Effective Writing Skills (Part 1): Outline

Posted on May 13, 2008

Learn.
practice.
pay effort.
Hard work shows!

Promoting your blog might bring you traffic but, it won’t succeed in keeping it unless your posts are of real value to your visitors.

It’s no doubt that you are always looking for everyway to get people to read your published posts and gain frequent visitors to your blog. However, let me ask, are you doing it the right way?

Article Outline & Structure

I am confident of one simple fact; If you are spending your time and effort trying to promote your blog in anyway without paying attention or recognizing that your blog success is mainly resting on the quality of your posts, sad to say then that you are moving in the popular wrong direction.

If you aim for a successful blog, you have to make your articles stand out from the crowd.

Outline & Structure. You shouldn’t miss those two simple words that are highly attributed to the quality of your posts and any effective writing in general.

It’s time to start doing it the right way, like a professional!

Outline first (No painting before sketching)

Let me say it in short and forever, good writing starts from an outline. It makes information well organised and easily conveyed to your readers. If you can’t realize how much important is to prepare an outline before starting to write, you are in danger of creating a chaotic mess that will completely fail to achieve any desired response from your visitors.

It’s true that readers don’t see the outline, they only see the final shape of your post or article. However, they can feel it. A good copy starts with a good outline at the beginning.

You can hardly make a good painting without starting with a good sketch.

let’s go sketching!

1- Choose a topic for your post

It’s essential to have a clear idea about what you are going to write. It all starts from here.

If you are still missing the right subject for your post, you can check this article before proceeding.

2- Determine all relevant information by creating a list of key points

Here you start the creative and the most interesting part in writing your post.

This may sound a little bit theoritical, but the result is really worth it!

Determine all relevant information that will be included in your post. This should take place in an organised manner in order not to confuse your readers or miss any piece of important or valuable information. We can do this by creating a list of key points that covers the whole subject in some way. However, these points can vary significantly according to the type of the subject and your creativity as well.

Possible types of posts:

Problem solving.
Product or service review.
A story about something or some event.

let’s create for example a list of key points for a subject addressing a specific problem.

Possible Key points:

Identify the problem and how far it affects those who are concerned with it.
List different alternatives that are offered as a solution for that problem.
Make comparisons between the different solutions.
Recommend a specific solution according to reliable references.

You can modify or create different key points. Let your creativity do the job!

3- Write down all relevant information

See how all those key points can help you in organising the flow of information and bringing it down to your paper or Word Processor document.

Also, It’s essential not to interrupt your creativity; Avoid being selective about what you write. Just move smoothly through your document without reviewing or editing.

That’s how your outline should be like now; solid, organised and informative. However, looking uninteresting! No need to worry about that. It will be as interesting as you aim for after doing some refining and applying a good structure.

I am going to talk about that later in a future post.

Digest and practice it all before putting a brush to paint!

Go to Effective Writing Skills (Part 2): Structure >>>

Comments

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10 Comments so far

Richard Onebamoi, on May 13, 2008 at 8:59 am

Wow, what can I say? This is an incredible and informative post. Thank you for the nuggets and keep them coming.
admin, on May 13, 2008 at 9:03 am

Thanks Richard for the nice comment.

You are welcome.
Erik Johnels, on May 13, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Great post with some very thoughtworthy information.

Blogging is no different from any other creative process. The more you plan it out and prepare yourself. The better and faster you will finish something thats worth the effort to begin with.

This is going in the bookmarks for a personal “oops check” before i write.

Thank you!
admin, on May 13, 2008 at 4:25 pm

That’s right. What I mentioned here isn’t limited to blogging.

Any creative process that starts with a good planning is most likely to achieve the desired results.

Thanks Erik for your thoughtful comment.
Benny Greenberg, on May 13, 2008 at 8:45 pm

The creative process is one that never needs to be stifled. I sometimes use an outline - but more often it is less structured. The outline is already formed in my head and I will almost flow from one area to another. When I am writing for a report, or a meeting or a book - I tend to be more structured and adapt to the outline method. Maybe that’s why I enjoy marketing so much more than any other facet of business…

But - This is great stuff for new bloggers and for people who want to blog and need a little guidance…

Great Job…

Benny
http://www.ya-ttitude.com
admin, on May 14, 2008 at 5:53 am

Thanks Benny for your rich comment.
Tanja, on May 15, 2008 at 5:43 am

Great, good info about writing a blog post, and writing in general.

I write this way when I have to write an article or a paper about an extensive topic, my blog posts however come straight from my heart.
Not even sure if I am writing for a big audience as my blog is mostly aimed at the recently young widowed people, and there are not that many of them, thank God.
However, how do you find those readers that would be interested in a specific type of blog? Through a search engine like google?

Great blog you have by the way, nice reading material.

Tanja
admin, on May 15, 2008 at 6:11 am

Hi Tanja,
As you mentioned, when you write about personal events it’s not necessary to care that much about outline and structure. The concepts in this article are more applied in case of writing about a solid issue like those ones mentioned in the post.

In reply to your question, you can reach specific readers through many ways; related forums, blogs, directories, social bookmarking websites, and the top of all is SEO & optimizing your pages for targeting specific keywords.

Thanks for your thoughtful nice comment.
Design Interval, Design - Marketing, on May 17, 2008 at 2:52 am

[…] The outline that you prepare for your post or article might be informative and covering the subject perfectly, however, there is nothing attractive about it. Structure is a must to bring some life to your piece. It’s like a giftwrap or giftbox, that will make your article looks pretty and interesting to your readers. […]
Tools and tips for a successful blog | Design Interval, on June 13, 2008 at 12:56 am

[…] 1- Get a good idea for your blog post. 2- Learn how to write a compelling content. […]