7 tips for writing consistently brilliant blog posts
When you’re writing high volumes of content for a business, you have to be conscious of how you’re coming across. Is your content clunky? Samey? Confusing? Are you being noticed at all?
When it comes to the words themselves, consistency and flow are essential blog post qualities if you want eyes to stay on the page. But writing readable blog posts en masse is tricky, no doubt about it - and your time is valuable.
So how do you inject slick readibility into your blog posts and maintain that same quality time after time?
Read on for my best tips and advice for writing readable blog posts for your brand.
Develop, and stick to, a Tone of Voice
It’s surprising how often Tone of Voice lands at the bottom of the pile when it comes to branding. Having a character persona for your ‘brand personality’ is super important; after all, visuals set a first impression, but how you speak to someone is what keeps their attention and builds trust.
A key step is to develop a Tone of Voice document, which essentially outlines who your brand would be as a person.
Include a list of words they would and wouldn’t use, what their humour is like, and how you’d like them to connect with your audience. Is your voice chummy and familiar, like a local bar tender, or helpful and respectfully formal, like a butler?
Consistency is the key to a trustworthy brand voice, so be sure to refer to your Tone of Voice document regularly. Roll it out across your whole team, if you have one - especially those writing blog posts and other written content.
Champion good ideas
When pressure is on to get new blog posts out on the regular, the temptation ‘just get anything out there’ is high.
But trust me : Ideas. Are. Everything.
Write it on a post-it or your forehead to remind you, because it’s easy to drop this philosophy when you’re swamped with other work.
Can you schedule a full day to bounce new content ideas between others in your team? Perhaps with a fellow copywriter or creative? The high-pressure work day doesn’t really lend itself to creativity, and coming up with fresh content ideas needs time, space and the right mindset - so try to set some time aside. If you work in a team, you could at least query your colleagues over Slack for inspiration.
And don’t be afraid by the concept of ‘ideas’; something well known but expressed in a fresh way still counts as a new idea. No one is asking you to reinvent the wheel, but if you’ve painted a wheel rose gold and put some delightful pot plants in it, someone (such as I) will love that.
Play with language and sentence length
Overused clichés, tired metaphors and walls of technical jargon are what we want to avoid here.
OK, a well-chosen cliché can work occasionally… and I begrudgingly admit I am a proud pun fan. But if you’re going to go there, the usage has to be intentional.
Instead, try experimenting with fresh metaphors. Alter sentence length throughout. It’s often said that people only pay attention to short sentences online, which is mostly true - but I like to give readers a bit more credit now and then.
To help you with language, read more of everything - be it fiction, non-fiction, online articles, news and editorial - and nick any inspiring turns of phrase you come across to inspire your own stuff.
Bear in mind that unless your brand persona is a pretentious poet who likes to quote the great philosophers, it’s ill-advised to get too literary in your marketing content. However, writing simple and engaging copy will come much easier when you’ve picked up some techniques from the experts.
Read it out loud
Get into the habit. If you stumble or pause at any point, that’s an immediate sign to change it up. Find yourself droning, bored of your own voice? Cut bits or diversify your sentence length.
I will sound like a preacher now (bear with me), but great writing is musical.
Short sentences have impact and long build momentum.
There is rhythm and pace, alliteration and assonance.
And all of these combined factors can make the reading experience as swift, smooth and pleasant as Lionel Richie’s Sunday Morning.
‘…Oh, come on! Even in a blurb for kitchen cleaner?’
Kitchen cleaner is an everyday hero, sir.
It could be Barack Obama's inauguration speech; it could be an ad for those problematic diet teas. The fact is this: a decent piece of copy will be so seamlessly composed that your audience should have no idea that it’s been smartly crafted for purpose.
So go on, read it out.
Find a (trusted) second reader
When you’re at the point of ‘good enough’, take a break and give it to a trusted peer to read before publishing.
We are but human, and it often takes a second pair of eyes to point out some glaring punctuation errors that we missed because we were still mulling over the title.
If you have issues with this, there are add-ons available such as Grammarly which might ease the pressure.
Make it look nice
Again, the human brain is a fickle creature that likes to be kept alert with sensory treats.
Ensure you punctuate your posts with photos and video clips; break up walls of texts with bold headings and paragraphs; and for the love of God, don’t use Comic Sans.
Similarly, if your product or service is best shown off via a certain medium - such as video tutorials or large, screen-width imagery - invest in the design of your blog so you’re equipped to highlight the goods.
Optimise it with some sweet SEO
That all important Search Engine Optimization will do a whole lot to get your content in front of the right people.
Strategically placed keywords and phrases still work (for now), so go digging for some decent, competitive phrases and ensure they’re subtly placed in the title and throughout. Think about headings, fill in meta data as standard, add tags to pictures as standard - and don’t slack on easy wins like clear phrasing, good spelling and grammar.
Be aware that keyword stuffing is dated and actually can be damaging. The Holy Grail? Well written content that concisely answers a question.
Keep up to date with the newest algorithms and remember, Google notices all.
If you’re not sure how you’ll ever fit this in, you could hire a trusted copywriter to help you.
Send me a message to chat about how we can work together.
