Bloggers and webmasters need to have a range of different skills and abilities and these will range greatly from person to person. However one of the skills that is absolutely fundamental to running a site of any kind is writing. What your site is going to offer to people is content, and that means that content is going to be what you need to be able to produce. Of course you can always hire someone else to do your writing for you, but then you aren’t really going to be the voice or the personality of your site in the way that you would normally like to be.
At the same time, writing is currently very important for webmasters and bloggers because of the popularity of guest post exchanges. To get around the diminished power of link swapping (in the wake of Google Penguin and Panda), site owners are now swapping articles with each other than have links embedded inside. The recipient gets a nice article to put on their blog, and you get some free exposure.
But to do this successfully you need to be able to write within a word limit. Of course this is something you can hire someone else to do as the writing isn’t going to go on your own page or be seen by your own viewers, but if you do decide to write the articles yourself then you need to make certain that you write great ones that site owners will want to publish and that you make them suitable for the kind of site you’re targeting – which means making sure that you have the right word count particularly.
This is something many people struggle with, so here are some tips to help you hit that word count…
Plan Ahead
One of the most important aspects of writing to a word count is to plan ahead. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every last detail has to be precisely outlined, it just means you need a rough idea of how long your introduction is going to be for instance, and how many points you want to make throughout.
Restructure
If after starting your plan or beginning writing the article itself you realise that it’s not going to pan out to be the right length, then you need to try and restructure it so that it is. Here, something as simple as turning it into a list article can help you to meet the required maximum count.
Prioritise
If you are writing a list article, or if you are just making a lot of sequential points, then this is an article you can end at any point so long as you’ve made a couple. By making sure you start with the most important ones, you will ensure you don’t have to go back and delete any from earlier (and you can always swap the order around later). Have a hierarchy of points to make so that there are some back up points you’ll expand on if you have space, and some crucial ones you know you need to make.
Avoid Filler
The worst thing you can do is to realise you’re short of the word count and so add a load of filler. If you find yourself writing content just to pad out the article then you’re going to ruin the quality of what you’re writing and you’d be better off coming up with a new topic altogether.
Expand
What’s different from filler though is expanding on points you’ve made. What can be handy then is to simply read through the article and see if you are struck with any inspiration as you go. If you can add worthwhile comments to what you’re reading, then this is an ideal place to expand the content. Failing that, get a friend or partner to read through the article and see if they can think of any more points to add.
About the Author: Isaac Jeremiah is working for an seo company from past 3 years. He helps to build high quality natural links to get top ranking in search engines.
