What is Content Writing? How to Be a Good Content Writer 101

“What is content writing?” is a great question to ask as the digital world becomes centred around the power of organic content. Internet content is becoming increasingly popular these days, creating platforms for all kinds of niches and interests. These ever-growing online communities are full of marketing potential – this is where content writers come in. 

There are many ways content writing can be weaponised as an effective marketing tool. It can be used to boost a website’s search engine ranking, for example. Products and services alike need to have an online presence through blogs, a website, social media, or better yet, all of the above.

Markets are shifting quickly, and brands that aren’t constantly in the picture get left behind and forgotten. Companies need to constantly generate content to raise and maintain brand awareness

Hiring content writers is the way to ensure a constant flow of brand information, whether that brand is a product or the website itself. This begs the question, what is content writing exactly?

What Is Content Writing?

Content writing is different from conventional writing in many ways. Every platform or website has a target audience that is interested in different content. A business must first identify its exact target audience and what keywords this demographic would be interested in. Then a content writer’s job is to provide quality, keyword-focused content. 

Imagine you open Google and type ‘What is content writing?’ for example. The results you see are not random but ranked according to how relevant their content is to your query. In other words, a content writer’s main concern is pleasing search engines and in turn, pleasing the readers. This is done through search engine optimisation (SEO). 

Uses of Content Writing

Content writing is mainly used to market a certain product or service. However, there are other ways content writers can be useful. It depends on the business, its goals and target audience.

Blogging can be a marketing tool for another company, or it can be profitable on its own through ads. Educational websites sometimes hire content writers to shine a light on a certain complex issue or topic in an easily readable way. Either way, blogs need quality content to attract reader attention.

How To Be a Good Content Writer? 

Being a good writer doesn’t automatically qualify you to become a content writer. There are certain skills every quality content writer needs in order to stand out:

SEO

When asking the question, “What is content writing?”, you’ll find that search engine optimisation is at the centre of content that is useful for online users and easily discovered. Search engine optimisation is the first thing you’ll learn about if you want to be a content writer. There are many tips and tricks when it comes to SEO that can help better your content’s search engine ranking. You don’t have to manually check your articles’ SEO. There are SEO checkers that can help you with that.

Diversity

Writing diverse content is at the heart of what is content writing. This is because your readers still need a variety of articles to stay interested, even if they are in a specific niche or field. The quality lets them stay on the page, diversity brings them back. 

If your page is limited to a small subject, this will translate to an even smaller audience. If you search for “What is content writing?” on Google, you’ll discover that sometimes a niche topic can prove successful, but readers often become tiresome of the same content.

Originality

Nothing gets you on the bad side of search engines and readers as much as plagiarism. Do your research, read a lot of related articles, and do not rephrase. Writing in your own words is much more rewarding.

Even if you write blindly without reading anything, you should always check for plagiarism. There are many online checkers for that like Grammarly.com or plagiarismremover.net.

Length of Content

Article word count is a very important factor when it comes to the readability and SEO of your article. Studies showed that the average reader has a short attention span. However, a medium study showed that the average time spent on an article is 7 minutes, which roughly amounts to 1700 words. 

This means that you shouldn’t hold yourself back because of readers’ short attention span. Keep your content length suitable, no more, no less. 

Keyword Density

Writing articles that are dense in focus keywords doesn’t fool search engines anymore. The optimum keyword density is around 1% meaning 10 times in 1000 words. This doesn’t mean randomly throwing around the keyword around in the article until you fulfil the criteria. It’s important to let the words flow naturally through the text. 

Keyword Research

When thinking about the question, “What is content writing?”, it’s important to note that search engines are constantly changing their criteria for ranking pages. They do that by learning from what people search for and watching social graphs. Keywords of interest change through the years and little changes like plural and a single form of a word matter. Do your homework, and research keywords using Google AdWords or any other website.

Ease of Reading

Many demographics will read your articles. Some are experts, some are uninformed, some are young, and some are old. It’s important that your point gets across to everyone. So unless your content requires highly technical vocabulary it’s best to stick to 5th-grade level writing.

If you’re going to be a content writer, you should familiarise yourself with the Flesch Readability Formula. It’s the golden standard when it comes to measuring your content’s readability. There are many SEO tools that provide readability testing like YOAST.

Storytelling

What is content writing if not a way to fulfil reader interest? Unfortunately, you may not always be tasked to write about an interesting topic. It’s your job, however, to make it interesting. That’s why mastering the art of storytelling is what sets you apart as a writer. 

A good article is one that seems like a story but gets the point across in the end. Always try to let the content flow in order of relevance to the previous paragraph for the best user experience.

Titles and Headlines

It’s a fact that even with a high SEO rank, more people will read your titles than your actual content. This is simply due to the fact that not everyone who reads your title will decide to step in. Reducing this gap is done solely by making your titles attractive enough to lure people in.

Headlines are important as well because people generally don’t fully trust titles. The second thing they do after reading a title like ‘What is content writing?’ is check the headlines to see if the article fulfils the title’s promise.

Always make sure your focus keyword is present in your titles and at least one of your headlines. 

Intro and Outro

What is content writing without an intro and outro? Your articles should always have an intro at the very beginning that is catchy enough to have readers looking forward to the rest of your article. A good word count for an intro is around 150 words in a 1000-word article. It should be an overview of what your article will be about, but not contain any details. The outro should be a conclusion to your topic and it should be made clear, using a separate headline.

To answer ‘What is content writing?’ – it is the process of writing, planning or editing web content. Businesses incorporate content writing into their marketing strategy with the main aim of generating leads and converting visitors into customers.

Content writing continues to be a highly sought-after service by companies wishing to grow their online presence. It’s a skill that develops over time and evolves with the digital advancements in SEO and digital marketing.

Types of Content Writing

When asking the question, “What is content writing?”, it’s important to recognise the different types of content writing. This can include blogs and articles, product descriptions, e-books, and social media posts. Let’s take a look at how content writing can look in its different forms beyond blogs and articles.

Product Descriptions

Content writing for product descriptions includes features and benefits of products that consumers use to judge whether they will use the product and find it valuable. Product descriptions can range from a couple of sentences to several paragraphs detailing what the product is and why the consumer should make a purchase.

Product descriptions are very significant in content writing for many reasons. Some of the main reasons include:

• Assist Clear Purchasing Decisions: The more information that consumers are given about how products work and why they should use them, the more likely they are to make a purchase as their purchasing decision is clear and informed. 
• Clear Branding: Using content writing through product descriptions is the perfect opportunity to make your branding clear and stand out through your tone of voice and use of language. By utilising product descriptions, you can convey your brand’s personality and stand out amongst your competitors.
• Increased SEO Value: Product descriptions are the perfect way to increase the SEO value of your website as well as your product pages. By including relevant keywords related to your products, you can drive more organic traffic to your website and therefore increase sales.
• Increase in Purchases: Content writing that includes keywords, clear branding, and valuable information through product descriptions ensures that there is transparency between your business and customers. When customers have plenty of detail regarding your products and can easily find your web pages due to a high SEO score, this increases the likelihood of your customers making purchases.

When thinking about the question, “What is content writing?”, product descriptions are the perfect way to increase keywords on your website while providing customers with valuable information.

Social Media Posts

Social media has become one of the most powerful marketing tools to engage with your customers as users rely on social media to remain connected with brands. Social media posts include several elements such as text, images, videos, polls, comments, and many more creative and interactive features. 

But what is content writing and why is it so important for social media posts? Let’s take a look at some of the most important reasons why content writing is essential for social media marketing:

• Engages Your Audience: Content writing on social media allows you to engage your audience through effective storytelling in your captions. It also gives you the ability to leave comments and communicate with your audience directly. In this way, content writing is essential when engaging your audience and communicating your brand messaging.
• Drives Sales and Conversions: The power of an effective and clear call to action cannot be underestimated when it comes to content writing. Utilising a call to action gives you the opportunity to direct your audience to your website and encourage them to purchase your products and services. As consumers, we often need encouragement and direction when deciding what action to take. Content writing in social media posts allows you to encourage your audience to build a relationship with your business and ultimately drives sales and conversions.

• Optimised Content: SEO practices and keywords are incredibly important when ensuring that your audience can discover your content quickly. After all, what is content writing without keywords and optimised writing? Social media posts rely on SEO practices to recommend content users are actively searching for. Therefore, content writing in social media posts increases your SEO and ensures your content gets discovered by the correct audience.

Although social media posts are dominated by visual content through videos, images, and infographics, content writing is incredibly important to ensure your content is optimised and reaches the correct audience. Once your content targets the correct audience, this will increase your sales and conversions as users view content they are genuinely interested in!

Email Marketing

Content writing in email marketing is a fantastic way to remain connected with your target audience and ensure that they have frequent reminders about your business. Email marketing has proven to be an effective way of ensuring customer retention once they have provided their contact details and consent to receive email marketing materials.

What is Content Writing and What Does Email Marketing Look Like?

Email marketing can take on different variations depending on your content writing and goals and objectives. Some of the most popular ways to utilise content writing through email marketing include:

• Newsletters
• Promotional emails
• Purchase receipts
• Follow-ups, including prompts to complete purchases
• Requests for reviews
• Seasonal emails
• Important announcements and updates

When thinking about the question, “What is content writing?”, email marketing proves to be a fantastic way to remain connected with your customers no matter what industry you are in. Once you have a mailing list, you can then develop targeted campaigns to notify your customers about important updates and promotions while encouraging them to visit your website.

Benefits of Email Marketing

Some of the main benefits of utilising email marketing include:

• Direct Communication With Your Customers: Email marketing allows businesses to communicate directly with their customers. With so many people who now link their email addresses to their mobile apps, sending email marketing campaigns allows you to have your customers get notified immediately when they receive your content. This is an excellent way to stay connected with your audience and remind them of your online presence.
• Segment Your Audiences: Not every customer is the same, and so online users have different wants and needs from your business. Email marketing allows you to segment your audience based on their interests and demographics. In this way, email marketing gives you the potential to target specific audiences and organise different campaigns.
• Analytical Tools: When asking the question, “What is content writing?”, it’s essential to recognise analytics and metrics available to measure the performance of your content writing. Regarding email marketing, we recommend monitoring your click rates and open rates as these indicate how engaging your content is and if users found it valuable. 

Want to know more about what is content writing? For more advice or information, get in touch with us today.