Here’s a quick blog idea, which will immediately improve the readability of your blog and thus make it easier for readers to focus on what you have to say. It’s all down to a simple settings, which is often set incorrectly by default on some blog themes.
Try a narrower content column
The wider a blogs content column is, the harder it is to read. [The content column is the area that contains the actual wording of your blog post.] At least, once the width goes beyond a certain point. Various studies suggest that if a content column (like the one you are reading now) has more than 85 characters (including spaces), it becomes harder for people to focus on.
Some suggest there’s a sweet-spot of around 60/65 characters, though my experience suggests otherwise.
Here’s what I found: I did some tests on my marketing blog; which is listed by Technorati as one of the top 10 small business blogs in the world and is ranked in the AdAge Power 150. That blog uses an Ariel font, with a maximum column length of approximately 80 characters (I’m using around 85 characters here, by the way).
I noticed no improvement in any of the stats when I reduced it for 4 weeks to 65 characters.
However, the stats (including time on site and ‘bounce rate’), deteriorated so fast when I increased the column width to 95 characters wide, that I had to stop the experiment after just 7 days!
Experiment a little, but start off around the 70 character mark and, in my experience, you will be pretty-close to optimizing your layout for readability.
What about optimizing font sizes?
One of the reasons I have been able to use slightly more characters per line on my blogs, with no drop in readability, is that I opt for a slightly larger font that some blogs. When it comes to font sizes in general, there seems to be no hard and fast rule.
For example, mashable use a very small font size, with great success. Techcrunch use a slightly bigger font size, as do The BBC – Whereas Yahoo opt for a larger font, for the main content areas of their news section.
If you have any readability tips? If you do, please let us know!
Photo: Cliff1066
Interesting idea. I’ll have to give this a try. I’m not really sure how wide 70 characters is. Do you have pixels you could share?
Corey
Corey Freeman´s last blog ..Why Is Everyone So Angry?
Hi Corey!
The width in pixels is less relevant. That’s because depending on the size and type of font you use, it could be 60 characters wise or 120.
It’s the maximum number of characters / words you have on each line that counts.
70 characters means that the width of the column should hold 70 characters, before it cuts the text to go to the next line.
For example, the first line of your comment was around 72 characters (Including spaces and punctuation)
Hope that helps.
I indeed like it more if the content column is rather narrow. I like that on blogs but also on forums.
For my own blog it is about the right balance between a narrow width and enough place for text beside the picture. I like it more if the text width is wider than the picture, but that is just personal preference.
Still I think mine is more than 85 characters because I use a relatively small font.
But I always notice that balance on other blogs.
Annemieke´s last blog ..Critical about Criticism
Thanks for the feedback.
What I tweeted about this post, someone made a great point – which was that the print media have already done millions of dollars worth of research. We know that under that magical 80/85, your content’s easier to read and focus on.
Our personal preferences are important, but if we genuinely want our content to be as readable as possible, it’s common sense to listen to what the experts tell us.
Its getting late here and I’m going cross eyed counting, but I recon I use 89/90. Thanks – not something that would ever have occurred to me.
I must say that I find your blog visually pleasing and extremely easy to read Jim. Based on that, I’d say your 85 seems right on.
Of course, as you noted, typeface and font size do come into play with readability, as does color. Using a san serif font like Arial greatly improves readability on screen, and it’s funny how I like a larger font as my eyes get older
You color choices are excellent, too.
I have noticed that some sites (including the BBC) are adding the ability for readers to adjust the font size for their individual comfort. That is a nice touch.
As for character counts, I’m dating myself by mentioning this but this post got me thinking back to my old high school newspaper days when print/type was manually set. Each column had a strict character count that we (as editors) had to worry about. We even had to concern ourselves with the size of the letters, too, as a capital “W” required more space than a small “a”). Ah, the good old days of typewriters and manual typesetting. Not!
Thanks for sharing this information. Much appreciated!
Exactly what you have been discussing in you blog had crossed my mind a lot. With many companies that use the Internet to sell goods and feature product reviews, are always advised to follow two steps: Keep the text simple and Keep it short and to the point.
If you have a complicated subject, then I think its a brilliant idea as suggested in the blog to narrow the column size. i have been seriously toying with idea of using justified column. Although I do not know if that is a good or idea? Any Opinions or advice is greatly welcome.
Taneem Sarwar´s last blog ..What to eat on the Six Pack Diet?