Writing quality content will grow your blog’s readership and increase reader loyalty.  It can also get you better paying tasks if you are using paid reviews.  Here are a few things that will help you create interesting content that will catch your visitor’s attention and help you increase your readership:

Be Original

Anyone will probably eagerly tell you that the key to quality content is originality.  This doesn’t even necessarily mean that you have to be writing new, unique, innovative ideas that no one has heard before – it can just mean writing about your life and your thoughts.  Don’t copy and paste from other blogs or other sources (like Wikipedia), actually put your own thought into it.

Just write what you tell, be honest, and something original will come out.  After all, we are not all clones of each other, we all have different ways we think about the world.  If you focus more on telling the truth, instead of trying to be original, then chances are you will become original.

If you try too hard, you’ll probably just get frustrated and run into writer’s block.

But originality is not the only thing that goes into creating quality content.  Here are a few other things that will help you create interesting content that will catch your visitor’s attention and help you boost your readership:

Have a Distinctive “Voice”

In writing, your “voice” refers to the sound your words have.  But it’s written, not spoken, you say.  Voice has to do with the tone you take towards what you are saying; it’s how your tone and word choice come together to give you a unique and distinctive style.  Just as the articles in Reader’s Digest will have a different voice from the articles in National Geographic, blog posts can have different voices.  A mommy blogger will sound different from a student blogger.

Developing your own voice takes practice.  Write every day.  Don’t think too hard about it, just let the words come out on the page as if you were speaking to someone – whether it’s a friend, colleague, or acquaintance.  Post often, and soon you will realize that you do have a distinctive voice.  Write101 has a good article about developing your voice.

Keep Your Audience In Mind

This is Writing 101.  You want to make sure that your writing is clear and comprehensible to your readers.  After you have written your post, reread it out loud to make sure it makes sense.  Try reading it to your spouse or family member and see if they understand what you are talking about.

The topic of your blog may affect your writing as well.  If you are writing about technology, you’ll probably be using words that the average person won’t understand, but your audience will.

Watch Your Grammar!

This is a no-brainer, but it has to be said: good grammar and punctuation.  It goes along with “being easy to read”.  Grammar has a purpose beyond being a lesson in grade school, and that is helping us understand each other and communicate more clearly.  It should be noted – for more advanced writers – that certain grammar rules are less used (for example, it is now more acceptable to use “dangling prepositions”, so feel free to use those, but don’t tell your English teacher I said so!)

To Recap: What You Need For High Quality Content

• Originality
• Distinctive voice
• Audience awareness
• Proper Grammar

You want to also make sure that your writing is easy for your visitors to understand and that it’s entertaining and interesting.

I’ll leave you with a quote by C.S. Lewis, writer of the popular Narnia series, that goes like this: “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”