“Mobilegeddon.” The biggest Google update since Panda and Penguin.
There is a new Google update arriving on April 21, and this time around it is a large one that’s pretty important for every website owner to know about. This particular update focuses on mobile content and mobile access for searchers, and if your website is not mobile-friendly, it is likely to suffer some serious consequences.
In this blog, I’m going to look at the top ways you can prepare your content for this mobile update, helping you stay on the good side of Google so your site doesn’t get de-ranked in this big major update.
11 Ways to Make Your Content Ready for Mobile Users
Here are the top ways to make your mobile content phenomenal for your readers AND satisfy Google’s new update.
1. You MUST have a mobile friendly site. This is also called “responsive” or “adaptive design.” If your designer or developer hasn’t done it yet, I’m serious: pick up the phone and dial them right now. You, my friend, need a mobile site.
Why?
First, because Google is claiming to de-rank ALL sites that are not mobile with their update. I don’t want that to happen to you.
Next, let’s actually think of the viewer’s experience. When people view content on their mobile devices, they don’t want to have to squint when reading it. You don’t want to make your font overly large from the beginning, but you do want it to be a decent size to be viewed on a mobile screen. However, you should also make your content easy to make larger. If you have a smartphone or tablet, think about a time you needed to see the page clearer – you use your fingers and zoom in to make the font and content larger. This is what you want your content to be able to do, and it needs to be able to be easily zoomed in without distortion of images, videos, or text. Your webmaster should be able to make your site mobile-friendly.
2. Responsive Vs. Adaptive: Two Options For Your Website. A great way to prepare your content is to make sure you already have a conversion plan in mind and use one that will benefit your site. There are two different ones, adaptive and responsive design. Adaptive can help figure out which device a client is using, and adapt to that format, and responsive can help adapt to all sizes of mobile screens. Doing my research, it looks like responsive seems to be the better method. It is cheaper, and Google also prefers it, according to Search Engine Land. Responsive design allows for you to use proper SEO for your mobile site, and gives you the opportunity to reach a wide range of people no matter their device or screen size. While adaptive seems like it would be preferable, HubSpot does point out that responsive will immediately adapt to future devices. You can find responsive design plugins on some hosting sites or you can find mobile site professionals that can help you make the switch.
3. Always Monitor that Your Website’s Navigation is Easy and Stress-free. This is important whether it is on your desktop site or mobile. Navigation is a big part of user experience (UX), and you want to make sure UX is top notch. Google has already implemented UX into its algorithms, and it will be even more important once the mobile update is live. UX incorporates many facets from the usability of your site to the content you’ve written, and navigation is a big part of usability. Make sure it is easy for your customers to navigate on your mobile site to help make a better UX for all involved. This will help rank with Google and help you keep bringing clients back to your site from their smartphones or tablets.
4. Create a Mobile App for Your Business and Website. An excellent way to get your content to adapt to mobile and have an excellent mobile presence is to not only update your site, but also to create a mobile app. Mobile apps are a great way to get your company out there and make it more visible to your clients. Once they download it, it will be there on their phone, being a constant reminder of your business and services. It can also help you stand out from the competition, especially in industries that don’t focus too much on mobile marketing. There is an excellent article on All Business Experts that details how you can create your own mobile app from scratch to help leverage your company and get more results from your mobile campaign! Don’t get too overwhelmed about a mobile app, take a bit to sit down and think it over because you don’t want to miss out on this awesome opportunity.
5. Consider Using QR Codes for Products. You know those funny looking square, pixelated boxes you see on products and coupons? Those are QR codes and are great ways to link offline content to a mobile device. It can allow people to access deals on products or share information about a product after they’ve received it. QR codes are excellent for marketing, and you can do many things with them from engaging your clients to giving more product information, and many other awesome marketing ideas. You can use a QR code generator tool to create these QR codes.
Now, let’s look at actual mobile content improvements you can make:
6. Create Different Lengths of Content. When it comes to the content length wars, longer content is always the best idea for your long-form blogs and resource pages. Research shows that people prefer longer content because they love getting in-depth information and often feel a longer piece is more trustworthy.
However, when it comes to mobile content, you want to have varying lengths especially on your main pages to let people choose the length they want to read. Short content is easier to consume on mobile because many people are reading while on the subway or bus for their work commute or while they are on lunch.
You don’t want to make all content short, though because readers might still read a longer piece on their mobile device, and you will still have desktop traffic.
7. Repurpose Longer Content into Mobile-size Bites. Obviously, you will want to keep writing your lengthier content, so what can you do to make it easier to consume for mobile users? A great way is to repurpose larger content into smaller pieces. This can be in a series of shorter blog posts, breaking the larger piece down point-by-point, creating infographics, podcasts, or making video content based off of it. If you want to go the blog route, you can always start a blog series that aims to focus on shorter content. This can help direct your mobile users to those blog posts and your desktop readers to the lengthier piece if they prefer. Giving people options is a great way to help broaden your reach, engaging more people than ever.
8. Focus On Using Images and Videos for Mobile Users. Images are a big part of web content , whether on social media or your website, and they are just as important for mobile users. They can help provide a connection for the reader, and, if you use infographics, can help create excellent content. Videos are much the same and provide people with the ability to watch a story or idea while on break instead of reading. Make images and videos available to your clients, giving them a better chance at consuming your content while on smartphones and tablets.
9. Make it Easy to Share Your Content on Social Media. The one thing about having mobile content is that it is much easier for a person to share on social media. This is simply because they are already on their mobile phone and just a finger-tap away from accessing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social channels. Because of this, you need to make sure you have social sharing buttons clearly defined for your readers. This will make it significantly easier to share your content as soon as they’ve read, listened, or watched it.
10. Use Social Media. If you weren’t sold on whether or not social media was important for your business, now is the time to realize it is. When people are on their mobile devices, chances are their browsing through their social media timelines be it Twitter, Facebook, or another social channel. This means that you have a prime chance to reach out to them while they are browsing and share relevant articles, as well as your web pages and blogs. This can increase your site engagement, as well as help your articles get shared more. Yes, people can share your content directly from browsing your site, but they might be more willing to do so if they were already on the specific social channel.
Finally, one last tip I thought I’d throw in (although everyone probably knows this by now):
11. Don’t Use Flash (Ever). Flash can be okay on desktop sites because computers are able to process and download Flash data quickly. Flash data on mobile is tricky, however. First of all, many mobile devices don’t use or support Flash for various reasons. Secondly, if the device does support it, it will still take a while for it to download on the phone. You don’t want your page to take too long to load when people access it, but especially when it comes to your mobile site. Just think about when you use your smartphone to access web pages – you probably get a little fidgety the longer it takes to download, even if it is only a few seconds longer than normal. Your clients will feel the same way. Avoid using anything that requires flash to have a better mobile site and give your clients a better experience.
Prepare Yourself: Google Wants You Mobile, 4/21
Call your developer or designer and pay them whatever they want so Google doesn’t de-rank you on 4/21: I’m serious! We only create content, so we can’t make your site mobile friendly. But once you have that done, if you are looking for excellent content to improve your rankings such as blog pieces, social media content, or infographics, then you’re reading the right blog. We offer services that can help you as you prepare your content for the mobile update, helping you get great results.
Let’s face it: not all brands that we hear about are as hip, recognizable, popular and well-established as Old Spice, Coca Cola or Red Bull. As a content creator, you may have to craft killer copy with a real substance for plumbing companies, accounting firms and businesses selling construction supplies. In all honesty, such players operating on yawn-inspiring niches are far from being glamorous, so how could you use your mind and your pen to make these industries shine on their own?
[Tweet “There are no boring subjects, only disinterested minds.”]
How Do You Actually Define and Represent a Yawn-Inspiring Product?
If you were to adapt G.K Chesterton’s statement to make it reflect the realities of the content marketing world, you would most likely reach the conclusion that there are no boring products; only boring content specialists who fail to capture and highlight the essence of the stuff that they have to market. Just think about it: no matter how generic, outdated or mundane it might be, any category of goods or services still manages to respond to the needs and demands of a narrow niche of potential buyers and yes, those people want to hear everything about them. How much do they cost? Are they really that good? How are they different from other available options and why should they actually buy them? These are only a few questions that a good copywriter should have in mind when it comes to promoting less trendy, innovative or interesting products in an effective manner.
7 Ways in Which You Can Resuscitate Your Copy for an Allegedly Boring Concept
So now that we can all agree on the fact that there is no such thing as a 100% boring product, let’s assume that you’re stuck with a run-of-the-mill line of goods whose looks, functionality and promised benefits do not actually stimulate your brain cells. Your inspiration is long gone and you can picture yourself losing sleep, chewing on your pencil, drinking way too much coffee, praying for creativity, crying and pushing the intimidating deadline over and over again. How can you avoid such a dramatic episode, give 110% at work and turn the copy for those unremarkable products into one of your most notable written works of art? Here are a few ways in which you could do those yawn-inspiring businesses justice.
Your Product Evokes At Least One of Four Key Emotions: Prove It! Have you ever wondered what separates viral content from the one that sinks into oblivion soon after its production phase? According to recent research made public by the University of Pennsylvania, viral content owes its popularity to a mix of four key attributes: surprising, awe-inspiring, emotional and positive. No matter how dull your product may be, chances are that it can actually be associated with at least one of the four characteristics listed above. If you can’t find the link between your concept and these adjectives, create it yourself. Add a surprise element to your copy to accentuate the uniqueness of your product; create a stimulating story around the things that you’re struggling to market in order to craft emotion-rich copy that convinces, converts and sells better than anything else. The possibilities are endless; you just have to learn how to play with the right mix of emotions to get to your readers’ hearts.
Think Outside the Box. The mere thought that you have to come up with an original idea and become the creator of something that has never been said or written before can be quite frightening. How can you overcome your anxiety and report amazing results during this challenge? According to a recent article published by Entrepreneur, ironically, thinking outside the box implies following certain rules and guidelines. Did you know that too much creative freedom can actually kill your concentration? Neither did we. Here are three strategies that you can apply to guide your brainstorming session in the right direction.
Set up Parameters for Your Brainstorming Process. Start by setting up a deadline for the overall process; this will keep you focused and organized. Next, strategize by putting pen to paper. Make lists. Enumerate the uses and benefits linked to your product. Circle the ones that could make your prospects’ hearts skip a beat and spend the rest of your time trying to figure out how you could emphasize them.
Search for Inspiration in the Most Random Places. This way, you will stimulate your brain to make new connections that it wouldn’t normally establish.
Put Quality over Quantity. You don’t need one hundred directions for your copy, so make sure you focus on one or two key aspects of your goods, rather than filling pages with unnecessary words that nobody has time or patience to listen to.
Turn Features into Benefits. Here’s another shocking truth that you should be prepared to handle: prospects don’t really care about product features; they are all looking forward to hearing more about the benefits promised by the products that you’re representing. So instead of saying that a certain laptop has a rugged design, choose to highlight the fact that the gadget can withstand years on non-stop abuse. Disclose the fact that you can spill countless cups of water on it without suffering the consequences. You can drop it from a height exceeding 6 feet and expect to get it back in one piece. So basically, when you’re turning features into benefits you’re actually learning how to say the same thing in a different manner while getting the readers involved by stimulating their imagination.
Find the Simplest Way to Electrify and Elevate the Ordinary Benefit. Let’s continue with the same exercise, shall we? You can say many things about a last-generation laptop. Its battery lasts for ages, its roughed design is pretty impressive, the laptop can withstand most stressors, yada yada yada, the price-quality relationship is also an advantage. By listing all these favorable things, you will most likely confuse or bore your readers and kill their focus. Instead of talking about all these benefits, accentuate the most important one and craft your copy around it.
Create an Interesting Story around a Less Interesting Product Feature. According to Copyblogger, when it comes to marketing a product launched on a “boring” market, you can step up your game by tackling a less exciting feature and give it a different spin. According to Hubspot, this is the key to taking a brand or good from dull to exciting over the shortest period of time. The story behind that one feature is the element that can make or break your copy. Skilled content markets managed to breathe new life into a plain corrector fluid by creating and promoting a series of funny, surprising videos presenting encounters between a bear and a hunter. Through this simple strategy employed via YouTube, Tipp-Ex counted over 46 million views and witnessed sales increases of approximately 30%, among other notable benefits.If Tipp-Ex made corrector fluid become hip, then you can certainly put your mind at work to make anything else cooler than cool.
Work Closely with the Client. Don’t be afraid to get the client involved in the creative process. In some cases, you can obtain the most satisfying food for thought from your customers. Meet them in person and expand on different topics. Not all of them have to be strictly related to the line of products or services that you’re striving to promote as efficiently as possible. For example, a real-life story explaining how the company was started and operated by three different generations is a gold mine that you can explore to reach your audience. At the end of the day, your prospects want to hear from brands with stories that they can relate to. Find out what makes a certain company unique in its yawn-inspiring industry and turn these attributes into the focal points of your narrative.
Provoke Conversations to Come up with New Marketable Assets. Here’s an extra tip that you may want to consider: don’t avoid social interactions. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should start approaching strangers on a bus. Whenever you get the chance, talk to your friends, acquaintances and relatives about the project that they’re working on. Some of them may match the profile of the prospects that you’re trying to attract. Why would they buy a certain product? Why wouldn’t they? What kind of benefits do they expect to witness during or after the buying process? Even the least creative people can help you understand the way in which potential clients could interact with the new concept that you’re promoting, so make sure you include your copy inspiration and challenges in your list of amiable chit-chat topics.
Actually, Being Boring By Definition Is Not That Bad
Products launched on boring niches actually have an advantage: as soon as they benefit from above average copy, they can easily crush the competition in their sector. Buyers know that corrector fluid is useful, but nobody has ever thought that it can also be incredibly hip and desirable. No matter how mundane your product or service can be, remember that you could always count on a professional writer who could identify and underline the cool factor of your brand and goods, help you fuel your connection with your audience and make your competitors bite the dust.
Marketing and branding are two of the major buzzwords that we use in the industry. The confusing part is that non-industry professionals often mix up branding and marketing and use the terms interchangeably. There is a distinct difference between marketing and branding that can be easily explained. Before we jump into the differences we need to understand what each term means on its own. Both of them are powerful means of spreading information, but both have their own specific uses. Let’s clear up some misconceptions about the terms before we delve any further into their inherent differences.
What is Branding?
Branding is the process by which you reduce a company’s reputation to a single word. A brand is an easily recognizable representation of the particular company. Something that resonates with the user so that at a glance they know what they’re dealing with. Branding gives personality to a company and attaches an attribute to the company that appeals to the demographic of its core audience. Thus, companies such as Toyota are known for their reliability or Volvo is known for their safety records. Each of these brands have built their brands into easily recognizable traits that allow them to appeal to their customers in a unique way. It makes their business into more than just another faceless entity.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is a blanket statement that covers all forms of interaction with the customer as well as utilizing models in order to develop targeted advertising to reach out to a specific type of consumer. Marketing incorporates all forms of advertisement. In addition to this, marketing also deals with understanding the consumer or the audience and developing ways to utilize this deeper understanding.
Where do Branding and Marketing Meet?
Because these two disciplines are concerned with getting information out to the customer, they must meet at some level. Marketing and branding are both different facets of the overall content development strategy for a company. Your marketing should incorporate branding into it in order for you to cultivate customer loyalty. Branding allows you to represent your company in a certain light and build off the information that is gained by marketing. On the other side of the coin, marketing allows you to build a rapport with your audience and introduce them to your branded theme. These concepts go hand in hand, but they are not interchangeable.
What is the Major Difference between Marketing and Branding Then?
In a word, marketing is tactical whereas branding is strategic. I know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t tactical and strategic the same thing?” No, they aren’t, as Kissmetrics points out. Marketing is where the brand is presented and it contributes to overall branding. However, long after the marketing campaign has been exhausted the brand loyalty will remain. This is where branding and marketing part ways.
When we say that marketing is tactical, we mean that it deals with getting its payload of information delivered. It doesn’t try to shape the user’s long-term feelings towards the product, it simply gets in and convinces the customer of the benefits. Branding, on the other hand, seeks to embrace a more long-term view of the customer. By strategic leverage of the brand, we can eventually call upon the customer’s loyalty to the brand in order to close a sale. But this is something that requires you to give back to the customer. You need to cultivate your brand image in such a way that the customer associates an idea with your brand.
How Marketing Works Alongside Branding To Build Business
Do you remember those old TV shows where there would be a sleeper agent that needs a secret code to “activate” them? Marketing is a little like that. It discovers and “activates” buyers, encouraging them to close sales. Branding goes one step further by making those buyers into loyal customers. One of the most common examples of this is the market for Apple products. Apple has made an art out of branding and this has carried over into products in many different branches of the electronics industry.
Taking a look at the Apple target demographic, we see that their aim was to produce a product that was sold solely for its importance as a status symbol. Thus, their marketing spread the message that apple products are available, but the branded apple product was joined by its numerous sister products that fall under the brand. When the consumer sees Apple now, then it’s understood that they are paying for Apple’s reputation as something that the cool, the chic and the hip use.
Building brand loyalty is what branding does and by making loyal customers out of your one-time buyers, you develop a ready market and audience that are willing and eager to receive your content.
Which One is a Better Investment?
Both marketing and branding are good investments and have their own type of returns. Marketing can easily be done wrong and if so, it can become a money sink into which a lot of cash if poured but the returns are mediocre. Well-researched marketing gives great returns on investment but the success of the campaign depends as much on the amount of effort put into it as the amount of money. The returns are, of course, seen in conversions and sales. Branding, because of its status as a long-term investment, is usually easier to adjust as time goes by. Catastrophic failures in branding do occur, but these are usually due to bad planning as opposed a lack of funding. The return you get from branding is customer loyalty, something that can be leveraged over and over again. Marketing is necessary to make branding work, but your real benefit comes from having a loyal customer base to call on when releasing new products.
Development of a User Base
Not so far back, probably less than five years ago, a large volume of the marketing community was involved in “renting” their target demographic. They worked from the start of their campaign and then built it to the point where their customers would be converted through their methods. This method had middling success, but at the time was hailed as revolutionary. No need to hang around after the sale, no need to contact the client after the sale is done, and no follow up action to ensure that the client buys from the company again.
We have changed out outlook on how we interact with customers. Having a loyal following is far better for a company than simply renting an audience. Borrowing your audience means you have to return them to oblivion someday and that makes whatever effort you throw into a marketing campaign targeting these customers a moot point. Combining branding along with your marketing is how you retain these customers as a loyal following.
In addition to this, when you have a retained customer base, you create a series of customers that help to spread your brand. That’s utilizing earned media to its fullest. When a customer makes a statement that you put onto your website or blog about a particular product, the consumer has learned to take these with a grain of salt. However, when such a statement is made directly to them, it carries a whole lot more weight and can even convince them to buy your product. What you’re doing by cultivating a brand is creating a series of “brand evangelists” that spread the word about your products without you having to invest any extra time into getting the word out.
Giving Back To The User
The number one thing that you should be looking at from your branding and marketing perspective is to give back to the user. Recently, GE’s blog, GE Reports, was featured as one of the leaders in branding because of their unique approach. What GE does is to provide information to the clients, thereby focusing on a target demographic of people interested in science. This ties in well with GE’s vision of itself as a leader in technology and innovation. By providing content that appeals to their target demographic, GE is tapping into this set of users and cultivating them as a ready market for new, innovative products.
Interspersed with their scientific updates and news in the field of technology, GE Reports also allows GE to tap directly into their fan base with their advertising. GE has always been considered a leader in the world of technology and innovation, but it’s only recently that the everyday person could look at GE and associate their brand with something like this. That’s the power of what GE Reports does, and what targeted blogging in the name of branding can do for your business.
Branding Is The Way To Go
Marketing is necessary, we don’t doubt that. However, marketing by itself can’t develop an audience that is receptive to your message. Branding is what makes your audience interested in your message and prevents you from having to reinvent the wheel every time you develop marketing content. Use your marketing to develop your branding but don’t ever forget the distinction between them. This difference is important to define both terms as well as to figure out what you plan to accomplish with each. There are many companies out there that are skilled in creating content for both marketing and branding purposes. If you intend to develop your branding professionally, this is the direction you should be headed.
Excuse the hiatus, folks – it’s been exactly 5 weeks since I wrote a Great Content Roundup!
What exactly was I doing that was more important than the Great Content Roundup?
Ha, you got me. Actually, I was moving from Corpus Christi, Texas to Austin, Texas—the land of beautiful parks, trails, lakes, creeks, and even more importantly, awesome eateries and downtown industry events.
Photo credit iStock (RoschetzkyIstockPhoto)
Why did it take so long? Well, I do have a 9-month-old baby girl, and finding the right daycare was the biggest transition. Then, after that, I somehow caught the bug from the grave—a respiratory and stomach virus with a sinus congestion! Today, I can safely say things are finally going smoothly and my schedule is a bit back to normal, so it’s back to my curated Roundup pieces. I hope no one has missed me too badly. (All right, that was a joke.)
This week, I want to take a look at what Google’s planning to hit the web with coming up. There’s a big mobile change that’s been forecasted by all lately, and a few other updates, but what exactly is going on? I did some digging and research. Here’s a fact-based look.
Resources on Google’s New Upcoming Mobile Algorithm
It’s a must-read: The official Google announcement that they will be finding more mobile-friendly search results came out late February 2015.
“Mobilegeddon” Is Coming on April 21 – Are You Ready?” – SEW piece by Chuck Price, written March 9. One of the first pieces coining Google’s mobile algorithm update as the “Mobilegeddon.” The author reminds us of the issues of duplicacy if webmasters reflect mobile pages from desktop URLs, and gives us pros and cons of being mobile. Overall, mobile is a winner—from a ranking and user point of view.
And finally, here’s a piece we did: What Types Of Links Does Google Hate? A blog on how to stay safe with your linking strategies and to avoid the types of links Google hates nowadays.
Hope that helps! Leave a comment with any suggestions you’d like to see added to our list!
The birds are singing, the grass is getting greener, and all that snow is finally melting; that must mean spring is finally here! One of the things I love about spring is getting the chance to take stock of the things I have around my home and do some deep spring cleaning to clean out all the gloom from the winter. Spring-cleaning is not only perfect to do around the home, but it is also incredible for your web content. That’s right, you can spring clean your content to make it better and stronger than ever. I am going to take a look at this and give you some excellent tips to spring clean your content.
Why Should You Spring Clean Your Content?
Over the years, we’ve all created excellent content that met the current strategies and needs of the Internet-world. There have been plenty of Google updates, and many people have worked to make sure their content meets each algorithm for the best results. However, all of this content can become stale and start cluttering up your website. You should take the chance to re-organize your content and make sure everything is in tip-top shape for the rest of the year.
How Can You Do It?
“I don’t want to get rid of all of my web pages, though!” Don’t worry, you don’t have to get rid and donate your pages like you would your household items or clothing. But you can do some awesome things to make sure your content is new and looking better than ever. I am going to take a look at the top ways you can achieve this and make your content awesome for the rest of 2015.
Spring Is Here: Our Guide to Spring-Cleaning Your Web Content
Here are the top ways you can spring clean your content, starting as soon as possible.
Get a Content Audit to Refresh and Clean Your Existing Content. One of the best ways to start the spring clean is to get an awesome content audit. What does a content audit do for your site and how can it help you organize things? A content audit will check your URLs and page titles to make sure nothing is broken and to help you implement adequate keywords to help with ranks. It can also help you look at your product descriptions, blogs, and other forms of content to see if it matches up with the latest Google algorithms, as well as checking for grammar and spelling. In short, a content audit will take a look at your entire website and help you to start working on some excellent ways to fix your website and make it perfect.
Take a Look at Keywords – Do New, Fresh Keyword Research. Even with the latest content updates to Google algorithms, keywords are still vital to websites and helping your rank. However, many people don’t realize that the keywords that worked two months ago might not work now. The best way to make sure your content is still leveraging the advantage you want is to do fresh keyword research and implement new keywords for your website. This can also help you research new keywords as you think of them, and implement new ones into your strategy. You can do keyword research on your own or find professionals who are trained in research to help you find the best ones for your site.
Generate New Blog Topic Ideas for the Month. You can come up with blog topics for the whole year, but it is best to make sure those are all evergreen topics that will still be relevant in a few years. However, you should come up with new blog topics each month to help keep your content consistently fresh. This will help you write about great, trendy things going on in your industry as well as writing on news topics to give your clients and readers more, useful information.Coming up with blog topics can be difficult, but it is possible. HubSpot provides a blog topic generator that helps you come up with great headlines and can help you brainstorm new ideas. If you’re still having a hard time coming up with new topic ideas, you can follow some of the suggestions from Entrepreneur such as writing on the questions your clients ask or something you’d like to know more about yourself.
Create a Content Editorial Calendar. In order to keep your content organized and looking amazing, you can also create a content editorial calendar for the year and current month. You don’t necessarily need anything fancy, you can use Google Calendar, but you can also create your own template. Either way you choose, it will help you organize your ideas. If you constantly review it and compare with analytics, it can also help you see which posts are currently working and if you need to tweak any of your future posts to match.
Get Fresh Content Such as Product Descriptions and Web Pages. Sit back and take a second to think – how long have you had your current product descriptions and static content? Sure, you may have had regular blogs posted but have you thought about your other content? Having the same content for a long time can make your website look and feel stale. While new customers might not notice this, your existing clients will. A great way to spring clean your content is to get fresh content for your various landing pages and product descriptions. This will look great and, you can even share new information you may have about your product or service.
Re-evaluate Your Social Media Strategy. Just like with fresh content on your website, you need to have fresh content for your social media pages. While you might be consistently publishing new content, you need to make sure the strategy is still working. Take the time to look at your strategy and see what is working and what isn’t to make any necessary changes. A great way to do this is to review your social media analytics. However, don’t make this a once a year thing, review your analytics every month or every other week. Just choose a time and schedule that works for you to help you see how well your social strategy is working and make any necessary changes.
Hire Copyeditors to Look Over Your Work. If you notice that your content has several errors or know that you haven’t always bee a stronger writer, then a good idea is to have your content copyedited by a trained professional. Copyeditors can be the second pair of eyes that looks at content to ensure it is grammatically correct and that there aren’t any spelling errors. If they are trained in SEO, they can also check to ensure that you utilize your keywords to their full potential. Copyeditors can also look for other elements such as high-quality content and the research to back it up. This will help you make sure you have the best content, no matter what, helping your page rank higher on the SERP and gaining more clicks and eventually more revenue.
Consider Hiring Industry Copywriters to Improve Your Reach. Along with a copyeditor, you can also hire industry copywriters to improve your content and reach. Copywriters are great because they understand the importance of high-quality work and have been trained in creating excellent content. While you may have plenty of experience in your industry, your writing may not be on par with what your site truly needs. In addition to a generic copywriter, an industry copywriter can implement the knowledge of your industry into your writing. There are several copywriters out there who can write excellent content for your specific industry making sure it is not only high quality but also knowledgeable to help set you apart from your competitors, and helping you rank.
Review Your Strategies and Make Any and All Tweaks. The one thing with content, whether social content or on your website is that rules can and do, change. This means that you need to be in the know with the changes that are happening and start tweaking your content to meet them. Yes, this means you will need to be consistently learning new things, but this will help you leverage your content and get exactly what you need out of it. If you don’t learn the new tips and tricks, you could be stuck back in the Internet Stone Age, losing out on both new and existing customers.
Don’t Forget to Whistle While You Work
Spring cleaning can be a fun time to see what your content looks like and how you can improve every aspect of your business. If you are looking for content auditing services or for industry copywriters to help you spring clean your content, look no further. Express Writers has some of the most talented team members that will work to make sure your website, blog, and social channels have the best quality, helping you clean out the cobwebs and making excellent content. Don’t hesitate to contact us to see just how we can help you.
