Learn How to Blog: Writing for Beginners

Woman writing in the snowy mountains on a beautiful day.

You want to learn how to blog? Excellent! You’re in the right place.

Writing is the most difficult part of actual blogging. Why?

Blogging and conventional writing are not the same!

Beginners often don’t get the differences between websites and blogs or more specifically between news sites and blogs.

You can have a WordPress based website posting the latest news daily and it still won’t be a blog.

How to blog then to really make your WordPress publication a genuine blog?

That’s easy even for beginners once you acknowledge and put into practice these writing traits that define blogging.


Blog Writing Traits that Define Blogging

The writing is what makes the “great content” actually stand out. Most writing does not work on blogs.

You can even define blogging by the type of writing you publish. A blog needs to be…


Recognizable
There are millions of blogs. How do you stand out among those myriads? Is your blog recognizable and memorable?

Let’s start with this blog here. Is it “just another bland SEO blog? What character does the SEO 2.0 blog have? It’s

  • daring
  • humorous
  • interdisciplinary
  • visionary
  • radical.

I’m not sure whether everybody does feel the same about it but at least these were the first 5 things that came to my mind.

Do you have some adjectives to describe your blog? In case you don’t or they sound more like “average, just another WordPress blog, bleak” you should change something.

A blog needs a distinctive character – a recognizable tone of voice. It’s not necessarily the character of the blogger. SEO 2.0 is just part of me.


Subjective
The writer of a blog should always write what s/he thinks. Not what a company thinks (it does not in the first place) but what you, the blogger do like or dislike.

Only God is objective.

Thus embrace your subjectivity and write from your own point of view. Express your opinions. Do not write as if you know everything.

When you try to sound objective you end up sounding like a bot. Corporate lingo often sounds like this. Focus on your unique point of view.


Imperfect
A blogger is a human being, thus imperfect and that’s fine. You blog quickly and thus you often make mistakes.

That’s fine too as long as you react to people who point out issues and you correct the mistakes you made.

When your blog sounds as if a whole PR department has worked a night to devise a posting you should rather write press releases. A blog thrives with imperfection.


Non-commercial
While blogs, especially corporate and business blogs often are dealing with business and there is nothing wrong with “making money blogging” the nature of the blog or the blog posts themselves is non-commercial.

The blog post itself can’t be a sales pitch. When you want to sell something, even in a blog post, the article must contain something useful for the reader.

Blogs are not promotional. That’s advertising. Actual content provides value by itself. Do you get the difference?


Personal
People read most blogs because they like the person behind them or the team when it’s a group blog. They appreciate the people behind the words.

There are plenty of “blogs” where a bunch of no-name badly underpaid editors fill WordPress sites with content. This is not blogging.

When you can’t recognize or imagine a person behind a blog it’s not a blog it’s a news source at best. A blog needs a personal voice.

A post written by “Admin” is in instant put off. Make sure to be yourself not just a drone without personality.


Critical
When you applaud just about everything nobody will trust you. This applies also in case you ignore everything that’s negative.

Even self improvement blogs will deal with negative aspects of life. You do not have to negate yourself but yo can’t sweep everything under the rug.

You need a critical approach to things. Tell people when something’s wrong. Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerability. That makes you human!


Informal
Humor, colloquial expressions or off-topic posting are part of blogging. Without them your blog becomes an official website.

A blog has to be be informal to some point. It’s not a brochure!

Or it should be 10% informal so that it does not get too sloppy. Nonetheless blogs are informal and not 100% earnest. Do not just talk business all the time.

So make sure to inform Al! Who is Al? Damn, that wasn’t funny. I tried though! I hope I could make the point.


Want to Learn How Writing for Blogs Differs?

OK. Long story short: I bet I forgot some other important traits of writing for blogs.

Do you want to add more writing traits of real blogs? Suggest them in the comment section below!

We all started as beginners once. It’s nothing to be ashamed of! You can also ask questions below.

We can also schedule a private one to one consultation. That’s actually what I do a for a living besides blogging myself.

You can learn how to blog yourself but it’s much easier when someone like me, who has more than 20 years experience – 15+ years of blogging among it – is there to help you.