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Professional Content Writing: How To Create Your Own Content Templates For Different Article Types

Robin Good — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 11:51:10 GMT

Writing posts, articles and reviews while utilizing a very specific content structure and sequence as an editorial guiding path, can provide better and more interesting writing while providing more consistently your readers with the information they want in a uniquely recognizable style. Photo credit: Graffoto While journalist schools teach a very specific and standardized approach, my suggestion is in fact for you to do just like I did: consider developing your own content template and sticking to it every time you write. Structure is among the most important factors I have highlighted in my article about the differences between professionally-looking published articles and improvised blog posts. For structure I refer to the invisible sequence of logical content sections upon which a good article can be built. The content skeleton, the editorial template, the writing framework within which the writing of an article or report takes place. Many bloggers write in an impromptu, spontaneous, genuinely inspired mode. While this provides a more spontaneous and credible writing style it unnecessarily sacrifices other good elements of professional writing that in synergy with these existing ones could provide for an explosive mix. To move up one step in the learning path toward becoming a well recognized, professional web publisher, adopting, or better yet, creating, your own content template is just a natural, logical step. If you fear that using a content template may limit too much your spontaneous and creative expressions, fear not. A content template should act only as a carpet, a mobile stairway to take your readers wherever you want to take them to. Both on the red carpet or on a underground mobile stairway you can still keep your "cool", your style and your way of expressing things. Nothing gets lost. With a content template you will be only adding an invisible logical sequence to the way you present information in a way that can help your readers access, scan and understand it in a more effective fashion. Here\'s how to do it:

Why You May Want To Develop Your Own Content Template

Photo credit: Sintez In an article entitled What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From A Professionally Web Published Article? I have recently written:

"Same applies for the writing and formatting style. If you are in a rush to write some breaking news, it matters a lot less if you have a spelling mistakes, formatting overlooks, missing or no images to complement your writing. The immediacy of that breaking news is what matters to us readers, and your ability to get it out fast to us is probably what in many cases we value most. But are all online publishers, bloggers and web reporters all in this same, "breaking news", high immediacy situation? I don\'t think so."

Why then the need to improvise at all times in your writing? Why needing to wait for the inspiration to produce good content? Do blog posts really need to be all written in this romantic fashion? How can you rely on producing, good and increasingly better content if you need to rely only on your writing inspiration? The usefulness of building your own content template is all in following a pre-designed and well thought over route instead of trying to arrive at your point only in a haphazard, improvised fashion. By following your own custom designed route you can save time, spend less energy in trying to be "inspired", and produce content that is tangibly more readable and interesting than your typical creative spontaneous blog post. To follow a pre-designed structure or template does not mean your writing needs to become predictable and dull. Quite to the contrary. Having a solid route on which to build your content should often allow for even greater creative expression and for you to have less of a mental burden during your article preparation.

How To Create Your Own Editorial Content Template

Photo credit: Velkol To develop your first content template the only thing you need is a simple text editor and some quiet atmosphere around you. Here\'s how to proceed. Let\'s suppose you are a technology reviewer, though the same reasoning can be applied to just about any content publishing category.

1. Close your eyes and imagine running into a breaking news story about a new web service that does something you really are very passionate about. The article is just out and this is something you have good interest for. 2. Imagine now what kind of information you would like to read at the opening of the article. Is it what the product is called and does or is it how the reviewer find out about it? Imagine, picture it in your head. 3. Then think what information you would like to be reading next: is it a list of features and their abilities as reviewed in the hands of the reviewer or is it a random set of impressions of how the tool felt when first tested. 4. Now take note and convert those expectations about what you would have wanted to read, in a sequence of questions you would pose to your imaginary tech blogger. 5. Take the time you need to list as many questions as you may think relevant for obtaining all the information you like to know about a new product when you read a review about it.

Once you have done this, look at all the questions and see if you have overlapping ones and eliminate them. Order then the questions into a few groups and review their order and sequence, always thinking in terms of what you would want to know and read first as a reader, not as a writer. That\'s it. You now have a good content template that you can use to write any post of that type.

Sample Tech Review Article Template

Photo credit: Pazo Here is a real example of a content template. You could actually copy and paste this inside an empty blog post and use it as a guiding path to gradually build your tech review. One of the nice advantages is that you can jump more easily from section to section to fill in what you are ready to write, without needing to do a linear, sequential writing, which can be much more difficult to do and replicate.

1) Introduction section Answer these questions:
What is so special about this new product?

What are its most prominent key traits?

What is its name and who is it targeted to?

1b) Second Intro
What are other relevant things about this product?

What about its pricing and availability?

Who is behind it?

What are the first reviewers saying?

2) In-depth Review Write here a two paragraph overview of the product being reviewed. a) What is it in detail b) What it does in detail c) What uses, target users and applications it has been designed for
2a) Key features List each one of the key features with your product in a separate subsection and provide a good description of it. Accompanying detailed images, screenshots or short video clips / screencasts are great complements for this section.
2b) Summary Overview In this section provide a list of all of the features that represent a key strength for the product you are reviewing. These could be bulleted lists with short descriptions. One list with the key strengths and a second one listing all of the problems, limitations or opportunities for improvement for the product reviewed.
3) Additional Resources Where can you learn more about it? (list other articles or reviews that talk about the same product) List key information pages on the product site that provide more specific information about:
download

pricing plans

help and documentation

tutorials

4) Editorial Provide an opinionated section at the end of the review to help the reader judge key strengths and weaknesses of the product as well as your personal impressions. In this content it is important to provide opinions based on strong, tangible facts. Opinions based on personal whim or preference but not substantiated by verifiable facts are much less credible. Summarize key strengths and highlight important problems or limitations that may hinder the product success. Then express your personal preference and impressions while clearly documenting the reasons for them.

Examples at work See a few examples of recent Master New Media reviews who have utilized this approach:

How To Innovate And Create New Business Opportunities When You Are A Small Fish: Here Comes The VEN - Virtual Enterprise Network

Ken Thompson — Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:32:53 GMT

When you are a small fish like me, it may appear pretty difficult, if not altogether out of reach, to be able to network up with other small firms to provide greater value and service abilities to major clients. But is it there a true physical limitation to such new scenario or is it just that we small companies are not used to do this and lack a proven and effective business collaboration model? Photo credit: Ljupco Smokovski Ken Thompson writes:

"In most economies, smaller enterprises are much greater in number than large firms and these small fish are also responsible for driving innovation and competition. But how do these two distinctly different entities --the Big Fish and the small fish-- come together to create business innovation and to swarm around new business opportunities? Porter\'s strategy suggests that to take SMEs (i.e. small fish) to the next level, their leaders have to find some way to move beyond their current customer bases and begin to work with the bigger, more demanding, Big Fish enterprises. The strategy, which stacks up pretty well in practice, concludes that if the SMEs are good enough, then these Big Fish will make them even better by stretching them through ongoing strategic innovation partnerships."

But is this really feasible? Read on to find out.

Globalise Your Business, Go VEN! Become a Virtual Networked Enterprise

A unique symbiotic relationship between small firms, big firms and regional economies by Ken Thompson Imagine you have a magical Electron microscope which lets you see anything you like not in the physical world but in the economic world. You crank the magnification right up to maximum so you can see the very smallest atoms of economic activity. What do you find? You find me - the owner/manager of an ambitious knowledge-based small business. Text me a question "What is your biggest strategic challenge?" It takes a minute because I really have to think about it and get my head out of the tyranny of operational urgencies and into the strategic space I so rarely inhabit. Eventually your cell phone beeps with my response

"According to the A-list strategy gurus such as Harvard's Michael Porter my biggest challenge is gaining access to major enterprise customers who will stretch and improve me and my product or service. And you know what Porter is absolutely right".

I am a small fish - there are a lot of others just like me. For example, in the EU, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs or small fish) comprise approximately 99% of all firms and employ among them about 65 million people. Now jump from the bottom of the economy way up to the top of the major supply chains. You meet me - the CEO of a Fortune 100 global enterprise. I am a Big Fish. Ping me the same question on my secure corporate Instant Messenger "What is your biggest strategic challenge?" This time the response comes back instantly

"That's easy – its keeping my products and services ahead of the competition and avoiding the "Silver Bullet with a my name written on it" of unexpected competitive knock-out from left field that Andy Grove, author of "Only the Paranoid Survive", warns about".

Now fine tune the microscopes "multi-dimensional resolution" to move away from the micro to the macro. What do you see? You meet me – an Economic Development director in a major regional economy. I am a Fish Farmer – I try to create ecosystems where fish (Big and small) can thrive. Ask me the same question - "What is your biggest strategic challenge?" This time you have to use email as that's the currency of the organization I work for. Ten minutes passes, you grab a coffee and then you hear the familiar sound of a "you have email" notification and you read

"The biggest challenge for us is developing our regional economy by joining the dots between the small indigenous local companies and global enterprises. The era of a big player locating here and bringing 10,000 jobs has gone – we must find a way to create these jobs through our local companies competing and winning in the global market with global customers".

The amazing three-way "Win-Win-Win" Opportunity is this: the small fish, Big Fish and Fish Farmers all want the same thing – they just don't know how to make it happen! Sounds paradoxical? Not really. When you consider that innovation is the key to success in the 21st century, and that huge corporations like Procter and Gamble and IBM are going to the ends of the earth seeking innovation, the picture comes into focus. The term "Open Innovation" is now the most popular phrase in the corporate business vocabulary. Here\'s what\'s going on. In most economies, smaller enterprises are much greater in number than large firms and these small fish are also responsible for driving innovation and competition. But how do these two distinctly different entities --the Big Fish and the small fish-- come together to create business innovation and to swarm around new business opportunities? Porter\'s strategy suggests that to take SMEs (i.e. small fish) to the next level, their leaders have to find some way to move beyond their current customer bases and begin to work with the bigger, more demanding, Big Fish enterprises. The strategy, which stacks up pretty well in practice, concludes that if the SMEs are good enough, then these Big Fish will make them even better by stretching them through ongoing strategic innovation partnerships. If, however, an SME is not good enough, it will quickly find out, which is painful, but yields valuable information for both parties. So either way it is a "win-win" situation if a small fish can somehow engage a Big Fish to test the waters for mutual benefit. It\'s summed up by the legendary economist Joseph Schumpeter\'s notion of "Creative Destruction", a process in which the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by new ways.

Good News and Bad News

But wait. There is the bad news for SMEs trying to follow this connect-and-collaborate partnership strategy because Big Fish are almost impossible to reach directly by an individual SME for many reasons:

Big Fish worry about small fish longevity and stability.
There are cultural chasms between Big Fish and small fish.
Small fish are too much trouble to deal with -- far too disruptive.
Small fish don\'t understand or fit Big Fish structures and processes.
Small fish find it hard to participate in extended information sharing sessions with Big Fish that often last 12-18 months before any revenues are realized.
Accessibility issues are commonplace as Big Fish are not generally headquartered in a given small fish\'s region.
Local Big Fish operations may have limited autonomy for strategic sourcing and forming new alliances

The irony is that while these Big Fish desperately want and need the innovative products, services and thinking that specialized small fish bring, every single procurement process Big Fish have is designed with the express purpose of stopping such a relationship ever developing. Though the Big Fish know that relationships with the right small fish are strategically vital, they institutionally discriminate against this under the very respectable but ultimately misguided mantra of "Supply Chain Rationalization." So there is a Catch-22: small fish need to work with Big Fish, but they cannot directly engage them. Does that mean its game-over? No. Two plausible, but different, tactics can be considered. The first tactic is a well-tried path that involves a small fish finding one of the Big Fish\'s approved suppliers to work through to eventually reach the Big Fish itself. These suppliers tend to be major enterprises in themselves and the small fish will attempt to join their supply chains --usually at the bottom of the food chain. The show-stopper with this tactic is that, no matter what these major suppliers might say or promise a small fish, they tend to do everything in their power to keep the small fish at arms length from their major customers, their Big Fish. They usually achieve this by making sure all conversations between the small fish and Big Fish are routed via themselves, and they tie the small fish up in all kinds of non-circumvention clauses to stop the possibility of any direct small fish to Big Fish trading relationships from developing. In the major supplier\'s private, unspoken view of the world, such a relationship is generally considered as "not in our strategic interests." A second, less well-known tactic has the potential to be much more successful. In this case like-minded small fish directly engage key Big Fish through collaborative business networks that have sufficient scale and resources to interest and engage the Big Fish. Enter The Networked Enterprise powered by the Virtual Enterprise Network.

What is a Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN)

The goal of a Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN) is to connect Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) into peer networks, supported by appropriate collaboration practices and technologies, to give them the capabilities and competitive advantages of large global enterprises, particularly in:Sales

Marketing Reach

Product Development

Human Capital and IT Capital

Moreover, an overarching goal of a VEN is to achieve these capabilities while retaining the VEN\'s inherent competitive advantages over large enterprises in:

Speed and Responsiveness
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Flexibility
Low Overheads

A VEN is, therefore, a way for businesses to achieve virtual scale, enabling it to operate as if it possesses more resources and capacity than it actually has within its own physical organizations. This allows the VEN to function with all the resources and reach of a large enterprise, but without sacrificing its speed, agility and low overhead. This enables it to compete for bigger, more profitable contracts with higher innovation and design elements, with bigger customers that are more willing to build strategic partnerships rather than simple transactional relationships with the VEN\'s individual suppliers. What do we mean by "Virtual" Enterprise Network? "Virtual" has three distinct and complementary meanings in a VEN:

Virtual As the opposite of Physical, new (non-physical) enterprises forming and dissolving from other (physical) enterprises, each with different processes, systems and cultures, with the need to build trust, common aims and working practices very quickly.

Virtual As not geographically in the same place, with the use of virtual team technologies and techniques to address this.

Virtual Capacity In the sense of "Virtual Memory," where a computer operates as if it has more capacity than it actually has, allowing enterprises to incorporate external skills and resources to exploit market opportunities.

Question: Why do we need VENs? Answer: Because most adhoc business collaborations fail There is an obvious question "Why do we need a VEN model?" Is it that difficult for businesses to collaborate, and should we not just let them get on and do it? The reason this logic is faulty is that the vast majority of ad hoc business collaborations involving more than two parties fail miserably for three main reasons:

Unrealistic expectations. SMEs often expect results in advance of investment on their part. Experience shows it is unlikely that an SME network will win a major collaborative new customer contract in less than 12 months. Opportunistic behavior and under investment kills collaborative business networks.
Bid Fright. When SMEs see the effort involved in preparing a major customer bid they often decide not to bid. The problem is, if they never bid they will never get any better at preparing professional and credible major bids. Experience reveals that the first two collaborative bids are rarely successful; they are really just foundations for later successful bids. But you never get to the winning bid if you don't make the other bids first.
Lack of scale and resources. Collaborative business networks need big players to give them scale and credibility and resources. However, it is very difficult to avoid these big players effectively taking over the network and turning into their own personal supply chains, with all the problems this entails.

All these problems have one common heading: multi-party business collaborations fail for lack of a proven collaboration model which is precisely what the VEN model offers. VENs are gourmet banquets not ready meals or fast food! VENs do not come "ready made"; they need to be created and nurtured. They need to be lovingly prepared not just placed in a microwave oven. This nurturing, typically, involves a process of moving through a number of clear developmental stages over many months. These processes need supported by a handful of key roles – Network Architects, Network Brokers and Network Coaches to name three. So it is time to think about becoming a Networked Enterprise? Like a gourmet meal it takes a lot of time, effort and investment. But just like a lovingly prepared dinner the results are usually well worth the wait. Anyway we all know what happens to you when you eat too many ready meals and fast food!

Originally written by Ken Thompson for Master New Media.

Ken Thompson is a researcher, writer, and entrepreneur focusing on the world of high performance teams, and on the transfer of the best teaming practices from the biological world. He has published an interesting paper entitled "The Bioteaming Manifesto" which illustrates the basic principles of his vision. Ken publishes his best articles at Bioteams.com and has a mini-site dedicated to collaboration techniques. ...]]>

What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From A Professionally Web Published Article?

Robin Good — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 10:33:29 GMT

What differentiates a professional online article from just another blog post? Nothing? Both are published contents that just utilize a different writing style. If that is your answer, let me challenge and show you how many differences there can be between a "typical" blog post and what I would call a professionally written and formatted web article. Photo credit: Konstantinos Kokkinis What is the purpose of this analysis? Understanding more of the variables at play for web content publishers. While getting content out may be the first frontier for many, other key elements do come into play when you want to make the jump from amateur to pro. Here is how I see it:

What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From a Professionally Published Articles

The unique characteristic and peculiar original advantage of blog posts is that they are easy to publish and therefore allow for great immediacy when you have hot news and do not want to wait a day or a few hours for the whole "newspaper" wheel to get in motion. And that is all true and fine. If you are breaking the news and utilize the blog as a means to let the information you uncover get more rapidly to your readers, then that it is certainly a proper use of a blog unique strengths. Same applies for the writing and formatting style. If you are in a rush to write some breaking news, it matters a lot less if you have a spelling mistakes, formatting overlooks, missing or no images to complement your writing. The immediacy of that breaking news is what matters to us readers, and your ability to get it out fast to us is probably what in many cases we value most. But are all online publishers, bloggers and web reporters all in this same, "breaking news", high immediacy situation? I don\'t think so. I find it rather a lack of professionality, or better yet a lack of appreciation for what makes published information valuable that often limits the opportunities and potential of many otherwise talented bloggers and web publishers. For such small publishers a "typical" blog is often all they have been exposed to in their short online publisher careers and the fact that they have been seeing professionally built publications and media for all of their lives seems to be completely oblivious to them. Not that printed publications or other more established online media have always something to teach in terms of writing and formatting, but utilizing their evident strengths and weaknesses to create a more effective way of communicating and publishing information online, should be a natural for anyone claiming to be a pro web communication publisher.

The Seven Key Differences

1) Content Formatting
Photo credit: Norebbo Blog post: Formatting inside most blog posts is practically non-existent. Text is just rolled down the blog text column as it comes. A rare sprinkle of bolds and a few links generally complete the standard post. Professional web article: Takes advantage of all available information design variables to create content that is more legible, better organized and easier to scan. Utilizes spacing, bold, links, line length, text size and style to make the content reading experience as effective as possible. It may go often unnoticed but when you compare an article from a pro site and one from a typical blog the difference is evident.

2) Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
Photo credit: Head-off Blog post: Often characterized by many uncorrected spelling mistakes. Professional web article: Error free. With the free tools available today to check your content, even as you type, there is really no excuse even for someone running with a bomb in his ass not to correct his words before pressing the publish button.

3) Use of Images
Photo credit: Hypermania Blog post: Makes rare use of images. When images are used they are often decorative or not immediately relevant / matching the subject being exposed. Quality of images is mediocre. When utilizing multiple images in the same post they are generally very dissimilar in quality, shooting style, framing and more. In general, it appears most obvious in this area than in the writing that skill in selecting and placing quality images that complement and enrich the value of the content is not water. Professional web article: Uses quality stock or custom shot images to complement and / or illustrate the points presented in the article. Images are always accompanied by a photo credit. Images well complement, inform and enrich the article by providing additional information to the one presented in the text. Images are rarely decorative. Images are high quality and generally consistent in quality, framing and shooting style. Images are generally published in a larger format (than on blogs).

4) Spacing
Photo credit: Norebbo Blog post: Text is often cramped in many consecutive paragraphs with little or no spacing between them. In my memory, only handwritten in-class school assignments done under time restrictions were worst than these. Little attention is given to spacing within content and around it as if content by itself could win no matter how badly served. Professional web article: Content is properly spaced as to clearly guide the readers to easily find separate sections at a glance. Ample space around content makes the readers experience less demanding and more focused / enjoyable.

5) Legibility
Photo credit: Mike Flippo Blog post: Text size is often set ot the minimum legible dimensions, usually with the rationale of "it does look nice" as the only logic driving it. Little or no attention is planning for optimum legibility, and audience needs and characteristics generally come in only as a second thought. Professional web article: Attention is paid to all relevant variables that make text more legible and easy to read. Line length, font style, typeface, type size, titles and sub-titles dimensions and style are all evaluated with careful attention in order to create an easy to browse through continuum.

6) Structure
Photo credit: Norebbo Blog post: Unstructured. Generally inspired and written on the spur of the moment. Emotional. Gut driven. Professional web article: Structured. Follows a precise formula to deliver information in the most effective way. Content of an article is divided into various components, from introduction to recommendations, conclusion, reference and each one serves an orderly specific purpose. Very rational. Driven by logic.

7) References
Photo credit: Norebbo Blog post: Inconsistent. Some references offered. Often utilizes poor linking strategy by not leveraging text anchors and not helping new readers dwell and understand unfamiliar terms, tech or buzzwords. Professional web article: Good, many references offered. All events, people, products and services, tech terms and buzzwords are systematically linked for reference to explanatory articles.

Conclusions - Recommendations

Photo credit: Robert Mizerek The above are just some of the most important and visible differences between quality web content and the typical, run-of-the-mill, average blog posts. Again, content does a play a key vital role in all this, but since an increasing number of bloggers and small web publishers are really not operating under an "extreme immediacy" or "urgency" need, it is for these very publishers that it is particularly important, to recognize the extra value that the above components can provide to their readers. In the growing sea of content that the Web represents, the ability to provide a high-quality, rich and "professional" user experience is right now a very valuable factor. Due to the large number of "improvised", "just-in-time" bloggers and web publishers, getting above the mediocrity of their publishing skills is not that difficult. And while it is definitely true that people will NOT find you online thanks to your "professional" layout or cool content delivery format, it is also true that often what I find by doing a Google search is not worth more than a glance after landing on it. The appearance of a blog or site with short content, lots of advertising and an improvised look conjures immediately ideas of amateurish, approximate work. You may read some of its contents, but it is likely you will not bookmark or come back to that site. If you are not breaking news, (and even there, as competition rapidly increases, you will soon have to start paying attention to this staff) you need to understand that there can be more to publishing information than just typing the latest news and posting them out on the web. If you are into creating a growing community of loyal readers who appreciate the extra-mile you go to offer them not only the info they want but also the way in which you deliver it to them, then paying growing attention to this otherwise apparently secondary elements can pay back nicely in building the toughest side of your online business: its credibility. Yes, by placing greater emphasis on the quality, accessibility and usability of the content you deliver to your readers, you automatically place yourself/ site on a step higher than competing blogs who do nothing but spitting out breaking news of new tools at every breath. A better and more in demand publisher is not automatically the one that puts out the most content or news, or is it? Not everyone is looking for the latest news only. Many of those who are seriously searching for information, advice, help, products, want generally something more than the shallowness of a short breaking news and a link. Yes, that is useful to get moving, but right after discovery of something interesting there is the need to know more in depth the issue at hand, and to have a variety of options viewpoints to consult. And that is where a blog site that wants to stand out in terms of quality and "professionality" can more intelligently direct itself. Toward greater content quality, depth and presentation effectiveness. These three are the areas that offer the greatest margin of creating a tangible market advantage over much of the existing web publishers.

Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on August 4th 2008 as "What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From A Professionally Web Published Article?" ...]]>

Robin Good's Latest News

Professional Content Writing: How To Create Your Own Content Templates For Different Article Types

Why You May Want To Develop Your Own Content Template

How To Create Your Own Editorial Content Template

Sample Tech Review Article Template

Other Content Types

How To Innovate And Create New Business Opportunities When You Are A Small Fish: Here Comes The VEN - Virtual Enterprise Network

Globalise Your Business, Go VEN! Become a Virtual Networked Enterprise

Good News and Bad News

What is a Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN)

What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From A Professionally Web Published Article?

What Differentiates Yet Another Blog Post From a Professionally Published Articles

The Seven Key Differences

1) Content Formatting

2) Spelling and Grammar Mistakes

3) Use of Images

4) Spacing

5) Legibility

6) Structure

7) References

Conclusions - Recommendations