The Pen is Mightier: 10 Easy Tips to Improve Your Writing Skills
According to research, the average viewer takes about 15 seconds to decide if they are going to stay on your website or not. The simple action to improve your writing will help you to write compelling stories and keep your traffic interested.
If your writing is not interesting, it will increase your bounce rates which could affect your rankings on Google. This means that your articles must be fresh, relative, and informative. They need to be easy to read, or else it will scare away a majority of the population with a busy mind.
So if the writing style is so important, how do you improve your writing so that people will actually take the time to read what we have to say?
Keep on reading to learn 10 easy tips on how to improve your writing so you can create blogs that keep everyone captivated and boost your rankings.
Let’s get started.
1. Write First, Edit Later
When you are in a good flow of thoughts, it is important to get everything you can out in words before your judgemental mind starts to over analyze everything.
Write like you cannot lift your hands away from the keyboard, spelling mistakes and all. Then go back later with a fresh mind and start to do your editing. Remember that even the most experienced of writers never create a perfect first draft, so being easy on yourself will release some pressure and help you stay in that state of flow.
2. Keep it Simple
According to a recent study by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, if your articles exceed a 7th-grade reading level, the average consumer will not be able to comprehend the information.
Keeping your sentences, paragraphs, and words shorter is one of the best ways to improve your writing. This will enable you to get through the monkey minds of the majority of readers.
3. Read It Out Loud
By reading your articles out loud, you are ensuring that the message you are writing will convey clearly to your audience.
If it comes across as inauthentic to you, try speaking your message into a voice recorder, then translating that to text. This ensures you are writing in a style that matches your personality and the way you speak.
4. Use Proper Formatting
There is nothing more intimidating to our overactive, busy minds than seeing a big chunk of text and feeling pressured to read it. The first thing most people do when they see blocks of text is they look for something else to read.
Improve your writing skills by breaking your paragraphs up into two to three easy to read sentences. Try adding bullet points or numbered charts to separate points, and add bold lettering to draw the reader to the big points you want to make.
5. Avoid the Fluffy Filler
You should never need to write a lot of words to get your point across. Writing a blog is not like a university thesis, it is not the word count that matters, it is the message you are trying to explain.
Aim to get your message out with as few words as possible, this will help you get to the point and keep your article intriguing.
6. Give It Time Before You Publish
When you are finished editing your article, step away from the computer for at least an hour before you press that publish button. This will give you time to re-look at your article with fresh eyes and find any mistakes that you missed while you were in the midst of writing.
Even if you feel that your article is immaculate, that little bit of time will help you to notice something new.
7. Take Advantage of Writing Tools
Being a writer these days is tremendously easier than it used to be. There is an abundance of free and affordable technology for writers that will help anyone become the next Hemingway.
8. Know Your Audience
Before you even begin to write your article, get clear on who it is you are writing to. From Millenials to golden age, each genre has a specific interest and style that will keep them interested in reading.
It does help if you can relate to your audience by being in the same demographic, however, even if you are not, there is a tremendous amount of information that can help you appeal to your specific audience.
9. Practice Lots
Does a professional athlete go out to perform once in a while without bothering to practice? Absolutely not, and you should not either!
The more you write, the better you will improve your writing. You can practice by writing more emails to friends, creating short stories, and even by sharing longer and more descriptive Facebook posts.
10. Read More
This may sound counterintuitive, however, the more you read, the more you are exposed to different writing styles that could influence the way you write. The best writers speak all the time about the number of books they read and how it impacted their success.
This includes newspaper articles, novels, research papers, short stories, and blogs. Pay close attention to sentence structure, theme, the flow of words and every detail that interests you.
Need to Learn More About How to Improve Your Writing?
By following these ten tips on how to improve your writing, you are already well on your way to creating epic content that people will actually read.
If you want to learn more tips, check out more articles on our blog such as how to tell compelling stories as a travel writer. The better you write, the more followers you will have, which equals to more sponsors and cash in the bank for most travel writers