Content Marketing Archives

Cool Brand Content Spotlight: How Denny’s Wins at Social Media

December 31, 2020December 1, 2016 by Krystal Loh

We need to talk about Denny’s. I’m from New York City. Born here, raised here, still here, and will probably die here. If you’re from the New York tri-state area, you know that diners are a dime a dozen. I’ve only been to one Denny’s, and I think it was in Oregon. So why, might you ask, do I care about Denny’s? Cool Brand Content Spotlight: How Denny’s Wins at Social Media putting your foot in your mouth? bad. putting your foot in a pie? amazing. — Denny’s (@DennysDiner) November 17, 2016 That’s why Denny’s is unlike any other social media account I’ve ever encountered. They don’t actually promote any of their food on a regular basis. In fact, it’s a rare occurrence. They’ll throw in some tweets about… foodstuffs. Food that’s on their menu – sometimes. Bottom line: it’s unpredictable. When I first came upon this social media presence a year ago, I had no idea how or why their marketing team had chosen this approach. That confusion was short-lived. Because a year later, I still think about Denny’s tweets and share them with my friends. really hoping Lucille is just gonna crack some eggs tonight — Denny’s (@DennysDiner) October 24, 2016 Where else can you get lowercase quips about The Walking Dead with a reference to food? In some ways, it’s impossible to describe how these tweets make me feel. It’s akin to stumbling upon scrupulous spam like @Horse_ebooks: Not only that, but whether you believe it (or want to believe it) the car salesmen will continue to laugh — Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) September 16, 2013 Or an account like @dril: i got lock jaw from eating pasta out of a dogbowl and my wife will be here in 2 hours to marry me. help me github — wint (@dril) November 2, 2016 Weeks later and I’m still laughing at that tweet. This sort of social media posting is like a free-association experiment. I’ve no doubt in my mind that whoever runs their social media was around for the birth of You’re the Man Now, Dog and 4chan. My people. What Denny’s Does Right: Niche Content Audience-ing That being said, Denny’s is clearly targeting Millennials and Gen X’ers. I’m still not sure which one of these I belong to; though for the sake of my ego I’ll go with Gen X. We were around for the birth of memes, both creating them and sharing them. Moot was a household name for us (I had the odd honor of working with him professionally many years later in Manhattan — touche!), and may or may not have (almost) failed out of college because of late night raids in World of Warcraft. Denny’s knows this demographic. They know quirky memes and they embrace the randomness that certain niches of the internet also embrace, even desperately fall in love with. Who needs proper grammar and punctuation? Not Denny’s. They win because they make your brain associate good feelings with their product. Let’s call it the Meme Sensation. It’s that instant gratification that you feel when you find a great meme. It makes you chuckle, makes you hit the little Retweet arrow, or copypaste it into your Facebook Messenger group chat. In Denny’s case, their social media makes you want to join their business’ culture, not necessarily hook you in with their food. You’re investing in the brand, which in Denny’s’ case, is a weird world of puns and run on sentences. It’s how we (my generation, the just-turning-thirty-year-olds) talk when we’re really excited about something. You know, caps lock is cruise control for cool. So when you RT that weird tweet about eggs or how scared of Negan we all are, you associate it with Denny’s. It’s a brand new world of marketing, akin to getting jingles stuck in your mind – only this time, it’s something entirely different. Denny’s embraces the randomness that certain niches of the internet embrace, even fall in love with. Who needs proper grammar and punctuation? Not Denny’s. And yet, it’s still highly unique and marketable. What Denny’s Needs To Work On Pet peeve alert! Despite how quotable Denny’s is, the fact is they don’t seem to engage with their customers. I talked about my great interaction with @PenguinRandomHouse in an earlier blog. Interaction like this would only further cement their fans’ loyalty. We are all attention-starved on social media, after all. For instance, Denny’s passed up a perfect opportunity to get involved in some great, free marketing. Widely popular webseries @GameGrumps (SHOUTOUT TO MY OLD FRIEND @egoraptor) engaged in exactly the kind of random quirky banter with a bunch of food chains’ social media, and Denny’s missed the mark and never replied: hey @DennysDiner are you guys doing anything tonight? we’re free to hang but don’t tell @Applebees or @Chilis, they might get jealous — Game Grumps (@GameGrumps) March 2, 2016 This thread is absolute gold, by the way. I highly recommend checking it out. Conclusion Honestly? I don’t know if I’ll ever go out of my way to go to a Denny’s while I’m at home. But if I’m outside of NYC and need American comfort food, their tweets will definitely come to mind. They’re tapping into an unconscious need to laugh at random stuff that your parents wouldn’t even begin to understand. The stuff you find yourself remembering and laughing about on the toilet at 3am. The difference? It’s connected to a company. And it’s 3am. Guess who’s open at 3am?

Take the Cyber Monday E-Commerce Website Content Readiness Test

March 23, 2022November 25, 2016 by Tara Clapper

Cyber Monday is the one of the biggest sales days of the year for most e-tailers. On Monday, November 28, e-commerce is expected to generate billions in sales in the US alone. Is your online business ready to compete? 3 Simple Tests You Can Do to Help Your E-Comm Site Prepare for Cyber Monday 1. Check Your Product Descriptions: Are They Unique? Unique product descriptions are essential to your success. If your site includes manufacturer descriptions, Google will view those as duplicate content – and you may be punished in Google search rankings. While it can take time for Google to adjust rankings based on content depending how often it crawls your site, that margin is closing. What you can do now: Check Copyscape to determine whether your product descriptions are unique to your website. Perform a word count: are your descriptions 200 words or more for each product? Ask a friend for an objective evaluation of your product description copy. Is it helpful to the consumer? Does it contain phrases or keywords people would look up to find your product? A solid product description will include specifications about the product in a clear way. It should help assist the buyer in making a clear decision. Here’s a look at a Christmas light product, from Christmas Lights Etc. They provide basic details about the product with a link to technical specifications in a lightbox: Solution: If your product description copy failed these tests, consider an immediate rewrite of your product description copy. 2. Is Your Web Copy Compelling and Competitive? Effective web copy draws your customers in through inbound marketing practices. The best web copy isn’t just searchable, but informative and relevant to your prospective customers’ interests and queries. Google loves providing searchers with relevant information. People want a behind-the-curtains look at your business, and they’re looking for a hint about the humans behind the site. This personal touch is something you can accomplish with warm and informative copy: it’s essential for building trust with your new customers. 3. Does Your Copy Answer Questions? How do users find your site? If you’re like most e-commerce sites, it’s likely a combination of: Paid advertising on other sites and social media Word of mouth or recommendations on social media Web browser searches (organic search) If you’d like to get a glimpse of what sort of questions you should answer, check out Answer The Public. Just select your region, enter your niche or industry, and submit. That crotchety old guy on the front page will reveal what types of questions people ask about your provided keyword. It’s a very powerful content generation tool most effective for useful blog ideas. Here’s a look at the results: With an online presence of any size, you should never underestimate organic search potential. The holiday seasons is a great time to start answering questions in the form of blog posts. If you do this well enough, Google may even use your answers as a Knowledge Graph source. In the below example, Wikipedia is the source of information. Has your e-commerce site passed our Cyber Monday readiness tests? If not, there’s still time to invest in the quality of your site’s web copy before Cyber Monday hits! At Express Writers, we offer a 72-hour turnaround on most services, and we’re here and ready to assist you with great content. Check out in the Content Shop, and use coupon code holidayshop5 for an instant 5% off.

5 Tips for Creating Irresistibly Tasty Holiday Content for Your Readers

December 31, 2020November 15, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Picture this… You’re eating some turkey with a side of potatoes and gravy. The smell of thyme and rosemary overwhelm your senses. The fresh cornbread stuffing aroma dances across your nose. The tart and sweet blend of cranberry sauce in the distance… Salivating? Now, let’s move to content. Did you know that product descriptions, blog posts and even website content can all be tailored to your target holiday using inspirations from that holiday? Sights, sounds, smells, and tastes all recharge your existing content and make it holiday-ready. But here’s the million-dollar question… How do you take something as delicious as Grandma’s turkey and create killer content for your brand that inspires readers to take action during the holidays? To find out, let’s dive into the gravy boat: 5 Tips for Better Holiday Content and Holiday-Driven Conversions The holidays are prime time for site owners. It’s an opportunity to take the content you have, revamp it, and make it appeal to those shopping for the season. Before you start hyperventilating at the idea of rewriting all the content, eek: keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be super hard if you have some direction. Here are our five best tips (scroll past the infographic by our amazing designer for the full details): 1. Add a Taste of Seasons’ Greetings to Your Homepage We’re not suggesting you go crazy here. Think of it like decorating your online presence with a Christmas wreath. Adding in a little holiday spirit creates a sense of festivity and shows that you’re all about the season, says GetResponse. Add some images that represent the holiday, like a pumpkin and some fall leaves. (For Christmas, add in snowflakes, a snowman, and possibly some Christmas lights.) Look at Sephora. This online beauty retailer created a festive, cute way to display their highlighted products and all they added was a little red ribbon and holiday cheer. Simple changes go a long way, folks. 2. Play on the Sayings of the Season There’s plenty of inspiration when you think about famous sayings of the season. Take HBO for example. In 2015, they created their 12 Days of HBO Now header for their homepage. It played on the 12 Days of Christmas, had a little festivity, and reminded you of the upcoming season. Think about your favorite holiday songs or sayings. TinyPrints shares a list of their favorite Christmas sayings that you can use for inspiration. Want some humor in your Thanksgiving posts? Then take some quote inspiration shared by Brandon Specktor at Reader’s Digest. Bottom line, take a phrase, lyric or common saying of the holidays and twist it to benefit your holiday pitch. 3. Create Holiday Specific Content that is Helpful to Viewers Now is the time to show off your strengths. Flex your wordsmith muscles and get to work! You can share your industry insider tips, tricks, and even guides to everything holiday. Of course, it needs to be relevant to what you’re offering or selling on your website. For example, you sell beauty products. For a holiday twist, add in some tips and guide posts into your content marketing plan. Such as offering eyeshadow tips unique to Christmas. Talk about what lipsticks to wear that won’t come off while downing that turkey at Thanksgiving. Compare blush colors to wines that are likely to be served during holiday festivities. You get where we are going here, right? Readers love it when you show off your talents. Even better, use these tips and guides as an opportunity to link into related and recommended products from your site. According to KISSMetrics, people are more likely to purchase your products when they are recommended in holiday-specific content. Think of content that keeps people coming back. Like Pinterest did with their 30 Days of Pinspiration. Not only was it branded superbly, but then it continued to get people to come back and check out the next Pinspiration for the holiday season. 4. Don’t Forget the Procrastinators Let’s face it. Consumers are notorious for last minute shopping. While it means they are rushing to find a gift quick, it is an opportunity for you to show off products and ideas that work for those last-minute pickups. Try to carve out space on your homepage or even in your blog about last-minute gift ideas. Consider offering up downloadable or digital gift cards to your company; something that can easily be purchased the night before it needs to be gifted. Kiplinger recommends highlighting email-delivered gift cards, software downloads, subscriptions, and monetary gifts for last-minute. 5. Play on Relatable Moments There are plenty of moments out there that relate to your content and the holiday you’re targeting. For example, Jessica Gioglio at Convince and Convert highlights how Century 21 played on competitive eater Geoffrey Esper at Thanksgiving with their message: “Century 21 agents sell homes like competitive eater Geoffrey Esper eats: fast.” There are plenty of gifs you can add to your holiday content as well; then, share them on social media. For example, when you and your family try (and fail) to take a group photo for Christmas – or you and your office get together for a recreation of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. classic. Think of pop culture TV shows that the majority of your audience have seen. This will require you to have some knowledge about your target audience — such as their age, gender, career, etc. However, when you know your target audience well, you can find funny, relatable moments that correlate with TV shows and movies to make your content more appealing (and entertaining to boot). Holiday Content: Wrap It Up with a Bow We’ve given you are insight and secrets into how to create holiday-specific content that really speaks to your reader. Of course, now you must bring it all together. By now you should feel less overwhelmed and more ready to tackle the holiday task. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, you can start revamping your Christmas content and even prepare … Read more

How To Come Up With Provocative Content Ideas Your Audience Will Love

September 5, 2022October 27, 2016 by Adam Oakley

That dreaded cursor in Word… It just sits there, blinking at you, demanding that you type something incredible. But you’ve hit a wall. The well on content has run bone dry. Ideas are washed up or outdated. That blinking cursor is mocking you. We’ve all been there as creators. Of course you want something truly spectacular, eye-catching, and even viral-worthy. Yet, here you are: watching the white screen. The good news? Crafting quality content doesn’t have to play mind tricks with you. But it takes some time (and energy) to get it done. Coming up with provocative content ideas is simpler when you have a little guidance. When you monitor the web, take a look at the trends, and listen to your own readers, you might be surprised at how many ideas come up. Ready to be inspired? Keep reading! Overcoming The Killer of Your Great Content Ideas: 4 Ways to Flood the Idea Gates Creating engaging content is a skill. It starts with the right ideas, and the copywriting comes second. To help jumpstart your content ideas, you need to look at the resources you have available to you — and most are free. Here are a few places to look first: 1. Talk to Your Customers or Clients The people you already work with may be able to tell you what they’re looking for from you. They are already customers, but they still have questions. According to Brian Sutter’s article on Forbes, asking your current clients what they are struggling with and then answering it within your content is key. Don’t just do a quick answer and never dismiss any question. Instead, take each question and create an entire blog post out of it. Expand upon what was asked, back it up with research, and make it entertaining. Think about telling your client’s success stories, too! Check out how we talked about our client’s success in a blog post here. Our case study services are actually oriented to position your client’s success story in the best possible way, by not only creating a PDF but a short story blog that resonates with your subscriber list. (Check our out our case study writing and creation here.) 2. Use Tools at Your Disposal There are plenty of tools out there that can help you grow your blog or website. From keyword research to content ideas. BuzzSumo is one of those tools. BuzzSumo allows you to analyze what content performs best based on the topic or competitor. BuzzSumo’s data goes even further by breaking it all down for you by Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest shares. You can customize the results further by the type of content (e.g. interviews, videos, infographics, articles, and guest posts). You can also identify the country, language and filter it by timeframe (such as 24 hours or up to one year). 3. Ask Your Sales and Support Team Members Your marketing department is there to support your sales staff. According to Brittany Berger from SocialMediaToday, that means your content should be designed to stand in as a virtual sales representative. It should answer customer questions, entice them to try products or services, and educate them all at the same time. So, ask your sales and support team members what customers are struggling with the most or what people don’t understand and often ask for clarification. We’ve asked our team members for topic ideas that include the most common questions they get in sales, and have had fantastic results flow in content ideas! 4. Ask Your Readers If you have a good following already, ask your readers what they would like to see next. Ask them what their favorite posts are or just look at your stats and see which posts have the most shares online, receive comments, etc. What About Content Ideas for Boring Topics or Industries? Yes, there are some industries or topics out there that make the world groan. While they can be rather dull to think about, they do not necessarily have to be boring to read. ProBlogger featured a guest post that dove into the task of finding topics for boring industries, and they shared some interesting insight. First, they highly recommend Twitter. That is because social media is a mecca for finding content ideas. Perform a tweet search on Twitter, searching by hashtags and keywords. While the results are not as refined as Google, they will provide you with some insight. You could also use Twitter and other social media outlets to find out what’s trending. Be cautious here, though. You need to look for a hashtag that is trending that applies to your industry. Adding in hashtags or writing about trending topics that have nothing to do with your brand, industry, product, etc. is dangerous territory. The goal here is to be relevant and strike on hot topics that apply to your site. Also, tap into the resources of other social media sites. See what’s trending on Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and of course, Facebook. Our full time copywriter, Ashley, wrote a guide on how to craft content for boring industries. Check it out! Putting All Your Great Content Ideas Together Once you have a plethora of starting points, take the time to perfect and create your content from it all. To see if you have a viable idea, take it and write a few headlines. Your headlines are just brainstorming, so they don’t need to be perfect — you can fine-tune your headlines later for EMV value. If you can come up with several headline ideas, you may be able to incorporate all of them into separate articles — meaning one idea became multiple ideas in a flash!

Success Story: How Express Writers Helped a Digital Marketing Agency in Need & Boosted Their Clients’ Online Results

December 31, 2020October 25, 2016 by Adam Oakley

When Matt Janaway, CEO of England-based digital marketing agency Marketing Labs UK, realized he needed copywriting help, he knew just who to turn to. Janaway had worked with us before, and had a number of good things to say about the experience. According to him, hiring Express Writers for his copywriting needs was a “no-brainer.” The Story Begins: The Need for a Copywriting Team MarketingLabs recently experienced an influx of clientele in need of digital marketing services. While an increase in business is never a bad thing, the workload quickly became too much for MarketingLabs’ two in-house copywriters to handle. Janaway knew that forcing his copywriters to spread themselves thin would result in low quality work and – more importantly – unhappy customers. And he also knew his company wasn’t ready to take on a third full-time copywriter. Not only would that lead to an increase in overhead, but it would also result in redundancy once client demand died down. For Janaway, the choice was clear: hire a copywriting agency. Not Just Any Agency Janaway knew he had a number of copywriting agencies to choose from, but he ultimately decided to work with our team at Express Writers. He explains, “The ability to have skilled writers on-tap and ready to jump straight into a project…is a vital part of the growth strategy of our business.” Like we said earlier, this wasn’t the first time Janaway worked with Express Writers. What drew him back was our team’s ability to quickly turnaround assignments without sacrificing quality, as well as our writers’ in-depth understanding of digital and content marketing. The Results Janaway saw his own results, and his clients, grow to successful heights with our copy. Here’s what happened: Marketing Labs’ monthly website traffic doubled from 25,000 to 50,000. A single post on Marketing Labs’ blog gained over 2,000 shares on social media. A client of Marketing Labs saw a 77% increase in revenue year-over-year after Express Writers optimized their product description web copy. To Our Clients’ Continuing Success At Express Writers, we don’t aim to just snag a client and make a quick buck. Our goal is to provide value and forge a connection with our customers that leads to ongoing success for everyone involved in the process. And we make this happen, over and over, with every project we take on. Check out the full case study featuring Marketing Labs & Express Writers, here!

The Secret Sauce of Content That Gets Noticed & Read Online: A Guide to Authoritative Content

August 25, 2022October 21, 2016 by Angela E.

Angela E is an expert authoritative writer at Express Writers. Do you remember the Internet’s early days, when Yahoo! was king? For those too young to remember, there was a time when the world’s most popular search engine didn’t even exist, and no one ever thought of using “Google” as a verb. The “information superhighway” evolved quickly. It didn’t take long for businesses to realize that the Internet represented an untapped gold mine of potential customers. At the same time, tech folks were busily creating the apps so many rely on today, including Google. Google’s advanced search algorithms changed the Internet forever. Of course, that was back in 1999. So what does it take to rank on Google today? As always, Google’s algorithm is deeply confusing to most people (that’s why we broke it down once before). The main takeaway, though, is quality content — from authoritative voices. Note the keyword there: authoritative. If you want your content to be read, noticed, and shared – and why else would you create it? – you must position yourself as an authority. Authoritative content is the secret sauce to earning a strong ROI on your content. Luckily, we’re here: sharing that saucy recipe. Keep reading! Become an Authority in Your Industry: Create Authoritative Content You have to earn recognition as an authority, and that takes time and effort. Of course, it also takes creating powerful, engaging, valuable content, and doing so consistently. Building yourself up as an authority requires a blog. Of course, your entire site needs great, well-written content. But, if the only content you share through social media, email campaigns, newsletters, etc. is sales copy, your audience quickly tunes out. Compare it to your response to TV commercials and banner ads. Constant advertising eventually becomes white noise, ensuring you lose your audience. What’s more, it does nothing to build your voice as an authority in your industry. Your blog is the place to demonstrate your authority, your platform to prove yourself a thought leader. In other words, it lets you guide the conversation and add your voice to it. What’s more, your blog offers a natural way for you to regularly add fresh, engaging content to your site. This is a big deal when feeding the Google beast, which loves to gobble up fresh content. A realistic estimate on the time it takes to build your presence as an online authority is six months to one year. You can land on the narrow side of that estimate, though, if you follow some basic guidelines. Do You Know Who Your Audience Is? One of the most common mistakes people make in creating online content is attempting to write something for a general audience. You don’t see this in any other type of writing. Contemporary romance authors don’t throw in the occasional dragon to appeal to the fantasy crowd. Thriller writers don’t include a subplot about an angsty teen getting her first job and her first boyfriend over one eventful summer. Do you know why? These authors know whom they’re writing for, and so should you. Before you begin writing your piece, ask yourself, “Who am I writing this for? Who typed this search string into Google? What was he looking for? What problem does he hope to solve?” The answers to those questions guide everything that comes next. It Starts With a Killer Headline Shakespeare had young Juliet proclaim, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare never wrote for the Internet. You can write the best content in the world, but if nobody reads it, you will never become an authority. Your headline is the key to convincing your reader to click that link. How important is crafting the perfect headline? Just about everybody who blogs about blogging has written about it: CopyBlogger Outspoken Media Make a Living Writing HubSpot Crazy Egg There are at least 20 more similar pieces out there, and each one is about the importance of nailing your title. To be clear: a compelling title that inspires readers to click is not necessarily a clickbait title. We’ve all seen clickbait titles, and probably clicked on a few. They’re anathema to good content creation, because they don’t deliver on their promises (hence the name). Readers have a lot of content available to them. Like, seriously, a lot of content. If your title doesn’t engage them, they won’t click on it. However, if your title is amazing but your content doesn’t deliver, you probably just lost them for good. This shouldn’t be hard to understand. You’re a customer; think about the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, treat other people the way you wish to be treated. Think about any business that ever insulted you with bad service – cold food, rude staff, not delivering on their promises. How often did you go back? For most, the answer is never. It starts with the headline and ends with the actual content. Grab their attention right off the bat, or lose them forever, and then deliver on the promise of your headline. This isn’t clickbait. Remember; clickbait titles don’t follow through on their promises. Your content delivers. Right? Fulfill the Promise of Your Title: Deliver Engaging Content Authoritative content draws in the reader and answers her questions in an easy-to-understand way. A simple way to make your writing relatable is to do exactly that: relate it to something else. Analogy and story telling are excellent tools. You may have noticed that we employed them numerous times in this post already. This device makes your content relatable because it takes an abstract concept and explains it through a recognizable story that nearly everyone has experienced at one point or another. Your reader takes these familiar ideas and applies them to new ones. Now that you’ve engaged your reader, inform her. Remember back to when you formed your idea of what this … Read more

5 Ways to Make Your Content Better Than Your Competitors (& How We Outperform Ours)

December 31, 2020October 13, 2016 by Adam Oakley

In a world where more than 27 million pieces of content are shared on a daily basis, it can be difficult to stand out from the “content sea” long enough to get noticed by new readers. This is complicated by the fact that every business has competitors, and every single competitor wants to be stand out just as much as you do. So, you’re in a field where other businesses are likely looking to cover the same topics, news, and events as you are. That’s a tough deal. So, how do you ensure that your content is what stands out from the crowd, and you’re the one rising above field competitors? Let’s explore. Why Study Your Competitors? “Only the Paranoid Survive” If you’ve been in the management world for awhile, you’re probably familiar with Andy Grove’s famous book Only the Paranoid Survive. While Grove’s book title might seem dire, it’s actually a good lesson for anyone looking to outperform their competitors. The truth is that, in today’s world, content is competitive and in order to gain a cutting edge on the other companies in your industry, you need to be able to foster and engage a deep-seated curiosity about what your competitors are doing and how they’re doing it. Here at Express Writers, we’ve done just that. While we wouldn’t call ourselves “paranoid” by any stretch, we’ve dedicated ourselves to outperforming our competitors. Our Blog vs. Theirs: How We Outdid the Competition As a content creation company, we pride ourselves greatly on being able to write amazing content. Heck, check out this massive case study I just published on the fact of the matter: we outrank other writing companies by a whopping 5% on Google. We’re talking companies with literally 100x more funding than us. (Come on, guys, it’s as simple as using the service you provide! Actually…it’s a lot harder than that just sounded.) So, one small facet of our overall content marketing picture is to look at what our competitors are talking about, and how to do it a lot better. Check out how we did just that. Here’s a real case study of how we’ve outdone our competition: Them (Competitor): An agency in our industry field recently wrote a <500 word, general piece on “how to do content marketing for boring industries.” There was no formatting, sub headers, and it was written by a non-native English speaker (which would be okay if the writing flow wasn’t significantly off in a few sentences). Us: We took the idea we saw from our competitor as inspiration, went a step further, and first researched a long tail keyword with a viable opportunity. Using SEMrush and KWFinder, both of which are our go-to SEO tools, we found out that “guide to writing for boring industries” gave us both a great long-tail keyword and an idea for a topic. We handed this to one of our full-time copywriters, Ashley. She put a piece together for the Write Blog that was more than double the length and offered practical points that every business owner could put to use on how to create content for their online presence even if they were in a “boring” industry. Ashley talked about the actual writing content part instead of the broader content marketing picture, as our competitor did (we got more nitty-gritty): she showed our readers how to develop a metaphor, use statistics, and more. The piece included much more research, outbound/relevant and high quality links, and practical solutions. Here’s what the us vs. them looked like in the end. (Domain name removed from the competitor screenshot.) Them: Under 5 social shares. No comments. No rankings. Us: 91 social shares, a couple comments. Ready for the cool part? We be cool cats. #1 ranking for that keyword. Heck, we outdid Moz! So as you can see, in the end process we don’t just “copy” topics from others when we do study our competitors. (I don’t condone that.) We’ll go deep and look at what questions they’ve left unanswered in their content, or what’s missing from the value in the content, and how we can do it better. Sometimes, we’ll even look at the comments on the piece with questions from readers. And, we might back that up with checking to see what people are asking about on Quora in the topic; then we’ll write blogs to provide a fuller, clearer picture on the topic. As mentioned earlier, because of strategies like these, we have more content ranked in Google than any of our copywriting competitors, by an entire 5% visibility on average. In Google, 5% is a big deal. How’s that for a solid strategy? While you don’t need to lose sleep over what your competitors are or aren’t doing, it will serve you well to pay careful attention to what they might be missing within their content and how you can do it better. Here are five tips to get you started. 5 Key Ways You Can Write Better Content Than Your Competitors When it comes to scoping out your competitors’’ content, there are a few key places you want to look. These tips will help give you a structure you can develop further as you progress. 1. Keep an eye on the competition As is true with any sea, the content sea is always moving. Because of this, it’s important to stay on top of the game when it comes to monitoring your competitors. While we’re not advising that you install tracking software on their cars or anything quite that “out there”, we do advise that you use commonly available monitoring practices to keep an eye on their content creation efforts, especially in the following areas: Links. Who is linking to your competitor and which posts are earning those links? It’s easy to monitor links by using a service like BuzzSumo link alert. This service will let you know every time your competitor receives a link to content they’ve published, so you can get a feel for what is performing well and what’s not. Content performance. Of the content your competitor published in the last week or five days, … Read more

How We Outrank Every Competitor & Win Through Organic Content Without Spending a Penny on Ads (Express Writers’ Content Case Study)

June 19, 2024October 11, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Let’s face it. Getting traffic, maintaining traffic, and creating content they come back for—and keeping that cycle thriving for years—is hard work. Yet this is something we’ve been able to achieve successfully, day in and day out, at Express Writers. We’re a content writing agency that does what we do best for ourselves, before we sell it to others—creating winning online content that brings revenue, markets a business, and informs and helps an audience. Since I launched my website with a $75 investment in May 2011, Express Writers has relied on creating content for ourselves and publishing it online, organically, as the #1 source of all our leads, marketing, and revenue. We’ve focused on creating content without a thought to a sales funnel: and we’ve never paid a penny to advertise our services on Google. (You heard that right. We’ve never, once, invested in PPC. And the publications I write content for, guest blogs, don’t pay me a direct paycheck.) Instead, we’ve just focused on writing and publishing useful, outstanding content, on our site, consistently. Consistent guest blogging. Creating a Twitter presence that rocks out organically. Call me crazy, untypical, you-name-it… but it’s worked for us—extraordinarily well. I’m about to reveal it all to you, in a case study I sat down to create across a five-week span. We Are Our Own Success Story: How We at Express Writers Dominate Online & Outrank Competition Through Our Content Our major form of marketing is the actual service we sell: well-written, engaging, optimized online content. And for the first time, I’m pulling back the curtain in a major case study where we’ll reveal exactly where we stand with content, how we fare against our biggest competitors, and much more. (I’m using a pro account at SEMrush to pull every analytic.) Here’s a quick table of contents, so you know what’s coming: Ready for this? Sit back—you’re in for a ride! What does our organic online presence look like vs. competition? A five-year-old company (launched May 2011), we outrank our major competitors on average by 5% on Google. Check out this graph: We’ve climbed to over 4,100 total keyword rankings in Google. Our estimated worth of traffic and rankings is at $13,200 (what we’ve have to spend to achieve these rankings through sponsored ads). (Don’t worry about that dip in traffic. I have an upcoming post, How I Lost 30% of My Organic Rankings & Traffic (On Purpose) & Added 25% Additional Monthly Revenue By Going After the Traffic I Wanted, coming out soon to explain.) Over 300 keywords are indexed in the top 10 of Google (example in point, this is from the bottom of page 3, 100 results per page, in SEMrush): Back to our competitors. Here’s what a real-life look at our keywords vs. theirs look like—on Google, two out of four of our competitors don’t even have a presence for the keywords we rank #1 for: Overall, at first glance it looks like there is an extremely oversaturated market if you Google “writing agencies,” but only a few are worth really comparing ourselves to. Their funding: One of our two major competitors gained $700,000 and another $4.5 million for funding since launching in 2011; and the second competitor has been around for over 16 years, raising a private amount of seed funding in 2011. Our funding: We have zero investors. We don’t have a penny in outside funding. Yet we’re doing big things. I started Express Writers in May 2011 with a pocket investment of $75. It was a five-minute business idea born from a huge load of personal freelance writing I didn’t want to turn away. I learned how to code my first website; today, Josh McCoy leads our branding, building, and all our new upcoming development has been personally funded by ourselves. And without any outside funding, we’re launching a custom-built, 200% more efficient Content Shop that we’ve developed from scratch—coming out end of 2016/early 2017. Hand-in-hand with this will be the launch of custom writer team room systems we’ve built as well. (Get on the notification list for the upcoming launch!) And Josh is knee-deep in launching a boon to all content creators, Copyfind, which will offer the deepest content checking search for originality that’s on the web. (Get on that notification list here!) Yes, we have a lot about to launch. 😛 Today, we serve more than 1,000 clients worldwide, and we easily handle 300 pages in a given week. And we outshine most of our competitors’ quality because of a very personal, one-on-one mentoring environment we’ve given our writers—and because of incredibly dedicated, uniquely qualified experts I’ve been able to hire for our management staff. I won’t lie: to stay personally funded, I’ve put in many an 80-hour work week on my part, and invested 65% to 100% sometimes of our net profits from the company back in. It’s been hard to find good people, but thankfully, today I have just those people. It’s all been worth the intensive hard work to see growth happen this way. Organically, from hard work, without a huge million-dollar bank account solely responsible for and behind the growth—as is the reality with many, many other VC companies. How does our content perform? We have over 785 published blogs on our site, with the first one published live on our WordPress site in September 2012. The average word count of each is 1,500 (with the highest blogs at 3,700 words, and the lowest around 500—we’ve actually been working on adding more content to the shorter ones now). Our two most-shared posts are a blog published in December 2015, on how to do a website audit—coming in at 1k shares. An episode on my podcast with Sujan Patel, published in March 2016, coming in at 800+ shares. (But I don’t think shares mean everything! Here’s why.) The traffic, lead, and conversions that subsequently happen from our organic rankings bring in 90% of our company revenue. That’s right. That’s a six-figure gross yearly amount. The other revenue is brought in through cold lead … Read more

How to Create & Market Powerful Business Ebooks

December 31, 2020September 28, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Today, long-form content rules the roost. But here’s what you didn’t know: could the head honcho in said roost quite possibly be the ebook? Today, the average content length of material that ranks #1 in Google sits at 2,450 words (see more stats on long-form content). While many people put out long-form blog posts, ebooks are a fantastic way to provide long-form content that does what most long-form blogs don’t—or an amazing way to build a “content upgrade” onto an existing post. In addition to the fact that ebooks are ideal for providing relevance and value for consumers, they’re also a highly trusted form of content that has the potential to boost the image and authority of your brand hugely. Let’s discuss how you can improve your brand across the board by creating compelling business ebooks. [bctt tweet=”Learn how to improve your brand across the board by creating compelling business #ebooks. ?” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Business Ebooks, & Why Now Right now, 57% of marketers think that ebooks are a very effective marketing tactic. Even back in 2013, 34% of B2B marketers were using ebooks, and that number has exploded since then. In addition to their widespread use and perceived effectiveness (one study revealed that including a free ebook download on a website could increase conversion rates by 10.8%), there’s also the fact that ebooks are easy to produce, highly interactive, convenient for users, and in-depth enough to offer real value on a particular topic, concern, or problem. Readers love the comprehensive, easily accessible approach to a particular topic that is the ebook. One ebook has the opportunity for far more traction than one long-form content piece. Why? You can create a landing page for your ebook which can be re-shared, and re-linked to in multiple blog pieces, social media posts, and landing pages The best part: you get personal email addresses every single time someone wants to get a copy (time to do some email marketing and start conversion funnels to your readers’ inboxes!) While most people imagine ebooks to be cheap or sales-y, the modern marketing-centric business ebooks of today are highly researched, well thought-out pieces of material that include things like graphics, links, important stats, and truly useful information. Because of all of these things, ebooks claim a unique position that allows them to drive leads to a brand and make it easier than ever before for companies to enjoy the traffic, conversions, and engagement that long-form content so often produces. How to Create Your Own Highly Successful, In-Depth Business Ebooks There’s plenty to be gained from a great business ebook, and marketers who want to produce them successfully need to follow several steps: 1. Develop a plan for your upcoming ebook Because ebooks are often several thousand words long, it doesn’t behoove anyone to go into the project blindly. Instead of assuming that you can just write the ebook as you go, sit down and develop a plan right now. For your plan to function well as a guide throughout the writing process, it will have to cover a few key points. These are as follows: Topic. First of all, you’ll have to decide which issue you’re going to tackle in the ebook and how you’ll approach it. To flesh this out, consider consulting your Q&A section or the comments on your blog or social media pages. More likely than not, readers are already giving you a great glimpse into the type of content they’d like addressed, and paying attention to these sections can provide valuable insight into the direction of your book. Target audience. Once you’ve decided on your topic, you’ll need to determine who your ebook is directed at. If you don’t already have a target audience or a series of target personas drawn up, take some time to do that now. This is a simple step, but it’s one that will ultimately impact the effectiveness and relevance of your ebook. Target keywords. Ebooks are more impactful when they’re optimized for SEO. To ensure that your ebook makes a splash with your readers, research your target keywords before you drop into the writing process. By researching keywords and discovering which ones your readers are searching for, you’ll be much more readily able to deliver highly targeted content that appears in search results and can go a long way toward boosting your conversions. General outline. Aside from the things mentioned above, your ebook plan will also need to include a general outline of the content you’re proposing to cover. Consider drawing up a map of sections; content included, sources, and key points. While this may seem unneeded, it can be an essential foundation when it comes time to write the ebook. 2. Get to writing your content Now that you’ve developed an outline for your ebook and a plan for its execution, it’s time to start writing. Without question, this is the most difficult part of ebook production. Writing a great ebook takes time, and you can’t expect to rush through it and turn out a quality product. Instead, spend as much time as is needed to craft a quality piece of content that displays your expertise, relevance, and authority. If you don’t have time to write the ebook on your own, consider hiring professional copywriters to do it for you. By working with copywriters who are familiar with ebook structure and outline, you can quickly produce a quality piece of content without shouldering the burden of its creation on your own. Once your ebook is written, it’s time to get to work editing it. While you should be sure to read through the ebook several times on your own, you’ll also need to consider hiring a professional editor to check it through for you. This helps cut down on mistakes and ensure that your final product is a streamlined and professional as it needs to be. Once you’ve reached this point, it’s time to begin to promote your ebook. This will make your launch easier and streamline your marketing process … Read more

The Future of Content Marketing Is More Content, Not Less: True or False? (Buzzsumo Study)

December 31, 2020September 22, 2016 by Adam Oakley

For years, marketers, publishers, and writers have been bemoaning the density and saturation of the content sea. In a world where everything has been content-focused for as long as we can remember, it’s understandable that many people believe we’ve reached a point of content saturation. Blogs, social media, articles, podcasts, videos – it’s all too much, right? The naysayers out there believe that as the shorelines of the content sea rise, and marketers around the globe continue to pump out material at alarming rates, getting content noticed is impossible. And, we’d probably all be better off just giving up on content altogether. Right? Wrong. Contrary to what so many people believe, a recent study is making waves in suggesting that the future of content marketing lies in more content, not less. Read on to learn more. The September BuzzSumo Content Marketing Volume Study: Major Findings In response to people who claim that we’ve hit a saturation point and that the only direct content production can go is down, BuzzSumo recently conducted a major study this September that explores the present and future states of online content – and blows apart a big myth. More content isn’t a bad thing; in fact, quantity of content could just be where the future is headed. *Gasp!* Here are a few of the study’s key findings: High-volume content strategies produce real results.In the BuzzSumo study, Steve Rayson (the study’s author) found that several of the companies currently performing the best in the marketing industry could attribute a fair amount of their success to high-volume content strategies. HubSpot, for example, published 4,000 posts in the last year and received 2.8 million shares as a result, while Social Media Examiner has published 400 posts, which raked in more than 1.8 million social shares. The moral is this: when you have an audience that relies on you for quality content, you can drastically improve your leads and engagement by adopting a high-volume content strategy and publishing more content, more often. Short-form content may be ideal for social shares.When Rayson evaluated the 50 most shared posts in the marketing and IT sector, he found something shocking: 45 of them were under 1,000 words. While long-form content is still the winner in value and information, it turns out that short-form may be ideal for encouraging social shares and going viral. Video content may be more efficient than written content.By 2017, an estimated 54% of all web traffic will be dedicated to video. Because video is more cost-effective and efficient than textual content production, it stands to take over as the content method of choice for many marketers. Why More Content is the Future of the Digital Marketing Industry According to Buzzsumo’s study, The Washington Post publishes 1,200 posts each day. Does that seem excessive? For many people, the answer is “of course!” When you look at the publication’s stats, though, it all begins to make sense. In the last year alone, the Post’s readership has grown 28%, and its traffic numbers even surpassed The New York Times for a few months at the end of last year. While it’s fair to assume that this rate of success owes to several things, the foundation of it all is simple: more content. Although the drastic rise in content publication and distribution might seem like the natural consequence of increased readership, it’s a tactical, long-term strategy put in place by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. By increasing the output of content, Bezos and his publication also enhance the value they can offer readers, and thus set themselves apart from other publications in the industry. The Washington Post isn’t the only place standers-by can see such a drastic increase in content, either. For another example, consider Google’s bank of indexed pages. In 2010, the search engine had indexed just over 5 trillion pages. By 2016, however, that number had soared to 30 trillion. Talk about a content increase! The truth is that content is everywhere, and while many marketers believe we have to reach a point of critical mass eventually, the current trend is leaning toward more content rather than less. Here’s why: as life becomes increasingly digital and consumers become increasingly value-focused, content is the answer to dozens of problems, ranging from relevance to the search for information. As such, companies and organizations that produce the highest amount of quality content in the least amount of time are currently the ones positioned to win the race for attention. Quality vs. Quantity: Can the Two Exist? For years, the call in the world of content marketing has been, “quality first, then quantity!” Thanks to the current stampede of content, however, it’s become necessary for marketers to learn to do both at once. In addition to turning out a lot of content, today’s marketers also need to turn out relevant and high-quality content. Without the latter component, the content that’s being produced isn’t worth anything, and has the potential to hurt a brand more than it helps it. With this in mind, it’s clear that not only can quality and quantity exist together in the current climate of content marketing, but that they must. 5 Factors Contributing to the Increase in Content While there are dozens of things contributing to the rising levels of content on the web, the following are some of the most prominent: 1. More global internet users are interested in content As the reach of the web extends around the globe, people are becoming more and more interested in content. From informative blogs to in-depth articles and funny social content, people are searching for content to fill a wide variety of needs and interests. Because of this, the concentration of content on the web must increase accordingly. Currently, the boom in content is happening across virtually all distribution channels and platforms. In addition to the fact that Google is indexing trillions of pages each year, peer-reviewed scientific journals are publishing upwards of 2.5 million new articles each year and social media is virtually exploding with new content. What’s more, this trend shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. … Read more