Tips on Business Writing for Bloggers – Part A

As a business blog content writer, I found Susan Adams’ “Ten Tips on Business Writing”, offered in Forbes Magazine, almost made to order for bloggers.  Five of the tips have to do with word choice and ideas (I’ve added my own thoughts in italics):

Start by writing short, declarative sentences.
Short sentences have what I call “pow!” and are easily shared on social media sites. Focused content, I teach in corporate blogging training sessions, keeps readers’ attention on the message. That doesn’t mean every sentence needs to be short, because variety is important, too.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or any kind of jargon if you can think of an English equivalent.
Jargon, in general, is a handle-with-care writing technique, all the more so in corporate blogging, where readers are impatient to find the information they need without any navigational or terminology hassle.

Make your point and move on. If your big idea isn’t in the first paragraph, put it there. If you can’t find it, rewrite.
A blog post might consist of a few dozen sentences, but no line is as important as that opener. Beginning with a startling statistic is certainly one tactic blog writers can use to demonstrate to online readers that business owners and practitioners are familiar with the reader’s problem and know how to deal with it.
 
Be specific. Instead of mentioning “the current situation,” explain exactly what the situation is.
Be specific in terms of both location and services. Each potential customer needs to find value “where they are”, both geographically and in terms of their unique needs.

Whenever possible, use active instead of passive verbs. Active verbs help to energize your prose.
Using the passive voice hides the identity of the person who performed the action. But, because the very purpose of the blog content is to showcase the accomplishments of the business and products and services it brings to customers, using the active voice makes sense in corporate blog writing.

Would your latest blog post pass the Five-Point Word Choice test?