My top 3 blog writing tips

Please don’t take my advice as gospel, but these are the little things I have picked up after writing a series of blog posts on quite dry topics. Dry as in reporting on the financial market and how to benefit from low interest rates, or five top tips for foreign investors. If those topics don’t immediately initiate your snooze reflex, then you are quite possibly super human, and what ever you’re doing, please share it.

1.    Be real.
Be relatively honest to your readers, you are laying the facts. Often there are hidden objectives, like “we will give you the finance you need”, so it is your job to position your story in such a way, but keep it relatable. Believe it or not (and your employer may disagree), but your reader is actually a person. Facts and numbers are boring to real people, we would know, have you tried reading those articles for Capstone? Death and a half right? Not only do your eyes shut from pure boredom, but once upon a time you thought you enjoyed reading, now you find those dry words a sweet lullaby to your eyes. You don’t want that to be the reaction to your blog. Remember you are writing to humans. They want the facts, but presented in a less dry way.

2.    There should be some form of narrative
My first blogs sucked because they lacked a beginning middle and end. There should be an introduction, so that your reader knows just what he or she is getting themselves into, there should be your interesting points (hopefully accompanied by some pictures), and there should be a little conclusion, so that they know what they are walking away with. Or if they have the attention span of a gold fish (which happens, most humans have now due to information overload… I’m ranting here), they can grab the facts quickly and you helped them. Job well done to you, and research completed quickly for your difficult to engage reader.

3.    Numbers and Titles
I never realised this until my Boss shared this little killer. People respond to numbers more than essays. As in, when you read those blog posted by Elite Daily (let’s not beat around the bush here, we all do), do you find yourself more inclined to click on the one with the “7 reasons you’re just as emotionally unavailable as he is” or “why you’re just as emotionally unavailable as he is”. It’s the 7 reasons!! My whole life reduced to 7 reasons?! Give me the explanation quick! It’s the same with professional blog posts, the most useful ones I have written would probably be “Ten benefits to purchasing property off the plan” It’s not fantastic, but it’s informative and has the secret number.

http://tridentpp.com.au/ten-benefits-purchasing-property-off-plan/
Ps. Please use a catchy title. We can learn a lot from Elite Daily.

I hope this has been informative for you guys. I think we often forget that our target audiences are people too. We often focus too much on getting the post over and done with, and selling whatever story we are trying to sell, but never consider “what would I like to read”? Or even considering what sorts of things attract attention from our readers in an age where we’re all fighting for a second of engagement.