THE CONTENT

WRITING COURSE V2

PAUL JENKINS
Copyright © 2022 by Paul Jenkins | Brilliantio® Ltd

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or

mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 The Book of the Course

Use This Book With The Online Course

This book accompanies The Content Writing Course online video
course and is used with it.
It is a cleaned-up transcript of the course video lectures plus
some extra elements.

How to Get The Content Writing Course

You can find the video course at the lowest-available price via this
link: brilliantio.net/tcwc-promo. You’ll find a full description of the
course, plus its curriculum on that page.
Please note:

1. The Parts in this book correspond to the Sections of the

online course. The book’s Chapters follow the same
sequence as the Lectures in the online course.
2. Although I do my best in this book to illustrate the
various points, there is no substitute for seeing the
techniques I use over-my-shoulder in the online course.
 Therefore, when you want to see how something works,
hop into the relevant lecture on the online course!
3. The course, and therefore this book, are a constant work
in progress as techniques and technologies develop. The
latest version of this book will be a downloadable
resource in the online course.
 PART I

Introduction to Content
Writing and the Course
 1

Welcome to The Content

Writing Course Handbook

Hi, I'm Paul Jenkins, and welcome to The Content Writing Course.
This first lecture gives you an overview of the content of this
course. It'll also give you a sense of whether this course is right for
you if you consider buying it.
However, it might also be helpful if you want to familiarize
yourself with the course first before we dive into the details.

Overview
So the first section of the course is about an overview of content
writing. There are certain principles and fundamentals related to
content writing that you should understand so that you can focus on
what you need to pay special attention to throughout the content
writing process.
Whether you're writing as an individual or as a team, whether
you're working for someone else, or whether you might publish on
your website.

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Setting Up
Next up is a section on preparing for content writing. This is all
about mindset, tools, budget, and understanding. Everything you
need to write content effectively and efficiently.
After all, writing content well and getting actual results are chal‐
lenging. Specific tools can help you with content writing. You don't
have to be bombarded with tools or have hundreds of tools. But
some will be very useful.
In this section, I want to give you an idea of what you can get.
Some are free, and others you can subscribe to make the content
writing process smoother, faster, easier, more creative, and overall
more effective, whatever your task may be.

Niche and Topic Research

Next comes what I call niche and topic research. This is about
figuring out what you should write about.
First, on a business level, you may face the question of what's the
best niche for me to fill at this stage? Whether as a freelance writer
or perhaps with your own business or starting your own business.
So you may have several options and have to decide between
niches.

What is a Niche?
A niche is a field or an overarching topic. For example, dog training
would be a niche, content writing would be a niche, or creative
writing would be another. Storytelling would be a niche. For exam‐
ple, voiceover and producing audiobooks would be another niche, so
there are many distinct possibilities for niches.
And you might find yourself when you have a choice of several,
and you're trying to figure out which one is best for you.
But then, as we go deeper within a niche, we get into categories
and clusters, and we look at where to focus our attention, where to
prioritize, and what to write about first. Or what to focus on in a

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 The Content Writing Course v2

series of texts to get excellent results. So we'll dive pretty deep into
the niche.
And then into the categories and how to choose each topic so
that you understand how to choose the right topics to write about to
get the results that you want.

Article Research
Next is the specific research for the articles or content you want to
write.
We're moving towards a world driven by artificial intelligence,
and there's no question about that. Still, it's also true that original
research can elevate articles or content far beyond what's ordinarily
available.
This gives you an excellent chance of ranking on Google. And
to have success with your content.
But to do this, you need to know how to research each article.
Effectively, creatively, and quickly. And in a way that's reliable
regarding the information you get. So this section is about research,
an essential part of content writing and writing.

Outlining and Writing

Next comes outlining and the actual writing. When writing content,
you must know how to outline an article before you write it. You
must create an outline before you write a helpful article, whether it's
a 1500-word article or an 8,000-word one. Maybe it's only 300
words. It's essential to understand outlining.
And then it's imperative to have an effective writing process
that's repeatable and sustainable because eventually, you're probably
going to write article after article, whether it's for a brand, whether
it's for a website, whether it's for somebody else, it doesn't matter.
Writing becomes a daily process. And that's why you need a
practical approach with good outlines to write the best content
possible. That's why I’ve dedicated an entire section to that topic.

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Formatting and Publishing

Then we'll move on to the topics that might interest you if you want
to edit or publish a book.
I have several websites. So I'm a small publisher effectively. I also
write for those websites. And I know how important it is to format
and prepare the articles well for actual publishing. So in this section,
we'll dive into the best ways to format and publish stuff. I'll be
walking you through how I format and publish the things on my
sites, which has brought me success.

Setting Up a Website
And then finally, this section aims as much at publishers and small
publishers as individual writers. Still, it's something I believe that
every individual writer should aspire to eventually is about setting
up their content-driven website.
How to avoid the pitfalls, keep stuff simple, keep it practical and
give yourself the best possible chance of building a sustainable busi‐
ness with solid foundations that you can build on. That will grow
and grow.

Summary
So there you are. That's an outline of the entire course roadmap.
Welcome to the course. I hope you enjoy it.
Remember that I'm here to answer your questions. Feedback to
me, ask me specific questions in the Q and A.
Thrilled to step in and help!

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 2

What Is Content Writing

I think it's worth quickly going over some things that content writing
actually does and what it comprises.

Where Content Writing is Used

Content writing is about creating content for a website or some
other form of publication.
So it's about things like websites, blogs, social media or other
online platforms, like Medium. That's a very popular blogging
platform.
Or you're writing content for a specific brand or company that's
not distributed online. So it doesn't have to be online. But the reality,
of course, is that almost everything is online these days.

The Types of Content

The different content you're asked to write as a content writer can
be blog posts, product descriptions, articles, website copy and posts
for social media. And that's just a snapshot of the different content
they could ask you to write. Or that you could write yourself.

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In the introduction to the course, I explained that content

writing isn't the same as copywriting, but it contains some elements
of copywriting
Copywriting is essentially the art of selling. It's the art of persua‐
sion, the art and craft of persuading and selling. And there are some
elements of copywriting that creep into content writing. Especially
in writing titles, headlines and copy that entice people to keep
reading an article.
But the focus is much more on information and the structure
and organization of the way you craft the text than it's on using
different psychological techniques within the text to actually get
someone to take an action. So there is a difference between the two.

The Importance of Research

Writing content often involves a lot of research, but it can also
involve a lot of keyword research and understanding how to actually
know what your audience is looking for and how to translate those
desires into the content that you write.
This skill can help improve the visibility of the content that
you're writing because you understand the process of what people
are searching for. How to tailor a piece of content to that search
query, that search desire.
Then how to actually optimize the articles or posts that you
write to match that desire and that search intent and ensure that
your content ranks better on Google, in particular. There are other
search engines, but right now it's all about Google. You need to
make sure that your content is as visible as possible to the potential
audience that is interested in that content.
So keyword research is a fundamental part of the content game,
the content marketing game, and therefore the content writing
game.
As a content writer, you need to understand how to do keyword
research and then optimize the content that you write in the right
way to get found online.

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The Hardest Nut

The hardest nut in the entire content creation arsenal is writing
long-form SEO articles.
I'd call long form anything that has more than a thousand
words, especially anything that has over 1500 words. And that can
go up to 10,000 or 20,000 words. That's a third of a book. That's a
huge article to write!
Normally, for most articles on my website, I've written several
hundred, all between 2000 and 5000 words long. I've found that for
the topics I write about, this is a very good length to rank well on
Google.
Long form means long posts or long articles - well structured
articles. Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is integrated into the
entire process of choosing the article topic, outlining the topic,
drafting the article, writing the article, optimizing the article, and
publishing the article.
When you master that process and that skill, you can write other
content types.. Short bulletins or social media posts or syndicating in
condensed form, the longest posts that you've written, on different
social media platforms is much easier.
The hardest thing to learn, the hardest thing to master, is writing
long-form SEO articles. And that's what this course will help you
with.

Building Trust
Content writing is a major part of content marketing. Content
marketing involves a strategy of using valuable, relevant, and consis‐
tent content online to attract the right audience to a brand's prod‐
ucts or funnels or specific services, to build brand awareness, and so
on and so forth.
Building trust with a potential audience because you show that
you actually care about them, that you're expert enough to write
and create something for them. And that you're sharing that. That's
a way to keep your audience excited about what you're doing.

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Digital content - just to define it - is things that are created and

distributed electronically. So on websites or social media and so on.
Content strategy is about distributing digital content in different
forms. Videos, infographics, images, texts and so on. Sometimes you
combine all of those things into a single post.
It's about, as they say in California, ‘audiencing’ - attracting an
audience, engaging an audience, gaining the trust of an audience.

Stages of Marketing Funnels

So content writing is critical because it's not just at the beginning of
a funnel. The very first potential contact that someone from a
particular audience has with a particular company or brand or
property or organization or whatever.
It can also play a very important role when the person is going
through the funnel, the engagement funnel, the sales funnel, the
marketing funnel, whatever that may be. As they become more
familiar with the brand or the company, the content that they
consume becomes more important for them, in order to trust the
company or the organization, whatever it's that the brand does.
So that's where content writing comes in, because you need
written content alongside the other multimedia content, or even as a
precursor to creating the other multimedia content.

A Basket of Skills
Other aspects that are worth talking about are that as a content
writer, either for yourself or for others, you're very often involved in
editing and proofreading the copy to make sure that it's actually
correct, that it's well-written, well-structured and grammatically
correct.
You don't want to overload editors with text that is full of prob‐
lems and questions. So it pays to know automated techniques and
quick techniques to edit your copy, proofread, check grammar, spell‐
ing, etc., and maybe put some style into it before it actually goes to
an editor.

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 The Content Writing Course v2

As a content writer, you should have good writing and commu‐

nication skills and continue to develop them.. And the ability to
research and back up your writing with excellent research that actu‐
ally speaks to the audience you're writing for.
In this course, we'll look at techniques you can use to quickly
find golden nuggets of research that you can incorporate into your
writing that will make it come alive. It'll bring the content you write
to life.

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 3

Course Notebook and

Exercises

The Exercises in the course help you practice and absorb the
teaching points. I'd advise you to do:

1. Keep a separate exercise notebook - be it physical or

digital - for your notes, observations, and insights while
taking this course. Ideally one that you can consult
online or offline. Personally, I often use a mind map app
while studying. Set up this note-taking solution for
yourself right now!
2. Do the exercises! Note the answers or results in your
notebook!
3. Share your observations and insights in the course Q&A.
Usually, I will respond personally.

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 4

Exercise: Your Aim in Taking

This Course

Take a moment to consider your aim in taking this course.

The research shows that if you write a goal; you have up to
seven times the chance of accomplishing it!
Therefore, take a moment to outline your intention of taking
this course.

Why did I sign up for this course?

What do I aim to achieve with its help?
What are my strengths and weaknesses in this skill?

Example Answer: "I aim to get my workflow established to

write high-quality articles rapidly, publish them and get organic
search clicks from Google. I am a fairly talented writer but lack
knowledge about selecting the right topics."
Note your answer in your notebook!

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 5

Experience and Results

This course will evolve, and there will be different versions of this
course that you will have access to as a purchaser of the course.
You will always have access to all future versions of the course.
I'll update you on the progress of the site used as a case study for
this course. So you will see practical examples.

My Background
I am not a marketer, nor a salesperson. Nor am I exactly a business
person. I come from the film business originally.
I was a documentary film director for about 25 years, and I had
to teach myself all the things you see in this course in practice. It
took no little study and some very good mentoring, but I gained the
lessons I teach in this course.
Therefore, remember that you can achieve the results I will show
you. You do not have to be an uber-geek or an uber-specialist to
accomplish the things I will show.
However, you need to be diligent, work hard, be persistent, and
keep writing and publishing, which we will get into later in the
course.

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 The Content Writing Course v2

The Case Study Site - brilliantio.com

My main brand website is brilliantio.com. I have other websites, but
I will not show those on this course.
The brilliantio.com website is a cottage industry in the sense that
only my wife and I write for it. We do not currently accept guest
posts; we do not have outside writers.
We outsource nothing at all. Neither the writing nor the editing
of the website nor the graphic work is outsourced. We do everything
in-house.

Year One Results

After a year of writing for the site, we published about 600 articles
ranging from two to three thousand words, across a range of topics.
If we go to the articles page for a moment (brilliantio.com/arti
cles), you'll see that we write essentially educational content.
We write about filmmaking, vacations, writing, personal devel‐
opment, fairy tales, and about acting.
There's a tremendous range of topics that are on the website.
That's one of the essential points: you do not have to have a micro
niche to succeed with a website.
But you need to write quality content, and that's what this course is
all about.
That's what this course is going to teach you.

Monetization
We are monetizing brilliantio.com through display advertising. I am
going to show you what that would look like.
This is the home page where you can see some ads (bril
liantio.com). But usually, visitors land on an article. So if they land
on this article, I'll show you what ads they would see.
Here you can see some ads that are displayed (example: https://
brilliantio.com/screenwriting-prompts/). You can see different ads
popping up here. Right now, the site is heavily ad-supported.

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At the time of writing this, we are in the fourth quarter of the

year when advertising works remarkably well. But, unfortunately,
there's also advertising blindness. That's why we are running more
ads in the fourth quarter.
I will reduce the number of ads in January, but this will give you
an idea. It's not that bad, in fact, in terms of visitor experience.
And it's bringing in a very healthy income, with the traffic
(number of visitors) you are about to see.

Structured Articles
So let me briefly go into each of these articles so you can inspect
without all the advertising. Each of these articles is essentially
structured.
It's well structured. It's well formatted. And in fact, I spend a lot
of my time researching topics and writing, but also publishing and
formatting, choosing a good image, and making sure that the
subheadings look good, that there are some bullet points, and that
everything is nicely formatted for the page.
That's very important for many reasons.

Google Analytics
Now, in terms of actual results, I will show you what it looks like
every day when I get in. Remember that this is a Sunday and a day
when there are fewer visitors on the site.
You can see that we have a significant amount of traffic. Right
now, we have about 200,000 visitors per month (as of December
2022).
So about 10,000 visitors a day come to our site, which is pretty
good for a site one year in.
And as the day goes on, we get more and more visitors from all
over the world. So I expect that towards the evening and at night, a
few more visitors will come to us from the U.S. and other time zones
worldwide.
But basically, traffic flows from east to west every day.

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Google Search Console

If you look at how the website has grown over a year, over the
first year, you see we did not start publishing until November
2021.
And you can see that in the summer of 2022, we went through a
static period for a couple of months, and then we grew again
rapidly. So I would say that's typical - it is usual to have plateaus and
even dips along the way.
The most important thing is to keep going, with the right
content.

Number of Ranking Keywords

The last thing I want to show you is growth in keywords. That's
important, because it directly influences the amount of visitor ‘traf‐
fic’ a site will get from ‘organic search’ - people tapping in search
queries into Google and arriving at a SERP (Search Engine Results
Page).
If your article appears on that page, you get visitors.
In this graph (dated December 2022), you can see how we have
increased the site's keyword success. This is over one year.
We have gone from about a 100 keywords to about 500 or more
keywords ranking. Of those, more than a hundred rank number one
on Google.

Disclaimer
Two things are essential when you take a course like The Content
Writing Course.
First, you need to know that the person teaching you has experi‐
ence, knows the subject, and knows what they are doing. I believe
what I just showed you should be sufficient proof of that.
The second thing is that the results that I have got are not neces‐
sarily what you might get.
This latter point is essential because a lot depends on your work,

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the type of work you do, and a dose of luck with each website. You
can do everything right, but it will not work.
However, in my experience, if you are diligent, keep going and
internalize the lessons in this course. You have a good chance of
success.
We now have several websites and are just starting yet another. I
have great confidence in this business model.
But one needs to move with the times, and there are a few things
you should avoid that I will explain in the course.

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 6

Content Writing Is a Growing

Industry

This graph neatly illustrates the growth in interest in Content

Writing around the world over the past 5 years. Currently, over
6,000 searches per month for the subject in the United States alone!

Source: explodingtopics.com

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 7

Roadmap, Feedback, and

Suggestions

Roadmap
I run a roadmap where you can keep abreast of updates to the
course, submit ideas, and leave feedback. It is the most up-to-date
view of what is coming up on any day.
Here’s the direct link: brilliantio.net/roadmap

Testimonials
Please note that if you wish to leave a review/testimonial for the
course, do this via the Udemy system. This page explains how to do
so: https://brilliantio.net/udemy-how-review.
Udemy sometimes asks for a review very early. If you feel it's too
soon, please simply click past it and leave a review when you feel
ready.

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Efficient Viewing
This course is full of over-the-shoulder demonstrations of various
skills you need as a content writer. Research, Outlining, Topic Selec‐
tion, Writing, Editing, Optimizing, etc., etc.
Inevitably, there will be repetitions, as I show various tools and
approaches. If you get irritated or bored, simply view the lecture at
1.5X or 2X speed, or move to the next lecture!

Course Q&A
Remember that if you have questions, I am in the course Q&A to
help you.

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 8

Three Core Questions Re

Content Writing

Let’s explore three key questions I think everyone who is a content

writer or interested in content writing or somehow wants to get
involved in content writing professionally or avocationally should
ask themselves - in 2022 and beyond.
The first question is: What's content writing? There's a basic
definition here.
Second, should we bother learning and engaging in content
writing? Third, won't artificial intelligence pull the rug out from
under all content writers? “The machines are taking over!”
And the third question is: Can I make money doing this? Is
there a way to monetize content writing in a meaningful way?
Either as a freelance writer or as an individual author. Or even as an
author, publisher, or building a website that can make money.

Appealing and Informative

Content writing is about creating written content for a website or
any other platform and researching a keyword. And writing articles,
blog posts, etc. In a way that's engaging and informative.
Appealing and informative.

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We're already moving away from the idea that content writing is
boring. Content writing is a very challenging, creative writing craft. I
hope that this will become increasingly clear to you as you go
through this course.

Optimizing Content Writing

You must at least know what publishers care about regarding the
visibility of the material you register on the web.
Even if it's just a cursory understanding of optimizing an article,
articles and web content are written for three audiences.
1. Readers
The first audience is other readers, of course, the people who'll
read your articles on a device, on a desktop, wherever.
2. Clients
The second audience is your clients. If you're working for
someone else, you want to please the publisher or the company
you're working for with your writing.
3. The Machines
But the third audience, in some ways, it's the most critical audi‐
ence - this may sound like heresy - is the machines.
We write for the algorithms and the humans. It's essential to be
understood by both humans and machines.
The more you're aware of that, whether you're writing for
others or, importantly, whether you're running your properties,
including your website, whether you're running display ads or
building an affiliate brand, whatever purpose you're using a website.

Search Engine Optimization

Do you've any idea what search engine optimization is? How does it
work? What're the basics? Which strategies are best? That's what
I'm going to help you with in this course.

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Will the Machines Replace Content Writers?

The second key question is, why should I bother? Does content
writing have a future?
Absolutely!
What should I write about? We'll get into that later!
Is content writing in demand? Again, absolutely.
Advertising online on social media platforms is getting increas‐
ingly expensive, so many people actively seek to create content that
those searching stuff will discover on the Internet, primarily via
Google.
Which means free clicks.
One of my websites currently has about 10,000 clicks per day. It
would impoverish me within a day if I had to pay for social media
advertising for that number of clicks per day.

A Game Being Played Low and High

It's not just me as a writer, small-scale publisher, and entrepreneur.
Huge companies know the value of search engine traffic and clicks.
People who search for something on Google and land on an
article that is an area of importance. And maybe then invite
someone to an offer or get them to subscribe or many other avenues
that someone might go down. Or monetize a site with ads.

Do Active Research
After taking each lecture in the course, be sure to do a Google
search and see what else is out there.
Do not just rely on me in the course, but also cross-reference the
Internet for information. I will try to give you the best advice I can
give, but it would be best if you also cross-referenced yourself. This
active research process is an integral part of the learning process.

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Will Google Penalize AI Content?

I would argue that artificial intelligence in content writing is now
becoming essential.
Among publishers, SEO specialists, business owners, and writ‐
ers, there is a passionate debate about whether Google will penalize
the use of artificial intelligence in content in the future.
It will not.
Google will penalize lousy content that deceives people. It will
penalize things that do not contribute originally or do not provide
original value.
If stuff is just some kind of spin or paraphrase of what's already
on the Internet, Google is unlikely to reward this material. That's
the bottom line, and that's why this course takes the approach it
does: the use of artificial intelligence tools and artificial intelligence
to help create content. To support the work of writing content. Not
to do the work of writing content.

Programmatic Approaches Are Different

If you think you can set up a programmatic website with 6,000 arti‐
cles in one click that will appear the following day - you just have to
click "Publish," and you'll be successful - this is not the course
for you!
If you see writers and creatives increasingly working with artifi‐
cial intelligence in the future, as one tool in their toolbox, along with
their intellectual tools, ethical tools, moral tools, perhaps spiritual
tools, creative tools, artistic tools - this will be a very helpful course
for you!
We are witnessing the very beginning of what I think will be a
logarithmic explosion of artificial intelligence in the creative
industries
If you have the opportunity, start using AI, and get comfortable
with it as part of your creative writing process. That’s my advice.

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Pure Manual Methods

Some people will completely dismiss that and say, "No, I want
nothing to do with that. I am only interested in traditional research
and traditional writing. I do not want to know anything about artifi‐
cial intelligence.”
Perfectly fine. There are lectures in this course that you will find
precious that teach the manual way of doing things
But I would encourage you to think of AI as a useful helper.
And one that I believe will be more or less indispensable in the
future.
It is (currently) true that most AI results will not have the
empathy and insight that a human brain or mind will have when
you sit back and think about a particular question or issue.
The material that AIS produces needs to be understood by you,
the writer, and put in what a human on the other end will read and
receive. Not just what a machine will read and receive on the
other end.

An Opportunity to Scale
AI provides the opportunity to scale up work, get things done faster,
publish more, write more, and do it with better quality.
AI often suggests something that you haven't even thought of
yet, and you think yes, we should write a bit about that, too. Let's
put that idea in. This concept needs to be put in. Let's think about
the structure of an article and so forth.

Can I Make Money Writing Content?

Answer: yes.
There are some things you should avoid.
You should avoid getting into content mills or places where
content writing has become so commoditized that by the time
you've done all the research for a job, you end up getting paid
almost nothing for your time.

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 The Content Writing Course v2

That's just not interesting.

There are ways to sell your services as a freelance writer, espe‐
cially to companies or brands that, if you pick a particular niche
that has budgets and money, like marketing or advertising.
The more you specialize as a freelance writer, the more you'll
earn and the better you'll become.
I haven't been a freelance content writer. As a film director, I
was a director of documentaries for 25 years. So my background is
in broadcast media.
I also have extensive experience in content writing for my own
websites. For example, I have a big website about writing, story‐
telling, filmmaking, where effective content writing and content
writing are the core of the business's success.
Based on my experience, I can understand what can go wrong
when you try to start your own business as a content creator or
writer. And where things can go right with good positioning, a good
choice of niche and a good portfolio.

“Permissionless Products”
There are other ways to make money as a writer these days. Espe‐
cially as a content writer or a non-fiction writer
This is where we get into the realm of “permissionless product
creation.”
There's an entire world where you produce courses, podcasts, or
YouTube videos or have a website that you might monetize with
display advertising or affiliate offers.
It's about using your intellectual, writing, and production skills
and starting your own business asking no one for permission.
That's a great liberation.
When I started in broadcasting and filmmaking, I always worked
with teams. There were always executive producers, producers, and
bureaucracies. One would struggle through layers and layers to get
things done.
That you can create something, put it into the world and have
thousands if not tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands - world‐

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wide accessing it, and run the entire operation from a back room in
your own house is extraordinary. It's amazing.
You don't have to ask anyone for permission. You just do it!
It's tremendously liberating and can be a way to make an
income.

Content Site Display Advertising Model

In this course, I explain a model that at least I have more experience
with now, which is having your website that you can eventually
monetize with display advertising to make an income.
I think this is an excellent model for many reasons, which I'll talk
about later in the course
Then you can turn that material into rich media experiences like
online courses, podcasts, etc. if you want to do that.

Keep a Strategic Overview

You need to keep a strategic and comprehensive view of content
writing in every country in the world, in different sectors, in other
companies, and for various purposes. It's an extensive industry.
Keep this in mind what I said above.
Eventually, you may start your own business.
You don't have to be an uber-businessman, a great marketer, an
incredible entrepreneur, or whatever; you can get things going
online that can make you some money.
You can grow them with the ability to write, with the ability to
research, with the ability to outline. And with the ability to under‐
stand what good publishing is - all of which I'll teach you in this
course.

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 9

What Google Wants

So let us talk for a moment about what Google wants.

Google crawls the Internet and then decides what to put on the
first page of its Search Engine Results Page (SERP) in response to
any search.
When someone searches for something on Google, what does
Google want to see on the first page?
Let's disregard videos, podcasts, and all those things. Instead,
let's speak about articles or written content.

Search Intent
Google wants them to be well written and not clutter its first SERP
page with junk. Google wants the articles to be informative, well
written, and relevant to the precise query the person is searching.
Google wants the searcher, the person making that search query,
to be satisfied. And complete their search with the first result they
click.

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Ranking on Google
The entire game is that Google tries to figure out the best thing to
place number one, number two, number three, number 10, and
then on subsequent pages of Google. But mainly, what to rank first,
or at least in the top three to five results?
Google wants well-written and relevant content.

Relevance
Let's talk about relevance for a second. What is 'relevance'?
Relevance means that the article delivered to the reader, to the
person who searched, fulfills what they were looking for. Not some‐
thing else, not something irrelevant. It does not lead them to some‐
thing they did not even want.
Instead, the article or content provides a satisfying result for the
searcher—the person who searches for it on Google.
How does Google do this? By evaluating the relevance and
quality of the article, based on the way the content is written and
formatted and many other things.
Relevance depends on whether the article fits the searcher's
intent exactly or as close as possible. The search intent.
The better an article matches the search intent, the greater the
chance it will appear on the first page of Google.
We will return to search intent when we look at how to select
topics, write on topics, and create an outline on topics. It's a critical
point.

In Search of Quality
Google wants quality content. Google's goal is to raise the bar here.
Over several years, Google has ranked articles manipulated by
online users, marketers, and people using many methods.
Backlink building via private blog networks, anonymous services,
and all the rest to drive links to a specific website or page. To rank
better on Google, and this game still goes on. In many variations.

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 The Content Writing Course v2

With artificial intelligence, where it is possible to spit out a

hundred variations of an article within seconds, this game will
undoubtedly continue to be played.
It's a constant cat-and-mouse game between people trying to
manipulate the system and Google trying to monitor the system and
catch them.
Google does not want that.

Programatic Content
By the way, this does not mean that all programmatic or artificially
created content, even if entirely written by artificial intelligence, is
necessarily harmful.
For example, automated content well served searches for
temperature, randomness, or certain algorithmic progressions or
numerical progressions.
Or sometimes, some things have to do with maps that are also
automatically generated.
Where Google has a problem, as they have made clear repeat‐
edly with algorithm updates, is with cheap stuff. With low-quality
stuff that is not useful to the person searching the Internet.

Google’s Internal Guidelines

I am going to keep making this point because if you look, as I did, at
the internal guidelines that Google sends out to its site reviewers,
that document spans hundreds of pages with all kinds of examples
of what is high-quality content, mediocre content, and low-quality
content.
And it's pretty clear what Google is trying to do here.
Google is trying to ensure that written content on the web is
high quality and matches the searchers' intent. I am going to keep
emphasizing this point ad infinitum!
Google wants to displace the low-quality stuff or the stuff that
tries to manipulate its algorithm.

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Why All This Matters to You?

This is important because if you are a freelancer, a freelance content
writer writing for someone else, or you have your website(s) and
publish them to grow the traffic and monetize those sites in the
future, it's essential to put things on a solid footing, not on a shaky
foundation.
That's why it's so vital that you address what Google wants.

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 10

Exercise: What Google Wants

It's important to understand the context in which you are writing

content and writing articles.
Estimated Duration: 1 min
Exercise Instructions: Give a one-sentence reply to the Question
that follows...
Question: What is one of the most important things that Google
wants when it indexes and ranks content on the Internet?
Example Answer: A high-quality user experience.
Note your answer in your notebook!

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 11

Google Search and the

Longtail

Welcome back, and this lecture is called Google Search and the
Longtail.
Don't worry if you're unfamiliar with the term ‘longtail’; it was
unknown to me before I started writing content, and publishing on
my websites.
But really, the point is to dive a little deeper and figure out what
Google wants and how you can use that to your advantage as a
content writer and a content publisher.

A Common Misconception
The first thing most people say with Google and searching and
getting something visible, getting clicks to a website or clicks to a
page, getting traffic, is: Isn't it all way too competitive?
Isn't it that all the corporations, the big publishers, have stepped
up to the plate? They've sucked up all the good words. All the good
keywords, all the good ideas.
There are a trillion articles about everything. So how on earth
can I make something compete on Google?

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How can I ensure my articles rank well in Google searches and

get clicks to my site? My article, my website, my thing
And I'm here to tell you that this is possible.

The Two Main Factors for Success

There are two major factors in the way Google works and taking advan‐
tage of some of its nooks and crannies. To use as a strategy for your
websites or your writing. Or for your business or for content writing:

How Google Search Works

The first factor is how Google search works, how it actually plays
out and what people see on the page, how that affects how people
click on your website, and so on. That's very important

The Power of the Longtail

The second point, and I hope you'll forgive me for the little symbol,
is the power of the longtail, which has to do with the fact that
complex or more complex keywords can rank. You can compete on
specific search terms for writing content for the web.

What is a Longtail?
A longtail keyword is a precise and detailed keyword phrase that
contains three or more words
Longtail keywords are more precise and less competitive than
shorter, more general keywords.
For example, instead of using the keyword 'dog,' an author
might use the longtail keyword 'best dog breeds for an apartment.'
If you want to rank for 'keto diet,' you should forget it. But a
much more complex question around keto diet, for example, 'what's
the best keto diet for the UK in 2022'. That's a very longtail.
You'd rank for that term rather than 'keto diet.'

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But we'll get to that in a moment.

Google Autocomplete
So if we go into the Google search box, if you search for 'best dog
training crates,' for example, right? Look at what's happening here
as I type something in. You can see that Google automatically
suggests what it thinks I want to find
Google is trying to help me find what I'm looking for. Yes, and
that's precisely the point. Google wants to guide me through a
funnel to a result I'm happy with
So I'm going to click on it. And as befits a commercial product,
the top of the Google page is filled with advertising.

Understanding Google’s Business Model

Google's business model is advertising. That's what Google is all
about. That's why it exists as a corporation, as a business.
The search engine algorithm, which Google developed and has
been refining ever since, is essentially the gateway to the various
content on the Internet. A lot of it involves advertising in one form
or another. That's Google's business model, its primary business
model, so it's not surprising that we see a series of ads at the top of
the page.

How Google’s Business Model Impacts Search

But if we scroll down the page, we see things like 'People Also Ask,'"
right? What're these other things that people might also ask? Google
is trying to help me search.
And I'm going further down. And at the bottom, we've 'Related
Searches.' So other things here. 'See more,' of course. And we've all
these other terms here that the program thinks I want to find.

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Searches Favored by Video

Now, if I try a different term, for example, "How do I paint a ceil‐
ing?" we'll use Google's auto-complete again. So if I go back down,
I see ads. But if we go down the search page, we see that the first
significant result is a video.
There are specific searches and keywords that a video is best for
because this person will show you how to paint a ceiling. In a video.
But that's not the only thing that appears on the search page.
We're going to keep going down. Again, we've 'People also ask' more
videos. Google even breaks down the search into the parts of the
video to help me find a specific position. And then we've some arti‐
cles here, probably with pictures. I will not click on those.
And at the very bottom, you'll find more searches as suggestions.
Okay. So this is one that's favored by a video.

Searches Favoring Written Content

And now, when I get to 'what's intuitive thinking'? APA just passed
me, to be exact! I was number one in this area for a long time.
My website is number two for this search term on Google.
When I click my article link, I go directly to the article on my
website, funded by advertising.

The Longtail Opportunity

So what I'm telling you is that for many search queries, informative
search queries, where you're trying to help people with a specific
query, with a particular piece of information, a particular search
query, you can rank.
'What is intuitive thinking" is a pretty broad term, a dictionary
term, but I'm ranking for it right now.
Longtail searches aren't just reserved for corporations. Small
publishers, individual content writers, and small teams can jump on
these longtails. And gain traffic and clicks on Google through the
articles that we write. That's a critical point.

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Selecting Niches, Categories, and Longtails

So a big part of this course is about how to pick a niche, the general
area that you want to write in, and then select those specific words
that you want to write about
How to choose the exact keywords, the actual longtail keywords,
and how to do that efficiently.
And how to choose the right ones to have the best chance of
getting the right traffic for your website. Or more and more clicks
on your website, which could be your goal.

The Goal of Content Writing

Before you sit down to write any content, you must realize why
you're writing that content. What're you hoping to get out of it?
Most of the time, it's this: not only do we want it to please
readers and satisfy people who read what we write, but we also want
it to be discovered, found, and seen for one of many purposes.
That's the connection between a longtail keyword strategy and
the art and craft of content writing. It's so important because of
that. That's why we're going to look at it first before we plan and
writing the actual articles.
And then, after that, it's all about publishing those articles.

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 12

Glossary of Common Terms in

Content Writing and SEO

Don’t get bamboozled by the list below. You don’t need to know
these terms by heart, and it is quite possible you can write and even
publish without knowing them all. However, they are here as a
ready-reference should you need them.
Note that the concepts below are, most times, developed in
details in the video lectures of this course.

Affiliate or Partner
Someone or a business that promotes offers or goods to others, in
return for a commission on sales.

Affiliate link
The special link an affiliate gets from an affiliate network or vendor.
Purchases made after clicking this link are tracked in order to pay
commissions to the affiliate. These links typically track purchases for
30 days.

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Anchor text
The word(s) that become clickable when we insert a link. So, for
example, you might refer to another article and make its title the
anchor text; when the user clicks the link, they get taken to the
linked article either directly, or in a separate tab in browser
according to how the site has set the link.

Article (see ‘Post’ below)

Authority (also expressed as Domain Authority)

A ranking metric to predict how well a website will rank on search
engines - especially Google’s search engine. SEO company Moz
ascribes a score between 0 and 100.
It is one indicator of whether a website can compete on a partic‐
ular topic with the competition.
In the course, I show you how spotting weak websites in the
SERP - especially the top 10 displayed by Google when a topic is
searched - can help identify topics you can target with your website.
There are various tools and apps - like Low Fruits and Keyword
Chef - that can help speed up this process. As a website grows, and
ages (‘matures’) its Domain Authority will increase. As with many
SEO numbers, these are indicators rather than precise numbers.

Backlink
A link pointing to an URL on a site from another website.
We ascribe a lot of importance to the quality and number of
backlinks a site has, since it shows to Google how much authority
that site has in a particular niche or on a particular topic.
In the past, the received wisdom was that, as a site owner, one
should chase backlinks by outreach to other sites requesting
backlinks.
Although this practice continues, a safe and effective approach is
to forget about chasing backlinks, focus on article publishing, and
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 The Content Writing Course v2

allow backlinks to accrue naturally (‘organic’) over time, as other

sites discover and refer to your articles.

Bounce Rate
The percentage of people who only visit the page they landed at on
a website. Meaning, they “bounce” off the site without reading an
additional article.

Brand Mention
When a website is mentioned on another site without them linking
to it. Sometimes other sites will link and sometimes they will not.
When they link, we call it a backlink and when they mention
without a link, it’s a brand mention. Both things are signals to
Google of good (‘authoritative’) content.

Canonical Tag
This is a tag put on a page to let Google know the page is a copy of
another page on a site. Sometimes used if you want to have the
same article on two different URLs.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate)
This is an important metric, because it shows the percentage of
people who click over to your site when they see you on the Google
search result page. It’s also used to describe the percentage of
people who will click a link on a website.
Typically, something like 2-6% of people who see a link on
Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) will click it - usually
the higher up the SERP, the higher the CTR for that link or article.

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Domain Authority (see ‘Authority’ above)

EMPV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors)

Once you monetize a site with display advertising, EMPV is an
important metric because it tells you how much the site overall, and
specific articles and categories of articles make from the overall
number of visitors every month.
On one of the bigger advertising networks - Ezoic - sites typi‐
cally earn between $10 to $50 EMPV, principally depending on the
Niche that the website covers.

Internal Link
A clickable element (typically text but can also be an image) on a
website that takes the visitor to another URL on the website.
External Links take the visitor to another website.

Lazy Loading
Coding in a website that allows text to load before graphics. Usually
achieved by using some kind of website plugin. Display ads use this
method so the visitor doesn’t have to wait for the ads to load before
they see the text.

Linkbuilding
The practice of paying or contacting other websites to link to a
website (see Backlink, above). Although many websites do this, and
it is one of the core practices of the SEO industry, this course
teaches you how to accrue links naturally over time by focusing on
article publishing rather than link building techniques.

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Longtail Keyword
This is an important concept for SEO Article Publishing, because it
means a longer-phrased topic for which a website can rank on
Google, and therefore get search Traffic. For example, ‘how to write
a documentary film proposal’ is a longtail keyword.
Sometimes, longtail keywords expressed as questions can be
easier to write, because the Search Intent (see below) is simpler to
understand.

Meta Description
A tag added to articles that dictate which text snippet Google might
show just below the headline of your article in the Google search
results. I don’t bother adding meta descriptions, since it is usually
best to leave it to Google to determine what to show.

Meta Title
A tag that can be added to articles to replace the main headline in
the Google search results. I ignore this, and use simple titles that
reflect the actual topic I am targeting with the article.

Niche
An area of activity or focus for a business or website. For example,
‘mountain biking’ is a niche. Sourdough baking is a niche. Niches
can be ‘narrow’ - for example, ‘mountain bike brakes’, broad or
semi-broad - for example, ‘writing’ or ‘fiction writing.’
In the past, the received wisdom was that new sites had to be
‘niched down’ to narrow niches, and that people seeking to have
SEO Article Publishing business or side-incomes should have
multiple micro-niche or niche sites.
These days, the trend is towards having a handful of broader
niche sites, and building up the number of articles on each site to
hundreds or even thousands of articles.

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Noindex Tag
This is a tag we can put in the code of a page that tells Google to
exclude the page from the Google search index.

Plugin
Additional scripts that are added to a website, typically WordPress
sites if article publishing, that change the behavior of the site.

Post & Blogposts (Articles)

An article on a website is often called a “post”. As far as Google is
concerned, there’s no difference between an article, a page, and a
post. Posts usually range between 300 and 3,000 words. Sometimes
you’ll encounter the term ‘pillar post’, which refers to a long article
that covers a topic is a comprehensive and high-quality way.

Redirect
When an article is deleted, a redirect can be set so people visiting
the URL that belonged to that old article will be sent over (redi‐
rected) to another URL. I do this to avoid people encountering an
empty page - sometimes known as a 404 page, because this is the
error code they encounter on such a page.
Some plugins (for example, Rank Math) will automatically
redirect 404 errors to a preset page on the website, usually the home
page.

RPM (Revenue per Thousand Pageviews)

The amount a website earns per 1,000 pageviews - for this course,
when monetizing with display advertising. Each page someone visits
on a site is a new pageview.

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Search Intent
One of the most important concepts to understand. Basically, it
refers to the purpose behind which someone searching a particular
phrase (in Google, for example) has in mind when they search.
So, if I search ‘how to write a documentary film proposal’ then I
would want to have an article explaining to me how to do it - that
would be my search intent.
Sometimes, search intent can be tricky to determine, or you can
have ‘mixed’ search intent. Google’s SERP will show to you what
Google feels are the right kinds of articles - the art is to deliver the
expected results, plus extra stuff that will delight the searcher
because you go deeper into what really underpins their query.

Seed Keyword
The root words or phrases, from which longtail keywords derive. For
example, ‘fiction writing’, ‘outdoor cooking’, ‘documentary film
proposal’ are all seed keywords.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The art and craft (some would say science) of optimizing web
content so that it has greater visibility on Google and other search
engines (such as Bing).
SEO is an enormous industry, because websites that can ‘rank’
their content, i.e. appear in the top 10 or 20 results of a Google
search, and ideally in the top 3 results, effectively get free
advertising.
In the model taught in this course, we leverage longtail keyword
article writing SEO to get visitors to our sites, and monetize this
‘Traffic’ via display advertising.

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SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

The page Google or search engine you are using displays after you
ask it to return results for a search.
So, for example, if I Google ‘best puppy leashes 2022’ then the
page Google displays after I click Search is the SERP.
The SERP varies from country to country and adapts to a user’s
search history. We want our articles to appear in the SERPs!

Topic
In this course, I often use the word ‘topic’ in place of ‘keyword’
because I think the word ‘topic’ more clearly articulates that we are
trying to write about a specific subject in any article.
The two important kinds of topic are ‘Seed’ and ‘Longtail’ (see
explanations above).

Traffic (Search Traffic)

An Internet term for the amount of visitors a website or webpage
gets. More Traffic is usually a good thing!
More Traffic from countries that are significant for display
advertising (especially USA) is important if seeking to monetize a
website with ads.

Webhost
Companies that provide servers for websites as a service. Most
beginners start with lower-cost ‘shared hosting’, where several or
more websites share a server.
As a site grows, and its traffic increases, you usually upgrade the
quality of the web host and server.

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WordPress
A major and free platform on which many of the world’s websites
are based. Typically, site owners download WordPress from Word‐
Press.org, install it on their server at their Web host, and then sets up
the site with a theme and plugins.

WordPress Theme
A design skin for a website. Often it will also add functionality to a
site.

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 PART II

Setting Up for Content

Writing
 13

Mindset

We're looking at the set-up process before we get into specific

techniques and things like that because, in creative work, I'm a big
believer in having a pleasant environment and organizing your desk.
And I use the word 'desk' here in the broadest sense for how you
organize things and arrange things around you to get the best result.
I think that's very important in content writing because it's a pretty
complex thing; to do it well, you've to put a lot of effort into it.
It's about keeping the effort as low as possible and getting the
flow and creativity going in your actions.
So for that reason, I want to get into mindset, strategy, and tools
before we get into specific techniques, niches, outlining, research,
and all of those things.

Mindset
So the first point is mindset. There are many mindset aspects, but
for content writing, I'd say organization is at the top of the list.
A content writer. I should be organized and manage my time
effectively to meet deadlines.

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That's the reality of writing content. You're often doing this for a
business in a business environment. You're doing it for a client, but
even if you're doing it for your website, it's a matter of discipline to
write the number of articles necessary to grow the business, grow
the website, and ultimately grow your revenues.

Being Organized
When we talk about organization, I mainly talk about what it means
to be a writer and how you can achieve flow and effectiveness in
your writing.
Neil Gaiman is a fiction writer, an excellent fiction writer who
wrote 'Good Omens' and 'American Gods' and many other great
novels. He talks about how the challenge for a writer is distraction.
That you can sit down and be distracted by all kinds of things, and
his approach to that problem involves permission.
When he sits down to write, he permits himself to write but
doesn't permit himself to do anything else.
And so sometimes in the writing process, he sits and wants to do
something else but doesn't permit himself, but waits for the next
impulse to write.
I write every day. I used to use things like Pomodoro timers, but
I've to admit that Neil Gaiman's approach works better for me now
because I often take chunks of time in the day to write.

Time of Day
All the old tropes, if you'll, that sometimes the best time to write is
the first thing in the morning. Yeah, that works for me. Creative
work starts best in the morning for me, but it may not be that way
for you. You may have a different time of day.
But it's about getting into the discipline and habit of writing
regularly, getting comfortable writing, and getting things more orga‐
nized. The more organized you're, the more organized you're in
your head, and the simpler but more organized you make your
outline, your research, and your writing, the better off you'll be

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And eventually, it'll become almost second nature to you. You

won't have to think as much about each step. It'll just happen, but
there's a certain amount of organization required in the beginning,
and that's what this course section is also about.

An Eye for Detail

Next, I'd say that one quality of good content writers is that they
have an eye for detail. They should have a keen eye for detail and be
able to proofread their work. To make sure it's free of errors.
The fact is that automated systems like Grammarly Premium or
Instatext, or various tools I'll talk about later, can be a tremendous
help in proofreading your writing and improving its quality. And
there are ways to use these tools in combination with artificial intelli‐
gence. This way, you can also add some style to your text. Indeed, a
voice in writing.
You cannot rely on it.

Using Your Mind

You can't rely one hundred percent, or even 90%, on the tools
you've to turn on your brain and ask: Does what you've written feel
good? Is this what you wanted to say in the article at that moment?
And part of that's you have a keen eye for spotting mistakes or
errors or things that feel wrong. So that's something you should work
on as a content writer.

Adaptability and Audiences

The next point is adaptability. Again, it's about being able to adapt
to different audiences and different styles. We'll talk a bit more
about that when we choose niches and write for a niche and an
audience.
But the fact is that if you're writing about puppy training, you're
most likely going to write in a different tone than if you're writing
about, say, 17th-century French literature.

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So some will be more entrepreneurial and business-oriented.

Some will be academically oriented. Some will be hobby-focused,
some will be food-focused
So, as a content writer, you may write about different topics,
categories, and niches. You might even specialize in two or three
different niches. So, first, you need to understand the target audi‐
ence and the tone of voice you want to use to appeal to that
audience.

Switching Between Audiences

And then, you need to switch between the different styles, the
different voices, and the different audiences to get the best possible
result.
Sometimes I find it's better if you write to one audience on one
day and switch to a different audience on another day. This is
because it can be quite challenging to switch from one style to
another on the same day. Let alone in the same morning, for
example.

Collaboration
Another beneficial skill you should develop as a content writer is
collaboration. The art and craft of collaborating with others, of
working alongside others. Even if we think of it as collaborating
with editors, designers, other writers, co-writing, blah, blah, blah.
I'd also think of it more broadly as skills for collaboration and
communication in niche groups where certain areas of writing or
SEO search engine optimization, website publishing, etc., are
discussed.
I spend a lot of my time looking around different groups and
always looking for new tips and new things. So that's part of the
process of collaboration.
Because whether you're working on your research, outlining, and
writing skills and keeping up to date on the technologies that help
you do that, or whether you're building partnerships and relation‐

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ships with other website owners, with other publishers, with other
writers, and so on. The art of collaboration is much broader than
just improving a particular article.
So I believe that collaboration is one of the essential skills of an
excellent writer.

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 14

Exercise: Mindset Recap

Three quick elements to this exercise.

Note the answers in your notebook!
1. After watching the video, what is your mindset's most crucial
part regarding content writing?
2. Why does tone matter regarding different audiences?
3. How will you achieve consistent writing?

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 15

Strategy Part 1 - Writer

Strategy - Writers
The next point to consider when you've found your mindset as a
writer, entrepreneur, and businessperson is strategy.
For content writing, we can break strategy down into two things:

1. Strategy you use as a content writer to improve your

writing and increase the quality of your writing. We'll
talk about that in more detail in a moment.
2. Strategies you can use to grow your business as a content
writer. To grow your list of clients to continue to grow
and improve your business. For example, if you're a solo
publisher, focus on this aspect of your business. If you
write for clients in different niches, you'd grow your
client base, get more clients, and charge more for the
work you write for those clients.

So it's all about the business side and the writing side.

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The Writing Side

Let's start with the writing side and the strategies you can use there.
For a content writer, it's of utmost importance to identify the
target audience and write for them. You should always have a clear
idea of whom you're writing for and tailor your content to that
specific audience.
This is a point I alluded to earlier when I talked about how, if
you were writing about dog training, you wouldn't write in the same
way as an article about a menu.
Or suppose you're writing about French poetry. In that case,
that's an academic audience and so on, but identifying that audience
and getting clear about what that audience likes, what makes them
tick, what they like to consume, what they like to read, how they
respond to what they read. That's very important.

Social Listening
And one of the best ways to do that is to join groups on Reddit, for
example, dedicated to specific hobbies or passions, certain niches,
and so on. And soak up the dialog. Watch the way people comment
and respond. Other places you can look for such groups are specific
online communities.
Or you can go to Facebook, for example, and look at groups
there. Essentially, it's about tuning into the way your audience
communicates, behaves, and reacts to the topic you're writing about.
This will help you tremendously. Here's how to find the right tone
of voice for this audience.

Do Some Reading
Another important tip is to read. Get the first 4, 5, or 6 of the most
popular books about your niche or topic that your target audience is
likely to read or would like to read if they knew it.
And read those books and absorb them with osmosis. Into your
bloodstream. So again, you absorb the ideas, the concepts, the way

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of talking, and communication with that audience; that's a really

important point.
The next thing is to find. A clear writing style. Read what
George Orwell wrote about writing in English. What to do and
what to avoid.
And what does it say? Stephen King, the horror writer, says
about adverbs and writing.
It's about keeping the language clear, well-structured, and easy
to read and consume. This is important when writing content.
You want your articles to be enjoyable because of their content,
not because of some obscure linguistic flourish you might have seen
in England in the 1730s.

The Hallmarks of Good Content

You want clear communication and precise communication with
the right words. By all means, but not with fancy words when it's
unnecessary. Good content is clear, concise, and easy to
understand.
It's not full of jargon or complex sentences that are difficult for
someone to untangle when reading your material.
Some of the AI proofreading tools are Grammarly Premium
and Instatext.
These tools can help simplify the language and weed out a lot of
junk. We'll get into each tool later, and I'll show you how I use them
later in the course, but it's important to maintain a clear writing
style.

Keyword Research
Next is to do good keyword research to identify popular topics and
phrases. But not just popular ones, because if you're running your
website, it's about finding popular keywords that you can compete
with at your website level for an audience on Google.
If you're a bigger publisher, you'll already be aware of this, and
you'll probably already be looking for more competitive topics and

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keywords because your site is bigger. You have more authority; you
have more backlinks pointing to your site, and so on.
But as an individual writer, you need to understand the keyword
and search engine optimization thing to communicate properly with
clients, even if you don't publish your writing on your website,
which I advise you to do. But that's another topic for later in this
course.

Multimedia
Next, it's about using multimedia and visual elements and how to
incorporate them into an article to add value and make it more
enjoyable for your readership.
And last but not least, it's about storytelling and using narrative
techniques to bring an article or content to life because people are
much more likely to be drawn to stories.
People get involved with them much more quickly, and if you
include characters, scenes, or cliffhangers, use a hook and provide a
satisfying ending, and so on. Then the content is more fun overall.
You can even start using storytelling techniques associated with
book or TV series. For example, if you're thinking about Netflix
series, you can use some of these techniques when strategizing your
content.
For example, if you're a brand and want to convey a story, you'll
almost do it right. In filmmaking, something like this is called a
series bible for your content to plan. To make it cohesive.

Summary
We'll discuss all these areas in much more detail later in the course.
But for now,

Consider how you identify your audience and write for

them. Use a simple and clear writing style.
Keyword research to identify popular topics you can
compete with.

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Using images and multimedia in articles to make them

come alive, and storytelling, or at least some storytelling,
to make the content come alive and engage the audience
more. And perhaps as part of a strategy for a series of
articles.

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 16

Exercise: Writer Strategy

Put answers in your notebook!

1. Which online group connects to a niche (area) in which you
would like to write or publish? What are the key topics being
discussed over the past few days?
2. List the 3-4 most influential books in your niche.
3. What did George Orwell say about good writing? Do some
brief research! What does Stephen King say about adverbs?

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 17

Strategy Part 2 - Business

The second side of strategy in terms of content writing is for

building your own business.
Whether it's as an individual writer freelancing for clients from
around the world, whether it's as a brand, whether it's as a content
writing company, or whether you want to start a content writing
agency
Here, there are several strategies you need to consider or imple‐
ment to succeed.

Online Profile
One is to build a robust online presence, i.e., a brand. And it would
be best if you thought about your brand's coherence, plausibility,
and credibility. Everywhere you're online. Your LinkedIn profile,
website, social media pages, and so on. You want these to be
coherent and interesting to build trust in you as a professional,
company, or brand.

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Portfolio
You need to show portfolios to potential clients, for example. You
want customers who are going to check you out to come to pages
where they think, “Wow, okay, this is a professional person. This is a
professional company.”
That's important in content writing because content writing isn't
usually about being an artist. It's not about visual flair or standing
out from the crowd.
It's about providing professional services or professional writing.
That gets a result online. It's a business.
And that's why you should act like a business. That's very
important.

Networking and CRM

The next point is networking and building relationships. Think
about investing in a project management system and a customer
database that works
There are many technical solutions in the market. You need to
be aware of where you're at various stages of communication with
other people.
You need some prioritization and ranking for your network and
the contacts in it because some people are super important, and
some people aren't necessary.

Range of Services
Another part of the strategy would be to offer a range of services as
a content writer. Content writing is the core; research is the core.
The ability to create outlines, format, edit, and publish. These are
all essential skills for a content writer.
You can spin off some of these services into separate offerings if
you're an excellent editor, for example. You could offer a service that
deals with content editing,
If your superpower is research, and you enjoy that, offer a

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research service. I'm in some content writing groups where there's a

discussion about hiring people as researchers, not writers, because
artificial intelligence is augmenting the writing.

Focus on Quality
The next point is the emphasis on quality and high quality and the
commitment to quality.
Quality has to do not only with the actual quality of the articles
or the content. It also has to do with reliability:

Do you deliver on time? Do you provide within

deadlines?
Do you respond to customer inquiries?
Are you good at handling feedback?
Are you open in your dealings with customers?

Marketing
Last but not least is marketing and promoting your business and
finding effective ways to market your business.
Marketing aims to get your business in front of the right eyes,
not in front of everyone's eyes.
And then I'd advise amplifying success. Look at the things that
are working well in your marketing and advertising and, pay atten‐
tion to them, do more of them. And build out your client list or your
relationships, your network, and the success of your business
through things proven to work well.

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 18

Introduction to Tools for

Content Writers and
Publishers

In the next lecture, we'll look at tools for writing content.

There's an old saying that you shouldn't have just one tool in
your toolbox. An excellent artisan has many tools for his work. For
example, if you're a carpenter, you'll have many tools you can use to
work precisely. But you won't have too many tools. You'll have the
right ones and know which tool to use for a particular task.
That's the case with every creative activity I've ever been
involved with. Filmmaking, writing, storytelling, audiobook, narra‐
tion, audiobook, production… It's the same story.
You find the right tool for the right job, but that doesn't mean
you must rush out and buy all the tools immediately. Instead, it
means knowing which tools are doing the right job at the right time.

What the Lecture Covers

So let's briefly go over what will be covered in this lecture. First, we'll
look at the phases where you can use tools.
Then I'll go into where you should put your money and atten‐
tion in terms of tools, depending on where you're as an author or
publisher.

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I'll say a few words about quality and scaling and then a last
word about team considerations.
I will not dive too deeply into the actual use of tools. I won't go
into using the tools at this stage, as that will happen in the specific
lectures where specific tools are used.
I'd also like to point out that this lecture shouldn't put you off on
tools or the fact that we're going into it. I'm just trying to give you an
overview of what's out there and what's possible in the broadest
sense so that you're aware of it.
But if you're writing content, you don't need to have any tools at
all. You can write content provided you have a computer and access
to the internet. That's all you need. But the point here is to give you
an idea of the different tools you can use at various stages of
content writing.

The Phases of Content Writing

There are several phases of content creation for content writing.
These sometimes overlap and don't happen in the order I'll explain
here. However, the most important ones are research, outlining,
drafting, editing and proofreading, and publishing.

The Research Phase

In the research phase, content writing is primarily about finding
relevant topics to write about. And as I've already showed, it's about
finding topics that grab attention, have visitors, get clicked on, and
that people are interested in. Still, where you can also compete with
the particular web offering you're writing for. Whether it's your
website or someone else's
Some tools can help you with this, which I'll explain later in the
course.
And the last important point in the research phase is that you'll
probably be exploring and using relevant sources of information in
many places. So, again, I'll talk about this on the stage where we
deal with it in the course.

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The Outlining Phase

And in the outline phase, we structure the content and put the ideas
into an interesting format.
This is a critical part of success in content writing, whether
you're a writer, publisher, hybrid, team leader, or whatever. If you
don't have a handle on outlining, you will fail with content writing.
And certainly not with content that goes beyond super short form
Okay, you can write a hundred or 150 words without an outline,
which would be great. If you write over 300 or 500, let alone 1000,
two thousand, five thousand, or ten thousand words. If you don't
have an outline when you get to that longer content, which by the
way, is very important, and I'll explain why later in the course, then
without an outline, frankly, eventually, you're just going to fall over.
I talked earlier about the research phase. The outline phase and
the research phase can go back and forth. So we use tools in both
phases that overlap.

The Drafting Phase

Next comes the drafting phase. That's the actual writing phase.
Right. This is where we put the first draft on the screen or paper,
depending on your writing.
But in this drafting stage of content writing, we can use several
tools.

The Editing Phase

Once we have a decent draft, we usually move into the editing
phase. This phase is about reorganizing the material on the page
but also making sure that grammar, spelling, and punctuation are in
order
So it's a mixture of structural work, throwing out and restruc‐
turing things that don't belong in the draft. However, if you've
created a good outline, it's not that much work, but it's streamlining

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the entire draft to ensure that it reads well and is correct. And that
there are no errors in the draft.

The Publishing Phase

We get to the publishing phase, which is about sharing the content
with your intended audience. Your audience may be on social
media. Here, you'll be publishing your content on multiple social
media platforms, maybe even many platforms at once.
My primary target audience is my website, which is based on
WordPress. So the publishing phase is basically about preparing the
article to be published on the WordPress platform. So in my case, on
my website.

Where to Put Money and Attention

So those are the main stages where we use content writing tools.
However, I'd like to say a few words about where you should put
your money and attention when using tools on your content writing
journey.
I would advise to look at how I use the tools in this course. Find
out whether those tools are right for you as well. There's no substi‐
tute for watching someone use the tool the right way and watching
them use the tool step by step to understand how it can speed things
up, make things more accurately, give you the ability to scale things,
and open new doors, fresh doors that you wouldn't have even
considered if you weren't using the tool.
At your stage of writing content, you may find that it doesn't
apply to your particular use case. “It's great for Paul, but I don't
need it. It's not relevant to me.”
Here, you can forget about this tool or a selection of tools at this
specific content writing stage.
However, it's beneficial to be aware of the tools that are
available
Even if you start with no tools, at a particular stage, you can

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think, "Okay. I remember now that in the editing phase, there was
this tool. This is very useful for me now.”
Look at what I use and get it for yourself.

Quality and Scale

Quality and scale become essential as you move forward with
writing content. Either for your websites, your writing, or working
with clients.
You want high quality at every step of your content writing
process. From the initial idea, research, outlining, drafting, writing,
editing, and publishing so that the result is impressive.
It looks excellent. It feels terrific. It reads well. The reader is
excited about what they read because it gets to the heart of what
they were looking for. The answers are interesting, original, and of
high quality. This is important for content writing success. It's essen‐
tial when trying to get your content ranked in Google and when
trying to gain search engine traffic from Google to your website or
your web properties.

Teams
Finally, I want to say a word about teams because it's sometimes
essential when thinking about tools or considering tools to pay atten‐
tion to whether there are team slots. Can you use a particular tool
with a team? That can be very important if, for example, you're
working with a group of writers or editors for a specific web project.
It doesn't matter much to me because my wife and I do the writ‐
ing, editing, and publishing for our company. Your case might be
different. You might need to work with a team. In that case, of
course, it's essential to check whether an app or tool allows team
spaces, what the costs are, and what you can accomplish with it.

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Summary
So, in summary, I'd say watch what I use. Then, throughout this
course, choose what might be right for you or might be right for you
in the future.
Put your budget where you need it most. Make sure the tool that
can help you the most can have the most significant impact. And
always look for tools that deliver high-quality results. This is impor‐
tant. Because there are many tools out there that are supposed to
perform a specific function but aren't that great, and it's perhaps one
benefit of this course that I can introduce you to a considerable
number of excellent tools that I use every day.
I've experimented a lot with apps and tools over the years. I've
tried dozens, maybe hundreds, of them over the years. And I've
discarded maybe 95% of those tools. Basically, they're not good
enough. The results they deliver are not right. It's too slow to use.
They're not reliable. They were too expensive. There are a lot of
different reasons you'd go without tools.
So for content writing, I can save you a lot of that and show you
the tools that work and are effective. And they're worth the
investment.

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 19

Budget Options for Content

Writing Tools

The following lectures show me using several tools in my content

planning, writing, and publishing process - but please note, you do
not need these tools to write SEO content.
It's possible to pursue freelance or hobby content writing
without incurring costs.
I show free approaches and techniques for every step of the
entire process.

Why Tools Are Useful

I use several tools because they save time and enable me to scale my
writing and publishing. It would be remiss of me not to show exactly
what I do daily!
From the moment you run your sites or run a business that has a
significant content writing component, the chances are that you may
invest in some apps and tools.

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The Bonus Lecture (Afterword) Breakdown

In the Bonus Lecture at the end of the course (the Afterword in the
book), I have put together four suggested packages ranging from
Zero Cost through to Advanced/Publisher level to help steer you
through the morass of tool options.

Using Tools in the Exercises

During the course, some Exercises invite you to try some of the paid
tools. These are free trials or free levels of the tools unless stated
otherwise.

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 PART III

The Future
 20

The Rise of OpenAI’s

ChatGPT

Recently, technology has been released that I think is essential to let

you know about in this course because you should at least know
about it even if you do not even experiment with it. It's free.
I think it says something about where content writing is going in
the future. So it's very important to know and consider for your
content writing career and practice. Even more so when you publish
and create websites, as I do and teach in the course.

Getting Access to ChatGPT

It's important to note that ChatGPT is currently only on trial.
There is no charge for access. You will need to sign up for an
account at openai.com.
And then, you will get access to the chat. Then when you click
through, you will get access to the screen you are currently
looking at

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NB It Might Be a Limited Period for Free Access

Access to the review can be closed. ChatGPT is being tested right
now by many people who are using this app.
So I'll show it to you while it's open, so you understand what's
coming.

Limitations of ChatGPT
It's pretty heavily restricted. It does not have full access to the Inter‐
net. It’s rather prudish about what it’s going to write about. It will
not deal with political opinions or deal with trends.
It will not predict the future or anything like that. But some
people are already finding workarounds to get around the limita‐
tions. This cat-and-mouse game will continue for a very long time.
Of that, I am sure.

A Staging Post to GPT-4

But what's unique about this app, and I'll show this moment, is that
it's an intermediary between GPT-3, which has been used for many
marketing and writing assistant apps. Jasper, CopyAI, Sudowrite,
and many others.
What's coming may be as early as next year, perhaps as late as
2023, is going to be GPT-4.
GPT-4, as far as I know, will be an absolute game-changer. In
many business areas, business communications, writing, and so
forth. It's going to be an order of magnitude better than GPT-3
We are entering a brave new world, possibly much faster than
some of us expected

Is This the Death of Content Writing?

This does not mean that the course is invalid or that you should not
be a content writer.

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Quite the opposite, but I'll go into that a little after we show the
thing

Demonstration of What ChatGPT Can Do

Let us write something that I know nothing about.
I know nothing about Labrador puppies. That was a previous
test case I did for the course.
So literally go into the input box and write:

Outline an article about how to train a labrador puppy.

By the way, if you make a spelling mistake, it will still work. But I
like to spell things correctly.
And then we hit run.
I notice right away that it's not an outline. We will get to that in
a minute. ChatGPT is writing the entire article.
The first thing I notice is the quality of the responses and the
fact that the article is already formatted.
ChatGPT has already thought about how a reader might read
and benefit from this article.

Useful Information
So let’s take a quick look at the answers.

Raising a Labrador puppy can be a rewarding experience. Start

training early, be consistent, be patient, use positive reinforcement,
and socialize your puppy.

This all looks great. I see nothing that could be a problem in this
article.
Next, let’s be polite.

Please write an outline for an article on how to train a labrador.

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I want the program to write just the subheadings. And I

could say:

More, please

The most important thing to note here is that ChatGPT refer‐

ences everything in this document.
So you find that none of this is repetitious.
So what we could do now is write:

Please write an article based on these points.

The article is now much more detailed and based on the

different points he found
ChatGPT literally goes into each of those points, writes a little
about it, and then goes on.
That looks like a pretty detailed article to me. If I want the
program to pick up the last word, we can do that. The conclusion is
also already written.

Summary
The level of intelligence and the quality of results that are being
achieved here are truly impressive.
You can not do what I did with the existing GPT-3 tools.
Certainly not as good as this. Once this thing is out in the wild and
GPT-4 hits the market, everything will change.

Will Writers Be Replaced?

The question is, will this replace the Writer?
The answer is it will replace poor writers or mediocre writers.
That is the truth. But it will not replace writers who understand
what they are doing for the intent of an article, when they put
emotion into the article, and add original research as I teach in the
course, and work with AI to create a really valuable article.

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It will not replace those types of writers.

Writers who are just lazy, or not very good, or who did not think
about the intent of the person seeking the article before writing it,
will be replaced.

What You Should Do Now

It's worth planning for this technology because it will come. And it
will be out in the wild, probably in six months to a year as GPT-4
everywhere.
Change is coming, and we need to adapt to the change
ChatGPT - go over it and check it out. Try to get an account.
Try to get access to that tool. Experiment with it a bit. Do not just
publish what it writes directly on the Internet. Especially not on
your website. Because if you do, bad things are likely to happen.
Use it as a starting point if you want and then add more infor‐
mation if you use it.

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 PART IV

End Material
 Tools, Apps, and Resources
List

Below are the links to tools and apps that can help you as a content
writer or publisher. I've grouped them by budget.
Zero Budget (tools with free level, no card required, no
time limits): https://brilliantio.net/tcwc-zero-cost-package
Starter Budget - $50-$250 per year: https://brilliantio.net/
tcwc-starter-package
Intermediate Budget - $250-$1000 per year: https://bril
liantio.net/tcwc-intermediate-package
Advanced/Publisher Budget - $1,000+ per year: https://
brilliantio.net/tcwc-advanced-package
Other Links
Hub page for other links for me and other stuff I publish/do,
including discounts to current and upcoming courses: brilliantio.
net/home
 About the Author

Paul Jenkins is an internationally-known documentary film director,

writer, and narrator. Paul founded Brilliantio in 2019 to help people
with their creativity, storytelling, and writing. His online course 'The
Story Course' is a worldwide bestseller. His brand website bril‐
liantio.com has over 500 articles and 200,000 visits per month.