How to Write Technical Blogs that Wow Clients
There’s big money to be made in the technical writing industry. In fact, technical writing is one of the most profitable writing niches out there, with the average technical writer making around $60,000.
Plus, unlike many industries which are seeing a decrease in job openings, the technical writing industry is booming, with job growth expected to grow by 10 percent over the next ten years.
And, it’s no wonder that technical writers make good money and that they’re in such high demand. Writing technical blogs and other technical materials is not easy.
Not only do you need to be an excellent writer, but you also need to have a very strong command of the subject matter and be able to speak to readers in a way that it is informative yet still very engaging.
If you’re looking to offer technical blogging services to your clients, then you’ve come to the right place.
Check out this guide to learn how to write technical blog posts that will wow your clients.
1. Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is one of the most important elements of technical writing, or any type of writing for that matter.
This will determine how you structure your blog post as well as the type of language and tone you use.
For example, if you’re writing a blog post that’s geared at a bunch of engineering PhDs, then you’ll obviously want to use intellectual language that conveys your expertise. In other words, you don’t want to dumb things down too much.
If, however, you’re writing a blog post that’s meant to help the average person understand a technical subject, then you’ll want to use more accessible language. You’ll also want to make sure to illustrate your writing with plenty of everyday examples that the average person can relate to.
If you don’t know much about the target audience, just ask your client for a detailed buyer persona.
2. Format for Easy Reading
Whether your audience is high schoolers or research scientists, you’ll always want to format your technical blogs for easy reading.
This is because no one enjoys reading large blocks of text. Instead, people prefer to scan information, and it’s much easier to do this when your text is broken up strategically.
Also, human beings have very short attention spans, which can make reading long paragraphs particularly annoying. In fact, it’s estimated that the average human attention span is 8 seconds. Which is, sadly, shorter than that of a goldfish.
So, make sure you keep your paragraphs short—2-3 sentences is usually the magic number. And, make sure you use plenty of headers and subheaders to help break up your information and make it more digestible.
This interesting read provides a good example of how blog posts should be broken up for easy-reading.
3. Incorporate Expressive Language
Look, just because the subject matter is a bit dry doesn’t mean your language should be dry as well.
When writing about technical topics, it can be really easy to fall into a monotonous tone.
To prevent this from happening, use vocabulary that will help your audience engage all of their senses when they’re reading. For example, instead of describing a tech accessory as “glow in the dark” you can describe it as “luminous”. Or, instead of saying that a product is reliable, you can say it’s “almost accountable to a fault”.
Using metaphors and similes is also a great way to liven up your language.
4. Know Your Goals
When writing a blog post, it’s very important to keep your goals in mind. In other words, ask yourself what exactly you hope to achieve for your client by writing this post.
While this answer will vary from post to post, in general, you want to make sure you achieve two things:
1. You’ll want to make sure the reader has gained something by the time they’ve finished reading your post.
2. You’ll want to make sure you write a post that makes the reader feel like they’ve received valuable information that they haven’t received anywhere else. (In other words, make sure you’re not just repeating information from other blog posts already out there.)
By keeping these general goals in mind, it’ll be much easier to write an effective blog post.
5. Don’t Forget Visuals
This will depend on the client and their budget; however, it’s generally a great idea to add some visuals to your blog post, even if you’re writing for a super technical audience.
This is because approximately 65 percent of the population comprises of visual learners. So, adding in a graph or an infographic can really help your readers fully understand the information you’re presenting.
Or, at the very least, it gives them a break from staring at text.
6. Focus on Your Interests
If you’re new to the world of technical blogging, then you may be feeling overwhelmed about the amount of information out there and how you’re ever going to win clients.
When you’re just starting out, the best thing to do is to focus on a topic that interests you and then go from there. Not only will this help you learn more effectively, but it’ll also make you more marketable to clients.
This is because clients would much rather hire a niche technical writer instead of a general technical writer. So, think about some technical areas that interest you, whether it’s robotics or healthcare, and go from there.
Also, to make yourself more marketable to clients, you may want to add other forms of writing to your wheelhouse, such as brochure writing, landing page writing, or white paper writing.
Are You Ready to Write Awesome Technical Blogs?
As you can see, writing technical blogs isn’t that different from writing any other type of blog. And by following these tips, you’ll be gaining clients left and right.
Be sure to check out our blog for more ways to gain clients and grow your business!
