Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Why good content is necessary

Sep 27, 2005 No Comments »

It’s been now more than two years I’ve been writing content for various websites, and I still feel most webmasters do not consider content as important as the layout of the website. It’s evident from the way they want to pay measly for the content writing services, and sometimes don’t even deem it fit to pay even if the content writer has delivered the work.
This reminds me of the days when people used to have websites just for the heck of it — “it’s a silly thing, but my client abroad wants to see it,” a client told me once about his need to have a website for his export company.
Content writing is at its nascent state. The situation is not as daunting as it was a year ago. I get to work with clients who really understand and appreciate the significance of the written word on their websites, and hence, are eager to pay good for it. They know the expense is justified considering the return they are going to get.
This is what Frederick Turner thinks of content — The substantive or meaningful part: “The brain is hungry not for method but for content, especially content which contains generalizations that are powerful, precise, and explicit.”
Content is the meat of your website due to the following reasons:
The more they read, the more they trust
When a visitor comes to your website, unless she really knows you, she is full of apprehensions, and it is so natural. No matter how cool your website is, the crux of the matter is, it is faceless and silent. It’s like arriving at a super-age spaceship that has no humans in it. Only your words can allay her doubts, only your words can convey that you are a real person, only your words can explain to her what you are selling and why it would be good for her to purchase what you are selling. Your words comfort her and sooth her. On whichever page she is, she gets to read something that answers one or the other question she might be having. It feels good when you get answers to your questions, isn’t it?
The more she reads, the more she knows about you and your organization. The familiarity ushers a comfort (it also breeds contempt but that’s an entirely different issue) level. Even if she doesn’t buy, she remembers. I have a personal experience: a few months ago I visited someone’s website by chance. I think I was led to his website by some search engine result. Although he wasn’t offering what I was looking for, I loved the way he had written (or got it written, whatever) the content of his main landing page, and although at that moment I didn’t need to be there, I read the entire thing. After a few weeks another search led me to his website, and this time he was selling something that I didn’t need immediately, but may need it in the future. I remembered loving what he had written, and I also liked what I was reading currently. He seemed to be a nice, trusting person. He seemed to be in possession of lots of knowledge and wisdom. His words said he was going to be around for a long time. I bought the product. His content sold me something I didn’t even need at that time (I still haven’t used that thing but don’t regret buying it).
Words have been one of the greatest inventions of the human race. One should use them optimally.
Search Engines look for content
If you have noticed, recently your search results have been improving when you look for terms on Google, Yahoo! etc. The search engine algorithms are putting more and more emphasis on the relevancy of the written content of your website. This is a step in the right direction both for the search engine robots and for the human beings. After all, if you are searching for a specific terms or a key phrase, you need information specific to that keyword. You don’t need unnecessary pages coming at the top. If a website contains lots of good content that talks about your search keywords, it is going to be rated higher. So if you sell shoes and your website has lots of content regarding shoes, your website is going to be ranked higher than, let us say, even Adidas for that matter. It’s like democracy at its fullest glory.
The more keywords-centric content you have, the better is your chance of getting a higher ranking once a search is conducted by your prospective customer or client.
Lots of interlinking
Lots of pages having good content on your website mean lots of good pages linking back to your main page. You already know it is important that pages having good content link back to your main page. The search engines think, and rightly so, that if pages having good content link back to your website, then your website must be relevant. Also, if your page has some useful information, other webmasters too put that page’s link on their websites. Soon you have this massive interlinked network.
In the end I would say, it’s not about having lots of content, it’s about having relevant content. If you have relevant, optimized and well-meaning textual content, your visitors read it, the search engines find it, and the webmasters link to it. If the content is not good, your visitors don’t read it, the search engines can’t make out what you’re trying to say and hence ignore it, and the webmasters don’t link back to it. It’s such a simple logic.

Relevence of relevent content

Sep 24, 2005 No Comments »

Search engines actively and regularly seek new content. As more and more search engine algorithms evolve into complex, human-centric logics, they seek content that is relevant to the search conducted by the surfer. They also want to present freshly updated content to their users. Google sends out its ‘freshbot’ spider to gather and index new material from all the sites which offer it.
But why do search engines want to offer fresh, relevant content to their users? The search engine market is growing at a great pace, and Google has proven that if a search engine gives its users what they are looking for, surfers use that search engine again and again, meaning more business for the search engine. If you found the same old content whenever you conducted searches, would you use that search engine with regularity? No. You’ll go where you can find something new, something fresh, something relevant. These days search engines take their users very seriously. They take the content of your website very seriously therefore.
Since all searches (at least 98%) are text based searches, it matters a lot what text your web pages contain. For instance, if you’re selling desktop images for mobile phone users, you should have lots of information on “desktop images for mobile phones” scattered all over your website. These words shouldn’t be splattered around nonsensically…they should appear in the proper context, only then they are relevant. The search engine robots are so smart that they can recognize the needless spamming of keywords and key phrases. They have developed this strange knack for knowing which pages shows relevant content and which does not.
So if you want join, or remain in the race for high rankings in the search results in the search engines, you should take the freshness and the relevancy of your content damn seriously. The following points explain to you how you can keep your content regularly updated and relevant.
POST REGULAR NEWS
Something or the other keeps happening to your online business that seems worthy of turning into some interesting content. You got a new project? Some employee quit? Some employee joined? You upgraded your office furniture or your computer hardware? There was an accident on the road in front of your office building? The dove couple in the ventilator just hatched eggs and increased their family?
KEEP RELEVANT CONTENT UPDATED
When you are providing a service or selling a product, you constantly change the parameters. You add new features and you upgrade the existing ones. There might be other things happening in the similar field that you’d like your customers and clients to be aware of. Mention that on your website.
MANAGE A BULLETIN BOARD
A bulletin board is an unlimited source of updated relevant content, especially once it buzzes with activity. If can successfully orchestrate lively and relevant discussions, there will be no dearth of participants, and consequently, there will be no dearth of relevant and updated content.
POST ARTICLES REGULARLY
Articles are a treasure trove of information and you should have plenty of them on your website. A good thing about having articles at your website is, if your articles are centered around your product or service, your relevant keywords and key phrases appear in them with greater frequency. In fact, online articles are attaining so much information that many webmasters pay me to write articles for their websites.
ARCHIVE YOUR ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
If you publish a regular e-newsletter, you can have an archives section where you can upload all the past, present and the upcoming issues. Your e-newsletter mostly carried lots of information regarding your field so it is a good source of periodic relevant content.
MAINTAIN A BLOG
Ah! The current sensation! Even the neighborhood dog seems to be running his blog these days. Jokes apart, blogs are a powerful tool that helps you keep your website easily updated. You can read more about what is a weblog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog. You can either manually maintain a blog or use software like MovableType, WordPress or Blogger.
Finally, fresh and relevant content keeps your website competitive because without such content your website will certainly down the search engine listings and hence loose business. Additionally, having something new keeps visitors coming back and attracts potential customers.

Deciding not to take up work

Sep 13, 2005 No Comments »

The following thoughts were triggered by this post. Today in the morning somebody called to get some content written. Since I mostly go to bed at 5 am, when he called I was wafting in the dreamland. He drawled his first sentence: “I stumbled upon this website of yours that says you write this content stuff.”
“Yes I do,” I said. “I write content for websites.”
“How much do you charge?” he asked.
“It depends on the scale of the project because different projects require different time and skill commitments.”
“Well, come to our office and we’ll see if we can give you some work,” he said.
“I’m sorry but I’m not looking for new work, and specially from within the city,” I said.
He put the phone down, a bit taken a back I guess.
You must think what I was up to, and if this is my attitude towards new clients, then how do I conduct my business? Well, believe me; I have this knack for smelling clients who are going to be a sheer wastage of time. 100%, and I mean 100% of the time, whenever a client has called me to his or her office, I have lost money instead of earning it. I’m a web content writer and I mostly, not mostly because sometimes there are calls to, but mostly by emails and chat messengers (and also Skype and GoogleTalk). You want a web page written, send me the specifications and I’ll write it. What’s the purpose of my coming to your office, first spending hours on the road and then waiting for you in the office when at that time I can write content for some other client? As it is I have lots of things to do. Most of my clients realize this.

The Title of Your Web Page

Sep 11, 2005 No Comments »

I have often observed (I go to various websites just to see what all is happening) that people pay scant regard to the title of their web pages. I’m talking about the text string that comes between the tags <title> and </title>. Contrary to what many SEO experts claim, most search engines still consider the title an important indicator of what exists on your web page. And this is so logical. Take for instance the title of your job — the thing you do to earn money. Doesn’t your title tell what you do, what is your designation?
Similarly, the title of a web page tells the search engines what lies ahead. They tell the search engines, and also your visitor, what purpose your web page solves. If you search for a keyword, let’s say in Google, you’ll observe that the text of the web page’s title too appears in the result. You should very carefully formulate the title text of your web page.

Hiring a Good Content Writer

Sep 10, 2005 No Comments »

What all should you take under consideration while looking for a content writer? Well, there are content writers and there are content writers. First of all, a content writer should definitely also be a good writer. Hiring a good writer makes sure that the person already comes with the right tools. If your content writer is a good writer too, he or she will have to spend less time on coming up with right words and expressions, consequently spending more time on the style and the message.
So the first most thing is: your content writer should be a good writer too. After this comes his or her experience. Yes, we have those school dropouts looking cool and making hordes of money on the Internet, but by the end of the day, it pays to hire someone with decent experience. Experience solves two purposes: it gives you a comprehensive idea of how diversely the content writer can handle different projects, writing skills and subjects, and it makes sure your content writer has already done lots of writing (hence, have already learnt by trial error) and brings to you a package of wisdom.
These two things having taken care of, see how busy or free your content writer is. Too busy means he or she won’t be able to do justice (well, it differs from person to person, so don’t take this advise at its face value) to your work, and too free means not many people like to hire him or her. There should be a balance. The content writer can be as busy as he or she feels like, as long as you are getting enough time worth your money.
See how your content writer responds. Does he or she takes two days to get back to you each time you send a query, or do you get a response within a few hours, or rather, within an hour. Fast responders are generally efficient workers too.
Finally, the rate. This too, depends from person to person. An experienced content writer who writes well will obviously charge more than someone who hasn’t done much work. There is no hard and fast rule actually. You can pay very low and still get excellent content due to the vast reach of the Internet. Good content writers are scattered all over the world and you can take your pick if you are ready to do some research. In this regard, let your budget, and your requirement be the guidance force.
Choosing a good content writer is as important as choosing a good web development and marketing team. Creating a website is a one time affair, but it is after all your content that addresses the basic needs of your visitors and makes then do business with you.