Blogging is one of the most essential elements of Content Marketing. Besides from being a great contributor to SEO, it is also one of the most efficient ways to show your expertise as a company – or a professional. For this reason, developing the right blog writing skills will be key for establishing your authority on the Internet.
Surprisingly, a lot of people waste too much time worrying about keywords rather than focusing on content. Don’t do that: you need to provide value and demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.
Today, I will show you some fun ways and techniques for improving your blog writing skills. And consequently, this will also help you improve your Content Marketing strategy in the long run, as well as setting the perfect writing environment.
1. Define your target
Before you start writing, ask yourself: “Who are my target readers? Who am I trying to reach with my content?“
If you are writing for a University blog, your posts will probably be read by students. If you are a B2B company in the financial industry, your buyer persona will be companies that are looking for a solution to a specific problem.
Obviously, the way you will communicate your message to students will not be the same as if you would communicate it to decision makers within a company. This means that you will have to adapt your writing style to the people that you are trying to reach.
Understanding your target audience will be essential for using the right communication language with it. Try to identify where your potential customers “live” on the Internet. Are they professionals who spend the majority of their time on LinkedIn?
Or maybe students who spend hours posting on Facebook or scrolling through Instagram? Once you’ve identified where your audience lives, observe the way they communicate with their network. And adapt your content to the right language.
2. Read educational resources within your field
Reading is one of the best ways to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. And no, Instagram captions, love novels and Cosmopolitan magazines don’t count!
Instead, focus on reading books and educational articles that will enrich your vocabulary within your field. This will help you expand your ability to play with words and sentences. Of course, besides from providing you with additional knowledge and specific terms within your area of expertise.
For example, if you are a Marketer, try to find e-books on Digital Marketing to observe the way other professionals write content. This way, you will not only learn from other experts, but will also see how they communicate their message to their audience.
3. Improve your blog writing skills by reading classic books
Yes, reading classic books is actually a great way to improve your blog writing skills! It provides you with unique writing styles that you will rarely find in other types of content.
This might be a rather unconventional way to look at things, especially considering today’s modern tendencies for writing articles. However, I think that there is a lot you can learn from classic pieces of content, such as:
- Storytelling – even if you are writing about something technical like programming or Digital Marketing, incorporating elements of storytelling can make your content much more interesting and easy to understand. It is a great way to capture users’ attention and make them come back for more.
- Structure – good classic novels have a way of making your reading flow seamlessly. The way authors alternate short and long sentences to keep you captivated is definitely something to learn from. You can improve your blog writing skills by paying close attention to the way they structure their content. Knowing how to play with paragraphs and sentences is an art.
- Vocabulary – classic books can also help you enrich your vocabulary. Yes, maybe you are not going to need all these fancy, archaic, and sophisticated words in a Digital Marketing blog. But if you are writing a more artistic blog – why not? They can add a unique touch to your content.
4. Read the content of other bloggers and authors
Are you new to blogging, and struggling to find your own unique writing style? This can happen to anyone, even if they have been doing this for a while. Finding a writing style that fits your personality and you feel comfortable with can be challenging.
It might sound counter-productive at first, but observing other bloggers, authors, and influencers within your niche can be quite helpful. By doing so, you will be able to discover the variety of styles out there, and identify the ones that you can identify with.
In other words, this will serve you as an inspiration for finding your very own style. You can do this by following these simple steps:
- Research bloggers and authors within your niche;
- Go through their content and select the pieces that mostly resonate with you;
- Analyze their structure, style, and personality.
By doing this exercise, you will have a better idea of what could work the best for you and your blog.
5. Make the dictionary your best friend
When I work on my blog, one of the tabs that I always have open is the Thesaurus. It helps me find the most adequate and precise words for my articles, especially if I notice that I am repeating certain words too much.
Even if you blog in your native language, your mind is probably unable to recall all the perfect words at the right moment that you need them. Sometimes, you just keep repeating the same ones over and over again out of habit. At least it happens to me!
While writing, read your paragraph a couple of times before moving on to the next one. Check if there are repetitive words or just phrases that could be expressed better. With the dictionary and the Thesaurus tabs open in your browser, you will be able to substitute them in no time!
Making this exercise a habit will not only enrich your vocabulary in the long run, but will help you recall the ideal words every time! For me, it has definitely been a game-changer for improving my blog writing skills over time.
6. Break the ice
Don’t be afraid to break the ice with the reader! People love content that feels relatable to them.
For example, I see a lot of Digital Marketing blogs that speak in a quite formal and “techy” way. This type of content makes it obvious that there is a huge company behind it that just wants to deliver dry information without necessarily being helpful.
Sometimes, people just want to feel that there is someone behind the content who is actually trying to help them. So, don’t be afraid to make it a little bit more engaging.
Relevant light-humour jokes, puns, metaphors, story times, and other content-related “ice breakers” can be a great technique to do that. They help to attract the attention of your reader and most importantly, to make him relate to it.
Unless you are writing for a really specific niche market where you need to keep it formal, such as the medical or financial field, don’t be afraid to break the ice with the reader.
7. Dance around with your sentences
Don’t be afraid to experiment with your style! Try mixing short sentences, long phrases, questions, exclamatory statements…Try to “feel the rhythm” of your content.
Personally, I always have the problem of having too many really long sentences. According to my Yoast plugin, 50% of all sentences in some of my articles were longer than 20 words! This can be very exhausting to the reader, so I am doing my best to fix that.
Just like in music or dancing, even writing has its own rhythm that needs to be felt by you. There is nothing more boring than repeating the same sentence structure during your whole article!
There isn’t a scientific formula to make you improve your blog writing skills – so, don’t be afraid to experiment until you find your own style and rhythm.
8. Focusing on practice and quality improves your blog writing skills in the long run
You have probably heard a million times that practice makes perfect – and it is true.
Whether you are writing for your own blog, or for the blog of your company, you will inevitably improve your skills by producing as much quality content as possible.
I put an emphasis on quality; especially for your Content Marketing strategy, it is better to write less articles, but qualitative. Rather than trying to publish daily without providing any real value to your readers.
Furthermore, try to get as much feedback as possible from people with different professional backgrounds. For example, if you are writing a blog about programming, it is always a good idea to hear the opinions of:
- People who are within your target audience but don’t have enough experience to understand complex terms and concepts. They can evaluate your content from a beginner’s perspective, and help you improve it so it can be understood by people with no previous knowledge.
- Other programming experts. They can help you see your content from a different point of view, and point out certain niche aspects that you could be missing.
- People are neither programmers nor potential target audience for your content. They will be the ones who are the least biased, and can give you insights on how to improve your blog writing skills in general, not only for that specific niche.
Focusing on quality instead of quantity, and getting feedback from others can significantly improve your oganic Marketing strategy. And consequently, your website visitors will keep on coming back for more!
9. Do your research
Another really important tip for having your blog writing skills on point is having confidence in the topic that you are writing about.
Even if you are already an expert in your field, you will stumble across topics or ideas that you don’t know that well as others. Gaining the confidence that you need to write a great article happens by doing a profound research and making sure that you know “your stuff”.
So, don’t underestimate the power of reading extensively and getting to know the boundaries of your topic before you start writing. Your focus should always be on providing high-quality, comprehensive content that is actually helpful to users.
Furthermore, it will help you establish an authority and credibility within your niche. When you feel confident that you know what you’re talking about, it will be much easier! So, take your time to do a good and extensive research before you actually start writing.
10. Use Storytelling
Storytelling can be a great way to interact with your users and write better and more engaging content.
According to Hubspot, storytelling is “the process of using fact and narrative to communicate something to your audience“. It has become increasingly popular during the last few years as a way for companies to captivate and inspire people.
Source: Hubspot.com
Incorporating storytelling into your content can help you improve your blog writing skills, and also keep your audience engaged with it.
You can learn more about how to do that here:
Improving your Blog Writing Skills
Becoming a better blogger takes time, effort, and patience. It is not something that happens overnight, and you probably won’t even notice the changes because the process is so gradual.
As with everything else, being consistent will be key for reaching your goals. So, keep writing, focus on quality instead of quantity, and try to find different ways to improve your skills while enjoying what you’re doing.
As always, I hope you enjoyed my tips! Is there anything that you missed seeing in my list? What is your favourite way to improve your blogging skills? Which thing from the list are you most excited to try?
Let me know your thoughts and answers in the comments below! Thank you for taking the time to read my article.
