Content writing is seen mostly as a kind of digital marketing or e-marketing. It encompasses a whole variety of writing kinds such as web content, blogging, script writing, copywriting, etc and so many more forms.
In summary, content writing can be categorized into 7 different content writing styles:
- Web Content
- Blogging
- Script Writing
- Email Writing
- Copywriting
- Social Media Marketing
- Technical Writing
Each content writing style fulfills a different digital marketing purpose and may need an expert in writing on the specific category.
If you’re wondering about just getting into content writing, all in all, each content writing style is more or less similarly demanded by businesses, and freelancing or starting a career in any of the styles would face almost the same efforts.
Table of Contents
7 Types Of Content Writing
Today, we’ll look into each content writing style. What it is, the purpose it fulfills for businesses, the examples of each style, and how much each writer can earn for their services.
1. Web Content
Web (Website) Content writing is one of the first needs for a start-up business. Basically, web content writing refers to writing up the initial pages of any website. This refers to the welcoming text of the Homepage, the About Us section, the FAQ section, and other initial pages of a website.
Once a website is launched from the back end, the Web Content helps designers align the text and images on a website’s front to make it look attractive and appealing while giving out the correct information as well.
Web Content writing is almost never too voluminous as businesses don’t want to pile up paragraphs of texts for a website visitor to read just to understand what they do. It mostly requires a few paragraphs for each section. For example, a homepage may not have more than 500 words of Web Content.
However, the writing of the 500 words needs to be done carefully and researched. To present the idea and purpose of the website in minimal words, using the right tone, and fitting in the right keywords naturally as well to aid the website with SEO.
Example Of Web Content
Here are two examples of homepage web content on websites belonging to different niches:
| realestatewebsite.com | petproducts.com |
| Celebrating 50 years of success, aiding thousands of businesses and individuals to make the right investments, creating the most diverse network of clients and opportunities, and retaining the position of being the most trustworthy and reliable financial experts for your proprietary needs. | Your pets deserve the best of the best! As fellow pet lovers, we offer only the most comfortable beds, the tastiest treats, and the fanciest wearables for your pets to glamour in! |
How To Judge Good Website Content
Website Content exists to serve three purposes.
Primarily, to provide information on the business’s website. Secondly, to persuade a visitor to stay on the website. And thirdly, to improve the SEO ranking of the website.
Good research helps you write about the business, persuasion skills that convince a visitor to spend more time on the website, and SEO keywords that allow a website to rank better.
The key indicators to judge good website content is low Bounce Rate, higher Average Time On Page, and improved SERP Rankings.
How Much Do Web Content Writers Earn On Average?
The average salary of a Web Content Writer is around $47,000 annually, however, freelance web content writers earn around $30-$50 an hour.
2. Blogging
Blogging is still one of the most effective manners of attracting traffic to a business’s website. Studies show that businesses that actively blog on their website pull 67% more monthly leads than businesses that don’t.
This is why bloggers are still demanded by businesses from all around the world.
However, the concept of blogging has evolved now.
Since the trends of internet surfing changed, blogging is not primarily done for informative purposes anymore. Instead, most businesses use blogging to improve their website’s SEO ranking and simultaneously produce helpful blogs that bring utility to a reader as well.
This means, that a software house business, for example, would hire a blogger to not only generate blogs that showcase how their product software can help a potential customer but to also use the right SEO keywords related to the software to help improve the business’s SERP ranking.
I have covered my blueprint on how to start a blog that generates money on autopilot, If you are interested in the passive income you should read it.
Example Of Blogging
This article is in itself an example of a blog! This blog relates to the niche of writing and helps visitors interested in writing learn more about content writing!
How To Judge Good Blogging
Since the purpose of blogging is similar to web content, good blogging is also judged by how good the incoming traffic of a website is.
A good blog would include accurate and relevant information, little to no plagiarism, good keywords, and utility that is not found elsewhere. It is important that your blogs are unique. They must answer the questions that are yet unanswered by other websites, or even if they are, they must be better than anything else available on the internet.
Indicators of good blogging are more backlinks, higher organic traffic, lower bounce rate, and improved SERP rankings.
How Much Do Bloggers Earn On Average?
An average blogger earns around $45,000 a year. On the other hand, freelance bloggers earn based on the words they write instead of on an hourly basis. This rate can be from 10 cents to $1 dollar per word.
3. Script Writing
Script Writing refers to writing up a script for any form of media for a business. These are usually used for ads or videos that a business publishes.
Script writing requires writers to have a good grasp of the niche they’re writing in and the scene they need to write about. They also need to have good expertise in writing in different styles and creating different dialogue approaches for different characters.
Script Writing For Ads
A Script Writer is generally needed for businesses in the initial stages of creating a video advertisement. Once the idea of what the ad needs to be is decided upon, a scriptwriter is hired to write the script of the ad.
Script Content Writing is a little different from screenplay writing. While both styles of writing depict a scene and write dialogues for the characters in them, screenplay writing is more elaborate and extensive with the need for explaining the scenes and cuts of a video, while script writing is simpler, done for forms of media generally not longer than 10 minutes.
The script writer then produces a script that fulfills the premise depicted by the ad director with the right conversational tone dialogues for each character in the ad and satisfies the persuasive and informative element that the business wants in the script.
Once the script is ready, the ad characters are then hired, read, and given the script, and the media is ready to be shot.
Script Writing For Calls
Another big need for a Script Writer is for Cold-Calling purposes. Outbound Sales Calling departments may need a script that sells a product to the client. A script writer is a person that writes up a defined script that offers insight into what the salesperson needs to say to a new customer.
This would include introductions, persuading the customer, rebuttals to the customer’s questions, and how to close a sale.
This script is then handed over to the sales department where cold calls are performed using it.
On a regular basis, feedback from the sales department can be acquired to make changes to the script to make it close more sales for the business.
Example Of Script Writing
An example of a cold call script would be something like this:
Salesperson: Hello, there. This is Adam from Software Services Ltd., am I speaking to [prospect]?
Prospect: Yes.
Salesperson: Great. Well, I called your number because our records show you were interested in getting a magazine subscription for yourself?
If Prospect Says Yes
Salesperson: That’s amazing. I can hook you up for a diverse magazine subscription for just $3 a month. Here’s what we can do….
If Prospect Says No
Salesperson: May I know why you may be uninterested? Our subscription deals start from just $2.99 a month and for a retired individual like yourself you can spend hours reading our in-demand entertainment and informative materials!
How To Judge Good Script Writing
Good script writing for ads is difficult to judge since the key indicators are the views, likes, and shares on the ads (only on some platforms like youtube).
Bad performance of an ad could indicate bad script writing but it could also be bad animation, bad voice acting, etc.
On the other hand, a good cold call script can be judged by the conversion rate of sales calls. If the script is good, it will bring in leads and help salespersons close it. If not, then the script needs to be revised.
A good script for either purpose needs to have a good blend of information and persuasion for the viewer or listener to enjoy.
How Much Do Script Writers Earn On Average?
The script writing niche is extensive. The earnings of a script writer mainly depend on the company they work for.
On average, a scriptwriter could earn around $40,000-$70,000 a year.
4. Email Writing
Email writing is one of the most important tools of marketing for business. To this day, email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent! This shows businesses the power of good email writing and how a successful email marketing campaign can significantly improve their business performance!
This is why businesses hire email writing freelancers or employees that can write great content for email marketing campaigns.
As an email writer, you don’t generally respond to all emails from clients and to suppliers, however, your email persuasion skills are used only for the most important clients or email marketing campaigns, such as cold emailing or email newsletters.
An email writer can write up weekly newsletters for a business highlighting changes made in the business as informative content for businesses or, more commonly, write up persuasive content for a cold emailing campaign to attract more customers to the business.
An Example Of Email Writing
Here is an example of email writing a newsletter for a messenger software business that just released new updates:
Subject: New updates offer video calling, FREE stickers, encrypted chats, and MUCH MORE!
We heard your feedback and here is the resolution!
XYZ Messenger brings its users more features than ever!
Here is what our development team added in the latest updates:
…
How To Judge Good Email Writing
Email writing is judged by 3 indicators: Open rates, Conversion Rates, and Click Through Rates.
Good Open Rate judges that an email writer produces enticing subject lines to intrigue the recipients to open them while a good Conversion and Click-Through Rate judges how persuasive an email is to convert a lead or convince the reader to go with the CTAs.
How Much Do Email Writers Earn On Average?
Email Writers in general earn around $50,000 to $65,000 annually, while freelancers can be seen earning around $15-$30 an hour.
5. Copywriting
Copywriting is any form of writing that connects with the audience of a business. This is mostly done for the purpose of boosting sales of a particular business.
Copywriting isn’t a single form of style such as blogging or email writing, but the work is given to writers that know their way around words and can successfully help a business close more sales and increase their clientele base.
As such, a section of web content with converting CTAs (Call To Actions) or a social media post that attracts the target market of a business to sign up for their newsletter could be considered copywriting.
Copywriters are one of the most demanded and highest paid writers in the writing industry as they directly help a business boost their sales or acknowledge the target market of what the business sells.
Example Of Copywriting
Here is how Moosejaw, a clothing and shoewear brand, copywrites a shoe sale campaign named HedgeHog:
15% less adorable than an actual hedgehog but 60% more durable and now 25% OFF
A perfect blend of humor, emotional connection with animals, and a CTA for sale used to excite customers to check their sale out.
How To Judge Good Copywriting
Good copywriting indicators depend on where they’re used. Since copywriting is used in emails, web content, ads, and many other forms of writing but the primary goal is almost always to boost sales, a high conversion rate would be a good copywriting indicator.
How Much Do Copywriters Earn On Average?
On average, a copywriter earns around $60,000 a year while freelance copywriters earn $30-$40 an hour.
6. Technical Writing
Technical Writing, as the name suggests, is a complex form of writing that simplifies and explains complex, specialized, and technical topics to the general audience.
This type of writing is mainly used in technical business niches such as robotics, computers, medicine, and finance.
Unlike other forms of writing, technical writing needs to be extremely thorough and professional. Most technical writing is done to produce white papers that explains the product to a customer.
Since technical writing requires more research and a better hand at vocabulary than other forms of writing, technical writers are one of the highest-paid individuals in the writing niche.
Example Of Technical Writing
A good example of technical writing would be instruction manuals that come with products. For example, an AC manufacturer would hire a technical writer to produce an instruction manual that highlights all the complexities of the AC, from its purchasing and after-sales terms to its uses and troubleshooting, to create an extensive guide of the AC.
This guide will cover the technical ground of the product completely.
An example of technical writing can be shown in a terms and conditions page of a company, similar to this:
By accessing the website at xyzabc.com and mobile app, you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions of Use, all applicable laws, and regulations and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws.
How To Judge Good Technical Writing
Good technical writing can only be judged on how informative it is. Unlike other forms of writing, technical writing does not have clear-cut indicators but customer feedback can be one of the most crucial tools to judge how good a technical writer is.
How Much Do Technical Writers Earn On Average?
A technical writer on average earns around $65,000 a year in the US.
7. Social Media Writing
A Social Media Writer bears the responsibility of producing text content that is published on behalf of a business either as a status alone or as a caption to a complimentary video or picture.
This can include writing up captions for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts, researching and using the right hashtags for each post, writing up tweets that portray a good online presence of the business, producing persuasive captions for advertisements, and writing up the content used in a picture ad itself.
Basically, any form of writing that is required for a business’s social media marketing can be referred to as social media writing.
Social media marketing is one of the most important tools for businesses in today’s age. An old social media platform, like Facebook, still enjoys a quarter of all digital ad spending in the world (25%). This shows businesses prefer to invest their money and time in social media platforms that give a good ROI.
This is why, maintaining a good social media presence is essential for businesses, which automatically brings social media writers into huge demand.
Example Of Social Media Writing
Here is an example of a caption that promotes the use of products manufactured by women:
‘There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world.’
On this women’s day, the XYZ team stands firm to appreciate the efforts and achievements of each and every female worker in our organization and congratulates our customers for helping us saturate the market with female-manufactured products.
#womenempowerment #girlpower #womeninbusiness
How To Judge Good Social Media Writing
Good social media market can be judged by the views, likes, comments, and shares of the posts.
On platforms like Twitter and Instagram, good use of hashtags can show an increased view count judging good writing.
Captions with outbound links can be judged to be good with a high Click Through Rate.
How Much Do Social Media Writers Earn On Average?
Around $50,000 on average.
Summing Up
And that’s all there is for content writing. All the content writing styles there are and the relevant information for all of them.
Hopefully, this helped you know more about content writing as a professional and can assist you in your career as well. Good luck!
