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13 Essential Content Writing Skills Required to be Successful, Ditch…
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Think about structure
Introduction: This is a firm foundation. Not only does it entice people to continue reading, but it outlines your reasons for writing and establishes your point of view, thesis or value proposition.
Each sentence and each point in your article should build upon the previous one. Anything that seems superfluous or that does not move the story on should be left out or rethought.
Avoid digressions, stay true to your introduction, include credible evidence where needed
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Organisational Skills
Organising means not only maintaining a clean workspace but organising your work assignments as well.
Keep your laptop decluttered and all the files neatly organised so it’s easy to find them when you need them.
Keep a calendar and know the deadlines of all your assignments. Submitting them after the due date sends a bad message to your clients and won’t earn you a reputation of a successful content writer.
Read more often, and more widely
Reading is the only way to nurture your writer’s brain, so read often and read broadly.
Making a habit of reading will expose you to different styles of writing and ways of structuring articles and content, which will benefit your own pieces.
analyzing your competition can help boost your own content marketing, as this guide demonstrates. As well as finding great articles to help inform your own writing decisions, analyzing competing content will also show you examples of bad work.
Research keywords
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Researching these keywords is a great way to really start digging into these topics, becoming more knowledgeable and informative of your readers’ intent — which aids great writing — and also helps you better understand your audience’s point of view.
While researching, pay attention to the different categories your keywords might potentially fit into. Primary keywords see lots of searches and should place your article higher in search engine rankings.
Tell your story
Storytelling is an engaging way of hooking your readers right from the start of an article or piece of copywriting.
A simple technique is to build real customer experiences into your writing. In a couple of paragraphs, sharing their problem or their challenge and how they worked hard to overcome it. Then step outside of the anecdote and relate it directly to the reader.
It helps the reader understand why something is important and how it relates to their situation.
If you learn how to build characters, plots and storylines into your work, you can contextualize ideas and help people relate to your content.
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Adaptability
Adaptability is the next important skill for content writing. You should be able to adjust your tone and style of writing as per the piece of content.
a blog post for a scientific equipment company will differ in tone from that of an organic food shop. So, more the styles you learn, and the quicker you adapt, the more valuable you will be as a content writer.
Strong Research Skills
An ability to search for interesting and trustworthy information is important. It adds credibility and value to your article.
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Write every day
Writing is something that takes practice. Unless you are one of a few very fortunate people, you will not become a prize-winning laureate by accident.
One top writing tip is simply to write as regularly as you can. This exercises that part of your brain which is responsible for your writing prowess.
Know your audience
You’ll need to focus on what issues are key to them and which topics they will want to read about. At the same time, you’ll need to think like a business owner and understand how your product or service relates to their needs.
It is also important to communicate using the words and voice familiar to that audience, via the websites and apps it likes to use.
Readability
Concise sentences are key to improving the readability of your content. Of course, you should aim to have more readable content, but readability levels will differ depending on your target audience, their goals and your message.
Use SEO Writing Assistant to track and improve your readability score for each content piece. This will help you boost engagement and improve user experience. It’ll also be useful for maintaining a consistent tone of voice.
Get a clear brief
The brief needs to clearly lay out what the editors and clients expect from the piece. That means clear talking points, structure, and word count all need to be agreed before writing starts.
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Re-read your work
Re-reading your article before publishing is vital. Without reading your work, you will not find mistakes or be able to polish clumsy phrases.
Reading your work out loud is also a great way to find problems with sentence structure. You can identify poor phrasing too — this can deter a reader from finishing your piece.
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Be open to criticism
When it comes to writing, everyone needs feedback.
Writers are known for being soft-skinned, so try not to take feedback personally. It is not that you are a bad writer. But perhaps someone with more experience can employ a sharper turn of phrase, or cut out some flabby prose.
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Deliver Quality
Nothing promotes your work better than delivering high-quality and engaging articles to your clients. If you want more work and high-paying clients, consistently focus on the quality of the content you deliver.
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Keep it tight
Never use 20 words where five will do. You might like to wax lyrical, but that does not mean your would-be audience wants to read it.