Whether you’re pursuing a career as an entrepreneur, an academic writer, a marketer, or a blogger, few things are more important to your future than polishing your skills as a writer. A verbal pitch can go a long way, but at some point you’re going to have to put your ideas onto paper, or word document, and that’s when a project can get cumbersome. Even the process of corresponding with businesses or corporate financial entities becomes more fluid when you possess solid writing skills. If you’re applying for a Discover student loan, for instance, and you craft a compelling letter to the Executive Account Manager, your chances of success rise significantly higher. With that said, here are few time-weathered strategies for improving your written content:

Organize and outline. Do not start writing until you have a solid outline. This doesn’t just mean a few phrases scribbled in haste. Your outline should act as a guide to every section of your missive. Not only do you want a beginning, middle, and end to the content as a whole, you should work to build in beginnings, middles, and ends, to each individual section as well. This will keep your post feeling organized and on-point. Many papers, blogs and marketing copy go awry because they are disorganized, and because the author didn’t work off of a solid outline. You wouldn’t start building a tower without a blueprint, would you?

Have a thesis, and several sub-theses. Your paper, blog, pitch, or story should have an overall thesis that you are working toward illustrating. All of your points and examples should be supporting this central thesis. You should also have several smaller theses that back up the main one in different ways. If you’re writing a blog post or marketing pitch, your ‘headers’ would be your sub-theses. They are their own points, but work to affirm aspects of your overall point.

Write clearly, concisely, and powerfully. These are three characteristics that are hard to combine. Many people would think that if you write clearly and concisely, you can’t also write powerfully. But writing powerfully doesn’t mean using obtuse metaphors or stringing together Faulkner-like sentences that leave your readers feeling bewildered. Writing powerfully requires that you be clear and concise. Use adjectives sparingly. Be economical with page space. Don’t compare patently human endeavors with poetic cosmic cycles too often.

Being a good writer doesn’t require that you memorize the dictionary or try in vain to imitate classic authors. Being a good writer means scribing in an organized, concise, purpose-driven manner. You must treat the act of writing as craft, with structural components that you constantly work to improve upon.

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In the online world, success is all about generating traffic. Traffic is measured in terms of “hits” (the number of times your page is accessed by someone on the Internet). Your hit count is a measure of how many potential customers or readers you are reaching and is also used by advertisers to determine where they choose to buy ad space. The better written your content, the more likely readers are to return to your site again and again, thereby improving your hit count. But beware; writing for an online audience is very different than writing for a print audience.

Writing Advice

Online visitors don’t actually read, they scan. Online articles must be brief, informative and attention-grabbing to be effective. Headlines should be short and should clearly inform the reader of the article’s topic. Avoid exclamation points, jokes and puns in your headline unless you are writing a humor column. Use a conversational tone, but don’t be sloppy. Avoid slang, jargon or undefined abbreviations if you are writing for a professional site. Personal bloggers have more latitude in terms of language and tone, but the most respected bloggers adhere to professional rules. Remember that new readers will likely find you by entering one or more keywords into their search engine. Scatter the keywords a searcher is most likely to use throughout your text.

Editing Advice

Grammar, spelling and punctuation still count. So does accuracy. Check your writer’s facts, particularly in scholarly settings. Online researchers typically consult more resources than print researchers. Literate and correct content implies professionalism and expertise—two things that will keep researchers coming back to your site in the future. Rein in flowery writers and those fond of dependant clauses. Two short sentences make for better online reading than one long one. Base your stylistic corrections on the approved source guide for your site (Chicago, MLS, SLS, AP, etc.) Monitor keyword saturation. Gratuitous use of keywords can actually cause your search engine rating to drop.

General Advice

The rules for online content are different than those for print content. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Never underline a word or phrase unless it is an online link to another site. Always write in the active tense and use the fewest words possible to get your meaning across. “Experts consider blueberries a healthful fruit” is preferable to “blueberries are considered to be a healthful fruit by most experts.” Assume your audience can read at a ninth-grade level unless your site is directed at highly educated or technical audiences.

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Writing is a necessity in our society. However, according to Andrea A. Lunsford of Stanford University, most writers make similar mistakes. Luckily, you do not need a degree in English to amend common oversights. Recognizing the most common errors can help you improve your writing.

Where Do Commas Go?

The proper use of commas may seem difficult, but it really isn’t. The most common writing mistake is failure to separate two independent clauses with a comma and a coordinating conjunction. Plain English? When you write two complete sentences, sometimes you join them with an “and” or “but.” To be correct, a sentence like this needs a comma before the “and” or “but.” For example, “I went to the store, and I bought some bread.” Insert a comma before the “and” because the phrases on each side are complete sentences. Simple enough?

Another common error is the absence of commas around parenthetical phrases. Put commas around a phrase you could take out of the sentence without changing its meaning. For example, “My best friend, the sweetest girl in the world, will be visiting tomorrow.” Notice the commas around “the sweetest girl in the world.” You could remove that phrase, and the sentence would still make sense. If the phrase is necessary for the sentence to make sense, you do not use a comma. To illustrate, “My student Tom is very smart.” Unless there is only one student, the name is vital to the sentence.

Which Witch Is Which?

In English, it’s easy to confuse similar words. Learn the correct versions of common words. “There” is a place. “Their” is always possessive. “Their house is beautiful.” “They’re” has an apostrophe. It is a contraction for “they are.” “They’re coming tomorrow.”

“Too” refers to an excess or “in addition to.” It has two Os, as in “too much.” The word “to” is a transition word, usually referring to a place or a direction. “Go to the doctor.” And lastly, the number 2 is written as “two.” Think of the “W” as geometric to remind you.

You and Me… Me and You

Pronouns can be tricky. The following phrase in incorrect: “Me and Molly are going to the movies.” The pronoun “me” is incorrect. Take out the other person’s name, and read the sentence. You are left with, “Me are going to the movies.” You wouldn’t say that. You would say, “I am going to the movies.” The correct pronoun, in this instance would be “I.” To revise, “Molly and I are going to the movies.”

Here’s another example: “She wants to go with Sarah and I.” Once more, take away the other name. We are left with, “She wants to go with I.” To correct the sentence, change it to, “She wants to go with Sarah and me.”

Can I Be a Writing Expert?

The online writing lab of Purdue University offers many helpful resources. You can check out their proofreading section at owl.english.purdue.edu. No writer will ever be perfect, but you can avoid most common mistakes.

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