A content writer is a professional writer. He or she creates textual content or written material for various platforms, channels and purposes.
Content writers can write content for websites, blogs, articles, press releases, social media, news, sales copies, eBooks, white papers, storyboards, user manual guides, etc.
A well-written piece of content can precisely meet the goals of a business, brand, or individual. Enterprises and individuals seeking brand identity and online promotion require content writing, copywriting and content marketing services.
What does a content writer or textual content creator do?
A creative content writer produces informative, educative, creative, and persuasive content for businesses, organisations, and individuals.
Creative content creators specialise in developing and crafting engaging, informative, educative, and persuasive textual content, aligning it with the target market and audience. They help users meet specific purposes and goals.
They edit and proofread written materials to make these target-audience-centric and search engine-friendly.
What is the specialty of an expert SEO writer?
An expert SEO writer has to keep a balance between target audiences and search engine algorithms while developing content for his or her clients.
What are the key skills required for being a professional content writer?
To become an expert content developer or writer, a writer must possess the below-mentioned skills:
Excellent writing skills:
He or she must be an expert wordsmith. An individual must have a very good knowledge of grammar, word selection, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization of some words to become an expert in this field. He or she must be capable of adapting the styles and tones required to make target audiences happy and satisfied.
Sound SEO knowledge:
A wordsmith must have a proper understanding of how the algorithms of major search engines work. He or she must know how to optimize a piece of content with relevant and related keywords, key phrases, and parallel search terms to make it search engine-friendly. A well-optimized SEO copy can increase visibility, improve traffic, create brand awareness, and generate genuine leads.
Online search and research abilities:
An expert wordsmith must have the ability to search online and research a topic to gather valuable data, statistics, and information from various sources. He or she must enrich the topic with those for perfect ornamentation and maximum visibility.
Outstanding communication skills:
A wordsmith must be aware of the target audience—their pulse, likes, dislikes, etc. His or her writing must be highly interactive and user-friendly. He or she should think about the questions and queries that might come from the target audiences and answer those while writing for them. This will make them feel the writing is written for them. It gives right solutions to their queries, questions, and problems.
Creation and innovation skills:
A professional content creator must have innovative and creative skills. He or she must have the ability to create unique and motivating content that can help businesses, organisations and individuals stand out from the crowd.
Knowledge of using various content testing tools:
To become an established content developer, he or she must know various advanced tools for checking and testing grammar, plagiarism, keyword density, AI writing, etc.
Adaptability: A content creator should have the quality of a versatile writer. He or she must have the ability to adapt writing styles, tones and jargon of different business verticals, industries, audiences and platforms.
Responsibilities of professional content writers:
Keyword Analysis:
Professional content writers should know the use of various keyword research tools to find high search volume keywords with low competition. They need to produce SEO-friendly and search engine-friendly content, using those keywords.
Content Creation:
Professional writers must know their target audience and target market. They are to satisfy the needs, likes, and dislikes of their target audience and the business goals of their clients through engaging content development. They should understand the pulse and objective of both clients and audiences while producing engaging sales copies.
Content strategy creation:
Professional wordsmiths must need proper planning. They should create content strategies to achieve specific objectives and business goals. They need to set strategies for meeting different purposes like service or product promotion, branding, brand promotion or awareness, driving website traffic, generating genuine leads, etc.
Editing and Proofreading:
They should have sound editing knowledge for correcting content, reviewing different parts, and replacing weak words with effective and relevant words. Having profound grammatical knowledge is a must for checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, and clarity for correcting those.
Optimising content according to the latest SEO rules:
Professional and creative wordsmiths must master the art of using keywords, key phrases, and relevant words, according to the latest SEO guidelines and algorithms of major search engines.
Collaboration
They must have team-handling quality and a collaborative approach. Working together with digital marketers and other team members ensures a collective effort to meet brand and business goals.
Types of textual document content developers need to produce for digital marketing:
Wordsmiths must be versatile writers to satisfy digital marketing writing needs.
They must have good understanding of various writing verticals.
Given below are important writing verticals:
- Articles
- Blogs
- Press Releases
- Website Content
- SEO Content Writing
- Sales Copies
- Travel Writing
- Social Media Content
- Creative Writing
- Product Descriptions
- Technical Writing
- News Copies
- Feature Stories
- Ad Copies
- Marketing Copies
- Ebooks and whitepapers
- Email Newsletters
Career paths of proficient content writers:
Full-time:
They work at a company or agency on a full-time basis.
Part-time:
They can work for a company, an agency, or an organisation on a part-time basis.
Freelance Writers:
Better known as freelancers who work independently for their clients. They get content writing projects directly from their clients and serve them according to their needs.
Content Editors:
Experienced writers work at various companies as content editors to check quality and edit content developed by junior writers.
Content marketers:
Experienced writers with sound digital marketing knowledge work as content marketers. They create strategies and post content accordingly to increase visibility, drive traffic, and generate genuine leads for enterprises and individuals.
Content managers:
Content managers oversee content creation, development, management, and distribution of content across various media, channels, and platforms. They make all strategic efforts to inform, engage and motivate target audiences. They handle teams and manage various writing verticals and multiple aspects of content creation.
