Content is king and you might yourself have been religiously following this rule, but are you on the right track?
Not all content is good content… the same way all books don’t fall in the ‘good reading’ bracket. Just the way some books do more harm than good, badly written content (the sort that’s full of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes) does great harm to whatever website it’s on. Content riddled with ill placed keywords (or buzzwords) also does little good.
All good written work is centered on one main idea, don’t write content for content’s sake. This means, when writing, do NOT think about your being there to fill a page, think about what you would want to read, what your target audience would want to know about when researching what you’re writing about. If you have a writer’s block… look to the web for inspiration. Run a Google search and visit similar websites for help. See what people like to read, and what’s important enough to put out there. Well thought out content does wonders… bad content can do great harm.
Here are a few guidelines for good content writing:
Be authoritative:
People pay heed to those in a position to guide. Be knowledgeable, and impart useful information in your writing. Work towards forming an authoritative air. As knowledgeable people are authoritative… authoritative people are knowledgeable. If your audience consider you in a position of power, they will be more susceptible to your ideas. Be well read, then stick to the claim you make. Never fold over just to agree with (and in the process please) your client in a discussion… similarly, do not write to please, write to inform.
Be aware of what’s important:
What is your content about and what does your audience think of it? If you’re writing about a brand that has a social profile or a fan following, then be up to date on what’s going on. Use Facebook, twitter… and other social outlets to keep up. Content that is written by someone who knows what the audience is talking about, and thinking is extremely effective.
Prioritize, and plan:
Content is hard work… like any other project. So like any other project plan it well. Set goals and objectives that you plan to achieve in a day, and stick to them. Put in research and time. Content can do wonders for a company image, but as pointed out earlier, only well written and well researched content helps.
Keep the conversation going:
If someone comments on your work, respond. Have a conversation. When a brand starts to feel like a person trying to connect, clients respond. Having a one to one conversation is a great way to get rid of the ‘heartless salesperson’ stereotype. Make good use of it.
Keep your brand out of the picture:
The less… Pushy salesperson you sound, the better your message is received. Keep mentioning you to the minimum. Let your audience know that you are writing primarily to better inform them of their choices. If you advertise too much, then the audience thinks that you are writing primarily to advertise… which hurts your credibility.
Uroosa Rajani is a professional blogger for Genetech Solutions, an offshore IT Consulting Firm in Pakistan serving clients with effective Web Development Solutions, Social Media, iPhone and Database Application Development. Follow her on Twitter @UroosaRajani110.
dear genetech,
I happened to go through the above piece of information. It is quite informative, while on the other hand it is violating a few elements that are being discussed in the article itself. Like there are a few grammatical mistakes that I could point out.
i hope this is taken as a positive criticism and being worked upon.
thank you.
Thank you Sana for pointing out the grammar errors. We will try to fix this in our future posts. Our reader’s criticism is always taken as positive.