content writing services

How to maintain a content writing schedule

Once you have decided that publishing content on your blog or website is critical to the success of your business you need to maintain a well-defined content writing and publishing schedule. But why do you need a content writing schedule?

I wouldn’t exactly call it a problem but the problem with content writing to promote your business is that it doesn’t show results immediately. When you keep publishing content you begin to feel an effect after a couple of months and it can be very difficult to continuously do something when you know that you are not going to benefit from it in the near future. This becomes more difficult if you need to take out time or budget at the expense of another business activity that can manifest an earlier result. I totally understand the compulsion of putting content writing and publishing on the back burner in order to take care of the imminent necessities.

Even if you outsource your content writing requirement you may need to spend at least some time figuring out exactly what you want. Additionally you will have to pay the person who is writing content for you and you might think why spend money on this activity?

Nonetheless, you neglect content publishing at the cost of your business because if your competitors are doing this they are definitely at an advantage and you must already be lagging behind if they have been publishing regular content for a while now.

It is not necessary to run a tight schedule when it comes to writing content and getting it published under your website or blog. The crucial point here is setting a rhythm. Cannot publish everyday? No problem, publish every alternative day. Cannot achieve even that? Fine, publish something once in a week. Some sort of weekly content is better than having no content at all. You need targeted content to improve your search engine rankings, increase direct traffic from social media and other websites, and above all, improve your conversion rate. You don’t need to rush. Focus on the most important first. What are the topics that can make a quick impact on your bottom line? Make a list of keywords and search terms you would like to get more traffic for and start generating content around them. If you’re working with the content writer you can discuss with him or her what content you immediately require, and then accordingly you can draw up your content writing schedule.

As mentioned above, start with the most important and try not to miss the scheduled postings. Avoid being ambitious in the beginning if you know you’re not going into content writing and content publishing in a big way. Gradually, as you observe your business growing you can increase the intensity and frequency of your content publishing strategy.

Why you should outsource your content writing services needs

Because I provide content writing services? Although this is a perfectly valid reason I am sure you’re going to look upon it with a tinge of cynicism and I can perfectly understand. It has to be some other, solid reason, the reason that affects you directly, or in the long run.

OK, let’s talk about this from your angle: why should you outsource your content writing services needs? You don’t write content as a profession, right? I mean, you might be providing IT services, real estate consulting services, dentistry, or selling a wide array of products and services, but you’re not offering content writing services (if you are, it would seem a bit awkward if I advised you to outsource your content writing and content marketing needs). Even if you can write quite well there is a big difference between “able to write well” and actually coming up with professionally written content that can fetch you business or increase your search engine rankings. This is more so difficult if you require repetitive content: you can either focus on your business or work on creating newer, fresh content for your website or blog.

Of course you can hire an in-house content writer and there is no problem in that. It’s just that, hiring an employee can increase your operational costs and it might be a bit difficult and sensitive to replace him or her in case he or she does not deliver. You might end up spending money on hiring the content writer, arranging space for him or her, availing resources like computer and software and furniture and then chucking him or her out and hiring another one in case things don’t work out.

Outsourcing your writing and content marketing job to an independent content writer (yours truly, for instance) is comparatively much cheaper and less risky, contrary to popular perception. You pay for only what you get. If you just need, say, 20 web pages written, there is no use hiring an in-house content writer or a copywriter. Even if you need regular content think how much you can save by not hiring an in-house content writer. You don’t need to pay the agency that sends the content writer to you. You don’t need to arrange separate computer and software. You are not using your office space or space at your home. You don’t need extra furniture to accommodate a new employee. You don’t need to worry about payroll and taxes. And you can easily replace your content writer in case you’re not happy with the content writer to whom you are currently outsourcing your content writing needs.

Above all, if you’re slightly careful about selecting your content writer you suddenly come across an experienced person who must have written for hundreds of clients prior to writing for you. Let us cut to the chase and talk about my content writing services. I have been providing professional content and copywriting services since 2003. You can easily imagine for how many clients I must have worked and on how many topics I must have written or worked with my writers. You cannot get this range of experience and exposure from a person whom you hire exclusively for yourself. I have been doing business on the Internet since early 2002 (I was providing web design and development services) so when you work with me you don’t just get writing services you also get the benefit of my experience and knowledge that I have gained throughout these years.

And I’m not saying that only I have this kind of advantage. There are many independent content writers earning a very decent living on the Internet through their websites, and in fact, many are quite good at attracting tons of traffic to their websites through their content.

So do outsource your content writing and content marketing needs whenever they arise because it makes business sense. But spend some time trying to find a good content writing service because otherwise — as it can happen with any other service — you may end up having a bad experience and this will leave a lasting negative experience upon your psyche and you will discourage others too from outsourcing services. I have seen this happening.

Overcoming the “So What?” problem while writing content

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.

Focused content writing actually means SEO

What exactly does SEO (search engine optimization) mean? It means generating and organizing your online content in such a manner that search engines can appropriately rank it for the related keywords and key phrases. If you are writing a page on providing content writing services or blog writing services then the search engines should be able to rank that page higher on the SERPs (search engine result pages).

Of course your source code must be free of unnecessary clutter and you must have the right information in your meta tags, but the real SEO juice comes from your content — what you are writing to describe your message. It’s important to know what keywords and expressions must be used and avoided; you don’t want to rank higher for all the wrong keywords (there is no harm in it but that traffic gives you a false sense satisfaction and that might be bad for your marketing efforts).

So decide on the topic, make a list of the words you must use to describe that topic and then start writing. Talk about the subject and try to focus on it — the search engines prefer focused, targeted content. Just be careful not to overdo it. There is a very thin line between keyword stuffing and optimized content.

When do you need content writing services?

When exactly do you need content writing services? When you need professional results out of professional writing. Websites no longer remain the way they used to be a few years ago. With the onslaught of blogging and social media websites, those 12-page websites are no longer viable. You constantly need to publish high-quality content on your website as well as your blog to give enough fodder to search engines and social media enthusiasts. No website can dream of succeeding today without publishing good content persistently.

A content writing service can provide you quality content on an ongoing basis at a great rate. Is it expensive? Depends on what sort of service you are looking for. Most content writing services — especially the ones operating from India, the Philippines, China, etc. — come quite cheap and they even provide great content, but I don’t promote myself as a provider of "cheap content writing services" per se.

I do provide bulk content writing at quite low rates but the quality is not good. It goes without saying that even low-rate content comes with spelling and grammatical errors. I do understand that the real benefit of hiring a content writing service is that you can get good-quality content continuously without feeling the pinch and that is why I’m constantly trying to find out ways to provide bulk content writing services at highly competitive rates. This involves closely working with writers that can write a lot in less time because the faster you can write, the more you can earn without charging much. Working on that.

OK, so coming back to the main question:

Why do you need content writing services?

Here are a few reasons:

• You need good-quality content on an ongoing basis. As I said, it does you no good to just have 12-20 pages on your website and then wait for the business to pour in. A lot of search engine traffic is lapped up by websites that constantly publish new content, because basically that is what the search engines are looking for. They crawl and index millions of pages on daily basis to make sure their users don’t get stale content every time they search for a particular topic.
• You want to improve your search engine rankings. Suppose you are a professional content writer working alone or running a service. With thousand of websites providing the same service, how do the search engines know that your website must be highlighted when people are looking for a good content writing service? They go through your various pages and then evaluate your significance both according to quantity as well as quality. Lots of content definitely improves your keyword density and also increases long tail traffic to your website.
• You want to run a successful blog. Your blog not only improves your search engine rankings it also helps you establish your authority. If you continuously publish useful posts (related to the theme of your business or passion, of course) you develop a dedicated fan base that eventually gives you loyal customers and clients. Some also prefer to sell advertising once their blog traffic picks up.
• You want to increase traffic from social media and social bookmarking websites. Content thrives a lot on social media and social networking websites. If people find your links useful they love to promote it and bookmark it.

Well-written content is the backbone of the entire Internet activity. May it be videos, images or text, it’s basically content that gets promoted and consumed. As a writer, for me what matters is the written content, and fortunately for me and other content writing services providers, it’s the written content that rules the roost.

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