Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Making an impact with your content

Aug 06, 2008 4 Comments »

For a few months I have been thinking about trying to create as much unique content on this blog as possible. Creating unique content certainly doesn’t mean not participating in the conversation; when you participate in conversations – writing content based on what’s being published on other blogs, websites, online forums and micro-blogging platforms – in one way or another you end up writing content that makes you feel as if you’ve already read this. Take for instance blogging; every kid in the neighborhood is writing about blogging and disseminating oracular tutorials on how to publish blogs, promote them and unleash the gigantic waves of success. I too publish lots of posts on blogging because this is the subject I enjoy writing about and over a period of time have gleaned some knowledge about.

Uniqueness is one of the ways of making an impact with your content. I will be writing more on this topic later on. Right now I want to share some thoughts on how to make an impact with your content.

Your content needs to be highly useful

It is an indisputable fact that in order to make an impact you need to offer something that is extremely useful. Don’t bother if the same thing is being offered by other bloggers and website publishers because your visitors might not be visiting those websites and they may be totally dependent upon you for their content needs.

Being useful doesn’t always mean that it should help people earn money or improve their behavioral problems. If your visitors visit your blog to get a good laugh then your content that makes them laugh is highly useful to them. Similarly if they want to see great examples of photography and if your blog publishes exquisite photographs then you are being highly useful. The moment you begin to satisfy the fundamental need of your visitors you become useful to them and they keep coming to your blog or website. You make an impact if they make an extra effort to keep abreast with the happenings at your blog or your website.

Make a difference

Lately I have been visiting lots of environment and alternative energy blogs. They publish great information on how to improve the environment and use alternative energy sources to curb global warming and pollution. There are many other blogs that constantly publish information related to the field of poverty alleviation, rehabilitation, disability, world peace, prevention of cruelty to animals, wildlife preservation and many other worthy causes. The content on their blogs and websites is constantly making an impact.

In order to make an impact through your content your need not follow a templated advice. Just think about what your visitors need and provide it to them in the friendliest manner.

Creating Unique Blog Content

Jul 23, 2008 3 Comments »

It is really very difficult to come across totally unique content on the Internet, especially on blogs. The definition of unique content may differ from topic to topic but it more or less means content that is very difficult to find on other sources and at the same time it is highly useful, relevant, or topical.

Creating totally unique content is not possible always because when you are blogging you are mostly talking about things that other people, the bloggers are talking about. Even your visitors would like to know what your take is on the subjects generally being discussed on other blogs. The key expression here is “your take”; what you have to say, what you have to add. This is a big reason why lists are becoming big bores on various blogs, even on the “A-list” blogs because these lists have nothing unique to say. They are either pointing out things that have been said thousands of times by thousands of other people or they simply linking to things that have already been said thousands of times by thousands of other people.

Again, you can say the same old thing but with a different perspective in order to be unique. This way people will come to your blog just because they know you’re going to say your own thing on the topic; that what you are saying is totally unique to you. This uniqueness can be your style, the examples you use, the way you write and the links you link to. In order to generate unique content you have to come out of the herd mentality: just be yourself and don’t follow all the suggestions copiously thrown around by different “expert” bloggers.

Okay, being different, being unique, and not following trends does not mean you devoid yourself of benefits of following some well proven methodologies for success. For instance it is highly advisable that you create compelling titles for your blog posts and organize your blog content under various headings and subheadings. Now, this is not just a suggestion, it is common sense. Titles do entice us especially if they cater to our sensibilities and headings and subheadings do help you organize your thoughts properly.

Generating unique content for every successive blog post is normally not possible but among five blog posts at least one should be totally unique – totally your own, unadulterated perspective and point of view.

Unique content also helps you target niche audience because the more you focus on less common content the more targeted your audience becomes.

Writing a good blog post

Jul 08, 2008 3 Comments »

I was preparing a quote for a new blogging assignment and while preparing the quote I was explaining to the client who intends to hire me what makes a good blog post. At that point I thought will also share my thoughts on this on my blog. So here are a few things that make your blog post a good blog post (the opinion may differ from blog to blog but it can be generally acceptable):

Make your blog post interesting and topical

I think this goes without saying. People are not going to read your blog posts if they are not interested and they will only be interested if you can offer something interesting. By “interesting” I mean something that is highly relevant, that is current, that is useful, that is realistically useful, and that is topical. Current topics, garnished with your own personal opinion, are generally great in bringing more and more people to your blog. I will quickly like to add here that more people reading your blog post does not make your blog post good; the entire goodness exists in the relevancy of your blog post.

Pay attention to the title and headings

Titles and headings make it easier for the reader to quickly go through your blog post. After all one has to visit scores of blogs in a day and a post that goes on and on and on quickly sends the less interested visitors away. A good way of keeping them hooked to your current blog post is highlighting the relevant portions and expressions with the help of headings. The title is what gets them initially interested and the headings keep them reading your blog post. A well-defined title can get you good rankings on the search engine result pages. Your headings are like orientation tools. Once you know what is there in the paragraph you can read that paragraph faster. Therefore if there is heading over a paragraph it is a lot easier to read that paragraph or at least skim through it.

Keep your blog posts short if possible

Although personally I have nothing against long blog posts — in fact sometimes even I write pretty long blog posts – keep the length of your blog post as much as there is requirement. Don’t unnecessarily increase the length of your blog posts because your readers are intelligent enough to see through if you have got nothing solid to say.

Organize your main thoughts in bulleted lists

It seems everybody loves bulleted lists on the Internet and they come highly recommended. In fact the bulleted lists are so relevant that even search engines take them into consideration while ranking your web pages and blog posts according to the related keywords. So if you think that you can write your thoughts in bulleted lists instead of a paragraph then use bulleted lists. They not only reduce the size of your blog post they also make it easier to read.

Stick to your fundamental theme

Don’t try to cover everything under the sun; people come to your blog to read on a particular topic and preferably on a topic you specialize in. So if you are a web designer it is better that your blog posts deal with web designing rather than cooking macaroni, although sometimes you can do that to keep things interesting.

Instill passion into your blog posts

This is a must; write only if you believe in it and if you believe in it then people will be able to perceive the underlying passion and passion is always powerful.

Selecting targeted keywords for your content

Jun 22, 2008 3 Comments »

A visitor in this comment asked me to write a blog post on selecting targeted keywords so here are my thoughts on the topic.

Careful keyword targeting can help you boost you search engine rankings. I’m not saying manipulating your content so that your pages rank higher on search engines; the sole purpose of your website content is to provide helpful and relevant information to your visitors and even search engine crawlers are looking for that quality when they are going to your website or blog. Nonetheless, it helps to know what keywords to target while generating your content simply because it can help you promote the right content in front of the right audience.

Selecting targeted keywords is not as cryptic as it sounds. Do your own research. When you are thinking about your keywords don’t think like a person who is designing the website or writing the content. Think like a person who wants to find what you can offer. How would he or she search for the type of content you are generating for your blog or website? What keywords or expressions would you use so that you make sure that you find this sort of content? It may also help if you can make out what sort of people you want to attract through search engines. Do they understand jargons? Are they techies or non-techies? This is because different people will look for the same thing using different words according to their background and preferences.

For instance, I provide online copywriting services; some people find my website by searching for "content writer" because they are familiar with the word "content" and some people simply look for a "website writer" because they are looking for a writer for a website (it is as simple as that). So if I don’t optimize my content for both sorts of expressions and many more expressions I will be losing (I do, in fact and I am trying to bridge this gap these days) customers who would have really loved to hire me had they been able to find me.

Finding the right keywords to target through your content comes with time, and sometimes you can also use tools like WordTracker and AdWords to find out all possible keyword combinations for your content. I find the AdWords tool more effective.

As a side note, it is better to focus on longer search strings rather than shorter keywords because people do use long expressions on the search engines. For instance someone may try to find me with "writer for my pottery website". It is easier to rank higher for longer search strings and in fact it is better to start your content optimization campaign with longer expressions so that you get at least that traffic and then later on you can start building content for more competitive, shorter search expressions or keywords.

How to have unique content?

May 13, 2008 No Comments »

Unique content on the Internet has become sort of a cliché. It’s very difficult to get 100% unique content on your blog or website because the moment you’ve picked a topic to write about, the access to publishing being so (fortunately) easy on the Internet, somebody has already said something about the topic, and sometimes scores of people have presented their takes on the topic.

But there can be one thing that is unique: your voice and style, and above all, your opinion. That is something that helps you stand apart. Opinion is something that differentiates an expert writer from a casual writer.

How to form that opinion? By gaining information; fortunately, that too is quite easy on the Internet, since so many people are writing on the same topic, most of the time. While choosing a topic, think about how much it resonates with your interest and intention. By writing on that topic, what do you intend to achieve? Are you writing on it merely because you see everybody writing on it, or you’ve really got something to add to the ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas, or you want to expand your horizon of knowledge by researching and writing the topic? Or you simply want to share your wisdom with your visitors and help them improve their lives?

Once you have figured out why you want to write on the topic then you can decide what approach to follow. Whatever is the reason, you have to form an opinion. Go to other blogs and forums and read what others are saying. Are they absolutely right, partially right, a bit wrong, or way out of the line? If so, why? When you can think of a why, you’ve got an opinion, and once you’ve got an opinion, you’ll automatically voice it using the right words, and this will make your content unique.