8 tips to make your blog posts readable on mobile

 8 tips to make your blog posts readable on mobile

If your site has a responsive design, you might think your visitors can enjoy your articles on both desktop and mobile. But this is not enough.

Of course, your site will pass Google's "mobile-friendly" test, but our way of reading is not the same when facing a large computer screen as when facing a smartphone. Therefore, an article that is very readable in one medium may not be in another and be much less engaging.

When you know that Google created the Mobile-First Index and displays the results of the mobile index as a priority (regardless of the device used), it is essential to have a blog designed for mobile. And for that, your content must also be designed for mobile.

Here are 8 essential things to consider when creating texts suitable for reading on mobile.

1. Center content

To create mobile-friendly content, you must first understand how people read content on mobile devices. There are a few key differences between computer reading and mobile reading.

On computers, numerous studies have shown that users focus on the upper left corner of the screen. But on mobile, this is no longer necessary: ​​users mainly look at the centre of their screen. On mobile, you, therefore, have every interest in centring your content to make it more naturally readable by your visitors.

 2. Don't use too many images

On mobile, images can quickly take up a lot of space (and even take up the entire screen) whereas, on desktop, the extra space allows them to blend in better with the text. What's more, photos are known to catch the eye more than words. This is a problem for your readers because too many images can distract their attention from the text and cause them to lose track – when the text is where the whole point of your content lies.

To avoid this, do not abuse the images, also make sure that they do not take up too much space.

3. Don't sacrifice length

It is tempting to believe that mobile is only suitable for short and quick to read texts. In truth, long articles (greater than 1000 words) are visited as much as shorter articles on mobile: Remember also that the length of an article (or any other content) is an important factor for its natural referencing.

4. Use short paragraphs

On mobile, readers have a low concentration and it is a real challenge to succeed in keeping them in suspense. This is why it is essential to pace your text by dividing it into short paragraphs. An article will be much more readable and catchier if it is cut into small pieces of a few lines each.

5. Structure your content

On mobile, the screen size is much smaller, which makes reading huge blocks of text even more unpleasant. To make it easier for your mobile users to read, the first thing to do is to work on the structure of your content. It is then necessary to try to cut your text into several sections.

However, this division must be coherent: it is necessary, roughly, to decline one idea per paragraph. This way, your reader will interpret each little paragraph as something new, which will keep their interest.

6. Ventilate your text

If breaking up your article into paragraphs is used to structure your text in a coherent way, it also allows you to air your content. Again, the size of the screen of a mobile device is disabling insofar as everything is more "cramped" and your text can quickly turn into an indigestible pad.

Do not hesitate to choose an airy font: if it is too compact, that is to say, if the words and the spacing are tight, the readability will be particularly poor on mobile.

Skip lines, make your text breathe, and you'll deliver a far superior reading experience on mobile.

7. Use even shorter titles

It is advisable to use fairly short and punchy titles. It seems titles around 6 words get the best click-through rates on mobile. In addition, this way your titles will not be truncated.

Similarly, it is advisable to avoid making a summary at the beginning of the article. If this practice is widespread, these summaries are often too long to be read, especially on mobile. However, if they are really synthetic, they can be relevant.

These small summaries can also be kept on a computer, but hidden on mobile.

8. Do some testing

The best way to find out if your blog post is mobile-friendly is to test it. Remember to regularly check your blog posts by opening them on your smartphone. Do the same for your blog and more generally for the rest of your site. This will help you spot if there are still hard-to-navigate places on small screens or if there are buttons and links that cannot be pressed easily.

With these 8 tips, you can optimize the display of your articles on mobile devices and thus increase their effectiveness with Internet users – more and more of them – who read on their phones.