What you write in your blog posts or on your blog pages is important but there is something else equally important – how you write. Have you ever been to a blog that nearly put you to sleep? Did you go back? I bet you didn’t. Don’t let that happen to you.
Blogs are not essays or scholarly papers – they are blog posts and pages and they should come from you. Sure – you are conveying information but do it in a personal way. Write like you talk, not like you write. Let people know you are human – there are far too many automatic thingy out there to create content. If people think yours is one of those they will leave in a heartbeat and not come back.
One of the purposes of your blog is to get people to know, like and trust you. Writing in a conversational voice – your own voice – will help you do just that. A great way to write in a conversation voice is to picture your reader in your mind’s eye. Get a mental picture of him or her and write (speak) directly to that person.
When you are finished but before you publish, read your post or page out loud. What? Yes – out loud. Reading out loud let’s you find phrases or sentences that aren’t in your own voice. If you hesitate or stumble over a phrase, it needs work. Maybe it only needs a comma or maybe it needs to be rewritten.
Grammar is not critical – make your writing readable. If your reader needs to pause, add a comma. It creates a natural pause. When I say it isn’t critical, don’t throw it out the window but if you don’t know if you should use a colon or a semi-colon, don’t worry about it. Readability and ‘understandability’ are what’s important.
A word on spelling – get it right! Do not rely on your spell checker – it doesn’t know the difference between there and their or no and know. Reading out loud will help with this but the best thing to do to spot these pesky little typos is to read backwards. Reading backwards makes you stop and think.
A last great hint. If you are quoting statistics (and I hope you do that sparingly) be sure to keep them updated. If they change, write another blog post, refer to the original post, and do the update. This lets your readers know that you are on top of things and it creates great internal linking.
Cathy Perkins – The WordPress Wizard
If your reader needs to pause, add a comma. It creates a natural pause.
No. Misplaced and unnecessary commas create confusion, change the intended meaning, and give pause only to editors who spend their days removing them. A “natural pause” is created in intonation, subtext and a well-told story.
Proper grammar, not to be confused with being too rigid to accept the fluidity of language, is always critical. If it’s slang, say it. If it’s fun, use it. The reader, however, must have acceptable sign posts to navigate the content, and grammar is one of the most important ones. Don’t dismiss its significance, especially if the goal is gaining and retaining readership.
I respectfully disagree. Most people who write blog posts are not writers and if they stop to worry about commas they’ll never write a word. I do agree about slang – if it’s slang say it’s slang. If it’s a technical term, define it. But I don’t want people to be stopped in their tracks thinking about commas and other punctuation.
Bloggers can greatly improve their punctuation, grammar, and writing style by spending just a few hours learning the craft.
My suggestion: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
I LOVE The Elements of Style – I used it in college and have purchased many updates to it!! It sits right next to my keyboard for quick reference. My point was not to let a comma or other punctuation stop you from posting to your blog.
Bloggers can greatly improve their punctuation, grammar, and writing style by spending just a few hours learning the craft.
HI I really enjoy your posts, I look for everything I can to enprove my blog and business, I never thought of imaging the person that I am writing to, or visitor thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.
Thank you Kevin. Imagining the person you are writing too is an old copywriting strategy. It works equally well in writing your blog posts.
Cathy