Content Writing : THE past and the FUTURE

Did you hear the word ‘content writing’ word before? Well, you might think this is a very common word in today’s world like you’ve heard it a million times but a few years back it was not that popular. When the internet rose in the 1990s, there was no quality content or something good Google would search for you.

World Wide Projects just had a few websites with keywords stuffed in them, it was all spam. So how did this industry conquer the traditional media and became a brand itself? Well today, let’s take a look at that.

In the very initial stages of web content, you would find advertisements like, “if you’re looking for a content writing company in Bangalore. We are your best choice; we offer quality content writing services in Bangalore at a lower rate. When you choose our content writing, web content writing, SEO copywriting services in Bangalore, you get the best content writing services”. You see how far we have come from such keyword-stuffed advertisements on the web.

There has been such a great increase in the quality of advertisement and writing on the web since then. We all do take care of the keywords but creatively. The above ad which is given is not likeable but Google does and just for 1 or 2 dollars they hired article/content writer.

In 2000, blogging was introduced, familiar word eh? All the writers write blogs now, creative writing students are given assignments to write their blog, it is a whole new industry. It came right when we came into this world — referring to the millennials!

Blogging

Blogging is a form of content writing, it is there on websites, and independently. It must have been the stepping stone of the content writing industry. How? Let us find out.

The blogging community started rising with several business blogs. After that, there was no looking back. With the advent of social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the need for content writers increased.

Coming back to blogs and SEO, in the year 2003 to 2008, everyone wanted to become an SEO writer or copywriter. It was the month of November when Google introduced FLORIDA that bought the SEO industry. This was blown on the internet, and FLORIDA hit all the overly keyword-stuffed online content and the business started to hire SEO content writers for their company.

Well, did you think content writing was just a few years old? Well reading its history tells that it has become quite old but the beginning was with very people which started to hit just this decade.

But with all these. There was a lot of spammy content on Google and nothing was worth the quality. Then Google along with webmasters like NOFOLLOW started removing spammy and suspicious links. Then came BigDaddy which is still popular for giving out domains for your business.

If you’re new to content writing business, you might have heard a lot of new terms like keywords, long-tail keywords and short keywords. Well all of them are important to bring your article to the top on Google search.

Google searches a billion pages in less than a second, if you have the most used keywords at the front of the first paragraph, your article will most likely rank at the top.

All these things were unclear during that time; hence people didn’t care about the quality of the content. With effective business plans and social media marketing, ‘CONTENT MARKETING’ became a whole new business industry where everyone can be their own boss.

E-commerce

E-Commerce is another platform which has led to an increase in selling content on the internet. Any e-commerce website needs good content written all over its website so that they can attract more and more customers to them. Such quality and viral content have become a necessity for these websites.

It is not only limited to websites who sell products but who sell services, jobs and content overall. Every one of them wants their website to rank on the top. As of January 2020, there I 1.74 billion websites on the internet and even more blogs than registered websites. So, imagine the kind of competition you or your company faces, it is all about quality content.

Let’s come back to the history of content writing. In 2011, Google Panda was launched, this was a breakthrough to promote quality content and de-rank stuffed keyword articles. The SEO copywriters were now facing a tough time to bring good content online, and this job post vanished into thin air.

Quality content started to surface in these websites, and those who were fluent in English got jobs, not everyone! Now the writers started focusing on producing original content and stopped copying each other’s work. No plagiarism that meant, but even now people do it.

After this immense rise of digital marketing, e-commerce, institutes, hospitals and many other businesses are coming online to gain an audience. Even political parties want their voices heard on the online platform, cool isn’t it?

As much as we talk about this virtual world, there is still a mass of people all over the world who don’t have access to it. Something which is called as Digital Divide. According to Strategy Business, more than 56% of the people in the world don’t have access to the internet, that is a pretty big number which is 4 billion people on earth.

Google Panda changed the entire scenario of uploading content online. The writers now focused on giving out useful information to the readers. There were around 9 versions of Google Panda — wow! That is something.

A career in Content marketing?

Loads of content is being put up on the internet, how can you earn from it and get yourself recognized? Well, this stream is uprising and people are still experimenting with it.

With all sorts of businesses shut down, business who were not even online is coming to this platform to promote their brand. Let us check a few statistics for making a successful blog post rank on Google

· According to Orbit Media, the average length of a blog should be 1050 words.

· Curata says, only 18% of the companies’ blog post is over 750 words.

· The average time a reader spends on a blog is 37 seconds (NewsCred)

· According to Search Metrics, the average word count for top-ranked content on Google is 1,140–1285 words.

So you now know the statistics of blogs, blogs make up a huge part of the internet, every website has a blog page in it.

A career in this industry can be tiresome and you may face writer’s block many times but it is rewarding. As you proceed with it, you are known for your writing and the stories you tell out there. What are the types of writing you can pursue? Let’s have a look

· Social Media Writing

Social Media is rising, and viral content is the key. If you are good at optimizing your content to reach a larger audience online, you can do a great job in this field. There are a lot of marketing strategies involved to influence customers.

Creative writing for the target audience is what the company needs for this writing-based career. Nowadays most of the companies have social media handles to promote their services and products and want writers for it.

• News Writing

This is closely related to journalism, as they also report ground news and write them into reports. These articles will be published online or newspaper articles.

If you want to become a news writer, you should have a graduation degree in journalism, it increases your chances of getting the job. As we are taught in the journalism school, to write with an unbiased opinion and facts, as that what matters the most.

• SEO Writing

As we discuss in this article, SEO writing is becoming popular now, to write viral content in this massive area of content, a good SEO writer is necessary.

To become a good SEO writer, lot of research and study is required, like keyword research, keyword demand etc. Many institutes in India are offering SEO writing courses, you can pursue that and learn to deal with blogs, targeted articles and journals.

• Copywriting

Copywriting is writing taglines and advertisements. It requires a lot of thought and creativity because a catchy tagline is always remembered. It is one of the highest-paid jobs in the content writing industry.

This job is very interesting if you have the zeal for it, you will understand what your target audience likes and what they find convincing to them.

• Editing

Good content comes with good editing, news and entertainment sites need editors for their content. Editing comes with great responsibility as editing is the last process before publishing content.

Editing as a profession helps you to build relations with branded magazines, brands and media organizations.

Content writing is from the past, but your words can make it a better future.