© 2010, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.
Did you know that
writing web content is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your search engine visibility and traffic levels over time? It's true. Sure,
link building has a lot to do with search engine rankings. But you cannot even begin to rank well for a certain phrase until you have web content built around that phrase.
So in this blog tutorial, I'm going to talk about web content writing, and how you can take the mystery out of the process.
Web Writing Tips
Think of all the things you'll be able to do with some basic web writing skills and the confidence to use those skills: You can publish press releases online to drive traffic to key sections of your website. You can create new web content to make your site more valuable to readers. You can start a blog and publish new information on a daily basis (a great way to attract new clients). You can create informational articles and publish them all over the Internet with links back to your site -- more traffic and rankings!
With some
basic web content writing skills, there is no limit to what you can do online. After all, content is the fundamental building block of your Internet marketing program. Search engine rankings, website traffic, lead generation, client acquisition ... none of it can happen without quality content. So let's dive right in to our lesson on web writing like a pro.
1. Put Content Over FormLet me start by putting your mind at ease, with regard to a common fear people have about writing. When you publish information onto a business website, the content is more important than the form. In other words, you don't have to write like William Faulkner when you create web content. In fact, it's best if you don't. Sure, you have to write clearly and cleanly, without typos and major grammatical errors. But when it comes to website writing, what you say is more important than how you say it.
The best thing you can do when publishing information is to (A) select topics your audience really wants to know about, and then (B) explain those topics in clear, straightforward language. Be thorough and helpful with your writing, and you have won half the battle already.
2. Turn Off the Little Man Inside Your HeadNegativity and self-doubt are the enemies of web content writing. We all experience these things at one time or another, and when left unchecked they can block the road to success. So when you write content for your website (particularly the first draft), turn off the internal editor inside your head. Remember, you can always come back and edit the web content after you write it, and before anyone will see it. The first draft is all about getting your ideas down before they float away.
When you do this, you'll be amazed at how much easier the web content writing process is. Ideas will come to you more easily, and you'll be able to get them down without being impeded by your internal critic. Before you begin a writing project, say to yourself: "Nobody will see this until I'm ready for them to see it. I can write like mad and then come back to revise things later on."
3. Forget About the Search Engines (For Now)Writing the first draft of web content with the search engines in mind is a recipe for bad content. Remember who your real audience is -- people! So create your content in a way that makes it useful to people first. Inform them, educate them, and help them achieve some kind of goal on your website.
When you have created the kind of web content that achieves these goals, then you can go back and make sure it's optimized for search engine visibility. You can even
use my book as a guide for this secondary process. And while we're talking about SEO, let me give you a helpful tip for writing the kind of web content that performs well in the search engines.
4. Narrow Your Topics to Increase RelevanceHave you ever read a web page that tackled too many topics in one place? Instead of segmenting the topics into "digestible" parts, the author decided to lump everything onto one page. This is rarely a good strategy when writing content for the web. It's best to limit your internal web pages (those beyond the home page) to one or two topics per page. This helps you in two ways:
- First of all, it makes your content much easier to read. Instead of sifting through five things they don't care about to find the one thing they do, readers can simply navigate to their topic / page of choice. So it helps with website usability.
- Secondly, segmenting your content helps with search engine visibility. If a web page covers 12 different topics, you are essentially diluting the relevance of that page (in terms of search engine rankings). But when you have tightly focused pages that address a specific topic, you increase the relevance of the web content ... and the likelihood that it will be presented to a search engine user who is searching that topic. So it helps with visibility too.
5. Outline Before You WriteWhen I say you should "outline" your content when writing for the web, I'm not talking about that Roman numeral system you learned back in your high school English class. I'm talking about creating a simple outline before you write to help you stay on track when writing your web pages. I have been using this process for years, and it has helped me publish several pages of website and blog content
every day! I often teach it to my consulting clients as well, and it always helps them increase their web writing efficiency.
Outlining your website content need not take a lot of time, either. If you spend more than ten minutes on the process, you're probably over-thinking it. All you need to do is jot down some notes on the topic you are addressing, the key points you will make along the way, and how you will wrap things up.
Take this tutorial on web content writing as an example. To outline this article, I started by jotting down some notes on what I wanted to accomplish: "I will write a brief tutorial to help people overcome their fear of website writing. Specifically, I will offer five tips that have helped me a lot over the years, when creating content for the web." Then I simply listed my five tips, with a brief note about each one, and presto ... I had an outline for my tutorial.
Then I followed the other advice presented above. I turned off the little editor in my head. I forgot about search engines for the time being, and I did my best to create a
helpful article on the
specific topic of writing for the web. And if you found this tutorial useful, then I've achieved my goal.
Hopefully, you can now see that website content is not something to dread. You don't have to be a professional writer, and you don't have to spend hours looking at a blank screen or notebook. When you break the process down like I've shown you above, you'll be writing for the web with more ease and efficiency than ever before. Good luck!
Labels: Real Estate Websites
