How to write outstanding web content

It seems like nowadays, anyone a computer and an internet connection can start a blog or website and slap together a few sentences to create “content”. However, creating outstanding website content that surfers actually crave, bookmark, share with friends and print out to take to bed, requires planning and taking a series of careful steps.

The steps for writing outstanding web content (some bloggers and webmasters refer to it as “flagship” or “staple” content) are:

1. Deciding the type of article (soft or hard news) and generating ideas for it.
2. Gathering facts and background information
3. Coming up with a winning angle
4. Writing the first draft
5. Polishing your writing
6. And finally, fine-tuning it to be distribution-friendly and optimizing it for both the search engines and the “social media” networks.

Soft news. Hard news. What’s the difference?

The general topic of your article and type of article you are going to write will be dictated by the topic of your blog or by the client that you are writing for. Once you know what you are going to write about, the very first step is deciding if you are going to write a “hard news” or “soft news” type of article.

Hard news articles (also known as “straight news”) are usually based on breaking news, niche interest and the nature of your market or industry. Writing this type of article requires you to either be well connected or to move fast on your research to capture the immediacy of the event you’re writing about.

Hard news articles are based on a factual account rather than opinion, but may be slanted by your personal perspective (enter the world of spin doctors). Typical websites with a predominant “hard news” focus include TechCrunch and CNN.

Soft news articles (also known as “lead articles”) give you much more creative freedom, since they are not restricted to a specific subject or freshness threshold. Soft news can be how-to articles, profiles or interviews of noteworthy people in your industry, reviews, human interest stories, discussion of issues, etc.

Soft news articles are preferred by bloggers because this type of article gives you a chance to express your personal opinion and focus on different aspects of the story. Websites with a “soft news” preference include Problogger and Seth’s Blog.

Always remember that the main goal of your web content is to provide the best and most informative experience for your visitors. Only by achieving this goal will you be able to brag about having “outstanding web content” on your website.

Stay tuned, very soon I’ll be sharing a few strategies about creativity and idea generation for your articles. (If you haven’t done so, subscribe to our newsletter or via RSS right now so you don’t miss the rest of this article series).