If your business is using content marketing and SEO strategies, then no doubt you’re blogging.  You should be.  An effective blog is great at earning trust and qualifying leads.  It’s an important top of funnel lead generation strategy that builds brand awareness and grows retargeting lists.

But most business blogs are duds.  The writing is stale.  There are too many buzzwords and not enough detail.  They read like something someone had to write, not something they thought was important to write.

This won’t do if you want your blog doing its job.  At the very least, you want someone who perused your blog to remember your brand.  Hopefully, you motivate them to sign up for email updates.  You’re trying to bias them so they know and trust you when they finally make a buying decision.  If you bore them to death, you’re not likely to achieve these goals.

Here are six blog writing tips that will help create a professional, engaging blog readers will appreciate.

 

Blog Writing Tip #1:  Make a Clear Point

A lot of business blogs run around in circles.  Our solution works because it’s great, and it’s great because it works.

But they don’t go in how their solution actually solves the problem, and often don’t even make the problem itself clear.  For example, I wanted to know how to use a CRM to track leads.  I found an article with this intro:

A common frustration for sales people and their managers alike is managing lead flow to ensure the prioritization of the best leads. Targeting opportunities for follow up to maximize success during the sales process is essential to sales success.  

Basically what this writer is saying is that the key to success is success.  Classic circular reasoning.

But he never goes into detail about how to use the “sales technology stack”.   He says if you’re “well versed in using CRM software” your sales will improve, but never explains what “well versed” actually means.

In other words, this article makes no point and doesn’t actually teach me anything.

Look at each of your blog articles and identify the main point.  Confirm that it answers readers’ main questions.

Without a clear main idea and strong supporting details, your blog will go in pointless circles.

 

Blog Writing Tip #2:  Cut Jargon and Buzzwords

Few problems kill a piece faster than overuse of jargon and buzzwords.  Business and medical blogs are notorious for this problem.

Inexperienced writers think jargon and buzzwords make them sound credible.  But all they do is dilute meaning and bore readers.

If you’ve ever researched retirement planning, you know what I mean.  The articles you find on how to plan for retirement are largely responsible for why so many people don’t plan for retirement.

So let’s take a look at a blog article that does work.  This article from The Minimalist avoids jargon entirely and really brings home why you should start saving:

Youth is wasted on the young. Often, money is, too.

Back in my corporate days, when I managed scores of retail stores and hundreds of employees, I stressed the importance of planning for retirement—as well as saving for future goals—with every person I hired. Before the start of their very first shift, I would sit down with each new team member and show them how to save for retirement without stress, worry, complexity, or pain. Within a few minutes, I could literally see the difference in their physiology as trepidation drained from their facial features and, after we spent 30 minutes examining their options, confidence began to take over once they realized planning for retirement is much simpler than they thought.

Remember that you’re not writing for fellow experts who understand your jargon.  You’re writing for a general audience who needs a simple explanation.

Buzzwords like “industry leading”, “solution driven”, and “best in class” just end up being filler that’s confusing, pointless, or both.

 

Blog Writing Tip #3:  Backup Your Claims

As a blogger, you probably don’t have an editor forcing to you to verify what you say and cite your sources.  So you need to take that job on yourself.

The problem you face is that online readers are savvy.  They can spot unverified claims, and when they do it erodes trust.  Avoid using statistics out of context, citing general sources, or unverifiable claims:

Recent studies have concluded that people on a Paleo diet can expect to live 20% longer.

Some clients who have used our solution have seen a 233% increase in sales.

You will retire rich if you simply follow these steps. 

Be careful about making any claim you can’t backup.  You may lose trust instead of earning it.

 

Blog Writing Tip #4:  Stop Talking About Yourself

When you start your blog, it’s easy to think that is should be about you.  After all, it’s your company, your services, your voice.

To be an effective blogger you need to drop your ego.  Realize that online readers don’t care at all about you.  They only care about solving their own problem and finding the information they need.

Your business blog is not a place to rehash your mission statement or delve into a sales pitch.  It’s a place to tap into the needs of prospective customers and help them find a solution.

Marcus Sheridan of River Pools became famous for his skill at using informational blogging to inform pool buyers and turn them into customers.  The intro to this blog immediately shows how he addresses their needs:

Ok, so you’ve finally decided this is the year for a swimming pool in your back yard. Great, because as I sit here at my kitchen table and consider the words for this article I want you to know this article is specifically written for you, the inground pool shopper.

Well-informed consumers make great customers.  Stop talking about yourself and start answering their questions.

 

Blog Writing Tip #5:  Find Your Voice

A lot of business blogs have the problem of being stilted.  In an effort to have a “professional” voice, they end up sounding forced and unnatural.

An easy way to solve this problem is to write more like you talk.  Use a loose, conversational tone.  Notice how much Marcus Sheridan sounds like he’s talking directly to you?

In some cases, you might want to go for the quirky or funny, like this blog about happiness from The Oatmeal:

But more often in the best business or service blogs, the voice is authentic.  You can really get a sense of the person behind the writing, like this blog entitled Why Immortality is Overrated:

But in my view, the crux of the problem is the wide mismatch between what people say they want (to die at home) and where they wind up (still dying mostly in hospitals and nursing homes). As a result too many American deaths are still overly medicalized, robbing us of our chance at a peaceful passage.

The best blogs express opinions, use natural language, and brim with authenticity.  Try reading your blog articles back aloud.  Does it sound like you?

 

Blog Writing Tip #6:  Get Your Grammar Right

If you get all these things right, you can still turn readers away with grammatical errors.  Remember, it’s hard to catch everything in your own work.  Get someone else to edit your piece to avoid common grammar errors.

Source: www.grammarcheck.net