Consider this your ultimate guide to scaling content. We’re diving deep into strategies, tools, and real-world triumphs that will empower you to create content that resonates and dominates. AI-assisted brief creation, batch production, and content management systems are just the beginning. 

Prepare to break free from the mold and make your content unstoppable.

What Is Content Scaling?

Content scaling is the strategic process of amplifying your content so it reaches more people. Let’s look at two core concepts:

• Multiplication: A single, well-crafted piece becomes the seed for a network of interconnected and repurposed content, maximizing its impact and longevity.
• Diversity: Content scaling embraces the full spectrum of content formats — blog posts, social media snippets, videos, podcasts, and infographics — to engage different segments of your audience and keep them hooked.

Content scaling is the future of content creation. It’s a strategic, data-driven approach that empowers you to reach wider audiences, build stronger brand awareness, and drive meaningful results.

Why Is Content Scaling Important?

Let’s look at the benefits of scaling content output:

• Expand reach: Scaling content allows you to reach a wider audience across various platforms and channels.
• Build trust and authority: Consistently delivering high-quality, relevant content positions your brand as a trusted resource and thought leader in your industry. This essentially establishes your company as a go-to expert in your field — the one people turn to for advice and solutions.
• Boost visibility: Optimizing your content for search engines can significantly improve your website’s ranking in search results, leading to increased organic traffic. Think of your website as a storefront on a busy street — a high ranking on search results is the equivalent of a prime spot on Main Street.
• Generate leads: Compelling content acts as a magnet, drawing potential customers to your brand. Offer valuable information and insights to capture their interest and convert them into qualified leads.
• Increase revenue: Content scaling drives tangible business results. Nurturing leads using targeted content throughout the customer journey accelerates conversions and boosts your bottom line.

Content scaling empowers you to connect with your audience on a deeper level, build brand loyalty, and ultimately drive sustainable growth. Work smarter, not harder, to amplify your message and achieve tangible business results. 

Leverage Scalable Content for Brand Amplification

Scalable content acts as a megaphone for your brand’s unique voice. Consistently deliver high-quality, relevant content across various channels to increase visibility and reinforce brand identity. Having a consistent presence solidifies your brand in the minds of consumers, making you the go-to source for information, products, or services. 

Still, beware of falling into the trap of producing quantity over quality. Losing the magic touch that made your content so engaging in the first place would be catastrophic. 

How to Maintain High-Quality Content at Scale

Scaling content must never mean sacrificing quality. Maintaining — or, ideally, elevating — your standards is pivotal for long-term success. Here’s how to create a content engine that seamlessly delivers quality and quantity:

• Thorough intent and audience research
• Quality briefs
• QA, subject matter experts, and editors
• Personalization
• Clear expectations
• Diverse content mix
• A style guide

Thorough intent and audience research

Before writing a single word, learn about your audience’s needs, desires, and pain points. What questions do they ask? What information do they seek? This tells you about audience intent. Aligning content with intent ensures every piece resonates and delivers genuine value. Go beyond keyword research and think about connecting with your audience on a human level.

Quality briefs

A well-crafted brief is the blueprint for successfully scaled content. It sets clear expectations, outlines key messages, and provides direction for your content creators. Use your project brief to guide your team toward your goals and help them understand and capture audience intent. Invest time and maximize the use of technology to craft comprehensive briefs that leave no room for ambiguity.

QA, subject matter experts, and editors

Even the most talented content creators are prone to human error. That’s where quality assurance, subject matter experts, and editors come in. They’re a safety net to ensure content is error-free, factually accurate, and polished to perfection. Consider implementing a multi-step editing process, including automated checks and several layers of human review.

Personalization

Personalization is a marketing superpower. Tailor messaging to specific segments of your audience based on their interests, demographics, and stage in the buyer’s journey. Use dynamic content on your website, segment your email lists, and design ultra-personalized social media campaigns. Personalization should apply to audience segments — but you must also personalize content based on the platform you’re using. 

Clear expectations

When working with a team of content creators, establishing clear expectations and deadlines is essential. This helps everyone stay on track and ensures that projects are completed on time and to a high standard. Utilize project management tools to assign tasks, track progress, and maintain open communication.

Diverse content mix

Don’t rely on a single content format. Experiment with different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and social media posts. This not only keeps your audience engaged but also allows you to reach different segments of your target market that may prefer different formats.

A style guide

A style guide is a document that outlines your brand’s writing style, tone of voice, and formatting guidelines. It ensures that all your scaled content production is consistent and adheres to your brand’s standards, regardless of who created it. This is especially important when working with multiple content creators or outsourcing content creation.

Maintaining quality is paramount, but it doesn’t have to be a Herculean task. You can leverage tools and technologies to streamline the content scaling process without sacrificing an ounce of excellence.

Techniques and Tools That Enhance Content Scaling 

Ready to transform your content strategy into a well-oiled machine? These techniques and tools help you scale up content production, streamline your workflow, and maximize efficiency:

• Content management systems
• Batch content production
• AI writing assistants 

Content management systems (CMSes)

Think of a CMS as your content’s air traffic control tower, orchestrating the seamless flow of information across your digital channels. It’s a centralized platform where you can:

• Store all your content assets — blog posts, articles, images, videos — in one easily accessible location.
• Enable your team to work together seamlessly, no matter where they are located. Say goodbye to endless email chains and version control nightmares.
• Schedule posts in advance, manage revisions effortlessly, and track content performance with built-in analytics. Let the machines do the heavy lifting so you can focus on the big picture.
• Implement search engine optimization best practices to amplify content to the right audience at the right time.

According to Alan Gleeson, CEO of Contento, 68% of the top 25 B2B SaaS companies in Ireland use WordPress as their CMS. While WordPress is a popular choice, research shows that options such as Contentful or Contento deliver a performance advantage in terms of site speed, which is a crucial factor for user experience and SEO.

Batch content production

If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content, batching is a productivity lifeline. Instead of jumping from task to task like a frantic squirrel, batch content production involves focusing on one specific type of content at a time.

This approach allows you to:

• Enter a state of flow and complete tasks more quickly and efficiently.
• Create a backlog of content, ensuring a steady stream of publications even when you’re juggling multiple projects.
• Dive into the subject matter, research thoroughly, and craft your message with precision.

Many successful content creators swear by batch content production. For example, content marketing expert Clint Mally recommends creating multiple long-form pieces of content in a single week, then repurposing them into social media posts, email newsletters, and other formats. With this technique, you maximize the impact of your best content while saving time and energy.

AI writing assistants

Artificial intelligence isn’t here to steal your job; it’s here to streamline and enhance your workflow. Generative AI is a sophisticated tool that can:

• Brainstorm new topics, headlines, and angles for content.
• Analyze keywords, identify content gaps, and enhance your content’s discoverability.
• Personalize your message to specific audiences based on their interests and demographics.

Technology is a powerful ally in your quest to scale content creation. From AI-powered brainstorming tools to templates, the right technology streamlines your workflow and enhances your creativity.

How Can Technology Help in Scaling Content Production?

Crafting top-notch content at scale isn’t a walk in the park. It takes time, creativity, and, typically, a whole lot of caffeine. The following tools are poised and ready to streamline your workflow, amplify your reach, and help you unleash your creative genius. 

ChatGPT

Ever dreamed of having a writing partner who never sleeps, never complains, and always has a thesaurus handy? Meet ChatGPT. 

Use it to:

• Quickly generate first drafts of content briefs, blog posts, or social media captions.
• Transform existing content into different formats, such as turning a blog post into a script for a short video.
• Analyze keywords and suggest improvements to enhance your content’s discoverability.
• Quickly create structured outlines and detailed briefs for your content team.

Pros of ChatGPT:

• Increased efficiency: Drafts content quickly, freeing up your team’s time for other strategic tasks.
• Versatility: Use it for various content types and formats.
• Scalability: Helps you generate a high volume of content without sacrificing quality.

Cons of ChatGPT:

• Requires human oversight: Always review and edit ChatGPT’s output to ensure accuracy and maintain your brand voice.
• Potential for generic content: Often produces content that lacks originality and can require extensive additional refinement.
• Ethical considerations: Be mindful of potential biases and limitations of AI-generated content.
• Cost: Free for basic use, with paid plans offering more advanced features.

Crowd Content’s Templates 

Crowd Content’s content brief template and blog post templates enable you to consistently create content that’s structurally sound and visually appealing. Use them to:

• Save time and mental energy by following a proven formula for content creation.
• Ensure content aligns with your brand voice and messaging, creating a cohesive brand experience across all channels.
• Glean expert tips and insights on how to craft content that captivates and converts. 

Pros of using CC templates:

• Simplified content creation process: No more staring at a blank page, wondering where to start.
• Improved content quality and consistency: Create content that adheres to your brand standards and resonates with your audience.
• Cost: Free to use, making it a valuable resource for content creators of all levels.

Cons of using CC templates:

• May not be suitable for all types of content or industries: Some customization might be necessary to adapt the templates to your specific needs.
• Requires some level of knowledge and experience: While the templates provide a helpful framework, you still need to bring your own expertise and creativity to the table.

Be sure to conduct regular maintenance checks to keep your content machine well-oiled. Let’s explore the metrics that help you calculate the success of scaled content and ensure it’s making an impact.

How Do You Measure the Success of Scaled Content?

Here’s how to measure content performance:

• Website traffic
• Engagement metrics
• Lead generation
• Conversions

Website traffic

Are more people visiting your site? Are they lingering longer and browsing your pages with interest? Tools such as Google Analytics tell you which web pages are most popular and where visitors get lost or leave too soon.

Let’s say you run an online store selling eco-friendly products. Tracking website traffic might show a spike in visitors after you publish a blog post about sustainable living tips. This tells you that this type of content resonates with your audience and gets them onto your site.

Engagement metrics

Engagement metrics reveal whether users are actually getting value from your content. Are they reading, watching, listening, sharing, and commenting? Are they hooked on your every word, or do they tune out after the first few lines? Metrics such as time on page, bounce rate, social shares, and comments are real-time representations of how engaging your content is. 

Perhaps you create a series of videos demonstrating how to use your product. If viewers watch all the way through and leave positive comments, you know you’ve struck a chord.

Lead generation

Your content is a magnet for potential customers. Lead generation metrics tell you how many people are drawn to your brand. Are they subscribing to your newsletter, downloading your whitepaper, or filling out your contact form? Leads are the seeds of future sales, so nurturing them with valuable content is key.

Conversions

Conversions are the ultimate goal of any content marketing strategy. It’s the moment when a prospect raises their hand and says, “I’m in!” Whether it’s subscribing to your socials, making a purchase, signing up for a free trial, or requesting a demo, conversions are the proof that your content is performing as it should.

You’re practically an expert in scaling content by now. Let’s look at some real-world case studies of brands that successfully scaled their content efforts. 

Successful Content Scaling Examples

These brands didn’t just dip their toes into content scaling — they dove in headfirst and emerged victorious. Their brand stories offer valuable insights for anyone looking to amplify their content’s impact:

BoConcept

Here’s a glimpse at how Danish furniture brand BoConcept, enhanced content scaling using AI and centralized marketing.

The challenge: BoConcept faced the formidable task of creating and adapting marketing campaigns for numerous products, channels, sub-brands, markets, and languages. Local production agencies struggled to maintain consistency and meet the brand’s high standards.

The solution: BoConcept centralized its brand marketing efforts and partnered with an AI-powered agency to streamline content production. This allowed the brand to create master campaigns that could be scaled and localized across 64 different languages, ensuring consistent messaging and brand voice across all markets. An extraordinary level of accessibility and global inclusivity are two of AI and content scaling’s true superpowers, helping brands reach customers around the world. 

Paris Mechanical

Let’s look at HVAC company Paris Mechanical’s approach to scaling up using AI and automation. 

The challenge: Paris Mechanical was experiencing rapid growth but struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for services. Its sales and marketing processes were largely manual, leading to bottlenecks and missed opportunities.

The solution: Paris Mechanical partnered with a consulting firm specializing in AI and automation to develop a scalable marketing strategy. It implemented a suite of tools, including HubSpot Marketing Hub, Unbounce, and Google Ads, to automate lead generation, capture, and nurturing. What’s more, it tapped into the power of AI tools to generate personalized content and streamline the quoting process.

What Strategies Can Manage Increased Content Volumes?

With great content comes great responsibility. As output ramps up, you need a strategy to keep scaled content organized, efficient, and aligned with your goals. 

Here’s your roadmap to content scaling success:

1. Assemble a strong content team
2. Craft a content calendar 
3. Streamline your workflow
4. Integrate into existing campaigns

1. Assemble a strong content team

Assemble a strong team of content specialists, each with their own unique skills and expertise, including:

• Content strategists: The masterminds behind the overall content vision and direction.
• Writers: The wordsmiths who bring your ideas to life with captivating prose that sings with your brand voice.
• SMEs: The frontline industry experts who edit for technical accuracy and enhance your content’s authority.
• Editors: The grammar stalwarts who ensure content is polished and error-free.
• Designers: The visual wizards who create eye-catching graphics and layouts.
• SEO specialists: The search engine whisperers who optimize your content for maximum visibility.
• Social media managers: The social butterflies who amplify your content across various platforms.

2. Craft a content calendar 

A content calendar is a visual representation of your planned content, including:

• Topics: What are you going to write, record, or film about?
• Formats: Will it be a blog post, video, infographic, or something else?
• Channels: Where will you publish and promote your content?
• Deadlines: When will each piece of content be ready?

3. Streamline your workflow

Streamline your workflow by:

• Automating repetitive tasks such as scheduling social media posts, sending email newsletters, and delivering analytics reports.
• Creating reusable templates for different content types to save time and maintain consistency.
• Using project management tools to track progress, assign tasks, and collaborate with team members seamlessly.

4. Integrate into existing campaigns

Integrate content into your broader marketing campaigns to maximize its impact. This means:

• Sharing it across your social media channels, email newsletters, and other marketing channels.
• Repurposing your blog posts into videos, podcasts, and shareable infographics to reach different audiences.
• Using content as a way to guide potential customers through the buying journey.
• Creating a cohesive and powerful brand narrative that resonates with your audience, building a community and driving them toward action.

Content Scaling Limitations and How to Address Them

Scaling content isn’t always a smooth ride. There are a few bumps in the road you might encounter along the way. But don’t worry. With a little foresight and strategic planning, you can overcome these challenges and keep your content engine purring:

• Maintain quality at scale: As output increases, it can be tempting to cut corners to save time and resources. However, this is a recipe for disaster. Quality should always be your top priority. To maintain high standards, invest in skilled content creators, implement rigorous editing processes, and use tools to automate time-consuming tasks.
• Avoid content fatigue: Publishing a large volume of content doesn’t guarantee engagement. If your content becomes repetitive or irrelevant, audiences tune out. To avoid content fatigue, create diverse content that appeals to different segments of your audience. Experiment with new formats, topics, and angles to keep things fresh and engaging.
• Measure ROI: Content scaling requires an investment of time, money, and resources. Make sure you track ROI carefully to ensure your efforts are paying off. Use analytic tools from Google and social media to measure your content’s impact on engagement metrics such as website traffic, time on page, and conversion rate.
• Adapt to algorithm changes: Social media algorithms are constantly evolving, and that can impact your content’s visibility and reach. Stay up-to-date on the latest changes and adjust your strategy accordingly. Experiment with different posting times, formats, and content types to find what works best for your audience.
• Stay ahead of the competition: The content landscape is constantly evolving. To stay ahead of the curve, you must constantly learn and adapt. Follow industry trends, experiment with new technologies, and keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

Proactively addressing these challenges ensures your content scaling efforts are sustainable and aligned with your business goals. 

See How to Scale Your Content Now

If content scaling sounds like a lot of effort and expense, that’s because it is. Even large brands with huge marketing budgets can struggle to manage each step of the process in-house. Let’s look at the pros and cons of outsourcing versus in-house content scaling. 

The Creation Process: In-House versus Outsourcing Scalable Content

Should you build your content team in-house or outsource to the pros? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The best approach depends on your specific needs, budget, and existing resources.

First, let’s explore the pros and cons of in-house content scaling:

• Pros: More control and the ability to iterate and experiment quickly if you have an existing in-house content team.
• Cons: It’s extremely expensive and time-consuming to build a team of skilled strategists, content creators, editors, quality assessors, AI experts, and SMEs from scratch.

Now, let’s study the pros and cons of outsourcing content scaling:

• Pros: Access to a wide pool of talent and expertise, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses. Outsourcing also offers the flexibility to scale up or down as needed.
• Cons: Less control over the creative process and potential for communication challenges.

Many businesses opt for a hybrid approach, combining in-house expertise with the flexibility and scalability of outsourcing. This allows them to leverage the strengths of both models while mitigating the weaknesses.

For guidance on how to find the right content creators for your needs, check out our article: How to Find Content Creators [LINK TO FORTHCOMING ARTICLE].

Your Content Scaling Strategy

Content scaling is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires a strategic mindset and a relentless commitment to quality. Following the strategies and using the tools outlined in this guide will get you on your way to creating a powerful content engine that drives results, fosters brand loyalty, and propels your business to new heights. 

Always keep in mind that increasing quantity must never compromise quality. Prioritize providing helpful, insightful, and actionable content that exceeds your audience’s expectations.

Don’t just take our word for it. Go forth and experiment. Test different approaches, track your results, and refine your strategy over time.

The post Content Scaling Strategies to Amplify Your Content Production appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Customer data is a codebreaker for pinpointing your ideal audience. Demographic analysis, behavioral insights, engagement KPIs, and consumer feedback serve as marketing encryption keys. 

This comprehensive guide will teach you how to locate a brand’s target audience. It unpacks the tools and strategies needed to find those who will benefit most from buying a product or service.

Why Is It Important to Know Your Target Audience in Marketing?

Knowing your audience is the difference between marketing campaigns that fizzle out and those that yield results.

Let’s explore why relentless audience targeting marketing strategies are so important, along with some examples of how they work:

• Improved engagement: When you know your audience, you can craft content that deeply resonates with their interests, pain points, and values. In turn, they’re more likely to comment, share, and keep coming back for more. For example, a yoga studio knows its audience cares deeply about wellness and stress relief. Its social media posts highlight mindfulness tips and the benefits of yoga to mental health, leading to high engagement.
  
• Higher conversion rates: Targeted marketing ensures your products, services, and messages reach the people most likely to buy. For example, a company selling eco-friendly cleaning products targets ads to members of environmentally conscious subreddits. Ads reach customers poised to use its products, increasing clicks and sales.
  
• Optimized marketing budget: Detailed audience targeting cuts wasted spending. For example, rather than paying for a generic billboard on a busy highway, a local restaurant uses social media ads to target people within a 5-mile radius with a lunchtime meal deal.
  
• Strengthened brand message: When you know who you’re talking to, you can tailor your brand voice, tone, and visuals for maximum impact. For example, an athletic apparel brand targeting younger, active customers uses vibrant colors and energetic imagery, while a luxury brand aims for a sophisticated, minimalist aesthetic.

Understanding your target audience is the bedrock of effective marketing. Without this knowledge, you’re essentially throwing darts blindfolded. You might get lucky occasionally, but most efforts will miss the mark.

How Do You Identify Your Audience?

Identifying your target audience takes a combination of research, analysis, and creative thinking. Here are the essential steps to get started:

1. Start with your product or service
   
2. Analyze existing customers
   
3. Scrutinize the competition
   
4. Leverage audience research tools
   
5. Conduct direct research

1. Start with your product or service

The secret to identifying your audience lies in knowing the core problem your brand solves. 

Here’s an insight from Rick Leach, our VP of Content Operations:

“Have a clear idea of the problem, who has it, and how you solve it better than anyone else. Profoundly understand the audience intent for that problem and know exactly where it intersects with your objectives. Be as specific as possible and test, test, test. Leverage content marketing and analytics to put your theories to the test and definitively see whether you’re targeting the ideal persona.”

Create promo material for each buyer persona, using PPC and social media ads to target them where they already hang out online. 

2. Analyze existing customers

If you have a customer base, there’s a gold mine of information at your fingertips. Analyzing existing customers reveals common characteristics and behaviors of people who gravitate toward your brand.

Consider these key areas:

Core demographics: Age, location, income, and job title. Seemingly basic details can paint a detailed picture. Are your customers young professionals in urban areas or retirees living in suburbia? For urban, young professionals, short-form content on trend-driven platforms such as TikTok or YouTube Shorts would be better. Posting long-form videos in Facebook Groups or on YouTube will resonate more with suburban retirees. 

Online behavior: What websites do your customers visit other than yours? Do they engage most with articles, videos, or infographics? What social media platforms are they active on? Knowing which demographic favors which platform is a critical step. Are there common values, opinions, or preferences your customers share? Being aware of these behavioral insights helps you create content that resonates deeply, inspiring engagement and loyalty.

Purchase history: Don’t just look at what your customers buy from you. Explore further by getting to know their broader purchasing habits. This reveals more about their needs and interests, helping you create content that targets their lifestyles and preferences. 

3. Scrutinize the competition

Your competitors are a treasure trove of information, especially if you don’t have your own audience yet. Their social media pages are chock-full of actionable insights into your prospective buyers. This includes demographic data, behavioral insights, and purchase history. 

Find competitors with brands as similar to yours as possible. First, study posts with the most likes, shares, and comments. Note the design, copy, and CTAs. How do these posts drive engagement? What problems do they solve? Pay close attention and take inspiration, but don’t copy. You have to deliver something fresh and uniquely on-brand to stand out to your audience — and to social media’s algorithms.

Next, identify weaknesses in your competitors’ approach. These gaps are opportunities. Use them to stand out and capture a portion of the market your competitors have overlooked.

4. Leverage audience research tools

Audience research tools offer an inside scoop on the types of people who are interested in your business. Still, don’t get overwhelmed by fancy tools. Google Analytics and social media analytics provide valuable data to get you started. As your budget and market knowledge grows, consider investing in more advanced research options.

5. Conduct direct research

Sometimes, the best way to understand your ideal customer is by simply asking. Here are two straightforward methods that provide invaluable direct feedback:

• Surveys: Using online survey tools such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are an easy way to gather insights from current and potential customers. Keep them brief, offer a fun incentive, and ask specific questions that speak to your audience’s pain points and preferences.
  
• Interviews: Have in-depth conversations with a few carefully selected people who fit your ideal customer profile. Ask open-ended questions about their challenges, why they chose your brand, and what influences their buying decisions. Individual interviews provide wonderfully rich insights that even the best surveys miss.

Direct research is all about asking relevant questions and targeting the right people to draw out truly useful feedback. 

What Are Four Key Ways to Identify a Target Audience?

Here are four techniques for identifying the exact customers who will champion your brand:

• Demographic analysis
  
• Behavioral data
  
• Engagement metrics
  
• Consumer feedback

Demographic analysis

Demographic analysis is the foundational audience identification technique. This includes researching factors such as:

• Age: Needs and communication styles differ vastly across generations.
  
• Location: Urban, suburban, and rural customers have different priorities and access to resources.
  
• Income: Messaging and pricing should be tailored based on income level.

Behavioral data

Analyze who interacts with your website, social media, and content to build upon demographic data. Look for consistencies in:

• Websites they visit: Go beyond what they purchase from you. Noticing that your customers frequently visit fitness forums suggests an opportunity to partner with fitness influencers or take a health and wellness angle in blogs and social media posts.
  
• Products they view or purchase: Identify patterns in their shopping habits. A customer who frequently buys baby clothes is easy to retarget once you know what they’re buying. You also know they’ll be receptive to deals on toys or children’s furniture in the near future.
  
• How they interact with your brand: If customers regularly share blog posts, they likely care about information and thought leadership. Use this as a sign to develop more content-driven marketing campaigns.

Engagement metrics

Engagement metrics reveal how deeply your content resonates with your audience, enabling you to focus on: 

• Social media shares: Content that gets shared widely tends to spark an emotional response, whether it’s humor, inspiration, or an opinionated reaction. Analyze the most successful posts to understand your audience’s emotional preferences.
  
• Comments and questions: Recurring themes show pain points and what people truly care about. Numerous comments asking about a product’s environmental impact indicate that it’s a major concern for your customers. This type of insight is crucial for creating audience profiles.
  
• Website dwell time: Short visits might mean people aren’t finding what they need due to confusing navigation or slow loading times. Low dwell times might also suggest that your content isn’t engaging. This is a strong indication that you need to conduct deeper research into your audience and tailor your content accordingly. 

Consumer Feedback

Say you’re up and running with a steady customer base — that doesn’t mean you’re safe. Just like the business landscape, audience segments are constantly in flux. People age, their values evolve, and purchasing behaviors change. Keeping up with customer feedback is the only way to ensure your audience profiles are fresh and relevant. 

Effective ways to gather direct consumer feedback include:

• Surveys: Use surveys to learn about changing priorities, new pain points, and emerging preferences within your customer base. Let’s say initial product-related results are replaced by broader concerns about environmental impact or social responsibility. This suggests a growing eco-conscious segment within your audience that deserves tailored messaging and possible product adjustments.
  
• Reviews: Pay attention to the specific words and sentiment expressed in reviews. Perhaps reviews start regularly mentioning a “quick and easy setup.” Congrats! You’ve located a distinct audience segment you weren’t initially targeting. These customers are showing a preference for simplicity that should be reflected in future marketing efforts.
  
• Customer support interactions: Recurring questions and frustrations can indicate misaligned expectations. For example, confusion about shipping options could reflect a disconnect between your marketing materials and the reality of the purchase process. This price-sensitive segment will respond well to free shipping over a certain threshold.

Existing customers are a microcosm of your broader market. Shifts in their needs and language offer clues about new audience segments to pursue. They also showcase untapped ways to refine your messaging to keep existing customers loyal in the face of evolving preferences. 

Create Blog Posts That Pinpoint and Engage Your Target Audience

Case Studies: Successful Audience Identification

Let’s analyze two real-world examples where pinpointing the right audience led to remarkable marketing success.

Dove

The early 2000s beauty industry largely catered to a narrow ideal, i.e., young, thin, and conventionally beautiful women. Dove predicted and spearheaded a more inclusive and realistic approach to beauty advertising. In-depth market research uncovered a deep dissatisfaction among women, with only 2% describing themselves as beautiful.

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign boldly challenged industry norms. The brand featured women of diverse ages, body types, and ethnicities in its ads. These ads showcased the real-life beauty of unairbrushed bodies. The campaign’s focus on self-acceptance and redefining beauty on your own terms resonated powerfully with its target audience.

The campaign had a stratospheric impact:

• Sparked a global conversation: The Real Beauty campaign went viral, sparking important discussions about body positivity and the harmful impact of unrealistic beauty standards. It changed the landscape of beauty marketing and strengthened Dove’s brand identity globally.
  
• Increased brand loyalty: Dove’s focus on championing real women helped build trust and fostered a loyal customer base over competitors that maintained outdated marketing approaches.
  
• Inspired long-term growth: Dove saw continued growth throughout the Real Beauty era, demonstrating that a focus on solving customers’ pain points can have profound results.

Audiences yearn to feel seen and understood. Reflecting customers’ real-world concerns created a sustaining competitive advantage for Dove. 

Gymshark

Traditionally, the gym apparel market catered to elite athletes, with a focus on peak performance. In 2012, Gymshark founder Ben Francis noticed that a massive, underserved segment of fitness enthusiasts existed. These individuals were passionate about their workouts but didn’t want high-performance gear. Instead, they sought streetwear apparel that reflected their gym-focused lifestyle, prioritizing style and functionality.

Gymshark’s strategy was built on a deep understanding of its audience. Its strategies included:

• Influencer marketing: Gymshark paved the way in influencer marketing. It bypassed traditional athlete endorsements, instead partnering with micro-influencers who embodied the brand’s values. Early collaborations with YouTubers such as Lex Griffin and Chris Lavado established credibility within the brand’s target audience.
  
• Social community building: Gymshark doesn’t just sell products — it fosters a sense of belonging using platforms such as Instagram. Encouraging user-generated content builds camaraderie between community members, and its multiple IG accounts are hubs for shared fitness experiences and support.
  
• Fashion and function: Gymshark knew its audience wanted workout apparel that performs and reflects their dedication to fitness as a lifestyle. Focusing on function and aesthetics helped it fill a clear gap in the market.

In terms of impact, the numbers speak for themselves:

• Rapid growth: Gymshark’s audience-centric approach led to exceptional growth, with annual revenue exceeding $500 million as of 2023.
  
• Loyal following: Its dedicated online community drives continued growth through word-of-mouth and a strong sense of brand identity. This loyalty sets them apart from competitors, with around 7 million followers on Instagram.
  
• Disruptive innovation: Gymshark proved that understanding your audience deeply, even in a saturated industry, can disrupt the status quo.

Gymshark has excelled by building a brand that reflects its audience’s values, passions, and desire for a sense of community.

What Tools Help With Audience Analysis?

Using analytics for audience discovery involves turning raw data into actionable insights. Here are some useful ideas to get you started:

• Google Analytics
  
• Instagram Insights
  
• YouTube Analytics
  
• SurveyMonkey
  
• Nielsen

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the powerhouse of free web analytics. It tracks basic demographics, how people find your site, and what they do once they’re there.

Pros: Free, robust, integrates with other Google products.

Cons: Can be complex for beginners and focuses only on your website data.

Best for: Understanding website traffic patterns, audience demographics, and conversion tracking.

Instagram Insights 

If you have a business profile on Instagram, you have access to built-in analytics. Analyze your follower demographics, their interests, when they’re most active, and which of your posts get the most engagement.

Pros: Free to use, shows you exactly who your Instagram followers are, and helps you track growth over time.

Cons: Data is limited to Instagram, and some metrics might be less accurate if you have a smaller follower count.

Best for: Identifying the ideal person who follows your Instagram, crafting the kind of content they’ll love, and knowing the best times to post for maximum reach.

YouTube Analytics

Dig into the performance of your YouTube channel. See viewership patterns, what parts of your videos people rewatch (or skip), and where your viewers are coming from.

Pros: Free. Shows you how long people watch your videos, which parts they rewatch and skip, and where your traffic comes from.

Cons: Provides insights about your YouTube channel specifically, not a broader picture of the market.

Best for: Figuring out the optimal length for your videos, refining content topics that resonate best, and discovering ideal days and times to publish new videos.

SurveyMonkey

Design and distribute custom surveys to go straight to the source — your target audience! Ask the questions that matter most: motivations, buying preferences, pain points, and more.

Pros: Allows for flexibility in the questions you ask and provides detailed insights into the gathered responses.

Cons: Getting meaningful data requires careful survey design to avoid bias. The free version also has limitations on features and the number of survey responses. Paid plans start at around $35 per month.

Best for: Gathering customer feedback about your products or services, conducting market research to understand what people want, and identifying the pain points that drive purchase decisions.

Nielsen

Access a huge repository of consumer research data and market reports. Nielsen holds the keys to industry trends and how to meaningfully segment your audience.

Pros: Data is reliable, and the platform has robust audience segmentation benefits built in.

Cons: Services are very expensive and often require a subscription. Additionally, the sheer volume of data may be overwhelming for small businesses.

Best for: Big-picture market analysis, validating the potential of a new product or service idea before launch, and getting a detailed grasp of competitors’ strategies.

How Can You Use Demographics to Identify Your Audience?

Age, location, and income are demographic clues about how to reach your target audience effectively. The better you get to know your current audience, the easier it will be to refine content so it attracts more like-minded folks. 

Here’s how to make demographics work for you:

• Beyond the basics: Age and gender are starting points, but not the whole story. Dig deeper. Are they homeowners? College grads? Knowing their life stage paints a clearer picture.
  
• Uncover pain points: Demographics hint at struggles. Retirees might worry about healthcare costs; young professionals might worry about student debt. Let solving those problems become your selling points.
  
• Speak their language: Messaging that resonates with a 25-year-old microinfluencer living in Los Angeles won’t land with a 55-year-old doctor in Wyoming. Tailor your tone and focus based on the demographic segments that interact most with your brand.
  
• Smart targeting: Knowing where your audience hangs out is vital. For instance, young parents might be on parenting forums, while affluent retirees are on luxury travel sites. Use demographics to inform your ad placement.

How Do You Create a Detailed Audience Profile?

Generic audience profiles lead to generic marketing — the kind that blends into the endless stream of content your customers are bombarded with daily. Here’s how to go beyond the usual data points and uncover those hidden insights:

1. Identify your marketing goals: Are you aiming to increase sales, build brand awareness, or launch a new product? Being clear on your objectives informs the type of audience data you need to prioritize.
   
2. Gather data from as many sources as possible: Tap into a variety of sources to uncover a complete picture of your audience.
   
3. Analyze demographic data analysis for precise marketing: Access this type of data through website analytics, targeted customer surveys, and industry-specific market research reports.
   
4. Explore psychographic segmentation techniques: Get into the mindset of your audience using psychographic analysis. What are their underlying values, passions, daily challenges, and lifestyle patterns? Discover these insights through social media listening, analyzing competitors, and observing discussions in niche online forums.
   
5. Track online behavior and note patterns: Analyze the websites they frequent, the social media platforms they prefer, and the keywords they use when searching for solutions.
   
6. Collect direct feedback and research reviews: Design thoughtful surveys, conduct in-depth customer interviews, and meticulously analyze positive and negative reviews.
   
7. Spot trends and segment your audience further: As you analyze the collected data, look for recurring patterns and similarities. Group your audience into distinct segments based on shared characteristics, problems, and desires.
   
8. Craft detailed personas of each segment: The importance of customer personas in marketing can’t be overstated. For each audience segment, craft a detailed persona, envisioning them as a fully formed individual. Give them a name, a backstory, and specific interests, and outline their typical day-to-day challenges.
   
9. Maintain and update profiles: Continuously monitor data, track emerging trends, and refine your profiles to ensure your marketing strategies remain aligned with your customer base’s changing needs.

How Do I Find My Social Media Audience?

Your ideal audience is already on social media, having conversations, sharing their interests, and seeking solutions. Here’s how to find social media insights for audience profiling:

• Competitor analysis
  
• Hashtag tracking
  
• Strategic searches
  
• Sentiment analysis

Competitor analysis

Use competitive analysis to study your competitors’ most successful posts, focusing on engagement metrics and content style. This will give you a strong understanding of what resonates with your shared target audience.

Hashtag tracking

Monitor hashtags and keywords relevant to your industry or niche. This helps you identify common pain points and questions potential customers express, as well as the type of content they enjoy and share. For example, do they prefer memes, videos, or infographics? Explore niche communities on places such as Quora and Reddit where your ideal customers congregate.

Strategic searches

Seek out posts on social media where people ask for recommendations in your product or service area. Become part of the conversation by giving them helpful suggestions. Keep track of keywords related to the problems your product solves, uncovering potential customers actively seeking solutions.

Sentiment analysis

Track the overall tone of comments on your and your competitors’ posts. This helps you tailor your messaging to match your audience’s emotional state, increasing the chances of resonating with them on a deeper level.

Build Your Audience with a Tailored Content Strategy

The Strategic Advantage of Knowing Your Audience

Audience knowledge isn’t a static set of data points; it’s an evolving relationship. And the advantages of audience analysis in content creation are clear to see. Knowing your audience means creating content that seamlessly meets their needs and solves their problems. 

Stay curious, monitor trends, and use every tool at your disposal to continually refine audience profiles. Businesses that prioritize their audience enjoy more sustainable growth and enduring brand success.

The post How to Find Your Audience Using Simple Steps for Big Results (With Examples) appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In actuality, content marketing and social media marketing are two very different disciplines. But they do overlap, support, and complement one another in some fascinating ways. They’re also both essential parts of any thorough digital marketing strategy.

In this comprehensive guide to content marketing vs. social media marketing, we’ll touch on everything you need to know to knock your marketing goals out of the park. We’ll cover the differences between the two and let you in on some best practices for knowing when and how to apply each.

What is the Difference Between Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing?

Content marketing and social media marketing each play unique roles in reaching audiences. Content marketing is about crafting and sharing informative materials like blog posts, videos, and ebooks, usually on your own website. It aims to educate and engage specific groups over time. The goal is to build authority and trust by providing valuable content that appeals to potential customers’ interests and needs.  

On the other hand, social media marketing focuses on creating content tailored for platforms like Facebook and Instagram to interact directly and instantly with users, sparking conversations and building community. While both strategies aim to boost brand awareness and engagement, they target audiences and achieve their goals in different ways.

Both content and social media marketing serve your business goals by raising brand awareness, contributing to conversions, and putting your brand in front of target audiences. However, each does this in its own unique way:

• Marketing content most often lives on your website (or possibly someone else’s), while social content is created specifically for individual platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or Instagram.
• Content marketing is about educating and influencing an audience, while social media marketing is about engaging audiences and starting conversations.
• Social content is typically ephemeral and short-term, while marketing content is usually long-form, in-depth, and crafted to be useful over the long term.
• Content marketing builds authority and trust, while social media marketing humanizes brands and makes them more relatable.

In other words, content marketing is more about long-term engagement and building trust through valuable information, while social media marketing focuses on immediate interaction and community building. The two concepts complement one another greatly, and you need both to make your marketing strategy work in today’s ever-changing digital landscape. However, this doesn’t change the fact that content and social media marketing are distinctly different.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic discipline that involves planning, crafting, publishing, and distributing targeted content to serve an audience, drive sales, and attract new customers while retaining existing ones. This marketing discipline involves a detailed process of planning, developing, and sharing content through various formats including blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts, infographics, and long-form articles. This is done to engage potential and existing customers by offering useful content that meets their needs and interests.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the process of planning, creating, and posting content across one or more social media platforms to connect with target audiences in a personable, accessible way. Specific posts may aim to promote products, drive traffic, initiate conversations, build community, and make the brand appear more relatable and human.

Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing Have Different Objectives

All marketing strategies and tactics have clear, actionable goals, and this is just as true for social and content marketing.

Again, there’s some overlap between the two. Many marketers may even track and analyze the same key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the success of both. However, the primary underlying objectives are different.

Content marketing emphasizes the funnel and lead generation

The primary focus of content marketing is to draw potential customers into  the sales funnel and guide them through buyer’s journey. By providing valuable, relevant content at each stage of the funnel, content marketing helps nurture leads, builds trust and strengthens budding brand-client relationships.

Here are a few examples of some of the many ways this can look:

• Well-crafted blog posts, videos, or infographics—especially those with viral potential—attract and educate potential customers.
• Top-tier gated content like ebooks and whitepapers can generate high-quality leads at the top of your sales funnel.
• Robust email marketing content and ongoing blog content answer consumer questions and influence decisions as they navigate the middle of your funnel.
• Advanced content like webinars, how-to guides, online courses, and similar resources help establish the brand’s authority in the field and deepen trust with the audience.

This strategy requires high-quality copy to succeed, and services like Crowd Content provide robust copywriting solutions tailored to meet diverse goals across different niches and industries.  From crafting detailed blog posts for content marketing or engaging tweets for social media, professional copywriting services can truly elevate your brand’s marketing efforts.

Social media marketing emphasizes direct engagement with audiences

These days, social media is more than just a way to stay in touch with friends or kill a few minutes while waiting in line for coffee. It’s an important part of how consumers research purchase decisions and become aware of new product options. For that reason, a solid social media strategy is a key way for today’s brands to engage with existing and potential customers.

Here are some examples of how brands like yours leverage social platforms to satisfy this objective:

• Eye-catching social media posts draw attention as people scroll through their feeds, stopping them in their tracks and introducing them to new products or brands. This can make a memorable impact in a brief interaction.
• Successful posts start conversations, encourage sharing, and boost engagement rates. They broaden brand reach through compelling questions, call-to-action prompts, and interactive content like polls and quizzes.
• Becoming a regular presence on consumers’ social media feeds boosts brand awareness and raises the chance of a potential future purchase. This consistent visibility keeps the brand top-of-mind.
• Social media and regular engagement help humanize your brand and make it relatable.
• Many brands use social media to field customer service issues and address concerns directly. This helps in resolving issues efficiently and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty by showing that the brand is attentive and responsive. 

Which is Better: Social Media Marketing or Content Marketing?

Neither social media nor content marketing is definitively better than the other across the board. However, content marketing is better suited to long-term business strategies, while social media is ideal for more immediate results. A complete digital marketing strategy includes both and uses them in a way that complements one another.

Targeting audiences with content marketing vs. social media marketing

Both social media and content marketing require marketers to truly know their audiences. Market research, customer feedback, and tools like buyer personas can really help you here. However, how you apply these to your targeting efforts will vary.

• SEO is an audience-targeting staple with both types of marketing. Both leverage well-researched keywords to boost visibility in relevant search results. However, content marketing SEO revolves heavily around long-tail keywords and natural language processing, while social media SEO involves elements like hashtags for content discoverability and engagement.
• Content variety matters with both content marketing and social media marketing. However, while content marketing spans a wide array of formats, from written content to videos to podcasts, social media marketing will likely use a variety of content types suited for quick consumption (e.g., short videos, images and concise text posts).
• Techniques like audience segmentation are significant in personalizing marketing content and delivering the right options to the right people. With social media marketing, knowing how to create effective social media posts to suit individual platforms and playing the algorithm helps serve your posts to the right folks.
• Paid advertising can be helpful in both types of marketing to support ongoing organic efforts and drive quick bursts of traffic as needed.

Content marketing and social media marketing engagement models

Although driving engagement is one of the primary objectives behind social media marketing, it’s still essential in content marketing. Engagement can be any interaction an audience member has with a piece of your content. Examples include likes, comments, social media shares, link click-throughs, subscription sign-ups, and long dwell times.

Methods for driving engagement across both types of marketing include examples like the following:

• Investing in dynamic content that stops people in their tracks and demands attention, including unique social media posts, in-depth blog content, and exciting videos
• Inviting audiences to participate in top-tier interactive experiences to boost information retention and brand recognition
• Leveraging social proof like user-generated content, testimonials, and case studies to enhance credibility and trustworthiness
• Actively inviting readers and followers to offer their feedback, occasionally offering incentives in exchange for doing so
• Outsourcing portions of the content production process to streamline workflows while keeping quality high

Techniques and approaches like these work, and numerous case studies prove it. Here’s a brief overview of a couple to consider as you plan your next marketing move.

INK’s traffic success story

INK was looking for a way to show rather than tell their customers that their content optimization tool can move mountains in SEO, so they turned to Crowd Content for help.

We worked with them to craft a strategy that involved creating a series of fully optimized blog articles and measuring the results to create impressive proof that INK’s tools perform as advertised. As a result, INK saw an incredible 1700 percent increase in blog traffic in just over a month.

GLOBO’s success with content variety

Variety is more than just the spice of life. It also lends flavor and interest to your collective digital marketing campaign. The language-support company GLOBO needed help with its messaging and encouraged more readers to become service subscribers.

Creating a strategy that tailored content to cater to customers at various stages of the sales funnel worked. GLOBO’s website views jumped by 200 percent, and brand messaging improved accordingly.

Craftjack’s smart use of outsourcing

When keeping up with your ongoing marketing demands is more than your team can handle on its own, outsourcing content can be a fantastic option to consider. Lead-generation company Craftjack needed a go-to way to keep their marketing content flowing smoothly but couldn’t handle the job alone.

Partnering with Crowd Content gave Craftjack instant access to experienced niche writers, skilled project managers, and eagle-eyed editors who banded together to boost production. Craftjack was even able to connect with skilled Spanish-language writers to better reach another sector of their client base. The result was a 70 percent increase in organic traffic over a year.

When to use content marketing

Brands can lean into content marketing at any stage of the sales journey to help accelerate progress toward goals, connect with new customers, and keep existing audiences engaged. Some objectives that would make that an excellent choice include:

• Establishing industry expertise and authority
• Raising overall brand visibility, primarily via Google and other search engines
• Elevating SEO rankings and staying competitive on key search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Drawing new users and readers into the top of your sales funnel by showing how your brand can solve their problems
• Strengthening existing relationships by delivering valuable ongoing solutions

You can brainstorm and create better, more effective marketing content by implementing strategies and best practices like the following:

• Deliver value that goes above and beyond what your competitors are doing. Demonstrate how your products and services can uniquely solve problems and improve your customers’ lives.
• Use tools like surveys and buyer personas to develop a deeper understanding of your audience’s preferences, challenges, and behaviors. This will allow you to tailor your content more effectively to meet their needs.
• Create a detailed content calendar and follow it to the letter to keep your content efforts focused and the quality consistent.
• Offer lots of variety to keep your content flow fresh. Think videos, infographics, webinars, podcasts, and ebooks in addition to standard fare like blogs.
• Extend the reach and lifespan of your most successful content by updating it with the latest information and repurposing it into different formats. For example, a popular blog post can be turned into a video tutorial or an infographic that allows you to reach a broader audience.

When to use social media marketing

Social media marketing is a solid way to stay perpetually connected with your customers and create exciting ongoing conversations about your brand that attract plenty of fresh leads. Business objectives that call for a greater focus on social media marketing include:

• Identifying demographics and markets that could be a solid fit for your products
• Embracing cost-effective ways to get more eyes on your marketing content and drive traffic to your website
• Generating useful analytics that can help you optimize your entire marketing strategy
• Engaging directly with your audience on a one-to-one basis
• Providing better, faster, more robust customer care options
• Building overall brand awareness and recognition

Make the most of your social media marketing efforts by considering best practices like the following and looking for ways to integrate them into your strategy:

• Meet your audience where they live by building a presence on the platforms they frequent most.
• Fine-tune your approach to social media marketing to suit each platform. What works like gangbusters for Facebook posts may not resonate the same way with your TikTok audience or your Instagram strategy.
• Explore influencer marketing to tap into readymade audiences that fit your products and services perfectly.
• Encourage and share user-generated content to show social proof that people already love what your brand is doing.
• Chime in on hot topics and trends related to your industry or niche. ​​This keeps your content fresh and relatable, and can help attract new followers who are interested in those topics.

Examples of Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Remember that neither content nor social media marketing is about just one thing. Creative, novel approaches that combine multiple approaches often yield the best results. Here are some popular examples of approaches to content marketing:

• Blog posts
• Email marketing
• Ebooks
• Infographics
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Whitepapers
• Case studies
• Interactive content experiences

Popular approaches to social media marketing to mix, match, and try include:

• Influencer marketing
• Community creation
• Contests and giveaways
• User-generated content
• Sponsored social media posts

How Can Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing Work Together?

Content marketing and social media marketing work hand in hand to boost your digital strategy. Sharing your blog posts, videos, and other content on social platforms not only increases visibility but also engages your audience effectively. Social media offers a direct way to gather quick feedback and encourages your followers to share their own content, increasing engagement further. By combining these strategies, you can leverage each to maximize your reach and interaction, making your marketing efforts more dynamic and effective. 

Here are a few key examples of how content marketing and social media marketing go together as beautifully as peanut butter and jelly:

Promoting marketing content

Leveraging your reach on social media is an effective way to amplify the reach of your content, make audiences aware of new product drops, etc. Share articles, your latest blog posts, etc. Content like infographics and videos translate exceptionally well to engaging social media shares and extending your visibility beyond your immediate followers.

Zeroing in on an audience’s wants and needs

Social media is a fantastic way to acquire valuable feedback on what your audience really thinks. You can ask them directly for feedback on specific products, ideas, or content. You can also utilize solutions like social listening tools to follow conversations about your brand across multiple platforms.

Getting audiences involved

Your audience is likely one of your arsenal’s most powerful untapped marketing resources. Mobilize them by encouraging them to create and share user-generated content like photos or videos on social media, asking them to share your content to their feeds, etc.

Effective Strategies for Leveraging Both Content and Social Media Marketing

Investing in your content marketing and social media marketing campaigns separately is a solid start to making the most of both. Combining these two strategies can result in a more cohesive and powerful marketing approach. Here are some expert strategies to try.

Keep your tone cohesive across both

Brands are just like people in that each has its unique personality, voice, values, and approach to connecting with others. It’s crucial that those characteristics are consistent across all platforms. This consistency ensures that your audience receives a unified brand experience, regardless of where they interact with your content..

For example, a customer should be able to visit your Facebook page or X profile and consume content there that “feels” the same as what they’re already reading on your blog or in your email newsletter. If that’s not the case for your brand, now is the time to tighten things up. Check out how brands like Wendy’s, Go Pro, or Nike handle this and get inspired.

Integrate both into your content calendar

Thorough planning as far in advance as possible is the key to an ongoing content strategy that really cooks. Content calendars take the guesswork out of managing, planning, and creating content, especially as your business grows and you take on additional team members to help with various tasks.

Include both your marketing content and your social media posts. Identify opportunities to combine the two in creative ways that serve your audience. As always, ensure that everything you plan fully aligns with your brand voice and company values.

Cross-promote content where it makes sense

Social media posts and standard content work better together than you might think, and there are plenty of opportunities for cross-promotion.

For example, you can promote your latest blog posts and product launches across your social media channels using engaging visuals like screenshots, infographics, or custom imagery to grab attention and add value. You can also embed tweets and YouTube videos or add screen grabs of various social media posts to add visual interest to your blog posts and written content.

Find creative ways to repurpose content

Keeping multiple content channels and social media profiles perpetually filled with terrific content is no easy feat, so it pays to do what you can to make your best ideas go as far as possible. Content repurposing is one highly effective way to do that.

Here are some examples of how creative content repurposing can work:

• Break down YouTube videos and how-to guides into graphic sequences you can post to Instagram.
• Sum up key points and important takeaways from popular informative blogs in an infographic you can share on Facebook, Pinterest, X, or Threads.
• Expand your best long-form blogs into ebooks and use social media to promote them.
• Repurpose long-form content into social media-friendly short-form videos.
• Translate a popular webinar or e-course into a series of Instagram reels or TikTok videos.

Hire experts to help you

As your business grows and the demands on your content strategy increase, considering outsourcing to maintain quality and innovation can be beneficial.  Some people purchase pre-written articles to help fill in crucial content gaps.

You can also hire a trusted full-service content creation service like Crowd Content to help you with the entire process. We’ll help you manage the workload and inject fresh ideas into your strategy.  We’ll also provide assistance that cover  everything from dynamic web content to engaging social media posts to expert content management.

Benefits of Integrating Social Media Insights into Content Strategies

Insights gained from your experiences engaging with audiences on social media can be priceless assets when it comes to fortifying your content marketing strategies. You can get a read on what your audience truly likes and dislikes, as well as how they feel about various content approaches. You can then apply what you learn to reap benefits like the following.

Higher engagement rates

When you know for sure what your audience is genuinely into, you can apply what you know to create more of the kind of content your customers like best and find most useful. Applying these insights allows you to tailor your content more precisely, producing material that not only attracts attention but also encourages interaction. 

Stronger brand loyalty

Think of someone you know who’s always there for you—who always has the right answer to your questions and the best advice on a particular topic. You trust them, and you’re loyal to them, too. That’s how consumer relationships with brands develop through similar dynamics, and using social media insights wisely can help that happen for your business.

Improved SEO

Forms of social media-related engagement like shares are powerful signals to search engines that a brand is putting exceptional content out there. Using what you learn about your customers on social media to boost engagement drives traffic to your website and enhances your greater SEO efforts.

Higher overall ROI

Both content marketing and social media marketing represent investments in your business. It’s not just about money or budgets, either. Time, labor, and mental energy are resources, too, so facilitating a high return on that investment is crucial. Integrating social media insights into your strategy can help you hit the right notes more often, sending your ROI through the roof.

Budgeting for Each Approach

No two brands are exactly alike, and neither are any two approaches to digital marketing, so costs can vary for individual campaigns. However, average costs range between $6,000 and $60,000 a month for a content marketing campaign and between $500 and $5,000 per month for a basic social media management campaign.

Opting for a scalable approach via a company like Crowd Content can ensure you get the most bang for your buck right out of the gate and on an ongoing basis.

Ultimately, neither content nor social media marketing fits your company’s digital marketing strategy better. You need both to stay competitive and keep your finger on the pulse of what modern audiences are looking for. Exploring opportunities to leverage how they complement one another can eliminate the confusion of both processes.

Ready to dive into your future success and get more out of your marketing strategies? Let Crowd Content help you fill in the gaps and create something truly dynamic with quality content services on demand.

The post Content Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing: Key Differences and Which to Use When appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

AI is a powerful tool for rapidly generating words and ideas. However, speed and efficiency aren’t everything. A skilled writer’s touch transforms AI outputs into meaningful, authentic stories that resonate with real people. Without human touch, you risk your articles risk becoming mere echoes in the digital void. 

Below, we outline 10 actionable techniques that breathe life into AI-generated text.

What Is AI-Generated Content?

AI-generated content is any text, image, or video created by artificial intelligence systems. 

AI writing assistants are like inexperienced writing apprentices. They can research topics, draft outlines, and write at speed. Just as a junior writer demonstrates raw talent but needs constant guidance, AI-generated content requires an expert touch. Left to its own devices, an AI writing assistant may pepper content with misinformation and telltale signs of AI-generated text.

Human insight, careful editing, and creative storytelling transform AI drafts into content that feels genuine and inspires action. 

Check out our article on the top 10 AI content creation tools.

Why is so much AI content bland and detached?

Large language models,  such as ChatGPT, are nifty tools, but they have limitations. One of the most glaring problems with AI-generated content is a bland and generic voice and tone. 

Here are a few reasons why engaging AI content remains elusive:

• Reliance on patterns: These tools learn from vast amounts of existing text. As such, they tend to generate content that’s distinctly average, lacking a unique spark and individual voice. This also means telltale words, phrases, and structural patterns show up in its output. 
• Lack of nuance: AI-generated text can’t capture the subtle complexities of human emotion, humor, and persuasion. As such, the basic text it generates feels generic and uninspiring.
• Missing context and factual errors: LLMs don’t possess real-world knowledge and can’t put themselves into the shoes of your target audience. Without these elements, output often misses the mark and contains random factual errors. Oh, and LLMs double down on mistakes instead of owning up to them — so you can’t use AI to fact-check itself.
• Difficulty with originality: AI remixes existing information. To pique an audience’s interest, content needs fresh insights, expert perspectives, and a human-crafted narrative.

Recognizing these shortcomings is the first step to knowing how to humanize AI text.

Why Do I Need to Humanize AI Text?

You should humanize AI text because your content won’t rank on search engines otherwise. AI can generate content quickly, but that doesn’t equate to quality. Google prioritizes articles that are helpful, authoritative, and informative for users. Content that’s low-effort or designed to trick search engines will be banished to obscurity as spam. 

Since Google’s helpful content update, it’s become necessary to create content that fills knowledge gaps and provides web users with value.

To ensure your content achieves its goals, consider these key points:

• User-first content: You have to focus on the readers’ needs to write something compelling. That means conducting deep research so you can solve problems, answer questions, and provide value. AI struggles to achieve this depth without expert input. 
• Search engine alignment: Google and other search engines aim to connect users with the best possible answers. Superficial, low-effort, and repetitive content — AI- or human-generated — won’t rank well.

What makes human writing unique and relatable?

Human beings are driven by emotion, and emotion is the magic marketing ingredient that sparks connection. Without emotional experience to draw from, AI struggles to produce authentic content.

Let’s explore why human oversight remains essential for crafting content that connects:

• Empathy: Humans intuitively grasp the nuances of emotion, allowing them to write with a warmth and understanding that resonates on a deeper level. AI systems may analyze sentiment, but they can’t replicate the genuine feeling that builds trust with a reader.
• Context: People bring a lifetime of experiences and knowledge to their writing. This allows them to precisely tailor content and address real challenges while catering to cultural nuances and the target audience’s needs.
• Originality: Ideas are derived from unique perspectives. AI may recombine existing information, but true originality comes from the human ability to think creatively and develop fresh insights.
• Storytelling: Human beings are natural storytellers who craft narratives that captivate and persuade. AI may follow basic structural forms, but it’s the human ability to weave emotion, surprise, and take readers on a journey that moves audiences.

How to Humanize AI Content 

The human touch remains essential to creating exceptional content that resonates with your audience. Success lies in transforming those initial AI outputs into content that feels uniquely yours.

Here’s a roadmap for infusing your AI-generated drafts with the emotional depth and authenticity readers crave.

1. Leverage AI for research and drafting — not publishing

AI excels at the legwork of content creation, but it’s never publish-ready in its raw form. It can sift through information, identify trends, and provide a rough draft or framework. But remember, AI-generated drafts lack the critical analysis and creative spark that elevate content from informative to engaging. 

• Original analysis: Use AI-generated research as a foundation for your deeper research. Look into authoritative sources from the past year and use your industry knowledge to elevate the draft.
• Real-world examples: Connection is built on shared experiences and emotions. Weave in relatable examples, personal anecdotes, or a compelling narrative arc to make content unforgettable.

Assess AI-generated information for accuracy and bias and fill it with unique, expert insights. It’s down to you to shape the final piece so it resonates with your audience. AI is a tool that accelerates the workflow, not a replacement for your mastery.

2. Learn how to prompt AI like a pro

Transform your AI output by injecting details about your audience into prompts. Your prompts have the power to program emotional intelligence into your AI assistant. The better you understand and specify your reader’s pain points and desires, the more likely your AI-generated text will connect with them.

Here’s how to guide your AI assistant:

• Tell it about the reader’s aspirations: What does your audience hope to become? How do they want to feel?
• Example: “Write a blog post that inspires amateur bakers to feel confident tackling their first layer cake, emphasizing the joy of the process.”
• Acknowledge vulnerabilities: Explain readers’ fears or insecurities so the AI can generate content that speaks directly to them, making them feel seen and understood.
• Example: “Write a social media post acknowledging the anxieties of jobseekers, providing practical tips to boost their confidence.”
• Use vivid imagery: Sensory details help the AI understand you’re seeking a response that demonstrates empathy and detail.
• Example: “Describe a decluttered workspace to help the reader envision the sense of calm and focus it brings.”

3. Cut the fluff

AI tools are prone to producing text that feels overly wordy, with redundant words and phrases. Creating impactful content means sharpening your editing skills. Content writing should be concise, focused, and packed with value for your reader.

Here’s how to identify filler:

• Empty phrases: Look for words or phrases that add no real meaning, such as “at the end of the day” or “in order to.” Cut these ruthlessly.
• Rambling sentences: If a sentence takes too long to get to the point, break it into shorter, more powerful ones.
• Repeated words: AI gets attached to certain words. Examples include “specific,” “dive in,” “delve,” “it’s about,” and “meticulous.” Just as you’d make sure your content uses fresh vocabulary throughout, you must edit AI-generated copy for repetition.
• Redundancy: Does your text repeat the same concept in different ways? Consolidate for clarity.

Why conciseness matters

Here’s why you should avoid unnecessary wordiness and repetition:

• Engagement: People are busy. Get to the point quickly to hold their attention.
• Clarity: Filler words and phrases obscure your core message, and eliminating them makes your writing more powerful.
• SEO: Search engines favor clear, focused content. Editing out fluff can improve your rankings.

Every word should earn its place. When editing AI-generated text, be merciless about cutting anything that doesn’t serve your audience or your core message.

4. Embrace storytelling

Facts and figures inform, but stories invoke emotions and inspire relatability. Even the most cutting-edge AI tool can’t compete with the age-old tradition of storytelling. 

Imagine your article as a journey. Instead of listing features, guide your readers through and paint a picture they can put themselves into. 

Here’s how to unlock the power of storytelling:

• Anecdotes: Use brief, relatable stories that illustrate the pain point your content tackles.
• The hero’s journey: Even in short content, you can create a sense of transformation. Frame your reader as the hero, overcoming a challenge with the help of your product, service, or resource.
• Sensory details: Engage the reader’s senses with vivid descriptions. This immerses them in the narrative so they feel part of something bigger.

Stories matter because they create an emotional bond between the reader and your content.

Thanks to the connection between memory and emotion, narratives are more likely to stick in a reader’s mind than plain facts and figures. Put simply, when readers are emotionally invested, they’re more likely to take the desired action.

Turning facts and figures into stories 

Let’s look at some examples of turning facts and figures into stories. 

Example 1: Product feature to story

Factual statement: Our software offers real-time collaboration features.

Story: Ever felt the frustration of endless email chains and conflicting edits? With our tool, your team sees the same document, updates appear instantly, and ideas flow effortlessly. That’s the power of real-time collaboration.

Example 2: Statistical data to story

Factual statement: Studies show customers prefer self-service options for simple questions. That’s why you should invest in our AI chatbot. 

Story: Put yourself in a tired customer’s shoes, late at night, searching for a quick answer. They don’t want to sift through long help articles or leave a voicemail. An intuitive chatbot guides them to the solution in minutes, capturing the lead and building trust and loyalty. What’s more, studies show customers prefer self-service options for simple questions. Who doesn’t love convenience?

Storytelling is an age-old superpower. Use it to inject your AI-generated content with the magic that makes it unforgettable.

5. Prioritize emotional intelligence and use active voice

Emotional intelligence in writing goes beyond acknowledging a reader’s feelings. It means empathizing with the deeper aspirations and feelings driving their behavior.

AI excels at analyzing patterns and generating language. But it can’t truly grasp the power of an active writing style. It’s down to you to ensure it demonstrates emotional intelligence.

Along with emotional depth, an active voice makes your writing more dynamic and engaging. Instead of blandly stating what happened, active voice puts the focus on who or what is driving the action. This creates a sense of immediacy and places the reader closer to the heart of your content. 

Here’s an example of active vs. passive voice:

• Passive voice: The phone was answered promptly.
• Active voice: Sarah promptly answered the phone.

The first one is bland and doesn’t inspire a reaction. It sounds like a complete and finite statement. However, placing “Sarah” in an active position piques the reader’s curiosity. They may start asking questions and perhaps even making assumptions about her motivations. Once engaged, they want to keep reading and find out more.    

6. Capture your brand’s unique voice

Your brand has a unique personality. People should be able to recognize it the same way they’d recognize a trusted friend. LLMs generate text, but you need to tailor the content to align tone and voice with your brand identity.

Think of your brand voice as a filter all your content passes through. Is it playful and friendly, authoritative and informative, or bold and disruptive? 

Once you’ve clearly defined this voice, here’s how to integrate it with your AI tools:

• Training data: Feed your AI a curated selection of existing content that embodies your desired tone. For the best results, this should include a mix of blog posts, social media updates, and marketing copy.
• Fine-tuning: Many AI tools allow you to adjust settings or provide feedback to refine the output’s tone. Experiment until you achieve the desired balance.
• Word choice: Create a list of words and phrases that do and don’t fit your brand voice. Reference this list when editing your AI-generated content.

Tailoring tone for different audiences

While your core brand voice must remain consistent, subtle shifts in tone may make content resonate with certain audience segments. Consider:

• Formality: Technical audiences demand a more formal tone, while a casual demographic prefers something more conversational.
• Humor: When used sparingly and tastefully, humor is a powerhouse. That said, it must align with your brand personality and the audience’s expectations, or it will feel jarring and out of place.

7. Train AI to write like you

Training AI tools on your style encourages consistency across content outputs.

Think about your favorite author or influencer. You recognize their voice through their choice of words, mannerisms, and the themes they explore. Similarly, a distinct style in your content establishes a recognizable brand identity and keeps readers coming back for more.

AI content personalization works best if you use a single AI tool and have an established brand voice. Feed your AI with a curated selection of your writing, such as previous blog posts, articles, scripts, or social media captions. The more data you provide and the more specific your prompts, the better an AI writing assistant becomes at replicating your writing style.

8. Showcase your experience and expertise

AI can’t replace a subject-matter expert’s depth of knowledge and real-world experience. 

Expert collaboration levels up your content creation process. Working with an SME brings fresh perspectives, access to industry data, and the topical authority Google craves. This translates into accurate content that addresses your audience’s pain points and questions.

Let’s look at several ways to integrate expert knowledge:

• Interviews: In-depth interviews with SMEs allow you to tap into their experience and share it in an engaging, conversational format.
• Direct quotes: Even short, impactful quotes from experts add credibility and weight to your content.
• Guest authorship: Inviting SMEs to author or edit articles positions your brand as a hub for thought leadership.

Want to build trust and position yourself as a reliable authority in your field? Demonstrating expertise in your content is essential. When you feature expert voices, you let readers know you go the extra mile to provide them with well-sourced information. 

9. Include user-generated content 

User-generated content is the strongest form of community-building because it encourages your audience to interact directly with each other. 

Reviews, testimonials, social media comments, and photos of customers sporting your product or service showcase the value you deliver to real people. Social proof is powerful. It fosters trust in an environment where readers can be skeptical of polished marketing messages.

Want to learn more about user-generated content? Take a look at our article about UGC, with examples. 

10. Fact-check and AI-detect

AI-generated text is often full of inaccuracies and biases. Rigorous fact-checking is vital for maintaining the integrity of your content and keeping your audience’s trust.

Here are some strategies for fact-checking AI content:

• Identify the source: Always trace AI-generated information back to its original source. Evaluate the source’s credibility and double-check for potential biases.
  
• Cross-reference: Verify facts across multiple reliable websites, publications, or databases.
  
• Be skeptical: Approach AI output with skepticism, especially when it comes to complex or controversial topics.
  
• Use primary sources: Go directly to primary sources, such as research papers, government data, educational resources, and original expert interviews.

Utilizing AI detection tools to guarantee content accuracy

AI detection tools are still an evolving technology, but they can help identify potentially problematic content. They analyze text patterns to flag content likely to be AI-generated. While far from foolproof, they add an extra layer of protection. This signals your commitment to transparency with your audience.

Humanizing Your AI Content Journey 

AI writing techniques will continue to improve. For now, you have to know how to humanize AI content for it to stand out and rank in searches. Embracing storytelling, infusing content with brand voice, prioritizing emotional intelligence, and incorporating expert insights transform AI text.

The most effective content creators see AI as a powerful tool, not a replacement for their expertise and creativity. Following these strategies helps you unleash AI’s full potential. Use it to create content that ranks high and establishes your brand as a trusted voice in a crowded digital world.

Bridge the gap between technology and human connection. Discover how our copyediting services can transform your AI content into engaging narratives that delight target audiences and capture your brand’s unique voice.

The post How to Humanize AI Content appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Integrating well-crafted content briefs into your ongoing process helps important elements, such as brand voice, quality, and format, remain consistent from one piece to another. But there’s an art to writing truly efficient briefs and setting your content production team up for lasting success. Content brief examples, templates, and similar tools can help.

We cover everything you need to know to create amazing content briefs and use them to elevate your brand. This includes a look at today’s best practices and some effective content brief templates to inspire and guide you.

What Is a Content Brief?

A content brief is a set of guidelines or instructions for producing a specific piece of marketing content. The objective of the brief is to ensure content writers fully understand how to approach the piece so the final product meets requirements and expectations.

A brief can be long or short, simple or detailed. In cases where a content manager wants a writer to put their own spin on the piece, a brief may read more like a set of guidelines than anything else. However, when content needs to meet specific SEO objectives or branding requirements, the brief may outline every detail of the expected results.

How Do Detailed Content Briefs Improve Content Quality?

Detailed content briefs enhance content quality by providing a structured outline and examples, which are essential for scaling and strategic planning. The benefits of a well-crafted content brief include:

Higher content quality

Content briefs are an effective way to ensure a team of copywriters or other content producers fully understand what’s expected of them when it comes to their assignments. These briefs clarify important requirements and factors, including keyword usage, target audience, point of view, delivery time frame, and structure so nothing’s left up to chance.

Faster production times

Well-crafted content briefs minimize the amount of clarification your writers need before they can get to work. They also reduce the likelihood of multiple revisions before the content is ready to be published, leading to a smoother production process for everyone.

Better brand consistency

Every writer naturally showcases their unique voice in their work, but brand consistency is important. Your content should read as one connected source, not as singular pieces with individual styles. You want users to have a cohesive experience when consuming multiple pieces of content or touching base with your brand across different marketing channels. Briefs help facilitate that.

Search engine optimization

A comprehensive content brief helps ensure maximum search engine visibility. Briefs take the guesswork out of proper keyword usage, search intent, formatting, readability, and user experience, leaving writers free to focus on fantastic writing. 

An edge over your competition

The world of content marketing is incredibly competitive, and amazing content is one key to standing head and shoulders above your competition. Thorough content briefs shed light on what competing content may be missing and offer tips for how the writer can differentiate their piece.

What Makes a Good Content Brief?

Fantastic content briefs don’t just happen. They’re the direct result of an organized approach to brief drafting that puts SEO and user intent front and center. The following are some of the qualities the best briefs have in common.

Clarity

Even the best content creators aren’t mind readers, so it’s important to be clear about what you want and expect from a particular piece. A concise content brief never leaves a writer guessing. It covers all the bases, so everyone’s on the same page.

Conciseness

There’s a fine line between being thorough and long-winded when writing content briefs, and good brief-makers never lose sight of that middle ground. Include everything the writer needs to do a good job without overcomplicating things.

ClearVoice perfectly demonstrates how to craft an effective ebook brief. It tells the writer everything they need to know without bloating the brief with unnecessary elements.

Honesty

Effective briefs don’t dance around issues. They get to the heart of the matter by bringing the writer up to speed about any potential challenges. Whether you’re looking to beat a particular competitor, win back lost customers, or something else entirely, a good brief is direct about the company’s goals.

Content Marketing Institute’s brief example excellently sets expectations and is candid about desired outcomes.

Key Components of an Effective Content Brief

The fine details of what makes a content brief effective vary depending on your company, niche, and content production strategy. But are there essential elements all briefs should have, and what are the most important parts of a content brief?

Well-crafted content briefs should include the following, regardless of industry or topic.

SEO keywords

SEO will always be a concern when crafting effective web content, so always include a complete list of keywords. Differentiate primary keywords from secondary keywords, and be sure to include any density requirements you want the writer to aim for.

Expectations for visual elements can also be defined in this section, including: 

• Image sourcing
• Inclusion of videos or other supporting media

Narrato’s content template example covers a variety of different SEO elements to ensure the resulting content achieves maximum visibility. Examples include primary and secondary keywords, internal and external links, meta assets, and more.

Marketing objective

Add information about the purpose of the content. Are you looking to drive traffic, raise awareness, close sales, or something else entirely? How should the audience feel when they walk away from the content, and what ideal action should they take next?

With a well-crafted brief, the writer knows exactly where you want to go with a piece and is better equipped to help you get there.

Target audience

Always include information on who the content is for. If it’s geared toward potential buyers, add details about where they are in your sales funnel or their unique buyer’s journey. If you mention the target persona in your brief, fine-tune your process by including specific buyer personas.

PayPal’s creative brief does an excellent job of defining many key factors a good brief should cover, including the target audience, with descriptive, clear explanations.

Style notes

Specify the approach you want the content creator to take toward tone, style, and point of view. Should the content be conversational or formal, light-hearted or no-nonsense? General notes on brand voice and style are useful, especially for new writers on the project.

Content structure

Include plenty of information on how the writer should structure their content via a content outline. Many content managers take a detailed approach to this, listing specific H2 and H3 headings and supporting elements for each section. Suggested anchor text and desired placement for internal or external links are also common additions.

Thruuu’s example brief shows a simple but effective method for outlining. It’s complete enough to give the writer plenty of guidance but leaves room for creative freedom.

Word count

Content length determines many things about a piece, including how in-depth the content will be, so always include a target word count. Some content managers look for specific lengths and tight word count ranges, but others prefer to give writers lots of leeway.

Call to action

Ending content with a clear call to action tells your audience what the next step is after finishing your content. Ensure the content creator understands your intentions by adding the goals of your content marketing to the content brief.

6 Content Brief Examples to Inspire Your Strategy

Naturally, you can approach a content brief in various ways. Some content brief types yield consistently solid results, but it’s important to compare successful examples to understand what works.

A good brief can be used again and again or adapted to fit any industry or content niche. Here are a few solid content examples to consider and draw inspiration from.

1. Content Folks

Content Folks’ brief is for a detailed content piece about content calendars that covers everything from their use to how to create your own. It covers everything a writer needs to write well on the topic, including brand goals and key takeaways.

The outline is also thorough, detailing recommended H2s and H3 and what points the writer should cover under each.

2. Brafton

The content brief template from Brafton covers a range of elements a writer should consider when crafting an informative piece for a target audience. Key examples include related keywords, internal links, and questions the audience should be able to answer by the time they’re finished reading.

This brief also gets specific about details important in certain marketing contexts — details like keyword density and specific key performance indicators to consider.

3. Zenbrief

Zenbrief’s brief for a food-focused blog is a terrific example of a brief that includes just about everything a writer needs to do a five-star job. And it manages to do so without appearing overstuffed.

It also helps that this brief is laid out in a way that’s easy for writers to peruse for the first time and refer back to as they work. Many writers return to content briefs repeatedly throughout the writing process to ensure nothing has been missed.

4. The Meta Blog

This simple but effective template from The Meta Blog is another example of how impactful a detailed brief can be when it’s well-organized. Organization is the key to making large amounts of detail and information easy to digest.

The table format makes the elements flow nicely from one to the other, closing with the outline and resource links. This brief is also commendable for including elements such as inspiration sources, target audience, and content goal. By showing writers what you aspire your content to look like, writers are given a foundation before they begin.

5. Wrike

Wrike’s template is everything a content brief should be—comprehensive, concise, honest, and easy to absorb. It’s also noteworthy for including fields that aren’t necessarily standard for all briefs but effective for industries such as healthcare or law, where specificity is essential.

The inclusion of “inflexible H2s and H3s” is also a solid addition, as this lets the writer know right away which headings need to be part of the content for it to hit the mark. Adding research link suggestions to a brief also helps ensure writers start on the right track.

6. Content Harmony

Content Harmony’s example brief presents the necessary information in a legible, logical order. It starts with the most important information a writer needs to begin forming the bones of the article in their head. It progresses through additional helpful elements, including key questions to answer and additional resources that may help.

This structure makes it easy to scale up or down from one brief to another. It even includes information about visuals that will be implemented later so the writer can craft their content around them.

How to Tailor Content Brief Examples for Different Objectives

Although it’s certainly possible to meet your content goals by using an out-of-the-box content brief example like the ones above, it’s possible to get better results if you customize them first and make them your own. Customized briefs:

• Help writers create content that better meets your unique brand expectations and business goals
• Improve communication between content managers and writers
• Save time and lower the likelihood of multiple revisions
• Facilitate mutually beneficial collaboration between team members
• Leave nothing significant up to chance

How Can I Create a Content Brief That Aligns With My Content Strategy?

Your content brief is your golden opportunity to tell your writers what you want them to know about your target audience, brand voice, or specific objectives related to that piece. Customizing your templates and examples is the best way to take advantage of that. Here are some tips to get you started:

Start with goals and keywords

All the best content starts with an understanding of the larger goals and intent behind the writing, so start by defining who the content is for and what it’s meant to accomplish. After that, focus on your choice of primary keywords.

Create a structured outline

Think about what format would best serve the specific piece of content and its purpose. For example, a how-to guide may lend itself well to bulleted lists or numbered headings, while a comprehensive guide might be a better fit for multiple H2 headings with supporting H3s and H4s.

When in doubt about what to include and how to approach the outline structure, look at content that’s already ranking well for your keyword. What formats are working for your competitors? How might you improve upon what they’re already doing while differentiating your brand?

The “People Also Ask” section of a Google SERP can also offer valuable insight into what to add to your brief.

Specify audience persona

When visualizing a piece of content, you may have a crystal-clear picture of your ideal reader in mind, but your writer won’t unless you tell them who they should be writing for. Including relevant audience personas in your brief helps your writer understand who will be on the receiving end of their content.

Provide a target word count

Although certain target lengths work better for some types of content than others, each piece should ultimately be as long as needed to cover the topic without dragging on. When building content briefs, you should never leave word count entirely out of the equation.

Be sure to include whether the writer has permission to exceed the recommended word count. Sometimes, a complex topic with a lengthy outline may lend itself to unpredictably long word counts, but that length may not be appropriate in every situation.

Include links to references and competing content

When writing SEO content, it’s helpful to have examples to refer to before getting down to business. For that reason, consider adding the following links to your briefs:

• High-ranking content competing for the same keywords
• Examples of similar content that’s well-written and hits the mark
• Specific links to references, data, or studies your writer should use

For best results, include additional information about what competing articles (or other examples) are doing well vs. where they need to improve. This technique helps the writer craft something that fills those content gaps left by your competitors.

Specify other requirements

Although many professional copywriters and content producers understand a thing or two about SEO, you shouldn’t leave things up to chance when it comes to elements like on-page SEO requirements, especially if you have specifics you need your writers to adhere to.

Do you need the writer to include one keyword at least four times but another with low search volume only once or twice? Put it in the brief — and don’t forget to specify the placement for the keywords, such as in a certain number of headers or specific sections within the content.

Tools and Resources for Creating Content Briefs

Here’s a closer look at some tools you can integrate into your repertoire for a more productive content creation routine.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT has drawbacks and weaknesses. However, one of its strengths is the ability to help create content outlines and briefs. Start with a target keyword, a working title, or both to prompt a starter brief. Then, tweak the results to fit your requirements.

Narrato

Narrato is an AI-powered platform that helps facilitate various aspects of your content creation workflow, including brief creation. It allows you to quickly generate SEO-focused content briefs, create content drafts, collaborate with team members, easily assign or manage tasks, and more.

Google Trends

Do you need help selecting your next round of keywords or zeroing in on a trending topic to post about? Google Trends is one of the more accessible tools out there for keeping your finger on the pulse of what Google users are searching for at any given time.

InLinks 

InLinks is another terrific tool for taking some of the headache out of your SEO strategy. Deploy a variety of different key SEO elements at scalable levels and build topic clusters with ease. You can even brainstorm, create, and implement a content schedule that includes all your marketing channels.

Crowd Content 

At Crowd Content, we offer a wide variety of resources to take the confusion out of drafting content briefs and facilitating an airtight content marketing strategy. We offer valuable e-books, checklists, content calendar templates, content services, and more to help you fill in the gaps.

Take your content creation strategy to the next level with our proven strategies and free content brief template, plus check out our comprehensive guide on the topic. With our assistance, you can watch your content strategy transform before your eyes.

Sample Content Briefs

Whether you’re new to drafting killer content briefs or simply want something to get you started in the right direction, a good content brief template is a reliable starting point. When you’re ready, elevate your results by developing your own custom templates based on the effective examples we’ve covered.

In the meantime, here are a few free and paid brief templates to try:

Free Content Brief Templates

The following brief templates are free to download and try.

Portent

This is a solid brief template that works well for various content types. It’s simple, user-friendly, and well-organized. However, the fact that it only gets into key SEO details further down may not be the best fit for optimization-focused content.

Avo

This Avo template is highly comprehensive and has multiple pages, so it’s a great option if you need something more technical. Some elements, such as link targets and CTAs, are still missing, so you may want to add them yourself.

Crowd Content

Our free content brief template covers everything needed to get the results you want from your content. You can use it to easily set crucial SEO parameters, create clear directives for your content, ensure maximum readability, and more. We make sure your briefs never miss a beat. Just tell us a bit about yourself first.

Paid Content Brief Templates

Ready to kick things up a notch and try a paid template? Try one of the following resources on for size.

Content Harmony

Content Harmony offers a solid template system that simplifies the process of creating briefs for a wide range of needs. Best of all, the briefs are fully customizable — a must if you’re serious about results.

Newcomers can get their first 10 briefs for $10 but need to sign up for the platform’s content management service after that.

Notion

Notion features an entire database of free and paid content brief templates to try. Some are available thanks to Notion itself, while others are the beautiful work of independent creators.

Many include additional assets for assigning tasks, tracking progress, and more. Pricing varies from template to template, averaging between $10 and $50. However, some options require a Notion account to access.

Now that you’ve mastered the art of the content brief, it’s time to take the next step toward content excellence.Crowd Content can help you take your next content creation strategy further with our top-tier content strategy service. Take full advantage of our dynamic content brief examples, leverage proven industry expertise, and learn how to better integrate briefs into your content strategy today!

The post 6 Content Brief Examples to Inspire Your Strategy appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Distribution is a powerful step of a well-constructed content strategy. After developing a solid plan and a clear understanding of your audience, distribution is the final touch that amplifies your reach and fuels success. 

As you continue reading, you will find valuable information in this guide that will help transform your content into a powerful business asset.

What Is Content Distribution and Why Is It Important? 

Content distribution is the process of sharing content across relevant online channels to maximize its reach. It’s the final step in your content’s journey, connecting your brand with your audience at the perfect time. 

Benefits of an effective content distribution strategy

Content creation is a labor of love. We get it. And a well-executed distribution strategy makes certain your efforts deliver results.

Meaningful engagement: Quality content sparks conversations. Getting people to talk about your content fosters brand loyalty and establishes thought leadership.

• Content distribution example: Say a marketing agency publishes an article on the evolving landscape of influencer marketing. Sharing it on LinkedIn starts discussions and debates in the comments section. This engagement establishes the agency as a thought leader and provides readers and potential customers with useful information about the industry.
  

Increase website traffic: Effective distribution strategies drive qualified traffic back to your website, ultimately bringing in more leads and sales.

• Content distribution example: An e-commerce company creates a comprehensive guide on “Essential Winter Hiking Gear.” Distributing it on outdoor enthusiast forums, with a clear call-to-action prompting users to visit the website for the full product range, can significantly increase website traffic. 
  

Enhance brand visibility: A well-curated and consistent distribution strategy across various channels keeps your brand top-of-mind with your target audience.

• Content distribution example: A bakery creates recipe videos showcasing its signature desserts. Distributing these videos on the brand’s YouTube channel as well as relevant food blogs and subreddits builds brand awareness and recognition. The engaging format and targeted distribution channels ensure the content resonates with specific customers who are actively searching for baking inspiration.
  

Better SEO: Distributing your content across authoritative websites can improve your website’s search engine ranking and drive organic traffic.

• Content distribution example: A legal firm publishes an informative blog post on “Understanding Common Clauses in Employment Contracts.” Uploading this content to legal resource websites and sites such as Quora and Reddit can generate backlinks. These backlinks act as signals to search engines that the content is valuable and trustworthy, potentially boosting ranking for relevant search terms.
  

Establish thought leadership: Consistently sharing valuable and insightful content across relevant platforms establishes your brand as an authority in its industry.

• Content distribution example: A financial advisor creates a series of educational videos on personal finance tips for young adults. Posting them on YouTube and Reddit positions the advisor as a credible source of information. As a bonus, it attracts potential clients who are actively seeking financial guidance.

Content distribution transforms content into a powerful tool for growth. It ensures your content reaches the right audience, sparks meaningful engagement, and drives real business results.

What Are the Three Types of Content Distribution Strategies?

Your content’s reach hinges on three distribution channels: owned, earned, and paid.

Owned channels: These are your digital properties, such as your website, social media pages, and email newsletters. They’re your content’s home base, where you have full control over the messaging.

Earned channels: You gain visibility organically on these channels. Picture your content being shared across social media, mentioned in industry publications, or linked to from other websites. This buzz of engagement builds credibility, boosts reach, and helps you establish a community.

Paid channels: Propel content using strategic investments such as paid ads on search engines, social media platforms, and sponsored articles. These channels guarantee visibility to a highly specific target audience.

Understanding the three distribution channels is essential for designing a content strategy that maximizes your content’s impact.

Maximize your content’s impact by refining your approach with Crowd Content’s Strategy Services. We highlight the crucial role of planning and creation before distribution, ensuring your content strategy is as effective as possible. Let us help you widen your reach, meet business goals, and engage your audience more deeply.

Click to review and enhance your content strategy now.

Let’s expclore the major distribution channels in depth.

Owned channels

Owned channels are your digital properties. You have complete control over the content, messaging, and distribution. They include your website, blog, social media accounts, email lists, and any other platforms you manage directly.

Here are some examples of how businesses use owned channels:

• Digital marketing agency: Blogs packed with industry insights and case studies solidify a digital marketing brand’s expertise. 
• Chain of retirement homes: Websites and blogs feature heartwarming resident stories, advice for families, and details on amenities.
• Freelance SEO specialist: An optimized website with compelling blog content is vital to demonstrating a freelance SEO expert’s prowess. 

How owned channels differ from earned and paid:

• Control: You decide what gets published, when, and how it’s presented. This allows for consistent brand messaging and targeted content.
• Audience: Owned channels tap into your existing audience of followers, website visitors, and subscribers, strengthening relationships.
• Sustainability: While requiring ongoing effort, owned channels often provide the best long-term return on investment compared to reliance on paid tactics.

Who benefits the most from owned channels? 

• Businesses of all sizes: Owned channels form the backbone of any digital marketing strategy.
• Brands building trust: Consistent, valuable content nurtures a loyal audience that views you as reliable and credible.
• Audience engagement: Direct two-way communication through comments, social media interactions, and email fosters a sense of community.

Pros of using owned channels:

• Shape your brand voice and tailor your message without leaning heavily on external platforms or algorithms.
• Build direct relationships with your audience, fostering trust and brand advocacy.
• The initial investment in content creation pays dividends over time compared to continuously buying paid advertising.
• Owned channels have rich analytics on audience preferences and content performance, enabling you to refine your future strategy.

Cons of using owned channels:

• Success requires an ongoing passion for content creation, community management, and audience growth strategies.
• Building reach on owned channels usually takes significantly longer compared to the immediate reach of paid advertising.
• Understanding SEO principles, effective content creation, and social media engagement is essential for maximizing results.

Owned channels are the foundation of a well-rounded content distribution strategy. Investing time and resources in these platforms establishes a firm brand presence and generates insights for long-term growth.

Earned channels

Earned channels come from others organically promoting your content through shares, mentions, and backlinks. This type of distribution hinges on building relationships, establishing credibility, and creating genuinely valuable content that resonates.

Here are some examples of how businesses use earned channels:

• Addiction recovery center: A blog post about overcoming addiction could gain traction on social media and get shared by influencers in the recovery community.
• SEO agency: Active participation on relevant subreddits, providing insightful advice, builds trust and attracts clients. 
• HVAC company: Helpful videos on furnace maintenance from YouTube get shared in home improvement Facebook groups, leading to a spike in calls.

How earned channels differ from owned and paid:

• Trust and credibility: Earned distribution often carries a greater sense of trust, as it comes from an impartial source, serving as social proof. Over the past couple of decades, social proof — as demonstrated in online reviews and testimonials — has emerged as a leading factor in purchase decision-making. Think of it like digital word-of-mouth. 
• Amplified organic reach: Content can gain exposure to new audiences beyond your existing network.
• Cost effective: While it requires time and effort, earned distribution is cost effective, with the potential for long-term impact.

Who benefits the most from earned channels:

• Brands seeking credibility: Endorsements from external sources strengthen your reputation.
• Companies targeting new audiences: Earned channels open up opportunities to reach beyond your existing followers.
• Organizations with a limited budget: Earned channels work well for creative brands with budget constraints for paid advertising.

Pros of earned channels:

• Opens your content up to a wider audience, maximizing reach.
• Third-party validation strengthens trust and positions your brand as an authority.
• Quality backlinks from authoritative websites attract new audiences and boost search engine rankings.
• Exceptionally shareable content has the potential to “go viral” and spread rapidly, reaching a massive audience.

Cons of earned channels:

• You can’t dictate if or when others share your content, so earned channels require a focus on quality and relationship building.
  
• Cultivating relationships and creating share-worthy content takes time and persistent effort.
• While tools offer insights, tracking the direct impact of earned distribution can be more complex compared to owned or paid channels.

Earned distribution is a testament to the value of your content. While less predictable than other channels, it offers the potential for significant gains in reach, reputation, and authority.

Paid channels

Paid channels are paid investments that guarantee visibility. There are a vast array of options to choose from, allowing you to target your ideal audience with laser focus. From pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to sponsored content partnerships, paid channels deliver shockingly precise targeting.

Here are some examples of how businesses use paid channels:

• Pest control company: Targeted Google Ads ensure services appear at the top of local search results for keywords such as “pest extermination near me.” Social media ads showcase positive customer testimonials and promotions to a geographically focused audience.
• E-commerce brand: Retargeting ads on social media remind users of products they viewed, encouraging them to return and complete a purchase. At the same time, sponsored search results drive traffic to specific product pages. 
• Content writer: Paid guest posts on niche industry blogs offer valuable insights and backlinks to their portfolio. Meanwhile, targeted Google Ads appear for searches such as “freelance copywriter for [industry] in [location].”

How paid ads differ from owned and earned:

• Guaranteed visibility: Paid channels offer immediate exposure, unlike owned and earned, which largely rely on organic growth.
• Hyper-targeted reach: Advanced targeting options let you pinpoint your ideal audience by demographics, interests, location, and behaviors.
• Faster results: Paid distribution can drive traffic and conversions more quickly compared to strategies focused solely on organic growth.

Who benefits the most from paid channels?

• Businesses seeking rapid growth: Paid channels accelerate reach and boost conversions, especially when entering new markets.
• Anyone targeting a niche audience: Precise targeting options are ideal for reaching specific demographics or segments.
• Those looking to measure results: Paid ads usually come with analytics that allow you to track ROI and optimize future campaigns for maximum performance.

Pros of using paid channels:

• Reach your target audience instantly and bypass the slow build of organic methods.
• Detailed analytics allow for continuous refinement and improvement of your campaigns.
• Easily increase or decrease your investment based on your goals and budget.
• Track conversions and leads to determine the exact return on your advertising spend.

Cons of paid channels:

• Depending on your industry and keywords, paid advertising can become expensive.
• Successful paid campaigns require planning, targeting, and optimization.
• Users can become desensitized to ads, potentially resulting in lower click-through rates over time.

Paid channels are a major boost, helping you reach your ideal audience and achieve desired outcomes. Using strategic execution and exploring advanced options such as native advertising and programmatic buying can propel your content toward widespread success.

How Do I Create a Content Distribution Strategy? 

This section will guide you through the essential steps of creating a content distribution strategy that propels your message to the right people, at the right time.

1. Understand your audience and their expectations

A deep understanding of your target audience is the cornerstone of any successful content distribution strategy. Moving beyond basic demographics, craft detailed audience personas outlining pain points, goals, preferred content formats, and the online platforms your visitors frequent. 

Next, map out how your audience interacts with content. Where do they go for information? What type of content influences their decision-making? Social media is a gold mine for these insights. Extensive research is nonnegotiable for this step. 

2. Identify the ideal content types for your brand and audience

With your target audience firmly in mind, identify the ideal content types that align with your specific marketing goals. Are you aiming for brand awareness, lead generation, or boosting website traffic? Different content types excel in different areas.

For instance, informative blog posts nurture leads and establish brand expertise, while visually engaging videos capture attention and drive social media shares. A successful content mix caters to various learning styles and keeps your audience engaged.

Important note: Don’t get stuck in a single format. Explore the diverse landscape of content options, including blog posts, infographics, videos, social media updates, podcasts, ebooks, and webinars. Allowing your audience to engage with your brand in various formats helps them connect deeply with it, while catering to a variety of tastes.  

3. Plan

A content calendar acts as your roadmap, outlining the content you’ll produce, the distribution channels you’ll use, and your publication dates. This structured approach ensures consistency and aligns content marketing efforts with your broader marketing goals. 

Be sure to map out a purposeful distribution strategy, whether you use a content calendar or not. Carefully considering which channels best suit each piece of content is vital. Not every format is ideal for every platform. Customize and tailor your distribution approach accordingly.  

Finally, keep in mind that timing is everything in the world of digital marketing. Knowing when your audience is most active online and thoughtfully scheduling your content distribution helps maximize engagement and reach.

4. Ensure uniform branding and brand voice across channels

Developing clear brand guidelines is foundational for online success. Your brand’s ingredients include voice, tone, and visual style. They’re the secret sauce for maintaining consistency across all platforms.  

Customize your content for each platform while remaining true to your brand identity. Ultimately, a cohesive brand image across channels builds immediate recognition and solidifies your brand’s reputation in the minds of your audience.

5. Test

A willingness to experiment is vital. Test different content formats, distribution channels, and messaging to analyze what yields the best results for your specific audience and goals.

Pay close attention to analytics. They’re your north star. Monitor insights such as time on page, bounce rates, and click-through rate. Use these insights to refine your strategy, making data-driven decisions to optimize your content distribution efforts. Finally — and very importantly — don’t be afraid to pivot. If something isn’t achieving the desired results, be agile.

6. Execute

Sticking to your content calendar is vital for maintaining steady momentum and a reliable presence in your audience’s eyes. Why? Because consistent publishing signals dedication to potential customers and helps you ride that elusive algorithmic wave. 

Just keep in mind that you must always prioritize quality over quantity. Two high-quality content pieces per week will always outweigh 20 pieces of low-value content. Each asset you publish should provide true value to your audience. 

7. Measure

Focus on the metrics that directly align with your established goals. And whatever you do, be sure to utilize the wealth of analytics tools at your fingertip. These insights tell you exactly what your audience likes and dislikes.

Platforms such as Google Analytics, social media ad tools, and email marketing reports provide detailed data. Creating regular reports helps you analyze performance patterns and highlight areas for improvement.

8. Optimize and iterate

Optimize your strategy by making data-driven decisions and avoiding guesswork and assumptions at all costs. Continuously tweak your content formats, distribution channels, and messaging based on the insights derived from your analytics. 

Poise yourself to experiment with trends and adapt your approach as technologies and audience behaviors shift.

Best Practices to Enhance Your Distribution Strategy

What are the key elements of content distribution? Let’s look at the most critical best practices.

Tool 1: Multiple Formats

Go beyond a blog post. Transform your content into various formats to cater to diverse learning styles and preferences. 

Tool 2: Brand Assets

Create high-quality on-brand visuals such as infographics, images, and videos to elevate content, connect deeply with your audience, and strengthen brand recognition.

Tool 3: Smart Repurposing

Extend your content’s lifespan by adapting it for different platforms. Repurpose infographics into social media posts and video clips into Reels or TikTok content.

Tool 4: Thoughtful Interlinking

Connect your content with internal links to improve user experience and boost SEO, while encouraging exploration of your website.

Tool 5: Guest Posting and Interviews

Tap into new audiences by contributing content to relevant websites and interviewing industry leaders.

Tool 6: Search Engine Optimization

Optimize content with relevant keywords, language that’s relatable to your audience, and meta descriptions to improve search ranking and organic traffic.

Tool 7: Social Media Mastery

Cater content to each social media platform, leveraging features like Stories, Reels, and live streams to maximize engagement.

Tool 8: Email Marketing

Nurture leads and drive conversions with targeted email campaigns featuring your best content.

Top Content Distribution Platforms

Now that you understand the “why” and “how,” all that’s left is “where?” Here’s a breakdown of the four best content distribution channels. 

1. Social media distribution

Social media platforms are where your audience spends time online. Strategize for each platform to meet your audience where they are. Let’s take a closer look:

Overview: Social media is unparalleled for building community, amplifying brand voice, and targeting content to specific audiences through organic posts and paid ads.

Best for: Each platform has its strengths.

• Facebook: Wide reach, versatile for B2C and B2B
• Instagram: Visually focused for lifestyle brands, strong with younger demographics
• X: Live updates, trending news, and niche conversations
• LinkedIn: Excellent for B2B, networking, and thought leadership
• YouTube: Great for video tutorials, product demos, and in-depth content

Time to see results: It can yield a quick engagement boost, but long-term success requires consistency and audience understanding.

Why it works: Social media fuels discovery and taps into the power of social sharing for extended reach.

2. Email marketing

Your email list is a direct line to a highly engaged audience. Nurture your audience with compelling content, and they’ll become your biggest advocates and most loyal customers.

Overview: Email marketing is ideal for nurturing leads and driving conversions. Directly reach your most engaged audience: those who opt in to receiving your content. 

Best for: Businesses with an established email list, regardless of industry.

Time to see results: Immediate delivery, open rates, and click-throughs are trackable right off the bat. Nurturing campaigns show results over time. Just be sure to factor in the time and effort it takes to build an engaged email list.  

Why it works: It allows for audience segmentation and provides valuable analytics on content preferences.

3. Content syndication networks

Supercharge your content’s visibility by republishing it on high-traffic websites. Content syndication expands your reach and builds brand awareness.

Overview: Publish content on third-party websites and platforms to expand reach and build brand awareness among new audiences.

Best for: Businesses aiming for high visibility across various reputable sites.

Time to see results: Quickly boosts traffic and reach when done right.

Why it works: Leverages the established audience of external platforms and may boost domain authority for SEO benefits.

4. Online forums and communities 

Become part of the conversation on Quora and Reddit to subtly build your brand’s reputation. Offer genuine advice and insights to establish yourself as a go-to source of information.

Overview: Actively participate in discussions related to your industry, offering helpful answers and subtly referencing your own content where relevant.

Best for: Businesses aiming to build a positive brand reputation by demonstrating expertise and engaging directly with potential customers.

Time to see results: It’s a slow burn, but consistent participation yields trust and brand loyalty, directing interested users to your resources.

Why it works: Leverages the power of conversation and social proof, organically highlighting your brand as a problem solver.

Additional Content Distribution Services 

Digital content distribution services are more far-reaching and targeted than DIY efforts because they lean on broad databases packed with insights. They provide expert support in crafting and implementing a comprehensive distribution strategy. 

Crowd Content can deliver custom content distribution solutions that align with your unique goals. Our team of marketing experts can leverage data-driven insights to optimize your content’s visibility and engagement across various channels.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But what exactly are content marketing KPIs, and what do you use to measure content success when you’re serious about staying competitive? Here, we’ll discuss some of the most critical content marketing KPIs to keep in mind as you map out your next strategy.

What Is a KPI in Content Marketing?

KPI, or “key performance indicator,” refers to quantifiable values that content marketers use to assess the health and progress of a long-term strategy or a particular campaign. Engagement, audience reach, and conversion rate are a few examples that can help a marketer better measure progress toward a specific objective.

Data is the key to tracking the success of any endeavor. It offers clear evidence of whether your goals have been met, surpassed, or not reached. Analyzing data can also help savvy marketers identify golden opportunities for cost savings, brand expansion, or engagement with new demographic groups.

Today’s content marketing landscape is ever-changing, and successful marketers evolve accordingly. Proactively leveraging your data and tracking carefully selected content marketing KPIs keeps you ahead of the curve in all the right ways. The following examples are 30 critical content marketing KPI examples to watch moving forward.

Website Content Marketing KPIs

A website’s ability to attract and engage visitors is critical to the success of your content marketing efforts. Here are some essential KPIs for measuring content success related to website performance.

1. Impressions

If impressions are lower than expected, try tweaking your keyword strategy or reassessing your targeting goals to ensure you’re going after the right demographics. In the case of paid advertising, consider whether it might be worthwhile to kick your budget up a notch.

Impressions count the total number of times content is displayed to unique users on various platforms. 

It’s also important to note that as search engines evolve, the number one search result on Google isn’t necessarily the most desirable SERP position anymore. Features like knowledge panels and featured snippets are much more visible, and SEO strategies are evolving to include them. However, such features often fulfill user queries directly on the search page, potentially reducing traffic to websites.

2. Website traffic

When it comes to primary digital marketing analytics, website traffic is one of the first KPIs that most marketers think of, and with good reason. Website traffic numbers help you better understand your site’s overall reach and user interaction.

Gain additional insights into this metric by delving into individual traffic sources to learn more about how people find your sites. Reinvest in successful entry points (social media, Google ads, etc.) and content types. Analyze the paths visitors follow as they explore your site for additional insights into user behavior.

3. SEO rankings

Visibility is important; even the most well-written content won’t help a brand if no one can find it. Keeping tabs on your SEO rankings allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ongoing efforts.

Ensure your rankings keep moving in the right direction by making keyword research an ongoing part of your approach, taking care to include plenty of trending terms. Focus on building your backlink catalog, crafting uniquely useful content, and updating your high-performing content articles to keep them relevant.

4. Time spent on page

Attracting visitors to your content is only part of the battle when it comes to winning the content marketing game. You also need to hold their attention once you’ve got it, and tracking content marketing metrics like time spent on a page can help you determine how well you’re doing this.

Longer page dwell times generally correlate to higher engagement rates, so explore different ways to drive those numbers up. Add graphics and videos to lend visual interest. Ensure content is readable and easy to consume by organizing it well, using clear headings, and a narrative flow that guides readers smoothly from section to section.

5. Repeat visitor ratio

How do new visitors behave once they’ve discovered your content? Is that the last you see of them, or do they keep returning for more? Your repeat visitor ratio clues you into how well you’re cultivating user loyalty and fostering ongoing interest in what you’re doing content-wise.

Content marketers can improve this metric by giving audiences more of what they want, personalizing the user experience, updating popular content, and consistently publishing new articles. Additionally, promote engagement through social media and email subscriptions so your audiences never miss a content drop.

6. Lead generation

While content marketing is certainly about delivering standalone value to audiences, it’s important to remember it’s also about turning curious consumers into paying customers. Content manager KPIs like lead generation help lend valuable insight into this process.

Before you can begin nurturing leads, you need to generate qualified ones via ethical but effective tactics. Examples to consider include:

• Using powerful calls-to-action (CTAs).
• Implementing gated content to capture data.
• Offering incentives like freemium content to encourage visitors to opt into mailing lists or follow on social media.

7. Quality of leads

Beyond quantity, quality of leads is also important, especially for brands in the SaaS sector and other highly specific niches. However, all brands can benefit from targeting consumers who are not only likely to convert but also ready to.

Personalized content is key, as relevance is essential for capturing and retaining user interest. So can targeting individuals across all stages of a typical buyer’s journey. Utilize tools like buyer personas to help your content production team better target and personalize key content efforts.

8. Voice search optimization success

With the rising popularity of voice-operated options like Alexa and Google Assistant, voice search optimization is ever more important. Keep track of metrics that help assess how voice search-friendly your content is.

Make your content easier to discover via voice search by using long-tail keywords and conversational tone that reflects natural speech patterns. Leverage schema markup to structure your data to help search engines understand it better. If your business is location-specific, pay attention to local SEO, as well.

Content-Focused Marketing KPIs

Naturally, your content (both written and visual) is the heartbeat of any digital marketing strategy, so KPIs related to its structure and performance are crucial concerns. Here are a few content performance metrics to watch closely.

9. Content production speed

Quality may be king in content production, but consistency is queen. Content marketing success in 2024 calls for more than just informative, high-quality content. Marketers aiming to keep their brands top of mind must also generate content regularly, making content production speed an important KPI to know.

Developing a comprehensive content calendar that includes everything from updates to your company blog to your social media channels and newsletter can help you stay ahead of content production. Consider repurposing existing content and delegating creation tasks to expert writers and creators to streamline the process.

10. Content accessibility score

Inclusion and accessibility are the orders of the day in 2024, including when it comes to content marketing. Tracking your content accessibility score helps ensure your output adheres to all current quality standards and is as helpful as possible to all users, including those with disabilities.

You can keep your content accessibility score high by making your content as easy to consume as possible. Use large fonts that are easy to read, pay attention to strong contrast between text and background colors, and use headings to lend structure and readability to written content. Look into additional options like video captions, text transcripts, and accessible visual elements.

11. Content innovation index

In a digital landscape where every brand competes online with eye-catching content, genuine uniqueness is priceless. The more innovative and original your content is, the better it will perform in capturing the attention of your target audience.

You can boost your content innovation index by developing a deep understanding of your target audience and their needs. Pay attention to what’s already working for you, and use what you know to strike a solid balance between familiar and novel moving forward. Also, be sure to add your unique voice to your content – your most distinct asset that cannot be replicated by others. 

12. Content update frequency

While producing plenty of fresh, original content is crucial, you don’t want to leave your existing content out in the cold when it comes to your ongoing strategy. Updating existing web content frequently – especially any that consistently draws traffic your way – keeps it visible to search engines and relevant for your audience.

To optimize this KPI, plan for quarterly updates for topics that change often.  Annual updates are sufficient for key evergreen topics that are more stable.Integrate content updates into your ongoing content calendar to keep efforts consistent and timely.

13. User-generated content volume

Saying user-generated content (UGC) is a game-changer for brands in 2024 is a real understatement. UGC boosts engagement rates, drives interest in key products or services, and builds trust through compelling social proof. For that reason, tracking UGC volume can lend marketers powerful insight into how well they’re engaging their audience.

Encourage more UGC by actively requesting your to share their experiences or give feedback. Hold contests, giveaways, and similar events to incentivize incredible UGC, and be sure to engage with those who follow through by commenting and sharing.

14. Multimedia content engagement

Successful content marketing involves more than just written content like blogs, ebooks, and social media status updates. Today’s audiences crave and seek out variety in their content, and different demographics may have specific preferences to keep in mind.

Include multiple forms of media in your own content strategy – for example, videos, infographics, interactive graphics, etc. – alongside your standard written content. Add multimedia content engagement to your running list of trackable content marketing KPIs to gauge which content formats are most popular with your audience. Pay special attention to universally popular options like short-form videos as they tend to attract broad interest.

15. Content sentiment analysis

As important as facts and information are when it comes to getting a consumer to finalize a purchase decision, emotions are a lot more powerful. Create content that makes people feel things, and you’re well on your way to crafting an established, popular brand. Tracking content marketing KPIs like content sentiment ensures you stay aligned with these goals.

Sentiment analysis evaluates your content by comparing the frequency of positive versus negative expressions. Mood-associated words that invoke feelings of confidence, encouragement, professionalism, etc., also factor into the mix. Utilize AI tools – like Grammarly, to name just one – to help in this analysis. Apply what you learn to fine-tune the emotional appeal of your content and invoke desired responses.

16. Content experimentation rate

Constant experimentation and innovation are crucial to maintain a vibrant and successful content marketing strategy. But it’s equally important to track the success of all your attempts, so you know what’s working and what’s not. Monitoring content experimentation rate and related content marketing KPIs can help you here.

A/B testing is a proven method for comparing two or more versions of a campaign or content approach. Monitor specific metrics like test velocity, quality, win rate, and percentage uplift to gain additional insights into what’s really working and why.

Branding and Marketing-Focused Content Marketing KPIs

Effective KPI tracking in marketing means staying on top of metrics that reveal how you’re doing with your branding efforts, content performance, and overall return on your marketing investment. Here are some KPIs to help you do that.

17. Return on investment (ROI)

At the end of the day, content marketing is a business investment, so tracking the ROI of content marketing efforts is imperative. ROI is expressed as a percentage that compares the gains from your investment against the initial costs. To calculate ROI, use the formula: (return – investment ÷ investment) x 100 = ROI.

However, ROI also has a qualitative aspect. In addition to the financial numbers, consider factors like lead generation, customer loyalty rates, and overall brand awareness when determining ROI.

18. Brand awareness lift

In a nutshell, brand awareness speaks to how likely consumers are to instinctively recognize your brand or any of its products, services, slogans, or visual assets. The better your brand awareness, the more likely people are to actually choose your brand in competitive markets.

And what do you measure in content marketing when you want to gauge your ongoing brand awareness lift rate? Be on the lookout for metrics like share of voice, referral traffic, branded search volume, and earned media coverage. Enhance visibility by creating relevant content, distributing it across multiple channels, and supporting it with consistent promotion efforts.

19. Share of voice

Don’t underestimate the importance of share of voice (SOV) when assessing potentially useful content marketing KPIs. SOV measures how well your audience is vibing with your brand overall and how well it’s doing compared to your competition. You can leverage SOV to help you analyze social media performance, PPC advertising strategy, organic traffic, etc.

Ensure a healthy share of voice metrics by researching your audience and staying on top of their evolving needs and expectations. Develop shareable content to match and infuse it with your unique brand voice. Collaborating with influencers, thought leaders, and other brands can also help with SOV.

20. Content cost vs. performance

Just as it’s important to keep track of your overall content marketing ROI, you’ll also want to track your content cost vs. performance to ensure your efforts are as productive as possible. Useful metrics to consider include views, engagement rate, user behavior, number of new users, traffic numbers, etc.

Maximize your content’s efficiency by fully optimizing and repurposing it across multiple platforms in ways that make sense for your brand. Form strategic partnerships to expand your reach and help your content find new audiences. Invest in content types and approaches that resonate well with your audience.

21. Influencer collaboration effectiveness

Influencer marketing can be a powerful way to expand your reach for several reasons. Influencers come attached to highly engaged audiences who take recommendations to heart. Partnering with the right candidates in your niche can really take your brand awareness to the next level. However, keeping track of metrics related to influencer collaboration effectiveness is important.

Specify clear goals for your collaborations, communicate them to your partners, and track KPIs that align accordingly. Analyze ongoing collaborations and make adjustments as needed to optimize results. Learning from past campaigns can strengthen future efforts.

Audience and Customer Content Marketing KPIs

No comprehensive list of the best KPIs for content marketing would be complete without metrics that help you fully gauge how your content is landing with existing and potential customers. Here are some examples of essentials to keep in mind.

22. Engagement rate

Tracking engagement rates is a key part of gauging the overall success of your content. People engage with content that resonates with them. They comment on it, share it on their social media feeds, and reference it when producing their own content. Algorithms take note of all those little interactions and show engaging content to even more people.

To elevate engagement, consider incorporating calls for audience interaction or developing dynamic, interactive content. Such types of content not only captivates but also improves memory retention and overall brand recall due to its immersive nature.

23. Conversion rate

In content marketing, your conversion rate (CVR) reflects the overall percentage of web visitors who successfully complete a desired action. That action could be to finalize a sale, but it could also be to download freemium content, sign up for a mailing list, follow on social media, etc.

Higher conversion rates imply effective content that successfully educates, persuades, and leads audiences to act. You can fortify your content conversion rates by improving your overall user experience, crafting compelling calls to action, and highlighting key value propositions in your copy. Implement A/B testing to refine your messaging and improve content strategies across different formats.

24. Email open rates

If you’re like most people, you’re on multiple branded mailing lists but don’t necessarily have time to open every email you receive. Chances are you open the ones that seem most relevant to you or otherwise pique your curiosity and forego the rest. Your customers are the same.

The likelihood of an email being opened increases with its relevance and personalization. Segment your recipient lists according to criteria like past behavior, demographics, or location, and personalize email blasts accordingly. Craft irresistible subject lines, and be sure to send messages at optimal times to boost the chances of engagement.

25. Social shares

In a digital world where almost everyone has a social media presence and spends time on their favorite platforms daily, your social share metric is one of the most critical content marketing KPIs to monitor. People share content that resonates with them and that they’re proud to endorse to their friends and followers.

Determine where your target audience spends their social media time and build a strong, active presence on those platforms. Tailor your content for maximum shareability on each platform, incorporating visuals, strong headlines, and social sharing buttons into website content to boost your content’s shareability.

26. Customer retention rate

Well-crafted content is more than an effective way to attract new potential customers in your direction. When used wisely and approached skillfully, it can encourage loyalty and repeat business.

After defining your goals, do a deep dive into your audience’s pool of interest. Serve up content that meets their needs as repeat customers and brand-loyal consumers. You could include options that help clients get more out of existing purchases or take better care of the products they already own. Serialized content can also be effective in making sure your customers are engaged over time.

27. Audience growth rate

Tracking and analyzing your audience’s growth rate can give you valuable marketing insight into how well your overall content strategy is going. Examining details like traffic sources and comparing the strength of your presence on different platforms can tell you a thing or two about your current market reach.

You can supercharge your audience growth rate metric by prioritizing innovation in your content approach. Focus on informing, entertaining, and genuinely delighting your customers with your content offerings. Form partnerships with influencers and other thought leaders in your niche to expand your reach even further.

28. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) post-content interaction

Monitoring how satisfied your customers are after interacting with your branded content is a solid way to assess how well your content offerings meet their needs. Content that is interacted with, shared, or endorsed typically meets or exceeds expectations.

Examining engagement KPIs (like conversion rate, churn rate, retention rate, and bounce rate) helps you get a more detailed read on how you’re doing here.

Customer feedback loops also lend valuable insight. Pay attention to what customers say in their comments and share captions. (Social listening interfaces may help catch everything.) Utilize  feedback via polls, surveys, and social media posts to enhance your content strategies

29. Net Promoter Score (NPS) related to content

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple but informative metric that measures overall customer satisfaction, loyalty, and enthusiasm about a brand. To obtain one, you ask customers one simple question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”

A high NPS often correlates with customers who enjoy their experience enough to recommend it to others. Apply NPS to gain insight into how your customers feel about your content. Focus your content strategy on delivering helpful, entertaining content throughout every stage of the customer life cycle to maintain high NPS levels.

30. Content reach by geographic location

Understanding where your customers are from can help you more effectively tailor content to their needs. Examine your content and traffic metrics to assess where your reach is the strongest. Are most of your customers local or global? Are there specific cities or regions where your reach is particularly strong?

Explore unique behaviors, preferences, and purchasing patterns  of these areas to create tailored content. Ensure you’re paying enough attention to local SEO related to those locations to enhance your reach further.

Elevating Your Content Strategy with KPIs

Although commonly tracked KPIs like web traffic, customer engagement, and customer retention rate should always make your list of go-to content marketing KPIs, they’re not all there is to the picture. Monitoring and analyzing a well-rounded list that includes gems like the examples listed above gives you a much fuller understanding of how you’re really doing and helps you stay competitive in an increasingly crowded digital space.

Ready to take your content marketing game to the next level? Let the seasoned content experts at Crowd Content help you revolutionize your strategy and fully leverage key content marketing KPIs to maximize your brand success. Get in touch today, and tell us more about your content goals.

The post 30 Essential Content Marketing KPIs You Can’t Ignore appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Using editorial calendar templates is the only way to make it happen. It creates structure, enabling you to publish consistent, quality content and keep your brand at the top of customers’ minds. 

Consumers’ thirst for content is limitless. If you deliver value and know your audience, you can reach them. But if you don’t publish enough to keep them hydrated, they quench their curiosity elsewhere. Here’s our guide to creating, implementing, and maintaining an editorial calendar. 

Components of an Editorial Calendar Template

From evergreen articles to seasonal campaigns, you can tailor an editorial calendar template to back your brand’s goals. Let’s look at the essential components:

• Content type: From blog posts to social media updates and email newsletters, editorial calendars accommodate various content types. This versatility ensures you attract a broad audience.
• Publication dates: Stay on track with scheduled publication dates to maintain engagement and visibility for all team members. Flexibility is key here, allowing you to adapt to shifting priorities and seasonal trends. 
• Channels: Specify where each piece of content should be published to ensure a cohesive schedule across all platforms.
• Viral opportunities: Anticipate and capitalize on viral moments by aligning your content with industry events and trending topics. Forward planning prevents last-minute scrambles.
• Responsible team members: For complex projects, incorporate a simple RACI chart detailing roles and responsibilities. This streamlines collaboration and creates accountability within your team.
• Status: For straightforward projects where designated roles are established, use status columns to indicate the production stage of each order. As the statuses shift, collaborating team members are notified it’s their turn to step in. 
• Content brief: While the project brief’s instructions apply to the content type as a whole, each piece typically pairs with a content brief. Content calendars simplify the review process, so why not provide all the resources in one spot? 
  

Why every content team needs a template 

Proactivity delivers better results than reactivity. Planning content a week ahead of time doesn’t leave wiggle room for shifts in your marketing strategy, which is likely to change occasionally. But there’s more to it than punctuality. Here are more benefits of using an editorial calendar:

• Improved organization: Centralizing content planning and scheduling helps your team stay on track with content goals.
• Enhanced collaboration: Clear assignment of roles and responsibilities fosters better collaboration among team members, reducing confusion and doubling-up of efforts.
• Consistency: A structured editorial calendar ensures a consistent publishing schedule, which is essential for maintaining audience engagement and brand credibility and surfing the elusive algorithms.
• Strategic alignment: Editorial calendars enable teams to align content with marketing objectives by providing high-level overviews of how each piece of content contributes to business goals.

An editorial calendar brings order to chaos. If you’re always chasing your tail, going from ideation to strategy to publication, you need a template. Download our editorial calendar template, and breathe a sigh of relief.

How to Craft an Editorial Calendar Template

If only content creation were as easy as hiring a skilled writer and asking them to create an article for you. Your brand strategy, business goals, ideation, and content strategy must be watertight long before pen meets paper. This requires relentless attention to detail and a deep knowledge of your audience’s pain points. 

Brand strategy comes first 

Your brand must have a clear identity, including unique personality, tone, values, and objectives. Next, craft a brand story that speaks to your audience’s desires, fears, and aspirations. With a brand strategy firmly in place, you never run out of content ideas or post articles that misalign with business goals. 

Step-by-step guide to crafting an editorial calendar

Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating an editorial calendar:

1. Define goals and objectives. Nail down your goals and objectives, whether they’re boosting brand awareness or driving leads. Your editorial calendar should be laser-focused on your targets.
2. Research your audience. Get to know your audience inside and out. Dive deep into demographics, preferences, and pain points to tailor your content accordingly.
3. Ideate and plan the content. Brainstorm content ideas for the upcoming year that hit the mark with your audience and brand messaging and nod to potential viral moments. 
4. Map ideas onto your content calendar. Once you have a pool of content ideas, map them out on your editorial calendar. Consider seasonal relevancy, industry trends, and key events that may impact your audience’s interests.
5. Be specific. Allocate dates for each piece of content, ensuring a balanced mix of topics and formats each month. This helps you maintain engagement and motivates your audience to return for more.
6. Initiate content creation and collaboration. Assign tasks to your team and ensure everyone knows their role and deadlines. Collaboration is key here — writers, designers, and stakeholders should all be on the same page.
7. Start to publish and distribute the finished product. It’s time to get your content out there. Determine the best channels and timing for publication, maximizing your reach and engagement.
8. Maintain flexibility. Allow space for spontaneous content opportunities and last-minute adjustments to accommodate changes in your marketing strategy or the industry landscape.
9. Monitor your content’s success and optimize early on. Keep a close eye on your content’s performance using tools like Google Analytics. Track metrics such as impressions and organic traffic to fine-tune your editorial calendar.

SEO integration within your calendar

As Google’s algorithm grows ever more sophisticated, SEO becomes increasingly important. You’re not just optimizing content to meet a few criteria anymore — search algorithms expect high-quality, people-first content that delivers value. 

Here’s how to weave SEO into your editorial calendar:

• Keyword mapping: Make sure each piece strategically targets specific keywords to enhance its visibility in the SERPs. Use keyword research tools and allocate relevant phrases to each piece on your editorial calendar. Consider search volume, competitiveness, and how the phrases fit into the marketing funnel to pinpoint search intent. 
• Content mapping: Harmonize your editorial calendar with content mapping exercises. Identify topics and themes that resonate with your audience and integrate them into your calendar for a cohesive SEO strategy.
• Content gap analysis: Identify gaps in your content coverage using SEO tools and analytics. Schedule content ideation sessions to address gaps so you can capture untapped search opportunities.
• Topic clusters and pillar content: Consider organizing your calendar around topic clusters and pillar content. Identify core topics and supporting subtopics to create a cohesive content ecosystem that strengthens your website’s topical authority.
• Seasonal planning: Capitalize on seasonal trends and search queries when crafting your editorial calendar. Embed timely themes related to seasonal events, holidays, and industry trends to leverage spikes in search traffic.
• On-page optimization schedule: Incorporate on-page optimization directly within your editorial calendar. Assign specific time slots or deadlines for optimizing metadata, headers, and other on-page elements.

Infuse your editorial calendar with SEO best practices so your content attracts more organic traffic and solidifies brand authority online. 

Best Practices for Implementing Your Editorial Calendar

Looking for ways to level up your editorial calendar game? Follow these editorial calendar best practices to drive organic traffic and establish your brand as a force to be reckoned with. 

Collaborative excellence 

Forge strong cross-functional partnerships within your team to drive collaborative content planning. Reward experimentation and creativity whenever possible to demonstrate you embrace bold ideas and innovative approaches. 

Data-driven insights 

Regularly cast a keen eye over key performance indicators to determine areas for improvement. Use these insights to guide future content decisions, prioritizing initiatives with the highest ROI. 

Experiment with A/B testing to gauge perception and optimize engagement. Keep refining your approach based on this type of solid evidence, focusing on strategies that deliver tangible results. 

Content repurposing and amplification

Breathe new life into content through strategic repurposing. Locate the timeless gems within your content library and reshape and revitalize them to reach fresh audiences. You can even repurpose content for different social platforms to extend your content’s reach.

For amplification, play with diverse multimedia formats, such as videos, infographics, and podcasts, to cater to varied preferences and consumption habits.

Crowd Content’s Downloadable Editorial Calendar Template

Designed to streamline your planning process and maximize efficiency, our template is your ticket to organized and strategic content creation. 

How to use your downloadable template

Getting started with our editorial calendar template is a breeze. Navigate to the resources section of our website or scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll find the template available for download. Once downloaded, open the file using your preferred spreadsheet software, and you’re ready to roll.

The template is intuitively designed, with clearly labeled sections for content type, publication dates, channels, viral moments, responsible team members, and more. Input content ideas, deadlines, and team assignments, and marvel as your content strategy comes to life.

Customizing Crowd Content’s editorial calendar template 

What sets Crowd Content’s template apart is its flexibility and adaptability to various content strategies. Whether you’re a solopreneur managing a blog or a marketing team overseeing multiple campaigns, you can tailor our template to suit your needs.

Customization options abound, allowing you to add or remove columns, adjust date formats, and personalize categories to align with your brand’s unique requirements. Need to incorporate SEO keywords or track content performance metrics? Our template can accommodate it all.

Say goodbye to scattered content planning and hello to a results-driven strategy.

The post Master Content Planning With Editorial Calendar Templates appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

AI isn’t here to steal your creative thunder; it’s a secret weapon you can use to brainstorm fresh angles, conduct deeper research, and refine your writing with precision. In today’s digital marketing battleground, understanding AI-powered content creation isn’t just a clever move — it’s a necessity. 

Savvy marketers are already using AI to unlock new levels of efficiency and transform their workflows. But like any powerful tool, AI has a learning curve. Understanding how to navigate its complexities is key to harnessing its power and staying at the top of your game.

The Evolution of AI for Content Creation

The evolution of AI in content creation was slow and steady until the turn of the millennium, when technological advancement suddenly skyrocketed. The idea of AI might feel cutting-edge today, but the groundwork has been laid for decades. 

Let’s break down the key milestones:

• Early days (1950s-1990s): The foundation for AI was initially laid with Alan Turing’s 1950 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, and the development of Eliza, a rudimentary chatbot. Basic spell-checkers and grammar tools later hinted at AI’s potential.
• Natural language processing (NLP) advances (2000s): Significant strides in NLP led to more sophisticated language understanding for AI. This paved the way for tools offering summarization, synonym suggestions, and basic sentence structuring assistance.
• The rise of large language models (LLMs) (2010s-present): Google developed transformers in 2017 and revolutionized NLP. LLMs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 emerged around 2020, demonstrating impressive language generation, translation, and content optimization capabilities.

These days, AI isn’t just about automating small tasks. It can partner with you at every stage of the content creation process, including research, ideation, writing, and refinement. And the pace of innovation shows no signs of slowing down, with new tools coming out each year.

AI Tools for Enhancing Content

Deadlines loom, and you’re buzzing with ideas. What if you had a digital assistant to kick-start creative flow, streamline research, and polish prose until it shines?

That’s the power of AI-powered content creation tools. Actually, they’re more like content enhancement tools at the moment. They aren’t going to write your viral blog post with the click of a button, but they are valuable partners in your content journey. 

Gemini

Gemini scouts out competitor content, locates authoritative sources, and highlights gaps for you to fill with insightful and original copy. 

When you’re done writing an article, paste it into Gemini and specify areas you’d like it to analyze. It offers suggestions for improvement and tells you what you’ve aced. Detailed and specific prompts always inspire the best outcomes.  

SEO evangelist, George Varkey, shares his Gemini prompt for brainstorming content ideas.

What it does best: Research and analysis

We’ve all been there. Drowning in tabs and buried in PDFs, trying to piece together the big picture. Gemini does the heavy lifting — well, part of it. Asking it to do research on your behalf is risky, as it’s prone to hallucinations. 

However, it can summarize studies, web pages, and posts that would take you hours to read yourself. It can also analyze vast data sets to reveal hidden connections and patterns that might have slipped past you, giving your content a strategic edge.

How does Gemini compare to Google Search? 

Sure, Google Search is a knowledge powerhouse. But it’s similar to a massive, unorganized library. Gemini is your personal research assistant within that library. It fetches the right books, summarizes key sections, and highlights critical insights.  

Copy.ai

Copy.ai is a go-to tool for short, punchy content creation. Think marketing slogans, snappy social media posts, and persuasive product descriptions. Need fresh angles for an ad campaign? Copy.ai brainstorms ideas, suggests catchy headlines, and helps you achieve the right tone. Plus, it can whip up basic research summaries to get you started.

Don’t expect it to write your next thought-leadership article, though. Accuracy is hit-or-miss, and you’ll need to think carefully about plagiarism. Tech Report’s William Baxter offers some crucial advice:

What it does best: Content inspiration 

Copy.ai excels at generating a flurry of ideas quickly. Its strength lies in its ability to generate creative variations, helping you break out of a rut or find the perfect word choice. It’s your brainstorming buddy, always ready to bounce ideas around.

How does Copy.ai compare to CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer?

While a headline analyzer scores your headline and recommends improvements, Copy.ai does the whole thing for you. It helps you craft short-form content pieces and offers research assistance.

Grammarly

Grammarly hunts down typos, suggests word replacements, and flags potential grammatical errors. Plus, it analyzes tone and overall clarity. Need feedback on a draft’s readability? Grammarly has your back. However, don’t rely on it to catch complex factual errors, offer creative ideas, or help structure your content strategy.

What it does best: Helps you catch spelling, grammar, and awkward phrasing

Grammarly excels at boosting the clarity and correctness of your writing. The tool is particularly adept at catching the sneaky typos and awkward phrasing that tends to slip past human eyes. Each week, it gives you a report with insights into your writing that you can use to improve your writing in the future. 

How does Grammarly compare to spell-check?

Grammarly is like Windows spell check on steroids. The premium version can even help you find weak adjectives and better alternatives. This type of feature helps you improve as a writer over time. 

Can LLMs check for grammar and spelling?

Keep in mind that even advanced LLMs, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, aren’t capable of reliable copy editing or grammar checking. While they can give you an overall analysis of your content’s grammar, style, and punctuation, they can’t do what Grammarly does.

For example, if you ask Gemini to fix your punctuation and grammar, it will likely give you a more concise version of what you wrote. However, it probably won’t make sense.

You’ll notice it has amended the text a little but hasn’t added anything in terms of grammar. In fact, it’s taken two sentences and joined them together into one giant mega-sentence.  

Always double-check facts, figures, and everything else in AI-generated content. Accuracy is crucial for maintaining trust. Without your human spark, content won’t demonstrate E-E-A-T, and Google will consider it spam — yes, even if it was written by Google’s own Gemini. If you become overly reliant on AI for content creation, expect your engagement metrics to fall drastically. 

Engage Your Audience With AI Personalization Tools 

Through analysis of your audience’s preferences and behaviors, AI personalization tools help you craft content that feels tailor-made, leading to deeper engagement and stronger connections.

Albert.ai

Albert.ai is an autonomous AI marketing strategist, specializing in personalized content and ad campaigns. It analyzes vast swathes of customer data, identifying patterns and trends within your audience. Based on this, Albert.ai tweaks ad targeting, optimizes content delivery, and even suggests new content formats to maximize engagement.

That said, it requires a significant amount of data to function effectively, and setup can be complex for smaller businesses without dedicated tech support. It’s also incredibly expensive. 

What Albert.ai does best: Tailoring marketing efforts at scale

This tool excels at analyzing data to identify highly specific audience segments, and then dynamically adjusts content or bidding strategies across multiple platforms in real time.

How does Albert.ai compare to audience segmentation tools?

Albert.ai’s personalized ad campaign management is similar to the audience segmentation tools on platforms such as Mailchimp, but it has a broader reach and more advanced automation capabilities.

Although Albert.ai is a powerful tool, it still clearly reinforces the importance of human-AI collaboration.

Rytr

Rytr is a low-cost AI writing assistant that includes several personalization tools. It generates alternative text variations so you can test what resonates with different audiences. Impressively, the tool can rewrite content in various tones, such as formal or casual. 

What it does best: A/B testing 

Need to tailor social posts, emails, or ads for different audiences? Rytr quickly generates variations in your chosen tone, from formal to friendly. In turn, you can test which versions resonate best with your target audience. All in all, it’s an easy-to-use platform that introduces you to the benefits of AI content personalization, without any complex setup.

How does Rytr compare to Buffer’s A/B testing tools?

Rytr’s personalization features are comparable to Buffer’s A/B testing tools, allowing you to see how different word choices impact engagement.

As a writing assistant, it can also create content on your behalf. However, like any LLM, it generates basic, uninspired content that’s full of errors. Regie Njoki Kibugu’s example of what Rytr can do showcases its limitations as an actual writer:

Remember that Google indiscriminately flags low-effort content as spam. Even with the best intentions, it’s impossible to rank without expert writing, editing, and strategy guiding your efforts.   

Climb the SERPs Using AI Tools for SEO

While user intent has always been important, the latest upgrades to Google’s algorithms mean it’s now front and center. These AI-driven technologies have a deep understanding of context, signaling a shift toward more conversational content that directly answers users’ questions.

SurferSEO

SurferSEO is a powerful AI-based content optimization tool. 

Take a look at our in-depth review of SurferSEO to learn more about what it can do.

QuestionDB

QuestionDB is one of the best free AI tools for capturing user intent and turning it into content. Learn more about it in our AI tools for SEO article.   

What AI-driven SEO strategies can content creators adopt?

AI can help you analyze what competitors are ranking for, spot gaps you can fill with killer content, and suggest the best conversational keywords. What’s more, Google adores well-structured content that’s easy to navigate — AI tools can help you get the formatting just right. 

How is AI influencing SEO practices in content creation?

The influence of AI means analyzing search trends and understanding user intent should go way beyond keywords. It’s about deciphering what people truly need. AI can crunch enormous data sets, identifying patterns and subtle nuances in how people search. This reveals the questions they’re asking, the problems they’re trying to solve, and their emotional state.

Access to this type of information gives you a serious edge. Yes, you can optimize for high-traffic keywords, but that’s table stakes. To win at SEO and rank high on the SERPs, you must craft content that resonates deeply with your audience while aligning with search engines’ understanding of context. 

A Guide to Building Your AI Content Strategy

Integrating AI into your content strategy isn’t about replacing your existing processes. Instead, aim to strategically enhance them. Here’s how to strike the right balance:

• Start with goals: Don’t adopt AI for the sake of it. What specific bottlenecks does AI address? Are you aiming for faster ideation, deeper research, or more efficient editing? Define your goals to guide your tool selection.
• Choose wisely: Consider budget, team skills, and content needs. A powerhouse such as Albert.ai is overkill for a small blog, while Rytr lacks the depth required for in-depth articles. 
• The human touch: AI is a powerful teammate, not a replacement for your team — unless you’re prepared to significantly increase your own workload. Use AI for its strengths, such as data analysis, content ideation, and creating content briefs. Leave strategy finessing, nuanced understanding, and consistent brand voice to human experts.
• Do and learn: AI and content landscapes evolve rapidly. Regularly reassess how your tools are performing against your goals. Don’t be afraid to experiment and keep looking for new solutions.

Innovative approaches to using AI for content planning

Beyond efficiency gains and research assistance, AI unlocks novel possibilities for content planning.

• AI-assisted content briefs: You’re juggling multiple clients and projects as a content agency. AI tools can analyze a client’s existing content, competitors, and target audience. This provides a strong foundation for content briefs. Add your expertise and refine the brief, saving hours on research and strategy while leveling up your content game.
• Predictive analytics: Say you run a travel blog. AI tools can monitor trending destinations mentioned on social media and competitor websites. This gives you first dibs on emerging hotspots, positioning you to create timely content with a better chance of ranking high on the SERPs.
• Hyper-personalization: AI tracks user interactions, identifying their areas of interest. Using that intel, you can suggest personalized content journeys and strategically show relevant articles, videos, and resources, deepening their engagement on your site.
• Repurposing with a twist: You’ve written a comprehensive industry report for your tech company. AI can break it down into digestible, catchy social media posts, create explanatory infographics, and even generate a basic webinar script.

AI Will Continue to Transform Content

Technology keeps marching forward. Don’t get left in the dust. It’s time to experiment, adapt, and harness the power of AI to elevate your content. 

Sign up for our newsletter so you can stay updated on AI’s impact on content creation and tap into the resources and ideas you need to thrive in the age of AI-powered content.

The post How to Use AI for Content Creation appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

With so many tools out there, we know firsthand that finding the right ones can be confusing. We curated this ultimate guide to share what we’ve learned with you. Discover two paid and three free SEO tools, their pros and cons, and the real-world problems they solve. 

If you’re in a hurry, check out our quick guides: 

Free SEO Optimization Tools

Google Search Console 

Best for website troubleshooting and performance tracking

Intro to the tool

Search Console is your first step toward mastering search engine optimization. It helps anyone with a website get a grasp on the basics, and it’s a must-have tool for pros. Search Analytics shows you the terms people punch into Google Search to find your site, helping you refine content. Plus, tools like sitemap submissions and the Index Coverage Report simplifies how Google categorizes and ranks your pages. 

Pros and cons 

Pros of Search Console:

• Content strategy: Get vital intel on how users find your site on Google, what they click on, and how your pages rank. 
• Troubleshooting in your hands: Search Console alerts you to things like 404 errors and other issues that prevent your site from ranking higher. Fixing small errors makes a big difference, so never ignore an alert.
• Specialty reports: Dig into Google’s specialized reports to understand and improve your site’s mobile usability and links. 

Cons of Search Console:

• Data overload: If you’re new to SEO, the sheer amount of information can be overwhelming. But don’t let it put you off. Learn how to use it step by step, tool by tool.
• Manual labor: Fixes aren’t automatic, so you need some technical knowledge to take action on Search Console’s insights. 
• Delayed info: It doesn’t provide real-time data, but you can use it to focus on trends and issues over time. 

Special features

Search Console is a direct line of communication between you and Google Search. It provides actionable data about how Google indexes your site, alerts you to critical issues and tells you which search terms you’re ranking for.   

Pricing

Google Search Console is available at no cost.

What we’ve heard

Tom Demers, cofounder of Measured SEM and Cornerstone Content, outlines Google Search Console’s functions:

Demers says he “likes that Google Search Console monitors, debugs, and optimizes your website — and you don’t need to know how to code to benefit from this tool.”

What are Google Search Console’s use cases?

Here are some examples of how different users might incorporate Search Console into their SEO strategy:

• Technical SEO: Monitor Core Web Vitals to identify and troubleshoot website speed and user experience issues. This helps maintain high engagement and reduce bounce rates.
  
• E-commerce site owner: Track indexing issues for product pages and make sure Google is discovering new products. This drives your site’s visibility and sales since you can quickly address indexing failures through instant alerts.
  
• Recipe blog: Identify high-potential keywords with low competition through Search Analytics. Use these insights to tweak your content to improve rankings for those terms.
  
• Restaurant: Measure clicks from Google Maps results and queries such as “restaurants near me” or “best contemporary American cuisine in New York.” This refines your SEO strategies to target local customers more effectively.

• SaaS website: Catch crawl errors, troubleshoot broken pages, and check that you’ve implemented structured data — think product schema — correctly. 
  
• Web developer: Use the Fetch as Google feature to test how Googlebot renders pages and diagnoses rendering issues that might be invisible to users but prevent Google from understanding your pages.

Google Business Profile 

Best for boosting local businesses’ visibility on Google  

Intro to the tool

Google Business Profile is your online storefront, only better. Use it to tell customers about your hours, contact info, photos, directions, and reviews. Google displays this info prominently on local Google Maps and Search results. Optimize it and collect enough glowing reviews, and you’ll be at the top of the deck when web users search for your industry in your location. 

It’s best for:

• Brick-and-mortar businesses: Retailers, restaurants, tradespeople, service businesses, and any company with a physical location customers visit.
• Businesses with a strong local customer base: A strong GBP presence is a must if your business serves a defined geographic area.

Pros and cons 

Pros of Google Business Profile:

• Local SEO hero: GBP puts your business on the map — literally. It’s designed to connect your services with the needs of local customers effectively. 
• Customer interaction hub: Use the platform to respond to messages, answer questions, and show off how responsive you are.
• Full of insights: Track clicks, calls, site visits, and other hard data that helps you understand how customers and prospects interact with your brand. 

Cons of Google Business Profile:

• Requires regular updates: You need to update your profile regularly to stay relevant and rank high in local searches.
• Intensely competitive: Local SEO is a fierce battleground, especially in populated areas. Go all out to make your listing stand out.
• Limited control: It’s your profile, but Google might make changes or add content you can’t amend. 

Special features

Optimizing your Google Business Profile is the best way to get discovered online locally. When you search for a service, Google shows you three results under a map. Make your way into the “local pack,” as it’s known, and watch footfall and site traffic soar. Add attributes, such as “women-owned” or “outdoor seating,” to show your target audience key details at a glance.   

Pricing

Google Business Profile is available at no cost.

What we’ve heard

Digital marketing guru Neil Patel says:

“Keeping tabs on your Google Business Profile using Google Maps or Google Search allows you to step into your audience’s shoes and see what your business looks like online to them. Keeping your profile up to date is crucial to making sure you and your customers are on the same page.”

What are Google Business Profile’s use cases?

• Small business owners: Ensure your listing is complete, accurate, and has a bunch of high-quality photos. A well-maintained profile can build trust and attract more customers. 
  
• Multilocation brands: Use GBP’s bulk location management features to streamline updates across all your stores.
  
• Service-based businesses: Proactively ask happy customers for reviews and manage them with care to build credibility.

QuestionDB

Best for content ideation and keyword research using real user questions

Intro to the tool

Google’s 2024 deal with Reddit highlights a key trend: people are using conversational searches. QuestionDB mines questions asked by real people on real platforms such as Reddit and Quora, giving you actionable real-world data, such as long-tail keywords and emerging search trends. This free tool can help you drive serious, conversion-focused traffic. 

Pros and cons 

Pros of QuestionDB:

• Never assume again: See the questions people are genuinely asking instead of making assumptions.  
• Audience insight goldmine: Dig deep and create detailed audience personas based on your target market’s questions. Learn about their pain points and desires to find new ideas, and watch new ones pop up daily.
• Target SGE and conversational search: QuestionDB shows you how conversations translate into search behavior. Analyzing Reddit-sourced questions shows you what’s gaining traction before it hits the mainstream.  

Cons of QuestionDB:

• Requires data analysis: You have to carefully sort through results and understand how to translate queries into search intent. Then, transform that knowledge into bottom-of-the-funnel content. 
• Can get overwhelming: QuestionDB offers a ton of data, so focus your searches to avoid overload.
• One small part of a solution: Without strong writing and strategic SEO, knowing which questions to ask won’t propel your content to the top of the SERPs.

Special features

QuestionDB is a uniquely useful tool for any brand, marketer, or freelancer looking to improve their ideation game. Find questions that people are asking in your niche and create content to satisfy their curiosity. 

Pricing

The basic plan is free, and QuestionDB recommends trying it out before deciding if you require the paid plan. For more extensive features, consider the paid plan options: $15 per month for an individual and $50 for an agency.

What we’ve heard

Digital marketing influencer Matt Shirley sums up the benefits of using QuestionDB:

“Publishing high-quality content around questions that real people ask will not only help you rank higher on Google, your business will also gain more authority and establish topical expertise.”

What are QuestionDB’s use cases?

• Content manager: Supercharge your editorial calendar with questions people are actually asking in your industry.
• E-commerce business owner: Craft content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and search intent.
• SEO strategist: Target the conversational keywords that offer a better chance of ranking high and addressing users at the decision-making stage of the buying process.
  

Paid and Advanced SEO Tools

SurferSEO

Best for AI-powered on-page optimization

Intro to the tool

SurferSEO gives you the blueprint to create content that ranks. Get keyword guidance and on-page optimization tools and see what’s working on Google. It provides data-driven guidelines for keyword density, related terms, optimal word count, and which headings to use. 

Curious about AI-generated content? SurferSEO has an AI-driven writing tool you can test drive. Such an advanced toolkit might initially intimidate beginners, but as soon as you have a firm grasp on SEO basics, this comprehensive platform can help your agency or brand rank higher on SERPs.

Pros and cons 

Pros of SurferSEO:

• Handy blueprint: SurferSEO analyzes more than 500 signals across the top 10 articles currently ranking on Google. It uses this data to generate a blueprint to help you craft SEO-optimized content. 
• AI-powered: SurferAI can create articles in minutes.
• Audits and content gap analysis: Surfer performs thorough content audits and content gap analysis to help you level up your content strategy. 

Cons of SurferSEO:

• AI hallucinations: Relying on AI-generated content for factual information, grammar, syntax, storytelling, and brand voice isn’t an option. AI content without human oversight comes across as low-effort to readers and search engines and could get flagged as spam by Google.  
• Steep learning curve: Surfer offers a comprehensive suite of SEO tools that are more useful for individuals and teams with SEO know-how. However, it’s expensive, so make sure you understand how to extract the maximum ROI before investing.
• Critical oversight needed: Sometimes, Surfer suggests keywords that aren’t relevant to your content at all. It’s a tool, not a fix-all. Think critically and don’t over-rely on it. 

Special features

Some of SurferSEO’s unique features include:

• SERP Analyzer: View a dashboard offering a detailed look at what’s currently ranking and see how your page stacks up.
• Keyword Research: Strategize using topic clusters for a holistic SEO approach.
• Integrations: Integrates with Jasper, WordPress, Google Docs, and Contentful. 
  

Pricing

• Essential: $89 per month — ideal for small business owners and freelancers
• Scale: $129 per month — suited for for midsize agencies and marketing teams
• Scale AI: $219 per month — designed for agencies and content teams looking to scale up with AI
• Enterprise: $399 per month — best for large agencies and marketing teams

What we’ve heard

SEO sage Matthew Woodward says:

“I like it because it helps me with my SEO daily tasks in a way no other tool in that price range does. It has quickly become a key tool in my SEO process, and we are seeing more and more SurferSEO success stories by the day.”

What are SurferSEO’s use cases?

• Lifestyle blog: Optimize existing articles on “healthy recipes” to improve their ranking potential by adding additional keywords found in the SERP analysis.
• Digital marketing agency: Create detailed content briefs for clients that include keyword targets, content length, and structure recommendations based on SurferSEO’s competitor analysis.
• Online course provider: Identify content gaps on competitors’ websites related to “learn [insert industry]” that you can fill to draw in qualified traffic.

Ahrefs 

Best link-building tool for big brands and agencies  

Intro to the tool

Ahrefs is your backlink analysis buddy. It’s a favorite tool among SEO experts because it helps uncover who’s linking to competitors, finds new link-building opportunities, and keeps tabs on your website’s backlink profile. Backlinks are one element of SEO success — think of them as endorsements from other sites. Ahrefs helps you get the backlinks that will make an impact on your SERP ranking.

Pros and cons 

Pros of Ahrefs:

• Massive backlink database: Ahrefs  has an extensive, regularly updated backlink database, making it a go-to resource for SEO-boosting link-building efforts.
• Robust toolkit: Ahrefs does more than analyze your backlinks. It offers solid features for keyword research, content analysis, and competitor tracking.
• Data-driven directions: Ahrefs helps you interpret complex data like a pro and tells you how to turn those insights into an action plan.

Cons of Ahrefs:

• Steep learning curve: Ahrefs is a professional tool that’s ideal for agencies, big businesses, and freelance SEO specialists. Those new to SEO might need time to fully realize its potential.
• Pricey investment: Ahrefs is expensive.
• Backlinks might not be as vital as they once were: Google is starting to prioritize user intent, E-E-A-T, brand mentions, UX, and comprehensive content just as much as links. If you’re on a budget, you can focus on these elements without spending a fortune on software.

Special features

• Site Explorer: Take a deep dive into any website’s backlink profile. Find out who links to it and what the most valuable links are.
• Rank Tracker: Keep tabs on your search rankings and see how they compare to competitors.
• Site audits: Ahrefs crawls your site to generate a detailed report on technical SEO issues that could hamper your ranking potential.

Pricing

• Lite: $79 per month — ideal for small businesses and side projects
• Standard: $159 per month — suitable for marketing consultants and SEO professionals
• Advanced: $319 per month — designed for lean in-house teams
• Enterprise: $799 per month — best for large agencies and major enterprises

What we’ve heard

Backlinko boss Brian Dean uses Ahrefs for broken link building. He says it’s “because I can EASILY find broken external and internal links in Ahrefs. In fact, this simple feature has saved me dozens of hours.”

What are Ahrefs use cases?

• Digital marketing agency: Track clients’ backlink profiles, identify and act on link-building opportunities, and generate reports to show off your results.
• E-commerce store selling outdoor gear: Discover where competitors get backlinks on camping blogs, hiking forums, and peer review sites. Then, target those same websites for your own products.
• Recipe blog: Understand which recipes attract the most backlinks and prioritize creating similar content to improve your site’s appeal.
• SaaS company: Identify review websites and industry blogs featuring your competitors. Pitch your product for inclusion on those same sites.

SEO Tools Are One Element of Your SEO Strategy

SEO tools are powerful, but they’re not crystal balls. A suggested keyword might be popular, but is it truly relevant to your business? Can your content deliver on what searchers expect? Remember, tools inform your strategy, but your expertise guides it.

While SEO is an essential piece of the digital marketing puzzle, it’s not the whole picture. Outstanding user experience, compelling content that genuinely addresses customer needs, and alignment with your brand voice are just as crucial for long-term success.

What’s the Best Tool for SEO?

There’s no single best tool for SEO optimization. The ones that work for you depend on your customers’ needs, business goals, and level of expertise.

Our CEO, Carlos Meza, sums it up:

“There are many SEO optimization tools available on the market. You need to pick the one that works best for your business type. For instance, there are tools that are better suited for enterprise, while there are others better suited for SMBs.

Also, you need to keep in mind that these tools only offer a blueprint, and some of their information isn’t 100% accurate. You should always exercise critical thinking and use data from the tools as one piece of information and not the ultimate answer. Combining Insights from the tools with your experience and critical thinking is the best formula.” 

For those ready to take their SEO strategy to the next level, our SEO Content Writing Services are here to help. Visit our SEO Content Writing Services page to learn more about how we can enhance your content’s SEO performance.

The post Tools for SEO Optimization appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Today’s AI landing page creation tools leverage emerging artificial intelligence tech to significantly speed up the process of producing stunning pages, saving you time and effort in the process. They also make your production routine more efficient by reducing the potential for human error and bridging any possible design or copywriting limitations. 

The individual benefits AI landing page builders bring to the table vary from tool to tool, but some key examples to keep in mind include:

• Features like A/B testing tools to optimize layouts and smart copywriting assistants to craft compelling headlines and CTAs
• Help creating or fine-tuning written copy
• Seamless integration with your existing digital marketing stack
  

Whether or not you decide to make AI part of your ongoing strategy, making multiple landing pages part of the mix is always advisable. Doing so significantly boosts search engine visibility while giving your conversion rates wings, and using AI wisely is one way to take the hassle and tedium out of the process.

However, it’s also crucial to understand that while AI tools like landing page builders are genuine game-changers, they should always be approached as tools. Even the best AI-generated content requires a round of human-powered editing, fact-checking, and polishing to ensure accuracy, proper brand messaging, and alignment with your long-term business goals.

Why AI Landing Page Builders Are Game-Changers

Putting together even one high-converting landing page that successfully drives traffic and converts visitors frequently takes hours, even for experienced marketers. Producing multiple pages, each as efficient as the last, naturally takes even longer. 

Today’s cutting-edge AI technology streamlines this process by speeding it up, removing the guesswork, and saving you a fortune in time and money. Here are some key examples of how.

Automation

As any experienced digital marketing professional already knows, automating repetitive tasks changes the game entirely. An AI landing page builder saves you time and reduces the likelihood of human error by automating tasks like image optimization, filling pages with content, swiftly inserting keywords, etc.

Effective personalization

In 2024, audiences expect more from the content they consume than thin, generic information, landing pages included. They want relevant, personalized content that feels on-target when it comes to their needs and goals. AI builders bridge this gap by analyzing user behavior and suggesting appropriate improvements.

Dynamic variations

The more landing pages your campaign calls for, the harder it becomes to keep each one as distinctive and engaging as all the others. AI helps facilitate the different variations on a theme that you need for your campaign to be truly successful.

Improved efficiency

Whether you’re working solo or with an entire marketing team, the right AI tools fill in the gaps in expertise. They allow you to create high-performance landing pages without needing specialized skills in design, copywriting and layout. You can achieve awesome results without being a design or marketing expert.

Helpful insights

AI page builders often offer users additional insights into each page’s efficiency. Instead of crossing your fingers, publishing your page, and hoping for the best, these tools offer predictive analytics and performance suggestions to help you optimize future performance.

Naturally, it’s not impossible to create high-conversion landing pages without AI. But adding AI to your workflow can make it easier to accurately personalize your user experience and make your pages more engaging. When brands make consumers feel valued and understood, they earn sales and win customers.

Top AI Landing Page Builders on the Market

AI is red hot in 2024, and getting hotter by the second. As a result, there are numerous page builders and helpful tools on the market today, making it tough to choose the right option for you. Check out our comprehensive AI landing page software comparison round-up below for a closer look at some of today’s best, most widely trusted options.

Sitekick

Superlative

Best for businesses of all types and sizes

Intro to the builder

Sitekick’s biggest claims to fame are its speed and versatility. Designed to serve businesses of various sizes and types, Sitekick leverages cutting-edge automation tech to produce stunning landing pages that are both aesthetically pleasing and fully optimized with conversions in mind.

Pros and cons

Sitekick’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to customize the tool to suit your needs. You can customize your dashboard and analytics tools to better match your business goals and preferences. It also integrates seamlessly with popular platforms like Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Shopify, and WordPress.

However, some users report having issues using Sitekick on older devices or with niche browsers. It’s also less focused on key digital marketing factors like SEO, website accessibility, and website performance than other options may be, so you’ll want to adopt additional measures to cover those bases.

Special features

What features set Sitekick apart from the rest of the options out there? Let us count the ways:

• One-click landing page creation lets you create your next page in just seconds.
• Conversion is front and center thanks to high-performance design, development, and copywriting options.
• Sitekick users get ongoing access to DALL-E 3, which means endless original AI-generated images that are just right for your pages.
• Integrated AI is the result of high-level training on over 1,000 top-performing landing pages for maximum results.

Pricing

At the time of this posting, there isn’t a free trial available. However, Sitekick offers three different pricing tiers, the better to suit a wide range of businesses. Monthly rates come in at $20 for the Basic package, $49 for Pro, and $99 for Agency.

What we’ve heard

“Sitekick has helped me save time and money,” says Andy Matthews of Nicely Network. “I’m able to quickly build great-looking, conversion-focused landing pages with just a few clicks of the mouse!”

Use case and best practices

Sitekick’s interface is fairly foolproof, even if you have little experience creating landing pages. Additionally, you can maximize the quality of your initial results by accurately describing your product or service in detail. It’s also a good idea to further polish and refine your copy via a human touch to ensure accuracy, tone, and flow.

Headlime

Superlative

Best for easy customization

Intro to the builder

Featuring a user-friendly drag-and-drop system, Headlime is a solid choice for would-be landing page designers who want to create genuinely unique landing pages regardless of their skill level. Think hundreds of pre-built templates, stunning fonts, and unique features to help your page stand out.

Pros and cons

Headlime goes beyond simply helping you generate compelling copy with AI to fully integrating it into an optimized HTML template. The extensive range of available templates and customization options takes the guesswork out of helping your pages look sleek, original, and unique. You can also try Headlime out for free when you sign up for a trial.

One possible drawback is that Headlime operates on a credit-based system for individuals and smaller businesses, which may not suit everyone. There are also only two tier options to choose from with a significant price difference between them.

Special features

What features help Headlime stand out and make it a particularly solid choice? Here are some examples:

• A streamlined algorithm-based interface ensures all generated copy is properly personalized to suit your audience.
• The highly user-friendly editor lets you drag and drop various elements to create unique designs, choose from a wide range of colors, select unique fonts, etc.
• Headlime’s AI is designed with conversion in mind.
• The page builder is ultra-fast, choosing and optimizing ideal templates based on the provided product description in just seconds.
• Besides the landing page builder, Headlime offers a document generator and an AI blog assistant.

Pricing

Headlime offers two different user tier packages — the individual package for $59 per month or the business package which scales starting at $399 per month based on number of users. You can try either package on for size before committing via a free trial, with no credit card necessary.

What we’ve heard

“A fantastic little gem,” says speaker and author Robin Good regarding his Headlime experience. “It truly does what it promises.”

Use case and best practices

Headlime isn’t just great at taking the hassle out of generating beautiful, effective web pages in instants. It can also help you give important portions of your content some pop. Be sure to try out the headline generation option for some eye-catching ideas, as well as all of the customization choices.

Unbounce

Superlative

Best for boosting conversions

Intro to the builder

Unbounce is true to its name with a strong focus on maximizing conversions and lowering bounce rates. It accomplishes this by routing web visitors to the most appropriate of your landing pages for their needs. Features like personalized recommendations, popups, and sticky bars make the creation process easy, too.

Pros and cons

Unbounce is ideal for marketers looking to improve user experience (UX) thanks to features that ensure mobile responsiveness, a simple A/B testing option, and various personalization approaches. It also comes equipped with a suite of highly effective conversion tracking tools.

However, prospective users should be aware that split-testing options are only available via the higher tiers. There are also monthly conversion limits to consider. Some users report minor alignment issues between the standard and mobile versions of the builder, as well.

Special features

The following are just a few examples of features that set Unbounce apart for those looking to build fantastic landing pages with AI:

• You can easily create proven standout page features with Unbounce, including pop-ups, sticky bars, and similar options.
• Templates are industry-optimized to maximize results and make getting started easy.
• Dynamic text options let you adjust the copy of your landing pages to better match with the search terms that bring in visitors.
• A/B testing takes the guesswork out of improving your pages over time.
• Advanced copywriting tools let you expand and remix content, in addition to generating it.

Pricing

You can try Unbounce free for fourteen days, making it a great option for those looking for the best free AI landing page builders. From there, you can choose from four different pricing tiers. Monthly fees are $79 for the Build tier, $149 for the Experiment tier, $249 for the Optimize tier, and $649 for the Concierge tier.

What we’ve heard

Nick Heim of Hotjar reports a major jump in new users after integrating Unbounce into the company workflow. “We’re getting 60-70 new users per month as a result of Unbounce popups,” he says.

Use case and best practices

Get the most out of Unbounce’s exceptional potential for boosting conversions by taking full advantage of its customization tools. Creator recommendations guide you through the building process step by step, regardless of your skill level. Take advantage of the A/B testing feature to help ensure all of your pages are measuring up to their full potential.

Canva

Superlative

Best for builders who need a free option

Intro to the builder

Canva is a long-time favorite among bloggers, marketers, and content creators everywhere for its user-friendly selection of design tools. These include a free AI landing page builder that simplifies processes like building newsletter audiences or showcasing key products.

Pros and cons

Canva’s unparalleled popularity is largely due to its ease of use and low learning curve. Creating landing pages is simple, intuitive, and easy to facilitate via mobile devices, making it a great choice for content creators and marketers who frequently work this way. There are plenty of dynamic, beautiful design options to explore for various purposes, as well.

However, Canva may not be the best fit for marketers in search of an advanced SEO-forward option. There are also limits to what Canva can accomplish when it comes to important factors like web responsiveness and advanced optimization.

Special features

Thinking of giving Canva a shot at helping you generate your next collection of landing pages? Here’s a closer look at some of the key features you can look forward to exploring:

• Choose from a free catalog of thousands of customizable templates.
• You can easily use Canva to put together a stunning color palette based on any image — perfect for matching branded assets you already have.
• Canva is extremely share-friendly with lots of tools for exporting and distributing content.
• Access a wide range of free imagery, icons, graphics, and other visual assets with Canva.
• You can use Canva to customize tables, charts, and similar features with ease.

Pricing

Canva users have four different pricing tiers to consider. The first is the free tier, which is available to single users. When you’re ready to upgrade, monthly rates for additional tiers shake out to $14.99 for Canva Pro, $15.99 per person for Canva for Teams, and a case-by-case pricing system for Canva Enterprise.

What we’ve heard

“Canva has become our one-stop shop,” says Expedia Group’s own Molly Martin. “Just being able to be in one centralized place and grab a logo, photo, or template is incredible.”

Use case and best practices

Canva is terrific for creating landing pages that blend seamlessly into your ongoing approach to branding. Be sure to take advantage of options like the color palette creator to ensure your creations make it clear your brand is behind them. Experiment with additional features to add elements like video, vectors, icons, and textures for added creativity.

Writesonic

Superlative

Best for high-quality written copy and headlines

Intro to the builder

Marketers looking for an AI landing page builder that can handle copy like a champ are great candidates for Writesonic. Top-tier text-generation tools take the confusion out of generating options like dynamic headlines, calls-to-action, feature-benefit breakdowns, and pain point-focused copy.

Pros and cons

Writesonic is truly impressive when it comes to AI-generated copywriting. Not only can it help you generate amazing headlines, conversion-focused calls-to-action, and well-structured copy, but you can also adjust voice or style and seamlessly integrate target keywords into generated text. It’s also a great tool for content creation teams due to its collaborative features.

But as effective as Writesonic is on the copy front, it’s somewhat limited when it comes to other advanced editing features, especially as compared to other options on the market. Some users also say it has a steeper learning curve than average.

Special features

Need a closer look at some of the individual features that make Writesonic such a popular choice in 2024? Here are a few examples to consider:

• Writesonic guarantees 100% original content 
• It can create  everything from blog posts, to advertising copy and dynamic meta descriptions.
• Summaries are also easy to create, thanks to a one-click article summarizer feature.
• Need to adjust existing copy to better suit your needs? Try the text expander to flesh out or otherwise lengthen your copy.
• Choose from a wealth of content-generation templates designed for optimizing website copy, social media content, product descriptions, blog posts, standalone articles, and ads.

Pricing

Writesonic features a good range of usage tiers and pricing options, so there’s truly an option here for everyone. (Different tiers grant access to different Writesonic features.) There’s a free tier available for single users who’d like to try it on for size. Monthly fees for additional tiers are $15 for Chatsonic Pro, $20 for Individual, $30 for Teams, and custom case-by-case pricing for Enterprise.

What we’ve heard

Writesonic’s Wall of Love is full of testimonials from happy customers who love it. Verified Writesonic user Kevin Mooney loves the quality level of Writesonic’s output and says, “The AI sometimes generates better ideas and writes better than me.” Other users praise the product for its impeccable grammar, accuracy, and versatility.

Use case and best practices

Writesonic is best used to help out with copy-focused landing pages and features, like headlines, meta descriptions, basic blog posts, and advertising copy. It can also help with overcoming writer’s block andgenerating new content ideas. 

For best results, consider adding Writesonic to a broader workflow that also includes page design tools and professional copy editors who can help add a human touch to your content.

Take Your AI Landing Page Builder Results to the Next Level

In 2024, it’s safe to say that AI tools are more than just a fad or a passing trend. This is revolutionary technology capable of making brands and marketing teams significantly more productive while also helping them maximize creativity.

Top AI landing page builders like Sitekick, Headlime, and Writesonic help compensate for knowledge gaps and democratize the ability to create genuinely stunning landing pages that convert. Comparing AI landing page builder features and pricing before pulling the trigger on a purchase ensures a choice you’ll be happy with.

However, pages that rocket to the top of key search engine results pages (SERPs) should also pass through the hands of expert human copy editors to guarantee high quality, pinpoint accuracy, and consistent brand voice. The key to succeeding with AI isn’t to treat it as a replacement for human creativity but to leverage it to make talented human creators more productive.

Don’t have a full-time copy editor on the payroll? Let Crowd Content’s copy editing team take your AI-generated content and transform it into something absolutely unstoppable. Take the next step, learn more about our trusted copy editing services today, and treat your online presence to the polish it deserves.

The post What Are the Best AI Landing Page Builders on the Market in 2024? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

These platforms help gather and deliver valuable insights into audience behavior, keyword performance, and overall content effectiveness. To help leverage this intelligence, we evaluated some of the top content analytics software on the market. Read on to learn about available options, features, and pricing and how these tools can help refine your marketing strategies and boost the impact of your content.

Benefits of Content Analytics Tools

Sometimes, you might feel like you’re submerged in data. You’ve got stats flowing in from your website, social networks, marketing emails, paid ads, and influencer campaigns. How do you harness this data and make informed decisions about your digital strategy?

You could manually compile bits and pieces in a spreadsheet and attempt to find patterns and trends, but it’s more effective to use software built just for this purpose. Some benefits of using content analytics tools include:

• Efficiency: Content marketing analytics tools automate the gathering and processing of data, eliminating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. This lets you focus on interpreting the numbers rather than compiling them.
• Integration: Technology can streamline the process of gathering data, instantly pulling information from various channels.
• Accuracy: Automated platforms process large volumes of data with precision, eliminating human mistakes and inconsistencies in approaches.
• Versatility: You can segment data across channels, formats, and audiences to look at interactions from different perspectives and more accurately adapt your strategies.
• Artificial intelligence: Powerful content analytics tools leverage predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI-driven insights. In other words, by analyzing historical trends and learning as new information comes in, these tools can make your business highly responsive and competitive.

Essential Features for Content Analytics Tools

To choose a tool that meets your brand’s unique needs, consider what you want to achieve with your analytics. Common functionalities include:

• Insights into audience demographics and behaviors to help tailor content
• Engagement metrics to determine which content performs the best
• SEO analysis to help boost search visibility
• Competitor analysis to ensure you’re keeping up with similar websites
• Content optimization to help fine-tune content to better engage audiences
• Conversion tracking to evaluate how well you’re driving desired actions
• AI-powered analytics to personalize user experience and capitalize on predicted trends

Not all tools have the same robust features, so use our list below to narrow down possible options. Before making a final decision, read reviews from other users, consider scalability and integrations with your existing systems, and take advantage of free trials and demos to find a platform that’s a good fit for your business.

10 Content Analytics Tools: Features, Reviews, Prices, and More

It’s hard to single out one content analytics tool as being the best on the market. They all have different approaches. Some are all-in-one tools, and others aim for simplicity. Some focus on search visibility, and others zero in on user behavior or content engagement.

We looked at each tool’s strengths, unique features, and weaknesses and added in pricing information and user reviews. Here’s what we determined:

• Google Analytics: Best Tool for Audience Insights
• Semrush: Best Overall Content Marketing Analytics Platform
• Clarity: Best Software for Behavior-Focused Analytics
• Simple Analytics: Best Analytics Tool for Beginners
• SE Ranking: Best Platform for Local Search Analytics
• DYNO Mapper: Best Software for Content Audits
• Google Search Console: Best Tool for Search Engine Insights
• Parse.ly: Best Analytics Platform for Publishers 
• ImpactHero: Best Software for Aligning Content With the Buyer Journey
• Fathom Analytics: Best Privacy-First Analytics Platform

Google Analytics

Best Tool for Audience Insights

We’ll lead off with a tool from the search engine giant. Google Analytics (GA) helps you understand who’s using your website and how they interact with the content. Simply place a tracking code on your site, and GA begins gathering data related to traffic, referral sources, and user engagement.  

One advantage of GA is that it provides demographic information for users logged into their Google accounts, including age, gender, and interests. The platform can also track whether users complete desired actions, such as filling in forms or making purchases. Its machine learning capabilities can look at historical data to predict customer actions and churn.

Pros

• Easy to set up
• Provides insight into user behaviors and interests
• Manages multiple properties, including apps
• Helps track return on investment
• Integrates with Google platforms, such as Search Console and Ads Manager

Cons

• Can be difficult to use
• Lacks robust customer support
• Data is aggregated, so you can’t track individual users

Special Features

While it’s easy to look at a graph and see sudden spikes or drops in data, GA’s Trend Change detection alerts you to subtle changes in the direction of your data over longer periods of time. It works by comparing a forecasted value to the actual value.

Pricing

• Free 

What We’ve Heard

“Google Analytics is the biggest name in website and mobile app intelligence. It has a steep learning curve, but it is an awesome business intelligence tool.” – Pam Baker, PC Magazine

Use Cases and Best Practices

Use GA to get an overall picture of your user journey. You can segment data by content distribution channel (search engine, social media, paid ad, email) and get nuanced insights about audience experience. For example, if people arrive on your landing page through a paid ad but aren’t converting, the ad might not match expectations, or you may need to make the offer more clear. 

Semrush

Best Overall Content Marketing Analytics Platform

Another leader in the SEO field is Semrush. Its comprehensive suite of digital marketing utilities ranges from keyword research tools to AI writing assistance. It’s especially powerful for tracking keyword rankings so you can identify content that needs more visibility. You can also set up alerts if your positioning changes for specific keywords or pages and use the share of voice metric to compare your visibility with other brands in your niche.

The tool also provides insight into how users engage with your content, including page views, time spent on page, click-throughs, conversions, and return on investment.

Pros

• All-in-one digital marketing platform with reports related to search engine, pay-per-click, and social media marketing
• Vast keyword research database with insight into search volume and difficulty
• Data on organic traffic, keyword rankings, backlinks, and social media engagement
• Integrates with Google products, social networks, and tools such as Monday.com and Wix to streamline workflow

Cons

• Vast amount of tools and data can make it hard to know what information is relevant
• Provides historical data only when you upgrade to Guru or Business Plan
• May be costly for some businesses

Special Features

Semrush’s On-Page SEO tracker analyzes your content and provides concrete ideas to improve organic traffic. The suggestions relate to content readability and helpfulness, as well as SEO factors, such as backlinks, technical issues, and user experience.

Pricing

• Pro: $129.95 monthly
• Guru: $249.95 monthly
• Business: $499.95 monthly
• 7-day free trial available

What We’ve Heard

“Semrush is used by both our marketing team and our editorial team. [Our] marketing team uses Semrush for paid and earned marketing research, competitive analysis, and tracking performance. Our editorial team uses multiple research and writing tools that help them make decisions about SEO.” – Melissa D. Cooper, TrustRadius review

Use Cases and Best Practices

Use Semrush for all stages of content marketing, including keyword research, competitor analysis, and content creation. You can then monitor your content’s performance in the SERPs, social media reach, and most visited pages to assess how well your content attracts audiences.

Microsoft Clarity

Best Software for Behavior-Focused Analytics

Your website metrics reflect how well you’re attracting traffic and the URLs your audiences are visiting, but what do users do when they’re actually on a page? Clarity uses advanced heat maps and session recordings to reveal how audiences interact with content on a page level. You can see where they click, how far they scroll before abandoning a page, and whether they click to another page but quickly return to the one they’re on. Best of all, Clarity is free.

Pros

• Shows which areas of a page generate the most interaction
• Identifies where users get frustrated
• Records all sessions, not just a sampling
• Filters data by location, browser, campaign, or session duration
• Integrates with Shopify, Weebly, Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, and Unbounce

Cons

• Data is only retained for 30 days
• Can’t segment audiences
• Only provides click-and-scroll heat maps, not movement heat maps

Special Features

Clarity’s session recordings let you watch anonymized recordings to see how users navigate your web pages and when they abandon them. You can also detect issues, such as rage clicks — elements they try to click that aren’t links — and page errors. In addition to individual recordings, you can view a heat map aggregation.

Use these insights to fine-tune your content for better engagement. For example, if users aren’t scrolling deep into a page, revise your content to put more relevant information at the beginning. If they drop off without converting, consider a stronger call to action or more prominent buttons.

Pricing

• Free

What We’ve Heard

“Knowing how and where your user interacts most on your page gives you another level of on-page content and call-to-action optimization. Why have your best banner ads or action buttons in areas that turned out to be dead-space?” Olaf S., review on G2

Use Cases and Best Practices

For more powerful insights, connect Clarity to Google Analytics. This lets you view data on both platforms. You can watch playback links of relevant segments right in GA or check metrics from GA while you’re in Clarity.

Simple Analytics

Best Analytics Tool for Beginners

Like its name implies, Simple Analytics gets right to the point. Its straightforward user interface presents key metrics clearly. You can quickly monitor traffic, where your visitors come from, and the content they engage with.

Simple Analytics is also a privacy-first content analytics platform that doesn’t store personal data, which means you don’t need cookie banners on your site. Its lightweight script minimizes impact on your site speed. Because the tool doesn’t collect data, it doesn’t use machine learning or predictive analytics.

Pros

• Simplifies how you access data
• Measures traffic, referrals, top pages, page views, and time on page; and monitors devices, browsers, and countries
• Allows you to segment data to get a detailed picture of site visitors
• Provides AI chat for analytics questions
• Offers responsive customer support
• Imports data from Google Analytics

Cons

• Not as robust as other tools, but new utilities continue to roll out

Special Features

The tool’s AI chat helps you access your data more easily. Instead of trying to read reports and charts, for example, you can ask analytics questions in real time. For example, you can prompt the AI tool to compare traffic for different time periods or create a pie chart breaking down referral sources. The AI chat can also answer questions about using the tool’s features, which may be easier than searching the documentation.

Pricing

• Starter: $9 monthly
• Business: $49 monthly
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• Free 14-day trial

What We’ve Heard

“It’s good to have raw data of the visits in the website and easy to implement the tracker/events. Also, it is really fast to adapt for those who [have] already used Google Analytics.” – Mateus A., GetApp review

Use Cases and Best Practices

Set up goals in the platform to determine if your content achieves key metrics or encourages conversions. A goal can be a certain amount of time spent on a page or an increase in free trials, for example. You can then use the Goal Tracker to monitor your progress and adjust your content if you’re falling short of your objectives.

SE Ranking

Best Platform for Local Search Analytics

SE Ranking may be a good fit if you’re looking for a straightforward tool to track search performance and optimize pages to boost visibility. Like Semrush, it provides keyword research, SEO monitoring, AI content creation, and on-page SEO tools.

Pros

• Daily ranking updates
• Website audit for technical issues and Core Web Vitals
• Recommendations to improve content for relevance and user experience
• Insight into keyword density, word count, and readability metrics
• SERP analysis of competitors
• Easy-to-use interface

Cons

• Costs extra for some tools, even if you have a subscription
• Keyword database isn’t as large as some other tools
• Doesn’t track on-site metrics, such as page views, time spent on page, or session duration

Special Features

Although it’s an add-on, SE Ranking’s Local Marketing tool is worth mentioning. This tool is ideal for finding effective keywords and tracking rankings across multiple locations. You can see what search terms customers use to determine where you need to optimize your content. You can also manage reviews and check listings in different directories to improve local visibility.

Pricing

• Essential: $44 monthly (Local Marketing add-on is $5.60 monthly)
• Pro: $87.20 monthly (Local Marketing add-on is $38.40 monthly)
• Business: $191.20 monthly (Local Marketing add-on is $144.80 monthly)

What We’ve Heard

“This all-in-one platform helps me view the bigger picture for analytics when it comes to web traffic and really understand how my clients’ sites are doing. I like that I can easily audit websites, add keywords and competitors, and then identify weak areas within their backlinking.” Hillary Glaser, TrustPilot review

Use Cases and Best Practices

SE Ranking monitors your performance on Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Ads. You can identify content that needs improvement and make data-informed decisions based on backlinks, competitor results in the SERPs, and your site’s on-page SEO.

DYNO Mapper

Best Software for Content Audits

Before you can optimize your website, you need to understand its current structure. This can be challenging if you’ve been adding to your site ad hoc over the years. DYNO Mapper crawls and maps your site and provides you with a detailed inventory of its content assets. Once you have an overview of your catalog, you can begin pinpointing areas for improvement and filling in content gaps.

Pros

• Generates an interactive visual sitemap
• Catalogs subdomains, pages, images, videos, documents, and other files
• Audits your site for broken links, errors, and duplication in metadata
• Tracks keyword position in Google, Yahoo, and Bing
• Tests for accessibility issues

Cons

• Lacks concrete recommendations for improving search rankings
• No AI-powered insights or content creation tools

Special Features

DYNO Mapper integrates with Google Analytics. This lets you view important data on each page of your site map, such as sessions, users, page views, pages per session, bounce rate, and average session duration. It also pulls in your content inventory so you can see what assets are on each page. 

Pricing

• Lite: $39 monthly, billed annually
• Pro: $49 monthly, billed annually
• Standard: $99 monthly, billed annually
• Organization: $360 monthly, billed annually

What We’ve Heard

“Being able to see the sitemap visually allows everybody to see in a much clearer way how the site manages content. Premium features are great for SEO / Content Managers. Seeing keywords and pageviews is quite useful.” – Daniel R., G2 review

Use Cases and Best Practices

DYNO Mapper helps you visualize how your content is organized for search engines and users. Analyze the sitemap to ensure your site is logically structured for indexing and navigation. Then, use the inventory list to manage your content — check which URLs are ranking, ensure pages are relevant and up to date, and search your existing content before creating new pieces. 

Google Search Console

Best Tool for Search Engine Insights

Google Search Console (GSC) ensures your pages are crawled and indexed so they appear in the SERPs. The tool measures search performance, such as rankings, impressions, and clicks. It also helps troubleshoot problems that can affect your search presence. 

Pros

• Monitors changes in keyword position
• Measures your site’s technical health through Core Web Vitals
• Alerts you to crawl errors, manual penalties, and broken links
• Integrates with Google Analytics

Cons

• Data takes a few days to appear in GSC
• Historical data is limited to 16 months

Special Features

Your content won’t appear in the SERPs if issues prevent Googlebot from crawling it. GSC’s Page Indexing Report gives you a count of your total indexed and non-indexed pages. Regularly monitor this report to check for pages that aren’t crawled and why. Once you fix the issues, you can ask Google to try crawling it again to ensure your site has visibility.  

Pricing

• Free

What We’ve Heard

“This is the only truly reliable source of data for performance in Google’s organic search, from search impressions to a breakdown of countries where search users come from. This allows a site owner to better optimize their site’s content and structure to improve organic rankings, and increase click-through rates.” – Josh Bender, TrustRadius review

Use Cases and Best Practices

While you can use GSC as a standalone tool for tracking keyword position and visibility in the SERPs, you get more data when linking Search Console to Google Analytics. This combined data gives you access to Search Console’s Insights report, which is a snapshot of your overall content performance. It shows at a glance which pages are most successful, what audiences search for before they visit your site, and which websites refer visitors to your domain. You can also track the performance of newly published content.

Parse.ly

Best Analytics Platform for Publishers 

Parse.ly analyzes website metrics from the perspective of content performance, making it an ideal tool for content marketers and media sites. The tool tracks user engagement with content in a variety of ways, including by topic, section, author, campaign, channel, and publication date. As a bonus, it also promotes itself as an analytics platform that doesn’t require a data analyst to use. The easy-to-use platform allows you to focus your energies on your content strategy. 

Pros

• Tracks page views, unique visitors, engaged time, and conversions
• Offers geo-segmentation for insight into content preferences of international audiences
• Segments users by group, such as subscribers and members
• Tags content automatically using AI
• Provides video analytics to gauge the success of embedded videos and video topics
• Intuitive and easy to use

Cons

• Historical data is available for only 13 months
• Pricing isn’t available on website

Special Features

Parse.ly leverages data aggregation, predictive analytics, and machine learning to help you identify content trends. You can determine the metrics that indicate a trend — page views or conversions, for example. You can also set the time frame for monitoring the trend, such as months, days, or even half-hour intervals. Parse.ly alerts you when it detects a trend so you can act on it.

Pricing

• Three different plans are available, but you must book a demo to learn about pricing

What We’ve Heard

“Parse.ly allows us to dive into articles categorized by tags, as well as authors, and see not only traffic but where that traffic is being referred from, e.g., Google, AMP, and social networks. All of this gives a better indication of how to respond both to the performance of singular articles and on a wider scale.” – Alice Marshall, Trust Radius review

Use Cases and Best Practices

Use Parse.ly to dig deeper into traditional metrics, such as page views and time spent on a site. The tool puts the metrics in the context of content types and audience segments. For example, you might compare content read by new visitors to content read by returning visitors. These insights can inform your content production process so you can create more relevant content.

Parse.ly’s Content Conversions tool also helps you better determine the ROI of your content. You can specify events to track, such as sign-ups, downloads, or purchases, and attribute them to your content. For example, you can track the last page a user visited before they completed an action.  

ImpactHero

Best Software for Aligning Content With the Buyer Journey

An effective content strategy provides audiences with the exact information they’re looking for at each stage of their path to purchase. ImpactHero helps you plan content according to the buyer journey. It monitors how well your content performs and uses AI to help you improve it. This tool is powered by Semrush and can be used as part of the SEO platform or a standalone. 

Pros

• Streamlines analytics for content teams
• Provides automated distribution of content according to funnel stage
• Shows where users are abandoning your site so you can refine the content
• Measures impact of content on conversion
• Provides AI-generated recommendations to improve content effectiveness at each stage

Cons

• Price may be costly for many businesses

Special Features

Using artificial intelligence, ImpactHero maps your customer journey to help you visualize how users interact with your site. It breaks down performance by content types, such as lists, tutorials, questions, and guides. You can also segment by traffic sources to see which channels provide the most engagement.

Pricing

• $200 monthly
• Free trial available

What We’ve Heard

“ImpactHero helps us measure results and pivot to ensure we’re accomplishing what we’ve set out to do — engage and convert website visitors. We can now see the complete content user journey and identify new ways to convert website visitors.” – Debra B. McCraw, ImpactHero review

Use Cases and Best Practices

One of the most useful ways to leverage the platform is to choose a funnel stage: content that attracts visitors (attraction), content that keeps visitors on the site and builds loyalty (impact), and content that inspires action (conversion). You can then analyze metrics such as traffic, engagement, bounce rate, leads, and conversions. ImpactHero’s algorithms suggest ways to optimize content for each stage to help you build a cohesive overall strategy.

Fathom Analytics

Best Privacy-First Analytics Platform

Fathom Analytics positions itself as an alternative to Google Analytics. Like Simple Analytics, it delivers key website data, such as traffic, views, referral sources, and conversions, focusing on ease of use. It also emphasizes digital privacy, tracking website usage without collecting personal data, such as IP addresses. Fathom is compliant with many privacy laws, including GDPR and CCPA.

Pros

• Blocks bots, scrapers, and spam for more accurate data
• Anonymizes data without the use of cookies
• Tracks conversions, such as sales, clicks, and sign-ups
• Imports historical Google Analytics data and saves it indefinitely
• Provides email reports so you can share information easily with colleagues

Cons

• Doesn’t provide keyword rankings or SEO analysis
• Lacks AI optimization
• May not have enough functionality for some businesses

Special Features

Fathom’s defining feature is its simplicity: a single-page dashboard that gives you an overall picture of your site performance. You can see key metrics for any time period, including visitors, views, bounce rate, event completions, average time on site, referring sources, browsers, devices, and countries. 

To drill into details, click on the elements you’re interested in. For example, you can filter data to learn about visitors from Reddit on mobile devices from the United Kingdom. You can add up to 10 filters.

Pricing

• $15 monthly for up to 100,000 data points (page views and events)
• Tiered pricing based on monthly data points
• 30-day free trial

What We’ve Heard

“Simple user interface, no GDPR banners required, easy light-weight loading script, privacy-focused, and I own the data!” – Jess J. review on G2

Use Cases and Best Practices

While Fathom’s single-screen dashboard lets you see common metrics, such as traffic and top pages, at a glance, you can customize data by setting up events. These are specific actions that provide insight into how customers are interacting with your content. 

You can track form submissions, free trials, and purchases. You can even track different clicks to see what users are more drawn to. Do they use breadcrumb or sidebar navigation? Are they clicking through slideshows? Downloading PDFs?  

Content Analytics Tools Overview

Drive Your Business Forward With Content Analytics Tools

Content analytics tools are an essential part of modern content strategies, helping you gather intelligence to make informed decisions. Bolstered by AI and machine learning, these platforms are increasingly more powerful, guiding you to your audiences with precision.

Now is the time to incorporate these tools into your workflow if you want to gain a competitive edge. According to a study by Adobe, just 37% of underperforming organizations have the data they need to understand their customers, while 61% of leading organizations are already putting data to work. The sooner you can leverage analytics in your content strategy, the greater advantage you’ll have over your competitors.

Crowd Content can help you translate your data insights into finely tuned content that’s optimized for search visibility, appeals to readers, and propels your business toward its goals. Contact us today to learn more about our SEO content writing services.

The post Content Analytics Tools for Data-Driven Insights appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Brand voice is the personality of your business. It can be professional, quirky, friendly, or even inspirational. It transforms a simple message into something customers feel was written just for them.

Tone, on the other hand, builds upon your voice. Think of how a person’s personality changes subtly to reflect the environment around them. Your brand’s tone does the same. It adjusts your company’s voice to fit the medium, mood, and goal.

Voice and tone are two integral parts of your communication strategy, and you need to master both to captivate your audience.

Understanding Brand Voice and Tone

Your marketing efforts are more successful when your content resonates with customers. This is where the concepts of brand voice and tone come into play.

Your voice is your choice of language, the pacing and rhythm of your communication, how you use humor, and even the ways you tell a story. Does your business use formal words or slang? Do you inject wit into your content or just stick to the facts? What about the use of metaphors?

Major companies build their voices around both the identities they wish to forge and the audiences they target. Here are some noteworthy brand voice examples to illustrate this point:

• Apple: Apple is bold, confident, and direct, but it’s also friendly. While it usually avoids humor, the brand adds warmth to messaging by referring to itself and its audience inclusively as us. Company communications highlight Apple’s innovation by stressing how its products are unique or better.

• Nike: Nike strives to be that friend who inspires and encourages you. Beginning with the iconic “Just Do It” slogan, the brand uses motivational language and an empowering, confident tone.

• Disney: Disney wants to make its audience feel childlike wonder with innocent and whimsical messaging. It uses magical and surreal wording while focusing on universal, inclusive themes such as love and friendship.

The Importance of Brand Voice in Marketing

You need a unique brand voice in marketing because your brand’s voice helps you:

• Differentiate your business: Most markets are crowded, and new technology continues to lower entry barriers. What you say and how you say it can make your brand more memorable than others.
• Build trust and credibility: Credibility affects business performance in many ways, from convincing new customers to try your products to ranking higher on Google.
• Maintain consistency across platforms: Whether you’re speaking to your audience through your business blog or a YouTube video, the way you communicate should remain consistent. It’s challenging to do this without having a defined brand voice.

A distinct voice helps you connect with your audience. It’s also your ticket to higher engagement and smooth communication.

Enhanced audience engagement

Engaged customers are 90% more likely to buy something. Better yet, they’re five times more likely to shop exclusively from your brand in the future.

Engage your customers by adjusting your brand voice to relate to them.

More effective communication

A well-defined brand voice creates engaging messaging and helps your business convey ideas easily. That’s because your brand voice caters to your audience.

If your audience needs complex jargon broken down into simple terms, be the company that does this. Shape your voice around being informative and approachable to limit the potential for confusion.

Different Types of Tones

Tone of voice is somewhat subjective, but there are ways to use it, making branded communication more straightforward and consistent.

One method used in marketing is the Nielsen Norman Group’s Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice framework.

• Formal vs. casual: Should you use formal or laidback language?
• Respectful vs. irreverent: Should communications show respect or be more edgy and playful?
• Enthusiastic vs. matter-of-fact: Is speaking with passion and energy okay, or should messaging stick to the facts?
• Funny vs. serious: Is it okay to use humor, or should communications remain serious?

You can also approach brand voice by orienting it to common tones used in marketing that fit E-E-A-T guidelines:

• Motivational tone: Prioritizes language that inspires and encourages, driving customers to make purchases or complete other actions
• Serious tone: Avoids humor and slang to give your brand an image of authority and expertise when talking about research or world events
• Conversational tone: Speaks like a friend to help inform and guide your audience, building trust
• Professional tone: Conveys credibility and authority through straightforward and polite language

Catering tone to your goals and audience

When targeting a specific goal, consider your audience and work backward. For example, LinkedIn uses a professional tone, avoiding complex language and whimsical metaphors to appeal to its B2B audience.

In contrast, Old Spice has targeted a young audience in recent years, using humor and wit in advertisements. The brand uses bold, catchy phrases juxtaposed with quirky characters, such as Old Spice Man, to project a lighthearted image.

Think about what tone best suits your image and goals while connecting with your audience.

Challenges in Developing a Consistent Brand Voice

Maintaining a consistent brand voice can be more complex than developing proper tone, especially as your business grows. Common challenges include:

• New brand managers, writers, and social media professionals
• Expansion of product and service offerings
• Diversification across new social media channels

New contributors

How well new contributors maintain your brand’s voice depends mainly on training and resources. You can give new hires and freelancers the tools they need to succeed by providing comprehensive training and ensuring they know who to contact if questions arise.

It’s also essential to create brand voice guidelines that outline the language and tone contributors should use when writing communications for your business.

New products and services

You can’t always market all products the same way, especially if you’re targeting several demographics, which requires adjusting your brand voice accordingly.

For example, if you normally sell to consumers but release a product for the B2B market, let your content creators know how to adapt your voice to fit a B2B audience while retaining your identity.

New social media channels

It’s easy to forget how to maintain your brand’s voice when creating content for social media channels. What works for a blog post won’t necessarily feel natural in an Instagram post or TikTok video.

To overcome this challenge, give specific recommendations to match each platform and regularly review the cohesiveness of blogs, social media posts, advertisements, and videos using a formal process.

Crafting the Right Tone for Different Marketing Situations

Brand voice needs to be consistent, but you should adjust aspects such as tone to suit specific marketing scenarios and improve the effectiveness of your copy. As you enhance engagement, your audience is more likely to follow through with intended actions, such as clicking links or subscribing to your email newsletter.

You can adapt your tone to any situation by following these simple steps:

1. Analyze your audience.
2. Adjust to the content type.
3. Review and optimize.

If you market to several demographics, you may need to use various tones of voice.

For example, Old Spice transforms its image from that of an old-fashioned brand by using an energetic and irreverent tone when marketing its newer product lines. This change in tone played a crucial role in “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, where fast-paced and surreal scenarios appealed to younger adults accustomed to internet humor.

A change in tone also helped Airbnb weather the COVID pandemic. The brand used language with a community focus, stressing safety, to help comfort customers and put their minds at ease.

To achieve similar success to these major brands, consider how the following factors apply to your audience:

• Cultural perspectives
• Values and desires
• Demographics and psychographics

Record everything you know about your audience to construct a detailed customer persona. Initially, you should base your brand’s tone of voice on this persona,, customizing it slightly for each communication channel.

For example, TikTok audiences resonate with humor, slang, and memes, while people on LinkedIn prefer a more professional tone. The motives for using specific social media platforms flow through to audience expectations.

Lastly, always track engagement metrics such as view time, click-through rates, likes, and shares. Whenever you tweak your brand’s voice or tone, use this data to gauge the effect.

Integrating Brand Voice and Tone Into Content Strategy

Your brand’s voice intertwines with your content strategy, and you should integrate guidelines for voice and tone into all aspects of content planning.

So, how do you do this? Ensure you have the following essentials:

Brand style guide

Make your style guide the definitive source of information for anyone who plans, writes, edits, or reviews your content. Your guide should contain detailed information about the voice and tone expectations for various types of content.

Content creators will find it easier to understand your brand voice when you give clear examples rather than simply use descriptive language. List specific words and phrases you like, and link to examples of completed blogs or social media posts matching your requirements.

You can also refer to specific public figures or fictional characters to provide examples of the messages and tones you want to convey to help writers understand your voice requirements.

Brand voice chart

A brand voice chart is another effective tool that aids content strategy. It lists the qualities of your voice alongside columns that provide descriptions, things to do, and things to avoid.

You can use separate charts for each communication channel for more detailed guidance.

SEO considerations that affect voice and tone

Your brand’s voice and tone should match your audience and goals, but you should also consider SEO strategy. 

One key consideration is Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, which stress the need for content that displays experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Consider how you can match these guidelines through your voice and the information you provide.

You should also consider how to integrate keywords and other metadata into content. Match keywords to your brand voice where possible so the audience these keywords attract is closer to your target customer. Assess the user intent — transactional, commercial, navigational, or informational — and adapt your voice to ensure you deliver what your audience wants.

Tools for maintaining consistency

Other tools you can use to maintain consistency include:

• Content management systems 
• Voice and tone-tracking software, such as Grammarly Business
• Social media management platforms, such as Hootsuite
• Collaboration tools, such as Asana
• Generative AI, such as ChatGPT

Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Your Brand Voice

Developing the perfect brand voice doesn’t mean you need to reinvent the wheel. Just follow these steps:

1. Define your brand’s core values and personality

What does your brand stand for? What’s its mission? Summarize this information into one sentence and use that sentence to define your business’ personality.

For example, LEGO’s mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. Its personality, stemming from that mission, is playful, creative, and educational.

2. Analyze your audience

Get to know your audience. Create a profile with basic information, such as their age range, location, and interests, alongside the needs you can target and pain points to avoid.

For example, Tesla’s audience is tech-savvy and cares about the environment, so the brand’s communication highlights innovation and eco-friendliness.

3. Create a brand voice chart

Create a basic voice chart based on five adjectives that describe your brand while matching your mission and audience. For example: friendly, authoritative, informative, whimsical, and energetic.

Provide descriptions and examples that illustrate how to translate each adjective into the voice and make a list of things writers should or shouldn’t do, to offer further guidance.

4. Develop content guidelines

Construct a detailed style guide. Ensure you include instructions for various platforms and contexts so content creators know how to match voice, tone, and style to any situation.

5. Implement training procedures

Put training and workshops in place to help your team learn how to use your brand voice effectively.

You also need a review process to check adherence to voice guidelines. For smaller companies, one editor may handle this task.

Larger companies or those that target multiple communication channels may need to simplify these reviews through a dedicated QA team and a standardized review process.

6. Optimize

Your voice should be consistent but never completely set in stone. Always be open to optimization. Use tools such as Google Analytics to track engagement metrics and run occasional A/B tests to assess how subtle changes in brand voice versus brand tone affect engagement.

Using Technology and Tools for Brand Voice Consistency

Technology drives innovation while making many tasks easier, and this is particularly true for communication. You can leverage several tools to match the tones of voice you’d like to target or ensure content maintains a consistent brand voice. Here are some of the best tools:

• ChatGPT: ChatGPT and other large language models can generate content matching tone and voice examples or guidelines. It can also scan content to assess if the voice and tone match a brand’s target audience, but the power of these AI tools extends much further. When training a GPT model to your brand’s style, you can assess large volumes of content to ensure it matches voice requirements, automating part of your review process.
• Grammarly Business: Most people know Grammarly for its spelling and grammar checks, but the platform also lets you select various tone and style settings. Doing so helps ensure content matches your brand voice and remains consistent.

• Acrolinx: Acrolinx provides similar capabilities to Grammarly but also includes a more extensive generative AI tool to help match style guidelines while scaling up content creation.
• Hootsuite: Hootsuite lets you manage most social media accounts from one platform, ensuring consistent communications. The platform includes engagement tools that optimize your brand voice to match specific social media platforms, and you can also use the OwlyWriter AI feature to discover new content ideas or create posts

• Asana: Asana is a project management tool. While it doesn’t assess or improve brand voice directly, it makes these processes (as well as content creation and publishing) easier for everyone involved by implementing a collaborative workflow.
• SurveyMonkey: Direct insights from your audience are invaluable for optimizing your brand voice. SurveyMonkey is one of the tools you can use to determine whether your communications resonate with customers. You can also survey your audience for future content ideas or website-user-experience improvements.

Future Trends in Brand Voice and Tone

Brand voice reflects your business’ personality, but it’s also a product of the marketing environment. Shifts in the environment readily change how brands communicate. Here are some trends we’ve noticed:

• Desire for personalization and humanization: People increasingly favor brands with conversational, empathetic tones. They also seek personalized customer service — a shift partly driven by the uptick of AI chatbots.
• Emphasis on authenticity and transparency: People prefer open and honest businesses, and many brands now follow this trend. For example, Patagonia now discusses its manufacturing processes and environmental impact through “The Footprint Chronicles” to improve transparency.

New technologies

Shifts in consumer sentiment aren’t the only thing affecting the marketing landscape. Businesses are also adapting their brand voice through the power of new technologies. The most noteworthy include:

• Augmented and virtual reality: AR and VR enable more vibrant communication between businesses and customers. For example, Patrón Tequila uses VR to give distillery tours. The immersive visuals breathe life into the brand’s storytelling, reinforcing its voice.

• AI and machine learning: Advances in AI and machine learning help businesses adapt their voice and tone to specific situations. These technologies also enable personalized real-time communications. For example, Amazon’s Alexa provides targeted information and shopping recommendations through the brand’s helpful, friendly voice.

Don’t miss out on opportunities to communicate with your customers in newer and more personalized ways than your competitors have done. Invest in emerging technology now, and always keep an eye on the horizon, because things can change in an instant.

Discover Expertise to Elevate Your Voice

Mastering brand voice and tone sets you on the right path to establishing strong relationships with your audience and becoming a household name like Coca-Cola or Microsoft. However, consistency is essential.

Integrating your voice into your content strategy is essential to ensure communication matches your brand’s personality, whether you’re reaching out to customers through an email or a Facebook post. It is also important  to follow SEO best practices.

If you don’t have the time to create detailed style guides and project briefs or refine the nuances of your brand messaging, we’ve got you covered. Look into our content strategy services. We can refine your brand’s personality, creating impactful messaging that resonates with your audience and grows your online presence. Our comprehensive services include everything from planning to streamlined production to help you dominate content marketing in every area. 

The post Mastering Brand Voice and Tone for Dynamic Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

If you think of transition words as unnecessary frills, think again. They’re powerful weapons in your content marketing arsenal. Transition words move readers along your conversion funnel, just like clear site navigation and calls-to-action (CTAs). From a logic and flow standpoint, transition words enhance readability. Clear writing helps readers understand and engage with your message. Crucially, it’s something Google pays close attention to. For search engines, readability means a strong UX. It helps crawlers index your content and shows off your expertise and authority.

 Using transition words is essential to effective content creation. Getting better at using them will captivate readers, improve SEO, and boost conversions. Discover our practical tips, strategies, and tools for using transition words and phrases to elevate your content for impactful, seamless communication. 

What Are Transition Words and Phrases?

Transition phrases and words are mini bridges connecting sentences and paragraphs so readers can easily follow along. These little guys might seem like extras, but they play big roles. They show readers when you’re changing gears, introducing a new idea, or hammering home a point. Moreover, they make the reading experience more enjoyable by shaping the emotional arc and determining logical flow.

For readers to engage with your article’s message, they have to understand it. Sounds obvious, but it’s easier said than done. That’s because when you write, you know exactly what you’re trying to say. It’s easy to forget that readers aren’t inside your head. 

To follow along with your writing and remain enthralled, readers need an extra nudge in the right direction. Transition words offer that guidance.

Innovative strategies for using transition words and phrases 

If you have some writing experience, you likely know that overusing “and,” “but,” and “also” is a no-no. There’s a good chance you already connect paragraphs and sections with logical transitions and prioritize readability and clarity over excessive bridging. But there’s so much more to effectively using transition words.  

Marketing expert Chase Dimond’s tried-and-true tip for starting paragraphs with an arresting transition is a good place to start.

Let’s explore more strategies for using transition words:

• Genre-specific strategies: Tailoring transition choices to specific content types elevates their impact. In a narrative, transition words keep up the story’s momentum by signaling time, location, or perspective changes. For example, words and phrases such as “meanwhile,” “later,” and “the next day” indicate shifts in the timeline. With technical writing, precise transitions such as “therefore” or “conversely” clarify arguments and move readers along. In commercial copy, transitions like “crucially” and “as such” influence how the reader interprets your writing. Understanding which transitions work best for each type of copy is vital. Using scientific, stuffy transitions in a blog post about cute dog outfits is just as bad as not using any.  
• Strategic omission: Deliberately leaving out a transition in a high-stakes moment can build suspense. For instance, “The door creaked open, revealing darkness. Silence. Nothingness.” This device is especially effective in storytelling. 
• Rhetorical questions: Asking questions engages readers by drawing them into and guiding them through the article.  
• Technology: Text-to-speech software with advanced language modeling can make suggestions for transitions. 
• Categories: Get up to speed with which transition terms best suit each narrative function.

Some transition phrases and words improve structural flow, while others connect ideas. They can subtly influence readers’ opinions and add weight to your arguments.  

Transition Words List 

Smooth transitions are the bedrock of clear writing. Imagine building a house without beams and supports – it would quickly crumble. Similarly, writing without transition words makes content choppy and unclear.

Here are the key transition categories, their functions, and sample words and phrases for each. 

Structuring your writing 

Have you ever watched a movie that cuts to a new screen saying, “One year later” or “Five years earlier”? Much like those cinematic shifts, the following structural transition words can set the flow of your content, allowing you to pivot seamlessly.  

Use introduction transitions to set the scene:

first

to begin with

who would have thought

to start

today

these days

since 

Condition transitions introduce hypothetical situations:

if

provided 

unless

Time — these transitions establish the order of ideas or events:

after

afterward

before

as soon as

currently

during

finally

firstly

in the meantime

initially

lastly

presently 

meanwhile

next

now

subsequently

then

thereafter

to begin with

ultimately

whenever

Order transitions arrange points logically:

first

next

second

then

third

Conjunction transitions link sentences and paragraphs:

and 

but

for

nor

or

so

yet

Use summary transitions to wrap up your main points and make a memorable impression:

all in all

in brief

in conclusion

in essence

in short

in summary

on the whole

overall

wrapping up 

to conclude

to summarize

Connecting ideas

Transition phrases that connect ideas show how your ideas relate to each other. They create a smooth flow and help readers see the bigger picture.

Digression transitions add brief thoughts or comments that support or challenge your main idea:

by the way

incidentally

that said 

on the other hand

Use agreement transitions to show how your ideas connect in support of each other:

also

additionally

fortunately

what’s more

in addition

besides

correspondingly

equally 

further

furthermore

in the same way

in the same vein

likewise

moreover

similarly

too

Add nuance to your ideas by using comparison transitions:

although

conversely

despite

even though

however

in contrast

on the other hand

otherwise

regardless

still

while

yet

Guiding the reader’s understanding 

When you’re writing copy with a purpose, it goes without saying that you want to influence your audience. But guiding their understanding isn’t as straightforward as presenting an argument. You have to make sure they’re following you along every step of the way. How? By writing in a clear and engaging way, using these transitions to highlight key points and demonstrate authority. 

Probability transitions set up your opinions and nudge readers toward a desired outcome:

likely

perhaps

probably

By using certainty transitions, you signal your authority and build trust:

certainly

as soon as

definitively

undoubtedly

without a doubt

Use emphasis transitions to highlight key points and ideas and secure them in readers’ minds:

certainly

definitely

in fact

indeed

notably

significantly 

importantly

in particular

interestingly

more importantly

of course

perhaps most importantly

quite

what’s more

remarkably

specifically

truly

undoubtedly

Fine-tuning your argument

Transitions that fine-tune arguments add depth, nuance, and power to your writing. They acknowledge counterpoints, rephrase ideas for clarity, and show the cause-and-effect relationships between concepts.

Transitions that return to the main point help you circle back and reiterate your primary argument:

anyhow

anyway

on that note

that said

at any rate

in any case

Illustration transitions set up quotes and data — which are essential for making solid arguments:

for example

take

a study found

evidence shows

for instance

specifically

Similar to emphasis words, restatement transitions add weight to key points, but they do it via repetition:

in other words

put another way

to rephrase

Concession transitions acknowledge opposing views and demonstrate fairness and a well-rounded approach:

admittedly

although

even though

granted

of course

still

yet

Cause and effect transitions establish the causal relationships between events or ideas. They help readers understand the “why?”:

accordingly

as a consequence

as such

as a result

because

consequently

for this reason

hence

if so

since

so

therefore

thus

Transition Words and Phrases in Action

Engaging copy doesn’t have  transition words in every sentence; it strikes a careful balance. Here’s an excerpt from LinkedIn’s most-read article of all time:

There’s no formula or perfect number of transitions per paragraph or 100 words. However, with millions of views, almost 40,000 likes, and 4,661 comments, Dr. Bradberry’s article is a resounding example of engaging copy. He uses transition words to clarify arguments, guide readers through the piece, and signpost salient points. The post has made — and continues to make — such an impact because it’s useful, actionable, and easy to follow. 

Clunky, choppy, disjointed, and flat-out writing often needs smoother transitions. Dr. Bradberry’s article showcases readability’s power to make audiences and search engines happy. 

Good vs. bad transitions in writing

The University of Alabama, in Huntsville, provides a solid example of ineffective vs. effective transitions in writing:

In the poor transition example, the two sentences lack a smooth connection, which may cause readers to take a moment to discover or realize the connection. Therefore, readers might lose interest or stop trusting what they’re reading at that moment. As a brand or marketer, your ability to convince and convert rests upon that trust — so each transition is precious. 

The better transition example makes it clear that the sentences are connected, guiding. readers, along so they understand effortlessly.

Pressbooks’ Writing Textbook provides another example of bad transitions in writing. This post highlights how effective transitions are by removing just 16 words from a passage of text.

Look how much of an impact omitting the transition question between the two paragraphs has:

The writer outlines their argument in a rhetorical question that concludes the first paragraph. They answer it in the second, tying the ideas neatly together. See how much of a difference a simple transition can make?  

How to Weave Transition Words Into Your Writing

Now, you’ve seen how other writers use transitions to clarify their writing and engage readers. It may take some practice, but learning how to use transition words effectively will be time well spent  

Here’s a quick guide on using transition words in your writing:

• Map your masterpiece: Before putting pen to paper, brush up on transition categories and words. Then, keep transitions in mind as you create your content outline. Where will you use contrast? Where will you add emphasis? This roadmap helps you create a smooth flow. Always do a final proofread for clarity and flow.
• Think beyond basic transitions: While the words “and” and “but” are unavoidable, be sure to explore richer options. “As such,” for example, signals cause and effect, while “on the other hand” implies an opposing viewpoint.
• Variety is key: Never fall into the  trap of monotony. Combine short transitions with longer ones, using strong verbs and active voice to keep readers engaged.
• Transition within sentences: Don’t limit transitions between paragraphs. Use them creatively within sentences to emphasize your argument and keep readers engaged.
• Read aloud and ruthlessly revise: Once your draft is complete, read it aloud. This exposes clunky transitions and areas where smoother connections are needed.

Mastering transition words is no longer an advanced writing technique authors and scientists use. It’s a content marketing superpower. Transitions give you a competitive edge in a world where engaging content and strong SEO intertwine. 

As our VP of Content Operations, Rick Leach, says:

“While the definition of good writing can be hard to pin down, it relies heavily on transitions. With well-written content, readers forget they’re making an effort. It flows from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and section to section. Transitions soften abrupt shifts from one idea to the next. In short, they help readers see the bigger picture without making them scratch their heads.”

Transition Words, SEO, and Readability

Attention spans are decreasing, and the digital marketplace is swelling. Plus, as search engine algorithms grow increasingly complex, the bar for SEO-friendly content keeps rising. With so much content competing for clicks, transitions are nonnegotiable for keeping readers hooked. 

Here’s how:

• Enhanced Readability: Transitions transform a series of disjointed sentences into a cohesive, comprehensible whole. This translates to higher engagement and longer dwell times, both things that Google loves.
• Improved SEO: Thoughtful transitions unpick relationships between keywords and concepts. This aids search engines in understanding your content’s context and relevance.
• User Engagement: Well-placed transitions keep readers moving forward with ease. Intuitive UX directly impacts SEO by encouraging people to keep exploring your content.

As you write, experiment with transitions beyond the familiar, and you’ll see results in both readership and rankings.

Transition Word Toolbox

Crafting smooth transitions is an art form. But, you don’t have to go it alone. This toolbox is brimming with resources that help you elevate your transition game. Each one can help you get better at writing transitions that connect, captivate, and convert.

AI-powered language tools

You can also utilize artificial intelligence to analyze your writing and provide suggestions tailored to your goals:

• Grammarly Business: An advanced grammar checker that suggests contextual transitions that seamlessly connect ideas.
• QuillBot: This AI-powered paraphrasing tool analyzes your text and recommends sophisticated synonyms for transition words.
• Writesonic: An AI writing assistant with a feature that restructures sentences for better flow, suggesting improved transitions in the process.

Advanced text analysis platforms

Move beyond spell-check. The following platforms delve deeper, offering feedback on sentence structure, transition variety, and potential areas for improvement.

• StyleWriter: Provides insights into sentence complexity and transition variety. It suggests areas where transitions can be strengthened to enhance clarity and flow.
• Cliche Finder: Scans your text for overused phrases, including generic transitions such as “however” or “in addition.” This tool recommends more specific and engaging alternatives.

Interactive style guides and writing communities

Sometimes, the best insights come from your fellow wordsmiths. Online communities and style guides offer collaboration, expert advice, and ongoing learning:

• ProWritingAid Community Forums: This online forum allows writers to share draft excerpts and receive feedback on transition effectiveness.
• Hemingway Editor: A writing tool that analyzes text for readability and highlights areas with complex sentence structure, prompting you to break down complex ideas.

Master Transitions to Increase Conversions

By now, you understand that transition words are much more than stylistic frills. They’re the invisible architects of engaging, SEO-friendly content. Transitions guide readers effortlessly through your content, ensuring they grasp your message and remain engaged. At the same time, they signal to search engines how your ideas connect, enhance content visibility, and showcase your expertise. 

The bottom line? Content that’s easy to follow is more persuasive. 

Crowd Content has an entire network of skilled, experienced writers. Our rigorous multi-step editorial process ensures every piece of content is clear and concise and flows perfectly.

You can discover how our expertise in content strategy can elevate readers’ engagement with your website content and enhance SEO by diving into our Content Strategy Services. There you’ll learn how to effectively use transition words and phrases to create structured, persuasive content. 

The post Transition Words and Phrases: Crafting Seamless Content appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Of course, you have to pick the right grammar checker for your needs, whether you’re focused on readability, tone, or AI-assisted inspiration. To whittle down the top candidates, we tested popular platforms for accuracy and helpfulness. You’ll find the results below, along with tips on using these tools to craft content that is both smooth and compelling.  

Evolution of Grammar Tools

Grammar tools have come a long way since the 1980s, when they were built into word processors, such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. At the time, these rudimentary spell checkers were designed to detect simple errors that might have slipped through during manual proofreading. 

As technology advanced, so did the capabilities of the tools. Those squiggly lines were there to catch missteps, such as run-on sentences and confusion between “its” and “it’s.” Eventually, grammar tools took on lives of their own, leaving the confines of word-processing programs behind and launching as powerful standalone tools. 

From basic spell-check to AI-enhanced correctors

And now, the real game changer has arrived: artificial intelligence (AI). AI-enhanced correctors analyze vast amounts of text and learn from natural language patterns. They’re pushing grammar tools beyond simple mechanics, offering guidance for tone and voice, restructuring sentences to captivate readers, and generating ideas to help smash your writer’s block.

Best Grammar Tools

We took the best grammar checkers on a test drive, creating an error-riddled paragraph as a benchmark. We compared each tool’s accuracy in detecting mistakes and how well their AI features improved our writing sample.

Grammarly: Beyond basic grammar checking

One of the pioneer tools in grammar checking, Grammarly, has you covered for spelling, grammar, and clarity. A premium or business subscription unlocks advanced suggestions for nuanced word choice and tone to better engage your target audience. We also like the built-in AI writing tool. Simply highlight the text you’ve written and click “improve it.” 

Key features of Grammarly

• Checks the correctness of copy, including spelling and grammar
• Highlights wordiness and clarity issues
• Provides generative AI to help with content creation
• Offers word suggestions to make copy more impactful 
• Detects tone to help you better connect with your audience
• Checks for plagiarism 
• Allows customized style guides 

Accuracy and helpfulness

Grammarly performed well in detecting common errors. It was also one of the only tools that noticed both a numeral and a spelled-out number in the same sentence. Its word recommendations were consistently reliable.

The tool’s generative AI feature also did well with our test paragraph. It transformed awkward phrasing in a pet adoption scenario into a more concise and engaging narrative:

Our snippet: Bringing a cat home as a new pet can be an exciting and a rewarding experience. However, it’s important to be prepared for the responsibility that come’s with caring for a cat.

Grammarly’s version: Getting a new cat can be a thrilling and rewarding experience, but it’s important to be prepared for the responsibility that comes with it.

Grammarly integrations

• Email clients: Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail
• Apps: Google Docs, Word, Teams, Slack, PowerPoint
• Social platforms: LinkedIn, X
• Browsers: Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox
• Devices: iOS, Android, Mac

Grammarly pricing

• Free version: Limited to 100 AI prompts
• Premium: $12 USD monthly, billed annually
• Business: $15 USD monthly per member
• Trial offers: 7-day free trial for paid plans

Hemingway Editor: Clarity is key

Hemingway Editor assigns a grade-level score to your copy so you can make it accessible for your target audience. It recommends aiming for a 9th-grade reading level for general readability, although higher levels may be acceptable for academic or highly technical audiences.

A word of caution: Hemingway is a style checker. Since it doesn’t catch common grammar and spelling mistakes, be sure to proofread in another tool.

Key features of Hemingway

• Calculates a grade-level readability score for your copy
• Highlights unnecessary words, jargon, and hard-to-read sentences
• Uses color-coding to prioritize issues
• Includes formatting options, such as headers, bullets, italics, bold, and links
• Exports final copy to text, PDF, and Word
• Converts copy to HTML for publishing on the web
• Saves editing suggestions as a PDF so you can share them with colleagues
• Rewrites sentences instantly using AI (Hemingway Editor Plus only)

Accuracy and helpfulness

Hemingway is included in our list for its grade-level reading scores, which are useful for making complex copy more accessible. It’s not a grammar checker, however, so mistakes such as “they’re” versus “their” slip by. We also found Hemingway’s AI tool isn’t as powerful as other platforms. It simplified one of our long sentences into several short ones. This brings the grade level score down, but the result isn’t particularly engaging:

Our snippet: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed and don’t forget to cat-proof your home by removing hazardous object’s and securing your windows and door. 

Hemingway’s version: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed. Don’t forget to cat-proof your home. Remove hazardous objects and secure your windows and doors.

Hemingway integrations

• macOS
• Windows
• WordPress
• Medium

Hemingway pricing

• Online version is free
• Hemingway Editor (desktop): $19.99 USD one-time purchase
• Hemingway Editor Plus (AI): Starting at $10 USD monthly

ProWritingAid: For the detail-oriented editor

ProWritingAid is a solid grammar tool. It deftly handles grammar, style, and clarity, and it helps you achieve the right tone for your audience. We also like how the platform helps improve your writing skills by explaining the rationale behind recommended changes, complete with links to resource articles.

Key features of ProWritingAid

• Checks for spelling, grammar, and common style issues, such as passive voice
• Customizes suggestions based on document type: academic, business, casual, creative
• Provides in-depth analysis of elements such as transitions, overused words, and pacing
• Tracks readability, sentence length, and variety based on averages for the genre
• Paraphrases content according to your specifications (i.e., shorten, expand, or make the tone more formal)
• Provides advanced AI “sparks” to improve word choice, remove repetitions, edit transitions, and add analogies

Accuracy and helpfulness

We purposely overloaded our test paragraph with the word “cat” to see if any of the platforms would notice the monotony. ProWritingAid was one of the only tools to call us out on it, suggesting alternatives such as “feline,” “kitten,” and “kitty” for variety. The tool’s AI rewrites were also solid, turning a cluttered sentence into something more succinct. Here’s an example:

Our snippet: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed and don’t forget to cat-proof your home by removing hazardous object’s and securing your windows and door. 

ProWritingAid’s version: Make sure to provide hiding spots, toys, and a comfy bed for your cat. Also, cat-proof your home by removing dangerous items and securing windows and doors.

ProWritingAid integrations

• Microsoft Word for Windows
• Windows apps
• Mac apps
• Google Docs
• Safari
• Chrome
• Edge
• Firefox
• Scrivener
• OpenOffice

ProWritingAid pricing

• Free version is limited to 500 words, 10 rephrases, and three AI Sparks per day
• Premium: $10 USD monthly, billed yearly
• Premium Pro: $12 USD monthly, billed yearly
• Guarantee: No free trial but a 14-day money-back guarantee is available

QuillBot: Rewriting with intelligence

QuillBot reliably finds spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes while finessing content to boost reader engagement. With support for multiple languages, it is well-suited for those working in international audiences. These features are wrapped up in a clean, easy-to-use interface.

QuillBot features

• Checks copy for correctness 
• Recommends improved wording
• Customizes recommendations according to creative, academic, and custom audiences
• Supports German, French, and Spanish
• Translates text to more than 45 languages
• Offers AI-powered features for writing assistance
• Checks for plagiarism

Accuracy and helpfulness

QuillBot performed impressively in our test. It caught subtle issues other tools didn’t, such as the lack of parallelism in the phrase “windows and door.” Even more intriguing — when asked to rewrite the copy, it not only created compelling text but also added new information to flesh out the topic. Note the mention of cat nutrition in the rewrite below.

Our snippet: And then there’s the most important gift you can give your cat: affection. With patience and love, soon you will forge a strong bond with your pet, enriching both of your live’s for years to come.

QuillBot’s version: Remember to also provide a balanced diet and fresh water for your cat, as nutrition plays a key role in their overall health and well-being. Additionally, spend quality time playing and interacting with your cat to ensure they are mentally stimulated and happy.

QuillBot integrations

• Google Chrome
• Google Docs
• macOS
• Microsoft Edge
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Word

QuillBot pricing

• Free version available
• Premium: $8.33 to $19.95 USD per month, depending on billing cycle
• No free trial but offers a 100% money-back guarantee after 3 days

Scribens: The Free Grammar Wizard

Scribens is a straightforward grammar checker. Simply paste in your copy, click the highlighted areas, and accept or ignore the tool’s suggestions. You can check up to 8,000 characters of text at a time, which is generous for a free platform. Like Hemingway, Scribens provides readability scores for your text to help you adjust the comprehension level appropriate for your audience.

Scribens features

• Checks for spelling, grammar, and basic style issues
• Supports English and French text
• Includes Flesch Reading Ease and Gunning Fog Index to gauge text complexity
• Calculates statistics, such as average words per sentence and average syllables per word
• Estimates reading and speaking times for your content
• Includes a customizable dictionary that allows users to add unique or specialized terms

Accuracy and helpfulness

Scribens performs effectively for a free tool. It flags repetitive words to add variety to your writing and suggests alternatives for common words to make your content more impactful.

The grammar checker missed a couple of errors in our test, including sentence fragments and misuse of “they’re” versus “their.” While we prefer other tools for style feedback, Scribens is useful for tracking reading levels and statistics related to word and sentence length.

Scribens integrations

• Office programs: Microsoft Word, Google Docs, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice 
• Messaging: Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Orange
• Websites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress, forms, blogs, and forums
• Mobile devices: Android smartphone and tablet, iPhone, iPad

Scribens pricing

• Free version is limited to 125 words in the paraphrasing tool
• Premium: 4.16 € to 9.90 € monthly, depending on billing cycle (approximately $4.50 to $10.75 USD)

Customization and Flexibility in Grammar Tools

While some grammar rules are set in stone, your writing style and word choice should be adjusted to fit your audience. For example, the phrase “core competency” is appropriate for a white paper targeted to HR executives, but the simpler “key skill” resonates more with job seekers. 

It can be challenging to achieve the right tone for different readers and maintain it consistently throughout a document. Thankfully, AI-enabled grammar tools can cut down on the time it takes to fine-tune your content. They’ve processed huge amounts of text to find patterns and variations and can quickly come up with words and phrasing that make sense for a particular scenario. This helps you connect with audiences more effectively, leading to better engagement and understanding of your content.

Tailoring tools to your writing style

We have to give kudos to ProWritingAid for its ability to tailor suggestions to specific audiences. The platform lets you select a writing style for various content types: general, academic, business, technical, creative, casual, web, and script. Each style has certain rules and targets that influence the recommendations you receive. For example, passive voice is more acceptable in academic writing, whereas web content benefits from shorter sentences. If the preset rules don’t meet your needs, simply customize your own to achieve the results you need.

Integrating Grammar Tools Into Your Writing Process

As grammar tools become more powerful, they significantly change our approach to writing. In the past, we’d run a spell check at the end of the writing process to find mistakes. Now, AI grammar tools provide valuable writing support from the time you open a new document to the moment you hit publish. They can kick-start your writing, fix mistakes, remove jargon, and help you achieve the right voice.

With these benefits in mind, many companies are rethinking how to use grammar checkers to enhance the content production process. By incorporating AI grammar tools into our workflow, we can produce higher-quality content in less time. This shift in approach has led to increased efficiency and improved overall writing outcomes for many organizations.

Streamlining your workflow with grammar tools

Here’s how you can incorporate grammar tools into your writing process. 

• Install your grammar checker. Many tools can be integrated right into your desktop environment to provide real-time feedback. This saves you from copying and pasting between your word-processing program and the grammar platform.
• Set up your style guides. Customize style guides to align with your writing preferences. You can set up rules for brand and product names, language, and terminology to get things right the first time and simplify the editing process.
• Leverage AI writing suggestions. Stuck on a headline or phrasing? Trying to wrangle an awkward sentence? Make use of AI to get past your writer’s block and accelerate your output.
• Review suggestions. Make judgment calls about whether the recommendations improve your copy. Grammar checkers aren’t always correct, but when they are, try to learn from your mistakes and boost your writing proficiency.
• Revise copy. Fix spelling, typos, grammar, and style inconsistencies. Adjust for tone and voice. Invite feedback from colleagues and editors to ensure your content is accurate and clear.  
• Finalize content. Make adjustments to your copy to ensure it’s polished, error-free, and provides value to readers.

Collaboration and sharing: Grammar tools in team projects

Content production is typically collaborative with writers, editors, and subject matter experts contributing before sign-off. Programs such as Google Docs enable shared access, but with so many people involved, it’s easy for inconsistencies to slip in. Use grammar tools throughout the writing process to ensure your content is uniform and cohesive.

For instance, Zapier implemented Grammarly to create a company-wide style guide. This ensured branded terms and names of partner apps were used correctly throughout their communications. Previously, writers and editors spent a significant amount of time tracking down the right language and fixing errors. By utilizing a grammar tool, Zapier ensured proper language usage at the writing stage, streamlining editing and maintaining a cohesive style. This ultimately saved time and improved content quality.

Grammar Tools and the Future of Writing

As artificial intelligence evolves, the best grammar tools are becoming inseparable from the writing process. We’re already seeing these platforms folded into our daily work environments, sparking and condensing ideas and enhancing readability. With ongoing developments in machine learning, AI-enabled tools will likely get better at analyzing language nuances, personalizing content, and refining suggestions for specific audiences.

What does that mean for those of us crafting content? Well, “old-school writing” isn’t going away, according to author Rishad Tobaccowala.  He predicts, “AI will replace many writers — the hack writers. It will not replace writers … who focus on communing and connecting with human minds and emotions.” 

Tobaccowala emphasizes that AI helps writers produce better content. “The best writers today use AI as an input to power, expand, and challenge themselves in ways that improve their writing and expand their thinking. AI expands the palette and opens new horizons,” he said.

This aligns with how we approach AI at Crowd Content. Modern grammar checkers and AI content creation tools are just that — tools — not replacements for your own creativity and expertise. As discussed in a recent episode of the Crowd Content podcast (20:52), purely AI content is based on what’s already been published. It doesn’t inspire engagement and conversions. To have an impact on your audience, make sure what you’re publishing is helpful to readers, weave in interesting opinions and insights, and satisfy your audience’s needs.

Real-World Success Stories: Grammar Tools in Action

We’ve compiled some examples to show you how marketers, writers, and professionals are leveraging the capabilities of these powerful platforms. Check out the stories below to explore the potential of AI grammar tools in enriching content production. 

Case studies: Transforming writing with grammar tools

Zoom experienced an unprecedented demand on its services a few years ago when businesses turned to work-from-home models. Its teams struggled to keep up with communications on a global basis. The company turned to Grammarly’s business platform to ensure consistent use of terminology, brand voice, and messaging. Zoom estimates this saved 7,000 hours of staff time, speeding up staff onboarding and removing bottlenecks in reviewing content. Grammarly’s real-time writing assistance also boosted the confidence of individual team members in their communication skills.

Grammarly also provides a striking example of how its business tool helps writers achieve the right tone. HackerOne, a platform that enables hackers to work alongside brands to identify security vulnerabilities, has two distinct audiences. By using custom style guides and a tone detector, HackerOne was able to better communicate in a professional tone with enterprise clients and, more informally, with the hacker community. As a result, communications improved by 68% across pillars such as clarity, engagement, and correctness.

From skeptic to advocate: A user experience example

Anja Wedberg, Senior Content Editor at NOA Ignite, felt confident in her writing skills until plugging an article into Hemingway Editor. “I had overall positive feedback about this article,” she explained on the company’s blog. When Hemingway almost completely marked up the piece, she took a closer look and reworked it for readability. She brought it from a grade 12 reading level to grade 8.

She shared on the company’s blog, “What the average writer thinks is easy to read is not the same as what the average reader finds easy to read. At the end of the day, the main question is: Do we want to make sure that our texts can be understood by most people? If the answer to that is yes, we had better listen to Hemingway.”

Master Your Content With the Right Tools and Expertise

Modern-day grammar checkers work alongside you as you write, eliminating mistakes and capturing the right tone for your audience. They also lean on artificial intelligence to energize the writing process and help you better express your thoughts. The results? Smooth, polished prose and less time tussling with content.

While AI tools can improve your copy, it still needs substance to engage readers and drive conversions. Remember to infuse your writing with real-life opinions and expertise. By combining the efficiency of AI tools with your unique perspective, you can create more meaningful content that resonates with your audience. Discover how the right grammar tools, combined with Crowd Content’s professional content creation services, can elevate your writing.

The post 5 Best Grammar Tools for Content Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Readers want information they can trust, and Google wants to give it to them. In fact, Google’s manual raters specifically look for elements of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness — the E-E-A-T guidelines — when evaluating page and website quality.

How do you use SMEs to insert this kind of credibility into your content? It requires getting a feel for their professional experience and discovering if it’s compatible with your niche market. We’ve prepared 16 targeted questions to guide your interview.

Preparing for the Interview

So, you know you need a SME to build authority and create content that tops the search results. But how do you go about finding prospective experts within your niche?

Identifying your ideal SME

Finding the ideal SME will depend on the type of content you’re providing, your goals, and what expertise is most valuable to your audience. Here are some valuable resources you can use to find these experts:

• Networking sites such as LinkedIn
• Professional associations
• Academic institutions
• Consulting firms
• Social media
• Industry publications

Pre-interview research essentials

Once you have a short list of business-relevant experts, be thorough during the selection process, as interviewing SMEs takes a lot of time and research. You want to avoid discovering halfway through the process that someone simply isn’t a good fit for your needs.

That’s where pre-interview research comes in. Do it right, and you’ll avoid headaches later. At the bare minimum, you should check the following details before approaching a SME for further discussion:

• Check audience alignment: Does the SME resonate well with your target audience? SMEs aren’t merely a source of knowledge. Just look at how science communicator Bill Nye enchants audiences — the right SME can turn an average article into high-ranking content filled with insights.
• Evaluate past work:  Your SME should have a body of work you can examine. Read through their documents and listen to past public speaking engagements so you have a clear understanding of  their experience and personality.
• Look for unique insights: A lot of web content is unoriginal or unhelpful — a problem Google seeks to fix with updates such as Helpful Content. SMEs who provide a unique perspective are a gold mine in today’s search landscape. As digital marketing pioneer Ann Handley says, “In a sea of mediocre content, a brave tone can be a big differentiator.”

Crafting Effective Subject Matter Expert Interview Questions

Eventually, you’ll need to interview your SMEs to explore the depth of their knowledge. However, there’s a right and wrong way to go about this.

For example, asking questions that yield simple yes or no answers won’t reveal much, so stick to open-ended questions when possible. You should also frame your questions neutrally if the potential for bias is a concern. Often, the best types of questions are the ones that prompt your SME to reveal personal or professional anecdotes, as this highlights the kind of personal experience and authority Google loves.

Sample SME interview questions by category

One of the easiest ways to plan your interview is by organizing questions into categories. Through these categories, you can learn more about an expert’s background, while leading the interview and staying on topic.

While it’s essential to adjust your questions based on the specific content and goals, the following list provides a solid foundation for most purposes.

Background and experience

1. What drew you to your field?

Discover what’s interesting about a specific subject through this question. This may help you tweak your content direction or learn ways to increase audience engagement.

2. Do you recall an experience that profoundly impacted your professional career?

Remember how Google prioritizes personal experience? Use this question to target Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines and meet its demand for helpful content.

3. What key lessons from your early career still influence your work today?

Learning about a subject’s foundational aspects allows you to provide relevant, valuable advice that remains evergreen.

Industry insights

4. What current trends do you find most influential in our industry?

Clean and simple — this question will empower you to make bold, accurate claims about the future of your industry, showcasing authority.

5. How do you see customer expectations or needs evolving in our industry?

In a 1989 interview with Inc. magazine, Steve Jobs said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” Your SME offers a unique perspective into customer psychology, so make sure you benefit from it.

6. What emerging technologies or methodologies excite you the most?

Want to provoke thought and fascinate your audience? Talking about future technologies is sure to do it.

7. What do you believe is the next big thing in our field?

This question lets you build trust in your audience by positioning yourself as an industry leader.

Challenges and solutions

8. What strategies do you use when confronted with challenges?

Use this question to insert practical advice into your content, improving its helpfulness.

9. Can you describe a complex issue you resolved that significantly impacted your company or industry?

Like some of our earlier recommendations, this question helps you add experience to your content. It can even lead you to valuable case studies.

10. How do you adapt problem-solving principles for interdisciplinary teams?

This question lets you add practical advice to your content to help your audience navigate collaboration — something crucial in most industries.

Personal philosophy and approaches

11. How do you stay motivated and focused in your field?

12. What approach do you take to manage your work-life balance?

13. How do you ensure continuous growth in your professional life?

Personal questions such as the ones listed above offer a unique opportunity to give your audience practical advice. This not only adds value to your content but also makes it more link-worthy, driving future growth.

Innovation and thought leadership

14. How do you cultivate a culture of innovation within your team or organization?

15. How do you see your role evolving as the industry changes?

16. What challenges do you face when introducing new ideas or changes in your industry?

These types of questions give you the information needed to craft compelling and useful leadership content. They target common pain points your audience may face, allowing you to provide the answers they seek.

During the Interview

SMEs are a wellspring of valuable insights and experience that can elevate your content and ensure that it’s helpful and engaging. However, getting to this information requires finesse.

Building rapport with SMEs

As an interviewer, it’s your job to steer the conversation in the right direction. Think of yourself as the ship’s captain. You need to navigate the vast ocean of information to find useful facts, quotes, and anecdotes.

Easier said than done, right? Well, follow these tips for a smoother interview.

• Organize things beforehand: Schedule a suitable time, choose the software you’ll use for the call, and let your expert see the questions in advance. Set up recording during the interview to ensure you have something to analyze later.
• Do your research: You can’t ask relevant questions if you don’t understand the subject. Learn as much as possible about the interview’s subject to ensure you can also ask useful follow-up questions.
• Establish common ground: Use mutual interests to build a connection with your SME and put them at ease. If you’ve had a similar experience, discuss it with them.
• Listen and acknowledge: Active listening is crucial to a good interview. Don’t just nod and agree — offer input to show you’ve understood everything and that you value the expert’s time and opinion.
• Maintain a conversational tone: A friendly, energetic tone and pace are ideal. While you need to stay on track, don’t be afraid to let your SME set the direction at times.

Mastering the art of follow-up questions

The other major challenge to a successful interview is the art of follow-up questions, knowing when and how to dive deeper.

Part of this goes back to a previous tip — doing your homework. But it’s also important to seek clarification if you don’t understand a concept. If you find something particularly insightful, build on your previous question to probe for more knowledge.

You can also approach follow-up in these targeted ways:

• Rephrase a question if the SME finds it difficult to answer.
• Ask for further information about any unfamiliar concepts or jargon.
• Ask about related topics to form links between separate ideas.
• Ask your SME to quantify or define anything ambiguous.

Post-Interview

Before you can incorporate insights from your SME into your content, you’ll need to analyze and refine the information you’ve gathered.

Analyzing SME insights

During the interview, it’s important to record everything said so you can transcribe and refer to it later. Then, approach the analysis.

1. Highlight key points, including advice, predictions, and stories.
2. Identify unique perspectives that competitors aren’t already leveraging.
3. Sort all information based on categories such as industry trends and solutions to problems.
4. Assess the information’s relevance for your audience.
5. Determine where and how you can integrate insights into your content.

Refining and integrating interview findings

After analyzing the interview, there are many ways you can refine your content and integrate insights from your SME seamlessly:

• Use quotes: A quote is a powerful way to add authority to various kinds of content. Use direct quotes for impact or paraphrase your expert’s major points to support arguments and ideas in articles, videos, and social media posts.
• Condense information: SMEs have the professional experience to cover topics in great detail. It’s often necessary to summarize and simplify some concepts so your audience finds the information approachable and easy to understand.
• Add examples: Incorporate SME anecdotes into your content as real-life examples to illustrate complex points and make your content more relatable.
• Provide comparisons: Comparing your expert’s insights with other prominent figures balances your content. However, you can also use this technique to add contrast. For example, you can use your SME’s expertise to dispel a widespread myth.

SME Interviews: Enhancing Content Quality and Engagement

Experts bring extensive knowledge and unique experiences to the table, allowing you to position your business as an authority figure in the eyes of Google. They also help you craft engaging content that visitors will love to read from beginning to end.

However, you’ll miss out on these benefits if you don’t have a way to draw out the potential of your SMEs. That’s why you need methods to vet each expert and an interview process that gets to the heart of their expertise.If you need a professional to review your content, take a look at our SME services. We’ve vetted and verified each member of our network, giving you easy access to experienced professionals and streamlined content creation.

The post 16 Subject Matter Expert Interview Questions appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

A content strategy is a detailed plan laying out how your business plans to engage customers using digital assets, such as online articles, videos, case studies, or podcasts. Think of it like a professional map pinpointing destinations from the top to the bottom of the funnel — a guide that delivers value, creates brand awareness, and carries your customer through every stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Core Elements of a Content Marketing Strategy

Just like you can’t make grilled cheese without bread, a content marketing strategy has nonnegotiable ingredients that pull everything together. You need to know who you’re targeting, the channels you’re using to reach them, and the goals you need to hit.

Identifying and understanding the target audience

Good content marketing revolves around your customers. You must know your audience and empathize with their needs to create content that resonates. After all, you can create a fascinating article or slick video. But if your customers shrug their collective shoulders and scroll past it, your message tumbles into the internet equivalent of a black hole.

That’s why your strategy must be customer-centric. Conduct in-depth research and analysis to learn about your browsers’ demographics, interests, behaviors, preferences, and frustrations. Use this information to determine the type of content to produce, topics to cover, and tone to adopt. 

Choosing content distribution channels

The next part of your strategy focuses on distributing content so audiences discover your brand. Choose channels that align with their preferences and behaviors, which you ideally established during your audience research. Consider the channels’ reach, engagement potential, and cost-effectiveness when finalizing your choices.

To maximize reach, we recommend a mix of channels for diversity.

• Owned channels, such as your website, blog, app, and email newsletter, are fully under your control.
• Paid channels can give you a significant lift in exposure, but they have a price tag. PPC ads, influencer partnerships, and sponsored content fall into this category.
• Earned channels include media mentions, user-generated content, and guest blogs. They require a third-party endorsement of your brand, which makes them feel more authentic to customers.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy: Step-by-Step

As you can tell, it takes time to develop a content marketing strategy that grows your business. It might seem daunting, but if you break the process into steps, your strategy slowly and surely comes together.

Define your audience

Start by defining your target audience. Buyer personas are useful for seeing your customers as people rather than a demographic. 

• Talk to your product team. Your colleagues likely performed audience research when designing and branding the product.
• Review website analytics. Google Analytics, for example, offers insights into audience demographics, location, interests, and their favored devices.
• Conduct surveys and focus groups. Ask questions about preferences, challenges, and where customers get information from.
• Monitor social media conversations. Listen to what audiences say about your industry, brand, and competitors.

Research keywords

SEO goes hand in hand with a content strategy. Perform keyword research using tools such as Semrush to ensure your content appears in the SERPs when your audience searches for your product or service. Lean on different keyword research tools to generate and analyze search terms so you can prioritize the ones with the most potential for your business. 

We recommend using keywords to guide your content — they’re not meant to be stuffed onto each page. Organize keywords into themes, and don’t forget long-tail keywords that reach customers with specific search intent. 

Set goals and choose KPIs

Remember that a content marketing plan needs a clear purpose to drive results. Your content goals might be to boost brand awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, conversions, or sales. Pair your goals with quantifiable metrics. These benchmarks are reference points for your progress, telling you which parts of your strategy might need a little TLC.  Over time, some metrics may spike, plateau, or drop. Use this data to keep your strategy on track and refine your tactics. Track key performance indicators regularly, especially after specific campaign rollouts. 

Determine content types and channels

Most content strategies rely heavily on blog posts because they easily adapt to your messaging. But you can (and should) draw on various content types to make your strategy more dynamic. Always keep your audience in mind, and match content to the buyer’s journey.

• E-books and white papers let you dive deep into a topic and provide thought leadership.
• Case studies draw on real-life examples to demonstrate a solution to a problem.
• How-to guides and instructional resources help readers accomplish a task.
• FAQs provide quick answers to common customer concerns.
• Webinars and podcasts are interactive workshops, presentations, and discussions that share expertise. 

Here’s a content strategy example. If you want to use content to generate leads, and your customer is a B2B decision-maker, consider a gated white paper on your website. If they frequent LinkedIn, create a video as a teaser to capture their interest, and link to your landing page in the post.

Conduct a content audit

You don’t need to start your content production from scratch. See what assets you already have by auditing your content and creating an inventory of previously published assets. List each item in a spreadsheet and track title, URL, content type, category or theme, buyer stage, and target keywords. Then, you can determine what content you need to complete your strategy.

Pro tip: At the same time, evaluate each page to ensure it contains high-quality content that meets Google’s excellence standards. Add any necessary content refreshes into your strategy.

Build a content calendar

A content calendar helps you visualize how the pieces of your plan should roll out. Plan it at least 6 months in advance, scheduling each piece with a publication date and working backward to determine writing, editing, and design deadlines. You can also use the calendar to assign your team specific roles, especially if you have a pool of writers. Editorial calendars are essential for staying organized and keeping things going after ideation. 

Executing Your Content Marketing Strategy

While a documented content marketing plan can lead you to your goals, you unlock its potential once it’s implemented and brought to life. Create an organized content production process to ensure what you publish strikes a chord with your audience. Then, promote your content diligently so they can discover it.

Content creation best practices

Audiences quickly decide if a piece of content is relevant or interesting. Use our content creation tips to produce stellar blog posts, articles, landing pages, and web content.

• Understand search intent. Users have a specific query in mind when they plug keywords into a search engine. If you’re targeting the search term “hatha yoga,” for example, determine if someone wants to know the history of hatha yoga, how to do it, or where to take classes. SEO tools can help with this, or you can look into the types of content currently ranking for the search term.
• Create content briefs. Use our content brief template, and give your writers guidelines for crafting each piece. A brief covers keywords, search intent, target audience, People Also Ask questions, tone, style, word count, and deadlines. 
• Make your content exceptional. Follow the basics of good content creation, such as writing concisely and proofreading before publishing. Every piece should provide value, such as original research and real-life examples.
• Incorporate multimedia. Perk up written text with graphics, slide shows, or video to help tell your story in a visually appealing way. 
• Optimize for SEO. It can seem like Google’s algorithms are random and mysterious, but there’s a method to the madness. Improve your chances of ranking by helping search engines understand the content. Add meta titles and descriptions, organize content with headers, use descriptive anchor text and URLs, and optimize for featured snippets. Videos should include transcripts for those who prefer to read, and images should have alt-text for accessibility.
• Include CTAs. Help readers navigate your website and get to the next stage of their journey with strong, clear calls to action. You can incorporate these as links within your copy or as more prominent buttons.
• Stay true to your brand. To build loyalty, each piece of content should reflect the essence of your brand so audiences know what to expect. Marketing specialist Ann Handley describes this as “artisanal content.” In a recent Crowd Content webinar about the future of content marketing, Handley explained, “[It’s] content that can only come from you … that’s really infused with your voice, with your point of view, or with your face, in some situations. It can’t come from anyone else; it won’t sound the same. [It] feels almost handcrafted for us specifically.” 

Effective distribution channels

Search engines, newsletters, social media, and paid ads all help distribute your content to a broad audience. To get the most impact, ensure the format suits the channel. Buffer, for example, promotes articles on LinkedIn as carousels. As users have to swipe through the content, it’s more engaging than simply posting a text summary. 

At Crowd Content, we use multiple channels to distribute content more widely. Our blog post about whether AI content can rank in Google doubled as a jumping-off point for a podcast discussion.  

“There’s no one size fits all recipe when it comes to determining what channels you should use for your business as far as what’s going to work well for you — not just the mix, but the weighting,” our VP of Content Operations, Rick Leach, recently explained. “I encourage you to try, measure, adjust … then increase or decrease the percentage of resources that go toward that channel as the data tells you.” 

Measuring the Success of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Once you have your strategy in motion, monitor your progress across your distribution channels. Platforms such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Semrush, and Ahrefs capture website analytics and integrate with social networking and email platforms to consolidate data into a single dashboard. 

Key performance indicators in content marketing

Choose KPIs related to your content marketing goals so you can make data-informed decisions and fine-tune your tactics. 

Analytics for strategy optimization 

You might feel like you’re swimming in numbers once the data starts rolling in. Tackle your analytics in the same way you put together your content strategy: methodically.

Search for patterns, trends, and possible issues with your content performance. For example, begin investigating if your engagement metrics show audiences aren’t interacting. Look at individual pieces of content that are drop-off points in the funnel, or segment audiences by demographics, device, or behavior to see if a particular group isn’t engaging.

Based on the findings, you might improve navigation, design, or CTAs. You could also experiment with formats, topics, and storytelling techniques that better resonate with audience preferences. Using your data and analysis, make incremental adjustments to your content to optimize it, and continue monitoring and adjusting.

Future Trends in Content Marketing Strategy

When you think you’ve got your content marketing strategies nailed down, things shift. It’s one of the realities of our chaotic, digital world. You can expect audience preferences to change, new competitors and technologies to pop up, and algorithm updates to steer content in new directions. Adopt a proactive approach so you can prepare for these inevitable shifts.

Emerging technologies in content marketing

Businesses are already exploring how artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can support content marketing. Be open to experimentation and innovation that can refine your strategies and set you apart from competitors. For example:

• Content intelligence platforms identify topics for different stages of the buyer’s journey and predict the best distribution channels.
• AI writing tools can help with research and outlining. (But make sure your final content has a human touch.)
• AI-powered web analytics tools quickly process data to detect trends and patterns and anticipate future behavior.
• Augmented and virtual reality offer new formats for storytelling.

Changing consumer behaviors

No matter what technology you leverage, don’t lose sight of your audience. Keep a pulse on your customers. Continue to talk to them through focus groups and surveys to understand their priorities. Employ social media monitoring to listen in on real-time concerns. When you understand what’s driving audience behaviors, you can provide better content solutions to meet their needs.

Crafting a Successful Content Marketing Strategy for Your Business

Once you build a solid framework for your content marketing, it’s easier to create pieces that appeal to your audience and inspire them toward desired goals. Spend some time laying the groundwork by getting to know your customers, establishing objectives, and choosing relevant distribution channels. Stay on track by monitoring KPIs and audience behaviors, and refine tactics with your sights set firmly on your goals. 

Maximize your content potential

Ready to revolutionize your brand’s digital presence? Discover how Crowd Content’s content strategy services can elevate your business. Our team of experts is dedicated to crafting bespoke strategies that resonate with your audience and drive results.

The post Unlock the Power of Digital Storytelling With a Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In other words, what may have worked like gangbusters for your brand only a couple of years ago might not be doing the job anymore. The solution is to adapt and freshen up your approach to digital marketing with some savvy moves of your own.

In 2024, the trend is clear: organized, user-friendly websites filled with helpful content are where it’s at, and mastering the fine art of topic clusters can help keep you relevant. Here’s a closer look at what you need to know to bring your site up to speed with a killer topic cluster strategy of your own.

Understanding Topic Clusters

Also sometimes referred to as content clusters, topic clusters are organized groups of web pages with a centralized theme in common.

Each individual topic cluster has a pillar page that presents a broad introduction to a particular subject. It also includes multiple cluster pages that focus on a variety of related subtopics. For example, a cooking website might feature a pillar page on basic techniques with subtopic pages on subjects like baking, roasting, steaming, and frying.

A classic topic cluster model positions the pillar page as the primary hub on a broad topic by having it link out to each of the related cluster pages. Each cluster page then also links back to the associated pillar page.

Organizing related pages in this way and seamlessly linking them together comes with many potential benefits for a site, including the following:

Easier navigation for visitors

The more organized your site is, the easier it will be for your visitors to find what they’re looking for and explore your content further. Topic clusters turn browsing for information into an intuitive, user-friendly experience, often leading to lower bounce rates and higher engagement.

Stronger search engine optimization (SEO)

Grouping related pages together using the topic cluster approach helps signal to search engines that your pillar pages are worthy authorities on particular topics. It’s also an excellent way to potentially target a wider range of choice keywords.

Better brand authority

Well-organized authority content, high engagement rates, and top SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) rankings can help transform a brand into an industry authority over time. Imagine being the go-to source for information on your niche of choice. Well-strategized topic clusters can help you get there.

Impact of Topic Clusters on SEO Performance

The more you can do to show search engines you’re serious about providing your visitors and potential customers with a top-tier experience, the better it will be for your ongoing SEO strategy. In addition to making your site easier to use overall, topic clusters help boost your rankings by:

Improving your site’s internal linking structure

The internal linking method associated with topic clustering helps Google better understand what your site is really all about, why it’s important, and how your various pages are connected.

Effectively expanding the scope of your site

Search engines tend to favor sites with a consistent, organized structure and navigation system. A cluster-based system helps present information using a system search engines understand.

Potentially winning the trust of users, peers, and search engines

Google and the rest of the search engines are in the business of providing users with the best, most relevant possible solutions to their queries. Sites that are organized, user-friendly, helpful, and informative are more likely to provide those solutions and achieve top SERP rankings as a result.

Showing that your site digs deep into topics that are important to users

Pillar pages and related cluster pages allow you to organize vast amounts of information using a cohesive system that intuitively makes sense to your visitors. This makes it easy to efficiently deep-dive into the subjects your readers care about most on a level your competition may not be doing.

Helping Google better understand the hierarchy of your website

The better Google understands how your website is set up and how the content contained within it interconnects, the easier it will be to rank it. Clustering also provides a framework that lends itself well to establishing serious authority in a given niche.

Supporting your keyword strategy

Smart, natural keyword usage is already a huge part of climbing the SERPs. Adding topic clusters to your strategy can help you further focus your efforts and better plan future content, especially on a long-term basis.

Structuring Topic Clusters

Without a cohesive internal linking structure in place, it’s hard for a website to avoid becoming overwhelmingly complex as it grows. Over time, as the number of total pages increases, the overall structure of a site tends to get increasingly complicated.

Naturally, this complexity can make it tough for visitors to find the valuable content they’re looking for and equally challenging for search engine bots to figure out how your pages are connected.

As a result, Google may have trouble understanding which of your pages are the definitive authorities on the topics you cover. Instead of working together cohesively to earn you better rankings, your related pages might end up competing with each other, not just for search engine rankings but also for your visitors’ attention.

Topic clusters address all of these problems with a consistent, easy-to-follow structure that makes sense even at a glance, to human readers and search engines alike. Here’s a quick look at how they work:

Pillar page

Think of a topic cluster as a wheel with a fixed center and multiple spokes branching out from that center to support it. The cluster’s pillar page constitutes the center, providing a broad overview of a single key topic or subject.

Good pillar pages are general but fairly comprehensive, providing visitors with a solid introduction to the topic at hand and a good idea of where to go next for more answers.

Cluster pages

Your cluster pages form the spokes of your cluster wheel, supporting the main topic and providing visitors with additional, more targeted information on a variety of subtopics (one per cluster page).

Effective cluster pages cover their designated subtopics in detail, ideally answering common questions readers have and delivering useful, on-topic information.

Internal linking

The internal link structure of a topic cluster is the glue that holds the whole thing together and makes it functional. Pillar pages contain organized links to each related cluster page, and each cluster page links back to the pillar page in turn.

From your visitors to search engines, this setup helps everyone understand how your content is related and structured, which makes navigation a breeze.

Initiating Topic Cluster Strategy

Ready to start leveraging topic clusters to drive quality organic traffic and engage your target audience more effectively? Let’s break down the steps to create a cluster strategy that works:

Choose your main cluster topic

Every effective content cluster begins with a central theme. This is your foundation. Consider the following to settle on something that will really resonate with your target audience:

• Content you already have versus any gaps that need to be filled
• Content topics that have already worked well for you in the past
• Subjects your audience cares deeply about or actively asks about
• Topics your competitors are already covering that should also be part of your strategy

Be sure to select something expansive enough to yield multiple strong subtopics for fleshing out your cluster. It should be something that genuinely interests your audience and serves the needs of visitors.

Research compatible keywords

Remember, well-orchestrated content clusters and well-chosen keywords go hand in hand, so starting a new cluster should always include a fresh round of keyword research. How might a potential visitor query Google to find content like yours?

A solid keyword research tool like SEMRush Keyword Manager, KWFinder, or Google Keyword Planner can help you brainstorm lush groups of topics, subtopics, and target phrases using simple seed keywords as a starting point.

Organize your keywords throughout your cluster

Consider which core keywords are the best fit for your pillar page by reflecting on the search opportunity attached to each option. Here are some factors to keep in mind:

• The search intent behind each keyword (in other words, the user’s true reason for entering a particular query)
• The competition for ranking on each keyword
• The search volume for each keyword

Next, go back to your list of possibilities and select options for each of your cluster/subtopic pages. Ensure that each of your chosen subtopics realistically relates to your pillar topic, and evaluate the possibilities for search opportunity.

Knock your content out of the park

Once you’ve mapped out the skeleton of your topic cluster, it’s time to start filling it with next-level content your audience will love. Start with your pillar page, then expand on your cluster pages, taking care to include opportunities to link back to your pillar.

The fundamentals of robust content that both human readers and Google will love include:

• Readable formatting that includes headings, bulleted lists, images, etc.
• Dynamic, engaging language that fits your brand voice
• Strategically used keywords in prime places like the first paragraph and headings
• Clear, concise wording and phrasing that’s easy to digest
• Well-incorporated internal links that make the content more useful
• Something extra readers won’t be able to find on competing pages

Tools and Strategies for Topic Research

Effective topic clusters that deliver don’t simply happen. They’re the results of careful, thorough research, and the right tools (including keyword research tools) can help take the guesswork out of the process. Here are a few popular options that are well worth exploring:

BuzzSumo

You may already be using BuzzSumo in your content creation strategy, but you should know it’s perfect for brainstorming topic clusters as well. Use it to audit your existing content and identify gaps to fill. You can also leverage the Topic Explorer tool to discover potential topics related to a chosen keyword.

SEMRush

SEMRush is a full-service suite of tools that streamlines many aspects of keyword research, content creation, and organic research, among other necessities. It’s packed with useful features for topic cluster research, including Keyword Magic Tool, Topic Research Tool, Keyword Gap, and Organic Research.

SpyFu

Keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing and how your site measures up is a crucial part of staying ahead in the rankings game, and SpyFu can be quite helpful for that. Easily find out which keywords the competition is ranking for, analyze how your own strategy compares, and use the findings to brainstorm high-performance clusters.

Google Trends

This tool from Google itself is fantastic for comparing the search volume attached to different keyword options, especially over time. Use it to study and keep track of the topics that resonate with readers in your niche to better inform your content choices.

While picking topics you are passionate about is important, you definitely don’t want to sleep on what your competitors are up to. At the end of the day, SERP rankings are all about which pages best serve the user behind a particular query, and knowing where you stand is an important part of getting ahead. 

Pay attention to pages that rank ahead of yours for important target keywords, too. What are those pages doing that you’re not? Is there anything missing from comparable competitor pages that your site could do a bang-up job delivering? Use tools like these to stay on top of what competing brands are putting out there and look for ways to improve upon it.

Real-World Examples of Topic Clusters

Curious how topic clusters play out in real life when they’re well crafted? Here are some examples to get you inspired about the possibilities:

Wine Folly

Wine Folly’s expertly crafted Wine 101 hub is a prime example of a topic cluster that delivers. The pillar page covers key basics about wine concisely but informatively before leading the reader to a list of cluster page links that promise even more fascinating information. Examples include overviews of common varietals, wine-tasting tips, and breakdowns of the wine-making process.

HubSpot

HubSpot nails it with their guide on Instagram marketing. To begin with, Instagram marketing is absolutely a key topic of interest to their audience, and HubSpot covers it in detail across their pillar page. They also further support the pillar with multiple spoke topics for interested readers to explore next.

Podia

Online courses are red hot right now, and all-in-one marketing brand Podia leverages that to perfection with its comprehensive pillar page on how to build a course. The pillar page is treated as an “everything you need to know” guide with the cluster pages serving as supporting chapters, which works well for the type of content presented.

As you can see, the concept of the content cluster is pretty simple. However, that’s exactly what makes it so effective. It’s easy to adapt to any industry, niche, or business focus. It can be simple and concise or elaborate and detailed. It’s an effective approach to organizing content in appealing, attractive ways that encourage visitors to spend time on your site and dig a little deeper into available topics while they’re at it.

How could you use this approach to spotlight a favorite topic on your site better appeal to your audience?

Crafting High-Quality Content for Topic Clusters

Content is king when it comes to all aspects of increasing the authority and visibility of a website, and this is just as much the case with topic cluster content as with anything else. Here are a few quick and dirty tips for crafting content that’s a terrific fit for a cluster-based content strategy:

Conduct a thorough content audit

Whether you’re reorganizing existing content to fit a cluster-based content strategy or crafting new content to add to an existing cluster system, it’s crucial to know where you already are with your catalog. A content audit can help give you the perspective you need.

Look for existing content that can be refreshed and regrouped into effective new clusters. Address any issues with duplicate, irrelevant, or outdated content you find. Then plan content to fill in any obvious content gaps and make your clusters sing.

Consider key visitor pain points

People turn to search engines looking for answers or solutions. Some people have specific problems they’re hoping to solve, while others are simply on a mission to gather information.

Topic clusters provide rich opportunities to serve these users and show them how your products or services could help provide the solutions they’re looking for. Start by considering key pain points your target audience has and see how they align with your current clusters or be used as the basis for a new one.

Do plenty of market research

Market research is a highly effective way to get another angle on what your audience really wants to see from you. Perform a round of competitor and market research to get a solid read on what matters to your audience.

Consider getting feedback from your existing audience via surveys, social media, or questionnaires, as well. Assess how you can refine what you’ve learned about your readers into rock-solid content that resonates.

Hire experts to help

Crafting a top-notch, informative content that’s ideal for content clusters is a tall order, especially if you need to create a lot of it to meet your goals. It’s probably not the kind of thing you’ll be able to tackle all on your own, so consider assembling a team of professionals to help you with the job.

Think about bringing in specialists like SEO professionals, content strategists, and professional freelance writers. These people have the content creation chops to help your cluster strategy blossom, allowing you to focus on other aspects of running your business.

Measuring Topic Cluster Success

Putting together a clustering strategy you’re sure will work is only half the battle when it comes to achieving success. The rest is about monitoring, measuring, and analyzing the potential returns of your efforts. Keep a close eye on the following key performance indicators (KPIs) to properly assess your results.

Keyword rankings

Perhaps the most important factor to track is your search ranking for your pillar and subtopic pages. Improvements here are likely signs that search engines find your content informative and valuable.

Search traffic

How do the organic search traffic rates look for your cluster-related pages? An uptick in visitors naturally suggests improved search engine visibility.

Conversion rates

If you’re using topic clusters to drive sales or increase interest in products or services you sell, keep a close eye on conversion-related data. Examples include actual sales, of course, but also mailing list sign-ups and similar actions.

Internal click-through rates (CTR)

Watch the CTR attached to your internal links within your different clusters. Those links are there to encourage visitors to migrate from one page to the next and spend more time on your site, and higher CTRs suggest they’re doing their job.

Quality backlinks

High-quality backlinks are the gold standard when it comes to signs your content is resonating with all the right people. They prove that visitors from your industry or niche not only find your content valuable, but like it enough to recommend it to their own audiences.

Audience feedback

Positive user feedback is another valuable sign that you’re knocking your cluster game out of the park and then some. Encourage your audience to provide some by offering appealing incentives or engaging them directly.

Advanced Technical Insights in Topic Clusters

Even an exceptional approach to content clustering can always stand to become even better, especially over time. Here are some insights to help refine your strategy

Think like your visitors

One reason topic clusters are so effective is that searcher behavior is changing and algorithms are evolving to match. The cluster system makes it easier for today’s search engines to understand and accurately recommend websites.

However, consider the fact that people are entering sentence fragments and single words into search engines much less frequently than in the past. These days, they’re using complete sentences and tools like voice search to find answers, too. Looking for ways to state and answer common questions with unique content can help make clusters more effective.

Avoid ranking cannibalization

There’s no hard and fast rule that dictates an ideal number of subtopic pages per cluster. Generally speaking, you want to include enough to cover your subject of choice, but don’t simply assume that more is always more.

More content doesn’t always mean better coverage. If some of your subtopics are too similar to one another, you risk having them cannibalize each other and compete for rankings. Keep an eye out for telltale signs like multiple pages with similar ranking results or pages that inexplicably don’t rank as expected. If you see these, you may need to tweak things to keep your website from competing against itself.

Refresh your content often

Keep your content clusters effective by revisiting them often and refreshing them frequently so they stay as up-to-date and visible as possible. Some good rules of thumb to keep in mind include:

• Topics that change quickly: Review at least every quarter
• More stable topics: Check in at least annually, or more often if your field sees rapid changes
• Evergreen content: Refresh every 18-24 months, even if it doesn’t change much
• High-traffic pages: Give them an update every 2-3 months

You’ll also want to evaluate your clusters to assess whether it’s time to add new subtopics or even remove existing ones.

How Crowd Content Can Enhance Your Topic Cluster Strategy

Ultimately, topic clusters bring a lot of potential to the table when it comes to establishing your brand as an industry authority and providing a five-star user experience to readers. However, there’s a fine art to getting them just right.

Use clusters to explore fascinating topics in depth that will keep your readers coming back for more. Whip your existing website into shape from an organizational standpoint and ensure continued navigability moving forward as your site grows. Leverage your creativity to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack.

To really polish your strategy and ensure your content hits the mark every time, consider partnering with a premier content creation service like Crowd Content.  Crowd Content is your go-to resource for professionally crafted, search-engine-optimized content on demand that’s fully in line with your brand voice and audience expectations.

Explore Crowd Content today to discover more about how our content experts can help you make your content sparkle and boost your bottom line.

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Intros set the stage for that all-important first impression — not just for a specific article but for your entire brand. They establish trust, help readers understand what to expect, and let them know if your content aligns with their search goals. Nail them and watch bounce rates tank while engagement and time on page soar. These are the types of metrics Google cares about — not backlink counts.  

The treasure map doesn’t lead you to any clever tricks or shortcuts. You have to demonstrate expertise, trustworthiness, and relatability through focused storytelling. Below, we outline five strategies for writing introductions that engage readers and compel them to take action. 

1. Meet Readers’ Expectations

Specializing in the practice of rhetoric, George Gopen believes engagement hinges on a writer’s ability to meet readers’ expectations. That means being able to anticipate and fulfill their needs.

Like trail markers on a hike, clear signals of an article’s argument, purpose, and intent keep people moving in the right direction. 

You have to provide obvious cues about content, structure, and direction along the way — in titles, headings, introductions, and section transitions. Each point serves as a signpost, setting up an expectation in the reader’s mind and drawing them in closer. 

In the Gonzaga Law Review, Denise Riebe backs Gopen’s theory, saying, “By consistently placing pieces of information where readers expect it, writers gain readers’ trust.” An intro that follows smoothly and logically from your headline establishes trust right off the bat. To maintain it, demonstrate experience and expertise, and meet readers’ expectations throughout the piece.

Based on Gopen’s teachings, some things to avoid when writing blog intros include:

• Intros that don’t relate to the headline
• Unclear purpose and direction
• Overly complex, wordy, or dense intros
• Lack of engagement techniques, such as storytelling, rhetorical questions, or filler quotes

For content creators, that means writing highly focused blog intros that capture the intent of your target audience. Show off your expertise, share opinions, write with confidence, and use transition words to guide your audience seamlessly from point to point. 

Never overpromise and underdeliver. Engage your audience with well-thought-out examples, opinions, and scenarios — not gimmicks or clickbait.  

What about hooks?

Writers have been using hooks since the dawn of storytelling, but a hook alone isn’t enough to make a blog engaging. 

When marketers write blog post intros, they want readers to take action. Storytelling paints a picture of how the article directly relates to them. It creates an emotional connection between your brand and the audience by holding up a mirror to their fears, pain points, and desires.

2. Master the Art of Storytelling

Master the art of brand storytelling, and you’re well on the way to being crowned as content royalty. 

Look at it this way: Imagine yourself sitting by a crackling fireplace, listening to Grandpa spin a tale. He doesn’t throw facts at you. He draws you in with vivid descriptions, relatable characters, and a touch of mystery. That’s the power of storytelling we’re aiming for.

Our Vice President of Content Operations, Rick Leach, says,

“Storytelling is an effective tactic for engaging audiences in an article’s intro. It’s more relatable than tired and readily available statistics and builds reader trust better than gimmicky hooks. It also sets the stage for the reader, showing them what’s coming next is what they need.”

Let’s explore some dynamic ways to use storytelling in intros.

Paint a captivating picture

Describe a captivating scene to set the stage for your article. Use imagery in a way that immediately grabs the reader’s attention, places them right in the thick of it, and makes them curious about what unfolds next.

Say you’re writing an article for an inbound sales company about how to close more deals. The intro might start like this:

Ever feel like you’re battling uphill against a relentless current, desperately trying to close more deals? You’re not alone. Our guide acts as your trusty raft, navigating you through calmer waters and revealing insider secrets to closing deals that’ll have you riding the wave of success in no time.

Introduce a relatable character

Introduce a relatable character facing a challenge your audience experiences. As readers visualize themselves in the character’s situation, they’re compelled to discover how the story unfolds and what lessons they can learn. Continue referencing the character throughout the piece to keep readers engaged in their story. 

Here’s an example intro opening for a blog post about conversion rates for a digital marketing agency:

Meet Sarah, a brand-new digital marketer feeling lost in the jungle of online engagement. Among the tangled vines of clicks and impressions, Sarah uncovers a hidden gem: conversion rates. 

Tell a personal story

Share a personal anecdote or experience that aligns with your audience’s search intent. This adds authenticity and depth to your writing while building trust and rapport with your audience. Offering a glimpse into your world makes you relatable and demonstrates your topical authority to help them problem-solve. 

Let’s look at the first few lines of a recruitment company’s fictional blog intro about the top 10 traits of impactful leaders:

I’m Alex, a seasoned recruiter with a proven track record of hiring exceptional leaders. After running a business for 12 years, I’ve crafted a definitive list of the top 10 traits possessed by impactful leaders.

Set up a mystery

Begin with a mysterious or puzzling scenario that intrigues readers and makes them want to uncover the answers. Using precise, targeted language throughout your article ensures flow and seamless transitions as readers move through the piece.  

If an HVAC company writes a blog post about upgrading your cooling system, the intro might look like this:

Is your home suddenly a sauna? Perhaps your energy bills are soaring, yet you’re still shivering under thin blankets. These might be signs it’s time to investigate your cooling system’s health.

Invoke emotion

Craft your introduction to evoke specific emotions, such as empathy, aspiration, and a sense of belonging. This fosters deep connections and makes storytelling compelling and memorable. Everyone agrees striking an emotional cord with their targetted audience is the holy grail of marketing in the digital age. 

Here’s an example of how to start a blog post for an addiction treatment center. The article discusses the first step on the path to recovery: 

In the journey toward healing, every step, no matter how small, is a testament to your courage and resilience. Take the first step on the path to recovery with us, where compassionate guidance and practical advice await. 

3. Pose Questions and Integrate Quotes

Quotes and questions are powerful tools for writing blog intros, captivating readers, and arousing interest from the outset. Strategically incorporate these elements into your storytelling efforts.

Questions immediately pique readers’ curiosity and invite them to reflect on the topic at hand. Use questions to introduce a problem, prompting readers to continue reading in search of answers. Asking questions in this way creates a two-way dialogue between writer and reader, sparking deeper engagement with the content.

Quotes can add credibility, authority, and depth to blog intros — but they need to provide value. Source them from experts, industry leaders, or influencers to offer fresh or thought-provoking perspectives on a topic. Always remember to tailor the quote to user intent. For example, if you’re writing for an audience that seeks reassurance, don’t use a negative quote. Let’s say you’re working on a blog post for a rehab clinic titled Do I Need Addiction Treatment? If you start with a quote that suggests 60% of people relapse, you won’t be particularly persuasive. 

4. Strike a Balance Between SEO and Reader Engagement

Since Google’s helpful content update and the relentless march of AI, crushing SEO and reader engagement with equal force has become critical for success. Content marketers practicing the dark arts of keyword stuffing and backlink buying have been banished to irrelevance. Now, the name of the game is balance — juggling the demands of search algorithms with the desires of real people.

But how do you approach this tussle between optimization and engagement? Let’s explore some advanced optimization strategies that go far beyond keyword placement.

Advanced SEO strategies

Improve your content’s visibility using advanced SEO techniques for writing blog intros.

• Semantic search optimization: Embrace semantic search optimization to align with the evolving nature of search engines. Focus on understanding the intent behind search queries and delivering relevant content accordingly. Use synonyms, semantic variations, and related terms to naturally weave keywords into intros.
• Content structuring: Structured data markup provides context to search engines and improves the chances of your intro appearing as a rich snippet. Focus on providing clear and concise information, using relevant headings and subheadings, and ensuring your content is navigable by users and search engines.
• Natural language processing: Use NLP techniques to analyze user queries and create intros that resonate with their specific language patterns. Understanding how your target audience phrases their questions and searches allows you to tailor your content and improve search engine ranking.

Remember, SEO is more than just keywords. By combining these advanced strategies with compelling storytelling and engaging writing, you can create content that ranks highly, speaks to your audience, and drives tangible outcomes.

AI and voice search optimization

Stay ahead of the curve by tapping into AI and voice search optimization. Integrate these strategies into blog intros to enhance their relevance, resonance, and performance in voice-enabled search environments.

• AI-driven content optimization: Experiment with AI tools, such as Jasper and Rytr, to optimize your intros for engagement and SEO. AI can analyze data to identify trends, predict user behavior, and suggest content optimizations. 
• Voice search optimization: Tailor intros to the conversational nature of voice queries. Use natural language patterns and concise language. Remember, voice searches for services often go straight to Google Maps local results. Optimize your Google Business Profile and gather stellar customer reviews to climb the local pack.

Legal and ethical guidelines when writing blog intros

Handle the complexities of content creation with ethics and legal compliance front and center. Avoid plagiarism and adhere to advertising standards while crafting authentic intros.

• Avoid plagiarism: Conduct thorough research and cite sources properly. Use plagiarism detection tools, such as Copyscape, to verify content originality. Plagiarism destroys credibility and tarnishes your brand’s image.
• Comply with advertising standards: Be transparent with your audience. Disclose sponsored content and affiliate links in your intros to instill Google’s final E-E-A-T guideline: trustworthiness. 

Global audience consideration

Expand your reach and impact by crafting culturally sensitive and inclusive intros that resonate with a multicultural audience. Find customers in new territories by learning how to customize intros effectively across different cultures and regions, enhancing SEO performance and reader engagement on a global scale.

5. Measure Audience Interaction Using Hard Data

Understanding your audience is crucial for creating compelling blog intros. Embrace feedback as the gold mine for improvement it truly is.

Comments

Analyze reader comments to identify common themes, recurring questions, and areas for improvement. Use technology to streamline the process and aim to focus on patterns instead of individual comments.

Social shares

Track which intros receive the most social media shares to gauge what sparks audience interest. Research the granular details of these intros so you can replicate successful elements.

Blog engagement KPIs

Engagement metrics, including bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rate, are prime KPIs for measuring blog intros’ effectiveness. Tracking these metrics over time helps you identify trends and patterns that indicate whether intros successfully capture and retain readers’ attention. For example, a high bounce rate indicates your intros aren’t effectively engaging readers, and low time on page likely means your intros aren’t up to scratch.  

 A/B testing 

To conduct an A/B test:

• Craft two intro variations with distinct elements, such as tone, length, or formatting.
• Present each variation to your audience and track performance through relevant metrics.
• Analyze A/B test results to determine the winning intro and incorporate its elements into future content.

In addition to A/B testing, try out analytics tools and social listening platforms. They can give you valuable insights into audience preferences and reactions to your intros. For example, Google Analytics tracks engagement metrics, while social listening platforms monitor conversations and sentiment around your brand and content.

Case studies from the trenches 

Crowd Content

At Crowd Content, we used A/B testing to compare two variations of an intro format: one with a conversational, concise intro and one with a long, technical intro. We measured how the posts performed using time on page, average session duration, and bounce rate and found readers engaged more with the conversational intro. As a result, we adopted the conversational intro format across all blog posts.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn provides a clear example of integrating feedback mechanisms into blog posts. Their buttons, conveniently placed at the end of each post, invite readers to engage.

These feedback loops serve several purposes. First, they offer readers an opportunity to go beyond passive consumption and express their reactions, questions, and opinions, and that increases engagement. Second, they provide valuable insights for content creators, enabling them to gauge audience sentiment and identify areas for improvement.

Unleash the Power of a Captivating Blog Intro

When writing blog intros, use compelling storytelling, strategic SEO techniques, and data-driven optimization to attract readers like a magnet. Bring them along on journeys of discovery and engagement, using each intro to lead customers into the valuable content that lies within your website.

Elevate your blog with professional intros. Discover our blog writing services, and learn how we can help you captivate your audience from the first line. Explore our services today! 

The post 5 Strategies for Writing Blog Intros That Engage Your Audience appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

To stand out, you need exceptional content for all stages of the buyer’s journey: articles that answer burning questions, convincing case studies, and irresistible product descriptions that compel conversions. A successful digital content strategy helps business owners understand customer needs, engage their curiosity, and leverage technology to make an impact in a highly competitive landscape.

The Role of Content in E-Commerce Success

Content is a powerful tool for enticing customers to your e-commerce store and encouraging them to take action. The most effective content strategies reel in your customer no matter where they are on their path to purchase:

• Awareness: At this stage, customers aren’t entirely sure they need your product. Your content positions you as a source of knowledge and addresses pain points. Introduce your brand with how-to guides, articles, problem-solving content, quizzes, and engaging social media posts.
• Consideration: Now, your customer is actively thinking about solving a problem, and your content explores possible solutions. A kitchenware store might publish blog posts about choosing between pressure cookers and slow cookers or the purposes of different kitchen knives.
• Decision: Your customer has decided on a solution, so it’s time to set your brand apart. Convince them with comparison guides, product pages, product demos, FAQs, testimonials, and landing pages offering free trials. You could also use augmented reality to help customers visualize a product’s appearance in their space.
• Retention: Once you make a sale, provide resources to continue engaging your customers. User guides, product tips, newsletters, and exclusive or personalized content encourage satisfaction and build loyalty.

SEO and Content Marketing in E-Commerce

Fuse your content marketing efforts with a solid SEO strategy to ensure your audience finds you. According to data from 2023, 39% of consumers start their e-commerce journeys on search engines such as Google or Bing. In fact, search engines are the first stop for online shoppers in the United States behind Amazon.

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps lift your content higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), which are the lists of webpages returned by a search engine in response to a user’s query. The higher your result, the more exposure you have and the more enticing your website is to potential customers. Once readers click through to your store, your content can work its magic. You can nurture prospects through every stage if you’ve matched content to the buyer’s journey. 

How to integrate SEO and content marketing

Google offers many opportunities for your website to appear in search results. Your SEO content strategy can target:

• Organic search results: These listings appear below paid ads and include rich snippets that display images, videos, and star ratings.
• Featured snippets: Google sometimes displays an excerpt from a web page that concisely answers the search query. These results often get more of the clicks because they’re prominently displayed on the SERP. 
• Google Images: In addition to crawling text, Google can index optimized images. For example, this enables someone to search for “heart-shaped earrings” and see relevant products in search results.
• Local searches: When you use local SEO strategies, your content displays for searches in a specific geographic region.
• Voice search: Speech recognition technology enables users to search by voice. Use long-tail keywords and a natural, conversational style to surface in these search results. Content that aligns with the way searchers ask questions, that is Who, What, Why, When, How, are more likely to win at voice search.
• Search generative experience: SGE uses artificial intelligence to present a snapshot of a topic. Optimize content for these search results with concise and unique answers to fill in content gaps.

Incorporating SEO tactics in your content strategy improves your chances of appearing in these search results:

• Perform keyword research to plan appropriate content.
• Provide superior user experiences with intuitive navigation and fast page loading times.
• Give search engines the confidence to recommend your content by demonstrating E-E-A-T principles.

Emphasize content quality

Before we get too immersed in SEO-speak, let’s shift the focus back to the content you’re publishing to win over customers. E-commerce content is all about communicating with humans whose problems need solving. SEO tactics and data-driven approaches are essential for search visibility, but your content must resonate with audiences to convert.

Make it a priority to create content that offers value to readers. Share your expertise generously, and offer substance and depth. Mix in original research and thought. It takes time and effort to produce high-quality, helpful content, but the end product intrigues your readers and improves your chances of converting.

Some marketers use artificial intelligence for content creation. While AI can help with research and ideation, it doesn’t have the same creative chops as a human. By all means, use AI to get started, but make sure the end result appeals to your customer’s curiosity, intelligence, humor, and emotions — something that usually requires deft human touch.

Developing Your E-Commerce Content Strategy

Finding and using relevant keywords effectively

Effective SEO content begins with keyword research, which is the process of finding the search terms your customers use and choosing ones to build your content around. Use keyword research tools to generate ideas and gather data to help you decide which search terms to pursue. Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, KWFinder, and AnswerThePublic are tools that identify high-performing search terms.

Promising keywords have enough search volume to send the right traffic flowing to your site. Target ones that are lower in competition so you can more realistically rank for them. Keyword competition is often rated on a scale from 0 to 100, and a lower score means less competition. You can pursue more difficult keywords, but it takes time to build up the backlinks and authority needed to knock competitors out of the top spot. 

Add in some long-tail keywords with a lower search volume. Because they’re precise, they typically send highly qualified traffic your way that’s more likely to convert. For example, “women’s dress shoes” is broad. 

But “women’s ballet flats” can help you reach someone who knows what they want to buy and is further along in the buyer’s journey.

Leveraging topic cluster strategy

Organize your e-commerce content into clusters, each focused on a specific topic. A topic cluster strategy gives your website structure and establishes your expertise.

• Sort your keywords into categories or themes.
• Create a pillar or overview page that anchors the cluster.
• Bolster the pillar page with detailed articles around subtopics.
• Interlink between the pieces in the topic cluster, guiding search engines and users to related content.

Audit your existing content, and place it in the appropriate cluster. You can then see what additional pieces you need to build out your topic.

SEO Strategies Tailored for E-Commerce

SEO best practices apply regardless of your business niche, but e-commerce sites need to pay particular attention to a few areas.

Product pages

Product descriptions generate excitement for an item and provide enough detail for customers to make a purchasing decision. Even if manufacturers provide product information, we recommend crafting unique copy rather than duplicating what other sites publish.

Incorporate keywords in the following places:

• Product name
• Page title and meta description
• Near the beginning of the product description
• URL
• Image file name

Take a look at this product description for wet cat food from Purina. It includes the keyword “wet cat food” in the product title and URL. The description also mentions “wet formula” in the first sentence. These tactics help search engines match the product to appropriate queries.

Category pages

Category pages serve as a home page for related products. Not all websites need a category page, but if you have enough products, it can help users navigate them. For example, Williams Sonoma has a category page for knives, distinguishing between paring knives, steak knives, carving knives, and cleavers. The page includes a few paragraphs of content that offer opportunities to rank for related keywords.

Long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are at least three words long and are used to find a specific answer to a query. These phrases often have lower search volumes but can be lucrative if they have commercial search intent since the consumer may be close to the decision stage. 

You can find long-tail keywords in keyword search tools or head to Amazon and try the autocomplete feature to see what people are searching for. If you enter “backpack with” into the search box, the autocomplete suggests “laptop compartment” and “wheels for adults.”

Incorporate long-tail keywords into product descriptions or blog posts to attract these customers and guide site visitors to a conversion.

Mobile-friendliness

Consumers aren’t just shopping on desktop computers. They’re also making purchases on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. In the United States, mobile commerce accounted for 43.2% of retail e-commerce sales in 2023. By 2027, m-commerce is expected to make up nearly 50% of U.S. e-commerce sales.

While sites optimized for mobile aren’t guaranteed to rank better in Google, mobile-friendliness is one of the search engine’s positive signals when it comes to page experience. To encourage conversions, optimize your e-commerce store for screens of all sizes to ensure customers have seamless experiences as they shop. Other ways to improve your mobile responsiveness include using image compression tools for faster loading times, and simplifying the navigation to improve usability.

Importance of Knowing Your Target Audience and Tips on Audience Research

Before creating content that engages your audience, you need to get up close and personal, understanding who they are, what motivates them, and how they behave online. Define each target customer with basic information such as age, marital status, income, job title, and geographic location.

You can create personas to make them seem like real people instead of a collection of statistics. This helps you create content in the right tone and format to engage these customers authentically.

Research your customer by:

• Talking to your product development and marketing departments
• Analyzing website traffic to see where visitors come from
• Surveying customers and offering discounts to encourage participation
• Listening in on social media, online forums, and message boards
• Asking sales and customer service teams what they’re hearing on the ground
• Analyzing competing brands to see where they engage customers

Content Personalization in E-Commerce

Consumers have plenty of options for where to spend their online dollars. Content personalization, which caters to audience preferences based on past interactions, can sway them to your brand. Customized content increases your brand’s relevance, improves user experience, and boosts your conversion rates.

AI and machine learning make personalization easier by analyzing customer data and helping you display information based on behaviors. Here are some ways to personalize content and encourage more engagement and sales:

• Product recommendations that pop up while customers browse: These are typically “You May Also Like” or “Other Customers Viewed” suggestions.
• Personalized email campaigns: Offer discounts on birthdays or let someone who hasn’t shopped for a while know that you miss them. You can also segment your email lists based on behavior, like recent purchases, or industry, like B2B, so you can personalize your outreach.
• Dynamic website content: Content changes depending on location or user behavior. If you notice someone keeps viewing the same product, you might have a pop-up offering a discount to nudge them toward a sale.
• A/B testing: Gather data on how different landing pages or ads work to assess the most effective copy to convert sales.

Utilizing Emerging Technologies

At its most basic, digital marketing in e-commerce consists of static pages of product images and descriptions. But with technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality, you can help your website come to life. You can’t replicate in-store service, but you can engage your customers online and offer a unique digital experience.While customer preferences are always changing, websites can meet those demands by creating personalized shopping experiences.

Conversational commerce

AI chatbots can be programmed to answer questions in real time, such as how long shipping takes and what your return policy is. This removes friction by preventing cart abandonment and helps keep customers on a website. Italian designer Ad Hoc Atelier uses a chatbot that triggers when a visitor leaves their cart. The company reduced its cart abandonment rate and increased its conversion rate by engaging customers.

Video commerce

Clothing brand Free People makes products shoppable on livestreams. The hosts provide product demos and model clothing, and shoppers can ask questions and make purchases. According to a case study, Free People gets an average of 2,000 viewers per video with a conversion rate that’s three times higher than average.

Virtual try-ons

Augmented reality, popularized by Snapchat filters, can be creatively applied to e-commerce stores. Zenni Optical has a try-on feature that superimposes eyeglass frames on your face to help you pick a style you like.

In Germany, H&M took this a step further. Customers were invited to make an avatar with a body scanner so they could try on items virtually at home.

Leveraging Social Media for E-Commerce Engagement

Social media is an important content distribution channel for e-commerce brands. According to data compiled from a 2023 survey, 50% of shoppers worldwide learned about products on social media.

While social media can send users to your online shop, nearly 60% of shoppers buy products directly through networking platforms — a practice known as social commerce. Salesforce estimates that in 2024, 64.6 million users will shop on Facebook, 46.8 million on Instagram, and 40.7 million on TikTok.

Your brand can make the most of social media by:

• Building a community of followers: You can market directly to your audience through social posts. Take a look at H&M’s creative TikTok video. It grabs attention with an “invisible” model and provides product ideas in a viewer’s feed.
• Encouraging engagement: Your post can appear in other people’s social feeds through shares, likes, and comments.
• Placing social ads: Paid advertising gets your content in front of a wider audience.
• Partnering with creators: Consider collaborating with influencers or businesses with a similar target audience to help promote your brand.

Innovative Monetization in E-Commerce

We’ve focused primarily on traditional product sales, but modern e-commerce offers additional opportunities to generate revenue for brands and content creators.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliates are third parties who promote a brand and receive payment in exchange for clicks or sales. This is a win-win situation: Brands tap into a fresh audience and boost sales. Affiliates can generate revenue by reviewing a product, hosting a contest, or offering a promo code to their followers.

Subscriptions

If you sell items customers need to replace regularly, a monthly or quarterly subscription encourages customer retention. Consumers commit to a recurring purchase in exchange for a discount, free shipping, or other incentive. Similarly, content creators can build subscription models that offer exclusive or enhanced content offerings.

Blockchain technology

While blockchain technology is commonly linked to Bitcoin, it has other applications. A blockchain is a transparent ledger where transactions are shared within a network, verifying ownership and the movement of goods.

The technology is in its early stages regarding retail applications, but we’re beginning to see its potential. In 2021, H&M launched an innovative clothing rental service in Berlin that used blockchain to track who had borrowed items.

Similarly, in the automotive sector, BMW Group used blockchain technology to make its supply chain more transparent and traceable. This means they can track where materials and parts come from, all the way to the finished car, and this ensures that everything meets ethical standards. 

Measuring Success: Analytics and KPIs

You’ve put your online retail content strategy into action, and now it’s time to see if it’s driving awareness, traffic, and sales. Track key performance indicators to learn where to fine-tune your strategies for more impact and which tactics successfully yield results.

Common KPIs to track include:

• Keyword ranking: Where are you landing in the SERPs for your target keywords? Keywords that aren’t getting traction may need better optimization.
• Referral sources: Where are your visitors coming from? This metric tells you how users find your site and which content distribution channels work best.
• Click-through rate: If you’re not getting clicks from the SERPs, adjust your meta title and description or optimize for rich snippets.
• Page traffic: Which content pages perform the best, and which need more optimization?
• Impressions: How many people are viewing your product pages?
• Time spent on page: Are users spending time engaging with your content? If they abandon the page quickly, your content may need adjusting.
• Add-to-cart rate: Combine this KPI with impressions to gauge whether the content on your product pages is convincing people to purchase.
• Conversions: Assess how well your site drives desired actions, such as subscribing to mailing lists, adding products to wish lists, and making sales.

Knowing which KPIs to track is the first step. The next step is to understand how to accurately measure them, and this is where analytics tools come into play.

Analytics tools

You may need a few analytics tools to obtain a complete picture of your content’s performance. Google Analytics is ideal for monitoring page-level activity and user behavior on your site, while Semrush or Moz can provide in-depth insights into your keyword rankings and search performance. Platforms such as Instagram, X, and LinkedIn provide data on user engagement, but it’s easier to use a tool such as Buffer to compile data and generate all-in-one reports on channel performance.

Adapting to Consumer Behavior and Trends

McKinsey & Company notes that customer expectations change with each new successful digital venture. Online shoppers embrace speed and convenience, thanks to the bar set by Amazon, while short video snippets have been popularized by TikTok.

Brands need to be open and responsive to changing customer preferences to stay relevant. You should keep a pulse on digital marketing trends and developments in your industry, but you can also look to your customers for signals.

Regularly check in with your customers through reviews, feedback, and surveys, or practice social listening. These tactics dig up real-time insight into how your customers are feeling.

Artificial intelligence is a powerful partner when it comes to anticipating customer behaviors and preferences. Predictive analytics uses various inputs — including customer demographics, website analytics, and interactions at different touchpoints — to find patterns in behavior. AI then predicts what a customer might purchase or do next. As data is updated, the AI is better trained. These insights help you create content and marketing messages that precisely meet customer needs, improving their experience and guiding them toward conversions.

AI helps us predict and fulfill customer needs, but it also highlights our responsibility to use technology ethically. We need to make sure our approaches are aligned with what customers expect in terms of ethical and sustainable practices.

Ethical Considerations and Sustainable Practices

Let’s step back for a moment and look beyond financial transactions. Your overall business practices influence how audiences view your brand and impact your bottom line. Consumers expect companies to conduct themselves with integrity and a sense of responsibility. According to a 2023 survey, 45% of respondents considered themselves ethical or sustainable consumers.

Ethical conduct

When it comes to your e-commerce content, set high standards. Create fair, well-researched, and accurate content, and disclose any conflicts of interest in what you’re writing about. You can expect diverse audiences to visit your website and social accounts, so be inclusive and sensitive with your language. Finally, as brands ramp up data collection, be clear in your privacy policies about how and why you’re gathering information.

Sustainable practices

Consumers, especially younger generations, are increasingly concerned about social issues and how brands impact the environment. Among Gen Z, 62% prefer to buy from sustainable brands, and 73% are willing to pay higher prices for sustainable products.

Engage ethical consumers with content about your sustainability initiatives and practices. This includes information about materials, production processes, and packaging. If you have eco-friendly programs in place, such as REI’s online store for used gear, create content to promote and highlight the benefits of these practices.

Additional Resources and Tools

Successful content marketing for e-commerce involves many components, but an array of tools are available to make the process easier. Whether you’re tackling the work in-house or outsourcing to a content strategy service, check out some of the following resources to help get your campaign off the ground.

• Semrush: Perform keyword research, discover content ideas, and improve your site’s on-page SEO.
• Keyword Insights: Generate keyword ideas, and create topic clusters with a click.
• CoSchedule: Organize your content strategy and manage deadlines.
• Alchemer: Collect feedback across channels to understand customer needs.
• Make My Persona: Build buyer personas to inform your content strategy.
• Feedly: Monitor developments and trends in your industry.
• Google Search Console: Monitor site traffic and the keywords visitors use and find issues that may impact your site’s SEO.

Drive Results With a Dynamic Content Strategy (and a Helping Hand)

Customers find their way to your website through content: insightful tips and articles, convincing product pages, clearly presented case studies, and your brand story. But to really pull in your audiences, your content must offer unique value and insight.

Your e-commerce content strategy begins with keyword research and a deep understanding of your audience and the buyer’s journey. You can then develop highly targeted content that encourages engagement.

Consider our e-commerce writing services to produce professional, results-driven content that’s optimized for search engines and your readers. Find out how our experienced team of writers, editors, subject matter experts, and content managers can fuel your online visibility and help your business hit its growth goals.

The post E-Commerce Content Strategy in 2024: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

As audience and Google standards increase, so does the need for relevant, quality, high-volume content production. Outsourcing your content can help you meet your targets, exponentially expanding your revenue and your foothold in the industry.

Understanding White Label Content Writing

White label content is created by a third party but sold by the primary entity — your agency, for example — as a firsthand product. For example, you tell your end clients you can produce 1,000 product descriptions a week, but really, you’re outsourcing those batches to another agency perhaps, and then passing them on as your own product.

The concept of white labeling isn’t limited to the content world, and it might be easier to understand how it all works if we look at a noncontent example. A handful of manufacturers produce much of the essential oil products currently on the market. All those bottles of patchouli, peppermint, and “immune-boosting blend” come off the same assembly lines and boast the same contents, but they get different labels and marketing campaigns based on which brand is buying the primary product from wholesalers.

It’s a brilliant way for small businesses to expand their catalog with products they can’t produce on their own, and bigger brands can test new niches without switching up their assembly lines or investing in ground-up R&D.

White labeled content works the same way; you’re just swapping out tinctures of sage and chamomile for bespoke articles and blog posts.

Benefits of white label content for agencies

You’re known for having fingers in every pie in your agency’s service buffet, but you can’t be everywhere at once. If you’re looking to build a better, smarter business, investing in white label content can help you:

• Save time: Partnering with a content creation team plugs you into a talent pool that’s pre-vetted, talented, and ready to write. Skip time-consuming recruitment, onboarding, and writer testing and head straight to steady, reliable output.
• Maintain quality: Those pre-vetted writers you tap into with a white label content partner have already showcased their skill sets. You get the quality content you need without training anyone yourself. And if you already have an in-house team, white labeling allows you to scale up without stretching your resources and sacrificing quality.
• Offer more of your product: White label content helps you increase your service offerings to include not only strategy but also execution of that strategy. Already have your own writers? You can white label niche content by taking advantage of contracted subject matter experts who specialize in fields such as fintech, health care, travel, real estate, and law — many of whom have the lettered credentials beside their name to go with a proven track record.  

Common Uses of White Label Content

Some of the most common use cases for outsourced writing include:

Digital marketing agencies

Digital marketing agencies are first in line to help clients understand the value of email campaigns, social media posts and thought leadership bylined by the client’s highest-profile personas. But what happens when you recommend a strategy but can’t help execute it?

Agencies can use white label content services to offer packages encompassing everything from a basic consultation to a turnkey strategy, all but guaranteed to generate long-term success. No more sending clients to spend their money elsewhere when you can serve up quality content on a silver platter.

Ecommerce platforms

Ecommerce platforms that serve makers, retailers, and resellers have a prime opportunity to upsell members by offering add-on services, such as copywriting. While a basic package might include web hosting, payment services, and on-site promotional opportunities, platforms can generate multiple revenue streams by white labeling product descriptions, how-to blogs, and other content. Every asset added could help appeal to the end customer and increase conversion rates.

Software as a Service providers

SaaS companies can help shave a few degrees off a learning curve that might otherwise make products seem insurmountable. When backed by white label content services, you can offer educational resources for clients, such as tutorials and explainer video scripts, customizing each offering and infusing assets with authority and value.

Small and medium-sized businesses

SMBs are the most likely candidates to have plenty of vision but not enough resources to turn everything on their entrepreneurial wish lists into reality. The ability to execute on your content strategy without having to hire and train a full writing and editing staff can be invaluable.

Types of Content for White Label Agencies

White label copywriting and content services cover a huge breadth of collateral. You’re not limited to About Us web blurbs and the occasional blog — although both of those are on the table. You have access to all types of content that can help you achieve those KPI milestones essential to success. Some of the content provided by white label agencies includes:

• Blog content: Sell blog content to your end clients and help them improve both search rankings and conversion rates in one fell swoop. Blogs written by research-savvy writers or reviewed by subject matter experts can also help brands establish authority and position company heads as thought leaders.
• Social media content: Hand over responsibility for a thriving X and Facebook feed to an army of writers. Maintaining a steady flow of content on social media can boost visibility and keep consumers engaged, generating much-needed likes and clicks.
• SEO and web content: A copywriter versed in the latest SEO tactics can cater to Google’s standards. Let white label writing squads populate your site with content and landing pages with the long-tail keywords and metadata necessary to hit the top of the SERPs. 
• Case studies: Partner with a white label writing service to produce case studies of your best success stories to show prospects that what you have to offer is more than just a proposal.
• White papers and ebooks: You can offer these assets to end clients or use them yourself as gated content, generating leads and establishing authority at the same time.
• Article writing: Hire writers to craft articles for industry publications, showcase company achievements, highlight events to promote a new product, or underscore company values.

Selecting a White Label Content Writing Service

Like so many services, a white label content writing service partnership is only as effective as the partner you choose. Before you sign on the dotted line, consider what you’re looking for in a writing platform and what you need to scale your offerings.

Build the right team

One of the biggest challenges when dealing with white label content writing is figuring out how you’ll maintain content quality without having direct involvement with every member of the team. One of the easiest ways to do that is to have a project or content manager act in your stead. They serve as a single point of contact and intermediary between you and the team creating your content. They gather and train the best-suited writers, answer basic questions, review content for quality, and handle revisions as needed.

Create content guidelines

Your brand voice is extremely important and you want to maintain it regardless of who is writing your content. This is where your content brief comes in handy. The more information and guidelines you give your writers, the easier it is for them to give you exactly what you need the first time around. Remember, freelancers are experienced in words, not mind reading — provide detailed instructions once, and you’ll save yourself a lot of effort down the road.

Assess content quality

The term “good writer” has so many meanings. Most writing services will lob terms such as “quality writing team” and “experienced talent” in your direction without a second thought. But the proof really is in the pudding, and that means you need to see samples before you consider a contract.

You can also ask for case studies. Crowd Content is thrilled to show off past work, including how we helped one client increase their page views to a staggering 6 minutes. Or how we helped an agency get their client to page one of Google for 57 of their target keywords.

Consider customization options

Your agency isn’t a dime a dozen, and your content shouldn’t be generic or bland either. Ask potential white label partners how in-depth their customization options go. Can you use your own style guide? Can they match brand voice and specific requirements, such as comma and bullet point usage? How often can you change parameters to meet a particular client or project’s needs?

Understand pricing models

Content marketing partners differ in how they charge clients for content production. Some require a membership or subscription fee, with content available on a discounted basis thereafter. Crowd Content’s Managed Services extend a helping hand from content managers who post tasks and manage writers on your behalf in exchange for meeting a monthly minimum, or with our Marketplace, you can pay for content as you go and control the job posts, reviews, and final approval. 

Consider how much content you’ll need and how involved you want to be as you evaluate pricing. The best platforms can talk you through the process and recommend the right approach so you get the most bang for your buck and have room to scale your account alongside your business.

Integrating White Label Content Into Your Business Strategy

The right partner should be able to deliver content that’s ready to be integrated into your existing strategy — a strategy you’ve had time to prep and roll out, since you haven’t been spending time recruiting writers and going over first drafts with a fine-tooth comb.

To make the most of the product you’re paying for, it’s important to go in with a clear game plan:

• Know what you’re asking for. Give your white label service partner a list of expectations, including information on your preferred style, brand voice, and target audience. Using a content brief template removes questions and helps ensure consistency.
• Provide samples. Include content that demonstrates what you like — and what you don’t like — so writers know what’s a hit and what’s considered a major miss.
• Calibrate each project. If you’re ordering big blocks of content that include hundreds or even thousands of pieces that all fit a similar brief, use a calibration round to test the writing team and dial-in requirements before you go into full production.
• Have a plan for promotion and distribution. The last thing you want is to order a ton of content and then realize you have no idea what to do with it all. Part of your prewriting strategy should be putting together a content calendar that illustrates the when, where (which channels), how (content types), and who (the person in charge of pushing the content live).

View analytics and feedback. After content is live, check analytics to see which content assets are getting traction and which aren’t quite on target. Use that information to fine-tune your brief and work with the writing team to bring the next batch of content even closer to perfection.

White Label Content Writing: The Next Step in Scaling Your Business

White label content creation is the perfect storm of productivity and efficiency.. It’s like bringing on a second string of talented employees, but without the overhead and long hiring processes that goes along with investing in a  full-time team. Whether you’re looking to augment the writers already churning out quality content or you want to add content to your growing slate of services, white labeling could be your ticket to growing your business.

To see how Crowd Content’s talented pool of writers can help you stay competitive and scale on demand, check out our managed services, and create quality content without the in-house hassle.

The post White Label Content Writing for Agencies appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The thing is, blogs aren’t a novelty anymore. Readers can spot mediocre content as fast as they can close the tab on their browsers. They crave unique insight and experience, leaving plenty of room for authoritative blogs that offer value.

So, how do you leverage technology and build a blog that appeals to audiences today?

• Our journey starts with the basics: identifying a profitable niche, evaluating competitors, choosing a blogging platform, and designing a user-friendly site. 
• After you set up your site, we’ll cover how to grow your blog with content creation, audience building, and monetization tips.
• Finally, we’ll go over legal and ethical considerations to position you for long-term success.

What Is a Blog? 

A blog is an online information hub sharing knowledge about a specific niche. Blogs are created for several reasons, including personal interest, for generating income, or for serving as a content marketing tool to attract a target audience.

Blogs started out as “weblogs” in the mid-1990s as people began testing the internet waters. Early blogs acted as an online diary, connecting with people with similar journeys or interests. Soon, platforms such as Blogger and Live Journal made it easy for anyone to start a blog without technical expertise. In the early 2000s, Google AdSense enabled blogs to display ads so bloggers could turn a pastime into an income-generating activity. Brands also began partnering with bloggers who had built loyal audiences to promote their products.  

Today, blogs are more dynamic than ever, leveraging technology and multimedia to engage users. In 2024, you can find an array of tools — including AI — powering content creation. SEO, social media, and a variety of marketing channels are helping blog writers find new ways to monetize their online presence.  

Reasons for Creating a Blog

With so many blogs out there, why create a new one? Well, a blog can help you:

• Explore your creativity and interests. A blog offers a rewarding platform to share your knowledge and skills. You can use your blog as a portfolio to document a journey or help inspire others. 
• Build a personal brand. Create a blog to position yourself as an authority and develop a reputation as a credible resource. Matt Kepnes built Nomadic Matt, for example, to share his tips and expertise for traveling the world on a budget.  

• Build a business brand. Blogs are often the centerpiece of a company’s content marketing strategy. Posts are distributed through channels such as social media and email, building brand awareness and driving traffic to support business goals. Hostelling International uses a travel blog to draw readers to its website. 
• Support financial goals. Blogs can be monetized through advertising, affiliate marketing, and brand partnerships. They can also be used for selling products and services such as online courses.

How to Start a Blog: Identifying Your Niche 

To build an audience, you need to strike a balance between a subject you’re passionate about and what others are interested in learning.

Use SEO tools

Semrush and Ahrefs offer SEO tools to help you analyze keywords for various topics. In addition to comparing search volumes, you can uncover related terms to focus your blog’s content.

Google Trends can tell you if active searches for a particular topic are trending. For example, if you plug “baby food recipes,” “keto recipes,” and “vegan recipes” into the tool for the past 5 years, you can see how interest in these topics is changing over time. 

Explore online communities

Reddit, Quora, Instagram, X, and other social media platforms give insight into topics people are curious about. Analyze conversations to see how audiences talk about a topic and the language they use. This can help optimize your blog for voice, tone, and niche interests, as users tend to be more conversational in online communities than with traditional search engines.

Talk to your audience

If you already have a customer base, survey them to understand their pain points. Ask about the content types they prefer and where they spend time online to help align your blog with their interests.

Listen in on social media

Social media listening tools help gauge what your target audience is talking about online. Create a list of keywords related to your industry, brand, and competitors then monitor reach and engagement. You can also zero in on emerging trends.

Conduct Competitive Analysis 

Once you’ve established demand for the topic, get a sense of where you fit in the blogging landscape. Understanding your competitors can help you differentiate your blog.

Tools such as SpyFu can give you the scoop on competitors. For example, if you’re starting a financial tips blog, enter a competing site, such as “nerdwallet.com,” into the tool. SpyFu will identify competitors, such as Business Insider, Investopedia, and Forbes. The provided data shows keywords these sites rank for and performance gains or losses. You can leverage this information to learn what your competitors are doing well and where you might be better at meeting audience needs. 

Take this a step further and evaluate how your competitors position themselves:  

• What type of content do they publish?
• What kind of user experience do they offer?
• What social platforms are they active on, and how do they interact with audiences?
• What advertisers and partners do they work with?

It’s a lot of information to sift through, but it’s critical for developing a blog strategy. For example, you might find a competitor’s blog to be text-heavy and differentiate yours with podcasts and video content. Or, you might see an opportunity to distinguish your travel blog by incorporating accessibility tips.

Establish your authority

Website authority emphasizes to Google that you’re an expert on a subject, which is easier to demonstrate if you specialize in a niche. You can build a comprehensive content inventory and cultivate a targeted audience to attract ads, partners, and brands that want to reach this customer segment.

Choosing the Right Platform and Hosting 

When you’re ready to build your website, choose a blogging platform that satisfies your immediate needs and offers opportunities to expand in the future. You might not need ecommerce capabilities now, but once your site gains traction, you may want to sell courses, ebooks, or merchandise. Leave yourself room to grow without switching platforms.

You’ll also need to consider your technical expertise. Platforms such as Wix and Squarespace offer easy drag-and-drop editors, so there’s no coding involved. 

WordPress provides full customization with plenty of plug-ins and integrations.

When evaluating blogging platforms, consider whether they offer:

• Simple, easy-to-use interface
• Variety of templates
• Integrations for customizing user experience and workflow
• Built-in SEO tools, such as keyword research, image-alt text, customizable meta descriptions, and suggested optimizations
• Ecommerce capabilities, including product pages, shopping carts, and payment processing
• Sign-up forms for mailing lists
• Analytics for monitoring site traffic and growth
• 24/7 support, including live chat or telephone service
• SSL security

AI website builders

AI website builders, such as Hostinger and Wix ADI, use artificial intelligence to create blogs. Simply enter your blog name, a description of your site, and relevant keywords. The platform chooses the layout, colors, font, and images. You can adjust and customize the site to your preferences. For those with coding experience, platforms such as CodeWP use AI to help develop advanced features for WordPress sites.

Hosting

Depending on the server that hosts your blog, your site speed and security may differ. A shared hosting service, like HostGator or Bluehost, where multiple sites share one server, is cost-effective but may run slowly if other sites are consuming significant resources. However, you pay more for a dedicated server. Cloud hosting platforms, such as AWS and Google, use a network of servers to increase resources and enable you to scale when needed. 

Blog Design and User Experience

A clean, attractive website is like a welcome mat, inviting readers to step into your site and explore. Make sure your blog is easy to navigate, as any friction in clicking links or filling out forms may cause visitors to abandon the site. Use the following as a checklist for optimizing your blog’s visual appeal and functionality. v

Aesthetic appeal

Consider the look and feel you want to achieve with your blog, and pick colors that set the right tone. Choose a layout that balances text and visuals — pages should be attractive but not cluttered. White space helps distinguish different site elements so users can find what they need. 

Readability

Use a legible font size and line spacing so it’s easy for the eye to move smoothly from one line to another. Be consistent in applying the font throughout the site and choose contrasting colors for the text and background.

Intuitive navigation

Create a logical site architecture and group content so it makes sense to the user. Use standard navigation cues, such as a menu bar, across the top of the page.

Page speed

Things happen quickly online, so your site should load pages and process requests quickly. Test your site’s Core Web Vitals regularly, as they affect user experience and search rankings. 

Mobile responsiveness

About 58% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, so your readers are likely browsing on a smartphone or tablet. To accommodate these users, Google crawls and indexes the mobile version of most sites first. Ensure your content resizes to fit neatly on smaller screens, and links and buttons are large enough to select. Fonts should be legible without users zooming in, and mobile pages should load quickly. 

Dynamic content

Make your blog a dynamic experience to spark curiosity and engage audiences. Where appropriate, consider using:

• Images, charts, graphs, and infographics to break up copy and make points easier to understand
• Video content to bring concepts to life
• Interactive quizzes and slideshows
• Augmented or virtual reality for creative storytelling
• Virtual tours for immersive experiences, such as the ones offered by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Content Creation and Strategy 

To help your blog gain traction, you’ll need a sound strategy and process. It all starts with research, then you’ll need to create a system to publish exceptional content regularly, like a content calendar.

Perform keyword research

With your target audience in mind, use keyword research to guide your topic selection. Identify a mix of broad keywords for core content and long-tail keywords to answer precise questions. Consider the buyer’s journey and create content for audiences both at the beginning of their discovery and further along in the decision-making stages.

Organize themes

With keywords in hand, organize your content into themes so you can take a strategic approach to writing. Let’s say you’re building a financial tips blog. Start with a few topic clusters, such as loans, savings, and mortgages. 

Break these down further. Within the loans category, you might focus on car loans, student loans, and lines of credit. Research long-tail keywords related to these subtopics, such as tips for paying off loans and student loan repayment calculators. This method ensures that your content doesn’t overlap and ideas don’t fall through the cracks.

Manage content creation

Once you’ve identified individual blog topics, consider the format types your audience prefers, and plan your content.

• Use an editorial calendar. Schedule blog posts with deadlines to keep you on track. If you’re struggling to maintain your schedule, consider outsourcing to a blog writing service.
• Create content in batches. Instead of writing in bits and pieces, set aside time to create related content all at once. This ensures a consistent approach, and you won’t have to duplicate research. 
• Write detailed content briefs. A content brief summarizes article details, such as keywords, word count, intended audience, purpose, and topic outline. This document keeps you and your content team on the same page. 
• Repurpose content. Consider presenting content in different formats to satisfy audience preferences and quickly grow your content inventory. Take key points from an article and translate them into an infographic, or turn a webinar into an ebook. As you publish more content, you’ll cement your topical authority.

Balancing content quality and quantity

It might be tempting to push out as much content as possible when starting your blog, but search engines and audiences are increasingly discerning about quality. Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines and the more recent helpful content system update emphasize content with experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. In other words, your content must deliver exceptional value before it can surface in search engines. Incorporate unique insight, such as examples based on your experiences, case studies, or statistics from your research. 

A note of caution: Many bloggers are dabbling in AI to speed up content creation. While AI can help with ideation, OpenAI’s terms of use state you can’t represent its output as human-generated. In other words, you can’t ask ChatGPT to write an article and publish it as your own — but this is a good thing. While AI content could rank in Google in theory, it still requires human assistance to address the first-person experience and perspective that satisfies E-E-A-T principles.

Building an Audience

You’ve built your blog and put together a brilliant content strategy. The next step is to create awareness and cultivate an audience, because quality alone won’t attract traffic to your blog. Here are some tactics to raise your online visibility:

• Search engine optimization: Follow industry standard best practices for getting your site to rank well in search engine results.
• Social media marketing: Identify the platforms and online communities where your audience is most active. Begin building an online presence and engaging audiences using hashtags.
• Social networking conversations: Share your expertise by commenting on posts or answering questions. For example, LinkedIn’s collaborative articles are making an impressive splash in search results.
• Cross-promotion: Partner with websites that have a similar target audience so you can reach new readers. 
• Guest posts: Offer a guest post to authoritative sites in exchange for a link that drives traffic to your site.
• Email marketing: Build your email subscriber list to market directly to your audience. 
• Analytics: Regularly analyze your blog’s performance. See which pages are most popular or where most of your readers are coming from to build on your success.

Once you drive traffic to your site, keep your readers engaged. Link strategically between posts to encourage audiences to explore other pages on your site, and ensure your content remains fresh and interesting. 

Monetization Strategies

When your blog gains momentum, you can generate income. You have to demonstrate a minimum level of traffic to attract advertisers and partners, but as your blog grows, more opportunities to earn become available.

Balance your need to create revenue with the needs of your audience. Littering your site with ads can get in the way of the user experience and impact your credibility. Similarly, your audience depends on you for your opinions, so don’t recommend products simply to earn money through sponsorship or affiliate links. 

Advertising

Ad networks, such as Google AdSense, Mediavine, and SHE Media, place ads from brands interested in reaching your audience and get paid by the view or click. You can also sell space directly to advertisers if you find a business interested in sponsoring your site.

Courses and workshops

Many bloggers generate revenue through courses, workshops, or coaching. There are a few different models for this. The website Simply + Fiercely supplements its home organization tips with courses at various price points. 

Meanwhile, cooking blogs such as the Canto Cooking Club offer a monthly subscription for on-demand cooking classes. 

Affiliate marketing

With affiliate marketing, you earn a commission each time someone from your site clicks a link to purchase on another website. These links are usually included in blog posts as product recommendations. Amazon is the most well-known affiliate partner, but The Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowe’s also offer affiliate programs. The Penny Hoarder, for example, uses affiliate links and discloses them at the start of articles.

Product or services

Offer personalized coaching or consulting services to your audience so they can benefit first-hand from your expertise. The courses we mentioned on Simply + Fiercely include live coaching calls with the blog founder. 

You can also set up an ecommerce shop to sell items your audience might be interested in, whether it’s an ebook you’ve written or products you’ve developed. Yoga with Adriene, for example, has a shop featuring branded clothing. 

Brand sponsorships

Some bloggers secure sponsorships with brands that have a similar target audience. With these arrangements, you receive compensation for mentioning or promoting products in posts — through financial payment or products to review. You may also receive giveaways to run contests or promo codes for your readers.

Legal and Ethical Considerations for Your Blog

When you’re publishing in a public space, you’re obligated to do so responsibly. Taking an ethical approach to your blog helps establish professionalism and credibility and sets the foundation for your site’s longevity.

• Trademarks: Perform due diligence when branding your blog by ensuring the name isn’t already in use. Consider trademarking your final choice for protection. 
• Copyright: Don’t use images, text, video, or other content without permission or attribution. It’s best to create your own content and use royalty-free or stock photography. 
• Disclosure: Disclose whether you’re paid to write about something, receive a commission, or have a stake in something you write about. 
• Libel and defamation: Take care not to make false statements on your blog that can negatively impact someone’s reputation, as this can lead to legal action.
• Be respectful: Be careful about sharing personal stories, photographs, or information without permission.
• Inclusive language: Use gender-neutral terms and watch for language that marginalizes or excludes certain groups. Consider that a diverse audience may be reading your content.
• Headlines: Be respectful of your audience and deliver what you promise in your content — misleading headlines can diminish your audience’s trust.
• Accuracy: Verify facts with credible sources. If you make a mistake, correct it as soon as possible.
• Accessibility: Make your content accessible to users of all abilities. This includes alternative text for images and ensuring your website is compatible with assistive devices.
• Privacy policies and disclaimers: Explain how and why you collect information and any terms and conditions for using your site. Disclaimers can protect you if you’re writing about health-related, legal, or financial topics — suggest that readers consult with a professional before taking action.
  

Additional Resources

While starting a blog can be daunting, you don’t have to go it alone. Plenty of tools can help you get your work done efficiently, as well as lead you to communities where you can ask questions and interact with other bloggers. Some of these tools and communities include:

• Grammarly: Use this popular writing assistant to polish your copy and improve grammar, spelling, and writing style.
• Canva: This graphic design tool makes it easy to create images for blog posts and social media content. Both free and paid versions are available.
• Looka: Need a logo? This tool uses AI to create one for you.  
• Pexels: Find free stock photos and images for your blog.
• Lumen5: Make your blog more dynamic with AI-generated videos.
• Yoast SEO: This WordPress plug-in helps you optimize your content to rank better in search engines.
• Google Analytics: Monitor key metrics and find ways to improve your blog’s performance.
• Trello: Organize your workflow and keep track of deadlines with this project management tool.
• Google AdSense: Display ads on your blog to earn revenue.
• Reddit: Connect with fellow bloggers on the r/Blogging subreddit. You might also pick up some search engine optimization tips on r/SEO.

Your Roadmap to Blogging Success

Building a sustainable blog begins with researching topics your audience is interested in, ensuring a demand, and differentiating your blog from competitors. But to shine online, you need to plan and create outstanding blog posts that demonstrate expertise and offer more value than other sites in the SERPs.

Helpful, thought-provoking, and original content connects you to your audience. Learn how Crowd Content’s blog writing services can help you scale your content creation, from keyword research to quality assurance, and take the day-to-day details of writing and editing off your plate.

The post How to Start a Blog in 2024: An All-in-One Guide appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In this guide, we explain the time-saving benefits of incorporating structured templates into your content writing routine. From consistency and improved search engine optimization to engagement and scalability, blog templates are the secret sauce to streamlining and refining your blog writing process.  

Leveraging Blog Post Templates for Content Success

Blog post templates provide marketers with a strategic advantage and streamline the content creation process. They save time, guarantee brand consistency, and create a baseline for quality standards. 

Plus, by addressing common challenges, such as writer’s block and lack of direction, templates provide a structured framework, boosting efficiency and creativity. They empower writers to consistently produce high-quality content that ranks on the SERPs and resonates with audiences.  

“Look at it from a scalability viewpoint: Imagine someone trying to get consistent output from a team of writers tasked with creating listicles. Using a template in your instructions helps get the same result from a group of disconnected/remote writers. From the individual writer standpoint: Templates can help remind you of (or teach you) best practices for different types of content — especially if you’re an amateur blogger who may have never learned what’s effective or not a good idea.”

Essential Elements of Any Blog Post Template

Here are the key elements of any blog post structure worth using:

• Clear and engaging headlines: Using SERP analysis to discover what ranks, craft compelling headlines that capture readers’ attention and accurately convey the content’s value proposition. 
• Relevant long-tail keywords in headings: Construct headings using relevant keywords that address user intent, including People Also Ask questions from Google. This improves search engine visibility and attracts targeted traffic.
• High-quality visuals: Incorporate informative videos, visually appealing infographics, and interactive elements, such as quizzes or polls, to enhance visual appeal and support the content’s message. Ensure multimedia is relevant to the content, optimize file sizes for fast loading, and maintain consistency in style and branding.
• Consistent grammar, spelling, and formatting: Polish your template’s instructions to affirm readability and professionalism.
• Engagement prompts: Encourage reader engagement by including a call-to-action. These prompts invite readers to book a service, make a purchase, or share their thoughts, experiences, and feedback.
• Advanced SEO optimization: Don’t forget technical elements such as schema markup, a structured data format providing search engines with detailed information about your content. Ticking these boxes makes it more likely for your content to appear as a rich snippet in search results. This is a concise summary with a link to your site that appears at the top of the SERP — and it’s often the first thing a searcher sees. Website loading speed, site structure, and mobile optimization are also important.   
• Optimization through data-driven insights and experimentation: Utilize A/B testing to refine templates. Compare elements, such as headline structures, content layouts, and CTA placements, to determine the most effective variations for engagement and conversions.

Tips for optimizing a blog post for SEO

Optimizing posts for SEO is critical for boosting visibility and attracting readers. Here’s how to do it while keeping your writing style authentic:

• Keyword placement: Strategically scatter keywords throughout your content only when it makes sense. Focus on long-tail keywords and semantic relevance — and never keyword stuff. Google cares deeply about readability and context, so avoid creating search-engine-first content and cater to your actual readers. 
• Meta descriptions: Write meta descriptions summarizing your content and entice readers to click through. 
• Balanced SEO and style: Find the sweet spot between SEO optimization and a consistent writing style.

“Sometimes, we see entirely too much focus on SEO in how we equip writers to execute on content. Optimizing for search is just one piece of the puzzle. What good is ranking content that doesn’t engage the reader and perform to your business goals? Modern SEO involves more than strict and zealous keyword usage. To really move the needle, you need smart SEO tactics, something of value to share with an audience that needs/wants it, and a strategy on exactly what goal the piece should help accomplish. Once you have all that, you need a skilled writer who can bring it all together in a way that works for readers and search.”

6 Tried-and-True Blog Post Templates

The first four examples below are simple templates. They’re popular with readers and consistently perform well on the SERPs. Use them to answer frequently searched questions, establish authority, and drive initial traffic. These go-to content formats help you load your website with relevant, scannable, and engaging content to attract visitors.

Conversion-focused posts and pillar content require a more strategic approach, delivering long-term results and tying into your overarching marketing goals. They influence user behavior, drive conversions, and pack your website with comprehensive and authoritative resources that reinforce domain authority.

1. How-to blog template

Think of these posts as trusty guides — beacons, lighting the way to help readers achieve a specific goal or solve a problem. They’re written in an easy-to-digest, step-by-step format, making them simple to follow. Readers leave your site armed with the answers they’ve been looking for, thinking of your brand as a trustworthy and authoritative source. 

Example title: How to [Achieve a Specific Goal or Solve a Problem]

• Introduce the topic, and let readers know why they need to address it ASAP.
• Establish trust by including an interesting fact or valuable statistic and linking to an authoritative source.
• Use the final sentence to confidently inform the reader of what they’ll know/be able to do by the end of the article.

Elements of a how-to article

• Divide the task into manageable steps.
• Offer clear and concise instructions for each step.
• Use bullet points or numbered lists for readability.
• Incorporate relevant images, diagrams, or videos.
• Anticipate and tackle common questions or hurdles.
• Offer tips or shortcuts for improved results.

Conclusion

• Summarize the main points covered in the post.
• Add a bonus takeaway point related to the subject to affirm authority.
• Include a CTA.

2. Listicle blog writing template

Listicles are the fast food of blog posts. These snackable nuggets of wisdom are served up in a numbered list format for easy consumption. They offer quick, actionable tips and insights into a subject, guiding readers from the top to the bottom of the page. Providing web users with information that’s easy to process and act on is one of the best ways to secure returning visitors.  

Example title: [#] Tips to [Achieve Specific Outcome]

• Introduce the topic’s relevance and urgency.
• Keep the intro short and snappy.

Elements of a listicle

• Present each tip in a numbered format.
• Use scannable H2s and H3s.
• Provide concise explanations for each tip.
• Include practical examples or scenarios to demonstrate experience and expertise. 
• Offer a bonus tip in a separate H2 relating to your brand, sliding seamlessly into the conclusion.

Conclusion

• Summarize the article and reiterate any practical and relevant advice.
• Tie the article back to your brand’s offering to segue into the CTA.
• Add a CTA.

3. Definition blog article template

Definition blog posts are readers’ go-to guides for demystifying complicated concepts or industry-specific ideas. They open with a clear definition, offer contextual explanations, and rely on real-world examples and expert insights for depth and clarity.  

Example title: What Is [Concept], and Why Do You Need to Know?

Introduction

• Introduce the topic and its significance in the context of the audience’s interests or needs.
• Point to a relevant statistic from the past year and link to an authoritative source.
• Preview the key elements and insights covered in the post to enhance understanding.

Elements of a definition blog post

• Clear definition: Immediately provide a concise and precise definition of the concept, avoiding jargon or ambiguity. 
• Contextual explanation: Explain the concept’s relevance and implications in real-world scenarios or industries.
• Examples and illustrations: Enhance understanding with relevant examples, case studies, or illustrations that demonstrate the concept in action.
• Comparison and contrast: Differentiate the concept from related terms or concepts, clarifying its unique attributes and characteristics.
• Historical background: Provide context by exploring the origins and evolution of the concept over time, highlighting key milestones or developments.
• Expert insights: Incorporate insights and perspectives from subject matter experts or thought leaders to enrich the discussion and add credibility.
• Practical applications: Discuss the concept’s practical applications or use cases, demonstrating its value and relevance in various contexts.

Conclusion

• Summarize the key insights and takeaways.
• Link to internal resources to help readers deepen their understanding of the concept.
• Include a CTA.

4. Cheat sheet template

Picture cheat sheets as quick-reference guides, jam-packed with essential information in a condensed format. They answer big questions in as few words as possible, so readers in a hurry can get the skinny on a topic in no time.   

Example title: [Topic] Cheat Sheet: A Quick Reference Guide to [Subject]

Introduction

• Introduce the topic, and explain the purpose of the cheat sheet in providing quick and easy access to essential information.
• Highlight the value of having a condensed and actionable resource for readers to reference.
• Preview key sections for quick navigation.

Elements of a cheat sheet

• Overview: Briefly summarize the topic or subject covered in the cheat sheet.
• Key concepts: Organize the main concepts, principles, or steps related to the topic in a clear format.
• Quick tips: Offer actionable tips, tricks, or shortcuts to help readers succeed or overcome common challenges related to the topic.
• Valuable resources: Include links or references to additional resources, tools, or further reading materials for readers to explore.
• Visual aids: Incorporate visual elements, such as diagrams, charts, or infographics, to enhance understanding and retention of information.
• FAQs: Address common queries related to the topic, providing clear and concise answers readers can default to if they’re in a rush.

Conclusion

• Summarize key takeaways from the cheat sheet.
• Encourage readers to download or bookmark the cheat sheet for future use and easy access.
• Add a CTA.

5. Conversion-focused blog template

Conversion-focused posts are all about persuasion. These content powerhouses are designed to drive action and generate leads and sales. They’re exemplified by compelling headlines, action-driven content, and CTAs that directly align with search intent. 

Example title: [Persuasive, Action-Driven Headline]

Introduction

• Introduce the product, service, or contextually related subject.
• Add a hard-hitting fact or statistic to emphasize your point.
• Use a hook to draw the reader in and compel them to keep reading.

Elements of a conversion-focused blog post

• CTA: Ensure posts include compelling CTAs that align with the proper stage in the buyer’s journey.
• Engaging headlines: Use attention-grabbing, SEO-optimized headlines that communicate the benefit of taking action.
• Persuasive content: Craft compelling content that resonates with the target audience’s needs and desires.
• Visual appeal: Incorporate appealing elements, such as images, videos, or infographics, to enhance engagement and interest.
• Social proof: Include social proof elements such as testimonials, reviews, or case studies to build trust and credibility.
• User-friendly design: Optimize the blog post layout and design for easy readability and navigation, reducing friction in the conversion process.
• A/B testing: Experiment with different elements and strategies through A/B testing to optimize conversion rates over time.

Conclusion

• Summarize the key elements of the article.
• Offer an extra tip to help readers implement the strategies and techniques discussed in the post.
• Use a CTA that directly relates to search intent. If you own a heating and cooling company called HVAC123, create a bottom-of-the-funnel CTA that addresses users typing “fast emergency HVAC repair” into Google. For example: “Call now for emergency HVAC repairs — HVAC123 guarantees rapid response times.” 

6. Pillar content blog post template

Pillar content is the foundational center in a hub and spoke content campaign, offering in-depth coverage of a core topic and linking to related content. Consider pillar pages as guides, covering high-level explanations about specific topics. When optimizing your site for SEO and serving as a go-to resource for readers, the hub and spoke strategy is an almighty titan.

Example title: The Ultimate Guide to [Topic] (Be clear that it’s a lengthy but broad source of information.)

Introduction

• Use language to indicate this is a comprehensive and authoritative exploration of the subject.
• Highlight subtopics and link to them using a graphic or list toward the top of the page.
• Preview the key components and actionable steps covered in the guide.

Elements of pillar content

• Thorough coverage: Provide comprehensive coverage of the core topic, briefly describing and linking to all relevant subtopics that offer more in-depth answers.
• Strategic organization: Organize content logically, using clear headings and subheadings to structure information for easy navigation.
• Multimedia integration: Enhance pillar content with multimedia elements, such as videos, infographics, or interactive features, to engage and educate audiences.
• Evergreen value: Ensure pillar content remains relevant and valuable over time by focusing on evergreen topics and updating content as needed.
• Authoritative links: Position pillar content as authoritative resources in the industry, only using credible, recent sources to back up claims and statistics. This helps build trust with audiences and search engines.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the article, and offer a couple of valuable, original insights.
• Offer suggestions for further reading, or encourage readers to speak their minds in the comments section or on social media.
• Include a CTA.

Tools and Resources for Blog Post Templates

There’s a treasure trove of tools and software solutions out there that can supercharge your blog post templates:

• AI: Tools such as ChatGPT and OwlyWriter AI can create blog template outlines for you or create content according to your specifications. 
• Content management systems: WordPress and Squarespace offer easy template integration.
• Project management tools: Trello and Asana assist with collaborative template development. 
• Graphic design: Canva and Adobe Creative Cloud allow you to create visually appealing template customization with minimal expertise. 
• SERP analysis: Software such as MarketMuse and Clearscope dives deep into the SERPs, using natural language processing and machine learning to categorize content types, such as how-to guides and listicles. Don’t make the mistake of using a how-to template if most top-ranking articles for your intended query are listicles. 
• Analytics platforms: Google Analytics and HubSpot help track template performance and optimization opportunities.
• Content intelligence tools: Platforms such as Clearscope and MarketMuse analyze top-ranking SERP content to recommend the most effective content types and templates.
• Content ideation tools: Tools such as BuzzSumo and Semrush provide insights into popular topics and content formats, guiding template selection.
• Visual content tools: Utilize platforms such as Piktochart and Visme to create visually engaging templates for infographics and slides.
• Professional services: Sign up for Crowd Content’s blog writing service to get expert assistance in template implementation.
  

Optimize Your Blog Writing Process and Drive Traffic

Leveraging blog post templates and using the right tools transforms your content production process. From enhancing efficiency to maintaining brand consistency, these resources empower you to create compelling content that resonates with your audience and boosts your online presence. 

As you explore them, remember — success lies not just in creation but also in strategy. Armed with a full kit of insights and technology, you can conquer any content challenge. 

Ready to skyrocket your content game and achieve consistent results? Let our seasoned wordsmiths turn your visions into captivating listicles, how-to articles, and pillar pages. Sign up for our blog writing services, and witness the magic of strategic content creation. 

The post Write High-Performing Content Using Blog Post Templates appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But, amidst the hype and noise, there’s a burning question: Can Google, the digital gatekeeper, tell if content is created by steel and silicon instead of a human mind?  Join us as we reveal the depths of Google’s AI content detection powers and empower you to harness the full potential of your new AI sidekick. 

Can Google Detect AI Content? 

Google’s technology is far too sophisticated to be fooled by AI content — and for readers with a trained eye, AI-generated content can stick out like a sore thumb. But does that mean Google punishes you for utilizing it?

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and helpful. This quest means a relentless battle against low-quality content designed to manipulate search rankings — AI-generated or not. 

The search engine is transparent about spam policies for Google web search. Some of its flagged criteria include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and hidden links. Just as keyword-stuffed articles written by humans are penalized as spam, so is spammy AI-generated content. In other words, AI-generated content has just as much opportunity to be flagged as spam as content typed straight from the hands of creatives.

Google uses algorithms to determine an article’s creator. Let’s explore how Google’s algorithms have flourished in recent years and how these procedures affect whether AI ranks in the SERPs.

The evolution of Google’s algorithms

Google has developed complex algorithms designed to separate the wheat from the chaff to deliver reliable, helpful content to users. In recent years, the advent of AI has bolstered its ability to detect and penalize spam content — and reward high-quality, original content.

These upgrades had the most significant impact on AI detection:

• Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) in 2019: This model helps Google understand conversational queries and search intent.

• Multitask Unified Model (MUM) in 2021: 1,000 times more potent than BERT, MUM can generate comprehensive search results across various languages and formats and understand the context behind complex queries. This advancement considerably improved accuracy and depth, delivering more relevant results to intricate searches.  

• SpamBrain in 2022: This AI-based system targets behaviors that manipulate search rankings, such as keyword stuffing and link buying to give users better results. It identifies and penalizes websites that engage in tactics deemed to be search-first instead of people-first. 

• MUM’s rollout in 2022: Boosting search accuracy and speed, MUM uses a T5 model that leads to more precise and relevant search experiences and dooms low-effort content to oblivion. 

Other Google algorithms impacting SEO and relating to AI-generated content include:

• Freshness systems, which show recent content where appropriate
• The helpful content system, which prioritizes useful, human-written content
• PageRank, which analyzes links for relevance, authority, and integrity
• Neural matching, which connects user intent to content context 
• RankBrain, which helps Google understand the context behind words
• Reliable information systems, which help elevate quality journalism and demote low-quality writing

If you’re relying too heavily on AI, you may have plummeted into a pit of low-ranking content and irrelevancy. However, not all AI-generated content is created equally. 

What’s Google’s Official Stance on AI-Generated Content?

Google’s official stance on AI-generated content has shifted dramatically in a short space of time. You’re forgiven if you think Search Advocate John Meuller‘s words from April 2022 still stand.

But note that guidance about AI-generated content on Google’s website reveals a different picture. Today, the company’s official stance reflects a dual commitment to search quality and user experience. 

These guidelines highlight the need for content to prioritize originality and user-centricity. If you’re using AI, you can’t slam a few prompts into ChatGPT and copy and paste your way to success. 

If you’re using AI to create original, high-quality content that demonstrates expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, Google rewards you — however the content is produced.

Our VP of Content Operations, Rick Leach, expands on the principles behind E-E-A-T:

“With E-E-A-T, Google has all but ensured that pure AI content and low-effort human content won’t stand much of a chance in the SERPs. Content that succeeds has insights, advice, and opinions that come from what the people in your business have learned by doing a job, performing a service, or creating a product day in and day out. You can’t fake that stuff, and you certainly won’t get it from quick, one-prompt AI outputs.”

How Does Google Detect AI Content?

Google can detect AI-generated content because it understands how generative AI works.

Dr. Vivek Pandley, CEO of Vrata Tech Solutions, explains what sets modern AI tools like ChatGPT apart. “These models are trained on massive datasets, learning patterns, styles, and contextual cues to generate coherent and contextually relevant content,” Pandley says. “Unlike traditional AI models that follow predetermined rules, generative AI has the ability to generate novel outputs, making it a powerful tool for tasks ranging from content creation and natural language processing to image synthesis.”

So, how does Google know AI wrote your content? While the search giant keeps its secrets notoriously close to its chest, we know the following methods:

• Pattern recognition detects unusual language structure, grammar, syntax, and semantics.
• Google trains machine learning algorithms on massive data sets of human and AI-written content, helping it learn subtle cues that indicate AI or human writing. 
• Ensemble deep learning combines multiple detection models, strengthening Google’s ability to detect AI content. 
• Natural language processing analyzes semantics and context, highlighting differences between human and AI writing patterns. 

Despite Google’s advancements, AI models constantly up their game, getting ever-closer to looking and sounding indistinguishable from human writing. Plus, with AI-driven adversarial attacks on the rise, there’s a battle underway to keep AI as a force for good.

Thanks to advanced neural network architectures, Google appears proficient at recognizing complex patterns suggestive of AI-generated content.  

AI’s Impact on Engagement and UX

AI is here to stay, and Google is on board, provided you “produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities of E-E-A-T.” But what does that mean? Ultimately, it boils down to crafting content focused on user engagement and experience — and having relevant, demonstrated expertise.

Bankrate taught the world a valuable lesson about focusing solely on scaling up and neglecting to optimize AI content for E-E-A-T. Futurism’s Jon Christian exposed the CNET sister site by writing a scathing piece listing all the factual errors in a single AI-generated Bankrate article.

Following public outcry, Bankrate pivoted on its AI policy.

Anyone who’s used generative AI knows there must have been little — if any — human input into Bankrate’s AI-generated articles. Inaccurate information, absence of expert writers, and focus on pumping out reams of content eroded away at E-E-A-T.

AI alone isn’t enough

In April 2023, Google released a statement: “AI and automation can be a useful tool to create helpful content, but if AI is used for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, that’s a violation of our long-standing policy against spammy automatically-generated content.”

You need to apply E-E-A-T principles, engage users, and provide them with a memorable experience that compels them to return. You can use AI to create it, but here’s the kicker — AI is a powerful, fantastic tool for making content, but it can’t create it for you. Every sentence of every article needs human involvement to meet Google’s exacting standards. 

Bankrate prioritized search over people and had to unlist 6 months’ worth of content as a result. While embarrassing for them, it could push a smaller company into the red. That’s why human touch is crucial when producing AI-generated content.

If you’ve used AI to generate articles and you’re on the brink of banishing them to the recycle bin, stop! Use them as foundational pieces, adding expert quotes and opinions, valuable graphics, and a consistent brand voice. 

Tips for Using AI to Craft Content That Converts

To make sure your content doesn’t fall short of Google’s quality standards:

• Know Google’s rules. Keep yourself in the loop with Google’s quality guidelines. Your AI content should tick the boxes for originality, relevance, and user-friendliness, in line with Google’s playbook.
• Mix in human flavor. AI can churn out bland content, but people add the seasoning. Experiment with an AI-generated draft, then sprinkle in personality, expertise, and authenticity.
• Serve value. Give your audience something worth reading by never rewriting someone else’s article. Your content should solve problems, answer questions, and offer fresh insights to keep readers coming back for more.
• Keep it readable. Avoid making your audience work too hard. Use precise language, short sentences, and tidy formatting to make your AI-generated content a breeze to read and understand.
• Shake things up. Don’t be a one-trick pony. Try different content types, including articles, blogs, infographics, videos, and podcasts. 
• Test and tweak. Watch your AI content’s performance, and listen to what your audience says. Use the data to find ways to make your content even better.

Creative uses for AI in content creation

With these AI-powered tricks up your sleeve, you can craft content that works for you without breaking a sweat:

• Tailored recommendations: Use AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini to determine what your audience wants, and serve up personalized content recommendations that hit the spot.
• Visual content enhancement: Spruce up your visuals with AI tools for special effects — it’s a whole lot cheaper than licensing stock photography. 
• Natural language generation: Effortlessly generate content such as product descriptions and social media posts. But never forget to match it with your brand’s style and tone, or it’ll get lost in a sea of similar posts.
• Voice search optimization: Stay one step ahead by writing AI-optimized content for voice search queries. Use conversational language and long-tail keywords to make sure your content gets heard loud and clear.

What Does the Future Hold for Google AI-Detection?

As we navigate AI’s impact on the world of SEO content, one thing remains clear: Adaptability is key. AI marches forth, as do Google’s detection methods, ensuring that only high-quality, user-centric content prevails. The future holds endless possibilities for AI-driven content, but it has yet to find a workaround for Google’s standards. 

To stay ahead, content creators need to adhere to Google’s guidelines, blend AI with human creativity, and prioritize their audience over quick fixes to climb the SERPs. 

Ready to transform your AI-generated content into pieces that embody E-E-A-T principles? Try out Crowd Content’s expert editing services.

The post What’s Google’s Stance on AI-Generated Content? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

To help you along, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to the AI tools we love to use all through the content-creation process.

Use Cases for AI Content Creation Tools

AI content creation tools leverage the many intricacies of natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to create content that looks and sounds human but originates deep within the inner workings of the World Wide Web.

Over the past couple of years, the majority of public focus has been on AI’s increasing role in content generation. With the help of a human operator, artificial intelligence tools draw on existing content, data, and other inputs across the internet to create new copy used for everything from blog posts and news articles to product descriptions and About Us pages. But the written word is far from the only way to utilize AI.

AI tools are also invaluable for:

• SEO: AI can help with search engine optimization, by identifying quality keywords and generating metadata that appeals to Google’s algorithm.
• Social media management: Platforms such as Hootsuite and FeedHive tackle vital social media tasks, such as identifying the best time to post a meme and using social listening to track and analyze consumer conversations.
• Email marketing: Creating content for emails can be especially tricky because you have to pack a lot into a relatively small space. AI can draft personalized email content, improving your marketing campaigns without taxing your brain power.
• Translation: Looking to break into a new market? Use AI to translate existing content into another language without losing context and tone.
• Chatbots: Providing 24/7 customer service can be expensive, which is why so many companies are training chatbots to interact with customers and answer their questions when human agents are unavailable.
• Graphics: AI image generators can create images based on prompts, reducing reliance on those generic stock images people love to hate.

And those use cases are just the tip of the iceberg. AI can also help with editing content, analyzing data, scripting, creating quizzes, crafting how-to guides and tutorials, drafting legal documents such as contracts, aiding developers in generating code snippets, scheduling appointments, and hundreds of other useful things.

Top 10 Content Creation Tools

Using AI content creation tools to improve your business practices or to lighten your personal workload is a clever play. But the even more brilliant move is learning which tools are the best overall for the task at hand.

1. ChatGPT

Classification: Broad-spectrum content generation

Overview: Large language models (LLMS) are used to power platforms such as ChatGPT, creating a methodology that generates blogs, social media updates, content summaries, and just about every other content imaginable based on text data originally used to train the LLM’s neural network. In other words, ChatGPT has learned how to create content just like a human would (or pretty close, anyway).

You can use ChatGPT in multiple ways, depending on your role and your goals. Are you a writer who needs help brainstorming? A content strategist building a content map with pillar pages and spokes? A content manager tasked with generating briefs and outlines? You can do all this, plus tons of other jobs, from one chat interface — you just need to tweak the copy before sending it down the pipeline to the next person.

Features: ChatGPT has the ability to answer questions, summarize text, translate content, generate code, etc.

Pros: ChatGPT’s prompt and response format is easy to use and works for everything from writing blogs to figuring out how to fix your washing machine.

Cons: If in the hands of a novice user, long-form writing can easily come off as formulaic (or, dare we say robotic?). Also, because these models train on potentially outdated data, you still need to fact-check everything the platform generates.

Pricing: The basic model is free, but a $20/month subscription provides faster responses and more consistent access when the site is overloaded with users. 

2. ClickUp

Classification: Project management and AI writing assistant

Overview: This productivity-boosting tool empowers teams that can benefit from having multiple utilities all under one umbrella. Functionality is the name of the game, and the completely reconfigurable setup means each user or organization can find a way to make ClickUp fit their needs — even if those needs continuously change.

ClickUp’s tagline is “One app to replace them all,” and it makes sense. Instead of flipping back and forth between apps used to monitor tasks, write content, track goals, and chat with team members, ClickUp puts it all in one place and creates new connections powered by all-knowing AI. It’s like having a personal assistant who knows what you need before you do.

Features: ClickUp has hundreds of features on tap, including tools for task management, marketing campaign management, visual collaboration, real-time reporting, content ideation and creation, editing, and checklist generation.

Pros: The platform is customizable and built to integrate with over 1,000 other tools. It also has a library of customizable templates for work-ready shortcuts.

Cons: AI features are available only through higher subscription tiers.

Pricing: Subscriptions range from free (best for personal use) to business accounts for $12/month. Larger enterprise-level accounts are priced by request.

3. Narrato Workspace

Classification: End-to-end AI content creation and planning

Overview: Narrato Workspace isn’t a single tool — it’s an entire workspace that puts research, planning, and content creation all in one applause-worthy box. It doesn’t matter if your to-do list includes automating publishing for a couple dozen blogs, coming up with ideas for video scripts, or writing a press release for that upcoming product launch. Narrato can do it all — and add some custom AI images for good measure.

Features: Narrato’s SEO content brief generator is a total powerhouse. Other features, such as workflow automation that streamlines repetitive tasks, AI image generation, and built-in content planning and organization tools, are equally indispensable.

Pros: The all-in-one workspace saves time, and the template generator helps users keep dialing in their own processes.

Cons: Users report few cons, but the content editor can lag a bit when processing larger docs.

Pricing: Plans start at $36/month for a base Pro subscription and increase to $76/month for a larger business account.

4. Lately

Classification: AI social media post generator

Overview: Turning long-form content into easily digestible nuggets suitable for social media can feel like a slog. Lately generates social posts in a jiffy, which serves several purposes: You can reuse existing content, populate your social feeds, and generate more engagement all at once. And you don’t have to strain your bandwidth to do it. With Lately, you can create dozens of social posts with a simple click of a button, and that’s not limited to text. The platform also distills audio and visual content.

Features: Lately’s solutions list includes tools that generate content and transcripts, create clips of videos and podcasts, and build social posts with all the necessary elements (copy, images, tracking links, etc.) intact and ready to go.

Pros: As easy to use as it is focused, Lately gives small businesses and busy marketers a way to power up social media without getting distracted by other functionalities.

Cons: The platform’s narrow focus means you’ll need other tools for other tasks.

Pricing: Pricing depends on the number of social channels linked; subscriptions start at $49/month for four channels.

5. Jasper

Classification: AI content generator for blogs

Overview: Jasper is kind of like ChatGPT’s lesser-known cousin, but don’t let marketing make your decision for you. Jasper is adept at understanding tone, something that’s often missing in AI-generated content. Cross-app integrations make it easier to transfer content between Google Docs and the Jasper platform, and you can even use the built-in API to create new integrations that aren’t automatically supported.

Features: Use Jasper’s Boss Mode to create more detailed long-form content. SurferSEO integration helps finished content rank, and with 30-plus languages available for translation purposes, that content is poised to reach an even bigger audience.

Pros: Jasper’s ability to understand and replicate tone is ideal for branded content, and Boss Mode helps avoid some of the pitfalls that usually come with content built off AI-driven templates.

Cons: Like other AI content generators, Jasper isn’t built for nuance. Have specialty and sensitive content reviewed by human subject matter experts for the best results.

Pricing: Creator-level subscriptions start at $39/month and go up from there. Enterprise pricing is available on request. 

6. Copy.ai

Classification: Freestyle AI writing tool

Overview: Copy.ai is another content generator, but this one responds well to additional guidance. Instead of entering a general prompt, such as “zoo animals,” you can provide more context, such as “zoo animals most prevalent in the United States, written from 2nd person POV, geared toward kids, with a humorous undertone.” Similar to ChatGPT, Copy.ai has a chatbot interface that assists with research by answering questions and hunting down data in response to prompts.

Features: Unlike other AI content generators that require you to copy output and paste it into a third-party word processor for further work, Copy.ai has an in-line doc editor so you can polish as you go. You can also build email sequences, translate copy, and use the AI prompt library to help cut to the chase.

Pros: Real-time data collection helps improve factual accuracy and prevent copy from being out of date, and the in-line editor streamlines workflow.

Cons: Copy.ai doesn’t check generated content for plagiarism, and pricing is relatively high once you bypass max inputs for a free account.

Pricing: Basic accounts are free; Pro accounts start at $36/month.

7. Synthesia

Classification: AI video generation

Overview: Video production can be a pricey endeavor. Between equipment, casting, post-production editing, and time off from all the other tasks on your plate, you can easily rack up five-figure costs. Synthesia makes video creation more accessible by using AI to generate videos based on plain-text prompts. Instead of human leads, videos are led by an AI-generated avatar that also handles narration. This tool puts the power of video creation in the hands of small businesses and solopreneurs who might not otherwise be able to share pro-level explainer videos or support their blogs with advanced visual aids.

Features: There are over 140 stock avatars and 120-plus languages available to help you speak to your core audience. Use customization options to dial in your branding and the 60-plus video templates to jump-start “filming” if you feel stuck.

Pros: All the plug-in-play type features make it easy for total newbies to get up and running quickly.

Cons: The editing process takes some time and practice to master, and some features (such as the number of scenes you can include) are limited, depending on your subscription level.

Pricing: Start accounts are $22/month, with an annual billing discount; Enterprise account pricing is available on request. 

8. Murf

Classification: AI voice generation platform

Overview: Murf helps you create AI voiceovers in record time, using the scripts you provide to bring life and an almost-human touch to everything from new client introduction videos to how-to guides. You can choose what type of voice you want and even which accent you prefer, matching your finished voiceover to your business or target demographic.

Murf has also solved the once-universal issue with computer-generated voiceovers: stilted, robotic speech. Use the built-in editing feature to eliminate strange pauses, and switch up vocal emphasis so your end product is less William Shatner and more relatable for the average customer.

Features: Text-to-speech input creates voiceovers from written content; multilingual support increases diversity; and AI cloning can even mimic inflections that indicate emotions.

Pros: If you can write something (or have someone write it for you), you can create a voiceover using Murf.

Cons: Editing is possible but requires oversight by someone who understands speech patterns and knows how to achieve a more natural result.

Pricing: Basic accounts are free; paid accounts with additional features and support start at $19/month.

9. Canva

Classification: AI image generation and graphic design

Overview: What-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editors changed how the average person created, organized, and published blogs, and now the same tech is revolutionizing image and graphic generation. You don’t have to be a graphic designer to use Canva — the knowledge and taste level are already there. No-code editors offer multiple menus of design elements, along with templates that act as a foundation for almost any type of imaging possible. Create business cards, presentations, posters, videos, social media posts, whiteboards, and animations — as soon as you catch up, Canva will have something new to announce.

Features: Canva has stacked the deck with features such as a huge library of free stock photos, graphics, design elements, fonts, and templates galore. You can export in a variety of formats, and there’s a built-in sharing mode to get finished designs up ASAP.

Pros: It’s useful for everyone from complete newbies to design pros, as templates can stand alone or be tweaked down to the tiniest details.

Cons: Many of the best graphics, fonts, etc., are only available via a paid subscription.

Pricing: Basic accounts are free. Canva Pro is $14.99/month, and Canva for Teams of five people costs $29.99/month. 

10. Podcastle

Classification: Blog-to-podcast conversion

Overview: Approximately 42% of Americans age 12 and up say they’ve listened to at least one podcast in the past month. Podcast formatting is increasingly popular, and Podcastle is helping content creators and businesses step up to the plate, thanks to software that turns blogs into podcast-ready scripts. The technology also works to create audiobooks and other audio-based content. You can also do the creation process in reverse and turn your existing podcasts into blogs. It’s a win-win situation that multiplies functionality.

Features: The platform provides studio-level sound without studio equipment, plus there’s an audio editor you can use to enhance tone, edit recordings, and remove background noise.  The AI tech makes it possible to create digital copies of your voice.

Pros: You can go from text to voice and back again using one utility, and there are a lot of customization options up for grabs.

Cons: The platform is still a bit clunky. But updates keep coming, and the interface should be more user-friendly soon.

Pricing: Basic membership is free for a single creator; multi-creator subscriptions start at $11.99/month per creator; and Pro-level subscriptions cost $23.99/month per creator. 

Top 4 AI Content Creation Tools – Bonus SEO List

AI is also storming the SEO castle, and these tools can help you conquer the SERPs without scouring content for keyword placement manually — and really, who wants to do that?

1. Semrush

Overview: Semrush is all about SEO, with a slate of 55-plus tools on hand so you can optimize content from every possible angle. While basic keyword tools just look at phrases you need to include, Semrush takes a much wider view. Content marketing, PPC, competitor research, and social media marketing — you can do it all with Semrush.

With Semrush, you have a market research tool that also does SEO, making you more competitive and eliminating lag time between seeing a content problem and finding a solution.

Features: Use the AI-driven site auditor to pinpoint gaps in your SEO strategy, then act on the bot’s recommendations. The keyword magic tool rates short- and long-tail keywords by search volume and difficulty.

Pros: So many utilities, so little time! Semrush does a lot, and much of it is available for free.

Cons: Higher plans can get pricey, and with many functions on tap, those new to SEO could get confused.

Pricing: Basic searches are free; paid plans start at $129.95/month and go up to $499.95/month for large agency and enterprise accounts. 

2. SurferSEO

Overview: SurferSEO’s main strength is in content optimization. It uses data-driven insights to create suggestions users rely on to improve their on-page SEO. The goal is to improve visibility and SERP rankings based on the targeted keywords, current search engine algorithms, and lengthy competitor analysis. AI can see patterns the average human won’t notice, increasing the likelihood that SurferSEO’s recommendations can give you a competitive edge and improve your ranking more than you’d be able to achieve on your own.

Features: SurferSEO has its own on-platform content editor, plus analytics tools that track performance and generate reports. It also has a robust resource library, including tutorials, to help you get the most out of your subscription.

Pros: Multiple integrations increase utility, and it has a user-friendly interface that minimizes the scare factor for newbies.

Cons: SurferSEO’s basic plans have limited functionality, and higher plans are expensive. There’s also a learning curve, and those new to SEO may have to dedicate time to reading guides and familiarizing themselves with the platform.

Pricing: Essential AI plans start at $119/month; Advanced AI costs $239/month; and full Surfer AI power requires a Max AI account for $419/month.

3. Diib

Overview: Diib is like a scaled-down version of SurferSEO and Semrush, but smaller doesn’t mean less than. In fact, Diib’s focus is one of the platform’s biggest benefits. Small businesses looking to scale can jettison the noise that comes with too many features and concentrate solely on SEO and traffic insights designed to automate SEO and promote growth.

With Diib, you get a clear growth objective you can work toward, along with alerts that let you know how you’re doing with SEO, social media, mobile conversions, and overall UX. Instead of checking up on your website 800 times a day and neglecting other tasks, Diib does it for you.

Features: Daily health scores keep your finger on the pulse of your website’s well-being. Diib’s 12-metric system ensures a holistic view of your progress, and AI-powered SEO gap checks and competitor monitoring buoy your success even further.

Pros: Diib is affordable, focused, and easy to understand, and the mostly hands-off daily operations are perfect for bootstrapped startups.

Cons: If you need a lot of extras, such as a built-in content editor or lots of templates, you’ll have to supplement Diib with another platform or tool.

Pricing: Self-service plans are free. Pro plans with unlimited access to Diib tools cost $7.99/month.

4. RankIQ

Overview: RankIQ is another specific SEO tool. This one only cares about blogs. The utility’s sole goal is to help businesses and enterprising individuals write blogs that rank on the first page of the SERPs. It does that by handpicking low-competition, high-traffic keywords niche by niche and generating content briefs and outlines that put those keywords to work.

Features: The software uses a call-and-response formula — you enter a keyword, and RankIQ comes back with everything you need to know. It also prepares detailed AI-generated SEO reports and checks rank regularly.

Pros: The interface is remarkably straightforward, and all you need to know going in is your original target keyword.

Cons: There are no advanced features or customization options here. It’s bare bones, and if you want help with website content or social stuff, you won’t get it from RankIQ.

Pricing: Plans start at $49/month.

Is It OK to Use AI Content Creation Tools?

AI content tools are pretty darn useful. From fueling ideation and assisting in research to creating briefs and publish-ready prose, AI plug-ins and platforms are indelibly woven into the future of writing. But, an over-reliance on these tools can lead to lower-quality content, something that can negatively impact your brand and your SERP ranking. That’s why it’s so crucial that you learn how to balance the potential of AI with frequent reminders of the importance of human oversight.

There are legal and ethical considerations, too. It’s your responsibility to ensure everything you publish and put your name on complies with copyright laws and ethical standards. Saying “AI did it” won’t fly.

The Future of AI Tools and Revolutionary Content

From increasing efficiency and offering new insights to giving professional assists that would otherwise cost companies tens of thousands of dollars a year, these platforms are stepping up to make life easier and content better. In many ways, AI content-creation tools are the wingmen we need at a price we can (usually) afford. It enhances our creativity, improves our outcomes, and puts voice and image creation in the hands of people who have never held a microphone or video camera. It’s magical — but even an enchanted bunny needs a person around to pull it out of the hat.

As you scale your business, keep experimenting. But always think of and treat AI as an enhancement, not a totally hands-off alternative to people-first processes.

The post Top 10 AI Content Creation Tools appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Gone are the days of just winging it. Today’s cluttered blog landscape and the developing metaverse of tech and talk mean spontaneous posting just isn’t enough to get your brand noticed. That’s why it’s so important to understand what makes a strong content production process.

See how infusing every step of your content strategy with a triple-optimization approach (SEO, reader engagement, and business goals) can get you where you need to go.

What Is Content Production and How Does It Connect to Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

Content production is a comprehensive process and includes planning, creating, refining, and publishing content to meet your business objectives. This is so much more than dashing off a blog post and pushing it through your WordPress dashboard.

Properly producing effective and on-brand content requires equal parts art and science. The artsy end of things comes when your writer crafts a pithy turn of phrase or your graphics team creates a memorable infographic. The science portion of the process involves things like keyword research, evaluation of potential distribution channels, and analytics review.

All these components feed into and become one with your digital marketing strategy. Think about how you choose to spend time on and funnel resources into:

• Audience engagement
• Brand awareness
• Search engine optimization
• Lead generation
• Social media presence
• Email marketing
• Analytics and iteration
• Consumer education

Lay the proper foundation; tick all the boxes, and visibility and audience reach will soar. Skip steps or engage in random marketing — think paying freelancers for content without a brief or review process — and you might as well convert your marketing budget into dollar bills, throw the pile into gale-force winds, and try to get your stack back in place. 

The Process of Content Production: Strategies for Guaranteed Results

We should preface: There are no guarantees in content or marketing overall. But there are ways you can construct your content production process to increase your chances of success. For your content to be a hit, you should pay attention to every stage of the process and understand the true goal for each phase. 

Hint: Too much of what should happen early in the process is often left to writers. 

1. Initial strategy/keyword research/analysis

This is where you establish the initial whos, whats, and whys of content creation.

• Why are you producing content in the first place?
• What business goals are you trying to achieve with content? 
• Who is the content for?
• What does that audience need or want?
• What are your competitors doing better than you? 
• What are your competitors not doing well?

Keyword research, market research, and market trend analysis can aid your search for those answers. The goal is to understand what your competitors are up to and how your target audience behaves to better fuel your strategy.

2. Ideation

Brainstorm unique and competitive ideas that address the keywords and their respective search intent. Every concept should build on the research in step one and answer those whos, whats, and whys.

3. Pre-production

Pre-production is like planning for the plan. What kind of timeline are you thinking, and what outside influences (an upcoming product launch date, for instance) impact your decisions?

During this phase, create content briefs and infographic templates, conduct interviews, or send out surveys that will become part of the content created down the line. Don’t leave the opinions and insights captured in your content to chance here; determine what they’ll be before moving onto the next phase.

4. Writing

Now, the content briefs, resources, and instructions land in the hands of talented freelancers or your in-house writing team, and the actual writing begins.

5. Editing

Fully drafted content is sent to editors, who review everything for clarity, coherence, grammar, and style. This stage is not just a case of dotting an “i” here and crossing a “t” over there. Editors contextually review the content, double-checking that it aligns with brand guidelines and the messaging fits the campaign.

6. Review

Send the edited draft to anyone who needs or wants to give their input. This may include subject matter experts, peer reviews, or other decision-makers on your team. Content that’s on point moves to the next step. Everything else gets marked up and sent back for further work.

7. Design

Support written content with bespoke images, graphics, and videos. Everything should slot in well with existing branded material and be formatted for the intended distribution channels — no long-form videos for TikTok or long-winded rants for X.

8. Publishing

Send your finished, multifaceted content out into the world. Channels might include your company website, a branded blog, social media pages, email newsletters, industry publications, podcasts, or e-books.

9. Tracking/analytics

Use key performance indicators to track how your content is doing and whether you’re meeting your brand’s goals. Metrics such as page views, conversion rates, social shares, and post likes and comments can give you insight into what’s working well and where you could improve. Be sure the primary metric you track for each asset aligns with the reason you created the content in the first place. 

10. Content refresh

Update content that has grown stale or isn’t performing as you’d hoped by adding insights, recent developments in the topic, and updated statistics. At this stage, you should also ensure that the content still aligns with the search intent of your primary keywords. 

Best Practices for SEO and Content Production

There are lots of bits and pieces that go into planning stellar content, but SEO is a big one — it’s integral in producing compelling content that ranks high in the SERPs. Best practices demand you incorporate SEO at least three times during the content production process:

• Keyword research: During the ideation phase, spend time researching what keywords can help you achieve business goals and which best answer your target audience’s queries.
• Search intent optimization: As your team creates content, they incorporate the keywords chosen during the ideation phase. These should address users’ questions and individual stages of the buyer’s journey. By determining the intent behind KWs, you can ensure you attract the right online traffic.

Image Source: semrush.com

• SEO analysis: After publishing your content, track and analyze key metrics that show how that content is performing. This requires looking at organic search traffic and click and conversion rates to see which KWs are effective and which may not best serve your purpose.

Working SEO into your content production process offers a range of benefits, such as improved visibility and rankings, increased organic traffic (saving money on paid ads), and advantages over the competition. But SEO is also closely tied to user experience. When you serve your research KWs properly versus simply shoving them into existing content, you give searchers valuable content that satisfies their needs and wants.

AI and Other Advanced Strategies in Content Production

Storytelling is the foundation of content production. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about product descriptions, white papers, or press releases. The bottom line is that you’re telling a story. This is more important than ever with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, which favor personalization and experience. While weaving a tale is a tradition as old as time, the methods you can use to convey your message have evolved.

Artificial intelligence

Not too long ago, AI seemed like something to be feared rather than embraced, but machine learning is transforming digital marketing at a rapid pace. For content production, AI has several purposes:

• Content personalization: Use AI to get to know your core audience’s behavioral patterns and preferences. Algorithms can review massive data sets and find patterns in record time, efficiently informing your strategy.
• Content optimization: Tools that oversee A/B testing and analyze content can help evaluate context, sentiment, and technical SEO needs.
• Predictive analytics: Knowing what lies ahead can help you stay ahead of the curve. AI-powered predictive analytics look at future trends and expected content performance to see what audiences might love tomorrow as well as today.
• Content creation: You can use AI to create outlines, brainstorm topic clusters, and even write actual content — as long as there’s always human oversight and final review processes in place.
• Content distribution: Figure out where to distribute your content and use AI scheduling tools to push out social posts and other assets when they’ll have the most impact.

User-generated content

User-generated content is all the content created by fans or followers of your brand. Testimonials, hashtag campaigns, social media posts, case studies, and even comments on blogs or social profiles are all types of UGC that can help create a more authentic content experience.

UGC is a win-win proposal. You save money on paid content creation and take advantage of social proof. Consider that, out of 500-plus surveyed marketers, 92% reported increased brand awareness due to UGC. 

In recent years, Formula 1’s racing team, Mclaren, has encouraged fans to use the hashtag “FansLikeNoOther” to increase brand awareness.

Top Tools and Resources for Effective Content Production

You can use top-rated tools and platforms to help guide and streamline the content production process. Here are some of our favorites.

• Content management systems facilitate content creation, modification, and overall management. They’re primarily used to manage website content, as seen with sites like WordPress and Squarespace. Some, like Shopify, have additional utilities to facilitate running an online store or creating a digital portfolio.
• SEO tools: Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs are two of the biggest SEO tools in the marketplace. They help brands identify relevant keywords and provide in-depth analysis of goodies like backlink potential and competitor strategies.
• Analytics platforms: Master business intelligence’s nuances with platforms designed to discover and analyze data and provide actionable insights. With tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, and HubSpot, you can make data-driven decisions that fuel your overall digital marketing strategy.
• AI-driven technology: AI content creation tools focusing on the written word are everywhere these days, with sites like OwlyWriter AI and ChatGPT making major waves. But there are also tools for creating AI graphics (Midjourney), recording and editing podcasts (Podcastle), and building competitive content strategies (Crayon).
• Project management: Make no mistake, scattered communication and a lack of centralization can bring a robust content production team to its knees. Look for tools that support the collaborative process that content production has to be. Tools like Trello, Asana, monday.com, and Basecamp should fit the bill here. 

Key Challenges and Solutions in Content Production

Even experienced content production specialists run into hurdles from time to time, and for newbies, content creation can be a minefield. Understanding common challenges and approaching them armed with solutions can mean the difference between achieving success or stumbling.

• Maintaining content quality: When you start to generate more content or branch out from your initial content type or topics, it’s easy to watch quality sink as you just focus on getting it out there. It’s important to post consistently and stay visible, but if that means you start churning out content that lacks value and authority, the tradeoff isn’t worth it.
• Scaling production: Companies often experience temporary surges in production needs, such as wanting to populate a new blog in under a month or needing tons of local SEO service pages lumped into a one-off order. Other brands want to rapidly scale from a couple of pieces of content a week to a couple dozen. That’s hard to accomplish when relying solely on in-house staff.

These concerns can be mitigated — if not eliminated — by outsourcing content creation. At Crowd Content, we funnel our resources into building vetted, experienced networks of writers, editors, and subject matter experts who know how to generate high-quality content. With a pool of talent already in place and a three-step quality assurance process on tap, you can get a single piece of content or 1,000 product descriptions at a time, all while preserving quality.

The Role of Visuals and Multimedia Content in Content Production

The word “content” is often tied to text-based assets, but content production encompasses visual elements and multimedia creations. A whopping 91% of consumers prefer viewing visual content over something written. 

Incorporating so-called visual aids such as videos, infographics, images, and interactive elements into your content — or as the content itself — can make content more appealing. It may also make the things you publish more memorable and more desirable for consumers to share.

And while infographics, videos, and tables do take some effort to create, images that illustrate, entertain, and break up lengthy articles are now merely a few keystrokes away. 

Future Trends in Content Production

As we tiptoe further into the year, expect the landscape of content production to change. Some shifts may feel small, like shifting consumer behavior that hints at more significant changes in years to come. Other trends are poised to smack into industry norms hard enough to make the industry quake.

Take Google’s Search Generative Experience, for example. This feature, unveiled by Google in 2023, uses the power of AI to give searchers insight into their topic of interest without the need to repeatedly click on links in the SERPs. The risks and opportunities presented by this extension of Google’s search ecosystem aren’t yet known. Still, companies will have to adapt to more zero-click search and fight to be featured and preserve organic traffic.

Content Production Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond 2024

Crowd Content’s content creation services lead the industry with a pool of content managers, writers, SMEs, and editors who are as talented as they are committed to all things content. 

While there’s no such thing as a turnkey content production process, getting to know the top tools, strategies, and trends can undoubtedly make it easier to produce content that resonates. Given the importance of crazy-good content in digital marketing, it’s more important than ever that you get expert guidance and ultimately produce content that makes you — and your audience — proud.

The post Crafting Content That Counts: Inside the Content Production Process appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

• Parallelism is a tool that brings order, clarity, and rhythm to your writing.
• It involves aligning similar ideas, elements, or parts of speech in a balanced way.
• Common parallelism pitfalls include mixing parts of speech and creating nonparallel lists.
• Parallelism errors can be corrected by ensuring similar elements share the same grammatical structure.
• Parallelism is a straightforward concept that can improve anyone’s writing.

The rules of parallelism in writing offer a trusty guide that brings order to your words. It’s about making sure similar ideas, elements, or parts of speech come together harmoniously. By embracing parallelism, you can craft sentences and lists that make your message clear.

Defining Parallelism

Parallelism is a rhetorical device that balances parts of a sentence or a series of sentences. The device is commonly used in various aspects of language, including sentence structure, lists, comparisons, and more.

To create parallelism, use similar grammatical structures or parts of speech for elements that perform the same function.

Why Parallelism in Writing Matters

Parallelism helps structure information in a way that makes it easier for readers or listeners to understand and process. Here’s why parallelism is important for comprehensible writing:

• Consistency: Parallelism ensures you present similar ideas or elements consistently. 
• Easy processing: When you write information with a parallel structure, the brain can process it more efficiently. 
• Reduced ambiguity: Without parallelism, sentences may become ambiguous or confusing. 
• Enhanced emphasis: Parallelism as a literary device can emphasize specific ideas or elements. 
• Rhythm and balance: Parallelism adds rhythm and balance to sentences, enhancing a piece’s readability.

Examples of Parallelism

• Nouns: She enjoys reading, swimming, and hiking.
• Verbs: He runs, swims, and cycles.
• Prepositional phrases: He is interested in sports, music, and art.
• Infinitive phrases: Her goals are to learn, to grow, and to succeed.
• Clauses: She is both intelligent and hardworking.

Common Parallelism Pitfalls

Common parallelism pitfalls include mixing different parts of speech, creating nonparallel lists, and misaligning elements used in comparisons. Mixing parts of speech within parallel structures can be confusing, such as “She enjoys skiing, reading books, and to take long walks,” where gerunds (“skiing” and “reading books”) clash with the infinitive (“to take long walks”). 

Nonparallel lists lack uniformity in grammatical structure, such as “He’s a great husband, a loving father, and cooks deliciously,” where “cooks deliciously” differs from the other elements. By changing the final characteristic to “an amazing chef,” the list becomes parallel.

Fixing Parallelism Errors

Identifying and correcting parallelism errors in your writing is crucial to avoid confusion or awkwardness in your writing. To address these issues, you should follow a systematic approach.

• Carefully read your text, paying attention to sentences that might exhibit parallelism problems. Keep an eye out for conjunctions such as “and,” “or,” “but,” and “not only…but also,” which often signal the need for parallelism.
• Focus on ensuring similar elements within the sentence or list share the same grammatical structure. Common areas to check include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. 
• Proofread your text to confirm you’ve successfully addressed all parallelism errors.

Parallelism in Literature and Rhetoric

Parallelism plays a vital role in rhetoric and literature by enhancing the persuasive impact of speeches and the aesthetic quality of written works. It serves as a powerful rhetorical device, emphasizing key ideas through patterns in language. 

Emphasis and Repetition

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he famously used parallelism with the phrase, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The repetition of “I have a dream” also reinforces the central theme of the speech and makes it memorable.

Clarity and Symmetry

In Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the opening phrase follows a parallel structure to  creates a sense of balance and clarity — “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” 

Rhythmic Flow

In Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speech, he said, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets…” The repetition of “we shall fight” emphasizes resolve and adds a powerful cadence to the speech.

Beyond Sentences: Parallelism in Ideas

Parallelism isn’t just for sentences; it’s a tool that keeps your writing in sync, whether you’re crafting a paragraph or weaving a whole narrative. It ensures your ideas and themes flow smoothly, making your message clear and engaging for readers. So, whether you’re writing an essay, a heartwarming story, or a lively article, parallelism ensures your piece provides a welcoming reading experience.

Common Misconceptions and Myths

Myth: Parallelism is about lists.

Reality: Parallelism can appear in comparisons, sentences, paragraphs, and even entire articles.

Myth: Parallelism is reserved for those fancy, formal pieces of writing.

Reality: It’s a versatile tool that can jazz up everyday conversations, emails, and social media posts. 

The Importance of Mastering Parallelism in Writing

Mastering parallelism can level up your writing and make it more digestible for readers. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s overly complex — parallelism is a straightforward concept that anyone can master. So, keep practicing, and let parallelism elevate your writing.

The post Parallelism Demystified: A User-Friendly Approach to Effective Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

For your SEO strategy to have an impact, you need a reliable keyword research sidekick giving you advice on what your customers are searching for. But how do you find a tool that meets your business needs and budget with so many options on the market? Before you throw your hands up in despair, check out our list of seven keyword research tools that can help your brand climb the SERPs and stay in the search engine spotlight. 

Short List of Keyword Research Tools

In evaluating keyword tools, we considered criteria such as ease of use and available metrics. We’ll dive into the pros, cons, and intricacies of each platform to help you find a well-matched partner, but here’s a bottom-line summary: 

1. Moz: Best overall 
2. Semrush: Best for user intent analysis
3. Ahrefs: Best for keyword tracking and analysis
4. QuestionDB: Best for long-tail keywords
5. Google Keyword Planner: Best for paid advertising keywords
6. SECockpit: Best for competitive keyword analysis 
7. TopicRanker: Best for finding competitor weaknesses

The Science Behind Keyword Research

Each tool takes a unique approach to collecting and processing data, which is why you’ll find variations when looking at metrics such as search volume, difficulty, and page authority.

The tools extract data across the web, scraping sources such as:

• Search engine results pages
• Autocomplete suggestions
• Google’s related searches and People Also Ask
• Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends
• Social networking sites and online forums
• Clickstream data tracking user movements across the internet

Some also work backward from search results, inspecting top-ranked pages for content, keyword frequency, and backlinks. Artificial intelligence helps interpret this information, pinpointing patterns that can help you make up ground in the rankings. 

Each platform then waves its respective algorithm wand, magically turning big data into the bite-size metrics you see on your screen. Because each tool uses unique data sources and processes, they end up with different results. 

That’s why it’s best to compare keywords within a tool and not across platforms. You wouldn’t look at metrics for “picture frames” on Ahrefs and “wall art” on Semrush to choose between the two keywords. You can, however, feel confident that comparisons run within a single platform are accurate. 

Andrei Prakharevich compared search volume ranges for keywords on four tools. While each reported a different number, they all concluded “mountain bikes” was the most popular and “gravel bikes” the least, which is key in deciding which keyword to target.

Essential Features for Keyword Research Tools

Let’s put together our keyword tool wish list. Ideally, you want a large database to draw keyword ideas from and reliable metrics so you can decide which keywords to pursue.

Some essential features include:

• Keyword suggestions: A robust tool provides a variety of keyword ideas. Most draw from Google, but some collect data from other search engines, YouTube, and Amazon. If your business is international in nature, look for a platform that lets you query by language and geographic region.
• Search volume: This metric is nonnegotiable. Search volume tells you the number of times a keyword is searched for in a specific period, which helps assess the keyword’s popularity. It’s not worth your time to try ranking for keywords that aren’t in demand. 
• Keyword difficulty: This metric reflects how hard it is to land in the top positions for a keyword, based on the strength of the pages currently ranking. Keywords with low to medium difficulty are easier to rank for and can improve your visibility while you tackle more competitive search terms.
• Search intent: Your content must meet the expectations of the user to rank. Some tools tell you whether a keyword’s search intent is navigational, commercial, informational, or transactional. This helps you formulate content matched to the buyer’s journey. 
• Competitor analysis: Some tools help you size up the competition, providing insight into how your competitors are ranking and the backlinks they’ve built. You can compare competitor keywords with your own to ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities. 
• Website authority: This metric is also known as domain authority, domain rating, or authority score, depending on the tool you use. It reflects the overall credibility of a website based on factors such as backlinks. Pages with high authority are often hard to dislodge out of the top spots.

You’ll find platforms with an array of other features such as site audits, on-page SEO recommendations, and content creation tools. These are all useful for building well-rounded marketing strategies, but they’re outside of the scope of this guide.

7 Advanced Keyword Research Tools for 2024

Below, we’ve compiled some keyword research tools we feel are worth your time, whether you’re marketing for a small startup or enterprise. Our round-up includes free and paid platforms, from basic to comprehensive solutions. You might find a couple of free tools that meet your needs or decide to invest in a larger, all-in-one platform. Take advantage of free trials and try the tools on for size.

1.  Moz Keyword Explorer

Best Overall

Intro to the Tool

Moz’s Keyword Explorer presents a variety of metrics in a user-friendly format. We especially like its proprietary Priority Score, which helps you find keyword opportunities without bogging you down in the numbers. Keyword Explorer is free but limited in scope, and subscription services are available. A paid subscription also offers access to rank tracking, site crawls, on-page optimization, link research, and custom reports.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Multiple options for exploring keywords, including searching by URL or keyword
• Ability to research keywords by region
• Ability to create and save lists for categorizing and comparing keywords
• Detailed insight into the top-ranking pages through the SERP Analysis
• Competitive analysis to see what keywords your competitors rank for 
• Data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo

Disadvantages:

• Provides only a range for monthly search volume
• Requires an account to access the free tool
• Limited queries in the free tool
• Doesn’t provide information on keyword trends

Special Features Highlight

If you often feel like you’re drowning in data when analyzing keywords, Moz throws you a lifeline. The platform takes factors such as search volume, keyword difficulty, and opportunity into consideration and wraps them up as a Priority Score. This metric is a simple way to identify keywords with good potential for ranking. Rand Fishkin explained that a Priority Score above 80 indicates high demand, moderate difficulty, and not too many SERP features detracting from the organic search results. Lower scores have some combination of these factors.

Pricing

• Free for 10 keyword queries
• Monthly subscriptions range from $99 to $599 

What We’ve Heard

“Great at everything with outstanding capabilities that made us organically visible on search engines.”

— Reviewer on Gartner Peer Insights

Use Cases and Best Practices

To leverage Keyword Explorer effectively, begin with a few seed keywords or topics related to your products and services. Enter them one at a time into the search box and hit analyze to see an easy-to-navigate results page. 

Note the data visually presented in the top row — monthly volume, difficulty, organic CTR, and priority — you can use these to compare keywords and decide which ones to allocate resources to. To expand your keyword list, click through the keyword suggestions on the left. As you rub your hands in glee at the plethora of options, select “Add to Keyword List” to build groups of keywords. You can also check out high-performing pages for the keyword in the SERPs Analysis section.

2.  Semrush

Best for User Intent Analysis

Intro to the Tool

It’s hard to beat Semrush when it comes to breadth. The platform has more than 55 tools in its suite covering keyword research, site audits, PPC, backlinking, and website optimization — essentially, it’s an end-to-end solution for digital marketing. This comes at a cost, but you can get started with free tools, such as Keyword Magic and Keyword Overview.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Keyword suggestions from a database of 25.3 billion keywords
• Keyword questions, keyword variations, and related keywords
• More than 140 geographic databases
• Search intent behind keywords (informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional)
• Search trends for the past 12 months
• Metrics such as search volume, keyword difficulty, cost-per-click, and number of competing SERP features

Disadvantages:

• Only draws from Google data
• Only provides 10 keywords with the free tool

Special Features Highlight

Finding keywords is just the first step of the SEO puzzle. You also need insight into why someone’s using that keyword so you can develop content that addresses their needs as fully as possible. Are they trying to learn something, compare products, or find the best deal? Semrush uses an algorithm to mark up each keyword as having navigational, informational, commercial, or transactional intent. You’ll see these tags in the Search Intent column on the keyword results page. Group keywords with the same intent to help you plan content.

Pricing

• Free account with limited queries
• 7-day free trial
• Monthly subscriptions range from $129.95 to $499.95  

What We’ve Heard

“Semrush is the best of the best for all things keyword research, managing backlinks, and auditing the health + quality of your website.”

— Capterra reviewer 

Use Cases and Best Practices

While a Semrush subscription gives you access to keyword research tools, Keyword Magic is enough for translating a seed keyword into thousands of keyword suggestions. You can sort these to find:

• Low-competition keywords that you can quickly rank for
• Related search terms, which are other phrases users are searching for
• Long-tail keywords to target a niche audience that’s more likely to convert
• Question keywords to help shape your content 

Another nifty detail is the SERP features tool. This tells you which keywords are triggering featured snippets, videos, carousels, knowledge graphs, and other attention-grabbing elements on the search results page. You can then customize your content to try to rank for these elements — or you might decide there’s too much zero-click competition and focus your efforts elsewhere.

3.  Ahrefs

Best for Keyword Tracking and Analysis

Intro to the Tool

Ahrefs is an industry leader, often grouped alongside Moz and Semrush. It provides an array of tools to optimize your search visibility, including keyword research, link building, competitor analysis, content creation, and website audits. It’s especially powerful for monitoring analytics and performance.

Pros and Cons

Advantages

• Pulls keyword ideas from 10 search engines
• Provides a variety of in-depth metrics 
• Identifies SEO issues on your site
• Tracks keyword rankings for mobile and desktop
• Performs backlink analysis
• Connects to Google Search Console and archives data for easy access

Disadvantages

• No free trial
• Monthly subscriptions that are pricier than tools

Special Features Highlight

The Ahrefs dashboard is a powerful hub for monitoring site performance. It provides a snapshot of key metrics pulled from a variety

of Ahrefs tools. You can keep an eagle eye on changes in your site health, domain rating, organic keywords, backlinks, and traffic. Click specific boxes to see the details behind the report and adjust your SEO strategy as needed.

Pricing

• Monthly subscriptions range from $99 to $999 

What We’ve Heard

“If you’re serious about improving your website’s traffic and search engine rankings, Ahrefs is a tool you need in your arsenal.”

— Shane Barker, Digital Marketing Consultant

Use Cases and Best Practices

To generate keyword ideas, enter your seed terms into Keywords Explorer. It pulls ideas from 10 different search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon, Baidu, and Yandex.

The results page shows you metrics for the keyword you’ve searched, including search volume, global volume, and traffic potential, which is the total organic traffic the first result gets. You’ll also get the scoop on how hard it might be to crack the top 10 spots in the SERPs, with estimates of keyword difficulty and the number of backlinks and referring domains you’ll need. From here, you can also explore matching, suggested, and autocomplete terms, as well as question keywords.

To see what your competitors are up to, navigate to the SERP Overview for insight into the top-performing pages, including the featured snippets and videos. Finally, fill in the holes in your content strategy by plugging your competitors’ sites into the Content Gap tool to see what keywords others are ranking for.

4.  QuestionDB

Best for Long-Tail Keywords

Intro to the Tool

QuestionDB takes a grassroots approach to keyword research, pulling data from online forums where users answer each other’s questions. Designed to tap into what audiences are curious about, this tool provides long-tail keywords in the form of questions.  

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Generates keyword questions to help you thoroughly address a topic
• Sources ideas from places other than search engines, providing fresh angles
• Uses conversational-style language similar to voice search
• Supplies keyword difficulty and competition data
• Simple and affordable

Disadvantages:

• Limited metrics

Special Features Highlight

QuestionDB retrieves information from online user forums, such as Reddit. It’s like eavesdropping on how your audiences chat naturally around a topic, which aligns perfectly with the conversational style of voice and Google’s SGE.

Question keywords are long-tail phrases, which have lower search volume because they’re so specific in nature. However, they’re less competitive and can help you reach highly qualified, niche audiences with precise search intent. Use the results from QuestionDB to build topic clusters and establish expertise in a subject.

Pricing

• Free plan (up to 60 questions and no data)
• $15/month Solo Plan (100 searches per month)
• $50/month Agency Plan (500 searches per month)

What We’ve Heard

“QuestionDB is a blog topic goldmine, drawing from various Q&A platforms like Reddit and Quora to deliver questions related to your keywords.”

— @websearchmktg on X

Use Cases and Best Practices

To get started with QuestionDB, enter a seed keyword of up to three words. The tool will give you a list of questions and related topics to explore. For example, when we tested the tool, the search phrase “vitamin C” generated 315 questions. It also suggested topics such as “serum” and “pregnancy” to refine our query. Choosing the topic “soluble” generated another 50 highly targeted questions.

Once you’ve got your results, download them into a spreadsheet to organize keywords and plan content. General questions can be used as the core of an article, while related questions can be grouped into a single in-depth piece. You can also leverage the results to create featured snippets and FAQs.

5.  Google Keyword Planner

Best for Paid Advertising Keywords

Intro to the Tool

Keyword Planner helps advertisers choose relevant keywords and estimate their ad spend for pay-per-click campaigns. Because the data comes directly from Google, SEO specialists also leverage this tool to help drive organic traffic. Keyword Planner is limited in features compared to some third-party platforms but can uncover lucrative keywords and core themes for building topic clusters. You can find Keyword Planner in the Tools menu of your Google Ads account.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Free and easy to use
• Search volume data directly from Google
• Ability to target by device, language, and location
• Search for keywords by entering a URL (entire site or single page)

Disadvantages:

• Provides averages for search volumes 
• A limited list of keyword suggestions compared to other tools
• Only takes Google Ads into account for competition metric

Special Features Highlight

While Keyword Planner doesn’t identify search intent, you can find keywords with high commercial intent. Organize the keyword results by “Top of page bid (high range).” This uncovers the keywords advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for, so chances are high that they’ll deliver lucrative traffic.

Pricing

• Free with a Google Ads account

What We’ve Heard

“You can utilize Google Ads Keyword Planner, a free tool provided by Google Ads, as you prepare your marketing approach. With the help of this tool, you may find new keywords, come up with keyword suggestions, and launch a successful PPC campaign. This tool is useful for estimating bids as well.”

— Reviewer, G2

Use Cases and Best Practices

Keyword Planner is a good starting point for discovering keywords related to your business, although you may want to combine it with another tool for more in-depth data.

For example, enter up to 10 keywords related to your products or services, separated with a comma and space. For best results:

• Use a keyword and website.
• Avoid using adjectives in your seed keyword, such as “affordable.”
• Use multiple keywords or phrases if they’re related: children’s books, picture books, early readers, chapter books.

You’ll generate a list of results, which you can filter by category. If you aren’t happy with the results, click on relevant phrases to expand your search. Once you’ve selected possible keywords, head over to another tool for more precise search volume numbers or insight on keyword difficulty.

6.  SECockpit

Best for Competitor Keyword Analysis

Intro to the Tool

This robust tool provides plenty of data points to help you choose the right search phrases for your strategy. The intuitive interface makes the depth of data manageable. Keywords are presented in tables with color-coded metrics, which can be clicked on to see underlying data.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Data pulled from sources such as Moz and Semrush
• Queries by location, language, and source
• Customizable search results so you can choose the metrics you want to see
• Web search trends and search volume from different periods
• Comparative analysis with top 10 competitors
• Optimized for mobile devices

Disadvantages:

• No free tool
• Requires an account for a trial

Special Features Highlight

SECockpit provides an in-depth competitive analysis. When you search for a keyword, you’ll immediately see the top 10 pages for the keyword with data including MozRank, page authority, domain authority, and backlinks. You can delve further and run semantic searches for these pages. The tool returns a list of keywords that two or more competing domains rank for to help fill gaps in your keyword strategy.

Pricing

• $25/month Personal Plan (10 keyword searches per day and 800 results per search)
• $42/month Pro (50 keyword searches per day and 10,000 results per search)
• $75/month Agency (unlimited keyword searches and 10,000 results per search)

What We’ve Heard

“SECockpit is by far the easiest, fastest, and most comprehensive and accurate keyword research tool I’ve ever used.”

— Peter Sundstrom, Ultimate Marketing Strategies

Use Cases and Best Practices

Your SECockpit journey begins with a seed keyword, list of keywords, or website. You can specify language, location, and different platforms such as Google Ads, Google Suggest, Amazon Suggest, YouTube Suggest, and Google Related Search. Amazon, for example, can be a good source for high-value, transactional keywords.

Once you generate a keyword list, sort the table with the desired filters, such as search volume. SECockpit has also developed a proprietary metric called Niche Value, which weighs monthly search volume and difficulty to help you immediately see the potential of a keyword.

As you review the keywords, move them into lists and print or export them. Agencies can add their logo on the top of the report and easily provide the list to clients.

7.  TopicRanker

Best for Finding Competitor Weaknesses

Intro to the Tool

To rank in the top positions in the SERPs, you need to surpass your competitors in quality. That’s the theory behind TopicRanker, which inspects the top-ranking pages for issues such as thin content or poor loading speeds. You can then design your content to leapfrog these pages in the rankings. This platform also helps kick-start your writing with AI-powered tools for creating content briefs and first drafts.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Helps find less competitive keywords
• Identifies weaknesses in top-ranking pages for a keyword
• Provides content ideation

Disadvantages:

• Must provide an email 
• No long-tail keywords or semantic search

Special Features Highlight

Once you’ve decided to pursue a keyword you’ve found on TopicRanker, hit “Generate Content” to start the writing process. Choose from title ideas, meta descriptions, content briefs, and articles. This is helpful for those who want a leg up on the writing process.

Pricing

• $9/month Starter (three reports per month with three keyword suggestions per report; no AI-assisted writing tools)
• $59/month Basic (10 reports per month with six keyword suggestions per report)
• $129/month Premium (30 reports per month with 12 keyword suggestions per report)

What We’ve Heard

“Hands down TopicRanker is the future of keyword research.”

— Brian Dean, Backlinko

Use Cases and Best Practices

To get started with TopicRanker, enter your website and the topic you want to rank for. The tool generates a list of keywords based on issues it finds in the SERPs. As you click each keyword, you’ll see data for your site and the highest-ranking pages: load time, word count, readability, missing words in titles, and spam score. The tool also lists target benchmarks for each of these categories.

You can then launch the content ideation process, which puts a content brief or article draft in your hands. While these tools are a good starting point for writing, be sure to make the content your own. Add your expertise and shape it to fit your business goals and target audience. Remember, other businesses are also using these tools, so you need to find ways to add value and set your content apart from others.

Building Keyword Research Tools for In-House Use

As you can see, there’s a copious amount of data available to help develop your keyword strategy. The trick is to find the tool that gives you the information you need efficiently. It can be time-consuming to pull data from multiple sources, export it into spreadsheets, and navigate it all.

So, here’s one more hat tossed into the ring.  

If you know precisely what you need to execute your SEO strategies and your business has the resources and technical know-how, consider building your own keyword research tool aligned with your business objectives. You don’t have to start from scratch, either.

Platforms such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and Google Ads have APIs that let you tap into their data, giving you much more information than what’s available on the tools’ consumer interfaces. It’s a data gold mine. Pull backlink, keyword, traffic, and position tracking stats. Mold and shape the data to your heart’s content and present it in the format that’s most useful for you. This is how SECockpit incorporates Moz’s data into its interface.

A custom keyword tool is an investment, but in the long run, it can streamline your workflow. You can feed current data into your internal dashboards and custom reports, saving you from switching between tools and running separate tasks. In other words, spend less time pulling data from keyword tools and more time leveraging it to boost performance.

Can ChatGPT or AI Help With Keyword Research? 

Artificial intelligence has been making its presence felt across industries. ChatGPT can do a lot of things well but doesn’t have the same data as keyword tools, such as Ahrefs, Semrush, and others. However, you can strike up a conversation and ask ChatGPT to speed up keyword research in a few ways.

• Brainstorming general keywords: Try prompts such as “What are questions someone might have about [topic]?” or “What are popular keywords related to [topic]?” ChatGPT can get overenthusiastic in its responses, so add “List only” to the end of your query to limit the result to keywords and avoid generating descriptions. You can broaden or refine the results and enter promising ones into a keyword research tool for more in-depth metrics.
• Completing manual tasks: ChatGPT is a wizard at helping with tasks such as identifying search intent for a list of keywords or clustering keywords by topic. Simply paste in your list, and ask the tool to organize your information. You’ll have it done in a jiffy.
• Ideating content: Content marketers are already leveraging AI to come up with titles, topics, outlines, and briefs. Content intelligence platforms powered by AI are taking this to the next level, providing customer insights and recommending topics.

AI isn’t yet ready to replace keyword research tools and human insight. Still, it’s an efficient assistant. “My educated guess for the near future of ChatGPT is that it’ll be integrated into keyword planning tools, content, and topic analysis features,” wrote Adam Tanguay in Search Engine Land. “AI-driven chatbots will become more entwined in the SEO planning landscape, not a separate workflow.”

The Future of Keyword Research

While a good keyword research tool (or two) is indispensable, there’s one thing to keep in mind. Modern SEO is shifting from a keyword-centric to a user-centric approach. Google sent us down this path with its helpful content system that prioritizes valuable and useful information.  

What does this mean? You still need a primary keyword to understand search intent, but you can spend less time fitting lists of semantic keywords into your content. Search engines have become highly skilled at understanding context and no longer rely on exact keyword matches in many cases. 

Instead, the value of keyword research is finding out what your audience wants to know about a topic and in what formats. You’re not relying on a keyword, in other words, but a theme. You need to roll up your sleeves, assess the competition, and provide the charts, videos, FAQs, or other content components that satisfy an audience’s appetite for a topic. 

Listen in as Crowd Content’s Rick Leach, and I discuss this shift from keywords to topics.

Finally, while AI tools such as ChatGPT aren’t replacing keyword research tools, we expect artificial intelligence will be increasingly integrated. And this is a good thing — the more powerful the tool, the easier it is to find that sweet spot between high-volume keywords, brand expertise, and your audience’s needs. 

Elevate Your Content Strategy

Keyword research tools come in all shapes, sizes, and prices. Your shopping list should include essential metrics such as search volume and keyword difficulty, with features such as competitive analyses and performance tracking as the icing on the cake. Whatever tools you add to your arsenal, combine them with human insight to create content that engages your readers. You can learn more tips and tactics for enriching your content strategies in our webinars with industry experts or sign up for Crowd Content’s newsletter. 

The post 7 Advanced Keyword Research Tools for 2024 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Yes and no. A single scan is ultimately a roll of the dice, with results varying drastically among tools. And each new AI model further reduces accuracy as generative text becomes more human-like. But with larger sets of articles to analyze, the accuracy gets a bit better. 

In the future, popular AI detection apps will likely pivot toward fact-checking and ensuring artificially generated content offers tangible value to readers. Until then, current technology does have a role in your workflow as long as you understand its limitations and how it works.

What Are AI Content Checkers, and How Do They Work?

At a basic level, AI content detection tools examine word probability and sentence structure. However, it’s easier to understand what they do by first looking at how AI writes content.

Large language models, such as Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s BERT, and Anthropic’s Claude, function similarly to a librarian. When you ask these librarians a question, they synthesize an answer based on all the knowledge available from the library — the AI’s training data.

Of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that, as large language models use parameters to adjust how they use the information. More parameters mean more ways to work with the training data, and ChatGPT-4 has nearly eight times as many parameters as GPT-3, showing just how fast this technology is evolving.

ChatGPT leverages its enormous training data and over a trillion parameters to predict what it expects to come next in a sentence. It answers questions using probability like a highly sophisticated version of your phone’s autocorrect — albeit with fewer mistakes.

However, it never truly understands the information.

AI content detectors also use probability

Like ChatGPT, AI detectors use machine learning and probability, except they attempt to reverse the process that generates content. They look for text with low randomness, predicting the words generative AI will use in any particular sentence.

However, most tools also check for highly uniform sentences and paragraphs — a characteristic called burstiness. Human writing generally has high burstiness. 

For example, human writers may even use single-sentence paragraphs for emphasis.

AI, on the other hand, writes more methodically. The text has a predictable flow and a beautiful conformity that makes it structured, easy to read, and well-organized. However, AI text detectors — and even perceptive humans — can spot this lack of burstiness.

If you scan text with a detector, the tool scores it, typically with a percentage rating. It may also highlight specific sections it believes may be artificially generated.

The percentage rating is usually a confidence score. It’s how certain the tool is that AI text is present, not a measure of how much of the content is artificial, so even a high rating of 70% shows a lot of uncertainty.

Review of Top AI Content Detection Tools

So, where should you start if you need to check the credibility of AI detectors? We think by testing them. We compared 100% human content, 100% AI content, and a mix of human and AI content across multiple AI detectors to evaluate how each one reacts — then we took a closer look at five of the most popular tools.

As you can see, no tool was perfect, but some tools performed better than others. 

5 Top AI Detection Tools

Winston AI

Winston AI touts itself as the most accurate detection tool, and it certainly seemed sure of itself when we tested it. It had a low tolerance for AI-written text, even when edited. However, it correctly identified human-written text — albeit with a lower confidence level than other tools.

Overall, Winston AI has many valuable features. For example, its project and document storage lets you check previous scans and organize content. Uniquely, the tool utilizes OCR technology, which lets you check whether text in images is AI-written.

Pros:

• Image scanning
• Downloadable PDF reports
• Team management functions
• API access for integration with other marketing tools
  

Cons:

• Limited free access
• False positives due to the strict algorithm

Price: $12 per month for 80,000 words

Originality.ai

Originality.ai is another robust AI detection platform with many features to unpack. Besides the scanning tool, which lets you check whether content might be AI-written, you get plagiarism checks, a readability analysis, and fact-checking.

Compared to other tools, Originality has a low tolerance for AI. It rated each test article, including human-written articles, as AI-written with 100% confidence. The tool seems to place additional weight on burstiness, leading to false positives from highly uniform text.

Pros:

• AI, plagiarism, fact-check, and readability scans in one tool
• Team management features to help scale content production
• API for bulk scans

Cons:

• No free functionality
  

Price: $14.95 per month or $30 pay-as-you-go

GPTZero

GPTZero is one of the most straightforward tools we tested — especially if you only need to check a few pieces of content. This is because you don’t need a subscription or account for a basic scan. Simply paste your content into the web interface. GPTZero also has a novel feature that recreates typing behavior in Word or Google docs, which is a nifty way to be certain that a human typed rather than pasted content. 

During our scans, GPTZero identified each type of content relatively accurately. The tool was quite confident when it saw full AI content, with predictable decreases in its confidence rating when presented with mixed content. Compared to Winston AI, GPTZero was also less uncertain about the purely human content.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Chrome extension available
• Writing reports to certify human writing
• API access

Cons:

• No readability scan
• Account required for more advanced features 
• Character count for individual scans limited on free version

Price: Free (50,000 characters/10,000 words per month scan limit)

Sapling

Sapling works differently from other tools on this list. While you can perform a content scan through its web app, the tool also integrates directly into browsers and Google Docs.

Another unique feature of Sapling is its spelling and grammar check, which works similarly to Grammarly. You also get AI-powered writing assistance, recommending ways to complete and enhance content.

When we tested Sapling, it didn’t differentiate well between AI and partially human content. However, it did identify the fully human content.

Pros:

• AI assistant and grammar check included
• Multiple integration options
• User-friendly interface
• API for batch processing

Cons:

• Low non-English accuracy
• Limited free AI detection

Price: $25 per month

Crossplag 

Crossplag is primarily a plagiarism detection tool, but the platform also offers free AI detection through a web app. However, you need to sign up for an account to use it.

When we tested Crossplag, the tool correctly identified pure AI content, but it also gave the mixed-origin text a 100% confidence score. Crossplag shows this confidence level as a handy color-coded scale on the dashboard but doesn’t highlight individual sentences like GPTZero and Winston AI do, so there’s no way to know how much potential AI the mixed article had. 

Pros:

• AI and plagiarism detection in one tool
• Free AI detection
  

Cons: 

• Limited features
• No detailed scan stats

Price: Free AI detection but $9.95 for a plagiarism check of 5,000 words.

Real-World Application and Case Studies

Given the discrepancies among AI content detection tools, adoption has been somewhat inconsistent. After all, when one app says AI wrote an article but another says the opposite, how can you base decisions on the results?

Universities have had to ask the same question. While many adopted Turnitin’s AI detector early to address academic cheating, this overzealous uptake led to false-positive scans. That’s why prominent institutions such as Vanderbilt and Michigan State inevitably turned the technology off.

Surfer conducted a case study using Originality.ai that also revealed insight into the accuracy of AI content detection. The company ran 100 human and AI-written articles through the tool. Results showed:

• The detector was only 50% confident it found generative text across 78% of AI-written content.
• About 10% of human content received a confidence score lower than 50%.
• Only 28% of the human-written articles received confidence scores of 90% or higher.

What does this tell you about the capabilities and accuracy of AI detection tools? Unfortunately, they’re not reliable at all.

It’s best to take what content checkers tell you with a grain of salt. Use them, absolutely, but only as part of a broader content audit to confirm existing suspicions. Also, don’t just use one tool; use several and cross-reference the scan results. 

If content flags across most tools, a false positive is less likely. However, you’ll never completely eliminate false positives.

Alternative Evaluation Methods: Identifying AI Content Without Tools

While AI detection apps can be helpful, it shouldn’t be your only method of determining the authenticity of human-written content. If you review content regularly, it’s a good idea to become familiar with AI-generated content. Read enough of it, and you’ll start to see that even AI has habits. 

There are several things to look out for.

• Lack of depth: Granted, writers can’t cover everything about a specific topic. However, unedited AI content skims the surface of topics. More importantly, it rarely shows the firsthand experience or expertise that E-E-A-T compliant content has.
• Unusual phrasing: AI uses specific buzzwords like “meticulous” and too often tacks “-ing” phrases onto the end of sentences that don’t need them, looking a lot like the phrase you’re reading right now. It also sometimes uses phrases that sound odd, such as advising you to delve into the world of toothpaste flavors or embark on a journey to discover dishwasher settings. These phrases lend too much grandeur to mundane topics — something a human would typically avoid.
• Repetition: A talented human writer will avoid repeating ideas unless necessary, but AI often repeats itself in a single article.
• Overly clean structure: AI adheres to a highly predictable flow and uniform sentences. It lacks spontaneity and reads more like academic text structure-wise. Of course, sometimes a project calls for this style from humans, so it’s not definite. 
• Way too much voice: If instructed to inject some form of personality into the writing, it often goes over the top, dumping the full salt shaker of voice when just a sprinkle was needed. 

When you audit content to confirm suspicions of AI use, look at multiple articles, including those written pre-2023, when generative AI was more primitive. Do you see any dramatic changes in a writer’s style or grammar? Human writers work hard at their craft, and false positives are a common occurrence. A reasonably confident decision requires ample data.

The Limitations of AI Detection Tools

AI detectors play a role in content production but have limitations. Their accuracy is fairly high when detecting verbatim use of AI text. However, the number of false positives from human text should cause you to pause before relying on them.

There’s also a widespread misconception that if human text scans as AI through detectors, they’re probably not valuable. However, this ignores the tools’ emphasis on sentence variation and Google’s overwhelming desire for content matching the E-E-A-T guidelines.

We cover this misbelief — and several others — within our webinar on the myths and realities of AI detection. Watch the webinar, and you’ll discover key insights into how AI detection technology works and how generative AI will continue to evolve in the future.

We also take a deep dive into how we audit content, what we look for during a manual review, and how to address client concerns over AI usage.

The post Do These Top 5 AI Content Detection Tools Really Work? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Enter the content gap analysis. Designed to find weaknesses in your strategy, an SEO content analysis helps you identify the topics you should be writing about to reach your target audience. This technique zeroes in on shortcomings within your overall content inventory and individual pieces of content so you can perform better in Google and satisfy your audience’s needs.

What Is Content Gap Analysis?

Content gap analysis is the process of finding limitations in your content offerings. It uses a number of techniques to find keyword, topic, and quality gaps so you can produce an effective mix of content to attract and engage your target audience. 

If you’ve followed conventional SEO best practices to date, you’ve built your site by defining your audience and performing keyword research to find the search terms they’re using. Each piece of content you’ve published should weave in keywords and lead users from the search engine result pages to your website.

These SEO strategies remain a critical step for laying the foundation of your site, but a competitive content analysis adds another layer to strengthen it. An analysis scans for cracks in this foundation — places where searchers slip through and have their needs met better on competing websites.

Purpose of an SEO content analysis

When you look for content marketing gaps, you can dig up elements missing from your content catalog. This can take a couple of different forms:

• Keyword gaps: What keywords are your customers searching for that aren’t covered on your site? If you’re not appearing in the top searches for relevant terms, you’re losing out on a key audience segment. These phrases are usually longtail keywords that help you connect with a niche audience. 
• Quality gaps: What’s lacking in individual pieces of content that would make your web page more useful and comprehensive? You can add more topics to lend depth to a piece, use media such as videos or images to complement text, or make the page easier to consume. After all, if you’re drawing customers to your content but they still aren’t satisfied, they’re going to return to Google to find a better source.

When to perform a content gap analysis

We recommend SEO content analysis for websites that have some traction, meaning there’s a collection of content optimized according to best practices. A content analysis is the natural next step to ensure peak performance. It’s useful to incorporate this step into your strategic planning so you’re constantly leveling up by assessing your content needs, prioritizing them, and building them into your editorial calendar.

If your website is brand new, focus on optimizing your website for core keywords related to your business. Keep the content gap analysis in your toolkit for use once you have a content base.

The Importance of an SEO Content Analysis

Now to the good stuff. How does looking for digital content gaps pay off? When executed well, a gap analysis improves SEO by:

• Diversifying content you can rank for
• Informing content strategies based on demand and data
• Tapping into new audience segments
• Improving your site’s relevance
• Driving organic traffic to your web pages
• Ensuring you’re visible in the same spaces your competitors are

Think of it this way: Each piece of content you publish is a path to your site. Your customers can follow many paths from the SERPs, but if yours isn’t there during their search, they’re taking another route to a competitor.

Here’s a simple example to illustrate a content gap. Let’s say you run a dog daycare. You’ve targeted high-value keywords such as “what is doggy daycare” and “what age for doggy daycare” and are generating some traffic. Your gap analysis techniques show competitors are also ranking for “dog daycare with webcams,” but alas! You have the technology but no content for this keyword. You’re missing an entire segment of customers who are only looking at daycares with webcam technology. You can now create content to target these potential new clients. 

Page-level content gaps

There’s another piece to this puzzle. The reality of modern-day SEO is that a well-written piece of content doesn’t stand alone — it’s not enough to drive your business goals. The value of your content is measured against your customers’ expectations and competitors’ offerings.

Gap analysis techniques can be used to find shortfalls in individual pieces of content. Remember, the content that ranks on the first page isn’t perfect — it’s just the best Google could find. If you can improve your content so it’s better than what’s currently available, you’re getting even more benefits by:

• Providing value to readers
• Improving engagement through top-notch content
• Bringing customers into your marketing funnel to encourage conversions
• Establishing expertise and authority in your niche

Here’s one more example from our fictitious dog daycare. A gap analysis might show your article about the benefits of dog daycare ranks just outside the first page of results. When you review the pages ahead of yours, you discover the articles cover the same points as yours, just reworded. You realize there’s an opportunity for a more dynamic piece by filling a media gap, so you create a video of clients explaining why they bring their dogs to daycare. You’re now offering unique insight, providing more value to your audience, and positioning your web page to start climbing the rankings.

Strategies and Tactics for Effective Gap Analysis

Looking for digital content gaps can be time-consuming because there are so many possible pieces missing from an SEO strategy. 

Tackle the process based on your business goals. Do you want to improve current content, broaden keyword opportunities, or boost engagement?

Below are some tactics you can put into action. And if it seems daunting, remember that gap analyses should be a regular part of your content strategy. You don’t have to do it all now — break it down and focus on one component at a time. 

Perform a content audit for SEO

No matter what your goals, your gap analysis should begin with a content inventory so you have the big picture. Begin by creating an inventory in a spreadsheet.

Your spreadsheet should detail each page on your site, including assets such as videos, images, and PDFs. At a minimum, itemize the URL, page title, topic, content type, date published, and date last updated. You can refer to this spreadsheet when you’re checking to see if your site has covered a topic.

Pro tip: Until we create a better one, we recommend you check out the free audit template that Wordstream offers (no email required), but bookmark it for later because we’ve got more to cover. 

Look for gaps in the buyer’s journey

Review your content inventory and ensure you have content for every phase of the buyer’s journey. You want to capture them at early stages to build brand recognition and answer their questions as they move through the awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages. This helps you build engagement and prevents them from abandoning your site to find answers elsewhere. 

Here are ideas for filling in gaps at different stages:

• Awareness: High-level content providing background and context, such as blog posts, e-books, podcasts, and videos
• Consideration: Website content that distinguishes your business or shows benefits, such as case studies, white papers, testimonials, reviews, and product comparison pages
• Decision-making: Landing pages and offers that move customers toward conversion, such as free trials, free consultations, and discounts

Find gaps in content depth

Another common content void is the gap between your content and what’s available in the SERPs. You can try a couple of tactics to provide more substance to your readers.

• Analyze your content manually by reading through the top-ranking pages to see how they treat the topic. Make note of images, references, and other content assets they provide. Compare this to your content to see where you can enhance your offerings.
• Try using AI to dig up content ideas to enrich your existing content. For example, give ChatGPT a prompt such as, “Create an outline for an informational blog post about mortgage underwriting.” The platform will generate a response based on patterns in the massive amounts of text the platform has processed. Sift through the suggestions to see which ones can help you rework your article.

Identify holes in available content

For best results, provide unique content that can’t be found elsewhere. When you address the gap between what readers are interested in and what’s available in the SERPs, you’re improving value for readers and scoring points with Google’s helpful content system.

In a recent webinar about mastering content strategy (47:05), George Chasiotis, Managing Director of Minuttia, illustrated how businesses can creatively set their content apart and provide insight not found elsewhere. Discussing the importance of information gain, he suggests a business targeting the keyword “types of marketing” might survey 125 marketing executives for their thoughts. These insights can feed into a powerful piece of content based on proprietary data that no other company has. 

Review on-page SEO practices

In addition to topic coverage, look at each piece of content on your website to ensure it’s fully optimized. This can help lift your content in the SERPs.

Depending on the size of your website, you might narrow down page types, beginning with the ones that are most important to your core business.

Assess each web page for a mix of on-page SEO elements and overall readability. Here’s a checklist of some things to watch for:

• Compelling meta title and description
• Effective keyword placement
• Optimized schema markup
• Well-organized copy (clear headers, short sections and paragraphs, bullet points)
• Easy-to-grasp concepts (jargon-free)
• Recent statistics and research 
• Interesting images and graphics 

Pinpoint issues in SEO performance

It’s helpful to know how your current content is performing. Turn to Google Analytics or an SEO tool to identify where you’re ranking for keywords. Some pages may not be as visible as they could be and require some revamping.

• Prioritize pages that are ranking well but could use a little lift to crack the top positions. You’re doing something right on those pages, so they may simply require a few tweaks to get you to leapfrog the competition.
• Use an SEO tool such as Semrush to see where your competition might be experiencing a decline in keyword performance. As Nizam Uddin shares in our webinar about content gap analysis (55:10), Google has found a reason to downgrade these pages in the rankings, which opens the door for your optimized content to climb above them.

Uncover lost keyword opportunities

Finally, your competitors may be generating traffic for topics you haven’t covered on your website. If these topics are also important to your business model, you’ve just unearthed new ways of reaching your target audience. 

SEO tools can make quick work of keyword gap analysis, and you’ll find some recommended tools to explore further in the next section.

Monitor content performance

As you find opportunities to bolster your website, add them to your content optimization strategy. Once implemented, use a tool such as Google Analytics to track your progress in gaining a bigger share of the SERPs.

Your positioning will fluctuate over time as consumer behavior changes and new competitors enter the scene. Make sure you’re regularly looking for content marketing gaps to adapt to these shifts. 

Leveraging SEO Tools for Content Gap Analysis

Now that you’re inspired to supercharge your website, here are popular platforms you can leverage to find content gaps, along with use cases.

1. Ahrefs Content Gap for keyword gaps

Purpose: Compare your site with up to 10 competing sites to identify keywords your site is not ranking for. 

The Ahrefs Content Gap tool uncovers keyword opportunities by retrieving keywords that selected sites rank for in the top 100 positions. It then eliminates the keywords your site ranks for in the top 100. The resulting list is your keyword gap.

You can filter results to only provide keywords that all or some of your competitors rank for, which can indicate their importance. The report also provides search volume and keyword difficulty to help in your decision-making.

Don’t target a keyword simply because your competitor is, however. Make sure it’s relevant to your audience and fits your business goals before adding it to your content strategy.

To use the Content Gap Report for keyword gaps:

• Enter up to 10 domains you want to analyze.
• Enter your domain.
• Click “Show keywords”.
• Apply the intersections filter if you want keywords where all or some of your competitors rank. You can also filter by keyword difficulty, search volume, and word count.

2. Ahrefs Content Gap for topic gaps

Purpose: Compare your web page with competing pages to identify topics they cover but you do not.

Perhaps you want to revamp a page on your site that you feel isn’t performing to its potential. The Ahrefs Content Gap tool can analyze specific URLs to find topic gaps. You can use the results to find ideas for adding depth to your content and making it more useful and comprehensive for readers.

To use Content Gap for topic gaps:

• Enter up to 10 URLs for pages that you want to analyze, such as the top-ranking pages for the keyword.
• Enter the URL for your content.
• Click “Show keywords”.
• Apply the intersections filter if you only want keywords where all or some of your competitors rank. You can also filter by keyword difficulty, search volume, and word count.

3. Semrush Keyword Gap for missing and weak keywords

Purpose: Compare your site with up to four competing sites to find keywords you’re missing and weak keywords you can better optimize.

To use Keyword Gap:

• Visit the Semrush Keyword Gap tool.
• Enter your domain.
• Enter the domains of your competitors (or subfolders on the domain).
• Select “Organic keywords.”
• Click “Compare.”

How to use the results:

• Review the list of missing keywords, ones you don’t rank for but all the sites you entered do. Identify ones relevant to your business goals and audience, and consider incorporating them into your keyword strategy.  
• Toggle to view the list of weak keywords, ones you do rank for but lower than your competitors. For best results, target keywords where you’re just outside the coveted first page of search results and aim to optimize them to break into the top results.
• In the paid tool, you can also view untapped keywords, ones you don’t rank for but one of your competitors does. 

You can set filters to narrow your results:

• Ranking: See the most relevant opportunities by filtering for keywords where your competitors are ranking in the top 10, 20, or 50 positions.
• Search volume: Ensure reasonable traffic by filtering for search volume. You may want to aim for 100-300.
• Keyword difficulty: Consider filtering for easy keyword difficulty between 0 and 29% to rank more quickly.
• Intent: If you’re targeting certain stages of the buyer’s journey, specify informational, commercial, or transactional keywords.

4. Ubersuggest for content ideas

Purpose: Explore keywords related to a topic to find new ranking opportunities.

When you’ve found topics you’d like to tackle, Ubersuggest can generate keyword suggestions to help you shape and refine content ideas.

To use Ubersuggest:

• Visit the Ubersuggest home page.
• Enter a seed keyword.
• Click “search” to generate a list of keyword ideas.

For example, if you run a wellness website and see your competitors are ranking for searches related to turmeric health benefits, plug this term into Ubersuggest. You’ll see a variety of keyword suggestions, which you can distill into related keywords, question keywords, keywords with prepositions, and comparison keywords. 

You can also view search volume and SEO difficulty. You might decide “turmeric health benefits” is too competitive, but “health benefits of turmeric and black pepper” is a more realistic target.

Reap the Rewards of Content Strategy Optimization

Content gap analysis is the competitive edge that can elevate your site in the search engine results pages. By identifying digital spaces where your business isn’t visible (but should be) and improving content to provide a better user experience, you can improve SEO performance and drive high-quality traffic to your site. Reach out to Crowd Content, and find out how we can support your content strategy and production.

The post Mastering Content Gap Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide for Marketers appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

When ChatGPT burst into public consciousness in late November 2022, the tech seemed to draw a line in the virtual sand, separating the earlier times of content from the robot age. But in reality, the rise of AI content has been a slow burn, and those within the content marketing industry have seen both the potential and the pitfalls on the horizon for years. The big question now isn’t just how AI text generators can be used but whether they should be used at all by anyone hoping to get (and stay) in Google’s good graces. 

One of the reasons Google has been so successful is its commitment to total world dominance. Just kidding (mostly). But really, Google dominates because it’s willing to constantly reevaluate its position on hot-button topics and what constitutes the general standard of excellence. However, changing standards can lead to an overload of confusion.

The doubt and uncertainty are real, but the key takeaway is just as potent: Combining AI with practical SEO strategies (and a heaping helping of human insight and oversight) is a recipe for success, and even Google agrees.

Does AI Content Rank in Google?

Google doesn’t penalize AI content simply for being produced by artificial intelligence. But to truly understand whether AI-generated text could affect your ranking, we have to dig a little deeper. It isn’t a yes or no answer but an analysis of how AI-generated content actually performs, what role human editorial oversight plays, and what Google’s official stance is. Because, at the end of the day, that almighty Google algorithm remains king.

The importance of EEATing

Google has confirmed (several times now) that AI-generated content gets a big, fat A-OK as long as it follows the same E-E-A-T guidelines used to evaluate content overall. In September 2023, Google updated the wording of its philosophy on valuable content, changing “helpful content written by people, for people” to “helpful content created for people.” That short edit made it clear Google was more interested in whether content delivered value — according to E-E-A-T — than in who created the content in the first place.

So, if you can use ChatGPT to generate a blog that meets Google’s standards for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, your content should be in line to rank well.

But there are also other factors that influence how content, AI-generated or not, ultimately lands on Google’s results pages.

SEO: Perception vs. reality and what works when you want to rank

How content is produced is only one piece of the SERP-y pie. Even if your content is strong, your SEO game has to be just as impressive, and that includes knowing the truth about search engine optimization.

Timeframes

• Perception: SEO is a one-time-only production.
• Reality: There’s no end to search engine optimization. Even if your AI-generated content ranks well now, you may need to tweak it in the future to answer Google algorithm updates.

Keyword stuffing

• Perception: The more keywords you include, the better your ranking.
• Reality: Google looks down on and penalizes articles with obvious keyword stuffing — even if it’s AI’s fault.

Links are links

• Perception: All links feed into the algorithm and boost your content’s rank.
• Reality: Quality is paramount. Google likes high-quality, highly relevant links from sources with proven authority.

Your content determines your ranking

• Perception: All you need is a solid blog and decent meta tags, and your SEO is done and dusted.
• Reality: AI content won’t get your site to rank if you aren’t paying attention to other factors, including social media, linking, and online reputation.

AI + human editorial oversight = magic

By this point, you’re hopefully convinced that AI text generators can be useful, but they can’t be left to operate completely independently. After all, the robot overlords don’t need to get it in their heads that we humans are totally superfluous, right? But how does that human oversight manifest?

In most cases, you’ll use yourself or other members of your human team in three ways:

• Editorial assistance: Use human editors to refine AI-generated content briefs, edit content drafts, and otherwise provide insight and polish that isn’t possible with 100% reliance on technology.
• Subject matter experts (SMEs): AI content-generating programs rely on existing data points and can only respond depending on what they know and when that data was input. This could lead to inaccurate or outdated content, which is less than ideal since Google looks for signals of reliability to help weed out content that propagates misinformation or contradicts popular consensus on certain topics. As of November 2023, many ChatGPT responses lead with, “As of my last knowledge update in January 2022…” Human SMEs can go through content with a fine-toothed comb, ensuring accuracy — something that’s especially important for companies in sensitive industries, such as healthcare and fintech, that can’t afford to disseminate erroneous content. 

• Off–page SEO: You need all the off-page SEO in place to support your content. Even if you use technology as part of your SEO strategy, you need a human to review the checklist and help knit everything together.

And if you need any more convincing that AI isn’t ready to go it alone, listen to the wise words of John Mueller, Google’s search advocate. When tagged on X (formerly Twitter) in a post asking, “Should we use ChatGPT from now onwards for publishing content on our website??? It giving 80% unique content.” [sic], Mueller’s response was epic: “It’s like food with only 20% toxic chemicals? Sounds tasty.”

Content Generated With AI

Digital guru and NP Digital Co-Founder Neil Patel put AI-generated content to the test following Google’s fall 2022 spam update, analyzing data from 100 experiment sites populated exclusively with AI-written content. His findings are more than worthy of a gasp and well-timed clutching of pearls:

• Sites that used AI-generated content with zero human oversight dropped eight positions in the SERPs and lost an average of 17% in traffic.
• Sites that paired AI-written content with some type of human oversight dropped just three positions in the SERPs and lost only 6% of their traffic.

It’s confirmed that problems arise when content creators expect AI to meet E-E-A-T standards independently. The human element may not be sacrosanct any longer, but it also isn’t extinct.

Boosting traffic thanks to artificial intelligence

Content Growth Founder Jake Ward is no stranger to building and scaling businesses. So, when Ward ran an experiment with sites brimming with AI-generated content, people took notice — especially when he published the results.

Ward’s barrage of AI content — paired with human oversight and revisions — helped take a website with zero traffic to 750,000 hits per month. The experiment involved 7,000 pages (all created using Byword.ai), and the growth took about a year to realize. At the end of the year-long study, that same site had 4,000 keywords in positions 1-3 and 13,000 keywords in positions 4-10.

Why Is High-Quality Content Important?

Most of us remember our elementary school teachers drilling grammar rules into our rapidly growing brains. I before E, except after C, right? But even as objective or mechanical writing quality remains integral to producing content of value, the definition of quality content has expanded.

• Does the content satisfy intent?
• Does it provide actionable insights?
• Are there unique perspectives?

It goes back to Google’s E-E-A-T principles. When you’re sharing experience, showcasing expertise, stating facts with authoritativeness, and proving your trustworthiness, you can’t help but churn out quality content that gives people what they want. This is true whether you’re prioritizing AI-generated content or writing everything yourself.

If you’re blending human and AI input, you have the best opportunity to produce content you and Google will love:

• Relevancy: AI ensures content is relevant to search intent, while humans ensure the emotion is intact.
• Credibility: AI uses existing data points to generate strong, quality content, and humans review that content for accuracy. This builds authority, too.
• User engagement: AI can dig up tidbits that might take humans days to unearth and put together an outline that reduces knowledge gaps and increases coverage of the given topic. Humans add entertaining language and emotion that keeps text from being robotic and helps forge connections.

It’s almost a matter of left brain vs. right brain, but you have to let the creativity and uniqueness run free without trampling on the information and complexity the topic is due. And if you do all that while avoiding comma splices, all the better. Otherwise, Google’s SpamBrain will notice, seeing the patterns that indicate poor-quality content created to influence rankings rather than to please people.

Tactics to Integrate AI Into Your Content Creation Process

Adding AI to your existing content creation process takes planning and a deft hand. You should proceed with the following tips with one overarching thought in mind: AI is only successful in content when you use it to improve your processes, never when your sole goal is to make content generation cheaper.

• Prioritize AI on the front end of content creation. AI is a research powerhouse, and ignoring that is almost criminal. Ask AI tools about trends and then use them to conduct research and generate outlines that can spark ideation and guide your writing teams.
• Optimize existing content. What better way to go toe-to-toe with Google than to use AI to optimize existing content, looking at ways to improve keyword usage and metadata? You can even use AI to analyze the behavior and preferences of your target audience and rework old blog posts to speak to a new demographic.
• Proofread and polish. Grammarly and ProWritingAid are just two of the AI-driven editing tools that can help you find errors and improve the style and quality of your content. These tools aren’t perfect (please don’t accept every suggestion), but they’re worthy grammatical wingmen.
• Infuse content with your brand voice. You can actually train AI models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, to understand and utilize your brand voice so it can replicate what it sees.
• Create custom images and videos. AI-powered visual content platforms haven’t made as big of a splash as text-generating platforms, but they should. Plug a request into Deep AI or Hotpot, and you can have a picture of a unicorn dressed as a cowboy sitting in a pile of spaghetti in mere minutes.

Evaluating the Impact of AI on SEO Trends

As AI grows and continually fine-tunes itself, it has a parallel increasing impact on SEO. Artificial intelligence was woven throughout Semrush’s predictions for SEO trends in 2023, including:

• Generative AI creates new content based on data it was fed during training, such as formulating summaries that answer search queries. Think of it as Google’s featured snippets on steroids.
• Accelerated content creation, thanks to AI’s ability to produce words at record speed. The more content there is, the more competitive SEO can be, and the harder it may become for startups with limited bandwidth to gain traction.
• Google continues to remind us of the importance of people-first content that meets search intent. AI-generated content is included and must meet the same standards — and yes, Google is watching.
• Microsoft Bing has integrated ChatGPT into its search engine, making it a serious contender for the title of the World’s Top Search Engine. Eventually. It’s worth watching because how we use AI may one day no longer completely depend on Google’s input and guidelines.

But the SEO industry isn’t a monolith, and expert opinions on AI and SEO vary.

• “AI is one of the most profound things we’re working on as humanity. It’s more profound than fire or electricity.” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, via an interview with Verge
• “The future of SEO will be heavily influenced by two key factors: the continued rise of mobile search and the increased use of artificial intelligence in the search industry.” — Neil Patel

And then there’s ChatGPT’s say-so. When asked, “Will AI kill SEO?” the platform first hedged its bets (“As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future . . .”) before underscoring the need for adaptable SEO strategies. It then stated, “SEO will not be killed by AI . . .  it will evolve to become more sophisticated and data-driven, with a greater emphasis on quality content, user experience, and technical optimization.” Mic drop.

Future Outlook: AI in Content Marketing and SEO

AI hasn’t reached its peak — not in terms of efficacy or accuracy or in the ways in which it can affect content production. There will be more applications joining the ranks in the years to come. Some may help with strategy and ideation, while others might pave the way for more efficient brief and content creation. We will, one day, be able to rely even more on artificial intelligence as a standalone tool to generate, evaluate, and refine content.

Now, imagine these tools connected to existing workflows, perhaps via a single, umbrella-like chat environment — increased visibility, a user-friendly format, and a gradually declining need for your team to stand over the apps like helicopter parents. Is your spine tingling yet?

The idea that AI could spearhead trend forecasting, conduct in-depth data analysis, deliver hyperlocal content, automatically analyze backlink profiles, and identify opportunities to improve all of the above isn’t just exciting. It promises an age in which anyone can use content to build their business without being a whiz with grammar or spending years learning the ins and outs of SEO.

AI: Writing and Ranking, With a Little Help From Your Friends

AI-generated content has the potential to rank as well (or even better) than content written entirely by human hands. But favoring artificial intelligence over human expertise, or vice versa, is like trying to sail across the Atlantic with only half a boat. You can keep doggy paddling, but why do yourself such a disservice? By combining AI with editorial oversight and SMEs, you can serve up high-quality text with a distinctly human touch.Step up your content efforts with an assist from Crowd Content’s managed services. We help businesses, agencies, and publishers across a wide variety of industries generate quality content at scale. Whether you want to explore the possibilities of AI-generated content or desire a fully human experience, our content managers can help you understand your options and build a process that expertly serves your needs.

The post Does AI Content Rank in Google? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

And all marketing is content.

• Video scripts
• Instagram images and captions
• Blog posts
• Landing pages
• Emails
• Search ads
• Radio and television ads
• Direct mail

Each of these is made of content — content that someone or some team created. 

No matter what your specific business or organizational goals are, if you have a message to put in front of an audience, you need people to create that content. Whether you turn to in-house talent or outsource content creation is up to you, but it’s critical to understand the costs before you make a decision.

Apples & Oranges: How to Successfully Compare the Cost of Freelancers With the Cost of Staff Writers

Before you can accurately assess costs — and cost-savings — it’s important to understand how to compare apples with oranges. 

For instance, if you pay an in-house writer $25 per hour and a freelancer 10 cents per word, how can you tell which is less expensive? 

It’s almost impossible to make this comparison when you’re talking about one small writing project. In fact, if all you need is one small writing project completed, you shouldn’t be making this comparison at all. Why hire an in-house employee for a single project when you can outsource it and be done with the expense once the project is over?

If you have ongoing content needs, however, it makes sense to crunch some numbers to determine what’s best for your budget. Here are a few tips for ensuring you do so accurately:

• Look at the big picture instead of costs for single projects. Think about what you would pay for content over the course of an entire year. It can be easier to compare a year’s worth of freelance content expenses to a year’s worth of payroll expenses than to compare hourly wages to freelance charges. 
• Include all the costs of employing someone. When calculating the cost of hiring in-house writers, consider more than what you pay them. Add in benefits, training expenses, and the costs of hiring. 
• Remember that you may have internal costs even when you work with freelancers. You may still need to manage freelancers, and if you work directly with writers, you might have to do edits and quality checks yourself. 

Average Cost of Hiring an In-House Writer

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, writers and authors make an average of $69,510 per year — or $33.42 hourly. 

However, “writers and authors” is a pretty big umbrella, and the average salary isn’t inclusive of all costs that an employer might pay when hiring someone. Let’s break this down a bit further so you can get a better idea of what it might cost for you to hire an in-house writer for your organization.

As you can see from the above table, a good estimate for the amount you may need to pay an in-house writer is $25 to $50 an hour, or around $50,000 to $115,000 per year.

However, you’ll also incur other costs if you hire full-time in-house staff. 

Estimated additional costs of hiring an in-house writer at $60,000 per year in the U.S.

Depending on the benefits you offer, you could end up paying $78,000 or more annually for a single in-house writer. A team of just five writers can cost $400,000 or more yearly. 

How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Freelancer?

Freelance writers offer services for a wide range of prices. They also charge for those services in a variety of ways, including:

• Hourly
• Per project
• Per page of copy, which is usually defined by an approximate number of words 
• Per word
• Per unit, such as per meta description or Instagram caption

Working directly with freelancers versus working with an agency or content company can also drastically impact how much you pay. 

What does it cost to work directly with a freelancer?

One option for working with freelance writers is to put out a job posting, accept resumes or applications directly from freelancers and choose some writers for contract work. 

In this scenario, you foot the bill for a variety of expenses, including:

• The cost to develop the job posting and market the listing
• The cost of training freelancers, which can include developing internal briefs, offering feedback and taking time to ensure freelancers understand any software or internal processes
• In-house employee labor expenses associated with managing the freelancer team — including assigning work, managing workflows, receiving work and any editing or feedback that might be necessary
• Paying freelancers for the work they do

What are some average freelance writer rates?

Here’s what the American Writers & Artist’s Institute suggests professional and experienced freelancers charge for various copywriting projects. 

Using these rates as a basic guide, let’s look at the cost of hiring freelancers directly to complete a website content writing project. For this hypothetical project, imagine that you need:

• New home page copy ($1,500)
• 30 new pages — a mix of high-quality sales pages and SEO pages ($10,000)
• 2 pillar posts — $1,000
• 10 blog posts — $3,000

The freelancer cost for your project would be $15,500. Add in internal costs associated with managing the freelancers, and the total costs could be $17,000 to $18,000 or more.

Of course, you might save money by hiring freelancers with much lower rates. However, as with any other service, you often get what you pay for. Freelancers with less experience or those that charge bottom-barrel rates may also increase how much internal effort you need to exert on a project, which can lead to increased internal costs that negate your savings.

How much does it cost to hire crowd content freelancers?

Crowd Content offers a wide range of pricing choices — and several ways to work with freelancers through our platform. 

Generally, pricing structures are per word. However, we can also accommodate flat pricing per piece and other structures to meet unique client needs. 

Pricing in our Marketplace is 3.5 to 15.8 cents per word. If you want our professional editors to proofread your copy before it’s delivered, you can add editing for 4 cents per word.  Our customer service reps can help you build strong writing and editing teams, but you generally manage those teams, so you may have some internal expenses associated with overseeing content. 

To understand how much high-quality 4-star content might cost with Crowd Content’s marketplace services, consider the table below.

You can also choose managed services and work with fully-managed content teams. Our content managers and production teams partner with clients to deliver publish-ready content, and they can take a lot of the burden off your internal teams. Managed services can include brief creation, editing and quality assurance, and management of large freelance teams, reducing some of your internal costs.  

Hiring In-House Writers, Directly Contracting With Freelancers, or Working With Crowd Content: Which Is More Cost-Effective?

Let’s look at another hypothetical situation to understand how much content might cost with each of these options.

In this scenario, a company needs around 250,000 total words of blog content per year (about 250 blog posts). It considers the following options:

• Hire one full-time in-house writer at an expense of around $80,000 total
• Contract with freelancers directly at an expense of $62,000 to $125,000 total
• Use Crowd Content’s 4-star marketplace writers and editors at an expense of around $49,750 plus any internal costs associated with managing workflows

Which Choice Is Right for Your Business?

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t exist here, so you need to consider your business needs, budget and how your team works best. Some teams need in-house support and collaboration more than cost-savings. Some companies don’t have any in-house resources for content creation and are happy to outsource everything. 

There isn’t a single right answer, though you can see from the numbers above that there’s definitely a more cost-effective answer. If you’re interested in those cost savings and how Crowd Content can help you drive them without downgrading the quality of your content, connect with us today.

The post The Cost of Hiring a Freelancer vs. an In-House Writer appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Here’s a baker’s dozen’s worth of reasons to outsource your content marketing efforts in 2024.

1. Shave Expenses Off Your Bottom Line by Outsourcing Content Creation

Quality content can cost a pretty penny — or lots of pennies, really, when you consider forecasts that the content creation market will hit $53.6 billion by 2033. When you commission a blog or a white paper, you’re not just paying for words. You’re paying for the years those writers and editors spent perfecting their grammar, learning about SEO, and mastering various content types.

That said, outsourcing content still saves you considerable amounts of money, as contractors don’t come with the same costs associated with hiring in-house talent. You don’t need to give them a company computer, pay 401(k) and insurance, or cover their sick days.

2. Save Time for Other Must-Do Tasks

For most business owners and marketing department heads, 40-hour workweeks are the dream, not the reality. That’s especially true if you tackle content creation firsthand. From ideation to publishing, there’s an endless stream of tasks to complete.

If you outsource your content, you’ll free up your schedule to tackle those tasks only you can do, such as coaching your managers or pitching new ideas to the board.

3. Scale Content and Expand Your Content Calendar

When it comes to content, it can be difficult to balance quality and quantity. Most experts agree that frequent blogging and a steady stream of social media posts are better for connecting with consumers and engaging your audience. But pushing tons of poor-quality content isn’t the answer — it may even harm your business.Content outsourcing allows you to pull from a vast talent pool, generating high-quality content at whatever speed you need. Have you suddenly found yourself growing from a small start-up to a competitive, midsized enterprise? When you hire contract writers, they can churn out quality landing pages or blog posts at a lightning-fast pace.

4. Leverage Subject Matter Experts

Unless you’re ready to hire an entire stable of in-house writers, your team can’t possibly cover all the subjects you may want to reference as part of your overarching content strategy. Outsourcing with a company or platform that offers subject matter experts connects you with people who provide thought leadership and credentialed expertise in fields such as law, finance, health care, insurance, hospitality, and tech.

SMEs add significant value to your content by imbuing it with more authority and expertise. These days, Google craves trustworthy content written by experts. It’s a central aspect of the search giant’s E-E-A-T quality guidelines that prioritize experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

5. Mine Your Talent Pool for Fresh Ideas and Varied Viewpoints

We’ve already touched on some limitations of relying 100% on in-house writers, but here’s another factor to consider: People run out of ideas. Even the most innovative creatives stumble sometimes, and content written by a small team can start to drift toward sameness. In other words, ideas, phrasing, and even content structure can get staler than a month-old biscuit.

Outsourcing lets you switch up writers at will. You can create your own team of freelancers and release batches of content to the group as a whole, or ask for pitches and see which ideas are most exciting.

6. Publish Faster and More Efficiently

Outsourcing doesn’t always just involve contracting a writer. Editors, subject matter experts, and content managers play an essential role in the process. Choose the right platform and service options, and your content partner can handle everything from ideation to multistep quality assurance. That means you get deliverables that are error-free and publish-ready.

Eliminating the need to edit or peruse just-delivered content for accuracy allows you to fast-forward the production process. Assign work, switch focus to wherever you’re needed, and wait for the finished product to arrive.

7. Reach a Wider Audience

Subject matter experts and content pros can help you expand your audience, meaning more potential customers and theoretical dollars in your pocket.

Outsourcing boosts reach by:

• Giving you access to marketing agencies that can help you create a content calendar and ramp up distribution
• Assisting in creating multiple content types, which expands to email marketing, paid ads, social media posts, and B2B or B2C content such as white papers and case studies
• Giving you the experts you need so you can approach your niche from multiple angles

8. Experiment With Different Content Types

Speaking of different content types, do you know how many there are? Hint: There’s a lot, including:

• Blogs
• Testimonials and reviews
• Case studies
• E-books
• Videos
• Infographics
• White papers
• Guides and how-tos
• Scripts for podcasts, videos, speeches, and webinars
• Web copy
• Landing pages
• Product descriptions
• Buyer’s guides

Some writers dabble in multiple content types, while others only specialize in marketing copy or scripts. You can’t necessarily expect a blog writer to knock a case study out of the park, but you can outsource to a platform that has already vetted writers specializing in all types of content. That way, you’re covered no matter what.

9. Boost Your ROI

Getting a great return on your investment is crucial in marketing because you want to ensure you get back more than you put in. That way, you can reinvest in your business, ramp up content production, and build your brand, all without spending more of your budget than you initially intended.

We’ve already discussed how outsourcing content creation can reduce overhead and increase efficiency. It can also boost ROI by ensuring your content hits the target the first time, every time, so you don’t have to test out whether your favorite blogger can produce decent results with their first buyer’s guide. Instead, you draw from an already-vetted, well-managed group of writers who know how to make every word count.

10. Meet Goals Faster

Even the best content strategy takes time to execute and come to fruition. SEO doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does building a blog or revamping a website. 

Consistency counts, but so do quality and volume. You can win over your audience by crafting just one stellar blog a month and building your website over a year. But it’ll take that much longer for you to reach your objectives.

When you outsource content creation, you amplify your reach and grow your team overnight. It doesn’t matter that contracted writers aren’t actual employees or full-time workers. 

You’ll get the help you need when you need it, and that’s true whether you work with a single writer or a team of 100. You can generate a couple of quality blogs or hundreds of landing pages at the speed you need.

11. Enhance SEO and Rank Higher

With search engine optimization, you can determine how to structure your content and website to please Google’s algorithm — the enigmatic yet all-important equation that drives search rankings. Without SEO, you can’t expect to rank high on the search engine results pages, dampening your marketing efforts.

The thing is, keeping up with SEO updates can be a full-time job. Even the best writers in the world may be a step or two behind on SEO, which is why so many people work with agencies that specialize in optimization. But that means another contract, another bill to pay, and another step in the content creation process.

Instead, partner with a platform like Crowd Content that offers soup-to-nuts content creation services. Keywords, content briefs, writing, editing, QA — it can all be included. Choose what you need, and leave the details to the pros so you can get back to your to-do list.

12. Outsourcing Content Creation Helps Increase Authority

Publishing quality blogs reviewed by SMEs helps you become an established authority in your given niche. People who love a particular topic know when someone equally passionate wrote the content they’re reading. They also know when someone is just regurgitating basic facts. Which do you think resonates better?

Trust your content and your relationship with your audience to writers and SMEs who take your project seriously and have the credentials and portfolios to back it all up. Each piece of authoritative content will grow the overall authority of your domain.

13. Protect Your Reputation With Higher Quality Content

Poor-quality content is no joke. Content littered with typos, grammatical errors, and factual inaccuracies tanks your reputation and makes you less trustworthy in the eyes of consumers. You can’t afford to buy or create subpar content, and outsourcing can save you that headache 100 times over.

But what is quality content? Two articles can vary in so many ways yet still rise to the top of the search results. Ultimately, high-ranking content takes a person-first approach and includes insightful, authoritative information. 

This is easier if you outsource content production to an agency that follows an extensive content quality checklist through every step of the process.

What Are the Best Practices for Communicating With Outsourced Teams?

So, you’ve decided to take the plunge and expand your content creation efforts with outsourcing. But how do you communicate with your team of freelancers?

Communication shouldn’t be more complicated than it is with an in-house writing team, but outsourcing definitely creates a different dynamic. You can’t necessarily expect freelancers to be available to talk at any point during business hours like you would employees.

Instead, set clear expectations from the get-go, including regular check-ins and updates. Outline your preferred communication methods, whether those include email, calls, or platforms such as Teams and Slack, so your team knows how to contact you with questions or ideas.

Of course, time and optimization are the ultimate factors in outsourcing, and you can’t expect to get everything right on your first try. After the work is done, look for any improvements you can make to instructions, briefs, and communication, then offer detailed feedback for your writers to do the same. Content calibration lets you scale things up next time with even smoother results.

How Do You Monitor and Measure the Success of Outsourced Content?

Regardless of whether you’re working with an in-house team, hiring freelancers from across the ocean, or doing everything yourself, you need a way to measure the success of your content. It’s how you know when to scale up or cut your losses.

There are several tools you can use to track content performance, including free options such as Google Analytics and full-service marketing platforms that can become costly. As long as you can see how many views your content gets and observe the search rankings over time, that’s all you need to start.

Of course, you may eventually want to track user experience and engagement. Throw in a way to also assess the social media impact of your content, and you’re set for the future.

Budgeting and Investing for the Future

Outsourcing content creation may saves money over the long run — especially if your in-house team is finding it hard to keep your content supply flowing. However, content marketing offers slower returns than paid marketing streams, so you won’t see new leads immediately. Patience is key.

Over the weeks and months to come, the budget you invest in content marketing should establish trust, authority, and brand awareness for your business. High-quality content continues to attract new customers without much additional investment — something that can’t be said of pay-per-click marketing. 

Half of today’s marketers say they’re already outsourcing at least part of their content marketing workload, and this is one time you should follow the crowd. For more information on outsourcing or to see how Crowd Content can help you with your content marketing strategy, sign up for an account today.

The post 13 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Content Creation in 2024 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Cue the ghostwriter. These professional writers lurk behind the scenes and are invisible to audiences, but there’s nothing supernatural about them. Learn how ghostwriters deliver meaningful content on your behalf, putting an expert face on your company. We’ll fill you in on their role in content marketing and how you can leverage a ghostwriting service to raise your brand profile and build trust with audiences.

What Is Ghostwriting?

Ghostwriting is the practice of creating content that’s credited to someone other than the original writer. This process is common in book publishing, where public figures often hire professional writers to craft memoirs or autobiographies on their behalf.

With digital content playing an increasingly important role in brand marketing, many companies are hiring ghostwriters to produce online content. Thought leadership pieces, blog posts, articles, e-books and white papers are extremely valuable for raising brand awareness and establishing a company’s authority in a field.

These types of pieces can be attributed to senior leaders and executives or published as general website content. Think of ghostwriters as playing a similar role to speech writers shaping a keynote delivered by a CEO or publicists putting together quotes that appear in press releases. People want insights from those at the top and ghostwriters help get important ideas across in an expressive and compelling way.

Why Use a Ghostwriter?

Companies use content marketing to reach audiences and demonstrate authority in a niche. A smart thought leadership piece from your CEO, published in a respected industry journal, gives your company valuable exposure. It also helps develop the personal brand of senior executives and makes it easier for audiences to relate to your company.

However, while your leadership has plenty of wisdom to convey, they likely have more urgent work priorities. Ghostwriting gets your company’s expertise out to audiences when potential authors are too busy to devote hours to writing. It also makes sense to use professional writers to create copy, as the quality reflects directly on your company. It takes superior writing skills to produce highly polished, engaging content that also fits into your brand image.

When to Hire a Ghostwriter

If you have an in-house writing team, you can get started on your content marketing strategy right away. But some companies may not have staff writers or their team may be stretched thin on other projects.

In this case, you have a couple of options for ghostwriting.

• You can hire your own freelance writers to call on when needed, reviewing applications and vetting them to ensure their skills match your needs. You might have to try a few writers to find one that can hit the tone or style you’re looking for or that charge rates within your budget. Freelance writers tend to have a stable of clients, so you also need to make sure they’re available when you need content delivered in a timely fashion.
• You can use a ghostwriting service and tap into a group of writers with different backgrounds and areas of expertise. You can outsource an array of content, including blog posts, articles, opinion pieces, columns and e-books. And, with a large pool of freelancers, you’re usually assured of finding one who can turn content around quickly and meet deadlines. 

How to Work With Ghostwriters