Content Marketing Archives | Page 25 of 33 | Express Writers

The Great Content Roundup: Week 7, Succeeding on Social Media

The Great Content Roundup: Week 7, Succeeding on Social Media

Thanks for joining me this week, everyone! How’s your social media doing? I know: it’s a loaded question. But it’s one that’s frequently in discussion. Should I keep or kill my Facebook page? (That’s a question I’ve asked myself, given that our Facebook page rarely to never blows up the way our Twitter does.) Should you use acronyms on social media, or not? I’ve listed some of my favorite reads lately on these very topics below. Enjoy, share the love, and feel free to leave your resources and thoughts in the comments! The Great Content Roundup Week 7: Resources For Succeeding on Social Media Neil Patel’s 11 Tactics to Get More Click-Throughs from Social Media is a great read. Use pictures on Twitter and you could see 108% more engagement, like Neil did. Interestingly, he also says that you shouldn’t post too often. For self-promotion, follow an 80/20 rule. 20% of your social content can and should be self-promotional—but only 20%, folks. Search Engine Journal, author Martin Beck, Is a G+ Breakup Coming for Photos & Hangouts? Google + could be slimming down and focusing on Hangouts and a separate way to host photos. Interesting news about this ever-changing network. Buffer’s extensive guide The Definitive List of Social Media Acronyms and Abbreviations, Defined –a must read for any serious social media marketer. There’s even a quiz to test your knowledge. From All Acroynms, 669 Social networking acronyms and abbreviations –incase you didn’t already know what BFN, or F2F, or AFAIK means on social media.   BONUS Photo Credit: Comedy Network If your head’s not under a rock, you’ve heard about #TheDress this week. But you might already feel like Grumpy Cat, above. I’ll end this with a post by Danny Sullivan about #TheDress: Best Brand Tweets On The Dress: White & Gold Or Blue & Black?  

Is Syndication Scary? 3 Rules to Successful Content Syndication

Is Syndication Scary? 3 Rules to Successful Content Syndication

Crafting original, relevant, engaging content on a regular basis is only half of the job that any small business owner has to complete on time and on a budget. The other half is represented by the implementation of content marketing strategies set in place to make sure that your writing is visible amongst all the other options that search engine result pages (SERPs) normally deliver. Content syndication makes your job a whole lot easier by allowing you to gain visibility on various other platforms without actually being forced to redirect one dime towards the creation of new content pieces. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? You may ask: what’s the catch? Should you see syndication as a somewhat scary practice that may jeopardize your relationship with Google, potentially exposing you to penalties or should you actually give this tactic a try to keep your business into the spotlight? Let’s look. Can Content Syndication Become the Most Convenient Method to Promote Your Business? In most cases, the scariest things are the ones that you are not familiar with. Simple, but true. Those who already explore the full potential of a correct content syndication strategy have nothing to fear.  By mastering the rules of syndication you could profit from the widest range of benefits ensured by this strategy, including an increased exposure for your products, services or brand, more traffic to your main website, a larger segment of potential buyers and ultimately more money in your bank account. According to Search Engine Journal, through content syndication, you are basically allowing multiple online sources to feature your original content. You can offer a link, a headline or the entire article. RSS is perhaps the most popular form of (automated) content syndication; moreover, some of the most reputable sources that you visit regularly, like Business2Community for example, are huge content syndication websites. B2C and many other websites of this kind provide links and proper attribution to the source where the content piece that they feature was initially published. In this particular set of circumstances, how much can you actually depend on content syndication to boost the visibility of your content, increase brand awareness and establish meaningful partnerships that could keep you in the public eye for the longest period of time? As long as you play by the book, syndication represents a valuable tool that you can use to your best advantage to achieve your marketing goals without actually having to invest in new content pieces. 3 Guidelines to Risk-Free Content Syndication Should you turn content syndication into a major focal point in 2015? According to Business2Community, now would be the perfect time to start looking for syndication opportunities enabling you to place your web content on other people’s websites to increase brand exposure, reach a broader audience and make a name for yourself without having to put the extra time, cash and effort in content creation and distribution strategies. On the other hand, you should know that there are several appealing paid and free content syndication options, so you should feel free to choose the one that makes more sense to you from a practical and financial standpoint. No matter which path you choose to follow when it comes to syndicating content, make sure you follow these rules to stay in the safe zone. Apply a Few Preventive Measures. Undoubtedly, content syndication is seen by many novices as a practice that involves a certain degree of risk, because of its unfortunate association with duplicate content issues. This may make you wonder: how can I direct my content syndication efforts in the right direction to avoid penalties from search engines? According to Moz, there are three ways in which you could syndicate your content conveniently and absolutely risk-free. By using a rel=canonical tag. As Google points out, when it comes to handling syndicated content, your goal is to “consolidate page ranking to a preferred URL”. You can achieve this goal by indicating the preferred URL by using the rel=”canonical” tag. By adding the meta no index tag. The meta no index tag implemented by the authority website on their page tells search engines not to index this page, allowing you to prevent a potential problem revolving around duplicate content. By posting a link to the original content piece published on your blog/website. By implementing a clean link from the version of your content that they have rolled out on their website to your website, the content syndicator will let search engines know that you are the actual author of the content that is promoted across multiple platforms.  Make Sure There Is a Solid Balance between Syndicated Content and Original Content on Your Website. All the simple measures of precaution listed above allow you to make the most of the benefits ensured by correct syndication while staying in Google’s good graces. On the other side of the coin, if your content marketing strategy is based solely on syndicated content, now would be the best time to rethink your strategy and focus on your own writing. Glenn Gabe from Search Engine Watch makes this recommendation, revealing that a number of companies that suffered tremendous Panda hits losing more than 60% of their overall organic traffic in the blink of an eye had a major syndication problem left unattended. The syndicated content promoted by these websites had an incorrect technical setup; in other words, the websites that got hit by Panda 4.0 did not rely on the three preventive methods listed above, which do a great job at keeping duplicate content penalties at a distance. Is syndicated content a great friend or a foe in disguise? Should you nuke all forms of syndicated content to play it safe? According to Glenn Gabe, instead of putting your syndication efforts on hold for an indefinite amount of time, you should analyze how this strategy is currently being handled, attribution-wise.While building your entire communication with your audience around content “borrowed” from other sources is definitely not … Read more

What Sets Express Writers Apart From Other Content Agencies?

What Sets Express Writers Apart From Other Content Agencies?

When clients are looking to find a perfect copywriting agency, they will always ask what sets our agency, Express Writers, apart from other content agencies. This is a valid question, and I wanted to take a moment to answer it. I will show you just how we can help your business’s online presence, amp up views, and give you the chance to boost your overall revenue. Let’s take a look at just why Express Writers is tops and what sets us apart from other agencies in our field! Why Should You Choose Express Writers? At Express Writers, we like to think of ourselves as the “content company with high standards.” One of our favorite mottos is “quality content, all the time”. We take content seriously. So seriously, in fact, on average we look at 200 writing candidates a month and hire 10-20 every month.  Our staff is comprised of the most passionate industry persons on the planet, who will sometimes work more than 60 hours in one week. Our SEO Content Strategists stay up-to-date on SEO trends and can perform thorough content audits and brainstorm for our clientele content. Our social media managers can create and schedule out amazing, engaging social content. Also, we pride ourselves on diversity. Our copywriting team has every skill a writer could possess, with over 60 writers including attorneys-turned-copywriters, a Master in Philosophy, a certified coach in holistic health, and much more. We believe in natural writing for people first, search engines second. And, we look for the highest quality experts to match specific industries like technical, legal, finance, and more. While our team is mostly based in the US, we also believe talent isn’t restricted inside four corners of any section of earth: so, some of our hires include Canadian and European as well as American writers. We’re structured for success: privileged to have highly successful, experienced team members that help organize and manage our content flow. Our team has the ability to handle hundreds of pages in a month’s time, that come to you crafted by your matching writer, edited by our editors, and organized. Our Content Strategists can brainstorm your content for you, and our SM managers can author engaging memes and written posts to boost your social media to the next level. In short, you won’t find a more dedicated, passionate, and fully comprehensive writing solution. We believe in what we do, and it’s what keeps us driven and successful at it. Top 15 Reasons We AREN’T Like Other Agencies Let’s take a look at just what sets Express Writers apart and how we can help your business have the best online presence! We’re Solely Self-Managed. We don’t make you find and hook up a writer yourself: we find the best writer fit in our team and internally manage that. Our team of editors will also put all work through Copyscape to ensure it is 100% original and will edit your content before delivery. And all of that for no additional management fee. This helps us make sure you get the best quality work that you will be proud to share on your website, blog, and social media channels. This is NOT something you get with some of our major competitors including Scripted, Copify, etc. With those major competitors you have to choose your own writer, and that can get pretty complicated if you don’t know their writers. We know ours, and we find your best match. We Have A Custom Content Shop. Our online Content Shop helps you order content, send your product details, and get your content on delivery. It’s a custom developed platform all 100% by us for our clients, and extremely simple, easy and fun to use. All you have to do is sign up for free and take a look at all that we have to offer. Once you’ve created an account, you can request what you need and the project will start. Once you’ve finished and your content has been delivered, you will be able to download the files and look them over, ensuring they are exactly what you need. The Best Writers. We have some of the best writers on the planet. We know this because we go through thousands of applicants to find the top. Our quality goes beyond the average writer sourcing company or content agency. We have a big passion for what we do, and along with experience that’s our key to our success. See more about our incredible, dedicated team and why you want them to your next content project. Content Strategy. We have content strategy services that go beyond just content creation. We know that creating content is vital, but we also know that you will need more than product descriptions or blogs. Within our content strategy services, you can get a content audit to ensure all of your existing content is the best it can be, as well as content curation. Take a look at our content strategy services to see just how we can help improve your site, boosting views and even social shares. We Believe In Growth & Learning. We are continually improving. Internal training goes on behind the scenes to develop our Content Strategists further in their SEO content auditing and curation, our writers in their SEO content creation, and our staff overall. We test our team members on their knowledge of proctored online tests to ensure they have the best training and knowledge. We also update our training manuals and resource materials for our team frequently to keep everyone on top of all the latest research. Content Isn’t Limited to Just Blogs & Product Descriptions. In the marketing world, we here at Express Writers know that you need everything possible to have the biggest impact on your industry. Because of that, we make sure to cover more content fields outside of the standard blogs or landing pages. You can get social media content from our social media management team including written social media … Read more

The Great Content Roundup: Week 6, Why Today Is the Best Content Era

The Great Content Roundup: Week 6, Why Today Is the Best Content Era

Howdy, folks! This week, I wanted to talk about something I’ve seen everywhere online recently, either in tangible topics or in a thought behind the topic. It’s the fact that “NOW is the best time to jump on the bandwagon of content.” And I don’t really like to call it a bandwagon. It’s more like a strong, sure era than just a passing thing. Make that word “era” decade, or century. Literally—content isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Why Today is The Best Content Era (No Excuses For You To NOT Create!) Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute recently talked on this very topic: This Week in Content Marketing: Why the New Golden Age of Marketing Is Now, read full blog on CMI. Besides the host (Robert Rose) being quite hilarious (including discussing “inner goddess”, the “Christian Grey of marketing” and more), this is an overall great listen. Agency Says Content Is Their Biggest Opportunity: In the CMI blog was also a mention to another great resource, an AdAge post: Emphasis on Content Marketing Revives Agency SEO Efforts and Revenues. The agency showcased, Profero, said that “content is the biggest opportunity for us.” How Agencies Can Survive in a Content-Driven World by Joe Lazauskas on Contently. This is an interview blog with Steve Rubel with a lot of good insights on how content marketing is at the top of the curve today, and how to do content if you’re in a tight niche, where it’s hard to think of unique things. Finance and technology are mentioned as intriguing industries where it’s easy to spark interest. How To Dominate Content Marketing in 2015 by Neil Patel via Forbes: his #1 first tip is guest blogging. And we absolutely agree. Then, it’s all about user centric content, instead of focusing on SEO; and more good tips follow. A must read. And, to make sure your content is the best as you take on this era of content, take a look at this great post: How to Do a Content Audit (& Why It’s Worth It) by Heather Lloyd-Martin. If you’re not sure about a content audit, what it is or how and why to do it, you need to read this post. It’s a great, clearly written piece about the necessity of content auditing.  

The Great Content Roundup: Week 5, Topic Making Your Content Viral

The Great Content Roundup: Week 5, Topic Making Your Content Viral

Viral content. It turns heads. It stops us in our tracks. We HAVE to look. We have to read (at least a little of it). What makes content viral, and how do you get a piece of the game so you can experience the results of heavily trafficked, popular content? I have some awesome resources for you this week. Let’s take a look! Viral Content: Resources From The Great Content Roundup! 10 Quick Tips for Going Viral from Problogger. Useful piece. “You can’t go viral if you say the same as everything else.” Getting your basics right, being a trend setter and leader, writing list style posts, and using emoticons and being long are all features of viral content, as written here. The Secret to Creating Viral Content (Get Contagious) on Social Triggers. Did you know positive oriented content is more of a candidate to go viral than negative voice content? Or, practical and useful content is almost always a viral candidate winner? This piece gives some very useful tips that will help you cover all your basics when creating content to go viral. Plus, there are 7 emotions listed that can make your content contagious to include in your content creation. (I have this list in my editorial calendar already.) 5 Secrets for Creating Contagious Content for Social Media & Web Content by yours truly. I explore contagious content and how to craft such content. Usefulness is key; emotions will succeed; storytelling and knowledge are keys. Backlinko Blog- A “Viral Content” Case Study – “How To Generate 36,282 Readers — and 1,000 Email Subscribers — From Your Next Blog Post (Case Study)”. Now you might think this is some crazy automated product for sale by the title, if you’re anything like me, but don’t worry—it isn’t. It’s one of the best pieces of content on how to share and create viral content that I’ve read. Basically, this guy says that if you 1) find awesome content that is getting a ton of popularity and 2) make some awesome improvements to that content (write your own and make it better) 3) lastly, promote via email—well, you’ve got a winner. I’d go as far as to call it viral content creation. And he’s got a whole impressive case study showing proof of this suggestion. I can validate this entire strategy because you’re basically creating terrific quality content here by identifying what’s popular in your industry and how you can add your own voice and improve directly upon it. Rock on, Ben! View their other viral case study on a blog generating 17k plus viewers in a day. And, The Viral Content Problem (Many People Don’t Care Whether It’s True) on Gigaom. A most objective, interesting and truthful piece. This really hits the nail on the head about blogger sites like Upworthy, Huffington Post, etc. A woman with three breasts made for a viral but untrue topic – just one of the points made. Fake news got distributed, driving millions to a website. It’s called a fleeting instance of joy in this piece. And there are “viral content warehouses” like Buzz Feed. Like this post? Tell me what you’d like to see in the next Roundup! Email Julia.  

7 Rules to Creating Great Blog Content For 2015

7 Rules to Creating Great Blog Content For 2015

Eager to jumpstart your content marketing efforts for 2015? The quality of your blog posts and the topics that you choose will be more important than ever for the success of your website. Google started a SEO transformation several years ago and today, the process seems to be complete. Content has gained central position when it comes to optimization and promotion. Do you know, however, what it will take to make your blog successful in 2015? 1. Length and Quality Quality content is focused and lacking fluff. This doesn’t mean, however, that the pieces should be short. SerpIQ statistics show that the top 10 Google search results for particular keywords are usually about 2,000 words long. Longer posts provide more flexibility in terms of keyword placement and they also boost the audience’s engagement. The conclusion is simple to make – write at least 1,500 words per blog post. If you have detailed knowledge of the particular topic, you’ll find the task to be a relatively simple one. Longer posts increase your chances of getting quality backlinks, they are shared more often and they will probably be quoted by others, as well. Make sure that you have a unique approach and look at the topic. The more original and in-depth your blog posts are, the more valuable they’re going to be. 2. Have a Distribution Plan Good content is essential but how about coming up with the right distribution plan? Knowing how and where to share your content will boost visibility and make it much easier for you to establish that loyal audience. Content creation doesn’t end when the posts are written. Focus a bit more on marketing and selecting the right distribution channels. Social media have become the standard in the field and your pages should have been developed by now. Try distributing your content through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Scoop.it, among many other possibilities. Testing each of the channels and evaluating the response will help you determine which ones deliver the best results in terms of content promotion. Content distribution doesn’t have to be paid. Syndication and social bookmarking are two quite simple approaches, enabling blog and website owners to reach new, targeted audiences. 3. Content Repurposing That’s right, content can be repurposed. In fact, this approach will deliver great promotional results in 2015. Content repurposing doesn’t focus on the creation of new text. It simply makes the blog posts that you already have written available to a bigger number of people. In addition, you can use the content that you already have to create an informative piece for an entirely different medium. A series of blog posts, for example, can easily turn in a podcast. You can also change the length and the style of blog posts. An interview with an industry expert can easily become an opinion piece later on. You generate original content but you rely on source material that has already been created. Repurposing comes with a number of key advantages. It’s good for your website’s optimization, it enables you to reach audiences that look for information in different ways, it makes content creation easier and it gives you the possibility to capitalize on the most successful content you’ve written in the past. There’s no need to come up with something brand new each time. Some well-established topics and popular blog posts can easily be repurposed to simplify the task of keeping your blog updated. 4. Go Visual Are you still relying excessively on text? A few visuals will make your content much more engaging and interactive. Visuals grab the attention of the website visitor. If people like what they see, they’ll probably go through the text, as well. The human brain processes images faster than text. In fact, it perceives an image in 1/10th of the time needed to understand text. Statistics suggest that content containing visuals generates up to 94 percent more views than texts that are not accompanied by illustrations or photographs. Content that has both photos and videos will get 48 percent more views. Visual content can easily go viral and it will generate more inbound links. You have so much freedom, when it comes to picking visuals. Illustrations, slideshows, cartoons, diagrams and infographics are all audience favorites. Interactive graphics will be taking your visual content to the next level. These graphics can be clicked to reveal more information, which makes them interactive and highly engaging. 5. Do Competition Analysis Frequently The online world is highly competitive. You can set your clock by paying attention to what the competition is doing. If you haven’t been doing competition research until now, you’ve been missing on a huge source of inspiration. The blogs and websites of other entities inside the niche can help you come up with new topics. In addition, you’ll get to assess the audience’s response in order to determine which themes get people interested. Competition research can also help you come up with partnership ideas. Though many (including Matt Cutts) have claimed that guest posting is dead, this technique can still deliver excellent marketing and optimization results. Such partnerships give you access to a brand new audience. They result in more popularity for your website or brand. Optimization isn’t everything when it comes to being successful online. Joint efforts in the field of content creation can deliver excellent PR (as in press release rather than PageRank) results without being expensive. 6. Think about the Needs of the Mobile Crowd So many experts have said that 2015 is going to be the year of mobile. Take this fact in consideration when writing and formatting your copy. The same applies to the design of your website. Make sure that the mobile crowd is finding it easy to access, read and interact with your content. There have been claims about user experience affecting the Google ranking algorithm for some time. The number of individuals accessing web content through mobile devices is growing all the time. You cannot ignore and underestimate the needs … Read more

Explore How to Imitate These 5 Huge Companies That Nail Retail Copywriting

Explore How to Imitate These 5 Huge Companies That Nail Retail Copywriting

If you’re a retailer, you depend on good copy to help sell your products and services. With good copywriting, you can garner interest in your brand, cultivate trust, and provide value to your audience. In turn, these aspects make them more likely to pull the trigger. This is when leads convert to sales, and you score. Fantastic retail copywriting, however, is what sets apart the merely successful from the true stars of the market. However, that level of writing is often hard to achieve. In short, you need the pros. This is where a content creation and copywriting service swoops in to help you. At Express Writers, we’re staffed with skilled scribes who know how to write engaging copy. We employ slick sentences, nimble turns-of-phrase, and alluring adjectives to present valuable information to your customers. We write copy that gets you noticed. We do this in a few different ways, including using the same techniques that the big retailers use. Get the gist of what we offer, then find out which major brands we love to emulate. What Express Writers Offers for Retail Copywriting Our Content Shop is a treasure trove if you’re looking for great retail copywriting. Just a few of our offerings include: Web Pages Product Descriptions Sales Pages Landing Pages Ad Copywriting We write your copy so you don’t have to, and we write it professionally. This means you’ll be a step above your competitors with snazzy copy that holds attention. It’s clean writing that alternately entices and engages your readers. Your copy will be unique to your business and what you’re selling. Whether you offer products or services, we’ll make them desirable. We’ll answer the readers’ questions and position you not only as useful, but necessary to your potential customers. Our Track Record We have helped thousands of clients edge out the competition with solid, smart, well-written copy that’s SEO-ready and optimized for discovery. Our successes are proven: our services have given clients boosts like high conversion rates, big increases in revenue, saved time, and high-ranking pages. We have worked with brands big and small and helped speed their way to standing out among their peers. Our services make it possible – we’re ultra-flexible and can give you just what you need. Our Products and Services for Retail Copywriting You’ll find all kinds of options for custom retail copywriting in our Content Shop. Product Descriptions Excellent product descriptions highlight what you’re selling in a way that makes them unique but understandable. Customers will quickly get the gist of key features with well-written descriptions, but, more importantly, they’ll be enticed to click “Add to Cart.” Ad Copywriting You only have one chance to grab attention with your click-through ads. With professional ad copywriting, we write the kind of creative, fun, targeted copy that gets web users to stop scrolling, take a closer look, and click. Web Pages If you want to grab the customers who are looking for businesses like yours, you need SEO-friendly web pages that are easy on the eyes. We write readable, professional, custom copy that is up to Google’s high standards. This means more traffic and conversions for you. At Express Writers, we know quality retail copywriting. As such, we’ve collected some of our favorite examples of awesome brands doing it right. When we work for you, we’ll aim to emulate these successful brands by using their tried-and-true techniques. 5 Examples of Big-Time Brands that Nail Retail Copywriting According to Econsultancy, there is a formula to great retail copywriting. It includes: A unique approach A knowledgeable perspective Seamless keywords A readable format An inviting, friendly tone of voice Not too much technical jargon Some of the best brands out there nail every aspect – and they make it look easy. 1. Apple Time after time, Apple keeps on producing crisp, clean copy that grabs your attention and holds it. In fact, their words are like their products: sleek, crafted, and to-the-point. But what are the nitty-gritty reasons behind why Apple’s retail copywriting works effortlessly? According to Kissmetrics, it’s based on a couple of key techniques: There’s always one big idea. For example, in the above screengrab, the idea is simple: the iPad Pro is just like the older model, but better. With it, you can still carry out all the tasks you used to do – just better. Sentences are short and broken. Most of the ideas Apple puts out there are rather abrupt in their wording. However, they all give you the sense that the company is making a firm, bold statement that they absolutely stand behind. They’re not suggesting, they’re telling. The copy is memorable. The line “Anything you can do, you can do better” is not just catchy. It actually riffs off memorable song lyrics from the Broadway musical, Annie Get Your Gun. As such, it has a ring to it. It sticks in your head. Of course, that’s totally the point. 2. ModCloth If there was an award for “best use of plays-on-words in product descriptions,” women’s clothing retailer ModCloth would win it. Just listen to the names of some of these clothing pieces: The Flair and Back A-Line Dress Pull Up a Cherry A-Line Dress Flourishing Flirtation Top Patio Chatting Tank Top According to Hubspot, ModCloth accomplishes enticing product names and descriptions because they know their buyer persona inside-out. This includes what will appeal to them. They know that the gals who shop their website are smart and savvy – and they run with it. 3. UncommonGoods UncommonGoods immediately grabs your attention on their homepage with their unique product categories. Instead of settling for your standard “men,” “women,” etc., they instead zero-in on fun categories that directly appeal to special interests. It’s fun and a little silly to name your “bestsellers” category “Selling Like Hotcakes!” – but it totally works. 4. Old Spice Old Spice has set themselves apart from other men’s brands by just plain going for it. Their wacky, hilarious ad copy is everything from … Read more

The 10 Worst Content Marketing Mistakes We’ve Ever Seen

The 10 Worst Content Marketing Mistakes We’ve Ever Seen

We’re human: we all make mistakes. But, the bright side of making mistakes is that we learn how to correct them and in doing so become slightly better at avoiding those mistakes in the future (usually). In content creation, there are a lot of mistakes that inundate the Internet, unfortunately. My mind and soul cringes as I discover them. From the simplistic ones regarding spelling and grammar to the more complicated ones that impact our SEO validity, mistakes are a pain in the side of any content creator. And it’s not just one person. Content creators the world over suffer from the same problems that you do regarding content creation. 10 of the Worst, Eye-Digging, Bad-Bad-Bad Content Mistakes Let’s take a look at ten of the worst content mistakes I’ve ever come across. (Beware: it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.) 1: Duplicate Content. Ah, this evil beast. From an SEO perspective, this is a capital sin and one that many content creators and blog owners fall victim to all too often. Duplicate content hurts your search ranking and can lead to erroneous search results. Redirection tags and multiple hosted copies of a home page can lead to terrible problems when a search engine is trying to reference your actual home page. It can be something as simple as a double-posted blog entry that could lead to the dreaded duplicate content error in your site. From a marketer’s point of view, you’re probably going to need to have a handful of home pages in order to gauge the effectiveness of any particular one. The problem arises when you forget to state these pages as non-indexed one to the search engine robots. The result is that you can have multiple copies of your home page being referenced and one may be a draft or incomplete one. Leaving the decision to the robots on the search engine means that they could be sending users to your unfinished landing page, leaving them with a horrible impression of your site. In the blogger’s case, multiple posts can easily be detected and removed, but only if you know your post was double-posted. Keeping an eye on your site helps you to avoid these issues. 2: Too Much & Bad Backlinking. Backlinks are very important in determining the usefulness of a site and how well it shows up on search engine rankings. The trustworthiness of a site comes down to how well it backlinks to other sites. Creating backlinks that incorporate spammy sites, link directories or ad-heavy sites drives a site down the search rankings. When you’re creating backlinks, you should really examine where your backlinks are coming from to ensure you don’t get flagged as an untrustworthy site. Creating a backlink history that is on the up-and-up requires some research into where you’re linking to. Always try to keep authority sites at the top of your link data. For content that already exists, you should ensure that the links that exist in these content pieces are viable and do not link to any shady sites. Using utilities such as SEMRush aids in creating a backlink report that can help you to weed out these bad backlinks. It’s a time consuming process, but in order to keep your ranking intact, it’s a necessary one. 3: Over-Optimization of Keywords. This one makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. Seriously. There’s nothing much worse (except maybe my first two points). Creating a page that has a plethora of good information does require you to use keywords to aid in finding the information when a search engine user requests it. But in the past, throwing together a handful of keywords and using them inside the text of the landing page was usually what you needed in order to place high up on the search rankings. Eventually, the focus moved away from keywords and into a combination of factors. This came about because of the abuse of keyword stuffing in the early days of search engine optimization. Over-optimization of keywords occurs when you have more than one page with the same targeted keyword. The search engine doesn’t know which one of your pages is the main site and so you are left with pot luck as to what the search engine decides is the more relevant site, which may not be the one you want to appear there. Proper SEO practice requires you to use different targeted keywords for different pages in order to ensure a situation like this does not arise. Over-optimizing your site for your keywords can have a massively detrimental impact on your search engine results and your overall SEO strategy. As a technical content error it can be a lot harder to spot, requiring constant vigilance over your SEO results and targeted keyword seeding. 4: Too Many Links Off The Home Page. This might seem counter intuitive after having described how important backlinks are, but having too many links from your home page makes your page hard to navigate. Links serve as incoming traffic points and outgoing traffic locales. The more there are, the more areas that you send traffic out to. However, by limiting your links, you are able to direct a larger amount of traffic to the pertinent sites instead of trying to create a link storm that doesn’t really send significant traffic anywhere. Building links is important, but too many links results in a page that is difficult for your reader to navigate and even harder for a search engine to rank. Link building, therefore, should be done in moderation and the locations to your links chosen carefully to align with your overall SEO strategy. You can easily determine if you’ve over-linked on your homepage by using the Moz Tool Diagnostics Summary. It will also inform you if you have too few links on the page. Maintaining a healthy balance of links on your home page is very important to making your page successful, so doing too much or too little does … Read more

The Great Content Roundup: Week 4, Topic SuperBowl Content

The Great Content Roundup: Week 4, Topic SuperBowl Content

Howdy, folks! This week, I’m taking a look at the Super Bowl XLIX ads, specifically looking at the buzz surrounding all the ad spots during the game. Some had high activity levels, others were shared for not-so-good reasons. There were a couple ads I personally loved, as a writer and content marketer. Keep reading. I’d also love to hear in the comments which ones you especially liked! Highest Activity Ad, and my second favorite: Budweiser Lost Dog Superbowl Commercial View the MarketingLand article on how this adspot came to be the top online performer.  The “Loser” of the Superbowl Ads: Make Safe Happen by Nationwide View the MarketingLand article on how this ad came to be the loser That said about the apparent loser, I have a personal differing opinion. As a mom of an almost-one-year-old, I sympathize and respect their message. There are so many ways a little child can die (yes, die) that it’s inhumane not to raise awareness and try to help prevent some of these easily avoidable unfortunate circumstances from happening. On the other hand, I thought ads like the Carls Jr. Naked Woman Going Through A Farmers Market (not the title, but that’s what it really is) was a lot more controversial, especially if you’re showing these to an audience of all ages. My Top Favorite: Weight Watchers “All You Can Eat.” This was their first advertisement on a Superbowl. Dubbed a “succulent smack-down of fast food”, this killer ad nailed a big problem facing America: bad food choices on all sides of us. From the script to every scene cut, this ad was brilliant and bold, raw, direct and hitting. Just what I like. (Oh, and did you know Jesse from Breaking Bad voiced the script?) And finally, some excellent resource articles relatable to every business owner about the Super Bowl ads: How Marketers Can Turn Super Bowl Mania Into Sales With Retargeting by Ginny Marvin on Marketing Land. Great piece on how you can actually jump into the Superbowl ad frenzy by connecting with the audience portions that crossover into your audience.  Super Bowl Commercials With Hashtags Slipped To 50% In 2015 by Martin Beck on Marketing Land. An informative piece that reviews how not everyone jumped on the social publicity that all the ads tried to push. Surprisingly, Facebook was the most mentioned social network (with all the hashtags, I instantly suspected Twitter would have been).  

How To Curate Killer Content Ideas

How To Curate Killer Content Ideas

Content curation is a HOT topic and over the last year or so, as Internet content has grown, its popularity has trended drastically. For a lot of companies, understanding content curation lies at the heart of the future success of their online entrepreneurial enterprises. For others it provides a handy way to keep content coming in and keep the things that show up one’s blog fresh. Content curation is the art of gathering relevant ideas and content about a topic or niche and housing them in a simply navigated repository that gives users, at a glance, the usefulness and viability of the content as well as where the content can be located on the Internet. To many bloggers, content curation represents the next logical step in the evolution of content production. There’s a saying that goes, “There is nothing that is new under the sun,” and as far as content creators have realized it’s a sad reality. Coming up with fresh new ideas for content gets to be tedious and tiring as time goes by. Content curation provides an injection of fresh content while at the same time allowing for the establishment of backlinks to well-respected sites thereby increasing the authoritative value of your site (as well as your search ranking for certain keywords). Content curation is the direction that a business-minded site would move towards since it provides a lot of benefits with a minimum amount of drawbacks. Important! Do Not Confuse Curation with Copying Content curators collect information from sites and catalog them, then go through the catalog and pick out the ones that provide the best information then review their findings for the readers. It is an ongoing process and curators usually spend hours trawling the Internet looking for viable links that they can use in their work. Although curators may extract certain parts of a bit of content to underscore the value of the entire work to their audience, they should NEVER copy content completely from another site. Curators are ethically minded people that aim to promote the useful information in sites that are not their own while giving value to their readers by condensing a tedious Internet search into a single page containing the most useful links for a particular niche. Confusing curation with copying can lead to some serious fallout such as losing your page rank in Google for hosting duplicate content. As a curator you should be wary of finding yourself in such a position. 4 Ways To Plan Your Content Curation Just like anything that has to do with a long-term business solution, you need a roadmap for your content curation. Developing a step-wise plan as to how to achieve the end result of a content curation site that content managers would be proud to operate is relatively simple. It can be broken down into three major sub-steps, each logically placed so as to enhance the step that comes after it. When planning your content curation you should be looking at doing these things in order: Collect Content: Looking through the Internet to discover sites that best fit your audience interest and cataloging them with the appropriate utilities. This is the most important first step in order to create a database of valid links. These should be high-impact sites that cater to the basic needs of your audience. Arranging them by tags in an understandable format is where your journey into content curation begins. Share the Best: Although your original pile of article links may number into the thousands, you’re going to have to do some reading and sifting. Content curation is a time-intensive job and the wider the niche you’re covering the more work is involved in getting your content curation to a point where it’s usable. In order to be considered seriously in your niche the quality of your shares should be very high based on their value to your readers. Audit your Content: The feedback mechanism that separates good content curators from run-of-the-mill ones is auditing of your content. Your shared content may fall short in reaching your target audience and the only way you can figure that out is by doing regular audits and replacing the non-performing shares with those that are more likely to generate better leads. Audits also allow you to fix the technical aspects of your content (such as SEO details and keyword placement) so as to make the share more search engine friendly. Schedule your Shares: Just like blogging, the aim with content curation is to ensure that you have fresh content regularly and on demand. To do so consistently, you should queue up your content shares so that they go live at regular intervals. These don’t need to be within any set time period, but consistent posting keeps your content curation site fresh and ensures that you don’t lose your search rank position through abandonment. There are quite a number of online content production companies that offer content auditing and curation as separate packages or as a combination of both of these important aspects of running a site that is aiming to be an authority in the topic area. Because of the intensive nature of content curation, if you intend to go this route, hiring an external company to do your curation for you is definitely a good idea. 5 Ways Content Curation Can Generate Ideas Curating usually inspires you to build on the content you have or to create brand new content. Just like a muse tends to awaken the creative spirit in an artist, so too does content curation give you a chance to explore different points of view for the same topic. You need to keep an open mind when putting together content via curation since it’s likely that sites that may not align with your point of view have some points that are just as valid as your own. Being objective is very important. Coming up with and curating new content ideas can be a relatively pain-free process, … Read more