Blogable A-Z ~ Q for Quality not Quantity

On a blog, content is everything. Well nearly everything: if you check our categories you will see that there are a few other things to think about too! That said, producing quality content is the single biggest thing you can do to attract visitors to your site, keep them there once they are arrive, and have them subscribe to your site or follow you so that they know when you have added something new.

Quality versus quantity

Blogable is chockablock with articles which will help you on the way to having quality content, and while you will need to have a regular posting schedule so that there is new content being added, the quality of what you do will far outweigh the quantity. In fact, sometimes quantity can overwhelm readers. Depending on your blog style, it is often more effective to have a longer post which covers something in depth than to produce a little everyday. People are busy and not everyone can afford the time to read each day, even if you are able to post a quality piece.

On the other hand, if you don’t produce enough, you will lose the interest of readers. Most bloggers are adding content between 2 and 3 times a week although you might want to do more or less. If you haven’t posted within the last few weeks, there won’t be a lot to keep returning readers from stopping by, so finding a pattern that works for you will also work for them.

Producing quality writing

Whether your blog is fiction, non-fiction or a mix of both, there are some things that you can do to make sure your writing is good quality.

Ideas

You need to find ideas that are going to be relevant, interesting or important. Your ideas are at the centre of your writing and it is what helps to make your blog stand out. Your ideas will be as personal to you as the style you use to communicate them, so make sure that you have spent time thinking about what will fit and work best. If you are short of ideas then there are loads of great memes, prompts and projects out there to get you started.

The Blogable calendar has some of those listed, but be careful that your blog doesn’t just become a response to weekly memes as that can mean that it doesn’t flow and feels like writing for the sake of writing. Although the piece might be great in itself, it could affect the overall quality of your site so choose the ones that seem to fit. Remember, quality not quantity!

Organisation

Organisation is the way that you structure your writing. It is about the way you put your ideas together and move from one to another. It has to be logical and that is where planning can come in. A good plan will focus your writing and improve the quality of what you produce. Readers online can find it hard to focus on one long block of text, so depending on the type of writing, headings to help structure can be really helpful. You should also think about paragraphing and about linking using topic sentences and linking sentences.

Voice

Spoken voice is something that I covered as part of my reflective writing series and I will focus on Uniqueness for letter U, so be sure to check back. It is important that your voice is your own and is relatable and relevant for readers. Your voice is about how your writing feels to someone when they read it and it is your chance to express your personality through your words. Your voice should match your purpose in terms of its tone: is your purpose to inform, to entertain, to persuade or to communicate opinion?

Word Choice

The words that you choose in your writing are so important. Language is there at your disposal and writers who make language work for them really stand out. You should choose words to enhance your writing. Use them to engage your reader and draw them into your writing so that they experience it through their senses. They should hear you, see you and feel you. It should come alive for them so that they become part of it in some way. Think about connotation of words, be precise and clear, and avoid repetition.

Fluency

Although you want your word choice to be varied and have impact, you need your writing to be fluent. Fluent sentences are easy to understand and will be punctuated in a way which allows your voice, or that of your narrator or character to be heard. You should try to vary your sentence structure and use sentences of different lengths. Try not to use the same beginnings, and structure sentences and paragraphs in order to make it interesting. Fluent sentences will make your writing sound more solid and cohesive, and let your reader understand what you are saying.

Accuracy

Using the correct punctuation, spelling and grammar is essential to creating quality writing. If you aren’t sure about how to do this then there are loads of great guides online. We also have some posts here on Blogable that might help. Proof reading is a big part of this. It is really difficult to proof-read your own work as your brain sees what it expects to see, so if you do have someone else who can check that is great. If not, then taking a break and coming back to your post in order to check will mean that you might see errors that you could otherwise have missed.

Posting your first draft is not something you should ever do. In order to get your writing of the quality you want you should try to look at it with a critical eye. Go back over the points above and check that you have done the best job that you possibly can. At the end of the day, the quality of your content will determine the success of your blog so it is really worth taking the time to think about how best to do this.