An On-Point Guide To Nailing Your Startup’s Content Writing Strategy

Content writing is no rocket science. Until you realize it doesn’t work the way you want it.

That’s when most non-writers or inexperienced writers start to question the value of content as well as how Google chooses one blog post over another.

But let me tell you this:

There are no secrets when it comes to writing memorable content.

Just a lot of [and I mean way too many] things to pay attention to.

That’s exactly what I’m here to bring to light. 😉

Why I created this content writing guide?

The purpose of this guide is to help startups understand the value behind content and how they can get started with writing articles from day one. The next chapters will take you through all the steps and tips you need to know before writing any content.

This is NOT a content marketing guide. Content marketing is a more complex field that involves both writing and promoting your content along with other adjacent methods. It would take an entire book with multiple editions to write that. I’ve tried to keep the guide on-point so you can go through it even if you’re busy.

Let’s get to writing!

Understanding WHY you need content

I’ll be honest with you, you don’t always need content from the start in a non-competitive industry.

Content comes in when you’re looking to differentiate your brand, gain exposure, or move towards the next step. Yet, there’s no content marketer who will say that content is useless because there are thousands of business goals you can fulfill by writing great content.

Here’s a run through some of these benefits:

• Increase your website’s traffic
• Improve your search engine rankings
• Gain leads and have them bring new customers
• Grow your conversions
• Strengthen your position in the industry
• Become a subject matter expert and gain the trust of your leads
• Create brand awareness
• Loyalize and delight customers
• Engage with prospects and existing customers
• Become an educator and dependable source for insights and reports
• Recruit new talent to help with your employee branding efforts
• Improve your brand’s reputation
• Reduce the costs you’d attribute to paid advertising efforts
• Build partnerships and promote your collaborators
• Create a community and gain new insights into your market
• Make a difference for a cause your support
• Appeal to all buyer funnel requirements
• Stay top-of-mind
• Promote diversity
• Give your team a chance to voice their opinions and knowledge
• Keep people coming back to your website

By far the biggest mistakes most new or upcoming businesses make is assuming they’ll be able to do well without content.

Truth is, content along with solid industry partnerships are the only two tactics that will keep your business thriving in the long run. Other marketing attempts like paid advertising or promoted posts only provide temporary results you might not afford.

The easiest way for me to convince you that content is worth it is to have you look at your top 3 competitors. If they’re taking content to the next level, it’s time for you to consider it too. To give you an example, in the SaaS industry all #1 products from each category have become a go-to source when someone needs solid info on a topic.

When to get started with content writing

One thing to clarify is that content is not just on your blog. Many startups opt for a social media or video marketing strategy at the beginning. Others create their own communities well before launching a product. This is a good choice if you want to get more insights into your prospects by being exactly where they are and learning to speak their language.

When it comes to articles, there’s a decision startup owners have to make between hosting their blog and writing content on Medium or as guest posts. Any option is better than having no content.

Yet, here’s a go-to formula you can approach without hesitation:

• Start your blog [as a subdirectory, please] and don’t waste months trying to get the perfect structure for it
• Write articles based on your content strategy and editorial calendar
• Launch a Medium blog to republish content according to the best practices I’ve previously explained
• Craft a content promotion strategy that will include guest posting and promoted articles

Why does everyone’s content look the same?

Anyone who’s ever searched for a guide on any topic might have noticed a similarity between the first results.

Two situations here:

1. Writers don’t spend enough time on an article either because they can’t be bothered or they have a strict deadline. ← This is BAD
2. By researching the SERP (search engine results page), you’ll notice the top 10 articles have similar headings and topics they cover. This is because for every single keyword there’s a separate reader’s intent. In other words, writers need to provide the exact information that readers are looking for. To make articles easier to skim [and for bot crawling purposes], all ideas are placed under similar headings that are often the same due to the keywords they target. ← This is partially GOOD

If the goal is to rank, unfortunately, most content writers have no choice but to be Google’s slaves and comply with their algorithm requirements and changes.

🤦‍♀️

So how can you make your content stand out?

The concept of writing unique content is as varied as the multiple approaches you can pursue.

Let’s take the possibilities one by one.

Turning to your network

All the round-ups and posts where experts share their thoughts as you’ve seen everywhere have a purpose: to make use of other people’s expertise and gain initial post traction through their shares. Plus, let’s be honest, most of the articles you see on news and media outlets include quotes to make sure the article is not subjective.

While a round-up post is often not an evergreen solution to your content problems, incorporating the insights of other top professionals helps improve credibility and showcase a multitude of points of view.

But wait… how do you get those quotes?

Here’s where it pays to have a solid network like a lot of LinkedIn connections you keep in touch with or your own Slack community. For faster results, there are Facebook groups, Slack communities as well as PR tools like HARO or SourceBottle. And of course, you can always turn to your own team, partners, and even clients.

Reports and surveys

When all else fails, having regular reports that others can use and reference is a huge PR move. A top-of-the-mind example is Buffer’s yearly report on the State of Remote Work. Frankly, when someone writes an article on remote work, they’re likely to mention at least one of their findings.

For a startup with a limited budget though, running a survey for several months is nearly impossible. You won’t be able to afford to pay for someone to run this research, getting all the tools, and even paying for a market research company to provide you with the necessary sources.

That’s when you rely on your own capabilities.

The email marketing zone is pretty strong on that. ConvertKit runs a monthly reporting series on email deliverability to share insights they have from their own tool. Similarly, here are some statistics on the best time to send an email as concluded by the MailerLite team.

As an independent writer, I don’t have access to such data most of the time. And you might not have a software or service backed with thousands of data entries to make use of either. So I now do my own research and put together my own reporting as often as possible.

In this remote product management career guide for instance, I analyzed 100+ remote product manager jobs from Glassdoor to see what the top required skills are.

In-depth research

Take my guide to writing an article introduction. I ran through all possible situations of starting an article and backed them all up with explanations and several examples. Definitely different from the other articles on the same topic that give out the tips.

Or this article with 110 landing page examples from Instapage. Yes, they have 110 examples and all of them are detailed. Here’s what the engagement on the post looks like:

Google “landing page examples” to see more cases like these that will blow your mind.

Most of these also rank for the “landing page” keyword — one of the few terms out there that has a double reader’s intent. This means people want to get both examples and insights into what landing pages are and best practices for creating them. The Instapage article above nails that by giving out the examples followed by detailed explanations.

Your own opinions and knowledge

Now here’s a headline everyone will want to read:

The article is an account of a person’s experience. And nobody can say more about what you’ve achieved than you.

So here’s your approach: tackling a topic using your own expertise and opinions. See YouTube for extra inspiration:

Things aren’t as simple though. You can’t rank for “landing page” if you say that landing pages are useful and don’t meet the reader’s intent. Some topics do leave out so much room for you to present either a mix of opinions or your point of view alone. Like what I did here where 50+ other articles on the same theme were repeating a similar viewpoint.

Controversial posts

We’ve all had them.

It’s posts like “We’re Not On Facebook Anymore” or “Why We’re Not Using Google Analytics”.

See this example on quitting Twitter.

For startups, this approach works when you’re publishing something on a high-authority media or news website. Once you start getting a solid readership, similar announcements can be used on your blog too to bring more curious eyes over your owned website. Do make sure to back up all your claims.

Tackling an entirely different topic

This is super difficult.

Most things have already been written at some point in one form or another. What you can do is bring a topic that’s not related to your industry or what you usually write about and connect it to what’s relevant. Like this post on what marketers can learn from movies.

Another tactic here is to be the first one to write on a topic ahead of the others. While this is indeed time-draining, it has huge results because if you’re putting a great piece together you have the chance of becoming a top resource, strengthening your expertise, and bringing in backlinks to your website.

I like using Google Trends and Exploding Topics to find upcoming trends and potential topics before others.

Truth is that the first people who are going to write about a topic will usually have a better chance of writing effective content.

This takes us to…

Coming up with ideas

Content topics don’t always come to you. Matter of fact, you’re better off sticking with the subjects you’ve researched beforehand. Those articles or guides you’ve been planning to write for a while now.

That’s exactly why you’ll need a professional content strategist to put together your editorial calendar. Simply put, a content strategist makes use of all available networks and resources to craft the content plan. From seeing what people are talking about on social media to using specialized tools, doing competitors research, and analyzing the best possible ranking opportunities.

Personally, I’m a super big fan of spontaneous content. To be honest though, this is okay only AFTER you’ve started to create a solid audience. Newsletters, for instance, are a perfect opportunity for you to showcase any impromptu thoughts and concepts. Or, you can use a Slack community to bring a new topic of discussion every day.

The thing is Google does rank your website higher after you have a couple of articles to show your expertise on a topic. As an example, imagine you’re running a branding agency. Your “Ultimate Guide To Branding” won’t rank as well if it’s your first article than if you had 20 previous articles to back up your expertise.

For this reason, consider your permission to start writing content right away granted. Do, however, keep in mind you should always write on topics related to your business and make sure you put in all of the best practices from this guide.

Now…

Let’s assume you’ve got your ideas in check and you finally have time to write.

Finding search intent before writing content

Unless you’re opening a text editor and hitting publish after 800 words, you’re most likely doing SERP research in one way or another.

Proper research of a topic includes:

• Analyzing the ranking opportunities for specific keywords
• Finding trends
• Choosing a keyword
• Discovering more about what people are saying on that topic
• Having a super uber extra detailed look at the first results that Google shows you for your main keyword of choice

But here’s something to dwell on: when the first 10 articles are the same, you need to cling onto an idea that will make your article stand out. That’s when you start looking beyond the top 10 to see what other ideas were shared and, above all, what nobody else mentioned.

A large part of how Google judges your content is dedicated to the reader. All in all, if readers spend more time on your article, prefer to link to your post, or return to your content over other competing pieces, your article will be placed higher.

If you’re trying to rank for “working from home” and you’re going to be presenting tools only instead of tips and a thorough guide to working from home [this is the reader’s intent for this keyword], your article might fall out of top 100. That’s like not ranking at all.

Reader intent is diverse and really does depend on the keyword.

Here are a few cases to take into account when writing:

• Looking for a quick answer: “weather + city”
• Transactional purposes: “gaming laptops”
• Local intent: “coffee shops around + city”
• Needing a definition: “what is fulfillment”
• Instructional: “how to clean your keyboard“
• Expecting a list of options: “VPN services”
• Even simple image search: “blue flowers”

Most articles though are a mix of the above.

You’ll rarely see an article that gives a definition and ends there. Certain keywords have multiple reader intentions. Like “product manager job”:

Here, people could be looking either for jobs or help with getting started with a product management career.

A wrong presumption would be to assume that the same person searches for both of these results. There’s a slight difference between people who are still debating whether this is the right career for them and those who are already looking for a job in the field.

What’s the whole deal around personas?

The secret here is not to create content based on simple demographics.

For instance, take the following situation:

You have a general social media planner tool you want to create brand awareness for. Your ideal customers include all kinds of marketers.

What’s the one mistake here?

⏳⏳⌛️

Your target market is too broad.

Not any marketer is going to buy your tool. There are teams with 2–5–10 marketers where only one of them makes the final decision. That marketing manager who “has the money” and will choose or change the tech stack is who you should write for.

So who are you writing for?

There’s no such thing as a general article that’s written for everyone.

I know. This is the single thing about writing content I don’t like either. 😓

Let’s take a common case I always bump into: the “remote work tips” keyword.

Are these tips for employers?

Are they for workers?

A quick search and the results are mixed:

• 13 Tips and Tricks for Working Remotely
• 23 Essential Tips for Working Remotely
• 11 Essential Tips for Effectively Managing Remote Employees
• 5 Tips for Staying Productive While You’re Working From Home

These results from the top 10 do have one thing in common: they’re not written for both audiences. They have A SINGLE buyer persona in mind.

Like this, “email marketing guide” will target up-and-coming marketers. “Design trends” is something creatives would be interested in. And “succulent plants” is for anyone who’s looking for the basics, from general info to shopping for a new succulent.

These examples above are perfect for helping you understand that the person you’re writing for doesn’t really have a single characteristic. An article on “design trends” will target UX designers, UI experts, illustrators, video makers, and all kinds of creative professionals regardless of their experience, location, or secondary interests.

But you do need to nail their lingo.

Speak like them and speak to them only. Don’t switch your tone and person from talking to a manager in one paragraph and then to employees in another. Consistency is the key concept to remember here.

And wait, web browsers are all from different locations so they all have different needs. An acronym or concept can mean entirely different things to every culture.

FUN TIP
Use SERPROBOT to check the exact intent for specific locations. The tool renders unbiased results that don’t take into account an individual user’s past searches and preferences.

Formats and more formats

As you’re looking for the reader’s intent, you’ll notice patterns in terms of the format of those posts.

They could all be guides, lists, or just news articles.

While you can rank a guide among multiple lists, if the reader’s intent is aimed at getting the latest news, there’s no way a simple list of tips will make it.

Here’s a huge list of formats to pay attention to:

• Lists and nothing more
• The guide that eventually includes a bunch of lists
• Questions and answers
• Expert round-up posts with lots of quotes
• Case studies
• Interviews
• Comparison posts
• Reviews for anything
• News, feature updates, launches, partnerships, and everything that’s related to what your company does and what you sell
• Simple opinion posts
• News
• The apparent article that’s really a podcast or transcription of a video
• Viral personal stories
• The survey results
• E-books
• The article that’s 90% an infographic
• Event summaries
• Curated lists of other resources and articles

Using past results — time for fun analytics!

The content you write needs to be tweaked as you go.

If your audience doesn’t like a serious tone, switch it.

Not seeing engagement with listicles? Opt for a different format.

You can see all this in your Google Analytics and Search Console data [or if you use a similar tool]. Any SEO tool in fact will show you what your top pages are, who your audience is, where readers come from, and so much more.

For Google Analytics, you’ll want to spend a lot of time in the Behaviour section:

The stats to keep in an eye on here are:

• Behaviour Flow — this tells you how readers move from one article to another
• Landing Pages — sort these according to the date range you want to analyze or compare to another
• All Pages — I tend to prefer checking this over landing pages since it gives you a full look
• Exit Pages — when paired with a short time on site it shows you which articles or pages didn’t meet the reader’s needs
• Site Search — if you have a search option on your website, it can show you exactly why people are there and what their top interests are

USEFUL TIP
Always add secondary dimensions to get more insights from a single view. Here’s a brief guide.

I check these daily but I’m obsessed with data so don’t mind me. 😂 A quick check every other week should be enough for most content writers.

Incorporating storytelling into your content

The idea behind storytelling in articles is that readers don’t want to see mechanical writing.

They’d much rather trust someone’s personal experience or research of other people’s experience than general statements.

That’s why, beyond successful posts like “How I Grew My Business By X% In A Year” or “How I Managed To Avoid Burnout”, round posts such as “50 CEOs Share Their Best Life Advice” are huge traffic catchers.

You don’t need to turn to fiction to be a good storyteller.

So how do you improve your storytelling skills?

Four steps:

1. Stick to your audience by using their language consistently.
2. Start by presenting a problem your target readers commonly deal with.
3. Gradually offer one or more solutions to their problems.
4. Show them how your product can fix their problems.

The actual content writing process

I’ve always been against telling someone how to write, what to focus on, or what words to use. Every person has a different style of writing like we all speak and voice our thoughts in unique ways.

There are however, a lot of points you can pay attention to and decide whether you want to incorporate into any of your articles. In time, you’ll learn to understand which methods you like to use, what elements you’d rather avoid, if a tip doesn’t work on your audience, or even create your own hacks.

And wait for it…

None are mandatory.

🙀🙀🙀

Good content comes under all forms, styles, tones, lengths… no unique formula.

Content is what you make it as long as you’re incorporating some of the following best practices and tricks.

Nailing the introduction to hook the reader

The first shocking fact I came across after becoming a professional writer was that people actually read introductions.

Unlike me.

I still skip them but I’ve had to adapt my focus to meet everyone’s needs and ensure they won’t skip the article because they don’t like how it starts.

For a full run through all the ways in which you can start an article, check out my video on this:

Just like people use an app or product in different ways, not everyone reads the way you do.

Understanding that every single person will pay attention to something else

The biggest mistake I made at the start of my writing journey was to assume my readers would focus on the one thing I wanted to emphasize.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

As humans, we all have different interests and particular aspects we keep an eye out for more than anything else. Someone who’s getting familiar with a topic might not need in-depth research. Meanwhile, an expert will only appreciate the article if you can bring something new to the table.

That’s why when writers talk about their own opinions they also like to mention what others think on the topic and include a few quotes here and there to support other views. In other words, while you’re building your own angle on a topic, you want to make sure everyone you target has something to read and even share.

Finding your own voice

The most important thing for anyone who’s getting started with writing is that you find your own voice — that one thing that defines who you are and what your style is.

All people talk differently. It’s only natural for them to write in a different manner. Regardless of any style and rules.

So in case you’re wondering what your style is… just this: the way you speak. In content writing, this translates into:

• How you structure your paragraphs
• If you prefer short or long sentences
• Which words you have an affinity for
• If you like to riddle your articles with emojis
• Any common idioms and expressions you like to add
• If you have a serious or fun tone
• How simple you keep your text [the Hemingway Editor rates your article based on readability to make sure everyone can understand it]

But brands have their own voice too. Most of the time, the voice of a small brand is dependent on the owner’s preferences. A fun and extravagant CEO will likely prefer highly-visual articles or cracking a joke here and there.

The best option is for companies to work with content writers that have a similar tone to theirs. This keeps both sides happy without placing constraints on anyone.

Remember you’re first writing for humans

Bots come second.

🤖

Usually, SEO optimization is done after you’ve written the article. That’s because it’s imperative to focus on the human who is reading your content above anything else. Content can’t be validated until a real human has shown agreement.

The easiest way to do this is to write for one person only.

Use “you” a lot along while building a narrative that includes real words that your prospects and clients are using. You can find these in comments, social media messages, product reviews, industry communities, and anywhere where people can voice their thoughts.

Here’s an Amazon review with a couple of highlighted words that could be integrated into your copy:

Keeping key ideas clear

Some articles look like this:

Others like this:

While the second version does make it easier for people to follow through and stay hooked, both are fine as long as you keep one idea/paragraph. So each paragraph should look something like this:

A sentence to explain a problem or introduce a new idea. A second sentence to add in the details you couldn’t fit in the first sentences. Even more details. More details. Yet, another sentence for details and opinions.

Structure above all else

If you’ve researched a topic before you’ve noticed not all articles you’ve found had a clear structure. For one, having no structure makes it difficult for readers to maintain their focus. As a writer, you’ll struggle to write that piece of content in a good manner with relations between what you wrote at the beginning and what you’re mentioning throughout its body.

There are two things to fix here.

First, try building your own checklist with the most important steps you need to cover and follow that list so you don’t give up on an article halfway through.

Here’s an example with my own checklist:

• I start with an idea.
• Then I do my own research.
• I’ll write a brief outline with some of the ideas I want to cover.
• I take all ideas and build a structure with appropriate subheadings.
• I get to actually writing something.
• Days later, I make small edits here and there, I read the article again to proofread it, and the most important part, I rewrite.
• Finally, I add the final draft into WordPress.
• I edit headings, text boxes, images, and other formats before I have one last look at the preview and hit that Publish button.

While this focuses on the actual writing process, you need to also keep your ARTICLE structured by setting an outline and relevant subheadings.

Every article is different when it comes to what headings it needs. The typical Introduction — Heading — Heading — Conclusion format doesn’t work anymore. Pretty sure it never did.

The SERP analysis I mentioned will tell you roughly how your structure should look like. Your final article should include the common headings of the other articles as well as have a couple of unique headings and subheadings if possible.

Let’s see this in practice.

Imagine you’re creating an outline for an article that should rank for “conversion rate optimization”, after an elaborate analysis of the other results, the structure should look like:

• Introduction
• What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
• What Is A Conversion Rate?
• How To Calculate Conversion Rate
• The Benefits Of CRO
• Top Conversion Rate Optimization Tips/Strategies
• How To Tell If CRO Is Right For Your Business
• Where To Get Started

Offer real value

As a rule, everything you write should offer at least one key takeaway to all readers.

Pose an intriguing question that would make them think or even participate in a discussion.

Make them feel good, teach, entertain, be an inspiration.

State the benefit in the headline if you want to but stick to what you promised.

Make sure you cover benefits at all times and write facts that are useful. Nobody wants to waste even a minute reading an article and not getting any reward from it.

People demand information here and now. If you want people to read your content, you’re asking for their time and in return for it you have to give something back.

Don’t claim, prove it!

The majority of the articles you see out there have one thing in common: they claim to give you the best tips but end up repeating everything that’s been said before. The web is already oversaturated with the same info being repeated over and over again. So people are often confused, not knowing where to turn to for real insights.

One way of ensuring that the content you publish stands out is to avoid repeating common tips. Here’s a formula to memorize and turn to whenever providing help:

Problem + Solution + Detailed examples, case studies, and data to back it all up

To avoid going down the wrong path, get to the point straight from the beginning. Got something to announce? Say it from the introduction. Have a unique opinion? State it right away. Put the information you want people to remember as early on as possible.

With articles that focus on providing solutions, writers tend to have two approaches: either mention the solution at the beginning as a TL;DR section or have readers gradually discover the answers towards the end.

Knowing when too many details aren’t necessary

We’re all aware that Google and even some people prefer long-form content. Simply because this makes it easy for us to get all the information we need from a single source.

When half of a 6,000-word article is fluff though, seemingly good articles will fail to deliver. People have different perceptions of what “useless content” is. So what’s considered fluff?

• Sentences that repeat what you’ve already said in a past phrase or paragraph
• General statements everyone is already familiar with — Such as the “The web is already oversaturated with the same info being repeated over and over again.” sentence I intentionally added in the previous section.
• Words that add meaning details to a sentence
• Too much emphasis on metaphors, expressions, or slang words
• Unnecessary filler words like “that”, “really”, “also”, “like”, “actually”, and more — As a note from me, I’d add that these are only bad when overused. It’s okay to add them if you want to emphasize a feeling, word, or sentence.

If something seems complicated or you can’t find the right words, simplify it.

A single idea can be detailed in hundreds of thousands of words. You won’t have time to write everything and people prefer concise reads so keep only the details that matter for your message.

Does a small spelling mistake really matter?

No.

The majority of people skim online content and don’t even read half of it. All of those tiny writing and punctuation mistakes you missed during editing will most likely be ignored. Way too many people support the idea that spelling mistakes can ruin your brand’s image. 😑 It does only when it’s obvious and not a word among thousands of others.

But yes, content should be kept as clean and correct as possible.

For Google, of course.

While most algorithm influencers are guessed and tested by people instead of publicly presented, spelling and grammar issues could well be a part of them. Yet, it’s perfectly fine to publish content and fix any spelling blunders after.

A good headline

Headlines are so much more important than you can imagine.

They grab the attention of people making them choose your article among many other pieces of content.

A good way to make sure you get the perfect headline is to write down at least 10. You can share these with your team to see which one they’d click on.

There are a couple of ways in which you can use technology to come up with the perfect headline, including CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer from the Advanced Marketing Institute, and Microsoft’s Text Analytics.

All of these solutions can give you hints on what you need to improve to choose a better headline. From adding real data directly into the headline to changing its tone and enticing people to read on.

Review time is here!

Truth is writing is nothing until you’ve reviewed the article. First drafts are often bad. You can’t expect to finish writing an article and publish that version.

Now there is a difference between rewriting and proofreading but you have to focus on both of them during the review process.

Rewriting is when you take time to read the article as many times as necessary and change entire paragraphs, add new ideas, and even reorganize your structure.

Proofreading is a measure of making sure there are no typos, misspelled words, missing punctuation signs, and other small details.

I’ll be honest with you and tell you that the best way of reviewing your work accurately and as fairly as possible is having somebody else do this for you.

But how many times should you edit an article?

I need to tell you this and you won’t like it:

There is no end to rewriting an article.

You can publish it and then realize after a year that you don’t like it anymore and need to get back to it. There’s no way to avoid this.

Perfect writing doesn’t exist.

It all comes down to the reader’s perception and you cannot please everybody.

Read the full guide on my blog.