We live in an age where everything is digital. We read books on our Kindle, we read the newspaper on our mobile phone and look up research journals online. The way we view content is far different from the way we used to consume it just a decade ago. 

Of course, the way things are written is also changing with the register and tone of content adapting to this new reality. And indeed, today, as a result of technological innovation, we need to be aware that nothing we write will ever be forgotten. Instead, every written word is digitised, permanently kept in some tail-end algorithm of the online world. 

With all these changes in the way content is being consumed and stored, our writing also needs to change and we need to adapt ourselves accordingly.

Writing can no longer be viewed in isolation but many other elements need to be kept in mind. Let’s take a popular content trend: blogs. According to research, businesses who manage a blog on their site get six times more web traffic. But this needs to be relevant to the audience they’re trying to reach. 

To effectively communicate, you need to understand who your audience is, what interests them and the demographics of those who click on your site. It is important to shape your writing keeping all these variables in mind. Once your blog is up and running, and the content is published, it is vital to analyse who is viewing it. It is important to gain some insight on your audience, where they come from and the amount of time each spends on your blog post.

Examining traffic will help you understand whether what you’re writing is relevant to your audience. But just writing and analysing is not enough in the digital space. 

The way you write affects readership. It is recommended that blog articles are broken up into content sub-segments. This improves readability and keeps audiences captivated. Short, descriptive sentences work best in the digital landscape. If you’re not sure as to whether your blog piece measures well on the readability scale, there are many online tools which can give you feedback on your content’s flow. These tests will provide feedback on sentence construction, grammar, adjective use, and many other aspects of writing. There are many websites such as Moz as well as WordPress plugins like Yoast which can give you this information.

According to software company Hubspot, websites which feature a blog have a 434 per cent greater chance of being ranked highly on search engines. So, apart from thinking about how to write your content, you must consider Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). With so much buzz around the topic of SEO, many content writers question what it is all about. Truth be told, it’s a Pandora’s box even for the most prolific tech gurus. 

Every written word is digitised, permanently kept in some tail-end algorithm of the online world

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, SEO is used to describe a technical procedure employed to increase the amount of traffic to your site, pushing it high on search engine results such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. For instance, let’s say you’re looking for a beauty product. You type ‘Beauty Product Malta’ in your Google search engine and a list of products related to beauty in Malta will show up. 

Good SEO helps a website get to the top of that list, thus yielding a higher ranking in the search results page. In fact, according to software company Moz, up to 92 per cent of web clicks come from the first page of Google – only six per cent of web traffic comes from page two. With such findings it’s important to understand the value of SEO.

Moreover, when you are writing a piece of content, it’s important to mention words and phrases which are important to the message you’re communicating in order for Google to pick up the all-important keywords. In this way, Google will see the content you’re publishing as relevant and is more likely to push it to your target audience.

I am often asked: does the quality of the content itself really matter for digital? 

The answer is a big yes. If you create any form of content promoting your brand you need to ensure it is well-written even if you’re doing it merely to have online presence.

Content in a digital world cannot be seen in isolation. Rules are constantly being created and changed and you need to constantly keep abreast on new developments which might affect the way in which content is absorbed into the online system. 

Content writers cannot just write anymore, they must analyse, interpret data, and always keep digital technicalities in mind to ensure that the message they are trying to communicate reaches their target audience.

Carina Borg is founder of CB Content Creators, a digital agency specialising in the field of content and social media marketing across digital platforms.

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