Writing a blog can be a simple, enjoyable, and profitable adventure. Here are some of the best blog writing tips I’ve discovered while building the #1 blog in my niche over the past five years…
If possible, write about something you know and understand well. When it comes to blogs, there’s a lot of noise out there. Meaning there are a zillion blogs, all competing for the same people’s attention. But the good news for you is that most of them are just noise. Meaning, they give weak, generic information.
Most are just copying other people’s blog posts, just changing the words around here and there (and some don’t even put that amount of effort in). This is where it pays to write about something you know and understand well…
If you decide to write about something you don’t know much about, you basically have no choice but to copy what others are doing. When you write about something you know well, you can discuss original thoughts that others aren’t discussing. This helps you stand out.
If you aren’t an expert at anything, do this instead... This is an exception to tip #3: If you don’t feel like you know anything well enough to have your own individual perspective on it, that’s okay you can make up for that by learning about the thing you want to write about. And you don’t necessarily need to wait years to become an expert — it may sound weird but you can be a beginner and an expert at the same time.
For example, I’ve spent the past couple of months learning how to play the guitar. While I’m obviously not an expert on the subject, I am an expert on being at the stage I’m at right now!
I can probably teach someone the basics of guitar as well as any expert, and maybe better when you consider that it’s been many years since an expert had to learn guitar, whereas I’m doing it right now. So feel free to dive into something and then write about it. We all have to start somewhere.
Read your competitors’ blogs (but not for the reason you might think). Remember when I said most bloggers are all just copying each other, and repackaging the same old content in slightly different words? Well, let them do that, because you’re going to do something different.
Instead of reading related blogs to find content to steal, you’re going to do the opposite: You’ll read your competitors’ blogs to find out what they aren’t doing. What information are they failing to cover? Did they write an article that’s boring but dry, on a topic you could make much more interesting (perhaps by including a personal story)?
Do you have a unique perspective on a topic that no one else has covered? For example, when I read other freelancers’ blogs, I noticed that many of them (for some weird reason) advised against using freelancing sites (e.g. Upwork, Guru, Fiverr, etc) to get clients. So I wrote a post about how I’d earned over $100,000 on Upwork in just 12 months. This was totally different from anything else out there, helping me stand out and get lots of attention and readers.
Teach people something useful. Some people treat their blog like a public diary — again that can be interesting but it doesn’t set you up for success. To understand why, think about a “diary” blog vs. a blog that teaches people something useful…
When you teach people something useful they will place a very high value on you, and the information you’re sharing on your blog. When they value you highly they’ll keep coming back, sharing your content with their friends, and helping you grow your blog’s popularity.
Simplify something complicated. One of the best ways to teach people something useful is to take something complicated, and make it simple. See the thing is, there are a lot of good blogs out there that are written by experts, but experts tend to make things complicated, whereas most blog readers are looking for simplified answers to their questions/issues/challenges.
For example, one of my most popular blog posts is called How to Become a Copywriter Quickly with No Experience, No Portfolio, and No Degree. I wrote that post because I saw that other bloggers were offering difficult, complicated, ambiguous, and time consuming paths to becoming a copywriter — whereas I came up with a much simpler solution. The hundreds of comments at the bottom of the post echo that my theory was 100% correct.
Stick to one topic per post. This is related to the idea of keeping things simple. Remember, it can be tempting to try to cram everything you know into each post, especially if you have a lot of knowledge on a subject and are eager to teach people something about it. But there is such a thing as packing a post with too much information.
For example, I once wrote a post called 5 surprising truths about how to charge — and get — what you’re worth. There’s a ton I could have written around this subject, but I stuck to the title and kept it tight. People loved it. On the other hand, adding too much information to the post could have made it long and rambling, and no one likes reading someone else’s rambling.
Include screenshots/images when possible. Adding images to your blog is an easy and free way to add flair and depth to your posts. They also break up the text, making it easier to read the longer posts. My blog posts generally contain plenty of screenshots and images, and I don’t even have to pay for the images because I get them for free from flickr Creative Commons.
Do simple keyword research. One of the best ways to get people to read your blog is to write articles that match what people are already googling (words people type into google are known as keywords, or keyword search phrases).
For example, if you google “best copywriting books”, the first search result you’ll see is a blog post I wrote that perfectly matches that topic. Now, how did I know people were using that keyword search phrase? I figured it out using this simple keyword research tool. Tools like this are easy to use, and can give you hundreds of ideas for topics that directly match what people are searching for, boosting your blog’s visibility.
Tell stories. Sharing your knowledge through blog posts is great, but it’s even better if you can mix in stories. People love stories. They’re entertaining, and they make your blog content more impactful, more memorable, and more engaging — stories just have a way of drawing people in in a way that dry facts alone can’t do.
You can tell short stories, like I did here. Or you can tell longer stories, like this post where I discuss 5 times I quit my job. You can even use mini-stories as introductions to teaching posts, as I did in this post.
Include helpful links. Did you notice that I’ve included links to tools, resources, and examples that add usefulness and depth to this post? Chances are you did notice, and I’m guessing you found them helpful as well. This is an easy way to make your posts 10x better, without doing any extra work.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Many people obsess over small details, like how long their posts should be, how often they should write, how to promote their posts on social media, how to write the perfect headline, and so on.
I don’t think too much about any of those things. I’ve written long posts, short posts, and medium posts; I’ve written consistently at times, sporadically at other times; and I don’t do any fancy promotion. I simply focus on writing great content people love, and let the chips fall where they may. Because my content is solid, the chips always fall in all the right places!
Just write. If you’ve followed some of the tips above, and still aren’t sure what to write, just start writing. Don’t worry about whether or not you have something interesting to say, exactly what topic you should be writing about, or any of those things — just write something!
Why? Because the act of writing itself will help you clarify your thoughts. I threw away my first dozen or so posts (maybe more), because I didn’t think they were interesting, and half of them were so unfocused that I barely knew what I was trying to say at all. But, by going down that path, I was able to clarify what I wanted to say, come up with more interesting ideas, and so on. Just give yourself permission to write, without judging it
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