Have you ever noticed how the articles written in famous newspapers or popular blogs have always “something” more, which makes them look very professional?
In contrast, the posts that you may find around online or in poor quality blogs, are written by amateurs, and every time you read this low quality content you leave right away, thinking to suggest the authors to rewrite them again and again.
What do they have, in addition, the writing of those who seem so professional?
Perhaps, only a good care and attention about the content, which very often you tend to forget, for haste or lack of experience.
In order to look “professional”, you should always observe some simple rules.
Below you can read six tips on how to create professional content, to keep in mind when you are going to write for a blog or for any other online or offline platform.
1. Write an Effective Title
Nothing is more important and able to attract the attention of the reader as a good title.
The title should be, in fact, the extreme synthesis of the content : it must be sufficiently short but clear, and it should contain all the key elements which would be developed in detail within the article.
In the specific case of the internet and writing for blogs, post titles should also be search-engine friendly.
Many of your potential readers in fact reach your pages from the search engines, by looking for certain keywords. Needless to say, therefore, that these keywords must be mentioned in the content, as well in your titles (and of course in your tags, description, etc).
2. Add a Relevant Picture
A picture is worth thousand words.
The splashes of color are the first thing that the human eye will notice when looking at something.
It is therefore obvious, that an image associated with your article will be crucial to attract the reader’s attention on your content.
Image should be “beautiful”, but also relevant!
On the other hand, a “bad” or irrelevant image to the topics of your blog is likely to have an opposite mirror effect, damaging the quality of the article.
You should choose media carefully, then.
3. Write a Synopsis
A synopsis is nothing more than a hat, an introduction to the piece being able to explain in a few lines what will include the content of your article.
Give readers a clear idea of the issues that will be addressed, redirecting them to reading your content.
Normally in your blog post you would like to add that in the meta description.
4. Add Quotes and Links Where Necessary
Writing phrases and statements of prominent people (or popular bloggers in your niche) will surely give a more professional look at your content.
Also, be sure to link to their sites if it’s relevant to your content.
Not only you may look more professional, suggesting to the reader the idea that you have documented extensively before drafting the article, but you will give also a more reliable and true look at your writing.
5. Properly Format the Content
All bloggers should have a keen eye to the text formatting.
Unlike newspapers, for example, you cannot rely on graphics and proofreaders that reinterpret your pieces and make them “presentable”.
Furthermore, you need to keep in mind that, unlike the printed paper, reading from a video screen can be very tiring for some people, and it must be facilitated as much as possible, if you do not want your audience stop after only reading the first few lines of your article.
You should then properly format your content!
You can put in bold the words and phrases you want to give particular importance, and you may want to use italics with foreign words and not very common in your language, with quotes and an emphasis on specific terms or definitions.
Be sure to not overdo it, because otherwise you will end up with the opposite effect, undoing the effect of marking just these styles and worsening the readability of the entire article.
Another basic rule is to break the content into more logical sections.
A single compact block of text would challenge even the most devoted and patient reader : it is better to divide it into sections, perhaps by assigning each of them a secondary qualification, remembering to enter relevant images.
6. Proofread Before Publishing
Carefully review what you have written before the publication is very important: this should be a very basic rule of any good blogger or journalist.
But it is almost never done. The reason is simply explained.
When you put the word “Finish” to your article, you are tired and eager to see it published.
You do not want to read the text because, after all, you wrote it and you know exactly what you said. And, even if you force yourselves to read it again and again, most of the time you do it casually and quickly, proceeding “to jump” over for publication.
You can simply make a pause for some minutes. Take a break. Then you can proofread the text, in order to find a number of errors or the best ways to express a concept that at first you had not realized.
Once again, a refined and clean work will increase the general professional tone of your writing.
What do you think?
Do you have any additional tips to make your writing more professional?
Please share your views in the comments below, thanks!
Awesome post with hell lot of writing ideas.
Thanks
I agree that these are all excellent ideas. I think that writing good quality content is so key. We have to be careful not to stuff it full of SEO to the detriment of quality. Having something to say, and saying it, is important. For proofreading I currently use Grammerly. I’ve also used Paperrater (which is free) and that was good too. It’s helpful to have an outside check for anything that we might miss. The temptation to just press the publish button is always there though!
Hi Erik,
Simple and superb post. I added some quotes in my last post without knowing the 4th tip. Feeling glad I did it. Bro I recently learnt from my college class that writing first draft helps us a lot to come up with stunning post. Your 2nd tip is very true, but every newbie uses copy images from other sites (I also did). But now I know it is not permitted. Make your own images or find images from sites providing free pics is the right way. Proud to say I did no wrong in subsribing your awesome blog.
Thanks bro. Keep going with superb posts.
Hi Erik,
Apt points indeed – just what professional writing should be like 🙂
When we write blog posts, it’s always an attractive title that brings people to your blog. Thereafter an attractive image, some color, quotes, video if you wish – all add to make your post look much better. Grabbing the attention of your readers is the most important, which further makes them read through a well formatted post, just as you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Erik,
Amen dude! Smart tips all around. Write, write and write some more I say, because writing frequently polishes your skills, and helps to add that professional-sounding tone to your writing that so many bloggers crave. I write 6,000 or more words daily because if I claim to be a professional author and blogger I better practice like a pro. Lebron James practices for thousands of hours to become the best basketball player on earth so if I want to become a really successful, professional blogger, and author, I’ll practice just as much to find my writing voice. Keep on writing, and you’ll sound like a pro.
I’m also big on getting your formatting down tight. I like short, punchy paragraphs and injecting my travel pictures from here in Fiji, or from where I am at the time. Eye candy adds a pro air to your writing, too, as does going easy on the bells and whistles but using enough to command attention, as you noted above Erik. A little bit, but don’t overdo it, kind of like cooking a fish 😉 Use italics here, a bold there, a bullet point list, a few headers, and keep the words flowing along nicely to run a pro blog.
I say, set aside 1 or more hours daily to write. Pros work on their skills more than most other bloggers which is exactly how they became pros in the first place. This is no secret, no mystery. Write, write and write some more. I just published eBook #4 last week and finished writing eBooks #5, last night. After a proofread it’ll go live in a few days. Why? I write like crazy, honing my skills, to be free, and to inspire others to make a living, blogging and writing eBooks, from paradise.
Love this Erik! Tweeting, and signing off from Savusavu.
Ryan
The most important is to proofread it and allow some other peoples, maybe friends to do the same to get the idea on how a user might react.
This way, one can check where one needs work again before publishing.
Going for a trial user experience will save the real user experience from going wrong. You got it covered all. Nice post.
Take care. 🙂
Hi Eric,
Nice one.This is a well organized article just like it tells us writers to be able to do.
Hmm…I would have to say that editing is king when writing. There are many times I delete entire paragraphs when I don’t like the way they sound. I usually read my work out loud which helps the editing process.
When I start an article I first get my thoughts down on the page. Then I move them around and continuously refine the piece until I’m satisfied. Sometimes I’ll create a mind map of ideas before I start writing.
You have put the information and technique of it all into a very readable article. I will keep your article for permanent reference!
Thanks a lot for sharing this post with us.
Hi Erik,
Great Post as usual !!!
I’m in right track
I’ll always enjoy while writing post, this means gives more confidence in writing next to next line and makes you so spacious to add more and more, so that it becomes a quality content. Should enjoy and do what you do and it always gives you an immense pleasure of writing post, Isn’t it. ?
Punctuation, formatted text/align , adding special words/killer sentences. May be punch dialogues too 🙂 ill do it when need.
New ideas will bloom when you read books and pretty you understand the script in it. Then your imagination has no limits !!!
Then at last Ill do editing/Proof reading of my post !!!
Thank you for your blog
Siva