Anyone who has the proper schooling and a basic grasp of English grammar and language can write. But there’s a difference between stringing a few sentences together every few weeks for a random work assignment and crafting thousands of words of content per day.
When you’re a content writer, it’s easy to fall into a rut and feel like you aren’t getting anywhere. But if you talk to people who have done it for many years, they’ll assure you there’s always ample room for improvement.
If you want to become a better content writer, then set your mind to it. Here are five tangible steps you can take to improve your skills:
1. Take Care of Yourself
Writing is a concentrated intellectual task. If you want to produce good results, you have to take care of your brain. Otherwise, you’ll find it much harder to focus on the task at hand, process information, and be creative.
Sleep and diet are two of the foundational pillars of self-care. Research from Amerisleep shows that individuals who report they get good-quality sleep are 4.9 times more likely to be motivated at work.
On the nutritional side, your diet is intrinsically linked to solid cognitive function. You have to consume the right amount of glucose and omega-3 fatty acids to keep your brain operating at its peak.
2. Read More
If you’re an avid golfer, you may spend time watching tournaments and studying the way the professionals swing. If you’re a pianist, you might observe the techniques concert pianists use in performance.
If you’re a content writer, you should be reading a lot and studying the way various people write. In order to become the best that you can be, investigate an array of writers across different niches -- including fiction, nonfiction, news reporters, bloggers, and technical writers. The wider your lens, the more you’ll learn.
3. Keep an Idea Notebook
Ideas tend to emerge at the strangest times: on a bus, in the shower, at night when you’re lying in bed. If you keep an idea notebook with you – either on your mobile phone or as a physical notepad – you can capture such ideas, so you don’t lose them.
Entrepreneur James Altucher recommends recording at least ten ideas per day. By making it a daily practice, you train yourself into a mode where you’re always thinking creatively. When you have time to write, you’ll always have constructive thoughts running through your brain, as well as in your notebook.
4. Open Yourself Up to Criticism
How often do you genuinely open your writing to criticism? Okay, you pass your work off to your editor for a quick glance before hitting the publish button on your blog – but how often do you reach out to another person for the sole purpose of having him or her identify your flaws?
Opening yourself to criticism forces you to become acquainted with your weaknesses, and provides an opportunity to overcome them. Assuming you listen to the criticism and take it to heart, you can gain a lot from making yourself vulnerable.
5. Stretch Yourself
It’s all too easy to get into a grind where you use the same sentence structures, post layouts, and subject matter. In order to improve your writing, you have to stretch yourself.
If nobody else is making you stretch, you’ll have to take it upon yourself. If you only write technical content, spend a couple of hours attempting a piece of creative fiction.
If you typically write in second-person, force yourself to use the first-person voice for an entire day. Little exercises like these may go a long way toward promoting growth.
Stop Settling for Average
You can forge a profitable career in content writing as an average writer. There’s such a demand for prose in today’s market that, given the right price point, you’ll probably always find work.
But if you want to be successful and generate a substantial income, you’ll have to stop settling for average. Commit to getting better every day. There will be rough patches, of course, but you’ll eventually see progress.