Even if writing isn’t exactly your forte, the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively is essential—both for your leadership skills, and your ability to develop a strong online presence for your brand.
Imagine this: you’ve spent a good deal of time and money developing a beautifully designed, user-friendly website for your company, and you have high expectations for it to lead to greater brand awareness and more sales. But that website needs fuel in the form of great content. Moreover, you’ll have to promote it via social media, with… you guessed it, more great content.
Many of you don’t need to envision that scenario: you’ve faced it already, and you know that you simply can’t afford to neglect your writing skills.
How to Master the Art of Writing
Of course, there's aren't any instant shortcuts that will make you a brilliant writer overnight. It's a skill that takes a lot of practice, commitment, and diligence. However, there are certain methods that will help you improve your creativity and writing technique with less effort, including these key strategies and tools:
1. Understand the 'Why' Behind Each Piece of Content
Think the purpose of content is simply to promote your brand? Think again! Your primary goal is to help the reader. Your reader should not come away believing that promotion was your main objective, but that your content is helping them in some way. Here are the main goals your content should have:
- Delivering value for the target audience, in the form of problem solutions, tips that improve their lives, answers to their questions, or entertainment
- Growing relationships with your audience that keep them coming back over the long term
- Defining your brand (or yourself) to target readers
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the most emailed articles from The New York Times. The results were surprising: people liked sharing elaborate articles on intellectually-challenging topics, and they preferred recommending articles that awakened positive emotions. What about your brand? Analyze your own audience's preferences and then craft content that will meet their expectations.
2. Create How-To and List Articles
Although some audiences prefer long form content based on in-depth research, they still want it organized in a clean, easy-to-skim format. Even if listicles and how-to articles seem like an outdated form of content, they are still effective.
The trick is, you need a very specific topic that will separate you from the competition. So, instead of writing an article named Top 10 Movies from the 80s, try something like Top 10 Movies from the 80s to Watch in October.
3. Use the Right Keywords
It's not enough to write great content—you have to make it easy for your audience to find. You know how Google works: you enter a set of keywords and the engine lists relevant results. Obviously, you want your content ranked as high as possible in results pages for the search phrases your audience uses most often. This is where SEO optimization comes in. You’ll need to use the right keywords in the right places, without letting those keywords take over your content. You should always put the human reader first by making sure keywords make sense within the context of your writing.
4. Ask Questions
Questions are great because they make your content interactive. When you ask a question, the reader will answer it in their own head (and hopefully in the comments section of your article as well). In addition, questions awaken curiosity. It's a perfect opportunity for you to guide them to another of your articles or content pieces that discusses their question in greater detail and offers answers.
5. Express Your Personality
Uniqueness is the factor that makes your content recognizable. It doesn’t matter whether you’re learning how to start a blog, a social media page, or you’re writing email campaigns. You have to find your unique voice! Your content should convey your company's distinct organizational culture, and it should make your brand recognizable.
You’ll connect better with your audience if you write in first or second person, as if you're speaking directly to them. Adding some humor, storytelling, and real-life experience to your posts will help make your content even more engaging.
Tools to Make You a More Efficient Writer
Now that you’re aware of some tips to help you reach your the target audience, let’s go through some tools that will support the process.
This is where you’ll get SEO keywords from. In addition to keyword ideas, the tool gives you a chance to organize your overall content writing campaign. You will see how a list of keywords may perform, and you can create your own keywords by combining different suggestions.
If you need outside help generating content for your blog, email campaigns, and social media updates, you can outsource with a service like EduGeeksClub. This writing service connects you with professional writers from different niches, so you’ll always rely on experts who will work under your specific instructions.
A great title is a critical part of attracting attention, especially when it comes to standing out in a sea of online content. If you have no idea where to start, this tool will give you a solid starting point. Enter three nouns relevant to the theme you want to work on, and the app will give you suggestions for a captivating title.
If you've brainstormed a few options for a headline but don't know which to use, this tool will predict how each of them will perform before you even publish the content. It gives you a grade based on word choice, emotional appeal, and the power of the topic.
Are you ready to start working on your writing skills? Try the tips and tools suggested above and inform us about the progress you make!
Author Bio
Karen Dikson is a marketing expert and creative writer. She finds her inspiration in books and traveling. Connect with Karen on Twitter.
