Writing content for a website is like any art form, you can teach yourself the tricks to get better. Practice makes perfect, whether it is brewing craft beer, making music or creating content for your website. Tune your instruments, let the creative juices flow and use these content writing tips to get started and to create better content.
Creating content is one of the most important things you can do to improve the user experience on your website and the ranking of your website. It’s also one of the most daunting and difficult tasks for many small businesses & website owners. If you are reading this, it means you want to create good content. But how? What are the best ways to create high-quality content for your site? Let’s find out…
What is good content?
Good content is useful, helpful, and interesting to your visitors. This means that it provides valuable information for your readers. It should cover topics that are relevant to them and their interests. Good content can also be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be plain and uninspired. In fact, it should be creative and engaging enough to keep your visitors interested.
Why create content and how to use it?
Content is more than setting up a blog and posting articles. When people say that content is king and that you need to start creating it, there are lots of different ways to create it and use it on your website.
Let’s dive into your website to see where you can add content.
- Content pages, from the home page to SEO pages and even landing pages. Pages are the more static areas of your website, content that is relatively fixed and doesn’t change much. These are the pages where you explain to customers what you and your product are about.
- Blog posts or articles are the more dynamic content areas, for example on your blog section. These articles are sometimes time-sensitive (an event) or can change due to changing markets or new insights. Once a blog post is created, it's not done. You will need to keep checking and updating the content to keep it fresh and to keep your audience engaged.
- Product pages, are the area of your website where you showcase your products or services. Most online shops just add the basic minimum to these pages, either created themselves or copied from the supplier where they buy their products from. Imagine everyone doing that. Then you’ll realise that if you add more relevant content to your product pages, Google and other search engines have more reasons to rank your pages higher.
- But you don’t need to focus solely on your product pages, sometimes it makes more sense to beef up your category pages. Especially if the extra content applies to all products in that category. Then it makes sense to use that category page as your SEO focus page, add & tweak content so it benefits all products underneath.
Take a good look at some of the big websites out there. The multi-billion corporations that have mastered the SEO and thus content game and see how and where they have added content. Check the bottom of the page to see what they have done there.
And yes, most human customers won’t even see the content down there – unless they are focused on every detail of the product – but it does give search engines a lot of relevant content to crawl and rank.
Create content for humans, answer their questions and take away their worries, then the machines aka search engines will benefit from it as well and thus will reward you. Relevant content is king!
How to start writing content & create good content for your website
To create high-quality, useful content for your site, you need to first identify the topics that are most relevant and useful to your audience. A great way to find topics to cover in your newly created website texts is by using one or more of the following tools.
- Your customers, every little bit of info they need and ask for can help you to create new or better content for your website. Go through your inbox or your mind (think about what customers have asked when you attended markets and start writing content based on these questions.
- Use a search engine like Google or DuckDuckGo – yes there are more search engines out there – and start typing a topic relevant topic and see what Google suggests with their autocomplete function (this will show up before you hit ‘search’ or ‘enter’). Or hit ‘enter’ and see the section on the search results that is called “People also ask”. A great and easy source of information.
- Answer the public. An easy way to discover what people are talking about. The system shows you in a visually appealing graph all the info you need to start writing texts for your website.
Next, you will need to research and learn about these topics, issues & solutions. You can do this by relying on your own experience, reading articles, listening to podcasts, and watching videos about them. Use all the information collected to create an engaging and useful piece of content.
Start with the topics or issues that interest you the most. This will help you stay motivated as you write content for your site. You also want to choose topics that are relevant and interesting for customers. Just make sure you don’t go for the most popular topics as everyone will be doing that.
How to find inspiration for writing content (content ideas)
Identify the topics you want to include on your site. Once you have figured that out, you can start identifying the topics that are more popular than others. Popular topics are generally more relevant than less popular topics. However, as most people go for the most popular topics it is smart to focus on less popular topics. Then you’ll have less competition when it comes to ranking your content pages.
Don’t go for low-hanging fruit when it comes to SEO and adding content to your site. Go for less popular topics and longer focus words & sentences (long tail search terms).
How to find resources for creating better content for your website
Next, research the topics you have chosen and come up with ideas for your pieces of content. This will help you come up with topics for your articles and also identify problems that your audience might face. As you research these topics, you can also come up with ideas for your pieces of content. You should be brainstorming topics and solutions for your pieces of content as you go along.
If you want to create great content for your site, you need to find the best resources out there. This can be done using your favourite search engine. You can search for blog posts, articles, and ebooks related to your chosen topics.
Google and other search engines will be your best friend here. You can also use more specific keyword-driven searches to get more relevant results. You can also look at the websites of top bloggers in your niche to see what types of content they have published. Or you can check out websites of popular eCommerce brands to see what kind of articles they have.
Write content yourself vs having someone else do it
Should you create content yourself or hire a copywriter to do it? The pros of doing it yourself are that you are in full control, you set the tone of voice and can create the perfect content that resonates better with your customer base or target audience. But it will take more time and energy.
On the other hand, should you consider hiring a copywriter to write and edit your content, it will be more expensive. Although your time isn't free as well, so keep that in mind when comparing costs. Costs are always a challenge for small businesses or start-ups but make sure you are comparing apples with apples.
While it’s not a bad idea to have a content specialist work on your writing from time to time, most people can write articles on their own. To be honest, it is best to start writing the text yourself before you hire a professional. As a business owner, you have the best knowledge of your products. Write that info down. Tell potential customers about your products.
As soon as you have written that down and created your first pieces of SEO content you can decide whether you need a professional to finish the job or to do it yourself. A copywriter can add a lot of value but can also be expensive. Or you can mix and match, do the easy pieces of text yourself and let the more complicated ones be done by a professional.
You can hire a professional to do the following:
Write articles for your website. This is one of the most important tasks that you need to do when it comes to SEO. You need to write articles that will be useful for your customers and potential customers. You need to write articles that are relevant, informative and interesting for your audience. If you want to attract more customers, then this is one of the ways that you can do it.
This is one of the most important tasks that you need to do when it comes to SEO. Write blog posts on topics related to SEO. Blog posts are very popular among people today because they provide information such as how-to’s and tips & tricks. The added benefit of blog posts is that they are very useful in terms of getting traffic from search engines.
Hiring a (virtual/digital) copywriter when you are on a budget
When you are just starting and have just launched your website you often don’t have the money to spend on a professional copywriter. But you also don’t have the time to write all the content yourself.
When on a budget you can use smart tools or systems to create content for you. Content that isn’t perfect just yet, but you can make it perfect, which is easier than writing everything yourself.
- Use a budget content writing marketplace like Textbroker
- Use AI content writing tools with a generous free tier to get rid of writer’s block and to get you started.
These tools are great shortcuts when you are on a budget and are looking for a cheap way to have content created. It isn’t perfect but it is an easy solution for people who have trouble starting to write content. These tools will provide you with a piece of text that is more or less a starting point. Something that you have to improve and make it perfect.
Textbroker used to be a great way to get simple texts created on a budget, but since the rise of AI content writing tools, it has taken a backseat. Heaps of the cheap content writers on Textbroker either aren't native English speakers or they use a budget AI tool as their texts are simple and not any better than something you can create via AI yourself.
Just don't fall into the AI trap
AI or Artificial Intelligence is what everyone is talking about. AI Gurus are popping up faster than mushrooms in a damp forest on an autumn day. Everyone out there seems to want to teach you how to use the right prompts to get the best results from AI. Probably a lot of solo entrepreneurs or small online shop owners are wondering why not put everything into an AI system and let it create the perfect SEO text for their website.
While AI can do a lot to help out the content writing process, it wouldn't be wise to just copy-paste what your preferred AI system has generated for you. Quality of the content is king. Google and other search engines have so many sources to choose from, that the only thing that sets a great one apart from a mediocre one, is the quality of its content.
What AI generates for you as a blog post or SEO text for a web page, is nothing more than a fancy version of rehashed text it scraped from the internet. It's just rehashing and rewriting what's already out there. To be successful in the field of content writing and SEO you will have to create something that is yours and fits your brand or business. Something with a specific tone of voice, that contains your knowledge and words and images that let your products or services shine.
There is nothing wrong with using AI. It can do a lot to make your content writing life easier and to help you improve your content writing skills. Try it and see what it can do for you. You can use it as a brainstorming tool, a way to get started when you have writer's block, and a method to summarise what is out there or what your competitors have done already so you can create something original and take it to the next level. You'll always need to do something with it and make it your own piece of content. Don't just copy and paste what AI has given you!
Why content is important for ranking your website
Content in the form of text is what makes it easier for Google and other search engines to see what your website is all about. However, writing text and adding it to your website or online shop isn't just for Google. Your human visitors aka potential customers need this info as well. They want to see what your business is all about, what your products are made of, how to use them and lots more. A great text answers all these questions in a few easy-to-read sentences. Great content adds value to your website.
A great way to write content is to use a blog. A blog is a part of your website where you can post your articles and other content. You can also use it to promote your business or products. Blogs are also easy to update and add new content, which makes them perfect for your business.
But it isn't just about creating articles and publishing on your blog. Your product pages need more text as well. These pages need more than just product descriptions. You'll need to add text that focuses on SEO as well. Answer questions your customers might have. Tell me more about your products or services.
Promote your content – show it to potential customers
When you have published a blog post or have updated a web page, make sure to use social media as a way of promoting your business. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Fediverse and other social media sites to promote your business.
Tip: install the free & easy-to-use ActivityPub plugin for WordPress to connect your blog or website to the decentralised social network called The Fediverse. Then your content will be shared automatically on platforms like Mastodon, Friendica and Pixelfed.
Let potential customers know that a new article has been published. Tell them about new products or update product info. Share your articles on your own social media channels but also share them in relevant Facebook groups. When doing the latter, please check and follow the group rules as you don’t want to be a spammer or a rule breaker. Easy tools to share your content on social media are:
- SmarterQueue – provides the most powerful way to create a content schedule and sharing of your content at the right moment, not just now but constantly as it helps you to turn one post into an ever-renewing evergreen post. Now you're never lost for content,
- Fedica – social media scheduling made easy and helps you to put a face to the data with exclusive demographics & deep insights found nowhere else.
By using a social media scheduling tool, you'll have more control over when content is shared and where. It saves you heaps of time as you don't have to log into every social media account separately. See for more info and tips about social media content scheduling.
Creating text for your website is easier than you might think
This blog post has given you all the tips to get started. Now you know how to get unique content for your website. It remains the most common issue when people launch their new website: not enough text on their website pages.
These content writing tips for beginners will help you to fix that problem or better prevent it from happening. As a lot of small business websites forget to add enough relevant content to their website, it is easy for you to jump in and outrank them.
No need to worry about how to start writing content. Just follow the tips mentioned above and be like Nike: Just Do It! Some content is better than no content. Just keep in mind that SEO and content creation is a journey, it isn’t the final destination. Happy writing.
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