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In this post Dan Kaufman from Bar Zine shares some tips on writing Sharp Snappy Blog Posts.

When you write a story you’re lucky if you can get a reader beyond the first paragraph. This is true in print and it’s even worse online (a recent study by Jacob Neilson at http://tinyurl.com/mubtmr makes for interesting reading). After all, your post is just one out of millions online – and the difference can lie in how well written your copy is.

Writing is a craft that involves a continual learning process.

Having been a journalist and editor for the past 15 years (and I’m now a blogger as well) I still find myself learning – but there are some hard and fast techniques to make your copy snappier and more engaging. Here are some of the basics:

1) Write Short Sentences

Next time you pick up a book and can’t put it down, stop and have a look at the sentence length – you’ll often find the sentences are short and punchy. 32 words is the maximum for an article’s first sentence and while there are exceptions they ought to be rare. Aim to only have one point per sentence.

2) Use the Active Voice

Have a look at the following two sentences:

The cat chases the mouse

and

The mouse is being chased by the cat

Which one is punchier?

It’s the former because the subject (the cat) is doing something to the object (the mouse). As such, it makes sense to have the subject appear in the sentence before the object. In other words, the sentence is written using the active voice (whereas “The mouse is being chased by the cat” is passive).

Using the active voice is more direct and requires less words – and the less words, the snappier the sentence becomes.

3) Write in the Present Tense

Which of the following headlines seems punchier?

PM halts peace talks

Or

PM halted peace talks

Unless your blog post takes the form of a hard news story you should use the present tense. Even hard news headlines are written in the present tense to make them seem more immediate.

4) Use Positive Language

This means avoiding negative words such as no, not and didn’t when appropriate. You’ll see why when you look at the following example:

Troops have not pulled out of war zone

Vs

Troops stay in war zone

The bottom example reads better since, as with using active voice, making sentences positive often makes them snappier. We also changed the tense from past to present.

5) Write in a conversational tone

A lot of people don’t realise that good writing means using a conversational tone – albeit with better grammar than you would use when talking to a friend in a bar.

Avoid hype, pretentious words, jargon and acronyms – instead of impressing readers it’s a turn off. You should never talk down to your reader by using language they may not understand and you should never assume they know something they may not. Unless you’re trying to spin something or confuse, use simple, clear and direct language. As the old saying goes, if you confuse your readers you lose your readers.

George Orwell put it another way in The Politics of the English Language.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” he wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

Dan Kaufman publishes Bar Zine (barzine.com.au), where he reviews Sydney bars. He also writes for The Sydney Morning Herald and teaches online journalism at UTS.

Getting Someones Attention

When you are writing anything whether it be a classified, a blog post an article or anything else that has to do with selling something and getting someones attention you need to very careful about how you are doing this. I see dozens of people crying out every day in desperation and can tell they aren’t selling anything. We as customers have that sixth sense ( yes we are all customers at one point or another) which is basically our subconscious notifying us when something isn’t quite right. This sense or alarm can be triggered in many ways. If you think your going to copy and paste your way to financial freedom, think again. People will be able to tell when your not being genuine and will be immediately alerted by there subconscious. Your personality is what is going to set you apart from everyone else because there is only one you and you can only be you. : ) ( phew!!) Now , don’t go throw away all those plr articles you have, you can still use them, but instead, read them, learn something, then write about it in your own words. You want to get someones attention, but you don’t want to get it in the wrong way.

Caps and Punctuation

First rule: Bigger letters does not mean bigger sales. If you are placing a classified ad and you capitalize every letter in the title you are not going to get many clicks. If you capitalize most of the letters in the body you won’t get many clicks. For one, putting a word in all CAPS  is the same a yelling, and two, it yells “I’m desperate please help.” The same goes with punctuation, you don’t want to make everything an exclamation because it’s not. You have to strategically place your caps and punctuation in order to grab your prospects attention. Over use of these and you are surely going to trigger the alarm in the head of the prospect. It’s kind of like music in a way, by leading someone into the crescendo. Let me see if I can give you one good example of this with a real program I promote.

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Maybe not the best in the world but you can see how the caps and punctuation can be more effective if not over used. You want to use these at the time your going to describe the product and the best benefit the product or program offers. If you ask a question remember to put a question mark and not a exclamation point. Most ads will be longer than that but just remember to use an exclamation point once, maybe twice, but only if it is a statement that really deserves it. This also depends on what your writing, if you are writing an article of course your going to have an opportunity to place a few more here an there, yet STRATEGICALLY! I guess the main point is, “Don’t Over Do It.” Another way to use caps is to capitalize the first letter of  every word when describing your products name or a quote that you want to hit home, like I have just done. Doing little things like this will boost your click through rate because it says basically “I’m Confident” and everything I write doesn’t have to be overly punctuated or capped because I know what I am talking about. Peoples sixth sense will pick this up and you will see much better results.

The Best Way to Acquire or Learn This Skill

There is one way that I have learned to pick up on the skill of writing, proper punctuation and strategic placement of caps. It is a very easy yet hard thing to do. Actually it is easy to do, but it’s hard to motivate yourself to do it. This is what I think I’ll call O.P.S. This is simply Other Peoples Stuff and  reading it.

If you read a lot of articles and blog posts by people who have been doing this for a while you will be surprised as to how it sinks in and you will slowly start seeing it come out when you decide to write something. Two of my favorite blogs ( there are more of course) are:

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Problogger.net

You may have different ones, but if you haven’t been following anyone yet these are two of the most successful bloggers on the Internet from what I have seen and would highly suggest checking out the quality content they put out. Just don’t forget who pointed you in the right direction. : )

So try these tactics out for yourself and let me know WHEN not IF  you see a difference in your results. Just let me know by leaving a comment below. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to put them  in the comment area.