A Passive Voice In Writing A Blog Has Its Place

Posted at 13:56pm on 3rd February 2009

I began this article by titling it: There’s A Place For Passive Voice In Writing A Blog – then immediately realised that it was totally contra to what I was about to say in the body of the article! You see! Even when you’ve been at it a while, you still err, because to err is human and it’s human to err! I’ll tell you why I changed the title in a moment.

But first, for those of you who subscribe to my blog, you will know that I wrote two pieces last month explaining What Is A Passive Verb? and suggesting that if you have work you’ve written in the passive voice, consider revising it to make it active.

Having thus advised all of you, who are authors, that Creative Writing should almost always be in the Active Voice, I completely overlooked the fact that many of you are bloggers, and that other advice might be more relevant in that respect.

KEYWORDS

If you’re blogging to make an income, then the whole idea is to attract people to your blog or website. My website, in case you haven’t noticed, carries no ads. This is deliberate. My aim is to sell my novel, A Painful Post Mortem, because all the proceeds are for charities helping children in need in various parts of the world.

But for you, and for me, the objective of attracting traffic (that's such an impersonal and impertinent word; I prefer to think in terms of visitors!) to our websites, is achieved by using Keywords. These are the two or three word phrases typed into a search box when people are looking for a particular item or piece of information. There are various sites which offer the blogger tables of Keywords; I tend to use Google Adwords.

Back to my title. Passive Voice In Writing is a Keyword phrase. And if you’re wanting to attract visitors to your website, you want that Keyword phrase up front in your title. I’m no expert when it comes to search engine optimisation, but I do know that it stands to reason: a search engine is more likely to pick up on the first few words of a title, rather than the last. Hence: A Passive Voice In Writing A Blog Has Its Place is preferable to: There’s A Place For Passive Voice In Writing A Blog!

The message is: don’t be afraid to use Passive Voice in titles and sub-headings if it brings your Keywords to prominence.

I’ll be writing more on the subject of verbs in the passive and active voice in a day or two. Do let us all know if you have anything to add or contradict on this subject. Leave a comment below.

This article may be reproduced on any non-commercial website or blog, on condition that it appears unaltered, in its entirety, and that the following copyright line and bio are prominently displayed beneath it.

© Mel Menzies: USED BY PERMISSION

Author of a number of books, one a Sunday Times No 4 Bestseller, Mel Menzies is also an experienced Speaker at live events, as well as on Radio and TV. This article, in its original format, can be found at: http://www.melmenzies.co.uk

All proceeds from Mel’s latest novel, A Painful Post Mortem, are for charities benefiting children worldwide. Buy a copy here and help raise cash for children like Rachel, who, at 13 is mother to 6 kids orphaned by AIDS, or this project, drug-proofing teenagers in the UK

Your Comments:

4th February 2009
at 3:02pm

That was a very interesting article. That is very clever for
getting traffic. That is something I need to work on. Thank
you.

4th February 2009
at 8:32pm

Thank you Rani. Lots of people have been kind enough to help me
to learn about blogging and social networking. I'm just passing
on some of that expertise. All the best. Mel

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