Gaming Tips: Top tips for writing internet gaming content

The demand for quality content has never been greater and so is the demand for good content writers. If you’re new to the freelance writing scene, finding your first assignment for your skill set may prove somewhat difficult. When I was first starting out and searching for a gig, I found a sheer abundance of calls for igaming content, which wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But I attempted my first slot review, and nowadays, gaming content is one of my favourite things to write. And – jaw-dropping surprise – I haven’t transformed into a gambler in the process.

Here’s how you too can become a good casino writer without having to hook up the latest gaming PC model in your living room.

Visit the original site

Getting your information from the horse’s mouth is essential if you want your text to be as accurate as possible. Take it as a rule to visit the actual site you are writing about, or, if you’re doing a slot review, try a demo version for free. This way you can be absolutely sure that what you are writing is correct. Visiting the FAQ section is always worth a shot too. You can even contact customer service – they’re usually more than happy to help out.

Read a lot of reviews

Say you’re writing a review about a particular casino. Reading older reviews about the same casino will give you a very detailed idea of what a good review should look like. Compare a few different ones and pretty soon you’ll be able to draft your own writing plan. If you are at least able to plan the number and titles of your sub-headers, you’ll have accomplished a lot on your first foray into gaming content.

Research the correct websites

Like we’ve said, you’ll probably find a lot of information on the internet, but the discerning casino writer will need to carefully pick and choose what to include in their text. Your best bet is to cross-reference information from different sources, and always check that the site is regularly updated. Check out our Topcontent guides for a list of tried-and-tested sources.

Familiarise yourself with the most common gaming terms

Once you plunge into the world of gaming content, you’ll come across plenty of unfamiliar words. We hate to tell you, but you’ll both need to use and understand what these words mean if you want to be a good casino writer. Fortunately, there are plenty of comprehensive glossaries that can shed some light on the most common gaming terms, and you’ll be writing fluent casino before you know it.

Include the important information

After reading a few sample reviews, you should be able to surmise what information should or should not be included in your text. Remember that your target audience will usually be potential customers/gamers who will want to learn as much as possible about their next virtual destination. Important information you can include is listed below:

• Games library
• Software provided
• Most popular games
• Casino/game history or background
• Bonuses and promotions
• Payment methods
• User friendliness

Get the tone right

The last point to keep in mind is that, when you are writing casino, you are usually making an informed critique. This is why you should keep your tone as objective, but informative, as possible, even if you are required to point out negative as well as positive aspects. Try to remember that you want to engage your audience since you want them to persuade them to start playing.

Get writing!

Now you’ve learnt how to churn out some cool gaming content, why not give it a shot? learn more!

Satire Tips – Five Things You Should Know About Writing Satire

Writing satire isn’t easy, but I think every writer owes it to themselves to learn more about this particular mode of storytelling. For those in need of a definition, The Oxford Dictionary defines satire as “the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” If that sounds too deep, it shouldn’t—chances are you’ve probably read books or watched movies and TV shows which are satirical without even realising it.

So, what exactly does satire mean for writers? Does knowing about satire make any difference to the type of stories you write? Personally, I’d say yes. I’m a big fan and advocate of satirical fiction and I do try my best to make my characters and my stories as socially relevant as possible. So, if you’re thinking of dipping your toes into uncharted waters to experiment with writing satire, here are some important steps to get you started.

1. Don’t be afraid of exaggeration

2. Make the normal appear abnormal or vice versa

3. Flip things on their head and subvert them

4. Use the art of imitation to take the mickey

5. Don’t worry about being laugh-out-loud funnylearn more!

Examples of Satire

Common forms of satire are irony, sarcasm, and parody. Famous satirical writers include Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, and Mark Twain. They criticized the world around them with outlandish settings, over-the-top characters, and clever wordplay. Satire writers primarily use irony, sarcasm, and parody as devices in their written work.

Irony

In irony, the words are used to show the opposite of the actual meaning. With verbal irony, you say one thing and mean another. Situational irony occurs when what actually happens is not what was expected. Irony in satire can make the audience unconsciously agree with you.

A great example of irony comes from the plot of the movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The supposedly all-powerful Wizard turned out to be an average man. The story satirizes the perception of power with irony – those who seem to have the most control are often hiding behind their own curtains.

Sarcasm

Sarcasm is a bitter remark, jibe, or taunt. Sometimes it is humorous in the way it makes its point; other times it is serious and painful. Sarcasm is an effective satirical tool when a speaker makes a point that mocks the listener’s perception.

Some examples of sarcasm include:

"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." - Vince Lombardi

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception." - Groucho Marx

Parody

When you take the form of an existing written work, song, or movie, you can use parody to make fun of that work. A movie like Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a humorous parody of the James Bond movies. Weird Al Yankovich has built a career on parodying popular songs, such as “Amish Paradise” for Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “Bohemian Polka” for Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

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Poetry Tips - 8 Tips to Improve Your Poetry

It’s surprising that despite most people’s lifetime of writing school papers, cards and story’s, most people have never sat down to write poetry. As one of the most intimate writing styles, poetry in many forms has been celebrated for its ability to evoke strong emotions from readers. If your looking improve your poetry writing, or start writing now, here are our top 8 tips for amazing and impactful writing.

1. Know your end goal

How do you want to make people feel after they read your poem? Do you want to question the status quo or describe the beauty of nature? Do you want them to be shocked, happy, sad or angry? Try to be able to answer these questions before you even put pen to paper.

2. Avoid cliches or common subjects

It may seem like everything has already been written about everything, but really try to push yourself to think outside of the box when writing.

3. Embrace metaphors and similes

Not to contradict ourselves with the last tip, but just because you shouldn’t be cliche doesn’t mean you have to avoid using any and all metaphors. Remember that comparison and inference via metaphors can really elevate your writing.

4. Use images

Whether you put just one at the beginning or end, or have images through the entire poem, try to include visual art to draw people in and bring your words to life.

5. Use concrete words over abstract words

If someone finishes your poem and has no idea what they just read, that’s probably not a good thing. State what you need to say directly and to the point. One of the most common mistakes poets make is over complicating their writing, or using too many abstract words.

6. Understand your theme

Know the difference between a theme and a topic. A specific war may be the topic, but it’s not a theme. A theme may be how war affects those who serve, or the struggle man has between desire for peace and war.

7. It doesn’t have to rhyme

Too often, poets get it stuck in their had that a poem is not a poem unless it rhymes. In reality, most poems don’t rhyme. Make sure you understand your audience and subject and use rhyming words sparingly.

8. Read, revise, read, revise

The advice your high school English teacher gave you was very good (even if you didn’t take it at the time). Write until you think the piece is perfect, then sleep on it for a night or two. After at least 1 full day, re read it and make corrections with fresh eyes. Keep doing this until you know this is your best work.

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Blogs Tips - Blog Writing Tips To Produce Great Content

A blog is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Wikipedia

1. Pick Your Topic

Before you start writing, you need to decide what you’d like to cover in the article. One helpful resource for this is your clients and customers. Think about the questions they ask you regularly. If there is a question you get asked often, it likely means there are many more people wondering about the same question. Brainstorm a list of 10-15 topics to cover to have a sizeable backlog of topics to choose from when you’re ready to write a new article.

2. Formulate An Outline

Put together a list of the main points included in the article and then group those points into common themes or put them in a logical progression to build your outline. For example, if you’re writing an article about securely backing up your data, you’d want the article to follow a step-by-step process to explain this to the reader. Keep in mind that the outline you build isn’t set in stone. You can always expand upon certain points or remove ideas that don’t make sense once you get started writing.

3. Understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Blog articles are a valuable tool for driving more traffic to your site through search engines. Each article is an opportunity to optimize for keywords that you wouldn’t normally be able to optimize for on a static page on your site.

The most important thing to understand about SEO for blog articles is that you should always write for people first. Search engines love content that provides value to readers. Make sure you’re covering a topic that people want to read about and that your article is a helpful resource.

With that said, you should still pay attention to keywords as you write. Before getting started, a little bit of keyword research can go a long way. Try to find a few keywords that people search for often and incorporate them into the article’s content.

However, make sure you use those keywords naturally. Don’t force keywords in to include them. Remember, we’re writing for people first.

4. Make Content Skimmable

As you start developing your content, make sure you break down blocks of text with bullet points or sub-titles. Online, people tend to skim articles rather than read them word for word. Paragraphs should be no more than 5 sentences, and if you find yourself listing off items or steps, break them into bullet points to make it easier to read.

5. Illustrate Your Point with Images

Images visually break up the text of the article, which makes it more skimmable for readers. They can also help illustrate the point you are trying to make. If you cite research or specific data in your article, try to include a chart or graph visualizing the data.

6. Tell People What To Do

As you reach the end of your article, tell people what you want them to do with the information you have given them. It can be a good idea to include a call to action (CTA). However, people don’t come to blog articles for a hard sales pitch. Be mindful of your CTAs.

Instead of immediately pushing for someone to buy from you, try to encourage them to take a small step through your sales funnel. It might mean a CTA that asks them to subscribe to your email newsletter or asks them to download an ebook.

7. Read and Re-read

Once you have finished a post, leave it and come back to it later with a fresh mind and fresh eyes. Read and re-read it for grammatical errors and ensure that you have brought your points concisely, with points logically flowing one after the other. Look at your title again and see if you can fit an important keyword into it. Reviewing your own work is hard, but there are a couple of nifty tools that can help you with that: Grammarly: This writing app includes a grammar checker and gives you tips that are relevant to your style. Hemmingway app: Just like the famous writer, this app is all about keeping your writing style bold and clear. It’ll guide you through cutting out any unnecessary words. If possible, have someone else read through the article for typos and ensure your article flows nicely.

8. Make Use of Social Media

Finally, attract more readers to your article by sharing it on social media. Tools like HootSuite and Buffer can help you manage your social media and schedule posts in advance. You can also add sharing buttons directly to your articles through tools like AddThis.

If you want to be even more aggressive about reaching a larger audience, you can also run ads on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn promoting your article to people with a specific interest in the topics you cover.

Final Thoughts

Posting articles regularly is one of the best investments you can make in your website’s long-term strength and health. If you’re having trouble kicking off your content marketing, or you have a website that isn’t capturing leads and helping your business grow, then Pronto can help with redesigning your website and write custom blog articles for your business!

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