Content Marketing – Page 3

How to Optimize Content for Voice Search SEO

September 26, 2024 by Sarah Damron

Hey Siri, how much has voice assistant usage grown in the past few years? Having a personal assistant ready to respond quickly is convenient for all your tasks, from texting your best friend to setting timers. It allows you to multi-task or receive answers to questions without having to pick up your phone and interrupt what you’re doing. Are you in the middle of a board game and want to know when the game came out? Just ask Google Assistant. Are you exercising and curious how many calories 30 minutes on a treadmill burns? Ask Siri. The convenience of voice assistance is beginning to impact SEO directly. The very foundation of SEO starts with targeting search phrases people use. But if people use voice assistants to search and consume content, how might SEO look different due to changing search phrases? Here are a few predictions for voice search SEO based on trends we already see and what we know about content consumption from our years of content marketing experience. The Growth of Voice Search Voice assistants have come and gone (goodbye, Cortana). Today, three contestants stand as the most popular voice assistants: Google Assistant Apple’s Siri Amazon’s Alexa You will also come across lesser-known or more niche voice assistants built for individual brands or apps. Voice assistants are everywhere, helping people live more device hands-free without losing their connection to limitless information. In 2024, there were nearly 149.1 million voice assistant users in the US alone. That number is expected to grow to 162.7 million by 2027. This number includes voice assistants on smartphones, smart TVs, connected cars, and smart speakers. How Voice Search Impacts SEO About 45% of Americans use voice assistants for information discovery. Whenever someone asks their voice assistant a question, it pulls that information directly from the web and reads it back to the user. On smartphones, voice assistants often offer links so users can read the topic further (Yay web traffic!). This rise in voice assistants will impact SEO content marketing because people search for information on Google and consume the content from search results pages, whether knowingly or not. When people search through a voice assistant, they begin with a question. That’s different from most typed searches that often use scattered or disjointed phrases. For example, if you want to know how to fix a leak in your bathroom sink, you might type “bathroom sink leak” or “how to fix bathroom sink leak.” However, when you talk to a voice assistant, you ask complete questions using your natural language patterns, like “Hey Alexa, how do you fix a leak in your bathroom sink?” The voice assistant pulls the answer directly from a search engine like Google. Most responses come directly from a web source, with only a few pre-programmed responses, like when you ask Siri to tell you a joke. Search queries will also subtly change with the increased use of voice search and how people consume those answers. Rather than only reading results, more people will use voice assistants to read out results or sections of your content. Is your content optimized for voice assistants pulling out quick answers? 5 Steps Marketers Can Take When Performing Voice Search SEO Use these five steps to help you create high-ranking content and optimize for voice search. 1. Target Long-Tail Keywords You rarely hear someone talk to their Google assistant using half-baked sentences. Your voice search audience is often using complete sentences and very specific questions. That’s good news for you because those specific questions are often far less competitive SEO keywords than the one or two-word keywords. You’ll find most of those questions through your SEO tools or in Google’s People Also Ask section. In SEMrush, you can see a breakdown of keywords into groups that include keyword ideas and questions. Mixing in those long-tail keywords helps you gain that voice assistant traffic. You can use them as either blog post titles or supporting keywords throughout your content and website. 2. Focus on Natural Language in Your Content As you write your content, especially when targeting long-tail keywords that will attract voice assistants, consider how your content will sound read aloud. You always have a chance of someone reading your content aloud, which should be a constant consideration. Reading your content aloud during editing is a good rule, but it is almost essential when optimizing for a voice assistant. You will want your content to flow easily and sound natural. Try to aim for a conversational style that is engaging to read but still offers value with every sentence. If your sentence is too convoluted that a reader needs to see it on paper to understand its meaning, it’s probably not a good fit for voice assistant responses. You will also want to be conscious of periods and paragraph breaks. This signals the voice assistant, just like it does for a reader, to take a breath so your content doesn’t sound like a long-winded speaker. 3. Take Advantage of Text to Voice Voice assistants do more than just read words on a page. They can interpret everything going on with your content. This is especially important to keep in mind when researching how to optimize a website for voice search as you will need users to be able to navigate pages using voice assistants, not just read straight text. Think back to the last time you watched a movie with subtitles. Remember how the subtitles didn’t just transcribe conversations. It also transcribed sounds like horse hooves, wind, and the actor’s sighs. Voice assistants act similarly. They don’t just tell people what words say. They can also scan and describe specific images, buttons, or even videos. Since smart technology is often anything but smart, you don’t want to leave media descriptions up to chance. Instead, optimize your alt-text. This is a good habit for accommodating voice assistants and aiding those using text-to-speech or whose images won’t load. When you optimize your alt-text, describe the image … Read more

How AI Content Creation Complements Human Writers but Doesn’t Replace Them

September 24, 2024 by Sarah Damron

You can buy mass-produced pens in stores for less than $1 each, yet people are still willing to spend $50+ for handcrafted pens. Even though technology offers ways to mass produce products, services, and content, audiences are still drawn to the magic of human craftsmanship. Even with the appeal of human-created products and services, content consumption will be led by AI, just not in the way most people expect. AI isn’t in competition with human writers but will instead help readers discover and consume content more efficiently, making the role of human writers even more crucial to the content-creation process. Here’s a look at one potential future of content consumption that combines human writers with AI content creation. What Does AI Not Do Before diving into the potential of AI, let’s step back a second and look over where AI falls short. AI Is Limited by Current Content AI does not create content out of thin air. It requires a starting point, prompt, and data to produce results. From the prompt, the AI content creator can scour its database to pull responses and generate content from that prompt. However, the content it creates is still limited by what information is available to the AI tool. As a result, AI struggles to produce original ideas. Human writers can pull new ideas and topics without being prompted. Human creativity and experience is enough inspiration to craft thought leadership. AI Does Not Have the Full Story AI follows patterns to deduce the next step. Think of it like the game of Clue. Throughout the game, you try to guess the primary suspect in the mystery. However, you only have part of the story. As people show you their cards, you get closer to narrowing down the suspect. AI works the same way. When you ask it a question, it can only provide an answer based on the cards in its hand. Sometimes, those cards are from unreliable, outdated, or biased sources, resulting in a biased or inaccurate AI tool. Human writers know when they only look at some of the cards and can take steps to discover the rest of the information before making claims. For instance, most journalists know that a front cover story of a gossip magazine does not equate to hard facts. Yet, most AI wouldn’t know the difference between an exaggerated human-interest story and a researched fact. AI Does Not Use Critical Thinking One of the most challenging parts of AI is its inability to use critical thinking. It cannot correct itself other than looking for variances in patterns. However, it misses small nuances in writing that might not match a usual or natural pattern. It also struggles with empathy. Humans can identify powerful opportunities to publish timely content or identify times to hold back on making statements that might be in bad taste. These are just three of the top reasons you cannot replace human writers with AI content creation. The Relationship between AI and Humans AI was never meant to shine in the creative arts. While many people demonstrate AI’s ability to write, create art, and compose music, this is not where AI was meant to be most effective. Placing AI in the role of people is like using a snow shovel to dig in your garden. Yes, a snow shovel may look like a garden shovel. It even digs like a garden shovel. Despite the similarities, a snow shovel was not built to dig dirt, and a garden shovel is highly ineffective at shoveling snow. Just because AI content generators can create content like people doesn’t mean that’s what you should use. Not when you have highly effective human writers that can infuse so much heart into content. You should also not throw out AI based on its ability to write any more than you should call a snow shovel useless because it can’t dig an effective hole in the garden. Instead, before incorporating or rejecting AI, you need to dive into what it was built for and its potential to transform how humans interact with content. How to Use AI for Content Creation without Removing Human Writers Let’s look at the future of content creation and how AI will play a valuable role in doing what it does best: analyzing and summarizing vast amounts of data. 1. AI Connects Audiences to Relevant Content Google has used AI for years, helping readers find the most relevant content. Its algorithm can identify subtle differences in searches and user behaviors to identify what each user would find most relevant. That’s how Google search pulls different search results for someone in Canada and someone in Florida looking for coffee shops near them. Google can also use its algorithm to understand what someone wants when they search for a driver. For instance, it can distinguish whether they mean someone who operates a vehicle, computer software, or golf equipment, based on past searches, user behavior, and context clues. Thanks to AI, marketers have search engine optimization and can create content that their audience might find. To take advantage of AI, writers should create optimized content that uses keywords, context clues, and relevant links to associated topics to help Google’s AI-powered algorithm match your content with an appropriate audience. 2. AI Summarizes Longform Content Have you ever sat in a meeting that took over an hour and left thinking, “That could have been a one-paragraph email?” That’s how some people feel when they’re looking for information online. Think about the last time you searched for a recipe online. Before seeing a list of ingredients, you had to read through paragraphs of the author’s backstory. You don’t have time for that. Many recipe authors understand that not everyone wants the backstory of their family’s famous green bean casserole. That’s why you can often find a button that allows you to jump straight to the recipe. While that button is not AI-run, Google offers a much more complex “jump to recipe” button. It … Read more

6 Ways B2B Marketers Use Generative AI for Marketing

July 22, 2024 by Sarah Damron

Most B2B marketers use generative AI, even many of our clients. That’s right – our clients use generative AI and still hire a content writing agency. Generative AI has more uses than generating entire blog posts. Most B2B marketers don’t even use generative AI for writing final drafts of blog posts. Learn six ways B2B marketers can benefit from generative AI for marketing to their high-value clients. Pros and Cons of B2B Generative AI for Marketing Generative AI tools like ChatGPT use prompts to generate responses. Using these tools is like having a conversation with a robot. You must use precise language. The tool will create responses based on the content it studied. Most tools study online content, such as leading websites and blog posts. Because it studies what has been written, its answers tend to have a pattern and reflect what is popular. The pros to using generative AI are it can scour much more data than a human writer could. The downside of generative AI is that it can only pull ideas that others have already had. And since it relies on content already out there, it can often be biased if the leading content is biased. In addition, it can also be inaccurate if it pulls information from a site that doesn’t use accurate data. Because of the cons, brands must be careful when using generative AI. B2B brands need to take extra precautions since they often work with clients with a much higher standard of accuracy than B2C brands deal with. Just because generative AI has several shortcomings doesn’t mean you must toss it out altogether. On average, 71% of B2B brands use AI B2B marketing to manage the sales process, including nurturing their clients through content. Image from HubSpot 6 Generative AI Use Cases for B2B Marketing We will explore six ways that generative AI can help B2B marketers who want to keep their content on a higher level to relate to their business clients. Image from Content Marketing Institute 1. Brainstorming New Topics According to the Content Marketing Institute, over half of B2B marketers use AI to brainstorm new topics. This is the top use case for B2B marketers. Often, coming up with ideas is the hardest part of content creation. Once you have an idea, you can research what others wrote for inspiration and perform keyword research to find a unique angle. However, you can’t move forward until you first have a quality, traffic-driving idea. Generative AI can be a valuable source of new topics. It can search thousands of ideas floating around online based on what your audience is looking for. It can then collect those ideas into a convenient summary for you to review. While AI can brainstorm ideas, you will not want to remove your content strategist from the mix. Generative AI is like your Instacart shopper who brings all the ingredients to your house. You still need someone to unload and organize those bags on the shelf. In the same way, AI brings the topics to your strategist, but the strategist must run those ideas through research tools to find which ones relate to the audience and bring in the most valuable traffic. Generative AI just improves the efficiency of the process by giving the strategist a starting point. 2. Researching Content Components Since we are talking about SEO keywords, let’s dive deeper into that topic. Did you know generative AI can also help with finding keywords? It doesn’t replace keyword research tools but can summarize topic ideas into root keywords. You can then search these keywords to find more specific keywords with a higher traffic potential and less competition. In addition to aiding in keyword research, you can use it to help generate headline ideas. When you input your keyword into a tool like ChatGPT, it will generate several headlines around that keyword. We don’t recommend using those headlines exactly as AI provides them. Most of those headlines are generic and use similar syntaxes. Instead, you can use those headlines as inspiration. Flip a few words around or switch them out for synonyms to create a strong, optimized headline that stands out from others on a search results page. 3. Writing Drafts About 45% of B2B marketers use generative AI to write drafts, according to the Competitive Marketing Intelligence (CMI) report. AI is most effective for the first draft, not the final drafts. About 27% of marketers don’t trust what AI writes. Even if they don’t trust the output as a final draft, that doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful for the brainstorming draft. This is the draft where you spew words out as fast as you can think just to add words to a page and provide a framework for writing. This stage is rough and should never see the light of day. However, you must put your ideas on paper before you can organize them into a coherent whole that your business readers will want to read. AI can help with the spewing of words onto paper. When you type a topic into generative AI, it provides an outline and may even write some great starting points. If you want to write industry-leading content, you shouldn’t stop there. Those points will reflect what others in your industry already covered. You want to add originality. More importantly, you want to add industry expertise and personal experience (review Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines to see why personal experience is crucial to Google ranking). Because you want that added depth and originality to your content, you will take your AI-generated rough draft and rewrite it into a 100% fresh draft. The final draft will only have a shadow of the original AI in the form of the outline or a few ideas it suggested. 4. Outlining Assignments Outlining assignments ranked lower than writing drafts for how B2B marketers use generative AI. Marketers often write their outlines based on what they want covered. Those outlines are what they input into AI to … Read more

What Should Your Content Marketing Budget Be?

June 19, 2024June 15, 2024 by Adam Oakley

Most fountains in populated areas have dozens of coins in the fountain basin. People are drawn to fountains, throw in coins, and wish for positive outcomes. While it’s a fun practice, the average person doesn’t expect a return from that coin they toss. Marketers, however, should be much more strategic than throwing a coin into a fountain. If you start tossing money into strategies without a budget, you may run out of resources before you see your goals fulfilled. A budget also helps you designate which areas should receive the most resources. Some places, like paid search, require more investments than others. While your budget for content marketing will be unique to your business, we understand it can be challenging to start crafting a content marketing budget from scratch. That’s why we pulled together some average industry numbers to help you create your content marketing budget. Is Content Marketing Worth the Investment? Why? That’s the question you should be asking right at the start of any budget planning. Why should you invest in content marketing? If content marketing doesn’t generate a profit greater than your initial investment, it’s not worth the investment. From our years of experience, we know that well-planned content marketing strategies far exceed a business’s expectations for return. Marketers who include content like blogs in their marketing see 13 times more return on investment than those without blogs. Your return won’t just come in the form of sales. About 70% of people prefer content to learn about companies rather than relying on ads. Content marketing builds trust, generates new leads, nurtures those leads, and moves them toward sales. It should be part of all marketing strategies, from the smallest to the largest companies. How Are Content Marketing Budgets Changing? About 45% of content marketers plan on increasing in their marketing budget moving through this year. This is a result of inflation and rising content costs. However, it also has to do with increasing customer needs. Readers want to read longer articles, and Google is prioritizing higher-quality content. Both these factors require hiring quality subject matter experts who can provide just what your audience is looking for. Content with media also receives more attention than plain text. Adding in branded photos and videos can further increase your content creation costs. While costs are increasing, so is interest in content. Increasing your budget will also increase your sales if you work with content creators who understand you and your audience. How Much Does Content Marketing Cost? Plan to spend between $5,000 and $10,000 monthly on a strong content marketing strategy. The exact amount will vary, but you should plan to invest 25-30% of your total marketing budget on content. This content marketing cost can be more or significantly less depending on what you include in your content budget and the size of your company. Image from Search Engine Land Here are some of the factors that will influence your budget: Content Strategy Cost: $200+, Express Writers Cost: $300-$400 Before writing content, hire a strategist to plan the most effective channels and formats. A content strategist will help you research profitable topics and build a content calendar. The more you invest in your content strategist, the more guidance you will receive to help you make the most profitable content marketing decisions. Writer Cost: $100+, Express Writers Cost: $57+ The average writer charges between $0.05 and $0.20 per word. However, once you start talking with subject matter experts with more experience, you’ll see rates of $0.30+ per word. Your writer will turn your content calendar and keywords into quality content. Hiring quality writers with industry-specific experience will distinguish you online from generic AI content. Experienced writers will also cost more than hiring writers from content mills. The cost of writers will depend on your posting frequency. Most businesses post weekly or several times a week—only 19% post more than once a week. Editor Cost: $12 per 1000 words. Express Writers: Included While your writer will put forth their best effort to produce publish-ready content, they are human, and you will need an editor to double-check that the content is accurate. An editor helps ensure your content matches the platform and any instructions. At Express Writers, we have quality assurance editors who look over all content. Their services are included in the project cost. Designer Cost: $50+, Express Writers: Included with some packages Graphic design and blog post layout both require a designer to ensure your content looks appealing and will attract readers. The graphic design cost will depend on the complexity of the graphics and your designer’s experience. While Express Writers focuses primarily on written content, we have designers who create basic images, quotes, and infographics that will help your blog posts pop without breaking the budget. Blog design is included in several packages, like our Authority Content. Data Analytics Cost: $20-$50/hr. Express Writers: $300+ Fixed After publishing content, you will want someone to monitor your content’s performance so you understand how well you are reaching your audience. You will most likely have an in-house data analyst to monitor your content. However, if you are looking for a deeper overview, hiring Express Writers’ content strategist to look at your growth and suggest adjustments might be worth the investment to keep you on track. Advertising Cost: $200+ While organic search is much more cost-efficient and yields long-term results, you may want to sponsor content to temporarily boost traffic and awareness. Advertising will add up quickly, depending on the platform. The average cost per click can range from a couple of cents to a couple of dollars. Social media advertising, on average, ranges from $850 to $2750 monthly. Content Marketing Equipment Cost: Varies Content marketing doesn’t require high tech, but you may need to invest in a few supporting tools. To perform all your content marketing in-house, you must budget for research tools like SEMrush and content management tools for creating and posting content. If you outsource your content, you can … Read more

Why Your Content Marketing Must Have Focus

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024 by Adam Oakley

There are approximately 34,000 species of fish, and scientists discover hundreds more each year. Despite the huge variety of aquatic life, commercial fishing typically only focuses on a single fish species at a time. Casting wider nets doesn’t always result in higher profits. Content marketers can be tempted to cast a wide net – to appeal to every demographic, capture every audience, and speak to every niche. However, by focusing on a few topics (or a single topic) content marketers can actually increase their profits. Today, I’m going to dispel 3 content marketing myths: Having content about more topics will attract more followers. Focusing on only one topic will become boring. Limiting your focus will limit your revenue. Myth #1: Having Content About More Topics Will Attract More Followers On it’s face, it sounds like a no-brainer: if you have something for everybody, everybody will have a reason to stay. However, spreading yourself too thin can have real consequences. The Reality: Zooming out Attracts a Wide Audience, but Zooming in Attracts a Dedicated Audience Let’s say your makeup brand’s blog hasn’t gained the traction you’d hoped it would. To appeal to more readers, you start incorporating articles about trendy topics like cryptocurrency and AI. While you may earn a few clicks that way, you’re unlikely to increase your profits. This is for a few reasons: Compromising your focus may earn short-term clicks, but unfocused clicks are less valuable. Focused content marketing attracts a focused audience – people more likely to become customers and advocates. Having content about too many topics attracts a scattered audience who are harder to convert. Writing about vastly different topics makes it harder for audiences to find more of the content they’re looking for. If you attract a new reader with an article about lip liners, but your other posts are about travel destinations and homestyle recipes, they’re unlikely to stick around. Covering multiple topics can undermine your credibility. Credible experts typically stick to their areas of expertise, so creating content about too many different topics gives audiences the impression that you’re a jack of all trades but a master of none. Instead of “zooming out” by expanding your focus to include more topics, “zoom in” by going further in-depth with your content. Your audience seeks out your content because they’re interested in your niche and they want to learn more – so give them what they’re looking for! Ultimately, it’s better to appeal strongly to a focused audience than to appeal weakly to a wide one. A shallow pool gives you more room to cast a wide net, but less depth results in less sales. Myth #2: Focusing on Only One Topic Will Become Boring Depending on how specific your niche is, you may worry about running out of topics to cover – after all, how much can there possibly be to say about faucet diffusers or data management software? However, when you fully explore your topic, you will constantly uncover new things to say – and new ways to say them! The Reality: Fully-Explored Topics Rarely Become Boring Don’t underestimate your audience. No matter how niche your topic is, a quick online search is likely to produce a YouTube channel, web forum, or Facebook group focused on that very topic. When it comes to marketing, it’s good to be unique. In the previous myth, we talked about the benefits of “zooming in” to cover topics more in-depth rather than casting a wide net and piquing a lot of interest but not being able to keep it. But if you find yourself running low on ideas or fear the well will someday run dry, try these tips to reinvigorate your content marketing: Try a new angle. For years, your music equipment company’s YouTube channel has released a “guitar pedal of the week” video every Friday. Over the last few years, your engagement has tapered off, and you just can’t get the traction you used to. Try a new angle, like “battle of the guitar pedals” or “pedal guitar of the week.” In addition to attracting new viewers, a new angle can reinvigorate your creativity and enrich your content. Expand to new channels. Are your blog posts starting to feel stale? Try writing a social media post, drafting an email campaign, or filming a YouTube video. Instead of branching out to a new topic, try exploring your topic through a different format. The unique limitations and opportunities of a new marketing channel will force you to approach the topic in a new way. Conduct new research. One of the ways you can offer value to your audience is through providing credible expertise. In some minds, expertise means not needing to do research, but the opposite is true: experts are the ones who do the most research and are constantly learning new things. If you’re concerned that your topic is getting boring, seek out new knowledge about it – learning something new will not only give you something new to talk about, but it will also enrich your understanding of the entire subject. Myth #3: Limiting Your Focus Will Limit Your Revenue Content marketers have to straddle many different goals: crafting a strong brand image, attracting new leads, speaking to their audience’s needs, increasing engagement, etc. However, one central goal underpins these other endeavors: your business has to be profitable to succeed. At the end of the day, if your content marketing is engaging, targeted, and informative, but it isn’t profitable, it isn’t viable. The Reality: Focus Drives Revenue. In the introduction, we talked about how when it comes to casting literal nets, fishers do better by targeting a specific kind of fish rather than by casting a wide net and catching whatever comes their way. Why is that? Different fish require different strategies. Fishers use different techniques to catch bluefin tuna than they do catfish. It isn’t practical or profitable for fishers to invest in the equipment, tools, or training needed to catch fish they … Read more

3 Bucket Approach to Consistently Profitable Content Ideas

June 11, 2024June 3, 2024 by Adam Oakley

The dreaded writer’s block. We have all been there. You stare at a blank content calendar and need thirty days worth of fresh ideas. However, not just any old idea will do. For the time and resource investment to pay off, they must be PROFITABLE content ideas. What do you do? While crying and browsing LinkedIn for new jobs is one option, we have a better idea. Use our three-bucket approach. It’s a form of brainstorming for ideas that uses content goals as your guide to ensure the ideas you do come up with will generate the results you need to grow. Let’s leave the blank page behind and join the three-bucket approach together. What Is the Three Bucket Approach to Content Ideas? Whether creating new content or refreshing old content, you need a strategy for finding endless topic ideas that won’t waste your precious time or drain your resources without promising a return. The three-bucket approach begins with the end. Before creating content that generates results, you need to define what results you want. I recommend summarizing your desired results in three buckets or overarching ideas and goals. They will keep your marketing content focused on the end goal and ensure what you publish contributes to those profitable goals. Here are three buckets that we use at Express Writers and works well for many similar brands: SEO & Brand Awareness: Create content that will appear in search engine results, generating traffic and getting our name out. Lead Generation & Nurturing: Create content encouraging web traffic to fill in forms, read multiple articles, and engage with content as they move through the sales journey. Sales: Create content that promotes products and services and drives sales. While your buckets may look very different, SEO should still be a top priority, as over half of web traffic comes from organic search. Can content fall into multiple buckets? Most definitely! For example, some content will be SEO cornerstones but also drive sales. The key is filling your website with content that falls into at least one bucket. Otherwise, you are creating content for content’s sake. Connect Your Buckets to ROI Goals Let’s not just leave your goals as buckets. If you want to turn your content into profits, you will want to define what success looks like. Let’s start with the SEO bucket. For SEO to be successful, how much of a traffic increase do you want to see from organic search? Define that number and monitor how well your content performs to keep you on track. Lead generation might refer to a target number of new leads you generate each month or a target engagement rate. Sales will be an easier category to track as you can use unique tracking codes in your content to monitor how many of your readers click the link and purchase your product, sign up for your demo, or request a quote for your services. Fill Your Buckets with Seed Keywords Along with establishing goals, you also want to list seed keywords. At this point, don’t worry about search traffic and deep research. Your seed keywords are terms that define who you are as a company. They are very broad. For Express Writers, our seed keywords would be terms like “Content marketing,” “Content writing,” and “SEO.” You don’t need to stick with just three, but you also don’t need to list over a dozen seed keywords. If you have too many seed keywords, consider finding a term that captures several keywords into one overarching idea. To start, list three to five seed keywords. These might define your industry or cover your product categories. As you move forward in your three-bucket strategy and begin brainstorming, those seed keywords may change as you find better terms to describe your business and categorize your content. How to Generate Content Ideas That Turn a Profit Once you have those buckets defined and benchmarks established, it’s time to fill them out and overflow them with topics! At this point, you will set those three buckets aside. We are just looking at brainstorming and jotting down as many topics as possible. Sorting them into buckets comes later. However, you will want to keep those seed keywords handy as they’ll provide a starting point. Discover how to find blog content ideas with five tried-and-true methods. 1. Perform Keyword Research If your goal is search engine ranking, this step is a must! Keyword research not only finds topics for content but also identifies topics most searched among your audience. Our favorite tool is SEMrush, but we and other marketers also use Ahrefs, Buzzsumo, and Moz. It’s time to pull out those seed keywords again. They will be a starting point for your SEO. If you’re using SEMrush, you will type the first seed keyword into the search bar, such as searching “Content marketing.” From there, SEMrush will return a list of related terms. At this point, you don’t need to be too picky about the terms you save. As long as they’re relevant, all those recommendations could become potential blog and web page topics. Add all the keywords relating to your topic into a list, which you will export into an Excel file and add to your master list of content ideas. SEMrush 2. Use Google Search Google offers three different ways to discover new topics for your website. The first step is to begin typing your seed keyword into Google search. Google will suggest searches based on what people commonly type after the seed keyword. These suggestions are constantly changing and usually reflect trending topics. If you perform a search of your seed keyword, Google has two sections on the search results pages with follow-up search suggestions. The first is “People also ask.” This section is near the top of your page and includes long-tail keywords and questions that people often ask relating to your search. This is a goldmine of topic ideas. About 8% of people phrase their searches as a question, … Read more

15 of the Most Influential Bloggers and What You Can Learn From Them

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Adam Oakley

Work until you will no longer have to introduce yourself! This is arguably one of the best pieces of advice that you will ever receive while working hard to grow your business. Next thought: could a blog simplify your efforts and support your boldest ambitions? The success stories of today’s best-loved influencers in the content industry show that a blog is an invaluable asset that can bring you money and fame in the long run. Let’s look at how they did just that! 15 Bloggers Who Prove That Content Success Is Just Around the Corner Some of the most influential bloggers of the moment demonstrate that inspiring strings of words can consolidate businesses, change mindsets and turn losses into profits. Here are 15 prominent, brilliant people who master the art of business blogging. 1. Noah Kagan. Noah Kagan of okdork.com is the founder of two multi-million businesses, successful blogger and Tacodeli lover. His blog is an excellent source of inspiration for those who are looking forward to revamping their content strategy and putting their talent and excellent writing skills to good use to supplement their income. Posts like What I’ve Learned about Email Marketing after Losing $135,000 a Day are educational, information-rich and tailored to the needs of readers who wish to reduce their losses and boost their productivity in the content industry. Whether you want to learn how to grow your email list or improve your writing, Kagan’s expert advice will guide you in the right direction. 2. Darren Rowse. As a former minister with a plethora of interests, including food, reading, movies, wine and photography, Darren Rowse has what it takes to fit the profile of a successful blogger. Rowse is the founder of multiple blog networks and blogs, including ProBlogger.net and b5media. 3. Pat Flynn. Pat Flynn from www.smartpassiveincome.com can teach you everything you need to know about foolproof ways of making passive income. If you also want to hear the ka-ching sound effect while resting on your couch with your laptop on your lap, follow Flynn and find out how he managed to make 3 million dollars over the course of six years by creating websites that target different niches. An interview published by Forbes reveals some of his well-kept secrets: he surprises his audience with well-written informative materials that answer their daily questions. By providing digital books and other freebies, Flynn keeps his readers coming back for more time after time. 4. Neil Patel. Neil Patel is a Seattle-based angel investor, entrepreneur and analytics specialist. As the founder of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, Patel gives SEO/blogging tips meant to help small business owners succeed where others have failed. Patel takes his relationship with his readers/potential clients to a whole new level by introducing a new option: Reserve Neil Online. At a touch of a button, you can schedule a confidential discussion with Neil Patel and discover the secrets of the entrepreneur who has turned multiple blogs into a successful online business. 5. Seth Godin. Godin is an overall genius: author, entrepreneur, marketer, and public speaker.The sky is the limit when it comes to inventorying the number of things that you could learn from this extraordinary multitasker. Land on his website, check out his blog, fall in love with his newest bestseller entitled What to Do When It’s Your Turn, and don’t forget to take a glance at the section entitled “Free Stuff.” In this corner, you’ll be able to download and analyze manifestos, PDFs and ebooks for free. For instance, The Bootstrapper’s Bible is available for free for a limited period of time and teaches you for to start a business when you have no money in your pockets. Download, read and apply. 6. Matt Marshall. Matt Marshall is the Founder and CEO of VentureBeat. For almost a decade now, VentureBeat has made a name for itself as a leading source of information delivering fresh news that can help tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and executives make smarter decisions. Basically, this premium resource that attracts around 7.5 million unique visitors each month gives you the chance to discover and understand all the novelty factors associated with various technology trends, ranging from games and health tech to mobile and social media. Marshall signs a series of interesting must-read articles that will automatically catch your eye, especially if you’re interested in the tech innovation and entrepreneurial field. 7. Rand Fishkin. Fishkin is the Founder of Moz and Co-Founder of Inbound.org. His blog gets thousands of views and shares, besides all the traction his amazing company Moz has had. He’s also a celebrated speaker at events like PubCon, and a well-read author. His Whiteboard Fridays are some of the best visually done weekly vlog-casts on the web. 8. Matt Cutts. Everybody knows Cutts as the voice of Google. He isn’t the most awesome blogger (sporadic posts, all over the board on topics) but he is definitely highly followed and read. Maybe because he works at Google—just a guess. 9. Gina Trapani. Gina Marie Trapani is the CEO and Founder of Lifehacker. She is also a reputable web developer, writer and tech blogger and the author of several bestselling books that deserve a spot on your nightstand, including Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day and Upgrade Your Life. She is constantly active on social media platforms and spends most of her day podcasting and coding. Trapani is also the proud co-founder of ThinkUp, a brilliant app allowing you to picture your online self by offering you daily insights that you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. In case you’re interested, note that this handy tool comes with a 14-day free trial. 10. Pauline Cabrera. Pauline Cabrera is the founder of www.twelveskip.com, a popular blog on all things Internet Marketing. TwelveSkip is a top-rated resource whose purpose is to address the problems and concerns experienced by small business owners striving to boost their online visibility. Delivering a mix of quality information on content marketing, blogging, affiliate marketing and visual marketing, this blog also provides countless practical tips, educational … Read more

What is Evergreen Content and How to Use it to Build Your Brand

April 1, 2024 by Korilynn V.

Search engine optimization takes time. It’s like building a house where each new addition strengthens your construction. Every blog post you write, and website page you add gives you more authority and ranking potential. Today we dive into strategies to build your evergreen content. Covering trending topics and the latest news and stats is vital for remaining relevant, but those topics don’t rank in search engines for very long. Those topics receive a considerable boost initially, but you’ll see traffic die down as people move on to the next greatest thing. Evergreen content is the opposite of that. This is a cornerstone topic that doesn’t go out of style. It just keeps generating more traffic. It ages like fine wine, becoming stronger the longer it’s alive. But, like fine wine, evergreen content requires care to hold its value. We’ll explore what evergreen content is and how you can use an evergreen content strategy to build a solid online brand. What Exactly Is Evergreen Content? Evergreen content remains relevant and doesn’t go out of style. It’s the exact opposite of breaking news and trending topics. It doesn’t expire, and people don’t lose interest in the topic over time. Here are a few examples of evergreen content: Educational Guides: How-to articles, tips, and steps for completing tasks are all examples of evergreen content. People consistently need tutorials for completing assignments and ways to sharpen their skills. Fact Articles: Facts remain relevant for a long time unless new information emerges. For example, a post on the history of newspapers won’t change much over the years since no one is taking time machines to the past and changing history. Think about encyclopedia articles. People continually consult this content to learn more about a topic or cite research in an industry. Industry Resources: Industry guides, case studies, and glossaries are necessary for employees to understand their industry and find solutions. Here are some examples that are NOT evergreen content: Current Events: If something is breaking news, readers will probably lose interest as soon as the next big event occurs. Suddenly, that article sounds outdated. Reviews: People and businesses change over time. Just because Suzy loved a restaurant in 2014 doesn’t mean that the restaurant still offers the same quality food ten years later. People who want reviews on businesses, media, and products are usually only interested in recent reviews and testimonials. Statistics: Statistics have a varied shelf life. For example, statistics from medical research studies done five years ago can still be relevant today because research studies are costly and don’t receive regular updates. However, social media usage statistics from five years ago are outdated and usually have a shelf-life of a year or two because that’s a fast-paced industry. Technology: Content referencing technology usually has a short life because technology constantly changes. Something as simple as an image or mention of a smartphone can date an article since smartphones receive annual updates in appearance and function. References to how you can use technology and what technology is available will start an expiration timer ticking. Most of your content will usually be evergreen, as that will be your primary traffic driver. How to Turn Trending Topics into Evergreen Content Here’s an insider’s tip on evergreen content. You can turn your trending content into evergreen topics through regular updates. In each update, check statistics, technology changes, and current event mentions so you’re referencing the most recent updates. Here’s an example of an article Backlinko published in October 2019. Backlinko updates the article with the new year each year, updating any out-of-date statistics and adding new facts to the post. Does this work? The article’s search traffic says it does. You can see where those updates happened, as each update caused a jump in website traffic each year, keeping it relevant. Trending vs. Evergreen Content Examples Let’s look at examples of what evergreen content isn’t, followed by examples of what evergreen content is. Here’s an article that appeared in February 2022 when the Rams won the Super Bowl. Now, let’s look at this article’s traffic trends over time. You’ll notice the immediate peak when Fox Sports published the article. It was breaking news, fresh, and exciting. People everywhere were searching for Super Bowl results. However, just a few months later, it nearly flatlined. You’ll notice again that the columnist updated the article in 2023 in preparation for a new wave of searches as the next Super Bowl arrived. That update was delivered when another spike occurred. However, a year later, the article nearly flatlines again. This is not evergreen content. This is trending content. Trending content is crucial for showing you are relevant, connecting with new traffic, trending term searches, and being an authority in your field. However, trending content won’t bring in consistent website traffic. That’s why most of your website should be evergreen content. Let’s take a look at an example of evergreen content. You’ll notice first that there are no dates or breaking news information in the title. It’s a topic that has stayed relevant through the years because people are still coaching sports teams today, just like in 2015, when this article first came out. And the numbers don’t lie. The organic traffic grew after Harvard Business Review published the article in 2015. It peaked five years later! It wasn’t until it had been out for five years that you saw a traffic dip. Even in 2024, nine years later, the article still brings in a trickle of traffic. What Is the Best Evergreen Content Format? Evergreen content can appear in any online format other than social media. Here are the most popular ways to publish evergreen content: Blog Posts: Blog posts will be your SEO’s primary strategy. They usually appear on a resource or news page on your website. Visitors can search for specific topics, share posts on social media and emails, and see these articles appear in search results. You will also link to past blog articles through internal links. … Read more

The Content Marketer’s Guide to Content Writing Pricing

February 20, 2024 by Korilynn V.

I think we can all agree content is essential. You can’t go anywhere without coming across content. Content is everywhere, from the emails your favorite brand sends to that meme your dentist posted on social media. However, budgeting to create all that content is another beast you might not be ready to tackle. We have some good news for you. Content marketing doesn’t have to be an overwhelming beast that will gobble your budget. You can take it in levels like tackling a video game. You won’t need to graduate to the next level of content marketing until you defeat the one you’re at and receive the profits. Those profits allow you to scale up, creating more content and generating even greater rewards. Content marketing doesn’t feel so daunting anymore now, does it? Let’s break content writing pricing down to see what costs to expect and how to fit them into your budget. How to Craft a Content Marketing Budget Before diving into the numbers, it’s crucial to understand your budget and what factors play into content marketing costs. Sure, Suzy in HR says she likes to blog in her spare time, but can she give you the content you need to achieve your marketing goals? Use these factors to evaluate where you are at as a business and what content writing pricing you can afford. Understand Your Target Audience Content is for your audience. You’re writing to the people you hope will eventually become clients. So, the first place to look when deciding your marketing budget is your target audience. Ask yourself: Who do I want to reach with my content? What do I want my content to tell that audience? What action do I want my audience to take? Where can I reach that audience? These questions don’t just tell you which content marketing channels to prioritize but also tell you what level of content you need. HR Suzy might be able to craft a fun social media post, but can she also write an authority piece for financial leaders? While everyone’s content needs vary, the average monthly content marketing budget ranges between $5,000 and $10,000. You’ll be on the higher end if your target audience has higher educational levels or is in a complex industry like the medical field or cybersecurity. You will fall on the lower end of that range if you’re a B2C business in a more common industry like fashion that doesn’t have too much industry-specific jargon. Factors Impacting Pricing What might make a project or freelance agency cost more than another? Writer Experience: You will pay more for subject matter experts with more experience. Industries like the legal industry, finances, and tech usually charge the highest prices because they require significant niche knowledge. Research Requirements: Topics requiring more extensive research will also be more costly to account for the extra time the writer needs to find that information. Search engine optimization (SEO) research is also an additional charge. For example, Express Writers charges $10 for a meta add-on and $60 for keyword research if you want to optimize your content for search engines. Content Volume: If you order content in bulk, you can often receive a discount, which makes creating regular content more budget-friendly. Turnaround Time: Do you need content by yesterday? Expect to pay more for rush orders. Express Writers already prides itself on our fast delivery, with delivery times ranging from 3-10 days, depending on the content’s complexity and length. But, if our delivery is still outside your window, we also offer rushed orders for an additional fee. Managed Options: How much help do you want with your content creation? Adding on services like Express Writers’ Managed Content will increase your costs but will also decrease the time and mental load of content creation. To find the right package for your marketing needs, you need a careful balance of cost and quality. Investing a little more in content today can increase your rewards tomorrow. Investing in consistent quality content over time will significantly boost your web traffic and conversions while saving you hours of valuable time. Budgeting for content marketing comes down to how much your time is worth and what rewards you hope to achieve. The value of those items will define your budget. Average Content Writing Pricing Based on Content Format Now, it’s time to dig into the actual numbers behind content marketing based on average industry prices. Use our freelance content writing pricing as guidelines to budget for your marketing strategy. 1. Average Blog Post Cost Average Cost: $640-$3,600 monthly for eight blog posts. Web content and blog posts will comprise the bulk of your content. Aim to create two to four weekly blog posts to maintain a consistent, high search engine ranking. If you’re posting twice a week, that’s eight blog posts a month, which you can order using a volume discount to make it more budget-friendly. How much will that cost you? A quarter of businesses pay between $500-$1,000 for a month’s blog content. Content marketing pricing varies greatly depending on the business. The average includes different blog post lengths and quality levels. You can easily spend much more than that in a niche industry. At Express Writers, a month’s worth of general blogs will cost $640+ for a basic package with minimal research or expertise. If you’re looking for a month’s worth of high-quality, authoritative content, expect to pay $3,600 for eight highly researched, 1000-word posts crafted by subject-matter experts with experience in your industry. 2. Average Case Study Cost Average cost: $140 per page Case studies require a different skill set than general writing and are often more expensive than what you’d pay for a blog, quickly reaching over $1,000 per case study. What you’re paying for is the marketing experience of crafting a story that highlights your best features while showcasing previous wins. At Express Writers, single-page case studies start at $140 with a $125 design add-on available. Each additional page increases the price by the … Read more