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8 Weak Words You Need to Edit Out of Your Next Blog

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Written by Neil Patel on June 14, 2016

The human attention span is now less than that of a goldfish – 8 seconds.

It calls for writing engaging content that provides answers to your audience’s most pertinent
questions.

That alone isn’t sufficient, though. You can’t afford to have even one loose sentence in your
entire article. Heck, just one wobbly word that deviates from your central idea will lead to a
loss of your reader’s interest.

So, you need to publish your arguments without fluff and in the minimum number of simplistic
words possible. Your first draft may not be your best. It will have weak and redundant words.
Your arguments might tend to slack off or be devoid of substance.

The problem isn’t solely with you. 26% of college graduates have deficient writing skills. Being
the internet generation, our words and grammar have taken a hit, as we text and tweet.

If you observe your writing intently, you’ll find patterns. There will be some common weasel
words that make you sound lazy and diminish your credibility.

Download this cheat sheet of 60 strong words you can add to your next blog post.

In this article, I want to help you eliminate 8 common weak words from your writing. I’ve also
included replacements, with examples (wherever possible). Let’s make your writing more
persuasive.

1. Stuff/Things

You probably use these words when you’re unclear of the specific descriptive noun for the
situation. For example – 4 things successful entrepreneurs do every morning.

Or, maybe you use it when you want to keep your tone informal and conversational. For
example – Can you please do this writing stuff for me?

If you’re in a business environment – the informality of these words makes you sound
unprofessional.

If you find an excessive usage of these two words, then it’s time to replace them with more
accurate and expressive words. Don’t expect the reader to spend extra energy to extract the
exact meaning behind your writing. It’s easier for them to just close tabs and visit another
website.

You can use the following replacements, based on the context – strategies, reasons, points,
concepts, aspects, elements and principles. Here are 10 more alternatives, by Speakspeak.com.
Example use case – 4 morning rituals of successful entrepreneurs.

2. Really/Very

Both of these words work like crutches, when used excessively and they make your writing
vague. Even Mark Twain didn’t like the word ‘very’ –

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the
writing will be just as it should be.”
Example – Blogging is really powerful for driving inbound leads. Or SEO is very important for
every online business.

The alternative to these words is using more powerful versions of the words you’re
modifying.

Example – Starving instead of really hungry. Or, exhausted instead of very tired.

Writerswrite has done a terrific job at compiling 45 word replacements for the word ‘very’.
Have fun with them. The replacements will work in most cases, even for the word ‘really’.
Note: You can occasionally use these modifiers to convey emphasis, but extreme usage will
lessen their impact.

3. Think/believe/feel

If you’re writing an article, it’s understood that you feel or think or believe in the ideas that you
share. Using these words will only portray you as under-confident and insincere. Don’t
announce new arguments by beginning your sentences with these words.

Rather, provide data, science, research and stats to support your ideas. It’ll build credibility.
Otherwise, get to the point directly and
save your reader’s time.

I regularly share my opinions or

predictions on my blog and they are fairly
popular, because I ensure that every
argument is backed by stats and research.
Here are 3 such recent articles that I
shared.

6 Social Media Trends That’ll Help

You Shape Your Marketing
Strategy in 2016

The Future of SEO: 5 Stats That Show Where Google is Heading

11 Alarming Online Marketing Stats That Should Influence Your Strategy in 2016

If you don’t have any substantial data support, eliminating these timid words from your
writing will make it more powerful. Let me demonstrate with an example.

Original: I think that college education isn’t necessary to venture into internet marketing.

Alternative: You don’t need college education to venture into internet marketing.

4. Is/Am/Are/Was

Do you know a key component that can make your writing vague and unclear?

It’s using a passive voice.

When you aren’t aware of the subject that performed the action, then you might be tempted
to turn to a passive voice.
Using different versions of the verb, “to be,” is an indication of the passive voice. And, it might
mean leaving out essential information.

Moreover, when your subject receives the action, then it can confuse the reader and make
your writing more bulky.

Unless it’s academic writing, it’s better to use an active voice. This might involve extra research
and conscious effort, but it’s worth it.

Original: Email subscribers were lost and traffic dropped.

Alternative: A couple of spam emails triggered email subscribers to opt out, thereby
decreasing traffic to the website.

Note: It’s okay to use passive voice when you actually want the readers to pay attention to the
object of your sentence, rather than the subject. Or, use it when you’re unaware of the subject,
but want to convey some information to the readers.

5. Better/Almost

Again, these two words symbolize vagueness.

 For example, you can’t conclude why a
subject is ‘better’ and the yardstick against
which it’s ‘better.’ Similarly, ‘almost’ is an
approximation that leaves an element of
doubt for readers. Using it excessively
will rob your writing’s persuasiveness.

A great alternative is providing your

readers with specific information and
data. Let me give an example for both
words.

Original – Now, your traffic is better.

Alternative – Your traffic is much better, after incorporating social media marketing last
month.

Original – You’ve almost completed the writing course.

Alternative – You’re only two 10-minute lectures away from completing the writing course.

6. Amazing

Movie titles. Advertising Slogans. Professional email exchanges. Social media news feeds.
Buzzfeed blog post headlines.

Look around and you’ll find the word is used, misused and overused every single day. There’s
no need for the subject to be surprising, remarkable, mind-blowing or wonderful, actually.

‘Amazing’ can creep into daily language as a replacement for any generic positive event that
does not astonish you or make your heart melt. For example – Watering my plants was
amazing (maybe you meant satisfying?)

The word is used so much that it has lost its impact, much like ‘awesome’ crept into our daily
language a while back. And, it harkens back to when ‘groovy’ was a part of 1960s slang.
Google books found the following surge in the word’s usage. And, mind you, this is how the
word’s use has shot up in printed books and less so in social media conversations.

Since the word has lost its sheen, I recommend that you use the word only when you’re truly
stunned or astonished. I suspect that isn’t going to happen regularly.

Rachel Parker has also compiled 101 alternative words, so that you can retire the word
‘amazing’ and expand your creative ability while writing.
7. Maybe/Perhaps/Always

People read your blog to learn from you. If you want to be perceived as an authority in your
niche, do the research and present a firm opinion.

‘Perhaps’ and ‘maybe’ don’t make the cut in concise and authoritative writing. Your audience
will not like to read long and random ramblings. Eliminate them from your writing. Let me
demonstrate, with an example, how you can cut the element of doubt from your writing.

Original – Maybe SEO will still matter for building website traffic in 5 years.
Alternative – SEO is not going to disappear in 5 years. Only the lines between social media
and SEO will blur.

Most times you’ll find that deleting the word in a sentence will restore certainty and make you
sound more confident.

Original – Perhaps blogging can help your business get more leads and subscribers.

Alternative – Blogging can help your business get more leads and subscribers.

‘Always’ is on the other end of spectrum. In most cases, it’s a forceful and hyped way of
presenting your argument. Instead of finding out the specific instances when an event occurs,
you took the lazy route and used ‘always’.

Most often, you’ll find that there are exceptions to your ‘always’ absolute statement. Similarly,
the word ‘never’ is dangerous and may make you sound ignorant. Let me show you an
example.
Original: Always wake up at 5 am and start writing.

Alternative: For many writers, early morning is the best time to get work done. It’s a great
starting point to find the time when you’re most productive.

8. Just/Literally

Neither of these filler words add value to your argument.

Deleting the word ‘just’ will, most times, tighten your prose without affecting the meaning of
the sentence. Many times, this word is supposed to soften requests, but it ends up hurting
your credibility and undermining your message. Here’s an example.
Original: Just publish high-quality content
consistently every week for 6 months and
you’ll start to see search engine traffic
surge.

Alternative: Publish high-quality content

every week without fail – after 6 months,
you’ll start to experience the fruits of your
dedication and see a surge in search
engine traffic.

Similarly, it’s obvious that you’re literally

meaning the arguments you’re publishing.
There’s no need to clarify it. The word is
used (or often misused) in informal conversations, when you want to be taken seriously in the
midst of a joke.
Most often, you’ll find that the word is actually misused as a synonym for the words, “really” or
“actually”.

Its overuse triggered “Parks and Recreation’’ co-creator, Michael Schur, to craft Rob Lowe’s
character for his NBC sitcom with a love for the word.

Original: You literally need to write every day to improve your creative abilities.

Alternative: Write every day to improve your creative abilities.

2 tools to help you cut slack from your writing

I listed the most commonly overused and weak words that hinder you from presenting your
arguments powerfully. But, it’s impossible to create an exhaustive list (Jon Morrow’s list of 297
flabby words is probably the best one on the subject).

I want to share a couple of tools that will help you cut the slack and prevent you from
sabotaging your brand.

1. Hemingway App – Ernest Hemingway was renowned for his brief sentences and simple
language. This simple text editor app analyzes your writing and helps you tighten your prose.

Once you paste a paragraph into the tool, your text will be highlighted with –

simpler alternatives to weak words,

instances of passive voice,

hard to read sentences,

a grade score of the readability of the text

Here’s an analysis of a chunk of text from my beginner’s guide to online marketing.

You can see that there are 6 sentences that are hard to read and the overall readability is at
grade 8. Once you fix the long sentences, your readability score will improve. It’s a great tool
to find out your recurring writing mistakes and fix them.
2. Copyscape – Copied and republished content from your website can rank higher in search
results. Journeys by Design was found to lose their rankings to duplicate content.
Meet Copyscape – it’s a great tool to find the genuineness of content and find any floating
plagiarized pieces (stolen or duplicated) from around the web.
Conclusion

Global Lingo found that 74% of consumers paid attention to the quality of grammar and
spelling on a brand’s website. Indeed, 59% said that they wouldn’t deal with a company that
had an obvious grammar or spelling mistake on their website.

Hence, it’s important to pay attention to your language, word choices, grammar and spelling.
Pick a blog post and search for occurrences of the weak words I’ve listed in this article. There’s
a high possibility that you’ll find a couple instances of these words polluting your arguments.

Generally, I recommend that you eliminate these redundant words from your writing.
However, understanding the context where I’ve mentioned these weak words is of utmost
importance. You might find that using these words occasionally will not limit the language. It’s
rather a situational demand.
It’s your turn now. Which of the above words are you guilty of using excessively in your writing?
Are there any other weasel words that you see tossed around excessively in blog posts? Let me
know in the comments below.

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Comments (24)

June 14, 2016 at 8:10 AM

Neil Patel
Hey Everyone,
I forgot to mention that I recently released a webinar that shares my7 best marketing tactics.

Would love to know what you think...it's filled with over 60 minutes of marketing tactics... all for free.

Click here to check it out. Let me know what you think. :)

And if you still need more help growing your business after you watch the webinar, contact me and I will
personally help you.

June 14, 2016 at 8:44 AM

James
Absolute worth to read this epic content
PS: Just shared tweeted this with my social followers really help all
thanks

REPLY

June 14, 2016 at 12:00 PM

Neil Patel
You’re welcome James!

REPLY

June 14, 2016 at 8:48 AM

Nishant Patar
Holly cow !! This is what I want for improving Article. Love it. Please mention more free grammar and
sentence based tools. Thanks..

REPLY

June 14, 2016 at 12:00 PM

Neil Patel
 You’re welcome Nishant!

REPLY

June 14, 2016 at 5:43 PM

Allan Mantaring
This is great ideas for me. Helps a lot in my writing. Thank you.

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:16 AM

Neil Patel
You’re welcome Allan, glad it was helpful

REPLY

June 14, 2016 at 10:08 PM

Peter Pero
Worth article for content writers to improvising their writing skills. Helpful for all. Good sharing.

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:19 AM

Neil Patel
Great to hear!

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 12:41 AM

June 15, 2016 at 12:41 AM

Saurabh K
Great post Neil. An eye opener for bloggers, like me.

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:22 AM

Neil Patel
Great to hear it Saurabh

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 2:37 AM

Basharath
Hello sir
very good article. Highly useful for us. Many things need to be learnt from this article.

Thank you for sharing

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:26 AM

Neil Patel
Glad this was helpful Basharath!

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 3:54 PM

Hamza Tariq
Don’t know what to say, but kind of guilty right now for using all these words on regular basis in my blog
posts. Already tried many times to change the way I communicate with my readers, implemented
Grammarly in my writing process to avoid passive voice and all these bulky statements.

REPLY

June 16, 2016 at 11:00 AM

Neil Patel
Well at least you have a better idea now of how to put it together

REPLY

June 16, 2016 at 11:18 AM

Vikash Sharma
This is really awesome post. I was not aware about this and unknowingly using such words. I will definitely
try to avoid these words in future. Thanks a lot for helping us with this.

REPLY

June 17, 2016 at 1:32 PM

Harsha Perera
Great article, Neil. Thank you fro sharing!

REPLY

June 18, 2016 at 1:25 PM

Neil Patel
You’re welcome Harsha

REPLY
June 17, 2016 at 1:52 PM

Steven Pofcher
Terrific post. (Can I say awesome – just kidding.)
Sad that many people do not know how to write or, even worse, how to spell.
I learned many years ago when my administrative assistant would not let me send memos to my boss until I
re-wrote them. And she was always right.
Thank you for the Hemingway app.

REPLY

June 18, 2016 at 1:26 PM

Neil Patel
It’s one of my favorites Steven, I’m glad it exists!

REPLY

June 18, 2016 at 11:51 AM

Suvrutt Gurjar
Hi Neil,
As usual insightful information. You have been consistently and immensly equipping your readers with
insights though your blogs. Will immediately implement your inputs . Thank you
( On lighter side: After reading your post I have refrained from writing, Hi Neil, Your posts are “very”
informative. You “always” give “amazing” insights to your readers.)

Thank you again for an informative post.

REPLY

June 18, 2016 at 1:39 PM

Neil Patel
lol good for you Suvrutt, you see how that helped you become MORE creative?
 REPLY

June 20, 2016 at 7:25 AM

Holly
Thank you! I enjoyed this article. More than I can remember, putting it in my reference file. Your generosity
and enthusiasm and palpable, I appreciate that!

REPLY

June 20, 2016 at 12:13 PM

Neil Patel
It’s my pleasure Holly, let me know if you have any questions

REPLY

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