How To Start Content Writing | A Guide For Successful Content Writing Career In 2023

Honestly, I believe ‘now’ is the right time for a start.

Instead of waiting for a good moment, you should begin your content writing journey today. There’s no specific time for something mindful that can change your future. 

And don’t worry about the procedure since I’m here to tell you how to start content writing in 2023. But before we proceed, you should understand that becoming a content writer requires skills like good writing ability, research, and communication skills.

Even though some other skills are beneficial for content writing, you can start with these at first. Just make sure you don’t lose hope and passion for what you’re going to do.

Things to consider

I have seen newbies making the same mistakes: overly passive voices, long sentences and paragraphs, lack of headings and others. So how to fix these?

Well, I’d just say to remember some key points that will help you solve these issues.  

• Content writing is slightly different from academic writing in school, college and university. In academic writing, you must satisfy your teacher or guide, a well-educated person. While on the other hand, content writing focuses on ordinary people whose reading ability is like a 6-8 grade student.

• Since people are not habitual at reading, make your content as easy as possible so that anyone can easily understand it. Use very common words, short and simple sentences and short paragraphs of about 3-4 lines.

• Instead of writing based on references, you should focus more on researching because proper research will help you “write your own words, not rephrased.”

What is content writing?

Content writing is basically a process of researching, formatting, writing, and editing the textual content of the web. It includes various types of writing, such as blog posts, articles, social media posts, etc. Usually, the basic purpose of content writing is to leverage online businesses.

– You should learn more about different content writing types to develop your knowledge in content writing. 

6 Steps to becoming a content writer

Alright, let’s see how you can become a content writer from the very beginning day. And frankly speaking, I’ve started my journey with these steps too. I hope you too, can become successful in your career.

Step 1. Write what interests you

Becoming a writer is not a one-day task; it takes time and much practice. That’s why you should start writing whatever you’re interested in, whether technical articles, food, or fashion. 

Writing a minimum of 500 words daily will improve your typing speed and overall thought process. Besides, it will enrich your knowledge and research ability about the niche you’ll be working on.  

Sometimes, you may not find anything to write. In that situation, you should focus on discovering at reading new articles or something out of your niche. It will somehow help you get back on track.

Personal tip: Show your writing to your friends or family and collect their feedback. It will make you understand the quality of your content. 

Step 2. Build a portfolio

Once you have a bunch of content stored in your drive, it’s time to build a portfolio to showcase your skill. And surprisingly, building a portfolio is completely free. You can use some of the best platforms like; 

• Journo portfolio, 
• WordPress, 
• Wix, and others. 

However, this would require you to learn a bit about web designing. But, nothing to worry about since so many tutorials are available on YouTube. 

Personal tip: Publish some of the best of your content in the portfolio to attract clients.

Step 3. Manage Linkedin and other Social Media profiles

Social media management is a must thing for content writers. And the LinkedIn profile is way more essential because it lets your expected client or company know about you. However, don’t forget to add your portfolio to your social media profiles.

In my personal opinion, you should post regularly on Linkedin about your work, content writing, and all. Try to make followers with more helpful content. 

Remember, the more connection and followers you have, the better opportunity you’ll get.

Step 4. Learn how to pitch

Okay, so you have a good portfolio and an optimized LinkedIn profile. Now it’s time to practice pitching clients or applying for jobs. In starting a content writing career, people often forget that they should learn how to approach someone to work with.

Remember, your expected client or company will look at your cover letter or pitch first. And if your pitch doesn’t seem professional, you’ll end up getting rejections. Hence, I’d suggest practicing writing a good pitch, whether by email or via DM.

Step 5. Apply for internships

Internships are an essential part of the journey to becoming a content writer. It will help you understand how real-world content writing works. Moreover, you’ll learn many new things about the industry, such as SEO writing, competitor analysis, and others. Besides, you’ll learn to use some tools for content writing.

You can find internship opportunities on Linkedin, Internshala and other various platforms. But make sure to apply for a legit internship because some fraudsters are trying to mislead newbies. And if, somehow, you get an entirely uncomfortable internship, don’t hesitate to look for another opportunity. 

Step 6. Start looking for opportunities

If you’re lucky to get an internship with a pre-posting job opportunity, you must do your best to acquire it. Otherwise, you have to apply for jobs or approach new clients for freelancing. However, if you intend to do freelancing instead of a full-time job, you must focus on hunting new clients.

Personal tip: Don’t forget to post regularly on Linkedin and other social media accounts while looking for new opportunities. It’s because your good activity on social media can bring you leads.

Final words

I hope this article was helpful for you on how to start content writing journey. If you can give 100% of yourself to this skill, I’m sure you’ll have a bright future ahead. There are so many opportunities and ways to earn for living by writing online.

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