Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

Top 5 Blog Editing Essentials That Build Credibility and Loyalty

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When I ask whether they edit their blog posts, people say things like, “I was so relieved to have finished the post, I just wanted to check it off my list and get it out there.” Can you relate?

By skipping the editing phase of the blog writing process, you may unintentionally turn off the people who land on your site. Instead of building credibility, you lose it; instead of loyalty, you create hesitation to click on more of your links in the future.

This post will:

  • Outline the five crucial elements of the editing process
  • Provide specific tools and filters to apply as you read through a draft blog post

1. Grammar and spelling

There’s a saying that how you do anything is how you do everything. If people see you haven’t taken care to proofread your blog posts, they may wonder how you take care of other details in your business.

Grammar and spelling problems distract the reader, creating a barrier and blocking your message from getting across. The blog post fails to fulfill its purpose to educate, inspire and help your readers, and you fail to make a connection with someone who could have become a client or fan.

No one can be perfect (I know I’m not!), but just a little effort can have a big impact on the quality of your writing. Here are a few ways to edit for grammar and spelling:

  • Step away. Build time into the blogging process so you can edit a few hours (or days) after you finish writing. This distance will help you spot errors.
  • Listen to your post. Read the post out loud, or use a text-to-speech feature via Mac or Windows. When reading, your mind tricks your eyes into seeing what you meant to type, rather than what you actually typed. What the eye misses, the ear can catch.
  • Look it up. Bookmark some go-to sources for grammar and spelling questions, such as Grammar Girl and Merriam-Webster.
  • De-capitalize. Resist the urge to capitalize words because you think they’re important. Here is an excellent article that explains the difference between legitimate capitalization and vanity capitalization.

2. White space

Even before they read a word of your blog post, people can be scared away by big blocks of text. Long paragraphs make it more difficult to keep their place on the page, let alone grasp the concepts they’re reading.

Eye strain, confusion, hard work – these are not the feelings that will draw in readers and keep them returning to your blog. People aren’t just searching for information they can trust, they want a pleasant reading experience.

Here are a few ways to edit for white space:

  • Paint a picture. Use images to break up the text and create visual interest and an emotional connection.
  • Use the return key. Cap each paragraph at three or four lines at the most.
  • List your points. Incorporate bulleted or numbered lists.
  • Head up your sections. Use sub-headings for each main topic in your article.

3. Focus

When people click on a link to visit your blog, it’s because they hope the post will answer a question they’ve had, validate something they already believe, teach them about something new, or just be a pleasant diversion.

If your post fails to deliver on its promise, or simply wasn’t what the person expected, they may hesitate to click on your other links in the future.

Here are a few ways to edit for focus:

  • Stay true to your title. If the post is turning into something other than you planned, either change the title to the new focus, or scrap the post and start again.
  • Be strategic and reader-focused. Know the main themes and topics that are most important to your audience, and stick with only those.
  • Plan ahead with an editorial calendar. When you’ve already decided what you’re going to post, you’re more likely to stay focused on that topic.
  • Be relentless. Constantly ask yourself, “What is my point?” If anything you’ve written doesn’t support that point, save it for another article.

4. Differentiation

There is a wealth of information out there today, and chances are you’re not the only one writing about your topic of expertise.

If your blog posts are too generic, you don’t give people a reason to keep reading or come back. They’ll also have a harder time remembering and using your ideas.

Here are a few ways to edit for differentiation:

  • Stick to your categories. Your categories are an intersection of your unique combination of skills, interests and experiences. They represent the specific questions your ideal clients want answered, and the topics you want to be known for.
  • Be bold. Express your opinions, even if they’re different from prevailing wisdom or what other people have said or written.
  • Be yourself. On your blog, give people a taste of what it’s like to do business with your company. Whether your blog has multiple voices, one main voice, or a company voice, use it to bring your personality to life.

5. Empathy

When someone arrives at your blog, it may be their very first visit, or their fiftieth. They may be an absolute novice at your topic, or an expert. While you can’t be everything to everybody, there are ways to meet your readers where they’re at to make a stronger connection and improve their experience at your site.

Here are a few ways to edit for empathy:

  • Eliminate jargon. Make each post friendly to someone who is brand new to your blog and your topic. Put yourself in their shoes and scan for any terms that need to be replaced or explained.
  • Provide links with more information, whether internal links to your own site or external links to other resources. Beginners can dig in to get background information they may be missing, and experienced readers can go deeper on particular topics.
  • Write for one reader at a time. As you read your post aloud (see #1), imagine your ideal reader is sitting across from you.

Blog editing is about much more than apostrophes or typos. By keeping a watchful eye on all five of these editing elements, you will earn readers’ trust and respect, and keep them coming back. Over time, that trust will convert to the right people saying yes when your offer fits their needs.

Editing is just one part of my 7-step blog writing process. You can learn the whole system by attending my next free webinar, Write Less, Earn More. Register now to save your spot!

Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the SteamFeed blog, which is now closed.

Three Ways to Generate New Blog Post Ideas

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Have you finished your blogging plan, chosen the perfect category topics, but you still don’t know what to blog about? This happens, and doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong track. What’s more likely is that you just need some ways to access the blogging ideas that are all around you.

Here is a three-step process that will help:

1. Receive – with blogging antennae

With your blogging antennae on (thanks to online visibility expert Denise Wakeman for coining this term), you’ll be more likely to recognize the blog-worthy moments in your day. Maybe a client asks a question that you’ve already answered several times this month, or someone in line at the grocery store asks how you plan to use one of the healthy ingredients in your shopping cart.

The key to keeping your blogging antennae in good working order is to have a keen focus on the most pressing problems and concerns of your ideal clients. This reader-focused approach helps you spot new solutions for them, and fresh ways of sharing your core pieces of wisdom and advice.

2. Record – with idea catchers

When these ideas spark, it’s so important to jot them down so you don’t forget them. Capturing these snippets in a central place also means they’ll be right at your fingertips the next time you sit down to outline or write your next post.

Which tools make the best idea catchers?/ Whichever ones you’ll actually use! Personally, I look for apps that sync across different devices, such as Wunderlist, Trello or Evernote. But no matter how many people tell you a tool is great, it has to feel right for you. I love Wunderlist, but Evernote has never clicked for me. Go with what works.

Always have a low-tech option at your fingertips as well, such as a simple notepad and pen, along with a process of regularly entering those into your digital file.

3. Refine – with questions

As you’re populating your editorial calendar and planning your next few blog posts, open up your idea catcher and review everything you’ve added. Here’s where focus and discernment come into the process. Always take a moment to filter your ideas through the unique lens of your blog’s main purpose. Who does it serve, and what have you committed to deliver to that audience?

Will this idea fulfill that purpose? Or is it something better suited to your personal journal or another setting? Does the idea firmly fit one of your blog’s established categories, or are you introducing a topic you probably won’t want to write about again?

When you apply these three steps, you’ll have a constantly flowing stream of new ideas to work with, so you can turn the best ones into valuable content for your audience of clients, prospective clients, and referral sources.

Want an easy way to create your own idea catcher? Join my next blog writing class, which includes templates for blog posts, editorial calendars, idea catchers, social media promotional text, and more!

Two Blogging Power Tools for Wellness Professionals

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Many wellness professionals know the benefits of blogging, yet their haphazard approach isn’t getting positive results. Some get overwhelmed by a floodgate of ideas but don’t have a structure for getting them finished and published. Others experience “blogger’s block” when they sit in front of a blank screen.

This post offers two blogging power tools that will help you:

  • Continually create content that connects with your ideal clients
  • Better manage your time
  • Deliver a steady flow of content to stay visible online
  • Produce an interesting and varied balance of content types and topics
  • Manage multiple contributors and time lines

An editorial calendar is the big picture of your blog

To be strategic about blogging you need to step back and take a broader view of your overall business and marketing goals. Then you can plug in the details of how blogging will help achieve these things.

This strategic process will yield a set of categories – central themes that intersect your expertise with your clients’ concerns. This list is key for staying on track with your blogging and putting your readers’ needs first.

An editorial calendar is a centralized document accessible to all your blog’s contributors (team members, guest experts, etc.), where you compile a list of planned blog posts for the next month, quarter, six months, year, etc.

Ideally, whichever tool you use or create will give you an instant glimpse of:

  • The blog post title and planned publication date
  • The status of each post (i.e., which posts are in the idea phase, in production, in revision, approved, and published and ready for promotion)
  • Who is responsible for the next action
  • The category and/or type of post (to create balance and variety, and ensure each category is being populated with new content)

If your primary goal is to keep yourself and others on task and be sure posts go out as planned, the free project management software Trello might be a good choice for your editorial calendar. You can create one list for each phase (idea, in production, etc.), and then easily drag and drop a blog post to a new column when its status changes.

Note: While you can use Trello’s color-coded label system for categories, keep in mind that you’ll be limited to only six labels. Because my blog and most of my clients’ blogs have more than six categories, I tend to use a customized Google spreadsheet for collaborating with clients about topic ideas for each category. Then I manage the production calendar in my own Wunderlist system.

With an editorial calendar as a blogging power tool, you’ll be able to plan posts around holiday themes, clinic schedules, and marketing events, and be thinking about and working on your posts long before they’re scheduled to publish.

Catch your blogging ideas wherever they spark

With your blogging calendar, you’ve created a set of content “buckets” – categories that are aligned with your prospective customers’ needs and interests. With those buckets in the back of your mind, I guarantee you will start to see and hear blog post ideas all around you.

When that happens, you need a place to capture your thoughts so you can either add these notes to existing posts on the calendar, or create new post ideas for later. The bonus is that when you sit down to work on a blog post, you’re not starting from a completely blank page.

The best idea catchers are the ones you’ll actually use. Experiment with applications that sync across different devices, such as Wunderlist, Trello or Evernote. See which one feels most comfortable – and even fun! Always have a low-tech option at your fingertips as well, such as a simple notepad and pen.

By creating a structure for your blog with an editorial calendar and category buckets, you keep on track with a consistent schedule and spark your creativity for new ideas. With your mind continually working in the background on filling in that structure, an idea catcher will ensure you never lose a single idea – OR have to start with a blank page.

Start today by creating a simple calendar of posts for the next three months (there’s one included in my free blogging plan workbook). Then be sure to put an idea catcher in place because your creativity will be sparking!

Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the SteamFeed blog, which is now closed.

Blog Readers Remember How You Made Them Feel

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Do you want to make a faster, stronger connection with the people who click through to read one of your blog posts? When they finish reading, do you want to leave them feeling good about you and that connection you’ve established? If so, read on!

As part of my seven-step blog writing process, I encourage you to spend time shaping your blog post by crafting an effective introduction and conclusion. And I suggest you do this after you’ve done the majority of your writing.

Why your intro should be an afterthought

Your introduction must draw the reader in with the promise of what they’ll get if they keep reading. But you won’t recognize the full scope of those benefits until the body of your post is written.

A blog post is a living, breathing entity from idea to completion. As you write, new ideas will surface, and you’ll connect your thoughts in different ways. In between writing sessions, you’ll be out there experiencing life, reading other people’s content, and talking with clients and potential clients.

That means sometimes a blog post doesn’t end up the way you thought it would. Your entire premise may change, or you may just add a new point or two. Either way, make sure your introduction matches the post you actually finished, not just the one you started.

Why does this matter and why should they care?

To entice people to keep reading, include one of these seven elements in your blog post’s introduction:

  1. A quote – Whether it’s flowery, provocative or inspirational, the perfect quote can set the tone for your entire article. Search for quotes in Google or your favorites quotes page.
  2. A stat – Statistics are used a lot in traditional media. Find them via Stats Can, the Census Bureau, or on wellness industry websites.
  3. A powerful statement or question – Get people’s attention with a provocative line that taps into a key need or concern for those in your target audience – just be sure to back it up in your actual article.
  4. A story – Tell a story about a fictional member of your target audience, an anonymous client, or someone you read about in the news. Or use your own story as it relates to the topic.
  5. A story about the reader – Make your reader the main character of the story, e.g., After hitting the snooze button three or four times, you finally crawl out from under the covers and head straight for the coffee pot. You can’t see how you’re going to get through another long day with this little energy…
  6. A song lyric – Sometimes musicians have sung it best. Song lyrics go one step further than quotes because they can also evoke powerful musical memories.
  7. A definition – Give your readers the gift of a fresh perspective on a well-used term, and explore alternate or deeper meanings that could spark some insights.

Send them on their way – with love

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Blogging is an opportunity to create and deepen your relationship with a prospective client, so they can get to know you better and see if you are the right one to help them make a change.

When readers reach the end of your article, you want them to feel heard, understood, inspired and empowered. That inspiration – that hope that they can actually make a change, solve a problem or take a step – is what they will remember.

Beyond inspiration, give them specific instructions for the actions they can take to implement what they learned from your article. As a bonus (also known as a content upgrade), you can offer a downloadable checklist, worksheet, or template that helps them take action. Give this away in exchange for their email address and permission to keep in touch with other valuable content and announcements from you.

For some topics, the best follow-up action might be no action at all, but rather to ponder a new approach or perspective on something. Here you might suggest a question or writing prompt.

Before you publish your next blog post, re-read your introduction and conclusion. Have you done enough to draw in your reader, and are you sending them away with a good memory of the time you spent together?

P.S. Want more ideas about how to write high-quality content that has more impact, attracts more ideal clients, and makes you more money? Register for my FREE webinar, Write Less, Earn More With Blog Posts That Are Easy to Write and Irresistible to the Perfect Clients For Your Health and Wellness Business.

How to Always Know What to Blog About

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Your blog categories are a vital part of your content marketing strategy. When someone visits your website and finds your list of blog categories displayed in the sidebar, they get an instant snapshot of the range of your expertise, and how you can help your clients.

Your blog categories are a natural extension of your brand, revealing what’s important to you and what you stand for in your business. Blog category links also help guide your readers to the information that will help them the most.

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Blog categories help you plan

Planning your blog categories before you write helps you organize your writing and stay on track, so you can achieve the consistency that will attract long-term readers and grow those relationships into sales.

By being strategic about your blog categories, you can more easily produce a balanced number of posts in each topic area. That way, visitors can see proof of your expertise no matter which category name they click.

This post will explain:

  • How to choose topics for your blog categories
  • How to choose names for your blog categories
  • How to maintain your blog categories
  • How to clean up your blog categories

How to choose topics for your blog categories

When considering your categories, identify the most pressing problems of your prospective clients. In the Four-Step Wellness Blogging Plan, I encourage you to consider topics that are broad enough to give you some variety and options, but specific enough that they’ll be relevant to your perfect clients.

Ideally you want to find the intersection between your audience’s interests and your own. You or someone on your team needs to have the interest, knowledge and ideas to keep writing about each category.

When choosing blog categories, think about the body of work you want to build over time. Is there a book in your future? Your blog categories could very well be your book’s chapters. An online course? Your categories might be lessons or segments of that course. White papers and presentations can also be created one blog post at a time.

Aim to have 5-7 blog categories that you find interesting and manageable to write about, which also address the concerns of your ideal clients.

How to choose names for your blog categories

Avoid jargon or industry-specific terms when naming your categories. Remember that your wellness blog visitors may have varying levels of knowledge and experience with your subject matter.

Also consider doing keyword research, as Doug Kessler explains:

If you use the same language your ideal clients are using, you’re more likely to show up in search engine results when they type in those terms.

Categories and tags can both be helpful for organizing your content and displaying your knowledge base. What can get messy, though, is mixing them up. Be clear about the difference between categories and tags, and have a specific plan for how you will use each on your site.

Use categories for broader topic areas and themes, such as you’d find in a book’s Table of Contents. Think of tags, on the other hand, like the index at the back of the book. Here you can get much more specific with single words and sub-ideas.

You can also use tags to group together related posts, such as all posts in a series.

How to maintain your blog categories

Once you’ve settled on a list of category names, commit to publishing in each category regularly. When you’re feeling creative, outline a few ideas all at once so you’ll never have to start from scratch.

Charlie Gilkey’s Blog Post Planner and Calendar are helpful for seeing your categories at a glance and making sure you’re achieving an ideal balance.

Your categories don’t have to be set in stone, but please think twice before you add a new category. Ask yourself:

  1. Do you already have a category that’s very similar to this one? For example, Sleep versus Sleep Tips.
  2. Is this too specific to be a category, and would it be better as a tag?
  3. Will you have other posts to write about this topic in the future, and is it something you know is relevant for your readers? Watch that you’re not using your blog as a diary to explore your own interests.
  4. Are you using the same capitalization style as your other categories? I recommend title case for categories (capitalizing all major words, along with the first and last word) and lower case for tags.

Above all, ensure every post is assigned a category. Describing a blog post as uncategorized makes your blog seem disorganized.

How to clean up your blog categories

If you started blogging without a clear plan for topics and categories, you can always make a fresh start with a category clean up. First, take an honest look and answer these questions:

  • Do any of your categories make you cringe because the topics or language are outdated, or because you haven’t posted anything new about the subject in a long time?
  • Have you been adding more and more categories until they’ve become unwieldy, overwhelming, or even meaningless, both for you and your readers?
  • Do your category names accurately reflect the content on your blog? Will the words or phrases mean the same thing to your readers as they do to you?
  • Are your categories tags in disguise? Have you been using categories and tags to serve the same purpose?

Now decide which categories you want to keep, and which of those need more attention. Also decide if there are categories you want to retire, in which case you would re-assign those posts to other categories and remove the category name from your sidebar.

In some cases you may want to change the name of an existing category. Be sure to research how your permanent links will be affected. Is the category name part of the permalink? If so, will links to older posts still work? Consider also whether you’ve ever linked to your category archive page from other posts or pages on your blog.

Check with your website developer to avoid any problems with broken links. If you’re using the self-hosted version of WordPress, you can also try a plugin called Term Management Tools, recommended by WP Beginner.

If you’re about to start or re-start a blog for your wellness business, download the free Four-Step Wellness Blogging Plan for help with goals, categories, topics, types of posts, time management, and creating an editorial calendar.

P.S. An earlier version of this post appeared on May 5, 2015 and was lightly edited and refreshed to create this post.