As a content writer, you may spend hours creating content that you hope will benefit your clients. However, it’s easy to undo all your hard work with some simple errors. These silly mistakes can leave the output dead in the water, doing nothing for your client, and in some cases, harming the client’s reputation. For the interest of content writers, we have compiled a list of common mistakes that a professional content writer must not commit.
Writing without a clear understanding of your audience: Without understanding the nature of the target, you cannot write for things that your audience cares about. After taking the necessary steps to get to know the audience, you can generate content with the knowledge of what and who the content is being prepared for.
Writing without a clear goal: Whatever the goal of your content piece is. Make sure that it is understood clearly by your audience. In case you are writing on behalf of some other department in your company, find out what they are trying to get out of the content posted. If you fail to do so, you can lose your vision and create content which fails to capitalize on the target audience.
Starting without a clear structure: When an idea strikes, it is tempting to start writing down a content piece. This is a bad practice as you should create a structure for the piece you are writing. You should first explain what the content holds for the reader and how he or she may take advantage of it in the first paragraph. You should also use headings to help you retain the focus of the reader, giving them clarity about the flow of content
Forgetting a call-to-action: After completing an informative piece which is suited to the audience, you should always add a call-to-action. The CTA should be prompt enough to take the reader on to the next step in the sales journey. It doesn’t need to promote a particular service or product. However, not adding a CTA may leave your audience unclear and confused about what they could or should be doing next.
Writing content that doesn’t solve a problem for the reader: The main purpose of content marketing is to grow trust and authority in a brand. You need to make sure the reader takes something of value away from reading it even if your main focus for a particular piece of content is to entertain.
Turning it into a sales pitch: The content should end up bringing a promotional piece for products as readers will fill like they’ve been tricked into reading it. If your content includes benefits about using your type of product or service, you can even add competitors’ offerings as well as your own when providing examples. This proves to the audience that you have their best interests at heart.
Leaving the reader stranded: To make the audience experience as beneficial as possible, you need to help them take the next step. This could be linked to other related content, downloadable resources or product pages or even external sites. Directing readers to other learning opportunities is a great way to leverage positive sentiment.
Forgetting to promote your content: There is no use for carefully crafted content if nobody reads it. You need to direct people to read the post and the most effective way to do this is to use social media. This is one of the best ways to alert your existing customers as well as any potential customers who might be interested.
Conclusion
Professional content writers have to conform to certain rules and concepts to deliver their clients the work they need. This is why it’s extremely important for clients to work with certified content writing agencies to get the best output.
