Before you start writing content for the web, discover the 8 fundamentals to know for an effective content marketing strategy!
Want to start a content marketing strategy? Are you ready to write your first articles for your professional blog? Attention: the writing of content for the web meets precise rules, adapted to the specificity of the medium. Here are the 8 fundamentals of web writing to know to write 100% web friendly content.
1. Content writing Meets Specific Objectives
A journalist print writes to spread information. A web writer also aims to inform; But it must also know how to convince its readers (to sell a product/service, to demonstrate its know-how or that of its client, to encourage the reader to stay on the site, etc.) and structure its text according to the rules Of natural referencing.
Content writing requires multiple skills, as well as the ability to meet specific goals, which differ depending on the domain of activity and the profile of the users to be targeted. To entrust this mission to a web editor is therefore not a luxury.
2. Select Topics According to Their Targets
Writing content requires choosing particular items: you do not publish everything and anything on your blog! To do this, one must take into account both its field of activity and the typical profile of its potential readers.
What message (s) do you want to address to your audience? What themes are they interested in? These issues are crucial. You will not publish cooking recipes on a real estate blog, nor offer legal advice on a platform dedicated to children. Good content is first and foremost a well-targeted topic, likely to appeal to your readers and attract you more qualified traffic.
Think about it: you write above all for the surfer!
3. Putting the Primary Information Forward
Draw attention: this is the secret of writing content for the web. Not only that of the readers, to which one must give the desire to read relying on the titles and the introduction. But also the attention of search engine robots, offering titles that allow them to index the page easily.
A good structuring of its contents thus aims to put the primary information (to understand: the keywords ) forward in:
- The titles Hn (H1 for the main title, H2 for the titles of parts, H3 for the subtitles …).
- The tags (title, meta description, alt …).
- The Description (about fifty words on average).
Warning: The main title and meta appear on the Google results page. It is therefore essential to work them well!
4. Optimize Content Referencing
Content writing aims at informing, convincing … and well referencing its pages! Natural SEO is an indispensable method for positioning its pages in the first results of the search engines. Without this lever, your content will not be visible to Internet users, and you will not get traffic.
Referencing a page passes through:
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- Optimization of tags (see above).
- The choice of keywords (popular but not too competitive, in line with the expectations of your target readers) ;
- The placement of keywords in the content (it is necessary to reach an average density of 1 to 2% for the main keyword) ;
- URL Optimization (containing the main keyword, and not too long).
- Do not forget, also, to work the semantic field around your keyword. If your content is at the Auto Show, for example, you will have to use terms like “car,” “automobile,” “vehicle,” “mechanics,” “four wheels,” brand names, etc.
In any case, all these attributes specific to content writing will impact the positioning of the page on search engine SERPs.
5. Adjust the Length of the Texts to the Subjects
It is a question that often comes up about writing content: should we write short or long texts? Should we prefer 300 to 400 words, fast to read, or propose expert articles that take the time necessary to explain things well, even if it means using the 2,000 words?
It commonly believed that Internet users do not read or read web content. According to a Backlinko study, the articles in first place in the results of Google search, composed of an average of 1,890 words! And since Google does nothing at random, it’s that its users must appreciate these long contents!
In reality, it all depends on the subject … and the objective of the page. Sometimes 400 words are enough to go around a question (if it’s a page dedicated to optimization). At other times, offering content of 1,500 or 2,000 words helps to demonstrate his expertise on a given topic.
6. Making Internal Meshing
Once your content writing is launched, you will quickly have several items in stock on the blog. Take advantage of it to start working on your internal networking: this is to insert in your content links to other pages of your blog (or your website).
The internal mesh has two advantages:
- It encourages your readers to click on the links to access other pages of the site.
- It contributes to the good indexing of your pages by the search engine robots (which, during the crawl, circulate on the site via the hypertext links).
7. Set up an Editorial Plan
In the beginning, a blog is rather simple: you choose a topic to write an article every week, and it’s done.
But very quickly, the machine can get carried away. Increasing traffic to your site gives you more responsibilities because your readers are waiting for recent tickets. In addition to the five weekly articles on the blog, you need to write white papers, guides, customer cases, comments for your videos, etc. The subjects are becoming more and more experts, and you have to manage several contributors internally as well as externally. Result: you are on the verge of implosion!
The solution? Set up an editorial plan for content writing. You will be able to organize your publications over a long term: subjects to be dealt with predetermined release dates, themes already exploited (practice to arrange the internal mesh), ideas for future articles, and of course the identity of the editor in Of each content.
8. Share Content
Last fundamental point: a good article is a shared article. What good to spend time on writing content if it is to wait for Internet users to find you a bit by chance on the search engines?
Get your readers: distribute your contents to your prospects and customers via all the channels at your disposal (website, emailing, SMS). And do not forget to adopt a strategy of communication on the social networks to share your contents … and to push your audiences to share them in their turn!
