How To Write A Better Blog Post

Great writers are not born. They are made. You can make yourself a better writer with practice. You do not, however, need to be the next Hemingway in order to write a successful blog or website. Online writing is very different from academic writing or producing a novel.
There is an art to writing compelling content for the web. You want people to connect to you and your writing. You want them to read what you have written and you need to leave them wanting to read more. Your ultimate goal as a writer who makes a living online is to compel readers to purchase products that provide the solutions they seek for the problems that landed them on your website or blog to begin with.
Sadly, the web is full of “fluffy”, bland content bursting at the seams with search engine keywords but no real value to readers. And then there are those of us who want to get our message out into the world. If you want to make a living writing for the web, then I’ve got some tips to help you craft a better article online.

Read More

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to read the writing of others. Don’t just limit yourself to other blogs and websites, either. Read print books, magazines, articles, poetry – whatever you can get your hands on. Draw inspiration from sources of information not easily accessible online. Find new viewpoints and perspectives to share rather than simply parrot the same information found on other websites.
Pay attention to how writing is structured and how words are used to compel you. Think back on the articles, books and websites that are the most memorable. What are your favorite blogs? Read them again but pay close attention to how words are chosen and how they affect you. What is it that made you keep reading? What is it about your favorite writer or blog that keeps you going back for more.

Tell A Story

Everybody loves a good story. Stories convey ideas in a way that doesn’t come across as preachy or boring. Using stories from your own life gives you credibility and demonstrates your level of experience to the reader more effectively than an “about me” page ever will. Readers are also better able to connect with you if you share stories from your own life.
The most compelling and memorable blog content I read are personal stories shared by the writer. People love an invitation to first-hand access to people’s lives and experiences. Avoid the temptation to be an online encyclopedia of information. Instead, put yourself into your writing and engage your audience.
Tell stories about everything you write about. Even if you are writing about the health benefits of watermelon, make it relatable to your own life. Don’t just spout off yet another keyword-stuffed fluff piece about the health benefits of watermelon. Tell us what you, yourself, have noticed from eating this fruit and how excited you are about the science and nutrition of it! Be sure to share how much weight you lost on the watermelon diet? =)

Write More

If you want to become a better writer, then you’ve got to write, write and write some more. The more you write, the better your writing will be. As with anything else, practice makes perfect.
I heard a newly published author say once that everybody has a million words of crap in them. The only way to become a great writer is to get those million words of crap out of you as quickly as you can so you can start writing well. A million words sounds daunting, but you’ve just got to roll up your sleeves and tap away at your keyboard until they are all out of your system. There’s no way around this. Just write.
A couple things you can do to get those million words of crap out of you is to keep a journal. It can be a real-life journal of your thoughts and feelings, or it can be a fictional journal where you explore characters, scenes and short stories. Or you can just dive right in and crank out a novel. Don’t worry about how bad it is. Just get the words onto the page and give yourself permission to make it the worst book ever written in the history of the world. Who says you need to let it see the light of day?

Use Descriptive Writing

When I read something, I want to see what I’m reading. Don’t just describe concepts or share ideas. Help your readers visualize them. This is especially important on the web where a million things are vying for limited attention spans. If you want people to read your writing, and compel them to action, then you must immerse them into your writing.
Which sentence is more compelling?
1 – I feared that quitting my job would result in my being homeless.
2 – The thought of quitting my job prompted visions of sitting in a squalid alley next to a dumpster, stitching together rags with my grubby fingers to keep warm while shaking an empty tin cup at passers by.
Obviously, the second one is more interesting to read. It makes you stop and visualize my fear.

Avoid Being Wordy

The quickest way to alienate your readers is to use your blog to show off your command of obscure English vocabulary. Most writing online is at the eighth-grade reading level. While you are writing for people of all reading levels, your writing will stand out (and not in a good way) if you sprinkle it with lots of four syllable words.
You’ll end up sending people away to a different website that writes in “plain English”. You’ll also come across as being non-relatable or even smug.
Write how you speak. Write for the person sitting at their computer reading this blog post. Don’t write like a lecturer speaking to thousands of people. The Internet is an intimate medium for communicating ideas. Write as if you are having a one-on-one conversation with a real, live human being because, in essence, that is what you are doing.

Proofread Your Writing

The biggest mistake that most people make when they write is to assume that the piece sounds good enough and they hit the “publish” button without giving it a simple read through. You can’t catch all mistakes as you type them. There is no getting around having to read from top to bottom what you just wrote. If you don’t (and many people don’t), you’ll have embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors for all the world to see.
Even if you can’t get a professional proofreader to look over everything you write, you can catch most mistakes by reading your own writing out loud to yourself. This might feel strange at first, but you’ll be much more aware of the words you use as you read them out loud. I catch many more errors this way and I also get a sense of how the writing will “sound” in someone else’s head.
Waiting a day or two before you revise a first draft of an article or blog post is also a great way to add fresh perspective and edit your words objectively. You don’t have to publish a blog post the second you type the last word. Proofread it in a day or two and you’ll likely end up with a much better piece of writing.
Of course, try not to get too caught up in making sure it’s 100% perfect before you hit publish. Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time maintaining the frenetic publishing schedule the Internet demands. Any grammar nerd will find fault with anything you write, so don’t sweat the small minority who might find an obscure subject/verb disagreement. Write your piece, read it through carefully (out loud to yourself) and then hit the “publish” button and move on to your next piece!

Get Feedback

Feedback is essential to improving your writing. Having other people look at your writing can help you identify error patterns (ie: you consistently misspell the same word, etc…) and they can give you pointers about how to clarify your ideas or capture interest.
It can be a challenge to find people who are qualified to give you objective feedback, though. Friends and family will likely go easy on you. Ultimately, the test of your ability to convey ideas and engage your readers interest is when your content gets lots of views and is linked to and shared in social media websites. If you are engaging your readers, if you have readers, you’re doing something right!

Keep It Simple, Short and On Topic

When it comes to writing an article or blog post online, I prefer to keep it between 600-1000 words in length. Any shorter and it comes across as a “fluff piece” with limited or no value. A longer article might lose my interest. I generally don’t read articles longer than 1000 words online because I don’t have the time and it’s a rare blogger who can capture my interest for that long.
If you have to write a long piece (and sometimes, a 2500+ word article is the right thing to do), then put subheaders in it and make it “skimmable”. Also, I prefer to read a long article all on one page than to have to click on “read more” four times and load four pages just to read one story.
If your article is pushing beyond the 1200-word mark, consider breaking it down into a series. (See what I did with my series on how to quit your day job and escape the 9-5 rat race.) If your piece deals with multiple topics, consider breaking it up into multiple articles that focus on one topic at a time.

Pick A Side And Don’t Shy Away From Controversy

The most read, high-trafficked blogs are by those who express their opinions and pick sides. If you want to be successful online, you can’t worry about offending people or alienating others. If you write in a way that pleases everybody, then you’ll have a very boring website that not many people read. Having a neutral voice in your writing online doesn’t attract readers. It makes your content fluffy and unimportant.
Now I’m not saying that you need to be an Internet “shock jock”. Don’t write in a way that comes across as angry, disrespectful or offensive just for the sake of being offensive. What I’m talking about here is writing that is firm in its position and isn’t afraid to take sides.
Don’t build up an argument for something and then demolish it by stating that “it’s just my opinion”. If you write it, it is your opinion. It’s okay to explore both sides of an issue, but the more controversial you are, the more readers you will get.
Write informatively and assertively. But don’t be a dick. Seek out ways to write to your audience and fans and don’t worry about trying to get every last person who ever logged onto the web to read your article and like what it says. That will never happen!
These writing tips are by no means exhaustive. And some of these rules can be broken. For example, this article is 1943 words long! Ultimately, you need to read a lot, write even more, trust your gut and don’t be afraid to be a human being to your readers. If you’re not happy with the way you write now, keep writing. You will get better. You don’t have to be a perfect writer either. You just have to keep writing!