Top Ten Warning Signs Of A Bad Content Writer

Are you ready to become a bad content writer?

Wait, what? Bad content writer? Seriously?

Well, you might be thinking what the heck I am talking about. Actually, I didn’t know any better topic at the moment. Reason? There is an ocean of topics published all over the digital spheres that talk at length about how to improve content writing or how to do yourself better in content writing.

Then it hit me flat out – “Shouldn’t I come up with something strange, weird?”

After sparing a great deal of rumination until I reached a final consideration, I decided to pen down something interesting to make this write-up a good one for my readers. And I am sorry if most of you find that the topic should have been replaced with something better than this one.

However, there are also a great many content writers who make some mistakes in writing but I guess they seldom ruminate much about it. Sometimes they seem to have embraced the fluidity of writing mistakes caused by persistently overlooking the details leading to a noticeable omission of crucial facts.

Being mindful of details matters in writing

For example, if they start to write something on the topic “Top tips to improve your content writing skill” the content writers who underestimate the writing mistakes end up jotting down certain details that constitute insipidity of their written information. Whether it is overlooking the details, like understanding your audience, or grammatical compliances in syntax, these writers make mistakes, wittingly or unwittingly.

Sometimes I am forced to believe that they might be of an opinion like “Let’s just fill up the blog page anyhow and hell with the audiences”. If not, then they may be committing certain practices in writing that even they don’t understand if they are worth embracing or deserting.

After reading their published write-ups for many days in the past, I thought that I should write something instructive meant for those content writers who write content bad, willingly or unwillingly. Therefore, I have come up with ten tips which are the summary of my experiential insight as a content writer. Hence, what you are going to read may or may not agree with your discretion, but guess what – that’s what I have for you at the moment. Now, read on.

10 Warning Signs Of A Bad Content Writer

The Feeling That What You Believe Is An Axiom Or Universal Truth

A wise dude once quoted as saying that “if something can be asserted without proof can also be disapproved without proof.” Right now, I don’t know the name of the guy but I think that he made a hell of sense in his statement. Why? Because the kind of content writers, to whom this write-up is dedicated, have the mentality of asserting their fantasy or self-concocted credo in the body of content.

Irrespective of whether their say requires substantiation or at least evidential inputs, they go on blurting out their assertions. I guess they are quite intractable in managing their train of thought and spare some sane thoughts to hold on for a second and ruminate what they should mention in their content that holds water.

For instance, you may have read some write-ups that read – “A research has revealed that….” Or “many people believe that….” Or “It was alleged that…” etc.

Do you know what problems these types of sentences have?

Well, for starters, they don’t have a name in specific that could lend credence to their statement. When you write something like “a research has revealed” you are leaving the audience in wild goose chance as to who the researcher was or was there really research substantiating what’s been told? I believe that the prime objective of a content writer should be to educate his/her audience, not to confuse them.

However, when you come up with something that sounds absolutely vague, clueless, or unfathomable, then you are writing bad content. The same goes with the word “alleged” and I abhor the involvement of such word in writing, considering these types of words carry nothing but an unverified innuendo.

What you believe or what you tend to hold on to IS NOT a universal fact. And if you think that your statement should be judged for its veracity, then you have to prove that, with solid information or reference source. Anything that comes to your mind should not be expressed in your write-up, considering there are countless people from around the world who hold believes contrasting to yours.

Not Researching Enough To Make Their Write-Up A Compelling Read

Do I have to tell you enough? Doesn’t the title explain it all?

In my personal observation, I have concluded that most of the write-ups that you find on the internet are not well-researched. The most notable demerit you can discern in such content is that it is not educative or entertaining to hold your attention. I have recently mentioned that bad content writing can factor in many unsavory results on your website, including increased bounce rates.

The most important thing about research is that it affords substantiality of your content voluminously. It helps you make your write-up sound so convincingly delightful for your target readers that they feel hypnotized due to its voluminous coverage of the topic they search on the internet to get themselves educated.

For example, if you are going to cover a topic on Home Loan for the first-time loan borrower, then you have to ensure that your write-up should contain all the useful tips for your prospective readers who are looking for such helpful tips to obtain a home loan for their certain purposes like buying a new home or property.

What should a writer do, then?

Under such circumstances, your responsibility as a writer should be to include as much useful information in your content as possible so that it can ultimately make your readers feel enlightened. And the achievement of such a thing is only possible if you research your topic well, so considerably better that every word of what you write should speak of the informativeness for your readers in their pursuit of obtaining an affordable home loan from a bank.

When you research your topic, you get to collect substantial pieces of information on the topic. Pairing the information in your content will empower its substantiality or the importance of information that may help the target readers to get educated about a subject.

Most content writers end up writing bad content because they fail to understand how to research and conduct themselves in a manner that can qualify a collection of useful and informative pieces for their content.

Therefore, I believe that not researching enough is one of the warning signs that can make your content sound bad or can make you a bad content writer. The more information you put in your content through the curation of inputs from different reliable sources on the Internet, the more engaging and convincing you can make your content for your target readers.

Not knowing presentable way of representing a topic

This is one of the warning signs that I believe can make you a bad content writer. There are countless content writers who may know how to gather relevant inputs for their topic but they don’t have the skill about how to make their content presentable. This is one of the requirements every content writer must have, considering it is not the volume of information you want to share in your content but also how you bring it to your readers.

In my personal experience, I believe that when you bring too much of information in your content, it takes your readers into boredom, to the point that they simply stop reading your content. Under such circumstances, if you don’t make your content presentable, such as simplification of the abstruse facts, writing them in heading, sub-headings, and bulleted forms and other styles solely intended to make your readers feel easy to read your content.

The thing to understand here is that not all the readers have enough time to scrutinize your sentences to get to the bottom of their underlying meaning. If you have included certain facts in your content that needs elaboration for your readers to understand properly, then you have to do so. You can’t write something out of whim or fantasy.

Just because you love certain facts doesn’t mean it would entertain the readers, considering the discretion of everyone may contract to that of yours. Hence, to make sure that your readers can understand your say, give them something in a way that they can digest easily. Nobody likes to go through an ocean of information if it is presented haphazardly or in a manner not befitting of readability.

Poor command of the language in which they write

Are you going to write in English? Make sure it is properly under command. Are you going to write in Hindi? Make sure it is properly under command.

The meaning of what I have said above is that no matter what language you prefer to write your topic, if it is not good enough or you don’t have good command on it, then the likelihood of making your content less presentable, poorly tested and incomprehensible due to its lack of rhythm is bound to happen. Many content writers who start to write seem to have been carried away with the belief that anybody can write.

Of course, anybody can write but writing is an art of someone’s creative expression and in order to make sure that the expression is externalized properly, one must have proficiency in the language in which the expression needs to be externalized. Otherwise, no matter how much thought or piece of information you have for your topic, a lack of command of the language of your write-up will make your content sound funny.

It is also one of the warning signs that can make you a bad content writer. Take for instance, even though I have been writing for the last ten years, but every day I work hard to hone my English language so that what I write should make sense to those readers who are native English speakers. I really feel bad when some people question my English but I understand that English is not my native language but I have to work very hard to master this global language if I am going to write in English.

Beating around the bush

Bloviating your points without coming to the actual point is one of the most notable traits of a bad content writer. I have seen many content writers who first bloat their content with useless points, even though their title says something different.

For instance, I have seen several articles on topics like “5 tips to improve your content writing skill” in which the writers present an introduction of the write-up with useless arguments, something like highlighting the definition of writing, its meaning, its importance, and so on. I tend to believe that when you start your topic with a promise to improve someone’s writing skill, you are not supposed to talk about something that doesn’t relate to your main topic, yes?

If you read such contents carefully, you will immediately spot the dullness of them, given the implausible exaggeration of the facts not related to the topical promise.

Not minding the tone of their content

Believe it or not, words you use in your content have VOICE.

They speak, even if you assume that words are soulless letters you type in your content. That said, most of the content writers that I have seen or read their content seem to have infringed the rule of minding the tone of their content while writing on any topic. You can observe such write-ups fraught in aplenty all over the internet today which speak of certain facts in tonality that you will instantly disapprove of as a writer’s hysteric ravings or madness.

My point is, not minding the tone of your writing can make you a bad content writer. The typical sign of writers under this category is that you will find their content laced with abusive slang, bitterness, undue vilification, and aggressiveness. The tonal unfriendliness is quite noticeable in such types of content. The real spirit of content writing is not imposing yourself on your readers. Rather, it is a medium you use to externalize your point of view to educate your readers or help them understand something important.

For instance, if I blog about the current status quo of the Indian economy situation, rather than venting my ire on why people chose the Modi Government or any political party for that matter, my prime focus must be accentuating those malignant factors contributing to undermining the Indian economy and probable solutions to such factors.

Bad content writer always says something than have something to say

The most typical example of a bad content writer is that they always tend to say something. The meaning of this tendency is that such content writers don’t research their topic and so end up writing trash, considering their mind is not in possession of great materials to write about. One of the most important rules of good content writing is that your mind is always in possession of incredibly great materials or inputs.

They are the fuel of your creative expression, just as diesel is the fuel to the engine of your car. In contrast, bad content writers don’t think it’s necessary to first gather useful inputs before writing on any topic. They jump on writing believing that it would be readable stuff for their readers. However, they end up writing something representing the whimsicality of their imagination, something that doesn’t make sense given its pointlessness.

Not choosing a relevant and catchy headline

This goes without saying, doesn’t it?

A good, attention-grabbing headline is perhaps the most imperative part of the content writing for any writer, novice or experienced. That said, I wonder when I see many content writers not adhering to this simple yet significantly vital part of content writing. If you are a content writer and want to make sure that what you write gets the attention of your readers, then in all likelihood, you must write your content impressively. And giving your write-up a catchy headline is the most important thing you can ever think you should do to your writing.

One of the most helpful benefits of a catchy headline for any write-up is that it makes your written content instantly clickable. Any reader who is willing to read your stuff will not proceed to read it unless he feels tempted by it. An attention-grabbing headline gives the reader a strong reason to proceed and read your content.

I also believe that giving a catchy heading to your content is not the only thing you win the trust of your readers, as you have to justify the topic with references and sources substantiating your say loud and clear. But then again, who guesses the inside stuff of your content unless they read it first?

The meaning of writing a catchy headline

None can foresight what your content talks about unless they read it. However, if your content doesn’t have a catchy heading, no matter how informative you have made it, the likelihood of your content getting overlooked from being read is higher. Don’t assume that your readers have some gifted conscience to discern the inside stuff of your write-up. Try to dress your content as a great heading.

Last but not the least, a catchy headline should also be relevant to the kind of writing you are going to do, or else your potential readers will feel cheated if they find that what you promised in the title is not justified with what you have given in the content. Unfortunately, there are many content writers who wittingly or unwittingly I don’t know but make this mistake of ignoring to make their headline relevant to the content body.

In a rush to drive traffic, they write attractive headline but forget to check whether it justifies or delivers the promise made in the title. For instance, recently I came across a published article on the internet in which the writer gave a catchy headline but the moment I read the content, I came to realize that it was nothing but one of the clickbaits that lured me into reading it. And trust me, there are countless such clickbait running rampant all over the digital spheres these days.

Bad content writers want to be a wordsmith

If you have encountered any piece of write-up anywhere on the internet which you found difficult to understand, it could mean that the writer has gone too far in his/her way of explaining things that may make sense but esoterically. To say otherwise, most of the write-ups written by content writers with a penchant for using fancy words are abstruse (difficult to understand). You will never make ins and out of their write-ups, considering words used in them are either for selected readers or they were meant to be un-understandably verbose.

Bad content writers fantasize FACELESS audiences

One of the most important warning signs of being a bad content writer, according to my experience, is not focusing on REAL audiences.

When you start to write something, do you question yourself like:

• Who am I writing this for?
• Who will read this content?
• What type of readers will read this (doctors, engineers)?
• Am I writing for CEO guys or general audiences?
• Readers of what age group would read this?
• Is my writing style understandable to the target readers?

I have seen many content writers who blithely escort the wisdom of “focus your target audiences” but end up writing that doesn’t seem like addressing a REAL audience at all. For me, it sounds like they are writing for everyone.

In writing, you are not supposed to please everyone. Not everyone is your reader. For instance, if you are going to write something, say for instance, “Best gardening tips to grow rose” or “10 tips to develop best android apps for your business” then remember that your target audience should not be everyone.

The kind of topic you choose should always be tied to its real audience. For instance, your write-up addressing solutions for technical problems of Cloud is useless for the people looking for solutions on how to fix a laptop’s start-up problem.

Winding-up

My subjective experience in writing tells me that nobody wants to be a bad content writer. However, there are many circumstances in which some people become bad content writers. Either they are in rush to meet the deadline or don’t know what qualifies good writing.

What is your thought about writing content? What do you think makes someone a bad content writer? How do you associate your discretion with the 10 reasons stated above? Do you think these reasons qualify someone as a bad content writer? If not, what else suggestions do you have up in your sleeve to share?

Please share your thoughts in the comment section and make it a compelling discussion point. Moreover, if you like the write-up, share it with as many people as you may have in your connections.