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.

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.

An effective user manual should not only be informative enough to reduce the need for additional support, but it should also be engaging so the readers have a positive experience while using it. Providing a well-designed user manual gives your customers confidence that they can use the product or service to its full potential with minimal frustration. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll dive into the essential strategies and best practices for crafting user manuals that will be an invaluable asset to your audience. 

What Does a Good User Manual Look Like?

A high-quality user manual is crucial not only for facilitating the correct use of a product but also for enhancing user satisfaction and trust in a brand. Understanding the elements that contribute to a successful manual is essential for crafting documents that truly meet the needs of end-users.

Key Features of an Effective Manual

An exceptional user manual is characterized by clarity, accessibility, and user-centric design. It should be comprehensive, yet concise, providing all the necessary information without overwhelming the reader. The language used must be accessible to a diverse audience, potentially including non-technical users. Effective manuals are often visually appealing as well, incorporating well-designed graphics that complement the text and improve understanding.

Understanding Your Audience: The Key to Effective User Manuals

The foundation of a successful user manual is a deep understanding of your target audience. Knowing not only who will need your manual but also who will use it is essential. Before even starting to create your user manual, identify the specific needs, challenges, and preferences of the individuals who will be using your product or service. Know your audience and create some customer personas for them. By gaining insights into their level of technical expertise, common pain points, and how they will use the manual, you can tailor the content to meet their unique requirements.

Identifying User Needs and Preferences

Conduct surveys, interviews, testing sessions, or focus groups to understand how your audience’s backgrounds, goals, and preferences affect how they interact with your product. These methods allow you to gather feedback directly from your audience. By gathering information from people who are actually using your product or service, you can identify areas that require more clarity or additional explanation. Incorporating this feedback into the user manual ensures that it addresses the most pressing concerns or questions your users are likely to have.

Incorporating User Feedback into Your Manual Design

The insights gathered from user feedback will shape the structure, language, and visuals of your manual. This valuable input provides a direct line into the minds of your target audience, allowing you to understand their perspectives, pain points, and needs.

If you have an existing user manual you are updating, user feedback can reveal areas where the current structure or flow of information is disjointed or confusing. User feedback can help you reorganize sections, adjust the order of topics, or add clearer transitions between concepts. User feedback can also let you know if certain explanations are too technical or if the tone is overly formal. Adapting the language can improve the manual’s readability..

Feedback on visuals, either where they’ll be needed or where they are missing in existing content, can be invaluable. Well-designed images, diagrams, and infographics provide a visual representation that complements and reinforces the written explanations, making it easier for users to understand and follow the information. 

Structuring Your Manual for Success

A well-structured user manual ensures a comfortable experience for your readers. A logical flow, clear headings, and an intuitive layout significantly enhances the manual’s usability. Begin by outlining the key sections and topics that need to be covered. Then, outline topics following a natural progression from basic information to more advanced concepts. Figure out what topics would benefit from images, diagrams, or illustrations. Create clear and descriptive headings to help users quickly locate the information they need. Consider incorporating a detailed table of contents and or an index to help users easily navigate to their topic of interest. 

Other things to think about are accessibility and cross-cultural communication. In today’s global marketplace, user manuals often need to be accessible to audiences with diverse cultural backgrounds and language proficiencies. Clear and intuitive images can be universally understandable, ensuring that instructions are understandable regardless of the user’s native tongue.

Follow accessibility standards to ensure the manual can be effectively used by individuals with diverse abilities and needs. This includes providing alternative formats such as large print and adequate visual contrast between backgrounds and text. 

Choosing the Right Format: Print vs. Digital

When it comes to format, both print and digital options have their strengths. Print manuals offer a tactile experience and can be easily referenced during hands-on tasks. Digital manuals provide the convenience of searchability and the ability to incorporate multimedia elements. In today’s world where digital options can be downloaded and printed out, it may not have to be an either-or decision. Printed manuals can have a QR code to enable users to access a digital version they can store on their computer. This can alleviate any concern over losing the printed document. And digital downloads can be made available for those who wish to print out a copy or store the digital version on their personal devices. 

Evaluate the pros and cons of print and digital formats to determine the most suitable option for your audience and product.  

Enhancing Manuals with Interactive Elements

As technology continues to evolve, using digital user manuals offers the opportunity to add interactive experiences. Explore innovative techniques, such as interactive digital manuals or augmented reality features, to create a more engaging and memorable experience for your users.

Interactive elements can also enhance accessibility. Using audio descriptions allows users to engage with the information in ways other than reading. Embedded video clips can help explain difficult concepts in a way that is potentially superior to a static illustration or diagram. Both audio descriptions and video clips can be invaluable for users with visual impairments. 

Additionally, following web accessibility guidelines like proper heading structures, descriptive alt text for images, and keyboard navigation support can make digital manuals more accessible to users with motor or cognitive disabilities. 

User Manual Outline Template

The product or service you offer will affect how long your manual outline will be. However, it is important to remember that the best manuals are comprehensive and in-depth. To help guide your manual creation process, consider the following outline as a starting point. .

• Introduction

• Product overview and description 
• List of components or items included
• Intended audience 
• How to use this manual 
• Safety information and warnings
• Product Overview

• Product specifications
• Key features and functionality
• Performance data
• Diagrams of main features
• Distinguishing between different makes or models
• Overview of different configurations

• Getting Started
• Operations

• Safety
• Basic use

• Advanced Features
• Maintenance and Care
• Troubleshooting
• Support and Additional Resources
• Appendices

• FAQs
• Technical specifications
• Glossary of terms
• Regulatory and compliance information
• Repair information

While this template provides a solid foundation, crafting a truly comprehensive and user-friendly manual often requires a lot of time and expertise. Professional technical writing services can help streamline the process, ensuring that your manual is thoroughly researched, well-structured, and tailored to your audience’s needs.

Writing Clear and Engaging Content

The language and writing style employed in your user manual can make or break its effectiveness. Clarity, conciseness, and the ability to engage and instruct simultaneously are paramount. After all, the purpose of a user manual is to explain a concept in a way that anyone reading the manual can understand. Strive for simplicity by using plain language and avoiding technical jargon or long sentences. Break down complex concepts into small, digestible chunks. 

The Art of Technical Writing: Tips for Clarity and Precision

Here are some writing tips for ensuring clarity and precision when creating user manuals or other technical documentation.

Active vs. passive voice

Use an active voice to create a more direct and engaging tone. Active voice is usually clearer and more direct and usually makes sentences more concise and straightforward. Active voice phrases like “Press the button” or “Insert the cable” clearly convey the action the user needs to take. Passive voice can make sentences longer and more convoluted. Consider this example: 

Active: Insert the cable. 

Passive: The cable should be inserted.

Active voice is generally more user-friendly when it is explaining action.

Be concise

Don’t use more words than necessary. Stick to brief, straightforward sentences.

Break up complex information

Break multi-step processes or complex concepts into small and easy-to-digest chunks. 

Be consistent 

Once you introduce a term, such as the name of a button or menu option, use that same term consistently throughout your document. If you are using icons, be consistent in how and what is represented with the icons.

Use numbered/bulleted lists

Lists with numbers and bullets are scannable. Clear numbering or bullet points makes sequences of steps much easier to follow. 

Be descriptive

Use specific, descriptive details, quantities, names, etc. Vague language like “place it in the box” can be confusing. Instead, say what “it” is. For instance, “place the filled and sealed envelope in the box.”

Define terms

If you are using any specialized terminology, provide clear definitions when the terms are used.

Incorporate Visuals and Design Elements

Visual elements play a crucial role in enhancing the comprehension and usability of user manuals. Effective use of images, diagrams, icons, and other visual aids can help users better understand and follow instructions.

Designing with the User in Mind: Visuals That Teach

When selecting visuals, ensure that images and diagrams are legible and readable even in smaller print sizes. Ensure they accurately depict the subject matter. They should also be properly labeled or captioned so they match how the illustrations are referenced within the text. Choose typography with a high level of readability and stick to just one font for visual continuity. 

Leveraging Technology for Next-Level Visual Instructions 

Digital manuals offer the flexibility to incorporate interactive elements that enhance usability and engagement. Features such as clickable navigation menus or pop-up definitions can provide users with on-demand access to additional information or visual aids. Consider adding features such as guided walkthroughs that take users through an experience in an immersive way, allowing for practice or hands-on experience.

Augmented reality technology opens up exciting possibilities for user manuals. By overlaying digital information onto the real-world environment, AR can provide users with context-specific instructions or visual cues directly related to the product or task at hand. For example, an AR-enabled manual can allow users to point their device’s camera at a specific component, triggering the display of step-by-step instructions, animations, or diagrams. 

Testing and Refining Your Manual

Even after meticulous planning and execution, user testing and iterative refinement are crucial steps in ensuring the effectiveness of your manual. Gathering feedback from actual users can help identify areas that require further clarification, highlight missed opportunities, and ultimately lead to a more user-friendly and comprehensive manual.

Gathering and Implementing User Feedback

Consider conducting pilot tests or user acceptance testing sessions. These sessions are opportunities for individuals from your target audience to actually interact with the manual and provide honest feedback. Closely observe how they move through the manual and note any areas of confusion or frustration. Do they flip back and forth between pages to find information? Are they able to successfully complete the task just by reading the manual? Their feedback will give you valuable information about any areas ripe for improvement.

Iterative Design: Refining Your Manual for Perfection

Embrace the idea that your manual will likely not be something that is written once and then done for all time. Instead, take an iterative approach to manual design and recognize that it will need continuous refinement. Aside from product updates or new versions, updating a user manual may also be necessary to stay in compliance with new regulations or standards or to incorporate new technologies or formats.  

Elevating User Experience with Effective Manuals

Creating a user manual that is truly useful for your audience is an important endeavor that will be rewarding for your business. When you understand what your audience needs, you can structure the user manual in a way that provides a valuable resource for them and reduces the need for more customer service interactions down the road. Craft your user manual so that the instructions make sense, the flow is logical, and anyone can pick it up and understand how to get the most out of your product. 

If you find the process of creating a detailed user manual from scratch overwhelming or lack the time and resources to dedicate to it, consider leveraging professional technical writing services. Our team of experienced writers and editors can work with you to understand your product and audience, conduct research, and craft a user manual that not only informs but also engages your users. We also offer manual editing and refreshing services, allowing you to provide an initial draft that we can refine and polish.

The post How to Write a User Manual Your Users Will Love 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.

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.

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.

Crafting a page that converts is both an art and a science. You need a generous dose of creativity and a flair for design that inspires readers, supported by an analytical approach that subtly moves customers toward a goal. When you hit that optimum point, you can really drive results. Learn how to strike this delicate balance by putting best practices for creating effective landing pages to work.

Breaking Down Landing Page Structure

A landing page is a web page designed to coax visitors toward a specific action, usually attracting traffic drawn from search engines, email marketing, or social media campaigns. Visitors typically approach a landing page in two parts.

The content at the top of the page sparks interest, concisely communicating the benefits or offer, and provides a call-to-action (CTA). This content typically fits on the screen above the fold, meaning no scrolling is required to read it. As visitors scroll down, they can then access detailed information to support their decision-making, such as product features and social proof.

Check out this landing page example from Unbounce. It has a clear call-to-action (CTA) above the fold and persuasive details below the fold.

Core elements of landing page design

Your landing page should be engaging and user-friendly to compel readers to take action. Include these key elements:

• Headline: Lead the way with a catchy headline that communicates the value of your offering.
• Subhead: The subhead is a concise sentence or two providing additional context.
• Hero image or video: Reel in your reader with a striking image or embedded video to make an impactful first impression.
• Call to action: Your CTA is a prominent button, form, or link that directs visitors to take a desired action, such as “Download” or “Buy Now.” 
  
• Persuasive content: Write highly convincing content that communicates your value proposition and the benefits or features of your product. Make the content easy to skim, and consider using bullet-point lists or charts.
• Social proof: Reassure your audience of the value of your brand with testimonials, reviews, and trust symbols, such as logos of companies using your product or service.

Enhancing traditional structures with modern design

Bring the elements of your landing page together so it’s visually appealing and easy to consume. You might be inclined to cram the page with tons of information to help your reader make a decision, but if you bombard them with too much detail, it becomes harder for them to decide.

Instead, opt for a clear, intuitive layout that highlights key information and the CTA. Modern design principles work well, as white space and contrast can direct the reader’s attention. To create interest, use expressive typography in different weights and colors to set the mood. In the example below, Dropbox takes a minimalist approach that’s still highly effective.

In comparison, beauty subscription brand Boxy Charm leverages color and a hero image on its landing page. In marketing color psychology, pinks and lavenders create a soft, soothing aesthetic and are often used for beauty products. 

Adhering to SEO principles

Landing pages are often paired with email, social media, and PPC campaigns, but you can also capture audiences through search engines. Make sure your page is discoverable on Google by following best practices for SEO:

• Use keyword research tools to target search terms for ranking
• Create helpful, informative, and high-quality content
• Ensure the page loads quickly and is mobile-friendly
• Include descriptive meta titles and descriptions
• Compress images and include alt-text

Designing for Conversion: Key Elements of Effective Landing Pages

Now, how do you leverage these elements to drive readers toward a goal? Let’s look at a few strategies to design for conversion.

Crafting compelling headlines for maximum impact

The headline welcomes readers with a concise statement highlighting the value of your offering. Place the headline prominently on the page and make sure it’s simple and clear — technical terms and jargon only cloud your message. The fewer words you use to convey your message, the better. You can use  a subheader that provides more context or elaboration to complement the headline.

To grab the reader’s attention, try:

• Creating energy with action verbs
• Posing a question that invites them to discover the answer
• Teasing a benefit to spark curiosity (but get to the point ASAP)
• Using numbers and statistics for credibility

Check out Proof’s landing page — the headline is incredibly simple, uses action-oriented wording, and promises tangible results that are pretty hard to turn down. Notice it’s accompanied by a clear call to action and social proof.

The role of visuals in conversion optimization

Visuals make a landing page more enticing and exciting by reinforcing your headline message and evoking an emotional response in your customer. Let’s look at a landing page for Trusted Housesitters, a platform that connects pet lovers with pet owners who need someone to care for their furry companions. The image on this page appeals to both target audiences. It emphasizes the joy in caring for a pet while assuring pet owners that their pets are in good hands while they’re away. This page also uses social proof, descriptive CTAs, and a down arrow directing users to scroll to learn more.

Breather, a provider of workspaces for quiet, focused work, also has a prominent image on its landing page. The photo of a bright, airy, and empty workspace backs up the value proposition. 

If you want to step up your landing page game, consider adding a short video. According to a WyzOwl survey, 89% of people say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service. Videos help customers see your product in action and get a better feel for its features and benefits. You can also use customer testimonial videos as a form of social proof to drive your audience toward conversion.

Writing irresistible CTAs

The call to action is a critical element of your landing page, allowing your reader to take you up on your offer. Make it easy for them to complete the action.

• Positioning: Place your CTAs strategically. CTAs should be placed above the fold for those who have done their research and are ready to take action and should be placed at the end of each section for those who need a little more persuasion. “You never know where a user will pause or how far they’ll go,” Cassandra Parsons, VP of Operations at ViziSites, explains in our webinar about optimizing your website for conversions.
• Prominence: Effective calls to action should be large, legible, and easy to find on the page. Use contrast to help buttons stand out and make sure they appear clickable.
• Precise wording: While your CTA should be short and sweet, it should also be descriptive and should generate excitement. Create a sense of urgency and explain exactly what the consumer gets when they click. Instead of “Get Started,” for example, try “Get 30 Days Free” to compel readers to convert.

Tailoring Landing Pages to Your Audience

Audiences are more likely to convert if your landing page aligns seamlessly with their needs. Use customer surveys, analytics data, focus groups, and market research to gather insights and tailor content to their interests and pain points.

Even within your customer base, there can be differences in needs and preferences. When analyzing data, divide your audience into segments based on factors such as age, gender, location, interests, browsing history, or purchase history. You can improve conversions by customizing landing pages and offering better user experiences for each segment.

Using audience insights to inform design choices

From your research, you should have a good picture of who’s clicking on your ad, email, or social post to get to your landing page. Stay true to your branding, but design custom pages and direct users appropriately.

Let’s say you sell outdoor gear. Some of your customers may be single, tend to lean toward outback adventures, and frequent TikTok. Others may have children, plan family camping trips, and get information from Facebook. You can customize images, messaging, and product recommendations based on lifestyle. If you have retail storefronts, you can also create a dynamic landing page based on user location and provide store-specific information. 

With dynamic content, you can also personalize messaging based on past interactions and display relevant recommendations or offers. By adapting your landing page to your audience, you’re speaking directly to their needs and interests, inspiring engagement and stronger customer relationships.

Personalization techniques for enhanced engagement

Sometimes, you can gather information right on your landing page to customize an experience. Let’s deconstruct this MailChimp landing page.

All the essential above-the-fold elements are checked off: headline, relevant copy, hero image, and trust symbol. At the bottom of the screen, readers are posed with a question: “How many contacts do you have?” Readers will receive a package suggestion based on their answer to help narrow down their choices. If readers are looking for more personalized content, they can click on “Find my plan” to the left and complete a quiz for a recommendation.

Optimizing Landing Page Performance

Just as you might fine-tune a sports car for precision and speed, you can monitor, test, and refine your landing page. Optimization requires critical attention to every aspect of your landing page structure, design, and functionality, creating a well-oiled machine that efficiently carries your reader across the finish line.

Technical optimization to retain visitors

Test your page loading time to improve user experience. Most online viewers desire and expect quick and easy experiences. If your page is running slowly, it won’t take long for most of them to bounce. Shift your site into high gear by compressing images, minifying files, and implementing browser caching to improve page speed and get your message across as quickly as possible.

Your page should also be mobile-friendly. Customers will get frustrated by buttons that are too small to tap or content that runs off their smartphone screen. Make sure your landing page works smoothly across devices and is responsive for all users.

A/B testing for data-driven design solutions

During your creative brainstorming, you likely came up with a few different headlines, visuals, and CTAs. Once your page’s basic functionality is in place, conduct A/B tests to compare variations of landing page elements. You might be surprised at which ones you think will generate a positive response compared to the ones that actually do. Analyze the performance metrics to see which version resonates best with your audience and helps you seal the deal.

Analyzing and Interpreting Landing Page Metrics

As we stated previously, landing page structure is art and  science. It’s now time to don your lab coat and use analytics to assess if your page is working the way it should.

Essential KPIs for landing page analysis

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measurements that help you gauge page performance. Are your visitors taking time to read your content or bouncing off right away? What percentage converts? Quality data helps you pinpoint areas of weakness so you can make data-driven decisions, improve your landing page, and get closer to your intended goals.

Here are some common KPIs to consider when evaluating landing page performance:

• Bounce rate: Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave a landing page without engaging. If you have a high bounce rate, check your page speed and mobile friendliness. Scrutinize above-the-fold content to see if your headline and image are communicating the value of your offer in a compelling way.  
• Click-through rate (CTR): CTR measures the percentage of visitors who click on a link or button on the landing page. A high CTR indicates the page successfully captures visitors’ attention and encourages them to engage further.
• Conversion rate: The conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, downloading an e-book, or signing up for a free trial. Aim to improve your conversion rate over time.
• Video views: Track whether people are engaging with your video content to determine its effectiveness. If video views are high but the conversion rate is low, the video may be too long, not interesting enough, or weak at conveying your value proposition.
• Average session duration: How long are visitors staying on the page? A longer session duration suggests visitors are engaged with the content and considering your value proposition. If they aren’t converting, you might review your CTA.

Tools and techniques for advanced analytics

Gathering the data is just the first step. It can be challenging to interpret numbers and draw meaningful conclusions when there might be multiple reasons a landing page isn’t performing. Often, you have to make incremental adjustments and continue monitoring.

Analytics tools, such as Smartlook, Hotjar, and Lucky Orange, can offer insight into customer intent and behavior. These platforms use heat maps, journey mapping, and session replay to give you an idea of how customers interact with your page. These tools can detect where users stop scrolling, how much of a form they complete, and where they try to click. This data can help put your KPIs into context, zeroing in on problem areas that are confusing or frustrating audiences so you can refine your content or design.

Mastering Landing Page Structure for Digital Success

The landing page is a critical point in the customer journey, transforming traffic into leads or customers. To maximize conversions, the key elements of a landing page must come together cohesively, including the headline, images and/or video, social proof, and CTAs. When you consider audience needs and shape page content and design according to best practices, you can nudge customers toward considering your offer and converting.

Elevate your landing pages beyond the competition with Crowd Content’s expert website content services. Discover how our team can help you enhance your landing page content for improved SEO and conversion rates. Visit Crowd Content’s website content services page today to learn more and start optimizing your digital presence for maximum success.

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Regarding  market share and competitive edge, PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel once said, “Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way.” It’s a SaaS copywriter’s responsibility to explain to readers the solution that’s available and why that solution is paramount in every way that matters.

As business trends continue to grow, so will the weighty roles of SaaS copywriters. Here’s what you need to know about this writing subspeciality, including how you can hire a SaaS copywriter or succeed in the niche as a freelancer yourself.

SaaS Copywriter vs. B2B SaaS Copywriter

SaaS copywriting takes a broader approach to content creation, reaching out to individual users and corporations. A single piece of content will have multiple applications — using universal language and focusing on how the software at hand can solve common pain points that exist across user segments.

A B2B SaaS copywriter jettisons more general terminology and messaging in favor of a narrowed scope. Pieces created with B2B in mind tend to speak to a specific audience or even a well-developed buyer persona. The writer has an intimate understanding of the client’s business challenge and can speak on a detailed level regarding how a particular SaaS solution addresses that specific problem.

Value propositions in general and SaaS copywriting

A general SaaS copywriter appeals to the masses, emphasizing how a product can help the typical user. It’s common to highlight core benefits, such as ease of use, affordability, and how well it integrates with popular apps and software.

For B2B copywriting, the value proposition is more metric-based. Business owners want to know how the SaaS solution will influence outcomes, such as ROI and customer conversion rates, as well as internal processes, such as cross-departmental collaboration and productivity.

Language and tone

General SaaS copywriting tends to be more conversational, making it easier for the average person to understand tech concepts and software specs. B2B SaaS copywriters speak to a more analytical audience — start-up founders and marketing managers are often more receptive to a professional pitch that’s less casual.

Understanding the Need for a SaaS Copywriter

SaaS products are often technically complex, with a laundry list of features that must be conveyed accurately without overwhelming readers. Software may be updated frequently, and  the tech sector is always changing. Thus a strong SaaS copywriter must be agile and dedicate non-writing time to staying current and getting to know recent innovations.

Businesses must consider the following when looking for a talented SaaS copywriter:

• Differentiation: It’s not enough for a copywriter to rattle off a feature list. Conveying how features stack up in a saturated market is vital, and this requires a writer who’s adept at researching competitors, thinking critically, and building messaging that makes the client stand out.
• Onboarding: New writers need to be educated on the client’s standards and product portfolio. Doing this over and over is a major drain on resources.
• Strategic value: SaaS copywriters tend to charge more than general ghostwriters because they do more. They’re writers, but they’re also experts in conversion optimization, user experience, branding, sales techniques, and the overall intricacies of the software industry.

Identifying Your Copywriting Needs

Before you can connect with and onboard your own SaaS copywriter, you must figure out what you need from a freelancer to meet your internal goals. Consider the following questions:

• What’s your objective? Are you looking to acquire new users, boost your SERPs, introduce consumers to a new product, or something else entirely?
• Who’s your audience? Do you need a copywriter who can speak in general terms or one who knows how to dig deep into the pain points, motivations, and preferences of a select audience and shape messaging accordingly?
• What’s your USP? Your unique selling proposition sets you apart from the competition. The more specialized and nuanced your USP is, the more savvy your copywriter should be.
• What assets do you have, and what do you need to create? Businesses that are just beginning to construct a content marketing strategy probably need everything from basic website content to blog posts. More developed companies might be ready for assets that require a deeper mastery of the topics at hand — think highly persuasive content, high-converting landing pages, and in-depth user manuals.

Finding the Right SaaS Copywriter

Finding a skilled SaaS copywriter can be difficult — and finding one who suits your business’ needs can be even more challenging. In most cases, you have three options: Partner with a content marketing agency, hire an in-house writer, or contract a freelance writer directly.

Contracting directly with a freelance writer gives you a ton of freedom and skips over some of the drawbacks of onboarding a full-time hire, such as paying for benefits and providing physical office space. But an in-house writer is in a prime position to know your product, audience, and quirks inside and out.

For many companies, content agencies and content marketing platforms offer the best of both worlds. You can go fishing in an existing talent pool, using project and content briefs to educate writers and editors on your product and campaign. You can even create your own satellite team that doesn’t work directly under your corporate umbrella but is committed to creating content for you long-term.

Vetting freelance SaaS copywriters

Vet every candidate you want to seriously consider for your project. You’re looking for overall talent, industry-relevant experience, and other characteristics (e.g., a sense of humor, reliability, and a proven track record with high-converting campaigns) that align with your goals and branding.

The vetting process will be your sole responsibility unless you partner with an agency or content marketing platform. That means you’ll be interviewing prospects, checking references, looking at portfolios, assigning sample tasks, reviewing submissions, and sending out offers. That takes a lot of time, but vetting is important — this is how you avoid paying for subpar content or accidentally hiring a writer that isn’t right for B2B or SaaS content.

The Hiring Process

Once you’ve found a writer that checks all your boxes, it’s time to bring them on board. How this process unfolds depends on whether you’re contracting a freelance SaaS copywriter or partnering with an agency that already has writers on staff.

Freelancer hiring process

With each new professional relationship you have with a freelance copywriter, you’re starting from scratch. There’s a fair amount of negotiation to be done, and you’ll be discussing the following terms and conditions of your agreement.

• Project details: Now’s the time to lay out exactly what’s expected from the project. This includes the assets to be created, deadlines for each milestone, communication methods, and revision instructions.
• Payment: Freelance writers can charge whatever they want. That can include a flat fee, hourly rate, or a monthly retainer fee. You’ll need to decide when payment will take place and how it will be made (direct deposit vs. company check, for example).
• General guidelines: All clients should give their new SaaS copywriters the information they need to represent the company properly. Branding information, style guides, approved content samples, customer testimonials, case studies, and product specs are just a few of the items writers can use to get up to speed and shape custom content.
• Contracts: Sign a contract that covers availability, pricing, when content ownership transfers from the writer to the client, nondisclosure clauses, and anything else needed to protect all parties.

Agency collaboration dynamics

Collaborating with a content marketing agency or platform provides a less-personalized experience compared to working with an individual writer, but what you lose in direct access you more than make up for in scalability and streamlined operations.

Overall, you’ll follow most of the same steps listed above, but the contract involves an agency — working with the writer and you as the client. Pricing is typically standardized, according to content type, writer specialty, and/or quality level, and you’ll likely need only one contract for the length of your relationship, with addendums as needed for short-term campaigns or certain sub-clients.

The biggest difference you’ll encounter working with an agency versus working directly with a writer is a huge reduction in the effort required to scale your content program — and this applies to talent as well as clients. Crowd Content uses existing project briefs and onboarding materials to expand our clients’ writing teams in just hours. Everyone on our team is already vetted, and general agreements are already in place. Our clients can also tap into additional services such as SEO research and graphic design without starting from square one.

Content Creation Process for SaaS Content

A strong and effective content creation process is tailored to each client and project, yet it’s as templated as possible. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use the same process for every project, but the more standardized each element is, the easier it will be to go from concept to finished content over time.  

Crafting an effective brief for SaaS projects

Project-specific briefs are the lifeblood of quality content. Without this key document, writers are left adrift, trying to understand what the client really wants. Sometimes, the output is on target, but often, this approach leads to time-consuming revisions and shared frustration.

Content briefs replace ambiguity with step-by-step or section-by-section instructions. Your brief may include:

• A description of the project
• Project objectives
• Target audience
• Style preferences
• Milestones and deadlines
• SEO guidelines, such as primary keywords and linking opportunities
• A full outline or suggested H2 and H3 headers
• Requests for associated metadata
• Key resources

Starting actual content creation

Once the writer has a brief on hand, it’s time to kick off content creation.

• Brainstorming and research: Leverage keyword research and review SERPs to see what’s ranking and why. Use that information to begin shaping content that addresses user intent, shared pain points, existing content gaps, and potential client-related solutions.
• Drafting: Create content that includes a compelling introduction, engaging copy, and concepts that make key points as clear and impactful as possible. Note where visual elements such as images and infographics might go and use the client’s value proposition as your lodestone.
• Incorporating SEO: Include all required keywords, optimize metadata, and add backlinks to authoritative, high-value sites.
• Revising SaaS-specific content: Work should be proofed for structure and flow, as well as tone/language and SEO optimization. A/B testing can show how new content is being perceived, allowing content teams to make adjustments based on user behavior and other performance metrics.

Cost of Hiring a B2B SaaS Copywriter

The cost of hiring a B2B SaaS copywriter hinges on several factors, including the writer’s level of experience, the scope of the project, the complexity of the content, and even payment structure.

• Hourly rates: Copywriters might charge anywhere from $50 to $200-plus per hour, but don’t get too stuck on the numbers — a writer who’s new to SaaS may charge less but take far longer to create content that’s up to par, leaving you with an unexpectedly large bill compared to an experienced writer who may charge more but can finish a blog in a couple of hours.
• Word count rates: It’s common to pay by the word, but rates for specialty content, such as SaaS, are typically higher — think $.20/word at a bare minimum.
• All-in-one rates: If you collaborate with a content marketing agency, you may be able to save money by bundling services. 

Collaborate With Crowd Content for Exceptional SaaS Content

There’s more than one way to hire a B2B SaaS copywriter, but only one option helps you reach your goals faster and with less challenges. Partnering with Crowd Content gives you access to a talented team of SaaS copywriters who are pre-vetted, experienced, and ready to get to work ASAP. Whether you work directly with writers via our Marketplace or use Managed Services to take advantage of our three-step quality control process, we can help you create publish-ready content that speaks to prospects in a language they’ll understand.

For more information on hiring SaaS copywriters, become an enterprise client today.

The post How to Hire and Work With a SaaS Copywriter 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.

The post Topic Clusters appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A technical writer helps make complex topics understandable, so you can effectively deliver information to employees, colleagues and customers. For many companies, particularly those in the technology, scientific or medical space, this can mean the difference between success and failure.

So, can technical writing benefit you? To answer that question, let’s take a deeper dive into what technical writing is and why it’s so important in certain industries and departments.

What Is Technical Writing?

Technical writing aims to make the complex simple. It’s a form of written or digital communication that documents specific processes or imparts information about complex or specialized subjects with a high level of accuracy and in the most efficient way possible. For example, technical writing may deliver research findings, forecast or analyze industry trends or provide instructions for difficult tasks. If you’ve ever had to create a user guide or assembly instructions, you’ve used technical writing skills.

Technical writing often targets a narrow audience consisting of industry professionals, such as engineers, doctors or scientists. However, content may also be aimed at a general audience, which often includes users of a product or service. In the latter case, technical writing must present complex topics in a way that even a layman can understand. 

Who Needs Technical Writing?

STEM-related industries, including scientific or medical organizations and computer-related companies, often hire technical writers to create product documentation, operator manuals and other instructional materials to help employees and customers understand complex topics and to teach them how to execute technical tasks. Additionally, technical writing is important in the management space, particularly in industries that must deliver complex quarterly or annual financial reports.

However, any business that needs to share accurate or complex information with their employees, customers or other industry professionals, can benefit from technical writing services. For example, a restaurant may require training materials to help new staff learn to use kitchen equipment, or a furniture manufacturer may need to provide assembly instructions with their products.

How Does Technical Writing Work?

There’s no universal formula for technical writing. The process can vary widely depending on the type of content, the targeted audience and the industry. However, regardless of type, most technical writing involves several stages:

1. Defining the content: Typically, the person who orders the content lets the writer know what tone, writing style and difficulty level they should aim for. Writers should also know the target audience and its needs. In some cases, technical writers may have a say in choosing the best medium for the message or audience.
2. Gathering resources: A technical writer should have access to all relevant resources, which may include item specifications, research data and product samples.
3. Consulting with relevant experts: Often, technical writers work directly with technical staff, product liability specialists and customer service managers to ensure the content they create is as clear and accurate as possible, complies with safety regulations and meets any other organizational requirements.
4. Creating the content: Technical writers may write text from scratch or update existing content to meet new or changing needs, or to address revised product specifications or corrected information. Content creation may also involve incorporating visual elements, such as photos, illustrations, graphs or animation to enhance clarity and comprehensibility.

What Are the Characteristics of Technical Writing?

Although technical writing spans a continuum of written and digital content, high-quality examples typically share several common characteristics:

• Accuracy: The main goal of technical writing is to convey information, so it must be accurate. Incorrect, vague or outdated information can result in costly mistakes, lost customers and, in extreme cases, legal action.
• Thoroughness: To be effective, technical writing must be thorough and comprehensive. It should address all relevant aspects of the topic and may include visual accompaniments to complement written text.
• Logic: Technical writing must make sense, so actionable steps are easy to follow. It should never include contradictory information or gaps in logic that could diminish authority or credibility.
• Sequence: Technical writing embodies the philosophy of one step at a time. Particularly in operator guides and other “how-to” instructional materials, writers should make sure all steps are listed in the order they must be performed.
• Organization: Readers don’t want to skip around to find important information. Technical writers should present the material in a well-organized, intuitive fashion.
• Economy: Because technical writing is meant to inform or instruct, every word matters, and text should include no wasted words. If you can convey information sufficiently in 50 words, don’t use 75.
• Audience appropriateness: Technical writing may target different audiences. The complexity and style of writing should be appropriate for the intended audience. For example, technical writing aimed at a general user should be substantially different in tone, vocabulary and style from writing aimed at engineers or other technical professionals.

What Are the Different Types of Technical Writing Services?

Depending on the industry and a company’s unique needs, technical writing can take many forms. Although the applications are numerous, common types of technical writing services include:

• Case studies: These in-depth studies may focus on individuals, groups or events.
• Assembly manuals: Step-by-step assembly guides show consumers how to safely and correctly put together a product.
• User guides/user manuals: These guides provide comprehensive information about operating a product or using a service.
• Product specifications: Spec sheets highlight features and functions of an item. They may include dimensions, materials and safety specifications.
• FAQs: Often used on websites, FAQs answer frequently asked questions about products and services.
• White papers: These informational documents typically highlight information about a product, service or solution
• Quarterly or annual reports: These public-facing reports summarize a company’s financial statements. They typically include a profit-and-loss statement.
• API documentation: API documents typically include tutorials, references, tutorials and other materials that help developers understand and use your application programming interface.
• Statements of work: These legally binding documents define the scope of a project. They may include a project’s goals, deliverables and schedule.
• Literature reviews: These documents summarize previous research and scholarly sources on a given topic.
• Technical video scripts: Scripts may be written for television, radio, Internet or podcast.

How Technical Writing Skills Differ From Copywriting Skills

Both technical writers and copywriters must be able to write clear, readable content, but they differ in many areas. Copywriters need to create engaging, marketing-focused content that drives sales, while technical writers deliver objective instructional or informative content designed for employees, customers and industry professionals.

Besides knowing how to write well, technical writers often have a specialized skill set, which includes experience in or knowledge of the topic they’re writing about. In many cases, technical writers must be able to distill complex information into language that the general population can understand. They must also be able to share, discuss and understand the information received from technical professionals about a given subject. Because of this, technical writers often start out in technical or scientific jobs. In some industries, technical writers may need to hold a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field of study.

A Comparison of Copywriting, Business Writing and Technical Writing

It’s worth noting that many projects, such as video scripts or trade magazine articles, may combine elements of two or more types of writing. 

How Technical Writing Services Can Benefit You

Whether you lack the resources to hire a full-time technical writer or you just want to leave the writing to someone else, outsourcing technical writing services can help your company gain the competitive edge. No matter how big or small your business is, you can acquire the top-notch instructional materials you need through Crowd Content. 

Through Crowd Content’s world-class content writing services, you can order spec sheets, technical manuals and any other written documentation your business needs. Many of our dedicated, professional freelancers are subject matter experts and have the experience and expertise to create engaging, copy in technical areas, such as computer science and engineering. 

When you work with Crowd Content, you’ll receive publish-ready, SEO-rich content that drives organic traffic to your website while meeting your company’s high standards. We can also accommodate any requirements you have regarding style and format, including citations, to cement your industry reputation. So, if your latest white paper or e-book is still nothing more than notes, leave the writing to Crowd Content and rest easy.

The post Simplifying the Complex: Why Technical Writing Matters appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In this article, we look at how high-quality, SEO-driven content fits into your overall search visibility efforts. We also show you how to build an effective SEO campaign in 2024, taking into account Google’s helpful content update, the growing popularity of AI, voice search, and search generative experience.

4 Elements of an Effective SEO Strategy

Before we dive in, let’s look at the big picture. It’s said that more than 200 Google ranking factors impact where pages fall in the SERPs. SEO content writing is an important part of it — but it’s only one component. 

A comprehensive SEO strategy has four parts:

• On-page SEO helps search engines understand the meaning of a page so it can be matched to relevant search queries. These tasks include writing meta titles and descriptions, using headers, optimizing images, creating descriptive URLs, and adding internal links. 
• Off-page SEO involves building backlinks from external sites to demonstrate your content is trustworthy and valuable. A link-building strategy can involve creating guest posts, partnering with influencers, and requesting links in resource directories.
• Technical SEO helps search bots crawl your site easily and addresses elements such as site speed, loading times, mobile responsiveness, security, and site errors.
• Content SEO, the focus of our article, is the creation of content that readers want to consume. The content should answer the search query and be easy to read and insightful.

If your business caters to audiences in a specific region or has multiple locations, you should also complement your strategy with a local SEO component to reach customers in those areas.

How does search engine ranking work?

When your site is optimized using the above tactics, search engines can more effectively crawl, index, and rank your pages. 

• Crawling: Google uses software called crawlers to gather and store information from every web page it can access. 
• Indexing: The information gathered by search bots is organized and indexed according to SEO elements, such as keywords and metadata. When a user performs a query, search engines pull the relevant page. 
• Ranking: Search engines weigh factors such as relevance, quality, and user experience to determine how useful the page is and where it should surface in the SERPs.

Google’s Emphasis on Content Quality

Google’s objective is to provide users with the best, most reliable information for their searches. Pages that say the same thing as a dozen other sites? They’re not nabbing that top spot in the SERPs. Blog posts written to hit certain keyword densities with little value? They’re not on Google’s wish list, either.

Instead, create original content for human readers that inspires them to say, “I learned something new!” Google consistently refines search algorithms to find and prominently display these in-depth pages. 

E-E-A-T

Google introduced E-A-T principles in 2014 to ensure the content it promotes is expert, authoritative, and trustworthy. A couple of years ago, an extra “E” was added to these guidelines to emphasize experience or first-hand knowledge.

Search algorithms look for signs of E-E-A-T on your website through backlinks from other sites, traffic and engagement metrics, and topical authority. Consider establishing your credentials in online bios or on an “About” page and leveraging the knowledge of subject matter experts to show your content is credible. 

Helpful content system

Designed to distinguish between high-quality and low-value content, Google’s helpful content system rolled out in 2022. Soon after a 2023 update, pages that didn’t meet the criteria for useful content tumbled in the SERPs.

Google has a checklist to assess the helpfulness of your content. Essentially, you should offer in-depth analyses and comprehensively answer a reader’s questions on a topic. Aim to produce a piece that’s so original and perceptive that a reader would recommend or bookmark it.

These standards also apply if you’re experimenting with AI content creation. Search engines don’t care who (or what) wrote the content as long as it’s meaningful. But you’ll likely find AI-generated content needs some human involvement to deliver the firsthand experience and personalization Google prioritizes.

Building the Foundation of Your SEO Content Strategy

For your content to rank well, it should meet or surpass reader expectations and outdo the pages already occupying the top spots in the search results. Build your strategy around the following components to tailor content to user queries and drive traffic to your site.

Target audience

The first step of SEO content writing is to know who you’re writing for. What are their pain points? Where do they look for information? Do they prefer short-form videos or in-depth articles? Align your content to your customers, and deliver your message in a tone that resonates. 

Industry niche

SEO content strategies vary depending on the industry. Research the keywords customers use when searching for products and services, along with the keywords your competitors target. Landscapers, event planners, plumbers, realtors, and automobile mechanics need to focus on local SEO. Businesses in the health and finance sectors that publish YMYL, or “your money, your life,” topics need to be attentive to quality and subject matter expertise, due to the impact their advice can have.  

Search intent

A good SEO content strategy focuses on keywords and the meaning behind them. Understanding search intent ensures you shape content to answer a user’s questions. For example, a cosmetics company targeting the keyword “moisturizer with retinol” should determine if someone using this phrase wants general information about the product’s benefits or already knows they want the product and are evaluating brands. A look at top-ranking pages or assistance from keyword research tools can help you determine search intent.

SEO specialist Lily Ray notes that search intent can shift, using the example of Barbie. Recently, movie reviews replaced general information about the toy at the top of the SERPs. 

“A key strategy for handling intense shifts in search intent is to build content that serves every possible intent for your important keywords,” Ray says. “This may require different site sections, articles, videos, images, etc., that each serve a unique purpose for searchers.” 

Content clusters

Sites Google considers reliable sources of content tend to rank better. Build your site’s topical authority to establish expertise. Instead of targeting random keywords, build purposeful content clusters and explore topics in-depth. 

Image Source: Semrush 

These content clusters serve as your website’s core and help you grow an inventory of content that continually demonstrates knowledge about a specific topic. 

Exceptional content

We’ve talked a lot about optimizing your website for Google, but it’s just as important to remember your content will be read by potential customers, business partners, and stakeholders. As mentioned earlier, focus your SEO content writing on original pieces that provide value to readers. Align your content with E-E-A-T guidelines and the objectives of the helpful content system.

Semrush’s 2024 Ranking Factors Study looked at the content of top-performing pages and found relevancy and quality correlated most strongly with higher rankings. On average, the top 10 ranked pages have 90.6% text relevance and a 76.9% content quality score. Keyword coverage came third at 67.8%. “Don’t waste your time obsessing over keyword count or updating content dates for the sake of making your content appear fresher,” the report advises. “Focus on the things that matter, which is creating content that covers its topic in a way that meets readers’ needs.”

Key performance indicators

Set goals so you can track the impact of your SEO content strategy and refine your tactics to improve performance. Choose KPIs that reflect what you want to achieve — for example, the number of impressions can be a measure of brand awareness. Common metrics include traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, session duration, and conversions. Determine your benchmarks, and measure progress regularly. 

10 Steps to Create a Top SEO Content Strategy

Now that you know the ingredients of an impactful strategy, you’re ready to put the pieces together. Here’s how to create an effective SEO content strategy to land higher in search engine rankings and hit your business goals.

1. Understand your customers

The more precisely you know your target audience, the better you can tailor your campaign to meet their needs. This means understanding their needs, concerns, and motivations at each stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Image Source: Ahrefs

For example, if you sell baked goods, determine if your audience is most interested in quality (organic), cost (affordability), or a solution to a problem (gluten-free). Create content to capture them at the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. 

2. Research keywords 

Once you identify who you’re writing for, perform keyword research to find the search terms they’re most likely to use. Sort the keywords into topic clusters and begin building an SEO content strategy.  

You’ll want a mix of head and long-tail keywords. For example, “artificial grass” is a head keyword that generates a high search volume, but it’s tough to rank for. You can aim for more precise long-tail keywords with lower search volumes. These keywords make it easier to gain visibility, such as “What are the benefits of artificial grass?”

Long-tail keywords also help you optimize for voice searches. People tend to be conversational when speaking to a voice assistant, saying, “What trees are native to Maryland?” instead of typing “Maryland trees” into a search engine. Similarly, while SGE is still at an early stage, the preciseness of long-tail keywords may improve your chances of surfacing in AI-driven searches.

3. Plan your content

Look at your chosen keywords and choose the best format for each piece of content. 

• Blog posts are simple to publish and can be outsourced to an SEO content writing service to help you scale output.
• Videos are helpful for product demonstrations, how-to guides, tutorials, presentations, and fun behind-the-scenes content.
• Podcasts give your brand a personal touch and enable you to bring in experts and leverage their audiences.
• Infographics are a visual way to deliver information and are easily shareable.
• E-books share valuable expertise and can be used to generate marketing leads when gated.
• Case studies show customers how your product or service makes a difference.
• Interactive content, such as mortgage calculators, quizzes, games, polls, and interactive maps, encourages user engagement. 

4. Create a content calendar

Use an editorial calendar to plan the content rollout. This helps manage workflow and ensures everyone on the team works toward the same goals. It also ensures you don’t miss out on seasonal marketing opportunities in your industry. 

Build deadlines into your calendar for writing, editing, and publishing, assigning each task to a team member. Prioritize pieces that focus on important core keywords first, and grow your content clusters later. 

If you don’t have the in-house resources to devote to content writing, consider a blog writing service to implement your strategy. Freelance writers can support your team when you need extra hands on deck or ensure a continuous output of content to steadily grow your blog.   

5. Ensure content can be crawled and indexed

Optimize each piece of content according to SEO best practices before you publish. Format content with headers, use metadata, add internal links, and ensure pages load quickly for desktop and mobile devices.

Remember, search engines can’t crawl webinars, videos, images, infographics, and other visual content. You can provide transcripts or written summaries to convey the meaning of content and help with indexing.

6. Develop an off-page SEO strategy

Complement your SEO content strategy by building backlinks from third-party sites that are respected in your niche. There are a few ways to create these links:

• Share your expertise by publishing guest posts that link back to your site.
• Partner with influencers or businesses that may have the same target audience.
• Add your site to directories with local chambers of commerce or business associations.
• Make new content shareable on social media.

7. Engage users

As your pages climb the search rankings, you should see an increase in organic traffic. Make sure those who land on your site have a great user experience. The site should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and filled with relevant, interesting information. The more you engage users and the longer they stick around, the more likely you are to establish trust and brand awareness.

8. Track performance

Set goals for your SEO content strategy and track your progress toward achieving them. You can monitor the impact of specific campaigns and compare quarterly or annual performances. Use the data to build on successes or refine your approach if performance falls short. 

For example, if a page ranks well but isn’t generating click-throughs, you might need to rewrite your meta title and description to be more compelling to readers. If a page has a high bounce rate, the content might fall short of reader expectations. 

9. Understand the search landscape

Search engines are continuously updating algorithms and ranking factors to better serve users. Read up on SEO with Crowd Content’s blog, and ensure you’re following best practices. This helps you respond to changes in the search landscape as they occur and stay ahead of your competition.

10. Update content regularly

As the bar rises on quality SEO content, readers expect timely and accurate information when clicking through to sites. Regularly review your posts to ensure you’re providing the best information possible. Remove outdated information, use current statistics, and fix broken links.

Put Your SEO Content Strategy to Work

Whether your SEO content strategy involves blog posts, e-books, case studies, or landing pages, harness the power of Crowd Content’s skilled freelance writers. Our SEO content writing services deliver high-quality, publish-ready content to help you drive traffic and conversions. Ask us about our writing and editing services, and put your SEO content strategy into action today. 

The post How to Create a SEO Content Strategy for 2024 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

From the mouths and brains of our experts, here are a handful of Google algorithm predictions for 2023 plus tips on how you can make these changes work to your benefit.

1. A Continuing Emphasis on Visual Search

The unprecedented success of TikTok dances and cross-platform reaction videos proves how powerful visual content is. In fact, nearly 40% of Gen Zers already head to TikTok and Instagram to search for coffee spots and retail shops instead of Googling. No surprise, then, that Google is responding by incorporating more visual components in search results. Much of this evolution hinges on Google’s Vision AI tech, which uses machine learning to analyze the content of pictures and create a spiderweb of sorts that connects content across the web.

Marketers can capitalize on the visual trend by:

• Pair all photos with descriptive alt text that includes corresponding search terms
• Add photos to assets that play heavily into Google’s algorithm, including Google Business Profiles, e-commerce pages, landing pages, and product listings added to Google’s Merchant Center
• Explore new ways to incorporate visual content alongside text, including videos and infographics

2. Entity Association Will Soar in Importance

In Google speak, entities are any concept or asset that can be used to distinguish one piece of content or web page from another. Links and keywords are just two examples of entities that Google believes are uber important, not only because of their inherent value but also because of how they reflect and interact with user intent.

Once upon a time, keywords were the most important entities, period. They were so important that marketers would hide huge strings of keywords at the bottom of web pages in hopes of winding up at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). But Google quickly realized that kind of game play wasn’t in the best interests of consumers.

Think of entities as unique identifiers that act as components of a big-picture topic. If your topic was Elvis Presley, Google is no longer just looking for the keyword “Elvis Presley,” it’s also looking for entities including people, places, movies, albums, awards, and tangible items that make up the entire knowledge cloud of what makes Elvis, well, Elvis. There are subcategories too like Elvis’s physical attributes and the latitude and longitude of Graceland.

In 2023, Google’s ML-led algorithms will be trawling the internet looking for these entities, determining which are most meaningful, and then linking them to similarly integral entities. It’s basically recognizing and even building relationships, which will heavily influence search this year and beyond.

3. Featured Snippets and Zero-Click Results

Featured snippets are those no-need-to-click blurbs that appear at the very top of SERPs. Say you’re searching for something like “Who built the coliseum?”. In the olden days, you’d have to click through the top few results to see which page had the information you needed presented in a way that was easiest for you to grasp.

With featured snippets, there’s a full paragraph answer to your question right on the search page. Hence the term “zero-click results.” You can click through for more detailed info, but you don’t have to because the gist of what you need is already being presented right up front, on the digital equivalent of a silver platter.

This feature is already awesome, but experts predict Google will continue to fine tune snippets in 2023, focusing primarily on making snippets even more prevalent. Scoring a snippet can help businesses reach customers at the very top of the funnel, increasing brand awareness and traction without paying a single penny for the privilege (yup, featured snippets are totally free!).

Businesses can increase their likelihood of being featured by:

• Creating content that’s both high quality and very informative — dig deep instead of giving basic, non-detailed responses to key questions.
• Using FAQ sections on pillar pages and landing pages — the answers in FAQs make for great snippets!
• Formatting definitive answers to big questions in snippet-appropriate ways, such as sticking to answers that are between 40 and 60 words or about 250 characters.

4. Rising Value of Technical SEO

Content marketers often focus on the aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) that are mostly closely tied to the content itself. That includes:

• Writing high-quality, grammatically correct content that has that all-important “human element.”
• Conducting keyword research to determine which keywords are bets, how many should be used, etc.
• Strategizing site structure to ensure Google knows where to find the most important content and how different pages are related.

But this year, expect more eyes on technical SEO, which involves working on the tech aspects of websites that most influence user experience and ranking. Tech SEO includes:

• Reviewing sites for speed issues and loading errors
• Optimizing for mobile
• Excising duplicate content
• Ensuring links are working
• Using robots.txt files, crawl-delay directives and access restrictions to help control where and what Google crawls

5. Changes in How Google Detects AI

Google has long prioritized person-first content, meaning content that is engaging, relevant and meaningful to the people reading it. But with AI-generated content one of the hottest topics of 2023 so far, it’s going to be very interesting to see how Google decides to check for and rank content that appears to be written by robots instead of human writers.

Already, Google’s position on AI has evolved from an almost outright ban to a more nuanced approach that seeks to limit AI-generated SEO spam content and low-quality text while boosting sites that offer the opposite. But as the methodology involved in how Google detects ChatGPT content and other AI-fueled copy grows and matures, Google’s response to its findings might as well. After all, if a large percentage of marketers start relying on AI to churn out basic content, like meta descriptions and FAQ sections, Google will have to find a way to recognize progress.

6. BOOM Goes the Volatility

There’s only one constant when it comes to Google’s algorithm and that’s that there is no constant. The company is notorious for changing up their features and the inner workings of their algorithm whenever and however they feel like it. But there’s a definite vibe that 2023 could bring even more change than normal.

It’s therefore absolutely essential that marketers stay up to day on changes that could roll out in quick succession. Don’t assume anything is up to date unless you’ve checked with Google’s announcements and you know for sure.

Of course, staying on top of algorithm changes can quickly become a full-time job. Set up news alerts with keywords like “Google algorithm updates” and “Google search news” and you’ll get pinged when something topical pops up. It’s also worth investing in an SEO expert who can not only let you know of important changes but also help you develop and execute on strategies to make those changes work for you or your clients.

The post 6 Must-Know Google Algorithm Predictions for 2023 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But if creating a memorable brand experience on your website is paramount, the good news is that it’s more about strategies than chance. And one of the most effective tools for grabbing an audience’s attention is high-quality website content writing.

The words crafted by website content writers are capable of defining a brand’s unique identity and projecting a powerful voice to the audience. Below, you’ll see how quality content on your site can establish a captivating online presence for your brand and prevent it from being swiped into the abyss.

What Is Web Copy?

In short, all content written on a website falls under the umbrella of web copy. This includes the content on a landing page for products or services, blog posts, articles and any other content that’s written to inform, educate or persuade visitors. 

Here are a few examples of the places you’ll find web copy:

• Homepages. Homepages serve as the hub for all other brand pages.
• Landing pages. These are pages specific to a campaign or product promotion.
• About us pages. Talking about a brand’s history, mission and team is a great storytelling opportunity.
• Contact us. If visitors click on your contact page, they’ve taken an action that requires compelling copy to usher them along.
• Blog posts. A brand’s blog is often the most significant outlet for establishing a brand voice and identity.

Simply put, web copy is any sentence or word that shows up on your website. As a highly effective means of communicating with your target audience, the copy you use can serve or sabotage your brand’s goals.

Who’s Writing Web Content and Why? 

Any discussion of web copy necessarily involves engagement. It involves informing, attracting and persuading visitors by means of creative, magnetic copy that pulls readers in and refuses to let go. When it does, the ensnared readers remember the interaction.

A website for a store specializing in linen dresses for upper-class consumers needs engagement that translates into sales. Great web content can help achieve this. But this same content also translates into brand recognition across the fashion industry and within the store’s target audience. 

This brand recognition and organic boost to business is the context in which copywriters work. They’re responsible for writing memorable and compelling copy that aligns the message with the brand’s voice. And the work takes time: Copywriters often spend hours researching, writing and editing a single page to ensure accuracy, relevance and audience buy-in.

Copywriters work in diverse segments and produce strategic content for companies of all sizes. Others who specialize in specific industries, either through many years of writing about them or from hands-on experience working in them, are known as subject matter experts.

By mastering the nuances of a particular industry or topic, these writers are capable of blending insightful, in-depth analysis and thought leadership with captivating, persuasive copy. They can also make complex topics accessible to a wider audience. This is the kind of content that stands as a cornerstone for a brand’s voice.

A good web content strategy also involves other experts:

• Content strategists. These are the pros responsible for planning and managing the strategic elements of the content.
• Marketers. This is the team responsible for aligning content strategy to marketing efforts and business goals.
• SEO specialists. These people ensure your content and website are optimized to maximize search ranking.

Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Content for Your Website

When writing for a website, you need to be aware of mistakes that affect engagement and brand credibility. In many cases, these mistakes begin when the copywriter doesn’t understand the target audience, leading to the creation of unrelatable content. But there are other crucial mistakes to avoid when crafting web copy. 

Failing to Establishing Targets

Before you start writing, it’s essential to define the content’s goal. If you aren’t clear on this, try asking yourself these questions:

• Is the objective to increase your brand’s sales?
• Are you writing to increase brand recognition or improve your brand’s reputation?
• Are you introducing a new product or service? 

Every goal necessitates a different writing strategy. Applying the wrong strategy can transform an otherwise great piece into writing that feels disingenuous to readers, leaving a smudge on your brand.

Failure to Launch

Setting the tone and style from the beginning is essential to any written content. The first impression is what lasts, so your text should grab audiences and create a connection from the first few lines. In journalism, they call this the lead. 

The content must also resonate with the target audience by speaking to their needs, desires and interests. Generic, lifeless copy can come off as stale, or worse, unrelated to the products and services your brand provides. 

Too Much Jargon

Regardless of industry, everyone that visits your site should understand your copy. Using technical language, writing flowery prose or stuffing jargon into your copy can make visitors close their browser tab sooner than you’d like.

While it’s tempting to use jargon and technical terms to show in-depth knowledge, it can limit the reach of your content. Your target audience won’t always possess a mastery of the subject, and your copy might come off as confusing.

Poorly Structured Content

Just as an editor carefully considers each photo, title and text that composes the front page of a newspaper, your website requires strategically formatted content. Poorly structured content diminishes visitors’ interest and can drive your audience away. 

This entails an understanding of hierarchy and the correct use of headings and subheadings, bullet points, pull quotes and how and where to place photos and videos.

Forgetting to Proofread

Forgetting to review written content can damage a brand’s reputation. Typos and grammatical errors undermine your professional image. Before publishing any content, take the time to read and review it. If you can, leave it for a day and review it with fresh eyes. 

Ignoring SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing websites and content to help them rank higher in search engines. This is what helps brands target specific audiences, and when it’s neglected, it drains a website’s potential.

Content should be engaging and valuable first and foremost, but you shouldn’t ignore relevant keywords or phrases that fit naturally into your copy. This often requires a nuanced approach in which writers blend search engine requirements into content without diminishing the writing quality. For this reason, a great SEO content writing service can help.

Failing to Finish Strong

A call to action, or CTA, is quintessential in marketing and advertising, and it’s just as important for website content writers. In the same way that you need compelling copy to catch your visitors’ attention, you need to convert that attention into action.

A catchy phrase or a persuasive link can set readers on the path to completing the action you want them to take, especially if it’s personalized. This might be filling out a form, subscribing to a newsletter or purchasing a product. The bottom line is that creating website content without a strong finish is a costly mistake.

The Benefits of Great Content Writing

Writing great website copy requires a strategic vision and adequate planning. There are many nuances and variables involved, but when the copy is well-written and on target, the benefits are plentiful:

• Great copy builds trust with your target audience and establishes a reputation.
• Content is one of the most significant factors for ranking on search engines.
• A site with good copy is likely to have more traffic and better engagement.
• The best copywriting can convert new visitors into leads, capturing valuable customer information.
• Well-crafted copy is how brands differentiate themselves from the competition.
• Copy strengthens the connection between brands and their target audience.

Start Generating Brand Impact With Crowd Content

If you want your brand voice to get more recognition, your copy needs to resonate in readers’ minds. If this sounds like a challenging endeavor, it’s because it is. If you aren’t getting the results you were hoping for, Crowd Content can help define your brand’s identity and generate an impact. Crowd Content’s open marketplace gives you the opportunity to work with hundreds of freelance writers who can enrapture your audience and keep them thinking of your brand long after they’ve left your site. Crowd Content’s seasoned writers number in the thousands, so there’s no doubt you’ll find the perfect fit for your brand’s voice.

The post Rank Higher in Search and Convert More With Website Content Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In early 2023, the content world was atwitter with talk of AI content and what it might mean for the industry. We’ve got the details below about SEO artificial intelligence, including how you can use it and where you might want to back away from the machine.

What’s ChatGPT and Where’s the Controversy?

While SEO marketers that read industry blogs have seen plenty of content about AI through the years, the discussion has catapulted into the mainstream recently. ChatGPT, an AI content bot from OpenAI, is one reason for that.

OpenAI released the bot in November 2022, and it took around 2.5 months for the impressive piece of machine learning to go viral in the news cycles. While Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, says ChatGPT isn’t as innovative as it seems, the bot is wowing users across all industries—and bringing to light numerous ethical and practical concerns about this type of AI.

Professors at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania report that ChatGPT successfully passed both law and business exams, for example. It’s all enough to bring the lawmakers out; one United States congressman is already calling for a committee to consider regulations for this type of AI.

But Can You Use AI Tools to Write Your Content?

The answer really comes down to whether or not you should. ChatGPT and other fairly advanced tools do a decent job of stringing coherent sentences together and even providing some basic facts. And even less robust AI tools can create the type of short phrases common in search ads.

Before you take AI to the bank in an attempt to scale your content fast and cheap, though, you must consider all the ramifications. Here are just a few reasons not to use AI to create all your content:

• Google is against it. In early 2022, John Mueller of Google gave a pretty straightforward answer about the viability of AI-generated content in SERPs. He said that AI is a type of auto-generated content, and that it is banned by Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines). Publishing AI-generated content, said Mueller, can result in manual penalties that reduce page rank and devalue your SEO.
• AI can’t think like a human. Consumers want real value when they come to your pages or read your emails. While advanced AI content tools can string some pretty sentences together, computers don’t think like humans. The AI doesn’t think “What is most valuable to the reader?” or “How can I tell a story to capture the reader’s attention and persuade them to take action?” AI isn’t going to integrate powerful emotional marketing elements appropriately—that’s still the sole territory of human content creators. 
• AI is only as good as the data. Computer-generated content is often riddled with factual errors. That’s because AI content generators draw on all the data available to them on the web to create “new” content. You likely know from experience how hit-and-miss the internet can be with facts, and those issues find their way into the content generated by machines. This makes AI an especially bad option for long-form or complex content or even short-form content about niche topics. Check out our case study to find out how Crowd Content’s human writing force helped one client meet scale, quality and accuracy requirements not possible with AI alone. 
• AI might plagiarize. Since these bots are drawing on what was written before to create new content, there’s a chance they might “borrow” a bit too much, creating duplicate content. If you publish that, you could be accused of plagiarism. 

Why SEO Artificial Intelligence Is Different

While generating all your content with chatbots and other automated approaches is a bad idea for quality and SEO performance, that doesn’t mean SEO artificial intelligence is without value. In fact, as digital marketing gets increasingly competitive and the search engine landscapes become more and more technical, failing to turn to these tools can make it hard to succeed.

Here are some ways SEO artificial intelligence can be used to improve—and not compromise—content quality and performance in SERPs.

Conducting Competing Content Analyses

To rank higher in the search engines, your page has to bump someone else down. That requires creating a page that more effectively serves the searcher’s intent for the query and meets Google requirements for quality. 

Meeting these goals usually requires starting with competitive research. What are your competitors doing with content, who is most successful and how can you do it better?

You can do this manually. Search all your keywords, read dozens or hundreds of Google pages in the top results and take notes about the content—how long is it, what headers are used, what topics are covered, does the competition use conversational or journalistic language? The list goes on…and on.

Or, you can invest in AI to handle this for you. That’s part of what tools like INK and SEMRush do; they scour the web and return suggestions for content based on what’s performing well. 

Strengthening Keyword Research

Automation tools to find trending keywords have been around for more than a decade. AdWords was launched in 2000, after all. Today’s automated keyword research tools go further than basic lists and stats about monthly search volumes, though. 

AI can help you create entire keyword content plans by categorizing keywords according to intent, overall topics, trends and search volumes. Instead of walking away with a list of keywords you have to shuffle into shape, you can get a well-organized keyword report that takes little effort to tweak into a viable SEO strategy. 

Planning and Outlining Content

Once you have the keywords and a basic plan, these same tools can help you plan and outline your content. SEO artificial intelligence tools can generate entire blog outlines or offer decent, actionable advice about:

• What subheadings you might include in content
• What questions are trending that you should answer 
• What semantic keywords and phrases can increase the SEO value of your page

Many of these tools also help you increase the SEO-quality of your page by helping you keep reading levels in check, reminding you to create meta tags and offering suggestions for the number of images you might need. 

Writing Some Content

SEO artificial intelligence tools can even be used to create limited content to help you scale your approach. You shouldn’t use machines to write entire blog posts, but you can definitely put AI to work creating formulaic meta descriptions or blurbs. Just make sure you have some human quality assurance processes in place, because when a computer misunderstands the assignment, it usually does so spectacularly. 

Balance SEO Artificial Intelligence With Human-Forward Content

Crowd Content has always embraced technology when it serves a purpose for our clients and adds value to the content we create. If you want to scale content for SEO and aren’t sure how to balance old-fashioned creativity and human talent with new SEO AI tools, we can help.

The post SEO & Artificial Intelligence: Where You Can Use AI and Automation and Where You Probably Shouldn’t appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Boost Conversions With Better B2B Copywriting

Copywriting is the heart of every content marketing strategy for B2B companies. The text bears a heavy burden when you’re ranking a business website or driving traffic with online ads — it determines whether the reader takes the next step or bounces over to a competitor.

Whether you’re handling B2B copywriting in-house or outsourcing to B2B content writing services, concise, compelling copy is a surefire way to increase ROI and boost revenue.

What Is B2B Copywriting?

B2B copywriting is the process of creating written marketing content that’s targeted to business customers. It focuses on the unique needs and pain points of companies. Typically, in-house writers and B2B content marketing services use this type of copy to educate customers and promote their products.

B2B vs. B2C Copywriting

The difference between B2B and B2C copywriting lies in the audience; B2B copywriting is directed at businesses, while B2C copywriting targets individual consumers. This critical distinction affects everything from the tone to the calls to action. After all, businesses and consumers have dramatically different problems, budgets and timelines.

While B2C sales are typically about speed and convenience, the B2B process often involves educating customers and forming strong, long-term relationships. A single B2B sale can lead to years of repeat business, so communication is key. High-level copywriting is so valuable, in fact, that many companies opt to work with B2B content writing services to access professional writers on demand.

10 Tips for Successful B2B Copywriting

Whether you’re writing copy for a client or your own business, use these tips to sharpen your insights and tighten up your text.

1. Write to Buyer Personas

The people who read B2B copy might be administrators, purchasing managers or even business owners. When you understand exactly who you’re writing for, it’s easier to create effective, targeted copy.

That’s where buyer personas come in. These profiles describe a specific type of customer, giving you a clear picture of their buying process. It’s not unusual for companies to use multiple personas.

A buyer persona might include details about the customer’s:

• Business priorities and needs
• End goals
• Decision-making timeline
• Reporting structure
• Challenges and pain points
• Working environment
• Age and gender
• Communication preferences
• Current solution

Buyer personas inform a laser-focused copywriting and marketing process. They also help you create B2B content ideas and build an editorial calendar that coincides with customers’ purchasing cycles.

2. Define a Target Channel

For each writing project, identify where the text will be published. Are you writing a Facebook post? Creating an informational article for the company website?

Your target channel drives the structure and content of your copy. An Instagram post needs an attention-grabbing hook and a short paragraph that creates a human connection. A sales page, on the other hand, is longer and focused on conversions.

Make sure to keep your buyer personas in mind as you’re selecting a channel and crafting text. This is particularly important when it comes to different generations. For example, Gen Z office managers and Baby Boomer technical sales directors often have disparate tone and platform preferences.

3. Focus on Benefits

When you’re writing for business customers, it’s critical to focus on the benefits your products or services offer. What value do you bring to clients’ companies?

If you’re selling accounting software to small businesses, you could explain that the payment reminders go out automatically, so managers don’t have to hassle clients about unpaid invoices. This strategy zeroes in on the client’s pain points and provides a quick solution.

It sounds simple, but many companies miss the mark. They focus on their own philosophies, processes and products but fail to address customers’ needs. Purchasing managers don’t have the time to connect the dots — they just want an effective solution.

4. Position Your Business as an Expert

B2B purchases can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Given the high stakes, it’s important to position your business as an industry expert. The content, phrasing and insights should display a commanding knowledge of the field and the client’s needs. Your goal is to make the customer feel comfortable and confident putting a piece of their company’s operations in your hands.

The right vocabulary can go a long way toward establishing yourself as an authority. If you’re selling to hospitals, for example, you might use “census” instead of “the number of admitted patients.” They mean the same thing, but the former is more common among health care professionals. It’s a small, subtle touch that demonstrates insider insight.

Bear in mind that the people who read B2B content aren’t always subject matter experts, which means that your copy must walk a fine line. The content must clearly communicate your expertise, all without using jargon that alienates people in administrative and support roles. 

5. Get Clear on Your Brand Voice

Brand voice — the way a company’s personality shines through in text — sets great copy apart from the crowd. If you can capture your business’ unique character in the style and tone of your writing, it leaves a lasting impression.

A great brand voice should:

• Align with brand values
• Resonate with the target audience
• Stay consistent across all customer interactions
• Distinguish the business from competitors

6. Tell Your Brand Story

A brand story explains the history and importance of your company in a way that speaks to customers’ deep-seated beliefs and feelings. It goes beyond the facts on an “about us” page, capturing the essence of the business and explaining why buyers should care.

Compelling brand stories weave together facts and emotions. Legendary adventurer Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia because he couldn’t find lightweight, functional climbing gear; Burt’s Bees arose from a love story between an off-grid artist and an eccentric beekeeper.This strategy capitalizes on the way humans respond and connect to stories. When you weave a narrative into your B2B content, it makes the copy more memorable and convincing.

7. Understand the Purpose of the Copy

Exceptional B2B copywriting is artfully relentless — every sentence and phrase moves the reader closer to a specific objective. Before you start writing, define the purpose of the content. It serves as a reference for everything from word count to word choice.

The most obvious B2B copy goal is to sell a product or service, but that’s just one option. It all depends on your business objectives. When you have an upcoming product launch, you might create copy that builds anticipation and awareness. If your company wants to strengthen existing relationships, your goal could be to help customers get the most value from a past purchase.

8. Make Customers’ Lives Easier

Once you’ve crafted a snappy, persuasive piece of B2B content, edit ruthlessly. Brevity and clarity are the hallmarks of powerful B2B copy. If you can express an idea in five words, don’t use 10. Likewise, stick short, focused paragraphs to keep readers’ attention.

Business customers are often juggling multiple projects and deadlines, so it’s important to get your message across quickly. To avoid an off-putting wall of text and make readers’ lives easier, you can:

• Place important information higher on the page
• Use tables and infographics
• Break up text with headers and bullet points
• Put key ideas in bold

Customers should be able to scan the page in seconds and understand the content in seconds. When readers can find the information they need quickly, they’re less likely to click the Back button.

9. Create a Clear Call to Action

When a potential customer finishes reading your copy, do they know what to do next? If not, it’s time to rethink. Every piece of content should have a clear call to action (CTA) that helps the reader engage further with your brand. In most cases, your CTA should be closely related to the purpose of the copy.

Possible B2B CTAs include:

• Buy a product
• Get a free quote
• Schedule a consultation
• Download a white paper
• Join the email list
• Chat with a representative
• Read a related article
• Connect on social media

10. Know When to Get Help

B2B copywriting takes both time and skill, which can present a challenge when you’re ready to scale. If your writing needs are beginning to exceed your capacity, it might be time to look into B2B content development services. Companies like Crowd Content work with large teams of experienced writers, so they can help you ramp up production quickly or tackle smaller projects that require specific expertise. To find out how our expert writing and editorial teams can streamline your company’s copywriting, contact us today,

The post 10 Tips for B2B Copywriting That Converts appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What Is Blog Writing?

In a professional context, blog writing is the process of creating informative articles related to your business. Each blog post supports one or more operational or strategic goals. If you’re positioning the company as an industry authority, for example, you might write thought-leadership posts related to current developments and trends. Other articles might be designed to build brand recognition, educate readers about your products and services or drive customers to an online ordering system.

What Are the Benefits of Blog Writing?

A strategic, well-written blog can have a profound effect on your company, whether you’re running a start-up or growing a small business. Some of the most important benefits include:

• Boost search engine ranking. Google loves fresh content; when you publish regularly, it’s easier to rank your website higher in the search results.
• Build credibility. Whether you work in the B2C or B2B sector, a well-written blog showcases your institutional knowledge and establishes your company as a credible, authoritative resource.
• Increase website traffic. The more pages you have on your website, the more traffic you receive. A blog also creates more chances for potential customers to find your company.
• Foster customer relationships. Every blog post is a chance to provide more value to customers and create loyalty that sustains your business over the long term.
• Expand content marketing strategy. A blog opens up a world of opportunities to grow your company’s content marketing strategies and reach a larger audience.

Google E-A-T — What Is It?

E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google uses this concept to evaluate its search algorithm and ensure that the rankings are showing the best possible results for users. In late December 2022, Google released a new version: E-E-A-T, or experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

• Experience: The creator demonstrates first-hand experience in the topic they’re writing about.
• Expertise: The creator has the appropriate skills, certifications or knowledge for the topic at hand. This is particularly true for topics that affect the reader’s money or life.
• Authoritativeness: The creator is known as a reliable, authoritative and trusted source for the topic area
• Trust: The content is safe, accurate and honest.

To stay on Google’s good side — and rank high in the search results — your website must have a high level of E-A-T (or E-E-A-T). Writing a blog can go a long way toward improving your standing.

Why Hire a Professional Blog-Writing Service?

On the surface, blogging seems simple. That might be true of a personal project, but professional blogs are held to a higher standard. In addition to content creation, professional blog-writing services deliver the strategy, optimization and technical know-how you need to build a successful business blog.

1. Adapt to Algorithm Changes

Search engines adjust their algorithms regularly; in fact, Google made more than 4,000 updates in 2021 alone. A single change to the algorithm can affect your search engine rankings overnight, so it’s important to keep track.

Blog-writing services monitor algorithm updates closely, so you don’t have to. They can help you adjust your content strategy and edit older blog posts to align with new guidelines. This constant vigilance makes it easier to maintain your rankings, web traffic and sales funnel.

2. Access Professional Writers and Verified Subject Matter Experts

Blog content writing services make it easy to source professional writers with expertise across a range of fields. Most companies also provide editing services to ensure that your content is polished, free of mistakes and easy to read.

Why does that matter? Start-up and small blogs are often written in-house, usually by people without a writing background. Chances are, many of your competitors fall into that category. When your blog is written to a professional standard, your company automatically looks more credible and authoritative by comparison.

As your blog grows, you may want to expand beyond your core competencies or tackle topics that demand accuracy. Some content services can provide verified subject matter experts to evaluate the blog posts and provide a “reviewed by” line. This extra step builds E-E-A-T, which is essential when you’re publishing about sensitive topics such as health care or personal finance.

3. Target the Right Audience

Successful blogs are written for a specific group of readers. Your target audience should inform everything about each post, from the way the article is structured to the tone and vocabulary you use. A blog post for college-aged YouTubers will be considerably different from a technical blog written for senior engineers.

That’s harder than it sounds, especially if you’re new to writing. For professional blog writers, it’s second nature — they know exactly how to identify your audience and adjust their writing accordingly. The result? Blog posts that resonate with your ideal customers.

4. Free Up Your Time for High-Value Tasks

As a business owner, there are certain tasks that only you can do. By handing off your blog to a professional service, you free up time to build client relationships and pursue new contracts. Outsourcing blog posts can be helpful even if you have an experienced writer on staff — it gives them more time to spend on high-value, conversion-focused B2B copywriting.

5. Enable a Consistent Publishing Schedule

When you’re juggling projects and deadlines, it can be a challenge to stick to a regular publishing schedule. If you can manage it, you can please both Google and the customers who find value in your content. If you can’t, it might be time to seek help.

B2C or B2B content writing services can deliver a steady flow of blog posts according to your needs. You can order them all at once or schedule them to align with your content calendar. Most services can even accommodate last-minute assignments to help your brand keep up with current news stories and emerging trends.

6. Help With Keyword Research and Topic Selection

Solid keyword research — finding the phrases your ideal customers are searching for online — is the foundation of every successful blog. Once you find the right terms, you can turn them into blog posts that attract traffic and bring in more leads.

Aside from writing, keyword research is one of the most important services that content agencies provide. They’re experts at identifying the keywords that will have the biggest ROI for your business. These highly targeted phrases and blog post ideas can give you a significant advantage over competitors in the industry. 

7. Provide SEO-Friendly Content

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for business websites. Strong SEO increases your chances of ranking well in the search results, making it easier for customers to find your company.

The thing is, effective SEO takes time — and when you’re running a business, you may not have the capacity to manage it in-house. A blog-writing service can take SEO off your plate entirely. Your content will come back ready to publish, complete with optimized headers and metadata.

8. Develop a Brand Voice

Have you ever noticed that many of the most successful global brands have distinct personalities? That’s mostly due to brand voice, which is the way a company expresses its personality in writing. A solid brand voice can help distinguish your business from competitors; it also helps customers make personal connections that inspire both sales and loyalty.

A blog can go a long way toward building your brand voice — but only if you’re intentional. Reputable writing services will work with you to develop a voice that aligns with your style and attracts the right audience.

9. Establish Brand Guidelines

When you put out marketing materials for your business, you probably use similar colors, fonts and image styles for each document. There’s a reason: Consistency breeds familiarity. It’s the same for a blog — when key elements remain the same across all posts, it creates a unified experience that helps customers recognize your brand.

Blog-writing services can help you establish and maintain guidelines. That way, every writer knows exactly how to capture your company’s style and voice. Some of the elements you can include are:

• Default tone
• Stylistic preferences
• Grammatical rules
• Words to avoid
• Brand-name formatting

10. Scale Quickly

The bigger your blog becomes, the more opportunities you have to bring in new customers, boost traffic and improve search-engine rankings. That’s why many start-ups try to grow their blogs quickly to help carve out a place in the industry.

If you’ve ever written a blog post, you know that producing content at scale is a gargantuan task. Publishing 25, 50 or 100 blog posts can involve hundreds of hours of writing, editing, formatting and publishing — something that’s not feasible for most business owners.

When you’re ready to go all in on your content strategy, blog-writing services are a worthwhile investment. You’ll have access to hundreds of writers who can complete your entire order, often in a matter of days.

Whether you’re planning to scale or you’re just dipping your toes into the world of business blogging, a blog-writing service can ease the transition. Contact Crowd Content today to find out how our expert writing, SEO and keyword research teams can help build your blog into a revenue-generating asset for your company.

The post Supercharge Your Content Marketing Strategy With a Blog-Writing Service appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It’s a demanding task — but achievable. Below, we offer ways to get your creative juices flowing so you can generate impactful ideas for your niche. We explore content formats to attract customers and ways to source topic ideas. And because you need more than random pieces of content to make an impact, we discuss how to fuse your ideas with a solid content marketing strategy.

B2B Content Marketing Ideas: Where to Start

When creating B2B content, you target business decision-makers who are solving commercial challenges. These customers make decisions that can impact an entire company and need reliable, industry-specific information to grow their businesses. That’s why B2B marketing differs from B2C methods, which may incorporate influencer marketing or appeal more to emotions.

Blog posts are at the heart of most B2B content marketing strategies — and for good reason. They’re versatile and can be structured to cover a range of topics. But they’re not the only way to share your knowledge. If you’re looking for fresh B2B content ideas, consider expanding your marketing to include different formats. Publishing various content types makes your site more dynamic and appeals to different user preferences.

• Case studies: Show the impact of your product or services and back it up with statistics.
• FAQs: Make it easy for potential customers to find the answers to important questions.
• Infographics: Present complex information visually to help customers understand topics and easily share content with their colleagues.
• Augmented and virtual reality: Leverage technology to offer immersive and interactive experiences, such as product demos, virtual showrooms, and interactive 3D models.
• White papers: Explore industry issues, and establish authority with in-depth analyses and thought leadership.
• E-books: Share your expertise in a downloadable format that’s creative and visual.
• Videos: Appeal to audiences who prefer to consume video content instead of reading.
• Webinars and podcasts: Invite experts to discuss topics in an interactive format.
• Glossaries: Define technical and industry terminology customers may not be familiar with. 

Finding B2B Content Ideas

To impress your audience with B2B topics for your niche, consider the information they need to do their jobs and how you can assist. For example, your content might:

• Provide data to support decision-making
• Summarize industry research or present your findings
  
• Share information from presentations you made at conferences
  
• Offer insight into industry trends and what you expect in the future
• Provide tutorials, guides, and checklists to help them through a process
• List tools to improve their productivity
• Offer free templates to make their workflow easier
• Give tips to enhance how they use your products or services
• Provide tables and charts to compare products 

Your customers may also have specific questions; go to the source to see what they want to know. Conduct surveys, or ask your sales and customer care teams what questions and issues often arise. Visit online communities, such as Reddit, or listen in on social media conversations to discover what audiences are talking about. Analytics is an essential tool to see which marketing emails produce clicks and which pages on your website perform best. Round out your research with a content gap analysis to find missing key topics on your website that have the potential to generate traffic.

Where possible, leverage your firsthand knowledge, and provide real-world scenarios and examples in your content. This helps your website address Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines by demonstrating experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

Successful B2B Marketing Begins With a Content Strategy

The right mix of content can drive traffic, build leads, and improve conversion rates, but it requires planning. The best way to brainstorm and harness ideas is through a content marketing strategy — it helps you create purposeful SEO content that satisfies your audience’s needs. Use the following tips to customize a B2B marketing strategy that guides your content production.

Identify your target audience and what matters to them

A successful content strategy is tailored to your core audience, so you need to understand your customers and produce content that caters to their problems. Before you nail down your B2B content ideas, reflect on your long-term goals, who you’re writing for, and the purpose of the content. Clearly understand what customers want to know at different stages of the buyer’s journey, and deliver exceptional content that answers those questions. 

Find out what competitors are doing

If you’re unsure how to make B2B content interesting, look into what your competitors are doing and how they’re ranking on the SERPs. Suppose you manufacture cloth made of pure cotton. Your direct competitors are companies that produce the same kind of cloth, and your indirect competitors sell other fabrics, such as silk or polyester blends. Essentially, these companies either sell identical products, variations, or replacements for your product. Chances are these competitors distribute content to rank for the same keywords and attract your target audiences. 

Competitive analysis is invaluable for planning your content. You can use tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to understand what keywords your competitors are ranking for and the volume of traffic they’re getting. This gives you an idea of the content users are looking for and gaps in your competitors’ strategies. For example, if you have a SaaS product and competitors are talking about how to scale small businesses, you might go a step further to create content about common mistakes small businesses make when trying to scale. 

To draw in more customers, you also need a unique selling point. When creating content on common topics in your niche, highlight aspects of your business and topical authority that set you apart from your competitors. This helps you create an impression in your customers’ minds and gives them a reason to choose your company over others.

Incorporate cluster strategies 

A content cluster is a way of organizing content by theme. It uses a main pillar page as a gateway into the high-level topic, directing audiences to related, in-depth pieces. This strategy enables you to interlink your content to improve user experience and establish authority to boost your SEO.  

To create a content cluster, you need to conduct SEO and keyword research, determine your core pillar pieces, and decide on cluster articles that support those pillar topics. Once your content marketing ideas for B2B are in place, you can start writing high-quality blog posts and internally link them to each other.

Let’s look at an example of how this works.

Decide on a main idea related to your product or service. If you’re a content writing business, the customers who land on your page are likely looking for ways to upgrade their existing content strategy. So, let’s say your first pillar piece is about content strategy. You then create a list of overarching topics that cluster around this one. 

For example:

• Does your content strategy make a difference?
• 5 ways to create a solid content strategy
• Common content strategy mistakes 
• Should you hire a content writing team?

Once your topic cluster is ready, create a content brief for each article with subheadings to avoid repetition. Ideating content in this way helps you develop multiple ideas to cover specific overarching topics in more detailed chunks. AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, can assist with brief creation.

This clustering strategy also helps you push out more pieces of content that relate to each other and link back to a common, final destination — the conversion page of your website. 

Creating a cluster strategy

Developing compelling content clusters is simpler than you think. Follow this structure for an organized approach:

• Pick a topic or a main idea.
• Research keywords for that topic.
• Audit existing content to see what you’ve already covered.
• Chart out overarching blog ideas related to your topic and the high-ranking keywords.
• Create content briefs and assign writers.
• Link between articles in the cluster.

Emphasizing quality

Remember that a solid content strategy is only the first step. You also have to deliver quality content. Even if you identify relevant topics and use the right keywords, your content needs to provide value to the reader. Flesh it out with nuanced observations about your industry and back it up with statistics and research. 

If your strategy and content are in place and your customer clicks through your site, there shouldn’t be anything off-putting about your conversion page to cause friction. Make sure you have a good conversion offer, demo, or clear contact option. Minimize distractions or other links so visitors can maintain attention while buying your product or service.

In this way, content clustering can help you bring structure into your content marketing strategy and help you achieve your B2B content marketing goals.

Don’t forget brand marketing and positioning

Brand positioning is the impression people have of your business in comparison to your competitors. It’s what sets you apart and gives you a distinct place in your customers’ minds. But how can you position your brand using your content?

1. Talk to your customers and find out their pain points. Find out what they’d like you to do differently, how you can offer more value, and why they chose you over a competitor. This gives you an idea of what you’re doing right and what you should improve. Your openness to feedback also creates a positive impression of your brand and shows you care about your customers’ needs.
2. Promote your USP. Determine what sets your brand apart from others. Incorporate your USP into your content marketing and give your customers a reason to choose your brand over others in the market. Emphasize how you can help them and why they should trust your company over another.
3. Let your brand voice shine. Is your company a startup that uses humor to appeal to audiences? Maybe it’s an established brand that conveys authority and expertise. Use tone and voice in your content to convey your brand’s message and shape how your customers perceive you.

Plan in advance

B2B companies that posted more than 11 times a month received 3.75 times more leads than those that posted a handful of times. That’s a lot of content to manage, but an editorial calendar can keep your strategy on track. Organize your B2B content marketing ideas, slot them into your schedule, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

We recommend planning content 6-8 months in advance, even if you only publish a few times a month. This creates a consistent output and enables you to align content with important occasions, such as product launches or seasonal events. Preparing your content in advance also allows time for research, writing, editing, and quality assurance, preventing sacrifices in quality due to rushed deadlines. 

Consider working with writers who understand SEO concepts. Outsourcing your blog can help you draw on fresh perspectives and quickly stock up your content inventory.

Revitalize Your B2B Content Marketing

If you’re trying to establish your company as a leader in the B2B space, a solid content strategy and high-quality content are essential. The focus should be on creating content that’s useful to your target audience and attracts organic leads to your business. At Crowd Content, we have the writers to set your content strategy in motion. Our talented B2B content marketing writers help you create blog posts, white papers, and SEO content that builds trust with decision-makers and boosts your business.

The post How to Create B2B Content Ideas for Your Blog appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

According to a survey of business-to-business content marketers by the Content Marketing Institute, more than 90% of businesses use blog posts for content marketing. Keeping up with that competition can take a lot of work, though, including posting blog posts once a week or more consistently.

HubSpot has some recommendations on how often you should post given different audience sizes and marketing goals:

Source: HubSpot Blog Frequency Benchmarks

It can take up to 6 hours to research, write, edit and publish a single blog post of around 1,000, so maintaining a competitive publishing pace can take a lot of work. Choosing to outsource blog writing is a great way to balance the time-management scales for your in-house marketing team.

Hiring a freelancer or otherwise outsourcing content marketing has many benefits, but one of the most important is cost savings. Instead of searching for a full-time employee, offering a salary and benefits, paying extra overhead costs and having to keep up with additional payroll tax obligations, you can hire a freelancer for an hourly fee or a flat rate per project, saving your business a lot of money.

If you’ve never hired a freelancer before, the process can seem a bit daunting. This guide explains how to outsource blog writing and offers tips for working with freelancers and content services.

Preparing to Outsource Content Writing

Before you create a content schedule and start hiring freelancers, there are a few things you should know about outsourcing writing work. The first is that not all writers are the same. Someone who’s extremely talented at writing technical manuals or fast-paced novels may not be as skilled at writing blog posts for the purpose of promoting a business. If you want to hire someone to write a blog post for marketing purposes, make it clear that you’re looking for someone with blog-writing and content-marketing experience.

Should You Outsource Your Blog Content?

Outsourcing can be a great option for many businesses, but obviously, it’s not a one-size-fits all solution. To understand whether it might be right for your business, consider the following questions:

• Is your blog inactive because you don’t have enough time to write new posts?
• Would you rather pay per hour, per word or per post than hire a full-time or part-time employee?
• Do you have a busy marketing team that doesn’t have the capacity for writing blog posts?
• Are you losing search engine rankings to competitors with more or better content?
• Do you want to scale up blog content marketing efforts without increasing your in-house team?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, outsourcing may be a good option for your team.

When Should You Start Outsourcing Blog Content?

There’s no wrong time to start outsourcing. Sometimes it’s definitely a good time to consider outsourcing content writing for blogs are:

• You’re preparing to launch a blog for your site or business and don’t have in-house copywriters
• You have an established blog but in-house staff don’t have enough time to write the number of new posts required to reach content marketing goals
• You want to reach a new audience or branch out into a new service or sector but don’t have someone on staff who can write compelling blog posts for that niche
• Analysis indicates your SEO is suffering and you need to bulk up your blog or conduct a campaign to refresh older posts quickly

Any of these situations, or scenarios similar to them, are great times to try outsourcing blog content creation. To better understand when outsourcing content for your blog might be a good idea, let’s dig into some specific benefits of outsourcing blog writing.

Benefits of Outsourcing Content

One of the biggest benefits businesses experience when they outsource content writing is cost savings. It can cost $64,000 on average for an in-house content writer who can write around 240,000 words per year. When you outsource, you may be able to get as much as half a million words for the same amount.

Other benefits include:

• The ability to scale up to meet more robust blog publishing demands
• A diversified writer base that lets you address more topics with greater expertise
• Increases support for quality — when content outsourcing is managed correctly, it can actually improve the overall quality of your content

Of course, preparing well with the right steps to outsource blog writing lets you manage the process well to make high-quality content more likeley.

Preparation Steps When You Want to Outsource Blog Writing

If you’ve decided that outsourcing is right for you, it’s important to hire the right people and set clear expectations. Follow these five tips on how to outsource blog writing for your business.

1. Find the Right Writers

One of the most common pitfalls of outsourcing a blog is working with the wrong people. To outsource content writing effectively, you must take time to find talented writers who understand your needs and have experience working with business owners. When you’re ready to hire someone, be sure to include the following information in the ad:

• The length of each blog post
• Keyword usage requirements (if any)
• Linking requirements
• Desired tone/style
• Amount of experience required
• Blog topic
• Payment method (direct deposit, business check, etc.)
• Hourly rate or payment per post

Desired tone refers to how you want each blog post to come across. Some companies are formal and use a lot of jargon in their marketing materials, while others prefer a more conversational style. It’s important to mention the topic of your blog so that writers who don’t feel comfortable writing about that topic can remove themselves from consideration.

The more information you provide up front, the more likely you are to get applicants who are knowledgeable about your blog’s topic, willing to accept your proposed payment amount and capable of achieving your desired tone.

Making a Decision

Once you receive a batch of applications, you may want to have a staff member screen them and eliminate the ones that don’t match the requirements outlined in your advertisement. The initial screening takes a little time, but it can help narrow down your options considerably. After the initial screening, you should have several applicants left in the mix. Make a decision by reviewing their writing samples and choosing the top two or three candidates for a telephone or video interview.

Or, you can skip the entire process of recruiting and vetting blog writing freelancers by working with a company like Crowd Content, which ensures you have immediate access to hundreds of writers.

2. Manage Writers Effectively

Even if you hire someone with a decade of writing experience, remember that they’re new to your business. They may have writing talent, but they don’t know much about your products or services, your target audience or your marketing goals. Before you assign a blog post, take some time to get the writer up to speed. Explain what your business does, what kind of customers you serve and what results you expect to get from your blog.

3. Communicate Standards Clearly

Writers aren’t mind readers, so make sure you communicate standards clearly when you outsource blog content creation. If each post must be a certain length, tell the writer when you give the assignment. Make sure the writer has a copy of your company’s brand guidelines or internal style sheet. If there are any words or phrases you don’t want the writer to use, let them know before they begin writing.

The more information you provide in the beginning, the less time you’ll have to spend asking the writer for revisions or making edits to ensure each blog post fits your vision.

4. Tackle Problems Right Away

The vast majority of freelancers want you to be impressed with the quality of their work, but everyone misses the mark on occasion. If there’s something you don’t like about a blog post, tell the writer. They won’t be able to fix it unless you let them know right away. If the writer starts missing deadlines or taking a long time to respond to your emails, have a conversation about your expectations. You can work together to find a solution that works for everyone — but only if you acknowledge there’s a problem and make a good-faith effort to communicate effectively.

5. Prepare Order Briefs

If you decide to outsource blog writing on a consistent basis, get into the habit of writing an order brief for each assignment. An order brief outlines your expectations for the order, making it easier for the writer to meet those expectations on the first try. Your order brief should include the following:

• Length: How long do you want the blog post to be? Give the writer a maximum word count or a desired range (e.g. 1,200 to 1,500 words).
• Formatting requirements: Do you require HTML headers, italics, short paragraphs, bulleted lists or other formatting elements? Describe them.
• Style and tone: Do you want the writer to use a conversational tone, or do you want them to use a “just-the-facts” style of writing? Should the writer speak directly to the reader?
• Target audience: Who will be reading the blog post? Can you provide any information about their age, income level, geographic location or other characteristics? The more information you provide, the easier it is for the writer to meet the needs of your audience.
• SEO guidelines: If you want the writer to include a certain number of links or use a keyword a minimum number of times, spell out the requirements in your order brief.
• Images: Do you need images? If so, can you provide access to a paid photo service, or should the writer look for free stock photos?
• Content: Do you have any specific points you want the writer to cover, such as the pros and cons of the topic or the costs associated with using a service?

Grow Your Business with Blogging

If you outsource blog writing, you’ll be able to publish high-quality content without taking on a full-time employee or having to write your own blog posts. Outsourcing can even help you improve your SEO results and increase your credibility, giving your business a competitive edge.If you don’t have time to vet your own freelancers, consider working with an agency. Partnering with an agency gives you access to all the benefits of outsourcing without the hassles of managing your own writers. Crowd Content can help you hire freelance writers with years of blogging experience.

The post 5 Things to Plan for When You Outsource Blog Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But producing content at scale takes time. According to data, it takes over four hours on average for businesses to write a blog post—an increase of 67% over a seven-year span! Ebooks can take twice as long as they are usually more custom and in-depth.

And many business leaders publish books to establish authority in their field and boost their company brand. If a blog post takes four hours, imagine how long a whole book would take!

That’s why finding a business ghostwriter is key to scaling content marketing. Outsourcing content to a ghostwriter frees up time to focus on strategy, and business ghostwriting services enable marketing departments & executives to increase output.

You first need to figure out how much it costs to hire a business ghostwriter. With so many factors impacting ghostwriting costs for businesses, how do you sort all this out?

And what are the benefits of business ghostwriting to weigh against costs? Without understanding both sides of the equation, you can’t calculate investment returns.

In this post, we’ll overview what business ghostwriting is all about, what criteria influence costs and how to optimize the efficiency of ghostwriting.

Once you master the ins & outs of the costs of ghostwriting on your business and how to turn those costs into an investment, you can improve your content marketing to increase traffic and convert more leads.

Or maybe publish that industry book to (finally!).

What Is a Business Ghostwriter?

Business ghostwriting is when you hire an external writer to write blog posts, ebooks or business books while you retain writing credit.

Simply put, you’re paying an expert writer to write your content marketing for you. This helps you save time and create content at scale.

Ghostwriters create content of all types, from 300-page business books to short blog posts designed to promote a product or service.

Business ghostwriting services are ideal when determining how to grow your business using content marketing because content development is a core principle of content marketing.

Successful ghostwriters come from a variety of professional backgrounds, from software developers who write technical manuals to creative writers who can connect with customers.

In other words, with the right team of business ghostwriters, you can solidify content production processes to improve your overall content marketing, get more leads and increase sales.

How Much Does a Ghostwriter Cost on Average?

The cost for a ghostwriter depends on many factors, such as what type of content you need, how long each piece needs to be, and how much research the project requires. A ghostwriter may also charge more if you ask them to include images, hyperlinks, and other content elements.

For example, business ghostwriting starts at $5,000 per book, according to wWriting coach Lisa Tener. If a ghostwriter charges hourly, the cost of a book could be between $30 to $200 per hour, depending on the project’s scope. Per-word rates for this type of work typically range from $1 to $3.

Book ghostwriting can be costly because of the prestige associated with publishing a book people can buy at a bookstore and hold in their hands. Other types of projects cost much less.

According to the American Writers & Artists Institute, professional writers typically charge at least $450 to create the home page for a website and $250 to $750 for an information page, which may include how-to guides, buying guides, and product reviews. 

Case studies typically cost $1,200 to $2,000, according to the Professional Writers’ Alliance, while white papers cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000.

Of course, these are just averages. Ghostwriter costs across all types of projects fall into a few pricing structures:

• Per-word pricing
• Flat-rate pricing
• Hourly rates
• Per-project rates

Per-word pricing

Ghostwriting rates per word vary dramatically — from 1 cent to several dollars. These prices factor in both the writer’s experience and the specific project.

For example, it’s common for writers to charge more per word for projects that require a lot of research. You’ll also incur additional costs if you need your ghostwriter to interview people or watch lots of video content to get a feel for your brand.

While there’s no set rate across the board, you can expect to pay 5-10 cents per word for simple blogs and general web content written by entry-level ghostwriters. A writer with a few years of experience may charge upwards of 20 cents per word, and subject matter experts or technical writers command an even higher premium.

You’ll also pay more if you need an ebook or white paper. Creating an ebook can cost businesses at least 50 cents per word, depending on quality and research requirements, while a white paper requires a budget of up to $1 per word. Both types of content can easily cost you thousands of dollars, but they also showcase clear authority to cement your position within a niche.

Flat-rate pricing

Some ghostwriters use a flat-rate scale, where you’ll pay a specific amount for content up to a certain number of words or per page. This payment structure usually gets cheaper as the word requirement increases, so it’s better than straight per-word pricing for businesses needing long-form content.

While ghostwriting rates depend on the writer’s skill level, you should expect to pay about $50 to $75 for a 1,000-word blog post written by an entry-level professional. In comparison, expect to pay up to $250 for a blog of this length if you engage the services of more experienced ghostwriters.

Hourly rates

Like per-word rates, hourly ghostwriting prices vary considerably, depending on the type of content and the experience of the individual writer. For example, the median hourly rate of a copywriter is $28, but this rate ranges from $25 to $31. 

Copywriters handle various types of marketing writing and related content, which is often an ideal match for businesses. However, general content writers typically charge a few dollars less per hour and can handle blogs and the most basic forms of website copy. Again, expertise plays a significant role in these prices.

Unless you’re looking to hire an in-house ghostwriter, you generally won’t encounter hourly rates as often as per-word and per-project fees. 

However, accepting an hourly rate may be advantageous if you’ll need your ghostwriter to attend several meetings during the planning and publishing process. This way, you can cover the extra work without negotiating it into the project as a separate payment.

Per-project rates

Per-project ghostwriter fees make the most sense for anything that isn’t a simple blog post or web page because they allow your ghostwriter to factor in all the additional work required, such as SEO, image sourcing, and research.

This pricing structure is also ideal for social media posts and emails, since these types of content require extra planning and creativity that a per-word rate won’t cover. Social media content costs up to $10 per post, while emails may cost up to $50, jumping much higher for long lead-generation pieces.

Expect to pay about $400 for a 2,000-word blog post, $50 to $100 or more for product descriptions (depending on the length and complexity), and around $1,000 for a landing page. Additional requirements will add to these costs, but the benefit of a per-project rate is that you know how much you’ll need to pay upfront before you accept the contract.

How Successful Businesses Use Ghostwriting Services

You may be wondering how to use a ghostwriter.

Leveraging ghostwriters enables you to optimize cost-efficiency while scaling output and maintaining quality all at the same time.

And with bylines and writing credit, you retain your brand’s authority over your area of expertise. It’s a win-win!

While there are four main types of ghostwriting content: website copy, ebooks & business books, fiction and memoirs, businesses focus mostly on web content like landing pages, blog posts, ebooks, and business books.

Content for business ghostwriting services

• Landing pages: Business ghostwriters can write keyword-rich landing pages with compelling calls to action, helping you generate leads or convert your existing leads into paying customers.
• Blog posts: When you want to educate your target audience and demonstrate SEO authority, blog posts are a go-to. Ghostwriters deliver well-researched posts to engage audiences and increase your traffic and conversions.
• Ebooks: Think of ebooks as middle-of-funnel collateral for your content marketing. Users can download these mini-books as part of the lead nurturing process to move through your sales funnel. Ebooks are usually longer than blog posts, so it’s vital for the writing to flow well. Professional ghostwriters can write ebooks from scratch or take existing blog content and repurpose it for you.
• Business books: If you’re a growing business and want to establish a professional reputation in your industry, authoring a book is an excellent way to accomplish this goal. But writing a book can be incredibly time-consuming. A ghostwriter can alleviate the burden of researching and writing your book, giving you time to focus on the business.

Leveraging business ghostwriters where possible in your content marketing strategy can save you a lot of time.

Advantages of Hiring a Business Ghostwriter

Ghostwriters can help you achieve flexibility and reduce the cost of your content marketing efforts. They can also bring third-party knowledge and experience to the table to increase the quality of your content.

Time savings

As a business owner, you have to juggle everything from marketing and customer service to bookkeeping and inventory management. You may not have enough time to research and write the content necessary to help grow your business.

On the other hand, large companies may want their employees to focus on product development, customer service, and other roles, leaving little time available to create a content marketing plan and consistent production schedule. Outsourcing content production to ghostwriters can help you publish consistently without dedicating much time to content creation.

Cost savings

When you hire a full-time writer, their salary or hourly wage is only one of your costs. You may also need to offer benefits, pay extra taxes, and cover the cost of a new computer or other equipment the writer needs to do their job. These costs add up quickly, especially for small businesses. When you have a writer on your payroll, you have to cover these costs regardless of whether you need content.

Ghostwriter services are less expensive, since you only pay for the content you receive. You don’t have to cover the cost of their computer equipment or internet access, pay any extra taxes (since they’re responsible for their own taxes), or worry about finding space for them in your office. As a result, working with a ghostwriter can save you a significant amount of money.

Of course, you can also leverage both types of writers. Hiring a ghostwriter can maximize your in-house writing team’s performance by allowing them to focus on time-sensitive tasks and your most important pillar content.

Increased flexibility

If you hire a full-time writer, they may not have experience writing every type of content you need. You could get around this problem by employing part-time writers with different skill sets, but then you’d have to find space and purchase equipment for both of them.

A better alternative may be to hire different ghostwriters for each type of project. For example, you’d work with a business book ghostwriter if you wanted to publish a book. Then, you’d work with a second ghostwriter if you needed a case study or white paper. This gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility.

How to Hire a Ghostwriter

If you’re ready to take advantage of all the benefits of business ghostwriting, you have two options.

The first is advertising online, screening applications, reviewing work samples, and conducting interviews until you find the right ghostwriter for the job. If you go this route, set aside plenty of time for reviewing samples — you’ll want to find someone who can write in your preferred tone and keep your target audience engaged.

The second option is to seek an agency with many business ghostwriters available for immediate work. Working with an agency eliminates the need to advertise, screen applications, and conduct interviews, freeing up a lot of your time.

If you work with an agency, you can also request a business ghostwriter with experience writing about your industry. Writers with niche expertise will communicate the value of what you offer and match Google’s desire for topical authority.

Start Growing Your Business with Ghostwriting Services

If you’re ready to learn how to grow your business with content marketing, contact a business ghostwriter today. To make hiring a writer even easier, partner with a company that works with qualified ghostwriters who are ready to take on projects of any size. 

At Crowd Content, we make it simple to find freelance ghostwriters for hire. We also have a team of SMEs who can review your content to ensure it demonstrates the expertise and authority Google loves.

The post How Much Does a Ghostwriter Cost for Business Writing? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This tale begins in Paula’s hometown in northern England. Paula has been writing professionally for about 10 years, and when she’s working, she’s often set up at a nearby pub. “It’s quiet during the day, the Wi-Fi is fast and the view of the river is great,” she says of her preferred workspace.

But once in a while, she ventures out to explore a hidden world on Earth. Did you know that some of the real-life landmarks, murals, public art and monuments in your neighborhood are portals of energy?

That’s okay if you read that sentence twice. We don’t usually cover alternate universes at Writer Spotlight, but there’s a proverbial first time for everything.

Paula plays an immersive, multiplayer game called Ingress. Using a mobile app, players are tasked with finding and collecting a resource known as XM from various locations around the world. The “agents” work with and compete against others. “I once spent a week stranded in a remote part of Scotland because I was trying to do something in the game and there was a snowstorm,” Paula says. That’s determination!

For those of you who haven’t heard of the game, Tech Crunch describes it as similar to Pokémon GO, but more grown-up and without the “cutesie monsters”: “It’s like capture the flag mashed up with one massive worldwide game of tug of war, with a bit of Matrix-y cyberpunk dressing slathered on top.” Yes, please take a moment to absorb all that.

The world of Ingress sounds fascinating, but unfortunately, there isn’t a demand for finely crafted content here. We’re going to let the agents focus on hacking portals in their digital battlefield, and head back to a more familiar world filled with H1 tags, semantic keywords and bulleted lists.

Paula comes to Crowd Content with a background in computer programming. “I’ve done technical reviews for O’Reilly, but not had my own work published by them yet. I’ve also written for Need2Know Books and Packt Publishing,” she says. She’s most comfortable writing technical content, but her favorite Crowd Content project involves blurbs about assisted living facilities in the United States. “It took me a while to get used to the brief but now I enjoy them,” she says from across the pond. “I’ve learned so much about out-of-the-way little towns in various states of America!”

Thanks to her top-notch writing skills and ability to hit deadlines, Paula enjoys steady work at Crowd Content. But, her freelance journey hasn’t always been this easy. “I was on really bad content mills for a long time,” she says of her pre-CC days. But that’s in the distant past; in fact, she can’t quite recall how she found our platform. “It’s been a long time now, but I think it was via the site Freelance Writing Gigs,” she says.

We’re just pleased she found a home here. “There’s lots of work available and the editors and project managers are always happy to help,” Paula explains, when asked what sets Crowd Content apart from other writing platforms. She also appreciates the flexibility of being able to log on anytime. “At the moment, life is crazy,” she explains. “It’s nice to know that I can pick up work when I feel up to it, and not worry when I don’t.”

Outside of work, one of Paula’s favorite authors to read is Naomi Novik, whose popular Temeraire fantasy series introduces yet another brilliantly inventive world. The nine-volume series reimagines the Napoleonic war fought with an air force of dragons and aviators (note to self: add to TBR list). When it comes to relaxing in front of a screen, Paula gives a shout-out to The Grand Budapest Hotel as a favorite movie. And television shows? “That would be either Space: Above and Beyond or Good Omens,” she adds.

Books, check. Movies, check. Favorite pastimes, check. We’re progressing nicely here, but there’s so much more we need to know. Paula, get ready for the speed round.

What’s your favorite restaurant or meal? “As odd as this sounds, I visited Coldstone Creamery for ice cream once in 2006, then returned in 2011 and it was still as good as I remembered it. Best ice cream ever!”

What are the five worst words in the English language? “Ghost, myriad, whatever, stalker, origin.”

What do you find most challenging about writing content? “Sometimes I struggle to get started….those first few words are always the hardest ones to put down in any order.”

Do you have any advice for new writers? “Always check the brief, even if you have worked on a project before. Things do change and it’s embarrassing to get caught out!”

If you could change one thing about our platform, what would it be? “I wish editors could see the date your work was submitted. I once wrote a huge batch of descriptions and got the same thing wrong in all of them. The editors thought I wasn’t taking feedback on board when they were actually picking up old work for several days after.”

Complete this sentence: When I’m not working, I love to… “Explore new cities and collect unique location visits in Ingress.”

Sounds good, Paula, but please don’t get stranded again. We’ve got a few orders waiting on the boards for you.

Well, this edition of Writer Spotlight has been quite an adventure, and we appreciate Paula sharing her stories and helping us to kick off 2022 in style. As we wrap up, I’d like to also thank all of you for making Crowd Content part of your world. Which freelance writer are we dropping in on next month? Maybe it’ll be you!

The post Writer Spotlight: Paula Hart – Brave New Worlds appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But, just because your name’s not in lights, you still deserve to take a bow on center stage. That’s why we love it each month when we get to pull a writer out from behind their computer screen. They get to bask in the writerly spotlight and the rest of us learn some cool facts about our virtual colleagues. Case in point: we had no idea that today’s featured scribe regularly steps onto a stage — we’re talking a literal one, here — to wow audiences with her musical skills. In fact, if we had a talent show, I’ve no doubt she’d challenge for first prize. 

Now, you’ve got to read on!

Meet Elizabeth Michael, known in real life as Annie. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Annie now lives in Studio City, a Los Angeles neighborhood where the Hollywood stars shine bright. 

Annie has been writing since she “was old enough to use a pen”, flexing her creativity in writing groups while in school. Over the last decade, she’s translated her talent for composing clear, focused copy into a side gig as a professional online writer. When a friend from another platform referred her to Crowd Content, she ventured into our neck of the internet and has settled in as one of our most consistent and reliable freelancers.

What is it about our community that keeps her coming back to pick up work from the queues? “The support staff on Crowd Content is the best out of any platform,” Annie says. “The weekly pay is great, and I love the variety of projects to choose from.”

You know we love compliments, but in an effort to be fair and balanced, we also ask Annie for suggestions of how to make things even better. Despite the invitation to offer a critique, she’s giving us a flawless five-star review. “Nothing, everything is great,” she enthuses. Just what we like to hear!

Our content managers are equally delighted, relying on Annie’s writing prowess to deliver all sorts of copy to clients. When pressed to pick a favorite project, she gives a shout-out to one team in particular. “I really enjoy writing the Indeed articles,” she says of the career website. “Every batch is a little different from the last, the pay is great, and the editors are really nice.”

She does find some types of writing easier to tackle than others. “With online content, implementing specific keyword phrases can be challenging — it can create awkward sentences,” she explains. She also has a little confession to make. “I try to avoid technical writing when possible, it’s not my strongest area.” Fair enough. All writers have their proverbial kryptonite, so we’ll give her a pass on that one.

In an ideal world we’d get to keep Annie and her smooth prose all to ourselves, but her skills are in high demand. She lives in the showbiz capital of the world, after all. Annie works in the television industry as a transcriber and script coordinator. She gets scripts ready for production, incorporating changes and proofreading and formatting the pages.  

While this sounds glamorous, this work goes on outside of the public eye, just like content writing. It’s only when she has time to play that she takes to the stage. She exchanges her laptop for a microphone and lets a whole different side come to the surface. “Outside of writing, my main interest is singing,” she explains. “I sing all types of music and play the piano, but enjoy cabaret/musical theatre the most.”

This creative passion needs an outlet, and Annie is part of a music school that lets her express her love for music and performance in front of audiences. “We put on shows, and I perform at cabaret open mics,” she says. I trust that Annie is setting aside VIP tickets for all of us at her next appearance.

In the meantime, our show must go on.  We’ve got more ground to cover, so let’s get back to the task at hand: getting to know everything about our writer of the month. 

Who is your favorite author? What’s your favorite book? “It’s hard to pick one author but Stephen King is at the top of my list, followed by Judy Blume. One of my favorite books is She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb.”

What’s your favorite restaurant or meal? “Favorite restaurant is Perkins Family Restaurant in Minnesota.”

What’s your favorite TV show or movie? “Too many TV shows to choose — lots of favorite movies but my top three are Ice Castles, All That Jazz and Magnolia.”

Do you have any advice for new writers? “Don’t be afraid to take on assignments that you may feel are challenging, those projects may end up being your favorites down the line.”

What are the five worst words in the English language? “For me, the worst words (to spell) are bureau, weird, hyacinth, professor and accommodate.”

Complete this sentence: When I’m not working… “I love to shop online, attend my voice lessons and perform with a band.”

Well, the house lights are coming up, so that’s a sign this writerly spotlight is over. My appreciation goes out to Annie for a welcome interlude from keywords and commas. We love finding out who’s behind the smiling profile pictures on the platform. Maybe next time, it’ll be you!

The post Writer Spotlight: Elizabeth Michael — And Now, A Musical Interlude appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Can a piece of software really have this kind of impact? Absolutely. In this article, we’ll look at some of the features of content optimization tools and how they help accomplish your goals. You still need to lean on your creativity and expertise, but these platforms can fine-tune what you create for better search engine algorithms and content for your target audience.

Using Content Optimization Tools to Enhance Your Workflow

Consider what your content needs to accomplish to further your business goals. Your articles, landing pages, and white papers must:

• Surface in front of your target audience
• Encourage customers to visit your website
• Provide helpful information that solves their problems
• Persuade them to convert
• Communicate clearly and engage readers from beginning to end

If you’re doing it well, producing great content requires effort. This can be time-consuming when trying to stick to a regular publishing schedule. Content optimization tools can help you pick up the pace, assisting with:

• Keyword research. Find the keywords your audience uses and understand their search intent so you can create content that perfectly aligns with their needs.
• SEO optimization. Make sure you follow best practices for keyword usage, meta titles and descriptions, internal linking, and backlinking.
• Competitive analysis. Evaluate top-ranking pages to find opportunities to leapfrog competitors in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  
• Content ideation. Learn what topics to cover in your content to address the subject matter in depth. AI-powered platforms suggest relevant topics and generate content outlines in seconds.
• Content analysis. Most tools improve the readability of your content, pinpointing spelling and grammatical errors and suggesting ways to improve structure and flow.
• Performance analytics. Track metrics such as traffic, engagement, and conversions to ensure your content achieves its goals. This data shows where your strategy needs adjusting so you can fine-tune your tactics and improve results.

Content Optimization Tools to the Rescue

You may be wondering which optimization tools are best suited for your workflow. Some tools are weighted toward SEO and keyword research, while others are strong in AI content generation. We’ve evaluated some of the most popular tools on the market to give you a sense of the functionalities available:

• Semrush
• INK
• MarketMuse
• Surfer SEO
• Clearscope
• Topic
• Frase

Semrush

Semrush is widely recognized as one of the top search engine optimization tools on the market. It has over 55 tools and reports to help with keyword research, SEO, competitor analysis, and content marketing.

Key Features:

Semrush draws on its vast databases and SERP analysis to help with content optimization. The following tools are especially useful for shaping your content: 

• SEO Content Template: This tool generates a template for your content based on the search terms you input. It analyzes the top 10 ranking pages and offers guidance about keywords, word count, readability, and potential backlinks. You can also get insight into how your competitors use keywords as part of their on-page SEO.
• SEO Writing Assistant: You can connect this tool to Google Docs, Word, or WordPress to help you craft content in real-time. SEO Writing Assistant provides feedback on SEO optimization, tone, clarity, and originality. You can also turn to its AI features to help you compose or rewrite text.
• Keyword Overview: Understanding user intent is necessary to create valuable content. The Keyword Overview tool shows you user questions relating to each keyword. Consider answering these in your content to make your writing more informative and helpful.
• Backlink Analytics: Backlinks are external links that bring visitors to your site. These links signal to Google that your site is credible and valuable. Use the backlink tool to analyze the quality of your links and those of your competitors to improve your site’s backlink profile and authority.

Semrush also has robust performance-tracking utilities, making it an all-in-one tool for supporting your content strategy from start to finish. You’ll get the most value from Semrush when you leverage its content planning, creation, optimization, and analytics tools together. 

Pros:

• Extensive keyword and user intent data at your fingertips
• SEO, PPC, and social media features in one package
• Detailed yet user-friendly interface

Cons:

• More expensive than other tools if you only need basic features
• Limited data for search engines other than Google

INK

INK is an elegant yet mighty app that combines OpenAI’s generative AI with an SEO assistant. It’s focused primarily on content creation, analyzing search engine results in real-time to guide you in writing competitive content.

Key Features:

• Content planning: INK suggests relevant keywords for your topic, grouping terms with similar search intent. Use these topic clusters as the basis for your content strategy.
• Competitive analysis: Find out what topics your competitors cover in their articles and the ones you’re missing.
• Search engine optimization: Get tips for bringing your page up to par for on-page SEO, including meta tags, headers, and image alt-text.
• Content creation: Ask INK to create titles, lists, social media posts, calls to action, introductions, conclusions, and product descriptions. Be sure to refine the content to meet your particular goals and ensure it conveys your brand voice.
• Visual asset creation: INK also creates AI images to enhance your written content, reducing the time it takes to get your content ready to publish.

As you write in INK, the app compares your content to top-ranking pages and gives you a score. Your score increases as you implement INK’s recommendations. The company claims that content with a 97% or higher score is four times more likely to rank in the top 10 on Google.

Overall, its extensive AI functionality sets INK apart from similar tools. While the app provides comparable utility to Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant, it also gives you access to recipes, which create specific types of content from minimal input. 

Pros:

• Content scoring to help you easily gauge whether optimizations are worthwhile
• Detailed insight into what you should write about and how to target topics
• AI-powered features to simplify content creation

Cons:

• Suggested optimizations sometimes impact the flow and voice of content
• Limited free features

MarketMuse

MarketMuse leverages artificial intelligence to streamline the research, creation, and content optimization process. The platform analyzes your content against the competition to reveal opportunities, and uses highly accurate topic models so you can write the best possible content.

Features:

The following MarketMuse applications help tailor your content for search engine rankings and audience engagement:

• Questions: Use MarketMuse to generate a list of questions people often ask about a target keyword to shape your content to meet audience needs.
• Research: Find topics related to your focus keyword to add depth to your content. You can also discover keyword variants to help build topic clusters.
• Compete: Leverage a visual representation of keyword research to identify must-have topics and ways to differentiate your content.
• Connect: Build an internal linking strategy using suggested anchor text and matching URLs to enhance user experience.
• Optimize: Maximize the impact of your content by incorporating AI suggestions and aiming to achieve a target score.

MarketMuse is especially powerful if you want to gain an edge over rivals. The Competitive Content Analysis tool identifies topics and keywords missing in your competitors’ content, giving you the scoop on quick wins. The platform also has tools that can help you track the performance of your content against competitors and find gaps in the market.

Pros:

• Comprehensive content analysis features
• Competition analysis to find gaps in the market
• Can run audits of entire websites

Cons:

• More expensive than some other tools
• AI-driven content recommendations require careful consideration

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO is a suite of AI-driven tools that helps improve your website’s visibility in the SERPs. It analyzes on-page SEO factors and provides actionable recommendations for planning, writing, and verifying content.

Features:

Surfer helps get you from ideation to publication. The platform’s main tools include:

• Outline Builder: This tool synthesizes information about your target audience and keyword topic, providing a detailed content outline, including headings and questions. You can use the output to plan content and write briefs.
• SERP Analyzer: Learn about the characteristics of pages featured in the SERPs and the correlation to actual rankings. The analysis includes over 500 factors, including visibility, traffic, backlinks, word count, titles, image alt-text, page speed, and structured data. 
• Content Editor: The content editor works in real-time as you write, offering suggestions about readability and flow. Most recommendations are based on currently ranking pages and SEO best practices. The tool scores content out of 100, which some users may find more intuitive than Semrush’s quadrant chart.
• Content Audit: You can also use Surfer to review previously published content for improvement. It will determine if the content is up to date and relevant and detect SEO errors. This helps to improve your keyword position.

When you’re ready to publish, Surfer’s verification tools provide a final quality check and scans for plagiarism. If necessary, you can revert to previous drafts using version histories, which helps larger teams collaborate more effectively. 

Pros:

• Comparison of content to top-performing articles
• SEO audit capabilities
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Suggestions based on existing content, ignoring the role of off-page SEO
• Limited off-page SEO utilities compared to other tools, such as Semrush

Clearscope

Clearscope helps marketers, SEO specialists, and content creators to publish high-quality, search-engine-optimized content. The platform provides more extensive keyword analysis than most tools. It also offers detailed reporting features that let you track content performance. Performance analysis is one of the most important — and often overlooked — aspects of content marketing.

Features:

Clearscope’s data-driven features support your workflow from the research to the content upload phase:

• Content grade: Clearscope assigns a letter grade to your content based on SEO best practices and recommendations to improve your score. Suggestions are based on an analysis of high-ranking pages and help enhance the value and relevance of your content.
• Competitor analysis: The tool collects data from top-performing content in search engines to give you competitive insight. You’ll get information about topics that aren’t being covered by your rivals to help identify opportunities.
• Content briefs: When unsure how to approach a new topic, use Clearscope to generate a brief. AI automates most of this process, suggesting relevant keywords and linking opportunities to help get you started.
• Readability analysis: Like other tools on our list, Clearscope assesses the readability of your content to enhance user experience. Its readability metric is based on the Flesch Reading Ease score and assesses how easily your content can be understood. You’ll get suggestions on sentence length, structure, and other elements that impact clarity.

This platform integrates directly with Google Docs and WordPress for added convenience. This makes it possible to handle most aspects of content creation in one place without copying and pasting.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Keyword research and competitor analysis tools
• Detailed content brief ideation

Cons:

• Expensive compared to other SEO tools
• Limited internal and external linking guidance
• Few collaboration features

Topic

Topic is a content planning and drafting tool. It focuses on content ideation and offers robust SEO research capabilities.

Features:

Topic offers fewer optimizations than other platforms but shines in its research and analysis tools.

• Research Consolidation: Starting with a focus keyword, Topic scours three pages of Google search results to help you determine what to cover in your content. It suggests relevant headings, valuable questions, and additional keywords to ensure your content surpasses the competition.
• Gap Analysis: Topic’s AI technology identifies informational gaps within your existing content, providing recommendations on enhancing its value and authoritativeness.
• NLP Analysis: The platform analyzes top-performing pages in Google using natural language processing, identifying related subjects and questions that can make your content more comprehensive.
• Focus Keyword Analysis: The platform also suggests topics based on keywords, helping you determine user intent.

Once you have an outline, Topic grades your content during the writing process, providing instant feedback and actionable suggestions. This saves you from making extensive edits later.

Topic also prioritizes user intent throughout the content optimization process, ensuring your content aligns with audience needs. For example, if someone searches for “jaguar,” do they want to know about the animal or car? By analyzing what searchers want from a particular keyword, Topic helps you create a more satisfying user experience. 

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Research features help round out content outlines
• Integrates into Google Docs and WordPress

Cons:

• Dependent on AI-based optimization recommendations
• Lacks off-page SEO capabilities

Frase

Frase describes its content optimization tool as a form of smart AI. It uses natural language processing and content templates to enhance your writing. This generative AI is paired with extensive research and fact-checking capabilities, making the output less prone to errors and hallucinations.

Features:

Along with its unique smart AI templates, Frase offers essential SEO features, including:

• SERP research: The tool distills key data from the top search results for a particular keyword. It provides information on word count, domain ratings, search volume, and competition metrics to help you determine which keywords are worth targeting.
• Outline Builder: Frase’s simple drag-and-drop Outline Builder lets you generate briefs from scratch or SERP data. The tool recommends headlines, topics, questions, and statistics that are useful to include.
• AI writer: The AI writer tool creates content based on formulas that match the tone and requirements of various types of copy. This enables you to create high-converting copy, FAQs, and engaging introductions easily.
• Content optimization: After completing your draft, adjust your copy to improve your Frase quality score. This score reflects user intent and value, indicating whether your content is helpful based on what Google prefers to rank.

Pros:

• Unique Answer Engine tool helps you rank for snippets and other search features
• Extensive SERP research and competition analysis capabilities
• Relatively inexpensive for solo use and small projects

Cons:

• Depth of features may carry a learning curve
• Limited technical and off-page SEO toolset

Comparing SEO Content Optimization Tool Features

Combining AI and Human Oversight

AI-enabled optimization tools can help you target your audience, improve content quality, and speed up the writing process, but there’s another ingredient that can put you over the top: your unique brand voice, creativity, and knowledge.

As more marketers rely on AI to support content creation, there’s a risk that all content starts to sound the same. AI content can rank in Google in theory, but remember that search algorithms reward content that provides a superior user experience and demonstrates E-E-A-T. Focus on creating content that sparks curiosity, offers unique perspectives, and draws on real-life examples and expertise. This type of content will resonate naturally with your audience and perform well in search engines.

Create Content That Ranks

Whipping up effective content is no easy task, but content optimization tools can streamline the process. While using technology to accelerate your research, ideation, and writing is important, it is also essential to have a skilled writing team pulling the pieces together and making your unique content shine.

Crowd Content’s writing services are another great tool to have in your arsenal. With over 5,000 expert wordsmiths in our ranks, we can connect your business with the perfect freelancer to help grow your content marketing strategy and drive more traffic to your site. Contact us today to get started.

The post Content Optimization Tools: What They’re For and How to Choose One appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Meet Tim, who writes with Crowd Content as Liam Chetek. Originally from Oklahoma in the United States, Tim now lives roughly 4,500 miles from home. “Freelance writing has enabled me to live the expat life in Brazil,” he explains. That makes him one of an estimated 9 million American citizens who lives overseas. These expatriates do so for many reasons: work (27%), significant others (28%), and a passion for travel and adventure (16%).

Part of the appeal of spending time abroad is living like a local and immersing yourself in the charms of another culture. And, Brazil is an enticing option. Its diverse landscape makes up almost half of South America, touching every country on the continent except Ecuador and Chile. Brazil is also a welcoming place to hang out, according to a survey of 12,420 expats. Out of 186 countries, Brazil ranked highly for factors such as personal happiness (4th), leisure options (9th) and friendliness (10th).

Our featured scribe began writing professionally two years ago, transitioning from a more technical background. “Database administration, web development, and a whole bunch of things in between,” he explains. He’s always been passionate about expressing ideas on paper, and has kept a daily journal for a decade. You can find him tapping away on his keyboard from the coziness of his home in Brazil — “in my living room, leaning back on the couch with my feet kicked up on the ottoman,” he says. You’ve got to make the most of the comforts of home, right?

Tim discovered Crowd Content through “good ol’ googling”, so we must take a moment to thank Larry Page and Sergey Brin for bringing our worlds together. (We should also thank them for not naming their search engine Backrub, as originally intended. There’s a bonus tidbit for your next trivia night.)

Regularly delivering clear and to-the-point copy to our clients, Tim is an indispensable part of our content creation team. When asked what sets the platform apart from others, he replies, “Honestly, just about everything. Great community, amazing project managers and editors, great — and frequent! — pay.”

While Tim has been writing for Crowd Content for awhile, new writers come on board every day. It takes some time to familiarize yourself with the platform and build relationships, but it can certainly pay off with plenty of ongoing work. Tim offers up wise advice as you settle in. “I think I’d tell new writers to remember to be gentle with themselves. Writing is seriously hard work, so self-compassion is a must,” he says.

When he’s not navigating project briefs and working to hit those client deadlines, Tim’s in the kitchen. “Aside from writing, my biggest passion is cooking. I love trying new foods and reverse-engineering them so I can make them at home,” he says. And when he does head out to dine, he likes to go to “a little place called Click Gostoso that serves churrasco, aka Brazilian barbecue.” For those who aren’t familiar, this traditional style of cooking involves various meats grilled on long skewers over an open fire. The skewers are placed on racks so juices drip down onto other cuts, and the meat is carved right at the table.

Is anyone suddenly hungry?

Well, now that we’re warmed up and dreaming of barbecue, it’s time to turn the heat up a little and really get to know Tim. Here we go!

Who is your favorite author? What’s your favorite book? “Tough questions. I think my favorite writer at the moment is Albert Camus. As for my favorite book, it would have to be The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway.”

Do you have a preferred type of writing? “Not especially, though I do like a good first-person stream-of-consciousness narrative.”

Have you been published by any notable sites or organizations (digital or traditional)? “Not yet!”

What’s your favorite TV show or movie? “The one that comes to mind is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty — the newer one with Ben Stiller.”

Which project has been your favorite? Why? “I haven’t had a favorite project per se, but I do like writing things that intersect with technology and travel.”

What do you find most challenging about writing content? “For someone that loves novelty, writing content can be repetitive at times.”

If you could change one thing about our platform, what would it be? “I’d add a few Slack channels, or some other chat system for writers, editors, and managers to communicate in real time.”

What are the five worst words in the English language? “Can I answer with five consecutive words? I really hate the phrase ‘it is what it is.’“

Complete this sentence: When I’m not working I love to… “Do spontaneous, unexpected things that might lead to a good story.”

Like the skilled writer he is, Tim reels us in and sets us up for more. We’re keen to know what kinds of spontaneous, unexpected things he’s been up to, but those stories are going to have to wait. We’ve decided to instead task him with reverse-engineering some of those tasty Brazilian dishes so we can give them a try. In between Crowd Content orders, of course.

There are so many more of you talented writers we want to meet. Stay tuned as the spotlight shines on another Crowd Content freelancer next month. Maybe it’ll be you!

The post Writer Spotlight: Liam Chetek — Life as an Expat Writer appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

One way to stand out from the crowd is to hire subject matter experts (SMEs) or interview them for your publications.

What are subject matter experts and why are they more important than ever for marketers? Keep reading to find out.

What Are Subject Matter Experts?

A subject matter expert is someone who has highly specialized knowledge in a particular industry or field of study. SMEs often work on large projects in the information technology, engineering, and legal fields, but you can find them in almost any professional setting.

Copywriters and journalists also consult SMEs when drafting articles, reports, case studies and technical or scientific content.

Here are just a few of the ways subject matter experts use their expertise:

•Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals often serve as expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases.

•Workplace safety experts use their knowledge of OSHA guidelines to protect employees against work-related accidents.

•Data analysts rely on SMEs to help them identify trends in large sets of data. SMEs can also help data analysts better understand the metrics that are most important in a particular industry.

•Manufacturing companies often hire outside engineers to optimize new product designs or turn manual assembly processes into automated ones.

•Many companies hire software developers to solve complex problems or help them choose new software packages based on custom business requirements.

Increasingly, SMEs are also playing a significant role in content creation and SEO.

Why Are SMEs Important for Content Creation and SEO?

To drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into paying customers, your content must be both interesting and accurate.

Google is increasingly valuing E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) when determining search rankings, so having SMEs involved in your content creation can really boost SEO.

Readers can be even more discerning than search engines. If a reader catches you in a mistake, they’re less likely to buy from you. Working with subject matter experts can help you avoid costly errors and ensure your content is as relevant to readers as possible.

How Can SMEs Help With Content Creation?

SMEs can help you with the following types of content:

Articles: A subject matter expert can review your draft and make sure the content is accurate. You can also contact SMEs and ask them for quotes to incorporate into an article. Incorporating quotes from experts shows your readers you’re willing to go the extra mile to deliver high-quality, authoritative content.

Case studies: A case study is a great way to show prospects how your firm’s products or services have benefited your existing customers. Case studies usually describe a problem a customer was having and explain how a company’s product or service solved that problem.

They combine business facts with storytelling to create a compelling narrative that can be shared with potential customers. Working with a subject matter expert can help you make the case study as persuasive as possible without compromising quality.

White papers: A white paper can help you explain product features and benefits to prospective customers. Subject matter experts provide valuable input to ensure technical jargon doesn’t get in the way of helping prospects understand your value proposition.

Buying guides: If your company sells high-tech products, working with a subject matter expert can help you publish high-quality buying guides. These guides educate readers and help them understand why they should purchase one product over another.

These are the 4 most common content types that SMEs work on. But, SMEs add value to any type of content where E-A-T is important.

SMEs for SEO

Search engines prioritize unique content. A SME may be able to help you come up with an interesting angle for an article or alert you to a new trend in the field before everyone else starts covering it, helping you drive more visitors to your website.

A lot of content optimization tools guide SEOs to create content that covers topics and search terms that already appear in content ranking well in Google for a given search term. That can lead SEOs to create very similar content to their competitors. SMEs let you add truly original content by leveraging their unique knowledge and skillset. That can set you apart from the pack, and on its own may boost rankings.

SMEs are a valuable resource for companies that publish medical, legal, technical or scientific content. Even if you vet your freelancers carefully, a generalist may struggle to explain complex topics to a lay audience. SMEs can read through each article and make sure that every detail is accurate, enhancing your site’s authority.

Google (and other search engines) ultimately want to serve the best content to satisfy a searcher’s query. It makes sense that expert level content is more likely to do that, and Google uses various ways of measuring how effective your content is at helping its users.

Working with SMEs also creates opportunities to add expert bylines to your content. These expert bylines can help you attract backlinks from other sites. Because SMEs have expert insight, they can help you create truly unique content rather than rewriting what’s already out there. And, other marketers want to link to authoritative sources so having bylined, expert level content can be hugely beneficial in driving links.

All of this adds up to a much higher E-A-T score. In SEO, E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. While not officially a ranking factor according to Google, empirical evidence suggests that higher E-A-T does help you rank better for competitive search terms.

How to Position Yourself as a Subject Matter Expert

Here are some tips for becoming a subject matter expert:

1. Commit to continuous learning. No matter how much experience you have, there’s always something new to learn, especially if you’re in an industry characterized by frequent change. Sign up for professional associations, attend workshops and take online courses to keep your knowledge and skills as current as possible.

2. Start developing your own ideas. The more you experiment with new developments in your field, the more innovative you can be. You’ll also gain new knowledge and skills that you can share with others.

3. Build a strong social media presence. If you don’t already have accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, sign up as soon as possible and create profiles highlighting your credentials. Once your accounts are all set up, spend time sharing content and having discussions with other people in your industry.

4. Start sharing your expertise. Networking via social media is great, but it’s not the only way to share your knowledge and skills with others. Consider running a workshop, presenting at a professional conference or teaching a class in your area of interest. Starting a podcast or an educational YouTube channel is also an effective way to spread the word about your expertise.

5. Create a writer biography (bio). Not only does your bio explain your credentials, but it also provides a quick summary of your accomplishments. Your bio can be shared online, helping you promote your brand even when you’re busy doing other things.

What Crowd Content Is Doing to Connect with Subject Matter Experts

Crowd Content works with expert writers across a variety of subjects to produce high-quality content for businesses of all sizes. We regularly work with SMEs in specialized fields to ensure every piece of content gives readers a positive impression of our clients.

If you have a limited budget, we can incorporate quotes from experts or have SMEs review your drafts before you publish them. To find out how to work with one of our expert writers, visit the Crowd Content website.

The post Looking for Ways to Increase Your Site’s Authority? Try Working with Subject Matter Experts appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

From unraveling the mysteries of SEO jargon and revealing the best practices to steering clear of the antiquated tactics that could tank your rankings, we’ve compiled everything you need to know to optimize your content for SEO.

SEO and Content Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO for short) is intricately linked to content marketing. Quality content is essential for good SEO because it attracts search engines and readers alike. Without optimizing your content with the right keywords and SEO practices, you’ll likely end up in internet limbo. Optimized content reaches more people and establishes your site as a valuable resource, improving your rankings and visibility online.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the art of making your site and content more discoverable on various search engines. Google Search is the most common, with all SEO pros pining for the top-ranked position. Generally, the higher your content ranks on the SERPs, the larger the share of search traffic you get.

Written content, such as blogs and general web copy, is the most common and recognizable home for optimized text. But you can apply SEO to almost any platform with a search function. YouTube, Amazon Marketplace, the App Store — you can use SEO on each one to help hoist your content to the top of search results.

Many tactics go into SEO (more than we can get into here), but there’s one central tenet: Well-optimized content is the most valuable ranking factor out there.

And it makes sense. Google wants to show searchers the best possible content to help them satisfy their search intent. It’s all part of Google’s quality rater guidelines; Google prioritizes content that showcases experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. So, above all, people-first content is where it’s at, and Google keeps tabs on your application of E-E-A-T principles using search engine spiders (web crawlers).

“Google thinks more and more like a website visitor with every core update. So, with that being said, your content needs to be thoughtful and helpful to actual readers. Don’t write for the algorithm; write for human beings.” 

Joshua Pelletier, Content Director, BarBend

What are search engine spiders?

There’s no need to start spinning out over the next iteration of Matrix Sentinels — search engine spiders are entirely benign. Also known as “web crawlers,” search engine spiders are bots that filter through website content. For example, Google predictably calls its web crawler Googlebot, while Bing chose to name its standard web crawler Bingbot.

These autonomous programs sift through endless content and use a massive list of criteria to determine the best content. To make them happy, create quality content that comprehensively covers the search intent you’re targeting. Crawlers are ultimately trying to determine what human readers find most valuable, so in simple terms, you need to give the people what they want.

Why Optimize for SEO?

In the 21st century, consumers use the internet and, more specifically, search engines to find and buy products and services. To compete in the online marketplace, your site has to appear in the SERPs when people type relevant keywords into the search engine.

Imagine you go to Disneyland. The park is packed, and you mistakenly told friends you’d meet them “by the kiosk selling mouse ears.” That doesn’t exactly narrow things down, does it? SEO is like dropping a giant pin with your location. But instead of giving the roadmap to friends, you’re giving consumers everything they need to find you ASAP — before they find other friends and forget about you entirely.

The top-ranked site on the SERPS receives almost 40% of all the clicks. The site in position No. 2 gets 18.7%, and the third-ranked site walks about with just over 10% of the SERP traffic. After that, numbers fall off considerably.

The more SEO-optimized pages on your site, the more opportunities you have to earn significant traffic. So, creating optimized SEO content covering all the topics and search terms your buyers use is incredibly valuable.

SEO Best Practices

It’s time to dive into SEO content strategy. These are the legitimate techniques you can use to make your high-quality content stand out in the SERPs.

Start with a great SEO content strategy

Excellent SEO content doesn’t come out of nowhere. To optimize content for SEO, you have to start with a strong SEO strategy. Far too many otherwise talented people create articles and blog posts on the fly and try to optimize them afterward. More often than not, they end up with clumsy content.

You can avoid this inelegant scenario if you plan ahead, use proven keyword research tools, and weave SEO into your content as you go along.

• Research your audience before you begin. You can use a survey provider such as SurveyMonkey or Typeform to find out what your target consumer base wants.
• Conduct exhaustive keyword research. Once you know what your audience wants, determine their search terms. This can be as simple as using Google’s Keyword Planner or more advanced through SEO tools such as Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs. You should know all the keywords your audience uses and what stage of the buyer’s journey they apply to. 
• Focus on creating comprehensive content. Your keywords should help you develop a list of core topics to be covered, but take it a step further and look at latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords to discover related topics that are almost, if not equally, as vital. Say your primary keyword is “Las Vegas.” Conceptually related semantic keywords might include “Sin City,” “casinos,” “hotels,” and “Super Bowl.” For a shortcut, check out tools like Ink and MarketMuse that provide all-in-one, AI-driven research, audit, and optimization interfaces.
• Write long-form articles. Blog posts should ideally be between 1,500 and 2,500 words long. But that number can shift depending on search intent, the topic demands, and your content goals. Pieces that top 3,000 words get the most organic traffic, but that length isn’t always ideal for other formats. Use tools like Ink, MarketMuse, or Surfer SEO to determine the word count you need to hit to compete with existing search results.
• Stay on task. Longer articles rank well, but only if they’re thorough and avoid fluff or filler. Writing for the sake of writing won’t win you an audience. Writing a shorter piece packed with value is better than fluffing your way to the maximum word count.
• Create supporting visuals. Your content shouldn’t be a wall of text. That’s as daunting for readers as it is boring. In fact, content is reported to be 43% more persuasive when accompanied by visuals. Content with infographics or illustrations increases the overall appeal, legibility, and value. Images can even rank with Google Image Search if you optimize the file name and alt text.
• Include a clear call to action. Readers need to know what to do next, so point them in the right direction with a prominent call to action. This can help drive leads and conversions, while keeping visitors on your site and indirectly boosting your SEO.

Use keywords effectively

Keywords are critical to SEO. Forget everything you learned in 2003, including the idea that keyword stuffing has any place in modern times. Instead, follow widely agreed-upon basics:

• Use your primary keyword within the first 100 words and in one H2.
• Repeat the primary keyword a few more times in your content, but don’t go overboard.
• Include your primary keyword in your meta title, meta description, and page title.
• Work in 1-2 mentions of secondary keywords and related terms as naturally as possible. (Using one of these in an H2, too, doesn’t hurt.)

NOTE – Remember your primary keyword is the one that best represents the topic and search intent for which you’re crafting your content.

Today’s Google algorithms recognize synonyms and ignore stop words (a, the, which, at, on, etc.), so you can modify your search terms to make them more readable.

• “Piano lessons Philadelphia” becomes “piano lessons in Philadelphia.”

You can also change keywords in other subtle ways without losing Google points, like this:

• “Shortest route New York to San Diego” becomes “shortest route between New York and San Diego.”

Effective keyword use extends to image text, including alt text and captions.

“Don’t forget about secondary keywords. Secondary keywords allow search engines to further categorize text. They provide additional semantic information that helps algorithms make judgements about relevancy and topic.”

Kim Smith, Digital Marketing Manager, Clarify Capital

When looking for LSI keywords and additional topics needed to make your content comprehensive, you’ll find more than you can realistically focus on. Many SEO tools simply check to see if you’ve included these keywords because there seems to be a correlation with improved rankings. But the smarter way to approach this is to identify the subtopics they represent and create content to address them.

This hub-and-spoke approach adds value for the reader and naturally gets your related keywords in. Content strategists map this out by creating master pillar pages linked to cluster content that supports the main idea. Your pillar page might be about DIY weddings, while cluster pages cover hiring entertainment, making our decorations, and sourcing flowers.

Create high-quality content

Readers stay engaged with high-quality content. You might call it “sticky” content — it’s unique, entertaining, inspiring, and educational enough to keep your target audience glued to the page.

High-quality content usually comes bearing a few trademarks. 

• Relevant to your product or service
• Comprehensive and trustworthy
• Filled with practical advice
• Error-free and easy to read

“Get specific with your content and the value it delivers to your specific audience.”

Marin = Perez, Director of Content Marketing, Kajabi

If that sounds like a callback to the E-E-A-T standards we discussed earlier, that’s no coincidence. Googlebot can tell the difference between churnalism and content created by a thought leader. To ensure you make the grade:

• Pay attention to structure. Dynamic headers and subheads containing strategically placed keywords speak volumes.
• Meet your audience on their level. Lose the industry jargon, and speak plainly to your readers.
• Make your content shareable. Put social media buttons in a prominent place to make sharing easier.
• Use bullets and numbered lists. Organize your content and make it snackable with bullets, numbered lists, and other typographical elements.
• Compare your article with current SERP winners. Beat your competition by comparing your new content with Google and Bing rankings. Look for content gaps, and create content to fill them.

Use on-page content optimization 

High-quality content and SEO are decent on their own, but use them together and on-page content optimization can turn masterful prose into a true moneymaker.

• Use keywords organically. Don’t overdo keywords. Instead, use them naturally within the body of your content and in H1s and H2s.
• Know that location (and local SEO) is everything. Include location-specific phrases in H1s and your body content to optimize your site for local readers. Once Googlebot notices, your site will appear in geo-specific SERPs.
• Create scannable content. Break your body copy into digestible chunks to keep readers interested. Avoid excessively long paragraphs, avoid complex language, and keep sentences under 25 words. Organizational assists, including bulleted lists and H3 subheaders, can help with scannability, too.
• Don’t confuse the bot. Headings are essential, but you need to use them properly. You only need one H1 on your page, and headers should always follow the numerical hierarchy — H1, H2, and H3s when needed.
• Apply schema markup. When you publish, take the time to add schema markup to your content. This structured data gives you a better shot at getting your content into Google’s featured snippets.
• Interlink appropriately. Your content should be organized in topic clusters, and eventually, you should have content for every topic. Include keyword-rich internal links between these pages.

“Add structure. Use structured markup (schema) to ensure your classes and related product pages, as well as business information (name, address, phone number), is properly formatted for Google and other engines to index properly.”

Kent Lewis, President and Founder, Anvil Media

Outdo The Competition

Every piece of content you publish competes with a slew of content from other brands that are targeting the same search terms you are. You need to create the best possible content on a topic to stand out.

When looking at the competitive landscape, evaluate what the current top search results feature in terms of:

• Word count
• Topics covered
• Content types (text, images, video, etc.)
• Schema markup

Several tools can automate this research and score your content against your competitors so you know how you’re doing. The best ones to check out include MarketMuse, Ink, Content Harmony, and Surfer SEO.

E-E-A-T considerations

Google’s E-E-A-T update has been an industry-wide game-changer. For content to rank, it needs to showcase:

• Experience: Highlight first-hand, real-world experience related to the topic at hand. If you’re writing about pet health, you should have a pet and have gone through some of the things you discuss on the page.
• Expertise: Google will love your pet health page even more if the author has relevant expertise — perhaps a byline from an actual veterinarian or a well-known pet health guru.
• Authoritativeness: Position yourself as the go-to source for pet health. How your page is put together and the content you share should feel reliable. In other words, do readers believe you’re legit?
• Trustworthiness: Content can’t be purely editorial. Use proper attributions, source citations, and linked statistics to prove your site is informative, accurate, and safe. (Up-to-date site security certifications can help with the latter.)

You might demonstrate E-E-A-T by:

• Writing a detailed writer bio that demonstrates why you’re an expert on the subject
• Including links to authoritative sources in your content
• Seeking out quotes from other experts 
• Featuring data points from reputable sources
• Having your content fact-checked by a subject matter expert to ensure 100% accuracy

Optimize for domain authority

Domain authority looks at the quantity and quality of links to a website to determine that site’s importance. Every site gets a score ranging from one to 100. The higher your score, the more likely you’ll rank at or near the top of the SERPs. 

To improve your DA score, you must integrate links as you create content and find ways to encourage people to link back to your pages.

• Include internal links to web pages on your site, such as backlinks from cluster topics to pillar pages.
• Embed social media posts with links to your site in your content, encouraging people to share them. Tools like Click to Tweet help with this.
• Create graphics with embedded codes so people can easily add them to their site.
• Encourage people to use your imagery as long as they link to your site.
• Format your content to make it easy to reference. Tables, charts, and FAQs make your content easier to reference and link to.

By effectively interlinking all the pages on your site, you pass the authority from page to page, lifting all their search rankings.

Be accurate

Inaccurate and poorly written content can be a brand killer. Mistakes make you seem untrustworthy. To paraphrase Google Search Advocate John Mueller, Google won’t penalize you for sloppy writing, but your audience might.

Never publish content without:

• Proofreading your work
• Including outbound links to reputable sources
• Double-checking your links are correct and lead to active pages

Running your article through a plagiarism checker like Copyscape

Technical SEO Optimization Tips

While we’re primarily focusing on how you can optimize content for SEO, it’s important to note a few technical SEO optimization tips you should address.

• Check your site on a wide range of mobile devices. Responsive layouts tend to flow between gadgets, so check forms and links to ensure they stay clickable. Your content should be easy to digest and legible regardless of whether someone is scrolling on an Android tablet or flicking through on their iPhone.
• Play around with images to decrease your site loading time. Large, high-resolution images look great, but they slow websites down. Use optimized JPGs to display photos, and go for lossless PNGs if you need to incorporate pictures with text or transparent backgrounds.

Periodic site maintenance can enhance your search engine ranks, too. Check that all pages appear on your site’s XML map and that internal and external links are current.

Finally, ensure your site pages have succinct and descriptive URLs for a possible lift in your rankings.

SEO Techniques to Avoid

Every dog has its day, and that applies to SEO content strategy. Stay far away from the following tactics in 2024:

• Keyword stuffing: Often tied to keyword density, avoid cramming your targeted keywords in your content as often as possible. Keyword stuffing is ineffective, and if you do it anyway, you could get flagged by Google for having low-quality content.
• Duplicate content: Google doesn’t officially penalize sites for duplicating content, but when the search engine finds multiple sites serving up the same text, it decides which to rank and which one to bury. Embracing original content — even when producing hundreds of local SEO city pages or product descriptions — can keep you from cannibalizing your site.
• Spinning. Spun articles are the cheap designer handbags of content. They don’t rank well because they’re basically plagiarized and often read awkwardly. Google recognizes spun content as spam-like and subpar, so it’s best to skip it altogether.

SEO Content Optimization: Keeping It Real

To summarize that deep dive into all things content SEO optimization, here’s a summary of what we’ve discussed: 

• SEO optimization tactics are smoke signals for search engine bots or spiders.
• Search engine spiders crawl the web to index and evaluate content.
• Effectively optimizing your content for specific search terms and topics could result in high search rankings and organic traffic.
• SEO content creation best practices include on-page optimization techniques, careful keyword use, and informational accuracy.
• Evaluate your content’s competitive landscape and outdo the competition.
• Help boost domain authority by encouraging people to link to your content.
• Steer clear of antiquated SEO content tactics such as keyword stuffing or article spinning.

Optimizing content for SEO has a learning curve, but if you stick with the tips in this guide, you could scale to the top of a SERP like a total pro. Too busy to write your SEO content? Crowd Content has a team of 6,000-plus writers waiting to help. Our freelancers know SEO and can tackle everything from blogs to web copy to category descriptions.For more information, contact our managed services team or sign up for a self-serve Marketplace account today.

The post How to Optimize Content for SEO: A Quick Guide appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What Exactly Does SEO Mean?

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you know what SEO means. Please feel free to skip to the next section if so.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. In short, SEO is an online marketing strategy — and like other marketing strategies, its main purpose is to drive traffic to your business. SEO does that by helping your content appear in search results of various search engines – Google, Bing, YouTube, etc.

There are a ton of ranking factors that these search engines use to determine what content to show searchers. Most search engines want to show the best possible content to answer a searcher’s question, so that’s your goal.

Broadly, what you need to know about SEO when it comes to article writing is that you need to create engaging, comprehensive content that thoroughly explores a topic. You also need to optimize for some keywords that reflect that topic.

The most effective SEO strategies act like filters, helping your audience to find relevant content at every stage of their journey. And ultimately, it summons visitors who really want to buy your products.

Online Marketing Tactics 101

SEO article writing is just one of many online marketing tactics you can use to boost your business. Others include:

• SEO product descriptions, page content and blog posts
• Collaborative marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Social media ads
• Banner ads
• Pay-per-click (PPC) ads

Some of those strategies are known as “organic,” while others are “paid.”

Organic Marketing

Organic marketing drives traffic naturally — and it also builds brand awareness. It includes any traffic generating efforts that happen naturally and without any paid promotion. That could include traffic from SEO, social sharing, word of mouth, etc.

Blog posts about your company contribute to organic marketing. SEO articles fall into this category, too. Both can organically draw in traffic over time without you spending to win that traffic.

Paid Marketing

Paid marketing includes PPC, display ads, programmatic ads, social media ads and influencer marketing. You pay for ads or pay an influencer to promote your product. Some types of paid marketing aren’t too pricey; others are very expensive.

So, which tactics work best? In a word, both. Most successful online businesses use a blend of paid and organic marketing strategies to maximize their reach.

How to Write SEO Articles

If you want to write great SEO articles, you need to follow a set of rules. Why? Because search engines like Google use web crawlers, or spiders, to find your site. These bots “fetch” web pages, which they categorize — or rank — according to specific criteria.

In other words, if you want Googlebot to notice your site, you need to create attention-grabbing content. That’s SEO in a nutshell.

#1: Find the Best SEO Queries – Keyword Research

You can’t write SEO articles without knowing what search terms you’re targeting and what topics your audience is interested in. Before you start writing, make sure your company has done exhaustive keyword research to identify all the search terms your audience uses, what topics they represent, and what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re at.

At most companies, once this is done you’ll develop a content plan that makes sure you create content that targets all the topics your audience is interested in.

Keyword research is an amazing tool to help you understand your customers. Just make sure you’re using keywords to learn what customers are trying to do and what their search intent is. Make sure that your content is written to satisfy it. That’s the most important part of SEO writing these days.

Finding The Best Keywords

We had a chat with SimpleTexting marketing manager Alfredo Salkeld, who gave us some tips about SEO best practices. According to Alfredo, “the most successful SEO writers are those who know how to find queries that have purchase intent.” In other words, you need to incorporate the search phrases people use when they really want to buy a particular product. These phrases are called buyer intent keywords — and they’re the gold standard for SEO.

“Alright, Alfredo,” you might say, “How do we find queries that have purchase intent?” The answer is simple — albeit somewhat time-consuming: detective work. Before you begin, consider your ideal customer’s:

• Needs: What are their pain points? Why are they looking for your product in the first place?
• Wants: How could they use your physical products or digital solutions to solve their problems?
• Voice: Which words would your customers used to find answers?

Hint #1: most consumers don’t use overly technical language.

The Keyword Research Process

The next step is keyword research. You can perform keyword research yourself, or you can use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner or SEMrush. Here’s what you do:

1. Enter your seed keyword ideas into the search box
2. Review your keyword search results
3. Check out keyword metrics: search volume, SEO difficulty etc.
4. Pinpoint relevant keywords with a lower SEO difficulty score
5. Choose your short-tail (general) and long-tail (niche) keywords

Hint #2: Don’t pick misspelled keywords, because they’ll affect your article credibility.

Buyer intent keywords aren’t usually too ambiguous. Look for phrases like, “buy X,” “best X,” “price of X” or “coupon for X.” Stay away from lower buyer intent keywords — avoid “free” anything, for instance.

Some paid keyword research tools (SEMrush) actually let you filter for specific keywords types, so you can find buyer intent keywords more easily.

While search terms with buyer intent are most valuable, you’ll also want to create articles that target search terms used by buyers who are earlier in their buying journey. These search terms also have value as a source of top of funnel prospects. More on that later.

#2: Use Keywords Properly – Focus on Topics

Forget everything you’ve ever read about keyword stuffing. These days, Google and Bing penalize keyword-heavy pages, so keyword overuse might actually put you at the bottom of the stack. Instead, use your keywords carefully to ensure you get noticed without making a scene. Follow these tips for success:

• Identify the topic that your target keyword represents, and focus on creating a piece that comprehensively covers that topic
• Try to use your main keyword in your page title, in your first paragraph (or within the first 100 words) and again a couple of times in the body of your piece.
• Use secondary keywords at least once in your article.
• Identify complementary topics and LSI keywords that would help you create a more comprehensive article

Whatever you do, don’t force keywords into your piece. Google’s main mission is to identify quality pieces of content: if your content looks clunky, you can bet it’ll notice and knock you down a peg. Always focus on readers first and search bots second.

#3: Write Valuable Content

Let’s drill down into quality content a little more. Quality is a pretty subjective word, isn’t it?

What we mean when we say “quality content” is:

• Content is error-free and reads well, engaging the reader
• Well researched offering unique info
• Comprehensively addresses the topic it covers

Within the context of SEO, that means you should focus on white hat SEO (which is much more focused on delivering value to readers) rather than black hat SEO (focused on manipulating search algorithms and keyword stuffing) when you write your content.

White hat content still focuses on a target keyword and topic, but it doesn’t shoehorn it in to reach target keyword densities, and it certainly doesn’t do so at the cost of readability.

Don’t write general content that doesn’t offer any value: write topic-focused content that revolves around your main topic and keyword.

For example, if your main keyword is “paint suppliers in Boston,” you wouldn’t want to write about DIY in Boston. Instead, you could create a top ten list of painters and decorators in Boston.

Part of offering your readers valuable information is ending with a call to action – what can they do next? Do you want them to buy a product? Refer them to a related article or resource?

#4 – Focus on Readability

Break your text into snackable, scannable chunks — no more than three or four sentences per paragraph — to make it easier to read. Listicles go down well, and so do how-to guides.

“Most importantly, ensure that your content is readable—you want it to sound as natural as possible. Remember, the content is for your readers; search engines are merely the bridge to get your content across.” — Hung Nguyen, Smallpdf

Are your site visitors in a hurry, or do they have time to spare? Use your existing knowledge to craft quick reads or in-depth content to match your potential readership. If you’re not sure, create buyer personas — imaginary customers based on evidence — and use them as inspiration whenever you write SEO articles.

#5: Size Matters

When it comes to the inner workings of its search algorithm, Google doesn’t give anything away. SEO experts make educated guesses about what Google searches for and how page rank works. Short blog posts — maybe 300-350 words — used to be de rigueur; now longer blog posts — over 1,500 words — are “in.”

In the end, you need to let your subject dictate the length of your SEO article. You can wax lyrical about curtain rods, but will your readers really trawl through 2,500 words on the merits of steel vs wood? Probably not. In reality, most websites use a mixture of short and long articles to build readership and drive traffic.

Pro Tip – Evaluate the Competition

One of the most effective ways of crafting SEO articles that rank is to look at what already ranks. By looking at the top of Google results for your targeted search terms, you can evaluate what topics they cover and how long they are. This lets you understand what Google thinks is valuable to searchers, and guides you on what to cover and how long your piece should be to outdo the competition.

Numerous tools can help with this including MarketMuse, Ink, Surfer SEO, SEMrush’s Content Template and more.

#6: Think About Your Buyer’s Journey

You can use SEO articles to pull people into any stage of your buyer’s journey. Buyer’s journeys have four main stages:

1. Awareness: People first become aware of your product or service via social media, word of mouth, ads or SEO marketing
2. Interest: Prospects evaluate your business to see what your brand is all about
3. Decision: Interested consumers want to know more about your prices and shipping options are
4. Action: Visitors either become customers or they exit the sales funnel

“SEO article writing needs to serve your underlying business goals: increasing leads or revenue, either directly or by filling your remarketing funnel.” — Owen Mansfield, Majux Marketing

You can hone your keyword choices to match any of these four stages, like this:

• Awareness keywords: “best espresso coffee” or “how to lose belly fat”
• Interest keywords: “why X is the best coffee” or “how X can help you lose belly fat”
• Decision keywords: “how to get X for less” or “free shipping on X”
• Action keywords: “get free shipping on X for a limited time” or “save up to 50% in the X winter sale”

If you’re doing keywords research, you should sort your keywords according to what stage of the buyer’s journey they represent. Alternately, make sure your SEO team provides you with that info if they’re doing the keyword research.

For best results, write articles aimed at each part of the funnel — and make sure you’re creating content that speaks to what your reader is trying to accomplish at that point.

Articles Aren’t Always The Right Choice For Your Sales Funnel

While articles do help rank for keywords representing all stages of the buyer’s journey / sales funnel, for some businesses (especially eCommerce), the decision and action stage keywords usually don’t make sense to target with an article.

For example, if someone searches for “buy Nintendo Switch” that shows a ton of purchase intent and you’d want to direct them to a product page where they could take action. In this case, creating an SEO optimized product page will be way more successful and likely to rank as it better matches search intent.

What is SEO Article Writing: The Wrap

Let’s take a moment to recap SEO article writing. Like other types of organic marketing, SEO builds awareness, drives website traffic and — hopefully — draws each visitor into your funnel.

Leverage keyword research to identify search terms and topics important to your buyers, and then map those out to the stages of the buyer’s journey.

Then, map out what types of content you need to create to cover each topic. Articles work for most topics, especially ones higher in the funnel.

Remember you need to understand the search intent of the keywords you’re targeting and write to satisfy that. That’s your primary goal. But, you still need to do some keyword optimization.

Include your main keyword in your article title, in the first paragraph (or first 100 words), and a couple of times in the body of your piece. Make sure your content provides value, is comprehensive, and don’t go overboard on article length if you don’t need to. Benchmark your content as your top SEO competitors for the targeted search term and outdo them.

If you’re looking for stellar-quality SEO articles, optimized product descriptions and advertorials, get in touch with us here at Crowd Content. We work with entrepreneurs, SMBs and enterprise-level organizations: simply tell us what you need, and we’ll come up with a custom content plan.

The post Online Marketing SOS: What is SEO Article Writing? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The Internet also makes the world a little smaller, giving Crowd Content writers, editors and project managers a digital space to gather no matter where they live. We’ve connected with freelancers around the globe because of this unique ability to cross oceans and continents with a click.

One of our most active writers, Australia’s Brianna Ford, is the subject of this month’s Writer Spotlight. Better known as Kaia in real life, she spent time chatting with us about writing, traveling and where she found one of the best bacon cheeseburgers in the United States. Let’s get to it.

ALSO – Hire Freelance Writers Today

Kaia is originally from the beautiful city of Adelaide on the Australian coast. She takes full advantage of the flexibility of Crowd Content and the Internet to work from different locales. Before the pandemic hit, she spent a few years house-sitting in a variety of destinations, mostly in South Australia. With travel now on hold, she’s living with her parents until people take holidays again and she can resume her own travels.

Kaia began her writing career early. “I wrote my first short story at five,” she says. “It was about my Cabbage Patch Kids’ adventure at the circus.” Creating imaginary worlds has always been her preferred type of writing, but, she says, “I haven’t written any fiction in years.” This must mean we’re keeping her too busy, but perhaps this chat will inspire her to revisit the craft. It’s time for a Cabbage Patch Kids sequel, perhaps?

Kaia worked in an administration role before putting her writing skills to work as a tech writer for a government project. She credits a good, old-fashioned Google search for helping her find Crowd Content.

We casually ask her what she likes about our platform. Okay, we fish for a compliment, but she cheerfully obliges. Kaia credits “the people, the great projects and a willingness to help writers become better and achieve success” as the best features of the platform. When we inquire if there’s anything she’d change, she answers, “With the new auto-save feature, I feel like all my wishes came true!” Kudos to our technical team for that one.

Kaia writes a broad range of copy, including snappy product descriptions and captivating blog posts. She pitches in on whatever our project managers need help with, but she looks back fondly on one client in particular. “I really enjoyed the Link Business project, which finished quite a while ago. I always learned something new,” Kaia says. “It was also fun researching something for them and discovering a past article of mine was in the top Google results.”

While Kaia has successfully found her niche at Crowd Content, we know some of you are just starting out and looking for tips to make an impact here. She serves up this advice: “Listen to the editors and project managers. They want to help you get better.” And, if you feel nervous or intimidated about picking up a new order, Kaia suggests going for it. “Jump into projects, because there’s a lot of great work.” It’s true. We all started somewhere.

Now that we have a sense of what Kaia is really like, it’s time to shift this Writer Spotlight into high gear with the lightning round.

Do you have any hobbies or unusual interests? “I cross-stitch and plan to learn crochet this year. I also do CrossFit.”

Who is your favorite author? What’s your favorite book? “That changes pretty regularly, but Cory Doctorow is probably my favorite author at the moment. My favorite book isn’t one of his, though. It’s World War Z, by Max Brooks.”

What’s your favorite TV show or movie? “I don’t really have one.” (Have you tried 24?)

What do you find most challenging about writing content? “Finding new ways to say the same thing.”

Where do you write (office, outside, coffee shop, etc.)? “Mostly at my desk in my home office, but I do like to go write at the library a couple of times a month.”

What’s your favorite restaurant or meal? “I like a good bacon cheeseburger, and last time I was in the U.S. I had one in every city I visited to discover the best.” For those of you wondering which city earned the honors, it was Kingman, Arizona, on the famed Route 66.

Complete this sentence: When I’m not working, I love to… “When I’m not working, I love to read. Or cook.”

What are the five worst words in the English language? “Cut 100 words from the piece. It always makes the piece better, but it’s hard choosing what to delete.”

Speaking of which, my word count runneth over, so this seems a good place to wrap up. Kaia, I look forward to your Cabbage Patch Kids trilogy. Yes, I suggested a sequel earlier, but I’m upping the stakes and confident you can do it. We’ll go for a bacon cheeseburger when you’re done.

There are so many of you writers who keep Crowd Content happily buzzing. This edition of Writer Spotlight may be over, but we’ll be back soon with a provocative profile of yet another freelancer. Maybe it’ll be you!

ALSO – Writer Spotlight: Rachel Elle — A Peek Into the Life of a Crowd Content Pro

The post Writer Spotlight: Brianna Ford — It’s a Small World, After All appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

With so much information available online, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, especially if what you see isn’t useful or relevant to your needs. That’s where content marketing comes into play.

Content marketing is the process of creating and publishing original content that helps people in your target audience solve problems or learn more about the topics that interest them. Done right, content marketing can help you stand out from the crowd and attract more customers to your business.

But what is original content? And how do you create content that appeals to members of your target audience? We put together this guide to help you understand the importance of content marketing and learn how to develop content that gets results.

What Is Original Content?

Original content is content that’s never been published before. “Never published” doesn’t mean you took a piece of existing content, rewrote it in your own words and published it on your website. It means the content contains new ideas. 

Audience members are smarter than ever. They know when a company uses the same content over and over again or copies content from other businesses in the same industry. It’s especially obvious when publishers use spinning software or hire inexperienced freelancers to rewrite existing content. In many cases, the spun content is riddled with errors and doesn’t make any sense to a human reader.

If you want to use original content to attract new audience members and retain loyal customers, you need to be strategic. Think about how you can make your content different from what everyone else is publishing. If you achieve the right balance of originality, relevance and usefulness, you’ll be able to grow your brand and set yourself apart from your competitors.

Types of Original Content

Blog Posts

WordPress.org defines a blog as a website that maintains an “ongoing chronicle of information.” Blog posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, ensuring visitors see the newest posts first. When used for marketing purposes, a blog post should relate to your business in some way, whether you publish product reviews, interviews with industry experts or company updates.

White Papers

According to Michael Stelzner, the author of Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them, a white paper is a persuasive essay that promotes a product, service or viewpoint. A white paper should provide useful information to help the reader make a decision, solve a problem or understand more about a complex issue. This type of original content is often used in business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

Case Studies

Case studies tell a story about a company and its products or services. In marketing, case studies are used to highlight how a company helped one of its customers achieve a goal or solve a problem. Like white papers, case studies are often used for promoting B2B products and services.

Emails

Companies use email marketing to connect with audience members and promote their products, services and events. Each email you send is a piece of original content that can be used to help your business increase customer engagement or reach your sales goals.

Videos

The Content Marketing Institute defines content as “relevant and relatable” information shared with prospects, customers and other stakeholders. Using this definition, videos definitely qualify as a form of original content. Video interviews, tutorials, Q&A sessions and product reviews can all be used to promote your business online.

Podcasts

A podcast is a series of audio episodes focusing on a specific theme or topic. As long as the audio is relevant and relatable, it counts as a form of content for marketing purposes. Podcasts can help you grow your business by making it easier to connect with audience members.

Website Copy

Website copy is text that tells site visitors what they need to know about a company or brand. Every page of your website, from the Home page to the About Us page, has some type of website copy on it. For best results, your website copy should contain multiple calls to action.

Infographics

An infographic is a visual representation of data. In other words, an infographic combines text and images to provide an easy-to-understand overview of a complex topic. Infographics are especially helpful if you’re writing about a technical topic and want to highlight relevant statistics for your audience members.

Social Media Posts

Social media posts are short pieces of content shared on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These posts typically contain text, photos and videos, all of which can be used to engage your audience and help you achieve your marketing goals.

Content Repurposing

Just because your content has to be original doesn’t mean you have to create something new from scratch every day. Content repurposing refers to taking a piece of existing content and turning it into a different type of content. Repurposing saves you time while helping you reap the many benefits of content marketing.

You can repurpose your content in a few different ways.

• Podcast episodes: Some people love listening to podcasts, but others prefer to read blog posts and reports. If you have a podcast, you can repurpose the content by publishing transcripts or turning the information from each episode into a series of articles or blog posts. You can also record your podcast sessions on video and then publish those videos on YouTube, giving you access to a whole new audience.
• Blog posts: Just as some people prefer to read, others prefer to listen to podcasts or watch videos. You can repurpose your blog content by turning each post into a short podcast episode or creating a video to add to your website or YouTube channel.
• Videos: If you’re involved in business-to-business marketing, you can repurpose your videos by turning them into presentation slides with audio narration. 
• Articles: Repurpose your articles by pulling out interesting facts or statistics and incorporating them into an infographic that can be shared on social media. Another option is to take a series of articles and compile them into an e-book or case study that can be shared with audience members.

The SEO Benefits of Content Marketing

Search engine optimization is essential for growing your business. If you’re not familiar with the term, search engine optimization—often shortened to “SEO”—is the process of making your site more visible to potential customers. Done right, SEO can help you improve your site’s search engine rankings, making it easier for people to find your business online.

Search engine algorithms consider hundreds of factors when determining how to rank web pages. Many of these factors relate to the quality of the content you publish. 

• Readability: Your content should be easy for the majority of readers to understand, so Google uses readability as one of the factors it considers when determining how a web page ranks for a specific keyword. You don’t need to write content on par with “See Spot run,” but you should strive to make your writing as accessible as possible for people with different educational backgrounds and life experiences.
• Length: Content length is another quality signal that can affect your SEO. Top-ranked pages usually have more than 1,000 words of text. If you decide to write long blog posts or articles, make sure you use short paragraphs, bulleted lists, bold text and other formatting elements to make the content easy to read. 
• Keywords: Keywords are words and phrases that help readers and search engines understand what your content is about. Incorporating keywords into your online content can help you improve your search engine rankings, but don’t get carried away and start inserting keywords into every sentence.

Site Authority

When people visit your website, they want to know they’re reading accurate content written by a real person with some experience on the topic. Original content not only helps you establish your website as an authority in your industry, but it also has a significant impact on your overall rankings in search engines. There are a few ways to increase your site authority with content marketing:

• Stay focused. Remember that your content needs to be relevant to your target audience. If you visited a recipe website that also had blog posts about shoes, books and quilting, you’d probably wonder if the site’s owner really had any experience with cooking or recipe development. Your content should focus on a single topic or theme to show your expertise.
• Choose your platforms wisely. Your website isn’t the only place to publish content. If you decide to use other platforms, make sure you choose sites where your audience members are most likely to hang out. It does you no good to publish high-quality content on LinkedIn if most of your audience members spend their time on Instagram and Facebook, for example.
• Put your audience first. Content is for your audience, not for you. Focus on providing value with every piece of content you publish. You can add value by helping people solve their problems, teaching audience members a new skill or requesting feedback from customers.
• Keep it consistent. If your opinion changes every time the wind blows, your audience members will have a tough time believing you’re an authority in your industry. When you create new content, try to be as consistent as possible—don’t write one thing on Monday and something completely different on Thursday.
• Make connections with community members. Ultimately, you want to grow a community of people who love your brand. The best way to do this is to build genuine relationships with audience members. You can do this by answering questions, soliciting feedback and engaging in other forms of interaction.

Building Links

Backlinks are essential for establishing your site’s authority and showing the search engines your content is useful and relevant. In this context, links are like votes. With millions of pages online, the fact that someone would take the time to link to one of your pages shows Google and Bing that you’re publishing valuable information. This is like a “vote” for your page over the thousands of other pages on the same topic.

Backlinking also helps you establish your authority in a specific niche. The more links that point at your web pages, the more opportunities you have to attract new visitors and encourage them to join your community.

Social Signals

According to Google employees, social media usage isn’t one of the factors that go into determining how well a page ranks. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore social media completely. Using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms can help you position your company as an authority in your industry. It may also help you build backlinks and drive more traffic to your site as social media users share your content.

Increased Engagement

When you publish original content that adds value, people are more likely to visit your website, share the content with their contacts and interact with your brand on social media. This creates a domino effect. The more engaged people are, the more they’ll share your content, drawing in new audience members. Here are some tips for creating shareable content:

• Tell a story. Instead of pushing people to buy your products or focusing on your company’s operations, your content should tell a story. Start out with an introduction that hooks the reader and makes them want to keep reading. Then make the story as relevant as possible to your audience members. 
  
• Feature one of your customers. People are more likely to share content if it mentions them by name. To take advantage of this instinct, publish case studies or other materials to highlight what your customers are doing.
• Incorporate something controversial. Every industry has at least one heated debate raging at any given time. The GIF format was developed in 1987, and people are still arguing over how it’s pronounced. Pick a side and write a blog post or email defending your position—people who agree with you are likely to share the content.
• Solve a problem. The more useful your content is, the more people are likely to share it. One of the best ways to make your content useful is to tell readers how to solve a problem. For best results, the problem should be something that’s really annoying or would cost a lot of money to fix if they had to hire a professional. If your solution works, the people who benefited from it are likely to share the content with their friends and family members.

Building Thought Leadership

Thought leadership shows people you have a certain level of expertise in a particular industry or topic. Original content can help you build thought leadership by giving you ongoing opportunities to demonstrate your knowledge and skills. This approach has several benefits:

• Increases credibility
• Establishes you as a reliable source of information on a topic
• Inspires people in your audience
• Encourages people to be innovative
• Creates opportunities to specialize in a narrow niche

Creating Useful Content

What’s useful to you may not be useful to your audience members. Before you start creating new content, it’s important to connect with people in your audience and find out what they want you to cover. If your business is new and you don’t have an established community, there are a few simple ways to find out what kind of content people want.

Keyword Research

When people search for information online, they use specific words and phrases (keywords) related to their topic of interest. Keyword research tools help you find out exactly what keywords people are using, making it easier to choose a topic for your next blog post or video.

To use one of these tools, you typically enter a broad keyword that relates to your business. For example, someone who runs a shoe company might enter “shoes” as the broad keyword. After you enter a keyword, the software gives you a list of related keywords entered by search engine users. In the shoe example, the software might tell you that people have been searching for “best shoes to wear in cold weather” or “best shoes for hiking on a flat trail.”

Once you know what search terms people are using, you’ll have a better understanding of what kind of information your audience needs.

Forum Posts

Many forums allow users to create anonymous accounts, giving them the freedom they need to discuss sensitive topics and share personal information. These forums are a great source of information for anyone tasked with creating original content. Next time you need ideas, visit Reddit or another forum, enter your topic into the search bar and read through relevant posts to find out what kind of content you can create to provide value.

Social Media

People love to share their opinions on social networks, even if those opinions sometimes ruffle feathers. If you’re in a content rut, take a look at your Twitter feed or scroll through Facebook to see what people are talking about.

Industry Surveys

If you work for a B2B business, industry surveys are a great source of information. Many surveys ask respondents to indicate what problems they’re having or what tools they need to make their jobs easier. You can use the responses to outline white papers, articles, e-books and other types of content.

Q&A Websites

Like forums, Q&A websites can give you valuable insight into what kind of information people need to improve their lives. Users often share a little bit about their background and then ask specific questions about their circumstances. You can use these Q&A posts to create content outlines or come up with ideas for an FAQ page related to your topic.

Top Tips for Creating Original Content

Before you start writing, podcasting or shooting videos, take time to do some research. Your content won’t help you much if it’s outdated or irrelevant to the people in your target audience. First, make sure you understand your audience members. You need to know exactly who they are. Are they men or women? Teenagers or adults nearing retirement age? Wealthy individuals or people who need financial guidance?

Next, research your competitors to find out what they’re doing. It’s extremely important not to copy content from a competitor’s website or follow the exact same marketing plan as your closest competitors. You’re just looking for ideas to help you develop your own content marketing plan. Read through the content and figure out what’s good about it and what could be improved. Think about how you can fill in gaps and add value for your readers.

If you have an established audience, send out a survey or publish a poll on your social media accounts. Ask people what they want to see from you in the coming months.

Stay Focused

It’s easy to get bogged down with research and trying to figure out exactly how each platform works. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, pick one platform and stick with it for a while. Experiment with your content to find out what gets the most comments, likes and shares. Do some split testing to see if one approach is more effective than another. Once you have one platform under control, you can move on to the next one and start experimenting there.

Collaborate With Others

Creating content can be a lonely endeavour, but it doesn’t have to be. Reach out to other people in your industry and suggest cohosting a webinar, sharing each other’s content or contributing to a long article. When you collaborate with others, you both benefit, making collaboration a great way to grow your audience.

Wrapping Up

It’s clear that original content is essential for success in today’s business landscape. If you don’t have experience creating and distributing content, the thought of using content marketing to grow your business can be a little daunting. At Crowd Content, we have teams of experienced freelance writers available to create articles, e-books, white papers and other content to help you attract new audience members and position yourself as an authority.

The post Tips for Creating Original Content to Grow Your Audience appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

As of 2019, a decade after it launched, Walmart Marketplace had more than 28,000 sellers offering 45 million items to consumers. Those numbers continue to grow, which means competing in this area requires standing out from the crowd. The way to do that is via Walmart Marketplace SEO.

ALSO – Connect With Skilled Walmart Marketplace Product Description Writers

What Is Walmart Marketplace SEO?

SEO is search engine optimization. When your products are listed on Walmart’s Marketplace, you must optimize them for at least two search engines.

First, you’re optimizing for the Walmart algorithm. Shoppers looking for things from Walmart often navigate directly to the store’s online site and use the search functions there to find what they need. If you haven’t invested in the right SEO efforts, you won’t show up high enough in listings on the site to be found by consumers who are ready to make a purchase.

But SEO in your Walmart Marketplace product description is also important in helping your product page rank in Google. People who aren’t yet set on buying or looking for products on Walmart often start with the search engines. In fact, that’s where 93% of all searches start, and Google currently holds the lion’s share of the search market. Strong optimization can help your products show up in regular search results, expanding your potential customer base outside of Walmart regulars.

Parts of Walmart Marketplace Product Descriptions You Can Optimize

While you’re mostly free to create honest, unique product descriptions with the type of content your target audience will respond too, you do have to fit it within the format of a Walmart Marketplace description. Those descriptions typically come with the following parts, all of which offer a place for optimization:

• Product name between 50 to 75 characters
• Images
• Shelf description, which is a bulleted section where you can highlight the most significant features and benefits related to your product
• Long description between 1,000 and 4,000 characters
• Short description between 500 and 1,000 characters
• An attributes section which includes specs such as model numbers, color, size and other details

(Source)

Dos and Don’ts for Optimizing Your Walmart Marketplace Descriptions

With every other seller in the Walmart Marketplace creating product descriptions in the above format, how do you stand out from the crowd and rise to the top of the listings on Walmart and in other search engines? Start by applying the dos and don’ts below.

1. Do keyword research.

You can’t have SEO without keywords. “Incorporating keywords seamlessly in interesting descriptions helps improve your SEO,” says Yaniv Masjedi, the CMO at Nextiva. “However, the keywords should appear clear and natural — not forced — when read by consumers.”

Natural, clear keywords that are relevant to the content and not forced start with keyword research. Use tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find out what types of phrases people are using to find products like yours.

Once you have a primary keyword — and maybe a secondary keyword or two — use them a couple of times in the product description, making sure to include them in key locations such as the product title.

But don’t forget semantic keywords.

These are the types of phrases that someone might use when naturally speaking about the product. For example, if someone is talking about cotton t-shirts, they might also talk about the texture of the fabric (soft), the fit of the shirt, elements such as the collar or sleeves and whether the clothing is machine washable. Including this type of context in your description helps Google and other search engines know that you are really talking about cotton shirts.

Walmart product descriptions provide plenty of room for keywords — semantic and otherwise — within natural, easy-to-read copy.

2. Don’t forget to do competitive research within the Walmart Marketplace category.

Remember that you’re also optimizing for onsite Walmart searches, so read some of the descriptions for products showing up in top spots there to see what types of phrases are being included. In fact, your competitive research into descriptions for similar products within a category should include:

• How long are high-performing descriptions? Are they barely above the minimum character counts, or are your competitors using every last character available to them?
• What types of features/benefits are being called out? While you should always play to the strengths of your product and the needs of your own target audience, it’s helpful to know what others might deem important.
• What type of language is used? Are competitors winning with humorous product descriptions or earning top spots with technical content that covers every base? Again, you need to balance what’s being done by others with the needs of your own business and customers, but knowing what’s already performing helps you know where to start with your own marketing experiments.

3. Do create a unique but specific product name.

Make sure your product name is as unique to your description as possible without going creatively over the top. Consumers should be able to identify exactly what this product description is about by the product name field, but you also don’t want to copy the Walmart, Amazon or other product titles from competitors or your own listings on other sites.

A good formula to follow when creating product names is:

Brand + Size/Color/Attribute(s) + Product Name + Style/Attribute(s) + Package Count(if applicable)

This makes it easy to get enough information in the product description, provides flexibility for unique names and different products and also ensures there’s enough information included. Whenever possible, you should also include the keyword in the product name.

Here are some examples so you can see how the formula above is very flexible.

• Keyword: wood dining table
  • HomeCompany Oval Mahogany Wood Dining Table With Leaf, Seats 6
  • HomeCompany Oval Wood Dining Table – Mahogany – 8-ft.
  • HomeCompany 8-foot Wood Dining Table in Mahogany
• Keyword: red men’s shirt
  • FashionMan Large Red Men’s Shirt, Long-sleeve Button-up
  • FashionMan Small Button-up Red Men’s Shirt, Long-sleeve, 16in Collar
  • FashionMan Medium Long-sleeve Red Men’s Shirt, Button-up w/ 16in Collar

4. Don’t forget about quality images.

Images are critical to any product description. You’re selling something, and while people give up the chance to see and touch the item in person for the convenience and cost-effectiveness of shopping online, they’re probably not going to splurge on something they can’t see at all.

Images should display your product in the best possible way, and you should have more than one whenever possible. A good rule of thumb is that the more technical or complex the product, the more images you should have to show various parts so consumers can make a good decision about their purchase. It’s also a good idea to show the product in action and in images where good size comparisons can be made.

For example, if you’re selling a tent, images might include the tent set up on a white background, the tent set up in a real-world environment with people in or outside of it, the inside of the tent, the tent as it looks when packed up for storage and any close-ups of special features.

Before you prepare images, ensure you understand Walmart’s image requirements. The images must be quality, not include accessories that aren’t part of the product and not include watermarks in many cases. Walmart’s image requirements change periodically, so keep up with Marketplace policies in the Seller Help section.

5. Do use strong marketing copy in the short and long descriptions.

Once you have images and a product name, it’s time to write the short and long descriptions. “Description” can be a confusing misnomer, because you certainly don’t want to simply describe your product.

Consider the following examples of descriptions. Which one is more inviting to the reader?

• This is a blue shirt in size large with long sleeves. It’s cotton and has a picture of a unicorn on the front.
• Cozy up to a campfire in this soft, warm long-sleeve women’s shirt. The light blue color is easy to mix-and-match with your favorite jeans or pajama bottoms, and the cotton shirt sports a fanciful image of a unicorn to show off your imaginative side.

You can learn more about strong marketing writing in product descriptions from our blog post on the topic and from these tips from top marketing copywriters.

As far as the technical aspects of completing the descriptions, we asked a few successful Walmart Marketplace sellers and marketers how they do it:

• Aalap Shah, founder and CEO of 1o8 agency, says, “From an SEO perspective, we recommend paying particular attention to the category you’re being listed in, filling out every single available field with target keywords, and creating a clear, action-oriented product description field.”
• Masjedi agrees that a complete description is important, as is maximizing the short description. “The section has a 1000-character limit, and businesses must use every last character as possible.”
• Sherry Mae, the CMO at Tankarium, points out the importance of getting the shelf description right. “Shelf descriptions play a massive role in determining SEO ranking in the Walmart Marketplace,” says Mae. “The bullets should paint a picture in a prospective customer’s mind on its purpose, use and how the product will benefit their life.” She also says to include one keyword in each bullet point if possible.

6. Do encourage customer reviews on your products.

The good news is that some of the content that helps build SEO on your Walmart Marketplace descriptions doesn’t have to be created by you. “Walmart values customer service,” says Jeremy Owens, the CMO of Seriously Smoked, “so your team needs to be prompt on addressing customer concerns and issues. Part of Walmart’s SEO algorithm considers customer reviews, so I suggest maintaining an excellent relationship with your buyers.”

Owens recommends having a dedicated team to address customer service needs and a third-party fulfillment partner that’s prompt with delivery.

Start Creating Winning Walmart Marketplace Descriptions Today

As you can see, writing the type of marketplace descriptions that lets you compete in the Walmart Marketplace requires research, planning and creative marketing copy. Luckily, you don’t have to do all of this alone. Find out more about working with proven product description writers at Crowd Content. We can help you create Walmart Marketplace SEO that drives conversions and bolsters your bottom line.

The post Walmart Marketplace SEO: Show Up Strong in Walmart’s Marketplace appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Maybe you want to create something valuable to offer your existing audience. Maybe you want to use an eBook as a lead magnet that you promote via social media, paid promotions or SEO.

No matter why you want to create an eBook, there’s a question you have to ask yourself: will it generate a high enough return on your investment to make it worth the investment involved in creating it?

You can’t answer that question without having a full understanding of all the labor (and associated costs) that goes into conceptualizing, producing, and distributing an eBook.

ALSO – Check out our eBook writing services

Here’s a breakdown of all these elements, and how they affect total cost of creating an eBook.

First, What IS an eBook?

Technically, “eBook” is a term used to describe any document (typically a non-editable one) that you can read from an electronic device, like a computer, smartphone, or tablet. The more practical definition of an eBook is that it’s a long-form composition leveraged in a digital format in exchange for money, a lead submission, or something else that serves an objective of the creator.

Note – Most content marketers use eBooks as lead magnets to capture contact info from potential buyers. Most buyers are towards the middle of the funnel around the Interest stage of their journey.

Before we start breaking down the costs of creating an eBook, let’s make something clear. Yes, anyone can create an eBook — if you write two pages in a word document and export it into a PDF, technically, you’ve done it. But, what we’re talking about here is creating something of value — an eBook that delivers.

Typically, that means that your eBook that:

1. Is at least 5,000 words
2. Comprehensively covers the topic at hand
3. Features an attractive, on-brand design
4. Use hyperlinks in a table of contents for easy navigation
5. Includes graphics, charts, illustrations and other visual cues

As we’ll describe below, this is a larger ask, and one that may involve costs that you aren’t thinking about right now.

Do it Yourself or Outsource?

Many digital marketers see eBooks as a worthwhile effort because they are a valuable piece of content that you can use to support multiple business goals. The main challenge often comes down to the time it takes to do it right.

You can spend hours working on the concept and the message of your eBook, and still not have anything that resembles the outline of a fully fleshed-out composition. And that doesn’t include researching, writing, editing, and designing your eBook which can take dozens of hours.

This is why many marketers choose to outsource their eBooks. They either outsource the smaller parts that they would struggle to handle on their own, or sometimes larger portions, serving to streamline the entire process. As we go step-by-step, we’ll talk about the cost of creating an eBook using outsourced talent.

Step 1: Developing the Concept

Before you start crafting your masterpiece, you have to build the framework for the entire exercise. What’s the topic? How will it be used to meet your goals? What audience does it speak to? Where are they at in the funnel when they read this?

This step doesn’t cost anything — there’s no charge for your own creativity.

Once you have a concept and loose outline, it’s time to start the creation of your eBook.

Step 2: Writing the Content

Step 2 comprises two parts: research and writing. They’re part of the same step because you’re probably going to want the person doing the research to also write the content that their research covers. And, you want that writing to be at a quality level that doesn’t need much editing after it’s written.

Alex Azoury, Founder and CEO of Home Grounds says the cost of creating an eBook depends on the writers you have access to.

“If you don’t have a writer on staff, then you’ll probably hire a freelance content writer or agency,” says Azoury. “Freelance writers differ in their experience, subject preferences, and costs. Think about whether you need a native English speaker or a competent writer whose English is at near-native level.”

If you’re hiring an “intermediate” writer, according to Azoury, they’ll typically charge between 5 and 20 cents per word. The average eBook is 2,500 to 5,000 words. That means that costs range between $125 to $250 on the lower end and $500 to $1000 on the high end.

When your topic is research-intensive, or you want to hire a writer with an expert knowledge of the subject, you’ll end up paying more. Budget as much 50 cents to 1 dollar per word, which will run you between $1250 to $2500 for a 2,500 word product.

Note – At Crowd Content, we always recommend clients use at least our 4-star writers which are priced at 12 cents per word. At that rate, you’ll need to provide a good amount of research and data to your writer. For more complex or research intensive projects we can set up a custom project.

A Cost Effective Alternative Method

If you want to save costs on content creation, you can use content you’ve already written and published in your eBook. If you’re writing a long form piece about a topic, chances are it’s a topic you’ve already explored before. During your planning steps, look for previously produced content that can be used to reduce the burden of researching, writing, and editing brand-new content.

Many marketers actually create a series of blog posts that could be considered episodic content, meaning that collectively they make up one larger story. Collecting these resources into an eBook is a very cost effective way of finding content for an eBook.

The reverse is also true – consider carving up sections of your completed eBooks into blog posts you publish (content repurposing). You can even include a link to the full eBook in the post which can generate a lot of leads.

Step 3 – Editing Your Content

The cost of editing, according to the Editorial Freelancers Association, varies based on the type of work you need. Basic copy editing is usually billed at around $30-$40 per hour, and if the copy needs a more intensive editor, that will increase to around $40-$60. If the average copy editor can get through an average of 5 manuscript pages per hour, a 2,500 word eBook (10 pages) will run you between $60 to $120 and a 5,000 word composition could cost an average of $240 at the high end.

Note – At crowd Content you can hire freelance editors for 3 cents per word. For more substantial editing requirements we can also set up a custom project.

Again, keep in mind that these numbers are for basic editing. If you want a copy editor to make multiple rounds of revisions and look deeply at changes that could improve the content, you may need to budget more.

If you decide you just need a proofread you might also be able to budget less, but we wouldn’t advise that.

Step 4: Designing the Assets

The design cost depends on the level of commitment you want to put into the aesthetics of your eBook. Do you want every page to be expertly laid out with full-color graphics, or will an eye-catching cover page suffice?

Alex Azoury again: “Your design includes your eBook cover, various elements within the book, and the final page. Someone will need to decide on the fonts and color used. All the headlines, paragraphs and text need to be formatted so that your book appears professionally produced.”

Azoury estimates that a complete design takes about five hours. If a freelance designer charges $30.00 per hour, that comes out to $150.00 for the project.

Keep in mind, that is a bare bone estimate and would likely result in a very basic looking eBook.

According to James Pollard, Founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, “Some people will recommend going to a cheap site like Fiverr, but I’ve found that you get what you pay for. I suggest hiring a professional designer either directly or through a freelancing site.”

This level of premium design may cost you a lot more. Pollard estimates that for a fully produced, graphically rich cover design, it may cost as much as $500 for a final product that makes your eBook stand out.

That’s just for the basics, though. If you want to take time to create graphics, tables, charts and other visual elements, that will require more design time. An eBook with robust visuals can cost significantly more and may even creep into the thousands.

Whatever level of design quality and depth you choose, you’ll want to ensure the final package follows your brand guidelines and is appealing to readers.

Do It Yourself?

This all assumes that you opt to have a designer create your eBook. While usually that’s quicker and can produce a better result, there are a number of tools that can help you create your own eBook design for free.

1. Microsoft Word – there are great templates available to pop your content into. While it can be tricky at times, it does let you add important elements like table of contents, cover pages, graphics and charts fairly easily.
2. Online tools – Canva, LucidPress and FlipMaker all offer easy to use tools to create visually appealing eBooks. While there can be a small cost to using these tools, they might be a good fit for you.

Keep in mind that you should have a good eye for design if you go the DIY route.

Step 5: Repurposing and Distributing Your eBook

The most common eBook format is the PDF. And, that may be all you need to do.

But, you might also choose to put it in different formats and distribute it additional channels to increase its reach. Here are a few ideas:

1. Create an audiobook version and make it available on services that offer listening like Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, Scribd, and others.
2. Format it for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and make it available on Amazon. You can make it available for free here, but many published authors earn significant revenue by charging for their eBooks
3. Format your eBook in the ePub format for wider accessibility. This is the standard format used by eBook readers such as Kindle, Kobo, iBook, etc. There are many free and paid tools that can help you do this. This will also allow you to sell your eBook on marketplaces like Google Play and iBook.
4. Break it up into several blog posts and post it on your blog

These are all relatively low cost ways to get your content to more of your audience, and you can even generate sales if you choose.

Step 6: Calculating Your Final Cost of Creating an Ebook and ROI

So, what’s the final cost of creating an eBook? As mentioned, the total investment depends on what you have available to as well as the level of depth and quality you’re aiming for.

A good ballpark for an average eBook would be around $3,000 dollars if you hire freelancers for everything. But, if you have access to some resources needed like existing content, design support, editing support, etc, the total cost can be a lot lower. Similarly, if you need an exceptional level of quality, tons of research, and need to hire an expert to write it, you could be looking at significantly more.

The amount you actually budget creating your finished product should depend on what you expect to gain from it when you leverage it to your selected market. According to James Pollard, “I tie it directly to a revenue metric in my business because I view it as an investment. I have no problem spending $3,000 to create an eBook that will generate $30,000 in sales over the next year.”

To understand and track the ROI of your eBook, the best way is to determine what the value of each lead who downloads your eBook is. To do this you can work backwards through your funnel. Here’s an example:

1. Each new paying customer has a lifetime value of $100
2. Of leads who download the eBook, 10% become paying customers
3. Each eBook lead is therefore worth $10
4. Since we spent $3,000 to produce this eBook, we need 300 eBook downloads for it to break even

This is just an example to illustrate this calculation. If you can track your ROI with actual numbers, you’ll be way better off.

Wrapping It Up

Quality eBooks can have a hugely positive ROI when used as lead magnets to support your other marketing efforts. Since the content they contain is so extensive and valuable, your audience is much more likely to offer their contact information in exchange for them. And, that’s not even counting other benefits such as increasing your perceived authority or boosting SEO.

But, they can be a big investment.

One way you can reduce the cost of creating an eBook and maximize ROI is by working with a reliable source of eBook writers. Crowd Content can help you find cost effective solutions for eBook creation and any other content needs, no matter how specialized or extensive.

Be sure to reach out if you could use a hand with your next eBook writing project.

The post What Is the Total Cost of Creating an Ebook? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Marketers that understand how to create content for every stage of the buyer journey know that leveraging different types of content is critical.

One of the most valuable mid-funnel content types you can leverage is the white paper. These are incredibly valuable resources for buyers who are looking to learn more, evaluate options, and ultimately help nudge them towards the decision stage of their journey.

But, white papers need to be amazing to accomplish this goal in a world where readers expect more and more of the content they consume.

In this post, we’ll go over what makes a good white paper and then highlight some great white paper examples you can emulate. 

White Papers at a Glance

White papers are in-depth explorations of a topic, written to provide a targeted audience with valuable, actionable content. A white paper differs from a blog post because it’s longer and more thoroughly researched, with a formal tone and usually packaged in a PDF file. 

This doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be engaging — it means the priority is giving readers authoritative information they can use to solve a particular problem.

Initially, a white paper was solely a government technical document that helped to gauge public reactions to legislative changes. Organizations and businesses now use them as part of their content marketing strategies to influence decision-makers. 

White papers can help you in the following ways:

1. Act as lead magnets that leads download in exchange for their contact information
2. Drive SEO results if published and indexed on your site (not in a PDF)
3. Establish you as an authority in your space

Why Are White Papers Effective?

A white paper is effective primarily because it communicates your expertise to other businesses and potential buyers and is a valuable asset that these people can use. 

Because your audience values them, you can write white papers with the aim of influencing b2b marketers or put them behind a sign up form on a landing page to generate leads or grow your subscriber base.

A good white paper contains unique, valuable information that your target audience of potential contacts would find difficult to find elsewhere. When you understand what your target market is looking for — you can preempt and exceed expectations by producing content the reader needs.

Good white papers address a common problem or challenge your audience is facing and provides a comprehensive solution. Spending time to understand what these challenges are and what questions your audience has is critical.

SIDENOTE – If you choose to publish your white paper, or a portion of it, ungated then your white paper can also help to drive SEO traffic. When you’re researching what topics you should cover, you should also find search terms that your audience uses in Google when trying to address the challenges you’ll cover. Be sure to build that into your content to capture valuable organic traffic. 

In the Inc. blog, Victor Ijidola points out two studies that back up how white papers improve marketing success. According to one by Eccolo Media, out of 10 types of content, white papers were ranked as the most helpful form to use in the initial sales phase. Furthermore, a survey by TechTarget reported that 91% of IT buyers consider a white paper to be the second most effective type of content to use in the first stage of buying — with product literature ranked first.

Harness the Broad Reach of Content Marketing

Blogs, case studies, eBooks, e-newsletters and infographics are just a few content types useful in content marketing. The acceleration of digital marketing and the growing influence and reach of technology means having a well-defined content marketing strategy is more crucial than ever. Its effectiveness lies in the indirect approach of becoming more than just a brand to consumers by adding value to their lives through content.

Social media and email marketing are particularly useful due to their prevalence in consumers’ everyday existence. Since it became the standard for people in our society to carry a smartphone, the reach of these channels has increased. These are great channels to distribute and promote your content.

Most people spend a significant portion of their day checking emails and scrolling through their various social media feeds for updates. If you’ve had a blog and noticed how effective it is as a means of engaging potential customers, creating a white paper would likely enhance your content strategy even further.

Ultimately content marketing needs great content to fuel it. You need content to promote and hook visitors in, who you can then nudge down your funnel by progessively showing them content that makes them more interested in your products or services. 

When it comes to mid-funnel and bottom of funnel content, white papers are amongst the best tools at your disposal. As you map out your funnel, be sure to identify what white papers you can create at these later stages to convert more of your traffic. 

Best Uses for White Papers

The modern buyer is savvy, and they understand that research is critical when they’re choosing which product or service to use. A well-written white paper feeds this thirst for knowledge while subtly positioning your solution as the definitive answer to their need. This is part of the reason why they’re so popular with workers and operators within the tech industry.

Often times these buyers will be researching products or services to solve a problem or challenge they’re facing. White papers that solve these problems are incredibly useful to potential buyers. 

White papers are also excellent tools for B2B marketers who are establishing themselves as thought leaders in their niche. You can expand your network and build awareness by inspiring fellow businesses with insightful and authoritative content which can lead to them contacting you when they need help that only you can provide. 

Your sales team will thank you if you have great white papers they can leverage. White papers perform a variety of useful functions throughout the sales process:

• White papers establish thought leadership and attract sought-after affiliates and partners.
• They teach potential customers and current clients relevant and valuable information.
• The content in a white paper is educational and not at all sales-focused.
• A business benefits white paper informs the reader about a product without using sales pitches.
• Technology benefits white papers are more technical and detailed about specific features.
• Product comparisons are popular types of white paper that give the audience impartial information to help them make a choice.
• You can generate leads if you put them behind a paywall or contact form — this can be especially effective if you already have a blog or provide content that people read regularly.

Know Your Target Audience

Before you start writing, you must develop a clear understanding of your audience. For example, if your subject matter is aimed at expert engineers, your content should be appropriately technical. On the other hand, if your audience is content writers — they’ll enjoy slightly more elaborate adjectives and fewer statistics. You should also reflect these preferences in the white paper design and layout.

Who Is Your Audience?

Firstly, ask yourself who you want to target. Build a profile of an individual representative (a persona) of your target audience and find out what they need. Search engine data gives business owners a uniquely honest and direct insight into the queries your audience has. You can also interview people in this audience, or ask your sales team what questions they often hear during negotiations. 

To write the best white papers, you’ll need to find out the questions your audience needs answering.

How Do Their Needs Align With Your Business Offering?

Now you’ve established the audience’s question; you must find a way of providing them with factual information that compels them to use your product or service to fulfill that need. Remember — it’s not a direct sell. You need to frame the solution as your brand, as opposed to explicitly pointing the reader towards it.

What Are the Main Elements of White Papers?

A captivating and effective white paper relies upon six essential elements:

• Captivating title and headlines: The title is the first opportunity to have to entice readers in. Clear and compelling titles and headlines keep the audience interested and provide markers to help them navigate your content.
• Executive summary: This helps decision-makers whose time is precious to make a quick decision about whether you’re delivering a solution they require. It’s a summary of the key points, with a succinct conclusion that doesn’t leave any questions unanswered.
• A clear introduction or abstract: An introduction should clearly outline your main points and tell the reader what to expect.
• Thoroughly researched and actionable content: This is the main body of your content and the area where the value lies. You must conduct thorough research to provide information that’s easily digestible but goes into enough depth to be a complete resource.
• Snackable layout: Don’t underestimate how crucial layout and design are. Readers quickly lose interest in monotonous content with unbroken blocks of writing. So, make sure you use blocks of color, diagrams, pictures, headings, subheadings and lists to break up the content and keep the audience engaged.
• Implement a clear distribution strategy: Now you’ve written your white paper, you need to release it into the world as part of your content marketing strategy. You’ll need a clear plan in place about whether you release it for free on social media or build a broader strategy around a paywall or sign up form.

How to Promote White Papers

There are myriad ways to ensure maximum exposure for your content, and it’s a time-consuming piece of writing to create — so make sure it gets the reach it deserves. In particular, you’ll need a well-structured promotion plan to make sure your B2B white papers reach a wider audience. Here are several ideas to help you distribute your content :

• Create a landing page on your website with a short opt-in form to download the white paper
• Create a blog post promoting the white paper or post a portion of your white paper and ensure it’s SEO optimized to rank and drive organic traffic
• Promote your white paper by publishing it with hashtags on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, Instagram and Pinterest
• Submit a guest post to an influencer’s blog with a backlink to your landing page for your white paper
• Use email to promote your white paper to your existing mail list, or pay to send a sponsored email to a relevant partner’s list
• Host a conference, podcast or webinar about your white paper and interview industry experts
• Develop relationships with fellow influencers in your vertical and encourage them to share your white paper
• Email the owners of resources lists and ask them to feature your content
• Share your white paper with your partners and affiliates
• Create an infographic based around the info in your white paper

Where Does a White Paper Fit Into the Buyers Journey?

As mentioned earlier, statistics suggest that white papers are most useful at the consideration stage of the customer journey. This is when a consumer is most likely to conduct extensive research regarding their purchase. They understand what their problem is, and they’re looking for a solution. Encouraging downloads and getting contact details at this stage can be the most effective way of finding leads and converting them. The three steps on the sales journey are:

1. Awareness stage, where you capture the audience’s interest
2. Consideration stage, when they’re gathering information
3. Decision stage, when they decide which product of service to use

At the consideration stage, you have the opportunity to give them information about how you intend to solve their problem. Once you’ve obtained their contact details, you can follow up with targeted content to further encourage a conversion.

White Paper Examples and Resources

You can find an array of helpful resources and excellent white paper examples from some of the biggest companies in the world. Here’s a selection of useful tools and resources for white paper writing.

Sample White Paper Templates

The American Marketing Association has a handy white paper template.

B2B

HubSpot produces a slew of great content resources including a range of white papers. Their white paper on How to Use Instagram for Business is a great example of a piece that offers solutions to a common challenge many of its audience face – how are B2B companies supposed to leverage Instagram? 

An outstanding example of a B2B white paper is Networking and Your Competitive Edge from Cisco. It uses a futuristic and sleek design to communicate the benefits of its services to decision makers.

LinkedIn is highly adept at using content to build a relationship with its users. The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Content Marketing helps content marketers to succeed with valuable insights from industry leaders.

B2C

While most white papers are aimed at B2B audiences, they’re often just as valuable for B2C audiences.

Google wrote a detailed piece entitled the Google Cloud Security and Compliance Whitepaper, targeted at the public as much as it’s aimed at organizations. It aims to communicate the brand’s dedication to security and privacy, encouraging trust and affirming Google’s commitment to its users online safety.

Increase Conversions at Each Stage of Your Sales Funnel

White papers are useful for many reasons, but their primary advantages are that they establish you as a thought leader in your field while improving your website’s search engine ranking. No matter what your area of expertise is, a well-constructed white paper instills confidence in consumers and partners that you can provide the solution to their problem.

To find out more about content marketing strategies, sign up to Crowd Content’s blog, and get actionable SEO and digital marketing advice delivered straight to your inbox.

ALSO – Do you Need a Content Writer or a Copywriter?

The post White Paper Examples & How to Advice to Drive Amazing Results appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

So which one do you need when clients come to you to boost their business online: a content writer for your website or a web copywriter? The answer depends on the goals and objectives of the client’s campaign.

Nearly 100 percent of the time, though, you need both a content writer and a web copywriter. Here’s why:

Why You Need a Content Writer

Customers love buying things, but they hate the feeling of being sold. Navigating this dichotomy is one of the most challenging things in marketing. The most successful campaigns don’t push products and services on customers. Rather, they give customers a reason to buy and make them feel like it’s their idea.

That’s where content writing comes in. Rather than always trying to sell, sell, sell, content writing provides value to the reader.

Let’s pretend your client runs a mortgage brokerage. The client wants to increase their online presence and capture leads from people searching the internet for information about mortgages. You help the client set up their website. Now it’s time to populate it with content.

Purely sales content doesn’t give the customer what they’re looking for, and it doesn’t inspire their confidence. There’s a time and place to switch into sales mode. But that comes after your client has built a rapport with the customer and earned the customer’s trust.

The way to build rapport and trust with a website or blog is through content marketing — using a well-defined content strategy to get a customer visit a page or fill out a lead form. It gives the customer something of use to them — such as detailed explanations of different mortgage types – without requiring anything of the customer in return.

It also establishes your client as an authority in their niche. It’s easier to sell to clients after you’ve demonstrated the depth of your knowledge and competence. According to Caleb Chen, Founder at The Highest Critic, “content writers are usually/ideally subject matter experts in the industry for which they’re going to be writing content. This allows them to bring context and expert opinion to their content when compared with a copywriter. Generally, a content writer will be more costly than a copywriter.”

Why You Need a Web Copywriter

Anyone who has ever watched a sales movie understands the importance of closing. Remember the iconic scene with Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, where he delivers the ABCs of sales: Always Be Closing?

ALSO – What is Copywriting?

It’s true. If your client doesn’t use their content to compel a specific action, then they’re essentially just a free source of information.

That’s why good copywriting goes hand in hand with good content writing. Your client’s content writing establishes trust and provides value to the reader. Their copywriting calls the reader to action and closes the sale. Says Chen, “copywriters are generally people who have a solid writing and editing skill base and can be trusted to write grammatically correct copy for any purpose — but don’t often have experience in the industry for which their copy is being generated.”

While the two types of writer vary in their expertise, their skill set, and often, their cost, the interplay between content writing and copywriting forms the crux of a winning online marketing campaign.

A Place for Both in the Customer Journey

By now you understand the difference between copywriting and content writing in a theoretical, goal-oriented sense: content provides educational, valuable, and relevant information about a brand, while copy is used to convince audience members to take an action. But what does it look like in practice?

Sunny Ashley, CEO of Autoshopinvoice, helps put the concepts on more accessible ground: “The difference between the two boils down to their end goals and deliverables. The end goal for content writers is to enhance SEO and build a following. Their content is targeted more towards the top-of-the-funnel. Their performance is ultimately judged on things like page visits and keyword rankings.

Conversely, a copywriter’s is to convert leads into sales. Their content should be less about brand awareness and more about persuasion and calls-to-action. Conversion metrics, form submissions, and new signups are better indicators for success for copywriters.”

Content: First Steps Toward Your Marketing Goals

Content writing serves a few different purposes, including audience awareness, brand recognition, and lead generation. It comes in a wide variety of different packages, from emails and social media posts to blog posts, press releases, well-researched white papers, and e-books.

Imagine you’re building a campaign for a new brand. You don’t have an audience that you can send sales letters or conversion-optimized emails to, so you have to start at square one with a content marketing campaign. You hire a writer to write content related to your brand, something with mass appeal to your audience; preferably, something that brings to light a problem that can be solved by the products or services you’re selling.

Once you have a strong, engaging piece of content, you can strategically deploy it in ways that will best reach a cold “top-of-funnel” audience.

Whether it’s via paid traffic on Google or Facebook, organic social media, an email campaign, or successfully ranking for your target keywords, the next step is driving traffic to your content. When a prospect clicks on a link in any of these channels, they might be taken to a landing page that advertises what they’ll be able to read or download in exchange for submitting some simple information, like their name and email address or phone number — this is called gated content.

Side note: the writing on landing pages tends to be a mix of content and copy; it continues to engage the audience while using the value of the content to persuade them to take the desired action.

Now, you’ve put together a list of leads and you’re starting to grow an audience that has engaged with your brand and is looking forward to what you’ll give them next. That’s when it’s time for marketing copy to take the stage.

Copy: The Hitter That Cleans Up the Leads

Writing copy is all about understanding what the audience wants to hear in order to take the next step in the buyer journey. Luckily, having all clicked on the same piece of content, your audience is filled with prospects that have similar priorities to each other.

Conversion-based sales copy is then deployed through email, direct mail, and other channels that directly advertise the products or services of the brand. It also fills the pages of your website so that anyone who visits is automatically engaged by compelling writing. In this case, copywriting follows up on the awareness of the customer’s problem, strongly positioning your brand as the solution.

Christian Antonoff, a content writer at Independent Fashion Bloggers, says, “the copywriter’s role is to sell products and services by appealing to your senses and emotions. They write persuasive copy targeting brands, selling the notion of needing them in your life.”

But What About Writing that Serves Neither Purpose?

This is actually a trick question: writing that is neither copy nor content has no place in today’s digital marketplace. Some marketing managers will look at certain types of writing and see it as filler; placeholder text to take up space on a page. But, this is a counterintuitive way to think about writing. After all, if any text on your website, blog, or emails isn’t being written to accomplish a goal, what’s the point?

Are Copy and Content Becoming Less Distinguishable?

At the same time, as the world of digital marketing continues to evolve, finding a writer with skills in copywriting and content writing becomes increasingly valuable. Google’s search engine algorithm gets more sophisticated with every new update, becoming better equipped to find and elevate valuable content of all kinds up the list of search results. As the burden shifts away from the rigid guidelines of SEO, the lines between copywriting and content creation will blur even more.

And, there’s mounting evidence that Google values pages and content that have strong engagement metrics. People engage with good content if it provides value to them, but they’re more likely to visit other pages on your site and convert if you also employ strong copywriting. Using both types of writing together can help you boost your overall engagement.

As Isaac Hammelburger, Owner & Founder at SearchPros.co, puts it, there’s no better time for a diversified skill set as a writer: “As the marketing world continues to evolve, the roles of content and copywriters are blurred, but this is exactly what people need now. Writers have to learn a little bit of the other side to take full advantage of their talents.”

Some feel that the difference between the two is nearly obsolete. Adriana Tica is the Founder and Owner of Idunn, and having worked with writers for a long time, is beginning to see them as indistinguishable. “Both of them actually need to write copy and content that sells and converts”, she says. “A blog post with a cleverly placed CTA can convert as much as a long-form sales page. An insightful white paper can bring a lot of sales if written and marketed correctly -— we’ve seen this happen for a lot of our clients. Our point of difference has always been that we create both copy and content that aligns [with] our clients’ financial goals. And we know that both content writing and copywriting can bring sales and conversions.

So, Do You Need a Content Writer or Copywriter For Your Project?

As we’ve discussed, both types of writer have a role in moving your audience through the customer journey. But, what type of content should you assign to each type of writer?

Here’s a quick summary.

Content Writers

You’ll want to send content that is meant inform and engage to content writers. Common content types to send them include articles, blog posts, ebooks, guides, white papers and social media posts. You may also need to find a subset of content writers – technical writers – if you have complex documents to create like how to manuals, reference documents, etc.

Copywriters

Writing that is meant to compel action should be sent to copywriters. Common content types include advertisements, brochures, city pages, landing pages, print ads and collateral, website copy, social media updates, and more.

Mentioned earlier, but one example of the line between content writing and copywriting getting blurry is advertorials. These are short content pieces that look like blog posts or personal stories, inform them reader, but then also compel them to take action. These are very common on Facebook now.

The Takeaway

The easiest way to determine if your client needs a content writer or a web copywriter is to ask this question:

Is my client looking to build their brand and become an authority in their industry, or are they trying to close the sale and compel customers to take a particular action?

Chances are, they want to do both. And for that reason, having a winning content writer and a winning web copywriter on the job is vital for producing a successful campaign. The outlook for the future suggests that finding a writer who can master both skills will give your client the agility to accomplish their marketing goals even more easily.

Need help with your web copy or blogs? Fill out our contact form or call us at (888) 983-3103 to learn about our engaging content solutions.

ALSO – Who’s on Your Business Content Writing Team and How Do You Manage Them?

The post Do You Need a Content Writer or a Copywriter? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What Are Service Descriptions?

Service descriptions are like product descriptions. But instead of describing tangible goods, you’re describing the services that you provide, including what you do, some basics about how you do it and why people should care about the service.

How many service pages you have on your site depends on what you offer and how you want to market it. It also might depend on your content marketing budget. You definitely want to highlight your main services with their own description pages. Check out the table below for examples of the types of service pages you might see on various business websites.

How to Write a Service Description: 7 Tips

Once you decide how many service pages you need and what services you should highlight, it’s time to create the service description content. Check out some tips below for creating service description pages that are likely to perform in SERPs and convert consumers who arrive to your pages.

1. Scope Out the Competition in SERPs

Start by checking out the competition. Search your keywords and look at the pages in the top three spots. What are they doing and how can you do it better?

(Okay, technically you start with keyword research so you know what your keywords are. TBH, we’re assuming if you know you need service descriptions, you know you need keywords and keyword research.)

Matthew Rogers, a search analyst and senior editor at Mango Matter, says he analyzes service descriptions that are ranking in SERPs before creating his own. “I work on the premise that every page Google promotes on page one is there for a reason,” says Rogers, “and success can often be reverse engineered.”

2. Focus on Your Customer

But you can’t let analytics reign over your content at the expense of the consumer. Rogers notes,”The most difficult part of writing service descriptions is balancing the need to please the user while pleasing Googlebot.”

It’s not enough to shove the ranking keywords into your service description and show up high in the page rankings. Your content must also:

• Align with searcher intent
• Provide relevant, helpful information to the user
• Persuade the user to take the next action in the sales funnel

In addition to doing your keyword research, make sure you have a target consumer and that you understand their needs and preferences. That way, you can create content for your service description that speaks specifically to the target audience.

3. Use Feature/Benefit Writing

One of the best ways to speak to the consumer’s needs and desires is via feature/benefit writing. This is common in product descriptions, and you should employ it in writing about services too.

Feature/benefit doesn’t just tell the consumer what you do. It tells them what you do for them (the feature) and why they should care (the benefit). Check out some example feature benefit pairs below to better understand this type of content.

4. Make Service Descriptions Scannable

No matter how great your feature/benefit copy is, most people will skip the entire page if you present your service description as a big block of text. It’s daunting and annoying—especially on mobile.

Instead, break your content up into scannable chunks by using subheadings, small paragraphs, bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, call outs and images. Check out our service page on article writing for an example of friendly scannable content with plenty of white space.

5. Include Various Content and Media Formats

Remember that not everyone prefers text-based messaging, and some people engage much better with images or video. That means they’re more likely to remember your message later when it’s time to make a purchase. Incorporate various media formats by:

• Explaining services using videos and infographics
• Showing services in action in photos
• Integrating consumer reviews and testimonials to back up your claims

6. Don’t Try to Do Too Much With One Service Page

To perform in SERPs and with users, your service pages have to answer pretty specific intents and questions.

For example, someone looking for toilet repair might be interested in some basic information about new toilet installation—especially if it’s information to help them decide between a new item or repairing the existing one. But they probably aren’t going to want to read an entire page devoted to sinks.

Ensure your service page comprehensively answers the intent of the search regarding a service, but leave tangential information to its own page. You can certainly mention that you also install sinks, but instead of going into detail, link to your sink installation service page.

Plan out your service description pages ahead of time so you can ensure you cover all the most important services and that they each go on their own page.

7. Include a Relevant, Clear Call to Action

Finally, don’t leave the consumer hanging. Be specific about the action you want them to take to engage your services.

Include buy now, get a quote or contact us buttons—and do so where the consumer can see them. If they’re buried somewhere seven scrolls below the fold, they won’t do you any good.

You should also give a concise explanation of what the consumer can expect when they act. For example: They’ll call to schedule a free consultation or drop their email in a form and someone will contact them within 24 hours.

Get Professional Help Writing Service Descriptions

Service descriptions can be hard to write well as they rely on a balance of SEO and strong marketing copy. Contact Crowd Content to find out how our experienced copywriters can help you create service descriptions that perform in the search engines and convert consumers into customers.

ALSO – How to Scale Your Agency By White Labeling Content Writing

The post How to Write Service Descriptions appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Luckily, brands and marketing teams can easily add these critical skills to their projects by investing in business content writing teams. Here’s a look at why you should ensure you have the right people on your content writing team and how to create winning teams for any content project.

The Importance of a Writing Team

A writing team is like the engine that powers your content marketing vehicle. If you don’t have an engine, it doesn’t matter how great the exterior of the vehicle looks. It’s not going anywhere unless you put it on a trailer and pull it with someone else’s engine. And if your engine is too small (i.e., you don’t have the right writers or enough writers), your marketing vehicle can’t move quickly enough or burns itself up.

A writing team lets you shift gears quickly and easily move between all the critical aspects of marketing, including:

• Content strategy
• SEO
• Social media
• Website content creation

Benefits of Working With a Team of Writers for Your Business Content

Databox polled marketers to discover what areas the experts see people failing at when it comes to online marketing. When asked what areas brands and marketing teams were most likely to under-invest in, content quality and research was the clear winner (er…or loser, actually).

Around 40% of respondents said companies didn’t invest enough in writing and content quality, often because they were chasing the latest SEO gimmick or technology they believe might vault them to the top of the SERPs. And while trends such as the featured snippet can help you gain organic search traction, SEO is a long game that requires authority, quality, engaging content.

The biggest benefit of working with a team of writers is that you’re better positioned to provide the type of content that wins SEO long games. Other benefits include:

• You can rely on the creativity and brain power of more people to ensure your content is unique and relevant
• Each writer has different skills, ensuring each type of content is highest quality
• You don’t hitch your wagon to a single content creator, so if someone gets sick, has an emergency or becomes overburdened by the work, others can help out

How Do You Build the Right Writing Team for Each Project?

Gintaras Steponkus is the marketing manager at Solidguides and points out that the right writers for one job aren’t necessarily the right people for another project. “We work on two major domains: business and tech,” says Steponkus. “We have 10 writing team members in total—half for the business domain and the other half for the tech. Roles are assigned based on their interests and academics.”

But Steponkus doesn’t stop there. Writers for Solidguides content also specialize in the type of writing they do. “Different writers are dedicated to blogs, pitching, guest blogs, video creation content and podcasts scripts. Two managers handle the two teams and have expertise in their relevant domain.”

Who you put on your business content writing team depends on your needs and goals. At minimum, you might want:

• Different writers who are qualified and experienced in writing for the types of content you require, including sales copywriters to handle conversion-focused pages, general writers for basic blog posts and social media writers who have the skills required to engage audiences in those specialty formats
• One or more detail-oriented editors with experience in marketing and business content to tweak drafts
• SEO experts to help identify what topics should be covered, how content should be formatted and what keywords to include
• Project or content managers to oversee the flow of all the work and ensure each of these areas is communicating