Do you want to make content writing your profession? or do you want to write content for your website? Whether you are a newbie looking for content writing tips for beginners or you are a pro and want to improve your content writing skills. Or even if you are a freelance content writer and want to Increase the speed of content writing, In this article I am giving some useful content writing tips for beginners to create engaging content and develop content marketing skills.
Writing effective content is as important as the structure of your website. It helps to increase the traffic on the website or the pages of the website. Let us try to understand these content writing tips step by step used in the whole content writing process.
Content Writing Tips For Beginners
Before considering content writing tips, it will be useful to know what is content writing. In simple words, content writing Involves the process in which content is written, edited, and published in digital format.
The content can be in the form of a blog post or eBook—a landing page of the website, a press release, or a social media copy.
It is a kind of storytelling with a meaningful message used by professional content writers to convey the message to the audience and inspire them to take action be it in the form of purchasing a product or availing some service.
Content creation plays a vital role in most businesses’ marketing strategies. That is why most businesses invest heavily in content marketing.
Therefore, a professional content writer is in more demand than ever before, although it varies from industry to industry and business to business. Some businesses invest heavily in social media strategies while others prefer blog posts, eBooks, etc.
A professional content writer is supposed to follow some content writing tips to write quality content that can engage the audience and inspire them to take some action may be in the form of a sale, signing up on the website, or calling directly to the companies.
Good content is supposed to convert readers into paying customers. So it should be the priority of businesses to create helpful and engaging content consistently to increase sales.
Types of content
There are different types of content writing, some of which are:
- Blog post writing
- Copywriting.
- Technical writing
- SEO writing
- Ghostwriting
- Content scripting
- Long-form content
- Social media posts
- Email marketing
Let us try to understand all these types of content writing.
1. Blog post writing
A blog post is writing material mostly composed for websites for marketing purposes. This is the most common type of web content In which an article is published keeping in mind the target audience.
Blog posts are very effective in increasing sales. Writing blogs consistently is a cost-effective way to grow a brand. Reports indicate that blog posts largely influence the sales of the brands. Putting new content regularly on a website improves the SEO ranking.
For freelancers, it is an effective way to make handsome money from blog writing.
2. Copywriting
Copywriting is information In the form of an advertisement for a product or service. It tells the concise story of the brand, which is used to attract potential users to sell its products.
Professional copywriters use infographics, Press releases., etc. to catch the reader’s attention and redirect them to the website’s landing pages. This type of copywriting. provides all the information about a product or service of a business to its potential customers. Different forms of this type of copywriting are infographics, Website copy, Press releases., advertisements, Product Descriptions, and Print ads.
This type of copywriting content is the foundation of any brand.
3. Technical writing
Technical writing provides an in-depth description and instructions for a product on technical grounds. It requires a lot of experience to be a technical content writer because sometimes misleading and inaccurate content can lead to serious consequences.
The important niche of technical writing that requires a lot of experience is:
- Banking and financial services
- Medicines and healthcare products
- Legal rules and regulations
- Technology and science
Because of the risk involved, a professional technical content writer is supposed to specialize in the area and produce the content associated with that. Demand for a technical content writer is Increasing day by day at a much faster rate.
Other topics included in the technical content writing are engineering, robotics, software, etc.
4. SEO writing
SEO writing means search engine-optimized writing. This is one of the most common types of content writing. The text is composed with the specific keywords included in it which help a website rank on Google’s search engine result page. Proper headings and subheadings are used to highlight important points that add to user engagement. Paragraphs are kept short for better readability.
5. Ghostwriting
Writing content under someone’s name refers to ghostwriting. In other words, it is writing without credit. You pay someone to write content for you. Most brands hire ghostwriters to save time and effort.
6. Content scripting
Most of you must have heard about the term scripting in movies. Content scripting or content script writing is used for drafting content for digital advertising platforms, videos, or podcasts.
7. Long-form content
Word range between 1000 to 7000 comes under the long-form content category. It is a broad category content comprising of eBooks, white papers, and case studies. Content in a blog is termed as long-form content having better engagement for lead generation.
8. Social media posts
These days, social media has become an important part of our lives. Studies indicate that about 60% of the world’s population is now on social media. To be successful, businesses today have to be present on all the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
Social media provides a big opportunity for businesses and customers to connect.
All social media platforms have different formatting, and therefore there is a huge demand for engaging content writers.
Social media posts are catchy, engaging, and entertaining and have a hook line, which prompts the readers to click on the ad or read a blog.
9. Email marketing
Writing content for the emails to be sent to the targeted audiences for marketing comes under email content writing. It may seem easy at first but it requires a lot of experience to write audience-specific emails.
The target is to grab new customers as well as loyal customers to keep them coming back to the website. So the content of the email is crafted in such a way that it forces the user to visit the landing page.
A professional email content writer writes content that is full of added value, to keep the user engaged and interested in the product or the service a brand is offering.
Useful content writing tips
One thing you must realize is that content marketing is essential for promoting a business on digital media. However, there is a lot of difference between traditional content writing and digital content writing. In the latter, you have to be more precise in terms of keywords, headings, subheadings, the word count of the content, anchor text, internal links, outbound links, hyperlinks, etc.
Finally, if you have made up your mind to try content marketing, here are some content writing tips for beginners to follow.
1. Select a profitable niche for content writing
Beginner content writers should choose profitable blog niches that are easy to rank on Google’s SERP. Use niches having high search volume and low competition because they get easily ranked.
Keep in mind the target audience while selecting a niche. You must have a good amount of traffic on your website initially to gain visibility. Without ranking, your readers will not be able to notice your website.
Some of the profitable niches for the beginner content writer to consider are
- Beauty products
- Health and Fitness
- Diy ideas
- Technology and gadgets
- Pet care
- Personality development
- Spiritual guides
- Home Decoration
- Relationship management
- Online earning
2. Write a good hook line to grab the attention
A hook is a set of sentences at the start of the article that is designed in such a way as to grab the attention of the reader. Providing a good hook is always beneficial for the content writer as it urges the reader to read more about the topic.
3. Keyword research
After selecting the niche, the next step is to find relevant keywords for that niche that will help the article rank on Google.
Keywords are the search terms customers use when they make specific queries on Google related to a product. Incorporating relevant keywords in the article is necessary for the article to be able to be visible on Google’s SERP.
Do proper research with the help of keyword tools and find the ranking keywords for your content.
You can use the Keyword Planner tool from Google to do the research.
4. Write unique and original content
Original content means that it should not be copied from any other sources and unique content means it should be able to provide value to the audience. Do thorough research on the topic and create content of your own. Using copied or plagiarized content de-ranks the website in SERP or even it can be removed from search engine results.
5. Write SEO-optimized content
Writing content in such a way that it is easily visible on Google is called SEO-optimized content. Google gives a high ranking to content that is SEO-optimized.
Different parameters for writing SEO-friendly content are as under
a. Creating long-form content
As already explained, beginners should write long-form content having a minimum of 1000 words for better ranking. Shorter content is referred to as thin content by Google and automatically gets d ranked.
b. Formulate a compelling headline
As in a YouTube channel, an attractive thumbnail plays a vital role in getting clicks, an engaging headline is the backbone of the content. It grabs the attention and compels the reader to read the article.
Write an attractive headline with the focus keyword included in it. You can use Coshedule’s headline analyzer tool for this purpose.
c. Include multimedia components
Reports indicate that images capture the attention of the user much faster than text. Include images, videos, graphics, etc. in between the text, especially in long-form content to grab the attention. This also provides the opportunity to increase the traffic over the other marketing platforms.
d. Insert internal links
Internal links are the links between the pages or posts of the website. Using internal links increases the credibility of the website and adds to its ranking. The user gets more engaged and spends more time on the website.
e. Use a call to action (CTA)
Call to action are the words that guide the reader to take a further step in reading your content. In your content marketing strategy, you must have a CTA to keep users engaged. It encourages the readers to decide on the content and prompts them to take a specified action. CTA may be in the form of a sign-up form, downloading a free eBook, signing for a newsletter, or Buy now format.
f. Keeping the content conversational
The motive of the content should be to keep the user engaged and spend more time on the article. This is only possible if your article has some value and is conversational. The reader should feel enthusiastic to read the whole article.
g. Learn content writing tools
There are many content writing tools available online for beginners, like headline generator, and proofreading tool which makes your work easier. Other tools like Grammarly and Hemingway, help to improve your grammar mistakes. Try to take the help of these tools.
Conclusion
Effective content writing is very crucial for any content writer. If you want to become a professional content writer, go through the above content writing tips provided.
Additionally, follow these tips.
Make the language as simple as possible, with proper heading, bold letters wherever required, keywords, links (internal links, external links, hyperlinks), etc. Avoid difficult and complex words. Use small paragraphs.
