Tag Archives: Quality Content Writing

How to write original content for content marketing

Getting original content writing ideas

One of the biggest problems faced by people wanting to use content marketing as their main marketing tool, is writing and producing original content.

Original content in itself doesn’t help you much unless it really resonates with your audience – audience that will eventually do business with you.

So, for successful content marketing, you need original content, and also relevant content.

For the sake of brevity, in this blog post when I talk about writing original content, I also mean writing relevant content (this goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway).

Writing and publishing original content shouldn’t seem like a big challenge. You just need to have a strong desire to communicate to your visitors.

For this, you really need to know what you want to talk about.

Have a clearly-defined objective for your content marketing

This is one of the best ways of writing original content. If you have a clearly-defined objective for your content marketing, every piece of content has a meaning.

What do you want to achieve with your content marketing?

You want to grow your business with content marketing

Of course, you’re going to say that you want to grow your business. You want to attract more customers and clients.

That is the end result.

Customers and clients don’t come to you just because you are open for business.

Rains don’t come because they have to water your farms. They come when the clouds reach a region where the temperature is lower and clouds can turn into water.

Many factors collectively work to bring people to your business, make them trust you and then make them become your paying customers and clients.

Content marketing is for these factors. People becoming your customers and clients is just a by-product of these factors coming together to act together.

For companies like Amazon and Apple, it is loyalty and brand presence. People want to buy an iPhone because they want to associate with the brand (aside from the fact that iPhones are awesome).

Recently I purchased a OnePlus mobile phone because one, my sister-in-law is a travel blogger and she has been quite happy with the pictures that she clicks with her OnePlus. And two, the company has built a community around its brand, just the way Apple has been able to.

I needed a mobile phone with a good camera, and many people vouch for its camera on YouTube and various blogs.

I haven’t bought their phone just because they have a phone or even because they have a quality phone (many mobile phone companies have quality phones); I have bought because directly or indirectly, so many people have told me that buying their mobile phone is a good deal. I’ve discovered, it actually is, but that’s another story.

Through their content marketing, OnePlus has attracted people who are looking for a mobile phone with more than average-quality camera. Of course, they’re not lying, the camera is actually good, but then again, as I said, there are many mobile phones with equally good cameras.

The difference is, the company has seeded lots of content that primarily focuses on its good quality camera. This is the audience they have been drawing to their brand.

Interestingly, when I went to buy the phone from a local electronics showroom, the sales man very forcibly tried to sell me an LG mobile phone which, he claimed, has a better camera and in fact, at that moment, it did look to be better than the OnePlus model that I had gone to purchase, but I had read nothing about the LG model. In fact, I rarely come across blog posts and YouTube videos on LG Mobile phones, so, I had no information. At one point, I got so exasperated that I told the salesman that I was going to go back without buying any phone, only then he backed down.

You can find numerous blog posts and YouTube videos where people compare the OnePlus camera with the camera of Google Pixel, iPhone, and many other phones, and then conclude that the OnePlus camera is the best.

So, maybe that was their objective.

For writing original content, it is very important to have a well-defined objective for your content marketing. The moment you have an objective, you can have a long list of topics you want to cover whether you want to write blog posts or create videos.

Provide solutions to problems people actually face, for original content writing

Whenever people access your content, make sure that they learn something that they cannot learn somewhere else.

Of course, the Internet brims with quality content but when you try to solve the problem according to your point of view, you introduce a unique perspective. Your unique perspective will be hard to find on other websites and platforms.

Write content with your unique perspective

Developing your own style also helps. Even if the topics that you are covering have been covered by pretty much everyone, you can always write about topics in your own unique style.

Maybe you are humorous. Cynical. Sarcastic. Scholarly.

Never think that a particular writing style is unacceptable (I’m not suggesting you hurt people’s feelings). But definitely develop your own style.

Focus on quality and not quantity

Publishing a well-written, original piece of content in a week is much better than publishing five pieces of mediocre content in a week.

Focus on quality content writing

When you focus on quantity, when you are in a hurry to cover as many keywords as possible, you lose your focus.

Remember that your objective is not to cover every possible keyword combination.

Your purpose is to provide valuable, engaging content that helps people. It should solve a purpose. People should go back after having taken something.

Solving a purpose is also important for improving your search engine rankings. If people don’t find your content useful, they will immediately leave your website or blog, and this in turn increases your bounce rate, signaling to Google that your website doesn’t have useful content and hence, your rankings should be reduced.

Research other blogs and websites and see what’s missing

I’m not suggesting that you nit-pick. Remember that your audience is unique and hence, its needs too are unique that are perhaps, being ignored by other publishers.

Find something that is missing in other blog posts and videos

Try to find out something useful that is not being covered by your competitors, and then write about it.

Put your energies into doing research for original content writing

Research is something not many are good at. For some, it’s very hard work. For some, even if hard work is fine, it is difficult to find the right data and insight.

Do research for original content writing

Research takes time. This is why, don’t be in a hurry to publish a blog post or an article.

Sure, on many content marketing blogs you read that you must have a publishing calendar and once your have it, you must make sure you stick to it.

Sticking to a content publishing calendar makes sense if you have a big content marketing team and different team members can contribute to different aspects of your content.

But if you are a small business, even if it takes an extra week or two to finish a research-packed blog post or an ebook, don’t rush.

Yes, I repeatedly recommend that you should publish content regularly, but what I mean is, keep publishing content, one topic after another, but don’t insist that if you have decided that you are going to post a blog post on Monday then no matter, what you are going to post it on Monday (unless it is time-critical).

If you want to use good research data, it’s ok if Monday becomes Tuesday and Tuesday becomes Wednesday, really.

Rewrite already written content in your own language

Yes, there is nothing wrong in that. As long as you’re not plagiarizing, there is nothing wrong in rewriting existing content and then adding your own take to it. Remember that everything should be original. Not even a single sentence or paragraph should match that of the original blog post or article.

You can rewrite existing content

Why is it fine to rewrite already published content?

I don’t recommend that you do it all the time because then, you will never be able to come up with your own content. This is just to keep the muscles of your content marketing moving. Publishing something is always better than publishing nothing.

When you are rewriting great blog posts, suddenly ideas begin to hit you and you will be surprised to know that you yourself are getting some ideas to write about.

Maintain an ideas repository for original content writing

Ideas come at odd times and when they come, you should be able to save them, preserve them.

Save and organize when new content writing ideas come

These days I’m using OneNote from Microsoft. Surprisingly, it is better than Evernote. But you can also use Google Keep.

The basic idea is, you must have a place where you can quickly jot down writing ideas. Make sure that it is easier to retrieve the ideas when you need them and this is why I recommend something like OneNote.

In OneNote you can create a notebook (something like, content marketing), and then within the notebook you can create sections (something like, the medium you would like to cover – blog, guest blogging, social media) and then within a section, you can create pages (blog topics and research material).

But ultimately it depends on what you are comfortable in. You can also use a conventional notepad. You can also use a recording app on your mobile phone.

Just make sure whenever an idea comes to you, you are able to save it.

Use content aggregators to get original content writing ideas

For example, I use Google Alerts to get alerts in my inbox when content on content marketing appears on the web.

I also use Medium, Twitter and Flipboard to get content writing ideas. The LinkedIn newsletter is also very useful. Although I’m not as regular as I would like to be, these are very good sources and even spending 10 minutes can give you lots of original content writing ideas.

When you talk of originality, I’m not much concerned about search engine rankings because rankings are very unpredictable. Lots of lousy content still comes up in search results even after many algorithm updates.

Here is another link on A guide to creating amazing content: 5 tips to crafting useful content, from Search Engine Journal.

Contrary to what I have written above, this blog post from Search Journal recommends that you put your energies into focusing on SEO cornerstone content – writing blog posts and articles that give you ranking #1 in SERPs for your chosen keywords.

What is cornerstone content? Something like the “ultimate guide”. It is very comprehensive. It covers the topic represented by your main keyword. It is long lasting. It is going to get you targeted traffic for a very long time.

For my own, this blog post, I haven’t focused much on the SEO aspect of writing original content because improving your search engine rankings should be a long-term strategy, and not something that is to be achieved by writing lots of poor quality articles and blog posts.

The value of the original content is its ability to help you build your readership and consequently, loyalty. When people like your content, they want to do business with you. Even if they don’t want to do business with you, if you want them to promote your content, they readily do it because they have been benefiting from it, and in that process, they help you build your brand presence, which gets you business.

My content writing process for different niches

My content writing process

Content writing process explained

Here is the process I follow when writing content for different niches:

Submit content writing samples

Once I receive a query and the client shows interest in my content writing services, I submit appropriate samples.

Over the years I have written for many niches. Most of the times I have a live sample (active links) that I can share with my client.

What happens if I don’t have a sample?

I request the client to give me a topic and I prepare a write up of around 300 words. This is enough to give an idea to the client how I will be writing and how I present my idea.

The sample often gives an insight on my writing style, my presentation, text formatting and research abilities, if needed.

Take an advance for my content writing services

Once the client finds the sample/samples acceptable, I request an advance.

If it is a small project – one blog post, one web page, or one email marketing campaign – I take full advance.

If it is a medium-sized project – 5-10 pieces of content – I take a 50% advance.

For larger projects, I take a commitment money and after that, I may charge every month.

Why I take an advance?

When I start working on a project, I will be committing my time.

I need to make sure that the time that I’m spending, I will be spending on a paid assignment.

Charging an advance also raises stakes on the client side.

They respond faster. They are more committed. There is greater cooperation.

Do background reading

This helps me set the tone.

Different industries have different languages and different styles.

They even have different concerns.

Though, sometimes the budget available for a particular content writing project doesn’t give enough scope for extensive reading, depending on how much payment I’m getting, reading is an essential part of the content writing process.

Reading helps you understand how people write in the industry and how I can write better.

Understand the concerns of the end customers and clients

Content writing is basically for end customers and clients.

If you are a web design company and if I’m writing for you, I’m writing for your clients.

They should be able to understand how they will benefit if they hire your web design services.

A content writing process is not complete without understanding the needs of the end customers and clients.

Similarly, if you are a jewelry seller and I write for you, I will write keeping in mind the needs and desires of your customers who will buy jewelry from you after reading your content.

Make a list of primary and secondary keywords

Keywords are not just for SEO.

They also help you write for the target audience using the language the target audience prefers.

When you have a list of primary and longtail keywords, it gives you an idea of what terms to focus on while writing content.

Of course, using primary and secondary keywords is also good for your SEO.

Write the first draft of the first document

I first create the outline.

Crafting an outline is important if a document is long: 1500-2000 words.

Otherwise everything goes haywire.

I write all the subheadings first.

I make a list of all the important points that I would like to cover.

I also write phrases and expressions that my client doesn’t want me to miss in the document.

Since the first document sets the tone and also gives an idea to the client how I’m going to approach the project, a lot depends on the first document.

I prepare the first draft and send it to the client for approval. This is where the core part of the content writing process kicks in.

The client can suggest changes and I try to incorporate those changes as soon as possible so that the main project can be kickstarted.

After evaluating the first document, the client can also decide whether he or she would like to continue with me or explore other options.

Submit the document for review

The review of the first document is one of the most important parts of my content writing process.

The review of the first document sets the tone of the remaining documents.

It is very important for the client to properly go through the first draft and suggest revisions, if any.

Based on the suggestions made by the client, I revise the document.

I move forward only when the first document is approved by the client and he or she is satisfied.

Work on the remaining documents

While working on the first document I gather as much information as possible about the project.

Once the client is happy and satisfied with the first document, I proceed with other documents.

Most of the clients prefer to get the documents as they are completed so that in case there is some problem, it can be sorted out.

I also prefer this because then psychologically, I’m always on my toes and I don’t leave all the documents to the last couple of days.

Concluding remarks on my content writing process

Ultimately, it rests on the client whether he or she wants to work with me or not, whatever is my content writing process.

Sometimes, I can quickly make out whether I myself want to work on a project or not and I communicate this to the client.

Fortunately, most of the serious clients (clients who convert and eagerly pay) have already gone through my samples.

They have also gone through my website and my blog.

They are convinced that I can write for them even if initially they think I need to educate myself about their business, which I obviously do.

Increase lead generation with effective content writing

Direct relationship between effective content writing and lead generation

When people don’t want to buy immediately, they’re looking for information.

They want information that can help them decide.

Sometimes they don’t even know what they are looking for: they simply know that they have a problem. They know they need a solution, but they don’t know what is the right solution.

Looking for a solution, they come to your website. They find a solution.

If they were looking for an answer, they find it on your website.

This is how effective content writing works.

They haven’t yet made up their minds, but they really like the content that you have published on your website. They get the idea that you know your stuff.

They would like to keep in touch. They would even like to contact you for more details about how they can use your product or service or how your product or service can solve their problem. They become your leads.

This, is where your content writing plays a very crucial role.

Read How to improve your content writing by properly understanding your customers.

When someone comes to your website, published words do all the talking.

Whether you have written a single word, a single sentence, a single paragraph or 1500 words explaining why the visitor should do business with you, it is your writing, your text, that is solely responsible for generating leads and getting you new customers.

If your content writing doesn’t impress your visitors, they go away without reading even a single sentence.

Your entire lead generation process goes for a toss.

If your writing is not good – if the style is uninspiring and there are lots of grammar and spelling mistakes – they think you are unprofessional and hence, shouldn’t be trusted with their business.

If your writing is good but it doesn’t provide what your visitors are looking for, they go somewhere else.

If your content misleads them into visiting your website, they leave immediately, making a note that they never come back, and also warn the others.

Again, it’s your content writing that keeps them on your website, and communicates to them your intent.

How to write effectively to generate more leads?

How does effective content writing help you generate leads?

The entire purpose of having text on your website is to provide solutions to people’s problems.

When your prospective customers or clients come to your website, they expect that you

Understand their problem
Have a solution to their problem

Your writing shouldn’t act as your advocate.

Your writing should act as your prospective customers’ and clients’ advocate.

Address their need. Put them at rest immediately.

Let them know you’ve got the solution to their problem.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when writing content for lead generation.

Define a clear persona

Defining a persona – the ideal person you are writing for – allows you to write for a person you understand.

It’s easy to write in a conversational style when you know whom you are talking to.

Understand what sort of person would like to buy your product or service.

A particular persona may have the following attributes:

Income
Age
Gender
Nationality/region
Occupation/business/designation
Marital status
Language comfort
Other specifics related to your business

Having a persona is like the person is sitting in front of you and you are talking to him or her.

When you write in a conversational style, your visitors feel as if you are talking to them.

They become more comfortable.

They are more amenable to absorbing your message, paying attention to it, and responding to it.

Even your messaging is more targeted when you write for a pre-defined persona.

Keep your web pages and blog posts narrowly focused.

If possible, provide one solution, one answer per link.

Don’t try to cram multiple issues into one URL.

For multiple topics create multiple web pages or blog posts. If those web pages or blog posts already exist, link to them.

When you focus on a single topic your readers feel contented.

They come looking for a particular answer, a particular solution, and they find that solution on that link.

If you handle multiple topics in one go, it confuses people.

In confusion, or when they are overwhelmed, they leave your website.

On many web pages and blog posts I’ve observed, just to be able to create very long pieces of content, writers and publishers cram lots of information on a single link.

They will have charts and graphs and scores of paragraphs and they go on and on until the reader is exasperated.

If I want to improve my search engine rankings, I don’t want to see 15 charts and graphs of how many people want to improve their search engine rankings. Just give me the damn information if you have it.

This is why, it is very important to clearly define the propose of the web page or the blog post you are about to create.

What do you want your visitor to achieve by the time he or she has gone through this particular piece of content.?

For example, once you have read this blog post, I want you to learn how to generate more leads on your website or blog with effective content writing.

Convince your visitors that high-quality content publishing on your website is an ongoing thing

Why would people leave their contact details if they don’t expect to hear from you again?

I don’t say leave them hanging, but whenever you are solving problems for them, tell them that you can solve more problems and hence, you should be able to keep in touch with them.

At every opportunity let them know that you publish quality content regularly and they shouldn’t miss any of it.

Tell them that you send out offers that shouldn’t be missed.

Let it be known to them the benefits enjoyed by your other mailing list subscribers.

There should be multiple call-to-action elements prompting your visitors to either contact you or subscribe to your mailing list.

Write in a language people use to seek you out

A nice way to know what language and expressions people use is to track your traffic using some analytics software.

You can use the Google Search Console (previously known as Google’s Webmasters Tools) to track what keywords and search terms bring people to your website.

Then you use these keywords and search terms to create more content on your website or blog.

People respond better if they find content that is written in a language they are comfortable in.

Avoid jargons and very difficult words that people don’t use in their day-to day lives.

So, basically, these are the traits of effective content writing for enhanced lead generation:

Conversational writing style
Using language used by your visitors
Providing precise answers to precise questions
Solving people’s problems without trusting your business agenda down their throats
Using call to action at appropriate places

Please remember that effective content writing for lead generation is not a one-off activity.

Stick to quality content writing.

What is quality content and how does Google recognize it?

Why should you bother how Google defines or recognizes quality content?

Although there are multiple search engines in the world Google sends you the most traffic. So, this is why it matters to you how Google defines or recognizes quality content and then ranks your content accordingly.

As you can see in the chart below, almost 90% of the search market is dominated by Google whereas other “major” search engines like Bing, Yahoo! and even Baidu, have more or less remained at the bottom.

But carefully note the red line representing Google at the top. If you notice, there is a slight downward slant. Although it is still miles ahead of its competitors, it is losing market. Since most of its revenue comes from search advertising, even a small drop in the share of search traffic means a lot to Google.

So there are two reasons why you should bother how Google defines quality content:

Most of your search traffic comes from Google
Google would tenaciously like to hold onto its market dominance by continuing to provide quality content through searches

If Google is unable to find quality content – no matter how it defines it – people will move on to other search engines.

Give Google quality content and Google will rank your website or blog higher

This is not completely true, but it is indisputable that Google will only rank you higher if you have quality content on your website or blog. I have personally experienced that quality content alone doesn’t help you much unless you have tons of it. There are many other factors that affect your ranks including:

The quality of your content, of course
The frequency with which you publish content (the greater the frequency, the better the rankings)
The quantity of quality content that you already have
The age of your domain
The keywords and search terms that you use in the title tag and the headlines
The number of authority websites linking to your content
The social validation your content gets (how many people share your content on social networking websites)
The popularity of your content

A cocktail of these reasons gives you better search engine rankings but all these reasons originate from the fact that you need to have quality content.

Read How to strike a balance between SEO and quality content writing

If you don’t have quality content nobody is going to bother about it and if they don’t bother about it, they won’t share it, they won’t link to it and your content won’t get validation. Without getting social validation, it is very difficult to enjoy good search engine rankings no matter how much quality content you have (although it does have some benefits).

In fact, Google wants quality content so much that it has even created a tutorial on how you can create quality, valuable content.

How does Google define quality content and then ranks it accordingly?

To understand how Google defines quality content, again, you need to understand why Google craves for quality content and not for every type of content irrespective of what its quality is.

Why do you use Google and not another search engine? There might be two reasons:

You are not aware of the existence of any other search engine
You believe that Google gives you the best results for your searches

It’s the second reason that keeps Google hungry for quality content. Whenever you do a search on Google, Google wants to find you the best results. If it doesn’t find you the best results, gradually some other search engine will, and you will move on to that search engine.

This is why among the most brilliant minds on earth working at Google are constantly creating algorithms to find quality content on the Internet.

Now that we know why you need to bother with how Google defines or recognizes quality content and why Google craves quality content, we can come to the topic of how Google defines quality content.

Listed below are the examples of inferior content, according to Google:

Scrapped content
Thin content (Read What is thin content according to Google? Does it harm your SEO?)
Doorway pages
Pages and blog posts senselessly stuffed with your keywords
Webpages and blog posts solely created to draw traffic with no value
Content containing hidden text or links
Cloaking
Automatically generated text strings
Content lifted as it is from other websites and blogs

The folks at Google dislike inferior content or low-quality content so much that they penalize your website by lowering its rankings or worse, completely removing your links from its index.

You may also like to read quality content guidelines straightaway from Google.

Listed below are a few factors that Google uses to define quality content:

Write content for your users not merely for search engines.
Provide information people are actually looking for – don’t mislead people by deceptive titles.
If possible write expert-level content. According to this Search Engine Journal blog post, Google’s human raters as well as algorithms can distinguish between content written by an amateur and content written by a pro.
Become a resource. Link to high quality content from other websites and blogs. Cite reputed publications like the New York Times and Time whenever possible. When you come across quality content on other websites, refer to it from your own website.
Publish fresh content as much as possible. Google is ravenous about fresh content. It crawls your website or blog repeatedly, sometimes multiple times a day to check whether you have published something new. Though, publishing with great frequency doesn’t mean you compromise on quality content. Publish less, but definitely stick to quality.
Abundantly use images and videos. It enhances your presentation and it has been observed that the top 10 ranked sites in Google search results normally have around 6-8 images.
Deliver what you promise in your web page title. Misleading titles attract penalty from Google. Your page title and content should always match.
Create lengthy posts and webpages. Since it is difficult to create long content, and if you are publishing lots of long content, the Google algorithm assumes that you are publishing quality content. Longer blog posts and articles also tend to have lots of information and useful images.

These are the factors using which Google defines quality content. These factors may not play a crucial role all the time at the same time, a majority of these factors are considered when Google tries to assess whether you are publishing quality content or not.

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