Content writing is a blooming profession these days. The net is full of content. Many people in the recent years have taken up writing content as a profession. Many of these content writers write for websites.

Content writing not only satisfies a writer’s writing needs but also exposes a writer to the whole world. Needless to say that it earns writers some money too. Overall content writing can be fun. But it depends solely on the writer on how he/she is going to make full use of it. In simple terms content writing means to write/produce contents for a website or some other medium. It’s purely a written medium. Thus anyone who loves to write and finds the written medium to be the best way to express his/her mind can try a hand at content writing. This way not only will they be happy they will also earn some money.

For starters one can write at a pace that’s comfortable for them. Remember there is more to content writing than just writing on a topic close to heart. You need to do a lot of research before writing a peace of article. The best and easiest way to write articles is to jog down all the points on a peace of paper and then elaborate. Try it – believe me its really easy.

If you are not getting work as a freelancer – look for a job. Today there are many great jobs for content writers. You can also start your own blog and keep posting your articles there. If you don’t know what is a blog, read it here. Also read how to create a blog.

A blog will automatically build your portfolio which can be viewed by the entire world. Needless to say that among the readers there may be some prospective employers also who are looking for writers or professionals for their company. And who knows they may like someone through his/her writing skills. And this is not a new thing. Many bloggers have received offer letters from newspapers and other different companies. Some have also signed book contracts. Thus the advantages and opportunities of content writing are immense.

If you are writing content for SEO purposes then read my article on content writing with SEO in mind. It emphasizes on the fact that your content must offer some value to your visitors. Informative pages also do well with the search engines.

One thumb rule is writing for people and not for the search engines – and then sprinkle your keywords here and there. But make sure the sentence remains grammatically correct.

Many professionals have left their air-conditioned cubicles to become full time content writers and bloggers. And they are happy. Because they are doing something that their heart wants and they are in the process gaining recognition and money together.

If you love content writing, getting paid for doing something that one loves is not something everyone can do. So write with passion.

Do you love writing? If yes, please share some tips on writing for people who have just started writing.

Content Writing is one of the factors that influence SEO. Gone are the days when keyword repetition 8-10 times in a 400-500 word page was important. Of course the keyword should be present in the content, but the gravity is still a debatable topic. And further if your content is garbage (will discuss later) whatever be the number of repetitions – your page may not rank well.

Why is SEO to some extend dependent on Content Writing?

When someone searches for information online what they do? They type a few words describing what they are looking for in the search engines. The search engines then look for “matching content” in their database of websites and return the ones with the matching content. So from SEO point of view content is important.

How important?

Well let me state an example first. Let’s suppose someone is looking for “freelance content writer”. Lets compare these two type of pages that has these keywords present in their content on “freelance content writer”.

Page 1: Has this type of content:

We have the best freelance content writer. We have the cheapest freelance content writers and our freelance content writers are one of the best.

Page 2: Has this type of content:

Are you looking for freelance content writers? With more than 900 pages of content written till date I think I am the one who can fit your needs:

Here are some examples of freelance content writing done by me:
Example 1, Example 2, Example 3…..

My rates are quite affordable too…. etc.

Now, which page do you think the search engines will prefer listing in the first page? You guessed it right Page 2.

Why? Needless to say because its content is informative, complete and offers some value to its visitors. Page 1 content is nothing but garbage.

(Please keep in mind content is one of the many factors involved in ranking.)

What should you do to make sure your website’s content offers value to your visitors:

1. Do not write on a topic you don’t have much knowledge on.

2. If it doesn’t interest you, then don’t write on it.

3. Write something that you are very comfortable in.

4. Write in a language that even a 5th grade student understands.

5. Try not to have any grammatical errors / spelling mistakes in your copy. Though I agree, 100% accuracy cannot be achieved – but you should try to make it as correct as possible.

6. Overall feeling of the content should be nice, informative and beautiful.

Believe me content writing can be fun and rewarding too – but writing for the sake of writing and for top ranks may be a waste of time.

If you want me to write content for your website please contact me with details.

What do you say?

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is optimizing a website in such a way that it gets top ranks in the search results for certain terms (keywords) in the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

Why is SEO Important?

It’s important because it helps you to get more visitors – and unlike PPC, one need not pay for every click. Needless to say – more the visitors mean more the sales. Of course there are many other factors such as landing page, targeted traffic etc that come into play before a sale or a lead takes place, but it’s a safe bet to assume that more visitors means more sales.

But that’s one side of the coin. Is SEO easy? NO!!! Can SEO be done overnight NO!!!

SEO takes time to build:

It is not like Rome was built in a day. Good things take time. So is SEO. If you have optimized your website and think that you will have users/buyers from the next day then you are very wrong. It takes time to get top ranks. Even if you have optimized your site well, got some great inbound links, have great content and have dome some on-page optimization stuff – still it might take some time before your site gets top ranks.

Why?

One reason can be that Google needs to update its database before new results can be thrown. This takes some time, anywhere from 2 weeks to about a month or more.

One should also note that Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes that the internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives. In February, 2009 while speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus as part of their annual industry conference he said that the brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted. He also added that Brands are the solution, not the problem. And most importantly, “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

It looks like Google has started giving more emphasize on the Brands. So sites that Google think is a brand might get ranked faster than a normal site.

SEO Content:

SEO content also takes time to build. One cannot just write whatever one wishes to. SEO content has to be well researched and then has to be implemented well. This too takes time. And it takes much more time by the search engines to read those SEO contents and then put them into their databases and then implement them into their search results.

Note that content must be added over time. Adding tons and tons of content in one single day might get your site in trouble.

Does SEO Stops at Ranking?

NO, SEO doesn’t just stop at rankings. It’s lot more than that. For starters every part of your site matters including the design. There are many ways to bring in visitors to your site – social networking, PPC, direct online advertising etc. That said SEO is the best way to boost up traffic.

Also SEO makes for a credible source. Advertising is not always considered to be true or reliable because it is paid. But in case of search engine listings, it differs. People have an inherent belief in search engine listings. They seldom notice the SEO techniques that work behind to bring in visitors. They have more faith in the organic search engine listings than in online advertisements.

Also SEO is just one time investment. You don’t have to pay anyone when someone visits your site. That’s because the person is visiting the site directly from a search engine. Thus it’s better to invest time in making a good search engine optimized website. This will help in the long run. 

Do you think SEO takes time and is it worth it?

The web has grown to a magnanimous size from what it was in the laboratory of CERN. Back then nobody imagined the momentum the web carried with itself. Today it’s for all to see. Web today is undoubtedly the most sought after marketing tool. It reaches a niche audience. The World Wide Web is now an industry and quite a profitable one at that. When one tries to market a product or a service through a website it becomes very necessary to make the website content heavy. Content heavy here means not in terms of word count but information wise. People log in to the internet to get information, any sort of information.

The internet has become such an important resource for information today that even for minor information one logs in to search engines when a dictionary is just a hand away lying on the table.

I am not saying that dictionaries have become obsolete today but I am trying to imply the importance of web industry today and how people instantly think of search engines today rather hankering after a dictionary. If you need something it’s there on the internet. You just have to type it and there it lies for your grasping. Thus what matters is the information or in web terms ‘content’. It is very true that ‘content is king’. It is for the content that people come to the internet. So if the content is good there will be no dearth of people to visit the site. There are millions of web users across the world. They just look for one thing: Quality content. Thus better content means better rankings in search engines.

Satisfying people with what they are looking for is an important task. One might get audience through some links or some ads. But what to do when a person has already visited your site? Then one must hold the attention of the reader. Two important aspects come here.

First is expertise or knowledge of the subject and the second is understandability.

When a person visits a particular site, it’s definitely for the information it provides. So the more specific and need based the content of a site is the more people will prefer to use it. For e.g. if a site gives information about “stitching” it needs to give every information and fulfill every query that its audience might have regarding the subject. Also the owner of the site has to have a deep rooted knowledge on the subject only then can it suffice the needs of its audience. Having a website on a particular subject or some cluster of subjects also means that it appeals only to people who need information on those particular subjects. Thus it automatically segregates the potential audience or buyers.

Now comes the second most important aspect of content: understandability. Many writers would love to show how good they are in English and would use words that would make one open a dictionary at every second line. This is not good. While writing for a site one must write in a lucid, free flowing everyday language. This makes one stick to the writing. Thus it is the overall content quality that matters and fetches in audience.

What do you think? Is content still the king?