How to Write "Good Content"

A simple guide to writing things people want to read.

Photo by Myznik Egor on Unsplash

I’ve written thousands of pieces of content online.

I don’t think about that number often.

When you focus more on the future than the past, the volume tends to pile up and I don’t keep track of what I’m doing. I try to just keep getting my reps in.

This year alone, I’ve written over 100 articles on Substack, several hundred Instagram posts, and hundreds of tweets. I’ve also ghostwritten at least a hundred pieces of content for clients to which my name isn’t attached.

That’s a lot of writing and I’ve learned a lot this year.

As we approach the end of the year and a time for reflection, here are some of the most important things that I have learned this year about writing impactful content.

Here’s how you write better content.

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Good content solves a problem.

There are a lot of different problems that people go online to solve, but most of them tend to fall into these categories:

• Money problems

• Relationship problems

• Health problems

My writing content tends to fall into the first bucket most of the time, and my Jiu-Jitsu content tends to fall into the last bucket.

I like to write though, and although I write for a job, not every single post is this optimized, strategic thing that allows me to grow my business.

Sometimes, the posts are just written to get the ideas and feelings off my chest. Sometimes, even though I’m a “professional”, I like to write for therapy.

It’s the same reason that even though I am a professional athlete I sometimes go to train just to make my mind feel better.

However, when the goal is to write high-impact posts that drive leads to help me sell things, my objective as a writer is to solve a potential customer’s problem.

The challenge of writing is that you don’t know what the customer wants until you start writing.

Good content keeps it simple.

A friend told me a few days ago that the average American communicates at about an 8th-grade reading level.

I don’t know if this is true — at times a 5th-grade reading level seems more accurate — but the point remains.

If you’re trying to write things that people want to read, you probably don’t need to be as esoteric as you think. You need to be simple, understandable, and fun.

This was my most viewed article of 2024 on Medium:

“The Little Secret That Top Performers Don’t Tell You About”

This was my most popular Instagram post of the year:

“The Pros and Cons of Doing Jiu-Jitsu”

The more niche a piece, the harder it will be to appreciate. The harder it is to appreciate thus the harder it will be to make money off of it.

Good content — content that drives your business forward — is that which answers a specific problem in the simplest terms possible.

Here’s a list of words that I try to use in headlines of pieces that are aiming to be high-engagement:

• Simple

• Hard

• Easy

• Essential

• Why

• How

• Habits

• Lessons

• Pros and Cons

• Skills

• Systems

• Steps

• One/Single

• Truths

• Reason

• Books/Podcast/Resources

There’s more, but hopefully, you can see how you can attach an idea to all of these words and generate dozens (or even hundreds) of pieces of writing.

Good content tells a story.

The final aspect of a piece of impactful content that I want to highlight is the ability to tell a story with your lessons.

I started here, learned this, connected this dot, and finally put it all together in this little system or idea.

You need to take your lessons, truths, or whatever other framework you’re using to share your lessons and solve your problem, and then you need to do it in a way that gives a narrative (either directly or indirectly) for your reader to follow.

Creative content starts with your reader’s problem, goes through your lessons, and provides an actionable framework for the reader to follow.

This is why people love reading stories about weight loss journeys or fitness journeys and the actionable systems that the storytellers provide.

At the end of the story and system, you have the opportunity to share a product that can help your reader live a better life or solve their problems.

“Good content” does this in the most easily digestible and actionable way.

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Closing Thoughts

When I first started writing online, I didn’t have any idea what I was doing.

I had stories and lessons that I’d learned just like anyone who decides to start posting content online, but I didn’t have the ability to break these stories and lessons down into “good content”.

The main reason was that I didn’t have a system. I didn’t understand how “good content” works.

I didn’t understand the types of problems that were best for me to solve, the best ways to solve those problems, and the little tricks that make content more impactful.

Hopefully, with this article, you have more of an idea of how you can write things that stand out:

• Solve a problem

• Keep it simple

• Tell a story

There’s obviously more to it than this, but you can really boil the basics of content creation into 9 words.

Just remember, although it may take only 9 words to understand these ideas, it will take millions more to master them.

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