Author: Anshul Motwani

Everything You Need To Know About Freelance Content Writing in India

Freelance content writing if done right is one of the most lucrative jobs out there in the jobs market today!

If you’re successful, you’re highly sought after, are paid well, and can work as little or as much as you want.

But, some writers do end up struggling to make that mark.

Freelance content writing in India can throw up some unique challenges because it is seen as less of a writing job and more of a last resort.

We have grown up believing that any and all convent graduates can write, but that’s not really the case. It is not very often when people choose writing as their primary career option, but things are changing now and we are here to support that.

18 Things You Should Do While Freelance Content Writing in India

1. Write!

Writing is like building up muscle. The more you work at it, the better you get. Freelance writing means you have to write a lot in possibly short amounts of time.

So, let your thoughts flow, practice free writing, even when you are in between jobs, to keep your hands and brain used to the work.

2. Get Organised

You need to be organised as a freelance content writer because you’re going to be juggling between multiple things.

Have a clearly-defined writing process – how you begin your writing, how you create an outline, how do you draft and edit.

Having a style and process leads to faster and more efficient writing, making clients happy!

3. Never Rest Easy

You’re an established writer, you’ve done gigs in article and blog writing, and your clients are happy with you. Cool! But, don’t rest.

Create more content and expand your writing horizons by learning a new domain to work on or updating your skills with the trending technologies.

4. Keep Multiple Clients Anyway

Freelance writing is fraught with uncertainty. You could end up losing all your clients in one go. In Finance, it is always advised to not put all your eggs in the same basket. The same goes for when you are working with customers.

Keep working, even if your job is small time.

5. Have a Solid Resume/Portfolio

The first thing any potential client is going to ask you for is your portfolio.

If you’re a beginner, then take a sample of your writing with you to show what you can do. Intern at the start of your career in various freelance content writing services to build up your profile and learn the processes.

6. Have a GST Number

With the arrival of GST in India, clients are now hesitant to hire a content writer unless he or she is registered.

If you have a full-fledged freelance content writing career, get a GST number; it will help you in the long run.

Alternative: This is one aspect which is becoming an issue for many writers across India. There is an option to work with organisations who agree to manage the compliance cost and pay GST through RCM on your behalf. Is there a way to find out such companies? Not sure? We, at WittyPen, we take care of the compliance on behalf of the writer.

7. Know How to Invoice!

Whether you’re just starting out as a freelancer or if you’ve been doing it for years, knowing how to invoice is crucial. You need to be able to bill your clients for the number of hours that you have worked.

There are several free invoicing templates available online to get you started.

Be sure to make use of them and never miss adding the taxes!

8. Have a Contract

No matter how small or big the job is, always make that sure you verify your employer and sign an agreement with your client.

You don’t want to put in days of work only to have them vanish on the day you were supposed to get paid.

9. Be Willing to Write About Everything

As an established writer, you get to pick and choose your content.

If you’re new to content freelancing, be ready to research and write about anything that comes your way.

Sports, tech, fashion – nothing should be off the table.
When you know what you want to write about and are confident about your knowledge about the subject, build yourself a niche.

You don’t want to spend half your career doing research, and neither do your clients.

10. Pitching Yourself

Pitch yourself as often as you can.

Clients aren’t going to come to you as often as you might think.

Speak to the needs of a potential client, give them proof of your work, be charming.

But, pitches are rejected quite often, so don’t be disheartened.

Image Source:

11. Create a Website

Clients are inherently mistrustful.

Have a website that lets them see who you are and what you can write.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or expensive. It simply should put you there in the freelancing world.
Add samples of your niche writing to your website.

12. Blog

Having a blog can work wonders for you as a freelance content writer.

Not only is it great practice and an outlet for your creativity, it also serves as your portfolio.

It allows potential clients to come across your work and contact you.

13. Guest Blogging

Publish your content on someone else’s blog or contribute on various publishing platforms.
Guest post writing connects you with new readers and potential clients and is a great way to increase your audience and credibility as a writer.

14. Social Media

The best way to find clients, social media, can be used to put out the message that you’re a freelance writer.

There are various Facebook pages, especially for freelance writers where clients meet writers.

Join one of these pages, be a part of the community and grow your network.

Have a LinkedIn profile! It allows potential employers to know that you exist and allows you to create contacts and build networks.

15. Job Boards

There are several job boards online where content writers are needed.

Check them often, preferably before you go to sleep and just after you wake up as the jobs are taken up quickly.

Always consider asking your existing clients for referrals

16. Don’t be shy about this.

As a freelancer, you don’t always know where your next job is coming from, so make the best use of the clients you have to get new jobs.

If not referrals, get testimonials from them and publish them on your website (with their permission, of course).

17. Collaborate

You don’t always have to work alone.

Network with other writers and get together to work on projects. It also builds a regular flow of projects from multiple sources.

18. Don’t Oversell or Undersell Yourself

Always be true to your clients, tell them what you can and can’t do.

However, if you feel like the pay is too low for the amount of work you do, then don’t hesitate to voice your concerns.

What to Expect?

The Pay

Don’t expect the money to come flying in through the door all at once.
Remember, your clients don’t know you.
In India, established content freelancers can earn anywhere from around 25k to 100k INR a month.

As said before, content writing charges depends entirely on who you work for and how much you write. So, be prepared for uncertainty, always!

To ensure that you get paid duly, consider trying online payment options such as Instamojo, PayPal and Payoneer, which are quick and easy ways to directly send and receive funds.

The Clientele

Most people are trustworthy. But, if you feel unsure about your payments, then start off on a per article basis and then move on to a regular monthly or biweekly schedule. If advance payment is an option, always consider taking at least 50% as advance.

The Prospects

Most writers in India move away from freelance writing after they develop solid foundations.
This does not mean that freelance writing is not the job for you. If you can stay motivated despite the upheavals in your career and are willing to put in lots of time and effort, there is no reason that it cannot turn into a full-time career for you.

The key is to start somewhere and see where the writing leads you.

Here are some more links with information on content freelancing in India and how to get started!

Why Do Indians Fail As A Freelance English Content Writer? An Indian Perspective

The Complete Guide to Getting Started Freelance Writing From Scratch

So now what are you waiting for? Get started!

How We Help Writers at Wittypen?

WittyPen was started with the core belief to create opportunities for writers across domains and different experience levels. We not only help you get freelance writing projects, but also bridge the information so that you ca create content which is most relevant to the end reader. Also, we ensure you get paid, always!

Know more at WittyPen.

December 27, 2018
How to Increase Brand Awareness With Effective Content Writing and Distribution
It’s sheer psychology at play that people are more inclined to buying from brands they know about than from those they have not heard about.

Imagine walking into a plush multi-brand clothing store.

You see apparels from the best of brands on display. You recognize some brands and it’s a normal tendency to walk up to those sections where you see the brands you know.

The brands you haven’t heard about may actually have a better selection to offer for a lesser price but you’d probably look through them because you hold the ones you recognise in higher esteem.

The same is the story online. With myriad brands vying for your attention in the online marketplace, growing brand awareness is the key if you want to get noticed. And, how do you build brand awareness?

Content writing and distribution is the answer. But first, let’s get down to the basics.

What is Brand Awareness?

Aren’t you instantly able to recognise some brands just by seeing their logos? The answer would be an affirmative.

Just yesterday, you drove down to a busy road and noticed a big yellow ‘M’ staring at you from a distance. Your eyes gleamed up because you knew McDonald’s was approaching.

Likewise, you are able to instantly identify the manufacturer of cars by just glancing at their logos.

Have you seen the social media hits by Amul?

Or new Mr. & Mrs. webseries by Girliyapa? If yes, Bosh received the brand awareness worth 14M video views for it’s Dish Washer, a new offering in India.

Recalling and recognizing a brand when you think of any product or service associated with it or when you look at its logo is called brand awareness. It is the level of familiarity consumers have with a brand like its name, characteristics, logo or anything else that is strongly associated with it.

A purchase decision is strongly influenced by a consumer’s ability to recall a brand. Brand awareness is also the primary consideration when it comes to ascertaining consumer behaviour, strategy development, advertising management, and brand management.

When you grow the awareness for your brand, you are helping a consumer or a prospect get acquainted about it or its offerings. Building a brand awareness campaign strategy is critical especially during the early days of a brand’s existence and growth.

What Is Content Writing and Distribution About?

The success of a brand is not only because of a brilliant idea no one else could think of. Also, pumping in money to boost ads to your customers is the clear solution.

Well, here’s the deal.

Creativity is the essence.

While it is critical to have a content strategy in place, it is creativity that actually helps you stand out in the crowd and get noticed. You don’t need to copy what other brands are doing to get noticed. It probably worked for them for some xyz reasons but that doesn’t mean the same methods can work for you.

Step into the shoes of your potential customer and think what kind of content you’d expect from a brand such as yours.

Does anything about it excite you?

What would you look forward to from its offerings?

Does the logo or any of its characteristics intrigue you enough to want to pause and catch another glimpse?

The logo looks pretty out-of-the-box. How does it relate to the brand in question?

So much for the creativity of content and ensuring your message gets conveyed the right way to the target audience. Next, the distribution of content is important.

There’s no point in writing amazing content if it doesn’t reach your audience the right way. Content distribution needs a strategy too. You need to know whether your content is reaching the right audience. If you want to increase brand awareness or get ROI on your content, you need to push it on to the screens of your relevant audience.

What posts should go where and how must you time each to maximise eyeballs should all be a part of your content distribution strategy. There are three content distribution platforms – owned, paid and earned.
- Owned Media – channels controlled by your brand like your website, mobile site, blog, social media accounts
- Paid Media – channels you pay for to get a leverage like paid search, display ads and sponsorships
- Earned Media – when customers become the medium for boosting your brand awareness such as word of mouth publicity and viral content that spreads (shared) like wildfire.
While owned and paid media mean an investment, it is earned media that has a higher potential for propelling engagement and boosting traffic.

This is exactly the point I am trying to make about interesting/creative content scoring high.

10 Best Ways That Answer ‘How to Increase Brand Awareness’

Companies today have building brand awareness as one of their primary goals. They want their target audience to know sooner about them than in the normal course of things. Read on to know what can help you achieve your goal!

1. A Strong Narrative Works!

Give a good thought to the content and the message you intend to convey through the voice of your brand. If it appeals to or touches the cords of your audience, your job is half done. Such content is more like to be shared on various platforms than any other.

2. Guest Blogging Gets You Traffic

Two-way content partnerships can bring your brand to the forefront and gets your word out faster. By writing guest posts, you are actually leveraging the audiences of other sites to build your brand awareness. Writing guest posts on the blogs or media sites your prospects visit is a great way to grow your brand.

3. Using Instagram Stories to Get Eyeballs

Posting stories on Instagram is a rage today in both B2B and B2C segments. It’s the best way to provide targeted content to the audience and grow your brand awareness. Showcase your products or services in a sequence of Instagram stories that stay for a 24-hour period before getting wiped out automatically. Use features like Boomerang and slow motion to draw attention to your posts.

4. Make Sharing Quick and Simple

The advent of social media has made it possible to increase brand awareness like never before. Your audience will not shy away from sharing what they like to read. Use share links generously in your content to help your audience and followers share it in their networks quickly. Give them a variety of options of sharing it on chat apps, social media, and email.

5. Infographics Instantly Catch the Eye

The best way to capture interesting data and statistics and present them to your audience is with the use of infographics. Being a powerhouse of content, these pictorial depictions are educative and make it easy for the audience to absorb information. In addition, they are most likely to attract shares on the social media. If your patrons or prospects like and follow your infographics, it automatically becomes a part of your brand identity.

6. Paid Social Advertising

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have a mindboggling reach and have a great potential of getting your content across to the target audience. Sponsored advertisements on Facebook and Twitter need you to shell out money but they still work economical on the budget. Manage the way your ad shows to the audience, set the preferences and review the metrics periodically to gain valuable insights into audience behaviour.

7. Cut the Sales Pitch and Metamorphose into a Valuable Resource

If you have the knowledge and expertise, why not share it with others and add value and credibility to your brand? If you can become a trusted resource for your audience, you’ve come a long way in your content marketing efforts. Gone are the days when marketers could use a cut-and-thrust sales pitch in their content. In the current times, you have to provide a value addition to your buyers and prospects.

8. Initiate Promotional Partnerships with Other Brands

Starting a promotional partnership with a brand that is in some way connected to your offerings in the supply chain can actually skyrocket your brand awareness. However, you must choose your promotional partners wisely, making sure it adds value to the purchase decisions of your clientele.

9. Contests on Social Media

Social media is a craze among people of all age groups and people spend a lot of time surfing through the feeds and often contributing to them. If it’s a contest, they are more likely to be game to participate in it. Use your social media channels to create contests and engage your audience.

When someone from your target audience submits a photo or video and his/her friends vote for it, you are actually engaging not just your followers but also opening doors to new connections.
Sounds like an awesome idea, eh?

10. Sponsor Public Events

Quite an effective way to create brand awareness! Sporting events, charitable events or social fundraisers are the best places to put your brand in the spotlight by using your company logo and name for a contribution in cash or kind.
Now, you may ask what role content writing has to play in sponsoring such events? Well, it does have. Post about your contribution as updates on social media and reveal your philanthropic side to your target audience by telling them about such acts of goodwill. From your existing customers, the word about you is very likely to spread to others.

In Conclusion

With so much competition in the online marketplace, it’s important to use content as a powerful tool to get noticed. People are not interested in reading content with a preaching tone or one that carries advice they already know.

Get creative.

Use catch-phrases and come up with interesting jargons that have the ability to trend on social media channels. When such jargon becomes synonymous with your brand, it only means the brand awareness strategy you have been employing is successful.
December 21, 2018
Content Writing Tips for 2020-How to Research like a Pro!
Last Updated : 22-01-2020

Great content is the key to successful digital marketing. And every content marketer aspires to get his or her content viral and shared extensively on social media.

But with the sheer volume of content out there on the internet, even those with the best writing skills can see their content lagging behind. Simply writing something, no matter the type or domain of content, isn’t enough to make it to the top of a Google search.

The reason?

Well, a huge part of it has to do with competition.

While statistics can vary, the number of blogs out there stands at around 350 million. Out of these, around 2 million put out blog posts every day. There are also around 200 million active websites, and the daunting task of a writer is to create successful content that stands out from among all these.

This is where an often underrated aspect of content writing comes to the fore. Here are the content writing tips to rank every content on Google search:

Research

Good research skills help you deliver exactly the content your audience wants and can mean the difference between the top and bottom of a search result.

Why Is Research Important for Content Creation?

1. To Improve Quality

Done right, in-depth research can lead to excellent insights into the behaviour of your potential customers and also into your competitors.

Learn how people spend, why they choose to spend, and why they might end up choosing a competitor over you. This will help you determine consumer needs and wants and identify problems in your own content.

Research reduces the time your brand takes to reach consumers and also helps you analyze the effectiveness of the impact of your content on your target audience, leading to improved quality.

2. Making Them Stay

The path taken by your potential customer that starts from simply giving your content a cursory reading to turning into an actual buyer is a long one.

Image source

The modern consumer is thorough when it comes to researching the products he/she buys, and it is, in turn, expected that content creators deliver quality every single time.

Simply turning your audience into customers isn’t going to help you !

You have to make sure they stay long enough to become advocates of your brand by constantly putting in research about their changing desires.

3. The Right Message for the Right People

If you’re thorough enough, your research will help you deliver a focused, clear message right across to your target audience.

In 2019, audiences have been identified to have much shorter attention spans and prefer brands that avoid going on and on about their products.

Don’t brag and drag! A short message, delivered powerfully, will ensure your content is remembered long after everyone else.

4. Who Are You Creating For?

When you know your target audience well enough, you will know exactly what kind of content they want to see from you.
- Is a particular post getting significantly more attention than others?
- Are views consistently low for a certain piece of content?
- Keep tabs on consumer reactions, and hone your content accordingly.
How to Conduct Thorough Research?

Now that we’ve gotten an idea about why research is important, let’s take a look at how to actually go about it, shall we?

1. Engage

Consistent engagement with your audience is crucial to successful content. Interact with them, solve their queries. Become a part of their communities and forums and see how their attitudes fluctuate.

This will give you an idea about whether you and your brand are headed in the right direction.

2. Know Your Competition

Know what others are doing right, what they provide that you don’t.

How long have they been doing this?

How many of your potential consumers are they taking?

How does your content compare?

All these questions are extremely important, and you should take them into account while researching for a content.

3. Track Trends

Use social media – Facebook, Twitter and other forums such as Reddit and Quora, to find out what people are actually talking about.

Ask yourself questions related to these trends.

Why is a certain blog post trending?

Can I create content that feeds into this trend?

Is it possible to make something entirely new out of this?

Questions like these will keep your content unique and fresh for your audience, and keep them coming back for more.

4. Brainstorming

Exchange ideas and information; tackle issues with your sales and customer success teams, as they generally know what goes on in the field.

Get together; find out what works and what doesn’t, what your audience wants and what might turn them away from your content.

5. Survey Your Audience

Audience surveys are extremely important, so always remember to conduct them regularly.
Surveys are tools to directly collect feedback from your target audience, and help you understand their expectations and requirements. They help you measure consumer awareness and satisfaction.

By this point, you have an idea of what research can do for your content, and how you should do it.

But there are some other things to keep in mind as well.

*What are they?

Well..

Always credit your research and content!

With so many articles, blogs, websites, and forums around us, nothing is 100% our own.
You might come across a snippet of information you find interesting. Or an article that you draw inspiration from. It’s okay to read something and learn from it.

But it is never okay to plagiarize!

When you use something for own research, remember to cite your sources. Even if your source is something as common as Wikipedia, give credit where it is due.

With everyone having access to the internet, people know quickly where the content has been drawn from and can lose faith in your own.

So What Now?

You know how to research now, so finding a topic for your content will become much easier.
But remember to add a catchy headline.

People are drawn to a content by a headline more than anything else, so even the best content might go unread without one. Keep that in mind!

To get you started, here are some tools for headline generation:
- SE Ranking, a tool that helps you find synonyms for your headlines.
  
  https://seranking.com/keyword-suggestion-tool.html
- Portent’s content idea generator, which gets you unique ideas for your blog posts.
  
  https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
- Hubspot’s blog topic generator.
  
  https://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator
- Buzzsumo’s content research tool.
  
  https://buzzsumo.com/content-research/
- Contentrow headline generator.
  
  https://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator
These are just some of the tools you can use to help yourself become one of the best content writers in your domain. Also, you would do well to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, figure out what works best for you and your writing!

Putting in extra effort might seem like a daunting task at first, but giving time and energy to your consumers will pay off in the long run.

Follow the research tips mentioned above and you will see your content flourish and rise towards the top of search engines.

For more information about writing tools for content marketing, check out this blog.

It provides information about the creative process, and more tips on research.

Happy writing!
December 13, 2018
Cluster SEO Strategy – The Future of Content Marketing [Updated]
Change is the only constant in this world and even the virtual world couldn’t have eluded its effects. One thing that actually remains unchanged is the competition that every website has to face and the owners are willing to go any length to outdo their competitors in the race to the top of the search engines.

So, what is the deal about search engine rankings?

There is immense competition to get noticed in the search engine results and subsequently ranked there. This has forced websites to perpetually reconfigure their strategies for web pages and this is where the idea of

SEO strategy comes into the picture here.

Consider this, you have a question plaguing your mind concerning the product you are looking to purchase or a service that you want to avail.

Your first instinct is to ask the search engine, and voila, you get several result pages of which you choose to visit any one that seems most relevant to your query.

This piece of content answers your query, but while you sit reading the article, it brings some more questions to your mind.

What do you do next?
Go back to the search engine and input another query? Absolutely not!

Instead, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the original article you stumbled upon provided you with a route to find answers to the new questions that you have without having to find your way back to Google?

This is precisely what a Cluster SEO strategy can do for you.

Hey, if you are an experienced marketer already familiar with how topic clusters benefit your SEO, move to the part of the blog where I have mentioned a step-by-step method you can follow to create topic clusters on your website.

What is the Cluster SEO Strategy?

We know that search engines are intelligent. With their algorithms evolving constantly, your queries are handled with even more precision today than earlier.

How often do you find yourself looking for something as specific as the “best Chinese restaurant on XYZ road of ABC city” or “where can I buy a smartphone near my home”?, and you get precise results with names of service providers, their physical addresses, and contact information in seconds!

Amazing, eh?

With changing user behaviour, search trends have changed and queries have become more specific than before. Further, people turn to search engines every time they have a query, be it about a company, product or service. They need precise answers to specific questions and they need them fast.

Also, with the option of voice search available to them, specific questions with long tail keywords are pretty common today. Smartphones and tablets have made voice search more popular with users who are constantly on the move. They find it time-saving and much more convenient to “Search by Voice”, (like Google calls it), than typing the query into the ‘Search’ field.

SEO has also evolved over the years and the focus has slowly shifted to the topic cluster model where the “pillar page” is the primary hub of content and multiple content pages related to this topic link back to the pillar page and also to each other.

In short, they form a content cluster or a topic cluster.

Image Source:hubspot.com

Such linking hints to the search engines about the authority of the pillar content on the topic which in turn helps it gain popularity and climb higher on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) with time.

The topic cluster approach to SEO is quite a drastic shift from the keyword based model you are acquainted with. It involves rearranging the architecture of your website by linking content clusters with the central topic page.

Cluster SEO Strategy Illustrated

Let’s take a look at an example to understand topic clusters and pillar pages better.

Fitness and health are a rage today and yoga has been drawing attention not just from people in India but from around the world. People often search for specifics related to this topic such as below:
- Yoga postures.
- Yoga for fitness.
- Yoga poses for kids.
- Yoga poses for a flat stomach.
- Yoga for beginners.
- Yoga for senior citizens.
- Yoga for knee pain.
- Yoga apps for learning.
The focus is on the core topic ‘Yoga’ which evidently becomes the pillar page. The specifics that people search for become the cluster content, each of which is linked to the pillar page and rely on it for showing up in the SERPs every time a user inputs a query relevant to them.

How Have Search Engines Compelled Marketers to Rethink About the Content Marketing SEO Strategy?

The emergence of cluster SEO strategy can be attributed to changing user behaviour on search engines which has forced SEO specialists and marketers to completely revamp their site structure.

Gone are the days when users posted fragmented keyword queries on search engines. The trend has now changed to more complex and specific queries with focus on precise long tail keywords.

Users are more tech-savvy today and know how to use technology to their advantage. There is an increasing tendency among them to run specific, need-based searches. The conversion rate of such queries are usually higher. If you want your website to rank higher on these searches, you must use long tail keywords in your cluster SEO strategy.

Google’s search algorithm is smart enough to decipher the topical context and intent behind searches. It knows how to relate them to similar query searches by the same user in the past and suggest web pages that befittingly answer the query.

Google’s Hummingbird update in 2013 spearheaded this shift in focus as the search algorithm began parsing out phrases instead of focusing on keywords only. Google’s Rankbrain update in 2015 strengthened the reliance on topics and further helped the search engine understand the context behind searches.

Updates on the search algorithm of Google have been happening even as you read this. It looks like pillar content marketing is here to stay for a long time and your SEO efforts would revolve around it.

Quick Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Topic Clusters

Here’s a look at how you can model your Cluster SEO strategy.

1. Identify the Gaps in Your Content

Figure out the keywords/topics your competitors rank for but you don’t. These are the problem areas you need to address if you want to gain authority on a topic.

There are tools online you can effortlessly use to identify the content gaps among which SEMrush is a trusted one. Use it to get a clear, in-depth analysis of your website. Incorporating the results in your online content marketing seo strategy have been known to show significant results on your website’s performance. Get started by providing your domain URL in the search box and selecting your country.

Image Source:semrush.com

2. Figure Out the Most Common Questions Thrown by Your Target Audience

Spend some time researching on the kind of queries your target audience are most likely to ask on the search engines and formulate your content strategy around it.

For example, if you are an electrical repair company in the Kandivali region of Mumbai and cater to demands in and around this suburb, it is logical for your website to show up in the SERPs every time anyone queries “electrical repair company in Kandivali”. Likewise, you need to optimise your page for specific queries such as “fan repair Malad west” or “refrigerator repair Goregaon” (provided you offer your services in these areas).

Use the Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool and input broad keywords to check what kind of queries the search engine has been receiving for those terms. Identify the search volume to know the keyword variations that make sense to your business. Import few relevant ones to an Excel sheet and these will form the focus for your cluster SEO strategy.

3. Review Target Keywords to Arrive at Your Pillar Content

Give some thought to the keywords to arrive at the pillar content you want to add to your website and create pages for each. These become your pillar pages and are those to which you intend to drive targeted traffic and convert users.

Pillar pages should have substantial content and they should be able to resolve visitor queries. Every keyword you identified in the previous step becomes a pillar and provides primary support to a large cluster of long tail keywords which will form the cluster content mentioned in next point.

4. Create and Group Cluster Content Around Pillar Pages

Create and group the sub-topics according to the pillar content and you will have multiple sets of topic clusters and pillar pages ready. Each cluster comprises a pillar page and a set of content pages linking to the pillar page.

Use sub-topics to arrive at blog posts or web page ideas that throw light on a specific concept within the scope of the pillar content. Together, all the sub-topics form a cluster. Ideally, you may have five to 10 sub-topics in a cluster to create a topic cluster. How you can arrive at keywords for your cluster content is elucidated in the following step.

5.Conduct Keyword Research to Identify Long Tail Keywords for Every Sub-Topic

Long tail keywords often end up being specific and indicate that users turn to search engines for precise information on a subject. This is where you will be optimising your pages for specific keywords. Use the keyword tool again to figure specific keywords for each pillar. These keywords delve deeper into the main keyword, which is also the idea behind cluster pages. Make sure that the content is relevant to the keywords so that your visitors get what they are looking for and should not bounce back immediately.

6. Hyperlink All Content in Every Set to Build a Topic Cluster

Hyperlinking is the key when you want to keep your audience engaged on your website for a longer duration. Use the right anchor text and ensure that the pillar page your content links to has substantial information to make your visitors happy.

What happens when you already have a set of informative articles/blogs up on your website or ready on your dashboard? You cannot afford to let the valuable content go waste. Follow the reverse approach in such a scenario.

Review the live or ready ones and arrive at the main topic each of them focuses on. These topics become the foundation for your pillar content and they must capture relevant long tail keywords to gain leverage on search engines.
Going forward, the ideal approach would be to conceptualise the pillar content and tailor your cluster content around it.

How to Establish Your Authority Using The Topic Cluster SEO Strategy?

Today, the question that plagues the minds of marketers is “how to improve a website’s SEO ranking on Google”? Creating topic based content is the answer.
Merely creating content does not work without the backing of a strong SEO strategy.

If you are posting informative content on your website, it has to be found in the SERPs by your target audience. Only then will it meet the goals of your business.

Here are a few things to note:
- Linking content together on your website indicates your authority on a topic to the search engine. If users stay on your page for some time and move across the content pages, it can help boost your ranking on Google.
- To bolster your cluster SEO strategy, you need to rank for an entire topic and just targeting a few keywords will not help. Your pillar pages and the content clusters around each of them will form the topics you want to derive SEO leverage from.
- When the cluster content and pillar pages are relevantly linked, you convey the message to Google that you have a strong command over everything related to the topic. You will gain authority on the content over time with Google giving your pillar content and its sub-topics a good leverage in the SERPs. This boost in search engine rankings is the reward you get for your site restructuring and making your web pages logically linked and easy to crawl.
- Remember that there’s a caveat here. Your pillar pages must have substantial content because your sub-topic pages will be linking to it. So, if a site visitor decides to click the pillar page link, you should derive something concrete out of it or it should answer his query. Only then will the visitor be prompted to convert to a lead.
- You aren’t writing content for search engines . Instead, you must produce informative content that will be a value-addition for your audience and help customers find you.
Chisel your Cluster SEO Strategy Today and Boost Your SEO Rankings.

Yes, the verdict is out.

Search engines like Google favour topic clusters and this strategy is mainstream already.

By giving you greater search visibility for a topic, interlinking cluster and pillar content, and funnelling your site visitors from cluster content to pillar pages you can get visitors hooked to your site and push your ranking up by a few notches on the search engines.
October 29, 2018
22 Awesome Ways to Increase Brand Awareness and Boost Conversions
Content marketing has grown by leaps and bounds over the years, changing the way users are acquired on the internet. It is quite different from the pushy, revenue-driven advertising methods that have the sole intent of driving sales.

Yes, content marketing is about building your brand and nurturing your prospective customers the right way to set your brand apart in today’s crowded market space. Its aim is to provide valuable content to the reader and establish your brand’s authority in its industry domain.

But how can you increase brand awareness?

Here’s the thing, be innovative and serve your content fresh if you want to outdo the competition. Your audience will not like to read stale write-ups with ideas they’d have already read like a thousand times before.

So, how exactly do you create content that garners attention and cements your brand as an expert in the field?

But, first things first.

Importance of Brand Awareness

When people increasingly become aware of your brand, it only fosters a healthy image of your company. If you want to improve your company’s reputation, you must work on increasing its brand awareness.

Brand awareness directly indicates how aligned your content is to your brand.

If people are well aware of your brand, it also means that they love and follow the content that has been putting your company under the spotlight.

The Verdict Is Loud and Clear

Your content is the backbone of online marketing success and is a great way to boost brand awareness. Also. your content marketing strategy should be created with the goal of improving brand awareness which will also help you analyze the right metrics to calculate your ROI.

However, there are some prerequisites to make your content marketing efforts successful.

If you are just in early days of promoting your brand is crucial to define your brand in clear terms. Have a clear vision and mission statement in place which should lay out your company values and goals.

Determine your company’s voice and ensure that it is in tune with its mission.

Know what do you want to be recognized as – friendly, authoritative, pushy, funny, customer-oriented, or an industry expert? Use a voice that suits your choice.

So, How Does Content Marketing Increase Brand Awareness?

Gone are the days of the revenue-focused brick and mortar establishments that managed to make enough money by selling their product or service using cut and thrust advertising methods.
Today, the online world offers fierce competition with tons of companies having similar operations vying for your customer’s attention.

Here’s the deal, creating fresh content is critical to any business’ brand presence. Bear the following pointers in mind.
- Your audience must find your brand interesting
- Your content must be relevant to your customer’s needs
- Your content must be fresh, original and add value
Use content as an asset to express what your company and brand stands for. Bring out the personality of your brand and let it shine through the words you sprinkle in it.

Content marketing should establish a fit between the content created by a business/brand and customer needs. If you have the art of creating a narrative and telling people how your business relates to them, they will love to read whatever you say.

Sound content marketing efforts also indicates to search engines that your business is an industry leader and deserves an organic search engine rank. Write blog posts and think up creative ways to increase brand awareness to show your presence on different online platforms by publishing intelligent and relatable content for your audience. There are many more ways which will help you ace the game, let’s have a look at them!

22 Tips to Increase Brand Awareness Through Content Marketing

Continuous exposure of your brand is important on social media and other online channels where your target audience frequently hangs out. Content marketing is among the best inbound marketing strategies for increasing brand awareness without interrupting your target audience.
Here are some strategies that can help you increase brand awareness.

1. Press Release

Don’t let any healthy development in your business go unnoticed. Sharing news through official press releases is an effective way of building brand awareness. If it is your own voice, it is most likely to be held credible and read by the stakeholders, your current customers as well as prospective ones.

2. Regular Content Posts

A Survey by Hubspot said that businesses who posted 16+ blogs a month, received 3.5 times higher traffic!

Create valuable content periodically to get noticed by both the search engine and your target audience.
Blogs are extremely effective in drawing attention to you, and your products and services. Ensuring that they are unique and well-optimised will give you an SEO leverage and boosts your chances of being found online.

3. Multimedia

“Your organic traffic can increase up to 157% if you include a video in your blog post.”
Often, plain content may not have the desired effect the way multimedia content like infographics, videos, presentations, and webinars will have. Be active on YouTube and social media and create regular posts to stay visible to visitors.

4. Demos, Trials

Interestingly, the word ‘free’ has a magnetic effect in the world of e-commerce. It immediately catches attention and keeps your potential and current customers hooked. Free samples, trials and demos are totally effective in building a brand and bolstering the trust of people towards your offerings.

5. Downloadables

The key to becoming an industry leader is by producing informative content. If your content has downloadables like whitepapers and eBooks which hold tremendous value, they are great tools for conveying your authority on your domain.

Download your free content marketing editorial calendar template

6. Engaging and Interactive Content

Talk to your audience. Seek responses from them. Get them hooked by creating shareable content aimed at amplifying the conversion rates. Ask questions, create polls or quizzes, checklists and calculators that add value to your visitors, prospects and customers alike.

For more detailed information read, “How to harness the power of interactive content?”

7. Daily Posts on Social Media

No, you don’t need pages and pages of content in your social media posts. Short and impactful content is a quick attention grabber! The idea is to stay active and post regularly to tell people you are in business. Keep in mind the angle of value addition so that your followers find your content useful and are prompted to share them, helping you expand your follower base.

8. Industry publications

Get in touch with magazines, news sources, industry blogs and other important publications, physical or online, to get your company’s news or content published. These offline and online platforms get a lot of eyeballs from industry leaders and prospects. Hence, there’s every possibility of your brand getting noticed.

9. Link to Email Signature

Mentioning your blog or website link in your email signature needs no investment yet is an effective way to increase your brand awareness. There is hardly any effort involved but the results can be quite commendable.

10. Guest Blogging

Be heard by a larger audience in your industry outside your usual domain by writing guest posts on portals that accept them. Guest blogging is a great way of establishing your authority in a domain and getting yourself known to a wider base of interested audience. In case people like your posts and share them on social media, you can enjoy a wider reach.

11. Referral Programs

Using incentives to reach your customers and prospects is an effective strategy for increasing brand awareness. Initiate a referral programme in which you directly credit a monetary incentive to the online account of the person whose referrals buy from you.
This serves two benefits. Besides expanding your customer base, you also get people to share their details with you by registering on your portal.

12. Offers Stating Limited Period and Quantity

Create a buzz around your business by coming up with limited time and quantity offers from time to time. Make the best of festive occasions to get the word out. When people see an urgent need for action, they are prompted to act whether it’s buying a product, availing a service or submitting a contest form. See the below ad which was a part of recent campaign for Fastrack

Example of Fastrack Ad

13. Contests and Freebies

Give away little joys to your target audience in the form of free gifts if that translates to improving your social reach. Contests are a great way of drawing visitor attention. You can give many little rewards to participants and one or two big prizes to the winners. Ask your users to like your page, your posts and share them in their network.

14. Polls/Surveys

People like responding to questions or giving their opinion on something that is in their domain of understanding. Ask questions through Facebook or Instagram posts and tweets or create a survey using this feature on Twitter.

15. Paid Social Ads

LinkedIn is a credible social platform that can lend wings to your business. Considering the professional following there and an immensely targeted advertising capability, posting ads on this platform can quickly create a buzz around your brand. You can also have casual social hangouts like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter throw up your ads to audience who could be looking for your products or services.

16. Social Blogging

LinkedIn has a social blogging platform that helps users write informative and relatable content and have it published there. It not just creates a buzz around your business but also helps you interact with professionals in your field who post their blogs just as regularly as you do.

17. Membership Rewards

Convey to people that they can apply for paid membership on your website to avail free access to certain services or enjoy the perks of being a member. If you are able to provide a value addition, this can draw more spotlight on your brand.

18. Loyalty Freebies

Some customers deserve special treatment for the amount of business they give to you. Come up with loyalty programs and reward them with freebies for their years of association with you or for meeting the monthly/quarterly/yearly targets of spend.

19. Closed Beta Launch

Offer first access to a privileged few and this you can decide by planning a social contest so that only the eligible ones are chosen for the beta launch.

20. Community Connection

Having a direct sales intent does not work if you wish to carve a niche in the market. Show your involvement in the community and get yourself noticed. It works to sponsor local events or conduct your own events in areas of high traffic like malls and exhibitions or at your workplace. Invite your prospects to attend them. Think up creative activities aimed at the target age group or customers to conduct at schools or residential societies to build your brand awareness.

21. Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

Maintain a good rapport with local businesses in the industry to benefit from referrals through them.
For instance, if a prospect approaches XYZ company for a service it does not provide but knows you can do justice to the requirement, he may refer the person to you. For building such enriching partnerships, you must harbour good relationships.

22. Hashtags

Hashtags have been a very popular way of reaching people on social media channels. Make sure you use relevant ones in your post to draw attention to them from people who search for those tags or click on them to see similar posts. Some hashtags you normally find trending on Twitter and Instagram are #ootd, #photooftheday, #instadaily, #cryptocurrency, #bitcoin, #tbt, #contest, and #giveaway.

The Right Time to Act is NOW!

Building a brand takes time and you cannot expect miracles to happen overnight. Spend time in chalking out a workable strategy and make sure you are consistent in your efforts.

Get creative and make the best use of social media and blogging platforms to get your word out. Hiring content writing services can go a long way in helping you achieve your goals. Results won’t be too far if you are doing the right things at the right time.

Good luck in your branding endeavour!
October 16, 2018