2011: the year I founded Express Writers (with $75, a bit of hope, and a lot of goal-setting: full story here.)
The next five years: we grew, busted through seams, grew again, busted through seams again. We found and built our own systems to manage our growing company in 2015: a Content Shop, a writer teamroom. (We’re building even better systems today, set to relaunch in mid-2017.)
2016: we found our roots.
Seriously. We’re ending the year with some deep, high caliber roots in place, and I’m glad about it. In the level of expertise our staff members have today, a perfect content fit in each of their roles: in the quality and dedication of the writers we have, and the standards we’ve been growing to perfection all year.
Check out more of the faces behind our team: www.expresswriters.com/about-us
So, it’s fitting that 2016 is the first year we took the time to create this end-of-year report, a showcase and look back at all the content we create. (Idea credit goes to Tara, our Content Development Specialist.)
In 2016, we created the most content we ever have, not just for clients but for industry resource and learning materials. We worked hard all year: reinvented our editing standards in May, launched serious changes over November that improved our entire team, content quality, and clientele, and rounded up the year with some fabulous content. We launched our new #howtowrite learning category, launched an incredible Twitter Chat, #ContentWritingChat in January that made it to #4 on Twitter, and I was able to launch my book, self-published in April on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and our Write Podcast published in March.
All in one year?!
Time to delve in to our first ever full content creation report! Grab a coffee and join me. We’re detailing our total content output for our clients, and what we created to add insights and resources just for our audience and industry. (Keep scrolling past the infographic for the full lowdown, and a recap of our best posts of the year.)
From 171 Million Words Created to Launching a Twitter Chat, Book, Podcast, & Writer Mentoring
No way all this happened in one year, standing here and looking back. Yet it did. And, it’s actually short of the goals we had for 2016. Crazy, right?
Let’s start with what the brunt of our workload looked like for the year, as content writers.
Client Work (a brief synopsis of the busy nature of our year):
3,451 orders placed (one order could range from 1-5 web pages to 400 articles at a time)
262,000,000+ words estimated written by our team in 2016!
That’s roughly 524,000 500-word articles. Included in that word count besides articles and blogs: press releases, ebooks, ad copy, product descriptions, landing pages, web pages, slides, scripts, emails–to name a few.
Our top content service sold for the year: blogs!
Our top two expert writing categories in demand: legal and technical.
Industry Resource Creation (what we launched in industry resources this year):
Unprecedented grassroots success creating and running our Twitter Chat #ContentWritingChat, launched mid-January this year, managed by our fantastic Social Media Manager, Rachel. We see up to 1,000 tweets during the live hour now! Our Twitter chat was #42 trending on it’s first week back in January 19th, and by August, trending at #4. In November, we had our first sponsor!
Launching the Write Podcast in April, making relationships with people like Sujan Patel, Steve Rayson, Mark Traphaghen, and many other fantastic content marketing influencers and leaders through it.
Writing and creating internal training for our writers, with a custom 101 library of more than ten individual resources just for them, tailored to the weak points we saw that kept cropping up. Getting personal notes of thanks, and seeing tangible proof in their improved writing skills to show us the mentoring helps, is seriously rewarding.
Launching the How to Write category with over 15 up-to-date guides published late 2016, teaching all things online content writing.
Personally, my highlights running Express Writers in 2016 have been:
Launching my book, podcast, and Twitter chat, and seeing amazing successes between them all, especially in our live hour with #ContentWritingChat.
Getting our biggest client ever, and being able to write their orders with liberty (very few strict guidelines, a lot of creative freedom – dream client).
Having the honor of hiring Tara Clapper, the former blog editor at SEMrush, an all-around content marketing guru that I’ve been talking to online for years.
Training and guiding a successful editing team to work with our writers and help guide them to their best skills.
Visiting the SEJ Summit in NYC with my team members Tara, Krystal, and Josh.
Despite a lot of rough patches this year in the customer-facing support team with other representatives, this November I was able to reach out to and re-hire my sales manager Tamila McDonald, who worked with us in sales and content management all the way back in 2013 (and was fantastic at it). She’s been fantastic in the role already, helping our customers achieve success with content needs.
And…
Straight from the heart: thanks to all of you who have helped us grow this year!
To our clients:
We value each and every one of you. There were crazy things to deal with in the support staff this year, but they weren’t anything that a successful company hasn’t experienced at some point or other (non-loyal staff). We appreciate you so much, and will continue to work hard to earn your business and create the best content money can buy.
To our amazing writers and staff:
Working hard and tirelessly to deliver amazing content means the world to me and our clients. Remember that great things are coming for us all in 2017: stick with us, and you will, without a doubt, grow with us. (We have a huge relaunch of the Content Shop and our teamroom in development now, due out in the New Year!)
A Look Back: Express Writers’ Top 10 Shared & Talked About Posts of 2016
Let’s start by looking at what our most-shared pieces consisted of as a whole in terms of format and content type, then, delve into the top posts themselves.
Top Shared Formats
Here’s what our top shared post formats were (interesting to note how well infographics and a podcast episode did!):
6 long-form blogs (5 guides on different aspects online writing, the 6th blog was a list of fun/obsolete English words)
1 podcast episode (over 1,000 shares!)
3 infographics
Top 10 Posts
Now, it’s time for a look back at our ten top performing posts of the year.
1. Out With the Old: Why & How to Do a New Year Website Content Audit
(See blog here) Everyone loves a little New Year’s cleaning, and this post was our top performer because it helped people understand exactly what a content audit is, and why it’s so important to conduct them on a regular basis.
In addition to clearing out any icky, old content that’s hurting your SEO, a good content audit gives you the chance to comb through your content and find any material that is outdated, inaccurate, or not converting well.
In our content audit post, we showed readers how to use platforms like the SEMrush Site Audit Tool, Moz templates, BuzzSumo, and WordTracker to perform expert-quality content audits in preparation for the new year. The post earned more than 1.5K shares and remains one of our most popular pieces!
2. The Write Podcast, E06: Talking Life, Entrepreneurship, Guest Blogging, & Content Marketing With Sujan Patel
(See podcast episode here) Episode 6 of The Write Podcast remains one of my favorites, and it was one of our readers’ favorites, as well. In this post, I interviewed Sujan Patel, co-founder of Narrow.io and Content Marketer.io, about everything from entrepreneurship to becoming an all-star guest blogger.
Sujan and I talked about how he develops his tools (and why it’s so important for him only to work on projects he feels emotionally invested in). We discussed his relation to Neil Patel, (they’re cousins!) and how he feels about live-streaming. He also offers some advice on testing business plan ideas and taking risks to get to where you want to be.
If you’re starting a small business or working to build your online presence, you’ll love Sujan’s declaration that a single payment may not matter as much as the relationships you’re building with your clients.
This episode earned more than 1,000 shares with our followers!
3. Expert Weigh-In: Content Marketing Predictions for 2016 (Infographic)
(See predictions post here) Now that the year is over, this post shines brightly. Published December 31 of 2015, we talked to 19 content marketing experts to put this post together.
Each of them had a different prediction for the future of content marketing in 2016 and, guess what? Many of them have come true!
For example:
Steve Rayson, the Director of BuzzSumo, told us 2016 would be all about developing clear outreach strategies and connecting with influencers. This couldn’t be more true: leveraging the power of a real relationship with influencers works! Example: when I connected with Sujan Patel, a major entrepreneur and content marketer, I was able to get his name on my book (he wrote the foreword) and record a podcast episode with him. The episode turned out to be our most shared one!
Michael A. Stelzner, the founder of Social Media Examiner, told us that 360-degree live video streaming would explode. Live video has been all over the web, and talked about all year, from Facebook Live to Snapchat, Instagram Stories and more.
Finally, Director of Marketing at Stone Temple ConsultingMark Traphagen predicted that 2016 would be a year of “quality over quantity” – we couldn’t agree more! Quality has been reigning high all year long.
This post earned 446 shares last year. Now, we’re excited to look forward and make some new predictions for 2017!
4. Google Search Guidelines Released: Here’s What They Say About Content
(See post here) This was one of our most exciting posts of 2016. It broke down Google’s newly released Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. The Guidelines, developed by Google to train its human search quality evaluators, provided a wealth of information about everything from the requirements for quality web content to the importance of expert writing.
The guidelines also dove into mobile optimization, page design, supplementary content, misspelled queries, keywords, and more. The one-stop-shop for anyone who wanted to know what the lengthy guidelines said about content, this post was one of our favorites to write and one of the most useful for our readers. As such, it earned 295 shares on social media!
5. How to Create Long-Form Content That Google and Your Readers Will Love
(See blog here)Long-form content was a buzzed-about topic this year, and we took it on in this post. To start the post, we talked about how people who aren’t seeing the desired ROI from their content might be making one critical mistake: the content they’re writing isn’t long or thorough enough.
Next, we broke down what long-form content is, and why it matters for readers and search engines. We talked about how long-form content tends to be evergreen, detailed, and informative, and how much that means to readers. We also discussed how blogs with 1,500 words or more rank higher, keep readers on pages longer, and boost conversions.
To wrap it all up, we offered a few tips about tools to use for creating long-form blogs (SEMrush and BuzzSumo). This blog earned us 292 shares across the web!
6. Your 12-Step Guide to a Small Business Content Strategy
(See post here)This post was a shout-out to our small business clients and readers! Developing a content strategy for a small business can be tough – especially when funds and resources are tight. In this post, we offered a step-by-step process for developing a small business content strategy and maintaining it.
First, we defined “content,” and then laid out the five types of key content that every small business needs (a blog, a web page, keywords, social media, and a buyer persona). From there, we provided a list of smart, actionable tips to build your content strategy, including defining your objective and creating a content calendar.
Ideal for any small business struggling with content implementation, this was one of our highest performing posts of the year with 277 shares!
7. 30 Amazing, Obsolete Words in the English Dictionary we Should Bring Back to Life
(See post here) If we’re being honest, 2016 featured a lot of words like “innovative,” “stunning,” and “unique.” While there’s nothing wrong with those words, they’re a little boring, and we can’t help but think there are some oldies but goodies stagnating in dictionaries. To celebrate those words, we wrote this post.
Our list included words like these:
Grumpish: Meaning sullen or grumpy. Example: The content marketer got grumpish when he forgot to complete his content calendar for the month.
Apricity: The wonderful feeling you get when it’s cold and wintery out, but the sun is shining warmly on your back.
Gorgonize: To mesmerize or enchant someone. Example: “I felt gorgonized by the beauty of that last sentence.”
Curglaff: A giggle-inducing word meaning shock or surprise.
This post was great fun to write, and it earned 242 shares once we pushed it out to readers!
8. 55 Content Marketing Tools to Boost Your Productivity
(See post here) Who doesn’t love a fat list of useful tools? In this post, published January 21 of 2016, we broke down 55 of our favorite content marketing tools to enhance productivity and make your days smoother and easier. Featured on the list were the following:
Buffer: A social media management tool that allows you to schedule posts to up to 15 different social media profiles from one dashboard.
Canva: A simple DIY graphic design tool that you can use to create blog headers, social graphics, and more.
SproutSocial: Another social media management tool, and the host of #SproutChat on Twitter.
GoogleWebDesigner: A banner creation service that lets you design and build banners for your websites.
SEMrush: A keyword tracking tool that allows you to research topics, find influencers, and recognize trending content.
AngelList: An investment platform that helps you raise money for your various content marketing projects.
MailChimp: An email marketing tool that allows you to automate campaigns and build templates.
Wordtracker: A keyword research tool that can connect with you with some of the top-performing keywords in just minutes.
BuzzSumo: One of our favorite tools, and the best way to find out what’s trending in the world of content.
This post, with its big old list of tools earned us 241 shares across the web.
9. Inside the Brain & Life of a Copywriter (Infographic)
(See infographic here) This infographic was a ton of fun to create, and it’s one of our favorite pieces of content from the year. Here at Express Writers, we love our copywriters, and this unique little piece gives readers a glimpse into the daily life of the people behind the content.
In the post, we offer some general statistics about content (2 million blog posts are published daily, and the web hosts more than 900,000,000 websites, for example). From there, we go on to talk about who copywriters are – from stay-at-home moms to millennials – and how their left and right brain hemispheres work together to combine practicality and creativity.
To finish the infographic off, we lay out five key copywriting techniques! This post raked in 235 shares across our various social channels.
10. Your Infographic Guide to Online Content Word Counts
(See infographic here) Last but not least is this piece, “Your Infographic Guide to Online Content Word Counts.” Another infographic, this post details how long all of your content should be. It discusses Twitter’s character limit increase, and the best practices for Twitter post length (100 characters is the sweet spot).
It talks about Facebook, and how perfect Facebook posts are 40-characters or fewer. It also breaks down Google+ lengths and LinkedIn content lengths. This helpful post earned 233 shares across the web!
2016: A Fantastic Year for Content
2016 was truly an outstanding year for content, and we at Express Writers want to thank our readers collectively for your ongoing support. (That means YOU!)
Here’s to 2017, creating more fabulously great content, and all that the New Year has in store!
Ready for Christmas? These 10 wordplays, handpicked by our copywriters, will put you in the mood. Save and share — around the office, Christmas dinner table, or with your favorite grammar-lovin’ friend!
10 Best Christmas Wordplays
1. Heard on the roof, the prancing and pawing of each little hoof
On Christmas eve, one of Santa’s reindeer asks Mr. Claus why Dasher and Dancer are always taking coffee breaks. Santa’s response? “They’re my star bucks!”
2. The coziest season
Why do dogs love the tradition of a Christmas tree? Because they get to enjoy an indoor bathroom when you bring it home.
3. The hustle and bustle of the holidays
Red, white, red, white…what’s that? It’s Santa Claus, rolling down a hill!
4. Tasty treats everywhere!
What do snowmen like to eat for breakfast? Snowflakes.
5. The perfect gift beneath the tree
Last year, I wrote a letter to Santa asking him to bring me the sexiest person in the world. On Christmas morning, I woke up in a box.
6. New lessons to be learned from loved ones near and far
What do elves learn at elf school? The elfabet!
7. A holly-jolly season
Who says “oh oh oh?” Santa walking backwards.
8. Winter sports to enjoy and share!
What do you call a snowman wearing ice skates? A snowmobile!
9. A chilling situation
How do you know if the economy is in trouble on Christmas? The snowmen are selling themselves on the streets.
10. The most wonderful time of the year
The most wonderful thing about Christmas is it’s the only time of the year when you can gather around a dead tree and eat chocolate from a sock.
Merry Christmas to you & yours from all of us at Express Writers! We’re still here and working over the holidays…need last-minute content support? We got you covered!
2016 has been quite a year, and we aren’t just talking about the world of politics or sports. When the new year began, it would have been hard to believe that the Chicago Cubs would (finally!) win the World Series, “challenges” would be so popular (how many flips will it take to upright that water bottle? And can you do it while posing like a mannequin?), and adults would be THAT wrapped up in Pokémon Go.
Over here at my agency, we started the year with some tips on how to run a successful blog, and through the last twelve months we have continued to deliver on a ton of content for our audience. From publishing my book, to launching my podcast, publishing our intense #howtowriteseries, and launching our weekly #ContentWritingChat back in January, all the way to email marketing and event attendance, infographics, and much more, content marketing continues to prove our #1 form of marketing here at Express Writers. 2016 proved to be our biggest year for that.
But what we did this year in content marketing is for our Content Creation Report, coming up on Thursday. For today, we’re taking a retrospective look back at the industry of content marketing as a whole and what 2016 looked like.
Content marketing has had its own interesting turns in 2016, and we’re here to break it down. Grab a cup of something warm and join me, will you?
[bctt tweet=”We’re taking a retrospective look back at the industry of content marketing as a whole and what 2016 looked like. Check out our takeaways and #contentcreation report ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Best in Content Marketing Circa 2016: 7 Key Factors of Good Content this Year
There was much to talk about this year by way of good content, viral content, shared content, and engaging content. Whether it was liked, retweeted, pinned, or snapped, quality material was not in short supply.
What became clear is that readers have a desire to interact with what they’re taking in, that influential content marketing leaders still know where it’s at, and fake news is not going to rule the landscape.
Here are some highlights of what went down:
1. The rise of interactive content
(Forbes): As companies have moved away from “plain vanilla content”, they have moved toward content that is appealing to the audience by way of interactive material. This may take the form of quizzes, polls, and a variety of two-way content.
2. Influential leaders
(Marketing Profs): From Sujan Patel to Jeff Bullas, influential content marketers showed us what worked and what didn’t.
3. Viral content
(Buzz Sumo): Anytime a video, blog, or social media post goes crazy, we call it viral. From open letters directed at Trump supporters to sexy bald men, viral content was a highlight of the year. No surprise here, since we live in a time of instant shares, Facebook trolling, and retweets that number in the millions.
4. Long and complex blogs
(Track Maven): When companies blog for business, they are producing more content but with less impact. Per brand, the number of posts have increased while the social shares have gone down. The length of blog posts grew from an average of 639 words per post in 2015 to just over 700 in 2016.
3. Consistent delivery
(Content Marketing Institute): Of the top content marketing performers, 85% deliver content consistently. This does not always translate to daily or even weekly content, but rather impactful and relevant content on a consistent basis, including repurposed material.
4. Fake news and Facebook
(The Guardian): Mark Zuckerberg may have started the year with a message of hope, but no one could have predicted what the next 12 months would hold for the social media giant. Photo censorship and fake news seemed to loom even as the site’s users inched toward a total of 2 billion worldwide.
5. Infographics
(Buzz Sumo): Not everyone is a fan, but infographics are widely shared, even if they fail to gain very many links. Back in 2012, Jeff Bullas gave us 9 awesome reasons to use them, and by the end of 2016, 58% of marketers are still on board with the picture-and-data mashups.
Infographics actually made up one of our top-shared content types for the year (3/10 of our top-shared content pieces for the year were infographics)!
Did Content Marketing in 2016 Surprise You?
If any of these come as a surprise, it might help to go waaay back to the end of 2015, when predictions were being tossed around about the future of content marketing. Can’t remember that long ago?
Here are some predictions given in late 2015 from influencers, about 2016, to refresh your memory:
(CMI) Native advertising would help big companies find their footing, while others would be decimated and may never fully recover.
(Mashable) Static content would start to be replaced by more interactive experiences.
(Neil Patel via Forbes) Personal authority will be important to the audience.
(Jordan Teicher via Contently) The smartest brands would publish less and put more emphasis on larger editorial projects.
(Jeff Deutsch via EW) Content marketers would be challenged to cut through the “noise” of too much content.
Either way, there are some takeaway lessons we can learn as we move forward to 2017.
1. You Wouldn’t Use a Dial-Up Phone—Don’t Use Boring Content
You may or may not remember the days of writing letters, reading the newspaper as a sole source of information, and dialing the phone (at home) when you wanted to call someone. Some might say that those were the days, and they might be right.
But just like it would not be conducive to start using a rotary phone, content marketers can’t afford to ignore the right now. Staying stuck in the past, where content creation went steady with keyword stuffing and boring information, won’t work going forward.
Consistent delivery may not mean you throw something out every day or even every week; what it does mean is that when it is delivered, it gives your readers an interactive, enjoyable experience that they can use.
2. A Social Audience with No Time to Waste
We live in a complex world, one in which we crave information but run the risk of getting bogged down by it. We may want more authentic relationships, but more and more of us connect via our phones rather than a face-to-face setting. At the same time, we tire of insignificant information from invalid sources.
3. Social Media Isn’t Going Anywhere
The mediums may change, but since the early days of MySpace in 2003 to the billions of social media users across many channels today, our clicks are proof that this is how we connect and engage. It may not be too long before the number of active social media users equals the amount of total internet users.
4. Americans May be Headed Towards Information Overload
According to Pew Research, the percentage right now is relatively small—only 20% of Americans feel overloaded by the constant onslaught of information—and that number changes based on the number of access pathways individuals have at their disposal.
5. Readers Want Authoritative Content, Not Fluff
Fake news won’t cut it. Breaking news is shared, but content marketers need to have an understanding of the credibility behind it. As BuzzSumo points out, it helps to create an original take on a story and create tips or how to posts that the audience can understand and relate to their own situation.
3 Most Shared Pieces of Content Marketing in 2016
Across the content marketing world, there are countless blog posts, e-books, and statistics that provide us with the valuable information we need from the experts we trust. Part of the greatness of this industry is the abundance of guidance and wisdom we can glean from those who know it best.
Of all the advice and how-to’s that dominate the content marketing industry, three stand out as the most shared pieces of 2016. Here they are, thanks to BuzzSumo software:
1. Everything the Tech World Says About Marketing is Wrong
(Tech Crunch)
The content from Tech World opens with the line, “The biggest problem in marketing in the tech world today is that too many marketers do not know the first thing about marketing”. If that doesn’t draw you in and make you stay, we don’t know what would.
The catchy title and relevant content fetched thousands of Facebook shares, even as Samuel Scott wrote that digital marketers “have fallen into an echo chamber of meaningless buzzwords”. Scott’s use of colorful graphics and advice for tech marketers was engaging and ended with a nod to marketers being “full of it”.
The comments that follow are worth the read.
2. How Much Do People Trust Your Content?
(Forbes)
Brian Sutter highlighted this opinion piece with truths related to the lack of fact-checking on internet publications, a distrust among readers, and a low credibility among journalists. He continued with some tips on how to build a loyal audience, which every content marketer and online writer can relate to.
Sutter touched on the fact that “most people dislike being sold to” and cited Nielsen research backing this fact. Building a loyal audience takes time, but it can happen with the combination of useful content and authoritative statistics.
3. These Marketers, Content Producers and Entertainers Under 40 Are Shaping the Industry
(AdWeek)
From actor Donald Glover and Content VP of SnapChat Nick Bell to Ivanka Trump and Michael Dublin, founder of Dollar Shave Club, this list was inspiring even as it covered a host of different industries.
The common factor among all of these Young Influentials is their commitment to deliver the best performance and content in their field, whether that’s in the world of social media, digital media, or in the movie industry. Imgur’s director of creative strategy Laurel Hodge says of her role, “I create creative strategies and content that aspires to be next in the most viral content on the internet”.
Content marketers would be wise to do the same.
In Content Marketing, 3 Key Things Stayed the Same
Technology will change, as will the ways by which we access it. But a few things will stand the test of time, no matter the delivery medium. In the midst of an ever-evolving world, the audience has to remain the priority—after all, without them, why write? As creative thinkers and collaborators, we can continue to:
1. Develop relevant content
If what you write is not important to the audience, they won’t stay. It is worth the time and investment to get to know your readers, their behaviors, and the patterns they follow. Watch how they engage on social media and in comment forums and what they share of your content.
2. Draw readers in and make them stay
A catchy title is a great start, but it isn’t quite enough to engage readers for a long period of time. It is a waste of time to weigh your audience down with long and boring pieces of information that are published just for the sake of a full website, blog, or social media feed.
3. Back up all content with authority
In an age of fake news, moving forward with authority and credible sources is even more important in content creation. As Brian Sutter reminds us (How Much Do People Trust Your Content?), it also pays to include both sides of an argument or perspective. This, he points out, demonstrates your expertise as a writer and adds depth of understanding for the audience.
A Year of Firsts is Coming to a Close. What Now?
Now that the year is ending and we can look back in reflection, how do we move forward with the right information?
First, continue to look to those experts in the field who continue to deliver quality content to writers.
Second, always be developing ourselves so that we can write better, communicate more effectively, and make meaningful connections.
Lastly, keep an eye on the past and the good it held while looking forward with the lessons we have learned.
What is the first thing that pops into your head when you hear words like “apps”, “data”, “contacts”, or “social media”?
Now try imagining things for words like “difference engine”, “Turing machine”, “Z1”, and “point-contact transistors.”
Here’s a hint about the second set of words: they have to do with the history of computers.
Remember computers? With a big bulky box called a hard drive, and the screens (aka monitors), which took up more space than your mother-in-law at Christmastime. Back in ancient times, circa 1999 and prior, a thin, black square known as a floppy disk could be inserted into the big bulky box and hold teeny tiny bits of files to be accessed later.
I’m 25 years old–and I’m talking about these things like they’re hints of yesteryear. LOL.
Technology has advanced, fast.
Fast forward to 2016, when images of a room full of computer equipment and that little thing called a “mouse” seem unfathomable to those of us who carry our whole lives in our back pocket. Today, everything from our favorite shopping sites to our bank accounts and emergency contacts to our kids’ schedules can be accessed through one convenient, tiny, handheld device: a smartphone.
Guess that? That’s exactly where AMP, mobile-indexing, and being mobile friendly comes into play. Let’s discuss. (Oh, and keep scrolling for the screenshot where our site shows up as AMP verified in Google! It’s too cool to miss. ;-))
Living in a Connected World: Here’s the Proof
It should come as no surprise that nearly 2/3 of Americans own a smartphone and about 10% of those have no high-speed internet service at home and no way to access the web other than a smartphone. Across every age group, income bracket, and education level, smartphones are where it’s at.
Think it’s just young people? Think again. According to Pew Research, 92% of adults over the age of 50 regularly used their devices in the past year to text, browse the web, and access email.
Srsly? 92% of adults OVER 50 text and email on their smartphones now? It’s time to get mobile with your content, folks.
Google Experiments with Mobile-First Index
In November, Google announced that it was beginning experiments on making their index mobile-first. To express it in simple terms, this change means that ranking signals will be based first on the mobile version of a website, then fall back to the desktop version if no mobile version is available.
Wow! So Google will check to see if your site works well on mobile, and then on desktop.
What is an index? When you perform a search in Google, their programs do a check of an index to find the search results that are most relevant before presenting them to you. This is similar to looking in the back of a very large book (remember those?) at the index section, which tells you where everything is located.
This change will eliminate the “mobile-friendly” adjustments that are performed for smartphone users; whether you are accessing the internet from a phone or a laptop will not make a difference in rank results.
What Google’s Move Could Mean for Site Owners
Although this news may feel like the end of an era, it is not the full end of desktop ranking as we know it. This discussion has actually been going on for over a year, but with Google’s official announcement, it feels more real. And that means site owners will need to think about their own webpages and how mobile-friendly they are to visitors.
If you do not currently have a mobile version of your website, Google will rank based on the desktop version instead. If your site is a dynamic serving site or a responsive site, meaning the primary content is equivalent across both mobile and desktop, you should not have to change anything.
However, if you have a site configuration, where the content is different across desktop and mobile devices, you may want to consider implementing some changes in order to rank more effectively. The good news is that there are modifications you can implement now to gain an edge. For instance, if you have a separate desktop and mobile version of your page, work to make them cohesive with correct structured data on the mobile site. Test your date here.
Think about the structure or your site and what that means for your visitors. Is your desktop page loaded with information, but your mobile page is bare bones? Evaluate why that is, and make some changes. Go to your own website often via a mobile device to feel what it’s like to be a visitor. Is your content engaging? Will people want to stay and hang out? Are the buttons and links easy to click through?
One important key to the whole thing is AMP. Google recently told us that rankings may depend on it – we heard it straight from the horse’s mouth at this year’s SEJ Summit!
What is AMP, and Why Should I Care?
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and open-source HTML framework allowing pages to load quickly but without all the extras that tend to slow sites down. After all, who has time to wait 20 seconds for content to load?
Slower page response time results in increased page abandonment, and statistics have shown that when site visitors are forced to spend 4 seconds waiting for a page to load, about 25 percent of them are going to bail. To put it in dollar figures, if an e-commerce website makes $100,000 per day, a 1-second page deal could cost $2.5 million in lost sales per year.
If the year was 1980, that would equal about 2,700 Commodore computers. Ouch.
There are some ways to increase the speed of a mobile page, including:
Keep tracking codes simple and limit the use of video embeds. This can drag page speed down.
Use smaller, lower-resolution images on your mobile site. Giant images will just get in the way and will not be as appealing.
Limit third-party content as much as possible. It may not be optimized for mobile viewing.
As you can probably guess, faster pages mean happier visitors. And the happier the visitors are, the more they are inclined to hang out on your site and engage with your content.
So how easy is it to implement AMP? If you are new to mobile webpage optimizations, you can learn how to get started on the AMP website.
Also.
Once you have AMP correctly installed, you’ll have this beautiful “AMP” “certified” bubble/text thingy next to your site URL, from Google. It will magically appear on users’ cell phone browsers (I’m screen-shotting from my iPhone 6 Plus):
8 Tips on How to Create Mobile-Friendly Content
In light of Google’s announcement, there are steps that site owners can take to prepare for the future. Here are some tips that can help you create mobile-friendly content:
1. Submit your page to Google’s index directly
Use their new mobile-friendly testing tool at google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly. Simply type in your URL, and the results will tell you if your site is mobile-friendly, as well as provide you with a screenshot sample.
2. Never, never, ever use Flash
It’s not the ’90s, and it’s not cool anymore. You’d think we wouldn’t have to add this tip, but hey–there’s still some Flash sites out there (insert facepalm emoticon.)
3. Use a larger font
Don’t worry, you’re not insulting the young: sizes are scaled according to the device. Start with 16 pixels, and keep it simple by avoiding too many styles and sizes on your pages.
4. Check relative width
Then, position values for CSS elements. This eliminates the need for visitors to scroll horizontally to see images on your page. If you need help, Google has a tutorial here.
5. Consider the space between buttons and links in your setup
Too close together, and a mobile user can’t tap one without tapping the other.
6. Consistently monitor
Make sure your website’s navigation is easy and stress-free. You want to be sure the user experience is top-notch!
7. Keep the design simple
Remember that all those graphics and videos may interfere with your site’s ability to load quickly.
8. Get AMP-ed
Consider setting up AMP for your website. See above for more on that.
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Creating Mobile Friendly Content is In
We can look back on the days of the Commodore with both nostalgia–memories of your first job, first family computer, first school assignment typed up–and with a grateful heart. Some of us will never appreciate the days of old, which were burdened by multiple boxes of computer equipment that had to be wired to a dial-up connection (whatever that is) as we accessed the World Wide Web at home.
As society moves farther and farther away from its break-up with the traditional desktop, it remains key to stay up-to-date with shifts in technology and how smartphone users connect with the world. Website owners cannot afford to produce mediocre content while assuming it will be displayed similarly across all platforms, especially in light of Google’s latest announcement.
Google’s mobile-first index is still in an early stage, and there are many challenges yet to be overcome. But this turn down a new path signals a shift in website design that content developers and website managers would be wise to pay attention to as we continue to move forward with our lives tucked safely into our back pocket (no mouse required).
Life as a writer may often be marked by late nights, deadlines, word counts, and an endless amount of coffee (I like mine with a hint of cream and sugar).
As an online writer, we easily toss around terms like “search engine”, ‘keywords”, and “relevant content” in casual conversation, and, if we aren’t careful, our focus may turn toward SEO as if we have no audience.
Ah, audience.
Key term of today’s post…
These are the people, the live humans, the readers who are searching for answers that you may have but may not often give in the way of quality content.
Neil Patel said: “One of the biggest challenges that bloggers and content marketers face is writing content that’s optimized for search engines, yet will also appeal to people.”
The challenge, even in late 2016, presents itself as writers seek to create content that is appealing to customers and clients, providing a solution to a problem, while optimizing it for keywords and Google.
While black hat SEO and keyword stuffing are things of the past, there is still the temptation to provide “cheap, backlink-stuffed online content,” if you’re not careful. If you’re ready to learn best practices that will appeal to your readers, put on a pot of coffee (half and half and sugar on standby, please) and get ready to dive in.
Writing for SEO: A 101 on SEO Writing & Why It’s Still Important, Within Reason
“Stop writing for SEO”…does that sound arbitrary, or what? Especially coming from a content writer? Keep reading. I promise, it’ll be good. 😉
First… let’s delve into the good of SEO writing.
If you were super tired, maybe you woke up this morning needing Google to help you figure out “how to make a perfect cup of coffee”. Like most of us, you would turn to your smartphone, pull up Google, and type in the phrase. Along with the featured snippet box, this is what you would see:
This is not a random list or a paid ad; it is brought to you courtesy of organic SEO, or the result of “search engine optimization.”
In other words, a marketer’s non-paid efforts to optimize content organically for Google.
This is the good of SEO writing: when you can organically rank, and then earn organic traffic from those rankings, because of the SEO writing you’ve successfully put together.
Nowadays, quality is a heavy factor in Google’s organic rankings: when people are looking for something on the web, the list that appears on Google is based on the relevance and authority of those particular pages.
Relevancy is determined by content analyzation—how often and where certain words are used in the content–and the use of authoritative links.
In the case of SEO, it’s about quality (of content) over quantity (of clicks and keywords).
This doesn’t mean that writers should be afraid of writing content inspired by keywords. On the contrary, it remains key to understand the words your potential customers and clients would use to describe your products and services. There are a few key useful tools that can help with background research and point you in the right direction of keywords. My two top favorites:
For more on how to use tools to find great keywords, check out my guide on optimizing your content for keywords.
Writing for SEO Vs. Using SEO to Connect
Here’s the absolute truth (…sit down and sip that coffee while I break it to y’all):
All the keywords and catchy titles that may get you to the top of the page results will do absolutelynogood if no one wants to hang around and absorb your content.
Writing for SEO only will come out like content that is uninteresting, irrelevant, run-of-the-mill. You don’t want that: there’s no real ROI there today. People are smart.
In contrast, using SEO to connect with your audience will deliver a people-first, high-quality answer to the questions they have.
Mention the phrase “card catalog” to anyone under the age of 30 today and you might get a confused look in response. Those days of trying to find a library book by flipping through mini-index cards is synonymous with the Dewey Decimal system, which organizes books according to subject matter and makes it easier to find them on the shelf.
In the same way that the system organizes books on a shelf, search engines organize and deliver content.
You don’t write content just to get onto a search engine any more than you would write a book to get into Dewey’s system, which is why it remains key to deliver quality content and see SEO as a medium to connect it to people. While it used to be that we wrote only for SEO purposes, that does not remain true today, not by a long shot. Helping people is the key to creating great content; optimizing comes next.
How to Focus on The Human Reading Your Crap: 5 Tips to Stop Writing for SEO
1. People First
Simple, but really. Behind each smartphone, laptop, and tablet is a real person with a real need. No one searches “how to make a perfect cup of coffee” unless they are seeking to find a solution beyond their average cup-o-joe. Putting people first also means you must understand your audience. Tools like BuzzSumo can help with that.
2. Relevant Writing
This ties into #1, people first. Engaging content that is well-written, attractive, and not created simply for the purpose of claiming links will lean more toward a successful reach than fluff that has no intended audience. This means that you, as the writer, must commit to thorough research so you can secure useful statistics that others will share and benefit from in their search for answers.
3. Interesting Content
It’s okay to be funny, stir emotion, and use quality illustrations in your content. We are a culture of posts, tweets, and pins, so go ahead and take a light tone if the setting allows—the visually stimulated members of your audience will thank you. (Want some inspiration here? Check out 6 brands that are doing an amazing job with audience-related copy, by our social media manager Rachel.)
4. High-Quality Links
As a search engine, Google takes into account the links pointing at your domain and the words others use in linking to you as a sign of legitimacy and relevance. People will not link to your content just because they’re nice or feel a sense of obligation; they link because something is in it for them and because they see your content as important for their need.
We use Alexa to discover high rankings. It’s easy: any site nearing the 100,000 mark is, quite literally, the 100,000th most popular in the world and thus, a very reputable domain. (Perspective: Forbes is 214, Twitter is 10, Facebook is 1.)
5. Engaging Headlines
Headlines that grab attention can take the form of questions, how-tos, and numbers.
People like to know exactly what they are getting into, and by providing readers with a numbered list, you are packaging all the information into a concise “3 easy steps” or “5 ways to.”
And have you heard the research that headlines with odd numbers have a 20% higher click-through rate than those with even numbers?
Stop Writing for SEO: The Top 4 Common SEO Mistakes
SEO methods are ever-evolving, and content developers are wise to stay on top of successful optimization techniques so that they know how to deliver the most relevant information for their audience.
There are some common mistakes that are easy to make if we are not careful. Putting time and resources into the strategy side of your content marketing is sometimes all it takes to fine tune this process.
