Many students today write blog content while studying and go on to have careers as content writers. At college, you have to write many assignments, which means you have to do in-depth research and learn to organize your ideas in a logical way. These skills can help you to write blog content. However, you must be clear about the differences between the two types of writing.
Differences between academic writing and writing blog content
- Structure: Academic writing involves writing blocks of text. To write effective blog content, you need to break up text blocks. You do this by using subheadings, bullet points, short paragraphs and short sentences.
- Grammar: Correct grammar is necessary when writing academic essays and blog posts, but more casual grammar is acceptable in blog posts. You can use contractions like can’t or won’t, which you should not use in academic writing.
- Style: Academic writing requires you to follow a specific style – APA, Harvard or MLA. You don’t have to stick to a specific style when writing blog posts. In fact, your unique writing style can give you a competitive advantage.
- References: In academic writing, you need to be very careful to reference your sources, or you could be guilty of plagiarism. When you write blog posts, you will include links to relevant studies, etc., that take readers to the source of your information if they click the link.
Write an essay with professional help
If you are a student at college and have a blog that makes you money while getting your education and studying. It is hard to find the time to cope with all the responsibilities. You can turn to an expert writer at EduBirdie if you think who will write my essay for me. A writer will provide you with a quality, nicely-researched essay that you can submit within the required deadline. You can also learn from a quality sample of academic writing and improve your own writing skills.
Skills you need when writing blog content
Certain skills you learn for academic writing can help when writing blog content, but there are additional skills you will need to learn too.
Research skills: If you plan to write functional blog posts for other university students, you will have to choose your topics wisely and research relevant ideas.
Search engine optimization (SEO) skills: If your plan is to drive traffic to your blog content, it is important to understand SEO. For example, choosing keywords is a whole science in itself. You need to use keywords that people will type into search engines when looking for content like yours. Choosing the right keywords involves looking for less competitive ones that give your posts more chance of making it onto the first page of the search results.
Marketing skills: If you hope to make money from your blog, you will need to learn how to market. Social media marketing is a popular way to drive traffic to your blog. This involves putting links to your content on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You have to know which platforms your audience uses most to benefit from social media marketing. Developing a subscriber list and marketing via email is another very popular marketing strategy.
Content writing for clients
Many students go on to make a career out of content writing. If you want to do content writing for clients, you will need to have soft skills like communication skills, adaptability, time management and more. At college, you often have to work on your communication and time management skills, so this can prepare you well.
You may have gained certain hard skills, such as SEO and email marketing, from writing your own blog, and this can serve you well when writing content for clients.
The amount of money you can make from freelance writing will depend on your clients. You will earn more if you work directly with clients than if you work through a middleman who will take a cut. Every business needs copywriting, so your skills will be in demand. There are numerous freelance job boards where you can find content writing jobs and send clients proposals.
Conclusion
Your academic writing skills can help you significantly as a content writer. You learn how to research and present your ideas in a logical way. As long as you keep the differences between the two types of writing in mind and learn some additional skills, you can become a successful content writer.
Charlie D. Kenney is a writer who provides academic assistance to university students. He’s an expert writer and editor who has been a mentor to some famous young writers and has received accolades for his contribution to the academic field. He’s also into online tutoring, where he teaches writing and editing skills to budding writers and authors.
