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Transcription
Hello everyone. This is Frontend House channel and today we have prepared for you another presentation about content writing for the web and how to write content so that the user will read and Google will approve. So without any further ado let's roll the intro. Guys, what we want to talk about today is actually how and what words should you use to write your content for your website.
But that will make people read? And how will Google simply approve it, and by approving it I mean that by SEO you will get higher in Google search engines? What does a good content strategy look like? So first things first. Let's jump to what kind of content there is.
Types of content
So we might divide this content into two separate types. So one of them would be PUSH content and the other one would be PULL content.
And as you can see here in this example, PUSH content is something that is thrown right in front of us. So for example, as we see here, there's a poster on a bus stop - the design that is very flashy and it is placed, where a lot of people are waiting for the bus so they are typically bored and they are looking at some things that they might simply hang their eye on. So this is something like a PUSH content where we have it in front of us and we don't really choose to see it. We are kind of forced to see it. It's like you're sitting on a bus and you have those little TVs that show you some commercials. You are also kind of forced to see it because unless you have a smartphone, you don't have any choice but to see it.
And the other one is called PULL content. And PULL content is something that we want to see. I missed it here, but we want to see this. It is something we actually decided - okay, I want to see this. So for example, when you type in something to Google, you search it and you go there below to see what kind of search results you have and you see something that you want to see - because it somehow got your attention. And this is something you should keep in mind because this is the PULL content. This is not the PUSH content because there isn't anything flashy and you cannot force anyone to visit your website. You have to pull him - PULL content. So we must write in that way because remember, you can't see any pictures, you can see any graphics, maybe your logo, that's it, if you paid more.
But basically, you can only pull someone by your copy, by what you have written, or maybe some kind of promotion, some kind of discount. This is something that might pull users into you. That's why it's very important to have very good written descriptions regarding what people write on the Google search bar. So as the result the search results will show your website. And in the description of your website, you will have some kind of a catch, like a hook that will hook people into you and they will be pulled into you.
Just for a quick summary - PUSH content is right in front of us, we are forced to see it. PULL content - we decide that we want to see it. So this is very important - change PUSH content into PULL content. This is an important thing about that - when you have this PUSH content, you need to turn it into a PULL content. So if, for example, you are showing something somewhere and even if you are making people see this because they are forced to see it at some point, this is not also something that will lead to prospects or any more leads on your website or anywhere, maybe in your shop. So when you have this PUSH content, this PUSH content must also include things that will hook people and pull them right into it, right into your website, right into your store. Anything like that. It's very important. Turning PUSH content into PULL content is great. You need to do that. It's a very important aspect of creating content.
Another thing about content writing - and this is something when people are already on your website, for example. So we kind of need to dive into how we read, how people read. So you can describe and divide reading into like two things. One is saccades and the other one is fixations.
Saccades and fixations
So as you can see here, saccades is a rapid eye movement between fixations to move the eye-gaze from one point to another. So as you can see, we don't read like this. We read like this. So those are saccades.
And the moment where our eyes do sort of jumping and we just go from one point to another - when we hit this point, as you can see right on the presentation - this is a fixation moment. So for fixations - a point between two saccades, during which the eyes are relatively stationary and virtually all visual input occurs.
When we actually do saccades we're not really like looking or maybe we are looking obviously, but we are not sort of perceiving, so to speak. We don't take information during the saccades. We take information when we are at the fixation point because, as you can see here, we read some part of it.
We don't read words like, for example, w o w - we don't read it like that. We look at it as a whole picture. If you can imagine a word as a picture, we sort of look at it and we are okay, I know what it is. It's very important to use plain words because imagine that if you actually know a word, it's easier for you to read it because you don't have to think about it. What does it mean? You know this word. It's like the paintings. If you know a painting, you know who painted it and stuff like that, you don't think about it so much. It's also very important when it comes to fast reading. If you actually read more, then you will read faster because you will have a bigger vocabulary. You will know more words. And if you know more words, then you simply read faster because you don't have to think about those words that you might, for example, not know, but about that later.
So fixations are the case, this is important regarding how people read. But let's jump into more details of fixation. So fixations have three stages.
Stages of fixation
The first stage is when a person reads the first few letters of the words, it takes around 100 milliseconds to recognize the word. So as I said, we don't read the whole world. And this might have happened to you on some kind of Internet joke. When you see that people type in something and you read it in a different way because you read like the beginning and the end of the world and you don't read the center part. That's why sometimes people often mistake the words because if there are, for example, two words that contain the same letters at the beginning and on the end, there might come a mistake about those two words. You might mix them with each other. So this is the first stage. With the first few letters of a word, it takes around 100 milliseconds to recognize this word.
And then we are going to the second stage, which provides more info about the word that we are reading and also some first info about the word to the right. So this is the second stage. It takes, obviously, time after the first stage, and during the second stage, our brain processes the word, and we recognize this word. Okay, I know what this word is. It's the same when, for example, you know everyone in school. So if you know everyone, you don't really pay that much attention because you recognize everyone much quicker. If you don't know anyone, you take much more time because you need to recognize everyone and kind of remember them.
So actually, as you can see, our brain works very similarly in very many different types of situations. So in the second stage, we kind of dive into the word. We recognize the word, and we also get a glimpse of the next word on the right.
The third stage, the last one, is a point in which our brain tells us where to put our next fixation point so we know where to go next when our succades stop - at this point, at this point, and so on. So the better you'll understand the word, the faster and longer your succades will be.
So those are those three stages of fixations in a sort of manner that we read.
How much of the web content do people read?
Regarding reading, how much of the web content do those people actually read? It's about 20% to 28% of the content of the web page. And that's really not a lot, you must remember that. And it's not only to remember that it's only 20% to 28% of what people read.
It's also about where those people are reading it. So you can know where you want to put your most crucial information so that you know the people who read it.
So Nielsen Norman group conducted a research in which they found out that we sort of read the content of the web page in like L shape. It's kind of reversed vertically. Content writers, designers, and the marketing team must keep it in mind regarding content creation process. We read it on the top the most. We can even go to the right. We read some stuff on the top and then the more we go below, the less we read. So the most crucial information, and it might be obvious to you but at least now you have some kind of proof of this, that information that you want to provide the user, that you want the user to actually read, should be on the top. This is very important, it's one of the content marketing issues.
And also what is important when you show users those informations, you know that they will only read the top part. So regarding Google Search Engine Optimization - unfortunately, Google works in the way that to have a good SEO it's very important to have a lot of written content on your web page. It's unfortunate because most people actually don't read it. So you design for the users and then you design for Google.
So when you look at it on the top, design it for the users, and below that, you can design it for Google to have your better Search Engine Optimization. That's how you deal with search engine algorithms and get organic traffic. This is important to keep that in mind when you're writing articles for your web. Keep information for the users on the top and below you can just give the information for Google. Actually, nobody reads that.
Even if you go around, for example, pages that promote some kind of courses, you will notice that they are explaining how you should participate in this course in a very, very long copywriting. This isn't for you to read actually, because whether or not you will choose to take part in this course will happen at the top - like you already decided. The rest is for Google. So those courses might come up in the top results of Google.
Remember, keep content interesting for the users on the top and below you can keep it interesting for Google.
Use words that your users use
Use plain language
Why should you use plain language? Plain language is simply the language that most people use. It's not very sophisticated, but it's very commonly used, because when people are typing something into Google. For example, they will type in a doctor but you will promote your services as MD (medical doctor), it might turn out that you will miss a lot of opportunities for prospects, at least because people aren't searching for MD, they are searching for a doctor, simply a doctor. And you should check if they are using that - conduct a keyword research.
So using plain language allows people to have a much better understanding of your web page and much faster because there is something called cognitive overload.
So cognitive overload is something when we sort of lose our computer, we don't have enough memory to read all of that. This might happen for you if, for example, you once took some kind of technical book and you look at that book, you read it and you don't understand a word you will read, for example, like twelve or 15 words. After that, you will stop reading because you didn't understand enough because you reached your cognitive overload. If you know the words, this cognitive overload doesn't really go that big, that much up.
Like you don't have to really worry about that because you use plain language, so it doesn't tire people to read. It also comes, for example, when you have a lot of content on your page and you don't know where to look, it might also lead to cognitive overload. So using plain language, plain English, or just any language you actually write in, is very, very important. The next thing is...
Check the language of your users
So I don't mean the language they are writing, like in Hebrew or English or German. Mostly, what kind of language they use. So as I said before, they might look for a doctor, not MD (medical doctor) - they also might use different words that you do.
And to check that you can actually use Google Trends to check what kind of terms the user input into the browser. Thanks to that, when you check that, when you see, okay, people are writing this differently than I did. So I might change that. Thanks to that, you will get more leads and prospects, for example, because you will pop up as a result. For example, as I said, if people there are 500 or 5,000 people per week looking for a medical doctor as MD, but there are 50,000 people per week that are looking for a doctor.
So you don't pop up in the results for the 50,000 people that look for the doctor, you pop out for these 5000 people. So 5,000 and 50,000 is, ten times more, it’s the difference. This is important for you because you will get simply more people that will look into your website by the results. Obviously, you need to write something in the description that will pull people in, as we said, PUSH/PULL content, you remember that. If you pull people in that is great.
So first thing, look for what people are using (especially your target audience), what kind of words they are using on Google Trends. If you see they are using for example doctor, you change MD to doctor on your page, you turn from 5,000 people to 50,000 people, and then your website must have a really great written description in Google so that they will say - okay yeah I like that. For example, discount or free consultation - people read that and think - okay, I like this, I want to go there.
You pull them in, you hook them into your website, and then on your website you put all the high quality content that they want to see, like the price, anything on the top that will hook them in even more. Like they will get their desire because first, you have the attention, then you have to have their desire and their interest. After that, the action would be just contacting you about your services. That's the reason why it's good to have in-house a good content writer with both marketing and writing skills (or pick wisely the freelance writers).
Summary
It's very important, so when they are on your page remember to keep the interesting content on top and the less interesting in the bottom so Google just might see it and get your Search Engine Optimization even better. So this is it. You will rank well on search engine results pages.
Thank you for watching my video, we upload video content and blog post every Friday so keep looking for those and if you have any questions please write them in the comments. We will try to respond to that. You can also share with us what kind of tips you have on content writing process but until then, thank you very much, follow our social media posts, and see you in the next one.
