WriteRight

Welcome to the second part of my Seven Basic Principles for Writing Great Web Content series. In this part, I will cover the last four principles. If you missed part one, you can read it here: Writing Great Web Content. Now, onward…

• Keep an Idea File

  No matter how passionate you are about your topic, there will almost always come a time when you experience writers’ block. This can come in the form of not knowing where to begin, how to continue what you have already started or feeling as though you have fun out of ideas. When it comes to this third type, there is a surefire way to beat it every time: keep an idea file.

  There are many ways to record your ideas. I personally have a digital tape recorder in the car (they are very inexpensive), a small tablet in my purse and post-its and other various pads of paper throughout the house. I never know when I am going to get an idea and I don’t want to lose it. Every so often I gather up my scattered ideas and add them to one of the spreadsheets I keep for each topic about which I write.

  The beauty of this is that when I feel burnt out or as though I just don’t have anything interesting to share, I can pull up that spreadsheet and nearly always find something. Even if I don’t use one of the exact ideas I have recorded, my idea file has never failed to at least engage my brain and get the writing going.

• Read Everything

  I can’t stress to you how important it is to read among all types of content and sources. If you are only reading the top ten or so blogs in your niche, how are you ever going to come up with fresh content? You’re not. So you need to be reading from less-tapped sources.

  Where you find information is largely dependent on your subject. For this blog, I use my own experience paired with the many, many books about writing I have read and collected over the years. For my blog about making money online, I also use my experience, but most of my research is done online or in trade magazines. The only way to consistently produce orginal content is to read things that others in your niche are not reading and to try things (projects, tests, experiments, product, etc.) that no one else is trying.

  You don’t need to limit your reading to only your primary topic interest eithre. Another major benefit of reading voraciously is that you inherently become a better writer. By reading published non-fiction - whether in magazines, newspapers or books - can give you a great knowledge base on style, structure and the type of topics that interest readers most. It also widens your vocabulary and makes you a better speller because you are reading the words rather than just hearing them.

• Avoid Profanity - Mostly

  Though I’m not always so good at this in “real life,” I strongly believe that using profanity can alienate a large percentage of your readers and greatly reduce the respect they have for you. I understand that the web is very casual and I think that’s great, but if you are trying to establish a professional persona, you need to act professional. And as laid back as the busines world has become - especially the online business world - profanity is still not considered the norm.

  If you are writing a blog simply for your friends and family to read, then this rule probably doesn’t apply. However, for those of you wanting to sell a product, promote a business or just share your ideas with a wide range of people, I don’t recommend dropping the f-bomb on a regular basis.

  I rarely use profanity on my primary blog, even though my audience is relatively laid back. But that blog is cross-linked with my serious business blog and I would hate for potential clients to go sample my writing and find a post full of profanity. Perhaps someday it will be more widely acceptable, but for now I would recommend using it only if there is absolutely no other word that can express what you are trying to say or if you feel you really need it for emphasis. Even then, I recommend some creative self-censorship so that the word is clear, but not in its standard form. That can lighten the impact a bit for those folks who find it particularly offensive.

• Don’t Save the Best for Last

  Readers on the web skim. They might read your first complete paragraph and if it doesn’t grab them they’ll find somewhere else to be. This means you have to start every piece of web content you write with a bang. I don’t mean you need to over-do enthusiam or embellish facts, but you should almost always start with the most interesting item in your article and then quickly let the reader know what the rest of the article is about.

  One thing that can really help you to stay consistent with this principle is by using an outline. I know you don’t want to feel like you’re writing an essay, but there is no better way to ensure solid and smooth structure than to map things out. The outline can be as simply as an intro sentence detailing your main point, a few bullets for the basic points you plan to discuss and a conclusion sentence that ties back into the intro and will stick in the readers’ minds.

  Once you have even the most basic outline, you can look at each of your points and decide which one is most likely to hold readers’ attention. This will give you a good place to start and your outline will keep you on course. Sometimes it is perfectly okay to write rambling posts, but if you are trying to teach, persuade or properly inform, you can’t go off in eighteen different directions in the course of five paragraphs.

And there you have it. That last four major principles I apply when writing. There are of course, many other rules and tips that I will be sharing with you as we go along. However, I think these seven items are a great starting point to begin improving your web content immediately.

I am very excited about this new blog. Despite the facts that I have been blogging for years and writing is my passion, I have never had a blog strictly dedicated to the subject of writing. So that’s what this is about. I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of posts about me because I tend to include anecdotes about myself within my articles. you’ll learn enough (probably more than enough!) about me that way.

Since you are reading this, I can assume that you are either (A) a blogger or (B) someone who enjoys reading blogs. This means that writing is an important part of your life, even if you consider yourself only a reader. Considering my audience, this blog will focus on writing content for the web - from blog posts to sales pages. To start things off, I want to share the seven basic principles that I try to apply to any web content I create. I will be posting it in two parts so I can get into the details. Here are the first three:

• Learn the Rules, Then Break Them

  I know, you’ve heard this a million times. The reason why you’ve heard it a million times is because it is absolutely true. I’m not saying you need to become a grammar geek like me overnight, just become familiar with the basics and gather some resources to help you out in case you get stuck.

  The two classic resources I recommend you find copies of (and you should be able to find inexpensive used copies online or at a used bookstore) are Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Sheridan Baker’s The Practical Stylist. There is also a book that came out about two years ago called Painless Grammar that I absolutely love. It was written by Rebecca Elliott and it will teach you the skills without putting you to sleep.

  A great example of rule breaking for the sake of irony is the title of this blog: Write Right. I know that is incorrect, thus making it ironic. If I didn’t know it was incorrect, then it would just be sad. In fact, I’m considering creating the header graphic so that “Right” is crossed out and replaced by “Correctly.” Do you think I should do that or leave it as is?

• When in Doubt, Look it Up

  One of the hardest things to develop on the internet is trust. It is also one of the most important. Establishing an audience of trusting readers is key to maintaining a successful blog. This is true regardless of how you define success - money, number of readers, link backs, etc.

  With all the (true)horror stories of fraud and scary MySpace pedophiles, trust is now something that must be earned by repeatedly serving up helpful, correct and interesting advice to your readers. That is why choosing a topic is so important (more on that in a later post) - because you must know that what you are sharing with your readers is true. If you aren’t sure about the verity of a statement you make in a post, look it up.

  It just takes a quick jump over to Google to double-check your facts. Be sure you find a reliable source when doing this. One slip-up can mean complete loss of your readers’ trust. And, usually, once you’ve lost a reader’s trust, you’ve lost a reader. Information is so readily available on the internet that if you don’t catch your slip, someone else will. And when he/she discovers that you’ve been telling untruths, he/she will let everyone else know. Once something like this happens, it is very hard to dig yourself out of the hole and then build up the trust you once had.

• Try to Have an Opinion

  If you want to encourage your readers to engage with you by commenting on your blog posts (and, believe me, you do), one of the best ways to do this is to have an opinion on the topic about which you are writing. Depending on your niche, there may be times when interjecting opinion is not appropriate, but in most cases the blogosphere allows for the free sharing of feelings and impressions. This may seem a bit controversial, but it helps if your opinion is a minority opinion. The fact is, people are more likely to speak up when they disagree with you than when they agree.

  Your opposition needs to come naturally though, you really can’t force it. If you get your readers all riled up and then can’t back up your negative view, then you don’t have an argument. If you can back it up, that’s great, but be sure you aren’t overly agressive about it. While everyone loves a good debate, flame wars in the comments can turn away those with whom you are arguing as well as other readers who didn’t stop by to read personal attacks.

  I also wouldn’t recommend pretending to have a negative opinion just to grab some attention. There is a good way and a bad way to create link bait and I consider “fake” opinions decidedly on the bad side. Though the tactic might work for some quick traffic, you aren’t likely to build a readership by being overly contrary, especially if you’re just making it up. In my opinion it is always best to present your authentic self to your readers.

That brings part one of my seven basic principles to an end. Tomorrow you can look forward to the last four. I’d tell you what they are, but I’d rather keep you in suspense.

Hello,

My name is Sara L Christensen and welcome to WriteRight. In this blog, I will be offering up various writing tips and helping you to be a better web content provider. Whether you are a blogger or maintain the company intranet, this blog should help you become a better written communicator.  Please feel free to comment, I’d like this space to become interactive and I’ll do my best to foster that within my posts. More later!

Sara