Happy New Year, from all your friends at Express Writers!
To give you a great start to 2015 and your content success in the New Year, we are featuring a curation post with some great reading material. We’ve recapped a list in one place, of all our New Year or glanceback-2014 posts. And, we have included some of our favorite posts from our industry peers.
Our Recap List of Curated Posts
Enjoy, and let’s clink a glass to mutual success in the New Year. Best wishes ahead for you (and your content) in 2015!
SEO 101: How Local SEO Changed in 2014 and How to Get Ready for 2015 by Albert Costill at Search Engine Journal. A great recap piece looking at all the major Google changes.
Where Press Releases Fit In Your 2015 SEO Strategy by Jayson DeMers via Forbes. PRs still afford high quality sources and brand recognition. Disclaimer: I think for the news investment, it’s not as expensive as this author thinks. (You can easily pay hundreds more to get a banner ad in one similar news agency, with less sources.)
10 AMAZING Stats That Will Impact Your 2015 Content Strategy via Kapost. “B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not blog.” – Say whaaa?
Think we missed a really great article, or do you have one to share? Comment and let us know!
Since 2011, Express Writers has launched about 4 different website looks. Starting with a very basic HTML website markup and under 5 site pages, to a second new look that included a shadowed font for the logo; then a third new site that featured our revolution slider and colorful, pretty designs for the new website.
Now today, our new site features a home page with a dynamic video background, a custom designed explainer video, over 80 website pages, and a fully custom designed Content Shop! Can you say we are 2015-ready?
The Story of Express Writers 4.0 & The Content Shop
It took us all of 2014 and the end of 2013 to get where we are—over 14 months of work. Our COO, Josh, was in charge of the design and development. He hired four different teams till he found the right development team for us. Our team of developers has hundreds of big projects under their belts, including custom development for some of the biggest brands in the nation. All the frustration of working with a bad team was finally solved early 2014 when Josh found them.
Josh designed our entire new look, from the buttons to each individual page, with the input of our CEO Julia and management staff. Our updated logo matches our updated look, but is still true to our roots of vibrancy and professionalism, in color and professional appearance. When it came to the Content Shop, Josh was up in the wee hours of the morning working with development to figure out everything—from the 50 dynamic input forms that needed to happen, to coding and creating a WordPress hack to make some of the work happen. It’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Our Content Shop is built on Woo Commerce, Gravity Forms, & WordPress.
Here are a few of our new site highlights:
Our Content Shop: This is the biggest highlight of our new site! Our Content Shop is custom developed, 100% secure (SSL), and ready to take all your orders. It also features a backend where our staff can login and update your orders, attach your content and notify you that your order is ready to download, and much, much more.
Over 80 Website Pages: From our huge (apologies in advance) Writing Services menu to each product description for all our 50+ products, we now have a massive website that Google will love—it’s 100% original, and all the site pages were written by Julia, with proofreading and input by various team copywriters.
A Pretty Blog: Can we just say it—we now have a “pretty blog”? Please excuse us while we drool over it a little more. Josh designed the custom blog on our site that is responsive and dynamic, from the bouncing images to the beautifully designed page each blog brings about.
Custom Designed Explainer Video: It took us about 4 months for our CEO Julia to write the script for and oversee the storyboard animation for our new explainer video, created by the guys at Explain Vid.
Professional Stock Videography: We selected and purchased video stock footage, full rights, for the home page look.
Testimonials and Case Studies: We now feature case studies and testimonials on our new website, from clients in various industries, showcasing some of our biggest brand clientele.
How To Order With Us!
No longer the archaic, boring system of ordering via email, sending and receiving your content via email.
We’re now taking your orders via our state-of-the-art, custom-developed system—the Content Shop! All you have to do is visit our Content Shop, add your content orders to the cart, and order—much like you would on Amazon.com, Walmart.com, etc. It’s THAT simple. Dare we say, also, FUN?
We are here to help you, too—just hit up our Sales Manager, Alecs, via chat, or send us an email. It’s the quickest way to get assistance over the holiday season.
Special Content Shop Offer!
Good till January 1st 2015, we also launched a coupon code for those who use our new Content Shop system. Call or email to get the code before you process your order!
The importance of online content has been growing at a fast pace over the past few years. Since 2011, when the first Panda hit down on bad content, website owners around the world realized that they needed to get well-written content in order to rank their site well, get traffic, and gain favor in the eyes of Google.
The Internet: Today’s Marketplace, and Your Web Content The Goods
The Internet is a means of livelihood, and an activity central for more than 3.03 billion people, and growing daily. Think of the Internet as a huge marketplace, and the goods marketed are the content you offer to your visitors. How good your content is simply equals how many will buy from you. With the growth of online content comes the growth of the Internet as a whole. It’s now a major hub, a world not unlike the air traffic in the Fifth Element. And content realization has grown into yet a bigger reality and focus. Today, content is a fundamental cornerstone of online marketing. It’s how to maintain your site in search engines, as a fundamental; and beyond that, it’s how to grow, flourish, and prosper online. I fully believe that well-written content is (and has been) the stepping-stone to your online success.
Back in 2014, we predicted a few things about content, from 11 content marketing predictions, 6 more marketing geared predictions, and 10 SEO predictions, to a major prediction that 2014 would be the year of the informer. Overall, our stress was on quality content becoming a major factor for growing your online marketing and ranking in the SERPS. And boy, did that happen in a big way! Let’s take a look.
We Said 2014 Will Be The Year Of The Informer.
If your content doesn’t inform, it won’t rank and succeed. We said there would be a huge demand for quality content, and every company would know the importance of it. We stressed that authority of content (through research, expert writing, and fact-sharing), long pieces with evergreen content (how-to guides, useful content), unique content with your own style (standing out from competition), and mobile and social status would become important.
Penguin 3 Hit Late 2014, and We Immediately Started Ranking.
Quality of content tied into better rankings sure did happen this year. Penguin 3 came out late 2014, and it boosted the ranking of good content around the Internet—and we experienced great results. Around November of 2014, we experienced a HUGE increase in rankings: literally, 400 unique visitors on a Saturday, more than double our typical. When we looked into it, we discovered it was directly related to a big surge in rankings right around mid-October right around Penguin’s time.
Major Google Happenings In 2014
Now, here were a few big things about 2014 web content we didn’t see coming (and I bet no one did!)—
Authorship died. Authorship was officially dead and buried in August 28, after a few back and forth stints where photos got removed, although the ranking factor still existed. Finally, it was entirely removed in August 28. So, we were wrong when we said that being an informer in your content would tie into your Authorship rankings!
Google Pirate came out. It’s not hard to discern that Google would eventually crack down on illegal torrents, which offered people a way to avoid buying and renting digital movies from those who pay Google high Adwords dollars. Google not only did that in 2014, but they named the algorithm after typical torrent hosts and went to target those very people with the Google Pirate update around November.
HTTPS (SSL) became a ranking signal. Google officially made that happen in September of 2014. We upgraded our site to an SSL this year as a result. Once again, this ties into quality –your content is secured and safe to viewers, and Google gives you kudos for that.
3 Content Predictions: What’s Ahead for 2015
There’s even bigger things ahead for 2015 web content. We’ve already written a piece on what 2015 content will look like, and what to expect, so we’ll nutshell it here and give you only the most important predictions and thoughts.
Content Importance & Vitality Will Increase. We said it last year, we said it the year before, and so did numerous others in our industry. I’m saying it again for 2015: content importance and the vitality of your written content will increase. If you don’t have a blog, but you own a website and a business, you better start a blog today. It’s vital. It will bring you more traffic, offer you a platform to continually add effective content to your site, and grow your engagement. If you do have a blog, consider doing an audit and effectively analyze it to catch what’s wrong. Start curating ideas for better topics. Don’t just write blogs; be the best in your industry. Write guides. Think of things that haven’t been covered. That’s how you can succeed with your content. It will be necessary to audit and curate (analyze and create ideas) continually in the new year, since there will be so much content out there and to stand out in the crowd (or rather, flood) you will need to make your own mark. And that’s hard, when almost every idea on the planet has already been written on.
Content Outlets Will Grow. In 2014, we saw LinkedIN posts and Medium become great content marketing channels. Our own content grew to include top guest blog networks like SearchEngineJournal and SEMRush. In 2015, I suspect more content channels will happen. I can also tell you that these channels are very important, and a low investment for a lot of potential ROI. From being on SiteProNews, we have seen several lucrative content clients come in who found our blogs there very helpful for their own content marketing. We provided value through a written guide, and they became our client. Content outlets will grow, I predict, in 2015; and you’ll be successful in every new outlet if you stick to quality (a quality network/guest blog arena), and providing value (only share what brings real value to your audience and readers). Read our 10 content platforms to post on in 2015.
There Are 4 Social Media Networks You MUST Be On, & Activity Here Will Grow. Last year, and the year before, we stressed “don’t forget social and mobile.” Now, I’m telling you to make it a major focus. Make your site mobile friendly and stay active on all social networks. Almost half of our traffic comes from mobile users. Yours could be more than that. If they can’t read a few sentences or even see your site on their mobile device, you’re in trouble. As for social networks, stay active on the important ones and be on the lookout for new ones. Ello was kind of a flop, in my opinion. It phased in pretty quick – lots of people were jumping on – and now I hear no more about it. You should focus on these networks:
Facebook is still essential, if only because of the ginormous amount of people on this social network. Tailor how active you are to how much traffic you get, naturally. This will be a lot more if you’re a local business with a Facebook check-in page, potentially less if you’re a universal company (like us) with a more online-based location.
Google Plus (G+) is starting to become busier and active. Every time you post a blog to your site, post the link with a blurb to your G+. It will you’re your content get indexed.
Pinterest has become very popular and is growing. Tailor your activity here to your audience level, again. If you sell cookware, this could be a big place for you, since a lot of cooks use Pinterest.
Twitter is by far the busiest hub of social activity for our company. Who knew tweets could convey so much? We participated in things like #bufferchat, #semrushchat in 2014. You should have a presence here and follow your industry peers, mention and connect.
LinkedIn is growing, tied into their content marketing network. Be sure to include content pieces written and focused for that professional network in the New Year.
As the saying goes, “only God knows what the New Year holds.” We have no idea exactly where content will go, besides increasing overall in value—but we know it’s going big places, and we will be waiting & ready when you need us!
Believe it or not, 2015 is almost here, which means it is time to look at some great strategies to improve your content marketing campaigns. As we approach the New Year, start considering the different content platforms you are posting on and those that you are not. I am going to take a look at ten great platforms that you should be using in 2015 to help you out.
What’s ahead? 2015 is not only the year of the hoverboard and excruciating futuristic 80s-wear; it is also the year to improve your content campaigns! Let’s take a look at some great content platforms you can use to improve your content sharing.
Why Should You Use Multiple Content Platforms?
It might seem like a bit much to share your content on multiple platforms. Sure, sharing content on social media and a blog is fine, but do you really need to share it on other platforms? Sharing on multiple content platforms helps to make sure you are reaching a wider audience and broadening your chances of getting more customers and revenue.
The reality is, no one person likes to read or consume his or her content the same way. Some people like webinars, others infographics, and some want in-depth pieces. This is why posting to multiple platforms with different content styles is a great idea. Here are a few platforms that get your content out to your audience in different ways, ensuring that you can reach more than one type of customer!
1. LinkedIn is Great for a Professional Audience. Way back in February, places such as Search Engine Land started informing everyone that LinkedIn finally opened blogging for everyone, not just influencers. This meant that your small business could post a blog about your industry and get quite the amount of views. This is a great change for businesses, but it seems that over the long months since, not many realize just how important this platform can be for their content.
Writing content on LinkedIn can help you reach a different audience than your web page might be reaching, and you might have a chance to make possible connections with industry leaders. How can you create successful content for you LinkedIn? Here are a few great suggestions from Search Engine Watch:
Make sure you choose topics your LinkedIn audience wants to read.
Be consistent with your posts and consider posting once a week.
Keep your LinkedIn article short at about 800 words.
Make sure you always respond to comments on LinkedIn content.
If you haven’t been posting content to LinkedIn, then you need to make a change to your content campaign for 2015! This is going to be a big part of getting people to your site.
2. Facebook is Still Relevant. Regardless of what you might be hearing, Facebook is still relevant for content and it will be for quite some time. No matter how many social media sites pop up, it seems Facebook stays stronger than ever. The question about relevancy came about when Copyblogger deleted their Facebook account saying they weren’t reaching the amount of people they believed they should. This led to their decision that Facebook isn’t relevant anymore. However, it was shown that their Facebook posts happened to be incredibly un-engaging.
Facebook will still be relevant in 2015, and even with a few new social platforms on the horizon, it doesn’t seem like we will see the end of this social channel for a few more years. If you need a little more convincing about the importance of Facebook for your business’s content, here are some great reasons:
Practically everyone has a Facebook nowadays, which gives you the chance to reach a wide audience.
You have to create engaging content for Facebook, so why not focus on engaging content for every channel and your blog? People want engaging content no matter where your content is posted.
It allows you to connect with clients easier than most other social and content platforms.
3. Twitter Reaches a Wider Audience. When you use Twitter, you get another chance to reach a wider audience. It allows you to interact quickly with your clients and, for many, it feels more personal than Facebook. Twitter requires you to respond directly to a mention or reply, which helps add that personal touch many might lack with other social sites like Pinterest or even Facebook. Since Twitter is very much a “real time” social site, this means that when you post your tweet, it has a chance of being seen immediately by the people who are following you. This can be perfect because you may find more people click on a link on Twitter when they see it right away.
If you are using Twitter already, that is great! If you aren’t, now is the time to get on it because it can be a great tool to use in 2015. As we approach the New Year, those who have Twitter should consider changing the strategies, and those who plan to get one can use a few tips as well! When posting on Twitter remember these few simple facts:
Add high-quality pictures to your tweets. Photographs have proven to up engagement on Twitter quite a bit! People really like images.
Fill everything out and add a profile and cover photo.
Don’t hesitate to interact with people! Your clients will really enjoy having someone to chat with.
4. YouTube Connects with Audiences in a Different Way. This tends to be a social channel that goes widely unappreciated and unnoticed by many. This is a great channel to use to add more media to your content, and give clients something more to watch and interact with. You might think that you can just load some videos to something like Dropbox, but YouTube can help you boost interaction and it gives people a central location to find a business’s videos. When using YouTube, there are a few great tips to make some powerful, great videos. They are:
When you post a video, always add a call to action to the description. You can even add one to the end of your video.
Customize your YouTube channel to reflect your brand and be consistent with your other social channels.
Upload high-quality videos to get better engagement.
Email Campaigns are Still Vital for Content. Some people feel that email campaigns aren’t as important as they used to be. People think that social media is enough, but email is still a powerful platform to use for your content. In fact, the majority of people are now more apt to be on their email more than they used to be simply because many of us wake up, and check email while we are still in bed. This gives you a great time to captivate your audience and convince them to click the links and interact with your content. You can have multiple email campaigns for many different products, services, and holidays.
6. Content Distribution Platforms Keep Things Organized. Content distribution platforms? What do I mean by that? I’m referring to platforms that allow you to share your content on several different content channels – something like Hootsuite. This gives you the ability to upload all of your content to every single platform you plan on using without being too stressful. There are several great places out there that offer free services with pro accounts that can give you more tools such as analytics. Take a look and consider using one for your content campaign in 2015. In fact, this might just be the most popular way to load your content in 2015 so don’t get left behind!
7. List.ly Takes the Best Thing Ever and Makes it Engaging for Readers. One thing I really enjoy is making lists. It helps keep me organized and makes sure I don’t forget something important. There are several other people out there who simply enjoy lists as well, which makes the platform List.ly a great place to use for and engage your readers. It is free, but you can also sign up for premium. You can create your own lists for people to read, but you can also have lists that are added to by your readers. This can be a great way to involve people in your content, which can help them become more engaged. If they become engaged on making lists, they might be more likely to become involved on your other content on different platforms.
8. Webinar Content Platforms Can Help with Video Content. Webinars are a great form of content that many people seem to neglect. They provide a chance for you to host meetings or classes to give people useful information. This can either be for people in your industry, employees or clients. People find webinars highly valuable.
As 2015 starts, consider getting a webinar content platform to promote your webinars and get more people involved. A great place to start is Google Hangouts, which allows for a form of webinar where a handful of people can get on the chat, and countless people can watch. Remember when using Hangouts, make a call “private” so that not just anyone can join. If you’ve ever used it without keeping it invite only, you will have had random people join in on the call for some odd reason! Plan out a few great ideas for webinars, and consider even hosting some where you allow your clients to get on and interact with you, as well.
9. Use WordPress for Your Website in 2015. WordPress is a great content resource for companies when it comes to creating a website and blog. Several companies use this platform already, and many are slowly making the shift to it because it offers them a lot more than other platforms out there. If you already have your website on one platform, you can always brainstorm a way to transfer over to WordPress as smoothly as possible. Why should you use this platform though? Take a look at a few reasons from 1st Web Designer:
It is open source, allowing you to make changes to make the site reflect your brand better. You can also make easy changes to your website if you plan on a redesign later down the road.
It is great at helping with content management, making it easy for you to implement web pages, pictures, and other media content. You don’t have to have any special training to manage the content. That sounds great, doesn’t it?
It is SEO friendly, which is something you should consider. While you shouldn’t focus heavily on keywords, WordPress can still help you achieve decent SEO ranks.
It supports media much better than other platforms. This includes videos, slideshows, and maps.
10. Use Storify to Tell Stories and Engage Readers. Something that is important in content creation is storytelling. There happens to be a great resource out there that helps you create stories from over 20 different social channels, and allows you to make stories public when they are ready or keep them private until you want to share. This platform is known as Storify. You can use a free version or premium version to craft expert stories for your readers. This will be a great way to engage them and make them more interested in content. Try this out and see if your company can benefit from a storytelling content sharing platform. A great tip from The Hub Comms is that the businesses that will see the most benefit from this platform are media companies, universities, brands, & governments.
Did you see any content platforms you want to try in 2015? Take a few of these out for a spin and see how you like them, and if you think they will work for you! You might just find the perfect platform that helps your content campaigns go from typical to extraordinary.
Merry Christmas to our clientele from all of us at Express Writers!
We look forward to what’s ahead in 2015 and hope your New Year holds every success you are planning!
We are thankful this year for so many things. For a wonderful team, with our USA and European based staff to manage and coordinate effectively; for our team writers who stay dedicated and thorough in their quality and passion for writing; and for the ability to stay in business for more than three years now.
Most of all, we’re thankful for you! Our clients keep us going, motivated, and our biggest reward is seeing your success happen from our content, that you (smart move!) decided to invest in. Really, though, we’re truly grateful to you—from the bottom of our heart.
Express Writers Celebrates A Third Christmas In Business
It’s been a great year. Our finest moments came from small successes, which led to our big successes. Check out our year in review blog. Express Writers celebrated three years in business in 2014, and launched exclusive new services, curating and auditing, this year as well. We saw our site have a huge popularity, traffic and incoming lead increase with the new Penguin update in November; and in December, our CEO was honored with an interview from Search Engine Journal, recorded via podcast. Finally, we celebrate the launch of our Content Shop for our end-of-year. We are thrilled to see this happen, and glad you’re along for the ride!
Merry Christmas, To Each and Everyone!
As Tiny Tim said (Mickey’s Christmas Carol, 1983): A Merry Christmas to us all, God bless us, everyone!
Tiny Tim, from an 1870s printing of “A Christmas Carol.” Credit: Frederick Barnard (1846-1896)
We wish all of you a very merry Christmas, and a wonderful New Year!
