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Content writing is the process of creating and publishing written content in a digital format to engage a specific audience and achieve a marketing goal. That content can include blog posts, video or podcast scripts, ebooks, whitepapers, landing pages, email copy, social media posts, and more.
According to CMI, 87% say content marketing helped them build brand awareness, and 74% said it helped generate demand and leads. And with AI reshaping how people search for and consume information, the definition of “good content writing” has shifted dramatically.
There are few to no content marketing mediums I haven’t tackled, and let me tell you: The umbrella has never been wider — or more complex. This guide is here to help simplify.
Table of Contents
- What is content writing?
- Types of Content Writing
- What does a content writer do?
- Content Writing Tips to Level Up Your Work
- Examples of Great Content Writing
- Frequently Asked Questions About Content Writing
- Start getting content write.
What is content writing?
Content writing is the process of creating written material (i.e., blog posts, web pages, emails, social media posts, video scripts, and more) to engage a specific audience and achieve a marketing goal. The goal is to offer value, build trust, and ultimately move readers to take the next natural action, whether that’s engaging or converting.
Writing is the engine behind content marketing: the craft that turns a strategy into something people actually want to read.
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Types of Content Writing
Content writing manifests in many different ways depending on your organization, audience, and industry. Some businesses invest heavily in a social media strategy, while others lean into blog posts or videos.
Here’s a breakdown of the most common formats, what each one is for, and how they differ.
Blog Writing
Blog posts or articles are the backbone of most content marketing strategies, especially those established for more than a few years.
But why have they stood the test of time?
Great blogs drive organic traffic, establish expertise, and answer the questions your audience is already searching for. A well-written blog post educates readers, keeps them on your site, and moves them further along the buying journey. They also keep your website fresh, encouraging regular visits, subscriptions, and consistent crawling by search engines.
(I published my first marketing blog article in 2013 if you’re still skeptical about their longevity.)
Blog articles can range from short explainers (500–800 words) to long-form pillar posts (2,000+ words). The approach depends on the topic, the keyword, and what your reader is actually looking for to answer their query.
What we like: HubSpot Content Hub includes an AI Blog Writer that helps teams draft and optimize blog content quickly, without sacrificing your brand voice. It also offers built-in SEO recommendations so you can spot optimization opportunities before you hit publish.
Social Media Writing
Social media copy is typically short, punchy, and built for a specific platform. What works on LinkedIn (longer, more professional) won’t necessarily work on Instagram (visual-first, conversational) or X/Twitter (tight, opinion-driven).
Social media writing is distinct from blogging because the goal isn’t depth; it’s immediate attention and engagement. You’re writing to stop the scroll and drive interaction, whether that’s a like, comment, share, follow, or click.
According to HubSpot’s research on content preferences, social media is the preferred product discovery channel for Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X, making social writing more important than ever.
Resource: Social Media Copywriting: Expert Tips for 5 Different Platforms
Email Writing
Email is one of the highest-ROI content formats out there. But writing good email copy is a skill in itself. You’re working with a short subject line and limited screen space.
Email writing requires clarity, relevance, and a strong call to action. It’s different from blog writing because you’re writing to a warm audience, people who already know you exist and asked to hear from you. Because of this, email writing is also usually more action- or conversion-focused than other forms of content writing.
Resource: The 9 Must-Have Components of Compelling Email Copy
SEO and Web Copy
Similar to blog articles, SEO content is written to rank in search engines and answer specific queries. The difference is that web copy (like on a homepage, product pages, landing pages) is written entirely to convert.
Good SEO and web copywriting prioritize clarity, integrate target keywords naturally, and align with buyer intent. It aims to answer questions about your product or service quickly and clearly explain how visitors can take action. It uses headers and short paragraphs. And it’s written for humans first, with search engines in mind second.
Web copy also heavily impacts Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).
AEO is the practice of improving how often and how accurately your business appears in AI-generated answers on platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and even AI features like Google’s Overviews. It depends on writing clear, direct answers in the first 40–60 words of each section, using natural language headers, and using a self-contained structure that can be easily crawled.
HubSpot’s AEO tools (currently in beta) let you track how your brand shows up in AI-generated answers and act on recommendations using your existing content tools.
Resources:
Long-Form Content
Long-form content includes ebooks, whitepapers, guides, and deep-dive articles. These pieces take more time to produce, but they deliver more value as well.
Good long-form writing isn’t just long — it’s thorough. It anticipates follow-up questions, uses internal links to related resources, and gives readers exactly what they need without padding. Long-form content lets brands share more knowledge and build authority. The greater value warrants putting it behind a form and makes readers more willing to convert.
Resource: The Ins and Outs of Writing Long-Form Content
Scripts and Show Notes
Video scripts and podcast show notes are a growing category of content writing. A script gives a presenter structure and keeps a video on message. Show notes make a podcast episode discoverable via search and give listeners a place to reference the links and information mentioned.
Writing for audio and video is different from writing to be read. Sentences are shorter. Language is more conversational. You’re writing for the ear, not the eye. Speaking from experience, I even remember expanding scripts when they were turned into show notes or transcriptions for blog articles.
Pro tip: HubSpot Content Hub’s Podcast Software lets you create, edit, and publish podcasts with AI assistance, including transcripts you can repurpose into blog posts and social content. That’s the kind of content workflow that saves hours every week.
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What does a content writer do?
A content writer creates written content that helps a brand attract, engage, and convert its target audience. A content writer’s role spans strategy and execution — not just writing, but writing the right things for the right people at the right time.
Core Responsibilities
Here’s what content writers typically handle:
- Research. Dig into the topic, the audience, and the competitive landscape before writing a single word. Research sometimes also involves interviewing subject matter experts.
- Drafting. Write clear, accurate, and engaging content in the brand’s voice.
- Editing. Review and revise drafts for clarity, accuracy, and style.
- SEO/AEO optimization. Research keywords, incorporate them naturally, and structure content for search engines — and increasingly, for AI answer engines.
- Collaboration. Work with designers, SEO specialists, product marketers, and subject matter experts.
- Performance analysis. Track how content performs and use that data to improve future work.
Content writers who understand AEO will have a serious advantage going forward. 42% of CRM software buyers now use AI search as part of their evaluation process, according to HubSpot research — and that shift extends well beyond CRM. Visibility increasingly comes from being cited in the answer, not just ranked near it.
Content Writing Tips to Level Up Your Work
- Answer your audience's questions.
- Offer a unique perspective and voice.
- Be thorough.
- Aim for clarity.
- Use a hook to grab your reader's attention.
- Use formatting to your advantage.
- Optimize for search engines and AI answer engines.
- Diversify your mediums and platforms.
- Incorporate multimedia to break up text.
- Include timely and relevant calls-to-action (CTAs).
- Edit ruthlessly.
- Incorporate original quotes from thought leaders and experts.
- Make it about the reader.
- Support your claims with examples and data.
- Use AI as a writing partner, not a ghostwriter.
1. Answer your audience’s questions.
Effective content is rooted in helping people. And more often than not, that help is an answer to a question. That’s why the industry calls them search “queries.”
In content marketing, aim to answer people’s questions about your product, service, or industry. Addressing these concerns (good and bad) helps you stand out as a trustworthy, honest resource and also helps combat objections or calm hesitations someone might have about purchasing.
In fact, Demand Gen Report’s Content Preferences Benchmark Survey found that 89% of B2B buyers downloaded and consumed content to inform their research and purchase decisions.
Point-of-sale company Toast does a great job of answering common questions for restaurateurs on its blog.
Pro tip: Not sure what questions your buyers are asking? Every buyer cares about cost, reviews, and how a product compares to competitors, but talk to your sales team. They hear the real objections every day.
You can also try social listening. HubSpot’s Social Inbox can help you track questions that come up in conversations around your brand.
2. Offer a unique perspective and voice.
Whenever I write a blog article, I do online research — even on topics I know well, like this one. But content won’t rank (or keep people reading) if it just rehashes what already exists.
For content writing to succeed, it needs your brand’s unique perspective, expertise, and voice. That’s what readers can’t find anywhere else.
When I know a topic well, I start by outlining everything I’d discuss off the top of my head. Then I search it. I look for what’s already out there, what I might have missed, and how I can approach it differently. I often pull in advice from my peers and other industry leaders for added value and support.
When I don’t know a topic well, I lean more heavily on internal experts or find reputable external sources on LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, and podcasts, then reflect on and explain those ideas through my own marketing experience.
The bottom line: always come back to your personal knowledge and tips. Give readers something original, even if it’s just your opinion or a unique twist on a best practice. That’s your differentiator.
Neil Patel is a master of this in content writing. For instance, this article on getting YouTube subscribers doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but Patel leaves no stone unturned as he weaves his signature voice (and face) throughout.
Pro tip: If your brand has multiple writers, a content style guide keeps everyone’s voice consistent. Here’s a simple template for a thorough content style guide to get you started.
3. Be thorough.
Great content doesn’t scratch the surface. It goes deep enough to address all the questions someone might have.
This doesn’t mean every piece needs to be a novel. But it does mean offering clarity and even pointing to additional resources.
At HubSpot, we do this regularly:
In a snippet from one of my articles, I explicitly acknowledge that a reader may want more and point them to where they can find it. That’s good user experience.
Quality content writing anticipates a user’s needs and delivers on them. Internal linking also keeps people on your site and signals to search engines that these pages are related.
4. Aim for clarity.
I love wordplay. Punderland is my natural habitat. But content writers must prioritize clarity as a non-negotiable principle in all written material.
To deliver value and have readers actually grasp your message, they need to understand it. Minimize jargon. Simplify your sentence structure. Write so that anyone — familiar with your industry or not — can follow along.
Complicated writing risks your message not landing and can frustrate a potential buyer into bouncing to a competitor. The goal is to be clever and clear. Apple does this better than almost anyone.
5. Use a hook to grab your reader’s attention.
Your intro is your best shot at convincing someone to keep reading. Use it.
Sometimes a hook comes naturally, especially on topics you’re passionate about. For trickier subjects, my HubSpot teammate Caroline Forsey has good advice: “Pull back and look at the bigger picture.”
She explains that while “rel=nofollow” isn’t inherently fascinating, what is interesting is how Google changes its regulations and what that means for a business trying to reach new audiences. She led with that angle, setting up her hook with a vivid scene: herself as a Wikipedia editor, getting paid $500 to link to a fake news website.
(Now you’re interested, aren’t you?)
Your passion for writing and curiosity about the bigger picture will help you craft hooks that compel readers to continue reading.
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6. Use formatting to your advantage.
How you present content is just as important as what you say. Poor formatting can make even great writing hard to digest for both humans and search and AI engines, especially on mobile.
Some formatting best practices:
- Keep paragraphs short—three visual lines, max. Even a single sentence can be its own paragraph.
- Break up content with headings. It helps readers find what they need and helps Google understand your page.
- Use numbered or bulleted lists to organize key information and draw the eye.
- Bold, italics, and underlining help key points stand out.
- Add visual or interactive elements. Videos, images, charts, and GIFs can drive home your message and give readers a break from text.
Litmus is a great example of effective formatting in action.
7. Optimize for search engines and AI answer engines.
Your writing can be genius, but no one will read it if they can’t find it. That’s why every content writer needs to understand search engine optimization (SEO), and increasingly, AEO.
SEO basics to know:
- Research your target keyword before you write
- Use the keyword naturally in your title, intro, headers, and throughout the piece
- Optimize your technical SEO (i.e., file sizes, add alt text, and use schema where appropriate)
The same goes for AEO, but with even more emphasis on structure. According to HubSpot’s AEO guide, AI answer engines favor clearly structured, extractable content with concise answers and a logical flow. Practically, that means:
- Leading with your direct answer in the first 40–60 words of each section
- Writing headers as natural-language questions
- Making each section self-contained. AI systems often extract individual passages.
What we like: HubSpot Content Hub includes SEO recommendations built right into the platform. It helps you identify optimization opportunities and prioritize them without switching between tools. And HubSpot’s AEO tools (beta) let you track how often your brand is cited in AI-generated answers and act on that data fast. Content Hub also lets users create templates that help maintain a clear, crawlable structure on webpages and blog articles.
Resources:
8. Diversify your mediums and platforms.
SEO is critical for search, but discovery and engagement no longer happen in one place.
HubSpot research shows social media is the preferred product discovery channel for Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X. Different audiences also consume information in different ways. So, if you’re only writing one type of content, you’re likely missing a chunk of your audience.
Write for a variety of platforms and formats (i.e., blogs, emails, social, video scripts) based on where your audience actually spends time. The more content you’re creating, the more opportunities you have to get found.
Resources:
- How to Write an Effective Email: 14 Pro Tips
- Social Media Copywriting: Expert Tips for 5 Platforms
- How to Write a Video Script
9. Incorporate multimedia to break up text.
Adding videos, images, graphs, or other multimedia makes long content easier to consume. Consider my article, “The Ultimate Guide to Product Marketing.”
That blog post is nearly 6,000 words long. But I broke it up by embedding videos and other multimedia elements (like images) to keep the reader engaged. I also use things like a table of contents to make it easier to find what you need.
Pro tip: Use multimedia as a cross-promotion opportunity. For instance, if your company has a podcast, embed relevant episodes in related blog posts. Your readers get more value; your podcast gets more listeners. If you post to YouTube, link to an article or resource in the description. Win-win.
10. Include timely and relevant calls-to-action (CTAs).
Your job as a content writer isn’t just to inform; it’s to convert readers into prospects and customers. That means knowing when and how to include CTAs.
A CTA can be anything: subscribe to a newsletter, read a related article, download a resource, or start a free trial. What matters is that it’s relevant to the content and appropriate for where the reader is in their buyer’s journey.
HubSpot’s YouTube video descriptions are a great example. The CTAs point to related Academy courses — not jarring, not off-topic, and a natural next step after watching.
11. Edit ruthlessly.
Good content writing is impossible without good editing. When I finish a first draft, I set it aside, come back with fresh eyes, and cut whatever doesn’t earn its place.
Fix grammatical errors. Resolve structural issues. And cut the fluff — filler words, redundancies, clichés, anything that weakens or distracts from your message. Most readers are busy. Get to the point.
You can also use tools like Grammarly or the Hemingway App to catch what you miss. They’re not perfect, but a second pass never hurts.
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12. Incorporate original quotes from thought leaders and experts.
No matter how solid your writing is, readers won’t always take your word for things. Expert quotes and original insights change that.
My teammate Caroline Forsey puts it well: “Even if you’re an expert, consider providing alternative opinions to create a more well-rounded argument. If you’re writing ‘Video vs. Podcast: Which Is Better?‘ see if you can get quotes from podcasters and video producers. Expert quotes impress readers and show them that what they’re finding on your website is available elsewhere. And that’s powerful.”
When Forsey wrote an article on protecting your mental health while working from home, she brought in a psychologist to provide the tips. That extra insight is what took the content from good to great.
13. Make it about the reader.
Nothing gets someone’s attention like hearing what’s in it for them.
In content writing, this means framing your topic around your reader’s needs, goals, or challenges, not your product features.
Let’s say you’re creating an ebook: “A Comprehensive Guide to Excel,” for example. Not exactly gripping. But what if you framed it around how Excel is critical for specific functions or how it can help make certain tasks easier? Suddenly, it matters a lot more, right?
Content writing is about more than stringing together coherent sentences. It’s about making readers feel like this was written for them.
14. Support your claims with examples and data.
Even experts don’t always get taken at their word — and that’s okay. Examples and data ground your advice in reality. They show you’re not making things up. They illustrate how readers can apply your advice in practice.
It’s about showing, not telling. Pro Tip: Using original or exclusive data and examples is even better for your SEO and AEO, as it shows thought leadership and encourages others to cite your page.
15. Use AI as a writing partner, not a ghostwriter.
Generative AI is here, and it’s changing how content gets made. Tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and HubSpot’s AI writing tools can help generate blog posts, titles, social captions, and outlines in seconds.
But AI doesn’t do the content writing for you — at least not the good kind.
According to Semrush’s 2024 AI Content Marketing Report, 67% of businesses are already using AI for content marketing and SEO. CMI’s 2025 B2B survey found that 81% of B2B marketing teams now use generative AI tools— up from 72% the year before. But only 19% have integrated AI into their daily workflows. The gap is real: AI can start the engine, but humans still need to drive.
Here’s how to use AI well:
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Give it context. When prompting your AI tool, share what the content is about, who it’s for, and what you’re trying to accomplish. Be as specific and detailed as possible. Vague prompts produce vague output.
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Be specific about format. Tell the AI which keywords to target, the ideal length, and the format you need — bulleted list vs. paragraphs, formal vs. conversational. The more detail you give, the more on-target the result.
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Workshop your prompts. If the first output misses the mark, iterate. Rewrite the prompt. Ask the AI to expand a specific section. Keep refining until you have something you can actually use.
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Use AI to summarize research. Doing research for an upcoming post? Paste a long article into your AI tool and ask it to summarize the key points as a bulleted list. Fast, focused, and helpful for getting the information you need without reading every word.
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Always be you. AI is trained on existing content. Only humans can create something genuinely new. Use AI for inspiration and to jump-start your process — but don’t paste output verbatim, or your content will read like anyone and everyone wrote it. Your voice is the differentiator. Protect it.
What we like: HubSpot Content Hub helps teams create, optimize, manage, and repurpose content across blogs, social, and email — all from one place. Breeze Assistant, built into Content Hub, supports the full content-generation workflow from research and outlining to drafting and optimization. It helps you move faster without losing what makes your content worth reading.
That said, let’s look at some examples of powerful content writing in action.
Examples of Great Content Writing
1. “The Code” — Dove
What I like: Dove stays true to its “real beauty” brand and makes it relevant today by addressing how generative AI affects that brand promise. The video is simple and clear, but what I really love is the video description.
It covers Dove’s commitment, pulls in data, and includes natural CTAs — hitting almost every tip in this article.
2. “The Player Series Players: Haim Discusses Their Fender Love” — Fender
What I like: Fender’s post promotes a product but tells a human story. It’s short, uses embedded video and vivid imagery, and smartly links to the products featured. Classic show-don’t-tell.
3. “The 5 Best Morning Routine Ideas of Highly-Productive People” — Trello
What I like: Trello’s article never mentions Trello’s product. It just addresses what their audience cares about — being more productive. That restraint is a superpower. It drives SEO and builds brand affinity without a hard sell.
4. “Retailers, No Need to Spend a Fortune on Voice AI to See Results” — SoundHound
What I like: SoundHound’s post speaks directly to one specific audience segment: retailers. Great content writers always write with a specific person in mind. This post also uses statistics and concrete examples to prove value, not just claim it.
5. “Holy Basil: Our Antioxidant Friend” — Parallel Health
What I like: Parallel Health’s article speaks to skincare enthusiasts with a taste for science — exactly their target audience. It focuses on what’s in their products and why it benefits the reader, making customers feel good about their purchase—smart, specific, and audience-first.
Frequently Asked Questions About Content Writing
Good news: you’ve made it this far, which means you’re serious about leveling up. Here are a few more questions I get asked often.
What does a content writer do?
A content writer creates written content that helps a brand attract, engage, and convert its target audience. Their responsibilities include research, drafting, editing, SEO optimization, collaboration with other teams, and analyzing content performance. Most content writers work across multiple formats — blogs, emails, social media, landing pages, and more.
What is a content writing example?
A content writing example could be a blog post answering a common customer question, a product landing page designed to drive sign-ups, a weekly email newsletter, or a social media caption. The common thread: each piece is written with a specific audience, goal, and channel in mind.
Do content writers get paid?
Yes — and it can be a solid career. According to Glassdoor, the average content writer in the U.S. earns around $84,000 per year. Freelancers typically charge per word, per hour, or per project, with rates varying widely based on experience and niche.
Which topic is best for content writing?
The best topic sits at the intersection of three things: what your audience wants to know, what your brand has the authority to speak on, and what has search or discovery potential. For most marketers, that means topics tied to your product’s problem space — the questions buyers are already asking before they find you.
Start getting content write.
At the end of the day, everyone has their own writing style — and every brand’s audience responds to different things.
Use what’s in this article to start experimenting. Test your hooks. Tighten your structure. Get your content cited in AI-generated answers, not just ranked in traditional search. And above all, make every piece worth the reader’s time.
If you want to keep building, here are two more resources worth bookmarking: a roundup of the best free content marketing tools to support your workflow, and a guide to the best AI writing generators if you want to explore what AI-assisted writing looks like in practice.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2025 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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