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method-to-market-blog · 5 years

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Using Google Editorial Calendars To Achieve Insane Results

Content marketing is the cornerstone of inbound marketing. But it’s only successful when it’s personalized to a brand’s specific goals and its specific audience.

A single approach can’t be applied universally. One thing that is universal, however, is the importance of consistency.

Consistency isn’t just frequency.

Your consumers made a decision to follow your brand’s blog because of your consistency in several areas. Aside from frequency, these factors include:

voice

style

language

tone

When utilized correctly, an editorial calendar helps you stay consistent across these elements and others.

On the importance of the editorial calendar, CMI writer Jodi Harris said this:

“…no matter how you construct it, keeping an accurate account of your editorial assets and activities will make you a more effective marketer — and a less stressed one, too.” (CMI)

Spreadsheets are commonly utilized in the creation of editorial calendars.

I have nothing against using Google Sheets or similar spreadsheet apps to create editorial calendars. There’s a learning curve associated, however, and not all users are as comfortable using them as others are.

That’s why I recommend using Google Calendar to create your next editorial calendar.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is defined as a:

“…time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google.” (Google)

Usage of Google Calendar has certainly skyrocketed since it’s July 2009 worldwide debut.

There are over 250,000 Google Calendar users and almost 90,000 websites around the world with a Google Calendar embedded in. (Source)

The Google Calendar app can be accessed on multiple devices and Google, as usual, makes it simple to sync your data from one device to the next.

Screenshot Of Google Calendar

The simplicity with which you can create a Google Calendar is one of the key reasons I recommend it over Google Sheets and similar methods.

First, navigate to https://calendar.google.com.

By default, the calendar should be set to Week. You can change this to day, month, year, schedule, or 4 days.

The two buttons on the right-side column are labeled Keep and Tasks. Keep allows you to save notes to your calendar. Tasks allows you to add tasks to your calendar.

The plus icon below Keep and Tasks allows you to choose from several Addons to enhance your calendar.

The My Calendars dropdown menu displays your sets of calendars. Changes you make to the main calendar will be applied to all of the calendars you have selected. To add a new calendar, just type in the desired name in the box labeled Add calendar.

Clicking the Create button near the top-left corner of the screen activates a popup box that allows you to add a new Event, Reminder, or Task.

By clicking on the box corresponding to your desired day and time from the main calendar, you’re able to add events, reminders, and tasks in a more efficient manner.

Setting Up Your Editorial Calendar

Info from your content marketing strategy should be utilized to fill in information for your editorial calendar.

By answering the following questions, your editorial calendar will be optimized, setting you up for consistent success.

Who’s the target audience?

Using demographics, habits, and other data, you create an audience persona. This allows you to make informed decisions about topics and keywords, as well as the voice and tone of your articles and blog posts.

What’s your goal for this content?

Identifying and documenting your goals or intentions for the content will help you generate effective headlines, calls-to-action, and other key elements of an effective article or blog post.

Neil Patel wrote an excellent article on proper goal-setting for the Content Marketing Institute.

What resources do you currently have at your disposal?

Brands invest varying portions of their budgets to inbound marketing efforts.

If you have an in-house marketing team of dedicated writers and editors, you’ll want to plan your editorial tasks differently than if you were managing your content efforts alone, or with limited resources.

What’s your angle?

In the world of marketing and sales, a Unique Value Proposition (UVP); also called a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), is defined as a:

“…a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer’s needs and what distinguishes you from the competition.” (Unbounce)

Applied to blogging — and content marketing in general, the UVP is the angle you take. It’s the underlying message you send with your post that makes it stand out from the sea of content already published, and that’s growing by the second.

If you don’t stand out, you blend in. If you blend in, you’re unable to compete at a high level… you’re unable to turn your blog into profit.

WWWWH?

Who’s the author?

What’s the topic? (Include the headline if it’s already been created.)

When’s the release date?

*Where will the post be published?

**How will the post be promoted?

*When determining where your content will be published, don’t stop at one location. It’s crucial to post content on your own hosted blog, but it’s just as important to spread it around.

Posting across as many social media channels as possible is considered best-practice.

Although it’s rare, some sites that allow user-generated content also require that the content be exclusive. Google, however, will not penalize you for publishing your posts on multiple platforms and social media channels.

If you’re still worried about Google penalizing you for posting one article in multiple places, check out their guidelines on duplicate content. Alternatively, check out this excellent Neil Patel article that covers the same issue.

**When determining how to promote your post, you’ll have to consider your budget.

If you can afford to boost your post on social media, do it! If you can afford to promote a lead magnet, do it!

But you don’t have to pay-to-play.

Organic campaigns require more time, effort, and resources, but the results can be far greater and, because we’re educating consumers with relevant, valuable, problem-solving content, conversions tend to turn into repeat customers.

Generating Great Ideas For Your Blog

Most “experts” in the field of Content Marketing don’t have much to say about the Ideation process. It’s because they don’t really have a unique system. The only thing they can offer are buzzwords like mindmaps and brainstorming sessions.

These methods serve a purpose, but they’re not the most effective or efficient.

In my opinion, great topic ideas come from keyword research. Without diving into the specifics of keyword research, and despite the fact that I can’t take credit for this, I’m providing my readers with the greatest tool for ideation I’ve ever utilized.

The tool is from TheHoth.com and it has changed my approach to content marketing and blogging for good. What’s even better is that it’s completely free to use.

Use Google to identify up to three competitors within your niche. These brands must be updating their content regularly.

Click here to navigate to The Hoth’s Keyword & Content Gap Analysis Tool.

Locate the five black fields.

Enter your website’s URL into the first field.

Enter three competitor URLs in the remaining fields.

Click “Compare Domains.”

With these results, look for keywords your competitors aren’t working for.

Once you’ve discovered a keyword that’s being ignored by the competition, use it to craft a unique topic and headline.

For optimized results, be sure to include the keyword naturally throughout the article.

The keyword should be added to:

the headline/title

multiple tags throughout the piece (H1, H2, etc.)

the first paragraph

This method really works!

It’s the method I utilized to come up with the topic for this post. It’s the method I’ll use in the future.

Conclusion

Google Calendar is simple, effective, efficient, and free.

It syncs information for every device connected to your account and even allows you to share viewing and editing permission with team members, boosting productivity exponentially.

Google Calendars can be embedded into webpages and it comes as a widget if you’re using a CMS like WordPress.

The simplicity and integration alone make it worth a monthly fee. But Google has kept it free. Therefore I recommend it to anyone who’ll listen.

If you’d like to talk more about Content Marketing or if you’re experiencing problems implementing the tips I’ve provided in this post, don’t hesitate to email me at [email protected] or visit Method to Market and contact me today.

#blogging #content marketing #inbound marketing #writing tips #blogging tips #blogs #writing #digital marketing #internet marketing #web marketing

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method-to-market-blog · 5 years

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13 Secrets (not really) For Increasing Exposure And Conversions With An Expert Blog!

Blogging is a great way to increase your brand’s exposure. It’s integral to successful content marketing. But almost 60% of marketers admit they’re not effective.

So the tips you’ve been reading and implementing could be doing more harm than good.

By offering consumers engaging, entertaining, and educational blog posts, you’re establishing yourself as an authority in their eyes.

But with growing competition, you need more than a well-written article to experience success.

By definition, a blog is:

“a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.” ( Google Dictionary )

The concise definition of blogging may trick you into believing that it’s simple. Maybe writing comes naturally to you.

It did to me.

Writing is not inherently difficult. Writer’s block and burnout are annoying, to say the least, but the right techniques and preventative measures can keep you typing.

Writing is not as physically demanding as other jobs either, aside from the lack of sleep most of us experience.

It’s mentally draining at times, of course. But there are techniques that can alleviate some of those pains as well.

In reality, writing is not that hard.

But creating a post that’s engaging, educational, and entertaining, and that converts readers into a loyal following, and ultimately into loyal customers, is accomplished with much more than a natural ability to write well.

1. Conduct market & competition research.

Markets are saturated.

There’s an endless sea of content online. (Growing by the second.)

A plan to appeal to as many people as possible sounds great. And it’s a great idea at the top of the funnel.

But the only way to boost conversions is to put your content in front of the readers that want your content.

The quality of your copy means nothing if it’s not getting read, and conversions won’t go up unless the audience is receptive.

Make sure the audience is receptive by conducting market research.

Observe your competitors.

It’s likely that your competition has already spent a considerable portion of their marketing budget on target research.

Check their social media pages, posts, blogs, and websites.

Note the keywords they use most often as well as the format (text, video, audio, etc) they tend to focus on. This will give you an idea of how effective written content may be with your target audience.

Check Google for mentions of your competitors.

It’s all useful.

Content marketing levels the playing field, in my opinion. It allows small brands to connect with consumers on a personal level.

Utilize Google scholar.

Using Google Scholar, you can research case studies, psycho-analyses, sociology, and other results related to your industry. This includes analyses of consumers and competitors.

Even without using Google scholar, you can use Google to find a wealth of information.

You have to be willing to read through thousands of words to gain insight.

With insight comes advantage.

Create an audience persona.

We’ve all heard of customer personas.

It’s applicable here because you’re offering a product, essentially, and hoping for a profitable R.O.I.

The return may not be monetary directly, but it’s value all the same in the form of conversions.

I’ve added the persona at step three because it’s accepted that you’re going to have to make a few assumptions. These assumptions will be justified or clarified soon. But for now, use the knowledge you’ve gained from steps one and two and this nifty persona creator from HubSpot.

Add a survey to your site.

Adding a survey to your site is a great way to gauge the audience you’ve already built.

What’s more, it’s a great way to confirm the assumptions you made in step three.

Type Form and Survey Monkey both provide great, easy-to-install, easy-to-use surveys for your site.

It should be obvious, but ensure that your surveys include brand-related questions.

I recommend using the persona creator from HubSpot linked above as a guide for what questions you should include on your survey.

Observe other bloggers.

Observing other bloggers in the same niche is beneficial because a) they’re part of your competition, and b) like your industry competitors, the other bloggers have probably done substantial research as well.

Use a keyword scraper to compile a list of the keywords used most often. Moreover, pay attention to the topics they cover.

Make sure you do it better.

2. Document blogging goals.

It’s important to document what you hope to accomplish with your blog.

For most small brands, this will include increased exposure and a jump in conversion rates.

Whatever your goals are for your blog, document them.

It’s necessary to document your “blogging goals” because it’s necessary to document all of your goals.

The biggest advantage of documenting goals is that you’re more likely to stay committed and consistent if you have to read it every day.

I personally use sticky notes on the mirror. I force myself to read short-and-long-term goals on a daily basis.

A documented goal is tangible. It’s not just a concept that we can turn off when we don’t feel like working. Written goals are consistently there.

It’s motivating. Short-term “day goals” should be treated like checklists. Every time you get to check a box, it gives you the motivation to push through to the next task and bust through the next obstacle.

Long-term goals should be reviewed every morning so you refresh your mind and body and remind yourself why all the work and “stress” is necessary.

Documented goals build confidence and confidence leads to greatness.

Enough said.

3. Create engaging headlines.

An engaging headline is critical. It’s one of the most important points in this list.

If your headline doesn’t pop out and grab the reader’s attention, nothing else matters.

The only point that precedes an engaging headline is strategic publishing and posting. The where is crucial, but the headline is just as important.

A lot of blogs like to make a long list of steps for creating the perfect headline.

In truth, previous research has taught us enough to knock this one out of the park.

And it’s not that difficult.

Use odd numbers. Seven, 13, 15, 19, and so on.

I can’t explain why, but it works.

I’ve experienced some success going below seven, but I think it’s less-effective because consumers feel like the article won’t be worth their time if it’s not at least seven points.

Use strong adjectives.

Depending on your industry, there’s an almost endless supply of powerful adjectives to choose from.

For those of you who don’t know what an adjective is, don’t leave the page just to Google it. It’s a word that describes something else.

The reason I say use strong or powerful adjectives is that these nouns tend to produce emotional reactions from readers.

Words like:

Crazy

Expert

Incredible

Beautiful

Powerful

Amazing

Simple

You get the point.

If you’re creating a list-article, AKA: Listicle, you start with an odd number, then add a power-adjective.

Sell the results, not the process.

Instead of stuffing the headline with the service or process you’re covering, sell them on the amazing results they’ll experience if they listen to you.

For instance, instead of naming this article “13 Steps To Proper Blogging,” I’m inclined to sell you on the great success you’ll experience if you implement the 13 steps to proper blogging.

Get it?

You don’t want to read a blog about blogging. But you do want to increase your brand’s name-recognition, exposure, and revenue, right?

Utilize the “How-to”

How-to articles are popular.

A how-to isn’t quite as effective as a list-post, for whatever reason, but it’s not far off.

How-to articles promise education. They promise to teach the reader something they don’t already know.

The trick here is to tag on a unique benefit to the end of the headline. For instance, you may know of a special trick that allows people to whistle like pros in under three minutes. Your unique benefit would be: “… in under three minutes.”

Anyone can teach a person to whistle with enough time, but you can teach someone to whistle in 180 seconds or less!

(If you can actually do this, please contact me asap. I’ve been left out my whole life and I’m tired of it, quite frankly. Even my eight-year-old whistles. I think I even taught him how, but for some reason am unable to perform the feat.)

Harness the power of “mistakes”

By using the “# Common Mistakes Dog Groomers Make” formula, you’re actually piquing the reader’s curiosity.

It’s possible they know a few dog groomers and would love to throw this in their face. Or maybe a segment of your readers groom dogs for a living. Either way, you’ve taken advantage of the human need to know what’s behind the curtain.

By using this formula and turning it onto the readers, it’s even more effective.

No one wants to be “the last to know.”

So if there’s a new trick or technique to do something, makeup for girls, for instance, they’re not going to skip over your article promising to reveal the three common mistakes they’ve been making.

Evoke emotion.

At the end of the day, the highest-performing headlines are those that stir up emotional reactions within consumers.

Many financial decisions are made based solely on emotional reactions.

Typing that out, it seems ridiculous to do. But the truth is, we all do it.

Convincing a reader to make a conscious decision to click on your headline isn’t the most difficult part.

It’s one of the most important parts… but it’s not the hardest.

4. Optimize your openers.

Article openers, as I call them, are important for all the same reasons headlines are important.

If your headline isn’t on point, no one is going to click on it. And if your opener isn’t on point, no one is going to stay longer than two or three seconds.

The goal is to get the reader to stay on your website for at least 30 seconds.

Most visitors leave after two.

Your opening paragraph is what persuades the reader to continue on to the next. This process continues until they reach the “meat” of your article, which is the proposition you promised in your headline.

Utilize storytelling.

Storytelling is powerful. Starting a paragraph with a scene is great for sinking your hooks into readers. Create prompts or scenes that they need to read. Let their imagination do some of the work by leaving out small details. Make them want to know what’s next.

Use Google to learn more about powerful storytelling techniques and tricks used by the experts.

Entrepreneur has a piece, for example, entitled 7 Tips for Storytelling That Dazzles Audiences.

Research the topic thoroughly. It’s worth the effort.

5. Write with consistency in tone and style, using active language as often as possible.

Approximately two websites are launched every second worldwide.

Consumers have an endless stream of information. They don’t have to read your posts to stay up-to-date. And they don’t owe it to you to keep up with your content.

We make decisions based on emotional triggers.

When we come across a really useful blog post, we react emotionally. We actually feel joy.

When we see a trend of quality and consistency coming from a specific blog or website, we begin to favor it. We put our confidence in the authority of the blogger who releases that content.

You and I both do this, even when we don’t realize it.

Why would other consumers act any differently?

Consistency doesn’t just apply to frequency. It applies to just about every attribute of a website or blog.

Frequency is certainly important. But style and voice are equally important.

A checklist is a great way to stay consistent. It provides a repeatable method you can follow for each post you publish.

Shareaholic published a great checklist you can implement right away. It consists of 20 things you should double check prior to publishing every post.

6. Break up paragraphs into bite-sized chunks of two or three sentences max.

Easy readability separates your educational and informal blog posts from related case-studies on Google Scholar. If your reader wanted to read an 8,000-word research paper, they would find one.

But they ended up at a niche-specific blog. This means they’re looking for information they can use now.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be successful publishing 8,000-word blog posts. In fact, long-form posts consistently outperform 500-word pieces because of the perceived value.

But you’re not writing a chapter book. You’re creating an informal blog post.

Many of the rules we learned in high school go out the window.

Break up your content in small chunks to make it easier for consumers to scan it.

Not only do readers prefer bite-sized pieces, but Google bots are also aware of the importance of scannability and readability.

7. Include images, graphs, diagrams, bullet-lists, numbered-lists, quotes, and infographics to help break up text and improve readability & scannability.

Images and graphics attract a younger audience.

Instagram and Twitter promote image-heavy posts with very little text. Readers like images.

They also like data to back up certain claims. As a rule of thumb, if the point you’re making isn’t universally known, it’s a good idea to include a visual chart. This improves retention among readers.

They’ll absorb the data and retain it better. This will improve your name recognition as readers will retain more data from your post than from competition posts lacking visual charts.

There are, however, certain segments of a specific market that rather enjoy text-heavy posts.

This is another area in which target research vastly improves engagement.

8. Include at least one Call-to-action (CTA) in every post.

Even though your audience is full of readers, they’re not mind readers. If you don’t include a CTA, they might like, comment, or even share, but they won’t take the next step to become a customer on their own.

You’ve got to nudge them.

It’s not rude. It’s a friendly nudge.

After all, they need your products or services. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be writing to them, right?

A CTA is a message that tells readers what they should do next.

Effective CTA’s are useful in organic campaigns as well as in conjunction with paid campaigns.

The more specific and clear your message, the more effective your CTA, and the more rewarding your efforts.

Use strong verbs to begin CTA.

Use verbs like:

Buy

Shop

Learn

Increase

Download

Fill out

Find out

Call now (for mobile readers.)

You get the idea.

The term you use depends on the action you want the reader to take, obviously.

Use emotion provoking terms.

Enthusiasm is contagious. If your CTA includes enthusiastic language, it’ll provoke the reader to become enthusiastic and emotionally driven.

Emotionally driven readers make decisions right then and there.

Solve a problem.

If your content and CTA doesn’t promise to solve a problem, it’s worthless.

If it promises to solve a problem your reader isn’t dealing with, it’s worthless.

This is yet another testament to the importance of target research.

If you don’t understand your audience on an intimate level, you’re not going to be able to determine their main problems.

If you call a prospect right now and ask them two or three of their biggest problems, the majority of them would notice you’re a salesman right away and would shut down.

Even if they stayed on the phone, they would be emotionally withdrawn from the conversation.

Your problem-solving proposition is your unique selling point (USP). It’s where you tell the reader what’s in it for them.

Create a sense of urgency.

Most people suffer from a condition labeled Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

FOMO represents motivation for your reader to take action as soon as possible. Businesses that get this right do so by creating a sense of urgency.

If you’ve done everything else right, your reader is in an emotional state at this point. When you tell them that they only have five minutes to act, things get real, so to speak.

If your target research is on point and your content is good enough, the reader will act, if for no other reason than to ensure they don’t miss out on a great deal.

9. Proofread articles at least twice, reading aloud to reveal cadence.

Most of us learn about proofreading and editing in school.

When I said that many of the conventional writing rules given during high school and college are useless in blogging, I was not talking about proofreading.

Proofreading is one of the most important and overlooked steps to take.

I can’t think of anything that damages your brand image more than content that is full of errors. And I’m not just talking about spelling and punctuation.

Fluff and flab are two frequently used terms in the writing world.

Fluff consists of content that is either irrelevant or unnecessary. If the content doesn’t help back up a claim, or if it doesn’t help deliver your message, it’s useless.

There are small exceptions for style, in my opinion.

Flab consists of inaccurate data and claims that are made to increase the value of your content.

Not only will Google penalize your ranking for this, but readers will also know. If they don’t recognize the error(s) right away, they’ll eventually find out. And when they do, you’ll lose all authority and credibility in their eyes.

Proofread aloud.

Proofreading out loud gives you control over the cadence of your post. It allows you to gauge how good it sounds in your head.

Face it, whenever we read, we’re speaking the words in our own minds. It’s natural.

Optimizing for cadence is just another way to separate your content from that of your competitors.

10. Find a remarkable cover image.

In my experience, Pexels is one of the best sites to grab high-quality images and short videos for free.

Google Images is another viable option, but the quality is not as universally sound here as it is with a site like Pexels.

Other sites that are frequently used include:

Unsplash

Burst

Stock Snap

Reshot

Pixal Bay

Alternatively, paid services from sites like Adobe Stock and Getty Images are used frequently as well.

I use Pexels for cover images and for photos to be used within the post itself.

The right image can be all the difference when targeting younger generations who rely so heavily upon flashy gifs and graphics.

11. Optimize with SEO best-practices.

If you’ve been in this game any length of time, you’ve probably heard the acronym “SEO” thrown around quite a bit.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing your content and website in a way that will increase your ranking on Google’s search engine results pages (SERP’s).

There are other search engines, obviously. But none that really hold a candle to Google.

Google basically controls internet marketing. That may be a controversial statement, but it’s one I believe wholeheartedly.

I don’t believe in writing for Google, and plenty of bloggers and consultants have published articles and posts that discuss the issue of “writing for Google” instead of for consumers.

The truth of the matter is that Google’s bots are incredibly smart. They know what consumers and readers desire. Writing for the reader is writing for Google, and writing for Google is writing for the reader.

Utilize Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is free and provides invaluable metrics and stats concerning the performance of your website or blog.

It assists with:

Keyword research

Submitting sitemaps

Detecting and correcting errors within your website or blog

It’s also a great idea to integrate Bing Webmasters Tools into your overall dashboard as well.

Bing isn’t as popular as Google, but it makes up for around 1/3 of all internet searches.

Conduct Keyword Research.

It would take an entire article to give Keyword Research the attention it deserves as a topic.

A keyword is a term used in a search engine to find out about a specific topic. They’re important because Google ranks websites on its SERP’s based on a number of factors, keywords being one of the main ones.

Neil Patel discusses Long-tail Keywords quite frequently, and they’re worth the effort because they don’t come with as much competition.

You can rank for a long-tail keyphrase much easier.

The easiest way to come up with profitable long-tails is to enter in a keyword in Google and study the “Google Suggest” phrases that automatically appear below the search bar.

Another useful tool for keyword research can be found here.

Alternatively, Google Keyword Planner can be used to research the effectiveness, popularity, and competition of keywords. It’s just as valuable for organic campaigns as it is for AdWords.

If you’re just starting out, or if you’re not well established, it’s best to find keywords that have low competition. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t include keywords that are competitive. But the keyword(s) you focus your article around should be of low competition.

Utilize an on-page SEO checklist.

Briefly, your checklist should include the following questions:

Is your keyword used in your post’s URL?

Is your URL short and easy to read?

Is your keyword used in your title?

Have you utilized title tag modifiers?

Is your keyword used at least once in the first paragraph?

Is your keyword used in H1, H2, or H3 tags?

Are your images optimized?

Have you utilized LSI keywords?

Have you included external links to other helpful, high-quality sites?

Have you included internal links to other relevant posts you’ve published?

Utilize technical SEO checklist.

Briefly, your checklist should include the following questions:

Have you identified “crawl errors?”

Have you checked on Google Search Console for errors?

Is your site responsive and “mobile friendly?”

Are there any broken links on your site?

Is your site encrypted with HTTPS?

Is your site’s page speed up-to-par?

12. Publish strategically.

There are plenty of SEO “experts” who exclaim the doom that awaits anyone who posts duplicate content.

In reality, Google understands.

A strategic publishing strategy ensures that your posts get the maximum exposure possible.

The first step is to host your own content.

Your post should be published on your own hosted blog or website prior to being uploaded to any other sites. This includes social media.

After you’ve published a copy on your own website, it’s recommended that you wait several days.

To be honest, I don’t wait.

I go directly to social media and begin sharing links across all channels.

If the channel has a dedicated publishing platform, like LinkedIn or Facebook, I publish the article there as well.

After I’ve covered social media, I move on to external blogging sites (covered below in tip #13).

The trick to increasing exposure on social media is to post each link multiple times throughout the day.

Your audience most likely covers multiple time-zones. What’s more, some of them don’t check social media at work. In short, different people check social media at different times throughout the day.

Hootsuite allows you to manage posts across all social media channels. It allows you to schedule posts. You can “set it and forget it.”

13. Utilize external blogging platforms.

Sites like Blogger are dedicated to blogs. Other sites, like Tumblr, aren’t dedicated to blogs but offer an excellent space on which to share your brand-relevant blog posts.

Some sites, like WordPress and Joomla, offer a content management system (CMS) that enables you to create an entire website.

It depends on your goals.

If you already have a website, there’s not much added value using a CMS.

You need to host your content on your own website. Then you can distribute it to multiple blogging sites like Blogger, Tumblr, and Medium.

Hosting content on your own site is more important now than ever as social media shares begin to fall off.

Check out this list of popular sites that can help you increase exposure and brand-name-recognition:

WordPress (Free & Paid)

Blogger (Free)

Tumblr (Free)

Medium (Free)

Squarespace (Paid)

Ghost (Paid)

Drupal (Free)

Joomla (Free)

Weebly (Free & Paid)

Wix (Free & Paid)

TypePad (Paid)

Conclusion

Don’t give up when engagement doesn’t go up overnight. It’s the same in the world SEO: it takes time.

Changes made in SEO strategies usually take 4–6 months to deliver.

Stay motivated by staying up-to-date. This will help you maintain passion and drive and both are necessary.

#contentmarketing writingtips blogging blogs bloggingsuccess contentstrategy contentmarketingstrategy digitalmarketingtips

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method-to-market-blog · 5 years

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5 Expert Tips For Creating A Blog That Converts

In 2014, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) released their annual Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends - North America report. (Link is a PDF)

In their report, they revealed that almost 60% of digital marketers said they were ineffective at content marketing.

That was then. That number has been on the rise ever since.

In order for digital marketers to get better they had to discover which tactics were most effective.

What did they discover?

By 2018, over 50% of marketers considered blogging the most effective content marketing tool to enhance inbound marketing efforts. (2018 HubSpot Survey)

It's not always easy to establish trust, but blogging is one of the most powerful tools available that can help you do just that.

Blogging is effective because storytelling is effective.

Stories invoke emotions by giving the reader a person or a place with which to relate. Powerful storytelling is a necessary element of a successful content marketing strategy.

Content marketing is often used as a buzzword. Most marketers know the term, but it's not always taken seriously. And even when it is taken seriously, most marketers aren't any good at it.

I'll keep the definition brief.

Content marketing is the act of creating unique, targeted, and valuable content and delivering it to consumers primarily through a website and various social media channels. It also includes measuring results and making adjustments when data suggests they're needed.

Writing is just one element of a successful content marketing strategy. It's not wise to put all of your efforts into blogging alone. Younger generations are more inclined to respond to flashy images and videos.

But there are still plenty of readers. Not to mention the fact that Google indexes web pages based on a number of elements that revolve around text.

Blogging is a powerful tool.

It generates leads.

It increases exposure.

In increases name recognition for the author and the company.

It increases revenue, allowing for expansion.

It creates an invaluable data-pipeline through which consumer comments can be reviewed and considered, making the organization better overall.

In short, it increases conversions across whatever metric you're staring at today.

Conversion really is a numbers game. Exposure and engagement are both natural byproducts of great content, including the written kind.

It's not enough to know the benefits. You need to know how to stand out from the crowd.

There's no such thing as an unsaturated market.

So here are five practical tips that you can apply immediately.

1. Define Your Target Audience

In a sea of content, quality work still stands out. But you have to know where to cast your nets.

A laser pointer is designed to deliver high intensity light particles in a tight, narrow formation. If the light wasn't narrow, it wouldn't be as strong.

You would see it, but you wouldn't feel it.

In that same way, your content needs to be delivered just like a laser beam, pointing directly at a specific segment within your consumer-base or audience.

It might seem counterproductive to limit your reach, but it's not limiting at all.

"When it comes to marketing, if you’re trying to talk to everybody, you’re going to have a difficult time reaching anybody. Vague and generic messages are far less likely to resonate with audiences than specific, direct communication – which is why targeting in marketing is so important." ~ Jennifer Yesbeck - Marketing manager at Alexa

By narrowing the scope of your intended audience, you're able to reach further into that segment. You reach more of a particular segment than if you were trying appeal to everyone.

You're essentially concentrating your power and at the same time, delivering relevant content to ultra-targeted readers.

These readers will be more receptive to your content and your CTA's will convert at a much higher rate, assuming they're effective.

2. Construct An Effective CTA

Writing for the sake of writing is essentially a waste of time and resources. If there's no desired outcome, you might as well call it a hobby.

Blogging can provide incredible results, but only if you put it to work for you.

Without including a CTA in every single article, post, and update, you're missing out on numerous opportunities to persuade your readers to engage.

"Your call to action (CTA) is the chance to motivate your audience to take real steps toward becoming a customer or client. It can be the determining factor between a lead and a conversion." ~ Kyle Martins - Digital Marketing Specialist at Vizion Interactive

Writing for the sake of writing may seem admirable. After all, the whole point of this is the provide quality content to the readers, right?

Wrong.

The whole point of blogging for business is to make more money. The act of creating quality content for your audience is not, in itself, the goal.

It's a mean to an end.

You want more exposure, more engagement, more name recognition, and so on, with money and success being umbrella goals.

Unfortunately, your readers are not mind-readers. They can love your brand and love your content and still not know what they should do next.

You have to tell them what to do next.

An effective CTA is:

Crystal clear

Relevant to the reader's situation

Valuable to the reader

Concise and to the point

It needs to solve a problem.

Include your CTA as an anchor text and place it naturally throughout the article.

Remember, if you don't ask them to take action, they won't take action. It's as simple as that.

3. Write First Then Edit

There is a real-time-self-editor in all of us. It needs to be killed.

There's nothing quite as time-consuming and counterproductive as self-editing as you write.

Your first draft of an article is called a rough draft because it's supposed to be rough. It's not going to be pretty. Often times, it should be incoherent babble.

Self-editing as your write your first draft is not only time-consuming and counterproductive, it also implies that you don't intend on an editing or proofreading stage at all.

If this is the case, then your top priority from this point on is to break the destructive habit of pre-edit publishing.

No writer alive is impervious to error. It will happen.

"I know many people fear that if they don’t edit-while-they-go they will doom themselves to producing nothing more than absolute dreck. This fear is utterly misplaced. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that you are in no position to edit your work until you have had some time away from it. This is because you are too close to the material." ~ Daphne Gray-Grant - Author at Publication Coach & Gray-Grant Communications

There's no excuse for publishing an article full of errors. You should proofread at least twice, editing as you go.

If you've neglected this stage, I guarantee you that if you go through your previously published articles you'll be amazed and horrified at the errors you've missed while self-editing in real-time.

Of course, if you write a word that obviously doesn't fit, erase it. Don't restrict yourself. But editing comes after writing.

4. Write And Publish Consistently

You don't have to publish an article everyday to gain traction, but you do need to be consistent. Consistency is an opportunity for huge gains and huge losses.

Consistency isn't just about the frequency with which you publish.

That's not to say a content plan isn't necessary, because it is.

"By being consistent with your blog you will find the following advantages: ... Your subscribers will develop expectations, and their trust in your blog will grow. You will see an increase in return visits and you will be creating a loyal readership for your blog. [Moreover,] [s]earch engine bots will know when to crawl your blog (if you follow timely publishing of your posts), and your new content will be quickly indexed by search engines." ~ Harsh Agrawal - Author at Shout Me Loud

But you must also be consistent in your voice, your tone, and your style of writing in general.

People love to say that if you just keep writing, you'll eventually gain a following. In reality, if your writing is trash, you're not going to someday stumble upon a segment of the internet that loves reading trash.

That audience doesn't exist.

You need a unique writing voice and a style that relates to your audience.

Your voice is what makes your work unique. And if you try to beat it into submission, you'll end up publishing cookie-cutter articles that read and flow just like everything else online.

Consistency can be your greatest attribute. It can also be a dagger in your side.

If you're consistently improving your style and your skillset, you'll retain readers. If you're consistently publishing garbage content, you'll consistently be disappointed in the results.

5. Write Long-form Posts

Resist the urge to listen to the influential blogging community on this one. They say short posts are better because readers don't like to read. But...

...the truth is in the research.

If you go to Google and search for how-to articles from any niche, in almost every instance, the top five results will include at least three links to long-form articles that are over 1,000 words in length.

"Ultimately, you should create long-form content because it will get you more of what you want: more online visibility (social shares, links), more proof of your authority and industry expertise, and more material for altruistic community building and engagement." ~ Neil Pattel - Co-founder of Neil Pattel Digital

Pattel recommends posts of 4,000 words or more. I personally don't write articles that long, but the concept is the same. His posts are incredibly useful and draw an insane amount of engagement from his followers.

There are two reasons these articles and posts do so well.

Number one, people like value. They want a lot for nothing. These articles are free to read. The longer they are, the more perceived value there is for the reader.

Of course, don't fill your articles with fluff or redundancy. If you can't stretch a topic to 1,000-2,000 words without filling it with fluff, then cut it short. I'm just saying that it's not necessary to cut articles off at 300-500 words for the sake of the reader.

Some well-known influential authors write 200-300 word updates that I wouldn't label articles at all, then publish, then get a zillion shares and comments. It's important to note that it's their overall popularity and not necessarily the value of their content that leads to those numbers.

Number two, Google likes long articles. You should never write articles solely for Google. Ignoring its existence, however, is a huge mistake.

Google indexes sites based on a number of variables.

SEO is a complex study that goes outside the scope of what I've planned for this article. So for the purposes of this article, just keep in mind that longer is better.

On level playing field, a 1,000 word article will outrank a 300 word article on the same topic simply because it's longer. Again, on a level playing field.

In a longer article, there are more natural instances of relevant keywords, latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords (synonyms that suggest to Google you're an expert), and long-tail keywords (key-phrases that are easier to rank for due to less competition).

Conclusion

Blogging is a valuable tool that can increase your reach, enhance your brand's image, and increase conversion rates.

The ultimate goal, however, is to increase revenue. So be certain that you go into this adventure for the right reasons.

If you're not passionate about the success of your business, you won't be committed enough to pump out high quality content on a consistent basis.

It's easier to ruin a reputation than it is to build it. This applies to blogging as well.

Always remember, consumers love a good story.

A blog provides a platform on which you can tell your story. You can spread the story of your brand and tell consumers why you're their best chance at success.

Even if your following is trivial, or nonexistent, a blog is beneficial to everyone involved.

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