Writing for a blog that is related to a particular nichecan be one of the best ways to not only connect with other people on the web, but it can also be one of the best ways to make some extra cash and, for a select few, it may pave the way to an exciting book deal. Blog writing isn’t as easy as a lot of people perceive it to be.
If you want your blog to be seen as exceptional, if you want to make sure that your blogs are getting read, and if you want repeat readers, these five tips are the essentials that will make sure that your blog is a success.
1. Be Consistent
Write whenever possible. But keep in mind that whenever possible sometimes comes tomorrow and tomorrow is the worst possible day because it never happens. You want to write consistently. Your readers expect consistently and the search engines expect consistently so do not do it for 7 days in a row and then not for three months. You are much better off doing it twice a week or three times a week. Start at once a week and then move up from there. If you do feel inspired to write seven posts in one day, schedule them out so that it looks consistent.
2. Stay Up To Date
If you want to be a good writer you need to be up to date in your topic and niche. Read trade journals, magazines, stay up to date with the news, or to training or seminars; whatever you need to do to do to truly be an expert in your field and it will come through in your writing.
3. Avoid Being Boring
Be interesting and let your personality come through, if you are putting people to sleep it is not going to do you any favors. Keep in interesting, keep it fun – adding a little humor is ok. If you are one of those people that tends to be extremely wordy and flowery and find yourself writing 2,000 word articles you need to go back through that article and take out everything that is not absolutely necessary because if there are too many words people get lost.
4. Be Concise
Nothing is more of a turn off than visiting a website or a blog that has huge blocks of text glaring back at the reader. A simple way to avoid annoying and inducing a headache for the reader is to keep your blog limited to short and concise paragraphs. This is important for two reasons:
- Readers like to skim, and short paragraphs allow their eyes to skim the page and find the information far easier than if they were to scrounge through a large, bulky paragraph
- Blogs have to be visually appealing, too. Having short paragraphs provides your readers “visual relief.” No one likes a website loaded down with text!
If you are making some important points in your text and you know that your target readers are skim readers, you can further draw attention to these points through some basic methods, like using bold text, italicized text, and highlighting text. Make sure you break up text by using things like bullet points and numbers, and make sure that you also learn how or have the ability to include pictures to go along with your blogs. Using images along with text also gives peoples’ eyes a break from reading, so try mixing it up from time to time.
5. Check Your Work
You do not want to look stupid after you have done all this great work. Use the tools available to spell check your work before you publish.
Additional Writing Tips
A. It’s All About Your Tone
Make sure that your blog “voice” is human and conversational. You also want to make sure that your blog “voice” actually matches the niche and the audience you are writing for. A lot of blog owners know that they have to be conversational in their blogs, but a lot don’t actually bother to find out who their “target market” or readers are. Your blog has to be written in a way that the majority of those who are coming to your blog will appreciate.
If you are just starting a blog, you need to think about:
- Who is going to want to read what you write?
- Why are they going to want to read your blog?
- What sort of goals do you have for your blog? Is it for personal reasons? Affiliate marketing? Do you have your own company/business that you will be using this blog for?
- What expectations is your audience going to have for your blog?
B. Be Honest
As touched upon briefly in point #1, you have to be honest when you wrote. If you love something, say so. But if you hate a product that you may be reviewing, for example, make sure you say so too. Make points about what you love and what you hate. Don’t skirt around issues, and try not to leave anything in the “gray.” People come to blogs for honestly and for a clear decision, not to be further confused
C. Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
One of the worst things that someone can do with their blog is stealing content, plagiarizing, or copyrighting material from the web. There are a lot of bogus bloggers out there whose only purpose is to steal content from other hard and honest bloggers. Never, ever steal or use any material that’s either on the web or “in real life” without giving credit.
To keep yourself from potentially stealing material – which can even happen unintentionally – if you find anything elsewhere that didn’t come right off of the top of your head, then provide a link to the source. Reference your information. Acknowledging where a piece of information is from doesn’t make you seem all the less credible. In fact, it will only further support any comment or argument that you may have, so don’t be afraid to do it.
D. Avoid “Over” Linking
You’ve probably seen these blogs, the ones where people just link to other peoples’ content all day long. While blogging does take a lot of time and effort, that time and effort is so worth it when compared to constant links. No reader wants to be stuck constantly clicking on links that source back to other information and which is not explained in your blog content. It’s your job to put things together, to make it all make sense, and package it in a well written, well thought out piece that your followers will appreciate and enjoy.
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