Only 53% of businesses use content marketing in their marketing strategy. One reason is that they’re afraid of overwhelming their audience with big techy words.
Even though written content is crucial to the success of tech startups.
Sure, writing about technology instead of showing it in a video tutorial without complicating it sounds hard, but it’s never too late to learn how to write better blog posts.
While it is a delicate balance to achieve. It’s not hard at all.
What if I told you that you can transform the most complex and technical concept into a friendly-blog post.
Here are 9 tips to write better blog posts for tech startups!
Tip #1: Determine your Blog Post’s Target Audience.
This’s not the same as determining the target audience of your entire blog/brand.
It’s a smaller percentage of your existing one.
Is this blog post aimed towards a more beginner audience or an experienced one?
Are you trying to gain the trust of new clients (learn more in my free pdf) or convince old ones to buy more?
The trick is to go narrow with each blog post’s audience.
Choose a specific chunk of your audience instead of all of them.
You want it to cater to the needs and circumstances of a decently sized group without being too narrow.
By going too narrow, you might end up with numbers not worthy of a whole custom blog post.
Tip #2: One Topic Per Blog Post, Please!
It’s easy to get carried away when writing about a rich topic with many branches.
By choosing one topic for your blog post, you guarantee it full attention.
On the other hand, talking about many topics scatters the readers’ attention, which super is bad because:
- You can’t control where the readers’ attention goes. Which topic they focus on or CTA they decide to follow becomes unpredictable.
- You could overwhelm them into not taking action with any of the information given to them.
- Undetermined feedback. You won’t be able to pinpoint which topic they liked/hated in your post when the feedback is shared between all of them.
Tip #3: Don’t Use Big Words (Unless)
To write better blog posts, you need to be mindful of your audience’s reading and comprehension levels.
Depending on your target audience, you should choose the right complexity of words to use.
Whether they are experts or beginners. New or old clients.
Big techy words that most people can’t even spell turn people off and away from your post.
After all, no one wants to copy every other word into Google to understand what it means.
YOU should be doing that for them!
Don’t use big words UNLESS it’s necessary and you break them up IMMEDIATELY after, using simple words that the average reader understands.
Tip #4: Metaphors, Metaphors, METAPHORS!
Metaphors are crucial when it comes to explaining complex concepts.
A metaphor helps you take a complex concept that your readers aren’t familiar with, and tie it to something they know and love.
Although, metaphors shouldn’t replace explaining complex words and terms.
*Cough* previous tip *cough*
Metaphors only add another layer of understanding and help readers relate to the concept on a more personal level.
Tip #5: Write in a Friendly and Simple Tone
Blog posts, unlike other forms of written content, are widely known for being casual in tone and simple in words.
While writing your post, always word it like you’re talking to a close friend.
This removes the barrier of “this person is an expert who knows everything, I could never compare” between you and your readers.
If your target audience is absolute beginners, go for an even friendlier version of the tone.
Explain things as if you’re talking to a child even if you’re not really.
This is tied directly to the next 2 tips.
Tip#6: Use Short Sentences
The sentence length, and structure, should be at around a 9th or 8th-grade reading level or lower.
This is not to say that you’re looking down on the intelligence of your readers sitting there like:
Take into consideration the number of distractions a potential reader has to fend off to read your post.
They could be multitasking, in a hurry, or simply tired after a long day.
Not to mention, the average person’s attention span is now comparable to a goldfish and dropping. Yikes!
You need to cater to that.
By opting for a lower reading level, you make sure your readers don’t strain themselves or lose interest.
Make sure your post doesn’t demand more attention/energy than they have.
Tip #7: Break Up your Text
As promised, this links to the previous 2 points of making your blog post the absolute EASIEST to read no matter how distracted or tired your readers are.
This can be done either by using white space between paragraphs or helpful/entertaining images.
This makes the page look less overwhelming when compared to a giant block of text.
It helps readers separate different points and ideas from each other while reading.
AND (yes there’s a 3rd benefit) it helps with skimming.
I know, I know. You don’t want readers to skim a post you worked so hard on.
But that’s the ugly truth you must face.
People will skim even the best blog post ever created.
Not to be all bleak about it. After skimming, most people go back to read the entire post.
Sometimes immediately or later on when they have time.
And if they don’t, they’d still register your name in their head as a source of quick and effortless information and are more likely to go to you for more.
Tip #8: Links
Don’t be afraid of using both external and internal links throughout your post.
As stated before, if you mention a complex topic and feel like some of your readers might be interested in knowing more about it, link to a full-length post just about it.
It could be your own or someone else’s.
While linking to someone else’s blog or website can feel a little counterintuitive, it actually helps validate your own website and gains it a higher search engine placement.
Find the right balance of internal and external links that works well for your blog.
Tip #9: Ask
No matter how much of an expert you are in the technology niche. You can never know what your readers want.
The feedback you get from previous blog posts can be extremely important to creating content that will perform well one time after the next.
It can be by studying the stats of your previous posts and analyzing them or by asking for direct feedback using a forum or asking for comments.
**********************
It’s okay, I get it. It can be hard finding and attracting your audience when you’re just a startup, especially in a competitive and saturated niche like tech.
Better late than never. All big tech blogs started from scratch.
You’d be surprised how far you can go by just listening to your audience and constantly learning how to deliver what they want.
Start now, one blog post at a time.
Anina is a freelance technology writer and owner of Post-ApocalypticScribbles.com
Follow on Twitter for updates and tips.