Part 1 of 2
Reading a blog post, can you tell if the author is using British or American English? Can you tell whether they’re native English speakers or not? Can you tell whether they’re educated or not? Does it read like the writer is speaking to you?
If you follow a certain blog, chances are you’d answer yes to one or all of these questions. So what? What’s the deal? Why is being able to identify these characteristics important? The short answer to these questions is simple – credibility. In this two-part article, we will explore this further.
The Credibility Factor in Authority-Building
Mulani previously talked about ways to improve your posts. I’d like to put more emphasis on a point raised in that article. The subject of credibility, as far as authority-building is concerned, is too important to be taken lightly.
Doctors and patients believe information on sites like WebMD. That’s really no surprise. Its content is widely accepted to be reliable. Why is that? Because the site has built a solid base of information gleaned from credible authors – health care professionals contributing to content generation either as writers or editors. The end result? WebMD is the overall number two in Alexa’s ranking of Top Health Websites, second only to NIH.
Besides health care professionals contributing to the site’s content, there are three things that are strikingly clear in WebMD’s articles that contribute to its credibility – tone, clarity, style.
Tone as an Element of Credibility
To the regular reader, tone would mean the feeling you get when reading an article. Yes, this includes being able to tell, just by reading an article, that it’s written by an educated American. Readers are more likely to believe you know what you’re writing about if you sound educated (at least on paper). You’d only sound educated if your wealth of knowledge is presented in crisp, Standard English. Regular people write like they speak and this is the common expectation of virtually everyone on the web. How your blog reads like is how you sound like when you speak with everyone in real life.
If you’re blogging about Photography, for example, whom do you think readers are more likely to find credible? A University student-sounding enthusiast who has taken some Photography courses or a professional photographer who sounds and reads like a fifth grader?
In part two, we will explore further the other two elements of credibility – clarity and style.
Read Part 2 here.
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