12 Reasons Why Bloggers Need to Become Better Writers

This article is part of Courtney Tuttle‘s Internet Marketers United Group Writing Project

Why do bloggers need to become better writers? Because blogging is about communication. We use words to communicate with our readers. So, why don’t you use words as powerful tools? What if you let them become your enemies? You don’t want that to happen to you, write? Oops! I mean, right? ;-)

You need to become a better writer if you want to do any of the following:

1. Create a good tagline for your blog

A short, informative and memorable tagline will let your visitors immediately understand what your blog is about and why they might want to read it.

2. Craft a better “About Me” page

Many readers will check it out as a way to get to know you better.

3. Turn inspiration and abstract ideas into new content

You may have wonderful researching skills and your mind may be burning with new ideas, but what’s the use of it all if you just can’t pick the right words to transform all these pieces of information and moments of inspiration into new articles for your blog? Of course you might just take notes of your researches and/or ideas and hire someone else to do the hard work. But can you afford it? Should you?

4. Have good headlines

Headlines are well-known for their importance in attracting visitors from search engines and social media sites.

5. Produce pleasant articles

It doesn’t matter whether you want to provide tips, advice, news or just express your views on certain subjects: if you don’t know how to build sentences and choose proper words, you may confuse, annoy or bore your readers.

6. Give good replies to your commenters

All readers are important — even the quiet ones –, but commentators are special because they take the time to interact with you. You should be able to reply to their comments in a proper manner, providing additional information when required, encouraging or cutting conversations when needed and keeping your dignity when dealing with flamers. This also applies to email management.

7. Get new feed subscribers and retain existing ones

Don’t expect your feed subscribers to be eternally faithful to you. At first they may like your content if it looks helpful and well-suited to their needs. But as time goes by, they may get annoyed and eventually unsubscribe if they get tired of your confusing style or if they can’t stand your persistent misspellings anymore. It also applies to newsletter subscribers.

8. Promote your blog for free

There are so many ways to promote your blog for free. You can leave relevant comments on other blogs, post actively in various forums, submit your writings to article directories, take part in blog carnivals and group writing projects, write as a guest blogger etc. But you won’t make the most of such opportunities if you just can’t write decent pieces.

9. Have an attractive “Advertise Here” section

Assuming that you plan to make money by blogging, you should have an “Advertise Here” page up and running. How can you make it attractive to prospect advertisers? By employing your best writing skills. Don’t you think that your traffic stats will be enough to impress all potential ad buyers. And if your stats are not that impressive anyway, you should be even more persuasive when explaining the advantages of purchasing ad spots on your blog.

10. Save time and be more productive

While writing quickly doesn’t necessarily equals writing well, a good writer can certainly make a smarter use of his/her blogging hours. If you spend too much time trying to figure out the best way to write a given post or to reply certain comments, you may miss the chance to invest that same time in either more content or promotional efforts. By becoming a better writer you’ll naturally understand how long or short your posts and comment replies should be.

11. Check your spellchecker

“I thing you may loose you’re visitors.”

There are three mistakes in that sentence (you had noticed them, right?). However, my spellchecker let them pass unnoticed. Why? Because whereas “thing,” “loose” and “you’re” were all misused in the example above, spellcheckers can’t analyse the overall context of a written piece. Therefore, you should definitely spellcheck everything you write, but you should also be able to perform some self-editing.

12. Avoid the mistakes that I still make

I’m sure this post contains several mistakes, despite my good intentions. I’m a non-native English speaker, and I admit I still have a long way to go until I learn how to write like a pro. My imperfect writing style is all I can offer right now. If you can’t even write better than this, don’t you think it’s time to change the way you compose your articles? And in case you can do better than this, good for you — but don’t forget that one can always improve him/herself. I’m doing my best to improve my writing skills and develop better ways to communicate with my readers and peers. Do it too, and you shall be rewarded.

Are you convinced yet? Good! I have a bonus for you…

Here are some places to get you started:

– Absolute Write Water Cooler – Grammar For Grasshoppers

– National Novel Writing Month – Writing 101

– How to Become a Better Writer

– 9 Grammar Rules All Bloggers Need to Know

– Do You Make These Mistakes When You Write?

Now it’s your turn!

Do *you* feel the need to become a better writer? Why? How could this help you (or not) in your blogging and/or marketing efforts? Do you have any writing tips to share?