Writing is hard. Being a writer when I was younger always seemed like a fun and cool “hipster” job where I would be inspiring everyone with my words every day. I pictured myself drinking lattes in my scarf, sitting in coffee shops writing my heart’s desire and everyone thinking I’m a genius.
Well, work isn’t my diary, unfortunately. As content writers, we can’t just write whatever we feel like and tell everyone else to deal. Being the newest content team addition to the Webspec crew, I’ve come to find that writing for a wide variety of industries (especially for web) takes much more. You become a great writer when you commit to finding the true voice that portrays the company brand through the words you carefully craft. When I sit down to write a new piece for one of our clients, here’s a few things I keep in mind.
Quick Tips for Writing Engaging Content
- Become the expert (AKA: fake it ‘til you make it). Becoming an “expert” is a relative term when it comes to writing. If your client specializes in drywall installation, you don’t always have the time or resources to be able to spend a day with their team installing drywall to understand how to write intelligent content about it. The key is going about research the right way. Keep it short and sweet. I usually try to find videos or detailed photos explaining whatever service the client offers (bonus points if it’s on a competitor’s site) allowing me to capture the image in my mind, so I can paint the picture much more clearly. So surprisingly, reading the summary on Wikipedia isn’t enough.
- Use your own experiences for inspiration. I haven’t personally tried caviar, but I love sushi and lobster. How can you draw on the things relevant to seafood that you have experienced? What makes sushi good sushi? Freshness. The same can be said for caviar. If you wanted the best seafood restaurant in town, what words on their website would sell you on making a reservation?
- Make sure your tone expresses what you are trying to convey. A tasty picture of lobster can say a lot, but if I wrote content below it that said “We got the best seafood in town… ask anyone!!!!!”, suddenly I’ve made the chef a redneck. Quick tip: extra punctuation makes you sound extra desperate!!!!!! Tell people they need your product. No questions asked.
- Believe in the words you choose — and back it up. Perhaps the biggest challenge in content writing is truly believing what you write. When you are finished writing and you read through your work — do you like it? If you were someone who knew nothing about the industry, would you be able to look at it and believe what it said? This has to happen. With our process at Webspec, content is the first part of the project. The design, user experience and other important aspects of the final site are driven from the content. The voice is arguably the most important part of a website, so don’t hand over content that you roll your eyes at because the industry is “boring”. Challenge yourself to write words you believe in and can back up when a client challenges you. Be the voice for them. And don’t let that voice sound like Ben Stein.
