What is Content in Writing: Everything You Need to Know

Last Updated on 4 months by Christopher Jan Benitez

Looking for clear and concise content guidelines?

Or looking for writers you can count on?

If it’s a yes to either question, you came to the right place!

In this article, we’ll talk about SEO content writing services, the role of content in SEO, and how marketers ought to make the most of it.

After reading this article, you now have a better understanding of:

  • Content writing and the processes behind it
  • Examples and formats
  • Basics/Foundation content writers should know

What is Content in the Writing Process?

Anyone can write–it’s true.

But not everyone can put their thoughts in a state of free flow yet well-directed enough to achieve a goal. It takes skill to sit down and internalize how to develop content writing.

So what is content in the writing process?

What is content in writing

Literally, it’s the words that go in the document. But done right, it’s words that the readers relate to.

Knowing this, writers are wise to mind their audience, pay attention to structure and make use of more than just creativity.

The Writing Process

1. Preparation and Research

While writing is all about letting out your creative prowess, you don’t do it right away. This step ensures you layout everything you need to do as a marketer.

Some things you need to mind at this point are the buyer persona and your content marketing plan to create a solid outline. You will need to research for both before starting your piece.

2. Drafting

When you first start with your content piece, it’s crucial to let ALL the ideas flow. There is no wrong punctuation, grammar, syntax, etc at this stage.

When you take more than a split second to revisit a word and correct it, don’t do it at all just yet.

This way, you can let your creativity out and spare no time to stop and edit.

Don’t worry, SEO content in writing is not set in stone; it’s very much editable.

3. Editing

When you’re done spilling your creative juices in the drafting stage, you then tear it apart and build it back up in editing.

This step is the toughest one. If you have an official editor among your team members, good. If not, the writers must edit themselves and this method can be prone to biases.

Here, you mind grammar, syntax, flow and overall correctness of your piece. When editing, it is a great practice to go about at least twice.

4. Posting and Promoting

Posting is much like publishing books. The difference? It’s now in the hands of whatever content management system you subscribed to (e.g. WordPress, Wix, Weebly, etc).

If you’re done with your document, it doesn’t stop there. It’s equally crucial how we promote or distribute the finished content–on social media, your blog, email, etc.

It doesn’t really exist if it’s not being read, right?

What is Content Writing?

Now that we talked about the process of content writing, let’s look at what effective content writing looks like. Content writers need to mind the trends and how to best make use of their time.

In a nutshell, content writing is making relevant content for your target audience usually in hopes of promoting a brand or business.

With that said, here are two great content types that really show you what content writing is about:

Web Content

Although there are a lot of content types out there, this one really applies to literally everyone in the digital space.

Websites are like online real estate where sub-pages are front doors, balconies, gardens, etc–you get the picture. You just can’t go making a website without them.

For web content to be great, it has to be informative. But informative can be boring, right?

Not to the right audience it isn’t. Combine great web content writing skills with SEO and your brand will be unstoppable!

Blog

Now that you have your ‘digital foundation’ in place, the blog covers the form and interior. This gives it attitude and helps bring your SEO to a whole new level.

Blogging does this by relating content to your target audience.

The result? Companies who consistently blog every month (11 times and higher) get four times the leads compared to companies who don’t blog as much (5 times or less).

It achieves that level of results because blogging…

  • Shows off your brand’s personality
  • Boosts SEO by talking about topics your audience relates to
  • Increases page views and has great ROI

Content Writing Examples

What is content in writing
Screen Clip taken from biztraffic.com

See this short screen clip?

It’s a good content writing example because this short piece is clear and concise while still satisfying SEO goals.

1. The first sentence has an exclamation to it since it’s in the middle of the process (readers might already be bored at this point).

2. In the second paragraph, you see a link that leads to another page (owned by the same blog) to boost the number of readers on another article.

Screen clip taken from expresswriters.com

Here’s another good one.

When writing content, you avoid selling something. But after you talked about a topic your audience cares about, you kind of deserve to sell something (best keep the tone light and not sales-y, though).

In this case, readers who care enough about the topic–creative writing–may just get a copy of that book.

That’s what a good content writing example is–something they’d want to buy for the info, but it’s free.

Content Writing Formats

Now that you know the core processes and what makes a piece of content good, here are other common content writing formats you can try:

1. Article

It’s like a blog post, but focused on being informative where there is more attention to facts and references that are easy to validate.

2. Checklist

A list of usable tips for your target audience; these are usually short and very actionable which makes it enticing for the people with the problem being addressed. The more specific the issue, the better.

3. eBook

Still informative, but usually covers an appealing topic very specific to a target audience. This is commonnly used as a lead magnet since the brand making this has some authority on that topic.

4. Whitepaper

These are lengthier than ebooks and act as a detailed report. This is ideal for technical products that require explanations so businesses can better appreciate the benefits. Whitepapers work best as lead magnets for business-to-business relationships.

5. Social Media Post

These are bits of info shared on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. It directs people to another, bigger source of information should they be interested with what was posted.

6. Case Study

This talks about how users of a product or service can benefit from it and helps prospects with a buying decision. Businesses can use this to showcase the effectiveness of their offer.

7. Presentation

Great for storytelling and can quickly deliver information through slides. SlideShare is one great medium brands can use to increase SEO.

8. Q&A

This can also be Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) or Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions. Unlike other more common content forms such as short and long articles, this simulates a two-way conversation and helps engage your audience. Done right, it makes them feel heard and taken care of.

Depending on how warm your audience is, you may choose the most relevant content writing format for your brand wisely.

Content Writing Basics

So many things to look out for, right?

If you’re interested in just the content writing basics, let us give you a summary of the guidelines.

This should be a good learning framework and even help you if you’re looking for great content writers.

  1. Great SEO starts with research. Writers know this for a fact and don’t merely write. 
  2. Keywords aren’t all you should write. It has to have a good flow so the Call-To-Action makes sense.
  3. Good writers write well. Great writers know that the content piece is only the tip of the iceberg of overall marketing efforts. This means putting hyperlinks to sources–inbound, outbound, or even using email to link to social media, etc. 
  4. Not a dull moment – writers keep it lively, use formatting to engage the audience, paint the picture for readers, and make sure the readers care.
  5. Nothing was made up when checking references–whether those are topics or just quoted phrases, everything checks out.
  6. It is easy to read even for a fifth grader, unless there are some technical topics.
  7. To get all the steps above much easier to do and save more time, use SEO content tools.
  8. At the end of it all, a good writer makes sure the content brings value to the reader.

Conclusion

And that’s a wrap! We know we used ‘basics’ and ‘common’ in this article, but what we really mean is ‘foundation’ and ‘proven’ respectively.

There are good practices, and there are great ones that really up your content marketing game.

Knowing what content in writing is, the best types to use, and the foundations that your team should have, can go a long way with your brand.

Need more help with writing good content? Here are content writing tips you must observe!