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Why Being a Better Writer Affects the Performance of your Blog

Posted: 26 Jun 2008 09:01 PM CDT

Amrit Hallan from Content Blog writes today about how improving your writing can improve the performance of your blog - Image by The Trial.

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.

Five Types of Obsessed Bloggers

Let me share five common scenarios that I see:

1. The Design Maniac - perhaps one of the most common examples of this is the blogger who becomes so obsessed about how their blog looks that they do little else but tweak it visually by playing with their CSS, touching up logos, trying different layouts, testing new menus and navigation….

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of this - but if it’s all you do when are you going to write content, do some networking and moderate comments?

2. The SEO(bsessed) - I went through a phase where I became obsessed by Search Engine Optimization. Symptoms of this disorder include writing for Search Engines instead of human beings (you know, posts with the same keywords 400 times, all bolded and in heading tags), spending more time tweaking your templates more than you spend time writing content, making every post you write link to your ‘make money online’ page which is filled with affiliate links, checking your page rank every morning before you moderate your comments and sending out hundreds of emails to other bloggers you’ve never heard of before asking them to link to your post….

OK - again, SEO isn’t evil, Search Engines can actually be a rich source of traffic for your blog - however SEO is also enhanced by quality content, well coded sites and the best sites rank well in SE’s because they get linked to for their quality.

3. The Social Media Sell Out - this is something most bloggers go through at one stage or another too. They hear about the masses of traffic that a site like Digg or StumbleUpon can send and they write post after post specifically with the hope of getting on the front page of social bookmarking sites.

You know the posts I’m talking about - 419 Stupid Britney Spears Quotes, 10 Ways to Skin a Cat…. Really!, Ron Paul (insert anything here)….

These types of posts can draw a lot of traffic to your blog, the problem is that it can be a rather empty experience if you’ve not worked on your blog’s design and worked out how to keep the readers. It can also frustrate your regular readers who are wanting posts of substance. Lastly the traffic can be quite destructive (both to your servers and the comment areas on your posts - particularly if you draw 10,000 angry little Digg users into your blog). Sure - write some posts and experiment with social media, but don’t get obsessed.

4. The Money Hungry Blogger - There’s nothing wrong with monetizing your blog but if someone arrives at your blog and there is NOTHING but ads above the fold of your blog you might want to have a think about the first impression you’re creating.

If every post you write contains an affiliate link or is a paid review, welcomes another sponsor, calls for new sponsors or launches your latest ebook - then you also might want to consider the reputation that you’re creating for yourself as a blogger.

5. The Stat-a-holic - if you wake up in the morning and before you have a coffee, head to the bathroom, kiss your wife or pick up your screaming baby from his cot…. you’ve just got to check your blog’s stats - YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM!

Once again, most bloggers go through a stage when they start out when they seem to check their blog’s stats more times a day than pretty much doing anything else - but for some bloggers they never grow out of it. They spend hour after hour not only checking visitor numbers but have a daily process of checking where every reader arrived from, how many pages they viewed, what links they clicked, how long they took on each page and where they headed to after leaving.

Knowing how people use your blog is good - but…. if you spend more time checking stats then anything else you’ll notice one big stat - no one comes back because you’re not putting enough time into writing content!

The List Could Go On

I could go on describing bloggers who obsess over promoting their blog, networking, building reader community, writing on only one aspect of your niche, exploring new blog tools etc - but you get the picture.

This stuff is all good - but you’ve got to keep some balance!

Tips for Single Minded Bloggers

Do a Time Audit - Take some time out today and think about how you use your time when it comes to blogging. Where is the majority of your time going? List all the tasks in the order that you put time in and ask yourself - am I in danger of obsessing over any one of them? What am I ignoring that I should be doing more of?

Once you know where (if) you’re out of balance it’s time to do something about it.

Give Yourself a Schedule - One thing that I did in the early days of blogging was to set myself a schedule. At the time I was working two jobs and studying part time so only had a couple of hours a day so my schedule included a little time in the mornings for checking emails, an hour before leaving for work to write a post or two and then in the evenings I devoted my time to networking, email and moderating comments. Once a week I also put an hour aside for some SEO and once a month I’d put aside time for design.

Create a Points System - Another system that some bloggers use is to create a ‘points system‘ where they give themselves different ‘points’ for achieving certain goals on their blog.

Get Feedback from Others - I’d also recommend asking someone else for their feedback on this. Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted on one aspect of your blog without realizing it. Ask another blogger or a trusted reader or two for honest feedback on how they think you’re going. You might be surprised with what they come back with.