Much has been said in the blogosphere about your blogging ‘voice’. Much of it refers to who is writing the content. The question of whether you should be blogging yourself vs hiring someone to blog for you. But that’s not the ‘voice’ I’m referring to in this post.

Have you ever noticed how your physical voice changes depending on whom your talking to and what the situation is. For example, as my children were growing, they knew they’d better toe the mark when I used my ‘pushed to the limit’ voice. And have you ever noticed yourself using a different voice at work when speaking to people on the phone than you use with your co-workers?

We all have them, different ‘voices’ for different situations. Serious, concerned, excited, happy… all influenced by what type of mood we might be in or what particular situation we might be dealing with.

If you think about it a little bit, you’ll realize that a persons voice can have a lot to do with how well they get your attention and keep it.

Have you ever sat in a class or lecture when the speakers voice was a listless monotone?

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t usually learn a whole lot in those classes. It was the teachers and professors who allowed their emotions and love of the subject to spill out into their words and voices that grabbed my attention and made me feel like this was something worth listening to and learning.

As I click through the blogs that my RSS feed reader delivers to me, I’m discovering that it works the same way for blog posts. Those overly technical, dry, fact filled posts may have great information in them, but many are written in a stiff ‘monotone’ voice. I generally never make it past the first paragraph or two. I’m sure I’m not alone.

Think about the blogs and blog posts you like to read. What ‘voice’ are they in? Does it feel like they are talking to you or at you?

I would bet that  the ones you enjoy the most feel as if the author is talking to you, or even with you. They allow their emotions to spill over in some way into their writing.

Emotions in writing?

Yes!  That’s what I said. It’s the difference between a good book and a bad book and it’s also the difference between a good blog post and a boring one.

Believe it or not, it’s not all that difficult. You just have to to adjust your thinking a little bit as you write. Blogs posts aren’t research papers, they are conversations with your readers.

Imagine your reader is sitting just behind your computer screen and ‘talk’ to them.  If the subject excites, disturbs or angers you, let your readers know. Let a bit of your personality show. (That’s not to say you should get too personal however, as I’ve discussed before)

I think too many businesses are focused only on the aspect of the blog to increase SEO, and don’t worry about their readers as much as keywords and fresh content. And while this might increase their rankings in a search engine, it’s not going to do much to gain readers and build relationships.

Being aware of the tone of your writing voice can.