If you like to learn about creating better content BUT are fed up with the droves of boring, “vanilla,” repetitive, useless articles that fill up the internet, stick with me. Here are a few that I think are excellent: I’ve learned from them, and so will you. Your time reading them will NOT be wasted…
…because no-one has time to waste on boring, vanilla, hot-air articles on content creation.
…and, we’ll be curating similarly good, powerful and useful articles on here in the future as they crop up. Does that work for you? If so please say so in the comments below. In the meantime…
Emails: what’s the best time to send them?
If you have an international audience like ours here on HWTB, this becomes nonsense. However as many businesses and other organisations operate largely within their own time zones, this article – “What 10 Studies Say About The Best Time To Send Email,” by Nathan Ellering on Copyblogger, tells you you everything you need to know. I love Copyblogger: they really do share some useful information without the flouncy fringes.
Is content writing about copywriting or journalism?
…and a very good question that is too. In this article by Rob Johnson of Engage Content on Copywriter Collective, he talks some good, sound sense about the new demands of blogging and other written “inbound marketing” content that combine the older, pre-online skills of both journalism and copywriting. As far as I can see, content writing needs to be a hybrid of the two earlier genres, but read Rob’s article and then see what you think.
How to think outside the box with 200+ writing prompts
Really? Yes. Devin Joubert on CoSchedule manages to cram an amazing number of writing prompts into one article, and they’re all either plausible, good, great or amazing. Don’t tell anyone but I have bookmarked this article to check back on when my own mojo has been out taking a walk. Would strongly recommend that you do the same, especially when you need to write a blog, article or other piece of (nonfiction) prose.
Calling BS on Facebook’s edict that writing is dead
…and I hear you loud and clear, Ann Handley … supremo on the long-established and highly respected MarketingProfs.com (and before that Clickz.com) for which I was a columnist a while back. Ann has been leading the way in online communication for almost as long as I have, only she is one hell of a star in the USA having been a founder of some of the most respected online marketing sites in the English language world. Enough, already: read her stuff, because she knows where online writing is at. REALLY. And this article really shouts it as it is.
297 flabby words and phrases that rob your writing of all its power
You have to understand that one English language market’s “flabby words and phrases” may not necessarily be those of another. However this article by Shane Arthur on SmartBlogger sets out in no uncertain terms the bland, boring and (dare I say it?) “vanilla” terms we find so easy to plop into while writing our articles, blogs, social media posts and more. Tip from Suze: instead of reaching for the first word, term or phrase you think of, go here and check out some perkier alternatives.
How to ruthlessly cut worthless words from your sales copy
Another winner from the Copyblogger website .. this time an article by copywriter Beth Hayden. If you write your own sales copy you can be forgiven for cherishing every last word. But to make it work harder for you – get across more sharply to your customers and prospects – you need to be very cruel and utterly evil with the delete tab. Less is more. Beth shares her advice on how, and why, to do it effectively.
What further content writing information would you like me to curate?
Just say in the comments below. I read dozens of such articles every week, and intend to share my favourites here – but if there is a specific topic you are interested in that I don’t cover yet, say so and I’ll cover it for you!
In the meantime if you’re looking for some more quick links to writing help that works, click right here.