Persuasive Writing Tips for all the Bloggers

By Drew Meyers | September 28, 2007

There has been an explosion of real estate blogging within the last 2 years, and the writing can range from posts that are thoughtful and well-written to those that are mind-blowingly bad. Great writing is hard to achieve, no doubt. It takes time, commitment, a voice, research, and an argument. Persuasion is a huge part of it — whether the topic is dual agency, the housing crash, or divorcing commissions — writers are often aiming to persuade their audience that their argument is right. Sure, your audience will certainly disagree from time to time, but your goal is to persuade your audience to understand your perspective through a well-written, well thought-out article.

For those of you just beginning to write, or simply striving to improve, there is a fantastic article over at CopyBlogger by Brian Clark that outlines 10 proven techniques to persuasive writing. Here are the 10 techniques (click the article to read Brian’s thoughts behind each technique):

Repetition
Reasons Why
Consistency
Social Proof
Comparisons
Agitate and Solve
Prognosticate
Go Tribal
Address Objections
Storytelling

I’ve been blogging pretty heavily for just over a year now. One technique from the list really resonates with me — and not because it is used often, but because it is not used often enough — is:

Addressing Objections: Too often, blog articles address all the pros to an argument without giving the counter-points. To me, that tells me the author really didn’t think through the whole argument — which means it’s a less persuasive argument. To be fair, I’ve probably done this from time-to-time when I’m short on time (hey, no one is perfect).

Now go read Brian’s article!

Author's Website: http://www.zillow.com