Category Archives: Copywriting and Content Writing Tips

Some content writing tips for political bloggers and writers

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Content writing tips for political writers and bloggers

Content writing tips for political writers and bloggers.

Politics is a hot topic. Especially in the wake of forceful conflicts between the so-called Left and the so-called Right, careers are being destroyed for having political opinions. But that’s a different topic.

Are you planning to start a blog on politics, or do you want to carve out a career as a political journalist?

If you are managing a political blog then it’s obvious that you are published on the Internet, but even if you are a political journalist in the conventional sense, there is a great possibility that you will be writing most of your content for the web.

Hence, when you are writing for sharing your political thoughts, keep it in your mind that it’s mostly the audience on the Internet who will be consuming your writing.

Here are a few content writing tips for you if you plan to write in politics:

Learn to differentiate between being a political journalist or an activist

I have observed that most of the political journalists or political writers have very strong biases. They pretend that they are being objective, but 99.9% of political writers are running their political agendas, and that’s fine.

Nonetheless, in the beginning it will help you grow your audience if you are open about your intentions of being a political journalist or running a political blog.

Are you simply reporting or are you pitching for a political change? Your readers are smart. Even a couple of sentences are enough to let them know whether you are simply reporting or expressing an opinion.

On a political blog, opinions are preferred because your visitors are already expecting that since yours is a blog, you’re going to have a personal take on whatever you write.

But if you plan to work in a newspaper, it is better to stick to the facts – what, why, when, who and where.

Of course, there are many publications that hire political writers or journalists just to further their political agenda, so then, it’s your choice.

Identify the audience for whom you are writing

This is especially important if you plan to publish a political blog. Learn about your audience. What type of pieces do your readers respond to? What engages them? What sort of language do they prefer?

Your analytics may help you. When people are searching for information on Google, what do they search for that leads them to your blog or your article? Based on this, you can further narrow the focus of your writing if you are looking for the same sort of traffic, you can change the direction of your writing if you don’t prefer such traffic.

Write for a political niche that suits your political preference

This may seem contrary to the advice that I have written above – remain unbiased especially if you want to grow as a political journalist – but you should definitely pick your political niche early on because this will help you grow as a political writer.

Do you prefer conservative politics? Are you a liberal? Do you tilt towards the Left or the Right or somewhere in between?

Although you shouldn’t let your political proclivities dominate your writing, it will give you depth. It will keep you interested in your writing. It will motivate you and excite you. It’s very important to feel excited about what you are writing because then this excitement is transferred onto your readers. This is what makes you a successful political writer or a political blogger.

Learn to write for the web

I’ve seen that some political journalists or political bloggers go on and on when they are deep in their thought.

Keep in mind that most of the people who read you, will do so through a web page. Moreover, they will be accessing your web page or blog post from their mobile phones. What does that mean?

Write shorter sentences. Write shorter paragraphs. Use words that are easy to read. Write to communicate, not to impress.

Learn the basics of SEO

When you are writing, whether you are writing as a political journalist or a political blogger, you want the maximum number of people to read what you are publishing.

If you have created a vibrant social media presence, a lot of your traffic may come from your followers, but no matter how strong your social media presence is, most of your readers will be coming through Google or another search engine.

How can you implement SEO in political writing?

Pay close attention to what people are looking for on search engines. If you are running an independent political blog that is installed under your own domain, this can be as easy as adding your domain to Google Search Console. If you’re using a third-party blogging platform like Medium, it may be a problem.

Nonetheless, you can use websites like Quora to check what sort of political questions people are posting. You can also check Twitter.

Use words that your readers use interacting with each other when talking about politics. Create an optimized title for your post or for your article. Scatter your keywords throughout your copy but don’t overdo. Use your main and related keywords in headings and subheadings. Make your text scannable. Make it easier to read on mobile phones.

Political content writing can be quite exciting as you are constantly at the forefront of a great flux. Whether you are a political content writer in a democracy like India or the USA, or in a less democratic country, you can instigate a great change with your political writing.

 

What differentiates a great content writer from an average content writer?

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Difference between a great and an average content writer

Difference between a great and an average content writer.

Someone asked this question on Quora but since I have already answered 2 questions (my daily target nowadays) I thought I’d provide the answer on my own blog.

What are the attributes of a great content writer?

I will use a politically correct pronoun “she”.

When someone talks about “great content writer” I assume what she means is, a content writer who does her job well. She may or may not be experienced, but she delivers.

She delivers on the front of quality and relevance. She expresses well through her writing. She can write forcefully without intimidating the reader.

Below I’m listing some attributes of a great content writer.

Takes initiative

A great content writer takes initiative. What do I mean by initiative?

She goes beyond the brief provided by the client. She uses her own brain to figure what may work and  what may not work for her client.

She does research independently. She finds data from credible sources. She uses her judgement instead of completely depending on her client’s input.

Takes a stand

She should be able to take a stand.

I will give you my example. Sometimes I disagree with my client.

My client knows her subject. For example, if my client is a lawyer, she knows more about law than I do. But I know more about content writing than she does. She has hired me not to write how she wants me to write, she has hired me because I can write the way she cannot, but she needs to.

Therefore, once she has given me the brief, I don’t want her to dictate every sentence I write. A great content writer knows when to take a stand or put her foot down.

She is not simply a stenographer. Above all, before a content writer, she is a writer.

Has a passionate writing voice

If you don’t feel excited, nor will your readers.

Whenever new writers approach me for work, this is the first trait I look for: the sample that they have sent me, have they written like a writer or like a content writer desperate to impress?

A great content writer gets emotionally invested in the project. You are passionate when you are emotionally invested.

I won’t go to the extent of calling myself a great content writer (I leave that conclusion to my clients), but when I’m writing, I’m writing with the good of my client in my heart. This makes me passionate. And this passion quite often resonates through my writing. I am not saying that it happens always, but most of the time, it does.

Knows why the client has hired her

Why does a client hire me?

The macro reason is that she wants to grow her business. This is the ultimate goal of every entrepreneur. By the end of the day, you need more buyers, you need more subscribers, you need more paid users.

The micro reasons might be that she wants to improve her search engine rankings, boost engagement on your social media profile, increase conversion rate on her website and improve user experience.

She may also want to improve the click-through-ratio on the web pages where she wants the visitors to download her e-book or subscribe to her newsletter updates.

My every sentence must contribute towards that. I don’t want to impress. I don’t want to prove what a great a writer I am. She is not paying me for that. She is paying me to write content that helps grow her business in whichever applicable manner.

Does it mean I don’t seek praises? I definitely do; I like it when a client says that I have done a great job. But every client knows that this “great job” doesn’t mean that I have written like Haruki Murakami or Tolstoy. It means I have written in a manner that contributes to her business.

Hence, a great content writer walks the extra mile and makes sure that she is writing content that serves the purpose.

Isn’t obsessed with money

I know money matters, but a great content writer, once she starts the work, isn’t bothered much about whether she is being paid for 200 words or 500 words. She is not insecure in that sense. She is more worried about writing what needs to be written.

This is something I have observed in many writers I have worked with. They are constantly worrying about how much they are writing and how much they are being paid.

I’m not saying that they should leave themselves open to exploitation, but it isn’t going to harm them if instead of 500 words (which they are being paid for) they’re writing 700 words and they are not being paid for the extra 200 words.

Just yesterday a client paid me supposedly for 800 words (I’m still in the process of moving from per word to value deliverability) but I wrote 1200 words because the subject demanded that, without expecting to be paid extra.

If a content writer constantly obsesses about money it becomes a vicious loop. Nobody pays you just for the heck of paying — people want value delivery and you cannot deliver value if your need to get paid for every word dominates your power of expression.

Am I saying that you should allow your clients to fleece you? No. When you focus more on value delivery, your clients can’t afford not to pay you.

Writes a lot, in fact, constantly

A great content writer, being a writer first, has this great desire to write continuously. She doesn’t just write when she is being paid for writing. She writes on different topics. She participates in discussions on social networking websites. She blogs regularly. She works at building her network not just for business purposes but also to expand her understanding.

Writing for her is not a chore, it’s an existential craving.

Learns constantly

Learning never stops for a great content writer. I have been writing professional content for 20 years and still I learn something new every day.

I learn new words. I practise using new expressions that I have never used before or have rarely used, or have forgotten.

I make a note of everything I come across. I do all my reading on Kindle reader and Google Play Books so that I can highlight the portions that I may like to use for my own writing.

Whenever I come across a word I don’t know, I make sure I do, and I don’t proceed without that.

I have a huge Word file where I save words, phrases, and sentence formations that I would like to use when writing. I have been updating this file since 1998. I have saved more than 200 phrases in one of my Google keep notes.

A great content writer is constantly learning and never believes that she has learned enough.

Has confidence

A constant desire to learn doesn’t mean that a content writer is low on confidence. Don’t take confidence with a negative connotation. That’s overconfidence.

In fact, just the fact that she knows that she constantly needs to learn more, shows that she is confident.

The more you learn, the more you practice, more confident you get.

Among average content writers I have observed that they are constantly scared of something. They hold themselves back. For them, writing is just a means to make money and if money is not there, writing is not there for them. It is just another occupation.

The problem with writing is that unless you have a passion for it, it doesn’t pay you much. Your lack of interest shows through every word you use, through every sentence you form. If you don’t want to write without getting paid, you are not going to be paid for writing.

This is true for every field except for manual work. In manual work, even if you’re not interested, somehow you can make a living. But when people pay you for your skill & expertise rather than your manual work, you need to have your soul into it.

To sum up, here’s how you can become a great content writer:

  • See beyond the client’s brief.
  • Be passionate about your client’s interests.
  • Learn to research.
  • Always know why you’re writing a particular piece.
  • Polish search engine friendly writing.
  • Learn constantly. On your own. From other writers.
  • Set your insecurities aside.
  • Don’t just write for money.
  • Deliver value more than the number of words.
  • Be passionate about what you are writing.

My personal favorites are, have a strong desire to write, and take pride in the fact that you are constantly improving yourself.

What is buyer intent and how to write content for it?

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Content writing for buyer intent

Content writing for buyer intent.

Just as there is search intent there is also buyer intent.

The concept of search intent is broad: it has many intents such as informational intent, navigational intent, transactional intent and commercial intent.

You may like to read How effective content writing and searcher intent are interrelated.

Buyer intent (also known as buying intent) or purchase intent tells you how eager a customer or client is to buy a product or subscribe to a service. This is data or information that manifests before a buying action takes place.

Why is it important? Why is it important to know buyer intent and then write content accordingly?

This Gartner report says that prospective buyers spend 50% of their time seeking information about a product or a service from third-party sources such as social media websites, review websites, blogs, talking with peers, and online directories.

This information can sway them. Even when they are ready to buy, if there is something that puts them off or gives them enough reason to get reluctant, your sale is gone.

One thing is clear about buyer intent – your prospect is ready to buy. He or she needs the last nudge. Or, you need to prevent him or her from getting distracted or misled or getting confused.

Buyer intent can be gauged from the type of web pages visitors accessing on your website. In my example, people who want to hire me as a content writer often checkup my content writing rates page. They also go through my samples.

What type of content writing can help you target specific buyer intent?

To be able to write content targeting buyer intent, you need to know what would turn your prospective buyer away. It must be some information or lack of some information that sends your prospective buyer away.

Hence, you need to fill that gap.

When a prospective customer or client comes to your website you must provide all the answers he or she may need to make up his or her mind.

What questions or apprehensions a typical client may have before hiring my content writing services? Let’s go through a few points:

  • Will I be able to write quality content specifically for his or her business?
  • Do I have enough knowledge and experience to write content that can generate business?
  • Can I help him or her improve his or her search engine rankings?
  • Can I write the amount of content that is required?
  • Can I stick to a schedule?
  • Will I write completely original content?
  • How expensive or affordable am I?

There can be many more questions. But what you need to pay attention to is the fact that these are all questions that a prospective client would ask.

What sort of content do I write to address to this buyer intent, or rather, these questions?

I’m constantly sharing my knowledge and experience on my blog and therefore, a prospective client should be able to get enough information about that.

I also blog a lot about how to improve one’s search engine rankings through SEO-friendly content. You may like to read How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

I have an FAQs section that describes my content writing process.

I have testimonials from other clients. I have also obtained testimonials on LinkedIn and Google Business.

I have explained why I charge what I charge on various pages and blog posts.

Hence, from my side, I have tried to provide as much information as possible to my visitors with buyer intent.

Similarly for your business, you need to figure out what questions or apprehensions your prospective customer or client may have and then write content addressing those questions and apprehensions.

 

Etiquette dos and don’ts when writing content

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Etiquette do's and don'ts when writing content

Etiquette do’s and don’ts when writing content.

I was just browsing my content aggregator and I came across this blog post on the etiquette dos and don’ts of content writing thinking that the post actually talks about etiquettes.

Well, instead of talking about etiquettes it gives you the general dos and don’ts of writing effective content.

Nonetheless, the author has shared some good tips on what to take care of when writing content and what you should avoid.

I am quickly going to present a run down on what to do and what not to do.

Focus more on delivering value when writing content

This must be your primary focus.

Most of the people publish content because they want to improve their search engine rankings (or simply fill up their website because without written content, the website would look odd), but the primary purpose of writing content is to deliver value and engage your visitors.

If you deliver value and engage your visitors, your search engine rankings automatically improve.

Have a doubt? Read this blog post: Relationship between quality content writing, bounce rate and SEO.

Make sure you proofread and edit

Once you have written your content, make sure you go through it. Read it aloud if it’s possible.

What do I do when I’m editing?

I mostly shorten my sentences. I shorten my paragraphs. I remove needless adverbs and adjectives. Sometimes I add needless adverbs and adjectives.

Just make sure your content is easy to read and it does not have embarrassing mistakes.

Write for your niche

Defining your niche makes it easier for you to focus your writing.

When you are writing content, you are having a conversation with the reader.

Just imagine talking to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you.

Of course, defining your niche is not as easy as it may seem, but you should narrow it down as much as possible.

When I’m writing content for my blog, I am mostly targeting people who are looking for an experienced content writer who can help them publish engaging content and at the same time, can also help them improve their search engine rankings.

In the conventional sense my niche is quite broad – I get content writing queries from real estate businesses to blockchain businesses to IT consultants to babysitting businesses to online retail stores, and pretty much everything in between.

One thing is common though: they are all looking for a content writer.

They may need a content writer for their website, or their blog, or their email marketing campaigns or their social media campaigns.

Hence, I have lots of content targeting these categories.

Keep SEO in mind while writing

Though, you shouldn’t obsess about SEO when writing content, this is an aspect that you cannot ignore.

How do you write SEO content?

You may want to read How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

There are some other tips that I just wrote about in the link I have shared just above.

These are some basic do’s and don’ts. They’ve got nothing to do with etiquettes.

Anyway, what etiquettes should you keep in mind when writing content?

Here are a few things to consider:

  • Try to write gender neutral content if it is not being written for a specific gender.
  • Don’t offend people on the basis of race, region, religion or class.
  • Don’t use abusive language.
  • Respect your audience and don’t dumbify them.
  • Don’t mislead your audience just to improve your SEO.
  • Don’t keep promises you cannot keep.
  • Don’t be judgmental or condescending.
  • Avoid taking a political stand when you are writing for business.

Since the title of this blog post hints as of the blog post contains some insights on etiquettes, I wanted to write something about this issue. Maybe later on I will do a complete blog post on this.

 

How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

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How to write SEO-friendly content

How to write SEO-friendly content.

Sometimes it becomes difficult to come up with interesting content to write about on a regular basis on my blog. I was answering to a Quora question and I thought, answers to some of my Quora questions can also be used to write blog posts.

I was providing an answer the following question: How do I write content that is SEO friendly?

Steps to writing SEO-friendly content:

  1. Include the main keywords in the title.
  2. Include the keywords in the meta description.
  3. Mention the keywords within the first 100 words of your write up.
  4. Focus on writing answers to specific queries.
  5. Write for search intent.
  6. Write shorter sentences.
  7. Use headings and subheadings.
  8. Focus on longtail keywords.
  9. Link to other blog posts and web pages from your current blog post or web page.
  10. Write short paragraphs.
  11. Summarize using bulleted points.

To be frank, I have written on the topic multiple times on my blog, but I can always add new things. I’m constantly learning new ways to write search engine friendly content. In this post I’m going to expand what I wrote on Quora.

Should you go overboard with writing SEO-friendly content?

The problem with writing SEO-friendly content is that sometimes people go overboard and ignore the bigger picture. Your content succeeds not because it gets you higher search engine rankings, it succeeds because it provides relevant information that can be quickly understood.

For many website owners and bloggers it’s SEO that’s most important. This does you more harm than good.

Even if right now you have better search engine rankings because you think you have cracked the search engine algorithm, if you’re not satisfying your visitors, the rankings go down.

This is because your rankings depend a lot on your bounce rate. If people find your link, come to your website, and then leave immediately because they don’t find the information they are looking for, Google and other search engines know that.

So, even in the beginning if you can improve your rankings because of “strategically” using your keywords, ultimately, it all boils down to how people interact with your content.

What exactly is SEO-friendly content writing?

I don’t believe that SEO-friendly content writing means content writing that improves your search engine rankings. Your search engine rankings depend on 200+ factors.

So, solely focusing on writing SEO-friendly content doesn’t help you much.

What is SEO-friendly content writing?

It is writing in a manner that it makes it easier for search engine crawlers to crawl your main content. Once the main content is crawled, the search engine algorithms should be able to make sense of your content. They should be able to make out what you are communicating. This, is SEO-friendly content writing.

Do I keep SEO in mind when writing content for my clients?

I definitely do.

Valuable content is necessary, but how I present that valuable content can have an impact on search engine rankings. Here are a few things I do when writing SEO content for my clients:

Include the main keyword in the title

There is a difference between the title and the headline. The title here means the string of text that appears in in the title bar of your browser window when you visit a website. This is the title:

Example of the website title containing keywords

Example of the website title containing keywords

By main keyword I don’t mean a single word. Target for a phrase of around 3-4 words. Nobody searches for a single word. People either ask a question or search for a phrase that contains a few words.

Many content marketing experts may tell you that it doesn’t really matter if you use your main keyword in your title, but it does. Whether the Google algorithm takes the keyword in the title into consideration are not, is another matter.

There is a logical reason why you must have your main keyword in your title.

Research has revealed that when a part of the search query that a user has just used appears as a hyperlink in the search results, the user is more likely to click the link.

This sends more people to your website or that particular link.

And if your link is relevant, this signals to Google that the rankings of this particular link should be raised.

Include the keywords in the meta description

I know, sometimes meta description text may not be a part of content writing, but many times my clients ask me to write the meta description too.

When you include your primary and secondary keywords in the meta description, Google highlights them.

Example of the meta description containing keywords

Example of the meta description containing keywords.

Again, this prompts more people to click your link and this in turn improves your bounce rate, which in turn, improves your SEO.

Mention the keywords within the first 100 words

I have arrived at this logic by trial and error.

When the search engine crawler comes to your website it may not get a chance to crawl your entire piece of content. Hence, if it does not encounter your main keywords, it may not associate the keywords with the body text.

Therefore, it is important that you mention your primary and secondary keywords within the first 100 words of your web page or blog post text.

Create a context though. Don’t just randomly use the words

Focus on writing answers to specific queries

Google loves the question-answer format. People ask questions and Google find the answers.

For example, you may have come to this post if you searched for “How do I write search engine friendly content?”

I’m not saying that you should always write in the format of question-answer, but this sort of content fares better than the usual content.

Write for search intent

If you want to know what is search intent, you may like to read my blog post on the same topic: Why search intent is most important when writing content for your website.

Search intent is a very big factor when Google is evaluating your content. It is the intention with which a search engine user uses a query when searching for something.

You can easily write content targeting specific search intents described in the above link. The more you write content targeting specific search intents, the more SEO-friendly your content is.

Write shorter sentences

Shorter sentences are easier to read. They are also easier for search engine algorithms to process, analyze and evaluate.

Using shorter sentences does not mean that you are a novice writer. In fact, it shows that you are a confident writer. You have got nothing to prove to anyone.

Well, that’s a different issue, but one of the biggest benefits of writing shorter sentences is that you express a single thought in a single sentence, which makes it easier even for your readers to read. It doesn’t tax the brain.

Use headings and subheadings

Screenshot of headings and subheadings

Screenshot of headings and subheadings.

Headings and subheadings amplify your primary and secondary keywords. They also make it easier to organize your content under various sections. Headings and subheadings also make your writing scannable.

Since you use your primary and secondary keywords in your headings and subheadings, the Google algorithm thinks that they must be important to your message.

Focus on longtail keywords

Shorter keywords are quite competitive. For example, if I try to optimize my writing for “content writer” or “content marketing services” it may be difficult for me to rank for these keywords because they are highly competitive, and many bigger companies are already ranking quite high for them.

So, what do I do?

I aim for something like “indisputable benefits of content marketing”. This makes it easier to rank my content.

You will be surprised to know that most of your traffic comes from longtail keywords.

Longtail keywords exist in the form of longer such queries. They are phrases that contain 3-4 words.

Link to other blog posts and web pages from your current blog post or web page

Contextually, though.

Suppose, I want to elaborate on the indisputable benefits of content marketing. If I have already published a blog post on it, I will be creating duplicate content needlessly if I explain the same thing again. Hence, I just say, in case you want to read about the indisputable benefits of content marketing.

This does not just make it easier to refer to your existing content, it also allows the search engine crawlers to come across your old links in case they haven’t yet been crawled.

Write short paragraphs

The logic is the same as writing short sentences. It is easier to read shorter paragraphs. Both for humans and the search engine algorithms.

In fact, there are many renowned content publishers who use just a single sentence in a paragraph, but you can easily use a couple of sentences.

Another benefit of writing shorter paragraphs is that they are easier to read on mobile phones.

Summarize using bulleted lists

Just as headings and subheadings make your content scannable, so do the bulleted lists. People tend to read the bulleted lists more than plain sentences and paragraphs.

In bulleted lists, you don’t even need to write complete sentences. You can sum up your points in monosyllables. In bulleted lists, the information is more important than how you write it.

These are the main points that I wanted to cover. If you take care of them, it can make it easier for you to write SEO-friendly content.