So you want to write GREAT content

bygmcwilliam

718 followers

6 years ago

Writing great content for your website consists of 5 key steps:

1. Research
2. Planning and ordering
3. Writing
4. Rewriting (editing)
5. Proofreading

But, do they all hold the same importance or are certain steps more critical than others?

The #1 habit

The most important habit you need to develop as a great writer is a willingness to edit your own work. Great writers spend a considerable amount of time researching their topic, then a short time for "roughing out" the article. They use most of their time to rewrite or edit the final transcript.

It is important as up-and-coming writers to get into the editing habit early in your writing career. You do not only need to edit grammar and spelling. You also need to look at sentence structure and length, the types of words used and the impact on prospective viewers.

To do this effectively, I use 4 online editing tools to help me create my web content. The tools I use are:

• DrivelDefence,
• Gunning Fog Index,
• Hemingway Editor, and
• The Writer's Diet.

These tools can help you improve your writing skills.

DrivelDefence

DrivelDefenceText is a tool to help you assess your writing for plain English.

It provides a report of the following:

• the length of individual sentences within the text,
• the average sentence length,
• suggested word substitutes to make for better plain English reading.

DrivelDefenceText only works on plain text and does not check spelling, grammar or make changes to text. But, these editing functions are already provided within SiteContent. It works through your web browser and it is simply a case of cutting and pasting text into the application and running the analysis.

Gunning Fog Index

The Gunning Fog Index is a readability test for plain English writing. It estimates the years of formal education needed to understand the text on the first reading. The index is generally used to make sure that your text will be readable by your intended audience and you should aim for a value less than 12.

The following shows the relationship between the Fog Index and the reading level by grade.

Fog Index Reading level by grade

17 College graduate

16 College senior

15 College junior

14 College sophomore

13 College freshman

12 High school senior

11 High school junior

10 High school sophomore

9 High school freshman

8 Eighth grade

As with the DrivelDefence tool, the text is cut-and-paste into your web browser. The application analyses the content and provides you a written report.

Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is like a spellchecker for style. It makes sure that the focus of the viewer will stay on the content, rather than your writing skills. It highlights needless words or excessively long sentences by color coding them. After all, less is more for good writing.

The editor judges the "readability" of your text in much the same way as the DrivelDefence tool but it uses a different algorithm. It has been used since the days of electronic typewriters. The measurement calculates the minimum education needed to understand your text. A good target for your viewers would be 10th grade level.

You can write your content in Hemingway Editor. But, a better choice is to write in SiteContent and then paste the text into your web browser for Hemingway Editor to analyze. Work your way through the color highlights, correcting as you go. Then cut-and-paste back into SiteContent for publishing to your website.

The Writer's Diet

The final app that I use is The Writer's Diet. This is a diagnostic tool that gives feedback on whether you writing is "flabby or fit". It uses an algorithm to identify some sentence-level grammatical features that weigh down poor prose. The Writer's Diet determines if you are using the following four word groups effectively; verbs, nouns, prepositions and adjectives/adverbs.

Paste your text into the web browser and the application analyzes your content. It prepares a report showing the "flabby or fit" calculation for each of the four word groups.

Knowledge is power

These tools can improve your writing immensely. Use one or use all as I do. I have run this post through all four tools and it is "fit & trim" and readable to a High School Junior!

Remember, great content makes great websites.