You don’t need to be a writer to publish content for your company?

Leave a reply

So says this article in USA Today. Well, it depends. No, you definitely don’t need to be a writer to regularly publish content for your company. You can publish videos. You can also publish animation and images. Even short posts on social media platforms don’t require you to be a proficient writer.

What type of content you publish depends on your content marketing strategy.

But what about longer blog posts, web pages and articles?

Again, I never try to convince my prospective clients that they need a writer to publish compelling content on their websites and blogs. It’s up to them. They must see some value when they hire me.

I showcase my abilities as an experienced writer, but I don’t go beyond that. After that, they can decide whether they need a professional writer or not.

There are plenty of online tools that help you write well. There are some excellent grammar checkers. Even contemporary word processors like MS Word and Google Docs do a pretty good job of helping you write without spelling and grammar mistakes.

So, in that regard, if your concern is only writing without spelling and grammar mistakes, you are sufficiently equipped by software.

Writing, though, is different. It is not just about correctly writing words and sentences. It’s about using words and sentences to make an impact.

That’s where you often need a trained and experienced writer.

13 copywriting rules I use when writing copy for my clients

Leave a reply

My copywriting rules when I’m writing copy for my clients.

The copywriting rules listed in this blog post help my clients generate more leads and get more business. What are these rules? Or what are these copywriting laws? Read on.

First, here is a quick list of the copywriting rules that I try to stick to as much as possible:

Thoroughly understand the product or the service.
Get a clear idea of whom you’re writing for.
Use the language of the audience.
Spend ample amount of time on the main headline.
Avoid using big words and jargon.
Use simpler sentences – mostly one thought in one sentence.
Use call-to-action strategically.
Create a sense of urgency (but don’t overdo it).
Use positive language instead of negative.
Focus more on benefits and less on features.
Leverage storytelling.
Stick to the point.
Be your customer’s advocate.

Copywriting is a tricky undertaking. When I’m talking to my new clients, I always tell them that you cannot immediately get results from a landing page or an email marketing campaign.

You may not find these copywriting rules on other blogs not because they are unique, but because I implement them and hence, talk about them, in my own unique way.

Do I follow all these rules or laws? Not at all. In the end I will explain why. In fact, I used to believe that as long as you write well, there is no need to follow any particular copywriting laws.

Customer behavior is quite scientific these days. Ample amount of research is available that reveals to you what works and what doesn’t when you are writing copy. There are even certain words and expressions that, although mean the same, have different impact on your copy and through your copy, on your customers and clients.

4-5 landing pages or email marketing campaigns are needed before we can find out what works and what doesn’t.

No matter how experienced a copywriter is, experimentation is needed. A problem with freelance copywriters is that when a client approaches, she wants to know exactly how much a particular piece of writing is going to cost and how much is going to be delivered. Hence, there isn’t much scope to try out various rules or laws, especially when you want to evolve using your own copywriting techniques.

A copy is not about the number of words. It is about making an impact.

Due to this faulty, and yet inescapable approach, there is very little scope for experimentation, analytics, and learning.

Most of the clients move on after the first campaign. Some have access to analytics, and some don’t. They see that not much business was generated, and they think that may be there is something wrong in the copy.

I’m gradually shifting away from that model – quoting for the number of words – and instead, I focus on the result and quote accordingly, sometimes not even telling the client why I’m charging what I’m charging. Though, that’s a different topic.

Although results cannot be guaranteed with every campaign, there are some fundamental copywriting rules that can be followed when writing copy. Every audience is unique. Every set of customers and clients is unique. Nonetheless, certain steps that you take when writing copy always leave a positive impact.

Below I’m listing some rules that I follow when writing copy for my clients.

1. Understand the product or the service as clearly as possible

David Ogilvy in his book “Ogilvy on Advertising” says that before beginning to work on a copy, he did so much research that he would know more than the business owner. Of course, most of the clients don’t have that much budget, but whatever you can learn about the product or the service, try to learn it.

How can you write about something you don’t know of? Knowing about a product or service doesn’t just mean knowing what it does. It means how a product or a service helps customers and clients.

This is always my primary focus. What would draw people to this particular product or service? What overwhelming problem does the product or the service solve?

2. Define the target audience

In the content writing parlance, it is also called “defining the persona”.

Although I don’t psychoanalyze the audience such that it takes me hours to understand the people – obviously the client isn’t paying that much – I try to gather as much information as possible.

3. Adapt my writing to the language of the audience

What kind of language does the audience prefer? What language does the audience use when talking about similar products and services? You don’t want to alienate people by using a language that they don’t use.

Someone recently suggested that if you want to learn what type of language people use when talking about the product or the service that you are writing copy for (similar) visit other e-commerce websites and read the reviews and comments left by their users.

For example, if you’re describing the features of a mobile phone, visit a website like Amazon.com and go through various mobile phone listings, especially the reviews section.

4. Brainstorm on the main headline

I’m again going to quote David Ogilvy, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

Some professional copywriters claim that out of the entire time, they spend 50% of the time on defining the headline. Sometimes they experiment with multiple headlines.

Although I won’t say that I spend 50% of my time coming up with the headline, I take my headline seriously. The headline must capture the essence of what is being written in the copy. The person who reads the headline should be immediately able to understand what the copy is about.

I make sure that the headline doesn’t confuse the reader. It must be straightforward. It must represent the biggest benefit or address the biggest problem.

But at the same time, I don’t believe in hyperbolic headlines. I try to create as realistic headlines as I can.

5. Avoid “big words”

By big words I mean, use “get” instead of “obtain” or “best” instead of “superior” or “help” instead of “facilitate”, and so on.

This also makes it easier to use conversational tone which makes your readers comfortable.

Of course, being a writer sometimes I get in the flow and use the words I shouldn’t be using but this normally happens in the first draft. By the time I’m through with revisions, I get rid of lengthier words if shorter versions are available.

6. Use simple sentences

This needs to be strategic. Too many simple sentences can sound like monosyllables or uninspiring. But, whenever I can, I express just one idea in one sentence and avoid using compound or complex sentences.

It makes it easier for the reader to read and understand what you are writing. In compound or complex sentences, one needs to process multiple thoughts at the same time, and this may end up confusing or distracting the reader.

7. Use call-to-action strategically

CTA or call-to-action is a big part of copywriting. The entire copy revolves around your CTA. The aim of your copy is to make the reader perform an action. This can be buying something, or replying, or downloading a brochure or giving a call, or registering for a workshop.

You can use call-to-action multiple times within the copy. It isn’t necessary that call to action must be used at the end. Whenever you express something compelling and you feel that the reader may be motivated to perform an action, you can insert a call-to-action.

But don’t overdo it; this makes you sound desperate.

8. Create a sense of urgency

I don’t believe in creating a sense of urgency just for the heck of it. I want to build trust among my readers. I create a sense of urgency when there is actual need.

For example, a client is organizing a workshop next week and he is making an offer to the first 25 attendees who register within the next two days.

In such cases, I use something like “This offer expires in two days and there is a mad scramble!”

9. Use positive prompts

It is something like instead of “Don’t spend your day in pain”, I write “Spend a painless day”. Another example would be, instead of “Don’t miss the opportunity”, I write “Grab the opportunity”.

10. Highlight benefits instead of features

I know, this is clichéd advice but even after coming across this advice for more than 273 times, I still see many copywriters getting obsessed with the features of a product or a service.

So, instead of giving more stress on the fact that your mobile phone has more than 300 GB of storage space, tell your prospective buyers that they can store 10,000 videos.

Instead of saying that your jeans is stretchable, you can tell your buyers that the same jeans can be worn by people of different sizes.

I’m not saying avoid features altogether. Features are important. I mean, 300 GB of storage space does sound appealing to a tech savvy person like me. Hence, don’t skip this part, but also don’t skip the part that the phone can save 10,000 videos.

11. Use storytelling

People relate to stories better. You have a great SaaS product with awesome features, but if you talk about some John who couldn’t afford expensive hardware and software and how he was able to grow his business using your SaaS product through a cheap, second-hand laptop, it can make a great impact.

12. Stick to the point

I don’t use fluff. I don’t beat around the bush. Of course, when you’re telling a story you need to build a narrative, but keep your audience focused. Even small distractions can make your readers lose track and go somewhere else.

13. Be the champion of the customer

I write copy as if I’m talking on behalf of my customers and clients. How are they going to benefit from the product or service I’m writing about? How is it going to change their lives?

Honestly, sometimes I feel insincere because how can I champion the cause of the customers for whom I’m writing, if I myself haven’t been using that product or service? I’m not an evangelist who has been using this product or service for years and have benefited immensely.

Take for example construction materials: these days I’m writing a series of marketing emails for a company that supplies construction materials and equipment to construction companies. I don’t have a construction company. I don’t use construction material. Still, I’m trying to convince those construction companies that they are going to get the best deal on the best materials from the company I’m writing about.

Well, this is something I need to reconcile with quite often.

Do I follow or implement all the copywriting rules I have mentioned above? Not necessarily. I pick and choose. Sometimes I use even random copywriting rules that I may have not listed above. I prefer to go with the flow. But these rules combine into a basic structure that keeps me on the right path. Even if you follow 50% of these rules, you are good to go.

Don’t obsess over SEO as long as you’re delivering meaningful content

Leave a reply

I was just reviewing a web hosting package for someone I know and came across an add-on package that tells you whether you are publishing SEO-friendly content or not.

Do these “SEO packages” really help? What about the SEO add-ons? I recently removed an SEO plug-in from my WordPress setup.

SEO is of two types:

Structural SEO
Content-based SEO

Although there are also on-site and off-site SEO tactics, but in the context of my current blog post, I’m just going to stick to the two above-mentioned SEO types.

What is structural SEO?

This makes sure that the basic structure of your website or web pages/blog posts is SEO-friendly.

To make sense of your web page or your blog post, the search engines like Google take into consideration the keywords within your title. This is debatable, but most of the SEO experts agree that a title containing your keywords is particularly important.

Your title is also important because it appears in search engine listings as a hyperlink.

Screenshot of title and description.

Multiple studies have revealed that if your title contains the words that have just been used in the search query, the greater number of people click your link.

The same goes with the description. Your keywords or parts of your keywords should appear in your description because then these keywords are highlighted by Google.

Hence, every web page for every blog post must have a clearly defined title and a description.

There is also a “keywords” meta tag but it is no longer relevant.

Another important aspect of structural SEO is, how easy it is for the search engine crawlers to access your main content.

If the crawler has to go through lots of source code (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, add-ons and plug-ins) before accessing your actual content, this negatively affects your search engine rankings. It is because sometimes the crawler leaves your website or a particular web page or blog post without even evaluating your main content because most of its time goes into crossing the jungle of your source code.

How fast your web page or blog post loads also has a direct impact on your overall search engine rankings. Make sure that your web pages and blog posts load fast, preferably within three seconds.

So, these are the components of structural SEO:

The title containing the main keyword or the search query.
Various combinations of the keyword or the search query in the description.
Easy access to the main content for the search engine crawlers.
Faster loading blog posts and web pages.

Most of the content management systems these days allow you to preset these structural SEO components. For example, in WordPress you can use Yoast SEO to make sure that whenever you publish a new web page or blog post, you separately enter the title and the description.

Structural SEO is not something that you need to do repeatedly.

What is content-based SEO?

It is mostly writing content that is most suitable to the query being used by your user.

Suppose a user looks for “Which is the best content writing service in India?”

To satisfy this query, you can either list 10-15 content writing services and then choose the best among them, or you can explain why your content writing service is the best in India.

In both the cases, you should remain true to the topic. You must talk about the best content writing service in India. When the user visits this link, he or she should get the answer he or she is looking for.

This doesn’t mean that the answer must be perfect. Maybe the search engine user doesn’t want to find information about your content writing service or why your content writing service is the best. He or she may be just looking for a comparative analysis of multiple content writing services.

Whatever you write, just make sure that you are providing an answer to the question being asked.

The next thing to keep in mind is, mention the main query or the keyword within the first 100 words. There is a logical reason.

The search engine crawler doesn’t always go through your entire text. It may simply go through the first few paragraphs, or even less. Hence it is important that the crawler comes across your main keyword or the main search query string as early as possible.

Other than this, there is no need to obsess about SEO. Focus on the quality, and to an extent the quantity of your content. Publish regularly. Right on relevant topics. It doesn’t matter whether you write 400 words or 4000 words.

What matters is the substance. Don’t necessarily extend the length of your web pages or blog posts simply because research has proven that most of the web pages and blog posts that get featured on the first search result page contain more than 1300 words. It differs from industry to industry.

Are you blogging regularly? Here is why you should

Leave a reply

Benefits of regular blogging.

In the beginning blogging started as a hobby movement. Publishing was being democratized on the Internet and many tools came to exist that would allow people to publish their thoughts and opinions without expensive software.

From Blogger.com to Movabletype to Tumblr, and everything in between, I have used practically every blogging platform, before finally settling with WordPress.

My website and my blog these days are powered by WordPress. Anyway, this is a side issue.

Once thousands of people started publishing their blogs regularly, they discovered that Google preferred blog posts over regular company web pages.

It wasn’t surprising. People shared more information through blog posts than through company web pages. The blogging content was more search engine friendly, especially when you used software like WordPress.

Most of the blog posts that you publish using WordPress are search engine optimized. These posts have SEO-friendly URLs. They have titles with the main keywords. People use headings and subheadings to create different sections. Many posts are interconnected through hyperlinks. Through the “Recent Posts” section, almost every post become scrollable.

Search engines like Google found blogs ideal for higher search engine rankings.

Soon the SEO community discovered blogs and started using blog posts to improve search engine rankings and to generate more traffic.

It worked wonders for many businesses. I definitely benefited from blogging. I still do.

Just as it happens with every technology and every trend, once a few people begin to benefit from it, more people want to benefit from it.

When more people benefit from it, they want to find faster ways to benefit from it. They begin to find workarounds. They begin to “exploit” loopholes and capabilities.

The same happens with blogging. These days almost every business website has a blog. Every entrepreneur knows that blogging is an essential part of search engine optimization. You have SEO plug-ins that tell you how to write (I recently uninstalled such plug-ins) to improve your search engine rankings. They tell you how many images are good and how many images are bad or whether you are repeating the keywords enough number of times or not.

Despite the fact that the search engine crawlers these days can crawl and index millions of pieces of content per second, the audience is still limited.

When you search for something, Google tells you that these many links have been found.

Content writing services – number of Google results.

Google is just trying to make you feel good that it has so much information for your queries. Of course, you’re not going to go through all these millions of links. At the most you’re going to check out the first and the second pages of search results.

Google may be crawling and indexing millions of links every day, the way people use this information hasn’t changed much. Most of the people still don’t go beyond the third page.

So, almost everyone is scrambling for the limited space.

This is where people begin to get disenchanted, and they lose confidence in the effectiveness of blogging. Not every blog post can appear on the first page. And that too, when you are competing with millions of blog posts for the same keyword or key phrase.

This is where they commit a mistake.

Don’t publish blog posts just to improve your search engine rankings

If you think that your blog exists only to improve your search engine rankings, you’re going to be in for disappointment.

The search engine benefits of blogging begin to show after some time. And that too if you blog regularly – 3-4 times every week.

Blogging definitely has SEO benefits and if you publish regularly, these benefits begin to manifest in a couple of months (provided you are publishing every day or every alternative day), but don’t just focus on improving your SEO.

The problem with just focusing on SEO is that then it becomes your primary concern. You want every post to rank well and for that, you take “measures” such as using keywords these many times, using the keywords in the title, and so on.

Yes, these things are important, and I strongly advise that you should use keywords in the title and in the copy even when you are not worrying much about your search engine rankings, but then there comes a time when instead of sharing your knowledge, you are constantly trying to improve your search engine rankings.

This becomes self-defeating. The more you try, the more you fail.

Is blogging no longer beneficial?

Blogging is still one of the best ways of improving your search engine rankings, engaging your audience and sharing your knowledge and experience.

Then why do so many people say that blogging is no longer beneficial?

They jumped on the blogging bandwagon just because they thought that blogging would improve their search engine rankings.

They had no intention of actually publishing engaging content to educate and inform and to add value. Their sole purpose was to exploit the platform to fill their websites and blogs with target keywords and key phrases.

The problem with this approach was, there were hundreds of thousands of people publishing blogs with the same attitude and the same approach.

How people search on Google and other search engines never changed. How many pages people were ready to check for the search results before giving up, never changed. The space was as limited as it was before.

The only thing that changed was, Google had more pages to crawl and index. The competition increased. The competitiveness of the keywords increased – it was harder to rank for the same keywords.

The more they tried to trick, the more “workarounds” they found, the smarter the Google ranking algorithm became at weeding out low-quality content.

Since these people mostly run behind razzmatazz, they began to find social media more attractive. They lost interest in blogging because well, running a successful blog is hard work. Rewarding, yet, hard work.

First they declared that email marketing is dead because they spammed the crap out of it – email marketing is still thriving and in fact, is more effective than it was 20 years ago.

Then they declare that blogging is no longer effective.

Blogging is still very much effective for those people who understand what blogs are for.

You need to understand that higher search engine rankings are a byproduct

Your higher search engine rankings are like money. How do you earn money?

Assuming you are not a swindler, or a robber, or a criminal in general (who work for the sole purpose of getting hold of money), you need to earn the money you have.

You are an engineer, and you are paid for your engineering skills. You are a web designer and you are paid for your web design skills. I am a writer, so, I’m paid for my content writing and copywriting skills. Famous performers become celebrities and they are paid for their ability to perform as well as for their celebrity status (which is, branding).

Hence, money doesn’t come to you for the heck of it. You do something else, and the money is a byproduct. Although, your ultimate goal is to earn as much money as possible, money can only come to you when you do something worth paying for. People, organizations, and businesses don’t just give you money because you exist. They give you money because you deliver something, or you satisfy some need.

The same happens with search engine rankings. Your rankings won’t improve because you desperately want to improve your rankings. Your rankings improve because you publish high quality content, content that people find useful. The more relevant your content is, the better search engine rankings you will enjoy. Hence, your search engine rankings are a currency.

This brings me back to the original question that I asked in the title of this blog post: Should you be blogging regularly?

This question was triggered by this Entrepreneur blog post that I came across yesterday: Why blogging should be on your weekly to-do list this year.

Blogging still delivers to those who understand the true essence of blogging – engaging audience by sharing valuable information.

The above Entrepreneur blog covers some important points about why you should be blogging regularly, but I will rewrite them here for my own audience.

Your blog gives reasons to people to visit your website multiple times

Familiarity builds trust. Whereas I definitely get new business queries from people who find my website on Google and have visited for the first time, people who actually end up becoming my clients (pay me for my services) have visited my blog or my website multiple times.

They have received my updates multiple times. They have read a few of my blog posts. They have come across my updates on LinkedIn.

Now, I’m not saying that I never get business from people who have just landed on my website – I definitely do – but most of my business comes from people who have visited my website multiple times.

This is true for almost every business. Nobody becomes your customer or client the first time he or she visits your website. People need some sort of familiarity. A blog that you regularly publish gives them a reason to access your content and consequently, become familiar to you, and then consequently, begin to trust you.

You get a chance to demonstrate your expertise through your blog

How do you convince people that you know your stuff? How do I convince people that I am a content writer who can provide engaging content to them and also help them improve their search engine rankings?

I regularly share my expertise on my blog. When people come to my blog, they know that I have covered practically every topic on content writing, content marketing and copywriting.

Hence, if you are looking for a content writer, do you feel confident working with a content writer about whom you don’t know much, or a content writer you are familiar with because he or she regularly shares his or her expertise through his or her blog?

Your blog gets you backlinks

As you regularly demonstrate your expertise in your field, people begin to respect you. They begin to look at you as an authority figure. After all, you need to have some knowledge to be able to write so much on your blog.

Also, very few people simply want to blow their own horn. They need validation.

Suppose I explain to you a particular method that can improve engagement on your website, I may also like to backup my claim by linking to another experienced content writer or digital marketing expert who says the same thing.

The more you blog, the more content you provide to other bloggers and publishers to link to. This improves your search engine rankings because backlinks are one of the most important requisites for higher search engine rankings. Especially the backlinks you earn through the strength of your content.

Regular blogging helps you build your mailing list

One of the biggest benefits of building a mailing list is that people trust you enough to share their email ID with you and give you access to their inboxes.

It shows they want to keep in touch. In case they are unable to visit your blog or website on their own, they don’t want to miss the great content that you are publishing. Subscribe to your mailing list only when you have something good to say regularly. They won’t be interested in you if you publish once or twice a month.

Regular blog publishing increases your search engine crawling rate

Google is constantly crawling the web to index new content and update existing content. But it needs to optimize its resources. If a website is updated once a month or once in two months, it’s no use sending out crawlers in its direction every day.

Hence, Google keeps track of websites that are published or updated frequently and then sets the crawl rate accordingly.

On one of my own blogs, I have observed that when I updated my blog multiple times in a day, my content was crawled and indexed within minutes. It was like, I published a blog post and then when I searched for it after a couple of minutes, it was there in the search results!

If you publish regularly then Google begins to crawl your website regularly. It means your content is crawled and indexed faster. Otherwise, it may take anywhere between one week or one month before your content begins to appear in search results.

In conclusion, blogging still holds the same benefits that it held a decade ago. It is still good for SEO. It is still good for engagement. It helps you promote yourself as an authority figure. It establishes you as an influencer. But only if you blog for the sake of blogging and not just for the sake of improving your rankings.

Why does regular content writing build trust?

Leave a reply

Familiarity through quality content builds trust.

Why do all the content marketers and digital marketers advise you to write and publish content regularly?

Of course, if the advice comes from content writers like me you can say that since I want people to publish more content (so that they hire me to write their content with greater frequency) it is in my interest that people publish more content.

Familiarity and trust on the Internet go together

How do you become familiar to your audience and your prospective customers and clients?

You cannot individually talk to thousands of people every day to become familiar to them.

You write and publish content they find useful. What is useful to them depends on your audience and this is something that you need to figure.

Some people are looking for funny and humorous content. Some are looking for controversial content. Some want political news. Some people want professional advice. Some people want to reduce their weight. Some people want to read good book reviews or gadget reviews.

The important thing is, your audience MUST want what you publish.

What do I achieve when I write and publish content on my blog? How do people become familiar to my business and how does it benefit me? I will explain.

I have three types of target audiences when I’m writing and publishing content regularly on my blog:

Readers who would subscribe to my newsletter.
Readers/publishers who link to my content, improving my search engine rankings in the process.
B2B readers who want to feel reassured that I am knowledgeable enough to write content for them.

I need to become familiar to these three categories. Eventually I want to maximize my business, but I cannot maximize my business without achieving No.’s 1 & 2.

Someday I would like my subscribers to pay for the knowledge that I share with them. It cannot happen right now, but I’m sure someday it well. That’s a business opportunity for me.

When my prospective subscribers regularly come across the useful content that I am publishing, they don’t want to miss it. To make sure that they don’t miss it, they subscribe to my updates. This builds my mailing list. I send them updates every day. My updates become familiar to them. They trust me enough to share their email ID with me.

Since I regularly publish content, the Google and other search engine crawlers crawl and index my content with greater frequency. It becomes easier to find my content on Google. When other publishers are searching for quality content to link to, they can find my links. Since I’m publishing lots of content, they want to link to my content. This further improves my search engine rankings, and hence visibility, and hence familiarity, and hence, trust.

Now we come to my prospective clients.

Why do my clients hire me? These are the reasons:

They are looking for quality content for their website and blog.
They are looking for a writer for their email marketing campaigns.
They know that high quality content can improve their search engine rankings and hence, they want to hire me.

My customers are B2B. Through my services, they want to increase their business. The stakes are higher. If I don’t give them good content, their business suffers.

Consequently, they need to trust their content writer. They need to know that their content writer is going to deliver. This is more important if writing is not their forte and they need to depend on the skill, talent and judgement of their content writer.

It’s easier to trust if you come across someone publishes content regularly. This content can appear in front of you in your inbox, on your social media timeline, or even search engine results.

Just imagine: there is a client who wants to improve her search engine rankings and she comes across a content writer whose many pages and blog posts rank well. On multiple occasions she has come across his or her links on Google. Isn’t this encouraging?

Regular content writing and publishing to build trust isn’t easy. It may be easy in the beginning when you are bubbling with ideas, but then you run out of ideas. How do you overcome that? You need a system. Will write more about that later.