Create Value When You Write

The prevailing craze to make money from online content creation is preventing some writers from putting their readers first. The most important push to write should be to benefit the readers in some way, to contribute something positive or add value to their lives.

When you do this as a writer, you will not only be lifting the readers, you will be lifting yourself and your writing too. So, see this post as appealing to your enlightened self-interest – in helping others, in serving their interests, you serve yours as well.

How can you do this? Find a purpose for your writing that will add value to the reader’s life. In fact, for your article to hit its mark, you need to have a clearly-defined purpose for it. You may not always know at the outset where you’re going with a piece, but somewhere along the line you have to determine what you want to do with it, or better still, what you want it to do for your reader.

• Do you want to inform him of some new trends or events?
• Do you want to teach him how to do something or offer him more insight into things he may already know?
• Do you want to change his mind or behaviour in some respect?
• Do you want to relieve him of stress?

These are some of the reasons one could write.

Of course, you can do more than one of these but you shouldn’t take someone on a verbal excursion without offering him something. You must have heard people complain online, “I just wasted 5 minutes of my life.” You don’t want to be the one responsible for that complaint.

Just like someone who wants to do well in business focuses on his customers, your purpose should be about what you can do for the reader through your piece. Even if you’re writing personal stuff for catharsis, the aim should be to offer a vicarious response to the reader or help him navigate a similar terrain when necessary.

If you’re writing just for traffic, fame and money, you probably won’t take my advice. But there’s little fulfilment in writing merely for such ends. And that approach may ultimately backfire as people irritated by your content seek out those who add value to their lives.

Moreover, if you’re a Christian writer, you know that your writing is meant to be a service to God and your fellow man. So you pray that whatever you turn out, spiritual or secular, will enrich whoever reads it in some way.

The advice in this post can be condensed into the following three items. I hope it inspires you along those lines.

1. Don’t write aimlessly. Have a purpose for whatever you write.
2. Create value through your writing. Add something good to the reader’s life.
3. Don’t create debasing or corrupting content. Do not promote salacious, gory and avaricious stuff that will influence some people to act in kind down the line.

Takeaway: Let each article you write add value to the reader.

Picture credit: Sam Lion on Pexels

NB: I published a different version of this article under the title, “Writing Tips: What’s the Purpose of the Article You’re Writing?” in my Facebook group, Inspiring Quotes, Poems and Stories, on Apr. 20, 2021.