What is Involved in Content Writing?
Written information you see online is content that somebody wrote. Most content writing is targeted to help businesses with visibility and growth. Good content writers create interesting blogs, emails and articles which answer people’s questions and solve problems for them. This can be in a B2B or B2C context.
The best content writers analyze who is interested in the product or service a client offers and what information these people are looking for or would find helpful. Some of this analysis info will be provided by the client and some will be readily apparent by the type of business or service the client provides. A lot of information about what people are looking for and who is looking can be deduced from search engine queries and other research tools.
By marrying keyword queries to powerful, well-written content that answers people’s questions and solves their problems while also telling a good story, a skilled content writer can make a huge difference in your business growth.
Good Web Content Can Provide a Valuable Service That Nobody Else is Providing
Some businesses serve a wide and varied demographic. For instance, if you are a nationwide department store chain you appeal to just about everybody. However, you may want to target your gardening section marketing to homeowners. A good content strategy is to provide gardening tips in a regular blog and also through a free email which people can sign up for on your website. Gardening is a huge topic, so you may want to start by focusing on gardening information that nobody else is providing such as which popular plants do poorly in a particular region or how to save a particular plant that isn’t doing well.
Your content will vary depending on who would be interested in your product, service, or the information you’re offering. When you’re analyzing what content strategy will provide the best ROI, you must remember that people are swamped with information and have many distractions to divert their attention. An excellent web writing strategy is to find a targeted niche where there’s an information vacuum. What is lacking that no other company is providing? This is your opportunity to step into the gap and provide the info that some people need.
In a recent blog, One Thing is Killing Content Marketing and Everyone is Ignoring It, founder of the Content Marketing Institute Joe Pulizzi writes that providing content for a targeted audience isn’t enough. You need to fill a need by narrowing the group of people you are targeting with a marketing campaign and then finding a niche where nobody else is providing information on a relevant topic of interest to this group.
One Crucial Content Writing Skill is Seizing Every Opportunity to Tell a Good Story
Storytelling has been driving people’s understanding of the world we live in, their beliefs, and their decisions for millennia. No tool is more powerful to connect to people on an emotional level and help them to understand a difficult concept or even maybe ingest helpful info that is not in itself interesting than to relay information by telling a good story. A good example of using storytelling to relay a business concept is this blog, Go All In where Derek Halpern likens focused strategy for achieving an objective to a game of Texas Hold ‘Em.
The art of telling a good story involves looking beyond the obvious to an underlying reality where two things that are not apparently related can be related, like playing poker and making a business decision. People will remember your brand if they associate it with a good story. Imagine people who are looking for information to solve a problem. You can translate somebody who clicks on your link from the everyday world of doing a problem-solving chore into a fictional world such as playing poker where things are fun and interesting. The story can appeal to people on emotional and cognitive levels that they may not be aware of.
Kohlben Vodden, the founder of Story Science, has studied the science behind why people share web content. Kohlben is featured in this article by Rebecca Sentance in Search Engine Watch: The Science Behind Shareable Content. According to Kohlben we now have scientific research to back up truths that storytellers have known instinctively for thousands of years. The theory is that people will click on a link which is targeted to evoke strong emotions, and share such stories via social media.
When analyzing your goals to formulate a content strategy you should understand what purpose the content will serve and the purpose should be one that fills a need. Whatever the purpose your web content should be told in the most interesting way and organized into the most useful format that’s easy for users to navigate.
At High Ranking Content our SEO content writers are passionate, highly skilled storytellers. We combine research, analysis and storytelling to create the most powerful, appealing and memorable content possible; because no matter what your topic is, web content doesn’t ever have to be boring.