Blogging

I thought i'd write my second blog on a topic that i'm currently engaged in at work. The company blog. Now I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that will tell me this is a truely simple task. Ah ha - come work for my company.

Our blog receives a fair bit of traffic, unique and more importantly returning visitors. The one thing that lets us down is our ability to write really engaging content. We seem to have an exceptionally bad habit of writing about us, us and us. Content is both dry and at times irrelevant.

Recently i've been doing a lot of research about how to stimulate us internally and also stimulate our audience into at minimal leaving the odd comment or two. A couple of articles have really helped and if you are in the same boat give them a read.

I work for a fashion retailer so 99% of our online activity in centered around selling. An article written by Ryan Welton of practicalecommerce.com about selling with blogs really got me thinking.

I noticed that a number of bloggers have quoted George Orwell as a good starting point when writing blog content. Orwell wrote an essay titled, "Politics and the English Language." He suggested when writing a sentence you should always ask yourself these questions

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
5. Could I put it more shortly?
6. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

When choosing words, follow those rules:

7. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
8. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
9. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
10. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
11. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
12. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

This really is food for thought..........