Category Archives: Content Writing

When do you know your business needs a professional content writer?

When you need a professional content writer

When do you decide that your business needs a professional content writer? Considering the cost involved, it is a tough decision to make especially when writing doesn’t seem like a specialty worth paying for, at least at the outset.

Everyone can write and you are absolutely right about this. People these days are writing like they have never written before.

Just look at the number of Facebook posts, Twitter updates and WhatsApp messages and to your pleasant surprise, people you thought could never write a single straight sentence, are often quoting Pulitzer prize-winning writers.

Hence, writing seems easy.

Yup, writing seems easy when you don’t intend to generate business with your writing, and this is when most of the businesses decide to work with a professional content writer.

They don’t want to take chances.

They want their content professional, error-free, accurate and above all, convincing.

When you are writing on Facebook or Twitter, you are just trying to put across a point. You want to share with your followers what is in your mind. If you’re angry or disgusted or happy about something, you want to express your thoughts. How people react to your updates, doesn’t actually matter.

Of course, you don’t want to offend anyone, but still, it hardly matters if someone takes offence and decides to disagree with you.

In casual writing people don’t mind spelling mistakes (blame the auto correct), they ignore grammar oversights (focus on the message, not how it is expressed, et cetera) and they are cool about you using even the wrong words and expressions because after all, it’s social media.

When it comes to a business website, you can’t afford to piss of people.

When people come to your website, you want them to feel good about what you have published over there.

You want to inform them. You want to convince them. You want to engage them. You want your writing to talk to them. Eventually, you want them to spend money on your website – the hardest thing to do.

There are primarily 2 reasons why you need to hire a professional content writer for your business

These 2 reasons are:

Higher conversion
Consistency

When it comes to writing content for your business website you cannot leave things on chance. You want to convert maximum number of people who come to your website.

If you don’t want to visit the above-mentioned link, conversion rate means the ratio of people coming to your website and those who do something that you want them to do, for example, fill up your contact form or download your e-book or subscribe to your newsletter or click advertisements.

Conversion doesn’t happen if your content writing is not of good quality.

If your writing is not good, people assume that your business too is not good. Your product or service may be exceptionally good, but if you’re writing cannot convince people, they’re not going to buy from you.

So, how come a professional content writer can improve your conversion rate and not you yourself or someone who can write decently but doesn’t have the required experience as a web writer or a copywriter?

Exceptions are always there. Whatever I’m writing here, may not directly apply to you, but it may be applicable to many.

When someone comes to your website – whether from a search engine or your link on another website or through your PPC campaign – he or she begins a journey. First, he or she reads your title, the first sentence of your first paragraph, the first paragraph, then the second paragraph, and so on.

How do you make sure that the person doesn’t leave midway?

Are you still reading? It means I have kept you hooked till now.

You write in an engaging manner. You know how to formulate your sentences. You know when to use smaller expressions and when you can get away with a bit longer, a bit more complex sentence structure. You know what information to reveal immediately and when to hold back and build suspense. You know when to use call to action.

Simply put, you know how to hold the attention of the reader. If you can do that and on top of that, if you can deliver an effective message, you are a good writer and you may not have to hire a professional content writer. Otherwise, you need to.

Now, about consistency.

Are you a writer by profession? Can you write consistently?

Suppose you are to publish two blog posts every week; can you stick to the schedule? A professional content writer will.

In fact, most of the clients who claim that they can write on their own, but they are contacting me because they don’t have enough time, give me this reason – they cannot write consistently.

You can write a few webpages and blog posts on your own, but if you need to do it consistently, it takes practice and effort. You need to use the muscle of your mind that you don’t often use.

A professional content writer on the other hand is used to writing all the time.

I am writing all the time. I’m writing for my clients and when I’m not writing for my clients I’m writing for my blog and when I am not writing for my blog, I’m doing journalistic writing. I don’t need to make an effort. Writing comes naturally to me just like accounting comes naturally to you if you are an accountant or painting comes naturally to you if you are a painter. In fact, I’m writing even when I’m not being paid for it because I like writing.

Anyway, you need to hire a professional content writer if you want professional writing for your business website, and you need it on an ongoing basis.

This is, when I’m assuming that you’re comfortable with the language and you can write sentences without spelling and grammar mistakes. There are numerous people who find it difficult to write. For them, hiring a professional content writer is not an option but a necessity.

Content writing for humans means better SEO

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Write content for humans not for machines

There is lots of talk about content marketing and content writing for humans. What does this mean? Aren’t we always writing for human beings? We’re not writing for cats and dogs, are we?

There is a reason why content writers and content marketers, and even SEO experts, advise you to focus on humans when writing content: most of the people seem to be writing for search engines because they believe that the most important thing to do is draw traffic from search engines.

Search engine traffic is important. If you don’t get targeted traffic, unless there is another channel that sends tons of traffic to your website, you are not going to get customers and clients. So, it goes without saying that focusing on your SEO is one of the most important marketing responsibilities you have while promoting your business online.

The problem is, improving SEO with content writing can turn into an obsession or an addiction because it gives you a high that in many cases, can be instant – it’s instant gratification. You have just published a blog post or an article and there you have it, it is already showing on the first page of search results. How thrilling.

Search engine ranking algorithms are past that stage when you could trick them into giving you better rankings. “Tricking”, though, doesn’t work these days and most of your content is ranked according to its quality and relevance, a majority of people still believe that SEO can be improved merely by including keywords without paying attention to the quality and relevance of the content being written.

Hence, the need to write content for humans and not for the ranking algorithms.

What is the difference between content writing for humans and for machines?

Again, I’m not saying everyone does that (because there is a higher level of awareness regarding this now) but while trying to improve search engine rankings, people often forget why they are writing. All they are bothered about is, improving their search engine rankings for their preferred keywords and search terms.

This image gives you an example of how people try to “optimize” their content for better SEO

The image demonstrates text in which someone goes overboard with optimization

Going overboard with optimization

Source.

What does content writing for machines mean?

Content writing for machines means writing simply to improve your SEO. It may or may not work, but here, your primary focus is to weave your text in such a manner that the search engine algorithm finds your text appealing and consequently, ranks it well.

It involves repeating your keywords a couple of times in the title of the web page for the blog post and then copiously using various keywords as simple text as well as hypertext, mostly indiscriminately throughout the body text.

Does it work?

Personally, I’m not sure. Sometimes in the search results, I’ve seen this working, but personally, I have never been able to benefit from it. My content ranks well only when I write well.

It isn’t advisable and it is strongly discouraged by reputed search engine experts, but still, you may find many search results that are of no value but are full of keywords and ranking well.

Why isn’t content writing for machines advisable?

Why do you want search engine traffic? You want people to come to your website or blog. Why do you want that? You want them to do business with you.

Do you think they are going to do business with you just because they are on your website or do you think they need to be convinced?

Have you ever spent money on a website where you cannot make sense of what is written over there or somewhere you don’t feel convinced?

I don’t think so.

Similarly, if you are merely focusing on improving your SEO and in the process, neglecting the quality and the relevance of your content, although you may get traffic from search engines, this traffic is not going to convert.

This is where content writing for humans plays an important part.

What does content writing for humans mean?

When you write content for humans, you focus on the message, you focus on the quality and the relevance of what you are writing rather than obsessing over SEO.

When you are writing for humans, you don’t completely ignore the SEO part, but your primary concern is to make your content engaging and meaningful. You want to provide useful information to your visitors so that they can make up their mind about doing business with you.

You spend your effort on quality. You do lots of research. You pack as much useful information as possible.

Then what about SEO?

If you simply focus on the subject at hand, your search engine rankings are automatically improved.

People are constantly asking questions to search engines (something like, “looking for the best content writer for my business”) and the job of the search engines is to provide the best answers to people.

Search engine ranking algorithms are constantly being improved to achieve that. The mathematicians and computer scientists working on these algorithms don’t want to be tricked into believing that something is good when it is not.

But at the same time, they want their algorithm to be able to recognise text patterns and calculate how important that piece of content is for a keyword.

Balancing between writing content for humans and machines

This can be achieved by writing your content primarily for humans, but at the same time using the language that they use with search engines.

For example, if you are looking for a professional content writer and if I want you to be able to find my link on Google and then come to my link and after reading what I have published, you should consider doing business with me, I should focus on talking about my abilities as a content writer rather than advising you on how to become an author like Shakespeare.

Although, maybe I’m trying to convince you that I’m as good as Shakespeare and hence, you should hire me as your content writer, and there is nothing wrong in presenting my services from that angle, your primary focus is not someone who writes like Shakespeare, but someone who can write professional content for you that can help you grow your business.

The point is, if I want to generate traffic from people who are looking for a content writer, then obviously I should have lots of content talking about content writing, content writer, SEO writer, SEO content, content marketing, and such, because this is how Google figures out that I have lots of content for these terms.

But I shouldn’t obsess over these terms just for the heck of it. I should carefully choose topics that talk about these search terms in a manner that they convince you that I’m a better content writer than someone else.

Why there is a need to constantly write and publish such topics?

Compulsion.

Personally, I feel I have covered whatever I needed to help people decide whether they want to hire me as their content writer or not.

As new content emerges, old content is pushed down. If new content is not published on the website, it begins to lose its search engine rankings no matter how exceptional the content is. Search engines like Google prefer fresh content, and fresh content on an ongoing basis.

Hence, I try to publish new content every week. But, though, I need to publish content regularly, it doesn’t mean I do it with total disinterest just as a chore. I take full interest. I pay special attention to the fact that if you are reading this, you are learning something, you are benefiting from it and you are able to implement my advice on your own content writing if you want.

This is how I maintain a balance between writing content for humans and the machines.

How Internet of Things is going to affect content marketing, especially content writing

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The image shows a picture of Internet of Things

Content writing for Internet of Things

Internet of Things – IoT – is a network of appliances, gadgets and electronic devices that can send signals to each other, interpret data from each other, and then do stuff accordingly.

For example, as you approach, the things inside your house can detect the settings of your mobile phone app. The air conditioning temperature can be set according to your preference. If you prefer to take a bath, the water temperature is adjusted accordingly, on its own. Certain lights can be switched on. Even the lock on your door can be unlocked, if that’s what you want.

It isn’t just that. Your refrigerator can place an order for a can of milk at your preferred online store if it detects that you are running out of milk.

This way, devices and appliances connected to the Internet of Things can automatically take care of lots of things in the background while you go about your own routine.

Yeah, I know, if you’re reading this in maybe 2030, you must be wondering why I’m writing the obvious, but this is not 2030 when I’m writing it, it is 2019.

Where does content marketing and content writing fit into all this?

This ReadWrite blog post explains how IoT is going to affect content marketing, since I provide content writing services, I need to talk about this from the context of content writing.

The blog post refers to a Gartner study that says that by 2020, there are going to be 20.4 billion IoT devices, worldwide.

The success of your content marketing depends a lot on targeting. And what helps you in targeting? The data.

The development of the Internet of Things means that people are not just accessing your data from their mobile phones, computers and laptops. They are using different devices.

For example, someone may be accessing your set of instructions (for example, you provide recipes) from his or her Amazon Echo or Google Home placed in the kitchen.

Talking about Amazon, the company is planning to connect everything from microwave to your kids’ toys through the Internet of Things technologies.

Up till now people have been accessing your content – even your written content – through their computers and laptops or at the most, tablets and mobile phones.

Although the big shift towards using mobile phones is still happening, a greater number of people are accessing your content, reading your blog posts and articles and webpages while jogging or taking care of the kitchen chores.

That is, they are listening.

They are listening, and to retrieve information, they are talking. They tell their device what they want to hear instead of typing in a query.

The Internet of Things, especially when it comes to interacting with them, is usually a very personal affair, and this is why, plain, branded and business content doesn’t do well with the IOT experience.

The content needs to be personal and above all, highly valuable and useful.

The biggest strength in terms of writing content for IOT devices is the data that they provide enables you to tailor your content exactly for the situation your prospective customer or client is.

For example, an IOT device can tell you the current activity someone is engaged in – driving to the grocery store, passing by a restaurant, holidaying in a resort, sitting in the bed, waiting in a line or sitting in the park. You can tailor your content to completely suit the situation of your audience.

This blog post on Read Write gives example of pillows connected to the IOT network – the pillows can send give you data about the sleeping pattern of the person using them. You know when he or she goes to bed and when he or she wakes up. So, you know if he or she is an early riser or a late riser and accordingly you can tailor your content for that specific user. This sounds creepy, as an example.

As a content writer, my main focus is voice-enabled devices that accept questions and provide answers, for example, a chatbot or a knowledge base.

Ultimately, it all boils down to writing lots of useful content and simple, straightforward language, especially language that is used by your core audience.

Do keyword research before writing content

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Importance of keyword research before content writing

Although your keywords shouldn’t dominate your content writing, they are an important part of the entire writing process especially when you are targeting search engines.

For me, keywords keep your writing focused. When you know what words to use, you know what to write and you don’t deviate from that.

Focus is very important when you are writing content to attract targeted traffic from search engines. Keywords keep you focused.

Sometimes clients send me a long list of keywords to be included in a single document. Although, with little bit of creativity, scores of keywords can be incorporated into a single document – provided you have a big document of more than 3000 words – normally I don’t recommend this.

Focus on a single phrase – most of the searches these days are based on phrases rather than keywords – and in that one single phrase, try to include the main things that you’re going to cover in the current blog post or web page.

Also keep in mind that an increasing number of searches are voice searches – people use devices they can talk to, to look for information, for example Google Assistant or Amazon Echo.

Nonetheless, it is important that you do keyword research before writing content.

Why keyword research is important before content writing?

The concept of keyword has changed over the years. In terms of SEO, it doesn’t mean a single word, though, people get confused and assume that they should focus on single words rather than complete phrases.

For SEO and content writing, when you talk of keywords, you can safely assume that they mean even complete sentences.

Back to why keyword research is important…

It tells you what language people use when they are trying to find your service or your product or even when they’re talking to each other on various online forums and social media platforms while talking about your service or product.

Search engine algorithms are becoming intelligent by the day. They are fast moving towards a state of being when even if you don’t use your keywords, provided you stick to the topic, they will be able to make out what you are saying and then accordingly, rank your content.

In fact, this is already happening. When SEO experts and content marketing professionals talk about “searcher’s intent” this is what they are basically saying – your keywords don’t matter much, what matters is, whether you’re solving people’s problems or not, especially problems for which they are searching for solutions.

Nonetheless, keywords matter, and they will go on mattering simply because the words that people use to find you on Google, can be distinct for distinct requirements.

For example, if you’re looking for a content writer for your business, you will not be looking for “content writing” or “how to write content”.

Although, these two phrases do have something to do with content writing, for your particular need, you may look for “content writing for my boutique business” or “content writing service for SEO”.

If you’re looking for a writer to write your product descriptions, you’re not going to search for “professional copywriter”. You may search for “writer for writing product descriptions” or “looking for someone to write product descriptions for me”.

These may seem very obvious observations, especially when you are reading this blog post, but when you need to target scores of keywords because your business depends on traffic originating from those keywords, you need to do comprehensive research.

Again, the purpose of keyword research is not to prepare a long list of keywords and then use these keywords to write content (unless you’re using Google AdWords), the purpose is to use these keywords as a guiding force.

You enjoy better search engine rankings if you write in the language that your prospective customers and clients use.

Why before content writing?

As I have written above, the purpose is not to stuff keywords into your writing, the purpose is to use your keywords as a direction towards creating highly purposeful content in a language that people use, especially people who can be your prospective customers and clients.

When you write content, you should ask yourself, “Why am I writing this blog post?”, or “Why am I writing this webpage?”

Of course, you don’t just want to generate search engine traffic from your content writing because search engine traffic by itself means nothing. If your content can draw people from Google and other search engines but people simply leave your website without doing anything, it is an exercise in futility. This happens when you solely focus on SEO.

The primary purpose of your content must always be to provide information people are looking for so that they can decide whether they want to do business with you.

Take for instance this current blog post. Here I’m explaining to you why it is important to do keyword research before writing content. You may say that by merely reading this blog post how am I conveying that I’m a professional content writer and you should hire me?

Through a search engine or through another website or through Facebook or Twitter, when you come to this blog post and you read, you will know that I understand a few things about keywords and writing content based on those keywords.

The layout of my website/blog is such that you easily know that I provide professional content writing services and if you’re looking for a content writer who can focus on your keywords and despite that, also write high-conversion content, you may like to contact me.

If you don’t get such a feeling (despite requiring a competent content writer) then I’m not doing a good job.

Similarly, the ultimate aim of your content writing is to convince people that you are open for business and doing business with you is a good decision.

Hence, when you’re writing content, your aim must be converting people.

Now, this is where it becomes difficult for content writers who are not experienced. They can either focus on keywords to improve your SEO (which is not a big deal) or write conversion-centric content which, though, does not attract traffic, but if people land on that webpage or blog post, they are convinced.

So, how does one balance between keywords and conversion-oriented content writing?

Use your keywords (phrases, sentences, search expressions) to steer your language so that both search engine algorithms and visitors know what you’re talking about. Don’t simply use them to improve your SEO because that is counter-productive.

Again, take for example this blog post. It talks about why it is important to research keywords before content writing. At the time of writing this, I’m not sure whether people will be able to find this link for the right keywords or search terms, but this is what my intention is – if someone searches with a combination of keywords and content writing and maybe also SEO, he or she should be able to find this link.

But once he or she is on this blog post, only good content writing matters, not what or how the keywords have been used.

Dealing with writer’s block as a professional content writer

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Content writing and writers blockCo

As a professional content writer, you need to write every day because if you don’t write, you don’t get paid.

Your client who wants to publish his blog post or webpage or landing page or press release or whatever, couldn’t care less about your writer’s block, in case you are having one.

If you have committed to deliver the document by Wednesday, you must deliver the document by Wednesday, writer’s block or no writer’s block.

What is writer’s block?

Frankly speaking, as a writer I have never believed in the concept of writer’s block. You write, or you don’t write.

Yes, you are distracted sometimes. You are demotivated. Thousands of other thoughts barge into your mind and you cannot focus on writing. You also lose confidence sometimes.

You suddenly begin to hate every word you write, and you begin to feel that you are the worst writer in the world and people are going to laugh at you or ridicule you when they read your writing.

Every artist, and in fact, every professional goes through such phases.

Surely, writing is different. It is not physical. It is not worldly. Just imagine, you don’t just imagine, you also put your imagination into words and then put those words on paper or on screen and even if there is a slight disconnect, the entire imagery collapses.

So yes, if writers think that writer’s block is a unique phenomenon that manifests just among writers, I don’t disagree.

Do I get writer’s block as a content writer?

I do, but at least in my case, I firmly believe that it is my own doing.

There is a writer who writes stories: JK Rowling or Narendra Kohli.

Then, there is a writer who writes content for websites, information articles, blog posts and even opinion pieces and articles for newspapers and magazines.

Content writers and journalists are less prone to being hit by writer’s block because usually, there is a lot to write.

For example, as a content writer, I don’t have to wait for an idea. I’m given a brief by the client and I know exactly what I must write and what I have to achieve through my writing.

With a writer, the problem is rarely about writing – it is like driving a car, once you know how to drive, you know how to drive, and you don’t even have to think about it – it is what to write about.

For example, if a great writer like Narendra Kohli has to write, he first needs to come up with the story, come up with the characters, string the stories and the characters together, and then write the story, without getting distracted, even for months. It can be a humongous task.

A content writer, on the other hand, solely needs to focus on the current job at hand that is, maybe 500 words long, or 1500 words, or 3000 words max.

The topic is there, and in most of the cases the information can be found no matter how hard it is to find it.

So, where does the question of writer’s block arise in the case of a content writer?

Distraction.

Distraction is the biggest writer’s block in the life of a content writer.

This distraction comes through social media and social networking websites, through emails, through social networking apps, through phone calls and through whatever the connected world throws at us these days.

How do I deal with writer’s block as a content writer?

It’s easy, actually. Since, I know that I get writer’s block when I’m distracted or when my passion has been consumed by a subject that has got nothing to do with my client’s work, all I have to do is, create an environment where external messages cannot reach me.

I have mentioned this in my previous blog posts also, to stop social media distractions, I use ColdTurkey to block websites like Twitter and Facebook.

I mostly get distracted when there is lots of political noise, for example the ongoing elections in India. I cannot keep myself away from knowing what people are talking about.

So, along with activating ColdTurkey I also keep my phone in another room. This prevents me from unconsciously picking up the phone to check updates or to post something that comes to my mind.

Even after taking these measures sometimes it becomes difficult to write.

In such cases, I just start writing. Over the years, I have experienced that when I stick to my writing for at least 20 minutes, without giving up and without getting distracted (and without finding an excuse to abandon something that is taxing my mind), the writing begins to flow smoothly.

Another thing that helps me get over my writer’s block is I start writing in monosyllables or single sentences. It’s easier to write a word than a sentence.

Usually, the thoughts are there. Sometimes the information is lacking. Sometimes, there is no conviction, especially when one is not sure whether the information at hand is correct or not.

At that time, it’s better to write very short sentences, sometimes even a single word. It is better than doing nothing.

Eventually, and this has been 100% true, the words automatically begin to fill in the document turns out to be fine.