“Youtility is marketing upside down. Instead of marketing that’s needed by companies, Youtility is marketing that’s wanted by customers. It’s massively useful FREE information, that creates long-term trust and kinship between a company and its customers.” – Jay Baer

The message was loud and clear at the recent Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland: Quality content can make a real difference if you focus on what you’re giving, not what you’re hoping to get.

When you teach your readers how to do something, it demonstrates three very important qualities about you and your business:

1. You want to help
2. You can help
3. There is more help where that came from

Unfortunately, confusing or poorly written instructions won’t convey those principles.

If you don’t deliver the promise that the reader will learn “how to ….” whatever you’ve stated in your title and description, you will only turn away someone who could be a potential customer or referral source.

What do your customers need to know?

To choose the best topics for your how-to posts, answer these questions:

• What are the most frequently asked questions you answer in a typical week, either over the phone, by email, or in person?
• What common mistakes do you see people making in relation to your key blogging topics?
• What do you wish your customers already knew how to do when they hired you?

5 tips for writing clear instructions

1. Limit each list item or sentence to one action
2. Use a numbered list if the number or order of steps is important; otherwise, use a bullet list
3. Give your readers an idea of how long each step might take
4. Separate any commentary about the topic so it’s not mixed in with the list of instructions – add it to the introduction or conclusion instead
5. Test your instructions thoroughly – walk through them several times from your reader’s perspective; if you can, find volunteer testers from your target market (give yourself a week or so to collect their feedback and revise your post)

Inspire your readers to act

Whether or not your post outlines specific tasks, you can always provide some actionable steps at the end to help your reader apply their learning, such as:

• Rehearsal: Ask your readers to practice a new behavior, habit or perspective. Suggest how many times per day or week they should do it, and in which specific situation(s).
• Documenting: Ask your readers to keep track of their progress; give them a checklist to mark off their actions or ask them to record it in a journal.
• Reporting: Ask your readers to share their results with you, your community or an accountability partner.

For personal growth topics, consider other options such as reflection (to ponder or consider the new idea and how they might integrate it into their lives) or journaling (to write about the topic using questions or prompts you provide).

When you take the time to write clear instructions, you increase the chances of helping your reader succeed with whatever problem they’re trying to solve. After getting such good results from your ideas, they will come back for more. And when they’re ready to seek help to go to the next level, they’ll have the confidence to choose you.

What’s something you’ve taught a customer or prospective customer how to do? Will you use my tips to put those instructions into a blog post? Send me a link, I can’t wait to read it!

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This post was updated from The Art of Writing Clear Instructions (or How to Tell People What to Do) (Dec 2010). Some of the material was adapted from Chapter 23 of The Customizable Style Guide for Coaches Who Write, which has now been incorporated into the second edition of Write Your Way to More Clients Online.

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As saturated as the web is with list posts today, for most of us lists still hold great value. As business bloggers, lists help us organize our thoughts and get them on paper. For our readers, lists are a predictable and enjoyable way to learn and gather information.

(I compiled 10 key benefits of lists for both bloggers and readers in my own list post back in 2011. See The Top 10 Reasons We Love Lists.)

What about the people who hate lists?

As helpful as I think list posts are to both readers and writers, Kaleigh Moore thinks they’ve outlived their usefulness. She writes, “The trouble with these [top 10] posts is that they strive for quantity—not quality—by providing only surface level information rather than taking a deep dive into one particular point.”

Yet that’s exactly why I recommend new bloggers start with top 10 posts. Instead of facing a blank page with the pressure to astound the world with your brilliance, you can break down your years of experience into some quick, bite-sized tips that will really help someone who’s a beginner to the topic. And these surface-level posts are less intimidating for you to write.

When I’m taking a few minutes to read an article online, I’m not looking for earth-shattering insights or a deep dive lesson that requires a big investment to read and implement.

For me, sometimes those 10 points in someone else’s article are just what I need to validate something I already know, remind me to practice something I used to do but got away from, or reinforce my trust in a prospective service provider.

For one attendee of my recent “How to Write Your First Four Blog Posts” presentation at The Creative Space, list posts are a big turn-off. She said there are so many list posts online today they’ve completely lost any meaning or appeal.

I reassured her that if you hate lists, you don’t have to write list posts! You won’t feel good about it and that will come through to your reader. But you can still use the structure of a list to focus your thoughts and move the writing process along.

Popular personal finance blogger Trent Hamm says he starts every post as a list, even though he doesn’t necessarily present the ideas that way. After identifying the questions people are asking about his topic, he says, “I try to make a big long list of potential solutions to the problem. From there, I’ll start winnowing the list.”

Writing your list

When you’re stuck about what to write or concerned about staying on track, block your concepts into numbered points or sections, and keep these three things in mind:

1. Use sub-headings and/or list titles to distinguish each separate point and help your reader navigate the page.
2. Limit each section or list item to one point.
3. Make sure every point delivers on the promise of your article’s title.

If you’re a more advanced writer, or you’ve been blogging for business for several years, by all means you can challenge yourself with Kaleigh’s blog post format ideas. But if you’re just starting out or you’re struggling to keep blogging week after week, stick with what works – and list posts work!

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