Rubber Ducky Copywriter

Blogging is personal, professional and public. Your blog is your work. Your message. Your opinion. Every time you step to the keyboard, you decide to be brave. You’re sharing a part of yourself with any stranger who’s willing to read what you have to say.

Or, you could decide “screw it” and help yourself to these bad habits that will help make sure no one wants to read what you have to say.

There’s some safety in that, but who takes up blogging for safety?

1. Write a vague headline.

When I see a vague headline, I see a writer who’s trying to be clever or funny or enticing or smart. They want to make you want to read the blog post by being mysterious. Or they’re not sure what their post is about and just threw a headline together to get the post written and published before the second coming of the dinosaurs.

A boring but clear headline is better than a sassy but vague headline.

Yes: 5 easy ways to improve your writing

No: Wanna get better at that thing you do?

2. Make your post a waste of time.

People are busy. Everyone is busy. If someone takes time out to read your post, help them in some way, for the moment or forever. Advice, direction, motivation, inspiration, humor, relatability; enhance their life in some way with something.

Don’t write simply for the sake of hearing yourself type. Benefit your reader.

3. Try too hard to sound smart.

I made this mistake the first time I started blogging. I hadn’t found my voice or style. I was insecure and thought I had to make an extra effort to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

So I used filler words, jargon, business-speak and as many big words as I thought could help me sound the way I wanted. But that approach doesn’t resonate.

People see through pretense. Quickly.

The internet is already full of people trying to sound smart. Take the time to find your voice, your style, your rhythm, your own way of putting words to paper. That’s relatable. That’s personable. And that’s when you’ll shine.

4. Make every sentence at least 500 words long.

Much like #3 on this list, long sentences makes blog posts hard to read. Digital content makes the eyes work harder than print. Focusing long enough to read an overly long sentence can give people a headache.

People are also more likely to scan through online content than to read every word. (poop! catch that?) Break up sentences into shorter, more direct sentences.

Rules of thumb

• Keep each sentence less than 25 words long.
• Vary sentence length.
• Use shorter, medium and longer sentence.

Create your right rhythm. Make your writing more interesting and easier to read.

5. Swear a lot.

I’ve heard it said, “Swearing can offend someone. But not swearing will never offend anyone.”

To a large degree, I agree with that although personally, I enjoy profanity. You’ll see me use a swear word on this blog, once in a while. But you’ll also notice that I do so sparingly. I’m deliberate and thoughtful about it.

Whether you include swear words in your blogging is up to you. Also realize that if you do, too much takes the focus off of what you’re trying to communicate. Going overboard turns people away.

Bonus: Avoid ending with a clear conclusion that provides a satisfactory end to the post you wrote and message you tried to convey.