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.

Should you write content based on keywords or customer needs?

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Should you write content for visitors or keywords?
Should you write content for visitors or keywords?

We don’t live in an ideal world. In an ideal world, one would solely write content for the visitors. In the non-ideal world that we live in, aside from writing content for the visitors and customers, one also needs to write content to generate search engine traffic.

In fact, most of the clients who approach me, want to prioritize getting traffic from search engines over writing content that would help their own customers and clients. Somehow, they believe that if they get people to their websites, they will magically convert.

The problem with this approach is two-pronged: by the time you realize there’s a problem it’s often too late, and it’s a self-defeating exercise.

You are achieving nothing when you are completely focusing on the keywords. The keywords are not some magical enchantments that will open the floodgates of riches and affluence. They are simply queries that people use to find information they are looking for.

Am I saying that you should completely ignore keywords? I’m not saying that you should completely ignore them but let them be an integral part of your content. For example, if you select the right topic and then you focus on the topic and you focus on delivering the value, you are automatically going to cover the main keyword associated with the topic.

The problem arises when in order to cover as many keywords as possible in a single blog post or web page, we end up cramming too much content and needless actions.

Content publishing on an ongoing basis is simply unavoidable. Whether you realize it or not, or you realize it when it’s too late, or maybe you never realize it, there is no escape from regular content publishing.

The simple logic behind this is, just like you want to increase your visibility and draw people to your website, there are hundreds of other businesses having the same objective, or nearly about the same objective (if they don’t provide exactly the same business as yours, but more or less the same).

This means they are constantly pumping new content into the web. Whether your prospective customers and clients are trying to find you on Google or on social media, your content is going to have to compete with thousands of other web pages and blog posts. Thousands of pieces of content are constantly being added on a daily basis. Hence, if you don’t update your website or blog with new content, with fresh content, your website is going to get buried under a ton of new content.

Therefore, don’t worry much about creating and writing content around keywords. Let keywords be covered automatically when you write lots of content to help your visitors. Write and publish lots of valuable content. Your keywords are taken care of automatically.

Google is rewriting website titles – can you stop?

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Lots of people on the Internet are complaining that Google is randomly changing their website titles. This Moz blog post has just published a complete analysis on how Google seems to be changing titles of various websites and web pages.

A few days ago, I published a blog post titled Why is the title tag so important when writing content? and in that blog post, with a screenshot I had explained what a title tag is and how it is different from a web page or blog post headline:

Screenshot of the title tag
Screenshot of the title tag.

Various SEO experts (people who are constantly observing what is Google doing with their content) began to notice this peculiarity in search results on August 16. Everyone is speculating that the update was introduced on August 15, 2021.

The author of this Search Engine Journal post quotes some website owners who say that the text for the titles is being picked from the page’s <h1> tag, but many have reported that their text was being picked from the anchor text of some randomly chosen internal link.

So much noise was generated on the Internet that Google published an update explaining how and why they are changing the titles randomly.

They have first explained how the titles are generated:

We are making use of text that humans can visually see when they arrive at a web page. We consider the main visual title or headline shown on a page, content that site owners often place within <H1> tags or other header tags, and content that’s large and prominent through the use of style treatments.

Then they go on to explain why they are changing the titles. They have mentioned three reasons:

  1. The title is a very long, needlessly long (Google can display only title characters up to a certain point).
  2. The titles are stuffed with keywords.
  3. The title seems to use “boilerplate” language. For example, a homepage may have just “Home” as title.

Personally, I think this makes sense. If they leave it on people, they are certainly going to use titles that they think are going to improve their search engine rankings and this sometimes triumphs over creating meaningful titles that actually represent what the web page or the blog post contains.

What can you do to stop Google from rewriting your web page titles?

Well, you can avoid doing things that makes Google rewrite your title. Here are a few things I would suggest:

  • Don’t go beyond the recommended title length – 60-70 characters including spaces.
  • Create meaningful titles that represent the body text of your web page or blog post. Don’t create titles just to improve your search engine rankings or to misrepresent the information.
  • Don’t repeat keywords in the title. Keep it to one keyword and one long tail keyword.
  • In the <h1> tag, use a headline or use the text that would also look good, relevant and meaningful as title text when it appears in search results.

These are just suggestions, and everybody is coming up with his or her own set of suggestions. It seems Google is still playing with this new change, and it will take some time before things settle down. Many people are complaining that weird titles are being created by Google. One person said that Google randomly picked a date from the web page and decided to include it in the title text.

My advice would be, create meaningful titles and stick to quality and relevance.

Do I sometimes refuse to work with certain content writing clients?

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Is it fine to turn away certain content writing clients?
Is it fine to turn away certain content writing clients?

Just now came across this interesting post on Copyblogger – Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Your Current Client? – that says that it isn’t always prudent to cling to a client, especially when he or she is creating a toxic environment.

How do I decide whether I want to work with a client or not? To be frank, it is often difficult to let go of a client with whom I have been working for a few months. There was some initial spark and that’s why we could survive beyond the initial documents.

It’s like a messy relationship – you feel committed, and you feel that it would be a failure on your part if you let things fall apart easily. Besides, it is difficult to see a source of money going away – one bird in your hand is better than two birds in the bush.

The post on Copyblogger rightly says that if you are providing a service like content writing or copywriting, you are constantly improving. Which means that a year ago if you were accepting clients matching your expertise back then, right now you need to accept clients that match your expertise now.

This is also important because if you’re still working with clients who hired you last year based on your expertise back then, they are still going to treat you like a less experienced content writer. Even if they grudgingly admit that you’re much better than you were last year, it will be difficult to make them pay you more.

According to the author, here are some reasons why you should stop working with a particular client:

  • He or she doesn’t respect your time.
  • He or she doesn’t recognise the extra effort you are putting to give your best.
  • He or she is paying far less than what you deserve.

Coming back to my own question: do I sometimes refuse to work with certain clients?

Yes, I definitely do, just as some clients decide not to work with me.

I like to work on projects where my work is appreciated not for the heck of satisfying my ego, but where I really contribute. Even if I contribute and my client does not realize that I’m contributing, this is not a good situation to be in, and I politely bow out.

As far as I can control, I never sully my relationships with people, because you never know the situation on the other side. I remember there was a client last year who talked very gruffly when I presented a counterargument. I was wary of moving forward but we were amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and I was taking many decisions that I wouldn’t take in normal times. I continued communicating with him and stuck to my argument. I told him that I would take full advance before committing. He paid double the amount I was asking for, giving me double the work we had initially talked about.

I have an hourly target. Whether I’m charging an hourly rate, per document, or per word, by the end of the project, I must reach my hourly target. If I exceed my hourly target, well and good, but if I don’t, it no longer remains an attractive proposition for me, and I refuse to work. I don’t hide this fact. I let it be known to the client that although I’m interested in the project, remuneration -wise, it is not feasible for me. Some understand, some don’t.

SEO through conversational content writing

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Conversational content writing is very important for SEO these days. What is conversational content writing?

It is not as mystical as it may sound, it simply means writing in a manner people speak. This is because when people are searching for information, they are mostly speaking into their mobile phones. Many SEO experts also term it as writing for “conversational search”.

Defining conversational search and conversational content writing

As mentioned above, when people use search these days, they speak into their mobile phones (or even in the microphone of their desktop browsers) complete sentences and phrases. All modern search queries are of this nature.

In the past, people mostly used shorter search queries, something like “hairdresser” or “content writer”. This was mostly because people were writing queries into the search bar. Writing is always a bit difficult compared to speaking into a microphone.

When people use a microphone, they also use syntactical and grammatical patterns that resemble the way people speak. Someone is more likely to search for “looking for a content writer for my accounting website” rather than “content writer”. Or something like, “looking for a writer for my business emails”.

If you’re using Google Home or Amazon Echo, you are more likely to say “find steamed vegetarian dumplings near me”, or even “I would like to order steamed vegetarian dumplings”.

How to write content for conversational search?

Anticipate all possible queries people may use to do business with you. Write as many sentences as people may use to be able to find your business on Google.

Then write content dedicated to these queries. You can cover multiple queries on a single web page or blog post, or you can create dedicated web pages and blog posts to individual conversational queries. Just make sure you don’t end up publishing lots of duplicate content in the process.

Use natural language., Something like “how does content writing improve my SEO?”.

Is it fine to copy someone else’s content?

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Is it fine to copy content for SEO?

Is it fine to copy content for SEO?

You need to know whether it is an ethical question, an SEO-related question or a practical one.

Recently I was brainstorming a client’s content strategy on a Zoom meeting and SEO guy had also joined. I know there are many reputed SEO companies that are doing great work, but I’m quite wary of SEO people who want to manipulate content to improve search engine rankings instead of following the quality and relevance of the content itself to automatically improve rankings.

During the conversation he very casually said that I should copy content from other websites and then shuffle it and change a few words here and there and it would be great for SEO. He said that it’s good to copy content from high-ranking websites because they have already improved their search engine rankings with that particular content format.

I was like, WTF? I mean, I didn’t verbally object because the client is quite enamored with the SEO guy, but inside my mind, I was already figuring how not to butt in and remain focused on the core topic – how to write valuable content that will organically improve the clients search engine rankings.

Let’s put aside the fact that Google may realize that you have copied the content from another website and therefore, you should be penalized, for a while.

Let’s focus on the ethical issue here. But before that, let’s also be realistic.

As a content writer, how do I define “copying content from another website or blog”? When does it become plagiarism?

Difference between plagiarism and ideation

I think we all know the meaning of plagiarism – picking content as it is and then using it as your own, verbatim mostly.

Even if you pick content and then change a few words here and there but more or less keep the entire thing intact without changing even the sentence structure, still it is plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a very serious issue in academics, research papers, scientific journals, journalistic writing and books and novels. As a student you can be expelled from a course. As a scientist you can be debarred and humiliated. As a journalist you invite contamination and ridicule. As an author you can be sued, and you may have to pay damages.

As a content writer, although it may be difficult for the aggrieved party to take action against you, if someone is hellbent upon taking action, he or she can. For example, an aggrieved party can approach your web hosting company if your web hosting company has a policy against plagiarism and copyright violation. They can take down your website. If you’re in the same country legal action can also be initiated.

It’s mostly Google penalization that deters people from plagiarizing content. Google can blacklist your website if you are a repeat offender.

But what about rewriting something completely in your own style, in your own language? Many bloggers do that. I have written tips on content writing and hundreds of other websites and blogs have published tips on content writing. Similarly, websites telling you how to improve your search engine rankings are everywhere. They have the same information, it’s just that, they have rewritten the information with slight changes, and with their own take.

Just because Wikipedia has an article on what is blockchain doesn’t mean I cannot publish a blog post on the topic of what is blockchain. Similarly, just because Investopedia has explained what is bookkeeping, another website cannot explain it. This is not copying. This is not plagiarism. It is because you’re presenting the information in your own language, in your own writing, in your own style. It becomes plagiarism when you directly pick the Investopedia article and publish it under your own domain name as your own article.

What about creating a famous story? Many authors have done that. Mary Shelley’s stories have been rewritten. Greek mythologies have been rewritten. Ramayana and Mahabharata have been rewritten. Sherlock Holmes novels have been rewritten. The main stress is on originality vis-à-vis your style. You can tell the same story in a different matter.

Should you copy content from another website to improve your SEO?

Now that we know what plagiarism is and what is not plagiarism even when you are writing the same thing, let’s come to the ethical issue.

Frankly, to an average client it does not matter how, as a content writer, I write content that improves his or her search engine rankings. The client is not worried about legal issues or even with the prospect of someone accosting him or her and complaining about plagiarism. The client is majorly worried about the SEO implications – Google may penalize the website, or even blacklist it, which would be disastrous. As long as Google is fine, most of the clients are fine.

As a content writer, I’m not.

Almost every client hires me to write original content, even if Google is the only reason. Like pirated software, pretty much everyone is okay with picking content from other websites as long as it is safe to do so.

But I have been hired to write original content. If I’m not writing original content, am I not cheating my client?

You may say that the client is hiring me less for the originality of my content and more for my ability to create content that improves his or her search engine rankings, no matter what.

He or she is not bothered with originality. He or she is bothered with search engine rankings.

If I copy the content from somewhere else, if Google does not penalize the website and if Google improves the website’s search engine rankings, who the hell is the client to complain?

No matter how bad it sounds, I can understand this point of view. Nonetheless, I am a writer first, and then I am a content writer. As a writer, I take pride in my writing. If I copy content from another website, even if someone doesn’t detect that, I know that it reeks of my inability to write effectively. It shows that the other writer whose content I’m copying is better than me as a writer. He or she was able to write that beautiful piece of content that I’m shamelessly copying. He or she is a better writer. I’m just a pretender. I’m just an impostor.

No, I don’t expect clients to understand this.