If you want people to pay attention to you, you need to earn it.
You can have the best design in the world. You might be publishing 3-4 blog posts a week. But if it reads like crap and/or people don’t find it useful, your site’s not gonna get shared and your audience isn’t going to grow.
So what to do?
But how do you do that exactly?
- Write what you know. Leave everything else out because frankly, it shows when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Here’s what you do, make a list of everything you know about your subject (your industry), and start writing on those topics from your own perspective and drawing from your experience. Write with confidence and authority. After all, you’re the expert.
- “Write drunk, edit sober.” Ernest Hemingway said that. Though I don’t think he meant literally go out and get a 12-pack and get hammered before you write. What I think he meant was, just write. Sit there and just write. Don’t obsess or over-think what you want to say. Instead, just let the words fall onto the paper (or keyboard). And when you’re done, take some time to reflect. An hour. A day. A week. Then, come back and edit your words and publish your masterpiece. Personally, I like to write at night and edit in the morning.
- Write a little bit every day. It doesn’t matter if you don’t always publish what you write, the point is, to discipline/train yourself to become a better writer. Read: 10 Steps To Becoming a Better Writer. You can’t get there if you don’t practice.
- Before you hit the publish button, ask yourself: How is this helpful? If you can’t immediately think of the benefit to your audience, then your post is just a “filler” post and probably isn’t worth publishing.
- Publish with confidence and do so often. Of course if you skipped step #1 this part is going to be a little bit difficult.
- Lastly, learn to tell better stories. “How To” and tutorial type posts are great. Beyond that, people connect with stories. So learn to tell better stories. People relate to stories. Stories connect with people. Stories engage people. So learn to tell better stories.
- Silence your inner critic. (We’ve talked about that before). Seriously, be more confident in yourself and your writing (see #5). It’s not always going to be perfect. But if it’s genuine, and if it’s helpful, you’ll earn an audience who appreciates you for you.
Remember, people share good content. Stick to what you know. Seek to be helpful. And write a little bit every single day.
It’s not a perfect formula, but it works.
Don’t you think?
This is totally random, but are you manually writing the anchor titles here?
For me, step number 4 is a critical piece. Often I get so lost in the excitement of writing that I forget to ask one important question: will they care?
To counter this, I’m trying to filter my writing through this lens. Will this be insightful? Helpful? Spark a conversation? Or am I just writing for myself or to feel clever today?
Sometimes I just want to tell a story, which may not be helpful… except to learn more about who I am.
Great post. Have you read Merlin Mann’s article “First, Care”? It’s a favorite of mine.
I’m not as diciplined as I should be with the daily writing…some days I
just don’t have it in me and theres nothing worse than staring at a
blank screen for hours. I’ve learned its fine to go with the flow on that one…its compensated by other days when inspiration hits and I punch out several pieces pretty effortlessly.
Here’s a thought. If we spun Hemingway’s theory on its head – writing sober, and editing drunk it would be very entertaining for the readers..lol…might have to give that a try one day 🙂
Thanks for the kick in the ass, Ricardo. I needed this.
Your welcome Mary, happy ton inspire 🙂
Thanks for sharing your insight, Ricardo. Here’s the rules that work for me: Be true. Give. Serve.
Example:
Empty-handed and Less Traveled Roads. And other social media DOHs.
http://wp.me/pbg0R-on
Love it!
Most of the time when people say “write good content” I go nuclear because unless you can say what you mean by good content in something other than vague, feel-good nonsense, it’s the most worthless kind of drivel polluting the web.
I’m glad your tips are actually good and I can stand down from my soapbox. 🙂
Heh, thanks Michael! I’m with you… Often times in #blogchat for example, people say “Great Content” is the foundation of a great blog. Yet, when you ask them what defines good content they respond with “stuff people want to read” or “write consistently” and all sorts of other generic statements.
Not that I’m bashing #blogchat or anything, it’s a great Twitter chat. But hopefully this post left people with a few things to think about…
Thanks for the comment Michael!
Great article!
P.S I noticed you changed the wp greet box plugin; can you tell me how to do that?
Hey Adam,
Thanks!
In regards to the plugin, you should see a link to it in your WordPress dashboard – a place where you can edit/customize the text/settings. Let me know me if you manage ok…