There is nothing more offensive to me than a poorly written blog. That doesn’t mean you won’t be successful with your blog writing (although guest posting may not be as easy to come by.)
However, if you want to consider yourself a writer, it’s important that you have the skill and expertise to write well. Here are the best ways to improve your blog writing:
Break up the page.
My day is busy. Too busy to read more than a few blogs. It’s important to give your reader a quick, scannable blog they can whiz over in just a few minutes.
To do this, you’ll need to break up the page with:
- Bullet points
- Numbers
- Indentations
- Bolded headlines
Expound on each point below the bullet if you’d like. This way, the reader can read only the sections that interest them.
Give clear, interesting points.
If you don’t develop your thoughts to form a complete picture for the reader, you aren’t going to bring them much value. Value is what gives your reader a cause to revisit your blog.
You’ll want to make sure that when you write, you take your ideas to the next level. If you were discussingSEO blogging, you’ll par it out to a general description, followed by on-page vs. off-page SEO, and then give details of how to boost each category.
Otherwise, title your blog something that tells the reader what they’ll get, “6 Off-Page SEO Ideas” so you keep it short and sweet.
Don’t stop writing on a longer topic just because your blog post is 500 words or more; keep going until you’ve provided a high-end piece of content that others will appreciate hearing your expertise on.
As long as the content is thorough, you can always chop your blog writing down into multiple blogs if you feel like it’s too long.
Support your data.
The most frustrating habit in blog writing is to not support your data with reliable resources. If you are concerned with backlinking to outside sources, you can give a general, “The CDC in their 2014 annual report on obesity recommends,” statement to cover the statistics you discuss.
You must, however, be specific with the name of the study that you took the data from. Double check by typing it in to see if it comes up. Sometimes, I’ll even say, “On page 14.”
What this really does is position you as the authority on your topic. You become the expert in your field since you took the time to weed through research for your reader.
Offer an engaging topic.
You’ve heard time and time again that headlines are the key to getting blog writing conversions. Fair enough.
But what about the way you write? Do you follow through with engaging writing? Do you give the reader an interesting chart or graph to look at? Do I want to share your photo?
An engaging topic means the reader enjoys the entire blog. You can cheat a little by becoming expert at headlines, but at the end of the day, you really need to deliver with a very cool blogging topic, too.
Think of your blog topics in two ways; evergreen and interesting. Evergreen will cover all the general questions your industry ever needs to know.
Interesting will go outside of the box to interest the reader. For my client who owns a watch repair company, I stuck to a snarky, pithy voice so the blogs would be light, entertaining and easily sharable.
Tell me what blog writing annoys you. Do you have any pet peeves?
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