Looking for insightful blog posts on content writing, and SEO copywriting? You will find them on Credible Content Blog. Updated almost daily. Fresh, unique perspective.
Choosing between a content writing service or an SEO company
Many SEO experts claim that there are 200+ factors that influence your search engine rankings. Optimized content is one of them. But most of these factors are influenced by the quality of your content.
Often, I advise my clients that if they need to make a choice between hiring an SEO company and hiring a proficient content writer, at least for the time being, make the choice in favor of a content writer. Not because I provide content writing services and if they hire me, they are going to pay me, it is the most obvious choice to make.
Now, when I say writing optimized content is one of the biggest influencing factors for your search engine rankings, I assume that I’m talking about, and your understanding, high-quality, relevant content.
Content is the foundation of the structure of rankings you are going to build upon. This foundation can be solid. This foundation can be weak. But foundation it is. If the foundation is weak, you are either not going to be able to build your structure of rankings, or your structure is going to collapse sooner or later.
SEO experts are important. I’m not saying they are not important. They give your content writing the right direction.
In fact, if you can hire a good SEO expert and a content writer, this can be a win-win situation.
A year before Covid-19 hit, I was working with a UK-based market research company. They had hired a good SEO company to strategize content writing. I could have done that for them, but they preferred to work with an expensive SEO your company. Which was a good decision.
One thing I liked about the SEO company is that they knew exactly what titles I needed to write content for, how tough or weak competition our individual titles faced, and how long must the pages be in terms of the number of words. They had access to some great SEO tools that I don’t have. This saved us a lot of time.
For example, when I am in a flow, I don’t mind writing 1000 words even if the client has asked me to write 600 words (I don’t charge extra for those 400 words). But the people from that SEO company insisted that if they had asked for 600 words, I stuck to 600 words. The logic was, writing those extra 400 words was a waste of time, and they didn’t have much time. To beat the competition, they needed just about more than 550 words. Made sense.
By the end of the day, I won’t hesitate to say that for better SEO, all you need is high quality content that is well written and written in a manner that is easily understood by search engine algorithms.
An SEO company can help you get back links – you need back links to boost your rankings.
An SEO company can audit your website structure to make sure that the content organization is search engine friendly and all the elements needed to make your search rankings better are present.
An SEO company also monitors your current rankings and raises the red flags in case some of the rankings are going down.
So, in that sense, an SEO company provides you the needed vigilance. As a business serious about improving and maintaining its search engine rankings, you need such vigilance. The rest is taken care of by regularly publishing high quality content.
For the past few months, I have been working on a book on how to build your own successful content writing business, and in one of the chapters, I talk about the qualities that make you a great content writer.
Now, by any stretch, I wouldn’t openly admit that I’m a great content writer, although secretly, I may fantasize about being one. I still need to learn a lot. I still need to polish my skill. There are some awesome content writers on the web who can easily give me a run for my money.
But there is one thing: I can recognize great content. I can recognize content writers who really give it their all. It’s like, even if you cannot perform classical music, you can appreciate the quality and the grandeur.
Simply to be able to write doesn’t make you a great content writer, especially not a professional content writer who consistently gets paid for his or her skills. Below I’m listing 7 skills or qualities that make you a great content writer.
1. You are a writer from within
I recently read a writer saying that the process of writing can make you cry the tears of blood. I wouldn’t go that far, at least not while you’re not writing something to challenge Tolstoy, but writing can be difficult.
For the past couple of months, I have been writing for a company that develops blockchain applications. I’m a tech savvy person but for me this technology is fairly new. I know zilch about blockchain, crypto coins, cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. Nonetheless, I’m quite satisfied by the work I have done so far. It is difficult. Very difficult. Not because the topic is difficult. Anyway…
What I’m saying is, writing doesn’t always come easy, but still, your basic ability to write must come easy. It should flow. You must be a writer from within. When you are writing on complex topics, only the topic should be complex, not your writing process. Your writing must flow smoothly.
When you see a dancer, you can make out whether she is dancing from within, or simply pretending to be a dancer. The same is applied to your writing skills. You cannot pretend to be a writer or a content writer. You need to be a writer from within. No matter how tough the topic is.
2. You have strong research skills
Whereas you don’t need to be a research scholar in a university to be a great content writer, your basic research skills must be solid. You must be able to find the information that enables you to write content.
Researching doesn’t mean doing a few searches on Google, randomly opening multiple links in multiple tabs and then regurgitating whatever content you come across.
Strong research skills means finding the useful information, grasping it according to your own understanding, compiling it in a logical manner, and then expressing it in your own, distinct language.
Of course, it also means finding the right information. For that you must know what search terms to use. To give you a straightforward example, if you want to find information on content writing, you shouldn’t start your search with “content marketing tips” or “digital marketing tips”, because these topics are quite vast. Learn to narrow down your search and know exactly what to look for.
3. You are comfortable with technology
By “technology” I mean the tools of the trade. It may also involve basic knowledge of hardware and software, especially when you are working as a content writer on your own.
Are you comfortable with all the mainstream word processors? Do you know their basic capabilities? If you’re not happy with your current word processor, can you find alternatives on your own? What about not using a word processor at all (I do that quite often)?
What about curating information? Do you use notetaking apps like Evernote, OneNote, or Google Keep? How do you organize the information that you can find even after two years? Do you use mind mapping tools? Do you know basic image editing using Photoshop or another image editing tool?
These may not be a part of a typical content writers daily routine; they instill a sense of confidence in you. Since as a professional content writer, you will be mostly providing your services on the Internet, you should also be comfortable with the related technologies.
4. You can empathize with people
The Oxford dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand another person’s feelings and experience.”
Frankly, if you cannot empathize, forget about being a great content writer, you cannot even be an average content writer.
You will be mostly writing content for businesses. Businesses cater to customers and clients. Through their content (which, they get written from you), they aim to solve their customers’ and clients’ problems. You cannot solve their problems unless you understand what those problems are, how those problems are affecting people, and how important it is to solve those problems. You need to be able to connect emotionally. You need to be able to write passionately and passion comes with empathy, understanding, and acknowledgement.
5. You are completely original
Most of the content writers are not original. They’re simply picking sentences and paragraphs and shuffling words here and there and then passing them on to their clients as original pieces. This is mostly junk content.
To be a great content writer you should be able to write original content. By original what I mean is, whatever you write, comes from you.
Of course, the information may not be original. Even the facts that you may be using in your writing may not be original because you will be taking them from other sources.
But how you present those facts and thoughts in your own unique manner, will be original. This is what is valued by clients. Most of the clients who respect their businesses know how difficult it is to publish original content and that’s why they value content writers who can write original content.
6. You can write in an engaging manner
People should want to read what you write. If you simply drone, nobody is going to read. You must write engagingly. You must directly talk to your reader. The excitement must rub onto your reader. If you don’t feel excited about what you’re expressing, believe me, people will get bored and disinterested in your proposition.
How do you write engagingly?
Have a conversation with your readers. Present information in short, digestible bites. Strategically use single words. Use a mix of short and long paragraphs. Ask questions. Instill doubt. Alarm them. Invoke a sense of urgency. Reassure them. Make them feel as if someone is sitting right in front of them and talking to them.
7. You don’t just write for money
There are many content writers who approach me and when I suggest that they should hone their skills by writing regularly even when they are not getting paid, they don’t pay attention. They want to spend their time writing only when there is a prospect of being paid.
Consider any art, or even any sport. If you are an athlete, do you practice only when a major event is approaching, or do you practice every day even when no one is there to appreciate your effort?
If you are the singer, do you sing only when you have an audience in front of you, or when you are being paid for your talent, or do you practice every day? Can you even sing at the performance level if you don’t practice every day? Fat chance.
Nonserious content writers think that since they know how to write, they will be able to write whenever they are offered a paid assignment.
A great content writer knows that just like any other skill, writing skills must be honed daily. You must write everyday whether you’re being paid or not. Whether you want to write or not, you must write because you know this is a skill that you value from your heart.
Writing should be a labor of love, not a forced occupation. If you cannot write without getting paid, you won’t be able to write better when you are being paid.
As you have read above, being a great content writer doesn’t mean that you simply need to write impeccable sentences and paragraphs and you should be able to use grandiloquent words and phrases. You can write very short sentences. You can use very basic words. Still you can be a great content writer if you empathize with your readers, write in a conversational manner, are able to find the right information, and can use the appropriate technological tools.
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.
Should you write content for visitors or keywords?
We don’t live in an ideal world. In an ideal world, one would solely write content for the visitors. In the non-ideal world that we live in, aside from writing content for the visitors and customers, one also needs to write content to generate search engine traffic.
In fact, most of the clients who approach me, want to prioritize getting traffic from search engines over writing content that would help their own customers and clients. Somehow, they believe that if they get people to their websites, they will magically convert.
The problem with this approach is two-pronged: by the time you realize there’s a problem it’s often too late, and it’s a self-defeating exercise.
You are achieving nothing when you are completely focusing on the keywords. The keywords are not some magical enchantments that will open the floodgates of riches and affluence. They are simply queries that people use to find information they are looking for.
Am I saying that you should completely ignore keywords? I’m not saying that you should completely ignore them but let them be an integral part of your content. For example, if you select the right topic and then you focus on the topic and you focus on delivering the value, you are automatically going to cover the main keyword associated with the topic.
The problem arises when in order to cover as many keywords as possible in a single blog post or web page, we end up cramming too much content and needless actions.
Content publishing on an ongoing basis is simply unavoidable. Whether you realize it or not, or you realize it when it’s too late, or maybe you never realize it, there is no escape from regular content publishing.
The simple logic behind this is, just like you want to increase your visibility and draw people to your website, there are hundreds of other businesses having the same objective, or nearly about the same objective (if they don’t provide exactly the same business as yours, but more or less the same).
This means they are constantly pumping new content into the web. Whether your prospective customers and clients are trying to find you on Google or on social media, your content is going to have to compete with thousands of other web pages and blog posts. Thousands of pieces of content are constantly being added on a daily basis. Hence, if you don’t update your website or blog with new content, with fresh content, your website is going to get buried under a ton of new content.
Therefore, don’t worry much about creating and writing content around keywords. Let keywords be covered automatically when you write lots of content to help your visitors. Write and publish lots of valuable content. Your keywords are taken care of automatically.
Is it fine to turn away certain content writing clients?
Just now came across this interesting post on Copyblogger – Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Your Current Client? – that says that it isn’t always prudent to cling to a client, especially when he or she is creating a toxic environment.
How do I decide whether I want to work with a client or not? To be frank, it is often difficult to let go of a client with whom I have been working for a few months. There was some initial spark and that’s why we could survive beyond the initial documents.
It’s like a messy relationship – you feel committed, and you feel that it would be a failure on your part if you let things fall apart easily. Besides, it is difficult to see a source of money going away – one bird in your hand is better than two birds in the bush.
The post on Copyblogger rightly says that if you are providing a service like content writing or copywriting, you are constantly improving. Which means that a year ago if you were accepting clients matching your expertise back then, right now you need to accept clients that match your expertise now.
This is also important because if you’re still working with clients who hired you last year based on your expertise back then, they are still going to treat you like a less experienced content writer. Even if they grudgingly admit that you’re much better than you were last year, it will be difficult to make them pay you more.
According to the author, here are some reasons why you should stop working with a particular client:
He or she doesn’t respect your time.
He or she doesn’t recognise the extra effort you are putting to give your best.
He or she is paying far less than what you deserve.
Coming back to my own question: do I sometimes refuse to work with certain clients?
Yes, I definitely do, just as some clients decide not to work with me.
I like to work on projects where my work is appreciated not for the heck of satisfying my ego, but where I really contribute. Even if I contribute and my client does not realize that I’m contributing, this is not a good situation to be in, and I politely bow out.
As far as I can control, I never sully my relationships with people, because you never know the situation on the other side. I remember there was a client last year who talked very gruffly when I presented a counterargument. I was wary of moving forward but we were amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and I was taking many decisions that I wouldn’t take in normal times. I continued communicating with him and stuck to my argument. I told him that I would take full advance before committing. He paid double the amount I was asking for, giving me double the work we had initially talked about.
I have an hourly target. Whether I’m charging an hourly rate, per document, or per word, by the end of the project, I must reach my hourly target. If I exceed my hourly target, well and good, but if I don’t, it no longer remains an attractive proposition for me, and I refuse to work. I don’t hide this fact. I let it be known to the client that although I’m interested in the project, remuneration -wise, it is not feasible for me. Some understand, some don’t.
