associationFOCUS | Volume 8, Issue 1

What do all of Stuart Howie’s ideas for writing great content have in common? They require actual writing. That rules out several common strategies for getting cheap content: • Mashing words together that were written by other people and adding whatever words you think a search engine is looking for. The result is going to read like nonsense. • Paying for words written as fast as possible for as little as possible by people in other countries. You cannot buy quality work for a penny per article. • Paying for, and re-posting, articles that were published somewhere else first. If you only post other people’s work online, you won’t have anything fresh to offer. When people read your work, they are generally looking for something that seems useful or inter- esting. It isn’t either one if they’ve read it before, and search engines have become sophisticated enough that any of these three inexpensive strategies will ensure that search engines won’t give your content a high ranking. Where should you put your effort? • Pick specialties where you have plenty of room to create new content. You need to write new articles regularly. You don’t want to run out of things to say. • Write strong headlines. Someone who is skim- ming will at least read the headline. If it is strong enough, they might read the article as well. • Write as simply as you can. Writing elegant prose is something you can study your entire life, but start by choosing shorter words instead of longer words, paying attention to sentence patterns, and generally keeping paragraphs short. If you want to go beyond that, Joseph Williams wrote a book called Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. It is worth reading. Another good strategy is to study the best writers you can find. People who win writing awards are often good choices. • Put the most interesting and relevant information first. In journalism, the material at the end of the news story is the most likely to be cut. • Be brief. Most people don’t have a lot of time to give you. The shorter your stories are, the better. • Use stories. Your brain is continually using stories to solve problems. As a result, most people remember stories much better than they remember numbers; tell a great story, and it might outlive you. List a bunch of numbers, and people will forget what you said right after they read it. • Use foreshadowing. If you hint about what you are going to say later, people may continue reading to find out more. This technique (taken to extremes) is the whole idea behind clickbait. • Use transitions. You can use transitions within the text, space, section headings and pull-quotes. • People learn in different ways. Add color and pictures. If you are publishing online, add videos, too. • Identify any actions you want the reader to take. Articles are an opportunity to teach, but teaching doesn’t stick unless the reader puts it to use somehow. • Ask yourself questions as many good questions as you can, and come up with good answers. (Do CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 6 | association FOCUS