Essential Guide For Writing Content
1. RESEARCH
Whatever your subject is, you need to have extensive knowledge about it, as well as materials to support it – statistics, metrics, pictures, videos, etc. Collect all before you start writing content. You can later decide either to use or discard the excess data.
2. STAY ON THE POINT
Keep ONE key message flowing throughout the text. In content writing sometimes we tend to wander off from the main subject, especially in longer forms. Plan and create your content in advance, even in graphic if you need to.
3. BRUSH UP YOUR STYLE
Strive to be recognizable by adapting the tone of your writing. Shape your creations to correspond and convey the message/mission of your brand/business.
4. HOOK THEM!
Catch the ear of your listener! The term hook applies to popular music genres, but it’s necessary for content writing as well. It’s a musical, or in this case – written, an idea that makes your content appealing, attention-grabbing, memorable, commercial, and/or provocative. (Add more.)
5. EDIT
First-hand writing is never as good as it gets. Before you publish any piece of writing, do your editing. Check your spelling, grammar, style, syntax, etc. This advice sounds superficial but it’s necessary. After the general check, do your content editing and check if your text has a comprehensive, effective, logical flow, etc.
6. OPTIMIZE
Don’t neglect important keywords and use keyword-rich phrases in your text. Use social media to improve the reach and stimulate content sharing. In turn, it will improve traffic to your website or blog, Use most of your visuals also – enrich them with effective alt tags, brand colors. Support your content with relevant links to other texts, websites, or blogs to improve the credibility of your writing.
7. CONTENT WRITING AND UX
Google is evolving fast. The new updates making user experience (UX) critical in the quality ranking criteriums. SEO and UX now have common goals. That being: creating (Google-rewarding) user-based, user-friendly, focused, useful, and beautiful content. Get to know your audience, what they need, love, like, and search for and apply those principles in your content writing and web development.
8. MAKE THEM FEEL
No matter the format, if the content doesn’t provoke an emotional response, it’s not worth it. As we very well know, it doesn’t have to be a positive emotion, but it has to have an impact.
9. DESIGN
Yes, it has everything to do with text. Think about the bigger picture – the look of your content in a mobile version. Consider the menus, headlines, powerful bullet points, layout of text and visuals, and so on.
10. RELEVANCE
Quality over quantity is the best advice on content creation. Do your homework and don’t let the customers see your writing as a waste of time. Statistically, when a person opens your text online you have around 10-15 seconds to grab their attention. Go and check out the bounce rate of your latest text and the time of reading, just for research purposes.
11. RELEVANCE (Again!)
Better known as INVERTED PYRAMID – Online reading process is task-based. It is eye scanning and searching for the benefits or information the reader needs. Organize your content by relevance. Address the most important questions from the beginning, so the reader understands the point fast and wants to read on.
12. USE ACTIVE VOICE
Active language makes your writing more compelling. Trust what you hear. Sometimes the best way to see if the sentence is persuasive is to read it aloud. Correct use of active voice in content writing already sounds like a call to action, which is exactly the point of such texts.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST What NOT TO DO in content writing:
13. USE OF LONG PARAGRAPHS
Okay, Yoast and many more SEO optimizing tools won’t allow you to be too wordy. Readability checkers are getting more and more sophisticated also. Make your life/writing easier and adapt your content before a plugin tells you so.
14. COMPLICATED LANGUAGE/WORDS
A huge no-no! The best way to reach your customers is to write in an informative yet informal, conversational way. Still, be cautious with too much creativity, humor, or profanities that may not resonate with your audience. You should ‘sound’: smart, credible, and professional.
15. DON’T OVER ADVERTISE
In the eyes of the reader, your writing will be much less trustworthy if you over-sell your product. Advertizement itself isn’t bad on its own, but the whole point of creative content writing is to give value and to help users. To keep your readers, give them a feeling and a reason for that ad, and do it naturally without offending their intelligence.
REMEMBER: The expert in anything was born a beginner.
