web content - Express Writers

5 Ways to Making Your Web Content More about ‘You’ and Less about ‘Me’

January 1, 2021July 28, 2015 by Josh McCoy

How much do you think about the needs, expectations and opinions expressed by your past clients while churning out new web content pieces created to support your promotional goals? If it took you more than a couple of seconds to provide an accurate answer to this question, then perhaps you’re doing something wrong. Maybe you’re boring your audiences to death with mundane “who-we-are” type of speeches, fluff talk, and empty promises. If that is the case, now would be the best time to rethink your strategy and kick your selfishness to the curb, for your own good. Today, it is less about you, and more about them- your clients, the ones who keep you in business. Companies that are currently working on a unique web content creation plan tailored to their short and long-term goals plan have to maintain a fine balance between crafting branded content and elaborating user-oriented content with no brand affiliation whatsoever. Why Your Branded Web Content Shouldn’t Be Only about You Let’s face it: no matter how well-researched and informative branded content may be, it can still fail to reach its target, simply because it is promotional by nature. Savvy online visitors can read between the lines and separate a truly useful, reader-oriented piece created to entertain, educate or inform an audience, from a shameless sales pitch. Branded content can serve your best interest, as long as you put the needs of your potential clients first. How do you do that? We invite you to try not one, but five awesome tactics designed to boost the value and overall effectiveness of your content, make it resonate with your public and make your company seem a less self-centered and more inclined towards the happiness and fulfillment of its clients. 1. Try to Become Less Egocentric and More Empathetic First of all, check out your website and analyze your content. What kind of feeling do you get after taking a closer look at your landing pages? If you are egocentric by definition, chances are that you have stumbled across many “we do this and that”-kind of sentences. In this case, you may want to consider investing in a complete rewrite. Frankly speaking, your prospects don’t care about your products until you give them a reason to do so. In other words, they won’t try your goods until you come up with a combination of incentives (better quality, smaller price tag, freebies, special promotions and so on) that could raise their interest. You don’t have to offer substantial cash rewards to keep your readers on your website. Even the tiniest perks triggering negligible costs (free eBook or white paper download or a discount code) can cultivate the loyalty of your future and existing customers. 2. Write with Your Prospects in Mind and Avoid Promotional, Heavily Brand-Focused Web Content Promotional content can backfire, especially if it puts your interests above the ones expressed by your prospects. This threat is real, judging by the fact that one year ago, even Facebook considered tweaking the News Feed to reduce the amount of overly promotional content that was being served to its users on a daily basis. Web content, and especially the one meant to be distributed on social media platforms, should become the epitome of interactivity. Engaging posts usually comprise a plethora of elements that catch the reader’s eye and make him click on links over and over again. For instance, according to KissMetrics, photo posts get up to 104% more comments and 53% more likes than the rest. Question posts also receive up to 100% more comments. Furthermore, the length of your content appears to be another matter of great importance, considering that posts under 80 characters obtain 66% more engagement than longer ones. Therefore, write with these numbers in mind and tailor the substance and appearance of your posts based on the particularities of your audience. 3. When It Comes to Rolling out Branded Web Content, Make Sure It’s 100% Unique and Catchy We totally get it: well-rounded, promotional web content can help you increase brand awareness, reinvigorate sales and attract new prospects. If you are planning on turning your branded content into one of the main pillars of your marketing strategy, at least do your best to individualize your writing and make it reflect your vision, expertise, tradition, relationship with clients and the uniqueness of your brand. As Content Marketing Institute suggests, any business owner should start to think like everyday people, rather than striving to act like a CTA-oriented, old-school marketer. Self-appreciating content is anything but shareable, so work harder to get in touch with your buyer persona and gain insight into your public’s needs, demands and preferences, instead of trying to shove your products down your buyers’ throats. 4. Create a Community around Your Brand Through Engaging Content Here’s another idea worth developing and implementing: start thinking like a customer. Yes, you’ve got that right. If you were to shop around for a new detergent, what kind of selection criteria would you set up to make a great buying decision? Maybe you want to discover a formula that eliminates stains faster and more effectively than any other, or wish to spend less money on cleaning products. Or perhaps you want the best of both worlds and feel determined to go for a brand that fulfills your request. At the same time, as a Forbes article points out, in order to craft engaging content, you should spend a lot of time talking to some of your customers. Any feedback is much appreciated because it helps you make smarter changes when needed. Once you complete this phase, you should strive to catalyze connections. Socializing with your fans and followers is a relatively straightforward process; the real challenge is to stimulate them to bond with each other. The Red Bull’s success story revolving around a solid community of enthusiastic adrenaline junkies is only one example that may catch your attention. An article signed by James O’Brien and published by … Read more

Is Matt Cutts Leaving the Google Web Content Scene?

December 31, 2020November 28, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Anyone having basic knowledge of SEO and website development is familiar with the name of Matt Cutts. A digital “friend” slash ultimate horror to many webmasters, Cutts has been the head of Google’s web spam team and a company employee for almost 14 years. Matt Cutts surprised the online community in July 2014 with an announcement that held a little secret. A blog post informed the world about the break Cutts intended to take for a couple of months. In his blog post, Cutts wrote: I talked about this as recently as last month and as early as 2006. And now, almost fifteen years later I’d like to be there for my wife more. I know she’d like me to be around more too, and not just physically present while my mind is still on work. The leave was initially scheduled to last through October but Cutts presented another surprise in the end of the month. That’s when the world learned his leave was going to be extended into 2015. There has been no specific information about when Cutts will return and numerous people have reasonably began asking the question whether he’s going to come back and fight spam anymore at all. Cutts later took part in an interview and his answers suggest that a new professional direction could possibly be on the horizon for him. Brief History of Matt Cutts Matt Cutts joined Google originally as a software engineer. He has become popular through the numerous blog posts and videos about the best anti-spam techniques, particularly the ones addressing the latest Google updates (the Panda and the Penguin that shocked the SEO world starting 2012). Cutts is listed as one of the inventors of the Google search engines and web spam patented technology. Since then, he has often been the “bearer of bad news” that informed the SEO community about PageRank downgrades and penalties that have affected the search engine positioning of so many websites. Cutts has literally made hundreds of videos to answer the most common and pressing questions about algorithm updates, Google’s anti-spam policies, content creation and other news that have affected professionals in the field. He has also participated in a number of public initiatives and he’s also been a Ted speaker. Are We Bidding Matt Cutts Goodbye? After announcing the extended leave, Matt Cutts has provided a bit of additional information that has made many think he won’t be coming back. I loved the part of my job that dealt with keeping an eye on what important news was happening related to Google, but, it’s not clear that having me as a lightning rod for unhappy black hat SEOs, or something, is the best use of anybody’s time compared to working on other things making the world better for Google…so we’ll see. This is a big change from his original statement. In the first announcement, Cutts made it sound like he wanted to dedicate more time to his family. The next time he addressed the situation, there was some additional information connected to his Google work. Some more information was shared during a web chat show called This Week in Google. During the show (around 9 minutes and 50 seconds), Cutts said that everyone on the Google anti-spam team was doing exceptionally well since the start of his leave. The leave allowed team members to try new things and approach problems from a different angle. Cutts also said that the Google team encourages members to rotate between different departments and it’s rare for one professional to remain on the same position for an excessively long period of time. During the interview, Cutts said that he has a big number of other interests (computer graphics and commodity hardware being two of those) and would love to get involved in such an alternative project. To sum it up, it seems that Cutts has gotten tired of addressing the complaints of blackhat SEO professionals and bringing all of the bad news to such individuals. Though it’s a speculation, his comeback to the Google anti-spam team appears to be highly unlikely. If this prediction comes true, it will mark the end of a crucially important era that has changed the world of SEO and online content creation forever. It’s also interesting to note that the news about the extended leave was presented at a time during which a major layoff was announced by Microsoft. The latest Microsoft layoff affected Bing Senior Product Manager Duane Forrester. Just like Cutts, Forrester was a very popular professional and a representative of the Bing team who often made key announcements and interacted with webmasters. Forrester was a member of the Bing team for four years and his layoff indicates that two of the world’s most prominent search engines are facing the task of coming up with new visible personalities. Microsoft justified the layoff with corporate structure changes that affected several prominent Bing teams. Don’t Panic and Know Where Your Towel Is Yes, we just did a reference to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Webmaster forums and blogs have been buzzing with information and reactions about the extended leave. Some have been quite happy about Cutts being gone, others worry about the implications of having somebody else in the driver’s seat. Google’s algorithm policies have been going in a consistent direction over the past few years and one professional change isn’t expected to have significant impact on the course of events. Sticking to quality content, avoiding spammy techniques and working on increasing audience engagement will certainly continue contributing to effective SEO. There are some speculations about the latest Penguin update and whether it would have been rolled out differently under the guidance of Matt Cutts. It’s all a learning process, both for the Google anti-spam team and for optimization professionals. Only time will tell whether the Google policies about spammy practices are going to head in a completely different direction in the years to come. Photo credit: www.ted.com

Are We Drowning in Crappy Content?

January 1, 2021August 17, 2014 by Adam Oakley

The ocean is enormous. It’s made up of five separate bodies of water, but there is really only one ocean broken up over the planet. In fact, as of 2013, it takes up approximately 71 percent of the Earth. It’s pretty amazing too because it houses about 99 percent of the biosphere and is home to some of the grandest geological features on the planet. But it’s also made of saltwater, something that isn’t all that awesome for humans dying of thirst. I don’t know about you, but if I were stranded in the middle of the ocean dying of thirst, I’d look out across all that water and say, “Well, this is downright crappy!” If the Internet were the ocean and you were dying of thirst for quality content, you’d find yourself in the same predicament because we are literally drowning in crappy content! Yes, it looks like the web is flooding with content, but instead of, “Oh no! Too much content!” going on, there’s actually a dire lack of quality and an overabundance of non-quality content. It’s like searching for a fresh water oasis (quality content) in the middle of mile after mile and gallon after gallon of never ending saltwater (low quality, crappy content). “Dollar Days” Have Produced More Saltwater vs. Freshwater Content We wrote a piece on LinkedIn that received over 300 views in a few days called, The Dollar Days of Online Content Are Gone. The response from the professional community has been intense, and the comments we received validate our belief: we’re drowning in crappy content. Years ago, it was commonplace for Webmasters to hire the cheapest writers on the Internet (and perhaps the planet) to “write,” and we use this term loosely, their content. The process was simple: Locate the writer who would accept pennies on the dollar pay averaging $1.25 to $2.00 USD per page, article, or blog. Send said writer a list of keywords to cram into the content. Receive said content and publish. I so badly want to sing the Sesame Street song that says, “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.” But to tell you the truth, NONE of these things belong. Webmasters and business owners have been so driven by profit margins that they’re gung-ho about skimping on the fundamental staple, the ultimate moneymaking tool that sits so ready at their fingertips: content. Now, it’s understandable that business budgets aren’t what they used to be. After all, economics and the economy affect every last one of us. But the fact that a talented, professional writer (not one these non-English speaking yahoos with zero educational background, no relevant experience, and a complete lack of understanding of even the basics of English grammar) is considered a waste of money is absurd, not to mention more than a little insulting. I apologize for being so blunt, but the Great Quality Content Depression and subsequent flood of crappy content is a direct result of the hiring of underqualified and often completely UNqualified fakers wielding the title of Writer. As a result, the rest of us are trying to turn the tide on misinformation, a terrible reputation, and a world that scoffs at the idea of writing being a legitimate, demanding profession! The ‘Anybody Can Be A Writer’ Idea So you think you can be a writer, do you? It’s easy, right? I mean, everybody writes. We all went to school. We all wrote essays and papers. We all know how to spell and write complete sentences. Writing is easy! It doesn’t take skill, talent, or technique. Hell, it doesn’t even take a lot of time. If you were lying on the floor dying of a heart attack, what’s the one thing in this world you would want above everything else? Think hard. You would want a paramedic. Why? Because they are highly trained and skilled responders, capable of keeping their cool and doing whatever it will take to keep you alive while rushing you to a medical facility. Why would you want to be rushed to a medical facility? Because there are dozens of trained professionals there who can and will do everything possible to save your life. Thanks to their training, chances are they’ll succeed. Did you know that a well-researched, properly written, engaging, and emotionally moving piece of content sometimes takes hours to write—even for the professional writer who writes 5 days a week, 8 hours per day? Did you know that while some people wrote essays and papers in school that barely squeaked by with a passing grade, others wrote A+ papers that actually moved the teacher and left a lasting impression—one that 10 years later the teacher remembers like yesterday? Did you know that there’s more to writing than spelling and complete sentences? Can you spot misuse and errors involving subject-verb agreement, clauses and phrases, pronouns, prepositions, ellipses, and confused words? Can you confidently explain what any or all of those terms truly mean in practical working fashion? Did you know that storytelling is the art of using the written word to craft mental pictures, tickle the five senses, and connect with readers on such an intimate level that each reader believes the content was written just for them? Anyone can be a writer? Writing is easy? It doesn’t take skill, talent, or technique? If all of this is true, then you don’t need a paramedic or even a heart surgeon. Anybody will do! You see the point. Writing is no less demanding than any other profession, and writers are not entitled to mere pennies on the dollar for high quality work. Crappy content, that’s what you pay a couple of bucks for. Quality content comes with a price because it’s quality—just like YOUR quality product or service. You get what you pay for. How to Levitate Above an Ocean of Crappy Content Thanks to the dollar days of content, the Internet is crawling with downright scary bad … Read more

Websites of 2014: 12 Great Designs and How They Work With Content

January 1, 2021March 7, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Image credit: Life of Pi movie website We’ve taken a look at how poor web content writing can destroy a well-made website but we didn’t explore the other side of it: the look and feel. Making sure that your content is fantastic is one thing, but creating a design to match can really elevate everything that’s being done to a whole new level. Without visual flair visitors will be hesitant to eat your fantastic meal that you’ve prepared for them because it looks like brown and gray sludge. It doesn’t matter how delicious it is. When you put it all together in a visually appealing way, and still keep the deliciousness, then no one hesitates to eat it and everyone tells their friends. Here are some of the top 12 sites to beat in no particular order. #12: Life of Pi This movie came out in 2012. We’ll admit that. But the site was ahead of its time. It is doing a lot of tricks that some designers are just now picking up. As you scroll down you get a little adventure the whole time, much of it in video. At some points, (again, you only have to scroll down to experience all of this seamlessly put together), you’ll see facts about the movie come onto the screen, allowing the content and design to come together in complete harmony. Essentially, you can look at the entire experience as an enhanced preview. In a time when most movie websites look barely better than what people were putting up themselves on GeoCities in the mid 90s it’s refreshing to see this kind of attention paid to marrying content and design. #11: Lexus We’ll tell you right now that one of the phrases that will be used a lot in this article is “parallax scrolling.” Parallax scrolling isn’t a new concept. Well, it seems to only be a new concept for website design. It’s been used in cartoons since you were a kid. See how confident we were in saying that? It doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s been used. It has even been used in video games for decades (Super Mario World had it). But now it’s come to website design fairly frequently. Lexus makes amazing use of it and allows users to essentially navigate an entire world of landing pages without loading anything or moving to another page at all. Even within the parallax scrolling body are smaller sections of the site that are independently interactive. For a good example of this, head to the site and go to the “Journey” section. While plenty of sites are using parallax scrolling by itself, Lexus is one of the few that is using it in tandem with already-established practices for even greater effect. #10: Blocklevel Most of our English-speaking readers won’t know this (unless they use Google Translate) but Blocklevel is a company that designs websites, Facebook games, and all kinds of other web-oriented things. But the specific content isn’t why we’re here, although you can tell that the content is hard-hitting and concise (it is). The design of the site draws inspiration from the flat design trend that’s been overtaking everything from Apple’s new iOS to indie video games (Thomas Was Alone) to smartphone applications (Taasky). It’s the exact opposite of parallax scrolling. There is no illusion of depth, just bold simplicity. It’s easy on the eyes, easy to navigate, and allows your content to be the star of the show by pulling your eye right toward it. They both do wonders for enhancing content but Blocklevel is one of the examples of flat design gone right. #9: Theory Design Sidebars used to be all the rage but they didn’t always work on every browser with every setting. Sometimes necessary content got cut off to the side like a bad photographer cutting off your heads in a holiday family photo. All that’s left is ugly Christmas sweaters. Nowadays it’s all about the header that scrolls down with you. This may not seem different at first but you lose the risk of having content roll off the side. It’s easier to position all of your content smack dab in the middle of the screen and there’s no problems with cutoff. In fact, that middle position brings your eyes, again, straight to the content rather than having two sections of text that, depending on the positioning, bring your eyes back and forth or even pull your eye to the blank space between the two pillars of text. #8: Realtii Have you noticed any similarities about any of these sites yet? That’s right; they’re all long scrolling websites. Most of their content is on one continuous page. Even if each of the sections are connected to a different web address, they are blended together so they are effectively one page. Most of the buttons, if the site even has them, cause the site to scroll down quickly rather than open a page. This reduces any load time and reduces wait time because your visitors aren’t clicking on things for design, they’re clicking on things for content. Easy design just grabs their attention and keeps them around. #7: Paper Tiger I’m going to ask you to please bring out your cell phones for this next one because “responsive design” is the name of the game for this site. When you go to the site on your PC it looks gorgeous. Some parallax design elements, some wonderful typography, easy-to-digest content. But when you open it up on your smartphone is when it gets really interesting. Without even having to direct you to m.papertiger.com you see a perfectly formatted site. The parallax scrolling and header have been eschewed for a fully functional, flat design that just brings you content with no frills and minimal loading time. The buttons are massive and bold, making them perfect for even the clumsiest of thumbs and easy to see when you’re walking around … Read more

5 Secrets for Creating Contagious Content for Social Media & Web Content

January 1, 2021February 25, 2014 by Adam Oakley

You know those few liners or single paragraphs that make your fingers itch to go buy the product being sold? Whether it’s a raspberry soda, a set of office pens, or a new Starbucks coffee: contagious content is all around us, selling us daily on purchases we make decisions on instantly. So how do YOU create it for YOUR brand and your customers and clientele? Going Viral with Contagious Content Let’s face it; everyone wants his or her site to go viral at least once. It is the new stardom, the new celebrity power. Getting your website or content to go viral means becoming someone with a bit of Internet power and that is pretty cool. By having something you posted reach thousands or millions of viewers means your site is being shared and viewed more than ever and people want to know who created this viral post. Here are a few secrets to creating that contagious content! 1. Let’s Be Positive, Shall We? Positivity is very important when it comes to creating that content contagion. With all the negativity in the news, people want to read something optimistic. According to Social Triggers, the way to craft contagious content and make a post positive for a reader is to invoke happiness, awe, or surprise. People like to learn interesting tidbits of information in constructive ways. They are also more likely to share something that they have learned from or found useful, as long as it is something that is positive. This is something we will discuss further on in this post. Get Happy! People want to feel happy when reading articles online. They get enough of the gloom and doom by watching television. It seems that so much of what people hear these days is filled with which country is having an uprising, which politician is the lowest person of the week, or how many people have lost jobs. This is all very important to people, but they just do not want to read it or hear it every hour of the day. Become the positive beacon in a world of darkness, and people will share your site with friends. Inspire Awe. We also like being in awe. Before and after pictures online are intriguing because they show a drastic change in an environment. People are apt to share these photos or stories with their friends. “Look at this! Can you believe it?” they will say. Positive awe-inspiring content is important when gaining clicks and becoming viral. Give little tidbits of interesting information or create a post that lists some really interesting life helps, or as the kids say, lifehacks. Most Excellent, Dude! Surprise them! Exceed their expectations. In this instant society, people are more likely to make a knee-jerk assumption based on past experiences. While it is not the coolest thing, it happens far more than anyone wishes to admit. Knowing this can help you when try to go viral. Make that first impression count. Create a web design that is outstanding, with a quick loading website. Spice your content up by being unique enough to get attention, but not too unique as you may scare readers away. Do something that will completely catch viewers off guard. When they are caught off guard, they will instantly tell someone. Facebook and Twitter have made it simple when it comes to instant sharing of websites or a really nifty post, so make your post shockingly sharable. Negativity: Stop It! As the classic Bob Newhart MadTV sketch says, “Stop it!” Stop negativity before it gets too far. Media is full of negativity and posting something negative will add to the cacophony of undesirable posts, getting lost in the smorgasbord of negativity and will not garner enough visits or likes to get you viral. Sure, we see a few negative posts getting attention but not many. Generally the negative posts being shared are from news sources about bad things going on in the world. Focus on creating a positive environment and you will find that more people will like and share your post. 2. Be Useful and People Will Come We all like for people to see how smart we are. We also like feeling as if we are part of a community. We really appreciate it when people value our opinions or thoughts. It is Psych 101. Knowing this can help you as you begin creating contagious content. Create posts that people will share because they feel it will help them look knowledgeable in an area. Something like this infographic shared by Who Is Hosting This is really great when it comes to learning facts and passing them on, making the sharer feel knowledgeable. In fact, this very infographic states that the top articles shared from the New York Times website were science related topics! People love science, people love learning, knowing, and sharing. Especially in the current climate of nerds being kings and queens of the world. In the Know. According to the New Yorker, being “in the know” is really important to people. It is a way to belong to a certain group and feel accepted. It does not necessarily go along with being knowledgeable in the area such as science or math, but is part of being astute about what is going on in our social world. Knowing what is current. Staying up with existing trends is a must in this rapidly changing society, if you keep posting “outdated” things, people will begin to ignore you. Know your audience and the current social climate when you are making social media and web content, especially if you want to go viral. 3. Emotions for the Win! As stated earlier, emotions are what get your post shared the most! We have discussed some emotions evoked by various viral content such as joy, awe and surprise. According to Social Triggers, other emotions conjured by viral content are anger, anxiety and fear. These are generally emotions you want to avoid … Read more