The relationship between writing and blogging is so close that it’s hard to differentiate the two acts, their relationship doesn’t end in similarities of action, it extends to the skills needed in performing both of them.
If you are hoping to establish yourself as a writer, I believe blogging is one act that can help you reach that goal.
It’s easy and affordable to start a blog these days, having a personal blog is no longer expensive and doesn’t require technical skills to set up, compared to a few years ago, with as little as N10,000 or $30 and a little knowledge of how to click on buttons and use the internet you can own a professional-looking blog these days, thanks to platforms like WordPress.
There are lots of benefits to having your blog.
Blogging has helped me and is still helping me improve my writing skills.
Blogging was one act that led me to the path of becoming a writer, in 2017 after reading one of these gets rich quick blogging posts on the internet, I got motivated to become a blogger.
I didn’t even have the whole idea of what it takes to blog, I didn’t even understand that I have to create written content for me to become a blogger, but because I was really motivated and interested in blogging I started writing blog post, although they were as bad as you can think of.
When I started my first blog, it became a platform for me to practice to see what works and doesn’t work in terms of writing, it also helped me to write consistently by doing that my writings started improving.
When I read about any tips about writing I will come to my blog practice and experiment it, this was how I have gone from someone who couldn’t write readable content to becoming the best writer I can be. I know I’m not there yet, and I will never be because there is no “there” in the writing journey, what matters most in the writing journey is getting better, always trying to improve your writing skills in every area that is possible.
Based on my experience, here are 5 ways blogging can help you improve your writing skills
1. To practice more (practice makes perfect)
Writing is one of those skills, like walking, talking and dancing that you always get better by consistency.
When you start blogging, you will have to write consistently, the idea of wanting consistently publish on your blog will force you to write more.
That is the magic you need to become the best writer you can become, by writing consistently, you will learn new tips, try a new style, make mistakes and improve.
You will also have the opportunity to get feedback both from editors and readers (positive or negative) which all add-on to help you improve.
2. To shape your writing voice
Finding your writing voice is essential when it comes to sharing your ideas, knowledge, experience or imagination through writings, your writing voice makes you unique and authentic.
But writing voice doesn’t just show up the first day or twentieth day you started writing, or because you need it, it gets shaped and consistently writing on your blog will help you shape your writing voice.
You can use your blog to try different tones and style to see the one that is comfortable for you in terms of communicating clearly to your audience.
3. To shape your writing style
As a blogger, you can try different styles of writing, especially if it’s your blog, you can try different styles and see the one that best suits your type of writing.
It’s more convenient to do the findings, discovery and shaping in your blog, where you have the authority and control to manage the publishing.
The good thing about this is that you can always correct or edit any mistakes you’ve made or change things when you adopt new methods, for example this post you are reading was one of the posts I wrote sometime ago when I started as a writer, some months later, when I moved the content from my first blog to this blog I had to rewrite some part of the post, giving it new style, voice and words, I couldn’t have had full access to rewriting it if I had written it on someone easy blog.
When you write on your blog, you have fewer worries about disappointing a client or messing up a project due to an inconsistent style of writing, you will have the opportunity to try different styles and choose the best one for your kind of writings.
You will always have full control on the content in your self hosted blog when you become uncomfortable with any of your writings you can always trash, draft or unpublished them without worrying about anything.
4. Become an Author
Whatever you write and publish on your blog by all right, is yours. Publishing your writing online doesn’t make it someone easy property they are still yours.
You can always do whatever you wish to do with it whenever you like. You can convert the post you have written on your blog to a book or an ebook.
Some of the books out there today are blog posts which have been compelled and transformed into books and ebook, this post or any of the post in this blog can turn out to be a chapter or part of a chapters in a book tomorrow.
When you have your blog you can write posts and publish them, get people’s reactions through comments, edit the posts and possibly turn them into a chapters or parts of chapters in a book or ebook in the future.
5. Learn skills
Blog as a platform is part of the tools that make up digital marketing, It’s one tool that has a relationship with almost every other component of digital marketing.
This means if you learn the skills required to run a blog you will also have experience with other digital marketing skills like content marketing, social media marketing and other digital marketing tools which will be useful for you in promoting yourself as a writer or promoting your writings.
We are living in a two-dimensional world today, the offline world and the online world, learning how to market your writing in the online world is one important skill everyone needs and blogging can help you learn these skills.
Blogging is one relevant skill you can learn in this digital age, we are living in an information age, there are lots of opportunities today and in the future for people who are or will become sources of useful, relevant and entertaining information, blogging can help you through writing to become an information source.
A blog is one tool on the internet that gives us all equal opportunity to tap into the opportunities digital advancement is creating.
What are you going to do? Are you going to ignore this opportunity of becoming a better writer or are you going to start your blog?
Share your thoughts in the comments section.
