Whenever I stumble on a new blog, I can usually tell right away. Many of the posts are written with a ton of content and are edited to read like a book. I don’t think this is bad, but you can tell these people are searching for their voice. I’m not infallible. I’m constantly still trying to find my voice, especially when I am starting a new project and finding a new audience.
The first blog project I started was in a very obscure niche. I go back and read those first several posts, and I can read the struggle I had trying to find my voice. After a while, I began knowing my audience better and feeling more comfortable writing to them, and my writing reflected it.
I think there is a certain amount of art that gets infused in writing on your blog. That is a part of blogging. Blogs are part entertainment and part education. If every blog post were meant to be nothing but education, we’d just call it a wiki page and fill it with bulleted facts.No, a blog needs a voice and a personality. So, here are some things I infuse into my writing to help myself find a voice.
Blog writing tips #1; Write every day, post consistently
Writing every day is probably the toughest on the list, especially if you are blogging part-time. Everybody gives this advice, but it is true. The more you write, the more fluid and more natural it will become over time. Your writing will get better, you’ll get faster, and you will find your voice faster. By the way, I should take the time to define what I believe your voice is. I think the voice of a blog is the writer’s personality injected into the writing.
I have several blogs I read regularly and the ones I like best don’t always have cutting-edge information, but I enjoy reading them because the personality injected into their writing keeps me coming back. That is what I mean about your voice. Consistent writing will help you find that voice. When you find that voice, you will begin to find consistent readers who continue to come back.
Blog writing tips #2; Write as though you are talking to a friend
Writing as though you are talking to a friend is another one I hear all too often. But, you know what, again it’s true. This is why I occasionally fracture a grammar rule or break it off completely. This is how I talk to friends. I do clean some of it up, so it sounds smooth. But, if you’ve ever really studied someone speaking in a conversation, it’s filled with bad punctuation and sentence fragments; stuff which would make your high school English teacher hit the roof.
A very popular copywriter always advised, to write as if you were sitting across the bar from someone having a beer. I think he needs to quantify that as only having one beer because, after two or three, things might start getting a little slurred. After a bunch, it will probably get downright incoherent.
Blog writing tips #3; Inject your personality
Don’t forget to inject your personality. If you have friends, I think we all do, your friends like you probably for your personality. Do you want more friends or readers, to inject that same personality into your blog? I’ve heard advice not to use comedy in your writing. I’m not sure that advice is entirely true.
I would recommend any comic relief you inject into your writing be in good taste. Remember to have empathy in your writing. Everyone is in a little different situation, and not all comedy is relevant to everyone. I use this rule of thumb.
If it’s a little comic relief my mom would chuckle at, I feel ok using it in my writing. Other than that little bit of caution, let your personality roll. You’ll know it when you hit your limit. Flirt with that edge of injecting your personality. In there is where you will find your voice.
Blog writing tips #4; No one’s perfect; talk about your failures as well as your success
No one is perfect. I think we all know this. Be honest with your readership and tell them about your failures as well as your success stories. If you don’t write about your failures as well as your success stories, it doesn’t come off as honest. I think readers will pick up on that.
Being transparent with your readers will help you build trust with them and help you find your voice faster. I see it happening like this. If you continue to write around your flaws, sometimes it will be tough for you to honestly tell them about events or success stories in your life.
You will need to discuss what led you to discover those successes. We all know failure can build to success. In some cases, your readers will appreciate and learn more from you by hearing of your failures.
Blogging is all about helping or entertaining your readers. Being transparent about your successes and failures is a part of finding your voice.
Blog writing tips #5; Admit it, you don’t know everything
I know we all want to build our authority in the blogosphere, but, we need to admit it, we don’t know everything. It’s ok not to know everything. It shows we are always searching and looking for more. I read blogs of people whose every post claims to know everything about a particular topic as being very limiting. I often wonder if these people believe that or if that is just how they write.
I like to bring the fact that I don’t know everything into my writing. It shows I’m still searching. I’ve always taken the position that we never stop searching. To keep growing as people, we need to keep looking for something better and a different way of doing things.
Anybody who claimed to have the final answer on SEO back in 2010 was probably hung out to dry with all the changes in recent years. I think this goes for every topic. I’ve read a ton of articles that say everything you write needs to be perfectly edited and polished to perfection.
Yet, I see a ton of people making a ton of money who have a ton of readers breaking the rules. I do believe you need to make your best effort at making your content as clean and readable as possible, but sometimes a comma or a misspelling may slip past.
I am sorry for any mistakes you might find in my writing. I’m still learning. I’m bad at putting a preposition at the end of a sentence. I do that a lot. But, people who know me and read what I write, tell me it’s just like talking to them face to face. It’s part of my flaws and it’s part of me not knowing everything.
I concentrate more on finding my voice and connecting with a reader who wants to hear what I have to say. The faster you find your voice, the less time it will take to get your blog cranking. I think you can lure readers in with great headlines and excellent promises, but to keep them coming back and becoming consistent readers will be your personality and the voice of your blog.
The biggest asset on your blog is not your email list. Your biggest asset is being able to connect with your readers. The internet moves too fast for me to keep updating old posts with new information. So, the best way for me to do it is on my email list. If you’d like to sign up for my email list, I have several places on the site to make that happen.
Be safe,
Kevin