One of the greatest elements about content writing for an agency is that it is so varied; one day I’ll be writing about the perfect man cave shed and the next I’ll be writing about a luxurious hotel room. I started Reflect Digital with minimal knowledge in this area and in just a matter of months, I’ve had a massive eye opener into the world of content writing. Here I share some of the most important things I have learnt already...
1. Relevancy is key
Content must be relevant, useful and engaging. If you’re content writing for the web to rank for a certain topic, question or phrase for example, make sure your content is relevant to the user's search query and intent. Google is unlikely to place your website in the top 10 search results if your content is proving to be irrelevant.
2. Importance of research
Identify your topic and then conduct keyword analysis to identify the most effective keywords you should be trying to rank for. For example, it would be ineffective to target keywords which gain no monthly search volume unless you’re targeting an extremely niche industry. On the other hand, it would also be ineffective to target keywords with extremely high competition. If you’re up against large authoritative brands, it is unlikely that you’ll ever reach position one or even rank within the top 3, unless you too, are a market leader in your industry. Be wise when targeting keywords and make sure you don’t keyword stuff, Google will see this as spamming and rather than have a positive effect on your rankings, you can wave goodbye to a top ten position.
3. Staying in Google's good books
Content writing for the web also involves keeping up-to-date with Google Algorithms and content writing best practices. One day the practice that has successfully been securing top ranking positions within SERPs could dramatically change all because of a Google algorithm update, so it’s always wise to stay on top of this.
4. Keeping an open mind
Background industry knowledge is key and makes creating useful, interesting and engaging content much easier. This has probably been the most challenging aspect for me. However, it is also the great thing about content writing, you discover information and knowledge about an industry that you never thought you would learn about or even one you never thought you would be remotely interested in. In the next 6 months I know I will be answering questions that I never thought I would know the answer to, like which is the best screw to use when building your garden decking?!
Although this area of marketing was very new to me since starting my internship, I now feel much more confident in my ability after being able to learn from my colleagues attend content writing training. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is thinking of moving into this area of work!
