I've made the decision (..or my budget has made the decision for me) to do all of my content myself. Do you guys/gals have any particular "methods" you all use for content re-writing? In particular, i'm looking for ways to save time in the process. One tip, for example of what im looking for, was given to me as follows: Pick your topic - EG: bikes write titles for say - 10 articles about bikes - all at once. gather the info, aggregate it, organize it since each article will have several paragraphs, enter a phrase that describes the paragraph for each paragraph in all 10 articles go through and expand the phrase for each paragraph based on the data/info you gathered. I want to become more efficient in mass article writing on a topic, so that I can bang out more content in less time (doesn't everyone) Please post your feedback or tips if you have any.
Tips: 1. Don't simply reword articles--that's infringement. 2. Keep your time logged so you can see what works and what doesn't. 3. Learn how to outline before you write. 4. If you want people to actually be impressed and revisit, write quality content. 5. If you are not a solid writer, outsource the work. It will pay for itself in the end and you can spend time doing things you are actually good at. 6. Stay away from a passive voice as much as possible. 7. Educate yourself in the craft of writing. Believe it or not, it shows.
Passive voice is when the subject receives the action of the verb. Example: "The bone was thrown by Joe" Active voice would be: "Joe threw the bone" Typically in writing, passive voice is frowned upon. It's not always avoidable, but you should work on using active voice as often as possible. Make sense?
Got it, thanks for responding to the question that was written yesterday. ...or should I say: "the question I wrote yesterday"
You might be interested in this post of mine as well, if you are focused on writing for the web. I believe writing in an active voice has more to it than simply a gramatical rule as well. Words have energy, and if your are writing for a website (especially for a website) keeping the energy alive inside the articles can mean the difference between enhancing your website traffic, or waisting your time. That's just my opinion.
Good copywriting focuses on the human visitors and not on the spiders. Also, there are certain times when a passive voice is better than an active voice, but this is more of an artistic/literary technique. While you should have a good writing background, if you think you could do it yourself, then you really should. It will even hone your writing skills. But whenever possible and when you need the best results, get a pro.
I would suggest reading something and write as if you were talking to an audience. It takes more time but in the end your article will be good.
Writing good copy takes time, and there are few shortcuts to this. If you don't do the research and instead try to pad out your writing, it shows. Basically you will always need to have something to say, and finding those facts can often take much longer than actually writing about your topic. The best tip is to write something every day, because that way you get used to the process and find your own ways to speed up your work. It's a matter of training your brain as much as anything.
If used properly, passive voice can also be used to emphasize sentences written in active voice. You can also use it to shift the focus of your sentence around. But, like nextebizguy says, unless you know you're using passive voice, and have a reason, use active.
Rewriting the content after collecting from a numerous sites is the method most people are following, but believe that won't run good in a long time. Have a passion for some area, do extensive research in that, get acquainted with that and do experiments in it. Later, you will be able to write great posts on your own which will be more attractive and worthy reading. Quality of the posts is important than quantity Code (markup):
If you are writing articles on similar topics then the method you are using sounds pretty effective. When I have a batch of articles to write, it depends how I feel as to how I will approach them. But starting by brainstorming topic titles all at once makes a lot of sense. Once you start writing them you will probably find that they get easier as you go (if they are on similar topics) - therefore saving you time on the writing. However, shortening the time it takes to write means researching/ planning in a bit more detail beforehand. Edit - I didn't realise how old this thread is! Hope it still comes in useful for someone.
Tips on rewriting are always useful. If the rewrite is about something that we have already known, we can always put in our own words easily. The difficult part is when the subject is unknown. Research would be crucial at this point but to build up sentences in our own words is a challenge.
If you're copywriting, you want to use strong action verbs that draw the reader in. If it's more generalised content writing, like giving information, you can use passive voice. It depends on your audience and what you're trying to do.