As we start the New Year, here’s a great question to ask yourself (and your clients, too):
Why should you commit to investing in content marketing as an integral part of your marketing strategy?
This powerful form of marketing fuels 99% of our own lead and revenue generation, so we know well what content marketing can do for a brand.
This week, we put together an infographic with a few of our favorite reasons to invest in content marketing, featuring (killer) statistics with undoubtable proof that this form of modern marketing is worth every penny you put into it.
Plus, we’ve included 5 principles to help you do your best content marketing this year! Read on for the full story. Infographic written and designed by the team at Express Writers.
Companies that blog more than 16 times each month earn 5x as many leads as companies that only blog 4 times!
60% of customers say they feel better about a business after reading their original blog posts
Since 23% of social media message contain content, creating more of it means more shares around the web
4 Stats: You’ll Give Your SEO a Boost
72% of marketers worldwide report that content creation is the biggest factor in successful SEO
The majority of web links go to the top 10% of content on the web
50% of marketers say that content has increased the strength of their company’s SEO
Content with a strong headline can boost page views by 500%. This enhances SEO and helps you rank better.
Bonus: You’ll Stand Out as a Thought Leader
Content helps you become a thought leader in the following ways:
It showcases your expertise
Helps you build your voice
Allows you to dominate your niche
Give you a platform for sharing and promotion
5 Fast Tips to Dominate Content Marketing in 2017
1. Create long-form content
Readers love long-form content and it generates more shares and links. For best results, publish posts with more than 1,500 words.
2. Produce visual content
Content with images earns 70% more views than content without images. Boost your engagement by adding visuals to your blog posts and producing infographics, memes, videos, and other visual marketing material.
3. Do your research
Relevant, fact-dense, original content performs best. Instead of just scratching the surface, dig deeper to give your readers something they can’t find anywhere else.
4. Share your content on social
In May of 2015, smartphone social media use jumped 51% in users between the ages of 25-34. Share your content on social to get the most possible traction from each piece.
5. Develop a content marketing program
79% of the most successful content marketers have a clear idea of what effective content marketing looks like and how to achieve it. Follow in their footsteps!
When it comes to writing and formatting a blog post, there’s a lot to think about. If you’re publishing it onsite, you’ll need to consider keywords, SEO, content organization, image inclusion, and more.
Up there high in priority to include in your content (and one that’s commonly tough to map out correctly), is the presence of great sub headers to optimize and visually format your content for the reader.
Known by their tags, H1s, H2s, and H3s, while it may seem like article subheaders could be small beans that can be disregarded. But in the world of content and online writing, this simply isn’t true.
In fact, how you choose to use header tags can have a major effect on how well your content performs. Use them wrong, and you may find your content suffering as a result.
Here’s a guide to subheaders: what you need to know about these pesky, yet critical, little elements that should be placed in your content with care. Read on!
First Things First in our Guide to Subheaders: Defining the Purpose of a Subheading
Subheaders, subheads, or header tags all refer to what’s written inside of a bit of code known as H1, H2, H3. The code, placed in the text editor, tells the HTML that this is a bold subheading, and to present it visually that way.
Like so:
(Can you tell our First Things First in our Guide…, above, is an H2?)
Used correctly in content, these little headings act like a small table of contents in your online content. If people read web pages word-for-word, like a book, headers might not be as critical as they currently are. Given the fact that people skim web pages more than they read them, header tags help people determine what they can expect to find in a given chunk of web content.
They’re vital to a great web presence and content presentation.
According to Slate.com, most visitors read only about 60% of content before bouncing off a page. 10% of people never even scroll at all! In light of the fact that peoples’ attention spans have gotten worse in recent years, it’s critical for content creators to toss their readers a bone by inserting relevant subheaders that provide a hint about what’s coming up next and why it matters.
In addition to helping people locate the points of interest in a piece of content, these small, in-text guide posts can also go a long way toward helping search engines determine what your content is about and rank it accordingly.
Your Guide to Subheaders: When to Use H1s, H2s, and H3s in Your Online Content
Learning to use H1s, H2s and H3s in your written online content is essential. Here are some key tips for each of these tags.
H1 Tags
Some people use H1s as their subheaders tags. Don’t be swayed: this is a terrible idea. While H1s can help your rankings when they’re used correctly, you need to know that you should neveruse an H1 title in your WordPress blogs. Never. H1s should only ever be used in the HTML that starts a page. If you plug in an H1 in your WordPress blogs, the SERP robots will be confused about the topic of the page and may not rank it correctly.
It’s a safe guideline to say that a H1 tag should virtually never be used by a writer. It may be used by the development team to input code into the page header, but it’s not commonly something a writer would touch.
H2 Tags
Header 2 Tags are much more common and necessary than header 1 tags. H2 and H3 tags are critical for formatting content correctly, and can play a massive role in how well content performs online.
Here’s an example of how H2 tags should be featured in online content:
Think of H2 tags as tiny table of contents pieces, showing your readers where to go and what they can expect to find in the given sections of your blog. What’s more, H2 tags must be optimized accordingly with your keyword phrases of choice since they help SERP crawler bots interpret your pages and rank them accordingly.
H3 Tags
Header 3 tags, like H2 tags, are critical for organizing your content. Used in conjunction with H2 tags, but always after H2 tags, they are important for organizing your content and helping to guide your readers through it.
For an example of how H3s work, check out this mock paragraph:
H3 tags are like the little siblings to H2 content, and should be used throughout your content to organize it more efficiently.
7 Little Tips and Tricks to Help You Create Awesome Subheaders
Now that you know why headers are important, let’s talk about how to use them correctly in your content writing:
1. Think of subheaders as article titles, and write to impress your readers
You know how hard you work on a blog title? Optimize your subheaders with the same care and attention! Think of each one as a winning title that could make or break your content (because, really, people scroll down dependent on how good your content *cough* subheads *cough* is). With today’s typical attention span being less than a goldfish (<12 seconds), you want to knock your reader’s socks off.
Unless you have a client who specifies that he or she would like their subheaders longer or shorter, keep them to five words at least. This helps improve the subheaders’ SEO value and enhance your visibility online. It will also enhance the value of your individual headers and make them easier for readers to engage with.
3. The first subheader you write should be optimized with your focus keyword
Give yourself an SEO boost by including your keyword phrase in the first subheader you write. It will help Google’s crawler bots determine what your site is about and rank it accordingly. It also helps your content feel cohesive and attractive for readers.
4. Include at least two subheaders in each 500 words of blog material
Subheaders help break up and organize your content, so don’t be afraid to use them accordingly. If you’re writing content with more than 500 words, consider including more than two subheaders.
For example: this piece is 1,400 words, and contains an astounding 14 subheaders! That’s pretty much 1 per every 100 words. But if you stand back, the piece is entirely readable. With readability being your goal, don’t be afraid of creating a lot of subheads in your content.
5. The first subheader and the last subheader in your content should have an H2
Think of these as the bookends of your content. They help organize it and make it visually appealing for readers. What’s more, they can help your content look more readable and may boost its conversion rate.
6. Always use a concluding H2 header
The concluding header is more critical than many people give it credit for. That said, use it in your content to help boost readability and end the material on a good note for your readers. Don’t ever neglect the concluding H2 header in your content.
7. Use H3s to flesh out content under H2 headers
H3 headers play the primary role of being used to break down content under H2 subheaders. Use them for lists and bulleted information
Use This Guide to Subheaders & Create Content Flow
While there’s a great deal of confusion about headers and how they’re supposed to be used in online writing, these tips will help you master the use of H2 and H3 tags in your online writing.
Just remember, as a writer, your domain is H2s and H3s. There’s no need to bother with H1 tags, unless you’re writing them into a page’s code. Instead, use H2 and H3 headers to clarify your page’s meaning, break it up more intuitively, and help your readers follow through more easily.
When you do this correctly, it can help readers connect with and enjoy your content, and may make it simpler for some people to read.
What’s more, it can help you rank more prominently in the SERPs, which benefits you and your content all at once.
While headers can be confusing, learning to use them in your online content is essential, and this guide is here to help you learn to use headers throughout your online writing, without making many of the preventable mistakes others have with headers in times past. When you learn to master headers, your entire online writing life will benefit from it and you will prosper.
Content writing is currently one of the most essential digital actions.
The need for it, industry regardless, has virtually no limit. Talk of how content writing works, what result it produces, and how to effectively strategize around it, pops up in virtually every niche. Hospitals have site copy needs, mechanics start their own informative blogs, Mexican restaurants publish social media updates, and agencies of all types create a ton of content, from blogs, to landing pages and white papers (not to mention creating all of that x 10 for their own client base).
With all this content flying around, it’s easy to wonder where it comes from and how content writing works as a whole. If you’re new to the world of content writing, the entire thing could easily seem like an impenetrable mystery, populated by highly trained professionals that you cannot access nor understand.
Fortunately, learning how the world of online content writing works is a simple as understanding the mechanisms that make the process move. While it’s true that the world of content writing is complex, it is far from inaccessible.
We’re here today to talk about how content writing works, and which types of content you should get familiar with to build out your online presence. Grab a coffee, and read on!
How Content Writing Works: Understanding the Big Picture & How Content Types Support Each Other
The first step in understanding how content writing works is understanding how seriously interrelated content creation, and its elements, really is.
Today, it’s not enough to just have a blog or to just have a website.
Instead, the world of content writing relies on various types of content, ranging from a PR writing to social media, to come together and create one cohesive content strategy. Without any of these different pieces, the entire strategy falls apart, and content writing doesn’t work.
While it may seem like a lot of work to focus on creating 7 to 10 different types of content, the reason that each type of content is so essential is simple: each type of content, from white papers to blog posts, appeals to a slightly different segment of a company’s audience.
Plus, you need content that appeals to your audience at all levels – not just at a buyer level.
Not all consumers who arrive on your website are ready to buy something, and if you don’t have content to appeal to each of these groups and the dozens of smaller groups in between, you’re going to lose many of your leads, which will have an adverse impact on your company’s bottom line.
This is exactly why it is so critical to use various types of content in your content strategy and to understand how content writing works, and how each specific type of content relies on many other types of content to function properly. And, not limit yourself to creating only one or two types of content.
The 10 Pillars of Good Content Writing
If you were an excellent blogger, but you didn’t understand how to create any other type of content, you might succeed online for a while. The fact of the matter is that there is a high demand for blogs, people love to read them, and you’d likely see some return on investment.
Over time, however, your content strategy would begin to wear thin because it would be too one-dimensional. To thrive and continue from months and years, a content strategy needs enough pillars to equally disburse its weight. Know how content writing works when you understand the “big picture.” Here are the 10 top components of great modern copywriting:
1. Web Content
Think of content writing like building a house. In this analogy, web content is the foundation. Web content, which includes the text on individual website pages, landing pages, about us pages, contact pages, and more is the foundational content that every company needs to build an online presence.
Without this, readers cannot find the information they’re seeking about your company, and the rest of your content strategy has nothing to build on. As such, web content is the single most critical and essential type of online content writing in the modern world.
2. Blogs
If web content is the foundation, blogging is the framework for the house. Blogging is a primary category of filler content that provides structure and formatting for virtually everything else you do online.
Did you also know that B2C companies that blog 11+ times per month gain more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only four-five times a month? (Source: Hubspot)
Aside from your company’s web page, your blog is the place where consumers can learn the most about you.
Not only does it showcase your brand personality, but it also helps readers get a sense of who you are, what you care about, which topics to cover, and how much value you can provide for them, or not. As such, blogging is a highly essential type of online content writing, and when it’s done correctly, it can dramatically increase your views, your return on investment, and your overall success in the world of digital content creation.
Blogs today are as diverse as they are critical. There is no one-size-fits-all format for a blog. Instead, there are multiple styles of blogs including list blogs, “how to” blogs, “what to avoid” blogs, and more. By mixing and matching these various blog formats, you can create a diverse and highly functional online content strategy.
3. Social Media
Social media is the house’s furnishings and critical tools. You wouldn’t want to cook in the kitchen without a stove or spatula, and you wouldn’t want to develop an online content strategy without social media.
Think of social media as a supporting player: it’s not enough for a company to only have a social media presence, but companies without any social media presence whatsoever typically do not make it very far in today’s social dominated culture. For example, we’ve been able to do very well on Twitter and expand our profile reach to millions of users by starting a Twitter Chat, #ContentWritingChat.
Even small, local businesses use social media as a method to broaden their reach an appeal to leads. And with so many social media platforms to choose from, it’s easier than ever to find a distribution channel that aligns perfectly with your brand’s personality and message.
Today, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, LinkedIn, and Twitter, dominate social media marketing strategies and provide targeted and ongoing value for brands and all industries.
4. Advertising & Sales Copy
Advertising and sales copy are the curb appeal of the home, when it comes to your online copy.
While everything may be cozy and welcoming on the inside, the job of advertising and sales copy, or curb appeal, is to showcase the unique attributes of the “home” to people on the outside.
Plus, advertising and sales copy applies to companies in all industries. A Mexican restaurant, for example, may create a sales-focused a blog post designs to pitch new menu offerings, or a digital services provider may create a series of social media updates around specific products, goods, or services.
Advertising and sales copy takes many forms, from social media to blog posts, and looks quite a bit different than sales copy of yesteryear. Today, advertising and sales copy read like an approachable appeal to friends. They’re not pushy; they are not manipulative, and they’re not misleading.
Honesty and value are the names of the game in today’s online writing environment, and companies that missed this mark will find that they’re advertising and sales copy do not perform as well as they had hoped.
5. Expert Copy
Expert writing is the art collection inside the home. At some point or another, all companies need expert writing. This is higher level writing on the web. Authority figures do this type of writing, and industries need this kind of writer.
Without expert writing, companies place their authority and relevance at risk, and may even be walking out onto thin ice with Google, which has demanded expert writing with standards outlined in their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.
While some companies believe they can get by without expert writing, or art, these are companies that ultimately will not succeed. Expert writing is the flair that finishes the structure, and it is critical for any business that wants to be taken seriously by the readers of its content.
6. Journalism & PR Writing
Journalism and PR writing represent the first significant gathering that fills the home with friendly faces. Critical for any company that wants to get the word about its products, goods, or services out across the web, journalism and PR writing serve the essential purpose of notifying people that something exists.
Think about building a new house: if you never invited anybody over, nobody would be able to see the hard work you put into the home. Your artwork, furnishings, paint job and construction would go unnoticed by everybody but you.
What a waste!
This is where journalism and PR writing comes in. Through pieces of content like press releases, for example, companies of all sizes and shapes can “invite people in.” This can serve to enhance a business’s growth and make the business more visible online. Don’t opt for cheap PR syndication, though, if you choose to go the press release route: go to local channels instead to publicize your written PR.
7. Creative Writing
Creative writing is that wacky sculpture you love so much you couldn’t help but buy. It’s unique, specific to you, and it makes you happy every time you look at it.
Creative writing is a genre that encompasses the super creative projects companies do, and it serves to enhance and support virtually every other type of content on this list. Marketing copy, for example, can be creative. Social media, blogs, web content, and even advertisements can be creative, as well. There’s no limit here. From a tweet to a blog, creative writing can be woven in anywhere.
Take this tweet, for example. Our creative SME Krystal came up with the copy on the card, which we took to our Twitter friends as a Christmas card:
In fact, many of the top-performing companies (such as Dollar Shave Club and Poo-Pourri) have made their businesses through infusing creative writing into their online content, and they’ve done it through hiring creative copywriters, much like those outlined in our recent infographic!
8. Q&A Content
Q&A content is the user guide to your home. It’s that drawer where you store all of the instruction manuals for your coffee makers, remote controls, tech gadgets, and more.
Even if you don’t look at it very often, those things are essential, and the minute that you don’t have them is the moment that you’re going to wish, more than anything, they were around.
Question and answer content serves two important purposes. On the one hand, it shows that you are familiar enough with your own business and industry to anticipate user questions and answer them thoroughly. On the other hand, it shows Google and other search engines that your site is authoritative and relevance, and can even help you rank in the highly coveted “snippet box” at the top of Google search results. (Check out our blog on how to rank in Google’s featured snippets.)
While your entire content strategy cannot be made up of questions and answers, it is essential to keep this little drawer of instruction at your disposal.
9. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is like a nest learning thermostat.
It operates in the background of your content and keeps everything together.
When you do search engine optimization right, it shouldn’t be obvious that you’re doing search engine optimization. In other words, standard SEO tactics, like keyword inclusion and back linking, should not be glaringly evident to your readers.
Instead, these things should serve to enhance rather than to tracked from your content. While search engine optimization is important on a technical level, it’s also one of the most critical aspects of online content writing because it helps people find what you’ve written.
One of the big components of search engine optimization, for example, is keywords. Keywords are relevant for the following reason: when people go to Google to find a piece of contents, they enter a string of words. These words are known as keywords, or “keyword phrases.” In the old days of SEO, one of the best ways to get your content found online was to stuff it so full of these keywords that there is no way readers could overlook the relation between your material and what they searched for.
Today, however, search engines and readers are more advanced, and you don’t need to stuff your content as full as a Thanksgiving turkey to get found online. That said, though, keyword still play a major role in online content.
When you include them naturally throughout your material, it makes it easier for Google to “read” your contents and match it up with user queries. This helps ensure that your content will see the light of day, and get the attention it deserves.
10. Testimonials
Testimonials are the various inspections that tell you and other people that your house is safe to live then. For example, if you were looking at buying a home, would you purchase one that had an evaluation that told you that the walls and ceilings were filled with black mold?
If you built a house, and the final once-over by the construction company revealed about the floors and walls were unstable and likely to fall in at any moment, would you feel comfortable being there, or inviting your friends to be there with you? The answer is no.
The same thing goes for your online content. Testimonials are an often-overlooked type of web content that tells other people “Hey, it’s safe in here. Come on over!” Statistics, proof that you’re worth the investment, are an excellent ingredient along with a brief, authentic “this guy is really worth his salt,” is all you need to make a great testimonial happen. Check out one that has consistently sold us, over and over, from our friend and client Matt Janaway:
Critical for attracting new customers and maintaining your current clients, testimonials are an essential piece of online content that every business needs.
The Complete Map of Online Content: How Content Writing Works Hand-in-Hand
Still a little confused about how all these types of content work together? We created a map to help you visualize it:
How Content Writing Works: A Cumulative Mission
Content doesn’t survive on an island.
Instead, it builds on itself to create a dynamic and diverse strategy. Between blogs, social media, and more, content comes together to create a solid online presence.
If you haven’t already, think of creating a consistent content presence today to boost your entire online presence, profitability as a company, lead growth, and so much more. Consistency, and integrating all the relevant parts, is key! Don’t stop at one, and don’t stop just a month in. We can help. Contact Express Writers for content consultation help today!
Who cares about an Oxford comma?
Good question. You should, if you are in search of being a well-read online writer.
While the Oxford comma may seem like a useless little piece of punctuation, this unique little comma has a major effect on the clarity of a sentence, and can either improve your online content or drive it into the ground depending on how you use it.
How much does it matter to the content writer, and the readability of online content? Let’s dive in and talk about the Oxford comma in relation to online writing.
What is the Oxford Comma, & Why is it Such a Big Deal?
Oxford Dictionaries defines the Oxford comma as an optional comma that precedes the word and, and appears at the end of a list.
It garners it’s name from being traditionally used by readers, editors and printers at Oxford University Press. It also goes by the nickname “serial comma.”
This still from the Oxford Dictionaries “What is the Oxford Comma” YouTube video does an eloquent job at portraying the problem that could occur, should you omit the Oxford comma. (See the highlighted blue circle showing where the Oxford comma would go.) Without the comma, the characters in the still – President Obama and the Queen of England – become acrobats at the party. With the Oxford comma, the characters go back to being who they are, intact, all right in the world.
(I like to say the Oxford comma saves lives, because there’s also this fun old quip: “Eat, Grandma!” vs. “Eat Grandma!” Telling Grandma to eat takes quite a turn, without the Oxford comma.)
According to a 2014 poll that asked Americans in general about their feelings regarding the Oxford comma:
57% reported that they were for using it
43% would rather avoid it
This is a pretty even split, and it provides some insight into why so few people can agree on the Oxford Comma’s place in online writing.
Even though there are a few different schools of thought about how to use the Oxford comma, and where it’s appropriate, anyone familiar with professional writing (either on paper or online) knows that inconsistency looks improper. As such, it’s smart to develop a standard for how you’ll use the Oxford Comma in your online writing.
In addition to being a good practice, learning to use the Oxford comma correctly can have a significant impact on the clarity of your writing.
After all, the Oxford comma has the potential to change the meaning of a sentence completely – as we saw in the earlier image.
Consider two more examples:
“Angie went into the lake with her sister, a doctor and a hot-air-balloon enthusiast.”
“Angie went into the lake with her sister, a doctor, and a hot-air-balloon enthusiast.”
One simple comma can mean the difference between a three-person lake party with a doctor and a hot air balloon enthusiast, and a quality summer outing between sisters.
So, learning to use the Oxford comma correctly is essential to ensure that your writing is saying what you want it to say, rather than running away with your purpose.
But, Do You HAVE to Use It?
Is the Oxford comma strictly required in writing?
The answer, although I’ll probably debate you on it (;-)), is not at all!
As a copywriter, you’ll find that some clients prefer it and that some could do without. Feel free to cater your style to the preferences and style guides of your clients. Certain brands may have uniform grammar rules that they appreciate and go by, and you want to stick within their voice and style. That’s fine.
Beyond personal preference, there’s also a geographical norm to the Oxford comma. Once you start using it, you’ll find that it’s a pretty standard practice in the US, but far less common throughout the UK.
How to Use the Oxford Comma: 4 Tips to Remember
While the Oxford comma is necessary, it can be confusing. Here’s a list of key ways to use it.
1. Always use the comma in long, complex lists.
Example: “Alison went to the store and got caviar, cheese, crackers, soy sauce, Sprite, cookies, bread, and toenail clippers.” The Oxford comma in this sentence appears right before the last “and” and helps to simplify the pattern of the phrase.
While it’s fine to omit the Oxford comma in a short list (“Alison went to the store and got cheese and crackers”) it helps to streamline longer lists and is essential in any online content that lists a variety of products, goods, or services, for example.
2. Use the serial comma in any sentence that needs additional clarification or could be confusing without it.
In online content, using the Oxford comma is recommended in any piece that will be confusing without it. Because the Oxford comma helps to break up topics and keep the message clear for readers, it’s an essential way to keep mix-ups to a minimum and help your readers digest the essential meanings of your content.
Here’s an example: “I had toast, eggs and cheese.”
Without the Oxford comma, it sounds like you’re telling your friends, Eggs and Cheese, that you had toast for breakfast. “Great,” they think, and your readers are confused. To make it easier on everyone, insert the Oxford comma:
“I had toast, eggs, and cheese.”
For an example of how the Oxford comma (or lack of it) can create confusion, check out this Mental Floss infographic on the topic:
Source: http://mentalfloss.com/
3. In online writing, use the comma before coordinating conjunctions that link independent clauses.
Examples:
“I went running, and saw a platypus.”
“I sat at a coffee shop, and met the president.” Etc.
The reason for this is simple, if you took the implicit “I” from the second sentence, it wouldn’t have a subject, which destroys its meaning and makes it grammatically incorrect. With this in mind, insert a serial comma to help it make sense.
4. Use the Oxford comma before the final item in any list of three or more
This applies to all types of online writing: if you have a list of three or more, insert the Oxford comma before the final item. This helps avoid confusion and streamline your writing. It also helps keep your material consistent, and saves you from looking like an amateur to your audiences.
5. …Except when the concluding element requires a conjunction
The only exception to the above rule is when the last item in a series contains a conjunction. Example: “I had eggs, cheese, coffee and cream for breakfast.” If you put a comma before “and cream,” it would indicate that you had cream all on its own, rather than in your coffee which (We hope) isn’t true!
In Defense of the Oxford Comma
This lovely bit of punctuation is a real grammar life-saver. Lose it at your peril: use it to win! 😉
Knowing just how to use it can help simplify its place and purpose in your online writing. This simple little piece of punctuation is critical for helping avoid confusion and streamline your online writing. Have anything to add or share about how you use the Oxford comma in your content? Tell me in the comments!
As 2017 looms just around the bend, it’s easy to predict that content marketing will seriously be on the rise.
In 2016, we saw big moves in favor of content marketing: growth of the industry as a whole, and national brands opting for content marketing over traditional ads and media.
Influencer marketing was realized when, in 2016, CNN made the move to buya YouTuber’s entire presence, channel and mobile app (Casey Neistat, who had amassed 6 million organic followers), for a cool $25 million.
If you’re a serious content marketer, you can bet that your skills, audience, and presence will grow in value in 2017 – you might even be approached for a major buyout! So, with content marketing growing as a mainstream form of brand marketing more than ever, how can you go into 2017 putting your best content foot forward?
Fortunately, we’ve got your complete road map right here. Read on to learn best content marketing tactics for the New Year (and beyond)!
8 Proven Ways to Win at Content Marketing in 2017 & Beyond
Whether you’re looking to enhance your content, earn more visibility and serious ROI in the New Year, or focus on attempting to rectify a less-than-perfect user experience, these eight tips can make your content more successful in the coming year.
1. Combine your written content with compelling visuals
Sure, adding a photo to your blog post makes it pretty, but it also does so much more if you take that visual and go the extra mile. Recently, at Express Writers, we’ve started asking our lead designer to come up with handmade Adobe Illustrator designs for all our featured blogs (like this one). The difference? More social shares, mentions of, and traction on all of our blogs.
Here are a few quick stats about the benefits of adding visual content to your written pieces:
Adding colored visuals to a post makes people 80% more willing to read it
People remember 65% of what they see and only 10% of what they hear
For 34% of marketers, visual content is their most critical asset
When content has a relevant image, it earns 94% more views
Remember that today, “content” doesn’t just mean written content. Instead, it’s a broad term that also takes into account visual, audio, and video material that can enhance and improve the written content you publish.
With this in mind, find creative ways to start adding visual content to your written content. For example, publish an information-dense infographic in place of your standard weekly blog post or add a tutorial video to your next how-to post. Use video content to review products, provide customer service, or showcase new offerings, or include a series of in-depth screenshots in your next piece to educate and uplift readers. You can even grab a GIF or two to emphasis a point with a movie scene that everyone relates to.
In addition to enhancing your conversion rates, this creative, engaging, visual approach will also make your content more exciting and valuable to your readers.
2. Target your content more appropriately to specific audiences
Many people mistakenly believe that broader content will perform better online when, in fact, the opposite is true.
The more targeted you can get with your content, the better. You’ll be able to use long-tail keywords, which are easier to rank for. And, as a whole, more targeted content appeals to a smaller segment of the audience. While this may seem like a negative thing, it’s a fantastic way to bring in more qualified leads and make more sales.
When your content is directed at a particular set of people, rather than anyone who passes your way, your conversion rates will naturally be higher, and your content will naturally be more successful. What’s more, you won’t face such stiff competition from the “content sea” – the millions of pieces of content available to the public on a daily and weekly basis.
With all of this in mind, develop target personas to specify who you’re writing for, and keep them current enough that they reflect the outlook and problems of your actual audience segments. Update them as needed for maximum accuracy.
3. Make your content powerful enough to retain readers for life
Great, you have readers. Now what? You have to work hard to retain them, with better and better content in their niche interests.
This is a 10x goal of content you should be striving for. Sure, it is a big one – but if this is your goal, you won’t be publishing sub-par content.
Even if you’re publishing compelling and relevant content, it’s not worth much unless it’s inspiring your readers to stay with your brand for life. In 2017, the single best way to win at content marketing is to focus your efforts on user retention.
Here’s a fun fact to inspire you further. In addition to the fact that it’s easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to sell to a new one, loyal customers are worth ten times as much as their first purchase, which means it’s absolutely in your best interest to keep them around!
With this in mind, do the following things to boost your customer retention rates:
Post quality content on a regular basis
Engage with your readers by responding when they post, share, comment on, or like your content
Develop an easy way for your readers to subscribe to your content
Showcase old posts and favorite posts in a convenient manner so that readers can access them quickly
Offer incentives for your readers, including free content, giveaways, and prizes
Use a targeted and specific email marketing campaign to help your readers develop a relationship with your content
4. Encourage your readers to submit content (user-generated content)
What better way to focus on customer retention, engagement, and content creation than by encouraging your users to submit their own content?
User-generated content, or UGC, has a long history of inspiring trust in would-be customers (90% of customers report that their buying decisions are based on online reviews). It can also go a long way to populate your sites with quality content and help new customers engage with your brand.
Also, when you stop and realize that 80% of all online content is user-generated, it only makes sense to encourage your audience to create content.
To create user-generated content for your company, encourage audience members to submit photos, videos, or updates about how they use your products, goods, and services. Alternately, ask for their feedback on your top social platforms and encourage readers to share your posts and videos.
Burberry, founded in 1856, increased their e-commerce revenue a whopping 50% year-over-year when they launched The Art of the Trench website in 2009 (the idea of young CEO Angela Ahrendts, who took over in 2006 and decided to re-engage the older brand with online audiences). The success behind the site? UGC. Users could upload to and/or comment, on the site, on pictures of people wearing Burberry products.
Take some inspiration from Burberry and think of your own brand-centric hashtag or profile (or go all the way and do a site!) that is dedicated towards encouraging your fans to engage – upload, comment, bring their own content. All these things will go a long way toward improving your overall content strategy.
5. Use social media to promote your content, creatively
Content is only worthwhile when people can find and interact with it. That said, it’s essential to promote your content. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be indispensable for this, but you’ll also need to take addition steps like guest posting and encouraging users to share your content for you.
But, since today’s social platforms are so saturated with other brand’s presences, you want to stand out. Think of starting a Twitter Chat, or posting creative, unique social posts that aren’t found anywhere else. Here’s an example of how to do that: have your team members, people that work in your company, give you a list of customer questions that you can create social media posts around. Custom graphics, unique blurbs fitted to each platform type (hashtags for Instagram, short sentences for Twitter), can all work to attract your fans and promote your brand organically via social media.
These simple steps can go a long way toward spreading the news about your content around the web and ensuring that it is seen by all the people it deserves to reach.
You might also want to invest in paid discovery platforms, like Stumble Upon and Facebook or Instagram Ads to promote your content even further.
6. Place a renewed focus on email marketing
In the last 12 months alone, BuzzFeed has added more than 1 million subscribers to their email list. What does this say about the claims that email marketing is dead and defunct? It dispels them, of course.
According to Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers rank email as their top channel for distributing content and ensuring overall marketing success.
With this in mind, focus on developing targeted and valuable email campaigns in 2017. Not only will it benefit your readers – but it will also give you the metrics and insights you need to develop a more successful content presence in the coming year.
To ensure that your email marketing remains successful, follow these quick tips:
Write compelling subject lines that make your readers want to click
Address the reader directly with the personal “you”
Keep it short, snappy, and valuable
Make your links clickable and your CTAs obvious
Segment your lists for a more personal experience.
Test your campaigns for optimum performance
Split test your emails for maximum ROI
7. Print isn’t dead; utilize it for a stronger presence
While it may seem like print content is at risk of dying in the digital age, many publishers have turned to print content to enhance and improve their reader’s experiences. How cool is that?! Print is coming back, in an age of a saturated digital market.
Airbnb, for example, recently released an exclusive Airbnb mag. Other brands are following suit.
While you don’t need to go all in and develop a personal magazine of your own, it is a very good idea to find a way to incorporate print content into your daily publications, be it in the form of brochures or flyers for our local business. We’ve been successful creating custom flyers for events we’ve attended.
8. Hire expert writers to develop your content
Nothing will ever replace expert content, and it’s more important in 2017 than it’s ever been before.
To get the most from your content marketing, hire an expert, authoritative writer that knows your niche to craft copy that empowers your brand online.
In addition to turning out higher-quality content, you’ll also relieve some of the content burdens you and your brand likely feel. It’s a smart business move and an effective way to get quality content that will last you a lifetime.
Here’s to Your Best Content Marketing in 2017
If your goal is to dominate content in 2017, our eight tips will help.
From boosting your SEO to keeping your readers at the center of the content experience, there are dozens of things you can do to enhance your written content and make it more successful across the board.
Here’s to ultimate content success in the New Year!
