Writing online is serious business in this day and age. The adage, Content is King, is what many SEOs live by, with good reason. There is increasing demand for writers to come up with the most informative and engaging content and copy.
While writing online can be a stable source of income, it takes time, hard work, and dedication to make your writing more engaging and your copy higher converting.
Let's look at some ways you can improve both.
1. Learn to use facts/numbers in building an argument
If you are trying to make a point, the best way to do this is to provide proof or evidence. Adding facts and statistics into your writing will make your writing MUCH more persuasive and valid to your readers. When using facts and statistics, make sure you're using the most current data to date. You can uses statistic anywhere in your writing: the introduction, body, and conclusion. What a lot of writers may not know or realize is that a great place to put statistics is in the headline!
It could also be a good idea to link to the source, but don't do it too much because you will be sending visitors off your website. Also, when linking to another website, make sure to set it up so that when someone clicks on the link, it opens in a new tab or window. This way you don't completely lose the visitor.
2. Use an outline to organize ideas
In order to organize your thoughts while writing, it's important to have a way to organize your ideas. You need a structure. The easiest way to structure your writing is via an outline. An outline is simply a skeleton of the major headlines you're going to write about. Underneath each major headline you can then plug-in some bullet points of key ideas and/or facts you want to mention for that section.
This outlining process will make your online writing job easier and more systematic.
3. Use an appropriate voice
Writing online can be a bit tricky. Voice plays a major role in keeping the interest of readers. The good thing with writing is that you can adapt the right voice to the right situation. If you are writing for professionals, you can always use a formal tone. On the other hand, you can use a casual tone when writing for a younger audience.
How do you find the right voice for your writing? It is important to know exactly the branding of the company you are writing for. Also, it is a good idea to do comprehensive research regarding the your audience. Demographic, culture, and lifestyle are just some of the things that affect the type of voice you should use when writing online.
4. Utilize manual and automated grammar check
Regardless if your writing is for an email, landing page or blog, the proper grammar is a must. According to a study, 59% of readers shy away from websites with poor grammar. Trust and reputation has a direct correlation to the presentation, grammar and spelling of your articles and sales copy.
Given the importance of proper grammar and spelling, it is crucial that you edit your work numerous times. It also helps to use tools like Grammarly. What Grammarly does is check your subject-verb agreement, preposition, spelling and other grammatical rules that can affect your copy. It also provides useful explanation for your grammar mistakes.
But of course, tools like Grammarly doesn't guarantee your writing piece will be perfect, which is why you need to edit your work a few times.
5. Create effective headlines
Headlines make a huge difference in terms reader engagement, as well as how well the piece converts if it's copy. The stats say that 8 out of 10 readers will notice and read your headline, while only 20% will read the entire text. Another reason why you want to make use of headlines is to give readers an idea of what the article is about. It also serves as a breather, or a way to divide the article into easy digestible sections.
What makes a powerful headline? One really great way to create powerful headline is to include a sense of urgency in the headline. This will urge readers to read the entire article or copy. This is especially applicable in email marketing.
If you are not adding a sense of urgency in your headlines, it has to at least be engaging, or acknowledge the readers' problem. If the reader where to read just the headlines itself, it should do a good job in providing the reader with the gist of the article without actually having to read the entire article .
6. Understand the medium you are using
A challenge with online writing is knowing when to adjust your writing style depending on the medium being used. Different mediums require writing styles. For instance, if you are creating copy for an email campaign, it's imperative that the email be short, concise and engaging. This is something that isn’t applicable for articles. Articles usually need much longer and detailed. The length and the detail become even more important if you're writing e-books.
7. Know the right approach for the copy
There are different types of writing styles you could adopt, they are formal, conversational, and storytelling, to name a few.
One great engaging and effective approach for writing is the storytelling approach. Stories are by their very nature, interesting, and if told well, exciting. Stories have the ability to hook the reader better than any other method. If you're not used to this style of writing, it will take a lot of practice and dedication to master it. Storytelling has elements including beginning, conflict, climax and end. If you add these elements into your writing, you keep a reader’s interest.
Another commonly utilized approach in online writing is a conversational style. The conversational style of writing is also an engaging way to get your message across. Typically, this approach makes use of an active voice. For example, instead of saying, “your concerns will be addressed to within the day,” you could use, “we’ll address to your concerns within 24 hours.”
A conversational approach to writing also gives you the chance to break away from the strict rules you may have learned in school.
8. Learn to utilize right call to action
Well written copy must be more than just informative. It should be engaging to the point that it produces the results (eg, a lead, sales, sign-up, etc). A call-to-action (CTA) is the part of a copy that asks, or instructs, the reader to do something, such as purchase the product or fill out the form.
Effective copy usually contains a CTA button that says something like “buy now” or “sign-up today”. Adding CTA is crucial for improving the effectiveness of your copywriting.
Conclusion
High quality engaging content is king on the web. It's a critical part of improving your site's SEO ranking, as well as getting more customers. Writing online can be a source of stable income so if you like writing, it's worth implementing the tips in this article so that you improve your craft and get more writing work.
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