7 Pro Writing Tips for Devs, Founders and Other Non-Writers

When I started my business of making SEO packages and helping businesses rank, I didn’t know that an unpleasant scenario will come knocking at my door only to leave me feeling crippled.

Most search engine optimization (SEO) to help businesses rank on Google has a lot to do with content and its marketing.

While I knew the importance of keywords in the content, I couldn’t bring myself to write quality pieces for the readers online.

In fact, 65% of content marketing involves blog posting on a regular basis.

Since I come from a rather technical background, I always found myself struggling with writing content. It was the most dreaded task in my to-do list.

But then, to grow, I needed good content on my very own website. In fact, the benefits of blogging took me by surprise.

Image Source: Lyfe Marketing

As hell would have it, I was compelled to write blog posts to rank in Google.

Every day I would face an “I’m Not A Writer” syndrome, which kept my fingers from typing and wasted countless hours in frustration.

I realized just in time that this had become an inexcusable excuse to not write and got to writing what came out to be informative posts in the eyes of my audience. So if you, a small business owner, feel the same way about writing, the following tips on writing will help you become an effective blogger in no time.

7 Tips on How to Be a Successful Blogger - Even if You’re Not a Writer

If you really get to it, you would realize that writing isn’t all that boring and frustrating. Plus, to become an effective blogger, you don’t really have to be a qualified or professional writer.

Then again, you’re no Hermione Granger to sway your wand and magically bring words to appear on a blank screen. So, the short answer to how to become a famous blogger is,

“If you want to be a writer, there are two things you must do above all others; read a lot and write a lot. There is no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

~ Stephen King

Hesitate no more. Get started!

Tip #1: Figure out your audience

The first step to start any journey is to figure out the intent and audience.

And in this case, you need to shortlist the people who your content is directed towards.

Deciding the target audience helps decide the topic, choose what to write, and decide what makes a good blog.

Let’s suppose you run a business that makes SEO plans for eCommerce websites. Now your target audience would be eCommerce website owners.

This automatically can help you choose the right topic directed towards those website owners.

For instance, they would want to know how they can get their website developed, designed, and optimized for search engines and social media.

A good topic, in this case, could be, “Top Factors that Affect the Ranking of your eCommerce Website”.

You can choose a certain set of demographics to target, such as age, location, income level, occupation, gender, etc.

To determine your target market even more effectively, ask yourself the following questions:

• What problems do my company and I intend to solve?

• Who are my present customers?

• Who are my competitors?

• What additional value does my company give to a customer?

Once you’re done figuring out your target audience, your journey to become an effective blogger starts.

Tip #2: Choose an interesting topic

The second step to write an interesting blog post is to select a topic that would compel your audience to read your write-up.

The right way to come up with an interesting topic is to step into your target audience’s shoes and think about the problems you would face had you been in their place.

You cannot just write about what you do. Nobody’s interested in that.

You need to focus on the problem first and then talk about how you can help.

You need to base the core of your content on the information that your audience needs and searches for.

In this image, you can clearly see how your content core should lie in what the audience cares about and not what you do.

For instance, my company is into making affordable SEO packages for eCommerce websites. So when I want to write a post, I focused on those who want to improve their ranking on search engines. I thought of the problems they must be encountering. And that’s when I figured that they would want to learn how to write content that invites readers and thus, ranks.

This is how I ended up deciding to write on this very topic: How to become a blogger.

You can also use a few tools to put together your ideas and strategies in an organized manner.

Try the following tools:

• Evernote

Filled with amazing features, Evernote is a note-taking tool where you can neatly organize your thoughts and concepts after researching your topics and suggestions.

You can even create projects and assign them to your team members using the tool.

• Tweak Your Biz Title Generator

This is an amazing tool if you know what you want to write but can’t choose the right title.

It will generate a list of titles that will surely help increase clicks and traffic.

You can choose the one that suits you the best and serves your purpose.

• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

I probably use this tool for almost all my blog posts because it tells me if my title is appropriate for the readers.

It generates a score based on some parameters to analyze your heading.

The score gives a detailed report on where your title lacks and how you can improve it.

Here’s what I got when I searched my title.

You can keep tweaking your headline according to the analysis generated to gain a higher score, and thus, write better titles.

Tip #3: Read for inspiration

The best way to curate good content is to indulge in quality content first.

This doesn’t mean that you paraphrase others’ thoughts and present them in your blog. No.

It means that while reading content written by top bloggers, you come up with your own ideas. Reading always opens doors to new ideas. Haven’t you heard that the most successful people have a habit of reading?

Becoming a subject matter expert helps write content that speaks volumes of your knowledge and answer the questions that nobody even ever thinks of.

This is one crucial step to become an effective blogger.

Read, learn, and gather as much info as you can on a topic of your interest and then write about it.

Not only will you feel more enthusiastic about writing it, but you will never run out of content to write.

Since I make eCommerce SEO packages, I read off the internet about SEO and the way in which it is used to help eCommerce websites rank, etc. This not only brings me joy as I get to learn new things but also, subconsciously, helps me improve as a writer.

There are various sources of information: read blogs, comics, social media pages like Reddit. People love to share their views on social media. That can help, too.

In fact, subscribing to amazing blogs and newsletters can help. Your inbox will be flooded with content as a reminder for you to read more.

If not this, you can try seeking tutorials to understand your topic better and become a successful blogger.

Tip #4: Decide the length of your post

You will often face the difficulty of deciding the ideal length of a quality blog post.

While there are posts will only 800 words that get famous overnight, you might not want to risk it.

Buzzsumo put together 100 million content pieces and analyzed them on the basis of their share count with respect to content length.

Clearly, the longer the post, the more are the number of shares in it.

Ideally, your content should contain anywhere between 2000 and 2500 words.

Again, what really matters is what you write and how much value it adds.

Writing 3000 words of jargon will not help you rank.

Write informative, well-researched, grammatically correct content to gain more views and traffic from your target audience.

Remember to not make it redundant. Write relevant content whose context is not repeated anywhere in the post.

The key to perfectly write a high-quality blog post and become an effective blogger is to write such that there is nothing that can be removed from the post to make it more informative.

Tip #5: Develop a content structure

Oftentimes, while our mind is filled with ideas and topics, we can’t really bring ourselves to write.

Why?

Because we’re cluttered. We don’t know where to start!

This is where a content structure works as a guide and sets you to sail.

Here’s how you can create a structure for your post.

1. Introduction

Write about the words that you’ve used in your title. Discuss the problem or the technical words. Introduce them to the reader, gain their attention, and mention statistics to gain credibility.

This should make around 5-10% of the total word count.

2. Body

The middle portion of your post is the core of your content. This is where the information that your reader needs lies. You need to explore the topic in detail here. Make it extremely readable, answer all questions that might arise while thinking about the said topic, and add images to illustrate what you want to say. This should make 75% of your total word count.

3. End

End your article on a thought-provoking note. Ask a question, give the reader something to think about. Write about your own experience and conclude your post in a manner that it summarized what you explained in detail above. This makes around 10% of the total word count.

With this structure, even if you deviate a little from the topic, it will bring you right back.

Also, if you don’t know how to start introducing your article, start anywhere and organize it later.

If you think you want to write the core first, do that. That can help write a better introduction as you would know what you’ve written to introduce it better.

Tip #6: Write shorter sentences for skim readers

As a non-writer, you must understand that the internet is also filled with non-readers.

You need to create blog posts that suit non-readers.

Non-readers typically like to skim read content and are generally inclined towards reading short sentences and a lot of paragraph breaks.

Understand that not all readers of your post will have an incredible vocabulary, so you can do without a lot of fluff in your content to appeal to those non-readers who’re just seeking information.

If you’re ever not sure about sending out the right kind of content, you must look for a person with a critical eye to edit and proofread your work.

It’s always wise to hire an editor for these kinds of work or grab a few style guides to hone your editing skills.

Here’s what you can do to edit your document yourself.

• Start by removing weaker points or themes. Add sources and references wherever necessary to add credibility to your post.

• See how relevant your content is. Look for places where points are not made under the correct section. Sometimes moving stuff around helps make the post even more effective.

• Edit the parts where you see repetition and redundancy. Break longer sentences into simple and shorter sentences. Remove all complex and outlandish words.

This will surely help you become an effective blogger and deliver excellent content.

Tip #7: Practice makes perfect

As Stephen King brings up above, to improve as a writer and make blog entries that add value, you should write a lot.

Truly! Stephen's statement is precise because when I previously started writing, most occasions felt like I wasn't in the game; I didn't have a clue what to write.

Furthermore, if when I would write, I would write less without excitement since I would always feel frustrated.

In any case, after setting my writing objectives and following them, I started writing routinely on topics I find fascinating, such as SEO packages and website ranking factors.

At that point, I understood that I was gaining the high ground. The fact is straightforward; careful discipline brings about promising results.

In this manner, set a daily practice for your writing and attempt to adhere to it.

The only way you will become a successful blogger is by persistently blogging and reading a lot, too.

Source: Literacy Works

Yes, indeed. There is no other way.

Writing is an ability that is created through training. The more you write content, the better you will be.

In the event that you end up stuck, simply recollect it's your blog: Change the title, the point, the focus, or the medium. Just don’t let your write-up sit in the drafts folder for too long.

Conclusion

The most effective method to compose blog entries that convert is a challenge for some scholars, particularly new bloggers.

A few bloggers have constantly thought that it was a lot more challenging to compose a new blog content that is profoundly informative.

In any case, the tips in this article will assist you with writing blog entries that will pull in more readers to your blog and present you as an expert in your specialty.

Actualize these tips and step towards becoming an effective blogger in no time!