Content marketing is leaving outdated marketing methods in the dust.
Feeling doubtful? The $400 billion content marketing industry is on track to explode. Overall, content marketing will grow by $269.24 billion during 2019-2024.
It’s not a new practice, but it is finally getting the recognition and respect it deserves because content marketing works. (Plain and simple.)
For example…
If you stopped cold calling right now, what would happen?
You wouldn’t get new customers.
But what would happen if you were to stop content marketing?
You’d still be bringing in leads and traffic months, even years later.
Content marketing also compounds over time, which means it’s a long-term investment that will continue working for you long after the content is published. And since 68% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, quality content that ranks on search pages is going to keep producing results and making your brand discoverable. ?
What Exactly Is Content Marketing, and Why is It So Powerful?
[bctt tweet=”Content marketing compounds over time. It’s a long-term investment that will continue working for you long after the content is published. ? ” username=””]
Content marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on writing and publishing relevant content that will attract, educate, and engage a defined audience.
Instead of reciting the typical sales pitch, content creators are helping consumers solve problems.
That seems a little counterproductive for a marketing strategy, right? How can you increase your sales if you aren’t talking about how great your products and services are?
The answer is simple: you’re building trust and authority. Instead of adopting the sleazy salesman role, which is an immediate turnoff for many consumers, you’re having a pleasant conversation with them and providing information they need. And that will likely inspire them to see what else you have to offer.
Consider this: Google reports that SEO (search engine optimized) traffic is five times greater than PPC (pay per click) and ten times greater than social media.
Speaking of Google, that’s where 92.96% of global traffic originates, so ranking on Google is an absolute must if you want to see success. During the pandemic, Google search traffic jumped from 3.6 billion searches per day to more than 6 billion per day.
Simply paying for ads on Google isn’t going to cut it. On average, a person sees between 6,500 and 11,000 ads per day, not to mention 42.7% of worldwide internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 relying on ad-blocking tools at least once a month.
With that constant advertising bombardment, it’s no wonder people have largely become “ad blind.”
Using an SEO-first content marketing strategy isn’t interruptive like typical ads (and it won’t be flagged by ad blockers). It allows businesses to target new prospects at every stage of the purchase funnel.
6 Steps to Create Content That Generates Leads and Brings in Traffic
Your brand’s content strategy framework is your golden formula for success. It goes much deeper than simply writing articles that target keywords.
Whether you’re a content marketing beginner wondering how to get started or a veteran looking to polish your existing strategy for better success, you’re in the right place!
Below is a step-by-step look at how a rock-solid content strategy foundation works.
1. Know Your Foundations: Niche, Expertise, and CDF
When it comes to content creation and marketing, you need to be able to answer the following questions first:
What is my niche (targeted industry)?
Who is my audience?
What are my qualifications/expertise?
What are my business goals?
What do I have to offer than nobody else does?
The last question is your Content Differentiation Factor, or CDF. Basically, your CDF is what makes you unique among your competition.
Before you can start defining your audience and writing content for them, you need to have a clear understanding of who you are and what you want to accomplish.
Is your content marketing going to be used to find new leads? To educate people about solutions (and how your product or service can solve their problems)? To provide citable data and studies? To increase the organic web traffic on your site? To create brand awareness?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you have the groundwork laid for your content marketing strategy.
2. Understand What Your Audience Wants and Needs
Part of your Step 1 analysis should be figuring out your target audience. But knowing who your audience will be is very different from knowing how to convert them into customers.
Some of the ways you can identify the needs of your audience can include:
Reviewing online comments and conversations to identify consumer needs.
Researching keywords that are relevant to your targeted niche.
Studying your competition to see what they’re doing.
Sendingout customer surveys.
Creating audience personas for your content strategy.
All of this research should answer these two critical questions: “Who am I writing for?” and “What are they looking for?”
3. Target Keywords with SEO Best Practices
Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is the practice of writing and formatting content in a way that ranks in search engines.
When researching the best keywords to target, you should ideally look for low-competition, long-tail keywords that are three or more words in length. And, most importantly, these keywords should be highly relevant to your niche.
When writing your content, avoid keyword-stuffing, which is the outdated practice of forcing a keyword into an article as many times as possible, even if that results in the article being difficult to read. Doing so will negatively impact your ranking.
SEO rewards writing that flows naturally. For the best SEO results, you should also:
Optimize for voice searches.71% of consumers would rather search by voice than type their question, with a projected 122.7 million voice search users for this year. This means there is more value in optimizing your content for natural speech rather than keywords. For example, a voice search is going to prioritize pages that answer a question such as “Who was Steve Jobs?” rather than keywords like “Steve Jobs apple company.”
Improve readability with visual appeal. About 65% of your audience will be visual learners. Images, bulleted lists, subheadings, and videos will help to make your content easier to read.
Create your own studies, data, infographics, and imagery. This practice allows your graphics to be indexed by Google while generating backlinks when other websites cite your content in their articles. Win-win!
4. Become a Trusted Authority in Your Market
What exactly does it mean to be an authority?
The pandemic took a toll on the public’s trust. In fact, there’s an all-time low in consumer trust for informational sources, according to the Edelman 2021 Trust Barometer. And yet, the numbers show that trust in individual businesses is at a global high.
Simply put, when consumers lost faith in the government and media, they instead turned to businesses for information.
Building your authority can mean your brand is perceived as a source of trustworthy, relevant information for your consumers, or your brand is an authority website based on Google’s ranking standards.
From a content marketing perspective, you should strive to achieve both of those goals.
The way to do that is by regularly publishing content that consumers are searching for online and want to read.
Remember, it’s not a sales pitch. You’re not telling your customers that you’re an expert — you’re demonstrating your credibility to them, which is much more effective.
In addition, you’re engaging with your audience and generating website traffic, which will help Google recognize your site as valid.
5. Strategize and Schedule Your Content for Consistency
HubSpot surveyed 7,000 businesses and used the data to develop a marketing benchmark report. They found that companies with 1,000 or more pages bring in 9.5 times more traffic than companies who have less than 50 pages.
Looking at that raw data, you might assume that quantity is more important than quality. In truth, the two go hand-in-hand.
Simply pumping out worthless content for the sake of upping your page count is not going to be an efficient or productive use of your resources. The real key here is consistency. You should be:
Using a calendar to ensure that you have content scheduled and planned in advance.
Auditing old posts to keep them relevant and up-to-date.
Budgeting your time and expenses to stay on top of outsourcing costs and make sure your dollars are going into high-quality content creation.
Promoting your content with an omnichannel approach to increase shares, conversations, and leads.
6. Maintain Your Progress with Analytical Data
Relying on analytics, whether that’s Semrush, Google Analytics, or a variety of other tools, is one of the best ways to track your progress and see trends.
This data will provide a clear picture so you can see what’s working and what’s not, allowing you to make strategic decisions and ensure your long-term success by tweaking your strategy when necessary.
In order to truly measure your progress, it’s important to set KPIs (key performance indicators). You need to have specific goals to track, such as website traffic, new leads, browsing sessions, bounce rates, et cetera. This will give you targets so you’ll know if you’re actually seeing the growth you want and need.
If you’re hitting your KPIs, that’s great! You’re on the right track!
If not, it’s back to the content strategy drawing board.
Content Marketing is the Future of Marketing… and the Present
It’s not a question of if content marketing will be successful.
It already is.
Companies who committed to the initial investment and stuck with it (that’s important!) saw incredible ROI over time, while businesses who brushed off content marketing as a waste of time or started it halfheartedly but let their strategy fall by the wayside ended up at a huge disadvantage compared to their competitors.
That’s not to say you should stop investing in cold calls, PPC, and other methods. A well-rounded marketing strategy is still important.
But if content marketing isn’t a key component of your strategy, you’re missing a major opportunity.
Express Writers provides high-quality written content in any format you might need, whether it’s expert blog posts, infographics, ebooks, ad copy, case studies, press releases, social media, and more. See what we have to offer.
Let me ask you: Who would you say is the current king of marketing? Maybe ads, commercials, even brand ambassadors?
The answer is none of these.
The true king of marketing is content — and quality content at that.
The majority of businesses already understand this and are hopping on the content marketing train.
70+% of companies are now investing in content marketing (Hubspot).
And 49% of B2C marketers say their organization outsources at least one content marketing activity.
More likely to outsource are large companies. (2021 CMI Report)
75% of those outsourced content marketing activities go to content creation. ? However, to see results, we know we can’t just churn out any old subject matter and expect it to succeed anymore. Content these days needs to be good.
What if you’re a small business just starting out? Do you still need to spend on content marking? Yes, you do, no matter your company’s size. Here’s why.
You Need to Spend Money on Content Marketing: If You’re Not, You’re Missing Out
We’ve known for a few years now that content marketing would be worth just over $400 billion in 2021.
The revolution underway is not to be underestimated.
But what’s truly nuts? Content marketing is going to grow another $269 billion or so by 2024, bringing the total industry worth and spend to over $600 billion in 2024.
Content marketing is here to stay. Size, and even success, don’t matter. Whether your company is small or large, triumphant or struggling, you need to be putting a portion of your money towards content marketing. If you want to grow your business, which you should, you need to create unique content.
[bctt tweet=”70% of companies invest in content marketing (@hubspot). 49% outsource at least one activity, and 75% of those activities go to content creation. ? Read more:” username=”ExpWriters”]
You may think you can put only a small portion of your funds towards content especially when notoriously cheap content mills (still) exist. However, a cheap rate won’t cut it these days: not with the way Google’s search algorithm now works. Content marketing requires quality and quantity, and that costs — both time and money.
If you think you should dedicate 10, or even 20% of your marketing budget to content, you’re wrong. The most prosperous businesses spend close to 40% of their marketing budget on content strategy.
It’s worth it, though. Content marking still manages to cost 62% less than outbound marketing and generates almost three times as many leads.
And web traffic is among the top two most frequent success metrics for content marketing strategies (Hubspot).
Considering that ad ROI has spiked as low as .6x return (yes — that’s .6x), and studies have shown that the year-over-year increase in unique visitor count is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders than for followers (19.7% vs. 2.5%)…
Want traffic, leads, and sales? You’ll need to turn to content marketing.
In sum, in business, if you put your money where your content marketing is: You’ll profit.
3 Benefits of Content Marketing
You now know you need content marketing in your toolkit if you want your business to take off. The proof is in the numbers — a study found small businesses with blogs generated a 126% higher lead growth than those without. But how does that happen?
Here are a few of the main benefits of good content marketing. We’ve also written before on the secrets to marketing planning. With well-thought-out contenting marketing strategies, you can:
1. Retain Your Audience
If your content is forgettable, predictably, your audience is probably going to forget you. If they forget you entirely, how likely is it they’re going to return? Not a very high chance at all.
If you produce high-quality content, however, consumers will consistently come back for more. The more a person comes back to your content, the more likely you are to make a sale.
We care about content. Our team has completed 35,000+ projects and counting. 100 handpicked, trained creators on staff. Try us out today and start your order.
2. Build Real Audience Trust
If someone trusts you, they’re more likely to buy from you. That’s always been true. However, these days, earning an honest image has become more difficult.
The public today is distrustful. After having not-quite true “facts” and vague euphemisms shoved down their throats, they want more. Understandably, at that.
If you want to make your audience trust you, be trustworthy. It’s as simple as that. Speaking plainly, honestly, and simply will build your brand as a dependable source.
Content marketing is very good at building trust. In fact, it’s one main reason content marketers invest in it, per CMI benchmark’s recent study.
The secret to trust-building? Content that provides value. The stats show that content marketers know this, too.
3. Generate More Leads
It’s true: content is king. That doesn’t mean content for content’s sake is the end goal when for this kind of marketing. You’re not just there to entertain. You’re there to make a sale.
And sales you will make. Simply by clicking on your content, the customer is taken to your website — your domain. They’ve already arrived on your turf. It’s time to make it count.
If someone reads your content and loves it, they are much more likely to buy from you. People want to buy from companies they like.
It also helps when you have a CTA (call to action) linking to your business at the end of your content. This drives views to the rest of your site, where readers can make a purchase.
We are a case study of this. Not only does our site attract 100,000 visitors/month, but we’ve built up nearly that much in monthly revenue, too.
Here’s a slide from my recent talk at FreelanceU’s Skills Summit that emphasizes the power of our website, built with a weekly blog for eight years (we’ve never taken a blogging vacation, and boy has it paid off!):
How to Use Content Marketing to Your Advantage
Mobile users like finding businesses online. An incredible 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business by using the search results (click to call) button. If your content shows up in search results and is engaging enough to draw in the user, you have a good chance of making a sale.
But how, you may ask, do I make content marketing working for my business? What do I need to know?
There are three primary steps you need to take:
1. Set your budget: Set a budget ahead of time and try to stick to it. Remember — successful businesses allocate about 40% of their marketing budget to content. Keep that in mind. Don’t overexert your funds, but do what you can to ensure you’ll be able to produce or fund solid marketing content.
2. Allocate funds: Make sure you use the funds you set aside. Don’t let them pile up like a hoard of gold coins in the corner. Go out and find a writer that meets your high standards and put them to work. Alternatively, if you plan on making your own content, take an online course. Do the research necessary. Do whatever needs to be done to make your business excel at content marketing.
3. Measure results and adjust accordingly: This step is by far the most important. Decide ahead of time on your measurements of success, and keep track of them throughout your progress. Everyone makes mistakes, beginners as well as experts. What sets the real winners apart are companies that can adjust and reevaluate what they’re doing based on results. Remember to bend with the wind, and you’ll still be standing even after the strongest gust.
[bctt tweet=”What if you’re a small business just starting out? Do you still need to spend on content marking? Yes, you do, no matter your company’s size. ✅ Here’s why:” username=”ExpWriters”]
If You Want to Succeed, Start Spending on Content Marketing
Content marketing is everything in today’s business world. The people are bored: they want exciting content to read. And they’re happy to spend money when the content speaks to their interests and keeps them engaged.
How are you going to improve your content marketing strategy? There’s an easy answer. Spend your marketing money on a content writer—a writer who, without a doubt, knows what they are doing.
At Express Writers, we’ve proven our worth. With 40,000 content projects created for our clients over ten years in business, we know what we’re doing.
You know what you need to succeed. So do we, and we’ve already proven our skills. It’s time to start a fire in the belly of your business.
Hire us today to begin propelling your company to the top.
Need content that’s the best of the best? Check out our Content Shop.
What about everyone else? It can’t be that necessary, right?
The answer is yes, it is. Writing, and writing well, is a critical skill for anyone — especially those in business.
The true cost of bad writing is lost profit, pure and simple. Not only has poor writing already cost companies a devastating amount, at a rate of $400 billion per year, but it could also impact your business.
At least, unless you get smart.
To attack the problem, first you need to understand the underlying issue. What is “bad writing,” and how can it be digging so deep into business’ pockets? Let’s take a closer look.
The Cost of Bad Writing: First, What Is Bad Writing?
There’s more to writing than spelling and grammar. That’s only the first step. Making sure what you write is not only technically correct but readable can make or break you. A good writer needs to be:
Grammatically correct
Clear and concise
Expressive and entertaining
To the point
Honest
Attentive to detail
As a business owner, you need to be picky about your writers. Not everyone has the necessary creativity and attention to detail. Sure, this means you’ll likely pay more upfront. The amount you save in the end, however, is well worth it.
[bctt tweet=”Good writing is essential for writers. ✅ But what about everyone else? It can’t be that necessary, right? The answer is YES, it can. Bad writing costs businesses billions of dollars every year. ? More from @JuliaEMcCoy ✏” username=””]
At Express Writers, we follow that rule. Did you know out of an average of 500 applicants a month, we only select five? That’s 1%. Phew.
But, we do it because we need to. Our standards are hella high — we live or die by the quality of our writing. One bad writer, one botched job, and a $30K monthly account could walk out the door.
We also do it because it’s not hard to run into bad writing — throw a stone, and you’ll hit it.
Bad Writing (& the Costs Businesses Pay) Is Everywhere
You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. Terrible writing runs rampant in the business world, from grammatical error-ridden emails to poorly worded announcements, to exhausting blog posts. Reading this type of writing doesn’t just make us tired.
It also takes time to read bad writing. It eats up our hours on the clock and saps our energy for the rest of the workday.
You know the saying — time equals money. It’s true that poor writing skills in the business world equate to a great deal of money flying out the window.
Bad Writing Costs Businesses Billions
Were you shocked by the above number? Yes, companies are losing billions per year. Up to millions per company has been lost, as well. All of it is due to bad writing.
How could this happen? At first, 400 billion lost per year sounds unrealistic. However, when you look at the history, you’ll see how simple mistakes can have devastating results.
Common Examples of Poor Writing and the Consequences
It’s incredible how one seemingly minor error can cost a company a fortune. Here, I’ve compiled a list of three prevalent examples of bad business writing and its repercussions.
1. Understating Problems and Overusing Euphemisms
A pitfall that many companies and politicians have run into is not being transparent. The refusal to admit not just the truth but the whole truth in an understandable way will always result in a downfall.
Today’s audience is both discerning and able to check facts at their fingertips. It’s easy to find out what the truth is, and someone will eventually. So, don’t lie, and don’t understate the facts.
General Motors
General Motors ran into disaster when they downplayed malfunctioning vehicles. This was a mistake that not only lost over a billion dollars, but also put lives in danger.
When the company had an issue with the Chevrolet Cobalt’s ignition switch in 2014, which caused the airbags to disable, General Motors wasn’t too concerned. At least, that’s what it sounded like.
In internal communications, they called the malfunctioning vehicles a “customer convenience issue.” This understatement of the severity of the situation caused a delayed response — after all, they had other, more important things to do.
In this case, bad wording cost General Motors over $1.7 billion in total as the company had to recall a total of 2.6 million cars.
2. Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation Errors
While this is an example that seems obvious, this problem is more recurrent than you think. Attention to detail is critical, down to every last dotted “i” and crossed “t.”
Quite literally, a single missing comma can create disaster.
Oakhurst Dairy
You may have thought the oxford comma was no longer important. Such a small detail, and a seemingly silly one at that — how could it make such a difference? Oakhurst Dairy found out the hard way.
In 2017, the company had redefined its delivery driver overtime exemptions. The new rules stated a series of tasks were exempt from overtime, including “packing for shipping or distribution.”
Oakhurst Dairy’s workers took them to court and focused on one tiny but essential detail: the oxford comma. The lack of the oxford comma, workers argued, made it seem like the two were one action (i.e., packing for the purpose of shipping or distribution) versus being separate exempt tasks.
The court ruled in favor of the workers, and Oakhurst Dairy paid out $5 million in related overtime as a result.
3. Sloppy Editing and Inattention to Detail
Another extremely common trouble in the writing world is careless editing. It isn’t just bad form. It’s a way to lose out on everything you’ve gained.
NASA
In 1999, the NASA Mars Orbiter disintegrated into the atmosphere after having missed its orbit window. Scientists at NASA were confused. How could their calculations have been so incorrect on such a crucial mission?
It turns out an obvious error ruined the NASA Mars Orbiter’s flight. Lockheed-Martin, who made the rocket system used by NASA, used imperial units of measurement. On the other hand, NASA uses the metric system. You can probably see where this is going.
No one converted the measurements when entering the data, something a quick glance at the numbers would have caught. This mistake eventually lost NASA $125 million after the mission failed.
Need carefully-written, human-edited, exceptional content for your website? Hire our writers — QA review and two free revisions included.
How to Become an Exceptional Writer
By now, it’s clear. If you want to succeed in the business world, you need strong writing skills. Or, at the least, a team of excellent writers to rely on who will propel you forward.
But in a world where mediocre has become the norm, how do you elevate your writing to the next level? The answer takes a bit of patience and a lot of dedication.
You must make your writing easy on the eyes, as well as factual and engaging. People have brains burning for new information, but no one wants to work too hard to get it.
We’ve given tips and tricks on how to produce solid copywriting before. Here’s my best advice:
Look from your reader’s perspective: First, you need to connect with your reader. Don’t just write to write. Write to be read. If you’re churning out content and no one’s reading it, what’s the point? Remember, you’re not writing for yourself. This isn’t a diary. Imagine how your words will come across to your audience and what emotions you want to evoke. Are you successfully tailoring your writing to the reader? It’s time to pay attention to the other side’s perspective.
Be vivid: Don’t just tell your reader what to think. Instead, describe a scenario. Go into sensory details, such as touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound. Vivid imagery pulls the reader into your writing, making them read until the end. Content these days can’t just be informative. It needs to be absolutely engaging.
Read it out loud: Sounds silly. Doesn’t it? However, this is a trick professional writers have been using for many years. You want your writing to sound natural. When reading your writing out loud, the words should flow, one sentence into another. If speaking it aloud sounds awkward or stilted, it may be time for another edit.
Edit, edit, edit: I cannot repeat this enough: You must edit your work. After you’ve finished, take a break. Maybe drink some coffee. And then? Edit again. Simple spelling and grammatical errors can not only make you look unprofessional, but can also cost you considerably. If you’re not quite sure you’ve caught everything, get a second pair of eyes.
The Cost of Bad Writing Is Severe: Don’t Let It Happen to Your Business
It may seem inconsequential. It may seem ridiculous. However, bad writing, especially in business, comes at a severe price.
Not only is there a lot of money at stake, and billions of dollars at that, but the time and mental energy spent trying to discern poorly-written communication takes its toll as well.
Fear not. It is possible to use not just good but exceptional writing to take your company to the next level. It requires some elbow grease and a bit of time, but in the end, the result is well worth it.
At Express Writers, we have a careful QA process that ensures every single piece gets humanly reviewed for factual accuracy, high-quality sources and citations, and relevancy to your business and goals.
Need great content? Start shopping now: Visit our Content Shop.
You’re an expert at what you do, and it shows every day in the form of happy clients.
What better way to convince prospects that you can do the same for them than by illustrating all the ways you’ve helped your clients succeed? After all, nothing carries more weight with future clients than the success stories of the ones that came before.
Enter case studies. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 82% of your competition are using them.
Yet, they’re one of the trickiest types of content to master. Get it wrong, and they can backfire.
Here’s exactly what a case study is, how it can help your business, and when you should consider hiring an expert case study writer to handle it for you.
First Things First: What is a Case Study?
A case study is a type of document originally found in human sciences that allows for an in-depth, multi-faceted exploration of a complex, real-life issue. It identifies:
Your client and the challenge they faced before finding you
The solution that your company chose to implement – and why you chose it
What happened as a result of that solution (plus where the company is today)
Along the way, it uses quantitative data like metrics, but case studies are meant to illuminate the qualitative data too – the stuff that’s harder to measure but no less real.
[bctt tweet=”Case studies. ? 82% of your competition uses them (@CMIContent), but they’re one of the trickiest content types to master. Learn what a case study is, how it helps your business, and when to hire a case study writer via @JuliaEMcCoy ?.” username=”ExpWriters”]
If you’ve spent any time researching ways to grow your brand’s authority with content, you’ve discovered that they’re simultaneously a powerful strategy to do so … and still a less common type of content than you might expect.
Even in 2020, 13% of marketers consider them as a primary form of media in their content strategy. Case studies rank fifth behind video, blogs, infographics, and even eBooks. Yet, Gartner once found that they rank as the second most effective strategy for influencing buyers (after direct content).
Competitive advantage much, yes?
Case studies are hard to pull off correctly, and a good case study writer is even harder to find. A case study isn’t just the sum of its three basic parts (problem, solution, result). Likewise, a solid case study writer isn’t just going to hammer out a bunch of numbers and bland descriptions.
Rather, they understand that…
Case Studies Work Best When Data Alone Doesn’t Tell the Full Story
At their core, case studies are how scientists sneak storytelling into their research. According to student researchers at the University of Nottingham:
“The case study approach is particularly useful to employ when there is a need to obtain an in-depth appreciation of an issue, event or phenomenon of interest, in its natural real-life context.”
In business, that issue, even, or phenomenon, is your product or service. Specifically, how your product or service positively impacted one of your clients. In story mode.
[bctt tweet=”Case studies tell your prospects exactly how your product or service positively impacted one of your clients… In story mode. ? That’s why they’re so powerful. ? Learn the case for case studies on The Write Blog.” username=”ExpWriters”]
Sure, you probably convey the effectiveness of your solutions with metrics and numbers alone. Metrics are measurable proof.
But why would you settle for metrics alone when you could reel in your potential customers with a good story about how and why your services work … then let them imagine themselves with those very solutions and results?
How a Good Case Study Helps Your Business
A solid library of case studies is your secret weapon for convincing potential customers to do business with you. They’ll allow you to:
Showcase your professional expertise with real-life examples. People make all sorts of crazy claims about the effectiveness of their product or service. A case study provides proof to support those claims … the type that can be verified.
Help build customer trust early in the sales cycle. Some 82% of your customers will read your reviews before doing business with you. Give them a case study or three to consider in the process.
Leverage peer influence. A good case study writer will ensure that it’s the customer’s story brought to the forefront. That gives you the ability to use the customer’s own words to create a powerful driver for conversion.
Provide a primary source for your content team. Speaking of quotes, case studies will yield lots of them. Use them in your other content to strengthen it.
Use storytelling to promote your brand. While each individual case study may focus on a different client, you can also use them on yourself. Consider these examples, which tell the stories of companies and their quests in community engagement, getting laws changed, or creating ethical supply chains.
Case studies are popular but far from overdone. That’s great news for brands looking to demonstrate their expertise in their field! Source: HubSpot
When to Hire a Professional Case Study Writer
Nail your case studies and you have a powerful new weapon in your sales and marketing arsenals. But you have to nail them. ??
That’s easier said than done … and also where a professional case study writer comes in handy.
Here are three signs you should consider hiring an expert case study writer to create case studies that drive your brand’s growth.
1. You’re Not Sure What Goes into Writing a Solid Case Study (and You Can’t Afford to Mess Up!)
Case studies work well in two part of your brand’s sales funnel: at the top, where they can inspire more interest in clients looking for the answers you provide, and at the decision-making stage. In both places, they can prove instrumental in getting that lead to reach out.
That means they’re also not a great idea to DIY if you’ve never written them before. (It’s on par with trying to write your own ads … not usually a great idea.)
In contrast, a writer who specializes in case studies will have the technical skills to handle the project from start to finish. That includes:
Doing the research. From statistics to background research on your clients, the most successful case studies start with research.
Finding and including quotes from clients. You may feel comfortable interviewing clients. You may have no idea how to do it.
Knowing what details should and shouldn’t go into it. It’s easy to accidentally include trade secrets in documents like case studies – a good case study writer knows how to avoid that!
2. You Need Document Design as Well as Writing
A case study is more than just a nice story about how your brand saved the day for your client. It’s showcasing you as a professional, and it needs to look the part.
Just check out this case study on one of our EW clients. It’s got everything from interesting typography to visuals and even a color scheme. ?
Case study writers are often skilled in document design as well. They may also work with a vetted graphic designer, which simplifies the process for you. At Express Writers, we offer document design for our case studies with highly trained designers who can take your branding guidelines and create a gorgeous document that helps you put your best foot forward.
Case studies need to be aesthetically attractive and reflect your brand. Here’s one example of what our designers at Express Writers can do.
What other content types are essential for your marketing? Get our Master List of Copywriting Services and ensure your content plan is complete.
3. You Don’t Have Time to Spend Months Writing It
Case studies can be short – sometimes they get the point across in as few as 750 words (that’s a page and a half single-spaced in Word).
That doesn’t mean they’re always quick to write. In fact, if the case study takes a mere afternoon to create then you’re probably doing something wrong. Why?
It takes time to research properly. A solid case study will take some digging. If you’ve already got lots of other stuff on your plate, it’s easy for it to slip to the backburner. In contrast, a case study writer has the dedicated time to compile everything that’s needed.
It takes time to gauge the outcome of your solutions. This is especially true if you’re hoping to gather statistics and metrics that demonstrate how well the solution worked. A good writer knows when those metrics are viable and when they’re potentially jumping the gun.
Stay Focused on Business: Get an Expert Case Study Writer Today
Case studies are often one of the trickier forms of content to write – that might help explain why they trail in popularity behind media like blogs and infographics. Still, when you manage to get them exactly right, they can be a powerful way to generate leads that are ready to purchase because you’ve already provided them with proof that your solutions work.
Hiring an expert case study writer maximizes the odds that your case studies will deliver the results you need. Don’t leave your demonstrated expertise to chance or DIY.
By now, you probably know that content is the foundation of a successful SEO strategy.
The problem with content is when companies put too much emphasis on the number of blog posts, rather than the value of the information inside.
Assaulting your readers with a barrage of meaningless posts each day won’t drive more traffic to your site.
When people search the internet, they aren’t really looking for products or services.
They’re looking for solutions to their problems.
Long-form content that provides answers will be more useful, which resonates with customers and earns you higher search engine rankings for increased visibility.
More than 70% of marketers claim content is very or extremely important to their marketing strategy.
However, only 27% rate their efforts as very or extremely successful.
Why is that?
The answer is simple: Crafting quality content is harder than it seems.
Any business can crank out a host of mediocre, uninspired blog posts. But quality content doesn’t just fall off a conveyor belt in an assembly line.
One way you can develop content that engages readers and serves as an invaluable resource is by creating pillar content.
Exactly what is pillar content?
Pillar content is content that establishes your reputation as an authority in your industry, builds trust among your audience, and generates sales for optimal business success.
Let’s learn how.
What is Pillar Content?
Pillar content is significantly informative content that provides invaluable knowledge about a particular subject. It can be separated into sub-topics that continue to provide readers with additional information.
[bctt tweet=”Any business can crank out a host of mediocre, uninspired blog posts. But quality content doesn’t just fall off a conveyor belt in an assembly line. ? Learn more about pillar blog posts #contentmarketing ?” username=””]
According to Rand Fishkin, all content should be 10x content (as in, it’s ten times better than the average blog post).
But pillar content must be substantial enough to build your brand on.
Think of pillar content as a broad subject, like digital marketing.
Beneath that subject exists a bunch of laser-focused sub-categories, like SEO, social media, and paid advertising. This is known as cluster content.
Pillar content delivers thorough answers to the questions online searchers ask about that main subject.
Then, it links to that cluster content for more focused information.
Let’s look at a real-world example.
I recently wrote an insightful piece about Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines.
Not only does this article outline and explain the key points of the guidelines. It also teaches people WHY they need content, a critical factor in the buying decisions surrounding content.
This pillar piece brings value to readers through its main subject (Google’s guidelines) as well as the cluster content (why content is necessary), all while earning high search listing placement.
That’s the sole purpose of pillar content.
Pillar content stands out from similar content and is engaging, reliable, or helpful to your readers.
It allows you to:
Eliminate Redundancy: Comprehensive content prevents repetition of material throughout your site.
Plan Future Content: Pillar content can lead to sub-topics within that category.
Connect the Dots: Link within your own content to provide helpful resources to your audience.
Since pillar content provides a well-researched, authoritative piece that links to offshoot sub-pages, it’s extremely effective for SEO.
It not only provides tons of content to align with keyword searches and relevancy.
It also links to other expert sources and expands reach exponentially.
All of this positions your brand as an authority on a specific topic, building trust and loyalty among your audience and leading to a higher conversion rate.
Because it’s so in-depth, pillar content tends to be among your site’s best material.
You know that old adage, “Put your best foot forward”?
That’s what pillar content does. For that reason, it’s typically where you’ll direct new visitors.
But pillar content is evergreen, so it also has a long shelf life.
It’s authoritative information about a topic that will continually gain interest. Visitors will check it out (and other sites may link to it) long after it’s been posted.
With continual updates, edits, and maintenance, it will always be meaningful and relevant.
Pillar content can consist of anything from infographics and videos to blog posts and articles.
It’s simply a way to support foundational content for a specific niche.
When executed well, it can be timeless, continually useful for readers, and eternally gain you higher search engine rankings.
Why Should You Use Pillar Pages?
There are two main reasons pillar pages should be part of your marketing strategy.
First, they help you organize your content so readers can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
Let’s face it. People love convenience, and there’s very little that’s more convenient than pillar pages.
They provide a one-stop shop for all of the important information users are looking for online.
It’s like digging for treasure and finding a gold mine. ⛏
But businesses also have a lot to gain from pillar content, and that brings us to the second reason you should use pillar content.
From a marketing perspective, pillar content is also a gold mine, but for SEO.
Pillar pages help your SEO efforts in several ways.
1. Cut Through the Clutter
To provide the most consistent, relevant, and useful results to its users, Google likes to know exactly what’s happening with your website’s content.
When Google sees your articles link back to pillar content that all relates to the same subject, it’s clear what that subject is and Google understands how to rank your pages.
Not only does this help clarify your website’s relevance for Google’s search engine guidelines. But the more your website mentions a certain subject, the better you’ll rank for that subject in particular.
Organization isn’t just beneficial for Google.
It also helps readers navigate your site and effectively consume all of your content, providing a better user experience.
This, incidentally, also helps boost your search engine rankings.
Pillar content helps you cut through the clutter of all the information Google has to crawl and helps to place you in a more prominent ranking position.
2. Develop More Quality Content
With a word count of 2,000 to 5,000, pillar pages are longer than a typical blog post, so they create tons of content for search engines to scan.
The shared research that goes into a single piece of pillar content allows future pieces to sprout from that topic, which creates even more content for SEO.
Pillar content can become video scripts, individual blog articles, and social media posts.
Since pillar content is so thorough, it takes dedicated research to develop it.
This results in more high-quality, comprehensive messaging with focus points aligned throughout the piece.
3. Drive Traffic to Your Site
Because pillar pages are so rich with quality content, they offer lots of opportunities for strategic keyword placement, so people will naturally be directed to your site.
This not only results in an increase in traffic.
It provides chances to remarket to an audience who, for whatever reason, may not have engaged long enough to convert.
You can send retargeted ads or links to other pillar pages they might find useful.
These efforts drive traffic to your site and give you another chance to entice prospects to become customers.
4. Increase Engagement
When you publish lots of comprehensive content on your site that resonates with readers, they’ll be tempted to binge-read your material.
They’ll want to find answers to as many of their questions as possible.
The more quality content you host on your page, the more time people will spend on your site.
Since visitors won’t be bailing out to find information elsewhere, you’ll see lower bounce rates.
(Incidentally, that’s the fourth most important ranking factor for SERPs.)
By serving as a valuable resource for readers, you provide a positive experience that is rewarded with prominent search engine rankings.
With some dedicated time and effort, you can create pillar content that will resonate with readers and help boost sales growth and set you on a path for continued success.
4 Common Types of Pillar Content
Pillar content can deliver invaluable information in lots of ways.
There are two important things to keep in mind when creating your content:
How can you most effectively cover your subject matter?
How would your audience prefer to consume the information?
Information that teaches someone how to do something should be presented differently than a piece that explains a general concept.
Some information is better processed as in-depth paragraphs, some as skimmable bullet points.
As you plan your content, here are four common types of pillar content to consider.
1. “What is” Pillar
The internet has empowered people to be constant learners.
At the touch of a button, people can conduct their own research on any number of topics.
A frequently searched phrase is “What is ____”.
If someone hears a word they don’t know or a product they don’t understand, they simply type this phrase into a search box to find out more.
Pillar content can address this trend by giving a detailed explanation about a subject.
Thus, “What is” pillar content is a helpful stand-alone resource that takes people to other pages with useful content. It also helps you to craft a page that aligns with a popular interest, something people have heard about in the news or from friends and want to explore further.
If you can generate a sense of your subject’s importance, you can generate organic traffic to your page.
2. “How-to” Pillar
When a reader finds a “how-to” page, they expect to learn how to accomplish a goal.
These pillar pages are great for creating content that specifically addresses your audience’s needs.
Do some research and find out what it is your readers want to learn.
Then, create authoritative content that delivers tutorials, illustrations, and step-by-step instructions to break down the information into digestible content that’s easy to understand.
3. Guide Pillar
One way to deliver authoritative content is through guides.
People who are new to a concept are drawn to beginners’ guides, because they know those pieces will contain basic information that educates them from start to finish.
A more seasoned audience appreciates definitive guides that fine tune the knowledge they already have.
Either way, guides serve as a destination for readers looking for comprehensive information on a given topic.
A guide that’s well developed and timely can attract lots of attention and drive traffic to your site.
More importantly, it helps to nurture your prospects and turn them into customers.
4. “Best-of” Pillar
Not all educational content is best delivered as a full, comprehensive guide.
Besides, search engines are inundated with ultimate guides.
Set yourself apart from the competition by creating a roundup of the best facts, tips, and techniques surrounding your subject.
Use this information to build pillar content that provides a helpful overview highlighting key points readers should know.
Through bullet points and categorical lists, readers see at a glance that they can quickly skim your content until they find a point that resonates with them.
Because “best-of” content is easy to scan and more manageable than a full-on guide, people see it as less of a time investment and are more likely to check it out.
Creating Pillar Content That Drives Traffic: Easy as 1-2-3
With some careful strategy, pillar content can be extremely effective in driving traffic to your website. Here are three main concepts to keep in mind when developing pillar content that pulls in leads.
1. Know Your Audience
All of the content you create should, ultimately, be for your audience’s benefit.
Sure, your motives may be to drive traffic and generate revenue, but none of that will happen if you don’t write content that your audience wants to read.
That’s why knowing your audience is a must.
Different buyers have different needs, and your content should reflect that.
To start, look at demographics. Gender, age, and general motivators can tell you a lot about your audience personas.
But that’s not the most important information. Look at more qualitative details, like:
What questions are they asking?
What pain points can your content alleviate?
Based on previous behavior, what content has resonated with them in the past?
Once you have a better understanding of who your audience is, you need to find out how to best meet their needs with pillar content.
You might rely on your own experiences to determine what content has been helpful for you, and what might be applicable to your audience.
Next, head to social media. 3.96 billion people have a social media account, so it’s a great source of audience insight.
Monitor discussions and shared content to see what people are saying about your brand, your products, and your competitors.
When you understand their search intent, you can create pillar content that answers their specific questions and solves their particular problems.
2. Research Keywords
An important detail to know about your audience is the words and phrases they’re using to search for your products.
This information is helpful for pillar content for two reasons.
First, it tells you what keywords to target in your content to help boost your search engine rankings and generate brand awareness.
Second, it helps you quickly and easily link to future cluster posts that focus on those topics.
To find the best keyword rankings for your niche, do some research.
While there are tons of keyword research tools out there, the quickest, easiest, and free way to identify popular keywords is to simply do a Google search.
Type in your market and see what phrases auto-populate in the search bar.
These are the most commonly searched words surrounding your topic.
If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see “Searches related to” which gives even more suggestions.
Consider using as many of these targeted keywords as will fit naturally into your pillar content.
The more you do to set your pillar content up for success, the less work you’ll have to do down the road.
If you need help writing for SEO, download our free e-book answering frequently asked questions about SEO keywords.
3. Scope Out the Competition
You know that phrase, “Keeping up with the Joneses”?
It’s not a bad idea, especially when it comes to your competition.
Head over to your competitors’ pages and see what kind of pillar content they’re creating. This is especially helpful if you share a similar audience.
See what they’re doing well and where they’re falling short.
Learn from their experiences. There’s nothing wrong with pulling inspiration from what other people are doing.
Keep an eye on social media networks to see what people are saying about your competitors.
If people are sharing other companies’ pillar content, see what topics are resonating with people.
This candid information can help shape your own content strategy and lead you to create content that audiences are eager to see.
What is Pillar Content Strategy? 5 Steps to Creating Pillar Content Google is Sure to Reward
Now that you understand what it takes to create solid pillar content, how do you go about actually doing it?
You wouldn’t start out on a road trip without mapping out your journey, right?
It’s the same for crafting killer pillar content.
Before you dive in, map out a plan to guide you to your destination.
Follow these five steps to create pillar content that will resonate with your audience and appeal to search engines.
Step 1: Decide on Your Subject Matter and Cluster Content
Think about all of the topics for which you’d like to rank and be known.
Then, from those ideas, choose a topic, or head term, that receives a lot of searches each month.
The head term should be broad enough to have plenty to write about in cluster posts, but not so overarching that its content is meaningless.
A quality head term should:
Support your company’s products.
Be a term searched for by your audience.
Align with your content development efforts.
Remember, the ultimate goal of your pillar content is to convert prospects to customers.
If you’ve looked at keywords and competitors’ pages and still aren’t sure where to turn for topic ideas, there are two tools you might consider.
Google’s Keywords Everywhere Plug-In: Type keywords into the Google search bar and see their monthly search volume. For optimal results, choose phrases with a minimum of 2,500 monthly searches.
Ubersuggest: When you enter keywords into the search bar, you’ll gain insights like popular keywords, top traffic pages, links, and shares on social media.
Both of these tools can give you helpful insights and inspire ideas for effective pillar and cluster content subjects.
Once you’ve got your pillar content head term figured out, start thinking about your cluster content.
Cluster content supports your head term and helps explain subcategories within your main subject in more detail.
Cluster content is typically material you post on a weekly basis, like videos and blog posts.
You can have anywhere from a dozen to thousands of possible cluster content articles.
Their purpose is to provide readers with the most beneficial information based on what others found to be useful.
When determining potential subtopic ideas, think of terms as a question. After all, that’s how people typically search for information online.
Cluster content subtopics should also receive high monthly search volume. For best results, aim for somewhere between 10 and 400.
Side note: The great thing about pillar content is that you’re not limited to one topic.
If, as you’re writing, you see an opportunity for another subject, create separate in-depth blog posts and simply link them back to your pillar page.
This way, you’re creating more content for search engines to rank, and you’re providing even more valuable information for your readers. It’s a win-win!
Step 2: Create Killer Content
Armed with topic ideas and keyword suggestions, you’re now ready to begin crafting some really stellar content.
The beauty of pillar content is that you can either start from scratch, or you can take old blog posts, dust them off, and combine them into something new and fantastic.
However you go about it, be sure to write with SEO in mind to maximize your ranking opportunities and gain more visibility and brand awareness.
Remember, pillar content is authoritative content.
This means it’s thorough, engaging, and so useful that people are driven to save your page, read it again and again, and share it with others.
To achieve this goal, here’s a general outline to follow when building your article:
Eye-Catching Headline: This is the first impression people will have of your content. Make sure it entices them to keep reading.
Intriguing Hook: The article should begin with an interesting fact, a timely current events issue, or a catchy anecdote. Something that will resonate with readers and pique their interest to propel them deeper into your article.
Compelling Story: A well-written article can be just as fascinating as a high-quality book. Storytelling techniques can help connect you with your audience to keep their attention through the very last word.
Organized Structure: Help guide your readers’ journey with headers, images, paragraph breaks, and bullet points. Nobody wants to wade through a block of 4,000-word content.
Use Stats: Pillar content is rooted in research. Use hard facts and give them credibility with links to your resources.
Include a CTA: Every pillar content piece should drive the reader to take action. Whether it’s registering for emails or signing up for a lead magnet, tell your audience what their next steps should be.
Chances are, your first draft will not be the article you actually post.
Take a step back, assess your work, and ask yourself the following questions:
Is this comprehensive enough?
Does it meet my audience’s needs and exceed their expectations?
Is this more valuable than what my competitors are delivering?
Allow yourself several revisions. Do some copy editing. Tighten up wording. Double-check those facts.
Remember, pillar content is your opportunity to put your best foot forward.
Wow your readers with content that they can’t wait to spread around like confetti. ?
Need inspiration for fantastic blogs? Get our free guide here!
Step 3: Create Links Everywhere
Links are pillar content’s super power.
They allow you to literally connect the dots for your reader, providing as much useful content under one overarching topic as possible.
Any time your website references that topic, the page should direct people back to the pillar content.
It doesn’t matter if it’s old content or new, or if it’s technically beyond the pillar’s cluster subtopic.
As long as the information is relevant to the article and provides useful resources to your readers, you should link to it in the pillar content (and vice versa).
These links not only help your readers gain more insight.
They help search engines paint a clearer picture of your site’s content and its relevancy for users who are searching for those subjects.
This will boost your rankings, leading to higher visibility and increased traffic to your site.
Step 4: Shout It from the Rooftops
It can take a long time for pillar content to begin ranking on search engines.
Move the process along by promoting the heck out of your articles.
Include it in your email campaigns, on social media with Facebook ads, and as part of your prospect onboarding process.
After all, it’s invaluable information about a topic they’re interested in and is presented in a comprehensive way.
You might even consider doing some paid advertising to get the word out initially.
Once your content begins to rank, you’ll begin receiving quality traffic and free qualified leads.
A little money up-front might be worth it in the long run.
But the most obvious place to promote your pillar content is on your website itself.
Link to your content from:
Home Page: Since this is the first place people go on your site, it makes sense to promote your content here for increased visibility.
About Page: This is a frequently-visited page, so again, more people will see it.
Current Posts: Link internally within your most popular blog posts.
Sidebar: Feature a list of most-viewed posts on one of your web pages and link to your latest pillar content.
Don’t feel weird about promoting the same content over and over.
After all, this is high-quality, expert-level information you’re providing.
If you’ve done your research and followed this guide, your articles are worth being shared.
They’ll continue to provide value to your readers long after you initially post them.
The more you can get the word out about your content, the more likely you’ll increase readership exponentially and earn higher search listing placement for continued success.
[bctt tweet=”Pillar content. ? How do you create it? 5️⃣ steps: 1) Choose your subject + cluster content. 2) Create killer content. 3) Create links everywhere. 4) Promote like crazy. 5) Keep pillar content updated. Read the full guide ⏩” username=””]
Step 5: Remember, Pillar Content is Always Under Construction
Because they provide in-depth, knowledgeable, timeless information about a particular subject, pillar pages are intended to serve as evergreen content.
To make sure they’re a useful resource that remains relevant over time, you have to be willing to do some upkeep to maintain the integrity of these articles.
New research may affect some of the facts and figures you cited in your original article.
Changes in the industry can cause your articles to become outdated.
Periodically, go back through your website and update old content that has become irrelevant.
After all, you want this piece to be something people continue to reference for years to come.
Maintenance is even more important if you’re promoting your articles on a regular basis.
Sending people to a pillar page with incorrect information can hurt your reputation and negatively impact your search rankings.
It’s not enough to simply edit the body of the content.
You’ll also want to adjust the date on the article and in any headers so search engines will realize the content is current and continues to provide value to its users.
Develop Pillar Content Today to Invest in Your Future
Creating pillar pages isn’t just a way to build an email list or drive traffic to your site.
Developing this kind of content is an essential way to identify what your audience needs, what you want to be recognized for, and what benefits you provide your prospects.
Pillar content doesn’t just impact your business now.
It shapes your future marketing plans as well.
It’s true that pillar content takes more time and effort than the average blog post.
But then again, you don’t run an average business.
Think of pillar content as an investment.
When crafted with your audience in mind, it can help you solidify your position as a valuable resource to your followers.
It helps to build trust, establish customer loyalty, and develops lasting relationships with your followers.
What is pillar content? It’s not just an invaluable tool for your audience.
It’s an invaluable tool for your business.
Need help developing authority content that builds brand loyalty and drives revenue? Check out our Content Shop today.
