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How to Create the Content Your Audience Desires?

Create content your audience desires

How many times have you found yourself without inspiration and feeling unsure whether the content you want to create is going to attract your audience? Everyone has moments when we run out of ideas. Moreover, you may already publish content constantly and still feel that you don’t have the results you expected. One explanation might be that you create your content based on your assumptions and not on clear research.

This article is going to help you make your audience “hungry” for your content. It doesn’t matter if you own a small or medium business. These strategies work in any scenario. You just need to listen to your audience and you will see how easy it is to create “craveable” content. So, let’s get started!

Create Content Your Audience Craves For

Do you know how to use your analytics?

Analytics are the best tools to tell you what your audience likes best and how they react to different posts. Social media analytics will tell you exactly what type of content was preferred the most by your audience. For instance, it is very easy to check which were the most appreciated posts on Facebook. Just go to the Insights feature and you will immediately see which posts had the highest engagement rates. If you want to become viral on Instagram, then you should consider creating a business account. Once you have set up your account, the analytics icon will tell you which were the top posts that were sorted on different criteria like impressions, engagement, reach, and so on.

What should you do next once you identify your top posts? Of course, you cannot copy them and post them again. Your audience will become disappointed if you do so, discovering that you lack inspiration and you have nothing new to tell them. Therefore, if you want to follow the positive pattern, you should ask yourself the following questions before you create the next posts:

What is the common topic among your top-rated posts?
What is the source of your top content? Is it coming from your blog or from a specific publication?
Is there a particular type of content performing much better than the others? For example, do the photos have bigger engagement rates than the videos?
Which were the most interesting comments your followers left on the popular posts?

Find what your audience thinks!

Your analytics tools might be great, but they don’t tell you everything. So, what better source there is to tell you how to create content your audience desires if you don’t ask them directly? There are many ways you can find your audience’s opinion. For example, you can publish a poll on your social media profile and ask your audience to vote the type of content they like the most. Based on the results, you can adjust your content strategy.

On the other hand, you can also ask open questions. These questions will give you a lot of ideas for new topics you can address in your next posts. Furthermore, you can email your subscribers periodically and ask them about the type of content they liked the most on your website. This is how you will show your audience how important they are for you and how much you value their opinion.

Learn from your competitors!

If you don’t have enough time to use analytics tools and create an entire content strategy for success, then you can have a look at what your competition is doing. You did it when you created your products, so why not do it also when it comes to your content? Your competition already puts a lot of efforts into creating shareable content for their products. So, who says that you cannot have a look as well? There are plenty of tools you can find online to help you have a sneak peek on your competition’s most engaging posts.

On the other hand, you can learn from other companies even if they are not your competition. You most probably have your idols. You can learn from their success stories and discover what is their strategy to keep their audience engaged. You can have a look at general ideas and patterns and then adapt them to your brand specifics.

The sky is no longer the limit

The internet is full of mediocre content. Your competition is also producing average content which doesn’t make their audience vibrate with every word they read. So, you need to do something more than them and adopt the skyscraper technique. You should try to get out of the ordinary and become known on the market with amazing content. How do you do it? It’s not that complicated!

First, you should find which is the most popular content. Once you have identified it, use that content to create a better version of it. If you know which is the topic that attracts your audience, then you can enhance your content with relevant keywords. Therefore, you increase your content’s visibility. Keywords will also help you identify even more popular content which you can then enhance and surprise your audience with useful and informative content.

Create marketing personas

Creating a marketing persona will help you identify exactly what your audience wants to receive from your side. You already know what type of products your audience wants to buy from you. So, now you need to find out how to make them follow your page and come back for more products and information. Without a marketing persona, you will only guess what your audience expects from you in terms of content. This might affect your inspiration as you might be creating content around the topics that you know best. A marketing persona, on the other hand, will help you get out of your comfort zone and create content that wows your audience.

If you really want to have success with your content, you need to separate yourself from the competition. They might be doing an excellent job. However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything new to say. On the contrary, their ideas can be an excellent source of inspiration for you. Your content is an excellent tool which you can use to express your personality, humor, and ideas.

14 ways to make positive impact with your content writing

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Making a positive impact with your content writing

Every piece of content writing that you publish on your website or blog (or elsewhere) needs to make a positive impact.

Of course, whenever people think of publishing content their primary concern is improving their search engine rankings. Nothing wrong in that, but that shouldn’t be the only concern.

Remember that ultimately, people need to decide whether they want to do business with you are not.

How do they decide that?

When you can convince them.

To convince them, you need to make an impact.

Just because they are on your website doesn’t mean they’re going to buy from you. You have to address their concerns. You have to give them the right information.

When they read the information on your website, they should think, “Yes, these are the guys I want to work with, or buy from.”

The short-term approach is, you throw mud at the wall hoping that some of it will stick, and some of it does.

So, you indiscriminately publish content that gets you search engine traffic and then you hope some of the traffic will convert. Some of it converts. The majority of it doesn’t.

The long-term approach, which is more sustainable and more profitable, is to build an audience.

You build an audience when you make an emotional connection. People want to then come to your website regularly. They want to read or view what you publish. They want to share your content. They even want to save your content. They become loyal to your brand. When they need to buy what you sell, they buy it from you.

This is how you make a positive impact.

But how do you make this positive impact so that people become your regular readers, and begin to trust you, and begin to pay attention to what you have to say?

You can do these 14 things:

1. Always keep the interest of your readers in mind

Nobody wants to read your personal journal, unless they derive something out of it (inspiration, or some insight, or an example). People want to read something useful. Something that can help them. Something that can make their life better than it was before they started reading your blog post or article.

If you want to make a positive impact with your content writing, always write what interests your readers. Try to find what they want to know, and then tell them. This will keep them coming back to your website or blog.

2. Craft the title of your web page or blog post with care

This is a technical aspect of writing and publishing impactful content. Title is something that draws people to your link.

When they come across your web page or blog post title on search engines or on their social media timelines, they should immediately be able to know what you are offering. This means, your title should never be ambiguous.

For example, the title of this blog post tells you 14 ways to make a positive impact with your content writing. So, if you’ve been looking for something like this, you want to check it out immediately.

People have different opinions on how long your title should be, but it depends on exactly what you are trying to say. Two things are important when you are creating a title for your blog post or web page:

For SEO purpose, your title must be 50-65 characters, including spaces. This is because these are the number of characters (maximum 70) that Google shows when it shows your listing on search result pages and the rest it truncates.
People should be able to understand your title within a single glance. If they need to make an effort to make sense of your title, they’re going to get distracted and they may not read the rest of your blog post or web page.

3. Make your writing mobile friendly

Write shorter sentences. Divide complex sentences into smaller, multiple sentences.

It makes it easier to read and grasp on mobile screens.

The same holds for paragraphs. Write short paragraphs. Not more than two sentences per paragraph.

Again, this is less about the quality of your content writing and more about paying attention to technicalities, but you cannot hope to make a positive impact if people find it difficult to read your content and consequently, leave without reading it.

4. Organize text under headings

Headings make your writing scannable. One can understand the gist of your web page or blog post by simply running through the headings.

Headings are also good for SEO. Use your long tail keywords when writing your headings.

5. Write for people who have a shorter attention span

Don’t take it negatively. Life these days is full of distractions. As I’ve written above, lots of people access your content on their mobile phones.

While reading your content, they will get constant notifications. They might be traveling. They might be in the midst of a conversation. They might be waiting for their doctor’s appointment.

The thing is, the amount of attention is limited these days whether people read your content on their computers and laptops, or on their mobile devices.

Make this assumption when you are writing content.

You don’t have to lower your writing quality. There is no need to dumbify your text.

As mentioned above, use simpler sentences. Use direct language. Stick to the point.

6. Convey your important point as soon as possible

Since the attention span is limited these days, there is no use beating around the bush. You don’t need to build up a narrative unless you are creating an interesting story.

By the time people are through with your first paragraph, they should know what you’re trying to communicate through your content writing and what they are going to achieve after they have read your blog post or article.

In terms of a business website, suppose you want to sell an e-book. As soon as people come to your website, people should know what information is contained in the e-book and you are selling it, and not offering it for free. These points must be made clear in the beginning preferably, in the first sentence itself.

7. Do keyword research to use the right language

When I say keyword research I don’t mean you need to stuff your writing with your keywords to improve your SEO.

Yes, you need to use your keywords strategically, but if you know the right keywords to focus on, it improves your language and the way you convey what you need to convey.

8. Back up your claim with data from credible sources

Data is very reassuring. If you tell someone that 72% B2C content marketers attribute their marketing success to the quality of their content, your readers will find it easier to believe you if you let them know that you have taken this statistic from Content Marketing Institute.

If you mention in your blog post that by 2021 content marketing will be a $400 billion industry it’s better to let your readers know that you are getting this number from Forbes.

9. Don’t underestimate the visual aspect of writing content for business marketing

Just because I am writing about content writing, it doesn’t mean we should overlook the importance of incorporating visuals into your overall message. Visuals are highly effective.

Visuals not only help you present your ideas attractively (if you are using graphs and pie charts), they also provide a brief relief to people. When they are reading text, and suddenly they come across a visual, it distracts them for a few seconds and they need to refocus. This helps them focus better.

Make sure that the images and graphics that you use are relevant to your current topic.

10. Write in a conversational style

This may sound like a clichéd (oft repeated) piece of advice, but it is very easy to end up ignoring it when you are in the thick of your creative things.

Write the way you talk.

It doesn’t mean if you talk in monosyllables you also write in monosyllables, but make your writing conversational. Whenever possible, use first person.

When you’re writing for a business, especially when you are writing for your business blog, try to use “you” and “I” instead of “you” and “we” unless there is reason to use “we”.

A good thing about writing in a conversational style is that you will avoid using big sentences and bigger paragraphs. Usually when we talk, we use precise sentences. Also, we don’t use complicated words when we talk.

This makes your writing easier to read and instills in it an easy flow.

11. Empathize with your readers when writing content

Convey it to your readers that you can understand or you can relate to what problems and issues they are going through.

Suppose you’re writing a blog post about an SEO tool you have just developed.

Talk about the problems people may have faced while using other SEO tools. Tell them that you understand the importance of improving their SEO and how their business depends on better search engine rankings. Concur with them that they face tough competition and they need a convincing tool to improve their SEO.

12. Know your readers properly

It is also called defining an ideal persona. This will tell you whom you are writing your content for.

13. Clearly define the propose of your current blog post or article

Of course the long term propose is that you want to engage, and then consequently, build a loyal following of readers/visitors who repeatedly visit your website or blog and takes your word seriously.

The short term propose could be a mix of

Educating your readers about a particular topic concerning your business.
Publishing content people would like to share.
Increase information wealth of your website or blog.
Getting more subscribers for your newsletter.
Improving your search engine rankings for a particular search term.

14. Use real-world examples

Want to show how your SEO tool actually helps entrepreneurs improve their search engine rankings?

Talk about a real-world example. Tell about a real business. Capture screenshots of current rankings of that business and publish them. If possible, mention the link of the website. Try to get a quote from the owner, or the person who used your SEO tool to improve the SEO of the website.

Why it is important to make a positive impact with your content writing?

Sustainable business is all about building relationships. It is not about tricking people into coming to your website and then leaving it up to them whether they want to do business with you or not.

It is very easy to trick people into coming to your website. If you can remember, they used to have banner ads with a monkey running left and right and you were asked to click the moving monkey with precision, making you believe that it was some sort of game. All it did was, take you to the advertiser’s website. On the website, something totally unrelated was being sold and whatever was being sold had nothing to do with a moving monkey or not even with a game.

Although these days most of the businesses don’t go to that extreme, still, one way or the other, they’re playing the monkey trick on the visitors by tricking them into visiting the website.

It’s all about numbers. If you have lots of money to publish tons of junk content just to draw traffic from search engines and social media websites, some of the traffic may convert. If one visitor converts out of every 1000 visitors, then maybe bringing 1,000,000 visitors to your website can get you 1000 customers. This is the logic used by spammers.

Can you really get 1,000,000 visitors to your website? On an ongoing basis?

On the other hand, if you publish impactful content, out of those 1000 visitors, maybe 50 or 100 people will convert, or even more. This is a much better conversion rate. Also, more sustainable and repeatedly doable.

This is because when people find quality content on your website they trust you.

Writing that is meant to make a positive impact also draws targeted, focused traffic to your website or blog. For example, people who come to my website or my blog either need a content writer or they want to read about content writing.

Although video marketing is also content marketing, since I’m a writer and I don’t provide video marketing services (at least not a dedicated service), I don’t aim to draw traffic for this keyword (or any other that does not involve content writing vis-à-vis content marketing). This saves me lots of effort, lots of time, it also improves my conversion rate. People know what they are getting when they come to my website or blog.

So, to make an impact with your content writing, focus on your core topics, focus on the needs of your readers, and even if you publish fewer blog posts and articles, only publish relevant, meaningful and useful content.

Content Creation Inspiration for When You’re Stuck

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As I’m sure you know by now, a consistent content creation schedule is essential to a successful website. Unfortunately, as is bound to happen from time to time, you may find yourself with no idea what to write about. Idea generation can be a real challenge — coming up with new and interesting content ideas that both capture readers’ attention and engage them isn’t always the easiest of tasks.

Luckily, there is a solution!

If you feel like you’re all out of ideas, consider diving into the following rabbit holes to find inspiration for your next great article.

Blog Comments

Get content writing ideas from blog comments

Have you ever noticed your blog posts leaving your readers with more questions? While this isn’t unusual — you can’t stuff every bit of information into one article about a particular subject — it is a fantastic way to come up with content ideas for future pieces.

It’s important to regularly scroll through your comments (even in older articles) to see what questions pop up. Anything that can’t be answered in a sentence or two would make a great subject for your next post. This is especially true if you find yourself answering the same question time and again, as that’s a pretty clear-cut sign you need to clarify some things.

Q&A Sites

Content writing ideas from Q & A websites

If you can’t find anything in your blog comments, it’s time to check out question-and-answer sites like Yahoo Answers and Quora. These sites give you an inside look at what people are interested in reading about related to your industry, as well as their most burning questions. If there’s a large number of questions and answers surrounding the same topic, an article written about it will be sure to find a large audience.

Social Media

Content writing ideas from social media websites

There are two lists you should create on Twitter and Facebook. The first is a list of your ideal readers (these can include your best customers). As you follow them, keep an eye on what content they share and reply to. These are the topics you should be covering on your website.

Your second list is industry influencers. Watch how other users interact with them and what questions they ask. Often, influencers too busy to respond to every question — that’s where you can step in and save the day.

Hashtags are another great way to find ideas for content. Search and follow the most popular hashtags in your industry. Be on the lookout for buzzwords, questions, and articles with a lot of engagement.

Finally, look into Reddit if you already haven’t — it’s a content idea goldmine. Industry subreddits will be chock-full of questions, popular articles, and boisterous discussions surrounding just about everything. You’re sure to come away with an entire list of subject to cover in your writing.

Industry Publications

Content writing ideas from industry publications

No matter what your industry, there are bound to be at least a handful (if not hundreds) of sites that publish news, trends, and other pertinent bits of information to do with your trade. Browse through these sites on a weekly basis and watch for the articles with the most engagement. Once you have an idea of what the hot topics are, you can create content that either expands on what’s been discussed or has a different viewpoint entirely.

Another place to look for industry news is the library. Yes, you read that right, the library. Contrary to what you might believe, if you haven’t been to one in a while, libraries aren’t dying out. Public libraries still see 1.5 billion visits every year — that’s roughly four million visitors each day! Chat with the reference librarian at your local library and ask where you can find resources targeted at your specific business. You never know what nuggets of helpful information may be hidden somewhere in those shelves!

Your Competition

Content writing ideas from business competitors

You should never be afraid to look to your competition for new content ideas. By no means should you plagiarize their work, but finding inspiration from them is completely acceptable. You can use their content as a jumping-off point by touching on points they didn’t, offering a different perspective, or just flat out disagreeing with them. Whatever you do, just be sure to keep things original.

Brainstorm

Content writing ideas through brainstorming

When all else fails, there is always a good old-fashioned brainstorming session to hopefully spark your creativity! Whether you use a whiteboard or a piece of paper, writing things down by hand is the key. You’ll remember your ideas better if you write them out by hand rather than using a word processor.

The good news if you’re flying solo is that brainstorming doesn’t have to be a group project. Start by writing a main theme in the middle of your surface. Then, chart related themes, ideas, or questions around the central idea. Next to these smaller themes, outline even more related topics. Connect the ideas with lines.

If you’re stumped on what might be relevant to your main theme, do a little word association. When you look at your central idea (or subtopics), jot down a few words that you immediately associate with the said theme. No matter how silly these words might seem, they may be just the thing to spark an idea or two!

Conclusion

In order to stay competitive in today’s market, it’s imperative you have to stay on top of content creation. But quantity is only half of the equation. You also have to address newsworthy and interesting topics in a way that grabs your readers’ attention. When you’re constantly churning out article after article, it can be easy to run out of ideas. However, a quick glimpse into industry publications, trending topics on social media, or even your own comments section, will be sure to break your writer’s block and get you back on track to creating fabulous content.

How to publish quality content regularly on your website

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Publishing quality content regularly

Regularity is as important as quality if you want to get benefit out of your content marketing efforts.

When you regularly publish quality content on your website it gives a message to your visitors that you’re constantly updating your website and hence, they should keep track of it (a motivation to sign up for your email updates).

Search engine crawlers – this is something that I have observed but I don’t know if it actually happens or not – also take note of your publishing schedule, and start crawling your website accordingly.

If you publish content regularly, your website is crawled regularly.

The more you publish, the more reason you give human visitors as well as search engine crawlers to access more content.

The more you publish, the more search terms you cover.

The more you publish, the more content you make available that can be shared on other websites and blogs, and on social media websites.

But it is easier said than done.

There are two obstacles to publishing content regularly:

Great ideas for publishing new blog posts
Making sure that the quality is up to the mark.

B2C content marketing challenges chart

So, regularity and quality are both indispensable. One or the other tend to suffer when you try to maintain a balance.

The quality aspect can be easily taken care of.

Be genuine.

Try to provide something valuable, something meaningful, something you think can really help people.

This will ensure that you publish quality content.

Quality means meaningfulness.

Meaningful means something that really helps people.

What helps people?

Take the example of my business: content writing. How can I help you? There are two ways I can help you:

Help you write better content yourself
Help you decide whether you should hire me as your content writer or not

But, why should I help you write better content because this means you won’t hire me?

You may or may not.

If you want to write on your own, you will do it anyway.

If you don’t find the information on my website, you will find it somewhere else.

You’re not looking for a content writer, at least not right now.

Right now, you want to write on your own, and you’re just looking for some good start, or some insight that can help you write better.

Right now you don’t want to hire someone, and if I don’t offer you help, you will get that help from somewhere else.

So why should I provide you that help?

If nothing else, it generates goodwill for me.

In the future, if content is needed by you or by someone you know and if that content cannot be written without the help of a content writer, you would rather hire me than someone else.

Then comes the second point: helping you decide whether you want to hire me as your content writer or not.

How do you decide that?

You want to know how I write. You want to know how I express ideas. To help you with this

I publish dedicated pages on every possible question or doubt you may have regarding my content writing services.
I regularly share my knowledge with you through my content writing and content marketing blog.
I provide you samples of my work.
I improve my search engine rankings so that you can find me for relevant keywords and search terms.

This gives me plenty to write about.

This brings us to the question of how you can publish quality content in your website or blog regularly, for your particular business. You can do the following…

Maintain a list of topics

There are many tools you can use these days to maintain a list of topics. You will be creating topics according to the topics, and consequently, the keywords that you want to cover.

Remember that topics must be consistent with the central theme of your website or blog. If you are a mobile app development company them most of your topics must be about mobile app development and related fields.

You can use a simple note book to jot down content writing ideas. You can use something like Google Keep. You can use Evernote. You can use an Excel sheet. Or Trello cards. Whatever you find convenient. But, definitely have a system of maintaining topics.

Use something you can immediately use. As you write more and more and get into the habit of thinking proactively about your content, ideas will suddenly come and if you don’t record them immediately, you may lose them.

Always be on the lookout for topic ideas

Don’t start thinking about what to write when you start writing. One option is keep your ideas repository nearby. Another option is to constantly be at the lookout. Check you Twitter timeline to see what the others in your stream are publishing. Subscribe to feeds and use something like Feedly. Subscribe to email updates that send you new blog posts and articles about your industry right in the inbox. Use Google Alerts. Interact in the forums, or at least follow the discussion threads.

If you have had an informative conversation with your client, even that can be a source of a great topic (you don’t have to reveal the name of your client).

Respond to articles and blog posts published somewhere else

Agree with something published in another website or blog? Disagree? Got something if your own? Why not respond through your own blog post or article?

In fact, this is how initially blogging spread…long time ago when it wasn’t yet associated with content marketing and SEO. Someone wrote something on his or her blog and then the others responded through their own blog post, linking to the original post. It doesn’t just make blogging interesting, it also gives you new ideas on an ongoing basis.

Repurpose your existing content

Content grows on content. Your existing content is teeming with new content writing ideas. Take for example this subtopic “Repurpose your existing content” – I have previously written a complete blog post just on this topic – How to repurpose would content.

Creating your blog posts out of existing blog posts and articles is just one way of repurposing your existing content. You can also create

Infographics
Random images to post on Instagram
Slides
Small e-books by combining multiple blog posts
YouTube videos
Social media posts

Read books and magazines in your field

Developing and expertise, in-depth knowledge in your field is very essential to creating quality content. Books, at least it is assumed, are often written by experts are people who have done lots of research and have come up with new insights into your profession. They give you lots of food for thought. You can find lots of topics in these niche books an marketing d magazines.

Hire an experienced content writer

“Experienced” is the key word here. Everyone can write occasionally. But if you need to publish high quality content on your website on an ongoing basis, it is better to collaborate with an experienced content writer rather than trying to do it on your own. You may be an expert in your field. You may also be able to articulate your thoughts through writing. But can you do it consistently? Do you have enough time to follow a schedule?

Remember that regularity is very important for successful content marketing. If you publish content haphazardly, although over a long period of time it will definitely benefit you, it will depend on chance. But if you regularly publish high-quality content following a strict pattern, the benefit will be more consistent, more predictable. This is something a content writer can provide you.

Maintain a content publishing calendar

Content publishing calendar

A content publishing calendar is basically a topics and ideas list, but with dates and timeframe attached to every stages. A calendar tells you what you will be publishing on a particular date. This instills a sense of organization into your publishing process.

You also spend some time with your content writer deciding on various topics, deciding on when certain topics should be drafted and scheduled. The more you get into the habit of organising and scheduling, the better will be the inflow of ideas.

Curate content

Content Curation

Curation is also a good way of publishing content regularly without running out of it. Curation means finding well-written blog posts and articles on other websites and then linking to them from your own website with small input from you. It takes just a few minutes and before you know it, a repository of quality content begins to build up under your domain.

Concluding remarks

Just like in any form of marketing, successful content marketing, requires consistency. A pattern needs to exist. If you decide to publish something every Wednesday, then it should be published every Wednesday. If every 15 days you want to publish a long blog post, then you need to stick to this schedule. As mentioned above, if you cannot come up with original topics regularly, you can link to content published elsewhere. Make sure the content that you publish – whether you publish original content, or you curate it, make sure that it helps your visitors.

What is conversational content writing?

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What is conversational content writing?

There was a time when content writing was mostly done to improve search engine rankings for selected search terms or keywords.

Although, still, the primary reason why clients contact my content writing services is to improve their search engine rankings – which my content writing definitely achieves for them – they also understand the importance of conversational writing. They know that to be effective, their writing needs to make an impact.

It’s a welcome change. It shows that they have begun to understand what an important role content writing plays in the success of their business. It no longer is just a tool to mindlessly fill the website with “keyword-centric” content for SEO.

What does conversational content writing mean?

In very simple terms, conversational content writing means writing in the way we normally talk.

What is conversational content writing?

How do we talk?

Do you talk to a friend like this – “In view of the last conversation that we had pertaining to your conference proposal I would like to put forth a suggestion that you may like to consider while making the presentation.”

You don’t. You may simply say, “Remember the talk about your conference? Would you mind if I suggested something? I feel it will really help you make a better presentation.”

We don’t use very long sentences. We don’t use complicated expressions. We use day-to-day words.

Since conversation means an informal talk, we’re not talking to impress, and the same holds true for writing. We’re not writing to impress, we are writing to engage.

It’s just like talking to a friend or a casual acquaintance.

No, I don’t mean you should use abusive words (just like you use them with your friends) in content writing, but even without using cuss words you can be conversational.

Many writing experts or advisors say that you don’t need to be a stickler for grammar rules, but I think it depends on what you’re writing.

On one hand you don’t want to come off as a person who doesn’t know the language he or she is writing in, on the other hand, your writing shouldn’t sound as if lots of effort is being put in to sound “polished”.

A word of caution: there is a difference between writing in a conversational style and dumbing down your writing.

For example, you can write on blockchain technology and its implications on bank transactions, using all the jargon that is being used in the industry, but still, you can make your writing conversational.

Why conversational content writing is better?

Casual conversations are more effective

You want to engage your readers.

You don’t want to bore them or put them off or distract them by using words and expressions they don’t understand.

Remember that content writing is all about achieving the end goal – getting more business.

The purpose of content writing isn’t showcasing your writing prowess.

The person who is reading your blog post or your email message must feel at ease. He or she shouldn’t feel intimidated. The sentences and phrases must not sound lifeless.

Also, it is easier to trust a person who talks to you rather than delivers a long monologue of highfalutin words, expressions and promises that sound bizarre.

Stiff writing sounds artificial whereas, conversational writing sounds authentic.

“Proper” writing makes you sound distant whereas, conversational writing style makes you seem like a friend or an acquaintance.

Also, once you practice, it’s easier to write content in conversational style compared to the formal style you might be used to.

Here are some benefits of writing content in conversational style:

Easier reading for your visitors and email recipients.
Clarity of thought as you focus more on the message and less on how you should write that message.
Simpler sentences make bigger impact as people’s brains aren’t occupied with trying to decipher what you have written.
Your readers can easily identify with you because you talk in their language.

Conversational content writing is better for SEO

Your SEO is decided by artificial intelligence driven by the machines. Although the ranking algorithms used by major search engines like Google and Bing are quite advanced, they prefer simpler sentences that mean exactly what you are writing.

Conversational content writing makes you write simpler, to-the-point sentences.

It is advised that a sixth grader should be easily able to understand what you’re writing.

If a sixth grader can make sense of what you have written, so can artificial intelligence.

How to write in conversational style?

When newbie content writers approach me and seek my advice on how they should write, I always tell them, they should write as they talk minus grammar mistakes.

Every writer who truly wants to write has a unique style.

Sure, many organizations and businesses prefer to stick to a style guide, and there is nothing wrong in that, but the style guide is mostly used to structure the content rather than dictate how a content writer must write.

Listed below are some pointers to keep in mind when you’re trying to write your content in conversational style.

Assume someone is sitting in front of you having coffee, and talk to that person

Talk as if sitting across a coffee table

This is the easiest way of adopting a conversational style while writing content.

Imagine someone sitting at the coffee table in front of you and your talking to that person.

Remember that depending on who that person is (defining the persona) you may slightly change the way you talk to him or her, but basically, the keyword is “talk”.

If it helps, before writing, record. Use an audio recorder on your phone and communicate your message just the way you are talking to someone.

Don’t pretend to sound erudite. Having said that, if this is your natural style, then sure, play around with it.

Basically, no matter how you write, it shouldn’t be stiff.

Make ample use of “You” and “I”

Speak in terms of you and I

Write in the first person as much as possible. Since, conversational style means talking to someone and assuming that a person is sitting in front of you, it makes more sense to use “you” and “I” instead of “you” and “we”.

Though, I will admit that it is not always possible to use “I” instead of “we” especially when you are writing on behalf of your business. On your official web pages, it makes more sense to write in terms of “we” because we are writing on behalf of your entire team, but on the blogs, it is better to use the personal touch.

Also, when you are sending out email campaigns, it is always better to use your name and then use “I” and “you” instead of “we offer this” and “we offer that”.

Tell a story

Tell a story through conversational content writing

“Tell a story” has almost become a cliché in the realms of content writing and content marketing. What does it really mean?

It’s like, instead of telling that my content writing services are awesome and then leaving it at that, I give you a live example of…

Mr. Mason’s business wasn’t growing because of low conversion rate. Even his search engine traffic wasn’t picking.

He had worked with a few content writers, but after having spent a few hundred dollars and having published 20 odd blog posts, the performance of his website was the same it was before he started trying out various content writers.

Then he came across my Credible Content website and liked how I have structured the main web pages and the amount of information that I have shared on my content writing and content marketing blog.

Since he had already been disappointed with his previous content writers, he contacted me skeptically.

At the outset I told him that more than “SEO content” he needed good content, conversational content, and engaging content.

There was no emotion in his existing content.

If you don’t feel enthusiastic when talking to people, how are you going to motivate people into becoming your paying customers and clients?

Whatever he had written on his website, it didn’t feel that he really meant it.

We agreed to revamp his existing content instead of writing new content because although his current content wasn’t performing, he had chosen good topics and those topics were relevant to his business.

So, I spruced up his main content and blog posts. I rewrote content that was looking like essays into two-way conversations.

Totally recognizing his need for better SEO, I rearranged the text to make it more search engine friendly.

The existing content was quite thin. I rearranged some of the posts into authoritative, long form blog posts and included verified data from trusted resources.

I set up a routine/content calendar for him, which is very important.

In a couple of months, both his rankings and bounce rate improved.

Now he is regularly getting content from me. His business is picking up.

That’s a story.

Try to help people

Help people through content writing

When you are constantly trying to make people do something for you, your stakes are higher, and this shows in your writing.

Instead, just try to help people. Helping gives you confidence. When you have confidence, it automatically shows through. Confidence makes conversational content writing easier and seamless.

Helping doesn’t always mean writing tutorials. Helping also means helping them make a decision in your favor.

So, if writing tutorials is not your game, you can publish industry news.

If new research data is regularly available in your niche, analyze the data and explain it to your visitors.

You can publish news. You can publish interviews. You can respond to blog posts and articles published elsewhere.

The basic idea is, regularly generate engaging, useful content you are enthusiastic about. You will be automatically writing conversational content.