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Hello,
Let's just be honest, writing a blog and not having people read the entire blog is just no fun.
But most bloggers tend to be people who both read and write blogs, so we really should allow our own reading behaviors to be a prime candidate as to how we write our blogs - yet for many bloggers that is not the case and they fail to take into consideration how people enjoy reading.
It is important to remember that reading your blog needs to be enjoyable.
If your blog is hard to read, or if your blog does not quickly make sense, or quickly get to the main point you are wanting to make, chances are very good that people will simply stop reading your blog and move onto the next blog.
All to often blog readers skip entire sections - it just seems to be natural for some people to totally skip over entire sections of whatever they read. I know there are rare exceptions out there (people who actually do read every word of everything they read) but for most of us, when we read something we tend to just think to ourselves "ya, ya, just get to the point" and just end up skipping ahead a sentence or two, and often times even a paragraph or two. I am not meaning to be critical, but it is just a fact for the vast majority of blog readers.
This is not a fault of readers - I think it is something that has happened because in the last 50 or so years that we have been flooded with such horrible journalism that we have reduced most of our life to "talking points" - that is, we tend to want the one or two line sentences that explains the real issue - rather than the five paragraphs of other potential none-sense that went along with it. I know the journalists out there will hate me for saying that, but I honestly think that is what has caused this behavior of people just skipping through massive amounts of writings these days. It is rather unfortunate - because it has also caused people difficulty in sitting down and reading large portions of the Bible at any given time.
Readers Attention:
Lets face it - people get bored really easily.
As a writer you have got to do your best to capture the reader, to pull them into what you are writing, as quickly as possible. This does not mean you should go all dramatically and everything in your first paragraph, but as any good author will tell you, there are keys to getting people to pick up your book and not want to put it down at night.
What you need to do as a blogger is consider what those key things are. What causes you to pick up a book and not want to put it down - when you should probably be going to sleep so you can get in a good days work tomorrow. Stop and ask yourself that question, and than strive to read a goal where your own blogs are doing that.
Harmful Writing Syntax:
There are a few very key things that I have learned over the last five plus years that I have owned ChristianBlog.Com when it comes to what readers really hate - what will get readers to stop reading a blog in a heartbeat.
Here are the biggest mistakes that you can make:
A lack of using paragraph breaks. I know a whole lot of people (myself included) that when I first open a blog page and that blog does not have a single paragraph break, I just close the page and go looking for another blog. Paragraphs breaks help readers read more easily. Paragraph breaks are not just about allowing you (the writer) to change topics, they are also about allowing the reader a chance to organize their thoughts while reading. The brain works in such a way that paragraph breaks typically result in a higher level of comprehension about a given topic - and more folks have just learned to not even read blogs that do not have them, because it just ends up being a waste of their brain time to attempt to read blogs that fail to have paragraph breaks.
Using all caps. A lot of people think that using CAPS to help highlight words actually helps the reader to see that you are placing an emphasis on those words -- yet what you totally fail to realize is that the vast majority of bloggers these days are over the age of 35 years of age ref and that using all caps actually makes it harder for older people to read the words in all caps. I know for myself, and I have had literally hundreds of other bloggers tell me "even a single word in all caps and I will not read the word in all caps because it is too hard to read amongst all the non cap words". Even if it is a single word - which is actually harder for most people to read than an entire sentience of all cap words. The result: laughably, whatever words you are trying to emphasis actually result in the vast majority of blog readers not even reading your words.
Your job as a blog author is to get people to read - and keep reading - so anything at all that you do that distracts them from reading, defeats your goal. Excessive Images, Photographs, and smilies. This is actually one of the more interesting aspects that have changed over the last few years. There use to be a time when blogging meant the use of photographs, videos, smilies and such, to help engage readers. But about 2 or 3 years ago I began to notice a change in the entire blogosphere that people were at a point where they wanted to read, more than they wanted to be entertained with all the extra glitter. I know for me personally, be it at ChristianBlog.Com or any other blog website I visit, if there is a blog that has images splattered all through it, I simply will not read it. It goes right back to the above issue with using all caps. Your job as a blog author is to get people to read your blog, so anything at all that you do that distracts them from reading, defeats your goal. If a person has to stop reading in order to scroll down the page - because you have some image or photograph in your blog that is just taking up space, you need to stop and ask yourself if you are being respectful towards your readers - if you are loosing readers because you are making it harder for them to read your blogs. The only acceptation to this, and I have not figured out why, is that folks do not seem to mind a video in a blog. But it is key to only use a single video and to use it in just the right spot - so that it does not distract your readers from actually reading your blog.
Helpful Writing Syntax:
Just as I have learned a few things that will get readers to stop reading a blog, I have also learned a few tricks that will get readers to keep reading your blogs!
As I mentioned in the previous section, if you cannot find a way to quickly engage your readers you are going to have a hard time getting them to read your entire blog. So while you have to be careful about getting all emotional in the first paragraph or two of your blog, you do have to walk that line between "boring" (like your kid might say) and attention-getting. There are a few ways you can do this. Perhaps the most common way is to make them feel like you know each other in real life. Another way is to get your readers to know that you can be trusted. Another way to engage your readers is through the use of creatively writing your first paragraph or two in such a way that they just cannot stop reading - much like most of us have a hard time putting down a really great book. This is not something I can teach in this blog, it is an acquired skill - and perhaps the hardest of all for bloggers.
I have had a lot of people over the years tell me that one of the things that helps them read a blog the most is when there are limited amounts of emphasized/italic text to help well, emphasis a point. This falls under the creative writing system and it is a hard one to learn. There is a point where too much use of italic text results in making it very hard for folks to read, but a very minimal amount of it can provide just the right emphasis at just the right time. Like using all caps though, we need to be aware that using emphasized/italic text can make what you are writing very hard to read for those with limited eye sight, but, used in just the right places, it can add that special touch to really make a point.
Title Sections. As you can see in this own blog, the use of Title Sections to help break your blog into sections can be of huge benefit. This is another situation where it comes down to helping the readers brain do what it does naturally - organize data. The human brain can organize data beyond what we can comprehend. When it comes to read, the use of Title Sections in long blogs is equivalent to the use of paragraph breaks - that is, it helps the brain help you comprehend what is being said. Will placed Title Sections can mean the difference between getting a reader to keep reading, and stop reading because they are tired of reading a bunch of blabbering on.
Final Thoughts:
In the end getting readers to read your blogs is two fold:
First you need to build a relationship with readers - because once you establish that relationship with readers there is a greater chance they will give you the extra minute of their life to keep reading your blog all the way through.
Second you need to remember that peoples brains work certain ways, and peoples reading behaviors work certain ways. All good authors have learned these two facts. You must understand that people comprehend things in a logical order, and you must understand that people behave certain ways to differentiating styles of writing. Master these two principles and you will be well on your way to getting an even larger base of return readers!
Grace be with you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
For Christ's Ministry,
John B. Abela
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. I can't do but just the picture at the start anyhow, and that is hard enough. I was gonna put two pictures in one, once, but could not. So, you done got over us simple folks head, anyhow. Define 'syntax', cause if you don't I'm gonna have to look it up, or just forget it, probably can't anyhow. But I skipped over that section anyhow.. 
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