That’s the million-dollar question. If you can create strong content for your readers, you will get back as much as you put in.

Strong content brings in ROI you can’t argue with:

• More people reading your content from start to finish.
• More people actually learning from your content, gaining something valuable, or enjoying it.
• More clicks for your CTAs, and more people following through.
• More email subscribers.
• More leads coming in.
• More sales from those nurtured leads.

For a great example of a brand that leveraged strong content to meet nearly all of the above goals, let’s look at a case study from Optimist. They used amazing content as the pillar of a content marketing strategy for a brand called CollegeRaptor.

Here is what they achieved one year after launching their strategy: 

• Over 1,000,000 visitors to the CollegeRaptor website
• Over 100,000 organic sessions per month

To do it, they honed in on their audience. They looked at what potential customers in a state of awareness were searching for and asking Google. Then, they created killer content in three major areas to answer those questions:

• Evergreen content
• Social/viral content
• Link-earning content

In other words, Optimist effectively mapped their content to their audience in the buyer’s journey/marketing lifecycle. They looked at what people who might need CollegeRaptor’s services were asking (“what’s a good ACT score?” or “what do colleges look for from students who apply?”). Then, they created great content around the answers. 

Essentially, this is everything you need to create strong content that gets results. 

Let’s break it down, step-by-step:

1. Start with Your Content Goals

In the above example, Optimist started with a basic understanding of the goals they wanted to achieve: Attract search traffic, generate backlinks, gain authority, and grow CollegeRaptor’s presence.

Similarly, when you begin, you need to understand what your goals are for your content. What do you want content marketing to do for your brand? Solidify those goals and make them your mantra. They should be at the heart of your resulting strategy.

2. Understand Your Audience in Terms of Search Intent and Lifecycle Marketing

This next part requires understanding two integral pieces of your content strategy: Your audience and their search intent.

Who is your audience persona? What answers are they looking for to solve their problem(s)? To find the answers, simply talking to them works, as well as creating surveys and researching on social media.

Once you know what questions your audience is asking, you can figure out how their search intent maps to the marketing lifecycle.

Why a Marketing Lifecycle Versus a Sales Funnel?

It’s important to think in terms of lifecycle marketing versus sales funnels because it’s in line with the nurturing stance of content marketing. We’re not looking to get the sale right this second; we instead want to warm up our audience, nurture their trust, and build relationships – that leads to repeat, loyal customers.

The marketing lifecycle is the modern antithesis to sales funnels. The latter was in use as far back as 1924 as a technique for one-on-one, in-person selling. We see one of the first mentions of a sales funnel in William Townsend’s book, Bond Salesmanship.

“Developing the sales steps” in terms of a sales funnel is described as “the forcing by compression of a broad and general concept of facts… which produces the specific and favorable consideration of one fact.”

In other words, the salesman pushes the prospect toward the conclusion that results in a sale. Interestingly, this sales process is compared to horse wrangling on the next page (!):

“If the fences … have been well built and strengthened there will be little chance for the prospect to bolt and jump them for the freedom of the open range.”

With sales funnels, the sale is all that matters. Your prospect isn’t a human, but rather a horse to be pushed, forced, and wrangled into a purchase – their free will is removed from the equation.

Yikes. This is what so many marketers are still relying on to guide their strategies?

We know that modern buyers don’t respond well to this kind of selling anymore. That’s because the internet has changed everything – the freedom of the open range IS the landscape. If you push, prod, and try to force your buyer using sales funnel tactics, they can and will jump that fence and find a brand that will treat them better, one that deserves their loyalty.

This article from Kapost sums that up particularly well:

“We expect to be able to get the information we need about a product or service on our own, and we recoil from blatant product promotion. We expect brands to meet us where we are and prove their value before earning our business.”

That’s another reason why a marketing lifecycle works better. We, as consumers, want brands to meet us where we stand. We don’t want to be forced into anything. That’s why, in a marketing lifecycle, there are no closed walls or fences. Each stage represents an open pathway, and the prospect is free to jump around depending on their experiences with your brand.

How to Map Search Intent to Lifecycle Stages

The very questions your audience is asking will show you where they stand in the marketing lifecycle. Once you map them to the right stage, you can create content that directly speaks to their needs. You will nurture a relationship rather than shove them toward a sale.

There are four basic types of search intent. Each maps to a different stage, like so:

1. Navigational – Usually, the user just wants to navigate to a website but doesn’t know the exact URL (i.e. “CMI blog”, “Target”). 
   • Maps to: This type of search is the most basic and doesn’t map to a stage.

2. Informational – The user is looking for information to solve a problem, close a knowledge gap, or improve their lives. (Examples: “how to train a dog”, “flu symptoms”)

1. • Maps to: Awareness

3. Investigative – The user still wants information, but not just for the sake of knowledge. They may want help making a purchase decision, and they’re researching for that purpose. (Examples: “best dslr camera models”, “compare outdoor grills”)

1. • Maps to: Interest and Intent

4. Transactional – The user wants to do something or carry out a specific action. Often, this means they’re ready to buy. (Examples: “buy canon dslr”, “outdoor grill deals”

1. • Maps to: Decision

Once you figure out what questions your audience is asking, you can create content that speaks to their marketing lifecycle stage and provides the answers they need.

For example, if your audience is asking “what are the best dslr camera models”, you could create a guide comparing and contrasting the top 10 to help them investigate.

For more information on mapping search intent to stages of buyer awareness, check out this great guide from GoDaddy: How to Create Search-Friendly Content for Each Stage of the Consumer Journey.

3. Generate Content Topics from Targeted Keywords

Once you have a question from your audience you want to answer (as well as the type of content to produce to hit your buyers’ stage of awareness), it’s time to find the best version of that phrase to target in your content.

In SEMrush, this is easy. First, type the phrase into the “Keyword Overview” search tool.

If there is zero data available about that exact keyword, tweak it until you get some results.

(I tweaked “what are the best dslr camera models” to “best dslr cameras”. If you’re targeting voice search, you may want to include the entire original question in your content piece along with relevant variations.)

Once you hit a keyword with data, check the competition. If it’s too high to rank for without a powerful domain authority (this one has a keyword difficulty score (KD) of 89.45/100 and a competition score of 1.00, or 100% – nope!), go to the Keyword Magic Tool. 

We’re going to look at all of the keywords that broadly match this search to find an easier one to rank for.

We want to find the best keyword to use to target in our guide. Generally, this means hitting a sweet spot of low competition + good search volume.

Scanning the list of broad match keywords, I see a good opportunity with potential: “best dslr camera under 500”. It has 1,300 searches per month. The competition is still 1.00, but it has a much lower keyword difficulty score (KD) of 59.05.

Don’t forget to look at the “phrase match” keywords, too. You may find relevant keywords there that offer a good balance of KD/competition/search volume.

Once you find a good keyword, jot down a list of possible content topics using that phrase. Here are mine:

• The 10 Best DSLR Cameras Under $500
• How to Find the Best DSLR Camera Under $500
• The Best DSLR Camera Under $500: Our Review of the Canon EOS Rebel SL2

4. Map Content Topics to Your Goals

For my own content, I use something I call the 3-bucket topic strategy. Each content topic I come up with has to fit into one of my goal areas. If it doesn’t help me advance in that area, I scrap it.

This is the first major step to coming up with content that is great for you AND your readers. Even if you find a great keyword related to your ideal buyer’s search intent, if it doesn’t help you advance toward your goals, it’s not worth targeting in your content.

5. Create Utterly Readable, High-Quality Content

You found a relevant keyword you can use. You have a content topic in hand that will advance you toward one of your brand goals and maps to a stage of audience awareness.

At this point, creating strong content around your topic and keyword is KEY to bringing in ROI. Strong = readability + quality.

Create Readable Content

Strong content is readable content:

• It’s clear.
• It makes sense.
• The information is relevant to the user’s search.
• It flows together.
• The page the content is on doesn’t impede the user’s ability to read or understand it.

The more readable your content, the more likely a user will remain on your page. And, as we all know, that’s great for your search rankings. This is how Neil Patel puts it:

“Dwell time most definitely impacts SEO. If a user is spending time on a site, interacting with it, not bouncing, and going deeper within the content, it’s evident there is something of value on the site for that particular user. As this happens, SEO improves.”

Create High-Quality Content

Strong content is high-quality content:

• It is factually accurate.
• It is well-written and speaks to the target audience.
• It’s organized with headers, subheaders, and lists.
• It uses relevant sources to back up claims and provide evidence.
• It properly cites other websites and resources.
• It’s in-depth and long-form. It explores a topic fully.
• It includes examples to illustrate points, including images.

To rank in SERPs (and to rank well), you can’t have quality without readability, and vice-versa. 

Ready to Rank with Google AND the Modern Reader?

Being strategic with your content is essential to both appealing to the modern reader and climbing Google’s rankings.

First, the way you consider your reader has to be in line with their buying journey. They don’t fit into sales funnels anymore – no modern buyer does – and that little thing called the internet has everything to do with the shift.

So, to appeal to today’s readers, meet them where they stand in the marketing lifecycle, which focuses on nurturing your prospects and building loyalty with them. Understand they have unlimited choices, and that sales funnels don’t properly reflect that fact with their closed walls, pushy mentality, and aggressive tactics. 

In short, give the people what they want. You may just earn yourself some loyal customers who keep coming back for more.

The post How to Create Content for Today’s Online Reader: Thinking in Terms of a Marketing Lifecycle appeared first on SiteProNews.

That’s pretty dang old. Especially in this age of the internet, where algorithms, news, newsfeeds, data, trends, memes – you name it – change at lightning speed.

The creator of the idea of a sales funnel was William Townsend. He wrote about it in 1924 in his book, Bond Salesmanship:

“The salesman should visualize his whole problem of developing the sales steps as the forcing by compression of a broad and general concept of facts through a funnel which produces the specific and favorable consideration of one fact … The funnel has helped many salesmen to lead a customer from Attention to Interest, and beyond.”

Wait, what?

Townsend talks about human customers as if they were pieces in an assembly line. To get the desired end result (the sale), you have to squeeze them through your sales funnel by force.

Yikes.

The thing is, the sales funnel model DOES function that way. And that’s exactly why it’s outdated, stale, obsolete, and useless.

It needs to be replaced with an alternative model that better reflects two things:

• The nurturing warmth of content marketing.
• The real human journeys that happen on the way to a purchase.

Here’s Why the Sales Funnel Needs to Be Replaced

As it stands, the sales funnel is all about pushing, prodding, and coercing your buyers into moving down the funnel. When buyers reach a stage, they are once again pushed toward the next stage, until they at last make a purchase and are dumped out at the end.

It’s rigid. It’s cold. Most of all, it’s inaccurate. There’s no room for your leads to be human, have human whims, and make nonsensical human purchasing decisions. 

For example, on a real-life buyer’s journey, a person can flip from Awareness to Action in a split second. They may backtrack from Decision to Awareness. They’ll leap from Interest to Action. Thanks to the internet, buyers are more unpredictable than ever.

If you can’t predict where buyers will end up in the funnel from one moment to the next, what does that mean for your marketing? How will you craft content and messages that speak to where they stand?

Plus, the funnel completely ignores the concept of customer loyalty – a very buzzed-about topic in marketing these days, one that’s dominating most of the conversations in my marketing circles. Winning trust with buyers and building an ongoing relationship is starting to edge out the one-and-done sale, as CMI’s 2019 B2B research report demonstrates overall.

An audience-first mentality doesn’t mesh with the aggressive sales funnel and slimy, salesy tactics. That’s why we need a marketing lifecycle.

What is a Marketing Lifecycle?

The idea of lifecycle marketing has been out there for a while. 

Ardath Albee, one of the leading voices in the industry, first talked about it on the Marketo blog:

“…winning a customer is only the first step of the journey to customer lifetime value (LTV). This is why it’s imperative for B2B tech marketers to shift their focus from buying journey funnels to full-on customer lifecycle management.”

The difference between a funnel and a lifecycle is pretty huge.

The sales funnel mentality is about that end-goal: The sale. Every action is meant to push the customer there. In sharp contrast, the end-goal of a marketing lifecycle is to build a relationship with the customer.

And, ultimately, that’s what most buyers these days want. They want to buy from trustworthy companies who offer amazing products/services and provide value in more ways than one. According to a 2018 Yotpo consumer survey, 90.2% of consumers consider themselves equally or more brand loyal than they were one year ago.

And, ultimately, a marketing lifecycle will help you provide what consumers want, no matter what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re standing in. Here’s what it looks like:

As you’ll notice, there are no walls in this chart. Rather, each stage is connected to every other stage through open pathways. As the buyer moves on their own unique path, you can connect with them with targeted techniques and content marketing.

So, what does that look like?

The 4 Stages of the Marketing Lifecycle

1. Awareness

In this stage, the buyer is aware of your brand. Pushy tactics will turn them off, especially overly-promotional pitches.

For buyers in awareness, you should create high-quality content that builds trust, builds community, and establishes your authority:

• Awesome SEO blogs
• Original research studies or round-ups
• Brand awareness blogs (real stories and pieces with creative, entertainment value)
• Web pages and guides
• Lead magnets, eBooks
• Social media content and videos

2. Interest/Intent

The buyer now has Interest in your brand with possible Intent to buy.

To build a relationship in this stage, real conversations with the buyer will have the most impact:

• Conversational marketing (live chat and phone calls with your best salespeople, messenger bots)
• A website that makes it easy to contact your team (clear CTAs, easy navigation and contact forms)
• Lead magnets, eBooks, webinars, and testimonials
• List-building and email marketing
• Retargeting campaigns

3. Decision

In the Decision stage, if you have answered their questions, provided value, and built trust, the buyer is ready to buy.

Now the buyer wants to see evidence that you can deliver:

• Following up and answering questions quickly
• Positive reviews on third-party sites
• Product demos, price quotes, or work samples

4. Loyalty

The Loyalty stage doesn’t exist in the sales funnel, but it’s critical for modern buyers.

Nurturing loyalty keeps your buyers in your marketing circle – eventually, these delighted customers can become brand evangelists. How?

• Great service and great products
• Regular follow-ups to touch base
• Thank-you gifts
• Email marketing with brand updates
• Fresh product/service releases

Forget the Funnel: It’s Time to Embrace the Marketing Lifecycle

Consumers today are savvier than ever. They have the miracle of the internet at their fingertips to help them make purchase decisions. They also want exceptional customer service.

It’s time to treat them like the humans they are – not numbers, not wallets, not figures on a line graph. If you are truly excited about making a difference with your marketing and appealing to today’s buyer, the marketing lifecycle is where it’s at.

The post Why a Marketing Lifecycle Should Replace the Sales Funnel to Better Reflect Our Customer’s Journey appeared first on SiteProNews.

But writing content that rules over your competition is not that simple. 

According to Time, the average reader spends only 8 seconds reading a piece of content.

That means creating engaging, valuable content that helps your target audience is vital. 

These days, in order for businesses to increase traffic and revenue, it’s essential to invest in content marketing — and therefore, expert content writing.

In fact, 78% of CMOs believe original content is the future of marketing.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re one of three individuals:

1. A writer who has heard of content writing as being one of the most profitable forms of writing.
2. A content writer looking to brush up on your skills to get yourself ahead of the game.
3. A marketer or business owner who is looking to step up your marketing strategy by hiring a content writer. 

No matter what drew you to this article, you will walk away with a clear understanding of a major factor in online business success: 

Successful content writing.

What Is Content Writing – and Good Content Writing?

Written content comes in a number of mediums: blogs, social media posts, web pages, articles, white papers, video and audio recordings. 

It is information on a specific topic focused on a targeted audience. 

The key here is audience. 

If written content fails to attract its target audience, there’s not much point to the content to begin with. 

A lack of audience engagement in your content results in a low ROI. 

So then, what makes attractive written content?

Think about the best movie you’ve seen recently.

Got it?

Why do you like it? Was it the special effects or music score? Maybe it had a great storyline or focused on a topic of interest. 

Chances are, the best film you can think of was a combination of these aspects in order to make it memorable. 

So what’s my point?

Good content writing is similar in the way that it combines several key aspects in order to engage readers and perform well in search engines. 

Impressionable writing requires creativity, SEO tactics, consistency, and purpose. We’ll soon delve into ways on how to achieve this. 

But first, let’s cut to the chase:

Why Is Good Content Important?

Quality online content drives marketing in almost every respect. 

If your content is also optimized for search engines and draws organic traffic, you’ve hit the jackpot. 

Leading businesses know the value in this and are looking for the talent to create it. The internet is a crowded place and it’s only becoming harder to stand out.

While good content brings in audiences, great content generates higher conversion rates.

This is THE trick in driving revenue. 

Lucky for you, we’re going to reveal that trick.

We’ve laid out easy-to-follow guidelines which focus on:

• What content writers should strive for
• What employers should look for

8 Keys to Successful Content Writing

Successful content writers have it all.

Aside from being wordsmiths, they are SEO specialists, social media gurus, and expert marketers. 

They create the online content, which drives traffic, charms Google, and turns skimmers into subscribers. 

Although this description seems loaded, it’s easier to grasp when broken down. 

So, what are we waiting for?

1. Successful Content Is Audience-Focused

Reel in your audience and you’ll reap the rewards. 

This is because Google’s main focus is keeping searchers happy. 

So, if you’re catering to audiences, Google will cater to you.

By creating relevant and helpful content that puts your audience first, you will enjoy more success. It’s a healthy cyber relationship.

To know how to help your audience, you need to understand their pain points. 

Research your competition and take note of what they’re providing. 

A competitive content audit can help you focus on WHO your competition is and HOW they’re positioning themselves in front of your shared audience. 

When you know your audience, you can answer their burning questions in a voice that speaks to them.

Remember: Healthy cyber relationships rely on communication to survive.

2. Successful Content Is Dynamic & Varied

The best online content writers can master a wide range of writing styles. 

Why’s that?

Content writing projects come in all shapes and sizes.

Some examples of online content forms and their individual styles are:

• News: Short and concise paragraphs, including the summary of the story near the top of the content piece
• Blogging: Friendly, inviting, and opinionated
• White papers: Long-form while providing a solution to a problem 
• Case studies: In-depth information providing valuable knowledge based on research of a certain scenario 
• Ad copy: Concise and convincing with the goal of increasing conversion rate
• E-book: A powerful marketing tool, which can be offered free to boost email subscribers or sold as a product

A successful writer is experienced in these fields. 

Through this expertise, they can help businesses achieve specific goals with quality content.

3. Successful Content Is Expertly Written

Know your topic like the back of your hand. 

Once you’ve formulated an idea for your content, be sure to follow through with it. 

How exactly should you follow through?

You’ve guessed it: 

In-depth research. 

Your readers are coming to you for reliable information. If you’re wishy-washy about the subject, your readers will pick up on it and immediately move on. 

The way to exude true confidence is through knowledge.

The way to obtain this knowledge is through deep research.

 If you dig deep into your topic and deliver the details with a knowledgeable and conversational voice, your content will ultimately become more helpful.

This expert help is what Google values.

More importantly, it is what audiences are searching for. 

Successful content writers offer expert problem-solving with every piece they write. 

4. Successful Content Is Readable – Super Readable 

Readability comes in a number of guises.

However, the trick that hooks most readers is flow. 

Let me explain:

Nowadays, readers scan.

As scary as it is, the average attention span of humans is dropping.

So, to catch their attention, you need to write 

The. 

Way.

People. 

Read.

Audiences want to easily obtain material and walk away having learned something. 

Here’s how you can create more readable content: 

• Be engaging – This means cut the fluff. Create content that is clear and concise. Audiences want the most amount of information in the easiest and most digestible way possible. 
• Use the active voice – The active voice is much more powerful and engaging. 
• Proofread – By taking the time to scan through your writing before posting, you can make sure the content is easy to read. This DIRECTLY impacts your ability to engage audiences and keep them reading.
• Use clear structure – By formatting your content into short paragraphs while using bullet points, numbered lists, and multiple subtitles, you encourage readers to read the article in full. Studies show the success of using formatting patterns that mimic the way audiences read. 

Not only will your audience prefer easy-to-read content, Google will, too. 

If your content sounds ‘strange,’ when read aloud, it can affect your page ranking with Google now.

Since the Google Hummingbird update, the need for readable content has never been more important.

5. Successful Content is Creative 

One word is key here: ideation. 

According to Cambridge Dictionary, ideation is, “the action of forming ideas in the mind.” 

Content writers must continually formulate ideas for either full stories or angles on a specific topic. 

Sound familiar?

A content writer’s ability to consistently create many different concepts, ideas, and angles that appeal to a specific audience is key to successful online content marketing.

Where most people go wrong is right here, at the ideation stage.

Sujan Patel believes more time spent in the ideation stage will save writers wasting their time in creation.

The link between ideation and creativity starts with your title. 

By finding the right blend of creative writing and keyword use in your titles, you can entice searchers to visit your page. 

This can boost click-through rates (CTR) which in turn helps you increase page ranking. 

6. Successful Content is Consistent 

Being consistent is what keeps successful content writers alive on the web. 

This consistency can be implemented in a number of ways:

• Voice – Your voice defines you and your brand. Keeping this consistent is crucial for successful content writing.
  After researching your audience and topic, you’ll be able to develop the right voice. Your audience will get to know you through your tone and approach. This is comforting and professional, so stick with it!
• Posts – By consistently posting quality content, the chances of you attracting a steady readership increases.
  A popular online marketing tool for businesses to build brand awareness is through the use of blogs. Blogs feed consistent content to the web, which helps readers find your site and learn more about you and what you offer. Furthermore, blogs also support your brand and creates authenticity. In fact:

• Focus – Whatever you do, don’t waver when it comes to your content’s focus. With so much competition, it is crucial that you keep your content focused. 

Picking a small niche and writing about topics under the same umbrella often leads to greater success. Don’t hop around aimlessly, or you’ll risk losing the loyal audience you’ve created.

For example, let’s say you follow an amazing food blogger whom you get almost all your dinner ideas from. She comes up with healthy and quick meals that fit perfectly with your lifestyle. One day, you visit her site expecting a daily recipe, but instead, find a post on color-coordinating your wardrobe. 

The horror!
Chances are you’d be turned off by it and would quickly search for a substitute food blogger. Audiences expect you to provide what they need — consistently. 

7. Successful Content Is SEO, CSS, and HTML Smart

A successful content writer is a Jack of all trades…and a master of many.

Although they don’t need to be experts at all of these skills, a basic level of knowledge does come in handy.

Being able to quickly adjust a site’s HTML format in times of need will save you the HUGE hassle of postponing everything to track down a web developer. These skills will also help you improve the aesthetics of your content. 

In terms of audience engagement: 

While content writing leads, attractive visuals please.

What is of greater importance, however, is this:

SEO.

Successful content writing isn’t possible without good SEO knowledge. 

Point blank. 

In this day and age, if you’re not comfortable with the SEO basics, you may as well get comfortable with page 3 or 4 of Google. 

Ouch.

8. Successful Content Is Social Media-Friendly

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. 

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

When audiences aren’t searching through Google, almost all eyes are on these platforms.

The ability to capture attention on social media is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing. 

Once quality content is marketed effectively on social media, it has the ability to ‘go viral.’ This significantly boosts SERPs ranking and your ROI.

It can generate a wider readership, which boosts site traffic and can lead to higher conversions. 

In short, a solid social media strategy can pave the way for your content to make huge profits.

Social media platforms are also a magical tool in helping you personally connect with your audience.

This connection can develop a sense of community. As this grows, so does your number of subscribers and ability to answer your audience’s specific questions, directly. 

What Are the Main Takeaways from This Guide?

Competition online is heavy.

The key to win over readers is to know what you’re writing, whom you’re writing for, and how to help them.

Furthermore, you must write in a way that pleases the Google gods. 

As content writing continues to dominate the business of online marketing, the demand for expert copywriters with content marketing skills will increase.

In the end, your overarching goal should be clear:

Create quality content.

By producing high-quality content that provides value for your readers, solves their problems, and gives them new insights, you will work your way to the top.

Now you have the keys, what’s stopping you from opening the doors to success? Look at content service providers and start your journey to higher success online.

The post 8 Keys to Content Writing Success: A Guide for Both Freelancers & Marketers appeared first on SiteProNews.

Just when you think you have all the facts straight, you learn something you were missing in your strategy, or Google updates their algorithm again, or you realize you’ve been slightly behind the curve.

So far, in 2018 alone, there have already been 12 major Google algorithm updates – confirmed and unconfirmed – and that’s not counting the regular, small updates they do daily.

The year isn’t over, either.

Keeping up has to involve keeping your finger on the SEO pulse, reviewing your strategy regularly, and implementing new best-practices in smart ways.

To help you stay on top of SEO in 2018 and beyond, I’m discussing the top trends influencing search engine optimization this year. Then, I’ll show you how these trends can move with you into the future, including how to incorporate key aspects into your SEO content creation.

2 Trends with Major Impact on SEO in 2018

Overwhelmingly, these are the 2 major trends impacting search this year:

1. Video Is Still Huge

This one is no surprise:

Video is still reigning supreme. Want proof? 

YouTube is the second most-used search engine on the web (after Google, naturally – oh, and Google owns it). People spend 1 billion hours daily watching YouTube videos.

And, when given a choice between text or video on a web page, 72% of consumers would rather watch the video. It’s no wonder social platforms like Facebook are prioritizing video content in people’s feeds.

Video is a champion at getting people to stop, watch, and engage. For the foreseeable future, this probably won’t be changing.

2. Voice Search Is Taking Over

Another major tech trend that’s affecting search: Voice assistants.

You don’t have to type out your search queries anymore. Instead, you can use voice search to ask your Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Apple device for information.

As this technology gets better and easier to use, more people are framing their search queries as natural questions, like what you would hear in conversation.

We’re not typing out “best ice cream Minneapolis” to find a good ice cream shop anymore. Instead, we’re asking our voice assistants something like this:

“Hey Google, where is the best ice cream shop in Minneapolis?”

And, pretty soon, it won’t be only savvy millennials and Gen-X-ers using voice search. With the way the industry is taking off, soon your grandma, your boss, and even your stodgy uncle will be using voice assistants – according to CNBC, by 2020, Amazon Alexa alone could be worth $10 billion.

How to Improve Your Content with Key Aspects of the Latest SEO Trends 

With new technology paving the way, search is changing… 

And it will keep changing. Here are some ways to integrate the latest trends that are affecting SEO for the long-term.

1. Use Semantic Keywords in Your Content

With voice search coming in strong, Google is keeping up – handily.

The algorithm is more sophisticated than ever, which means it’s more human-like than ever. This means, when ranking web pages, the search engine is looking for context.

Think of it this way: When you talk about a subject, you don’t repeat the same phrase over and over. It just sounds weird:

“Ice cream is delicious, but ice cream is difficult to make at home so ice cream tastes like what you get in the ice cream shops.”

That kind of talk will make anyone scratch their head and wonder if you are, in fact, a human and not a robot.

Instead, we’re more apt to use synonyms and related terms in our communication. This sounds natural:

“Ice cream is delicious, but this frozen treat is difficult to make at home so it tastes like what you get at an old-fashioned soda fountain.”

In the above sentence, I’ve bolded the related terms and synonyms. This is the kind of stuff search engines look for these days: Natural language surrounding our keyword, and putting our keyword in context with related phrases.

Luckily, you don’t have to think too hard about adding semantic keywords to your content. You probably write this way without even thinking about it – it’s human!

However, if you want to be positive that you’re sprinkling semantic keywords into your content, you can find them using the LSI Graph tool:

2. Embrace the Long Tail Keyword Phrase 

Another byproduct of voice search: Keywords are looking longer than ever.

That’s because voice search queries are longer than regular search queries typed out via your keyboard. After all, most of us can speak faster than we can type, so we can and do use more words when speaking to our voice assistants.

Tap into this by lengthening your target keywords.

For instance, an average long tail keyword looks like this:

Vegan ice cream shop LA

But, when someone searches for that same information via voice search, the keyword stretches out:

What’s the best vegan ice cream shop in LA?

Include the entire phrase in your content, and you’ll be keying into the people who are voice searching for this exact topic.

The best part: The query is already worded in natural language, so it’s effortless to insert this type of long tail keyword phrase into your content.

3. Use Conversational Writing

This tip is simple.

People are searching using natural, conversational language more than ever. To appeal to this new wave of search queries, make sure you write your SEO content using a conversational tone. (If you don’t know how to switch up your tone, learn how – especially if you expect to be a profitable SEO writer.)

For example: Imagine your persona is sitting across from you as you write. Write what you would say if you could speak to them.

Here’s a big tip to achieve this – use more contractions. In conversation, you probably don’t say things like, “I cannot understand” or “Why is she not paying attention?”

That’s a very formal way of speaking and writing. Instead, use contractions like mad: 

“I can’t understand.”

“Why isn’t she paying attention?”

Trust me, you’ll sound 100% more natural and down-to-earth.

4. Answer the Questions Your Audience Is Asking…

To make sure you’re targeting the right long tail keyword phrases, you have to answer the questions your audience is asking in your content.

But, how do you find those questions in the first place?

You need to do a little digging. Try any of these methods:

• Search for your industry niche on Reddit and check the forums for common questions.

• Check the comments and comment threads for related industry blogs.
• Check social media for relevant hashtags, then research what people are talking about in their posts and comments.
• Have an old-fashioned conversation with a customer, prospect, or colleague.

5. And Maybe Record Your Answers, Too

If you haven’t plunged into video content yet, now is the time.

If your resource pool is shallow, keep it very simple. Do a short text intro with your logo set to some royalty-free music, then fade into a clear shot of you.

Answer those questions you discovered from tip #4. Be as clear as possible. If you need to, refer to an outline so you hit all the points you want to cover. (To avoid sounding stiff, don’t rely on a script.)

Keep the video short and sweet, upload it to your channels, and see what happens.

Of course, if you have more resources (like a graphic designer and video editor), you can get more creative than this, or even outsource your video creation entirely.

Just remember – video isn’t the right content type for every creator. If you don’t have fun making video content, it might not be for you. If you force it, your viewers will see straight through you.

Step into the SEO Future and Make Your Mark

If you’re stalling on stepping into the major SEO trends, it’s time to quit waffling and get researching and creating. And, learning how to write accurate, on-point SEO content.

These trends are fast becoming mainstays of the current SEO climate. If you invest a bit now, you’ll be ready for the next wave of change coming down the pipe.

Don’t get left behind – stay in the game. You’ll be glad you did.

The post Your Guide to SEO Content in 2018 & Beyond appeared first on SiteProNews.

Not getting the likes, shares and comments you should be? 

Having a hard time increasing click-through rates in your emails, or conversions on your landing pages? 

If so, then this proven conversion framework will help you out.

In fact, if you want to improve any piece of communication intended to get people to take action, this framework will give you the structure and sequence you need to get your desired result. 

It’s called the PAS framework and once you have finished this post you’ll have a proven method for communicating genuinely and powerfully with your audience, and driving them to take action – without needing to be a killer copywriter.

The PAS Framework is as Easy as 1-2-3 

PAS stands for Problem-Agitate-Solution and it is one of the most commonly-used frameworks for structuring persuasive messages. 

One of the reasons it works so well is that it is market-centric. What this means is that it forces you to think from the perspective of your audience. You have to put yourself in the shoes of your readers and meet them where they are. 

One of the most powerful ways to do this is to talk about a problem they are having. 

1. Call out your reader’s problem

The first part is the easiest. All you have to do is define the problem for your readers. Of course, this assumes you have done your research and you know exactly what problems your market is struggling to solve. 

The most important aspect of this first step is to state the problem simply, clearly, and in straightforward terms. This captures your readers’ attention and draws them into your message.

At this beginning point your argument should be logical and factual, and once you have established the problem, you transition into the emotional agitation step.

This is where the real magic happens.

2. Agitate the problem by getting specific

The agitate step is where you dig into the nitty-gritty details of the problem, unpacking all the ways the problem is impacting your audience’s lives negatively. 

Make sure you give the problem dimension. Give it size, shape, color, smell, talk about the negative effects on your reader’s life, and acknowledge the emotional strain they’re experiencing. 

Interestingly enough, even though this step is the most effective part of the PAS framework, it is also the part a lot of copywriters and marketers overlook. They do a good job of calling out target audience and outlining the problem, but they often don’t do nearly enough agitation.

This is not to say that stating a problem and offering a solution doesn’t work. It’s just that the agitation step is an opportunity to frame yourself and your solution in an exceptionally compelling way. 

I’ll discuss more about how this works in a moment, but for now know that the agitation step all about stimulating emotions, which is how you drive action towards your solution.

3. Offer your particular solution

Once you have stated the problem, established its negative effects on the lives of your audience, making sure to hit the emotional pain points, it’s time to offer up some relief. 

It’s at this point where you present your solution, and if you have done a good job of the first two steps, your solution will seem like the most obvious one for solving your readers’ particular problem. 

Simply put, the PAS framework is about creating a context for your readers to think about their problem, and then framing your solution as the best way to solve it. 

As I’ve already mentioned, it’s one of the most reliable persuasion formulas ever invented. 

Here are a few reasons why…

Why is the PAS Framework So Effective?

Most of the time people are much more likely to act to avoid pain than to go after a benefit. This is psychology 101. 

In his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing online marketer extraordinaire, Perry Marshall, states that a message talking about problems can deliver between 3 and 10 times the response than those that talk about the company or the product. 

He says the effectiveness of the PAS framework for getting people to take action is based on the fact that when you talk about problems, you are in a sense “reading people a page from their own diary”, tapping into core emotional drivers. 

If someone has a problem that persistently bugs them, chances are they think about it a lot, most of the time in negative terms. When you call out your readers’ problem, you’re actually capturing and directing their attention towards the problem, which lays the groundwork for your solution.

Agitation: The Secret Sauce That Makes PAS Work

Once you have your readers’ attention, going into details about the problem – the agitation step – is the most efficient way to do three vitally important things.

First, it gives you the opportunity to demonstrate that you feel your readers’ pain. You’ve been where they are, and doesn’t it suck to be there? It also shows your reader that you’re not afraid to talk about some pretty uncomfortable emotions and bring them to the surface.

Empathizing with your reader like this is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to build trust. 

Second, when you talk about a problem, and describe it in detail, it shows that you understand where your reader is at, rather than just telling them “I feel your pain”. 

Finally, describing a problem in detail further demonstrates that you have thought about the problem a lot too, and because you clearly understand it so well, you must have thought of a solution. 

This subtly positions you as the expert because of how you give the problem dimension. 

As one famous old-school marketer put it, “If you can describe someone else’s problem better than they can, they will automatically assume you have the solution to that problem”.

Fascinating, right?

It’s also incredibly powerful stuff. And it’s why the “agitation” part of the PAS framework is so critical. 

It gives your audience a context in which to think about their situation, which in turn gives you the opportunity to frame your product or service as the perfect solution for them. 

How PAS Uses the Power of Structure

Another reason the PAS framework is so effective is because it follows the classic “beginning-middle-end” structure of stories. PAS typically starts in a negative place, moving on to making the problem feel even worse, and then goes to a positive place, providing relief from the pain of the problem, as well as a healthy dose of psychological satisfaction inherent in completion. 

For example, “rags to riches” stories follow the PAS framework. A guy (or girl) starts out with nothing (problem), tries to get ahead in life, but fails multiple times (agitation), and finally triumphs, usually with the help of a mentor, or a technique, a realization, or a “secret” (solution).

What is important to notice about this structure is that it is all about movement. 

When the framework is used properly, this movement takes the reader from a place where they don’t want to be towards a desired outcome. And that desired outcome usually requires the reader to take some form of action.

The PAS Framework Applied

Here are a few examples from different media and markets I’ve used to illustrate exactly how you can apply PAS to your content marketing.

1. The first example is a classic from direct response adverting legend, Maxwell Sackheim: 

The problem is in the headline, and it speaks to an insecurity many people had (and probably still have) about how they speak and write English.

After calling out the problem and establishing the author’s credentials, Sackheim really goes deep into the tricky, uncomfortable emotions behind the problem. 

The detail is what makes it effective, and it also makes the transition into the solution feel almost seamless. 

2. Here’s a more contemporary example from Ramit Sethi:

The exact same PAS framework is being used here, but in a shorter form – a landing page. 

Again, the problem is in the headline. The headline is also in quotes, which suggests this is a thought the target audience is currently having (or has had before). 

The agitation step here is quite short, but still effective. Depending on the media you are using, it is sometimes not possible (or it just doesn’t make sense) to go into a long, drawn out agitation of the problem. 

Also, your audience’s level of awareness of the problem can impact on how deeply you want to flesh out the details. Sometimes you can get straight to the point and still be highly effective, like Ramit is in this example.

3. This last one is from content marketing master Jon Morrow:

Just to show you that you can use the PAS framework in virtually any context, this is an example of PAS used in a more dynamic way.  Here PAS is being combined with a classic blogging formula, but with a twist, in typical Morrow style.

The main aim of the framework here is to get people to read further, but there is still a clear application of the basic steps, with a creative angle and framing of the “solution” (what NOT to do if you want to be a popular blogger). 

The key takeaway from these examples is that each one is urging the reader to take some kind of action – whether it is to send away for a free book, opt in to an email list, or simply to read on. 

How You Can Use PAS to Increase Engagement, Clicks and Conversions

Hopefully by now you have a good understanding of the PAS framework and have some ideas about how you can use it in your own content marketing pieces. 

You have also seen that because it is based on proven psychological triggers, it is simple to apply, so you don’t need to be a killer copywriter to make it work. 

The PAS framework can also be used in virtually any context, in any market, with any media – as you have seen from the examples above.

The framework is about driving action, so it is perfect for getting people to click, share, or engage in some kind of activity that moves them closer to making a buying decision. Use it for driving clicks on PPC ads, shares on social media, or for drawing readers into a blog post or article.

The “beginning-middle-end” story structure is perfect for emails and encouraging subscribers to click through to get their solution. And for longer marketing pieces like case studies and white papers, you can’t go wrong using PAS. 

Ok, now it’s your turn. 

Where can you apply the PAS framework to your content marketing pieces today, to boost engagement, click-through rates, and conversions? 

The post PAS: The Most Effective Copywriting Conversion Framework That You’re Probably Not Using appeared first on SiteProNews.

You’ve seen the stats and heard the success stories. 

You’re convinced.

Content marketing is a go.

You’re ready to join 91% of B2Bs and 86% of B2Cs already giving content their best shot.

More than that, you’re ready to join the ranks of the truly successful.

That’s great! 

…Now what?

If you’re a newbie and you’re ready to dive into content marketing, listen up.

You probably have limited resources, time, and knowledge about how to begin. No worries: this guide is for you.

The following are the most vital tasks for getting started in one day. 

Grab a pen and paper, and roll up your sleeves.

Get the ball rolling on ROI and begin right here.

6 Day-One Tasks to Get Started with Content Marketing

1. Set Goals

You want to succeed at content marketing, but what will that success look like for you?

According to Content Marketing Institute, setting and understanding your goals are key actions for getting started on a positive note.

Goal-setting will also shape the direction your content takes – and which directions you should avoid.

For example, if your business is fairly new, a big goal of yours could be to raise brand awareness with content marketing.

• How will you measure that goal? 
• Where are you starting?
• Where do you want to end up?
• How will you get there? 

Once you decide on these factors, all your content marketing efforts should serve them in some way.

Next, remember to keep your goals realistic. For example, if you decide your brand awareness needs to be at the same level as Coca-Cola within a year, you’re being a bit delusional.

Instead, maybe you’ll set a refined goal for brand awareness, like increasing searches of your brand name as well as direct traffic from people who type in your URL. 

Pssst… You can check out this type of data if you use Google Analytics:

Finally, remember your goals are not set in stone. If you find they need some refining as time goes on, that’s totally okay. 

2. Identify Your Audience Persona

Once you have a direction for your content marketing, it’s time to figure out who you’re going to market to.

According to Inc., “No one can afford to target everyone.”

Truth. It’s just not possible or feasible. To succeed in a crowded market, you have to find a niche.

It’s your job to determine your niche and tailor your content just for them.

Luckily, an audience persona can help you with the tailoring. 

A persona is just an imaginary person who possesses the qualities of your ideal target customer. It’s incredibly helpful to have one for content creation.

Why? Because it’s easier to write for your persona rather than a faceless, nameless audience of random people.

You can develop one based on what you know about your audience right now. (You can always refine it later if you need to .)

1. Gather the data you already have on your existing customers. What are major trends?
2. Go ahead and make some assumptions about your targets. Who do you think your brand appeals to?
3. Get specific. Identify gender, age, occupation, marital status, location, salary, and level of education for your persona.
4. Get psychological. What is their personality? What do they love/hate? What are their goals/personal challenges?

3. Do Initial Keyword Research

To drive organic (i.e. non-paid) traffic to your brand website, you need search engine optimization.

To get the best results with SEO, you need the right keywords. These should be: 

• Targeted for user intentThink about the keywords your audience persona might use to search for what you offer. Don’t forget: Your target will use different sets of keywords depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey. The longer the keyword phrase, the closer they are to whipping out their credit card.
• Strategically chosen for ranking opportunityYou’ll never rank for a broad keyword that has a humongous search volume. Instead, look for long tail keywords with a low keyword difficulty. Don’t enter a keyword race where you can’t compete.

Here’s an example using the Moz Keyword Explorer. Let’s say my business sells ice cream.

I definitely can’t rank for “ice cream”:

What’s another keyword my target persona might use?

As I continue to search for variations of this keyword, I could probably find even better terms to use that hit the right balance between difficulty and monthly search volume.

Use your favorite keyword tool (like SEMrush, Keyword Tool, or Moz Keyword Explorer) and spend some time digging for best results.

4. Research Your Competition

Once you have some solid keywords in hand, it’s the perfect opportunity to check out your competition.

To see who’s ranking for a specific keyword, do a basic Google search and click on a few of the top links. Look at:

• Their website
• Their blog
• How often they’re blogging
• Which topics they’re blogging about
• The blog that’s ranking for your particular keyword, including its quality, comprehensiveness, and usefulness

You can also check BuzzSumo to look at the top-shared content for your keywords. Then, look at those sites and analyze why their content is performing well.

5. Brainstorm Content Topics

After you’ve checked out a few doable keywords and looked at the competition, you can brainstorm some topics for content!

• What topics can you write about using your keywords in the headline?
• What gaps in information did you notice during your research? Can you fill them?
• Think about what your customers need/want to know about your industry, products, or services.
• Does a particular keyword have sub-par blog posts ranking right now in Google (like the one we found for “popular ice cream flavors”)? Can you do better?

6. Set Up an Editorial Calendar

With your newly-acquired research, strategic keywords and blog topics, you can start planning for content creation and publication.

• Set up an editorial calendar to help you keep everything straight. 
• Determine how consistently you’ll publish content.
• List all your solid blog topics and create a timeline for having them produced, edited, and ready to go.
• Set up initial publication dates for content pieces (you can always tweak these later).

If you need help formatting your editorial calendar, here is an ultimate list of templates from Curata.

Content Marketing Is a Go

You’re probably jazzed about the prospect of diving into content marketing. 

You’ve read the stats, seen others’ success, and want it for your brand.

To make sure you’re starting out as advantageously as possible, don’t jump in blindly. Follow these initial steps on day one.

If you hunker down with this guide, you’ll already have a ton of awesome prep work and strategy under your belt. That means you’ll be raring to go for day two.

So, will today be your day one?

The post How to Get Started with Content Marketing in Just One Day appeared first on SiteProNews.

It was the birth of Account Based-Marketing (ABM) – a form of marketing that involves identifying high value targets, usually businesses, and treating that individual client or ‘account’ as a market in its own right.

While ABM has been around for a while, it’s not until now – the golden age of content marketing – that it’s really coming into its own.

ABM is gathering so much momentum that marketers are asking the question: ‘content marketing or Account Based-Marketing, which one is better?’

So let’s take a closer look each of these methodologies, and the cases for and against. 

What’s the Difference?

Content marketing involves creating and distributing useful content that doesn’t explicitly promote a brand, but is designed to stimulate interest and inbound leads. 

Typically, it involves publishing useful, valuable organic online content, like blogs, to reach a wide audience, gaining inbound leads and prompts the reader to take some form of action. 

ABM consists of coordinated and highly personalized marketing and sales efforts targeted at specific high-value businesses or accounts. 

Leading B2B Marketing Leaders ISTMA pioneered the ABM concept in 2004 to “stop generic sales pitches and zero in on the essential needs of their most important clients.”

This is achieved via highly customized and automated marketing efforts spanning the entire buyer journey. 

So if content marketing is about casting a wide net to recruit a large pool of leads, ABM uses a head-hunting approach to target and retain individual accounts. 

Content Marketing

Pros

1. Low Cost, High Return Lead Generation 

It’s relatively inexpensive to create and publish content that can reach a large audience and generate a substantial number of leads.

Research has found that content marketing generates 3 times the leads and 6 times the conversions, while costing 62% less than outbound or traditional marketing methods.

According to Marketing Sherpa, the average conversion rate for organic traffic to leads is 16%. 

In my agency, Express Writers, content has fueled over 15,470 monthly visitors our way at a darn close ratio to the 16%–14%, earning us 346 sales in a given month. (See full blog case study on our conversions from inbound leads.)

2. Establishes Credibility

Every piece of content created and published is a chance for a brand to establish its credibility, and position itself as an industry expert and authority.

High quality content can build trust and enable a prospect to feel confident in doing business with you.

3. Long-term Exposure

Once content is published online, it will exist indefinitely and potentially send your business traffic and leads for days, weeks, months, and even years to come.

This is confirmed by Hubspot research that showed 76% of its blog views, and a whopping 92% of leads, came from “old” or evergreen posts.

Cons

1. Quality Matters 

The success of content marketing fundamentally relies on the quality of the content.

Using poorly written content on your site can have a significant effect on your SEO, damage your reputation, and turn away prospects.

Relying on a high-caliber content agency can help you avoid falling into the weeds of bad writers.

2. A Lot of Competition 

You’re definitely not the lone ranger when it comes to content creation.

Recent research from Smart Insights shows that more than 200 million pieces of online content are posted every 60 seconds.

So your content has a lot of competition and needs to be incredibly engaging to stand out.  

3. Casting A Wide Net 

While it’s great that your online content can reach a very wide audience and potentially generate loads of leads, not all of those will be qualified leads.

You may inadvertently attract prospects that aren’t your ideal customers, which is why it’s incredibly important to identify your target persona, and ensure your content resonates with them. 

Account-Based Marketing

Pros

1. Super Targeted 

When it comes to B2B marketing, many companies are better served seeking specific high-value customers, rather that using a wide-reaching approach.

ABM is extremely targeted but involves a collaborative approach between marketing and sales, as well as firmographic data to identify specific clients or accounts worth targeting.

2. Highly Personalized

Marketers have long known the power of personalized content and ABM provides the opportunity to create highly targeted content.

Content can be tailored to zero in on the client’s specific needs and pain points, as well as decision-makers within the client organization, for each stage of the buyer journey.

3. Easier Tracking and ROI Measurement

Analyzing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts is easier with ABM because you are monitoring a smaller set of target accounts.

Instead of reviewing broad metrics and huge amounts of data, you can easily identify which campaigns, content and marketing activities were most effective.

In fact one survey found that 84% of B2B businesses using ABM delivered a higher ROI than other types of marketing. 

Cons

1. Annoying to Leads

Many ABM strategies start with reaching out to the lead via cold email. 

This is a bad strategy. As a CEO, I’m hit up with daily emails. “Book a call with me!” “I have just the solution for you!” these emails scream, over and over. 

I’m annoyed, and the stats show that everyone else is, too. 1% of cold calls actually convert into an appointment.

2. Resource Hungry

ABM can be labor intensive and heavily reliant on data and software solutions. You will be putting a lot of time and effort into just a few accounts, which may never pay off. 

This marketing approach is also a long-term investment that involves building and nurturing relationships over time, so it may be a while before you know whether your efforts will be rewarded or not.

3. Requires A Specific Skill-Set

Marketers leading ABM efforts need a very specific skill-set and expertise that are not easy to obtain.

The marketer will need to fully understand the entire end-to-end marketing process, and be well versed in sourcing and analyzing market data, as well as automation software and other ABM technologies. 

4. Needs Coordination At All Levels

Effective ABM needs buy-in across the board to be successful. Senior leaders need to provide support and resources for the initiatives. Marketing and sales will need to work hand-in-hand at all times, as well as any other individuals in the organization who have a relationship with a key stakeholder within the target organization.

And the winner is…

For B2C and B2B, content marketing is likely to work for any type of business, with a focus on high-quality and engaging content.

You’ll completely avoid going the dangerous route of “being annoying” to your leads. Let them find you and come in through the value you put out.

Remember, 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content, and 90% find custom content useful. (More stats at CMI.)

Not sure how to elevate your content marketing strategy? Just ask us. Express Writers is a leading copywriting agency, with a team of proven web copywriters.

The post Content Marketing vs. Account Based-Marketing: Weighing the Pros and Cons of Both appeared first on SiteProNews.

It’s a beast that is constantly evolving, forcing savvy marketers to keep up with the latest trends and technologies.

And while every marketer has a view about the most effective methodologies, software and evaluation methods, there’s one thing we pretty much all agree on – the value of great content.

Content marketing will remain a marketer’s core weapon in 2018 but the quality of your content will determine whether it stands out among the 200 million+ pieces of online content that are created every 60 seconds.

Here are our top 10 tips for creating better content this year.

1. Get the Right Writer

It’s vitally important to choose a writer that understands the topics relevant to your industry.

You may prefer a writer with specific experience writing for businesses like yours, or you could choose a generalist writer who has a strong portfolio writing for a variety of niche areas.

When assessing a content writer you want to consider their experience level, enthusiasm, as well as their commitment to research and getting to know your business.

You will want review samples of their work, so you can check it for originality, style, accuracy, inclusion of compelling facts and statistics, and references to high authority sites.

If you’re engaging a writer through an agency, it’s best to choose an organization that vets their writers and has quality standards in place.

2. Optimize Your Content

Your content should be written with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind.

This means structuring your content for easy readability and long-tail keywords, as well as breaking content up with headers and sections to create digestible chunks.

You should always include relevant keywords but don’t overuse them or ‘keyword stuff’ your content. Ensure they are inserted naturally – that is, the sentence featuring the keyword doesn’t sound awkward when read back.

Use keyword explorer tools to identify the most relevant long-tail keywords for your content.

In 2018 meta descriptions – the small snippets of descriptive text that show up in Google’s search engine results – remain incredibly important.

It’s worth noting that Google recently increased its meta description length to around 320 characters providing marketers with further opportunity to optimize their content.

3. Make it Clickable

Your content titles should hook the reader in. The most popular content remains list style, how-to articles, and titles urging you to find out what happens next.

It helps to use a headline analyzer tool such as the Advanced Marketing Institute’s or CoSchedule’s to assess and optimize your content title.

4. Focus on the Detail

According to Entrepreneur Magazine you should delve deeper  into your content topics in 2018 and focus on long-form content.

What value-add, additional detail or tips can you include that your competitors haven’t already provided? Is there an unexplored angle you could take?

5. Choose Variety

Exploring different content formats will help you reach a larger audience and employ the most effective content types for the various stages of the buyer journey.

Research shows that marketers, on average, use eight different types of content, with social media posts and blog articles the most popular.

Other content to consider in 2018 includes email marketing, visual media, videos, white papers, e-books, podcasts and landing pages.

6. Be Original

One of the biggest marketing trends in 2018 is the preference for original content.

Investing in developing your own custom content, instead of just sharing other people’s content, should garner more engagement.

You may also like to spread the workload or cost by partnering with a like-minded organization to co-create content.

7. Be Visual

Your consumers remember 65% of what they see and only 10% of what they read, meaning visual elements should be a core feature of any content.

With the exponential growth of visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, as well as Facebook, the bar has risen in terms of what kind of visuals to include.

Visuals needs to be interesting, awe-inspiring, entertaining, or tell a story.

If you don’t have access to visually striking images or they don’t make sense to use in your content, you can incorporate screenshots or stock photos.

8. Incorporate Video

Video remains one of the most effective types of content marketing with demand growing exponentially over the last 12 months or so.

Recent research reveals that 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers, and 51.9% of marketing professionals named video as the type of content with the best ROI.

Whether you’re using Facebook Live, creating explainer videos, or communicating your brand story, video is an excellent tool to reach and engage your audience.

9. Actively Look for Topic Ideas

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to content writing is finding new and interesting topics to write about.

Stay on top of what’s happening in your industry by reading news sources specific to your business, and products or services.

More general news sources and social media platforms, and even your competitors’ content can also be useful sources of inspiration.

If you’ve hit a brick wall though try using a blog topic generator to point you in the right direction.

10. Create Content Regularly

Brands will need to continually think like publishers or media companies rather than advertisers in 2018.

A key part of this is regular content generation, with higher frequency publishing garnering bigger results.

For example, companies who publish 16 or more blog posts a month net about 5x more leads than non-blogging companies, and 1 in 10 posts are compounding, which means they generate traffic and leads for days, weeks, months and even years to come.

The Content Marketing Road Ahead

While new technologies will continue to shape the future of content marketing in 2018 and beyond, the value of high-quality and engaging content will remain a constant.

If you want to boost your content marketing strategy, we’d love to help you. Express Writers is a leading copywriting agency, with a team of proven web copywriters.

The post 10 Tips for Creating Better Content in Your Marketing This 2018 appeared first on SiteProNews.

You might have pledged to direct more resources toward your content (time, money, etc.) to make it better, because you know better content wins.

Turns out, one BIG way to make it better is to make it longer.

Write more words.

Not 1,000. Not 1,250. I’m talking 1,500 – 2,000 words… and beyond.

Let me show you why.

The Power of Long-Form Blogging: What Do the Stats Say?

Everybody is hopping on the long-form bandwagon: From Neil Patel to Search Engine Land, authority voices are urging us to write longer posts.

Of course, there are excellent reasons for this.

Long-form blogs have been shown to consistently get more social shares and attention than middle-of-the-road blogs (the ones hovering between long and short).

BuzzSumo famously analyzed 100 million articles online to figure out what factors help an article go viral.

One of those factors: length.

The longer the article, the more shares it got:

Articles from 3,000-10,000 words in length got an average of 8,859 shares. That’s nearly twice as many as articles under 1k words.

Here’s some more good data that proves long-form content gets results:

Crazy Egg did an A/B split-test on their homepage. One version of the page was short and sweet. The other was about 20x longer. Which one got more conversions?

Yes – the long-as-heck page did better. It outperformed the short page by 30%.

Of course, there’s even more research out there about this topic.

HubSpot did a study on over 6,000 of their own blogs. They looked at the correlation between things like views, word count, number of shares, the title length, and more.

Turns out, the posts with the longest word counts got the most shares.

In addition, the posts with the longest word counts also had the most backlinks.

As HubSpot notes in its analysis, these are strong correlations and great arguments for longer content.

But, if you need more convincing, here are extra reasons why you should go long.

Why Long-Form Blogging? 4 More Convincing Reasons to Go Long

1. Long-Form Content Can Be Repurposed Endlessly

Long-form content that’s evergreen (i.e. it has no expiration date – the information is valuable for the long-haul) is worth its weight in gold.

This is content that can be reused and repurposed in a million different ways.

Why? The information is always relevant. It always matters. The points are timeless.

Here’s a great example of this type of content from Buffer: The Complete List of Evergreen Content Ideas for Your Blog.

The information is useful now, and it will be useful in a year. There’s nothing in the post that dates it.

You can reuse long-form content like this in so many ways. The points it includes could easily be translated into:

• An infographic
• A slide deck
• An email newsletter
• A podcast

And more.

So, don’t think of long-form content as silos. Consider the mini pieces of content you can pull from them and share in different ways.

2. Google Loves Longer Posts

Google’s algorithm favors longer posts, according to Search Engine Land. Why?

Two reasons:

• Longer posts tend to be more in-depth and comprehensive than shorter posts. This means they tend to have the answers that people are searching for when they ask Google a question, along with discussion and explanation of a subject the user is already curious about.

• Google looks at a ton of stuff to determine the relevancy and quality of your post for a specific keyword (or keywords). Case in point: It also notes how long people stay on your page before bouncing. Well-crafted long-form content keeps visitors on your page longer, which contributes to its relevancy ranking.

In short, for a better chance of getting ranked well, go longer – it certainly can’t hurt.

3. People Are Looking for Learning Opportunities

Lots of people turn to Google for quick answers.

“How do I get to Starbucks?” and “How many tablespoons are in a quarter-cup?” are common enough.

…And, let’s be honest, queries like this:

However, plenty of people are also on the web researching (and not goofing off).

They’re looking to learn.

They don’t want to read 300 words about one facet of a topic. They want a whole overview of that topic, including extra resources to check out, tips and tricks, or additional viewpoints.

Long-form blogs are what those people want. They want exhaustive, comprehensive, thorough, trustworthy, factual, well-researched information.

People don’t use the internet in one way. It’s used in a plethora of ways for all types of purposes. As such, you must consider how your particular audience is searching, and what they want to find, when you’re constructing your content for them.

It’s a call-and-answer relationship. Make sure you’re answering the right way.

If they need longer content, you need to deliver to get results.

4. There’s Less Competition

Here’s a universal truth (one Jane Austen may have agreed with): Writing longer content is harder.

It takes more time, of course. But it also takes much, much more effort.

The result is that fewer people even attempt it. However, that leaves a big, gaping hole.

According to research from BuzzSumo and Moz, who analyzed 1 million articles, about 85% of published content is less than 1,000 words long.

Yes, that’s a gap you can fill.

The Number One Reason NOT to Write Longer Blogs

Before you barrel down on your typing speed and cram in as many words as possible into your next blog post, stop.

This is not what we mean.

The correlation between longer blog posts and higher engagement isn’t just because of the word count.

Think about it: What do longer blog posts have in common, besides length?

I have a few ideas:

• More research
• More in-depth writing and discussion of a topic
• Writing that covers various sides of a story, including different schools of thought or opposing viewpoints

All of these actions that make a post high-quality also naturally make it longer.

So, no – stuffing in some extra paragraphs that you didn’t research will not help your post. Just because it’s longer doesn’t mean it’s better. (This Copyhackers article even argues that both short and long content can be successful.)

Here’s a smarter idea:

Make your posts better. Devote more time to writing, researching, and editing. Your content will automatically get longer without any extra effort.

To sum up:

Better research and writing = better posts = longer posts = more engagement.

Done, done, done, and done. 2018 is looking up already.

The post Why Your Best 2018 Content Marketing Resolution Could Be Long-Form Blogging appeared first on SiteProNews.

Instead, the successful pieces are content unicorns – rare beasts that you only see if you’re lucky once in a blue moon.

Guillaume Decugis did a study recently on average content shares. (He presented his findings in a Sprout Social webinar).

Using Hawkeye, a new data intelligence tool created by Guillaume and Scoop.it, he found that 84% of all articles published get less than 10 shares apiece.

Less. Than. 10. Shares.

Naturally, the above stats made me curious. Which pieces in our industry performed really well, despite the odds?

I used Hawkeye to analyze top, key sites and find their top-performing content pieces in a recent free training on Scoop.it.

I break down this topic into more detail on the Write Blog (including more hair-raising stats about shares for industry pieces), but here is a recap of what I found.

These are the content marketing unicorns of 2017.

Content Unicorns: 14 Pieces That Defied the Engagement Odds in 2017

Content Marketing Institute

CMI, arguably one of the top industry sites out there, averaged a few thousand shares for their top-performing pieces in 2017.

1. “Content Marketing Trends to Watch for 2018”

2,456 Shares

The most-shared piece was this one, written by founder Joe Pulizzi. It’s a great, insider look at what’s happening right now in content marketing and where we may be headed.

2. “4 Content Marketing Things That Turn Off Your Audience”

This piece by Neil Patel came in at #2. It’s an engaging discussion of what your audience doesn’t want to see in your content.

3. “A Content Marketing Love Letter”

One of my favorite pieces written in 2017 was this one by Joe. It’s essentially his “farewell for now” letter as he steps away from the industry.

Search Engine Journal 

Search Engine Journal knocked it out of the park with their top-performing pieces. Each grabbed over 4,000 shares.

4. “8 Important Ranking Factors”

This is an informative look at which ranking factors you should be giving the most heed right this second.

5. “100+ Awesome Women Marketers You Should Follow”

There are so many awesome, kick-ass women in content marketing – I wrote this piece to highlight 50 of them, including links where you can follow them.

Smartblogger

Smartblogger continued to set the standard for smart, unique content about writing copy. Their top pieces averaged 500-900 shares.

6. “How to Write a Paragraph in 2017 (Yes, the Rules Have Changed)”

If you think you know how to write a paragraph for online content, this article proves you wrong.

7. “How to Write Faster: 10 Crafty Ways to Hit 1,000 Words Per Hour”

This fun, interesting, useful article highlights tips you’ve never heard before to help you write faster. Score.

Copyblogger

Copyblogger’s top pieces hovered around 1,000 shares.

8. “20 Types of Evergreen Content That Produce Lasting Results for Your Business”

1,125 Shares

If you want the lowdown on evergreen content, including how to create it, this is the article you need to read.

9. “Your Content Marketing Won’t Work Without This”

This well-structured argument for the importance of good copy came in at #2 for Copyblogger. (If you want to reaffirm your worth as a writer in the industry, read it.)

Curata

Curata’s most-shared posts blew its others out of the water. This one post raked in over 12K shares. The inforgraphic format certainly helped along with the post’s in-depth writing and creativity.

10: “Content Marketing Traits Crucial to Success [Infographic]”

Shares: 12,015

CoSchedule

11. “How to Write Emotional Headlines That Get More Shares”

Headlines are huge. Emotional headlines are… huger. CoShedule breaks down how to craft them and why they work so well, drawing on stats they gathered. This post had great reach and raked in over 4K shares.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel’s top-performing post got almost 3,000 shares.

12. “4 Facebook Algorithm Hacks to Bring Your Reach Back from the Dead”

This is a classic Neil Patel post that breaks down each point in detail. You come away knowing exactly how to hack your Facebook organic reach.

Express Writers

Our top posts for the year at Express Writers addressed unique topics – one was controversial, and one was an inside look at our inner workings as a team.

13. “How to Not Be Repetitive & Redundant: 5 Unique Ways to Stand Out & Be a Contrarian Content Marketer”

731 Shares 

Our top post calls out copycatting in the industry – a rampant problem contributing to the heaps of average, carbon copy content out there.

14. “A Day in the Life of a Remote Team: How We Work at Express Writers”

This is a fun look at how our remote team comes together as a cohesive whole from locations across the globe. I also offer some insight into how I improved our team for the long haul.

How to Be a Content Unicorn

Unicorn content like the above pieces always have at least one thing in common:

They’re quality, standout examples of blogging and writing.

They’re top examples of research, creativity, craft, and hard work.

If you want your content to get shared and become a content unicorn, you have to commit to better everything. That’s where the ROI lives.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

The post The Content Unicorns of 2017: 14 Rare Content Beasts That Came Out on Top appeared first on SiteProNews.