Formatting one's post should be considered an art form in and of itself. For most content creators, it is very easy to slap up some words or throw down a picture and call it a day. Certainly there is nothing wrong with that but, for a moment, let's consider why headers and white space are important to your reader's experience.
^{Please note that I have previously published this on Steemit however it has been heavily adapted and edited for Whaleshares. Original Post}

Help me save my eyes

Manual curators generally read a lot of material. With a growing platform it's vital that content creators pull out all the stops to gain their attention. For instance, in my post: Tips from a Manual Curator I touched on the importance of a proper featured photo, title and first 50 characters of your post.

**That is the hook which draws us in**

Now that you've got your reader's attention...
How are you going to keep it?

Headers

There is a hierarchy to H tags as shown below in the illustration below.
^{Note: The H tag (HTML) and # (markdown) have the same results.}

Proper use of headers within your post helps bullet point your post. Think of it as the TL;DR (too long; didn't read) version of your creation. Normally I would share about the importance of a good title and proper headers for optimized SEO, but today I want to focus on reader retention.

In addition to giving bullet points to your readers, you are also giving their eyes a respite from a wall of text.

White Space

White Space is the unused portion of your medium.
Your medium might be a blog article, newspapers and magazines, ads or posters, art and literature.

Examples of white space include: * Unused space between pictures and text * The extra line between paragraphs * Bulleted points * The reason you format a poem just so

Give our eyes a story arc and direction

♥ ♥ ♥

White Space Example

Using Lorem Ipsum, I took the same amount of words and created a visual for you to compare the differences between no white space, passive white space, and active white space.

No white space is what I might refer to as "the wall of text". It requires so much attention to concentrate and read through such a block of words.

Passive white space is a little better - but not by much. You can see the line breaks but it is still difficult to read.

Active white space is much more appealing and easier on the eyes. That extra break between lines; a little bit of italics, and a bold text box (or picture) guides the eyes in a road map of sorts.

Which version is most appealing and easier on the eyes?

Think about your readers

Writing comes naturally to me. It's what I love to do. Truthfully, if I had taken out all of the formatting, pictures and white space, I could have published this a few hours ago and been done with it.

Formatting our posts for the benefit of our readers subconsciously lets them know we care. As a manual curator, I look for the creators who take the time to showcase their work in the best possible light. Why? Because I don't want to spend any of my precious time on people who don't care and find the ones who do.

Think on that.

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More helpful tips by @merej99:

• Are Your Posts Getting Attention? Tips From A Manual Curator
  The importance of a good featured photo, title and first 50 characters of your post to grab an audience's attention.
  

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