Blogging Archives - Single Grain https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/ Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Services in San Francisco Sat, 28 May 2022 20:37:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 The Power of Guest Blogging (And How to Get Started!) https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/the-importance-and-power-of-guest-posting-and-how-to-get-started-with-this-strategy/ Fri, 18 Oct 2019 15:00:18 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com?p=13651&preview=true&preview_id=13651 When you’re already working hard to grow your blog, the notion of spending time writing posts for another website may seem counterproductive. And yet, in the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape,...

The post The Power of Guest Blogging (And How to Get Started!) appeared first on Single Grain.

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When you’re already working hard to grow your blog, the notion of spending time writing posts for another website may seem counterproductive. And yet, in the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, guest posting remains a trusted technique for marketers and bloggers.

Gregory Ciotti used guest blogging to acquire over 36,000 new email subscribers, while Brian Harris used a guest post to kickstart a business that now earns him more than $15,000 each month.

So, why is guest posting so effective? And, more to the point, how do you unlock the real power of guest blogging?

In this article (which is a guest post!), we will discover the secrets of successful guest blogging so you can learn how to grow your brand or business with a guest post strategy.

Click here to download your free guide right now!

5 Key Benefits of Guest Posting

First things first: why should you bother writing an article for someone else’s blog?

You may think that it’s best to focus on creating content for your own website rather than wasting time growing someone else’s blog, but you can make a much more significant impact by posting on established blogs and see some tremendous benefits:

image3 1

Here are five huge benefits of embracing this powerful content marketing strategy.

1) Build Relationships in Your Niche

Guest posting will help you build relationships with other relevant bloggers from your niche, which is particularly useful if you’re new to the scene. While some bloggers may refuse, there will be others who will gladly accept your posts as they are, without any additional requirements. Why? Because that means they get free content for their blogs, and if they’re a one-person site, that is extremely helpful for them. Single Grain has a guest post submission button right on their blog:

SG guest post portal

Reaching out to inquire about guest posting gives you a unique opportunity to make new connections in your online world. Of course, not all these contacts will prove to be positive. However, by taking a proactive and professional approach to pitching fellow bloggers and brands in your niche, you will start to get your name (and talent for writing) out there, building credibility for you.

2) Boost Rankings and Brand Awareness

Guest posting will help your blog rank better in search engines. In king of blogging Neil Patel’s article, he cites many examples of Why Guest Blogging Is The Best Inbound Marketing Strategy, including Jon Cooper, who “embraced guest blogging and reaped significant rewards as a result. For example, a single guest post of his that was published on Moz generated nearly 400 visitors”:

guest post stat Jon Cooper

To this end, you need to find relevant bloggers in your niche who will include links to your own blog within the articles you publish on their websites, because the more relevant backlinks you have, the better your blog will rank on search engines. This shouldn’t be too difficult, since most websites allow at least one link to your site within the body copy and another link in your author bio.

As you guest post on more sites, you’ll expand your reach to connect with hundreds or thousands of potential new followers. This reach and your overall visibility will increase as your guest posts get shared on social media.

Dive Deeper: The 7 Most Important Ranking Factors

3) Improve Your Writing Skills

Guest posting is an excellent way to help you refine your writing skills. Maybe you think you are the best writer in your niche – you own a personal blog, you have a few followers, and your faithful readers leave positive comments. But over time, you will get into a routine and possibly settle for less in terms of quality of writing and value of delivered information. It’s a natural process that occurs when you don’t have any real challenges.

On the other hand, when you offer your services as a guest author, you need to deliver content that is both valuable and extremely well written to get past the gates of a professional editor. You will be forced to pay attention to every little detail, including the research, content and grammar, thus improving your writing.

It’s simple: The more you write, the better you become at it. By writing for a range of blogs and diverse topics, you will continuously challenge yourself, so you will have to adapt and learn to write in different styles.

As any good writer knows, punctuation saves lives: 😉

Punctuation saves lives

Dive Deeper:

4) Establish Authority

On your own website, you are the chief. However, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to build a blog from scratch and make it a recognized fountain of knowledge and wisdom.

When you produce well-written, properly researched, authoritative guest posts on reputable websites for established brands, you get the chance to offer unique insights in a fresh voice that resonates with their readers. This works wonders for your own reputation. People who enjoy the post will likely click on your author’s bio and visit your site, curious to discover more about you and your work.

By getting published on major authority websites in your niche, you’ll quickly create an aura around your name and brand, earning the respect of more people in your audience.

Related Content:

5) Shorten the Sales Cycle

Content marketing is a fickle beast that has the power to drive sales or drain company budgets. When you distribute high-quality content through multiple channels, using popular blogs and established platforms, you nurture trust with your target audience. Furthermore, you also build brand recognition as people become familiar with your content and see you as an expert in the field.

This has a significant impact on your sales funnel:

Marketing Funnel - AIDA(2)

In effect, the more authority you build, the easier it will be to get prospects to trust your brand, and be more open to your products or services. As such, you effectively shorten the sales cycle.

In other words, instead of waiting for leads to find your site or reaching out to them directly (outbound marketing), you can use guest posting as part of your inbound marketing strategy. Guest posts on trusted sites give you a stage to present your brand message and value propositions, which expedites the customer journey for your products and services.

Dive Deeper: How to Create the Ultimate Marketing Funnel (Templates Included)

Click here to download your free guide right now!

Common Guest Posting Strategies

Guest posting isn’t just a matter of writing a 500-1,000-word post. You can implement any number of strategies, which should, of course, cater to your needs and the time you have available to create guest posts.

Here are three common strategies you can consider when you want to guest post on other blogs:

  • Be personal and direct. Contact the owner of a related blog and ask for permission (and their writers’ guidelines) to become a guest writer. Create your posts and publish them as text articles with backlinks to your own blog. This is the most common type of guest posting, and it has already proven to be effective by thousands of bloggers from around the world.
  • Create videos. Upload video tutorials and reviews and upload them on YouTube or other video-streaming and -sharing websites. If your videos are really valuable and informative, there’s a good chance that they will be embedded as references by other bloggers from your niche. Some of them will give you backlinks.
  • Share downloadable content. Create shareable content for other blogs such as how-to guides, e-books or infographics. People love this kind of content, but it can be expensive or time-consuming to create, so giving it to a blog in exchange for your author bio and backlink is a win-win situation .You can even make a brochure online and embed it in an article just like a video or audio file or publish it individually.

By experimenting with different strategies, you can distribute content on several channels, which maximizes the impact you have.

Dive Deeper:

What to Do Before Guest Blogging

Imagine that you open a new shop. You hand out flyers that advertise a sale this weekend, but when people show up, you aren’t ready. There’s nothing on the shelves yet, and you’re still working on the paint job. Immediately, people will walk away with a poor first impression – and probably not come back. Why should they? They aren’t sure what your business is about and they find nothing of interest to make them want to return.

Guest posting is a bit like handing out flyers, in that it involves some grassroots hustling. But similar to the flyers, you need to make sure that you’re ready for the attention.

Before you reach out and start creating guest posts, here are a few things that you should do:

  • Set up your blog
  • Build a network
  • Define your guest blogging goals

Let’s take a more in-depth look at each of these:

Set Up Your Blog

First, design a personal blog and make it look professional. There are several online website building tools to help you with this part, even if you are not a designer.

image2

Start with a professional logo, the main header, and then your pages. You don’t need tons of pages, just a few like a homepage, an “About” page, a portfolio of your work and a “Contact” page.

Optimize your web pages to load fast, and make sure that your site looks great so that you offer a user experience that site visitors will remember. Keep in mind that even a one-second delay in page load time yields:

  • 11% fewer page views
  • 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
  • 7% loss in conversions

Most importantly, define your niche. While you can become an influencer with a general blog, it’s much better to focus on a particular topic. By honing in on a smaller but more targeted audience, you can make yourself the expert there, and engage people at a deeper level.

Build Your Network

Once you have a great-looking site and blog, you’ll need to build up a strong presence on social media. This is essential.

According to SEO Tribunal, 95.9% of bloggers promote their blog posts on social media platforms. Since most social platforms have millions of daily active users, your potential for a large number of eyes on your work is huge.

Don’t worry about attacking them all. Rather, create detailed profiles with a link to your site on at one or two of the most relevant (for you) platforms. Aside from promoting your posts, you can use these channels to interact with your audience and build connections with fellow bloggers and companies in your market space.

Create an Author Bio

Before you start writing any guest posts, you should create a solid author bio. Put yourself in the readers’ shoes, and think about the light in which you want people to see you. A great bio should be short, sweet and to the point, providing enough information to underline your authority and expertise, and also encouraging people to come and discover more.

image1

Set Up Tracking with Google Analytics

Lastly, it’s a good idea to set up tracking on your website so you can gauge the impact that your guest posting has on your regular traffic. This is even more critical when you want to build brand awareness and acquire new leads. Google Analytics tracking will give you the information you need about new site visitors.

Dive Deeper: Creating Google Analytics Funnels and Goals: A Step-by-Step Guide

Click here to download your free guide right now!

The Importance of Setting Goals for Guest Blogging

A common mistake that many bloggers make with guest posting is that they dive in headfirst with no clear sense of what they are trying to achieve. The allure of getting a byline on elite websites is all they see, even if it doesn’t make sense for their bigger business goals.

Before getting started, you must define your goals. With clear targets that make sense for your business and blog, you can maximize your return on investment from guest blogging.

Think about the following goals:

  • Getting backlinks from influencers
  • Exposing your blog to a new audience and reaching new readers
  • Developing relationships with other bloggers from the same or a related/adjacent industry
  • Building your brand from scratch
  • Gaining influence

Robert Katai

You may decide that you wish to hit several goals, which is perfectly fine, so long as you develop your strategy accordingly.

For example, you may have a new e-commerce store that sells electronic gadgets. You could increase brand awareness and generate new leads by doing five guest posts for popular sites that are read by your target audience, even though they are not blogs from the same industry.

However, if you want to improve your SEO and get relevant backlinks, you’ll probably need to focus on doing guest posts within the same industry or niche.

For many blogs, the first goal is to get more readers. Later, you can look at growing the reputation and rank of your website or blog. Knowing the difference and when to focus on each of these goals is important. If you don’t clearly define your goals and strategy, you could waste a lot of your time and money.

Consider these stats:

  • 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep
  • Content marketing gets 3x more leads than paid search advertising
  • On average, companies with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those without
  • Companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month get nearly 3.5x more traffic than those that publish 0-4 monthly

These are great numbers, and even better when you realize that there are a lot of e-commerce websites out there that are not blogging. Content is the most important thing you can deliver free of cost to your customers.

Dive Deeper: Building Quality Links as a Guest Blogger

5 Essential Aspects of Guest Posts

Guest posting can be a tricky endeavor, as you may find yourself writing for a different audience and possibly in a completely different industry! Whatever you create not only has to be a good representation of your brand and skills, but also of interest to the host’s audience.

Here are five crucial components of a quality guest post. Make sure you check all these boxes before sending your post to anyone!

1) Offer Unique Insight

For years there has been a lot of talk about the need for “great content” or “high-quality writing”. But what exactly does that mean?

Quality content boils down to the insight that you offer readers. There are thousands of bloggers online that are using content marketing strategies to build their personal brands, so to have any chance of standing out, you must create something unique, useful and beautifully crafted:

image4 1

But with all the articles out there, how can you say something new? How can you help the audience as nobody has before? Use the Skyscraper Technique, a term coined by Brian Dean of Backlinko, that can be broken down into three simple steps:

  • Find link-worthy content
  • Create something better
  • Share what you’ve written

Finding popular content is easy with tools like BuzzSumo, a site that lists published content with the highest social shares, perfect for building your skyscraper article from. Then you analyze the top performers to see what is missing or outdated from these posts and figure out how you can improve upon it (not copy it or steal it – improve it).

Dive Deeper:

2) Create Valuable Content with Actionable Takeaways

Google evaluates the user experience in part by looking at who wrote the web content and assessing whether the writer is an expert content creator. To ensure that your content is high quality, follow the E.A.T. principle: Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness.

You will only achieve your goals if you can deliver valuable content that has actionable takeaways. If you do that, people will enjoy your content enough that they will want to come back for more. Better yet, they’ll happily share your content with others. By giving the audience something with every article, you establish trust and credibility.

Dive Deeper: 4 Ways to Signal to Google that You’re an Expert Content Creator

3) Write SEO-Friendly Articles

Guest posting is a fantastic SEO strategy that can earn your website plenty of link juice.

If the site owners don’t provide keywords, take the initiative to do a little bit of keyword research. By targeting keywords with decent traffic, you have a better chance of reaching a lot of people with your guest post.

As you create lots of SEO-friendly guest posts for authoritative websites, your traffic will grow as your posts become highly visible in search results. Ultimately, it’s more important to write for people, but when you take the time to create SEO-friendly posts, it’s a big win for both the readers and your brand.

Dive Deeper:

4) Include Backlinks

Adding backlinks is a crucial SEO aspect of any guest post. If a guest post is your elevator pitch to a potential new customer, the backlinks are the closer that may convince them to buy – or at the very least, become a regular reader of your blog.

You may only be allowed one or two backlinks in total. So, with all that in mind, you should make sure to backlink to your most valuable blog posts that people will love.

Dive Deeper: How to Squeeze the Most Value Out of Nofollow Backlinks from High-Authority Sites

5) Use a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)

Every single post should finish with a strong, clear call-to-action (CTA). It may ask the reader to download an e-book or sign up for your newsletter or upcoming webinar, or it could simply invite them to leave a comment.

Sometimes, people need a little encouragement to get involved. If you can instigate a conversation around your posts, it can stir up more interest in your future content.

Dive Deeper: How to Create CTAs that Actually Cause Action

Click here to download your free guide right now!

How to Find Sites that Accept Guest Posts

Now that you’ve written a fantastic guest post that is just itching to be published on a high-authority site, it’s time to find those sites.

Here are a few methods you can use to find suitable sites that accept guest posts:

Relevant Bloggers in Your Niche

If you’ve got a good social media game, you’ll probably have a bunch of fellow bloggers among your followers. Many of these may have bigger audiences than you, and some may even be at the influencer level. You can get on their radar by sharing their posts and interacting on comment threads with useful insights and contributions to the conversation.

Google Search

This is a simple method that can yield great results. Try doing a Google search for relevant keywords related to your niche. For example, you could search “guest post e-commerce” or “video marketing guest posts”. You can also search for “write for us”.

Another idea is to search where your favorite bloggers are guest posting. Search for “guest post by [blogger’s name]” to find other websites where they have published work.

You can also try the following search patterns to find the correct page(s) for guest post submissions on specific websites:

  • site:domain_name.com “submit guest post”
  • site:domain_name.com “guest post by”
  • site:domain_name.com “submit your post”
  • site:domain_name.com “become a contributor”
  • site:domain_name.com “guest author”

And, finally, try punching this into Google: “list of sites that accept guest posts”.

Google search

My Blog Guest

Create a free account on My Blog Guest, a site that “unites bloggers who are interested in connecting to other bloggers, journalists and other content creators in any niche and publish their high-quality articles on their blogs.” Once you’ve created your account, navigate to the “Looking for a guest author” section. Select the category you want to write for, and then you’ll get a list of sites that are looking for guest writers.

My Blog Guest

Now that you’ve compiled your list of target sites, it’s time to make your pitch. Follow the instructions or guidelines on each site to ensure that you get off on the right foot with your prospect.

Additional Guidelines for Choosing Guest Post Sites

You should focus on finding the right blogs and brands so that they align with your own audience and business goals. They will most likely have some guidelines or rules for guest posting, which you should respect. Nothing gets your email deleted faster than not following a site’s guidelines.

Before you reach out, ask yourself the following:

  • Do these specific blogs have the audience you need? Is the audience big enough to make a guest post worthwhile?
  • Are these blogs compatible with your brand, content or niche? How can you leverage the resulting traffic for marketing purposes?
  • Are these bloggers present on social media? Do they share their articles? How many followers do they have?

After pitching ideas to multiple sites, you’re sure to get a mix of responses. Some may say later, some may say never, and some may never reply.

But if you’ve done everything right, then you’re sure to get a few green lights. Once you do, that’s when the real work begins!

Click here to download your free guide right now!

Conclusion

Here’s the truth: One or two guest posts won’t transform your traffic. Don’t expect a byline on a couple of big websites to instantly turn you into a millionaire or renowned guru with a 100,000 subscribers.

Guest blogging is a long-term strategy that requires significant time, patience and top-notch writing skills. To succeed, you must approach it with clearly defined goals, unique content ideas and a self-motivated attitude of wanting to offer valuable, actionable content to a wider audience.

Over time, with applied effort and the right strategy, guest posting is a powerful force that will help you build a bigger audience. Ultimately, it enables you to establish your reputation online among your fellow bloggers and your audience. If you’re dedicated, it can drive your brand to new heights.

The post The Power of Guest Blogging (And How to Get Started!) appeared first on Single Grain.

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Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging in 2023 https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/beginners-guide-to-business-blogging/ Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:00:07 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=5557 I know what you’re thinking: What business owner has the time to build a blog from scratch? It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person-band or the CEO of an international...

The post Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging in 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

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I know what you’re thinking: What business owner has the time to build a blog from scratch? It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person-band or the CEO of an international company, the thought of creating a business blog is a daunting prospect.

Sure, the world tells you that there is lots to be gained, like increased online exposure, better search results, and even a boost to your bottom line. However, it takes a LOT to get there.

And with online competition more intense than ever before – in virtually every niche – you have to wonder: Is business blogging still worth it?

The answer is yes. Absolutely.

Read on to find out how to do business blogging the right way so that you can reap the rewards in 2023 and beyond.

Click here to download your free guide right now!

3 Benefits of Business Blogging

Before we dive into ‘the how’, let’s first consider why you should start a business blog. Here are three advantages of business blogging:

1) It Attracts New Leads

Business blogging can help you form relationships with new website visitors.  Instead of being greeted by a static, billboard-like page, new readers can connect with the casual tone of your blog posts. This personable, relatable approach helps forge connections that can result in increased revenue – without the need for a hard sell.

Dive Deeper: How to Write Lead Nurturing Content: 7 Proven Tactics

2) It Builds Trust with Customers

Businesses who blog help deepen the relationships they have with their current customers.  When you post good content regularly, these visitors will come back again and again because they see you as an expert in your industry or on particular topics, and this can lead to recurring sales without a ton of extra effort on your part.

Dive Deeper: How to Create Quality Blog Posts that Convert Customers

3) It Improves Your Brand Reputation

Brands who blog get new people to their website by improving their rankings in the natural search results.  SEO places a premium on high-quality content that’s updated regularly. Therefore, running a business blog is an effective way of winning with the search engines’ indexing programs and your regular readers.

But don’t just take our word. Here are some facts ‘n’ stats on the benefits of business blogging:

  • 36% of Fortune 500 companies are using their blogs for thought leadership, product promotion and engagement.
  • Companies that blog receive 55% more traffic than companies that don’t and they have 434% more indexed pages compared to those that don’t.
  • Active company blogs have 97% more inbound links than websites without blogs.
  • Active company blogs generate 67% more leads than websites without blogs.
  • 81% of US online consumers say that blogs are trusted sources of information and advice.
  • 61% of US online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.
  • 68.52% of respondents say that a blog adds credibility to a website.

Dive Deeper:

What Is Good Business Blogging?

When you take a look at all the many great benefits that business blogging offers, it’s easy to get excited. More traffic, better brand awareness and increased revenue? Sign me up, right?

Although business blogging is a powerful strategy for growing your business website, it’s undeniable that it requires serious time and commitment – just like any other marketing technique.

The reality is that there’s a massive difference between good business blogging and bad business blogging.  Let’s take a look at how the two differ:

  • Betty, the bad business blogger, knows how vital her blog is, but can never seem to find the time in her day to commit to it. She drops in once a month and writes a quick update that she publishes right away. Because she releases so few posts, she makes them as sales-oriented as possible as she believes this will help her business squeeze as much revenue as possible out of the few people who visit their site. Once this is done, Betty abandons the site until the next month – never responding to post comments or promoting the content on social sites.
  • Gary, the good business blogger, takes a different approach. He knows that consistency is critical when it comes to business blogging, so he’s created a publishing calendar that involves releasing two 1,800+ word posts each week that touch on a variety of fun and engaging topics. He’s active in his business community, getting into great discussions with the readers who comment on his posts and carrying the conversations over to his company’s social profiles whenever possible.

Whether the goal is to attract new customers, bond further with past buyers or improve search engine rankings, Greg’s company is going to get better results than Betty’s.

Click here to download your free guide right now!

Dive Deeper:

What Should You Write About in a Business Blog?

To improve the results you’re able to achieve through business blogging, one of the most important things you can do is to set – and stick with – a publishing calendar.  At the very least, you should be posting to your website once or twice a week.

According to research from Marketing Insider Group:

Marketing Insider Group

Ultimately, it’s more important to publish high-quality content, rather than burning out the company’s resources with high-quantity nonsense that nobody wants to read.

So what should you be writing about in your posts?

image2 1

Source

First of all, keep in mind that the cornerstone of any excellent business blog is “evergreen” content – the kind of information that provides informative, expert insight into topics that will always be relevant to your audience. You don’t want to spend hours writing and publishing an article that is old news within 12 months.

Here’s a list of blogging ideas to help you get started:

  • “Linkbait” posts – These posts are designed to gather page views or backlinks (or both). Typical linkbait post structures include list posts (e.g. “17 Ways to Save Big on Bike Parts”) or articles that take a controversial viewpoint (e.g., “Why You Shouldn’t Buy XX Brand Bikes”). Remember that the attention-grabbing headline is not enough; you must deliver within the body of the article, too.
  • Commentary on industry news – Offering your own two cents’ worth on issues that are affecting your industry helps to build your perceived authority among your readers. Furthermore, it can also play a vital role in helping your blog appeal to the search engines. Regarding evergreen material – you can always update current industry news articles a year or so down the line by adding info on what’s new or what’s changed, or go into more detail about the core topic (rather than the issue surrounding it).
  • Inside look at office life – Website visitors love getting peeks into what’s going on behind the curtains of your company – putting human faces and personalities to the brand.  Fun posts that showcase your company’s office culture in words, pictures or videos can help to differentiate your brand from others.
  • FAQs as individual posts – These are easy to write because you already have the “outline” on your Frequently Asked Questions page. Take one FAQ, or a series that naturally go together, and flesh it out. Use the question as your title and related questions for your headers and subheads.
  • Link roundups – Compile interesting and relevant blog posts into a weekly roundup to provide value to your readers (and make gathering news items easy for them!):

SG link roundup

The five or so links should not be your own, but do add a section at the bottom called “Our latest blogs” or something like that:

SG latest blogs

  • Video posts – Write a short 1-2 paragraph intro and then embed a video. It can be a sneak peek at a new product, a product demo or explainer video. It could also be a topic that could use some screenshots or animated graphics to help explain your point, like The Top 5 SEO Tools To Skyrocket Your Organic Traffic.
  • Infographic posts – If your business deals with a lot of numbers or stats or research, creating an infographic is a great way to present all that data in a visual – i.e. easily consumed – format.
  • Promotional content – While sales posts shouldn’t represent the bulk of your blog, tossing in a promotional piece now and again helps readers find out more about your products.

Keep in mind that whatever type of blog post you write, visual content like videos, infographics and written posts with plenty of relevant images and graphs tend to get much more engagement:

visual content marketing

Dive Deeper: 

Setting SMART Goals Is Crucial for a Winning Business Blogging Strategy

So, how do you make sure that your business blog moves the needle and attracts viewers who could go on to become customers?

As with any other marketing campaign, your blog needs to have defined goals. These targets will differ depending on the type of business, but the SMART strategy outlined below is a reliable format for any company to use.

For each of your goals, check that they are:

Specific

What exactly are you trying to achieve? In blogging, you may want more site traffic, more leads for your new product, to build brand awareness or to establish your business as an educator or thought leader.

Measurable

It’s vital to track your progress so you can determine when you have achieved your goals. Metrics like daily website traffic, social shares and email subscribers are excellent barometers to gauge audience engagement with your content.

Attainable

While it’s tempting to shoot for the stars, you should temper expectations by using data analytics to guide your goals. Don’t get too deflated by setting low targets. Remember that 100 genuine brand advocates are worth a lot more than 10,000 one-time visitors.

Relevant

Your blog goals should be intrinsically linked to your overarching business objectives. For example, increasing your email subscribers by 10% in the next quarter will likely result in some new leads for your product or service which, in turn, presents new opportunities for sales.

Time-based

Every goal needs a deadline. By setting a schedule to chart your progress, it lights a fire under your team to ensure that they push forward in order to hit targets on time.

Click here to download your free guide right now!

Know Your Audience

When you’re starting a business blog, it’s not easy to stand out from the pack, especially if your competitors have been doing this a lot longer and/or you’re churning out the same rehashed fluff that everyone else is doing.

People want actionable, relevant content. That means that you should only be creating valuable articles loaded with current information on topics that your readers and customers care about, and every single blog post must give your readers straight answers to their burning questions.

So if you’re writing a blog that doesn’t offer a solution to their pain points, then your company blog is not going to do well.

Which begs the question: What do people want to know?

To learn more about the burning questions and most shared topics in your target market, scour online groups, forums and platforms like the following:

Knowing your audience is vital in content marketing. After you set your goals, you should do this groundwork to find out more about your audience’s pain points. What questions are they asking? What topics interest them? What is your competition not giving them?

When you take the time to gather this information, you can create detailed audience personas that will guide your content creation efforts. This is an essential aspect of blogging today, and rather than simply create one kind of blog post for everyone, individual and detailed buyer personas will help you create more targeted content that gets results.

The Science of Building Buyer Personas copy

Source

A simple buyer persona looks something like this:

Buyer Persona - Tyrone College

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

Marketing Is Most of the Work

With business blogging, creating content is only part of the job. The real work begins after you press publish.

Nowadays, content marketing is just 20% creation and 80% promotion. Once your blog is ready to be shared with the world, you should immediately promote the new content on all your social channels.

If you recall, we mentioned above that Gary, the good business blogger, didn’t just publish posts – he also actively engaged with his community.

Realistically, your blog should be the starting point in the conversations you’re able to have with your readers. After that, you need to work hard on promotion to ensure that your brand message connects with more people. If you’re worried about the financial burden of all this content promotion, check out How to Promote Your Blog Post on a Tight Budget:

Here are some popular promotional avenues to consider:

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a significant force today, with 17% of companies claiming that they spend over half their marketing budget on influencers. By partnering with key influencers in your space, you can leverage their reputation and large audience to promote your blog content. This is an excellent way of building brand awareness to groups of people you might not have had access to.

And when it comes to the effectiveness of influencer marketing, the ROI is as good or better than other marketing channels:

influencer marketing statistics channel comparision 750x500

Dive Deeper:

How to Get Started With Influencer Marketing:

Social Media

You must find your audience where they are most active, and then take regular action to engage them in conversation. If your demographic is Millennials, it’s a waste of time to focus your efforts on LinkedIn. On the other hand, if your customer base is B2B clientele, then LinkedIn is exactly where you should focus.

Join in with provoking questions, answering other commenters’ questions and offering credible, practical insights about topics of interest. By building a presence on one or two channels at first, you can establish your brand voice and authority. After that, you can promote your blog content to people who already know and trust you.

The platform you choose also depends on what kind of content you are sharing. As a basic rule, the following platforms are best used for:

  • Facebook: Photos, videos, live events, text posts
  • Instagram: Photos, videos, in-photo texts
  • LinkedIn: Job postings, professional updates, corporate press releases
  • Pinterest: Infographics, instructions, photos
  • Twitter: Short texts, links to blogs, polls

Dive Deeper:

Email Marketing

Email may not be as new and shiny as some of the other marketing techniques around today, but it is still incredibly powerful: Email marketing ROI is $44 for each dollar spent. The key is personalization. Nobody wants to receive a mass email about waterproof baby booties if they don’t have children (or even if they do, but their kids are in high school).

Post Funnel email stats infographic

Use email sign-up forms on your site to build a list of followers, which gives you a direct line to their inbox. From there, you can nurture stronger one-to-one relationships with people, encouraging them to amplify your brand message.

Dive Deeper:

Click here to download your free guide right now!

Conclusion

A business blog is a platform that allows you to express your brand’s viewpoints, but it is by no means a one-way street. Done right, you can use a business blog to increase brand awareness, educate your readers and become a go-to expert, and connect with more people.

As you engage with your site visitors, you can nurture stronger relationships and eventually encourage them to subscribe. Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight, but the long-term strategy of business blogging is a worthwhile endeavor.

Remember: businesses that blog receive 55% more traffic, 434% more indexed pages, 97% more inbound links and 67% more leads than companies that don’t.

By investing the time and effort, you can use a blog to elevate your brand to new heights and establish your business as a thought leader in the market. Soon enough, you’ll be able to turn readers into loyal customers.

The post Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging in 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

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Should a Blog Post Focus on One Keyword or Multiple Keywords for SEO? https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/should-a-blog-post-focus-on-one-keyword-or-multiple-keywords-for-seo/ Wed, 03 Apr 2019 15:00:28 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com/?p=21715 Let’s face it. Most of us aren’t writing blog posts for the fun of it. We write them because we want them to serve a purpose for our business, even...

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Let’s face it. Most of us aren’t writing blog posts for the fun of it. We write them because we want them to serve a purpose for our business, even if that purpose is simply increasing engagement with a target audience. But often, businesses want the content they write to support a measurable goal, whether that’s generating leads, driving sales or increasing organic search visibility.

If you’re using blog posts for SEO, the question then becomes: Can the blog posts I write serve double-duty by ranking for multiple keywords? Or is it better to focus each post on a single keyword to maximize ranking opportunities?

I’ll be direct with you here. There’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. But to help you figure out how to best optimize your blog posts, I’ve pulled together a few perspectives on whether you should focus your content on a single keyword or multiple target phrases.

Click here to download it for free right now!

How I Optimize My Posts

I’ll start with my approach to optimizing blog posts here on Single Grain and for the digital marketing clients we work with. Typically, I choose to focus on one ideal keyword first. Then, once it’s ranking, I’ll go back into Google Search Console and look for other keywords on that page for which I’m ranking, but that I’m not yet on page one for. I’ll then layer those keywords to increase their rankings.

Part of the reasoning behind my approach is some research that Tim Soulo published on the Ahrefs blog back in 2017. He and his team looked at three million random search queries and their top-ranked pages, trying to understand how many other keywords these pages were ranking in the top 10 for:

00 median number also rank for keywords2

According to Tim, “It looks like the average #1 ranking page will also rank in the top 10 for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords (while the median value is more than two times smaller — around 400 keywords).”

Tim’s team also looked at whether these results held when considering search volume. Basically, could a page rank for multiple high-search-volume keywords? Or could it only rank for multiple keywords if the search volume of each was relatively low?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team discovered that the latter is true. “It turns out that ranking for 2-3 keywords with over 1,000 searches per month is quite common,” Tim writes. “Ranking for more than one 10k+ keyword with a single page is very rare.”

00 ranking for high volume keywords

The reason Tim’s research informs my approach is that it appears there’s a natural tendency for high-ranked pages to rank for multiple keywords. As long as I’m choosing the right keyword to begin with, I can to a certain degree trust that the strategies I’m using to optimize my content for one keyword will support its ability to rank for others, whether or not I target them specifically.

Neil Patel takes a similar approach. When he’s creating content, he doesn’t consciously try to rank for anything specific, whether that’s a single keyword or multiple keywords.

Instead, he starts with topics, understanding that just by writing on a single topic you’re going to naturally include keywords that relate to it. After that, he’ll wait a month or two, see what he’s getting traction for, and then go back to optimize the post to focus on one or more keywords.

Dive Deeper:

The Hit or Miss Nature of SEO

Part of the reason Neil and I both take a “wait and see” approach is that SEO, in general, is hit or miss by nature. Most people don’t talk about it, but just because you’re good at SEO, that doesn’t mean you’re always going to rank for a specific keyword. Even if you know exactly what to do, there are factors outside of your control.

Maybe there’s another site that’s out there crushing it that’s going to take a lot of work to unseat. Maybe the user metrics aren’t there or the backlink count isn’t there or the social shares aren’t there. If people don’t care for the content you’ve created, it might not get the traction it needs to rank.

Blogging like SEO is hit or miss, but you won’t know how your post is going to land until it’s out there. The last thing you want to do is to put a ton of time into optimizing your posts for different keywords, only to have it fall flat with your audience and never rank in the first place.

Click here to download it for free right now!

A Better Approach to Blog-Specific SEO

So if you know that blog posts naturally have the potential to rank for multiple keywords, and if you know that some of your blog posts are going to fail no matter what you do, how do you approach blog-specific SEO?

Here’s a five-step process for putting it all together:

  • Step 1: Write great content around a single keyword or topic
  • Step 2: Wait 30-60 days
  • Step 3: Determine which keywords your post is ranking for
  • Step 4: Find additional keywords
  • Step 5: Update your post

Step 1: Write Great Content Around a Single Keyword or Topic

Poor-quality content isn’t going to rank well for you (at least, not for the long-term). So don’t waste time on it. Instead, focus on producing high quality content even if that means producing less of it than you would if your standards were lower.

When I say “high quality,” there are a few metrics I use to make sure I’m hitting the mark:

  • Is my content thorough enough? According to research by Brian Dean of Backlinko, “The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words.” If I’m not hitting that mark, there had better be a pretty good reason (such as a micro-topic that can be covered completely in fewer words).
  • Is my content better than what’s ranking currently? This requires some digging, but it’s important to do. If you can’t conclusively say that your content is better, why should it rank higher in the search results?
  • Is my content well-researched and accurate? As you can see in this post alone, I’m a big fan of including external perspectives and industry research in order to strengthen the observations and experiences I share in my content.

These are just a few of my personal checks, but reading through Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines will give you a good idea of the standards you need to hit. And again, remember that you can focus on one keyword here or just write to a specific topic. Test both to see which process works best for your unique business, industry and keywords.

Check out the infographic we created from Google’s 160-page guidelines:

Google Search Quality Guidelines

Dive Deeper: The Best Way to Track Your Keyword Rankings in 2023

Step 2: Wait 30-60 Days

Once you’ve taken your article live, don’t check your rankings for at least a month or two. But don’t just sit back and rest while you’re waiting, either. Use this time to work on promoting your blog post using the simple content promotion checklist I share in this video:

Dive Deeper:

Step 3: Determine which Keywords Your Post Is Ranking For

Once your post has been live for a bit and you have a few backlinks coming in (hopefully), use tools like Google Search Console or Ahrefs to find out what you’re ranking for.

In Google Search Console, enter the specific URL of your blog post and use the Search Appearance tab within the Performance report to see where your article is currently ranking:

Screenshot 49

And in Ahrefs, use the Site Explorer > Organic Search > Organic Keywords report to find your content piece’s rankings for different keyword variations:

org keywords 2x

If you optimized your blog post for a particular keyword, check its performance using these tools. If you didn’t, take a look at the keywords you did wind up ranking for (if any), and determine whether or not they’re appropriate for your business. If they are, increase your presence for these keywords using the tips in the next step. If they aren’t, use the tips in the next step to optimize your post around a different, more suitable keyword.

If your post isn’t ranking at all, it may be worthwhile to wait a little longer and focus on promotion more before you go further with this process. According to Ahrefs, it can take Google anywhere from two to six months to solidify a URL’s position in the SERPs. If it never winds up ranking, decide whether you want to keep investing in the post or whether you’re ready to repeat the process with a new blog post.

Step 4: Find Additional Keywords

Assuming your post is getting some traction, you can start digging up additional keywords for which you’d like it to rank.

If you have a predefined SEO strategy you’re following that includes multiple related keywords, they may be prime candidates to go back and add to your post. But if you need further inspiration, start with any keywords on the lists you found within Google Search Console and Ahrefs for which you’re ranking on the second page (positions #11-20). It may be easier to increase the number of results pages in which you rank by adding these keywords than to go find unrelated keywords you don’t yet have a presence for.

Neil suggests that trying to rank a post for multiple keywords works best if there’s overlap between two or three keywords. That said, if you’re going to add keywords to your post, make sure they’re keywords you actually want to rank for. If the search volume isn’t there, don’t build a keyword into your post just because it’s related or because you think it’ll be easy to rank the effort is never going to pay off in terms of ROI.

Dive Deeper:

Step 5: Update Your Post

Finally, once you’ve chosen additional keywords for your post, go back and work them into your site’s headings, body copy, image ALT tags and other key areas (being careful to keep your post from feeling robotic or unnatural, of course).

Then, repeat the process above from Step 3, tracking the performance of the keywords you’ve added. You won’t use this information to decide what else to add (as in Step 4), but over time, monitoring how the inclusion of multiple keywords performs will help you refine this strategy so that your future posts can be even more effective from an SEO standpoint.

Click here to download it for free right now!

Finding What Works for Your Blog

Whether you decide to optimize for a single keyword or multiple keywords from the start, SEO is all about trial and error.

You can’t control what people are typing into Google, and you can’t control what Google will do with the content you publish. You can spend hours optimizing a particular blog post for a specific word or phrase, only for it to fall flat with your audience and the search results.

Instead, focus on the things you can control. You can figure out which keywords will be most valuable for your business or which topics they most want to hear from you on. You can control the quality of the content you produce. And you can invest in promotion to give your individual blog posts the best possible chances of ranking.

Repeat this process over and over again, watching how the search engines respond to your efforts. With time and continual investment, you’ll be able to determine which optimization strategy is most appropriate for your blog.

The post Should a Blog Post Focus on One Keyword or Multiple Keywords for SEO? appeared first on Single Grain.

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What’s the Ideal Number of Blog Posts to Write Each Week? https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/ideal-number-of-blog-posts-to-write-each-week/ Tue, 02 Apr 2019 15:00:01 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com/?p=21700 It’s no secret that publishing quality content on a regular basis is one of the best ways to generate leads. But what does “regular basis” actually mean? For some companies,...

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It’s no secret that publishing quality content on a regular basis is one of the best ways to generate leads. But what does “regular basis” actually mean?

For some companies, a schedule of one blog post per month meets that criteria, while others crank out several every day. Most lie somewhere in between, posting weekly, a few times each week, or if they’re really ambitious daily.

So what’s the right frequency for your company? The answer is…there isn’t one answer. Sorry to disappoint you, but the posting schedule that’s right for you may be totally different than what works for another brand.

Determining the right blogging volume for your business comes down to a number of different factors, including your specific goals, resources and content promotion plans. The good news, however, is that once you’ve taken each of these factors into consideration, you’ll find it much easier to build a solid content marketing strategy that meets your needs.

Click here to download it for free right now!

Define Your Content Goals

Let’s be clear.


Content creation isn’t a goal in itself. It’s a means of achieving a goal.
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You can decide to publish three blog posts every week, but you don’t actually have an effective content marketing strategy if you don’t know why that schedule makes sense.

Whether you’re looking for more traffic, social media growth, Google rankings for specific keywords or quality leads, you need to clearly define not just what you want your content to accomplish, but what your metrics for success are.

Let’s say your goal is to double your monthly unique visitors in three months and let’s assume that the majority of your website traffic currently comes from ten existing blog posts.

How-to-Set-Up-Goals-and-Funnels-with-Google-Analytics

To double your traffic, you’ll need ten more popular blog posts. But since every blog post probably won’t be a slam dunk, you may want to produce 15 or 20. And to give yourself enough time to get ranked and build adequate promotion into your schedule, you’ll want to push them out in month one. Is that doable? If not, revise your goal to one that is.

Right now, my goal for Single Grain is improving our rankings for specific keywords and to doubling our unique visits. To accomplish that, we’re creating as much content as we can around the keywords we’ve defined as being important to our business.

Once we hit these metrics, we’ll shift our strategy to support new goals, likely decreasing our posting frequency to support more long-form, in-depth blog posts.

Dive Deeper:

Consider Your Resources

How much can you realistically blog? Answering that question is important. You may want to publish new content every day, but if you only have the time, resources and budget to create one post per week or every other week, it’s much better to stick to that frequency.

Currently, we publish around six new blog posts each week on the Single Grain blog:

Single Grain blog

We don’t have the time to write and produce that much in-house, so we do what we can (which usually ends up being around three posts per week) and supplement our blog with guest articles. It’s a lot of content, but it’s doable for us. Your potential output might look very different, and that’s okay.

It’s important to remember that, just because you invest a lot of resources into content creation now, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to do it that way forever. Content creation pays out over time.


An initial investment in quality content is like royalties after you write a song: the rewards keep coming in as people discover your content while searching for relevant keywords.
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Perform a Content Audit

How much content do you already have and, more importantly, how good is it? If you already have a repository of long-form, highly trafficked blog posts, then you probably don’t need to publish something new every day.

HubSpot studied the impact of total blog posts on inbound traffic, and determined that a tipping point happened somewhere around 400 posts. In fact, companies that had published 401+ blog posts in total got about twice as much traffic as companies that published 301-400 blog posts.

It may take you a while to get to 401 blog posts, but it might not be necessary, either. Consider Brian Dean of Backlinko. He has fewer than 75 blog posts, but they bring in a ton of search traffic. Why? Because he’s always keeping the posts updated with relevant information, and Google doesn’t just rank content for newness freshness is an important factor as well.

Refreshing your already-published posts is just as important as creating new ones. If you have an old blog post that’s still a lead generator for you, make sure that none of the links or information is out-of-date. Add new sections to make it more comprehensive. If you have three short pieces on the same topic, combine them to create a thorough guide on that subject. You don’t have to start from scratch.

Contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as too much content. Neil Patel has a blog post called Less Is More: Why I Wish I Never Wrote 4,784 Blog Posts in which he reflects on how the majority of the content he wrote and acquired didn’t increase his traffic significantly, and how he regrets not being more strategic about blogging:

4784posts

If you don’t have any content or if what you do have isn’t doing anything for you, traffic-wise then you might want to consider ramping up blogging until you start to see results.

Dive Deeper: The Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Content Audit

Click here to download it for free right now!

Tailor Content to Your Audience & Platform

Your primary source of traffic will help determine how much you should be posting, as well as what type of content you should focus on.

  • Social media: If you’re promoting your posts on social media and that’s driving traffic and leads for you, it might be worth experimenting with cranking out the shorter content types that tend to perform better on platforms like Facebook and Twitter (such as listicles and how-to articles). Timely content is also good for social media, because you can jump onto hashtags and trending topics. If you opt for this strategy, you’ll probably need to invest in creating several pieces per week to keep engagement up.
  • Search: If most of your traffic comes from search, then longer, more in-depth and more journalistic pieces should be your focus. The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words. Articles reaching this length take longer to produce, so you might only publish once every week or even once every two weeks, whatever it takes to produce quality content.
  • Emails: Your email subscribers are often your most engaged users, so measuring what pieces of content they respond to is vital. Is it the shorter, more current pieces, or the longer, more in-depth ones? Is it something in between or content on specific topics? Playing around with email frequency and measuring any changes in response rates will also give you a good idea of how often your audience wants something new.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to get your content out there, and you’ll want to keep them in mind when you start writing. For example, I have a friend, Paul Orlando, who is the Incubator Director and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California. A while back, Paul started a blog called Unintended Consequences about second-order effects basically, what happens after a decision is made.

He started writing one long-form post each month and sharing it to Hacker News, a community where people in tech go to share content. They’re very critical and will eat you alive if they don’t like your content. But because his content is good, his blog posts are doing well, and it’s generating a lot of traffic and subscribers for him.

If you have the resources to create a content marketing strategy that encompasses all of the above audiences, then you absolutely should do that. If you don’t, be like Paul. Pick one, do it well and expand later.

Dive Deeper:

Take a Look at What’s Going on in Your Industry

Blogging is a competitive sport. If you’re a digital marketing agency and you want to create a guide to SEO in 2019, guess what? Everyone else is doing the same thing. Or they’ve already done it. If you want to stand out, you need to add value, maybe by:

  • Sharing personal experiences
  • Creating client case studies
  • Performing original research and using your own statistics

In a competitive industry, you’ll probably want to publish less, but focus more on the long-form, data-heavy, well-researched pieces that are going to take your content to the top of the search results.

If you work in an industry where your competitors aren’t posting a lot of content, you have a huge opportunity and probably not much time to seize it. Crank out as much content, long or short, as you can, as quickly as possible, before everyone else realizes they need to be doing it, too.

Craft content for all of your relevant keywords. Once you’re getting all the search traffic you can, scale back on posting and start focusing on quality over quantity.

Dive Deeper:

Test Your Content Schedule (And Keep Testing)

You know that marketing is all about testing to see what works, revising, testing again, and so on. Try posting one blog post one week, and three another week. If you get a significant traffic bump, try five. If you don’t, then try four. Keep at it until you find your magic number.

If that magic number is three and you only have the resources for one each week, then do one. Just make sure that blog post is aligned with your goals and strategy. According to an Orbit Media study, bloggers who publish weekly or more are nearly 2.5x more likely to report strong results than bloggers who publish monthly or less:

Percentage of bloggers who report strong results by publishing frequency

You don’t have to be a blogging machine to reap the rewards. Many businesses don’t even have a blog, but as long as you’re being strategic and consistent, you’ll see growth. If your business is new or you don’t yet have a lot of traffic, start slowly and build up understanding that it can be hard to really measure success until you get some traction.

Over time, your content goals and/or available resources will likely shift, and you’ll have to repeat this testing process all over again. Don’t get frustrated. Neil and I regularly look to signals like this as great opportunities to analyze your past successes and use them to inform your future strategy.

Click here to download it for free right now!

The Truth About Blogging Frequency

Plenty of articles have been written about the best blog posting frequency. Many of them rank well in Google and get shared on social media. But the truth is, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.

So many different factors go into what creates a “successful” blog post, but even the metrics for defining success vary from person to person and business to business. Finding the approach that’s right for you takes work. But if you set aside the time to plan content strategically, your business will reap the benefits – and not just when you hit “publish,” but for months and even years to come.

The post What’s the Ideal Number of Blog Posts to Write Each Week? appeared first on Single Grain.

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Quality Over Quantity: The Balance of Keyword Usage https://www.singlegrain.com/seo/quality-over-quantity-the-balance-of-keyword-usage/ Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:00:10 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com/?p=20380 SEO has changed over the years. In the beginning, search engines crawled links between sites and even before Google, linking from one site to another was virtually the only way...

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SEO has changed over the years. In the beginning, search engines crawled links between sites and even before Google, linking from one site to another was virtually the only way you could get anywhere.

Eventually, keywords came into play and search engines could attach common keyword phrases to links found on the Internet. But as humans learned to game the system, the bots came in to combat keyword stuffing.

keyword stuffing example

Source

Over the years, SEO has changed to combat “spammy” behavior or black-hat SEO in order to continue showing quality and relevant results that we expect as searchers.

Today, the evolution of search engine algorithms have long surpassed this primitive ranking system of keyword stuffing, which means that publishers need to think more about quality than quantity when it comes to their content.

Free Bonus Download: Get our free SEO guide to learn how you can skyrocket your rankings, even in a competitive niche! Click here to download it for free right now!

Search Engines Are Smarter than You Think

Today’s leading search engines are programmed differently, with Google being unequivocally in the lead as it continues to excel in the development of smarter algorithms.

The way search engines are programmed now means that they are more interested in a site’s “personality” than its looks. In other words, they dig deeper into the core of the content to make sure it meets the expectations of its users. Google prefers to rank sites today based on their content quality so new algorithms place well-written content above content that lacks the following:

  • Concise and clear writing
  • Proper sentence and paragraph structure
  • Proper headers to break down content
  • Links that are connected correctly
  • A complete sitemap (a file of all the URLs on your website)

Without these basic inclusions, keyword usage will not be enough to improve ranking.  

Dive Deeper: The Best Way to Track Your Keyword Rankings in 2023

Search Engines Are Now Designed with End-Users in Mind

The satisfaction of the end-user is now the primary concern for search engine development. You can think of this as a self-preservation rule – in order to provide a sustainable Internet information market, the sites that users are driven to must be of quality and, most importantly, of use to them.

How can you tell if your content is useful to potential readers? By following these golden rules:

  • Does the content answer specific questions?
  • Is the content informative? Will the reader learn something new?
  • Have I answered questions simply and in a way that makes it easy for readers to digest the information?
  • Do my keywords appear naturally?

If you can answer yes to these questions, then you’re on your way to making sure the content is being produced with the end-user in mind. The process goes hand-in-hand with ranking on Google.

Google’s Latest Algorithm Updates

In July of 2018, Google released an algorithm update that focused on the need to improve user experience in order to rank higher. These improvements included page speed, user interface, and quality content:

“The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.”

While we are talking about SEO, it’s important to note that Google is moving toward a more user-friendly experience for its customers. Google emphasizes the development of responsive, fast pages in order to optimize a site and make keyword placement worth the time. The four parts of their RAIL performance model are response, animation, idle and load – and all need to work together seamlessly.

Google's RAIL systemTo keep it simple: User-experience and SEO are no longer two different battles in today’s world. These two important elements of digital marketing work together for the ultimate organic results.

Search engines are constantly competing for users and advertisers. When users deem a site to be keyword-rich but lacking in quality information, it reflects on the search engine that brought them there, creating a potential defector. So, search engines have had to adapt from sheer search page result volume to a more tailored Q&A experience for users.

Dive Deeper:

Late 2018 Announcements Made by Google

In September 2018, as part of their 20th anniversary, Google announced their plans to roll out a user-inspired, Facebook-like news feed – which includes activity cards, smart videos, and Google Lens – on their search engine page:

Google's new FB-like feed

The idea is to capitalize on what users came there to find and provide relevant answers to questions they haven’t yet asked but may be interested in knowing about.

The feasibility of this new design is heavily reliant on a publisher’s ability to write quality content that is both keyword-rich and answers users’ questions that they can interact with as they venture into their search queries.

Quality content promotes engagementThe content that is most likely to be featured on Google search cards is that which answers queries directly, has supporting questions with answers, has interesting writing and contains keywords that are directly relevant to the topic.

Free Bonus Download: Get our free SEO guide to learn how you can skyrocket your rankings, even in a competitive niche! Click here to download it for free right now!

Quality Is Time-Consuming but Worth It

Now that we’ve gotten the truth about the future of search engine optimization out of the way, we can focus on your responsibilities from here on out.

The fact remains that building a quality website with excellent content is very time-consuming. It would be easier to just push out low-quality content that is jam-packed with keywords (the way it used to be done), but that just isn’t going to get you where you need to be in the ranking.

10 great links better than 1000 poor linksToday, the process of optimization has everything to do with backlinks and avoiding low-quality ones. With this concept, even though you are spending a massive amount of time and effort writing all-encompassing pieces for your website, backlinks are now rejected by the thousands.

Ideally, you’d reject 1,000 mediocre backlinks for ten really good ones. The time you spent on that content directly increases your chances of being among those ten and vice versa.

What Is Quality in Terms of SEO?

Quality simply refers to focusing on what your users want. No fluff, no filler and no random amounts of information that are semi-relevant to the topic and are general knowledge. You can’t write an entire article in response to a question and then fill it with useless information.

Focus on what users want

Instead, research what your users want and what they want to know. Then, provide this to them in-depth and make the page a one-stop-shop for that topic; don’t give them a reason to have to go anywhere else.

Google offers a complete beginner’s guide to proper SEO practices that includes:

  • Organizing your content properly
  • Avoiding spelling and grammatical errors
  • Eliminating duplicate content
  • Avoid “stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags”
  • Create unique, accurate page titles and snippets
  • Add structured data markup
  • Organize your site hierarchy (because navigation is important for search engines)

This will increase your views per visitor, which translates to search engine referrals and traffic.

Dive Deeper:

Focus on Unique Content

It doesn’t matter how many keywords you place in your article – if the content is a carbon copy of someone else’s, yours won’t see the light of page-one search results. Search engines absolutely hate copied or very similar content that is useless to users.

Search engines want the results pages to be as unique as possible so as to provide users with different angles of a topic, not hundreds of results about the same exact thing.

You may have seen at the bottom of a search page where Google places this phrase: “we have removed one or more pieces of content because they are duplicates.” This is in reference to duplicated content on the same website, as well as content from other websites that are carbon copies.

Google will take the one that has the best overall site quality and show it in the results and hide the others. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it won’t get you anywhere near the original article’s rankings.

When creating unique content, you should:

  • Research other sites for similar content and make sure your articles cover different angles of the same topic. This ensures that the content you provide is unique enough for Google and Bing to prefer over others.
  • Create a list of five to six questions you want your content to answer.
  • Make a list of closely related concepts to what you’re writing about and include them in your content as supporting text. Users are more likely to keep reading if they see that you know what you’re talking about.
  • Focus more on long-form content. This is a psychological method of making sure your readers know they’ve come to a resource they can count on.

As a small business owner, you rely on the usefulness of your service to draw in customers versus large, enterprise companies which may not be able to tailor their services the way a small business can. Their success comes from their popularity. So as a SMB owner, focus your content on your usefulness, uniqueness and answer your customers’ questions directly.

Keyword Relevance Is a Must

Search engines also don’t want to provide users with content that is only semi-relevant to the topic.

This is what Microsoft’s Bing banked on when it first launched in 2009. Their catchphrase was “find a cure,” which referenced the concept of search engine overload, which is a massive problem Google faced.

During this time, search engine results were made up of thousands of slightly relevant facts to questions being asked by users that were never getting answered. Google responded to this by focusing on quality content. This content was anchored by keywords.

One major rule in keyword optimization is to only use keywords in your content that are directly about the topic at hand. An easy way to remember how to do this is to think of keywords as tags. You wouldn’t put a tag on an article that is only semi-related, so don’t do that in your optimization.

For example, if you’re writing an article about content management services that you provide, you’re not going to tag it with “social media management” or “branding” just because both are processes of content management that are mentioned maybe once or twice in your article.

In this case, do not overuse keywords referencing these topics, because you’ll be throwing off the core of your content, effectively stretching it in so many directions that the search engine no longer finds it relevant to any of the three topics you optimized for, including the main one, “content management.”

Your article should be about “content management” in all aspects, including your keyword usage.

Free Bonus Download: Get our free SEO guide to learn how you can skyrocket your rankings, even in a competitive niche! Click here to download it for free right now!

Quantity Does Not Equal Quality

When you’re working on an SEO campaign, remember this: search engines often view high quantities of keywords as spam. This was the kind of content that was ranking a decade ago.

Massive amounts of keywords were used to make it easier for search engines to understand the content. The problem with this is that many of the keywords used were written in the way that people naturally search, which lacks the use of complete sentences and correct structure.

Here’s an example. If you want to know how tall Lady Gaga is, you’re not going to spend time typing in “How tall is Lady Gaga?” Instead, you may just write “height Lady Gaga.”

Most search engines will return an answer regardless of how you write it. But, publishers who use the keyword “height Lady Gaga” will get flagged because this is not proper grammar and thus not quality content. Readers don’t want to go to a site and have every other phrase read as a search query.

Varying the Placement of Your Keywords

Keywords are also not very reader-friendly and should be used sparingly only when they make sense.

If you’re writing about a 4×6 blue picture frame, it’s okay to use this phrase as your keyword. Just don’t overdo it: “I bought a 4×6 blue picture frame. This 4×6 blue picture frame was perfect for my graduation photos. Next time, I’m going to get another 4×6 blue picture frame.”

In the above example, the keyword is severely overused, because humans do not naturally speak this way. Using it once in this paragraph would have been enough. That’s exactly what search engines don’t want to see.

You can also optimize your content by making sure you place your keyword in your:

  • Meta description
  • Title
  • Headers
  • Image alt text
  • Image descriptions

Dive Deeper:

Tailoring Your Content to New Search Engine Algorithms

We’ve established that quality rules over quantity when it comes to SEO. Now what you have to worry about is how to take this concept and apply it.

If you’re writing quality content, half the battle is already won because you’re streamlining your SEO practices to meet the needs of the search engines. Ideally, you’ll focus on the changes that top search engines are making to ensure that their results are useful to their users.

Write Quality Content

Going forward, make sure your content is written with quality in mind. Use proper grammar, structure, include headers for easier reading and don’t veer off-topic.

Always:

  • Make sure your articles cover different angles of the same topic
  • Create a list of five to six questions you want your content to answer
  • Make a list of closely related concepts to what you’re writing about and include them in your content as supporting text
  • Focus more on long-form content
  • Use concise and clear writing, proper sentence and paragraph structure
  • Use proper headers to break down content
  • Use high-quality links that are connected correctly
  • Create a complete sitemap

Reduce Keyword Quantity

Make sure your keywords are placed mindfully and avoid jam-packing your content with keywords aimed at helping the search engine understand your content better. Remember, search engines have evolved so they no longer need this kind of primitive help from you.

You can also rank better by researching other related keywords that your content can also rank for and include them in your text.

Optimize Your URL

Your URL should not be a default page address like “page1.html”. Nor should it include stop words like “to,” “the” or “you.” Only include the necessary words (generally nouns and verbs).

Google also mentions keyword placement in URLs: In their SEO guide they note that you should avoid the usage of “excessive keywords like ‘baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.htm’.”

Anchor Keywords Based on Relevance

When using keywords, make sure they are relevant to your topic. Do not add in keywords about things that are similar but not quite on-topic. This will only stretch your content in different directions, lowering its value regarding the core topic, which most of the content and keywords should be about.

Tailor Backlinks to Quality and Relevance

Do away with backlinks that don’t offer quality content. Only link to top-quality, reputable pages so that search engines can offer this same quality to their users. When building your links to build your site, try the following:

  • Network with authority sites to provide your links on their pages and vice versa.
  • Make a list of top authority sites in your field that aren’t directly competing with you, and note them as preferred links to use.
  • Be sure to include inbound links on every article you write and throughout your pages.
Free Bonus Download: Get our free SEO guide to learn how you can skyrocket your rankings, even in a competitive niche! Click here to download it for free right now!

Give Your Readers What They Want

Your readers are coming to your site for a specific purpose, so make sure you give them what they’re looking for without making them work for it through filler text and irrelevant information. This will increase your views per visitors and loyalty visits, which search engines rely on when determining the quality of your site.

There is no magic number when it comes to the quantity of keyword dispersal. It all comes down to the quality of the content, the placement of the keywords and your ability to link back to other relevant pages. Always keep in mind that the quality of your content is more important than your keyword strategy. Master quality, then you can focus on strategy.

The post Quality Over Quantity: The Balance of Keyword Usage appeared first on Single Grain.

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How to Write Hero Headlines to Skyrocket Click-Through Rates https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/how-to-write-hero-headlines-to-skyrocket-click-through-rates/ Wed, 11 Oct 2017 17:12:53 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com?p=14348&preview=true&preview_id=14348 Headlines are the lifeblood of your content. You can have have the best blog post in the world but if your headline doesn’t do it justice, you’ll be reeling from...

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Headlines are the lifeblood of your content. You can have have the best blog post in the world but if your headline doesn’t do it justice, you’ll be reeling from the lack of likes, shares and comments – not to mention readers.

According to Copyblogger:


About 80% of people will read your headline, but only 20% will read the rest of your content.
Click To Tweet


The job of a headline is to get people to click through to your content, but here’s the problem – the Internet has a practically infinite amount of content and most people are suffering from a severe info-overload coma.

According to MarketingProfs and HostGator, the Internet is a crowded place:

  • On average, 139,344 websites are created every single day.
  • Over 2 million blog posts are published every day (and that’s just on WordPress!).
  • 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute on YouTube.

So how do you get people to care about your piece amidst an avalanche of great content? Simple. By crafting a captivating headline that pulls the reader into your post. A hero headline zaps people out of their info-overload comas and compels them to read your piece of content that you worked so hard to produce.

As a business owner or marketer who is blogging, your ultimate goal is to get more readers, convert them to more customers, and make more money. You might be using blogging to sell your products or promote products as an affiliate as a way to earn passive income.

Whatever the case, for any business that is content-driven, headlines are a crucial element of a successful content marketing strategy.

Free Bonus Download: Use this bonus guide to walk you through content expansion – and maximize your traffic and leads. Click here to download it for free right now!

The Type of Headlines that Work Best

Headlines are a well-researched part of content with many studies completed on the type of headlines that work best. The smallest tweaks can make the biggest of differences to your click-through rates.

Bracket, Colon or Hyphen

Outbrain and HubSpot studied over 3.3 million paid link, English-language headlines and found that headlines with bracketed clarifications such as “[New Report]” perform 38% better than those without. In addition, headlines with a colon or hyphen in them perform 9% better than ones without, presumably because this punctuation mark indicates a subtitle that includes more info.

Bengu headline example

Source

Learn More: How To Write Data-Driven Posts

How-To and List

According to OK Dork and CoSchedule, the type of content that consistently outperforms others (besides giveaways) are “how to” and list posts. The “how to” formula, by the way, can also be used in a “how not to” way, as in “How NOT to Pack When Going on Vacation” or even “Never Paint Your Room This Color.”

Interestingly, people like being addressed with the second-person tense (you/your). It adds a personal touch to your writing and makes the reader feel more directly involved with your content. Writing in this way works really well not only for headlines but for the body of your content, too.

How-to posts work particularly well for organic traffic as many people start their search terms with “how to” when looking for answers to their questions.

Humans are also obsessed with variety, and a list post caters to this inherent desire by providing an ordered list of concepts, ideas or things.

Most popular words in headlines

Source

Numbers

Numbers work really well because they stand out from the rest of the headline. They satisfy our organizational minds by showing us something in a logical and orderly fashion.

A Conductor study found that 36% of people prefer headlines that start with a number, a full 15% more than the next-most-popular type:

conductor study

Odd numbers generally do better than even numbers when it comes to headlines, although the most engaging number in a headline on Facebook is 10:

Buzzsumo research numbers

The Headline Linking Term that Works Like Magic

Buzzsumo recently completed a giant study where they analyzed over 100 million headlines in which they measured headline popularity based on the average number of engagements on the various social platforms. The study discovered many interesting trends on various social media platforms.

For headlines on Facebook, they found a phrase that receives double the amount of engagement, on average, compared to the second one: “will make you.” This came as a huge shock to the guys at Buzzsumo as this wasn’t a term that was even on their radar.

What makes this phrase really interesting is that it’s a linking phrase. It doesn’t appear at the start or the end of a headline. Instead, it makes a specific connection between the content and the likely impact on the reader and creates an emotional impact on the reader, which drives people to take action.

Speaking of emotional impact, headlines with emotional phrases consistently perform well on Facebook, such as:

  • Give you goosebumps
  • Is too cute
  • Melt your heart
  • Can’t stop laughing
  • Tears of joy
  • Shocked to see

The type of content that comes with these headline phrases are varied, including image, video and story-based posts.

Learn More: 10 Ways to Generate Topics and Write High-Ranking Blog Posts

Why Context Is Everything

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to headlines. It depends on several variables like the digital channel (organic search, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.), target market, and whether you’re targeting B2B or B2C prospects.

For example, the headlines phrase with the most engagement on Twitter is “this is what”…

Buzzsumo research Twitter

And for LinkedIn, it’s completely different: “the future of”

Buzzsumo research LinkedIN

These variations in popular headline phrases speak to the demographic differences in each platform. Understanding your audience and industry is key to creating a headline that people can’t help but click.

Because people react in different ways depending on the platform, you may know exactly how to craft a headline that attracts shares on Pinterest, but the same may not work so well on Facebook.

It’s also important to note that everything from headline phrases to optimum word count differ for B2B and B2C companies.

This brings me to my next point…

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The Optimum Length for a Headline

Is there really a magic length for a headline that help drive more engagement? Does it really make much of a difference?

As it happens, yes there is, and yes it does.

Some experts argue that the best headlines are the ones that are short, sweet and to the point, while others have testified that longer headlines, as many as 18 words, drive the most engagement.

Buzzsumo decided to put all these assumptions to the test with their study on 100 million headlines. In the articles they analyzed, they checked for the number of words in the headlines and cross-referenced them to the average number of Facebook engagements.

Here’s what they found:

Buzzsumo average words headline

Source

The graph shows that headlines between 12 and 18 words produce the highest level of engagement, on average. This may sound like a lot, but a phrase this long really helps you get your point across.

Some examples include:

Examples of Amazing Headlines

There’s no better way to learn how to craft hero headlines than to see what has worked really well already. Stealing is a great formula for successnot in an unethical way that encourages plagiarism, but in a way that involves absorbing the key concepts and adding your own unique twist!

Here are some examples to inspire you.

1) “Watch a Student Totally Nail Something About Women That I’ve Been Trying to Articulate for 37 Years

Upworth headline example

This post is one the most highly shared pieces of content on Upworthy, receiving almost 830,000 shares in total, according to the link analysis tool, Ahrefs.

Watch a Student

The headline uses the “X years” ending format which is the second most-popular Facebook headline ending by average user engagement. It also starts with a verb and invokes curiosity with an intriguing point.

2) “This Infographic Tells You How Best to Use Herbs in Your Cooking

This Infographic Tells you How to Best Use Herbs in Your Cooking

This infographic caters to all the food lovers out there, and received over 66,000 social shares:

This IG Tells You

It’s no surprise that the vast majority of shares came from Pinterest, as this is where infographics thrive, especially in the food niche.

The word “this” is the most popular first word for headlines that get the highest number of shares on Facebook, on average. It’s interesting to see this work really well on Pinterest, too.

TopFirstWordFacebook

Source

3) “This is the Easiest Way to Escape a Sinking Vehicle. Knowing HOW Might Save Your Life One Day

Themindunleashed headline example

The title of this article is so compelling. It speaks to the fear of being trapped in an enclosed space and drowning and, more importantly, offers a solution to the problem.

This is another headline that starts with “this” and happens to be 18 words long, an optimum number according to the data I shared above. It also makes interesting use of the “how to” formula, by highlighting “HOW” in the middle of the sentence.

4) “7 Steps to Beautiful DIY Apparel Product Photography
Shopify headline example

This is a classic list post on Shopify that was shared 4,400 times across Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest:

7 Steps to Beautiful

List posts work really well and this headline in particular is very specific. It shows you the seven steps you can take to have beautiful images for your e-commerce clothing store.

Specific headlines always outdo vague headlines because people want to know exactly what problem your post is going to solve. If you’re too vague, you’ll be lucky to get a two-second glance.

So how do you construct a winning headline like the ones above?

Related Content: 

5 Formulas for Writing Hero Headlines

Crafting a headline that gets eyeballs on your content is a fine mix of science and art. The science is the result of research that reveals the type of headlines that work. The art is taking the science and creating your own unique versions that captivate people and compel them to click through to your page.

1) Numbers Are Your Friend

Let’s kick off with a tried-and-true formula that is proven work. Starting your headline with a number will help your content pop. Odd numbers like 5, 15 and 7 work well. Even numbers 10 and 20 also work well.

Example:

  • Original – Online Business Ideas that You Can Start Today
  • Better7 Online Business Ideas that You Can Start Today

Which one would you rather click?

2) Adjectives Are Attractive

Adjectives are words that modify nouns. Words like effortless, incredible and essential emphasize your point, add emotional weight, and increase the power of your headline.

Example:

  • Original – How to Overcome Failure and Succeed at Anything
  • Better – How to Overcome Soul-Crushing Failure and Succeed at Absolutely Anything

3) Words that Drive Action

Certain words in the English language make us want to spring into action more than others and are known as power words. Words like conquer, fearless and staggering have a powerful impact.

You can use these words to help inspire people to click through to your masterpiece!

Example:

  • Original – 7 Steps to Help You Overcome Anxiety
  • Better – 7 Steps to Help You Conquer Your Anxiety and Become Fearless

4) Use the WHW Formula

What, Why and How. These are known as trigger words because they initiate a process or course of action the action of clicking on your post in this case. “How” and “Why” are typically used in step-by-step articles that are designed to inform or persuade. You’ll usually start your articles off with one of these trigger words.

Example:

  • Original – This CEO Went from Bankrupt to Billionaire in 6 Months
  • BetterHow This CEO Went from Bankrupt to Billionaire in 6 Months

5) Promise Your Readers Something Worthwhile

Are you writing to inform? Entertain? Persuade? Perhaps all three! Whatever it is you’re writing, you’ll want to include a promise in your article headline.

What will your reader learn when they finish your article? How long will it take them to learn this? You want to be bold, without over-promising. Dare your prospect to read and take action on what you’ve promised.

Example:

  • Original – 9 Ways you Can Learn Conversion Optimization
  • Better – 9 Ways you Can Learn Conversion Optimization in 5 minutes

A Formula that Brings It all Together

Here’s what we have when we combine all the elements of a winning headline:

Trigger Word or Number + Adjective/Power Word + Keyword + Promise

Without this formula, you’ll end up with headlines like this:

  • 15 Ways to Get Six-Pack Abs
  • How to Make Lasagne

Applying this formula creates headlines like this:

  • 15 Incredibly Easy Ways to Get Jaw-Dropping Six-Pack Abs
  • How to Make Delicious Lasagne in 2 Minutes
Free Bonus Download: Use this bonus guide to walk you through content expansion – and maximize your traffic and leads. Click here to download it for free right now!

Why You Should Always Start with the Headline

Your headline is your map, a literary road that takes your reader on a journey from problem to solution. Your sub-headings are signposts along the way to achieving the goal outlined in your headline.

Creating a piece of content without a headline often results in a vague or poorly formed idea that wanders all over the place. How are your readers going to know what you’re going on about when you can’t put a label on it yourself?


Starting with a headline helps you focus your idea and structure your post.
Click To Tweet


And you should spend a good amount of time coming up with a headline that not only works for SEO, but is irresistible to humans!

Learn More: How to Write Content for People and Optimize It for Google

Rounding Things Off

Headlines that provoke curiosity, provide explanations and/or have emotional hooks tend to engage users best. Clarity of message, promises made and a focus on why the reader should care are all qualities that the best headlines have in abundance.

The value of the research shown in this article should result in an improved understanding of the fundamental principles that make a headline great.

It also highlights the importance of context in terms of target audience, industry and traffic channel as they all differ from each other.

Your headline is one of the most important parts of your content. It sells your blog post in just a few words. It’s your job to ensure that those words make people want to click through to your article.

Now go forth and create some hero headlines!

The post How to Write Hero Headlines to Skyrocket Click-Through Rates appeared first on Single Grain.

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How to Establish Yourself as a Reputable Freelance Writer https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/how-to-establish-yourself-as-a-reputable-freelance-writer/ Tue, 01 Aug 2017 15:00:51 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com?p=13261&preview=true&preview_id=13261 Getting your freelance writing career off the ground takes work. In the beginning, it’s easy to get discouraged by how saturated with writers the market seems to be and how...

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Getting your freelance writing career off the ground takes work. In the beginning, it’s easy to get discouraged by how saturated with writers the market seems to be and how difficult it is to get paid work — especially when you don’t have much experience.

But don’t worry, I’ve put together some advice from a variety of successful freelance writers to help you out when you’re trying to launch your career as a marketing freelancer. Listen to their words of wisdom and apply them to your own writing, marketing and business strategies for positive results.

1. Write About What You Know

The most prevalent piece of advice that people give writers is simply to write. You should hone your craft regularly so that when work comes, you’ve got the skills and the discipline to create a great piece.

Shannon Doyle, who has been a freelance blogger for the last six years, recommends sticking to what you’re passionate about in the beginning while you’re still building your portfolio.

Are you an SEO wizard, a Google Ads genius, or a copywriting visionary? Start there. Write an article in your area of expertise and shop it around to marketing websites. “You may get 100 noes, but all you need is one yes,” explains Shannon. “And most importantly, don’t sell yourself short.”

Shannon also recommends expanding your niche as you grow more comfortable with freelancing. “You don’t want to get locked into writing about something only for it to go away. Diversification and flexibility are a must as a freelance blogger.”

So if you’re an expert on Snapchat, for example, make sure you diversify into all social media channels so you aren’t left with nothing if Snapchat goes the way of MySpace.

Expert Content_Page Quality Rating Scale

Learn More: 5 Steps to Becoming an Expert Content Creator (According to Google’s Phantom Update)

2. Have a Killer Website

Having a space online where you can showcase your skills and build trust with potential clients is vital in the world of freelance writing. Ramsay Tapling, founder of popular marketing and blogging website Blog Tyrant,  recommends that every freelancer create their own website using a clean and simple template.

“Have a few examples of how you write, your personal thoughts on the process, and a few nice photos. This helps separate you from the thousands of faceless individuals that employers will encounter when hiring writers. It’s a very small outlay that can make a big difference,” says Ramsay.

Have a Killer Website

Additionally, you’ll want to spend some time on your website’s SEO to ensure that the work you’re creating is search-engine- and reader-friendly. This step can help your site get more organic traffic, and the more organic search traffic you can generate through your website, the more clients and content requests you’re likely to get.

Free Bonus Download: Get your free resource to learn how to make use of your old content by updating, consolidating and repurposing it. Click here to download it for free right now!

Here are some effective SEO tips that can improve your website:

  • Write content that will rank well in search engines. This means doing your research to see what terms and keywords get searched often and using relevant keywords in the title and body of your posts, where possible. Just don’t overstuff your posts with keywords, as this black hat practice can have a negative impact on your site’s ranking. Check out The Content Marketer’s Guide to Keyword Research for more information.
  • Optimize your posts. Put the most relevant keywords in your title tag for every page on your site to maximize keyword opportunities. These optimizations should be as short as possible — usually 50 to 60 characters. Also create meta descriptions to give readers an idea of the content they’ll find on those pages, and keep this content to about 150 characters. Following these simple guidelines makes your site more consumable for readers, and search engines use these optimizations to determine where your site should rank on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
  • Link to reputable sources in your posts. High-quality outbound links are a must. By including these kinds of links, you allow search engine spiders (Internet bots that browse the web to index and rank data) to crawl your page and determine if the content is valuable to and trustworthy for readers. Ultimately, links will improve your credibility and help your site rank higher.
  • Include images. Every image you use on your site should have a keyword-relevant title, caption, ALT text, and file name. These details also optimize images and can help your site rank higher on a SERP.

Learn More: The Anatomy of a Successful Highly-Converting Website

3. Nail Your Pitches

Pitching blog topics and post ideas to potential clients is a crucial part of establishing yourself as a freelance writer — if you don’t nail the pitch, you won’t get the work. According to Nicholas Holmes, founder of Clippings.me, you should only pitch articles that fall within your expertise. “Don’t make things harder for yourself by attempting to tackle a new topic as a new writer,” he advises.

Freelance writer and blogger Rachel Ballard echoes this advice. “Never claim to have skills you don’t have, and make sure you feature the ones you do have, no matter how small they seem,” she says. “When pitching clients, make sure to speak to the problems they have right now and then talk about the skills you have a bit later in the pitch. It’s a good idea to ask a thoughtful question in the pitch, too, as this shows the client you’re intentional about your work, and when they respond, you’ll automatically stand out in a sea of other applicants as someone they can remember.”

And always research the site or publication you’re pitching to before you send that e-mail. You don’t want to pitch content about gardening to a digital marketing agency.

To get that all-important pitch right the first time, use these tactics:

  • Make the most of summaries. Your pitch summary is a crucial opportunity to display your writing skills, so don’t waste it. Crafting the perfect summary allows editors to get a feel for your proposed idea and your ability to execute it, without your having to write the whole article before it gets approved. Try to keep the summary short, sweet and on point.
  • Wow editors with your title. Titles have never been more important than they are in 2017. Editors and consumers are exposed to so much content every day that it takes an outstanding title to capture their attention. At the same time, you don’t want to get caught in the trap of thinking that cleverness trumps clarity! You might be really proud of a creative play on words, but if the title is confusing then you’ve already lost. Consider running your headlines by some friends or colleagues who can give candid feedback. Use a headline generator like Title Generator, Portent, or Sumo’s Kickass Headline Generator.

Sumo Kickass Headline Generator

  • Approach your topic from a unique angle. The more unique and creative your angle is, the more interested an editor will be in your piece. To stand out from the crowd, you need to approach topics from angles that haven’t been done before. Spend some time brainstorming yours before writing your pitch.

4. Deliver Quality Content on Time

Holmes believes the first editors you contact are disproportionately important to your career success. “So be succinct, courteous and, above all, professional. Submit work on time and to spec — the fastest way to lose future work is to submit an overly long piece that requires tons of editing.”

Making life easier for editors is a significant way to earn respect in the freelance writing industry. “Always be sure to proofread your pieces, source your content responsibly (no plagiarizing, reusing what you’ve written for other sites without thoroughly rewriting it, or lifting images without attribution), and meet your deadlines,” advises Kate Sullivan, the content director for TCK Publishing. “By making life easier for the editors you work with, you’ll quickly become known as someone trustworthy and reliable, and sites will start reaching out to you and offer work instead of you having to pursue it!”

Free Bonus Download: Get your free resource to learn how to make use of your old content by updating, consolidating and repurposing it. Click here to download it for free right now!

5. Maintain a Solid Workflow When Your Prices Rise

One of the biggest issues you might face as a marketing freelancer is not consistently having work because you’ve raised your fees.

Peterson Teixeira, an entrepreneur and marketing expert who started freelance writing in 2014 to put food on the table, advises, “I started working for $8 a piece, then I jumped to $10, then I jumped to $20, then to $35, then $50, then $100, then $160. This was in 12 months or less…. Once you raise your prices, customers will disappear…. When the market stops paying you, quickly find out what the next level of customer who usually pays more wants, and find a way to serve them.”

If you understand what other writers in your space are charging, it makes it easier to raise those rates or stand by a recent increase. Bookmark the Freelancer’s Union for helpful articles, useful resources and networking opportunities. Reach out to other freelance writers to comment on their work and then ask if you can pick their brain about their success so you can learn from them.

Smashing Copy

Source

If you find yourself in a lull with no work, make good use of your available time to improve your craft and build your portfolio.

6. Know that the First Year Is Usually the Hardest

How much you can expect to earn in the first year will depend on the jobs you land and your experience. Generally, you should expect to make less money until you get established as a reputable writer, so it’s a good idea to start freelancing as a side gig to supplement your existing income.

Scott Deuty, who has been a freelancer for three years, says committing to freelance writing full time does have its advantages. “You can dedicate more time to things than someone who is exhausted from their other commitments and who is only available during certain hours.”

You should get used to struggling during your first year or more to achieve the income you expect. Rachel Ballard, who has been freelance writing for eleven years, says her earnings can vary dramatically year-by-year.

“Some years the money is great, some years not so much,” she says. “I know a lot of professional freelance writers who make $100,000 or more a year. As a medical writer I averaged about $40,000 a year from home and now as a food blogger I continue to earn a solid income. Clients will start projects and then suddenly drop them out of nowhere and with no warning — leaving you without a backup plan [for earning the money you planned on]. That part stinks, but it’s the reality of the job.”

Related: How to Get More Responses from Cold E-mails

7. Stay Updated on What Others are Doing

Always keep up with the industry or industries about which you write, as well as the freelance writing space itself. Knowing general trends in the market can help you know where to look for work, how high to set your rates and what to write about.

It can also help you network, something that Deuty recommends. “Responding to blogs, retweeting relevant tweets, and reposting Facebook posts can help you,” he says. The more actively engaged you are with others in your industry, the more likely you are to find work, as you’ll learn from their experiences and posts.

Check out these stellar resources to keep up with marketing trends and news and learn more about the industry:

It’s also a good idea to set up Google Alerts for certain words and phrases. You should do this for more general terms like “marketing,” “copywriting,” and “SEO” and for phrases specific to your hunt for work, like “freelance writing jobs Salt Lake City.”

If you have existing clients that you want to keep up with, set up a Google Alert for their company name so you can stay abreast of rising trends and quickly send out a new pitch on a topical subject.

Free Bonus Download: Get your free resource to learn how to make use of your old content by updating, consolidating and repurposing it. Click here to download it for free right now!

8. Avoid Burnout!

Burnout is a real problem with freelance writing, according to Peterson. “You assume in the beginning that you can write X articles [in a given time frame]…but it doesn’t work that way,” he explains. “You aren’t a machine.”

Freelance writing requires motivation, and nobody can supply that but you. Caroline Smith, blogger and communications specialist for Frontier Business, recommends switching up your location every now and then to ensure that your creativity doesn’t stagnate.

“Different sights, sounds and even smells can spark your creativity on days where you’re not really feeling it,” she explains. “Writing requires a lot of thinking, and sometimes even heading to a different coffee shop than normal can be really beneficial for your ability to generate ideas and pump out some quality writing.”

If you prefer to work at home where it’s quieter than a busy coffee shop, create a separate space in which to write. This will help you get in the zone faster than if you just lie in bed with your laptop trying to be productive.

Establishing yourself as a reputable marketing freelance writer requires persistence and determination — so don’t get discouraged if you don’t feel like things are taking off right away. Consistent effort and learning will get you where you want to go in time, so be patient, keep working hard, and stay focused!

The post How to Establish Yourself as a Reputable Freelance Writer appeared first on Single Grain.

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How to Build a Website to 7M Page Views / Month: An Interview with Chris Coyier https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/building-website-to-7m-page-views-per-month/ Tue, 25 Apr 2017 17:29:01 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com/?p=12055 “Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help their tribe connect.” – Seth Godin One of the hardest, but most rewarding aspects of...

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“Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help their tribe connect.” – Seth Godin

One of the hardest, but most rewarding aspects of building a sustainable, profitable business is cultivating a tribe of insanely committed individuals who love what you are talking about or selling.

In modern day, there has been a huge focus on growth hacking and other forms of marketing to get people on your platform and buying your products.

But one the most powerful strategies any entrepreneur can implement to build a business that not only grows but thrives in the long run, is to focus on building a community around your product or service.

Our guest today, Chris Coyier, is a master tribe builder.

He is the founder of CSS Tricks, CodePen, and the Shop Talk podcast. Over the last decade, he has been writing 20+ articles a day on his site, CSS Tricks, and has built up a substantial following, 7 million monthly page views to be exact.

In this Q&A, we discuss the strategies and psychology Chris used to build such an incredible following, with some helpful ideas on how to monetize your following once you have it.

If you are interested in building a hungry tribe of fans that devour anything you sell, this is a must read.

Enjoy.

Free Bonus Download: Get this checklist of 29 Growth Hacking Quick Wins you can use to grow your user base (even without a marketing budget)! Click here to download for free.

1) Hey Chris, why don’t you start off by telling us about your story starting CSS Tricks?

Sure. I’ve been running CSS Tricks for over a decade now. It began in 2007. And it’s a web publication about all things web. It’s certainly about CSS, but it’s not limited to that topic, necessarily. The theme is building websites.

2) Among the three things that you have going on right now, how are they doing regarding revenue, users, and things like that?

A B-minus. There are no investors knocking down my door or anything because we have crazy explosive growth. But I don’t know that I need it. I feel comfortable and happy where I am.

Regarding growth for CSS Tricks, I have had Google Analytics since day one, so I have a ton of analytics.

3) Okay, would you mind telling us what that looks like? Regarding monthly traffic that you’re getting and email subscribers that you have?

Right now it’s at seven million page views a month. I know the page views isn’t super interseting because it is easy to pump that up. I think that there’s more interesting metrics to look at.

4) What are your users and number of email subscribers?

Okay, so email subscribers is real bad because it was only one year ago when we decided even to do a newsletter. It’s at 24,000 email subscribers right now.

I’m not saying if somebody has a newsletter that has 24,000 subscribers they’re doing badly. But I’ve tracked our RSS numbers back when they used to be accurate, and we were like hundreds of thousands of followers.

5) What about your Twitter following?

On Twitter, CSS Tricks has over 300 thousand followers. So, to have an email newsletter where we are at isn’t that great. But we’re growing it. We’re having fun with it.

I haven’t done smart stuff yet with building the list. For example, on Twitter you can do a tweet that has a card where all people have to do is click the tweet to be signed up for your newsletter. I haven’t investigated it yet, but there’s a lot of ways you can grow it that we haven’t even tried.

6) You’re at seven million page views per month right now. What does that growth rate look like, if you are looking at month over month rates?

A: Month over month growth is probably really super-duper low. Like, sub one percent.

7) But it’s still growing?

A: Rarely is there even a month where it goes down. It’s steady, which makes me feel good because I do drastic stuff sometimes to the site. For example, I will redesign the whole site in a week, because it’s just me and I can do that.

8) What do you think sets you apart from other people? Because clearly, you know how to build communities. What’s your secret?

A: First of all, I’m just a person, so when I write on the site, I’m not trying to hide myself from the audience. Clearly, there’s a picture of me on the site. I put my name on there. I’m not trying to make it seem like it’s any bigger than it already is.

9) Okay, but a lot of people are open about that, what else sets you apart?

A: I’ve tried to codify it before, but it’s like we have an authoritative tone, but we’re not pompous about it. We’re always a friend. I used a lot of “we” when I write for the blog. Kind of as if we’re going through the tutorials together.

For example, I don’t just allow anybody to comment. On the comment form, it says, “Please treat this more like a letter to the editor. You can write to me, but I’m not going to publish ever single thing that’s written in here. If it’s a good comment that I feel like adds value to this site, I approve it. If it isn’t, I don’t.”

10) Obviously you’re wearing a lot of hats right now. I’m just wondering, what is your team at CSS-Tricks look like right now?

A: It’s mostly me, but I have a couple of part-time writers that help on the content side. I don’t mandate what other people write, necessarily. I prefer that it wasn’t an assignment and was something the writer is interested in.” It’s a slow trickle. We only publish one or two things a day.

Free Bonus Download: Get this checklist of 29 Growth Hacking Quick Wins you can use to grow your user base (even without a marketing budget)! Click here to download for free.

11) How many articles are you putting out a month, yourself?

A: A month? I don’t know, at least twenty I’d say. Sometimes they are full-blown tutorials. Sometimes it’s a video. Sometimes it’s a snippet or a CSS almanac entry.

For example, the almanac is more like an encyclopedia of CSS. It’s not as timely, whereas the blog is by nature date, and read chronologically.

12) What does the average word count look like for you?

A: We don’t tend to do 10,000+ word pieces, nor do we do two paragraph shallow articles. Usually, we are in between. There are two types of posts that we typically produce. First, there is a standard, traditional blog post. Second, there’s a link post, which by nature are shorter, because we are not trying to get you to stay on our site very long.  

13) Tell us about the business model. You have three sites right now. How do you make money? What is the revenue breakdown?

A: You know, display advertising used to be big. And there still are display ads, but the market for that has changed. I don’t mind them and use them, and I’m glad there is money to be made in them still.

But most of our revenue comes from a pure site sponsor. It is a custom partnership with Media Temple. Because they are my host for the website, and with partnerships, it’s more complex, we do contests together, there is display advertising, there’s sponsored posts, and I write on their blog.

So the business model for CSS-Tricks is (i) merch, which we almost lose money on, (ii) display advertising, which is okay, (iii) sponsored posts, which are pretty good, and (iv) a full site sponsor with a custom deal, which is the best thing for us.

14) Cool. So how much are making on CSS Tricks a year? Is it 500k? Less than a million?

A: It’s much less than a million. And in fact, like my personal take-home is pretty low. It’s a little over $100,000, maybe. I don’t mean to scoff at a hundred thousand dollars. It’s just I’m not buying a yacht from CSS Tricks, that’s for sure.

Free Bonus Download: Get this checklist of 29 Growth Hacking Quick Wins you can use to grow your user base (even without a marketing budget)! Click here to download for free.

 

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How to Produce High-Quality Content Consistently and Not Waste Your Money https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/how-to-produce-high-quality-content-consistently/ Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:00:52 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com?p=11892&preview_id=11892 Creating content its hard, especially if you’re running a business and wearing a lot of different hats. So how in the world do you stay consistent with content output? First off,...

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Creating content its hard, especially if you’re running a business and wearing a lot of different hats.

So how in the world do you stay consistent with content output? First off, by being keenly aware of what happens if you slack off.

What Happens When You Stop Producing Content

On one of Neil Patel’s personal blogs, QuickSprout, he decided to take a month-long break because he got lazy and tired of blogging after so many years. His traffic not only dropped, but he had to blog for three more months to get back to where he was.

That’s why you need to stay on top of your content. You need consistency and quality. That means blocking out the time to make this work.

Block Out Time for Content

Let’s say you’re working at an agency or a start-up and you’re building your own personal brand. You’re working a 9-5 job, waking up at 7 a.m. and leaving for work by 8 a.m. Well, guess what? If you want to build up your personal brand, it would probably make sense to wake up at 6 a.m. and start writing.

Last quarter, I challenged myself to write 500 words per day, or about 37.5K words in one quarter. I actually exceeded that, and here’s the thing: I learned more about blogging, topic ideation, headline perfection, and lots of other stuff about content in that one quarter than I have in a year. And it only cost me about half an hour a day.

If your content and, by extension, your brand is important to you, you need to carve out the time to make it work. Put it in your calendar, map out the type of content you want to create, test it and repeat.

For example, I reserve Thursdays for podcasts. I give myself three hours for podcasts. Wednesdays, I’m shooting a lot of videos. And Tuesdays, I’m writing content as well as deciding what type of content I want to create on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Related Content: The Best Way to Be as Productive as Possible Every Day

Identify Topics and Find Writers

One of the issues that most people have when it comes to writing consistently is they’re not sure what to write about. No problem. Go to Buzzsumo, type in keywords within your industry, and they’ll give you the best possible topics automatically.

If you’re strapped for time, go to Problogger and post a job posting like “Looking for a blogger.” You’ll get 100-200 applicants and you should be able to find some good bloggers there.

ProBlogger

When you’re posting your job listing, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. First, you want to tell bloggers what industry your content is in. Tell them that you need unique content and that they have to come up with topic ideas. You could have them ghostwrite or you could have them write under their own name.

Let them know that you want 2,000-word articles. Ask them how much it’s going to cost. Ask them for writing samples. And tell them what kind of tone you want them to write in, like a conversational tone using the words “you” or “I” or a more professional tone.

If you do that, you should get maybe three or four good writers that you can hire on a consistent basis. Most writers here can write a 2,000-word article for $200. Some really good writers will charge more and the vast majority of writers will charge less. Pick what’s right for your budget, but don’t skimp on quality. If someone is charging $50 for blog posts, they’re probably not a great writer.

Related Content: How to Write Blog Posts that Actually Convert Readers into Customers

Use a Content/Editorial Calendar

So now that you have the writing done, now that you have writers and topic ideas, you want to start scheduling your content. The way you do it consistently is you have writers submit topic ideas to you, you approve them and slot them into your calendar, you have them outline it, you approve the outline, and then you have them write the piece.

coschedule content editorial calendarSource: CoSchedule

Once you have a product backlog management plan of a week or two, then you want to start publishing the posts so that way you’re always consistent. If you are going to be the one writing, block out time early in the morning or late at night, because that’s when you’ll have the least amount of distractions, and you’ll find that you’re going to be the most efficient with your writing during those times.


It takes forever at the beginning to write a blog post. That's okay. Eventually, you'll speed up.
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But you don’t just want to constantly spend money producing new content week in and week out. Not only is this really expensive, but at some point there are diminishing returns. That’s why we always talk a lot about repurposing content. But even when you’re repurposing, you need to have an editorial calendar. Content Marketing Institute and CoSchedule have great editorial calendars.

Related Content: 9 Ways to Repurpose Your Old Blog Content

Sync Your Calendar with Your Product Launches

Perhaps this goes without saying, but ideally your content calendar syncs up with your products and services. So, before you release a new product or service, you want to educate your customers and create a demand for that product or service. That way, you can get the word out, generate more signups, and ultimately get more customers.

The beautiful part about a content calendar, or an editorial calendar, is that you can ensure that you are targeting the right people.

For example, on Neil Patel’s site, he writes a lot about marketing. And because he uses an editorial calendar, he’s not overwhelmed or directionless. He knows that each week he needs to write at least one SEO post, one social media post, one content marketing post, one post on paid advertising, etc.

But if you don’t have an editorial calendar, you may find yourself blogging about SEO or maybe neglecting all the companies that are interested in paid advertising. Sure, paid advertising stuff won’t drive as much traffic, but you know what? Those companies typically have way more money to spend on marketing, so I need to make sure I’m incorporating paid content within my blog posts.

Takeaway: if you don’t use an editorial calendar, you’re going to neglect certain audiences.

Try Out These Great Content Calendar Tools

We’ve recently started using a tool called CoSchedule. CoSchedule really helps us from a high-level view. It lets us see what social shares are scheduled, what blog posts are scheduled ahead of time, and which editor is managing which project.

WordPress is another good tool, if you’re using a WordPress blog. There’s a plug-in called Editorial Calendar which you can download so you can organize things with your writers much more easily.

WordPress editorial calendar plugin

Pace Yourself (Walk Before You Run)

When you’re producing content, make sure that you pace yourself. Don’t try to start by producing content every single day, because you know what? You’re setting yourself up for failure from day one. When I create a blog, and I’m trying to write content consistently and produce it consistently, I like starting out at once per week.

Once I’m comfortable with that pace, I ramp up to 2-3 times per week, then 4-5 times per week. I’ve tried to do up to 14-20 times per week but that’s really hard to maintain unless you have a company with a big budget and you can hire a ton of people. Realistically, you’re going to max out at roughly seven articles per week (one per day).

Document Your Process and Follow It Religiously

And finally, you’ve got to have a process for this entire thing. Everything starts with keyword research, topic generation, and then you ideate the headline, and then you have people begin to write the draft. Then you have the editor come in and make changes to it before you publish. And then you go out there and promote it.

You have to have a process to follow. That way it’s clockwork. If you document all of this, then you can hand it off to new writers who are coming in so they’re aware of the entire process and how to do things, and then you can continue to scale up.


More Content About Creating Content:


This post was adapted from Marketing School, a 10-minute daily podcast in which Neil Patel and Eric Siu teach you real-life marketing strategies and tactics from their own experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. Listen to the podcast version of this post below:

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How To Write Data-Driven Posts https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/blogging/how-to-write-data-driven-posts/ Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://singlegrain.com?p=8522&preview_id=8522 I’m sure that you’ll agree: trying to increase reader engagement, shares, and conversions from your blog can be darn frustrating. And it often leaves you at your wits end, right? You try...

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I’m sure that you’ll agree: trying to increase reader engagement, shares, and conversions from your blog can be darn frustrating.

And it often leaves you at your wits end, right? You try to write from personal experience, offer valuable insights, and go out of your way to promote the content but…nothing happens. Posting more often doesn’t help either.

So how come a lot of sites have such high traffic to their blog?

Readers swarm to their content, discuss and share it on every occasion, and constantly come back for more.

Want to know their secret? Many of those successful sites publish what are called data driven posts articles that merge personal experience with scientific research and data to offer an authoritative solution.

In this article I’ll show you exactly how to write data-driven content and use it to engage more of your readers.

Book My Free Content Marketing Consultation

 

What Is Data-Driven Content?

A lot of online content is experiential. That is, it focuses on sharing personal stories and advice in hopes that your audience finds it helpful.

And sure, it often works. But at the same time, such content lacks the credibility and authority that many readers need to sell them on the ideas that it contains.

Enter data-driven content.

The data-driven approach focuses on creating high-quality posts that solve the audience’s problems or issues they care about by offering proof and backing up every claim with scientific findings, data, and up-to-date research.

Why publish data-driven content? For one, because it confirms your authority.

Since teachers are the first authoritative figures in our lives, after our parents of course, we naturally develop high respect for people who can expand our knowledge.

Citing and referencing relevant research confirms that you understand this information and are willing to pass it on to others to enrich their lives.

Readers also perceive claims backed by data as more trustworthy.

Fact: we associate graphs, charts, and other data with science, and naturally, we consider science more trustworthy.

A study called Blinded with Science: Trivial Graphs and Formulas Increase Ad Persuasiveness and Belief in Product Efficacy discovered that we’re more likely to believe in claims about a new drug if they are accompanied by graphs and other data—even if the data adds no new information whatsoever to the claim.

According to the study, seeing a graph like this one below made more people believe in the drug’s efficacy than just reading about it.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

A data-driven approach results in higher reader engagement.

For Buzzfeed, publishing long posts, 3K words or more, results in 123% more shares, on average.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Longer posts also generate more leads.

Curata’s long-form content generated 7x more leads than other content types.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

(Image source)

And in another study, the folks at Curata discovered that in-depth, data-driven posts received 9x more leads.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

(Image source)

What does a well-written, data-driven post look like?

Here are a couple of examples.

Note: data-driven content is typically long. For the purpose of this post, however, I’m only including screenshots of a small portion of each post. I encourage you to go and review the entire piece.

The Deeper Meaning of Emojis: What You Need to Know on How Social Media is Changing Communication (Buffer)

How To Write Data Driven Posts

The Ultimate Guide to Social Proof Marketing (AdEspresso)

How To Write Data Driven Posts

The 8 Most Important Skills for Content Promotion (and How to Learn Them) (QuickSprout)

How To Write Data Driven Posts

How to Create CTAs that Actually Cause Action (Single Grain)

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Book My Free Content Marketing Consultation

 

How To Create Data-Driven Content

Part I: The Data

There’s no data-driven post without the data, obviously, but do you actually know what makes good data?

You see, not every statement you find online counts as good data.

For one, not every bit of information cited on the web is valid. Measuring a test sample size that is too small, working with a poorly-conceived hypothesis or lacking a defined research procedure can ruin any potential findings.

And therefore, to consider the data as valid, it should meet the following criteria:

  • It must be verifiable. In other words, you should be able to find other references to it. And even better if you can find the original source of the data.
  • It must be acquired by following a defined procedure. You should be able to find information about the process used to obtain the data.
  • It must be verified (or at least acknowledged) by experts. Your data doesn’t have to be published in an academic journal, but at the minimum it should somehow be acknowledged by the experts in your field (for instance by being cited or referenced in their work).
  • It must pass the statistical conclusion validity.

And in the case of research conducted by businesses:

  • It must be acquired using modern tools. Just like with the methodology, you should be able to learn about the process employed to gather the data.
  • It must come from a reliable source. And Wikipedia isn’t one. Your research information should come from the source of research or be cited in a reputable resource.

Where To Find the Data for Your Content

Luckily there are many places where you can find data for your posts.

Proprietary Research

The most impressive data you can use is the info you collect yourself.

For one, proprietary research is trustworthy. It’s also unique to you and you alone—no one else has the same data. No other company has the insight into your internal stats, traffic data, customer preferences, common issues or support queries, for instance.

Publicly Available Data

Places like Zanran, a search engine for data and statistics, or Guardian Data offer access to publicly available information you can then use in your piece of content.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Academic Research

Academic findings are the staple of any data-driven post.

Given the strict academic research procedures, this data is always valid. Plus, the breadth of academic research means that there are plenty of interesting insights you can use.

You can find a lot of data on Google Scholar, the search engine’s dedicated academic papers research engine.

Unfortunately, most academic writing is restricted to users of specific research libraries (i.e. Emerald Insight) or academic institutions. One way around it is to use the “inurl:pdf” modifier in the search query. Doing so will return PDF documents accessible without a subscription.

Another great source of academic papers is ResearchGate. It’s a social network for researchers that allows members to upload their papers and browse works of others. You can even contact specific researchers asking for access to their work (if it’s not uploaded to the site yet).

The downside to ResearchGate is that the site has strict membership rules. To be accepted you need to have at least some association with the academic world. For example, I had an account while working on my Master’s degree but all my membership requests to get accepted on the site since finishing my research have been rejected.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Government Data

Most governments offer various data and statistics via dedicated data portals.

Data.gov is the official government portal in the U.S.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

In the UK, it’s data.gov.uk

How To Write Data Driven Posts

For Australian government data, go to data.gov.au

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Book My Free Content Marketing Consultation

 

Part II: Planning the Content

Fact: most people are intimidated by the prospect of writing, let alone creating long-form copy.

And there’s data to prove it, too (of course!). According to the most recent Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Benchmarks Report, 60% of content marketers struggle with creating engaging content.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

The reason for that may be a lack of understanding of the audience, focusing on wrong content types or perhaps creating too much content. But one thing’s certain. A lot of the struggle has to do with content planning (or lack thereof).

The number one mistake that content marketers make is not asking questions or defining topics that their audience would find engaging.

Instead, they snatch the data available and string it along until they meet the desired word quota…and then wonder why people don’t find their posts interesting.

To avoid making this mistake, plan your content before writing and create a detailed outline.

Start By Defining Your Angle

First, decide what you are trying to teach others with your post.

Second, consider whether your audience actually has the problem that you want to tackle.

Here are a couple of ways to answer this question:

  • Review support and customer service tickets. They most likely contain information about the most common problems that your audience encounters.
  • Review sales inquiries. Check what problems your prospects have when they start looking for your products or services.
  • Monitor questions that your audience asks on Quora.
  • Use software like Buzzsumo to research which topics are currently popular in your industry.

How To Write Data Driven Posts

Personally, before writing any content I ask myself the following 3 questions:

  • Who am I writing for? In other words, who is my target persona? Most content you write won’t appeal to your entire audience, so you need to define a specific segment that you want to engage.
  • What am I going to teach them? Define my objective for the content.
  • Why do they need this information? This helps me to verify if I’m targeting an actual problem rather than something only I think the audience would be interested in.

These 3 questions help me clarify how helpful the content is going to be for the target audience.

Then Create an Outline for Your Piece

Start with the proposed title.

Define the objective for the piece (what do you aim to help the person with?).

Identify the steady-state and target emotions.

Disclaimer: I picked up this advice from Andy Maslen’s fantastic book, Persuasive Copywriting. Maslen outlines two emotions you need to target in your copy:

  •      The steady-state – how the customer feels about the problem right now
  •      Target emotion – how you want them to feel once they’ve finished reading the copy

Identifying these two emotions in the outline helps you write a more focused copy. For example, you can open it by referencing the steady-state, making your piece immediately more relevant to the reader. And then use the target emotion to organize the rest of the content, knowing where you want to take the reader emotionally.

Next, list all sections you want to include in the post. Start with main sections and then break them into smaller sub-sections until you’ve exhausted the topic.

Close your outline by defining the takeaway. This is what you’re going to conclude the piece with.

Tip: I add one more element to my outline which defines the next steps. This is what actions I’d like the reader to take after reading the piece.

Here’s a screenshot of my outline for this very article:

How To Write Data Driven Posts

I use software called OmniOutliner to create my outlines. But any text editor or mind-mapping software will work, too.

Part III: The Headline

Finally, let’s talk about the element that’s going to convince someone to read your content:

The headline.

I’m sure you’ve heard this statistic before: on average, 8 out of 10 people will read the headline, but only 2 out of 10 will actually read the content.

But when you think about it, catching someone’s attention isn’t the only job of your headline.

In The Copywriter’s Handbook, Bob Bly (one of my favorite copywriters) lists 3 additional goals that the headline must achieve:

  • Select the audience. You’re not writing for everyone. Therefore, your headline should communicate who the target audience of the piece is.
  • Deliver the complete message. Since so many readers will skip the copy, it actually makes sense to deliver the full message in the headline. 
  • Draw the reader into the body copy. It should also arouse curiosity to get the person to click on it and read the copy.

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How do you achieve this? One way is to use data to arouse curiosity.

Just take a look at these headlines:

How To Write Data Driven Posts

How To Write Data Driven Posts

How To Write Data Driven Posts

The data they include in the headline tells the story and makes it irresistible to click on it, doesn’t it?

Upworthy has been using this strategy for a while and traffic to curiosity-arousing headlines is often 500% greater compared to standard headlines.

Not to mention that those posts also receive 152% more Facebook likes, compared to other sites.

How To Write Data Driven Posts(20)

(Image source)

Are curiosity headlines the only type to use?

No, of course not. There are other types of headlines that you can test to see which ones engage your audience the most:

  • Direct headlines
  • Indirect headlines
  • News-based headlines
  • How-to headlines
  • Question headlines
  • Reason-why headlines
  • Command headlines

However, when you’re writing a data-driven post, it’s a good idea to highlight your findings in the headline or include some intriguing data to attract more readers to the content.

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Closing Thoughts

Trying to increase reader engagement, shares, and conversions from your blog is so darn frustrating.

But now you know one of the secrets of their success—write data-driven posts to increase traffic to your blog.

Remember that your content must be credible, authoritative, and trustworthy. Your high-quality posts should state a common problem the reader has and then offer a solution that is backed by scientific findings, data, and up-to-date research. Include relevant graphs and charts, and don’t skimp on the length to ensure that you fully explore the topic (both the issue and the solution) for your readers.

Have you seen an increase in traffic to your website by writing data-driven blog posts? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments below!

The post How To Write Data-Driven Posts appeared first on Single Grain.

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