I am writing this content because most people in my company have a lot of interesting things to write about. But they don’t… They feel like they don’t know how to do it. This is frustrating to me.

Now I have been coaching them, but the company keeps growing. So I decided to write a master content for them and for anyone that wants to share his knowledge and WRITE.

Writing allows you to theorize what you do, to take a break and value your work. It is also great for your personal branding. So go for it !

This guide is going to be very practical and straight to the point. I will share great pieces of content, tools, templates and reflexes you will follow to write in a way that people can read.

My goal is not to turn you into a Victor Hugo but to an effective writer.

Bear with me, in 5 minutes you will know how to write the best content of your life.

I am French, and one of our many flaws is that we like to show our best side. So either we are very good at something and we do it, or we don’t even try it to escape a shameful experience. This is especially true with writing. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

French literature has such an important part in our history. Every time French people write they have an impostor syndrome. They compare themselves to Victor Hugo’s.

This is also true for the rest of the world. People think that because they are not content writers, they don’t know how to write. This is wrong.

EVERYBODY CAN WRITE !!!!

Even this guy from a stock photo. I don’t even understand what he is doing. Why put a table against another table?

Photo by Chris Spiegl on Unsplash

The good news is that no one cares about the quality of your writing.

People care about what you are saying and how simple it is to understand what your are saying.

Here is something that people ALWAYS tell me:

I don’t know what to write about. Everything I do is not this amazing or unique…

This is wrong !

First, every job is different. So you are unique !

Second, you don’t need to write something amazing.

You only need to write something you feel you are very good at. How you solved a problem. Because if you had a problem at work, chances are other people with a job like yours had it too.

The more specific the better.

What can you write about ?

1. Tutorials: Problems you solved (e.g: With docker containers we can go to SAAS to On-premise in less that 5 minutes)

2. How you theorized your job (e.g: Marketing is an exploratory science, you don’t need creative people)

3. How you work with your clients (e.g: How Toucan Toco used Trello to collaborate with Ubisoft?)

4. What are you productivity methods (e.g: How to apply agile methodology to your marketing team)

5. Your vision (e.g: Recruitment industry is going to die in 2018)

Where to start my writing ?

Writing is like baking a layer cake. You will scan your articles many times but with a different purpose.

I just love stock photos. Why the hell ? Flowers, eiffel tower, chinese sauce and the layer cake

Photo by Miti on Unsplash

Writing is not having your sentence perfectly written from the get go.

The following list is influenced by a great piece of content on copywriting written by Sam Parr from The Hustle. You should read it.

I felt it was somewhat incomplete so here is my version.

People often start with a plan, or by the title. This means you already know exactly what you are going to say. But usually you don’t.

Planning is the most difficult part. Often you have a lot in your mind, and you should put it down first. Writing is a creative process. You get new ideas as you write.

Here is how the layer looks. At each step you should only focus on this specific layer.

1. Pick your angle: Start with the problem you want to answer.

Write it in your own words. To have a general idea about where you want to go. Not as if someone was going to read you. Don’t make it perfect.

2. Nuggets: Throw up everything you have, others call it the big dump.

Start writing every idea you have. You can do the nuggets method.

Write a big title and write as much as you can under each idea you have. Never look back at what you wrote — it will be hard at first. There is word or a sentence that doesn’t mean anything ? You don’t care. Keep on taking your big fat dump.

Throw everything you have until you have nothing left in your brain. Your doc should now look like 5 to 12 titles with a lot of words under it.

3. Take a break, Have a Kit-Kat

While snacking is bad for your summer body, taking a break is actually a very good idea.

Your brain will process all of what you just did. Plus you should be mentally exhausted from using all of your ideas.

Yummy cookie time !!!

Photo by Alex on Unsplash

4. Make Your Plan ! You’ve been promoted to Editor in chief

So much luck !!! Congrats.

Editors in chief look at the coherence of an article, if there is a good flow.

You can now play with all your ideas so they make sense one behind another.



Like a puzzle.

By placing the right ideas in front of each other, your ideas will then form your article. Some ideas from your nuggets won’t match with your article.

> Put them aside. Keep them for another article.

Remember, your copy is still untouched, it is still very bad, this is the way it should be ✌️ !!!

Now is time to…

5. CUT ! CUT ! CUT !

This is the biggest advice I got from Sam Parr: You shouldn’t get too romantic with the words you’ve written.

He says “Take out the first 10% (most people’s intros suck) and then cut another 35%.”

A lot of the words you wrote are useless.

Here is how to chose what to put aside…

6. Write like Hemingway, Write like you speak.

Ernest Hemingway was well known for his simple style of writing. His goal was to write simple, direct, unadorned prose.

Write at the present tense, kill every word that is not useful. “This chicken is very good” should be “This chicken is good”.

Your sentences should be short and straight to the point. See how my paragraphs are never bigger than 3–5 lines ? This is to improve readability.

When writing on the internet people say you should write with a vocabulary of a 9th grader. A great tool to help you write in simple english is the Hemingway.app.

Do you like Star wars ?

7. Don’t talk like Yoda: Focus on the object/subject first, with action verbs

Talking like Yoda is my specialty. It is my biggest flaw as a writer -see, I’ve done it again. I should have said: As a writer, this is my biggest flaw.

There is also the question of action verbs instead of adverbs.

Here’s a written scene that relies on adjectives instead of verbs. I found this example on Neil Patel guide to copywriting:

“He quickly raised his combat knife to see where his attackers were. He composedly stepped out of his life-saving cover. The black gun menacingly fired two loud shot that quickly found their targets.”

The same scene after powering it up with action verbs:

“He used the reflection in his combat knife to gather a rough idea of their location and stepped out of cover. The gun rattled to life. Each shot whizzed to its destination with lightening fast speed.”

This has more impact.

The next advice is about the next one …

8. On to the next one

Keep in mind that the first sentence should make your reader want to read the next one, and so on and so on.

Every writer is bound to have a few slow spots in their content where the reader’s attention might fade a little. At that point your reader might leave.

There is a simple way to handle this issue says Dustin Walker:

Add a short line at the end of a paragraph that entices the reader to continue onto the next paragraph.

You can be very explicit by using phrases like:

Let me explain.

Stay with me here.

Read on to find out…

Now you can see through me. I overused this in this article haha.

But bear with me here…

9. Eighty cents of every dollar you spend goes into your title

This is what Ogilvy, one of the greatest commercial writer, said about the headlines of each ads they wrote.

David Ogilvy — With Style.

Most marketers I know don’t spend a lot of time on their titles. This is a mistake. Titles are everything, they are the door that people need to open before reading your content.

You should definitely work on it.

There are two different type of titles:

9.1 The Search Title: This is the Meta title where your article will rank on google. This one should focus on what people search on google.

If you want to know what people are searching and how many of them are looking at a specific keywords here is a checklist of free tools.

I personally recommend Wordtracker Scout in that list.

9.2 The Human Title:

This is the title that makes me want to click on social medias. This is the title that is on top of your article. Everyone is so busy today that you should truly spend time on this one.

The great tips from DG from Drift is to use the two following marketing theories…

9.2.1. The 4 U’s methodology.

Your headline should be: Urgent, Unique, Useful and Ultra-specific (they definitely cheated on that one haha). The idea is not to have 4 on 4 but at least have 2 u’s on 4.

e.g: The best way to save the earth tomorrow is to stop eating red meet. Simple AF.

9.2.2. The Gain — Pain approach

How to [achieve the thing they want the most] without [doing the painful stuff they want to avoid]

e.g: How to eat Junk Food everyday without getting fat (Hint: this is a scam)

To go further: here is an excellent video of Drift VP Marketing on copywriting.

10. You wrote for humans, now write for robots

One of the greatest blog on SEO is called Backlinko, they do comprehensive guides to help you understand how google works. Here is a perfect guide to optimise your content so that the most people can find it and read it.

You are almost there…

Writing is 50% of the job

50% writing — 50% distribution

Surpriiiiiiiiiisseeeee ! You thought you were done ? Now you have to spend time distributing your content.

As a rule of thumb you should spend as much time distributing your content than you took time writing it.

BUZZ DOESN’T EXIST… At least not without a great first push.

You can send emails, post it on Quora, Reddit, Linkedin Groups, Facebook Groups, Forums, Hacker News, blogs… Sky is the limit.

Ask influencers what they think about your article, and if they like it, they might share it to their followers.

With tools like Semrush, Ahref or Buzzsumo you can check where people that wrote similar content to you posted on the web. You can publish there to !