From Idea to Execution: Inside The Mind of a Brilliant Content Writer
The role of a content writer
Content rules in today’s day and age. Your business that offers a particular product or service is just one part of the work, the other part entails how you showcase and present it to the world. It is your content which acts as a medium to promote and propagate what you have to offer. Often when we say, our work speaks for us, well, it’s through the content that you direct the audience towards the work that you do, that speaks what you stand for! In all ways, content plays an important role. Also, a business involves a plethora of things to manage, as an owner one has to take care of all of it.
Thus, it may not be possible for one to also manage the content for their business. That’s when a content writer comes into the picture. A pertinent question may arise, what is a content writer? Well, to put it simply a content writer is someone who manages the content and every aspect related to it. A business’ content requirement may start right from a content writer for the website to explain the business and other details, evaluating analytics to make business decisions, writing blogs that may talk about topics related to your business, managing content for all social media handles that ensure higher visibility and a direct link between your business and customer, marketing campaigns via emails, advertisements, etc.
Such content requires precision, skills, use of apt keywords, SEO and certain fine-tuning that aims at better promotion and effective user engagement, this is exactly what a content writer masters. Thus, the role of the content writer is multi-fold, the representation bit of your business undoubtedly lies in the hands of the content writer.
Understanding the creative process
Content writing is not just simply writing the content at face value. The major aim behind creating content is to impart information and solutions, along with business promotion and propagation. This requires a lot of information to be packed, ready for the consumer to be absorbed, so that they can become aware, process, and, in turn, help to turn the audience into potential customers. This requires persuasive language, attractive content that grabs and retains the audience’s attention, a certain solution to a problem that the audience may face, and implementing keywords and SEO for better traffic and higher ranking in search engines.
Content writing is a creative and technical process. It is necessary to adhere to both parameters to churn out effective content as it benefits the business multifold. Moulding your content in a manner that piques the audience’s interest is the major aim, and here creativity is the only key. There are various content writing examples, right at your fingertips, see those quirky advertisements or ads that resonate with you, it’s all creativity at its core. It integrates the recent trends, audience preferences, some hook that grabs the attention and then effective communication of the product or service you aim to endorse.
Using imaginary scenarios, storytelling techniques, figurative language, an amiable tone, and an apt point of view favouring the audience is all that one needs to take care of when framing content. Adding creativity also requires the content writer to have enough information so that they can play around and infuse the level of creativity that sits well with the information imparted. Proper drafting, editing, proofreading, incorporating feedback and suggestions and focusing on “infotainment” are some important steps to understanding the creative process in creative writing.
Generating ideas for content
Every happening in and around, can be a cue for a content writer which can be further structured and moulded as per requirements. The world today thrives on content and there is absolutely no shortage of it. In such abundance, it becomes necessary to have captivating and unique ideas that stand out, garner attention and stay with the audience. It is ultimately your content that will help you reach your customers and vice versa. Generating ideas and having a content strategy is thus one of the most foremost and important steps when creating content.
Constantly tracking social media trends, happenings and preferences is the best way to understand what your audience prefers, and to adhere to those needs is one of the best ways to generate ideas. Going through the comments, feedback and suggestions that your existing clients give, and thereby understanding the demand can be yet another effective way. Conducting surveys, interviews and informal polls also helps to chance upon some unique ideas. Keeping an eye on your competitors helps to review the scope for improvement and perform better.
Using topic and keyword generator platforms available online, along with using analytics, and browsing through search suggestions can give a plethora of ideas readily. Connecting to the clients and stakeholders on a personal level and sharing personal stories is a great content idea for a good emotional connection. Closely observing the industry-specific trends helps in keeping your content relevant to your niche. Going back and further building upon your old content also proves to be helpful when generating ideas for your content.
Researching and gathering information
When we spoke about generating ideas for content, at its core it is thorough research and collecting of information which can be repurposed as per the requirement of the business and the audience preference. Content writers are usually not experts in the niche for which they provide content. Content writers are essentially a jack of all trades but masters of only content writing. They specialise in writing, that is how to write, but what to write can come only when the content writer is well aware of the product or service to be written about.
This requires extensive research to know enough, which can help impart the right information, infuse effective creativity, create good content, and strike the right chord with the audience. Along with the information about the product or the service, and the industry, having a good insight into the company values, owners, culture, motto and morals is important as every content should capture this basic essence.
The third aspect entails keeping the content relevant by doing thorough research on the technical aspects which makes the major difference – SEO, keywords, trends, hooks, etc. Thus, content writing is not just simply representing the company in mere words, it’s much more than that and requires integrating all the above-mentioned aspects which requires one to be well aware, which can be only possible through good research and information gathering.
Organising and structuring content
After the above-mentioned steps which focused mainly on content creation, here we bring out yet another step, that of organising and structuring your content. Creating content may seem daunting, but organising and structuring it well makes it smooth for not only the content writer but also the audience. Ease of consumption will further accentuate the interest of the reader. A long format of content just written down will be difficult to comprehend as compared to the same content being divided into subheadings and pointers. Structuring your content in a manner that ensures a good flow, with no friction, where one part of the content smoothly to the next part is imperative.
A good logical interweaving of all the arguments, and interconnecting it with the product, business values and audience needs helps create effective content. Your content is the means of imparting a lot of information, and the chances of the audience feeling it is an information dump are quite high. However, breaking them into chunks, pointers, examples and scenarios, a proper call to action, and illustrations, all of it if planned, structured and organised well, will automatically keep the audience glued to what you have to offer.
Maintaining a chronological sequence, providing context and background, then diving into the actual explanation and information, and lastly summing with a reiteration and closure are some points to keep in mind when organising and structuring your content. Writing is a given skill to all content writers, but organising and structuring the content is one of the important content writing skills that sets one apart.
Writing and editing techniques
Writing is one part of content writing, the other part entails editing which determines the success of your content to a large extent. Content writing is a craft, and with time and experience one master it. If one asks what are the techniques used by a content writer to write their content? There are many, but the basics and the crucial ones are already stated above, adhering to them ensures you are on track, as it is easy to get deviated. Proper planning, framing a skeletal framework with headings, subheadings and pointers and then filling in with the required information, examples and technicalities is the sure shot technique of writing effective content.
Once a content draft is ready, it should ideally surpass two to three editing checkpoints for absolutely impeccable content. Firstly, checking the content and its sources for credibility and if it aligns with the brand values is imperative. Filtering for grammar and spelling errors is the next step. Thirdly, using apt keywords and using SEO effectively is necessary. In this step, ensuring that the emotional appeal is maintained and at the same time these details are added is necessary. Lastly, incorporating all the feedback and suggestions, checking for the needs of the clients and stakeholders are met and you are almost ready to hit the save!
Incorporating SEO in content writing
Your content appealing to the audience is crucial, but that will be possible only when your content is visible to the audience. SEO takes charge of this visibility. Your content, when something is searched, should come right at the top or among the first few, only that can guarantee that the audience will click and visit the content you have created. SEO- Search engine optimisation is optimising your content by adding relevant keywords that are most often looked up on any search engine.
Once your content has those keywords mentioned, automatically search engines will rank the content higher as it helps in best answering the user’s query that is being searched on the search engine. Various platforms list down the keywords for almost every topic as searched by users all around can help get ideas. However, stuffing the content with only keywords will make it redundant and mundane, and also identified by the search engine algorithms, thereby not ranking them higher, thus a perfect balance needs to be maintained. You might wonder why SEO is important. Well, the main purpose of your content is not just awareness, the greater agenda is to turn the audience to potential customers.
SEO helps in this purpose. By optimising your content in a manner that answers user queries and also ranks higher in search engines, increased visibility is guaranteed, which in turn when infused with compelling and persuasive content, automatically helps the reader abide by the call to action (whatever action you want the reader to take- buy, share, like, subscribe. etc.). SEO-based content writing is different from traditional content writing and will continue to gain supremacy over time owing to the benefits it brings to the business. Thus, every content writer should compulsorily learn and employ SEO!
Proofreading and revising content
Content writing is a lengthy and detailed process, you must have surely figured it out by now! At the same time, it needs to be done quickly and always a race against time. In all these conundrums, missing out and errors are bound to happen. And, there is yet another disclaimer, you simply can’t afford errors in content writing as it goes down to be consumed by many, any mishandling, will directly impact the business, the customer base and the brand value negatively. Thus, to avoid all such catastrophes, it is imperative to do a thorough proofreading and revise your content if the need arises.
Right at the editing stage, a proper check is executed, but proofreading is the final check, and going through it all that one last time can often save a lot of fuss later! Grammar, spellings, headings, facts, formatting, etc, check it all! Something or the other keeps happening every moment, so a content writer needs to be alert, and while at this stage if something comes up that is pacing up at a steady rate, and feels relevant to your content, it has to be tuned in your content without fail, it will boost your content instantly and will ensure a higher visibility as relevancy is important in content!
Collaborating with clients and stakeholders
A content writer is a medium which helps in the representation of the business that is at the core of this entire process. Business is essentially a collaboration of various parties, who join hands together for a fruitful venture which benefits all. A content writer’s role is imperative as they act as the linking bridge between all the clients and stakeholders of a company.
It is the content writer who researches everything, right from the industry needs, market trends, audience demands, and client and business values, amalgamating it all together to ensure the business at the end of the day has an effective representation, creates the required hype and awareness, leads to good user-engagement via effective marketing. It requires collaboration at every step, as it is essential to meet every party’s needs and thereby have a smooth functioning.
The importance of continuous learning and improvement
Content creation is a never-ending process, you can keep on enhancing and altering it constantly. Every time you look at content, something novel, innovative and interesting may strike and you may add it. In today’s fast-paced world, everything is evolving at lightning speed, and your content needs to match steps with it or else you lose relevance, your audience’s attention and in turn good business.
Thus, in this evolving world, there is a constant scope for learning and improvement, which every content writer needs to grab upon. There is so much more to learn and know about content writing, the product or the service, the business, the industry the business belongs to and so on and so forth. At Write Ink, we understand how updated a content writer needs to be at all points and thus strive to keep you all set so that you ace the content game! Visit our social media handles and website to know more.
Image Reference: Freepik
Disclaimer: All trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks, and brands does not imply endorsement.
