Unique and Actionable Writing Tips to Improve Your Blog Posts

Learning how to blog successfully can be intimidating, especially if you don’t consider yourself a writer. Don’t worry—we have the writing tips you need! Because when you have a business, blogging is important: blogging builds your credibility, feeds your SEO and allows you to provide valuable information to your customers for free.

And learning how to blog well doesn’t have to be so hard. You don’t need to be the best writer to write good blog posts. Some of the best writing tips have little to do with the specific words you write anyway.

Instead of dreading your blog as “yet another task on your to-do list”, consider these five unique and actionable writing tips to help you learn how to blog better—and actually enjoy the process, too!

Know Your Audience

You likely have a good sense of your ideal customer already—after all, you target your products or services to them. Consider them again as you write for your blog:

What topics do they want or need to read about, especially relating to your business and your industry? What is a proper post length? How often should you create and publish content?

These are all questions that can be answered well when you consider them from the perspective of the people you’re hoping to serve.

ACTION: Get clear on the people who want or need what you provide—create a persona of your ideal customer, if you haven’t already. Then, make a list of five topics they would want or need to read about.

Know Yourself

While writing important, engaging and valuable content for your audience, the best blog posts are about topics that interest you as well. This task shouldn’t be too hard—you’re already running a business that you know and love. So, start there.

Pick blog post topics that interest you, too; they might include subjects you know like the back of your hand or they might require a little research. But make it fun! Eventually, you may find you learn and gain as much from the experience of writing regularly for your blog as your readers and future customers.

ACTION: Brainstorm five different topics you’d like (or even, love) to write about as they relate to your business or your industry. Compare this list to the five topics your customers want to read and find the overlap.

Create a Calendar

The best writing doesn’t usually appear under pressure. When you have an editorial calendar to plan your posts, you’ll not only give yourself time to write a solid post (with ample time for feedback and revisions), you’ll also avoid the dreaded “writer’s block” where you sit down to a blank page and don’t know what to write.

Spend some time every month—or ideally, every quarter—mapping out a consistent schedule of blog posts. Remember to consider your audience and yourself. What do they want to read? What information are you excited to share? And remember to tie content into your product calendar, events or holidays, too!

Simply put: Make a calendar and plan time to write ahead of scheduled publish-dates to relieve the pressure of coming up with (simply mediocre) posts at the last minute.

ACTION: Create an editorial calendar for the next quarter, starting with the topics you’ve already brainstormed. Then, assign publish dates for each topic.

Edit With a Second Pair of Eyes

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as having said writers should: “Write drunk. Edit sober.” While we wouldn’t go quite that far, we would argue that one of the best writing tips is to always edit what you’ve written. And edit with a second pair of eyes.

That second pair of eyes may belong to someone else on your team or a freelance editor that you hire to review your work. Or that second pair of eyes may still be yours—once you’ve given yourself a few hours (or ideally, a few days) to step away from your blog post and refresh your vision (both physically and mentally).

You’re learning how to blog better because you know how important blogging is for your business. Don’t diminish your insight or credibility with grammatical errors, mis-attributed research and cliched phrases. Make sure you edit your posts every single time.

ACTION: Schedule buffer time for editing your blog posts by setting internal deadlines. Look at the publish dates for each blog post in your editorial calendar, then work backwards to schedule internal deadlines for first drafts, feedback and revisions.

Hire Someone Else To Write for You

You may not like writing. Or you may like it, but find that you don’t have the time or energy to blog consistently. That doesn’t mean you should give up on blogging altogether.

(You know that, of course—that’s why you’re reading this article!)

And that’s okay. Much like most of your business, learning how to blog often means learning how to delegate. If you can’t consistently write posts for your blog, hire someone else to do the writing.

Like with editing, this writer may be someone already on your team or maybe a contractor—either way, find someone who likes to write; who knows your business, your industry and your audience well; and who can meet the deadlines outlined in your editorial calendar.

ACTION: Write up a job description for your business blog writer. HINT: Use the writing tips above to describe exactly the sort of writer and teammate you’re seeking.

Do you blog for your business? What are your biggest writing challenges? Share your thoughts—and perhaps the tips you might try—in the comments below.