I gave a class a few months ago at General Assembly on "The Anatomy of a Five Star Email". One of the points covered was about writing with an active voice not a passive voice.
I was asked to explain this concept more and thought that it would be an excellent topic for a blog article, as clear and succinct writing applies equally to blogging as well as email marketing.
If you are writing a business blog it is important that you write for clarity. Your articles are more clear and persuasive when the language is kept simple. And frankly, people don't have time to read and re-read complicated paragraphs of text. A blog is not the place to show off obscure linguistic phrases. So here 5 rules to follow when writing your blog articles.
- Don't use overly complicated words - for example you could use "all" to replace "all of it"
- Don't use long and difficult to read sentences. Sentences easily grow, to the point that they become difficult to understand, without you even realising it
- Don't use passive voice
- Don't use too many adverbs - adverbs weaken the verb
- Have a call to action - not specifically a writing tip, but each article should have a call to action, what is the point of the article, what would you like people to do after they've read your article?
If this all sounds too hard to remember, there's an app for that... I kid you not. Created by brothers Adam and Ben Long the Hemingway app promises to deliver bold and clear writing. Hemingway uses a formula to judge the "reading level" of a particular section of writing and highlights overly complicated words, instances of the passive voice, adverbs and difficult to read sentences. Simply copy and paste your copy into the app and it will make suggestions. The app is free online and they've just released a desktop version.
It's a fun app to play with, but ultimately the decision about whether to change your copy is up to you. It's useful in the way that it highlights hard to read sections so you can decide whether to make some changes. For many bloggers, we don't have editors to proof read our content and suggest improvements. So in this way Hemingway is like having your own editor, highlighting sloppy writing and pulling you up when your prose gets overly flowery.
After all, clear and persuasive writing is the ultimate goal.
