Why Content Matters in Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has emerged as one of the most advantageous types of digital marketing. Businesses can grow exponentially if they utilize the technique in an effective manner. The success of a social media marketing strategy lies in the activity the brand chooses to execute and the way they visualize this form of marketing.

A lot of brands think of social media to be a means of getting more likes, engagement, reach, and retweets. But we suggest you focus on sharing high quality content in order to engage in a dialogue with users and thereby generate a lead.

Here’s what content can do for your social media marketing strategy and help to build a brand:

  1. Expand your network and establish credibility

High-quality content can do wonders on social media. In fact, experts suggest that social media and content marketing go hand-in-hand. All you need to do is figure out what types match the best with each other, and once you have discovered the right pair, you will be able to reach out to large audiences without any obstructions.

Usually, brands publish content on their official website and promote it using social media handles. They expect immediate results but content marketing is not able to deliver the same. Content marketing must build up momentum in order to deliver the kind of results brands desire.

According to content marketing experts, companies must consistently provide valuable content to their target audience. In the course of time, this engaging content will be able to pull the users and help the brand establish credibility. This is an organic approach and may take time to reap results.

If you are confident of the value of your content and believe that it is worthy of the reader’s attention, you may force it to more audiences using sponsored posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter. You could also tie up with influencers and grow your brand’s reach.

  1. Establish a connection with the brand

Content marketing focuses on establishing a connection between a brand and its target audience. This connection must have an emotional appeal to it. Moreover, content has the power to make people empathetic towards a brand.

A content marketing strategy must be so strong that it should be able to convince prospects to convert into sales. This means that you require content that is unique and valuable. Start by sharing and demonstrating the values of your company through the content you share on social media.

  1. Be an authority

If you regularly address current affairs and specific topics of concern relevant to your industry, you are viewed as an authority. The value and relevance of your content strike a chord with the readers and they will await the next piece of content you publish. And social media is the best place to share such content and engage with your users.

People today don’t have much time, but if they come across content that is valuable, they love it. They tend to share it in their groups and networks giving you the publicity and engagement you require. You need not use technical jargon or absolute facts based on research in order to be an authority. Content written in a manner that is interesting and understandable has huge potential with the reader.

  1. Improves conversion rates

Content marketing is the only tool that permits you to create appropriate remarketing lists. This is done using content analytics.

Your website has a number of webpages with different content and there’s also a lot of content on your social media handles rerouting the user to different links on your website. Google Analytics sets a code on your website that tracks visitors and gives you an analysis of their behaviour. This data is further used to prepare remarketing lists and show prospects content that they were interested in.

If your business stays in front of the prospects at regular intervals, chances that they become a customer when considering a purchase decision are high.

Social media platforms have become the new tool for marketers, however, if you are looking at reaching out to more customers, your content must be high-quality and valuable. Perform a thorough analysis of your target audience before devising a content marketing strategy so that you can offer the content they are looking for.

5 Strategies for Collaborative Content Marketing

Some companies have a single person handling their content marketing campaigns. If you are one of them, you’d know that there are certain advantages with respect to the management and control since there is only one voice masterminding everything. However, you would also know that you are not witnessing the benefits of collaboration.

Content collaboration is simple – several people working on the same piece of content. These people could be from within your organization,  or industry influencers. In certain cases, content may also be collaborated from competitors.

Now, why do you think collaborative content marketing is beneficial?

1. Resources – Through collaboration, resources can be shared for effective utilization of each other’s specialization. For instance, if you are good at curating images, you collaborate with a person skilled at research and create something that is relevant and interesting.

2. Point of views – When more people work on a particular subject, there are different perspectives and takeaways. This makes the final piece of content flawless.

3. Audience – If you collaborate with industry influencers, your reach in terms of the target audience instantly increases. This makes collaborative content marketing extremely powerful for attracting links and shares.

Collaboration helps you reach out to a larger target audience and improve the metrics of your content marketing campaigns. So, what are the strategies that you must use for collaborative content marketing?

1. Form a great team

In order to have a strong collaborative content process, your team must be qualified and well-organized. The functionality of the team must be clearly defined. Each person should be involved and supportive to enhance the ability of collaboration. The final outcome must have a pool of ideas behind it and not just influenced by the marketing team.

2. Share access and control

Give several people the access to write and edit a piece of content. This may sound unusual since the inputs of several people could just ruin the entire objective of the document. However, on the flip side, it could also help prepare a document that is complete with all the information and ideas required to make it interesting and relevant for the target audience.

3. Make use of technology

Collaborative content marketing involves several people contributing to a particular topic. Managing this inflow can be a little challenging. This means that you need to utilize appropriate tools to organize and streamline the collaborative process.

4. Quote and Mention

This one is extremely interesting and simple. When you write an article, include a quote written by someone else. The quote could be back linked and in case it is by someone popular in the industry, it could just add more insight and evidence, making the content strong. Please note that it is important to let the people you are quoting know about your actions.

5. Spread the information

The best research and content collaboration effort can only reap results when it is shared appropriately. Your marketing team must use the information in a manner that it generates profitable sales. Knowing what consumers would like to read is only answering half the question. The second half is to find the means to disseminate this information in a manner that it finally reaches the end consumer.

According to experts, headlines, subheadings, bullet points must all be effectively used to concisely present the information. It must be optimized, adding value to the time spent by the user reading it.

Conclusion

Collaborative content marketing is easy but an important strategy to remember is that you must create information that is relevant. It could come through inputs shared by experts in different skills. The second aspect is to utilize this meaningful information appropriately by sharing it through the right medium that reaches the end consumers.

15 Best Content Curation Tools You Can Use in 2018 [Infographic]

Creating content that is relevant to your audience is crucial for digital marketing success. Content curation can help you to find interesting topics from a variety of sources and share it strategically via different social media channels. It also help you to determine the interests of your target audience. There are many tools available for content curation. Using the right tools will help you to generate content that your target audience like to read.

We have listed some popular content curation tools in the form an infographic to help you create high quality content.

Let’s have a look

best content curation tools to use in 2018 infographic

Top 7 Benefits of Blogging on Your Website

Most small business owners are confused whether to include blogging in their content marketing strategy. This is primarily because they do not know how they can regularly create high-quality content and the skills required for the same.

However, the fact is that investing in a content publication strategy can be extremely fruitful, leading to improvement in search visibility, leads, and conversions. Start your content strategy with a company blog and get ready to experience the top 7 benefits of blogging on your website:

  1. Enhances search engine traffic

Blogging is just like fishing – when you have more hooks in the water, chances to catch a fish are higher. Adding content to your website increases the number of pages indexed by search engines. Every new blog on your website gives you the opportunity to rank higher for keywords relevant in your industry. This further helps to enhance web traffic organically.

  1. Adds a voice and personality

Your home page or about page sticks to information about your business and the services you offer. A blog post, on the other hand, allows you touch on issues that are of interest to your prospects. It enables you to voice your opinions. It adds a human approach to your brand giving you a unique personality that clicks better with the target audience. The likeability quotient of the brand also improves.

  1. Assists with social media activities

Maintaining a social media presence requires a continuous generation of content. Most of the time, small business owners resort to sharing other people’s content on their own pages. While this is an effective strategy, it won’t take you far. You need to redirect people to your own website in order to be able to directly pull customers for your products and services. Sharing your own blog posts on your social media pages comes in handy here.

Additionally, blog posts help in creating email newsletters. Simply compile the blogs of last week or list the top 10 and shoot a newsletter to all your readers.

  1. Establish Authority

With a blog, you can position yourself as an expert in the industry. You can share information and insights related to the current trends and build trust among the target audience. A brand that has established authority through its content tends to familiarize with prospects and remains in their top-of-mind recall, thereby generating more queries and leads.

  1. Pulls up conversion rates

A blog with content updated actively shows that  the business is alive, updated and loved. This is why just having a blog is not enough. The blog needs to be updated with high-quality content regularly to establish brand loyalty. Customers see the expertise and innovation the brand brings to the table through their blog and helps to improve conversion rates.

  1. Helps with long-tail keyword rankings

If a website does not have a blog, ranking well for long-tail search queries will be a challenge. Regular industry-specific keywords can be easily taken care of; however, when it comes to targeted keywords with special search queries, content is vital. It is the only tool that helps you rank for the less commonly searched queries.

  1. Facilitates two-way communication

Blogging allows two-way communication. It gives users the opportunity to comment and interact with the brand on industry updates, company updates, and launch announcements. Any feedback from the customers can be recorded through the blog and getting an insight into the customers’ perspective is essential for the marketing team. Your next marketing initiatives can also be planned on the basis of the inputs you have received from your customers.

Conclusion

Blogging on your website is an important way to differentiate your business from that of the competitors. Sharing such content allows you to express your own words, your own thoughts and insights building a trust factor and connect with the target audience. This further impacts the search traffic and ultimately sales positively.

Blogging is more crucial for small business owners as it gives them the opportunity to compete with the big brands without spending much. Blogging is cost effective and you don’t have to set aside a large marketing budget to execute a content strategy.

Choosing the Best Content Marketing Agency: Tips for Startups and Small Businesses

Marketing can be a changeable world, as the trends to keep up with,analytics to track, reports to create, consumers to reach, distribution channels to optimize, emails to send, and a ton of other things fighting for your attention.

Startup marketing is a unique challenge often times because of the limited resources, whether it’s time, money or talent. The key role content marketing plays in driving leads and delivering results is something most businesses are aware of.

Content marketing has become an integral part for businesses, whether it is a start-up or small business.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing can be defined as “ A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

If you are not familiar with content creation or marketing, it is better to outsource the task to any professional content marketing agency.

A reliable agency can help you to focus on your target market. Here are certain tips for businesses to consider when choosing the best content marketing agency.

1. Flexible with Diverse Forms of Content: It is important that the agency of your choice should understand where and how your potential customers spend their time online. From landing pages and white papers to eBooks and news articles, it is important to make sure that content marketing efforts are in such a way to attract your targeted audience.

2. Look for the Quality of Previous Works: By reviewing marketing agency’s previous and current customer references and piece of content, campaigns and work, start-ups or small businesses could evaluate their capability before hiring.

3. Content Marketing Success and Latest Technology: It’s important to know that your agency is using the latest technology. Make sure that you ask questions, research technologies and tools they are using to improve content writing skills and understand how your agency will use the data to optimize performance.

4. Checkout their work and its quality: Make sure to have a clear idea about their current as well as previous work. Read out their content marketing case studies and how they assisted their clients, how skilled their content writers are. If possible, get a phone interview with those clients.

5. Check whether they are trustworthy, transparent, and credible: Trust is the vital part of any business; you should have a clear view about the agency, meaning, you should make sure that the agency is good for its word and they can work in line with your business goals.

Take the time and study your needs and options available. People buy from business they trust and you can build their trust by utilizing high-quality, intended, and properly optimized content that your target market actually wants to read and is likely to share.

You may find many agencies, where each agency is different and every provider carries unique specifications. All you have to follow is to partner with the best content marketing agency, who can assure you quality services with consistency.

Guide to Create Exceptional Content for Your Business

It is totally your choice on how much time and effort you want to put into creating exceptional content and helping your brand prosper. You can choose to go on with bad content but you will definitely not get anywhere with it. It will prove to be a total waste of time, energy and money.

In order to boost your ranking in SEO and increase website traffic, you need quality content on your website. If the content is original, then that could help you get more exposure on search engines. In fact, Google penalizes sites which have copied or duplicated content. So, quality content would not only help to make your website look more attractive but also help to improve the overall ranking of your website.

Below are a few tips to create exceptional content for your business:

1. Create Original and Unique Content

Copying content from other websites could lead to severe consequences from Google and your visitors. When we say originality, we mean original ideas and not re-phrasing the existing content and concept. If you think that you can hire cheap labour to just fill up your website with content or just collect different articles available on the internet and re-post them, then you are making a big mistake.

Always remember, if you pay well, then you get quality and if you don’t have any quality content, then it is better to not write anything. These are two simple principles which you should remember. These would take you a long way.

2. Pay more focus on Headers and Sub-headers

Your content should have proper headings and sub-headings. If the headlines are interesting, then the reader automatically gains interest in the article. As per commonly known statistics, about 80% of the people tend to read only the headlines and only 20% of the readers actually spend the time to read the other content under the headers.

Have as many headings as possible in your article. You should try to highlight the headings to make them prominent to your readers. Take the time to create good, relevant to the topic and interesting headlines. A good way for deciding headings would be by thinking of a few and then shortlisting the one you like the most. Don’t ignore the headings. Depending on the headings, people decide if they are going to read your blog or not.

3. Give your Readers Actionable Content

You should give proper guidance on how to use or apply the information given in the content. Don’t feel that you are degrading the users by telling them what to do. You must give assurance to the readers that they are very well aware of how to use the knowledge they have picked up from the content.

In your content, you must give tips to your readers about what information you are offering to them. You have to write in a way that you cover all the possible questions the readers have in mind – why, what, how, where etc.

4. Your Content should be able to Give all the Answers

When people use a search engine like Google, they are looking for some answers. They search for a particular query and search engine delivers the answer to their query. Similarly, when a reader is reading your blog or article, then he is expecting some answer so that he can gain some knowledge about the topic.

You should make your content easy to read and scan because readers are looking for answers, that too fast. So, it is important to make sure that they get all the answers too quickly. Include as many titles and sub-titles in your content which makes it easy for the reader to read and understand.

5. The Source of Information and the Statistics should be Accurate

Thousands of people are going to read your content and it is extremely bad for the reputation of your business in case the information stated in it is not relevant.

The content on your website is the reflection of your business. You must get statistics verified before you mention them on your website. Accuracy is important to gain the readers’ trust. Below are certain tips which you can follow when tackling the accuracy issues:

> Be sure of the source from where you are picking up the statistic details. If you are intending to provide a link to another website in yours for statistics, then you must make sure that it is a genuine and authentic website. If it is a quality website, then it would help gain the trust of the readers.

> If you are linking content within your website to substantiate what you are writing, then that can be extremely helpful in gaining the readers’ trust. People start feeling that the content is authentic as it can be validated.

> If you link your content to other sources then that would help the search engines in knowing about your content and it will help them categorize it.

6. Create Content that keeps the Readers Engaged and Curious to Read more

If a reader finds your content engaging and interesting then he spends more time on your website. The only trick to achieve this is by writing your content well. Here are a few tips to achieve this:

  • Include many questions in the article which keep the readers thinking about what the answer could be. You need to build the readers’ curiosity to continue reading to get the answers. Remember not to leave any question unanswered in your article. This could make the reader feel irritated.
  • Most of the readers read the first few lines of the article properly and continue reading the article only if they like the introduction. You should have an interesting and involving start to your article or blog. You should discuss the key features of your article and give the readers a motivation to keep reading.
  • Visitors like reading about different experiences and stories that people have actually experienced in life. Stories keep people involved, engaged and give them a huge amount of information.

7. Adding Images and Videos is Always Liked

As we all know that people understand better by seeing, images and videos are always a good idea to make people learn about what you are talking in the article. Diagrams and graphs are also a great way to illustrate your point..

8. Content should be Crisp and Precise

You should always remember to make your content brief and to the point. Make sure you don’t repeat the same point in your article in different ways. Readers don’t like repetition. No need to worry about the word count, instead focus on making it precise. Avoid going off the topic, as that might make readers lose their interest in your article.

9. Keep Updating Your Article Frequently

Once you build a website, you should always remember that you have to stay committed to it forever. Search engines prefer those sites more who are regularly updating their content. Most of the top websites update their content very often. There are several statistics too which prove that websites whose content is updated frequently tend to attract visitors.

Don’t treat the content of your website lightly. It is difficult and extremely time-consuming to write good content. You must make sure that the language you use is simple and the article shouldn’t have grammatical and spelling errors.

After you have written an article, you should proofread it at least two times before publishing it on the website. Keep the content entertaining and original for the readers.

25 Best Tools for Improving Your Content Writing Skills

Improving your content writing is one of the best ways to succeed in the SEO world. High-quality content can boost organic site traffic, improve SEO rankings and strengthen your on-site conversion rates.

Google considers quality content and the number of inbound links from other relevant websites as two most important factors in search viability. Poorly written content will impact your SEO efforts to a great extent. Content writing requires some of your creative writing skills. Often issues like writer’s block can be barriers for writers to provide quality and informative content, thanks to the advanced tools now available to improve your content writing skills.

Are you a content writer or digital marketer looking for better ways to improve your writing skills? Check out these content writing tools that will help you to produce highly engaging and grammatically perfect content.

Here is a list of 25 great tools that can help to improve your writing skills.

1. Daily PageIf you would like to develop the habit of writing every day, but not sure to what to write about, Daily Page is the right tool for you. This tool gives you writing prompt every morning, which you can respond to by writing, creating a daily writing routine. You can either make your response public or keep it private. It also provides helpful writing courses

2. 750 WordsDedicated to helping writers build healthy writing habits, this exercise-based tool tracks your word count until you reach the daily 750-word limit. The program also provides writers with feedback on how well they are doing, such as providing information of writing speed, and how often they get distracted.

3. QuoraDesigned in a question/answer format, Quora is a great place to go for crowdsourced answers outside your network. Just search for a keyword and you will get ideas for an upcoming one. Also you can post questions of your own and target industry experts that can provide you with great information.

4. HubSpot ComposerHubSpot Composer is a distraction-free writing tool that helps you easily turn your brainstorm ideas and research notes into a blog post. This content writing tool in fact format drafts into blog posts. Just copy and paste your text from Microsoft Word or Google Docs into Composer, and it will automatically reformat them for blog publication.

5. Google DocsGoogle Docs is an easiest way to share one’s work with anyone else online. This platform allows real-time and immediate editing between a group of people. Also you can be sure that you won’t lose your work, as Google docs auto saves to the cloud.

6. GrammarlyConsidered to be the world’s most accurate grammar checker, Grammarly runs in the background and underlines any grammatical errors as you type. This is an ideal tool for content writers who are not that good with grammar. It also comes with a contextual spell check that provides correct spellings and vocabulary enhancement that improves readability.

7. Help Me WriteThis tool helps to write quality content and topics for your targeted audience. With this tool, writers can post ideas of what they wanted to write about and share those ideas via social media platforms as well as email. This helps to get a response from your audience itself, thus choosing a better topic.

8. Blog Topic GeneratorIf you are not able to come up with unique and engaging blog topics, use this tool. Just type in three keywords in the Blog Topic Generator and it will auto-generate five fresh topics for your post. If you need more suggestions, click “Try Again” and you will get five more topics. Choose the best one.

9. Content IdeatorThis topic generator tool helps to create viral topics based on reader’s preference. Once the keyword has been entered, the tool shows you similar posts published on that topic. Choose the title by checking which one has a large number of likes and was shared more on social media platforms.

10. Twords – This tool is the right one for bloggers to write consistently. It has been proven that companies regularly writing quality content get the most web traffic and leads. In this tool, you can enter how many words you wanted to write and then Twords will push you until you get it done, thus motivating you to write more.

11. TrelloTrello helps to collect content ideas and you can organize them in to some unique content later on. For content managers, this tool can do a lot. They can assign these ideas to team members, add due dates and also keep track of the status of each project.

12. Hemingway AppThis tool helps to make your content easily readable. You can drop your content into the tool and click the edit button. It evaluates your writing with a grade and provides suggestions on improving readability with ways to make it simpler.

13. oTranscribeFor content that includes an interview, oTranscribe is an excellent free web application. It makes transcription process much less painful, providing more time for your writing and analysis. You can also choose to export it to plain text or Google Docs.

14. Tomato TimerTomato Timer is a tool that helps to stay focus on your writing, thus improving productivity. This simplest app consists of a timer that counts down from 25 minutes to zero and then starts to beep. You work until the timer stops.

15. ZenPenAvoid distraction with this tool’s minimalist writing zone. This zone is a blank writing space just like Microsoft Word which features to help you stylize the text, add hyperlinks and quotes.

16. Power Thesaurus – This user friendly crowded thesaurus dictionary helps to improve your vocabulary, helping you create more engaging content. When you type a word, you will get alternative word choices provided by a large community of writers.

17. Twinword Writer – It often happens that you may get stuck on a word. For writers using Twinword Writer tool, it will evaluate the context of their writing and provides alternate words to use.

18. Prompts – For those writing using their iPhone, this iOS app provides suggestions, tracks stats about your writing habits and also allows you to arrange the best day and time to write based on those stats.

19. BrainyQuote – If you are looking for a quote to include in your writing, this tool helps. It is a library with millions of interesting quotes on various topics from writers, politicians as well as other famous persons.

20. AtomicWriter– This easy to use tool helps to write specifically for your targeted readers by providing insights on your blog or article that was just published. It also automatically schedules content to social media calendar.

21. ProWritingAid – This content evaluation tool comes with diverse features such as grammar and spell checker, plagiarism checker, overused words detection, cliché locating tool, and more.

22. Correctica – It is an editing tool that triple checks your content before you click “Publish”. It checks grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes as well as plagiarism, thus making content readable.

23. DraftsSimilar to Google Docs, you can use this “Uber for copyediting”tool to edit your content, share it with any one, and manage your friends’ suggestions.

24. Cliché Finder – This web based application helps you find anything you missed, just like the words need to be replaced, based on the keyword you place.

25. Listly – This tool helps you to call audience to contribute to your list. The community in this tool can then vote on list items to move them up the list.

If you think there are more tools for content writing other than the ones mentioned above you can post them in the comments section.

What is the Scope of Content Writing in India

Although content writing is the buzzword for some years now, it is not something new. Content is communicating information and we have been communicating for eons in many forms.

Our ways and platforms of communication have changed drastically over the last two decades. Content writer is anyone who develops original content and puts it in a form understandable by others.

If you have created posts for Facebook or written a blog or tweeted, then you are a content writer too! Of course being a professional content writer entails something more. But we all do what a content writer does in a professional way.

Content for business marketing was implemented as far back in the eighteenth century by Benjamin Franklin when he published his yearly paper. In early 2000s search engines gave birth to SEO copywriters who finally evolved into content writers.

As Google rewarded quality content and penalized spammy content people now wanted professionals to write content.

What do Content Writers Do?

What do Content Writers Do

  • Content writers research on the topic they have been given. Information gathering and research is a big part of content writing and takes up more time than writing the article.
  • Content writers may also conduct interview and read through academic papers for information not available online. Sometimes content strategy may also be a part of their role.
  • Content writers also have to be content curators. This means that they have to know all the sources of interesting and credible information. They can either re-post them or arrange it at one place for readers.
  • Content writers can specialize in various platforms. A content writer could write for business blogs, websites, corporate communication, PR articles, product descriptions etc.
  • Content is also developed for videos and podcasts as they are popular forms of media now.
  • One can also hire content writer based on his or her knowledge on a particular topic. Some content writers specialize in ecommerce, technology, health & beauty, finance etc.

Importance of Quality Content

Importance of Quality Content

Digital marketing has changed the rules of traditional marketing. A professional content writer has to develop content that is engaging and drives people to the desired action. Content is the foundation of digital marketing.

Marketers no more invest in invasive marketing like distracting banners and print ads as people totally ignore them. The focus is rather on providing value added content to attract target market.

Content is at the heart of this new strategy. Businesses want to provide a lot of value content to their prospects before asking them to buy their products.

Scope of Content Writing in India

Because of the reasons stated above, ever increasing number of businesses are hiring content writing agencies to manage their content. Consider the below stats to understand the scope of content writing and its importance:

1. Content leaders drive 7.8 times more traffic than others according to Neil Patel

Content leaders drive 7.8 times more traffic than others according to Neil Patel

2. 56% of marketers believe that customized content leads to higher engagement rates and increases brand recall. (IBM Digital Experience survey, 2015)

3. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing is three times more effective (DemandMetric)

4. Brands that invest in content marketing have a six times higher conversion rate.

5. 73% of organizations hire content strategist to manage their content.

These statistics makes clear that content is in high demand and the opportunity for a content writer is tremendous.

Attributes of Quality Content

Following are indicators of good quality content. Great content is:

Simple and understood by the people. A good content writer explains even the most complex concept in a lucid style.

Credible – All information must be factually correct and free of any plagiarism. Sources of all statistics and data must be given.

Interesting – It must grip the audience and command their attention

Personalized – Content is always directed towards a target audience. The content must represent the brand it speaks for and speak directly to the visitors.

Engaging – Audience engagement is measured by shares, likes and comments on the post. For this the content must be valuable to the readers and worth sharing with their friends who have similar interests.

Additional  Skills

There are some additional skills that are helpful for website content writing. Knowledge of SEO and link building will ensure that the content written will rank better on search engines. Skill of copywriting will also give better results for content marketing.

Content writing is part of content marketing as a whole. The more the content writer knows about marketing, strategy, social media and inbound sales funnel the better it is.

The Future of Content Writing

This is what the future holds for content writers in India

Visual Content

People today prefer to consume content in visual format. Videos and infographics are preferred over text. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world and gets more than 3 billion searches a month! Infographics are three times more likely to be shared on the social media.

This is the reason why all of the major blogs are shifting to short videos or podcasts instead of text post. This is only a change in the presentation of content and the content developed by content writers remains same.

However, having knowledge of video production and storyboarding will help content writers to write for visual formats.

Artificial Intelligence

There is no doubt that AI is going to replace many job functions in near future. AI also has solutions for content writing. There are already software like Spinnerchief that write complete articles within minutes for you. They even scan web articles for best keywords to come up with search optimized article.

Serious content marketers are not using these software currently as they are not up to the mark in human readability and quality. However, some content writers are using such software to support their writing in research and SEO efforts.

We may see AI supporting or even completely taking over content writing in near future. Content writers will have to grow their capabilities to creative content strategy and storytelling in such a world.

How to Do Keyword Research for Content Marketing [10 New Strategies]

Most bloggers and website owners constantly have queries such as “How to increase traffic to my blog” and “How do I get more readers for my blog”. Search results to such queries often include experts sharing valuable tips, techniques and strategies to increase traffic. But how many of those techniques genuinely bring you traffic?

From the experience of dealing with Jointviews content marketing clients, the big takeaway is that picking up the right topic can bring in lot of traffic naturally. So here we share what the Jointviews team has learnt about choosing blog topics to bring more traffic to your website.

related-google-searches-screenshot

Figure 1: Popular Google searches for increasing blog traffic

Take time to understand the business properly – No matter whether it’s your own or that of a client, take time to learn what your business is actually dealing with. Not how you understand it, but how the masses understand it.

Study it like you used to study subjects back in school before an exam. It will help in understanding the different elements of the business very clearly and naturally you will get numerous topic ideas.

For example, if you have a website selling cakes, you could generate topics such as “How to make a cake?” “Which are the best cakes in the world?”

You could also talk about “cakes and culture”, about the “individual ingredients” used to make cakes, countries where cakes are more popular, and so on… A deep understanding of your business thus provides you an extra edge in presenting effective content.

Talk to your sales team –Once you get a good idea of the business, talk to the sales team to understand what actual conversations they have with prospects and customers.

They will offer a completely different view from what you formed by studying theoretically about the business. You would be able to understand easily and the sales perspective will give insights to real world problems.

Taking the above example of cakes, your sales person might be able to say “people ask for white forest much more often than black forest” whereas you might actually be concentrating more on producing black forest.

Also, people might want something specific – like personalizing the cake when getting it delivered. In short, it helps in understanding what your audience specifically wants from you.

Types of Content Requested by Sales Team

You could even prepare a FAQ section on your website to address the questions that your audience keeps asking your sales team.

Look at Google popular searches – once you have a good theoretical and real world understanding, it’s time to start Googling. Search for common industry terms, queries, etc and look at the ‘Related searches’ and ‘People also ask’ sections.

The terms mentioned here are pure gold. You can also look at Google’s predictive search terms. Note the ones which frequently appear in multiple searches.

google-questions-box-screenshot

Such terms can be used to generate blog articles with good traffic, also these could provide ideas for Big Rock Content (A comprehensive blog about a particular topic answering a wide range a queries about a particular topic). They can also provide you infographics and video ideas.

Look at Q&A sites such as Quora – Once you are armed with a decent number of search terms, it’s time to cross check them in popular Q&A sites such as Quora.

This is done to confirm these are popular topics and also to see if there are valuable content available on the given topics. Save the Q&A’s if there is valuable content.

There would also be related content which might give further ideas about new topics. At times, you would be able to write on exactly same topics given in related content sections with a lot more research around the web and in real life.

Also, if you go through the answers, you can digest information and generate new topic ideas which can be exceptionally good.

quora-question-screenshot

Prepare for Voice Search – Voice search is touted to be the next big thing in online marketing. Most voice searches come in the form of questions. Talking to sales team and looking at Q&A sites would help this to a large extent.

You could also use tools such as AnswerThePublic to find out even more queries that the public audience have regarding your industry. Forums are another source of good questions people are asking about.

Voice Search Stats 2018

Some characteristics of voice search are

  • Search queries are conversational in nature and hence lengthy
  • Most voice searches are local searches. People are looking for a place to hangout, do some shopping, a restaurant, etc
  • Short, straight to the point answers are expected. People are mostly on the go while doing voice search. So they are looking for direct answers.

Beyond proving to be a good source of content, these questions can also help you find gaps in your business or industry, and by addressing them, your business could grow a lot more.

Connect with entertainment – Having gone through Google and Q&A sites, you would probably have a stash of relevant topics with good search volume. Now, if you are looking to increase the traffic to your site, using entertainment topics related to your industry can be highly useful.

The audience would be dormant. They will not actively convert. But, it offers good branding opportunity.

For example, look at the search results of “movies about marketing and sales” given below. You can see Hubspot ranks first. Not IMDB, Hollywood reporter or even Wikipedia, but Hubspot – a marketing software company.

The topic need not be related to movies alone. It can be games, sports, health, etc. You just have to do enough research to find the right topic and collect enough information.

movies about marketing and sales

Search for emerging technologies – New, interesting technologies often experience a mass curiosity wave. If you keep your eyes and ears open for new technologies and find out as much as you can about them and how they can be applied to your business, it will help generate great topics that will bring in significant traffic over time.

Emerging Technologies

For instance, there is VR. A Google search for a long tail keyword like ‘uses of virtual reality in entertainment’ will reveal there aren’t many relevant results. So, it is an opportunity to rank quickly if you produce the right content.

Continuing with the earlier example of cakes, you could talk about how VR can help your customer have a much more realistic shopping experience from wherever they are.

They could look through the menu, check different cake designs and make a far better choice than just ordering online from your website. Talking about such concepts which spur human imagination to unchartered territory can gain a lot of attention.

Keep Tab of Latest News – You can use Google alerts and Google trends to identify latest news that are popular with users in your industry. This would help identify trending topics, and if you can quickly get relevant content created, the benefits are going to be immense.

google trends & alerts

Use tools such as BuzzSumo, THEHOTH, RankReveal– Marketing tools are dime a dozen these days. It can be very difficult to pick the right ones for the right tasks. For choosing the best topics, tools such as BuzzSumo, TheHoth and RankReveal can help. BuzzSumo helps you find the most social blogs written on a particular topic on the web.

The free version is very limited, but can be helpful when you are out of topic ideas. RankReveal and TheHoth’s free search engine ranking tools both reveal keywords for which you are ranking. When used wisely, both can help you make surprising topic discoveries to boost traffic to your website.

buzzsumo-rankreveal-hoth-screenshot

Use site search and Google Analytics queries – If you already have a good amount of visitors to your website, looking at popular site search and Google analytics queries will help understand what people are looking for.

Once you understand these, you will be able to create topics on exactly the same topics or even modify existing ones for more traffic.

google-analytics-all-website-data-screenshot

How to approach once you get the topics

Each topic should be the best available answer in that particular niche. If it’s a low competition keyword, even an average blog would rank. But if the competition rises in future, you will slowly lose traffic. So maintaining quality language and information is very important for the success of your blog.

While ensuring it is the best answer, also ensure it is user friendly. Add relevant images, videos, infographics and if possible add a personal touch by relating to everyday circumstances.

If it is a competitive keyword, you can go that extra mile and include other resources such as downloadable files and videos.

Also,

At least once in a week, take a look at the traffic your blogs bring in, and keep an eye open for chances to improve the content of the blog. It can be as simple as adding couple of new lines or an image. But keep the blog updated. Your rankings can significantly improve if such updates are good and worthy.

Finally,

Success is not just about passion, techniques and hard work. All these factors matter; But more importantly, you should have the perseverance to go the distance. You should face the reality that results don’t arrive in a short period for most businesses.

So, when you pick these topics and write, you should give it enough time and support by distributing it online through various channels for it to show the desired results.

How to Find Quality Web Content Writing Services for Small Businesses in India

Quality content can transform the way businesses interact with customers. Good content, better SEO rankings, and greater online visibility are crucial factors that decide your business’ fate. Good content marketing strategies are ideal for companies of any size and especially for small business. Several SEO companies in India provide content writing services. But it is critical to choose the right service that meets your requirement.

Consider certain factors before choosing a content marketing service for your business

  • Accuracy – Accurate information is what readers are looking for, which helps them make better decisions. Check whether your content marketing agency can provide reliable content.
  • Quality – Quality content can convert traffic into sales. Judge the quality of services provided by the chosen company. Content should be unique and engaging, it should also offer value to your customers. Make sure that the files should pass through plagiarism checks.
  • Experience – Check out the company’s official website and list of clients they worked with and request for few samples. Read the testimonials. Also have a clear idea about the content marketing strategies they offer and make sure that these strategies would be of help for your online business.
  • Editing and proofreading – Not only writing, editing should also be good. Understand the companies policies related to editing and revision. Checkout if there are limitations for the revisions to be done.
  • Cost – Before signing up for their service, check out the costs. Compare their rates with their competitors. You can also request for a Free Trial.

Ideal Content Writer–Qualities to Check

Professional copywriting companies provide services of experienced and skilled writers who can communicate intelligent and powerful messages to your potential customers in the most effective manner. The success of an online marketing campaign mainly depends on your writer. Make sure that the writer assigned for your project can-

  • Understand your business and provide suitable content that satisfies your customers as well as search engines. They should have a clear knowledge of your services or product.
  • Create newsworthy content that your target audience will be looking for. They should be patient enough to do a lot of research and provide educative stuff, which is current too.
  • Improve your content’s structure such as H1 headings, bolding and anchor text, which can boost your SEO ranking. They should also create effective title tags that incorporate keywords associated with your service.
  • Add proper URLs as it can be an effective way to provide readers with right information and guide them to other engaging content. Improper URLs can hurt your search engine rankings. Use social media sites effectively for your marketing purpose. Their quality blog posts should help you get connected to more people through social media platform, thus receiving more traffic and improving your search engine visibility.
  • Include relevant meta descriptions that is typically 150 characters or less that are rich in relevant keywords. This description will often appear when people share your articles across other websites and social channels.
  • Know the standard keyword to text ratio. They must make sure to use low-competition long-tail keywords in a perfect amount.
  • Meet your deadlines by providing required content at the right time.

Not all services suit your specific business. Keep all those factors discussed above, before choosing a content writing service for your business. Also monitor their work progress and make sure whether it is providing positive results for your website’s search engine ranking.