Men with Pens » How To Write Website Content

How to Write a Kick-Ass Review

Agent X — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 05:00:15 +0000

Too often, we writers fob reviews off as easy content. After all, someone else has done the creative work – it’s simply our job to judge it. And being loud, opinionated writers, we’re quite fond of judging.

But writing a good review – a review that engages interest and causes action – is more than just giving a product rating and pointing your readers to the Amazon link. A review tests the writer’s skill at persuasion and description.

On my blog I review heavy metal albums, movies, books and shows. Of all the columns in my online metal magazine, writing reviews takes the longest. After listening to hundreds of albums and spending hours brainstorming ideas, researching concepts and discographies and writing and editing reviews, I’ve come up with a few techniques to give my reviews that added awesome factor.

How to Write a Kick-Ass Review:

Have an Argument

Why are you writing a review? Is it to share your enthusiasm about an album or book? Is it to convince people to buy an affiliate product? Is it to give consumers a fair and unbiased resource? Is it to slur the good name of the product’s creator across the Internet?

A review is a piece of persuasive writing. You begin with an argument, such as “this album is worse than the worst thing I could think of, and I have a very active imagination”, and the rest of the review must back up your argument. Whatever your argument, know it from the onset.

Show, don’t tell

Music reviewers love to call an album “groundbreaking” or “genre-bending”, but forget to explain why. Congratulations – you’ve told me nothing. I have no idea what the album sounds like. Will it have a place amongst my Slayer and Bob Dylan records? Not if you don’t give me a reason to buy it.

You could tell me Justin Bieber’s new album is groundbreaking, but unless you’re recommending breaking it against the ground, I’m not going to listen to you if you don’t qualify your statement.

This is where your writerly powers of description come into play. You have to put the reader inside the product, give them a taste, leave them breathless, haunted, hungry for more. Use comparisons with other words and examples from the product itself – snippets of lyrics, quotes, concepts and ideas, but be careful to describe the content, rather than the actual product. I don’t want to know that a kick-ass riff begins at 2.23 into the third song; I want to know what the riffs sound like.

Which one of these examples gives you a better idea of what this album – Blood Fire Death by Bathory – sounds like?

“Bathory’s Blood Fire Death is a groundbreaking album – a one-man project of Quorthon, who is now dead. The album contains 8 songs – 7 are awesome and dark and epic, and 1 is kind of mediocre. There’s a kick ass riff at 2.24 on “Dies Irae” and the lyrics of this song form a satanic acrostic …”

“Quorthorn re-imagines the tropes of thrash and death metal as sweeping sagas of the Viking age, moving from rock anti-anthems to layered, classical compositions. A distorted fuzz pervades the album, giving an ethereal, otherworldly quality. No album before or since has captured this same sense of dissolution and menace.”

Speak the Language

You probably don’t know, or care, about the differences between thrash, death and black metal, but to my readers, these definitions are part of our collective knowledge. When I read “bay-Area thrash” or “true Norwegian black metal” in a review, my mind instantly conjures up comparative sounds.

Know your audience, and speak their language. Don’t explain concepts they already understand, and give them comparisons with other products they know so they can understand how this new work stands up.

Make it personal

A review will be much more interesting if you can weave a bit of personality in there. I like to tell people how I discovered a band, or where I brought the album from, or what the songs remind me of.

Some people worry that if they give personal anecdotes in reviews they disclose their biases and discredit themselves. But writing a review is the very act of revealing your biases, whether it’s that you’re a sucker for ebooks with swear words in the title or you prefer Norwegian black metal over Hellenic black metal. Your readers understand you’re giving your opinion, so color it with you experience.

Discuss the wider picture

One way to make reviews more interesting – both for you as the writer and for your readers – is to focus on the wider picture. What does the product reveal about the world?

Music often reflects wider social issues, so in the process of discussing an album, I may be called upon to comment about religion, racism, politics, gender studies, or the appalling lack of decent sausage rolls.

A kick-ass review doesn’t just tell you something is good, it gives you a mini experience of the product – a taste, a flicker of the concept. It whets your appetite for more.

What kind of products do you review? What are your tips for writing a kick-ass review?

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Post by Steff Metal

Steff is a writer, blogger, heavy metal maiden, sausage roll fanatic, and blind New Zealander who writes about the much-misunderstood heavy metal lifestyle at http://steffmetal.com and offers her multi-tentacled approaches to creative business at http://grymmandepic.com You can follow her at @steffmetal on twitter.

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The Secrets to Writing Really Great Website Content

James — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:00:24 +0000

Before you read, we’d like to let you know that this post is littered with links. Some go to other posts of value, and most go to Amazon. No, we’re not trying to be sleazy. We’re recommending books we think you should read, because we’ve read them ourselves and know – beyond a doubt – that they will make you a better website content writer, more so than any writing course you’ll ever take. Enjoy.

Writing website content is one of the trickiest jobs a writer can take on. It’s unique, it’s special, and it’s an exotic blend that can do magic. Get it right, and you can make a story go viral, or watch a business soar to success, or see someone get hired over and over. Website content is built to influence, persuade and compel, after all.

But get it wrong, and you just cost someone a lot of money.

Granted, writers aren’t miracle-workers (yet). Many factors go into a site that works and a site that doesn’t. Writers don’t have final say over everything that goes on in building a good site. Some factors are out of your control. Some are definitely right there in the palm of your hand.

Are you going to seize them?

Just What Is Website Content, Anyway?
Website content isn’t just a bunch of pretty words flung at a website. There’s an art to the whole affair, and it takes a delicate hand in creation. Writing well comes into play, of course, because having a website full of typos or errors isn’t going to create a credible image.

But website content involves way more than that.

Good website content isn’t really about good writing. The best writers in the world wouldn’t be able to make this type of content work unless they knew what really counts – and what counts isn’t grammar or sentence structure.

In fact, the best website content uses influential elements that have nothing to do with spelling and punctuation at all. Website content breaks the grammar rules all the time. You’ll find fragments and impact words hanging out there in the air – and they work.

You see, that’s the problem with learning how to write for websites.

The common myth is that it’s all about being a good writer, but website content has more to do with sales and marketing, branding techniques, shopping habits, storytelling and fiction and plain old human psychology.

What counts with website content is the power to influence people, the psychology behind why we buy, and what triggers our decisions to stay and read or click away. It uses storytelling techniques and social proof. It relies on impulse buying, scare tactics and mental appeal.

And maybe just a little bit of magic.

What You Need to Learn to Write Website Content
If you want to learn how to write website content, then ditch your diplomas, put down Dickens and forget about coming up with the next best classic. None will help you be a better writer in this special-blend area of the technological world.

That means, yes, you can even throw away The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. (How shocking, I know.)

Get a copy of Influence by Robert Cialdini. Read the Heath brothers’ Made to Stick. Pick up Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy, enjoy a Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech, and if you want to go really crazy, grab a Consumer Behavior book. Any one will do.

Then settle in and read.

You’re going to learn very little about writing. These books focus on the truth of website content, the knowledge of trigger events, impulse reactions, influential words, ideas that resonate and getting people to gravitate to the words you write.

Because getting people to gravitate to your words, click the link, sign up for the opt-in and hire the business is what website content is all about, isn’t it?

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Post by James Chartrand

James Chartrand is an entrepreneur, a pro copywriter and the founder and CEO of Men with Pens and Damn Fine Words, the game-changing writing course for business owners. She loves the color blue, her kids, and ice skating.

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The Secrets to Writing Really Great Website Content first appeared on Men with Pens
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Website Content: Are You Turning Readers Off?

James — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:00:27 +0000

We’re at Day Seven of our marathon series, Writing Website Content. We’ve moved through specializing in website content writing, the right questions to ask buyers, how writers are like website tour guides, why great headlines are important, how to lose 7% of your client’s customers and why you should never be clever and always be clear.

Today, let’s talk about more serious matters: negative thinking and bullying.

One of the most common mistakes seen in website content is the use of negative language.

Never, ever, EVER use negative language. Always keep content positive and watch out for any word that signifies no action, refusing action or not taking a specific action.

Here’s an example:

“We will never use methods that are questionable. We believe in honesty above all.”

The second sentence is a positive one, describing what a company will do.

The first sentence, though, is negative. While it clearly shows where the company stands and what it won’t do to earn money, the feeling and message the sentence conveys is a mental no-no.

The reader’s brain processes negative phrases and words as something to avoid, even if the sentence means something good.

The result is that the brain doesn’t read that the company is a good one with strong values. It thinks, “Avoid this company” because it is hung up on the “do not” part of the phrase.

Here’s another example that lets you compare two phrases:

“Do not hesitate to contact us.”

“Please feel free to contact us.”

Which sentence makes you feel good? Which makes you feel that the company is approachable and ready to help? Which one compels you more?

The Schoolyard Bully

Some website content writers tend to use the competition as comparisons. You may often read the phrase, “Our competitors will try to bargain your prices… but we never will.”

There are two mistakes involved with that tactic.

Using comparison applies the strategy of making someone else look bad to make you look better. Remember that big bully in your schoolyard playground? He’d pick on the little guy to feel stronger. When you start picking on the competition in your website content, you’re being the bully of the schoolyard.

Not cool, that.

Also, when you point out what someone else does, you degrade them to improve your client’s image – and you also have to state what your client won’t do, which lets negative language creep into your content.

Pretend instead that the competition doesn’t exist. In our own work, we never ask a client about their competition. We don’t want to know. And we’ll tell you why.

Nothing but the Best

When you write with the mindset that there is no competition, there is no possibility of making comparison. Also, if you have no competitor’s website to glance over, you’re forced to be more creative and original with your work.

Original, creative work stands out. Face it: aren’t you bored of websites that all say the same thing?

Imagining that there is no competition also increases the confident tone of the work you write – there’s no one else, so there’s no one better than your client. That attitude seeps into your words and helps you write website content that conveys good tone.

Learn to recognize negative language in your writing, and turn it around. Find the positive. Instead of “we never,” try “we always” or “we will.” Forget the competition, and always portray the company you’re writing for in the best, shining light possible.

It’s your job to help them put their best foot forward.

We’ll be taking a break from this series, as we’ve got a few great posts coming up. Stay tuned for an extract of our upcoming creative writing role-playing game, what we’ve been up to lately, what we think of wolves and a few special posts you won’t want to miss.

If you have any questions about writing website content that you’d like answered, feel free to ask in the comment section. We’ll address the subject again soon and give you what you need to know.

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Post by James Chartrand

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Website Content: Are You Turning Readers Off? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Clever Website Content Writing that Converts

James — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:00:30 +0000

Welcome to Day Six in the series on Writing Website Content. Last week covered specializing in website content writing, the right questions to ask buyers, how writers are like website tour guides, why great headlines are important and how to lose 7% of your client’s customers.

Today, we’re focusing on tips and tricks for writing website content and that includes being clever with your words.

If you’ve been following our series on writing website content, you should know by now that writers attempting this type of work have a great deal to achieve with very little text. They have to keep people moving through a website, guiding them while compelling them to take action quickly.

Remember, each click reduces the chance of conversion. Each click costs your client customers.

That means that all the fluff, all the extra words, all the clever turns of phrase – it all has to go. Be as concise as possible and save the space for words that really matters.

This is why a good tagline, a great slogan and a perfect headline matters so much – they each need to pack a wallop in just a few words. They tell people immediately what they’re going to get from a site in the prime real estate location of the web.

A writer who tries to be clever and witty risks screwing up the job.

Something clever, like Nike’s “Just do it” or Timex’s “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking” can achieve miracles, yes. Most writers – a huge majority of writers, from average to above average – can’t come up with catchy phrases like that.

No, seriously. You may believe you can (and I know you’re sitting there thinking as much), but you can’t. Quit fooling yourself.

But let’s say you do get drunk on your own words and think you’re some ad copy superstar. You write up a tagline you think is funny that says it all. You love it. You’re brilliant.

You risk misunderstanding. You take a chance with someone’s website that a reader doesn’t get the message you thought was so tricky and clever. Worse, the message might be taken the wrong way.

The reader clicks away out of complete incomprehension.

It’s not worth it, people. Trying to show off how witty you can be hurts your buyer, plain and simple. Never be clever; be clear.

Fast Tips for Clever Content That Converts

Most people like to follow formats, and since website content has a general set of guidelines for formatting, improving your work can happen quickly. Here are some tips for keeping your website content well formatted:

Keep your headline, your tagline or your slogan at about six or seven words at the most.
Have a headline for each page, and make it relevant to the content on that specific page.
Bold your headlines to attract attention and draw the eye.
Keep paragraphs beneath headlines at three sentences or less.
Use impact statements. These single sentences in their own paragraph really drive a message home.
Use sub-headers throughout the content. Secondary headlines help people skip, skim and scan pages. Bold them, too.
Try to keep the website content less than 250 words per page. 200 is even better.
Remove all passive language and use strong action verbs and an authoritative tone – even with friendly, warm writing. (This is tricky, but it can be done.)
Also remove all exclamation points. Be confident and convey bold confidence, too.

Here’s a last trick: Include call to action in your content. Suggest actions readers should take, like signing up for an RSS feed, opting into a newsletter or the next page they should read. Use the word please, too, because being polite counts.

We’ll talk more about manners in tomorrow’s post.

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Post by James Chartrand

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Clever Website Content Writing that Converts first appeared on Men with Pens
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Why Your Website Content Loses 7 Percent of Customers

James — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Today is Day Five in our Writing Website Content series. We started with whether you should specialize in website content writing, the right questions to ask your buyers, why writers should give a great tour of a website and why catchy website headlines matter.

Now let’s examine why you’re going to lose 7% of your client’s customers – and maybe even more.

Most types of writing follow standard formats and structures. Writing website content is no different. The roadmap of format guides both writers and readers through the content. Without format, a reader (and a writer) just wanders about with no goal in mind.

But website content does have a goal in mind – a very specific one.

In just a handful of words, website content has to convey credibility, brand, image, information, emotion and a message. At the same time, the content has to attract search engine crawlers looking for specific keywords or phrases.

The sum of all those elements results in an action on the reader’s part. That action is all that matters.
It’s called conversion, and conversion feeds the Internet world.

Nuts n’ Bolts Website Structure

The general structure of website content follows the rules of most types of writing. There’s a catchy headline, an opening introductory paragraph, the body, and a conclusion.

The difference is that website content is limited. Its restrictions involve the space above the fold – the space that a visitor sees when first landing on the website. Any content below the fold – the content a reader has to scroll down or click lower to see – is secondary and negligible.

In short, it doesn’t matter.

Why Below the Fold Doesn’t Matter

Someone more versed in the accurate, latest statistics knows more about this, but it’s said that with each click a website visitor has to make, the website loses 7% of its potential to convert.

Let’s stress that: Each click loses 7% of customers.

Even if that statistic is incorrect, the theory is true – the more clicks a visitor must make, the less conversion that happens on the site. In short, people are lazy as hell. The less action on their part, the better.

If all the reader has to do is glance at the page and get exactly what he or she wants right there, the chance of conversion is high.

But let’s be realistic. The writer that can convert within 250 words is blessed by the muse indeed.
People today are savvy and resistant to sales pitches. It takes more to impress them. They’re nonplussed by all the promises, the great hype and the marketing techniques. Been there, done that.
Who cares?

Generally, it takes a writer more than 250 words to achieve conversion – one click to another page, a little more content to read, or perhaps more pertinent information.

Remember: Each click loses customers and the conversion rate lowers.

The solution? Keep people moving. Be a great tour guide, write concisely and help people take decisions quickly. Don’t try to keep them on one page – your goal is to lead them to the action they need to take, as easily, simply and quickly as possible.

We’ll be back on Monday with more in our Website Content Writing series – stay tuned!

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Post by James Chartrand

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Writing Website Content Headlines

James — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:00:47 +0000

Today is Day Four in our Writing Website Content series. We’ve covered whether you should specialize in website content writing, questions to ask your buyers and how to be a great website tour guide. Now let’s take a look at writing website headlines:

Quick; open up a web page – any web page. Where do your eyes look first?

If you’ve chosen a fairly normal website to look at (and if you’re a fairly normal person), your eyes should be aiming somewhere on the left-hand side, about two inches down from the top of your monitor and one or two inches to the left.

(Now that I’ve shared that information with you, would you freakin’ pull up that web page and try it? Don’t lie; I know you didn’t open a page the first time around.)

That location, that two-inches-down-and-one-inch-to-the-right pinpoint is prime real estate on the web. It’s the sweet spot.

And if you’re a website content writer, the words you put in that spot had better damned well be good and catchy. You have a split second to grab your reader and shake him or her by the shoulders.

There’s a very good reason why authorities like Copyblogger write tons of content to teach people how to write catchy headlines. Headlines rule the virtual world, from email subject line to blog post title to website page intro. A great headline is the bait and hook that keeps people reading.

Screw it up, and you just cost your client a visitor who probably won’t ever come back.

Focus on Benefits

One of the best ways to write a good headline is to find the main benefit to the reader. The website is just a gateway, and the sale is just an action a visitor takes to accomplish bigger goals.

What are those goals? What does the reader hope to accomplish? What problem does he or she want resolved? What solution does the visitor seek?

Benefits are what a client gets if they buy this product or service: a changed life, faster speed, improved productivity, less suffering and pain, greater joy, more free time…

People buy benefits, not features – never features. How much RAM a computer has isn’t important to a consumer. How much faster the consumer can work or play on his or her computer is what really counts.

Put your benefits in the headline and give the reader a glimpse into the future of a better life.

The Fewer Words, The Better

Website content writers have to pack a punch in a headline, and the shorter the headline, the better. Less than 10 words is a must, and if you can keep it to seven words or less, that’s even better.

Challenging? You betcha.

Let’s say a buyer asks you to write a website about email marketing. His benefit is an email marketing campaign that gets emails noticed, even when the recipient has a busy life and an overloaded inbox.

Pack that into just a few words. Your headline might be, “Standing Out in Crowded Inboxes.” That’s the hook to get visitors interested in signing up for the services.

How about a plumber who wants a website he can start to advertise. There are four other plumbers in town, but this plumber was smart. He promotes the fact that he’s faster than the competition.

Your headline might be, “Unblocking the Flow Faster.” The plumber’s website promises speedy service to unplug drains quickly.

The tone you use also makes a huge difference in how well your website content reads. Choose the wrong words, and you’ll shadow the site with negativity.

Stay tuned in our next post on website content to learn how to keep your content positive for positive results.

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Post by James Chartrand

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Writing Website Content Headlines first appeared on Men with Pens
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Website Content: Giving the Grand Tour

James — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:00:13 +0000

Welcome to Day Three of our series on Writing Website Content. In case you missed them, please read Should You Specialize in Website Content (our first post in the series) and Questions to Ask Buyers About Website Content (post number two).

And now… Please feel free to enjoy and comment on post number three – Giving the Grand Tour:

When you decided to be a writer, did you realize how many different types of jobs were available? More importantly, did you realize that to be a great web content writer, you had to learn about sales and marketing?

You can be a good writer without knowing much about marketing, but you’ll never make it as a writer on the web. A website is just a gateway to a bigger goal, and that goal involves compelling people to take some sort of action.

This is where most website content writers go wrong. They don’t provoke the proper reaction from site visitors. Some website content doesn’t even provoke a reaction at all.

My Name is Writer, and I’ll Be Your Guide Today…

Visitors who land on a website need to be intrigued in an instant. If they’re not going to have a good time and they feel unsure about exploring, they’re going to pack back into the car and head off on the Internet highway to the next attraction.

It’s not enough to write website content that gives a general overview, some vague suggestions and a loose wrap-up that hopefully stirs unimpressed visitors.

The website content writer has the extremely important job of being the site tour guide for all visitors. A writer’s words have to tell people what the site is about, what attractions to explore, and provide direction for visitors who want to talk to management.

The Interview

Think of the type of qualities you’d want in a good tour guide. What words would you want to see on the resume of your ideal employee? You’d probably think of qualifications like:

• Friendly and informative
• Professional at all times
• Able to communicate clearly and concisely
• Interesting and entertaining
• Resourceful with good initiative

Now think of a great website, one that truly gives you everything you want. Think of a site that would convince you to explore further or learn more. See the similarities between that site and your ideal tour guide?

Know Your Job

When you prepare yourself to write website content, know your job as a tour guide. Where are you supposed to lead visitors? Is there a specific page that people should visit? A promotion they could benefit from? A special discount to take advantage of? An opt-in for a newsletter they should join?

Know where you should guide visitors and find ways to keep them moving deeper into the site – not moving on to the next site.

Also, think of the words you’ll use in your tour guide presentation. Have you chosen informative, friendly words? Does your content have a nice, professional style? Have you written clear, concise sentences that say more with less?

Speaking of sentences, there are many specific writing tips that can help your website be the best attraction in town. Tune in for our next post on writing website content, and learn how to craft the words that pack a punch.

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Post by James Chartrand

Questions to Ask Buyers about Their Website Content

James — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:00:47 +0000

In our last post, we explored that being a good writer doesn’t qualify you for writing anything you want to take a stab at. There are nuances between types of content and techniques to learn before you can effectively say that you can do a great job at a new type of writing.

One of the easiest types of writing to screw up is website content – and you may never know you did a crappy job. A buyer usually approaches a writer with a one-time job or a single project. Once the job is done, it’s done.

Off the buyer goes with his brand-new website content, expecting results and conversion from the fancy wording.

It may be a few weeks or even months before the buyer realizes there’s something wrong. The site isn’t converting as well as it should. The content isn’t very compelling. The website is broken. Does the disappointed buyer go back to the original writer for an overhaul?

Nope. That buyer goes elsewhere. You would, too, if someone did a poor job on your project.

O Writer, Work Thy Magic

There are three problems with website content that doesn’t work the way it should:

• The buyer’s expectations were too high
• The website content wasn’t properly split-tested and tweaked
• The writer didn’t do a good job in the first place

Most writers lay the blame quickly: It’s the buyer’s fault. The instructions weren’t clear. They were vague. The design is ugly. The site owner isn’t promoting the business properly. The writer can’t be held responsible for a lack of results or poor conversion.

As a matter of fact, yes, the writer can.

Most writers believe that the goal is to write appealing content that reflects the company well, and that’s it. But that’s incorrect. Website content always has a distinct purpose. Writers tend to forget that clear goal: to compel, to convert, to attract, to sell, to inform, to inspire…

Websites are simply gateways to action, and it is the writer’s job to discover what that action should be – and make it happen.

Can You Repeat the Question?

It is the writer’s responsibility to ask the proper questions before writing one word of website content. Some good questions to ask buyers include:

• What is the purpose of the website?
• What action would you like visitors to take?
• Is there a specific service or product you would like to promote?
• What image do you want your website to reflect?
• What emotion do you want your visitors to feel when they read your content?

Create a form of standard questions that you can easily send to clients. Forget about the words you have to write. Focus on the initial effects the website needs to impress on site visitors and the after-effects of the content you’ll create.

The Clothes Make the (Wo)Man

Learn about your clients, too, and their type of personality. For a website to work well, it has to match the personality of the business and the people who will be running it.

Think of website content like custom-made clothing. Too stiff a suit, and the casual entrepreneur feels stifled. Too flouncy a dress and the business owner feels silly.

Observe as much as you can about the business owner through communication and find the proper garment selection for a perfect fit.

Words create a mental image, so make sure that the image you create also reflects the design of the site and the expectations of the target audience. Website content has to feel comfortable to the owner and stir up a sensation on presentation.

Does it sound like writing web content is a complex job? It is.

What – did you think it was easy?

It can become easy, though, if you learn the proper techniques that make you the star of the show. We’ll show you some techniques, too, so stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll explore how marketing strategies help your website wow the crowd.

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Post by James Chartrand

Should You Specialize in Website Content?

James — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:00:05 +0000

Buyers for website content are out there. Phenomenal numbers of websites are launching daily. If it isn’t a new site selling services, it’s a site selling products. If it isn’t a website, it’s a blogsite or it’s a profile page. Website content is everywhere, and there are plenty of jobs available for writers.

The problem is that, too often, writers land a nice website content gig, but the job has to be redone, reworked and revised. The majority of clients who come to us for website content have one common complaint: they’ve been burned.

Writers are screwing up.

Jack of All Trades

Writing is a common skill. If you can write, you can write anything. Right?

Wrong. The skills required to write particular types of content aren’t the same – and there’s the catch. A great article writer generally sucks at blogging, and bloggers typically don’t write well for magazines.
When a writer tries to be a jack of all trades, he or she is generally master of none.

There are subtle nuances between good writers and specialists. Those nuances matter a great deal, but most writers ignore the differences. These writers believe they are good at writing – and that’s wonderful – but they have trouble accepting that they can’t write different types of content.

Even worse, they believe that all content is the same. It’s not.

Are We All Specialists?

Think of the matter like an airplane pilot – he has different training and qualifications depending on whether he flies a fighter jet or an airbus. Pilots can’t just change planes and expect to be crack fliers.
Each writer has his or her own particular set of strengths, experiences and skill set that creates good potential for a specialty.

Focusing on a specialty is smart. A specialty lets writers focus and become the best in one type of writing. It helps ensure survival by becoming the master of one versus the jack of all trades.

So are all writers specialists? Or can a writer learn how to be great in many types of writing?

The answer is common sense: you can learn anything that you want to learn, and you can learn it well. If you want to have two specialties (or three or four), you can – but you need to learn the proper techniques.

Who’s Flying the Plane?

Many writers glance at a job and think, “I can do that.” They are tempted by the prestige of a job, a nice rate, or the potential big break. They know they can write, and they write well. They believe that’s all it takes.

Besides, they’ve always wanted to branch out into website content. So they give it a shot. The problem? That writer is flying by the seat of his or her pants.

The buyer thinks a qualified pilot is flying the plane.

In our next post, we’ll cover some of the reasons website content falls flat and a few questions to ask that help your work fly high. Hint: it involves a little bit more than luck and a Superman cape.

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