How To Effectively Write Clean And Clear Content For Your Blog
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Sean Platt of Writer Dad.
Clear, crisp online copy has never been more important. It is the creation of our content that makes or breaks a modern online business. Quality content turns disinterested leads into ardent subscribers and those subscribers into loyal clients.
Blogging is all about communication. The more effectively you are able to communicate, the more easily you will be able to spread your authority and increase your chances of generating compound sums of money.
Though effective communication is reliant upon clear ideas and lucid delivery, it isn’t enough.
The most effective online content situates its message in a way that makes the reader feel as though they are immediately adjacent, unwilling to interrupt. One of the best ways to achieve this is by employing the clean lines of an uncluttered theme.
I’ve used Thesis for every online project I’ve had throughout the last year. Only recently have I discovered the elegance of Frugal. Arguably, there is no better theme (free or premium) on the market to highlight the power of words by leaving so much white space for the print to stand bold.
The right theme combined with clear writing will help to take your content to the next level. You already have Frugal. Follow these tips and take your content creation as far as it can go.
1) Write a rough draft quickly without over thinking. The first draft is not a time to measure perfection, it is a time to unleash your thoughts. Editing comes next. If you can articulate your thoughts to perfection the first time through, that might be an indication your content isn’t quite as valuable as it could be. Revision while writing is a pillow on the face of pure thought.
2) Edit your words as though someone else wrote them. Every word isn’t golden and word count is irrelevant. It is the density of ideas that make your content remarkable. 250 or 1250, make every word count. I promise you, there is fat in your first draft. Cut it.
3) You want your copy lean, but also strong. Once off the treadmill, take your copy to the weight room and make the few key changes that can pack a little power in your prose. Stay far from weak words and opt instead for vocabulary with muscle. Us, are, were, it – these words cast with abandon will only weaken your content. Own the action. Use active language rather than passive.
4) Don’t try to sound smarter than you are. All beginning writer do this. I know I did, but I drank from a bottle when I was a baby too. My general rule – never use words you wouldn’t use in typical conversation.
5) Read your work out loud. I don’t publish a word on any of my blogs until I’ve read the content out loud at least once. Invariably, my mouth catches much of the minutia my mind’s inclined to miss.
6) Print it out. My writing partner, David prints his stories while editing, a trick he learned in the newsroom. Reading on the computer screen can become tiresome and many online writers tend to gloss over what their eyes would catch in print. Print your copy, mark it up, then dip in for one last online edit.
7) Be yourself. Like it or not, everyone else is already taken. If you try to write for an audience of everyone, you will be lucky to be writing for an audience of anyone.
If you create valuable content and keep it as clean as your theme, success is only a matter of time.
Sean Platt creates remarkable content and specializes in branding. Follow him on Twitter.
19 Responses to “How To Effectively Write Clean And Clear Content For Your Blog”
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Great tips. I’m recently trying to compact things on my posts because I am tired when bloggers write too long posts with overwhelming external links
Hey Isaac, that’s a good point. I agree that too much content can really overwhelm our readers. Eric
The combination of tips and how clean it looks inspires me to learn more about Frugal Premium and use it to its full capabilities. I know that for now I have only scratched the surface of what’s possible. The frugal theme is unique and makes a new blogger feel like a pro.
Wow Marguerite, such kind words.
Thanks and I’m glad you’re enjoying frugal so much. Eric
Great advice, I need all the help I get with this. What I find is interesting is the whole draft process really results in quicker best posts. I know if I look at my stuff at least 3 times before publishing it is way better then when I scramble.
I should print but I am always out of ink.
Hey Jared, it sounds like you’re on the right track. I find that reading it to someone else is the best way to see if it passes ‘the smell test’. It’s usually then that you’ll either happily publish it or find many issues that need attention first. Eric
Great tips! Writing the first draft is relatively easy when you can get the hang of first just writing spontaneously without editing in your mind and afterwards going back and cleaning it up. It makes is sound more fresh and eliminates writer’s block.
Love the frugal theme, it’s so clean, makes my bloggin sheen
Hey Richard, thanks for the kind words!
You mentioned the importance of our writing sounding fresh. This is so true! I tend to edit with every word I type, but I end up sounding rigid. Having a good writing flow is just so very important. Eric
Found the information worthy as I had no idea of posting a comment on the blog. I think it will help the newbies like me must. its nice to read a useful article for beginner like me. Some great information to be absorbed in this post. Thanks!
Glad you found it useful!
Eric
What an excellent article! I am always looking for ways to improve my writing and so I’ve read my fair share of articles on the subject, this is the absolute article of it’s kind I have ever seen! Really, head and shoulders above the rest (sorry to be so cliche!). I’ve actually taken the time to write down those 7 points in my ideas journal so I can continue to reference them when I need inspiration and focus, they are that good!
Hey Donna, I’m really glad you enjoyed it. Just in case you weren’t aware, this post was written by Sean Platt of Writer Dad. He’s an awesome writer and really knows his stuff when it comes to effective technique.
Eric
Hey Eric, Donna made a good point about writing a list of your ideas first. It seems to me that when I write I always want to interject some of my wild thoughts just to keep myself interested while I write.
I found that you can’t please all of the people so why not just let your personality sore to where it wants to be and just let it hang out.
An example that comes to my mind is Jim Cari, when I first saw Jim perform on living color I thought “Oh My God” where did this guy come from? He put himself out there… way… out there and I knew he was going to be a huge success.
Chances are if your board writing it people will get board READING it!
Great post Eric!
Thanks
Steve Fisher
PS I came hear to check out the Frugal Theme, does anyone have a link to where they’ve used Frugal with color and flare?
Hey Steve, thanks, but actually a blogging friend of mine wrote this particular post. Either way, I love your Jim Cari example. SPOT ON!! And yes, if you’re bored writing it, they’ll be bored reading it. This is a common sense that is for some reason not so common.
For more ‘colorful’ examples of frugal you can check out the Gallery Page.
Eric
Too bad I didn’t see your Gallery Page before purchasing another theme. I felt I needed more color and Frugal had it all the time.
I have used static websites in the past and have only blogged for 3 months now so I consider myself a newbie to blogging and extensible markup.
Hopefully, more of your visitors to this page will not make this same mistake as I have.
Trying to get my new theme to do what I wanted it too ended up with me loosing quite a bit of my data and almost the entire data base. I am working on getting it back but lost ranking on one of my #1 page rank in Google. OUCH, went to #10 quickly.
Eric, I’ve had a chance to get familiar with some of the different coding styles in several of the different Themes that I’ve tried, and now with a better understanding how PHP, CSS and Functions work together I can tell by viewing your page source that yours is by far the cleanest.
I’ll be back!
Steve
Hey Steve, I’m glad to hear you like what you see. I’m sure find a project/situation where you’ll need to take the frugal plunge.
Until then, I hope the best with your current online endeavors. Eric
Hi Steve, I don’t know about flair, but I’m using color with my Frugal-ly themed sites here http://thehealthyeatingsite.com/ and here http://about-green-living.com/. One of the things I love about Frugal is that it’s so simply and beautifully designed that you don’t have to change much – just a splash of color, like in these examples, to suit your topic and that’s enough. But have a look at the page Eric mentions above to see examples of just how much you can change Frugal to match whatever design or branding you want.
Thank you Donna for sharing your sites with me.
I can see now how flexible the Frugal Theme is and in my opinion probably the best available.
Thanks Again!
Steve Fisher
PS This is my honest and 100% unbiased opinion. I am not affiliated with Frugal in any way. I just want to give credit where credit is due.