Content writing today is considered one of the top sort of skills for digital marketing. The company hires content writers who have good writing skills to improve their sales.
Freelance writers get paid up to $50 for every 1000 words that they write. It also depends on the types of content they write.
Now that you have read Basics of Blogging and you know how to start a Blog and do Keyword Research, it’s time for you to know how to write quality content that can stand apart and create an impact on readers.
Creating content will have four parts.
- Headline
- Introduction
- Body or the actual content
- Conclusion
Table of Contents
Headline
The headline is one of the most important and the first thing that the reader will see.
After reading the headline, the audience should be clear about what the content is and how it is going to help them.
Make sure your headline is catchy.
Write 10-15 different headlines that you could write and choose the best one.
BuzzSumo’s study discovered that the sweet spot for headline length is between 12-18 words.
Also, try to add Brackets to your headline.
You may ask why?
Because a study by OutBrain found that adding brackets to headlines can improve CTR up to 38%.
Our article 10 High-income skills to earn you in millions [2020] is the best performing article on our website. It also appears on the first page of Google.
What more proof do you need?
If you have an article titled “10 ways to wake up at 5.00 am” your reader will always be curious to know what those 10 ways are.
Using modifiers like “best”, “guide”, “checklist”, “fast” and “review” can help you rank for long-tail versions of your target keyword.
Introduction
The intro should be small with 6-7 lines.
It should be anywhere between 100-150 words.
You know that the start of anything should be good whether it be a movie or whether it be an article. Your goal should be to hook the audience.
Make sure your introduction is catchy just like your headline is.
Once you’re done with the introduction, show them the index page so that people can navigate easily.
Now we’ll be showing how to write, what to write, and how much to write.
Format of the Body
First and the foremost thing is you speak to the audience. That is you use the words like ‘I’ and ‘you’ just like we’re doing now.
All your blog posts should be like you’re speaking to the audience.
Secondly, make sure you break the paragraphs into lines.
It is because most of your readers will read on the phone and paragraphs with 7-8 lines will look clumsy and messy while a paragraph with 1-2 lines will look neat and tidy.
Always try to use a story to convey the information you want to.
Use an active voice. “Obama gave a speech on Independence Day” sounds simpler than “A speech was given by Obama on Independence Day”.
Lastly, make good use of bullet points and bold letters to indicate importance.
Choose the correct font size between 18px to 21px.
The overall objective is to make it user-friendly. The reader should find it easy to navigate and capture all your content.
Content of the Body
You might be wondering how you will find information for the data you are sharing.
Of Course, you’re not an expert to write more than 2000 words without any reference.
The most simple way is to read books, publications, watch videos, and then summarize it in your view.
You can brainstorm with your friends or like-minded people to get good topic ideas and to gather the information that you need.
Try to provide the reader’s tips, tools, techniques, strategies, examples, product descriptions, and case studies. This can provide more value to the reader.
If you have good credibility in your industry you can provide them with Personal results, Years of experience, Number of Clients, Certifications, Testimonials, and so on.
One more thing that you can use third party data related to your topic that you find on other websites and try to expand on it.
Length of the entire article
Ahrefs’ team had recently analyzed rankings across 2 million keywords. They found a strong correlation between long-form content and ranking positions.
The articles which have more than 2000 words try to be on the top page of the search list.
It’s because people will spend more time on your site to read it. This will indicate Google that your article is good and will rank you higher.
If a person spends 2 minutes on the first search and 5 minutes on second, Google will understand it as the second article is better than the first. Google will promote to first
Just because you have this information doesn’t mean you have to expand.
For example, a query like “India’s capital city” is a question and doesn’t really demand a lengthy result.
Provide value. It should be worth their time reading. Don’t stuff words unnecessarily to increase the keyword.
Don’t unnecessarily stuff words and try to make it into a big article.
How to use links in the article?
Step 1 :
Link to relevant pages. It will help Google realize its quality content.
Try to include at least 5-6 links for every 1000 words written.
When you do this Google will understand that it’s an authoritative article and well-researched article.
Your audience too will know the reference sources and it will be helpful to learn more about your content.
It will make your audience realize that you’re producing value to them and it helps you to build your relationship with them.
Step 2 :
It is highly difficult for you to rank all the articles from your website.
It’s obvious that some rank and some don’t.
Do interlinking from highly performing pages to poor performing pages of your own page.
So when poor performing pages start getting traffic, it will make Google realize that it’s valuable content and it will rank them above.
How to use keywords to make content SEO optimized?
Learn how to do keyword research through our article.
Once you’re done with your keyword research, try to use your keywords in
- Title Tag
- Meta tag description
- First 100-150 words of your article
- Image Alt Text
- H1 tag
- H2/H3 tag
- Last 100 words of your page
You have to include LSI keywords in order to make Google understand that it’s a comprehensive article. LSI keywords are the keywords that Google suggests at the bottom of the page.
When you have enough keyword count that is at least 5-6 times in an article, it will make Google realize that it’s an authentic article on that particular keyword.
Also, make sure that you don’t overstuff your article with your primary keyword, In that case, Google will penalize you.
How to write a Conclusion?
End your article with a conclusion and name it as a Conclusion.
Conclude with a question. This will give you an opportunity to talk to your reader.
For example, it could be like
“I hope this guide shows you how to write great content.
Now I’d like to turn it over to you:
What’s the #1 tip you would like to try first?”
Also, ask in the conclusion if they have any questions or queries that they need to ask you.
Lastly, very importantly ask them to leave a comment to know how they felt about the article.
Few other pro tips:
- “Keep reading until the end. We have a bonus tip for you”. You can use phrases like this to make them read until the end.
- Infographics, pictures, videos, charts have an effective way of communication. It’s always told a picture speaks a thousand words.
According to SEM Rush’s article on content marketing, it was used by over 74% of marketers in more than 70% of their content in 2019.
- Show authority. Show links from where you learned. When you do this it will not only help the readers, but it will also help you if you get back a backlink from them.
- Please the audience, not the search engines. If you try to rank, maybe you would rank for a particular time but it won’t improve your brand or credibility.
- Read what you have written again and again and see if each line can really provide value to your reader. Make sure a line is present if it is useful else to remove it.
- Make sure the writing is free of grammar and spelling mistakes for readability and for creating trust.
You can check for them using Google Docs for free or you can use paid applications such as Grammarly.
- Keep your content up to date to ensure your content remains relevant to search engines. This is particularly important if your topic and year come up in the related searches of a search result.
- Using real data to inform the content itself is an excellent way to create great content that converts or convinces your audience.
- Publish your content on social media and other platforms and get feedback from readers.
- Our last tip is to use SEM Rush.
Why should you use SEMRush?
SEMRush has its own add on tool for Google Docs. It’s a paid tool but very easy to use and very effective to improve your rankings in web pages.
It will show you four things mainly
- Readability
- SEO
- Originally
- Tone of voice
Based on all those four, it will give you a relative score out of 10 which means that taking it from 5 to 6 is easier compared to taking it from 8 to 9.
First, you should choose your target keyword. You can choose up to 30 keywords for which you want your article to be SEO optimized.
Now we will get to each of them one by one
- Readability
This gives a score based on how easy or difficult it is to read your content.
It will also show what should be the target number of words in your content to rank.
It will suggest to you if there should be any changes either in your content or your title.
- Originality
This is one of the best tools to use to see if your content is plagiarized.
As you know Google won’t appreciate plagiarised content and it will make your content rank low.
It will also show you the source through which your content is copied.
- SEO
This tool is a great way to write SEO content.
It will show you all the recommended keywords which you need to use apart from your target keywords.
If there is any broken link or any irrelevant links, it will show that too.
- Tone of Voice
This shows you how consistent your tone is and will also show you the most casual and most formal sentences that you should get rid of.
Basically, it helps to improve you to switch to the correct tone of voice. Neither too casual nor too formal.
You can just click on those sentences, it will navigate to that sentence in the article and you can fix it up.
Tool: SEMrush Benefit: Plan, Write, And Analyse Content (SEO) in one place.
Conclusion :
“Blogging takes a lot of work when you do it right. But it takes even more work when you do it wrong.
That’s why so many people give up blogging, and it’s why blogging seems impossible. It seems like you have to devote hours a day to blogging and consistently come up with great ideas.
In reality, it’s about being prepared and building a process that will help you go on autopilot.”
-> Neil Patel, founder of neilpatel.com
What Neil Patel has said above is 100% true.
So don’t be worried about the result. Give time for your blogs to grow and be consistent.
Let us know what you think is a great way to write content. Leave the comments below.