Crafting Your Message: A 3 Point Plan for Web Content Writing

Web Content Writing

The online world is a huge mass of 2.5 billion users spanning all kinds of interests, specialties and businesses. Given such vastness, how can you succeed in getting your message heard?

One major facet is content marketing –  i.e., informative, inspiring, valuable, well executed writing.

Note: Content writing goes hand-in-hand with branding and search engine optimization (SEO). Be sure to integrate the content plan detailed below alongside digital marketing, social media and SEO efforts.

Stage I: The Broad Scope

First, just throw all related ideas out there, uninhibited, to get a broad feel for where you might want to go, what might be out there, and what people are looking for. Here’s what to do for this stage:

A.  Brainstorm. Come up with a few phrases about what your message might be or includes. Don’t hold back – anything goes – this is brainstorming.

As an example, let’s take a chiropractor who has never marketed herself online – she has an unused website, or no website at all. She really wants to start getting her message out, online, to increase business. Here are some brainstorming phrases she could come up with for relevant content topics:

• I want people to know about my chiropractic services.

• My website should be the go-to place for chiropractic knowledge in my area.

• A lot of people don’t even know what chiropractic can do – they just think it’s for back pain. What about immunity, healing disease, increasing energy, etc.?

These are just some examples. Ideally your initial brainstorming ideas would take up a whole page, or several – you might be surprised at some of the new angles you create. It’s often most comfortable to brainstorm with a colleague or friend and bounce ideas off of each other this way.

B. See what’s already out there. Take your ideas and research them online by doing web searches for a few keyword phrases.

Note that if you are looking to increase business locally, search for a keyword phrase which includes your location or area. Say you live in Boca Raton –  you might try these keywords:

• Chiropractic Boca Raton

• Back Pain Chiropractic Boca Raton

• Alternative healing Boca Raton

• Healing disease  Boca Raton

• Healing cancer Boca Raton

• Immunity Boca Raton

Stage II: Hone

Now that you have a basic idea of your focus, you can hone in on how to specifically tweak your content writing for your target online audiences.

A. See which keywords people are searching for. This way you’ll know which keywords to include in your content, and how to create spin.

Use Google’s Keyword Planner in Google Adwords for this step – here’s how:

Select:

• One phrase per line in the search field

• If you are marketing locally only, select a country.

(For step-by-step details on how to research keywords, see the SEO basics guide.)

Use keywords which make sense grammatically, because they will be used in real content writing. Try different types of wording combinations, for example:

Chiropractic services in Boca Raton
Boca Raton chiropractic
Chiropractor in Boca Raton
Boca Raton chiropractor

You will see the highest search volumes listed (these are the terms that are most often searched in Google.) Pick the top two for your content writing.

B. Give your writing a spin. Once you know the competing sites out there, you can decide how to make yourself distinct.

• Answer the question: Why should people come to me versus other chiropractors in the area?

• What might you say or offer that others are not??

• Based on your target audience (age, gender, demographic, culture) how do you think you could phrase things specifically for the people you’re trying to attract?

Stage III: Writing for Your Website

You might choose to write your own content, or outsource it to a web content writer. Either way, you now have an idea of what to write, and here are the major avenues for writing.

A. Basic website pages. The basic two website pages are your Home Page and your About page.

Be sure to include the Stage II aspects – the highest searched keywords, as well as your “spin” – on both of these pages.

• Home Page: This is your first impression, so be sure to write enticing content for it.  For each writing piece, you can configure the post to make only the first few lines viewable, and have the rest link to a separate page.

• About Page: This is where you describe in detail what you and your services are about. It should include your unique selling proposition (what differentiates you from your competitors) and is an unparalleled opportunity to connect emotionally with your site visitors.

B. Articles

Articles are formal writing pieces which are usually written from an expert’s perspective, and run at least two pages.

Important: Article writing should include related highest searched keywords.

C. Blogs

Blogs are short articles (usually no more than 400-800 words) which appear at regular intervals (monthly or weekly – pick a schedule and stick to it) and discuss topics related to your services in a casual yet informative fashion.

Important: Blogs should include related highest searched keywords and feature catchy titles.

Crafting content writing takes planning. Once you get the basics down, you can fly creatively and dynamically, all the while increasing traffic to your site and spreading your message.

Submission by Chaya Leah