Category Archives: Content Writing

Following SEO Guidelines Still Matters For Quality Content Writing

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Follow SEO guidelines along with quality content writing

Follow SEO guidelines along with quality content writing.

Do you often wonder why your blog or website doesn’t rank well despite continuously publishing quality content? Why doesn’t quality content writing improve your SEO the way it should?

Just now I came across this wonderful and comprehensive post on Content Marketing Institute about why it is important that you follow SEO guidelines and don’t assume that just because you are publishing great content, Google is going to rank you well.

The post explains, with examples, some websites having high quality content but not ranking well for the target keywords and some websites with low quality content ranking well.

Why does this happen?

Following SEO guidelines while writing quality content makes a big difference

You may also like to read 10 fundamental qualities of effective SEO content writing.

I have often written on my blog that you should never compromise with quality because ultimately, it’s your quality that sustains and improves your SEO.

But, how do you get your content indexed and ranked in the first place and why is it necessary to get indexed and ranked in the first place?

I will share my personal experience and I have made this observation with multiple websites, blogs, web pages and blog posts.

In the beginning when you publish a blog post or a web page Google crawls it, indexes it and then ranks it according to its analysis.

For this, it uses SEO guidelines. I will come to these SEO guidelines later.

Then, when your content has begun to appear on search results, with the help of its users, Google begins to evaluate your quality and thereupon, it’s your quality that decides whether you’re going to maintain your search engine rankings, improve them, or lose them.

Why following search engine guidelines is important while writing?

The above Content Marketing Institute blog post gives examples of websites that rank well despite having low quality content.

Just an extra remark: the “low quality” websites used in the above example don’t necessarily have irrelevant or misleading content; it is just that, the quality of the written content is lower compared to high quality content on their websites that are not ranking well.

These websites make strategic use of their keywords in the title, the headline and the subheading.

Your keyword must be in the HTML title tag.

Then, your keyword must be there in the headline.

Then your keyword and its various combinations must be there in the subheadings.

Then, of course, there must be a careful sprinkling of your keyword and LSI alternatives throughout your text.

This is the standard SEO guideline that I follow.

Google has published its own search engine optimization guidelines, something straight from the horse’s mouth.

I follow these SEO guidelines along with ensuring that I write quality content.

Following these guidelines in the beginning helps your content get crawled, indexed and ranked for the first time.

Despite what Google says about only quality mattering, in the beginning, I have observed, it does not.

Quality begins to matter afterwards when your content is already indexed and the search engine users have begun to interact with it.

Why following the SEO guidelines matters in the beginning?

Google needs to make sense of your content before it can index and rank it.

Kindly note that this is not a hard and fast rule because sometimes websites and blogs randomly get ranked even without mentioning the search query being used even once.

Anyway, in the beginning, the keyword in your title (the keyword can be a phrase or a search term targeting an audience) appears as a hyperlink in the Google listings.

It has been observed that if the search term that the search engine user has just used appears as a hyperlink in the search results, there is a greater probability of her clicking the link.

This shows how important the text appearing within your title tag is – Google uses it as a hyperlink.

In fact, every search engine, and even social media websites, use the text in your title tag as a hyperlink.

Then, Google evaluates your headline to see what it contains to make further sense of your content.

Then, it begins to analyze your whole content and then uses its algorithm to index it and rank it.

This is one part of the story.

How quality content writing impacts your SEO

Once your content begins to appear in search results, people begin to react to it.

Suppose, someone searches for “content writing service to improve my SEO” and comes to my website.

She finds lots of useful information and consequently, she spends some time on my website exploring it further.

Since it’s only the quality and relevance that can keep her on the website, quality content writing plays a very important role here.

If she comes back to Google after a few minutes and carries on with the same search, Google assumes that although my website contains some useful information on the search she just carried out, she needs more information.

It may or may not improve my rankings for “content writing service to improve my SEO”.

Instead, after visiting my website for the first time if she comes back within a couple of seconds or a few seconds, it sends signals to Google that my website does not contain relevant content for the search term she just used.

Google takes it as an indication that my website shouldn’t be ranking at this particular spot for the search term just used, and hence, lowers my rankings for at least this keyword.

Quality content doesn’t mean you ignore SEO guidelines, and vice versa

Google is an algorithm, after all.

It often comes to light that Google uses human evaluators in many cases, mostly, but when it comes to processing millions of web pages every hour, it is the algorithm that analyzes your content and ranks it.

After that, how humans react to your content begins to either pay off or take its toll.

Hence, when writing content, you need to pay close attention to both its quality as well as SEO guidelines so that it becomes easier for search engine crawlers and ranking algorithms to make sense of your content for the first time, and each time your content is crawled, indexed and ranked.

How to strike a balance between SEO guidelines and quality content writing

It isn’t very difficult, actually.

Publish as much topical content as you can.

What is topical content?

Topical content is content that talks about a topic: for example, my this blog post talks about why it is important to not to neglect SEO guidelines even when you are writing quality content.

To my utmost knowledge and effort, I’m paying very close attention to the quality of my writing.

I have used the keywords “SEO guidelines” and “quality content writing” at all the necessary places including the title tag, the headline and all over the body text.

I follow this template for my own blog posts, my own web pages and also, when I’m writing for my clients.

Most of the clients, when they decide to hire my content writing services, don’t know how my process flows to accommodate both the search engine whims and the expectations of human visitors.

They just give me the topic. Or just a random list of keywords.

Then, I make sure that when I’m writing quality content, I also organize the content keeping the search engine guidelines in mind

 

What are the benefits of writing content for informational search intent?

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The benefits of writing content for informational search intent

The benefits of writing content for informational search intent.

Most of the people on the Internet are searching for information. This is their search intent.

Broadly, there are four categories of user intent or searcher intent, namely

  1. Informational search intent
  2. Navigational search intent
  3. Commercial search intent
  4. Transactional search intent

To better understand these categories of searcher intent or search intent, you may like to read How effective content writing and searcher intent are interrelated.

But the focus of this blog post is informational search intent.

There are benefits of content writing for all Google searcher intent in varying degrees, but you will be surprised to know that 50-80% of the search that happens in Google originates from informational search intent.

As explained in this detailed Moz post on the “People Also Ask” section on Google, most of the suggested queries in this section are from informational search intent.

These queries are normally in the form of

  • What is content writing?
  • Why is SEO content writing important for search engine rankings?
  • How to improve your copywriting skills?
  • How can I hire the best content writer for my business?
  • A guide to creating the perfect content publishing calendar for your content marketing campaign.
  • Tutorial on copywriting best practices.

and so on.

Of course, I have given you these examples from my business, but you can apply the same on your business, for example:

  • Which is the best project management tool online?
  • What are the mobile app development trends during the Covid-19 pandemic?

You can easily make out that these searches are to gain some information. They are longer. They are also precise.

These are longtail keywords in their purest definition.

Does content writing for informational keyword intent translate into more sales

Does content writing for informational search intent increase sales

Does content writing for informational search intent increase sales?

Indirectly, yes. Directly, maybe not. I will explain.

It is like your sales funnel. Your customers and clients are often at different stages of your sales funnel.

You don’t want to just target people who are ready to buy from you. In most of the cases they don’t need targeting. They are already about to buy from you.

To generate more leads, to get more customers and clients, you want to target people who may want to purchase from you.

There are clients who immediately need my content writing services.

Then there are clients who know that an efficient content writing service can help them, but they haven’t yet made up their minds.

Then, there are clients who are struggling with all the difficulties that businesses normally have due to the lack of quality content, but they don’t know why they are having these difficulties.

They need to be educated.

They need to be enlightened.

For example, if someone is unable to improve his search engine rankings, he may search for “How can I improve my search engine rankings?”

When he uses this query on Google, if he comes across What is the importance of content writing in SEO?, this will be a revelation for him.

He learns that it is the lack of good content that is holding him back.

Whether he decides to hire my content writing services or goes with another service, is another matter, but I have educated him.

There is a great chance that he is going to hire my content writing services.

This is informational content that he found. This was informational search intent.

Nonetheless, it ends of generating business for me.

For every business it is very important to give the right information to customers and clients.

These days I’m writing for an accounting service that wants to help people reduce their taxable income.

They need to target people who are looking for such a service, and they are also targeting people who yet don’t know that their taxable income can be reduced through legal accounting and other procedures.

Hence, a searcher intent query such as, “How can I reduce my taxable income?” can bring such people to the website of this accounting service and this can result in more clients.

The SEO benefits of writing content for Google query intent

SEO benefits of writing content for informational search intent

SEO benefits of writing content for informational search intent.

This is a very, very, very old post from Search Engine Land that says that 80% of searches are informational searches on Google.

Even if in the past decade this number has changed, there is a great possibility that it hasn’t changed much, although, another website claims that in 2018, 37% searches were informational searches. I’m not citing the source because I couldn’t find one.

The point is, Google gives preference to question-based queries rather than business type queries.

It is easier to get higher search engine rankings for informational search intent content rather than commercial or transactional search intent content.

It is also easier to write content with informational search intent.

You know the question. Once you know the question, you can write the answer.

Since, in your answer, both the question and the answer get covered, you get highly optimized content.

This content gets higher search engine rankings.

Since most probably, this content may also contain links to your main website content, the higher search engine rankings of this content also have a positive impact on your main website content.

You develop readership.

You educate and inform your visitors.

This tells Google that your content is worth ranking higher.

Your overall SEO gets better.

The brand building benefits of publishing educational and informative content

Content writing for informational search intent helps you build your brand

Content writing for informational search intent helps you build your brand.

To build your brand you need authoritative, informative content.

Brand building includes recognition, presence, and authority. All these attributes can be generated when you publish lots of informational content.

High-quality, informational content gives you

  1. Audience retention: More people come to your website and stay longer to educate themselves and be more informed.
  2. Better social media traction: Your social visibility is important for brand building. Social visibility isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter. Most of your clients are on LinkedIn.
  3. Trust among your audience: It is very difficult to distrust a coach who shares lots of insights and good information with his or her visitors.
  4. Higher conversion rate: People who are familiar to your presence are more likely to hire you as their business coach.
  5. More leads: Even if right now they don’t want to hire you as their business coach, they would like to keep in touch with you and hence, leave their email ID or phone number with you.

Suppose you are looking for a business coach. You come across two websites.

One simply states the name of the business coach, his qualifications and what sort of coaching he can provide you.

There is a contact form in case you want to contact him.

The other has lots of information about not just the coach, but also other aspects of business coaching.

She’s continuously writing and publishing useful business coaching tips.

You want to closely follow her blog for the great advice she is giving on it.

This is an incentive for you to visit her website regularly and retain the maximum amount of information about her.

She publishes a newsletter through which she broadcasts highly valuable information people can use.

She also has some e-books for you that you can download and apply the advice to immediately experience improvements in the way you do your business.

People share her content on their social media timelines. They discuss her methods and unique ways of providing business coaching.

For many search queries related to business coaching her name comes up on Google.

You begin to relate good advice and good content with her name.

This is brand building through writing content for informational search intent.

Who are you going to hire as your business coach if you really want to hire one?

Obviously the one who publishes lots of information on her website.

How can you write content for informational search intent?

Now we come to the meatier part. What sort of content writing qualifies as informational content?

As described above, the informational search intent is for gathering information, education and insight.

In fact, this is my favorite form of content writing. It is based on solving particular problems.

When writing content for informational search intent you need to keep in mind that you are providing valuable information to your visitors.

Don’t mislead them.

Don’t write content just to get them to your website.

People are way too smart for such shenanigans.

This is a sure shot way of sending them away and helping them remember never to come back to your website.

Even the Google search algorithm can make out if you are tricking people into visiting your website.

When people don’t find valuable information on your website or blog but nonetheless, they find your content on the SERPs, they immediately leave your website, indicating to Google that your content doesn’t deserve the rankings it is currently having.

Anyway, the best way of writing content for informational search intent for your industry is build a long list of questions that people may have about your industry.

I will give you my own examples to start with:

  • How much does content writing cost?
  • In what different ways content writing improves search engine rankings?
  • Why does Google prefer high quality content?
  • What is the difference between SEO copywriting and normal copywriting?

See the pattern? This sound like the FAQs section. In fact, your FAQs section is a good example of informational search intent content.

Conclusion

You cannot do without high quality content on your website or blog.

Whether you realize it today, tomorrow or after having spent lots of money and many months, ultimately, your online presence depends on high quality content.

But, beginning to publish high-quality content, in the beginning, can be puzzling, even intimidating.

The best way forward is, begin with informational search intent.

Start publishing content for people looking for information.

Once you have made a presence for yourself you can start pitching your products and services.

Why I charge what I charge as a content writer

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Why I charge what I charge for my content writing services

Why I charge what I charge for my content writing services.

The clients often tell me, “We are a small business, we have a tight budget, so we cannot spend much. But we need good content that is well researched.”

Just imagine, saying the same thing in a restaurant or when you are buying a fridge or a TV.

Anyway, I’m writing this to quickly explain why one shouldn’t hesitate from paying a good writer, especially when you want someone hard-working writer creating content for your website or blog.

Let’s first lay it on the table what you want and what you don’t want.

You want

  • Well-written content to impress, influence and engage your visitors.
  • You want your visitors to get convinced after reading your content so that they become your paying customers and clients.
  • You want authoritative information and data from trusted sources with the links to those sources.
  • You want completely unique content – no copying from other websites and blogs.
  • You want your content to boost your search engine rankings so that your traffic increases and consequently, your business.
  • Delivery based on a schedule.

You don’t want

  • Content written in a sloppy manner.
  • Unoriginal content that is simply a rehashing of content existing on other blogs and websites.
  • Big claims not backed up by authoritative sources.
  • Writing that is full of spelling and grammar mistakes.
  • Google penalizing you for overusing the keywords.

I’m not saying these are unjustified expectations, but just to make it clear, you should know that what you want, what you are paying for, and what you don’t want when you are hiring a content writer.

Now, to get some perspective, kindly perform the following activities:

  1. Start a timer.
  2. Open your email and go to the message/messages where you have explained your content writing requirement.
  3. If there have been multiple communications between you and your content writer, go through the thread.
  4. Open a Word document or go to Google Docs and open a Google Docs document.
  5. Go to Google and do a search on the first search term that comes to your mind in order to find information about what needs to be written.
  6. Open the links in a few tabs.
  7. Start going through the links and make note of things you can use and things you can ignore.
  8. Remember that even to find out what is useful and what is not useful, you must read the whole thing.
  9. Based on all the information you have compiled, start preparing the outline.
  10. Stop the timer.

Please keep in mind that you are in this industry.

For example, if you want me to write content on real estate, you are from real estate and it can be safely assumed that for you, researching information related to your field must be easier.

Also, you can make out what is useful and what is not useful faster compared to a content writer who is not into real estate.

How much time does it take going through email messages, opening a blank document, beginning to research, going to individual links, finding out what to use and what to ignore, compiling the information and creating an outline?

This is assuming you want well-written professional content for your website or blog.

20 minutes? 30 minutes? Even more?

If it has taken you 20 minutes to just go through email messages and preparing the outline based on the links you can quickly find on Google, you can multiply the time by at 3 to get an idea of how much time it is going to take to prepare the first draft of roughly 1000 words.

80 minutes. And this is the minimum amount of time I’m assuming.

So, even if I work very fast, without factoring in revisions and exchanges with the client, on an average, 1000 words take 80 minutes to write.

I’m not factoring in the inherent value that a talented and experienced content writer delivers. It is conveniently assumed to be present. Try working with different writers.

For good writing you need a flow. You cannot be watching the clock all the time. To write well, you must get into the zone.

Clients who have burned their fingers with other writers, who know the value of good content, can understand what I’m saying. Those who haven’t worked with many content writers, won’t understand easily.

As a professional content writer, when I’m delivering you 1000 words, it is not just those 1000 words.

A lot goes into those 1000 words.

If it was just about those 1000 words, any content writer would have delivered them. Many can even deliver them for free.

What is included in these 1000 words?

  1. Years of experience writing for the web as well as search engines.
  2. The talent of a writer who knows how to express and communicate with words.
  3. The ability to write flawlessly.
  4. The ability to organize thoughts in a logical flow – from a beginning to a conclusion.
  5. The ability to write 100% unique content that is optimized for search engines.
  6. Overall, written content your business deserves and you can use to get more business.

Whether you want to accept it or not, it is your written content that gives you a noticeable presence on the web.

Your written content is your voice. It represents you when people visit your website or blog. It convinces people. It tells them why it is worth doing business with you.

They are not just 1000 words.

They are not a mere commodity.

They are the foundation of your business.

This is what you are paying for.

Do you really want me to do a patch-up job?

Finding the right content writer is key to your success

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Finding the right content writer is critical to your online success

Finding the right content writer is critical to your online success.

I have previously written on how to find the right content writer for your content writing needs.

In fact, multiple times. This topic is close to my heart. After all, if you are looking for a content writer, you should be able to find me on the web whether it is Google, LinkedIn or any other place.

I was going through my content writing and content marketing aggregation feed and I came across a blog post on another blog on the topic of what to look for when you are looking for a content writer for your business. I was about to start working on a client’s project but then I thought I will quickly post this small update.

Why do I say that finding the right content writer is key to your success?

One, I personally believe in that, and two, many clients who have been working with me for years, believe that without high quality content, they cannot possibly do business on the web.

Whether people find you through Google or they are already on your website, it is the writing that talks to them.

You have higher search engine rankings because of your content – both quality and quantity. You need to be publishing every second day to remain in the SEO reckoning.

You must have high quality content because without high quality content, at least now, after zillions of algorithm updates, you cannot hope to improve your search engine rankings or SEO.

A decade and a half ago you could get away with randomly using keywords and search terms and even use one of those article spinning services to enjoy higher search engine rankings, but not anymore.

Why finding the right content writer is critical?

You need regularity and you need quality. For this you need a dependable, experienced, and of course, proficient content writer.

Hence, a need to find such a writer.

The above-linked blog post makes some suggestions regarding how to find the right content writer. I have already written about the topic multiple times.

My experience with my clients tells me that using freelancing services rarely works. They have burned their fingertips. They have burned their hands. Some have also burned their businesses.

Even doing some research, my experience tells me, helps you little. In fact, there is no foolproof way of finding the right content writer for your needs. It is sheer luck. Yes.

The thing is, lots of factors collectively play a part in deciding who is right and who is wrong. It is not only about being able to write well. You can get thousands of writers who have an awesome writing style.

Professional content writing is about

  1. Understanding your needs.
  2. Understanding the needs of your target audience and writing accordingly.
  3. Being well versed with the technologies involved.
  4. Writing high quality content.
  5. Writing high quality content consistently – if you need to publish 15 blog posts every month, then you MUST publish 15 blog posts every month.
  6. Writing search engine optimized content that is acceptable both to search engines and humans.

This combination is difficult to find. Especially, dependability.

I may be biased towards my disposition, irrespective of whether you work with me or with someone else, instead of working with a content writer through a freelancing website, collaborate with a writer who either has his or her own content writing business (like yours truly) or is employed at a content writing service.

This is because a person who is employed or who runs his or her own business, has higher stakes. He or she has a system because his or her business depends on your level of satisfaction.

Sure, even on freelancing websites there is a rating system and content writers need to gather reviews and feedback from the clients they have worked for, the stakes are much lower when someone solely gets work from freelancing websites.

On the other hand, if someone works on his or her own website and runs the entire business through the website, he or she has a greater stake in maintaining quality, regularity and accountability. Professionalism.

The importance of content writing and copywriting in the times of Covid-19

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Importance of content writing and copywriting in the times of Covid-19 outbreak

Importance of content writing and copywriting in the times of Covid-19 outbreak.

The world is gradually settling down to the reality of living amidst the Covid-19 outbreak. How can content writing and copywriting help you get through these difficult times?

The lockdowns came and economies all over the world are opening up with great caution. There have been heated debates on what is more important – preventing oneself from getting infected or restarting the wheels of the economy.

Millions of jobs have been lost. Thousands of businesses have been closed and many are on the verge of bankruptcy.

In the meantime, Jeff Bezos is almost worth $ 200 billion. A lot of credit goes to the spike in the online retail market because people don’t want to go out and shop.

As someone who provides professional content writing and copywriting services, I see an increased demand from my clients in the online retail sector. Many on-demand mobile apps are coming up that allow people to buy products from home.

Cloud services is another sector that has experienced phenomenal growth during the Covid-19 outbreak, as a greater number of companies prefer their employees to work from home.

Even Google and Microsoft declared recently that they are encouraging their employees to work from home at least for a year.

Companies like Intel are changing their work culture on a permanent basis so that more of their employees can take care of their responsibilities from home using cloud services.

How can efficient content writing and copywriting help you during the Covid-19 outbreak?

Coming to the main topic of the post…

Whenever a calamity hits, some businesses are affected more, and some businesses are affected less.

There are many businesses, due to their positioning and targeting, who even profit.

Businesses providing digital services are profiting during the times of Covid-19.

Netflix is profiting. Of course, Amazon. Microsoft and Google. Gaming companies. Online video conferencing companies. On-demand food, groceries and commodity delivering services.

Hence, if you are providing services that can be delivered online, you need to enhance your presence.

I’m not saying that suddenly you’re going to give Amazon and Google a run for their money, there are thousands of small businesses that are doing great during the outbreak.

This also means that you need to maintain your visibility.

Almost everyone searches online these days whenever one is looking for a service or are product to buy.

The first thing they do is, go to Google or launch the Google app on their mobile phone, and search for the thing they need.

It’s very important that they are able to find you if you want to sell to them.

No matter how great your product or service is, if they are not able to find you, how are they going to become your paying customers and clients?

You need to improve your search engine rankings. You need to improve your conversion rate.

Targeted content writing helps you increase your organic search engine rankings.

Efficient copywriting helps you improve the conversion rate on your website or landing page.

During uncertain times, you may feel that you can ill-afford to spend money on professional content writing and copywriting.

This is understandable.

But, if you are spending money on advertising (something like PPC campaigns), then SEO content writing is, though, I don’t like using this expression, way cheaper compared to advertising.

When you run PPC campaigns, you pay for every click. And this every click is for every keyword. If you get 10 clicks, you pay for them. If you get 100 clicks, you pay for them.

But when you invest in quality content, your search engine rankings improve organically.

So, whether you get 10 clicks, 100 clicks, 1000 clicks, or even 1 million clicks, the only money that you spend is on the quality content that you are getting from a professional content writer.

The same goes with professional copywriting. Even if you don’t want to improve your SEO and you would rather spend money on a PPC campaign, how much of that paid traffic is actually converting?

If your PPC campaign sends all the traffic to your homepage, let me be frank with you: you are wasting money.

Traffic from a PPC campaign must always go to a landing page that has been specifically created for a set of keywords. Landing pages are specifically used for PPC campaigns.

A landing page needs professional copywriting.

Once people come to your landing page through your PPC campaign, they need to be convinced by your copy.

Every headline, every sentence and every bulleted list point contribute towards your overall conversion rate.

Hence, if you ever thought of making strategic investments in content writing and copywriting for your website, now is the best time.

You need all the visibility you can get during the Covid-19 outbreak which, the WHO has predicted, is going to last for a couple of years, at least.