When you think of content writing, you may think of the keyword-rich SEO articles that slowly build organic traffic, and you’d be right. Content marketing helps you occupy your corner of the online marketplace, and it’s essential to both customer acquisition and retention.
Infusing your content with some copywriting panache turns that slow trickle of organic traffic into a torrent of interest. Copywriting is the art of creating advertising content that inspires action. It’s vivid, lively and brief, getting your message across in a concentrated form and delivering a strong call to action. The best content writing is strengthened with copywriting techniques, and great copywriting gains depth from meaningful content creation. Together, the two are a powerful marketing strategy.
Great Headlines Help You Get Noticed
Content marketing gives your readers valuable information, but if they can’t discover it, it might as well not have been written. Your title is your ad for your content, and it’s what search engines and people see first. Your title should tell readers what they’ll get out of spending the time to read your content. It also has to contain enough information to let search engines recognize it.
Because headlines serve a dual purpose, it’s worth spending some time on writing titles that communicate clear benefits for human readers while standing out to search engines. Hire a professional writer who makes your headlines sing in a language that both human and electronic seekers of digital wisdom can understand.
Write for People First
Search engines are vital for your organization’s success, but they shouldn’t be the primary audience for your content marketing strategy. The days of keyword-stuffed link fodder are gone; content has to be engaging to human readers to gain any traction. Algorithms have also become more sophisticated and distinguish between keywords inserted just to draw traffic and naturally occurring, relevant keywords that form a semantic network of meaning within the content.
It’s that internal structure that tells search engines whether an article about stars refers to celebrities or astronomy, so the best content writing is natural content writing. Make it interesting for human readers first and add subtle keyword cues to make it friendlier for search engines later. This natural writing style enriched with SEO techniques engages your current customers while making it easier for new ones to find you.
Build Trust with Great Content
No amount of effective copywriting matters if it’s wrapped in fluff. Be generous with your knowledge and give your readers a reason to make your blog or newsletter a must-read. Your copywriting gets your readers’ attention, but your content must hold their interest. Whether it’s your own expertise or from trusted sources, give your readers knowledge they can use. Without meaningful content, copywriting rings hollow.
Add Regular Calls to Action
Excellent content may demonstrate its value to your readers, but a call to action asks for something in return for that valuable contribution. The most basic call to action is a simple “buy now” proposition, but that’s only one of many possible actions you may want your readers to take. Offers to subscribe to the newsletter, leave a comment to a blog post or download your white paper are also important business builders.
Content marketing is potential energy; copywriting is kinetic energy. Both are integral parts of effective content creation. Whether you’re building a better blog, creating an e-commerce site or establishing a stronger social media presence, great business content comes from marrying your content writing with copywriting.
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