A day in the content mill can be as well a monotonous experience as an enjoyable one, occasionally exhilarating even. In this article we make a general walkaround about the copywriting and editing of niche contents. And we are doing this from an iGaming perspective. The lines below also summarize my experiences of a year of proofreading and editing online bookmaker and casino-related content.
When somethings is free, you are the product
The rules of copyediting are largely determined by the tectonic changing of media-consuming patterns caused by social media in the last decade, and therefore the shortening attention span of users. Unfortunately, multiple smart devices and applications in a single household are competing for our attention and data at the same time. Many of these services and platforms are selling dopamine, essentially. They stimulate our hunger for joy, excitement, or outrage, and they overfeed us to extract some kind of attention, in order to better target ads and improve our customer profiles.
Copywriters these days have to make a mark in this oversaturated media environment. I don’t want to come through as contemptuous, but in a sense we are in the same business: to be good enough at grabbing attention and selling affiliate links. But first and foremost we should achieve this by building credibility. This our first how-to chapter is about.
Accuracy and credibility
If the subject is iGaming – which mostly means site and game reviews, general and specific betting guidelines – keep in mind that our target is a generic audience. There are always newcomers who will ask for our help in making informed decisions about complex things. Whereas the veteran punters and players want to have a fast look at specific offers, tournaments and favourable entry rules of the site in question and will skip the introductory and how-to paragraphs.
Be an insider who do initiations
In any case, you have to write to all of them. Frontal terms and slang of the initiated can be used, but always explain them first, or at least give a causal synonym in brackets. This way the newcomer will feel that we give them a helping hand, which drives further engagement. When copyediting, take a layman approach to the writer’s work, and if something doesn’t come through as straightforward, don’t hesitate to make them corrections and to add extra explanation.
The right people for the right job
You can’t achieve credibility and offer authoritative content if your writers skip the research phrase and the first-hand approach to the subject. Regurgitating existing content and ill-informed guides are among the worst things that might happen to your enterprise. Be supportive for your guys in the mill, but don’t let your guard down. Plagiarism-checkers are essential tools, but even more important is if your content creators handle the terminology of the niche content confidently.
Style and structure
With that in mind, text proportioning and the easiness of the sentence structure and the general fluidity of text are other important factors that can raise your content above the competition. For the reasons above, today’s visitor is under a constant urge of rapid consumption and processing, and that applies to your texts as well. This drives fast reading and preliminary eye-scanning – a behaviour akin to rolling the news feeds in social media – of your texts before deeper reading.
Support fast-reading and scanning
Attention grabbing and sending the rights signs of authoritative content are the keys of winning in our line of business. And that’s the part where many writers miss the mark at first. The lack of subheadings that imply the right answers our users may look for, that kills the purpose of our content outright! Furthermore, if a paragraph has a length of six lines, we are already pushing it. But in general a good writer shouldn’t need more to elaborate a subject or a part of it properly.
This principle applies to sentence length and structure. Two rows where you should draw a line in length. It’s better to use numbered or bulleted forms for listings.
Be popular by referring the popular
As much some writers love to embed memes and pop-culture references, we should avoid the references that can be considered too niche or insidious for a general audience. References to a shared cultural heritage can float our content nicely, but aim for the widely known titles and the more famous quotations. Even if you introduce a niche reference, stay on topic with it, and don’t spare a brief explanation or a friendly incentive for the reader to get to know the subject better. Sharing culture is a noble sentiment that can actually support long-term engagement if we do it the right way.
Grammar
The ever perfidious grammar and the occasional hair-pulling experiences of the proofreader! As a copyeditor, be a bit generous here because everybody is a bit of blind when it comes to their texts. But that’s why you are there for them, spotting and correcting the mistakes the writer’s eyes will miss under the pressure of a deadline.
Anyway, our readers don’t come for formal perfection, they won’t punish for missing an Oxford comma or things like that. What can hurt us here is inconsistency. I have a private saying about that even if you have odd choices of grammar sometimes, at least be consistent about it.
And that’s it for now. Despite some low moments, if you like your trade – the output of well-written and structured texts – copywriting and editing tasks can provide joyful moments and the satisfaction of a job well done. And if you are satisfied with the works provided, the audience should be happy too. At least, that’s what we want to believe in here at SeoBrothers.
About Us
SeoBrothers is an international company that operates in SEO and content marketing. The company offers projects in different languages that have hundreds of thousands of visitors on a daily basis. Read also our news about projects in Serbia https://seobrotherslv.com/news/the-launch-of-serbian-mightytips/
