Keep your writing skills alive!

I am always on the look out for new and enticing ways of writing my articles. I will often look through my thesaurus, dictionaries and newspapers, for tips on writing original and interesting content.
Advertising is a very vital lifeline when it comes to new ways of persuasive writing and I always find it beneficial when starting a new copywriting project.

How do you keep your content fresh and exiting? I would love to discover your views!

 

I have a list of article templates that I use in conjunction with suggestions from tools like ubersuggest.org. I'll take a random template and then brainstorm a few topics using the suggestion tool. Then I'll write up a quick article on the topic. I also watch a lot of videos and write commentary on them.

 

That's an interesting way of doing it! I like the video commentary, that's a great way of getting started! thanks for the reply!

 

What problem can this piece of content (video/blog/column/script) solve for my users (i.e. people)?

What is its purpose? Inform, educate, entertain, call-to-action, etc?

When I have answers to these questions, I begin to write. I try to be short, or long, based on the target audience and the nature and purpose of the given task.

 

That's great advice kafkasawa! Problem and purpose are very important steps in keeping writing fresh and exciting!

Thanks so much for the tips! Fantastic advice!

 

This is similar to what @kafkasawa said, but I've found that writing down my blog purpose and goals and looking at them when I sit down to write really helps my copywriting.

Instead of just throwing some copy up, I end up writing in a more purposeful way because I am reminded of why I'm writing and what my target audience wants to read.

I also utilize content pillars. A content pillar is basically a sub-topic that you can create more than ten posts on. One example of this would be the 3E method: Engagement (content geared at starting a conversation), Events (content written around a specific time-bound activity), and Evergreen (content that can be repurposed and has a long shelf-life). I write these down in my editorial calendar and plan my posts three months at a time. Thinking about my blog in this way really focuses my writing which helps keep it fresh!

 

That's great discussion. In writings, we can (and we should) use better lexical resource, engaging tone and fresh idea references but these machines don't make any writing 'Original'. They just make 'already discussed' ideas more readable and more understandable.

 

Hi there,
Many thanks for your replies!

I like your style of writing Andrea, really good tips here! The blog purpose techniques really helps me too! I find that it makes my articles more meaningful and more to the point.

I totally agree with you aamir.alvi3! Machines are incapable of recreating original content, and in order to get fresh ideas and new tones of voice, you need someone with a good grasp of copywriting!

 

Every single article that I write, I do it from scratch. I read a lot of articles, read books, and play vocabulary games when not working. I then open word and go for it. It works out fine.

 

Go to the library. There are unlimited resources there. You can learn tone, style, and consumer psychology.

Good writers are better readers.

 

A lot of great suggestions so far in this thread and I thought I would add a few myself.

I will generally sit down for a few minutes a day and do some brainstorming on titles, topics or keywords that I want to write articles about. I keep all the results in a spreadsheet for when it comes time to create some content and I'm looking for a little inspiration.

Another thing that I have found useful is using Google's prediction tools. I will visit their main search page, enter the topic in the search bar and then a few words. For instance I do a lot of writing on Wordress so I'll enter “Wordpress how do I” and Google will give me ten common searches. This has always been a good starting point for my writing process.

Great thread and great ideas everyone!

 

Some really great ideas here! Thank you everyone for your input, you have provided some inspiring and motivational suggestions!

 

Hi from Eddie P --

I recently went through some training related to creating eBooks which applies to articles as well.

The trainer encouraged us to use Google trends, to find out what folks on the "net" were searching for. When we find a trending topic we like, we write an article about it.

Have you ever thought about going to the Dummies.com site for topics to write about. If there is a Dummy book about the subject, then many articles could be written as well. You can do the same type of thing at Magazines.com.

Last, but not least, go to Amazon.com and look through popular eBook titles. There are thousands of article possibilities to be found at this site.