Advice about blogging is always contrary. Our online ‘voices’ are constantly evolving, and we all lose focus occasionally. When I get lost, I have a few simple approaches to finding my voice that I come back to time and time again.
1: Be yourself. When you attempt to be something you’re not, it often come across as just that.
2: Write as you talk. When I started to meet bloggers in real life, I realised many of the best bloggers write just as they talk.
3: Define it. Ask a few trusted people to choose five words to describe your blog voice. Don’t give them time to think too much; first impulses tell you more. From there you can decide which attributes you want to accentuate, and which ones you want to tone down.
4: Focus. Don’t be derailed by other people’s blog voices if they’re different from yours. Appreciate them, love their craft, but accept everyone has their own style. There’s no right or wrong way to blog.
5: Break it down. Spend time reading the blog voices that speak to you, or are popular in your niche, and analyse why they work.
6: Killer posts Take a moment each month to review which of your posts attract the most attention, hits, shares or comments, and jot down why. Aim to write a killer post a week, or fortnight, but don’t become constrained by only writing one kind of post.
7: The medium is the message. Video, audio, images, words, layouts can all help create variety and appeal to different audiences. But don’t stick them in for the sake of it – make sure they’re relevant, and that they enhance your post, rather than confuse it.
8: House style. Having images the same size, posts of a similar length, or familiar layouts can all create the kind of consistency that makes readers feel at home; as can regular slots, or themes for different days of the week. Slots can also help you tune into your voice quickly. But don’t constrain yourself too much; you could come to resent them, or run the risk of becoming predictable.
9: Purpose. People have a million zillion things competing for attention. What’s the purpose of your post? To entertain? To inform? Are you giving your reader something useful to take away?
10: The power of the subconcious. Accept that some posts will come together like a Red Arrows display team, while others will wriggle round the page, like sheep refusing to be herded. The subconscious is a strange and powerful beast. Sometimes it needs to be left alone to marinade, other times it needs to be tethered down to the nearest scrap of paper sharpish. Always keep a notebook to hand.
11: Stand and Deliver. Always read your posts out loud before posting; it’s not called ‘voice’ for nothing!
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