In the grammar world, there are mistakes, and then there are MISTAKES.
You know what I’m talking about:
The little errors are evidence you’re human…
… While the BIG errors will cost you time, money, customers, etc., if they appear in your marketing.
Usually, we can let the small ones slide. It would actually lead to more wasted time if we gave them our attention.
Meanwhile, the Big Ones can hurt us, so avoiding them IS worth our time.
This is exemplified in the 10% vs. 10x rule (which I discussed with CoSchedule’s CEO in an episode of The Write Podcast).
The stuff that’s worth your precious resources is going to 10x your business growth.
The remainder may or may not help you grow. These types of actions offer 10% growth, at best. Instead of leaping to the next level, you’ll inch your way there along the 10% path.
Framing your marketing this way will help you decide where to invest your time.
Take, for example, a small error like a typo in an email sent to your subscribers.
Will it matter in the long-run? Do you need to rush to fix it and send out an apology?
Not so fast!
As Grammar-Nazi-snobbish as I am, it’s probably not hurting your sales that you accidentally spelled content “contant” in paragraph two. Although good gosh, it rubs me so wrong to see that in typing.
But what about the big, glaring errors? What if you have a major typo on your hands? Those could erode your reputation as a credible source of information. I still remember the day Joe Pulizzi called me out about a stat we published in an infographic. The number was off by a million. 🙁 Now that was a typo, and to be called out by Pulizzi was so crazy for me! I quickly acknowledged it, and my team and I fixed the statistic and republished same-day.
So, the ones that could really put a dent in your rep are the ones we want to talk about today. The “10x” mistakes. Read today’s blog to stay accurate, free of errors, and continue to establish yourself as a trustworthy authority online.
[bctt tweet=”Let’s talk about 10x typos – the ones you never want to make online (versus the ones no one cares about). @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
5 Easily-Missed Grammar and Spelling Errors That Hurt Your Content Marketing (And What to Do About Them)
These errors are easy to miss if you don’t know the grammar rules that govern them.
However, once you have the rules down, you’re not likely to make these mistakes ever again.
1. Misusing “There’s” and “Here’s”
Here’s a question not many people ask themselves while writing:
“Are my subjects and verbs in agreement?”
The answer can make a big difference to the clarity of your sentences.
Subject-verb disagreement looks like this:
“Here’s lotsof tricks to make your life better.”
The subject of the sentence, “lots of tricks,” is plural (there is more than one trick).
The problem? The verb, “here’s” (a contraction of “here is”), doesn’t match up. It’s singular.
Instead, we need the plural form of the verb so everything matches up, i.e., “Here are lots of tricks to make your life better.”
For an example of subject-verb agreement (what we want), let’s return to the first sentence in this section:
“Here’s a question not many people ask themselves while writing.”
Subject of the sentence: “a question” (singular – it’s one question)
That’s because phrases like “here is,” “there is,” “here are,” and “there are” are all examples of expletive constructions.
According to Grammar Revolution, “In the world of grammar, expletives aren’t swear words. They are words that serve a function but don’t have any meaning.”
For instance, the word “there” is unnecessary in the expletive construction “there is”:
You can often write sentences without using expletive constructions – they won’t lose their meaning. (Screenshot via Grammar Revolution)
Why it matters: If your subjects and verbs don’t agree, or if you use too many expletive constructions, your writing will be less clear.
Your sentences will sound ungainly and a little strange, even if the person reading it isn’t aware of the grammar rule you broke.
[bctt tweet=”Avoid expletive constructions in your online content. No, they’re not swear words: they’re words without a meaning. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
2. Using the Wrong Word in the Right Place
Consider these sentences:
“Content marketing is better for building trust then traditional marketing.”
“I don’t want to loose my favorite pen.”
“The affect the movie had on me was incredible.”
“Their at the bookstore looking at science fiction.”
Clearly, the writer has the right intentions. If you read these out loud, they sound correct.
The problem: They used the wrong words in the right places.
This is a common error. The English language has a long list of words that sound exactly the same, but have different meanings/functions in a sentence. They’re called homophones:
Then/than
Here/hear
Loose/lose
Affect/effect
They’re/their/there
Your/you’re
A. Then vs. Than
The sentence: “Content marketing is better for building trust then traditional marketing.”
Why it’s wrong:
“Then” connotes a period in time.
What to use, instead:
“Than” is used for comparing two things, like content marketing and traditional marketing in the sentence above.
The Grammar Police on Twitter had to explain this to Nike, sadly:
It would be better if @NikeSupport had posted “you have more [than] one” instead. ‘Then’ doesn’t compare; ‘than’ does.
The sentence: “I don’t want to loose my favorite pen.”
Why it’s wrong:
“Loose” means the opposite of tight. (Memory trick: The two o’s make the word look long and loose.)
What to use, instead:
“Lose” means to misplace something, be deprived of something, or to fail at a contest or game. (To spell “lose,” you lose an o.)
C. Affect vs. Effect
The sentence: “The affect the movie had on me was incredible.”
Why it’s wrong:
“Affect” is a verb used to describe a change that’s happening (usually, not always).
What to use, instead:
“Effect” is usually a noun that describes the result of the change. (Remember, to talk about “the effect” of something, you need two e’s, as in “thee” Also: The movie can affect you as you’re watching it, but theeffect it has on you happens later.)
The sentence: “Their at the bookstore looking at science fiction.”
Why it’s wrong:
“Their” is a possessive pronoun meant to show belonging to a group of two or more people.
What to use, instead:
“They’re” is a contraction of the phrase “they are.” To determine when you need it, sound it out in place of whatever “their/they’re/there” you’re considering.
Additionally:
“There” refers to a place or moment in time.
Why it matters: When you use the wrong words in your sentences or mix up homophones, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing on a very basic level. If you can’t even write a simple sentence correctly, what could that say about your work in general – especially if your work involves writing for a living?
[bctt tweet=”Avoid using the wrong word in the right place. This online #content common error could present you (the author) as sloppy. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
3. Misuse of Apostrophes (Mixing Up Plurals and Possessives)
Why it matters: Inconsistencies in punctuation look unprofessional. They also make your content writing look rushed, like you couldn’t be bothered to stop long enough to put your apostrophes in the right places.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t misuse apostrophes in your online content. They make you look rushed and unprofessional. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Every single word processor out there has spellcheck. Why aren’t you using it??
Why it matters: Point blank: Blatant, glaring spelling errors that jump off the page make you (and your team) look lazy.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t make blatant spelling errors in your online #content. The typos that jump off the page make you (and your team) look lazy. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
5. Using “In Regards To”
This one, unfortunately, is a common phrase you’ll hear too many smart people repeat.
Lots of people say it/write it when they want to introduce a new topic without yanking the rug from under their audience’s feet.
Often, you’ll see “in regards to” used to help smooth the way.
First of all, it’s incorrect. The proper way to put it is “in regard to.” It means “in reference to.”
Second of all, “regards” are your best wishes, greetings, or compliments to someone else. In the olden-days of letter-writing, you would put “with regards to ___” or “give my regards to ___” at the end of a note when you wanted to send your love or affection to someone other than the recipient.
Third of all, “in regard to” doesn’t mean much. It’s just a wordier way of saying “concerning,” “regarding,” or “about.”
Stuffing your content with clunky phrases like this weighs it down, making it harder to read.
Instead of quibbling over whether there’s an s at the end of “regard,” try to omit this phrase from your writing. Look for a more concise alternative, instead.
Why it matters: “In regards to” is not only clunky and incorrect, it’s also overly formal. Sprinkling this phrase liberally in your writing is a quick way to sound pompous and silly while alienating your audience.
[bctt tweet=”Avoid “in regards” to in your online content. It’s clunky, incorrect and overly formal. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Wrangle Your Spelling/Grammar and Keep Your Content Marketing Rep Intact
As marketers, it’s our job to be the best communicators to connect with our audiences.
If you commit any of the above grammar goof-ups, your reputation, authority, and marketing ROI will be on the line.
Don’t let one mistake topple what you’ve built. Be vigilant about good grammar and spelling to make your communication as clear and effective as possible.
It matters because your business website is the only digital asset you truly own and have control over, making it the single most important online platform you have. Think about that one for a second.
While social media is a key part of an effective content marketing strategy, it involves using another organization’s platform, which means you’ll always be playing by their rules.
In contrast, your website is 100% yours to bend to your will, and a killer site will attract traffic, convert prospects, and keep your customers coming back.
That being said, not all websites are created equal.
There is a real correlation between the success of a business and the effectiveness of its website, particularly the traffic it generates.
In one study by Hubspot, the majority of companies exceeding their revenue goals had more than 10,000 visitors per month to their website. In comparison, 80% of companies not reaching their revenue goals had less than 10,000 visitors.
And you can bet your bottom dollar those visitors weren’t going to the websites by accident. They happened to be there because of great website content.
[bctt tweet=”@JuliaEMcCoy shares her top 10 website #copywriting secrets to gain more traffic and, of course, sales! ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Why & How Website Content Is The Great Differentiator
We know from experience that website copy, and high-quality content at that, can be what sets a brand apart from its competitors.
Don’t take our word for it, though.
More than 70% of marketers rate relevant content as their most effective way of obtaining website traffic, with content marketing generating three times as many leads as outbound marketing, and costing 62% less.
[bctt tweet=”More than 70% of marketers rate relevant content as their most effective path to site traffic, with content marketing bringing in 3x as many leads as outbound marketing & costing 62% less. @JuliaEMcCoy ” username=”ExpWriters”]
What’s more, small business websites that have blogs experience 126% more lead growth than businesses without, and B2B companies with a blog generate 67% more leads per month than companies that don’t have one.
Not Just Any Old Content Will Do
Like any other product or service, quality matters when it comes to website content.
A recent UK study revealed that 59% of people wouldn’t use a company that had glaring grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website. In addition to this, a whopping 82% of people said they’d be put off by a website that featured content poorly translated into English.
The scary thing is that poor website copywriting, instead of generating sales, can actually cost your business.
That’s right.
Poor quality content can actually turn away customers and create additional costs for your business.
Writing expert and author Josh Bernoff says poor writing costs U.S. businesses $400 billion every year.
From thedailybeast.com/bad-writing-costs-businesses-billions
He names websites and marketing materials as the worst offenders, pointing the finger at lack of clarity, overuse of jargon and poor structure.
Bernoff attributes the massive cost to the time that is wasted correcting and attempting to interpret poor writing.
This figure doesn’t take into account other expected costs to business in terms of lost leads, sales, and reputation.
[bctt tweet=”Did you know? Poor writing costs U.S. businesses $400 billion dollars every year. Read more: ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Using poorly written content on your site can also have a significant effect on how Google ranks your site and your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
People Don’t Read Your Content
So, here’s the thing.
You may go to the trouble of crafting what you think is beautifully written content, but people aren’t going to ‘read’ it no matter how good it is.
Numerous studies confirm what we already know. We don’t typically read much of the content we see.
I do it. You do it. And so do your website visitors.
Our average attention span is just 8.25 seconds – that’s one second less than a goldfish!
Image Source: Neil Patel
We read at most only 28% of the words on an average web page – 20% is believed to be closer to the truth.
So every single one of your words has to count.
Reduce your content to the smallest number of relevant, and necessary, words possible without sounding stilted.
10 Website Copywriting Secrets to Win More Sales & ROI from Your Online Presence
Want more in-depth tips? Check out my 365-page book on Practical Content Strategy & Marketing. You’ll learn the entire strategy for great web content. Bonus: Module/Section 5 is completely devoted to creation techniques – called Practical Content Creation!
One of the best strategies to cut through the competition and reach your audience is to create a target persona.
Once you have your target persona clear in your mind, writing your content becomes much easier.
Your target persona will guide what language and tone are most likely to resonate with your audience and inspire them to take action.
2. Create Eye-Catching & Skimmable Content
Since we’ve already established that our attention spans are worse than a goldfish, you should make your website copy skimmable, as well as eye-catching.
Start with an awesome headline.The headline is your hook and helps a reader decide whether they should click and read on. Make your headline clickable with power words.
Use lots of white space around your copy.
Incorporate subheadings and bullet points to break up space and create obvious landing spaces for the reader’s eyes.
Break up text with images. Photos and videos not only break up the text, but also create points of interest for the reader. Use a mix of visually striking images, informational visual content, and even entertaining GIFs where appropriate.
Write concisely. Never pad out your copy. Every word should have a purpose and need to be there. Try to write as concisely as possible.
[bctt tweet=”Our average attention span is just 8.25 seconds – that’s one second less than a goldfish! @JuliaEMcCoy shares how you can create eye-catching and skimmable content and other #copywriting secrets” username=”ExpWriters”]
3. Keep It Simple
Your website copy is not the best place for showing off an impressive vocabulary.
In 9 times out of 10 times, the simplest word is the best choice.
A famous memo from advertising executive David Ogilvy to his staff on ‘How to Write’ champions the case for keeping it short and simple: ‘Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.’
For example, instead of ‘accordingly’, you could say ‘so’, and ‘next to’ is better than ‘adjacent to’.
Additionally, Ogilvy says to ‘never use’ jargon words, or what we may recognize as corporate speak. He cites words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally and judgmentally as no-go terms.
It may be appropriate for some businesses to use some industry jargon, especially if the audience is likely to use the same words, but in most cases, it should be avoided.
The voice is how an article sounds and feels. It’s characterized by word choice, language, and style.
It should reflect the voice your business wishes to portray and reflect the voice your audience may use or respond to.
For example, are you trying to sound conversational or formal? Does your language need to appeal to millennials or retirees?
5. Use Punctuation
We’ve already spoken about poor spelling and grammar, but punctuation deserves a special mention.
Bad punctuation can completely change the meaning of a word or sentence.
One of the biggest culprits is ‘its’ versus ‘it’s’ – just remember, ‘it’s’ is short for ‘it is’. Read your copy back with ‘it is’ to see if it makes sense with the apostrophe.
6. Use Active Language
You should avoid passive language where possible.
Passive language focuses on ‘something having been done’, where active language is about ‘doing something’.
For example, passive language: ‘this report was prepared by us’, and ‘it is our recommendation that…’
Active language examples are ‘we prepared this report’ and ‘we recommend that…’.
A trick to making language more active is to use strong verbs or action words up front.
7. Use Keywords
The use of keywords is important in website copy as it’s a critical component of SEO, but they should never be over-used.
Keywords should only appear in your content if they appear naturally – that is, the sentence shouldn’t sound clumsy because of the insertion of a particular keyword.
Tell your readers what to do next. Implore them to ‘register now’, ‘call us’, ‘sign up’, ‘buy now’, or ‘follow us on Facebook’ – give them something to do.
It’s best practice, though, to limit your CTA to just one. If you only give your reader one action, they are more likely to do it, rather than overwhelming them with too many choices.
Bonus tip: Consider matching your CTA to your content topic. Match the offer and the design.
For example, we usually theme our custom-designed CTAs to our blog topic. In our case study on SEO rankings, we created a CTA that matched the design of the blog header. The CTA offer was also relevant to the topic, which was all about inbound content. In our CTA, we talk about a matching service: the great content we custom write and deliver to our clients.
9. Proofread
It’s always wise to ask a second person to proofread your website copy, as we often miss our own mistakes.
Think about proofreading the content in hard copy, as it’s much harder to spot mistakes on the screen.
10. Hire a Professional Content Writer
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when writing website copy, which is why hiring a professional content writer is a great option.
If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business doing content marketing, but you’re not seeing the amazing results you’ve heard about, ask yourself one question: Are you missing something?
Here’s another question.
…Could you be missing a small business content marketing strategy?
Every content marketing endeavor, no matter how small or low-budget, NEEDS a strategy.
(Not “needs,” lower-case, but “NEEDS” – all caps, in-your-face. A small business content strategy is that important!) Without a strategy, content marketing is like a pile of puzzle pieces. They make no sense…
…Until you put them together and form the whole picture.
That is the strategy, and that is exactly what you need to make content marketing work.
Because, when content marketing works, the ROI can be enormous.
Think about these facts:
A big chunk of buyers (47%) said they look at 3-5 pieces of content before talking to a sales representative, according to a 2016 study by Demand Gen Report.
Strategic content marketing is the key to 67% more leads for B2B companies who use it, via a HubSpot study.
Content marketing’s worth as an industry has skyrocketed – by next year, it will reach hundreds of billions of dollars according to the 2017 Global Content Marketing Forecast. (Don’t you want a piece of that?)
If you want in on this action, a strategy is the lynchpin.
Here are even more reasons to begin building your own content marketing strategy for your small business. Once you’re convinced, continue to the next section to learn the six steps you need to get started.
[bctt tweet=”47% of buyers said they look at 3-5 pieces of content before talking to a sales representative. Learn why and how to set up a #contentstrategy for your small business. ” username=”ExpWriters”]
3 More Reasons to Create a Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
1. It’s Not Just for Big Brands with Even Bigger Budgets
You do not need a big budget to create a workable content marketing strategy.
I repeat: You. Do. NOT. Need. A. Big. Budget.
(Check out my case study discussing how content marketing is higher in ROI than traditional, main-stream marketing.)
You can (and should) scale your strategy to work for the size of your business and your resources.
For instance, maybe you need to start by dedicating a few hours every month to content creation. It’s totally doable if you teach yourself some basics first, focus on putting out quality over quantity, and stay committed to building your authority on one platform.
Center your content around keywords that are low-hanging fruit – the ones that people are searching for, but still offer the opportunity to break into the rankings.
Start small. Then, as you build your gravitas, slowly increase your efforts. (Duct Tape Marketing has more ideas for strategizing on a budget, proving it doesn’t take much money or time at all.) One high-quality article published every two or three weeks is a better investment by far than putting out two or three sub-par, rushed articles weekly.
Plus, according to original research from Kapost and Eloqua, content marketing costs 31% less than paid search for mid-size businesses. That means a content strategy is a more cost-effective route than funneling money into ads.
2. It Takes the Guesswork Out of Content Creation
Overwhelmingly, one of the top roadblocks many marketers face is hitting a brick wall at the content ideation/creation stage.
In Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, 63% of B2B marketers rated their project management workflow as “good,” “fair,” or “poor,” while only 37% felt confident enough to rate theirs as “very good” or “excellent.”
It’s a concern for most of us.
BUT, that’s why a content strategy is so awesome: It makes your project management workflow and content creation a breeze.
This is because your strategy maps out a game plan for creating content, including finding the right keywords, generating topics, and determining content types you should focus on. It also tells you who you’re writing for, and helps you determine where and when to post.
Best of all, the plan is a framework you can follow again and again. No matter what type of content you’re creating, you can repeat the processes your content strategy lays out over and over.
I call each pillar of the framework a content strategy “core.” Once you have these down, you’re golden. I teach these six pillars, step-by-step, in an intensive 6-week content strategy and marketing course and book. Learn more about the course here.
3. Small Business Content Strategy Makes ROI Not Just Possible, but Probable
Your content strategy isn’t just a plan to use to attack content marketing – it’s also a map to ROI.
According to HubSpot, businesses that blogstrategically scoop up leads faster than businesses that don’t blog. Specifically, in a study of 2,300 businesses, those with blogs saw 126% monthly lead growth.
Additionally, according to CMI’s 2018 Benchmarks survey, B2Bs with a documented content strategy reported higher success levels than those without one.
Think about it this way: You wouldn’t attack any big goal and expect to reach it without first putting a plan in place.
If your goal is to see results and ROI with content marketing, you need to approach it with a strategy. It’s just plain common sense.
6 Steps to Start Building Your Small Business’ Content Marketing Strategy
Yep, you agree – you NEED a small business content marketing strategy.
You’re ready and raring to go.
Let’s not waste any more time. Here’s how to dive in headfirst:
1. Define What Makes You Stand Out
In business, your uniqueness is a major selling point, if not THE major selling point.
What do you offer people that no one else does?
Your stand-out factor doesn’t have to be wildly different from your competitors, either. You even can differentiate based on one little detail – the important thing is to figure out what that is.
For example, look at the ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry’s. They started selling their products out of a gas station before hitting the big-time and landing in grocery stores everywhere.
Without a doubt, their main brand differentiator is their crazy, loud, and oft-controversial flavors.
Did you know, in addition to mainstays like Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia, the brand has put out flavors like “Schweddy Balls,” which was inspired by a famous Saturday Night Live skit?
In 2016, they also put out a flavor called “Empower-Mint,” which they described as such: “This fudge-filled flavor reflects our belief that voting gives everyone a taste of empowerment, & that an election should be more ‘by the people’ and less ‘buy the people!’”
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stands out because of one detail – their flavors – and it informs their content direction and topic areas. Check out their series of posts on their most popular flavor, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough:
Finding your brand differentiator at the outset of your content strategy will similarly inform your own content direction and topic areas.
So, what’s your stand-out factor?
2. Discover Your Audience and Who You’re Helping
After you pin down your brand differentiator (I also like to call this your “content differentiation factor,” or CDF), you can discover who you should be targeting/helping with content marketing.
This can go one of two ways:
If you have no existing customer base, you’ll pinpoint your ideal
If you already have an established customer base, you’ll look at this pool and quantify their overwhelming similarities, combining them into a persona.
How do you do it? With audience research like surveys and interviews.
Brands with established customers have an obvious group to survey and interview. If, on the other hand, you don’t have a customer pool, you can still get real insights from real people to answer the question “Who is my ideal buyer?”
The following tools will help you on this quest:
After you pinpoint who you will be helping with your content, you can find the initial SEO opportunities that will bring in your ideal buyer: Keywords.
Not just any keywords, however.
You need to hit a sweet spot: Keywords that aren’t difficult to rank for, that are relevant to your brand, and for which your ideal buyer is actively searching.
By now, a lot of your small business’ content marketing strategy pieces are in place.
One big question comes next: Where will you publish your content?
If your answer is “social media,” think again.
You need to build your own brand platform, one that isn’t owned by a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. You need a website/domain.
Why is this important? A few reasons:
It’s easier to build authority on your own platform.
If you publish to your own domain, you’ll build up a web of keywords that all point back to YOU, not a social site. This builds your authority overall, too, because when you start ranking for lots of long tail keywords, you’ll also more easily rank for broad keywords.
Content published on your platform has better longevity.
The lifespan of content on social media amounts to about 30 minutes for a tweet on Twitter. For a Facebook post, it’s estimated that within 3 hours of posting, you’ll get 65% of the total engagement you’ll ever see from that post.
Here’s a graph of that by WiseMetrics (via Post Planner):
Meanwhile, the lifespan of a blog post published on your domain can last for YEARS as it climbs the search engine rankings. That’s HUGE.
Proprietary platforms (ones you don’t own) aren’t guaranteed.
Here’s the deal about proprietary platforms: the people who DO own them could one day decide to randomly shut down. Or, your posts and data could be lost in a major hack or server failure.
While these scenarios aren’t huge likelihoods, they still remain in the realm of possibility. Are you willing to risk staking your content (which cost you an investment of time + money) on borrowed land?
Luckily, these days it’s easy to get your own website and set it up without much overhead.
Do it – not just for peace of mind, but also for the sake of your content marketing.
5. Understand the Worth of High-Quality Content – and How to Create It
Do you know what high-quality content is, and why you should post it?
Here’s the deal:
Mediocre content does not win you any accolades. It doesn’t interest your target audience, it doesn’t climb Google rankings, and it dies a slow death as it sinks into obscurity. It’s a waste of time to produce rushed, lackluster, inaccurate, weak content. High-quality content is what wins in every category. It is:
Comprehensive
Factually accurate and thoroughly researched
Well thought-out and logically presented
Usually long-form
Well-written
Engaging/resonates with your audience
Written FOR your audience
According to Search Engine Land, quality is one of the most important ranking factors for content. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you have thin content, you’ll take a ranking hit.
Setting your content standards early on in your strategy is essential for consistency. You have to uphold high-quality standards to see the following:
Increased SEO rankings
Higher customer engagement with your brand (engagement = conversions = leads)
Stronger online authority
Better brand awareness/visibility
It’s that simple.
6. Set Up an Editorial Calendar for Your Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
The final step for starting your own small business content strategy is setting up your editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar sounds official and kind of scary, but it’s a great tool that can help each piece of your content marketing come together.
Here’s an example of one from NewsCred:
As you can see, the editorial calendar lines up all of your content pieces, maps them to your goals, and helps you see the big picture of where all this is going.
Most importantly, it will help you organize and track all of those moving parts.
Processes to Track/Include in Your Editorial Calendar
Team members’ roles and responsibilities
Content goals
Content topic areas
Content on the docket that needs refreshing or updating
Publishing schedule
Promotion schedule (social media posts/email newsletters tied to content pieces)
The Chess Board Is Set for Your Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
Become our client to get amazing content
It’s time.
The chess pieces are in place on the board.
If you’ve set up a content strategy, you’re ready to “checkmate.”
If you don’t have a strategy, your game pieces are probably scattered all over the floor.
If that’s you, it’s time to get things in order and win at this content marketing thing.
So, pull your pieces together and restart the game.
It’s the only way to make that coveted “top high scores” list. Need help creating strategic content for your small business? We can help.
“I’m ‘doing’ content, but it’s just not bringing me clients.”
“I’m posting and creating regularly – in fact, consistency is my middle name – but I’m still a one-person show with little funding to achieve my next level.”
Lately, I’ve heard this ALL too often – but the reality is, if you develop content strategically, you CAN achieve six-figure income months in your business.
Since it’s been almost two years since I created a case study on my brand (specifically, how we are our own content guinea pig: we’re able to make monthly six-figure sales happen from clients that found our content online), I decided it was time for a new one.
I started the research for this in February, and today – five months later! – the case study is all done and live, as of today.
Today’s case study focuses on how we actually earn real income (to the tune of six-figures per month) from the content and rankings we’ve achieved.
99.9% of our leads and business revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog.
Next, we interviewed a client we work with from time to time: Magnificent Marketing, a full-service marketing agency. We’ll share how they’ve boosted their client traffic numbers and rankings with great content.
If you read one blog of mine this quarter, read this one. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and dig in!
[bctt tweet=”99.9% of our leads and revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog. Learn how we do it in our case study on #blogging #SEO success ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Why & How SEO Blogging Equals ROI for Any Brand
Blogging (a form of great content marketing) equals ROI, for any brand.
In itself, blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand, attracting your ideal clients to your website, and growing your entire business. Especially blogging written around viable SEO keywords you want to rank for.
But here’s the caveat to that.
That statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality.
[bctt tweet=”‘Blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand… BUT… that statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality.’ – @JuliaEMcCoy” on #bloggingROI username=”ExpWriters”]
Businesses who create content strategically achieve ROI in the form of:
Better, more qualified leads that convert at a higher rate than traffic from paid ads or paid search
How many leads? Our content marketing ROI formula can help you estimate your average monthly leads/sales from content marketing
Here’s the formula: Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month)
According to that formula, an average of 1,000 visitors/month can get you at least 160 high-quality leads/month from strategic blogging
That’s not all, though.
Blogging also brings in:
Year-over-year site traffic growth that’s 8x higher than those at the back of the pack
6x the conversions of those who don’t publish content, according to a well-known study from Aberdeen and Kapost
Incredibly convincing numbers, right?
But, even better than stats, we have a prime, real-life example of what blogging ROI looks like.
Ready? Let’s dig in and see exactly what the power of blogging–and great content–can do for a business.
Express Writers’ Blogging ROI: $1,600 in Content = $66,700 Worth of Traffic & Organic Google Positions
Here’s a real-life, extreme example of how great, consistent content creation can work incredibly well.
Take a look at the current traction below for Express Writers. This is after six years of consistent content, with over 1,000 blogs published to-date on our site across those six consistent years.
(Remember, steady content creation has a dominoes effect: It does better over time.)
According to our data on SEMrush (pulled June 1, 2018), current paid search efforts to achieve our current month’s site traffic — 22,800 visitors — would cost $66,700. (This amount increases on a monthly basis for us. Lately, every month it’s been a 1-2k increase in traffic, with a fluctuating increase in rankings as well.)
If we were to buy this much traffic through Google Adsense, that would be an average paid search cost of $2.92 per visitor.
And, we haven’t even figured out how many of those are leads (buyers) yet. Expensive! $$$
How Much Content Do We Produce to Achieve Blogging ROI? + the Costs
We publish, on average, one long-form, comprehensive piece of content weekly, and we update content on a monthly basis, too. Besides that, we publish monthly podcasts with show notes, and monthly #ContentWritingChat recaps.
And here’s an example of a #ContentWritingChat recap post:
What does it cost to create this type of content regularly?
Our costs run:
Money: $400/month (this used to be $750, but we shaved off $300+ in costs by switching our Twitter chat to once/month instead of weekly)
Time: 4-5 hours of my time/month in blogging prep, publishing, writing, outlining, optimizing, & 3-4 hours/month in email marketing
If you qualify the hours I personally spend on our content into a “staff cost,” that alone could run $1,600+ per month.
How Do the Costs Compare to Paid Methods?
If paid search would cost $66,700 to achieve our current traffic in a month (22,800 visitors), and my cost of content marketing to achieve that traffic is $1,625, then paid search would be (at a minimum) 40x more expensive than my organic content marketing efforts.
Or, put it another way – a solid, consistent content marketing strategy over time could be 40 times cheaper than a paid marketing strategy. For business owners and higher-ups who think exclusively in dollar signs, that’s convincing.
What’s the Estimated ROI from Blogging at Express Writers?
Now, let’s put those numbers into the ROI formula (using my base visitor amount, to stay conservative — my site traffic is an extreme example after consistent years of targeted content):
And the majority of those visitors came in through search rankings:
Let’s estimate the leads and sales from that traffic once again using the content marketing ROI formula. Then we’ll compare the results to our recorded data for May 2018.
Infographic: Using the Content Marketing ROI Formula, Here’s our Real ROI Numbers for Blogging Results
Our Estimated Blogging ROI Using the Content Marketing ROI Formula
Our formula is grounded in two vital stats:
The average conversion rate for traffic to leads: 16% (Marketing Sherpa)
The average conversion rate for leads turning into sales: 14% (Business2Community)
Plugging those stats plus our traffic volume into a simple equation helps us estimate two huge content marketing ROI benchmarks: leads and sales.
First, we’ll estimate the leads we could see stemming from the month’s total traffic (93,000):
93,000 Monthly Visitors x 16% = 14,880Leads
Next, we can estimate how many of those leads will turn into sales:
14,880 Leads x 14% = 2,083Sales
Based on our traffic numbers for May, we could expect to see 14,880 leads and 2,083 sales resulting from our blogging and content marketing efforts.
[bctt tweet=”How much ROI does our business blog bring in? @JuliaEMcCoy shares how to use the Content Marketing ROI Formula in finding actual #bloggingROI” username=”ExpWriters”]
The Actual Blogging ROI
Here are our sales numbers for May 2018:
235 orders placed
2,140 “items” (content services) ordered
$186,128.50 in gross sales
Keep in mind: Many of these orders were from return and repeat clients, although many of them were new clients, too. Our average client retention rate is increasing, as well. Several of our recurring clients have stayed with us for 3-4 years now.
But, it’s 100% accurate to say that across all of our clients and lead generation methods, 99% of every client we’ve worked with to date has found us through our search rankings.
[bctt tweet=”‘99% of every client we’ve worked with to date has found us through our search rankings.’ – @JuliaEMcCoy on Express Writer’s successful #bloggingROI” username=”ExpWriters”]
Our ROI from Blogging Is on Fire
The 2,140 individual content services ordered matches up very well with our predicted ROI from traffic we earned through consistent blogging (2,083 sales from 14,880 leads).
The real kicker, however, is apparent in our gross sales number.
If $1,600 in content costs per month can generate $186,128.50 in gross sales, I’d say content marketing is a safe investment to beton if you’re considering every marketing avenue (keeping in mind these are gross numbers before we pay our team of 70+ people, and cover other business costs & taxes).
Even more importantly:
If we had to pay $66k in PPC ads to achieve our gross sales numbers, we’d be broke (there’s no way we’d make a profit after that high PPC cost and then the cost of delivering content services).
It’s safe to say that content marketing, mainly in the form of blogging, is the lynchpin for us in terms of drawing customers to our business.
Magnificent Marketing Case Study: Blogging = Steady Monthly Traffic Growth
I recently sat down with David Reimherr, founder of Magnificent Marketing, and their firm’s content marketing manager, Bre South.
Here’s what they had to say about how content marketing and blogging contributes to their client’s success.
“Our content strategy success begins with a deep dive onboard with our client to walk through targeted audience demographics, content mission statement, and their content tilt. In discussing the core messaging of the client’s product; we dig into the core of a client’s product and why it would resonate with its audience. We find which content angles will serve their audience, and how to reach their audience appropriately.
We help them figure out how to talk the talk their audience wants to hear.
All content efforts are driven by the content mission statement in addition to what our client already knows about their audience and experience. This gives way to the creation of determining main pillar topics and sub-topics the client commits to producing content for.
We help them create this mission statement for which all efforts will follow.
The main pillar topics are determined based on what a persona would actively be searching for as a problem they are looking for help to solve.
What topics will the audience care to read, interact and engage with?
All pillar topics funnel up to the brand’s content mission strategy and position the client as a thought leader in their specific industry. From here we are able to segment awareness, consideration and purchase pieces specifically and begin the roadmap of content construction and execution.
Blog writing is SEO focused which stems from a detailed keyword discovery and current ranking report to highlight the keywords to target for from their pillars.
We outline their content writing strategy by creating suggested headline topics built from our keyword report.
ROI & Success in Content Marketing
We’ve seen tremendous success, specifically in Emancipet, a national nonprofit veterinary service providing low-cost but high-quality care since 1999, through identifying keyword opportunities and crafting content around the terms to target.
We took over the account in January 2018 and through a strategic SEO focus around blog posts, consistent social media scheduling, and additional content creation we’ve seen a 16% increase in organic search. From that increase, 15% have been new users.
In addition, Emancipet nationally ranks in the top spot (#1) organically for the following keywords:
affordable heartworm treatment
Austin low cost vet
low cost heartworm treatment
cost of heartworm treatment
how much does heartworm treatment cost
how does microchip work for lost dog
free vet clinics in Houston
low cost heartworm test
heartworm shot cost
affordable pet care Austin
On a local level, we kicked off marketing efforts with Austin Dental Care, a company that has been around since 1997, with no previous strategic marketing in place, in November of 2017. Unfortunately, they did not have the proper Google tracking in place for us to historically compare but we saw the following continual uptick in organic search since our content plan kicked off.
Increase in organic search users:
November: 30 users
December: 112
January: 216
February: 263
March: 313
April: 337
May: 408
Magnificent Marketing continues to implement successful content for their clients–and Express Writers helps fulfill that content!”
How Can You Achieve the Same Results and ROI from Blogging?
One of our passions is to spread the word about content marketing and help people achieve amazing results with it, like our own success at Express Writers.
Because – fantastic news – you can absolutely do this, too.
Here are some solid steps to help you get to a real level of blogging ROI.
1. Write Down What You’re Willing to Invest in Blogging and Content Marketing – and Stick to It
The type of blogging that earns ROI requires a two-fold investment of time and money.
Whether you take content creation in hand or outsource it to experts, the best stuff depends on what you’re willing to put into it.
Thus: Budget for your blogging. Write down a ballpark estimate of what you’re willing to spend, then proceed to the next step.
[bctt tweet=”‘Tip #1: Write down what you’re willing to invest in blogging and content marketing – and stick to it.’ Read @JuliaEMcCoy ‘s tips in achieving real #bloggingROI” username=”ExpWriters”]
2. Calculate How the Investment Will Pay Off
Let’s say you choose to outsource your content.
At Express Writers, if you want our best writing level, that’s Authority Content. One authority-level blog costs $375, including full design, content, research, keyword strategy, and more.
You would actually receive SEO keyword research from our trained experts in each Authority piece, and have the possibility of ranking high with each blog. Investing in one year of authority blogging would cost about $19,500 if you publish one authority blog/week.
Or, if you want our next-best writing level, you could invest in expert writing, which is not as intensified, long-form and powerful as authority, but is also a high-quality, worthwhile writing level. You get an expert writer who knows your industry. No SEO research and full design, content only. This costs $395/month for 1 blog a week, posted on your site. Or $4,740 a year. (See blog management packages here.)
Since we write to appeal to your specific readers and search engines, we can estimate your keyword rankings. We can also use stats to figure out your click-through rate and traffic from organic blogging.
With an estimate of your monthly traffic in hand, we can then estimate potential leads and sales using our trusty formula:
As you can see, this is an easy and eye-opening way to determine how your blogging investment will pay off.
If you’re not satisfied with the potential ROI, play with the numbers and see what happens as your investment increases.
P.S. A note about blogging. You really need social media activity (posts, sharing of your blogs, relevant facts about your brand, etc.) from a qualified social media copywriter if you don’t have social media going on yet. It will really complete the full-circle picture. For example, our Twitter profile @ExpWriters is responsible for 10% of our monthly traffic!
If you were to add social media coverage from our social media packages to the blogging you do yourself, or the blogging we could do for you, this would start at $360/month to promote the blog and share other relevant posts about your brand consistently, adding $4,320/year in costs. Making sure you have activity under your brand name on social media is absolutely necessary for every brand.
3. Blog the Right Way (that Makes the ROI Roll In)
Here’s one caveat: You’ll only earn blogging ROI if you blog the right way.
The ROI formula only predicts what you’ll earn from consistent, high-quality, targeted blogging.
If you phone it in, you will not see the results the formula predicts.
We have lots of guides here at EW that can help you blog profitably. Here are a few for starters – read up to improve your game:
4. Remember That Cheapening Out Also Cheapens Your Content
Remember that investment you committed to in step #1?
If you flake out on it, your content will flake out, too.
Cheapening out likewise cheapens your content.
For example, if you cut the time you devote for blog creation in half without improving your productivity, you’ll start pushing out lower-quality blogs.
Similarly, if you cut the budget for your content, you’ll only be able to afford the cheapest content mills. Usually, this means bottom-of-the-barrel writing, or writers whose native language is not English.
With the latter, mistakes like these are too common:
Mistakes like these can kill your blog ROI, because content that’s thin, riddled with errors, factually incorrect, poorly written, or hard to read does NOT rank.
Need a visual reminder of poor blogging? Here you go:
Not only does this blog make your brain hurt, it’s also completely useless information. From one post, it’s painfully obvious that this business went the cheap route for their blog.
Yikes.
Ready to See ROI from Your Blog? Be Inspired from Our Success Stories
In fact, there’s so much crap, people are having a hard time discerning which sources are legitimate, which facts are actually facts, and who can be trusted.
People’s trust in the mass media has largely eroded, as a Gallup poll has shown. This distrust isn’t random – the internet has largely helped sow these seeds.
So, what happens when you swoop in with accurate, valuable web content?
It’s a light in the dark.
Great web content is a torch that leads the way, setting an example for other content creators.
Best of all, you give readers exactly what they want, need, and crave.
That’s why we’re here with this extensive guide on how to write great web content. Learn how to build this type of lasting, strong web content, right now in today’s “ultimate guide.”
The Ultimate Guide: How to Write Great Web Content
7 Ways to Write Great Web Content for Blockbuster Blogs
1. Make the Headline Sing
Appeal to the Human Brain
Keep It Clear, but Don’t Insult Their Intelligence
Use Better Wording
2. Give Away Your Best Information in the Intro
Start with the Hook
Tell Them WHY They Should Care
3. Organize Your Points
Explaining a Concept? Go from Basic to Complicated
Writing a Tipsheet? Go from Most-Important to Least-Important
Writing a Guide? Go Step-by-Step
4. Reference and Link to High-Quality Sources
5. Check Your Research
6. Write the Right Blog Post Length
7. Illustrate Your Points with Images
4 Ways to Write Great Web Content for Landing Pages and Web Pages
1. Write an Actionable Headline
2. Make the Body Copy Skimmable
3. Stay Benefit-Focused
4. Write a CTA That Shouts at the Reader
Take Cues from the Headline
Encourage, Inspire, and Motivate the Reader to Act
5 Examples of How to Write Great Web Content (the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), Plus:
THIS Is How to Write Great Web Content
Examples of Lackluster Web Content – Don’t Make These Mistakes!
[bctt tweet=”When you create great web content, you help set the standard for publishing useful, accurate information online. More in today’s guide by @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
[bctt tweet=”Learn how to build lasting, strong web content in our ultimate guide on the topic via @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
What’s the Anatomy of Great Web Content?
Writing good web content calls for hitting a series of bullseyes.
No matter which industry you’re writing for, no matter what topic you’re covering, greatness always follows this anatomical structure:
The Brain: Is it educational, informative, or practical?
The Skeleton: Is it well-organized? Does it make sense as a whole?
The Muscle: Does it pull you in? Does it make you want/need to keep reading?
The Heart: Does it entertain you? Does it resonate?
To make sure your web content hits home, include each of these vital parts.
Here’s how.
7 Ways to Write Great Web Content for Blockbuster Blogs
Web content like blogs requires a fair bit of finessing and fiddling to make them truly great.
Take the time to check off each of these boxes, and you’ll be well on your way to web content greatness.
1. Make the Headline Sing
A great piece of web content worth its weight in gold starts with an amazing headline.
We’ve written plenty about how to optimize your headline for SEO, but how do you craft a headline that appeals to readers? How do you create one that’s just plain good?
Luckily, when you’re sitting down to write your headlines, you can bank on this predictability. There are a few things we love to see in headlines, stuff that makes us far more likely to click them or keep scrolling to read the content underneath.
Here’s what we know. Take these points into consideration when you write your headlines. Try to incorporate one (or a few) into your phrase/sentence:
The human brain is attracted to numbers. In fact, a portion of our brain cells is dedicated solely to recognizing and interpreting numerals. When you include them in your headlines, you tap into the human desire to quantify value.
Examples: “5 Easy Ways to Save Money,” “10 Tips for Baking a Delicious Cake,” “3 Great Reasons to Start a Savings Account”
Humans hate feeling uncertain. Let’s put it this way: uncertainty = anxiety = stress. If you leave your headlines too ambiguous, you’ll stir up that unwanted uncertainty and drive people away. According to a well-known study by Conductor, most people prefer explicit headlines that help them understand what they’re in for if they read your blog or article.
[bctt tweet=”A portion of our brain cells is dedicated solely to recognizing and interpreting numerals. When you include them in your headlines, you tap into the human desire to quantify value. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
People are asking questions in search. In particular, more and more people are using voice search to get information, and asking questions in full sentences. Answer them in your headlines! Framing your headlines as answers will also help you rank for popular voice search queries.
Examples: “How to Jump-Start a Car” “How to Bake a Birthday Cake “Here’s Why You Should Start a Savings Account”
2. Keep It Clear, But Don’t Insult Their Intelligence
When writing headlines, many people forget about a key ingredient: clarity.
Without clarity, your headline will be too confusing to appeal to readers. Plus, it will stir up the uncertainty we mentioned above, which is never a good idea.
Of course, it’s just as easy to go the other direction and come up with a headline that’s way too simplistic and obvious. Case in point:
Instead of stating the obvious, focus on readability.
To help you keep it clear and understandable, consider using a tool that will score the readability of your text, like Readable.io.
Just paste your headline into the textbox, and the tool will automatically give it a letter grade based on how easy it is to read.
The letter grade is based on a bunch of different metrics and scales, including Flesch-Kinkaid.
Another free tool that works similarly is WebpageFX’s Readability Test Tool. Just paste your headline into the “test by direct input” box and click “calculate readability.”
Shoot for a low grade level – that means just about anybody who reads it will understand it.
3. Use Better Wording
Your headline is a short phrase that tells readers what to expect if they choose to read it. However, it’s better to think of it as a pitch rather than a summary.
Think about it: You have only one chance to convince your reader to bite. Suddenly, a trite headline that is nothing but explanatory seems wildly insufficient.
This is why you need to think long and hard about each word you use.
Take, for example, this unassuming headline:
“How to Bake a Cake”
It’s bare-bones at best, and merely states what you’ll learn in the article. Okay. That’s fine, but it doesn’t offer any reason to read more. There are hundreds of millions of articles about this topic on Google. Why should I read this one?
If this is your headline, you’re not giving me a reason to read your blog. You’re literally asking me to pass you up.
Instead, spice things up to show why I should read YOUR post instead of one of the hundreds of millions of other blogs about the exact same topic.
Here are some tips to make your headlines spicier:
Be specific – I don’t have time for generalities; the internet is shouting at me from all directions and my attention is limited. Tell me exactly what I’m in for. (I.e., What kind of cake will I learn to bake? Birthday cake? Chocolate cake? Lemon cake? Fruitcake?)
Use adjectives, but not too many – Adjectives make your headline more enticing and nudge your readers to an emotional reaction. For example, adding positive words like “good,” “great,” “best,” “awesome,” “exciting,” etc. will help create that positive association/emotion. Include at least one adjective to spark the emotion you want readers to feel when they read the actual post.
However, don’t fall into the trap of stuffing your headline with as many adjectives as possible. According to that Conductor study we already referenced, most people like to see at least one descriptor or superlative in headlines, but no more.
Spice up your verbs – Even if the verb you’re using in your headline seems like the most logical choice, challenge yourself to see if you can find a better one. For example, the headline above uses the verb “bake.” But we could also test out “make,” “create,” “invent,” or “whip up.” (Don’t be afraid to consult a thesaurus to help you find alternatives for boring verbs.)
When I use the above techniques to improve my headline, it transforms:
“How to Bake a Cake” (*yawn*)
OR “How to Whip Up the Best Darn Birthday Cake Ever”
Which blog would YOU want to read?
2. Give Away Your Best Information in the Intro
Once your headline draws them in, you have to keep convincing your readers to stay on your page.
To do it, you have to write the opposite way from what you learned in school.
1. Start with the Hook
Usually, with school papers, we hold our main argument close to our chests and wait until we’re well past the introduction to reveal it.
You can’t do that with online writing.
How do you write content for a website?
You have to start with the hook.
That’s right.
[bctt tweet=”To build strong web content , give away your main point, your best information, at the very beginning. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Then, use the rest of the post to offer supporting facts.
In the intro, I tell you my main point right away: Lack of focus in content marketing will lead to lower quality content, less revenue, and lost readership. Then, to lead into the rest of the blog, I promise to tell you how to focus your content efforts:
I did not withhold this huge point until later in the blog – I gave it to you right away, and then I promised to prove it AND provide solutions.
2. Tell Them WHY They Should Care
The reason you want to give away your best stuff right off the bat is the online reader’s attention span – it’s short.
They begin reading your blog wondering why they should care about what you’re saying. If you don’t tell them, their mind will wander. They’ll switch tabs. They’ll click the “x” in the top right corner of your page.
So, TELL THEM.
Start with the “why.” Give them a reason to stay on your blog – immediately.
As a content creator, it’s your job to guide your reader through your research and thought processes effortlessly.
It shouldn’t feel like work to read your blog posts.
A huge part of making it easy is organizing your points logically. Of course, the best approach to this organization depends on what you’re writing about.
1. Explaining a Concept? Go from Basic to Complicated
Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about string theory, a concept in physics, for people who don’t know what it is.
Where do you start? How do you lay it out for them?
Start broad and basic, and then move to the more complicated aspects.
Then, it dives into features of string theory, from most basic to most complicated:
This technique helps lay the groundwork for your reader, giving them information like rungs on a ladder. Each nugget of knowledge acts as one rung. The higher they climb, the more they’ll understand.
2. Writing a Tipsheet? Go from Most-Important to Least-Important
[bctt tweet=”If you’re writing a series of tips, tricks, or hacks, you don’t need to write them in any specific order – but you should try to give away your most important, best tips first. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Much like how you should start with “why” in your introduction, this technique helps keep your reader on the page.
So, arrange your points with the most interesting or useful tips first, then move to ones that are more general or well-known.
C) Writing a Guide? Go Step-by-Step
Organization-wise, writing a guide is very close to explaining a concept.
For both, you start with the most basic information, then gradually move to the complicated stuff. The main difference is a guide must include different steps or stages to help the reader reach the desired result.
As such, start with the most basic steps first, then finish up with the most complex ones. Don’t forget to use different headings to help organize each step (including numbered lists), and make sure you directly address the reader like you’re coaching them on what to do.
4. Reference and Link to High-Quality Sources
Writing good web content isn’t just about how you organize your thoughts or present your information. It’s also about proving your statements and assertions are accurate and based on research/knowledge.
How do you do this? Make sure you reference and link to high-quality sources.
Here’s when to cite a source and provide a link:
Any time you state a statistic, i.e. “8 out of 10 people will read your blog headline.”
Any time you state a fact that isn’t common knowledge, i.e. “Most online readers don’t read to the end of an article, according to Slate.”
Any time you reference another website, i.e. “Hemingway Editor is a great tool for self-editing.”
If you’re not sure if you should cite and link to a source, here’s a good rule of thumb: When in doubt, cite the source.
How to Judge the Quality of an Internet Source
To help improve your search engine rankings, you should try to link to only high-quality, high-authority websites.
How do you know if a website is high-quality? There’s a quick way to find out:
Download an SEO browser extension, like SEOquake or MozBar.
For every website you want to link to, first check the domain authority (DA) score. The higher the score, the more authoritative the site.
Sites will be scored on a scale from 1-100. In general, any site that scores above 50 is authoritative enough to link to. Moz will score all the listings in search results, making it easy to find authority sources:
4. You can also check the DA of a website directly from their page. It will be listed on the MoBar like so:
Remember: Well-known websites and brands probably don’t need to be checked. (Think The New York Times, Content Marketing Institute, or Forbes.)
5. Check Your Research
Along with vetting your sources, you should also double-check that you’re linking to original sources.
What do I mean by this?
If you cite a statistic from a study, link to the original study, not a recap of the study from a different site, or someone who merely cites the study.
For example, there are lots of stats round-ups like this one:
There are lots and lots of valuable stats listed here about content marketing, but this page itself isn’t the source.
If you want to include some of these stats in your next blog, you have to do some digging to find the original posts.
In an infographic full of stats, it’s usually at the bottom, in small print:
To make it easier to find the stat you want to cite on its original source page, use your browser’s “find” feature. (For Chrome users, just hit “Ctrl + F” on your keyboard. Then enter the statistic or phrase in question to find it on the page.)
You can also search PDFs this way:
Once you find the stat you’re looking for, you can cite the original source. This makes it much easier for your audience to read further about your topic/research. It’s also a better linking practice, which is better for rankings.
6. Write the Right Blog Post Length
Great website content is thorough.
And, usually, thorough = comprehensive = long form.
You’re not skimming the surface of a topic – you’re diving deep into its depths to explore every nook and cranny.
However long it takes to thoroughly explore your topic is exactly the length your blog post should be.
Keep in mind, though, that 74% of blog posts that get read are under 3 minutes long, according to Buffer.
That amounts to at least 1,600 words.
The content that gets the most shares is usually audience-dependent. For example, Buffer found that their most popular posts were 2,500 words and over.
The main point: Despite what you may believe, long-form content does not daunt online readers. Don’t be afraid to go long when you’re figuring out how to write web content.
For more reasons to create long-form content, plus the best ways to do it, check out our long-form content guide.
7. Illustrate Your Points with Images
Here’s another factor inherent in most kinds of powerful, inspirational, great web content:
Images are peppered in with the text.
The best examples of this come from Neil Patel – each post is filled with examples, screenshots, and infographics that expand on points in the text.
It makes sense. Images add visual interest, clarity, and even humor or excitement to web content.
Images alongside the text also make it more fun to read.
Do you agree?
The key is to use images that suit your brand’s tone of voice. If you have a more formal or elegant vibe, you probably wouldn’t use gifs (like the one above) in your blogs. Instead, you might want to stick to graphs, charts, and illustrative images.
However, if your voice is more laid-back, lighthearted, or casual, you can and should add a little humor in measured doses.
How to Write Great Web Content for Landing Pages and Web Pages
Landing pages are a different beast from blog posts.
This type of web content serves a different purpose, so it requires a different approach.
Landing pages serve as a place for visitors to land when they click one of your ads or CTAs elsewhere (in an email, a blog post, etc.).
Directing your traffic to one of these pages can help push them toward the action you want them to complete, like signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase.
Here’s an example of one of our higher-performing landing pages. This one generates a few subscribers daily. This particular page allows you to download our Easy ABC Content Strategy Checklist:
All the content on this page serves to get you primed to do one thing:
Enter your information to get a free download.
As you can see, landing pages are incredibly valuable for traffic-to-lead conversions.
Sound good? Here’s how to write great web content for your own super-powered landing pages.
1. Write an Actionable Headline
Great landing page web content begins and ends with a call-to-action. Start off strong and infuse that into your headline. Here’s how:
Use verbs and power words – Your landing page exists to convince/push the reader to complete the desired Think about what you want visitors to do once they land on your content, then tell them to do it using verbs and power words.
Don’t get too wordy – It’s important to keep landing page headlines concise and to-the-point. If you get too wordy, the direction you want to move readers will become lost.
Here’s a landing page with a headline that’s too long (from none other than Adobe):
Not only is it too wordy, there’s also zero action verbs or motivating language.
Even worse, the CTA simply reads “Submit”.
Not good.
Use the word “you” – According to a HubSpot study, CTAs that directly address the reader (using the word “you”) are 42% better at converting them. As such, speak to the reader in your web content headline and make it 10x more powerful.
Here’s a great example of web content from Copy Hackers that uses all of the above principles:
2. Make the Body Copy Skimmable
You’ve perfected an actionable, motivating headline for your landing page web content. Now you’re ready to craft your body copy.
There are arguments in favor of both short and long landing page content. According to Crazy Egg, the length you should choose is the one that meshes best with your audience.
However, no matter how long or short you go, you should always strive to make your web content body copy skimmable.
That means a few things:
Short paragraphs
Lots of line breaks
Using numbered and bulleted lists where logical
Using H2s, H3s, and even H4s when necessary
Here’s an example of super-long web content that still manages to be easy-to-read – but only because the content is organized with attention to all of the above principles:
Image via The Daily Egg
As you can imagine, this page would be a nightmare to read without all that organization. For best results, don’t skip this essential part of the web content equation.
3. Stay Benefits-Focused
When writing web content, staying benefits-focused also means staying user-focused.
That’s because benefits convey your product/service features as they relate to the reader.
In other words, when you stay benefits-focused, you’re honing in on what interests your audience. You answer this burning question for them: How will this product/service/etc. positively affect their life?
Here’s an example of benefits-focused web content from the landing page for the Barnes & Noble Membership program. Benefits are underlined in red:
[bctt tweet=”Web content without a call-to-action is ineffective. Period. When users land on a page, they won’t know what to do unless you direct them. ⏭️ @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
So, direct them! Here are a few simple ways you can do that.
1. Take Cues from the Headline
The headline you crafted for your landing page web content is perfect to refer back to when writing your CTA.
For a cohesive page, make these two components match or mirror each other. That way, they’ll reinforce the desired action.
Here’s an example of a strong CTA from CoSchedule.
The headline says “It’s time to fire makeshift marketing”. Love it!
Meanwhile, the CTA mirrors the headline: “Kick makeshift marketing to the curb”
The two play off each other, which builds up the CTA nicely. Similar wording helps drive the desired action home.
2. Encourage, Inspire, and Motivate the Reader to Act
A great CTA is truly motivating.
It will direct user action, but it will do so in an encouraging, inspirational way.
Take the CTA above as a great example: “Kick makeshift marketing to the curb”.
When we think of the popular saying “kick it to the curb,” we’re reminded of the freeing feeling of ridding ourselves of stressful or annoying baggage.
When you kick something to the curb, you’re lightening your load. You’re putting a spring back in your step. Now that’s inspiring.
For the CTAs you include in your web content, try the same tactic – put a little inspiration in there.
One of our own CTAs at EW does just that by inspiring you to think of content creation like baking bread or whipping up a fresh dish. To get a fresh final product that will tantalize their audience, all they have to do is step up to our “counter” and order:
Helping your audience to think of taking action in a novel way is a great method to inspire them.
How to Write Great Web Content: 5 Good, Bad, and Ugly Examples
Want to know how to write good content for a website?
Learn by example.
Here are some good ones (and not-so-good ones).
THIS Is How to Write Great Content for your Website
Take inspiration from these blogs and web pages:
1. CoSchedule
CoSchedule regularly nails great content with their comprehensive blog posts. From the headline to the intro, to the organization, the writing, the research, and the value provided, you can’t go wrong studying their posts for a primer on how to write great web content.
2. SmartBlogger
For examples of great blog posts that are fun to read and informative, look to SmartBlogger. This blog, in particular, is well organized and bursting with valuable information.
3. Airstory
Want stellar examples of landing pages and web pages? Check out Airstory’s website – they nail every facet of great web content.
Examples of Lackluster Web Content – Don’t Make These Mistakes!
Bad web content is out there. Here are a few examples to help make the distinction clear.
1. Confusing and distracting
Here’s an example of a landing page gone wrong – there’s no clear headline, no visible call-to-action (you have to hunt for it), and too many little pieces of information screaming for your attention.
Seriously, what am I supposed to do on this webpage?
2. Thin and lackluster
If you’re writing blog content, don’t follow this example. It’s supposed to be a blog post with a recipe for a brownie ice cream sandwich, but the ingredients list unhelpfully calls for “brownies”.
Uh, what?
Plus, the content is nonexistent – there’s no information about what this tastes like, suggestions for serving, tips for decorating, or ideas for variations. We just get super-vague ingredients and instructions.
In short, there’s nothing here of value for me.
The Final Steps for Writing Good Web Content
The anatomy of web content that wins includes brains, muscle, strong bones, and heart – lots and lots of heart.
You get all of that and more when you include all the components we’ve mentioned here in our guide.
Great web content is thorough, well-organized and logical, well-researched, easy to read, and provides that extra something that keeps readers on the page.
After you’ve crafted this kind of content – after you’ve poured in hours of work and painstaking attention to detail – make sure you go over it with a fine-tooth comb.
Write with care, research with detail, and edit, edit, edit.
And remember…
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is outstanding web content that wins over readers.
