10 Tips for Writing Blogs for Fun and Profit

Whether you’re writing blogs, your company newsletter or a message to a new client, you may find, like most people do, that you’re having trouble getting started. If you’re like the millions of people who break out in a sweat just at the thought of writing blogs — or anything someone might actually read — chill out. You’re not alone.

The number one phobia among adults, according to most psychological research studies, is the fear of public speaking, technically called glossophobia. This seems to always head the list, ranking even higher than the fear of death, which often comes in at number two. Paraphrasing Jerry Seinfeld, this means the average person at a funeral would prefer to be in the casket rather than doing the eulogy.

Anxiety Prevails

When it’s severe enough, the fear of writing is called scriptophobia or graphophobia. And it can be debilitating. Although it may not rank among the top 10 fears with public speaking, dying and snakes, it’s still rated pretty high, especially for business people who must write for their jobs.

So, if you clam up or get nauseous every time your boss asks you when you’re going to get around to writing blogs for the company website — you can contact Ray Access to do it for you. Or you can take action yourself, which is one of the top tips we can share with you about writing blogs and other business communications.

Writing Blogs Is Profitable

Writing blogs elicits profits either through the ads you sell for your personal blogs or more often, through the brand awareness and name recognition you receive from customers and potential clients. And to get you started, the team at Ray Access join the marketing team of Nike to bring you the most important, number one tip for writing blogs: “Just do it!”

Write now. Open a new document and just start tapping away. Go with free-flow, unedited thoughts. Write like you talk. Write down your thoughts about the topic. Since getting started seems to be the hardest part about writing blogs, you can conquer that part just by following this advice.

Blog Writing Tips

So here are 10 more tips to get you going and keep you flowing. Stay on track and on schedule while delivering quality communications on a steady, profitable basis:

1. Read. Good writers read … and they read a lot. One trick is to read a bunch of articles about your topic, but don’t copy them — you don’t want to get charged with plagiarism. Reading about a topic trips your thought processes and gives you fodder for content.
    
2. Face the fear. Throughout your life, you’ve undoubtedly overcome a multitude of fears. You went on job interviews, applied to college, rode a two-wheeled bicycle and maybe even gave a presentation to a group. Understanding that you’re just facing another one of those illogical fears is no different.
    
3. Grow up. Not meant to be harsh, this tip refers to the small voices that still follow you through your life. Maybe you were criticized as kids for something you wrote. Worrying about being criticized really is the main source of glossophobia. But you’re not a kid anymore. Your skin is much tougher, and you have a lot more confidence and a proven track record of previous successes.
    
4. Visualize success. Visualization techniques work just as well for winning the Super Bowl as they do for writing blogs. See fingers racing across the keyboard as they write with clarity and intention. Visualize the finished piece. Seeing is believing.
    
5. Stop thinking. Thinking has its place in the writing process, but it’s usually not during the actual writing. Overthinking the content of your communication dooms you to deadlock. Go with your gut when writing. You can always revise later (see tip #10).
    
6. Make mistakes. The need to be perfect falls right in line with worrying about what others think about you. It’s all based on fear of failure. Drop the perfectionism; you’re a human being; making mistakes comes with the territory. Making mistakes is also one of the ways you learn how to be a better writer.
    
7. Focus on the prize. That’s what worked for Tom Brady. Keep your eyes on the new customers your blog writing produces, on the kudos you’ll get from your boss for turning in an assignment on time and the inner peace you’ll enjoy once you’ve completed your task.
    
8. Research. As you’re writing about a topic, especially something that’s new or inviting to you, stop when you think of a question. Google that question and reinvigorate your creativity with more information. Learning while you write is one of the greatest gifts of writing blogs. In this way, writing makes you a better, more interesting person!
    
9. Practice. The more you write, the better you get and the less time it takes to complete a project. Writing is, after all, a skill you can learn. Whether you keep a daily journal or spend time writing blogs a couple days a week, the process gets easier when it’s habitual.
    
10. Edit and revise. This part of the process lets your inner perfectionist shine. And it’s OK to let her out! This step saves you from making egregious spelling errors or from simply sounding foolish, which is one of the major fear-inducing situations. If you don’t have a second set of eyes willing to be brutally honest and you must edit your own writing, sleep on it and reread your work the next day. You’ll be amazed what a fresh perspective can do to your writing!

Editors are to writers like a good sharp knife is to a top chef. They are the means to a perfected end. As Truman Capote once said: “I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.