Writing Skills

When I first started editing articles for HubSpot’s Marketing Blog, I honestly figured it would be the easiest part of my job. I imagined it would go something like this: I’d open a clean, nearly ready-for-publication Google Doc, skim it for the occasional missing comma or broken link, and be…

If you’re a blogger, you’ve probably asked your editor “how long should this blog post be” more times than you’d care to admit. And most of the time, you’ll hear an answer that sounds something like this: “However long it needs to be.” There’s certainly a nugget of truth in…

How to Write an Introduction Grab the reader’s attention. Present the reason for the post’s existence. Explain how the post will help address the problem that brought your reader to it. Blink. Blink. Blink. It’s the dreaded cursor-on-a-blank-screen experience that all writers — amateur or professional, aspiring or experienced —…

There’s a lot of material out there about writing great headlines. Hey, getting someone to click on your article is a critical part of your blogging strategy. But what about writing introductions? Compelling readers to actually read the article is an art form in and of itself — and if…

Delivering high-quality content is an undeniably critical component of any successful marketing strategy. Content creation can help your business rank highly in search engines for keywords related to your core products or services, increase your brand awareness, and allow you to engage more genuinely with an audience. In fact, marketers…

After writing The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway famously said his novel was “the best I can write ever for all of my life.” To a certain extent, he was right. The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and was specifically…

When I was nine, I wrote a short story for my avid reader base … a.k.a. my mom and dad and dog, Maggie. It was about roller coasters and featured my best friend Abby, but that’s about all I remember from my first literary masterpiece. I’ve always loved writing, and…

What do the lines “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time”, “Baby, you’re a firework”, and “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long” all have in common? The obvious answer is that they’re lyrics from famous songs. The not so obvious…

Talking to someone who constantly jumps from one unrelated topic to the next is a strange experience. The entire conversation seems random and unfocused, which makes it hard to stay engaged, and easy to say, “I gotta go”. Needless to say, it’s annoying to talk to people who try to…

Nowadays, we communicate primarily through direct message and email, even in the workplace. In this era of fast-paced digital communication, letters often seem unnecessary and even antiquated. But knowing how to address a business letter can go a long way when it counts — like when you’re trying to impress…