Writing with Passion and Being Real

The other day I was reading a mom blog. Being a parent is the hardest job there is: taking care of a little person, body, mind and spirit... and hopefully investing in them a love of life, a love of learning, gratitude and kindness. Sometimes, blogs seem to just be showcases of what is good in other people's lives, and they rarely show the real life, the mess, the times you feel like you're getting it all wrong.
But this blog I was reading? It was all about realness. This mom decided, 4 years ago, that she was going to share all of life. From amazingly good to heartbreakingly bad... and some things have truly been heartbreakingly bad. In the midst of it, the common thread through all her writing is about affirming moms. Yesterday morning, I sat there reading with tears running down my face, because I felt deeply understood.
And I'm not the only one. This mom has a huge following, is doing a book tour for her first book, and has inspired a group of women who support each other virtually and in real life.
I started to think about how this mom writes and communicates. Wouldn’t we all love to inspire our site’s visitors to be our fans, to comment and engage, to be better people for reading what we write?

It's all about being real and being passionate.

What about if your subject isn't something that stirs up passion in your soul? What if you're writing about cell phones or garden hoses or whatever your niche may be? You might even like what you're writing about, but how do you translate real passion into your content?
In my last blog, I wrote about Kyle's writing technique that totally transformed content writing for me and freed me up from writing boring, formal content (and taking hours to do it). Here's how I add another level to that and bring in being real and being passionate.
With my eyes closed, writing, I imagine one of my very good friends sitting across the table from me. We are having one of those great conversations, laughing hard, enjoying each others' company. What if it were MY friend asking the question that prompted the keyword I'm writing about? What if she were asking me about scrapbooking in her busy life? Or telling me she always wanted to learn to play piano but pretty much thought it was too late? (Those are two of my niches.)
What if your site visitor was really a good friend sitting across the table asking you a question? You might not be able to drum up much emotion about the latest cell phone but you would totally want to give your friend the very best advice you could, you'd want to help out in any way you could, right?
The passion can come as you think about the fact that your goal with your website is truly to help people. Yes, we do all want to have successful business and we are working toward financial freedom. But I believe the very best way to do that is by giving first: great information, and a little of yourself -- your personality, your opinions, your real voice.

Fix in your mind the goal of helping people, and build your website with content fueled by that passion.

And, don’t forget to write with your eyes closed. :-)