9 Content Writing Skills You Need to Master
Hone your skills and create content your audience loves to consume
Content.
We can’t get enough of it.
Whether it’s stories on Netflix, online news, social media feed updates, blogs, podcasts, videos, Tik Toks and so on.
And that’s nothing new.
Since the dawn of humankind, we’ve shared stories, news, advice, skills and information.
Once upon a time we educated, informed and delighted one another by telling tales around the fire. These days online platforms are the number one place people go for instruction and entertainment.
So with this natural human need for ‘input’ (as I like to call it), it makes sense to concentrate on content as part of your marketing strategy.
Useful and engaging content helps build your online presence so that you’re at the front of customers' minds when it comes time to buy. This article will focus on blog content and explore the 9 essential skills you need to master to write a blog article.
9 Essential Content Writing Skills
1. Research
You may already be an expert on your subject. No matter how much you know you should always do your research before you start an article. This helps you to discover new information, different viewpoints, and trending ideas on the subject.
Where do you get that information? I assume that anyone reading this knows how to use Google. Books are invaluable resources too.
I’m also sure you’re well aware that not all information out there is equal. As you do your research, make sure that your sources are credible and accurate. If an article makes a claim, can you find the original research to back it up? Is that original research peer-reviewed?
Read around your subject and take notes as you go. The aim is not to regurgitate someone else’s work, but to discover more about the topic and find the relevant data to back up your points.
If you can, interview experts in your niche to get an original insight. That means what you say is fresh content, rather than the same stale information that’s doing the rounds.
The subject you’re dealing with is the meat and potatoes of your content. That’s why doing your research first is critical. It gives you more material to work with before you sit down to write.
Make like Johnny 5 and get your reference points.
2. Planning
Before you write, plan what you’re going to say. Your content should be answering your audience’s most burning questions. It’s helpful to frame what you’re going to say as an in-depth answer to a question you’re audience has. If you can’t identify a specific question, is your blog really that useful to your audience?
Write out the longtail keywords you’re going to use. Again, these are based on the search intent of your audience so if you can’t come up with any high ROI keywords is the topic relevant?
Once you’re satisfied that your topic is useful and relevant you need to outline a coherent structure.
Present your ideas in the order that makes the most sense. This helps readers follow along logically with one thought leading on to the next. In order to do this, it helps to map out the sequence of your blog. Every blog will have an introduction and a conclusion. Split the main body of your article into different sections for each of your points.
Angela Squires at Word Hound, a content writing service for online businesses, summarises her team’s planning process: “We often get good results with a sort of double-layer of planning – it’s not as complicated as it sounds! There’s the “what do you actually want to say/explain?” part, and there can also be a layer of “how are you going to give this piece a story, or a theme, that’ll keep people interested?” So, you might lay out your points as bullets, and then try to weave in the theme/story/hilarious metaphor in a way that engages the reader without detracting from the main message. It’s not always easy but it usually works.”
Your plan should help you to avoid the dreaded writer’s block and get on with the writing.
Planning saves time - and notepaper
3. Writing
Content writing requires the ability to craft sentences that convey your information in the best possible way so that your audience gets hooked from the start and stays with you until the end.
In other words, you want your writing to be read.
There’s a misconception that because you are literate, you can write. Learning to write well takes practice. It is important to remember that high-quality professional content writers have spent years writing and honing their craft.
Having said that, if you are new to content writing you will have to write. Get started today and learn from doing.
What does the writing part look like?
Your plan should keep you on track, but it’s ok at this stage to just let the words flow.
Stephen King calls writing ‘refined thinking.’ Some people are able to do their thinking inside their head and the ideas come out fully refined - or so I’m told.
I’m not like that. I often have to do my thinking ‘out loud’ so I write to discover what my thoughts are. In my case, I like to get the words onto the page then edit them to make sense. It seems like a wasteful and iterative process but it works for me. You can’t edit a blank page after all.
And if your writing tends to come out fully formed, chances are you did all the work when you were quietly musing (and people accused you of procrastinating).
Either way is fine - or any version in between. Whatever works for you.
The important thing is to do it. Sit down and write. If you’ve done your research and made your plan you’ll have enough information to write knowledgeably on your topic without getting stuck.
4. Communication
Communication skills are up there with ‘works well as a team’ on most job applicants’ CVs.
Why?
Communication is using your chosen medium to share your ideas with another person. Sharing information means we can increase knowledge, understand one another and avoid confusion in order to have a more successful outcome.
As you practice your writing, you will get better at communicating your thoughts and ideas. This means you‘re more able to help your audience by bringing them quality, useful and educational information.
Communication with your clients and customers also helps avoid pitfalls associated with making assumptions. For example, early on in my freelancing, I was writing copy for a website. I made an assumption about the amount of copy I was to write for a website. I was uploading the copy too and I didn’t realise they wanted me to fill in everything (there were some pages where the information was repeated).
Anyway, this resulted in me blithely announcing I was 'done.' Then I got a confused phone call from my client. There was embarrassment all around, but I completed the whole project (as you would expect, d’oh!) and they were happy.
This taught me the value of good communication and always asking for clarification.
5. Editing
Ernest Hemingway is reputedly quoted as saying that ‘writing is re-writing.’ It’s true that every writer needs to have good editing skills.
This is the part where you sit down with a mug of your favourite tea or a glass of water, crack your knuckles or otherwise do a stretch to loosen off and get to work whipping your content into shape.
Check that your argument flows. Have you made all the points you wanted to? Do they make sense?
Now you can get tough on grammar, punctuation, syntax and spelling. Use online tools like Grammarly to help you with spelling and grammar. The Hemingway app is a great tool for readability and clarity.
While these tools are great for catching mistakes and making improvements, the suggestions they give are not always accurate. Use your own human judgement too.
Read aloud your content to see how it flows. If you find yourself tripping over any words, then re-write to make it easier to read.
Meeting other humans is good for your content writing skills
6. Networking
Perhaps people skills and networking seem unrelated to sitting on your own and typing up an article but hear me out.
You can’t create within a vacuum. Writing is a solo pursuit, but you get many of your ideas from external input. That includes knowledge gained from reading but it also includes life experience and spending time talking to other people.
Take the time to reach out to people on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. Join a local networking event and make connections with people in real life.
We do business with people and as a freelancer or solopreneur, it’s so important to have a quality network of good people around who you can help and vice versa.
Getting out and meeting people makes you a more well-rounded person. The more you network, the more you learn. This enhances your ability to write authoritative content, help fellow businesses and serve your clients.
7. SEO
SEO is an integral part of content marketing. If your goal is to create content that ranks highly in organic search you need to put the thought into optimising your content.
But don’t stress too much. It’s not that hard for a small business to get enough basic SEO skills to start optimising a blog post or website.
The first step is knowing your keywords. Keywords are the queries people type into Google.
There are broad keywords (1-2 words) which are harder to rank for unless you’re a big brand. One of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to target broad keywords that are too popular.
Long-tail keywords have lower competition and higher search intent. The disadvantage is that they have lower search volume, (fewer people typing them into search engines) but if you can identify the relevant keywords for your audience you have a better chance of attracting them.
When researching your long-tail keywords start with buyer intent. What are people looking for when they search? Think about what you know about your audience and what questions they are likely to be asking within the context of your product or service.
For inspiration, you can start typing some key phrases into Google that you think people might search for and see what suggestions it makes.
Once you have an idea of the words your audience uses to find you, use a keyword research tool like KWFinder, Semrush’s Keyword Analytics tool, or Moz Keyword Explorer.
There’s obviously more to SEO, but Google’s goal is to provide the most useful, relevant search results so concentrate on writing quality content and this will contribute towards results over time.
8. Time management
When you have clients waiting for their work or orders to get out it may feel like researching, planning, and writing content wastes way too much time. Especially when you don’t see the immediate ROI.
But just think, the time you put in now could be making sales this time next year.
And time is passing anyway.
There are no shortcuts. Writing a quality blog post is time-consuming. According to the 2021 Orbit Media blogging survey, content writers reported on average taking 4 hours to create a blog post.
Angela from Wordhound reveals her advice on meeting deadlines: “Much as we love Douglas Adams, the wooshing sound of deadlines going by is not something we can really live with. Writers are all different, and they vary a lot in how busy they are at any one time. We find the best writers for our projects, get to know their time management patterns (if any) and work around them. Our advice would be to build in extra time wherever possible, and don’t forget that you might have 18 other pieces to edit that day...”
Be realistic about how frequently you can publish then schedule time for content creation. Time management takes a bit of thought and self-discipline, but the results will be worth it.
9. Understanding of sales funnels
The objective of each piece of content needs to be informed by your overall content strategy. Part of that is identifying what content you need for each stage in the buyer’s journey.
This means if you’re writing content you need a firm idea of sales funnels and the stages of the buyer’s journey so that you can align your content goals to the goal of your customer at each stage.
For example, people who are in the awareness stage are searching for a solution to their problem. It might be they’re looking for ways to solve it themselves or they may want to find out what products or solutions are out there.
Blogs are great for this stage because they offer educational, engaging, useful information that increases your audiences’ awareness of the topic (and you, by association).
When you understand where your audience is at you can position your content to meet their needs.
Content writing is a culmination of lots of different skills.
Although content writing requires creativity, it’s not enough to have a flair for writing.
You need to be able to research your topic, plan a coherent and cohesive structure, manage your writing time and be able to polish your content until it’s clear and error-free.
Soft skills like communication and networking go hand in hand with content writing. Without them, you’re at risk of not developing your full potential as a content writer.
To be a well-rounded content writer having a working knowledge of SEO is essential. Understanding the relevance of each stage of the buyer’s journey as it relates to your product or service will also help your content hit its mark rather than just being another piece of noise on the internet.
Writing quality content takes time, but it’s worth mastering your skills if you want to grow your business.
And if you don’t have the time or skills to write your own, I deliver engaging blog articles to help small businesses get more success online. Get in touch and see how I can help.