With any skill, the more you practice it, the better you will get. That, of course, includes blog writing skills! Writing a blog post is a particular kind of skill. It’s a unique combination of informing people but also connecting to them in a relatable way. After all, you are not an encyclopaedia – you are a person and your blog is your very own individual platform.
By no means do I consider myself to be a ‘good writer’ yet, but when I compare my old blog posts to my new ones, I can recognise that my blog writing skills have dramatically improved. I think most bloggers would say they’ve had a similar experience. Of course, this improvement doesn’t happen overnight; it’s the result of a slow and steady improvement over time. With each post a blogger writes, they hone their blog writing skills and become that tiny bit better.
There aren’t really any short cuts to becoming a better writer, but you can speed up the process by reading the advice of others. That’s why I’m going to be sharing my advice in this post for how to improve your blog writing skills. I have identified some of the things I do differently now compared to when I first started blogging, and some ways I’ve learned to improve my writing. If you’re a blogger too, I hope you’ll find this post helpful!
How To Steadily Improve Your Blog Writing Skills
Identify words and phrases that you overuse
It’s easy to fall into the trap of using the same words and phrases over and over again. For me, one of my most overused words is ‘definitely’. Try to vary up your writing by rewording it whenever you notice yourself overusing a word or phrase. If you can’t think of an alternative word or phrase, use a thesaurus. In this way, you’ll gradually increase your vocabulary and make your writing seem more eloquent and original and less cliched.
Get inspiration from other bloggers
It goes without saying that you shouldn’t copy other bloggers’ writing or even their writing style, but you can still get ideas from them. If you read a blog post and they use a good word or phrase, you can note it down or keep it in mind for future use. If you like the style, tone or format of their post, you can try a similar format out on your own blog. It’s all about experimenting and learning from others.
Read more: How to Get Inspiration for New Blog Posts
Vary the format of your posts
Try to add variety to your blog by trying out different styles and formats of blog post. Personally, a large proportion of my blog posts take the format of a list (this one included!). Other formats you could try are:
- An open letter
- A story – share something that happened to you
- An image based post like a photo gallery
- Diary entries
- A news article
- A review
- A poem
This will get you out of your comfort zone and widen your writing experience.
Make your posts more readable
It’s not just about what you write – a big part of being a good blog writer is in the presentation and formatting of your posts. My early blog posts were just paragraph after paragraph of text with no headings, which made them unappealing to read! Make your blog posts more readable and accessible by splitting your writing into shorter paragraphs and including plenty of headings. You can vary things up even more by adding bullet points, block quotes and images.
Use personal anecdotes
By interweaving personal anecdotes into your blog posts, they will be more enjoyable and inspiring to read. If you just give your advice in a bland list then people aren’t really going to take it on board or follow your suggestions because they won’t relate to you. Whereas, if you share your stories and real experiences, your readers will feel like they are having a conversation with you and getting to know you. It will also make your blog posts more original and unique, even if it’s a topic that’s been well covered by other bloggers.
Be humble
Unless you are actually an expert on a particular subject, it’s important to be humble and not pretend you know it all. Otherwise, your posts might come across as preachy (I think some of my old posts do!). Make it clear in your writing that you are no expert but are just sharing your own experience and insights. This will make you come across as much more likeable.
Improving Your Blog Writing Skills – An Ongoing Process
When working on your blog writing skills, it’s important not to compare yourself to other bloggers too much. Whether you are only just starting your blog or you’ve been blogging for years, it’s always possible to improve your blog writing skills, but you have to be prepared for the process to be slow and gradual. With patience, awareness and the will to improve, you will steadily build your writing skills over time, and before too long you’ll be looking back on your old blog posts and wondering how you could ever have written something so ‘bad’!
Just to reiterate, I don’t think of myself as a good writer and I still have a lot to learn when it comes to writing blog posts. I also don’t always follow my own advice! But we can all learn together – if you have any blog writing tips to share in the comments, I would love to hear from you!
Read more: Why It’s Okay To Publish An Imperfect Blog Post
I believe my writing has improved over the years since starting my blog, but I still occasionally use the same phrases, so using a thesaurus is a good idea. Also, my older posts were mainly long text blocks too, so breaking them up into shorter paragraphs and adding headings is a good way to make them more readable.
From what I’ve read of your blog, I think you’re a very good writer 🙂 Breaking up the text into shorter paragraphs and adding headings is something I do a lot more of now too. Thanks for reading and commenting!