Category Archives: Content Strategy

What impact will Google Instant have on your organic search engine results

If you keep a tab on the latest Internet trends you must have noticed the hoopla surrounding the new feature Google introduced a couple of days ago. It is called Google Instant. Now when you search on Google the search results are updated as you type in your query. You no longer need to click the search button (although eventually you can click). Even as you type in individual alphabets the search results are updated according to the search string you have entered so far.

Many website owners are apprehensive about this new feature and they fear that it is going to disturb their search engine rankings. Is it really going to happen?

According to Google the latest feature does not affect your search engine rankings, it simply makes it easier for its users to find the information they are looking for by instantly showing the results. This will save people lots of time because they won’t have to enter the entire string and then click the search button.

Search engines after all are more concern for the convenience of their users rather than worrying about the nightmares they unleash upon web masters, bloggers and search engine marketers.

Since Google Instant has no effect on your search engine rankings you shouldn’t worry about that. It may change though, the way people process the information they obtain out of the search. Since they no longer have to type in the complete query they may never end up searching the keywords you might be aiming for. Suppose you have optimized a particular web page for “sizzling seekh kebabs instantly delivered”. You rank at the top for this expression and lap up most of the traffic due to this. But through Google Instant your prospective customers may get distracted while they are typing “sizzling see” or even something shorter.

Similarly if you rank well for “freelance writer in L.A.” you may lose some of your visitors if they find something useful while typing just “freelance writer”. What does this mean?

You will definitely need to appear faster and preferably among the first 5 search results for your important keywords and search phrases. You will need lots of content not only on your own website but also on other websites so that you have enough presence to cover most keyword combinations and consequently appear faster on the search engine result pages.

This new development may also work to your advantage without taking extra steps. Due to immediate processing lots of results will be highlighted that were not previously been shown due to longer queries.

Should you do something? Ideally you should always be doing something in order to remain ahead of the competition: there is so much to be done in terms of staying connected through social media and networking websites, publishing your blog regularly and continuously trying to improve your search engine rankings, irrespective of what features Google or some other search engines introduce. Other than that, if you are not doing much it means you are anyway not proactively promoting your business and hence you should wait and watch. Carefully observe the traffic you are getting and how it is impacting your business. If you are getting more business, well and good. If it hasn’t made much of a difference then too it is good. If it is having an adverse effect then you must take some steps, for instance:

Evaluate your website for SEO problems
Analyze your present conversion rate
Mmake note of what sort of content you have on your website and how it can be improved
Start exploring other sources of traffic such as submitting your articles to article directories, websites and blogs
Enhance your presence on social media and social networking websites
Generate more content on your area of interest and business
Try to improve your current rankings
Make a list of alternative keywords that can fetch you traffic
Stay in touch with your existing customers and clients

Now, I’m not saying that you should follow these steps just because Google has changed the way it displays search results; they should anyway be followed. They will certainly help if Google Instant has affected your search engine traffic, at least from Google.

How to maintain a content writing schedule

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Once you have decided that publishing content on your blog or website is critical to the success of your business you need to maintain a well-defined content writing and publishing schedule. But why do you need a content writing schedule?

I wouldn’t exactly call it a problem but the problem with content writing to promote your business is that it doesn’t show results immediately. When you keep publishing content you begin to feel an effect after a couple of months and it can be very difficult to continuously do something when you know that you are not going to benefit from it in the near future. This becomes more difficult if you need to take out time or budget at the expense of another business activity that can manifest an earlier result. I totally understand the compulsion of putting content writing and publishing on the back burner in order to take care of the imminent necessities.

Even if you outsource your content writing requirement you may need to spend at least some time figuring out exactly what you want. Additionally you will have to pay the person who is writing content for you and you might think why spend money on this activity?

Nonetheless, you neglect content publishing at the cost of your business because if your competitors are doing this they are definitely at an advantage and you must already be lagging behind if they have been publishing regular content for a while now.

It is not necessary to run a tight schedule when it comes to writing content and getting it published under your website or blog. The crucial point here is setting a rhythm. Cannot publish everyday? No problem, publish every alternative day. Cannot achieve even that? Fine, publish something once in a week. Some sort of weekly content is better than having no content at all. You need targeted content to improve your search engine rankings, increase direct traffic from social media and other websites, and above all, improve your conversion rate. You don’t need to rush. Focus on the most important first. What are the topics that can make a quick impact on your bottom line? Make a list of keywords and search terms you would like to get more traffic for and start generating content around them. If you’re working with the content writer you can discuss with him or her what content you immediately require, and then accordingly you can draw up your content writing schedule.

As mentioned above, start with the most important and try not to miss the scheduled postings. Avoid being ambitious in the beginning if you know you’re not going into content writing and content publishing in a big way. Gradually, as you observe your business growing you can increase the intensity and frequency of your content publishing strategy.

Why you should outsource your content writing services needs

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Because I provide content writing services? Although this is a perfectly valid reason I am sure you’re going to look upon it with a tinge of cynicism and I can perfectly understand. It has to be some other, solid reason, the reason that affects you directly, or in the long run.

OK, let’s talk about this from your angle: why should you outsource your content writing services needs? You don’t write content as a profession, right? I mean, you might be providing IT services, real estate consulting services, dentistry, or selling a wide array of products and services, but you’re not offering content writing services (if you are, it would seem a bit awkward if I advised you to outsource your content writing and content marketing needs). Even if you can write quite well there is a big difference between “able to write well” and actually coming up with professionally written content that can fetch you business or increase your search engine rankings. This is more so difficult if you require repetitive content: you can either focus on your business or work on creating newer, fresh content for your website or blog.

Of course you can hire an in-house content writer and there is no problem in that. It’s just that, hiring an employee can increase your operational costs and it might be a bit difficult and sensitive to replace him or her in case he or she does not deliver. You might end up spending money on hiring the content writer, arranging space for him or her, availing resources like computer and software and furniture and then chucking him or her out and hiring another one in case things don’t work out.

Outsourcing your writing and content marketing job to an independent content writer (yours truly, for instance) is comparatively much cheaper and less risky, contrary to popular perception. You pay for only what you get. If you just need, say, 20 web pages written, there is no use hiring an in-house content writer or a copywriter. Even if you need regular content think how much you can save by not hiring an in-house content writer. You don’t need to pay the agency that sends the content writer to you. You don’t need to arrange separate computer and software. You are not using your office space or space at your home. You don’t need extra furniture to accommodate a new employee. You don’t need to worry about payroll and taxes. And you can easily replace your content writer in case you’re not happy with the content writer to whom you are currently outsourcing your content writing needs.

Above all, if you’re slightly careful about selecting your content writer you suddenly come across an experienced person who must have written for hundreds of clients prior to writing for you. Let us cut to the chase and talk about my content writing services. I have been providing professional content and copywriting services since 2003. You can easily imagine for how many clients I must have worked and on how many topics I must have written or worked with my writers. You cannot get this range of experience and exposure from a person whom you hire exclusively for yourself. I have been doing business on the Internet since early 2002 (I was providing web design and development services) so when you work with me you don’t just get writing services you also get the benefit of my experience and knowledge that I have gained throughout these years.

And I’m not saying that only I have this kind of advantage. There are many independent content writers earning a very decent living on the Internet through their websites, and in fact, many are quite good at attracting tons of traffic to their websites through their content.

So do outsource your content writing and content marketing needs whenever they arise because it makes business sense. But spend some time trying to find a good content writing service because otherwise — as it can happen with any other service — you may end up having a bad experience and this will leave a lasting negative experience upon your psyche and you will discourage others too from outsourcing services. I have seen this happening.

Communicating convincingly by writing a case study

Your content helps you attract the right people to your website

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The greatest challenge people face while doing business online is getting the right people to their websites. But what do we mean by “right people”? They are the people who would like to do business with you. What sort of people would I like to get to my website? People who would like to hire me to avail my content writing services.

Once you get to it it isn’t as easy as it seems especially when billions of people are constantly going through millions of web pages processing millions of terabytes of information. For instance, how do I make sure that people who are looking for a content writer can easily find me when they need me? Since there might be thousands of content writers doing business on the Internet how do I make sure I get ample amount of exposure and consequently, attention.

And even if I get the sufficient amount of attention how do I make sure that the right people are getting attracted? I can do it by creating a noticeable presence on the Internet. My content helps me do that.

You can publish your content on your own website/blog, on other websites/blogs, online forums and social media and networking websites. It gives you the needed visibility. Of course your content has to be about the product or service you offer. It is no use writing about scooters if you’re selling cars. And even if you’re selling cars it is no use talking about Mercedes-Benz if you’re selling Ferraris.

What sort of content you want on your website/blog in order to attract your prospective customers and clients? It depends on what sort of traffic you are trying to attract. Search engines, for instance, are looking for lots of informative content and consequently they rank higher content that teaches rather than the one that sells, especially Google. But it doesn’t mean it indexes and ranks only content that teaches: it just prefers it.

In order to attract right people from search engines you have to focus on keywords and search terms that help people find you for the exact service or product they are looking for. I would like to be found for “content writing services”, “freelance writer”, “website content writer” and such terms. Since I am continuously writing content on how to write content better or how to improve your business through content marketing and content strategy it may seem like I’m trying to attract an audience that is more interested in “learning” and less interested in doing business with me. This happened when I was offering web design services back in 2002: instead of attracting clients looking for a web designer my website was majorly attracting people who wanted to learn web designing and web related programming. When I started my content writing business and again started generating content for this website I made sure that I didn’t repeat the mistake. Although even now a majority of my traffic constitutes of people trying to figure out things and exploring career options I get sufficient number of business queries due to the content I continuously publish here.

The basic idea behind generating content to attract the right people to your website is getting lots of people for the right keywords. I may be getting lots of traffic for “website content writer” and 60% of that traffic may be those people who are simply trying to explore the field (want to try out this “content writing thing”) or researching for their own articles, 40% still are looking for someone to write content for them. In my specific case I have concluded that it is difficult to change this ratio and the only thing for me to do is increase the numbers so that this 40% becomes a bigger number.

While generating content for your website/blog (on your own or by hiring content writer) try to cover as many keywords as possible. Generate your business pages using those keywords first of all. If you’re providing content writing services then generate sufficient number of pages explaining that you actually provide this service. Once you run out of such pages don’t keep repeating them. From then onwards you can start creating instructional content. You may attract people who are trying to “learn things” but the brighter side is you will be covering all your major keywords and their various short and long combinations. Keep your focus on the relevant keywords and keep publishing all sort of content around them. Just make sure that your primary/business pages are visible from every possible page on your website/blog.