long form content - Express Writers

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

April 1, 2024 by Korilynn V.

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 Suddenly, that article sounds outdated.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

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Long-Form Content: Distribution & Promotion Tactics, & Best Examples with Lisa Dougherty

January 1, 2021May 5, 2017 by Rachel Moffett

There’s no denying that long-form content is where it’s at when it comes to the world of online content. That’s why we had to host a #ContentWritingChat all about this topic that’s so crucial for content creators. If you’re ready to learn more about the benefits of long-form content, how to create it, and how to promote it, you’re in the right place! Now, let’s dive into the recap! #ContentWritingChat Recap: Long-Form Content: Distribution & Promotion Tactics, & Best Examples with Lisa Dougherty Join us for #ContentWritingChat on Tuesday, May 2nd at 10 AM Central Time! Our guest host is @BrandLoveLLC from @CMIContent! pic.twitter.com/lBerwOZFyj — Express Writers (@ExpWriters) April 26, 2017 Our guest host this week was Lisa Dougherty. Lisa is an entrepreneur and she’s also the Blog & Community Director over at Content Marketing Institute. CMI is one of our favorite resources and we were thrilled to have Lisa join the chat and share her expertise on long-form content. Q1: Why should you consider long-form content in this age where so many talk about short-form content? You’ve likely heard that we as human beings tend to have short attention spans. So, if this is true, then why are people pushing brands to create long-form content online? Here’s how longer, valuable content can actually benefit your brand: A1a: Long-form content (2k+ words) typically performs better on social, increases website authority, plus links. #ContentWritingChat — Lisa Dougherty (@BrandLoveLLC) May 2, 2017 A1b: Long-form content is more likely to generate backlinks signaling search engines quality content that ranks higher. #ContentWritingChat — Lisa Dougherty (@BrandLoveLLC) May 2, 2017 Lisa said long-form content typically performs better on social media, plus it also increases website authority and earns you links. @ExpWriters A1 Short answer: long-form WORKS. More rankings, shares and reads actually happen w/ long-form! #ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/F9OsBb6i65 — Julia McCoy ? (@JuliaEMcCoy) May 2, 2017 More rankings, more shares, and more reads! Need we say more about why long-form content ROCKS? A1: Long-form content goes deep with customers, strengthening connections with them. #ContentWritingChat — Sara Tetzloff (@que_sara) May 2, 2017 Sarah feels long-form content allows you to go deep with your customers and strengthen your relationship with them. After all, when they fall in love with the valuable content you create, they’ll truly appreciate your work and become big fans of your brand. A1: If it’s meaty, long-form content gives readers a lot of value. Still needs to be concise, actionable. #ContentWritingChat — Darcy De Leon (@darcydeleon) May 2, 2017 Darcy knows longer content can provide readers with tremendous value, which they’re sure to love you for. Make sure that you keep your content concise and actionable to ensure they’re engaged. A1 Long-form content offers a more complete narrative, which means you have to stay lively to keep attention throughout. #ContentWritingChat — Jim Katzaman (@JKatzaman) May 2, 2017 As Jim mentioned, you’ll have to work in order to keep the attention of your audience when creating longer content. You don’t want them to tune out before finishing your post. Q2: How do you ensure longer blog posts are captivating and hold attention all the way through? With longer content, you’re going to have to hook your reader in the very beginning and then hold their attention to get them to read through your entire post. What’s the secret to making that happen? Check out this advice from Tuesday’s chat: A2a: Capturing attention is hard in a noisy world. Tell your story w/ emotion. Use personal experiences. #ContentWritingChat — Lisa Dougherty (@BrandLoveLLC) May 2, 2017 A2b: Write for your reader, not search engines, so they’ll keep coming back. #ContentWritingChat — Lisa Dougherty (@BrandLoveLLC) May 2, 2017 Lisa encourages you to tell your story and infuse it with emotion. Share your personal experiences. It’s this kind of content that will leave people wanting to read more. She also said to write for your reader, not the search engines. While it’s fine to optimize your content for search engines, you need to create with your reader in mind. It’ll help you develop a stronger connection with them and they’ll continue to come back and read more. A2c: Headlines attract attention. Intros lure readers in. Keep both interesting and short. #ContentWritingChat — Lisa Dougherty (@BrandLoveLLC) May 2, 2017 Lisa also shared some great advice when it comes to writing your long-form content. As she mentioned, headlines will attract attention. They are what will get people to your content in the first place. What will get them to read is your introduction and the content that follows. Make sure you keep it interesting and drawn them in. A2 Put drafts aside for a day or two. Then read with fresh eyes. If your long-form content bores you, you have problems. #ContentWritingChat — Jim Katzaman (@JKatzaman) May 2, 2017 When it comes to editing, Jim suggests letting your drafts sit for a day or two. Then, once you’ve had some time apart, you can come back and edit with fresh eyes. As he said, if your long-form content bores you, you have problems. You need to find a way to change it up before you hit publish. A2: Long blogs require strategic formatting to keep reader interest: graphics for visual support, a captivating voice #contentwritingchat — Elizabeth Greenberg (@BettaBeYou) May 2, 2017 Elizabeth knows longer blog posts will require strategic formatting in order to keep your reader interested and to lead them through the post. It’s also important to showcase your brand’s captivating voice. @writingchat A2: Format them properly with headings, subheads, etc. Make sure blog posts have a good flow from 1 point to the other. #ContentWritingChat — Pinpoint Laser (@PinpointLaser) May 2, 2017 How you structure your blog posts also plays a major role in keeping people hooked on your long-form content. You’ll want to use headings and make sure everything flows. Headings are great for separating individual ideas and it helps to break up big blocks of text. And making sure everything flows is important because you … Read more

An Argument for Long-Form Content: Why it Works, What Lengths to Create, & 5 Long-Form Creators That Win

June 19, 2024January 31, 2017 by Adam Oakley

There’s no way around it, if you want to publish content that truly works for your online presence. Long-form content is more valuable, more exciting, and more relevant to readers than shorter-form content. It’s also less common. While it might sound insane to start creating long-form content while we’re living in a world of increasingly short attention spans, swimming upstream is sometimes the only way to the goal. Here’s some real inspiration for you on the subject. Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, and a leader in content marketing, wrote this in an exclusive CMI subscriber email this month (read the actual email here via PDF): “…Nearly every marketer we talk to has run to shorter posts, shorter social media updates, shorter videos, shorter podcasts … thinking that audiences don’t have the desire to invest themselves in content for a longer period of time. But they absolutely do … if the content is worthwhile. Those marketers who take a longer form approach can immediately position themselves and their stories as differentiated simply because of the length. When all your competition is going small, maybe it’s your time to go big.” In the same email, Pulizzi points out that: Huffington Post has recently doubled down on its efforts to create long-form content. All-star Youtubers are creating videos that are 10 or 12 minutes long. Tim Ferriss’s recent bestselling book, Tools of Titans, is a whopping 671 pages. Today, long-form content is the best way to stand out online. But why, truly, long-form content–why does it work?–and how can you create it for your brand? Let’s discuss this timely topic. [bctt tweet=”Why, truly, are we pro long-form content for a strong online presence? Why does it work? And how can you create it for your brand? Read @JuliaEMcCoy’s guide ? ” username=”ExpWriters”] Long-Form Content, by the Numbers Long-form content isn’t just important because it’s different – it’s important because it works. By providing more space to include relevant information, and giving audiences a chance to settle in and get comfortable with your brand, voice, and content, long-form material manages to convert at higher rates, provide a higher ROI, and earn more engagement. Here are a few fast stats to prove it: The average length of posts in the top 10 spots of Google is 2,000 words. While it’s possible for short-form content to rank well, long-form content is the winner when it comes to front-page results. Long-form content gets people to stay on pages 40% longer. Kissmetrics reports that, in addition to staying on their long-form pages longer, people exposed to long-form content also viewed 25% more pages than other visitors. Long-form content earns more social shares. When it comes to social media, long-form content earns more shares and engagement than standard blog posts. Longer content helps position you as a leader in your industry. It’s tough to bluff your way through 10,000 words, and readers know that. When you create quality, long-form content, you position yourself as a leader in your industry, standing out even further from your lazy counterparts who would rather get by with 300-word blurbs. The Long-Form Guide Revolution One great place to see the power of long-form content is in guides. Today, long-form guides are doing incredibly well. While it’s tough to earn great results if you’re not writing specific, targeted, honed guides, ultimate guides are another thing. Instead of rambling and losing readers, these guides target in on one topic and dominate all facets of it. Covering things like InDesign and landing page lead generation, these guides are killing it in the online world right now. Because they’re extensive and in-depth, these long-form guides have longer lifespans than other forms of content. This is because they can be reused again and again. After they’re researched and published online, it’s easy to make a large book from them, for example, or break them down into a long-form SlideShare presentation. Need a real-life example? Consider Joanna Wiebe, who wrote a guide to copywriting formulas. It’s called “The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever).” The piece sits at 5,000 words and takes more than an hour to read! It also includes a table of contents to follow: Useful, extensive, and helpful to readers, this piece has earned more than 6,000 shares and 151 comments. It also ranks well at the top for “copywriting formulas” in Google. 5 Examples of Bloggers Rising Above with Long-Form Content Now that you know why long-form content is so critical, let’s take a close look at a few prominent bloggers who are putting out excellent long-form content today. 1. Tor Refsland Tor Refsland, the face behind TimeManagementChef.com, has been featured on top sites like Lifehack, JeffBullas.com, Ahrefs, Post Planner, and Blogging Wizard. On his own blog, he’s famous for consistently publishing 10,000-30,000-word monster blogs. Thanks to the time, energy, and effort these blogs take, he’s been recognized as an award-winning, top blogger who was first invited to speak at key events just 18 months into blogging. For an example of what Tor Refsland is capable of with a blog, check out this piece, titled “Business Coaching, 20x My Revenue and Being Slapped by Frank Kern.” It clocks in right around 13,000 words and features so many segments and sections you’d think you were reading a novel! While the piece is long, though, it manages not to be overwhelming. This is because Refsland does a few things beautifully. For one, the entire article is broken into highly digestible segments and short paragraphs, so you’re never faced with a brick wall of text. Example: He’s also funny, and his humor feels like a trail of bread crumbs, leading you through the story step by step. He’s a pro at using punctuation, formatting, and headlines to help usher people through these monster blogs, so you never get bored or discouraged. Try this post: How To Attract the Right Clients By Doing Business Nude. It’s seriously funny. Tor’s incredible copy is a large reason he was on my podcast last year! 2. Adam … Read more

Death of the Fold: Why Content Writers Don’t Have to Worry About Scroll Time

December 31, 2020January 30, 2017 by Adam Oakley

You’ve likely heard of the phrase “above the fold,” if you’re even slightly into internet marketing and copywriting. According to collective wisdom, we’re supposed to top-load the content that appears “above the fold” if we want to succeed. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “fold,” it essentially means the place that a reader would have to scroll to see more content or the bottom of the visible page. For years, this has been a battle cry in the world of SEO, and it’s one that’s rung loudly with writers, web designers, and others. But what if that call is wrong? What if “the fold” has fallen out of vogue and, today, it’s nothing more than a myth that you don’t need to worry about quite so much. Today, we’re going to dig into this, and help you understand why “above the fold” could be a dead term. Read on. What “Above the Fold” Content Looks Like Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen above the fold content. You can find it on virtually any small software company’s website. It looks like this: On the FreshBooks website, which sells small business accounting software, the viewer gets a visual, a headline, a few sentences of text, and a call-to-action button – all without having even to touch their mouse. That’s it. You can’t scroll down. Let me take this moment to say that there’s not anything wrong with this layout. The website is visually appealing, uncluttered, and compelling. That said, though, there is something wrong with the intense declaration that every call to action on every web page in every industry must exist above the fold. This has been going on for a few years – this insistence that everything should be above the fold. In fact, Kissmetrics explored it in a 2012 article: Kissmetrics question to their audience is: “What if the premise is wrong? What if calls to action below the precise work better?” Let’s explore why that may or may not be true, by today’s standards. Death of the Fold: The Real Benefit of a Below-the-Fold CTA CTAs tucked into the bottom of pages may perform as well if not better than their above-the-fold counterparts. In fact, a page with a CTA tucked into the bottom footer of the page out-converted (by 20%) a page with a prominent CTA positioned above-the-fold (Unbounce). While it may seem contradictory that a CTA tucked down low on a page (where presumably nobody would see) it could out-perform a CTA placed in the most prominent portion of a page, it’s true. I know, it seems even more unbelievable when you consider that the majority (80%) of people read headlines, while only 20% click through to read body content. So, what’s this fascination with below-the-fold content? The answer comes down to a few things and, surprisingly, the fold isn’t one of them. At the end of the day, the all-powerful fold is just a technicality in the content conversion process. Here’s why: users are happy to keep scrolling to reach your CTA, if the material they see above the fold interests them enough. In other words, the conversion rates of above- versus below-the-fold content has less to do with the actual position of the CTA than it does the quality of the content on the page. In other words, readers will keep going if they feel motivated to do so, and this has nothing to do with the position of the CTA. Instead, it has to do with how motivational your content is and how much it drives your reader toward your CTA. According to the aforementioned Kissmetrics article: “Higher conversion rates have nothing to do with whether the button is above the fold, and everything to do with whether the button is below the right amount of good copy.” How Much Copy is Enough Copy? Now that you know why the fold is a myth let’s talk about how much copy you need to provide your readers with “good copy.” Of course, there’s no one-size-fits all rule for this, and the answer depends on your various audience segments. Assuming you’re dealing with calls-to-action on landing pages or websites, here’s how you should arrange your content to appeal to each different audience segment: 1. Leads who are ready to buy. These people get it. They know what you’re offering, and they know why. They also know they want it. They’ve read enough of your content to feel compelled by it and convert at the highest rate if you stick your CTA at the top of the page. 2. Information-gathering prospects. These leads are relatively familiar with your company, and they just need a bit of a nudge to hop in and convert. For best results, give them a bit of educational text and a prominent CTA. This isn’t so much about positioning your CTA above the fold as it is ensuring that the content you offer them is prominent and educational enough to convince them to dive in with your company. 3. New leads. If you have someone who is brand-new to your landing page or product, you’re going to need to do more legwork. This will mean that your CTA coincidentally falls below the fold, although, again, this has less to do with placement than it does the amount of content you’re offering before the CTA. To hook these readers, give them a solid value proposition, well-written educational copy, and a precise definition of benefits, costs, etc. A compelling CTA at the end of all of this will help seal the deal. Why Scrolling Isn’t so Bad After All Today, people scroll almost intuitively. Think about it: we scroll in everything we do. We scroll through the contacts on our phones, our text messages, our music libraries. We scroll through books and magazines on our Kindles and scroll down product pages to locate what we’re looking for online. Scrolling is second-nature, and people aren’t nearly as afraid of it as they once were. Because of this, people aren’t automatically turned off if … Read more

Short vs. Long Content: What’s Better For Rankings, Engagements & More (CASE STUDY)

January 1, 2021February 20, 2014 by Adam Oakley

At Express Writers, we serve nearly a thousand international clients monthly by providing content pages that are 99% web-based (utilized on blogs, as landing pages, website articles, etc.). This means that we have to keep up on the latest and greatest know-how to provide our clients with the best, highest quality content possible—closely tied in to how well the content will perform on Google and search results. If you’re an Internet Marketer, you most likely know very well by now that the Internet is ever-changing, and Google’s guidelines for ranking web content have significantly re-formed in the past 12 to 24 months. Big names in algorithm updates were Google Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird. Since these algorithm updates, we’ve seen some solid trends favoring specific attributes of content that were previously overlooked in rankings. Specific attributes now being favored by the SERPs include: Long content is given preference above shorter content Less focus on keyword-optimization in the content and more of a real-world, researched, and reader-friendly oriented focus Well-formatted and visual-oriented blogs that get shared Let’s delve into the first attribute. Why and how, exactly, is longer content preferred and given a front row seat by the SERPs versus the previous standard of short, 1-page content? What Is Longer Content? Before we can successfully make an educated comparison of long versus short content, we need to fully comprehend just what long content is. Copyblogger first put a finger on it by writing a blog, “How to Write the In-Depth Articles that Google Loves,” in mid-2013. They called it “cornerstone content.” Cornerstone, or longer content, is the kind of content that is both thoughtful and in-depth. It is well researched and presents a battery of proven facts, much like an essay. Long content comes in different styles, strongly dependent on the company or brand creating the content. It is primarily conversational, educational, and informative. Some of the most SEO successful long content pieces range from 2,000 to 2,500 words, which is approximately a 5-page piece of writing. Let’s see what some experts think about long vs. short content. The Conundrum: Long vs. Short According to the Rank Correlation 2013 Study on ranking factors in 2013, published by SearchMetrics.com, “Content factors correlate almost entirely positively with good rankings and were apparently – when compared with the previous year – partially upgraded.” This fact proves that Google’s updates did indeed change, or upgrade, the system for ranking web content. A good percentage of ranking factors in 2013 went to quality content. According to SearchMetrics.com, the average number of words in the text was 576, which was up from 2012. The trend of rising word count in content has continued into 2014. A QuickSprout.com contributor, Neil Patel, decided to test out the new waters favoring long content. He swam to the newly popular deep end of the pool and created a test homepage of 1,292 words versus a second homepage of a mere 488 words. Both pages had a fill out form at the bottom. Although he initially thought the longer content would decrease his conversion rate, the results of his test were intriguing: The long content converted 7.6 percent better than the shorter. The leads resulting from the long content proved to be of better quality. The long content boosted conversions and SERPs. Patel concluded, through his research and case study, that longer content is indeed better for rankings, engagement and more versus short content. He also concluded that in 2014, content truly is king and if we’re wise, we’ll invest in the creation of well-written, authoritative, and engaging content. The Express Writer’s Long Content Case Study After identifying the trend to longer content and seeing what the experts had to say, we decided it was our turn to join the deep end of the pool. We put this trend to a wheel-grinding test just before Christmas 2013, by writing 2,000-word, highly researched, niche topic content blogs, and posting them on our blog. The results were phenomenal: Google loved our content and we gained significant keyword rankings that grew steadily. Screenshot of our rankings Dec 2013: Screenshot Jan 2014: The rankings were closely tied to the actual blogs we posted, for example this blog on how to deliver compelling content, that was ranking for the keyword web content writing tips: Lastly the Feb 2014 Rankings: How Can You Jump Into The Deep End? Now that the experts have waded into the deep end and shared proven results, the rest of us can jump right in. But how? Where’s the diving board? One of the most common questions we hear businesses asking is how do I write long content without overdoing it (being wordy, boring, etc.)? If you’ve asked this question, you’ve pinpointed the biggest obstacle to long content: HOW THE HECK do we come up it? Even Internet Marketers are asking this question. SearchEngineLand.com published eight means of creating what they refer to as long tail content for SEO. The article drives home the point that while SEO isn’t dying, it is evolving. You cannot create content merely for the sake of keyword searches and traffic. You have to “shift toward a more user-content-centric view of the world.” You can accomplish this feat and generate great long content by: Gathering your best people and brainstorming. You know whom we’re talking about. Those elite few within your fold who have a talent for brainstorming fresh, cutting-edge ideas. Pull these folks together and start brainstorming content ideas. Let creativity get a foothold, and then move to the research phase. Become familiar with the needs of your audience. Pinpoint the top 5 to 10 needs of your audience. Then, brainstorm topic ideas that allow you to cover each need and the solutions you offer in a lengthy, well-researched piece of content. When you delve deeply into the needs of your audience, you’d be amazed at how quickly you’ll compile pieces that exceed 2,000 or so words and need to be trimmed back or split into two … Read more

2014 Web Content and Google: The Year of the Informer

January 1, 2021December 23, 2013 by Adam Oakley

The year 2013 certainly marked some historical changes in content marketing. Thanks to all of the notorious algorithm changes, Google has made web content marketers wake up and smell the rankings. It’s no longer about who has the best keyword usage or who knows how to trick the search engines — it’s all about who can offer the most unique information to readers. At Express Writers, we think 2014 will be the year of the Informer. So basically if you’re not informing, you won’t be ranking. 2013: The Game Changer Google’s Hummingbird release really hit hard for most websites. If Google Panda and Penguin didn’t make it clear enough, Hummingbird has made it obvious that Google wants readers informed and not filled with useless Internet dribble. We all know it’s always been about content, but now it’s time to take that content seriously. We know more changes are coming and if you’re not a step ahead, you’re going to take a hit to your precious ranking. That is why we’ve devised a few content forecasts we see coming for 2014 and we’re going to share them with you. Content Will Be About Quality — Not Quantity Google values quality above all else and Hummingbird sealed the deal for content marketers. In 2014, we see Google putting their statements into action and taking websites with quality, not quantity. Hummingbird uses a more in-depth search approach that looks for answers to Internet user’s questions. It won’t matter so much about the keywords you use in your content; instead, Google wants to deliver an accurate, relevant answer to its user. It’s no longer about producing mass amounts of content just to rank. It’s all about the quality of that content. Google isn’t going to look to see if you post daily, they’re going to look to see what you’re posting and if it’s worth the time. The quality theory also applies to keyword usage. Google doesn’t want to see you use your keywords in a specific percentage. The day of meeting three to five percent will be gone in 2014 — or so we think. Sure, keep your keywords and targeted phrases in mind as you produce your website’s content, but don’t go crazy trying to fit them in. Your content should flow naturally and your keywords too. The SEO will handle itself, so you should just focus on quality first. Guest blogging was the “it” thing to do in 2013, but we see that taking a drastic decline in 2014. Matt Cutts already stated in his latest video that guest blogging should be “used in moderation.” Google is all about a site’s reputation, and guest blogging shouldn’t be your primary way to boost your reputation. Sure, use guest blogs here and there, but don’t make them the core of your content strategy for 2014. Lastly, in the quality category is relevance. If you were one of those website owners that used high-ranking keywords and backed it with irrelevant content, it’s time to change your ways. The future of content is all about relevancy. The new search engine algorithms know how to analyze a site for relevancy. So pop out the irrelevant keywords and start focusing on how your content can deliver useful, targeted information to Internet users. Authority Will Take Priority In 2013, it was made clear Google wants authority, but we see that statement really taking hold in 2014. Google and Internet users want stuff written by people who really know what they’re talking about. They don’t want someone guessing or filling their heads with factually incorrect garbage. To help boost credibility of the world’s countless number of Internet authors, Google is putting more emphasis on Google Authorship — as should you. You’ll want to link back high-quality articles to your Google+ page as much as possible, according to Copypress.com. Building a solid reputation for quality will increase traffic to your site and help you establish your virtual cred. Most of the competition out there is already working on building up their reputation. So instead of waiting for January 1st to roll around, start working on quality articles you can link to your Google+ page. Personality Will Matter Let’s face it; if you wanted a lecture you’d go back to school. Right? We predict more personality and branding in content for 2014 and for good reason: it is what people want to read! The average Internet reader is easily bored. Can you blame them? After spending hours sifting through Internet trash to find something interesting – that’s what they really want – something interesting. You need to leverage your own personal style and write some unique content that really showcases what makes your brand different from the rest. Now we aren’t saying use street lingo — unless you’re selling street clothes and that would be killer — but you need to speak to your target audience. Add the personality and conversational tone that your target customer would expect from your brand. There’s no need to take it too far. After all, you’re an industry expert so you know the people you’re speaking to and how they want to be spoken to. Think of it as if you were talking to that customer in person. How would you approach them? Discuss your products? If you were teaching them something, how would you talk? No matter what, avoid the snooze fest. It’s okay to add a little personality here and there, even on a very serious topic. Don’t force it, just be yourself, and be natural. The more natural and conversational your content is, the more likely it is to be shared on social media — which brings us to our next prediction for 2014… Your Social Status Could Come Into Play Social media is highly influential. Think about it. When you think of today’s top trends, where do you see those trends most? On social media, of course. Google has already stated that social status … Read more