This India Today report says that “content writer” is the most searched job in India and I can understand why. But that, later.

Along with “content writer” other terms that are often searched in India are “how to do content marketing”, “why content marketing is important” and many other content marketing and content writing related search queries.

The report quotes an SEMRush India study titled “Digital Marketing Job Trends”. According to Rohan Ayyar, Regional Marketing Manager India, SEMRush:

“Our research has revealed that ‘Content Writer’ is the most searched job amongst all digital marketing jobs as per the search trends. The monthly average for content marketing jobs projected maximum growth of 1171.52 per cent from 2015 to 2018 in India amongst the leading nations, followed by Australia and the UK. The average search volume per month for content marketing in India in 2015 was 2995, which increased to an average search volume per month of 38082 in 2018.”

There might be many reasons why “content writer” and content marketing related search terms are in the upswing in India.

India is a very fast growing market in terms of promoting products and services on the Internet.

Businesses are realizing that they cannot just rely on conventional advertising. Today’s consumer is drawn to engagement and conversation and advertising and marketing don’t attract him or her.

Another reason, and here I’m going to be blunt, is the tendency of businesses to hire very cheap writers to create lots of junk content hoping it is going to improve their search engine rankings.

Just yesterday one of my clients shared a sample submitted by the candidate who is applying as a content writer in the company. The client wanted me to tell him whether he should hire that content writer or not.

The writing was terrible, and he is one of the better content writers I have come across.

Aside from the fact that there were many errors even in the first paragraph, there was no zest. There was no feeling. He had just randomly written sentences because he was being hired to write “SEO content”.

I told the client (we were talking on Skype) that if he wanted to hire this content writer, he should go ahead, but otherwise, I don’t like what I’m seeing. I don’t know what the client decided.

Content writing, as perceived by all and sundry, is easy. All you need is a basic computer. You don’t even need a computer. You can write on a tablet. You can write on a phone.

But just because you have the facility to write doesn’t make you are writer or a content writer.

Yes, you can write a few sentences. You can repeatedly use keywords. You can also regurgitate content on other websites.

This is not a sustainable business model. Content writing or content marketing is a serious business because one is planning to grow his or her business on the strength of content.

Anyway, I’m going on my own tangent.

What I mean to say is, I can totally understand why so many people are searching for “content writer” because although people have realized that they need content to create a presence on the Internet, they cannot differentiate between noise and voice. They have deluded themselves into believing that lots of noise is going to get them good business.