Tag Archives: Content Publishing

Is your website content mobile friendly?

This issue has got nothing to do with elementary content writing, but with 47% searching for product reviews and 29% obtaining additional information on their mobile phones and 50% mobile users using their phones as primary Internet source (source – 2013 stats), not creating and tailoring your content for mobile users can make a big dent in your bottom line.

Personally – and I’m not sure how many people are doing this – when I come across a link on my mobile phone that I’d like to read properly I save it in Pocket and then later on either read it on my daughter’s iPad or on the computer. As the stats show above, most people don’t mind reading long texts on their mobile phone.

There are two aspects to creating mobile friendly content on your website: having a layout that seamlessly scales according to the screen-size, and content that is easier to read and comprehend on a smaller screen. The design aspect is controlled by your web designer (he/she should keep in mind the content-reading requirement of your visitors). How do you write or create content that is mobile-friendly?

There are three

ways of going about it; it depends on your priority. If not many of your visitors come from their mobile phones (you can find that out from Google Analytics) but still you don’t want to take chances, you can keep the same content for your computer users and mobile users, as long as your design is liquid and quickly scales according to the screen-size. For instance, that is, if you are reading this from your computer or laptop, reduce the width of your browser window and see how this web page turns into a single column layout below a certain width.

The second option is to recreate your content in such a manner that it’s easier to read it on all the devices.

Here are a few things you can consider:

Create shorter headlines: Shorter headlines don’t hog the precious real estate on the small screen and your user doesn’t have to scroll up-down or left-right in order to be able to read your headline and figure out what your page is about. Since most of the mobile users are in a highly distracted stage (you never know where they are when they are checking out your website) use clearer, smaller expressions so that they don’t have to use their minds much.
Use smaller paragraphs: If possible, just use one sentence per paragraph. This way it is easier to read text without straining the eyes and even if the font size is increased, the person doesn’t have to scroll up-down much in order to read the message confined within that paragraph.
Use bulleted points whenever possible:
Bulleted points enable you to write in a concise manner without having to bother about complete sentences and other grammatical necessities. Due to smaller sentences (sometimes just a couple of words) it’s also easier for your readers.
Don’t make visitors click through multiple links: Linking is good, especially when you already have a webpage/blog post dealing with a particular subject and it doesn’t make sense to write about it again, but too much of it can create problems for your visitors. It’s not very easy to tap on hyperlinks on small screen and even when they tap on the links, coming back to the original page can be a great hassle. How do you avoid this hassle?
Create highly focused, vertical pages:
When you create highly focused pages you don’t have to use many links. You are dealing with just a single topic. SEO experts advise you to link to as many pages from your website/blog from your current webpage/blog post as possible and if you want to follow such guidelines, go ahead, but make sure the message of your webpage/blog post doesn’t remain incomplete without having to tap those links.

The third option, a bit more time-consuming, is to create multiple versions of your content. This way you can serve all the segments of your visitors, whether they are accessing your website from their computers and laptops, tablets PCs or mobile phones. Just make sure you don’t end up creating lots of duplicate content.

How to pitch for a guest blogging assignment

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Guest blogging is a great way to not just increase traffic to your website but also get visibility on other blogs and websites. Back in the early 2000’s when nobody knew anything about blogging I started my web design business backed by scores of articles that I had written for other websites. They were mostly about web design and web development telling people how to achieve various things with HTML, JavaScript, and sometimes PHP. I got lots of traffic. Those days competition wasn’t much so I also got decent traffic to my website that in turn, gave me decent business. I must confess that when I started my content writing business I lost my mojo for writing for other websites and even when blogging entered the scene rarely did I write for other blogs. Although I help my clients guest blog for other blogs and even advocate this aspect of content marketing, I myself haven’t really been into it for a long time.

Benefits of guest blogging

There was a time when people used to guest blog mainly for SEO purposes. The people who write Google ranking algorithms started frowning upon external links that people obtained just for the sake of obtaining external links. Page rank also mattered – what is the authority of the page that has your link? Search engines like Google also started penalizing websites that would just put links from other websites in lieu of money or link exchange. The only alternative left was, guest blog on other websites so that when they published your blog, they would also include a small bio that would include a link to your website. If you did that with high-ranking websites, the effort was worth it. Your website or blog immediately showed improvement.

Then again things began to change. In this blog post the Chief Search Engineer Matt Cutts at Google declared that:

Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.

Back in the day, guest blogging used to be a respectable thing, much like getting a coveted, respected author to write the introduction of your book. It’s not that way any more.

The statement made sense; people were actually using guest blogging to boost their search engine rankings which, in itself is not bad thing to do, but the quality begins to be compromized when the sole purpose is improving your rankings. You know what happens when people simply start sending you email messages to promote their products and services.

Are you wondering why I’m talking about this while I’m trying to tell you how to pitch for a guest blogging assignment? If it doesn’t help you, if it doesn’t improve your search engine rankings and if search engineers at Google frown upon it, why should you indulge in it?

First, many of the advisories broadcast by Google engineers don’t normally work in the real world. There are still SEO benefits of guest blogging because links from quality websites do matter. What Matt Cutts said was guest blogging shouldn’t be done just for the sake of improving your search engine rankings. He talked about low quality links coming to your website that can anyway get your website penalized whether you get those links via guest blogging, link exchanging, or simply by buying the space. If you stick to the quality guidelines, if you provide value to the readers of the blog post or the website where you are publishing your guest blog post, there should be nothing to stop you. Here are the benefits of publishing a guest blog post:

You get exposure to new audiences
By giving expert advise you build credibility in your niche (for example I should be writing more and more guest blogs on content writing and content marketing just to show how much I know of it)
It strengthens your brand across the Internet when your presence is seen on various websites and blogs
It makes you a subject-authority
It lessens your reliance on search engines for traffic (high-traffic websites and blogs can send you tons of direct traffic)
It improves your SEO, yes.

So how do you pitch for a guest blogging assignment?

Thoroughly study the blog: It will be very odd to pitch for a blogging assignment for my blog (that is on content writing and content marketing) that talks about how to dominate the real estate market even during the times of depression, unless of course, you intend to do it with the strength of content marketing. Spend some time reading the blog where you want to pitch. Understand the tone. Get a grasp of the audience. Is it a light-hearted blog? Do they have very serious blog posts? Are they always looking for a great headline? Do they normally publish lists? Only when you have thoroughly understood the nature of the blog you think about guest blogging for it.
Start interacting with the publisher on a regular basis: If you simply one day shoot an email pitching for a blogging assignment there is a great chance your email will be ignored. Not that the publisher doesn’t care about you, it’s just that being a successful blogger, he or she might be receiving 100s of such pitches every day and he or she would rather respond to people he or she is familiar with rather than someone totally strange. So start finding your favorite publishers on Twitter and Facebook and establish a contact with them. Engage them in meaningful discussions without nagging them or wasting your time. They should be able to respect you and remember you on the basis of your interactions. Interact with them for at least a couple of months before pitching your guest blog, preferably, although this differs from situation to situation.
Start interacting with authors of multi-author blogs: There are many blogs and websites where multiple authors write. On such blogs it’s very difficult to elicit response from the editor or the owner and one can only write for such blogs if he or she already knows someone who has access to the editorial team. If you want to pitch for a guest blogging assignment to such a blog, start following their main writers and start engaging them on a regular basis. Then, someday, you can ask them to refer you to the editorial department where you can submit your article or blog post.
Write to serve the audience of that particular blog: Remember that you are not guest blogging to promote your own business (at least not directly). You are adding value to that blog. You are offering something valuable to the audience of that blog. They may have never heard of you so they’re not interested in knowing what a great person you are, or what a great product or service you have got. They are used to a particular format of content on that particular blog. So stick to that format.
Don’t treat the guest blogging assignment as a stepchild project: You may wonder why you should invest enough time on your guest blogging assignment when it is being published on another blog rather than on your own blog. It should be the opposite. Since you are writing on another blog you should put in more effort (not that you shouldn’t put in enough effort for writing for your own blog) because one, someone is providing you a ready-made platform, a platform that he or she must have built with lots of hard work and dedication and two, since it is a branding exercise you don’t want to give a wrong impression by getting average or ordinary content published to serve such a big audience.
Use a convincing subject line while sending your pitching email: Even if the editor or the editorial team isn’t aware of your existence you can sometimes send emails pitching your guest blogging assignment. Use a convincing subject line that clearly states that you want to guest blog. Most of the blogs have a separate section used for accepting guest blog posts. Use that section instead of sending to a random email ID so that when they receive your message, they know that it’s a guest blog post pitch. Clearly mention in the email body what you intend to convey to the audience of the blog and why you think it is an important topic and also why you think it hasn’t already been covered on that blog.

As you must have noticed I have focused less on sending email pitches and more on preparing the ground for sending such pitches. Although I haven’t been guest blogging much (I should), what I have experienced is, sending random pitches rarely elicits responses. If you randomly approach people then it becomes a game of numbers, something like, if you send 50 emails then maybe 5 will respond. If you want to do that, go ahead, there is no problem in that. But if you want to optimize your time, rather than sending 50 emails and then hoping that 5 people will respond, I would rather start interacting with people who can actually help me get through. So more focus should be on networking rather than the number of pitches that you send.

Well, I have never said that Content Is King

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I’m not writing this to dispute anybody’s claim whether content is king or not because it is just a way of telling someone how important it is. I may have mentioned it in the passing that yes, content is king, that is, marketing doesn’t exist without content, but it isn’t just content that gets things going.

Content is like fuel. Without this fuel, you cannot run the engine of your business, that’s an established fact. Now, it is up to you what sort of fuel you want to use. You can use low quality or high-quality fuel. You can use fuel that wears your machinery down or creates lots of pollution. Or you can use good quality fuel that gives you better mileage.

Are you wondering why I’m comparing content with fuel rather than with King? No reason at all actually, I could have compared it to anything, as long as it is important. The whole point is, it’s not just content that matters. Your content needs to be backed up with:

High-quality
Regularity
Relevance
Distribution
Engagement
Publishing platform

The old saying, “build it and they will come” no longer works because there is so much of everything. So after building it, you need to get people to it. “It” in this case is your content. It is given that you need to write and publish high-quality content. Low quality content neither works with search engines nor with human readers.

Regularity is very important because millions of pages are being created everyday and and some of them are exceptionally well-written. You are constantly getting competition. Besides, search engines as well as people love new content. For instance, if I want to know what’s the latest happening in the field of content writing, I would rather check out something that is a few months old rather than something that was written back in 2011 (this is February 2014). When you post regularly it gives people a reason to visit your website or blog repeatedly (even the search engine crawlers visit your website with greater frequency if it is constantly updated).

Relevance in the context of content writing means you need to offer something people can actually use and benefit from. There is no use creating content that exists just for the sake of existence. It needs to solve a purpose.

How do people access your content? If your content exists in isolation then again, you’re just wasting your time. Content is published to make an impact and that impact can only be made if people actually make contact with your content. So you need to distribute your content. You need to use all available channels to you including social networking websites, blogs and online forums.

Engagement, although is a new buzzword, it has existed since the time immemorial. Engagement basically means two-way communication. You talk to people, and then people talk back to you, and then you talk back to people and engagement begins to happen. Without constant engagement it is difficult for people to remember you, and remember you for the right reasons.

You need to choose your publishing platform carefully because once you have chosen it, you will be spending lots of time writing and publishing content for it. For instance, it is a critical choice whether you publish a blog under your own domain name or you decide to use a third-party platforms such as Tumblr. Businesses these days are also using LinkedIn as well as Google Plus to publish long blog posts and articles. The only problem with choosing third-party platforms is that your content doesn’t belong to you. It will be sending all the traffic to those websites and then some of the traffic will come to your website. On the other hand, if you publish your blog under your own domain name than all the traffic will come to you. The benefit of using a third-party platform that is well established is that you can start getting traffic to your content from day one. Finally, the decision is yours.

These qualities and attributes collectively make your content the King. Without these attributes your content is just another piece of information aimlessly lolling around in the limitless wilderness of the Internet.

Content marketing and a tropical fruit tree

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Why do you create content for your website? If you take your content seriously then you must be publishing articles and blog posts regularly. “Regularly” can be everyday, a few times in a week, or maybe a few times in a month.

The point is, whenever you are writing and publishing content you must be spending a considerable amount of time – even money – on it.

Why do you do it? Do you really believe in the power of content marketing, or are you simply trying out one of those “new fads”?

For the sake of focus, I’m assuming you understand the importance of what you’re doing.

Even when we’re serious, even when our intentions are clear, sometimes we just get trapped in a rut and keep on doing stuff thinking that sooner or later it is going to pay off. That’s why it is important to regularly step back, and evaluate our work. It’s more so important in creating and publishing content for your website.

Content marketing, although one of the most effective ways of building targeted traffic and generating qualified leads on an ongoing basis, doesn’t show results fast, unless your effort is backed by a big budget. It actually works like a tree that has to fully grow before it gives you fruits. Just imagine realizing you have been growing the wrong tree all along, or you have grown a tree that gives no fruit at all.

So how do you ensure that you are sewing and nurturing a tree that will someday give you the right fruit?

Naturally, by having a clear idea of what fruit you want to have. In terms of content writing and content marketing, you need to have a clear idea of what you want it to achieve for you – what fruit you wanted to deliver?

Not every tree can grow and give you fruit in your region. In a cold, European city, town or village you may not be able to grow a tropical tree. You either have to move to a tropical region, or you have to create the right environment for that tree to grow.

What I mean to say is, you have to understand and recognize the importance of selecting the right sapling, creating the appropriate environment, and nurturing the tree with great care before it can bear you the fruit.

When you apply the concept of the tree onto your business, creating, publishing and distributing that content is the tropical environment that you need to create, targeted traffic is a tree that you plant and grow, and qualified leads that turn into paying customers and clients are the fruits you get.

How do you define “Effective Content” for your business?

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It is all well and good to repeatedly say that you should publish content on your website and you should take content marketing really seriously. I even wrote a lengthy blog post on “20 Reasons Why Your Business Website Needs Fresh Content“. But how do you decide what sort of content you should publish? After all, it’s not merely the targeted traffic that you seek, you seek targeted traffic that converts, that changes your visitors into your paying customers and clients.

The high-quality content that converts is “effective content” for your business and every business has its own definition of effective content.

Although every business may have its own unique definition of what sort of content works for it, there are some universal traits. Effective content has universal definitions that can be applied to any business. Listed below are the most important traits that can accurately help you define what’s “effective content” for your business.

It fills a need or solves a purpose

Why does your content exist? This existential question not just applies to our spiritual lives, it also applies to the content that we publish on our websites (and blogs). Why do you publish content? What is your ultimate motive? The above-linked blog post that gives you 20 reasons why you should publish content on your business website may help you to a great extent, but eventually you have to define the purpose. What purpose does your content solve? Do you simply want to help people who come to your website looking for some advice? Would you like them to buy your product or service someday or immediately? Do you want to establish a rapport with them? Is there a great need for the content that you are publishing?

It communicates on an ongoing basis

Effective content establishes a communication channel. You are communicating your messages, your ideas, your experiences to people who visit your website, and the people who visit your website, your readers, communicate their feedback and there needs to you. They may also communicate to each other if you have established such a platform (such as a comments section in a blog).

Effective content makes you use your unique voice with a human touch

Businesses are normally faceless. Customers and clients don’t get to see the human side of people who provide them products and services. Even at slightest pretext, they give rise to doubts and suspicions. On the other hand your content allows you to give a human voice to your business and talk to your current and prospective customers and clients in a friendly, familiar manner. This is the reason when you’re trying to create effective content for your website or blog, use the language used by your customers. Avoid using jargon unless it is unavoidable. Talk in the first person as much as possible.

Here is what you should do in order to talk with an individual voice: imagine that you’re talking to a single person sitting across you. Don’t worry about your content being read by one person, by 10 people, or even by 10,000 people. Just focus on that one particular individual and write as if you’re talking to him or her. This will give you a conversational style and you will appear friendlier and more approachable.

Effective content expresses a clearly defined, focused view

There should be no ambiguity when you are publishing content on your website. Don’t beat around the bush. Be clear about what you intend to say. Take for instance this blog post – you may think that I’m writing something about content writing, but I’m precisely talking about creating effective content particularly for your website. I have a clear idea of what I’m writing, and I have a clear idea of what you should get after reading this blog post. This sort of clarity must be there in every webpage and every blog post you publish.

Your effective content should be devoid of “sales speak”

When you try to sell, you impose your views on people, and nobody likes that. For instance, if you want to hire me as your content writer, it should be your decision. Although on my main pages you may find me trying to highlight my strengths and hence, trying to convince you into giving your content writing work to me, you will also find 100s of articles and blog posts that plainly talk about how to create direct content for your website. You can create a super effective content marketing strategy just by going through the articles and blog posts published on this website and you may never need to hire me for your business. I’m fine with that.

The quality of your content must be unmatched

This may not be always possible, but whenever you are publishing content on your website, give it your best shot. When I’m writing content for my own blog or website, I write it with same seriousness and dedication as I write for someone who pays me (after all sooner or later, the content that I publish helps me get more business, so in a sense, I’m being paid for this). So quantity is good, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of quality. Publish just one blog post every week, but it should be par excellence.

As a mentioned above, effective content may have different meanings for different businesses, it has a universal characteristic and the points contained within that characteristic are the ones I have listed above. What do you think about the best content for your business? Have some interesting points that you would like me to cover? Do let me know in the comments section.