8/07/2008

Tips For The Blogger - How Being A Better Writer Affects The Performance Of Your Blog (Amrit Hallan)

Why are writers banned and persecuted in undemocratic countries? Because the written word is stronger than the entire governments and the ruthless forces they wield upon their masses. Effective writing can awaken civilizations and trigger unprecedented upheavals. If you’re not using writing as a potent tool for the success of your blog you are missing a big opportunity.

Although people do many things with their blogs like posting pictures and videos, they mostly write on their blogs. Writing is the primary mode of articulation when it comes to blogging; everything happens through writing if you publish written content on your blog. Since the promotion of your blog is as important as the regular updates here too the strength of you writing ability plays a crucial part — we will come to that later on.

By being a “better writer” I don’t mean that you have to give Stephen King, Salman Rushdie and Garcia a run for their money. It also doesn’t mean having good presentation but no substance. Relevance is a factor that is quintessential to the success of your blog but how you present the relevant topic also matters a lot.

You simply need to know how to convey your message compellingly and convincingly. This involves a certain comfort level with the words and the language you use. The comfort level helps you write fast especially when you have to write multiple blog posts or when you have to interact on various forums and comment sections. If you spend hours writing/editing/proofreading just one blog post it is going to be a very laborious task and soon you will run out of steam unless the passion is indefatigable.

Writing is a skill that can be acquired without even having formal training — most best-seller authors never received formal training in writing. I myself have a math background but earn my living writing for others (hope to do it solely for myself in the near future).
How you can learn to write well would be a topic for another blog post, but here I’m briefly discussing the benefits of this quality.

Writing Well Gives You A Unique Personality As A Blogger
According to Technorati there are million of blogs on the Internet. Among them there are thousands, maybe, that are read by people and not just by the bots. Sometimes you can find scores of blogs dealing with the same subject. For instance, you can find a horde of blogs telling you how to become a better blogger. How do you differentiate one blog from another if they are all trying to make you a better blogger? Consistency is one thing, of course, but the other thing is the writing style. No pyrotechnic words, no surrealistic references; just simple and useful thoughts collated effectively.

Darren, for example, directly talks to his readers and addresses their day-to-day, blogging-related problems, while sticking to the most dominant theme of his blog: how to earn money off your blog. I have noticed that he writes quite well; I don’t know if he has gradually developed the skill or it was inherently there in him. Another blogger whose writing style I admire is Leo of Zen Habits. Talking of Leo, just consider how much writing he does; I am sure he doesn’t have to struggle with the appropriate words and expressions while churning out, maybe, more than 50 blog posts every month for his own blog and for other blogs.

The ability to write well saves you lots of time and consequently makes you more productive as a blogger

This is made amply clear with Leo’s example. He is comfortable writing so he can write so much. Let me reiterate here again that when I talk about writing well I don’t mean an ability to create great literary works; writing well involves talking in the language of your readers so that they find your writing engaging, easy to read and extremely useful. When you know how to write well you don’t have to waste your time trying to write, you can simply focus on the central message and the right words and expressions manifest on their own.

Writing well keeps your readers coming to your blog again and again

Haven’t you often subscribed to a blogger’s RSS feeds simply because you love the way he or she writes? When you write well, when you write in a manner that your readers can relate to, they want to read you whenever they get a chance. When you’re known for writing well your blog posts attract more traffic because your readers don’t want to miss your latest update.

This reminds me, when I used to design websites I generated lots of traffic for my web designing website by writing web designing and web programming tutorials for other website. There was one thing that distinguished my tutorials from other tutorials covering the same topics: an underlying sense of humor. Even the most intricate programming issues I explained in a funny, entertaining manner. I started getting professional writing assignments due to this very quality of my writing. It just came to my mind recently that somewhere while writing content professionally I lost that touch. That used to be my “voice”. I haven’t succeeded yet, but I’m trying to get it back while writing blog posts.

Writing well helps you promote your blog

In the end it all boils down to how well and how fast you can write when it comes to leaving comments on other blogs, writing guest blog posts, generating linkbait content for your blog and interacting on online forums. All these efforts require lots of time and this is the main reason why many bloggers fail to utilize the techniques to promote their blogs. The ability to write well minimizes the time you need to generate content for external sources. When people find your writing engaging they immediately click your link to see what more you have written on your own blog.

Well, inadvertently this has turned out to be a longer post than I had initially planned (sticking to plans is something I really have to work on). If Darren lets me (or if he takes a vacation again), one day I would like to write a post here discussing how you can become a better writer without having to put in a gargantuan effort.

Amrit Hallan blogs at Content Blog. He writes about blogging, content trends and online copywriting.

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About Me

Ms. Anne Ai ling Mustapha
Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
A 26 years old university-graduated and simple young lady, who lives her daily life and feeds her soul by blogging about information. Comes from a mixed parental background of Thai Chinese from her mother's side, and Malay Java from her father's descendants. The only children of her parents.
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