Tag Archives: Unique Content

How to find your content writing voice

Leave a reply
Finding your content writing voice

It isn’t just about website content, no matter what you are writing, you need to have a unique “voice”. What might that be? It is sort of a signature tune. When you hear a signature tune you can immediately recognize which song or movie it belongs to. Something similar happens with writing. When you read something, you should be able to make out who is writing this. In Hindi film music (mostly Bollywood) I can immediately recognize music composed by Naushad, RD Buran and the greatest among all, Madan Mohan. Among writers, I think I can recognize Garcia and to an extent also Charles Dickens.

Of course when it comes to content writing what it basically means is – having your own voice – expressing yourself in a language that you normally use when you talk to people. It gives you a natural flow and it also helps you make a connection with your readers.

Here is what you can do to find your content writing voice:

  • Don’t try to impress, at least not always: Trying to impress people can be cute sometimes, but it may stop you from remaining focused on your central message. Always remember that it’s the message that you intend to communicate that’s important and then, the impact that you make. Don’t use superfluous words and phraseology that is not only difficult to pronounce (verbally as well as mentally) but also difficult to comprehend – this breaks the flow and the person may leave your website altogether.
  • Avoid writing with search engine optimization in your mind: I’m not saying totally ignore the guidelines provided by search engine companies, but don’t bog yourself down with how many keywords you should use, what should be the frequency and such. I cover this aspect in this blog post titled Are you still creating content for machines?
  • Address the core issues faced by your prospective customers and clients: You need to empathise with them. You need to understand why they are coming to your website or your blog? What do they seek? Remember that nobody comes to your website or blog simply for the heck of it. They may stumble into your content unintentionally but if that is the case, they will leave within a couple of seconds. So provide answers in a clear, convincing manner.
  • Talk to your readers: This is something that I have already mentioned above but it deserves to be repeated as a separate point. Use conversational writing as much as possible. It doesn’t mean you have to incorporate the F*** word every second sentence (amazingly some people can do this beautifully) but talk in a manner as if you are talking to a friend, a colleague or even your own kid (I sincerely hope you don’t use the F*** word with your kid and if you do, shame on you).
  • Don’t try to suppress your natural style: Sometimes we feel that there are certain words or certain expressions that we use a lot but this should not be expressed in writing. “You know?”, “Yeah, right”, “precisely”, may seem annoying but if you can naturally fit the day-to-day expressions they can become a part of your writing, rendering unique voice to you.

Why is it important to find your content writing voice?

There are many reasons. The most important reason is that you are able to connect better when you write in a natural manner as if you are speaking to people. A holistic reason is that every person in this world is unique and we all have our unique ways of expressing ourselves. In order to stand out, you need to be unique (this sounds hackneyed, I know) and a great way of being unique is using your own writing voice rather than copying someone else. Just imagine, millions of webpages and blog posts are being added every day; how do people recognize you if you sound like everybody else?

Image source

What’s newsjacking and how to use it for your business

Leave a reply

It is the age of content (there I go with the cliché) and if your business isn’t producing enough content it is probably being beaten by another business which is producing enough content. And it isn’t just about enough content, your content needs to be highly compelling, interesting, entertaining and useful.

How do you come up with content with such attributes on a regular basis? You cannot keep on writing tutorials and informative articles and blog posts all the time because sooner or later either you will run out of topics or your audience will get bored – it’s only so much they can learn. So how do you go on producing content without sounding trite? You leverage newsjacking.

News is happening all around you. Something new is always happening. New products are being launched, there is a new scandal in Hollywood or Bollywood (the Indian film industry, primarily Hindi), a new cure for an age-old disease is showing promising results, new services are being introduced, algorithmic changes are happening at Google and other search engines, a new “cute cat” or “laughing baby” video is going viral, some fight has broken up somewhere, an international economic conference is going on somewhere else, and so on. Thousands of things are happening in the world. Newsjacking means piggybacking on that news in order to create content for your own business. You will need to be smart, perceptive and of course, creative. Once you develop a knack for it, you will find it quite easy.

A real-world example of newsjacking

As we live in the times of relentless content publishing will also live in the times of cyclones, extreme climatic conditions and storms. Suppose there is a major cyclone building up and during the initial built-up you can easily make out that it is going to be a big news. As a food chain business how can you generate content surrounding this alarming news?

You can make arrangements for free food and shelter in your various strategically shortlisted outlets during the cyclone, publish a blog post explaining the arrangements that you have made and then promote this blog post as much as possible. You can also create multiple blog posts on how to stock food and keep it from spoiling during such emergencies. You can post recipes that can be prepared with little effort. You can write about foods that give energy and nutrition for a long time. You can also prepare a list of foods that give the body warmth during a blizzard or such happening. Once you start writing, you will notice there is lots of stuff you can write about.

The right way of using newsjacking

The relevance of any news is in its timeliness. Establish a system that you can receive relevant news on time so that you can start preparing content preferably before it becomes big news. The first benefit is that you will be publishing something unique and the second benefit is, since there will be a dearth of links, more and more people will be linking to you as a reference rather than mainstream news agencies.

How to help your business stand out with unique content

Leave a reply

importance of unique content

First of all let me make it clear that “unique content” doesn’t mean that you have to get your content writing topics from another galaxy. In many cases multiple people have already written about the topic you are about to write. It becomes unique when you write on it from your perspective, from your point of view, the way it affects your business. That’s what makes it unique.

Publishing unique content on a regular basis

Publishing content – whether you’re doing it on your website or your business blog – regularly is an integral part of your short-term and long-term content marketing strategy. There shouldn’t be long delays in publishing new content. The problem is not writing and publishing, the problem is coming up with unique content ideas non-stop. How do they do that? How do successful bloggers and publishers come up with totally unique ideas day after day, week after week, month after month, and amazingly, year after year?

Whether it’s difficult or easy, it depends on your level of involvement. My personal experience has been, when I am eagerly seeking out new content writing ideas, I get them, and when I don’t, it becomes very hard to write something interesting and unique.

How unique content helps your business stand out

The usual stuff isn’t much interesting. People don’t share it, people don’t seek it and people don’t talk about it.

But does it mean I cannot write on a topic like “How to create killer headlines for your blog posts?” because every copywriter, content writer and blogger on the World Wide Web has had something to say on it?

Not necessarily.

Even if the topic has been beaten to pulp you can still make it unique by giving it your touch and applying your business philosophy on it.

In India there is a corporate motivational guru called Shiv Khera and one of his famous taglines is, “Leaders don’t do different things, they do things differently”.

Normally I don’t relate to this tagline much because I believe doing different things is as important as just being different, but in this context, it can help you create unique content if you present it differently, and by differently I don’t mean simply changing the vocabulary of the article or the blog post, but giving it a twist that only you can give.

Remember that when you’re creating content you want to make an impact. If you’re writing it for your customers and clients, they need to see the inherent message and grasp it in the right manner.

Let’s come back to “How to create killer headlines for your blog posts?”

Normally you would have a bulleted list on how to create great headlines. Now consider these headlines:

  • Increase your conversion rate by 400% with your headlines
  • Your blog headlines can make or break your online business
  • The money is in the headlines
  • No compelling headlines? Forget doing business

In these three headline options we are basically talking about the same thing – the importance of creating compelling headlines but we’re using different contexts to attract different readers. Some readers would want to know how they can improve their conversion rate, some would like to know how critical they are for the survival of their business, and so on.

You can go on and on. You can talk about the importance of headlines for hospitality business, for a web design business, for a business consulting business, basically everything under the sun.

Add context, write in your own unique style, make it relevant to your readers and you have got yourself unique content that can help your business stand out.