Make Money Blogging » Blog Writing

5 Ways To Become A Better Writer

Gary Malhi — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:56:02 +0000

This is a guest post by Leighann

Obviously, if you’re going to have a blog it involves a lot of writing. There will be days when you will enjoy it, and days when it annoys the crap out of you.

But with some hard work and genuine effort, you can have an informative, interesting blog that will bring people in and even make you a little money. These are some simple steps you can take right now to improve your writing and blog your way to success.

1. Keep an ideas notebook with you at all times

You never know when inspiration will strike, and if you don’t write down your idea right away, you may forget and that means missing the best blog post you’ve ever written. I have a small “fat book” spiral notebook with a little pencil tied on with fishing line I take with me everywhere. With my travels, I never know what I’m going to see, and almost anything can inspire me, from a song, a book, a movie, a person, or a scene in a store. My ideas book is like an artist’s sketchbook. I jot down my impressions and daydreams. Some things are worthy of a blog post, some just end up being reveries and records of the day for me.

2. Don’t be afraid to make a statement

Warmed over leftovers are never very appetizing. No one wants to read the same opinions over and over again. Have a personality and speak your mind. If you have a strong opinion about something, you should write about it. Don’t be wishy-washy. Writing is a powerful medium that can change the world. Don’t play with it.

3. Use good style

If your writing is full of spelling and grammar mistakes, or you use the same words over and over again, it distracts from your message. Remember that you’re writing a professional blog post for your website, not a text send to your friends. Don’t use abbreviations and limit the “LOLs” and emoticons to the bare minimum. To avoid using the same words too often (and increase the amount of keywords in your text for search engines to find) use a thesaurus. There are cheap ones on Amazon.com or at the secondhand store. Or you can use the free online thesaurus at http://thesaurus.reference.com . I overuse the word “amazing” and I’ve found lots of synonyms (fantastic, stupendous, exciting, neat, incredible) that mix things up and convey my message in a much clearer manner. Be sure to proof read your articles before posting them, and if you can, ask a friend to give you a free edit. If anything is misspelled or unclear, they should catch it.

4. Read other writers

Blogs, books, magazines and newspapers can give you examples of good writing and inspiration for your own blog. If you read about an idea you like or if a phrase or word jumps out at you, write it in your ideas book. Of course, the first commandment of good writing is “Thou shalt not plagiarize”! The idea is not copying other people, but learning from their style and wording to improve your own work.

5. Lead an Interesting Life

No one wants to read about how you play World of Warcraft and eat Cheetos all day. Ok, maybe a few, but it’s a tiny niche. Talk to interesting people, work on interesting hobbies, go interesting places. Eat interesting food! Do stuff that is interesting that’s the key to interesting blogs.

Leighann is a 28 year old blogger, mother, wife, WWOOFer, cook, gardener, gamer and ex-Southerner who has lived in many interesting places. To learn more about her, visit The News Base.

6 Ways To Hit Back From A Writer’s Block

Gary Malhi — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:33:07 +0000

Like it or not, but we all have struggled coming up with decent content on some particular days. To be honest I sometimes just spend countless minutes just staring at the screen thinking of how to continue a post.

Sometimes when I’ve thought of a great post and start writing I think yes all is going well, but then BOOM…I just totally forget what I was going to write about and just have a mind block.

Recognize the same problem with you as well?

After getting a blank mind, most bloggers find it very difficult to pick up and continue writing their post. They mostly just sit there and glaze at the screen, thinking of what they were about to say or brainstorm about what they’re going to say. Well, I can most certainly say that that mostly doesn’t help. When getting a writer’s block I suggest you should focus your mind on something else. Just chill out or take a little break.

Here are 10 ways on how to overcome a writer’s block.

1. Watch Tv

Watching TV is a good option when you get a writer’s block. By watching TV you can get ideas and thoughts for your blog. Maybe you’ll think of a new topic to blog about by watching a good TV show or commercial. Main objective is that you just focus your mind on something else.

2. Take a Nap

Sometimes it’s good to just take a nap in a peaceful environment. Taking a nap restores your brain and refreshes your brain. Mostly you’ll get a writer’s block when your exhausted and in need for a rest. So go and take a nap.

3. Read Other Blogs

Go and read other similar blogs in your niche. When you read other blogs it will give you new ideas and you will gain a wider knowledge on the topic your covering. There’s even a possibility that you’ll think of a quality topic that you’ll write about on your blog. If you read other blogs there’s also a good chance that you’ll find a source of inspiration when reading. It can mean that you feel motivated and start writing again.

Try to overcome your writer’s block by getting inspired and motivated.

4. Get a Snack

There’s nothing nicer than taking a snack. Eat something you like and you’ll be on your way back to writing. Another possibility is drinking coffee or cappuccino. It will give you a short energy boost as it contains caffeine.

5. Listen to Music

When you have trouble getting the right content a good suggestion is to listen to music. It helps you relax. Hopefully you can move with the flow and get ideas to get you back on track.

Chill out and clear your mind.

6. Keep a Own Made Reference

This is extremely useful. Whenever you think of a good idea or your brain starts sparking up with good topics, you can write it down in your notebook. This is a good and handy method, because if you get a writer’s block, you can look it up in your notebook to see the keywords or ideas you’ve written. I also use this method and use it as my very own personal reference.

There’s nothing better than your own made reference.

As you can see there are many solutions when having a writer’s block.

Any suggestions guys?

You Have To Stand Out From The Crowd To Be Successful

Gary Malhi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:45:19 +0000

When you visit an blog, what are the first things you do? You decide if the blog stands out from other blogs, right?

In order to make a blog successful you need to offer your audience different kinds of content. When a unique visitor comes to your blog for the first time, you will need to make your blog stand out from other blogs, so he will remember your blog. You will need to sell yourself to your audience and show them that your blog isn’t just another one of those MMO blogs. By thinking outside the box and having good content on your blog it won´t take long before your blog will be recognized.

So what are the things you could do to stand out from the crowd?

2. Do the same, But Better

When you look at all the popular bloggers, you ask yourself, what are they doing right, that I ain’t doing? First of all, all of them are doing the same things, but doing it better or different. This means writing the same related content, but in a different style. The key to success is try, try, and keep on trying and eventually you will be rewarded for all your hard work.

2. Be Unique and don’t Pretend

You heard me right, you have to be unique and be yourself. Don’t pretend to be some rich blogger, when in reality you’re actually not. Also don’t try to copy the same writing style or same structure and posts of some popular blog only because its a successful blog. Instead build yourself a solid reputation and try to get in the same position your own way.

To be honest, when you look at the other dozens of blog, they all look similar don’t they? They all have the same features, don’t they? So what really makes them stand out?

The only conclusion I can really think of, is that people make their blog stand out by having different content, as they say content is king.

How do you make your blog stand out from the crowd?

No related posts.

How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

Gary Malhi — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:09:46 +0000

The long old debate of how long a blog post should be, eh?

There are no limits on how long your blog posts can be, varying from 100 words to 500 words and sometimes even 1000 words.

Bloggers have the power to write long or short posts now days. If you feel like writing long posts you can do it’s all up to you or if you feel like writing short posts you can do that to.

Most bloggers do feel that long posts are better than short posts, because they have more information in the posts, but that doesn’t always have to be true.

Here are some ways to look at this situation.

1. Reader Attention Span

It is well known that most web readers have a very short attention span when reading posts. Most visitors like to scan your content and not fully read your content in detail. They rather prefer short posts that are quality rather than long posts.

When I’m visiting a blog I mostly always scan the content first and if the content is eye catching I will read the full post.

2. Time is money

Everyone wants as much time to do the things they love, right? You could be going out, watching TV, going to work, doing personal stuff. By writing short posts you save time to do other things you like as it will take you less time than writing long posts.

Reader’s also don’t have all the time in the world. Maybe there in a hurry, but still want to read a quick short blog post before they go to work.

3. Quantity of posts

This is the most important aspect of a blog, because you need to find the right time on when to post the right content. You will need to learn not to post everything in 1 post, but instead spread your content and posts. Until you start getting some decent traffic or regular readers try keeping your best and in depth post for later.

When writing short posts it allows you to generally write more posts and write more often on your blog. Because the posts aren’t so long you still have ideas left and can use those ideas to write some new posts.

When you write longer posts, you always give out as much information possible to the readers, don’t forget that you can run out of ideas, because you’ve already told them everything you wanted to say.

Conclusion

I always prefer to write posts that have minimum 250 words. I’m not picking any side as i personally feel that long and short posts have their own benefits. You will need to find out what works best for you.Whether it’s a 100 word post or 500 word post. always make sure the content is useful for the reader.

So guys, how long are your blog post?

How To Continue Writing Great Popular Posts

Gary Malhi — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:08:36 +0000

How do I write popular posts? Why can’t I write popular posts?

Popular posts are your blogs main attention and most important content on your blog. The first thing most visitors do when visiting a blog is look at the most popular posts. If they like the content they will check other posts as well, if they don’t they will leave.

If only you could make every post a success and attract lots of visitors and comments on your blog for every post you published.

Lets just say you was in this situation:

You write a post for your blog in the evening, you test read it for any grammar mistakes and after your satisfied you publish it. After publishing you want to have a break after all the hard work and start watching TV. Eventually you feel very tired and go off to sleep.

The next morning you wake up and check out you blog and to your surprise you receive 10 comments in 10 hours and get double traffic to that post you’ve made.

You are obviously over the moon and start dancing because you’ve just realized that you’ve just written your most popular post.Before going to sleep again the next day you somehow get the inspiration to write another post. Hoping to be just as successful as your previous post. So there you are writing another post in 10 minutes and publishing it and then go to sleep.

You wake up the next morning and look at your blog post and realize it wasn’t a big success, in fact it was the crappiest post on your blog so far.

So what did I do wrong………?

Well, I’ll tell you what you did wrong. You didn’t take the effort or time to write a good post again. Instead of taking 1 hour to write a good useful post you took 10 minutes to quickly write a post and let it become a success, because your previous post was such a success you thought this post was going to be a success as well, but don’t forget you took the time and effort to write that 1 hour post and for this post you just quickly raffled it.

How can I solve this problem?

Almost every blog has a most popular posts section, so what you could do is look at your own popular posts and ask yourself these questions.

Is the writing style attractive?
Does it have many comments?
Have many visitors bookmarked the post?
Does it bring in lots of traffic?

If your answer is yes to all these questions, then follow these steps

Write similar posts with a related topic. Try writing a similar post as your popular post, because many people liked your previous popular post there’s a nice chance they will like your related post as well

Follow up your posts by making series like part 1, 2, 3. Just like in television series or episodes, the producers like to keep it interesting and decide to cut the series in episodes, so people will continue coming back and watching the show.

Write posts with more in depth information. Once you’ve written a popular post you can always create a follow up post and talk about the topic by providing extra information.

So how do you try to keep writing popular post?

Good luck writing popular posts!

How Long Should A Blog Post Be?