One of the things that puts people off having a business blog is the fear of needing to be an expert writer.

Putting your writing out into the world can be scary!

After all, you are opening up the inner workings of your mind to strangers.

What will they think? Will they like it? Will they be critical?

In short… awesome, yes and yes are the answers to those questions.

If you put together a piece of content that is packed with your knowledge and tips then your people will think it is awesome. In fact, they will love it.

However, like anything you put out in the public forum, some people will be critical. 

But, it is time to put on your big kid pants and get over that fact. The ones that are critical (and are just behaving like a**holes) are not your ideal clients anyway… so who cares what they think!

When it comes to writing content for your business, it is less about being an expert writer and more about creating content that your audience can connect with.

Let’s look into that idea a little bit more.

 

Do I Need To Be An Expert Writer?

 

Do I Need To Be An Expert Writer?

While you don’t need to be today’s answer to William Shakespeare, it is helpful to be able to string a few sentences together.

Don’t panic, this is not like 5th form English where your grumpy teacher is ready with a red pen in hand. No one is going to grade your content or make you redo it in after school detention.

But, you do want your audience to be able to understand what you are trying to say.

Remember this, sentences do not need to be structured like the textbooks say. You do not need to perfect your use of the semicolon or parentheses (that’s a fancy word for putting things in brackets… see what I did there!). 

What you do need to do is create simple sentences that people can understand. If you are worried about doing that, here are my tips on creating great written content for your audience…

 

Speak Aloud

The cool thing about a blog, newsletter or social media post is that it is meant to be a conversation with your readers. So, it should be approachable and written in a reasonably casual tone. Just like when you speak to people in a verbal conversation.

So, if the thought of writing the words on the page worries you, “say” them onto the page.

No, I haven’t gone coo-coo-ca-choo, I am talking about using technology to your advantage. If you speak better than you write, then speak your article aloud and use some technology to get it down on the page.

The old school way is to record a sound clip of you speaking and then transcribing it. But, who has time to do that?

Instead, use Google Speech to Text, Otter.ai, or Rev.com to get your spoken words into text form. Then, simply read over it and polish it up so that it reads well as a written piece. Done!

 

Write For The Web

Writing content that is designed to be read online is completely different to writing a scholarly article for a science journal. Though sometimes, sitting down to write either can seem equally imposing. 

When you are writing for the web, you want to use short sentences and short paragraphs. Visually, it is easier to read shorter sections of text than longer ones. Plus, it helps you to focus on key ideas in a concise way. It stops those long waffly sentences that contain 10 commas and more ideas than a brainstorm.

Aim to keep your sentences under 20 words long and your paragraphs only 3-5 lines long. 

 

Use The Tools Available

There are lots of ways you can improve your writing. The first is simply to read more. Absorbing well constructed sentences can help you to create your own. Even better, it is subconscious learning. AND, you get to read… it doesn’t get much better than that.

Before you hit publish, get a friend or colleague to read over your piece. They can provide a sanity check and confirm that it is easy to understand. Having that tick of approval can really give you the confidence to push the big green button.

Using something like Grammarly can help you to pick up any glaring spelling or grammatical errors. Now, a word of caution with Grammarly. It isn’t a perfect tool and is largely Americanised, so don’t take what is says as verbatim. But, use it to make sure you don’t have any pesky typos in your work. 

 

Combat The Red Flags

If there are some aspects of writing that you tend to get wrong all the time, then come up with a way to combat that. Either have some notes that you can refer to that tell you when to use certain writing aspects or devise a workaround.

One of my favourite workarounds is this:

I really have to think about the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’. I can use the terms correctly if I stop and take the time to consider it carefully. However, when I am mid-flight in a typing frenzy of blog content, I don’t always have the time. Instead of worrying about getting it wrong, I use the word ‘impact’ instead and it completely solves the problem. 

 

Sometimes You Will Get It Wrong, And That’s OK

Want to hear a funny story?

A while ago, I posted an article talking about the importance of proofreading your work before publishing. Before I pushed go on putting the post live, I must have reread it at least 10 times over to ensure there were no spelling mistakes in it. I just couldn’t deal with the irony of a content writer posting an article about proofreading with a spelling mistake in it.

So, I pushed go…

Wouldn’t you know it, within an hour, someone commented and found the one typo that I had missed in the piece. 

At first, I was mortified. But, then I realised that I am only human and sometimes it is hard to proofread your own work. Your brain sometimes glosses over mistakes as it knows what you are trying to say. In the end, everyone saw the funny side of it and it became a cool moment of connection with my audience.

 

Don’t Fear The Critics

As I said above, there will always be critics out there. Some people actually get a kick out of tearing others down. Just remember, that when people are trolling, it is more about their own insecurities than it is about you. Their words may hurt, but they are only tearing you down to try and make themselves feel better. 

 

So, hopefully that helps you to see that you don’t need to be an expert writer to blog for your business. Use all the tools at your disposal and just get out there and nail it!

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