Write with passion
A certain turn off for readers is a piece of writing that does not sing.
In most cases the writer has only a few sentences at best to capture the attention of the reader. In many cases these days, you may have only a few words – perhaps even just a title to hook the reader. I get dozens of emails each day. In most cases I merely skim the titles before hitting the delete button. I simply do not have the time to read every word.
Write with passion
If you know your subject AND you are passionate about it, this will show in your writing. The reader will be hooked and read on, to the very end if your passion oozes through every word. This is what being a communicator is all about. Sharing your passion.
And when your passion shines through your writing, the readers will read to the end and many will return again and again. This is true of writing for print but essential, I feel, in blogging.
The following excerpt from an article tells how it should be:
Passionate Writing: You Can Sell Your Passion
by Carla Vaughan
If you want to be an effective writer, you will find it easiest to focus your writing on topics about which you are either knowledgeable or passionate. Passion sells.
Passionate writing doesn’t mean you have to write about romance or sex. What it does mean is that you have to write from your heart. You have to write about a topic that makes your heart pump a bit more wildly or that you get animated about when you discuss it.
When you write about a subject that creates this kind of excitement, you connect with your readers. They will love your writing. They will not be able to stop reading, in fact. If you do simple research on a topic or have a basic understanding of it, you will not be able to stimulate your readers or lead them with anticipation to the next paragraph.
Passionate writing engages the reader from the first word and leads them through your piece in a way that entrances and exhilarates them. Once you establish your voice, your readers will come to know your writing style and they will seek you out. You must be consistent, though, in producing content that is pleasurable to read.
Getting return visitors to your blog
Rick on his blog Shards of Consciousness has a post called “Three ways to get me back to your blog” where he highlights the importance of style of your blog. He says that light text on a dark background is a real put off for him. The text has to be very easy to read.
I agree.
If a blog or website has small white text on a black background I only stay a few seconds. If I don’t move on quickly, my eyes start to hurt badly. They’ve lost my attention.
Quite a discussion is happening on this topic on Rick’s site. Visit it here. (Sorry – the link no longer works.)
Updated November 2013.
301 lists become a story
Some people are amazingly creative.
A few days ago I wrote about the group writing project being run by Darren Rowse at ProBlogger. He invited readers to submit a list – on any topic. He received 301 entries. I have started trolling through these for ideas and hints, especially those relating to writing.
Liz Strauss on her Successful Blog has started writing a story called A List Becomes 301 Links in Story . So far she has published 4 chapters.
Getting Readers into Your Blog Archives
One of the problems facing most bloggers is getting readers to access the archives sections of the blog. As bloggers, we might spend many hours researching, thinking, planning and then writing our posts. Once the post hits the internet, it sits there on our front page for a few hours or perhaps days, and then the post sinks down the page before disappearing into the archives of the blog. Depending on the profile of your blog, that post you agonised over may have a dozen or so readers or a few hundred if you are lucky.
What to do about it?
Related Posts
One of the techniques I use is to include a related posts listing at the end of the post. This directs readers to other posts I have made on the same topic. This seems quite an effective strategy because many visitors to this blog are reading multiple pages and not just the latest post.
Series of articles
Another technique I use is to write a numbered series of posts. These are on a theme or in a particular genre. For example, I am regularly posting some of my short fiction. These are numbered and also all of them are listed on a page in the navigation section, drawing readers’ attention to previous posts. Another series I am writing I have called “Writing Hints.” As these are posted the links draw the readers to other pages. In my birding blog I have written a series called “How to be a Birder.” Again, this is a numbered series which I hope will draw readers into the archives to read more.
Internal Linking
Another technique to use is internal linking. I used this technique in the above paragraph, linking key words (eg short fiction) and categories in this blog to other sections of the blog. (Note: In the previous paragraph I also used external linking to another of my blogs. The crossover between my blogs shows up as a strength in my statistics.)
Related article:
The motivation for this article comes from Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger. Darren has a long and very useful article on all the different techniques he uses to encourage readers to read in depth within his blogs. The article can be found here:
A list of blog lists
The Group Writing Project being conducted by Darren Rowse on ProBlogger has finished. A record 301 entries have been submitted.
Bloggers were asked to submit a list on a topic of their choice. I haven’t had a chance to read many of them yet but the few I have looked at are very interesting and well worth investigating. Over coming days I might even get enough time to feature here on this blog a few of those that impress me.
My submission is called Sixteen Scintillating Short Story Starters.
The full list of 301 submissions can be found here.