The Best Content Writing Is Invisible
One of the challenges content and copywriters face is a misunderstanding of the effort and craft that goes into writing. This is because the best content writing tends to be invisible.
When you’re reading to gain information (as opposed to for pleasure), you’re typically not paying attention to the word choice, cadence, or narrative structure. You’re not thinking to yourself, “My, this blog post on cybersecurity is extremely well-written! Kudos to this illustrious author! I wonder if she has other work I can read.” No, you’re noticing whether you can understand what is being described and whether you receive the information you are seeking. If you don’t, your response is confusion or frustration. But if you do, you come away from that content thinking about the topic — not the writing itself. As it should be.
But behind that writing is a lot of work. Writers don’t just sit down and start typing. The writer did research on the topic and thought of an angle or perspective. She might have interviewed several people. She organized the information into a narrative that would not only make sense but also build interest and engagement though tension and storytelling. She might have inserted SEO keywords and phrases, some of them requiring her to adapt the structure. She might have written several options for a call to action for users to take upon finishing the content. She reread the content brief several times to make sure the piece accurately reflected all of the client’s requirements and requests. Finally, she reread the piece several times and possibly tweaked the lead or other areas to make it more engaging.
And that’s for one project. Each piece of content has its own requirements and its own learning curve, so the writer will go through this same process every time.
This is the challenge for writers seeking work — to communicate the talent and craft that is behind each piece. Unlike graphic designers, who can point to skills they have that others don’t as a value proposition (e.g., an understanding of design principles and knowledge of technical programs), writers take skills that most people have — the ability to put words together to create coherent sentences — and further them.
For me, writing and language are intuitive — which also means I’ve had a tendency to undervalue my skills — but I’ve honed my natural talents with years of experience in journalism and marketing, as well as a master’s degree. No matter whether I’m writing an article with multiple sources or an infographic based on a report, I’m calling on all those experiences and abilities to write something that will interest the audience and result in greater engagement and visibility for the client. Once it’s on the page or the screen, it may look like it’s easy, but there’s a lot of effort and expertise behind those words.
