Do You Sound Like Your Blog?

By on April 19, 2007 in Blog Coach with 12 Comments

We talk a lot about how building a web presence with blog software can extend the reach of your voice. Like singing into a can and communicating to the masses at the same time.

It’s important to think of blogging more in terms of a conversation than a marketing or public relations piece. Compelling conversation will make for a compelling marketing tool, not the other way around.

Write Like You Talk: Writing in a conversational tone (yours) can will be more attractive to readers than marketing-speak or prize-winning prose. Sometimes, it can be as simple as replacing a comma (,) with an ellipses (…). One of the best compliments you’ll hear is when people say they can ‘hear you talking’ in your posts.

Keep it Short: We’re all busy people. If you want your posts read (especially in feed readers), be considerate of your readers’ time. A goal of 200-300 words is a good start. Short posts are good. Longer posts can be broken up into parts or with well-placed bullet points.

Links are Resourceful: Be generous with relevant hyperlinks to other sites, blogs and of course…your own web pages. If your blog has no links (or only links to your own stuff), you’ll look like a dead-end. They call it ‘surfing’ for a reason. A dead-end blog will end up a dead blog.

Post Frequently: Every post becomes an individual page in your site (a permalink). This creates page depth. Search engines favor relevance, depth and frequency.

Synchronize Your Communication: If you find yourself talking or emailing about a certain topic multiple times in a short period – blog it. You’ll find it expands the conversation outward and cuts down on your email and telephone time.

Don’t let blogging be a hurdle to extending your voice (and your ears). We overcame fax machines, email, cell phones, having a dot.com…it’s just a matter of time and effort.

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  • http://stopplayinghouse.wordpress.com/ Corey Williams

    Great advice on breaking up long posts into shorter ones with bullets. Once I get writing I end up having paragraphs that I know are too long. Plus this will help me reach my goal of three postings a day.

  • http://www.primeadvertising.com/blog Aaron

    A few weeks back I met with a friend … who is now becoming a client and they commented on our blog and how she can hear me talking when she reads my posts. I took it as that I might be annoying … but you have turned it into a compliment I guess. Thanks Mike.

  • http://www.gitrsblog.us Jesse Petersen

    Good point about the elipses…I think I sound more like myself in my comments than my posts. I’ll work on that a bit more.
    You are totally right about each post becoming a page. I am getting over 70% of my traffic linking to my old content based on relevant searches of material I have already written. Cover everything as you write, but keep your posts focused within themselves.

  • http://www.allthingsworkplace.com Steve Roesler

    Mike,thanks for the practical post. I think I do write the way I talk, because my English-teacher wife keeps telling me to stop writing the way I talk and always use the proper punctuation. (I now wear that as a badge of honor).
    Something I recently started doing relates to your last bullet point. When I see a topic emerging in the way you described, I start a post in draft form with a title and a few words that will help me remember the main points and references. As a result, I now have a number of posts started and it makes it a lot less stressful to blog daily because I know there’s already something started.

  • http://www.terrierista.typepad.com Jane Greer

    Hi, Mike. “Compelling conversation will make for a compelling marketing tool, not the other way around.” That’s the gospel truth. Thanks for saying it.
    I had just a few comments on a couple of points you made:
    You say, “Write like you talk.” Yes, a conversational tone will appeal to more readers than “marketing-speak,” but don’t be too hard on the punctuation and grammar rules followed by great writers. Punctuation is what makes written communication work. A paragraph full of ellipses (…) screams to me that the writer is just rambling. I don’t read rambles. I’ll click to go somewhere else.
    You say, “Keep it short.” Just wanted to give readers a helpful link:
    http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
    This is a listing of the legendary Jakob Nielsen’s columns on web usability. Writing for the web has to break lots of pre-web rules to be effective. It’s generally true that shorter stuff will attract more readers than longer stuff, but some topics beg to be long. In that case, it’s critical to break up paragraphs, use bullets, use bold fonts, etc., to take readers by the hand and lead them through the forest of important words you’ve worked so hard to write.
    You’re still my hero! :-)

  • http://www.madenaburman.com Madena M Burman

    You would be so proud of me. I had a conversation with an infant blogger just this week. She asked me to read her first attempt and give her feedback. My exact words were, “You need to write like you talk. Pretend you are having a conversation with someone and write what you would say.”
    Tee hee hee….I thought that was funny:-)

  • http://www.copywritingmaven.com Roberta Rosenberg, The Copywriting Maven

    Well before I began blogging, clients with whom I’ve enjoyed a long-lived relationship have often told me they can hear my voice when they read my copy.
    I’ve ALWAYS taken it as a compliment because that low-key, business conversational style works so well for the B2B marketing work I do.
    I write my blog in a similar way. The biggest difference. The personal pronoun and the light comedy.

  • http://www.elementaltruths.blogspot.com Reg

    Hi Mike,
    I particularly appreciate your “keep it short” advice. It is so true that even on a topic you are passionate about, it is better to give folks bite size pieces so they have time to get a feel for where you are coming from. Great post!

  • http://middlezonemusings.com Robert Hruzek

    Mike, you are so right! I especially identify with your first point – write like you talk. When I started doing that, the words just started to flow easier. Now I can focus on content, and not so much on “perfect” punctuation/grammar (whatever that is!)

  • http://www.terrierista.typepad.com Jane Greer

    I can’t help it–I have to chime in again. “Write like you talk” is dangerous to take too literally. When most of us talk, we stutter, search for words, hem and haw while we’re thinking, repeat ourselves, say stuff that comes out wrong or not quite the way we intended it…. You get the picture. This is NOT what we should be doing in a blog. Writing gives us the luxury of saying what we mean in the clearest, most accessible way. And “perfect” punctuation and grammar are punctuation and grammar that help us do that, not some dreaded curse laid on us by ancient English teachers! They’re tools, and I believe that people who put their writing out in front of gazillions of people need to know how to use those tools. Robert Hruzek, you use those tools just fine in your blog. Don’t make fun of them! :-)

  • http://www.blogopreneur.com/2007/04/25/uncovering-the-myths-of-blog-marketing-so-you-can-be-a-better-blogger/ Blog Marketing Singapore – Online Marketing Training and Promotion Strategies for Business

    Uncovering the myths of blog marketing, so you can be a better blogger

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  • http://www.productivitygoal.com Carolyn Manning

    All great points, Mike. Write like you talk. I’d add one point to that one: use contractions liberally, they give writing a much more natural feel.

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