Tips for Writing Content that is Professional and Engaging

byjoannasings

249 followers

Updated 9 years ago

The single biggest thing that I've learned about online business and marketing since I've been here is that there is an immense amount to learn. Every time I complete a task, acquire a skill, or find the answer to a question, it seems like ten more pop up in its place. In the context of our Wealthy Affiliate community, this is actually a good thing. It means that we're learning at an accelerated pace and being challenged to not just participate, but to gain real expertise in this field. On the other hand, it is a tremendous amount of information to take in, and it can be very overwhelming.

One thing that I consistently see people being fearful of and overwhelmed by is the task of fleshing out a website with interesting, professional content. Fortunately, this is something that I feel comfortable with, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to share my process for developing strong content.

1. First Things First: Choose your Keywords Wisely

Your keywords are not just magic phrases that unleash floods of traffic on your website. In order for your content to be taken seriously by search engines and your readers, the keywords need to fit in seamlessly with whatever it is you're writing about.

As such, when you're choosing keywords, you should think about it less in terms of keyword power, and more in terms of theme potential. Yes, check the traffic stats and assess your competition, but don't forget to ask yourself: How much do I know about this keyword topic? Is there enough material to write a truly helpful and insightful post? How much research do I need to do to supplement my current knowledge?

2. Outline Your Post (and not just in your head)

Taking 10 or 15 minutes to outline the layout and flow of your post will go a long way toward making your post cohesive and coherent. There is absolutely a benefit to free writing (when you write continuously without worrying about style parameters), but I find that outlining and visualizing a layout concept before I start writing helps reduce the amount of editing I have to do in the long run. Here's a screenshot of one of my more detailed outlines that I did for a recent post on minimalist athletic shoes:

Not all of your outlines need to be this detailed. This post had a lot of information that needed to be covered and it did end up being quite a long post, so I wanted to make sure it was very well-organized. Some of my simpler, more general posts have had correspondingly simple outlines, like this one for a post on benefits of having a home gym:

Keyword: Benefits of having a home gym

-INTRO

-Cost effectiveness

-Privacy

-Convenience/Accountability

-Customization

3. Free-write One Section at a Time

Now that you have an outline, you can dial back and allow yourself to write freely. This is just a draft, so don't stress about getting it "right" the first time around. However, to keep your writing relevant and on track, I recommend writing one section at a time.

4. Coffee Break (But seriously.)

Taking a short break between writing and editing can give you a fresh perspective and keep you from getting burned out, which makes you more efficient in the long run! Workaholics, do not despair! Even a short five-minute break to stretch, make some tea, or watch a funny video online can give you a boost.

5. Edit for Cohesion and Voice

After your coffee break, you're ready for your first phase of editing. The first time around, I recommend that you edit on a large scale; read through your writing and evaluate whether your tone is consistent and appealing, and make sure you're not rambling or shooting off on a tangent in one of your sections. The goal is to present ideas that are complete but concise. There's no point in editing the minutiae until you're sure that all of your content needs to be there.

6. Edit for Grammar

Once you've streamlined the flow of your writing in Step 5, you're ready to get into everyone's favorite busywork--editing for grammar!

This can be tedious, but it's so important. Exercising good grammar makes you sound more authoritative and credible, and the inverse is also true; writing with poor grammar makes you sound ill-informed and untrustworthy. I could write a thousand posts on various mistakes that people make, but here are some of the most frequent offenses:

1. Incomplete Sentences
2. Subject-Verb Agreement
3. Spelling and homophone misuse (i.e. "loose weight" instead of "lose weight," "there" instead of "their")
4. Misuse of punctuation marks (i.e. period where there should be a comma)

If you're drafting your (those pesky homophones again!) post in a word processor, it never hurts to run it through a Spell Checker, and if you're ever unsure about a particular grammatical convention you can quickly look it up on a website like grammarist.com.

7. Add Affiliate Links

That's right, folks. After you have completed all of these steps and only then should you focus on adding your affiliate links. You will almost certainly come up with ideas for affiliate link placement while you're writing and editing--just jot it down in your outline or on a sticky note and return to it after you've completed your writing and editing process. This keeps your writing organic and prevents salesman syndrome, when the writing becomes all about making opportunities for affiliate links.

I hope some of you may find this helpful-- if you'd like to see more on a particular topic such as grammar, building outlines, or troubleshooting common writing struggles, leave a comment below!