Writing is one of the most effective ways to get a point across. While video marketing may be growing in popularity, the art of writing is far from dead. Thanks to the internet, we now read thousands upon thousands of words per day, even if we’re not the bookish sort.
This means that knowing how to write good articles is an essential business skill. Knowing how to write well matters for marketing, press releases, and newspaper columns, all of which can benefit your business.
In this guide, we’re going to take a look at some simple tricks that can make you a writing guru. Are you ready to learn some pro writing tips and start using your linguistic skills to help your business? Then read on!
1. Choose a Topic That Provides Value
When you’re trying to think up a topic, you should find one that gives the reader something. It could be new information, a solution to a common pain point that they experience, or it could be an in-depth analysis of your industry.
Writing fluff or puff pieces doesn’t benefit anyone, and you won’t get many readers: who wants to spend time reading something that is of no value to them?
If you’re stuck finding a topic, you can always look to your competitors for inspiration, but you should never plagiarize. Plagiarism is poor practice, as it is both bad for your image and also harms your business’ SEO, resulting in Google penalties. However, you can use an SEO research tool to take a look at which of their articles are getting the most engagement, then take the same topic and put your own spin on it.
2. Speak to the Reader
When you’re writing marketing copy or a similar business article, you should always speak to the reader directly. This means using “you.” It may not be a good idea in academic essays or in formal writing but in business, it’s often the right choice.
Speaking directly to the reader makes them feel more involved. If you’re writing to an anonymous third-person other, your message isn’t going to resonate as strongly with your readers, no matter what it is.
3. Consider Your Target Audience
Yet who is this reader that you are speaking to? Part of coming up with an article topic involves researching your target audience. If you’re aiming an article at younger people, you can feel more at liberty to use slang or informal language. If you’re writing an article that’s aimed at executives, then formal language is the order of the day.
If you’re writing a B2B article, you should discuss your business’ experience and talk about your trustworthiness.
Regardless of who your target audience is and the type of language that you’ll use, you should try to avoid boring prose. If your articles read like extracts from technical manuals, no one is going to bother getting through them, even if they’re in the right style.
4. Consider the Best Format
There are many different types of articles that you can write. You could write web content, you could write an advertorial, or you could write a press release. They all have different benefits: click here for information about feature stories, for example.
Recognizing the benefits and limitations of a particular format can help you make the best choice for your business at that moment. For instance, if you want to build hype about a new product or service that you’re offering, SEO-focused web content, that will take months to top the Google search results, is not the best option, and you should use a press release instead.
5. Never Underestimate the Value of Research
Research is crucial to any good business article. If you want to produce a quality article, you need to make sure that every fact is right. This is because getting facts wrong can make your business look uninformed and amateurish.
While research is always important, for businesses, it’s crucial. Before you put pen to paper (or indeed, cursor to word processor), read a wide range of trustworthy sources and make notes. The best sources include government pages, academic journals, and authoritative industry sites.
If you’re going to quote statistics or facts that aren’t common knowledge, then you should also consider linking your source, either in-text or as a footnote. This lets other users verify what you’re saying, and proves that you’re trustworthy.
6. Plan a Structure
Structure is integral to a strong article. Without structure, your articles will read as unfocused and, once again, amateurish. This means that you should plan out your article before your write it, knowing what points you want to touch upon and where they’re going to feature in the article.
Create headings and subheadings within your plan, and use bullet points. Remember, there’s no rush: you can take as much time as you need to write an article, and the more work that you put in, the better it will be.
7. Use a Spellchecker and a Grammar Checker
Sending out an article that’s full of spelling or grammatical mistakes doesn’t do anyone any good. We get it, you’re human: there might be a couple of errors in a long article, but the fewer the better.
This means that you should always use a spellchecker on your writing, as well as a grammar checker. Grammarly is a great example of the latter. While these programs aren’t flawless, they can make a massive difference to your articles.
Get Out There and Write Good Articles
We hope that this guide has helped you: follow the tips that we’ve given you and you’ll be writing good articles in no time! No matter what kind of writing you need, this advice is invaluable. Now it’s time to start writing.
For more informative articles like this, check out the rest of our blog!
