Raise your hand if you read every article that comes through your news feed. Since I can’t see if you raised your hand or not, I’ll assume you didn’t.
The harsh reality is the internet has overwhelmed us all with information we don’t need. Unfortunately, if you’re a blogger, this makes your job more difficult.
Capturing and keeping the attention of the average adult is like trying to get a 3-year-old to listen to you after eating 2 pieces of chocolate cake—it just isn’t going to happen.
That is, of course, unless you have something more interesting to offer.
The first step to creating ‘something more interesting’, is to recognize where you’re going wrong.
Take a look at the following five blogging mistakes and ask yourself honestly if any of them sound like you, and then actively seek to change your ways.
We get it. You’re an expert in your field. Blah, blah, blah. Blog readers don’t care how much experience you have, and they certainly don’t want to hear you ramble off technical jargon.
They require plain English to stick around. Stop letting your expertise get in the way of writing an engaging blog post. Avoid unnecessary words and get to the point. Your audience will be grateful.
Static wording that doesn’t show your personality will kill your writing.
Let’s be honest. There is literally nothing new on the internet.
Most of it is just rehashed content that you can find on a hundred other websites. The trick is to make your posts engaging by developing your writing personality.
Use your humor, charisma, or individual experiences to draw your readers into your posts. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. After all, that’s really who you want your audience to fall in love with.
This is one of the most common requests I get from my clients. They mistakenly believe that if they send a bunch of keywords my way, and tell me to put them into the text 12 times each, their website will rank higher.
Newsflash: it doesn’t work that way!
If you’re serious about engaging an audience and connecting with real clients, your content needs to be good. Damn good. And keyword stuffing never did anyone any good. In fact, your SEO strategy is secondary to the quality of your posts.
Think of it this way, if headed out to eat at one of the most highly ranked restaurants in the city, you’d expect the food to be good once your meal arrived, right? But what would happen if the waiter sat down a plate of Cheetohs in front of you? You’d be furious! And you definitely wouldn’t come back.
Similarly, if and when your website secures the coveted spot on the front page of Google, make sure your content is valuable and worthy of the position.
I say this as a writer, and as a virtual friend, STOP concerning yourself with word count!
If you can write 500 words of content and get your message across, great. If you can do it in 400 words, all the better. Your audience does not want to sift through a 1,000-word blog post to find valuable information, and they won’t.
The length of your blog post isn’t as important as its content. Edit your posts until every single sentence has a purpose. Otherwise, you’re wasting both you and your readers time.
Sure, daily blog posts sound good in theory, but they aren’t necessary. Your audience loses interest the more you saturate their inbox with content they aren’t reading.
If you have nothing to say, then don’t write. Save up your writing juices for moments you’re inspired to write about a topic, and then give it your all.
With so much content on the web, when readers run across a blog that is enthusiastic, full of life, and meaningful, they cherish it. That should be your goal.
Stop boring your audience. Learn how to write with a purpose other than SEO, and transform your blog into something people treasure. Writing from the heart is an art, however, but if you can do it you’ll create a lasting experience for your readers.
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