Quick Tips for Writing a Blog People Will Read

Imagine a room of 150 people all jumping and down. Yelling. At the same time. Now multiply that by a million. How small do you feel? 

A. Studio apartment small

B. Fuel efficient car small

C. Miniature pony small

D. Blogger on the internet small

If you answered A, B, or C, congratulations. You're actually taking up a pretty nice chunk of space. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy a mimosa. If you answered D, please take a seat. There's punch and cookies in the back. The meeting starts in five minutes.

Welcome to the club of 150 million bloggers who feel teeny-tiny-pond-scum small in each our of teeny-tiny corners of the internet, fighting for attention. It's hard-knock life, but help is here.

The foundation of any blog lies in the quality of its content, so therein lies your first step. Below you'll find 30 quick and easy tips -- from creating witty titles to resolving common vocab confusion -- to help your transform your writing and amplify your voice in the crowd. Tackle them one at a time and gear up for big, bold and beautiful blog success.

1. Master grammar, spelling and punctuation.
2. Know some AP style, like the rules outlined in my AP Style Cheat Sheet for Bloggers.
3. Keep your title under 40 characters.
4. Use anecdotes to paint a picture for the reader and appear more personable.
5. Mix up your syntax with short, long and fused sentences.
6. Keep the first sentence of each post under 20 words.
7. Consider the mood of the story and pick verbs to match.
8. Lead with dialogue, statistics, fun facts or descriptions to lure readers in.
9. Focus on how the topic affects people -- either you or others.
10. Break up copy within a post using subheadlines, block quotes, numbered or bulleted lists or photos.
11. Avoid clichés like average, reportedly and literally.
12. Write an outline for your post before you start.
13. Write with a clear beginning, middle and end.
14. Write in a time-day-place format: Around noon last Saturday, I was sitting at Starbucks…
15. Link to compelling info like reports, surveys and other news.
16. Keep your tense consistent throughout each post.
17. Know when to use who vs. that: who for people or pets with names and that for everything else.
18. Know when to us who vs. whom: who if the sentence would use he/she, whom if the sentence would use him/her.
19. Reference back to your intro in your conclusion.
20. Become familiar with figurative language and use it to spice up a post.
21. Fact check names, dates, spelling events and quotes.
22. Avoid superlatives like “best,” “worst,” and “always.”
23. Keep a thesaurus and dictionary handy.
24. Break up a long post into a series of posts.
25. If you need to cut copy, trim from the middle first.
26. Include SEO in your title to garner search traction and give readers a post preview.
27. Avoid “be” verbs: was, were, am, are, and is.
28. Remove facts that aren’t vital to the story.
29. Incorporate SEO into your titles and posts.
30. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes to find out what info to include in each post.

What tips + tricks do you use to write blog posts? Comment below to share your story.

What You Should Know About Online Internships

Last fall, I was going to community college to prepare for transfer to the university I now attend. I dabbled as an editor for college newspaper. I worked part-time as a graphic designer at a custom t-shirt shop. Though a busy bee by appearance, I lacked creative stimulation. Thus, I decided to peruse the web for an internship to build my skills as a copyeditor.

With little time and effort expended, I found my glass slipper: a copyediting internship based around my other interests and founded in a bustling city with a telecommuting capability. Perfect.

Dim the lights. Cast the curtains. Cue Bach's "Come Sweet Death." It was that bad.

What began as a fortuitous writing gig led by a laxe group of young business people soon morphed into a stressful conglomerate of missed Skype calls and vague deadlines. I should've known better. I e-mailed my two-week notice after only a couple months on the job. 

Landing a fitting job or internship is tough enough without the internet -- abundant with scams, technical issues and miscommunication -- as a confounding variable.

Avoid my mistake and follow these tips to avoid a scam, discover a trustworthy company and ensure you land the right internship for you:

• Is the company legitimate?

You can check the Better Business Bureau and Ripoff Report to find out.

• Does the company’s website contain important contact information?

Look for an address, phone number, e-mail address and names of important employees.

• What kind of person is the company looking for?

Does the internship call for experience with a certain program? Should the intern work well with deadlines? What personality traits are associated with the position?

• What are the responsibilities of the internship?

Ask for a list detailing expected duties to avoid being saddled with "fine print" jobs, like cleaning up the company e-mail inbox or sending out B2B mail.

• Is the internship paid or unpaid?

• If the internship is paid, what’s the payment method?

Hourly? Pay-per-word? Pay-per-click?

• How long does the internship last?

• How many hours per week are expected?

• Does the internship count as college credit?

Some universities offer actual "classes" to fill with internships. Other times, you have to submit an internship for approval by your school before any college credit is accepted.

• Do interns go through a training process?

• Will you work alone, with another intern or with employees?

• How will you be interacting with employees or other interns?

E-mail? Skype? Phone calls?

• How often will you interact with employees or other interns?
• Is there a contract? Is there an NDA?

Usually, you'll have to sign some kind of paperwork before you start working as an intern. This can including a background check request and a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

• Who retains ownership rights of the content you produce?

Usually, whoever you work for retains full ownership rights of anything you produce, including blog posts, graphic designs and videos. Ask what the company policy is.

Would you ever pursue an online internship? Why or why not?

Leave a comment below or reach out to The LC Studio on Twitter.

 

The AP Style Cheat Sheet for Bloggers

The makings of a word whiz combine both knowledge and skill. While creative ability may link to our DNA, translating artistic thought requires study and practice.

Bloggers, journalists and copywriters from all industries turn to the Associated Press for its golden writing rule book, the AP Stylebook. I compiled a list of the most common AP style rules I utilize when writing blog posts and marketing copy. Bookmark this page to refer back to in times of a copywriting crunch, or download it for free here! Happy blogging!

The AP Style Cheat Sheet for Bloggers

Capitalization

• Capitalize proper nouns: Bill Clinton, New York City, Baby Boomers
• Capitalize days of the week + months of the year
• Capitalize product names: Styrofoam, Band-Aid, Dumpster, Frisbee, iPod, Jell-O, Kitty Litter, Scotch tape, Vaseline, Velcro, Windbreaker
• Capitalize races, but not colors: Caucasian, white; African American, black
• Capitalize the first word following a colon if the word begins a complete sentence
• For book titles, games, movies, poems, etc. capitalize main words, conjunctions and prepositions of four or more letters and the first and last words

Numbers

• Write out numbers one through nine
• Write numbers 10 and above numerically
• Always use numerals with address, ages, clothing sizes, dates, dimensions, money, percentages, recipes, speed, sports, temperatures, times, weights and years: size 8, 100 degrees, 21 years old
• Write out million, billion and trillion
• Spell out percent
• Use numerals for amounts less than a dollar and write out cents: 22 cents
• Use the $ sign and decimals for amounts more than a dollar: $2.50
• Write out fractions of less than one: one-half, one-third
• Use numerals with fractions larger than one: 1 ½
• Write odds with the smaller number first: 1 in 100
• Use numerals with dimensions, but write out units: 6 feet tall, 11 inches wide

Days + Dates

• Days of the week are written out: Monday, Tuesday
• Abbreviate months that preface a specific day: Feb. 2, 2015
• Never abbreviate months with five letters or less: March, April, May, June and July
• Write in a time-day-place format: Around noon last Saturday, I was sitting in Starbucks…

States + Addresses

• Abbreviate states only when they follow a city: Detroit, Mich.
• Never abbreviate states with six letters or less: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Utah, Texas, Iowa, Idaho and Ohio
• Write out street, avenue, boulevard and lane when present without a number: Main Street
• Abbreviate street, avenue and boulevard when present with a number: 123 Main St.

Punctuation

• Place commas and periods inside quotation marks
• Use a comma to join independent clauses with a conjunction: I like pizza, but I also like burgers.
• Use a comma after a dependent clause and before an independent clause: Because it rained, I didn't go out for pizza.
• Use a comma after an introductory word or phrase: All of the sudden, pizza fell from the sky.
• Use a comma to introduce a quote of one sentence: He said, “I really love eating pizza in my PJs.”
• Use a colon to introduce a list or join two similar clauses: The time has come: I need pizza.
• Use a semicolon between two independent clauses instead of a conjunction
• Use a dash for a dramatic pause: Oh no – what happened to the pizza?
• Use a dash instead of commas to interject a sentence: She ate pizza, chicken strips and – to top it all off – a big bowl of ice cream.
• Use hyphens between two compound modifiers: the much-loved teacher

Titles*

*Please note that my use of italics here only follows my pattern of italicizing rule examples. None of the below examples should be italicized in practice. 

• Use quotation marks for titles of movies, books and TV shows: “The Walking Dead,” “How to Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Hunger Games”
• Names of magazines and newspapers need no special punctuation: The New York Times

Common Confusion

• Who vs. that: Use who for people and pets with names; use that for everything else
• Who vs. whom: Use who if the sentence would use he/she, whom if the sentence would use him/her
• Less vs. fewer: Use fewer with things you can count individually: I need fewer sweaters; Use less with things you can’t count and that aren’t pluralized: I need less furniture
• Affect vs. effect: Affect is a verb, and effect is a noun: Global warming has affected us so much, it’s resulted in an effect of more recycling

Check out these handy references to make the most out of your writing potential:

The History of AP Style

The Eight Parts of Speech

2013 AP Stylebook for $12 on Amazon
Download my AP Style Cheat Sheet

5 Ways Data Tracking Improves Your Life

Facebook appeared at the forefront of online privacy paranoia in late 2011 through early 2012 according to a timeline of articles over at Huffington Post. It must have been a slow news day for reporters at the publication and others like it -- Mashable, USA Today and Business Insider covered the controversy as well -- because cookie tracking is in no way ripe gossip. Despite the nativeness of internet cookies, which first developed in 1995, the scrutinizing headlines echoed panic into the online community. A 2012 survey found 70% of Facebook users don’t trust the $200 billion company with their personal information.

A fear epidemic of near dystopian proportions has ensued since, targeting various big name brands like Apple and Google. An article on Australian pop culture site Junkee confirmed just how parasitic the outrage has become when it discussed the tracking patterns of Google Maps. Reporter Elizabeth Flux writes, “Knowledge [of tracking] is easy to drown out by shoving in some headphones… until everything stops being 1984.”

Chad Little, CEO of Fetchback, responded to criticism of data tracking by emphasizing its key role in marketing and advertising (which I’ll comment on later). He writes, “Consumers need to understand that it is the voice of a few that make the negative perception of behavioral tracking a much bigger issue than it really is.”

If you haven’t yet caught on, I pursue the unpopular opinion on digi-data tracking and consider it a blessing rather than a curse. Maybe that’s because my millennial status groomed me to perceive technology as [beneficial]. Maybe, instead, my studies of mass communication in college have taught me to approach online issues from a business standpoint. Or maybe I just feel obligated to root for the underdog.

Metadata tracking established a new era of life online catered to each individual user. If that in itself doesn’t induce gratitude, check out the 10 ways data tracking is making your life better right now:

1. PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

Amazon and many other online retailers promote a spending environment by recommending similar products viewed by other users. Amazon is the number one "e-tailer" in the world, serving 19.5 million customers every day.

2. STREAMING SERVICES

Like online retailers, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora and Spotify develop a user profile based on your interests and suggest movies, music and TV you may like. Netflix boasts over 53 million members, validating the popularity of the cord-cutter movement.

3. ANALYTICS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Small businesses that operate blogs generate 126% more traffic than their blogless counterparts, according to an infographic from Social Media Today. Web analytics services, free and paid, like Google Analytics, Optimizely and Twitalyzer track site visitors and gauge the effectiveness of different marketing tactics.

4. ACCOUNT SECURITY

Banks and e-mail carriers use activity location to verify the security of your accounts. A few months ago, my Gmail used compiled data of all my login locations to prevent someone on the other side of the world from hacking into my account.

5. ADVERTISMENTS

Most free websites like Facebook  do sell users' browsing behavior information to advertisers in order to make money, but this controversial practice keeps our favorite internet havens open to all. In absence of advertisements, webistes would rely on income from donations, premium services or membership fees -- remember Ello?

HAVE NO FEAR -- 1984 IS NOWHERE NEAR

I’ll let you in on a little secret: The world’s most beloved companies all use some sort of metadata collection to change the way we live our online lives, and the methodology is much less “Big Brother” and much more “Big Sister” – that edgy yet compassionate chick who lends you her iPod, teaches you what staple pieces work best with your wardrobe and stays in with you on Friday night to binge watch Orange is the New Black after your date stood you up. 

Next time she interjects into your mandatory Pinterest and potato chips hour to tell you dinner is ready, swallow your complaints and thank her for all she does for you. Trust me, it's not easy being a busybody.

In what way has data tracking affected you? Do you find it harrowing or harmless? Comment below!