Content writing is one of the core, strategic elements for website growth. This doesn't mean that it is the only thing that's important, but it does mean it cannot be ignored. Fortunately, it is also something that everyone can improve on through a small amount of effort and experience. The aim of this article is to give YOU the content writing tips you need, to create compelling content your audience is looking for, and for good measure, we will let you know some of our keys tips on things to avoid so you don't have to worry about creating poor content.  We aim to help you identify the best types of content you can write and why. If you take nothing else from this post it should be that the relevant content is as important as any other steps. You need to write something worth reading if you want it to score highly in Google's search rankings but beware, balancing the SEO optimisation for your audience engagement, and the actual original subject of your article, can seem daunting at first.  We will guide you through this process so that you too can be a successful content writer.

Content Writing Tips and Tricks

Which leads me to the purpose behind this post. Namely to make it a less strenuous and stressful task to both produce and improve the content you're pushing to your own site.

Managing your time competently

The first place where people often struggle is in trying to rush content out to meet a deadline. This doesn't mean that you should ignore deadlines to perfectly hone a post, but it does mean that you should plan your time more carefully in advance. It can be very easy, even professional content writers, to panic when they realise they haven't left themselves enough time to comfortably complete a quality piece of work. Most of the time this can be avoided by a more structured approach to the procedure of content writing. Starting with setting up a stable release schedule and moving on from there can remove a lot of the complications. If you know that you will be writing two or three articles a week for the foreseeable future, you can start to plan well in advance.

Structuring your articles for efficiency

Once you've set up a reliable timeline you can begin to see how long you can set aside for each piece of work. From there it's just an extension of the same idea to separate and organise a plan based on an individual article. Where previously we were breaking down your entire release schedule now we're going to break down each article. Your first step will be to find a topic or content idea your target audience is looking for.  Having your audience in mind is crucial when creating your original content.  These topics can either be something you find organically or they can be one dictated by your sites needs.  By dictated, we mean creating a product description or a high quality news story.  It is important you spend time investigating the correct types of content for your audience. Either one should be backed up by some detailed reading around the subject and by putting some thought into researching keywords. You can either come up with a title and base your article headers off that, or work the other way round and see what title fits best after you've finished your headings. Personally I've always found starting with the headers to be the most natural part of my content writing process. An example the structure we've used for this article would be: The Lost Art of Effective Content Writing - The Page Title, featuring your most valuable keywords Introduction - A brief summary of what your reader should expect to find Content Writing Tips and Tricks - Now for the good stuff

• Managing your time competently
• Structuring your articles for efficiency
• Weaving SEO tasks in naturally
• Keywords and how to use them
• Writing style and choices
• Using links effectively

Conclusion - Wrap up any key points and ensure your message is clear As you can see it isn't particularly fleshed out as far as plans go. But it does provide a high level view of how we planned this content piece. The other bonus that planning out an article in advance gives you is the ability to contribute to it in pieces. This can be a huge help if time is tight and you find yourself being pulled between other tasks. A short 15-30 minute stint of writing about a topic you're already familiar with can be enough to complete a shorter section. While it's never ideal it does mean that you won't be wasting time going back and forth over what you've already written.

Weaving SEO tasks in naturally

If you can make SEO optimisation a fundamental part of your content creation you can save a huge amount of time and effort moving forward. If the optimisation is something that becomes second nature while writing it means you won't have to go back and insert it inorganically. This is probably also the best time to think about overall site layout. When you're producing your articles for a particular site you should always be thinking about how it's going to look on the page. There is the obvious thoughts about font and picture placement but you also need to consider the use of headings and how this can impact on the SEO of your web pages and the site overall. Search engine crawlers look for very specific information and streamlining your articles to speed this up will help bump your site with little extra input from you. It also plays into the way you should be planning your articles anyway. Simply put you want one main heading with a number of subheadings depending on the complexity of your content. Your H1 heading should be the name of the article, something long enough and eye-catching enough to draw readers in without becoming too long. Somewhere between 50-60 characters is ideal.

• H1: The Lost Art of Effective Content Writing – Simple and Surprising Steps
• H2: Introduction to Content Writing – Tips and Tricks, Conclusion
• H3: Managing your time competently, Structuring your articles for efficiency, Weaving SEO tasks in naturally, Keywords and how to use them, Writing style and choices, Using links effectively

As you can see the designations are reasonably clear and are just there to maximise the speed and ease of the crawling process.

Keywords and how to use them

Correct use of keywords can really make or break an article in terms of effectiveness and optimisation. Your first thought should never be how to artificially cram as many in as possible. In fact keywords are there to supplement your writing, not to make up for something that's missing. Ideally, your writing would naturally cover any keywords that people would be searching for without you needing to crowbar them in. That isn't to say that you should just write without thinking about them at all. But it does mean that they should never stand out as forced. Striking this balance will make your articles not only more optimised but also much more user friendly. Keywords are one of the most important factors when it comes to higher ranks in SERPs so it's a good idea to master their use. You want them to appear throughout the post, in the title, main headings, and in your conclusion.

Writing style and choices

I briefly touched on this before, but it is always worth remembering that your writing needs to be something that people want to read. Making content that people want to read should always be your primary focus. Short paragraphs and sentences are key for highlighting information and for making your blog article mobile friendly. Keeping you tone conversational will make your writing more accessible to your audience and adds an extra meaning to the phrase SEO friendly.

Using links effectively

Blog posts are an amazing tool for bringing people to your site. One of their most useful functions lies in keeping users on your site for a longer time. Giving users a reason to follow a link and more on a topic you've touched on is always a great function. It saves the user going through another search while simultaneously giving a different page on your site traffic. Each internal link will be followed by search engine crawlers and added to their index. It also gives further information to the search engine about what each page is about. Internally linking can effectively triple the coverage of your site by search engine crawlers. This will drastically boost the ranking of your pages individually and your site as a whole.

Conclusion

Hopefully this post has helped you with any questions you have about how you too can become a successful content writer for your niche, all while making sure your work is as SEO friendly as possible. To briefly recap the key points: Plan your time and articles in advance, knowing what you want to write about and how long you have to do it comfortably will make the process a lot less stressful and save you time in the overall. Always have the core concepts of SEO optimisation in mind while writing your content. It will add structure in general and speed up the rate you can complete your writing. SEO friendly blog posts and content won't always deliver instant results but by consistently putting out quality, well written, and highly optimised original content the results will eventually follow.