Writing is not as simple as most people thought it would be. It is not about how we like writing. It is more about how it impacts the readers and how they understand your content. As a writer who writes for the sake of SEO services for my clients’ business, I have been constantly learning new tips and tricks in writing content and testing its reliability and impacts through the results. After testing and researching, I have come up with these tips and solutions for you that hold powerful meanings to your content writing, which can make your content easy to understand while still being fun to read. How? Keep reading to find out!
First of all, limit the use of “I” and “we”
Yeah, yeah I know you are selling your products and you feel the need to say “we are selling gardening tools that we…” but stop it right there. Researches show that people are more likely to consider people who use multiple first-person references as less confident and less assured, or worse, suffering and self-conscious. Let’s take a look at the example below.
“In this article, I am going to explain to you in details about gardening tips, but I will first tell you about types of flowers that I know can be safely planted in a garden.”
The sentence above uses way too many “I” that is not actually necessary. If not written properly, there are chances that people may miss the important message because it is cloistered by meaningless sentences. So, let’s fix this a little bit and replace the sentence above with this:
“Before explaining the detailed gardening tips, I will first tell you about types of flowers that can be safely planted in a garden.”
This one is shorter, simpler and easier to understand without having to read many times. The important message is also easily relayed, more practical, right?
Hunt for weasels
Weasel words may be important in some cases especially formal writing. However, in content writing, it seems to be repetitive and vague. According to Leslie Ye on HubSpot, weasel words are used when the speaker wants to make it seem like they’ve given a clear answer to a question or made a direct statement, when actually it is inconclusive or vague. Take a look at the example below.
“With all due respect, even though we have to live healthy lifestyles and habits, our bakery shop, Sheldon Bakery believes that we still need the occasional sweet treat. For that reason, mini wheat breads are the excellent choice.”
The sentence above has so many unnecessary words that can make people skip the important part. Instead, you can make it simpler like this:
“Sheldon Bakery believes in the occasional sweet treat to spark some sweetness in our healthy lifestyle. Mini wheat breads are the excellent choice to incorporate that.”
The correction of the sentence for this section has all the important parts stated. Simply put, I removed the weasel words without changing the meaning, so nothing is left out.
Omit the “to be”
According to the University of North Carolina’s Writing Centre, when ‘to be’ is frequently used, it will weaken the impact of our writing. For example, if you write it like this:
“When the research is done properly, you will never hesitate to make a decision.”
The sentence above is actually simple and not as complicated as the previous ones I have made. However, the essence and the impact of your writing are not strong enough to make it stand out. Instead, turn this sentence into a more meaningful one like this:
“When done properly, the research can help you make a decision.”
See? It is simpler and easier to understand, right?
Cut unnecessary prepositions
According to American Journal Experts, a string of multiple prepositions in a single sentence can make the text messy and confusing for your target audience. For example:
“In commemoration of the National Heroes Day on November 10, 2019, the employees at the MNC Media Indonesia opted to throw a party in celebration of the day.”
There is “on”, “in”, “of”, and “at” appearing so many times in just one sentence. Surely, this will make your target audience confused. Instead, write it like this:
“To celebrate 2019’s Indonesian National Heroes Day on November 10th, the MNC Media’s employees threw a party.”
With prepositions now reduced, the message becomes clearer and easier to read.
Content writing will not attract anyone’s attention without them understanding it first. Oftentimes, and unfortunately, some people missed this point by simply using too many unnecessary words that often led them to bad results. One thing for sure, simple text does not always mean boring, but long-written text is absolutely boring. The key to fix this is by writing as simple text as possible, leave out the unnecessary and add a little spice into your writing to make it more interesting.