of these fixes, this one included, as we’re offering tips to clean up your posts — not completely change the voice and style with which you’re comfortable. But consider this passage:

I DON’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I’VE SAT IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER TO WRITE, JUST LIKE THIS, WITHOUT INTERRUPTION, LOL!!! Without having to think about anything else — MY WORK, MY HUSBAND (LOL), OR ANY OF THE NOISE UNLEASHED ON OTHER TABS IN MY BROWSER. Time when I can sit and think and type and hope that, in these hours, a part of me — unaccessible at any other time — will make its way onto the page!!!!!

And then consider this version, which has the same text — minus the capitalization, exclamation points, and LOLs:

I don’t remember the last time I’ve sat in front of my computer to write, just like this, without interruption. Without having to think about anything else — my work, my husband, or any of the noise unleashed on other tabs in my browser. Time when I can sit and think and type and hope that, in these hours, a part of me — unaccessible at any other time — will make its way onto the page.

Comparing the two, you don’t need these extras to create emotion or get your point across. Trust the strength of your own voice.

5. Faint, too bright, or jarring colors against a dark background

With the Custom Design upgrade, you can update your color palette. Be careful, though, with your body text color choice, particularly against a dark or black background. Consider this lime-yellow shade against the dark background of the Trvl theme:

This shade works great as an accent color, but probably not for your body text — it’s bright and distracting. You want your readers to stay on your blog as long as possible, so experiment with color combinations and text colors that are easy on the eyes.

We hope these five quick fixes help to clean up your posts and pages. Are there any other posting habits and style choices that belong on this list?

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  2. Thank you. I had not thought of text linking! I am writing about historical events related to African American arts and text linking to the artists and art work is a great tool for enhancing my blog.

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  5. Great tips — while it is a relief to know I have not been making those blunders, I did pick up some editing tips that may prove helpful in the future.

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  6. Excellent tips and suggestions, which can be applied to many types of writing and publishing formats. I get bugged when I see self-published historical works published in 9 point font.

    So only young, perfectly sighted people want and can read works on history or historical novels?

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  7. Excellent advice and tips. Didn’t know about the sub-headers – now I do. And I also searched what a blockquote is, and thanks to you, will use that when I have a quote. Thanks so much.

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