Use your writing voice to stand out online

You’ve been blogging, writing tweets, and keeping up with your weekly newsletter. But you feel like you’re being drowned out in the noise.

With so many online writers, having a unique online voice can be your biggest advantage.

In this article, we'll cover:

• 3 benefits of having a unique voice online
• How to find your unique writing voice

Let's dive in.

3 benefits of finding your unique voice

Stand out from the crowd

David Perell, Nicolas Cole, and Julian Shapiro are all excellent writers, but what truly makes them stand out is their unique voice. It’s why writers can talk about the same content and still succeed. Readers get invested in specific writers because of their unique stance on topics. It’s not always the topic that matters, it’s your own thoughts, opinions and values.

Become known for your style

Once you’ve developed your own voice, you can be easily recognised for it. People will see you writing and know it’s yours. Your unique voice gives you authenticity and credibility.

Attract the right audience

Your unique voice can lead you to the right opportunities.

This is how Alice Lemée landed her role as a newsletter writer for Slow Growth, Matt D'Avella's company. By sharing her own voice online, she attracted a client who shares the same values as her.

How to find your unique writing voice online

Besides writing consistently, there are other ways to develop your online voice.

Consume with intention

Consuming junk food all the time will leave your body feeling sluggish. Similarly, a bad content diet affects how you show up online.

When you mindlessly scroll, you get consumed by other people's ideas. But when you consume with intention, you learn to develop your own ideas that you can share with others.

Here are some ways to consume more intentionally:

• Read books that are interesting to you
• Curate your feeds so they’re inspiring
• Unsubscribe or mute channels that don’t help you create
• Make time to share what you've been consuming

Listen to yourself

If you regurgitate what other people have said online, you end up sounding like everyone else. To truly be authentic and have your unique voice you need to listen to your own thoughts and opinions.

Journalling is one of the simplest ways to do this. Lana Blakely talked about how she uses journalling as part of her creative process. By vividly documenting her day-to-day life, she can create content that’s aligned with her.

Coincidentally, this habit helped her grow her YouTube channel to 1 million subscribers.

Write about different topics

Finding your voice online takes time.

Often, a creator must experiment with different topics to know what resonates with them and their audience.

Instead of having a niche from the get-go, use content buckets to help you find your unique voice. You might talk about productivity, finance, and creativity, but the common thread through them is your own experiences.

Even though these topics are unrelated, people become invested in your story and your own perspective.

Think about your editing style

Are you a writer who uses long and descriptive sentences? Or do you prefer short, bold sentences like Hemingway?

There's no right or wrong answer here. But your unique writing voice flourishes when you make deliberate decisions during the editing process. Lawrence Yeo, the creator of More to That blog, writes 25-minute-read blog posts. The general rule of thumb online is to make your content as short as possible. But Lawrence stands out online with his own style.

Final Thoughts

Nothing beats a consistent practice to find your unique voice.

The more you write, the clearer your voice will become.

If you want to learn more about finding your voice online, listen to Akta's conversation with Lana Blakely on the Creators On Air podcast!

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