And we all know it.

So why don’t we listen to ourselves and actually do something about it? It is not just something that beginners get wrong, everybody does at some point. I am going to delve into how we can all start writing better content and why it matters.

What is BAD content?

Okay, so we all know not to write bad content. But how can we without knowing what bad content is? I do not like to make people feel bad so rather than looking through my feeds and finding a bad post, I will write examples.

1.

I was looking outside this morning and saw a big elephant and i thought wow a elephant in england that is impossible i must take a photo but i could not find my camera because it was in the shed which was near the elephant so i went to find my phone but that was out of battery so i went to find my phone charger but that was in the shed so i went next doors to borrow theirs…

This is obviously a made up story from the top of my imagination, but it shows many common errors. It has no punctuation and no grammar. I know this sounds like a teacher telling a student off, but who would read through a whole post that does not have any punctuation? I would not, I would close the site and not go back to it.

2.

The people next door had already seen the elepant, and they had a camera! So we took turns on the elephant and were smiling to the camera and shouting “CHEESE!!” It was a very fun day but we should have made it more profitable.

This one has the punctuation correct and the grammar is fairly good too. The problems with this one are harder to see, but there are there. The most obvious problem is the spelling mistake of “elephant”. Also, if you read it carefully you can see the the tone of the writing is very childish which is often a very bad sign for readers, even if you are young! Lastly, it says “we should have made it more profitable”. If you ever write something like this, it must be justified, otherwise it is no use at all to the reader. How can it be more profitable? Why do you want it to be more profitable?

3.

There are many ways the elephant could have been profitable. Firstly, we could have charged people to have their photo taken. Alternatively we could have taken people for trips. This would have been a good idea because the elephant was a Bursera microphylla which is very rare.

Nothing wrong with that one? Yes there is! If you ever write something, you need to know what you are talking about. A Bursera microphylla is a type of elephant tree. Which means although it is well written, it is completely wrong! This is a sure way to make sure your blog, or what ever you are writing, turns off as many people as possible. Who would want to waste their time learning things that are false?

What is Good Content?

Well there is not really any point me going through these factors with you, as it is just the opposite of what is shown above! So instead, I shall point you to some very good places to read as the best way to learn is to examine. These do not have to be other blog owners, there is no reason why you cannot learn from reading a newspaper!

• ProBlogger.net – Darren and his friends are all amazing writers, the purpose of the site is to be able to write and run a high quality blog. So rather than just reading what he has to say, examine how he says it.
• BBC History – Everyone in the UK knows about BBC, which is our biggest news network, however there are thousands of amazing articles on there such as the ones in the BBC History Section. So read through them and see how they are written. I have one hint for you, they know what they are talking about!
• John Chow – One of the most well known bloggers. You may be one of those people that do not like him, but take a look through some of his posts. They have a very unique style!
• Just Creative Design – Now here is somebody who writes carefully! Whenever you are writing, there needs to be a reason to do it. Jacob has this reason and it shows through his writing.
• Skelliewag – This is one of my favourite blogs about writing blogs. Every post is sure to help you, they all helped me! But remember, don’t just read it… examine it.
  
• Wikipedia.org – We all seem to take this site for granted. Have you actually looked at how well written most of the articles are? No wonder it is the top of it’s niche! Study the writing styles, can you tell which parts are done by different people? No? Look harder! Everyone has their own writing styles but Wikipedia is written by so many people it is very hard to tell.

Why Does It Matter?

I hear this question far too often. “Why does it matter how I write?” Well I shall be very blunt with you. If you do not write well, no one will bother to read what you write. There are also many other reasons to write well.

1. Content is King – Yes we hear it all the time. What does it mean? It does not matter what your design is like, it does not matter what your SEO is like.. if you do not write what the audience want then you will not have any readers.
2. More Backlinks – You have all seen my weekly posts on Sundays which link to my favourite posts of the week. I am not the only person who does this. If you write a good post, someone will pick up on it and will give you more backlinks. This means more readers!
3. You Are a Good Writer – You may not think this is very important, but surely it does something to your self-esteem if you are always called a bad writer? Astound the crowd! Make them see you can write well. Otherwise, why would you write?

I purposely wrote this in a way that it is not obvious how it is related to the “niche” of this blog. Think about it. It focuses on Inspiration, Motivation and Success.. how could content be related?

I shall leave it as that for now. But please keep it in mind that you need to be careful whenever you write. I shall also be remembering this and hopefully my posts will become much higher quality. Please discuss this; I would like to know you take on it and perhaps your preferred style of writing?

Thank you for reading,

Shane