Pro Writing Tips For Bloggers
Whether you are writing to earn money, record memoirs or to motivate, your success depends on how much you can write within a given period. This is the universal truth that applies to all writers, from bloggers to professors putting down their thesis. Here are some exercises thatâll help you write more in less time.
Get The Best Out Of Your Peak Hours
1. Identify Your Peak
What is your peak writing time during the day? Early morning, before the world wakes, or late at night?
2. Put It To The Test
Tackle two tough projects, one during your regular hours and one during your peak. Youâll notice that youâre more inspired, motivated, quicker and full of ideas during your peak time.
3. Protect Your Peak Time
Donât allow any other activity during your peak time. This can mean some amount of activity juggling, cutting off regular commitments for that hour and so on.
4. Put Aside Tough Projects For Your Peak Hours
Get the best out of your peak hours by doing your toughest posts during this time, such as those that need you to delve deep within yourself.
A Step-By-Step Process To Motivated Writing
5. Know The Purpose Behind Your Article
Knowing exactly why you blog and whom you want to benefit will create a certain amount of urgency in you to address your readerâs need.
6. Identify The Change You Want To Create
What change do you desire in your reader after reading your article? Understanding the exact change you desire will help you write the solutions easily.
7. What Will Be The Consequences Of Not Helping Your Readers Make The Change?
If youâve noticed a need with your audience, as their trusted SME, itâs your duty to fulfill it. If you donât do it, someone else will. Nothing can motivate a blogger more than this one fact.
Create An Article Outline
8. Create Numbered Headings
In a new document, create numbered, named headings for all the following paragraphs. Create subheadings if you need to. This creates an outline of the article you want to write.
9. Fill In The Blanks
All you do then is just fill in the blank headers and subheaders with the information that should go in there. donât worry about your sentence structure and other things at this point. Just take a few minutes to push your thoughts out into the blank headers.
10. First Paragraph
Start your article with your understanding of the reasons why your article is needed. Don’t sound patronizing; rather, put your thoughts across in a simple, honest and appealing manner.
11. Second Paragraph
Articulate the change that you want in your readers after they read your article. This will help your readers to know what they will gain from your effort.
12. Third Paragraph
Help your readers identify with the change youâre helping them make, whether itâs in terms of saving time, reducing expenses, increased or additional revenues, weight loss, more customers and so on.
13. Fourth Paragraph
Identify the necessary steps that your readers must take in order to achieve the goal youâve already outlined.
14. Last Paragraph: Conclusion
Again, articulate the audienceâs need, and summarize your content in a few short sentences. Refer to your numbered points as detailed above to do this. Donât waste your time writing long, verbose conclusions that no one has the time to read.
Fine Tune Your Article
15. Save And Review
Save your article, sit back and review it. Is the article flowing well so far? Is it in line with the change you want to make to your readerâs lives? You will make changes here and there, but with greater confidence, since now your article is pretty much in shape.
16. Simplify The Text
Check for missing words, complex sentences, long words that you can break down and passive verb constructions. These constructions are hard for people to read, so tone it down.
17. Check Grammar And Spelling
Your word processing software will do most of this for you, but donât forget to check grammar and spelling at least twice before submit your post.
18. Provide A Call To Action
At the end of your article, write what you want your audience to do next. Do you want them to check out your e-book on the subject, or look up a product on your affiliate site? Mention it.
19. Use The Right Tools
Get yourself fast word processing software such as MS Word, a tool to save online reference materials, tools to limit distractions and so on. Get a text expansion tool if youâre going to use templates or repetitive text.
20. Use A Speech To Text Software
If your typing speed is not up to the mark, get a speech-to-text software such as Dragon Natural Speaking. If you find it easier to just speak your thoughts out and then edit your article, this will do the trick for you.
About Dean
Interesting tips!
I’ve heard about the peak time, before. At start, I thought, does it really make a difference? To write in the evening or morning? But soon I figured out that, yes, it does.
I know some of the above, already. Working on some, already. Got some more to work with. Thanks for the informative post.
Hi Abhi, Peak times makes a lot of differences. I usually prefer early mornings because the surroundings are much more peaceful at that time.
I have never used any speech to text software before, I might give it a try in the future. The problem is not with my typing speed but rather with the fact that sometimes when I get the inspiration to write something, as I jot down the words, I have already forgotten what I had to say next 🙁 Looks like my writing muse does not stick with me for long. Thanks again for these amazing tips by the way
Hi Pam, You must try a speech to text software. Sometimes its just easier to speak up your thoughts than writing them.
Writing is learning, doing all things in a single minute is not enough to create a valuable articles in my part… Thanks for sharing a kind of tips in making things possible and valuable taking less hours..
Helpful tips. I’m not a blogger but I do write articles to promote my website. I feel you gave good examples and I’m going to give this a try.
Thanks. These are great tips for even seasoned writers to revisit and refresh. I’ll be coming back to use this as a guide when the muse strikes next. (Unfortunately for me, my muse has to wait for work to be over, housework/wife-y stuff done and my 4yr old to be in bed, before it can creep onto the keyboard and across the screen. By then, its often my head and not my fingers that are resting on the keys.)
Hi Tina, Nice comment. I hope things will change a bit so you can get more time for writing.
Nice info which will be prove so useful for all blogger and online marketers. That kind of activities also make very good and nice way to search our destination.
These are very helpful tips! I’m really looking forward on writing more just in less time. Thanks for sharing this..
I really believe in peak hours. I do my best work in the a.m. Why blog at night if your not at your best? Simply the text is something I find myself doing more often these days. Nice tips!
Very effective Tips. I think that these tips would also help me to improve myself and help me to write more posts in less time. 😀
but some times my mind is turn to stop writing and start chatting 😉 i need to keep my mind in my hands ..
Wow, what a lot of good tips, many do I use already, but some new goodies did I found that could be of great benefit to me in my writing.
These are great 20 tips and I should have read before I started my post called 50 Tips to use Twitter. I found really hard to arrange them and the tips above those are all what I’m looking for thank you. I’ll use it for the next.
Hey Ferb,
Big thanks for sharing this article with 50 tips for twitter, here. 🙂 You’ll see my comments there.
These 20 Exercises are really awesome tips,By using that anyone can write high quality article in less time.I thinks Create An Article Outline is best approach for good writing.
these are great tips we all need to recap on from time to time,i must admit i have never used any speech to text software before,you`ve given me food for thought though….thanks
nice post..these post also get me motivated to do more work..and concentrate on my website..
Great tips. I follow the peak time rule religiously. I have only a couple of hours per day to devote to blogging so I have everything structured to ensure that I am remaining productive. Every morning while I drink my coffee, I check email, respond to comments, and engage with social media. At night time, between 9-10 is when I write and edit blog posts. Between 10-11 is when I promote my posts.
Hi,
thanks for the useful tips !
Above all the one about “Identify our Peak” :
it is truth and I never paid much attention to the hour
I write, but I guess my Peak time is early morning.
Keep up the good work !
What great tips! This article was sort of summarized most of what I learned in the writing classes I took in college. I may print it out and tack it to the wall near my computer as a great reminder. Thank you so much for sharing!
Karen
Hi Karen , Thanks for your feedback 🙂
Dean, thank you for your post! I must admit I am new to blogging and my posts are far more photo oriented given that I am covering fashion & designer maternity clothing but I shall certainly be noting your points on how I write my post and what message I want to convey to my audience. I can see where sub-headings would play an important role particularly in SEO! I get alot of mixed meassages about post length! Some say 100-200 words, some 300 min and some hit 500+! I suppose it depends on the suject and how much engagement is being sought! What are your thoughts?
Hi DaddyBlogZAUK ,
Thanks for your comment. Well post length depends on the subject but I personally prefer the posts with at least 800 words.
Great tips. I specially agree in that we, as bloggers, must identify our ‘peak times’ for productions. Not only will it result in better/more work, it is a far more efficient use of the one asset you have a limited supply of: TIME!
Some really good tips here thanks. I recently started blog posting for the first time and must admit it was harder than I thought, My main problem is going of subject. Hope to implentment some of your tips into my blogging.
Hi Prakash, I know its easily said than done but keep practicing. You’ll definitely see the improvement. Thanks for your comment
What fantastic writing tips, Brian! Since much of my professional writing involves writing feature stories with a very short, tight deadline for news outlets and magazines, I often don’t take the time to create an outline — most journalists working with tight deadlines just don’t have the time to spare.
But I’m guilty of allowing this to become a habit with my other (less time-sensitive) writing activities. Reading your post reminded me that I need to start re-incorporating outlines into my writing process for my day to day writing for my websites and for other endeavors.
I’ve yet to use speech to text conversion software. I’ve heard good and bad things about the various software packages. I think I’d like to try one out first (i.e. one belonging to a friend) before buying.
Thank you for another rockin’ post!
xo
Samantha
I haven’t tried to find a time when I find writing to be the easiest. Seems like a no brainer, I need to start keeping track of when the creative juices are flowing most freely. Good tip!
To be honest I’m a moody type of person. I couldn’t write directly in less moment in time. It is so hard for me if I couldn’t a better place for writing. I find your post very interesting I think I need so more practice to open my skills in writing. I heard peal before and I just past it by through my ears.
Hi Dean,
These really are great writing tips. I never thought of identifying my peak time to write. I just kind of “wing it” and do what I can when I can. I will have to take some time and figure out when my peak writing time is and take on a few difficult projects.
This post was very motivational… Thanks!
Take care,
~Jeremy
My peak time varies and sometimes is random which is why it makes it hard for me to get on a schedule and stick to it but when a good idea comes to me I have to write it RIGHT then or I lose it. lol I am working on it. Great tips.
Writing can be very personal. It is a reflection of a persons thoughts and a way to express ones point of view. With the popularity of blogging many have discovered a way to share their writing with the world. Blogging has also made writing less formal with many web log style posts written in a very casual conversational manner.
I’d love to try dragon naturaly speaking one day, I’ve heard it can recognize your speech even if you’re not native english speaker.
Thanks for the post by the way.
Hi Noah, Yes its a good software in the niche. I’m using it from few months with good results.
good thing about checklist do them all and your done.
only problem is making them and doing them.
Speech to text software are a good way to gather your thoughts, I am doing some experiment right now. One issue is most of them are accent dependent and does not work that good for Asian accent.
Hi Sanjeev, I think there are speech-to-text software for Asian dialects. You can find few using Google search
Automatic speech-to-text software isn’t very good. We tried it for transcriptions of some of my TV series and it took more work to correct computer-generated transcriptions than it took to just play the videos at half speed and type them out.
I thought I’d read everything there was to be read on blogging..but apparently i was mistaken.. gr8, indepth post!
Hi Pankaj ,
Thanks for your comment. There is enough to learn for everybody. So keep sharing and keep learning
I’m too lazy to make an outline but I realized that it really aids writers to creating an organized and useful content. Thanks for the useful tips in fine tuning and creating an outline.
I also believe in writing during your peak hours or the moment in your day when you think you are most productive. Sometimes, you can’t even tell when it is because it just comes in a certain time. 🙂
Really its great tips for me which can be help my blog improvement thanks for it sharing.
I know that it’s not easy to come up with a topic to write on, or generate content in a short period of time. Thanks for your tips. For me, I used to create an outline to better layout my ideas and search for terminologies to use in my post. I’ve realized that engagement to a community and people in your niche is a big help to come up with ideas.
As far as blogs go just keep the content relevant to the title, keep the information short/simple and to the point, and know your audience.
All are true! Time is really where most of the challenge is. It’s really hard to do the things that we need to do at the same time write good articles. So time management plays a very big role in this part.
Very informative post and great tips. First of all think about thr topic on which you are going to write, plan every thing and then write. Thanks for sharing this brilliant post.
I suggest making your research prior to using your peak time. At least, this is what works best for me, as I like doing research when I have nothing else to do.
Best,
Mircea (btw, hope you didn’t mind I used a KW as my Name. I couldn’t find any comment guidelines, but if I did this wrong, please replace it with my name; this is a genuine comment)
Hi Dean,
These are really good tips for writing an high quality articles in less time. i’ve bookmarked your blog for future 🙂
Keep posting usefull information.
Cheers!
Writing a good content is very important. Selection of words is very significant. As our whole writing skill lies on it. This post helps me to recover my deficiencies and give me awesome ideas. Improve our writing speed. Take less time and do more.
Hi Dean,
As per your title the tips are really very helpful for all new comers as well as professional bloggers. I m damn sure that above article writing secrets and guide will help me too.
I use a mind map that I continually add to – with the category/goal, then specific post ideas. I add to it each day so when I sit down to actually write, I have the end goal right in front of me all the way down to the post outline.
Sometimes it could be peak writing time and it just doesn’t flow. That’s when having the outlines and the “thinking” work already done helps.
Great checklist – thanks.
Dee
Thanks for the great tip. Specially about that software that writes what it hears. Dragon Speaking. I will try to look for it now.
These are really interesting tips. Never had tips like this about writing. Thanks for sharing.
Very effective Tips. I think that these tips would also help me to improve myself and help me to write more posts in less time. Thanks Den for sharing the tips with us.
Hi Dean,
Great tips, but I think If we have chose the best niche in which we are perfect, we can write as more as possible in less time.
Thanks for sharing:D
This is a very helpful post! I am doing my research papers now and about to start drafting my thesis proposal. I am a night person and just can’t concentrate writing during day time.
You should also avoid jargon, unless you’re writing for an audience which expects it.
I don’t have specific in time of writing.If something came up in my mind I wrote it down. As a newbies on writing an Article and your tips it helps me a lot.Niche is very important too.choose the one you know. 🙂
These are very good tips! two years ago I went to a course how to write a book. I paid 1550 USD for it, and here the information is for free. well done!
This is great advice about using you’re peak hours, I already practice this and it definitely works, also liked what you said about identifying the change you want to create, I’ve never thought about writing like this before although now that it’s being pointed out to me it’ll be in the front of my mind next time I write an article or an ebook.
Great tips and info, thanks.
I especially like how you said protect your peak time. I am at a peak time but often times let myself get distracted by what I think I *should* be doing… Thanks for the tip! I’m going to go implement it 😉
The problem is not with my typing speed but rather with the fact that sometimes when I get the inspiration to write something…hehehe
Hi Dean, U have some awesome tips there. I admit that the writing content matters. But I should say the tricky part is like choosing a nice stunning title. And, I like to be less mechanical while writing. I mean following a step-by-step in writing process is tough. The words should just flow naturally from the tip of pen 🙂
Speech text software totally revolutionised the way I wrote. I’m dyslexic and not the fastest behind the keyboard, so I traditionally lost a great deal of time timing my work out. Speech text software took a lot of getting used to, and it makes you feel pretty silly if there’s another person in the room, but it makes getting text down on the page an absolute breeze. I truly recommend it.
Thanks for the nice and valuable tips. I think we must develop a habit of writing daily and should start reading a lot. Reading improves writing skills and proper attention must be paid upon the writing style to keep users engaged and improve visitors loyalty to a website.