Long long time ago, in a far far away conference room, I attended a session titled “Writing on the Web” by Mr. Raja Farah who works at “This is Egg” a copywriting agency, if I may call it this way. The presentation was part of a social media for advocacy program that I am enrolled in called MADSKills. MADSkills is a project for Social Media Exchange (SMeX).

Raja’s presentation was interesting that I asked him if I may share the Six Rules for Writing on the Web, as he presented them. And since you are reading this post, this means that he agreed!

Okay, so as time is evolving, things are changing on the web, and what I am mostly concerned about, is blogging which is part of writing on the web as Raja termed it.

What makes a good blogger good?

And what makes a bad blogger bad (in terms of writing)?

Here are five rules that I learnt about and would like to share with you:

Rule #1: Be simple

No one has time to read, plus there is a lot to be read, so keeping your blog post short is vital for making sure that people read it.

And since you are a blogger, you are a human behind a computer, you need to convey that. What is super cool about Web 2.0 is that it’s now the people that write, so stay human. And one more thing, don’t use big words, they don’t make you look smarter, they make you look… well, something else…

Rule #2: Know who you’re talking to

Okay, so you are a blogger, who are you writing to? Who is your target? Are you targeting business men? Working mothers? Teanagers? Each target has a different language to address him with, please keep that in mind.

Rule #3: Be interactive

Getting back to the Web 2.0;  its interactive, its communication, its evolving, its engaging… So make sure that while using this technology to actually use it right. Post often, don’t be static, don’t be traditional, and please don’t be expected! Be unique!

Rule #4: Create your own style

What makes you and me unique is that each has their own style, create that style, that identity, stick to it, and apply it in everything you do. Never ever sound like somebody else! Stay unique!

Rule #5: Break all the rules

Break all rules, almost whenever you read about rules the last one is telling you know when to break all of them. Nothing is written in stone, your style might be to copy people’s styles to show them how horrible it is. You might want to write in big words since you are the creator of the thesaurus and you use all these words daily… Just know when it is time to break the rules and when it is time to abide by them.

I hope that this was helpful to you as it was to me, thanks Raja!

PS: there are 5 rules not 6, yes, this is intentional, I only felt like sharing 5.