Content Writing in 2017 Is Easier Than You Think

Proper content writing is essential in any SEO or marketing efforts. Ultimately, content writing is a big factor on whether or not a visitor of your website will stay or leave. To make sure that your website ranks and visitors stay on your website you have to offer them quality content.

Quality content is often a challenge because you have to put a lot of thought on what your readers would want to read and research on these topics. There’s also the matter of consistency, you need to be able to present your readers with quality content consistently. Additionally, quality content is not the only problem, but also the matter of being able to write a certain number of articles in a specific amount of time. So, being able to efficiently write SEO articles is a must.

Just to put your mind at ease here are some tips on content writing:

Headlines are considered as your writeup’s first impression. Your headline needs to be able to pique the interest of your reader if you want your article to have a chance of being read. It needs to give the reader what they’re looking for without being too lengthy. You can image that writing a 600-word article is difficult for whatever reason you may have. The real caveat, however, is writing something impactful

If you try to be too creative you may lose your readers. Readers on the web tend to be on the go which means that they need information fast. If readers see that you are beating around the bush they may just leave the page altogether. That’s one thing that you want to avoid as a writer because you want to get as many people as you can to read your content. If they avoid it because it’s too fancy or too long then you’re being counterproductive.

As you write you have to represent yourself or your brand through the voice that you use. Whether that voice is academic or casual is up to you and the image you want to portray, just make sure to keep this voice consistent. If you present yourself as an academic, then you have to maintain that image or tone as much as you can. If you present yourself as quirky or fun, then the same applies.

 

Know who you are writing for, writing for a specific audience is important because it will determine the impact of your content. You need to match the topics that you write about to the audience that it will be relevant to. Check “Use Readable Words” for more information.

 

To make sure that your content is appreciated, you should write about topics that are relevant in terms of timing and audience. Relevant content that readers will value are topics talking about concepts that can be used in their day to day life or about a current issue.

Readable content uses words that are easily understood. Remember that you are trying to cater to the masses. Using complex words and jargons may give readers reason to misjudge your content as something too academic.

However, that’s only the case if you aren’t writing for a technical journal or an SEO website. For people like me who cater to experts and beginners alike, there’s always the debacle of whether or not I use industry-specific jargon for my articles. In fact, even basic terms like SEO and SEM can be seen as confusing by non-SEO specialists.

I say as much as possible, use words that are legible for the masses. If, however, you are writing for a more advanced crowd, it doesn’t hurt to ‘play their song’ by using words that they are comfortable with. It just depends on your situation and your expertise on wordplay. Try a few things out and try to get to know your readers more. You never know what you can learn from replying to a single comment or two.

It is hard to read articles that are ‘filled’ with words, inserting a few images in between paragraphs don’t just make your content more pleasing to the eyes but it may add more information. The most important function of images is that they can be used to drive your point across. You can emphasize or even humanize words with the correct usage of an image. Try it.

If you are going to write about any topic whether it is difficult or not, I don’t recommend just pulling ideas off of the top of your head. Make sure that every claim that present as ‘fact’ is easily understood and can be backed up with either experience or empirical data. You don’t want to mislead your readers with wrong information.

You want to build your reputation by spreading content that is worth sharing and not the other way around. Before you write something, think about the consequences of each and every word. If they can lead to people learning and yourself becoming more reputable (in a good way), then by all means, do so after your research.

Do not settle for your initial work, make sure to re-read every single paragraph to make sure that your work is free from errors. If you are not confident in editing your own work maybe you can ask a colleague or a friend to go through it for you – and this is fine if you are doing this for the first few times.

I recommend becoming independent from ‘peer editing’ as having the ability to evaluate your own work is a skill that not many people have. Anything that makes you a little bit better at writing and publishing your own work is a must-have skill and I speak from experience. I have lapses on my own every now and then but I do my best to learn from them, which is why I am the person that I am today.

Avoid mistakes but do not be afraid to make them. Start slow and ask for your colleagues’ input or help in editing your work. Do so with the end goal being you having the ability to scrutinize your own article or content with ease in the future.

It is important that you are not just writing content that is readable but it should also be optimized for digital content. By using short paragraphs and bullet points you are making your content SEO friendly and much easier to be searched for.

These are a few tips to keep in mind to make sure that you create quality content that will be beneficial for your readers. Your content should be unique to you and what your topics are about but at the same time catered to your audience. As you can see, creating quality content is not as hard as it seems, so get on it and start contributing to society.