5 More Tips for Writing Better Online Content
Back in the middle of July, I provided you with five tips for improving your writing. Although I still think that all five of these tips are quite useful and can help you improve your content writing skills, since we all know that Content is King, I thought it was about time for me to share some more tips with you on how to write content that attracts attention and links:
Cut Down on Punctuation: This may sound like a strange tip, but it can actually have a major impact on the quality of your writing. If you find that you are using an excessive amount of punctuation marks as you write (specifically semi-colons and commas), you are probably rambling as you are writing and will quickly lose your reader’s attention. If you catch yourself adding lots of punctuation marks into your writing, re-read what you just wrote and chances are you will be able to make your content more interesting by cutting out the excess.
Don’t Be Afraid to Converse: I don’t know why so many bloggers have a hard time grasping this point, but when it comes to creating content for a blog, you should focus on having a conversation with your readers. This means that there is no reason to write like you are typing out hundred year old prose. Sure, it’s important to use decent grammar and hit the spell check button before you publish, but there’s no reason that you should be afraid to throw in personalized touches that show your true personality (instead of making the content seem like it was generated by a dry and emotionless robot).
Stop Keyword Stuffing: Dear SEOs, it is now 2008. Search engines have evolved, and stuffing your content with the perfect density of keywords is not going to get you to the top of them. However, getting lots of links from bloggers and website owners will get your content to the top, so focus on writing for the people who are going to be reading your content, and not the search engine bots that are going to be crawling your content.
Add Visuals: OK, this technically doesn’t have to do with improving your writing skills, but it will help you create content that attracts attention and links. When it comes to online content, the old saying of “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” couldn’t be more true. Whether it’s a picture, a graph or a simple sketch, if you can get a point across with a visual, go ahead and do it!
Provide Further Reading Material: Once again, you won’t find this tip in any traditional grammar textbook, but it plays a huge role for writers who are creating content specifically for the online world. While it seems counter-intuitive, regularly linking out from within your content is a very good habit to practice. Sure, your visitors will leave your site for another blog or website, but they will remember how useful your article was to them, and eventually return to see what new content you have published. Additionally, whether it’s someone you link directly to or a blogger that sees you link out regularly, when people know you are not afraid to increase the quality of your content by pointing readers to other useful resources, they will be more likely to link to you from their own content.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I’d like to add two more:
1) Layout. One thing I love about your site is that the content is easy to see/read. What’s the use of good content if I can’t read it? (My site’s template is still a little awkward that way.)
2) In an interview I did recently, I learnd that you don’t have to “create” good content, you can just discover and expose it.
Here’s the full interview:
http://blog.mixergy.com/create-good-content/
Feel free to post it on your site, if you think it’ll help your readers.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
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October 6th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Adding visuals is a great tip. For $1 per image you can buy great legal images from any number of stock photo sites.
Thanks for the tutorial.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:18 am
@Redcliffe: Very true. You can also find a lot of great free images through Flickr that are available via a Creative Commons license.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Yes, good stock photos can really brighten up an average web site. I Stumble you for your efforts