Tag Archives: Content Writing

Looking for good content marketing writers? Here is what you should do

The success of your content marketing depends on your writers whether you intend to use text content, video content or image content. Ultimately it is the written word that gets the message across and if you are unable to get the message across, your entire content marketing fails.

When pursuing content marketing both quality and quantity matter. Quantity matters because your competitors are continuously publishing tons of content and you are constantly in danger of getting drowned in the din.

Quality because, well, there is no content marketing without quality content. By the end of the day, your content needs to convert. It needs to make an impact. It should be well-written. It should be conversational. It should be able to reach out to your target audience and consequently, your target audience should feel like reaching out to you after getting exposed to your content. Your content should be so well-written and so well-produced that people should feel like sharing it without you having to prompt them to share it. How does this happen? This happens when you have good, experienced and creative content writers in your team.

This blog post at NewsCred lists the following ways you can find yourself good content writers:

Use your LinkedIn network:
Many professionals list themselves on LinkedIn and this includes content writers. In fact, these days I am extensively promoting myself on LinkedIn (I have also upgraded my account to Premium) but I mostly try to find clients. It is also a good place to look out for competent writers because as my work increases, I will need more writers.
Find good content writers among your own employees: You will be surprised to know that many of your employees have this hidden talent. Without putting extra pressure on them you can encourage some of your employees to come up with good blog post regarding your business. Even if they are unable to churn out complete blog posts and articles, they can create outlines using Google Docs or OneDrive and later on these outlines can be turned into full-fledged pieces of content.
Work with freelance content marketing writers: This might be one of the best options available to you because when you work with freelance content marketing writers, you enjoy unprecedented freedom. First of all you are not stuck with the writers that you have hired. They don’t use your office resources because most of the freelance content marketing writers work from their own respective locations. It is extremely easy to change the writers because all you have to do is approach someone else in case you don’t like the writers you are currently working with.

Of course it doesn’t just stop at finding good content marketing writers and working with them. As the article rightly mentions, you will need to vet these writers to make sure that you work only with the best. Initially you will need to hire and fire repeatedly and you may feel disenchanted but once you are working with the writers your content marketing strategy really needs, there will be no looking back.

Combine content marketing, social media and SEO for inbound marketing

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Inbound marketing is a balanced mix of content marketing, social media marketing and SEO. In fact, these are not standalone activities. Every effective content marketing strategy incorporates social media as well as SEO.

When I work on a client project, this is how I prioritise these three aspects of inbound marketing on the Internet:

Content marketing
Social media marketing
SEO

Although most of my clients contact me to improve their SEO on my priority list it is the last aspect of content writing I pay attention to. Does it mean I don’t think it is important? Of course SEO is important and I would never ignore it. It’s just that, I would prefer SEO to happen automatically rather than making an effort for it. I will explain below how. But first…

Content marketing is the most important aspect of inbound marketing

This is because unless you have quality content and unless you know how to market it and then actually market it, nothing much can be achieved. Inbound marketing means people coming to your website or blog on their own after, either having interacted with you on one of the social media or social networking websites, or having come across your content either on your own website or blog, or somewhere else. But whenever they come across you, they come across you via your content.

And it doesn’t just stop at them coming to your website, in fact, the real action starts when people are on your website. It is on your website that you have to convince them into doing business with you. This is where your content plays the most important part. If your content doesn’t convince them, everything goes to waste. If your content is below par, your social media strategy as well as SEO are going to fail. This is why, at the beginning of your inbound marketing campaign, the first thing you need to take care of is content marketing.

Content marketing automatically takes care of social media and SEO

Yes, for the sake of talking to clients one has to talk about content marketing, social media marketing and SEO as separate plans of action whereas they are not. They are all a part of your inbound marketing strategy fuelled by your content marketing strategy. Content marketing means

Writing/producing high-quality content on your website/blog and elsewhere.
Distributing that content using various channels available to you including social media and social networking websites and email marketing.
Search engine optimizations so that people can easily find your content on search engines for the right keywords and search terms.
Constantly analysing the effect of your content using web analytics tools like Google Analytics.
Tweaking your marketing effort according to the results obtained from the web analytics tools

So why do I say that content marketing automatically takes care of social media and SEO?

Assumption.

Assumption that you are going to take all the right steps. What are these right steps?

You use the right language to write your content – the language used by your prospective customers and clients. If you do that, you are automatically search engine optimising your content and hence, in the process, improving your search engine rankings.
Strategically promote your content on social media and social networking websites. You know that in order to promote your content you need a responsive audience. How do you get a responsive audience? By engaging them with not just high-quality content, but also responding to them whenever they reach out to you. If you do this on an ongoing basis, you are handling your social media well.
You are using the right words at the right places while creating content. If you’re going to address the problems and concerns of your prospective customers and clients you are going to use the appropriate expressions while creating titles. You will also use the keywords and search terms people normally use while trying to find your sort of products and services in your headlines and sub-headlines. If possible, you will also use these search terms and keywords in your bulleted points and the hypertext links.

If you properly take care of your content marketing, you are automatically taking care of the other aspects of content marketing like content writing and content production, content distribution, social media marketing and SEO. All these lead to a solid inbound marketing strategy that can totally transform your conversion rate.

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Should you avoid using jargons while writing content?

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There are different opinions regarding whether you should use jargon while writing your content. Many suggest that you shouldn’t because they may intimidate your readers and worse, you may also distract them and send them away.

I don’t have very strict opinion on using jargon. In order to understand my opinion, you need to first understand what actually jargons mean. According to dictionary definition, it is a word or an expression used by a profession or a group of people and it is normally difficult for people outside of that profession or outside of that group to understand.

So while writing content, we need to keep two things in mind while using jargons (if at all we want to use them)

Only people in the industry understand them
People outside of the industry don’t understand them

With this out of our way, we need to know for whom we are writing content. Are we writing content for the industry people or for those people who are not directly related to the particular industry but somehow make use of the things used by that industry.

Take for example software development. Developers have their own jargons. Terminologies like alpha version or beta version may have no meaning for the casual user of that software. Normal people may not have any idea what database normalization is. They may not know what recursion is, or for that matter, even what is an algorithm. What is an ActiveX object?

When to use jargons and when not to use them while writing content?

We will take the software development analogy again. Let’s take two case scenarios.

You are writing content for a company that develops and markets software programming tools for software development companies.
You are writing content for a software development company that sells and markets an accounting software for schools

Content writing for a company developing and marketing software programming tools for software development companies

If you are writing content for such a company, you’re bound to use some jargons because without these jargons you won’t be able to communicate what you are selling and what are the capabilities of your tools. Of course using your tools software programmers will be able to manage their code well and may also be able to reduce their product development life-cycle (again, slightly jargonish) by one-third, but the programmers would like to know the exact features that are being use in the programming tools. They would like to know what sort of libraries are available, what sort of debugging features are there, what sort of flow control logic is used and so on. They would like to know the dirty details because this is how programmers work. So yes, in order to write content for such a company, you will need to use the industry language, the jargons.

Content writing for a company that develops and markets accounting software for schools

A school looking for an accounting software isn’t bothered much about the particular ActiveX components used in the software. The accountant working at the school would like to know how well the software generates the ledgers and the various accounts the school accountant will have to create and maintain. If at all some jargons are to be used, they must belong to the profession of accounting rather than programming. In fact, the content written for the software development company that develops and markets accounting software for schools should be able to convey through its content that it knows about the intricacies involved in keeping accounting books.

In conclusion, jargons are definitely not a no-go zone. Use them, but don’t use them unnecessarily. Certainly never use jargon to impress your readers because, whether they are impressed or not is another issue, they will certainly either get distracted or be put off. While writing content, use jargons when they really contribute towards carrying the discussion forward, otherwise, use simple, friendly and convincing language.

Writing a goal-oriented vision statement

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Every corporate website has a vision statement. I encourage even smaller businesses to have a vision statement because it gives an idea to prospective customers and clients what the business stands for, what are its values and how it plans to chart its growth path. I know, lots of corporate stuff, but what I want to say is a vision statement is not only reassuring to your customers and clients, it also helps you stay focused. Again, what a mean to say is writing a good vision statement is serious stuff. So even if it takes a couple of weeks, it’s worth it.

Though, as a content writer, before you start worrying, I don’t take that much time to come up with a good vision statement provided I have all the base material needed for it from you.

What is a vision statement?

The explanation depends on what you understand by “vision”. A generic explanation is, an ability to decide your future actions based on your current and predicted capabilities. So when you say, “this person has a vision” it means the person knows what he or she is going to do vis-a-vis himself or herself and people associated with him or her in the next 5 years, 10 years or 20 years.

As a business, your vision statement tells your customers and clients why you will still be existing in the coming months and years and what will you be achieving by then. It takes into account where you are currently, how you recognise and perceive your capabilities and how your inherent qualities as well as the resources at your disposal are going to help you achieve what you intend to achieve in the coming months and years. When you lucidly write this down and publish it somewhere, it becomes your vision statement.

What is a goal-oriented vision statement in terms of content writing?

In terms of content writing every page that you create, every blog post that you publish, needs to have a goal. Okay, it doesn’t always happen that way, but this is the underlying philosophy, that every action of yours must carry an intended goal. For instance, why am I writing this blog post? What do I want you to do after reading this blog post? I’m not going to talk about it right now, but I must have something in mind otherwise why am I sitting here spending my time?

Just as any piece of content on your website, the web page that contains your vision statement, hence, must also have a goal.

Your business website is often accessed by your customers and clients (former, current and prospective) as well as your employees. A goal-oriented vision statement gives an idea to your prospective customers and clients of your present state as well as your future plans. If I come across your vision statement I can know how you feel about your business, how you plan to grow it and sustain it and how you place yourself vis-à-vis the challenges and opportunities that you currently face or have. I will either feel confident or indifferent after reading your vision statement. I should feel confident.

Before doing business with you I must know you have a direction and purpose and it makes sense to stick with you for a long time. You’re not here just for a few weeks or a few months. Even after a few years you’re still going to be around. Every customer and client needs that assurance. This assurance must be the goal of your vision statement.

The vision statement on your website also gives a sense of purpose and direction to your employees. They know what you want your organisation to achieve. They know that you understand your current problems and challenges and you also recognise the current opportunities and advantages.

How to write a goal-oriented vision statement

Keep it short: Don’t try to write a blog post or an essay on your vision statement. Keep it around 2-3 sentences or at the most a couple of paragraphs.
Write down the goal first, somewhere: It’s very important to know what is the goal of your vision statement. Whom do you want to communicate to? Your customers and clients? Your employees? Your stakeholders like business partners, investors, shareholders or suppliers?
What is your ultimate reason for existence: Why your business exists? What do you intend to achieve? Whom do you want to serve? Why?
How do you plan to expand your business: Growth is a natural evolutionary trait. You begin to stagnate if you don’t grow. Consciously or unconsciously everybody acknowledges that and knows that. Having a growth plan means you’re going to take all necessary steps to make sure you get more customers and clients and your service improves. This is reassuring to your prospective customers and clients.
Based on what values you plan to expand your business: Values are like the moral parameters your organisation works within. It tells people you’re not going to compromise on fundamental values. You are not going to cheat the stakeholders and people who deal with you while trying to grow.

Vision statements normally have the same sort of language for every business and you can easily copy/paste text from other websites but this is not recommended. Your vision statement should be unique to your business and people can see through if you’re simply copying others.

Written content: 5 reasons why your website needs it

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You might think that since I’m a content writer I advocate the benefits of written content rather than various other formats of content that you find on the Internet, and basically in every medium. I don’t mind telling you that yes, I prefer written content over video or graphic content because I write and make a living off it.

Does content marketing constitute just written content?

No way. Every format of content has its own place and importance. If that were not the case websites like Pinterest (for posting images) and YouTube wouldn’t have been such great hits. These websites are not just for posting images and videos, they also get lots of traffic for various business websites. So if you hire me as a content marketer I would carefully study what sort of content your target audience prefers and then help you execute a content marketing strategy accordingly. In that sense I’m not biased towards writing simply because I provide content writing services.

Why your website needs written content

There are many people who think that their website does not need written content and they have their own reasons. If they don’t need written content, well, it’s their prerogative and I’m sure they know what they’re doing. Some websites actually don’t need text and they can do fairly well by solely depending on images and videos – it depends on your business model. But since I provide content writing services, my primary focus is highlighting the reasons why your website needs written, textual content.

Improve your SEO with written content: Yes, every sort of content these days gets indexed but there is a reason why you require text to search engine optimize your images and videos. Technology that can rank multiple formats of content mainly by processing visual cues hasn’t been developed yet. The rankings depend on the text surrounding images and videos. If you’re using images on your website, you need to put appropriate text within the alt attribute of the image HTML tags and you need to surround your image with related text to convey to the search engines exactly what the image represents. The same happens with your video. Even if you post your video on YouTube or one of the social networking websites, it’s the text that you use to describe your video that decides what type of rankings it enjoys. Given a choice between written text, images and videos, it’s the written text that enjoys better rankings because it’s easier to process text.
Educate your prospective customers and clients: You can do this even with videos and images and in fact, there is a popular saying “a picture is worth thousand words” but can you create something like FAQs using images or videos? Yes, you can create how-to videos that may look more friendly compared to written content but it’s always easier to follow step-by-step written instructions rather than watch a video, pause it, do what needs to be done, then play the video again, then again pause it, and so on. The written content on the other hand, simply stays in front of you – you can read the instructions and do what you need to do seamlessly.
Create scalable content: Written content is easily scalable. It can be viewed on every possible device including smart watches. The text doesn’t distort no matter how big you make it, which is not possible with images and videos. Text can be easily printed without wasting paper and ink. It can be easily copy/pasted without needing extra software or tools. No matter what width your browser window has, your written content can be easily viewed.
Produce and publish written content easily: It’s easier to publish and also less expensive. I don’t mean to undermine my profession, but you can easily find content writers but it’s always very difficult, and very expensive to work with a graphic designer or videographer. An infographic can easily cost you upwards $350 whereas you can get a blog post or an article of the same quality for $50. You don’t need special applications to produce written content. You can do it even using notepad. Publishing platforms like WordPress are meant to publish written content although these days they also allow you to seamlessly publish videos and images.
Create accessible content: Many governments these days make it mandatory to create accessible websites and this means the information on the websites should be readable by screen readers. These screen readers for the visually impaired can process text but they cannot process images and videos.

As I have mentioned above the intention of this blog post is not to say written content is better than images and videos. Every business has its own unique requirement and if your business does not require written content, I don’t recommend it for you.