content writing

EVERYTHING is CONTENT!

The 50 billion pictures on Instagram, the 500 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube every minute and the 7.5 million blog posts published on the internet. But many still believe content is just writing, thereby mixing up the ideas of Content Marketing and Content Writing.

As a content marketing agency in Ahmedabad, Flora Fountain has had days where their writers and digital marketers had to explain the difference between the two ideas to almost every person (even clients) that they meet.

So, here’s all the tea, to understand what exactly is content, and the difference between content writing and content marketing.

CONTENT

Content is information, art, ideas and experiences, expressed in the form of words, pictures, speech, graphics or moving visuals published either digitally or on print, for an end user to consume.

Okay, okay… Let’s try putting it in simpler words, shall we?

All kinds of photographs, blogs, articles, captions, ad copies, videos, reels, music, podcasts, graphic design or animated visuals are content.

And the internet is an ever flowing stream of content, good, bad and ugly!

Content writing is all about putting ideas into words, creatively and in a simpler form. Writing content can be something like an advertisement copy of just 5 words, or a thesis of 5000 words. And in digital marketing, some of the best content writing companies produce written content in the form of captions for social media posts, marketing copies for online promotions, content for websites, blogs like this, articles for newspapers and magazines, copies for print ads in magazines or hoardings, or even scripts for videos.

Content writers include bloggers, brand journalists, copywriters, ghost-writers, SEO writers, technical writers, etc.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content marketing is basically marketing to strategically promote a brand or business on a digital platform, using smartly created content like blogs, pictures, creative posters and videos.

IT IS NOT JUST WRITTEN COPY! But yes, written content does play a crucial role in content marketing, as every great marketing idea first comes to life in the form of a copy.

Content marketing is done through blogs, case studies, emailers, social media posts, video, website content, articles, ad copies, infographics and a lot more.

To sum up, Content Writing involves creating various types of written products, which can then be used to produce other forms of content and further implemented into Content Marketing to promote a business or a brand.

So, how does one write content that is ideal for marketing?

1. Put the audience first

The content should address the target audience. It should talk to them about their problems and perhaps possible solutions. If the content cares about its intended audience, it will make the audience care about the messaging too. Readers connect with content that understands them, their needs and provides them some kind of value, either as information, education or entertainment.

2. Tailor the content

A business can never sell its products if the marketing content doesn’t speak the language of their target audience. A local brand can use the local language and sometimes even street slang (where applicable) in addressing their customers, a B2B brand must sound more formal.

3. Links to the brand

The content should create recall for the brand, its services, products or team, in an organic and authentic way. This is to be done to create a form of brand association with certain subjects in the readers’ minds. The end goal is to leave a positive and memorable imprint about the brand on the reader.

4. Draws the reader towards the business

It is important that the content must have more than one call to action prompt, to ensure that the reader is drawn towards the end of the sales funnel and eventually convince them to either purchase the product or provide some information as a valuable lead for the business.

Inform, Educate & Inspire through content, with us

If a brand wants to stand out on the Internet today, there is no space for mediocrity. This is the age of short attention spans and high speed internet. Only crisp, clear and SEO-friendly content that speaks both to a user and to a search engine can propel a business into the visibility of the constantly-scrolling audience on the world wide web.

It is advisable to seek the help of content experts, who have cut their teeth in the market working with the finest brand and have written content for audiences of all kinds.

As a top digital marketing agency, Flora Fountain provides content marketing & writing services in Ahmedabad and all over the country to brands and businesses of all types. Drop us a line, give us a call, and let’s have a chat over a cup of coffee and some mind-blowing ideas for your business.

A common misconception among writers in this age of digital is that creative content writing and SEO content writing just don’t go hand in hand. But we, somewhat controversially, believe they can co-exist! HOW?!

First, let’s get some clarity on the basics.

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Content Writing?

Creating readable content for the web that ranks high on search engines, through the use of relevant keywords in the main body and the meta tags and title, multiple headers and bullet points within the article to break down the content, and interlinking them with other relevant articles and pages.

What is Creative Content Writing?

This is where imagination takes flight and originality, the front seat. This is where a story is narrated to the reader, engaging them with every line, a chuckle here, maybe a gasp there, keeping them hooked till the end, delighting them with a conclusion that leaves them wanting more.

Now you might be wondering, how does one merge these two seemingly different schools of thought into a single piece of writing? Well, here’s how.

Know your keywords

One of the most common feedback website writers get is that their content does not have any of the keywords the client wants. This is a common problem when the blog is written by a separate team of content writers, only after which the SEO team kicks in for checking the SEO compatibility. Instead the SEO expert and content writer must work closely, right from the blog’s ideation to checking the keywords before its eventual publishing.

To elaborate, the team must first identify the keywords for a few months, as well as, the target audience. This is usually done by the SEO expert. Once done, these keywords are provided to the content writer and together the two can create a calendar of topics for anything from a month to 6 months! In case you don’t have an SEO executive and are operating as a solo writer, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest or Moz.

Enter the name of the industry or the topics you’re planning to write on, and the tool would suggest multiple keywords with their performance, relevance and ranking data too.

Keep it simple, silly!

Google cares for keywords. But the reader doesn’t look for SEO keywords, but for something that will keep them engaged, intrigued and delighted.

If the content is crisp and short and provides the reader with value as information or entertainment, the targeted audience is usually hooked. One of the best ways to do crisp writing online is through Listicles. Our minds have become trained to at least skim through an entire list, rarely leaving in the middle. And if something is interesting, we spend more time reading the copy, increasing the time spent on the website.

Moreover, overly complex, long sentences, peppered with repetitive words and phrases are a turn off not just for the reader, but Google too while ranking content for its search engine.

This is because search engines rank content that provide answers to the question asked by the viewer. The simpler and clearer the content is, the better chance it has to get ranked higher on the search window. Keep in mind, you are eventually writing for an actual person with an actual problem. The search engine is just the bridge between you and the reader.

Keep your sentences short
Highlight the topic using H tags
Provide answers
Make it easier still, use bullet points

(See what we did there?)

And to help with the SEO, apart from using a keyword or two in the copy, link them to a relevant source that backs your idea/solution.

With attention spans getting lower and so much content being available to us online, these tips help the reader keep engaged with the content instead of just skimming away.

Use relevant imagery with Alt Tags

Remember how we all loved comic books as kids? Remember, how our least favourite book in school would be the Math textbook?

Know why? Comic books were full of exciting imagery with captions, while that Math textbook was just a series of long explanations, confusing numbers and no pictures at all.

By adding great pictures, well designed artwork and fun GIFs to your blogs, you’re not only adding relevance to the content, but also keeping the reader hooked to see what comes next, kind of how Pixar does it.

And what’s more, images help with SEO too. Of the 5.4 billion searches done on Google every day, millions of them are for images and videos. When you insert pictures and embed videos within your content with the right Alt Tags, they get pulled up on top, bringing the blog along with it.

Play a little … with Meta titles, headers, descriptions

Content teams are known to show little or no interest when it comes to “creating metadata” for their blogs. As they believe it is their writing that’s the hero here.

Ironic given that it is after all through the Meta Title, Headers and Meta Descriptions that people find the heroic content online. After all, what is the point of writing a riveting piece, if the audience it is meant for is unable to find it online?

But it doesn’t have to be all dry and clinical. There are great ways to soup up your meta content with the keywords. For example, when writing the meta description for this very article ::

Usual SEO Content Writing“SEO content writing for websites and blogs can be creative. Here is how to write creative website content writing with the help of professional content writing services such as the ones provided by Flora Fountain”

Creative SEO Content Writing“Writers often lament that creativity was murdered by SEO on the Internet, when it comes to professional content writing. But we somewhat controversially believe that creative content writing and SEO content writing can co-exist peacefully … without crying murder”

The first is a very basic way to write a Meta description for this blog. While the second one does the same thing with a fun spin.

Meta data such as titles, headers and descriptions are the perfect vehicles for your keywords in, and the first place search engines look for when trying to index the content.

Whether it is website content, blogs or articles, here are the bits of meta information to ALWAYS have in each page of your online content:

Meta Title of 50 to 60 words with your main keyword in it (Usually with a figure in it)
Meta Description of 155 to 160 characters
Multiple Headers consisting of 6 to 8 words
Slug with all the keywords

Maintain the minimum quantity

How many words in a blog is enough? This is another point where the Team SEO and Team Content Writers can get into conflict. While writers seek creative freedom to write as much or as little as they want to express their ideas, SEO experts suggest that an ideal blog must be at least 800 words long.

Why? Because it gives enough room for both, the writers to let their creativity flow and the SEO experts to embed their keywords within.

Also, a short blog that ends abruptly leaves the reader disappointed as he/she feels that they’ve been left hanging. While a long blog makes them drift away and drop the blog halfway.

And here’s a fun fact, an average reader takes only about 3 minutes to read 800 words. Writing content being mindful of this fact, while keeping all others in mind, is the only way to write engaging content that ranks high! This is a practice followed by some of the best digital agencies all over the world, and definitely one of the reasons why Flora Fountain is known as one of the best professional content writing agency in Ahmedabad

So writers, make sure you follow these points while writing and working in tandem with your SEO team. Or, simply drop us an email and let the content experts of Flora Fountain do it for you!