Josh McCoy - Express Writers

The 4-Step Guide to Writing Web Content for Your Business Website

June 18, 2024June 1, 2021 by Josh McCoy

4 Essential Steps to Writing Web Content for Your Business Site

So, you started a business, and, what’s more, you’ve kept that business running. It’s all great. You’re working on your own terms. You have customers, and more keep trickling in… But could you do more? Could you increase your lead generation so you don’t have to keep greasing that squeaky wheel? Yes, you could. You CAN. How do you start bringing in more leads in the background so you don’t have to market so hard? Easy. You need content baked into your marketing. ? Content does it all: Builds trust with customers Solidifies your authority in your niche Gets you found via Google Search Nurtures your audience And, once you know how to write great web content, you can rinse and repeat so your business website will be full to the brim with helpful, useful, targeted content that nurtures prospects and converts them to loyal readers, subscribers, and even buyers. Sound good? In this guide, we’ll get into the “how” of writing web content, including 4 simple steps. But first, let’s touch on the “why” – why does content marketing work now more than ever? ? Why Web Content Works Now More Than Ever Getting content on your business website is more important than ever before. Why? Because publishing content helps your business marketing align with the way consumers shop. Consumers these days are savvy: They research their purchases because they want to know if their choices are “worth it.” They read reviews and follow recommendations from friends and influencers. They buy from brands they trust. (According to a Raydiant survey on consumer shopping habits, customers are more likely to leave behind physical businesses with no online presence in favor of an online substitute IF they feel no loyalty to the physical business. 48.7% said they replaced products they previously purchased at physical stores with online alternatives.) They go looking for information on just about anything that pops up during their day. (Do you have a Google trigger finger? Do you look up questions online on just about any topic? So do your customers. Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Google searches have topped 6 billion/day.) Content works because it builds your online presence, positions you in Google search, and draws in today’s conscious, research-geared consumers. [bctt tweet=”How do you start bringing in more leads in the background so you don’t have to market so hard? Easy. You need content baked into your marketing. ? More on content’s power + 4 steps to writing web content:” username=”ExpWriters”] 4 Key Steps to Writing Great Web Content for Your Business Now that you know why you should create web content, it’s time to think about how. How do you write web content that accomplishes the goals we mentioned earlier (lead generating, audience nurturing, authority building, Google ranking)? Start with these 4 key steps. Think of them as the necessary prep work you need to do before you start putting down sentences and paragraphs. Rinse and repeat for every piece of content you write. (And here’s the great part about doing the prep: the actual writing part will come much, much easier. ✨) Step 1: Establish Goals for Writing Your Web Content First up: What do you hope to get out of writing and publishing web content? What do you hope to gain? Do you want… More web traffic? Greater brand awareness? More leads? More customer engagement? Higher loyalty to your brand? You can achieve any or all of these goals with your content. Choose the ones most important to you, and focus on them. They’ll guide you forward, especially when you start planning content topics to write about. Step 2: Consider Your Audience Over and over and over again, a question you should be asking yourself before writing web content is who are you writing for? You’re NOT writing content for yourself. You’re not writing for your brand or clients. You’re writing for the people who need the solutions your brand or clients offer. “Who are you writing for?” is vital to know, but once you figure it out, don’t get too comfortable. Your audience isn’t a static entity, but rather a living, breathing, ever-changing organism. They’re people, and people’s needs and desires grow and change right along with them. If you keep asking “Who am I writing for?” regularly, and research to get the answer, you’ll have a good grasp on what they need from your content: What questions do they have about your subject/topics? What are their unique problems? What solutions can you provide? This laser focus on your audience is essential. It’s what differentiates successful content that gets read from the stuff that gets lost in the online content trash heap. No time to research or write your web content? We can do every step for you. Hire our team today. Step 3: Search Engine Optimize (for Readers, Then Google) So, you know your audience. (If you don’t, go back to step #2 and get clear on this. You can’t move forward without that knowledge.) Now it’s time to leverage your audience insight and use it to pinpoint your content topics and keywords. Why? When we talk about digital content, SEO is major. It outperforms paid advertising – in terms of web traffic, trust and authority, and lead generation. It appeals to our Google-happy age where everyone is typing questions into the search box. If you’re out there answering those questions in the form of quality content, you’ll see the benefits in multiple forms of ROI. Do Keyword, Topic, & Competitor Research Don’t just guess what your readers want to read. Do the research. Get data to back up your assumptions, and get data that helps you make new ones. Research the keywords you’ll target in your content. Find topics around those keywords. (Need help? Check out our guide on How to Find SEO Keywords.) Do competitor research to see what’s resonating with their audiences. Find content you could improve on, and write your own, better … Read more

10 Easy Ways to Get Your Content Calendar Ready for the Holiday Season

December 31, 2020November 17, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is our Client Accounts Coordinator at Express Writers. Did you know… Thanksgiving is just 1.2 weeks away; there’s a little less than a month until Chanukah; and six weeks till Christmas. We’re not trying to stress you out about getting the turkey in the freezer and gift-wrapping started, though. (Unless you haven’t! Get on it! Kidding.) This is something much more nerve-wracking (but it doesn’t have to be, and I’ll explain how)! While it’s the busiest time of year for retailers and shoppers, it’s also a busy time for getting your content calendar out and your content ready. The best thing to do? Prepare in advance. 10 Killer Ways to Get Your Content Calendar Ready For the Holidays 1. Get That Christmas Jersey On, It’s Picture Time With a little basic editing, you can quickly and easily get your logo on Santa’s nice list. Start by thinking of those iconic holiday themes for your business profile picture. You know, Santa hats, tinsel and fairy lights. Then incorporate them into your business’s logo. You may even play around with changing your usual brand colors for seasonal shades of blue, green and red. Just remember to stick to your CI rules. 2. Deck The Halls With Cover Photos We know you’re consistent so you’ll want to update your cover photos too. It’s pretty common to do this on Facebook but don’t forget about your Twitter header photo that could do with a little tinsel here and there. It’s the cover photos that can really draw attention to your campaign, content or hashtag thread that you’re running at this time of year. Checkout how UK chain store John Lewis, who usually produces one of the biggest seasonal campaigns has carried the campaign across their Facebook and Twitter sites. (You can see the incredible ad here). 3. Oh, Look, It’s So Pretty! We all know that visual content rules social media engagement. In fact, as much as 93 percent of senior marketers report that photography is a critical component of social media. Whether your images wish the audience happy holidays, invite them to your next launch or share an interesting infographic, find different ways to make your social media posts share the festive spirit. 4. Hang Your Stocking, Santa’s Bringing GIFs Since Twitter and Facebook support GIFs now, why not go all out and create a couple of holiday GIFs for your audience’s feeds? This isn’t as terrifying as it sounds. In fact, Instagram has an app that will let you create one-second looped videos you can share across multiple platforms. Just make sure you video follows Instagram’s best practices and remains relevant to your brand. 5. Strike a Pose, It’s Video Time Video on social media has come along in leaps and bounds this year and there is no doubt in my mind this will be one of the most popular marketing tactics these holidays. Don’t let your business be left out. Why not grab the camcorder and record a festive day in the office? No, not the office party – that stuff can stay off-camera. But go ahead and capture the essence of your business to share with your audience. Interview key staff members or shoot behind-the-scenes tidbits and get sharing. Use your video footage to get across a message or make a call to action. You could encourage viewers to head over to your website – remember to include the link in a caption. Always remember to encourage viewers to share your videos. 6. The Turkey’s All Gone, It’s Time for Some Friendly Competitions We all know now that arguably one of the best tools in a social kit is user-generated content. Let’s say you decide to hold a holiday Facebook competition asking fans to contribute videos, photos or posters in order to win a prize. Later on, you could use those entries to populate your social media pages. Don’t forget to mention in your competition rules that you reserve the right to use the posts at a later date. 7. #HappyHolidays It’s official!! @MapleHillGolf is open @TangerOutlets in Byron Center! #HappyHolidays #DiscountGolfEquipment pic.twitter.com/qNPWGZppfM — Andy Kitchen (@AndyKitchen3) November 13, 2015 Using trending holiday hashtags can go a long way towards improving your impressions and getting your brand in front of loads of new followers. Getting your own branded hashtag, though, could take things to an entirely new level. It’s a hugely effective brand awareness exercise and it also improves your ability to track that hashtag campaign and see how well it performed. See how MapleHillGolf did both in the tweet above: they used #HappyHolidays and #DiscountGolfEquipment. 8. All I Want For Christmas Is… A Well-Read Blog You’ve designed the GIFs, chosen the hashtag, filmed a few videos and snapped some great photos. Now support all of that with powerful, original content. Sending your fans and followers flocking to your blog like the Three Wise Men on a mission can help increase traffic, encourage sales, downloads and sign-ups and impress friends and family when they gather round to sing your praises. To help you sit down and start writing ahead of time and be ready to share your creative posts, start picking a theme for the series right now. Put in the time now and you’ll have more time to spend around the piano singing along with friends and family in the holidays. 9. Help Your Fans Do Their Holiday Shopping I’m not suggesting you moonlight as a personal shopper, but everyone needs a little inspiration finding the perfect gift for their special friends and family. You can help by providing themed albums and Pinterest boards with ideas that probably include your products, right? Take some time to think about your audience and what they’re most likely to be searching for at this time of year. Then go and create wish lists for them that will inspire them to start shopping. 10. U.R.L Better Watch Out… Social media is merely one touch point your customers have with you. If they see … Read more

How To Use 3 Major Content Game Changers: Infographics, eBooks & Brochures

December 31, 2020November 10, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is the Client Accounts Manager at Express Writers. Content is a little bit like clothing. We all know which types we like best and, after awhile, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut so to speak, recycling the same 4 items time and time again, leaving 90% of the vast closet untouched. While you may not be literally reusing the same pieces of content over and over again, I’m willing to bet you probably reuse the same types of content – blogs, tweets, links, etc. While there’s nothing wrong with this content on its own, it can make your brand feel stale, boring and predictable if you don’t branch out – just like that dingy grey sweatshirt you love so much. But what if you brought in fresh new infographics, ebooks and brochures into your content wardrobe? It might make your brand feel a little like this… 3 Amazing Content Forms & How to Benefit From Them: Infographics, Ebooks, Brochures In order to switch it up and give your brand new life, try experimenting with the following types of content. 1. How To Use Infographics Infographics are the belle of the ball right now in content. Their most obvious winning factor is that they drive insane traffic to your site. Just how insane, you ask? Infographic search volume has increased over 800% in the last 2 years. The brain processes visual information at a rate 60,000 times faster than it does textual information. 65% of people classify themselves as “Visual learners” People who use infographics on their site grow an average of 12% faster than those who don’t. Infographics are shared on social media 3 times as often as all other types of content, which means they have a high potential to go viral. Personally, our brand infographics, like this one, have garnered 3x the average shares one of our blog posts gets. How’s that for content that is in-demand? In addition to being in-demand, though, infographics are also amazingly functional. This owes to the fact that infographics pack a ton of information into a small, easily digestible mechanism and can help your readers better understand your topic. Because of this, they’re shared more often, viewed more often and understood more comprehensively than text-based content. In order to use infographics effectively in your content, there are several things you need to consider. First of all, the infographic should be strictly information-based. Don’t ever use an infographic to pitch your company’s many virtues. These infographics defeat the point (viral information sharing) and use the infographic’s power for evil rather than good. Instead, focus on taking an issue your industry faces, a hot topic that will encourage sharing or an interesting development and breaking it up to provide your audience with further information. If you need help coming up with an in-demand and genuinely interesting topic for your infographic, consider consulting resources like Google Trends or viral Twitter hashtags. Once you’ve chosen a topic, you’ll need to gather information. When citing sources for your infographic, make sure they’re reputable sources comprised of industry experts and high-profile sites. Pulling information from obscure sites increases the likelihood that the information will be incorrect and decreases the likelihood that your infographic will receive a good reception (people don’t like sharing faulty information, after all). When gathering info, think about which statistics will make a good visual. Increase or decrease in revenue, for example, can be illustrated by a bar graph. Stick with great sources and highly visual statistics and you’ll have a great infographic in no time. When it finally comes time to design your infographic, you can either pay a designer (don’t be surprised, though, if prices top out around $1,000) or you can do it yourself. Free web-based platforms like Easel.ly, Piktochart, Infogr.am get the job done with professional results and can help you stand out from the pack in an instant. 2. How to Benefit From Ebooks Ah, eBooks – the quiet princesses overthrowing the palace one step at a time. Ebooks now top paperbacks in sales numbers and are set to completely overtake the paper dynasty any day now. As a marketer, though, it’s possible that you don’t want to sell your eBook and that you only want to use your eBook as an incentive. This is without a doubt how eBooks rose to prominence in marketing and is still one of the primary ways they are used within content strategy. The reason for this is that bundling has long been a market strategy to help consumers make purchasing decisions and to help differentiate a company from its competition. For example, when a consumer purchases a piece of clothing from an online outfitter and finds a $100 voucher for a new online wine club (a sister company of the clothing retailer) enclosed, that consumer is much more likely to buy from that retailer in the future. Similarly, when a customer visits your site and finds that you’re offering samples of your content or (better yet) entire courses for free in eBook form, they’re very likely to stick around to see what else you have to offer. This approach also proves to consumers that a company is so confident in the quality of its product that it is happy to literally give some of it away. Though compiling an eBook may sound complicated, it’s pretty simple. All you need to do is find a topic you want to write about (consider serialized topics you’ve blogged about in the past, consistent questions your customers ask, a problem many of your customers have or a new development you’re excited to debut) and write content (for more information about how to actually write an eBook, check out this HubSpot resource). In order to ensure that your content is as good as it possibly can be, ensure that it compliments your current brand, that it looks professional and that it is executed with precision. Enlist professional help to get your cover image on point … Read more

A Guide To Compounding Blog Posts: Increase Your Blog Traffic Month after Month

December 31, 2020September 17, 2015 by Josh McCoy

What if you could write a post that people loved so much, they kept sharing it month after month? You could take a vacation; give your blogging fingers a break for a while. Heck, you might even be able to go outside for a minute. Can you imagine how much traffic a blog like that would create? Unfortunately, some things are just too good to be true, right? Wrong. It’s entirely possible to produce blog posts like this. There’s even a name for them: compounding blog posts. Designed to produce perennial traffic, compounding blog posts are capable of generating the same amount of interaction and attention as six so-called “decaying” posts. Fortunately, creating these posts isn’t even as difficult as it seems. Read on to learn more. The Difference Between Compounding Posts and Decaying Posts Compounding posts are like fine wine and decaying posts are like a three-day old cheeseburger: one is a lot more appealing than the other. Additionally, one gets better with time and the other doesn’t. Compounding blog posts command more attention as they age. They produce more visits and generally include authoritative words that reflect common search terms. If you needed more convincing, compounding posts are responsible for producing a whopping 38% of overall blog traffic. Decaying posts, on the other hand, glean less traffic as they age. They are far more common, however, and make up roughly 9 out of every 10 blog posts. Unlike their more glamorous cousin, decaying posts don’t add value to your site and may even drive readers away based on poor content or sub-par execution. Obviously, the smart content marketer wants to stay away from that three-day old cheeseburger and grab a glass of fine wine instead, right? Right. How to Create Compounding Blog Posts: The 4 Pillars of Great Posts Fortunately, writing compounding blog posts is not as difficult as it may seem. Like most things in content marketing, compounding blog posts follow a somewhat predictable outline and, in order to write a compounding blog post, the smart content marketer simply needs to know what that outline looks like. Generally, a compounding blog post needs 4 things: 1) A Great Topic: When it comes to creating compounding blog posts, you want your topic to be broad. This is because narrowly focused posts lose attention over time and decline in value – except for a small category of niche individuals who may display continued interest. Broad topics, on the other hand, are interesting for a wide variety of audiences and are capable of drawing attention for a long period of time. Although narrowly focused blogs have their place in the blogosphere, they generally aren’t the go-to type of content for compounding posts. In addition to boasting a broad topic, compounding blog posts also need to offer tactical advice. This means that they should help readers make decisions, solve problems or learn new things. Examples of content like this include product reviews, instructions and how-to articles. These posts should be authoritative and welcoming all at once and should be thoroughly researched and fact-checked, so as to avoid disseminating improper information. 2) A Smart Title: When creating compounding blog posts, a great title is essential. Ideally, this title should reflect common search terms and seek to answer customer questions. People are most likely to click on the search engine result that best match their queries, so think about how people ask questions when it comes time to head to Google. When people are looking for answers, their Google searches generally begin with “how do I….” or “what to do when….”. When they’re looking for information, on the other hand, queries generally resemble “the best X, Y, Z” or “Highest-selling __________________.” That said, the titles of compounding blog posts generally contain the words “How,” “Why,” “What” and “Best.” Considering common search terms while writing your blog titles is an effective way to incorporate common SEO practices into your content. Keep in mind, also, that marketers have found that compounding blog posts often have 6-13 words in their titles. 3) Great Content Structure: It’s unlikely that clunky, difficult-to-read content is ever going to become a compounding post, so keep that in mind as you devise your content structure. The piece should be easy to scan and laid out in a user-friendly fashion, with headers and subheaders to break up content and separate ideas. Additionally, the post should make ample use of visuals, headlines marked out in bold, bullets, lists and high-quality links. These are all ingredients of great content and serve to make the piece more valuable and useful for your customers. Additionally, great content should be tailored to your target audience’s preferred word count. Most research suggests that the ideal word count for a blog post is roughly 1,600 words. This takes a reader about 7 minutes to complete and is short enough to maintain attention while also being long enough to cover the topic at hand. 4) Unique Information: In order to stand out and become compounding content, your blog post needs to present information in a decidedly useful and helpful way. This means that your post should help customers learn new things and solve problems. Additionally, it should drive awareness and be formatted in such a way that people want to share it. Learning from the Best: HubSpot’s Compound Post Analysis HubSpot is a popular inbound marketing and information platform for content marketers around the world. Although it may seem like successful organizations such as this are immune from worrying about compounding or decaying content that simply isn’t true. When HubSpot began to see the term “compounding blog post” popping up around the web, they did a bit of research into their own content. Over the next several months, they learned that content above 1,000 words receive the most social attention on their site and that posts with 2,000 words or more generated more social shares. According to the results, HubSpot devised a plan to fill in the gaps … Read more

Facebook’s Long-Form Content Platform Is Coming, Here’s How You Can Use It

January 1, 2021September 16, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Do you want to hear something cool that is going to help you reach a wider audience? Of course! Today’s latest news involves the trusty channel Facebook. Yes, Facebook has a new change coming that can really help improve your content outreach; but how? The channel is providing its users with the ability to create long-form content pieces on their new platform, called Facebook’s long-form content platform. Is this the new face of blogging? What can you expect and how can you use it? Let’s take a look! Facebook’s Long-Form Content Platform Is Harking Back to the Good Old Days – Remember Notes? Facebook is constantly trying to make the channel more user-friendly, as well as helping businesses reach out to new audiences. The social media giant is creating a long form blogging platform and it will be using the once popular notes feature. Do you remember notes? Those handy things people would share their latest updates on, do silly question and answer surveys, and more. Well, for a while, notes seemingly disappeared, losing popularity. However, Facebook is revamping Notes giving people the ability to blog directly on the channel. The site is hoping to become yet another player in the direct long-form blogging platforms, keeping people on Facebook and away from the competition. Now, Notes will become Facebook’s long-form content platform. The idea of a long-form content platform isn’t anything new – Medium has been doing it for a while now and LinkedIn opened the ability to all users last year. (I’ll be looking at these more in depth later in the blog.) And now Facebook wants to be added amongst those channels, keeping users on Facebook instead of seeing them leave for another channel. Facebook Doesn’t Want to Lose the Content Game: So The Long-Form Platform Is Happening You saw me mentioned Medium and LinkedIn, but just what am I talking about? These two channels provide long-form content platforms for users, giving people immediate access to blogs. People don’t have to go to a separate web page when reading the content, which is one of the reasons Facebook is going to utilize Instant Articles, as well. What is Medium? It is a blogging platform that came about a few years ago. While it didn’t seem to catch on quickly then, users are starting to pick up and more people are going to the channel. It is a simple blogging platform created by Twitter co-founder, Evan Williams. Its sole purpose is to give people the chance to write and read excellent content without the distractions of other social channels. Along with channels like Medium, LinkedIn started allowing people to create blog content directly on the site – opening it up to all users. This is definitely something that all businesses have been using to great success. Facebook began to notice this, and the social channel finally decided to take steps to rectify the lack of blogging abilities on the platform. This is where Notes comes into play with the ability to write long-form content. According to Matt Southern from Search Engine Journal, Facebook is testing out a Medium-like approach to long-form content with this revamped approach. Will it be successful? There’s no knowing for sure, but since Facebook is such an important and established channel, it is likely it will gain momentum. 7 Incredibly Awesome Ways to Use Facebook’s Long-Form Content Platform This is going to be great for so many small businesses, and I want to take a look at just how you can use this new platform for your business page. 1. Create Incredible, Easy-to-Access Content. A great way to use this platform is to provide easy-to-access content to your followers. While they might be more than willing to head to your site, this can give busy people the chance to read your content quicker. You don’t have to focus solely on this platform, and you really shouldn’t, but it is a great way to gain access to more readers and build your audience. 2. Always Utilize Amazing, Eye-Catching Images in Your Posts. One thing you should always remember is that Facebook is still a very visual place. Those images you use in your social postings? You’ll need them on the long-form content platform, too. Facebook says that those images are really what will help bring in viewers for your Notes. The blog showcases one post that, when using an image, got 14,642 shares. The business page that posted the image only had about 600 fans. Can you see just how important an image is? People are more likely to share something that has an image, and when you add something eye-catching or adorable, you will see more interaction. 3. Come Up With Excellent Facebook-Only Content for Your Users. Whoa, wait. Facebook only content? Aren’t you supposed to make content for all platforms you use? Yes! However, this is a great way to engage with your Facebook followers, as well as reach a newer audience on the channel. You can offer Facebook exclusives meaning that people will get something awesome if they follow and read. This will help make them all feel special, share your content, and keep coming back. 4. Create Awesome, Engaging Content that Really Speaks to Your Audience. Since you’re writing on Facebook, you definitely need to make sure the post is engaging. People don’t want to waste their time reading a post on Facebook that isn’t interesting. Creating engaging content isn’t all that hard, especially if you’ve already been writing it. A few tips to take to heart when writing engaging content are to provide your audience with something of value, use a great flowing format, and be consistent with your tone. Your Facebook followers will definitely appreciate this with your long-form content. 5. Write On Something Absolutely Trendy. Since you are writing on Facebook for a Facebook audience, this gives you the chance to write on something trendy. Writing on trending topics gives you the chance to be current with your readers and build a … Read more

Repurposing Content: Is It Still Working Today?

June 19, 2024September 9, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Annie is the Content Manager here at Express Writers, has managed multiple teams in the past, and has been a journalist and expert copywriter for years. You want to create great content for your readers but you’re short on time, right? If you haven’t considered repurposing content, it may be time to give recycling your old work a second thought. Be advised, though, that repurposing work doesn’t simply mean copying and pasting or rewriting an old article word by word. In addition to being a waste of time, repurposing content in this fashion will end up being ineffective and frustrating. As the wonderful Mary puts it: Responsible and effective repurposing entails careful reformatting, updating and repackaging in order to reach new audiences or simply revive great content. In addition to stretching your hard-won content further than ever before, carefully repurposing content has the potential to give your site an SEO boost among other things. Here is everything you need to know about repurposing content: Why Repurpose Content? Repurposing content can be a great way to drive more traffic to your site and produce increased reader engagement. Unless a piece of old content has been adequately back-linked by high-traffic sites, there is a definite chance that it isn’t getting as much traffic as it deserves. Repurposing that piece of content can fill it with new life and serve the purpose of simply getting it out in front of your readers again. Additionally, repurposing content in order to develop several pieces of high-quality material around a certain topic can produce an SEO boost. By targeting a specific keyword and producing a high level of quality backlinks from other reputable sites, repurposed content can easily prolong the lifespan of your original post. Additionally, repurposing content can help you extend your site’s reach in order to connect with new audiences who either didn’t see your original work or don’t frequent the media formats in which your original work was published. For example, if you typically write blogs but you take one of your blogs and turn it into a carefully crafted podcast, you have the potential to reach an entire audience of podcast listeners who don’t read blogs but may be very interested in what you have to say. By making sure you are utilizing a multi-channel marketing approach, you stand a better chance of engaging various types of audiences from around the web. Finally, skillfully repurposing old content can help you underline and reinforce your message. Marketing experts have known for decades that, in order for a customer to convert, click or make a purchase, the customer needs to know you and your message well enough to feel as if he or she has a solid sense of what is being promoted through your work. Repurposing content can help reformat and underline your message in order to facilitate better customer understanding and increased conversion rates. How to Determine Which Pieces of Content Should be Repurposed Generally, the content that deserves to rise from the ashes of your collection is evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that is perpetually relevant, regardless of when or where it was published. Repurposing an old post about the then-current happenings of the Clinton administration, for example, will not do much good, unless you are committed to seriously re-working the piece in order to make it relevant to today’s population. Evergreen content, on the other hand, will require little or no heavy-duty re-working in order to be relevant to current audiences. After you’ve determined which content is evergreen, spend some time looking at your analytics software in order to determine which of your evergreen posts have been the most popular. More likely than not, each of these posts will share a common trait that has increased its popularity and made it more readable among your followers. Do your best to identify this this common thread so that you can incorporate it into future blogs. Finally, determine which, if any, materials within these posts need updating. Regardless of how evergreen or popular a post was, chances are it will still be somewhat outdated and will require a bit of work to update the post. The Repurposing Process There are many ways to repurpose content. Contrary to popular belief, however, repurposing content absolutely does not mean that you get to simply copy and paste an old post into a new platform. One of the best ways to repurpose your high-quality content and ensure it stays popular in the future is to transform previously published content by plugging it into a new format. For example, a webinar can become a video tutorial and a blog can be reformatted and dissected in order to become a podcast. By repurposing popular content into new formats, you can ensure that you reach new audiences, drive more traffic and extend your best content to all of your readers through multi-channel marketing. Here are some of the most popular ways to repurpose old content in new formats: Blog Post to How-To Guide If you’ve written a blog post that got a great reader response, consider transforming that blog post into a how-to guide. For example, if your topic of choice is cloud-based marketing tools and you’ve written extensively on the subject of cloud computing, you could create a short how-to guide for companies just getting started with the cloud. Keep in mind that an effective how-to guide should include more pictures and step-by-step information than most blog posts. For maximum visibility, consider uploading your repackaged content to Pinterest or a niche-focused forum for increased reach and more reader engagement. Podcast to Quora Content Quora is a popular online platform for Q & A’s, and it serves as an ideal place to repurpose old Podcast content. Simply take the transcript from the podcast and use pieces of it to ask or answer Quora questions. Doing so can help drive new readers to your site and further establish you as an authority in your area of expertise. PowerPoint … Read more

15 of the Hottest Email Newsletters & Why They Are So Successful

March 24, 2022September 3, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is our Client Accounts Manager and a ten-year-veteran copywriter. Email newsletters have been around for a long time, as a successful means of helping businesses communicate with their customers. When email introduced a new dimension to the traditional newsletter, it instantly became more marketable in the twenty-first century. Not all newsletters are great, entertaining reads, however. As someone who enjoys reading and learning from what I read, a newsletter gives me a valuable resource. Sadly not many companies that create newsletters do that with information in mind. Developing a Great Email Newsletter: 15 Keys to the Castle One of the key things about creating a great newsletter is that the information contained therein should be mostly informative. The content in your newsletter is an extension of the content that you create for your blog or website. This content has to be entertaining and engaging. Newsletters that don’t perform as well as they should forget this one overarching idea: that content is value and value is what sells. Let’s take a look at some of the more impressive email newsletters that have managed to make their way (and keep making their way) into my inbox. 1. The Skimm: Having information given to you in easily readable, bite-sized chunks is the aim of most content marketing. Less is more, since content seems to be downsizing. The Skimm builds a newsletter that embraces this trend by giving you all the news you need to know about in short, concise bursts. You don’t even need to click out of the email to be fully informed about what’s going on. As a newsletter, it brings immense value to the table in a nice, simple, clean layout that doesn’t distract from the story elements of the news. The stories make for viable inspiration for your own blog posts as well. 2. Community.is: This newsletter tries to fit into a number of molds at the same and time and manages to do so pretty well surprisingly. As a newsletter that is designed to “put people at the center of their work”, they have a wide and varied audience. Their unique combination of short, medium and long form content appeals to their different demographics really efficiently. This allows their newsletter to be properly organized without seeming confusing at all. When you’re trying to hit such a wide audience, that in itself is a task, but this newsletter accomplishes it easily. 3. Food Safety Update: A B2B email newsletter doesn’t need a flashy title and Food Safety Update’s title is relatively bland. When you take a look at their layout and content, however, you realize that the title is misleading. The content is organized into easily digestible chunks that are well-labeled, ensuring that you can find what you’re looking to read up on. Interspersed throughout the journal are thumbnails that help to break up the text and add flavor to the layout itself. Handy social sharing options allow for easy dissemination of articles you like and unsubscribing is pretty simple as well, although after you’ve read it you’d wonder why anyone would want to. 4. Austin Kleon: Minimalistic design has always been something that appeals to a lot of modern users. Austin Kleon’s newsletter goes into the minimalist design with great intentions and manages to be successful with its mix of simple design and informative writing. The thing that is most impressive about it is the tone. Reading this newsletter has a quaint, almost homey feel. It’s almost like getting a letter from a friend you haven’t seen in a while. This is probably the most impressive accomplishment of this newsletter, making the publication seem more human. 5. Litmus: Named after the chemical testing paper, this email marketing testing company has a newsletter that is unique in its design. Swathes of color are used to break up the sections into easily readable bits. You never feel as though you’re staring at a field of monotony with the color scheme. The colors are muted and give the sense of a background without being too outstanding to distract you from what you’re reading. The content is interesting as you would expect from a marketing testing company, and it’s definitely one you should look into if marketing and analytics are your thing. 6. NoshOn.It: If you’ve ever tried making something from a recipe book and the book doesn’t have a helpful, full-color picture of what it’s supposed to turn out as, you’ll realize the struggles of many aspiring foodies out there. NoshOn.It is a newsletter that is designed for foodies and gives them helpful hints along with recipes and included pictures to help their readers visualize what they’re creating. Combining them with simple red text-boxes that stand out over the images and announce what it is you’re looking at helps readers to go directly to the section they’re looking for. Innovative design, to say the least, and quite useful for someone who cooks. 7. InterDrone News: Since drones became commercially available, there’s no shortage of people willing to throw a few bucks at them. InterDrone news is a pretty informative newsletter that encapsulates information about commercial and industrial uses of drones. As is to be expected from a B2B newsletter, its design is simple but effective. The entries are easy to read and give you all the important information about drones and their usage. If you’re a drone owner or are just curious about how this new technology benefits us overall, this is a pretty good addition to your reading list. 8. Very Short List (VSL): The idea behind VSL is simple in its premise, but powerful in its delivery. What Very Short List does is give you a selection of three “cultural gems” every day into your inbox. These gems differ from day to day as does the style and variety of the pieces. This is because VSL tasks a different contributor each day with doing the editing and compilation of their newsletter daily. This ensures that their content is always fresh, and that it might differ vastly from one … Read more

Facebook Live Streaming Launched for Public Figures: How Can Your Business Benefit?

December 31, 2020August 24, 2015 by Josh McCoy

If you were Kim Kardashian, you would have access to Facebook live streaming right now. Or Gary Vaynerchuk. Or Sandi Krakowski. On August 5th, the social media giant released a new feature that allows public figures and VIPs to broadcast themselves via live streams through the Facebook Mentions app. Right now, the service is only available to the one percenters but, if it proves successful, there is a chance that it could soon be accessible to the public at large and, what’s more, there’s a chance it could provide big benefits for everyday businesses. How Does Facebook’s Live Streaming Feature Work? Facebook Mentions is designed to allow the fans of the aforementioned celebrities and VIPs to engage with live-streamed content in the same way that Facebook currently allows users to interact with everything else in their News Feeds. When a celebrity using the Mentions app begins to stream a live broadcast, a video link goes out to the celebrity’s fans. The fans can then click the link, watch, comment and interact with the live broadcast, which encourages engagement and fan/celebrity dialogue. Just like any typical Facebook post, the new feature allows for commenting and liking. Unlike a typical Facebook post however, which is filtered through the New Feed’s relevancy filters, Facebook’s new live broadcasts will reach viewers while they are still happening, rather than being shuffled down the lineup. Once the Live post is over, the poster can choose either to delete it or to save it as a traditional video, at which point it can be re-shared among Facebook’s users. The purpose of Facebook’s new feature is not so much to promote sharing as it is to provide fans with a direct line into the lives of the people they admire. Facebook provides a unique platform for public figures and most famous people already have a huge fan base that they share content with on a daily basis. The introduction of Facebook Mentions means that so-called “influencers” will enjoy a wider audience and a broader reach than they would on other social media platforms. Four Things Facebook Mentions Offers Influencers In order to unveil the specifics, Facebook wrote a post last month stating that Facebook Mentions will have four key features: 1) See what fans are saying and join the conversation 2) Share stories by posting updates, photos, videos or hosting live Q & A sessions 3) Join conversations on Facebook and see real-time posts from fans 4) Receive streamlined notifications about posts, including mentions from other influencers or the media These benefits aren’t random and Facebook actually began collecting feedback from public figures last year. The Mentions app was originally formulated to help celebrities and other influencers deal with the scores of fan interaction they received on a daily basis and, at one point, served to facilitate the process of responding to thousands of wall posts and mentions at one time. As it evolved, though, it turned out that stars liked the Mentions app for much more than that and actually found it a more intimate and authentic way to interact with their thousands of followers. Celebrities like The Rock have already used the new Live feature. In order to make the feature more manageable for celebrities, fan comments are pushed onto the celebrity’s screen at a slow, readable pace and vulgar comments are automatically deleted. If they so choose, celebrities can turn off comments altogether and, if there are topics a celebrity doesn’t want to discuss, such as politics or a recent divorce, he or she has the option to blacklist certain topics for the course of the conversation. What are the Benefits of Facebook Live Streaming for Businesses? If celebrities have a message to share, so do businesses and the function of the Facebook Mentions app is actually very similar. Facebook live streaming services offer fans (or customers) a real-time look inside the heads, lives and habits of the people they admire and, with a little imagination; it’s clear how this feature could benefit a wide variety of businesses. Imagine it – wouldn’t you love to step inside Mark Zuckerberg’s living room or get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the production of your favorite product? Nowadays, customers want a more active role in the production, manufacturing and marketing of the products they love and Facebook Mentions has the potential to offer a platform for this. Facebook Mentions for Interactive Marketing Interactive marketing is an up-and-coming trend in the business world and it’s easy to see how live streaming services could offer a great way for companies to move from a transactional-focused interaction into a conversation. By bringing customers into a live-stream session, companies can begin to encourage a dialogue rather than a simple product – transaction form of advertising and marketing. Today’s customers are more likely to respond to interactive marketing tactics and Facebook Mentions offers a great platform from which interactive marketing can spring. The benefits of Facebook’s live streaming service for businesses are truly endless and possibilities include things like sneak-peak product launches, live Q& A sessions, interviews with a company’s head managers and even business/customer talking sessions. Live Streaming Offers Educational Opportunities One of the primary benefits of live streaming for businesses is that it offers a powerful platform for education. With Facebook’s new services, companies can easily reach out to educate their audience about a new service or product and may potentially even use the feature to hold troubleshooting sessions, how-to features or host discussions about relevant topics and industry questions. Additionally, live streaming can be used to host talks about current developments in the industry and host interesting guests, in a sort of podcast-esque fashion. All of these things serve the purpose of reaching out to customers, providing high-quality information in a digestible format and ensuring that a company has a presence across a wide variety of media platforms. Facebook Live Streaming Can Promote Spontaneity, Which Leads to Better Business Numerous studies have shown that customers want a company they can … Read more

Why You Need A Writer: The Infamous Zookeenes & Bail Peprs Sign

December 31, 2020August 19, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Need a writer? The people in the Pacific Northwest might… Imagine this, you’re driving there, and you see a farm stand coming into view on the horizon. Your mouth waters as you imagine the juicy produce, and your mind begins to fill with fantasies of fresh-picked cherries, strawberries, apples, raspberries, honeys and jams and maybe even some delicious veggies to throw on the grill during dinner that night. As you get closer, however, you realize that this isn’t just any fruit stand. This is a fruit stand that appears to be in desperate need of a good writer, as evidenced by the spray-painted wooden sign that advertises “zookeene”, “tater + maters,” “hallopinyo” and… *Gasp* Your favorite member of the entire vegetable family – “bail peprs.” 3 Other Major Sign Mistakes (Aka Why You Need a Writer) Hold your giggles now folks, because this is exactly what happened to customers at the infamous “zookeene” farm stand and, while there is certainly a decent amount of power in sounding out difficult words, we can probably all agree that this is just one piece of evidence that indicates the need for good writers in all industries. Why you need a writer is about to be illustrated in 3,2,1… 1. The Case of Patterson School 20’s Misspelled Sign There is one misspelling mishap that might be slightly more tragic than the colorful “zookeene” and “bail peprs” sign and that is the infamous misspelling on the Patterson School sign. When students arrived at Patterson School 20 in Patterson, New Jersey in December 2014, they were in for a surprise. There, on the school’s marquee sign prominently located directly above the entrance to the prestigious establishment, was the newest of the school’s monthly information boards. This one, however, read like this: It didn’t take long, of course, for students and faculty to notice that, not only was December misspelled “Dicimber” and report as “reepor” but also that there was a ‘1’ facing noticeably backwards. To make matters worse, the school’s principal, who earned a salary of roughly $108,000 per year, left the sign up for an entire week, seeming not to notice the multiple mistakes. As a result, the school board grew angry and the principal, Antoinette Young, was quickly relocated to a different school district – all over a proofreading failure that went embarrassingly public. And that my friends is why you need a writer (or just a good copyeditor). 2. The Montgomery Debacle As if losing a job weren’t bad enough, imagine losing several thousand dollars over a misspelling. This is exactly what happened in Montgomery, Pennsylvania when the Montgomery County Court House left an important ‘m’ out of “commissioners” and produced a grand total of 26 signs throughout the county that had glaring and obvious misspellings on both sides, resulting in the need to fix a whopping 52 sign panels to rectify the mistake. After a call from the public and elected officials to fix the signs, Montgomery did so, at a cost of $4,000. To add insult to injury, the city projects that the signs will need to be replaced yet again after the local general election, resulting in another several thousand-dollar expenditure. 3. The Case of the Misspelled Spelling Bee When two young girls, Maiesha Akhand and Anamaria Brown came out as victors of the Centennial Elementary spelling bee, they expected local fame and maybe their name on the school’s marque sign. In the end, they got both but they were in for a bit of a surprise when their bus rolled by the billboard on the way out of town and they were met with this: Little did the girls know that the students would soon become the teachers, both in spelling and in irony. There’s A Growing Epidemic, And It’s Called Bad Spelling If the state of our spelling is this bad with all of our current technology, just imagine a civilization without spell check. Misspelled signs are popping up in everything from “A State Sales” to homemade billboards advertising “farwood fer sale.” Although these signs seem funny, and indeed they are, they also provide a pretty obvious reminder that there is no end to the value of a good writer – no matter what you’re selling. Although the “zookeenes” example is hilarious in its absurdity, it’s clear that these mistakes also make their way into high-level affairs, such as official city signage and school billboards and it goes without saying that it’s difficult to be taken seriously as an individual or an institution when your literature is riddled with misspellings. In addition to writing, optimizing sites for search engines, incorporating keywords into content and helping devise marketing and promotional materials, a great writer can also play the important role of proofreader and editor, which evidence has shown may be more important than anything else, in some cases. Businesses need a good writer more than they know. Although misspellings like Westar Mart’s “Ice Cold Bear” are hilarious at first glance, oversights like this can be detrimental for business at a higher level and spelling, as it turns out, is an indiscriminate and persistent scourge. Misspellings affect everyone from fruit salesmen to lawyers (as was the case when one attorney misspelled public as ‘pubic’ – as in “in consideration of important pubic matters” – all throughout a27 page legal document) and can cost a business time, money and sales. That said, the moral of the story is clear: hire great writers and keep yourself out of Elite Daily’s list of the “25 worst public spelling errors ever seen”. Need a writer (or two)? To learn more about the importance of hiring a great writer and how it can benefit your business (so you don’t let any “zookeenes” sneak in)… check out our Proofreading services.

The Top Reasons You Should Be Using Pinterest for Your Business

June 19, 2024August 17, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Social media is awesome, isn’t it? You can reach out to your clients via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and even meet new people, bringing them in and turning them into customers. There are so many excellent social channels out there that you might start to feel a bit overwhelmed and wonder just what else, outside of the social media trinity you should use. Well, I am here to tell you about an incredible social channel that you might just be overlooking – Pinterest. That’s right! I am going to show you why you need to add this channel to your mix, as well as how you can use it successfully for your business. Pinterest For Your Business: How To Succeed In Your Pinterest Social Media Marketing Pinterest is a great resource for businesses, and can give you a wider reach and range for your audience. Here are some great reasons why you should be using it. 1. Over 70 Million People Use It, & 93% of Those People Are Buyers. That’s right. The 70 million users is a stat from Wikipedia a few years ago, so it’s safe to say this may have even doubled by now. And Shopify is saying that 2 million people pin product pins daily, while 93% of all Pinterest users actually use Pinterest to plan purchases. If this isn’t your main reason to be on Pinterest, I don’t know what is. 2. You Can Use Pinterest to Help Increase Traffic. According to Jessica Meher from Hubspot, a great reason to use Pinterest is to help increase traffic. Research on the amount of traffic Pinterest provides shows that it can actually bring in more people than Facebook or Twitter, which is great for all websites. This is definitely amazing if your site is new or you rely on your site to help drive sales and bring in new customers. 3. You Will See High Amounts of User Engagement. Pinterest is amazingly addictive for anyone who uses it, and many people love to engage on it. In the article mentioned above, Jessica Meher points out that you will see more engagement on Pinterest simply because many people are on it and addicted to it. This means that they are very likely to pin, favorite, and comment on your pins while they spend their time browsing through the channel. 4. It Will Help Strengthen Your Brand. You can use Pinterest to strengthen your brand and drive trust among your client base. According to Nicole Kohler from Shareaholic, a great way to use Pinterest to strengthen your brand is to bookmark mentions of your brand and products. This will help you keep track when someone mentions your brand, giving you the chance to interact with them. This can help promote engagement, trust, and, as I’ve mentioned, strengthen your brand. It will also help you stand out from your competitors if you are regularly seeking out and engaging with your customers. 5. You Have Easy Access to Market Research. One of the great things about Pinterest is that you get the chance to do excellent market research easily. Pinterest gives you the ability to see what your users want to see while keeping you updated on the latest trends. You can follow your clients back and easily watch what they post and see just how they use social media, helping you create and curate excellent content for them. And Here Are 9 Top Ways To Successfully Use Pinterest for Your Business Now that you know a few excellent reasons as to why you should use Pinterest for your business, let’s take a look at just how you can use it successfully. 1. Integrate Pinterest With Your Website, Twitter, and Facebook. A great way to use Pinterest is to integrate it with your website, as well as your other social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. You can set it up to where Pinterest updates your Facebook and Twitter pages when you make a new pin, helping to drive your existing social media followers to your account. To integrate it with your website, you can include “Pin It” buttons to encourage visitors to pin product images to their own Pinterest accounts. 2. Learn What Your Audience Wants to See. You need to do some basic client research to be sure that when you use Pinterest, you are sharing what your clients want to see. You can create personas, but simply following your clients and taking a look at their boards can help you figure out what they pin and like to see. When you understand your Pinterest audience more, you can then start to develop things that are interesting to them, helping bring about engagement and driving more people to your website. 3. Focus On the Quality of Your pins and Not When You Post. Trying to find the best time to post to social media is something many people look for to help bring about more clicks and views. However, according to Kevan Lee from Buffer, when it comes to Pinterest, you need to focus on the quality of your pins and not when you post. High-quality pins are more important to Pinterest users and many people are on Pinterest at varying times. When you post something that is high quality, you have a higher chance having more people pin your pins and click on the links. 4. Create Excellent Captions With Each Pin. Just like with your blogs and other social media posts, the headlines and captions on Pinterest are vital. When you go to create a pin, make sure you have an amazing caption that can capture a user’s attention, convincing them to click. Focus your attention on making something that is engaging that gives clients enough information to be curious but not too much information that keeps them from looking further at your website. 5. Make Sure You are Driving Traffic to Your Site. You might be sharing a lot of interesting pins, but when using Pinterest, you need … Read more