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Five ways to improve your writing skills

Learning how to write content that sells is an essential skill to develop, so here are five ways to improve your writing skills:

1. Be ruthless

People have short attention spans. So your sentences need to be short, and to the point.

Complicated, run-on sentences with too many ideas will confuse readers and they’ll stop reading.

For example, an accountant may write: “You should carefully keep and store all your receipts in case the Australian Taxation Office audits your income tax return.”

In contrast, this sentence, based on Hunter & Scribe’s style of writing, keeps all the necessary information but is much more direct: “Keep your receipts in case your tax return is audited.”

So cut unnecessary words ruthlessly.

2. Show, don’t tell

Although a list of facts is an important part of telling people about your services, there’s a time and place for it – like on the ‘services offered’ page of your website.

If you include case studies, you can provide additional information without making someone read a boring list. For example, Hunter & Scribe can take a list of features and rewrite them as an enticing case study:

Features:

What does a credit repair agency do?

Looks for duplicate entries on your credit report
Looks for mistakes on your credit report
Contacts the credit bureaus to remove the duplicate entries
Contacts the relevant companies to fix the mistakes

Case study:

Sally’s home loan offer was rejected, and she didn’t understand why – she had always paid her bills on time.

Sally’s mortgage broker showed her all the debts listed on her credit report. If she had indeed paid her bills, she should contact a credit repair agency.

The credit repair agency followed up on the unpaid bills and discovered Sally’s identity had been stolen. The thieves had run up the debts.

The credit repair agency helped Sally report the identity theft and contacted all the relevant credit providers so they could close her accounts.

Although it was going to take some time, the credit repair agency would help Sally get back the credit score she deserved.

3. Read

While it might seem counter-intuitive, reading other people’s work is one of the best ways to develop your own skills. Take note of pieces you like, and then work out what they’ve done that appeals to you. Maybe it’s their sentence structure, tone or use of humour? Incorporate these into your own work.

A good place to start is on Hunter & Scribe’s website. Why? Because we specialise in clear and concise writing. The more you see the style of writing used, the easier it will be for you to copy it. (Alternatively, you could just outsource your writing to us.)

4. Edit

Editing is essential. Your words are a representation of your business, so they need to be free of grammatical or spelling mistakes. You’ll pick up more errors if you step away from your draft for a few hours or reread it the next day.

It also helps to have someone else edit your work.

Hunter & Scribe edits for English, readability and comprehension. For example, because we specialise in property and finance, we understand the average reader doesn’t know what LMI and LVRs are, so, the first time we use those terms in a piece of content, we write them out in full and explain what they mean.

5. Practise

Writing shouldn’t be an arduous task, so have some fun with it. Mix it up a little and try your hand at writing in different styles. Even if you’re not satisfied with your drafts, keep at it as the more you write, the better you’ll get. If you don’t have time to practise, you can outsource the writing to people who write every day, like Hunter & Scribe. Another benefit of outsourcing your writing to Hunter & Scribe is we specialise in two industries, namely property and finance. So not only will our writing be clear and concise, we’ll use the correct terminology.

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