Content writing has become a full-time and high-paying job as the digital marketing industry has evolved over the years. The world has changed, especially due to the pandemic, every business has an online presence. So, the demand for content writers is increasing like never before!

But, the question is, how to start content writing and get paid higher when the competition is tough. Well, to answer that, I have come up with some top-notch methods and tips. I have learned these methods while crafting content for the business of various industries over the years.

So, let’s have a keen look at what it takes to start content writing!

Understand What is Content Writing?

Content writing is planning, writing, and also editing web content mostly for digital marketing purposes. It includes crafting the content web pages, articles, blogs, scripts for podcasts and videos, press releases, social media platforms, forums, and much more.

Select Your Niche!

The next step is selecting your niche. Niche is referred to as the topic of any write-up. If you know what you love to write about; you are lucky. If you don’t know just read some stuff on different niches such as health, lifestyle, technology, digital marketing, and the list goes on.

What Are the Types of Content Writing?

The types of content writing are

• Blogs
• Brand Journals
• Copywriting
• Web Copies
• AV Content ( Audio, Video Content i.e. video scripts & descriptions, podcasts)
• E-books
• Whitepapers
• Off-page content
• Technical Content (How-Tos, Guides, User Manuals, Instructions)
• Social Media Content ( posts, quizzes, platform-specific content, PR outreach)
• Email Writing (Newsletters, Sales & Customer Nurture)
• Long-Form Content (Data and Case Studies, Pillar Blogs)
• Ad-Copy Writing ( Advertising & Direct Mail Writing, Landing Pages, Product Descriptions)

Steps to Start Content Writing for Beginners

1.      Read

One of the most important steps and tips for content writing is developing a reading habit. Yes, if you want to be good at content writing, you need to consume available content regarding your niche. It will help you to gather valuable insights that you can add to your write-up later. Moreover, reading helps a writer to build specific vocabulary that helps his/her content to resonate with readers.

2.      Know the Search Intent

Just type your topic on the search engine and examine what type of content you see for that query. Read the title, description, and the content itself of at least the top 3 websites appearing in search results. Determine what the readers are looking for regarding your topic and what your competitors have written. This is one of the key points when you want your readers to find your content relevant to what they were looking for regarding a specific topic.

3.      Do the Keyword Research

Whether you are an SEO guy or not you can always get some incredible amount of keywords from the google search engine. Putting keywords where they make sense is one of the most valuable writing techniques one can follow.  Just type your topic/main keyword in the google search bar and you will get a bunch of related searches at the bottom of the page. Make sure your content has all of them where it makes sense.

4.      Add Up Your Flavor

Adding your flavor means that after reading your competitor’s content, think of something they haven’t added in the content but the audience needs it. I would explain it with a simple content writing example.

For example, if your topic is “how to earn six digit money online” then you shall let your readers know the complete roadmap for it. Including what skills they can build, how they can reach the clients and how to improve their service’s quality to earn more. If you want to read a perfect content writing example, here it is: How to Kickstart Six Digit Online Career.

5.      Cover the Topic Completely

Covering a topic completely is the skill that develops trust between a writer and its readers. If a writer has addressed every possible concern of potential readers in his/her piece; readers will think he/she knows the topic completely and cares about them! This would give your content an edge over your competitors when it comes to rankings.

6.      Be Focused throughout Your Write-Up

It is very important to keep up the same voice, tone and perspective throughout your write-up. Most importantly, satisfying the search intent is crucial for this point. If you are writing How-to-Guide, then you shall focus on practically doing that work/action and concerns related to it throughout your content.

For example, if you are writing a guide about starting an online career with 6 digits in hand, obviously your readers want to know how it will be done, what to avoid, what to consider, and what would be the platform. So, you shall only focus on actually undergoing for the techniques involved in starting am online career to earn 6 digits easily, just like the writer did in this article. I would say, this article of one of the best content writing examples.

7.      Proofread It!

Last and most important point. Always proofread it yourself by reading every line. You can check the content from Grammarly but after doing it, you shall check it yourself. Because not everything can be checked by software, after all, you need to keep up the human element in your content.

What to Know More?

●       Always Add Value

Adding value means adding some insights to your content, like proofs. It’s one of the most powerful writing techniques. You can get these proofs from your competitors’ websites and scholarly articles. If you are a professional/ expert in your field and writing content for it, you can give expert advice yourself but, if not, you can find expert advice from your competitors’ content and mention them.

If you have carefully examined the article I shared above about earning online, you must have analyzed that the content is well-researched and an expert’s advice for different platforms has also been added!

●       Optimizes Your content

If you want your content to outrank your competitors; study content optimization. It is not difficult as there are various easy to understand guides available for it. One of the best resources for learning anything regarding SEO and content optimization is Backlinko.

Getting Paid to Write

●       What to Charge at Different Expertise Levels?

Well, the content writer usually charges from $0.01 to $1 per word depending upon the project in the initial stages of their career path, especially as a freelance content writer. At the mid-career level, most of the content writers charge from $10 to $40 per hour and expert writers charge up to $125 per hour, and some charge more as well

●       What It Takes to Charge More!

If you want to charge more, you need to gather more and more information about everything in your niche. Moreover, you need to improve your content writing skills over time. And you can do it very easily by reading a blog/article of content writing experts and experts of your selected niche.

Reading creative writing techniques, content optimization, blog and article writing formats and some other related topic would add value to your skill set.

●       How to Play Safe?

While doing paid work regarding content writing you need to incorporate some best practices to avoid any fraudulent activities. See what you can do to get paid safely

1. Ask half payment in advance from clients
2. Ask your client to hire you via freelancing platforms (if your client does not agree to option 1)
3. Ask for a bi-weekly payment release (if your client agrees to option no 1 and 2)

Final Words!

Well, now you have gotten a perfect idea of how to start content writing and how what it is. However, if you have any suggestions or you want to know more about improving your skills as a content writer; just comment!