We are living in a transitional time where mobile is taking over the desktop in terms of usage. But it has not taken over not fully yet. The future trends do seem to predict that mobile will be tipping the balance. What we create today needs to not only function but also work well for the next few years. Here are some practical tips on creating content for a mobile-first audience. 1. Get your mobile typography right Your content is only good if it can be consumed. With limited and varying screen sizes, getting the right font, spacing and size become an important factor of your content strategy. Using open source Google fonts seems to be a no-brainer. But some of those fonts are truly dreadful. Maybe, picking one from this list can help. The minimum criteria for your font size is that people should be able to read the headlines and sub-heads without pinching and expanding the screen. The one thing you shouldn’t forget is to remain minimalist – unless of course, you are designing for designers whose mission is to look for decorative fonts. 2. Focus on quality more than quantity Most people think that mobile users are averse to big chunks of content. This often means compromising on content quality. Don’t fall into this trap as quality content still is the key criteria for content consumption. Once you have the quality in place, just break the content into chunks to enhance readability. 3. Load your most important content first Websites viewed on desktop often have elaborate banners and ads before they get down to showing you the actual content. With mobile, the speed of load time coupled with the general need to grab attention quickly within limited screen space means that you need to load the most important bullets of your content first. Let the golden rules of SEO apply of having the most-likely keyword easily visible on the screen to ensure an immediate connect. 4. Create interactive content How boring is it to have someone preach a sermon while you are trying to have a conversation. In the smartphone age when a quick tap is enough for a user to share their opinion, you should create content that is interactive. Typeform’s interactive video, which effectively engages with customers with a story where the user gets to decide the outcome, is a perfect example of the right way of content creation. 5. Shift from customization to personalization Our current UX focuses on creating mass customization on the basis of browser cookies. This approach is gradually moving towards personalization where brands are able to quickly and easily answer the “What’s in it for me?” question that visitors ask. With an initial collection of data from the user, you can show them content about or from “people like me” which the user can relate to. For example, if you have read a couple of articles about road trips and travelling with kids, you are likely to be interested in an article that combines the two and gives you an apt summary for the destination you plan to visit. Last but not least, don’t forget to get an in-depth understanding of the most important metrics for your content. Use the Google Campaign URLs to track the source of traffic to your content. Track in-article link clicks, time on site, bounce rates, social shares and how the article adds to your overall marketing goals.
Category: Content Creation
A tried-and-tested guide to becoming a better content writer
Fun fact: The average salary of a content writer in the USA is $42,000 per year. Another fun fact: The average salary of a content writer in India is INR 2,50,000. The plight of content writers in India is real. It’s a hard industry to survive in. Try finding a content writer who solely writes content and has work experience of more than a decade. Well, that’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Most professionals who work in this field get sick and tired of the gruelling competition in the industry and end up switching careers. What to do? Want our word of advice? Want our word of advice? Just become darn good. The industry is swarming with people who have no clue about writing and yet has found a job as a writer. The good news – these guys will never get to work with the best. The people who know the content will always try to find people who know the content. And that’s why you must improve your writing skills. However, here is a something that you need to keep in mind – perfecting content writing does not happen overnight. It takes time and effort. But when you get there, you just stay there. Here’s your tried and tested guide on how to polish up your skills as a content writer Golden Rule: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Your work should embody this epithet. Use your vocabulary with caution Good writers have a good vocabulary. Right? Right. But good writers don’t ‘flaunt” their vocabulary and that’s what really makes the difference. Whenever you decide to use a ‘big word’ in your writing- keep your audience in mind. Do you think your audience will know what the word means? Or, will they have to Google that too? Read The more you read, the better it will become. The more you know, definitely the better. The benefits of reading are simple and many. It gives you more content and new presentation ideas too. However, to reap the benefits of reading, you need to do it right. Focus on reading a lot of different types of content- fiction, non-fiction, infographics, research papers etc. Find yourself a writing buddy Finding a writing buddy can really help you polish your skills as a content writer. Look for someone who’s a little bit more experienced than you. Connect and network. Make such friends. Develop a friendship that results in both of you proofreading and editing each other’s articles. The benefit of having another like-minded person’s perspective, expertise and skills is that it has a seriously positive impact on the overall quality of your work. Create an ‘outline’ for your article Before you actually start article content writing, plan it. Make a comprehensive plan- not just an introduction, body, and conclusion- go beyond that. Divide the article into different pieces. For example: If the title of the article is ‘Benefits Of Guava’- here’s how you should plan your content or flow: Nutritional value of guava Health benefits of guava Benefits of guava leaves etc. Once you decide upon the sub-headings and create a strong outline- only then should you get to the actual writing of the article. Use online tools To be born in the age of the internet is a blessing. Don’t let such a blessing go to waste. Here is a list of tools that are a must for content writers. They help you get better at your craft without asking any additional effort from you. So invest in these tools or one of them to better your content. Here are our favorites: Hubspot’s topic generator – When you are staring at a blank screen to think what to write on, here is your go-to tool for inspiration. Just type in random words. Copyscape or SmallSeoTools – No one likes a plagiarized article, even though you might not have done it intentionally. Its always better to check. Grammarly – A great online tool that helps you create grammatically sound content. Headline Analyser – When you are stuck with the headline forever, this is a miracle worker. UK vs US spelling – This one is a savior when you colour and color gets your confused. Wordcounter – Your client wants only 500 words. Use this tool to keep a track on your words. Before we leave you- let’s just quickly run through some bad content writing practices that you must always try to avoid Avoid making spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and syntax errors. Never leave sentences incomplete. Do not be careless when formatting your articles. Formatting your content helps to improve the readability of the piece. Avoid committing any kind of logical mistake. Organize the content in your articles. To ensure that your content is always organized- pre-plan the outlines for the content before writing it. Always try to make the content intelligent and clear. That’s it from us. Do let us know if this helped you in improving your writing skills. We would love to hear from you. Watch: Why is it the right time to market your business through Social Media?
8 easy ways to spike up the engagement rate of your content
Engagement is a term that is thrown around quite loosely these days when it comes to social media KPIs. But then brands fail to question what engagement metric is truly of value to the brand. If someone just likes your page, is that of value? If someone likes a post or leaves a comment like ‘Nice’ or ‘Good’ or the dreaded ‘Hi’, does it help the brand? Or will you want the user to share your content with his friends and followers? Can that make a difference? Before we discuss ways to make content engaging, let us analyze what engagement is of value to you. If you or your brand owns a blog, what metrics help you decide whether your users are engaging with you? Here are the top 6 metrics that leading brands measure Time spent on the blog No. Of users sharing the blog on social media Valid comments on the blog Clicks on call to action links in the blog Giving a backlink to your blog Bounce rate Each of these metrics relates to engagement. But all of them are of different value. For example, we would rate shares on social and backlinks to be the top two metrics that prove that the blog has nudged an action from your reader to endorse your brand/view. On the other hand, a click on the CTA which drives users to buy your product (in case of an e-commerce site) or fill a lead form (especially for B2B sites) is the most valuable action your user can take. Time spent on the blog and bounce rates are general measures to keep a check on if the users are finding your content useful and whether the title and the content are in sync with the user’s expectation. Did you wonder why we did not set ‘views’ as a metric here on how many people read the blog? That’s because that is a KPI for the content you put out in marketing the blog. It does relate as a KPI for the title of your blog but that’s where it ends. Another metric that can stem out of your content and is a great one to measure is how many people subscribe to your newsletter after reading your content. They like it and want more of it. They are a niche audience, perfect for lead nurture and will eventually come handy when you have something to promote. The first thing you need to figure out is what engagement metrics count for you. It will be great to eyeball them all every month as a standard practice. Now, let’s get down to best practices that can drive each engagement metric. 1. Improve Social share engagement for your content Depending on the type of your content, the first thing is to know where it is likely to be shared socially. The simplest thing to do is install a plugin that pushes social shares to the forefront. Some show the number of times the post has been shared by others, which promotes mirror behavior. Others have the social share buttons on the top, bottom, and side scroll of the page so that it is readily available. There are other plugins that allow your text selection on the page to be converted into a tweet tagging the brand handle. Others paraphrase important sentences from the content into tweet bits to make it a no-brainer to think about what and how to share. Last but not least, a line below the content requesting share doesn’t do any harm. You can experiment and evaluate to see which tool works for your audience. Keep it simple and that should be it. 2. Get backlinks for your content Backlinks used to be the secret weapon in the SEO arsenal. It’s now much harder than it looks. You have to be the most authoritative content provider on a topic to get a good few backlinks for it. You may have to go the old-school way of asking people to link to your site too. There are some common types of content that get the endorsement. They are great listicles, good content that people can’t easily re-write or copy because you have indisputable research behind it. It can even be one that is high on humor. Such content gives the endorser some value to link to. Backlink.io’s crazy article about 200+ SEO factors considered by Google is a great example of this. It is not something that you can just get up one day and write. It requires in-depth research, industry knowledge and more than a few days of time commitment. (See how he just got one more backlink!) 3. Add an easy call to actions What do you want your readers to do when they are reading your blog or right after. The attention span is too short and you need to get them to do something quickly. If you are a local business, you want them to call or visit you. Display your contact number prominently and add a map to your location. You can give a first visit incentive (BOGO offer) or even a discount to pique their interest. If you are a B2B site, putting out a white paper, eBook or research with industry data is one of the sure shot ways to attract a prospect lead’s attention. They are more than willing to share their email id to get free access to valuable information that helps with decision making for their business. Another great example is how travel sites do it – create amazing wanderlust articles and then subtly push in a package option. If you are a B2C e-commerce site, doing listicles and product comparisons is a great way to subtly sell to your customers. Don’t forget to add a UTM code to your links to know which link is driving the most leads/conversions. 4. Add comments on the blog Though commenting is a feature that gets counted as engagement, how can you as a
[Video] 8 steps guide to Good Content
Gone are the days when traditional advertising used to rule the roost in marketing strategies. Today, content marketing has taken over that pie and is transforming the way brands communicate with their consumers, both present and potential, and create a sense of bonding. A company that creates relevant and valuable content and markets it well is rated higher than its competitors. Over a period of time, it gains in reputation and acquires a better brand image with growing online followership. Content marketing also helps in identifying the needs of the consumer better and assists in making tailor-made marketing strategies based on consumer feedback leading to more revenue generation. Be it blogs, infographics, video content, or podcasts, content has to be of a high standard and full of creativity and can’t be an insipid piece loaded with keywords. But all said and done, churning out informative and engaging content regularly is not that easy. So, how to really create good content? Well, sadly there’s no magic wand for that but luckily there are few guidelines which can help you achieve your goal. From ideation to evaluation, here are 8 steps one should adhere to while creating digital content for a better success rate. Need a helping hand with the content? Connect with us. Want to read more check the curated list below. How Content Marketers Can Use the Power of Clickbait for Good [Video] Why Exactly Should You Do Content Marketing And How? Different Ways Your Business Can Use Videos To Its Advantage Should You Use ChatBots For Your Small Business?
It isn’t a great content if it can’t deliver
Content marketing is the one thing that everyone is doing these days – agencies, clients, brand owners, influencers and even people in general. That’s because we have collectively woken up to the power of content that is created well. What exactly are we talking about here? Is good content the one that sells or is it the one that seeds an idea, a possibility, or an exploratory journey or pulls the user into a story? Does the final outcome of the content matter in terms of driving the brand’s business goals? In the grand old days of content (which was half a decade back), content got written to please search engines. People believed in quantity more than quality. Today the ROI from content is actively sought by clients. As an agency, it would be outrageous to give a plan that will only talk about how the content will be written and marketed. Instead, the premise of the actions is now actively based on achieving outcomes from the content. Whether it is a landing page optimization or social media content or content created for third-party websites, our aim as an agency is to strictly align with the client’s marketing and business goals and drive it actively through our content strategy and execution. Looking for a partner to help with content marketing? Find us at www.justwords.in
What makes us share content?
Did you hear Despacito or Shape of You in a loop last year? You must have shared and had many of your friends hear it too. That made these videos the most shared ones on Facebook in 2017! When was the last time you wrote a blog that received an abysmal number of likes? And how did that make you feel? Not very good, we presume. It means that the people who did see the content did not find it ‘interesting’ enough to engage with it by liking, commenting or sharing. This, in turn, made it even less likely that others would see the content at all. See where this is going? If you’ve spent hours and hours in great long-form blog content writing but not seeing the ‘share’ numbers you want, there could be a few reasons around it. Let’s deep dive into what intrinsically makes people share content and how you can take advantage of this as a marketer. In 2015, Moz and Buzzsumo got together to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the teeming millions and find out insights behind what makes content linkable and shareable. Together, they analysed over 1M articles which gave interesting insights. 1. Shares and links aren’t directly proportional In fact, in most cases, they don’t even co-relate. Articles that had a lot of shares did not have any external links. This fact gave an insight that the driver behind shares and linking are different. Sharing is generally done as an emotional response to an article. Linking is done from a strategic alignment of the article with the content on one’s own website. There is a small sweet spot where some content is equally shared and linked to. This is generally true for articles that have high utilitarian value like in-depth research or how-tos. While we all would love to make our piece for the sweet spot, it is best to choose what is more valuable to you as a marketer – sharing (reach, visibility, branding) or linking (gaining authority). 2. Type of shareable content varies by industry An interesting insight that came from Clear Voice’s study of 640,000 articles across 14 industries found that the type of content marketing that works in different industries varies considerably. For example, infographics work well for only one-third of the industries studied. Tech, beauty, home, and garden have an affinity for long-form content. How-to content works great with arts and hospitality. You can see the complete list here The other side of the coin is that industry and type of content also dictate the media that will be used to share. While 61% of business content gets shared via LinkedIn, 73% of shares in the career industry are done on Facebook and beauty and wellness is seeing an uptake on Instagram and Pinterest. Once you connect the dots on the type of content, the industry and its social uptake value, your chances of making it shareable can increase exponentially. 3. The ‘entertainment’ value of shareable content Going back to the first example of Despacito, this reason seems to fit well. Think of other things you’ve shared recently on a social site and you can identify a pattern. Most shareable content has great entertainment value. An AMA research found that content with positive news which caused excitement, awe and delight were likely to be shared a lot. The study also showed that people who experienced the other extreme of anger or frustration after reading a piece of content were likely to share it. This, in a nutshell, means that content that gets people to ‘react’ and extract an emotion is highly likely to be shared. 4. The social validation factor of shareable content Remember, sharing Despacito not only meant that you were entertaining your friends. It meant you were the ‘cool’ one in your group who shared it with others. The ‘like’ button on Facebook wields more power than you think. If a bunch of your friends has liked a comment, you are put in a tight corner to also like the comment. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that you can accept something to be ‘popular’ or ‘cool’ if a bunch of other people makes it sound so. As a marketer, social validation for your content can be a governing factor determining whether friends of friends will continue to like and share it. To do this, make sure you display the number of likes and shares the article has received. 5. The drive to do ‘good’ It is an open question if people are intrinsically wired to help those who are less fortunate. Even if they aren’t keen candidates, everyone wants to look the part. Beliefs and causes related content help people define themselves and what they stand for. 84% of people share content to show what they care about. What this means for marketers is that we need to constantly look for opportunities to harness the power of stories. The idea is to show the human connect aspect of a brand. It can be about how your brand has a ‘giving back day/week’ where employees and stakeholders work together to uplift the community around them. It can be about how your equal employment policy or even the lives of the people you touch by powering local economies. 6. Interesting content gets shared What was the last story you shared with your school/college Whatsapp / Facebook group? It is most likely something that you as a group would find interesting. While we as marketers already know that we need to create ‘interesting’ content, the term is as ambiguous as saying someone likes ‘good’ music. So let’s dive a bit more about what can make content interesting. According to an NYT insight group, 73% of people share content to nourish and grow relationships. Going back to the content you shared on your school Whatsapp groups, it is most likely content that gets a
The checklist you need to write the best website content
How important is the content on your website? On a scale of 1 to 10, we would probably put it on 15. It is often the first touch point for a prospect who has discovered or stumbled upon your website. In the absence of a human driving sales, the content needs to speak, connect and convince the customer to trust you enough to take their journey with you. Let’s add a few real-time complexity layers to this. Your brand is new or relatively less known among its users. Another layer is your competition who is also wowing your customer either with product and service quality or price points and discounts. To add to this, there is the search engine layer which determines the usefulness of your website based on its content and the user journey it creates. So you see, content is the one thing you simply shouldn’t take a chance with as it can make or break your business. Most people, though, when making websites, approach it like a commodity that can be brought off the shelf. They think that you can get ‘almost any writer’ to write content and often choose to work with the person who offers the best price. The choice of who works on your website content is a big decision. And since everyone loves a good checklist, we’ve made one that can come handy when you have to get down to writing clear, concise and converting content for your website. Let’s get you started on the journey from good to great content. 1. Allow content to shape design While most people generally pick a design theme and fit content into the available buckets, try doing the reverse to see that you are covering things from a user journey perspective. Here are some of the questions you need to find answers to: What would a new and returning user expect from the website? Where would they most likely go to fulfill their intention of interacting with or purchasing from your brand? What are the quick wins for user gratification? What are the key demographic buckets for your users and will their needs on the website vary? How will you generate trust with content? What are the best ways to showcase? As you answer these questions your answers will most likely be a series of pages which allows you to showcase the answers. This will lead you to step 2. 2. Determine all the pages you’ll need on the site in the next year One year? Yes, that’s right. You see, getting a chunk of your planning done when you create the website will save you both time and money. Going back to create small buckets of content which you have missed out will definitely come at an additional cost which is the result of not planning well in advance. Your website will have two sets of pages – static and dynamic. Static pages are mostly functional pages like About us, Contact Us, FAQs, Service pages, Team, Vision and Mission and the likes which won’t change on a day to day basis. Of these, two important pages you simply shouldn’t miss are ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Terms and Conditions’, which will keep you safe in a worst-case scenario. The second set of pages are dynamic which will get added as you push new content. It could be new products, listings or blogs that will add depth to your existing content. At this stage when you are creating a new website, you can create content templates and guidelines which can work as the beacon for the coming year. Put down a set of clear static and dynamic pages which will allow the assessment of the volume of content that needs to be created before launch and after launch. 3. Create content templates Most pages or set of pages on a site will follow a content and design format which will ensure that you don’t have to go back to the drawing book every time a new asset has to be created. Here are some of the features you can consider having on your pages a. Feature image Images are as much a part of the content as words, and they often speak louder. You’ll have to zero in on images for your site either from your own stock or by purchasing from an online image bank like iStock. A lot of times, when you are in the under-construction phase, it is great to identify free stock photos as a filler which will give you an idea on the look and feel without costing a ton of money. Want to know where to find them? See our detailed blog about the top free stock photo sites on the internet. Also think of the size of the image, dimensions, and plugins required to ensure they look good even after compression. b. Headline The statistic that 80% people don’t read beyond the headline is enough to get thinking what the headline for each page should be. You can have an intriguing hook, a question or a statistic along with the keyword for the page in the headline. c. Short and long description The short description, along with the headline, will be the pull factor for the page when someone discovers it via search. The long description will contribute to the ‘authority’ factor of the page which will build user trust in terms of topic expertise. Search engines are often said to love pages having upwards of 2000 words. d. Meta and SEO information The additional meta title, description, keywords, img name, img alt text, link name, and alt text, schema and structure form the important information set that you need to have for search engines to read and rank your page. e. Testimonial Genuine testimonials are the best way to build trust into your products and services. But it is important to not have this as sketchy or untruthful. You can use a third party industry reviewer where possible to give a neutral
Move over blogs, and articles. Here are new content formats to consider
The content marketing game is changing slowly but steadily. There are still hordes of blogs and content produced in the world but only a minuscule percentage of it manages to catch our attention, resonate, or go viral. While you may already have a solid content plan charted out for 2018, have you stopped to wonder how it is different from your 2017 plan? Have you factored innovative forms of content presentation into your strategy? If not, this is a great time to modify your plan a bit. There are two aspects to this plan: a. Great Content While we can’t fit in a universal definition for ‘great’, we all know that it is the type we all like to read with a cup of coffee, right until the end. It is filled with, data, insights, nuggets of wisdom, a-ha moments and the magical touch of humour. All of it together makes you believe that the piece was not written generally but somehow targeted at you. As far as this bit goes, nothing has changed. You still need to sweat it out, collect data, type, edit and then type some more until you get the desired result. b. Great Presentation We’ve spoken at length about the importance of imagery and the use of infographics before but the way we present content now is changing. It is not just headlines, text and images with highlights for quick scrollers. It is interactive and truly engaging where the user dictates how they want to proceed with the narrative. In this type of content presentation, the images literally bring the story to life helping you better imagine or understand the conversation in context. Going forward in 2018, your regular blogs must have great content but once in a few months, you’ll have to pull a rabbit out of the hat and create a mix of great content and great presentation. This will require everyone from a graphic designer to an animation specialist to a big data wiz to an expert wordsmith to come together and create a masterpiece. Are you up for the challenge? Here are bold new things to try out in 2018 1. Interactive Design We know that Parallax design has been around for a few years now. Yet, we see very little of it used for designing blog content. The fact is that you can package your content so well within the design that your readers would live to scroll until the end without feeling text-heavy. The the example of rehabs.com who created a page on the effect of illicit drugs on America. You can click on the first ‘shovel’ to ‘dig into the problem’ literally. The content citing statistics are equally compelling. Imagine that the USA has spent 1 Trillion dollars since 1971 to fight drugs and the war continues to only get worse. It leaves you in a bit of shock and awe to see the numbers multiply under ‘Lines of coke smoked in the U.S. while you were reading this’ section. As crazy as it sounds, for a second we contemplated jumping out of the article to make the numbers stop. The story here isn’t created in a standard blog format. It is neither a static infographic. Instead, if forces you to scroll wondering what to expect next. Last, but not the least, it makes an effective call to action (CTA) in favour of the content publisher. You can equate the publisher to not only be an authority on the subject but also as a crusader willing to fight the problem. 2. Face-averaging stories Most people think of themselves to be in an average bracket in life traits. They are average in school, college, at work, in skills and at life in general. This interesting reason propels the ‘average’ mind to check statistics about averages. Using latest technologies, you can average hundreds of facial images to show your readers what an ‘average Joe’ looks like. From criminals to celebrities to successful professionals, you can choose topics that have the inherent quality to go viral because the final picture will be something no one else will have. Want to check out how this works? Try FaceResearch.Org Wondering what the ‘average’ woman looks like? The Daily Mail blended thousands of faces of women from around the world to find the answer. This is what it found: 3. Playing on User Generated Content (UGC) Users love to share content. Sometimes they do it because they’ve either loved or hated your products and service. At other times, they do it for a small incentive. In either case, if you get your hands on a good collection of UGC, you can do more than a simple slide show. Several brands have taken UGC to reinvent their brands, create commercials and generate awareness. Even if you don’t have such agenda, you can still use UGC to create ‘different’ content. The New York Times, for example, created an interesting page featuring user photos of the 2017 solar eclipse as it moved across America. It makes you want to scroll down until the very end to see people’s reactions to the eclipse. In 2012, Ray Ban partnered with Breakfast to use a system that analyses people’s Instagrams as they are taken and builds a large scale mosaic out of them. This time-lapse video of it is quite captivating. 4. Cursor Tracking It is one thing to feel strongly about a particular topic. It is a whole different thing when you compare your feelings with others. Cursor tracking technology allows to track your mouse’s moments and clicks around your computer screen. It can show how people voted or felt about a particular topic or person. A similar technology is already used extensively in creating analytical heat maps. But a slice of this technology can be used in content creation too. From scales to graphs, you can use different ways to check user intent and then showcase how it measures against others who voted. See a cool live
25 things I learned about content that should make you a better writer
What’s common between an established writer, a new writer, a freelancer and someone who just writes casually? Everyone faces a writers’ block. All writers are used to staring at a blinking cursor on a blank page wondering how they are going to fill it with 3000 original words that can engage the reader, draw traffic and earn some ranking love from Google. Over the years, I have come face-to-face with this dreaded blinking cursor (or its pre-historic equivalent) several times. With age, I have understood this and now have the wisdom of making this blinking cursor my friend – who waits patiently while urging me to get the words flowing. And just like that, I want to share a few more words that I know in my heart from years of writing. 1. If you don’t write it first, then you better write it well The world has exploded with content. There are over 2M blogs published each day. Take a minute and re-read that sentence. Unless you are writing about a newly-discovered scientific phenomenon, it is likely that the topic you are writing about has been written by quite a few people. What makes you think that people will want to read the 21st person writing about a topic? The only reason they’ll do so if your piece is authoritative, completely original and adds more value than all the collective wisdom from before. You’ll most likely not write about the same topic twice – so ‘Make it count’. 2. Write everyday Being a writer means that you’ll have to write everyday. You’ll have to write on things you haven’t heard before. If you are writing for someone else, you’ll also have to adhere to tone guidelines and word count. While it sounds good, like any other job, it will get boring after a while. The only thing that can keep you going is a few cups of coffee and the chance to write what you like once in a while. 3. Sometimes writing what you don’t like can make the difference between just bread and bread with butter and jam There have been several occasions when I was given topics that were totally out of my comfort zone. But the work came in bulk and the pay was good. So without a lot of thought, I got down to writing them. It meant I had a few months of bills taken care of. The ease of knowing this helped in my work overall. So, if you get a topic that is too ‘technical’, don’t give up on it. You might just end up learning something in the process. 4. Share sleepovers with your writings – always Most clients like to rein in writers on a deadline. Thousand words by ‘yesterday’ is mostly where it starts. But always remember that bad writing and edits can make you lose your credibility. When you take work, always give it an extra night so that you can sleepover what you’ve written and re-read the whole thing the next day. This has been the single biggest factor in making my edits better. 5. Only new experience will grow you as a writer Writers provide their unique point of view on things. Be it travel, art, tech or any other topic they have expertise in. But in order to keep their content fresh and relevant, new experience is a must. I write a lot about digital marketing. But I’m able to do so only because I actually handle customer accounts and gain first hand insight on how things work. Advice that is copied or regurgitated doesn’t hold water too long. Take time out to hone your expertise, only then will you be able to write about it. Writers often draw inspiration from real life so keep things interesting outside the laptop. 6. Read other writers’ advice And while on the topic of honing your skills, the collective wisdom of the horde does come handy. Writers are notorious about not taking style advice easily but it does help to know how other writers are using writing hacks to get around things. Most advice comes from years of experience so do listen to your peers. From ways to find inspiration to tools that can get things done faster, read what other writers have to say. 7. Eat right and exercise if writing is your long term goal Elaborating on the earlier point, here’s one piece of advice that I would like to share with all writers. Unless you choose to get up and take a walk every half hour or keep a check on your sitting posture, you are going to end up an obese writer with back problems. In the long term, that’ll not help you or your readers. With a laptop and wireless modem, it is easy to get a change of view. Move away from your workstation and sit out in the open. It is fresh and inspiring. 8. Self-editing / re-writing is the toughest thing to do When you submit a piece of writing to client scrutiny, it is a super tough job if the work needs a re-write. Most writers are already in love with what they’ve written. Re-writing involves thinking of a new angle to write something and added research. It is not the easiest thing to do especially when you think you are done and over with a piece. But as a writer, you’ll just have to bite the bullet sometimes and get it over with. 9. There will be bouquets, brickbats and no comment days – accept it all When it comes to writing, praise is like fuel for the soul. It gives a sense of accomplishment and helps you keep going when the days aren’t as glamorous. But when it rains brickbats, it can be an equally frustrating nightmare. In this day and age of social media and trolls, a controversial piece of content can even cause legal trouble. The damaging piece of comment / review / rating can even bring