How to Become a Content Writer: 8 Easy Steps

Learning how to become a content writer is an aspiration that’s both alluring and intimidating.

It’s one of those incredible fields where you can be your own boss, set your hours, work from home, choose an interesting niche or industry to write in, and even pivot any time if you get bored.

But how do you learn it?

Where do you get started?

How do you break into it?

Fortunately, with the right tools and guidance listed here, it’s not that hard to learn or start doing for money. Good money.

Why? Because every business on the planet with a website (or doesn’t have one) needs a writer. They all need to post consistent, quality content to get more visibility, traffic, and business from Google and other search engines.

Continue reading for 8 easy steps on How to Become a Content Writer.

1) Learn How to Write Well

I’ve gone over this process extensively in a few other blogs. If you are just jumping into writing and want to pursue building a business or side hustle as a freelance writer, your journey starts with getting good at writing first.

These resources should help you 2-3x your writing skills in about 20 minutes of reading, and 2-4 weeks of practice:

2) Choose a Niche

You can specialize in content writing as a skill. It’s also good to choose an initial niche, industry, or market to specialize in. Ideally, one that pays good money for writers and content writers.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to get by free ebook on the 20 Highest Paying Jobs and Industries for Freelance Writers.

Also, be sure to read How to Start a Freelance Writing Side Hustle.

3) Learn SEO Fundamentals

SEO is a critical component of content writing. You can write the best content in the world, but if you don’t make your content search engine friendly, no one will find it or read it.

Luckily, SEO content writing isn’t that hard to learn.

There are a variety of different free or inexpensive pieces of SEO software at your disposal. They can guide you step-by-step instructions on what you need to make your writing SEO friendly. From there, you just need to practice using the skills and the tools. Rinse and repeat.

I actually just taught one of my clients basic SEO because she wanted to learn. In week one, she was comfortable using SEO tools on WordPress. In week two, she was publishing blogs comfortably using them. In weeks 4-6, her content started to rank and drive more traffic to her website.

If you want to learn more about SEO writing and how to become a content writer, read these:

4) Learn Copywriting

Just like no one will find your content if you don’t use SEO, no one will click through to read your content if you can’t write captivating titles and headlines.

Learn Copywriting to become a better content writer

Copywriting and SEO copywriting are critical skills you should develop while learning how to become a content writer. Here are some posts that will help you out with that:

Here’s what I recommend:

Buy 2-3 of the books in that second article from above. Read them, take notes, blog about your learning, and apply them. Doing that alone will give you more than a 4-years degree worth of education, Plus, you can knock that all out in a few weeeks.

5) Read a Lot of Content – Good and Bad

To become a great writer of any kind, you need to read. A lot.

You can learn a lot about writing well by studying good, bad, and ugly content writing.

Lucky for you, writing is everywhere. Find a handful of websites, publications, blogs, or writers in and outside of your niche. Observe how they write, trends you see in their writing, what you like, what you don’t, what interests you, and if or where you start to lose interest in their writing at any points.

Take notes on this in Google Docs and Evernote. Clip links, highlight, digest, and study these writers. In a few months, you’ll have accumulated enough of what you like and don’t like –– what works and what doesn’t.

6) Write Content Every Day

The best way to become a great writer is to write every day. It doesn’t matter what you write, just that you write something.

One of the biggest mistakes I see beginning freelance writers make is not putting in the reps and the work. There’s no epiphany or flash of genius any of us need to sit down and start cranking out great content.

You just need to sit down and write, every day, on a schedule.

Thanks to Grammarly, I know I wrote over 9,000,000 words in about 3.5 years. Most of them weren’t great, but, all of that practice led to far better writing.

You don’t have to write two or three million words a year to get better. Start with writing 500-1,000 word blogs on your own portfolio or website on what you’re learning about writing, content writing, and your industry. If you’re a new writer, that’s all it takes to get 3-5x better within a matter of months.

7) Learn How to Become a Content Writer on YouTube

You can learn anything on YouTube. For example, here’s what I’ve learned in the last 10 years from other online creators online:

How to play guitar
Excel and Google Drive Formulas
Learn other software
Cook
Mix cocktails
Write, edit, proofread, SEO for writing

Learn How to Become a Content Writer on YouTube

When you are stumped and don’t know the answer to a content writing question or need to learn something, just search “how to [insert search query here] into YouTube or Google.

8) Leverage the Right Tools

Writing is intimidating for most people. Something that makes writing exceedingly more doable and less intimidating is using the right tools and software.

I’ve written extensively on how to use tools to 5-10x your writing speed, quality, and accuracy.

leverage the right content writing tools

Here are the top software and tools I’d recommend for content writers:

In Closing

Anyone can learn content writing. It just takes a little work, study, and practice like anything else. Luckily for us, it doesn’t take an undergraduate degree, master’s degree, or even certification to make great money writing content.

One of the biggest reasons I love writing is because, as a career field, it’s a meritocracy. Good writing speaks for itself. If you can write well, market yourself, and know how to pitch clients, you will always have work. You will always have clients. You’ll always have the means to make money.