You understand the value of good blog writing.
Creating custom content is one of the surest ways to build rapport with your audience.
“By providing your own unique thoughts and insights, you naturally grow your search traffic, customer trust and ultimately, sales.”
And that’s the goal in business, right?
A good blog creates both trust and authority while driving more people to your website.
Maybe you’ve created one, and posted on it a few times.
Or maybe you would like to start blog writing for your own clients.
But you’re quickly finding out that writing a blog post, and writing a successful blog post that people read, like, and engage in… are two different things.
Good blog writing is a bit trickier than it can first appear.
And it only takes a quick Google search to realize there’s a lot of blogging advice out there – lengthy articles with lists of things to remember.
It can be so overwhelming that it’s tempting to just let your blog sit stagnant, until you one day have the courage to learn all you need to and can pick it up again.
The truth is, you actually don’t have to follow lengthy rules, or copy precise methods to make your blog a success.
There’s no need to abandon your unique personality and style to be a good blog writer.
In fact, if you just keep a few major “cardinal sins” in mind, you are truly free to find your creative voice.
By using these sins as a perimeter to keep you on track, you can be successful, strategic, and still maintain the joy of your writing journey.
Sin #1: Write For Yourself
Mistake number one may be the most common mistake in blog writing.
It’s our natural tendency to write about what we enjoy, what we hate, or what we find interesting or helpful.
But in business, the one question you need to constantly be asking yourself is:
Who are you writing for?
Who is your audience?
Whether you realize it, or not, audience is what you are really in the business of.
Ian Blair, of buildfire.com, stresses the importance of audience when he advises,
“Write content your audience cares about. And that doesn’t just apply to blog posts – it applies to everything from website content to white papers, and it’ll make all the difference in the results you see from content marketing.”
Your goal as a blog writer is to build, attract, and train your audience.
It’s quite likely that the people you are writing for don’t care about the same things that you care about.
Their pain points are different than yours.
But if you listen, your audience will tell you what to write.
How do you listen? There are a lot of ways.
You can start by :
- Checking your current blog statistics for the most shared content
- Checking your current blog statistics for the most viewed content
- Checking your (or your clients) email lists for the most clicked through emails
- Checking the same lists for the most opened emails
- Checking social media statistics
- Checking social media comments
- Thinking about the most frequently asked questions you (or your client) get from customers
- And if you don’t have a blog or a sizable audience yet – check your competition’s posts and social media for comments and shares. You can also check forums in your niche to see what people are talking about and having issues with.
Make a list of topics from the information you’ve gathered, and you’ll know exactly how to help your audience with your content.
Being a student of exactly who these people are and listening to what these people want will give you the material you need to make your post topics compelling.
And as long as you’re helping them, they will remain loyal readers.
Sin #2: Write About Broad Topics
Most new freelancers have a tendency to want to cast a really big net out into the market.
We fear that if we don’t write something that will be relatable to the masses, we won’t have success in our business.
Writing so that every reader is pleased and understands is how you broaden your chances of a catch, right?
No, not really.
Thrivehive.com posted this article on the pros of narrowing your expertise in business, explaining,
“The benefit of niche marketing is that it enables you to become an expert or thought leader in your niche. For most customers, expertise is more important than size or brand name.”
Focusing on a specific line of interest is the best way to build expertise and speak with authority on that topic.
For example, if you wanted to know how to start building Facebook ads, would you be more likely to trust someone who knows a little bit of everything about marketing…
or would you trust someone who has built thousands of Facebook ads for successful companies, for over 10 years?
Do you see the difference?
Niching down gives you an authority that trying to please everyone will never provide.
The natural result of finding your niche is that you become an expert in your field. When you’re the expert, clients will willingly pay your higher fees.
And, I’ll tell you a little secret…
You don’t want just anybody to be your audience.
In fact, there’s a lot of people out there that you don’t want to write for or work for.
Keep only the image of your dream client, (or your clients’ dream audience), in your mind. And write for them alone.
Your writing doesn’t have to impact everyone – it just has to impact the right people.
Sin #3: Write Without Supporting Data
It’s surprising how many writers throw around information as if it were fact, but never offer any solid evidence.
If you want your writing to be believable, it is crucial that you use respected sources to back any and all claims you make.
Borrowing proof from the right places can actually make your audience trust you all the more.
You can do this in the form of statistics, publications and news articles, or by quoting well known people in your niche.
If you tell your audience that a certain diet will save their life, provide a link to a study as proof. Better yet if the study is conducted by a certified physician.
If you tell your audience that a specific percentage of Americans hate their job, link to where you gathered that information from.
And, as an added bonus, providing links does more than just make you look like you know what you’re talking about.
Linking your post out to quality sources, is great for SEO and website rankings, as well.
In this problogger.com article, Internet marketing specialist Adam Grunwerg summarizes,
“Linking away from your blog can increase the value of your own content; help build real relationships with other bloggers; and in many cases it’s just the right thing to do.”
Overwhelm your readers with evidence from other (reliable) sources that support your writing, and they will become believers.
Sin #4: Write Without Good Formatting
In this age, where attention has become a commodity, it’s incredibly important that you format your writing for easy skimming.
In fact, Elise Moreau of copypress.com tells us that,
“The average Internet user takes 2 to 5 seconds to decide whether it’s worth sticking around on a particular web page, and that timeframe keeps decreasing.”
To help grab and maintain a reader’s attention, one of the “Perfect Post Elements” Mike Shreeve teaches in his programs is, “Ease Of Consumption.”
This is crucial, because even if your information is gold, your message will not get across if no one is bothering to read it!
Mike calls his copywriting style “goldfish formatting,” and it’s more important than you may think.
To format this way use plenty of breaks with headers, recaps, and bold print to help your audience collect the main points of your article – even if they don’t read every word.
Use images to help keep your audience’s attention.
Create subheadings and see if they hold your interest while you scan the page.
And be sure to use lots of white space to help your text stand out, rather than being missed in big blocks of paragraphs.
Sin #5: Try To Write Perfectly
Mike teaches fail proof methods for making blog posts that are worth $200-$400 while writing about things that you actually enjoy.
The reason these posts are worth that kind of money, is because of the strategic thought that goes into each piece of content.
The No Pants Program student:
- Researches their competition
- Decides what type of post to write (Attention Grabber, How To Overcome, or A Pillar Post)
- Spends time carefully naming their post
- Understands that every piece of content is designed to speak specifically to a certain audience’s pain points
But.
Even trained blog writers who follow these guidelines carefully, will never produce a flawless piece.
There’s no such thing.
In the end, you simply have to check the cardinal sins, give yourself a solid edit, and then just publish.
Sin #6: Write Infrequently
Good writing is a craft – it is developed and refined through a combination of reading, learning, and practicing.
Above all else, practice.
“There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.”
Overthinking the process will not make you a better writer.
And you can’t improve by just consuming information – you must create, and then fling your creation out into the hands of the market.
If you want to know how to find the time you need to write more, the answer may bore you, but it works.
Routine.
Create a plain, old, dull routine where you sit down and type away for chunks of time. (Many writers find the Pomodoro technique helpful.)
Hold yourself to a pattern.
Create a ritual.
Invest in your craft a little bit every day.
At first it might not seem like you’re coming up with anything valuable, but in time you will be able to refine and produce quality content more easily than you thought possible.
This work, like most, is more grit than talent.
And if you’ve got the grit, you can accomplish anything.
Remember :
- Don’t Write For Yourself – Know who your audience is and create content for them.
- Don’t Write About Broad Topics – Become an expert in your niche.
- Don’t Write Without Supporting Data – Use links and studies to build trust and increase SEO.
- Don’t Write Without Good Formatting – Remember that more people skim than read, and design your posts accordingly.
- Don’t Try To Write Perfectly – You’ll improve only as you post.
- Don’t Write Infrequently – Routine is the key to the craft.
If you want more guidance on launching your career as a freelance writer, check out The No Pants Project where we teach you how to create a client getting faucet to make sure you always have new clients coming in the door.
