For something more precise, head over to quora.com or answers.com, where you can search real people’s questions and answers. At answerthepublic.com, you can see a wide range of questions and searches related to a keyword.

Let’s say I’m writing a beginner’s guide to looking after your lawn. When I go to Google and start typing ‘can lawn’, I see queries including: can lawn mowers cut wet grass can lawnmowers fly can lawn mowers be stored outside can lawn mowers explode

Next time you read something, notice your feelings. How do you feel about this writing, and your experience of reading it? Why?

Ask yourself: What does my reader already know about my message? What do I want them to learn from my writing? How can I use what they already know to explain the things I want to say?

you can write a user story. This is a brief sentence, written from the reader’s own perspective, that sums up what they want and need. It takes the form: When [A], I need to [B] so I can [C]. Where A is the reader’s situation, B is the task they need to do, and C is the goal they want to achieve.

Since every writing project is different, there’s no magic formula for clear writing that will work in every situation.

Crucially, we’ll be treating the reader with respect. We won’t think of them as a passive receiver of our message, but as a real, living person with thoughts and feelings of their own.

The content of your writing is the words you put on the page. But just as important is the context in which those words are read – who the reader is, what they know, how they feel and what’s going on for them at the time

So a big part of writing clearly is to start where the reader is now, and talk to them – not just at them.