Category Archives: Content Writing

How to generate more leads with content writing

In this post I’m going to throw some light on how you can generate more leads with content writing consistently.

Every business wants to generate more leads. A lead is when a prospective customer or client approaches you (through your contact form, through a phone call, through an email, through an advertisement or whatever mode of communication) and shows interest in your product or service.

Leads may have different meanings for different business models. Generating leads doesn’t necessarily mean people coming to you to buy your product or service. A lead can also be when someone subscribes to your email newsletter. A lead can also be a casual inquiry.

Basically, whenever someone shows interest in your business for the sake of buying one of your products or using one of your services, he or she is a lead.

Businesses eagerly pay for leads. There are many websites that sell you qualified leads – people leave their requirement on the website and then the website contacts you telling you that someone needs your product or service. Then it is up to you whether you make use of that lead and do business, or squander it away.

Why generating leads are important for your business?

It’s easier to sell to people who are interested in buying from you, compared to those who are not interested. Hence, there is a greater chance of a lead turning into your customer or client, if you strategically lead your lead to the ultimate point of making the purchase. Leads are easier to convert.

It is very difficult to get noticed on the Internet these days. For every business there are thousands of contenders. If you use advertising, your competitors can too. If you think you can improve your search engine rankings there are thousands of others who think on similar lines and may even outrank you in a matter of a few weeks or a few days.

Hence, there is a constant cat-and-mouse game going on and the more businesses try to vie for attention, the more noise they create, and the more noise they create, less it becomes possible for prospective customers and clients to understand their marketing messages and even if they can understand, it becomes difficult to distinguish one business from another.

A lead immediately changes the scene. You’re not vying for the attention of your customer or client – he or she is already interested in you. Your business or your brand has got his or her attention despite all the noise. This is a major gain. It’s like in a crowded party full of strangers someone has walked up to you and have started a conversation.

Content writing and how the process of generating leads has changed

I specifically mention content writing because this is what I provide – content via writing. For your case, content can exist in any form. It can be videos, it can be images, it can be infographics, it can be slideshows, it can be Instagram posts, whatever works for you. So, when I see content writing, you can call it video publishing or email marketing, or whatever comes to your mind.

Marketing and lead generation have changed

In the olden days, marketing was all about telling people how great your business is and what they stand to lose if they don’t use your product or service. Advertising and marketing was unscientific. It was like throwing lots of gooey mud on the wall expecting that some of that goo would stick.

Marketing these days, especially after the advent of the Internet, is more customer-centric. Through your content writing, you don’t promote your interest, you promote your customer’s interest.

Amazing writer

For example, when you’re reading about my content writing services, do you want to know what an awesome writer I am, or do you want to know how I’m going to help you generate more leads and consequently, more sales? Obviously the latter.

You couldn’t care less if I have written books or if I have earned citations for my pros. Yes, it may reassure you that I know a thing or two about writing, but your primary concern is, whether I can help you generate more leads and grow your business.

So, when I write, I’m constantly addressing your concerns. If you’re reading this blog post, you want to generate more leads. You don’t want traffic, you want people on your website who would buy from you or subscribe to your newsletter or do something that makes you money. Can I do it? This is what you want to know.

This has changed across the board. No matter how big a business you are, if you don’t impress your customers, they’re not going to give you a second glance.

So, how does content writing help you generate more leads?

You want to be a part of your customers’ lives. This can be achieved by providing highly useful and high quality content on an ongoing basis using the channels your prospective customers and clients use. You cannot simply tell them to do business with you because one, there are many choices available these days and two, there is always this other business that is more eager to engage, interact and provide a meaningful relationship rather than always wanting to sell.

It’s very logical.

If you have a business, you don’t need to repeatedly tell people that you have a business, your customers and clients know it. If you have a product or service to sell, provided there is no ambiguity in your messaging, everybody knows that you have a product or service to sell. You don’t need to repeatedly tell people how great your furniture is, how exceptional your web designing is, what an awesome make-up artist you are or what a prodigal content writer you are.

I’m not saying you should never tell people what a great business you are running, but you don’t need to do it constantly.

But if you don’t do it constantly, you fear losing your customers and clients to your competitors. What you do then?

You publish content that is useful to your prospective customers and clients. This way, they want to hear from you rather than you wanting to talk to them.

People who positively receive your content are also your leads. They may not buy from you immediately, but if you constantly engage them, if you provide them value through high-quality content writing, then when they eventually need the products or services that you provide, they’re going to come to you.

Another benefit of content writing is that it improves your search engine rankings. Search engines are continuously looking for new content to index and rank. As their crawlers find new content, they push the older content down and if the newer content is good, they push it higher. This is an ongoing churning that is happening every second.

Higher search engine rankings can bring you practically unlimited leads.

To generate qualified leads, you may decide to focus on the following channels:

Your business blog and content marketing through it
Website optimization and usability improvement
Search engine optimization
Social media marketing
Email marketing
Press releases

Content writing plays a pivotal role in every channel. You need well-written content for your website so that you can clearly communicate your message, people can understand it, and then decide to do business with you.

Search engine optimization is not possible without well-written, optimized, relevant and quality content.

Even if you write just 2 sentences, your social media marketing is incomplete without good content writing.

Email marketing and press releases solely depend on high-quality content writing.

All these are lead generation channels.

As you can see in the above image, unlike the older ways, you don’t go to your customers and clients and urge them to buy from you.

You create funnels through high-quality content that you disseminate using the channels your prospective customers and clients use.

Whether it is personal branding or business branding, your brand should be familiar to them and they should respect your brand. They should value your content. They should be able to use your content to improve their business and enrich their lives.

Many of my clients think that this is a long shot but it is not. It is a sure shot way of generating more leads following a well-defined path. Give them value through quality content writing and content marketing and they will buy from you.

14 ways to make positive impact with your content writing

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Making a positive impact with your content writing

Every piece of content writing that you publish on your website or blog (or elsewhere) needs to make a positive impact.

Of course, whenever people think of publishing content their primary concern is improving their search engine rankings. Nothing wrong in that, but that shouldn’t be the only concern.

Remember that ultimately, people need to decide whether they want to do business with you are not.

How do they decide that?

When you can convince them.

To convince them, you need to make an impact.

Just because they are on your website doesn’t mean they’re going to buy from you. You have to address their concerns. You have to give them the right information.

When they read the information on your website, they should think, “Yes, these are the guys I want to work with, or buy from.”

The short-term approach is, you throw mud at the wall hoping that some of it will stick, and some of it does.

So, you indiscriminately publish content that gets you search engine traffic and then you hope some of the traffic will convert. Some of it converts. The majority of it doesn’t.

The long-term approach, which is more sustainable and more profitable, is to build an audience.

You build an audience when you make an emotional connection. People want to then come to your website regularly. They want to read or view what you publish. They want to share your content. They even want to save your content. They become loyal to your brand. When they need to buy what you sell, they buy it from you.

This is how you make a positive impact.

But how do you make this positive impact so that people become your regular readers, and begin to trust you, and begin to pay attention to what you have to say?

You can do these 14 things:

1. Always keep the interest of your readers in mind

Nobody wants to read your personal journal, unless they derive something out of it (inspiration, or some insight, or an example). People want to read something useful. Something that can help them. Something that can make their life better than it was before they started reading your blog post or article.

If you want to make a positive impact with your content writing, always write what interests your readers. Try to find what they want to know, and then tell them. This will keep them coming back to your website or blog.

2. Craft the title of your web page or blog post with care

This is a technical aspect of writing and publishing impactful content. Title is something that draws people to your link.

When they come across your web page or blog post title on search engines or on their social media timelines, they should immediately be able to know what you are offering. This means, your title should never be ambiguous.

For example, the title of this blog post tells you 14 ways to make a positive impact with your content writing. So, if you’ve been looking for something like this, you want to check it out immediately.

People have different opinions on how long your title should be, but it depends on exactly what you are trying to say. Two things are important when you are creating a title for your blog post or web page:

For SEO purpose, your title must be 50-65 characters, including spaces. This is because these are the number of characters (maximum 70) that Google shows when it shows your listing on search result pages and the rest it truncates.
People should be able to understand your title within a single glance. If they need to make an effort to make sense of your title, they’re going to get distracted and they may not read the rest of your blog post or web page.

3. Make your writing mobile friendly

Write shorter sentences. Divide complex sentences into smaller, multiple sentences.

It makes it easier to read and grasp on mobile screens.

The same holds for paragraphs. Write short paragraphs. Not more than two sentences per paragraph.

Again, this is less about the quality of your content writing and more about paying attention to technicalities, but you cannot hope to make a positive impact if people find it difficult to read your content and consequently, leave without reading it.

4. Organize text under headings

Headings make your writing scannable. One can understand the gist of your web page or blog post by simply running through the headings.

Headings are also good for SEO. Use your long tail keywords when writing your headings.

5. Write for people who have a shorter attention span

Don’t take it negatively. Life these days is full of distractions. As I’ve written above, lots of people access your content on their mobile phones.

While reading your content, they will get constant notifications. They might be traveling. They might be in the midst of a conversation. They might be waiting for their doctor’s appointment.

The thing is, the amount of attention is limited these days whether people read your content on their computers and laptops, or on their mobile devices.

Make this assumption when you are writing content.

You don’t have to lower your writing quality. There is no need to dumbify your text.

As mentioned above, use simpler sentences. Use direct language. Stick to the point.

6. Convey your important point as soon as possible

Since the attention span is limited these days, there is no use beating around the bush. You don’t need to build up a narrative unless you are creating an interesting story.

By the time people are through with your first paragraph, they should know what you’re trying to communicate through your content writing and what they are going to achieve after they have read your blog post or article.

In terms of a business website, suppose you want to sell an e-book. As soon as people come to your website, people should know what information is contained in the e-book and you are selling it, and not offering it for free. These points must be made clear in the beginning preferably, in the first sentence itself.

7. Do keyword research to use the right language

When I say keyword research I don’t mean you need to stuff your writing with your keywords to improve your SEO.

Yes, you need to use your keywords strategically, but if you know the right keywords to focus on, it improves your language and the way you convey what you need to convey.

8. Back up your claim with data from credible sources

Data is very reassuring. If you tell someone that 72% B2C content marketers attribute their marketing success to the quality of their content, your readers will find it easier to believe you if you let them know that you have taken this statistic from Content Marketing Institute.

If you mention in your blog post that by 2021 content marketing will be a $400 billion industry it’s better to let your readers know that you are getting this number from Forbes.

9. Don’t underestimate the visual aspect of writing content for business marketing

Just because I am writing about content writing, it doesn’t mean we should overlook the importance of incorporating visuals into your overall message. Visuals are highly effective.

Visuals not only help you present your ideas attractively (if you are using graphs and pie charts), they also provide a brief relief to people. When they are reading text, and suddenly they come across a visual, it distracts them for a few seconds and they need to refocus. This helps them focus better.

Make sure that the images and graphics that you use are relevant to your current topic.

10. Write in a conversational style

This may sound like a clichéd (oft repeated) piece of advice, but it is very easy to end up ignoring it when you are in the thick of your creative things.

Write the way you talk.

It doesn’t mean if you talk in monosyllables you also write in monosyllables, but make your writing conversational. Whenever possible, use first person.

When you’re writing for a business, especially when you are writing for your business blog, try to use “you” and “I” instead of “you” and “we” unless there is reason to use “we”.

A good thing about writing in a conversational style is that you will avoid using big sentences and bigger paragraphs. Usually when we talk, we use precise sentences. Also, we don’t use complicated words when we talk.

This makes your writing easier to read and instills in it an easy flow.

11. Empathize with your readers when writing content

Convey it to your readers that you can understand or you can relate to what problems and issues they are going through.

Suppose you’re writing a blog post about an SEO tool you have just developed.

Talk about the problems people may have faced while using other SEO tools. Tell them that you understand the importance of improving their SEO and how their business depends on better search engine rankings. Concur with them that they face tough competition and they need a convincing tool to improve their SEO.

12. Know your readers properly

It is also called defining an ideal persona. This will tell you whom you are writing your content for.

13. Clearly define the propose of your current blog post or article

Of course the long term propose is that you want to engage, and then consequently, build a loyal following of readers/visitors who repeatedly visit your website or blog and takes your word seriously.

The short term propose could be a mix of

Educating your readers about a particular topic concerning your business.
Publishing content people would like to share.
Increase information wealth of your website or blog.
Getting more subscribers for your newsletter.
Improving your search engine rankings for a particular search term.

14. Use real-world examples

Want to show how your SEO tool actually helps entrepreneurs improve their search engine rankings?

Talk about a real-world example. Tell about a real business. Capture screenshots of current rankings of that business and publish them. If possible, mention the link of the website. Try to get a quote from the owner, or the person who used your SEO tool to improve the SEO of the website.

Why it is important to make a positive impact with your content writing?

Sustainable business is all about building relationships. It is not about tricking people into coming to your website and then leaving it up to them whether they want to do business with you or not.

It is very easy to trick people into coming to your website. If you can remember, they used to have banner ads with a monkey running left and right and you were asked to click the moving monkey with precision, making you believe that it was some sort of game. All it did was, take you to the advertiser’s website. On the website, something totally unrelated was being sold and whatever was being sold had nothing to do with a moving monkey or not even with a game.

Although these days most of the businesses don’t go to that extreme, still, one way or the other, they’re playing the monkey trick on the visitors by tricking them into visiting the website.

It’s all about numbers. If you have lots of money to publish tons of junk content just to draw traffic from search engines and social media websites, some of the traffic may convert. If one visitor converts out of every 1000 visitors, then maybe bringing 1,000,000 visitors to your website can get you 1000 customers. This is the logic used by spammers.

Can you really get 1,000,000 visitors to your website? On an ongoing basis?

On the other hand, if you publish impactful content, out of those 1000 visitors, maybe 50 or 100 people will convert, or even more. This is a much better conversion rate. Also, more sustainable and repeatedly doable.

This is because when people find quality content on your website they trust you.

Writing that is meant to make a positive impact also draws targeted, focused traffic to your website or blog. For example, people who come to my website or my blog either need a content writer or they want to read about content writing.

Although video marketing is also content marketing, since I’m a writer and I don’t provide video marketing services (at least not a dedicated service), I don’t aim to draw traffic for this keyword (or any other that does not involve content writing vis-à-vis content marketing). This saves me lots of effort, lots of time, it also improves my conversion rate. People know what they are getting when they come to my website or blog.

So, to make an impact with your content writing, focus on your core topics, focus on the needs of your readers, and even if you publish fewer blog posts and articles, only publish relevant, meaningful and useful content.

How to write content for Google’s human quality raters

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Writing content for Google’s human quality raters

Do you know Google has its official human search quality raters?

Around 10,000.

Google has been seeking help from human quality raters since 2005.

Here is a Search Engine Land update on the search quality rater guidelines update that Google recently released.

Here is the copy of the guidelines.

Not to totally rely on its algorithms, these Google human quality raters are given actual searches to conduct, drawn from real searches on Google. Then these quality raters have to rate the top results.

It has been said for a long time that your content writing should be more for humans and less for search engine algorithms.

Write content for humans first

But this is because it is often believed that the ranking algorithms are as good as humans and when they are ranking your content, they are using many human factors.

Though, this is still true and when you write content you should still focus more on the “human side”, the fact that Google uses actual human search quality raters makes it more important that you write content centered around actual people rather than trying to trick the search engines.

Most of the SEO websites say that the human quality raters have no direct bearing on your search engine rankings. For example, if a human quality rater doesn’t like your content and reports your content to Google, your rankings may not suddenly dip.

The data from the quality raters is used for experiments in the Google search lab.

Does it mean you shouldn’t care for the opinion of the human quality raters when you are writing content? I wouldn’t advise that.

Simply because, you should anyway be writing for humans, even if you merely want to improve your search engine rankings and nothing else.

What do these human quality raters look for when evaluating your content?

Word to the Google human quality raters look for?

According to the latest guidelines (linked to above) aside from the quality of the content and the genuineness of what is being said, the human quality raters from Google must also take into consideration the “reputation” of the author.

In the guidelines, this text appears: “Reputation of the website or the creator of the main content”.

What does this mean?

The author reputation has been in the reckoning for a long time. Reputation means how well you are known in your field.

In my case, how many people know that I provide content writing services? What do they have to say about my services? Do they like to link to my blog posts?

Algorithmically the Google algorithm can find out how many people are linking to you and how many people are talking about your content on social media and social networking websites, but, according to the current technology, only humans can detect what sort of conversations happen around your content and about your name.

For example, even if you are notorious the Google algorithm may think you have a good reputation simply because many people are bitching about you.

The human quality raters will be able to find out if people say good things about you or bad things.

Another significant point is “beneficial purpose” – what do visitors gain when they visit your website.

This SEMPost blog post explains the new updated guidelines, point by point.

Why it is important to take Google’s human quality raters seriously when writing your content?

Whoever writes about Google’s human quality raters stress upon the point that the ratings don’t impact your search engine rankings immediately.

Most of the findings are used for research purposes and experimentation.

If this is the case, if it doesn’t matter how they think of your website, why you should bother about them?

One reason is, you never know when Google decides to take their opinions seriously and make them a part of its ranking algorithm.

Although artificial intelligence is rapidly reducing reliance on humans, what humans can find, still, artificial intelligence cannot. You don’t want to get caught off guard, the way you were after the Panda and Penguin updates.

The second reason is, most of the guidelines are also applicable to Google’s core ranking algorithm.

Hence, if you write content targeting Google’s human quality raters, you automatically write content for better SEO.

Writing content for Google’s human quality raters

The most significant thing that is emerging out of the new guidelines is the reputation factor.

It is easier to enjoy better search engine rankings if you have a good reputation.

Take for example Seth Godin. Everyone who reads about Internet marketing or digital marketing must know about him.

If he writes even a 200-word blog post about marketing, it will be ranked better than your 5000-word blog post on the same topic, no matter how comprehensive your topic is, if you don’t publish content regularly, and not many people know about you.

This is how even real life works.

Now, I’m not saying this is DEFINITELY going to happen, because rankings depend on many other factors, but this is how reputation works according to Google’s human quality raters’ guidelines.

How do you improve your reputation?

Improving your reputation with quality content writing

The foundation of reputation is, high-quality content, published regularly. You cannot even think of building your online reputation without high-quality, useful content.

A few months ago I wrote about how to write content for the Google RankBrain system. This system primarily focuses on the searcher’s intent.

When someone searches for information on Google and then comes across your link, and then clicks the link and goes to your website or blog, does he or she find the information he or she intended to find?

Does his or her search stop after having visited your website or blog, or does he or she have to come back to Google and carry on the search?

This is a very pertinent question and it can have a long-term impact not just on your search engine rankings, but also on your overall conversion rate.

If your content solves searcher’s intent, you are publishing relevant, high-quality content.

Then what happens?

People want to link to valuable content. So, they do. They start referring to you as an authority figure. Reputation improves.

People start quoting you because they respect your wisdom. Reputation improves.

People share your content on their social media timelines with greater frequency and when they do, there is lots of activity in terms of “Likes” and “Sharing”. Reputation improves.

Your search engine rankings improve. More of your content is found for relevant search terms and then people go to your website from search engines. They find your content useful. Reputation improves.

Branding is very important.

This is why, even renowned brands use reputed individuals to spread the word around rather than using one of their own experts.

The best example is, search for mobile phone reviews on YouTube. You will find a successful YouTuber explaining the features of the latest iPhone rather than someone from Apple. This is because people trust their favorite YouTuber more than they trust some unknown technologist from Apple.

Listed below are some content writing tips to help you write content for Google’s human quality raters:

Focus on relevance.
Always deliver value.
Focus on one topic at a time.
Solve real problems.
Write shorter, crisp sentences.
Encapsulates the entire essence of your blog post or web page within the main headline.
Organize your main points under various headings, subheadings and bulleted points.
Come to the point as fast as you can.
Become socially active through publishing high-quality content and encouraging engagement around it.
Write and publish content regularly because more content means more content for Google to index and more content for people to talk about and react to.

Conclusion

As you can see, most of the tips to write content for Google’s human quality raters are also applicable to general SEO writing guidelines.

Hence, the age-old wisdom is always applicable: focus on quality and relevance; publish persistently and make it easier for people to find and share your content on search engines and social media and social networking websites.

How to incorporate longtail keywords into content writing

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Incorporating longtail keywords into content writing

Here is an interesting fact: 57% of Amazon’s sales come from longtail keywords.

Long tail keywords is a slightly older concept in search engine optimization but it is often ignored.

Note: I’m just doing some SEO experiment so I will be repeatedly switching between long tail and longtail.

When I’m writing content for my clients, I naturally incorporate long tail keywords, sometimes, or rather, most of the times, these clients not even realizing it.

In fact, whenever they give me a list of shorter keywords like “mobile app development company” I encourage them to be more specific like “mobile app development company for retail business” or “native mobile app development company in Chicago”.

Many people think that users don’t use very long phrases, but they are mistaken. More so when an increasing number of people are using voice search and voice search can be quite conversational and hence, consisting of long tail keywords and search terms.

Effective content writing these days involves automatically incorporating longtail keywords into the text.

The concept of long tail keywords has been around for quite a long time but online marketers and SEO experts started paying more attention to it when Google unleashed Panda and Penguin updates.

For many years long tail keywords are being used during content writing not just to improve SEO, but also to improve user experience.

I believe when you target longtail keywords instead of short, precise keywords, you are helping your users to find just the right content they need instead of throwing vague pieces of content at them.

Here is the Wired editor talking about the importance of long tail keywords as back as in 2006.

Getting good search engine rankings before these updates was quite easy: create lots of content covering all possible keywords and keyword combinations in your niche, get lots of back links from other websites, and your search engine rankings would improve.

This resulted in lots of junk content coming up in Google search results.

When people begin to manipulate their way into anything, crap is bound to gather, and the same happened with Google search.

Further reading: Link building with content writing

It’s a complete saga: many businesses were destroyed due to these unanticipated Google updates.

Long tail keywords reduce your dependence on high competition keywords and help you focus on the features and strengths of your business rather than random keywords.

The power of longtail keywords lies in their collective performance. Individually, your main keywords may bring you more traffic, but if you add up all the traffic being brought by your long tail keywords, you will be surprised to know that they are collectively performing much better than your main keywords.

Also, they are more targeted. Traffic coming from longtail keywords converts better than the traffic coming from your main keywords or primary keywords. This is because searches carried out using long tail keywords are very specific.

What are long tail keywords and what are the benefits of using them?

Marketers have this obsession for coming up with peculiar-sounding terms to impress people. Common phrases or full phrases, or even full sentences don’t sound as cool as “long tail keywords”.

But, it’s the concept, it is a visual representation of the data traffic that is generated, that gives such keywords such a name rather than simply being a cool phrase.

Take for example this visual:

Longtail keywords – visual example

Image source

Right now, don’t worry about the extra information, figures and numbers present in the above image. Just focus on the “Long tail 70%” part.

It has been observed that 70% traffic from search engines comes from long tail keywords. Although, these figures may vary according to who is measuring the data, one thing is for sure: you can get more traffic by targeting longtail keywords instead of the main keywords.

Since traffic generated from longtail keywords appears like a long tail, hence, the name.

Ok, I still haven’t explained what these keywords are.

When you’re searching on the net, you don’t use very small search expressions. You try to be as specific as you can.

Take for example looking for a content writer for your business.

Although there may be a chance that you may search for “content writer”, most probably you will be looking for a “content writer for interior design website” if you want a content writer for your interior design website.

Similarly, you look for “experienced content writer for my dentist website” instead of simply “content writer” if you want a content writer for your dentist website.

If you want longform content for your website, you will look for “longform content writer”, or “content writer for longform content”, or any such variations. Or, “writer to write my leadership building e-book”.

While searching for a Samsung phone, you won’t simply search for “Samsung phone”.

If you’re looking for a phone with a good camera but you’re not sure of which model that would be, you will search for “Samsung mobile phone with best camera features”, or something like that.

These are long tail keywords.

There was a time when people simply focused on keywords containing one, two or maybe three words: very short phrases.

Obviously, there was high competition for them and since there was high competition for them, people resorted to all forms of spamming and other black hat tactics to improve your rankings.

Long tail keywords allow you to gain an edge over your competitors, especially when your competitors are simply creating noise instead of delivering value.

Another, and perhaps, one of the biggest benefits of targeting longtail keywords is that most of the users using voice search on mobile phones use longer phrases, very specific phrases.

They won’t say “running shoes needed”; they will say “where to buy light running shoes of size 9?”

Since a mobile phone can make out where the person is, according to his or her location, it will bring up the shops selling running shoes of size 9 and if you have optimized for your locality, your shop should show up at the top.

Are you using Google AdWords to promote your business? Primary keywords are very expensive to bid but longtail keywords are not.

How difficult or easy is it to write content around long tail keywords?

Difficulty and ease depend on – in terms of getting good search engine rankings for them – your competition. If there are many websites or blogs ranking well for your chosen longtail keywords, you may have to work harder and use more creativity.

If there isn’t much competition, you can easily rank well for your chosen search terms.

Why is it easy?

Because every business is unique one way or another.

If you are selling Kindle Reader cases that look like books, you would want to optimize your content for “Kindle Reader cases like books” instead of simply “Kindle Reader cases”.

If you are selling Kindle Reader cases made of leather, then write about leather Kindle Reader cases instead of simply Kindle Reader cases.

The more specific you get, the easier it becomes to optimize your content.

How to find the right long tail keywords for content writing?

Finding longtail keywords

The best way of finding long tail keywords for content writing is using logic.

You know your business best.

In case you don’t, talk to people who are constantly looking for your business.

What search terms do they use? How do they often find you?

As mentioned above, write for specific services and products and be as specific as possible.

You can aim for complete sentences.

For example, there is nothing wrong trying to optimize your web page for “I need plumbing services during non-working hours”.

Having said that, it is always advisable to use tools that give you a clear picture of exactly what search terms people are using and how much traffic these search terms are generating.

On-and-off I have been using LongtailPro. As the name suggests, this tool helps you find long tail keywords for your business.

I know, I have repeatedly mentioned this tool on my website, but compared to other tools, I really find it good.

The benefit of using LongtailPro is that it doesn’t just find you the right long tail keywords, it also tells you, according to your domain’s authority, whether it’s worth trying for particular keywords or not.

Suppose there is already too much competition for particular keywords.

Right now, no matter how hard you try, your rankings for those keywords are not going to improve.

It will be a waste of time.

It is better to go for the low hanging fruits.

LongtailPro tells you which the low hanging fruits are.

You first optimize your content for these keywords and when you have started generating traffic for these easier keywords, you can start focusing on the more difficult keywords.

If you do a search in Google, at the bottom it also shows you Searches related to <your search term>.

For example, when I search for “content writing services”, I see these suggestions:

Longtail keyword suggestions for content writing services

So, this is also a good way of finding related search terms which are much better compared to your primary keywords.

There are many other tools available, some are quite expensive.

For example, you can use BuzzSumo to find out what topics related to your search term people are writing on mostly.

It mostly uses social media activity to find which are the top keywords currently being used.

The Google AdWords keyword tool, which is free, also gives you lots of information.

In fact, LongtailPro derives most of its data from the Google AdWords database.

I’m a little bit skeptical about the Google AdWords database because its primary purpose is to advise you as many keywords as possible simply because the more keywords you bid on, the more money Google makes.

I’m not saying that there is something wrong in Google trying to make money, but you don’t need to bid on every keyword listed in the suggestions.

The best approach is creating a list of long tail keywords manually, and then using a tool like LongtailPro to find out whether it is feasible to optimize on them or not.

Incorporating longtail keywords into your content writing

Since the entire purpose of using longtail keywords is to use natural phrases used by your prospective customers and clients, you need to incorporate them into your content writing as naturally as possible.

Listed below are some ways you can use your longtail keywords within your content writing.

1. Use the long tail keyword in the title of your web page or blog post

There are two benefits of using your long tail keyword in your web page or blog post title:

When people see the exact phrase as hyperlink in the search results, they are more prone to clicking it and consequently, improving your click-through rate.
Search engine algorithms take the text within the title tag seriously when ranking your content. By including your longtail keyword in your title, you are telling Google that it’s an important thing to consider.

2. Use your search phrase within the first 100 words of your body text

This rule is not written in stone, but it may help you if the search engine crawlers can come across the main search phrase as early as possible.

Remember that the search engine crawlers don’t spend much time on your web page. They may leave without crawling the entire page. Hence, it is better to provide them as much useful information as possible – but make sure you don’t sound spammy.

3. Scatter your long tail keyword judicially throughout your content

Try to use various parts of your longtail keyword, contextually, at different places. You don’t always have to use the phrase in its entirety each time you use it.

For example, if I try to optimize my content writing for “content writer for web design business”, I may use the phrase in its entirety in the title or somewhere, maybe in the headlines, or a couple of times in one-two paragraphs, but other than that, I can also use the parts of the phrase: “content writer”, “writer”, “content”, “web design” and “business”, and so on.

4. Use LSI variations

Sometimes, even if you don’t mean to, you need to use your keyword repeatedly. Over optimization can be a big problem whether you’re using longtail keywords or primary keywords.

To avoid indulging in that, you can use LSI keywords.

Now, if you go by this article, it says that there is no use using LSI keywords because there is no evidence that they actually help your SEO.

Even if LSI keywords don’t directly help you improve your search engine rankings, I think it is better to use them than repeatedly using your longtail keyword and ending up sounding spammy.

If there is no good using LSI keywords, there isn’t even harm. In fact, as I have mentioned above, the benefit of inserting LSI variations is that you are not forced to repeatedly use your keywords even if you HAVE to.

5. Use your longtail keywords around your images

You can get lots of traffic through image searches.

Although regular advances are being made to enable software to identify individual objects contained within an image (a tiger sitting under the bush staring at a deer, for example), the technology still hasn’t reached where it can be used as an image search engine totally devoid of textual information.

This is why to enable people to find your images contextually, you need to surround your images with the right sort of text.

For example, if I want people to be able to find an image about content marketing on my website or my blog, I should first choose the most appropriate image representing the topic of “content marketing”, I should also surround the image with text that talks about content marketing.

This way, when Google indexes the link to this image, the algorithm will think that the image has got something to do with content marketing.

6. Use longtail search terms with hyperlinks to your other webpages and blog posts

Hyperlinks on your website are taken seriously by search engine ranking algorithms.

The text in the hyperlink tells the crawler what to expect on the web page or blog post being linked to. This is why, it is very important that you use the correct text in your hyperlink instead of simply saying “this link”.

7. Focus on a single long tail keyword when writing content

Vertically focused content is ranked better than something in which you try to cram up everything. This gives Google a clear idea of what your link represents. It also clearly tells prospective visitors what to expect when they click the link.

For example, when you come to this blog post, assuming that you find it on Google or Bing, you expect that I’m going to tell you how to use longtail keywords when you are writing content for your website or blog.

Although all sorts of related information may do you good, primarily you want to learn about this topic. If you want to learn about some associated topic, you may look for that topic on Google.

Having said that, there is a concept called topic clusters and pillar pages that involves creating highly-detailed blog posts and webpages covering every possible subtopics under the main topic.

Personally, whether I’m writing for my own blog or for my clients, I try to follow a gut feeling and flow with the topic. If I feel more needs to be written about a topic, I write more, if I feel enough has been written, I put a stop.

Concluding remarks

Search engine optimization these days is less about repeatedly using your keywords and more about publishing quality content that helps people and provides them useful information.

A sure shot way of improving your search engine rankings by generating lots of content around your primary and longtail keywords is by providing as much information about your business as possible, on your website or blog.

Cover every topic.

Figuring out user intent and writing content accordingly

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Writing content according to user intent

When it comes to content writing and content marketing, what do you understand by “user intent”?

In my blog post titled How to write content for the Google RankBrain system, I have briefly touched upon the importance of user intent and how RankBrain factors in user intent while ranking your content.

As explained in this nicely-written blog post, in the olden days ranking algorithms were all about keyword density and how well or badly you have incorporated your various keywords into your content.

Although, keywords still matter, what matters more is the intent of your prospective customer or client when he or she is looking for information.

What is the intention behind the search? Is the user simply looking for information or he or she wants to do business with you.

In my own example, I get three types of visitors on my website:

Those who are researching for their own blog posts and articles or trying to figure out how to write engaging content on their own, on their websites.
Those who are looking for content writing opportunities.
Those who are looking for a content writer or a content marketer to write content for their websites and blogs.

For my business, the third type is the most important.

The types 1 and 2 are also important because, type 1 also may hire my services someday, and type 2 may share my content on social media, link to my content and give me credit or simply help me promote my services.

But, if my content only serves to the user intent of type 1 and type 2 visitors, I will get very little business.

Alarmingly, there is a very thin line that divides all these types of user intent.

Are you writing content, but also content writer write content for your website or blog keeping user intent in mind?