In this article, I want to describe a generic picture of what technical writers and technical content writers do to make it clear that these two professions are different.

What is Technical Writing

Technical writers are those who transport complex ideas, principles, and functionalities understandably to different audiences. Many companies have doc writing teams that explain and document features of a product and how to use them properly.

Here are some documents technical writers may produce:

• API documentation
• Instructions
• User manuals
• Descriptions of production systems
• Etc.

The content of all these documents is different but they have one goal: deliver information, enabling a reader to perform specific tasks.

What is Technical Content Writing

First, let’s make it clear who a content writer is. A content writer creates content covering a range of topics; this can be anything like content for website pages, blogs, reviews, social media posts, and the like. A content writer always pays attention to search engine optimization and keywords to reach a target audience and attract new readers to websites.

So, a technical content writer is a professional who creates content on a specific technical topic. Technical content writers usually create:

• Blog posts
• Product descriptions
• Web pages
• E-books
• Etc.

Imagine, you nee to write a blogpost about MySQL, and it should not be just copywriting. This blogpost (or the series of blog posts)should help a company to stand out. Companies need to provide information for their readers they’ll get nowhere else. This is why technical content writers exist — they can describe tech-industry topics on a deeper level. That help achieve marketing and sales goals by attracting new website visitors.

Conclusion

Technical writing and technical content writing may seem identical because both need to transport complex information to an audience, but their goals are different. Technical writers describe products and features to help readers achieve their goals. Technical content writers create technical content in the form of blog posts, articles, and the like to engage readers and help them learn something new.

To have these two professionals in your company is very valuable. A technical writer knows what the company’s developers are doing, and provides knowledge to a content writer. Working together they create informative and instructive content that helps not only to existing users but also helps to attract the new ones.

To learn more about content writers and technical writers, read this article: Content Writer vs Technical Writer.