Content Writing 101: Why Should You Opt for Content Writing [Guide]

Content writing is a good and relatively inexpensive way of earning money.

It doesn’t matter if you are a student or a professional in an established business, you can do it if you possess good grammar and language skills. As an added bonus, you can improve your written expression.

Why Take Up Content Writing?

Here’s why you should take up content writing if you’ve got time on your hands.

• You have a good source of earning a little extra money while doing work that is not entirely taxing.
• Content writing gigs are plentiful and very easy to find,
• You can set up flexible work hours for yourself in many cases. Sure beats being chained to a desk all day long.

If you’re good with your written expression, this is just about the best thing for you, but you can set yourself up for content writing all the same because you’ll always be able to learn.

It’s a great gig to take up — especially for females — but there are a few things you have to keep in mind.

Deadlines

You will be dealing with a massive number of customers, and as a writer, it is your responsibility to ensure that work is delivered in a smooth and orderly way. Time is of the essence here.

Its not unheard of for your customers to leave negative feedback on your profile if you miss their deadlines. A good rule of thumb is to set a timely work schedule between you and your client(s).

Most seasoned content writers will have you know that this is the most important work ethic to maintain.

In order to make sure you meet your deadlines and don’t procrastinate while scrolling through your feed (don’t lie, we’ve all done that), you can use the Forest app. It’s even got a Chrome extension so there’s no way you can fall behind schedule with this one.

Or if you are just old-school, you can also schedule all your deadlines on Google Calendar or set reminders on Google Keep.

Originality

Make no mistake, because plagiarism is a serious issue. With content writing, it is looked down upon more so.

A quick and hassle-free way to check your work and thrash out plagiarism issues is to use Small SE Tools, but you can also opt for Turnitin. There’s also Copyscape.

Fair warning, though: Save and Download your plagiarism reports because once you upload your file to the Internet, the next time your project is fed to a detector,  it announces 100% unoriginal work and we don’t want that.

Well Written Work

You don’t need to be Shakespeare to provide quality content in these gigs. It is, however, very important that you use proper English with the right grammar and punctuation because most of the work is for international customers who take language very seriously.

Grammarly is a great source for making sure you nail this one.

Tips for Turning in Quality Content Writing Work

It is never difficult to manage a content writing task once you’ve gotten the hang of it, and most pieces aren’t very long. However, here are a few tips for making sure you have everything covered in your piece:

• Run a background check for the topic you’ve been assigned to write about. You can find relevant information in almost 99% of the cases, and incorporate them into your work
• Make sure you know what you’re writing about. There is no room at all for ambiguity. Be clear in what you are trying to say.
• If there’s something you feel you need to add but cannot find, do not hesitate to reach out to the client in question.
• Always ask clients for an overview of what they’re looking for in the piece they want to be written so you don’t start off blank.

This is not all. After you’ve landed yourself a freelance gig, you need to know how to handle things responsibly and not get hoodwinked on your first day at work.

But not to worry. We’ve got you covered.

Our next post will dive into things you need to keep in mind when you get your first content writing job.