Author Archives: Amrit Hallan

About Amrit Hallan

Amrit Hallan is a professional content writer who helps businesses improve their conversion rate through credible and compelling content writing. His main strength lies in writing search engine optimized content without compromizing quality and meaningfulness.

How content marketing is different from conventional advertising

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Conventional advertising is constantly telling you to buy something. It’s normally one way – you come across it on TV, radio, print media or in the form of banner ads, landing pages and text link ads on the Internet. Conventional advertising is interruptive – instead of providing any value, it simply starts telling you buy this product or subscribe to that service. Of course it is exorbitantly expensive from business perspective.

In the absence of any other option, it was considered to be the best way of reaching out to prospective customers and clients. Content marketing not only altered the perception, it completely changed the rules of marketing and engagement.

We have all grown up in the midst of advertising, but content marketing is something very few people understand. Lack of proper understanding prevents many people from even taking it seriously, let alone considering it as an alternative to conventional advertising. What exactly is it?

Just because it is called “content marketing” it doesn’t mean there is lots of marketing. It simply means, indirectly marketing through valuable content. What is valuable content? Content that informs, educates, creates awareness, engages prospects, or even entertains. While implementing a content marketing strategy you don’t overtly tell your prospective customers and clients to do business with you. You constantly provide them highly useful information that they actually appreciate. Through your content, you are constantly communicating with them. The main ingredients of an effective content marketing strategy are:

  • Relevance
  • Value
  • Timeliness
  • Engagement
  • Regularity

Is content marketing an Internet-specific buzzword?

Although content marketing has certainly gone mainstream with the advent of easy publishing through the Internet, it’s origin definitely cannot be traced just back to the Internet. In the modern times (around 100 years) businesses have been using valuable content to strengthen their brands, reach out to their customers and clients and create an engaging presence in the market. Those in America may like to research more on the Michelin Guide for example. Been published since 1900, it is a very famous travel guide that provides highly valuable information to travelers such as where to live, where to eat and where to rent good automobiles.

Do you know that the G.I. Joe comics were created to boost the sales of the eponymous toys? Another good example is Richard Branson – he constantly participates in activities (for instance covering great distances in a hot air balloon) that get quite media coverage.

So one way or another, content marketing has been at the forefront of branding for many years. It has just now become accessible to almost everybody due to a publishing revolution called the web.

Why big businesses like Coca-Cola are ditching conventional advertising in favor of content marketing?

By now every content marketer, one way or the other, has talked about this famous Coca-Cola content marketing roadmap.

These videos were created for their own staff.

So why content marketing? Because it works. People these days don’t like being talked to. They don’t like interruptions. They want to be engaged. They want to find you when they need you. For that they may use their favorite search engines or their favorite social networking and social media websites. The moot point is, if I want to purchase a particular camera I would like to obtain the right information myself rather than you as the camera seller pushing that information down my throat when all I want to do is watch my favorite TV show or YouTube video.

Today’s customer is empowered by unprecedented connectivity. He or she can immediately log onto the Internet and find the needed information. He or she should be able to find you exactly when he or she needs you. This becomes possible through a carefully implemented content marketing strategy.

Big businesses are switching over to content marketing because one, conventional advertising is not as effective as content marketing, and two, conventional advertising is a lot more expensive and short-lived compared to publishing and distributing targeted content.

I will share more thoughts on this in the coming blog posts, so stay tuned.

What is Facebook Graph Search and how to optimize your content for it

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Facebook Graph Search

If you are spending most of your time on Facebook you might as well also carry out your daily dose of searches on the social networking website. Almost every individual and every business that is on the Internet is also there on Facebook. So that is why Facebook is coming up with its own search engine called Graph Search. How is it going to be different from conventional search engines like Google?

Facebook is people based. In the name of improving user experience Facebook is able to extract as much information from its users as possible. It knows how old you are, where you live, where you work, which school and university you attended, with whom you are hanging out, who is your spouse or brother or sister, which foods you like to eat, which books you like to read and which movies you have recently seen or would like to see. This kind of detailed information is not available to conventional search engines, although with Google Plus Google is trying to break that barrier. In fact Google is changing its ranking algorithm in such a manner that people will be forced to use Google Plus if they want to improve their search engine rankings as well as search engine traffic.

Anyway, back to the Facebook Graph Search. Facebook is all about wanting to know what your friends and relatives are doing. You trust your friends, at least more than the search engine ranking algorithms. The search results that you get on Facebook will be totally different from those appearing on Google simply because the Facebook search results will be based on the preferences of your friends.

Take for instance, you want to read some sci-fi books that your friends have recently read. On Graph Search you will look for the following:

“Sci-fi books my friends like”

Or if you want to find a good coffee shop in London (I know, quite a broad search) you can search for

“London coffee shops my friends like”

Or if you want to find out something more specific

“London coffee shops my female friends like”

Or

“London coffee shops my friends have been to”

You can replace London with any other city, and you can replace coffee shops to any other business.

The basic idea behind Facebook Graph Search is that it is based on your friends’ recommendations and preferences. It is totally human-based. Most of the data has been submitted by people themselves and hence there is little chance of error.

Optimizing your content for Facebook Graph Search

Relevance and quality, as usual, are always relevant. Content marketing that also involves social media marketing, should also take care of how you create content on social networking websites, in this case, Facebook. What language you use when you post your updates can alter the way you appear on Facebook search results. It is based on natural language processing as you might have experienced in Apple’s Siri.

Remember that your presence on Facebook becomes popular when people “like” your content or share it on their own timelines. For example, in order to find my services people may look for “content writer my friends like”. To make sure I appear in these search results, I need to make sure that enough number of people, and right type of people, like my Facebook page or my Facebook updates.

In order to optimize your content for Facebook Graph search

  • Use the language people use (if they are looking for a content writer, then actually use this expression while creating your content)
  • Post relevant content so that people “like” it and share it
  • Use social buttons on your website so that people can easily post your links on their own timelines without having to leave your website or blog
  • Encourage people to leave comments on your website using Facebook
  • Create great content on your website or blog so that people have a reason to promote your links and talk about your website or blog
  • Establish yourself as an authority

As you can see, the same rules that apply to creating content in general also apply to optimizing your content for Facebook Graph search. Be regular, stick to quality and relevance and give people a reason to appreciate your presence on Facebook.

A mobile responsive website layout is far better than creating separate websites

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Having a mobile website is no longer an option; every website these days needs to look good and be easy-to-use on mobile devices, may it be tablets or smart phones.

Consequently, most of the websites have two versions. One layout for computers and laptops, and another for mobile devices, mostly of the type http://mobile.domainname.com.

Although this solves your purpose, you end up creating and maintaining two websites. This not only creates duplicate content (and hence problems with your search engine rankings), it also creates duplicate work. Whenever you update your website, you need to update both the versions.

Even if you are cool about maintaining two versions of the same website, search engines like Google aren’t very pleased with your tactic. They thing that you are creating duplicate content – enhancing your content quantity artificially – and hence, begin to penalize you for it.

What’s the solution? Creating mobile responsive website layouts.

It means having a single layout that scales up and down according to the dimensions of the screen. It may seem a bit difficult compared to creating two separate websites, but once you have opted out, it is better for you both in terms of maintenance as well as avoiding to create duplicate content.

There are many ways you can create mobile responsive website layouts. If you use WordPress to maintain your website, like CredibleContent and it’s blog, you can easily get (or get it developed) a theme that seamlessly scales according to the device currently being used to access the website. I have used the latest TwentyTwelve theme from WordPress (this theme is developed from a mobile-first approach) and created a child theme to make it look like my own layout. You can check out by increasing and decreasing the width of your browser window (or simply load my website using your mobile device) and check out how the design scales according to the width.

As you can see the layout looks normal when the browser is wide enough but as the width becomes narrower the sidebar disappears and even the top navigation bar turns into a “Menu” button. This is a single stylesheet rather than giving visitors a separate URL.

But even if you are not using WordPress you can ask your web designer to create a mobile responsive website layout rather than creating multiple URLs for multiple devices.

Do you design your website around your content?

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As a web designer do you design your websites around the content your client is going to use to communicate his or her message and make useful information available to its visitors, or do you first create the design and then want the content to fit into that?

If you’re doing the latter, you are not alone, and you’re also denying your client the ability to provide enough information to his or her customers and clients.

No matter what is the business, ultimately it is the content that generates leads and sales. People need to know what you stand for. They need to know what your product or service can deliver. They want to be able to trust you and they can only trust you if they can find the right information on your website.

Sure, when they come to your website for the first time they may get impressed by the design and layout but eventually they will look for the information they need. By merely focusing on the layout you are not going to be able to sell.

So whenever you are designing a website, take into consideration how your layout is going to accommodate the written content, whether it is on the homepage or other pages.

I myself have gone through such experiences. There are many clients – especially those who have purchased a ready-made template – who want me to fit content into the template no matter if on one page they can just have a single paragraph. No harm in having single-paragraph pages by the way, but what if you need to say more? We are not talking about Twitter where you always have to use 140 characters. Sometimes people need to know more. For that you need to publish multiple paragraphs.

This is why, no matter how attractive your design is, unless it is able to scale according to the content you want to publish, it is of no use. Whether you are a web designer or you are purchasing an off-the-shelf template, make sure that the layout accommodates content sections that can expand vertically to accommodate as much content as possible. Don’t use a design that does not accommodate your content well.

How to find the best content writer for your business

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So you have finally decided to hire a professional content writer who can help you create killer content and implement your content marketing strategy. Mind you, a strategist doesn’t necessarily mean a good writer, and vice versa, I’m just writing this from my point of view as I have experience in both.

Hiring a content writer for your business is going to be one of the most crucial decisions of your business life, and I’m not saying this because I am a content writer myself. Content marketing has the ability to take your business up many notches and drastically bring down your advertising and promotion costs, provided you know what sort of content you need and how it can satisfy your visitors.

You have two choices while trying to find the best content writer for your business: hiring a full-time professional, or outsourcing your work. Both the options are good depending upon your business model. Since I am a freelance content writer and I look for people who want to outsource their writing needs, I am writing this blog post from that perspective. Here are a few things you should keep in mind while trying to find the right writer for your business:

Ability to communicate

There is a reason why not everybody is a professional writer despite knowing how to write. Every educated person can write but still he or she works in a different profession. Writing just doesn’t appeal or he or she is unable to communicate through written word. Communicating through writing is a specialized art. Does your content writer possess that art? Can he or she communicate convincingly?

Dependability

Your content writer must be dependable. Every serious content marketing strategy hinges upon a steady flow of quality content. Can your content writer provide quality content on a consistent basis, or, as and when you need it? Timeliness and relevance are of high importance. There is no use of writing content whose time has passed by. When you need to reach your content writer, he or she should be there. He or she should be able to deliver on the designated day without you having to pursue him or her all the time.

Ability to research

Verifiable data makes your content authoritative. There is lots of demand for data-packed content that people find hard to obtain. Your content writer should be able to use various data mining tools and methods to find reliable information for you. Also content curation these days is as important as creating original content. Finding timely, relevant and highly useful information from all over the Internet and compiling it into a single article or a blog post can be very valuable.

Having a unique voice

When you have a unique voice you are able to articulate more convincingly. Being successful as a writer is all about style. When you write in a certain manner, people are either going to like it, or dislike it. So look for a writer who has his or her own voice. Having said that, it will be important for him or her to adapt his or her style according to your industry, but whatever is your requirement, a unique writing style must always be there.

These are the core abilities you must find in a content writer for your business. Other attributes like affordability and the ability to write well are a given, of course.