Content writing, whether for SEO, presentations or even an ebook can be a tricky affair. You’ve always known that you can write, but how do you write content that does what you expect from it? The short answer is that it takes years of dedicated practice. But you can increase your own learning curve by taking a cue from the experiences of others. Below we’ve listed three valuable tips that are easy to apply, and capable of enhancing the quality of your copy.
1. Learn everything about the subject
Legendary copywriter David Ogilvy wrote an ad for Rolls Royce with the following headline:
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”
One of his more well-known headlines, it perfectly illustrates how detail can be used to generate interest in a product or service. Keep in mind, however, that its efficacy depends on audience sentiments – if, at the time, vehicle noise wasn’t a big concern among consumers, the headline wouldn’t have made such a big impact.
2. Know thy audiences
Which brings us to our next point, study the intended audience. Many SEO content writing blogs will state that it’s up to the business owner to provide you with the audience info required to get the job done. That’s true. But business owners (and sometimes the folks in the marketing department) often have a poor conception of who it is buying from them, or who it is they want to buy from them.
As a writer you won’t always have access to the budget required to run focus groups or surveys, so you’ll have to improvise. One way to find out who the audience is, and what they’re thinking, is to scour social media channels for tweets or posts related to the subject you’re writing about. Pay special attention to common denominators among the individual users – are they male or female? Are they married? Is there something they have in common related to the subject? What are they saying about it?
Another way, and perhaps even more effective, to get the information you need is to speak to the people who deal with audience members on a daily basis: cashiers, sales reps, customer service agents. Knowing how people see the product or service, what they think about it, and what problems they have with it, will give you an excellent starting point for your copy. Remember: people buy to fulfil a need, to solve a problem. If your copy can answer their questions before they ask them, your client will have a better chance of selling.
3. Brevity is the soul of… good copy?
The one visible characteristic that separates professional content from its amateur counterpart, even when writing long-form copy for SEO, is brevity. It doesn’t mean you have to say less than you want to, but it does mean using fewer words.
Your objective here is to reduce the amount of words used without changing the meaning of the sentence.
"Acme Accounting company provides an accounting service that’s always accurate, and keeps your books up to date as transactions occur" can be shortened to:
"Acme Accounting’s accounting service keeps your finances up to date as they occur."
This can be cut in half with:
"Acme’s real-time accounting puts you in the know, 24/7."
The case for brevity has been motivated over and over again, with little factoids like the almost-clichéd "you have 3 seconds to get their attention". Indeed, when users see a page with huge blocks of copy, they won’t even bother to read the headline.
The Way Forward
There’s still a lot to be said about writing, but therein lies the problem too: reading ‘how to write’ from too many writers will likely end up being a great source of confusion. From personal experience, the best way forward is to build your experience by writing as much as you can. Keep in mind that SEO content for a hairdryer is not the same as content for a children’s story or a journal. After a while of practise, pick up a book (not a blog post) by a famous copywriter or writer, and see what they have to say about writing. You’ll find that whatever you’ve realised about content writing has been on the money all along. Or, you’ll find an easy way to write better. The point is: write first, then read to improve your skill.