If you have ever felt so confused about content writing that you don’t know what it’s all about or how to start? Or you want to how to reach out to the public(audience) through words, but you don’t know how to go about it?
Yours might even be that, you want to start a career either as a content writer or as a content marketer, not to worry further. In this article, we will be sharing with you what you need to know about content writing as well as the tools and tips to write amazing content.
We will also be sharing with you the difference between content writing and content marketing. You would wonder, what is the difference? are they not the same, right? Well, they are not the same, but not completely different.
You will learn more in the coming paragraphs of this article.
Meanwhile, hear what one of our students has to say after registering and practicing what was taught in our 90% practical digital marketing course.
As you must have seen in the video above, we teach our students and they get results when they practice what they are being taught.
We will not only teach you how to master the art of content writing, but we will also teach you other aspects of digital marketing. You should register.
Content writing is one platform that provides you with space to share your knowledge and allow other people to learn from you. It could be to promote your business, generate traffic, or express your thoughts and experiences.
This brings us to the question of what is content writing.
What is Content Writing?
Content writing is the process of drafting out content to communicate a message to your target audience.
Creating content can mean different things to different persons but they all have a common feature which is pieces of information and target audience.
Content writing can also be said to be the process of putting pieces of information together for the sole purpose of sharing and reaching a target audience regardless of the goals attached to this process.
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Yes, for every action you intend to take either as an individual or as a business owner, you should specify your goals. By doing this, you know what to expect as a result. Your goals should follow the SMART template.
- S- Specific
- M- Measurable
- A- Attainable
- R- Relevant
- T- Time-based
Your goals for content writing should also follow this template.
When you know what you want to achieve, you can set out strategies to achieve them and you can measure your steps, in the case whereby you are not getting your desired result or your content writing goals are not achieved, you might have to go back to the board and restrategize.
Identify what you might be doing wrong or even what you could be doing right, take notes, and improve on them.
According to Heidi Cohen, Content is high-quality, useful information that conveys a story presented in a contextually relevant manner to solicit an emotion or engagement. For content to be considered one, it has to be
- Informative
- readable
- Engaging
- High quality
- Valuable
For content writing, you have to write this content, and that is why we said that content writing is the drafting of written content. Contents come in various types, from audio content to videos, to images to infographics.
This is not our focus in this article but you must know that they exist. These written contents are what get repurposed to the other types of content that exist.
Contents don’t necessarily have to be blog posts or social media posts as you would see in the other paragraphs of this article, anything you can write down and not necessarily publish can still be called content writing.
Everybody has the potential to be a content writer, but not everyone can be a content writer. Because content writing involves more than just putting words to papers, it goes way deeper than that.
To step into the waters of content writing, you have to do extensive research about your topic, read from other people to get their writing style and tone, identify your target audience and the language through which you can reach them, and many others that we would be talking about in this article.
As we said earlier in this article, in our 90% practical digital marketing course, we teach our students all they need to know about content writing and other aspects of digital marketing.
Why Is Content Writing Important?
Effective content writing can helps you establish your brand as an authority in your industry. Writing is about more than just putting words on a page, it’s about crafting a message that resonates with your audience and sets your brand apart from the competition. It shows that you care about your audience and are committed to providing them with valuable information. This builds trust and credibility, which can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
Types of Content Creation
1. Web Content
This is an aspect that deals with website content, like in the image below. Website contents are pieces of detailed and compelling information for the readers on websites. This is different from a blog.
An example of website content. Source: Digital Marketing Skill Institute
Another example of website content is from the same source.
Website contents are written words directed to website visitors.
A website content writer is responsible for the content you see on any website you visit. As a website content writer, you write relevant content for websites with the sole aim of speaking to a target audience and potential visitors of the website.
2. Blogging
Blogging has to do with writing write-ups to be self-published online. It started as an opportunity for individuals to write and share their diary-style entries, but in recent times, it has been incorporated into websites for many businesses.
To get started with blogging, you have to own a blog and write as often as you can, engaging and informative writeups.
A blog is an online journal or informational website displaying information and knowledge for a target audience. It is usually for writers or a group of writers to share their views and experiences on a subject topic.
3. Social Media Content
Social media content is a type of content writing that has to do with creating content to share on social media platforms. This one is different from the other two types earlier discussed.
This type of content can either be for promoting a business or an individual brand, whichever one it is, it is vital for existence and growth on social media platforms.
4. Ad and Sales Copy
This type has to do with creating content for the sole purpose of selling and making a profit. An ad copy is a sales letter that is written to address the possible and likely objections a customer might have.
It also includes the key features and benefits that a customer will receive when he/she takes a purchasing step. While a sales copy is a text written to convince an individual or a target audience to buy a product or service.
Sales copy can be written in paragraph form, lists, or overlayed on an image. the right sales copy must focus on how the customer can benefit from whatever product or service you are selling.
An example of a sales copy.
We also have Expert, or industry writing, Journalistic and news writing, creative writing, and many others.
5. Creative Writing
Creative writing encompasses the super creative projects that companies do, and it virtually enhances and supports every other type of content on the list.
For example, Marketing copy can be creative as well as Social media, blogs, web content, and even advertisements. There’s no limit here. From a tweet on Twitter to a blog, creative writing can be woven in anywhere.
It can be said to be a blend of a writer’s talents such as writing stories, humor-filled jokes, and appropriate jokes, etc, as well as using them in one of the other formats discussed above.
Five Steps To Writing An Awesome Content
To write awesome content, there are some steps you have to follow.
1. Identify your audience
Proper identification of your target audience helps you know what to write and how to write in the tone and language that your target audience can understand.
Your content should speak the language of your audience, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to come up with anything to satisfy your audience.
An informal and conversational approach works best when you are creating content, and the one way to know what works well for your target audience is to identify them and know what they want.
You need to speak their language, but it doesn’t mean settling for jargon that can clash with creative phrasing. Typically, an informal, conversational approach works best when you’re creating content.
2. Engage in keyword research
Either as an individual/ personal brand or as a business, in the digital world where we live and exist, content writing is closely knitted with SEO. Google and other search engines send organic traffic to websites, and to get this done quality content has to be in place.
To get quality content, you need to have done keyword research to determine what you will be writing on and evenly distribute this keyword in the content you create.
If your website or blog is loaded with generic or scraped content, it would be penalized by Google and buried three, four, or more pages back in the search results.
An advantage of a well-optimized website/content is that search engines have crawled your website and found it fully optimized ranks it first on the search results page and what that means for you is internet users get to see your website/blog at the top of the list of the search results.
SEO is vital, not only for ranking in search results but also for proper communication with clients, so topics and keywords should be in your mind while creating content.
For each topic you want to write about, you conduct thorough keyword research for the topic. On a regular day, you should have a list of important and relevant keywords that would suit your target audience and also align with the topic you select.
After doing this, you can now prioritize the highest-value keywords by the keyword’s search volume, average CPC, and keyword difficulty.
Google Planner is a tool you can use to achieve this.
Go for keywords that are realistically attainable for your brand either as an individual brand or a business brand, based on the domain authority of your site in relation to keyword difficulty.
Semrush’s Keyword Tool is a good tool for achieving this. It gets you insightful data, enabling you to research the entire market in your industry by starting with a seed keyword.
Source: SEMrush
Opt for keywords that are realistically attainable for your brand, based on the domain authority of your site in relation to keyword difficulty.
You can also rely on the ‘keyword difficulty’ metric; the lower it is for a keyword you provide, the easier it will be for you to rank higher on search engines.
3. Research
Leverage research in content writing as it improves the credibility of the article or write-up while adding value for the readers. Use government, educational, and news outlets as sources to enhance the quality of information you include in your content.
Provide your readers with relevant and honest content, this is the best way to maintain credibility as a writer. You don’t want your writer to find gaps or loops in the content you share.
Take your time to do thorough topic research, so you can get strong and strategic ideas for your content that will resonate with your target audience and drive results as well.
To do topic research, you should consider discovering your audience’s biggest pain points, search for them, and identify them. When you do it becomes a point of access for you because you know their needs and you will be meeting their needs through the content you create.
You can do this by looking at reviews online, google’s most-asked questions, and Quora articles that relate to a particular topic or industry in general.
Research what you want to write about reading what other people have written concerning the topic of your choice. In a world as technologically advanced as ours, it is possible to get access to what someone has written concerning a particular subject matter.
Unlike years ago, when this is not possible, now you can access this content from wherever you are as long as you have the internet.
4. Start Writing
Having followed through with the previous steps, you can now proceed with creating your content. Write as you would talk. See your readers as an imaginary friend with whom you are having a conversation.
A good content writer has to have the following skills, and even if you don’t have them, you can learn and practice them while learning.
1. Adaptability: You should be able to adapt to a style and tone for each assignment. The purpose of the content may require that your content be formatted to focus on detailed information to your target audience or provide a call to action.
If your objective for particular content is to increase sales, it will be different from scientific research content.
2. Originality: Your goal should be to provide original content and verified knowledge regardless of the subject. Make research and convert the results into interesting and informative content for your readers. The originality of your content has a positive impact on your readers as it presents your site as a reliable source of knowledge.
3. Time management: This allows you to allocate your time in such a way that you can meet all deadlines and at the same time provide quality content. Your ability to identify and prioritize projects according to their deadlines will also help as you will know which to give more priority and you can meet the deadline as well.
4. Communication: This is one vital skill you should have, it helps you to accurately convey your message to your target audience. your ability to transfer knowledge to your readers is important for successful marketing strategies. Proper communication skills are important for writers.
5. Editing: Your editing skills should be excellent as a writer. It increases the value and quality of the content. Read your content aloud to yourself, how does it sound to you? If it sounds satisfying to you, and if it doesn’t, you should go back and do the necessary.
There are several tools that you can use to edit your content as discussed in the earlier aspects of this article.
5. Setup your blog/website
Depending on the type of content you want to write, you should have a platform for them. You can’t be a content writer and not have a platform for your content.
A good way to be the best at something as strategic as content writing is to write consistently. Write everywhere, write anything. By doing this, you are building your writing capacity and pruning your writing skills. Good writers are not born, they are learned.
So if you want to be good, you learn, and when you learn you practice what you learn.
You can say, “Oh, I’m still job-hunting, there is nothing to write about”, but it’s wrong. If your interest lies in marketing, research and read widely about marketing put your thoughts down, and of course publish them. Let people see what you know.
It even helps to show prospective employers that you have done something with your skills and you are not just into content writing by the words of your mouth.
As a business owner, you should have a platform where you share your content, it helps to give your business credibility as the audience can identify you as a brand that is willing to share knowledge alongside making sales.
Just like what we do at Digital Marketing Skill Institute, we have a digital marketing blog where we share articles like the one you are reading. And you can find many other articles on digital marketing there.
This is one of the ways through which we share content.
Platforms where you can share your content.
How to Become a Content Writer
Develop your writing skills
To start writing, take courses or attend workshops to improve your writing skills. Read widely across different genres and topics to expand your knowledge and writing style. Practice writing regularly to hone your skills.
Finding your niche
Once you’ve developed your writing skills, identify the niches and industries you’re passionate about or have expertise in. If you’re trying to earn from your writing, research the market demand for content in those areas.
Building a portfolio
When applying for a job, you’ll need to show your previous work. Start by building a portfolio by writing on a blog or contributing guest posts to other blogs. This is what you’ll show when applying for a job.
Learn SEO
As a writer, you need to understand SEO. There are various SEO techniques you need to incorporate into your writing, and how to optimize content for search engines.
Starting to look for opportunities
After acquiring the skills, start applying for job opportunities. This could be an entry-level, full-time, or freelance position on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. This job will help you earn and also help you learn while developing your skills for more opportunities.
Tools for content writing
To get the best out of content writing, there are some tools that you need to get familiar with because you will need them.
1. Grammarly
This is a tool that allows you to spell correctly as well as check your grammar. This software can spot errors that other grammar-checking applications can’t.
It also helps you to optimize your text and makes it more readable. With Grammarly, you will become a better writer.
Source: Grammarly
2. Hubspot blog ideas generator
This tool is a blog idea generator, it thinks of ideas for you to write on on your behalf. All you need to do is to provide a noun up to five that explains what you intend to achieve. And boom! you have a week load of ideas at your disposal.
Source: Hubspot
3. Yoast SEO
This is a WordPress plugin that allows you to get more visitors from search engines like Google and Bing, attract more visitors for you on social media, and also increase your readers’ engagement.
SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. This is the process of optimizing your content for search engines to index and rank them in search results. This is one part of digital marketing that should never be ignored.
Source: YoastSEO
4. Hemingway
This is one tool that can be used alongside Grammarly. One of the benefits of using this tool is that it helps to highlight lengthy, complex sentences and common grammar errors.
A yellow sentence indicates that you need to shorten or split the sentence and a red highlight interprets that your sentence is dense and complicated so your readers will get lost and confused while trying to follow through, you can edit this sentence to remove the red highlight.
This tool is convenient for text editing systems. It suggests that you eliminate excessive adverbs and as well as turning passive voice constructions into active voice.
It has a counter showing the total number of words, characters, paragraphs, and sentences so you can make the necessary adjustments. The editor’s version is available for PC and Mac, and after editing, you can export the file in a markdown or HTML format.
You will make mistakes, so let machines help you out with typos and simpler grammatical errors so that you can spend your time on the narrative of the story.
Conclusion
Content writing is a crucial part of digital marketing. It involves creating high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your target audience. By understanding your audience and crafting content that meets their needs, you can build trust, drive conversions, and establish your brand as an authority in your industry. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, mastering content writing can help you achieve your goals and grow your business.
If you want to learn how to create quality content that readers will love to read and that ranks well on search engines, click here to learn how we can help you achieve that.
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