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If you have a habit of scribbling into a journal or love sharing stories with family and friends, you may have what it takes to become a content writer.
The natural inclination for storytelling and sharing insights is the bedrock of content writing. The journey from personal journaling to a professional content creator is exciting and rewarding, filled with endless possibilities to explore and stories to tell.
But what is content writing? How do you turn this writing hobby of yours into a profession? And what does it take to become a content writer?
Let’s dive in together and find out now.
What is Content Writing
At its core, content writing is about communication.
Content is the bridge between an idea and its audience, crafted to inform, entertain, or engage. It is strategically created and designed to meet specific goals and resonate with a targeted audience. From blog posts to social media posts that spark attention, connections, and engagements, content writing is as varied as it is vital.
But why does content writing matter so much?
In today’s environment, content is the currency of communication.
It’s how brands develop their branding and build trust, increase followers and generate higher-quality sales leads, disseminate information, and form online communities. Content writing fulfills a need, answers questions, resolves problems, and sometimes makes someone’s day a bit brighter.
It’s the pulse of our digital world, keeping the online world alive and kicking.
What Types of Content Writing Are There
What’s impressive about content writing is its diversity.
Each role caters to different needs and audiences, tapping into various skills and passions.
Some of these roles are:
- Ghostwriter: Match the clients’ voices, writing styles, and tones when producing written content. ( e.g., Whitepaper, Ebooks, Thought Leadership, Blog Articles )
- Blog Writer: Turns complex topics into conversational and easy-to-digest blog articles.
- Email Writer: Crafting email content to drive actions and lead generations that lead to conversions. (e.g. Newsletters)
- Social Media Writer: The primary voice behind a brand’s social presence. Crafting engaging content on various social media platforms. (e.g. Public Relations)
- Script Writer: Ensures the narrative (message) is consistent with the overall content strategy. (e.g. Videos, Podcasts)
- Technical Writer: Breaking down and communicating complex technical concepts for easier understanding by the layman. (e.g. Guides, Manuals, FAQs)
- Brand Journalist: Uses storytelling to portray a brand favorably. (e.g. Customer Experiences, Press Releases)
So, what type of content writer do you want to become? Exploring these roles further can help pinpoint where your interests lie.
What About Copywriting
Often, you will notice content writing and copywriting being used interchangeably. However, they have distinct purposes.
Content writing is about informing, teaching, and entertaining readers. It focuses on building engagement with the audience and the brand’s credibility. In contrast, the purpose of copywriting is to drive a specific action. The action could be signing up for a newsletter, downloading resources, or purchasing a product or service.
While both have distinct purposes, both skills are crucial if you intend to make your mark and progress in this career.
Do You Need a Degree to Become a Content Writer
For some full-time content writing jobs, yes.
However, SEMRush’s research found that only 13% of job listings indicated the requirement of a bachelor’s degree. The most commonly mentioned degrees are Writing, English, Marketing, Communications, and Journalism.
Content writing is one of the high-income skills that does not require a degree. While having a relevant degree is helpful, it is not as important as the skills needed to be a successful content writer.
What Skills Do You Need to Become a Content Writer
To build a successful content writing career, you must be creative, attentive to detail, and have a way with words.
And, of course, writing skills are the foundation of a content writer. You should be able to write clear, concise, and high-quality content that resonates with the targeted audience.
But writing is just the tip of the iceberg.
1. Storytelling
Engaging content often tells a story, whether it shares a brand’s story, illustrates a point with a real-life example, or connects with readers emotionally.
Compelling storytelling can captivate your audience, make your content memorable, and retain and increase your readership.
2. SEO Skills
To become a successful content writer, you must know how to optimize your article to rank on Google’s search engine.
But SEO goes beyond just optimizing for target keywords. You also have to understand the search intent of the target keywords, on-page, and off-page SEO.
Is your content the answer they’re looking for? Is your website optimized for ranking? Are you active on social media? How are you going to build backlinks?
3. Research Skills
As a content writer, you must be able to research and understand the topics you’ll be covering.
Compiling the latest information from authoritative sources is critical to creating high-quality, informative, and helpful content.
4. Create Engaging Headlines
Headlines can make or break your content.
Headlines are like neon signs that invite customers (readers) into your shop (article). They grab your audiences’ attention and induce them to click on your article.
But how do you write headlines that capture attention and promise value?
Start with clarity. Your headline should give readers a clear idea of what to expect and the reason (the value) why they should read your article. Use a strong, active voice that evokes emotion or curiosity.
But avoid clickbaiting.
Your content must deliver on the promise of your headline. A sprinkle of creativity can set your headlines apart, but clarity and honesty are your bread and butter.
I use ChatGPT Plus and SEMRush’s AI title generator tool to generate headline ideas. Give it a try.
5. Adaptability
Adaptability skills are crucial as content writing demands tone, style, and format versatility to meet various clients’ needs and expectations.
Your ability to cater your writing to different audiences is critical to engaging a wide range of readers.
6. Organization and Communication Skills
Both skills are essential for managing your workload and ensuring clarity in your writing.
Being well-organized helps handle multiple assignments efficiently, meet deadlines, and maintain high-quality work. Clear communication skills are essential for writing and understanding clients’ needs and translating them into compelling content.
7. Proofreading and Editing Skills
Proofreading and editing skills are crucial to becoming a successful content writer.
Have you ever encountered an article or book littered with errors? Or paragraph after paragraph to get one point across? How credible would the author be in your eyes? Would you continue reading it?
Thus, your work should be free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors, and your writing should be clear, concise, and flow smoothly.
Tools such as Hemingway Editor and Grammarly (premium) can assist you.
4 Steps to Becoming a Content Writer
Once you have the required skills, you must do a couple of things as you embark on this journey to becoming a content writer.
Step 1: Identify Your Niche
Your niche is often where your interests and skills collide with the market’s needs (targeted audience).
Ask yourself, “What topics light a fire in me?” It could be anything from sustainable living to cutting-edge technology. Like a funnel, you start out broad and then narrow down.
For example, I am interested in finance, so I started this personal finance blog.
But personal finance is a vast topic, as it includes budgeting, saving, making money, debt, investing, taxes, retirement planning, and more. I tried to write about everything under the sun from the start. But this was a big mistake. I was all over the place, and it was simply too much. Lots of time and effort went down the drain.
So, don’t be like me. Niche down.
When you niche down, your topics become specific, and your audience becomes more defined. For example, compare the following topics:
- I want to write about money.
- I want to write about money habits.
- I want to write about building positive money habits for millennials.
- I want to write about building positive money habits for millennials to achieve financial independence.
Instinctively, you’ll know how broad the first topic is and the humongous effort you must put in. The second topic is more specific and tells you who your readers are. The third topic is even more specific, as you’ve identified a particular age group. Lastly, the fourth topic shows who your readers are, their age group, and what they want to achieve.
Knowing their age group and goals will give you a good idea of their current life stage and problems faced. With an in-depth understanding of the readers and their problems, you can create products and services to help resolve them.
However, here’s the kicker: not all niches are created equal.
Step 2: Choose a Profitable Niche
Some niches are profitable, whereas some are not. And the more profitable the niche, the more demand for great content writers.
So, here are some steps you can take to determine whether the niche is profitable:
- Google Trends: Input keywords related to the topic you’re going to write and select the geographical location. What you should be looking for is longevity. This means the interest level for this topic should be stable.
- Google Keyword Planner: Input your niche-related keywords and check their average monthly search volume.
- Successful Examples: Search for successful bloggers within the same niche. Find out what products or services they provide and their price points to get a sense of the potential earnings.
Once you’re done with the above steps, it’s time to put your niche to the test.
Step 3: Create a Compelling Portfolio
Imagine you’re running a business and are looking to hire.
What kind of employees are you looking for? An experienced person? Has the technical and soft skills required for the role?
The best way to develop and train to become the content writer a business wants to hire is to do it yourself first. So, start writing to build up your portfolio.
For example, let’s say you want to become a blog writer.
You can immediately start blogging on Medium and LinkedIn without any cost. Sign up for an account and start writing away. Target at least an article or two a week consistently.
But why Medium and LinkedIn?
Medium and LinkedIn already have a large established active user base where the feedback (e.g., likes, comments, shares, etc.) will be immediate. The more you write, the more data you will have, and the more you know what clicks and what doesn’t click. And you double down on what clicks.
I made the mistake of starting right out with a self-hosted blog.
There are over 600 million active blogs, with over 2 million blog posts published daily. SEO can take up to 12 months or more to show results. So, in the beginning, a self-hosted blog is like an island by itself somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Topics you thought would attract a huge audience may not, and you wouldn’t know until months later.
So, start out on these two platforms.
Over time, as you double down on topics that resonate with your audience, you will have built a high-quality portfolio of blog articles with engagements that prove your capability as a content writer. To further build on your credibility as a content writer, sign up on Quora and start answering questions related to your niche.
Step 4: Get on Social Media Platforms & Freelance Job Sites
Upwork and Fiverr are great, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
LinkedIn, Facebook, and X are also great places to be. And here’s where your portfolio comes into play. Share it far and wide on all platforms. Reach out directly to businesses or blogs you admire, pitch article ideas that align with their content, and show how your unique perspective and voice can add value to their brand. Most established content creators can be found on these platforms.
Networking is also essential.
There are numerous groups (communities and job listings) on Facebook and LinkedIn. These groups can be goldmines for advice, support, and job leads. Also, X recently launched its own job listing section. So, check it out.
Should You Use AI Content Writing Tools
AI tools can be a powerful assistant in content creation, offering insights, generating ideas, and even helping draft content.
I have been using ChatGPT Plus for the past year and have saved hours of work.
I use it to analyze the targeted keywords’ searcher intent, conduct competitor analysis, conduct topic research, draft blog post outlines, generate headline and topic ideas, edit, and more.
But, AI writing tools will not replace human writers.
AI writing tools enhance efficiency and provide valuable assistance in brainstorming ideas and generating content, but they lack the personal touch we provide. Despite the ability to produce content rapidly, AI tools cannot replicate our unique experiences and perspectives.
Furthermore, human-written content outperforms AI-created content.
You are wasting your time using AI to create content.
— Neil Patel (@neilpatel) February 21, 2024
Yes, AI helps you come up with ideas.
And, AI helps you create content faster.
When using AI we found that you can write content, post it into a CMS, and publish it all within 16 minutes.
Humans on the other hand took an… pic.twitter.com/qDz8mIrd6i
Neil Patel experimented to determine if AI-created content is better than human-written content in generating traffic. 744 articles (AI and human-written content) were published on 68 websites and observed over 5 months. He found that not only were AI-created contents rehashing old information but were also outranked by human-written content 94.12% of the time. On top of this, human-written content generated more traffic per minute than AI-created content.
While AI tools are helpful in many ways, they are neither on par with nor capable of replacing you. (at least in the current stage)
Your Words, Your World
Jumping into writing feels a little frightening, doesn’t it?
I still remember hovering over the “publish” button on my first blog post, my heart racing. “Will anyone even read this? Will they like it?” I thought. But then, it hit me. Worrying about it wasn’t going to get my articles out there.
So, here’s the deal: Go for it.
Start with one post, then another, and soon you’ll be on a roll. It all starts with you taking that first step.
So, are you in?
Let’s kick off this adventure together.
