9/9/2009
Business Blog Writing Tips for Non Writers
Advice for Blog Post Writing
To thine own blog be true
You don’t have to be William Shakespeare to be an effective blogger. In social media, content counts more than style, originality and passion count more than vocabulary and grammar. That said, a business blog will be held to a higher standard than other types of blogs. After all, you are a business, and business people are expected to be effective and schooled communicators. If you’re new to writing blogs or an inexperienced writer, these blog writing tips should help. (Note to readers – blog post headlines and subheads are topics unto themselves, which I will cover separately.)
Preparing to Write Your Blog Post
- Select your topic carefully. What are your readers curious to know more about?
- Settle on an angle. What new perspective can you bring to the topic?
- Have a point. Nothing is more frustrating than a rambling post. Better to have one point than two or three. A blog post should be more like a shot of espresso than a trip to the salad bar.
- Construct an outline. Since your post has a point, start at the end and work backwards. What facts, examples, or opinions support your point? Jot them down – it’ll make the writing go faster.
Writing Your Blog Post – Style
- Be conversational. I like to write as if I’m writing a letter or email to a specific person who is representative of my readers (sometimes called a persona). Avoid writing in the third person – it makes one sound stuffy and pompous.
- Invite participation. Blog posts are not essays. You needn’t wrap every post into an airtight conclusion. Ending with a question or by asking for a reaction is perfectly acceptable and will foster dialog.
- Avoid big, fancy words. Howard Cosell and William F. Buckley made careers out of showing off their vocabularies, but we’re not them. Keep it simple so readers can grasp your point quickly and easily. Most blog readers are reading in a hurry.
- Avoid jargon, acronyms, and adspeak. The blogosphere values straight talk. One of the worst mistakes you can make is sounding like a corporate tool.
- Keep sentences short. Avoid complex sentence structure. If you need to communicate a complicated set of ideas, use bullet points.
Writing Your Blog Post – Typography
(Making Your Text Easy to Read)
- Use bullet points to list examples and connected ideas. Not too many though – 10 or more bullet points may overwhelm readers.
- Use a dash instead of a colon or semicolon.
- Use a font size large enough for your readers to see clearly. This becomes a serious issue for blogs aimed at the over 40 set.
- Don’t underline text – readers will mistake it for a hyperlink.
- Use ALT tags and image titles so folks who can’t view your images have an idea of what they represent. (This technique also helps with search engine optimization, or SEO.
- Don’t use too many font sizes and colors – too distracting.
- Don’t overuse bold and italics – also distracting, and italic text is especially difficult to read on a computer monitor.
- Keep paragraphs short. Five lines or less is a good rule of thumb.
- Keep lines of text reasonable narrow. Wide lines of text are difficult to read on a web page.
Resources and Tools
- The Associated Press Stylebook. Contains best practices for punctuation, abbreviations, and usage. Complete sections for business and sports guidelines. Compact, to the point.
- The Chicago Manual of Style. Far more detailed than the AP Stylebook, the CMS contains a wealth of detailed information on grammar, punctuation, usage, and attribution of cited references. If you can’t find the answer to your writing question in here, you’re probably asking the wrong question.
- The Free Dictionary. I’ve tried every online dictionary under the sun and this is my favorite. It gives you a one-screen summary of spelling(s), definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and literary citations. A very handy tool.
- Roget’s International Thesaurus. If you need a word to distinguish subtle shades of meaning, there’s still no substitute for Roget in printed form.
- Flesch-Kincaid readiblity test. After your post is written, plug it into this test to see the comprehension difficulty of your content, expressed in grade level. (If you use Google Docs, this test can be applied directly to your document by selecting Tools, then Word Count.)
- Gobbledygook Grader. Plug your content in here to determine how much jargon and fluff your writing contains. Since businesses tend to get caught up in corporate speak, you’ll find this tool especially helpful.
Bottom line – Blog writing isn’t rocket science, but knowing the basics will make your blog take off.
Over to You
Any blog writing tips to add? I know we have a lot of writers who read Word Sell, so it will be interested to see where people agree and disagree!
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13 Responses to Business Blog Writing Tips for Non Writers
Excellent blue-print you’ve created here Brad!
Personally, when I’m brainstorming on new posts to write, I start with the headline first and build on the idea from there. This is very helpful for me!
Other times, I’ll take a quote and expand on the message in the quote.
Brad, excellent tips, superbly presented.
I’ve just made a list of five takeaways to implement immediately. Love your point about font size and image titles.
Thankyou,
Robin
Hi Ricardo, Robin – Thanks for the feedback and ideas. There are so many ways to write – starting with the headline is one approach I’d like to try.
Love the resources – the Book of Style is a definite keeper.
How clever of you, Brad, to illustrate your points with a post that itself follows all your tips. Not sure I can add much to this list, but here are some random thoughts:
Re: Preparation. To extend your metaphor, I’d say take a trip to the salad bar, but when you get back to your table, separate the ingredients. I’ve often found that, having started to write a post that’s become a bit rambling, I’ve been able to turn it into two or three posts – and ended up with a whole series. A long, rambling post is a waste of ideas that likely won’t get read – but it’s also an opportunity for great content ideas!
Re: Style. As you know, a clear, readable style is one of my obsessions (or, rather, slagging off a turgid, impenetrable style is one of my obsessions). So yes, yes, and thrice yes to all your points there. I’m a particular fan of the dash, as was one of my professors (at Cambridge, no less). Colons and semicolons have their uses but to me they have a smug whiff of Lynne Truss about them when used by people who know how to use them, and a distinct whiff of illiteracy in those who don’t (which I realise probably makes me sound a bit like Lynne Truss).
A word of warning, though, on your point 4. To an English audience, the phrase “corporate tool” possibly has connotations that you didn’t intend (though admittedly amusing and somewhat apt).
Re: Typography. As someone who this year a) turned 40, and b) succumbed to reading glasses, I feel as though point 3 was written especially for me. Does bodily decay really work to such a predictable timetable?
Re: Resources and Tools. Great list – can’t wait to try the Gobbledygook Grader on my clients’ raw copy!
Good points, Brad. Also, had not visited Word Sell for a few days, so had not seen the fresh, new layout. Well done!
Something to clarify under Typography, point # 9 -
“Keep post margins reasonable narrow.Wide lines of text are difficult to read.”
I believe you are suggesting that text columns should be kept at a reasonable width, meaning margins can be a bit wider – but I may have it wrong!
Your post got me thinking about blogging’s relationship to journalism. I never studied journalism directly, but do remember something about putting your most important points and information first since editors might chop parts off the end or readers might just be scanning. We don’t have editors on most blogs, but readers do scan, so this tip for journalists might be useful for bloggers too.
Thanks for another great post.
Barbara, The Manual of Style is the most comprehensive grammar and style guide I’ve found. And, it doubles nicely as a doorstop!
Clare, Thanks for your additional tips – they are all marvelous and spot on. I’m relieved to learn that dashes are acceptable at Cambridge. Case closed on that one! Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t colons and semicolons much more in vogue in the 19th and early 20th centuries? When people still understood the rules of grammar? And yes, I know all about that corporate tool stuff.
Bill, Hey, welcome back! I appreciate the feedback on the site. Jesse Petersen did a fantastic job. You are absolutely correct about the margins – it’s the text column you want to keep reasonably narrow. I will have to go back and correct that – thanks for keeping my on my toes.
Another resource to consider/perhaps add to your list – “Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors”. While I have only read reviews and not checked out the actual resource, do know that Bill Bryson is a very gifted writer on a number of topics.
Hi Terry, You bring up another great point. Actually, I’ve got an upcoming post in this series where I talk about some of these style issues in more depth, including the one you bring up and one of Clare’s. “Burying the lead” is never a good practice for informational writing, whether in newspapers, blogs, or regular web pages.
Bill, Bryson’s “Dictionary” probably is great, judging by other things of his I’ve read. Many Word Sell readers swear by him, and as you say, he writes brilliantly.
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