How to Improve Blog Writing Skills (10 Proven Steps)

Improving writing skills has a number of tangible benefits. For me, it has opened up a lot of new opportunities and marketing roles. And writing in a specific niche like real estate has helped me gain a bird’s-eye-view kind of expertise in various aspects of real estate.

And it’s not just me. If you follow the success stories of programs like Ship 30 for 30, you’ll see that getting better at writing and mastering effective blog writing techniques can literally change your life.

If you’re a business owner, improving your writing skills can help you create brand awareness, better communicate your offerings, brand value and brand story. It’ll literally open up new business opportunities for you.

With ten years of professional writing experience, particularly in real estate content writing, I can attest to the fact that the ideas shared in this post work.

Key Takeaways

1. Commit to writing regularly: There’s no shortcut to improving your writing skills. You need to commit to writing daily, even if it’s just a little bit each day. This is the fundamental way to build your writing skill, develop your creative muscles, and hone your unique writing voice. Alongside this, you need to be an active reader, paying close attention to how others write so you can learn and apply new techniques and language in your own writing.

2. Clarity, simplicity, and ruthless editing: If you want your blog posts to connect with readers, then your writing should be as simple and clear as possible. Organize your thoughts, go straight to the point, and avoid jargon (as much as possible) and then ruthlessly edit your work to keep only what helps your message shine. Cut out anything that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. Doing these things will make your writing engaging and easy to understand.

3. Go beyond generic information: You can’t just skim the surface or rehash what everyone else is saying if your goal is to have a truly authoritative and valuable blog. You need to be able to find solid, trustworthy sources, identify information gaps (what’s not being said), and fill these gaps (this sometimes requires conducting your own original research or survey).

This feels especially crucial now, because with AI able to generate basic content, your ability to do deeper, more contextual and more insightful research is what will help your writing stand out and provide genuine value.

4. Effective blog posts are tailored to a specific audience: To improve your blog writing skills, you must learn how to write for specific audiences. At the start, while trying to improve, you can just write into the void or for your own eyes only.

But once you get some measure of prowess, you have to be able to create writing that truly resonates with a specific audience. That means you need to learn how to create reader personas (how to research and truly understand your ideal reader). Know what they care about, how they talk, and what kind of stories and communication style grabs their attention. And then develop a relatable tone and style by writing specifically with them in mind.

5. Writing great content isn’t enough; it needs to be found: You can write the most amazing blog post, but if nobody finds it, then your efforts are wasted. This is why as a blog writer, you must know the basics of SEO (using the right keywords the right number of times, getting backlinks, crafting good headlines, and structuring posts the right way). And just as importantly, you should pay close attention to feedback from your readers and fellow writers.

Table of Contents

• Make Writing a Habit

• Read Widely and Often

• Learn How to Conduct Thorough Research

• Focus on Clarity and Simplicity

• Learn How to Craft Engaging Headlines

• Learn How to Write for Specific Target Audiences

• Learn How to Edit and Revise Content

• Learn storytelling techniques

• Learn how to optimize for SEO

• Get Feedback

• Closing

1. Make Writing a Habit

The first step to improving your blog writing skills is to make writing a daily habit. This habit trains your brain to be more creative and motivated. You also become more proficient at expressing yourself clearly and engagingly.

If you want to elevate your writing and improve your blog writing skills, there’s no hack to it than to write a lot. And just writing in short, regular spurts every day helps you develop consistency. That consistency trains your creative muscles and helps you avoid writer’s block. Writing daily also trains you to write and type faster, clarify your thoughts efficiently and become a better communicator overall.

How to make writing a habit

• Create a consistent routine: Just like any habit, the foundational principle to building a writing habit is consistency. Make writing automatic, like eating or brushing your teeth. Do it without thinking too much. You will naturally improve. Like any other daily routine, you want to set aside a specific block of time for writing each day. This could be early mornings or evenings, even if it’s just for a short period.

• Start small and gradually increase: The problem with building habits is that it’s easy to burn out when you make things unsustainable. Just start small and gradually increase your writing time or word count as you get more comfortable with the habit. Starting with small, manageable goals (like 15 minutes or 100 words a day) keeps you motivated and makes it easy to stay consistent. This way, it becomes a sustainable and enjoyable part of your life rather than a daunting chore.

• Use structured techniques and tools: The most common struggle for would-be writers is “how do I know what to write about?” Many people just give up on building a writing habit because they stare at the blank page with no clue what to write.

  You need an idea capture system. Writing isn’t just about the act of putting words on paper, but also about the preparation and groundwork that fuel those words.

  In essence, you should capture ideas as they come using tools like post-it notes, Evernote, a notebook during walks, etc. You should also use techniques like Pomodoro to keep you focused and inspired when you’re trying to write for more than 30 minutes. These are helpful blog writing tips to stay productive. If you need a starting point, here are 550 writing prompts you can choose from.

• Track your streak: You need a holistic approach to building a writing habit, not just willpower alone. Tracking your progress will help you stay on track. You should aim for 30 days or more to solidify your routine and truly improve blog writing skills. And if you do write for 30 days, you should reward yourself. This gives a sense of accomplishment that reinforces the habit. Use an app like Streaks to track your consistency.

2. Read Widely and Often

One of the most effective ways to elevate your writing is to read widely. Reading not only expands your vocabulary and improves your grammar, it also helps you understand the technical aspects of writing.

Authors like Francine Prose and Zadie Smith say that to become a better writer, you must first develop the habit of reading widely. When you read you’re subconsciously absorbing how other writers use language. So reading isn’t just about consuming content but about learning the mechanics of effective writing. These writing techniques don’t just apply to novels, but even to online writing.

You should practice writing about what you read. This improves both your reading comprehension and your writing ability. It's a cycle – the more you read and reflect, the better your writing becomes, and the more you write about what you read, the better your comprehension of the material.

How to develop the habit of reading widely and often

You need to vary your reading material. That’s the key to truly benefiting from reading as a writer. So it’s not enough to just read industry news. If you want to improve blog writing skills, you have to explore different genres and forms of writing, including blog articles, short stories, industry news, novels, non-fiction books, etc.

It’s also essential to set aside a specific time for reading each day, even if it’s just 20 minutes a day, to help turn it into a habit. By doing all this, you can broaden your perspective, learn new blog writing techniques, and improve your own writing skills.

Note that reading with the intent to improve your writing skills is different from reading passively. This kind of reading is more active and engaging. You’ll need to dissect the material to understand what makes it resonate. This is very important if you’re trying to learn blog writing. Essentially, you should have a number of writers whose work you admire. Immerse yourself in their works and analyze their techniques.

You can copy out words you aren’t familiar with as you read and look them up. You can also copy out great sentences by hand to understand their structure and style. Doing this can subconsciously help you absorb and employ new words or styles in your own writing.

Also, as mentioned before, it’s crucial that you take time to reflect on what you’re reading. You should keep a journal or notes to analyze what makes a piece of writing effective. Whenever you read something that tugs at your heartstrings, you should be asking yourself questions like, “why did this resonate with me?” and “how can I use this technique in my own writing?” This kind of conscious reflection will really help you progress fast as a writer.

3. Learn How to Conduct Thorough Research

If you want your writing to be compelling and persuasive, you need to be good at research. There are too many articles and posts online that just provide “basic”, generic information. That kind of writing won’t help you build authority or drive leads, and goes against blog writing best practices.

The goal of online writing is to provide some form of immediate, actionable value to readers. To do that, your content has to go beyond surface-level information. You should be able to dig out and analyze different perspectives, gather relevant statistics or examples, and even conduct surveys and interviews when necessary.

Writers need to be skilled at finding information, even those not readily available to the public. With the prominence of E-E-A-T and AI in search, writers that know how to dig for hard-to-find information, meticulously document their findings, and identify future research avenues are in-demand. That’s something AI cannot do (at least not on its own).

One smart idea you should try is to keep a repository of useful sources of data and statistics in your niche. These pages should contain useful data that keeps getting updated. For example, in real estate, Zillow provides one of the best sources of housing data across the U.S. Let’s look at some more blog writing tips for conducting research.

How to conduct thorough research when writing blog posts

• Get organized: Store important sources and research findings in one document so you can easily access them when developing new content.

• Use third-party sources: Thorough research for blog posts doesn’t necessarily mean you need to conduct original research. You can, and should leverage existing information to save time and effort.

  When doing this, you need to gather information from various sources, understand the data or information, and then use that to build a structurally sound argument for your content. But you want to prioritize authoritative sources. This approach helps you adhere to blog writing best practices by ensuring your content is well-supported and credible.

• Identify and fill information gaps: When you analyze what’s already out there, either from your past content or competitor content, you might be able to identify gaps in information.

  Once you’ve found these, try to fill them, either with personal experience or targeted original research. Original research (surveys or analysis of owned or publicly available data) content is arguably one of the best types of content you can create. It doesn’t just stand out and position you as an authority. If you do it well, it will generate media attention and inbound links.

• Use Advanced Google Search Operators: To be more efficient at research, you should understand how to use Google Search Operators. This allows you to find whatever you need online without wasting time.

  For example, you can use an operator like “site:” to search for pages within a specific website. You can include the minus sign (-) in your search query to exclude words you’re not interested in. Quotes (“”) help you search for exact phrases, and “filetype:” finds specific document types (e.g., PDFs). These advanced operators will help you filter through the vast sea of information online and pinpoint the most relevant sources for your blog posts.

• Streamline your research with AI tools: AI tools with web access can quickly generate helpful summaries and data points from research papers, videos, and articles. These tools can also help you identify authoritative sources. However, when using AI tools for research, it’s crucial to do a quick check for accuracy, as they can make mistakes. One of the best AI tools for research is Perplexity.ai. It virtually works as a research assistant.

4. Focus on Clarity and Simplicity

Clear and simple writing makes information understandable and engaging for a wide range of readers. When you avoid jargon and use examples in your text, your message resonates with readers.

Moreover, clarity and simplicity in your writing demonstrate to your readers that you have a strong grasp of the subject matter. Mastering blog writing strategies like these will elevate your content and help you stand out in a crowded online space.

How to write with clarity and simplicity

• Organize your ideas: Writing with clarity demands having a clear and logical outline with well-defined headings. Each of your paragraphs should focus on a single idea. This makes it easier for your readers to follow the progression of ideas. A well-structured blog writing format is key to ensuring your content is easy to digest.

• Use straightforward language and avoid jargon: Simplify your text by using more common words and phrases (but don’t overdo this, especially for niche-focused content). You should also prioritize using active voice to make your writing more engaging.

• Write concisely: The most important principle of clear writing is conciseness. This is something you can apply immediately to improve your writing. Every word in your text should serve a purpose. You should eliminate anything that doesn’t contribute to the reader’s understanding.

  For instance, instead of "If there are any points on which you require explanation or further details, we shall be glad to furnish such additional details as may be required by telephone,” say “If you have questions or need further information, we’ll be happy to get on a call”.

• Have a clear objective: Clarity in writing begins even before you start putting words on a page. You need to have a crystal-clear idea of the message you want to communicate and the goal you want to achieve with your post. This clear objective will then serve as a compass, helping you stay focused and avoid unnecessary digressions.

• Edit ruthlessly: Critically edit your work and remove anything that doesn’t align with the main objective. This not only makes your writing easier to understand, it demonstrates respect for your readers’ time and attention.

Course recommendation:

If you want to improve your writing skills, particularly in terms of clarity and simplicity, the “Writing with Flair” course is a great resource to consider.

It is taught by Shani Raja, a former Wall Street Journal editor and a writer for prestigious publications like The Economist and Bloomberg News. The course covers the key elements crucial for effective writing - simplicity, clarity, elegance, and evocativeness. It is one of the best-selling writing courses on Udemy, boasting over 150,000 students and many positive reviews.

This course is a fantastic starting point for anyone wanting to learn blog writing and take their writing skills to the next level.

5. Learn How to Craft Engaging Headlines

Headlines are far more than just titles. They are the primary drivers of traffic to your blog posts. If you want to reach a wider audience, you need to invest time and effort into crafting headlines that are truly compelling.

Great headlines attract readers. Plain and simple! On average, just 20% of people who see a headline proceed to read the article. But a compelling headline can result in a fivefold increase in traffic (it can boost traffic by up to 500%). This is because your headline is the first thing a reader sees. It will impact their decision to click through to read your post and set the tone for the rest of the article.

How to craft engaging headlines

• Experiment with multiple headlines: Crafting engaging headlines is both an art and a strategic process. It’s not enough to have just one good headline idea. You should experiment with multiple titles to find the best one that captures the essence of your article and draws readers in.

• Connect with the reader: At the heart of what makes a headline effective is its connection with the reader. You need to put yourself in the reader’s shoes and consider what they might be looking for and how to pique their interest.

  Promising tangible value, whether useful information or a solution, is a great way to create intrigue. For example, a headline like “How to Block Third-Party Cookies in Every Web Browser” directly addresses a specific user need. This promises valuable information that would interest anyone looking to block third-party cookies in their web browser.

  Another way to intrigue readers is to use questions, for example, “Should You Block All Third-Party Cookies in Your Web Browser?” or emotional triggers - “The Fool-Proof Way to Block All Third-Party Cookies in Your Web Browser”.

• Use numbers to drive interest: Numbers have a psychological effect on readers. Numbers, especially specific or odd numbers, create a sense of structure and clarity, which appeals to readers. They also make your content easier to consume. Many blog writing examples that can be deemed successful employ numbers in headlines.

• Make your headlines clear and accurate: Headlines should clearly and truthfully reflect the rest of the content. Misleading your audience with clickbait-y headlines might get you a short-term boost in traffic, but it will ultimately harm your credibility and damage your brand’s reputation.

6. Learn How to Write for Specific Target Audiences

Writing for an audience is different from free writing. Here, you’ll need to be mindful of your audience’s goals, knowledge level and expectations when crafting content. To be deemed successful, your content’s style, language, and structure has to resonate with the specific people you’re trying to reach.

You should also consider the different content formats they might prefer, whether it’s text (articles), video, audio (podcasts), or interactive content (quizzes and polls). By diversifying your content formats and adapting your style to meet your audience’s needs, you can create an engaging and relatable experience. This helps you build a loyal following.

How to write blogs and articles for a specific target audience

The fundamental first step in writing effectively for a specific target audience is creating a detailed persona. This is a fictional character that represents your ideal reader. Your persona should cover demographics, goals, and challenges. It would serve as a compass, helping you tailor your content to what your actual readers want.

Once you know your ideal reader, you should adopt a tone and style that feels familiar and relevant to them. Using a relatable voice will help you connect with your audience. For example, you could adopt a casual tone for college students, and use real estate-specific terminology when creating content for real estate business owners.

The whole process of creating personas can be challenging. It requires thorough research (competitor research, client or prospect surveys, social media research, etc.). But there are tools available to help you simplify things. HubSpot has a free persona creation tool that you should try out.

In addition to using a persona, you should make your content easy to digest. This means using clear formatting, like short paragraphs, bullet points, and visuals to break up your text. You should also incorporate storytelling, and empathize with your readers’ needs to improve engagement.

7. Learn How to Edit and Revise Content

Editing and revising content are not optional steps or tasks that should be left to an editor. They are in fact essential components of creating high-quality content. By approaching your drafts with a critical eye and from the reader's perspective, you can refine your writing to ensure clarity, logical flow, and alignment with your intended purpose and audience expectations.

As mentioned before, using fewer words can enhance the clarity and impact of your writing. So you should scrutinize every sentence to ensure it contributes to the message you’re trying to convey.

How to edit and revise your own content

You need to have a structured approach to editing and revising content. First, you should take a break after writing your first draft. This pause allows you to come back to your content with fresh eyes, which helps you spot mistakes and quickly identify areas for improvement.

The editing process should generally start by reading through the entire draft without making changes to get an overall sense of the content. Then you need to revise in stages, focusing on different aspects like flow, subheadings, grammar, and punctuation.

Previewing the post to check formatting is the final step. Ensure that sections of the text are not too long and use subheadings to break up lengthy sections to make your writing more digestible.

You can employ tools like Grammarly and Wordtune to assist with editing for grammar, conciseness and overall professionalism.

And if you want to make your content more robust and credible, you should attempt to address opposing views and counter-arguments. This is especially important when you’re dealing with controversial topics. By exploring potential criticisms and opposing viewpoints, you demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the topic and a balanced approach to argumentation. This, in turn, makes your writing more convincing and trustworthy in the eyes of readers.

8. Learn Storytelling techniques

In a world where readers are constantly overwhelmed with content, a compelling story can be the differentiator that cuts through the noise and engages them on a deeper level. By incorporating personal experiences into your writing, you can make your content more relatable and memorable, which helps you stand out. You could also anchor your ideas in anecdotes or metaphors to help your audience comprehend and retain them better.

Personally, I think community-focused content will be the rave in the next 5-10 years. And writers who are good storytellers will be very much in demand.

How to learn storytelling techniques

• Master the core elements of storytelling: Good storytelling is based on three foundational elements - characters, conflict, and resolution. Characters allow you to build a connection with your audience. Your readers should be able to personally relate to the characters you use.

  Conflict draws them in emotionally. This must resonate with their experiences. Resolution provides a satisfying conclusion and an opportunity to inspire action. You should learn how to structure your narratives around these elements.

• Use vivid adjectives, metaphors, and similes: Storytellers who know how to use descriptive language (adjectives, metaphors and similes), can evoke emotions and create sensory experiences that resonate with readers on both a cognitive and emotional level. For instance, describing feelings and emotions in your story makes it more engaging and memorable.

• Add a personal touch: By sharing personal experiences, you can make your stories more authentic and relatable.

• Encourage audience interaction: Storytelling is beyond simply telling a story. It’s a two-way street, involving interaction and engagement with the audience. Asking questions or including prompts that invite readers to share their own experiences can significantly enhance engagement and foster a stronger bond with the audience.

Course recommendation:

The “Storytelling Fundamentals for All” course by Matt Livadary is a great option for anyone looking to improve their storytelling skills. The course offers a practical and efficient way to enhance your storytelling abilities, regardless of your professional field. It is structured into three simple chapters and focuses on practical tools rather than extensive theory.

The instructor's experience as a creative director and documentarian who has created compelling content for major brands adds to the course's credibility. The principles he teaches in the course are applicable to different storytelling formats such as films, podcasts, blog posts, and brand narratives.

9. Learn how to optimize for SEO

Mastering SEO is essential for writers who want to maximize the visibility and impact of their blog posts. If you know how to use keywords effectively and optimize your content for search engines, you will attract much more readers. SEO is literally the difference between a blog that stays unseen and one that’s widely read.

But you have to understand that SEO writing isn’t just about stuffing keywords into your content. It’s about creating content that both users and search engines love. SEO is really just about following search engine guidelines while creating a positive user experience.

How to do SEO optimization for blog content

• Keyword optimization: Keywords are still very important for search engine optimization as they make your blog posts discoverable. You want to center each post around one main keyword, especially less competitive long-tail keywords found through tools like Google search suggestions and Answer The Public.

  You should also strategically place your main keyword in several key places: in the title tag; at least once in either an H1 or H2 subheading; within your URL; in one or two image alt texts; and within the first 100-150 words of your article.

• Use internal and external links strategically: You can improve your site's visibility by linking from strong pages to weaker ones using keyword-rich anchor texts, which helps search engines find, crawl, and index more of your content. Additionally, linking to related, high-quality external sites helps search engines understand the context of your content and can further improve your rankings.

• Use SEO-friendly URLs and content structure: Create short, keyword-rich URLs (that include your main keyword) and use a sub-folder structure for your blog (i.e. example.com/blog) instead of using subdomains. These two changes can improve your blog’s SEO performance. You also want to use relevant headers (H2,H3,H4) to structure your content and make it more digestible and SEO-friendly.

• Optimize for search intent: Your content needs to meet the needs of users searching for your target keyword. This means that before creating content, you need to analyze what people are looking for when they search for your target keyword, and then tailor your content to meet their needs. This might require restructuring your content, such as turning a high-level process into a more digestible list post, to better align with user expectations.

Course recommendation:

The SEO Certification Course offered by HubSpot equips students with the knowledge to develop a comprehensive SEO strategy. The course covers a wide range of SEO topics including keyword research, backlink building, on-page optimization, and reporting on progress.

This course is relevant to a broad audience. So whether you’re a small business owner interested in optimizing content for better search engine rankings or an SEO professional looking to deepen your skills, this is a course worth taking.

10. Get Feedback

Feedback is indispensable for improving your writing skills and building a strong connection with your readers. Without feedback, your understanding of your audience’s or client’s needs remains speculative and incomplete.

Detailed, constructive feedback provides you with direct insight into your readers’ perspectives, revealing what they enjoy, understand, need more clarity on, and don’t like. This invaluable information allows you to tailor your future content to better meet their needs and expectations, , refining your blog writing formats and strategies based on real-world reactions.

Feedback is essential for your growth as a writer and for the success of your business or blog. It fosters stronger relationships with your readers and clients, demonstrating that you value their opinions and are committed to continuous improvement. When you actively listen to feedback, self-reflect, and address your mistakes, you inevitably grow as a writer.

How to improve blog writing skills through feedback

Don’t write in a vacuum. You can and should use feedback, both from existing comments and from writing groups to improve your work. For example, comments from your readers expressing confusion or suggesting additional topics highlight areas you should improve on and new directions for future posts. Alternatively, you can join writing groups tailored to your genre or interests on Facebook, Reddit, Meetup.com, etc.

If you want detailed feedback on your writing that’s more structured and actionable, you should join a writing course.

Closing

In this post, we've covered the top 10 tactics to improve your blog writing skills and take your content to the next level. Start implementing these tactics today and studying blog writing examples, and you’ll see a marked improvement in your writing.

Remember, the key to improving your writing skills is to keep practicing and learning. With these tactics, you'll be well on your way to creating your own solid process for turning out high-quality content that resonates with your audience.

If you're in the real estate space and want some organization in your content marketing process, consider working with us. We can help you create content that drives leads and traffic, using proven blog writing strategies and formats.

Agnes Gaddis has been an SEO expert and SEO content creator for over 9 years, across real estate, finance and marketing with publications on websites like Inman, Bankrate, GetResponse, Mention, SparkRental, Rentals.com, Credit.com, among others. Right now, she writes confident content for real estate investing companies and platforms. You can connect with her on X (@alanagaddis)