The Basics of Blogging

Let’s, for the moment, forget about business blogging and all of the benefits blogging can offer your company as a whole. What I’d like to discuss in this first section has more to do with personal blogging and how it can make you a better human being. Well, not even that – it can make you someone you like being around a lot more. It’s good for the soul and the art of writing regularly can encourage tremendous personal growth. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for decades. I doubt I’d be the person I am today without the creative outlet we call blogging.

Below this first section, I’ll continue on discussing the more mechanical and grammatical aspects of blogging. After I sell you on the idea of blogging as a whole, information on the actual writing can be helpful.

Benefits of Blogging

I’ll list a few reasons I think personal blogging is beneficial below and then expand upon each. Mind you, these won’t be in any particular order and may come from my own personal experiences. Beware.

1. Blogging can make you seem interesting. I began writing online way back in 2004. I bought a house and posted pictures and stories to show it off to my friends and family. A strange thing happened after I began passing my website address around. Folks who I would never have expected to, came up to me and began discussing what I was up to. Apparently, my website and made its way to the far flung corners of the earth and I began gaining regular followers. This, in turn, gave me encouragement to continue on and within just a few years, I had passed the 2,000 post mark. Even today, I receive comments on posts I’ve written over a decade ago. And some posts have received hundreds of comments, which as you can guess, makes me seem somewhat important and dare I say, interesting.

2. Blogging can change someone’s life. I don’t want to come off more important than I really am, but I would like to share a quick story. A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about walking through some woods. I expressed how tranquil the atmosphere was and how grounded the experience made me feel. I went on for a while, but stopped before I went overboard. I have a tendency to do that sometimes and I didn’t want to come off as over-sentimental. When I was finished, I published the post. The next morning, after my email subscribers had all received the post in their email box, I became the recipient of a personal note from an elderly woman who lives on a small island off the coast of Maine. She expressed how much she loved what I had written and then went on to share some personal experiences from her own life that my writing had reminded her of. She had recently lost her husband and a few of my perspectives conjured up memories of him. I was taken aback by the woman’s revelations, but quickly responded to her and we became pen-pals for some time. And this was only one instance I refer to. Through the years, I’ve received many personal notes from readers that have sort of guided my writing style. I’ve calmed my tone, kept away from some topics altogether, and focus on quality versus quantity. I like to think that I sometimes have an impact on people, which makes me feel good.

3. Writing can help you grow professionally. When I began writing, I wasn’t the best at it. I’m still not, but I’m a heck of a lot better than I used to be. I can’t tell you how many grammar books I’ve read since I began blogging and how many words I’ve checked for spelling on Google. Let me just say – a lot. Even today, I sometimes type so fast that I skip and misspell words and forget my grammar. I also whip through the editing and proofreading process way to quickly, which I know I should work on. But again, I’m so much better at writing these days than I ever was. Through the years, as I continued to learn, I came to realize that there’s a severe shortage of qualified writers out there. It’s remarkable how few people know how to form proper sentences and paragraphs, no less create the structure for an entire story or article. I also learned how critical writing is during every day life. The process of writing is sort of a microcosm for life as a whole. If you’re able to piece together and formulate a story in an organized and coherent way, other areas of your life may follow, not only personally, but professionally as well. I’ve worked in many offices where I was able to pick out who could write well and who could not, simply by the mannerisms of those I was judging. I know, it seems terrible to say. But once the mind is organized, the life also becomes organized, which can help you in all aspects of professional life.

4. Blogging can help you express yourself. I would say that self expression is the most important and rewarding manifestations of blogging, especially if you blog anonymously. I’ve written on both blogs where I’ve used my real name as well as those where I’ve gone under a pen name. Let me tell you that writing under a pen name is one of the most liberating activities you can partake in. It’s simply lovely. This isn’t to say that I haven’t written articles that proud of while using my name, I’m just saying that I can feel the creative freedom coursing through my veins as I write when no one knows who I am. Try it, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Just be sure to stay positive about what you share. Anyway, self expression is healthy for the mind and writing regularly on a blog or something similar, so the public can see and judge, is a unique experience only understood by those who do it. If you consider how often you truly express yourself to those you know, you’ll quickly realize that you’ve hidden a lot through your life. Set yourself free. Write to your heart’s content on your very own blog.

5. You’ll learn a lot and go places. Here’s a little secret not many people know about blogging. It drags you places you would never have gone otherwise. You see, when you begin blogging, every action you take becomes a potential post. No longer do you simply hop in your car to go grocery shopping. Now, as a blogger, you bring your camera and stop off on the way to take photos of you standing in front of that bulldozer you’ve been passing right by for the past six years. Vacations take on new meaning. Trips you would never have taken become part of “work.” Conversations with people turn over and over in your mind, only to be written coyly about on a page of your website. Hidden, if need be. You eat your blog, dream your blog, and become your blog. And that’s the beauty of it all.

Do you blog? If so, please let me know your favorite part of doing so. And if you don’t yet have a blog, but would like to ask me some questions regarding one, please do so down below. I’d love to get you started.

Understanding the Concept Behind Blogging

I’m a blogger. I blog. This is what I do. People ask me all sorts of questions that surround my line of work and I’m often all too excited to answer them. One of the most popular questions I receive is, “What is blogging? I mean, what do you do?”

I get it. Not everyone is up to snuff when it comes to the ins and outs of the internet world. A lot has changed in the past ten years and the folks who really never had a grasp on the business model behind print, television, and radio still don’t have a grasp on the business model behind blogging. Surprisingly, whether you’re producing content that people consume in their hands via paper, watch on a screen hanging from the wall, listen to while driving, or read from a tablet or phone, you’re essentially doing the same thing. You’re creating content that people enjoy. You’re answering questions and connecting with those who matter most.

In this section, I’m going to discuss a bit about the history of blogging, along with how a blog may benefit you if you’re a business owner. I’m going to focus primarily on blogs as an ancillary device to support the primary operations of a business website. I’ll also talk about some of the areas that need focusing on while creating and nurturing any business blog online today.

Let’s Define Exactly What a Blog Is​

Through the years, blogs have meant many different things to many different people. For some, a blog is merely a personal journal – a sort of recording – of the day’s events. For others, a blog is a complete website or perhaps an add-on to an existing website that’s more interactive with a designated audience. However folks choose to define a blog really doesn’t affect what the actual definition is. Yes, there is a definition:

Noun: A regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.

Verb: Add new material to or regularly update a blog. “It’s about a week since I last blogged.”

I’m not sure the above definitions of a blog are very accurate. In my opinion, a blog is a website, or portion of a website, that “lives.” It’s regularly updated and displays pages as “posts.” Each post normally has a date attached to it, so viewers can gauge the relevancy of the material (written too long ago or very fresh). Blogs can have multiple authors and multiple categories and tags. It’s also important to note that blogs generally display their posts in reverse chronological order, so the most recent are the first ones visible.

Think about it this way: a website is generally, once designed and displayed, static. Sure, there may be updates to the site here and there, but overall, the pages you see on a traditional website will be there until the next overhaul. This, of course, excludes active ecommerce websites.

Blogs, on the other hand, are regularly updated. They are meant to be fresh. It’s actually disappointing to visit a blog today to find that the last post was written month or years ago because blogs are meant to stimulate conversation. Also, with the advent of email marketing in the blog arena, blogs can harness a “newsletter” effect, where each post is automatically sent to subscribers. Simply put, blogs have a heartbeat.

Why Blogs Are Critical For Business​

Over the past few years, I’ve seen huge growth in business blogging. It’s almost as though someone flipped the light switch on and things are running full steam ahead. If these businesses continue to trend as I currently see them trending, blogging may actually become one of the business’ primary functions.

I suppose we have to ask the question: “If someone has a business and has information to share, shouldn’t that information reside on the business website?” Of course it should. The thing is, while websites do host a huge volume of information, blogs host a much different type of information. We can compare business websites to lectures or seminars. The information presented through those mediums are monologues. Blogs can be compared to the meet and greet after the lecture or seminar, where folks chat among themselves and discuss questions and concerns regarding what they were just presented. Blogs are effective tools to update clients or stakeholders with more informal opinions and topics. Oftentimes, stakeholders visit a business blog before any other section of the entire web property because that’s where they feel they’ll find what they’re looking for. Blogs excel at nurturing relationships.

So, what types of information do blogs present? Well, think about tips and tricks, tutorials and ideas, thoughts, opinions, and finally, discussion. Oftentimes, the comment section below a blog post is the most valuable area of the entire page. Personally, when I head out to look for information on the web, I regularly visit posts that I’ve visited in the past, knowing full well that the comments have experienced some churn. I know new information may have been added by others.

In order to continue operating a successful and regularly visited blog, businesses need to be mindful of one word: value. Each and every piece of content that’s shared with the world via a business blog must offer valuable insights. If customers and stakeholders take notice of, what I like to call, generic content generation, they will leave only to never return. Generic content is worse than no content at all. So it’s critical that any author of a post on a business blog be an expert in their field with the ability to translate their thoughts into a compelling, opinionated, persuasive and somewhat unique piece of work. That’s the type of content that keeps people connected and coming back for more – because it’s trusted and valuable.

Strategies For Creating An Effective Business Blog​

While this is only the first post in a series of posts that discuss how to effectively plan for and execute on the creation of an effective business blog, I will touch of what future posts will cover. And as those future posts are written, I’ll link to them from this one below.

The five areas I plan to write about are:

Goals – What exactly would a business owner hope to achieve by setting up and operating a blog? What use is it? What’s its purpose and how can the business benefit from creating timely content for its customers and stakeholders?

Strategy – This is where I’ll talk about how a business owner will get from point A to point B. I’ll discuss how the blog will sit alongside an existing website and who should be the primary “overseer” of the operation. Lastly, I’ll cover the “rules” of the blog and what types of guidelines should be implemented to assure maximum success.

Technology – In today’s world, there are almost countless choices for blogging platforms. I’ve been in this field since 1999 and I have to tell you, I’ve never seen anything like the growth and creativity that we’re experiencing today. But, with all this change comes confusion. What’s the best blogging solution? Are there pros and cons to each? Is one better suited to a business owner’s needs than another? In the technology section of this series of posts, I’ll talk about and answer all of these questions.

Content Creation – This area is really where the rubber meets the road. I’ll talk about what types of content might be most effective for a business blog as well as how to seek out and recruit the talent that will write that content. Effective content creation is arguably the most important area of any successful blog because without it, all we’ve got is another piece of software sitting somewhere online.

Implementation – In this final section, I’ll discuss how to launch a blog and how best to manage it. As I mentioned earlier in this post, blogs are living, breathing entities on the web and to remain effective, must be treated as such. This means that a publishing schedule must be adhered to and a strong search engine and social presence must be initiated and cultivated. I’ll discuss all these topics and more.

There’s a lot that goes into creating and managing a blog, but if done correctly and if the “formula” is followed, the payoff can be huge. Some of the largest websites online are blogs and, while I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, money can be made by blogging. Remember, if you’ve got something to say that’s of value to someone, they’ll surely listen.

I hope you enjoyed this section on how to create and manage a business blog. For more effective tips on blogging, please visit the remaining sections below.

Write With Genuine Integrity For Your Blogging Audience

I’ll be writing a series of sections in this post that have to do with writing in general and how to best write to connect with your blogging audience. The reason for doing this is two or three-fold; first, I love to write and by this point in my life, I feel that I need to write. It’s become somewhat of an addiction for me. By writing about writing, I’m somewhat satisfying this craving. So let it be known, most of what I do here is out of pure selfishness.

Second, while I may be selfish, I also love helping people and if I can do something for at least eight hours of every day and if I’ve gotten good enough at it to share some tidbits with you, I think I’ll do just that. Writing is one of those things that, even though I engage in it so frequently, I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about it. I’ll never know enough. I like to learn and as I do, I’ll share my experiences with you here.

Finally, there are a great many people out there who would either love to learn about writing specifically for blogs or about writing in general. We’re unique individuals who find satisfaction in the smaller things in life. We read and write and love to share ideas. Perhaps we can start a conversation here about these types of things.

The Necessary Mindset For Connecting With Your Audience

When writing for a blog, there’s one big rule you need to follow. If you follow this rule, you’re likely to grow your audience much, much faster than if you weren’t to follow it. What is this rule? Basically, it’s that you’re not better than anyone else. As a matter of fact, you’re worse. A lot worse, but you may know something they don’t, so you’ll explain it to them in the best way you know how.

Have you ever read something that was written by someone who, you just knew, thought they were better than you? As if they were talking down to you in some way? Even if this person was an expert in their field, being pretentious through writing is almost never a good thing. Actually, it probably is never a good thing. I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever heard someone say, “Wow, I was talking with that lady for over an hour and I found her to be completely pretentious. I loved that about her.” The general public can’t stand pretentious people.

I was emailing with a friend a while ago and over a period of time, I expressed a few rants about human civilization. You know, normal, everyday things that might get on my nerves. As I apologized to my friend for going off on another one of my tangents, she told me that it was fine because I was actually kind of funny. The best part, she said, was how I was so self-deprecating. “Self-Deprecating?” I thought. Really? And it was humorous? As I pondered this outlandish claim, I sort of came around to her way of thinking. I thought back to my rants and realized that they were sort of funny. And I realized that I did put myself into them and claimed that I wasn’t any better than the people I was ranting about. Did this create some sort of a connection between my friend and me? Did my openness allow her guard to come down so she could read what I had to say without rolling her eyes? I think it may have. And honestly, I think it helped a lot.

Big Words and the Boring Factor

Have you ever read something that bored you to tears? Have you ever read something that made you ask, “What the heck did I just read?” And no matter how many times you reread what you read in the first place, you still couldn’t figure out what the author was trying to say. This type of writing is so annoying. I can’t stand it and I think it should be banished from the world. Most of the time, it’s the result of an author attempting to impress you. The issue is, they are having the opposite effect. They’re making you angry and annoyed and they’re making you not want to read anything else they’ve written. There’s only so much time in the day and we can’t be wasting it on nonsense like that.

The big word and boring factor goes hand in hand with the pretentious issue I described above. They’re one in the same and what’s worse is that these characteristics of certain writing styles make it seem like the author isn’t actually a person. I mean, who can write like that? Seriously?

So, what do we do? I’ll tell you. When blogging or writing emails or just writing for the pleasure of it, connect with your audience. Write like you mean it. Write like you’re the last person on earth, as if no one will ever read what your fingers created. Write with honesty an integrity and if you do, you’ll notice something very profound. You’ll notice that people want to write back. You’re blog comment numbers will rise. You’re email response rate will shoot through the roof. You’ll notice that your articles get shared more often and you’ll notice your popularity rise. Readers enjoy clarity, authenticity and a real person who they can attach themselves to. Basically, just be yourself. Don’t be fancy when you’re not and don’t show off when it’s not called for.

When you write with genuine integrity, good things will begin to happen.

Show Clear Intent When Writing Blog Posts

A lot comes along with writing. Effective writing, that is. When it comes to blogging, all bets are off. There’s a special format you need to follow when engaging in this activity. No one wants to read a long-winded post. No one wants to read a post that wanders and goes nowhere. Not many people read blog posts to be entertained. The reader wants answers and help and everything in between. I’m sure there are some folks out there who read blog posts for the simple enjoyment they offer, but I’d venture a guess that there aren’t many of those folks.

The situation is very similar when it comes to news articles. Brevity is key. Over the past few years I’ve noticed that many news organizations now post summaries of their stories at the tops of the pages they’re written on. The reasoning behind this is that not many people are interested in reading the entire article though. They want the facts and then to move on. Think of those New Yorker articles. Have you ever tried to read one of those things? They’re about a mile long and I’m not sure anyone on earth has ever read an entire piece.

In this section, I’d like to discuss four points of intent for something you may want to write in the future. The reason intent is so critical when it comes to writing is that it creates an enormous amount of focus. Without focus, writing can get lost and wander away from its author. If that happens, readers tend to wander away as well. When an author has focus, his or her writing shows it and readers find what they’re looking for. Succinct and clearly targeted articles and blog posts can cultivate an audience that will remain an audience for years to come.

The first point of intent I’d like to discuss has to do with informing your readers about something they may be interested in. As an author, when you inform, you need to make sure you stick to the script. Let’s pretend that you’re trying to inform a reader about a new model of car that’s available on the market. Your job would be to tell the reader about the technical aspects of the car, how safe it is, how fast it can go, how much it costs and things like that. It’s important to stay focused when writing to inform because the last thing an interested party wants is verbosity and a story about something that has nothing to do with the car.

The next point I’d like to discuss has to do with persuading someone to do something that you may want them to do. In the example above, perhaps a technical writer may have written the piece. When it comes to persuasion, a marketer will most likely do the writing. When you persuade, you compare and contrast. You hide the less important facts and highlight the important ones. You show what matters and why the reader might find those things valuable to them. Selling and persuading isn’t an easy task. It’s about knocking down barriers and building bridges. It’s about getting from no to yes. It takes focus and tact. The author needs to realize these things and completely commit to leaving out extraneous information in lieu of what’s pertinent to the sale.

Just to break in here for a moment, I’d like to let you know that much of what I’m sharing with you can overlap. As you’re explaining the technical aspects of a vehicle, those aspects may be helpful in persuading a potential buyer to make a purchase. The goal here is to target your blog post or article at your primary goal, no matter what information you choose to help you meet that goal.

Let’s now talk about entertaining someone through your writing. When writing to entertain, you need to take a step back, smile and put yourself at ease. Readers can feel the vibe of someone’s writing. If you’re primary intent is to entertain, you should focus on making the reader feel at ease. Talk about whimsical things or events that occurred in your life. Going back to the car example, think about the first time your car broke down and how horrible that was, in a funny sort of way. Talk about your best friend’s first vehicle and how much of a piece of junk it was. Keep your reader connected with your story and be sure not to interject with a sales pitch or too much information about the technical aspects of the car itself. This is story time.

Finally, we have times when you’d like to inspire people. This takes a lot of focus because it needs to be done in a crafty manner. Think about a politician’s speech. Think about a coach’s talk before a big game. This may be the most challenging style of writing because it can easily incorporate all three types of writing I just described above. When writing to inspire, your intent is to have your reader feel a certain way or to do something better than they would have done it without being inspired. You’re attempting to bring the best out of someone and that may take technical knowledge, some persuasion as well and some entertaining. To me, this is the most difficult of all because there’s a lot to consider and there will most likely be a lot of re-writes. Those re-writes are worth it though because very inspirational pieces have the potential to go down in history.

Please let me know how you keep your focus when you’re writing. Do you have a clear intent with each and every piece you produce? Feel free to share below.

Grammar + Blogging

Through the years, I’ve met a lot of people who don’t take their grammar seriously. Even folks who write for a living don’t take it as seriously as they should. They have this thought in their heads that as long as they have an idea to express, that’s most of what they need. They think that as long as they express it, their readers will understand their message, no matter how sloppy it is. I’m here to make the case that these people are wrong and that they should make some changes when it comes to their writing. And since this post is about blogging, I’ll refer to writing blog posts from here on out.

Why Grammar is Important When Writing Blog Posts​

Imagine bring your beloved car into a body shop to get it repainted. Imagine the work has been completed and when you inspected it, the paint job was absolutely terrible. Sure, it covered every last inch of what it was supposed to cover, but there were dull spots and drips all over the place. And what’s worse, the body shop workers didn’t do a good job with their taping, so paint made its way onto the window moldings and the windows themselves. Would you be happy with this situation? Would you pay the body shop owner for the work that was completed? If you are the type of person who doesn’t care about your grammar, you should pay for the work that was done. After all, the paint covered what it was supposed to, right? Sure, paying attention to details may have helped things look better in the end, but everyone will sort of get the idea that the car has paint on it. Do you see where I’m going with this?

People like shiny things as much as they enjoy good, polished writing. Good grammar makes a huge difference and there aren’t many other ways to lose a reader faster than to have horrible grammar when it comes to writing. Remember, readers notice all sorts of things and make subconscious decisions based on what they interact with. They notice all sorts of things when they read and they care greatly about them. After all, they wouldn’t be reading if they didn’t.

The Importance of Punctuation

If you take nothing more from this post than what I’m about to share with you, I’ll at least know you learned something important. I want you to realize that about 99.9% of the people who read your blog posts, you’ve never met and never will meet. They don’t know you. Sure, they may know you through what you’ve shared with them in the past via your website, but they don’t truly know your intentions with what you write and with what you share. It’s because of this that you need to be extra careful with what you convey on the pages of your blog. This is all most of your readers have to go on. Every single letter, dot and piece of punctuation will be taken literally, as well it should. It is literal, after all.

Let me give you a few examples. Let’s say you wrote a post one day when you really weren’t in the mood to write. You got lazy with your prose and made a few grammatical errors with your punctuation. What you meant to convey was that a girl said that someone was right (correct). The sentence should have read like this:

Mia Charlotte said you are right.

But because your fingers were moving too quickly as you typed, you inadvertently added some punctuation that wasn’t supposed to be there. This is what you wrote:

Mia, Charlotte said you are, right?

Here’s another example of what you could have written:

Mia, Charlotte said you are right.

Or this:

Mia Charlotte said you are right?

Do you see where I’m going with this? Do you notice how each example sentence above means something entirely different than the intended meaning? A lonely comma here or a question mark there can alter the entire structure of the sentence. Have you ever read a sentence like this one below?

I was wondering if you were going to go tonight?

The above sentence is a statement, not a question, therefore there shouldn’t be a question mark attached to the end of it. I see this all the time. Because it’s a statement, there should be a period instead of a question mark. What the author of that line meant to write was:

Are you going tonight?

That would have been suffice.

While these are only a few examples of what’s possible, I believe that we can agree that grammar is important when it comes to blogging. We work hard to build our audiences and it’s critical that we keep them reading our posts by maintaining clear and concise writing. After all, every single one of our readers was a first time reader at some point and we should remember that we only get one chance to make a first impression. We better get it right.

I’ll be writing much more as it pertains to blogging on this website. If you have something to add to any of my posts, please do so below each post. I look forward to reading your ideas!

How to Check for Grammar, Spelling & Usage Errors While Blogging​

I’d like to take a few more moments to discuss some tricks and helpful strategies I’ve learned through the years when it comes to proofreading my blog posts.

When I write, I like to do just an “okay” job. For the first pass, I’ll try to get everything that’s in my mind, out. I won’t overly concern myself with spelling, grammar or anything else that can get in the way of the flow, as they call it. When the inspiration strikes, I need to flesh out my ideas, lest I lose them. If there’s one thing that frustrates me to no end, it’s losing my train of thought as I’m attempting to type something out because I became too hung up on making things proper during the first go-round.

One of the tricks I like to employ at times is to type out one paragraph of whatever it is I’m writing and then stop. I’ll go over just that one paragraph to make sure it’s correct before continuing on. This saves me time and stress later on because I’m essentially working in chunks. Instead of typing out a very long blog post and then having to reread everything all at once, I’ll know that most of it’s already been totally completed by the time I get to the bottom. This strategy has been very helpful through the years.

Another benefit of utilizing the strategy I just shared is that it helps me recover my bearings as I’m in the middle of doing whatever it is I’m doing. Sometimes, when I write, I find myself lost in the middle of an enormous number of words. It can be difficult to maintain a sense of where I am and what my original goal was. By writing in paragraphs and then reviewing what I wrote, I tend to stay on track much more than if I had just written straight through.

If I’m writing something shorter than one of my long posts though, I’ll take advantage of a few different tricks. These are easy enough to utilize and I think they’re fairly straightforward and easy to remember as well. They also primarily relate to proofreading almost anything, but mostly blog posts.

The very first trick is to never trust your CMS spell checker. I use WordPress for my blogging and I have to say, it’s spell checker is a bit sub-par. Whenever I see a word that’s underlined in red, I either correct it right away because I already know the proper spelling or I copy and paste that word into Google because I don’t. When I get it sorted out with Google’s recommendation or through further inquiry on my part, I paste the corrected version of the word back into WordPress. This is the most basic task there is when it comes to proofreading posts.

When it comes to grammar, I sort of do the same thing. Grammar is a bit tougher though because many different stylistic preferences come into play. Quite a few similarly sounding words have different spellings and the like, so a more formal background in reading and writing may be necessary. Sometimes you can’t Google search your way through a proficient looking piece or post. That’s not to say that Google can’t help, because it certainly can. For instance, if you’re not sure of the difference between its and it’s, simply perform a search for “its versus it’s” in your favorite search engine. You’ll most likely learn the answer to the question you posed.

Some common misused words that you may want to research are:

Your vs. You’re
Its vs. It’s
Where vs. Wear
To vs. Too Vs. Two
Their vs. There vs. They’re

When proofreading any post I write, I always perform two functions. First, I preview the post on the outside of the website, as opposed to inside the admin area. In WordPress, there’s a Preview button that’s located in the upper right corner of the New Post page. I’ll click that Preview button and when I do so, a new window will pop up and the post I’m currently writing will appear as though it’s live on the actual website. When proofreading, I’ve noticed a huge difference in the way the words look, which changes my perspective quite a bit. My writing is altered from something that was once written by me, to something that’s now being read by me. This alone makes a big difference and I’ve caught errors using this technique that I would never have picked up on if I had stayed inside and tried to do my proofreading in the editor.

The second function I always commit to is to read my posts out loud. Again, this changes my perspective from something that was once inside my head to something that’s actually real and out there in the world. So much changes when a piece of writing is read aloud. Grammatical errors and usage errors are plain to see. This particular exercise if so helpful for locating missing commas or other punctuation. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve changed a comma or two because of the way I’ve read something.

Another tip is to distance yourself from your posts. The more distant you are, figuratively speaking, the more apt you are to pick up on an error. After I finish writing a post, I’ll stand up and walk around or do something else for a few minutes. I’ll then return to my desk and reread what I’ve written. Those few minutes of fresh air usually do me well. They again transform what I was once to close to to something I’m much less familiar with. This helps greatly when it comes to correcting a piece.

As I mentioned above, the spell check algorithm that WordPress uses isn’t the best. An easy way to get around this is to copy and paste your post into your favorite word processing application. Spell and grammar checkers in those programs and typically much more robust than ones contained in CMSs. Also, you may want to check out the Grammarly plugin for the Chrome browser. That works well with the editor inside of WordPress.

As I said, changing the perspective of your writing is critical when it comes to checking your work for errors. An excellent way to change perspective is to actually print out your post. Once printed, try reading and correcting from the bottom up as opposed to the top down. Your post will seem completely unfamiliar when being read from the bottom up and I’m sure you’ll see things you’ve missed previously.

I think I covered most of what I wanted to say. If you have anything else to add or if you’d like to share some writing and proofreading tips and tricks of your own, please do so down below. Thanks!

Blogging With a Focus on Writing Mechanics

One of the most important aspects of writing, or in this case, blogging, is simple writing mechanics. I’ve written previously about how to proofread grammar and about why grammar is so important to any blog post, but I’ve yet to discuss specifics related to grammar itself or writing mechanics in general. Trust me, I’ll get into both quite deeply on this discussion board. Grammar will come later on, but I’ll take a crack at mechanics today. While I won’t delve all the way into mechanics, I’ll certainly describe what the term means and how to take advantage of its rules while blogging. After all, a well written blog post is much more highly regarded by its readers than a poorly written one.

So what is grammar and what is mechanics? Well, grammar is a structure. Any written or spoken language employs a system of rules and grammar rules are what a particular language abides by to make sense, for both the written and spoken aspects of it. Grammar primarily refers to the parts of speech and how they come together to create sentences. Mechanics refers to the rules of a written language only. It primarily refers to capitalization, punctuation and spelling. After all, when speaking, we don’t know if something is capitalized or not. Or if a comma or semicolon is used either. Both grammar and mechanics are separate entities and I’ll focus on each in their own posts.

Let’s get into the mechanics discussion. I’d like to lay out a bird’s eye view of what I’ll be covering in the future. These are the areas and items that make up writing mechanics.

Parts of Speech

[*]Nouns
Pronouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Interjections

Sentence Structure

[*]Simple
Basic
Compound

Major Punctuation Marks

[*]Comma
Semicolon
Apostrophe
Period

Minor Punctuation Marks

[*]Colon
Question Mark
Quotation Marks
Exclamation Mark
Parenthesis
Hyphen
Dash

Words That Look Alike & Sound Alike

[*]Your vs. You’re
Weather vs. Whether
Accept vs. Except
Its vs. It’s
Wear vs. Where
To vs. Too vs. Two
They’re vs. Their vs. There

Now, I’m going to tell you something that’s about to make the study of writing mechanics a bit more challenging. While most people can memorize the items I listed above and have absolutely no issues with reciting them if asked, the true value of each of these items is how they interrelate to each other. By using one, you’re led down a path to another. Specific words are only used when a corresponding word is used in the proper context. Let me give you an example. I hear this one incorrectly used on a daily basis.

Please hand the pencils to Mary and I.

The above sentence is incorrect. It should read:

Please hand the pencils to Mary and me.

I know, the second one doesn’t sound as correct, but it is. If you removed Mary from the sentence, you would see why.

Please hand the pencils to me.

There’s actually a technical reason this is correct and I’ll get into that later. For now, the sound trick works well. It’s easier to deal with as well.

How’s this to mix things up?

Please hand me the pencils so I can write with them.

Oh my. I know. It gets confusing, but there are rules for everything. All you need to do if follow them. I’m delving too much into grammar though, so I’ll back off.

In future posts, I’ll be covering how to properly use apostrophes, when to use semicolons as opposed to commas, when and if commas should be used at all and so much more. I’ll discuss each of the sections I laid out above separately and then I’ll merge them all together so they make sense. Blogging has become an important part of society and every day, millions of people around the world use blogs for entertainment and sources of knowledge. To write coherently and to develop and keep your audience, it’s critical to know how to express yourself through writing. It’s also critical that you do so properly. Your clarity will be appreciated and your audience will thank you for it.

Tips for Proofreading Blog Posts

One of the most important things you can do when you’re finished (or as you’re writing) with your blog posts is to proofread them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught mistakes in my own writing. I don’t even want to get into seeing errors with other people’s because it’s just insane out there, but I will talk about my own errors here because I don’t mind beating myself up a bit. And I’m sure, as you read this, you’ll end up catching something I mistakenly typed. Writing sometimes gets the best of us, but there are a few tricks that can help in this regard.

Before I begin, I’d like to mention that what I’ll share below isn’t only relevant for blog posts. The tips can also be used for pretty much any type of writing, from memos to letters to emails. When it comes to communicating with the written word, there’s a bit of a constant thread that runs through all forms of writing.

Think About What You’re Doing

Before hitting the “Post” button in your blog editor, take a moment to think about what you’re actually doing. I know this sounds like a strange tip and I bet I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking, “Of course I know what I’m doing. I just did it and I’m ready to post it.” My reply to you is, “Are you sure?” If you are, then everything is fine. But if you aren’t, you might want to think back to your original intent and then compare that to what you just typed. In your post, were you clear? Were you concise? What did you try to explain? Did you do a good job at explaining it? Did you go off on any tangents? Did you actually complete what you intended to complete? It’s remarkable how we can wander while we write and we oftentimes go off course – by a lot. I’m a firm believer in the theory that we can only write a certain amount per sitting. If we try to go too far, we’ll end up wrapping things up whether we’re finished or not. Trust me when I say this; I’ve written thousands upon thousands of blog posts in my day. I know when my brain tells me end whatever it is I’m working on.

So, my advice for this section is, when proofreading a blog post, compare what’s written to your original intent. It can be an eye-opening experience.

Did You Ramble?

From a quality and “keeping your readers entertained” perspective, you don’t want to ramble. People tend to stop reading when they get the feeling that you’re not getting to the point. If you’ve ever tried reading a novel and realized that the story wasn’t going anyplace, you know what I’m referring to here. So don’t ramble. Stay on course and tell your story in a focused and easy to understand way.

While proofreading your posts, pretend that you have never met yourself and that you’re a brand new reader of your website. Would you appreciate what you just wrote? Would you find value in it? Would you think that the post was targeted to a specific question or concern? If not, open the editor back up and start fixing your writing so it’s more efficient and effective.

Check the Spelling of Names and Places

This is huge. If you aren’t absolutely 100% sure of the spelling of someone’s name or of a place, check on it. Double check it. Triple check it and get it right. There’s absolutely no excuse for a misspelled name or place in today’s world. I mean, you are using a computer, after all. All it takes is a second or two to check your address book or use a search engine to assist with accuracy. It can make or break a post.

So, when proofreading your posts, double check those names and places. While writing, you may be in the zone and it might not be the best time to stop even for a few seconds, but when proofreading, take the time to do what you need to do.

Read Your Posts Aloud

Strange things happen when people type a lot. First, they type completely incorrect words without even knowing it. I do this all the time. I type so fast that I write “around” when I mean to write “about.” I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve done this. There are many other examples of this type of mistake and the best way to catch them is to reread posts aloud.

One of the problems that occurs is that blog authors become blind to their own writing. There must be a mechanism in our brains that tells us that what we’ve written is good enough and that we should start working on other things. If you’re an avid writer, I’m sure you’ve experienced this phenomenon. When proofreading aloud, our brains switch into another gear and somehow think that they belong to someone else. They’re no longer blind to the writing and this can help out a lot.

The second thing that can happen is that our intended tone can wander away from where it first started. I know that when I’m writing my posts, I usually start off in a certain mood that’s appropriate for my message. As I get going though, I start to think about all sorts of things and those thoughts may make me stray from where I want to be. The problem is, I oftentimes don’t even notice that I’ve done what I’ve done. This goes back to the first tip; think about what you’re doing. Again, what was my intent? If it was to discuss how happy birthday parties can be, I really shouldn’t end up talking about politics. I mean, really. Proofreading aloud can help with this. It’s critically important to pay close attention to the plan.

Do you have any tips about proofreading blog posts that you’d like to share? If so, please do so below. Also, if you have any questions about proofreading or blogging in general, please feel free to ask below. Thanks!

How To Define Achievable Goals For Blogging

So many things in life need purpose. Without purpose, it seems as though we can flounder for untold lengths of time. It’s only until we define exactly what we would like to achieve, that we can get down and make progress.

In this section, I’m going to discuss blogging with goals in mind. When I refer to “goals,” I’m referring to honest goals. You’ll see what I’m getting at after you read the first section below. I’ll be going over how to discover what your blog should be all about, blogging with that purpose in mind as well as setting yourself up for the future. It’s with this type of planning that you can hopefully and eventually call yourself a successful blogger.

What Does Your Blog Hope To Achieve?​

I’ve been creating and writing on blogs since 2006. Many of them have been and continue to be successful, but as common with many prolific bloggers, some have failed. Of those that failed, I can now identify the reason for failure. I had no clear purpose and direction I wanted to take the blog. Things were fuzzy in my head. What began as a great idea quickly turned into a project that had no true purpose and it showed in my writing. As time went on, productivity suffered until I finally pulled the plug. This type of scenario occurs far too often on the internet.

From all that I’ve gathered since my early blogging days, I’d have to say the most important aspect for any blogger to focus on is having a set vision for their blog. It’s focus that drives projects like this through to building an online reputation and an eventual following. Clear goals are an absolute necessity. It’s unfortunate how often this first step to blogging is overlooked because by focusing on goals and vision, many bloggers could enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Goals​

Have you ever struggled with productivity? Let me give you an example of what I might be talking about. Let’s say you were in charge of mowing lawns in a neighborhood. You have ten accounts and ten lawns to mow. During any given week, all lawns need to be mowed at least once. What often happens with situations like this is you wonder how many lawns you’ll cut one day and then you wonder how many lawns you’ll cut the next. At the end of the week, you may have missed a lawn or two or may have to mow the majority of the lawns on the final day. What if there was a better way to manage your time?

Setting Goals Helps You Define Targets

If you decided that it would be better and more productive to mow two lawns per day during your five day work week, you would know exactly what needed to be done each and every day. Why does this matter?

Setting Goals Enables You To Measure Success

You can’t know if you were successful at something unless you can measure your success. You can’t measure success if you don’t have anything to measure. By setting goals, you can measure whether or not those goals were met. If they were, you’re on the correct path.

Let’s get back to blogging. How would we set goals for any particular day of blogging? Well, that would depend on the vision of the blog that I referred to above. If you’ve decided that your blog is about auto racing and the vision you’ve established for the blog is to inform your readers about the history, current events and future path of auto racing, you might set short term goals like this:

Monday: Find all auto racing news from the weekend and compile a summary to post.

Wednesday: Gather all auto racing events that are occurring presently and discuss them in a post.

Friday: Gather all auto racing events that are planned to occur over the weekend and compile the information in a post.

Now, this is a simplistic view of what specific goals might be for any blog, but this type of thing certainly would clarify what needs to get done. If an author was able to follow a schedule for this, they would know whether or not they were achieving their goals.

Now, whether or not these goals are fulfilling the vision of the blog remains to be seen. Is traffic increasing? Is user engagement picking up? Are newsletter subscriptions growing? The success of these types of overarching goals depend on the quality and necessity of your content. The big question is: do your posts matter and does anyone care?

The way to determine if your blog is of value is to reduce what you plan on doing to reader need. If you research your market and find that there’s a hole in it that can be filled by your writing, then you’re in good shape. You can set your daily goals to meet that need. As time progresses, you can tweak the short term goals to align more with what your readers want.

When defining a vision for a blog, it’s important to dig deep to the real reason you want to launch it. Many beginning bloggers don’t have a clear reason, and therefore end up with a muddled vision. It’s not likely that you want to “create the best blog around” or to “bring your readers information that’s worth reading.” It’s more likely that you want to make money blogging. The way to do that is to build an audience by writing posts that visitors what to read, to grow a mailing list by enticing readers to join and to increase reader engagement by offering a place to comment on posts and replying to those comments in a timely fashion. If you’re able to grow an audience, you’ll surely find a way to monetize the blog. But the most critical aspect to stay aware of is what the true purpose of the blog is. If it’s to make money, that’s fine.

How To Define Goals For Any Blog​

As you may have noticed, the short term goals I outlined above won’t really work well for a complex blog that’s hoping to attract a high volume of readers. This is because I simply listed those goals without taking much into consideration. Believe it or not, there really is a structured way to discover and record what a particular blog’s goals might be – both for the short term and the long term. For the explanation and examples I’m going to talk about below, we’ll keep the same auto racing blog we worked with above.

How Does a Blogger Keep Track of Goals?

The trick here is to write them down. Not only does this have an organizational aspect to it, it also has a psychological one. When someone “writes something down,” they, more than likely, commit to it. It becomes official. And when it comes to recording goals for a blog, a simple piece of paper will do. Just be sure to isolate the sections for “Blog Vision” and “Blog Goals” from each other. While they’re kept separate from each other on paper, it’s important to remember that both of these concepts rely on one another going forward.

The Best Way To Identify a Blog’s Goals

If you think back to your college or high school days, you may recall a term called, “brainstorming.” Brainstorming is when people, and in this case, stakeholders, toss out ideas that are free from criticism. The idea behind this type of activity, as it relates to gathering goals for a blog, is to unearth the reason for being and methods and tools that may help lead to success.

One of the primary questions you need to answer during your brainstorming session is how your blog will affect your readers and your market at large. If you remember what a blog truly is at its essence (a medium of communication), you’ll arrive at what you’re after rather quickly. But remember, stay fluid during this effort.

If you were launching a blog today, ask yourself:

1. What can your website audience learn from your content?

2. How does what they actually learn compare to what they wanted to learn?

3. How can you better educate yourself based off of what you’ve learned from your visitors?

4. What is it that you can offer to the public and how can you get more involved?

5. How to you create the “go to” blog in your chosen market?

Now, I’m going to go over the process of how to correctly answer each one of these questions below. Be sure to follow carefully, because there’s a process in action here.

If we take a look at the very first question above, regarding what your audience can learn from your content, we can say that they’ll be kept up to date on the events in the auto racing industry that have happened, are happening and that will happen in the not so distant future. With that answer in mind, we need to think about how offering this type of content aligns with your blog’s vision of growth and eventual monetization. If we can conclude that by giving your audience what they’re looking for as it relates to quality and up-to-date news regarding auto racing, we can identify your first blogging goal:

1. Become established as the primary provider of current information surrounding the auto racing industry.

Now, if we look at the second question regarding the relationship between what your visitors actually learn and what they visited you to learn, we can conclude that the question can’t be answered yet. Since you haven’t exactly written much content at the time of goal discovery, you don’t have any data on what visitors are looking for. Luckily, this conclusion offers a very specific goal. That goal is to:

2. Collect user data on visit intent, whether it be from direct emails, outside forums, traffic statics and other sources, to become familiar with what a particular user has in mind when they land on one of your web pages. You can base future posts off of this information.

Let’s look at the third question from above. What can you learn from your visitors and how can you educate yourself from that knowledge? If you already know, based on previous research, that the types of visitors you’re seeking love to tell stories about their adventures at the races, a goal for the blog might be:

3. Make a comment section available for blog visitors to share experiences with other readers. This will promote a “community” aspect on your blog and will keep your posts “sticky” with readers coming back for more. Also, from the visitor comments, you’ll become educated on how your visitors perceive auto racing and will enable you to write more thoughtful posts in the future.

If we look at the fourth question from above about what you can offer the public and how you can get more involved, you might say that since you have deep knowledge of auto racing, you can offer the most accurate commentary in the industry. You also might have a question/answer section on the blog, which will help build trust with your audience. This might lead to the following goal:

4. Keep your information accuracy high by staying involved with the industry and be sure to learn something new every day. Also, keep close contact with your visitors so they’ll return to your blog and consider it fresh and up to date.

If you ask yourself how you can shape your blog to become a “go-to” resource in the auto racing world, I think you’ve already answered this question. By keeping your previous goals in mind, your visitors should regard your blog as a resource they appreciate and value. So for this last goal, you might want to:

5. Stay active with your blogging schedule and be sure to continue to offer consistent and thoughtful posts that visitors enjoy engaging with.

With the above example goals, you should have the knowledge and framework necessary to define your own blog’s goals. Because there truly are no two blogs alike, each set of goals may be different. Just remember, while dealing with this type of project, it’s not the actual goals you come up with that matter as much as the framework for the goals you create. You can always adjust and tune your goals as time goes by, based off the framework you create today.

Measuring Your Blog’s Future​

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about blogging, it’s that setting up and launching a blog with the expectation of visitors from search engines today is much different than it was just a few years ago. In the past, I could set up my infrastructure, add content I felt visitors wanted to read and watch the traffic flow in. It was much more about just content back then. While getting mild traffic wasn’t very difficult in those days, getting big traffic was much more of a challenge. In order to accomplish that, you needed a brand people recognized.

Today, getting even minor traffic is a difficult. In order to attract these types of visitors, you need to work hard and publish content people truly appreciate. Search engines no longer give gifts. They want you to earn what they give you.

With this in mind, I recommend that you treat the first year of your blog’s life like you would an experiment. As an experiment, you would create, feed, nurture, observe, monitor and evaluate your web property. It’s the data you capture from your blog’s first year that you can use for the rest of its life.

In the final section of this post, I’m going to discuss some milestones and measurements you can make during the beginning of your blog’s, hopefully, long and happy existence. Some measurements might include visitor traffic, engagement and readership. It’ll be sort of like creating a five year plan for your life, but it’ll only cover one year and it’ll be for your blog. And like the goals we identified and set above, the milestones and measurements you create for the first year of your blog can be used as measurements of success. I’ll cover some of these milestones below.

Launch – This is likely the most exciting time of your blog’s existence. It’s at this point that you’ll most want to publicize and build interest in your site. Do you have friends who are bloggers? Tell them about it. Do you have a large social media following? Tell them too. Share the launch with related publications. People are always looking for fodder for their own blogs and websites, so share your blog’s value and upcoming plans with them. They may just include you in something they share with others.

2 Months – Hopefully, by the two month mark, you’ve been writing quality content that is easily shareable with those who might want to consume it. It’s this type of content that search engines like to gobble up and return to users once all the search related factors on your blog are in sync. Be sure that your blog has all the necessary plugins and configurations set for proper search engine indexing. Remember, it’s likely that you’ll be getting little to no direct search engine traffic at this point. That’s not important. Search engines have algorithms that restrict brand new properties from showing in results. What is important is that your content is churning in other ways. Whether it be through social media channels or newsletter subscriptions. If you pretend that search engines don’t even exist at the two month mark, you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

4 Months – It’s at this point that you’ll want to begin promoting your content with social media in earnest. You’ll likely have written enough posts to sustain some targeted traffic, so it’s time to show it off. Make a goal for yourself. Perhaps you’d like to receive 50 visits via social media for a specific frame of time. At this point, it’s also important to review what you’re writing. What type of response is it getting? Is one type of content being received better than another? If so, that type of content is what you should be focusing on.

6 Months – At six months, you want to take a step back and admire all your hard work. You’ll also want to take note of what’s worked and what hasn’t. Have you written in a particular style or with a particular structure that your readers appreciate? If so, remember the success of those cases and use them for future posts.

9 – 12 Months – By this point, you should have earned yourself a small following for your blog. If so, take note of how many visitors there are, how much your blog has been mentioned on social media and how many newsletter signups you’ve gathered. It’s all about data. You want to record as much as you can to work from so you can create future goals to achieve. It’s also about creating a customizable and measurable framework to look back on and measure against in years to come.

Like I mentioned above, the first year for any blog is mostly about creating the content that’s going to rank long down the road. There’s not much you can do about search engine traffic at this point, so it’s better to focus on writing quality posts and articles. Later on, if you’ve done your job well, the traffic will begin to flow.

If you’re interested in more tips on how to effectively launch a blog, please take a look at my Writing category above. Thanks!