Blogging Archives

How to Promote a New Blog Post: 15+ Trusty Techniques to Try

November 11, 2022February 8, 2019 by Adam Oakley

You put lots of hard work into creating that new blog post. It cost you real money, time, and effort. ⏳ Now, how can you get serious return out of your content? Promote it. Without a boost from a few smart, strategic promotion strategies, that blog won’t get traction beyond bare-bones SEO and organic shares. (Which could be significant by itself, but why settle?) If you feel comfortable letting your blog hang out on the internet without any help, be prepared for a surge of activity followed by a quick decline. Your blog will limp along for a while until it’s forgotten entirely. If, on the other hand, you want to give all your new blogs a fighting chance at getting read by a wider audience – not to mention a longer lifespan online – promotion is essential! So, how to promote a new blog post in ways that actually get it noticed? Follow along as we share our best tips and techniques. How to Promote a New Blog Post: Your Comprehensive Guide to Boosting Traffic and Engagement 1. Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search Promote a New Blog Post Internally Build Relationships with Peers, Fans, Followers, and Customers 2. Promote a New Blog Post Using Email Segment Your Email List and Target by Interests Did You Mention a Specific Brand/Influencer in a Post? Email Them Write Your Emails the Right Way 3. Promote a New Blog Post on Social Media Use Instagram Stories Cross-Post to Each Platform You’re On Plug Your New Blog on Relevant Twitter Chats Add the Link to Your New Blog on Your Profiles Share Your New Blog Multiple Times on Fast-Moving Feeds Use Those #Hashtags and DO @ People Share Your New Blog to Your Social Media Groups and Communities 4. Promote a New Blog Post with Smart Tools Use Quuu Promote or Zest Curate Your Blog Posts in a Content Hub Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Posts Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post So, you’re all ready to start learning how to promote a new blog post. Hold on one second. There are a few foundations we need to cover first. Don’t skip these steps – they’ll help make blog promotion much, much easier. 1. Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself Content promotion will mean absolutely nothing if all you do is lead visitors to a subpar blog. All the promotional tactics in the world can’t save mediocre content. Why? Quite simply, people don’t want to read, share, or engage with content that’s “eh.” They may be lured to a blog that sucks because they won’t know it sucks until they land there. Once they find out, they’ll bounce away from the crappy blog as fast as they can. You’ll be no better off than you were before. That’s why you MUST commit to creating the best blog this side of the internet. An amazing blog makes people want to stay, read, engage, and share. Plus: Amazing content promotes itself! A case study from Ahrefs nicely demonstrates this point. They regularly receive organic promotion from outside sources without any effort, like this Reddit post: As they explain in the post, Ahrefs did absolutely nothing marketing-wise to get this kind of great P.R. – their readers love their content, and that love makes them WANT to share Ahref posts. Simple logic, but something that a lot of people forget about when considering how to promote a new blog post. Make sure your blog is amazing at the start, and organic promotion will follow. 2. Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets I can’t emphasize the importance of this next point enough: Build your email list to create a built-in audience for your blog promotion. According to the latest report from The Radicati Group, today there are over 3.9 billion people using email worldwide. That’s over half the population of the entire globe. Not only is email widely used – it generates the most ROI per dollar spent out of any other marketing activity. (A Litmus study estimated that email is worth an average of $38 for every $1 spent.) Your list, when you build it, is worth a TON. It’s a direct link to people who are interested in you/your brand, and thus the perfect channel for blog post promotion. Next question: How do you build your email list? Create lead magnets. Lead magnets are golden nuggets of content that are high-value. You offer these as exclusive downloads for your audience in exchange for their name and email address. A truly high-quality lead magnet is well-written and packs in tons of helpful/valuable information. Create lead magnets offering high-value information, then offer them to readers in exchange for their email address. Once you get their email – boom! – your list building has begun. Once you have an email list, send out messages to it with links to your new blog posts. Done and done. 3. Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search Besides blog promotion, don’t forget about SEO. It’s a major way to scoop up organic traffic to your blog posts from search engines like Google. That said, a LOT more goes into proper SEO besides just inserting keywords in the right places. You need to think about factors like: Content quality Whether your content fulfills user search intent for your focus keyword Whether your blog showcases relevant expertise for the topics you’re covering Your site design and page-load speed Your use of links and sources in your blog And more It’s important to get your SEO down before you think about how to promote a new blog post with other tactics. That’s because SEO is a passive way to draw more traffic and leads to your blog. Cover this base, draw in readers organically, and then hustle for more … Read more

How to Expertly Partner with a Blog Ghost Writer for Content Domination

June 19, 2024September 19, 2018 by Adam Oakley

The benefits of blogging for business are BIG. (Say that 5x fast.) When you blog, you will: Attract organic traffic to your website Help search engines index your pages for relevant industry keywords Build up trust with visitors, turning them into readers, then customers Educate visitors about your industry/business/products/services And more Need content creation support? We can help! Click to see our prices, or register as a client here. According to a well-known HubSpot study, businesses who blog generate more indexed pages in Google than those who don’t blog. Plus, those extra indexed pages literally lead to more leads. Blogging is a big deal. It can quickly lead to more exposure online to the exact right people (read: future customers). The only issues that could possibly get in your way? Lack of time Lack of writing skills Lack of SEO blogging knowledge No biggie. The solution is obvious: You need a blog ghost writer. This is a writer who can seamlessly step into your brand’s voice and style, write blogs that appeal to your target audience, and position you as an authority with high-quality, optimized, amazing written content. Sounds great, right? Not So Fast: There’s a Common Problem Inherent in Working with Blog Ghost Writers If you get that outsourcing your blog writing is going to help you or your clients gain more traffic/leads/conversions/sales, that’s great. However, there’s another problem that may pop up: How do you work with a ghostwriter (or a team of ghostwriters) so you get to the scenario we described above? More often than not, marketing agencies and small businesses turn to ghostwriters hoping to achieve that amazing ROI, but what they get is significantly less than they expected, like: Poor writing or obvious clues a non-native English speaker wrote the piece Bland, general blogs that don’t show off any industry expertise Writing riddled with silly errors and inconsistencies Writing that doesn’t match up with the desired brand style/tone An example of bad content. Did a human even write this? For a few of these examples, the problem is obviously with the quality of writer you’re hiring. (Cheap writer = cheap content. See above.) As for the rest, what if I told you the problem might not be with the writer’s skill set? What if the problem (ghostwritten content that doesn’t live up to expectations) stems from the way you’re working with your ghost writer? It’s possible. That’s because there is a right way to communicate and work with your writer so you get the best outcome possible: Amazing content that brings in ROI, so you more than recoup what you originally invested in its creation. That’s what we’re discussing today: How to work with your blog ghost writer to get the best results possible. Results like: Content that hits the bullseye for your brand voice Writing that draws in the right readers Optimization that ensures search engines love your blogs High-quality content that converts Ready to get into it? Working with Blog Ghostwriters: 6 Keys to Remember to Get the Best Content Possible 1. Be Willing to Collaborate Let’s get something straight. In your industry, business, or profession, you’re the expert – not the writer. Don’t get me wrong. Ghostwriters are exceptionally good at research, and they excel at taking on the tone and voice you want. Many also have years of experience behind them, including a background in your industry. Despite all this, the writer still can’t ghostwrite for you without any guidance. You can’t just hand them the wheel with no direction and expect magnificence. You must – I repeat, must – be willing to collaborate with your ghostwriting partner. You are the one with ideas, knowledge, and experience to gift to the wider world. Ghostwriters are just the vehicle, there to help you clearly communicate all of that in ways that are readable and interesting. So, to start off, come to your ghost writers with ideas, direction, and purpose for what you want them to produce. Talk with them, collaborate, be willing to answer questions and provide guidance. The end result will be a much better product, and will lead to higher ROI. 2. Respect the Writer’s Process… Although online writing has become more common as a profession, the job itself still doesn’t get much respect (unless you’re a Stephen King-type penning best-selling novels). Proof: The median pay for online writing, content writing, and ghostwriting is still absurdly low. Well-paying jobs are the exception, not the norm. According to data from PayScale, freelance writers earn an average of $24.70/hour. But that’s just an average calculated from the self-reported pay from about 400 writers across the country. A more accurate picture of an online writer’s pay looks like this: It varies. Widely. You’ve got your content factory workers, who make bottom-of-the-rung pay (literal pennies per word written). Then you have the other end of the spectrum: The highly-paid experts who can make upwards of $50/hour. In the middle are the majority. Perhaps this pay situation stems from the fact that writing looks deceptively unlike work. That’s a sad misconception, because, as any writer will tell you: Writing is hard. You probably have a good grasp on that fact – after all, you attempted to sit down and write your own blogs, but couldn’t figure out how to do it profitably. You need a ghostwriter for a reason, so respect their work, their process, and their time. You’ll end up with a loyal partner who will be glad to continue a long-term working relationship with you. 3. …But Don’t Give Your Ghost Writer Too Much Free Rein Give creative work like writing too much free time, and it will run amok. For most, open-ended assignments are a recipe for disaster. Writers can edit something forever and get stuck in a loop without clear deadlines. Via Inkygirl For instance, did you know the more familiar you are with a written work – like your own writing – the more likely you’ll miss obvious errors … Read more

5 Blogging Tips for Technical Writers to Help You Explain High-Tech Topics to Your Audience

June 19, 2024September 18, 2018 by Adam Oakley

If you’re a technical writer engaging in content marketing, you may not be reaching all of your possible readers. Technical writers are great at writing for other tech experts, but what about the average person? The person with basic computing knowledge (they can navigate word processing software, cloud storage, and basic photo editing, and can set up online accounts) The person who is handy with their phone as long as they have the right app The person who is adept at social media Someone who can build a website as long as they go through a platform with a drag-and-drop editor These people have some basic tech knowledge. It doesn’t go very deep, though. They have never tinkered with HTML, XML, or CSS; they don’t understand how back-end development works, and they don’t have the technical vocabulary required to understand your more in-depth blog posts. So, why are they worth your attention? Sometimes, these people are the big decision-makers. They’re the bosses who have the final say on whether the tech expert you’re writing for can buy that new software. Or, they’re the higher-ups who have the last word on whether their company invests in your technology. Their tech knowledge may be basic, but their clout is BIG. So, if you’re only blogging and writing for other developers and tech-savvy experts like you, you may want to rethink that approach. By all means, continue writing in-depth articles and how-tos on nitty-gritty tech processes, workflows, and developments. If you’re in a tech industry, you also absolutely must consider writing for the tech layperson every once in a while to help them understand the value of certain technologies, including how they work. With that said, we’re sharing tips to help you come down to earth and write for people with average tech knowledge and know-how. [bctt tweet=”Are you writing tech content for your audience (tech layperson) or tech experts (people like you, and probably NOT your reader base)? Find out the difference in @JuliaEMcCoy’s guide.” username=”ExpWriters”] The Technical Writer’s Blog Guide to Writing for a General Audience: 5 Key Tips 1. Imagine Explaining Your Topic to a Person You Know It can be hard to sit down and write a blog post with a “general audience” in mind. It’s not specific enough to help guide your writing. Instead, when you sit down to write the post, focus on explaining the topic like you would to someone outside your field who has average tech knowledge – like a family member or a friend. How would you approach helping them understand the subject? For starters, you wouldn’t use a technical vocabulary. If you had to use technical terms at all, you would need to explain them first, and maybe put them into contexts your listener would understand. (See tips #2 and #3.) As you can see, thinking of a specific person can help direct your approach to explaining complex topics. It gives you a starting point because you’ll have a good idea of what that person knows and doesn’t know about your subject. Just remember to choose someone to write for who matches up with the base knowledge of the general audience you want to address. (Note: This is a good opportunity to develop a new audience persona for future use!) 2. Use Analogies, Comparisons, and Examples One of the best ways to introduce complex topics to a general audience is to relate them to concepts or ideas your readers already know intimately. One apt comparison or example can neatly illustrate a difficult point much more effectively than you’d think. For example (see what I’m doing, here?), look at this blog post from an IT services company. The post topic is the present-day use of the cloud. In this section, the writer explains how companies use cloud technology: The technical blog writer could have said “It seems every company out there has to have some product or service with ‘cloud’ attached to it” and left it at that. Or, they could have reeled off a list of companies with cloud technology and stopped there. That wouldn’t work, though, because that approach wouldn’t help the audience put the concept of cloud computing in context with their everyday lives. Instead, the writer uses multiple examples of how his readers might be using the cloud without even realizing it: The music they listen to, the fitness trackers they wear on their wrists, the pictures they share on social media, and even their fancy new refrigerator implement cloud technology in some shape or form. For many people, this is a huge key to unlocking comprehension of a concept. As soon as they can relate it to what they already know and understand, the lightbulb clicks on. As such, sprinkle plenty of real-world examples, analogies, and comparisons into your content to make complex ideas relatable and easier to understand. 3. Be Mindful of the Words You Use Take a look at this blog post about dynamic email templates from a software company: “Transactional templates”? “Deep object replacement”? “Dynamic templating languages”? The vocabulary used here is way over a general audience’s head, but that’s because the writer is talking to other developers. If you don’t have any of these terms in your word bank, this post isn’t for you. However, if you’re the one knee-deep in terms like these day-in and day out, it can become second-nature to include them in your speech. You may forget what a general audience knows and doesn’t know. To write for the masses, you don’t have to dumb yourself down; you just need to adjust your vocabulary. Avoid specialized terms and industry jargon. If you do use them, offer definitions and explanations. Try to find simpler terms that are easier to understand to replace specialized vocabulary. If you find you can’t explain a concept without using specialized terms, you may need to broaden your topic to explain it more generally. Look at how WebsiteSetup.org highlights specialized terms in the text and takes ample time to … Read more

Blogging ROI Case Study: How 18,000 Keywords In Google Bring Us Six-Figure Income Months

June 19, 2024July 9, 2018 by Adam Oakley

“I’m ‘doing’ content, but it’s just not bringing me clients.” “I’m posting and creating regularly – in fact, consistency is my middle name – but I’m still a one-person show with little funding to achieve my next level.” Lately, I’ve heard this ALL too often – but the reality is, if you develop content strategically, you CAN achieve six-figure income months in your business. Since it’s been almost two years since I created a case study on my brand (specifically, how we are our own content guinea pig: we’re able to make monthly six-figure sales happen from clients that found our content online), I decided it was time for a new one. I started the research for this in February, and today – five months later! – the case study is all done and live, as of today. Our last case study focused on how we achieve rankings – “How We Outrank Every Competitor & Win Through Organic Content Without Spending a Penny on Ads (Express Writers’ Content Case Study),” and was from October 2016. Today’s case study focuses on how we actually earn real income (to the tune of six-figures per month) from the content and rankings we’ve achieved. 99.9% of our leads and business revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog. Next, we interviewed a client we work with from time to time: Magnificent Marketing, a full-service marketing agency. We’ll share how they’ve boosted their client traffic numbers and rankings with great content. If you read one blog of mine this quarter, read this one. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and dig in! [bctt tweet=”99.9% of our leads and revenue comes through the content we produce. And the majority of that content? Well, it’s published on our blog. Learn how we do it in our case study on #blogging #SEO success ” username=”ExpWriters”] Why & How SEO Blogging Equals ROI for Any Brand Blogging (a form of great content marketing) equals ROI, for any brand. In itself, blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand, attracting your ideal clients to your website, and growing your entire business. Especially blogging written around viable SEO keywords you want to rank for. But here’s the caveat to that. That statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality. [bctt tweet=”‘Blogging is a key online content format capable of building a brand… BUT… that statement is only true if your blogging strategy includes consistency, relevancy and quality.’ – @JuliaEMcCoy” on #bloggingROI username=”ExpWriters”] Businesses who create content strategically achieve ROI in the form of: Better, more qualified leads that convert at a higher rate than traffic from paid ads or paid search How many leads? Our content marketing ROI formula can help you estimate your average monthly leads/sales from content marketing Here’s the formula: Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month) According to that formula, an average of 1,000 visitors/month can get you at least 160 high-quality leads/month from strategic blogging That’s not all, though. Blogging also brings in: Year-over-year site traffic growth that’s 8x higher than those at the back of the pack 6x the conversions of those who don’t publish content, according to a well-known study from Aberdeen and Kapost Incredibly convincing numbers, right? But, even better than stats, we have a prime, real-life example of what blogging ROI looks like. Ready? Let’s dig in and see exactly what the power of blogging–and great content–can do for a business. Express Writers’ Blogging ROI: $1,600 in Content = $66,700 Worth of Traffic & Organic Google Positions Here’s a real-life, extreme example of how great, consistent content creation can work incredibly well. Take a look at the current traction below for Express Writers. This is after six years of consistent content, with over 1,000 blogs published to-date on our site across those six consistent years. (Remember, steady content creation has a dominoes effect: It does better over time.) According to our data on SEMrush (pulled June 1, 2018), current paid search efforts to achieve our current month’s site traffic — 22,800 visitors — would cost $66,700. (This amount increases on a monthly basis for us. Lately, every month it’s been a 1-2k increase in traffic, with a fluctuating increase in rankings as well.) If we were to buy this much traffic through Google Adsense, that would be an average paid search cost of $2.92 per visitor. And, we haven’t even figured out how many of those are leads (buyers) yet. Expensive! $$$ How Much Content Do We Produce to Achieve Blogging ROI? + the Costs We publish, on average, one long-form, comprehensive piece of content weekly, and we update content on a monthly basis, too. Besides that, we publish monthly podcasts with show notes, and monthly #ContentWritingChat recaps. Here’s an example of one of our long-form blogs: And here’s an example of a #ContentWritingChat recap post: What does it cost to create this type of content regularly? Our costs run: Money: $400/month (this used to be $750, but we shaved off $300+ in costs by switching our Twitter chat to once/month instead of weekly) Time: 4-5 hours of my time/month in blogging prep, publishing, writing, outlining, optimizing, & 3-4 hours/month in email marketing If you qualify the hours I personally spend on our content into a “staff cost,” that alone could run $1,600+ per month. How Do the Costs Compare to Paid Methods? If paid search would cost $66,700 to achieve our current traffic in a month (22,800 visitors), and my cost of content marketing to achieve that traffic is $1,625, then paid search would be (at a minimum) 40x more expensive than my organic content marketing efforts. Or, put it another way – a solid, consistent content marketing strategy over time could be 40 times cheaper than a paid marketing strategy. For business owners and higher-ups who think exclusively in dollar signs, that’s … Read more

10-Step Checklist for Starting Your Law Blog and Working with Legal Blog Writers

June 19, 2024October 25, 2017 by Adam Oakley

The benefits of starting a blog for a law firm or legal business bear repeating, even if you’ve heard them before (and you probably have). By now, you understand how blogging helps grow the chances of getting discovered through online search for any business. You’re well aware of how it builds trust with readers. You know how a blog helps position you (or, if you’re a marketer, your client) as an authority in any industry. A blog can play a hugely instrumental role in the first part of the sales journey: (Via Hubspot) As a result of its ability to attract prospects, it can help grow your business, too. Just look at this case study from Jeff Bullas to see five great examples of blogging success, including companies like Etsy and OptinMonster. The benefits of blogging can’t be disputed. In fact, you’re probably ready to get going with a law blog right this second. After all, the sooner you begin, the sooner you can reap the rewards. But where to begin? If you need a little push making the first move toward content marketing success with a law blog, you’re in the right place. These tips for starting a blog with legal blog writers will show you how it’s done. How to Position a Law Business for Success with a Blog and Legal Blog Writers The first must for starting a law blog? Hire the right writing talent! 1. Hire Legal Blog Writers! A blog can’t be successful without good writing talent behind it. You can’t just hire any writer, either. You’re working within a niche industry. Useful, thorough, factually accurate blogs about legal topics require expert knowledge. You need writers who are up to the task. Generally, you won’t find these types of writers at a content mill. If you do end up hiring cheap services, it’ll leave you with cheap, inaccurate filler blogs that provide no value for your audience. Bottom line: If you want a good legal blog, one that does everything you need it to do for successful content marketing and SEO, you need higher-level writers who know their way around legal topics. You gotta hire and invest in expert legal blog writers. For inspiration, here’s what a great law blog looks like: The Startup Law Blog is a perfect example of a blog with solid writing and expert knowledge behind it. It also gets tons of engagement! For proof, look at how many comments a recent post got: 2. Don’t Give Legal Advice Lawyers and law firms need to tread carefully when posting online and blogging. There are ethical lines you should not cross to avoid misleading readers. The American Bar Association has outlined general guidelines to follow when posting online. One biggie is to know the distinction between offering legal information and giving legal advice. Legal advice is specific and relates to the information and circumstances of an individual case. Legal information, on the other hand, is general, hypothetical, and can be applied to lots of different cases. To avoid ethical tangles, you should stick to the latter in your blog posts. Here’s where hiring an expert legal blog writer can save you – they’ll know this distinction inside-out and can make clear statements in posts about it. They’ll let the reader know the information is general and not intended as legal advice. 3. Keep the Language General and the Tone Approachable It could be easy to forget who you’re writing for and include legal-speak in your blog posts. This is a big no-no. For one, your audience is probably much more general than you think. You’ll mainly be talking to people who have been searching the web for basic information and explanations about legal topics. These people won’t have any legal training. This means you need to keep your language general. Don’t include legal jargon (unless you’re willing to define it in plain terms), and explain basic concepts in a down-to-earth way. Otherwise, you may turn visitors away. 4. Focus on Quality and Usefulness It can be hard to come up with a steady stream of blog topics, but there are always two keys to keep in mind for subject matter. Focus on providing quality and usefulness to your readers. What does quality look like? Clear, easy-to-read text with good grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Ideas are broken up into short paragraphs for maximum readability. The blog is organized with headers and subheaders. One idea flows logically into the next, and the next, and so on. What does usefulness look like? The topic is one that would interest your target audience. The blog features enlightening or practical information – it speaks to your readers’ lives, concerns, or pain points. The blog is written in a relatable, understandable, clear tone. It’s factually accurate. The blog is timely, or better yet, timeless (it will still be good information a week from now, a month from now, or six months to a year from now). Quality and usefulness are two universal aspects that should apply to every single blog you write, no matter the topic. If you phone it in, your readers will know, and they’ll stop caring. 5. Write to Your Target Audience With a blog, you can’t write to the entire world at large. First of all, that’s impossible. Second of all, if you tried to do that, you would end up with something way, way too general to be useful. You need to have an audience in mind when you write in order for your content to be effective and serve its purpose. What’s that purpose? Helping people find answers you can provide. You can’t help everyone, though. You can, however, help the people your professional law services target. Plus, this kind of targeting helps your business and your blog tie together seamlessly. If you haven’t found your target audience yet, you need to get going on market research. Only then will you understand who to address in your blog posts. Need legal … Read more

6 Reasons Professional Blog Writers Are Worth Every Last Cent of Your Investment

June 19, 2024October 24, 2017 by Adam Oakley

There are writers, and then there are writers. Or, let’s put the distinction this way: There are cheap writers, and there are pro writers. What’s the difference? Cheap writers are cheap. That’s all they bring to the table. Professional blog writers have experience, talent, skill, and style. There’s more, though. Writing is a field of expertise, just like any other industry, and these people know it inside-out. They read widely and absorb different writing techniques. They know how to conduct thorough research. They understand the basics of constructing a solid article, whether short or long. They’re creative and dedicated to their craft. Should I keep going? Proficient pro writers need to have all of these skills, plus more. (Via Learn How to Become) And yet, despite the obvious benefits of hiring a professional writer for their content marketing, lots of brands and businesses still aren’t doing it. Instead, they think they can cut corners. Something’s gotta give somewhere, and, a lot of the time, that something is the writing. You may be guilty of this, too. If you are, I’m here to set you straight. You have to understand exactly why professional writers are worth it. You need to know what cheap content mills are doing to your content marketing. You need to understand the value of good, professional writing. Why Professional Blog Writers Are Worth Every Last Cent of Investment There are reams of blogs out there that try to tell you the secrets of professional writers. Even more explain the basic elements that make up good content. You’re supposed to learn these and then apply them to your content marketing and copywriting. Articles like these are all over the ‘net. They try to give you a lesson in skills which pro writers already have. (Via Quick Sprout) Guess what? Professional writers have an entire arsenal of writing “secrets.” You’ll never learn them all, or understand them in the same way, because writing isn’t your bread-and-butter. You haven’t been reading and writing for years upon years – for fun. You probably didn’t major in English, journalism, or communications in college. You most likely never attempted to write a hefty fantasy or detective novel when you were 12. (Seriously, ask any pro writer – they’ll tell you all about their ridiculous first novel, short story collection, etc., that they wrote when they were young and foolish.) Of course, not every writer has professional training or education. However, every single pro writer has passion and experience. Let’s get more basic. If you’re a marketer, marketing is what you do. If you’re a business owner, running your company is what you do, and all that it entails. If you’re a pro writer, writing is what you do. If these still aren’t good enough arguments for you, here’s more about what good writers can do for your content marketing. These key factors set them apart. 1. Professional Blog Writers Treat Your Content with Care Cheap writers are not concerned about quality – they only care about quantity. That’s because they sell their services for the cheapest price possible, then get as much volume as they can to make up the difference. As such, the work they do has no craft behind it. They are focused on getting the words out as fast as possible to make a dime. Pro writers, on the other hand, are concerned with quality and quantity in balance. They’re trying to make money, too, but they’re also worried about producing good work. Because this balance is number one, that means… 2. They Spend the Necessary Time Getting the Writing Right Any pro writer will tell you straight out: Good writing takes time. You cannot dash out a page of text in 10 minutes and expect it to be worth anything, let alone readable. Writing for content marketing requires even more diligence. It needs to mirror the brand’s voice, use the right keywords in the right places, address the target audience effectively, and be readable and useful. If it’s really good, the content will also pull the reader into the text. It will encourage them to keep reading aaaaall the way down to the end of the page. Interlude: Case Study Time You want a good idea of what focusing on quantity over quality looks like (versus a focus on balancing quantity + quality)? Let’s take a gander at the difference using a fantastic example from this real-life case study by Startup Grind. They readily admit that they fell for the lure of cheap content. As such, they hired five writers offering ridiculously inexpensive rates to do a paid test assignment. What they got back made them balk, to say the least. Here’s one example from the test. This piece was titled “Quantity Is the King in B2B Lead Generation”. (The phrasing of this headline alone is worth a long pause of concern. What follows is not all that surprising.) If you can read this without wanting to bash your head against a wall, I sincerely applaud your effort. What’s wrong with it? Everything, for starters. It’s not engaging – it’s repetitive and wordy. The overuse of determiners also makes me suspect the writer’s first language isn’t English. This is supposed to draw in leads? I don’t think so. Naturally, Startup Grind abandoned this approach and tried a different tack. They did the research, came up with the blog title, and provided points to cover. They hired two test writers from cheap agencies who could fill in the blanks. Easy-peasy. Well, actually… Neither writer could deliver. One handed in an article that had nothing to do with the outline. (After two more revisions, the resulting article was still incoherent and messy.) The other writer included points from the outline but loaded it with filler and meaningless sentences in the gaps. Yep, it turns out the old saying is true. You get what you pay for. To drive this point home, let’s compare the example of cheap writing, above, to … Read more

We Hit 1,000 Blogs! What It Looks Like to Blog One Thousand Times = And the Return

January 1, 2021October 10, 2017 by Adam Oakley

On Wednesday, October 4, we hit a major milestone: We published our 1,000th blog. How crazy is that?! Across the last five years, we never stopped blogging, and it has really paid off. Need great content? Click here to sign up as a client. To celebrate, I’ve put together a short, interview Q/A style piece on why and how our blogging has brought us serious return and become a worthwhile investment. Enjoy! We Hit 1,000 Blogs! What It Looks Like to Blog One Thousand Times = And the Return On Investment Ready? Let’s jump in! How Long Has the Write Blog Been Running? Since September, 2012, we’ve been blogging at www.expresswriters.com/write-blog. As of today, that makes 5 years and 1 month. How Consistent Have We Been? On average, we publish 3-4 blogs every single week, and have kept up this consistency since our first month. How Much Has This Consistency Paid Off? HUGE dividends. 1) Rankings: Today, we have over 11,000 keywords ranking organically in Google from the blogs we’ve posted: Many of the ranking terms are long-tail keywords, and we see our blog posts hitting the top 3, 5, 10 and 15 spots in Google for these keywords. Over 400+ keywords are within the top 5 results of Google. 2) Direct leads and sales: Our talk to sales forms come in primarily when prospects find our content in Google. Here’s an example of one of those forms. Our Sales Manager, Tamila, assisted prospect Jeff with a cart containing the product he needed, and he bought within just a few days. And… We’ve had over 500 talk to sales forms filled out since 2012! On average, 50-70% of our Talk to Sales close within 1-2 weeks. Our typical minimum investment is anywhere from $60 – $100 or $150, on a new client’s first order. If we were to shoot for the middle, $100, that’s $50,000 minimum right there. But, many of these Talk to Sales have worked out to much more. For instance, one contract was worth $75,000 over the course of 15 months. Safe to say, these organic leads have brought us a HUGE majority of our income. How Much Have You Invested Into It? I write a major part of all the content on the Write Blog, with a lot of assistance. I have three trained expert writers on staff that help me create some of the content, while I research and write about the trends. I write and schedule all email content. We have a designer on staff that creates the content visuals for us. Rachel, our social media manager, writes weekly recaps for #ContentWritingChat, and sometimes guest blogs as well as schedules shares on all our published content. Hannah, our Content Director, has also guest blogged on the site, along with one of our client social media copywriters, Krystal. Content types like infographics, for example this one, can cost upwards of $500 to create, plan, and design. We do infographics quarterly. Besides that, I audit and check our website content, product descriptions, and update as needed, which is usually a bi-weekly job. We have more than 90 site pages, not including product descriptions! Tools and Costs Involved? We use ConvertKit, which is $75/month for email marketing: MeetEdgar, $49/month to social share: and on average, I pay out a minimum of $250/weekly in content creation time to my designer, content creators, editors, and our staff social media manager. My hours are at least 5 weekly, sometimes more. It’s Not Easy, But Done Right The Dividends of Blogging Are Huge If you’re not regularly blogging, let this be a testament and inspiration to what happens when you do – and roll your sleeves up and get going! We’re a team that lives what we say – we abide by the products we sell! Seriously, I don’t know of another content agency that lives and eats because of the huge amounts of content they’ve created. We’re able to see leads organically roll in from Google consistently – day in, day out. And if you need help – because I for one know how tough this is to maintain! – our professionally written and managed blog packages are always here, anytime you need us to help you.

20 Creative Blog Ideas for Writers: Never Run Out of Blog Ideas Again with This List!

January 1, 2021September 6, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Publishing a steady stream of ever-flowing content is important for ranking. If you’re an online content writer in any capacity… You need a seemingly endless river of blog ideas for writers, one that never runs dry. So, what do you do when it does? What do you do when you need to come up with topics, but you feel like you’re stranded in the middle of a rain-parched, burnt-out desert? You’d better head toward that oasis shimmering on the horizon, and pray it’s the river. Lucky for you, in this metaphorical scenario, it usually is. The way to the river of content is a path full of writing prompts, research, brainstorming, and good old-fashioned hard work. To make your journey 10 times easier, we’ve compiled our best strategies for getting there. Come back to this list again and again for a quick way to get on track. Let’s get going with blog ideas for writers! Blog Ideas for Writers: 20 Prompts, Research Tips, Keyword Discovery Strategies & More to Keep You Rolling Sometimes, all you need is a push in the right direction to get moving. That little nudge is enough to get ideas sprouting in your head, growing quickly, and bearing fruit. 1. Start with a Subject and Create Variations Chances are, if you’re looking for blog ideas, you probably already have one or two percolating. Take these and create variations to start off with some quick ideas for lots of posts. For instance, HubSpot recommends creating iterations of one topic by going both broader and narrower with it. If you start with “X Baking Tips and Tricks for Beginners,” you could narrow it down to “X Cookie-Baking Tips and Tricks for Beginners.” Or, go a little broader: “X Everyday Tips and Tricks for Baking and Cooking.” Keep going up and down the broad/narrow ladder and you could come up with 10, 15, or even 20 ideas quite easily. 2. Use Topic Generators Another way to find variations of one blog idea is to use topic generators. All you have to do is plug in a keyword, and the generator will spit out different ways to frame the topic. Sometimes these won’t make grammatical sense, but the point is to get ideas flowing rather than grab ready-made, publishable topics. One of the most popular topic generators is HubSpot’s. I entered the keywords “baking,” “cakes,” and “beginners” into the generator: Some don’t make sense, but some are a great starting point for ideas. (I would really want to read “The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Cakes”!) Another worthy tool is Portent’s Content Idea Generator. Mess around with these and see what comes out of it. You could make some good sparks that light up your idea fire. 3. Ask Basic Questions If you’re stumped for blog ideas, go back to basics. Write about basic topics, but frame them in terms of your business/industry, your personal brand/growth, or your keys to success. Here are some good questions to ask to get you started: What does your creative process look like? Have you discovered any new tools recently that boosted your workflow? What’s the top question customers ask you? What’s the history of your business? 4. Find Trending Topics with BuzzSumo for Blog Ideas for Writers BuzzSumo is a fantastic tool to aid you in your quest for blog ideas. There are seemingly hundreds of ways to search various topics and keywords and glean lots of helpful data. Here’s just one way. Go to the site and head over to “Content Analysis.” Plug your keyword or seed topic into the search box and hit “Search.” From there, scroll down until you get to the section with the heading “Popular Topics for Content Related to…” Gold! Here we can see the most popular topics for the keyword, which give us a good idea where we can go with further ideas. For instance, a post about beginner baking tips would probably land really well. To get different stats, don’t forget to filter by date (scroll back up the top to find that filter). Plus, for more general ideas on trending topics you can use, head to the “Trending Now” tab and filter the information by your industry. Below, the content is focused on trending stories in “Business” within the last 24 hours. 5. Read Competitor Blogs Your competitors’ blogs are good benchmarks for success, but you also can get lots of ideas from them and add your personal spin. Look at these blogs, especially solid ones, and see what they’re up to. What have they been writing about recently? Which posts are getting a ton of engagement? Grab some good ideas for yourself, but remember: Never copy. 6. Search Quora for Questions Quora is a great resource for discovering what trends and topics people are interested in right this second. To find popular questions people are asking about topics in your industry (and whether they’ve been answered!) do a quick search. First, type in your keyword in the search bar. A list of topics will pop up underneath. Click on any of these to go to an overview page. You can also click on the bottom text that says “Search: [your topic].” On this page, you can filter results to see the questions asked and which ones are most popular. You can also see how many people are following questions – this can help you determine which topics might get a better response. Any of these questions would make great blog topics to address, especially if you have unique answers. 7. Use Keyword Explorer If you want a quick way to brainstorm blog ideas, head to Moz’s Keyword Explorer and do a search. An easy way to grab blog ideas is to search for a specific keyword and then check out the “Keyword Suggestions” page. On that page, go to the first drop-down box and select “are questions” to only display keyword suggestions that are in question form. You’ll end up with … Read more

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Best Blog Images: Sizes, Optimization & More

September 5, 2022June 5, 2017 by Adam Oakley

We’ve all heard the saying: a picture is worth a thousand words. But how does this impact blogging? Today, it’s virtually impossible to create a great blog without also creating strong visual content. In other words, your words matter less when they stand on their own. Modern readers want to be engaged on all fronts, and they look to visual materials to facilitate this. It’s proven: blogs with high-quality, original images rank better, get more attention, and earn more shares than those without. And with over 70 million blogs going out on WordPress each month, you can’t afford to stop and invest in real methods to stand out. One great method to use to stand out in your blogging is to invest in custom, high-quality graphics created to match your brand and blog topic. An eye-tracking statistic by Springer International Publishing has said that people following a set of directions (which is common to long-form blogs) respond 323% better with illustrations included along the way! This leaves one big question, though… How, exactly, do you go about creating “high-quality, shareable, original images?” What does that even mean? Here’s your complete guide. [bctt tweet=”Learn all about how to create themed, share-worthy, on-point blog images in our guide ?#blogging” username=”ExpWriters”] The Ultimate Guide on How to Create Your Best Blog Images Ever: First, The Importance of Visuals in Your Blogs 37% of marketers report that visual marketing is the single most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging. With this in mind, consider what happens when you combine the two! Visuals have always been a critical form of marketing. In addition to the fact that people are more likely to remember what they see than they are what they read or hear, content with images has a long history of performing better in search results and with shares on social media platforms. And, BuzzSumo once reported that blog posts with images every 75-100 words earned twice as many shares on social media as posts with few or no images! Adding images to your blogs is more important today than ever before. But, here’s where our guide comes in. It is not enough, folks, to simply slap a stock photo into your WordPress blog and call it a day. Stop right there. You’ve got to go the extra mile and create high-quality, custom images that provide relevance for your users, and context for your content. And if you use stock photos in the process, use them well. That’s what we’re here to talk about. How to Create Your Best Blog Images (7 Steps to Follow) Learning how to create or delegate the creation of blog images that are highly effective is a process. We’ve got a few key tips to help you get off to a great start. 1. Focus on Themed Images Here at Express Writers, we believe deeply in creating authentic, beautiful, and themed images for our blog. We invest hundreds of dollars monthly with an in-house designer that’s been on staff for years to create these custom graphic assets. We create custom themed blog images in our posts on The Write Blog that follow this set of criteria: We have 5 image assets created per blog: a feature header, an ‘inset’ that is easy to share on social media, a matching CTA that references our services, and then specific sized images for Pinterest and Instagram) We follow three bucket areas of approved styles for our designer to create, and specify which one when sending her the request: Custom designs are always preferred, like the one of the artist painting a photo on this blog you’re reading. Our designer hand-draws these and then creates them in Adobe Illustrator. If a stock photo is used, it’s created with an ‘overlay’ of colors in our brand palette. See this blog for an example. If we’re referencing events or talks that I gave, we provide images that our designer uses in blog headers. See this example. Here’s another one from CMWorld. I use my iPhone to take these photos. A cutout of me for my YouTube video recap blog header sets Clear Express Writers’ palette colors (sometimes we go off-grid from the main colors, but it’s always complementary) Check out some of our examples from the blog roll: See how engaging this is, vs. a typical stock photo structure? We won’t name names, but this is from a leading content marketer’s blog. Another good brand that follows a ‘themed’ blog image look has twelveskip.com. While most people imagine some hokey holiday thing when they think of “themed images,” the reality is much different. Themed images are actually a series of images that fall into a specific design structure. Of course, this design structure varies from company to company, but it’s always predictable, reliable, and recognizable. This serves a critical purpose. By making your blog content more recognizable to your consumers, themed images help promote brand recognition and develop a consistent branding presence. If you’re going to create themed images, keep things like your company’s color scheme, typeface, and voice in mind as you work through the process. 2. Hire a Designer While platforms like Canva have made it easy to create your own graphic content, it remains a difficult and time-consuming task for people who don’t do it frequently. If you, like so many marketers, have your hands full with other responsibilities, consider hiring a professional designer to create your images for you. Not only will you get a large batch of high-quality images all at once, but you’ll save the time you would have otherwise spent struggling to create them. This time can then be applied to more productive business pursuits that help grow your company and your social presence. Not sure where to find a designer? You can go through a content agency (Express Writers offers custom image design for social media and blogs!) or work on finding a freelancer on your own. 3. Develop a Format Regardless of whether you choose to design the images on your … Read more

What Blog Topics Get the Most Shares & Reads? A Data Driven Answer

January 1, 2021May 31, 2017 by Adam Oakley

You’ve listened to the data. You’re consistently writing great long-form content that’s supposed to be generating plenty of shares and traffic for your blog. But, for some reason, it’s not working. Over and over again, you’re finding that a large majority of your content generates minimal levels of social engagement. You’re not alone. After taking a look at over 1 million blog posts, the team at OkDork found that 89% of posts have less than 100 social shares. Yikes. (Remember the post I wrote a while back: social shares are not your best ROI tracker?) But why is this? And what can you do to make sure that more than 1 out of 10 of your posts generate 100+ social shares? It all starts with choosing the right blog topics. Marketing expert Brandon Gaille created a useful infographic that outlines the hottest blog topics by popularity and revenue. According to his research, the top 10 blog topics include: As we move through this article, we’re going to use data and examples to show you which of the above topics can help you get the most shares and reads. We’ll also take a look at some other topics that are proven to perform well. Let’s get started. The Hottest Blog Topics Today: 5 Topics That Attract Readers & Shares 1. Saving Time People love to read and hear about what they can do to save time. In fact, they love to hear about it so much that they’re willing to spend a whole lot of their time reading and sharing content on the topic. Take a look at BuzzSumo statistics for these two productivity based posts: While both articles are fairly basic, the headline promises to readers that they’ll be able to save “tons” or “loads” of time. And, since they’re able to deliver on that promise, they both generated over 450k social shares. Writer and speaker Laura Vanderkam leveraged the power of talking about time management in her TED talk, How to Gain Control of Your Free Time. The talk has generated almost 4 million views to date and has proved vital in helping Vanderkam grow her personal brand. People naturally want to be better at time management. If you’re able to find ways to help your audience become more productive, they’ll reward you with shares and reads. 2. Health & Fitness Just like time management, health and fitness shines in topic popularity because it’s something that everyone wants to be better at. When BuzzSumo created a list of the most viral content of 2016, three of the top 10 articles were in the health and fitness niche. This article, about healthy and portable high-protein snacks, generated over 2 million social shares. And this article, about the top 10 ab exercises, generated almost 2 million as well. Now, depending on your audience, talking about health may seem like an odd thing to do. For example, if you’re a financial consultant, writing about ab exercises isn’t going to yield the results that it will for a blog that already writes in that niche. What you can do, however, is generate health topics that are relevant to your target audience and the unique situations that they face in their daily life. In the financial consultant example, you could write an article for business owners about how consistent exercise contributes to increased productivity (which, in turn, contributes to wealth). And, if you can pull it off, there is clear evidence that people will share and read your content. 3. Money More time, better health, and more money. Hopefully you’re catching on to the trend. The blog topics that perform best are the things that people want most in life. The Penny Hoarder has generated tons of loyal fans by providing readers with advice on how to make and save money. Here’s an example of one of their most successful money based articles: The article isn’t overly in-depth, but it does provide brief information for readers on how to earn extra money. And that’s not the only article they’ve written on the topic that has yielded great results. Over the last 12 months, three of the top four articles around the term ‘making money’ were created by their writers. With social shares above 173k for each article, it’s safe to say that they have a pretty firm handle on what their readers want to hear about. It’s also safe to say that writing about money, and how to save and/or make it, is a great way to generate the type of interest that produces social shares and visitors. 4. Happiness and Getting What You Want Out of Life Want to be happy? Of course you do. And so does everyone else. That’s why content related to happiness, and achieving it, gets shared so much. Take a look at these six pieces of happiness-related content that have all been shared over 95,000 times to date. As we look at these BuzzSumo results, it’s also important to note the platforms where the content is being shared. The written articles about happiness were most likely to receive a majority of their shares on Facebook. The content that features quotes, however, received over 95k shares on Pinterest but only 88 on Facebook. As we move along in this article, we’ll dive deeper into the importance of considering the platform when deciding on a blog topic. 5. Travel Travel content doesn’t have the share power that the above topics do, but it can certainly produce solid numbers when the topic is implemented into your content strategy correctly. Not everyone is an adventurer. But as science tells us, there are quite a few people who are born to travel. And there are a lot of content creators generating massive shares from taking advantage of this. Take these articles for example: As you can see, Facebook is where the majority of shares are being seen for this topic. Pinterest is another platform where travel content works well, especially when it’s posted alongside … Read more