How to write for the digital age
The digital age is all about content: video, graphics and written content. Being able to construct engaging and influential copy is but one aspect of being a good written content creator; you must also understand the art of communication in an online world.
Demand for printed content is also undergoing a transition, driven largely by changes in people’s behaviour and expectations from the digital world. Being able to control information flows through media, and access information when they want means consumers are no longer willing to tolerate the old style of ‘intrusive’ marketing.
Writing is a commodity
In some senses, particularly in the digital world, copy has become a commodity that is traded in exchange for high search rankings, low bounce rates and consumer ‘likes’. As writers, we’re challenged to tread a fine line between protecting the brand, meeting the requirements of technology (particularly search engines) and those of the people at whom our copy is aimed.
Article marketing, is a good example. I’ve known clients happily pay peanuts to overseas SEO (search engine optimisation) providers to write articles that are then syndicated on sites like articlesbase.com. It helps grow brand awareness and provides a facility for linking back to the client’s main website. Such sites offer a valuable service but the quality of copy is often questionable.
There needs to be greater synergy between online marketers and brand managers within companies. Badly written articles, as perceived by the human mind, are bad for the brand and no matter how good your search rankings, if your brand is damaged by mismatched and poor quality communication, it’s a costly mistake.
Five tips for today’s writers:
1) Develop a systematic approach: writing is a creative process and a systematic approach will negate ‘writer’s block’. It starts with research. Then list the significant points you find. Arrange them in order of sequence, logical linking and whether they are ancillary, illustrative, evidence or an example of what the subject is about. Decide what can be omitted and step back. Write the first draft (without editing as you go) and step back again. Review and edit.
2) Match reader expectations: be brief, succinct, relevant and clear. Be descriptive when appropriate (when describing a location, building, product or person for example). Apply appropriate language. Keep it simple and use logical ordering.
3) Master the art of SEO: SEO is not hard to learn and SEO copywriting is a skill all writers need to possess in the digital age. Choose your keywords/keyphrase for your page. Make sure it appears emboldened in the title and in the body text at least twice. Do not optimise more than one page for the same keywords. Create a new ‘landing’ page for each keyword and include links within it to other parts of your site, such as a product page. Make sure your written content is original and 200-300 words of text per page.
4) Use Twitter to practice the art of ‘attention-grabbing’. If you are including a link, shorten it (using a service such as bitly.com) and include it at the end of your text rather than at the beginning or halfway through.
5) Beware messaging and repetition: this is a dilemma of digital marketing. A marketing objective is to re-enforce a message and this is often done by copying and pasting. However, this will go against you in the online world in which search engines give better rankings to original content.