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.

 

Am I getting more content writing assignments post-Covid?

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By “post-Covid” I’m not saying that Covid is over. In fact, here in India, we are expecting the third wave to hit somewhere in August-September, 2021.

But, during the past year, we have learned a lot. The situation is not as scary as it was a few months ago. Hence, the expression “post-Covid”.

Many have gotten vaccinated.

So, has my business increased?

My business HAS increased, but I’m not sure whether it is due to Covid or due to my own effort.

When the Covid started in the US – my major amount of money was coming from there – two of my main clients drastically cut down their operations.

They didn’t let go of me, but the amount of money they paid me was now less than one-third of what they were paying me before the pandemic.

Previously when I could manage without promoting my work, now, no longer was the case. I needed to make up by generating more work.

I don’t want to sound opportunistic, but I took it as a blessing in disguise. This gave me some time to concentrate on growing my business rather than continuously working for them.

I started updating my blog almost every day. This improved my search engine rankings.

I became active on LinkedIn – queries began to come from there.

So, my business increased because my promotion increased. In the past year, I’ve more than doubled my search engine traffic.

Has the Covid outbreak had no effect on my business?

I wouldn’t say that. I’m getting more work from India, which is a big change.

Clients from India are, even if reluctantly, agreeing to pay more.

Many sound more knowledgeable about the need to publish quality content.

In that sense, yes, business has improved.

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.

 

Can you repurpose content for email marketing?

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The success of your email marketing depends on regularity. Repurposing your existing website or blog content can help.

One of the biggest problems you face when running an email marketing campaign is the lack of engaging content.

Email marketing – especially well-meaning and long-term – means building and sustaining relationships with your existing and prospective customers and clients. If you send out email campaigns just to promote your products and services, you’re not using the full potential of email marketing.

But this update is less about the dos and don’ts of email marketing and more about how to repurpose your existing website and blog content to get quality material for your successive email campaigns.

As this Business2Community update suggests, you can re-purpose your existing content from multiple sources including blog posts, web pages, and even social media updates.

I have been doing this for a couple of months now. I mean, getting content from various sources. I have been publishing my newsletter for years, but the only source of content was my blog.

Whenever I published a new blog post, I sent a notification to my email subscribers with a small intro to the blog and then a URL.

These days I do a lot of repurposing. From LinkedIn to my Credible Content blog to Quora, I’m constantly repurposing and remixing content.

For example, I publish an answer to a question on Quora. From there I have started turning those answers into full-fledged blog posts for my Credible Content blog. Then I write a small intro of 200-300 words both for my LinkedIn update and my newsletter update.

Repurposing isn’t just relevant to contemporary content. Maybe you wrote a blog post back in 2017 and it contains some nuggets of wisdom. You can share in your newsletter. But how do you find such content?

I normally use a site-based search query On Google such as “site:credible-content.com email marketing”.

This brings up all the content I have published on my website on the topic of email marketing. Then I quickly go through the links and find something useful to use for my next newsletter broadcast.

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.