Bombarded with tons of low-quality, unremarkable stories that are constantly flooding the Internet, readers have become quite selective to their time and energy when it comes to reading blogs or content online.
Whether you’re ready for it or not, they use your own headline as their first selection criterion.
Just like a book is still being judged by its cover, each content piece that you produce gets evaluated by your readers in a few seconds based on its headline.
7 Headline Formulas That Will Convince Your Readers to Take Action
Simply because their originality and unique, totally recognizable style should be their most valuable trademarks, writers can seldom afford the luxury of relying on existing patterns to make their content piece seem more interesting in the eyes of their readers. However, when your goal is to create magnetic headlines, you can always turn to a few foolproof formulas showing you the direction that you should follow to make more people take a glance at your article. Here are the 7 golden headline formulas that you should have in mind as soon as you decide to put pen to paper.
“The Secret” to [Something]. You simply cannot go wrong with a magic keyword followed by a promise. People can’t always keep a secret, but they would definitely like to hear one every half an hour. Secrets give them the power to stand out from the crowd and prove their superiority in their circle based on a very simple principle: “knowledge is power.” When that secret actually supports one of their most ambitious goals, things get even better. Let’s consider this example: “The Secret to Losing 10 Pounds in 2 Weeks the Healthy Way.” How could you ignore this headline, when all you want to do is stop eating donuts and achieve a gorgeous beach body without getting on the treadmill?
“X Ways” to [Achieve Something]. The “X ways to do something” proves once again that readers love specialists and their expert insight. They want to take the easy way out and avoid unnecessary stress or expenses by following the advice of someone who has already dealt with this challenge and knows what he’s talking about. This is why a title such as “5 Ways to Revamp Your Career Rapidly and Stress-Free” will always deliver excellent results.
“Little Known” Strategies/Ideas/Methods That Will [Support a Goal]. For the same reason why we love secrets, we are also very interested in “little-known” things. Yes, we want to get the latest scoop before anyone else. We also appreciate informative content pieces allowing us to show off our knowledge in front of our friends, from time to time. “I bet you didn’t know that male ostriches roar just like lions!” Following this simple idea, it becomes obvious why headlines such as “Little-known methods to develop a profitable home-based business” can guarantee your success as a writer.
Here’s the Simplest/Most Rapid/Cheapest Way to [Solve Your Problem]. It’s no secret that most of the individuals who are surfing the Internet to find the best solutions to their daily problems and challenges are looking to save time and money. These two values always end up influencing their decisions. In this context, a concise title reading “Here’s the Easiest Method to Get Hired after Your First Interview” will most convince job seekers to read the entire body copy with greater attention; after all, it holds the key to getting a nice job rapidly and hassle-free. What more could you ask for?
Grow/Build/Succeed in/Have Something Desirable. Sometimes, we need an extra push to get things done. Headlines such as “Build Your Own Website and Start Selling like a Pro” or “Grow Your Own Vegetable Garden in 5 Easy Steps” act like a powerful stimulus, reminding people of their ambitions; plus they also put the reward right under their nose. In other words, it’s like telling your readers that if they want to strike gold, they’d better start digging.
“X Mistakes” That Could Bury/Destroy/Compromise [Something That Means a Lot to You]. When something means the world to you, you focus your entire attention on the good and the bad that your object of desire is exposed to. This is precisely why you would also read an article highlighting risk factors, such as your own actions, which could threaten your career, relationship, health and every other aspect that you care about. Let’s face it: a title reading “10 mistakes that could instantly terminate your relationship” is automatically associated with an article that you may want to read entirely, whether you’re single and still looking for your soulmate or happily married for more than a decade.
A Reinterpretation of the Classic “How to” Headline. Truth be told, “how to” headlines can be quite boring. The good news is that you can amplify their power of seduction by introducing the reward, as explained above, or through associations with individuals or groups of people who have already reached a certain target. For example, headlines like “How to Take Care of Your Skin like a Dermatologist” or “How to train like a Navy SEAL” may stimulate the curiosity of your segment of public and get them to spend some (quality) time on your page.
How to Create the Ideal Headline in 5 Easy Steps
When it comes to writing killer headlines, putting theory into practice doesn’t have to be a challenge. Here are the 5 key steps that you should take to come up with the perfect title for your next content piece.
Identify the Needs, Demands, Problems, and Expectations of Your Audience. Get to know your audience before anything else. In this phase, proper keyword research, a good social media strategy and tools designed to help you come up with interesting blog topics, such as Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator, can simplify your mission.
Brainstorm with Your Team. Your coworkers may just have what it takes to inspire your next masterpiece. By putting themselves in your readers’ shoes and relying on their empathy, they could offer you valuable suggestions allowing you to come up with an attention-grabbing, compelling title.
Put Pen to Paper. As you may already know, the biggest risk is not taking any risk. What does the perfect headline actually look/sound like? You can get the most accurate answer to this question only by examining different available options, so put your mind at work, play with various keywords, create associations based on high-impact verbs, adjectives and nouns that could reflect the core of your story and see where they take you.
Incorporate Powerful Adjectives, Numbers and Buzzwords with a Proven Effectiveness. When it comes to using emotion-rich words that could convey the entire message that you’re trying to send through your headline, don’t overdo it. Stick to one or two categories of words added to reflect just how unique, special, relevant or attention-worthy your story actually is. Here are some extra guidelines that you may appreciate along the way.
The right adjective can take your headline to a whole new level by changing your readers’ reaction from “Ain’t nobody got time for that,” “Wait a second, I actually want to read the whole piece, it sounds promising.” Attributes like “effective”, “proven”, “remarkable” and “little-known” will always sound like music to your readers’ ears.
Numbers let your readers know that you’re organized. They also deliver the promise that you will stay on point in the body copy and avoid divagations that can dilute the substance of your content piece.
Nouns that are proven buzzwords can actually help you maximize the appeal of an ordinary list post and raise the curiosity of your public. As Goinswriter.com indicates, words like “reasons”, “lessons”, “secrets”, “tips”, “facts” and “tricks” are particularly effective because they highlight your mission (after all, you do want to educate, entertain and inform your readers) and anticipate the desires and demands of your audience (yes, your readers are still waiting for you to tell them why they need to buy your new product, and they would also appreciate a few easy tips on how to conduct a successful DIY home improvement project on their own).
Use Online Tools to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Headline. Worried that you may promote a certain title and fail miserably along the way? If you don’t trust your instincts and would much rather rely on an authorized second opinion before selecting a headline for your new content piece, don’t hesitate to utilize one of the many online tools designed to help you make better decisions and maximize your odds of success. Trust us when we say that aids like the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer offered by Advanced Marketing Institute can make your job a whole lot easier.
Solving the Equation of Perfect Headlines
The perfect headline is a complicated equation comprising multiple elements of equal importance, including research, an wide knowledge database, creative thinking, brainstorming sessions, a deeper understanding of the targeted audience, an ample testing phase and proper optimization. Once you put all these pieces together, you manage to solve the puzzle and come up with the string of words with a magical resonance that will feed the curiosity of your readers and make them click on your links and land on your page time after time. Photo credit: Zastavkin / iStock
If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past decade, chances are you’re familiar with Silicon Valley’s wildly successful, technology-based startup businesses Uber, Buffer, and Airbnb.
And if you have been living under a rock, welcome to a world where engaging content means billions of dollars in annual revenue for marketing savvy businesses—businesses that were a mere twinkle in their founder’s eyes just months before hitting the ever-elusive yet highly coveted billion dollar revenue mark. Yes, these three commercial venture high rollers—Uber, Buffer, and Airbnb—have a lot in common when it comes to content marketing.
So what exactly do these companies have in common when it comes to content marketing? The answer to that question is quite simple—engaging content. These three multi-billion dollar businesses offer undeniable proof that engaging copy is more than just trendy buzzwords spewed forth during techy sales meetings with newbie CEOs who are barely out of diapers. Engaging content is a genuine, bonafide way for a company to gain exposure, build loyalty, and generate interest from millions of potential customers.
Successful companies like Uber, Buffer, and Airbnb realize the power of engaging copywriting, and if you own or manage a business, it’s time you realized its power as well.
Engaging Content: It’s More Than Just Words on a Webpage
By now you’re probably thinking, “Ok, engaging content is a big deal. But what exactly is engaging content?” (Either that or you could be thinking about… “A cinnamon raisin bagel and a vanilla latte would be totally awesome right now.”)
How 3 Companies Are Using Content To Kill It In Revenue
But assuming you’re thinking the former, let’s take a moment to clarify the difference between content and engaging content. In other words, let’s take a moment to clarify the difference between run-of-the mill, off-target content and stellar content that engages a company’s target audience and facilitates exponential company growth. Immensely profitable companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Buffer only use content that is very engaging in their marketing campaigns, and the results are nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Uber: Engaging Content Means Videos. The peer-to-peer driving company Uber uses videos as a primary source of content marketing. But we’re not talking about mundane videos of cars cruising around a city block picking up a guy in a suit who happens to need a ride to the airport. No, Uber is much too in-the-know when it comes to engaging video content to churn out something so dry and uninteresting. Instead, Uber focuses its video content on the unique and diversified people who drive for their company or who use their services as a way to get where they need to be. In one of Uber’s blogs titled, “Your Drivers. Our Partners. Their Stories.” you can watch a video that details the lives and experiences of some of Uber’s drivers. Upon watching the video, you immediately feel a sense of relatability and you gain a better understanding of how the company operates. And even though each driver mentions several times throughout the video that working for Uber is the best job they’ve ever had, it doesn’t come across as contrived or preachy. Instead, it’s done in a way that helps establish company trust and helps portray Uber as a company that listens to and cares about its employees.But the best and perhaps most engaging feature in Uber’s video is the people; the everyday citizens just like you, just like me, and just like the people who are most likely to use Uber’s services. Using real drivers instead of actors in their video helps Uber connect with their customers on a more personal level while still demonstrating the value of the service they have to offer. You get to see faces and names of real people associated with the company, and then you realize that it’s these same people who may be giving you and your toy poodle Mr. Bojangles your next ride to the dog park. You feel a sense of neighborliness, a sense of connection, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of being totally comfortable with using Uber’s service. The video’s sincere, relatable realism speaks to Uber customers, potential customers, and potential drivers alike, which is a huge factor in why the company is now worth an estimated $40 billion.
Airbnb: Surprise! Print Media Isn’t Dead! And For Airbnb, It’s Actually Quite Engaging! Yes, you read that correctly. When it comes to engaging content, print media can be just as useful, worthwhile, and successful as a webpage or video. Who knew, right? Actually, Airbnb knew. The hospitality website, which connects travelers with home owners willing to rent a room in their house, recently launched their print media venture Pineapple, a magazine that caters to both Airbnb hosts and travelers. Airbnb chose the name “Pineapple” for their magazine because the fruit was a symbol of hospitality in colonial New England, and hospitality is what Airbnb is all about.But what’s so compelling about Airbnb’s first magazine addition is that it came with a simple yet poignant mission statement that tells the reader the main purpose and focus of the magazine: “to explore our fundamental values: sharing, community and belonging,” and to “inspire and motivate exploration, not just within the cities featured, but within any space a reader finds themselves.”Why is this message so important, and why does it fall under the category of engaging content? Because the primary purpose of Airbnb is to connect people who have a need for something with people who have something to offer. In other words, Airbnb’s basis for operations is human connection and bringing people closer together in the name of travel, adventure, and exploration. People who are most likely to use Airbnb’s services are those who value the importance of everything in Pineapple magazine’s mission statement—exploration, sharing, and a sense of community and belonging.You can follow Pineapple’s engaging mission statement throughout its glossy, picture-loaded pages (again, kudos to Airbnb for its use of engaging visual content) as you read articles like the interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, where he discusses “architecture’s role in bringing us closer together.”There they are again; those magic words that are so near and dear to Airbnb users’ heart—”us”, “closer”, “together.” Without people wanting to connect with one another, or be close with one another, or share experiences and learn from one another, Airbnb as we know it would cease to exist. The fundamental human desire for connectedness and a sense of belonging is the driving force behind Airbnb’s success and subsequent multi-billion dollar profit. And don’t think for one second that Airbnb’s content management team doesn’t realize this.In fact, just last year Airbnb launched a new brand awareness campaign in which a symbol called a “Bélo” was unveiled as the company’s new logo. According to Airbnb’s company content masterminds, “the bélo is a universal symbol of belonging.” On the company’s blog site, they describe why they chose to create a new symbol to represent their company by saying, “So to represent that feeling [of belonging], we’ve created a symbol for us as a community. It’s an iconic mark for our windows, our doors, and our shared values. It’s a symbol that, like us, can belong wherever it happens to be.” If a statement like that can’t secure brand loyalty from millions of community-minded, travel conscious users, than I don’t know what can.
Buffer: Engaging Content: OMG! Social Media is Buffer’s #BFF :). All chat jargon, hashtags, and emoticons aside, every good content marketer knows just how crucial social media is for business exposure and success. And with that said, it’s no surprise that Buffer uses social media as a primary part of its engaging content strategy. After all, social media is the reason Buffer was created in the first place. Buffer helps businesses manage their social media accounts so they can reap the ultimate benefits of strong social media presence and exposure.So let’s think about this for a minute. If the service you provide helps businesses manage their social media accounts, it’s nothing short of a given that your own social media accounts will be brimming with engaging content, relevant posts, and perfectly timed updates, correct? Not surprisingly, this is the case with Buffer. However, Buffer still deserves a lot of credit for realizing something very important; something which is the exact reason why the company exists in the first place—engaging content on social media is a really big deal.
Be Engaging With Your Content, And The Sky Is The Limit
So we now know that using engaging content in your company’s marketing strategy borders on sheer genius. No, I take that back. Engaging copy doesn’t just border on sheer genius; it blasts through the border like an armor-plated combat tank and takes sheer genius as its unsuspecting prisoner.
But the truly great thing about engaging content is that it’s totally accessible to everyone. With compelling content, there’s no reason why your company can’t see the same magnitude of success as Uber, Buffer, or Airbnb. Pick a medium in which to show off your engaging copy—be it videos or podcasts, print media, or social media platforms—and do what the great successors before you have done. Know your company’s mission, know your target audience, and know how to produce amazing content that engages your audience and compels them to explore your company further.
Yes, engaging content truly is the bread-winner in most successful businesses. And yes, your business can use engaging content to reach more customers, build brand loyalty, and maybe, just maybe, hit that ever-elusive yet highly coveted billion dollar revenue mark. Dream big, engaging content users. Dream big.
There are times where no matter what we do, it just seems like things aren’t working. You can implement everything you’ve learned from marketing and SEO, yet you don’t seem to get anywhere. This is a frustrating reality. However, here’s the good news—you, my friend, are not alone!
Did you know there are several incredibly famous authors and creators that were in the same boat as you at some point in their career? These great authors and creators, at one point or another, were considered “failures” by themselves and others.
Once you get through failure, and don’t allow it to drown you but rather make you stronger, you will achieve greater success than you’ve dreamed of!
I am going to take a look at a few incredible authors and creators that we all love today, and look at just how they failed before they succeeded. Let their failures and inevitable success we see now be an awesome inspiration to you, today.
Walt Disney Was Told He Lacked Imagination. The man who created many stories, an epic empire, and worldwide theme parks was once considered to not have much imagination. That’s right; the creator of Mickey Mouse was believed, and told, he lacked imagination. Can you conceive of where we all would be if he listened to that and didn’t create the empire we all know and love today? He also had multiple other failures including best friends leaving Walt Disney Studios for competitors and competitors even stealing his original work, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It was after Oswald was stolen that he created Mickey Mouse, who is definitely the most popular mouse in the entire world.
Albert Einstein and the Problem of Traditional Learning. While Einstein is not a fiction writer, his works have brought about an amazing advancement to the field of science. We have many of our theories and even proof of various scientific aspects because of him. However, Einstein was terrible with traditional learning and many thought he wouldn’t go very far. This speaks loudly to those who might have a hard time with traditional marketing, understanding how to make their business a success, and even young children who are having a hard time learning in school. If he had let his problems get in the way, we wouldn’t have much of the scientific advancements we have today, nor any of his incredible academic work.
J.K. Rowling Wrote Harry Potter Without Much of a Plan for Success. When J.K. Rowling first wrote Harry Potter, she was living as a single mother on welfare. It was a difficult life for her, but she decided to start writing. She created the Wizarding world, but, according to her, she was rejected “loads” of times by different publishers. She kept going, however, even though she didn’t necessarily have the finances she needed to send off so many manuscripts. I am especially glad she kept going because we might have never met the Boy Who Lived, experiencing an incredible fantasy world just a few miles away from normal life. In addition to rejections for Harry Potter, Rowling also faced several rejections as Robert Galbraith, her pen name for The Cuckoo’s Calling. What a great example of “keep on trying.” Now Harry Potter is a goliath in the marketing world, offering writers and businesses alike incredible marketing inspiration.
Charles Darwin Was Considered Average at Best. Evolution has had a long, contentious past with many people arguing over its reputability. What many people don’t realize is that the father of evolution, Charles Darwin, was considered an average student at best and dropped out of a degree and career in medicine to become a parson. However, he found a significant interest in nature and began traveling the world to understand it better. As he did so, he came up with his theory and published the now popular and infamous Origin of the Species. Regardless of one’s stance on evolution, it is hard to deny that this “average” student made a huge impact on the world of science and helped bring about a different view of nature.
Dr. Seuss Had His First Book Rejected 27 Times. We all love Dr. Seuss, don’t we? We all have that one book that helped us get through difficult times or at least one that was our childhood favorite, but did you know Dr. Seuss’s very first book was rejected 27 times? That’s right. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times by different publishers. It took a while for this book to become published, but eventually it was and Dr. Seuss became a tremendous part of the literary world. He even has an entire literary day (his birthday) dedicated to him and his amazing work.
Stephen King Threw Away Early Drafts of Carrie and it was Rejected 30 Times. Have you read Carrie? If you’re a horror and novella fan, then chances are you already have. It is a great, scary story that is definitely a classic in the horror world. Before it became the success it is today, Stephen King got very frustrated with it and threw away early drafts of the novella. In addition, when he finally finished it, it was rejected 30 different times. It is unlikely we would have the an epic horror empire King created if it weren’t for his wife. She made sure to help get Carrie published, and we can all thank her for the wonder, and horror of a Stephen King universe.
Margaret Atwood Failed Writing a Novel On Holiday. Margaret Atwood is a definite goddess amongst fantasy and science fiction writers, and we might never have received the wonder of The Handmaid’s Tale if she hadn’t failed writing another book. She went on a bird watching, book writing holiday and only one aspect of that holiday was successful – watching birds. She struggled to write her novel and eventually stopped. It was soon after stopping that novel that she began the terrifying dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale that is still creeping audiences out today.
Mary Shelley’s The Last Man Was Panned by Reviewers. We all know Mary Shelley’s impressive work, Frankenstein, which was, and still is, an amazing part of early science fiction literature. However, one of her books that doesn’t get the acclaim it deserves, The Last Man was often panned by reviewers, yet has proven to be just as powerful as Frankenstein. The book even disappeared from shelves after the 1833 American edition but was eventually printed again in 1965.
Publishers Were Unwilling to Publish J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. When it came down to publishing J. R. R. Tolkien’s massive, classic work The Lord of the Rings, publishers were unsure if it would actually work. In fact, The Lord of the Rings was originally one huge book. The publishers eventually broke the book up into the now infamous trilogy, which was not Tolkien’s favorite idea. His publishers were worried they’d lose thousands of pounds trying to sell this work, as well. After all the fear, The Fellowship of the Ring ran a printing of 3,500 and sold out in the first 6 weeks, which was a milestone in publishing then. Aren’t you glad the publishers, and Tolkien, stuck with the books? We not only have an epic book series, but some great films for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to help inspire our copywriting!
What Can You Learn from These Authors?
Now that you’ve seen a few things that have happened to some of the world’s favorite authors and creators throughout their careers, you might be wondering just what you can learn from them. There are many different things you can learn, but a few things that stand out to me are:
Just Because You Didn’t Achieve Something Doesn’t Mean You Never Will. To many of these authors, it just didn’t seem like much was going to happen to them or with their stories. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if J. K. Rowling had never pushed for Harry Potter or what the world would look like without Dr. Seuss? Use their passion and dedication to help you achieve the marketing goals you have, and benefit your company.
If You Give Up Now, Just What are You Losing Out On Later? Giving up can be easy in many situations, especially after multiple failures. However, giving up could mean losing out on something amazing in the future. Don’t let your failures stop you.
Keep Working and Learn from Specific Failures. The above point talks about not giving up, but what should you do with specific failures? You should take the chance to learn something from them. Each failure is a lesson and it can help you learn exactly what you need to do to push your business and marketing to be the best.
Don’t Let Failure Keep You From Your Business Goals
Use these authors as a great example to help you continue striving for your business goals, no matter what. Keep writing your content and pushing through, and you’ll start to see some pretty awesome results. If you need help to create incredible, successful content, then Express Writers is here for you. Our team is dedicated to making all of our clients have successful businesses and amazing web content that your customers are sure to love. Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information on how we can help!
How often do you stumble across low-quality written material with no real message or meaning while surfing the net? How long does it take you to dive in the pool of diverse web content to bring the most original and inspiring ideas back to the surface?
The truth is that the Internet is flooded with the worst kind of writing: uninspired, thrown-together, no-originality content. We’re talking about the really boring, trivial content that could only stimulate you to shut your computer and take a nap.
Boring, Trivial Content Is Your Brand’s Worst Enemy
Low-value content will never support your marketing goals for a number of reasons. First of all, today’s prospects are savvier than ever and know how to differentiate thought leaders from players who share the herd mentality and have nothing new of exciting to say about their company or their products. Secondly, they have a short attention span and a zero tolerance for writing that fails to answer and address their needs, questions and demands and only makes them waste time in front of their computer screen.
How do businesses entirely avoid this pitfall? How do they get creative with new stuff?
5 Ways to Kick Trivial and Boring Content Ideas to the Curb
If you’re striving to find the simplest answers to the questions I just asked, keep reading. I’m listing the 5 easiest ways to replace unremarkable concepts with written gems that will boost your readers’ interest and loyalty.
Write with Your Audience in Mind. The truth is that you don’t have to waste all your time trying to craft content pieces that are loaded with bells and whistles. Sometimes, the more you try to adorn your writing, the more you lose your focus and get farther away from the real substance of the message that you’re trying to convey. Therefore, as Hubspot points out, even when you’re working on educational content, you can upgrade your copy by making it respond to the questions and concerns of your audience. For instance, let’s assume that your services have been contracted by a company selling automotive supplies. By answering a very mundane question related to a popular topic, such as vehicle maintenance for example, you would actually be creating high-value content that would be assimilated with great interest by your targeted audience.
Let Social Networking Websites Be Your Guide. When it comes to crafting interesting content, social media platforms are your number one ally and one of the most amazing sources of inspiration that you could ever ask for. Just think about it: social networking websites represent the natural habitat of thought leaders and influencers who are constantly recruiting faithful virtual ambassadors. This is the place where companies go from small and obscure to big and successful in record time. Need another reason to poke around Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn? In this case, think about the fact that these websites are the major platforms where quality, relevant and original content can instantly become a viral sensation. Some of the freshest stories shared through these channels can inspire your writing and help you stay far away from boring, trivial content.
Use the Best Tools to Get Inspired. Sometimes, the most trivial concepts are born out of excessive boredom, apathy and a dangerous lack of inspiration and motivation. What can you do when you’ve struggling to overcome a case of writer’s block? Should you still be praying for inspiration after your fifth cup of coffee? Here’s a simpler alternative that can help you put pen to paper and let those clever words flow smoothly: use a wide range of free and almost free online tools designed to inspire your new content pieces. Content Marketing Institute has recently published a long list of such aids that can take your writing to a whole new level. Options such as Ahrefs Content Explorer tool, Topsy, Hubspot Blog Topic Generator or Ubersuggest are the best choices that you should explore to come up with exciting topics for your blog and avoid uninspiring ideas that could only make your readers yawn or raise an eyebrow while bouncing off your page.
Plan Ahead. Last minute decisions and successful content creation shouldn’t be a part of the same sentence for a very simple and logical reason: as a goal-oriented small business owner, you should know how, when and how often you should satisfy your readers’ cravings for premium content. In other words, proper planning and a smart, well-balanced editorial calendar are everyday essentials that can tighten the bond with your audience, while also optimizing your content flow. These two key elements will also help you avoid the tension, confusion and sense of powerlessness that could make you resort to cheap, yawn-inspiring content, which you may be tempted to use as time-fillers to give your audience something to chew on while you’re working on a new recipe for content success. There are several prominent content strategy tools, such as keyword research for example, that could offer you the expert insight you may require to start and follow a detailed editorial calendar that would ultimately enable you to achieve a rich online presence and a deeper connection with your content-hungry audience. Don’t forget that brainstorming with new staff members could offer you the finest food for thought that you could ever dream about adding to your content menu. Ask your client manager to attend these sessions to find out what kind of topics they would like to add to your editorial calendar. After dealing with clients all day, client managers are the team members who usually come up with the most spectacular content ideas that have what it takes to please and stimulate writers, readers and clients at the same time. At the end of the day, it becomes obvious that good old teamwork will never go out of fashion, especially when it comes to organizing brainstorming sessions revolving around creative concepts that can be rewritten and reinterpreted in countless ways.
Employ Expert Writers. At some point, you may realize that your limited amounts of time and energy represent real obstacles standing in the way of your content creation efforts. In this case, what’s the simplest way to avoid generic, overdone, extremely boring or trivial concepts that will never do your company any favors? If your goal is to get rid of most of the burden of coming up with unique, awesome content, consider hiring a team of expert writers.
Trivial Content Is Perfectly Preventable
Whether you choose to use the finest online tools to boost your creativity, conduct brainstorming sessions or create and follow a strict editorial calendar, you should know that all these strategies can help you avoid damages associated with poorly materialized, dull or trivial ideas. If you’re already at the bottom of the sea of trivial content and don’t know how to swim, do keep in mind that professional content creators can put the wow factor into your marketing messages while crafting a unique story around your brand and feeding your readers’ ever-growing appetite for captivating writing that actually serves both aesthetic and practical purposes. Photo credit: g-stockstudio / iStock
The number one money sinkhole for many website owners comes from outdated content. Outdated content is any content that you have that is no longer relevant, or doesn’t help the website either financially or content-wise.
The problem with outdated copy is that it can be so easy to become inundated by it. The quality of your content is directly related to the quality of your site as a whole. This means that the more outdated content that you have clogging up your website is the less efficiently it performs.
[Tweet “Monitoring the #quality of your #content is an ongoing job, one that doesn’t have a clear end point.”]
What Qualifies as Outdated Content?
Depending on what sort of site it is that you run, outdated content can vary. Websites that hold searchable listings might have a database that is flooded with dead links or links to old contact sites for certain clients. In the case of a retailer or wholesaler, it could come down to stating that a product is stocked when in reality it isn’t. Professional company websites can also suffer from this malady by having members of staff up on their company listing who no longer work with them. The impact of this content varies from site to site as well. In the case of the professional company website, it simply makes them look inept at maintaining their website. In the case of the retail store or the search database it can lead to loss of income.
5 Ways Outdated Content Makes You Look Bad
You might think that just because a piece of content isn’t current, it doesn’t generate a whole lot of traffic. This is a huge misconception. Many times, it’s the existing content that causes the majority of your incoming traffic. Lots of people use search engines that direct them to pages that have been existing for a long time and have slowly climbed up the rankings for a particular keyword. When that “old” page gives the user misleading or outdated information the user is left to assume the worst.
In fact, outdated content almost always leads to the reader jumping to one or more of these conclusions:
That your website is going out of business
That your customer service must be terrible
That your company is lackadaisical and just aren’t “with it”
That your website managers are technologically incompetent
They’re not good enough for my money
All of these things work towards causing you to lose revenue through lost conversions. This is definitely not where you want your site to be going. There are ways to get around outdated copy and to revamp content and keep it fresh to avoid these generalizations being applied to your website. The most effective method of dealing with outdated content is auditing.
What is Content Auditing?
Before you can properly fix your outdated content, you are going to need to figure out where that content is and how badly it affects your current website. In order to do this, you can utilize a methodology called “content auditing”. In a nutshell, content auditing is a means by which the pages of your website are examined for things like broken links and outdated information. After the offending pages are identified, we can move on to making those content pages more viable by updating the information, removing dead links and generally cleaning up the copy.
The end result is a website that looks professional and features well on search rankings. Keeping your content current is as important as having a page that exists for a long time. The longer your page in in existence, the more trustworthy Google tends to find it. By refreshing the content on the page you make it a little bit more popular in the search rankings, which can translate into increased traffic and possible increased income through conversions and advertising.
How Can Content Auditing Help You? 5 Ways
Content auditing can help any website to become better and more efficient. When you content audit, you remove spurious information and revamp the copy in pages that need it. You check your current information and edit pages where the information needs to be updated. All of these can lead to a lot of different positive benefits for the entire site, including:
Avoiding Panda penalties: Google’s Panda algorithm is very picky when it comes to certain things such as outdated content. An audit helps you to keep your information up to date to get away from this pitfall
Fix Pages for Copywriting: Some of your pages may be in dire need of an overhaul. An audit helps you to pinpoint these and allow you to fix individual pages without having to rewrite entire swathes of your site
Consolidation: Some pages would be better if they were combined into one page. Information that is very closely linked can be placed on the same page, eliminating the need for a redundant page and making your site architecture more pleasing.
Determine Keyword Specifics: Each page has a set of keywords that they are ranking for. By doing an audit you can figure out what those keywords are and if they suit you. You might be surprised at what keywords your site ranks for!
Remove Bad Pages: Some pages just cannot be salvaged and your best option would be to remove them completely instead of getting visitors that end up with a bad impression of your site. Content auditing makes this easy by giving you an overview of which pages tend to shunt users off-page and which ones send users to other pages within your site.
Outdated Content is Slowly Killing your Site
Just like a bad investment, outdated content takes away a little more of your possible income every month. It’s like an invisible lurker that steals away your customers and leaves them hating your site. You can fight back against it by doing regular content audits. These ensure that you are always at the top of your game regarding your content needs and that no outdated information exists on your site. Auditing can be a time consuming process, so you might be best served by finding a copywriting company to aid you in salvaging your site. The sooner you get down to it, the better it’ll be for both you and your website.