Tag: blog writing

5 Step process for business writing

5 Steps to Writing a Business Article Like a Pro

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Does the prospect of writing a business article make you nervous? Business writing can feel daunting, but if you break down the process into steps, you will realize that writing a business article is like writing for any other genre.

What is a Business Article?

A business article is any content you write with the intent of directly or indirectly sharing information about a business. The different types of business writing include blogs, news releases, newsletters, brochure, flyers, emailers, and presentations.

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Business writing involves a variety of writing styles.

The writing style will vary with the type of business content you have been asked to write. For instance, compared to a blog, an emailer must have a more succinct pitch. Similarly, a flyer will have to sell an idea very quickly, while in a business brochure you have the luxury of being more descriptive.

I have been writing for small and medium-sized businesses for almost seven years now. In that time frame, I have written business articles on myriad industries, such as business technology, software development, renewable energy, educational consultancy, childcare service, virtual assistant service, and medical billing.

Over the hundreds of articles written, I have developed a business article writing methodology that I’d like to share with you today.  My method of researching and writing a business article may not work for you, but it is one you could certainly use as a start point to create your own version of a writing system.

For this post, I am going to stick to the preparation, researching, structuring, writing, and editing stages of writing a business article.

So here goes.

5 Steps to Writing a Business Article

5 Step process for business writing

Let’s paint a beautiful picture…but with words.

STEP 1: PREPARE – Understanding What is Expected From You

Let’s assume that you are working for a client for the first time and you have been given a topic ‘X Reasons to Have a Blog.’  As soon as you take on this assignment, you need to get answers to the following questions:

1. Who is the target audience of your client?

target audience

Understand who you are writing for and what the client wants

Is your client targetting individuals or businesses? The target audience will affect the way you write. For instance, a business targetting individual buyers will prefer a writing style that is more conversational, personal, and maybe even laced with humor. On the other hand, a B2B client may want an article that is informative and highlights the business’s expertise.

Of course, when we say business article, don’t assume that you need to write content that sounds like a management book extract. Today, every content you write has to be easy to read and must communicate the benefit the reader will derive from the ten minutes they spend reading what you have written.

2. Does the client have keywords in mind for the article?
In my experience, most clients will be happy to let you take charge of this and decide the best keyword phrases for an article. Once you have chosen the keywords, ensure that you include them in the article heading, subheadings ( where possible), and at a frequency of three to four times every 500 words of the article.

3. Expected format and style of the article
Most clients will share a sample of the kind of article they want to write. If they do not, then look at previous posts on their website and clarify if the client wants you to maintain a similar writing style.
Also, agree on the format of submission. For instance, a client that I have been writing for a long time is a virtual service provider called Virtasktik. All blogs submitted to the client must contain a meta description, as well as content for social media posts on the article for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google+.

STEP 2: RESEARCH – Evaluate the Available Information and Extract the Pertinent Bits

Online research

You must be a master at both looking for information online and picking the most relevant bits.

As you begin researching the topic think about the two to three key points your article must include. These ideas then become the start point for research on search engines.

Alternatively, type different phrases related to the blog topic you have been given. For example, for the topic ‘X reasons to blog,’ your search phrases could be –

  • Benefits of business blog
  • X Reasons why every business should have a blog
  • Statistics/ Data on the benefits of having a business blog

As you scan through the relevant articles, Google ( or other search engines) will throw up suggestions on other similar search phrases;  look at those as well.

While researching the information available online, I recommend doing the following:

  1. Stay current: Reference articles published no later than three years ago. Since knowledge and technology are evolving rapidly, you must publish content that is relevant and forward-looking.
  2. Use credible sources: Extract your content from reputed websites or blogs of established companies in the industry.
  3. Give credit: It’s important to give credit where credit is due, so include at least one or two links to reputed websites within the article.
  4. Include data: Where possible look for recent developments, industry statistics, or infographics relevant to your topic.
  5. Extract as you read: Highlight or extract the most relevant portion of content as you read the articles. Some writers use tools like Evernote to do this, but I like to do it the old-fashioned way and paste all the relevant content into a single word file. Let’s call this the ‘base document.’
  6. Read multiple articles: As a thumb rule research at least 5 to 6 credible sources of information for every page of 500 words that you need to write.
  7. Include a quote: Depending on whom you are writing for, adding a genuine quote for your article is a great idea.

So for an article on blogging, you can approach popular bloggers for their advice, or reach out to internet marketing specialists for a contribution to your article. You can contact them through their website, via email, or even their Facebook business page.

Tell them who you are, the client you are writing for, the topic, that you are looking for a 2 or 3 line quote, and by when do you need the revert. I often use this strategy and have a 25 to 30 percent success rate, which means I approach at least 4 potential contributors to get a single quote. The research phase will take you anywhere between one to one hour thirty minutes.

STEP 3: STRUCTURE – The Information and Your Thoughts

article writing

Identify key points and decide which piece of information goes where.

If you are writing a 1000 word article, by the time you have researched the information, you should have at least a base document of 2500 to 3000 words. Once convinced that you have gathered all the relevant information, start reading your base document.

Having gone through the document, open another word file and begin writing the key points, or must have information for your article. I like to rearrange and highlight the content in the base document using different colors. For example, the material that I want to include in the opening para is highlighted in yellow, the main body in pink, and article recommendations in green. So what you are doing at this stage is structuring the information and your thoughts before you begin writing.

By the time you are done, you will have your article skeleton – opening, subheadings, bullet points under each, and takeaways from your article ( or the concluding paragraph), as well as the information that needs to come under each section.

If you are working with a word limit of say 1000 words, you can decide to write  150 words for the article opening, 800 words on the main body, and another 100 for writing the conclusion. Of course, its advisable to write the first draft of about 1200 to 1300 words, because as you improve the content during the editing stage, the word count will automatically be reduced.

Structuring the article before you begin writing will take you 25 to 30 minutes.

So you have by this time already spent 2 hours on your article.

Now, let’s begin writing.

STEP 4: WRITING – Write, Don’t Edit

Just+Write

It’s time to just write. Write as you think and speak.

The number one tip at this stage is to write as you think. Write as fast as you can type but keep referencing the base document to see the sub-points and the information you want under each point. Be careful as to not ‘copy-paste’ content from your base file.

As you write the first article draft, I highly recommend that you use a distraction-free text editor such as Write Box to help you write without distractions.

Here some additional tips on writing a business article:

1. Share the article purpose in the opening para: Write an engaging opening paragraph which indicates the central question the article is going to answer. In other words, why should someone read your blog? As an example, here’s an opening I wrote for an article on task delegation:

“Are you a star at delegating things to do in your business? Or are you one of the many small business owners who shy’s away from task delegation because you fear work won’t happen as expected, or that you won’t’ know how things are progressing once you have handed off the task?”

2. Include keywords: As you write, try to include the key phrase(s) where possible, but especially in the article opening paragraph, subheadings of the article, and within the content with a frequency of about 3 to 4 repetitions for every 400 to 500 words.

3. Include external and internal links: Add two to three hyperlinks to articles published on other reputed websites, as well as links to related content within your client’s website. When you add links, use relevant ‘anchor phrases’ to describe them. Instead of saying ‘click here for more information’, add the links within your text.

4. Encourage readers to take action: Close with a takeaway paragraph of what the reader should learn or the final thought you want to leave with the reader. For instance, you could invite readers to register for a monthly business newsletter, leave a comment on their own experiences/ knowledge of the topic, or fill the sales contact form.

5. U.S vs. U.K English: Write in U.S or U.K English depending on which country your client is based.

6. Write in active voice: Minimize the use of passive sentences, write in ‘active voice’ to the extent possible.

Writing a 1000 word article can take about 2 hours. At this stage, depending on your research and writing efficiency, you have already spent between 3 to 4 hours on your article.

STEP 5: EDITING – The Most Important Part of the Writing Process.

polish

Editing is essential to producing a quality article, much like polishing a diamond to bring the shine.

Think of your article ( written so far) as a rough diamond that needs polishing. Spending considerable effort in editing an item is essential to producing quality work that will make your clients coming back for more.

Paste the content from the text file to an MSWord file. Read through the article you have written so far. I find that reading the content aloud yourself or using the ‘Read Aloud Speech’ feature under the Review tab in Microsoft Word, is helpful in identifying sentences that must be re-written or re-arranged to improve the article flow.

Once you are satisfied that the article flow is good, check your content on content editing tools such as Grammarly or  Hemingway App to improve readability. For instance, these apps can help identify passive sentences (which you may want to rephrase in an active voice), identify phrases with a more straightforward expression, or rectify the incorrect use of punctuation. You can reduce wordiness – for example ‘ you have to make a decision’ can be written more concisely as ‘ you must make a decision’.

Cross-check the effectiveness of the article header using tools such as Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer.  When you find yourself stuck for ideas on writing a compelling headline, try the blog title generator by SEOPressor.

Paying attention to the smallest details at the editing stage will make it a time-consuming process, but the end the result will be worth it. For a 1000 word article, I can easily spend an hour trying to edit and improve it. On the other hand, there is no end to the amount of editing you can do in an article. So beyond a point, you must decide if the present version of the article is good to go.  Before you publish your business article or submit it to the client, ensure that you do a plagiarism check. I prefer to use Copyscape.

So there you have it, my tell-all post on writing business articles, and would you know it, it also happens to be the longest post ever published on my blog.

Was the reading time worth it? Do leave your feedback in the comments below.

Adios!

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Use the Right ‘Point of View’ for Writing Web Content

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Do you remember learning about the first person, second person, and third person narrative points of view (POV) in school? In this age of terse email and mobile text communication, this differentiation in writing style is often lost. However, for a digital content writer, the use of the right POV is incredibly important for ensuring that the content is attention grabbing, plausible, and engaging. types-of-narrators-english-tutorvista-com Understanding the different narrative point of views

Here is a quick look at the various writing narratives and choosing the best POV as per the type of web content.

1. First person point of view: The first person POV is from the narrator’s or the writer’s point of view. The pronouns ‘I, my, we, our and me’ express the first-person point of view.

There are several advantages of writing web content in the first person point of view.

  • It humanizes your content, often helping you connect with your readers on an emotional level.
  • It allows for an openness that is unachievable while writing in second person or third person POVs.
  • First person POV instills authority. Individuals who are a voice of authority in their industries extensively use the first person of view to share their knowledge.
  • It  makes the content sound honest.

2. Second Person Point of View Second person point of view is when you are speaking directly to the reader. You address them as ‘you, your, and yours’. Use of second person narrative is common in web content, and in particular in writing attention grabbing article headlines. The second person point of view also comes in handy when you are writing instructional manuals or product reviews.

With second person it is easier to persuade the reader to take action, and appeal to their emotions . This is especially significant when you pitch a product, service or social cause. However, when writing in the second person narrative be careful that the content does not sound patronizing or like a ‘hard-sell’ pitch.

3. The Third Person Point of View The third person point of view is less popular in web content writing. It is when you do not directly refer to the reader, and instead use  ‘he, she and it’ in reference people and things. The third person point of view commands a formality that is not present in first and second points of view. However, you risk alienating your readers with the third-person narrative .

Example of the same sentence, different narrative

First person – As a first-time user, I found the manual helpful.

Second person – If you are a first-time user, you will find the manual helpful.

Third person: Most first-time users will find the manual helpful.

WritingStyleChoosing the Correct Narrative for Internet Based Business Writing

As an internet freelance writer myself, writing in the second person narrative has become the most natural way to write and appeal to the audience. However, a second person POV is not always the best fit.

Blogs: The aim of a business blog is to share information with the reader and start a conversation. The most effective way to do this is to ‘speak’ to them directly, which is through second person narrative.

Website and marketing communications: For any business campaign to be a success, the content has to connect with the target audience. This means appealing to their emotions and own experiences, and you can do that in second person POV.

Press releases (PR): A press release is an unbiased reporting of an event or business development. The third-person POV renders the objectivity needed for a PR. A second person narrative would not be apt for a PR.

Also read –  Ditch the Passive and Write in an ‘Active Voice’ for Engaging Online Content