Content Magician, Freelance web content writers

Archive for the ‘Content Development’ Category

by Lisa Mason

When it comes to writing articles, many of us find that we need to write them faster. Whether you are a freelance writer with client work, a stay at home mom or dad looking to earn some income selling your articles online or maybe an article marketer looking to promote your business, more articles = more opportunity.

You can’t get more articles if you don’t learn to write them faster. Most of us live really busy lives already. Some of you may even have full time jobs that you have to juggle. So getting more time to write may not cut it. Instead, you need to learn how to write more articles in the time you do have. The best way to do this is by writing faster articles.

Here are 5 ways to write faster articles:

1. Use article templates. There are many available or you can create them yourself and they will dramatically shorten your writing time.

2. Plan head for your articles. When you have the extra time, plan ahead for your articles and next time you sit down to write, they will go faster.

3. Use article mapping. This is a great way to plot out what you plan to write about and you can use it to chart your progress, too.

4. Time yourself writing one article and gradually get faster with it. Egg timers or stop watches are a great way to do this. Start by shortening a minute or two off your time and keep progressing until you write faster articles of the same quality.

5. Shorten your articles to be more precise. If you tend to write long winded articles, it’s a good idea to shorter them. Stick to a tight topic and if you want to say more, use a new article to do so.

I have to create content for my clients and also marketing articles for myself that stand out from the crowd, offer something unique and valuable to the reader and that don’t get buried amongst all the other regurgitated crap out there.

I have been frustrated before to have an article that I worked hard on and that I felt was very valuable to the reader get buried below hundreds of articles on similar topics that basically all sound the same.

When I offer my advice to other article writers, I always say “write as many as you can without losing quality”. For some, that may be 100 in 100 days, for someone else that may be 30 in 100 days.

You need more articles to keep up with the people who are trying to scheme the system by rewriting the same content over and over but you need to also offer something of value so that you stand out in the sea of “authors” as a true expert in your field.

Yet we still need to find a balance in quality and quantity. When writing more, you shouldn’t get sloppy in your writing or create poor articles. With these tips, you can write faster without sacrificing quality. Happy writing!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Mason is a freelance writer. with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet as well as two poetry anthologies and a how-to poetry book. She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content in her 10+ years as a professional writer.

Learning how to create content for your business website is fantastic but in order to see the results of your hard work, you need, first of all, patience. And then you need another dose of persistence. Just because you don’t see the result that your web content development strategy should be bringing you within the first few months, does not mean that it is a failure. There is no reason to find another plan yet.

What you need to do, instead, is to formulate a game plan and consistently perform research on the most searched related keyword, what your competitors are doing and what new ways you can employ to bring more traffic to your website. Yes, the information you gain from the research will, somehow, change your web content development strategy little by little but there is nothing constant in life. Everything changes, including your business and how you market it. And we are talking about the internet too – nothing changes faster than on the internet. One minute, twitter is the big thing, the next minute, something else is the big thing.

So, hang on to your web content development game plan.

You have to believe that the more content you develop for your business website, the more exposure you are gaining. And most search engines places importance on having links out there coming into your website. You need to develop that slowly. Every day, you pump new content into your website, one fine day, you are going to have enough web content in there to make big search engines like Google think that your website is worth a good ranking.

If you are not good at writing or creating content for your website, hire someone who can. It is an investment that will yield fantastic results in the long run. Every article that you create and post, is a new step in the right direction. Believe in that and move on slowly. One step at a time, one web content at a time.

You’ve got your content presented and ready for the market, and you’re marketing diligently. How do you know your content is being effective? That is the golden question, and one that’s very difficult to answer, simply because information marketing hits so many different places. Unless you ask your customers directly (which isn’t always practical), it’s hard to know how many times they were exposed to your content and from what directions. Your customers may not even know themselves.

So how can you tell if any one kind of content you’re using is as effective as it could be? The following tips may help:

Make a simple marketing chart

Your information content is meant to steer the market to buy what you’re providing. If you’ve communicated effectively, then purchases will happen. A simple chart with three columns can give you the general idea of whether or not you’re going in the right direction.

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At this point in time, when you’ve just started your website, you’re probably thinking about a SEO content development strategy that could help you secure a good position in your favorite search engine (it’s probably Google but I am not going to say just ONE single search engine because of locality). In order to bring in the traffic from search engines, you’ll need to have a strong SEO content development strategy that will work in multiple search engines, not just one and the person or company that hire to do this for you would have to be well-versed with multiple engines.

For example, in your plans, you’ll need to get someone to develop content thaT ATTRACTS not only search engines but is appealing to the readers as well. There is really no point in developing web content that brings in the search engines but not readers because REMEMBER, you’re trying to make money. The SEO content development strategy would be completely different if you were trying to make some money off of advertisements placed on a shell web template. If that is the case, it’s perfectly fine for you to stick to a singular strategy built for a single search engine. If you’re not, then here’s what you’ve got to do.

Your web content has got to be news-worthy. This is a no-brainer but even the best people in the SEO content development strategy industry tend to forget this in their quest to attract the search engines. Very few ever commits to or purchase from a website or business the first time they chances upon it. The trust comes in a couple of visits later. So, keep this in mind when working on your SEO content development strategy….you want it to stick a little the first time round.

Either hire multiple content writers or writers who can diversify. The purpose? It’s simple! Different types of content appeals to different people and considering the fact that you’re aiming at different sectors worked on by different personalities, it’s best if you diversify your SEO content development strategy a little to give yourself a little buffer. You don’t keep selling beef to a vegetarian, do you? So, this works the same way.

Reveal your own personality and get close to your readers. In your SEO content development strategy, make sure you get someone to get close to your readers. A decade back, a website is a faceless entity whereby information is freely dispensed. In today’s cyberspce, if you don’t have a personality or a face, it’s hard to win the war. Your competitors have blogs, facebook accounts, twitter, delicious and what-have-you-nots and you’ve got to be the same way if you want to connect with your readers. There’s really no way to get your customers to buy from you unless you’re amazon.com or a popular name in your industry. So, work your SEO content development strategy around that thought.

SEO content development strategy for regular publication of articles. You don’t do it one time and then hope for a huge amount of traffic. You do it consistently and persistently over time, regularly updating and pulling in the people and buying their trust. This is how an SEO content development strategy works now. Gone are the days whereby you write a basic web page content and let it do its work because they don’t work beyond being piled on by the multitude of page content in cyberspace. If you know how to hire an SEO content development strategy team, so do they and in order to get ahead of them, you’ve got to be persistent and patient.

There are no two ways about this, sadly.

Whenever someone writes up a content for their web page, they’re thinking, ALWAYS, about how many people are going to be seeing this thing. How many people are going to be READING the article….but how many, do you think, will think along the lines of ‘how many people will actually ACT and positively react to this article?’

It’s startling that even some really experienced internet marketers and freelance writers don’t look at the way people react to their online articles. All care and concerned is focused on keyword, keyword and keyword. And then it’s all about where is it on Google every month, every week and they hawk over the google pagerank…and THEN the site visits every day thinking again and again…how many people are reading this.

What we should be thinking about when we write up a web content is to think about the quality discussion, engagement and conversion (into fans or sale) because of that article. Isn’t THAT the ultimate deal in the first place…that your web content is converting your site visitors into customers? It’s really befuddling.

What some people do to convert their website visitors into customers is to put into a call to action. But this, at the end of the day relies on how credible people think you are based on your web content and how much you’ve written in that article to break past the resistance and skepticism to purchase from your website. A website does not have to have a million website visitors or ten thousand people who read the web content in order to make it big. Let’s face it, a small website can make tons more money than a high traffic website if the web traffic is good. It depends, as said, on the conversion rate, how you’ve established the connection with the website visitor with your web content and also how much effort you’ve put into the web content to convince them that you’re worth your salt.

If you’re using Google’s Analytics, you’ll see something called conversion. Not a lot of people look at that – instead they’ll head straight for the hit count or the number of page views. I would like many other website owners to realize that it means nothing in the dollar sense when no one’s believing a word you say nor are they talked into purchasing something from you….if you have something to offer, that is…which I am assuming you do if you’re reading this article till this particular sentence.

The next time you log into your web stats, take a look, also, at how long these people are staying on your pages. How many pages do they go through and what’s your web content’s conversion rate..

Web content writing is tricky business, mainly because of one thing and one thing only. When writing web content for clients, the writer needs to sit in a position whereby it gives them the chance to see things from the consumer’s perspective. Have you not heard about the logic behind people wanting to know ‘what’s in it for them?’ Well, it rings even truer for people who write web content because frankly speaking, web content writers have very little time and space to move around with copy and words.

The web content writer have to get right to the point because the readers’ main focus would be his/her own needs and expectations.

The goal of a web content writer is to either provide an answer, dispense information, address an issue, suggest a solution, or offer instructions. If a web content writer writes too much in a ‘promo’ style of writing, the readers are just going to….for lack of a better word, tune out and click off.

It’s extremely crucial for web content writers to be able to sit in the seat of the readers and imagine his or her reaction when reading it. If the web content does not offer them what they are looking for within that very short period of time….it’s gone. You’ve lost your chance.

I would also like to place focus on the opening lines on your web pages. Are you telling them STRAIGHT UP what they’re about to find? Is the ending of your web content POWERFUL enough to make the readers go….’Ooohh, I think I would like to have that’ or at least ‘Mmmm….that’s interesting’.

Otherwise, no matter how many flowery words you use in your website, you’re not going to be able to sell anything because the visitors to your website is NOT FINDING it interesting FOR THEM.

So, write FOR your readers instead of TO them.

Whenever I sit down to write an article, I face a dilemma. I have to think about writing according to a personality. It’s important for a writer to think about whether it’s going to be a search engine article or an article written for the readers. A writer would have to adopt two completely different writing styles when writing for one or the other.

When you’re writing a search engine article, you have to keep keyword-placement in mind. Where are you going to place all those strategic keywords? What are the related keywords that you’re going to use in it? And most of the time, when you’re writing a search engine article, you forego style, flowery words and fancy sentence formation. Personality-driven style of writing is not required when you are doing internet marketing.

On the other hand, when I write for an audience, a fan-base or a blog-style article, it’s completely different from when I am writing a search engine article. I try to focus on how the readers will absorb the information, perceive my expertise, how easy it would be for them to go through the words, what I am trying to highlight to them, etc.

A search engine article is also shorter than an audience-driven article, hence, sometimes, they make no sense whatsoever. The main purpose of writing the article is….yes, internet marketing. Most internet marketers will tell you that an article written for the purpose of internet marketing should adopt the 5% keyword-density rule….which means that if you are writing an article of about 500-word article, you should have right about 25 or so keywords and related keywords in there! Some people believe in the 3% rule or the 4% rule….well, it’s completely up to you how many keywords you want to place in the article but this is what the experts conclude, so, you might want to take that into consideration.

It’s easier to write an audience-targeted article when compared to writing a search engine article, nevertheless, I always try to kill two birds with one stone. I do this by giving all my articles enough personality to qualify it as an audience-driven article but it is also packed with keywords.

You might want to try that out yourself.

It still continues to stun me every time someone asks me, “Is there such a thing? Freelance blog content writer? A freelance what….web content writer? Is there a NEED for it?”

I give up.

To say that I am a veteran freelance blog content writer, I probably am not. I can point you to some of the biggest online movers and shakers in terms of online content production or blog content development. But I HAVE been writing freelance for more than a decade….PROFESSIONALLY….which means for more than TEN YEARS, I’ve been continuously paid to produce web content, write blog content and advertising copy for people.

And when people ask me something like ‘Is there a NEED for it?’, I can’t help but feel a little insulted.

On a website, navigation is something I would rate as NUMERO UNO. If your website is not easy to navigate, WELL….good luck to you! I mean, it’s the truth. The second would be content. At the very least, I am pretty honest with you and I am trying to shove a sales talk down your throat. Navigation of a website is more important than the web content or blog content because…who do you think would have the patience of clicking through from one page to another just to find the web content or blog post that they want to read?

I guess, as a freelance blog content writer, I am a pretty lucky gal. I’ve never had to struggle through a difficult conversation trying to explain the whole search engine optimization, internet marketing or online promotion methodology to them. They know how it works – and they set me to it. End of story. With that said, I am also lucky that my blog content writing clients are willing to pay for quality.

They know that if they pay peanuts, they get monkeys. There are a lot of monkeys out there, unfortunately.

Anyway, I would describe the content on your website as the meat attached to the skeleton. Your website would be nothing without it, hence, if you’re not a writer yourself, it makes sense for you to hire a web content writer (ahem, like me), who can do the job quickly, efficiently, independently and affordably.

Hiring a blog content writer for your blog posts, some say, if like lying. Oh, I was so hurt at one time when someone else ‘flamed’ me for ghost blogging for my clients. “It’s like a lie. You’re a liar. A bullshitter”. Not exactly. You see, when someone hires me as their blog content writer, what I do is that I do the research on my part. If it’s an industry that I am not familiar with, then I would have to put a lot of hours to find out what makes the readers tick. It’s not as simple as picking up a pen and just sucking it up to the corporate leaders or the company’s CEO.

If that was the case, my life as a web content writer would have been much easier, trust me. The role of a ghost blogger like me is very important for the company’s image. If I do a good job, I attract regular visitors, help with the branding process, and help the company collect data and feedback from the blog or website visitors. If a blog content writer (I am not saying me! LOL) does a bad job, the website or blog owner suffers. And the writer gets off Scot-free.

Anyway, my point is that you need to hire a web content writer who knows how to write and make sense, and then make the message stick in the minds of the readers….ideally, forever, but in reality, for a long time. Even if someone was just stumble onto your website or blog without really intending to and likes the content that you have placed there, you’ve created an impression. If this person REALLY likes the blog content on your website, then he or she would come back for more later on.

Makes sense, I am sure.

And there’s one other thing about hiring a blog content writer that you should always remember. That search engines love content…the fresher, the more links it contains and the more people linking to you equals a good website or blog. So, remind your web content writer to do just that lest he/she gets carried away with writing non-seo optimized content for your website.

The most important page that your blog content writer should focus on is the main/home/index page of your website. or in the case of your blog, the first page that the search engine pulls out when it crawls into your url. I’ll leave the whole ‘linking’ hullabaloo for another time because it’s not something that your blog content writer can control too much. Linking is more your job, as a website or owner or your webmaster. It’s something you and your webmaster should sit down together (or online) to discuss on an extensive basis.

If you keep writing the same topic on your website and producing content after content, article after article….it’s a perceivable fact that one fine day, you will run out of topics to base your web content on. Although the world is consistently evolving and we can always find fresh topics to put into our website content, if you’re churning out the articles day by day, one fine day, you’ll get this feeling…that you’re standing nose-to-nose with a wall.

So, a friend of mine have asked me this some time back: Do we have to write the same kind of content based on the same topic and industry everyday? If gets boring for the web content writer and a bored writer can’t, obviously, do very well at impressing the readers. Hence, it is my personal opinion that it’s perfectly fine to move out of the typical to the atypical once in a while.

For instance, if your blog or website is about handkerchief and scarves, I can’t imagine how many different type of web content you can think of to write about in your website or blog on a long term! Perhaps it would be wiser for the web content writer to move out of the tight corner and write on a broader topic, for instance, embracing the related and sub-related industries like shoes, fashion, celebrities, polls, handbags, etc.

The purpose of moving out of the strict generalization of your blog content or web content, you’re tapping into other markets as well and not narrowing yourself down unnecessarily for all the wrong reasons. Hence, if you feel that you’re bored of writing the same web content over and over…and over and over again, then move out of the topic a little bit. Some writers move out of their own genres and reveal a little about their lives once in a while….the effect? Instead of pushing people away, it had a positive impact, instead.

People started liking the blog or website more because of the tiny wee bit of diversification on web content done. As long as you don’t move too far off the radar, I’m pretty sure, the readers will love you more for the broadening the tight ridge.

Love,

Marsha M

Freelance writer, mother and occasional singer

Many moons and circles of the moon around the earth ago, I came upon this term called ‘stickiness’. When you think sticky, you’re probably thinking about either honey or glue…never would I have imagined someone calling a website sticky. Sticky is annoying and if you have super glue on, I don’t think it’s a good kind of sticky we’re talking about.

So, where was I?

Oh. Yeah, stickiness of a website. Basically, when you read an article or a web content about stickiness, it’s referring to how ‘interesting’, ‘unique’ or ‘interesting’ the website is and are you doing enough to bring your readers back to the website. It also means that are you drawing a loyal crowd of readers to your website.

There are a lot of ways to make your website sticky.

• Creative content that is fast, accurate and don’t beat around the bush
• Interesting news that they can’t anywhere else just as fast
• Cute or funny pictures
• Cool tools that they can use for their website
• Music or cartoons
• Polls and interactive ‘online toys’ that they can play with or participate in
• Regular reply from the webmaster or the writer or the owner of the website that encourages interaction between owner/writer and reader/visitors.

There’s really no point in keeping a website going unless you put some effort to make it sticky. Just imagine this…if you want to promote a website that isn’t sticky, you’ll have to keep promoting the website to people you meet online and offline one million times before you get to see the ten thousand unique visitors that you’re looking for.

But if your website is sticky, then you promote the website one million times and you probably keep right about five hundred thousand of the visitors who come to your website.

Now, isn’t that an interesting fact?

Of course, I’m just pulling the figure out from nowhere but I am sure I am not at all that far off mark. If you search the internet, you’ll probably find some stats that can show you that online marketing and promotion of a website is about stickiness and how well you build connection with your site visitors and then build a bridge of loyalty between you and them so much so that they are willing to come back to your website time and time again…without you having to remind them or beg them to come back for another visit. 

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Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer with two kids. She spends her time ferrying her kids around, watering her plants, writing web content, SEO stuff, ghostwriting books and also indulges in the occasional Facebook-ing. Visit her blog for more dirty details on the life and times of a mother, writer, designer, housekeeper, coffee-maker, poop-wiper, chef…and just about everything else under the sun. 

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