SEO – Content marketing & content writing Guide – Part 3
An essential step in content marketing and content writing is an editorial calendar. I use Trello to organize all of my business’ daily routines. It’s easy to use, it’s free and helps with your daily to-do lists. Much like an online journal. You can use it for anything, but I like to use it for my business and for personal use.
As I mentioned in part 1 of this blog tutorial. blogging once a week is fine, but it is important that it is a quality post and at least 2-3 decent paragraphs long with some nice keywords and keyword phrases. Spend some time getting it right, after all, you want to attract viewers. Or if you have the time, blog as much as you can.
7 Content marketing rules that you shouldn’t break!
In the realm of content marketing, only the best quality content and blogs survive.
It’s a jungle out there, so what do you do to combat the lions?
With the insatiable appetite for content that the online world has but only a limited amount of time to do it, writing blogs that are truly amazing can feel like the tide is against you, but we’ve come up with 7 rules that will help drive traffic to your website.
1. Know who you write blogs for
Before you begin your first blog post, make sure you know your audience. Who are you trying to reach? Speak their language. Write your post on their way of reading.
All of these statements will help you to pinpoint the message that you are trying to get across. These will help to write content that will inspire, answer questions, solve what they need.
Don’t write about what you find interesting all the time, also write about what your viewers will find interesting.
2. Give your opinion
Don’t be scared of stating your opinion. Your unique views will attract people for your honesty. They will respect your opinion as an expert, you will, however, get viewers that disagree, but don’t treat them with disdain, back up your opinion with some facts, like a link to some reputable website, statistics, etc.
If you hold back or are a little worried about giving out your opinion or rifling up a little bit of controversy, you’re missing out on opportunities to get away from the norm, people like a little controversy, a little drama. So give them some, they’ll talk about it with their friends, share your blog, it’s just another opportunity for your website to become a sharing machine.
3. Start with memorable headlines
When it comes to your audience, they can be unforgiving. If you don’t have great introductions to your articles, then they will quickly go elsewhere.
Besides your headline, your introduction gives you the opportunity to attract their attention to read on. A compelling introduction should urge the viewer to keep reading and that the rest of the article will fulfill their curiosity or question.
4. Always make sure your spelling and grammar are top-notch
All it takes is for you to incorrectly spell the dreaded their/there words incorrectly, and that can ruin the entire article. It can also serve as a distraction to the reader. Not to mention it being unprofessional and give your readers a bad impression. After all, first impressions last.
Take some time to read and re-read your blog article, if you’re still worried, sleep on it then have another look when you wake up with fresh eyes. Or you could have somebody else read through it as well. Grammarly is a great online spell and grammar checker that checks your content while you write online.
5. Write as you talk
By doing this, you bring out your personality. Viewers will pick up on this and it will give your blog’s personality.
While there is a certain standard of professionalism you should adhere to, there is nothing wrong with adding a quote you like, or writing something funny, or giving the reader a brief glimpse into the way you think. It’s important to know that behind all the suits and ties there are real people with real problems.
By writing like you talk your content will feel less restrictive, conversational and interesting.
6. Sometimes less is more
Try to condense what you write as much as possible, who has the time to read a 30-page ebook, or if it is a long blog article like this one, split it up into bite-size chunks, and let your readers know to stay tuned for the next exciting installment of your blog, this will lead to them bookmarking your blog.
There is also a minimum size you should adhere to as well, your articles should be at least 2 decent paragraphs long.
7. Make sure your headlines are attractive
On average 8 readers out of 10 will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. Source ( CopyBlogger)
Your title is your first impression, you have to give your readers a reason to read the rest of your blog article.
Think of it as a way to set expectations, your title should tell them the benefits that they will get from reading your article. It should be an accurate description of your blog article and it should be highly shareable.
Check out this great online blog title generator not only will it give you great blog title ideas, but it will give you ideas on what to write about.
11 Ideas to write content that your audience will be interested in.
If you want to make an impact from your content writing and marketing you have to write quality and consistent content.
There is a direct link to how much content you write and how much traffic or leads your website gets.
Pamela Vaughan, inbound marketing Blog Manager at HubSpot says:
‘When it comes to business blogging, there’s no doubt that consistency is important. Just consider the fact that companies that increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month almost double their leads. That being said, consistency must also be applied to the quality of your content, not just the quantity. If you pay any attention to the increased emphasis Google is placing on quality content, this comes as no surprise. Because marketers must also make a commitment to quality in all the content they create, increasing frequency alone won’t get you very far. Quality and quantity must go hand in hand, and this will become even more important in 2013 and beyond.’
What to write about
When consistency counts, individuals, business owners, and marketers have a hard time coming up with ideas for fresh content.
Where do you get all these ideas from?
1. Answer your audience’s questions. Post on social media asking your clients and fan base what they want from your product or service. Ask questions, if you ask questions then you’ll be able to answer them.
2. Post comments. Ideas can come from comments on your articles or social media posts. Check them for thoughts, ideas, and questions.
3. Success stories. A great sales tool is writing about your customer success stories.
4. Try to keep your readers up to speed on the latest industry news or any changes to your niche standards.
5. Set up Google alerts for industry terms and monitor it, then talk about it in your articles.
6. Create an account on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the most popular and powerful marketing tools for your business. It is a social media platform specifically designed for businesses. It allows you to create a profile and connect with peers in your industry as well as connect with other business. Read other blogs from people and this will also give you ideas.
7. Use Twitter, other social media and other websites, check out their blogs and get ideas from their websites. Don’t directly copy and past their blogs to your website though as this is copyright infringement and also Google knows if the content has been directly copied, instead reword the content into your own words, or build off the topic to suit your own business.
8. Comments on other blogs. Get into the habit of reading other blogs in your industry. Not only read the blogs themselves but also the comments.
9. YouTube. What other kinds of content is out there that is related to your industry? Is there anything you can use, comment on or monitor.
10. Ask questions from your clients on social media. Crowdsourcing is an extremely valuable marketing tool.
11. Monitor your email and phone calls. Keep a log of what’s being asked or talked about. Get ideas from these business sections to write on your blog.
How often should I blog?
As much as you can, once a day, twice a week, but blogging at least once a week at a minimum. The more you do the better. But above all writing quality content is a must. Use the tactics I am mentioning on this blog and you can’t go wrong. The more often you blog the sooner you’ll start seeing results.
3 ways to get content ideas
1. The proper way to do keyword research
Use headings that you might use to search for a particular product or purchase. For instance, I have used “Why content marketing will get people to come to your website”. This isn’t a direct search term, but it will answer a question for people who are searching for ways to increase their traffic to their website. Also, check out some of the headings of my other blog posts. Some of them are questions, such as “How to make a website?” for e.g. A lot of people who are interested in making a website will type this into to Google and hopefully my blog article on the subject will come up in search results. Don’t always add short keywords, for e.g. if you are a bicycle mechanic, your obvious keywords would be bicycle, mechanic, repairer, but there is a lot of competition for these keywords, so you could instead add keywords like “the best bicycle repairer” or bicycle repair shop [your suburb] to your blog.
Targeting keywords that are popular, for instance, “web design” is an extremely popular keyword phrase in my industry, as it directly describes what my business does, can be the wrong tactic. Because these types of keywords are popular, you have a lot of competition, so what you need to do is target long tail keywords.
Definitely, read this article on long tail keywords.
I use keywords phrases like “web designer in Brisbane” or “what are the best web design businesses?” for instance. These keywords show me that the reader is ready to get a website created. But keywords phrases like “how to write a blog?” will generate traffic and will give you some leads but it shows me that they are not ready to purchase, instead, they are only looking for a way to create a blog and not a fully functioning website. Remember when you are writing a blog use a mixture of direct customer keywords and informational keywords. This blog article is a helpful tutorial, hence I try to use informational keywords.
What does all this mean, well incorporate these keywords into your post, but don’t crowd your post with keywords. Try to use only keywords that are relevant to your brand. Use the methods described in this blog to help you.
Use this keyword tool to find keywords that are commonly searched for in search engines.
Answer The Public is a great long-tail keyword generator and is sure to give you some great heading titles, and you can also use these keyword phrases into your content. Just enter one or multiple keywords or words that associate with your business type or service, then click search.
2. Sales and Customer Support
If you have team members that regularly interact with your leads and customers, or you do this yourself, well, they are great ideas for blog articles. Once a week get together for a meeting and ask them questions like:
- Are there any trends in the comments or questions being asked?
- What are the goals, challenges or opinions of the customers?
- Are any customers or employees willing to write a decent review or case study?
You could create a digital or online page, spreadsheet or flyer where employees or customers could place there questions or blog ideas onto. It may be a little crazy at the start, but after a while, some of your employees or even past customers may be able to contribute to your blog. Getting content into your business and surrounding your business with content is the best way to market your business. The more information you have about your business the better.
3. Use website analytics software
Google Analytics is one of the best free online tools you can use for your website. It allows you to find out how many visitors are coming to your website with graphs.
These graphs show you daily, weekly and monthly visits. They also show you their locations, what pages they are visiting the most, and much more. All this information can tell you what blog posts or pages are the most popular, this can then allow you to share the posts more often and you can use and expand these blogs into other topics as well.
All this information that Google Analytics provides is great for marketing information. Google Analytics can be installed on your website through a web designer. All you need is for them to access the programming code of your website, and give them access to your Google Analytics account where they copy a code snippet onto your website, and then your account will start to gather information.
Use recycled content
The Content Marketing Institute says that 64% of marketers are finding it hard to come up with new content, but there is a solution.
Recycling your blogs or content is the most simple and cost-effective process to livening up your content creation without altering the quality of your content.
Finding a way to reuse your old content to provide new quality content is a key ingredient in content marketing.
Separate your old ebooks
If you have older ebooks that your business has produced, consider dissecting them into equal parts then posting them on your blog as part of a series of blog posts.
Using multipart blogs is an underused form of content marketing, that keep the readers coming back, wanting more of that quality information you are giving them.
Write multi-part blog articles
As previously mentioned, writing multi-part blog articles has tons of benefits. Check your blog for older posts and expand on them by making a second or a third part to the article you are writing. There is always a way to extend off your older content.
Research what posts are getting the most traffic through Google Analytics. As it shows you the specific traffic to each page and this can allow you to reuse the most popular content. Or if you have been sharing on social media, which you should be, then check to see what posts have the most likes and shares.
The idea is to not only find your articles that are performing but also to find articles that are related to those top performing posts. Re-word them and do new research on the topic, topics are constantly updating, if you have a post that you wrote 6 months ago, chances are something new has come out or developed on that particular topic. Extend the articles, or write up a completely new one with the topics update then link that one to the older post.
Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is content that is relevant or informative all the time and isn’t some passing phase or trend. This article is an example of evergreen content. Content marketing is here to stay, it is the way of the future in online marketing, and as long as Google and other major search engines exist it won’t phase out or become obsolete.
Evergreen content shares quality information over a large, if not endless, passage of time. It provides long-term value and provides your clients with sustained viable information.
When you write articles with evergreen content, then you write more content and so on, it is an accumulative effect. In other words, your old evergreen content is still working for you in regards to website traffic, search engine rankings, content marketing, and all the other profound benefits it gives you, even though you wrote the content 12 months ago.
So writing this type of content, as long as it is relevant, consistent and of high quality, will sustain itself indefinitely.
Recycling, rewording, updating your evergreen content is a great way to get the most out of your content. Publishing evergreen content will give your business industry leaders and provide your readers and customers with extremely high satisfaction levels.
Creating content for a new audience
While most businesses write content for a particular type of audience, such as age, sex, location, job title etc, an audience can be split up into different types of personalities.
Personalities can differ, such as taste, writing style, emotions such as humor, customer type, and you can base your content writing style on these different personas.
This will expand your audience numbers within your target audience, by appealing to a wider range of personalities. Just because you have narrowed down your particular target audience, doesn’t mean you will appeal to all of them. You have to write content that appeals to all types of personas.
By doing this you will increase your ROI (return on investment) and turn your blog into what it should be, an indefinite supply of readers, traffic, and potential customers.
This concludes this multi-part blog series about content marketing and the benefits it will give your business and business website. It is essential that you incorporate content marketing into your business’s marketing strategy and overall business infrastructure.
You could compare content marketing as one of the wheels of your car. If you don’t use this type of marketing with your business website, then you will only have 3 wheels, and we all know what happens when we only have three wheels. Have fun writing up your content, make it fun, don’t make it a choir.
Writing about your passion is enjoyable and rewarding. Make it happen and good luck!
Measuring and analysing a content marketing campaign.
For a great article on measuring the success of your content marketing and how it affects your website, business or any other media format check out this great blog article by Mike Giannulis – Its all about data – measuring the effectiveness of content marketing.
Further Reading
Go back to part 2 or bookmark this post by pressing CTRL + D on your keyboard.
Timothy Allsworth is an experienced specialist web designer, content marketer, and search engine optimization ( SEO, SEM ) expert here at Custom Web Creations Web Design Brisbane. He has over 7 years of real-world experience in the field and loves helping people and their businesses to succeed in an online world through his tried and proven techniques. He has numerous university-level qualifications in Australia. Advanced web programming, database engineering, SEO and SEM specialisations, Google marketing, business marketing are some of his qualifications. He envisions a web design business that prefers quality over quantity and gives the client the best end digital product their money can buy at affordable prices.
