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The Content Marketer’s Café with Julia McCoy, Episode 4: How to Set Up a Content Creation Workflow & Process You Actually Enjoy
This is for the content creator that has sometimes felt stumped at the creation phase.
Here’s a few questions that might have ran through your head:
Where do I begin?
Do I just jot down an idea and start writing?
I have a keyword. Now what?
I’m here today to give you a few quick hacks on how to approach the content creation process in a few key workflow steps that will make it easier, less challenging, and natural, every time you sit down to write.
Ready?
Even if you’re an experienced content creator, it’s normal to feel like you’re right at Square 1 again when it comes to creating content.
How do you get past that and get into a comfortable swing with content creation?
3 Phases in Content Creation
Approach it in three phases: Ideation, Creation, Preparation
FYI: These stages will differ if you’re writing for a client: example, clients usually have topics and keywords prepared, so you might be able to skip stage 1.
Why Stages? My Wake-up Call to Stop Rushing
But here’s why you need to think of creating content in stages.
When I started out in my agency, I was the sole staff member at my agency, and I was scared of growth and investing in what I needed to have, to grow. So, I did all my content, and rushed when it came to getting it out. I barely double checked what I published.
A year later, my husband who is our CTO actually asked me why I was rushing through my content creation process, when I did it so carefully for clients. That was a turning point. Now, I invest hours if not weeks into one piece of content and following a process.
Here’s how rushing harmed my content:
When the content I’d thrown together started ranking 2-3 years later, in super high organic places on Google – example, #2 for the long tail phrase hire an SEO content writer – I got zero conversions.
Only when I rewrote that crappy but high ranking content did I start to get conversions from it. (I ended up investing and paying double to fix the crappy content.)
The perils of “rushing content creation” happens for many business owners.
But if you start right and devote time and care to this process, and in the long run, your maintenance and “fixing” costs will be much less.
So let’s discuss these three stages. 1. First, IDEATION.
This is where you come up with a topic that is worthwhile. Think of content ideation like a crosspaths. You need to choose one road for every content idea you (or your client / team member) have, to make sure that idea is worth investing the time of creation into.
Once you have an idea:
Map it to a goal early in the idea phase. That way you stop low ROI from even happening.
Then, research and finalize your topic idea. Write it down.
It’s easy to know what you should be creating, when you know how your content idea aligns to your goals.
EXAMPLE: If you have a new site, skew towards looking for keywords that are relevant to your searchers so you can get some rankable content ideas going. Use a keyword tool to find that data. OR If you have an existing site, map your ideas in a sales/brand awareness direction and think of trending topics that you can add your authoritative voice to, in your industry. Use Quora to research trending questions being asked in your topic area.
#WordFromTheSponsor: I go really deep into each areas of this process and much more, in my new industry course. Get off the fence and invest in yourself, if you’re looking to grow your skillsets! Go here: www.contentstrategycourse.com
2. CREATION.
This is where you write down the topic, put it in your editorial calendar, and get started on writing. This stage includes drafting, writing, and optimizing the content, or having writer/writers creating it for you.
Time here should really depend on the piece, AND your creative flow.
Finding your flow in the creation step is KEY.
For example, I write best at morning and late in the day. I know that, so those are the only times I write. You MUST block off times around your creative flow.
Don’t create when you’re tired. Eat lunch if you haven’t. Simple stuff.
If you schedule your content around your creative flow and when you’re most charged up and refilled, you’ll create GREAT content.
This doesn’t mean you have to spend weeks writing – once I know and have researched my topic, I can write a 2000w blog from start to finish in one day if I match the writing to my creative flow. 3. PREPARATION: This is where you fine tune your piece and if it’s for your site, decide when to publish.
ALWAYS get a second pair of eyes on your content. That could be an editor, a creator you work with if you run a company and have a team, or an editor if you’re an agency writer. I don’t ever publish my content without a second pair of eyes on it.
When it comes to publishing, think of dates you can publish that will especially appeal to the topic – if it’s seasonal and applies to a holiday, publish and tie to that holiday week or date. Even Google’s birthday can mean you write an SEO topic and tie it to that day. Final Tips: If you’re doing the writing, there are also easy ways to “hack” and simplify that process.
Examples:
You can invest in a transcription service and speak your content into a recorder, then have the transcription service write it out for you. You can finalize it from there.
Draft your content ideas, then hire an editor to clean up and finalize your rough drafts.
Hire an expert copywriter!
Ask your assistant to interview you about a topic and write you up a recap—it can be much easier to edit spoken thoughts than start from scratch.
Mix up types and formats to change up how you present content to your reader. Remember your content cores.
Today’s Episode of the Content Marketer’s Café with Julia McCoy brought to you by… Julia McCoy!
I hope you enjoyed my fourth episode! Please leave a comment on the video and tell me how I’m doing! This means so much to me! 🙂
And, come back every other Saturday for a new, short video where I teach one content marketing hack you can start using today. Subscribe on YouTube: @JuliaMcCoy.
Also… In case you didn’t know, right now you can grab a FREE copy of the SEO expert checklist I use when publishing content that gets ranked by Google, when you join my Facebook group! Join the group at: http://bit.ly/contentstrategyfacebook
Email list-building is everything to your online business.
Or, it should be.
In fact, if you’re interested in conversions and business growth in general, the number one thing you should be wondering about right now is how to grow your email list.
Why?
Email is almost universally used. It’s more popular than social media for communication, and it gets far more conversions than any other platform. It’s a direct line to your audience that works.
If these assertions surprise you, consider these stats:
According to AdWeek, Twitter click-through rates (CTR) get drastically worse the more followers you have. As an example, they shared that Mashable, a big name company with millions of followers, gets a CTR of just 0.11% on its tweets.
The CTR for Facebook ads isn’t much better, unless a figure like 0.07% looks promising to you.
Email, on the other hand, is an ace in the deck. Comparatively, it wipes the floor with social media when it comes down to CTR, conversions, social reach, and ROI.
How Email Pwns Social Media for Reach and Conversions
Here’s how the floor-wiping shakes out (or, if you’re into internet slang, here’s how email pwns social media):
2.6 billion people worldwide use email, while only 1.7 billion use Facebook, the largest social network.
Now, remember Facebook’s ad click-through rates (0.07%).
Hold that tiny number in your mind, and get a load of this:
Marketing email campaigns have a CTR of 3.3% and an open rate of about 20%. (Open rate = the likelihood the person will open the email in their personal inbox and peruse its contents.) That’s nearly 50x higher than Facebook’s average.
And, of course, another biggie is that email is number one for conversions – it drives them more than any other social channel.
Look at the difference in this table from an ExactTarget survey:
It’s not rocket science. For reach and conversions, email > social media.
Email marketing leads to a bigger, opted-in, targeted audience, which leads to more reach, which leads to more conversions.
Or, to keep going with our math references, email list-building = more subscribers = a bigger targeted audience = even more reach = even more conversions.
Smart Insights sums it up this way:
The numbers speak for themselves. Email has power.
To drive home the point, OptinMonster gives you a zoomed-out picture of how email stacks up against Facebook and Twitter for general use. These numbers are based on an analysis of comprehensive stats from 2016:
Needless to say, you definitely should want a bigger list of email subscribers.
So, how do you leverage your content marketing to gain more subscribers and increase your content’s ROI?
Let’s explore how to grow your email list by tying in some content marketing tactics. That way, you can enjoy the potential email offers and make your content more valuable.
How to Grow Your Email List: 9 Tactics to Try in Your Content Marketing
Want to grow your email list? Of course you do. Draw on your content marketing to reel them in and build trust. Then, hit the ground running with some of these tactics.
1. Use Lead Magnets to Draw in Subscribers
Digital Marketer defines a lead magnet as “an irresistible bribe offering a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.”
That pretty much sums it up. A lead magnet is essentially a piece of content that you offer for free. The catch is the prospect has to give you their email address in order to get it/download it/access it/etc. That content piece could be anything. It might be a guide, an eBook, an email course, or a white paper.
The point is, you’re offering value in exchange for value.
Here are some top tips for making sure you’re offering lead magnets that people will want to hand over their details for.
Tips for Creating Good Lead Magnets
Be specific. Your lead magnet content needs to address a specific problem that a specific segment of your audience may have.
Provide a solution. Your lead magnet needs to give a valuable solution to the problem.
Forget length. Your lead magnet doesn’t have to be lengthy to be useful. In fact, Digital Marketer says longer-form content is often least likely to convert. Your eBook, for example, doesn’t have to be a novel – it can be 20 pages or less! The same goes for any other form of content. Think shorter.
Provide quick benefits. Within minutes of opening up your lead magnet and digesting the content, your prospect should immediately benefit. This can mean increased knowledge or insights, or some other gain. It shouldn’t take months, or even weeks. At the very most, it should take days.
Here’s a good lead magnet example (about lead magnets!) from OptinMonster. They chose to offer a cheat sheet:
When you download it, you get a printable PDF checklist divided into categories:
Insider “secrets” do really well, especially if you’re sharing them with an audience that is warm and with people that know, like, and trust you. This is a great example of providing “quick benefits.”
What Types of Lead Magnets Should You Use?
There is no single perfect lead magnet. The right type of content “bonus” you offer your readers depends on their preferences, your business, and other factors.
That said, here are some solid ideas for starters.
Cheat sheets – A cheat sheet gives your audience a list of steps to check off for a certain task. Whatever it is, they won’t have to remember the right steps in the right order. They can just look at your cheat sheet!
Checklists – A checklist is similar to a cheat sheet, but it’s a simpler one that’s generally shorter. Instead of steps, you might list the tools or resources needed for a task.
Comprehensive resource lists – Where do you get all the good stuff that helps you in your business on a daily basis? Think apps, websites, downloads, or lists where you’re compiling information to save the audience research time.
Guides – Guides go deeper than cheat sheets. They’re step-by-step, but they take time to carefully explain those steps in more detail. They provide the how and the why behind the process.
Prompts – Prompts are little snippets that can spark creativity. You can provide these to help your audience with idea generation for any topic.
Short eBooks – If you have an incredible benefit or solution to a problem you can write about with authority, a short eBook is a good format for it.
Tutorials – Show your audience how to do something cool and valuable. Offer them a video tutorial, or create a PDF document with illustrated steps.
2. Invest in Evergreen Content
Evergreen content stays fresh, sweet-smelling, and tasty for months or even years after you make it (unlike those leftovers that sat in your fridge for merely a week before going bad).
Your evergreen content can be a wonderful lead-in for growing your email subscribers. But first, you have to create it and promote it.
Ideally, your lead magnets should be evergreen content that has no expiration date. They should be useful not just this instant, but also in six weeks, in six months, and in a couple years.
This is content that keeps working hard for you.
3. Use CTAs on EVERY Relevant Blog Post
This is one of the tips I personally rely on like crazy. Once you have a lead magnet, you need to direct traffic to it. You can do this easily by including a CTA at the end of every related (or relevant) blog post.
Your CTAs should be simple, short, snappy, and make readers want to go do whatever you’re “calling” them to accomplish. Indeed, a commanding CTA is the extra push a reader might need to follow through.
Never write a blog post without including a matching call-to-action. Even if you’re not linking to a lead magnet (you can also link to a service page, for instance), it’s how you add ROI to your content. The authority and trust you’re building, and the value you’re providing with a good blog make it the perfect lead-in to ask the reader to go one step further.
Think of every blog post as a conversion tool, basically. You’re continually building up your relationship with your audience so they’ll become a lead. You’re nurturing trust.
But, the best way to turn blogs into conversion tools is to include that CTA tied to your lead magnet.
Look at how CoSchedule tied their blog post to their CTA and their lead magnet (an “evergreen content kit”).
Their blog post headline:
Their lead magnet and CTA telling you to get it (located right in the post):
4. Connect Your Lead Magnet and CTAs to a Specific Opt-In Landing Page
So, you created an evergreen lead magnet. You urged readers to go get your content for free through a call-to-action on a related blog. Now it’s time to connect all the dots.
Your lead magnet (and your lead magnet CTA) needs a corresponding landing page with a form. This is what the CTA points to. It sweeps readers away to a magical place where you collect their email addresses in exchange for the content.
This is far easier to do if you use email marketing software. If you don’t have it, get it – it’s a must.
5. Try Gated Content to Turn Blog Posts into Lead Magnets
Here’s another idea. Try gating some of your content to get email subscriptions.
This simply means that part of a blog post is hidden. For instance, 1/3 of the post is available to read, but when readers reach that limit, they’re blocked off from reading any further unless they enter their email address to “unlock” the content.
This is an easy tip because you can use content you already have. Just remember that gated content needs to be highly valuable, well-written, and informative in order to give the reader the expected payoff.
In other words, if the blog post is mediocre, your readers won’t be happy. (“I entered my email for this crap?” is the last thing you want them to utter after hitting “submit.”) Don’t gate just any content – gate some of your best, most awesome, in-depth content.
Remember, we’re trading value-for-value, here. The reader’s email is worth a lot to you, so return the favor.
When done right, you’ll give your audience the option to unlock a great blog post with lots of good insights, tips, or information. They’ll be scrambling to give you their details. This is how you turn a blog post into a lead magnet!
6. Create “Hub Pages” for Your Most-Blogged-About Topics
Another way to turn blog posts into lead magnets: Gather them together by topic on “hub pages,” as Help Scout calls them.
A hub page is just what it sounds like. It’s a hub for all of your best blog posts that fall under one topic.
A great example is Moz’s SEO Learning Center. On one page, they’ve compiled all of their articles about using SEO to boost your business.
For instance, if you want to browse all of their articles about link building, click on that topic. It’s all there:
This is all well and good, you may think, but how do you turn hub pages into lead magnets?
Add the CTA! Indeed, Moz has one on their hub page, nice and big and unmissable:
The CTA appeals to those who might be browsing this knowledge base of SEO information.
For your hub page CTA, you might want to include an opt-in form where visitors can enter their email address in return for updates on when you publish that type of content.
Not only are hub pages incredibly useful for your audience, they can also showcase your awesome blog posts that might otherwise be buried in your archives. Win-win!
7. Use CTAs in Your Guest Posts
Do you frequently guest post on different industry sites?
Depending on what the site allows, make sure you’re taking advantage of the extra platform and include a CTA with your post.
This doesn’t mean the actual content: no, rather, your author byline is the sweet spot for your CTA.
It can be as simple as a link back to your main site, or something fancier.
Help Scout recommends going one step further. Link your CTA in your byline to a custom landing page just for that guest post. This makes a lot of sense if you’re posting somewhere with a higher profile and the potential for plenty of readers. On the landing page, welcome those readers, offer a freebie, and ask for their details in exchange. Done.
You’re already focused on creating high-quality guest posts to draw people back to your brand. Use these posts to intrigue new readers and get them to subscribe. Linking to a few key places that feature you and your services is a great place to start.
8. Make Sure Your CTAs Are Irresistible
There’s a lot of CTA talk in this guide, but what if your CTA-writing skills aren’t so great?
Well, you need to get better.
There’s lots of advice out there on how to write a dynamite CTA. However, to figure out what works best for your audience and your business, testing can help immensely.
For instance, HubSpot has a tool that lets you create two versions of the same CTA and test each one (called an A/B variation test). Experiment with different types, wording, and graphic elements to see which CTA comes out on top.
9. Bonus: Add Opt-In Forms and CTAs Wherever You Can Get Away With It
Once you optimize your content for gathering email subscriptions and growing your list, remember to stay creative with your asks.
Yes, write engaging CTAs, but don’t forget to give your audience as many chances to opt-in as possible. Don’t stop short of being annoying about it – seriously, sometimes you have to be annoying to get results. (Depending on how you look at it, annoying often only means persistent.)
On your site, experiment with CTA placement and opt-in forms.
For instance, look at how Kissmetrics uses a floating opt-in form. It’s on top of the left sidebar of every page, but it also floats alongside the main content as you scroll down.
It follows you, so you’re sure to see it wherever you are on their site. It’s unobtrusive, but it’s still right there, so if you decide you want to sign up, it’s no problem. (And that’s what they’re banking on.)
Similarly, don’t be afraid of pop-ups, either. You may be dismissive of them, citing “annoying” as your reasoning. Meanwhile, other marketers are disagreeing with you, saying, “No, effective.”
The Crazy Egg blog presents a whole mound of stats that back that up in this post. One example: A craft blogger tested out two methods for opting-in. One was a sidebar form, the other was a pop-up. Guess which one earned 1,375% more subscribers?
Do I need to say it?
Yep, it was the pop-up.
Definitely try adding these simple ways to opt-in on your blog pages and other content pages. See what happens.
So, You’ve Got People Subscribing…
Once you start building your email list, you’ll start seeing the benefits. However, you still need to work to keep your subscribers around after the fact. You don’t want them deleting your emails without reading them, or hitting “unsubscribe.”
To keep them interested and engaged, especially the people who are ready to bounce, you need to keep trying.
Case Study: How to Re-Engage Your List and Revive “Dead” Subscribers
Sometimes, people stop engaging with your emails. They stop clicking, they stop reading, and they fail to even open them.
In this case, your reach through email ceases to be effective. So, how do you get those people back, so your emails can keep working how they’re supposed to?
There IS a way.
We know this one works because we’ve done it here at Express Writers with success.
This year, I decided to do some list cleanup. Our email list was engaging at really low rates, under 20% across 6,000 people. I decided to do something that would re-engage our subscribers and tell me who our active readers really were.
Here’s how it happened:
We created a lead magnet and sent it out to our email list.
Said lead magnet (“How to Write Social Media Posts”) was born because it was a “hot topic” I discovered from our Twitter chat (EW #ContentWritingChat). I knew it was a useful subject our readers would value. But, some of them just weren’t seeing it.
So, after the first try, we decided to re-engage our list. We put the lead magnet up on our site, then told our email subscribers (again).
The results: That DAY, 62 people signed up and got the content! That’s huge – our list re-engaged, and we got to know who our engaged readers were.
This case study is proof of the old adage:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Similarly, if at first your email subscribers don’t take note of what you’re offering, repackage the offer and present it again.
It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does.
Another tip for retaining and engaging your email list? Write good email marketing copy.
It’s Simple: Grow Your Email List, Grow Your Brand
This point bears repeating: Email is everything for online businesses. That is, only if you want more engagement, leads, and growth. (Who doesn’t want those things?)
2.7 billion people use email. 91% use it daily. 77% prefer email when it comes to receiving permission-based promotional messages from businesses.
Even better? Email’s organic reach is gigantic as compared to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
This study from ReturnPath even calls email “the workhorse” and “the foundation” of any digital marketing program.
This is why learning how to grow your email list is so valuable. You can use email to do so much for your business, for your brand, and for your bottom line.
It’s time to hop on the email train and start implementing these techniques. Get going and tie gathering subscribers into your content marketing. Not only will your content become more valuable, you’ll entice your visitors and audience to become valuable leads. You’ll have a direct line to their personal inboxes, which they sanctioned.
That’s huge.
Great content with strong CTAs can work wonders to grow your email list.
To celebrate, I’ve put together a short, interview Q/A style piece on why and how our blogging has brought us serious return and become a worthwhile investment.
Enjoy!
We Hit 1,000 Blogs! What It Looks Like to Blog One Thousand Times = And the Return On Investment
Ready? Let’s jump in!
How Long Has the Write Blog Been Running?
Since September, 2012, we’ve been blogging at www.expresswriters.com/write-blog.
As of today, that makes 5 years and 1 month.
How Consistent Have We Been?
On average, we publish 3-4 blogs every single week, and have kept up this consistency since our first month.
How Much Has This Consistency Paid Off?
HUGE dividends.
1) Rankings: Today, we have over 11,000 keywords ranking organically in Google from the blogs we’ve posted:
Many of the ranking terms are long-tail keywords, and we see our blog posts hitting the top 3, 5, 10 and 15 spots in Google for these keywords. Over 400+ keywords are within the top 5 results of Google.
2) Direct leads and sales: Our talk to sales forms come in primarily when prospects find our content in Google. Here’s an example of one of those forms. Our Sales Manager, Tamila, assisted prospect Jeff with a cart containing the product he needed, and he bought within just a few days.
And…
We’ve had over 500 talk to sales forms filled out since 2012!
On average, 50-70% of our Talk to Sales close within 1-2 weeks. Our typical minimum investment is anywhere from $60 – $100 or $150, on a new client’s first order. If we were to shoot for the middle, $100, that’s $50,000 minimum right there. But, many of these Talk to Sales have worked out to much more. For instance, one contract was worth $75,000 over the course of 15 months.
Safe to say, these organic leads have brought us a HUGE majority of our income.
How Much Have You Invested Into It?
I write a major part of all the content on the Write Blog, with a lot of assistance. I have three trained expert writers on staff that help me create some of the content, while I research and write about the trends. I write and schedule all email content. We have a designer on staff that creates the content visuals for us.
Content types like infographics, for example this one, can cost upwards of $500 to create, plan, and design. We do infographics quarterly.
Besides that, I audit and check our website content, product descriptions, and update as needed, which is usually a bi-weekly job. We have more than 90 site pages, not including product descriptions!
Tools and Costs Involved?
We use ConvertKit, which is $75/month for email marketing: MeetEdgar, $49/month to social share: and on average, I pay out a minimum of $250/weekly in content creation time to my designer, content creators, editors, and our staff social media manager. My hours are at least 5 weekly, sometimes more.
It’s Not Easy, But Done Right The Dividends of Blogging Are Huge
If you’re not regularly blogging, let this be a testament and inspiration to what happens when you do – and roll your sleeves up and get going!
We’re a team that lives what we say – we abide by the products we sell! Seriously, I don’t know of another content agency that lives and eats because of the huge amounts of content they’ve created. We’re able to see leads organically roll in from Google consistently – day in, day out.
These can often pose quite a challenge to writers.
It’s not the keywords themselves. Those tend to be pretty straightforward.
It’s the often odd combinations of words in ways that are anything but grammatically correct.
Add to that a general lack of punctuation, throw in the name of a city and state, and you have what seems like a recipe for the most awkward sentences ever written!
So, how do we creatively insert a keyword in our content for best results?
Let’s explore.
The Content Marketer’s Café with Julia McCoy, Episode 3: How to Use Long-Tail Keywords Naturally In Your Content for SEO Success
Competition Comparison: Long-Tail Keywords vs. Broad Keywords
I’ve been able to rank content just on my site, expresswriters.com, for over 11,000 phrases.
Do you know what the majority of those keyword phrases are?
Long-tail phrases.
So when you’re looking for keywords to optimize your content with, you can either look up broad or long tail keywords.
Broad Keywords
1-2 words long
Also known as: “short tail”, “head terms”
Long Tail Keywords
3-5 words
Long tail keywords are primarily better because of two factors:
Lower competition: Easier to rank for. Great opportunities for new, emerging or growing sites.
Higher buying intent (ROI): Searchers are usually looking a specific answer to their question and are much more likely to be in the buying stage. Example: “where to buy basketball shoes online” vs. “shoes” – the searcher knows exactly what he wants by searching the long tail keyword, and he/she is much more ready to buy!
Broad keywords are tempting because of the amount of traffic searching for them.
But remember, you need the right traffic, not a ton of traffic, when it comes to looking at the value of keywords that will bring in real results.
Which type of customer would sell today if they walked in your dress shop?
Someone who wants a “dress”
Someone who wants a black dress, size M, for an evening party next week
One of my favorite tools to research keywords with is SEMrush and Mangools KWFinder.
In KWfinder, here’s what it looks like to find a low competition long-tail keyword.
For example, we looked up a keyword, blogging statistics. We wrote a blog around this as a keyword since it had a “possible rating at 50/100” – that’s since gone up to 52 – and we were able to get our blog in the top 4 results for that keyword. The left side of KWFinder is where you’ll find your gold mines – long tail keyword opportunities that you can write content pieces around.
I recommend going long-form and writing one piece of content around one keyword for best results. Don’t dilute and cram too many keywords in one piece.
Natural Language in SEO
The days of keyword-stuffing your way to the first page of Google are looooong gone, but today with how smart Google is, there’s no reason you can’t do this:
[bctt tweet=”Write for search engines without sounding like you’re writing for search engines, says @JuliaEMcCoy. ?” username=”ExpWriters”]
When it comes to writing with SEO in mind, this means using natural language – and natural variations of the words that appear in the focus and secondary keywords – instead of inserting the same exact keywords and key phrases into your text over and over again.
Let’s Talk About… Focus Keywords + Natural Usage
We always ask our clients for one focus keyword per piece.
But when it comes to penning the actual copy, if the exact keyword phrase doesn’t flow well, we fall back on just writing naturally.
Here’s an example.
For instance, this client-supplied keyword phrase:
“best ux designer Austin”
Clearly won’t work in either the title tag, meta description, or in the content (page, article, blog post, etc.). It may be an important, valuable keyword phrase for the client, but it’s a bit too clunky to use as is.
Even if you think you can squeeze that kind of phrase into a sentence – such as “When it comes to finding the best UX designer, Austin has a lot of choices to offer.” Sure, once in a while you’ll be able to get away with that. But far too often, the inclination seems to be to get hung up on that exact keyword phrase.
In a title tag or headline, the best approach would be to use the keyword naturally, like so:
“How to Find the Best Web and UX Designer in Austin”
You would then use variations on this keyword phrase throughout your content.
Bottom line:
Don’t try to force the keyword into the copy, and don’t then use the exact same keyword or key phrase over and over. Use synonymous keywords.
Location-Based Keywords
Let’s talk briefly about location-based keywords.
Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, along comes a location-based keyword:
“eyedoctor in Burlington Vermont”
Remember:
To Google, there is absolutely no difference between:
“eyedoctor in Burlington VT” and “eye doctor in Burlington, VT”
Since we’re humans writing for humans – we should always defer to using proper punctuation, grammar, and style, even in SEO writing.
So, use the space between eye and doctor.
When you take into account that these keyword lists being supplied to (or, in some cases, created by) us are almost always generated by such tools as Google’s keyword tool and other tools – not actual humans – it’s not surprising the keywords provided to us don’t include punctuation, proper grammar, etc.: because they were generated by algorithms/tools.
It’s absolutely essential for websites to use location keywords in the page titles and Meta description tags of their pages. When it comes to using those same location keywords in the content itself – in the copy, in headings, and in image Alt tags – remember to avoid overuse.
Ways to Get Creative with Location-Based Keywords
Let’s say your keyword is “gluten free pasta Phoenix.”
You don’t have to jam that keyword all over your web page, article, blog post, etc. – including in the meta data for those pages.
You can break it up any number of ways: pasta, Phoenix, gluten free, gluten, gluten free pasta, gluten free in Phoenix, pasta in Phoenix. That’s a lot of variation out of one phrase!
It is, however, still important to use your focus keyword or phrase in the first and last paragraphs, at least one <H2> heading, and the title of the article, if at all possible.
But as we’ve already discussed, make sure you’re using those keywords naturally.
Ultimately, it’s about balance: be creative, use real sentences and headings, speak naturally, and don’t overdo it.
How to Tell if You’re Overdoing It with a Keyword
It may sound silly, but it really works: simply read your content out loud and pay attention to how it feels reading the content, and listen for any awkwardness, clunky-sounding sentences or phrases, general weirdness.
You should be able to hear where your writing doesn’t feel natural – it won’t easily roll off the tip of your tongue.
You’ll also hear where you use a specific word too many times.
And a nice side benefit to reading it aloud – even if you’re doing it silently – is you’ll almost always find places that could benefit from a bit of finesse and polish.
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Twitter is all about brevity. It’s been this way since… well, always.
It’s kind of Twitter’s calling-card.
Pretty soon, all that may be changing.
If this makes you immediately confused, I don’t blame you. Twitter has only ever been about those famed (and infamous) 140-characters – no more, no less. You have to mold your words to this limit, get creative with a succession of tweets, or simply not tweet at all if you can’t be concise.
Now, Twitter wants to experiment with doubling the character limit.
A great point she made is the fact that Twitter’s original limits are what made it so cool. An example she gives is Twitter chats. Often, chats accumulate hundreds of tweets in lightning-quick fashion. They’re fast-moving, but that’s part of the reason they work.
You can easily blip through 140 characters and move on to the next when hundreds of tweets are flying in. Now, imagine trying to sift through tweets in a Twitter chat that are double the length.
All of a sudden, we have a problem, and one of the best parts of Twitter is compromised. Instead of participating in a lightning-round talk, you’ll get bogged down in meandering posts. It will be like you’re in a bloated discussion thread with people posting novels instead of comments.
Madalyn addresses that point, too. She says, “Twitter doesn’t need to be another Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.”
She couldn’t be more on-target. The way it is now, Twitter is unique, and this is one of the reasons lots of people make it their social network of choice.
I personally agree, especially since we at EW have a Twitter chat, #ContentWritingChat. What will that chat look like with 280-character tweets? Probably nothing like it does now, which is concerning.
Our Community at #ContentWritingChat Says “Don’t Do It, Twitter”
We asked the question as an icebreaker in yesterday’s #ContentWritingChat:
Most of the people who answered voted the change down.
280 Characters = Less Creativity?
I have spent six years molding my writing to Twitter’s limitations.
Guess what? It’s not a roadblock or a hurdle. It’s a creative challenge, and it’s made me a better writer.
You want proof of how the 140-character limit forces you to get to the meat of what you want to say, and say it well? Look at this fantastic example. Somebody took Jack’s initial announcement and cut out all the unnecessary wording:
The result is brilliant (AND it’s 140 characters!). It really showcases how Twitter’s brevity is an asset.
Why Is Twitter Testing the Waters for Longer Tweets?
All this chatter around Twitter’s announcement brings us back to the question of why. Why is Twitter doing this? Haven’t they ever heard the cliché, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?”
Nah. As with most other things, this is about money.
According to NPR, Twitter has discovered through research that people tend to tweet more when they have extra space to write. Of course, when people tweet more, the company makes more money.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s stocks have been on a downward slope for quite a while. You do the math. Suddenly, this whole issue seems to be less about improving the user experience, especially since the platform has been ignoring a bigger user plea for quite some time: Let us edit tweets!
Or, as this Twitter user sums it up:
twitter users: let us edit tweets
twitter: we made everything round
users: edit button
twitter: everyone is allowed to be twice as annoying
The Other Side: How Are 280 Characters a Good Thing?
Twitter, of course, says that the update is about helping people “more easily express themselves.”
They say that English users regularly run into the problem of trying to “cram” their thoughts into a tweet. The solution is to edit it down rigorously, omit a word that’s important to the overall meaning, or abandon the effort altogether.
Meanwhile, users in other countries like Japan (where they can fit more information in a tweet because of language differences), seem to have it easy-breezy. They type out their thoughts with “room to spare” and no stress.
Twitter also presents this graph, which is supposed to mean something and explain why they’re excited about the change-up:
Apparently, it’s better for more users not to constantly hit the character limit (I think).
The Atlantic has gone on the defensive for the change, too. They say users have gone beyond Twitter’s original boundaries anyway, forcing the platform to shift (for instance, adding the ability to attach pictures to tweets). People have found ways to work around the limitations, too (posting screenshots of longer texts, numbering their tweets, etc.).
Less stress is great, no question. And it’s absolutely true that increasing the 140-character limit will make a lot of users’ lives easier.
(If you’re in this camp – more intrigued than dismayed – you can test the broader limits with this clever workaround.)
Still, my initial objections remain. Twitter is losing a piece of its identity with this change. In the process, it’s inching closer to being like the other social media networks.
For those of us who respect the current character limit for what it is and use it to say what we mean (and mean what we say), it’s not particularly good news.
However, change is always inevitable. We’ll adjust.
We’ll just miss the “character” and flavor the old Twitter limitations gave our posts and conversations.
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Apparently, it’s better for more users not to constantly hit the character limit (I think).