The Do’s And Don’ts Of Article Writing
Every business needs to publish content and that too regularly to attract, grow, and entertain its audience. While everybody needs great content, they essentially need the right people to write the required content.
As article writing is a part of content production, you must understand the do’s and don’ts of content writing to improve your skills and churn out excellent articles that meet the brief.
The art of writing articles means that you need to be smart and follow a pragmatic approach for writing the content and presenting information to your audience. While you cannot write content customized according to every reader’s requirements, there are a few general things you can follow.
Do’s of Content or Article Writing
Keep the following points top of mind when writing an article.
- Be Professional
Good content is formed when you stay professional while approaching every article and writing the same. Being professional means inferring the information that is required and presenting the same with an objective mind.
A professional approach is necessary because, when you behave subjectively, your personal opinions might tangle with the information you wish to present. You need to understand your audience before writing, as they will go through every bit of your content and make their own inference.
Hence, being professional is the best option if you want to build a culture of objectiveness, rationalism, and information superiority. In addition to this, being professional also means that you cannot use abusive language and slurs in the article.
- Every Art Needs Practice
Another of the things you need to observe as part of the dos and don’ts of content writing is practicing your art. As the way of delivering content and information-sharing methods evolve, making yourself better is the standard for success.
Not practicing the art of content writing will make you miss out on the latest concepts, which will hurt the quality of your output. Content should never reflect archaic practices.
As you practice, you make yourself better and learn new things. Whenever you write to practice, ask your friends or colleagues to review your content and identify areas of improvement.
- Update your Content Writing Skills
Continuing from the last point, new things constantly germinate in the content writing space and industry. So, keeping yourself updated is another of the things you must adopt as the dos and don’ts of content writing.
There are two things you need to integrate into your writing approach here:
- Updated information
- Updated way of writing
No one would stay and read your article if they have read the same thing on another platform. As people have easy access to information, they tend to gather it from different sources. Hence, you must write your articles with the latest information available and make them better than others.
The other factor is about improving your approach to writing, including following trends in how popular articles are written. Presenting information with updated methods will also bode well for the website’s SEO optimization.
- Always Proofread and Edit
Any form of content is unfinished if you do not go through it after writing it. Proofreading makes your content so much better because when you read it word to word, you will find the scope for improvement.
Just by reading every once, you will come across many hiccups along the way. Be it a comma missing or a certain tonality issue.
Editing and proofreading are the same to an extent, but tools for editing like Grammarly can assist you in this step. This stage of article writing is essential as any mistakes in the content can discourage readers from browsing your content further, and they may skip to other articles.
Don’ts of Article Writing
Moving on with the latter part of the dos and don’ts of content writing, here are some things you should never do when writing articles:
- Do Not Plagiarize
Your readers, clients, and Google will penalize you if you copy and paste your articles from another source. Plagiarism is one of the most serious wrongs you can commit in the field of content writing.
It’s one thing to take inspiration from another writer’s article, and it’s a whole another level of unprofessionalism to copy the same content and publish it with a changed byline.
Posting plagiarized content means that Google can blacklist your website, which is bad for business. Even spinning content and posting it with minimal edits can throw readers off as the spun content is not original work and lacks the human element required in every piece of writing.
- Optimize your Content and Style
Optimizing the content means that you should not overdo any one element in the article. Don’t just write words, and avoid adding image after image. An article should be interspersed with words, images, tables, etc. Also, maintain the appropriate length for every blog.
Optimizing is done to ensure that the readers don’t get bored with a single type of content. Merely reading words can be a bit boring and so will be viewing just tables.
Plus, it’s a bad website design to present the information with a single content type. Another reason to mix things up is the diversity in a typical audience. Not everyone reading your blog may have access to fast internet, while others may be more interested in images and videos.
So, when you are working hard towards readers getting something new to read, you must also ensure that they can easily access this information.
- Don’t Repeat Information
Once you have put forth a point in your article, don’t repeat that after a few lines or in the next paragraph. Repeating information is a sign of weak research and an inability to give shape to your thoughts.
Every line you add must be new and ensure value as part of the article. Your readers may have come to your article after reading many on the same topic. This means they might already know some of the information you are presenting.
While they are reading that information again, they should not come across the same points repeatedly. Putting together new and value-added content also helps you write unique articles, an essential lesson in the dos and don’ts of content writing.
- Don’t Vaunt (Show Off) Your Vocabulary
Articles and blogs are not the mediums to show off your English language skills. Fancy words and unnecessary jargon will disrupt the reader’s goals to absorb and understand the content. Content with complicated vocabulary will force them to look for other articles that are easier to understand.
Generally, some technical jargon is understandable, but that depends on your audience. If you are writing an article meant for CTOs and CEOs, you can write with complicated jargon. These types of readers are already aware of technical terms and will expect the writer to use them.
But here, too, they can easily identify the content of an expert writer. So, refrain from using verbose phrasing and difficult words.
Conclusion
Article writing is a unique skill that you can learn, hone, and improve over time. Just like with every other professional exercise, there are some things you are supposed to do and not do in content writing, highlighted above.
While writing an article, make sure to understand your audience and write in a professional manner and tone. Writing good and easy-to-understand content must be your ultimate aim, and it will also help make your content gain popularity and better ranking.
Scalenut AI may be a new face in the market, but it’s a great one and will give the established AI writers a run for their money. The great thing is that Scalenut AI Copywriting Tools is combined with an integrated SEO Assistant. So, you can research what to write and then ask the tool to write it for you.
