Writing blogs is fun and exciting work that lets you share your passion with the world. It’s essential for those who are serious about turning out quality blogs to continually improve their blog writing skills to deliver the most interesting and compelling content. When starting, we all make the same common mistakes inadvertently. It’s a learning process, but we can shorten the learning curve with a few simple methods to improve your writing.
These methods will show you how to improve your blog writing skills with a series of tips to keep in mind during the process. Here five ways you can incorporate into your blogging process for continual improvement and greater success in reaching your goals.
5 Ways To Improve Your Blog Writing Skills
1. Improve Your Writing – Avoid Distraction
Distraction is one of the main reasons our writing suffers. When I’m on a roll writing some of the best content possible with thoughts flowing and connecting like magic, then the phone rings, or the doorbell rings. For me, my dog loves to bust into my home office and demand attention. There are thousands of things that can distract us when we’re focused on writing. According to Forbes, getting distracted in the middle of the creative process can cause danger to the quality of your content. Here are some useful tips to help lessen the frequency of distractions.
Establish a writing schedule
Establish a regular time to write your blogs if at all possible. Once you know what your schedule will be, you can let everyone else in your social circle know. This can help to reduce the number of interruptions that come your way. By establishing a writing schedule, you can build other responsibilities around this, such as meal preparation, pet care, and other things that can be a distraction.
For example, if you have pets who need to be let outside, built your writing schedule around those times. It can help to create a harmonious flow for the household. Consider any regular appointments or other responsibilities you have, but do set regular hours that involve only non-distracted writing to improve content quality. This is also a great tip if you’re looking to write a high quality blog post every day.
Create Your Writing Space
Set up a space that provides a comfortable environment that is conducive to undistracted writing. If possible, a room that is light and inspiring can help to loosen your creativity. Create a workstation that offers a comfortable chair that can be positioned for your comfort. Make sure that the lighting is soft and adequate for your writing needs. Keep a paper and pens nearby to jot down essential thoughts for later. Set the writing space up with everything you will need to avoid the distraction of getting up to find a pen or other item.
Suppose you enjoy snacking or drinking a beverage, set up a table within reach of your workstation. Also, place a few visuals in the room that stimulate creative thinking to put you in the mood to write. If you deal with background noises from other people in the house, consider using soft music as white noise to block out other potentially distracting conversations or noises.
Turn Off The TV and Phones
If your workstation is near a television, it’s best to shut it off. Keep this potential distraction at bay by eliminating the temptation to be drawn away from your work. The same goes for telephones. A phone call is one of the biggest distractions for writers. Unless you’re on standby for emergencies, turn the phone down and let the calls go to the answering service. You can respond to the phone calls or text messages after you’ve finished writing for the session.
Let The Creative Juices Flow
Brainstorming is one of the best ways to enhance your content. Some of our best ideas come from chaotic free thinking. The first draft of a blog should contain extraneous information that can be edited out later. This is where we mine some of our most ingenious ideas or epiphanies. A fun fact is that Ernest Hemingway acquired the habit of writing drunk and editing when he was sober. Inhibitions were gone, and he wrote from the heart. It’s this kind of freedom that can give our blogs a needed boost. Here are a few ways to find greater inspiration for writing to mine the nuggets of pure gold.
2. Improve Your Writing – Engage in Inspired Chaos
Brainstorm with total freedom. Write or type out your initial thoughts on the topic with complete unrestrained abandon. Don’t worry about maintaining organization at this stage. If you’re typing madly and a side topic occurs to you, jot it down in a nearby notebook and keep going. Get the thoughts in your mind in written form so you can go through and organize them later. Some of the best ideas come out of freewriting exercises. You’ll feel a sense of liberation as the multiple directions start to take a cohesive form later.
Explore Diverse Ideas
Get the myriad of diverse ideas you have in writing. Don’t worry about whether or not they make sense. If you are thinking about ten directions for a topic, then get them out and stored in a safe place. You may be able to incorporate them all into the same blog. They may give you directions to go for other informative and helpful blogs in the future. You’re still in the initial stages of formulating your ideas, so welcome the diverse thoughts that spiderweb in different directions. Now isn’t the time to narrow your focus. That comes later.
Don’t Worry About Conventions
The brainstorming period may be the only time in your writing when conventions can safely go out the window. You’re in the process of getting ideas or concepts out. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax are not a part of this process. If it helps you to use some form of it, do what you must. Still, in general, it’s best to focus on capturing diverse and creative ideas and notions versus making them look and sound good on paper or in digital form.
Bear in mind that editing is a task that comes after every writing session, so free yourself from the distraction of conventions and let the writing flow freely. You will be amazed at how much this process will improve the quality of your content.
Go Back To The Basics
Whether you’re a native English speaker/writer or not, it’s always a good idea to get back to the basics to refresh and brush up on your writing skills. Elegant Themes points out that even native speakers get caught in the trap of conversation speaking, which often omits conventions necessary in writing. The rules of grammar tend to slip over time. Some bloggers adopt a style that uses jargon, which is fine, but when we accidentally violate grammar conventions, readers pick up on the errors. Some readers may lose respect for writing that is not professional in format. Here are some tips that are easy to do and can improve the quality of your writing instantly.
3. Improve Your Writing – Test Your Current Writing Skills
There are several excellent online resources for assessing your current writing skills. While most of us that have been writing for years take for granted that our work is appreciated and well-received, that might not be the case. I’ve taken online skills assessments and have been shocked by the results. Either the rules have changed over the past few decades, or I’ve slipped in my efficiency.
It’s good for all writers to take a periodic writing skills test to see where they’re at. It helps identify any weaknesses that you need to strengthen. Be aware that one habitual error in writing can ruin an entire piece for some readers. Whether it’s in punctuation, spelling, grammar, or syntax, some educated readers have little tolerance for these kinds of mistakes.
Take An Online Writing Refresher Course
We checked online and found dozens of free online refresher courses for writers. There is no cost and no obligation to log in at certain times. All of the information you need to brush up on your English writing skills is available free online. After completing an online writing skills assessment, you will have a better idea of the areas you need to work on. This is one of the best ways to become a better blog writer and improve your content quality.
Practice Writing Your Problem Areas
Once you’ve identified problem areas, it’s wise to do some practice writing. When we habitually make mistakes in writing, the process becomes ingrained. Making errors becomes a habit that must be unlearned. When it’s a default, we must reprogram our brains to write differently. It can take a while to stop repeating the same mistakes. The best way to move beyond the problem is to write sample paragraphs forcing yourself to replace the old writing habits with the correct ways of writing. Soon, writing correctly will become your new default.
Proofread And Edit
We all know what we want to say when we’re writing our blogs. It may make perfect sense to us at the time of the writing, but every blog requires proofreading and editing before final submission. There is a process that improves writing skills in the proofreading and editing phase that helps to improve writing skills and the overall quality of the blog. Here are a few tips to help
4. Improve Your Writing – Walk Away From The First Draft
It’s okay to go over a finished blog to clean it up, but don’t let this be your final critical review. It’s best to walk away from work and focus on something else. Most of us know what we’ve written, and this somehow tricks our brains into seeing what we want to see instead of catching any mistakes that have been made. It’s a phenomenon that occurs with almost all writers. Take a break to clear your mind. Come back later to proofread the blog, and you’ll see that some minor tweaks could improve the tone, grammar, or punctuation.
Proofread A Second Time
While this process may seem unnecessary and repetitive, it’s a good practice. There may be more errors or maybe even a few unclear sentences that could be better written. It takes getting away from work for a few minutes or longer to refresh your brain to really see what is there. By taking the time to get away and clear your mind twice, you will catch a lot more minor imperfections that can drastically improve your blog writing’s overall quality. This is one of the best practices observed by good writers.
Consider Using Writing Tools
There are some amazing writing tools available to help check the quality of your work. Grammarly is one of them. The basic versions are free, and they check your work for any misspelled words or sentences that do not make sense, tone, and so forth. You receive analytics that breaks down the work quality with feedback that points out areas where the work could be improved.
Premium versions provide even more information about how to fine-tune the writing for a perfect copy. Most of these tools offer options that allow you to accept or reject recommended changes. They even allow you to add unique words to a customized dictionary that will allow some commonly identified words to pass, such as proper names and others.
5. Improve Your Writing – Find New Inspirations
Suppose your writing’s quality is suffering from a lack of inspiration. In that case, it’s a good idea to get out and find something that will inspire you. When blogs are lackluster, and you’re not motivated to infuse passion into them, it’s time to use the available resources at hand that will set you on fire again. Here are a few tips that can help to fire up your passion and get you back on a path of creativity and excitement.
Find a Writing Partner
Find someone passionate about the same topics and start writing together. Sometimes, another writer’s passion can help reignite a spark in us and get us back into the groove. Our writing can improve drastically simply by influencing another person who stimulates our thought processes and feelings about a subject. Writing with a partner can also motivate us to do our very best work. The feedback that co-authors share can also be enlightening to help improve writing skills for both parties. It also helps keep us on track and accountable because someone depends on us to do our part.
Read and Dissect the Writing Of Others
If you admire a writer or blogger, read some of his or her blogs to gain inspiration. Dissect the blogger’s work to learn more about the writing style and what appeals to you. This is an excellent way to get ideas about how to improve your blog writing style. You don’t need to change your style, but you might gain some insight into how other writers pull their audiences in with the way they use words, ideas, and even punctuation. Small changes can make a big impact on the quality of your work
Be Open-Minded To New Ideas
The world of writing is vast. We all have our own ideas on what makes a piece good or bad. Sometimes shift in viewpoint is a healthy thing to give us a boost for inspirational purposes. As you read through other writers’ works, try to keep an open mind about the difference in writing style. Try to understand why they’re using different techniques. If you’re reading popular blogs that get many more views than yours, there could be a few lessons to be learned. When putting together a plan of action to inspire your creativity, look for new techniques that you find interesting and give them a try.
Take Creative License
Don’t be afraid to try something new. You don’t need to alter your entire writing style to incorporate a new technique or two. View the changes as an expansion of your current skillset instead of reinventing the wheel. Feel free to take a chance now and then. You might find that a few twists can liven up a piece and draw in a new crowd of viewers. Watch for feedback to assess the effectiveness of any changes you make to your writing style. This will help determine if you’re on the right track.
Above all, share your passion in the blogs you write. This is the single element that will shine through and communicate with your readers. Share something you find intriguing to touch those who share the same points of view and go the extra mile to touch on the opposite views to add contrast. It’s your piece, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. There are five ways that you can improve your blog writing skills. Don’t feel like you have to tackle all of these methods right away all at once. However, you’ll find that once you take action on a few, it will become easier and easier to start adding in other methods. We should always work to improve our blog writing skills a little each day if possible. So take these methods and experiment with them. See what works. I think when it’s all said and done you’ll surprise yourself.
