Dummies Guide To Writing Content

They say time is money, so why waste time writing content that won’t make you any, when you could be creating content that can make customers out of your audience, and convert along meaningful and multiple lines. From your CTA’s, website copy and blog posts to your social media posts and PPC campaigns, every word of content is an opportunity to engage with and relate to your audience, and provide them with that feeling of wanting more. Great content will be talked about, liked and shared, expanding your reach, and your profit margins. But great content is not just wonderfully descriptive sentences that highlight product benefits or your brand’s offering. It’s not all short headers and images either. Great content is that which helps you to rank for your products and services, and provides your audience with valuable information, so that they feel time spent reading it is time well spent. To help you create such valuable content, I provide some tips and tricks of the content trade…

Content Writers Should Understand Their Audience

Content writers – if you’re writing content for a brand or business that isn’t your own, ensure that you have a good understanding of who you are writing for and who their audience is. Don’t just assume that one aesthetic business wants to sound like another, or because you have two recruitment companies on your books that they are targeting the same types of candidates – even if they operate within the same industry. Every single business is different – each with their own offering that they’ll want to promote in their own unique way, and it’s up to you to discover what this is, and create content that reflects this. Research is key to this, and yours should always include:

1. An understanding of the client, as well as the subject matter (product/service/topic) you are writing about.
2. The purpose of the piece of the content – is it to bring in leads, drive sales, increase website traffic, encourage email subscriptions or simply showcase your expertise?
3. The tone required. Should the blog you’re writing be conversational, professional or quirky? Should the website copy be written from an expert’s P.O.V. or in layman’s terms?
4. The intended audience and the kinds of content that will engage them the most.
5. The location for this content, and how it should be written to reflect its place.

Content Writers Should Check Their Grammar

Even the best writers make mistakes at times, so ensuring your spell check is turned on is always a safe bet, as is installing Grammarly – a free online program that checks your spelling and grammar as you write. It’s a fantastic tool that helps to correct any errors in your writing that you might have missed, ensuring that your content is polished and reads well. Your clients will not be impressed if their clients pick up on errors, or if missing words lead to confusion as to what’s on offer. Always edit your content with care, and go through it with a fine tooth comb.

Content Writers Plan Everything

Whether you’re unsure on how to write 500 words or 5000 words on a certain topic, planning your piece is always a good place to start. Using tools such as Ahrefs can help you to come up with headings and sections for your content, providing you with further areas to look into that you may not have even originally thought of. By creating a content skeleton from this, you then have a structure which you can stick to, ensuring you are covering the most important parts and getting the intended message across throughout.

For example, a 5000 word piece on Restaurant Insurance doesn’t seem quite so daunting when you break it down like this:

• Introduction
• The Dangers Facing Restaurants 

Food Safety

Fire Safety

Theft 

Business Interruption

• Why You Need Restaurant Insurance
• Our Cover 

Public Liability

Employers Liability

Product Liability

Buildings Cover

Business Interruption

Stock & Contents Cover

Seasonal Increases

Personal Accident Cover

Fixtures & Fittings

Loss Of License Cover

Loss Of Money

Legal Expenses

Shop Front & Glass

Entertainment Insurance

• Our Process: Choosing The Right Cover For You
• How To Make A Claim
• The Benefits Of Restaurant Insurance
• Why Choose Company X?
• Case Studies
• FAQs 
• Get In Touch Today

Keywords Are Key

Integrating relevant and well-researched keywords throughout your content can increase the number of people who view it. By including specific keywords in your content, you improve the chances of search engines finding your content when users search for the topic. Keyword research is therefore a must, helping you to understand what keywords and search terms are most popular for your brand, as well as those with a lower search volume that you could rank for with niche content. We use a whole host of tools for keyword research, and what follows is a quick guide on how to use Ahrefs:

A Quick Guide To Using Ahrefs

Say you want to rank for the phrase ‘financial planning in Manchester’. Type this phrase into Google and pick out a key competitor (for example, Pareto).

Sign into Ahrefs and copy and paste the link (https://paretofp.co.uk/) into the top search bar. Ensure the adjacent label states, ‘Exact URL’ too. 

Then go to the left hand column and click on ‘Organic Keywords’, which will provide a list such as this (ensure that the flag clicked on is ‘United Kingdom’):

Then pick one of them (e.g. ‘financial advisor manchester’) and click on ‘Keywords Explorer’ in the top menu.

Type in this phrase into the text box, ensure the dropdown menu states ‘United Kingdom’ and click the orange search icon, as below:

Scroll down to ‘Keyword ideas by search volume’ and click on ‘view all 18’

You are then presented with the keywords your competitor is ranking for, and the volumes of their searches. Both high and low volume searches are good to rank for, both in terms of competition and their niche.

Repeat this process for other competitors and phrases you’d like to rank for and collate this data into an excel document for ease of usage.

You can also export all of this data by clicking on the ‘Export’ button, on the right hand side of the data.

We do a lot more with Ahrefs than this basic keyword research, but telling you all of our secrets would make me the dummy. From linking and longform content to removing duplicate content, there’s a lot more to writing great content than is contained within this blog, so if you’d like to learn more, then please give us a call today on 0161 327 2635 to discuss your content needs and just what we can do for you.