Tag Archives: Content Writing Tips

What is buyer intent and how to write content for it?

Content writing for buyer intent.

Just as there is search intent there is also buyer intent.

The concept of search intent is broad: it has many intents such as informational intent, navigational intent, transactional intent and commercial intent.

Buyer intent (also known as buying intent) or purchase intent tells you how eager a customer or client is to buy a product or subscribe to a service. This is data or information that manifests before a buying action takes place.

Why is it important? Why is it important to know buyer intent and then write content accordingly?

This Gartner report says that prospective buyers spend 50% of their time seeking information about a product or a service from third-party sources such as social media websites, review websites, blogs, talking with peers, and online directories.

This information can sway them. Even when they are ready to buy, if there is something that puts them off or gives them enough reason to get reluctant, your sale is gone.

One thing is clear about buyer intent – your prospect is ready to buy. He or she needs the last nudge. Or, you need to prevent him or her from getting distracted or misled or getting confused.

Buyer intent can be gauged from the type of web pages visitors accessing on your website. In my example, people who want to hire me as a content writer often checkup my content writing rates page. They also go through my samples.

What type of content writing can help you target specific buyer intent?

To be able to write content targeting buyer intent, you need to know what would turn your prospective buyer away. It must be some information or lack of some information that sends your prospective buyer away.

Hence, you need to fill that gap.

When a prospective customer or client comes to your website you must provide all the answers he or she may need to make up his or her mind.

What questions or apprehensions a typical client may have before hiring my content writing services? Let’s go through a few points:

Will I be able to write quality content specifically for his or her business?
Do I have enough knowledge and experience to write content that can generate business?
Can I help him or her improve his or her search engine rankings?
Can I write the amount of content that is required?
Can I stick to a schedule?
Will I write completely original content?
How expensive or affordable am I?

There can be many more questions. But what you need to pay attention to is the fact that these are all questions that a prospective client would ask.

What sort of content do I write to address to this buyer intent, or rather, these questions?

I’m constantly sharing my knowledge and experience on my blog and therefore, a prospective client should be able to get enough information about that.

I also blog a lot about how to improve one’s search engine rankings through SEO-friendly content. You may like to read How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

I have an FAQs section that describes my content writing process.

I have testimonials from other clients. I have also obtained testimonials on LinkedIn and Google Business.

I have explained why I charge what I charge on various pages and blog posts.

Hence, from my side, I have tried to provide as much information as possible to my visitors with buyer intent.

Similarly for your business, you need to figure out what questions or apprehensions your prospective customer or client may have and then write content addressing those questions and apprehensions.

Etiquette dos and don’ts when writing content

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Etiquette do’s and don’ts when writing content.

I was just browsing my content aggregator and I came across this blog post on the etiquette dos and don’ts of content writing thinking that the post actually talks about etiquettes.

Well, instead of talking about etiquettes it gives you the general dos and don’ts of writing effective content.

Nonetheless, the author has shared some good tips on what to take care of when writing content and what you should avoid.

I am quickly going to present a run down on what to do and what not to do.

Focus more on delivering value when writing content

This must be your primary focus.

Most of the people publish content because they want to improve their search engine rankings (or simply fill up their website because without written content, the website would look odd), but the primary purpose of writing content is to deliver value and engage your visitors.

If you deliver value and engage your visitors, your search engine rankings automatically improve.

Have a doubt? Read this blog post: Relationship between quality content writing, bounce rate and SEO.

Make sure you proofread and edit

Once you have written your content, make sure you go through it. Read it aloud if it’s possible.

What do I do when I’m editing?

I mostly shorten my sentences. I shorten my paragraphs. I remove needless adverbs and adjectives. Sometimes I add needless adverbs and adjectives.

Just make sure your content is easy to read and it does not have embarrassing mistakes.

Write for your niche

Defining your niche makes it easier for you to focus your writing.

When you are writing content, you are having a conversation with the reader.

Just imagine talking to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you.

Of course, defining your niche is not as easy as it may seem, but you should narrow it down as much as possible.

When I’m writing content for my blog, I am mostly targeting people who are looking for an experienced content writer who can help them publish engaging content and at the same time, can also help them improve their search engine rankings.

In the conventional sense my niche is quite broad – I get content writing queries from real estate businesses to blockchain businesses to IT consultants to babysitting businesses to online retail stores, and pretty much everything in between.

One thing is common though: they are all looking for a content writer.

They may need a content writer for their website, or their blog, or their email marketing campaigns or their social media campaigns.

Hence, I have lots of content targeting these categories.

Keep SEO in mind while writing

Though, you shouldn’t obsess about SEO when writing content, this is an aspect that you cannot ignore.

How do you write SEO content?

You may want to read How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

There are some other tips that I just wrote about in the link I have shared just above.

These are some basic do’s and don’ts. They’ve got nothing to do with etiquettes.

Anyway, what etiquettes should you keep in mind when writing content?

Here are a few things to consider:

Try to write gender neutral content if it is not being written for a specific gender.
Don’t offend people on the basis of race, region, religion or class.
Don’t use abusive language.
Respect your audience and don’t dumbify them.
Don’t mislead your audience just to improve your SEO.
Don’t keep promises you cannot keep.
Don’t be judgmental or condescending.
Avoid taking a political stand when you are writing for business.

Since the title of this blog post hints as of the blog post contains some insights on etiquettes, I wanted to write something about this issue. Maybe later on I will do a complete blog post on this.

How to write content that converts?

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The best way of developing conversion-friendly content is to clearly define what conversion means for that particular piece of content.

Conversion can be micro and macro. Macro conversion for almost every business is to generate more leads and customers/clients. This is the ultimate conversion goal.

What do we mean by micro-conversion?

Micro-conversion would be, people signing up for your newsletter, or downloading your white paper or case study, or simply sharing your content from their own social media profiles.

Micro-conversion is blog post specific, or web page specific, or a newsletter campaign specific, or even a social media update specific.

For example, after publishing this blog post, if I share the link on LinkedIn, why do I share it? I share it because I want maximum number of people to click the link and come to this blog post to read.

Once they are on this blog post, after reading it, it would be good if they signed up for my newsletter.

It would be better if they shared my link from their own social media accounts. It would be better if they linked to my blog post, or one of my blog posts, from their own website or from their own blog post. This improves my search engine rankings and enables my prospective clients to find my website on Google.

For most of the people, micro-conversion is improving search engine rankings for a particular keyword, especially the keyword or the key phrase they are using in the current blog post. Hence, their micro-conversion goal is met if they are able to rank the blog post higher for the keyword being used.

Another example of a micro-conversion would be to cover a topic in such a manner that it draws lots of traffic from Google and social media due to its quality and relevance.

Multiple micro-conversion successes lead to your macro conversion success – get you more leads, more customers or more clients.

Here are some things you can do to develop conversion-friendly content, or content that converts:

Always have a clear objective of what you intend to achieve.
Deal with a specific topic or a specific solution/answer.
Don’t cram too much information.
No need to always focus on selling and marketing.
Have a true intention when writing content.
Inform & educate instead of trying to impress.
Make it easier to read and share.
Write as if you’re talking to someone face to face.

I know, these are very clichéd pieces of advice, but you will be surprised to know how few content writers actually take care of this.

What exactly do you do?

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It’s very important to know exactly what you do.

This is the first thing that I want to know when take up a new content writing project: what exactly does the client do?

The answer is not as simple as it may seem in the beginning. For most of the clients, it is often difficult to tell in a couple of sentences what they do and exactly who they serve.

And then they wonder why their websites in general and copywriting in particular don’t convert.

It helps you target better if you know exactly what you do.

What do I do?

I provide content writing and copywriting services.

Big deal. There are thousands of content writers and copywriters on the Internet, and some may be even better than me.

So, what do I do to deserve your business?

I write engaging content that helps you convert better. I also improve your search engine rankings.

Now, this is a bit more precise. What next?

My writing is confident. It may not win a Pulitzer or a Booker Prize, but I write with conviction and confidence.

I always know the right words for the message that you want to convert.

I don’t use fluff. I come to the point straightaway. I don’t try to impress the readers. I try to inform them.

Instead of worrying about how many words I should write, I focus on the message (although, most of the clients are more worried about the number of words, but that’s a different story).

So, as a content writer and a copywriter, I do the following:

Write conversational content.
Write content with conviction.
My content writing helps you improve your search engine rankings.

These are the basic traits that a small business owner is looking for in a content writer.

Similarly, if you want to communicate your message without confusing your visitors, you must know exactly what you deliver.

Don’t leave it on your content writer to first understand what you do and then write. He or she will be wasting his or her time and you too will be wasting your time.

Write down somewhere exactly what you do whether you are getting content written by a writer or you yourself are writing it.

What do you deliver?

What is the benefit of working with you?

How do you define your target customers and clients?

What would they be looking for when they search for you?

Is there something that you can deliver that the others cannot? What is it?

What sets you apart?

How do regular content writing and publishing give you a higher conversion rate?

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For the past 20 or so days I have been regularly publishing updates on LinkedIn and Instagram – two platforms that I have ignored so far.

Yesterday I was checking the stats of my Instagram account. Suddenly, the visibility of my content has grown by 17,000%. Of course, from 0 to 20 or 25 views, in terms of percentage, means quite big, but even these 20 or 25 views are better than zero views.

I can see the same trend on my LinkedIn account. Views of my profile have increased. More people are seeing my updates though, engagement is negligible but that is natural because I have just started.

Visibility is particularly important to build trust on the Internet. Whether people are interacting with you or not is another matter (and something that should not be disregarded), it is important that they come across your updates.

Your conversion rate on the Internet depends on three factors:

Visibility
Familiarity
Trust

Visibility

You need to remain visible. Whether people are searching for information on Google or scrolling through their social media timelines, they must come across your name or the name of your business.

Please keep in mind that when I talk about visibility, I don’t mean you should relentlessly publish content without paying attention to whether people care about your content or not.

They must find your content relevant. They must derive some value out of it. Otherwise, it becomes white noise, and they don’t even notice you.

Familiarity

Assuming you are publishing relevant content, and if people regularly notice you, they become familiar with your name. It is our primal instinct to be comfortable around people and things that are familiar.

Trust

When you provide them information they appreciate, and when you regularly provide such information, they begin to trust you. A positive association is formed. When they need the product or the service that you provide, they rather get it from you than from someone they don’t know.

Whether it is search engines or social media platforms or even your email updates, regularity and consistency always lead to a higher conversion rate.

Regularly writing and publishing content is critical

Stop publishing your updates for a couple of weeks. Unless you have formed close friendships and unless you provide content people need for their day-to-day survival, they are hardly going to notice your absence. This is a harsh reality.

Even the search engines like Google stop crawling your website or blog after a while if you don’t publish fresh content regularly. Your search engine rankings begin to drop. Even for the search terms you were ranking higher just a couple of weeks ago, you begin to lose traffic.

Be regular. Be consistent. Remain relevant. You will enjoy a higher conversion rate.