A blog is often the best platform for demonstrating your organisation's uniqueness. The more niche and specilised your subject, the more likely you'll be viewed as an authority.
Many tips for writing for blogs are the same tips for any good piece of web writing, but a few are summarised below.
The shorter, the better
Readers appreciate writing that's short, to the point and easy to understand. Simple, direct language communicates your thoughts more efficiently than displaying your writing prowess.
Active voice
Write in the form "do it," rather than "will have been done". Use the passive voice when you don't know the subject, but remember you want to be the voice of authority and inspire others to do something, so try to write in the active voice wherever you can.
Strong verbs
The best verbs demonstrate action. Think about the action that's happening in your article, then rewrite it using nothing but nouns and verbs, taking out unecessary words and see if that helps you make more effective use of your vocabulary.
Attribute sources
Tell your readers where you got your information and qualify every fact or statement you make, otherwise your readers are at risk of assuming you're making things up. Attribution brings you credibility, shows you've got nothing to hide and invites people to check your sources.
Contextual hyperlinking
Provide links to other, more detailed content, especially if it supports your point or offers the reader a more thorough experience. Note the URLs of any sources when researching and writing, and work them into your article using contextual hyperlinks.
Try to link those URLs to the relevant proper names, keywords and phrases, rather than to the URLs themselves written out, or worse, the over-used "click here."
Make it easy to read
No block of text more than five lines on the screen and where possible, make sure your lines don't stretch the width of the page.
Justified text can also be difficult to read for people with dyslexia, so you left (or right, depending on your country) aligned text to keep spaces between words consistent.
Use formatting
Break up long blocks of text by using:
- lists
- bold headers
- blockquotes
Spell check
Use an automatic spell checker but don't forget a manual re-read to catch those errors a spellchecker would miss. Bad spelling can have a negative ipact on your credibility.
Do
- Offer a unique insight into your area of work or the issues you're highlighting
- Post consistently. Still "quality not quantity" though - people will only return to read interesting, well-written articles.
- Make your content easy to consume. Provide RSS feeds so people can follow your content using their preferred method (iPhone, Google Reader, Outlook etc.)
Don't
- use jargon! Don't assume your reader knows what your acronyms mean, unless your blog is very specific and aimed at an audience who undersands those acronyms.
Useful links
- Reasons your organization should blog
- 10 ways nonprofits can use blogs
- The structure of persuasive copy
- RSS in plain english
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