When I was writing my first posts for my blog, I observed that the people visiting the pages but not stayed back on my blog for more than one or two pages. I was clueless why it was happening. I reviewed the content of the pages that I have written and also asked my friends to review the posts.

The feedback I got about the content of my posts was superb. Everyone told me that the content is interesting with simple language. However, they mentioned one critical point that they could not spend reading my pages for longer time and they could not give the feedback on all the pages that I have written. I double checked with them why such thing happened. Then I found that, though the content was good, it is cluttered everywhere without proper formatting etc.

So I have taken some tips from my friends on what they like and how the content should be displayed, what formatting they like etc. I modified few pages with good formatting and checked the statistics of time spent by the users on my website. It was amazing. The pages which I have modified with proper formatting received huge response compare to the pages that I have written earlier.

What has happened? The content is same, website is same. The only thing I modified is the formatting which resulted in multifold increase in the time spent by the users on my WebPages. This single experience of mine shows the importance of the good formatting of the articles that you write. So below are some of the tips I took from the number of readers of my articles.

1. Always format in bold, the Keywords that are most related to the theme of your article. Most of the readers of the articles like technology, software, news, business etc., will have less patience in reading the entire content. They will generally look for the keywords they are interested and they will simply skip the content to that place. If the entire post is in the same formatting without any highlighting of the information they are interested in, they will not get any enthusiasm in reading such post.
   
2. Break the lengthy paragraphs into small paragraphs with the proper spacing between each paragraph. Shorter paragraphs look good and more attractive to the readers of your article. Also giving good amount of spacing between each paragraph will make put less stress on their eyes while reading the content.
   
3. Use bullets/numbers for the list of points you make in your articles that will make them pleasant in reading. Also such pointed lines will attract most of the people than the lengthy paragraphs. Give good amount of space between each point so that the content will not look cluttered.
   
4. Use standard fonts that appeal good to the eyes in proper way. Font type, color, size; these are the most important factors of any article. They can make your content looks beautiful also they can make it ugly depending on how you use them. It is always good to use mot more than two to three fonts/sizes in the same page. Try to minimize the number of fonts at the same time the size of the fonts. The colors of the fonts should match the theme/template of your site and ambience. They should not make your content look too much gaudy which will not make the page attractive.
   
5. Use tools like Microsoft Word/Open Office Word etc. to write the content and then post to your site if possible. This should be followed if your site accepts the formatted content directly. Else get the HTML code of your formatted content and then paste it to your site, if your site accepts HTML input. If you are using blogging sites like Blogger, Wordpress etc., then this would not be a problem.
   
6. Never use short forms of the words/sentences like btw etc. They may not be understood by some of your site visitors. Also such words cannot be understood by the Search Engines and they will be ignored. It will result in getting the less traffic to your site.
   
7. Check for spelling mistakes in content before publishing. Not only formatting but also the correct spelling is important in order to get good Traffic to your website. If you do not spell check before publishing the chances for number of spelling mistakes is more. And Search Engines do not like such mistakes and you may loose some traffic of the keywords which are having spelling mistakes. If you use tools like Word, this will be easier task as such tools provide Spell Checkers/Automatic Correction of Spelling Mistakes. At least they will show you, in red, where the mistake is.
   
8. If you are a Software Engineer and wanted to post some Source Code on your blog, always double check the content after it has been published. There are good number of chances that the less than symbol followed by a word is treated as an HTML tag and your content will not displayed properly. One more thing is of you enclose the code in CODE tag; it would look good in your page.
   
9. Use proper TAGS and Filenames of the articles you are posting if such features are available. They will be quickly attracted by the search engines and you post will get good ranking in the search results depending what keywords you have used in the Tags and Filenames.
   
10. And the actual CONTENT. It is the heart of your website in generating good number of page views and increase in time spent by the users of your website. Always concentrate on the content what you are posting. It should be interesting to the intended audience. The content should be more descriptive and at the same time it should not deviate the topic what you want to convey. Try to provide some examples in the situations applicable. If possible provide real world examples, your experiences etc.
    
11. After writing your article, read the entire content once again and you well get to know most of the pitfalls in your article and you will have the chance of correcting them.
    
12. Finally seek feedback from your friends which will help you in publishing the content which is interesting not only to you but also to the others. Your views may not match the other views but if you consider other people views in your posts, it will be definitely become successful. By getting feedback, you not only benefit from the feedback, but also your site gets popularity in your friend circle. If they like it, they will refer your site to their friends and would result in getting more traffic.

So keep sharing your thoughts and views which will not only make you learn but also others to learn and get feedback.