I don’t often talk about what I ‘do’, partially because it doesn’t pay enough for me to warrant giving it any extra consideration in my own time, and partially because I don’t find it particularly interesting.  Just recently, however, a few people have asked me to explain in more detail what exactly ‘content writing’ means.  It’s an interesting question, and one that isn’t that easy to answer without getting into a long explanation of the way Google and online entrepreneurs and businesses operate in tandem.  Usually I brush off the question by responding, “It’s just like copy-writing,” because I guess in essence it probably is.

I got into content writing by accident, and I never intended to stick with it for very long.  During the last few weeks of my thesis editing, and after a long year of relying on the government for financial support (how exactly they expect $200 a fortnight to support a person is beyond me), I decided it was high time I found myself a job.  The problem was that Rob and I were due to fly to the UK as soon as my thesis was handed in, leaving me with a few weeks in which I would need to put in my resume, go through the interview process, undertake training and start a job… clearly, it wasn’t going to work.  Fortunately Rob knew of a few people who were looking for someone vaguely intelligent to research and write some small articles to put on some websites to generate traffic, and I volunteered my services.  Having just written a 20,000 word thesis I found the 500-1000 word articles a breeze.  Months down the track, my travelling lifestyle has forced me to keep on with the content writing, and it probably won’t be until June or September that I will be able to find myself a ‘real’ job.

So what exactly is content writing?  I guess my brief definition of it being like ‘copy-writing’ is quite accurate, although it doesn’t properly relay the level of research and marketing-mindedness required to really do the job justice.  Perhaps the best way to describe content writing is by demonstrating what it achieves.

Take, for example, the random topic of piano tuning.  Few people have reason to be interested in piano tuning, but those that do need clear, concise information and perhaps a push in the right direction.  Your average internet user would go to Google (or another search engine), type in ‘piano tuning’, and a pile of websites would come up.  Some of the websites would have little relevance to the search - perhaps turning up results on piano players, piano scores and piano CDs - and other results would take the internet user straight to a piano tuning business’s website.

Enter into this situation the internet entrepreneur: an owner of a nice portfolio of domain names, and someone who would ideally like to make money from advertisements placed on their websites.  Perhaps the entrepreneur speculates in domain names - trying to increase their value to be able to sell them on for a higher price.  Perhaps they use them for their own means, to give information to the internet-using public and making a small profit on the side.  Either way, the higher up their websites appear in the Google search results, the more visits they are likely to get to their website, and thus the more clicks they will receive on the advertisements they have placed (and therefore the more valuable their websites will become to potential buyers).  Many internet-based advertisements are run on a payment-per-click basis, meaning that the advertiser of the product will pay a certain amount to the website owner every time a visitor clicks on the ad itself.  In practice, this means that if a user were to type in ‘piano tuning’ into Google, and then clicked on the result that sent them to said internet entrepreneur’s website (perhaps www.piano-tuning-101.co.uk or something to that effect), and then clicked on an advertisement placed on the website, the internet entrepreneur would earn a few cents (or pence).

This relationship between search engine results, visits to websites and clicks on advertisements means that internet entrepreneurs are very keen to ensure that their website ends up as close to the top of the search engine results as possible.  One of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure the website in question has original text-based content - unique paragraphs and sentences of information that are relevant to the search in question.  Google (and other search engines) aren’t keen on replicated or copied text, so if the entrepreneur copy-and-pasted text from Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica, Google would either ignore their website entirely or would relegate it to the bottom of the search results pile.  Because of Google’s hatred of duplicate content, internet entrepreneurs have to therefore ensure that the text on their websites is completely original.

In order to ensure the site ends up closer to the top of the search results, the entrepreneur also needs to make sure the text on their site has enough of the relevant related keywords to warrant it being considered as helpful to the person who has typed in the search.  Ideally, the text on www.piano-tuning-101.co.uk would contain a number of sections (perhaps split into several pages) that detailed: the reasons for having a piano tuned, tell-tale signs the piano needed to be tuned, how to tune the piano in question, and perhaps a list of books and services that may help an amateur piano tuner or piano user.  The more related keywords used in the text - such as ’string tension’, ’string adjustment’, ‘pitch’, ‘key frequencies’, ‘equal temperament’, and so forth - the more likely the website is to appear near the top of the search results.

So why not just put a series of key words on the site and be done with it?  Indeed this would be a lot easier for the entrepreneur, but unfortunately Google has wised up to this as well.  Real sentences and paragraphs are needed to really get Google’s juices flowing.  Moreover, by putting relevant advice and information on the website, the entrepreneur may also be able to obtain links from other websites.  This too will boost the search engine ranking of the website.  The better the content, the more refined the key-word usage, and the higher the number of external links, the more likely search engines are to place the website at the top of the search results list.  It follows that the higher up the site is in the search results, the more visits the site gets, and the more clicks are made on the advertisements placed on the site.  Of course, this means more money for the entrepreneur.

This is where the content writing comes in.   It’s my job to write the text that appears on the entrepreneur’s website, and it’s my job to research the keywords, research the topic, and write the content in a way that is accessible to those searching for the topic.  If the text I write is too overloaded with keywords or doesn’t make sense, Google will pick-up on the discrepancies.  If the text is too casual and doesn’t have enough keywords, the site won’t rank high enough in Google to warrant bothering with the content in the first place.  If the text’s sections aren’t focused on a clear topic, Google AdWords (the text advertisements you see every now and then on websites) will be confused and won’t generate relevant advertisements for the site, thus decreasing the number of click-throughs.  I have to make sure the content I write sounds professional, informed, and as little like generated-content-for-advertisement-profit as possible.

Unfortunately, I don’t really get to pick my content topics, or my life would be a lot easier.  In one week I may have to write about bike mechanics, tubas, a particular type of chocolate, wind farms, organic eggs, women’s lingerie, inner-city regeneration and air purification.  Some topics are of course easier than others - a recent article on town planning was made easier by my somewhat worrying knowledge of SimCity.  As with any internet-based job, there are always people offering the same service for a lot cheaper (particularly in Eastern European and Asian countries), and in order to be competitive my rates are perhaps shockingly low.  I do get to work from home, however, and I can stop and start my work whenever I want - making it a lot easier to fit in shopping trips, coffee with friends, and leisurely breakfasts or lunches with Rob.

So if anyone ever asks if you know what content writing is, you can now safely answer, “It’s like copy-writing, but it doesn’t pay as much.”  Hey, at least I’ll be a valuable member of any pub quiz team!