It is your content that brings traffic to your website and keeps bringing it on an ongoing basis. But is it all about having content? I have observed many websites and blogs simply publishing content in order to get traffic and create buzz. This may or may not work: it depends on what you are trying to promote. in most of the cases it doesn’t. You may get “tons of traffic” but this traffic doesn’t turn into revenue. It will only give you an ego boost.

What your website needs is targeted content. As a business website it is prudent to publish two types of content:

• Business content
• Educational content

Business content promotes your business. It tells your visitors why they should do business with you. it is a mix of sales pitch and information. The sole purpose of your business content is to convince your visitors into doing business with you.

Educational content — although it too can promote your business — normally educates your visitors about your product or service. It doesn’t need to be in tutorials format. You can create engaging blog posts in which you can explain how your customers and clients can benefit by using your product or service and you can also handle issues that they may face while or before using your product or service.

But you may think how the usual business and educational content becomes attractive enough to draw visitors from search engines and social media and networking websites on an ongoing basis. no, it’s not an easy task to achieve. You will need to be very creative. But the effort is worthwhile. You need to realize that the purpose of generating and publishing content on your website and blog is not to generate lots of random traffic; its purpose is to generate business for you and if it is not doing that — directly or indirectly — then you are simply wasting your time and resources. keep few pages or blog posts but try to make them as effective as possible. Keep your audience in mind when you are thinking of titles and keywords and key phrases.

Creating a list of probable titles and search terms helps to choose the right content for your website because it helps you focus and target better.

What’s your content basically? It’s your presence, especially on the Internet. People know you not just because you are there, they know you because of what you have to say about your business, your core expertise, and the world in general. Your content gives you a presence. It’s like your circle of your influence, and without influence, there is no social media presence.

When you publish content on your website or blog – thought-provoking content – you begin to make an impression. People either respect you for what you have to say, or they differ. Both the feelings create in their minds an imprint. The more you publish, the more they remember you. They begin to respect your knowledge. They begin to relate to you. They carefully follow your advise and opinion. Even if they disagree it means to an extent they’re paying attention to what you are saying. Then they write about your opinions on their own blogs and websites, or they share your links with their friends to may be seek further opinion. This is how people begin to recognize you.

Brands and people who have done well on social media and networking websites haven’t done so by merely appearing there all of a sudden one day. They are already recognized names. Since they are recognized, people eager follow them, they eagerly listen to them.

The point is, if you are a Sachin Tendulkar or a Britney Spears you just have to let the news out that you have created a social media presence. In a few minutes you’ll have 100s of 1000s of fans and followers. You are already a known name. You have already made a presence in people’s mind with your other efforts (here, cricket and singing).

You have to achieve the same thing with your content. Content is a great weapon. It makes people come to your blog and website again and again. You give people something to talk about, something to ponder over, something to put to use. This helps you strengthen your brand.

Money follows money and success follows success and this is how our world works (assuming you leverage the advantage). With strategic content publishing you create a recognizable presence, and then you leverage this recognition on social media marketing. By the time you launch your social presence, people already know you because of your content. In fact, they have eagerly been waiting for your social media presence.

So does this mean you don’t need to publish content if you are already a celebrity or if a few thousand people in your particular circle know you? Depends on where you are placed. There are well-known brands on Twitter, well-known artists, well-known writers, singers, journalists, politicians, Internet marketers, programmers, etc. but they don’t just depend on their Twitter presence. They actually need to perform in their actual fields. A writer who does not write can’t do much on social media for long, and neither can a cricketer who doesn’t perform well on the field.

Social media marketing needs a backing and that backing can be provided by your content publishing. Whatever you need to promote, it can be promoted through social media, but the actual message exists in the form of content on your website or blog.

Yesterday I talked about why your business needs a blog, so today, let’s briefly talk about creating blog posts that produce real results. Now what do we mean by “real results”. For that you gotta figure out why you blog.

Are you simply blogging to improve your search engine rankings? Although there is nothing wrong in that, if you are blogging simply for SEO, you are missing the whole point of blogging. Blogging is a branding tool, it’s a communication means, SEO happens – a good thing though – as a byproduct. If you publish blog posts that can really help your visitors (they should return enriched) then you are automatically improving your search engine rankings.

Enough with the SEO gripe; if you want to create effective and impactful blog posts, there are two ways of achieving that:

• Following the herd
• Evolving your own, distinct style

Both these methods work. For instance, these days lots of blog posts are created in a list style, something like

• 5 sure shot ways of harassing your neighbors
• 10 social skills you shouldn’t try in public
• 55 jQuery plugins to totally destroy your website
• 7 psychopathic tendencies that make your baby adorable

…you get the drift.

These lists abound on the Internet, and they’re really great in terms of collating great information and presenting it without having to write well. I mean, you don’t need to stretch your writing skills much if you’re creating monosyllabic bullets.

Evolving your own style is difficult, but it’s a better way of embarking upon your blogventure. It gives you your own voice and renders you a unique personality.

Other than these, there are standard ways that help you create impactful blog posts:

Give enough time to a new idea

Stop having blog-post-publishing dreams as soon as you hit upon your great 21st century idea. Jot down the notes and prepare a draft. I don’t mean you should take hours preparing posts that can be prepared in 20 minutes, but if there is an idea that warrants some prolonged thinking, give it some time, even a few days. Remember that it’s not important how many posts you publish, but what’s the quality of those posts.

Create titles that draw attention

By reading your title your prospective reader should be able to make out precisely what you offer in your latest blog post. Learn from the “screaming” newspaper headlines. They are created so that you immediately grab the copy and start reading the news.

Your readers may come across your blog post title anywhere: on your blog, on a search engine result page, on another website or blog, or on a social media bookmarking or networking website. A dull, uninspiring headline is never going to make them click the link. But don’t mislead your readers; if your title offers chocolates, don’t give sugarcanes in the actual post.

Stick to a single topic

Handling a single subject has many benefits:

• It paves way for multiple blog posts
• One concept is easier to understand and remember
• It’s less confusing
• It’s more focused
• You can keep coming back to it to add more value
• It’s easier for your readers to save or bookmark your link under appropriate categories and tags

Offer a workable solution

Avoid offering probabilities, as anybody can do that. Offer solid solutions in your blog posts. When a reader leaves your blog, he or she should feel that, yes, the world is a bit better after reading your blog post. Providing solid solutions also encourages people to

• Bookmark your link
• Promote it on social media and networking websites
• Link to your blog post from their website, blogs and newsletters

Ask for opinion

Blowing your own horn after a while tends to get boring. There needs to be some involvement and engagement. Make your readers an active part of the thought process. Ask for opinion. Nudge them for a feedback. Question them, probe them, you can even incite them. Your every blog post should try to trigger a reaction.

OK, I have got only this much time for today’s post. Got some ideas for creating great blog posts? Share them in the comment section and I’ll include them here with a link back to your website or blog.

Hiring a website content writing service is one of the most critical decisions you ever make for your online business. It’s basically your content that gets — whether through search engines, directly, or through social media and networking websites — traffic to your website, and it’s your content that converts your visitors into paying customers and clients.

Rather than hiring full-time in-house content writers, most small and medium businesses prefer to hire a website content writing service because (read why you should outsource to a content writing service), aside from saving on time and effort, they can also avail world-class writers from across the globe without going through the pain of finding them, and then training them.

The Internet is a great tool, a gargantuan advantage. Just log on and you can find writing talent from every possible nook and corner of the world. This is also a disadvantage. Unlike in the brick-and-mortar business it takes less effort to get onto the Internet and start a business. No, I’m not saying it’s easier to do business on the Internet, just easier to start a business. Nonetheless, there are many businesses that somehow manage to get the initial push and somehow you happen to stumble upon them and end up doing business with them. But do they deliver? Only time, and their performance, can tell. The thing is, they might just be testing the waters, or playing around with a new “work from home” idea just in case it works, but you are into serious business. You have invested your sweat, money and talent into your business and a lot is at stake. You are not playing around with some idea or “this Internet thing”. You want real results.

That’s why it’s very important to hire your website content writing service with great care. But if you have never worked before with this service, how can you decide, how do you know doing business with this company can be a safe bet?

What to look for before hiring a content writing service

• For how long has your content writing service been in the business: You can easily find the age of the domain. Check out their blog archives (they have a blog, right?). Go through their online portfolio. If possible, check out their client websites and see how old the content over there is.
• How does the website look: Most of the established content writing services have well-designed websites. By well-designed I don’t mean they should have won awards for best layout and design, you can just feel it. If they take their business seriously, they should also take their website seriously, because they are supposed to be getting good business from the website.
• Does your website content writing service have a social media presence: This is not necessary but a service that’s active on the social media has a reputation to maintain. It takes lots of effort to build a brand on social media and networking websites. If they take their social media seriously, there is a great chance that they take their business seriously too.
• Do they have a blog: Now this is a must for a content writing service. Just imagine a service that offers blog content to you and does not publish a good-quality blog. A blog is not just a great communication and SEO tool it also manifests an open, progressive mentality. It shows you put in effort to regularly talk to your visitors and share with them your thoughts.
• What’s their quality of writing: This should logically be the first thing to consider.
• How many websites link back to your content writing service: Back links are not only good for SEO, they are also an indication of good quality. If their website enjoys lots of back links from other websites and blogs it means people like what they have on their website and also what they have been doing.
• What sort of testimonials do they have: Remember that many websites have testimonials that don’t seem real so you need to take testimonials with a pinch of salt, but reputed testimonials do matter. Be wary of testimonials not accompanies by website links. If they display big brand names and they themselves are not a very well-known name feel free to ask for direct links where their content can be seen.

Do you have your own consideration for hiring a competent content writing service? If yes, please share it in the comment section.

The dictionary defines strategy as “a series of maneuvers or executions performed in order to obtain a specific result or goal.” This pretty much explains what content strategy is, nonetheless, lets define it in the context of achieving your business goals.

Strategy basically involves:

• Where you’re coming from
• Where you’re going
• How you’re going

Most of us know (I’m talking about averagely intelligent and intelligent individuals) where we are coming from and where we want to go. How we are going to go is the tricky part, the core of your strategy.

Assessing the need for strategic content writing

Why do you need to publish content in the first place?

• To create buzz
• To build a community
• To inform

Both are very important. Buzz doesn’t just mean creating noise. It means generating traffic that eventually earns you revenue. Then, your content needs to convert and for this you need to impart the right information. If you want to hire my content writing and online copywriting services, I must inform you why it’s profitable to associate with me. With my content writing and copywriting skills I must be able to inform you and enable you to make an educated decision (in my favor, preferably).

What do you want to achieve through your content?

As mentioned above, you need content to generate traffic that converts. You can get this traffic directly through referrals and social networking websites or from search engines. Ideally, your content should

• Increase referral traffic to your website or blog
• Improve your search engine rankings
• Convert your visitors into business partners, customers, clients or subscribers
• Increase your brand awareness

Hence, content strategy means publishing and promoting your content in such a manner that it achieves the intended result for you. This may involve brainstorming on

• What sort of content you should publish?
• What medium must be used to publish the content?
• What keywords and key phrases you should focus on?
• What should be the publishing frequency?
• How should the visitors be engaged?
• How the content should be promoted?
• How to increase your conversion rate?

Image source: Global Girl

Don’t know what’s “So what?” problem? It’s when you write something seemingly great and your reader thinks, “So what, big deal!” Alright, there are some readers who have an insatiable penchant for being critical and they will criticize you no matter what, but you can drastically decrease the number of such reactions by devoting enough thought to what you are writing/publishing.

Why do readers reject outright what you have written?

• The information you have provided is of no real use
• The same information is available on hundreds of other websites and blogs
• People have been sharing the same “secret” since 1998, or may be since 1500 BC
• You are drawing wrong visitors to your website or blog (you are not creating optimized, seo-focused content)

What sort of content creates the “now this is something really great” effect?

• Your content reaches the target audience (or vice versa)
• You pack lots of information that can be used in the real world
• You are providing valuable information that is not easily available
• You are offering easily available information with an interesting twist

Is it always about informing and educating your readers?

Not always, but most of the times. You have to make sure your content solves your readers’ problem, that it provides a solution, that it delivers what your readers want. So what about content writing for businesses and corporate websites?

The same thing applies. If you are providing online copywriting services then you must (ideally) be attracting visitors that are looking for (or may need in the future) a competent copywriter. So if you say you’re a great online copywriter it’s not going to make much of an impact because there are thousands of “great” online copywriters on the Internet; in fact these days anybody who can type starts calling himself or herself a content writer or an online copywriter. Rather, you should immediately address your visitor’s problem (that’s why it’s advised you should have targeted pages) and offer the most apt solution.

Here’s a good blog post by Chris I cam across that talks about solving the “so what?” problem while publishing your content.

It doesn’t help if you already have lots of content and then you realize that you are not targeting the right keywords. Although no situation is hopeless you can save yourself lots of time, and money, if you define your SEO goals properly. Make a list of keywords and keyword phrases you’d like to incorporate and then start generating your content around them.

There is also a business benefit of clearly defining your SEO goals — it keeps you focused. You know what sort of content you require for your website and blog and what you should avoid; yes, misplaced content is bad for SEO.

How do you keep your content SEO-focused?

• Create titles with your keywords. Your page titles are very important. They appear in the search engine result pages as hyperlinks when people search for the relevant terms. People click more on the links that carry the search terms they’ve just used. Even when people promote your content on social networking websites or link your your pages and blog posts they normally copy/paste your title — this associates these keywords with your brand.
• Use your keywords and key phrases when communicating your ideas. This tells the search engines that you have lots of content associated with the search term being currently used. If you provide content writing services then you should be talking about this subject a lot on your blog or website. But do it naturally; there is no need to use your relevant keywords excessively — this gets you penalized by almost all search engines.
• Link to your other pages not just the home page. Your different pages contain different bits of information and whenever you feel a particular phrase can be linked to a page giving more information about that phrase, create a link. It makes it easier for the search engine crawlers to reach other pages and it also creases the relevancy of your less prominent pages.

The basic idea of creating SEO-focused content strategy is keeping you focused and help you focus on the right search terms.

We are perpetually talking about adding new content to your website or blog but there is another way of having fresh content, as explained in this blog post titled 6 ways to give your old content new life. Personally for me it’s quite difficult to sift through my old posts and articles and update them. Although this does not increase the quantity of content, when you update your existing content, you keep it relevant, and you give the search engines a reason to re-crawl and re-index your older blog posts and articles.

This way you don’t have to create new content each time you want to drive traffic from social networking websites. Simply update your existing content and repost the links.

It also helps you refine your content. Frankly, we’re are constantly learning and evolving. I’m pretty sure I write better than what I used to write a year ago (although I feel my fiction writing has deteriorated considerably) and if you feel you could have done a better job with that post you wrote on providing better content writing and blogging services, you can try again and sound more convincing.

Image source: arkworld

What makes your content writing effective? When it addresses exactly the issue faced by your reader. Whether you are writing a product description, a corporate profile, a blog entry, a tourist destination description, your whole agenda should be solving a problem, because once you solve a problem, you have delivered a solution, and everybody is looking for a solution.

But how does your content solve a problem if all you’re concerned about is help yourself or your client sell more? When you’re writing content for a website that needs to sell a product or a service, you need to take into consideration the following facts:

1. Does your reader really need that product or service and is simply exploring various options by visiting multiple websites?
2. Is your reader looking for a solution that can be provided by your product or service? (better anti-virus protection, or better search engine ranking)
3. Is your reader there just to read some interesting trivia and has no intention of ever buying your product or service?
4. Does your reader has no clue why or she is here and plans to go somewhere else within half a second?
5. What sort of readers do you actually want to attract, and if possible, convert?

The first thing to do is, forget about trying to provide a solution to all the categories…it’s simply not possible through a single page and on the very first visit. Your most important readers is of the second category, and then the first category? Why second category?

Primarily we’re solution-oriented people. Even if we’re buying something just for a fad, we need to believe that that product or service actually achieves that. The reader of the second category has a problem. He or she may not be bothered about what product or service he or she is going to buy, provided his or her problem is solved. So you have a good chance of selling to that reader.

Take for instance your reader’s need to rank higher on various search engines on a long-term basis without having to spend lots of money. An SEO company can improve his or her search engine rankings, but so can a trained content writer. So how can you sell your solution (higher search engine rankings) by offering your content writing services? Explain to your reader as clearly as possible how good content helps improve search engine rankings. You can use client testimonials, you can refer to other authoritative articles, and you can use your own skill as a communicator: the basic idea is providing a solution to your reader, a solution he or she can afford, and believe in convincingly.

That is why you’re repeatedly told that don’t highlight features, highlight benefits. Of course some people do find features appealing (explaining the features of a RAID drive to a nerd) but basically we want to know eventually what a particular product or service is going to achieve for us.

Here’s another post on empowering your visitors by publishing solution-oriented content.

Your small business needs a website because people are ditching their phone directories and local print publications in favor of online sources? The reality is, quickly opening a browser and conducting a search is so much easier than finding a directory and flipping through it’s voluminous pages. Almost all major search engines are pushing their local search features and if you are a small business serving your local market, then you are missing big time, as this article rightly puts, by not having a website for your business.

The advantages of a website are:

• It is always there, 24×7 and if you have enabled ecommerce features then people can shop on your website round-the-clock.
• All of a sudden you expand your market.
• There is no limit to what you want to say; you have all the space in the world.
• You can update your website whenever you feel like.
• You don’t have to maintain a physical inventory.
• …this list goes on and on.

The importance of website content

One of the greatest strengths of your website is of course, your content: what you say to your visitors. When it comes to your website, communication is of supreme importance. There are two primary reasons why most websites fail to generate business — they don’t have a well-defined business strategy and they don’t have good content.

Being a content writer/provider and an online copywriter this is the first thing I notice when I visit a new website — how well the inherent message is conveyed. You may decide to disagree, but your content can really make or break your business, because it’s the only way of communicating with your visitors. Although I may sound like saying this from writing point of view, content basically means anything you publish on your website: text, images, videos and audios. The written text may act as a primary communication tool, or a secondary communication tool. Many graphic designers and web designers for instance simply post visuals and don’t care much about textual information and it works for those who have already created a brand presence using their own contacts or social networking tools. But if you want to draw traffic from search engines then you must give serious thought to some well-crafted, targeted content.