Grammar Nazis: you have to love them, or hate them. When it comes to grammar phrases, clauses, conjunctions, and all that good stuff, this could bring images of nightmarish English teachers peering over a frosted set of glass to your mind. (However, if you’re one of these people, then it will probably make you think of rainbows and Skittles.)
One phrase in the Grammar Nazi’s book that any typical layman would probably not understand is just what we’re going to talk about today: “internal cliffhangers.” Just what does this curious phrase mean?
Let’s take a look at internal cliffhangers with those rascally Supernatural hunters Sam and Dean Winchester as our guides.
Cliffhangers: Dean Might Be Going To Hell
You already know what a cliffhanger is, especially if you are an avid TV watcher. Supernatural uses major cliffhangers throughout the show and always at the season finale. Is Dean or Sam going to hell? Are they getting out? This is a cliffhanger on the macro level; something we are very familiar with in movies, TV, and books but let’s take a look at the micro level of cliffhangers. These handy tools keep audiences reading your content instead of glancing through and forgetting about you.
Internal Cliffhangers: Dean’s Going Downstairs but What’s Sam Doing?
Internal cliffhangers are those little statements or sentences that keep the reader’s attention throughout the whole article or book. In the podcast episode for The Lede, Demian Farnworth defines internal cliffhangers as the sentences that piece your story, article, etc. together with emotion or shock to keep the reader interested. You don’t keep watching Supernatural because of the old, overdone cliffhangers of a character going to hell, you keep watching due to internal cliffhangers like wondering what Crowley is up to or if Castiel will ever stop being awkward. These are story arcs that piece the grand story together, but keep you interested until it is time for a massive plot twist and the season finale. Using internal cliffhangers will help cultivate long-term readers and customers, which will help your Google rankings and make your business successful.
Utilizing Internal Cliffhangers In Your Content
You need to be using internal cliffhangers in your content to help generate buzz and keep the reader’s interest. Cliffhangers can help in many areas and you can find ideas for them everywhere. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1. They Can Help Your Storytelling.Storytelling is a perfect way to keep readers interested in your content. You don’t necessarily have to write a “Once upon a time” sentence, but you can outline your content in story format. Internal cliffhangers work wonderfully for storytelling, as they are major parts of stories already. Get to crafting some intriguing stories for your site and you will see that internal cliffhangers begin to come naturally. Don’t stress too much when it comes to writing these, though. You do not want your content to come across like you are trying too hard. Just write naturally and see what happens! You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get these cliffhangers by just being natural.
2. You Can Gain Inspiration from Other Stories. If you are having a hard time coming up with great internal cliffhangers, try watching a few TV shows or films. This blog is inspired by the CW’s show Supernatural and that show really helped with the outline. The show is a great illustration of the use of major and internal cliffhangers; it also is a fairly popular show that many people enjoy, therefore, keeping the content relevant.
3. Internal Cliffhangers Keep You Relevant. The best way to learn how to use internal cliffhangers is by staying current. Relevant content is what will keep readers coming back and using relevant and fun cliffhangers will help.
Stay Inspired, Young Hunter
If Supernatural isn’t your thing, never fear; there are so many wonderful TV shows out there that can inspire your writing and give you great illustrations of how to use internal cliffhangers. You can even try to read the latest book series or look to some old, yet incredible, stories. Some great authors who are perfect with internal cliffhangers are George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, and Suzanne Collins. Pick up a book and see how many times you keep reading because you have to know more. Find different things that inspire you and help you craft excellent content. It doesn’t have to be a TV show or another form of entertainment. It can be something as simple as taking a walk or watching how people interact with each other. Stay in school and be willing to learn new tricks every day!
If you are in the SEO business or in case you are thinking about it, there is one major rule you will have to keep in mind: the search engines don’t care about companies; they only rank content. It doesn’t matter how great your company is if you can’t offer the readers high quality content.
The main purpose of search engines (including Google) is to offer their users the best experience possible. When a user searches the answer to a question, the more details the answer has, the more useful it is for the user. As a result relevant and high quality content will have a better ranking in the search results.
All this determines your goal in content creation: publishing marketable, useful and relevant information. This will boost your ratings and it will ensure that your SEO strategy will have long-term effects.
So here is why content is the key element of SEO:
1. People Are Interested in What You Have to Say
According to Brafton.com 52% of people made purchase decisions based on what they read on blogs and 57% of the marketers gained new customers because of their content. 42% of people look for articles and blogs about the products that they wish to purchase and 60% of the marketers claim that content helps them make better decisions. 61% of the customers say that they are likely to purchase the products of a company that offers custom content. All this should show you how important your content really is.
Now that you know your content makes all the difference, what could you do to improve it for higher SEO ranks and more traffic?
2. Give the Consumers What They Need
First of all, you have to know what your target audience is. Secondly, you need to know what they want and what information is relevant to them. If you don’t, you will waste time and energy offering solutions to problems that don’t exist. Once you know what the target audience wants, make sure that the content you offer is really helpful.
Think of the most common questions and offer answers. This way you will become the source of knowledge to the readers. While the other people will be too busy with self-marketing, you will give people exactly what they need which is the best self-marketing strategy ever.
3. Just Give Yourself
Regardless of the kind of content you are thinking about, you can be sure that there are hundreds of people who thought of it before you woke up this morning. This is why you will have to find ways to make your content stand out; find ways to present your content in a way that has never been used before.
If your content is similar to the others’, you will just need to add value to it. There are many different ways to make your content stand out, such as adding videos, infographics, images, or anything else that would make it unique.
4. Boredom Is the Death of SEO
You may be working in a field that is boring or dry, but you can be sure that they are always ways to add a fun and creative spin to it, even if you are in the field of toilet seats.
One of the most important aspects that you will have to be thinking about is branding, according to Seth Godin. Based on information from brafton.com, half of the users are more likely to visit a page if it appears several times among the search engine results. For this you will need a diversified content strategy. It means that you should have blogs, webpages, images, videos, whitepapers, social snippets, infographics, and anything else you could think of.
All this will result in people being engaged with your brand. You will be able to fill the content gaps and you will maximize the benefits of all your content.
5. Content Reduced to Keywords
When you’re searching for something with the help of search engines, you have to type in keywords. These are the same keywords that the users type in to find your content. Since you know what your target group wants, you should have a pretty good idea of what keywords they might use to reach the desired content. All these keywords must be a part of your pages. This way in the moment the user hits enter, your content will be first on the list of results.
6. Can Keywords Reduce Your Ranking?
In order to have high ranks on the search engine results, there is need for your content to contain keywords. So, why wouldn’t you include all the keywords that you can think about? The truth is this is a very bad strategy. Keyword stuffing isn’t the solution to your problem. If you have too many keywords, the content will lose its purpose and it won’t be useful to the readers. This is why there is a keyword density accepted by common sense. If your web content keyword density is higher, it will hurt your ranking. On the other hand, if you don’t have keywords, it will become very difficult to attract traffic to your content.
7. Is Your Content Engaging?
If you have high quality content, you will be able to engage the readers and this is something that the search engines also measure. The more time readers spend on your site, the better the rankings will be. If you don’t have high quality content, the readers will simply bounce back to the search results and, again, this will hurt your ranking.
8. Be “Socially” Involved
You can see social media everywhere you look. If you get shares, likes, tweets, or any other kind of social feedback, it means that you have high quality content and this is something that the search engines will appreciate as well.
All in all, no matter what kind of feedback you’re striving for, it all comes back to your content and whether or not your readers like it. Regardless of what you’re writing about, always consider what the readers want; the search engines want the same thing as your readers: high quality, informational, engaging content.
No matter if you’re a lawyer or agricultural field surveyor, your website and your services should be worded in a way that everyone on the world wide web can read and understand it. Ask yourself – Is my content smarter than a 5th grader? Don’t worry – we’re not exactly asking you to “dumb it down.” In fact, we get that you want your content to be smart and informative. This is more about making your web content reader-friendly. Stop trying to be the Charles Dickens of copywriting and begin crafting readable content.
What is Readability?
First off, let’s discuss what readability is when it comes to web content. You should know a few literacy facts before you begin writing. For example, National Law Review states that the average reading level in the United States is a seventh grade level with 1 in 5 American adults who can only read at a fifth grade or lower level. Creating something that is readable for a fifth grader is not just a catchy title for our blog; it is true. You need to write your content so that a fifth grader can read and understand it.
Now, not all of your readers will only be able to read at a fifth grade level, so let’s look at a few ways to make your content easier to read for everyone.
1. Stay Away from the Robo-Boogie. You want your content to rank in the search engine so people can find you, but if you write your content for a search engine you will find readers leaving ASAP. The people you are writing for are not the robots that pop your site up in a search result. If you write predominately for a search engine, your content will not be reader-friendly and will sound awkward because of all the keywords you stuff throughout your content. Don’t do that! Focus on writing on a personal level with a conversational tone. This makes your content easier to read and people can actually relate to you, which is what you want.
2. Jargon-Schmargon. A key part of keeping your content reader-friendly is to stay away from technical jargon. Yes, you may be writing content for legal or insurance companies, but you need to stay away from all the legalese. The general population will not understand most of it, and you want them to be able to relate to what they are reading and to seek out the company you are writing for. If you constantly use technical terms in your content, people will feel like your business will not work well with them and they will look elsewhere. Don’t let that happen! If you have to use institutional jargon, then give brief explanations or say that a friendly associate is willing to help people understand the terms. Make sure people will feel helped.
3. Utilize those Sub-headers. Sub-headers make reading any piece of content a cinch for readers. Copyblogger says that sub-headers engage readers throughout the entire piece and provide mental breaks for them. Sub-headers are like chapters in a book. Your mind knows to rest once you get to the next chapter, so too with sub-headers. You can use sub-headers to grab attention, to tell some information about the paragraph, and to provide an outline for readers. Many readers really enjoy outlines as they can read ahead and know what to expect throughout the article and if the article is interesting. This also helps for the readers who will not read the whole article. They will get the information they want simply by reading your sub-headers. If you don’t provide this, they’ll move on to other content.
4. Lists For the Win! You’ve seen them all over Facebook – lists are an absolute favorite of readers right now and they organize thoughts in short, concise sentences, sometimes offering descriptions. Lists are great ways to get your ideas across to your readers while keeping them engaged. They provide people with enough information and many will read a post in its entirety if it is in list format. Lists are easy to scan and if they are made in a bulleted format, they will stand out from the rest of your content. If someone is scanning your content for the bare information, that bulleted list is going to capture his or her attention pretty quick!
FTW – Simple Content
Matt Cutts recently came out and said (just this February 2014) that it’s better to write with “content clarity” rather than using technical language. He said to focus on clarity of writing and simplicity in words, rather than jargon or scientifically-important language. Way to back us up here, Matt!
By following these steps, you will be able to craft incredible and readable content. You will not have to sacrifice your information or feel that you are “dumbing down” your content because you will still be creating something that is done well. Readability is all about engaging readers, regardless of reading level, and helping them to learn more about your product or services in a simple, yet informative way. It is never too late to start crafting your wonderfully reader-friendly content!
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Express Writers is pleased to introduce our third infographic, The Era of the Content Beast. Our creative writers came up with the text, and our team infographic designer put the visuals together. There’s no better way to put it—when it comes to content on the web in 2014, there’s a real Content Beast out there that needs to be fed!
It’s our ceaseless need for new and fresh information on the web. The voracious Content Beast feeds on content. To keep the beast happy, renew and update content constantly.
How to Keep the Content Beast Satisfied
1. Plan Ahead. It’s difficult to create original, unique content all the time. To keep the content monster satisfied, plan things in advance. This is like stuffing your refrigerator with semi prepared food for when you don’t have time to cook. It doesn’t mean it’s less healthy. Planning your updates and posts early on will allow avoiding being stuck. This way you’ll always have something at hand to feed the Content Beast. Just open your content fridge, heat the creative oven, and serve the monster with a delicious meal.
2. Create a Unified Voice. Stay in sync to keep the Content Beast happy. Website, blog, and social media pages: several tones, but one voice only. Once the Content Beast starts eating food and likes it, he wants the same taste and flavors across all your content.
3. All for One, One for All. Content writing is like music played by an orchestra. To make sure your team is never off-key or out of tune, you need a conductor. Enter the content manager.
4. Upcycle. The content beast may be insatiable, but he’ll soon get tired of stale content. Use what you have to create new content. Change the angle, scrutinize unexplored facets of a topic, which proved to be successful in the past, and delve into your readers’ mind to see what they crave.
The New (Web) Content Beast
Internet users seem to prefer longer website content. Statistics show that longer web pages and blog posts have more followers than shorter web content.
2014: The Walmart Phenomena- A One-Stop Shopping Experience
The beast gets hungrier… We live in an on-demand, want-it-right-now society, where people want to find what they need in one spot. That’s why longer content has gained ascendancy: because it saves time and provides substantial information. With quality, longer content, you don’t have to sift through piles of information to find relevant things.
Web Content: Where To?
Long Content: A Game Changer. To keep the content beast happy you need to feed him long articles. Long means longer than so far. Sweet spot: 2,000 words per blog.
Social Media Sites: No More Junk Content
Large social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Google + are now full of junk content and link spamming. People go to niche sites to find truly useful content.
How Can You Make It in the New Context?
2014: Specialized, Actionable Content. Content is specializedwhen it responds to specific needs.Create niche content that empowers the reader.Specialized, informative content means authority, expertise, and credibility.
Content is actionable when readers learn something and can implement what they learn.
The New Content Beast:
shows readers “how-to”
gives them what is promised in the title
makes the “magic” in the title happen with more comprehensive copy
general vs. specialized
Content Specialization
It’s a win-win for both the content writer and the website owner.
More quality traffic- more visitors- more loyal followers- more paying customers.
Loyal website followers backlink more, making today’s backlinking = a personal recommendation from a friend.
How to Write Quality Longer Content
Avoid stereotypes and keyword stuffing
Create a really great title for your article
Google favors the content displayed in the first third of your article, so:
Get out the good stuff first
Start with the main point(s) then move to the details
Longer content builds a personal and lasting relationship with the reader.
Bottom line, to make the elusive Content Beast of 2014 a happy one: create longer, specialized, actionable content, which builds loyalty.
There’s no need to be shy. You’re reading this because you’re worried your content, well, sucks. You get a few positive comments on your work, but you’ve noticed the results aren’t backing up those friendly comments. Great content drives traffic, is engaging, and sparks discussion in the comment section. Excellent copywriting doesn’t become popular right away, so if you just wrote a piece, you need a little patience. But, there are cases where your content just isn’t great.
Great Copywriting? Let’s Have a Reality Check
Great content can still go unnoticed. If your blog or website is relatively new, you’re not going to have the same following as a blog that has been around the block a few hundred times. Readership alone isn’t a great way to gauge how bad your content is.
Also, just because some people say they like your content doesn’t necessarily mean it’s great. Think of who is complimenting you. Are they family, friends, and coworkers? You’re not going to get an honest opinion from your close friends — after all, what kind of friend would say “hey, this sucks?”
There’s not a single clue that tells you your content sucks. To help you decide if your copywriting is lacking, we’ve compiled a list of 23 ways to tell if your content needs a re-do.
1. You Yourself Don’t Give Your Content High Scores
Ask yourself what you really think of your own content. Be honest here. On a grade of A (for awesome) and F (for bad), what would you give? If you can’t give your own content an A, then it is probably a good indicator you’re not doing what you should be.
2. You Don’t Have Any Comments
Let’s face it: people read and comment on stuff that is great, and they skip right over the stuff that sucks. If you don’t have any comments or just a fine trickle here and there, you’re visitors are telling you something. If you have a new blog you probably won’t have hundreds of comments, but if you have a lot of subscribers and no one is saying “boo,” there you go.
3. You’re Not Really Targeting Your Readers
If you aren’t addressing your reader’s issues, problems, or frustrations, it’s unlikely you’ll have a high engagement level on your blog. These days, readers want it all about them – and one of the most useful practices for good copywriting is to create content that actually targets them. What are your readers looking to solve? What problems do your readers face? Think about the issue from your reader’s perspective next time you write, and you might boost how many comments you get.
4. You Only Post the Good Stuff for Paid Accounts
There are some sites that only give the good stuff to their paid accounts, but how on earth do they expect people to buy a subscription if there is nothing but crap to preview? It’s true. If you want people to pay, you need to show off what they’re going to find in a paid account. Give them some good reads for free as a preview of what more is to come if they pay.
5. You’re Negative
No one wants to read a downer. If you have lame excuses, “poor me” styled posts, or you’re just down right moaning all the time, no one wants to read much further. You need a positive spin and something that is uplifting to your readers.
6. You’re Throwing Out Journal Entries Instead of Blog Posts
You might not start your posts out with “Dear Diary,” but your content and blog posts read like a journal entry. Yes, back in the day that is what blogs were for, but today blogs and websites serve a purpose and read like magazines. Take a look at what you’re writing about. If you’re blabbing on about your dog, the weather, etc. you have a problem that needs serious fixing.
7. The Average Visitor Bails Fast
Websites should have Google Analytics installed — if you don’t it’s time to get on that. See how long your average visitor sticks around. If they bail less than two minutes into their visit, it’s obvious your content isn’t holding their interest. SearchEngineWatch.com has an interesting post about how reports in Google Analytics can give you more insight.
8. You Spend 30 Minutes or Less Creating Your Work
Most of the best copywriters write their pieces by taking no less than 30 minutes for short pieces and anywhere from two to eight hours on longer pieces. Copywriting is a work of art — not a short essay assignment. The more time you spend on your content, the more appreciated it will be by your readers.
9. You Have Very Few Followers
Popular people get all the love. If you have no followers and haven’t ever received a “hey your site is awesome” message, then you have definitely got a copywriting issue. When your copywriting does it all, people will be compelled to tell you how great it is.
10. You Don’t Have Any Haters
Great content gets those people who dislike the content too. They aren’t saying you suck; instead, they want to argue with a point you’ve made and start a debate. Haters who mock and disagree are a sign you’ve written something great just as much as fans are.
11. You’re a Keyword Junkie
There’s no better way to write horrible copy than stuffing it with every keyword imaginable. If you are focusing on keywords or basing your posts around keywords, you’re tainting the quality of your work. Focus on real, high-quality posts — not keywords. Read more about the SEO trends for 2014 in this article by Entrepreneur. You’d be surprised how little focus there is on keywords these days.
12. You Care Too Much About SEO
If you think SEO is the way to create a popular site or blog, think again. SEO doesn’t make your site popular — it just helps people find it. But what is the point of a person finding your site only to bounce right off of it because it’s awful? You need awesome content before you can worry about how many people are coming to see it.
13. You Are a Repeat Offender
Do you repeat yourself in your copy? Do you cover the same points over and over until you’re blue in the face? If so, you’ve got some bad copy. Great copywriting doesn’t need to repeat. Sure you can throw a conclusion or recap at the end, but you don’t need to repeat and repeat throughout the content.
14. Your Copy is Ridiculously Long…And Boring
Hey, long content can be great, so we aren’t saying all long content sucks. We are, however, saying that long, boring content definitely sucks. If you are going to make it long, make it compelling and something people don’t mind reading. Google is putting more emphasis on longer copy, but that doesn’t mean you need to slap up text written by a drone and bore your readers to death.
15. You’ve Put Your Best Ideas on the Back Burner
You have tons of great ideas, but they’re on the to-do list. Instead you’re filling your pages with boring, useless content just to fill the pages. Never, and we mean never, use content as a “filler.” Every piece of content you publish needs to be engaging, unique and high quality. Period.
16. You’re All Over the Map
If you’re covering topics regarding food, the local news, and back to finance, you’ve got a serious problem. Effective copywriting is consistent. No one wants a site they can’t pin down. If readers don’t know what you focus on, they won’t really have a reason to come back for more. Pick a single niche and write within it. If you want to cover other niches, start separate sites for those.
17. You Offer Zero Benefits to Readers
We’ve already mentioned that readers want it all about them, but great copywriting takes it a step further. The best copy offers benefit after benefit to the readers. Ask yourself what a reader would get for following your site. What would they gain over the hundreds of other sites out there? If you can’t answer that question, stop writing and don’t start again until you can.
18. You Wrote in the Third Person
The most compelling copywriting really speaks to the reader, and you can’t speak to the reader in the third person. Third person isn’t relatable. What is relatable is when the reader feels as though you are right there talking in person by using the “you” “your” and even first person language. If your copywriting is in the third person, revamp it and make it more personable.
19. You Don’t Proofread Your Work
Like we said before, great copywriting takes some time. If you wrote your stuff in 15 minutes, you probably didn’t proofread it either. Grammar and spelling errors are really hard on a person’s concentration. Read through your work before you post it or have someone else read it. Get rid of those silly mistakes that make your content subpar.
20. You’re a Techy — And It Shows
Hey, we love techies. You guys are super smart, and we have nothing against you. But, when it comes to writing, people with more technical backgrounds have difficulty breaking old habits. Technology backgrounds train you to be detached, objective and even passive in your language. You’re not stuck with this forever though. If you can break free and just write naturally, your content will see significant improvement.
21. You Skipped Over Copywriting 101
If you haven’t learned the basics about copywriting, how do you expect to write awesome copy? Just saying. In Copywriting 101 you learn the basics about headlines, things to do, not to do, etc. These are very basic principles, but for first-timers, these aren’t something you would readily know. We’ve written about the 5 Commandments of Copywriting, and perhaps you should familiarize yourself with those before writing anything else.
22. You Don’t Beat Up Your Readers
No, we aren’t meaning you should go punch a reader in the face physically — do it with your copywriting! People need a punch, something that catches their attention and makes them compelled to act further. People shouldn’t have time to think and rationalize; they will want to act right away because of what you just said.
23. You Have a Wall of Text and No Pretties
Great copywriting isn’t just the text. It’s also about how you break up the text for reading. If readers have nothing but a wall of text, they aren’t going to stick around long. Use some photos, videos, something! Make it visually appealing and easy to read. Smaller sections, lists, and items also make it a lot more appealing. When people know they can take breaks and not miss anything, it’s a good thing.
A Few Tips for Success
You now know what makes your copywriting suck. You might be an offender of all of these or just one or two. But it’s time to fix your copy so you’re not longer that guy or gal. A few things to remember:
Don’t focus solely on keywords. Instead focus on compelling, high-quality content and let the keywords flow naturally. If you can’t do that, forgo the keywords altogether. Trust us, Google cares more about the quality than keywords.
Be critical of yourself in a good way. You can’t be so sensitive about your copywriting. If it sucks, it sucks, but you can fix it. Have an open mind when reviewing your content and see where you can improve. If you’re not sure, ask for a second opinion.
Learn the basics about copywriting. You honestly can’t write great content if you don’t know what great content is.
Enlist the help of an expert if you’re out of your league. Not everyone can write compelling content and that is okay. Sometimes you need the help of someone who has been doing it for a while and knows how to “wow” the readers.
