Tag Archives: Content Writing Tips

How to use Google Trends for better SEO content writing

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Using Google Trends for better SEO content writing
Using Google Trends for better SEO content writing

SEO content writing is all about choosing the right keywords and then creating your content around them. Being a veteran of your business, you may feel that certain keywords must be more popular than other keywords. The reality might be different.

A few weeks back I was writing a blog post on copywriting and while doing some research, I noticed that many writers use “copy writing” instead of “copywriting”. Although Google may not differentiate much between copy writing and copywriting, I wanted to use a word that most people use. On a whim, I went to Google Trends, searched for both the terms, and then compared them. This is what came up:

Using Google Trends to compare copywriting and copy writing

As you can see, worldwide, people are using “copywriting” more than three times over “copy writing”.

This is one way of finding out what words to focus on when writing content. There are many similar sounding words but there are some words that people don’t use often, and some words people use a lot. When writing content, you want to focus on words used by maximum number of people.

This Entrepreneur blog post suggests many uses of Google Trends, including

  • Search volume: It tells you if there is more demand or less demand for the key phrase or the keyword you are trying to write SEO content for.
  • Search trend: Since Google Trends presents the data graphically, you can see whether the use of a particular keyword is on the downswing or upswing. It may be that a few months ago the keyword was quite popular, but it is no longer popular, or vice versa.
  • Related searches: These are for long tail keywords. What different keyword combinations are people using to search for information?
  • Search filters: You can check Google Trends for your chosen regions. In the above screenshot, I checked worldwide stats. You can check stats for specifically USA or India.
  • Forecast: Google Trends may not show forecasts for all the keywords you search for, but sometimes it tells you what the trend is going to be in the coming days.
  • Comparison: Just what I have done in the above screenshot. You want to compare 2-3, or even more words and see which word you should be focusing on.

Aside from the fact that you can use Google Trends to find the right keywords for content writing, you can also use search segmentation for geographical targeting.

There may be certain keywords that are used more in China than in USA. This is just hypothetical: if I want to target China for my copywriting services and if in China people use more “copy writing” and less “copywriting”, I should be using the former phrase with greater frequency when I’m writing about my copywriting services for China.

The forecasting feature can help you plan your content publishing. If you know that the time for a certain keyword is going to rise or fall, you can decide whether to publish more content or less content on that keyword.

Similarly, you can use various features of Google Trends to streamline and target your content writing efforts.

Why is the title tag so important when writing content?

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There are many SEO experts who discount the importance of the title tag when writing content or at least when publishing new web pages and blog posts, directly or indirectly, your title tag has an impact on your search engine rankings. Why is it so?

First, what is the title tag and how is it different from the heading?

The heading is the big text that you see when you visit a blog post or an article. It appears on the top. It tells you what you’re going to read. A heading can be used anywhere. It can be used with a blog post. It can be used with a YouTube video. It can be used with a landing page or a general information web page on your website. Here is how a heading looks:

Screenshot of a heading

Screenshot of a heading.

In most of the cases – at least in the case of my blog – the heading and the web page/blog post title are the same, but they don’t have to be. You can have a different title and a different heading.

What is the title tag?

The title tag appears in the <head> </head> section of your web page. It appears in the form of <title> </title>.

Here is the title tag screenshot of the same blog post above from where I have taken the heading screenshot:

Screenshot of the title tag

Screenshot of the title tag.

Your web page title is the string of text that appears between <title> and </title>.

Why is the text that you use with your title tag so important for your SEO? As I have written above, there are many SEO experts who say that the title tag may not have any significance vis-à-vis your search engine rankings, but I personally feel that your title tag is one of the most important aspects of your web page or blog post in terms of usability as well as search engine rankings.

Above you have seen how the heading appears in the blog post and how the title tag looks like. You can view the title tag by viewing the source code of any web page.

How does the same blog posts appear in the search results? Below is a screenshot of the search engine listings are the same blog post:

Screenshot of the search engine listings of the title tag

Screenshot of the search engine listings of the title tag.

As you can see, the string of text that appears between <title> and </title> also appears as an enlarged hypertext in the search engine result pages. Is it appearing because of the keywords I included – “blogging roadmap” and “improve SEO”? Could be.

Personally I don’t know if the Google ranking algorithm takes the title tag into account while ranking websites, but there is a logical reason why the title tag is important when you are writing content.

Research by various SEO and digital marketing companies has shown that if the words used in the search string also appear in the listing as hypertext, a greater number of users click the link. Therefore, if someone has used both “blogging roadmap” and “improve SEO” in the search query and both these keywords or words appear in the search result as hypertext, there is a probability that a greater number of people will click the link.

This is called the CTR – click through ratio. If you have a better click through ratio, your search engine rankings improve.

When more people click the link, Google thinks that the link must be important to the search query being used, and hence, it should appear higher. As you can see, for the search term in the screenshot, the link to my blog post appears at the top.

 

How do I write content on difficult topics?

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Do you follow a process when writing content on difficult topics? What do you do? Do you follow a process?

For many years I have been writing on technology, and a majority of my current clients come from this field, so, it rarely happens that I come across a topic I find difficult. Comprehensive, yes, even exasperating in terms of quantity and scale, but not difficult.

Nonetheless, there are times when I am baffled. The topic is alien or I don’t have enough knowledge. The fact that sometimes it is not possible to find information on the web exacerbates the matter further. Or the template provided by the client is designed in such a manner that finding and writing content based on the layout turns out to be a Herculean task.

So, what do I do? My first source is the client. In most of the cases the client isn’t eager to pay for the time I may have to spend on research, so he or she eagerly sends me the needed information. For example, I request some links that explain the topic. I don’t waste my time researching for it because I know that for the client it will be faster to find the right information.

If the client is ready to pay me for research, I do my own research. Sometimes I don’t even tell the client that I’m charging extra for research; I simply prepare the quotation in such a manner that the time for research is also included.

These days it’s easy to find information on the Internet provided you know what to look for, and where to look. Starting to write can be a problem, especially when there is gap in understanding.

I start with randomly jotting down my thoughts. I don’t even bother with complete sentences. I pick up phrases and expressions from the reference links. My sole focus is on the words and expressions that I’m writing. I try to get comfortable with them. I even write random sentences with these words and expressions that have got nothing to do with the current article or blog post.

Another thing that helps me is that I’m not trying to prove myself as a better writer. I don’t need to impress anyone. I need to inform as clearly and with as few words as possible. I need to educate. So, even a sentence containing 3-5 words would do.

But the reality is that the client demands certain number of words. Suppose I’m asked to write about the benefits of creating digital wallets with blockchain technology and the blog post must be 1000 words.

Without worrying about those 1000 words, I simply focus on the central theme. I may create bulleted points listing all the benefits of such digital wallets. I may write a paragraph.

Then I start creating the context. Context is very important to build a narrative. For that, I may explain what digital wallets are, what is blockchain technology, why more businesses are using digital wallets and why more businesses are using blockchain technology. This gives me a few hundred words.

Then, I find examples of businesses actively using digital wallets in general and digital wallets built on blockchain technology in particular.

After having written 500-600 words, I grow comfortable. Afterwards, if you ask me to write 3000 words on the topic, I can manage even that.

Outranking your competitors – can strategic content writing help?

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I’m not an SEO expert so I won’t claim that I can give you a concrete answer. I was going through my content aggregator, and I came across this blog post from Search Engine Journal: How do you outrank bigger sites for high competition keywords?

Can strategic content writing help you outrank your competitors? It can. It requires effort and persistence.

Aside from other things, what I found revealing and surprising is that the author says that the word count doesn’t really matter as long as you have structured your content well.

This means, a web page with 500 words can outrank a web page having 2500 words if the content on the web page having fewer words is organized better than the web page with more words.

I have observed this pattern even on my own blog. Sometimes I’m able to rank well even when the blog post has just 300-400 words. There might be many other reasons, but what I’m trying to say is, a blog post doesn’t always have to be very long to rank well.

So, what can you do to outrank your competitors according to the above Search Engine Rank blog post? Here are a few things you can do:

  • Your web page should be relevant to the query being searched for.
  • The information should be easy to read and longer text should be organized using headings, subheadings and bulleted points.
  • Schema should be well defined – what is the web page about? Is it an FAQs page? Is it a product description? Is it an information article? Is it a review? Does it explain your pricing?
  • You should use interlinking. The crawlers should be able to access other parts of your website and blog through the current web page or blog post they are crawling.

Aside from these tips the author has also explained a few SEO-related things you can do.

How does strategic content writing help you outrank your competitors?

First of all, at least in the beginning, don’t focus on outranking your competitors if you are just starting. Focus on publishing lots of relevant and quality content.

Your competitor – assuming he or she has used fair means – must have spent months or years to deserve the rankings he or she enjoys right now. You cannot suddenly decide to outrank just because you want to.

The better approach is, start providing information that your visitors will find useful. Write content on interesting topics.

Make a list of all the topics that you can write about. The list should be around 50-60 topics.

Then write or get written the best possible content around these topics.

Of course, simply publishing content is half the job done. You need to spread your content. Follow SEO content writing practices. Make sure that your content is written and formatted in such a manner that it is easy for search engine crawlers and human visitors to read.

Share your content on social media websites. Broadcast the links using your newsletter. You need to promote your content. You can also use paid advertisements on LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your links.

Also, focus on longtail keywords containing your main keywords for which you want to outrank your competition.

Even if it is extremely difficult for me to rank for “content writing services”, I can try “content writing services for email marketing”. Or, “content writing services for web design agencies”.

As I have mentioned above, rather than worrying about outranking your competition, try to provide better content than your competition. Your rankings will automatically improve.

Should you publish evergreen content or trendy content?

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Evergreen content or trendy content

Evergreen content or trendy content?

For lasting search engine rankings, it is often recommended that you publish evergreen content.

What is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is the content that is relevant for a long time – even multiple years. This type of content doesn’t go out of date. You can call it practically an ageless wisdom.

Take for example, if right now I write a list of tips on how to write SEO content (assuming that the search engine algorithms by now have matured a lot), I’m pretty sure that provided I stick to the fundamental Google SEO guidelines, it will be an evergreen content.

People will find this blog post useful and relevant for at least 2-3 years and consequently, it should enjoy higher search engine rankings accordingly.

Here are some examples of evergreen content titles:

What is trendy content?

Trendy content or non-evergreen content is topical and relevant to something that is going on right now.

Let’s hope we don’t have to write evergreen content on Covid, but right now, if I write something about content writing related to Covid, it is a trendy topic.

Take for example this blog post that I wrote recently: Am I getting more content writing assignments post-Covid?

As you can see, since Covid is a temporary situation (hopefully) this is a trendy topic. It is based on an ongoing trend.

When Covid is over, except for journalists, academicians, scientists and doctors, there will be few people searching for it.

Striking a balance between evergreen content and trendy content

Trendy content gets you instant traffic. Evergreen content gets you ongoing traffic.

Both types of content are important. When you publish trendy topics, for a few days you increase your visibility. More people can find your website or blog.

They may link to you. They may share your content on social media. They may also stumble upon evergreen content.

Since Google may be constantly looking for updated content to present to its users searching on a trending topic, it will quickly crawl and index your trendy content.

A problem with trendy content might be that since thousands of bloggers and web publishers may be writing on the trending topic, the competition might be too high.

In such cases, you should give the trending topic your own twist. Write about something that is about the trending topic, but an aspect that very few people are covering.

What about highly competitive content for evergreen topics? The same advice. Even for evergreen content, the competition might be quite high. Give your own twist. Create a unique title that very few people might be covering.

What should be the balance between evergreen content and trendy content?

My personal experience says that go with the flow. Regularity is more important than strategizing in this regard, as long as you maintain a balance.

Participate in ongoing conversations. At the same time, publish content that people are going to look up for, for a long time.

You get more back links for evergreen content because publishers who are linking to your content know that it is going to be relevant for a long time to come.

Yes, they also link to trending topics but only when they themselves are writing about those trending topics and they want to add value or add another perspective.