Working remotely? You must be able to write well

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Says this Inc. article. I have been working from home (remotely) since the beginning of my professional life. The recent Covid-19 outbreak has forced the world to rethink the way everyone works. Millions of people are working from home these days. Remote work is the new normal.

The author of the above article says that “clear writing is a mark of respect”, and I couldn’t agree more. When you pay attention to your words and sentences, you are actually paying attention to the readers’ sensibilities. Your readers don’t deserve to come across lousy writing.

Agreed, the language in which you normally need to write (English for example) may not be your first language sometimes, and if you commit some oversights, that’s understandable. But some people simply don’t care even when they know how to write. They intentionally misspell or write badly structured sentences or use bad grammar. They think that using language correctly is a sign of snobbery.

When people are working remotely, communication gaps are common. You’re not talking face-to-face. You’re either using Slack, or emails or chat applications. A word missed here and there, a comma missed or misplaced here and there, and the entire meaning changes.

A small blogging roadmap to improve SEO

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Blogging roadmap to improve your SEO

Blogging roadmap to improve your SEO.

Planning to improve your search engine rankings with a blogging campaign?

Although the primary purpose of publishing a blog is to inform and educate your visitors so that they can make better purchase decisions, a good side effect of persistent blogging is an improvement in your search engine rankings, better SEO.

Nevertheless, most of the businesses want to start a blog to improve SEO. This is a reality, and I’m not going to be judgmental.

Since SEO is a serious business, you need to have a roadmap to publish an effective blog that helps you improve your search engine rankings. Here are a few steps you can follow:

Prepare an SEO checklist

What is on SEO checklist? It is a list of a few blog writing and blog publishing attributes you must adhere to when researching, writing and publishing your blog posts. Your SEO checklist may include

  • Preparing a list of primary and secondary keywords that you are going to cover in the current blog post.
  • A blog post title with your main keyword or key phrase.
  • The main headline with your main keyword or key phrase.
  • Headings and subheadings having various combinations of your keyword (also include LSI keywords).
  • Making your blog posts easily scannable using headings, subheadings and bulleted lists.
  • Using images every 200-300 words and including alt attribute for better accessibility.
  • Including hyperlinks to existing blog posts and web pages.
  • Using your keyword within the first 100 words.

Research and compile your keyword list

Before you begin your blogging campaign to improve your SEO, you need to research your keyword list. These are the keywords around which you are going to write and publish multiple blog posts.

No matter what tool you use to research your target keywords, keep a dedicated place to compile your keyword list, like a spreadsheet. In the first column you can store all the primary keywords. In the second column you can store related or synonymous keywords. In the third column you can store the larger phrases to make the keywords less competitive.

Prepare your blog publishing calendar

Recall that in the above point, in the third column I suggested you store larger phrases. This is the column that will help you define the various topics you want to publish for your blog.

Enter these topics in your publishing calendar.

A publishing calendar helps you stay on course. You will also know which topics you have covered and which you still need to cover. This way, you will avoid duplicate publishing.

Blog publishing calendar also helps to prioritize. Which blog posts do you want to publish first? Start with less competitive keywords because this will help you improve your search engine rankings faster.

Always begin with an outline

Actually, there is no hard-and-fast rule about how to write efficiently, but writing an outline first always helps. This way, you cannot miss out on the main points. These headlines can be then turned into headings and subheadings.

You can use the following elements to create an outline:

  • Headings and subheadings.
  • Bulleted points.
  • Random sentences arranged in a logical manner.

Fill the text under the outlines

Start feeling the test under the headings and subheadings. Expand upon them. For example, if you look at the above subheading – always begin with an outline – you can see that after the subheading, I have explained in a small detail what needs to be done.

Thoroughly proofread

Make sure there are no silly spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes. Turn longer sentences into shorter sentences. Make sure you are not unnecessarily using adjectives.

To speed up the process you can use the inbuilt editor that comes with most word processors these days.

Make sure your blog post complies with your SEO checklist

This is the last glance that you throw at your blog post that you have written. To make sure that this blog post is going to improve your search engine rankings, run it through the SEO checklist that you have prepared.

This blogging roadmap will not only keep you on the right course, it will also help you achieve your search engine optimization goals faster.

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.

 

13 ways you can build better content than your competitors

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Publish better content than your competitors

Publish better content than your competitors.

Publishing regular content is always about beating your competitors. This may not be your direct aim, but by the end of the day, it matters how much business you can wean away from your competitors, towards your own website or blog.

How can you build better content than your competitors? Here are a few things you can do

1. Understand your audience better

The more you understand your audience, the better your content will be. But what does understanding your audience mean?

It means writing and publishing exactly the content your visitors are looking for.

It means understanding the search intent and then writing content around that search intent.

You may like to read: Why search intent is most important when writing content for your website.

2. Use conversational writing

  • Write in a manner that it is easy to read.
  • Use small sentences.
  • Use smaller paragraphs.
  • Use bulleted lists whenever possible because they are easier to read.
  • Organize your text under headings and subheadings for easier reading.

3. Publish lots of long form content

Although I’m not a big fan of needless long form content, not many publishers can come up with quality long form content.

Long form content means publishing well researched blog posts and articles. These can be anywhere between 2000-3000 words, and sometimes even more.

The thing is, everyone can write 400–800-word blog posts but it is very difficult to come up with lengthy and comprehensive blog posts. This is where you can gain an edge.

4. Offer more value than your competitors

Most of your competitors might be publishing purposeless content just to improve your search engine rankings.

This may be a good thing for you because you understand that the purpose of publishing content regularly isn’t about improving your search engine rankings but providing value to your visitors.

  • Publish meaningful content.
  • Provide information that is valuable to your visitors.
  • Educate your visitors better than your competitors.

5. Maintain a schedule and be persistent

A big problem with most of the business blogs is that they are not regular. They post whenever it is convenient for whenever their budget allows.

Content publishing is a commitment. You can’t just offer content to your visitors whenever you feel like.

  • You need to be persistent.
  • You need to be regular.
  • Have a clearly defined content publishing calendar.

Publishing content with a schedule makes search engine crawlers visit your website regularly and also encourages your human visitors to keep a tab on your website.

6. Work with a professional content writer

I’m not saying this because I provide professional content writing services; it actually helps to work with a professional content writer because well-written content always outperforms content that is written in a lousy manner.

Most of the websites don’t have professionally written content. Luckily for you, you understand the importance of high-quality content (that’s why you are reading this, right?). The advanced AI being used in search engines can differentiate between good content and bad content.

Badly written content also increases your bounce rate. Remember that the writing on your website represents your approach to your customers and clients. If you don’t have properly written content on your website, it means that you don’t respect your customers and clients.

7. Publish case studies on your website

Case studies explain to your visitors how you solve their problems once they decide to hire you or buy your product or service. The format of a typical case study by itself is quite helpful. Here is how:

  • The title of the case study.
  • A small profile of the company or the individual for whom you had offered your product or service.
  • The problem the company or the individual was facing prior to using your product or service.
  • The highlights and features of the product or service you are describing in this case study.
  • How your product or service solved the problem of the company or the individual.
  • How the company or the individual is doing right now after having implemented the solution that you offered.

You can see that there is a natural flow –

  • There is a narrative that the reader can follow.
  • You introduce the characters.
  • You introduce the problem or the conflict.
  • Then you offer the solution.
  • In the end, you offer the “happily ever after” condition created by your solution.

8. Use storytelling through content writing

Just like case studies, stories can also help you weave a narrative around your product or service. People easily relate to a story. They feel emotionally connected with the problem and the solution being offered. They are more receptive towards your messaging.

9. Use concrete numbers when stating facts

Avoid using expressions like “hundreds of”, “many”, “a wide range of”, and so on.

Use numbers as much as possible. Instead of saying that “we have served hundreds of clients” say, “we have so far served 300+ clients”.

Instead of saying “our product offers many ways to solve your problem” say, “our product offers 18 ways to solve your problem”.

10. Master SEO content writing

SEO content writing can boost your search engine rankings. Writers who can get higher search engine rankings for their clients are highly coveted.

You may like to read this for more information on the topic: 10 SEO content writing rules you cannot ignore.

11. Publish content on multiple platforms

Content publishing these days isn’t just about publishing content on your website or on your business blog. You need to cover many platforms such as third-party blogs and social media websites.

  • Share your content on LinkedIn.
  • Post answers on Quora.
  • Write on Medium.
  • Offer guest blog posts on authoritative websites and blogs.

12. Re-purpose your existing content

You can re-purpose your existing content in many forms.

  • You can recycle small portions and post them on social media websites.
  • You can create dedicated blog posts on subtopics that you may have mentioned in other blog posts.
  • You can create infographics.
  • You can create animation and videos explaining the same concepts that you may have explained in a blog post.

13. Build a mailing list

This has got nothing to do with content writing or content publishing, but you can beat your competition by building a mailing list from scratch.

Of course, publishing a mailing list or a newsletter also involves content writing. Whenever you publish a new blog post you can broadcast the link to your newsletter. You can distribute important updates about your product or service using your mailing list. You can increase traffic to your website.

Ultimately it boils down to delivering value.

Fortunately for you, very few of your competitors publish content to serve their visitors well. In most of the cases, they want to generate search engine traffic and then they hope that this traffic would lead to business.

Unless they are publishing advertisements and that is the main source of revenue, random traffic does not help. You need to generate targeted traffic and targeted traffic can only be generated by publishing high-value targeted content.

 

How to achieve on-page optimization with content writing

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On-page optimization with content writing

On-page optimization with content writing.

Search engine optimization has two parts:

  1. On-page optimization
  2. Off-page optimization

Off-page optimization is not directly under your control. It is a long-term process. You publish lots of content. People find your content. If they like it, they engage with your content by linking to it, referring to it on social media websites and mobile apps or finding your content useful enough to spend some good amount of time on your website.

On-page optimization on the other hand is completely in your control. Aside from efficient source code, you can write content that is search engine optimized.

A recent Moz blog post shares a few tips on how you can optimize your content for on-page optimization.

Here is how you can use content writing to achieve on-page optimization:

Format content that is easier to read when writing content

When people visit your website or the page you are subjecting to on-page optimization, they should be able to read it as easily as possible. The same holds true for the search engine crawlers. They should be able to read your content without much fuss.

This means making your content writing scannable. Here are a few things you can do.

Use the H2 tags

I have written on this topic multiple times. You should organize your content under different headings and subheadings. The above Moz author says that you should use your keywords – sometimes even the exact keywords you are trying to target – in the headings and subheadings.

Use headings after every 300 words. In this case, by headings I mean text between <H2> and </H2>.

Between headings, also use the <H3> tags as subheadings. This way, merely by looking at the text between headings and subheadings, your readers should be able to make out what your web page is about.

Use shorter sentences and paragraphs

Everybody finds reading shorter sentences easy. Communicate one idea in one sentence. Of course, when you are feeling like writing a long sentence, do that, but most of the sentences should be short. In grammar lingo, such sentences are called “simple sentences”. Avoid using compound or complex sentences.

Use shorter paragraphs. Ideally, don’t use more than two sentences in a paragraph. I tend to use more than two sentences, but I do that when my sentences are very short.

Use the main keyword within the first 100 words of the write-up

This tip isn’t included in the above link, but this can be useful. What does your keyword represent? It represents the core proposition of your web page.

Sometimes the search engine crawler cannot crawl your entire web page. By the time it reaches the body content, it goes to another link or completely leaves your website.

Hence, enable it to come across your main keyword (that represents the core topic of your web page) as early as possible so that even if it leaves your web page in a hurry, it processes the keyword.

Use bulleted lists

Bulleted lists are easy to read. They don’t even need to be complete sentences. You can just use phrases or even one-word expressions in the bulleted lists. Use your primary and secondary keywords in the bulleted lists. Use your hyperlinks.

Optimize your content for featured snippets

Featured snippets are the highlighted pieces of content that appear on search result pages when you search for something, and the answer is well defined. Here are some benefits of writing your content that is featured snippets-friendly:

  • You occupy “position zero”, even above paid links.
  • Getting featured in the snippets section is the ultimate search engine optimization fete, bringing you lots of traffic.
  • It increases your brand authority.
  • It brings you more back links increasing search engine rankings of other links on your website.

You may like to read: Is there a definitive way of ranking in Google’s featured snippets?

Featured snippets can appear in two forms: paragraph form and bullet form.

How can you optimize for featured snippets? By providing the exact answer being asked in a question, and in a manner that it’s easier to understand by Google’s ranking algorithm.

Although there is no definitive way of appearing in Google’s featured snippets, mention a question and then present an answer. Mention a problem, and then present a solution.

Something like:

Guide to using content writing improve on-page optimization?

  1. Divide your content between headings and subheadings.
  2. Use your keywords in headings and subheadings.
  3. Use bulleted lists to organize main points.
  4. Use your keywords within the first 100 words of your web page copy.
  5. Write short sentences that are easier to read.
  6. Write short paragraphs that are easier to read even on mobile phones.
  7. Optimize your text for featured snippets.
  8. Write text focusing on search intent.

The above is the format preferred by the featured snippets section.

Add an FAQs section

Although, you cannot add an FAQs section on every page, wherever you can, do so. For example, if I’m writing this blog post, it doesn’t make sense to add an FAQs section needlessly. But if I have a web page describing my content writing services, it is a perfect candidate for an FAQs section.

Why is an FAQs section search engine friendly? It delivers exactly what Google wants. It presents content in the form of questions and answers.

In the questions of your FAQs section, write the questions as if they are being asked by search engine users.

Take for instance the following question and its subsequent answer:

Can content writing improve on-page optimization?

Yes, content writing can improve on-page optimization if you format your content in such a manner that it’s easy to read both for your human visitors as well as search engine crawlers. Format your text so that it is easier to scan it. Use important tags such as <H2>, <H3> and <LI>. Hyperlink to your existing web pages.

And so on. You can provide a comprehensive answer. Google loves such question-answer types of web pages.

A good thing about on-page optimization is that it is completely in your hand. My personal experience has been that if you solely focus on on-page optimization, the off-page optimization part begins to manifest automatically.

Focus on quality content. Format it well. Use the right tags. Be persistent. Write and publish content on relevant topics. The rest gets taken care of on its own.