Shortly before lunch today, my nose has practically already been glued to my laptop trying to find an appropriate angle for a writing assignment. I’m trying to write an article for a company that manufactures harnesses and military connectors that usually find their way into components used in airplanes, jet liners and automobiles, among others.
Image credit: nuchylee | FreeDigitalPhotos.net
And because this is SEO copywriting that I’m doing, there are three basic elements that I have to bear in mind while writing the copy:
- It has to be related to technology.
- It has to be related to the company’s niche – electronics/semiconductors, that is.
- It has to somehow be business-related because the article is intended for a business audience.
(These elements aren’t rules, so take them with a grain of salt.)
Being a financial researcher by profession, majority of the electronics and semiconductor stuff I know are a result of conference presentations publicly reported by electronic and semiconductor companies.
Their reports consist mainly of their earnings, management changes, if any, earnings forecasts, the things they are doing and intend to do to provide more value to their clients and shareholders – stuff investment professionals, analysts and investors love to hear, as you can imagine.
Thinking out of the box
Employing the help of my tried-and-tested research companion, news.google.com, I tried working on the Moore’s Law angle as an introduction – why AMD believes the days of Moore’s Law are about to end and why Intel believes the economics of Moore’s Law are under stress but definitely not dead.
Then again, to keep things simple, sometimes, you have to stick to what you comfortably know. Research can go a long way, yes. But if the research still doesn’t help in finding your voice, what good can it do? One way or another, the hesitation will show in the written copy.
And because writer’s block wasn’t something I was willing to deal with at any rate, I decided to take a step back and look at things more broadly. I tried for another approach. Social media is hot nowadays.
And getting all the hotter is SEO given the well-publicized hint made by Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team, about the forthcoming rollout of Penguin 2.0 and some other algorithm changes that are expected to be bigger and deeper than the previous changes.
There’s a good chance I can write a good amount of words regarding this topic, but will it benefit my client?
The relevance factor
As always is the answer to these types of questions, it depends. As you probably already know, when writing for a specific blog, the key is to stay relevant. Of course, there is no such thing as absolute relevance.
In this case, given the very specific nature of the topic I am supposed to write about and perhaps the limited number of electronics and semiconductor blogs that accept guest posting submissions, I can opt for horizontal (or is it vertical, linear or parallel?) guest posting, as some people call it.
This simply means that I look at the similarities between my target blog and my client’s business niche and focus on those.
Where then is the benefit?
That, of course, is a good question. The benefit is when the blog’s readers find value in the article, and my client, in turn, gets a backlink from a reputable site, gets exposed to a new set of audience and builds brand awareness.
Easier said than done, you might say. I would have to agree with you on that one. But there’s a trick that I’m sure you’ve already read here, there and everywhere: Write compelling content and the rest will follow.
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