Improve your blogging with these empowering tips
Blogging has been a popular marketing tool for women in business for many years. But since 2014, the year we started helping you to improve your blogging with our blogging courses, we have seen the blogging world expand even more. The good news is that blogging is still a fabulous way to get known, and blogs continue to be hugely popular with readers too. But the real challenge is now how to stand out amongst the crowd.
So here are some authentic and empowering ways to improve your blogging. Ways we trust will make a big difference to how you view your writing, and how your readers view you now.
What gives your blog purpose (and you satisfaction)?
In a Technorati survey a few years ago, bloggers were asked to list how they measure their success. And interestingly, more bloggers rated personal satisfaction higher than the measurable number of comments, links or shares they receive.
This came as no surprise to me. Even after 14 years of blogging as a business owner, I still feel a deep sense of satisfaction each time I write. I always try to follow my purpose and in doing so, I usually push myself a little out of my comfort zone. Even I can see how my writing is changing because of it. And this is particularly rewarding as I don’t write in my native language.
Do you know your blog purpose? And what gives you real satisfaction when you write a post? Why not write it on a sticky note and leave it visible so it’ll guide you every time you write a new post. (If you’re not sure of your purpose have a quick read here)
Improve your blogging with one empowering word
The beginning of a new year can feel very exciting. But think back, did it inspire you to take immediate action? If yes, that’s wonderful. If not, don’t worry. Experience has taught me that there is another way to keep our motivation high all year round – to trust your intuition and let things develop from there.
Although I haven’t always believed that. That’s because it goes against my coach training which advocates a much more proactive and focused approach to planning and setting goals.
The year I started to pay more attention was the year I got fed up with the whole ‘New Year New Goals’ movement. It is not always the big goals that change something. It could be the sum of small changes that make it better. Or even a change of mindset.
I have had words like visibility, connection and fulfilment guide me, and it always amazes me how the right change happened because of them. Indeed, the year I chose visibility was when a Guardian Editor saw one of my blog posts and invited me to join an online panel of experts in one of their forums!
More proof how this works
One year, my word for the year was: “Simplicity”. I was experienceing some health challenges and I knew simplifing would make a difference to my health. But what also happened was this: I focused more on what I really wanted to write about in my blogs. And this made me more creative rather than business focused and my blog writing became easier too. It led to a number of new coaching clients, including a new corporate client, who had all found me via my posts.
All the changes happened naturally and so simplicity was a great word for me.
Would you like to improve your blogging but haven’t ever thought about a word for the year? The good thing is that you can choose your word at any time during the year or whenever you feel most motivated. You could align it with your birthday, a new tax year or even a new academic year.
Once you have a word that resonates with how you want your next year to be, you will find that it has a powerful almost subliminal effect on your life, your business and your blog.
It is an intuitive but simple and effective way to empower you and help you improve your blogging.
Be you – by far the best way to improve your blogging
My writing tip is very much in line with the book my colleague Jean Wolfe and I are writing about your unique voice. It is also very much in line with what we have been saying in our courses for years. It has such enormous value when you want to improve your blogging!
I saw the evidence in a community project I wrote an article for on the subject “What if life were meant to be easy”. The project was run by Julia Barnickle, Writer and Filmmaker who sadly passed away a few months ago.
Writing an article about my struggles with ease and what led me to find it, did challenge me a little. Especially as it made me write about an aspect of my story I have never shared or talked about before.
But all the other contributions were explorations of some kind, many touching on personal experiences and struggles. The writing is very different to what you see in the average business blog. Naturally the topic invites a personal approach but interestingly, all the contributors were running a small enterprise and blog regularly to raise their profile.
How authenticity will help you improve your blogging
The one thing that was immediately noticeable was the level of honesty shown by the writers. And it has clearly worked because all contributors have attracted a dedicated following with their genuine approach.
So I’d really like to encourage you (or remind you, if you’ve been on one of our courses) to put more of yourself out there.
Not a well-curated version of you. Not hiding behind your topics, never giving us an insight into the challenges that have led you to express your views in your own unique way.
Please take this opportunity to explore your writing with a fresh focus. Experiment a little with your key topics, perhaps by trying a different angle. You can be more ‘you’ too when you become braver in the stories you tell, or how you tell them.
“Don’t let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free. Trust that in living true to yourself, you will attract people that support and love you, just as you are.”– Jaeda deWalt
So why not start the new decade by stopping to stick to what feels safe. Safe often means boring. Not being boring makes you instantly visible and able to stand out – this is what attracts readers and helps you to improve your blogging!
Try it. Be brave, be authentic, be you! And let your own special word guide you on the journey ahead.
(And if you want to improve your blogging and would like a little help, you know where to find us )
