How To Become A Better Writer

You can have the best ideas in the world, but if your writing quality is poor, no one will recognize the greatness of your ideas.

I’m not a born writer. I was a math major in college, so I didn’t have to write that many papers. Most of what I know about writing, I learned at my jobs in Information Services. If you couldn’t get your ideas across there, you were in trouble. I learned the hard way what worked and what didn’t.

So here are some things I have found out about writing on a blog:

1. Write in a Personal Style.

Your writing needs to be engaging, or no one will read it. You don’t want to write in corporate-speak. That’s why so many corporate websites are so dull.

Write as if you were writing to a friend. If it gets too informal, that can be cleaned up later. It’s a lot harder to take a stuffy, distant post and add some informality to it later.

2. Write in the Active Voice.

This tip alone can transform your writing from wimpy to strong.

The active voice has an actor and something the actor does. This is opposed to the passive voice, where you just have something being acted upon.

I’ll make this clear with an example.

Pasive Voice: My blog has been completely redesigned.

Active Voice: I completely redesigned my blog.

The active voice is much stronger. When you read through your post, take any sentences that are written in the passive voice, and make them active.

3. Use Short Sentences and Paragraphs.

Remember in English class, you were taught that a paragraph consists of a topic sentence or introductory sentence, a few supporting sentences, and a closing sentence?

Well, this won’t work on the web! Your paragraph will be far too long.

What I do is to eyeball my paragraphs when I’m done, and if any of them look too long, I find a way to split them into two or more. Just look for any logical breaking point.

A paragraph on the web should only contain 2-3 sentences, maybe 4 if they are short. This has nothing to do with logic – it is just because a long paragraph looks too intimidating to read.

Also look at your sentences. An occasional long sentence is ok if it has to be there. But in most cases, shorter sentences are better. They are just easier to read.

This tip may seem weird at first. Your sentences will seem short and choppy. You are cutting paragraphs in half.

Trust me, this will help your copy to be more readable on the web, and that’s what counts.

4. Spell It Out.

Don’t make your reader guess at what you are trying to say. Spell it out. Make it obvious.

People read blog posts quickly. They will not get your subtlety. They might not even come to the same conclusions that you do. So be sure to actually state your main idea. Don’t just hint at it.

5. Highlight the Important Stuff.

I learned this while writing emails in business. People just scan. Hardly anyone reads every word you write.

So you need to make sure that your readers at least get the important concepts.

You can do this in various ways – whatever fits your post. You could create a numbered list like this one to highlight your main points. You could bold the important sentences. You could use color or images to highlight what’s important.

Be creative. Just make sure that when you first look at your post, the important stuff jumps out at you.

6. Be Specific.

Instead of saying “My traffic went up a lot”, it means much more to say “My traffic went up 84%”.

Overused words like “great”, “interesting”, “cute”, and “wonderful” really don’t mean anything. Find the specific thing that makes it “great” and mention that instead.

7. Give Examples.

Note that I gave examples for some of the items above. Examples make a concept clear and memorable. They put you and your readers on the same page.

Just be careful of the examples you use. It might have been very helpful for me to link out to examples of poor writing for this post. But that wouldn’t be very nice to the people I was linking to, would it?

8. Eliminate Extraneous Stuff.

You need to be ruthless here. If you go off on a tangent in your post, delete it.

Every tangent that you go off on, dilutes your post. You don’t want to have a weak post with a bunch of unrelated ideas in it.

I know it hurts to delete such great ideas. So, instead of deleting them, you could just cut them out and paste them into other posts that you can write in the future.

9. Put Yourself Into the Mind of Your Reader.

When you are done with your post, read it over and pretend that you are someone reading it for the first time. Think of who your readers are and pretend to be one of them.

Have you explained everything in an understandable way? Will a reader be able to follow your logic, or are there gaps that need to be explained or stated more plainly?

Are you using jargon that your readers may not be familiar with?

Does everything make sense? Is it in a logical order, or do some paragraphs need to be rearranged?

10. Be an Authority – Act Like One.

You want to be looked upon as an authority, right? Then eliminate these disclaimers: “in my opinion”, “I think”, “I believe”, “it seems to me”, and so on.

Everyone knows that a blog post is stating your opinion. Be brave and own your opinion. Don’t weaken it by these statements. They make it sound like you are apologizing for your opinion.

11. Get a Strong Start.

Your headline is the most important part of your post, and your first sentence is the next most important.

But if you think about how important it is to get a strong first sentence, you will get hung up on creating a perfect opening and will never get your post written.

The trick is to just go ahead and write. Your first few sentences will be rusty, until you get into the flow of your post.

Then later, go back and rework the beginning. Often all it takes is to delete the first few sentences or paragraphs of fluff, until you get into the meat of the post.

Or, you might have to write a new opening sentence. But it will be a lot easier to do, once the rest of the post is written.

12. Have a Strong Ending.

You want to leave your readers with a good final impression. So don’t let your post just trail off at the end…

You need something punchy and memorable to end with. You could sum up your post with a sentence or two reiterating your main point. Or give your readers a call to action.

Some bloggers end their posts with a question. This can be a good strategy, as it makes your readers think and encourages them to leave comments answering your question.

What tips do you have for improving your writing?

- Pat Doyle