It takes some work to write engaging and actionable blog posts so it is critical to learn to write and edit blog posts better.
An excellent approach, for example, is to pour out ideas to paper (or screen) first.
It means writing drafts that you’d not even show someone else—that’s how bad they sometimes are.
But that’s because you’re concentrating on capturing thoughts and not writing a masterpiece at that point.
Yet, turning a draft from a mess into a publishable post is where most writers falter.
Still, it’s easy to write and edit blog posts better if you follow these proven techniques.
Table of Contents
Have a Writing plan
There’s no use writing if you’ve no idea what you aim to achieve with your post.
So, it’s important to create an outline of what you’d want to put into the writing.
The process allows you to research and list the points that your post needs.
It also gives you the chance to weigh ideas to find out the ones that deserve to go into the post.
Moreover, you’d usually write within a given word limit.
So, not all your ideas may get onto the final post.
The simplest way to come up with a plan is to list the subheadings in a format like the one below.
- Introduction
- Subheading
- Another subheading
- A sub-subheading
- Conclusion
Target specific readers
Your blog posts should be purposeful. They should be helpful to a specific group of readers.
See, if you don’t have a clear target, you’ll get lost in a sea of content that competes for the same readers.
It is thus wise to identify a niche that you’ll be writing for even before you start publishing posts.
The approach will also help you in a few more ways.
For example:
- It will help you to establish a writing style and ways of expression that your readers can relate to.
- You’re likely to produce the content that your readers want.
Structure your writing for readability
There’s no use putting out posts if your readers can’t follow your logic.
Dense, meandering sentences—for example—make it very difficult for readers to understand your ideas.
Moreover, you should know that people read from the right to the left.
An excellent practice is to thus start out your paragraphs with short sentences.
You can then branch out to the left by expounding on those header sentences.
Not only does this make your writing readable, it also makes it flow better.
The use of white spaces also makes it easier for readers to consume your content.
For instance, people will tend to not read posts whose paragraphs are lengthy.
They also tire easily if they have to extract points that you’ve hidden in dense paragraphs.
Cut out any superfluous words
A clear and direct way of writing makes for enjoyable reading.
So when editing rough drafts, take some time to cut out all unnecessary words.
See, most people would want to spend a short time reading and still get something out of it.
That’s why you should write your posts using as few words as possible.
Use tools to perfect your post
Granted, editing by hand is a great way of polishing posts.
Still, even the best writers are prone to overlooking some things.
That’s why they rely on software aids to assess their posts before they publish them.
And the good thing with these tools is that they can help you at every phase of the writing process.
Take Evernote—the note-taking app—for instance.
It helps you collect and keep track of your ideas no matter what platform you’re using.
And when you’re supposed to include images in your posts, nothing beats Canva.
This tool does everything from editing images to preparing them for use on social media.
Still, these can’t replace the power of a trained, human editor.
Connect yourself to skilled editors who’ll help you make a good post, great.
Final thoughts
Publishing well-written posts that are actually helpful is no mean feat.
And it takes more than just having the right ideas.
It depends on how well you can put them in a way that’s not only relatable but also enjoyable.
So, adopt a habit of writing rough drafts which you can then perfect using the methods and tools we’ve seen above.
And remember, you can’t write great posts in one sitting – Learn How to Write your First Blog Post.
You need to give drafts time to “breathe” before you start editing them.
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