5 Writing Tips For Blogging Beginners

For the many blogging beginners out there who are just starting out online, I thought I would put together a short list of some writing tips for blogging to help you out.

These definitely helped me out when I first started and I always try to advise people about these when I get asked.

Find Your Own Voice

It is important for any writer, whatever subject they may write about, to find their own voice.  It can be a very personal thing writing for a living; after all, it is your words, your voice, which people will be coming back to again and again.  This is why you need to just be yourself and develop your own style.

By all means look for inspiration from other bloggers, we all do that.  Don’t, however, try to copy another person’s style of writing.  Not only is that borderline plagiarism, but worse than that, you are trying to be someone that you are not.

Just be yourself!

Too often I see bloggers trying to be too complicated in the way they write because that is what they think writing is all about.  We all have access to a thesaurus, but that doesn’t always make you a better writer.  People need to be able to understand and relate to what you are saying and sometimes it is much better to just keep it simple.

Finding your own voice and unique writing style is certainly not easy but the more you write, the better you will get.

Know Your Subject

This is such a crucial blogging tip that can easily be overlooked when starting out.  Whatever niche your blog is focusing on, you as a writer need to be up to speed on the subject(s) that you are writing about.

This may seem obvious (and it is really) but you should always spend time researching your subject matter before crafting an article.

There are bound to be areas within your niche that you know little to nothing about.  If you are trying to present yourself as an “expert” or “go-to person” within that industry, you need to be up to speed on what you are writing about.

You can’t expect readers to keep coming back to your site if you are clearly just “winging it” and making it up as you go along.

Learn About SEO

Without trying to not sound like a broken record, you need to learn about SEO.  I have said this countless times before, but I can’t stress enough just how important it is for you to spend time learning about it.

“But hold on Catherine.  What has SEO got to do about writing?” I hear you ask.  Well, EVERYTHING!!!

Writing is at the heart of any blog and if you want your blog to become successful you need to know and understand how the search engines work.  Even a little knowledge can help you greatly in the long run, which is why I always recommend to blogging beginners to learn about it sooner rather than later.

By learning and understanding about things like; keyword research, keyword optimisation, internal links, external links, alt tags, meta descriptions, keyword density, etc. you can craft better articles that don’t just appeal to your readers, but which get picked up and noticed by the search engines.  Only then will you be able to take your blog to the next level.

Don’t Forget About Links

Sticking with the SEO theme, I thought I’d add a section about links because this is something that many new (and existing) bloggers seem to forget about.

Links are important, very important!

Not only do (internal) links help people to navigate around your site to find your other posts and pages that they may find interesting, but (external) links that point to other relevant sites/articles are just as beneficial.

The search engines value sites that don’t hog their readers, but who share other quality content with them.  Not only that, they can better evaluate how good your site is based on what sites you link to yourself.

For example, imagine a fashion blog that only linked out to gambling websites.  That wouldn’t come across as a very trustworthy site.  On the other hand, a fashion blog that linked out to other relevant fashion blogs and online clothing stores would appear a lot more reputable.

Both sites could be exactly the same, but for the search engines only the one that linked out to other relevant sites would be deemed trustworthy.

It is easy to forget about links when writing your blog posts, but always spend time before you publish it by looking for and adding relevant links (both internal and external).

Be Original

With so much information being uploaded every day online, it is quite hard to come up with something truly unique.  There are probably countless other sites within your niche that you are trying to compete against who write about similar subjects.

Don’t let that put you off; it just means that in order to stand out you need to be original.

If readers want to learn about a certain subject or event that is being covered by numerous sites, why would they choose yours?  You need to present your content in a way that makes it stand out from the crowd and, more importantly, keep coming back for more.

This is probably the most important aspect that you will need to work on, but there are many different ways in which you can do it.  Perhaps you are good at taking complicated information and presenting it in a really easy way to understand, maybe you include a lot of humour in your articles, you might have insider knowledge, be an expert in your field, etc. etc. etc.

Your Turn:

So, learn about SEO, try to be original, remember to include your links, research your subject and develop your own voice.

If you would like more in-depth information and coaching to learn how to blog successfully then sign up for our 12 module coaching program.

These are the tips that helped me when I first started out, but what about you?

What writing tips would you give to blogging beginners who are just starting out?  I want to hear from you so please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.