It goes without saying that a blogger’s content is their bread and butter. You want to both keep your readers on your site and encourage them to return in the future.

Lightning-fast site speed and quality site design are great goals to strive for that help with this—but it goes without saying that the biggest factor in this equation is quality content. After all, a site can be beautiful and lightning-fast, but quality content is what builds your repertoire with readers — and with search engines, too.

Improving the quality of your content comes with experience. Just like any muscle, your writing ability will get stronger as you continue to write (ever look at three year old posts and cringe at how you worded something? Or perhaps find typos in old posts and smack yourself?). The good news is that there are tools you can use to help boost the learning process and create all-around better content for your readers.

Here are four easy steps that you can take today to beef up your writing skills.

1. Invest in writing tools

Whether you choose Grammarly, WhiteSmoke, ProWritingAid, Ginger or any other writing improvement software, they’re a valuable tool for writers of all skill levels. Some tools are free, while others have premium options that offer more features to improve your writing, so there’s something there for every budget. If free is your fave, here’s a link to a tool from Grammarly.

Regardless of which you choose, it’s invaluable to have a quality software tool to catch typos, fix misspellings and simple grammar mistakes, and even scan for plagiarism. It will also take the weight off your shoulders in looking for these changes yourself. They’re simple to use, but have an enormous impact in the quality of the final product of your writing.

Test a few, feel out what you like and don’t like, and catch the little things before you post your latest blog post.

2. Have another person proofread your content.

This is a severely underrated step in the writing process. Something could be grammatically correct and make complete sense to you; after all, you know exactly what it is you’re describing and trying to explain. But when possible, have someone (a friend, family member, or a trusted blogging buddy) read over your new post before it goes live to make sure that it will make sense to your readers.

Besides making sure your post is crystal-clear, they may be able to catch any typos or grammatical mishaps that your software missed, or even help rework a clunky sentence or two!

3. Take a writing class or join a writing group

Improving your writing is a process that takes effort and time, just like any other skill. You’ll get better with practice, but it also helps to take classes or join a writing group in order to learn from others. Look for a group that specializes in constructive feedback, or for classes or seminars that specialize in building the skills you want to improve.

Remember that these groups or classes are meant to help you grow your skill set. The suggestions and criticisms given in settings like this are meant to help you improve where you’re weakest. Look for supportive environments that want to help you improve, and try not to take suggestions too personally.

And make sure to help other members of the group in return, as well! Rising tides raise all ships. If you are good at recipes, but need to work on your social media posts, it could help to find someone in your writing group who writes amazing posts, but struggles with formatting recipes correctly — and forming a partnership to help each other improve.

4. Optimize your content

Optimize, optimize, optimize — for mobile, that is. More and more readers have moved off of desktop, and have made mobile their go-to for accessing content.

Optimizing for a mobile audience is more important now than ever (for an entire post about how to get the most out of your mobile audience, check out this post by Mediavine’s very own Brad Hagmann). This means mixing up your writing style for a mobile audience — but it doesn’t require all that much change!

More frequent paragraph breaks are one of the quickest, easiest ways that you can improve your writing for a mobile audience. No one likes to read a wall of text on mobile; as a bonus, it’ll help with your advertising revenue, too!

You can also look at the frequency of photographs in your posts (Eric Hochberger demystified this process in more detail here, so check it out!). Find the best balance between written content, photographic content, and your Mediavine ads. Remember: Mediavine will never serve higher than 30% ads to 70% content.

Mediavine wants to help every publisher we work with build a sustainable business as a content creator. We encourage every creator to continue their growth in creating amazing content to keep readers engaged and coming back for more.

How To Improve Your Writing and Create Higher Quality Content

Yield: 1

Active Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Estimated Cost: $0

there are tools you can use to help boost the learning process and create all-around better content for your readers. Here are four easy steps that you can take today to beef up your writing skills.

Print

Materials

• laptop
• notebook
• editing tools

Instructions

1. Write something!
2. Invest in editing aids like Grammarly, WhiteSmoke, ProWritingAid, Ginger or any other writing improvement software to help you catch typos, fix misspellings and simple grammar mistakes, and even scan for plagiarism.
3. Ask someone else to proofread your content before it goes live to make sure that it will make sense to your readers. Besides making sure your post is crystal-clear, they may be able to catch any typos or grammatical mishaps that your software missed, or even help rework a clunky sentence or two!
4. Take a writing class or join a writing group. Look for a group that specializes in constructive feedback, or for classes or seminars that specialize in building the skills you want to improve.
5. Optimize your content for mobile. Use more frequent paragraph breaks to improve your writing for a mobile audience. No one likes to read a wall of text on mobile; as a bonus, it’ll help with your advertising revenue, too!