If you work in content marketing, you may not have given UX writing much thought.
And why would you?
Content marketing and UX writing are two separate domains, each with its own unique skills, goals, and approaches.
But what if we told you that, despite their differences, there are many ways in which content marketing and UX writing can work in synergy? And, when they do, the impact is pretty powerful—both for the end user and the business.
Not only that. By adding UX writing skills to your toolkit and integrating UX writing best practices into your content marketing, you can greatly improve the quality of your work—and set yourself apart in the job market.
Intrigued? We’ll explain everything in this guide.
UX writing vs. content marketing: what’s the difference?
Both UX writing and content marketing involve creating content for a specific target audience. However, they are two distinct disciplines with different goals.
What is UX writing (also known as content design)?
UX writing is a subset of user experience (UX) design, and UX writers typically sit within the UX or product team. UX writing is the process of creating clear, concise, and intuitive copy for digital product interfaces—like websites and apps.
The goal is to guide the user through the product, contributing to a seamless and enjoyable user experience. As such, the focus is on clarity, functionality, and usability.
Error messages, button text, and onboarding instructions are all examples of UX writing.
Read more: What does a UX writer/content designer do?
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is all about attracting, engaging, and retaining a specific target audience.
It’s much broader in scope, encompassing not only written content like website copy, blog posts, and email newsletters, but also visual and interactive content such as video, social media posts, and infographics.
Content marketing helps to establish brand authority, build trust, and inspire the reader to take a specific action—such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or sharing content with others.
So: while UX writing is all about enhancing usability and functionality within a product, content marketing is more focused on storytelling and persuasion across a variety of channels and platforms.
UX writing skills vs. content marketing skills
UX writers and content marketers are both experts at communicating with their audience. Both roles are highly collaborative, and they share many skills in common, such as:
- Communication and stakeholder management
- Project management
- Research and analysis
- Problem-solving
- The ability to empathise with the target audience and understand their needs, goals, and pain-points
Beyond those similarities, UX writing and content marketing each rely on their own unique skill sets.
UX writers must be adept at crafting concise, user-friendly, functional copy that fits within the product interface. They have a deep understanding of UX design principles and the product design process, and they’re proficient in UX design tools such as Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD.
Content marketers are gifted storytellers and strategists. They require a strong understanding of different marketing channels—such as social media, email, and SEO—and what kinds of content perform well on each.
They’re skilled at writing long-form blog posts, creating copy for social media, writing video scripts, and crafting persuasive, on-brand website copy. They must also be proficient in content marketing tools such as HubSpot, Ahrefs, and WordPress (to name just a few).
So far, we’ve mostly explored how UX writing and content marketing differ. Next, let’s consider where the two disciplines intersect—and how they can help each other.
How can content marketing and UX writing work together?
UX writing and content marketing are two separate disciplines, but they don’t necessarily need to be siloed. When the two work in synergy, you can significantly improve the impact of your content marketing—and the user experience.
Here’s how content marketing and UX writing can work together for maximum value.
Both content marketers and UX writers gather data to help them achieve their goals.
In content marketing, you track engagement metrics such as click-through rate, session duration, time spent on page, and conversion rate. This shows you how engaging each piece of content is for your target audience—allowing you to adjust and optimise accordingly.
Similarly, UX writers conduct user research and testing to understand their target audience and refine the product copy.
By sharing key insights with each other, both teams can make data-driven improvements to better serve the user (and therefore achieve business-related goals).
Let’s say that, while conducting user research for a dating app, the UX writing team discovers that people are currently very concerned about data security. They create new in-product copy to clearly explain how the user’s data is protected.
They also share this insight with the content marketing team, who then creates targeted content (e.g. a series of blog posts) around the topic of data security and privacy in online dating.
Both teams can leverage each other’s insights to boost user engagement and create content that resonates—be that for a marketing campaign or within the product itself.
Both content marketing and UX writing are concerned with user-facing content. As such, they can (and should) work together to ensure consistency.
That’s not to say that in-product copy should align exactly with marketing content, and vice-versa. A long-form blog post would follow a very different style and tone than, say, the onboarding flow in an app.
But when it comes to the overall messaging strategy and product-related terminology, both UX writing and content marketing should be aligned.
Say you’ve got a new feature in a dating app labelled “Match Suggestions”. But, when promoting the feature in ads and email campaigns, the content marketing team refers to it as “Match Discovery”. This inconsistency creates confusion for the audience—and undermines their trust in the product.
By collaboratively establishing guidelines around core terminology and messaging, both UX writers and content marketers can reduce friction, minimise confusion, and ensure a cohesive user experience.
Optimise the user journey from end to end
In content marketing, the goal is to drive users to the product or service. In UX writing, the goal is to ensure a smooth and intuitive interaction with the product or service itself.
By aligning content marketing and UX writing, you can optimise the entire customer journey from end to end—guiding the user seamlessly from initial brand awareness and engagement to ongoing use of the product.
This integrated approach not only enhances the user experience. It also drives key business outcomes such as customer retention, increased sales, and revenue growth.
In short, everybody benefits content marketers, UX writers/content designers, the end user, and the business.
Why add UX writing to your content marketing skills? 5 benefits
We’ve explored how UX writers and content marketers can work together. Now let’s consider why you might choose to add UX writing skills to your content marketing toolkit.
Here are 5 major benefits of learning UX writing:
Become a more user-centric content marketer
As a subset of user experience (UX) design, UX writing is deeply rooted in user research and empathy. It’s all about understanding your target users’ needs, behaviours, and pain points—with the ultimate goal of reducing friction within the product.
As a content marketer, you’re already very customer-centric. However, UX writing will help you take that up a notch.
With greater focus on research and enhanced user empathy, you’ll be able to create even more engaging content that resonates with your audience.
Improve your SEO
UX writing requires a particular knack for crafting clear, concise copy. The emphasis is on brevity, readability, and clarity—conveying the key message as succinctly and effectively as possible.
This approach is crucial within the product interface, but it’s also valuable for content marketing. It can help you cut through the noise, get straight to the core message you want to convey, and create content that’s more scannable and reader-friendly.
This makes it easier for the reader to navigate your content—helping to keep them on the page for longer and reduce bounce rates. This sends a positive signal to Google that the content is of good quality, helping with your SEO.
Not only that: when your website content is more scannable, it’s easier for search engines to understand and index the content. That’s another boost for organic performance.
Boost conversion rates
With its emphasis on clarity, functionality, and the user experience, UX writing can help you craft copy that converts—such as ad copy, meta titles, form fields, and call-to-action buttons.
When you learn UX writing, you learn how to think about copy and content within the context of the user journey. Where is the user encountering this particular content? What are their goals? What kind of copy will guide them in the right direction?
This mindset enables you to simplify complex information and streamline user interactions—ultimately making it easier for the customer to sign up, make a purchase, or click through to further content.
Make your content more accessible
One of the core principles of UX writing is accessibility—crafting content that’s clear, concise, and easy to understand for a wide audience.
By stripping away unnecessary jargon and fluff, UX writing ensures that everyone, regardless of their reading ability, can easily navigate and engage with the product.
As a content marketer, you can apply the same approach to create more inclusive content that reaches a broader audience. Using clear, plain language, providing straightforward explanations, and avoiding complex sentence structures will make your content much more accessible.
This focus on accessibility not only enhances the user experience; it also enables you to better connect with your audience and communicate your desired message.
Read more: How to design accessible and inclusive content (and why it matters).
Diversify your skill set for future career growth
Last but not least, adding UX writing to your skillset can open up new career opportunities and help you stand out in an increasingly competitive job market.
As more companies prioritise the user experience, professionals who can blend the strategic thinking of content marketing with the user-focused clarity of UX writing will increasingly be considered a major asset.
By diversifying your skills to include UX writing, you can position yourself as a more versatile content marketer—adept at crafting content that not only drives engagement but also improves the overall user journey.
You’ll also be able to write for different use cases and adapt to emerging trends, such as conversational AI or voice interfaces (VUI), where clarity and brevity are essential.
This adaptability can lead to new roles, responsibilities, and even new career paths further down the line.
How to learn UX writing
Explore real-world examples
First, familiarise yourself with UX writing by studying real-world examples.
Analyse the copy in websites, apps, and other digital products you use regularly. Pay attention to how UX writing guides you through certain actions—like signing up, making a purchase, or moving from one screen to another.
This hands-on research will help you understand the importance of UX writing, and what effective UX writing looks like in action.
Read more: 10 real-world content design examples to take inspiration from.
Learn fundamental UX design principles
Because UX writing is a subset of UX, it’s important to learn about fundamental UX concepts—such as human-centred design, user research, and usability testing.
Read blog posts, watch YouTube videos, and explore free UX design courses for an introduction to the field.
At the same time, explore key UX deliverables such as user/customer journey maps, UX personas, wireframes, and prototypes. This will all provide useful context when it comes to learning the specifics of UX writing.
Take a professional course
With your initial research and background reading underway, you now need a more formal, structured approach.
A professional course will take you through all the key steps in the UX writing process—from understanding your users and crafting microcopy, right through to testing and improving your content.
The UX Design Institute offers a Professional Certificate in Content Design which has been created specifically for writers, content professionals, and digital marketers who want to add UX writing to their skillset.
The course is divided into nine key modules (including a module on AI for content design), and you can study at your own pace. However, you’ll have ongoing support from expert mentors and tutors—and you’ll complete hands-on project work to put your skills into practice.
At the end of the course, you’ll get a professional certification to verify your new skills. And, because the diploma is credit-rated by Glasgow Caledonian University, your new qualification will be instantly recognised by employers.
Practice writing for different contexts and scenarios
Alongside your course, practice writing UX microcopy for different use cases and scenarios.
You might take three screens from your favourite app, for example, and write your own versions of the microcopy—or come up with a fictitious new product (a fitness app, say, or a hotel booking site) and write the copy from scratch.
Practice writing error messages, button labels, welcome screens, celebration/goal completion messages, and website form copy; anything and everything you might encounter within a digital product.
This will help you apply what you’re learning, improve your UX writing skills, and build your confidence.
The takeaway and next steps
With fundamental UX writing skills under your belt, you can create content that’s even more accessible and reader-friendly, improve SEO and organic performance, and drive conversions.
And, as companies increasingly focus on digital transformation and improving the user experience, UX writing skills will prove incredibly valuable on the job market.
Whether you want to stand out as an adaptable and versatile content marketer, or take the first step towards a career in content design; UX writing skills can help future-proof your career and open the door to new opportunities.
If you’re ready to start learning UX writing, visit the official course page for the Professional Diploma in Content Design. Here you can request more details about the syllabus, or book a call with an education advisor.
If you’d like to learn more about content design and UX writing, check out the following guides:
- The future of UX writing and content design: 5 major trends
- 7 UX writing guidelines to optimise your content
- What is the average UX writer salary?
Emily is a professional writer and content strategist with an MSc in Psychology. She has 8+ years of experience in the tech industry, with a focus on UX and design thinking. A regular contributor to top design publications, she also authored a chapter in The UX Careers Handbook. Emily also holds a BA in French and German and is passionate about languages and continuous learning.
