If you are one of those bloggers who aren’t confident about their writing, it might be a scary nightmare. Bloggers are indeed writers in disguise as they regularly update their blog with articles. A lot of people blog just for passion, although a large slice of bloggers does it for business. Writing isn’t a mystical process, if you are one of those guys who wish to enhance their skills to sound more like a professional blogger, here are some tips which can help you get there faster.
1. Planning and Research
There is a reason why research and planning are the first numbers on the list. If it gets to 2 or 3, your whole flow would be “destructed”. To make sure that you are able to write without any issues, make sure that you make a sort of “game plan” in your head even before you start the first draft.
Now, to make sure that you make a perfect draft, you should keep in mind
- From which medium do readers come to your blog,
- How can you get more people to open your blog
- What tips you can use to make them stay longer on your blog
Before you begin writing, you should have a clear aim in your mind as of why you are writing that post. Also, make sure that you do solid research and ensure that your facts and stats are up to date.
I’d suggest that you keep all your informative points in Evernote or Google docs so that you can access them almost anywhere and anytime you need.
You can also change these plans every now and then as per your need, but make sure that the basic guideline is followed.
2. Start Writing
To be a professional writer, you have to follow a pretty simple and regular plan in writing. The process consists of planning, drafting and crosschecking i.e proofreading.
- Planning: This is the stage I talked about in the first point, it consists of the outlining and research were done.
- Drafting: This is where the writer just writes what he intends to. It is at this stage that you should avoid getting disturbed by Facebook or any other stuff.
- Proofreading: The after writing process where you should read the post and look out for possible mistakes and errors.
3. Prepare a solid headline
Studies and research show that bloggers and webmasters have about 27 seconds to impress the reader before he or she leaves the page. Although I think it's lower than 27 seconds.
So, if you want your readers to stay longer on your website, you need to glue them from your headline itself. As per experts suggest, to make a good title, you need to make it under 70 characters and it should be made as short and precise as possible.
For example :
- XYZ Software review
- How to Recover data with XYZ software?
Which one do you think is going to make you click? Of course, the second one is more CTR friendly.
4. Let the feedbacks come through Yourself
One major thing or attitude that separates experienced or professional writers from amateurs is that the experienced ones always love working on improving their quality further.
For example, when I started off, I just wrote text articles. But, after learning the requirement of clients, I started learning some basic photo editing to make the content even more fun.
Every now and then I read my posts to evaluate how am I going. If this not enough, I also ask for feedbacks from co-bloggers.
If you are asking for feedbacks from others, be open and friendly and correct the issues that come out.
See the feedback as the best way to improve your content quality.
5. Add some visuals
As I mentioned in the 4th point, that to make my content more fun, I learned basic image editing. Now, you can also use elements such as tables, charts, and pictures in your content and make it more interesting. Images are the best in grabbing attention. The best thing that a visual can do is to hold an impatient reader to pause for a second and read after that.
6. Linking & Quoting to authority websites
When I work on enriching my content, one of the things I do is link back to the source or authority websites. Not only increases my chances of getting mentioned on their social media channels but it also my chances of grabbing some backlinks from those authority websites.
If you see this from reader’s point of view, you are providing them quality content and at the same time going one step further and share the source of information. Some people refer to backlink to source as the “manners”, but anyways, it is a good habit and you should definitely consider doing it.
Now, like every other good habit, don’t overdo this one as well. Make sure you drop links only when it adds value.
7. Cross-check your Writing ( Proofreading )
I can bet the majority of the writers skip this part ( maybe this is why the majority of my clients hire me for proofreading ). Now, looking at the volume of the text I write, I prefer having an editor every now and then ( not at all times ). But, the majority of the time I proofread my content myself.
The proofreading includes checking the whole blog post for a continuous flow of writing, making sure ideas are relevant, correcting grammatical mistakes and types, and adding some final touches here and then.
If you are a blogger you should be very cautious about content before publishing it. I’ve seen a lot of blog posts where the readers pointed out silly mistakes in the comments.
8. Adding a conclusion
Do you remember how every story we read back in school had a moral?
That's because it adds the final icing to the cake. The ending paragraph or the “conclusion” plays a huge role in blog posts. The majority of the readers just skim the content without actually reading it, so the conclusion helps them get an overview of the post
You can also ask for their feedback here.
Conclusion – You can’t become an expert in writing overnight, it's much of an ongoing process. All you need is never quit and always a learning attitude. Do let me know what you took away from this post and how you would implement it on your blog (I’ll love reading your content and drop feedback).
Hi TB Editorial Staff 🙂
This is a really nice, concise outline that any blogger can follow.
Lots of good basics for newbies, but also some advanced tips for the pros, like #6, connecting to authority blogs. That’s really important not only on your blog, but in social media, too.
-Donna
Yes Ma’am, connecting with other Authority blogs and their social networks is very useful and helpful in one way or the other.
Thanks.
Hi,
To become a pro, you need to understand the importance of the catchy headlines and the visual content.
Try to know about the market and then start writing. Choose the topic which can attract your readers.
Thanks for sharing the points.
~Ravi
Hello Ravi, AM glad and happy to have you here.
You are always welcome.
This outline is informative and concise. It gives a clear guideline on who to write SEO compliant posts
Thanks for sharing such a nice article.