7 Tips to Become a Highly Productive Content writer

Niraj Ranjan Rout
Published on September 1, 2016
Woman Typing on Laptop

Writing can be extremely demanding, especially when you are a content writer and you have goals to meet, and numbers to show.

True, writing, just like creative arts, is driven by inspiration which is hard to come by at your beck and call. Despite that, making writing an everyday practice can make it easier to do so.

Highly productive writers live up to the numbers and at the same time don’t compromise on the quality of writing.

With proper planning, strategy and practice, you can easily become a highly productive writer that can drive great results. Here are some tips:

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1. Take only 20% of the available time to write

The 80/20 rule can be quite effective here. Writing itself is not the task, not at all. You already are a writer and can probably write well even in your sleep. The problem is writing good content and to find the good content you have to research a lot first.

Give 80% of the available time to research. Find facts, data, examples etc. that will be relevant to your article.

Say you are writing a piece about email marketing, you can write a good article only if you take the time to understand and learn about email marketing yourself. Otherwise, you will be writing wishy-washy posts which will add no value, instead of deep, rich, and value-packed articles.

2. Keep a time gap between writing and proof-reading

It is extremely important that you remain objective when proof-reading your piece.

Also, it is easier to spot mistakes when you are feeling fresh and relaxed. So let the article sit for a while, work on other tasks and then come back to the article. This way your proofreading will be more effective and faster.

Of course, an even better way to handle this is to work towards becoming a scrupulous writer who hardly needs any proofreading.

Remember, never proof-read and write at the same time; it is highly ineffective.

3. Have an outline set before writing

Having an outline or a template to follow will stop you from unnecessary rambling and going off the point, hence saving time and energy.

For example, before setting out to write, have a template in mind.

First para – introduction (about the product)
Second para – what is unique about the product
Third para – how will the product help customers…..

And so on.

This way your writing and your efforts remain targeted and don’t veer off the course.

4. Write for yourself first

If you enjoy writing, which I am guessing you do, make it your creative outlet. Write wherever you get a chance, write journals, poetry, speeches for friends or for yourself, essays etc.

Write for yourself without any agenda or business need, just for pleasure. This is a great way to stop seeing writing as a task and start seeing it as a passion or a habit.

This can help master the art of writing and write with ease and style even in your business writing.

Remember, writing isn’t something that can be forced to happen, you must learn to enjoy it and make a habit out of it to write more effectively.

5. Have a well-planned editorial calendar

Creating too much content is just as bad a problem as creating too less content, if not worse.

If you constantly dump too much content on your audience, it will be lost on them and will be a terrible waste of the content itself. On the flip side, if you don’t produce enough content, you will fail to capture and engage your audience and will probably be shunned out of their lives when they unsubscribe you.

Have a set plan and schedule for how often you want to post – an editorial calendar can boost your efficiency. Consistency is also the key here. If you publish a new post every Friday, make sure you stick to that.

6. Reuse and repurpose content as much as possible

In the manner of speaking, there is nothing new under the sun. It’s not about coming up with new things to say as much as it is about coming up with new ways of saying it.

Say you are writing a motivational article, the underlying advice and gist always remain the same. You just have to find a new creative way to say it.

Another way to repurpose content is by making the most of the already published articles by using them as email newsletters or republish them on newer platforms like Medium or LinkedIn.
As a writer, if you are aiming to come with new unheard-of content every day, you will run out ideas and energy quickly.

7. Find engaging and trending topics to write about

Even if your content is great, it will amount to nothing if it isn’t relevant. If everyone is talking about Pokemon Go or Visual storytelling, you must also base your content on it.

As long your are writing for business and not pleasure and your aim is to grow your audience and increase your traffic, you must flow with the flow.

Content curation and discovery tools can be quite helpful in figuring out the trending topics. Also, you can use Buzzsumo to figure out the keywords with highest search results and the content that is being shared the most.

Final thoughts

For content writers, writing is as much an art as it is a science. Strategic writing can amplify the results of your content, thus, bringing you greater results for the same amount of work.

Content writers need to keep in mind that they are not poets but business storytellers, and must stay true to that when creating content.

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Niraj Ranjan Rout

Guest Contributor

Niraj is the founder of Hiver (hiverhq.com), an app that turns Gmail into a powerful customer support and collaboration tool.

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