If you’ve been following the presidential race online, it’s likely that you’ve probably already noticed what the topic of my blog is all about today. There’s been a slight change in how Google is displaying their search results.
Search a presidential candidate on Google right now, and you’ll find a distinctly Twitter-like feed that allows Google users to have direct access to live-feed information from the Google platform.
In addition to helping Google users locate the information they want more quickly, this feature has the potential to eventually expand to celebrities and businesses, allowing them to have their own personal content feeds embedded within the Google platform.
Welcome to a new world: the Google Posts, or Podium, as they’re currently being called by news sources.
Google’s Circle of Life: Google Posts (or Podium) Opening in Search Results
Here’s what you need to know about this huge upcoming change that’s on the works at the Google-sphere.
What Do The New Search Results Look Like?
If you head to Google right now and type in the name of any presidential candidate in the race, as I did with Bernie Sanders’s name, you’ll find results that look like this:
The display features a small blue checkmark that indicates that Sanders is a verified presence. In addition to allowing users to scroll through a live feed of recent news, it’s easy to share the content directly to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Email by simply clicking the social sharing icon at the bottom.
Who Can Use It? Google’s Wait List for Their Twitter-Lookalike is Open
While the new SERP layout is available only to these two parties:
select businesses
and the current US presidential candidates
…Many experts expect it to open up significantly in the future.
In fact, Google is currently offering a waitlist where you can request the feature for your business. While Google has been relatively quiet about this new change, the search engine giant has called it an “experimental new podium” that allows users to “hear directly from the candidates they’re searching for in real time…” The change allows the presidential candidates to share images, videos and text directly to the Google platform, where they appear instantaneously in the search results. Plus, since Google has made it so easy for Google users to share the content directly from the platform, it’s clear that there’s a certain viral intention present in the change.
How Google Posts in Search Results Works
Google began experimenting with this new feature last month when it was released as a way to allow political candidates a way to post lengthy responses to one another and expound on their stances on various issues such as education, gun control, and immigration. In combination with other recent innovations like Google’s mobile “Cards,” this new scrolling feed feature is a fantastic way for Google users to gain access to the information they need and want quickly and easily.
While many people are calling the new feature “Posts,” or “Podium,” Google hasn’t actually endorsed this name and the feature doesn’t technically have a moniker just yet. While the rollout of the new feature is still quite limited, the content provided by the new feature appears prominently in Google’s SERPs, which could be a fantastic platform for marketers and businesses down the road. The current format of the posts looks quite a lot like a Google+ post, although Google users are unable to comment directly on the page or follow the content.
As it stands now, the feature is ideal for sharing and rapid-fire updates on important social and political issues.
Why the New Google Posts SERP Matters
In addition to the political candidates currently using the feature, there are several small businesses, including Andrew Jewellers and A Healthy Choice, that have surfaced with the new search feature. For these businesses, the new search feature has the potential to revolutionize their search results by providing more traffic and easier social sharing. Because Google has such a huge reach (much larger than any social network), it’s clear that having content featured directly on the search platform could provide any business using the feature with a huge SEO boost.
Because of this, this platform has the potential to provide more reach than any other social media platform, which could make it the perfect place to deliver news, updates, and offers.
The Future of Google’s New Search Feature
According to Google’s current statements, there are no plans to charge for this search feature in the future, although there’s a good possibility that it could eventually become a feature that would compete with Facebook’s Sponsored Posts feature. If this happened, it would allow brands or individuals taking advantage of the feature to sponsor posts on the basis of keyword searches. While the future of this innovative new search layout remains uncertain, it’s clear that Google is committed to offering clear, relevant, and up-to-date content to users without offering too many hoops to jump through.
Yes, There’s Pros: The Top 5 Advantages of Google’s New Search Look
While Google’s most recent feature is still in a very limited roll-out stage, we’re excited to see where it goes. Here are the five top advantages I expect the platform to bring to content marketers who can get their hands on it:
1. Increased visibility
Getting to the top of Google’s SERPs has always been a battle and, if this new feature rolls out on a widespread basis, it could change the way we relate to ranking. While there’s no doubt that ranking well in Google through things like SEO, content, links, and referrals will always be important, the new feature could help small businesses and individuals display content prominently to their customers directly from a simple, easy to use platform. This, in turn, could help even small businesses build their online brands quickly and easily and without the expense so often associated with high-level SEO and content marketing.
2. More relevant content
Since Google’s new feature operates on a live-feed basis, it’s constantly shuffling the most recent content to the front of the list. This helps Google Posts viewers find the relevant, recent content they’re looking for without digging through pages of text. Additionally, it can help companies, brands, and individuals provide up-to-date content easily. In order to stay on top of the news, all Google users need to do is check Google’s feed again – no scrolling down a Facebook page or searching through SERP results that aren’t always ranked chronologically.
3. Easier access
When a user scrolls through Google’s new search feature, all they have to do is click once on the slide that catches their eye to be taken directly to the page. It’s quick, simple, clean, and amazingly efficient. In addition to massively cutting down on the time users spend searching for information and navigating through web pages, this change is also an amazingly efficient way to deliver information and it helps brands (or, in this case, political candidates, deliver a fantastic user experience almost effortlessly.
4. An enhanced platform for visual content
Visual content will perform especially well in Google’s new feature. Consider the difference between these two screenshots:
While the text-based screenshot is still informative and clear, the visual (with image) screenshot is the one that grabs a reader’s attention. Because of this, visual content is likely to perform incredibly well in these new results. This means that things like infographics, memes, and videos will convert even better than they do currently and, thanks to the easy social sharing link, will have the potential to go viral quite easily.
5. Content that is easy to scan
Because the Google platform was launched as a way to provide Twitter-like rapid fire updates to people interested in political news, it’s going to be a great place for interested Google users to grab relevant news snippets. This will help satisfy the purpose of a user’s search while also helping to spread information more widely and make easily-scannable content available to all Google users.
Conclusion
While Google Posts are still pretty limited, there’s no doubt that this is an exciting development in the Google-verse. In addition to adding a rich and highly adaptive feature to Google’s SERPS, this new search feature makes it amazingly easy for Google users to find exactly what they’re looking for in a hurry.
As the feature begins to roll out to more businesses and individual brands, it will become an ideal place for companies to share and distribute compelling visual content as well as information-dense textual updates. This, in turn, will help promote higher conversion rates, more social sharing, and enhanced user engagement.
While it remains to be seen exactly how marketers will utilize this unique feature, it’s one that, if used correctly, could revolutionize the front page of Google’s SERPs forever. And that’s something that we here at Express Writers are looking forward to seeing.
Do you need a team to help you create viral, share-worthy content? Check out our content services today!
If your goal is to rank well in the SERPs and draw as many qualified leads as possible through your content, aka online SEO copywriting, long-tail keywords are going to be your best friend.
Here’s a simple example to illustrate just what I mean: as it stands right now, Amazon rakes in a whopping 57% of its sales as a result of long-tail keywords!
In addition to the fact that long-tail keywords are easier to rank for because they’re generally less competitive, long-tail keywords also help you draw high-quality leads to your content because all the traffic long-tails drive is very, very relevant. I’ve relied on using long-tails myself in the last year to build up a repertoire of well-ranking, well-shared content on my blog.
Why YOU Need Long-Tail Keywords in Your SEO Copywriting Arsenal
Here’s what you need to know about long-tail keywords and how to incorporate them into your SEO strategy.
101: What are Long-Tail Keywords?
Long-tail keywords are search queries made up of three-four word phrases that are very specific to a product, good, or service that’s being sold. Long-tail keywords are the phrases search engine users are generally more likely to type in when they’re closer to purchasing an item.
Examples of long-tail keyword phrases:
Aztec printed 3×5’ entry rug (not entry rug)
juice bar in Austin, TX (not juice bar)
size S white dress for homecoming (not white dress)
The searcher who typed these phrases are looking for a very specific product and is likely to purchase it when they find it. While long-tail keywords may seem a little clunky and strange at first, they’re a powerful tool for your web-based SEO copywriting.
Photo courtesy theseoagency.net
The conversion rate for long-tail keywords is approximately 2.5 times higher than it is for head (shorter) keywords.
3 Major Reasons to Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
In the world of SEO and copywriting, long-tail keywords don’t often get as much airtime as their shorter counterparts. Unfortunately, however, marketers who neglect long tail keywords can easily find themselves in a position where they’re missing out on quality traffic and failing to produce all of the conversions that they easily could.
When it comes to targeting and ranking for keywords, fewer people are going to be targeting “Salvador Dali vintage-inspired 1980’s duvet cover” than will be targeting “comforter.” Because of this, it’s much, much easier to rank for long-tail keywords than it is general search terms. While general terms may be easier to use, long-tail keywords are amazingly specific and, for the marketer who knows exactly what he or she is trying to sell, they can be a speedway toward ranking success.
Additionally, long-tail keywords that present less competition also offer lower cost-per-click prices since few marketers are targeting them.
2. More conversions
Because long-tail keywords are so amazingly specific, the people that search for them are highly likely to purchase your products. The longer and more specific the keyword is – the better. As long-tail keywords become more specific, the number of people searching for them narrows considerably. While this may seem like a frightening prospect at first, it’s important to remember that the people who are searching for that wacky Dali-inspired bedspread are highly likely to purchase it. Because of this, marketers who target long-tail keywords effectively can nab more purchases than their competitors.
3. More relevant results
Relevance is everything in today’s market and copywriters and SEOs who know how to focus on long-tail keywords will invariably provide more relevant search results for customers. Over time, this simple step can go a long way toward increasing customer loyalty, producing quality word-of-mouth advertising, and helping a brand gain dominance and build authority in a niche.
How to use Long-Tail Keywords
While long-tail keywords can provide a serious boost for your content, you’ll need to know how to use them correctly – which isn’t always easy. Follow these steps to get started:
1. Decide what your content is trying to do
Think of long-tail keywords like the ship and your content like a map. One can’t function well without the other. If you don’t know what the overall goal of your content (information, sales, conversions, etc.) is, then it’s impossible to utilize long tail keywords effectively. Because of this, it’s imperative to understand the overall purpose of your content before you start searching for long-tail keywords to beef it up.
To get this process started, sit down and write out the three top goals of your web content. For example, maybe you want it to inform people, drive email subscriptions, and produce sales. Once you’ve defined your top three goals, ensure that everything else in your content is working to support them. This includes your headlines, your social sharing functions, and the value offered by your content. If your content as a whole doesn’t work, is unreadable, or doesn’t provide value, then all of the long-tail keywords in the world won’t be enough to help it. Because of this, evaluating the structure and functionality of your content as a whole helps you lay the foundation for using long-tail keywords effectively down the road.
2. Decide who you’re writing to
No matter what kind of web writing you specialize in, marketing personas are important. By defining who, exactly, you’re writing your content to, you can provide more valuable information, tailor your language effectively, and produce more conversions. This is true for everything from introductory “How-to” articles to high-level niche content. In the case of long-tail keywords, however, it’s especially important.
Because long-tail keywords are so very specific, it’s absolutely imperative to have a solid idea of who your target audience is before you begin writing. When you visualize your ideal reader in as much detail as possible, you’re better equipped to provide valuable content specifically for them. When it comes to long-tail keywords, this can mean the difference between SEO success and flat-out failure. This is especially true for marketers who intend to use long-tail keywords in personalized emails, landing pages, or social media.
3. Use essential SEO keyword research tools
You can’t do your long-tail keyword research correctly without tools, of course. I’ll run through the main ones I use and include some top recommendations.
SEMrush: This is my favorite tool. SEMrush is a hugely effective long-tail keyword research tool–currently, the leading one online. Because SEMrush allows you to see how your competitors are ranking for given keywords, it’s the stand-out tool that many professionals prefer. Additionally, SEMrush allows you to see which keywords your competitors are bidding on, so you can tailor your keyword strategy accordingly.
Marketers who don’t have a SEMrush account need to get one in order to use the platform for keyword research, but I’ll walk you through it anyway. I’ve pulled up a general keyword search on black shoes in SEMrush’s Keyword Analytics section to give you a screenshot, and below it are a few steps.
Log into your SEMrush account and navigate to the left column
Scroll to “Keyword Analytics” and click “overview”
Enter a relevant topic or keyword (your target search term) into the search bar at the top of the page and click “Search”
Once you do this, you’ll be confronted by a barrage of data. For best results, check out the “Related keywords” section or click “View full report,” below the Phrase match keyword section. From here, select any keywords that are more than 3-4 words long and consider targeting them as your long-tail phrases from now on, and narrow down by a good balance of low competition, high search volume, and relevance. (My upcoming book will have a whole chapter with more on this: it really is in art in itself to select best-fit keywords!)
Google AdWords Keywords Planner: Long hailed as the pinnacle of keyword research, the Keyword Planner offers a unique tool that can be helpful for the marketer searching for long-tail keyword ideas – namely, the “Get ideas” function. Once you’ve logged into your AdWords Keywords Planner dashboard, enter your main keyword phrase (“duvet cover,” for example) and click “Get ideas.” From there, you’ll be able to access all of the keywords featured and you can simply choose your long-tail keyword phrases from results featuring 4 or more words. Just remember it has limitations and won’t give you as much data as another tool might.
AuthorityLabs, Wordtracker, UberSuggest: These are all great tools recommended by top marketers and friends of mine in the content marketing space. I’d suggest you check them all out if you’re looking for more tools to add to your category than the ones I use the most (above). Another tool: I also love BuzzSumo and use it regularly for wider topic research; it would be perfect for your long-tail keyword searches, simply by finding what’s hot on your overall topic. I like to get content inspiration from the most-shared or hottest content in my niche, using BuzzSumo.
4. Start writing
Once you’ve decided which long-tail keyword phrases you should be targeting, it’s time to create content to house them. With long-tail keywords, as with everything else, it’s important to remember that stuffing keywords will get you nowhere and that you need to incorporate keywords naturally into your content in order to make it valuable for humans and search engines alike.
Here are some general guidelines for including long-tail keywords into your content:
Use long-tail keywords in your headings. Headlines are often considered the single most important line in a piece of content. Because about 80% of people read headlines, whereas only 20% read body copy, headlines are also an outstanding opportunity for you to make a splash with your customer right off the bat. The best headline for SEO utilizes keywords early and helps make it clear exactly how the content included beneath the headline will benefit your reader. Power words, numbers, and promises to solve problems (i.e., “Four simple ways to find the duvet cover of your dreams”) are all good bets. If you’re having a difficult time coming up with an idea for a headline, use a tool like Buzzsumo to check out content that’s gone viral and then craft your headline based on those.
Use keywords naturally, always. Long-tail keywords must blend in with your content, which is often easier said than done due to the fact that, by their very nature, long-term keywords are seldom natural and low-profile. Don’t be afraid to break up the words in your long-tail phrase or add colons to make them more readable. Today’s search engines are trending more toward intention than they are literal interpretation, so they’ll have no trouble understanding your long-tail phrase.
Include keywords in your introduction. Your introduction sets the stage for the rest of your content, so it’s important to get it right. By including long-tail keywords in your introductory body content, you can immediately make it clear to readers that your content is relevant, useful, and specific, which enhances the chance that a reader will stick around to see what you have to offer.
Include long-tail keywords in subheads. Including long-tail keywords in subheads helps your readers navigate your content quickly and efficiently. It also helps back up any claims you made in your headline and help guide readers to a solution. Keep in mind that any long-tail keywords you include in your subheads should be relevant and flow naturally. This will help enhance user experience and ensure that your text is readable and relevant.
Include long–tail keywords in your conclusion. Including long-tail keywords in your conclusion helps to back up your claims, wrap up your message, and send readers away with a strong sense of relevance and purpose. Because of this, including long-tail keywords naturally in the conclusion of your content is one of the most important steps you can take.
Conclusion
While long-tail keywords may be confusing, this simple guide can help you get started on the path to SEO dominance.I’d also recommend Neil Patel’s guide, here.
From driving more sales to producing more conversions than you ever thought possible, long-tail keywords are a powerful tool for success in SEO copywriting.
Having trouble creating content that converts? Let us do it for you! Check out our Content Shop to get started today!
Anyone who has ever dabbled in the online content marketing community knows that research is everything.
Shoddy research means that you wind up with shoddy facts, which can cost you readers and your voice of authority – and you don’t want that to happen, if you’re investing anything in content marketing.
Unfortunately, many people don’t know how to research correctly in our current web-based world, and many online writers today are finding that the research tactics they learned in the public school library aren’t holding true anymore.
Fortunately, writers who know how to research well, find great sources, and use technology for content evaluation are well on their way to accessing the best information on the web. Read our best practices for researching your content below.
5 Major Research Tips for the Online Content Creator (In a Digital World)
Here are our top tips on researching correctly in today’s modern world.
1. Look for these 5 elements of reputable online content
No matter what topic you’re researching, it’s important to evaluate every source you’re interested in on the basis of the 5 elements of reputable online content.
This is an idea that was first put forth by Darren Rowse of Problogger and the 5 elements are as follows:
Insight: Does the article, blog, or website make you think of simple ideas in a simple manner but from a new perspective? If it does, it’s gifted you with new levels of insight into the topic, which means that it’s probably a source worth mentioning. To put this another way, good sources should provide unique insight to their readers. If they’re not, it’s likely that the writer isn’t working hard enough to produce that “Aha!” moment.
Simplicity: Unless you’re reading a high-level specialty blog, all of the information contained within any source you’re interested in should be presented in an easy-to-understand manner. This helps ensure that you’re interpreting the facts correctly and ensures that the source will be as valuable for your readers as it is for you.
Depth: In addition to being simply written, great sources possess the level of depth needed to adequately cover a given topic. This means extensive topics should be broken down into bite-sized chunks and that simple topics shouldn’t be beaten to death by the writer. For example, you wouldn’t want to see a 500-word summary of the Civil War any more than you would want to see a 10,000-word article on the best way to polish a shoe. Great online content should be as deep as the topic requires it to be – no more and no less.
Breadth: Breadth is the extent to which the writer of a blog, article, or site manages to link the topic discussed with other relatable topics. Breadth often includes things like storytelling (using examples to illustrate points), references (referencing experts or industry leaders to help add detail to an explanation), and using analogies to help readers understand a topic. Sources that contain a high level of breadth are generally reputable sources that you will do well to link to and draw statistics from.
Relevance: If there’s only one piece of the entire article that’s relevant to the topic you’re researching, it’s likely that you’re better off finding a more focused source. This saves you from gathering bad facts from unknowledgeable sources and ensures that the leaders you’re referencing are actually leaders. If you’re having a difficult time returning relevant search results during your quest for information, try changing the keyword phrases you’re using in Google or searching the blogs of industry influencers who work within the niche you’re researching. This can often help you turn up facts and sources that were previously eluding you.
While these five elements won’t tell you everything you need to know about a potential source, they’re generally a pretty reliable marker of what’s quality and what’s not in the world of online content.
2. Stick with the top results
You know how smart Google is these days, right? When Google ranks pages, it ranks the most authoritative pages on a topic highest up in the SERPs. In light of this, it’s possible that you’ll run into low-quality content or content that’s lacking enough E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) if you start digging back into the subsequent pages of a search result. (More on the EAT and YMYL stuff in my monster blog post on Google’s SERP guidelines.) If you can’t find ample results to match your chosen query, consider entering a different query. 27,000,000 pieces of online content are currently shared around the web on a daily basis so the problem is very seldom a lack of answers and more commonly an off-base search technique.
3. Go to the best sources
If you write often, it’s likely that you’ve developed a series of sources you trust and turn to on a regular basis for statistics. For us, these statistics may include leaders like Moz, HubSpot, BuzzSumo, and Content Marketing Institute. Those are just a few I’ve cited for our own industry. In addition to being the big names in this industry, these sources also have entire research teams behind them to write their content, which means that the facts you find on their sites have likely been checked and re-checked before publication.
Know who is the research standard company is in your industry, when you’re researching your content. If you dig down deep as you research, you’ll get final sources for facts – look at domains for anything that comes from a large company doing their own study, educational institution, etc.
This immediately makes these sites much more credible than an individual blog that’s written by someone who doesn’t have to go through rigorous fact-checking in order to publish a piece. For this reason, information that comes from large, established companies is generally much safer to rely on than the information that comes from independent writers. With this in mind, it’s wise to build your own list of trusted sources you know you can turn to at a later date.
4. Use good tools (BuzzSumo)
One of the best tools to conduct effective online research is BuzzSumo. BuzzSumo is designed to allow marketers and writers to find trending topics, locate industry influencers, and see exactly how many social shares an article, blog, or page has earned – which is usually a reliable marker of authority.
To use the tool, all you need to do is plug your relevant keywords into the search bar and you’ll immediately have access to the total number of shares a post has garnered as well as things like top authors and trending content. All in all, BuzzSumo is a fantastic tool that can be used to help your research step up to the next level.
5. A quick check on domain authority can help – but don’t let it be the final say
DA stands for “Domain authority” and it’s a handy little metric that’s often used as means of vetting the reliability of online content and overall websites. One of the easiest ways to check a site’s DA score is to download a simple toolbar produced by Moz: the MozBar. This toolbar installs right in your browser and displays the DA score of every site you visit while you browse the web.
The DA scale runs from 0-100 and it can be used to help you determine whether or not a site is worth linking to. As a general rule, it’s wise to only link to or reference sites that feature a DA of fifty or above. As you can see in the screenshot below, the Moz site has a DA of 89, which indicates it is a reputable and authoritative site and that linking to it would not only provide me with valid information, but would also reflect positively on my site in the eyes of Google and other search engines, which love to see content referencing authoritative leaders in different industries.
In addition to helping you understand which sites are authoritative enough to link to, the MozBar also helps facilitate easy research by providing you with other important metrics. Simply click the MozBar DA score at the top of your browser and you’ll have immediate access to the site analytics of any given page, including the page authority and spam score ratings as well as a variety of on-page elements, link markups, and HTTP information. These metrics can all help you make an informed decision about which sources are reputable and which aren’t while browsing the web.
Just remember, in some rare cases a truly credible source may not have a high DA, so don’t let it be the final word. This is because Moz’s DA is a robotic measure, is not perfected (nowhere close to Google’s algorithm smarts), and has actually been embroiled in spam before–several billion Chinese sites got into its’ radar a couple years ago. So just remember, this is not your final word on a quality assessment.
Conclusion
While content research may seem intimidating, these five tips can help you ensure that you’re getting all the facts you need for your content marketing and building up your best online content. From building a list of reliable and trusted sources you know you can rely on to learning how to use the best content research tools in the industry, it’s easy to develop outstanding research habits – even in today’s modern world.
Have you ever stopped in the middle of creating your online content, whether it be a social media post, blog, or other piece of online content, not sure what the proper word count should be? We’ve studied, analyzed, and researched–and put an infographic together to guide you. Here’s every correct content length for any piece of online content on the web. Feel we missed anything, or do you have something to add? Let us know in the comments! Full infographic transcription below.
An Infographic Guide to Online Content Length
Curious how long your content should be? You’re not alone. With dozens of conflicting opinions about word count flying around the web, it can be difficult to determine how much is enough on various platforms like blogs and social media. Fortunately, we have the answers.
Let’s explore the word count question here.
The Rise of Social Media: Why Your Content Matters
Social media is booming and one of the best ways to engage with the huge numbers on each platform is to ensure that the content you share there is as user-friendly as possible. Take a look at the user numbers for some of today’s hottest platforms:
There are currently more than 2 billion active social media users in the world
Content on Facebook earns 5 billion likes each day
Twitter has more than 284 million users and the platform sees 500 million tweets daily
Google+ has more than 363 million users
Online Content Lengths for All Web Platforms
Now that you know how big social media truly is, let’s take a look at what the ideal content length for all distribution channels really is.
Twitter
Is Twitter really increasing its character limit from 140 to 10,000? The CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, started the rumor:
But, best practices currently state that it’s more fruitful to keep Tweets limited to 100 characters. Here’s why:
Tweets that are 100 characters or shorter enjoy 17% more engagement than longer Tweets
So-called “medium length” tweets (between 71-100 characters) are re-tweeted more often than large (101-characters or longer) or small (41-70 character) tweets
Twitter is built on brevity, and 100-character tweets are easy for users to consume
Facebook
While Facebook is often thought of a long-form content platform in comparison to Twitter, it may surprise you to know that the ideal character limit for a Facebook post is actually shorter than a tweet. Here’s what you need to know:
The ideal Facebook post is 40-characters or fewer
Facebook posts with 40-characters earn 86% more engagement than longer posts
According to Facebook best practices, the second-best length of a Facebook post is 80 characters or less. These posts receive 66% more engagement than longer posts
Google+
Google+ is all about readability and accessibility of content, so it’s important to keep content easily digestible. Here’s what you need to know about Google+ headlines and content:
The highest-performing Google+ headlines are 60 characters or less
Readers only absorb the first and last three words of a headline, so headlines that are 6 words or less have the most impact
The ideal length of Google+ body content is 200-440 characters
LinkedIn
LinkedIn posts are designed to be short and sweet. According to BufferApp, the ideal length for a post on the platform is 25 words.
LinkedIn posts that are around 25 words encourage the highest number of click-throughs.
For B2B companies, the ideal word length for a LinkedIn post can vary between 16-25 words.
For B2C companies on LinkedIn, the ideal word length for a post is between 21-25 words.
Instagram
Since Instagram isn’t focused on text-based content, but rather great visuals: there are currently no solid “best practices” for word count. You can, however, follow these tips for best results from your Instagram posts.
Use creative #hashtags to promote interaction with your established network. Consider using the Instagram Explorer page to learn more about trending hashtags that can enhance your brand. Up to 15 hashtags per post is an average amount. Always be relatable with your hashtags to what your visual topic is about.
If you’re sharing an Instagram photo on Twitter or Facebook, be sure to lessen and streamline your hashtags. Photos with too many hashtags will look out of place on these networks. Some brands drop the hashtags in an Instagram follow-up comment if they’re streamlining.
Tell your brand story through captions. This offers context for your image and helps followers connect with your content.
Pinterest
When it comes to Pinterest descriptions, keeping them within the correct character-count range can enhance their performance hugely.
200-character descriptions earn the most re-pins
Pins that feature CTAs earn 80% more engagement than those that don’t
Research has found that pins with an image height 800 pixels or greater earn significantly more re-pins than those with smaller images
Blog Posts
Rule of thumb: blog posts are the place where informative, guide-style, long-form content can shine.
Buffer found that the ideal reading length of a blog post is 7 minutes. This translates to roughly 1,600 words
As a general rule, longer blogs are more likely to provide quality markers for search engines, which allows them to rank higher
Blog posts that are longer than 1,500 words receive an average of 68% more tweets and 23% more Facebook likes than shorter posts.
Most web pages that sit in the top 10 SERP positions for any given keyword have at least 2,000 words
Eight-word or longer search queries have risen by 34,000%, which means that content targeting long-tail keywords will perform better today.
5 Key Best Practices for Social Media Posts
No matter where you’re posting content, there are several rules you should always follow:
1. Be helpful. Readers want helpful content. It matters less if your content is 80 or 800 characters and much, much more that it’s helpful and well-written.
2. Don’t blab. As a general rule, concise is better. If you can get a point across in 1,000 words, you shouldn’t be stuffing a 2,000-word post with empty fillers just to meet word count. This will cost you readers and damage the quality of your content.
3. Add visuals. Posts with visuals earn 94% more views than text-only posts. By including high-quality infographics, memes, stock photos, or screenshots in your content, you can increase engagement hugely.
4. Craft compelling CTAs. Something as simple as adding CTAs to your social media content can create a huge shift in your conversions and rankings. By telling your readers exactly what you want them to do, you stand a better chance of them actually doing it.
5. Engage. A social media post is only as valuable as the level to which you engage with it. This means responding to comments, speaking directly with followers, and posting additional content as needed to keep the conversation going.
It’s gotten to the point where you’re wondering if you’ve got something worthwhile to say.
If you’ve had this thought, even though you don’t know how to put it in action yet, I have good news–you’re headed in the right direction.
It’s not just about reaching a lot of people. If you can reach millions and your content is useless, your Return On Investment (ROI) will be so low it doesn’t justify the time spent writing.
There are some crucial things you can start doing right now, in the fundamentals of your blog writing process itself, that will turn around and bring you more readers and more success. Get on the road to better blogging today with a few simple, but key, tips.
15 Keys to Start Using Immediately And Get on a Path of Better Blogging
You’ve got to have a good mix of value and reach, but finding that mix is daunting. Following is a list of fifteen ways that have proven successful in helping blogs reach a wider audience and becoming a better blogger, overall.
1. Outrage, Uplift, Mystery: Emotions in Headlines Matter!
Whatever you’re writing, it needs to catch the eye and be emotional. Upworthy established a formula proven successful in the increase of clicks. It is comprised of creating headlines that alert customers of an “outrage” they can resonate with, uplifting them with the possibility of a solution or some other fulfillment, and establishing mystery throughout. Here are examples of headlines that use this formula:
You Won’t Believe The Discount Opportunities This Weekend, Or The Secret Coupons
Don’t Be A Victim Of Internet Scamming Through Hidden False Flag Social Media Campaigns
Is Our Government Losing Its Mind? Insider Tips On Corporate Savings
Note how each of these hits the reader in a relatable way at the beginning of the headline. Then, each title gives the reader a possible “uplift” (opportunities, don’t be a victim, tips). Finally, none of these titles give away enough information to let the reader move onward without clicking.
Now, one thing I’d bet we all hate is the “click-bait-that-doesn’t-deliver” title. You know, the ones that get you to do a thousand clicks through a ton of ads before you can get anywhere. Don’t be that person. You can be honestly outrageous without outing a cold lie about what your content delivers.
So, a couple do’s and don’t’s here:
Do: Be authoritative, challenging, fun, and even shocking in your title–as long as your content delivers on what the title actually says. (Give them those coupons and the coupon code. Give them actual examples of those bad social media campaigns. Show them a list of 10 great insider tips–not something that’s common knowledge.)
Don’t: Mislead. Click-bait title with no content that actually delivers on what you’re offering in the topic. (10 Ways You Can Actually Find Your Soulmate Today, for example, is pretty hard to fulfill on.)
We also have a free guide with over 120 power words for better headlines: get it here.
Playing around with that tool and utilizing guides with power words can get you great results.
I worked on the headline of this very blog for about 20 minutes to get this score from the AMI tool:
2. Is Your Blog Mobile Friendly?
Simple, but key. Half of all consumers conducting a search locally on their smartphone followed their search with a visit to the store within 24 hours, while only 34% did the same on a computer tablet. As smartphones become regular features of society, blogs that are easy to navigate on them will naturally increase in readership. When writing a blog, don’t forget to keep the mobile angle in mind.
3. Utilize Good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques
3 out of 4 people (75%) who conduct a search on a search engine won’t scroll further than the first page of results. This means that if your blog doesn’t show up within that first page, it is 75% less likely to even be seen. You’ve got to have it optimized for a search engine, and SEO techniques like keyword inclusion are a great way to do that. You shouldn’t go overboard with keywords, but the right amount will very likely increase your readership. Writing a good meta description for every blog is also a key of SEO blogging. Also, beyond outrage, uplift, and mystery, have a title that is likewise optimized with your keyword.
4. Aim Your Blog At The Right Audience (Share-ability)
It’s all about opportunity cost. You want the greatest opportunity for the least cost. That means you want to aim your content at an audience who’s likely to share your blog. If you give your content value and properly engage this audience, you stand to see circulation in a way that’s wider than any solo efforts could produce (Moz).
5. Do You Have Share Buttons Visible on Every Blog Post?
Not only that, but share your blog on every social media platform yourself. Making sure your share buttons are visible is important to give every reader a chance to share with their network. Twitter has nearly the entire population of the United States in worldwide users monthly making posts, Facebook has about one billion users that are active, while Google+ and LinkedIn both have constituents that transcend 300 million. Between the four of them, that’s 1.871 billion potential readers—though certainly some crossover between the platforms is to be expected. The point is, you’ve got at least a billion possible readers out there through social media, just waiting to check out your blog. Increasing readership through social media is really worth your time. A lot of people in the above-listed networks share content they agree with. If you get yours trending, the potential for cost-free marketing is high. I’ll give you a secret here, too: I’ve found huge engagement through sharing my content within private social media groups (I’ll talk about that soon).
6. Use Google Analytics to Review Your Content
Using Google to analyze the effectiveness of your blog is a quantifiable way to identify trends and successful practices; plus it’s free, and can save you a lot of time.
7. Reach Out and Be a Guest Blogger
Getting an established blog to host your posts can put your blogs in front of a diverse, established readership that is more likely to offer a high ROI-quotient than solo marketing. Find blogs that are of high quality and resonate with products and services you’re purveying. Contact people who run the site and see if there’s a way you can do a guest post.
8. Never Refrain From Humor
Next to sex, you can’t beat humor. According to authors Noah J. Goldstein and Robert B. Cialdini, as well as Steven J. Martin (despite his humorous involvement, it’s a different one than the SNL alum), a cartoon strip that isn’t offensive sent during negotiations is integral to generating higher levels of trust. This is quantifiable to the tune of 15% higher profits.
9. Offer Truly Useful Content
Another simple key. Design your blog not just to sell your products or services, exposit them, or market. All these things are definitely useful to your audience and potential clients; but the blog that goes above and beyond in a relatable way will have more readers. Give the reader something they can sink their teeth into. Something that affects them directly, and is useful in their daily lives. If you’re selling a lawn service, maybe relate a memory about an extremely well-groomed garden that has affected you throughout your adult life. Then maybe offer some reasons why neglecting to groom a lawn can keep such memories from coming to others. The more useful your content is, the more likely it will be shared.
10. Long-Form Content
Dichotomously, despite the short form writing which attracts mobile phone readers, long form content actually gets more shares—ten percent more, in fact. (Read my recent post on how to create long-form content.) One of the reasons for this is that a reader is more likely to become invested in a long-form post and share its content. The key is to have both short and long form posts. Be sure your long-form posts are optimized for mobile viewing, and that you’ve got a short list or takeaway to summarize the long post inside at some point (10 key takeaways, etc.).
11. Visuals, Visuals, Visuals
More pictures doesn’t automatically equate to more readers, but having at least one image on your blog post more than doubles both Twitter and Facebook Shares. Branded images that have the topic + blogger’s identity are more and more becoming the norm, replacing crappy, standard old stock imagery.
12. Hit All The Emotional Chords
Humor was touched on earlier because it’s easier to facilitate than awe, but as the graphic from Buzzsumo demonstrates, by far awe is the most popular emotion, followed by laughter, amusement, other, and joy.
13. Establish a Regular Publication Schedule
Add content to your blog predictably, so readers can incorporate you into their routine. I can’t tell you how much a regular schedule is key to consistent rankings, too. Google knows to eat up new content from you, and will regularly (use long-term key phrases to win at blogging). I blog 3 times weekly, over 1000 words each post, and our rankings have been increasing since 2014 when I seriously committed to that many blogs. We have over 300 keywords in the top 10 spots of Google. (Read our blog post on how we gained 300 spots for more on our content schedule.)
14. Boost Old Blogposts That Are Relevant
An old post already has hit its peak of readers, but sometimes an old post becomes relevant again. Think of the economy. Certain stocks go up, and they come down; and different blogs over the years could prove useful in identifying trends. If you’ve written a past blog that suddenly becomes relevant again, blast it across social media with a new blurb citing your clairvoyance. It’ll help build trust and awe, and if you’ve got a colloquial amount of charming snark, you might even get a laugh.
15. Analyze and Try, Try, Try Again
Okay, you can’t try everything, but you can go after a number of different tactics and see which ones work the best for you. The old adage, “you don’t know unless you try” is as true here as it is anywhere else. Don’t be too risky, but don’t be afraid to take risks either; after all: “fortune favors the bold.” Don’t forget to analyze and track your results.
Successful Blogging Doesn’t Come Overnight (Or Does It?)
Now that you’ve got some useful tips to help you get started, try a few out and see if you don’t start getting more readers. You may not have success overnight, but then again, with the viral nature of the Internet, you just might.
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