One cannot become an excellent content writer overnight. Like all other fields, you have to learn and practice to take it as your career. So if you have a true passion for writing and have a learning attitude, you may turn out to be a great content writer in future.
What is Content?
In a word, everything available on the net is content. We can refer content as ‘king’ of the internet. But content writers basically deal with text content that holds the lion’s share in the web. Good content drives the desired traffic to your website or gives you the desired result you are looking for.
What is Content Writing?
Content writing is a form of writing text content on various subjects for websites, blogs or as per the requirements of clients or organizations. It can mainly be divided into two categories:
- Technical Writing – reports, manuals, product description, newsletters, business letters, resumes etc.
- Creative Writing –blog posts, articles, essays, e-book, story writing and many more.
But review writing, copyrighting and some others are Technical as well as Creative because here imagination and technique both are used.
Who is Content writer ?
The people who provide written materials online are the content writers. The prime job of a content writer is to write good and effective content for websites, blogs or clients. Content writers play a vital role to run and rank a website or to establish the brands.
10 Must-Follow Steps to be a Successful and Good Content Writer
- STAY FOCUSED
To be a professional and successful writer,take it seriously as a job. Invest time as much as you can to learn, to practice. You must know ‘practice makes a man perfect’. At the time of work, keep yourself aloof from all sorts of distraction;throw unnecessary thoughts from your mind; be focused and concentrate on one task at a time. Try to finish the smaller and easier first then start the larger and difficult one.
- DO A GOOD RESEARCH
Good research is an important key to write good contents. Your content should be informative, interesting and correct. So, do an excellent research to gather right information from reliable sources. Doing right research is not so easy and sometimes you feel bored or become frustrated. But you have to keep your patience and continue the research.
- CREATE UNIQUE & EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
It may sound quite difficult as a lot of writers write on the same topic. But it is not that much difficult as it looks like if you put some efforts. See, it’s very clear that the facts and information will be the same. You can’t change them and you also need not. But you can write it in your own way, on your own style which is very unique. You can see the same things in different points of view, you can bring various perspectives that no one might not notice before. Just don’t be copycat, be original and innovative.
Besides, copying someone’s content is unethical and you may entangle in copyright issues. Google can easily detect it and you may be punished. Duplicate content is also bad for SEO purpose. So, originality is mandatory.
- HEIGHTEN THE QUALITY
Original high-quality contents are always in demand. So always try to improve the quality of your writings. Keep challenging yourself to do better than the previous. Thousands tips and guidelines are available online on how to produce high-quality content. You may learn from those and also other resources. But at the end of the day,you have to generate ‘quality content’ to run long.
- DO EDIT
A high-quality product comes with lots of editing and rewriting. First drafts are hardly published. So many mistakes and imperfections like grammar and spelling error, overused and inappropriate words, irrelevant and extra points or information are there. Most of the time, you have to spend more time in editing than writing. Write and go through it as much as you can. The more you read the more you find out the loopholes.
- KNOW YOUR READERS
Your content should fulfill your readers’ requirement. So you must know your targeted audience very well readers to understand their need, what they want from your piece. Only then you can create the right content. Remember they are the ones who you are writing for, not for the clients or yourself.They are your first priority.
- BE READY TO SWAP SWIFTLY
Change the style and tone of the writing according to their category or niche so that it easily fits in the object or purpose of that particular piece. As a professional writer, you can’t get projects on same topics always. You have to write on various niches and every genre has some of its own features and style. So learn to adapt yourself to switch your writing from one topic to another 360-degree opposite topic.
- MAINTAIN TIMING
Delivering a good content on time makes you not only professional but also reliable and helps you to gain the reputation which is very important for a content writer. And to submit your project before the deadline you have to decide how many projects you are able to accept. You should not take more than your capacity.
- HAVE SOME TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
Content writing is mostly related to SEO. Don’t get panic. You need not be a specialist. You only have to know some basic technical knowledge which is associated with your writings. Learn few basic things about keyword research, WordPress, HTML, hyperlinks etc.
- STAY SOCIALLY ACTIVE
Use social platforms wisely. Your active presence on social media is important for the recognition of your name and work. It helps to make good contacts as clients always try to find you beyond your marketplace. And you need to build a good personal relationship with them as a marketing strategy. It gives them extra incentive to hire you. It also connects you with other bloggers, writers and people of this field.
These are the 10 basic and most important steps you must follow to become a good content writer. If you already have the above-described qualities and you are confident enough, why are you waiting? If you don’t have, take time and develop the required skill-set and then dive it. Keep in mind these 10 points and start writing.
Earning Scope as a Content Writer:
A Content Writer has a lots of opportunities to earn a good amount of money. A professional content writer has more than 30+ ways to make money independently. Content Writer can apply for the following Job Profile:
- Senior Content Writer
- Junior Content Writer
- Web Content Writer
- Copy-writing Specialist
- SEO Content Writer
- Academic Content Writer
- Digital Journalist
- Social Media Content Manager
- Content Manager
- Content Marketing Specialist
- Freelance Content Writer
Career Prospect of a Content Writer:
Professional Content Writer is responsible to bring the target audience through their content for website, blogs, SEO optimized content, reviews for product, SEO article for ebook publishing, Academics writing, story writing, web content writing. as per the client and senior requirements.
Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ)
