Today for the Write Blog, we interviewed one of our full-time writers, Diana. Diana is a journalism graduate, award-winning filmmaker and online content specialist. She dedicates her work to crafting content that connects people with stories and ideas that matter. When she’s away from the laptop, you can find her navigating through South America’s mountain trails or planning her next large-scale environmental project. Diana joined our team earlier this year and has become an integrated part, training closely with Julia for a course support role, and writing a myriad of content types for our clients.
How did you first find out you liked to write?
My dad is a writer and I’ve always been a big fan of him in many ways.
So when I was about nine years old, I decided to submit a story for the Remembrance Day competition at my school. The story ended up winning first place and was announced at the annual ceremony.
If you can remember being nine years old, winning basically anything was the best thing ever.
So clearly, I exploded — and became totally obsessed. Soon after, I got a hold of my dad’s old briefcase, filled it with blank notebooks and begun writing long-winded mystery stories for a good length of time (Nancy Drew was my other hero).
What (or who) were your early influences in writing?
After my long-lived Nancy Drew/Harriet the Spy phase and survived my too-cool-for-school chapter, I was introduced to a handful of influencers in University.
Besides my incredible journalism/writing professors and mentors, there were some other special people I surrounded myself with:
I ABSORBED Kurt Vonnegut. Like I wanted to take his work and inject it into my body somehow.
Douglas Coupland and Rawi Hage were fairly prominent in my life, too.
David Sedaris was pretty much my long-distance, secret mentor for my short story work.
Hunter S. Thompson was my muse.
Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen and Sylvia Plath were my sad, soulful weekend mentors.
At this time, I was also regularly writing lyrics for a band I was in.
I think this may have been one of the greatest influences for my writing: The self-disciplined study of lyricism and poetry. It gave my writing a certaindepth and flavour.
Henry David Thoreau was a game-changer, though.
I think I’ve read Walden 4 times.
This, combined with tree planting expeditions and my insatiable love for scriptwriting eventually led me to creating work for a purpose, rather than simply the joy of storytelling.
What kind of topics get you excited/passionate to write about and why?
I love characters. Profile pieces, especially on zany people, make me giddy.
I also love every aspect of writing for environmental topics. I try to learn as much about environmental issues on the side to help my craft in this field.
Honestly though, any topic that has the potential to influence further development in either myself or the world at large has me pretty pumped.
This can include:
– content marketing
– social enterprises
– psychology and self-development
– new cuisine or farming practices
– specific technology
Do you have any daily/typical writing rituals?
I meditate.
I go through stints where I don’t do it as often, but it’s clear how it affects my concentration and therefore my writing.
Meditating every morning before looking at screens improves the overall productiveness of my day significantly.
Clear/calm mind + blank paper + coffee = real potential.
What books, tools, websites have helped your writing the most?
I’m kind of old school.
I believe the simple discipline of reading and writing a desired topic/style can boost your abilities.
Currently, I’m trying to improve my content writing, so I’m reading Julia’s book while following various blogs.
I use Feedly to help me stay updated with specific styles of content I’m focusing on — which is actually the most high-tech I’ve ever been in this respect.
What is your favorite article that you wrote?
It was called, “Massacre on Dundas Avenue.”
It was an investigative piece on why there were so many dead squirrels littering the main roads in my town.
The article was a result of a casual observation that led to a broader issue — an approach I feel makes for the best articles.
A favorite client that you worked with?
Dr. Graham’s Homes, which is an orphanage and school in Kalimpong, India. I wrote a number of the graduate’s testimonials for their main site to encourage essential funding.
The stories these students shared were truly inspiring, some of them almost chilling. Being given the chance to take these stories and mould them into something tangible was an honor.
What is the oddest writing assignment you’ve ever had?
I covered a radio story on the inside life of a trailer park, which was actually a few hours away from where the TV show, Trailer Park Boys was shot.
The assignment required me to go door-to-door and interview residents of the area, which proved to be both terrifying and awe-inspiring. The range of characters was vast, but one common theme that carried through was the residents’ ability to effortlessly entertain guests.
How does your writing career help you either creatively, personally, or financially?
My writing career not only pays the bills and my ability to travel (which includes its own benefits), but it encourages me to evolve on a personal level.
I believe that constantly working on a craft, whether it be art, carpentry, music or writing, enhances your ability to expand in a myriad of ways.
It helps you practice humility, and when done well and enjoyably, can be beneficial for your spirit and overall well-being.
The craft of writing helps you connect with people and ideas.
It supports continual learning, curiosity, and encourages open-mindedness.
Needless to say, invaluable gains.
Let’s talk a little about the state of content marketing as it stands today. 91% of content marketers are using content marketing. That’s higher than all previous years to date.
Content creation is the #1 activity in content marketing that gets outsourced.
45% of content marketers are more successful than they were the previous year:
And 78% quoted bettercontent creation as being the number one reason for their improved success.
Yet only 4% of these marketers rate themselves as extremely successful.
CMI adds: “As they have in the past, respondents who have a documented content marketing strategy report higher levels of overall content marketing success compared with those who have a verbal strategy only, or no strategy at all.”
Yet, despite this guaranteed success rate, only 37% of marketers still have a documented content strategy.
Here’s a quick slide of those statistics from the CMI report:
What exactly is IN a documented content strategy?
Here’s eleven top cores I’d direct you to consider. Note that it is much more than just a keyword report, or a topic calendar.
Audience Persona (you’ve identified your audience so specifically that you have a name and a face)
Your industry standout factor (Content Differentiation Factor)
Your messaging, voice, and tone (Brand Style Guidelines)
SEO keyword reports with high-value, high-opportunity keywords (researched consistently)
Content creation plan & creation team in place
Content types to create
A content creation budget
Editorial calendar with staff collaboration
Social media platforms to build a presence on
Guest blogging opportunities identified
Content updating, tracking and maintenance plan in place
That’s a lot.
You want to be in the 4% of content marketers that are “extremely successful,” right?
Then you need all eleven cores turning in your content wheelhouse.
But, here’s the issue.
You’re probably facing two questions right about now.
How the heck do you do all those things ^?
Where the heck can you find a support team, that is quality controlled, to outsource all those things ^?
How & Why Our Mission These Days is to Solve Industry Problems & Help Brands Succeed By Offering the Best Content Strategy Services
Here’s the thing…
I’ve been focusing on this “big industry picture” since late 2016.
It all started when I began to look at these CMI Benchmark reports, and even asked myself “why are our blogging clients not renewing their order every month?”
Every year, content marketing investment and marketer buy-in goes up. But the strategic success hasn’t really gone up at all.
Today, only 4% feel they’re very successful at content marketing in 2018.
You know what’s worse? Take a look at previous years’ records.
In 2016, 88% of marketers were doing content marketing – now, 91% are. In 2016, 32% had a documented content strategy: today, 37% do. In 2016, 6% rated themselves as highly effective.
Today, only 4% feel they’re highly effective. That’s -2% from two years ago!
In my firm, I’ve seen success rise for my content marketing year-after-year.
I know by now that it is all about consistent content, and I also knew, after five years of trial and error, beyond a doubt the value of great content in content marketing – provided you get consistent and you know what you’re doing. When my brand went past 1,000 published blogs, I wrote about the results after looking through our sales forms. It’s rather mind-blowing. 500+ inbound lead inquiries from those 1,000 blogs, closed with a sale at an 80-85% rate. Those were high-value leads: just one converted at $75,000.
The success I’d experienced by using content marketing to power 99% of my own business success (for six years!) is the very reason I created a content strategy course.
I go through all the cores I just mentioned, and teach strategists at all beginner levels how to be successful.
How to be in the top 4%. By doing this, I want that industry metric to expand.
Expand from 4% to 10, 20%.
If brands get extremely effective at their content marketing, BIG things will happen for that brand.
They’ll get known: appreciated: earn a loyal, tight-knit fan base: and see sales roll in every day.
Hand in hand with the course are the content strategy services I’ve built in my content agency, Express Writers.
I started writing the core training for our “content planning,” “keyword research,” and “content consultation” 5 years ago–and that inspired the industry-wide course I launched last year.
We’re a content creation agency first and foremost, but truly: what is great content if you don’t have your fundamental strategy mapped out?
Recapping the Main Changes to Our Content Strategy Services for 2018
We revamped and improved each strategy service we offer (list of changes below), for the year.
On top of that, I launched new internal training for our Strategists, straight from the cores of my 6-week, intensive content course at www.contentstrategycourses.com. All this happened in the last three weeks here at Express Writers.
All of our content strategy services are now available from this one product link, Content Strategy, instead of multiple links for keyword research and the other variations inside this one service.
Keyword research has now become more finely tuned and available in two variations: Keyword research for blogging, keyword research for web page topics. We’ll research longer-tail keywords for your blog, that offer a high likelihood of ranking: and wider opportunities for your site, where you’d want to rank overall for bigger, bolder keywords.
Content planning and content planning blocks has turned into Topic Research, for web or blog. You’ll receive an editorial calendar with high-ROI topics analyzed, as well as a core keyword to use in the topic: and what’s more, we now research influencers for your topic area as well and give you an exported list in the Excel editorial calendar. Our topic headlines are highly-scored, and carefully analyzed by our Content Strategists.
We use some of the best tools on the market: SEMrush, BuzzSumo, Hawkeye by Scoop.it, and Mangools’ KWFinder. Our team Content Strategists are fully trained from my content strategy course cores on how to deliver keywords and high-ROI content topics.
Our Topic Planning is available in three variations:
See an example of a Topic Planning package, complete with editorial calendar.
What’s more, we now offer a follow-up call with you + our Content Strategists to make sure you’re able to get the most from your topic planning. This will help our clients understand how to use their keywords and topics in the best way for on-site ROI.
Interested? Click here to book a call with one of our staff members to talk about your content strategy needs, or view the new product by clicking on the image below.
Let Us Power Up Your Content Strategy
We can’t wait to serve you with the best content for more success in your content marketing, this 2018.
If you’re looking for training for your agency, my Content Strategy Course could be a fit. (We’re relaunching a new and improved site late February, 2018!)
Need done-for-you strategic content marketing services?
We love serving custom, high-quality content to seasoned brands and agencies.
If that’s you, we’re a great match! Talk to our team today about your content needs.
Marketers who rate themselves as effective make sure at least 37% of their budgets go toward their content and content goals.
The problem:
How do you explain the ROI of content marketing in a way that’s immediately understandable to people who aren’t you?
Important people like…
Clients
Executives
Stakeholders
Business partners
Instead of putting these key players to sleep with a long list of incomprehensible stats, you need to be more persuasive.
We put together a guide that might help you, with formulas based on realscenarios, and language that even the toughest boss will understand (ROI speaks for itself!). This piece was a collaborative team effort between myself, our lead Content Strategist JJ, our creative full-time writer, Alyssa, and our amazing designer.
Please share if you enjoyed this infographic. Let’s spread the word about content marketing ROI! And, we’d love to hear in the comments what you think!
The ROI of Content Marketing: In Numbers Everyone Understands and With a Case Study (Infographic)
Explaining the ROI of Content Strategy Through Numbers Everyone Understands (Infographic)
The way to make a client’s or high-level executive’s ears perk up when you talk about content marketing is not by showing them examples of others’ success.
Instead:
They want to know how this strategy will help THEM.
They want to hear about the dollars, cents, and ROI THEY will get.
How do you estimate what this will be?
You need the Content Marketing Trifecta.
The Content Marketing Trifecta: Earned Traffic = High Quality Leads = Sales
A great content marketing benchmark to use for estimating dollar signs is conversions.
At its most basic level, content marketing’s main goal is to drive targeted traffic to a website, where that traffic is converted into high quality leads. These leads are thenconverted to sales.
Earned traffic, high quality leads & sales.
This is a simplification, but that’s the goal.
We need to translate conversions into dollar signs, A.K.A. speak the most simple yet persuasive language for key players to get on board.
The Benchmark Numbers
How do we compute the ROI associated with conversions from content marketing? We need some benchmark numbers.
We need to know:
The average rate at which targeted traffic coming into a website converts to high quality leads
The average rate that those leads convert into sales
16% Traffic & Leads
According to Marketing Sherpa, the average rate for converting traffic to leads across industries is 16%.
14% Leads & Sales
SEO leads convert at a higher rate than outbound methods, like paid advertising.
Studies have shown that leads generated from SEO have an average close rate of 14%, while outbound-generated leads have a close rate of 2%.
The Content Marketing Trifecta Equation
Using our benchmark numbers and monthly traffic numbers, we can plug them into an equation that will estimate how many leads and sales we can expect to see per month using content marketing.
Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month
X Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = X Sales/Month
Example Scenario
If Business A gets 1,000 visitors to their website monthly:
1,000 Visitors x 16% = 160 Leads/Month
160 Leads x 14% = 22.4 Sales/Month
According to average conversion rates, out of 1,000 visitors in website traffic per month, Business A could expect 160 leads and 22.4 sales per month if they use content marketing.
Judging the Content Marketing Trifecta Equation Against Real Numbers: Case Study
To show how well the equation holds up in real life, let’s compare actual results with what the equation predicts.
The monthly traffic for Express Writers in January 2018 was about 15,470.
15,470 Monthly Visitors x 16% = 2,475 Leads
2,475 Leads x 14% = 346 Sales
Do the numbers hold up?
Expected: 346 orders
Actual: 289 orders
While we did come up 57 orders short of the expected total, this was a deliberate move for 2018 as we have shifted our focus to serving only clients who we believe are the right fit.
Due to this shift in focus, our average order size for January 2018 was $416 (new record for us at EW).
3 Steps to Explain the ROI of Content Strategy to Clients and Superiors
You’ve got some good numbers up your sleeve that are immediately understandable and persuasive for higher-ups and clients. This will help push them toward investing in content strategy.
Now it’s time to pull it all together.
1. How Will Evergreen Content Make Their Garden Grow?
Organic traffic from content marketing will help a business’ garden plot grow lush and thriving – think lots of green growing on that money tree.
The evergreen effect makes it possible:
According to a SEMrush traffic analysis, Express Writers earns 22.1k visitors in monthly organic traffic.
Our evergreen content pieces do most of that legwork.
If we didn’t have an evergreen content strategy in place, SEMrush estimates that we’d have to pay $45,400/month on Google AdWords (over $500,000/year!) to achieve the same results.
2. What Will They Need to Fertilize Their Content Soil for ROI?
In content marketing, to get the green rolling in, it takes some investment up front.
How do you fertilize the content soil to grow your business garden? What must be put into content marketing at the outset to see your efforts grow tall?
Example:
Estimate what you’re willing to invest.
If you outsource to a copywriting agency like Express Writers, the cost would average about $375 for one authority content piece.
If you commit to one piece per week, that’s an investment of about $19,500/year.
How does this investment shake out?
If we focus on low competition, high volume keywords, we could safely estimate ranking 3rd place in Google results within a year for 2/3 of those keywords (around 34 out of 52).
Assuming those keywords had a search volume of 1,500/month each, we could expect a click-thru rate of 13.4%, according to Ignite Visibility.
We’d also get an overallsearch volume of 51,000 (34 keywords x 1,500 monthly search volume) and an average of 6,701 visitors per month (51,000 total search volume x 13.4% click-thru rate).
Why is this investment better
According to the numbers, we would pay $19,500 per year (or $1,625/month) to reach 6,701 visitors per month.
To get the same amount of traffic with paid advertising, we would have to spend around $17,000 per month, according to SEMrush data.
That’s 10x more expensive.
That means investing in organic content marketing is 10x cheaper than paid advertising.
How does this investment translate to leads and sales?
Use our content marketing trifecta equation to predict the leads and sales you’ll get from that traffic influx of 6,701 visitors per month.
6,701 Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = 1,072 Leads/Month
1,072 Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = 150 Sales/Month
3. Show Them the Green
Once you understand the potential leads and sales your business could earn per month, you need to show your clients/bosses/higher-ups/stakeholders the green.
Pull the numbers together to illustrate the revenue potential of content marketing
Show them what they must invest to see real ROI
Compare what they’d have to spend on paid advertising versus getting the same results with organic content marketing
Show them what the ROI looks like in the form of potential leads, sales, and increased revenue
Once your key decision-makers can see the green potential for themselves and their business, it’s in the bag.
When December of 2017 came to a close, I wrote my goals for the upcoming New Year down on my whiteboard.
One in particular was a big, bold goal for Express Writers, which I’ve been running for six years now (seven if you count my first year as a freelancer).
I’d never physically wrote this goal down before, although I’d been thinking of it for months.
See the little tiny “$100k/Month”? Under Grow EW -> New System Launch
In my goal list, I wrote down “new system launch” first. That’s because I truly didn’t think our $100,000 month would come before our new build of Express Writers teamroom and ecommerce client system, which has been estimated to take 5-8 months as a custom development timeframe minimum, over 2018. We have a development team in place for this new build, and Josh our CTO (my husband) is leading the initiative. It’s costing a ton, but it’s necessary as a smoother machine to run our growing business.
Well, in January of 2018, the little (big) goal I’d written down came true.
To my shock, we surpassed $120,000.
For the month, across all the content services we offer, our team wrote a collective estimated 1,851,200 words.
In this report, first, we’ll go into a visual representation of what our January content accomplishment looks like: next, three core reasons from me on why we were able to successfully take this on, and stay light and agile: finally, we have a client reminder on our policy, turnaround and communication. Let’s jump in!
The Data in Pictures: Express Writers vs. 1,851,200 Words (Infographic)
In January of 2018, our content creation agency Express Writers had its busiest month ever! We had over 282 orders placed, and we served more than 50 clients, focusing on repeat clients (many of our repeat clients placed 32-40 orders throughout the month).
We saw a 99% success rate on projects completed (we revise if our clients aren’t happy, and refund if the client is not a good fit).
Overall, we completed:
625 blogs and articles
606 expert industry-specialized blogs and web pages
1069 product descriptions
7 press releases
7 social media packages
Many of the blogs were long-form. If we average the word count at 800w to account for shorter items like social media copy, the total word count we wrote was 1,851,200 words. We even served customers in more than 10 countries!
Why We Hit 1.8 Million Words in a Month: 3 Cores that Took Years of Hard Work, Trial and Error
I know a lot of business gurus that say things like:
“Write it down, and the universe will respond and make it true.”
I’m going to get real for a second so I’m not misleading anyone.
Listen in closely…
Our major goal did not come true only because I wrote it down.
In fact, the underlying structures, years of groundwork that we’d been refining for months, are really what made this goal come true.
And everything just happened to fall into place finally in January, 2018.
1. We have the best staff I’ve ever hired finally in place, true role direction, and real capacity
A new move that took a while to work out was expanding our Editor role into a Quality Assistant role, a staff role I brainstormed in August 2017 to replace our struggling, low-success Editor role. We monitored, trained, and added new QAs, eventually, this role grew to have 300% more stability and success than our Editorial role that I had for five years prior.
Our expert writers, authority copywriters, content strategists, social media copywriters, continue to fall into place. Out of 200 interviewed writers in January, we added 15 new writers to our team. I live by the mantra “less is more” for our team, finding the right people and giving them full-time work is a winning formula. And the capacity we can take on with just one new writer is staggering: sometimes, 24,000 additional words/week. So, 15 new writers can mean that we can handle 360,000 additional words in a week, or 1.4 million words in a month. Because I remained focused on hiring this month (I interviewed daily), we didn’t even max out our writer team with the busy month we just had.
Because of our role structure, I’m free to do what I do best: write thought leadership blogs, run a Facebook group that links to our Twitter chat, share Instagram stories, refresh and update all our marketing strategies, run my course and write my next books.
2. Our inbound content rankings and industry trust is through the roof, a combination of a 1,000-hour project and 6 years of work
Industry positioning and organic inbound marketing takes time.
This month, our organic rankings are coming in at 12,600 keywords. We recently crossed the 1,000-published blogs mark. That took 6 years of consistent, in and out, day after day, content creation. We outrank our competitors on Google by an average 4-6% visibility. These are big reasons companies choose us to write their online content.
Next, my comprehensive course at www.contentstrategycourses.com and the accompanying book, Practical Content Strategy & Marketing, has been spreading like wildfire (89 copies of my book sold in the last few weeks with NO ads, and we’re nearing 40 students enrolled in the course). The course build took 1,000 hours of my time in 2017.
Through guest speaking appearances, my Facebook group, Twitter chat and organic connections, I’ve been spreading the knowledge of the course I created. The only paid marketing is $5/day for Facebook ad retargeting (through an installed Facebook pixel). This ensures people who visit the course site once don’t forget about it. Since Facebook targets people who are in my group, they get a double-whammy reason to invest in my strategic training.
The growth in trust has been confirmed every time I log onto social media. I received an Instagram story on my account at @fementrepreneur from a marketer who purchased my book, had his office read it, talked to JJ and bought $700 worth of content services within the same week.
It’s hard to track the actual dollar from organic positioning through inbound content, but trust me, it happens — and in a BIG way. (We’re working on industry resources to help define this better. Stand by!)
#3 is another example of this.
3. We were featured in Forbes the first week of January
Marketer Joe Escobedo featured a story on my company, which I sent to our list and we shared heavily on all platforms. This instantly grew our trust and had a great impact on our existing audience list. The tweet where I shared this article has over 104 likes. That’s with no paid promotion or ads. I’ve also been mentioned online quite a bit more frequently because of the Forbes piece.
Strategic Thinking + Time + Perseverance = Pays Off
In a recent staff meeting, I asked our full-time executive Content Director, why she thought we hit our first $120,000 month, and she confirmed my thoughts: “We have happy clients… we are focusing on the kinds of clients we want… your book… we have a good system and can handle a lot… I think it’s a combination of things.” It’s a series of events, coming together. (Not unfortunate events, for my fellow Lemony Snicket fans. 😉
Client Policy Reminder, What’s Coming, & a Few Communication Rules
I want to end this report by reminding everyone who orders with us (thank you so much for trusting us with your content!), that when you sign our policy, which every client does before they pay for their content order, it binds you to our deadlines and rules.
Please stay familiar with our turnaround times, listed on the Policy page. Although most of the time we can get content done sooner, if that time frame is outside our specified turnaround times, it will qualify for a rush fee.
Once you approve an order, it’s hard for us to go back and ask the writer to make changes: be sure to send revisions in a timely manner (we allow up to two revisions for free, which is usually all it takes to succeed on a new client project). The cutoff time for asking for revisions is within 14 days once we upload the finished content to your account. Communication Headsup
Next, please remember that emailing back to reply to a project status, or sending an email to [email protected], is not the best way to reach us. Use your account area to leave a comment on your project so our admins can see it right away, and email in to the right department using the Contact page. If you have direct staff emails, that is also a great way to reach us.
We don’t ask our staff to check email and voicemails 24/7 on weekends, so please don’t expect immediate Saturday and Sunday answers. It’s important to recharge our brains on those days, rest, and get ready for a full week of work.
In the Works: New Teamroom, Internal-Only Proprietary Training
Finally, we’re excited to share that the Content Shop will be getting completely updated this year, for an easier, better, more enhanced experience for our clients! Stay tuned for that. It’s a lot of custom development work, and will require time, effort, and investment for a company that’s completely bootstrapped.
Also, last weekend (February 2), I just launched an internal course on Teachable for our writers and staff only, training them in 2018 standards on SEO content, overall content strategy, and content conversion optimization basics.
Sneak peek at proprietary writer curriculum training.
We may be one of the only writing agencies that offers custom curriculum written just for their writers! This will continue to ensure we can serve our clients with the best service possible.
Video: My Agency Wrote 1.8 Million Words this January! 3 BIG Reasons Why We Hit Our Busiest Month Ever
Conclusion: We’re Excited for 2018, and Thrilled We Can Continue Serving You!
January 2018 was one heck of a start to a year!
We can’t wait to continue serving our clients with amazing content throughout 2018.
Here’s to your success in content marketing! You can count on us to always strive to have that at heart. -Julia
Search engine optimization is going to look waaaay different in 2018.
It’s true.
We’re forging into the future, and that means search has to change to keep up with technology and user habits/needs.
But what do “they” (the Big G) want? And, where is technology going – and how does that tie in to the search algorithm?
For starters, more people want to ask their virtual, voice-enabled home assistants questions – and get good answers. In addition, more people want to use the internet on their smartphone versus a desktop.
Google is working to accommodate this shift and will soon roll out their mobile-first index.
This means that the search engine will prioritize mobile content in its rankings.
“Soon” is a relative term, however. According to a Search Engine Land report, right now that means sometime in 2018, but it could get pushed back.
Google has also promised not to spring the roll-out of mobile-first on unsuspecting site owners. Instead, they have pledged to be “proactive” about talking to webmasters as it happens. Gary Illyes even told people not to “freak out” at the SMX Advanced conference in June 2017.
Bottom line: If you’re sitting pretty with a website that has a responsive design, you have no worries. If you still only have a desktop-friendly site, now is the time to make some upgrades.
Here’s what that looks like across devices, via W3Schools:
2. Context Will Matter More Than Ever for Content
If your content isn’t contextually relevant to the topic you’re writing about, forget it.
Forget about ranking, let alone ranking well in 2018.
As Google gets smarter, repeating keywords in your content matters less and less for SEO.
Google is no longer a toddler in terms of tech. It’s now a wise-ass teenager who knows way more than you think.
Hence, SEO for content going forward is all about context. It’s about relevance. It’s about diving deep into a topic and leading your readers far beneath the surface information.
According to experts who contributed to SEMrush’s #semrushchat, content may be THE most important ranking factor today.
Not just any content, though – “relevant, well-structured content”:
Of course, this is nothing new.
However, you can expect to see this continue to grow in importance in the months ahead.
The need for high-quality content for outstanding SEO is going nowhere.
3. Voice Search Optimization Will (Continue to Be) a Big Deal
Voice search technology is getting better all the time.
And, as it gets better and easier to use, more people are flocking to nab their own virtual assistants like Alexa on Amazon devices, Siri on Apple devices, or Cortana on Microsoft devices.
According to a recent study from eMarketer, the number of Americans using voice search jumped up by 128.9% from 2016 to 2017.
By 2019, 39.3 million millennials are expected to adopt this technology and use voice search, according to the same study.
It’s easy to see why voice search optimization will continue to grow in importance for SEO. It’s gotta keep up with the lightning-fast speed at which users are glomming onto voice-enabled technology.
4. Sites Will Be Jostling for Spots in Featured Snippets
These snippets appear at the top of search results and give searchers instant answers.
For instance, what if I need to know how far away the moon is from earth? Observe:
Before I can even scroll to the number one search result from NASA, Google hands me the answer in the featured snippet.
Needless to say, it’s prime real estate. Sites that manage to get featured don’t even have to rank #1 to be on top.
Instead, Google pulls text from your content to provide the answer and links to your page – above the number one search result.
Awesome, right?
Plus, voice search results are mainly pulled from featured snippets. If you can get your content featured here, you could really go places.
Because voice search is getting bigger, expect featured snippet spots to get pretty competitive, too.
5. Lazy Guest-Blogging = Not Cool with Google
If you’re guest-blogging with no other intention than link-building, you’re doing it wrong – and Google will punish you.
Google recently pointed out that this behavior is basically in violation of their guidelines. Specifically, it falls under the shady link schemes umbrella.
Search Engine Land has speculated that this announcement signals a warning for webmasters. They say it’s likely that an algorithm update may be coming that targets “manipulative guest posting.”
To avoid a hit on your rankings in 2018, review guest blogging mistakes to avoid and make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons: to provide value to users, and to help you grow your list with quality leads.
The Main 2018 SEO Trend? Search Engines Are Getting Smarter
I think you’ll see one overarching trend for 2018 and SEO: Search is getting smarter, better, and more intuitive.
Of course, we can never stay static for long. We can’t get too comfortable. If we don’t change along with the changing times, we’ll get left behind.
Look forward to these trends this year, and be prepared. Your rankings and site visibility will be better off, and, quite frankly, you’ll sleep better at night.
