A tried-and-tested guide to becoming a better content writer

Fun fact: The average salary of a content writer in the USA is $42,000 per year.
Another fun fact: The average salary of a content writer in India is INR 2,50,000.

The plight of content writers in India is real. It’s a hard industry to survive in. Try finding a content writer who solely writes content and has work experience of more than a decade. Well, that’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

Most professionals who work in this field get sick and tired of the gruelling competition in the industry and end up switching careers.

What to do?

Want our word of advice?

Want our word of advice? Just become darn good. The industry is swarming with people who have no clue about writing and yet has found a job as a writer. The good news – these guys will never get to work with the best. The people who know the content will always try to find people who know the content. And that’s why you must improve your writing skills.

However, here is a something that you need to keep in mind – perfecting content writing does not happen overnight. It takes time and effort. But when you get there, you just stay there.

Here’s your tried and tested guide on how to polish up your skills as a content writer

Golden Rule: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Your work should embody this epithet.

Use your vocabulary with caution

Good writers have a good vocabulary. Right? Right. But good writers don’t ‘flaunt” their vocabulary and that’s what really makes the difference. Whenever you decide to use a ‘big word’ in your writing- keep your audience in mind. Do you think your audience will know what the word means? Or, will they have to Google that too?

Read

The more you read, the better it will become. The more you know, definitely the better. The benefits of reading are simple and many. It gives you more content and new presentation ideas too. However, to reap the benefits of reading, you need to do it right. Focus on reading a lot of different types of content- fiction, non-fiction, infographics, research papers etc.

Find yourself a writing buddy

Finding a writing buddy can really help you polish your skills as a content writer. Look for someone who’s a little bit more experienced than you. Connect and network. Make such friends. Develop a friendship that results in both of you proofreading and editing each other’s articles. The benefit of having another like-minded person’s perspective, expertise and skills is that it has a seriously positive impact on the overall quality of your work.

Create an ‘outline’ for your article

Before you actually start article content writing, plan it. Make a comprehensive plan- not just an introduction, body, and conclusion- go beyond that. Divide the article into different pieces. For example: If the title of the article is ‘Benefits Of Guava’- here’s how you should plan your content or flow:

• Nutritional value of guava
• Health benefits of guava
• Benefits of guava leaves etc.

Once you decide upon the sub-headings and create a strong outline- only then should you get to the actual writing of the article.

Use online tools

To be born in the age of the internet is a blessing. Don’t let such a blessing go to waste. Here is a list of tools that are a must for content writers. They help you get better at your craft without asking any additional effort from you. So invest in these tools or one of them to better your content. Here are our favorites:

Hubspot’s topic generator – When you are staring at a blank screen to think what to write on, here is your go-to tool for inspiration. Just type in random words.

Copyscape or SmallSeoTools – No one likes a plagiarized article, even though you might not have done it intentionally. Its always better to check.

Grammarly – A great online tool that helps you create grammatically sound content.

Headline Analyser – When you are stuck with the headline forever, this is a miracle worker.

UK vs US spelling – This one is a savior when you colour and color gets your confused.

Wordcounter – Your client wants only 500 words. Use this tool to keep a track on your words.

Before we leave you- let’s just quickly run through some bad content writing practices that you must always try to avoid

• Avoid making spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and syntax errors.
• Never leave sentences incomplete.
• Do not be careless when formatting your articles. Formatting your content helps to improve the readability of the piece.
• Avoid committing any kind of logical mistake.
• Organize the content in your articles. To ensure that your content is always organized- pre-plan the outlines for the content before writing it.
• Always try to make the content intelligent and clear.

That’s it from us. Do let us know if this helped you in improving your writing skills. We would love to hear from you.

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