Improving the quality of your web content begins at the base level: with teaching your in-house content writers and freelance writers alike to improve the quality of their content.
This step-by-step guide reveals actionable methods for teaching writers to create high-quality content — saving you hours in editing and revision time.
When you help your content team improve both their SEO and content skills, you’ll get the quality content you need and allow your writers to grow, fostering loyalty. And, when quality improves, so can organic traffic to your site.
Here’s a list of real ways to help writers craft great content.
12 Ways to Guide Writers to Creating Better Written Web Content
Here’s a shocking truth: writing highly effective content combines excellent writing and a number of other elements, from formatting to page structure to optimization.
To cut down on your editing and revision time, you can teach writers to implement key methods that will improve their content submissions before they reach your inbox.
Check out the following top methods I’ve deduced after seven years in content marketing to help you improve web copy, blog posts, web pages, backlinking guides, and guest posts.
1. Ask Writers to Use the Inverted Pyramid Format
Journalists have been using the Inverted Pyramid Structure to write newsworthy, eye-catching stories for decades, and content writers can, too.
Using an inverted pyramid style for content writing simply means putting the most important information first. This helps answer the user’s query right away and keep their attention spans.
If you’re targeting a specific, long-tailed keyword like, “How to get juice stains out of a white carpet,” tell writers to give a short answer right away, within the introduction section.
Then, they can filter down to the details: dabbing the spot vs scrubbing, different cleaners to use, whether you should let the spot dry before trying again, etc.
Content marketers who use this method may fear that a user will bounce off the page if given the answer straight away. But providing helpful content positions your site as a resource to which users may return.
2. Help Writers Understand the Target Audience
Effective content creation starts with a thorough understanding of your target audience.
Provide writers with profiles for fictional personas in each demographic you’re targeting that includes:
- That user’s pain points
- Why they might be coming to your site
- Where they may be in the research/purchasing process
For example, for content about substance abuse treatment, the majority of the audience is parents (likely ages 40-70) searching for help for their adult children in active addiction.
Every aspect of the content needs to come from a place of empathy for the struggles they are facing.
Another way to provide a clearer connection between writer and audience is to hold a training session in which you offer a deeper view into your company goals.
During the session, you’ll teach your writers why you create the content you do, who you’re trying to help with your content, and how you’re trying to connect with your audience.
You don’t have to give away every little detail. But writers craft better copy when they have both an understanding of the content’s bigger picture and all the intricate details.
3. Ban the Method of Starting Content with Stats
Too often, copywriters begin writing a web page with a broad statistic. This is an older method of writing which isn’t always helpful to website visitors, particularly when the stats are impersonal or only roughly related to the topic.
Ask writers to get straight to the point with content by omitting any broad statements or statistics which don’t directly demonstrate a fact or detail.
Writers may use stats to try to connect with the target audience, but heavy stats may have the opposite effect. No one wants to feel like they are just part of a statistic.
Instead of “30% of digital marketing agencies say they have a high turnover rate,” try meeting the audience exactly where they are and address the problem: “Are you ready to reduce turnover rates among your contract writers?”
Unless your page is discussing a stat-heavy topic, leave stats out of the intro and save them for backing up your more detailed points later in the article.
4. Insist on Digestible Content
Short paragraphs and sentences just make sense for web content. Large blocks of texts may cause you to lose your readers’ attention.
Given that mobile devices account for 58% of Google searches, it’s important that paragraphs, sentences, and sections be succinct.
Show writers how using shorter sentences, paragraphs, and sections provides digestible content that is easy to read and scan for answers.
You don’t have to be obsessive, but here’s what works in terms of length for web copy:
- Introductions and conclusions: two paragraphs
- Paragraphs: one to two sentences, or two to three lines of text on mobile
- Sections: five to seven two-sentence paragraphs
- Sentences: 15-20 words or less
- Bullet lists: 7-10 bullet points
- FAQs: two to three paragraphs
5. Train Writers to Check the Content Readability Level
For SEO content writing, keep in mind that most adults in the U.S. read at a fifth-grade level. To that end, it’s crucial to ensure you’re not churning out content with a low level of readability.
When guiding your writers on content readability, ask them to aim for content with a sixth-grade reading level, geared toward shorter attention spans. Help writers get in the habit of checking their on-page readability levels before submitting their work.
Free tools like the Hemingway app, Clearscope’s optimization tool, and others like them allow writers to plug in their content and check its readability.
The Hemingway app offers useful information for how to improve the readability score, such as suggesting simpler verb alternatives.
Writers can check their content, make changes, and check it again. The result for you will be cleaner copy that’s closer to publish-ready prior to editing.
6. Do Your Own Keyword Research
A writer shouldn’t have to be jack-of-all-trades. Let them focus on the writing by providing them with keyword research ahead of time.
It’s important to include related keywords for every topic. But writers may not know how to effectively choose keywords to include.
Use a high-level keyword research tool, like the Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, to find the most important related keywords for your topic.
With Ahrefs, you can:
- Identify keywords with matching search terms or similar phrasing to your target keyword.
- Get in-depth information, such as how likely you are to rank for that keyword with a certain number of backlinks and its search volume
- See high-value keywords that should be included when discussing your topic in their “related terms” section in the Keywords Explorer report to develop helpful sub-headings and questions to include in your copy.
Learn what’s important for your topic by researching these keywords in turn — which related keywords are covered in sections by the top-ranking search results? Which important keywords are glaringly absent?
Compile these keywords into a list to include in your content brief. Remember, you know the aim of the content better than your writer, so take out the keyword guesswork.
7. Show Writers How to Use an Optimization Tool
If you aren’t taking advantage of an optimization tool to craft good website content, your content is missing out! Skeptics may worry that optimization tools lead to keyword stuffing, but these tools help marry your content strategy and SEO strategy when used properly.
Just as it’s crucial to give writers the keyword information ahead of time, it’s equally important to give them the tools they need to naturally optimize content.
The optimization skill level of all writers on my team markedly improved after using Clearscope’s AI-powered platform.
Clearscope compares the top-ranking search engine page results for a given search term and compiles all useful data into a singular report. Writers can use the report to improve:
- Natural use of keywords
- Frequency of keyword use
- Readability level
- Which questions to cover for a given topic
- Use of keywords in headings
8. Write Detailed Content Briefs
Your content is as good as your content strategy, and a large part of content planning starts with a detailed content brief.
Content briefs are project instructions that contain everything a writer needs to craft high-quality content.
And when writers have a solid understanding of the building blocks of your site’s content, they can cover any topic for you with ease.
An effective content brief should include:
- The target keyword and where you’d like to see it within the content (i.e. once in the intro, once in the conclusion, within a call to action, within headers, etc.)
- Related keywords to include
- People also ask questions to answer
- The featured snippet to mirror, if one appears on the SERP
- Internal links to include and relevant anchor text
- Competitors to avoid sourcing
- Acceptable sources to reference
- A detailed outline with headings and subheadings (H2s and H3s, etc.) marked accordingly
- The meta description and other metadata for the piece
- A content template for large projects
- Where to include CTAs and what to include/not include in the CTA
If a writer is writing for you for the first time or writing about a particular topic for the first time, create a separate outline with a brief description of what to write for each section.
9. Teach Your Writers to Avoid Duplicate Content
Self-plagiarism resulting in duplicate content is a big issue among content writers. This is especially true for a large project with individual pages that cover a similar topic (i.e. “best of” pages).
To save time, it’s tempting for content writers to copy and paste sections or paragraphs from a previous page and attempt to switch up the wording for the new page.
Yet pages that contain duplicate content forces search engines like Google to choose which page to rank. In other words, while duplicate content doesn’t incur a penalty, it can harm your overall content strategy.
Set aside a certain time to edit a batch of work from one writer at a time. This will allow you to identify any duplicate content issues across corresponding sections in multiple pages.
Assign large projects to multiple writers instead of a single writer to ensure you get content variation.
Finally, here are some content writing tips to help your writers avoid duplicate content:
- Never copy and paste content from a previous written page.
- Never copy and paste content from another website.
- Don’t open old written pages while writing a new page; use only the content brief.
- After writing the page, open up the last page you wrote only to ensure phrasing is different for key sections (i.e. introduction, conclusion, wording of similar concepts, etc.).
10. Recognize When Your Writers Misunderstand Concepts
Having an issue with a writer consistently missing the mark with projects? They may be misunderstanding a core concept that’s key to website content writing.
A writer can’t write well if they don’t have the basics down. Before writing off a contractor, invite them to a training session.
Start a conversation and work to ensure the writer understands:
- The target audience for your content
- The target keyword and why you’re covering it
- How the page(s) the writer is covering plays into your overall content strategy
- The feedback you’ve given — there may be a disparity between what you’re asking the writer to do and what they think you’re asking them to do
- How to include internal links — including which sections to place internal links to best achieve your linking strategy and the best way to write anchor text
- How to properly source information for your content
- The style, tone, and voice of your content
- All aspects of your content style guide
- The different aims of different types of content: web pages, landing pages, the homepage, blog posts, social media posts, etc.
- Major content errors: i.e. use of passive voice vs. active voice, recurring grammar mistakes, filler content, and keyword stuffing
Developing quality content is expensive — just ask any digital marketing team or content agency with proven success!
That’s just one reason why it’s better to help current writers learn to write better content than to continually hire new writers. Instead of spending money on training a writer from scratch, you gain the benefit of a writer who has grown over time.
11. Explain What’s Meant by Trimming Fluff
Sending back content asking a writer to omit fluff (unnecessary words, phrases, or sentences) is time-consuming if they don’t understand how to do it.
When you teach your writers to cut fluffy content before submission, you save loads of time in the editing and proofreading process.
Follow these tips to help your writers identify filler content before submission:
- Use introductory words/phrases only to avoid awkward, stilted transitions (i.e. however, furthermore, on the other hand, that being said, etc.).
- Don’t over-explain: If your section contains three different explanations for the same concept, keep the best one and cut the rest.
- Avoid mentioning the same concept multiple times: Subtopics should cover a related topic well enough that the reader doesn’t need to be reminded of the main topic.
- Leave out on-page references: You don’t need to state, “I’ll get to that later” or “more on that below”. A well-structured page makes it easy for website visitors to find information.
- Allow for word-count leeway: Making your word count target a range allows writers to include only what’s needed instead of using filler content to reach a specific word count.
Even if a writer doesn’t use it for every piece, the Hemingway app is a great way to visually demonstrate what “fluff” looks like. Consider pasting a section of content stuffed with fillers into Hemingway and taking a screenshot of the results to share with your writer.
12. Provide Individualized Feedback
This tip may seem like a no-brainer. Yet every writer I coached over the last seven years told me some version of: “You give the most clear, consistent, helpful feedback I’ve ever received.”
This tells me that highly targeted feedback is hard to come by for content writers. When giving feedback, managers and editors tend to generalize (often to save time or streamline the feedback process).
Instead of sending out a mass email to the entire writing team asking them to omit fluff, train the writer who is having issues with filler content ways to improve this area of their writing.
Use a platform that allows you to highlight specific sections of the content and leave a targeted comment, like Google Docs.
With Google Docs, you can view old versions of content, or use suggestion mode to track the changes that you make. The writer can see their version, your edits, and your comments for why you made the changes.
To keep feedback private, you can also write an email detailing two to three areas which need work, like filler content, natural use of keywords, and switching points of view.
Write out or take a screenshot of problematic sentences or sections, and provide the changes/proposed solutions.
Offering targeted feedback, rather than general, helps writers improve issues specific to their content writing, improving the quality of their submissions.
Elevating Your Site Content Starts with the Writing Process
Highly skilled content writers can learn to create better web content. However, writers can only improve if they are well-guided, trained, and supported.
Teaching your content team to produce more effective content from the start not only improves your content quality, but fosters loyalty and improves professional relationships.
In turn, you build a team that understands your audience, content strategy, SEO strategy, and how to best drive organic traffic to your site. And that’s invaluable to digital marketers.
Would you rather have a content expert train your writing team for you? Reach out to Excelsior Content to learn how we can help guide your in-house or contracting team to hone their content skills.