You’ve got yourself a blog. You’re filling it with content that’s meaningful to your audience and engaging. You think you’re trucking along just fine, but wait… There is always room for improvement.
If you’re writing and blogging with great frequency, chances are, you will likely see improvement in your writing. To give yourself a quick reality check, take a quick peek back at some of your earlier posts and compare them to your more recent blogging efforts. You’ll probably see a notable difference in your skill as a writer and blogger.
One thing that sets a good writer – and a good blog – apart from the rest of the pack is his or her ability to edit. While your posts and blogs may be engaging, maybe you’ve noticed they have a tendency to ramble or skate away from the topic. We’re all guilty of this from time to time, but here are three tips to help you up your editing game and take your blog to the next level.
Tip 1: Pause and Refresh
If you’ve been holding a backlog of posts for proactive scheduling on your blog, you’ve given yourself ample breathing room between the time you’ve written those posts and the time they go live. Many writers and bloggers jot ideas down in the heat of the moment, letting their brains fly on autopilot while frantically typing anything that comes to mind. And many times, bloggers are so “in the moment” they seem to think every word they’ve written is awesome.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. By giving yourself a break between the time you’ve written your blog and the time it appears on your site, you remove yourself from that “moment.” In turn, you’re not as “married” to your content as you were when you initially wrote it. You’re able to better determine what makes sense to include within your blog post – and what’s just keyboard babbling.
Tip 2: The 10% Rule
In his book, On Writing, author Stephen King spoke about an experience he had with an editor that changed his writing style forever. Since King is a master wordsmith, I’ll let him tell it in his own words:
“Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.’
I wish I could remember who wrote that note… Whoever it was did me a hell of a favor. I copied the formula out on a piece of shirt-cardboard and taped it to the wall beside my typewriter. Good things started to happen for me shortly thereafter.”
King advocates for editing your work not just for quality, but quantity. Granted, Stephen King has written novels that exceed 1,000 pages. However, your blog writing can certainly take a page from King’s (lengthy) book.
The beauty of using a platform such as WordPress to create your blog posts is that it automatically displays your word count.
Once you’ve finished your blog post, take a glance at your word count for that first draft. Make a conscious effort to whittle it down by 10%.
If you’ve already taken a step back (see Tip 1), you’ve given yourself time to re-evaluate what you’ve written. You’re in a more objective frame of mind to see the words you can jettison to make your post a more entertaining, streamlined read.
Tip 3: Add a Call to Action
This seems like a simple editing tip, but don’t underestimate the importance of adding a call to action at the end of your post to help prompt a dialogue with your readers. Your call to action can:
- Ask them to share their thoughts, information, or advice on a subject you’ve written about in your comments section.
- Direct them to purchase a product or download an e-book.
- Watch a video clip – this is particularly helpful if your blog has its own YouTube channel.
- Vote in a reader poll.
A call to action should fit the tone of your blog and inspire your readers to join in a conversation with you. You can learn a lot by interacting with your readers more often.
These three simple tips can help you take your blog – and your writing-slash-editing game – to a whole ‘nother level. Do you have any editing tips you’d like to share with readers? What editing tricks of the trade have helped make you a better blogger? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!
