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What We Do to Craft Consistent Quality Content at Express Writers

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Video copywriting

If you want to rise to the top of Google’s search results and outshine your competitors, you need to consistently publish high-quality content. Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, not necessarily. Great content can’t be created with the push of a button. It takes hard work and dedication to choose relevant topics that will appeal to an audience and turn them into something people will want to read and share with their communities. But what are you supposed to do when you don’t have time to create content? What if writing isn’t one of your strong suits? If you find yourself in either of these situations, then it may be time to outsource your content creation to the experts like the Express Writers team. You might be wondering… How do we provide quality content at Express Writers? To give you a better understanding of how our team creates amazing content for our clients, we’re sharing a few ways we make that happen. But first, let’s talk about why high-quality content is so important for brands like yours. Why Quality Content is Crucial to Your Success Gone are the days of cold calling and other old-fashioned marketing techniques to grow your business. Right now, it’s all about content marketing that outperforms those dated methods. However, it’s not enough to show up online and put any old content out there. It needs to be high-quality content, or people will scroll past. With competitive markets, that’s something you simply can’t risk happening. Here’s why quality content matters: It Increases Visibility: It’s more difficult for people to discover your brand if you don’t put yourself out there online. By publishing search engine optimized content on your blog, you generate a ton of new traffic to your website because you’ll start ranking in the search results on Google. And consistently publishing posts on social media will also send new people your way. You need to attract an audience to your brand if you hope to convert them to paying clients and customers. It’ll Position You as an Authority in Your Field: When you share valuable content with your audience, it allows you to showcase your expertise. Over time, people will begin to see you as an authority in your field. You’ll become their go-to resource for whatever you offer. That’s a huge element of building the Know, Like, and Trust Factor with your audience. It’ll Boost Your Conversion Rate: Once you’ve established authority and trust through your content, people will be more inclined to buy from you. That’s because your audience will have developed a connection with you. They’ll see you as a dependable resource, and, therefore, a worthwhile investment. The more sales you bring in, the more money you make, and the more success you bring your brand. You’ll Stand Out From Your Competitors: Odds are, you have a number of competitors in your industry that you’re always up against. And you don’t want to lose potential clients to them. That’s why you should use your content to stand out and showcase what makes you unique. It attracts clients your way, boosting sales in the long run. The best part is that content marketing compounds over time. So, when done well, that means your content will continue to attract traffic and leads month after month. Even if you take a break. That’s because well-written, evergreen content will still be of interest to your audience well into the future. At the end of the day, there’s no better investment you can make for your business because the long-term payoff ensures you get the most bang for your buck. How We’re Able to Provide Quality Content at Express Writers Now that you see how important it is to put amazing content into the world, the next thing to do is start writing. However, not everyone is a natural writer. And that’s totally okay! If writing isn’t your strong suit, you can easily outsource it to a content agency like our team. We’ve made quality content our mission, and there are three key reasons we’re able to provide it to our clients. Our 5,000 clients and more than 40,000 completed projects since the company was founded in 2011 speak for themselves. Here’s how we make it happen: 1. We Hire Experienced Writers First and foremost, we pride ourselves on hiring experienced writers with the skills and knowledge to create amazing content that readers (and Google) will love. These people are passionate about writing and content creation. We’ve compiled a team of people who love the work they do. Many of our writers studied Communications or Journalism in school, while others have previous experience working as a freelance writer or writing for publications. It’s important to us that they have experience in the field because it ensures they can confidently step into the role and take on a wide array of projects from our diverse clientele. We also have three levels of writers, which helps us match them with the projects that are the best fit. Here’s a breakdown of what those writing levels look like: General: Our general writing level is for those who have minimal writing experience. This means it’s ideal for entry-level writers looking to get started. Plus, they can level up after some time in the role. The general writers on our team still have natural writing skills and easily provide quality content at Express Writers. Level 1: Those newer writers who have a few months to two years of experience fall in our Level 1 tier. These writers are still top-notch and can be counted on to produce quality content. They’re also eager to learn and grow, which we give them the opportunity to do. Level 2: To be placed in our Level 2 tier, writers need to have at least five years of content writing experience. Not only that, but they also need to have regular experience with larger volume assignments, a proven track record, and industry specialization. Some fields will require … Read more

Get to Know the Team Behind Express Writers

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About page copy

Did you know the Express Writers team is filled with carefully handpicked content creators? In addition to our behind-the-scenes team, our expert content writers are passionate about producing quality content. And we couldn’t be more grateful! With the help of our team, we have had the privilege to serve over 5,000 clients, ultimately completing more than 40,000 projects since the company was founded in 2011. We couldn’t have reached such great success without an incredible team on our side. But if you haven’t worked with us yet, you might be curious about those managing everything behind the scenes on the Express Writers team. For instance, who exactly is involved in the content creation process? And how can you learn more about the team you’re trusting to create your content? To help you get to know us, we’re sharing a little about the team members who are directly involved in fulfilling your content orders. Plus, we’re giving you details about the writers on our team and introducing you to the team members that keep things running smoothly here at Express Writers. Who is Involved in the Express Writers Process? Every order placed inside our Content Shop is handled with care. That’s why we have a human team handling every aspect of bringing your content to life. There’s no automated process assigning a project to whichever writer happens to be available. Instead, everything is carefully assigned thanks to some thoughtful planning by our Content Manager. Here’s a look at the Express Writers team members who are directly involved in creating your content: Content Manager: Once you place your order, our Content Manager reviews the details of your project based on the input form you’ve submitted. This information allows the Content Manager to assign your content to the writer who would be the ideal fit based on their areas of expertise, content writing level, and the format of the requested content. Doing this ensures our clients are always matched with the writer who will deliver the best results possible. Writer: After a project is assigned, it’s in the hands of one of our expert writers. Our writers are skilled and able to create content in a wide array of formats. We have writers trained to craft blog articles, social media posts, ebooks, press releases, and just about anything your brand could need to stand out online. That’s because we want to serve you in any way we can! Editor: When a draft of your content has been submitted, our editors take over. All of our editors go through extensive internal training under our leadership team so they can meet your brand guidelines every time. They fine-tune your content and correct any errors. Should significant changes need to be made, they’ll send it back to the writer to make final changes. Otherwise, our team will send it over for your approval. We take great pride in this process because we know it works. Not only does this ensure client satisfaction by pairing you with the best writer for the job, but it keeps our writers happy as well. After all, writers who are passionate about the content they’re creating craft the best articles. About the Writers on Our Team Let’s take a moment and talk about the writers on the Express Writers team. We want to ensure quality with every client project, so it’s important that we hire experienced and knowledgeable writers. That’s why we carefully review each application we receive and hire those we know will be an asset to our team. Our writers are based in the U.S. and are all native English speakers. They’re excellent with grammar and spelling, so you can rest easy knowing you won’t need to make any edits to the finished project you receive. They also understand SEO best practices to ensure your content is properly optimized. And they’re passionate about learning and evolving their skills. One of our focuses is hiring writers with niche and highly specialized backgrounds. These writers have years of on-the-job experience and advanced degrees in fields from legal and finance to marketing and real estate. Rest assured that your content is in good hands with these industry specialists. Not only that, but we also offer industry-leading training for our writers so they have the opportunity to strengthen their writing skills over time. By staying updated with industry best practices, our writers can produce captivating, high-quality content every single time. Get to Know the Express Writers Team The tricky thing about working with a remote team is that you don’t usually get the opportunity to meet them in person. We strive to put people first, so we want to put a face to the name of the folks you’ll work with. On our Who We Are page, you’ll see a sampling of some of the Express Writers team members, but here are a few that you definitely need to know: Adam Oakley, CEO Adam Oakley took over the role as Express Writers CEO in 2021 after our founder, Julia McCoy, stepped down to pursue other career opportunities. Adam brings more than 20 years of experience in various executive roles to the Express Writers team. He has previously worked in manufacturing, technology, and professional service businesses. Not only that, but he also has prior experience running the marketing department for a large manufacturing company. He’s even been part of the leadership team for a global technology provider, where he focused on business operations, scaling the worldwide group, and developing the client service model for a $30 million company. His leadership and management skills make him a natural CEO for Express Writers. Since taking over the role, he’s fully immersed himself in our company culture, taking the time to meet directly with various team members, establish a relationship with them, and ensure a smooth transition. It’s his mission to expand on EW’s success, helping us to make an even greater impact on the world of online content. Alicia Oakley, COO Alicia Oakley became our … Read more

Annual Content Creation Report: A Year in the Life of A 500,000+ Word/Month Content Production Team

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content creation report

In this report, we’re giving our Write Blog readers one of the most intensive insights we’ve ever put together on our internal content production. This report is a real look at the content creation our team undertook for our clients for one year. We’ve never done a transparent income report before on the Write Blog, so this is the first one. The data below comes from our e-commerce Content Shop, and the month-by-month data is generated from inside our own platform as over 50-60 monthly clients order from us. Two years ago, our consistent top selling service was general blogs, and our team was producing over a million words per month. This year, our top seller was industry expert blogs. We saw a major transition in demand from general writers into expert writers th­is year, comparatively from 2018 to 2019. We believe this will only continue, as content marketers realize the level they need to hit to perform well with readers and Google. Across even our highest-volume client accounts, industry expert writers are now becoming a “must-have” over a more generalized, non-expert voice. This is a necessary evolution, as Google continues to enforce E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and Y-M-Y-L (an even higher level of quality needed for Your Money or Your Life industries) in ranking content in search results. Expert authors and creators are absolutely a must for brands and publishers today. Without further ado, let’s get into our year-to-date content creation recap. New here? Read the story of how Express Writers was founded. 2019 Content Creation Report: A Year in the Life of A 500,000+ Word/Month Content Production Team Our Top 6 Hottest Content Creation Service Offerings for the Year Expert Blogs Custom-Quoted Projects Expert Web Pages Custom Images Product Descriptions Blogging Plans [bctt tweet=”500,000+ words written per month? ✍️ It’s true, for an agency with 90 writers on staff! Read @JuliaEMcCoy’s first-ever income and production report for @ExpWriters in this Write Blog.” username=”ExpWriters”] 3 Content Creation Insights from Our Year of Content Production in 2019 I founded Express Writers back in 2011, eight years ago. Read my story here, and if you want the FULL, unabridged story (including how I escaped a cult!), sign up for my memoir on my entrepreneurial journey launching in February of 2020. I’m thrilled to see our company continue to stand and grow in the industry, and 2019 was another great year for Express Writers. We had the opportunity to partner with and collaborate on some incredible content projects, serving clients all around the world with fabulous written content for their blog, site, PR, social media, advertising, and other copy needs. 1. Quality Over Quantity in Team Size Jeff Bezos said it best: “Every internal team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas.” (He continues to apply this rule in Amazon’s upper management.) After surviving eight years of HR trenches, I’ve found that my leadership runs best when it’s a small, productive team of people. We don’t have crossovers, we avoid ‘too many cooks in the kitchen,’ and everyone works together incredibly well. [bctt tweet=”.@JuliaEMcCoy says a small team is best. ‘You don’t need a massive team to produce amazing content. After surviving eight years of HR trenches, I’ve found that my leadership runs best when it’s a small, productive team of people.’  ” username=”ExpWriters”] You also don’t need a massive team to produce amazing content. We have 90 writers on staff, and 30-40 are always busy full-time—several of whom work and train directly under me. The others remain on-call for various niche project. One writer only writes content for a luxury yachting brand; another only writes content on outdoor sports, fly-fishing and hunting. One is a retired J.D. that writes copy for legal websites and blogs. Those are just some examples of the niche writers we’ve head-hunted to add to the team. While our writing and editing team stays around ninety people consistently, our leadership team has stayed small this year. Our management and leadership team is less than six people. Korilynn (writing/editorial team management), myself (marketing/HR), Josh (our CTO), Lorien (client onboarding and assistance), Kira (scheduled for calls by appointment, on-staff Content Strategist), and Danielle (our content and editorial specialist, as well as support for my courses). 2. Higher Word Count Doesn’t Always Mean More Revenue High revenue doesn’t always correlate to a high volume of words and production, as you’ll see from the statistics below. In fact, many times, it’s quite the opposite for our team. For example, a general blog can cost $45; a single 500-word page of a case study by one of our top-tier marketing writers can cost $150. Typically, the higher the quality desired, the higher the price; and less words can end up being involved in a project like that as opposed to a lower-quality, higher-word count project. So, this has pushed me towards ways we can work smarter, not just harder. [bctt tweet=”Higher ‘production’ doesn’t always equal more revenue. Work smarter, not harder. This and other lessons from @JuliaEMcCoy’s year-end report for @ExpWriters 6 MILLION word/year: ” username=”ExpWriters”] Our lowest-revenue month was a month where we were completing a big general content project for a client, and our content creation was ridiculously high-volume. But our income was low. Since general content is one of our lowest-priced services, that was a low-revenue month. 3. Evergreen Business Growth is the Best Growth The biggest catalyst for our growth continues to be our own Express Writers’ Write Blog, which is a “slow and steady” race—reminiscent of a turtle plodding forward, day after day. We haven’t taken a vacation from blogging in eight years. I’m three months ahead with the content schedule, and we publish a blog once every Tuesday. I also publish a YouTube video every third Monday. After eight years, our blog is now at 100,000 visitors/month. [bctt tweet=”Slow and steady growth is the best growth, @JuliaEMcCoy says. It’s taken them eight years to grow the Write Blog to the presence it has today … Read more

Spring 2019 Updates at Express Writers: Team Additions, Social Media Copy & Image Updates & More

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Spring 2019 Updates at Express Writers: Team Additions, Social Media Copy & Image Updates & More

Content marketing is not an industry you can stand as an expert in without evolution, progress, and continual growth. I’m happy to say that this is in our line of vision at Express Writers: continual progress. It is a part of our mission at Express Writers to continually refine our services and offer the best in content creation. This spring, we’ve made some changes at Express Writers to upgrade and increase the quality and uniqueness of the content services we provide for our clients. In today’s blog, I’ve written a recap of these changes to keep you up-to-date with our changes and progress. Let’s dive in! [bctt tweet=”Check out @JuliaEMcCoy’s recap of our Spring 2019 updates at Express Writers ?” username=”ExpWriters”] Product Changes at Express Writers: Resurrecting Social Media Services: What’s New Today, & What’s on the Horizon I’m really excited to share that our social media copy and plans got a major facelift in the Content Shop. Both internally, and externally. Instead of the confusing buy-5-posts-with-variations, and Level 1, 2, and 3 pre-built without customization options, here are the changes that have applied to the social media services we offer at Express Writers. Standalone social media posts: pick the platform, quantity, and optionally, images: we simply write the copy and create images. See standalone posts.  Social media plans have become build-your-own, instead of preset Levels: much more customizable! Just package up all the posts you need for a monthly total per-platform, per-piece quantity and price. See social media plans. Social media images got a major re-haul: our designer will use your candid selfies or photographs and design them inside a 1:1 design (super hot these days on Facebook and Instagram), hand-made in Adobe Illustrator. (Examples below!) Our social media experts will now include and suggest hashtags, the right amount and the right type per platforms, with the copy. It’s a “buy one, get one now” for posts, clearly worded in the service. Or, you can package up into a monthly plan. No more confusing variations and choices. Here’s the before and after of our Social Media Posts page. You can experience the revamped page right here. And, here’s the new look for Social Media Plans: The quality and what you get in our written and designed social posts has changed for the better. As mentioned, we’ll research and suggest the best hashtags to use in your Instagram posts, as well as on other platforms. Plus, our social media image design got a full-on major facelift. We no longer work with stock images (unless absolutely necessary on behalf of the client). Instead, we’re asking that you provide images for us in the input forms, and our designer will take that image and inspiration from our social media copywriter to design a hot graphic for your social media profile inside our popular, researched and strategic 1:1 sized square graphic. For this fairly massive service change, I did some beta testing. Chris Strub was our beta client for the new services, as well as my own social media profiles. I worked with our designer and social media experts as we went through changing the internal process. Here’s what our new social media posts and image deliverables actually look like (content written by our social media specialist and designed by our in-house designer): Example social media post #1 Copy: Social media tip: The front-facing camera is the perfect metaphor for putting yourself out there on social media. Tap the little icon for turning your camera into selfie mode, and hit ‘record’ or snap a photo and make that the next piece of content you post on social media. ?  Your audience loves seeing the authentic YOU shine through! For more social media tips, follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisstrub/ Example social media post #2 Copy:  Are you writing emails and sending them regularly to your list? If not, you SHOULD be! It’s one of the most effective ways to grow and nurture your audience. Hand-in-hand with email marketing is great content: a little secret I’m going to let you in on is that email content gets SO much easier if you have comprehensive blogs hitting your site on the regular. If you need copy support, my content agency Express Writers can help. Our hand-picked email marketing copywriters have helped hundreds of B2Bs and B2Cs craft their message (and even helped me write the ones we send you!). Chat with us today to see how we can help you create great content! Link: https://staging.expresswriters.com/content/email-copy/ Example social media post #3 Copy:  FAMILY TIME. One of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur and content marketer is that I can, if I want to, take off a random Tuesday to hang out with my little. Or, get her early out of daycare for a special treat and some playground time on a beautiful, sunny day. Do you get to break away for family time? It’s so important! These improved social media offerings will definitely bring more ROI to our clients and what they get out of social media. We’re so excited about these improvements! Also, we’ve added a new service to our social media copy. New: YouTube descriptions! I’ve found after optimizing and publishing consistent videos on my own YouTube channel, that the copy inside your YouTube description is extremely important to rankings and click-throughs from your videos to your site. What’s On the Horizon: Improved Experience Coming for Our Clients at Express Writers Also, PSA for our clients: We know our systems are somewhat messy, and we’re hard at work on a total solution to fix everything.  Navigation in the Content Shop, simply put, can sometimes be a bear. The products are too many, and confusing. The Client Account section needs more details, dates, and an easy reorder button. We’ve got all these changes at heart, and for the past several years, we’ve been hard at work on what we call internally, EW 2.0: The Beast. This is our brand new e-commerce system that is 100% customized and built from scratch, built for massive project management, speed, and seamless use by … Read more

Blogging ROI Case Study: How 18,000 Keywords In Google Bring Us Six-Figure Income Months

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“I’m ‘doing’ content, but it’s just not bringing me clients.” “I’m posting and creating regularly – in fact, consistency is my middle name – but I’m still a one-person show with little funding to achieve my next level.” Lately, I’ve heard this ALL too often – but the reality is, if you develop content strategically, you CAN achieve six-figure income months in your business. Since it’s been almost two years since I created a case study on my brand (specifically, how we are our own content guinea pig: we’re able to make monthly six-figure sales happen from clients that found our content online), I decided it was time for a new one. I started the research for this in February, and today – five months later! – the case study is all done and live, as of today. Our last case study focused on how we achieve rankings – “How We Outrank Every Competitor & Win Through Organic Content Without Spending a Penny on Ads (Express Writers’ Content Case Study),” and was from October 2016. Today’s case study focuses on how we actually earn real income (to the tune of six-figures per month) from the content and rankings we’ve achieved. 99.9% of our leads and business revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog. Next, we interviewed a client we work with from time to time: Magnificent Marketing, a full-service marketing agency. We’ll share how they’ve boosted their client traffic numbers and rankings with great content. If you read one blog of mine this quarter, read this one. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and dig in! [bctt tweet=”99.9% of our leads and revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog. Learn how we do it in our case study on #blogging #SEO success  ” username=”ExpWriters”] Why & How SEO Blogging Equals ROI for Any Brand Blogging (a form of great content marketing) equals ROI, for any brand. In itself, blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand, attracting your ideal clients to your website, and growing your entire business. Especially blogging written around viable SEO keywords you want to rank for. But here’s the caveat to that. That statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality. [bctt tweet=”‘Blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand… BUT… that statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality.’ – @JuliaEMcCoy” on #bloggingROI username=”ExpWriters”] Businesses who create content strategically achieve ROI in the form of: Better, more qualified leads that convert at a higher rate than traffic from paid ads or paid search How many leads? Our content marketing ROI formula can help you estimate your average monthly leads/sales from content marketing Here’s the formula: Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month) According to that formula, an average of 1,000 visitors/month can get you at least 160 high-quality leads/month from strategic blogging That’s not all, though. Blogging also brings in: Year-over-year site traffic growth that’s 8x higher than those at the back of the pack 6x the conversions of those who don’t publish content, according to a well-known study from Aberdeen and Kapost Incredibly convincing numbers, right? But, even better than stats, we have a prime, real-life example of what blogging ROI looks like. Ready? Let’s dig in and see exactly what the power of blogging–and great content–can do for a business. Express Writers’ Blogging ROI: $1,600 in Content = $66,700 Worth of Traffic & Organic Google Positions Here’s a real-life, extreme example of how great, consistent content creation can work incredibly well. Take a look at the current traction below for Express Writers. This is after six years of consistent content, with over 1,000 blogs published to-date on our site across those six consistent years. (Remember, steady content creation has a dominoes effect: It does better over time.) According to our data on SEMrush (pulled June 1, 2018), current paid search efforts to achieve our current month’s site traffic — 22,800 visitors — would cost $66,700. (This amount increases on a monthly basis for us. Lately, every month it’s been a 1-2k increase in traffic, with a fluctuating increase in rankings as well.) If we were to buy this much traffic through Google Adsense, that would be an average paid search cost of $2.92 per visitor. And, we haven’t even figured out how many of those are leads (buyers) yet. Expensive! $$$ How Much Content Do We Produce to Achieve Blogging ROI? + the Costs We publish, on average, one long-form, comprehensive piece of content weekly, and we update content on a monthly basis, too. Besides that, we publish monthly podcasts with show notes, and monthly #ContentWritingChat recaps. Here’s an example of one of our long-form blogs: And here’s an example of a #ContentWritingChat recap post: What does it cost to create this type of content regularly? Our costs run: Money: $400/month (this used to be $750, but we shaved off $300+ in costs by switching our Twitter chat to once/month instead of weekly) Time: 4-5 hours of my time/month in blogging prep, publishing, writing, outlining, optimizing, & 3-4 hours/month in email marketing If you qualify the hours I personally spend on our content into a “staff cost,” that alone could run $1,600+ per month. How Do the Costs Compare to Paid Methods? If paid search would cost $66,700 to achieve our current traffic in a month (22,800 visitors), and my cost of content marketing to achieve that traffic is $1,625, then paid search would be (at a minimum) 40x more expensive than my organic content marketing efforts. Or, put it another way – a solid, consistent content marketing strategy over time could be 40 times cheaper than a paid marketing strategy. For business owners and higher-ups who think exclusively in dollar signs, that’s … Read more

Content Shop Update: Our Expert Copywriting Level Just Got Better!

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April 2018 Content Shop Update: Our Expert Copywriting Level Just Got Better!

As most of our clients already know, we’re constantly updating and maintaining our services, team, and processes here at Express Writers. Quality is first and foremost at our heart. One reason I haven’t sought an outside partner or funding source is that running the company 100% by ourselves allows us to make fast, agile changes to our processes. These processes can instantly allow our clients to experience more customized, high-quality services–and turn on a dime to change or fix any issues, if they come up. Our personal commitment and involvement at this level is one major reason why we don’t even consider ourselves a competitor against many other “content vendors,” like Textbroker and WriterAccess, to name a few. You want cheap content on a budget? We’ll hold the door open for you, and recommend one of those vendors. You want quality web content for your blog, website or your clients’ sites? That’s when you come to us. As the CEO, I haven’t earned my place in the top content marketers worldwide by chance or through cutting corners. Quite the opposite. It’s been a long, grueling journey, full of learning experiences and challenges. I learned and grew, as I wrote and published multiple bestselling books in my industry, led my company, and built/rebuilt our processes. This April, we’ve made some changes in our Content Shop that we want you to be aware of. What’s at heart? You guessed it–quality. We want to continue to serve our clients with the best content (not the cheapest). Continue reading for a short memo on our internal, and external, changes. Express Writers’ Expert Copywriting Update & Internal Process Improvements: 3 Major Changes to Our Writing Levels Here’s a rundown of the major changes we’ve gone through this year. There are more–we literally improve our processes daily–but these are the biggest ones. 1. General Content Creation Level Update As you probably know by now, we’ve always offered three levels of content at Express Writers: General (no longer offered publicly, at request only on a case-by-case basis: our lowest-cost writer level for easier subjects) Expert (expert writers with specific industry experience, from legal to tech, finance, engineering, and beyond) Authority (our “boss” content level: the one you order when you want long-form blogs that net serious rankings and gain in Google) As of March 2018, we completely removed the public link to our General product level from the Content Shop. For every client interested in this level, our support team can personally hand them the link to this service after verifying that general level will be a fit for them (most sites need expert content at a minimum to see ROI from the content produced). Just open the chat in the right-hand corner of our site, or drop an email to request our General level. 2. Expert Copywriting Product Update Our team has grown in the last month! By now, we have a library of more than 70 expert writers that have individualized experience in a wide range of industries. This is an increase of more than double in our team size across the past four months. And this week, we revamped how we offer Expert content. Instead of more than 20 “products” (individual product URLs for each industry topic our writers cover), we combined all our expert topics into one simple category: Custom Industry Expert. This single product now features a box where you, our client, can type in your EXACT industry or topic/niche, and we’ll match you up to that expert! See below, and check out the product here: You’ll see the Expert Category in our Content Shop has drastically reduced to lesser “items” – but with the ability to tell us your specific industry before you place an order, we’re able to focus on customizing our content solutions for your needs more than ever. As our team grows, and we add more support specialists, this will be a fantastic way we can continue to focus on your specific topic and make sure it goes to the perfect-fit expert in our team. 3. HR Improvements One of the main cores I had at heart when I launched Express Writers, was hiring every writer personally. I wanted to find the best writers. Today, seven years later, I still continue to hand-pick every writer. This year, we’ve refined that process. I continue to carefully vet and look for industry expertise that can match every one of our client’s industries and topic areas. Our new step added to this process is having our Content Director, Hannah, hold a phone interview call with every writer that allows us to get to know our writers on a personal level, and find out their interests and favorite topics to write about, too. We also keep a running database about every topic under the sun that our experts have real-life experience in. These changes have already improved how writers work within our team, and boosted client satisfaction rates. Need content that pushes your brand forward online? We’re your team. Talk to us today. To your online success, ~ Julia and Team, Express Writers

Interview for the Write Blog: Authority Writer & Content Strategist Austin

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Interview For The Write Blog

Today for the Write Blog, we interviewed one of our full-time writers, Austin. Austin first began his career as a pro writer when he left his hometown of Los Angeles, California to travel the world and document his experiences along the way. He has toured with rock bands in Europe, written technical documentation for Australian engineering concerns and executed social media strategies for major international brands across the globe. A talented writer, Austin has been a long-term member of Express Writers for over a year, working full-time as an Authority Writer, Content Strategist and all-around gifted copywriter. What were your earliest writing memories? Like many introverted pre-teens, at the age of 10 or 11 I kept a journal where I’d write down my thoughts and occasionally try my hand at poetry. Shortly thereafter, I migrated to the then-popular LiveJournal platform and share these thoughts with the small handful of close friends who took an interest. Back then, everyone had a Myspace account, but keeping up a LiveJournal took a bit more effort, and it was a far more convenient way to share opinions and tell stories. What (or who) were your early influences in writing? I’ve been an avid science fiction fan since I was first introduced to Isaac Asimov. My father gave me The Foundation Series as a birthday gift. Asimov’s influence is easy to identify in both my creative and practical approaches to writing. In particular, one quote of his made a huge impact on my creative goal as a writer: “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might get me a Pulitzer prize…” I’ve also adopted many elements of his famously hyper-productive workflow – Asimov wrote almost 500 books during his lifetime, which calculates to an average of one full novel every two weeks for 25 years. I haven’t quite reached that volume of output, but if I had received George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones that year, this interview would not be online until the year 2050. What kind of topics get you excited/passionate to write about and why? I find inspiration in anything new, innovative, or otherwise under-explored. For the most part, this happens in the tech sector, where entrepreneurs and startups are constantly coming up with fresh and exciting challenges to the status quo. But this can happen anywhere, in any subject. Usually, I try to address this frame of reference in almost everything I write – synthesizing the well-established facts of the past with the new insights of today to create a better perspective of tomorrow. Do you have any daily/typical writing rituals? I continuously engineer just about every aspect of my daily writing routine to reduce inefficiencies and keep myself focused. Most of these rituals prevent decision fatigue from tiring me out throughout the day. For instance, I work at home, but always dress to a tee beforehand. Music is almost always playing (loudly) while I write, but only specific albums and playlists on repeat – radio host banter would get in the way and break my concentration. I keep my office immaculately clean for the same reason. I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I do hold an unlit antique tobacco pipe in my mouth while writing. That’s just a personal idiosyncrasy I suppose stems from popular depictions of writers like Ernest Hemingway or Mark Twain. Somehow, it just feels appropriate. What books, tools, websites have helped your writing the most? This is a small list of resources I reference the most: Kevan Lee’s list of copywriting formulas. This is a great tool, not just for introducing articles to readers, but for introducing just about anyone to anything. Google Scholar. I’ve found that more often than not, great sources form the crux of great content. Finding better, more recent, and more complete data about a subject than anyone else practically guarantees that you’ll be able to deliver a clearer and more compelling argument about it. Practical Content Strategy & Marketing. Can’t go wrong with this one. This book offers a bird’s eye view of content strategy as a discipline and then goes deep into what defines a successful approach, step-by-step. Buzzsumo. This tool is extraordinarily useful for synthesizing topics and strategies out of already-popular content. Used in the right way, it can be your go-to topic generating tool for almost any industry. Importantly, these are all technical resources that help get content made. For the creative work of actually writing content, I rely on two philosophical disciplines more than anything else: Aristotelian Rhetoric. A lot of motivational speakers, speechwriters, and life coaches will claim to teach you the secret of how to convince anyone of anything, but few, if any, do anything more than paraphrase Aristotle. When it comes to persuasion, the definitive work has been written and its about 2,400 years old. Critical Theory. This one is a little less user-friendly, but it’s incredibly useful when you need to disprove something, or otherwise poke holes in people’s existing prejudices, principles, and belief systems. Handle with care. Don’t try this at home. What is your favorite article that you wrote? My favorite project so far was a white paper for a cryptocurrency designed to operate in the healthcare sector. The level of research involved can only be described as legendary – decades of aggregated healthcare spend in multiple countries compared with each nation’s respective changes in fiduciary policy and the effects of those changes, transformed into a projection of future trends and used to argue for the need for a new form of currency to compensate for the discrepancy in inflation rates between fiat currency and healthcare products and services. Psychedelic stuff. A favorite client that you worked with? There’s a fellow whom I know only as “Sean”. One of my most memorable projects with this client involved long-form … Read more

Interview for the Write Blog: Copywriter & Content Strategist Diana

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Interview For The Write Blog Copywriter And Content Strategist Diana

Today for the Write Blog, we interviewed one of our full-time writers, Diana. Diana is a journalism graduate, award-winning filmmaker and online content specialist. She dedicates her work to crafting content that connects people with stories and ideas that matter. When she’s away from the laptop, you can find her navigating through South America’s mountain trails or planning her next large-scale environmental project. Diana joined our team earlier this year and has become an integrated part, training closely with Julia for a course support role, and writing a myriad of content types for our clients.  How did you first find out you liked to write? My dad is a writer and I’ve always been a big fan of him in many ways. So when I was about nine years old, I decided to submit a story for the Remembrance Day competition at my school. The story ended up winning first place and was announced at the annual ceremony. If you can remember being nine years old, winning basically anything was the best thing ever. So clearly, I exploded — and became totally obsessed. Soon after, I got a hold of my dad’s old briefcase, filled it with blank notebooks and begun writing long-winded mystery stories for a good length of time (Nancy Drew was my other hero). What (or who) were your early influences in writing? After my long-lived Nancy Drew/Harriet the Spy phase and survived my too-cool-for-school chapter, I was introduced to a handful of influencers in University. Besides my incredible journalism/writing professors and mentors, there were some other special people I surrounded myself with: I ABSORBED Kurt Vonnegut. Like I wanted to take his work and inject it into my body somehow. Douglas Coupland and Rawi Hage were fairly prominent in my life, too. David Sedaris was pretty much my long-distance, secret mentor for my short story work. Hunter S. Thompson was my muse. Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen and Sylvia Plath were my sad, soulful weekend mentors. At this time, I was also regularly writing lyrics for a band I was in. I think this may have been one of the greatest influences for my writing: The self-disciplined study of lyricism and poetry. It gave my writing a certaindepth and flavour. Henry David Thoreau was a game-changer, though. I think I’ve read Walden 4 times. This, combined with tree planting expeditions and my insatiable love for scriptwriting eventually led me to creating work for a purpose, rather than simply the joy of storytelling. What kind of topics get you excited/passionate to write about and why? I love characters. Profile pieces, especially on zany people, make me giddy. I also love every aspect of writing for environmental topics. I try to learn as much about environmental issues on the side to help my craft in this field. Honestly though, any topic that has the potential to influence further development in either myself or the world at large has me pretty pumped. This can include: – content marketing – social enterprises – psychology and self-development – new cuisine or farming practices – specific technology Do you have any daily/typical writing rituals? I meditate. I go through stints where I don’t do it as often, but it’s clear how it affects my concentration and therefore my writing. Meditating every morning before looking at screens improves the overall productiveness of my day significantly. Clear/calm mind + blank paper + coffee = real potential. What books, tools, websites have helped your writing the most? I’m kind of old school. I believe the simple discipline of reading and writing a desired topic/style can boost your abilities. Currently, I’m trying to improve my content writing, so I’m reading Julia’s book while following various blogs. I use Feedly to help me stay updated with specific styles of content I’m focusing on — which is actually the most high-tech I’ve ever been in this respect. What is your favorite article that you wrote? It was called, “Massacre on Dundas Avenue.” It was an investigative piece on why there were so many dead squirrels littering the main roads in my town. The article was a result of a casual observation that led to a broader issue — an approach I feel makes for the best articles. A favorite client that you worked with? Dr. Graham’s Homes, which is an orphanage and school in Kalimpong, India. I wrote a number of the graduate’s testimonials for their main site to encourage essential funding. The stories these students shared were truly inspiring, some of them almost chilling. Being given the chance to take these stories and mould them into something tangible was an honor. What is the oddest writing assignment you’ve ever had? I covered a radio story on the inside life of a trailer park, which was actually a few hours away from where the TV show, Trailer Park Boys was shot. The assignment required me to go door-to-door and interview residents of the area, which proved to be both terrifying and awe-inspiring. The range of characters was vast, but one common theme that carried through was the residents’ ability to effortlessly entertain guests. How does your writing career help you either creatively, personally, or financially? My writing career not only pays the bills and my ability to travel (which includes its own benefits), but it encourages me to evolve on a personal level. I believe that constantly working on a craft, whether it be art, carpentry, music or writing, enhances your ability to expand in a myriad of ways. It helps you practice humility, and when done well and enjoyably, can be beneficial for your spirit and overall well-being. The craft of writing helps you connect with people and ideas. It supports continual learning, curiosity, and encourages open-mindedness. Needless to say, invaluable gains.

The State of Content Marketing Today. Why We Just Launched New & Improved Content Strategy Services at Express Writers

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Improved Content Strategy Services At Express Writers

Let’s talk a little about the state of content marketing as it stands today. 91% of content marketers are using content marketing. That’s higher than all previous years to date. Content creation is the #1 activity in content marketing that gets outsourced. 45% of content marketers are more successful than they were the previous year: And 78% quoted better content creation as being the number one reason for their improved success. Yet only 4% of these marketers rate themselves as extremely successful.  CMI adds: “As they have in the past, respondents who have a documented content marketing strategy report higher levels of overall content marketing success compared with those who have a verbal strategy only, or no strategy at all.” Yet, despite this guaranteed success rate, only 37% of marketers still have a documented content strategy. Here’s a quick slide of those statistics from the CMI report: What exactly is IN a documented content strategy? Here’s eleven top cores I’d direct you to consider. Note that it is much more than just a keyword report, or a topic calendar. Audience Persona (you’ve identified your audience so specifically that you have a name and a face) Your industry standout factor (Content Differentiation Factor) Your messaging, voice, and tone (Brand Style Guidelines) SEO keyword reports with high-value, high-opportunity keywords (researched consistently) Content creation plan & creation team in place Content types to create A content creation budget Editorial calendar with staff collaboration Social media platforms to build a presence on Guest blogging opportunities identified Content updating, tracking and maintenance plan in place That’s a lot.  You want to be in the 4% of content marketers that are “extremely successful,” right? Then you need all eleven cores turning in your content wheelhouse. But, here’s the issue. You’re probably facing two questions right about now. How the heck do you do all those things ^? Where the heck can you find a support team, that is quality controlled, to outsource all those things ^? How & Why Our Mission These Days is to Solve Industry Problems & Help Brands Succeed By Offering the Best Content Strategy Services Here’s the thing… I’ve been focusing on this “big industry picture” since late 2016. It all started when I began to look at these CMI Benchmark reports, and even asked myself “why are our blogging clients not renewing their order every month?” Every year, content marketing investment and marketer buy-in goes up. But the strategic success hasn’t really gone up at all. Today, only 4% feel they’re very successful at content marketing in 2018. You know what’s worse? Take a look at previous years’ records. In 2016, 88% of marketers were doing content marketing – now, 91% are. In 2016, 32% had a documented content strategy: today, 37% do. In 2016, 6% rated themselves as highly effective. Today, only 4% feel they’re highly effective. That’s -2% from two years ago! In my firm, I’ve seen success rise for my content marketing year-after-year. I know by now that it is all about consistent content, and I also knew, after five years of trial and error, beyond a doubt the value of great content in content marketing – provided you get consistent and you know what you’re doing. When my brand went past 1,000 published blogs, I wrote about the results after looking through our sales forms. It’s rather mind-blowing. 500+ inbound lead inquiries from those 1,000 blogs, closed with a sale at an 80-85% rate. Those were high-value leads: just one converted at $75,000. The success I’d experienced by using content marketing to power 99% of my own business success (for six years!) is the very reason I created a content strategy course. I go through all the cores I just mentioned, and teach strategists at all beginner levels how to be successful.  How to be in the top 4%. By doing this, I want that industry metric to expand. Expand from 4% to 10, 20%. If brands get extremely effective at their content marketing, BIG things will happen for that brand. They’ll get known: appreciated: earn a loyal, tight-knit fan base: and see sales roll in every day. Hand in hand with the course are the content strategy services I’ve built in my content agency, Express Writers. I started writing the core training for our “content planning,” “keyword research,” and “content consultation” 5 years ago–and that inspired the industry-wide course I launched last year. We’re a content creation agency first and foremost, but truly: what is great content if you don’t have your fundamental strategy mapped out? Recapping the Main Changes to Our Content Strategy Services for 2018 Here’s what the new product, Content Strategy, looks like: 3 main changes to our content strategy services We revamped and improved each strategy service we offer (list of changes below), for the year. On top of that, I launched new internal training for our Strategists, straight from the cores of my 6-week, intensive content course at www.contentstrategycourses.com. All this happened in the last three weeks here at Express Writers. All of our content strategy services are now available from this one product link, Content Strategy, instead of multiple links for keyword research and the other variations inside this one service. Keyword research has now become more finely tuned and available in two variations: Keyword research for blogging, keyword research for web page topics. We’ll research longer-tail keywords for your blog, that offer a high likelihood of ranking: and wider opportunities for your site, where you’d want to rank overall for bigger, bolder keywords. Content planning and content planning blocks has turned into Topic Research, for web or blog. You’ll receive an editorial calendar with high-ROI topics analyzed, as well as a core keyword to use in the topic: and what’s more, we now research influencers for your topic area as well and give you an exported list in the Excel editorial calendar. Our topic headlines are highly-scored, and carefully analyzed by our Content Strategists. We use some of the best tools on the market: SEMrush, BuzzSumo, Hawkeye by Scoop.it, and Mangools’ KWFinder. Our team Content … Read more

CMWorld 2017: 9 Top Attendance Takeaways & 3 Event Networking Tips (What I Learned as a First-Time CMWorld Attendee)

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CMWorld 2017: 9 Top Attendance Takeaways & 3 Event Networking Tips (What I Learned as a First-Time CMWorld Attendee)

I’ve always wanted to go to CMWorld. Like, since I started out 6 years ago in the industry. If you know anything about me, you know that I started Express Writers back in 2011, at 20 years old, with $75: and through consistent content creation, I’ve been able to reach clients and grow to a team of over 40 writers, serving over 5,000 clients over the last 6 years. The sole marketing we do is content marketing. We are a realization of our services: literally, we ARE a content creation agency marketed and fueled by the content we create for our brand. This is done through my content on the Write Blog, my guest blogs on Content Marketing Institute, Search Engine Journal, and SiteProNews, to name a few. By now, we have over 4,000 organic keyword spots in Google. So this year, I finally went and gathered in a crowd of people that were my kind – over 4,600 content creators and marketers, at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio. I took one of my team leaders with me. The verdict? We experienced a dynamite week at CMWorld. I walked away with four potential new clients, three (maybe four) sponsors for my new course, AND some key lessons learned that I’ll be implementing for the good of my company and the web (seriously – I’m about to get a lot realer and create even better content in the days ahead – I’ve been strategizing and mapping since the moment I left). Here’s a recap. Keep reading for 9 main session takeaways – simple, favorite takeaways – and 3 critical lessons I learned as a content marketer attending #CMWorld, about the event in general and how to network effectively. CMWorld 2017 In Pictures How fun is this? Our designer took the 30+ pictures I shot at the event with some of my favorite content marketing people, and made an infographic collage! Enjoy. 🙂 [clickToTweet tweet=”Experience #CMWorld 2017 in pictures: #infographic of event pictures via @ExpWriters” quote=”Experience #CMWorld 2017 in pictures: #infographic of event pictures via @ExpWriters”] Arriving in Cleveland September 5 for CMWorld 2017: Day 1 Tuesday, September 5, started off the event with an amazing networking night where each one of us 4,000+ marketers hung out together at the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. I’d never been, and it was incredible – a beautiful venue. Hannah, my Content Director at Express Writers, and I landed right at 6:55 pm. Hannah came from Albany, Oregon, and I came from Austin, Texas. The networking party was from 7:30 to 10:00 p.m. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and got ready to network and party! We ended up at the event around 8:15. The trolley left our hotel, Crowne Plaza, every 30 minutes. Which was awesome. We didn’t have to call an Uber or a taxi for the CMWorld events that happened close to our hotel. Content Marketing World had all the details covered – even a printout of where you were going ready to hand out at the hotel front lobby. In fact, CMWorld signs were EVERYWHERE. We saw cars sporting magnetic roof signs, like pizza delivery cars, for the event. Content Marketing Institute did an outstanding job on event marketing. Everything was set up to be extremely helpful for attendees, especially the new ones that weren’t sure where to go (me). At the networking event Tuesday night, we had an amazing time. I actually got to personally shake hands with and hug my industry hero, Joe Pulizzi! Funny story: Hannah and I ended up escorting Joe Pulizzi for the CMI staff up the escalator, both of us on each side of him! I also met the amazing CMI staff, who I’d emailed and tweeted with years prior to this week. It’s great to make a connection through email and/or Twitter, but there’s nothing like hugging in real life. I crossed paths with a lot more people I’d tweeted or emailed. The opening night party was loads of fun. 9 Session Takeaways from CMWorld 2017: Joe Pulizzi, Jay Acunzo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & More The CMWorld event, true to awesome form, comes complete with a CMWorld app. CMWorld 2017 is downloadable through the iTunes store. It was an amazing way to manage the 150+ sessions that occurred from Tuesday – Friday during the week of the conference. You’re free to scroll through the sessions, pick the ones you want to attend, and add them to your agenda. Incredibly smart and useful. Here are some one/two-liner (some are longer) takeaways from the sessions I attended. Keep reading for some hugely critical tips I learned on networking for great results, too. 1. Joe Pulizzi, Welcome to the Content Marketing Revolution (Opening Keynote) Favorite takeaway: “You need a loyal and trusting audience. Traffic and shares are good: but without a loyal audience, nothing is possible. 9/10 marketers that are successful at content marketing, say that they focus on building an audience.” [clickToTweet tweet=”Without a loyal audience, nothing is possible. @joepulizzi #CMWorld” quote=”Without a loyal audience, nothing is possible. @joepulizzi #CMWorld”] 2. Linda Boff, GE, “Imagination at Work: Lessons in Storytelling from GE,” General Session Keynote Key takeaway: “Stories are right under our noses—we just might need to change the lens every now and then. Content that tries to sell, doesn’t.” [clickToTweet tweet=”Content that tries to sell, doesn’t. @lindaboff” quote=”Content that tries to sell, doesn’t. @lindaboff”] 3. Jay Acunzo, “Be the Exception: How Brilliant Marketers Find and Follow What Makes Their Stories Different in a World Full of Average Content,” General Session Keynote Key takeaway: [clickToTweet tweet=”Pay more attention to your customer than your industry, and your customer will pay more attention to you. @jayacunzo ” quote=”Pay more attention to your customer than your industry, and your customer will pay more attention to you. @jayacunzo #CMWorld”] “Be exceptional. Spend your time doing truly remarkable work and building something worth subscribing to. Pay more attention to your customer than your industry, and … Read more

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