Even though you might know how to write, do you know how to write for the online reader?
The majority of AP classes may have gotten you college credit but they do not hold nearly
the same weight for online writing. When starting out as an online writer producing
engaging content is actually about breaking the rules a little while AP English language
and literature classes may have given you that fundamental grammar intelligence, online
content should be thought of as a new class, maybe one that some schools will consider
offering in the near future. Let's talk about how to unlearn sticky writing
or get those essay writing habits out of your system and what it takes to learn online writing
skills. Okay, to start, i want you to take a look
at this essay excerpt, right next to a real-life blog post. So, on the left we have a sample
essay that you commonly write in college and then on the right we have a real-life blog
post this comes from HubSpot and it's written by an expert content writer look at the difference.
So, the HubSpot post has short paragraphs some of them are just one sentence there's
a lot of points being made there's numbered headlines, there's links to other sources
and the structure flows. So, the facts are that essays were created
for a grade in English class, it's what we all did but online writing is created for
a much different goal to gain the attention of our online audience our content written
for our online readers must gain their attention and if we're writing essays it won't, our
clients are not going to approve that type of content, they're not going to publish it
because their readers won't engage with it and therefore we as writers won't get paid,
so this is an integral skill set to learn online writing.
So, let's cover a few foundational rules about online grammar, the first role might surprise
you it is to remember that typo free high quality, well-written content are some of
the best standards to follow no matter what you're writing so you're not ditching all
the grammar rules, in fact it can be harder and take even more thought to form a sentence
for a blog than a sentence for an essay, so it's not about ditching the quality in any
way or getting sloppy, that is not at all what we're talking about here, great grammar
is a must but here's the thing just don't bring in the styling nuances that you learned
in essay writing those don't translate to online writing skills so get that out of your
system and learn the right style and format for your content.
So, here are some top must know, first of all single spacing is always a must in online
content, if you were taught double spacing in essay writing in college throw that role
out the window now hopefully you weren't, many colleges are not teaching this anymore
but some still are so single spacing always next remember that this style is foundationally
better suited to online content than the essay style on the right, so the formatting, the
flow of this HubSpot blog post is much more readable to an online reader than the essay.
No matter if it's an email an ad a web page a blog that you're writing paragraphs should
never be heavy, this is important because of the way an online audience reads content
they don't have a book open they're scrolling, whether it's on their phone or a computer
and there are apps, text messages, social media notifications, email notifications that
constantly interrupt them and vie for the attention that you're trying to get as well
so short impactful sentences a lot of formatting breaking up long sentences and paragraphs
is a must. Next keep in mind the internet grammar is
subject to change, for example we used to capitalize the word internet and now we don't
do that, it's lowercase. How do you know which rules to follow? I recommend following some
resources to get savvy and current with the times here a book that i recommend is this
one, how to write copy that sells, the step-by-step system for more sales to more customers more
often by copywriting legend Ray Edward. So, in this book you'll find Edwards praising
the use of bullet points to convey information which is a great point and then you'll hear
him talk about sentence case for email headlines all of his rules mentioned are geared to creating
content that pulls in your readers, so they work.
Another resource surprisingly possibly is the elements of style, while not all of these
rules can be applied mentioned in the book many can, for example they are pro oxford
comma, oxford commas are really great in online content because they help readability and
anything that improves the readability of your content, well you have to use that
Another resource is grammar girl she's been around for a while her podcast and resources
are top-notch and one plus about this resource, she's always publishing new episodes so you
can learn updated facts and trends on internet grammar through her podcast.
Okay, finally when it comes to essay writing habits one of the top habits you need to unlearn
is something known as writing sticky sentences, unfortunately we are all taught this in essay
writing we have to unlearn it when it comes to writing content that pulls in the attention
of our online readers. So, what are sticky sentences? sticky sentences
are sentences that contain sticky words, words that are just there that have no meaning,
every sentence has words that just hold your sentence together but don't provide actual
meaning, for example; and, in, the, of, these are gluers that your reader has to get through
to find the meaning of your content. Your goal as a writer is to remove stickiness so
your readers don't get well lost in your content. How do you do that? Well, let's look at a
sticky sentence and how we can revise it. So, here's a sticky first draft sentence when
it comes to writing, the reason why readers leave your page is probably due to the fact
that you use a lot of fluffy words that make your sentences weak, here's how we'd want
to rewrite it and remove the sticky words your readers leave your page because of weak
fluffy writing, see the difference. So, how do you eliminate the bloated words
from a sticky sentence? Here are four points to follow that can really help, so how do
you fix a sticky sentence? The answer the secret lies in self-editing my first drafts
are still terrible it takes me several rounds of self-editing to get to that perfected final
publish ready stage. So, self-edit your content several times before it goes off to your client,
look for bloated words that have no meaning and cut them out of your content.
So, how do you self-edit your content if you're new to it first read your content aloud after
you've written it look for anything that sounds awkward and cut it. Secondly, go over each
paragraph a minimum of three times, that's after you've written it, so write it, edit
it, once edit it a second time and then edit it a final third time.
Thirdly cut words relentlessly get rid of the bloated words, ditch the sticky phrases.
Finally, rewrite sentences to fit and have good meaning after you've cut those bloated
words. The last tip we're going to end on is to remember
your POVs, your point of views, which one do you write in the best one to write in for
online content almost any format is second person, you, yours, with this POV, you're
making your reader the hero of the story. To conclude, i teach a writing course that
first helps you unlearn the bad essay writing habits and then learn how to shape your writing
skills and write the top 11 content format. My course is called the unlearn essay writing
course, you can go check it out at http://www.prowritingcourse.com if we're open for enrollment, consider enrolling
in this course it gives you the keys to the castle and a quick pathway for this skill
of online writing, which is so important to almost any employer in marketing or your client.
That's a wrap on today's video don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more content
on YouTube just like this, i hope to see you around!