2015 content strategy Archives

Why We Aren’t Fooling You About Good Content! Happy April Fools’ Day!

by Adam Oakley | Apr 1, 2015 | Content Marketing

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Depending on how much your friends or family like to prank, we’ll be considerate and avoid all pranks away this morning with this blog
(you’re most welcome).

We’re here to talk about having great content—which isn’t a joke developed by copywriters and Google, it is actually incredibly important. We promise we aren’t fooling you, and you will be incredibly happy if you focus on having great content. However, you might be wondering just how you can get excellent content all the time, especially if you are a very busy business owner. I am going to look at different content tips as well as services to help you create or receive excellent content you will be proud to share with your clients. Let’s take a look!

11 Awesome Ideas and Services to Help You Improve Your Content

There are several ways to improve your content and make it the best, and I am going to look at a few of these.

Expert Landing Pages are a Must. When you create your website, you always want to make sure that you have expertly crafted landing pages and web content. Having great web pages means that you have a higher chance of converting visitors into leads, and building your customer base. This is something that you obviously want because more customers means more revenue, and those customers might just tell others about your company and so on. Having these great, crafted landing pages is vital, and you need to find people who can expertly create them for you if you have any trouble whatsoever.

Blogs Are Vital to Any Online Presence. When you want good content, you need to have an ongoing blog for your business. Blogs currently run the content world, and these are what will help bring people into your business’s website and convince those people to search the rest of your site. You can use your blogs as new, individual landing pages, which gives customers several places to choose and learn more about your company and services. Blogs provide a unique opportunity to help your clients out while encouraging them to choose your company for their needs. If you want to get the most out of your blogs, hire our expertly trained blog writers who will know just what to do for your blog and business.

Get a Content Audit for the Best Content. Content audits are oftentimes overlooked because they can be time consuming. However, a content audit is a great way to make sure your content is still quality and fits with any new Google algorithms. A content audit is something I regularly encourage people to get because it really does help you learn more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of your site, and lets you know what you should change. You can take a DIY approach to content auditing, but it does take quite a bit of time, so the most efficient step is to hire our trained content auditors. Trained content auditors can help find everything you need to know to improve your website, making it the best it can be.

Content Curation is the Way of the Content Future. Are you looking for excellent resources to share with your clients or to generate blog topics and titles? Then you should be actively engaging in our (recently launched service), content curation. This is a perfect way to find high quality resources that will help you create consistently great content. In addition, content curation will help you stand out as a leader in your field, and if you curate top quality material, you are more likely to be trusted by your customers. Trust is a great way to bring in more customers and keep your existing ones.

Optimization is Still Important. While I have discussed all the different methods you need to use when creating content, optimization isn’t over just yet. It is still vital to content because those keywords can help with the big picture. Optimization implements your chosen or needed keywords into your blogs and web pages to help them rank on the search engine results page. Your website, with its multiple landing pages gives you many opportunities for optimization, which will greatly benefit your business.

Keyword Research Helps You Find the Right Keywords to Use. When you use the above optimization, you will need to make sure you’ve researched the best, most impactful keywords for your site to get the best results. You can do this on your own through Google Analytics to see which words are bringing in more clients. One of the best ways, however, is to have our SEO experts do keyword research for you in your industry to find the ones that will have low competition while also being able to drive a lot of traffic and engagement. Depending on your business, there are a variety of keyword types that can work for you. There are the basic keywords that incorporate your services, but another form of excellent keywords is the long tail or local keyword for local based companies. This will help you come up on local searches easily, helping people in your area find your business.

Hiring Niche Copywriters Helps Significantly. When it comes to your business, it is one of a kind and might have a very specific audience. Because of this, you are considered a niche industry, and you need writers who can write specifically for it. This oftentimes holds niche companies back from developing blogs because the owners and workers don’t have the time to dedicate to writing blogs every week, but they don’t want just a generic copywriter. This is where a niche, industry copywriter comes in. You can find one that can write for your industry to help make the biggest impact and bring in more clicks and leads.

Have an Epic Social Media Presence. One of the best ways to have great content is to make sure you have an epic social media presence. This can help you convert new customers from people simply visiting your profiles. In fact, many of your customers are already on social media, which makes it a great way to stay in touch with them. However, even if you find that your current customers might not have social media right now, it is still important for you to use it. Social media helps you generate more organic traffic, and you have the ability to control your online reputation. There are many benefits to being on social media.

Press Releases Are Here to Stay. Another way to make sure you have excellent content is to hire someone that can craft an excellent and professional press release to send out. Yes, you heard me correctly; you need to send out press releases. They are still relevant, and are more commonly released in email or digital form. However, they can still have a major impact on your business and help drive more people to your website to purchase your products and services. Modern press releases can be written as a news story to tell people more about your company and what to expect in the coming year, making it more engaging for customers and those in your industry.

Have a Bundle of Topic Ideas. In order to make sure you have great content all the time, you need to make sure you have a plethora of topics at the ready. This will help you when it comes time to write your blogs and give your clients something interesting and engaging. You can research topics for your industry and see what your clients will be interested in to brainstorm some great ideas. However, if you hit a wall when it comes to topic generation, you can always find people who can help you craft excellent topics and headlines to create perfect content for your blogs and website.

Spend Some Time with Creative Writing. Creative content writing is another great way to create and have excellent content. While this might not work with every industry, it can be helpful if you are aiming to tell stories with your content or if you are working on a book for your company. Creative content doesn’t just have to be fairytales and epic battle scenes; it can simply be a blog with a creative voice on an awesome topic. Hiring expert copywriters who have strong, imaginative minds is a great way to get amazing creative writing and make a powerful punch in your industry. Having a creatively written blog will help you stand out from your competitors, as well.

Start Getting and Creating Excellent Content!

Simply by following the above points and implementing some, or all, of them into your content strategy means you will get excellent content. These points are all incredibly beneficial for all websites and businesses and can help you drive great, organic traffic and broaden your client base. If you are having a difficult time doing these yourself or finding someone to help, Express Writers is here for you! Just take a look at our products, services, and our rates page to see which service will benefit you. Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have.

5 Explosive Content Marketing Strategies For 2015

by Adam Oakley | Jan 7, 2015 | Content Marketing

Most times in life, it pays to have a plan. Content marketing is a technique that works best when you look before you leap, and having a strategy can help make your content dollars stretch further. However, the act of developing a smart strategy is another game on its own.

There is no doubt that content marketing will be big in 2015. To get started on implementing your own routine, here are several content marketing strategies that will help take your content marketing to new levels.

Start Your Content Marketing Strategies With an Audit

So, no one really likes an audit — completely understandable. Although audits aren’t the most pleasant way to launch a content marketing strategy, they serve as the perfect kick-starter for several reasons:

Content audits help you find missing information within your website
They help you discover thin content
You can analyze keyword density
They highlight what’s working for you

Overall, you must consider the value that your content brings to the table. As you analyze your current content, ask yourself if your content is educational, relevant, entertaining, or engaging in some way. If your content does not meet at least one standard in those criteria, it might be time for an overhaul.

Bring in Content Curation

Now that your content audit is out of the way, it’s time to start having a little bit of fun. Curating content is bound to go big in 2015, and it’s easy to see why. To relieve the expectations of churning out high quality content week after week, curating content is a breath of fresh air.

The advantages of curating content are many, and if you have yet to include this strategy, you don’t know what you missing. Curating content helps you accomplish:

Brand establishment
Authority in your niche
Relationship building
Increased engagement
Steady stream of fresh content

There are several ways to curate content — by hand or by curating tools like Scoop.it. Even though content appears right before your eyes when you take the route of automation, a human eye is still required to get your curation just right.

Discovering What They Want

To continue the curating theme, the next step is to determine what your audience wants. You can blog about anything under the sun, but what matters most is to understand the needs of your audience. If you aren’t meeting their needs in one way or another, your content will fall flat every time.

So, how exactly do you know what your readers want? To take the mystery out of the equation, you can resort to several sources.

Quora is a community-based Q&A website that brings real-life customer questions to light. There are topics on nearly every industry and niche you can think of. Simply searching for your keywords in the search bar can reveal dozens of topic ideas right before your eyes.
It might seem like an unlikely source, but Reddit contains a variety of topics in an assortment of industries. One of the advantages of Reddit is that, like Quora, you can browse real conversations from people who are considering your services or products.
Not to sound super obvious, but a third option is to ask your audience what they want from you. This is where you can use the power of social media to engage your audience and ask direct questions. You can even start a live Q&A session on Facebook or Twitter to get those ideas flowing.

Top-Notch Topics That Get Them Talking

Generating new topic ideas can be one of the most challenging aspects of content marketing strategies. The goods news is that ideas aren’t as hard to come by as you think, and there are plenty of sources for inspiration if you know where to look.

The first step to finding engaging content ideas is discovering what’s hot and trending in your industry. Check into Google news, industry news websites and magazines, and even network with likeminded people in your niche.

Another unique topic technique is to create a topic web; think back to those days in high school when you drew story webs for English class. The trick to this is taking content that already exists on your website, and using the web to branch out into other relevant areas. A little bit of brainstorming can go a long way for getting that light bulb moment.

Finally, Hubspot’s blog topic generator is perfect for creating fun blogging ideas. By simply entering three nouns into the generator, Hubspot’s helpful tool can give you several ideas for your blog right on the spot.

The 2015 Outlook: Your Content Calendar

So, you know what your audience wants. You also know how to generate awesome topic ideas time and time again. The final part to nailing your content strategy for 2015 is by bringing in the almighty content calendar.

Content calendars are like your little black book of topic ideas, along with your days to schedule your posts. You can also include precise days and times to post to social media. Sure, you can wing your strategy without a content calendar, but there are so many reasons why having one helps immensely:

Content calendars help keep you focused. If you are easily sidetracked or even forgetful, your content calendar can save the day
Content calendars can be as detailed or thorough as you want.
Using a content calendar can align your core business goals with your content
Content calendars can keep you focused on your audience, which helps them stay engaged
Content calendars take the guesswork out of your content marketing strategy

Believe it or not, 2015 is already in full swing. Getting your content marketing strategies in order can make things for your routine smooth sailing for the rest of the year.

Whether you take pieces of these strategies or you dive in head first with all 5, you will be further ahead with your content marketing this year. From content auditing to curating, these simple yet effective strategies will prove their value time and time again.

Photo credit: iStockFinland / iStock