Website Content Writing tips for beginners
Start by conducting thorough research
If you don’t have any prior experience, the first step to writing website content is to have a good understanding of who you’re writing for and identifying your audience. Research should include an understanding of the topic, product and benefit to the consumer. Ensure you’re gathering information from credible sources. Where necessary, reference your sources and answer these questions:
What is the purpose of the content?
What tone is ideal for the content?
Who is the intended audience?
Where and when will the content be published?
Plan your content
Planning is a good place to start if you don’t know what to write about. Outline the piece to identify weak areas. It also helps to ensure you cover all the important areas that help convey your message with emphasis.
Punctuation rules to follow
Avoid semicolons.
Try not to use exclamation marks (not more than one per piece).
Put your punctuation inside your quotation marks: If you’re writing a sentence that requires the use of parentheses, punctuation goes on the outside (even when it’s ending the sentence), like this one.
Capitalisation: Resist the urge to capitalise insignificant words. Don’t capitalise keywords to make them stand out. The reader should focus on what you’re saying, not your SEO skills.
A picture can tell an entire story
Humans are visual learners. Before words and scripts, we drew on rock walls. Pictures and videos subsequently make your content easy to digest. Add appealing visuals to your content to make it enjoyable. The images should integrate seamlessly with your brand identity and be relevant to the topic.
How to find professional Content Writers
The first thing to do is ensure they possess the appropriate skills. These include:
The ability to:
- Write in a conversational tone
- Create scannable content
- Solve problems
- Generate traffic to your website
- Be adept at researching
Experience
A good Website Content Writer understands your business and niche. Web content must be organic and the audience should view you as an authority. An individual might be an expert on automobiles, but not do so well when writing about legal services. Readers can tell when someone is writing about a topic they don’t have any knowledge or authority on. Look for a writing service or freelancer that can display and prove their authority on a topic. This should match the reading level of your audience.
A portfolio of work
Most copywriting services have an online portfolio available for potential clients to peruse. They should also be able to meet deadlines. Sometimes, the best writers might get caught up in deadlines. Set a realistic expectation that’s suitable for the writer and your content strategy calendar.
The best places to look
Internal options, such as staff already developing content
Professional networks such as LinkedIn and publishing platforms like Medium
Locate freelancers on freelancer, Fiverr and UpWork
Work with a content marketing or copywriting agency that provides website content writing services, such as Daily Posts.