Before sitting down to write this blog post, I did my usual due diligence via Google to find how many articles contained the words blogging secrets.

It took Google less than a half-second to discover about 22 MILLION results with Social Media King Chris Brogan’s five-year-old post right at the top.

That’s a lot of mentions about a subject in which there are few, if any, secrets left. Unless, of course, you’ve picked this post out of those millions to read first, hoping to glean so much wisdom that you can hit a first-pitch home run on your initial at-bat.


arethere any blogging secrets left
Sorry to disappoint, but it doesn’t work that way in the real world of blogging.
Here’s the good news: If you’re not afraid to learn a little more “behind the curtain” technology (HTML and simple content management systems like WordPress and Drupal) you already know most of the blogging secrets experts share — me included.

Blogging 101: The Dirty Little “Secret”

The dirty, little “secret” about good blogging is how easy it is to do, IF you’re motivated, curious and willing to learn and improve constantly, all good habits of being a good writer we outlined in a previous post and still full of Stephen King inspiration.
Believe me, you won’t hit a towering home run the first time out. In fact, it may take you as long as six months of writing blog posts several times a week — sometimes hitting, other times missing — before you find your creative groove.
There was one really difficult “non-secret” I had to grasp as a writer who transitioned from the long-form print world to the short attention span theater of the web a decade ago, however.

Write About Anything

It took me a while to realize how much, not how little, I could write about almost anything. The real trick: Investing a little extra time on the heavy lifting. Thinking through a subject and researching it before writing any piece I was or will be assigned is a given.
For some writers, that heavy lifting is the boring part of the job. Fair warning: I can almost guarantee that you probably wouldn’t want to read anything these lazy writers had to say either.
You cannot cheat on thinking and researching. It makes your work credible (facts matter) and interesting. Believe me, if you don’t go the extra mile, your readers will know and, if you get the facts really wrong, they will feel compelled to tell you. Strongly. Passionately.
And, you’ll have to work infinitely harder to win them back too.
Yes, we know the task of filling up a blank page with simple-to-understand facts that are seamlessly woven into a story can be a daunting, frightening thing, even for the most seasoned marketing writer, so it’s tempting to take short cuts. So don’t do it.
If you take one thing from this blog post, it is this: A writer’s job is one of the best in the world. You get paid to learn about a thing, then share what you’ve learned on a blog about that thing with countless people who want to learn about that very same thing.
What’s not to love?
If you don’t have the time or manpower to develop compelling, creative stories for your targeted audiences, we are always here to help.

Tags:
,