What is original content?

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Marketers and business owners are often worried about publishing original content on a regular basis.

Original content doesn’t always have to be a highly unique idea. I won’t go to the extent of saying that original ideas in this world are finite, but as someone wise has written, whatever was to be written, has already been written.

The blog topic you just came up with – hundreds of content creators may have already published blog posts, social media updates and videos on the very same topic.

Does it stop you from publishing a blog post on the same topic?

It shouldn’t.

An idea may not be original, but you take is always original.

When you write something about the same topic but with your own input and with your own writing style, the topic becomes original.

Be careful though, I’m not promoting plagiarism. What I’m saying is, there is nothing wrong in writing on a topic someone else has already written on.

Write in your own style. Use your own words. Inject your own experience. What is your point of view?

Just because you are writing it, it makes your piece of content unique and original.

Changing the format of my blogging for some time

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In the coming days I will be experimenting with shorter form of blogging on my Credible Content blog. Sometimes thoughts are more important than how many words one writes. I may not even use images because a lot of times the images are irrelevant, and I had been mostly using them for social media updates.

Yes, even for social media, I won’t be publishing my blog posts keeping social media in mind. If I want to post content on LinkedIn and Instagram, I will create content separately for them.

Regularly updating my blog is more important than worrying about search engine rankings and social media. By not pressurizing myself to reach a certain number of words, I will be able to focus more on the message than the length of the message. This way, if I have to say something in just 50 words, I will say it, instead of waiting for enough time to write 500 words.

How do I write content on very difficult topics?

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How to write content on difficult topics

How to write content on difficult topics

When I use “very” before difficult, I mean a topic I have no clue about. Even if I do research, I may not be able to come up with a piece of content that delivers something convincingly and clearly.

Recently I did exactly that. I worked on a topic I wasn’t familiar with. I’m not going to mention it because then the client is going to know which topic I’m talking about (some of my clients read my blog).

I could have said no but I am the only writer going for him. He had given me multiple topics and I had written on all the topics but the one I’m talking about.

I procrastinated for a couple of days but then the project could no longer be delayed. I worked on the document for two hours and I must say, I was impressed.

This wasn’t the first time I was stuck. I am writing for my clients everyday and not all the topics are easy. Some of them are difficult.

What makes a content writing assignments difficult?

There are two ways a content writing assignment can be difficult.

  1. The topic is totally alien. I have no clue what even the title means. I don’t feel like asking the client because then he or she will get uneasy thinking that I may not be able to write.
  2. The topic is familiar but no good information is available on the web. The current content published by other authors doesn’t impress me. The research data is not there.

Very few times I have had to turn down the assignment because it was too hard for me to take up. I can’t even remember.

Yes, I remember recently I turned down an assignment not because it was difficult, but because I thought the client was writing it better than I could. She sent me an outline which in itself was exceptionally written. Once I explained this to her, she agreed, and she was also impressed by my honesty.

Anyway, coming back to the topic, with a little bit of research, I can find the needed information and do a job that meets my standards. But sometimes, the topic is completely out of my league. How do I handle such topics?

Here are a few things I do:

Remind myself that this is not the first time

Starting writing on a difficult topic is the most difficult. It’s because you don’t know what to write. You don’t even know how to begin. How do you write the first sentence? And if you cannot write the first sentence, how do you bring yourself to starting to write?

Have I been in such situations before? Multiple times. So many times I have felt that I won’t be able to complete a content writing assignment because it is too difficult or the information available is too little, but by the time I’m through with the document, it turns out to be a great job.

When I cannot begin, I remind myself that. I remind myself that I have been in such a situation innumerable times. Somehow, I just need to start and once I start, I will finish. As far as I can remember, this has always worked. I cannot recall the occasions when it has not worked. In fact, even right now I’m going through the same phase. I need to start working on an e-book which I’m finding difficult. I need to start writing it. But I know that once I start, I will be able to complete it.

Start preparing an outline

This might be an extension of the above point, but preparing an outline always helps. I start writing random words and sentences in bullet points. This works both at psychological level as well as practical level.

I tell myself: at least I’m doing something. I’m not wasting my time going through social media timelines or spending time on another wasteful activity. I’m working on the project. If I need to write 1500 words, I have written 50 words. That is some work done.

When you’re randomly thinking, lots of useful thoughts come to your mind. If you’re not putting them down, you often lose these thoughts. When I’m randomly writing sentences and words, I’m preserving the thoughts that are coming to my mind. These thoughts can then be used to write the complete piece. Otherwise, once lost, these thoughts rarely come back.

Sometimes these notes are so precise that I simply need to expand them and by the time I’m done with that, I have completed my project.

Have a system to save research material

This is a long-term strategy but over the years, I have collected so much material using OneNote (Evernote before that) and Google Keep that once I start going through it, there is not a chance when I don’t get a new idea or when my thoughts don’t get unblocked.

I’m not saying I always get the information that I need from my saved notes, but they get my motor started.

The gist is, start writing. After a while, it starts coming on its own.

 

How do I find the right keywords for writing SEO content?

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Keyword research for SEO content writing

Keyword research for SEO content writing

In most of the cases, I don’t. The list of keywords is given to me by my clients. I find keywords when I am also helping a client with content strategy.

Whenever I’m writing content I advise my clients not to cram too many keywords in a single web page or blog post. That dilutes the main focus of what you’re trying to convey.

Nonetheless, when I need to find the right keywords for writing SEO content, how do I do that?

There are many tools for that, but the best tool is common sense. After that, you can take help of the Google search engine.

First, you need to know your primary keyword. For example, if your topic is “How to improve your SEO with content writing?” you have a fair idea of what you’re trying to achieve here. You want people who want to know how to improve your SEO with content writing, finds your link.

When you are trying to improve your SEO, there is a thin line that divides people who want to pay you and people who just want to learn something. The above topic, “How to improve your SEO with content writing?” is targeting people who want to learn something. They may also want to hire someone who knows how to improve SEO with content writing, but as far as the topic goes, it is being written to target those people who want to learn how to improve SEO with content writing.

This is a big phrase. Targeting big phases longtail keywords is always beneficial. Not many people may use them but they definitely help you improve your search engine rankings by zeroing in on those people were using exactly the phrase.

After that, there are two more keywords you can focus on, namely, “improve your SEO” and “content writing”.

You may also like to include “improve your search engine rankings” and “website content writing”.

Google also makes its own suggestions. Search for the term “how to improve your SEO with content writing” and see what other suggestions Google comes up with. Here is what I have found:

  • best practices for SEO content writing
  • how to write SEO friendly articles
  • SEO writing for beginners

and some unrelated keywords.

I also have a browser plug-in called “Keywords Everywhere”. It uses the Google database and some other sources to throw up related keywords and also the keywords other people may have used for the same sort of search. Right now, for the search term used above, it is not giving me much different options than what Google has displayed, but for many other keywords, it definitely gives more options.

There are many commercial SEO keyword research tools such as Ahrefs, Serpstat (this, I have used the paid version), SEMRush (more of a content ideas finder rather than a keyword finder), LongTailPro (have used the paid version for a few months but then discontinued) and even Moz.

I have never used the paid keyword research tools for my clients because there are very few clients who actually want to pay me for keyword research. Yes, they do want me to find the keywords, but when it comes to paying for the time that I may spend, they prefer to do their own keyword research, which is fine. So, most of the tools mentioned above, I have used for myself, to improve my own search engine rankings.

Many people heavily recommend the Google Ads keyword tool. Previously it was also called the Google AdWords keyword tool. Since it allows you to find keywords you can bid on, so naturally, Google presents you with an extensive list of alternative keywords to your main set of keywords.

To find keyword alternatives, you can enter 3-4 keywords and then it generates a big list. To novices it may be confusing because you don’t want to use all the keywords. Since Google charges for every click, it is but natural that the company would want you to bid on as many keyword combinations as possible, this is just to get some ideas for your own content writing needs. You need to make your own judgement regarding this.

Sometimes I use Google Analytics to find what keywords people are using when they find my website or my blog. This tells me what sort of traffic I’m attracting. If I’m attracting traffic for all the wrong keywords, I make changes to my content accordingly. Hence, Google Analytics can tell you if you’re targeting wrong keywords through your content.

This is pretty much how I find keywords for SEO content writing.

 

 

Google says copied content is fine sometimes

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Does Google always penalize you for duplicate content

Does Google always penalize you for duplicate content?Chitradurga

When my clients approach me for my content writing services it’s obvious that they are looking for original content. In fact, they specifically say, “I’m looking for original content because Google can penalize me for duplicate content.”

It goes to prove that they want original content because Google can penalize them if they copy content from other websites and blogs and otherwise, they wouldn’t mind picking some nuggets from here and there, sometimes complete web pages and blog posts.

Without going into the ethics of whether you should pick portions from other websites or not, here is a link I came across that quotes an interview from Google’s John Mueller in which he explains how Google decides whether a particular piece of content is original or copied.

Here is a video to the entire interaction:

John says that even for Google it is difficult to decide sometimes what is the original source of a particular piece of content. All Google knows is, if it finds multiple instances of text strings on multiple blogs and websites, then that content is not original.

This problem can be solved to a great extent by the canonical meta tag but right now, I don’t need to go into the technicalities of how to make sure that your content is not reused by someone else. The point that I intend to discuss here is, whether it is fine to use duplicate content on your website.

There are 2 reasons why clients approach me for content writing whether they are looking for content for their websites or blogs:

  1. They want to improve their conversion rate.
  2. They want to improve their search engine rankings.

Your conversion rate has got nothing to do with what Google thinks of your content. You can declare at the top of your web page that you have copied the content from another website and at the most what Google can do is, stop your website from appearing in search results. If you are fine with that, beyond that Google cannot do much.

Yes, there can be ethical issues, even legal issues if someone sues you for copyright violation, but beyond that, you’re completely fine. If it is very good content, the copied content even does wonders to your conversion rate.

John in the video himself says that sometimes the blog post that quotes the original blog post ranks higher than the original blog post. How come?

Many factors are taken into consideration, including relevance.

You must have come across many blogs that simply aggregate content from other blogs and websites. What do they do?

They even use the same title. They pick up a big portion of the original blog post and copy/paste it, along with the original link and sometimes, they add a few lines of their own, probably introducing the original source or expressing their own opinion.

I have done that too. I have also experienced that my blog post ranked higher than the original blog post. I have seen this happening multiple times.

Google’s ranking algorithm is quite advanced. It can make out whether you’re simply copy/pasting content from other websites and blogs or you are quoting them with your own take on the subject.

When you quote the original source and give a fresh perspective, Google can make out if your perspective is relevant to the search being done by the user. Maybe the original source does not have the information the user is looking for and your link has, despite the fact that you have picked a major chunk of your piece from another blog post.

Here is what I think about the whole issue: it does not look professional if what you have on your website is present on multiple websites. Every business is unique and hence deserves to have a unique voice and a unique message. If your visitors cannot distinguish you from other websites, it will be hard for them to do business with you.

By the end of the day, original content writing matters. It helps you stand out. It presents a unique perspective. It distinguishes you. It makes you, you.

If you want to be an aggregator then sure, go ahead and copy content from other websites. Google may punish you or may not – right now it’s quite random. But you cannot build your brand over copied content.