Food for thought

The Difference Between Content Writing for Websites and Essays 

  1. By Maria Zosimo
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10 Jul

person typing

As a student, writing essays is part and parcel of life at school. But when you graduate, not only will your life change, so does your writing. That’s when you’ll know the many types of writing that you need to learn if you want to pursue a career in writing. Content writing for websites is one skill you need to learn. A Social Media Examiner survey shows that 58% of marketers believe that original written content is the most important type of content. It surpasses videos and visuals in all of their marketing strategies. 

According to the World Economic Forum, there are roughly 1.7 billion websites in 2019, 200 million of them are active. That’s a sea of opportunities for someone who knows content writing for websites. To understand better what content writing is versus essay writing, here are seven differences between the two: 

 

What is Content Writing for Websites? 

While an essay aims to share a person’s thoughts or opinions on a specific subject, content writing encompasses a broader scope. Blog writing, news reporting, product reviews, even essays fall under it. Generally, content writing for websites consists of writing for or about a service or product. 

Its primary purpose is to educate a target market or audience about a brand and its offerings. In short, content writing for websites is primarily for commercial use, while essays are for academic and personal consumption. An essay is a piece created to a subject that’s not related to business. 

 

The Purpose 

question mark

As mentioned earlier, an essay is mostly about a writer’s thoughts and opinions. Although both content writing for websites and essay writing share the same need for facts, content writing is different in its purpose. The objective of writing an essay is to convey the writer’s feelings on their choice of topics. 

On the other hand, content writing intends to attract a particular audience. The writing has to be done in such a way that it gets the attention of the said market. When writing content for websites, there are quantifiable outcomes that the writer expects to achieve. It could be to promote a brand, to increase sales, or to build connections with the readers. 

 

Where the Writing is Used 

businessman

Content writing for websites does precisely that—to fill a website with the content that it needs. Every block of text that you see on a website was written by a content writer. Be it a blog article, a product description, or the script for a video, these are all under the content writing umbrella. 

As for essay writing, you can generally find them mostly for use in academic studies. So it’s quite understandable that after getting out of college, you’d be surprised that you’ll be writing essays less and less. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a career writing essays, because you can as there is a market for it as well.

 

The Style 

laptop

Essay writing involves graceful words that will keep the piece interesting. Although writing content for websites can also require you to do this, most of the time, you must be straightforward and direct to the point. As an example, content writing for websites that are technical in nature. A user manual needs to have accuracy and detailed information and devoid of any flowery words or descriptions. 

Although both content and essay writing need persuasion in the writing style, the intensity can be different. With essays, you will want to persuade but not as much as you want when you write content for websites. When writing for business or commercial purposes, you want to have as much persuasive powers to get measurable results. 

 

The Length 

measuring tape

With essays, you can write in a free-flowing manner without having much regard with the length of your sentences or paragraphs. When writing content for websites, you have to make your piece snackable—writing in short sentences—to avoid losing the interest of your readers. 

Content writing for websites means you have to engage the readers throughout the article. This is because business websites often compete with millions of others to get the attention of readers. It is more goal-driven than writing essays because it has a result that it needs to accomplish. 

 

The Tone of Voice 

microphone

Essay writers have more freedom when it comes to the tone of voice that they want to set for their pieces. They have the option of writing in a tone that reflects their personality or the topic’s demands. This is not the case when writing for website content. 

Content writing has to have the tone of voice that the brand or business you’re writing for expects from the article. A content writer has to entice people to take action on the brand’s behalf. They have to base their writings on parameters specified by the brand. 

 

The Choice of Words 

scrabble letters

Content writing for websites entails the use of words that are not the writers’ choices. When writing essays, you have the option of using the words you think will be the most appropriate for your piece. That’s not the case with content writing. 

With content writing, you have to include keywords that will help the article or website rank high in search engines. This is something essay writers don’t bother doing. Their main concern is to impart information while content for a website has engagement, traffic, and conversions to consider. 

 

Time Constraints 

typing

An essay writer doesn’t have much time constraints on their hands as opposed to what a content writer faces. Yes, there are deadlines for essays, but not as rigid as what content writers have in their daily writing lives. 

A content writer has to have the energy and skills to write about anything at the drop of a hat. Coming out with content that pulls in the sales can be challenging, especially when you add a timeline to it. Ask any content writer, and they will tell you about deadline after deadline for different clients and writing styles.

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