Tag Archives: Content Marketing

Should you write content based on keywords or customer needs?

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Should you write content for visitors or keywords?
Should you write content for visitors or keywords?

We don’t live in an ideal world. In an ideal world, one would solely write content for the visitors. In the non-ideal world that we live in, aside from writing content for the visitors and customers, one also needs to write content to generate search engine traffic.

In fact, most of the clients who approach me, want to prioritize getting traffic from search engines over writing content that would help their own customers and clients. Somehow, they believe that if they get people to their websites, they will magically convert.

The problem with this approach is two-pronged: by the time you realize there’s a problem it’s often too late, and it’s a self-defeating exercise.

You are achieving nothing when you are completely focusing on the keywords. The keywords are not some magical enchantments that will open the floodgates of riches and affluence. They are simply queries that people use to find information they are looking for.

Am I saying that you should completely ignore keywords? I’m not saying that you should completely ignore them but let them be an integral part of your content. For example, if you select the right topic and then you focus on the topic and you focus on delivering the value, you are automatically going to cover the main keyword associated with the topic.

The problem arises when in order to cover as many keywords as possible in a single blog post or web page, we end up cramming too much content and needless actions.

Content publishing on an ongoing basis is simply unavoidable. Whether you realize it or not, or you realize it when it’s too late, or maybe you never realize it, there is no escape from regular content publishing.

The simple logic behind this is, just like you want to increase your visibility and draw people to your website, there are hundreds of other businesses having the same objective, or nearly about the same objective (if they don’t provide exactly the same business as yours, but more or less the same).

This means they are constantly pumping new content into the web. Whether your prospective customers and clients are trying to find you on Google or on social media, your content is going to have to compete with thousands of other web pages and blog posts. Thousands of pieces of content are constantly being added on a daily basis. Hence, if you don’t update your website or blog with new content, with fresh content, your website is going to get buried under a ton of new content.

Therefore, don’t worry much about creating and writing content around keywords. Let keywords be covered automatically when you write lots of content to help your visitors. Write and publish lots of valuable content. Your keywords are taken care of automatically.

35 types of content that require writing

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Content writing isn’t just about writing for blogs, web pages, email broadcasts, and social media updates.

Similarly, when it comes to content marketing, and writing for that purpose, there are multiple content forms where writing is required.

In one of the Quora updates, someone had asked if content writing is overrated. The sentiment originated from the fact that everybody seems to be providing content writing services these days.

It is like saying everybody walks, so walking is overrated. Everybody uses mobile phones these days, so, mobile phones are overrated. Millions of people drive around, so driving must be overrated. Almost everybody goes to doctors these days, so doctors are overrated.

Since everybody writes, sometimes people end up thinking that writing is overrated.

Writing was invented some 3000 years ago. Initially not everyone was crazy about writing. Socrates was dead against writing because he thought that if people started writing, they would use their brains less. Since knowledge could be preserved with writing, there was no need to memorize it. I wonder what he would think of mobile phones.

Most of the non-verbal writing exists in written format. Of course, you may say that you can use graphics and videos to explain concepts and I completely agree, but if everything turns into graphics and videos, what about those people who want to read?

Reading is a conversation. It provides multiple stimuli that are lacking in graphics and videos. When you are reading, you are imagining. You are not being provided audiovisual cues on a platter. Therefore, most of the people prefer to read, and since they prefer to read, content needs to be written.

As mentioned above, although content writing is mostly related to website content and blogs, there are various types of content needs that can only be met by writers. Listed below are some content types that require extensive writing.

  1. Blogs
  2. White papers
  3. Case studies
  4. Podcasts (writing script)
  5. Articles
  6. Email marketing
  7. Newsletters
  8. Social media campaigns
  9. Website content
  10. Guest blog posting
  11. Influencer interviews
  12. FAQs
  13. Testimonials
  14. News assignments
  15. Storytelling
  16. Product descriptions
  17. Product reviews
  18. E-courses
  19. Landing pages
  20. SEO content
  21. Press releases
  22. Wikipedia-type websites
  23. App notifications
  24. Lists
  25. How to articles
  26. Best practices
  27. Content repurposing
  28. Business forecasting
  29. LinkedIn posts
  30. Chat bots
  31. Paid advertising
  32. Sponsored content
  33. Guides
  34. Reports
  35. Educational content

Although these are different content types and they can all be used for content marketing purposes, they need talented writers to be effective.

Why do most blogs fail and what can you do to avoid that?

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Why do most blogs fail?

Why do most blogs fail?

This ReadWrite blog post discusses some factors that cause most of the blogs to fail. These factors include

  • Lack of goals.
  • Lack of focus.
  • Unoriginal ideas.
  • Poor research.
  • Poor writing.
  • Irregular updates.
  • Difficult to discover the blog.
  • Lack of growth.

Let’s quickly go through these points.

Lack of goals for the blog

What do you want to achieve through your blog? What KPIs have you defined?

By “lack of goals” we don’t mean not knowing what you want to do. If you want to publish a blog to raise ad revenue, then of course you know what you want to achieve.

Similarly, if you want to improve your search engine rankings, even then you know what you want to achieve and what is your goal.

But knowing these alone doesn’t help you much. These are simply outcomes. Higher ad revenue is a byproduct. Higher search engine rankings are a byproduct. What do you actually envisage for your blog?

For example, I want my Credible Content Blog to become one of the known blogs on content writing and copywriting. That is my goal.

I also want to fill my blog with lots of quality content so that other bloggers and publishers have a reason to link to it.

Similarly, what are your blogging goals? Do you want to raise awareness about your technological field? Do you want to establish your authority? Do you want to be recognized as an expert in your field?

These are more definitive goals.

Lack of blogging focus

Every blog succeeds on its niche value.

People want to recognize your blog with a topic or with a field. For example, my Credible Content Blog is known for quality blog posts on content writing and copywriting.

I could have easily gotten mixed up and turned it into a digital marketing blog by publishing posts on search engine marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, landing page optimization, PPC optimization, Mobile app marketing, and such. After all, I do need lots of topic ideas to update my blog regularly.

But I don’t. I stick to content writing and copywriting, and at the most, content marketing.

Even when I talk about something like email marketing and SEO, it is vis-à-vis content writing.

Unoriginal blogging ideas

If you’re writing about something that everybody is writing about, you don’t offer something original. There is nothing to draw people to your blog. You need to stand out. You need to offer something that is not being offered by other bloggers. Something valuable, yet unique.

Poor research

It is important to do good research if you want to establish yourself as an authority blogger. People respect facts and figures that are verifiable and credible. If you are simply interested in throwing around numbers without verifying them and without linking to original, reputed sources, you lose credibility and people stop visiting your blog.

Poor blog writing

Writing is the backbone of your blog.

Unless you publish a visual blog (that has just images and videos), writing doesn’t matter, but if your blog contains lots of writing then make sure that either you are a great, expressive writer or the content writer that you hire is a proficient writer.

If the sentences are muddled, if the paragraphs are disorderly and if the writer doesn’t take much care about the sort of language he or she uses, visitors begin to get put off and then eventually, they stop visiting your blog.

Disinterest begets disinterest. Apathy attracts apathy.

Irregular updates or intermittent blogging

To publish a successful blog, you need to be regular. There needs to be a pattern. You must have a calendar. If you publish a blog with prolonged intervals, people are either going to lose interest or forget about your blog.

You may like to read: Are you blogging regularly? Here is why you should.

If you don’t publish regularly, it means you are not much interested in your blog. Therefore, if you’re not interested, why should anybody else be?

Difficult to discover your blog

Even if you are publishing great content, even if you are publishing content regularly, if people cannot find your blog, all your effort is going waste.

Simply publishing your blog regularly doesn’t prevent your blog from failing. You need to take measures to bring people to your blog.

Pay close attention to your SEO efforts. Establish a presence on social networking websites where you can share your content. Publish a newsletter to broadcast the latest content that you are publishing. Encourage people to link to your blog.

Blog marketing is an integral part of blog publishing.

Repetitiousness

This means publishing the same old stuff repeatedly. Many bloggers do that to improve their search engine rankings. If they think that they publish the same content with little variations, they will cover more keywords.

Your human visitors can obviously make that out because they are smart, but these days, even search engine algorithms can make out that you’re basically publishing the same stuff over and again. Bake fail.

Lack of growth

Growing your blog is a serious business. Take active interest in it. Observe the metrics. Get your blog hooked onto Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Observe the sort of traffic you are attracting and take note of anomalies.

If you think that your blog isn’t getting enough traffic, get to the drawing board again. What are you doing wrong? What sort of content are your publishing and what sort of content you should be publishing? This is an ongoing exercise.

How do you define success and failure of your blog?

I will give you my own example.

My Credible Content Blog doesn’t attract mega-traffic. If I started publishing advertisements, I would hardly make 1-2 dollars every month.

Still, I have been publishing my blog for many years now. Sometimes I go on a hiatus, but as soon as I observe that my traffic is going down, I increase the publishing frequency.

I’m not interested in advertising revenue. Yes, I want to improve my search engine rankings and whenever I increase my publishing frequency, I succeed in that.

My blog brings me visibility. Of late it has also been attracting lots of backlinks, which has improved my search engine rankings further. I don’t actively monitor my backlinks, but I can make out by the number of pings I’m getting in my dashboard.

So, in the conventional sense, my blog is not enough successful, and many may even term it as a failure.

But for me it is a successful blog. It helps me maintain my search engine rankings. It attracts paying clients. It generates work for me.

Define what makes your blog successful or a failure. You might be surprised.

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.

Repurposing blog content for social media

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Here is an interesting post on how and why you should repurpose your existing content for your social media updates.

I have been doing this of late. There are many listicles on my website and blog. Take for example this LinkedIn post where I published a carousal from one of my existing blog posts.

Sometimes I simply pick a sentence or two from one of my existing web pages or blog posts and use them as image captions for LinkedIn and Instagram.

Repurposing my blog content gives me lots of opportunity to generate new content for my social media profiles. This way I don’t have to depend on new ideas, which can be hard to come by sometimes.

There is already so much that I have said on my website and on my blog. A few years ago, I did a small blog post on how to repurpose your exist content.

In fact, you shouldn’t just repurpose your existing blog content for social media updates. You can also get new blogging ideas from the subtopics.