Phoenix Website Design – 2020 Edition: The Writing Not To-Dos (Part 1)

Back in the day, there’s no such thing as an SEO writer. Now, online writing seems to be a big hit, and it’s not your usual writing because some write captions for social media, create product descriptions, and other non-traditional ways.

Just to be clear, this is not about content strategy. In this post, I will focus on 5 not to-dos in terms of online writing.

1. DON’T go with the flow.

You can’t just copy a website’s content because they are gaining views. Every website has its own audience. The important thing is to know is that you should identify who you are writing for.
Yes, it’s a competition between websites, but you all have different challenges and different set of readers. You should check your direct competitors’ website only for 2 things:
- Keywords – what keywords are they ranking for? From there, you will have an idea what to target.
- Links – what websites are mentioning their brand? Perhaps, you can also reach out to these websites for a guest post.

2. DON’T skip the keyword research.

Yes, I admit that keyword research is one tedious task. Don’t just pretend it doesn’t exist and you proceed to the next step. NOPE!
The truth is that keyword research should be integrated to any business strategy. Through keyword research, you get to know what the public is searching on the internet. You need to know these keywords and phrases in order to provide answers and solutions to the users. Learn more about The 4 Mistakes to Avoid when Conducting Keyword Research.

3. DON’T be like the rest and strive to be different.

If you are going to do a Google search for SEO 2020, you will get 744,000,000 results. The only way to stand out from other pages is to produce exceptional written content.
Following other people will make your piece generic. Instead, you should add a personal touch. If you just copy others, you would just become another writer that conforms. So, whether you are writing a short or a lengthy piece, add your own personality. More on: 4 Easy Ways to Improve Content

4. DON’T neglect your headlines.

What do the readers notice first? It’s your title. Your headline should capture their attention. Like your content, you should also take time to think about the headline of your piece.
There are tools to help you out in this category: Portent’s Title Generator, CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, and many others.
Other tips include: add certain keyword relevant to the topic, appeal to your readers’ emotions, and insert numbers such as 90% of the consumers, 3 million users.

5. DON’T post irregularly.

Be consistent; blogging is not when you only feel like to post something new. Post on dates and times that have the most traffic on the website.
How do you know when the website gets most traffic? You study the metrics and experiment on the dates. Do a trial and error on the posting schedule. Once you figure out the surge of visitors, then, post around those times. If you can do a weekly blog, then, do that. If you want 2x a month, go ahead. The point is that you stick to the schedule.

Writing entails a lot of practice. No one immediately becomes a master in writing; you just do it every single day in order to polish your work. I am not perfect, and I still make mistakes. The important thing is to move forward and continue on writing. More will be discussed on The Writing Not To-Dos (Part 2)!