The biggest mistake business bloggers make is that they are frequently ego-centric. This isn’t necessarily all bad, it simply doesn’t bring the blogging results that smart professionals expect.
Bloggers are so passionate about their message and their expertise, they preach. They shout. They proclaim. They implore. They explain. They document and support their logic.
But they forget about that old background tune that repeats in the head of all readers: “What’s in it for me?” Bloggers assume that their readers are like them and interested in the same things.
How to Avoid Bad Blogging
If you want good advice, refer to the classics. There’s no better style writing advice than The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B.White. Here are 10 tips that adapt Strunk and White’s advice to blog writing (the first 8 are from Dean Rieck over on Copyblogger and is titled The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide):
- Put the reader first
- Organize your thoughts
- Use short paragraphs
- Use short sentences
- Use simple words
- Be specific
- Write in a conversational style
- Be clear
If you’re not keeping your eyes and ears open to what your readers want, then forget writing short, specific, clear, conversational blog posts. Readers probably left you at ‘hello.’
If you’re not engaging your readers to give you feedback, comments, and poll responses, you probably don’t really know what they want.
You can’t engage your readers without talking to them personally. Yes, I know, this may seem odd because a blog is published on the Internet and open to be read by the great unknown. But you can at least use the pronouns “you” and “I” and write like you would if they were there in the room with you.
So I’m adding a couple of writing keys I think are also essential for good business blog writing:
10. Use bulleted lists to make your points easily grasped by scanners
What do you think? What is the biggest mistake you’ve seen in a blog? How do you avoid it? Leave me a reply, I’d love to hear from you.
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