If you are a writer today, there are chances you might have to write content for a website, a mobile app or some sort of software. These kinds of content are collectively known as digital content and the writing of such content is called digital content writing.
As a writer who is new to writing digital content, here are some of the most important mistakes to avoid, if you ever want your writing to be effective and flawless:
Several reports note that a huge bunch of digital content readers consume content via mobile devices. According to one report published in 2016, the proportion of time spent consuming digital media on mobile devices has risen to 65 percent.
This is mostly due to the nature and usage of mobile devices. Readers on mobile seem to find it more convenient to consume short and straightforward content.
Wordy writing can hardly make for great content.
2. Poor Mechanics
Mechanics of writing are the rules that govern written language. These include layout, punctuation, capitalisation, spelling, grammatical structure and use of language. Poor mechanics can alter the message you are trying to pass across to your readers in a way that ruins your entire piece of writing. It also quickly gives you off as unprofessional.
Some common mechanical errors to watch out for are:
- Capitalisation of common nouns, like the word ‘boy’, ‘bakers’, ‘governors’, etc., in the middle of a sentence,
- Failure to capitalise common nouns where they are used as titles in the middle of a sentence, for example: writing ‘doctor Badmus’, instead of ‘Doctor Badmus’, or ‘governor Fashola’, instead of ‘Governor Fashola’.
3. Unbacked opinion or fact
When stating an opinion or fact in your writing, it makes more sense to back it up with material evidences like statistics, graphs, examples and arguments from other sources, especially when it is your own opinion.
4. Not crediting sources
While it is good to introduce material evidences in your writing to back up an opinion or fact, failure to credit the sources of such evidences is most likely to result into an offence known as ‘plagiarism’.
Plagiarism is the word used to describe the use of content of written documents belonging to other authors or publishers without attributing ownership to them.
5. Not defining abbreviations
Whether in written or spoken language, using abbreviations without stating what they stand for often confuses readers/listeners and leaves part of a writer or speaker’s message obscure enough to ruin the writing or speech.
Bear in mind that abbreviations may have different meanings to different people and in different disciplines. For example, the abbreviation ‘SME’ may mean ‘Subject Matter Expert’ or ‘Small and Medium Enterprises’.
Thank you for reading. I hope this piece was helpful to you.
Interested in learning how to write better digital content?
Name one poem from my first poetry collection in the comment section and follow or subscribe to my blog for a chance to win a free writing training worth ₦550,000.