Should I Write My Own Blog?

Now, that’s a question. The short answer is probably not.

Let me explain.

When you go into business for yourself, you do so because you have a specific talent, love, or passion for something people want or need. You’re good at what you do, most likely because you’ve been doing it for a while. Maybe you went to college for what you do. And I’d be willing to bet the house you have some excellent experience.

Can you say the same about writing or content marketing?

You Love to Write, and You’re Good at It

I have no doubt that you may well love to write. You might keep a journal. You might write long, pithy posts on LinkedIn that get loads of comments and shares. You might even write great reports or briefs at work that get compliments from above.

That’s all well and good, but none of that prepares you for writing a blog.

Far from it.

Your Writing Must Compete

Unlike other writing you may do, blog writing must stand out from the competition. At this moment, there are 1.97 billion websites. Of those, 600 million have blogs.

Are you competing with all 600 million blogs? No. But you are competing with the hundreds, if not thousands, of very similar blogs that cover your industry.

You may think you only have three to five actual competitors in business, but algorithms don’t distinguish competitors the same way businesspeople do.

It’s the quality of the content that determines your rankings. Gone are the days of getting to page one of a browser’s search engine results page (SERP) by writing a mediocre 500-word article on a topic you thought of on the fly.

No. Your writing must be on par with or exceed the quality of your online competitors.

Can you write to compete?

Quality Takes Time

When committing to a blog, know going in that you’ll have to spend time planning what to write.

It’s not enough to follow what others are writing about. You need to spend time reading up on or at least researching what’s trending. Plan on 30 minutes but know you might spend up to an hour on this.

Then, you’ll need to take the time to find unique angles on the topic – which relate to your services – that will make your content shoot up the rankings.

For example, if you’re an HR consultant writing a blog, using social media in recruiting is nearly an evergreen topic,? but writing about how using social media too early in the recruiting process is illegal is a unique take.

This can take up to an hour of pondering.

The actual writing process also takes longer than you expect. This blog, for example, will take me about three hours to draft. That’s just the writing aspect.

Then, I have to search for pictures; add another hour. My beta readers, who are also professional editors and writers, may have comments that need to be addressed.

Uploading the draft and formatting for the platform will take about 20 minutes.

In total, for an approximately 1,000-word post, I will have spent about six hours and change.

Do you have six hours to spare for each post?

Writing Rules Are Different

The rules for writing you learned in grade school are different from writing blogs for your content marketing.

Readers skim blog articles before they dive in to consume your content. That means you need to make use of subheadings to give people a taste of what’s to come.

Search engine algorithms also consume your content, and they’re looking for subheadings that have keywords or can double for key phrases. They’re also looking for headings or titles that contain keywords. So, stay away from clever or flowery titles and subheadings.

URL structure matters. Your title is going to be the last part of the URL. So go for titles that are keyword heavy, meaning go for titles that could be search phrases. And then, make sure the URL contains hyphens between the words rather than spaces. It’s a simple thing, but it matters.

For example, this blog’s title, “Should I Write My Own Blog?” is something that someone might type into a search bar.

You’ll also need to cite credible sources differently. Blog posts don’t lend themselves very well to footnotes or endnotes. Instead, you’ll embed a link to your references in the anchor text within your sentences. (See how I did my links above? The phrases that contain links – the anchors – link to sources that match the phrases.)

Don’t plan on using sources? Well, then, don’t plan on your content being very authoritative. People like proof. And while internal linking is one of the most important things you can do to rank in the search engines – you should have 2 to 3 internal links per post – don’t rely on quoting yourself in previous blogs.

Looks Matter

Content needs to look good on mobile devices. Google, for instance, predominantly uses mobile-first indexing – meaning if your mobile website looks terrible, even great content won’t rank. That means you’ll need to:

• Make your posts easy to skim with clear subheadlines.
• Vary sentence length to keep readers scrolling.
• Break up paragraphs into one to no more than four sentences, not the five- to seven-sentence, 100-word paragraphs you used to have to write in school.
• Use bullets, numbered lists, and bolding for emphasis.
• Add images, infographics, tables, and charts to illustrate complex points – or just for fun.

There are many more rules you need to know about for meta title tags, meta descriptions, and the like that I’ll spare you here. Suffice it to say that because search engine algorithms are constantly changing, so are some of the rules.

Do you have time to stay on top of that?

If you’ve answered no to any of my questions, then I strongly suggest you either hire an experienced content writer or contract one. They’ll do a much better job representing you and your company than you can and do so using the current best practices because, well, that’s their job to be on top of all that.

Have a Question?

If you have a question on content or how to build your authority, I’d love to hear from you. Hit Subscribe and leave your question below, or direct message me here on LinkedIn. (Then hit Share and spread the love.)

Want to Work with Me?

If you need help nailing down and creating high-quality content, I’m here to help. I’m pretty easy to reach. Just book a time with me on my Calendly. I’d be happy to chat.

Who Am I?

I’m Diane Faulkner, an award-winning freelance writer and editor based in Florida. A solopreneur for 23 years, I now have an agency of writers and editors, Full Circle Press. (I also coach new writers and teach them how to make money writing as a side hustle or for a living.)

My client list includes Forbes, LegalZoom, FindLaw, ADP, American Express, Delta Dental, Wiley, ERE Media, Fordham University, Goodyear, and others, as well as numerous start-ups – from those emerging out of stealth mode, like BingeBuilderX, to mature, late-stage ones, like GuideWell.