Writing is an art. Writer is an artist. Words are the tools. Passion is the canvas.
The person who writes the content on any given topic is known as Content Writer. The writer writes the content for articles, blogs, webinars, press releases and every other form of written web material.
Content writers are professional enthusiasts who write engaging content to be read and used online. They use professional tools to accomplish the task; however up-to some extent , you need natural communication skills to join this profession otherwise, no amount of tool can help you in this line of work.
Types of Contents
The content writers mostly write the content for the web. This content can include sales copy, podcasts, e-books, texts for graphics and videos, product description, catalogs etc. They also write content for online tutorial which includes - textual tutorial, graphical tutorial and video tutorial.
Before writing the content straightaway, the writers do lots of research on the topic. Once they gather enough material, only then they decide which information to include and which to exclude in their final writing.
Types of formatting Tools
There are various formatting tools that the professional writers use to create, enhance and speed-up their work like- HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Content Management System.
Once the content is created, it is served to different types of websites like- static, dynamic, e-commerce, blog, college websites, news aggregators, and social networks.
Job of Content Writer
Well, the job of content writer is more than just churning out articles for different channels. To develop a more thorough understanding of what actually content writers do, let's breakdown the job description.
Defining the Content Writer
Writing is nothing less than online journalism - this is what some content writers equate it with. They write content for variety of channels like - blogs, news portals, different types of websites, advertisement banners, e-mailers etc.
Content writers are engaged with variety of industries; they give their services to small businesses, large corporate houses, entrepreneurs, and some are even hired in government sector. They can be full-time employees or freelancer; however, there are also many content writers who prefer to do it just as a side business to earn some extra perk.
They can also be SEO and HTML experts though this is not necessarily the part of their job. Other than this, writing a content in a simple and reader-friendly way is their top-most priority but this could also lead to monotonous reading. Hence, they also give a little bit of light and humorous touch to it so that the article becomes an enjoying experience for different kind of readers.
They also make reports with coordination with Subject Matter Experts and others involved in the project. One of the most useful role of the content writer is of salesperson. They write the sales-pitch in brief but comprehensive manner. The companies expect them to write the content in such a way it converts into sales.
The content writers play many roles throughout their career. Let's see few of them.
Role of Researcher
It might sound strange but a content writer is a researcher first and then a writer. It does not matter who they are writing for, in every project, they have to deal with the subject which they are not aware of and hence, they do lots of research to gather the most accurate information and write the most comprehensive article. Good research is the building block of good content writing.
Role of Editor
Content writers not only write but, also edit. Many times they get the article written by some other writer. These writers can be their junior, peer or even the client himself/herself. Once they receive it, they have to go through whole content to make sure that that there are no errors like - grammar, punctuation, contextual words, sentence formation, spelling, formatting etc.
It is an arduous task of editing and polishing the poorly written content. But it does make you feel like a stalwart after correcting all the errors. After all, you were the one who was trusted above all others.
Role of Designer
While the content writers are supposed to write the article in comprehensive language, it is additionally expected from them that they would as well decorate their piece of writing. By decoration, it means, the written piece is well formatted and properly displayed. This also includes the use of graphics, animations and videos. Though, creating graphics, animations and videos are part of different department but still, there are some websites which provide copyright-free materials which could be used by the content writers without bothering about legal hassles.
Adding some creativity and artistic approach, the content writers can ensure that their work does not look like an insurmountable wall of text. A well groomed content writer can turn the complicated idea into easily understandable and accessible piece of copy that pleases your readers and gives you another day lo live.
Role of SEO
The role of content writer doesn't just end with writing a comprehensible article with the inclusion of graphs and other bells-and-whistles and call it a day; they have more work to do. They make sure that apart from the content being fresh and unique, is also optimized for topic specific keywords which ranks high in search engines and in-return brings large amount of traffic on your website.
They clearly know the significance of headlines, paragraph and its word limit, keyword density in whole article, image/video file size impact and other best SEO practices which ensures that the techniques used is most effective to bring your site on the first page search engine.
Okay, so we are done with some of the roles of a content writer, but what skills do they need? Here are few skills which any budding content writer must have:
Solid command on grammar and style
Excellent research ability
Ability to right quickly and work under tight schedules
Must write on variety of subjects, in an array of tones
Sound knowledge of the field they wish to write about
Must have persuasive and convincing writing ability
Thus, you can see that writing ability is important but additionally, you need knowledge, patience, speed, creativity and artistic approach to accomplish the task to become a successful content writer.
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