Find Your Blogging Voice
The human voice can express a wide range of sound: It can be loud or soft, silky or gravelly, suave or gruff. The variety of sound has significance – how you use a given sound can help you in your conversations with others – to persuade them, calm them, express concern, and so forth.
Voice in writing is the personality and character of the language used. You find it in literature, of course – where the author or characters in a given story have their individual style of language. You also see many examples of voice in the advertising world – think about the last commercial you saw on TV. Well-written advertising uses language that will influence and persuade the audience highly.
Using these techniques on the internet is as important to the effective communication of your site’s intent as it is in more traditional forms of media. Consider how different one site is from another—each has its own personality. Some examples of how voice can be helpful for a type of site include the following:
- Popular clothing catalogue. If you’re selling the latest style of jeans, your site might benefit from the use of hip, trendy language. The target audience, feeling comfortable and enjoying the fun and familiarity of the jargon, will be more likely to buy from a site that quite literally “speaks to them” than a similar site that uses bland language. Check out Girlshop for a great example of a site that uses voice to
communicate effectively with its young clientele
- Family car dealership. For a local car dealership aimed at selling mid-size cars, language that expresses comfort and confidence can persuade by instilling a sense of security in its site visitors. For example, the Ford Motor Company website, has a section called “Heritage” in which Ford’s commitment to quality is expressed through its company history and profiles of Henry Ford and his family.
- Anti-drug public service. In this case, a more somber use of language is in order. The nature of the message may even benefit from a stern voice, compelling site visitors to take the message very seriously. For example, read the Bryan Lee Curtis story, a website dedicated to helping people quit smoking.
Whether you are creating a site for a clothing manufacturer, a car dealer, or a drug education website for a nonprofit organization, voice is going to matter. Take some time to review your site’s intent, your target audience, and develop a voice that is appropriate to your site goals.
Written by Andy MacDonald from Swift Media UKPosted on February 26th, 2008 and filed under Blogging, Writing
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13 Responses to “Find Your Blogging Voice”
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Andy,
This is a great post! I’m going to add it to the list of resources in my own Squidoo Lens on Online Design.
Finding one’s voice is of course of major importance in all the creative and persuasive endeavors you mentioned, but it seems especially important in blogging, where there is a lot of emphasis placed on the ‘personality’ of the blogger; their authenticity and individual style. It’s what helps us stand out from the crowd and makes people trust what we say.
One last comment – I’m not sure the ’stern voice’ will work for everyone in terms of drug education (e.g. the “Just Say No” campaign
), but I take your point.
Amy
Thanks for the comment Amy. Yes finding your voice is especially important when it comes to blogging, anybody can write, but its the personality that is put across to the reader which really makes them feel a connection, and connections like this is what will increase subscriber counts, and customer orders.
I love your blog, Andy – I hadn’t seen it before this exchange, and I appreciate how aligned our views seem to be on the ‘art’ of online communication. I’m going to subscribe now!
Amy
Aww thank you Amy. Im really glad you liked what you saw. I try real hard to bring real-life views and solutions to communication, marketing, blogging, seo etc, so something you wont find on my blog is quick-fix one-hit-wonder solutions which do more damage than good, so i beleive if you implement any of the ideas you see, you will benefit in some way or another.
Im glad you liked my Blog, do you blog yourself, and if so, on what topics? do you have a blog i could take a look at?
You can follow the link next to my name to have a look at my blog, which is called the Beauty Dialogues.
It’s an integrated (meaning spanning both the personal and professional) forum for musing on my field (designing and facilitating online communications), displaying my photographic art, commenting on the beauty I see around me, and offering profiles on people and projects that inspire or inform me in one way or another…
Amy
Hi Amy,
Thanks for getting back to me. Yeah ive just been having a look through your site actually, its a really interesting one. I noticed that you had one post on there that relates to my own blogs topic, and wondered, do you / can you write on either business, blogging, seo, or marketing related subjects, and if so, are you interested in writing the odd guest-post for my own blog?
If you want to become a good blogger, you have to make sure that you have quality posts, where your readers can get useful ideas. Also it’s important that you understand what you are writing.
Great post Andy! I loved reading it!
Thanks for the comments Federal & Phil. Glad you liked my article. More to come very soon, so keep your eyes pealed for them.
Andy,
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you (I just got back from a two day photo shoot in the mountains!)…
Thank so much for your kind offer, and of course I’d love to do be a guest author for you on Swift Media UK. I’ll have to spend a little more time with your blog and get familiar with the topics you feature and the atmosphere you’re cultivating there, but yes, I can (and occasionally do) write on both marketing and search optimization related themes.
I’ve mostly focused on design, facilitation and ‘voice’; you probably noticed that I listed my more tech-oriented posts on their own page so my ‘professional’ interests are highlighted and don’t get lost in the more personal tone I cultivate on the Beauty Dialogues, but it would be a positive challenge to write more explicitly on some of the seo and marketing ideas I occasionally refer to more implicitly.
Thanks again for the opportunity – this kind of helpful ‘hand up’ is so valuable for a new blogger like myself.
Amy