Content Writing 101

Content ProductionSEO
Written By unINK Creative

Writing content can be daunting, but with a bit of prep work, it doesn’t need to be complicated or take up a lot of your time. This crash course in content writing is designed to help you create informative and engaging content in as little as three hours.

THE PROCESS BROKEN DOWN

Before You Begin

We suggest reading through this guide before you begin writing your content.

This will give you an idea of what boxes you need to check along the way, so you don’t miss anything during the writing process.

Brainstorming: 20 min
Organization: 40 min
Content Writing: 1 hour 30 min
Final Edits: 30 min

Total Time: 3 hours

BRAINSTORMING

Define Your Needs

Are you creating content for a blog post? A neighbourhood page? Your company bio? Defining the type of content you are writing for will help you understand what needs to be communicated. For example, a blog post needs to be informative and engaging, while content for a neighbourhood page needs to be descriptive and concise.

Brainstorming

We’ve put together some prompts in the following pages for generic topics you will likely be writing about frequently. Take 15-20 minutes to think about these questions/prompts and make short-form notes. This is a time to put everything that comes to mind onto paper. Any idea can be helpful, and if you write down a point that may not make perfect sense at the moment, don’t delete it. You may find that it could be a key point when looking at everything as a whole.

Keeping all your ideas in one place, no matter how scattered they may be, is key to creating great content.

BRAINSTORMING PROMPTS

Business Content - For Brokerage and Agent Bios

  • When, why, or how was your brokerage founded? When, why, or how did you start your career?

  • What is the number one thing you want your clients to take away when working with you/your brokerage?

  • What do you have that the competition doesn’t? What are you offering that is more beneficial?

  • Who is your target audience? Newcomers to the city? New families? Foreclosures? New construction?

  • Why do your agents/co-workers like working with you?

  • Where would you like to see yourself/your brokerage in the next five years? 10 years?

  • How large is your company? How many agents? How many locations?

  • In which areas would you like your business to improve? (Your answers won’t be included in your content, but this is an opportunity to think about the areas you’d like to highlight on your website in order to move towards these goals.)

  • What do you like about the city/neighbourhood you operate in?

  • What could be better about the city/neighbourhood you operate in?

  • What are your most impressive achievements? (This prompt is a great way to dig deeper into some Benchmetrics stats, awards, client testimonies, etc.)

Neighbourhoods/Cities/Real Estate

Keep in mind that you likely won’t use all of this content in your writing, but some of these questions will get you thinking about the defining characteristics of this neighbourhood and could also be used for other content pieces down the road. Put yourself in the shoes of a newcomer to the city. What would you like to know?

  • When, why, how, or by whom was this city/neighbourhood founded?

  • Is there a unique history behind the founding of this city/neighbourhood?

  • What is the population of this city/neighbourhood?

  • What are three great things about this city/neighbourhood? What are three things that could be better?

  • What kind of demographic would live in this city/neighbourhood? Families? Retirees? Students?

  • What does this city/neighbourhood prioritize? Is it a business or an arts community? Is there a diverse population? Does it prioritize public transportation? Is it rural or urban?

  • Is it close to any natural features? For example, is your city/neighbourhood/listing located on the shore of a sparkling blue lake, tucked away in a valley, or dotted along a sprawling coastline?

  • What makes this city/neighbourhood different from others in your area?

  • Why should your client live in this city/neighbourhood? What do your clients need to live in this area? Do they need a car? Is the neighbourhood walkable?

  • What is your goal for this city/neighbourhood? Do you want to expand your client base/company reach?

  • What can people do here? Are there any popular events that this city/neighbourhood is known for?

  • What is the primary export of the city? Technology? Agriculture? Tourism?

Other Content Ideas

  • When is the best time to sell/buy in your city?

  • A list of other communities at a more affordable price point similar to a desirable, but expensive community.

  • Communities with the best public infrastructure and services.

  • The best public and private schools in a specific community.

  • A list of what you’ll need if you’re looking to buy in a specific area.

  • Top 10 lists of features in a community.

The most effective content for a community is always original content that comes from the perspective of someone with firsthand experience in the area. Local content from local people always performs best.

ORGANIZATION

Organization

If you didn’t have a specific topic in mind when you started brainstorming, this is the stage where you can look at all the information you’ve gathered with and decide.

After brainstorming, take 30-40 minutes to organize your notes, make connections, highlight important points, and organize those points into groups which will later become your paragraphs. If your notes are in bullet points, form each point into more complete sentences and add more information as needed.

CONTENT WRITING

Writing

Take 60 to 90 minutes and start forming your notes into paragraphs. This is where you’ll build out the sentences from your notes and begin connecting the main points. Again, don’t focus on being perfect or grammatically correct, as this won’t be the final edit.

Don’t delete any sentences yet! If something you’re writing isn’t making sense, come back to it later. You might be able to use it in a different part of your content, or it could help piece together a few other points.

Editing

After you’re satisfied with the information you’ve written, and you feel like you’ve addressed your topic well, now is the time to refine your writing. Spend about half an hour editing your content, making your sentences make sense, and editing your paragraphs for clarity and flow.

This step is where you’ll start making your content make sense to your audience. Exclude any points that don’t directly relate to your topic, and add more information in places that need greater explanation.

FINAL EDITS

Proofreading & Review

We highly suggest downloading Grammarly. This program is a great way to ensure your content is not only grammatically correct, but flows well, is engaging, and is easy to follow.

Once you’ve proofread your content, have someone else read through it. Having a second set of eyes always helps to ensure that your content makes sense and catch any grammatical errors that may have been missed.

SEO Best Practices

Now that you have all of this beautifully written content, it would be a shame to have it go unnoticed.

Practicing good SEO techniques will ensure that your content, and in turn, your website gets the recognition it deserves. The SEO Tutorial goes into some great detail about this, but we’ve outlined the key points you’ll need on the following page.

GENERAL SEO TIPS

  • Make use of long-tail keywords in your page’s copy as often as possible as covered in Century 21’s Hyperlocal Marketing Guide.

  • Make sure your images and body text match. This matters less, but Google can now start to understand the relevance of pictures in the context of the page, so use relevant photos and shy away from stock images whenever possible.

  • Write your own, original copy. Google knows when you simply copy and paste content from another website and will dock points from your SEO ranking for that. Google wants more unique pages to serve to customers, so unique copy is a must.

  • Link back to your own internal pages whenever possible. For example, if you have a page talking about the Kensington neighbourhood, link to other neighbourhood pages under an h3 title that says “Similar Neighborhoods Like Kensington”.

  • Get linked to from other websites legitimately. Whenever possible, collaborate with other websites for them to drop a link back to your website. It lends credibility to your website when people refer traffic to you. That said, do not pay for this service. Google knows if you’re paying for it and will deduct SEO points for that.

  • Use lists whenever possible. Google doesn’t really care what form your content is in, as long as it’s unique and relevant to the page, but users would much rather read bullet points and succinct messaging than long, full-bodied essays.

PUBLISHING

Your Content is Ready

Now that you’ve adapted your piece for SEO best practices, your content is ready to be published on your website!

A Quick Reminder

Keep in mind that not every piece you write has to be your best piece of work. You don’t need to be an author to create informative, engaging content; the more writing you do, the better your content will become.

The prompts in this guide are just a starting point to creating future content pieces and are far from an exhaustive list. You ultimately know your market best, and it’s up to you to decide the most effective and relevant content that you or your brokerage needs.

unINK Creative

We believe in people, their potential, and growing together. 

We are a marketing & creative agency who help individuals and organizations to strategize, develop, build, execute, analyze and adjust marketing strategies for the digital world. unINK is based in Saskatchewan, Canada. 

http://www.unink.ca
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