Blogs are to websites as fresh ingredients are to a gourmet meal. You might have a terrific headline to pull in potential readers, but unless you can deliver the content, they won’t stick around. Blogs are a marketing tool and the best blogs shouldn’t seem like they are making the hard sell. You have to walk that fine line between being engaging and providing a call to action that can generate a sale. Here are three tips to help you write fantastic blog articles:
Provoke an Emotional Response
People respond to feelings more than rationality. You can tell someone that the vacuum cleaner you’re reviewing is the best appliance on the market and it might be. However, that is not really pulling them into your story. Yes, you can make a blog about a vacuum cleaner or just about any other topic into an emotional journey. This doesn’t mean you need to get your readers to cry. You just want them to be drawn into what you’re writing about.
Research shows appealing to pride, love, achievement, man’s empathy, friendships, loneliness or memories perform best. Your vacuum cleaner blog can relate a story of the night you were meeting your future in-laws for the first time and just before they arrived you spilled crackers all over the carpet. You can figure out what happens next.
Write in the Correct Style
There are many different types of writing as it applies to blog writing. It starts with establishing the perspective. Are you going to be writing in the first-person, second-person or third-person point of view? Most blogs opt for the second-person point of view. That allows you to talk directly to your reader as this sentence just did.
You also want to make a blog visually appealing. Bullet lists and one- or two-sentence paragraphs are ideal for online formats. That allows a reader to “drop into” your blog, glean the information you want conveyed and then move on to the next item on their agenda. You don’t ever want a blog to feel like homework.
Proofread
Before hitting the upload button on your blog, you want to make sure you’ve proofread it at least twice. Proofreading starts with making sure you’re spelling words correctly and using proper grammar. It also allows you to improve the clarity of your writing. You can remove excess words and phrases to help make your point. Additionally, a blog without any mistakes will increase your credibility.
Blogging is a form of communication that can literally last forever. Once the blog is uploaded, it can travel the world in an instant. What you say can matter to a lot of people, even if you’re selling vacuum cleaners.
If you need help editing or publishing any of your work, then let Red Writing Hood Ink help!