There is a starting point for everything. And in content writing, all you have to do to start is to hop on the keyboard and start writing.
I know you might think that there would be any need for degrees in English or marketing but NOPE. Anyone can start writing and become a content writer.
As long as you understand the assignment and keep writing. You are on the right path.
The two things a person needs to start the journey on the path of being a content writer are Determination and some Tips.
So in this article, I’ll tell you some useful and practical content writing tips for beginners. Also some DOs and DON’Ts that a writer should know. And additional skills that can make you stand out as a content writer in the market.
But before moving to the main course, know the six key ingredients that are believed to make your writing better.
What Are The 6 Traits Of Writing?
A number of educational researchers have derived that there are 6 traits of writing to make your writing look professional and lovely to read.
The six key ingredients are:
Ideas
To generate great writing ideas and topics to convey a clear message.
Organization
To structure ideas in an appropriate manner, including an intro, body and conclusion.
Voice
To engage the reader by adding feelings, attitudes and emotions to the content.
Word Choice
To use the right words in the right place.
Sentence Fluency
To keep the writing fluent and improve the readability of a piece.
Conventions
To keep the writing correct by utilizing the rules of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.
Top 10 Content Writing Tips for Beginners
Content writing was supposed to be the skill to write the content for the web that people would read and find value and insight.
While its meaning is still hasn’t changed, the competition has grown exponentially.
Due to this, there have been some additions to the definition of content writing.
Now the content should be able to capture the interest of people and also rank high in search engines.
People now have a very short attention span of 15 seconds. Content should look pleasing enough to them in the first 15 seconds or they will leave to find another page of content that does.
But if you are a beginner you don’t have to stress it out.
Just focus on the basics and follow the below mentioned practical content writing tips to write amazing content.
#1 Know Whom You Are Writing To
The very first tip for content writing beginners is to identify their target audience and what they want.
These are the questions that you should ask,
- Who is your target audience?
- Who will be benefited from the content?
- And where they will come from?
When you know who you are writing to, it gets easier to know what to write and in which tone.
This helps you a lot in making your content more pleasing, accessible and attractive to them.
#2 Read, Read and Read!
The easiest to learn writing is from reading. All you have to do is sit tight, find articles that are related to your niche or industry and start reading.
Reading helps you in a number of ways. You can read for pleasure, to learn about the topic and learn about the writing!
Here, through reading, you can learn
- The perspective of the writer
- The tone of the content
- The length of their sentences, paragraphs and articles
- How natural is the language of the content
- The specific terms in your industry
And then you can use these learnings in your writing to make it more natural and attractive.
So, before you decide to start writing, first Read!
#3 Keywords
Keywords are a huge part of the top content strategies list. You can’t seem to overlook it. Good keyword research ensures the 30% success of the blog post, PPC ad or any marketing campaign.
If you’re still missing out on it. Learn here: Master The Proper Way Of How To Do Keyword Research For SEO
Keywords are what make your blogs rank. Without them, your website would be lost somewhere on the web.
But overdoing anything can be bad too.
While keywords do provide you positive points, Keyword stuffing can get you penalized too. So make sure you don’t go too far while adding keywords.
#4 Important Information First
As I mentioned, you only have 15 seconds to capture the attention of the reader.
So, you must put the important information first and make them stay on your page and then disclose the deep topic.
Journalists call this technique an Inverted pyramid. This is among the top content writer tips for beginners.
Show them what they want to see in front and then reveal the complete information you have.
#5 Add Emotions
Content writing is not all about offering information to people. You must also align the content to their emotions.
By emotions, I do not mean here to write a love song. NOPE!
What I mean is to write content that feels natural and specifically not robotic.
The reader must feel that they are talking to a human and not a screen that has some alphabets on it.
Try to write the content as you talk.
And that’s all you need.
#6 Never Offer A Wall of Text
Just consider you searched for something on Google, you found a page that offers exactly what you want.
You opened the page and encountered a straight wall of text without spaces between lines, headings or subheadings.
Would you still read it? Most probably not.
And that’s what makes it important to format the content. As it makes the content look more beautiful and easy to read.
The easiest way, to add value to your content is by formatting it.
Here are some formatting tips for a content writer beginner to follow,
- Add gaps between sentences and paragraphs
- Add subheadings as much as possible
- Add numbered and bulleted lists
Remember, even if you have everything the reader’s searching for and not good formatting, no one going to read it.
#7 Readability
An important factor that every content writer beginner must remember. Readability is the measure of how easily readable the content is.
You can check the readability level through any free online tool. The suggested readability for a beginner should be more than 60 in the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score.
Now how to do that? Follow these suggestions,
- Do not use complex words
- Use words that are easier to understand
- Keep the length of the sentence under 20 words
- Limit your paragraphs to 2 to 3 sentences
- Always prefer an active voice
#8 Write For Value
Always remember that the main objective of the content is to offer the reader values. Write to the reader and not for search engines.
You can write content that is
- Unique
- Shares rare information like data
- Offer valuable insights
- Or provides the same content with a better language, representation and storytelling
To make that accomplish, you must research the content thoroughly.
If you don’t know how to, learn here: Comprehensive Guide On How To Do Content Research In 2022
Google has cleared it out that one must always write the content that offers the reader what he/she/they have been looking for.
#9 Use Tools
You will meet people in the journey of being a content writer that flexes on having grammatical accuracy. And you would think you must have that too.
But no, you don’t need to. Too much focus on grammar causes you to lose sight of the quality of the content.
Focus on keeping the quality, grammatical errors can be settled with an online free tool.
Use tools that help your content be more precise and helpful. You can use a spelling check and grammar tool like Grammarly.
Apart from that, there are a number of tools out there that can be helpful to a content writer including
- Keyword Research tools
- Topic Ideation tools
- Plagiarism Checker tools
- And others
#10 Wind Up With a Proofread
That’s the final tip in the list of tips and tricks for content writing. Always proofread before publishing a piece of content.
Just sit back and read the content head to the bottom to find any grammatical mistakes, typos, tone defects or anything else that doesn’t sound right. Or you can send the content to any of your friends and ask them to look for any mistakes. Then change them.
Simple right!
Do’s and Don’ts of Content Writing
Now that you know the top 10 content writing tips for beginners. Let’s look up the additional basic do’s and don’t that a content writer should know. So, what are the basics of content writing?
Let’s check it out
DOs of Content Writing
1. DO break the piece into subheadings
2. DO understand the content’s objectives first
3. DO make an outline of the content
4. DO implement CTAs
5. DO target your intended audience
6. DO answer your audience’s questions directly
7. DO search for inspiration
8. DO double-check your content before publishing
9. DO meet deadlines
10. DO your proper research
DON’Ts of Content Writing
1. DON’T plagiarize
2. DON’T write too lengthy sentences or paragraphs
3. DON’T use images with a copyright
4. DON’T push too much to sell a product
5. DON’T sound like a robot
6. DON’T repeat
7. DON’T use complex words
8. DON’T forget to write a creative anchor text
9. DON’T overlook keywords
10. DON’T overlook readability
Now, apart from all these what does a content writer should know?
10 Skills to Succeed As a Content Writer
Here are the 10 additional skills that can make you stand out in the market.
1. The ability to adapt to a variety of writing styles
2. Amazing research abilities
3. Producing unique and innovative content
4. A good knowledge of SEO
5. Organizing abilities
6. Ability to communicate
7. Knowledge of social media
8. Coming up with a content plan
9. Understanding the brand’s tone of speech
10. Keeping up to current
Create a Style
You can build a style as you write over time.
As you find your voice, your style will emerge naturally. You discover your preferred method of expressing your thoughts.
The way you want to format and use lists. The viewpoint from which you discuss various things and draw metaphors.
Your personal style will evolve over time with your experience.
When you’ve been creating content for a year or two, you’ll notice that the early content you’ve published reads like it was written by someone else totally.
Don’t be concerned; a changing style is completely acceptable. The most important part is to develop your own personal style.
Keep going. Content writing is an investment that pays off in the long run, and it’s a skill that never stops evolving. You’ll get better the longer you keep going.
I hope you would have found all the answers you were looking for, if not then the comment box is wide open for you. Or you can mail us your query at [email protected]. We will be more than happy to help you.
Also, Thank You For Reading Along. It means a lot to us.
