Getting slapped upside the headed courtesy of your pitifully dull blog writing voice

Mar 13, 2008

Getting slapped upside the headed courtesy of your pitifully dull blog writing voice

NOTE! If you enjoy this post, please feel free to share and twitter it with the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/2wh4xw . Thanks, I appreciate it!

Today’s burning question of the day! Have you ever been slapped upside the headed?

No, wait, nix that burning question and let’s dash straight into today’s immolating question! Wheeee! Have you ever had to interact with people whose ability to create unique, fascinating words confounded you so much, you simply stood back, gawked and muttered to yourself, ummmm, English, it’s a Good Concept?

In other words, how often how do you deal with people whose ability to communicate is….

ahem, hmmmm, riffled

….with more confusion than a parent trying to teach his or her elderly parent that "Strike Any Key When Ready" DOESN’T mean you have to take apart the keyboard to uncover that mystery option?

Do you leave blogs written in the same way? Even worse…is the above something that infests YOUR OWN blog as well?

I was gently reminded of this with the force of a hurricane contained within an acrylic bathtub this morning. Yesterday my kids took Aikido (while I deftly dove into Kendo, Japanese sword fighting) . A wonderful, relaxing Ling pastime, my kids are often have the wondrous painful honor of being chosen as "Uki."

What was that?

What is "Uki", I hear you ask?

Well, "uki" is the name of the person upon whom the delightfully harrowing techniques are demonstrated. Now, sit still for a moment and envision the following. If you’re Uki during, say, a front-wrist throw, here’s what happens in approximately one tenth of a second:

First, you’re on bravely on your feet
The next instant, your wrist is laughing hysterically at you for your sheer foolishness
A split-second later, you’re flung to the ground hoping you remembered to slap the mat effectively so your lungs are still able to gasp for air.

See?

As you can imagine, all the kids adore this, and all clamor to be Uki. I can truly relate - in adult classes, if Uki is needed to demonstrate being airborne across the room or arm-barred into immobilization or …, my hand always shoots up first while my mind whimpers, oh sheesh, not again! But hey….it’s character-building.

Anywhos, I had just finished making breakfast for the kids and I casually mentioned to one of them, hey, the sensei informed me that you were Uki yesterday, how did it go?

The following is the kind of response all loving, doting mothers adore hearing first thing in the morning BEFORE she has imbibed her morning coffee.

"Oh it was super Mom! I was arm-barred, front-wrist thrown, round-house punched, handshaked and oh yes, I was slapped upside the headed!"

Ahem.

Slapped upside the headed?

My poor child, slapped upside the headed! My tender blossom of growing-up-ness, pummeled into the ground! My gentle young member of society, round-house punched and front wrist thrown!

As a concerned mama-bear type of mother, you can imagine my immediate ferocious reaction:

"OHMIGOSH, where on EARTH did you dig up that utterly horrible grammar!"

Yes, there are few things more agonizing in our family that doing non-good grammar. Being tossed all over the place, hey, that’s just character-building and tons of fun to boot at karate. But speaking like a Neanderthal attempting Ancient Greek soliloquies…oh, that’s just…just….just plain darned pitiful it is!

Which brings me to the point of this post. Effective communication is a lifeblood of the truly successful blogs online. Have you ever visited a blog that you knew contained super resources that could benefit your business…but because the writing was

more dull than a used cotton swab

more excruciating than listening to the grammar school orchestra string section attempt "Hot Cross Buns" for the 37th time

…you chose to Google another page for the same information? Hmmmm?

Trust me…you do NOT want that to happen on your blog! Effective communications and writing styles are key towards gaining readership and visibility online.

Here are 3 simple tips I use for writing in ways that cause visitors to return and bring their friends:

1.) Grab ‘em with an eye-opening headline.

If you were scanning the latest 60 blog post titles in your feed reader, what would grab you first?

How to write better for your blog

Getting slapped upside the headed courtesy of your pitiful blog writing voice

Well?

Ideally, you want headlines that cause the reader to click on your post and not yawn, ho hum, another typical how-to blog post.

Some good resources for utterly masterful headline creation that bring tears to dignified marble statues are:

2.) Use your own personal voice/style to story-tell and build a bridge between your visitor and the blog topic.

Dull and boring might work for college textbooks, but people have this neat ability to shut themselves down and refuse to read further if they’re clobbered over the head with the Banal Bat of Blog Boringness!

One excellent method of engaging attention to draw your reader in is via through story-telling. Everyone has their triumphs, everyone has their woes, everyone has their angsts…..and everyone loves reading other people’s experiences and living their adventures vicariously.

I have my own unique story-telling voice; I draw upon my experiences as a mom, wife, samurai swordswoman, entrepreneur, trumpet-player, webmaster, internet marketer, teacher, Lion-dancer, etc. You have your own style too! You simply need to give yourself permission to blossom within that particular style of writing.

Useful resources to help you find your own story-telling style include:

3.) Use bullet points

This one is common sense really - bullet points

help
to
space
out
information

Write? Of course write!

Check out these neato articles for more great ways of using bullet points:

Little Known Ways to Write Fascinating Bullet Points
SherpaBlog: How to Improve Bullet Point Copywriting - 2 Critical Rules
Bullet points: how not to write a "how to" guide
Jazz up your bullet points (very neat article that shows how you can add graphics to your bullet points like this posting proudly boasts)

I’m not the only person who writes about developing your blogging voice and blog writing abilities, of course. Do take out some time and visit:

You’ll be quite pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to incorporate a few time-tested methods for writing more effectively…and how more enjoyable your blog will be for readers to peruse!

Remember why you blog in the first place. Ideally, nestled within the reasons of:

I want to make the world a Better Place!
I want to make beeyons of dollars!
I want Steven Spielberg to notice me!
I want to really impress that hot IT member-of-the-appropriate-sex who digs super-bloggers!

you’ll have

I want to engage and intrigue the reader enough they’ll come back again and again…and next time, bring their friends.

A worthy goal, wouldn’t you agree? And keep in mind - you don’t even have to be slapped upside the headed to achieve it.

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:

Beginners blogging tips: Do good grammer and writer betterer than others.

Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips: Delve into your own personality and develop a writing style that immediately sets you apart from the beeyons and beeyonds of other bloggers in the Universe.

#END highlights of this blog writing post

ps - speaking of bullet points and Kendo swords, check out what happened when a bullet met an actual Japanese kantana.

pps - and if you’d like to jazz up your actual pen-on-paper style, lookie at:

Please click here to continue your search.

(By the way, if you have any questions about the topics in this posting "Getting slapped upside the headed courtesy of your pitifully dull blog writing voice", do comment below - I'll try to clarify any issues).

Barbara Ling and Owlbert

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4 Comments, Comment or Ping

Andy MacDonald

A great article, and thanks for linking to one of my articles over at bloggingtips.com, “Find Your Blogging Voice”. I have recently written a up to date version which talks about blogging voice which you may be interested in linking too as well. Take a look at “Where’s Your Blogs Unique Voice” at http://swiftmediauk.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/03/11/find-blog-voice/

Keep up the good worked. Ive stumbled you

Andy MacDonald’s last blog post..Where?s Your Blog?s Unique Voice?

Mar 13th, 2008