What if you created content so great your audience doesn’t even realize it’s an experience?
That scenario can happen when you opt for one or more of these ideas to take your content goals beyond simple consumption and clunky experiences.
1. Write with an inclusive heart
Someone who constantly talks about themselves irritates the listener. Review your content to see how often the words I, me, we, and us are used. Now, count how often the word “you” appears. If the first-person uses outweigh the second-person frequency, edit to delete many of the first-person references and add more second-person references to the text.
Let your audience know they are included in the conversation. I like this tip shared in Take Binary Bias Out of Your Content Conversations by Content Marketing World speaker Ruth Carter: Go through your text and replace exclusionary terms such as he/him and she/her with they/them pronouns.
2. Make your content shine brighter with an AI assist
Content published online should look different than the research papers and essays you wrote in school. While you should adhere to grammar rules and follow a style guide, you also should prioritize readability. That requires scannable and easily digestible text — headings, bulleted text, short sentences, brief paragraphs, etc.
Use a text-polishing aid such as Hemingway Editor (free and paid versions) to cut the dead weight from your writing. Its color-coded review system identifies categorical problems and common fixes for them:
- Yellow — lengthy, complex sentences, and common errors
- Fix: Shorten or split sentences.
- Red — dense and complicated text
- Fix: Remove hurdles and keep your readers on a simpler path.
- Pink — lengthy words that could be shortened
- Fix: Scroll the mouse over the problematic word to identify potential substitutes.
- Blue — adverbs and weakening phrases
- Fix: Delete them or find a better way to convey the thought.
- Green — passive voice
- Fix: Rewrite for active voice.
Grammarly’s paid version works well, too. It includes an AI-powered writing assistant, readability reports, a plagiarism checker, citation suggestions, and more than 400 additional grammar checks.
In the image below, Grammarly suggests rephrasing this sentence, “It is not good enough any longer to simply produce content ‘like a media company would.’” In its place should be this version, “It is no longer good enough to produce content ‘as a media company would.’”
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