Tag Archives: business writing

How to be courageous when writing content for your business

How to be courageous when writing for your business

How to be courageous when writing for your business.

When you are writing for your business (or when your content writer is writing), you want to play safe for obvious reasons. As it is you want to attract clients. If you piss off even those clients who are interested in doing business with you, this is not a good content writing and content marketing strategy.

In his latest update, Brian Clark asks, Are you a courageous content creator?

By being courageous what he means is having the courage to go against the tide. It means doing your own thing whether people agree with you or not. It means not giving in to pressure and sticking to your ground provided you are sure of what you’re doing.

How do you apply this attitude when writing content for your business? How do you become “courageous”?

When you are writing for your business, don’t always try to please your customers and clients. The purpose of writing for your blog or your website is to inform and engage. Give them the right information even if it means, at least at that moment, they decide not to do business with you.

For example, there are some clients who don’t need my content writing services.

A few months ago, a client sent me a “rough draft” to improve. The draft was so well written that I thought it would be a travesty if I meddled with it. I told the client that she shouldn’t get the draft written by me as she herself had written it so beautifully. She just needed to make a few changes here and there and it was perfect to be published.

Initially the client disagreed simply because she thought that she is not a trained content writer and she mostly deals with software. A good thing was, she trusted me as a writer and when I told her that her initial draft was quite well-written, she acquiesced and decided to publish it on her website. I lost an assignment and as a result, some money, but I had the satisfaction that I had been honest with the client.

Coming back to the original topic, how to be courageous when you are writing for your business? Since I don’t mean to write a lengthy post, here are a few things you can keep in mind:

  1. Believe in your abilities to deliver and write with that mentality – it will show through your writing.
  2. Don’t avoid disagreeing with popular belief. For example, I don’t believe that you necessarily have to publish very lengthy blog posts for better search engine rankings. Just focus on quality and regularity and your organic search engine rankings begin to improve.
  3. Always come up with something new, not just for the heck of it, but because you have some good ideas to share.
  4. Be yourself.

Some good thoughts to ponder when you are writing content for your business website or business blog.

7 ways you can use content writing for better brand awareness

7 ways you can use content writing for better brand awareness

7 ways you can use content writing for better brand awareness.

Brand awareness is an important segment of your overall business strategy. It’s the extent to which your potential customers and target audience are familiar with your brand. Naturally, you want to raise your brand awareness to a higher level and ensure you’re reaching a wider audience. Content writing is one of the best tools to help you reach this goal.

Using content writing to boost brand awareness is a great strategic move you need to consider using. If you’re not sure how to do it, just keep reading. Here are the best methods for using content writing to increase brand awareness.

Let’s take a closer look together.

1. Establish a Brand Personality

Before you even start writing and go deeper into your content writing strategy, you have to think about your brand.

How do you want to represent it? What do you want from people to think about it?

It’s important that you establish a brand personality before your major content writing efforts. This will ensure uniformity across all platforms you’ll be using.

Establish a brand personality by defining:

  • your tone & voice
  • your style of writing
  • your identity & traits

Try to define your brand as if it was a person, and make this a foundation of your content writing strategy. Then, stay consistent in your brand personality in everything you write.

This will help your target audience understand you, embrace you, and recognize your content.

2. Use Blogging

If you know anything about content writing, you know blogging is one of the strongest tools that you have to own.

Blogging gives you a chance to reach out to your target audience and build a relationship with them.

Diana Adjadj, a marketer and writer at Best Essays Education, agrees: “Your content writing strategy should heavily rely on your blogging strategy. The two are inseparable and have to go hand in hand together.”

There are two ways you should use blogging to raise brand awareness:

In both cases, make sure that you:

  • write posts for your target audience
  • provide valuable information
  • serve as a credible source of data and facts
  • cover trending topics from your niche
  • write interesting, relevant content

Blogging is a great way to get organic traffic, build brand awareness, and expand your audience.

3. Rely on Storytelling

If you want more people to learn about your brand, and share it with their friends, you should rely on storytelling in your content writing.

You may also like to read: The importance of storytelling in content marketing.

Storytelling is great for building firm bonds with your target audience and deepening your relationship. It makes them feel emotionally closer to you, which is the recipe for success.

Share stories such as:

  • how your brand was established
  • people behind the brand name
  • fun acts
  • inspirational team members stories
  • customer stories

Give them something more personal and revealing to make your brand even more human. The further you go from your image as “just a company” or “just a brand”, the better.

4. Socialize

Social media is powerful. Today, almost every brand has a social media account on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

You may also like to read: 5 ways to make your content social media friendly.

You shouldn’t be an exception.

Social media allows you to aim your content writing directly towards your target audience. All you have to do is take the right steps:

  • create interesting social media posts
  • reply to comments and messages
  • get involved in discussions within your industry
  • communicate with other brands

Your social media presence can win you a huge number of new followers. It also creates additional space for you to show your brand personality, as we’ve discussed in point 1.

5. Team Up With an Influencer

Influencer marketing is flourishing. Brands team up with people who have a large audience and get them to promote them.

But, there’s more to influencer marketing than you think.

Here’s what you need to have in mind:

  • choose an influencer from your niche
  • make sure it’s someone your target audience likes
  • make sure you agree with all their public attitudes, opinions, and their ideology
  • choose an expert, celebrity, blogger, or anyone who could win you more audience

Neightan White, a blogger and contributing writer at Supreme Dissertations, says: “Once you choose an influencer to promote your brand, you’re linking your brand to everything that person says or does. Choose wisely and make sure you preserve your brand personality.”

6. Use Visuals

When we’re talking about content writing, we have to mention the power of visually appealing content.

You may also like to read: Quality content writing must be mixed with quality images and graphics.

Naturally, what you write is more important than what it all looks like. But, visuals have far greater power than just making your content look better.

Visuals can turn your content around and make it:

  • appealing
  • dynamic
  • entertaining
  • memorable

Images, videos, GIFs, and infographics are there to support your content and make it richer. They will make your content worth sharing and thus more popular.

Use visuals to add more appeal and value to your content. It will skyrocket your brand awareness.

7. Watch Your Competitors

Your brand needs to be unique and stand out from the rest. And the only way for you to do it is to know what everyone else is up to.

To raise brand awareness, you need to:

  • identify your competitors
  • keep an eye on their content strategy
  • understand their plans and goals

Once you know all this, you’ll be able to think of something new, fresh, and different. And that’s what your target audience is going to appreciate.

Final Thoughts

Raising brand awareness is a task you should constantly work on. From one level to the other, use content writing as a tool to help you improve.

Use the tips we’ve shared above and start working on your content writing strategy. Focus on raising brand awareness and give your target audience a reason to love you even more.

How to get more customers and keep the old ones coming back, with content writing

Getting new customers with content writing

Every business depends on customers and clients. Even if you’re not a business but a non-profit organisation or a not-for-profit business, you need funds and donations and for that you need the maximum number of people feeling a connection with your cause. Having a for-profit business is no different. Content writing can help you establish a connection between the audience that you seek and the audience that seeks you.

Why content writing keeps the old customers coming back to you

This is how constant content writing keeps your old customers coming back and doing business with you

  • They remember how helpful your website was the first time:
    First impression is normally the lasting impression. If they have a good experience when they come to your website for the first time, if they find all the information they need written in an understandable language, they will keep this in mind.
  • Content writing provides them all the answers: Whenever they seek an answer they can find it on your website because you’re constantly creating new content for your website. I assume that when you write content for your website you are actually creating knowledge base rather than simply creating gibberish. If you just want to create nonsensical text to improve your search engine rankings than this blog post is not for you.
  • People eagerly subscribe to your updates: When they find well-written content on your website they eagerly subscribe to your email updates. They would like to know what new offers you have, how well you are describing your new products and services and just in case you have something they need.
  • They closely follow your social media updates: Everybody uses social media these days (or social networking websites). You will hardly come across someone these days who isn’t on Facebook or Twitter (or both). Through well-targeted content writing you can encourage your existing customers to follow you wherever you post your content, whether on social media websites or social networking websites.
  • Quality content writing encourages your existing customers to promote your content: They promote your content for the goodness of it. Why do people promote content? Why do people share links on their social networking timelines? They want to share something interesting, something useful to their friends and followers. If what you give them is interesting and useful, they will automatically share it.
  • They feel you understand their problems: Constantly writing content for your website makes your existing customers feel like you understand their problems and you want to provide them solutions. You’re constantly talking to them through your content writing.

Why content writing gets you more new customers

  • They are immediately hooked to your website content: It’s very easy to bring people to your website and very difficult to keep them there. If you don’t write quality content for your website on a regular basis, if you don’t pay heed to the copy of your homepage and your important landing pages, you won’t be able to keep people on your website for more than a couple of seconds. In order to make sales you HAVE to keep people on your website for as long as it takes and the best way of doing this is, giving them awesome content.
  • They can make informed decisions by reading your content: You shouldn’t be shoving your own decisions down their throats. Provide them the information they seek. Provide this information through writing informative content. Then let them decide. Empower them with decision-making and give them all the tools they need right there on your website.
  • They find all the answers you’re looking for:
    Indecision can be bad for your business. Confusion can be distracting. The moment your customers feel they cannot find the answers they are looking for, they’re going to move elsewhere. Even if they don’t intend to, just to find the answer they want, they will leave your website and even if they don’t find the answer at the other place, there is a remote chance that they will come back to your website even if initially they had intended to do business with you. So if you’re constantly writing content in order to provide them the answers they seek, you will make sure they stay on your website.
  • They come across your content when it is shared by your existing customers: Writing interesting content, as already mentioned above, encourages your existing customers to share it on their social networking and social media timelines. This highlights your content in front of people who have never come to your website, consequently, bringing you new visitors.
  • Content writing improves your search engine rankings: Better search engine rankings don’t mean more sales since once people are on your website what matters is the quality of the content you have written, but they do help in getting you new visitors because after all, it’s these visitors that eventually turn into customers. When you’re constantly writing quality content for your website it begins to have a positive impact on your search engine rankings (because you end up covering important stuff that the search engines may feel, is important).
  • They consider you an authority on your subject: People prefer to do business with people they consider having an authority on the concerned subject. This might not be true for an e-commerce website because they are not based on individual branding but if you are selling something like books as an author or your services (for instance I am a content writer and hence sell my content writing services) it helps you tremendously if you can establish yourself as an authority figure through regular, authoritative content writing.

 

Multiply your conversion rate immediately with compelling headlines

Your headline is the first thing a visitor sees when he or she lands on your website or blog. A headline is not just the title of your page. It is not something that you need in bold and enlarged typeface just because straightaway starting with a paragraph doesn’t seem good. A headline presents the most compelling reason to go through the following text.

You must be wondering sometimes why there is so much hype around creating headlines when they just seem like the titles of the articles or blog posts proceeding them?

You must have often come across the expression “screaming headlines”. What are they? These are the headlines that often make you pick up a newspaper (I know, I know, not many people these days pick up the newspaper) or a magazine from a news stand. The entire newspaper and tabloid industry survives or thrives (as long as it lasts) on the ability of the headlines to draw people towards them.

The same happens on your website or when people come across your link on search engine result pages, other websites, and social media and networking websites. It is your headline that draws people to the actual page. If the headline is not compelling enough they are not going to click the link.

So how do we create compelling headlines?

When you are walking through a local market you often come across signboards on top of the doors of the shops. Every shop tries to attract you through the signboard and the words present on it. They may simply mention the service or product they are offering. They may also highlight the most special offer they have got for you. If they are offering a discount or there is a sale going on there is 100% chance they will have a banner proclaiming the irresistible bargain of the day. They even sometimes have moving advertisements or banners and posters at various prominent locations from where they can be easily viewed. But mere words don’t attract you towards them. It is the offer that catches your eye.

The same psychology applies to your website or blog headlines. Whatever you are writing, draw from it the most exciting reason why people should go through your content and formulate the headline from that reason. For instance if you are going through this blog post you want to know how you can increase your conversion rate tremendously by creating compelling headlines. This may not sound like a very exciting headline but there are many people who are quite desperate to improve their conversion rates and they will definitely want to check what I am trying to say here even if they are not very much impressed.

Address the main pain point in your headline

When I look at your headline I should be immediately able to know what you’re trying to offer. Of course you cannot tell me everything in a single sentence but this will definitely want me to read further. Suppose I am suffering from an old backpain. If your headline goes something like — “this revolutionary technique will definitely cure your backpain no matter how old it is” — I am definitely going to read this. Similarly, if you are looking for an effective content writer “content writing service that actually boosts your sales” may catch your attention more compared to “best content writing services on the Internet”.

Include the most important keywords or key phrases in your headline

This works well both in terms of getting targeted search engine traffic and influencing your visitors in a positive manner. All major search engines take headlines very seriously; in fact for them they are so important that they use your headlines as anchor text when they show your link on the search engine result page. It has been established beyond doubt that there is a greater probability of search engine users clicking links that actually contain the search term they have just used. This shows them that your link contains information about the exact phrase you are looking for. So using your primary key words and key phrases within your headlines definitely increases your search engine rankings.

Using keywords within your headline also increases the overall conversion rate of your copy because people immediately want to read the finer text if the headline uses the same language that they have been using in order to arrive at your page.

Create buzz on social media and networking websites with your headlines

The social media and networking scene is similar to a crowded marketplace: everybody is shouting and there is lots of noise and jostling. Everybody you are following or befriending has interesting stuff to post and whatever you post may fast scroll down the timeline. If you create a headline that cannot be bypassed it increases your chances of getting more traffic from websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Considering the importance of headlines I often spend and ample amount of time trying to come up with headlines when I’m working for my clients. OK, I also try to create decent headlines when I’m writing for my own website.

Is it true that an online copywriter shouldn’t charge according to the time he or she spends on the project?

I recently read on another blog post (by a relatively well-known copywriter) that online copywriters commit a fraud by charging or quoting their clients according to the time they are going to spend on the projects. I think it depends on the situation and the kind of project you are working on. I mean you cannot impose your own way of working on other people and if they refuse to toe the line you label them as frauds.

Of course a well-established copywriter charges less for the amount of writing he or she does and more for the value he or she brings to the table. But not every copywriter or content writer is in that position and neither does every client understand this concept. They simply want their writing jobs done. This is not an ideal situation but then we don’t live in an ideal world.

Clients come to you either through reference or directly. If they know you and if they are aware of your reputation (and your rates) they consciously make a decision whether they want to work with you or not. In such a situation when they are paying you they are actually paying for your work. They want you to deliver them what you’re known to deliver to other clients. They are not paying you for the time you’re spending on their projects, they are paying you for your experience and reputation. In such a case it doesn’t make sense to talk in terms of an hourly rate.

On the other hand if your clients come to you by simply looking for a copywriter or a content writer you both have to quantify the work in terms of number of pages and number of hours and there is nothing wrong in that. The clients aren’t bothered what a big shot copywriter you are; they just want a couple of pages written and if you don’t write them they can easily get them written by that guy in China or Pakistan, all said and done.

Does it mean in terms of your career you put yourself in a vulnerable position? Certainly and I don’t advise you to get in a position where you can be easily replaced. But hey, even if you are currently in such a position the main point is getting as much work as you can and delivering quality to your clients even if you have to work on a single page.

Then gradually you build your brand and people begin to recognize you. Once they know what value you can deliver you can charge for the value instead of the effort you’re putting in.