To become successful in content writing, you not only need technical skills but you also need to make it a habit to use those skills in your day to day works. There are various basics skills that are important for content writers such as SEO, HTML, CSS, Social Media, error-free grammar, unique and engaging content. But it’s not sure that your content writing skills can make you a successful content writer until you don’t know the techniques to use those skills as a content writer.
But even knowing the techniques won’t work until they are not part of the habits of content writers. So you can learn here the basics techniques to become a successful content writer. But in this post, I am sharing those habits that I think essential to becoming successful in content writing. And most of these are based on my content writing and blogging experiences so far.
If you don’t know about content writing then learn this article: What is Content Writing? Why & How to start content writing?
So let’s get started:
1. Learn more about the subject that you’re writing:
The goal of learning is to install libraries/setup files in your brain. In simple words, you will become more aware of the language, vocabulary, behaviors, expression of the subject by learning and it will improve your writing skills as well as the quality of the content.
- Read Books/Newspaper/Articles/Reports/Social Status/Behaviours.
- Do something practical related to the subject.
- Learn about the target audience and their problems.
- Communicate with Leaders.
- Connect and answer your reader’s questions.
According to me, it’s about learning about the subject and objects. Once the mindset is built as per the character and subjects, you will be able to write more with high quality and speed. That’s why I recommend you to learn more about the subject that you want to write.
2. Get up early in the Morning:
Getting up early will help you to get more time for learning and works.
- Improve your skills:
From 5 AM to 7 AM you can improve your writing skills. You can join an online course that helps you to become a successful content writer. Such as copywriting, SEO, design, communication and social networking skills.
Learning in the morning prepares you for the day. It’s because in the day time you have to work, you don’t have time for learning it’s because you have to send the written articles to your client.
You also have to work on your personal blog SEO and article improvement. Then it’s tough to get time for learning. That’s why it’s important to get up early and dedicate a few hours for building and improving content writing skills.
- Maintain your physical fitness:
Your physical fitness impacts your writing skills and content of the post. If you get up early and do the yoga, meditation, exercise and eat healthy meals it boosts your mind power and positivity. Writing daily consume our minds and body powers. It accesses each memory cell. In this process, many days of the week you can feel like you don’t have any power. You feel unconfident, less creative, lazy, dull, hopeless etc. It’s because you’re giving everything to your readers from your mind. You have to sit 4-5 hours daily to write a draft, and it makes you powerless and tired.
If you’re writing from the tired mind and powerless body then the content will not able to increase the interest of the readers and won’t help them. A tired, dull, powerless coach and leaders make others the same as him. So to be energetic, positive and inspiration in your writing you have to prepare your mind and body.
And it’s best that you do it before you start work. The best time is in the morning. Eat healthy food and fruits so that your brain gets vitamins and those vitamins will work in your brain and will give the right words and sentences for your keywords.
Here you can learn later: Advantages of Waking up Early get only Successful People
3. Follow the Basics of SEO
Your words are the tools that solve your audience and customer problems. But these tools have to be configured properly with the search engine machines. In SEO, your words in the post have to be similar or the same with the keywords of your audience search on google and bing. It’s not mandatory but it’s important if you rely upon traffic from search engine more than social media.
There are various things you need to follow as a content writer such as :
- While doing keywords research you need to find out what your audience wants to learn from you. And what you can teach them on your selected keywords.
- You need to learn from other posts those are already ranking and written. You have to find out what is not there that is expected in the post.
- You don’t have to write that is more appreciated by the people in history. You have to write, what is best for the people in this time and situation.
- You have to write your headings as per your article. You can start writing for a keyword, and end with the heading. It can turn into a good strategy.
- Link appropriate sources if you can in your post. It can be your old article and external source link.
- Make sure your website speed is fast and it open posts quickly as per the expectation of your readers.
- Use any tone and language that you can speak best to point your ideas.
- Use small paragraphs and sentences as much as possible. If you don’t know much about the certain point, don’t go deep just to extend the paragraph.
- Write like you’re reading yourself and learning from yourself.
- Enjoy your writing and don’t take it as a burden.
- It’s best to proofread and edit the article, posts, product descriptions before you publish. It makes it more useful for people and likable by the search engine.
There are already many SEO skills mentioned by an expert on the internet. So follow the best practice from anyone. But remember, no SEO skills can improve your writing, traffic, followers, readers until you’re not writing the things you know helpful for your readers and people.
Focus on helping more and more people with your writing, knowledge and it’s the best SEO strategy that I follow.
4. Select Good Projects/Clients:
Not all content writing projects suits to your writing skills and expertise. Not the next client is the same as your last client. But to become successful as a freelance content writer, it’s important that you know your strengths and powers.
Don’t bid on mechanical content writing projects when you’re great in writing stories for kids. I don’t mean that you don’t try something new. I just mean that focus more on the strength that you can use for content writing projects.
When you bid for the project and write proposal, description it shows clients and expert writer that what you know and what you don’t know about the subject. Client hires those content writers who know about the ins and outs of the subject. I mean they expect overall knowledge about the subject.
Read the following post later for more knowledge:
How to apply for projects on freelancing websites
Online Bidding Strategy: How to filter projects on Upwork
5. Set your standard and principles
They can convince you to write 1 article in $5 and then they will give you 3 articles to write per day. And you will think that you will earn $15 per day. And it’s a good project and client. But if your writing has the power, if you’re more knowledgeable, skillful than others then you can charge the price that suits your current needs and demands. Don’t’ work for less, work for more. If you worked in $10 for the last article, this time commit to working in $15 per article.
But remember, identify the consistency of the work. If it’s a long term content writing project then set your price as per that. And if it’s short term then think accordingly.
Also remember, improve your standard of writing each time with each post that you write for your readers and clients.
You can do it successfully by setting your own rules/principles. These principles have to be based on your career development strategy as a content writer. Such as if you want to become the highest paid content writer then your strategy can be different from the writer, who wants to be known as one of the best writers on the subject.
Balance the prices but never compromise with the quality. No matter you’re earning less. You can ignore that some time and put all writing powers into the post.
Everyone will realize one day and call you back to work because they will realize what you’re made of and what is the difference between you and other writers.
Quality and principles in writing always win. In short term, many can be successful in content writing but in the long term and big ways, only a few who follow the basics of content writing and that is something more about content and less about the tricks.
6. Get your payouts from content writing on time:
Cash flow is important in every business. And you’re not doing content writing for the client as social work. Especially when they are making money from your content. So always consider that your clients follow the proper system for payouts such as weekly payments, per article.
If they forget then message them and remind them. Also, don’t rely on them more for your payouts management. Also, maintain your own excel sheet.
7. Understand the content writing project in details:
Whatever writing project you do. You have to understand the impact of writing on that subject. Always understand that you’re not writing for clients to making people fools and compromising with your country. You will get various types of clients who will tell you to write against that product or write in favor of that. It’s really bad when you don’t know about the person, product and providing reviews.
So always maintain higher integrity and loyalty in your own work. don’t do it just to earn money, understand the project and its impact in bigger ways.
8. Save 30% of the money you’re earning from content writing
Content writing and blogging is a hard game. You don’t make money all the time. Nor all the time you have work. Whatever you’re earning from content writing, always try to save some of its parts for future. You can save a min. 30% from each project or each month. Savings and wise management of your money will help you in a content writing career.
From the savings, you can join online courses, you can buy new laptop and content creation tools and you can also invest that money on starting a side business. There are many things you can do with your money to grow it more. So it’s better to show off less and save more. And this one the best habit that not only content writer follow, but it is followed by every successful professional.
9. Publish regularly on own blog.
Professional content writer publishes valuable posts consistently for the people. Your blog can be your second source of income. It’s highly important for a freelance content writer. If in any case, they don’t have any project or clients or not earning from the content writing services, then it’s possible that their blog can support them financially.
Blogging on a personal website refine the skills of the content writer. It helps to get the exposure that is important to get new content projects. That’s why I always suggest freelancer have a personal blog in which they can work part-time.
If you’re running a blog and also providing content writing services for clients then get some time to write on your blog. Write something that is helpful for people. Write something in which you’re skillful and related to your blog category. And try to post 2-3 posts in a week.
For example,
1)Clients works from 9 AM to 2 PM
2) Blogging on own website from 3 PM to 7 PM
Here you can learn more:
An explanation, Why you need Website for your Business
The Greatest Source to Get Freelancing Work
10. Remain updated yourself about the content writing industry trends:
It’s also important for content writers to be up to date about industry trends. What’s happening now is really important for the content writer especially for those working and writing for news websites. Also important for those who are running a similar blog in which updates/reviews/comments and opinion matters.
Following are the updates I think helpful for you in content writing such as:
- Research reports on online readers/users
- Digital Marketing trends
- Popular and trending content styles
- Content creation tools
- Content distribution and marketing channels
- News related to content writing
- Updates related to the category you’re in such as for the gardening blog, it’s important to remain updated about new gardening tools, flowers variety.
11. Write daily for yourself or for clients
Professional works each day. Mechanic repairs machines, doctors treat patients, drivers drive vehicles, mother cook food, father visit office and almost everyone works on his/her craft. It’s similar for a content writer.
If you’re a writer you have to write each day. It can be website content, it can be social status, it can be your personal diary, it can be an article and it can anything that is happening around you that you like to write.
Writing is important, you publish or not, it’s a second thought.
But first thought of the day should be to write something today that you like and expect to like by others. Your duty as a content writer to write that is expected from you.
Someone like your content or not, it’s not in your hand. You have to write from your heart, mind, and brain as much as helpful as you can. You don’t have to compete with other writers, website, content length, you have to compete with yourself so that you can put as much quality and value in the content. That’s it.
Learn from nature air, water, sun, trees they do their duties each day. As a content writer, you have to follow your writing schedule or writing passion. You have to follow your duty. So write each day. I don’t mean publish each day on your blog, I just mean write each day something that you will publish one day on your blog. When you write consistently it will become your habit. And good habits help you to become a successful content writer.
12. Manage your time wisely
I know we have to manage many things in a day. As a content writer, freelancer, business owners, parents, and teachers. And we have to think about many things that are important for our career growth in a day. And for that we need time.
As you know good writing consumes lots of time. Sometimes you start writing at 9 am and it goes to 4 pm in the evening. And then we start feeling urgency on the other things.
Similarly, when we spend time on non-writing task, we feel the stress that we’re not writing and we have to write.
But we can manage our time wisely to become successful in content writing.
Following is the example of time management of content writers:
4 AM to 6 AM – Learning and practice on new skills, writing skills, technical skills.
6 AM to 7 AM – Exercise, Yoga, Meditation, etc.
9 AM to 2 PM – Writing – Writing – Writing
3 PM to 5 PM – Other official and non-official works (Monday)
3 PM to 5 PM – Technical works such as website maintenance and updates (Tuesday)
3 PM to 5 PM – Improvement of old articles by learning and analyzing google analytics data.
etc. (Wednesday)
5 PM to 7 PM – Outline the next article or research on the next keywords, bidding, marketing.
etc.
Now there are various ways to manage time. But sometimes it’s very tough to follow the time table. But we just need to practice that each task gets full attention and powers of your minds.
13. Communicate on right topic with the right people around you
We need to talk to write well. We have to communicate with people around us on the right topic. It can be related to SEO, WordPress, Blog, Content, Politics, Nature, Technology, Education, Skills Development, Country Development etc. We need opinions about various topics. It can be negative and positive views of the people.
We also need to pitch our new thoughts in meetings and gossips to test the public interest. It’s all about research. When you do it, you will learn many things that you haven’t imagine will be possible. You need to become a student to learn. You don’t have to answer all the time, nor you have to questions all the time. You just need to communicate and understand.
So that when you visit google keyword planner, you can search what’s important and what’s common people are searching around the world on Google. You can use online forums, social media, twitter, etc. But try to communicate and get some time to talk and spend time with the people you like and consider important.
Communication with a variety of people helps you to understand the problems, desires and motivations and all that will help you to write more broadly on the topic with top quality.
14. Don’t copy and follow the patterns of others
Everyone’s writing and thinking are different. It’s not important that you follow the same habits that I mentioned in this article, it’s also not important that you write that much longer. You don’t have to copy me and you also don’t have to copy others. Only I can write the way I write. You can write the way you can write. If you try to follow the pattern and templates then your content becomes boring in the long term. And you can’t get new and creatives ideas by writing similar methods. That’s why it’s important to follow and create your own writing style. Change it when you think, write whatever the way you think helpful for people.
15. Choose learning sources carefully :
Learning is a lifelong habit of any successful person. But learning from the right sources and right methods help more in the content writing career. As you know every 3rd person is teaching you something on the internet. Apps, social media, news websites, videos, images and there are various content that tries to educate you on a certain thing and philosophy.
But what’s important for you right now and in this situation matter the most. Anything can look great, but not everything works great for your future and country. So in this case you need the help of your senses to understand what’s right and what’s not helpful right now. And try to avoid tricks and shortcuts as much as possible.
16. Be consistent and disciplined in your habits:
We are taking oxygen, eating fruits, using woods is possible today when someone planted the trees, watered for many years and cared. If you plant a new tree right now, then it will provide the fruits after 4-5 years, nor it provides the oxygen as quick as you want. It takes time, it’s a natural system and process. Then why you expect that your content, blog, writing will give you immediate results. It will give one day. It’s sure.
But you need to commit and disciplined in your plans and strategy. You have to take your decision based on commitments nor based on what others think about what you can’t do.
I just mean that be consistent and disciplined in your habits and follow the process and I believe and sure that your blog and writing will give you the results that you’re expecting.
So focus more on taking actions in the development of your blog, writing skills and try to focus more on helping people with your writing. And think less about the future and money. Everything can change if you think and committed to change it.
17. Improve published/existed journals/posts/:
Things change, habits change, technology change, mood change, nature change, and almost everything changes for its own presence and version. What have written a few years ago by you, can have a different perspective today.
So try to change the things in old articles. And change them to improve quality. Change them from bad SEO and sentences structure to new style.
Make it a habit to improve the quality of your existed content each day, no matter it’s getting traffic or not. Your duty is to provide quality content, guidelines, and knowledge for your readers. So don’t just spend time on writing more, but also spend improving the quality.
You can improve many things in your existed articles for higher traffic and more engaging posts such as:
- Internal links change
- SEO and keywords
- Paragraph structure
- New titles or heading and sentences
- Addition of images, videos
- Spelling and grammatical error testing
- Addition of new paragraphs based on google analytics search queries.
- etc.
But be careful in ranked articles. Don’t remove the keywords and words your blog is ranking for. Instead, you can try to extend keywords points in the middle paragraphs to increase the value of the post.
18. Don’t ignore new post/business ideas:
Many times you don’t have ideas, motivation, and inspiration to write. And many times it’s overloading your brain with excitements and ideas. So to handle this situation you have to note all those ideas. Even you can outline the complete article such as what you will going to write in this. It will help you later to understand, why this article matter and what the title expecting you to write.
Ideas play a big role in a career. But the execution of ideas makes us successful. No idea is bad, but our expectation and demands dismiss the power behind the idea.
Never reject the content idea based on its financial results. It can be idea today, but as you keep the idea in mind then it will also tell you in the future about its method of execution.
I just mean if your brain can give the idea to implement something then it definitely gives you the idea on how to nurture it.
Just wait and keep the idea in your brain and dairy. It can be about SEO, it can be about a new post, it can be about monetization and it can be about new business and services.
Related: How to Generate 100+ Ideas Naturally for Your Next Blog Post Each Day?
19. Complete the project work before deadlines:
Never delay the project. Make sure you complete each project before deadlines. it’s important to get consistent work and projects from clients and for that, your quality and speed also matter.
The content that can work best today can work less tomorrow. I just mean follow the publishing and writing schedule as per the expectations of clients or your own. Ask your clients/team leader whenever you find something complicated. Be responsive and problem solver.
Become responsible for the success and failures on your own. Read books when you’re feeling dull. If possible follow your own intuitions more than others especially when you’re confused. Never compromise the integrity for money:
Be what you’re and value what you have for others. And then give it selflessly.
20. Follow the above:
You can take the above-written guide as a habit, skills, and techniques. Why I mentioned it a habit is so that you can follow the above things each day, week and month for your content writing career.
But anyway these are really important things that helped me in my content writing works, freelancing, blogging, and business so far. And I thought It’s important to share with you.
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