In this video, I'm going to use a technique called mind mapping. Many of you may be familiar with it. Mind Mapping is a way to organize your thoughts and map them onto paper. It uses the right side of your brain. As you're not thinking in a linear or sequential manner. random thoughts can be placed anywhere on the map.

Many people start the writing process with an outline, which actually uses the left side of the brain. I find it much more fruitful to create the outline of the mind map. It's like compartmentalizing your thinking from your writing and development. The thinking process is deeper. You're not writing and thinking at the same time. Now we've covered what a content writer need not be.

Let's talk about what a content writer must absolutely master. I'm going to develop a mind map on the skills that make a good content writer for business. A good Mind Map starts with a very specific center. The topic must be specific or the mind map will be unfocused and ineffective in taking you to a point where you feel you're ready to write. So in the center we say critical skills for a content writer. The first is interviewing, you'll be talking to the CEO, the person who conceived the idea and users customers salespeople, ask discerning questions, approach a topic from multiple angles to get different perspectives.

This will familiarize you with the cultural and geographical aspects as well, making your copy more relevant to the targeted audience. Next research, you may have to look up the website old manuals, journals documentation, talk to employees customers, again, internet research, you may have to check out press media coverage, old collateral to get deeper insights into the topic and formulate further questions. Communication, you must have the ability to articulate your questions. You must have empathy for the interviewing. Being a listener is an extremely important part of communication and also the ability to assimilate information language skills are a must. You should be good with grammar syntax, colloquial versus formal language, cultural and geo specific implications things like which word is the right one taxi versus cab.

Domain specific skills are a definite bonus. Because you are familiar with the jargon the system's the language. It takes you less time and effort to ramp up. A content writer must have good organizational skills or is lost. You have to have the ability to break a project into smaller chunks, assign deadlines, allocate tasks, work with the team, define goals, help everybody understand the data, things like this. Now, obviously, you do need basic editing and proofreading skills.

You have to own your own copy as best as you can. This means being brutal with your copy, checking out parts that are not relevant to the topic, making sure the flow and the tone are good. fact checking, correcting grammar and Spelling's basic proofreading will involve checking for typographical In the final ready to be published copy content optimization. That's a big one. You should know how to optimize content. The keywords could be provided by the client or you discover them yourself.

But you should know how to place them how the headings need to be. Where do you use inline links? How do you use them? Things like that. Knowledge of word processing tools is a must. Microsoft Word is one of the most common tools used, though I do see people using Google Docs as well.

To know editing features of the tool that spelling and grammar checks, the review mode, things like that, which which will help you work in a collaborative way. being familiar with a few content management systems helps, as you may be asked to upload the content. While this may be done by the marketer, it doesn't hurt to know what fields need to be filled up in the CMS for a post to be optimized. Now, being collaborative is extremely important because you need to work together. You need to build good working relationships by respecting people's time going prepared with questions and being as comprehensive as possible. As you see I missed this point earlier and I can add it anywhere because this is a mind map.

Had this been an outline, I would have to adjust, move things around. You can take a mind map further and add the sequence or the flow in which you would like to use these points in your content.