Writing 101: 6 Tips That Will Improve Your Writing
A lot of us are at home nowadays because of the quarantine. Even those who are working office jobs are forced to stay indoors. To avoid losing out on wages, people are now working from home. One of the best jobs to have while indoors is being a content writer. It mostly involves writing for websites or blogs about specific topics and niches.
Experienced writers can earn up to $250 per hour. Some writers charge by the word at $0.10 per word. As you can see, writing articles from your home can bring in a good payday. However, there are some skills that you should have before starting a writing job. Also, if you are aspiring to be wordsmith check these content writers. Here are some tips and tricks on how to be a good content writer:
Know Your Audience
When writing an article, you should also know how your audience thinks. How would they feel when reading about a particular topic? What would be their reaction? Most of the time, you should also adapt your tone and writing style to better fit with an audience.
As much as possible, try avoiding words or idioms that may confuse certain readers. Remember, everything that's published online reaches a global audience. To have a better chance of reaching them, you should create content that everyone can appreciate.
Coming up With A Great Headline
What's the first thing readers notice when reading an article? The headline. The headline or the title is what catches the reader's eye. If your title is boring, people won't even bother looking at your article, let alone read the first few lines.
When it comes to the headline, you need it to be interesting. You can use words that can attract people to read your article. "Fantastic, Fast, Top, The Best" are some words that you can include in your headline. Your headline should also stay true to the article you're writing about.
For example, if you're writing about pizza, then your title should say something about pizza. People don't want to be misled by reading your headline and then finding out that you're talking about something else in your content.
Lastly, some sites prefer to have guidelines when writing articles. Some websites want their titles to have a specific number of words and character count. Although you can count each character by yourself, that would be time-consuming. To finish quickly and efficiently, you need to have a reliable word or character count tool.
Organize Your Work
Readers will want to read a well-organized article. This fact is the reason why you should arrange the elements in your article so it won't be painful to read. One good way to organize your work is to split up your article into several subheadings. Make sure that each subheading tackles a different idea within your topic.
As you write your piece, make sure to write in paragraphs. A single subhead isn't always confined to a single paragraph. If you want to say more about something, you can certainly write about it more. Just be sure to split it into readable sections. Experienced writers take advantage of paragraphs so their readers can easily understand what they're reading.
You also have to set deadlines to complete your work. One of the best ways to improve your portfolio is how you meet deadlines. A writer who continually fails to submit his or her work on time would give a bad impression for possible employers.
Be Original
Publishing works that aren't yours is terrible and illegal. Plagiarism can get you in legal trouble if you persist. It always pays to post original content, especially if you're writing about a sensitive topic or for a wider audience. Writers who don't abide by this rule can instantly ruin their careers. If you have to use some lines or excerpts from specific sources, always make sure to credit these sources in your article.
Basic SEO Know-How
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a process that helps a website grow in quality and attract traffic. A site with good SEO practices often ranks high in a SERP or a search engine results page. Getting a high rank with a SERP can be very beneficial in terms of exposure and profit. Since your article is going to be posted online, it's only fitting that it follows proper SEO guidelines to rank high.
For an article to rank, it should have proper grammar, spelling, truthfulness, and, most of all, it should be original. An article that fails to have these standards shouldn't be published as it risks a page's ranking. If a bad article is published by chance, the page that it's on drops in rank. Worse of all, a website can get penalized by a search engine.
Writers Should Be Flexible
As a writer, you should always be flexible when it comes to choosing topics. On one site, you may find yourself writing about sports while another site may want you to write about anime. If a writer isn't flexible, he or she may have a hard time writing articles. You don't have to be an absolute expert in a given field. You just have to be willing to research it.
Takeaway
Writing is one of the most fulfilling careers out there. With the steps mentioned above, you'll have no problem writing articles for blogs and websites online. Don't be scared to ask for help and use tools to do your job. Even the most experienced writer out there has had to start from somewhere. Just keep up your passion, read, and write.