9 Dec 2016
How to Minimize Mistakes When Writing Your First Blog
Blogging can be difficult if you do not master the right tools. Managing your blog in the long term is challenging and tiring. Although you might be familiar with the online techniques available, there is always something new to learn.
Bloggers spend plenty of time working to have a noteworthy article. Therefore, they have to make sure to encounter present mistakes and avoid them in the future – so they can save themselves some precious time.
The first step any blogger takes is finding the right subject. The second one, developing on the subject chosen. Here, bloggers have to carefully select their proper arguments and facts. After that, choosing their best paper editing option, where they edit their papers and make sure that the article is very well written. At the end, they recheck the article and are good to go.
The process of getting everything right might sound simple, but there is a high risk of getting lost in the process. That is why we are here to help potential bloggers, like you, avoid crucial mistakes.
7 Mistakes You Will Avoid in Your Next Paper
- Not analyzing your subject enough
It is true that while we are part of a developing world, there is always something interesting to discuss and debate. Although this usually helps us come up with captivating ideas to write about, we have to pay attention to our subject’s popularity.
You have to choose your niche carefully in order to increase our ratings. Research people’s interest in your topic before you start writing. You can use either Google Trends or any other free online tool for that. There are plenty on the market, please don’t be foolish and pay for one!
- Poorly editing
Your content has to stay professional and accurate. You cannot allow yourself to have a poorly written article that looks like it has never been finished. The reason for that is that people always search for qualitative content, and the first impression counts.
Your message is important, so wrap it up in a beautiful box and sell it that way. Paper editing can take a while, but it is a crucial task to complete. Editing your paper wisely will add to your proficiency reputation on the market.
- Overwhelming your writing content
You might feel enthusiastic about writing about multiple subjects. It is not a bad idea unless you overcrowd your article with non-related, useless details. It is very important to interconnect your niches. You can write about horse-riding in Germany, while also have a paper about healthy food. These two niches match.
If you want to succeed in one sport like horse-riding, you have to keep up a healthy diet and exercise daily. But it would be silly to start talking about Germany’s political system and economy. It is an extra niche that might lose your readers’ patience and thus, interest. Therefore, you lose clients and money. Keep it interesting!
- Not consistent enough
Imagine that you are the owner of an important factory that produces bread. Every day, your clients purchase your product because they need it. You do not provide bread one day, they will buy it from somebody else.
Consistency is crucial in blogging. This is the only way you can prevent your followers from switching to another interesting blog. Write daily or have some articles prepared in advance. You have to keep your clients “fed” and happy.
- Not having an appealing headline
People’s mentalities are not very hard to understand: we just want to solve our problems in order to make our lives easier. This is when we google search for things like “How to get rid of blue stamps on my shirt.” We all know that Google is going to show us multiple websites that we can choose from.
Having an appealing title means reaching to your public’s confidence and interest in your article. For the example below, “How to keep our clothes clean” is not a title you want to use. “How to eliminate colorful stamps: A necessary guide” is.
- Not organizing your article
Sorry to disappoint you with real facts: people are going to scan through your blog most of the time. Therefore, you cannot afford to have a disorganized paper. First, write an outline of your paper. It will keep ideas structured and neat.
Second, develop on each idea with sustainable arguments. Third, underline keywords and highlight important ideas. This way, you will know what to prioritize in your article. Don’t forget to make every subtitle sound appealing – which I am sure they are.
- Not responding to your readers
Communication is the road to success, right? There is no exception for blogging. You share an idea, people share valuable comments about it. Maybe they have questions, productive opinions or are just curious about yourself. Never mind the reason, a professional blogger always responds to his followers. Keep a close relationship with your clients and accept each one of their views.
These simple mistakes can lose you important followers without even realizing it. Try to avoid them next time you write an article for your blog! There are also other important steps you will need to take after posting your first article, so feel free to check the advice on that too!
30 Dec 2016
The Challenges of Managing a Team of Writers
For the vast majority of writers, their craft is a solitary thing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an escape, but more often than not, it will be a way to stop, listen to one’s own voice and then try to put it on paper.
However, when you try to make a living writing, you sometimes end up as part of a team of writers who are employed by an organization of some kind. Sure, you are still writing your own thing, but you are not alone.
The author of this article had the pleasure of working in such a setup. Moreover, he got to manage a team of writers. And you can rest assured that this kind of work comes with a bag full of challenges that soon take over your life.
So, just in case some of you have to manage a team of writers one day, here are a few things to keep in mind.
So Much Passion
Usually when people talk about team management and project management in business, passion is considered a good thing. It is the thing that drives the team forward and that ensures that everything sparks and continues sparking.
When you manage a team of writers, this sparking can turn into a firestorm in a matter of seconds.
Simply put, writers feel a whole lot of passion for their work, even if they themselves do not think it. The team this article is based on wrote copy for a company that operated in a very boring industry and the copy being written was not exactly soul-changing.
Still, writers felt so strongly about seemingly unimportant matters that it definitely became too much at times and it required quite a bit of tact and defusing technique.
In short, passionate writers who will not back down easily are the first challenge to keep in mind if you plan on taking a job as a writing team manager.
Pressure From Two Sides
Managing a team of writers as part of a company comes with certain expectations from outside (above) the team. Companies operate in very simple terms and they have no time or understanding for the intricacies of the written word.
On the other hand, you have writers who want to be left alone to write and who do not want to be pressured. They are often pushing back, just for the sake of it.
Before you know it, this combination causes friction and you can guess who feels the brunt of it. Yes, you do.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to do some project management software comparison and find a solution that best suits your need. This way, you can assign work to your writers and ensure that everything is done in due time. Using such software will also allow you to show the higher ups what is going on and where things stand.
Lax Discipline
Writers are rarely perfectly disciplined. It is not in their nature. If they were perfectly disciplined, they would be accountants or something like that. Sure, some of them are disciplined writers, as in they get the writing done. But they do not make the most disciplined employees.
For the most part, you get over it. You get over the fact they haven’t put in the necessary paperwork or notified the people who had to be notified. You get over the fact that you are blasting emails and texts Sunday at 9 p.m., just to make sure your writers don’t get in trouble.
Sometimes, however, it can be a bit disheartening. There are some situations which could really have been avoided if anyone but you stopped to think for a moment. At those times, you feel like the biggest fool in the world for taking on a task like this.
Instead of a Closing Word
But then, after all is said and done, after half a dozen pre-infarction events and just as many telling offs from the higher ups, your writing team treats you to the best piece of writing that was ever done in the industry.
And you feel great.
You remember why you love writing, why you love writers and why managing a team of writers is not the worst thing in the world.