Business world would not exist without agreements, contracts and other formal written documents. Written content makes people feel safer from one side and more confident from another one.
Safer – because when written, it ensures a proof.
Creates more confidence – when presenting something it gives safety to the speaker that the thoughts will not float away and there will be some keynotes to stick to.
What is written comprehension?
The better written comprehension skills one has, the better he is able to understand the content itself, the context and maybe even read between the lines.
Why is it important?
Although many business meetings, pitching sessions, webinars and other events take place online where people TALK about their topics, it requires some written comprehension skills too.
- To access meetings, most online platforms give their instructions in English.
- Knowing English will open new doors to your personal and professional growth as many courses, training and a huge amount of valuable information for your business can be found on the Internet exactly in English.
- English is an international language and many other languages use anglicisms and specific terminology not only in business, but also on a daily basis.
- When looking for new opportunities, you might find a lot of information. Critical thinking is one of the key aspects that will help you to avoid misleading content.
- If you have auditory memory, you will receive information better by hearing it. Keep in mind that spoken language rules in many cases do not match the written language rules. Written language is considered to be more formal, yet in informal settings it can contain abbreviations, emoticons, grammatically incorrect writing. To create a professional impression of your company, it is important to develop good written comprehension and expression skills.
From stakeholders’ and customers’ point of view:
- When a stakeholder or customer is looking for a specific product, service or looking for information about your company, they are looking for clear directions. Therefore, for example, naming products, defining website sections is a skill that allows the second party to find what they are looking for.
- If you are creating an advertisement, do some analysis of what your target audience is looking for and do your best to keep it concise and smart. Advertisement is a pitch that will either be appealing to the potential customer or not.
- Avoid using too many negative forms in written communication. It will make you sound arrogant and unwilling to collaborate. Putting the same idea in different words as a suggestion for example, will look more inviting.
- Avoid using too many and too specific emoticons. Firstly, IF you choose to use emoticons, check its meaning as some of them might have double meaning or it can even be a false friend and mean something totally different in another culture. Secondly, Using too many and/or specific emoticons might look unprofessional, familiar and not serious. Remember that company content is not a chat with friends. Choose emoticons wisely!
- Written content is a learning platform for some people. They read blogs, articles, social media content with a specific reason to expand their vocabulary and language knowledge, therefore, before publishing proofread the content, also check the grammar. Sometimes a single full stop or comma may save life and avoid confusion.
- If you create a visual or video content, they too can contain written text. Use very concise, clear and short information or sometimes even only keywords are sufficient. Remember to deliver a clear message to the target audience!
- Accessibility is one of the key elements in all types of content. The more accessible content you create, the larger reach it will get. WCAG guidelines will guide you through content accessibility rules for people with disabilities. The latest edition can be found here: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
Content marketing can lead to success. Semrush (A digital agency) has researched and summarised some key statistics about content marketing in 2023. Although it is mostly based on blog content, most of the tips can be used also for other types of content.
- Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.
- 71% of bloggers report using visuals as part of their marketing strategy.
- Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.
- 44% said improving the quality and value of their content has led to success
- 42% said updating existing content has boosted their content marketing value
- 41% said analysing their competitors influenced the success of their strategy
- 40% said creating more visual, and video content improved their content marketing
Useful tactics to reach larger audience:
- Researching and adding related keywords in addition to primary keywords (45% of respondents)
- Analysing and addressing customer questions in their blog posts (38% of respondents)
- Adding more visuals—such as images and videos—to their blogs (33% of respondents)
- Doing in-depth search intent analysis before writing (27% of respondents)
- Working on link building for their blog posts (26% of respondents)
More statistics can be found here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-statistics/
Sources:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, W3C Recommendation, published 21 September 2023 , retrieved 5 December on https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
Maeva Conley, published 22 February, 2023; retrieved 5 December, 2023 on https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-statistics/