10 Tips for Making Your Content Clear & Enduring

Good content writing will stand the test of time, enticing readers to save a piece and re-read it periodically. Integrated marketers often find themselves in charge of creating content and hoping that it will rank highly on Google and stick with readers. So, what can content writers learn from notable authors to help them make their work shine?

1. Don’t Get Lost in Detail – John Gould

In other words, stick to the basics. If the content doesn’t illuminate or educate, cut it out. Be merciless, if you must.

2. Read Everything – Stephen King, Lee Child, Michael Moorcock

You’ve probably heard this one before. Good writers start as good readers. Review excellent writing, read what great authors share, and be subject matter agnostic. Read everything to learn about how different writers in different genres engage readers.

Very is a lazy word, the famed author wrote, used to support weak verbs. If you can’t write something active, rework the sentence, eliminating the troublesome verb.

Or, to quote Twain again, “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” Essentially, make your content relatable; don’t get bogged down in industry speak. Write so that the average middle schooler will understand what you are saying. If copywriting is the art of getting readers to act, don’t obscure the message!

5. Ditch the Adverbs – Stephen King, Kingsley Amis, Elmore Leonard, Anton Chekhov

Like the word ‘very’ (referenced above) adverbs are a weak substitute for strong verbs. Be descriptive, precise, and powerful instead of qualifying or minimizing your language.

The active voice is strong, authoritative, and clear. Passive voice is harder to read and may sound ambivalent, as though the writer is equivocating. Integrated marketers cannot afford to sound less than enthusiastic, knowledgeable, or confident about the value of their product or service. Using passive voice implies uncertainty and is unconvincing when trying to persuade a reader.

Avoid exclamation points—they undermine your message. Instead, write so that readers have space and freedom to experience their emotions or thoughts in response to your work. Exclamation points and other overused punctuation imply that the writer is telling the reader how to feel in a given situation.

You don’t want readers to have to work too hard to follow what you write, so choose clear, purposeful language. Remember that readers have short attention spans, so when communicating new ideas, be concise and to the point so that your message is clear.

Given the surfeit of content options available to readers, marketers need to be able to structure theirs to grab and hold readers’ attention. King recommends alternating sentence length, making content skimmable with headings, numbers, and bullets, choosing language that pulls the reader through each piece of content, and embracing white space.

If you are a writer, or it’s your job to create content, you write. Don’t wait for the muse to strike. To coin a phrase: Just do it. Look at the advice and work of other great writers to learn the techniques that will help you create standout content.