Whether you want a quick grammar check or higher-ranking content in search engines, you’ve got plenty of writing tools to choose from. We asked a few marketers, writers and SEOs to tell us about their favorite copyediting software.

Choosing the Right Copyediting Software

Artificial intelligence is making copyediting software incredibly robust. Unlike rule-based grammar checkers, software that uses AI can analyze enormous amounts of writing to learn patterns in sentence construction. It uses these patterns to suggest ways of refining your writing.

Powered by machine learning, copyediting software can perform simple and complex tasks:

• Correct spelling and grammar mistakes
• Identify hard-to-read sentences
• Detect passive vs active voice
• Help with word choice
• Recommend changes in tone
• Evaluate reading level
• Detect duplicate text or plagiarism
• Make SEO keyword recommendations

The best copyediting software depends on your needs. Are you looking for a quick grammar check or real-time feedback? How important is SEO? What type of content are you creating?

You may want a couple of programs on hand based on the task.

Let’s see what professional writers, marketers and SEOs are using when crafting content.

Copyediting Software for Overall Style

Grammarly

Grammarly has been around for more than a decade, and, like other programs, has evolved in sophistication. It can detect spelling and grammar mistakes and suggest ways to improve style, clarity and tone.

Rebekah Edwards, co-founder of Content Creators Agency, has been using the software for several years. “It definitely doesn’t catch everything, but [does] help catch common errors that I otherwise miss when proofreading content,” she says.

The tool works with a variety of programs, including Messenger, Slack, Google Docs and MS Word. “The best thing about Grammarly is how well it integrates everywhere I write,” Edwards adds.

Features of Grammarly

• Free version offers basic writing suggestions and checks spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Premium version detects plagiarism and evaluates clarity, tone and word choice
• Business version lets you create a company style guide for teams of up to 149 employees

ProWritingAid

Cornshaw ranks ProWritingAid as his favorite copyediting software because of its flexibility.

“I can start with a short check of my grammar, style and structure,” he says. “The tool can highlight overused words or repeats, and suggest alternatives to make the text smooth. It helps improve readability.”

Edwards also reaches for ProWritingAid, highlighting its in-depth reports that focus on different elements of your writing.

“Most reports are included in the free version and span helpful results from words I use too often to clichés,” she says. “I’ll be honest — my biggest struggle is not accidentally speaking in a passive voice. Both Grammarly and ProWritingAid help me catch those instances when I fall into old habits.”

While ProWritingAid is powerful, Cornshaw notes that speed can be an issue. “[It] can be a bit laggy sometimes and is not as fast and user-friendly as…competitors like Grammarly,” he adds.

ProWritingAid at a Glance

• Integrates with MS Word, Google Docs, Scrivener, Open Office and Final Draft. Browser extensions are also available.
• Generates reports focused on grammar, readability, consistency, sentence length, transitions and pacing
• Options for monthly, annual or lifetime subscriptions

Copyediting Software for Quick Grammar Checks

Slick Write

Julien Raby, founder of Coffee Works, tried several copyediting software programs before deciding on Slick Write.

“You just type your content right into the checker. The website will point out errors in grammar, spelling, structure, punctuation, tense and more,” Raby explains.

Raby likes the ability to choose what the software scans for, such as passive voice, repetitive sentence structure or weak descriptions. You can do “an initial check for grammar and structure, and then a final check for spelling,” he explains.

Slick Write at a Glance

• Free web-based tool
• Provides a readability index
• Looks for variety in sentence structure and word length
• Highlights content that may be repetitive or difficult to read

Hemingway Editor

While Cornshaw turns to ProWritingAid for detailed edits, he opts for Hemingway Editor for a quick readability check.

“The tool gives you a readability score from 1 to 15 and highlights sentences that are hard to read,” he says. “Basically, it’s a fast way to see which parts of my paper might require additional work.”

Hemingway at a Glance

• Free web-based tool
• Simple interface that groups similar mistakes by color
• Highlights hard-to-read sentences and passive voice
• Identifies weak phrasing or word choice

Copyediting Software for SEO

PageOptimizer Pro

Some copyediting software helps optimize content for search engines. Brennen Bliss, CEO of PixelCutLabs, uses PageOptimizer Pro when creating copy for client websites.

“POP actively provides SEO recommendations as you write,” explains Bliss. “[It] has contributed to our content’s ability to rank in position four, on average, in the first 90 days after publishing.”

PageOptimizer Pro at a Glance

• Analyzes content against top competitors
• Makes suggestions about keywords, LSI terms, word count and header tags
• Recommends where to use keywords in copy (title, subheadings and main content)
• Scores content based on keyword usage
• Monthly subscription packages

Surfer

John Bedford, founder of Viva Flavor, worked in SEO and content strategy before launching his own editorial business. He creates and edits his work in the Content Editor module of Surfer.

“Much of my work involves hitting the same beats as the competition who are already ranking in Google,” he says. Bedford notes it’s important to not let content optimization tools control your writing, but is seeing tangible SERP results. “I’m finding the first pass of each long-tail article now has a much higher chance of breaking through the noise,” he says.

Bedford monitors his content and reworks it over time. “Those that don’t perform within a reasonable time period get a second or third pass. Each time, I focus the scope of the article to more closely touch on the broader search intent of any given topic. Slowly but surely, you’ll see performance gains,” he says.

Surfer at a Glance

• Integrates with WordPress and Google Docs
• Compares keywords on competitor pages to develop content guidelines
• Additional tools to help plan content strategies
• Monthly subscription plans

Copywritely

Cornshaw’s favorite copyediting software for SEO is Copywritely. He uses the software to check for keywords, duplicate content and redundant phrases. “It’s easy to use and is pretty cheap,” he explains. “Just $18 a month for 50 checks, which is enough for me.”

Copywritely at a Glance

• Scans content with the goal of ranking higher in search engines
• Makes suggestions for replacing low-quality content
• Identifies plagiarism and keyword stuffing
• Provides readability scores
• Grammar checker
• Monthly plans for personal, business and enterprise use

Still Looking for Your Favorite Copyediting Software?

If the programs touched on in this article aren’t right for you, here are a few more to consider. It may take a few tries to find the copyediting software that works best for your needs.

• Ginger Software
• PerfectIt
• WhiteSmoke
• LanguageTool
• WordRake
• INK

Crowd Content offers flexible content solutions for small businesses, agencies, brands and retailers. Contact us today to learn how our professional freelance writers can provide you with high quality content that’s ready to publish.

The post Favorite Copyediting Software of Marketers and SEOs 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.

In this blog post, we’ll explore seven principles of communication and teach you how to incorporate them into your delivery strategy. Ready to morph into a marketing maven? Excellent: read on.

What Makes Communication Effective?

When one person successfully conveys an idea to another person — or a group of people — that’s effective communication. Going further, effective communication in marketing is always persuasive. Conversions depend on your ability to persuade customers that your products or services are essential — or at the very least, extremely beneficial to them.

Let’s think about the characteristics of persuasive content for a moment. Effective communication must be:

• Clear
• Accurate
• Complete
• Precise
• Reliable
• Considerate
• Polite

Effective communicators don’t just broadcast a message: they listen, too. We’ll explore this in detail later on, but effective communication is a dance between sender and recipient. You’re the sender; consumers are the recipients.

What Are the Seven Principles of Communication?

Some people are undoubtedly better natural communicators than others. With that said, any of us can learn the seven principles of effective communication.

#1: Listen Carefully

Communication is a two-way street. Experienced negotiators and diplomats know that to achieve results, they need to listen as well as speak. You can use this principle to create truly compelling marketing content. To find out what your consumer base wants, use a service like SurveyMonkey to create a questionnaire; then, use social media and email to distribute your survey.

#2: Create a Goal

What do you want your audience to do after they read your marketing content? Let’s look at a few examples:

• Marketing emails: Ideally, recipients follow a link to a landing page on your website and make a purchase.
• Advertorials: Advertorial text must compel readers to enter your sales channel and purchase your product.
• Product descriptions: Descriptions have to answer visitor questions about function, price, size, shipping costs etc. to create conversions.

Think about goals for your marketing content and then pinpoint a few trackable key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you review your progress. Great content marketing KPIs for websites include:

• Page or social media post shares
• Unique page visitors
• Time spent on pages
• Inbound links to pages on your site
• Social media interactions or comments
• Cost per lead (CPL)

Organize Your Thoughts: Winners keep score, so create a well-organized outline for your marketing plan and stick to it.

#3: Think About Your Medium

You might need to adjust your message for each medium you use. Social media demands a different marketing approach than an advertorial, for example. Twitter and Facebook posts are short and to the point; advertorials can be thousands of words long. To generate a decent click-through rate (CTR) on social media, your message must be both compelling and succinct.

#4: Clear, Persuasive Writing

Let’s get one thing straight: jargon doesn’t add credibility to marketing content. Leave jargon behind — and make sure you check your content for spelling mistakes and unnecessarily wordy sentences. Long-winded declarations don’t lead to conversions; short, precise statements do, though.

To write persuasively, you have to appeal to consumers’ emotions. In his 2011 book entitled Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman explores two separate thought processes. Readers react intuitively and emotionally first — logic gets second dibs. Think of emotional triggers and rational facts as ingredients in persuasive writing, and combine them equally for best results.

Less is More: Stay on point and avoid repetition to ensure busy readers receive your message.

#5: Tell Stories

Early humans came together around communal campfires to cook, create tools and tell stories. Leading anthropologists agree that we’re hardwired to learn from storytelling — and that’s something you can use to your advantage whenever you create marketing content. Well-crafted stories convey information in an entertaining and engaging way; stories also humanize your product and your company.

#6: Get Visual

People learn in a lot of different ways. When educator Neil Fleming unveiled his VARK model design in 1987, he proposed four sensory modalities — more commonly known as learning styles:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Physical
• Social

Most of us use all four modalities to learn new information. Many people are primarily visual learners, however, which is why it’s so important to use images in your marketing. Photographs, illustrations — even cartoons — pique the reader’s interest, while diagrams and infographics translate text into digestible pictures.

Images Rule: Are your readers in a hurry?A 2014 MIT neuroscience study found that people were able to absorb information from images in as few as 13 microseconds.

#7: Stay Curious

As your business evolves, your customers will also evolve. If you decide to concentrate on a niche market, you’ll need to target a specific consumer subset. If you expand your range, you might decide to market your products via a greater number of channels. In either case, keep your ear to the ground to make sure you continue to communicate effectively with your customers.

Effective Communication in Marketing

We know the seven principles of communication; now we’ll talk about how they apply in your day-to-day marketing strategy. Let’s look at marketing emails, advertorials and product descriptions.

Marketing Emails

Marketing emails need an eye-catching subject line, or they risk being tossed in the trash — or even worse, being relegated to your recipient’s spam folder. Marketing emails also benefit from concise, compelling content and a bold call to action (CTA) link or a clickable button. You’ll also need to create a sales funnel for your marketing email — a custom landing page, for example.

Advertorials

Advertorials use the power of storytelling to promote and sell products. They’re the marketing equivalent of a really great salesperson on a shop floor. Laced with emotional hooks and carefully selected information, advertorials turn mundane items into must-haves. Genuinely great advertorials don’t even sound like adverts — they sound more like blog posts, or enthusiastic (but genuine) endorsements.

Product Descriptions

The best product descriptions (PDs) use a combination of hard fact and entertaining prose to convince visitors of an item’s value. Most shorter PDs begin with one or two descriptive paragraphs and continue with a relevant list of product features. Customers need to be able to see key facts at a glance. To avoid losing consumers at the checkout phase, make sure you display shipping charges clearly on each product page.

It’s a Marketing Wrap

Product descriptions, press releases, emails, advertorials and other marketing content are all built on the principles of effective communication. Let’s end with a quick recap of each point:

• Listen: Communication flows both ways, so listen to what your customers want.
• Goals: Create marketing targets and identify and monitor KPIs to stay on the ball.
• Medium: Adjust your content to match your publishing medium.
• Clarity: Stay focused and make your writing persuasive.
• Stories: Tell stories to draw your readership in.
• Visuals: Use infographics, photographs and illustrations to reach your visitors.
• Curiosity: Stay curious about your customers — and modify your marketing methods if your base changes.

Want to improve your website with top-notch marketing content? Make Crowd Content your go-to provider for engaging blog posts, enticing product descriptions and excellent advertorials.

ALSO – How to Create Original Content and Why It’s More Important Than Ever

The post What Are the Principles of Communication? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Proofreading requires a serious commitment of time and attention to detail, but it pays off in the long run. By consistently providing clients with publish-ready copy, you’re demonstrating you’re a writer they can depend on.

Here are 45 proofreading tips and tricks to get you started.

Set the Stage for Success

1. Keep a Grammar or Style Guide Nearby

You can’t proofread properly unless you know standard grammar rules and style conventions. Even the most seasoned writers consult a print or online resource when needed. Try The Associated Press Stylebook, Grammar Girl or Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab.

2. Review Project-Specific Guidelines

Some companies have internal style requirements. Know in advance the expectations for style choices such as serial commas or British spelling.

3. Know Your Weaknesses

We all have words that we struggle with or habits that are hard to break. Keep a personal checklist of errors that you tend to make and watch for them when proofreading.

4. Get Your Draft Into Top Shape

Proofreading can’t fix overall problems with structure and organization, so make sure your work is the best you can make it before doing a final check. Read up on best practices — vary sentence length and construction; remove unnecessary words; use direct language; and write in active voice.

5. Don’t Proofread Until Your Final Draft

Fix mistakes as you catch them during writing and editing, but don’t start a thorough proofread if your writing is a work-in-progress. Proofreading should be your final stage; otherwise, it becomes an editing session.

6. Commit the Time to Proofreading

Thorough proofreading takes time. Set aside a block of time well before a deadline so that you’re not rushed.

7. Avoid Distractions

Find a quiet spot to work or get a set of earplugs so you can focus on the task at hand. Proofreading is careful, detailed work and it’s hard to do it well if you’re constantly interrupted.

Get a Fresh Perspective on Your Writing

It’s hard to switch from writing to proofreading, as explained so well in this Wired article. When your brain is familiar with the text, it tends to skip over typos and errors. Try some of these proofreading tips and tricks to make your brain think it’s reading copy for the first time.

8. Step Away From Your Desk

Finished your final draft? Take a break and do something else before proofreading. Fresh eyes can spot errors much more easily.

9. Proofread in a Different Font

Change the font of your document to one you rarely use. Your brain will slow down as you’re reading to get used to the new shapes it’s interpreting.

10. Zoom in on the Words

Try viewing your document at 200% or more when proofreading. When the words fill up more of your screen, individual letters stand out and you can more easily pick out typos and errors.

11. Change the Layout of the Page

It’s easy to start skipping words in a line of text that’s the full-width of your page. Try setting two-inch-wide margins on the left and right of your document so you’re reading fewer words per line. Formatting the copy into two columns does the same trick.

12. Edit a Hard Copy

Give your eyes a break from the screen and print out a hard copy. Changing the medium gives your work a completely different feel.

Proofreading Tips and Tricks to Try

13. Slow Down

Proofread slowly so you can examine each letter, word and sentence. If you start speeding up, you’re likely looking only at groups of words.

14. Read a Line at a Time

When proofreading a hard copy, place a sheet of paper underneath each line as you read. Move the sheet down as you finish each line. This forces you to concentrate only on what you see.

15. Be Systematic

Proofread in stages to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. For example, read your work once for spelling, and then move to punctuation. This means making multiple passes, but you can focus on one error at a time.

16. Read Out Loud

Every word gets your attention when you read out loud.

17. Start From the End

Try proofreading from the end of your document to the beginning, one sentence at a time. You’re no longer reading for meaning and can study each sentence on its own merits.

18. Ask Someone Else to Proofread

Ask a colleague or friend to proof your writing. They may catch errors that you didn’t even know you were making.

19. Use an Online Grammar Check

Run your copy through an online grammar tool. Remember that software programs won’t catch all mistakes, and you still need to make a judgment call about whether the recommendations are correct.

Know What Mistakes You’re Looking For

We can’t cover all the mechanics of writing in this article, but you can watch for commonly made mistakes with these proofreading tips and tricks.

20. Examine Sentence Structure

Study each sentence separately. Try to spot fragments and run-on sentences, and consider if ambiguous pronouns or dangling modifiers are causing confusion.

21. Review Punctuation Marks

Pause each time you encounter punctuation such as a hyphen, colon, semi-colon or apostrophe, and make sure it’s used correctly.

22. Watch the Placement of Commas

Commas are one of the most commonly used punctuation marks but can be hard to get right. Familiarize yourself with comma usage rules so you can place them appropriately in your copy.

23. Scan for Spelling Mistakes and Typos

Now, look at individual words. Check for proper spelling and words that are missing, repeated or in the wrong spot. This is also a good time to check the spacing between words and sentences.

24. Check Words for Meaning

Watch for homonyms, which sound the same but have different meanings. For example, people often confuse “affect” and “effect” when writing.

25. Make Sure Subjects and Verbs Agree

The subject of a sentence can be singular or plural. Look to see that the corresponding verb agrees with the subject.

26. Use Parallel Structure

Parallelism ensures that all words or phrases in a series have a similar pattern to improve readability. For example, choose a structure for a set of bullet points, such as starting each one with a word in gerund form (ending in “-ing”).

Aim for Accuracy

In addition to proofreading for grammar and style, do some fact-checking to make sure the content of your work is accurate.

27. Confirm Names and Details

Review names of people, places and organizations for correctness and spelling. Confirm that addresses, phone numbers, dates and times are correct.

28. Do the Math Again

Double-check figures and statistics for extra zeros, misplaced numbers or calculation errors.

29. Check Quotations

It’s important not to alter what others say when you quote them. If you’re tidying up a quote by omitting words or clarifying meaning, use square brackets and ellipses.

30. Confirm Your Sources

Check that statistics and quotes are attributed to the correct source.

Format Consistently

Here are some proofreading tips and tricks to ensure consistent formatting. Focus on one element at a time.

31. Watch the Style of Your Numbers

Look at each number. Are measurements written in the right format? Are you using the percentage symbol, if required, instead of the word? Don’t forget the rules for spelling out numbers from one to nine.

32. Check Each Header

Now, review the headers. Make sure each one is assigned the appropriate heading level, written in proper case (title or sentence), and punctuated as required.

33. Review Bullets and Lists

Review each list for consistency according to your internal style guide. Do the bullets need to be preceded by a colon? Should each point be capitalized? Make sure all lists are parallel.

34. Look Over Each Table

Check the content in each cell of a table for alignment (left, right or center), capitalization and punctuation.

35. Inspect the Footnotes and Endnotes

Confirm that each superscript in the body text has a matching reference. Footnotes and endnotes should be formatted in a consistent style.

36. Check the Numbering

Mistakes can easily crop up when there’s numbering in a document. Carefully review any numbered chapters, sections, headers, lists, footnotes and endnotes to ensure that numbering is sequential.

37. Review Cross-References

During edits, sentences can be moved or deleted. If you’re referring to a specific section, chapter or appendix, make sure you’re sending the reader to the correct place.

The Final Steps

You’re almost done! Here are a few other things to keep in mind.

38. Be Consistent With Your Edits

Any changes you make during proofreading must be applied consistently. The search function is handy for finding all instances of a certain word, but it’s a good idea to manually review changes instead of using a universal replace.

39. Make Sure the Links Work

Click on each link in the document to make sure it’s not broken and takes readers to the correct web page.

40. Perform One More Check

When you’ve finished proofing and making corrections, do one more review. Mistakes can slip in when you’re making changes.

Sharpen Your Proofreading Skills

Proofreading is an essential part of the writing process and helps ensure that your work is of the highest quality. Here are ways to develop your proofreading skills over time.

41. Make a Checklist

Always review feedback from editors, clients and project managers to see where you can improve. Prepare for your next proofreading session by making a list of things you struggle with. Go through your list and look for these mistakes before submitting your next piece.

42. Create a Proofreading Routine

Not all proofreading techniques work for each writer. Experiment with different strategies and find the ones that suit your style of working. The important thing is to establish a routine so proofreading becomes a habit.

43. Read Critically

Gain inspiration from great writing. Look at well-written articles to see how the author has constructed sentences and used punctuation. Try to understand the fundamentals of strong writing so you can incorporate these into your own work.

44. Commit to Lifelong Learning

Brush up on your knowledge by reading grammar and style guides to learn new rules. Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab has a series of video lectures and online exercises to practice what you’ve learned. To really elevate your skills, take an online course.

45. Remember, It’s a Process

If you’re overwhelmed, take a step back and remember that proofreading is like any skill. Keep practicing and developing your techniques, and over time, you’ll be delivering flawless copy like a pro.

ALSO – What is Active Voice in Writing?

The post 45 Proofreading Tips and Tricks for Error-Free Copy appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Content writing companies and insightful clients reject fluff writing as a matter of course. To be a successful content writer, you’ll need to avoid padding of all types.

What’s Fluff Writing, Anyway?

Great articles stay on point; fluff writing beats around the bush. Most visitors spend less than 30 seconds scanning website content before bouncing to another location. To grab reader attention, you need to write a compelling first sentence and follow with an irresistible hook. After that, it’s all about solid, practical information.

Whatever you do, don’t include any of the following varieties of fluff:

• Your own opinion: Stick to the facts.
• Non-specific information: If you’re writing an article about cheese, don’t include five paragraphs on dairy cow psychology.
• Complex terminology or cutesy language: Complicated sentences and sugary prose put people off.
• Tangents: Stay on target, Skywalker.

Fluffy Examples

Talking about fluff is one thing; seeing it in action is quite another. Let’s dive deep into a mound of fuzz to see how it feels:

Example #1

Fluffy Fluff

As you sand your tabletop before beginning the oiling process to seal the wood, you may want to use several different sandpaper grits to ensure that you end up with a smooth, even surface. You may enjoy the feeling of a rustic tabletop with natural wood features, burls and knots in it, but your customer might not enjoy the same sensation.

Meaningful Content

Sand your tabletop with progressively finer-grit paper to achieve a smooth result. Oil the finished surface to create a seal. Most consumers enjoy the natural look and feel of a smooth, oiled tabletop.

Example #2

Fluffy Fluff

Nearly everyone enjoys the weather in summer. Most people love to go out and swim, or walk, or play with their dogs in the dog park, or take their children to the beach. Before Autumn arrives with its lovely colors and you feel leaves underfoot, make sure you pressure wash your deck, or find a telephone and call the Deckwashing Dudes to see if they can wash your deck for you.

Meaningful Content

Summer is the best time to pressure wash your deck. For a professional result on the double, call the Deckwashing Dudes today.

Example #3

Fluffy Fluff

It’s October 25th, so that means it’s only two months until Christmas — in other words, roughly eight weeks, 56 days or 80,640 minutes. If you don’t know what to get your children for Christmas, you could ask them to write a neat and nicely illustrated letter to Santa to help you figure out which toys they have on their wish lists.

Meaningful Content

It’s almost Christmas again. A fun “letter to Santa” activity can help you figure out your child’s wish list this holiday season.

What’s Filler?

In a nutshell, filler pads content with meaningless verbiage to boost word count. Wordy or complex sentences obscure meaning and make your content hard to understand. Readers get bored or exhaust themselves and move on — and most of them don’t come back.

All of the following amount to filler:

Passive voice: “The car was driven by Simon,” is passive; “Simon drove the car” is active.

Filler words: Don’t use two words when you can use one.

Redundant words: Again, fewer words are better.

Adding phrases: Explain things once — and succinctly.

Complex or abstract ideas: Remember the central point of your article.

Filler Examples

Filler is a content killer. Let’s find out why:

Example #1

Bombastic

There are extensive bodies of research available to graduate students looking for meaningful topics to discuss with physicists associated with the department.

Fantastic

Graduate students can visit the library if they need inspiration before interviewing department physicists.

Example #2

Bombastic

On account of the fact that he was continuously and unrepentantly unkind to her mother, Sarah decided to break off her current relationship with Joel.

Fantastic

Joel continually insulted Sarah’s mother, so Sarah broke up with him.

Example #3

Bombastic

The weekly shopping was previously done at Walmart by George, who would drive to the grocery store in his valuable 1951 Aston Martin.

Fantastic

George used to drive his vintage Aston Martin to Walmart.

You Don’t Need to Write Fluff

Fluff won’t help you expand your readership. Instead, you’re likely to lose site visitors — and if you’re a content writer, you might lose clients, too. With that said, you might need to bend the rules from time to time:

• Complicated language: Articles about complex scientific research inevitably include complex language.
• Opinion: If you’ve been invited to write an op-ed for the New York Times, eat your heart out.

What to Write Instead of Fluff

Don’t pad your content. Instead, use these six clever tricks to fill your next article with fact:

Trick 1: Avoid Big Words

If you have to look a word up, try to avoid using it in your writing. Opt for an easier-to-understand word or phrase instead.

Trick 2: Nix Inflated Language

Don’t write “utilize” when you can write “use.” Don’t choose “commence” when you can choose “start.” To facilitate is to help, to cease is to stop, and to endeavor is to try.

Trick 3: Lose the Superlatives

Don’t use superlatives to make something sound fancier than it really is. In fact, keep grandiose adjective use to a minimum across the board.

Trick 4: Cut the Jargon

Stay away from long, descriptive phrases filled with industry lingo; instead, use bright, concise phrases to convey your message.

Trick 5: Drop the Intensifiers

Intensifiers emphasise other words to make them sound beefier — “very best,” “extremely well” and “unbelievably nice” for example. Kick them to the curb.

Trick 6: Dodge the Filler

When you’re done writing, scan your article for filler words. The best among us use words like “really,” “just,” “even,” “that” and “such” as filler without a second thought, so edit your work before submitting.

In Conclusion

Let’s end with a brief recap.

• Filler: great for patching nail holes; not so great in an article.
• Fluff: Essential in pillows; useless in a blog post.

The next time you write a blog post, an article or web content, think less like James Joyce and more like Stephen King. Lose the lint and you’ll gain a much bigger audience.

Need professionally written content for your site? Get in touch with Crowd Content to find out more.

ALSO – What is Active Voice in Writing?

The post What “Fluff Writing” Means and How to Avoid Filler appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The cat ate food.

The food was eaten by the cat.

First impressions: which sentence flows best? Which sentence do you like the most? The first sentence uses active voice, while the second uses passive voice.

In this guide, we’ll dive into the dynamics of active vs. passive voice. Then, we’ll explore exactly why most content writing platforms recommend the former over the latter.

Let’s get to it.

What is Passive Voice in Writing?

Passive voice is the literary equivalent of a limp noodle. In a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence — the person, animal, inanimate object etc. — is acted upon by the verb.

Passive Sentence Construction in a Nutshell

To construct a passive sentence, you need:

• A subject (Sarah)
• An object (the chicken coop)
• A conjugated version of “to be” (was)
• Your verb’s past participle (was cleaned vs. cleaned, for example)

Nearly all passive sentences also include a preposition (by, after or since, for instance).

The chicken coop was cleaned by Sarah.

That sentence reads like a cobblestone street, doesn’t it. You feel yourself stumbling over the various parts of speech. Not so good from a content writing perspective.

Let’s break our previous sentence down:

The chicken coop (object) was (conjugated form of “to be”) cleaned (past tense verb) by (preposition) Sarah (subject).

More Passive Sentence Examples

The car was covered in rust.

Directions will be given to you by the organizer.

A dozen cupcakes were baked by mom.

The kittens were hidden by the mother cat.

What is Active Voice in Writing?

Active voice brings your story to life. Forget overcooked pasta: active voice is a dish made from hatch chili peppers and sun-ripened tomatoes. In an active sentence, the subject acts autonomously.

Active Sentence Construction in a Nutshell

To construct an active sentence, you need:

• A subject (Sarah)
• An object (the chicken coop)
• A verb (cleans)

You’ll find the subject right at the beginning of an active sentence — ahead of the verb.

Sarah cleans the chicken coop.

That sentence is much shorter — and it goes straight to the point. It’s much easier to digest. You lose the preposition (by) and gain a smoother reading experience.

Now let’s pull our active sentence apart:

Sarah (subject) cleans (verb) the chicken coop (object).

More Active Sentence Examples

Rust covered the car.

The organizer will give you directions.

Mom baked a dozen cupcakes.

The mother cat hid her kittens.

Why Should I Avoid Passive Voice?

What if other people use passive voice? Is it ever okay to use passive voice in content marketing?

In short, not really.

One of the biggest problems with passive voice is its lack of immediacy. Successful marketing content uses an engaging tone to draw the reader in, and passive voice just isn’t very engaging.

Disengaged readers leave websites very quickly. You can optimize your content to reduce your bounce rate and hold reader attention. That’s where active voice comes in.

Why is Active Voice Important?

People (your audience) end up on your site because they’re on a quest for answers. They’re not looking for anything complex: they just want to know about your product or service.

Here are three more reasons why active voice is a vital part of content marketing:

It’s Much Easier to Read

Active voice is much easier to read than passive voice. Website content in active voice flows easily and feels more natural.

Active voice: Our family saw the June 2020 lunar eclipse.

Passive voice: The lunar eclipse in June 2020 was seen by our family.

Passive voice is clunky. Imagine how exhausting it would be to read an entire page full of content like that.

It’s More Concise

If you’re writing marketing content, less is more. You need to get to the point — and you need to get there quickly. The end goal is to get people to go down your sales funnel, and you won’t get there if you choose passive sentence construction.

Active voice: The Earth’s shadow covered the moon.

Passive voice: The moon was covered by the shadow of the Earth.

There are six words in the active sentence, and ten in the passive sentence. That’s almost double the amount of text.

In short, active voice can help you cut your page content in half, volume wise, and still make the grade.

It Conveys Authority

To turn visitors into customers (and hopefully into repeat customers), you need to create a feeling of authority on your site. Punchy content written in the active voice can help you get there.

Ultimately, active content speaks directly to the reader. Active voice takes responsibility — it’s credible, straightforward and efficient.

Active voice: We ship all orders within 24 hours, and we fully guarantee our products for two years.

Passive voice: All orders are shipped within 24 hours and products are fully guaranteed for two years.

Which version of the statement sounds more believable to you? Which one sounds more immediate? Which one sounds less pretentious? Active voice is convincing; passive voice creates a barrier between you and your customer.

Winding Up

Passive voice is noncommittal. It skirts every issue, it feels indecisive and it looks clumsy on the page. In contrast, active voice takes control, conveys authority and reads smoothly. The winner for web content? Active voice — hands down.

ALSO – The Complete Guide to Using Formal Titles in AP Style

The post What is Active Voice in Writing? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

A message map is a content creation tool that distills all the great things about your brand into bite-sized selling points. It’s used as a framework when crafting content to ensure your company’s core message always shines through.

What is a Message Map?

Ian Kelly, VP of Operations at wellness brand NuLeaf Naturals, describes message maps as the “lifeblood” of their product launch campaigns. “Message maps help in having a clear cut understanding of what a piece of content should revolve around,” he says.

A message map clarifies your brand’s unique selling points based on target audience. It’s built on:

• One core message
• Three related themes
• Three supporting examples for each theme

Your message map template might look something like this:

• Core Message or Headline
• Key Theme #1
• Key Theme #2
• Key Theme #3
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information
• Supporting information

Remember to Keep Your Message Map Brief

A message map should be concise enough so the main points are understood immediately. There’s no need for long explanations — if you can’t synthesize your essential message into a few words, your core message is too diluted.

Gintaras Steponkus, SEO Expert at Solid Guides, designs message maps using a principle of crisis communication. “You need to follow the 3-3-30 rule of Chandler for effective message mapping,” he explains. “Three points with three short sentences and content, not more than 30 words.”

Need an example? Have a look at the real-life message map used by the marketing department of Northwest College.

5 Reasons Message Maps Are Important to Your Success

Your messaging influences how customers perceive your company, so make sure it’s consistent and repeated to best inspire a positive response. Each piece of copy should be focused on your core message, and all content should work together as a whole to create your brand.

Here’s how a message map keeps your ultimate goal in focus.

1. Reminds You Why You’re Creating Content

Content can be engaging and well-written, but if it strays too far from a company’s essential message, it’s not doing its job.

“Many times, writers, in their pursuit of being creative, tend to not stress on the main USP of a product,” says Kelly. “The message map is a great reminder to root every content to its core message.”

2. Ensures Content is Consistent

When you’ve got multiple people collaborating, whether in one department or across units, a cohesive message can be hard to deliver. A message map ensures content is consistent, which is especially critical when you have a team of content creators.

“Different writers end up focusing on slightly different aspects. This can weaken the campaign and reduce conversion levels,” Kelly says.

3. Sharpens Your Messaging

Carl Neumann, founder and CEO of Blu Dot Media, finds that a message map helps ensure their content is always on-point.

“We have to craft ideal messages that can start conversations with prospects, as well as the right follow-up messages to convert those conversations into business opportunities,” he explains. “This has empowered our marketing and sales teams to communicate much more effectively, by conveying the right benefits to the right target audience.”

4. Drives Your Content

Content becomes much easier to create with a message map leading the way. Whether a writer is putting together a sales script, article or product demo, the map provides the foundation of the content. The rest of the story should easily fall into place around these essential building blocks.

5. Puts Your Content to Work For You

When your content represents your brand, it’s easier for customers to understand why they should do business with you. This can translate into your ultimate goal: customer engagement and sales.

Blu Dot Media has seen first-hand how well-executed message maps can help a brand persuade customers to take action. “Since we started using message maps, the response rate of our lead generation campaigns has gone up by 31% on average. And, the conversion rate went up by 51%,” says Neumann.

How to Create a Message Map

You can create message maps for product launches, marketing campaigns and your overall brand.

1. Determine Your Audience

Start the process by defining your target audience. Depending on your business, you may have several audiences. You might find developing buyer personas helpful.

Neumann suggests being as detailed as possible in defining your target audience. “This is critical, because you can then put yourself in their shoes, and describe the benefits they can get from you,” he explains.

2. Identify Messages for Each Audience

Think about what’s important to your audience and why your company or product can solve their problems. Use this to inform your three key themes.

“If you have a wide variety of audience, segment them into separate groups and understand each of their pain points and goals,” suggests Kelly. “This intel will help you craft important talking points.”

3. Map Message to Audience

As you move further into the message map, use examples, case studies and stats to support your argument. Draw out different threads to highlight in your content depending on the audience you’re targeting.

If you’re trying to attract new customers or raise awareness, for example, you might start at the top of the message map with the core theme. As customers proceed further into the shopping journey, call out more detailed features to help them make their purchasing decision.

Create Effective Content With Message Maps

Use a message map to ensure the content you create is driving your audience to take action. It takes time to develop a thorough message map, but once it’s in place, content creation is much more streamlined and effective. To learn more about how Crowd Content can deliver professional content for your business, contact us today.

ALSO – What Is Evergreen Content and Why Do You Need It?

The post How Using Message Maps Can Boost Your Content Creation appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Everyone loves a good yarn. For thousands of years before the internet, traveling storytellers spread news, illuminating urban and rural communities by firelight. People waited excitedly for them to arrive, and then huddled together to learn about the wider world.

Advertorials draw on the same storytelling magic to tell consumers about a product or service. They tug at the curious inner child in each of us, beckoning us closer and then whispering into our ears. In short, advertorials are modern tales from outside the town walls.

In this guide, we’re going to tell you exactly how skilled copywriters use human instinct to weave magic into their native ads. Ready? Let’s begin.

What is an Advertorial?

Advertorials are native ads that use editorial content — articles and blog posts — to sell products or services. They disguise themselves to match their surroundings, and draw readers in with the promise of information. By the time they’re done reading, site visitors feel well-informed, excited about the product or service, and ready to make a purchase.

“What is an advertorial? Advertorials, or ads published in the form of editorials or documents, enable advertisers to communicate credibly alongside trustworthy material from publishers.” Matt Scott, owner, Termite Survey.

The best stories have a message buried within them, and essentially, that’s how advertorials work. They take readers on a “hero’s journey” and turn products into protagonists.

How to Write a Breakthrough Advertorial

Simply put, advertorials are marketing chameleons. They blend in with their surroundings and deliver messages on the down low. You can write compelling native ads in just six steps — and we’re about to show you how.

Find Your Voice

Before you begin to create an advertorial, you need to find the right disguise. To do this, read through the rest of your content. Your advertorial must sound like your brand voice: if it doesn’t, consumers will notice the difference immediately and move on.

Some publishers use levity (The New Yorker), while others stick to the facts (The Economist). Effective advertorials sound exactly like the rest of the content on their host sites, so readers don’t know they’re reading ads at all. What is an advertorial? Your readers need never find out.

Good native ads read like any other piece of content your audience might expect from you. They should deliver similar value despite also nudging people towards a purchase.

Choose a Format

To keep customers on the hook, make sure you use a format they’re familiar with. If they enjoy reading how-to guides, create a guide-based advertorial; if they prefer a question-and-answer format, include a Q and A section. If you get a strong consumer response to Facebook ads, make a social media-centric advertorial part of your marketing plan.

Whatever you do, don’t include fluff. Your advertorial must be based on real, helpful information rather than hot air.

Write a Great Headline

Headlines are everything in marketing, so make your advertorial header as irresistible as possible. You can write your headline after you finish creating your advertorial, or you can write it in advance to give yourself an inspiration boost. Whatever you do, make sure your advertorial headline matches your brand voice.

If you’re stuck, try headline analysis on for size. Tools like CoSchedule help marketers come up with potent headers for free.

Don’t forget meta information: Include a meta title and a meta description to create a good first impression and improve your Google ranking.

Tell Your Story

Throw away that over-hyped sales pitch and forget about QVC: advertorials are not the place for hard sales tactics. Native ads use a far softer approach: engaging narrative. To write a really stellar advertorial, you have to channel that traveling storyteller we spoke about earlier.

“Advertorials are not salesy ads — they are great stories that provide value.” Ian Kelly, VP, NuLeaf

Think about your favorite story. Why do you enjoy it so much? The answer probably has to do with emotion. As you write your advertorial, don’t be scared to use feelings like amusement, fear, anger, frustration and surprise to your advantage.

Think about what makes your reader tick: are they likely to respond to humor or do they favor outrage? Are they driven by excitement, or do they prefer a quiet life?

A Word About Customers: If you haven’t yet done so, create a customer profile for your company (or a buyer persona for your product). Advertorials are far easier to write when you “know” your audience.

Provide Value

To build credibility with your target audience, you have to promote the human impact of your product or service. Focus on benefits rather than features.

“The rule of thumb is that an effective advertorial should have 80% of valuable content and 20% product promotion.” David Morneau, co-founder, inBeat

If you’re not sure about what you’ve written, try removing all mentions of your brand name from the content. Is it still helpful? Does your story stay intact? If your native ad revolves only around a sales pitch, it needs a little more work.

Close with a CTA

Always close your advertorial with a call to action. Great headlines draw readers into an article; great CTAs encourage them to learn more about a product — or to make a purchase. Some CTAs invite readers to visit product pages, while others push consumers into sales funnels with special offers.

Robust CTAs create urgency and inspire confidence by restating a product’s value. Here are a few CTA examples to get you started:

“Sign up now to get 10% off your first order!”

“Feel more energetic in just two weeks with X Wonder Supplement — 15% off for the next 15 minutes!”

“Get your free guide to X today with our super bonus special offer!”

If someone has taken the time to read to the end of your advertorial, chances are they’re engaged. That CTA could help them make a purchase decision right away.

Where to Promote Your Advertorial

So, you’ve crafted a perfect advertorial that leans on human emotion and compels readers to buy. Great!

What next?

You need to get it in front of your target audience in a way that looks natural to them. For instance, if your advertorial looks like an article, promote it where your readers are seeing articles.

Here are some great channels to promote your advertorials in:

1. Facebook / Instagram

Facebook offers great advertising tools for targeting very specific audiences. Be sure to create a post on Facebook containing your advertorial and then pay to promote it to your target audience.

2. Twitter

Similar to Facebook, Twitter lets you promote your tweets to well-defined audiences. Take some time to define your audience in their platform. Then, craft enticing tweets that you can promote to get eyeballs on your advertorial.

3. Content Promotion Networks

Services like Outbrain and Taboola let you pay to have your articles featured on major websites while making the content look like native articles. This is powerful and you should definitely explore this channel.

4. Reddit

Reddit is notorious for users suspicious of advertisements. But, their targeting tools are powerful and let you reach members of very specific sub-Reddits. Paying to promote your advertorial to these audiences can pay huge dividends. Because it looks like native content, you’re more likely to get good engagement.

5. Quora

Another smaller but powerful channel is Quora. It lets you advertise to specific themes and questions that have already been answered on its site. Take some time to explore some important questions related to your advertorial and then promote your content on the question page. People visiting this question page clearly need the info your advertorial provides.

You might even post your advertorial right on Quora’s question page, but you have to be tactful when doing this.

In Conclusion

What is an advertorial? In a nutshell, it’s a rich story that blends valuable information with product promotion. Some advertorials are long, while others are short: regardless, all of them provide value and end with a strong call to action.

The best native advertising builds a connection between a brand and its consumer base. You can use the six steps in this guide to create advertorials that drive up your AOV and create lasting relationships with customers, too.

ALSO – Is Long-Form Content the Way to Go?

The post Sales Funnel Magic: Supercharge Your Advertorials 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.

You might be thinking… “What is evergreen content, and why do I need it?”

Hint: Evergreen content attracts continuous organic traffic and loyal readers.

How does that sound?

In this post, you’ll learn what evergreen content is, why it’s important, and how to create it.

Let’s get started!

What is Evergreen Content?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is evergreen content, ‘evergreen’?”

The name, evergreen content, was inspired by evergreen trees. Unlike most trees, evergreen trees don’t lose their leaves. In fact, their leaves stay green and healthy all year round.

ALSO – Find the best content writers to craft evergreen content for your website

Like an evergreen tree, evergreen content is long-lasting and fresh. This type of content is useful for years to come.

What Evergreen Content Is Not

Before I talk about what evergreen content is, let’s go over what it isn’t:

• The latest statistics – “The Top 20 Pop Music Statistics of 2020”
• The most popular trends – “Content Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2021’
• Breaking news – “New Evidence of Life on Mars”

The topics above are time-sensitive—it covers short-term trends and the latest news. Evergreen content, on the other hand, covers long-lasting content:

• How-to posts – “How to Build an Online Business”
• Checklists – “10 Ways to Teach 3rd Graders Math”
• Resources – “How to Cite Your Research Paper in APA Format”

On that note, evergreen content is relevant, optimized, and authoritative. I’ll go over each description below.

Relevant

Think of evergreen content as a dictionary. Sure, dictionaries aren’t used every day, but you’ll always refer back to it.

Scott Johnson, the owner of Pitt Home Buyers, explains this further, “When creating evergreen content for your website, be sure that you’re speaking on a topic that will continue to be relevant in the future.”

With that said, evergreen content doesn’t have an expiration date. Your readers should always find it useful.

It covers topics with long-term value for the present and future.

Optimized

Evergreen blog posts are revisited, shared, and searched on Google. They attract links from outside sources and drive traffic.

Simon, the founder of CatchWorks, touches on this, “Evergreen content often forms the core foundations of an SEO content strategy.”

Evergreen content gets high rankings because it covers ongoing trends and search terms. Your readers are constantly searching for these topics—it never goes out of style.

With that said, your topic must be covered comprehensively. Your readers should leave your evergreen content with all of their questions answered.

In SEO, you can do this with:

• Consistent high search-volume topics
• Targeted keywords and semantic keywords
• On-page SEO optimization (i.e. keywords, linking, format)

Step 2 of this post goes over evergreen SEO in more detail.

Authoritative

Imagine going into an auto shop to buy a new car.

When you talk to a sales person, would you rather them…

A) Only know a few details about the cars they’re selling

B) Use their knowledge to answer all of your questions and help you find the perfect car

You’d probably go with B, right?

Authoritative figures attract the most customers because they’re credible, knowledgeable, and helpful. Evergreen content always covers a topic extensively. When you do this, the reader will think of you as an authoritative source.

Scott adds another insightful comment about authority, “Evergreen content builds your credibility and helps your customers see you as an expert in your field.”

Evergreen content is the key to building trust and credibility with your business. And when a user trusts your business, they’re more likely to become a long-lasting customer.

Why is Evergreen Content Important?

Along with the traits above, evergreen content is timeless—as in, it lasts forever.

“Evergreen content that will stay timely for years to come will likely give you the most legs and ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of your marketing strategy,” says Samantha Russell from Twenty Over Ten.

Timeless content gives you infinite possibilities to skyrocket your organic search and become an authority in your space.

So… how do you make this happen? How do you create evergreen content?

How Do You Create Evergreen Content?

You can create evergreen content in 6 steps. Examples of evergreen content will also be included in this section.

1. Consider Your Audience

When you create content, you should always think about your reader first. If your readers aren’t interested in your content, it won’t deliver long-term value.

Tricia Harte from Digital Third Coast recommends asking yourself questions like, “What pages are they visiting on your website? What questions does your internal sales team receive from potential clients? What do you do (differently) than your competitors?”

Along with the questions above, here are a 4 ways to gather customer data and feedback:

Analyze Your Website

Your website gathers a ton of useful customer information.

Figure out what your readers find interesting with Google Analytics. Google Analytics determines your most popular content with the following metrics:

• Bounce rate – How long do users stay on your page?
• Page visits – How many users visit your page?
• Engagement – What content does your readers like most? The least? How can you turn them into evergreen content?

Execute Social Listening

Like your website, social media can tell you a lot about your readers. Social listening monitors both your social media channels and conversations within your industry.

You can monitor your own channels and analyze your most popular social media posts—which posts receive the most engagement? The least?

You should also consider your likes and comments. Who’s interested in your content? Do they have any feedback or questions for you?

Along with monitoring your posts, keep track industry trends:

• Follow hashtags within your industry – what topics are your audience talking about?
• Track your competitor’s social channels – What pain points are your competitors not reaching?

These insights help you dig deeper into your audience’s pain points and build relevant and authoritative content.

Ask Your Readers Directly

When in doubt, ask your readers what they want to see.

Build a survey and send it to your readers via email, or hold a Q&A session on Twitter. Your readers will appreciate you asking for feedback and recommendations.

All in all, your audience always comes first. Their feedback will steer you on the right path to evergreen content.

Implement Keyword Search

There’s a good chance you already use keyword search for all of your content.

Evergreen content, in particular, needs keyword search to find continuous trends. Remember, evergreen content never goes out of date.

Use the following metrics during a keyword search:

• Search volume

Make sure online users are searching for your keywords. The higher the volume, the better.

• Traffic

Assess how much traffic other top sites get with your keyword. High traffic usually means your topic is evergreen.

• Other keyword ideas

Similar keywords will help you brainstorm evergreen content ideas.

For example, “Wooden house,” may have a similar keyword like, “Paint a wooden house.” From here, you could write an evergreen post on how to paint a wooden house.

You can use a free tool like Keyword Generator to help you out. Plus, you can check out other ways to optimize your keyword search here.

2. Research Evergreen Trends

Evergreen content isn’t focused on current trends, but continuous trends. Remember, evergreen content is relevant—relevant content stays on top for both the present and future.

On that note, you can find long-term evergreen content ideas with Google Trends. Google Trends measure long-term online trends. We’ll use the term, “evergreen content” as an example.

The graph above shows you the search popularity of “evergreen content” over a span of 12 months.

At the top, you can customize the country, search type, category, and time length of your topic. You’ll get the most out of this tool when you tailor its features for your audience.

Plus, Google Trends will recommend other topics and keywords to use at the bottom of the page.

You can use both keyword search from step 1 along with Google Trends to gather long-term trends.

3. Write Cornerstone Content

Evergreen content is educational and engaging.

With that said, don’t expect to write a 500-word post and be done with it. Instead, create cornerstone content.

Also known as topic clusters, cornerstone content uses interlinked web pages to improve user-navigation and SEO crawling.

So… how does it work?

Imagine cornerstone content as a tree trunk. Cornerstone content covers one broad topic and interlinks to its branches, which cover related-topics.

Together, the tree trunk and its branches create relevant, optimized, and authoritative content—it’s evergreen.

You can check out this cornerstone article by Twenty Over Ten to understand how they work.

Along with internal links, cornerstone content includes the following features:

Credible statistics

Well-researched stats are up-to-date and relevant. Avoid using statistics from questionable sites—you want to build trust with your readers.

Search for white papers and research journals within your industry for valid research. You can also create your own research with a personal study.

Quotes

Using quotes from other authoritative sources does two things:

One, they add different perspectives on your evergreen topic. The most informative pieces of content educate readers with different POVs.

Two, they build relationships with other professionals. When you quote a professional within your industry, they’ll take notice. You might even get a few shares.

Images

Images visualize your topic for your readers.

With that said, every photo should have a reason to be there. Random stock photos aren’t useful. Instead, insert screenshots to explain a step or sum up your article with an infographic.

As you write evergreen content, keep your audience in mind the entire time. Use cornerstone content to answer their questions and show them actionable steps to achieve their goals.

Plus, cornerstone content can be written in a variety of formats, as you’ll see in the next step.

4. Format Your Evergreen Content

Think back to the last time you read a textbook. You probably didn’t enjoy reading endless pages of small font, right?

Textbooks are intimidating—they created a belief that reading is hard and not fun. Luckily, you can format your content for your audience and Google.

Formatting your content benefits you in 3 of ways:

• It provides a welcoming environment for readers
• It helps Google crawl your site
• It can rank your content as a featured snippet on Google (you must also use schema markup, which you can learn more about here)

When you format your post, use headings, subheadings, and short paragraphs to separate blocks of text.

Along with formatting, you should create easy-to-navigate content.

John Matyasovsky, Digital Marketing Specialist at Roofing Webmasters, suggests adding a table of contents, “Readers can quickly access the portion of the document that most interests them.”

Here are 4 different types of evergreen content you can use to format your page. Click on each example to see each one in practice.

List Post

A list post is…well… a list. This type of content usually lists reasons, trends, tips, etc. about their topic.

Example: The Top Content Writing Skills Content Writers Need to Know

How-to Post

This type of post teaches your readers how to do something. They usually include a list of actionable steps.

Example: How to Write a Great Listicle for 2020

Guides

Guides cover everything you need to know about a general topic. They’re in-depth and answer any question your readers may have.

Example: Roofing SEO: The Definitive Guide

FAQs

Also known as, “Frequently Asked Questions,” a FAQ page covers common questions users have.

Example: Questions to consider when selling your house

Some formats will work better for you than others. Test out which ones are best for your audience and evergreen topic.

5. Promote Your Evergreen Content

You can write the best evergreen content ever, but it won’t be any use if nobody reads it. Optimized and relevant content is seen by current and future readers.

On that note, you can promote your post on and off of your site.

On Your Site

There are 4 ways to promote evergreen content on your site:

• Interlinking

Insert your new post’s link into other blog content. Better yet, add it to a cornerstone article.

I also suggest featuring your evergreen content to a service page. For example, if you provide SEO services, promote a blog post about SEO.

• Implement a side toolbar

Create a side toolbar on your site with a list of your most popular blog posts. Add your evergreen content to increase its visibility.

• Pop-up ads

You can also promote your posts with pop-up ads. An example is adding a top banner to your site. Insert a call to action with a link to your new post.

(insert a photo of a top banner example here?)

Off Your Site

Use time-sensitive content to promote your evergreen post.

For example, you could create an infographic and post it to your social media. The infographic will attract readers to learn more about your content.

Speaking of social media, this is the time to tag anyone you mentioned in your posts. Most likely, they’ll share your content and spread the word.

Other types of time-sensitive content include:

• Social media post
• An email newsletter
• Short blog post
• Video

As you promote your evergreen content, take note of where your blog post receives the most traffic.

Let’s say your post’s highest traffic was from Twitter. Now you know to promote more of your content there.

You can track this with any analytics tool, like Google Analytics.

6. Update Your Evergreen Content

The most important part about evergreen content is to update it. Updating your content keeps it relevant and maintains its organic ranking.

Tricia Harte from Digital Third Coast agrees with this, “Provide updates as they provide benefits to your audience. Meaningful updates give you a reason to promote them via social media and newsletters and re-engage your audience with your content.”

With that said, don’t let your content get old. Out-of-date content is no longer relevant, optimized, nor authoritative.

Here are a few ways to update your content:

Check Statistics

Statistics can be 1 or 2 years old, but any longer is outdated. Your readers are looking for the most current information out there.

Revisit SEO

Look at your meta description and keywords. Are they still relevant to search?

For example, you might find a new keyword to use within your content. Make sure to update your meta description as you make changes.

Repurpose Your Evergreen Content

You can use time-sensitive content to both promote and update your content. In this case, you can repurpose your evergreen post into another piece of content. This will target new readers and keep your content alive.

An example is repurposing your blog post into a video. You could embed your video within your post to attract visual learners.

You might be wondering how often you should update your content.

This answer depends on your content marketing strategy and analytics. On that note, measure your evergreen content results.

Analyzing your content helps build the most effective evergreen content for your business and readers. You can use the same metrics from step one:

• Bounce rate
• Page visits
• User sessions

Along with these metrics, you should analyze your SEO performance. If your rankings aren’t improving or begin to decline, you need to find out why.

Track your keyword competitors and use tools from Step 1, like social listening, to stay up to date with your audience.

When you track your results, you’ll figure out the best way to update your content and keep it timeless.

To Wrap Up

If you’re going to take anything away from this post, it should be this:

Evergreen content lasts forever.

Every step in this post will help you create timeless evergreen content in your industry.

Sure, writing evergreen content isn’t easy, but the long-term results are absolutely worth it. If you don’t have the time to build evergreen content, we’re happy to help you out.

ALSO – White Paper Examples & How to Advice to Drive Amazing Results

The post What Is Evergreen Content and Why Do You Need It? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Let’s have a look how you can craft copy for your retail business that will do just that.

ALSO – Hire the web’s best copywriters to handle all your retail copy

Great retail copywriting touts benefits, not features

When you’re invested personally and financially in a product, it can be easy to slip into the trap of feature-laden retail copy. After all, you spent months sourcing and developing that incredible shatter-proof yet flexible clear covering that’s on your newest product. It’s only human to get caught up in things and figure everyone else will be amazed by it, too.

Sorry, but they’re most likely not. They are, however, very interested in how that new clear covering can change their lives. Instead of talking about the feature itself, focus on how it increases safety. Or how it will be easier to clean. Or that it creates greater longevity for the product. Just don’t talk about the special acetate formula that led to it.

Veteran copywriter and marketer, Daniel Caughill of The Dog Tale, uses this example to illustrate why benefits—not features—should be the story.

“Don’t say your food processor has Three-Blade Hyper-Speed Functionality—say it will pulp a carrot in three seconds. Don’t talk about how your baby stroller comes with E-Z Click Car Fasteners—let people know it goes from stroller to car seat in five seconds.”

Bottom line: translate features into benefits that resonate. And don’t get lost in a sea of industry terms that only company insiders will understand.

Great retail copy prompts action

On the floor of a physical retail store, it’s all about notching sales. Copywriting for online retail / eCommerce is no different. You’re not trying to make people think about something they might remember to buy in six months. There’s a reasonable chance they may never return to your eCommerce store. You need to craft messages that will close the deal.

That’s why a sense of urgency is vital. If it’s a sale item, make sure buyers know it’s only available at the special price for a limited time. FOMO is a terrific motivator for a buyer who is on the fence. Only a few items left in stock? Let people know that as well. Saying exactly how many are left is a great tactic—just don’t overdo it or people will start to think you’re not being truthful.

For long-term success, you need to use urgency in the appropriate measures. If you’re always having 24-hour sales or screaming that inventory is low, buyers will begin to tune out and ignore your messages. Great retail copywriting feels like you’re sharing some valuable inside information, not shouting at people like a street barker.

Great retail copywriting sparks emotion

Yes, you need people to buy your stuff. But your messages need to be about more than just, well, your stuff. Think about why your product will connect with someone. What will it communicate about them? How does it fit into their identity? And how does it make them feel?

Maybe that sounds like too much existential mumbo-jumbo for you. But outside the most basic household staples, just about every purchase people make comes with an emotional component.

Josh Strawczynski, founder and Managing Director of JMarketing Agency, explains, “It’s the emotion that sells, not the product itself. People don’t get excited about owning a new car because it contains 557 differently shaped pieces of metal. They get excited because of the emotional value they attach to it. The feeling of power, success and status. When writing, those are the emotions you are trying to unlock, and you do this by painting a picture of how your product solves their core problem.”

It’s not always easy to tap into the emotions surrounding a purchase decision. Admittedly, it’s easier when it’s an automobile instead of a brand of laundry detergent. But there are emotions attached to nearly every purchase—and everything else in life, for that matter—and you need to tap into them.

The Importance of Storytelling

Great copywriters often leverage storytelling to create this emotional connection.

What does that mean?

It goes beyond feature / benefit writing and create a story around your product that your customers can relate to. It communicates in your brand’s voice and helps tell your overall brand story.

Have a look at this product story from Shinesty:

It creates a fictional and humorous backstory that wraps around the features of the product. Its copy is fun, irreverent, and communicates this shirt is for fun people. Their buyers can connect to that, and that makes them more likely to buy.

Great retail copywriting instills buyer confidence

Now that we’ve covered positive emotions surrounding a purchase decisions, let’s talk about a negative one, and learn how retail copy can combat it.

You see, whenever we buy something, we question ourselves. It’s part of being human. Is this definitely the right one for me? What if I wake up tomorrow with buyer’s remorse? Should I do more research just to make sure?

Fact is, there is no shortage of consumer anxiety—hello, global pandemic—out there in the world right now. Finding ways to address the questions and doubts that creep into the minds of every buyer will make your retail copy stronger and more effectively.

Here’s more from Strawczynski of the JMarketing agency.

“In the buying phase, our brains are looking for reasons not to purchase. We are fearful of making the wrong decision, of leaving value on the table. What if a new version is released next month, what if the store runs a sale, maybe a competitor has a better product. A good writer identifies these underlying anxieties and writes to overcome them. This frees the consumer’s mind, reducing anxiety and inching them closer to purchase.”

When you’re writing or reviewing retail copy, don’t think only about what will motivate consumers to purchase the product. It’s just as important to think about what will stop them. Ask yourself what will sow doubt and identify the barriers to purchase.

If your product carries a hefty price tag, you may need to reinforce the lasting quality or unique characteristics of the product. Is it some kind of new technology? There’s a good chance you’ll have to carefully explain the problem it solves. And if your product is in a highly competitive category against offerings that are similar, retail copy needs to bring the differentiating qualities to the fore.

Finding ways to establish the expertise that’s behind the brand can also help. If the company has founders with profile, make them part of the retail copy. A track record and success with other, similar products can give new items a halo and help persuade shoppers to buy. Your retail copy can build credibility.

Great retail copywriting has personality

While your messaging needs to prompt action, people still want to buy items with identities they appreciate. Most of us don’t like to spend time around people with personalities that we find off-putting—the same can be said when it comes to products. Retail copy needs to create a persona for your product that will be appealing to the people who are most likely to buy it.

As discussed earlier, great storytelling is a powerful way to build personality in your product copy.

Jessica Rose, CEO of Copper H2O, believes that establishing a personality through retail copy is even more important for online brands than items sold in brick-and-mortar channels. She notes that, “Physical retailers have the benefit of actually interacting physically with their customers and showing personalities that way, but online retail stores lack this benefit. As a result, it’s essential to show some personality in your copy-writing in order to differentiate yourself from other sellers and create a genuine connection with your customers.”

When we’re buying online, there are only a few cues that inform you about product personality. Photography and an eCommerce site’s design are important, but a brand may not be able to count on those elements. That’s certainly true if it’s sold on an online marketplace like Amazon or Walmart.com. That means retail copy has to do the heavy lifting and provide personality for the buyer.

It’s challenging. Space is at a premium when it comes to retail copy, so every word or phrase needs to do some work. But the effort is definitely worth it, as Rose explains.

“Based on our own research and experience, we found that adding some personality to your copy can increase customer interest, trust and loyalty. And, that can increase conversions by as much as 30%. You can add personality in many ways, including by just conveying warmth in your copy and showing that you care for your customers and your community.”

Make the investment.

It’s almost impossible to rack up online sales without crafting messages that are at least informative. Make them compelling and your chances of success increase exponentially. In a crowded marketplace, at a time when shoppers have myriad options, getting retail copywriting that works is an investment that pays off.

ALSO – Writing Product Descriptions for Shopify: 7 Tips for Creating Copy that Sells

The post How To Create Retail Copywriting That Gets Results 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.

These content writing skills can keep writers at the top of their game, offering the tools necessary to produce quality content every single time.

Keen Research Skills

No one knows everything, and that makes research the name of the game for many content writers. All companies know the extent to which Google prioritizes quality, so a fluffy piece full of generalizations won’t be winning anyone awards. A great writer needs to know how to comb through sources, find statistics to back up points, and draw clear, concise, and correct conclusions.

In some cases, a niche writer with extensive experience — professional, academic, or otherwise — is needed, but in many cases, a generalist can tackle most subjects in a way that meets SEO standards while expertly addressing the topic at hand. With the ability to closely follow instructions and put research skills to the test, a good writer can produce a piece that satisfies both clients and Google’s algorithms.

As Derek of Floating Authority puts it, “What makes the top content writers stand out is that they take the time necessary to make sure that they follow the instructions they are provided and to thoroughly research the topic at hand, even if it takes them past a specific deadline.”

SEO Expertise

SEO always matters. Content that is published online is intended to be read by many, but it’s also going to be crawled by Google’s bots for the purpose of indexing. And while content that sounds good and makes an impact with readers is a benefit, so is content that ranks.

Google is always fine-tuning its approach, which means that content needs to keep up. A little familiarity isn’t enough; an effective writer needs to stay on top of how the industry is evolving in addition to what it takes to rank well as the systems consistently grows and changes. While knowing every single little detail of each and every update isn’t necessarily imperative, understanding the key points of what works – and what doesn’t! – can make or break success in the SERPs.

Want to know what IS working? Check out our guide to becoming an SEO content writer. 

B2B and SaaS Content Writer and SEO Strategist Alexandra Cote feels that few skills are as important as an in-depth understanding of SEO. “And I’m not talking here about keyword optimization alone but about everything that has to do with on-page SEO at least,” she clarifies. “From SERP research to nail the reader intent, to choosing the right main and secondary keywords, writing amazing meta descriptions, and getting internal links right.”

Social Media Mastery

Social media is no longer a choice; it’s an absolute must for content of all kinds. Consumers use social media to connect with brands and browse local options; 54% of Facebook users even use the site to do product research.

Not all content writers will need to create content for social media, like Facebook posts or Tweets, but knowing what kinds of posts resonate as well as what kinds of headlines get the most clicks can be extremely valuable. Many brands rely on social outlets to distribute content, so writers who are tasked with these kinds of assignments need to know how and why some articles succeed on social, and why others fall flat.

“Content writers must have a good grasp and knowledge on how to maximize such platforms to their advantage. Furthermore, they should also be able to create content that best suits the taste of the social media community”, says Sonya Schwartz, the founder of Her Norm. No one is expecting writers to have the same level of expertise as social media marketing professionals, but a solid knowledge in what will make a difference and what won’t is a skill every great content writer needs.

What can writers do to help their content do well on social? There are many things including:

1. Focus on crafting engaging headlines that drive clicks. Tools like Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer can help with this. 
2. Use content formats that do well on specific social platforms. For example, listicles, slideshows and quiz content all get great engagement on social
3. Make the content easily digestible and focus on writing sections that translate well to social messages if a reader wants to share. You can even use services like Click to Tweet to let users share these message with just a click.

An Understanding of the Buyer Journey

How companies speak to their potential customers is at the cornerstone of how business is conducted. Everything, from how products are marketed to how transactions are completed, speaks to the needs of the customer rather than the preferences of the company. As a writer, it’s easy to understand what a company wants out of an order, but seeing the customer side of the equation can be a little harder.

In spite of the divide between buyer and business, an understanding of the buyer journey is a critical part of creating content that resonates. Consumers want to read content that makes them feel as if their concerns are heard and solutions are designed with them in mind – not a company speaking into an echo chamber.

According to Saurabh Jindal of travel-based app startup Talk Travel, being able to understand and speak to the customer experience is paramount to using content to drive conversions. “A good content writer creates content, which pushes the consumer to the next phase of the customer journey, and in a manner which is subtle and does not explicitly try to push the customer,” he explains. By knowing how a piece of writing fits into the over customer journey and what is needed to inspire steps forward, writers are better positioned to inspire purchases and foster customer loyalty.

Want to learn more about writing for every stage of the customer journey? Check out our guide here. 

Adaptability

Rarely does a writer write about one topic for one client indefinitely. Instead, many talented content writers write for many clients about any number of subjects. For those focused on one niche over others, it’s likely that clients, tone, and point of view will all vary sooner or later, as will the specific nature of themes about which to write.

As a writer, it’s often necessary to be able to speak confidently about areas outside of your expertise, and explore new fields. It’s also important to be able to confidently switch from a humorous tone to academic to informative and back again. A big part of success in writing is being adaptable and being able to meet client needs rather than simply doing the same thing, day in and day out, for every single client.

As stated by Randy of Soderman Marketing, “oftentimes, especially in an agency environment, content writers have to write about a variety of different topics as well as adjusting their tone and style for each client. This is why it’s so important for writers to be able to adapt. They should be a chameleon.” While every writer has their own distinct voice, content writing isn’t usually the time to show it off. Instead, it’s a time to customize content and tone to provide a client with a satisfying end result.

Editing Ability

No piece of writing is perfect on the first pass. Instead, most writing takes multiple reviews to get it to the point where a piece is passable. While outside editors certainly add value later in the game, the ability to read one’s own work and determine areas that can be improved is a key step in the creative process. Ultimately, the first and most important steps in quality control are a writer’s responsibility.

“Understand that once you’re done writing, your job has only begun. Learn the best tools to edit and proofread your work such as the Hemingway App, Grammarly, and Copyscape for plagiarism,” suggests Tim, an Operations Strategist for People Managing People.

He also emphasizes the ability to take criticism and use it to improve current pieces as well as to inform future projects. “Feedback is your friend, so use it as a ‘growth hormone,'” he says. A great writer cares about the quality of the work they produce from a holistic sense, not just whether or not it passes a customer’s baseline level of acceptability.

Process can be your friend when it comes to self-editing. Many writers find that immediately reviewing content after they finish writing it isn’t nearly as effective as stepping away from the project for a while, focusing on something else, and then coming back with a fresh set of eye for the content when they’re ready to edit. 

Creativity

Writing as a job can become stressful and tedious in time, no matter how nice the clients or how interesting the topics. After a certain point, some jobs start to blend together, leading to repetitive and uninspired content. Many times, this isn’t intentional, but rather a product of doing the same thing, day after day.

While it’s quite common for writers to start phoning in articles due to a lack of interest or waning time and attention, a great content writer knows how to keep content fresh and exciting. “Writers might eventually run out of creative juices and subconsciously use concepts and sentence construction similar to past outputs. When that happens, produced content feels pretty identical to each other. However, highly creative content writers always manage to find a new perspective on old topics, which helps keep outputs fresh,” explains Jeremy Owens, the CMO of Seriously Smoked.

To stay creative, writers need to be passionate about the written word as a whole, not just the content they produce for others. Reading books, keeping up to date on industry blogs, and even reading similar articles written by other writers can be a great way to keep skills sharp and provide additional inspiration.

Flexibility in a Changing Marketplace

The wide world of content marketing never sits still for long. From changes in Google’s algorithms to changes in the kind of content people like to consume, the industry is always moving. What worked yesterday won’t necessarily work tomorrow – and it’s up to writers to know this and adapt accordingly.

“As nothing is constant in business and society, being adaptable and flexible is a core skill in content writing. You must be able to mold your writing based on what’s current, trending, and acceptable in the industry, says Her Norm‘s Sonya Schwartz.

For example, voice search is a continually-growing trend now utilized in more areas than ever before. Creating content that resonates with voice searches rather than traditional search engines isn’t necessarily natural, so content writers need to have an idea of what will work best for voice search, normal web search, or, more likely, both. In order to please customers and create content that achieves goals, writers need to know how to stay flexible and adaptable as the content world changes around them.

The art of putting words on a page can be a rewarding and profitable pastime, but content writers with the right skills are those most likely to succeed. With a talent for writing and a knowledge of the most beneficial content writing skills, writers are well positioned to get ahead – one article at a time.

ALSO – Who’s on Your Business Content Writing Team and How Do You Manage Them?

The post The Top Content Writing Skills Writers Need to Know 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.

I’m excited that conference organizers are starting to pivot to remote arrangements. Many conferences are now being run virtually while still offering great learning and networking opportunities.

The first virtual show Crowd Content is participating in is SMX Next, happening on Tuesday, June 23^rd and Wednesday, June 24^th. I’ll be speaking on a topic dear to my heart – Success and Failures of Scaling SEO Content Programs.

Here’s why we’re excited about this show, and why I hope you’ll join us there (it’s free!).

Keeping Current With Search Industry Trends

One thing that’s constant in the SEO world is that it doesn’t slow down and it’s constantly changing. In the last few months there have been several major Google algorithm updates, for instance.

That’s why I think it’s so valuable to attend events like SMX Next. Their roster of speakers is always impressive and these folks know what’s working and what’s not with SEO. These are the sessions I’m most interested in for SMX Next:

·  Lessons From Past Google Algorithm Updates & Preparing For What’s Next – Barry Schwartz, SEO Editor, Search Engine Land

·  Six Fundamental SEO Truths to Live By – Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.

·  Monitoring and Analyzing Search and Content Trends (in Crazy Times) – John Shehata, VP, Audience Development Strategy, Conde Nast

·  Digital Marketing Strategies for Uncertain Times – Christi Olson, Head of Evangelism, Microsoft

You can review the full list of sessions here. Which ones are you most interested in?

Bringing the Community Together

A big highlight of our year is getting out and meeting search marketing professionals at shows like SMX Next. The SMX shows are always very high-quality with amazing speakers and great social events and they tend to attract really great people. It’s a great place for us to catch up with existing clients and partners, as well as meet new ones.

SMX Next includes many virtual networking events and ways to connect with attendees. I’m excited to check those out and connect the community.

A Chance to Give Back

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a number of SEO conferences over the years, and I always learn so much from the sessions. At SMX Next I have the opportunity to share some of my knowledge developed by working everyday with industry leading companies to help them build and refine their content creation processes.

My talk is called Success and Failures of Scaling SEO Content Programs. Having worked with hundreds of enterprise companies in designing content programs, I’ve seen things that worked really well and drove big results as well as things that… kinda did the opposite.

In preparing my talk I also spoke to our team of project managers that work on our clients’ content programs. They shared even more insights from their experience, so I feel confident in saying that we’re going to be able to share some advice that will help anyone attending improve their content creation process.

At the end of the day, content creation is just a part of SEO, but it’s what we live and breathe. I’m really excited to share what we’ve learned with the broader SEO community.

Hope to See You There

That wraps up why I’m excited for SMX Next. I’m certain there are some sessions that you’d find valuable (cough cough MINE cough cough) and the price is right (FREE!). I really encourage you to register and check them out.

These kinds of virtual events are going to be critical to keeping up to date and keeping our community connected. Hope to see you there.

The post Let’s Connect Virtually at SMX Next appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Benefits of Quality, Compelling Shopify Product Descriptions

Compelling product descriptions entice readers to move from consideration or early decision stages through to the final purchase. They help convince visitors that your product is the one they’re looking for.

Just as important, quality descriptions help improve the SEO of your product pages. That makes it more likely they show up in Google searches, which is where the bulk of people start when they’re looking to make an online purchase.

By improving your Shopify store’s product descriptions, you can drive increased sales. According to Guillem Hernandez, a key account manager with Crisp Studio, simply making positive changes to product descriptions has helped his clients increase conversions by up to 10% or more.

Calloway Cook, President of Illuminate Labs, says his team has seen similar results. “Taking actions such as improving product description copy and creating an interlinking strategy resulted in a 10% month-over-month increase in traffic without any additional blog content added,” says Cook. He attributes the growth solely to the improvements in product page copy.

How Do You Write Compelling Shopify Product Descriptions?

If a 10% increase in conversion rates or traffic sounds like something you want to get in line for, here’s a quick crash course on how you can create compelling Shopify product descriptions that also improve your SEO.

1. Be Concise

“Copywriting for product pages has to be concise,” says Cook. “Consumers don’t want to read huge blocks of text. The shorter you can distill the important information that separates your products from competitors, the better.”

But what’s the right content length for a perfect product description? As with all content, the answer is: It depends.

The more complex your product — typically meaning it has more features and benefits — the longer your copy might be. You might also need longer copy for certain luxury items, because you may be making a case for lifestyle benefits for them.

Ultimately, your Shopify description must be long enough to convey the important features and benefits to the reader in a concise, scannable way. If that’s 50 words, great. If it’s 500, also great, but remember to break it up with subheadings and bulleted lists to make it easier to read.

Also note that your target word count will depend on your SEO competition. Use a tool like MarketMuse, Inked, or SEMrush to determine the average word counts for the pages that are currently ranked in the top 10 results of Google for your target keyword. If your competition averages 500 words for example, you probably want to be inline with that. 

2. Don’t Leave Out Important Details

“As per my observation, around 50% of the shoppers are learned enough and have already done enough research to know the specs they need for themselves. So, saying ‘This battery is awesome and lasts for the longest time’ doesn’t serve the purpose,” says Hernandez. “I would rather replace it with something like ‘This battery lasts for 60 hours’ to incite more impression.”

He also notes that around 20% of conversions fail because the product information is missing or unclear.

Include all relevant information in your product descriptions by starting with the Voice of the Customer (VOC). Ask yourself: Who are your customers, and what do they need and want? How familiar are they with these products? How do your products provide solutions to the customer’s challenges? The answers to these questions help you determine the most important factors for your Shopify product descriptions.

3.  Highlight the Value Proposition

“A potential customer is looking for a product that satisfies his requirements. That’s why an ideal product description should focus on HOW your product is solving your audience’s needs. This is what a potential buyer is interested in,” says Hernandez.

“We find it most effective to use simple language and short sentences with descriptive language that recreates the experience of using the product in your customer’s mind,” says Jessica Rose, CEO of Copper H20. “The copy should make the customer excited about the product without over-promising.”

In short, your product description should never just be a description. You don’t need to spend the words to explain that this is a round widget with a tapered top that’s painted in a dual tone of red and black with three stripes. Pictures really are worth a thousand words, so some of that explanation is made obsolete if you include good product pictures (and you should be doing this!). Plus, a lot of basic spec information is included in your spec list; if you include that information again in a narrative format, there has to be a reason.

Focus on feature-benefit copy. Mention a feature and then explain why it’s beneficial or how the customer might use it. In the example of the round widget, you might say, “A tapered top makes this widget easy to install into your existing system, and the three black stripes provide a guide for how far the widget should be inserted for each use type.” Suddenly the color and shape of the widget aren’t just description — they’re compelling reasons someone might buy this widget instead of others.

4. Use Your Brand Voice

Even if you’re reselling products from manufacturers, your product descriptions should be in your brand voice. In fact, it’s even more important in that case, because your brand is what sets you apart from other resellers. Whether it’s funny, friendly, professional or some combination of various traits, make sure your voice shines through without diminishing the information provided in the copy.

5. Create Unique Content

Many people simply copy product descriptions from the manufacturer’s page or use the same copy on multiple pages. But this isn’t the best way to create strong optimization and performance in search results.

“We have to be careful to avoid duplicate content red flags from Google when we have the same product shared across our three sites,” says Brian Lim, the CEO and founder of iHeartRaves.

Take the time and effort to create unique copy for all your products and pages to help improve SEO. This tactic also lets you test your copy to find what works best for your audience.

6. Use the Right Keywords

“Adding in keywords to help with SEO is critical to being found in search,” says Lim.

Conduct keyword research for various products and groups of products. Then, try to work one primary keyword and at least one long-tail or secondary keyword into each product description. For best results, try to get your primary keyword into the first sentence of the description. But don’t sacrifice clarity for the sake of keywords; you can also include it in the first paragraph.

On top of that, make sure that your product images are keyword optimized. Both the file name and the alt text of each image should contain targeted keywords. It’s important that your alt text reads naturally though as it’s primarily used by visually impaired people who rely on screen readers to dictate the text of sites to them. 

If you have a lot of products to write copy for doing keyword research can be a tall task. In those cases, consider using keyword formulae. Our ebook, “The Complete Guide to Creating eCommerce Contnent at Scale” goes over this in detail. 

7. Tweak Product Descriptions Regularly

“Every site is different,” says Hernandez, “and every product requires its own approach. The best way to figure out is to do A/B testing on the product pages and gather the results to understand what works better for each store type.”

But it’s not just about what works best for each product page today. SEO and online shopping trends are constantly changing, so your product descriptions can’t be forever stagnant. “We suggest continuously revising product copy based on data to see what works best,” says Rose.

Leveraging Technology to Make Content Management Easier

One of the biggest challenges in creating content for an entire store is scaling. Most stores have large numbers of products, and doing the work to craft compelling product copy for all of them is a tall order. 

Each product likely needs:

1. Keyword research
2. Writing
3. Editing
4. SEO optimizations
5. Publishing

Your store might even need more than these steps.

Every step takes time, and the more you can leverage technology to save you time allows you to get more done and be more competitive with your store.

At Crowd Content, we’ve built a Shopify app that helps with a great deal of this process. Once installed, the app lets you connect your Shopify catalog to your Crowd Content account so you can order custom written product descriptions for any number of your products with just a few clicks. With many skilled product copywriters, you can get content back in a matter of days, have it edited, and then even publish it back to your store with just a few clicks.

To get setup, all you need to do is create your Crowd Content account.

Then, visit Shopify’s App Store to install the app in your store. 

You’ll be prompted to connect your store to your Crowd Content account.

Then, you can login to your Crowd Content account and visit the Order Product Descriptions page.

You’ll see an option to do a Shopify Import. This brings up a list of all your products, and you simply check the ones you want copy written for. Then, you can provide instructions for how the writers should tackle your project.

Within a few days you’ll start getting copy back. Once that happens, you’ll be asked if you want to publish the completed content on your store. Confirm, and the content will be posted instantly.

This can save you a lot of time in terms of writing, editing, and publishing which will let you spend more time on other areas of your business and scale up quicker. 

Scaling Shopify Product Descriptions Without Losing Quality

These seven tips are just the beginning of creating and maintaining high-quality product descriptions in your Shopify store. And if you have a lot of unique items, you might be balking at how much work you’re looking at.

But it’s work well worth doing. And you don’t have to do it all yourself!

“We have found it’s worth the investment and have hired professional copywriters,” says Lim. If you’re ready to hire professional copywriters who know how to spin compelling, concise Shopify product descriptions that convert, you can find thousands of freelance writers via Crowd Content. And if you’re not sure where to start and want help managing the entire process — from keyword research to building writing teams to editing for publish-ready content — find out more about our Enterprise content solutions.

ALSO – Using eCommerce Influencer Marketing to Drive your Brand Forward

The post 7 Shopify Product Description Writing Tips 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

Steponkus’s point is valid, though: Someone who can write witty, engaging social posts might not be as adept at writing informative, deeply researched white papers — and vice versa. You can definitely find writers that cover all those bases, but those are what Larry Kim of Mobile Monkey would call the unicorns. Which is to say: They’re rare.

Plus, even if your writer can pen everything from compelling, creative product descriptions to professional letters full of legal speak, you might not want to use them that way. Many writers prefer certain types of work and shine brightest when they’re allowed to do it, for example.

Ultimately, building your ideal business content writing team comes down to common sense measures and some trial and error. Use the steps below to get started.

1. Identify your business content marketing goals.
2. Determine what types of content you need to support those goals.
3. Divide the content into major types and ask yourself: Do you want different writers for each category.
4. Make a list of skills and experience writers might need to produce each type of content with excellence.
5. Start adding writers who match those qualifications to your team.

Pro tip: You can use the Crowd Content self-serve marketplace search functions to find writers who have backgrounds in certain niches or who have written certain types of content before. You can also reach out to our customer support reps for help finding the ideal writers for any project — whether you need topic experts or generalists who can tackle a wide array of projects.

How to Drive a Successful Collaborative Writing Process

Once you build a business content writing team, don’t forget you have to manage them.

Danielle Clevy says her team is composed of in-house and freelance members including sales copywriters, substantive writers (for articles, longer blog posts and case studies) and junior and social media writers for shorter copy and social posts.

To manage all those writers, Clevy uses a variety of tools. “We use a combination of project management tools (Asana, mainly, though formerly Basecamp), Zoom for calls, Slack to keep us all in touch and build culture and sometimes Voxer. Each week, everyone is required to use our status template and report on their projects and hours worked.”

However you manage your writing teams, the critical factor is communication. Checking in regularly with writers and other people on the team helps ensure people make deadlines and create content that works well for your campaigns.

Here’s a brief sneak peak of how our enterprise process works to provide a jumping off point in defining your own content process.

1. We start by helping the client define what they need if they don’t already know. Before you can create a content process, you must know what type of content you need.
2. We determine the steps each piece of content needs to go through and who is responsible for each steps. Steps might include:
   1. SEO and keyword research
   2. Fact and content research
   3. Creating instructions or briefs for the content
   4. Creating an editorial calendar with deadlines for each content creation step and publication
   5. Assigning content to writers
   6. Editing content
   7. Providing a final QA pass on content
   8. Formatting content
   9. Adding any last touches, such as images
   10. Pressing publish
3. Once we know what steps are required and who is handling each one, we set everything up via our platform. In this third step, you might need to set up your project management tool so you can keep track of all the moving parts and communicate appropriately with everyone involved.
4. We send out the work with all applicable instructions and deadline notifications.
5. We receive the work back and review it, providing ample feedback as needed for revisions or just to ensure future work moves ever closer to the mark you’ve set.
6. We finalize and publish content (or send it to our clients for this purpose).

You don’t have to handle writing team management on your own, though. If this sounds like a lot of work, consider Crowd Content Enterprise solutions, which include project management.

ALSO – How to Scale Your Agency By White Labeling Content Writing

The post Who’s on Your Business Content Writing Team and How Do You Manage Them? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But what if you’re an agency? You might face challenges from all those areas and some that are unique to the marketing agency setup. Discover how white labeling content writing services can help you solve some common agency challenges.

Common Challenges Faced By Agencies as They Create Content

SEMrush’s survey calls out challenges such as defining ROI, managing the editorial calendar and communicating with teams—which probably sound familiar to agencies. But here are some extra challenges that you might face that single-organization marketing teams don’t.

Creating Content for Diverse Clients

Agencies must manage the process of creating content for a wide range of clients, and that comes with potential obstacles, including:

• Understanding regional content needs. Audiences across the globe don’t speak the same language or live in the same culture, and that’s even true within a single nation. Even within a single state or province, people from different regions have unique ways of speaking and might be concerned with different issues. The challenges faced by a consumer in a city are not always the same as those faced by someone in a rural area, for example, and if you’re working with businesses in all these areas, you must be able to create content for their disparate audiences.
• Regulatory compliance or industry specialization. Some industries are heavily regulated, and marketing teams must understand how to safely speak about goods and services without running afoul of those rules. For agencies, this can be especially challenging, because the regulations are unique across each industry, each nation and sometimes each state.
• Aligning with each client’s brand voice and business goals. Everyone wants their content to sound like them. And each organization or business has its own goals for what that content should do. As a marketing agency, you have to be able to pivot to meet those disparate demands.

Differing Quality Demands

High-quality content is critical for any online marketing endeavour. But quality is subjective, and agencies need processes and content writing capability to meet all types of quality demands.

Some clients want well equipped SEO but aren’t worried if the content is thought-provoking. Others want thought leadership that positions them as an industry leader. Still others want creative, brand-centric content or intense technology copy for a specific audience.

Whatever range your client list covers, a single writing style probably isn’t going to cut it.

Budgetary Restraints

Clients also all have different budgets. Some are willing to pay competitive rates for premium content while others want budget content to fill basic SEO needs. Managing all those numbers can be difficult, but agencies have an additional challenge: Finding a way to balance the budget when they also have to pay for the writing and cover other marketing expenses.

Scaling Up for Client Needs or Growth

Many agencies attempt to keep all content creation in-house to control some of these issues. But that poses major challenges if you want to grow your agency — or take on clients with large projects. In-house writing teams can get expensive as you add more FTEs to your teams, and if you try to run an in-house team with direct freelance help, you can find yourself spending a lot of time managing contacts, writers and processes.

How a Content Writing Service Solves These Challenges

Working with a content writing service can mitigate many common issues for agencies. Here are some overall benefits of Crowd Content’s writing service and how we help solve specific agency challenges.

Access to Diverse Writer Pools

For years, we’ve worked to create a diverse database of qualified, talented writers and editors—at all levels and with experience in all industries. Whether you’re looking for someone who’s adept at writing health care thought leadership or you want a team of fast, reliable writers to create short SEO descriptions, you’ll find the right workforce resources in our database.

When you resource from our writer database, you’re easily able to find writers:

• With different styles and voices
• With various experience and backgrounds
• Of various skill levels to meet disparate quality requirements
• Who can work as a team to develop content for a wide range of clients on budget and within short timelines

Flexible Prices

Crowd Content offers flexible pricing. Self serve pricing ranges from 2.2 to 12 cents per word, and you can add on optional services such as proofreading, editing and image research for additional fees. Enterprise projects, which include a project manager and multiple levels of review to ensure publish-ready content, are priced per project.

Our flexible pricing puts you in control of the budget, which is a huge benefit for agencies. Plus, you can take advantage of different prices for various types of work to help provide what clients need in a way that works with their budgets as well as yours.

Ability to Scale

Scalability is one of the biggest benefits for agencies working with a content writing service. You can tap into thousands of writers when you need them, but they aren’t on your payroll when you don’t. That means when clients ask if you can handle a content project, your answer can always be yes.

Some Best Practices for White Labeling Content Writing

Simply signing up with a content writing service doesn’t solve every challenge like magic, however. Putting a bit of work in to handle white labeling content writing ensures results that please your clients and help grow your agency. Here are just a few best practice tips.

Create Detailed Briefs

Content writing teams are only as good as the instructions they follow. When working with writers, ensure they know:

• Who they’re writing for, including brand voice and target audience
• What they’re writing, including whether it’s a blog post, article, SEO content or something else
• When they should write, including clear information about your deadline
• Why they’re writing, including business goals for the content
• How they should write, such as what keywords to include and what types of formatting and style requirements you have

Build Relationships With Writers

Take time to build relationships with writers. Give them feedback on what you’d like to see next time so they can continue to dial content in to meet your needs. If you find a writer that’s almost hitting the mark, you usually get a lot more value teaching from that writer how to come the final 2% than starting your search for a writer all over again.

Most writers realize that content creation is a collaborative process, and they’re happy to apply feedback. Once they’re an ongoing member of your content creation team, you might even be able to turn to them for help with research or coming up with new content ideas.

Understand What Services You Need

Make sure you understand what services you need before you start paying for them. It’s common for agencies to hire writers and then realize they need research, editing or other services too. But they didn’t include that in pricing, so writers aren’t willing to do extra without getting paid. Not planning ahead can throw a serious wrench in budget management.

If you’re not sure what you need but know you need outside help to keep growing your agency and attracting great clients, reach out to Crowd Content. We can help you build writing teams or connect you with enterprise services.

ALSO – Working With Blog Ghostwriters: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed With Quality Content

The post How to Scale Your Agency By White Labeling Content Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Need a hand creating content? Connect with the best content writers on the web.

What Is the Buyer’s Journey?

The buyer’s journey is the process by which someone decides they need to buy something and then goes about making that purchase. The journey typically involves three stages.

• Awareness, when the person becomes aware of a need, problem or want.
• Consideration, when that problem or need is defined and the consumer starts to look for solutions
• Decision, when a solution is chosen and a purchase made

The buyer journey exists for every purchase, albeit at different scale. Consider the three scenarios below to understand how varied buying journeys can be.

Why Do You Need Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey?

You can see from the table above that buyers’ journeys can be very short or extremely long. But you can capture consumer interest (and the chance at a conversion) at any stage of the journey. Unfortunately, so can your competition.

That means you can’t aim content at a single stage. If you concentrate solely on the awareness stage, for example, you might educate a lot of consumers about why a certain solution is important. But if competitors are doing a good job at creating content for the consideration stage and you’re not addressing it, all you’re doing is priming consumers to fall into the funnel for other companies.

To capture consumer attention and keep them coming back all the way to the decision stage, you must create content that’s relevant throughout the journey.

What Topics Should Be Covered for Each Stage of the Journey?

But what topics should you cover to ensure you’re connecting with consumers at every stage? It depends on your audience, products and niche. 

Polly Kay, senior marketing manager at English Blinds, says, “Driving conversions involves putting yourself in the prospect’s position and learning what their motivations, pain points and incentives are and preempting them by supporting them with informative content.”

Kay’s advice holds true for every stage of the funnel. Here are three ways to learn what those motivations and pain points are for your target audience.

1. SEO and Keyword Research

Jacon Edwards-Bytom, director of ecommerce for Made4Fighters, says, “Targeting long-tail keywords…helps you expand the top of the funnel. Long-tail keywords are not terms that usually have purchase intent, but they can help build awareness for your brand.”

In short, Edwards-Bytom is pointing out that content for the awareness and consideration stages must align with the keywords used by and the intent of consumers looking for more information about these problems and solutions. According to Forrester research, more than 70% of consumers start their buying journeys with search engines; almost three-quarters consult search engines during consideration and decision stages. 

If you’re not doing the keyword research to understand what people are searching for in various stages of the funnel, you’re potentially missing connections with 75% of the market.

2. Customer Interviews

Don’t leave any source unturned in your search to find out what the customer needs or wants to know. 

Linda Emma is the head of content at ESM Digital and says knowing your audience is key. “Whether you build out personas or rely on your sales database, gather as much information as you can about who your current customers are. You can’t build effective content without knowing who will consume it.”

Many brands overlook one of the best ways to get to know who their customers are: Simply ask them. Take time to engage clients when you’re talking to them and ask questions that might inform your content. You can also conduct customer interviews or use survey and market research tools to learn more about your audience. You might try Survey Monkey, which is a free online tool, if you don’t have a CRM solution or other software with survey or customer feedback functionality.

3. Sales Team Feedback

“The best tip for creating content for all stages of the buyer journey is to align your content marketing team with your sales team,” says Carsten Schaefer, CEO of crowdy.ai “A lot of times, the content you create is completely unaligned with what the customers really need to make decisions. The sales team is at the frontlines, and they interact with customers all day long. They know exactly how you can connect with your ideal target audience, what content format you should use and which topics you should cover.”

Schaefer said once his marketing team started involving the sales team in content creation talks and processes, the brand’s conversion rates related to content rose from 1.9% to 3.1%. That’s an increase of more than 60% just by communicating between departments to align with customer needs.

Distribute Content Effectively Throughout the Buyer’s Journey Using Multiple Channels

Talk of content marketing often has people thinking of their website, and you definitely need something for every stage of the journey on your site. Informative blog posts can be great for awareness and consideration stages, buying guides can help shepherd people through consideration, and product descriptions and landing pages may be the push someone needs to finalize the decision stage.

But effective distribution of content requires reaching your audience in other ways too. You can’t rely solely on consumers arriving on the right website page at the right time during their journey. Integrate some or all of the following channels to widen your net and drive more leads and conversions.

Emails

Newsletters let you inform existing subscribers of new products and services and continue to connect with people during consideration stages. Drip campaigns are useful for engaging buyers as they move from consider to decision stages, and cart abandonment messages can help remind someone they were ready to make a decision and why you have the right product for them.

Best for: Consideration and decision stages, but can also be used to capture leads during awareness stages.

Social Media

Many people actually use social as a search engine these days. More than half of social media users research products and brands via social networks, and many actually start there by looking up a brand’s profile page or asking for recommendations from others.

Keeping your social profiles fresh by posting your own content, sharing posts from others and interacting via likes and comments engages your audience. It also keeps your brand in consumer minds as people go through the buyer journey — and makes it more likely you’ll show up from the start for those who start their journey on social.

Best for: Engaging people during consideration stages or connecting for the first time before or during awareness stages. Social posts and ads can also work well in decision stages for certain types of products, such as apps or impulse-buy products.

Online Ads

When targeted correctly, quality online ads can drive high conversion rates. Data analytics company Heap found that Google ads drove an average conversion rate of more than 8%, for example. Online ads also let you connect with consumers in all stages of the buyer’s journey.

Best for: Showing up on consumer’s radar during awareness stages via targeted advertising and ensuring an ongoing connection during consideration and early decision stages via retargeting.

Tips for Nudging People Through the Funnel

It’s not enough simply to reach a consumer during the buying journey, though. Your content must connect with them and shepherd them through the rest of the journey so they’re more likely to buy your product. Here are four tips for doing so.

1. Don’t leave the consumer in doubt.

Saj Devshi, a digital lead for EasyMerchant.co.uk, says it’s important to ensure landing pages don’t leave prospects in doubt about whether your product is right for them. 

“What we try to do is remove as many barriers or obstacles as possible by creating a FAQ for each of our products with the most commonly searched queries related to that product,” says Devshi. “This gives them more confidence in what they are buying and that it is right for them and also reduces our costs, particularly in terms of having to deal with returns and refunds.”

The proof of this strategy is in the numbers. According to Devshi, Easy Merchant improved its conversion rate from 1% to 4% by using it.

2. Provide step-by-step instruction without boring the audience. 

Your content should guide the reader, not leave them hanging and wondering what to do. Rhea Henry, a content strategist with EnergyRates.ca, says content should inform readers about how to accomplish the next step.

“It helps to go into as much detail as you can to help them do each step without becoming dull and dry,” says Henry. She says to tell consumers, “where they can go, what do they do, how do they do it, [because] each time they have to click out of your article to find the solution is a chance you lost the opportunity to convert.”

3. Make use of retargeting technology.

But do assume that some consumers will click away or not complete the buying journey on their first session on your site. Invest in retargeting ads to bring them back to your product.

Morgan Taylor is the CMO for LetMeBank and highly recommends tapping into Google Site Analytics. “This will allow you to assess how long a person spends on each page, where they exit your site and [other information],” says Taylor. “Then you can retarget with ads that address only the topics they care about. Or, call them out for exiting a particular page.”

4. Perfect your internal links.

You work hard to get someone to your site. Make sure your internal linking strategy is on point. Taylor says, “Your internal linking strategy must be perfect. You need to be sure you’re funneling readers further down your sale funnel and not into dead ends.”

Need Help Creating Content for Every Stage of Your Buyers’ Journeys?

Whether you’re looking for whimsical product descriptions to entice your target audience or hard-hitting sales landing pages that leave nothing on the table, Crowd Content can help. Check out our self-serve marketplace, where you can connect with thousands of high-quality writers, or reach out for more information about how our enterprise solutions can support your online marketing campaigns.

ALSO – 5 Ways To Make Your Content Budget Go Further

The post Creating Content For Every Step of The Buyer’s Journey appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Many businesses — online and off — are facing serious challenges in 2020, particularly given the impact that COVID-19 is having on bottom lines. But some companies are finding a way to resolve some current business issues — or, at least, create a more solid foundation for the future — by using this time to work on content marketing.

ALSO – Need a hand creating evergreen content? Try our content writing services

Yes, in the current environment, many businesses are understandably scaling back on content budgets. But at the same time, other businesses are actually increasing budgets — and it’s not just those that are enjoying a traffic bump during this period.

Businesses Are Still Investing Because Content Is Valuable

For example, Kevin Miller, the founder and CEO of The Word Counter, says he’s doubled his monthly content budget during this time. “I am increasing content spend because many others are slowing down,” says Miller. “Also, writers have a greater capacity to get new topics completed. It helps me plan out the entire years’ worth of content and get it at a cheaper rate.”

But Miller’s not just looking out for his own bottom line. “It feels great to give work to people who are really in need right now and allows me to feed money back into the freelance writing economy that can use it.”

Meg Marrs, the founder and CEO of K9 of Mine, is also increasing content spend in April 2020. “With more folks stuck at home and spending more time online, we expect to see an increase in traffic and want to take advantage of that with as much content as possible.”

5 Reasons to Keep Creating — or Even Create More — Content Now

1. The competition can outpace you. If you’re not creating content now and the competition is, you may never catch up. They will have weeks or months of content where you have none, which can help them perform better than you in SERPs and engage with consumers at a time when people are looking for entertainment, support or guidance from brands.
2. You have time to invest in quality. Changes to projects or business priorities might mean you have time to invest in quality. And, as Miller pointed out, if you don’t personally have an opening your schedule, you may find qualified, experienced freelancers happy to provide high-quality content right now. It’s a time to stock up on editorial for the future.
3. Content has long-term value and builds authority. When choosing what to spend marketing budget on in this season, consider what will provide long-term value. Advertising is short-term. Morgan Taylor, the CMO for LetMeBank, points out that, “nobody wants to feel marketed to at this time. It can come off as tasteless if you directly market at a time like this, but that doesn’t mean we have stopped producing and using content.” Taylor recommends switching focus to content that’s informative and drives SEO and brand awareness.
4. SEO takes time, and creating content ensures you don’t waste it. Since SEO takes time to build, Taylor’s recommendation is sound. Investing in more content during this time — when advertising might not be an option — puts you in a strong SEO position in the future.
5. You can use it again later. Plus, all the content you create during this time can be reused in the future. You can pull components out for social media posts and repurpose content for future posts, ebooks or white papers, providing additional value down the road (and reducing the cost and time associated with future content creation).

Measuring the Long-Term Value of Content

Staying the course with your content budget during a time of uncertainty can be bold, and investing more in content even bolder. Whether you’re trying to ease your own concerns or get buy-in from clients, bosses or other stakeholders, you need a way to measure the value of content.

How you advocate for content depends on your business model. We reached out to business owners, marketing managers and others who are confident enough in their plans to hold steady or increase content right now. Here’s how they’re calculating the value of content.

• Kevin Miller of The Word Counter uses Google Adsense revenue per post. It’s simple, available on his dashboard and lets him create projections of what his content is likely to earn in the future.
• Morgan Taylor advises tracking the value of the customer over their life with you. A solid CRM system lets you gather this type of data; once you know what the average customer brings to your bottom line, you can calculate content value by how many customers it brings into your fold. And since content can keep bringing in new customers for months or years, that value can be big.
• Jesse Nieminen of Viima provides a formula for calculating the lifetime value of content: “Total number of inbound leads * conversion to paying customers * average lifetime value of customer – cost to convert traffic and deliver service.”
• Meg Marrs also provides a formula, stating, “We try to calculate a value per visitor amount by dividing the revenue the page generated by monthly traffic to get a revenue per user number. So for example: $400 of revenue / 5,000 page views per month = .08 cents per user.” Marrs says this calculation lets them compare the revenue generation of various articles.

Time to Make a Decision. . .

Are you going to invest in the long-term value of content during this season like many of the businesses above? Steps for doing so include:

• Figuring out how you calculate the value of your content
• Understanding what your customers need during this time and how to serve that need with content that also provides long-term value (based on the metric above)
• Getting buy-in from other stakeholders by showing them how much today’s content can do for the business in the future
• Reaching out to internal teams or qualified freelance writers to create the kind of content that will have a lasting impact

ALSO – 5 Ways To Make Your Content Budget Go Further

The post The Long-Term Value of Content and Why You Shouldn’t Put Off Creating It in the Short -Term appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But scaling back on your budget doesn’t necessarily mean substantially reducing (or stopping) your content production. And that’s a good thing, because content can be critical for communicating with and providing assurance to your customers and audience during a time of crisis.

Check out these five tips for stretching your content budget further without sacrificing quality.

1. Prioritize Content According to Business Value

If your budget is limited or you’re cutting back, make sure you know what content is most valuable to your business. Look for ways to use your content budget for long-lasting value when possible, but understand the immediate needs of your audience too.

For example, during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, companies that offer food subscription boxes might find paid advertising to be a valuable way to connect with people who are searching online for meat or other items that are in short supply locally. For these companies, the business value of content for ads is two-fold. First, it can lead to an immediate conversion. Second, it can lead to long-term value if the subscriber remains with the business.

But for many companies, ads won’t provide the most long-term value in this type of situation. Instead, SEO content that increases performance in search results in the future might provide more long-term value. Thought leadership may also be important for businesses attempting to assuage consumers and create trust and authority.

2. Consider Outsourcing Your Content Writing

“If you really want to reach a lot of target audience, your content production has to be massive,” Esther Meyer, the marketing manager at Grooms Shop, says. “Think social media posts, blog posts, email marketing content, website and landing pages. It’s okay to outsource your content marketing to other people. But you must maintain quality when you outsource. The most important thing to keep in mind when outsourcing content is to have a content marketing tone and style guide. You also need to communicate your needs and desires in a clear and concise manner.”

Outsourcing content can be a way to maintain scale without blowing your budget, but you do have to be smart about how you go about it. Working with the cheapest writers available typically results in sub-par content quality. That leaves you scrambling to rework content before you publish it, which increases expense.

For best results, you want to hire high-quality freelance writers at reasonable rates.

Working directly with freelancers can be more expensive than you plan as well. If you’re considering outsourcing content to stretch your budget and save yourself time, consider keeping a content creation company on standby.

3. Repurpose Existing Content

“Another way to stretch your budget,” says Katie from Digitally Enhanced, “is to optimize and repurpose content. If you’re going to put the time and effort into creating a piece of content, transition into the mindset of creating a content experience. Ways that I’ve created multi-purpose content include taking one interview and creating an expose or mini-series, a Q&A, a how-to or checklist, a video and associated social media and email accompaniments.”

Katie says she’s created up to 15 content assets from one content idea and provides these tips for others who want to do the same:

• Take your 5-10 top performing content pieces and turn them an ebook, PDF or other long-form content with a compelling and relevant headline
• Aggregate similar content pieces into a deeper whitepaper
• Pull out audio from existing video/video series into a podcast

“One of the best things you can do is build out a strong content tracking system,” says Katie. “I would guess that any brand’s content program will be divided by overarching themes, so in this system, be very clear about which theme content falls into, when it was written, if it leverages any outside sources and other pertinent information. From this, I recommend an annual audit and refresh so that no content is ever more than two years old and all sources are up to date and still in good standing.”

4. Start With Content From Your Team

Not all content needs to be in the form of the written word. In fact, 88% of marketers note that video marketing provides a positive ROI (up from 33% in just 2015). Start with different types of content your team can put together such as videos, webinars, podcasts or interviews. Even better, see if you already have some of this content in your archives.

Creating content using your existing team’s expertise and knowledge can reduce the cost. Then you can provide those videos or interviews to in-house or freelance writers and have them generate articles, blog posts and other text-based content from them without the need to do additional research. That helps support faster turn-around times on content writing and can potentially reduce the cost of written content.

5. Seek Guest Posts From Experts

Finally, reach out to business partners, influencers or other non-competitors who might be willing to provide a guest post for your blog. In many cases, experts or business partners are willing to provide a post for free because it provides them with additional exposure for their own brand. You might also swap guest-posting favors and provide something for their blog. You each get fresh content but can easily write about topics you’re familiar with.

Content doesn’t have to be expensive. But cutting your content budget altogether, even during a time of crisis, can be a costly mistake that impacts your company’s future. Instead, work within your resources and get the most out of the content budget you’re able to keep.

ALSO – How to Leverage Content in a Crisis Situation

The post 5 Ways To Make Your Content Budget Go Further appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What Is Blog Ghostwriting?

Blog ghostwriting occurs when someone who isn’t listed as the author creates the content for a blog post. 

You might pay someone to write content and post it under your own name, or you might not use authorship on your blog at all. In these cases, various people write the blogs, but they’re all positioned as coming from the brand in general.

The Benefits of Hiring a Ghostwriter for Your Blog

There’s a huge business case for hiring ghostwriters to create all types of content, including blog posts. Check out some of the benefits of hiring a ghostwriter below.

How Can You Tell if a Ghostwriter Is a Good Blogger?

The best way to tell if someone is a good blogger is to look at their previous work. Samples and links to previous published posts let you see the person’s writing style and quality. It also helps you understand whether the writer would be a good match for you. Remember that just because someone can string beautiful sentences together doesn’t mean they’re the right content creation partner for your brand. 

Hassan Alnassir, owner of toy company Premium Joy, says he looks for quality writing and niche experience when he hires ghostwriters. “I choose writers who are experienced in my specific industry to ensure content is authoritative and interesting,” says Alnassir. “I can easily confirm this by checking the kind of topics they cover online, including on their own personal blog.”

Alnassir says he also looks for evidence that a potential ghostwriter can create web-friendly content that he won’t have to edit heavily. Some markers of good web content, he says, are short paragraphs and the inclusion of subheadings, bulleted lists and images. 

Levi Olmstead is the director of marketing at 2ndKitchen. He works with a team of four ghostwriters and lists the qualities he looked for when choosing them:

• Experience writing with keywords 
• An understanding of SEO
• Ability to hit deadlines
• Strong writing skills
• Transparency
• Strong communication skills  

How Can You Best Use Ghostwriters for Your Blog?

Finding the right blog ghostwriters is only the first step to ensuring you get content that performs in SERPs and works for your brand. Follow the step-by-step guide below to best use ghostwriters for your blog.

1. Understand Your Content Needs

It’s tempting to just bat the ball into a writer’s court and let them take it from there, but that can be a huge mistake. No one knows your business, brand and target audience like you. Take time to define exactly what you want your blog posts to do by answering the questions below.

• Who is your audience? Blog posts for specialists in an industry tend to have a different tone and style than posts for the general public. How you write for a baby boomer audience looks different from how you might write for Gen Z.
• What is your brand voice? Are you serious and professional, desiring blog posts that sound more like journalism? Or do you want a funny, conversational tone? The range for style and voice is almost infinite, and if you don’t define it, your ghostwritten blog posts will be anything but consistent.
• Do you have format and content preferences? Do the research to find out what’s performing best with your audience and in your niche. Some parameters to determine include how long posts should be for different topics, what subheading structures should look like and where CTAs should go. You also need to decide how to create a cohesive visual tone on your site and whether formatting — such as how many images and where they go — plays a role in that so your ghostwriters can create content with those requirements in mind.
• What keywords are you targeting? Use tools such as Marketmuse or SEMrush to generate guidance on keywords and other content elements that you can use as guidance for writers. 

2. Create a Detailed Content Brief and Instructions

Once you know all that information, you need a clear, concise method for communicating it to writers.

Pro tip: The more time a writer has to spend digging through your instructions and content guidelines, the less money they make on your project. Creating easy-to-reference content briefs make you a more attractive client, potentially letting you work with higher-quality ghostwriters.

3. Be Clear About Other Requirements

It’s also important to be clear about other requirements. Let writers know up front:

• What turn-around time or deadline you expect
• How much research you need them to complete
• Whether you want sources cited in a list or as anchor text
• Who your competitors are 
• What sites you want to avoid sourcing from
• How many revision rounds you estimate and whether you expect them to be included in the price for writing your content
• How you plan to integrate each piece into your overall content strategy 

4. Check in With Writers Regularly

Professional ghostwriters are awesome because they take great pride in their work. That usually means that they adopt your brand as their own, looking out for you as much as possible and ensuring you get stellar content. 

But it’s important to keep in mind that ghostwriters probably don’t just work for you, and they may have other obligations. Life can also take unexpected turns for anyone. Make it a point to check in with active ghostwriters at least once a week to ensure they have what they need to complete your content.

5. Leave Some Leeway for Writer Creativity

Remember that you’re hiring professionals for a reason. Experienced ghostwriters can bring interesting, unique content to your blog. Yes, that content should correspond to your brand and audience. But if you provide a detailed outline of 1,000 words for a 1,200-word blog, what are you even paying your ghostwriter for? Leave some room for writer creativity and you may be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Where Can you Find the Best Blog Ghostwriters?

Think hiring ghostwriters might be a good fit for your blogging program? There are a few great ways to find the perfect writer:

1. Crowd Content. Not to toot our own horns too much, but we do have a roster of 6,000 proven ghostwriters that you can connect with to create your content. Our powerful search tool lets you search by experience and skill level and then review detailed profiles along with samples of past work.
2. Job boards. Recruiting a ghostwriter is just like hiring for any other role. You can find great ghostwriters on job boards like Craigslist, Indeed, and LinkedIn among others. One thing to keep in mind is this option can take longer as you need to vet multiple applicants and review more samples before you’re comfortable sending over a first assignment.
3. Contact bloggers directly. Chances are you’re reading blog posts in your industry already. Many bloggers freelance on the side, so why not reach out and see if they’re interested in ghostwriting for you? At very least they’re likely to be flattered, and at best you get a ghostwriter whose work you know you like. This method can involve more back and forth and often results in higher costs.

How Do You Get Started?

Ready to put the benefits of blog ghostwriting to the test for yourself, but not sure where to start? Contact Crowd Content today; we can connect you with a marketplace full of pro blog ghostwriters ready to wow you.

The post Working With Blog Ghostwriters: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed With Quality Content appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Here are just some of the ranking factors listed that are related to or involve authority:

• A solid domain history
• Domain authority
• Content that covers the topic in-depth
• Recent content, especially for time-sensitive queries
• Correct grammar and spelling
• Number of — and quality — of outbound and inbound links
• References and sources

But how do you make your content authoritative? One way is to include information and quotes from — and links to — authority sources.

ALSO – Need to create authoritative content? Try our SEO content writing services.

What Are Authoritative Sources?

Authority sources are generally recognized as reliable because they demonstrate authority or are recognized by other experts in the industry as being so. 

For example, if you’re writing about a medical topic, most people would accept that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization were reliable sources. And if you’re writing a general-purpose article for consumers, sources such as WebMD might also be considered appropriate. A personal blog from someone with no discernible credentials — or even an unknown physician’s blog that gets no peer review — would likely not be considered authoritative in this case.

Need to create authoritative content? Hire the web’s best content writers today!

What you can consider authority depends in part on your audience, your topic and the level at which you’re writing. But the following table lays out some good general rules for a starting point.

Why Are Authoritative Sources Important?

• Authoritative sources help you create content that meets Google’s E-A-T guidelines.
• Authority content is important for SEO performance, which helps you drive more traffic to your pages.
• Trustworthy, expert content provides value for your reader, which can increase your conversion rates or keep people coming back to your site.

How to Find Authoritative Sources for Your Content

Finding authority sources can increase the amount of time it takes to create your content. But it doesn’t have to take forever or be an exercise in frustration. Here are nine tips for using authority sources to inform your content.

1. Don’t believe the repeat.

Daniel Ray, the editor-in-chief at LawnStarter.com, says, “I see young content writers make this mistake all the time. They believe if something has been repeated a few times on the web, it must be authoritative and can be repeated again.”

You can’t afford to rest on the content of others when trust is so important. Don’t assume something is correct — and therefore safe to repeat or link to — simply because you saw it repeated a number of times on social media or in unknown blog posts.

2. Do find the original source whenever possible.

“If you want quality, authoritative sources,” says Ray, “the best practice is to take the time to find the original source. Quote it and cite it directly rather than cite a second- or third-hand version. By going to the original source, you find the greatest amount of data as well as nuances lost in later pastiches.”

A pro tip is to follow the link trail to find out where information came from. If you find an article with a fact you want to use, click on the link the article uses to back up its claim. Sometimes, you have to click through a number of links — all on pages that have repeated the information from someone else — before you get to the original source.

Before you link, evaluate the original source. Is it a solid, expert source? And does the original source even say what the first article you found claimed? Consider the game of grapevine you might have played as a child: The message from the first person usually changes by the time the last person hears it. That can happen online too.

3. Don’t cite random blogs or Wikipedia, but do use them.

“Wikipedia is not reliable,” says Tim Grinsdale, owner of TOAD Diaries — “even if you see other sites referencing it.”

But Anh Trinh, managing editor of GeekWithLaptop, says that doesn’t mean you can’t use Wikipedia at all. Trinh also says you shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source or link to it, but you can look at the source list on relevant Wikipedia articles. “You’ll often see books, websites and articles linked there that could be used as an authoritative source,” says Trinh.

4. Do conduct a targeted site: search.

Sorting through pages of Google results that relate to competitors or aren’t considered authority can be a real drag. Research fatigue can even lead you to take the first decent-looking source at face value without looking deeper.

Save yourself some major research woe by perfecting the site: search to find authority sources. These searches limit the types of pages Google returns.

Conduct a site: search by typing: search term site:limiting factor. Here are some examples:

• “blood pressure medication site:.gov” returns pages about blood pressure medication from .gov sites only
• “blood pressure medication site:cdc.gov” returns pages about blood pressure medication only from the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site
• “nursing degree plans site:.edu” returns pages about the search term from .edu sites
• “patient infection statistics site:beckershospitalreview.com” returns pages only from the industry site Becker’s Hospital Review

Limiting your search to the type of site or to a known authority site can help you quickly find the information you need on a page you’re confident in sourcing.

5. Don’t rely solely on “experts” on Quora or Reddit

Grinsdale says one way to get authoritative information “is to do outreach to people within the niche/industry you’re preparing to write about.” Anh Trinh advises using questions and answers on sites like Quora. “Quora has tons of authoritative sources, since most of the people answering this have the credential to back it up,” he says.

Kenny Trihn, the editor of Netbooknews, seconds the recommendation. “I find Quora and Reddit helpful. They have many knowledgeable people with different kinds of expertise.” But Kenny Trihn says you do need to do the work to backup what you find out via these types of user-based resources. Conduct “personal research that backs up the information you get,” he says.

6. Do @ people on Twitter for comments.

R.J. Weiss, a Certified Financial Planner and founder of The Ways to Wealth, recommends turning to Twitter. “I’ve had success using Twitter to include authoritative sources in content. Specifically, using the @ feature on Twitter to ask them a question directly. The response rate is fairly high with this method.”

Weiss also notes that if you get a reply on Twitter, you can use it as a visual break in your own content. Collecting quotes via Twitter lets you embed images of the actual tweets for scannable content that appeals to many readers.

7. Don’t forget that authority sources can be outdated.

When doing web research, remember that timeliness and relevance are important. No matter how authority your source seems, if the information is from a decade ago and you’re writing in a fast-moving industry, you can probably do better.

Limit your searches to information published the past two years when possible. And if you find a report that has the exact type of information you want but it’s out of date, see if the publisher or agency has issued an updated version.

8. Do sign up for paid and free research tools.

Anh Trinh says, “Another thing is to look for free or paid peer-review publications. Examples of open access journal sites I use are MDPI and JournalFinder.”

Chloe Brittain seconds Trinh’s recommendation to use online research tools. She owns Opal Transcription Services, which works with numerous academic clients, and says, “Two of my favorite sources for research are Infoplease and The New York Times Newsroom Navigator.”

You can also search scholarly articles and journals via Google Scholar.

9. Don’t forget that SEO tools can give you some clues for sources with authority.

Malte Scholz, cofounder of Airfocus, says he uses SEO tools to find authority sources. “In other words, I pull up the first result in Google and use Ahrefs to find external links that the article is pointing to,” says Scholz. “That way, I can find 5-10 sources per single page, and within 30 minutes, I can have 50-100 sources for a topic that I want to research and write about.”

Best Practices for Including Quotes and Sources in Content

Obviously, you can’t copy and paste information from a source and call it a day. These tips help you cite sources without reducing the quality or originality of your own content.

Avoid Plagiarism by Citing Correctly

Never use someone else’s ideas or information without giving them credit. Here are some ways to do so online.

• Use an inline citation that credits the source for the information. 
  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1.6 million Americans receive a cancer diagnosis annually. 
• Use anchor text to lead back to the source, making it clear where you got the information.
  • More than 1.6 million Americans receive a cancer diagnosis annually.
• Often, it’s even better to use both inline citation and anchor text.
  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1.6 million Americans receive a cancer diagnosis annually.
• Use footnotes or a source list at the bottom of the page to indicate all the sources you pulled information from.

Incorporating Quotes Into Your Content 

Don’t just copy and paste enormous blocks of text into your content — even when you’ve sourced original quotes. Frame those quotes with your own content or thoughts to tell a unique story with backup from the experts. Think about how news articles are written — the high-quality ones don’t introduce a topic and then dump five paragraphs of a quote in to tell the story. 

Tips for Making Quotes Easy to Read

When you do use quotes, use different formats and options to break up your text and make things easier to read. Use indents to offset slightly longer quotes, or break out important quotes into graphics. That makes them easier for people to share on social media and also draws attention to them. 

Bonus Tip: Put Expert Writers to Work for You

Starting to feel like finding authority sources is a lot of work? You’re not completely wrong. Which is why you might want to hire expert freelance writers who know exactly where to find the facts to make your content sing. Check out our article writing and other services for more information.

The post How to Find and Leverage Authoritative Sources appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

While content creation for consumers—B2C—might garner more attention in the marketplace, a strong B2B content creation strategy can produce quantifiable, bottom-line results for B2B businesses as well. More than just snackable content designed to engage for a few minutes and drive a quick consumer purchase, B2B content is based on strategic initiatives. It needs to attract, engage, and most importantly, generate quality leads. By building trust and helping prospects, great B2B content moves potential buyers further along the sales funnel.  

ALSO – Check out our B2B Content Writing Service

Differences Between B2B Content and B2C Content

Before we dive into B2B content, let’s talk about three ways it’s different from typical  B2C content. 

B2C purchase decisions are typically driven by emotion. When it’s B2C content, you want to connect with buyers on an emotional level—make them feel good about your brand and the qualities it imbues. With B2B content, you need to start by developing content that establishes trust with potential customers. The stakes are higher in B2B—purchase decisions typically involve multiple people, and are often long-term contracts.

B2B buyers want to see the ROI of your product or service. When a consumer chooses one brand of toothpaste over another, they probably don’t view it as an investment they plan to evaluate. So B2C content can have an informal voice. In contrast, B2B content needs to start the process of convincing a potential customer that the product or service will create cost savings or efficiencies that will help them grow revenue. A solid B2B content strategy will use logic and data to sway the decision-makers.

B2B content needs detail. Most of the daily decisions we make as consumers are not based on deep, investigative research. But details matter when a business is considering a product or service—they increase the confidence of the buyer. Quality content should establish you as an authority, so information needs to be valuable, pertinent, and useful. Use relevant statistics and draw on real-world examples. Engaging content isn’t focused on creating basic awareness or prompting someone to do something as simple as clicking to make a purchase—it’s building confidence in you, your services, or your products that will lead to outreach and a sale. Getting this right is a special skill set. Remember many of your readers will be experts in their own right, so your content needs to speak to them. 

Benefits of a B2B Content Strategy

Maybe you’re not convinced that a B2B content strategy will really move the sales needle for your company. Wondering how an investment in high quality content will make a difference is a valid concern.

The reality is that all kinds of companies are currently using B2B content successfully. Done well, it provides quantifiable ROI. Whether it’s through blog posts, social media, white papers, user-generated content, or any of the other avenues that are available to B2B marketers, the right content marketing strategy delivers results. A critical piece is providing intelligent, well-researched material. Remember that people who are deeply involved in an industry, especially those who are empowered to make purchase decisions, have a great deal of knowledge already. They are experts already, and they’ll have little patience for B2B content that is thin or just scratches the surface of a topic. 

What are the main benefits of a B2B content strategy?

More qualified leads. Content creation for B2B brands can drive customers to your website at the key moment in their decision-making process. Specifically, they’ll land there after an internet search, where they have entered a specific query, provided your content is optimized for search. When your products or services match up with their needs, and you have B2B content that establishes your authority, you have a customer who is far more likely to buy from you. 

A premium spot in a competitive marketplace. With effective B2B content that establishes thought leadership, you can create a presence outline that outstrips even larger competitors. Work with writers who understand the principles of SEO, and your content will rank higher in search queries. Which, of course, means that a potential customer is more likely to reach out to you first. 

Enhanced brand image. It no longer requires a multi-million dollar traditional advertising campaign to create good feelings about a brand, and you don’t need to allocate a big chunk of your marketing budget for paid search to build awareness. Detail-oriented, educational B2B content that reaches your target audience at the moment they’re searching for your products or services imbues your company with positive attributes. When you produce valuable B2B content on a consistent basis, current and potential customers are more likely to only work with you but also tell their friends and colleagues about your company.

Enables the sales team. When the right content is created for a B2B brand, it also helps educate and empower salespeople. It provides them with material they can use to navigate a potential buyer through the process and turn them into a customer, and reinforces the pain points that are likely for the prospect.

Content marketing is affordable, and when done well, more effective—according to some studies, B2B content marketing generates three times as many leads as paid search. 

Quality content matters for B2B marketers

Still not convinced that investing time and resources in B2B content creation is worth it?

Well, a quick browse of the internet will show you just how much is out there—blog posts, visual content, landing pages, webinars, and more. And that endless supply has raised expectations, so your customers and potential customers now expect high quality content. If your target audience visits your website and doesn’t see fresh, informative material, it sets off alarms. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and you’ll appear less capable than your competitors. It’s important to deliver factual, well-researched content that will establish you as an authority. 

In fact, 47% of the people making B2B purchases will look at three to five pieces of content before they engage with a salesperson for the first time. 

What’s more, the same purchase patterns that have emerged for consumers are relevant in B2B—just like the person figuring out which flat screen TV to buy, the team that is buying for a company will conduct extensive online research before making a decision. According to the Content Marketing Institute, this happens nearly 50% of the time. In the year ahead, it’s likely that content marketing statistics will reveal that number is growing, as millennials and Gen Z  move up the ranks and become the key decision-makers at more and more companies. 

Tips for Creating B2B Content 

Once you commit to creating content for a B2B audience, how do you ensure that it’s a valuable part of your overall marketing strategy? How do you create content that delivers ROI? What kinds of content will drive lead generation?

Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, developing quality content takes creativity, attention to detail, and consistency. For every company that does it well, there are scores that flounder or just muddle along without seeing an impact. If you want to be a part of the former group and develop B2B content that really works, here are some tips:

Tell good stories. Not fibs or half-truths, but relevant information delivered in a human way. When embarking on a B2B content marketing strategy, it’s easy to fall into the trap of filling everything with industry jargon or buzzwords in an attempt to sound like your idea of an industry professional. Don’t go overboard on the lingo—keep your content clear and easy to understand. Think about the best storytellers you’ve met in your life. Have they been the people who seem intent on demonstrating how intelligent they are? Or the ones who engaged you throughout a tale with wit, relevance, or imagination? 

Target buyer personas. As much as possible, think about B2B content like a one-on-one conversation instead of a presentation in a massive lecture hall. Before you create a piece of content—whether it’s a blog article, a webinar, a LinkedIn post, a video—decide who you’re hoping to reach. Your buyer persona shouldn’t be an audience so narrow that it’s not useful, but recognizing different kinds of customers will help you craft B2B content that connects with purchasers at the key point in their decision-making process. To help define your target audiences,  account-based marketing can be an effective way to create messages that resonate with the people receiving them. 

Don’t just write it. Use your words is good advice for your preschooler, but quality B2B content builds on great copy with other attention-grabbing elements. Use infographics to reinforce key points, build a subscriber list and use email marketing to let people know when new content is available, and foster user-generated content to augment your own material.  If you have a great article, don’t be afraid to promote it months later with a press release, an attention-getting LinkedIn post, or a message on another social media platform.  You can also take quality content and repurpose it for other channels. Ben Culpin, Content Marketer at Wakeupdata, says, “The strategy that has worked best for us is clustering content for SEO and then repurposing certain content for different formats and channels. As an example, a client case in which we increased Google Shopping conversions worked pretty well as a blog article. However, once we used the same case in a YouTube video, an infographic, a newsletter, and a podcast discussion,, we saw traffic to the original article increase by 160% in a month, while signups to a downloadable ebook from the page rose by 83%. Since then, organic traffic to the article has increased by around 7% month-over-month, so it’s a strategy that yields results in the long-term too.

The right content at the right time. What kind of content will resonate with a prospect at different phases of the sales funnel? A first-time visitor to your site is likely to examine the features of your product or service, and engage with some of the articles—your tone and voice need to establish both personality and authority. But few B2B decision-makers are going to make a decision based on a quick scan of your site. Can you capture their email and follow up with a white paper that may be especially relevant to them? After a salesperson takes them through a demo, can you share some visual content? Consider filming testimonials of some current customers and creating short videos you can share—these can help your buyer communicate your value to other key constituents in the company. Reach out to the prospect through your social media channels attention to those will ensure they see bite-sized reminders about your company. Andrew DeBell, co-founder of Water Bear Learning, relies on LinkedIn, “…because that is where most of our best B2B leads are and is the best opportunity for us to get eyes on our brand.”

Build the right team. If you run a small to mid-sized business and have an entrepreneurial mindset, it’s easy to think that you can handle B2B content creation on your own. The reality is that running your operation will always take precedent, and your content marketing efforts will be pushed lower on the priority list. Whether you staff a group yourself or rely on a content marketing services company, it’s a mistake to take on the task of creating B2B content without any help.

Put yourself on a path to better B2B content creation. 

There’s not one, clear path to creating quality content that works for your company. It’s an ongoing process—companies need to consistently provide information that clients and prospects find valuable and moves them closer to a purchase decision.  

Use data-driven marketing research to help you measure the effectiveness of your content. Use SEO tools like Google Analytics to find out what content performs well and what fails to gain traction. Google Search Console will help you find keywords that can drive quality content. Olga Mykhoparkinam, Chief Marketing Officer at Chanty, notes, “The majority of the content we create is for B2B audience and it has a strong focus on SEO. Before creating a piece of content, we do keyword research to see what the content needs to be optimized for. For example, our top-performing post is one about Slack alternatives, which targets this very keyword. This article alone brings us more than 100 new users every month. The purpose of the article is to present the reader with an overview of Slack alternatives and present us as the best choice. It works incredibly well and articles like these are the main reason we now have over 10,000 active users and more than 50,000 website visitors every month.”

Remain open to fresh thinking—you just might find your target audience reacts really well to long-form articles when you figured they would be more likely to embrace webinars and visual content. Reach out to your customers and have conversations to help you identify areas that interest them. Connect with your sales team to find out what prospects consistently identify as pain points. Keep up with the topics covered in your trade journals to see if there is material you can build upon and make especially relevant to your products or services. 

Yes, B2B content creation is an investment of valuable time and resources. But done well and consistently, it pays off. 

ALSO – What Makes Good B2B Copywriters, and How Can You Find Them?

The post The Complete B2B Content Creation Guide appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Goals during a crisis tend to include maintaining business continuity, protecting the future of the business and providing customers with the right types of services in the best manner possible. And while businesses of all sizes realize these goals are important, it can be difficult to know where to start — especially when you’re facing many other stressors and uncertainties.

Content creation is an effort that can help your business with many of these goals during a crisis. Discover how you can leverage content in positive ways when dealing with a crisis.

What Types of Crises Can Businesses Face?

Business crisis management or disaster planning isn’t a new concept. The Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal provides a list of crises that can impact businesses, including:

• Natural disasters
• Fire or flood
• Loss of power for any reason
• Failures of IT systems, security or supply chain
• Terrorist attacks
• Events that impact a company’s reputation
• An outbreak of disease

Right now, many businesses are dealing with a crisis related to the outbreak of COVID-19. 

Why You Shouldn’t Scale Back Content During a Crisis

Many businesses scale back on a number of things during a crisis, including content creation. Some reasons organizations might generate less content during and immediately after a crisis include:

• Perceptions that resources must go to efforts that are deemed more important than content
• Lack of resources to create content because of new demands on staff time or shortages in staffing
• Belief that some other messaging channels might be better than content

Obviously, at Crowd Content, we believe content is important. It’s more than our bread and butter — it’s kind of our passion. We want you to know content can play an important role in your business’s response to a crisis and understand how to use it.

What We Know From Public Relations About Crisis Management

Crisis management is an integral part of public relations. PR pros know that it’s critical to acknowledge issues, own them and be proactive in communicating with stakeholders about your response and how you’ll move forward.

Content marketing lets you do exactly this, leveraging various channels to get the word out while also delivering more short- and long-term value than with PR alone. 

Content Has Enduring Value — for You and Your Customers

If you’re going to spend time and resources on communication during a crisis time, doesn’t it make sense to choose an option with long-term value? 

Content provides relevant, helpful information to your target audience, and the information that’s helpful during a crisis doesn’t necessarily become obsolete once the crisis has passed. Thus, content has enduring value for the people you serve.

Content marketing also provides long-term value for your business, especially when compared to other channels. It can help you rank for search terms and drive organic traffic now and in the future, and you can revisit and update content later to fit more specific needs. Plus, you can continue to promote content and future updates via other channels like email and social media, driving even more traffic to important pages. 

In other words, what you do in one particular crisis can become a building block to make things easier in a future situation.

Compare these advantages with the benefits you might get from paid advertising. Paid advertising tends to provide short-term returns; to ensure the word is widely spread and keep returns churning, you have to continuously pour effort and money into advertising. That’s not to say every business should shut down ads during a crisis and turn solely to content — in general, a well-balanced, integrated approach Is best.

Our advice – content first, and then promote it however you can to help you address the crisis appropriately. That definitely includes advertising your content. 

Content Lets You Appropriately Fill an Authority Role

Content also lets you speak directly into need during a crisis. If you have an existing content program, chances are your audience sees you as an authority within your space (at least that’s the goal). In a crisis, they might crave your guidance. 

At the very least, people want to know that the brands and businesses they care about and rely on are doing something to weather the storm. They also may need reassurance that you’re still there, ready to meet their needs, even if it’s in a modified way.

Responding to crisis and helping your clients navigate during that time can further build your authority, potentially helping you create foundations for the future. 

Chances are you know more about space than your clients do – that’s why they hire you or use your services. Your insights in a crisis can be incredibly valuable to them. 

Look for Opportunities to Provide Solutions Via Content 

The best content marketing is never 100% about you and your business. It should be about what your customers need or want and how you can help. Some of the most effective components of a content marketing campaign are often those that provide value to the reader without demanding anything in return. 

Consider, for example, our post on Tips for Working Remotely. The target audience it’s aimed at is the freelance writers that power our platform, but it offers valuable advice without demanding anything in return. It also helps position us as an authority — someone freelance writers and editors can turn to for guidance and work.  

This type of content is important any time, but it becomes critical during a crisis. Look for opportunities to provide answers or support as people seek solutions. Some ways of finding these opportunities include:

• Paying attention to new trends in search terms, which indicate large numbers of people are trying to find information about something. A handy tool for checking this is Exploding Topics
• Following relevant and trending hashtags on social media, which can tell you what types of things people are talking about and interested in at the moment. Social listening tools like BuzzSumo can be a huge help here. 
• Check out Google Trends to see what issues are trending at large – you may be able to tap into this
• Asking your existing customers or audience; send out an email or post on social inviting them to share their concerns and questions and look for topics that come up repeatedly.
• Spending time talking to existing clients to find out what their needs, questions or concerns are during the crisis; chances are that other customers are experiencing similar issues, so you can create content around those discussions and share them with others.

Types of Content You Can Leverage

The type of content you create and how you distribute it depends on the crisis you’re facing and the needs of both your business and your stakeholders/customers. Most of the time, digital channels are the best way to get content out in an efficient and timely manner, but some situations might require print distribution. For example, in the United States, certain types of data breaches must be communicated to impacted consumers in writing.

But generally, if you want to leverage content marketing during a crisis, here are three of the best channels to include in your efforts.

1. Email Content

Email content is a great way to communicate with existing customers or audiences during a time of crisis. In fact,  unless you’re living under a digital rock, you probably received a dozen or more “Here’s our response to COVID-19” emails. Here are some reasons email is one of the first places companies turn when they’re dealing with a crisis or disaster.

• Email reaches to the person rather than waiting for them to come to you. It helps ensure people can get the message even if they didn’t yet realize there was an issue or need.
• You own your email list and can control who receives the message. With all other forms of content, you’re at the mercy of algorithms, social shares and search trends.
• Email feels more personal, which can help you connect with your audience during a crisis.
• Email is accessible via a wide number of devices and free services, which can make it easier to reach people when resources are generally lower during certain types of crises.

2. Social Media Content

Social is the first place many people turn when a crisis begins to unfold. Users flock to platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and even LinkedIn to find out information, double check information, see what their friends are saying and commiserate with others. But they also look to brands and industry leaders to set the tone or provide trusted information via these forums. 

This is especially true if you’re dealing with a crisis that’s related mostly to your company, such as a PR issue or breach of security. You’re likely to see a spike in activity on your pages as people come to ask questions or troll. And if you don’t do the content marketing work to take control of the story, the trolls will be happy to do it for you.

3. Blog Content

Blog content can help you create a powerful, authoritative presence online, which is helpful whether or not a crisis is occurring. During a crisis, blog content lets you:

• Address certain concerns, questions or needs with in-depth content that provides answers and solutions
• Alleviate worries or fears with honest content that helps build increased trust with your audience
• Provide information in a variety of formats to meet the widest needs, including text, images and video
• Meet in-the-moment needs while creating something that can be used later for other marketing or content purposes

The Bottom Line on Content in a Crisis

Communication is critical. It’s a basic premise of business disaster planning and crisis management. And one of the most effective ways you can invest in communication is through content marketing. When the stakes are high, it’s often time to double down with this type of effort.

ALSO – Tips For Working Remotely + Powerful Insights From 6 Experts

The post How to Leverage Content in a Crisis Situation appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What’s more, email marketing works across four phases of the customer life cycle—Acquisition, Sales, Retention, Advocacy. In other words, it can capture new buyers, prompt a purchase, and retain connections to customers for future sales. 

ALSO – eCommerce Content Creation Made Easy

Alexander Kehoe, Co-Founder & Operations Director at Caveni SEO, says, “For our own business, email marketing has always been very important and it makes up roughly 12% of our overall sales. This includes both our outreach and additional factors like abandoned cart emails. Throughout our tenure working in eCommerce, we have seen these numbers vary wildly, but email marketing is very much essential for the early stages of business profitability.”

But not all ecommerce email marketing is equal. Done well, it produces great results. But when it’s mediocre, it fails to reward the time invested in it. And done badly, it can even push buyers and potential customers away. 

How do you improve your open rates? And your conversion rates? How do you reconnect and get people completing purchases? And what can you do to build trust and win over customers?

There is no one-size-fits-all magic formula for ecommerce businesses. Chances are, you’re already juggling a bunch of work and email marketing might have to compete for your attention. But following some simple rules can set you up for great results. Here’s a quick guide to best practices that will  help you make ecommerce email a valuable component of your marketing strategy. 

ALSO – How to Create Killer SEO Category Pages

Capture Email Addresses

We’ll start with the blindingly obvious—even the most creative, thoughtful email marketing campaign won’t succeed if the subscriber list is small or untargeted. If you’re just starting an ecommerce operation or email marketing is a new effort, you need to capture email addresses. 

Sure, you can buy a list of email addresses. But purchasing contact information, no matter what a provider may say, has many drawbacks. Among other issues, these lists usually aren’t truly opt-in, many email services won’t send to addresses on these lists, and your account can be flagged for sending spam. Building your subscriber base organically will result in an audience that is not only targeted, but more engaged. 

What’s the most effective way to build your list? On-site email capture. After all that you’ve invested in generating traffic, it’s time to build more value by connecting with customers. 

When people visit your ecommerce store, offer them a first-time buyer discount, a special deal, a contest entry—as long as they provide their email address. The reality is that most people will visit a site just once, and having a way to reconnect with them is your best tactic to engage and encourage a return. Pop-ups, sliders, header bars—there are numerous features you can build into your site that will attract the attention of a visitor and encourage them to share their email address with you. Test different approaches and see what prompts the most action from your audience. 

Whether you’ve recently launched your own Shopify store or you’ve been selling online for years, your email subscriber list needs steady attention and constant cultivation. 

ALSO – How to Write Engaging Buyer’s Guides

Follow up to Prompt Action

Now that you’ve captured email addresses, you need to use them well. Think of your ecommerce email marketing like news about your company—you never want to underwhelm with information that the person is unlikely to find interesting. 

Follow-up emails, also called triggered emails or transactional emails, have a clear call-to-action and are valuable for any online retailer. You can use marketing automation to make this process simpler—emails will be sent whenever a potential buyer visits your online shop and fails to make a purchase. 

Triggered emails can include:

• Abandoned Cart email. When a customer puts things in their cart but fails to check out, following up with a thoughtful message can remind them to spend some time completing their purchases.  

• Browse Abandonment email. With pre-submit tracking on your site, you’ll know when customers look at items in your ecommerce store but leave without buying. Guess what? That makes them prime targets for a friendly nudge in their email Inbox. Keep the email simple and direct—use an image of the items they viewed, link to reviews, maybe offer suggestions for similar products that you also sell. This is another opportunity to test different approaches and see what proves most effective with your prospects. Don’t be afraid to borrow from the marketplace leaders—reviewing what Amazon does will definitely help you. 

• Replenishment email. If you sell a product that buyers will need on a regular basis, use marketing automation to follow with a reminder email when enough time has passed that it’s time for them to restock. 

• Cross selling email. Analyze sales patterns to see what items are frequently bought with other items in your inventory. Then follow up with an email to a customer after they have made a purchase to suggest other products that would be complementary. This tactic has been an important element of Amazon’s success. 

• Price drop email. If you’re having a sale on a particular item, don’t let it happen in a vacuum. News of a price drop is usually welcomed by the people on your email subscriber list. 

• Win back/defection or reactivation email. It’s not just an existing customer you want to target with your email marketing strategy. Your subscriber list provides an opportunity to reconnect with people who may not be buying from you anymore. Invite them back into the fold with a special offer or discount on their next purchase. 

Alistair Dodds, Marketing Director and Co-Founder of Ever Increasing Circles, suggests that the goal of this kind of email is, “…to make them an offer they can’t turn down in order to get them back into a more frequent remarketing and upselling segment list…they are often loss leader style campaigns as the future upside of sales more than compensates for offering products at a slight loss or break-even price point.”

Improve Open Rates

If you’re sending emails but your subscribers are sending them straight to Trash, it’s time to rethink your ecommerce email marketing. Pay careful attention to your Open rates—and your conversion rates. 

What kind of open and conversion rates should you be looking for? Every industry and category is different, but establishing your own benchmarks will help you make good decisions. 

Becky Beach, the owner of MomBeach.com, says, “The open rate I am getting is 19% on average. The best email campaign I had sent out was when I did a promotion where you got a product for free plus shipping. That open rate was 33% and I had about 500 people take advantage of it.”

Whenever possible, use A/B testing to compare creative approaches. Try the same message with different graphic elements—or no graphic elements—to see which email secures a higher open rate. 

Track sales of specific items in your email marketing to evaluate conversation rates, and don’t be afraid to make changes when the results are unsatisfactory. Remember that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Sending emails that don’t deliver is a waste of your valuable time and energy.

Hit Send at the Right Time 

Don’t forget about the customer life cycle stages that email marketing helps—Acquisition, Sales, Retention, Advocacy—and make sure you’re sending the right message at the moment when it will be most effective. During Acquisition, your email will need to work harder to demonstrate the appeal or value of your brand, and create awareness with a potential buyer. If they are in Sales, you need to close the deal—this is the time for a discount or a promotion. And when it comes to Retention, make sure the tone of your email reflects the fact that the person getting the email is a valued customer. Finally, turn loyal customers into ambassadors for your brand. Email incentives that encourage them to share your brand with friends, family, and their own online followings by using referral bonuses or special discount codes they can share.

Make it Personal

No, we’re not talking about sending thousands of messages from your personal account— that’s a very bad idea. But leveraging the data you have gathered about your subscriber list, and tailoring your message appropriately, can make a huge difference in your Open Rates, Click Through Rates, and actual sales. Whenever possible, segment your list so you’re sending emails that will resonate and be considered useful by the people receiving them. Develop profiles of your customers—what do they buy, which styles do they favor, when do they make purchases—and use that information well. It’s a good practice for both you and your customers. After all, the woman who loves the shoes on your ecommerce isn’t going to be excited to get an email that touts a special sale on men’s neckties. 

ALSO – Hire the Web’s Best Product Description Writers

Build Trust

You can’t expect successful ecommerce email marketing without building trust. Your subscribers need to be confident that you’re not sharing their information, and that the emails you’re sending have value. 

Being consistent matters, but don’t send email marketing messages that don’t have real value—a discount, real news, information that will improve the connection between your subscribers and your brand. 

To make consistency easier, establish an email template so you’re not forced to reinvent the wheel every time you send an email. Use marketing automation so certain emails are automatically sent—the Cart Abandonment email is a prime candidate for this solution. 

Use Ecommerce Email Marketing to Build Online Sales

Whether you’re just launching your online shop or an established brand, ecommerce email should be a vital component of your marketing efforts. By following established guidelines and measuring your success through some key metrics—opens, conversions, growth of subscriber list—you can count on email marketing to prompt purchases and increase revenue. 

ALSO – Using eCommerce Influencer Marketing to Drive your Brand Forward

The post How to Make Ecommerce Email Marketing Effective appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

However, creating great content can take a talent and time commitment that not everyone can invest in making, particularly for small companies with limited staff or startups with lofty growth goals. This is why hiring freelance writers can be a big benefit – they let companies add capacity and expertise with little investment and commitment. 

And while there are many ways to hire writers for your site, working with a content writing service gives you access to a vetted list of pros and powerful tools to boost productivity and improve quality. But, how do you know which service is the right one for you? This is what you need to know to find the perfect content writing service.

ALSO – Outsourcing Content Writing: Tips for Finding and Working With Writers for Excellent Content Marketing Results

What Is a Content Writing Service?

A content writing service is a professional resource that pairs writers and clients to let a company create content in various ways. Content writing services are intended to fill in the gaps for companies that don’t have in-house writers, companies who have more content needs than employees can fulfill, and companies who lack expertise at creating certain types of content. This provides clients with access to professional, experienced writers with a wealth of expertise to find the ideal fit for every purpose.

Writing services often handle management services when needed, like helping select writers for a project, creating briefs and project guidelines, and managing submissions and editing when needed. They also often include platforms that help you create content more easily, publish directly, manage workflow, build teams, and other aspects of management to simplify the process. Writing services facilitate varying needs, including scaling and growth opportunities a single writer can’t, putting significant advantages at clients’ fingertips.

Projects outsourced using a content writing service can be one-offs, like content for a new website or a description for a new product, while others are ongoing, like weekly blog posts. In essence, a content writing service is intended to fill an important need in an effective way.

Content Writing Services vs. Content Mills

A low-cost alternative to a content writing service is a content mill. While similar in theory – both resources provide a way to place orders with writers and receive content in return – a content mill is often dedicated to churning out content at rapid rates in exchange for very low costs. Many mills employ writers who aren’t native speakers, leading to poor quality and content that may not meet needs.

Think quality is negligible? Think again. Courtney Keene, the Director of Operations of MyRoofingPal, explains, “Initially, we did what I think most people do when searching out content: We looked for the lowest rates that still met our brand standards. Unfortunately, it seemed like 80% of the proposals we received were from people who hadn’t read the job posting […] and the rest were consistently low quality. Now we contact freelancers privately or through an agency, and we’re definitely more willing to pay a premium for good, targeted content. Since changing tactics and soliciting content that’s detailed, well-researched, and specific to our brand, we’ve seen roughly a 30% uptick in the number of good links that are pointing toward our articles.”

As they say, you get what you pay for. A content writing service can offer a high-quality experience that ensures a great outcome that aligns with your goals and objectives for content.

Picking The Right Service Provider

Content writing services are available in countless shapes and sizes, but finding the right one for you can play an integral role in the success of your project. Keep these tips in mind when weighing your options.

Determine Your Goals

The kind of content writing service you need will require primarily based on your content needs. Some services have specialties, like blog posts or product descriptions, so if you have a niche need, it’s important to find a good fit for your needs. Not all options will specialize in all areas, so be sure you take time to assess the abilities of services in relation to what you need.

For example, some companies may require one writer to accomplish all of their objectives, while others may need a whole team. As Scott Krieger, a Creative Director and Web Developer at Studio 54, puts it, “The most important thing about the content writing service that we liked was they had a team of writers who specialized in certain topics, meaning we could get the right fit for almost every client we had, as they would have someone who has experience in that niche.”

ALSO – How Can You Find a Great Content Writer Who Has Niche Expertise?

It’s important to note that goals can fluctuate – but the right content writing service can help this natural progression, not hinder it. With the ability to provide additional writers when needed, craft campaigns, offer editing services, and take over management of projects, a great service can accommodate you, no matter how objectives may shift in the future.

Choose a Price Point

Content comes at a cost. While many services offer affordable rates that can accommodate individual needs, good content isn’t free.

Consider, for a moment, what you have to spend each month. Is it $1,000? $10,000? More? Most content services charge by the word, or use a flat membership fee in addition to a per-word cost. Some services offer editing at a flat rate, while others add a per-word fee on top of what writing is charged.

Prior to vetting agencies, determine how much you are willing to spend and the services that matter most. For example, if you have an in-house writer who can assist with editing and need access to a writing service to manage the overflow, paying for editing may not be necessary.

On the other hand, if you have extensive content needs but no time or inclination to manage the process yourself, many platforms offer managed services that encompass placing orders, writing, editing, and curating content on your behalf. This will usually come at an additional cost, but the benefits can far outweigh additional expenses.

Do Your Due Diligence

There is a lot more that goes into content than simply putting fingers to keys. All content writing services offer options that can vary greatly from one service to another, so investigating all aspects of operations can be extremely important. In particular, keep these elements in mind:

• Quality Options: Most services have a way of ranking quality in a way that corresponds with pricing, with better writers demanding higher price points. Ask to see samples of different quality levels. Take time to review pricing policies before moving forward.
• Content Specialization: The best content writing services are often jacks-of-all-trades, but this isn’t true for all. Before signing up, be sure that the service you’ve chosen isn’t a social media powerhouse when all you need is blog posts.
• Workforce: Some services universally employ generalists, while others have experts in particular niches. Know what you need before you commit.
• Capacity: Most writers work on a freelance basis and aren’t always available for a full-time load. If you have a bulk project or rapid turnaround times, check with services to see what kind of timing and capacity writers can accommodate.
• Available Tools: If you have specialized content, like Tweets that must meet a certain word count, be sure services have tools available, from templates to grammar checkers, that meet your expectations.
• Assistance: Some services are hands-off. Others provide a fully managed experience. Know what you need before you make a choice.
• Publishing Options: Do you want your content emailed in Word? Posted right to WordPress? Emailed to you? Evaluate delivery options to ensure what you are paying for is in line with expectations.
• Revisions: Not every piece of content is right the first time. Learn more about revision opportunities to make sure you can fine-tune pieces as needed, when necessary.

Regardless of other criteria, a team you can communicate with openly and honestly is important. Mike Miller, the Editor-in-Chief of Wilderness Times offers this tip: “The best way to judge this before hiring the agency is to see how they treat you before you buy. A high-quality content provider will take the time to talk with you, listen to you, and understand what you’re looking for. They’ll ask for much more than the article topic and length. Top-notch writing services will ask what tone, voice, style, and prose you want for your articles.”

Assess Quality

A content marketing service can say all of the right things and offer all of the advantages in the world, but the end result of your project ultimately depends on the writer. Some services pair writers with projects behind the scenes, while others allow clients to assess quality themselves prior to making a choice. Regardless, a great service needs to offer a way to vouch for the quality of what is available.

For many marketers, reading reviews can be extremely valuable. “I have found reviews of existing writers on the platform to be the most important part of content writing services,” says Stacy Caprio, the Founder of Growth Marketing. “A content service is made up of many individual writers, but the specific writer you receive will determine the quality of the content you receive. It is important to make sure you are using and receiving the highest quality content and writers possible.”

Writing samples can also be an important part of the assessment process. Most professional content writing services maintain a vast sample library to help clients evaluate everything from areas of expertise to tone and style.

The right content writing service can put your business on the fast track to success, providing you with access to high-quality content that will rank well and serve your customers. By choosing the perfect partner, you can rest easy knowing that your content is always in good hands.

Need a content partner? Want to write for amazing clients? Get in touch with us today and see what we can do.

The post Questions to Determine the Right Content Writing Service appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

So, it’s no wonder everyone wants in on this featured snippet game. Over the past year at Crowd Content, we’ve had increasing numbers of clients asking for writers to craft snippet-rich content. Snippet-rich content answers search queries in a concise, organized fashion; it’s also the type of content most likely to win the featured snippet (also called the Google Answer Box).

ALSO – Hire Skilled SEO Content Writers Here

Why Do You Want the Featured Snippet?

Who doesn’t want to be the first result in the search engine? The benefits of the spot can include:

• Increased traffic, as people often click the first result that pops up for their query.
• Better brand authority, because your content shows up prominently at the top of the search engine, making it more likely people will remember your site or company.
• You potentially steal traffic from the top organic search result, which is helpful if you haven’t landed the top spot.
• Some sites find that winning the snippet leads to increased organic conversion rates.
• Snippet-rich content performs well in voice search because it’s short, concise and customer targeted to searcher intent.

The Danger of Blindly Chasing the Snippet

Yes, there’s a lot of value in the featured snippet. And clients who are chasing it are clearly paying attention to SEO trends and best practices, which we applaud.

But we’ve noticed another trend developing over the past year: Some people are chasing the featured snippet at the expense of content quality or other SEO efforts. Or, they don’t realize that the featured snippet isn’t a magic box that solves all your SEO problems; winning the snippet the wrong way can actually diminish your organic traffic.

Check out these times when optimizing for the featured snippet can go wrong and how to avoid them.

You Give the Cow Away for Free

Perhaps the biggest risk is that you do such a good job of answering searcher intent in your snippet that the click never happens. If you answer the query and leave nothing on the table, there’s no reason for the searcher to click any result; they found their answer on Google’s page and that was the end of their activity for that query.

Will Craig, the managing director of LeaseFetcher, says that obtaining the zero position on Google is often one of their top priorities. But it doesn’t always go as planned. He recounts a time when winning the featured snippet dropped their click-through rate substantially.

“We’ve seen our click-through rate drop up to 24% on our featured snippet for the keyword write off lease since the launch of our in-depth pillar guide. So, although we are providing users with the instant, concise answers they need and want, a lot of the users get all the information they need from the featured snippet and, as a result, don’t click through to our website.”

How to avoid the issue? Kim Streich, a technical marketer at Sovereign Man, says, “The most important part is to make sure the snippet answers the query but at the same time evokes curiosity and sells the reader on wanting to read the full article. Otherwise, you risk a low click-through-rate.”

Feature Snippet Performance Can Be Fickle

Colin Ma is a digital marketing entrepreneur and founder of Makujin Media. He provided analytics from his own data that help demonstrate how the featured snippet can drive both wins and losses. According to Ma’s experience and data:

• Around 10% of the time, businesses see a 20% (or more) increase in traffic
• Around 35% of the time, pages get between a 5% and 20% increase
• Around 35% of the time, the impact is nothing or negligible
• Around 20% of the time, attempts at the featured snippet result in a 5% to 20% traffic decrease
• A very small percent of the time (around 1% or less), attempts can drop your traffic more than 20%

The too long; didn’t math story here is that if you optimize for featured snippets, you might hurt SEO performance one time out of every five.

How to avoid the issue? You shouldn’t avoid chasing the snippet completely. Ma doesn’t, even though he’s seen the 1% described above. He tells of working with a client with a page that received 3,500 hits per day that drove a four-figure income daily. Ma made some changes on the page to capture the featured snippet and checked back a week later to see how they were performing.

The results were not positive. Traffic was down 40% and revenue down around 60%. Ma didn’t panic or eschew featured snippets altogether. Instead, he worked on the page, and within three weeks, he had captured the snippet. The results were 4,500 daily hits and an increase of 50% in revenue over the original numbers.

The lesson here is pretty standard: If at first you don’t succeed (at winning the feature snippet), consider trying again.

You Chase Featured Snippets That Don’t Exist or Make Sense

But don’t keep trying for featured snippets that don’t exist or make any sense for your brand or audience.

Not every query has a featured snippet. According to Ahrefs’ data from 2017, around 12.29% of queries could pop a featured snippet. That’s likely increased slightly over the years, but it’s far from the majority at this point. Trying to optimize your content for snippets when Google hasn’t gotten around to adding them yet definitely puts the cart in front of the horse and could result in wasted marketing effort and spend.

And even if a featured snippet does exist, it may not make sense for you to win it. Streich gives an example of this, saying, “Make sure the query matches the goal of your website. For example, our website won the snippet for Norway taxes, and taxes are a core topic for our company. While this result drives a lot of traffic to our site, the intent of the searcher doesn’t match our content, and so it doesn’t generate a lot of value in terms of leads and revenue.”

How to avoid the issue? Instead of concentrating solely on the idea of a featured snippet, focus on holistic SEO and semantic completeness. If you’re creating comprehensive, high-quality content that answers the intent of the search, you’re positioning yourself to potentially win the featured snippet at the same time.

Katie Kuchta, the marketing manager for LawnStarter Lawn Care, provides some advice for covering all your bases, including the featured snippet. “Always do your research,” she says. “Ahrefs is super helpful for looking at who currently owns the featured snippet for a certain keyword. You can also use the same tool to see what pages of your website are featured as a snippet. Using this tool can help you identify, first and foremost, what the competition is like on the first page of the results and the type of content that is ranking. Use that as a guide to help you optimize your content.”

Kuchta also advises:

• Answer questions that others didn’t and add unique information that others didn’t cover.
• Make it easy for anyone (and any search engine) to read. Add in headers, bullet points and summaries.
• Try to create comprehensive content that a skimmer can quickly look through and get all the important information within a minute of scrolling through the page.

You Compromise Your Content Quality for the Snippet

Finally, don’t give in to the temptation to use shortcuts. We’re seeing clients simply grabbing the list of People Who Also Ask questions and creating pages that ask and answer each one. That might seem comprehensive, but not every question asked by people browsing the internet is relevant to your page or target audience.

Featured snippets should be part of the quality content you create. They shouldn’t be the foundation of it.

If you’re struggling to create comprehensive content that performs in SERPs, consider partnering with Crowd Content. Our enterprise project teams and experienced writers know how to incorporate SEO elements in ways that improve your page performance and user experience, not derail it.

ALSO – Black Hat SEO Tactics That Work in 2020, But Might Not For Long

The post How Optimizing to Rank For The Featured Snippet Can Go Wrong appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

However, some circumstances may require content in far larger batches, ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of words per day. Think of eCommerce stores that need to rewrite an entire store’s worth of product descriptions, a service business that needs to write content for hundreds of location pages, or an agency that needs to create monthly blog posts for dozens of clients. 

Creating quality content in bulk presents some unique challenges. 

If you have a bulk content writing project on the horizon, this is what you need to know about ensuring your project goes off without a hitch.

What Constitutes a Bulk Project?

A bulk project refers to any content writing demand that requires a large amount of content in a short period of time. It follows that it often refers to projects that involve large numbers of content writers.

What constitutes bulk can vary from one company or project or another but generally, the requirements include:

• A large amount of content on a short turnaround time
• Content that requires a team of writers rather than a single content writer
• Consistency in tone and voice between pieces
• Consistent quality between pieces
• Affordable pricing to accommodate large-scale orders
• A way to store and publish large amounts of content
• Usually done with SEO in mind

Types of Bulk Content

Bulk content can come in a number of forms but generally involves similar content that needs to be reproduced across a variety of items with fresh, unique content specific to each item. It also usually has to fit into a defined template. 

We typically see bulk projects from companies that are seeking to revamp their product descriptions, provide reviews on services that encompass many geographical areas, or who require landing or summary pages on a large array of topics. 

ALSO – Want Success With Local Landing Pages? Learn How to Avoid These Pitfalls

A retirement community review site that covers the whole country, for example, will likely require a large amount of content in a short time span to cover thousands of communities – that can’t be accommodated by a single writer completing a few pieces a week. Other companies may require city pages, content to build a glossary of terms or an index of resources, or blog posts for agency clients. 

The most common categories of bulk content include:

• Blog posts
• City or location-specific pages
• Category page descriptions
• Product descriptions
• App descriptions
• Review pages
• Social media posts

Bulk content may also be ordered by agencies with diverse needs, like companies that build simple websites and have a large number of clients.

6 Key Tips For Creating a Bulk Content Game Plan

So you know you need bulk content and you have an idea of what you want – but how you get there takes time and planning. These six key tips can help you nail even the largest bulk content writing projects.

Determine the Size and Scale of Projects

As the word bulk isn’t exactly quantifiable, it’s important to determine what exactly you need. No two bulk projects will be exactly the same, so knowing you need a lot of content is not the same as putting together a game plan you can use to guide your process. This can include:

• A rough estimate of word count
• The number of writers needed to accommodate your expectations
• A map of deadlines, like how many words you need completed each week or when the project needs to be completed
• A plan to hire writers if in-house teams cannot meet the demands of an expansive project
• An average quota of articles per writer in order to determine the appropriate team size

ALSO – Outsourcing Content Writing: Tips for Finding and Working With Writers for Excellent Content Marketing Results

Define Quality Expectations

Quality is an important element of any kind of content creation. Google has been explicit about its expectations for quality content that it will rank well, so failing to adhere to best practices can be a dangerous game. Before you get started on your project, you need to have a basic idea of what caliber you are looking for with your work. If your pages or product descriptions are basic or simple, the best of the best may not be necessary. However, complex or technical information may mean searching for experts to ensure your needs are met.

Quality can be a sizable challenge, as Ron Stefanski, the owner and founder of PrisonInsight.com, knows well. He states, “the biggest challenge we have [in creating bulk content] is maintaining quality content standards. We’ve done our best to put a team in place that includes high-quality writers and an editor to approve everything, but there is always room for improvement.”

At the end of the day, quality requires a process. You need to know the level of quality you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there, from the guidelines you put in place to the writers you recruit, right through to who is going to edit the work and ultimately publish it.

Put Together a Style Guide

No two writers are exactly the same. From JK Rowling to Dostoevsky, all writers have a unique voice. However, in a bulk project, this isn’t always a good thing. In general, a bulk content project should read more like a unified presentation than a mishmash of different styles and preferences.

A style guide can help ensure all writers understand expectations, preferences, keyword use, formatting, word count, and virtually anything else necessary to the success of a project. A good style guide also provides context about the purpose of content and the target audience.

Andrew Barrett, Director of Content at Seniorly, explains the detailed information he makes available to the content team supporting his ongoing projects: “We provide important keywords, an outline for the content, important industry knowledge and facts that would inform their writing, and appropriate links to sources.” Ultimately, the more information is available, the better-prepared writers will be to meet expectations.

Assemble the Right Team

The team of writers you choose can make or break your project, so it’s important to choose wisely. Writers should be flexible, skilled, adaptable, and able to meet deadlines, regardless of the caliber of projects.

Writers can be hired on full-time, outsourced through freelance marketplaces, or onboarded through writing-specific platforms, like Crowd Content. Companies can manage teams themselves or go through a third party to oversee projects and handle editing, taking the burden off of a small marketing department. Regardless of methodology, choosing the right team is critically important to turning around quality work on tight deadlines.

Says Ron Stefanski, “if you want to be successful, you need a team to help. Don’t try to do all of this yourself for a long time. While I encourage people to start by doing this themselves so they understand exactly what’s needed and how difficult it is, outsourcing is crucial to scaling and having success.”

Keep in mind that a good team goes beyond writers. For those who don’t have in-house resources to serve in a support function, editors and QA pros are also highly valuable. Editors can make sure content meets style guides and best practices, while QAs can oversee formatting and publishing to ensure a perfect outcome.

ALSO – Challenges of Managing Freelance Writers Directly and How to Overcome Them

Process, Process, Process

You’ve probably picked up on this based on the tips preceding this highlighting that you need multiple different types of team members, but making sure you develop a controlled content creation process is critical to the success of any bulk content writing project.

At Crowd Content, we often define several steps that every piece of content must go through before it’s delivered to a client and published:

1. Research
2. SEO research
3. Writing
4. Editing
5. Quality Assurance
6. Delivery
7. Publishing

This varies a bit from project to project, but the key here is that you have focused team members responsible for each step. This helps ensure you get a consistent result and that your project delivers the results you expect. 

Provide Consistent and Timely Feedback

Every team is only as good as its weakest link. When working with writers, clear, coherent feedback and regular communication are musts. This is particularly true in the early days of a project: as writers are getting used to your preferences and the tone and style of a project, they’ll need guidance to get as comfortable as possible with your expectations.

This means providing writing samples, offering editing to highlight where writers are succeeding and where they’re going wrong, and consistently providing refresher training to keep everyone on the same page. As metrics become available, it’s also helpful to provide samples of pieces that ranked well versus less effective content. By setting up Slack rooms or forums, it’s possible to stay in constant connection with writers, field questions, provide context, and offer updates in a timely manner.

Communication goes both ways, too. “As writers asked us follow up questions, we revised the creative briefs and informed the team of writers to review the revisions,” says Andrew Barrett about his team’s process of creating guidelines that got writers up and running.

Coordinating bulk writing projects isn’t easy, but the right strategy can go a long way. With these six key tips to ensure increased output, consistent quality, and ongoing improvement opportunities, you can prepare for even your biggest content writing aspirations.

The post Have Bulk Content Writing Projects? 6 Key Things You Need To Know appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

To say that marketing and advertising have been through dramatic changes during the last ten years would be a serious understatement. The fact is, the old rule book hasn’t just been revised—the pages have been torn out and tossed into the fire pit. Audiences are fragmented like never before, attention spans are shorter, and brand loyalty is tenuous. 

While we mostly create eCommerce content for our clients and connect them with product description writers for larger projects, we do get asked about different marketing tactics that work well for eCommerce companies.

One solution that many eCommerce companies have turned to as they struggle to attract and hold consumer attention: eCommerce influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is hot. Like, Arizona desert in July hot. Quite simply, it is transforming how successful eCommerce brands and stores sell online.

So what’s behind the move to influencer marketing? For starters, millennials and the generations following them have a deeply ingrained dislike of traditional advertising. In fact, 84% of them don’t trust the messages they encounter in old school media outlets like television, radio, print, and outdoor.

When they are that reluctant to believe, they are even more likely to ignore messages altogether. But by leveraging the voice of a powerful influencer with a legitimate following in the right niche for your brand, you can reach even the most advertising-resistant group. 

It makes sense. Influencers forge special connections with their audiences in ways that traditional media vehicles never have. Influencers don’t just offer viewers or listeners or readers—they deliver ardent fans.

That said, it can be daunting to anyone wading into eCommerce influencer marketing for the first time. Traditional media is a far more straightforward process—spend dollars, establish as much frequency as possible, build awareness that you hope turns into sales. 

Social media, by its very nature, is more challenging.

Choosing placement is about getting the audience numbers and the demographics you want or can afford. But the effort to secure eyeballs or clicks can seem like a never-ending chase, and finding loyal customers feels more elusive than ever before.

Enter social media. And, more specifically, social media rock stars. Influencers. 

There are influencers of all kinds, from people with mass appeal to those who have followings in very specific niches. The ones with the most clout, however, have developed passionate, dedicated audiences. These fans value the opinions of the influencers they follow and will pay close attention when brands are endorsed or reviewed.

When an eCommerce company uses influencer marketing, the metrics are different. Most importantly, frequency is less important than authority. An influencer typically won’t tout your brand hundreds of times each week. Instead, an influencer may talk about it as little as one time, but their message can carry far more weight with your audience than any 30-second commercial ever did.

Great, you think. Influencer marketing sounds like it will be amazing. I’ll connect with some Instagram or YouTube stars, get the most important ones to recommend or use my brand and, boom, my products will be flying off the shelves. I won’t be spending millions of dollars on TV ads the way brands were once forced to do, and I’ll see results faster than I do with long-term efforts like SEO.

ALSO – 12 Content Distribution Tips to Ensure Maximum Exposure in 2020

Not so fast. Yes, influencer marketing for eCommerce brands can be incredibly powerful and make an impact very quickly. The ROI can be impressive. The stories about a YouTube star endorsing a brand or an Instagram influencer posing with a product, followed by a ridiculous burst in sales and media attention are real. 

But for every eCommerce brand that has experienced that kind of success—Casper, Bonobos, Lynda—there are countless others whose efforts to leverage influencer marketing fell flat. And well-publicized colossal failures have occurred.

Let’s talk about the process of using influencer marketing for eCommerce. How does a company go about finding the people who can be most valuable for their brand? How is the ROI measured? And how can a brand have more hits than misses when it ventures in influencer marketing?

Find influencers that are right for your brand.

Step one when you start to use influencer marketing: finding the right ones for your brand. It’s harder than it might seem. The most famous—or infamous—influencers, are likely to be outside the budgets of emerging eCommerce brands. 

If you have the kind of budget that puts a famous influencer within reach, swing for the fences—the rewards can be worth the risk. But big names like the Kardashians, Cristiano Rinaldo, and Nash Grier aren’t cheap. 

The good news? Pricey influencers probably aren’t right for your brand anyway. 

What’s more, when it comes to finding influencers that move the needle, success will vary. You’ll need to be persistent and willing to endure a few duds along the way.

Steve Wimmer, brand manager at TriNova, notes, “We’ve had varying degrees of success—from total flop to home run. Our best effort to date was a collaboration with YouTube influencer Pan the Organizer. We caught him towards the middle of his growth curve so a sponsored post was very affordable, and because he kept growing and the video he produced for us had evergreen content it paid off in a major way. We had him link back to our product on Amazon, and we estimate that it continues to drive $100-$500 a day in sales.”

Wimmer advises that, with influencer marketing, it’s generally better to, “…place several smaller bets on emerging influencers, rather than one big play on someone established. This increases your chances of success—and your ROI.”

Approach your search for valuable influencers like any other media research. Which ones line up well with your market niche? Who is connecting with audiences that are likely to buy your products? Are you comfortable with the content the influencer puts out?

If your brand has its own social media channel—and it should—look for posts from your followers that tag influencers or link to the content. Research the social media channels of your audience to find influencers they follow. You can even be direct and ask in a post for suggestions to start building a list of influencers. It’s organic research, but it can be incredibly useful.

FREE EBOOK: How to Create eCommerce Content at Scale

Qualify influencers to protect your investment.

Once you start to find influencers, it’s time to separate the good and very good from the mediocre. We all know the internet still has a bit of the Wild West in it—verification isn’t always easy. But if you’re going to be allocating a chunk of your marketing budget to an influencer marketing campaign, you need to take steps to make sure you’re using it as effectively as possible.

Ellie Shedden is the owner of digital marketing agency THE-OOP.COM who has used influencer marketing with great success, but she says it’s important to approach the audience metrics with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Shedden says, “The biggest piece of advice I can offer to businesses looking to run an influencer campaign is to check that the following is genuine. Nowadays, you can buy 10,000 likes for less than $50, and these influencers are not going to help your campaign in any way. When choosing your influencer, it’s important to deep-dive into their previous posts and check what type of engagement they are getting. Ideally, you should select an influencer with an engagement rate of around 4%.”

How do you calculate the engagement rate? Divide the number of followers by the number of Likes on an average post, and divide by 100. More likes mean more followers who really care about the influencer and help you determine if the numbers they’re touting are real.

Wimmer, based on his experiences with TriNova and Gold Eagle brands, suggests that marketers, “…avoid influencers with feeds that seem like non-stop commercials. They have inflated stats and probably aren’t helping sell anything. If they were – they’d just sell their own products!”

Finally, you’ll want to make sure the influencers you choose are right for your brand. As Nick Shackelford, Co-Founder of Structured Social notes, “…it has to be the right influencer for the right product or service. If you’re using Kylie Jenner to sell life insurance, that’s just a huge mistake. Lastly, everyone should be considering micro-influencers who have smaller groups of followers but those followers are easier to verify and target. If I know exactly who your 50k followers are, I know what I’m getting for my money.”

For many eCommerce stores or brands, the ideal follower count of an influencer will probably land somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000. That means the influencer you’re working with has an audience large enough to generate results but not so massive that working with them is beyond your budget restraints. This group is often called micro-influencers, and they’ve become more valued because they often have followers that are more devoted with higher levels of engagement. 

Whatever you do, remember to approach your influencer campaign as analytically as possible. Separate how you might feel personally about an influencer and focus on evaluating their numbers, their reach, and the demographics of their followers. Don’t be swayed by emotion.

Collaborate on content creation and messaging.

A successful influencer marketing campaign involves a healthy amount of back-and-forth between the brand and the personality. Don’t expect to simply mail some free product samples to a star of YouTube videos, go to their channel, watch them talk about your brand, and then wait for the sales to pour in.

The best campaigns involve collaboration between brand managers and influencers. They should both have a stake in creating awareness and, ultimately, purchase decisions. Marketers want results and influencers want to demonstrate the value of their channels—it’s a give-and-take. Leading influencers will want a certain amount of creative freedom, but you’re going to need to protect your investment by putting your products out there in a way that generates results. 

Aim to make any content—YouTube, blog article, Instagram post—as evergreen as possible. That means working with the influencer to optimize for search—suggest a How-To, a Seven-Reasons-Why, a Guide-For, etc. A blunt, obviously purchased product review won’t gain the traction in search that you want and may turn off potential customers. It doesn’t even have to be the epic fail of Scott Disick and BooTea to be ineffective—or worse.

Work together on ideas to encourage engagement with followers. How can you get the audience to share a post or a video? Will a trackable discount code help? Is there fresh content the influencer can create just for your brand? Keep all options open and encourage the people you work with to bring ideas to the table.

Remember—leading influencers have found a way to connect with people. Not utilizing their talent and creativity to help leverage your brand would be a serious mistake.

ALSO – 4 Ways to Get Compelling eCommerce Content for Your Brand

How to measure the success and ROI of eCommerce influencer marketing.

The major reason why so many eCommerce stores turn to influencer marketing is simple: the results are outstripping other tactics. According to a study by Tomoson, a seller of software that helps automate influencer marketing efforts, these campaigns typically yield a return of $6.50 for every dollar spent. Those numbers are backed up by other studies. The fact is, influencer campaigns can produce a return any brand manager will love.

But how can you measure the success of your own outreach? First, start with goals. Do you want to build your follower base? Are you going to measure engagement through Likes or other mechanisms like contest entries and the use of discount codes? Codes can be especially useful because they allow you to track the source of purchase decisions and compare your influencer marketing campaign to email efforts, paid search, and other communications you do to build your eCommerce store or brand. 

Back to Nick Shackleford, Co-Founder of Structured Social, with some words of caution. He says, “You can’t just throw money at an influencer campaign and hope it brings in revenue. Every client I talk to, every client whose campaign I’ve managed, gets the exact same advice from me. Start with revenue and work backward. Throwing money at someone with a million Instagram followers is pointless if those dollars don’t provide real value for your product.”

When you first try influencer marketing, it can feel like a roll of the dice. Make sure you have a plan in place to properly analyze and measure results so you’ll know the true ROI of your efforts.

What to expect from influencer marketing.

“Influencers are great when used properly, but they aren’t a cure-all,” adds Shackelford of Structure Social.

Don’t view your influencer marketing efforts as a replacement for everything else you’re doing to engage with potential customers of your eCommerce store or brand. For many, it will be a tactic that produces better results than anything else. For others, it will be an effective way to bolster other campaigns. But the research is clear: influencer marketing for eCommerce is effective, and engaging in it can produce brand awareness and better long-term sales results than traditional offline and online advertising.

The post Using eCommerce Influencer Marketing to Drive your Brand Forward appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Creating original, engaging content is not easy (though a good content writing service can certainly help). Yet, it is the least that’s expected of you as a content marketer today. The real content marketing challenge of 2020 is getting your content in front of the right audience. As Ross Simmonds often preaches, “distribution rules everything around me.”

As more businesses realize the importance of content marketing, the competition for content promotion is getting tougher. So, how do you rise to the top of your space? Keep reading to learn about the top content distribution tips for 2020.

1. Find Your Target Audience

Who is interested in what you have to say? Ideally, this question should be answered before your content is created.

Identifying your niche audience is one of the key steps in creating and distributing content. Sadly, it is also one of the most overlooked! Too often an article, a video or a blog post are created without well-defined audiences in mind. So, here is your chance to stand out.

Creating targeted content also means identifying and using keywords and key phrases that your potential customers are using in their search engine queries.

Many keyword research tools are available to make the task easier for content marketers. The most widely used are Google’s Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Moz Keyword Explorer, Ubersuggest and Answer The Public.

By understanding how your audience describes the topics you want to cover, and understanding the intent behind their searches, you can tailor content that speaks directly to them.

ALSO – Qualitative Keyword Research: How to Invest 10 Minutes into Your Content Marketing Process & See Your Content Rise to the Top of Google

2. Create and Promote Blog Posts

Everyone seems to run a blog these days – so, is it still worth it? The answer is definitely “yes” – if you do it right. A recent study by Content Marketing Institute confirmed what many of us have intuitively known for ages – that 7 out of 10 customers prefer promotion through articles rather than ads.

So, what makes an effective blog? You need to:

• Publish original content that is genuinely useful, insightful and/or entertaining
• Maintain high standards – create comprehensive, best-in-industry content
• Post regularly
• Stay true to the topic and purpose of your blog
• Engage with your audience and build community
• Keep the information up to date
• Promote widely – there’s no point in publishing great content if nobody sees it!

Well researched and written blog posts help establish and support your brand’s reputation and expertise – building trust, making your audience more receptive to your messages, and creating lasting customer relationships.

When your blog post is combined with a logical, well-defined call to action, it is also invaluable in building highly targeted email lists. For example, if readers of your blog find your content useful, they will be more inclined to provide their active email address to access a comprehensive guide on the topic – and to stay subscribed to receive further messages from you.

The blog format allows for a more informal, personal tone than your main company site. That makes blog posts great for sharing on social networks, and for using such opportunities for cross-promotion as guest posting.

ALSO – 13 Types of Blog Posts to Fire Up Your Readers (And Your Editorial Calendar)

Guest Posting Might Be Harder to Get – But It Still Works

Guest posts remain a great way to get more exposure for your content.

Marketers today may be more wary of allowing guest posts on their site because the practice has been abused by spammers. Still, the collaboration between bloggers can be very effective – if done right. If you can enrich each other’s content, you instantly increase exposure and provide more value for your audience.

For example, BackLinko’s Brian Dean has recently teamed up with PitchBox, an outreach and content marketing platform, for an impressive study on the effectiveness of outreach emails. Backlinko benefited by acquiring some cutting-edge data-driven content, while PitchBox got significant exposure for their product.

Guest posting can also be a great way to promote your existing content. Including links to other relevant topics in your blog ensures that your evergreen or updated content keeps being discovered by new audiences.

3. Keep Search Engines Happy – Never Neglect Your SEO

On-page SEO remains as important as ever. The tedious bit – optimizing your posts for their target keywords using the latest SEO best practices – should never be skipped.

One well-targeted, informative blog post that makes it to the first page of Google results for a given keyword can drive substantial organic traffic for years. So, the time and effort invested in SEO are well worth it when considered against the long-term gains.

As the competition among content creators heats up, it is particularly important to understand search intent – the reason why users look for information – behind queries that are likely to bring traffic to your site. Your primary keywords should always be chosen with search intent in mind.

When you have decided on your primary keyword, make sure to use it:

• in the page title
• in the H1 heading
• early in the body of your content

Every post should have a custom meta description that includes your keywords and accurately summarizes your content. If your description matches your audience’s search intent closely, it will drive up the organic CTR (click-through rate) on your listing in Google search results.

The quality of your content is the most important ranking factor with Google now. That means it needs to read well, offer valuable information, satisfy search intent, and perhaps most importantly – it needs to be comprehensive. Additionally, you’ll want to spend time ensuring your content is surrounded by good design so that it’s more appealing to visitors.

All of this impacts how visitors interact with your site. If your site has a low bounce rate – meaning that your visitors spend time on your site consuming your content – it will help your content rank even higher as a result of Google’s RankBrain, which looks at behavioral metrics like this, bringing in more visitors from search engines.

Sharing your content widely and building backlinks from authority sites in your niche are also solid off-page SEO techniques that you should use.

ALSO – 7 Tips for How to Write SEO Content

4. Know Your Content Distribution Channels

What channels can you use to distribute your content in 2020? All content distribution and sharing channels can be grouped into the following categories:

1. Channels that are under your complete control (often referred to as “owned” distribution channels). These include:

• Your website
• Your blog
• Your email newsletter
• Your brand profiles on social media
• eBooks, PDF guides, infographics, etc. (downloadable from your site or emailed by you)
• Video content (posted on your YouTube channel or your blog, included in your emails, etc.)
• Audio content (your own podcasts, audiobooks, guides, etc.)

2. Channels that you have limited control over (“earned” or “shared” content distribution channels):

• Strong organic search engine rankings
• Social shares and mentions
• Reposts on other social networks
• Citations on other websites and blogs
• Reviews that link back to your site

3. Channels for paid distribution:

• Paid advertising – Display Ads and Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
• Sponsored content on social networks (like LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, promoted posts on Facebook or Pinterest’s Promoted Pins)
• Native advertising and content discovery platforms (like Taboola and Outbrain)
• Paid influencer campaigns
• Social media advertisements

Your budget, as well as your overall brand strategy, will determine which owned and paid distribution channels you use the most.

Earned channels have the potential to provide the biggest return on your investment in content. At the same time, content sharing carries some risks, as the spin that can be put on shared content is largely out of your hands.

The effectiveness of earned channels has been steadily declining over the last few years. On Facebook, for example, the decline in organic traffic has been particularly noticeable since the 2018 algorithm update, which changed the way content appears on users’ timelines to prioritize, in Mark Zuckerberg’s words, “friends, family, and groups” over “businesses, brands, and media.”

As a result, the competition for earned channels in 2020 is set to be tougher than ever. In this situation, your paid distribution efforts should be used to try and increase your earned reach.

For example, promoting a post on Facebook or LinkedIn can help generate some organic shares. You can also invite the people who like your promoted posts to follow you, increasing the audience for your future content. Having a network of people that will like and share your post also ensures that it gets picked up and promoted by social network algorithms.

ALSO – Content Advertising: How to Leverage Paid Ads in Your Content Marketing

5. Pick the Right Content Distribution Channels for Your Target Audience

Once you know your channels, it’s just a matter of matching them with your potential audiences. If you’ve done your homework researching your niche audience, then the task of finding the right channel for distributing your content becomes easier.

Are you trying to reach busy professionals that are likely to use LinkedIn daily? The fashion-conscious crowd on Instagram and Pinterest? Is your audience more likely to use Facebook – or Twitter? If you know your target audience, the above questions should not be hard to answer.

Then you need to put a sound content distribution strategy in place. Alexander Porter, Head of Copy at  Search It Local, explains:

“Successful content marketing heading into 2020 must exist within an integrated framework. You can’t release it in a handful of channels and expect to keep up with your competition if they are casting a wider net. At Search It Local, we build the foundations of our results like we were building a pyramid.”

For example, if your goal is to create brand awareness and build trust by running a business blog, then your content distribution strategy for new posts could include:

• Publishing an SEO-optimized blog post on your company site.
• Posting the key quotes from your post to Twitter.
• Emailing the summary of your blog post with a link to the full post to your mailing list subscribers.
• Posting summary/infographics/video promoting the post to your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
• Sharing the post through Facebook and LinkedIn Groups.
• Using sponsored listings on social media feeds to promote the post.
• Contacting influencers that might be interested in sharing your post.
• Using remarketing to promote the post to the audiences that have shown interest in similar content or have recently visited your site.
• Using Google Ads to drive paid traffic directly to your blog post.

Finding the right channels to connect with your audience will initially require some experimentation. Once you are confident that you are reaching your crowd, you can play with the formats and topics of your posts, fine-tuning your messages so that they are tailored to your chosen channels and platforms.

6. Maximize Your Social Shares

Each content sharing platform has strengths that should be used to maximum advantage. For example, short video content is perfect for sharing on Facebook and Instagram, while some eye-catching infographics can be created for ease of share on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Always look for usage patterns of the content sharing platforms – then, look for ways to stand out.

Jason Thibault, the owner of the content marketing agency Massive Kontent, shares some insights on the optimal use of LinkedIn:

“LinkedIn now has just over 300 million active monthly users, 40% of which visit the site daily. Only 3 million of those users share content every week – so creating and sharing content on the platform automatically puts you in the “one percent”. This year I started including short PDFs with my LinkedIn posts. Just 6-7 pagers that summarize my main points. The posts with PDFs generate anywhere from 250% to 600% more views (4,000-12,000 views) in the LinkedIn newsfeed.”

It is crucial to create your content with the distribution platform in mind. For example, the optimal length of a Facebook post for ease of sharing is between 40 and 80 characters, while the ideal content length on Twitter is often reported to be 70 – 100 characters. At the same time, some brands have discovered that much longer Facebook posts work for them, while others swear by multi-tweet messages on Twitter. Ultimately, you are the best judge of what works best in your space – and figuring that out does take quite a bit of experimentation!

ALSO – Social Media: How Does it Impact Your SEO?

Paid promotion may be a good tactic to use to start things off. The initial traction that your post gets from paid placements start leading to organic shares.  

Samantha Milner, the food blogger at RecipeThis.com, has been able to grow her blog to 8 million pageviews a year using the following strategy:

“When a new recipe is published, we will share it first to our Facebook page and Twitter account. It will also have every image featured in it shared to a relevant Pinterest board. It is then distributed across Pinterest with Tailwind until it has gone through all relevant Pinterest groups, shared with relevant Tailwind Tribes, and then shared throughout social bookmarking channels – as well as to recipe sharing sites and link parties. Then each Friday it will be shared with our newsletter subscribers.”

So, to maximize social shares:

• Consistently share quality content on the platforms that your target audience uses
• Use the best formats for sharing on your chosen platforms
• Use paid promotion to initiate organic shares of your top content
• Always study the competition – then look for ways to stand out!

7. Email Is Still HUGE

It has been around forever, but, year after year, numerous studies agree that email remains a powerful content distribution and marketing channel – even for younger generations. As many as 68% of millennials report that promotional emails have influenced their purchasing decisions.

Build a quality email list

Building targeted email lists is more important than ever. One successful tactic is to offer some actionable, in-demand content – like an eBook or an instructional video – for free in exchange for mailing list subscriptions. The pieces of content that you offer as subscription incentives should:

1. Add immediate value to your audience – teach them a strategy, show them a technique, etc.
2. Be as targeted as possible.
3. Promise to deliver more – soon. (Make sure you deliver on that promise!)

If you provide immediate value, your readers are more likely to stay subscribed. They will also be more motivated to open your subsequent emails and be receptive to your messages.

Keep your email formatting clean and simple

While it is tempting to experiment with formats of your email messages, it is important to remember about the overwhelming number of emails your readers open daily.

People are becoming tired of the visually bulky “traditional” newsletter formats.

Simple, brief, to the point, letter-style emails are easier to skim through and are more likely to get attention and initiate immediate action.

In fact, emails sent by some of the most prominent content marketers of today are concise to the point of using an almost bullet-point format.

Your email promotion success also greatly depends on your attention to detail and persistence. To get better response rates, personalize the subject and body of your messages as much as possible, and be prepared to send multiple emails to the same contacts.

ALSO – Email Copywriting: Tips for Mastering a Profitable Niche

8. Share in Social Network Groups (and Create Your Own!)

Your top content deserves extra distribution effort. Both Facebook and LinkedIn have the Groups feature that is great for reaching out to people that are actively looking for information on very specific topics.

Oksana Chyketa, a B2B marketer at Albacross.com, has the following tips on distributing content via Facebook Groups:

“A great way to promote your content on Facebook is through Facebook Groups. In this case, you have two options: 1) You can join Facebook groups and boost your reach by sharing your content once you’re a member. Or 2) You can create your own Facebook Group and invite users to join and promote your brand. Both options are excellent in an organic increase of page ‘likes.’ It’s important to mention that only high-quality, problem-solving and engaging content will attract and retain your prospects.”

As a content marketer, it is important to make sure that you are present on all major social platforms that your audience frequents. Be it Quora, Reddit, YouTube, or smaller niche forums – before you start promoting your content in any way, you need to learn the rules of the group, and add value by answering questions and genuinely contributing to discussions. Do not post any content that can be perceived as spammy. Reddit, in particular, has zero spam tolerance and can be more valuable as an audience research platform than a content distribution one.

9. Always Look for Emerging Channels (and for New Opportunities to Use Existing Ones!)

Who heard of TikTok two years ago? Very few people would’ve predicted its amazing rise. The same could’ve been said about YouTube just a few years earlier.

The new channels for publishing your content emerge every day, and, as overwhelming as it all might feel – it’s crucial to keep up with them.

At the same time, new uses of established platforms should never be overlooked.

YouTube Community Feature Can Be Used for Content Sharing

If you have access to a YouTube channel that has over 1,000 subscribers, you can use the Community feature to share your content.

When a piece of content is shared with the community, the post will appear to all of your subscribers.

“We tripled our referral traffic from YouTube since we started posting to our community,” says Antti Alatalo, Marketing Director at CashCow.

Use Audio to Establish a Deeper Connection with Your Audience

Audio is another traditional content distribution channel that appears evergreen.

Simon Elkjær of Nutimo believes that the audio format has given him a deeper connection to his audience:

“I have been doing blogging, YouTube, book launches, events and public speaking amongst other things. But through my podcast, I feel the listeners are getting a deeper connection. When I meet people who are podcast-subscribers, they feel like they know me, they listen to me on evening walks, while commuting, going to the gym or just in a quiet place, in a nice chair. In this way audio is unique. It requires nothing of you, and no screen time to consume. It’s a way of disconnecting from a stressful smartphone or tv screen, and just listening.”

According to Simon, with audio, it is best to go in-depth:

“We changed our format from 15 minutes to about an hour and our listeners loved it. Our format is 20% on topic, and 80% anecdotes, stories, and small talk. Those who listen now really care, and listen because of us, not because of the information.”

Look for New Ways to Use Your Channels

Always be on the lookout for new features of your main distribution channels. Identify and follow the experts in the field. And don’t forget to always experiment yourself – it’s little, subtle touches and tweaks that often help you stay ahead of the content distribution game.

10. Use Paid Promotion Channels for Retargeting

Paid channel targeting is becoming more sophisticated every day. One of the most valuable tactics is retargeting – keeping your brand and content in front of the customers that have already visited your site, or showing ads based on the history of their interaction with some of your content. Content marketers need to make full use of this trend in their social media marketing efforts.

You can build your retargeting lists based on the type of content that your target audiences have already interacted with. Then, you can use these audiences to promote your new content. For example, when promoting a new instructional video, you would target people that have already watched some of your videos.

Once you have a good understanding of your main audience, you can start to experiment with the Lookalike Audiences feature (offered by both Facebook and LinkedIn), targeting audiences with similar characteristics and expanding your reach.

Here is how some content marketers do it.

Oksana Chyketa of Albacross shares some of her Facebook ads strategy insights:

“…One more way to boost your content is by using Facebook ads. The tip here is that you don’t need to target the unknown people, but those who have already been to your site, let’s say during the last 60 days. In this way, you’ll manage to drive only quality leads to your blog and the bonus is that your CPC will be much cheaper.”

Jason Thibault of Massive Kontent has been successful in distributing content on Twitter and Quora:

“Currently, I’m finding that the Twitter ads platform and Quora for Business are offering the best return on ad spend. With Twitter, I upload custom-tailored audiences and continuously build a second ‘website visitors’ audience via the Twitter conversion pixel. If I’ve set everything up correctly I can send 2-400 visitors to a new piece of content for 20-40 cents per click (sometimes less).”

11. Influencer Marketing Tip: Don’t Overlook Micro-Influencers!

According to a recent study by MediaKix, 80% of marketers find that influencer marketing is effective. The good news is that your influencer marketing campaign does not have to come with a hefty price tag. Emerging influencers and micro-influencers often have more genuine engagement with their followers than established ones. While marketers can find themselves working harder initially to identify and contact micro-influencers, it is usually worth the time and effort if you want to reach your niche audiences.

Micro-influencers are also more likely to be interested in collaborations that involve distributing content for free in exchange for the exposure they get.

One great practice is to contact micro-influencers with relevant expertise and ask them to contribute to your pieces of content. “They’ll be your content marketing advocates,” Alexander Porter of Search It Local explains. “Show them the finished content and thank them for their contribution. Avoid overtly asking them to share it, by developing authentic relationships you’ll find these micro-influencers naturally share your content which increases its reach and exposure.”

12. 80/20 Rule: Your Main Focus Should Not Be on Creating Content

Gone are the days when content marketers could just distribute quality content blindly and expect results.

The 80/20 rule of content marketing for 2020 is that only 20% of your time should be spent creating content, while 80% should be devoted to content strategy, distribution and promotion.

Spend More Time Sharing

Outsourcing your content creation to experts with content writing services such as Crowd Content allows you to direct your main efforts to where they matter most – developing an effective strategy and putting your content in front of the right eyes.

The post 12 Content Distribution Tips to Ensure Maximum Exposure in 2020 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Did you know some of these works were ghostwritten?

• Iacocca: An Autobiography was mostly penned by author William Novak on behalf of, and using stories and information from, Lee Iacocca.
• Profiles in Courage wasn’t written by JFK; the wordsmithing actually came from Kennedy’s speechwriter Ted Sorenson.
• The many stories featuring Nancy Drew, which have been published over almost nine decades, were written by numerous ghostwriters under the name Carolyn Keene.
• All but 35 of The Babysitters Club books were ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis and others, not by author Ann M. Martin.

Publishers have put the power of ghostwriting to work to churn profits and meet voracious fan demands for centuries. And in today’s competitive marketing world, you can put good ghostwriters to work to scale content creation and publishing processes, improve authority and SEO, and better connect with your target audience.

But before you can do those things, you must answer the question, “how does ghostwriting work?” The comprehensive guide below provides everything you need to get started — whether you’re new to hiring ghostwriters or just want to develop a better process for it.

What Is Ghostwriting?

Ghostwriting occurs when someone contributes to creating content without credit for doing so. They don’t get a byline or author credit; in fact, many times someone else’s name appears as the author of the content. In exchange for credit, the person doing the writing typically receives monetary compensation.

ALSO – Ghostwriting Jobs 101: How They Work, Where to Find Them and How to Thrive

Reasons Marketers and Companies Use Ghostwriting

Ghostwriters can offer a number of benefits for yourself or your organization. Here are just a few reasons someone might choose to use a ghostwriter.

• Sharing your expertise when you don’t write well. If you’re an expert or professional in a niche with knowledge to share, ghostwriters can help you do that if you’re not great with the written word. You might create extensive notes and outlines for the writer to work from. The writer might also interview you to get your story or message before committing it to paper.
• You already have a name but don’t have enough time to write. Someone who already has a recognized name in the niche may need help keeping up with demands for content. Many online marketing pros, including Rand Fishkin and Neil Patel, for example, have used ghostwriters to help keep their content production at scale when they’re busy with other tasks.
• Creating lots of content for your brand. Not all ghostwritten work gets an author byline stamped on it. Many companies publish blogs, articles and other content from the brand as a whole and not a single person. Ghostwriters are ideal for online content marketing and branding, which may require that you publish dozens or even hundreds of pieces a week or month. Being able to keep up with that pace while providing high-quality content that resonates with your audience is impossible.
• You don’t have the exact expertise. In some cases, the ghostwriter is actually the one with the knowledge. For example, someone who is a chef may want to launch a coaching business for rising restauranteurs. They come up with an idea to provide a white paper on legal issues for restaurants as a lead generation tool, but they themselves aren’t a legal expert. They might hire a ghostwriter who has both restaurant and legal expertise to draft the white paper.

ALSO – What Is a Ghostwriter Best Able to Help With?

Reasons Writers Agree to Ghostwrite Content

So, using ghostwriters lets you expand your writing team, gain access to writing skills and potentially draw on other people’s knowledge and experience. But why would a ghostwriter agree to create content for you without having their name attached to it?

Mostly, the answer is that they get paid to write the content. Obviously, with money as the motivator, typically the better you pay, the more professional and skilled a ghostwriter you can hire. You do have to be careful when hiring someone for freelance writing, and we’ll cover how to find qualified pros that will do an excellent job in just a bit.

Reasons why #writers agree to ghostwrite content:
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 Monetary compensation

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 They don’t want recognition

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 The benefit of writing on multiple topics

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Other reasons people choose to work ghostwriting gigs rather than publish content under their own names include:

• They have another business or personal brand and they don’t want to interfere with that. For example, someone who is attempting to make a name as a science fiction author may still need to pay the bills. Ghostwriting lets them put their other expertise to work without impacting their author name.
• They don’t want any recognition. Some writers are exceptionally shy. Others have personal reasons they don’t want their name splashed across the internet. Whatever the reasons, the fact that a qualified writer doesn’t want the attention of a byline can work in your favor.
• They enjoy writing for hire on a number of topics. Some writers simply enjoy doing work for other people that lets them research and write about different things all the time. They don’t want to be tied down to a specific niche or responsible to their own platform, and they may have learned they can make a good living by providing A+ service and content to clients.

When Is Ghostwriting Not a Good Method to Generate Content?

Ghostwriting sounds amazing, right? But before you start handing your content off to a freelance writer, make sure ghostwriting is the right move.

It’s generally known that everything that appears on your website probably wasn’t written by you. Most people even realize that your full-time staff might not be responsible for every word. But some content comes with expectations that you either wrote it yourself or had a very hefty hand in the process —examples include letters from the CEO or very personal posts that include your own testimonial about something.

In deciding whether to hire a ghostwriter for a project, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have an extremely personal tie to this story that would benefit from an authentic first-person account?
• Will your readership feel betrayed if they ever find out you didn’t write the content yourself?
• Will you have to disclose extremely sensitive details to ensure the ghostwriter has the right understanding to write the piece, even though those details won’t make it into the published piece?

In these cases, you may want to write the content yourself. If you’re worried about how the finished piece might look because you’re not a strong writer, you might hire an editor to fix it all up while maintaining the authenticity of your style and voice.

What Are Some Common Legal Concerns With Ghostwriting?

Ghostwriting is completely legal. Technically, it’s an exchange of goods or services. You pay someone, and they give you words they have written (along with the copyright for the content).

But there are some legalities to contend with to ensure you don’t end up on the losing end of a ghostwriting arrangement. Here are a few legal concerns to pay attention to when using ghostwriters to create any type of content.

Copyright: Who Owns the Content?

This is probably the most common concern and is the most important thing to ensure you cover in ghostwriting contracts. Universal Copyright Convention states that copyright for a creative work, including writing, automatically goes to the creator at the time of creation. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to register copyright to enjoy the benefits of owning your own work.

In the case of ghostwriting, you definitely don’t want the writer to maintain this default ownership. The contract must clearly state that the writer is giving up copyright of the work in exchange for the payment you’re offering.

Consider including language in your contract that states:

• The writer agrees that the works created under the contract are “works for hire.”
• The writer agrees that the works belong to the client.
• The writer agrees that copyrights associated with the work also belong to the client.
• In cases where the work might not be considered “works for hire” under any law, the writer agrees to “sell, assign and transfer” rights, title and interest in the work to the client.

Disclosures: Who Can Talk About Authoring the Content?

If you pay someone to write a book or article and then put your own name on it, you may not want the person taking credit for the work in other ways. It’s a good idea to put a nondisclosure agreement in your contract that states the writer agrees to hold his or her participation in the project confidential.

How tight you want to make the NDA depends on your brand and what you’re having someone write. In most cases, clients typically don’t want someone advertising the fact that they wrote the content. They might not mind if someone tells close family or friends what they’re working on. And in some cases, the writer may request permission to share information about the project or snippets of the work with other potential clients to demonstrate their experience and expertise. Work with your writer to ensure the NDA in any contract serves both your needs.

Pay: What Are the Terms of the Transaction?

How you pay, what you pay and when you will pay it should all be covered in detail in any contract. Being as specific as possible when you contract a ghostwriting service protects your interests and helps stave off disagreements later in the process.

The contract should include:

• How much you’ll pay. This can be a flat fee for the work, an hourly payment or payment by the word or page. The easiest way to ensure you’re on the same page with a potential writer is to pay by the word. Make sure you define how the words will be tallied. You might specify that you’ll use the word count from a specific program or that you’ll use an industry benchmark such as 250 words per typed, double-spaced pages.
• How you’ll make payment. Will you pay via a service such as PayPal (and if so, who is responsible for the resulting fees), via an electronic funds transfer into the writer’s bank account or via a mailed check?
• When you will pay. Do you pay upon acceptance of the work? Are you planning to pay within 30 days of acceptance? The ghostwriter or service may have their own terms. Common options are Net 15 or 30 days or full or partial payment upfront. If the project is large, you may set up milestones to make partial payments as the writer delivers various parts of the work.

ALSO – How Much Should I Pay a Freelance Writer?

Ghostwriting Contract Checklist

If you’re drafting a ghostwriting contract, consider working with a legal professional to ensure it has all the clauses and details required to protect you and your company. Make sure it includes everything in this checklist; it’s also a good idea to look for these things in any contract offered by the ghostwriting service.

• Clauses that state the copyright belongs to you (as stated in the section above)
• Confidentiality agreement or NDA (as stated in the section above)
• Payment details (as covered in the section above)
• Clauses that define this as a contract agreement and note the writer or service is responsible for any taxes or other obligations (ensuring this can’t be perceived as a W2 or traditional employment situation)
• Details about expectations for the work, including
  • Quantity — the number of blog posts, articles, product descriptions, social media posts or book chapters, for example
  • Length — a range for the number of words for each piece, such as 800-1000 words for a blog post
  • Timeline — when you expect various parts of the work to begin and when they should be submitted
  • Revision requirements — how many revision rounds you expect to be included in the price; it’s a good idea to always include at least one round
  • Research requirements — how much research do you expect the writer to do for your project; note that more research takes more time and may increase the cost of your project

How Do You Find Qualified Ghostwriters?

Before you can enter into contract negotiations, you need someone to negotiate with. Here are some steps for finding ghostwriters for just about any project or topic.

• Search for and recruit an expert writer. You’ll need to spend some time on LinkedIn, browsing the web and popping into relevant social media groups to connect with writers who might work out. The benefit of this method of finding a ghostwriter is that you connect directly with the writer. The disadvantage is that you might spend a great deal of time sorting through writers until you find the right one, and you still don’t have any guarantees the work will get done and be exactly what you need.
• Put a ghostwriting job out on a freelance bidding site or job board. When you use this method, you wait for the writers to come to you. That reduces the work you have to do in seeking out writers, but it also means that you may get a lot of applications that aren’t even close to what you need. Depending on which site you use, you may have to wade through sub-par writers to find the one diamond in the rough.
• Work with a content company. Content companies like Crowd Content maintain a vast database of writers and can match clients with the freelancers that are best for the work at hand. They can also do the work of recruiting and validating new writers if necessary to meet specific niche needs. Other benefits of working with Crowd Content when you need a ghostwriter is that project managers and customer service pros can work alongside you throughout various stages of your project to ensure you get the content you need.

ALSO – Ghostwriters: The Secret to Maximizing Your In-House Writing Team

Some Other Best Practices for Working With Ghostwriters

Once you find the ideal writer and get the contract details worked out, it’s time to get down to the business of creating content. You might think you can drop the ball fully into the ghostwriter’s side of the court at this point, but be wary of taking your eyes completely off the process.

If you have a long-term relationship with a freelance writer who knows your business and has created content you loved in the past, you might be able to back away and let them do their thing. But instructions are still important, and if you’re working with new-to-you writers or a ghostwriting team, then you may want to follow some of these best practices to ensure optimal results.

1. Account for added time in your process.

If you’ve been creating content yourself or having in-house employees do it, you shouldn’t expect the same turn around times when you switch to ghostwriters — especially at first. And you shouldn’t assume that because you’ve passed the buck on wordsmithing to someone else that content creation no longer takes up any time on your schedule. You’re planning to put your name (or your brand’s name) on this content, so you still have to manage it.

“The biggest challenge we face when hiring ghostwriters is time,” says Zac Harding, Director or Marketing at Sense Chat Labs. “It takes time to manage ghostwriters and to reach out. If your process for managing your ghostwriters is not prepped and easy to follow you may lose their interest right away or, even if you hire them, they’ll not be used to their full potential which means money wasted.”

When working with ghostwriters, plan extra time for:

• Onboarding new writers
• Working out details of projects with writers
• Returning pieces for rounds of revisions
• Providing feedback on content to help ensure ghostwriters get increasingly closer to your ideal
• Updating ghostwritten content with any personal preferences before you publish it

2. Look for people who are knowledgeable about your field.

A common mistake that clients make when seeking ghostwriters is assuming they just need someone who can write, and that any skilled writer will do. After all, if you’re providing all the research and talking points, can’t any writer worth their salt turn it into a high-quality blog post, ebook or article?

The answer is no. Writers have unique skill sets, and you want one that:

• Writes the type of content you need. Marketing content, technical copy, journalistic articles and conversational blog posts all require different writing skills. Some writers can move between these formats and some can only do one or a few.
• Can match your voice. Many writers can adopt a client’s voice with a little practice and some samples. But some writers work best with certain types of voices, and others have such a strong voice themselves that they can’t successfully mimic yours.
• Understands — or is capable of understanding — your topic. This is especially true of highly technical or unique fields. Eric Even Haim, the cofounder and CEO of StilyoApps, says “You want to find people that are already in the field you’re in — the more specific the match is, the better. Try asking your candidate as many questions as you can to make sure you and he are on the same page and that you speak and think in the same wave.”

ALSO – How Can You Find a Great Content Writer Who Has Niche Expertise?

3. Make sure there’s a body of work your ghostwriter can reference.

The easiest way to ensure a writer can match the style, voice and content you’re looking for is to already have some of that content to show them. It’s much easier for a writer to understand what you mean by “funny and engaging” or “formal and professional” when they can read some pages you already like.

“A ghostwriter will be infinitely more effective if there’s already a body of content in place for them to use as reference material,” says Matt Diggity of Diggity Marketing and LeadSpring LLC. “As my business was growing, I wrote constantly to establish my authority as an expert in my industry. That body of work has been a huge asset that helps our ghostwriters maintain my tone and consistency as they take on responsibility.”

If you don’t already have published content under your own name or on your own site, share content from other sites and tell the ghostwriter what you like about it. That helps them hone in on what you’re looking to create.

4. Provide detailed briefs and instructions.

Writers aren’t mind readers. Even if they’ve worked with you for a while, they need instructions to create the content you want. How much instruction you provide depends on your preferences, needs and trust in the writer you’re working with.

Someone who has a long-term relationship with a single writer may be able to say “We’d like a blog post about how to paint your living room,” and let the writer run with it. But in any other case, you typically get better results and less hassle if you spell it out a bit more.

“I’ve found that creating a watertight brief with clearly laid out bullet points and examples, as well as providing a tone of voice document, has dramatically improved the quality of ghostwritten copy that I’ve received,” says Nathan Thompson, digital marketing lead at Pavilion Broadway. “This also avoids any disagreements or ambiguity about exactly what the output should be.”

When you’re creating a brief for ghostwriters, consider including, at minimum:

• Word count ranges
• Keyword requirements
• An outline of what you want included in the piece
• Style and voice instructions with examples or links to examples
• Whether content should be in first, second or third person
• Grammar requirements, such as if you want the Oxford comma used or which style guide you follow
• Topics and phrases to avoid
• Linking requirements for both internal and external linking
• Research requirements, including the types of sources you want used and competitors that should be avoided
• Who the audience is, as this helps the writer better target the piece

5. Run a calibration round — or two.

When the Enterprise team at Crowd Content works with any new client, they always run at least one calibration round. That’s a small batch of content created to the client’s specs to ensure that we actually understand those specs and are hitting them correctly.

Our Director of Enterprise Content, Lisa, always tells clients that we expect to make mistakes during the calibration round. Our project managers and writers aren’t you. We can’t know every single writing choice you would make, and so we have writers complete a handful of tasks so we can get feedback to tweak the process going forward.

We’re not the only ones who champion a calibration round. “I find it’s far more productive to have an early feedback session,” says Thompson. “If you are getting 100 pieces of product copy written, ask to receive the first 3 or 4 initially, provide constructive and annotated feedback and go from there.”

Taking the time to hold one or more calibration rounds with new ghostwriters (or new projects with existing writers) saves you a lot of potential hassle and money in the long-run.

Start Working With Professional Ghostwriting Teams Today

If you’re ready to take the plunge and reap the benefits of working with ghostwriters, contact Crowd Content or sign up for a self-serve account. We can help you find the ideal writer for your project, and our customized content solutions let you hand over as much control of the process as you’re comfortable with while ensuring the utmost quality.

Benefits of Working With Ghostwriters Through Crowd Content

You can find ghostwriters via LinkedIn, internet searches or job posts on freelancing boards, but you can also turn to professional services such as Crowd Content to make the entire process easier. Here are some reasons to work with ghostwriters via Crowd Content:

• You don’t have to worry about copyright. Our terms of service ensure clients receive copyright to the work upon payment.
• Payment methods are standardized, and you can find options to fit your budget.
• Revision requests are automatically built into the process.
• Our gamified writing system includes perks to entice writers to meet your deadlines, and since turn around times are between a few hours and a few days on average, you’re never left hanging.
• Crowd Content writers have already agreed to terms of service that cover NDAs, tax liabilities and other critical details.
• You’ll have access to thousands of writers, supporting your ability to find an experienced, expert authority regardless of what niche you’re covering at any given time.

The post How Does Ghostwriting Work? The Complete Guide to Hiring the Voice Behind Your Message appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

When you want to be sure all of your bases are covered, setting up a game plan with the support of a content writing service like Crowd Content is the best way to balance every plate with ease.

The Value in Content Writing Services

You may be saying to yourself, “I have in-house writers. What need do I have in a third party resource?” To a point, this is a good question. When you have a solid in-house writer, or even a team of writers, partnering with a third party may sound a little costly and more than a little redundant.

In spite of this, it’s important to realize that content needs are constantly shifting and changing. What worked yesterday may not work today, especially if you have special projects on the horizon. Should internal needs accelerate occasionally or your industry experiences seasonality that can drive expanded content needs, even the best in-house team may not be able to properly manage changing requirements without dropping the ball somewhere along the line. In these cases, a content agency can be a great way to fill in the gaps in order to meet deadlines without sacrificing marketing objectives.

“At my startup, we work with outsourced content creators – and write our own content,” explains Healy Jones, Founder of Fin vs Fin, a direct-to-consumer product comparison service. “While most marketers hire outsourced content creators to boost the volume of content they can make, we do so for another reason: third-party writers can be very helpful if you need specialized or technical expertise.”

Don’t have an in-house writer? This makes access to a content writing service all the more important. Without a pro to tackle your projects, a contract writer is the best possible resource. An expert trained in best SEO practices and the ins and outs of successful content marketing can help you create a strategy that resonates, and often at a price point that saves significantly over in-house hires. With the ability to partner with a writer on demand – for example, a few times a month for companies with low volume content needs – it’s easy to get the help necessary without a big investment.

Diversification in Content

A great writer is worth his weight in gold. The ability to build a compelling narrative around little more than a prompt or a topic takes considerable skill, and it’s not something anyone who took English in high school or university can accomplish. However, even the best writers have specialties and limitations; few writers can tackle every topic without complication on a timely basis.

Say, for example, you have an eBook project on the horizon. Maybe your in-house or preferred agency writer can tackle a job of that magnitude, but writers, just like those in any profession, have strengths and weaknesses. In the event that you need something outside the reach of your current resources, having a backup in place is a very good idea. While your in-house team focuses on your large projects, like your eBook, outsourced writers can pick up the slack by tackling the day-to-day tasks.

If you currently work with an agency rather than an in-house team and you’re comfortable with their services, ask yourself this – what will happen if your chosen writer gets sick and takes time off or, worse, quits entirely? Can your available resources cover the gaps, or might you find yourself without alternatives and deadlines looming?

“I do think it’s important to work with multiple vendors,” advises Sean Pour, the co-founder of SellMax, a car-buying service. “As companies’ policies change, pricing structures change, and quality may change over time. We do not want to be overly reliant on one particular service, so we diversify to future-proof ourselves.”

UK marketing leader and lead of content marketing at iwoca, Jamie Maddison, feels the same way: he sees the utility in what access to a variety of content experts can provide. “We use lots of different content providers: we have around 30 freelance journalists on file and we also use a couple of agencies as well. I think it’s a brilliant idea to work with lots of content providers as everyone has different strengths and weaknesses,” he explains.

The Bottom Line

When content counts more than ever, there’s no room for errors or missed deadlines. That’s why the right content partner makes all the difference. If you’re concerned about cost, don’t be: many content writing services don’t require regular orders and provide packages or pricing with flexible options that don’t require upfront payments or contract agreements. Instead, you pay when you need writing – and that’s all.

Crowd Content offers four different quality levels with pricing respective of quality and content expectations, making it easy for even growing companies to afford access to hundreds of top writers. Clients can order content of any length with flexible due dates. Most orders are placed to a mass marketplace to be selected by any writer of a selected quality level or above, ensuring prompt response times. Orders are available in standard content, Tweet, and Facebook post form for maximum flexibility.

For those who have larger-scale content needs, clients can choose favorite writers and create teams to make sure future orders go to the right experts. Writer profiles are complete with writing samples, areas of expertise, and writing history, allowing for clients to ensure they’re picking a writer that best fits specialization and style. Clients are also permitted to message writers for more information. If deadlines are tight or a specific niche is needed, account managers can reach out to writers they know are a great fit to best meet client needs without sacrificing deadlines or quality.

For those who aren’t confident managing their own projects or want additional services that go above and beyond placing basic orders, enterprise managed project opportunities allow for a hands-off approach to partnering with pros. These projects are operated, written, and edited by Crowd Content teams, offering a fast and efficient way to guarantee great content.

Content agencies are a great way to outsource anything that doesn’t match your writers’ strengths, ensuring a comprehensive and cohesive approach to content marketing. With a resource like Crowd Content, it’s possible to handle overflow projects, find writers for specialized projects, or manage the entirety of your content marketing needs – the choice is yours. Contact us today to learn more.

The post Why Having A Content Writing Service On Standby Is A Smart Bet for Your Business appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Why Hire Freelance Writers

Modern companies need to offer information-rich digital content to stay competitive. Search engines such as Google no longer base their rankings on how many times you can stuff a keyword into a single post. Instead, they reward quality, relevancy, and completeness.

With in-house staff who may not have the talent or skills required for effective content creation, companies often turn to freelance writers. These skilled writing professionals can be valuable for several reasons.

You can bring in writers when you need them

Chances are you don’t have enough work available to warrant staffing a permanent writer. Hiring freelancers lets you bring on writers only when you need them, such as when there’s overflow work, during times of seasonal high demand, or when your company is scaling up.

Freelance writers come with unique skillsets

Different types of content require different skillsets. Whether your project calls for a writer who specializes in riveting long-form blog posts or someone who can knock out short, eye-popping product descriptions that drive sales, hiring freelancers lets you match writers to the specific job.

Freelancers enable scalability without sacrificing quality

Unless you’re running a huge, multinational corporation, you probably don’t have a team of in-house writers ready to churn out content. When it’s time to scale up, freelance writers can power your efforts, providing the content you need quickly, without sacrificing quality.

Hiring freelancers lets you match cost to output

Since freelancers are generally paid by the word count, you’re not wasting money on staff who end up sitting around waiting for the next assignment. You pay only for what you’re actually getting, which makes freelance writers one of the most cost-effective options for businesses that need quality content without breaking the bank.

ALSO – Outsourcing Content Writing: Tips for Finding and Working With Writers for Excellent Content Marketing Results

The Challenges of Managing Freelance Writers and How to Overcome Them

While the benefits of hiring freelancers are undeniable, so are the challenges of managing them. Thankfully, many of these challenges have simple solutions.

Challenge #1: Finding reliable professionals

According to Elliot Boey, Head of Content for Bitcatcha, one of the biggest problems they face in managing freelance writers is finding reliable professionals. He says, “Writers are a dime a dozen, but the ones that are responsive and will produce quality work are far and few between.”

Solution: Hiring high-quality writers

Megan Robinson, the managing editor at DollarSprout notes the importance of hiring high-quality writers. “When I first started hiring and managing freelance writers, my main concern was keeping the content budget low. However, I soon learned that the lower the pay, the lower the quality of writing,” she says. “I received 1,500-word articles that required hours upon hours of editing to make publish-ready. … Looking back, I now realize those hours of editing would have been better spent on other projects. Now I always pay a premium for high-quality writers.”

Challenge #2: Matching expectations

Another challenge Robinson faces is not receiving the quality of work she expects. She says, “Oftentimes, the articles I received either weren’t thorough enough or included information that wasn’t relevant to the topic.” This mismatch of expectations and results is a common complaint, and it can lead to cumbersome edits, or worse, unusable content and wasted money.

Solution: Providing more information

Often, the gap between expectations and results stems from a lack of information and communication. As Robinson explains, “I quickly realized that I wasn’t giving our writers enough direction. Once I started providing more information up-front rather than just a topic, the quality of the content drastically improved, as did the number of edits.”

Challenge #3: Keeping everyone on the same page

Different writers mean different styles and skill levels. This can be a project management nightmare.

Jay, the publisher and managing editor of Unseen Japan, elaborates, “One of the things I love about my writers is that each has a unique voice. The challenge is that this means they all write to different levels and standards.” This can easily translate into too many hours spent finessing content to create consistency.

Solution: Using style guides and other tools

Jay recommends tools such as Grammarly – which helps writers eliminate spelling and phrasing errors – and Yoast SEO tools, which assess readability. Their goal, he explains, is to encourage writers to self-edit to reach a baseline established by his company.

Companies can also ensure consistency through the use of style guides, which provide writers with well-defined standards to follow.

Crowd Content: The Ultimate Solution

If you don’t have an effective system in place, managing a team of writers and a tight editorial calendar can be a huge administrative effort. From finding writers who are a good fit, to assigning work, overseeing revisions, and ensuring that content is delivered on time, there are a lot of moving parts involved in leading a content creation team. In addition to recruitment and training, you’ll have to handle messaging, supervise the standardization and proper formatting of completed work, and navigate the tricky road of freelancer availability.

If it sounds overwhelming, that’s probably because it is. The good news is that Crowd Content can manage it all for you, so you can get back to business.

What Crowd Content offers

• Recruitment made easy: Our tools let you search our pool of over 6,000 pre-approved writers to find the best fit for your project.
• Team-building: Whether you hand-select writers or choose to let our project managers pick the right freelancers for you, you can build your team with writers who have the skillsets needed to effectively tackle projects of all scales and scopes.
• A simple one-step platform: Crowd Content’s innovative platform lets you add orders individually or in bulk. Through our easy-to-use interface, you can track revisions and ultimately publish your content.
• Style definition: Using Crowd Content’s style guide tool you can effectively define your brand’s style so our writers can create content that seamlessly blends into your website.
• Effective layouts: With our simple layouts tool, you can easily enforce formatting requirements on delivered content so it’s ready for publication.

If you’re ready to streamline your content management process, let us do the hard work. Visit Crowd Content today to learn more about our platform and how we can fulfill your content creation needs.

The post Challenges of Managing Freelance Writers Directly and How to Overcome Them appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Content creation and hashtags — when you’re talking about social media strategy, these terms need to be on the top of your mind. You already know that in order to be successful, social posts need to be built around high-quality, valuable content that gets people talking, but you can’t rely on social shares alone to get your content in front of new audiences. That’s where hashtags come in.

Now, many marketers understand why you’d use hashtags to boost your content marketing, but understanding how is a different story.

In this piece, we’ll breakdown the basics of using hashtags and content marketing in perfect harmony: why it’s important and how to maximize their effectiveness.

ALSO – Social Media: How Does it Impact Your SEO in 2019?

Content Marketing Hashtags: Why and How?

Most people understand what hashtags are — words and phrases marked by a # sign that group together posts and conversations about common topics. For the less socially-inclined marketers, the reasons why brands need to use them may not come as naturally.

Think of a social media site like a search engine and hashtags like keywords. What happens if you produce an organic blog post or web page without keyword optimization? It flops in the search rankings, and fewer prospective leads and customers will see your content. The same goes for social media. No matter the platform, posts without hashtags will be limited in their effectiveness if your goal is to maximize reach.

Imagine you run an optical retailer and you want to advertise that you have the largest selection of glasses in the industry, so you post on your Instagram about it. The problem here? This post will likely only be seen by your followers and these people may already be aware of this leverage point. With hashtags, on the other hand, you could see your engagement skyrocket. Even the addition of #glasses at the end of your post copy could put your content in front of thousands of new eyes.

Getting Your Content Seen By Your Target Audience

Let’s take the analogy a step further and talk about using hashtags to target your content to the right audience. This is where hashtagging tends to confuse people — is it more important to use common hashtags, or uncommon ones? As it turns out, a mix of the two types may work best, depending on the platform in question.

“Choosing more “niche” Instagram hashtags (ones that aren’t used by as many people) than popular tags might feel like you’re going to appeal to fewer people. However, the truth is that you’re simply making sure that you’re attracting the right people.”

That’s Jill Potasnik, a Social Media Marketing Strategist and Visibility Consultant for her own company, SocialElevator, LLC. She specializes in helping content reach the eyes of a brand’s audience, which she says is harder than it seems, and takes a deep understanding of your audience:

“Instagram hashtags help your posts to appear in front of your target audience, but only if you know what they are searching for.”

And, the results tend to speak for themselves:

Sneh Ratna Choudhary, Senior Content Marketer at Beaconstac, executed a test with one of their posts. Measured before and after optimizing a piece of content creation with hashtags, they observed a 351% boost in reach and a 1000% increase in engagement.

ALSO – 6 Expert Secrets to Make Your Social Media Posts Pop

Not All Social Platforms Use Hashtags the Same Way

Here’s why you won’t find us telling you the optimal number of hashtags to use on different platforms: like Google’s algorithm as it pertains to SEO, small changes in these platforms and the way they elevate certain posts means that things — like hashtagging best practices — change fast. Just like how a Google update made keyword stuffing harm a page’s SEO ranking, Instagram changed its algorithm to detect posts that use too many hashtags and penalize them for being “spammy”.

It would be easy to read this article and immediately start jamming hashtags in with your content on every platform. A reasoned, strategic approach means understanding the shortcomings of some social media platforms.

For example, Facebook doesn’t support hashtags like Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin do.

According to Taras Prystatsky, Content Marketing Strategist at Respect.Studio, “Facebook’s hashtag search is merged with the general keyword search… I find it a bit ineffective to use hashtags on this platform. That is why I use no more than 3 niche hashtags.”

Instagram is a different story — Prystatsky recommends using around 15 keywords to optimize content in the post itself, and more in the comments.

Here are some of the most important sites for using hashtags as early as possible to grow your reach:

• Pinterest: Pinterest marketing is not as widely applicable for brands, but the platform’s reliance on categories makes hashtags an important ingredient for marketers.
• Twitter: On Twitter, the latest trends and news are hidden behind hashtags — find the latest trending topics, and you have a world’s worth of engagement at your fingertips.
• Instagram: Instagram, like Pinterest, relies on finding your audience in their preferred category or community. When you’re just starting out, putting your posts in front of as many eyes as possible is key, and hashtags help you do that.

ALSO – These Social Media Fails Really Happened

How to Find the Right Hashtags for Your Audience

Strategies to find the best hashtags to use in posts do vary from platform to platform, but not too much:

• Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms have lists of the top (or “trending”) hashtags being used. Once you find a top hashtag, look at posts for that hashtag and identify how it’s being used
• Finding leading influencers and authorities in your industry and look at the hashtags they’re using to drive engagement
• Follow competitors in your industry and do the same thing
• Study your customer avatars to try and predict their interests on social media
• Survey customers and clients to see what types of hashtags they pay attention to
• Simply learn via trial and error — social media is cost-effective enough that you can afford to make a few mistakes, as long as you’re learning and optimizing your content as a result

Use Tools to Find the Best Hashtags

There are countless tools out there to help you find top-performing —meaning they allow you to maximize engagement — hashtags. Here are a few examples:

• RiteTag
• Hashtagify
• All-Hashtag

These are databases that use software to generate thousands of hashtags for any brand in any industry.

The Bottom Line

If you’re looking for ways to increase your ROI on social media — especially without using paid ads — hashtagging is a great way to start. But content marketing hashtags is a lot like anything else in the content marketing sphere: without valuable, high-performing content to start off with, your social posts will fall flat.

The post The Complete Guide to Using Hashtags to Boost Your Content Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Press releases date back to the ancient times before the Internet but they’ve remained a vital tool for getting your message out in the digital age. While print magazines and newspapers were once the main targets for press releases, these days bloggers, journalists and digital outlets can help transform your story into a newsworthy headline. And unlike the old analog days, one great piece of coverage not only drives awareness, but it can also provide an SEO ripple effect that brings your brand to a whole new audience.

Crafting a newsworthy press release and pitching it to the right outlets can open a new level of PR success, but it takes the right approach. So, we’ve gone direct to some our most experienced press release writers to get their insights on what the best approach is. In this article, we’ll cover some do’s and don’ts to help you write fun, professional press releases that can make an impact for your brand.

Press Release Primer: How to Make A Newsworthy Story Stand Out

Before you start writing a press release you should ask yourself this simple question: “Is this actually a newsworthy story?” Of course, you’re doing big things, but remember that people outside of your organization may not find every new development important enough to read about. This is especially true for media outlets.

For example, fashion blogger Melanie DiSalvo of Virtue + Vice explains that jumping into an ongoing trend isn’t enough to catch her attention:

” … At this point, I ignore press releases that highlight a brand’s buy one give one model, or if they are making swim or yoga clothes out of recycled water bottles. Everyone is doing that these days. It has to be a unique idea. For me, it’s not so much the press release, but learning about something new and exciting that is not currently being done.”

It can be hard to tell if your story is truly newsworthy, but luckily there are a few simple methods you can use to ensure that your press release has the traction it needs to become a news article.

ALSO – 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Press Release

Play It (Mostly) Cool

Getting media coverage for your news story is largely about credibility. Good thing your brand is oozing with street cred! But how can you be sure that writers, editors, bloggers and industry tastemakers will find your brand worthy of exposure? One of the fastest ways to blow it is by constantly blasting out press releases about every little event that happens within your organization.

Nobody likes spam emails, and media outlets are constantly inundated with requests for coverage. So if you’ve been issuing many press releases hoping to “stay on the radar” of press outlets but haven’t had any coverage, consider reducing your frequency and only issuing a release about the biggest, most important news items.

Keep the “New” in Newsworthy

Drafting a press release may feel like a lesser priority when you’re ramping up for a newsworthy event, but don’t put it off for too long. Any event could have the potential to bring new exposure to your business, but not if it happened 18 months ago.

Media outlets work on tight schedules and require a constant flow of new content to keep their readers engaged. It’s critical, therefore, that you only issue a press release about current stories or those coming in the very near future. Don’t jump too far down the road though or the public may forget about your event before it even happens. 

When in doubt, reach out to your target media outlets and ask them how much lead time they need and set your release date accordingly.

Think Outside the Office Walls

Within the culture of an organization, any little shakeup can feel like a seismic shift. It’s important to remember that most outsiders won’t pick up every nuance of your business the way that you do. To help decide if your event is truly newsworthy, keep an eye on news articles about your industry and community at large.

If you’re unsure whether your story is worthy of a news release, ask yourself if it will have implications for your industry outside of your office space. Could your story even transcend your industry on a cultural level? If you can confidently say yes to either of these questions, then it’s a safe bet your story is newsworthy and deserves a solid press release.

Craft Your Press Release for Maximum Impact

If your company has news like a game-changing new product, a venerated CEO retiring or a new mega-merger then you’ll need to tell the world. But having a newsworthy story isn’t enough. You also need to have a well-written press release.

A press release ultimately serves to make a journalist’s life easier by offering them a compelling story in a bite-sized chunk that they can run with. So if your press release is a long-winded, confusing mess then tear it up and start again. Because after all, your press release can only be newsworthy if writers are willing to make it into news.

Short, Fun and to the Point

One of the easiest ways to make your press release shine is by keeping things brief. A PR industry standard is that a press release should never be longer than one page. It should also follow a fairly specific template that’s common across industries. If your story is newsworthy, its impact will be self-evident and you won’t need thousands of words to get your point across.

To help keep things brief, avoid presenting too much background information about you and your firm outside of the standard boilerplate section. Include contact information like your website and phone number, but trust that readers will seek out more info about you if they need it. Also, avoid using too much technical language or industry jargon to tell your story. Most media outlets aim for at least some degree of diversity in their readership and they may be hesitant to pick up a story that’s too technical.

Brevity is not only important for your overall word length, but also for your writing style. Keep your sentence structures simple and easy to read by avoiding excessive superlatives and adjectives. Your company’s new product may be “amazing” and “groundbreaking” but if so, you only need to say it once. This kind of language can quickly expand your word count and make your news story feel oversold.

Instead of leaning on fluffy language to tell your story, consider including original data. There’s little that can prove how awesome you are like cold, hard numbers. If your business works with measurable metrics then get creative and look about how your impressive numbers tie in with a broader cultural story.

While it’s important to keep your press release tight and fast-reading, don’t be afraid to give it some character. Your story is unique and so is your organization, so let your singular voice shine through in your writing. Editors receive stacks of bone dry, cookie-cutter press releases every day and a dash of whit and genuine passion may push your release to the top of the pile. So have fun with it and enjoy the process of turning your passion into a newsworthy story.

Keep Your Headlines Above Water

The headlines in your press release are the first point of contact and it’s critical that you make them count. Headlines have an outsized responsibility because they have to convey critical information in your story and also hook the reader in the shortest length possible. The key here is to keep things simple.

If you can tell your entire story in a single line that’s also imbued with wit and personality, then, by all means, go ahead, but it’s more important to convey the critical information in a tidy package. That’s because Google search headings are limited to 70 characters and a partial heading can seem misleading or confusing to potential readers looking for your story. Keeping your titles short and sweet not only helps with search results but also brings the reader right to your point with immediate impact.

Find Your Target Audience

Once you have a well-crafted press release about a newsworthy story you’ll need to get it into the right hands. While your press release should ideally have relevance beyond your specific industry, it’s critically important that you contact media outlets that cover your specific niche.

Think Like A Journalist

When you start to send your press releases to news outlets, remember that they are businesses relying on top-shelf content to keep their readership engaged. Start by seeking out the publications that only tell stories like yours or create content about your industry. If your news has broader appeal then bigger outlets may pick up your story after it gets coverage on a smaller scale.

Bottom line – you want to craft a press release that a journalist or blogger could easily pick up and present to his or her audience.

ALSO – The Secret of Writing a Press Release that Actually Gets Read

It’s All About That Niche

Blogs, social media and digital magazines have a major influence on today’s media climate. Many of these smaller outlets have risen above the cacophony by narrowing their focus to a single niche. No matter the news you hope to share, there’s a good chance that a social media influencer or blogger could lend a trusted, credible voice to your story.

Dig deep to find the experts in your field who are active bloggers or social media users. If you can’t find any, contact outlets in adjacent niches and see if they can recommend anyone. Once you find the right niche outlets for your story, tailor your press release to each recipient and highlight the ways in which your story is relevant to their interests. Specificity is king and if you can find the right niche outlet to cover your story you may find a media ally that will stick with your brand for years to come.

Break Through the Noise

If you’ve got a great story to tell then a well-crafted press release could be the perfect tool to help bring that story to the world. With today’s frictionless media, it’s easier than ever to take a newsworthy story from a basement workshop to the global stage with the help of just a few passionate bloggers.

If you can honestly say that your story is newsworthy and you’re willing to keep your writing simple and compelling, then you may have all that you need to claim headlines within your niche and beyond. So roll up your sleeves, fire up your laptop, and crank out a press release that’s worthy of your unique story!

The post Moving the Needle: How to Make A Press Release Newsworthy appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

For every dollar the average brand spends on email, they get a whopping $38 in return. That translates into a 3,800% ROI — can your client’s direct mailers and PPC banners do that?

Email is not only here to stay, it’s a platform for exciting new ideas and twists on tried-and-true content marketing strategies that could help launch your business to the next level. Here’s what you need to know about email copywriting and a few tips to help you master best practices, write effective emails and become the very best email copywriter you can be. Avocado toast sold separately.

Types of Email Copy

Email marketing is so much more than those rambling missives from brand ambassadors and social media interns that land in your inbox on their way to the trash pile. Personal messages can be an important part of your brand story, but there’s a way to go about that so you can keep your audience’s attention and still get your point across. But more on that later.

ALSO – What is Copywriting?

For now, it’s crucial you understand how diverse email copywriting can be and the many use cases that turn a simple electronic letter into a marketing powerhouse.

• Announce New Content. If a new blog post goes up but no one’s scrolling your blog to see it, the content almost doesn’t count. Yes, there’s SEO to help attract interest, but letting your warm leads (those on your email list) know there’s something new to read or otherwise act on is a smart move. Sound the virtual trumpets whenever your client launches an ebook, has a sale, conducts a webinar or has a few case studies that serve as a lead magnet.

• Newsletters. Almost every brand can benefit from a newsletter-style email that helps potential and current customers understand your brand relevancy and how you’re different from your competitors. Use it to highlight important news from across your industry, curate interesting and relevant content from a variety of sources, emphasize the people and processes behind a product or do some combination of all the above.

• Product Updates: Let subscribers know when an app is upgraded or a site has new functionality. A monthly digest is better if there are a lot of little updates unworthy of separate emails, but occasional revamps should be shared to remind customers the service is available and there’s even more value on tap.

• Prospecting Campaigns: When a company wants to get their product or service in front of a new buyer persona, they often start with a large list of contacts they can make the first contact with by sending emails. This prospecting campaign relies on smart, strategic content that speaks to common pain points and challenges that buyer persona often experiences. Content has to have wide appeal to the different types of contacts under the buyer persona, but still be engaging, empowering and compelling, with a strong call-to-action to respond.
  
• Onboarding Sequences: These email series help usher engaged users — subscribers, for instance — into paying customers. The idea is to build suspense and authority over several emails, delivering value and driving interest before eventually encouraging readers to take action.
  
• Post-Purchase Drips: Once somebody buys a product or service, it’s time to follow up with emails that welcome them on board, tell them how to make the most of their purchase, offer optional add-ons and otherwise nurture the relationship. This is a great tool to help nudge new customers into the advocacy stage of the buyer’s journey.
  
• Cart Abandonment Campaigns: As of 2018, cart abandonment rates sit at 79.17%. That’s a lot of consumers adding things to their virtual basket and then leaving without an actual buy. Cart abandonment campaigns can remind shoppers of what they left behind and make it easy to return and complete their purchase.
  
• Promotional Campaigns: This type of email marketing series builds with each successive message, provoking emotion, stoking curiosity and building suspense before announcing an offer and using imagery and other hooks to direct readers to a well-written landing page and cements a sale.

This is far from a comprehensive list — everything from form submission confirmations to event invitations could also conceivably be included — but it gives you an idea of how diverse and powerful email marketing campaigns can be.

ALSO – What Types Of Email Newsletters Are Most Effective in 2019?

Tips for Writing Emails That Connect and Convert

Know Your Audience — and Capitalize on that Knowledge

Every piece of content you send should have a purpose, and that purpose is to create a connection with the recipient. The emails you write need to resonate with your audience and be relevant not only to their lives and interests but also to where they’re at in their buyer journey. Consumers have different needs during the awareness stage than they do when they’re about to make a decision; tailor your words to match the timing and you’ll be far more persuasive.

To create content for your audience, you have to get to know them. Buyer personas, face-to-face conversations, competitor research, social studies, monitoring online activity and sending out surveys are all legitimate ways to form an accurate, detailed picture of your consumer base. Then it’s time to put that data to work.

Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing, brings it all together: “The trick to successful email marketing is delivering engaging content, relevant to your audience. The easiest way to ensure your content is relevant is to segment your email campaigns based on your target markets and audiences.”

“I was recently working with a client who wanted to feature a blog post in an upcoming e-newsletter that was geared to a Business-to-Consumer market. However, we determined that the target market and email list was for a Business-to-Business market. Therefore, the content didn’t make sense for the audience, and strategically the decision was made to change the focus of the email to a more relevant topic.”

ALSO – Email Marketing: Still Business’ Best Marketing Tool

Focus More on the Reader Than On Yourself

It’s amazing how hard it is to break away from marketing emails that lead with “I” or “we”. Yes, you’re advertising a business, but you should be advertising subtly and crafting consumer-centric content that doesn’t feel so self-centered and single-minded.

“This may seem like a basic statement, but many B2B-marketers (and B2C-marketers) still focus their content around telling people about how good they are,” says Operation Manager Ola Rask of Match2One. “The simple truth is this; people care a lot more about themselves than they do about you. In fact, they probably don’t care about you at all — so try to personalize your content and make them feel special.”

Tweak Your Writing

Spruce up your content and create copy that sells using a feature-benefit structure that helps consumers understand not only what you’re selling but why they should want it. Instead of boasting that a food processor has five speeds and a safety button, say it has five speeds to help you do everything from dicing to pureeing and a safety button to prevent accidents. If a customer reads a brand boast in your email and says, “So what?”, you haven’t clearly outlined the benefit.

Action words are helpful tools, too, in that action drives action. If you want your audience to get excited, use words that have power, such as:

• Discover
• Act
• Learn
• Explore
• Listen
• Win
• Make
• Create
• Develop
• Achieve

Aim For an Emotional Response

Famous examples of advertising such as soda companies showing people having fun and being sociable highlight an important (albeit sometimes misused) marketing principle – if you can help your audience connect emotionally with your brand and offering, they’re more likely to convert.

What they’re doing is in effect visually telling a story. You can also focus on storytelling in your email copy to elicit an emotional response. This could come in many forms including:

1. Fear of missing out
2. Warmth toward your brand or offering
3. Desire to associate with successful people
4. Curiosity to learn more

What emotional appeal you target will depend on the purpose of your communication and the target audience, but keep in mind choosing the right emotional appeal can drastically increase your success rates. 

Stick to One Clear Call to Action

The average open rate across all industries is just under 17%. The average click-through rate is 7.43%. That means 17% of the people on the average email list will even bother to open your emails and about 7.5 out of every 100 will click your CTA to see what’s on the other side. There are lots of reasons that number is on the low side, but asking too much of your email subscribers is a great way tank conversions.

Riah Solomon, Content Marketing Manager at SaaSOptics, feels strongly about the power of a solitary CTA. “Every email should have one main goal with a clear purpose, which means you should only have one main call to action. Write everything to point toward that call to action, and you’ll see click-through rates jump. Your readers need clarity and direction. When you give it to them, they will follow your lead.”

Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Great Email Subject Line

People are scanners by nature, and if your subject line doesn’t make them sit up and take notice, there won’t be anybody reading your email. To get more clicks, Charles Floate, Owner of DFY Links, offers these six expert suggestions:

1. Put the offer/information upfront – the further back in the subject line your offer is, the less chance it has of being read
2. Keep your subject line short – people have short attention spans
3. Give it a sense of urgency – give them a reason to open it now
4. Make it personal – make them think they know you
5. Triple-check your spelling and grammar – no need for explanation here
6. Bonus tip: Be clever – bland and grey never see the light of day

Be consistent, too. Whatever you promise in your subject line should actually exist in the body of your email. Nothing ruins a customer’s trust in a brand faster than feeling tricked. Bait-and-switch marketing may get clicks, but it’s a lot harder to increase conversions when inconsistency, whether intentional or accidental, is putting a dent into your authenticity and authority.

Find Ways to Personalize Every Message

The power of personalization is big to warrant a more in-depth look. Personalized subject lines boost email open rates by 26%, but that’s just the beginning. You can also personalize by targeting emails using information from customer surveys, recommendation purchases based on past buying behavior, highlighting mutual connections (referencing an industry-leading decision-maker, for instance) or simply making an email feel personal by addressing common consumer hurdles or including praise. Specifics are paramount, so use all the information at your disposal to zero in on personal factors that will help your message resonate.

Need help with your email marketing? We can help.

Before You Hit Send…

One of the most important things you can do as a marketer to drive conversions is to A/B test the heck out of your emails to understand exactly what will drive conversions the highest. Digital marketing guru Neil Patel gives some great advice on what you should test and how you should do it.

Although everything from the colors and imagery to the body text and personalization are game for testing, there are a few key things that you must get right to ensure a high conversion rate:

• Subject line (“Free Shipping Ends Tonight” vs “Enjoy Free Shipping”)
• Call to action (“See What’s Inside” vs “Learn Insider Secrets”)
• The offer itself (“Deep Discounts” vs “BOGO”)

Think about what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re seeing dismal open rates, then begin by testing your subject line. To get your conversion rates up, start by testing your calls to action.

Those who use MailChimp or another similar email marketing platforms may find built-in testing tools to help get the job done. If you’re looking for another solution, Hubspot has a great list of A/B testing tools to try. No matter what tool you use, keep in mind that email marketing without testing first is about as effective as throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks.

When you set up your tests, keep things as subjective as possible. Patel says that you should always use the same list for a test, and if you can’t run the test on the whole list, any subset should be chosen randomly. It’s also imperative that you shouldn’t stagger your test, as you may run up against time-based factors that impact the results.

If you’ve never done any A/B or split testing before, you might want to consider hiring a pro to do it for you if you have the budget. But whatever you do — include testing in your project plan.

Wrapping it Up

At its very heart, a good email boosts results and conversions by addressing your target audience’s pain points and connecting with them. Do that and you’ll achieve the success you crave. I call that a solid day’s work.

The post Email Copywriting: Tips for Mastering a Profitable Niche appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

You know what doesn’t convert today? Bad ad copy. And that doesn’t mean poorly written copy — the ad above is grammatically correct and even has some clever wordplay. But it’s not great copy for today’s market because it’s over the top (looking at you, multiple exclamation marks), obviously insincere and potentially misleading.

It’s not the 1950s or 60s, when golden-age ad copy could promise perfect lifestyles and cash in on conversions. Online consumers are cynical, savvy and hungry for authenticity. Skilled copywriters know – if you’re not writing content that speaks to that audience, you’re not going to be successful as an advertising copywriter.

ALSO – Click here if you’d prefer to hire a copywriter to handle your copy for you.

What Is Ad Copy?

Ad copy is any content created for the purpose of advertising. That includes obvious content such as the text that appears in a paid search ad or the script for a video commercial. But it also includes other types of content that target the sales funnel such as landing pages, email drip campaigns or even product pages.

Not all marketing copy is ad copy (but all ad copy is marketing copy). Marketing copy written with the sole purpose of educating, informing or entertaining the reader isn’t ad copy, even if it’s meant to build brand awareness or foster consumer culture around a company. Advertising copy is meant to convert — to drive someone further down the sales funnel toward the point where they decide the purchase a product or service.

Advertising copywriting, then, is dedicated to that purpose: to driving consumers forward on the buying journey with compelling, persuasive content that keeps the sales goal in mind. Even if the sale is still far off on the horizon.

That doesn’t mean all ad copy is a hard sell. It shouldn’t all sound like late-night infomercials or even position the product as the foremost topic. Ad copywriters are responsible for understanding the specific purpose of each type of content to support the ultimate success of comprehensive advertising campaigns.

ALSO – What is Copywriting and What Are Its Best Practices for 2019?

Types of Advertising Copy

• Ads, whether they’re display, banner, search or video, have a primary goal: To convert the click. Ad copy for these pieces is usually short, sweet and packing a powerful hook to entice the reader to click and learn more.
• Landing pages are where people end up when they click ads or links; typically these are sales-style pages that offer concise, audience-relevant information about the product or service. Content should include compelling reasons why the person needs the solution and at least one well-written CTA.
• Advertorials are ads positioned as more conversational content, such as blog posts. They serve the same purpose as landing pages, but can be presented as more informative or educational in nature.
• Confirmation pages, which confirm that someone has signed up for a newsletter, made a purchase or taken some other action can still be ad copy. This is especially true when the action is mid-funnel; if someone signs up for a newsletter, that’s only the first step in them purchasing a product.
• Email drip campaigns are sent when someone signs up to receive information or takes another action that signals approval for marketing messages in the inbox. The purpose of email ad copy varies by campaign, but it’s ultimately aimed at persuading someone to take action.

ALSO – Looking For a B2B Copywriter? Learn How to Find Them.

Tips for Advertising Copywriters

Convincing consumers to take action isn’t easy. You have to build and maintain trust throughout the buying journey. Here are seven tips from the experts to help advertising copywriters do just that.

1. Put effort into the headline.

“The most important part of your ad copy is your headline,” says Megan Meade, Content Marketing Specialist for SoftwarePath.com. “Get this wrong, and you’ll lose 80% of your audience before they even read the second line.”

“It’s critical that you optimize the headline for your audience, making it as relevant to specific search queries as possible,” says Meade. She suggests using SKAGS (single keyword ad groups) to do this.

“You could create a standard advert for ‘dancing shoes’ or you could create several targeted ads for ‘ballet dancing shoes’, ‘best ballet dancing shoes’, ‘comfortable ballet dancing shoes’, and so on. The most relevant headline will be served to match the search query, meaning you’ll be getting more relevant clicks coming to your site, which brings a higher ROI (and margin) to your campaigns.”

Advertising copywriters aren’t typically in charge of keyword decisions, but this is great advice to follow when you are. And if a client provides keywords, remember that they did so for a reason and make good use of them.

2. Create ad copy that engages.

James at The Advisor Coach says, “One of the best copywriting tips I can give that has proven itself to boost conversions is to ask a question. The reason this works so well in a headline or ad is because humans are hardwired to answer questions. It pulls people in and gets them to start reading.”

3. Keep design and multiple devices in mind.

“When you’re working with landing page copy, you absolutely need to make sure that you optimize your copy for every form of display,” says Yaniv Masjeda, CMO at Nextiva. “This may mean working closely with a designer as well. The days of the writer operating independently on a typewriter from a closet are over. Today, copywriters must be collaborative, responsive to feedback, and ready to crank out further iterations based on data and user experience.”

4. Write empathetic advertising copy.

“I’ve found using empathy to write ads by putting yourself in your dream customer’s shoes and writing from their perspective — using their language — to be very beneficial in getting more clicks and conversions,” says Stacy Caprio, Founder of Accelerated Growth Marketing.

5. Target copy to specific audiences or niches.

Caprio also points out that advertising copywriters must understand the target audience for any content they create.

“Take a very specific angle that fits that niche when writing ad copy,” says Caprio. “This could mean instead of targeting wine lovers and using general wine lover copy for a personalized wine glass, to instead target and write copy specifically for special personalized bridal party wine glasses. This makes the audience feel the product was made specifically for them and they’re more likely to be interested and buy.”

Samantha Kohn, Communications Manager at Mobials, provides a tip for writers struggling to create niche-based content.

“Take two seemingly unrelated topics and combine them into an ad that speaks loudly to a narrow audience,” says Kohn.”For example, you can speak directly to Game of Thrones fans during winter tire season with messaging like: Winter is coming. Get 30% off winter tires. Learn more. You will speak to fewer people, but you’ll definitely capture the attention of the ones in your new target market, therefore increasing engagement and decreasing your cost per click.”

ALSO – What is Copywriting and What Are Its Best Practices for 2019

6. Make a point and keep it short.

Kohn advises, “Be relevant and be brief. Relevancy and brevity are the foundation for any successful ad copy. If your messaging doesn’t promise to solve a consumer’s problem or answer their question, they likely won’t bother reading your content — and even if they do, it’s unlikely they’ll click on it. Give them a reason to click or keep reading.”

7. Tell stories with your content.

Kohn rounds out this tips list by reminding advertising copywriters that people love a good tale. “Make sure your content tells a story, preferably one that readers can relate to. Try to answer the following: what was the problem, how was it recognized, what was the solution and how was success measured?”

ALSO – Copywriting for SEO: How to Be Sure Your eCommerce Copy Converts and Ranks

By putting these expert tips into action to write winning ad copy, freelancers can land more work with advertising agencies, brands and other organizations in dire need of content that converts.

If you find yourself in need of skilled ad writers, be sure to check out our roster of skilled copywriters for hire.

The post 7 Expert Tips for Advertising Copywriting appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Whether you’re an individual or a corporation, the blog content writers in charge of your blog posts can run into a creative wall that makes it more difficult to come up with ideas and create high-quality content that performs in the search engines and resonates with readers. Luckily, we’ve put together a list of 13 winning types of blog posts that make it easy to craft content that drives social shares, backlinks, conversions and other important metrics.

ALSO: Hiring Blog Writers? 7 Common Mistakes You Need To Avoid

1. Posts that Answer Questions (Featured Snippets FTW!)

Ben Zeisloft from Qlicket says, “Blog posts and other content written by businesses are most effective when they answer questions in the minds of customers.”

When you ask a popular question (one that users are commonly searching online) and answer it immediately in a short list or paragraph of 25 to 40 words, you position yourself to potentially win the Featured Snippet position. Google displays the featured snippet on top of other organic search results, and often the page that earns the Featured Snippet spot also appears in the top three results, doubling the chance that someone will click on the link.

Zeisloft notes that this type of blog post isn’t just good for winning the Featured Snippet. “When a potential customer encounters a blog post answering their specific query,” he says, “the beginning of a value-creation relationship has already begun. Additionally, when a company creates a blog post that solves dilemmas or answers questions for potential customers, the company’s legitimacy among its customer base is built.”

How do you go about generating these types of posts? Zeisloft advises content marketers to “use free tools such as AnswerThePublic to find your customers’ questions and answer them with simple, brief, and effective blog posts. Then, use Google Trends to select optimal keywords so the blog post appears as a top result on search engines.”

2. High-Quality Mega Posts Based on Content Pruning

Kulwant Nagi shares a practice called content pruning that the team at BloggingCage.com uses.

“One thing which worked for us in 2019 is content pruning,” says Nagi. “In October 2018, we started the process and found 300+ articles that were either of very low quality or ranking nowhere in Google. In the first phase, we grouped similar articles and combined them into one mega post. We keep the best-ranking URL and redirected (301 redirect) other similar links to that mega post.”

So far, it may not sound like pruning, but here’s where the second phase comes in. According to Nagi, the team identified all the posts that were still not ranking in Google and removed them. They took down 319 total articles from the blog.

“In January,” says Nagi, “we started seeing traffic going up, and now we’re seeing more than 200% growth in traffic.”

3. Single Refreshes of Old Blog Posts

You don’t have to reorganize the entire content garden to see results, though. Sometimes, it’s about giving individual plants (aka, existing blog posts) some extra love to generate more fruit (aka, traffic).

Shelby Liu, an SEO analyst for Brand Buddha, says, “Don’t forget about your older articles. Give them a second chance to shine. The truth could be that those older posts used to rank well but were taken down by new articles that better answer people’s search queries. Tweaking your older articles is more likely to improve rankings than creating content from scratch, and this tactic also gives the search engine some time to crawl and rank.”

Crowd Content secret: the article you’re reading right now is a refresh of a page we posted in 2016. We’re just adding all-new data and quotes to be current and expanding the content to cover more types of posts. This is a tactic you can easily use on your own site.

4. Episodic Blog Content

Episodic content continues to be a winner, especially if you have a good hook to retain readership over the course of a series. When you’re working with high-quality blog content writers, you can create cliff-hangers that leave the reader looking eagerly for the next installment, which makes episodic blog content a great partner for email marketing newsletters.

5. How-to Blog Posts

The past few Google algorithm updates have put searcher intent at the forefront of ranking considerations, and optimizing content for that intent is critical to success in the SERPs.

Most searches can be categorized into three major intent groups:

• Informational: the searcher wants to know something
• Transactional: the searcher wants to do something
• Navigational: the searcher wants to go somewhere

How-to searchers are a huge percentage of informational queries. From “how to cook a roast” to “how to buy a tennis racket,” people look for step-by-step guides every day. Conduct keyword research to find out what people want to know how to do in your niche and create content that answers those questions.

6. Q&A with the Experts

Speaking of Google algorithms, 2018’s Medic update and June 2019’s core update both illustrated the need for more expert content on sites, especially for brands that serve finance, health or safety niches.

You can demonstrate expertise with authorship through bios and bylines, but you can also create Q&A interview posts. Your staff or freelance writers can interview experts and turn those conversations into engaging question-and-answer blog posts.

This is one of the best types of blog posts for adding expert content on topics when you don’t have in-house SMEs. While it’s always a good idea to post the thoughts and answers of your own staff, it’s also fine to interview an expert outside of your organization for your blog; some individuals may be happy to contribute in return for a shout-out or backlink to their website.

7. Behind-the-Scenes Posts

Expertise is only one piece of the quality pie for Google. E-A-T content (expertise, authority, trustworthiness) requires building trust with your readership. One way to do that is to create blog posts that provide a behind-the-scenes look at your operation. When possible, be candid about how you make or do things, or let loyal readers in on some of the details —obviously without giving away brand secrets.

In addition to building trust, behind-the-scenes videos and blog posts creates an exclusivity that helps your readers feel like part of a community culture surrounding your brand.

8. Epic Lists (We’re Not Talking a Top 10)

While those top five and top ten lists are losing ground in terms of online marketing, epic blog posts are still a great way to drive backlinks and position yourself for potential viral sharing.

An epic list is exactly that . . . EPIC. Consider writing lists with 50 to 100 points of curated content for readers to consider. Jeff Bullas’ list of 72 resources for writers is a great example.

Insider tip: If you don’t have the time or resources to find 99 items for a list, do something to differentiate your shorter lists. Top Tens went out with Letterman, but a shorter list with an odd number of points can still fare well when it comes to SEO and conversions.

ALSO: Are Short Blog Posts Worth It in a Long-Form World?

9. Curated Expert Advice

Combine tips six and eight by curating a list of points backed by expert advice. This is a great way to add authority if you don’t have a single expert willing to sit for a 30-minute interview. You can ask experts to share success stories about certain topics or give their top piece of advice.

Services like Help a Reporter Out connect publishers with experts willing to provide quotes, but you do have to meet some minimum publisher requirements. If you don’t meet those requirements, consider reaching out to the owners of websites in your industry (who are not direct competitors). They’re often happy to provide a quote in exchange for a link.

10. Infographics Turned Into Blog Posts

If pictures are worth a thousand words, a good infographic could be worth millions. Put together a comprehensive graphic and share it (with a high-res option for download). Then break off portions of the larger visual, sharing smaller glimpses into it alongside in-depth text analysis of the data.

Pro tip: Canva is a great tool for marketers who need to create social media graphics, infographics and more branded visual content.

11. Blog Posts that Are Lists of Social Media Posts

Need some visual bang, but don’t have much buck to buy it with? Whether you’re stretched on time or don’t have the resources to create visual content this week, consider clipping social media posts. Many brands create viral content by sharing screen grabs of or embedding relevant Twitter posts and using them to tell a story (or writing clever captions between them).

You can use your own social media posts — effectively doubling the return on investment in that particular content — or swipe content from others. Just remember if you use posts from other individuals, best practice is to embed it so it’s clickable or include a credit link.

12. Posts that Share Your Own Data or Original Research

We don’t mean to harp on E-A-T. . . actually, we do. It really is that important. And another way to demonstrate expertise and authority is by putting your own data and research on display. You can do that in the form of blog posts that include references to your own data, as we did in this article on reading levels.

You can also blog about your own case studies — sometimes one case study or long-form piece of research you commissioned can become multiple blog posts. Power Inbox worked with Mantis Research on a study about email marketing and then turned it into half a dozen or more blog posts on the subject.

13. Posts for Someone Else’s Site

Finally, remember that every type of blog post you write doesn’t have to be for your own site. Consider breaking free from your own pages to guest post on someone else’s site. You might do this as part of an exchange, having someone from the other site write a piece of content for you. It’s a great way to build authority by getting your name on other pages and get fresh ideas on your own site.

Stuck for Types of Blog Posts to Write?

Consider working with professional writers who can come up with new ideas for your content marketing efforts. And if you’re burned out on the entire process of keeping content calendars and blog posts current, consider working with a professional team.

The post 13 Types of Blog Posts to Fire Up Your Readers (And Your Editorial Calendar) appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Running is for the weak, though, and you’re the kind of ambitious and determined go-getter that’s ready to win — you just need a few expert content marketing tips to help you back away from your exit strategy and get back to business.

These suggestions for best practice content marketing should do the trick.

ALSO: Find a professional content writer to power your content marketing 

1. Information as a Conversion Tactic

The public is tiring of blatantly self-serving content. When 71% of buyers turn their nose up at content that doubles as a sales pitch, you know there’s a problem. 

Audiences are smart, and they know when they’re being manipulated. If your Facebook feed is nothing but pats on the back and company-centric blurbs that only share your content, there aren’t many reasons for consumers to continue following. On the other hand, a feed that balances branded content with curated pieces offering tips, how-tos and other valuable tidbits offers value in each and every post.

Still, no business can afford to be completely altruistic, but neither can we give in to the pull of betterment through bragging (unintentional or otherwise). The trick is in finding balance.

“Educational content is definitely favored over promotional nowadays,” says Rachel Cottam, content manager at ZipBooks, “but that doesn’t mean you should give up on conversions. The whole point of a business blog is to acquire new customers. Strategically positioning calls-to-action (CTAs) within blog posts can help to drive sales from content.”

Focus on creating high-quality content in your editorial calendar that informs first, and try to work in CTAs for your products or services in a natural way.

2. Gain Traction by Being Different

Some 60% of marketers generate at least one new piece of content each and every day. That’s an unbelievable amount of collateral floating around the internet and flooding consumers’ bubble, and that makes it increasingly difficult to come up with something interesting and unique.

Ali Schwanke, CEO and Chief Marketing Strategist at Simple Strat, offers a solution that’s helped her company grow traffic from 300 visits per month to over 6,000 monthly visits in less than two years. “Be smart about the content gaps in your industry and how you can leverage them for potential traffic. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to identify those gaps, along with keyword research to create the content with the right angle that matches what people are looking for online.”

It’s a smart yet efficient approach to content creation that ticks multiple boxes with one stroke. You’re addressing search engine optimization (SEO), which remains an important piece of the puzzle, and you’re going above and beyond the competition’s status-quo content to offer something above and beyond the rest of the noise cluttering everyone’s inbox.

ALSO: Expert Checklist: SEO for Blog Posts

3. Tweak Your Title Tags

While many tips focus on the big picture, sometimes it’s the seemingly small adjustments that have a major impact. For Rochelle Burnside, Content Marketing Specialist at BestCompany.com, there’s power in the humble title tag.

Title tags are bite-sized webpage descriptions that usually total roughly 70 characters (they can be shorter or longer, but Google and other search engines show around 70 characters). There’s just one per page, and it appears in the HTML looking something like this,  “<title>This is the Title Tag</title>”, but also pops up as the headline in your browser tab, in search results, as the placeholder in your bookmarks folder when you save a page and in other places like previews on social media when someone shares a link. It’s easy to see that the right tag can help with visibility and also enhance user experience.

“Experiment with your title tags,” suggests Burnside. “Use a previewer like the Moz title tag viewer to see how your title and meta description will look in the SERP. Use a tool like ClickFlow to measure changes in CTR, clicks, and ranking when you change the title tag. Writing titles in headline style with quantitative data (2019 Update, 4.3 Stars, etc.) and characters like brackets and parentheses are more likely to draw the eye.”

Focusing on your title tags offers a number of benefits:

1. Title tags are an important SEO ranking factor, so working your target keyword into the title can help boost your search rankings
2. Having more compelling titles can boost your clickthrough rate in both search results and in social posts. That means more traffic for your content
3. There’s some evidence that Google’s RankBrain is looking at behavioral metrics including your content’s organic clickthrough rate in its search results and ranking content with higher rates higher in results. 

These are just a few reasons why taking time to optimize your titles is a key part of successful content marketing in 2019. 

Also: Is SEO for Metadata Important to You?

4. Play the Long Game

Content marketing takes time. Looking for immediate results will only lead to disappointment and frustration, so be prepared to think long-term and wait with all the patience you don’t really have (I know, it’s crazy hard). Most experts agree it takes between 6 to 12 months to see a return from a new content marketing campaign. Results come in waves, too; while you may see spikes in traffic and number of backlinks early on, boosted search ranking and more sustainable increases don’t typically emerge until later on.

Use the SMART framework to set goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable/Actionable
• Relevant
• Timely

Schwanke has another tip: “Publish consistently. This seems like a no-nonsense tip, but many companies give up before they see results simply because they didn’t stick with it.”

You’ve taken the time to design a solid content marketing strategy that will connect with your audience; make sure you give it enough time to succeed and continue publishing content regularly.

5. Create Content That Can Multitask

One-trick ponies are a waste of resources. It really is that simple. Pouring time and money into a white paper that’s only useful for one client or one month is akin to running in place and wondering why you’re not getting anywhere. Unless you can turn exhaustion into a currency, you’re going to lose.

Fight financial fatigue and make the most of your freelancers and your marketing budget by creating content that makes sense today, tomorrow and a year from now and that can be modified for use on more than one channel.

Ryan Turner founded The Email Funnels Agency (an agency that helps eCommerce companies get the most out of their email lists) and he knows more than a little about harnessing the power of search, email marketing and Facebook to grow sales. He’s a big believer in adaptable evergreen content as a means to “help you build out a comprehensive content calendar that covers all channels by getting the most out of every piece you create.” That’s huge.

“If the content is evergreen in nature it can also be utilized again later in the year or be placed inside automated marketing sequences which indoctrinate new leads and prospects coming into the business,” continues Turner. “The latter is particularly true in the email channel, and very effective for building strong relationships with potential customers using content pieces which performed well in previous campaigns.

It’s marketing best practices at work, really. You could potentially hire a freelance writer to create a pillar page about travel nursing, then transform that near-encyclopedic guide into a series of shorter blog posts, an infographic, an email campaign, a webinar and a whole host of other microcontent. Those pieces can then be distributed everywhere from LinkedIn to Instagram to your own branded app. 

Transforming or repurposing a pillar piece of content to give you multiple types of content is a great way to maximize your marketing spend, and also lets your naturally cross-promote between channels.

Andrew Clark, Marketing Strategist at Duckpin, uses monthly marketing calendars and a clear-cut template to keep that cornucopia of content organized. “Without some type of brand and content guidelines, a company runs the risk of taking a ‘shoot from the hip’ approach, which may drive away traffic and business opportunities.”

Good digital marketing relies on careful planning. Make sure your calendar specifies not only what pieces of content you’ll create and promote, but also what types of content and where you’ll promote them.

ALSO: Top 6 Challenges in Content Writing for Agencies

6. Use Data to Fuel Every Part of Your Best Practice Content Marketing

Building on Clark’s warning against shooting from the hip, it’s vital to understand how dangerous acts of random marketing can be. Spontaneity is great if you want to surprise your date with a trip to the drive-in or get a pixie cut instead of a blunt bob (actually, you may want to give that one some extra though too), but marketing is a strategy for a reason. Use data to create, monitor and measure your plan and you’ll be better positioned for success.

“Two things truly drive my work in content marketing,” says certified social media marketer and strategist and public relations consultant Sierra Marling of Semper Public Relations, “analytics & user personas. Whenever I utilize platform analytics, I try to align whatever I am posting with what is performing well.”

“For example, videos typically get more results with clients with a Millennial (or younger) following. However I have a specific client whose target audience prefers informational articles and simple photography… That’s why you have to concentrate not only on your post-performance, but you have to also use your analytics data to create detailed user personas that will inform your decisions online.”

There’s one content marketing tip that reigns supreme over all others, and that’s authenticity. You won’t ever win over your audience by trying to be someone else. Consumers have built-in lie detectors that wail at 150 decibels when a brand goes off the rails. If you’re a clothing company that constantly yammers on and on about sustainability and your CEO is caught racking up a couple hundred trips per year on his private jet, you’ve got a messaging problem.

So, make like Dove and “Be Real”. Take all of these tips on board and figure out how you can craft a killer marketing strategy while still honoring everything that makes your brand special. This is how you get ahead in 2019 and stay there.

Have any other content marketing tips you think we should cover? Let us know in the comments.

The post 6 Content Marketing Tips That Ensure You’re Following Best Practices for 2019 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Search engines and internet users have become increasingly bombarded with content. Websitemagazine.com shares that over 70% of businesses realize that publishing is an increasingly important role in marketing efforts and are investing heavily in content. That means the competition is fierce.

Hiring blog content writers who can put the magic touch on your blog posts is one way to position yourself for a higher spot in the search results and more conversion of the traffic you generate. But make sure you’re putting these tips from the experts into action to ensure you choose the best possible writers for your blog.

ALSO: Three Types of Writers Your Brand (Probably) Needs

Do Choose Writers With a Heart for Your Audience

If your target audience likes and trusts you, they engage and buy. Gone are the days when simply placing advertisements everywhere converts to an expected return on investment in the form of direct sales.

Buyers are more sophisticated now than ever and want to receive value up front. It’s like dating: you have to be willing to take them out a few times to gain their interest and help them understand what you stand for and offer. Only then will they be willing to take a closer look at what you’re selling.

Consumers must trust you have their interest in mind. When hiring blog writers, be sure they have a heart for your audience so they can create content and blog posts with this in mind.

Don’t Just Hire and Forget About Them

Be involved with your writers after the hiring process. You have to set the bar high and remain engaged. You can’t just place a job posting, hire a blog writer and expect a superstar overnight.

Instead, use your analytics to understand where writers are doing a good job and what can be done better. Present this to writers in the form of constructive criticism and praise. Freelance writers often feel like they work in a vacuum, and you can foster a positive long-term relationship with freelance blog professionals when you’re willing to make them feel like part of the team.

ALSO: What Is a Ghostwriter Best Able to Help With?

Ask for Samples Before You Hire

CEO of Don’t Pay Full Andrei Vasilescu says when you forgot some basic writer hiring tips, you can end up paying a lot more for the work in the long run or paying for “nothing” when the content you receive back is useless to you. One of the common mistakes Vasilescu points out is failing to ask for writing samples when you hire freelance pros.

“Often, marketers hire blog writers after being impressed by their high credentials without even checking their writing skills,” says Vasilescu. He points out that credentials can be faked given the online nature of this particular gig economy niche, and no effective way of checking these claims exists. But if you ask for writing samples, you can see whether the person has the writing chops — and the knowledge — to complete your job.

Don’t Just Hire the Cheapest Writer

Vasilescu also cautions against making decisions based solely on the bottom line. Yes, of course you need to meet your marketing budgets, but the low-ball writer quote isn’t actually always the least expensive way to go in the long run.

“This is the most common mistake marketers make when hiring freelance professionals online,” says Vasilescu. “You’ll get exactly what you’re paying for. You must not expect even a moderate level writing from the lowest bidder, let alone a good piece. An experienced blog writer will create grammatically perfect, valuable and engaging blog content after doing the required research work — none of which you can expect from the cheapest writer.”

Many times when companies choose the lowest bid, they end up putting so much in-house work into the results to make them useful that the overall cost of the content is much higher than it would have been if a higher quality (and slightly more expensive) freelancer had been selected in the first place.

ALSO: 4 Qualities to Look For When Hiring Freelance Writers

Do Talk About Production Expectations Before Moving Forward

Kris Hughes, Senior Content Marketing Manager at ProjectManager.com, points to production expectations as something to settle well before you finalize the hiring process for a freelance writer.

“When hiring freelance writers, it’s vital to know what your expectations are for their level of production/output,” says Hughes, “But it’s equally as vital to make sure that their time availability/bandwidth matches up with that level of expectation.”

You may feel like a freelance writer is an ideal fit for your brand and not want to push them into work they may not have the bandwidth to do. But, if they can’t fulfill your needs, they may not be the right person for the job (or the only person you need to hire). As Hughes says, “It’s much better to uncover a fit or lack thereof in the interview process than to find out the hard way once the writer has been hired and they can’t meet your expectations because the structure of their daily life just doesn’t mesh with what you need.”

Don’t Forgot to Set Firm Deadlines

VitalDollar.com founder Marc Andre points out that providing flexibility in certain areas of freelance work can seem like a kindness, but it can actually backfire on you and the writer.

“In the past, I’ve hired some freelancers without firm deadlines because I wanted to give them as much flexibility as possible,” says Andre. “When I’ve tried this, it hasn’t worked very well. Several of the freelancers have been unreliable, and it’s mostly my fault for not setting firm expectations from the start.”

Certainly, you want to be realistic about deadlines. Asking for work on too tight a timeline can reduce quality or put stress on your freelancer, which leads to burnout and the loss of your favorite writers. And working with your freelancer to set a firm deadline that works for you both is a great idea. But at the end of the day, make sure everyone knows where that line stands.

Do Provide Specific Details and Instructions

Deadlines aren’t the only details your freelancer needs from you to succeed.

Andre says, “When you’re working with writers, especially freelancers, the more specifics you provide them with, the more likely you are to get a great article. Freelancers probably aren’t going to be extremely familiar with your blog, so it helps if you can give them as much direction as possible. Things like the exact topics that you want them to cover, the tone of the article, styling and formatting, etc. If you don’t provide them with enough direction, you may get an article that is not a good fit with your site.”

ALSO: A Proven Process To Show Writers How To Write Blog Posts That Drive Results

Do Work With Business Partners to Help With This Process

If hiring blog writers is starting to sound like a lot of work, don’t worry. You don’t have to put yourself at the mercy of the job boards to find high-quality writers that are a good fit for your brand. No matter what type of content you need written, the Crowd Content team and platform has services to meet your needs and help you find the best writers for each project.

The post Hiring Blog Writers? 7 Common Mistakes You Need To Avoid appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But good copywriters know that there’s a lot more going on than words on the page. Here’s what you need to know about copywriting for modern marketing purposes.

So, What Is Copywriting in 2023?

It’s exactly what good copywriting has always been: Engaging content that focuses on the needs and desires of the consumer and connecting those with your business goals. But to succeed in marketing today, you need to produce excellent copy that accomplishes numerous things — or hire freelance copywriters who can do it for you.

Some things copywriting in 2019 and beyond must accomplish and include:

• Connecting with consumers in an authentic and authoritative manner
• Presenting your brand as a trustworthy expert
• Jumping through SEO hoops to enhance your site’s performance in the search engines
• Providing the right type of information for consumers in specific parts of the buying journey
• Persuading consumers to take the next step (signing up, clicking through or making a purchase)

ALSO: Do You Need a Content Writer or a Copywriter?

7 Traits of Professional Copywriting

So, how do you write copy that does all those things? Whether you’re crafting a clever call to action or paying a freelancer to create content marketing materials, understanding what good copy looks like and does is important. These seven traits of successful, professional copywriting epitomize what copywriting is in 2019.

1. Consumer-Facing

Here’s the deal: Consumers want content that meets their needs. Obviously, right? But Google wants content that meets consumer needs too. So this one is a double-edged sword — how well your content performs for a specific person doesn’t just impact whether you make that sale. It could affect whether you get a chance at a future opportunity.

Good copywriters identify consumer motivations and create content that speaks directly to those motivations. Rather than avoiding consumer questions, good copywriting addresses them upfront. If you bury the information, you force consumers to leave your site to find what they seek. When that happens, you lose the sale and your behavioral metrics (such as time on page and bounce rate) are negatively impacted. That can lead to poorer performance in the search engines.

2. Authentic to Brand

Authenticity is increasingly important in today’s marketplace. Consumers are wary of fake information online and savvy about avoiding phishing schemes or click bait. The gig is up, and many people understand that not all content on the internet is coming from a place of expertise and authenticity.

That makes it critical for you to uphold your brand voice — and mission, vision and values — in all copywriting and marketing efforts. If you or one of your writers strays from those foundations, consumers may not believe the content is coming from you or they may begin to question your message.

3. Social

Web pages certainly don’t exist in a vacuum, and it’s important to understand that all your copy is connected. Whether you mean to or not, your channels will overlap, and being proactive about this helps you make the most of your content marketing and copywriting efforts.

In 2019, copywriting is social; you must approach it with the concept of likes, shares, comments and other engagement in mind. Consider how you can:

• Integrate short answers into content that can be picked up as featured snippets
• Create one-liners that are Tweetable
• Ask questions to invite consumers to join the conversation
• Weave an overarching culture through all of your copy so that it works as a whole

4. Visual

Technological advances have led to more visual capability in the form of images and video. Online copywriters have always had to be sensitive to the way their words appear on the screen, but now they must find ways to incorporate visuals to remain competitive and hold the user’s interest. A good copywriter understands which text elements should be incorporated into graphic elements and how to translate a blog post into an engaging video.

5. Mobile-Ready

As of 2015, mobile phone access to the internet exceeded desktop access. By 2019, more than 63% of individuals were accessing the web on smartphones or tablets, and that number is going to continue to trend up. You can’t afford not to write for mobile users.

Mobile-ready copywriting includes:

• Short paragraphs to avoid walls of text on mobile devices
• Bullet points and subheadings to break up text further
• White space that makes the content easier to read on any screen

6. Always Optimized

No element of your digital content should ever be published without being optimized for search engines. If it exists on your webpage, social profiles, Google My Business page or a guest post you write for someone else, then it is copywriting that has the power to draw organic traffic — which means it needs to include the right keywords in the right places.

Make sure you or your writers are conducting keyword research and placing those phrases:

• In page titles and meta descriptions
• In H1 headers
• In H2 and H3 subheadings
• In the first paragraph of content, if possible
• A few times throughout the rest of the content on the page
• In alt image tags

ALSO: Copywriting for SEO

7. Aligns With Business Goals

Finally, make sure that copywriting aligns with your short-term and long-term business goals. Content marketing is complex in this digital age, and it’s easy to get lost in analyzing the metrics and reach for the wrong star. For example, many brands get caught up in the chase for organic search traffic and end up targeting keywords that get them thousands of views. But if those are the wrong views, you’re not going to drive sales or revenue.

It’s better to have 100 views with 50 that convert than 1,000 views with only 10 that convert. Always keep the bottom line in mind.

What Are Some Common Types of Copywriting Jobs or Projects?

The traits of good copywriting can be applied to all types of content marketing projects. Here are just a few types of copywriting your brand may require.

• Product descriptions use strong marketing language to educate consumers about the features and benefits of a product, often painting a picture so the person sees themselves using or enjoying the product. The goal is to persuade the consumer to make a purchase.
• Landing pages are the first port for consumers who journey in from ad links or organic search results. Content on these pages should address the likely needs and questions of the consumer in whatever portion of the buying journey you’re targeting and include a call to action for the next step.
• Sales letters or emails are often targeted to specific audience segments or those who have taken some previous action, such as signing up for a newsletter. These messages can be informative, entertaining or even a hard sell, but they should all attempt to enhance the consumer relationship with your brand and include a call to action of some type (to click a link, respond, make an appointment or call).
• Blog posts are typically less hard sell and more brand development; the copy on these pages tends to be educational or entertaining and is meant to create your brand culture, position you as a leader in the industry or provide something of value readers are likely to share.
• Social media posts are similar to blog posts, except much shorter.
• Long-form marketing collateral can include white papers, case studies and even eBooks. The point of these pieces is to position your company as a thought leader or to operate as a lead generating tool. For example, you may offer a free ebook answering common questions about a topic in your niche for anyone who signs up for your email newsletter.

ALSO: Can You Outsource Landing Page Copywriting?

Find Copywriters for All Your Content Marketing Needs

Whether you need cleverly worded product descriptions or eBooks that position you as an expert, discover copywriters at Crowd Content who know what it takes to get the job done in 2019.

The post What is Copywriting and What Are Its Best Practices for 2023? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Learning how press releases support your content marketing strategy can help you get more bang for your buck out of every blog, social post and white paper, and that’s something worth talking about.

AlSO – Find out how to hire the web’s best press release writers

Combining PR and Marketing

Whether you’re a new startup, a global Fortune 500 company or something in between, press releases will work for you on some level because they revolve around a story. And everyone has a story.

While it’s true that journalists are still probably going to pay more attention to big companies than small ones, a great press release (built around an equally great story) can help you gain traction as journalists pick up your release and pass it on. And that’s an important point — though you’ll see press releases pulling double duty in your online newsroom or as extra collateral for your social media pages (more on that in a moment), your primary audience is still journalists rather than end users. Keeping that in mind as you create and distribute could go a long way toward helping you shape content that resonates with the people who have the power to pass on your news.

But how does PR support content marketing? Skilled PR teams and professionals craft press releases that they distribute to journalists, journalists and bloggers that they can use as inspiration to write articles about.

As you’re designing your next marketing program, consider if you could build in a PR campaign to support it. If you’re able to get your story picked up by journalists in significant and industry relevant publications, that can get a lot more eyes on your content as well as some powerful backlinks.

You can create press releases with a customer-centric bent and use it to tell a tale your audience wants to hear:

• Announce your newest celebrity endorsement or an appearance by a local sports star
• Discuss how your upcoming fundraiser will benefit neighborhood initiatives
• Share why your small business block party is going to be kid-friendly
• Highlight what problems your new ebook will help solve

Use Press Releases to Support Your Content Strategy Via an Online Newsroom

As the owner of Redhead Marketing & PR, Hilary Reiter has a plethora of experience in both content marketing and public relations. She advises clients to include press releases in the newsroom of their website as “this helps them keep their content fresh to enhance organic SEO.”

Combine those PRs with in-house announcements, messages from the founder and other time-sensitive tidbits, and you’ll maintain a steady flow of information without being repetitive or sacrificing cohesion.

In addition to keeping your site’s content fresh, a newsroom adds a sense of legitimacy to any company’s site which can help build trust with your audience.

Press Releases Can Help Drive Traffic

Reiter’s multipronged approach to press releases also includes a dash of social media strategy. After all, your content is useless if nobody’s reading it, and with two-thirds of adults on Facebook, most on a daily basis, social platforms are an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to build readership.

“We advise them to link their press releases from social media to drive traffic to the site,” says Reiter. “Distributing press releases to media to get 3rd party coverage and credibility results in greater awareness as well as referral links that drive traffic to your website.”

ALSO – How Social Media Impacts Your SEO in 2019

Keri Lindenmuth, marketing manager at KDG, uses weekly press releases to fuel his company’s content marketing strategy and stay ahead of the competition. “To find a topic for our press release, we first look at our keyword rankings. If there is a keyword that seems to be struggling or a keyword that our competitors are catching up on, we’ll put out a press release concentrating on that keyword and link back to our website.”

Follow Keri’s advice and you’ll usually garner the added benefit of publications writing about that keyword and linking back to your site which can help rankings even further with powerful contextual backlinks.

ALSO – 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Press Release

Establish and Expand Your Authority

Most content creators have two primary goals: creating pieces that are SEO-driven and those that capitalize on thought leadership. The value of SEO is indisputable, but thought leadership is far more underutilized. By becoming an authority in your field, you insert yourself into the public conscious as the go-to source for industry trends, new ideas, and interesting takes on existing concepts. People build entire businesses on the back of their authority, and according to Michelle Calcote King, founder of PR and content marketing agency Reputation Ink, press releases can help get the word out in a big way.

“If [the content] is thought leadership-driven,” says Calcote King, “the press release can announce important content pieces that you want your target audience to be aware of (i.e. announcing an e-book, research report, etc.). The fact that you’ve created a resource for your audience can be news. You can also announce speeches, industry involvement, etc. — anything that will build a reputation for being a thought leader in your space.”

Anyone can hold a seminar on personal finance or self-publish a book on flipping houses, but only someone with a sound content marketing strategy that incorporates press releases will get maximum exposure when time in the spotlight matters most.

Getting Your Press Releases to Journalists and Influencers

Once you get the hang of writing press releases, you have to know where to send them. You can distribute the PRs yourself via social media, as part of your email marketing plan (a great way to flesh out your newsletters), or on your website, or you can hire a professional press release company. Many PR pros build media contact lists as well, and pitch those contacts to write stories about their latest press release (often offering early access to the press release to help them get a jump on competing publications).

News wire distribution agencies know which publications are best suited for the topic at hand and they likely have relationships and contacts you don’t.

Reiter recommends services such as PRWeb to help boost online visibility while minimizing the burden on your in-house resources. Lindenmuth favors multiple distribution points. “EINPresswire is a paid platform, but it is perhaps the best for building backlinks across the web. It submits your press release to hundreds of news outlets. PRLog is a free service that also lets you include links back to your website. Using both sites together, and distributing a press release weekly, ensures that fresh, new content about your site is always on the web, which does wonders for SEO.”

Distributing press releases is a specialty job, and sometimes it’s best to have specialty help.

As with most things in marketing, writing content alone won’t guarantee success. By using press releases to support your overall content marketing strategy, you help your brand gain visibility, build authority, improve search rankings and reach journalists who act as your conduit to a new, larger audience. Focus on careful integration and look at your press releases from the audience’s point of view and you may soon see just how relevant PRs continue to be.

Need help mastering the art of the press release? Hire a professional press release writer and get your story the attention it deserves.

The post How Can PR Support Your Content Marketing Strategy? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

You’ve got demanding clients, tight deadlines and a network of staff members and freelancers or content vendors to manage, all while keeping your competitive edge so the next “new kid on the block” agency doesn’t steal your best customers.

One of the best ways to maximize efficiency and stay nimble is to outsource content creation, especially if content isn’t your primary service. SEO agencies are particularly adept at finding ways to supplement limited in-house resources, but it makes sense from a financial perspective for a lot of agencies to partner with third-party specialists.

ALSO:  Learn more about content writing for agencies

Here’s the issue: When your content partner fails to keep up with rising volume and starts to blow deadlines, you’re left holding the bag, and the consequences can be monumental.

Late Deliveries and the Domino Effect

One potential pitfall of late content is that it causes everything else to run late. Delays aren’t isolated, and they induce additional setbacks with increasingly troublesome results.

For Markelle Harden, a content strategist with Knowmad Digital Marketing, delays equal lost revenue. “If we are adding a new section to a website to expand a brand’s reach in the search engines or improve conversions from returning visitors, a delay in the content can lead to fewer website visitors, fewer interactions with the existing website and, as a result, fewer conversions.”

Like the butterfly effect, even a small lag on the content end of things could mean a client sees sinking engagement numbers and rapidly plummeting sales.

Missed Deadlines Mean Missed Opportunities

Some content is time-sensitive and failing to deliver on schedule starts a tidal wave of epic proportions. Amanda Sutton of CATALYST Communications Choreography knows this reality all too well. “As a PR pro, missed deadlines are our worst nightmare. [They] could have very immediate implications, such as missing the jump on an important news breaking story due to an unapproved media release… missing content deadlines could also have less devastating but still negative ramifications on your marketing.”

Delivering sales copy late could scuttle plans for a holiday-themed product release and delayed employee bios could leave a client without updated marketing collateral to distribute at their annual industry meetup. “Usually,” continues Sutton, “the point of each piece of content is to elicit action or reaction in the audience, so communication pros need to take into account the reception of each individual message, the tone and the exact timing that will make the biggest impact.”

Harden agrees. “Many businesses have ‘high-value’ market times when website traffic is more valuable than any other time of the year (accountants, home improvement or service companies, niche manufacturing, etc.). It’s important to submit content orders ahead of these high-value times.”

Cue the Employee Confusion

If the content you’re waiting on is for internal use, such as a company newsletter or series of emails talking up the new insurance benefits, you face a different list of potential pitfalls.

“Mismanaged or delayed communications could have an impact on employee engagement, interdepartmental procedures, etc.,” says Sutton. Depending on the goal of the content, Sutton suggests even a small error could lead to drops in event sign ups or meeting attendance, lead to lackluster feedback or survey participation and lead to overall confusion as content gaps throw off your whole company-wide dialogue.

As Sutton reminds us, “In marketing and communications management, timing is everything.”

Loss of Client Trust

For agencies whose bread and butter is customer satisfaction (and that applies to most agencies), late content on the contractor’s side means frustration and even anger on the client side. People hire you because they believe you can get the job done when you say it will be done. If that doesn’t happen, it matters little who’s truly at fault.

Once that confidence is shattered, it’s hard to get it back. With consumer trust at an all-time low, the only way to compete is to offer the best customer service available. Being late isn’t hospitable and it won’t lead to loyalty.

What Can Agencies Do?

If you’re feeling the effects of missed deadlines by your content vendor or freelancers, know that there are ways to right the ship. It may take a bit of time at the outset, but the end result will make it all worthwhile.

There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Information

As an agency account manager, it’s your job to suss out content requirements with clients and then pass all of that along to the writers. In doing so (or trying to), I’m sure that you’ve faced the prospect of unresponsive clients who want their content and want it now but don’t have the time to talk to you about it, and you’ve probably also dealt with your fair share of clients who don’t understand how much and what information you’ll need.

If you’re asking a writer to write a city page for Joe’s Plumbing in Dallas, it’s going to be difficult for them to nail it unless they know whether the company’s value proposition is that they’re the cheapest in town, they have highly specialized professionals or they’ve been family owned and operated for three generations, so they know all the idiosyncrasies of the houses in town.

Before ordering content, have your clients fill out client briefs that you can pass along to the writers so they have all the information they need. Make sure you include everything from voice/tone to target audience, how the company name should be presented and any industry terms to use/avoid. This will help keep revision requests at bay and your content swimming along to an on-time delivery.

Incorporate an Editing Layer

Revisions happen. Sometimes the writer doesn’t completely capture your vision, or perhaps you love the general direction but need to tweak a few sentences to better match the end client’s voice. In other cases, the issue may be that your content partner excels at HVAC and plumbing content but can’t seem to deliver the same high-end results when presented with health or legal topics.

Editing is essential, and basic tweaks are all part of the content creation process. But when orders continue to bounce back and forth, it’s easy to run up against a deadline — and watch in vain as it whizzes by.

If you find yourself polishing subpar content in-house because your content partner dropped the ball, it’s important to find a more efficient way to get from project brief to a brilliant end product, and that starts with good editors.

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback

When you receive the content you ordered, you most likely give it a read, make necessary changes, send it to your client and call it a day. Unfortunately, you’ve missed a crucial step — providing feedback.

Sure, it’s probably faster just to make changes on your own instead of explaining the issues to the writers and then waiting for revisions, but if they can’t see the types of changes you’re making to the content, you’re going to get caught in a continual loop of revision requests and edits that can lead to missed deadlines.

After delivering edited content to your clients, take the time to send the marked up copy to your content partner. This will help them to improve over time, leading to fewer revision requests, less editing time on your part and no more missed deadlines.

Choose the Right Content Partner

It takes time to assemble a group of freelancers or evaluate content vendors, but if things aren’t working out once you’ve made a decision, you need to take action — and that could mean starting the search all over again.

Continued delivery of subpar or late content could be that the writers you chose just aren’t skilled at the type of content you’re producing or knowledgeable in the industries you serve, and it’s also possible that they just don’t have the bandwidth to deliver the amount of content you order in the timeframe you need.

Starting over again is extremely time-consuming and potentially disruptive to your business, so take your time when evaluating content partners to be sure you’ve settled on the right solution in the first place.

Efficiency Courtesy of Our Three-Part Process

At Crowd Content, we use a three-step process that guarantees consistent quality from client to client.

• Writing: First your order goes to one of our highly vetted native English-speaking writers whose areas of expertise vary from real estate and home improvement to travel nursing recruitment and in-patient rehab facilities. They’ll take a look at your project brief (if applicable) and specific order instructions, and then create content that ticks all the boxes.
• Editing: After your freelance writer works their magic, the order passes to one of our eagle-eyed editors who will scour it from intro to conclusion looking for grammar and spelling errors, cohesion, word choice and other important elements.
• Quality Assurance: Finally, the content passes through our QA team, where members do a final sweep to spot any issues. QA also looks for any possible conflicts between the content and your project brief. If you want serial commas or prefer to avoid the word “awesome,” this is where we catch any slip-ups.

Whether you’re looking for an individual writer to complete weekly blogs or need an entire writing, editing and quality assurance team to figure out how to create local city pages Google will love, Crowd Content can help — and we take deadlines seriously.

For more information on how you can harness the power of content creation and make your marketing strategy sing, scale quickly with our Agency Content Solutions. We manage the entire process so you can get back to running your business.

The post How Missing Content Deadlines Impacts Marketing Agencies in a Big Way (and What You Can Do About It) appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

And that’s why online retailers must continue to drive traffic with the right content marketing for ecommerce.

Defining the eCommerce Content Marketing Mix

Most eCommerce sites need a good mix of content to increase awareness of products and help interested customers make choices throughout the sales funnel.

Here are some of the most common types of eCommerce content that can help your products or services show up in search engines and persuade consumers to take the next step in the buying journey.

Product descriptions or product pages

A product descriptions market a single item or service. Often between 50 and 300 words (with longer formats reserved for specialty or complex goods and for brands who opt to focus on storytelling), product descriptions educate consumers about the item and encourage readers to visualize themselves using the product or service.

This is accomplished through feature/benefit writing that answers the questions: what is this, what does it do and why does the user need it? You should have a product description or page for every product or service you offer.

Product descriptions tend to be bottom of funnel content, so you can focus on converting already interested visitors and ranking for very transactionally focused search terms with your SEO.

ALSO:  Tips and Tricks for Writing the Perfect eCommerce Product Title

Category pages or descriptions

Category pages are ideal for creating content that boosts your performance in the search engines while providing useful information to the reader. Category descriptions provide some overall information about the types of items in a category, such as why they’re necessary, how to choose one or what types of subsections consumers might find.

For example, a category about women’s purses might explain different types of bags, what to look for in a bag, what materials are used, etc. Here’s a category page for women’s purses from Simon’s that helps shoppers narrow down their purchase decision:

Aim to have a category page for at least your highest level categories. Make sure they link off to related products, and you’ll be on your way to moving customers along their buying journey.

Category pages tend to serve customers who are mid-funnel, knowing they’re interested in a certain type of product, but not sure which ones just yet. Your category pages can be a great tool to help consumers find suitable products and can also help you rank for keywords that show an intent of learning more about a certain category of products.

Brand pages

Etailers that carry products from other companies can capture brand-specific SEO traffic and help customers early in their buying journey learn more about specific brand options by adding brand pages.

These are similar to category pages in that the content discusses the specific brand and what types of products it offers or is known for. You might consider adding such a page for every brand you carry or limiting it to special partnerships, highest performers or brands for which you carry many items.

For example, Best Buy has a brand page for Samsung TVs:

This page ranks for search terms related to Samsung televisions, and it also helps shoppers learn more about what their brand options are.

Buying guides

These are typically long-form article or blog pieces targeted to the early parts of the buying journey. While you can mention your goods and services, buying guides are usually meant to be educational pieces that help the consumer decide what type of product they need and how to purchase it. For example, a buying guide for a student laptop computer might cover topics such as how much RAM is preferred, how to choose the best screen type and what peripherals a student most commonly uses.

Let’s look at Best Buy again for a good example. Here’s their buying guide for purchasing laptops:

This page is full of great info that will help shoppers learn about what to look for in a laptop, which will then help them start reviewing your specific products. It also links off to different categories of laptops to help shoppers move along their buyer’s journey even easier.

You might consider publishing buying guides on some of your top-selling products types or aligning them with seasonal sales growth (such as holiday or back-to-school buying guides).

Buying guides are typically long-form content. This gives you a good opportunity to create “complete content,” which will rank well and best serve your visitors.

Blog posts

An on-site blog is a powerful way to expand your content marketing strategy outside of the more marketing-heavy content types above. Blog posts let you educate and entertain your audience, create content that encourages links and shares and engage in building a brand that’s bigger (and longer lasting) than any single product you might sell.

Test how various blog formats and publishing schedules perform with your target audience to drive performance for this type of eCommerce marketing. You may find your audience enjoys seeing blog posts twice a week or that guest posts perform the best.

Blog posts are another great tool to reach those top-of-funnel shoppers. They may not even know they’re interested in a type of product yet, but your blog posts could capture their attention and start them on their buyer’s journey.

ALSO: A Proven Process To Show Writers How To Write Blog Posts That Drive Results

Product Reviews

Often included on an eCommerce company’s blog, product reviews are a great way to spotlight specific products you’d like to move, new technologies and newsworthy items (think new video game releases). They also let you establish your company’s authority in a certain niche by exploring in depth the pros and cons of a product.

Not to beat a dead horse, but let’s look to Best Buy for another example. Here’s their review of Final Fantasy X for Nintendo Switch:

They review a lot of video games on Best Buy’s blog. This lets them build authority as a go-to source for video game news and sales, a following of people who will check out new reviews, organic search rankings and even traffic from social sharing.

The up-side here is that if people are interested in a product enough to read the review, there’s a good chance they’re going to click on a link to buy the product in your review.

Reviews are great for buyers near the end of the buying journey as they’re a great source of product information and may nudge them to checkout. That said, a well placed review might capture a buyer early in their journey and get them interested in the product.

Going Beyond Basics: Digital Marketing Tips from the Experts

Stepping outside of the basic eCommerce business content types above helps you increase your brand authority, capture consumers at different stages of the sales funnel and drive more traffic and conversions. Check out the advice below from three experts on how to go beyond basics with content marketing for eCommerce.

1. Customize content formats for each stage of the buyer journey

Product descriptions and blog posts are proven methods for driving eCommerce sales, but companies must remember that the digital marketing landscape is evolving rapidly. Today, individuals are shopping online via desktop, mobile and even voice-search devices, and they’re likely to use different tools for each stage of the buying journey. Your content marketing has to play the same game.

“The best success we’ve had in driving potential or in marketing customers down the funnel toward eCommerce conversion is to build content themes against our content pillars, leveraging formats for each stage.” says Robb Hecht, an adjunct professor of marketing with Baruch College. “For example, for mobile audiences who need to be made aware of your company (top of the funnel) we target them with large imagery-focused creative with either disruption or value-focused messaging.”

Hecht also provides examples for other parts of the marketing funnel. “For middle of the funnel, where eCommerce consumers are in a consideration stage, we try to obtain their opt-in email messages by leveraging social platform lead gen units and communicating informative messages, educating them about the product. Finally, for bottom of the funnel customers who just need a push, we develop content with offers, coupons and discounts, which drive them to a conversion landing page or physical store.”

2. Don’t just sell: Educate and build brand culture

You’ve probably heard the 80/20 rule of social media marketing: only 20% of your posts should be specifically about selling you and your products. The other 80% should be about building brand culture, educating your target audience and even sharing content from others in the industry. This concept can be applied to other content formats, too. By integrating more organically into the community you’re trying to build, you’ll create lasting relationships that support more sales over the long-term. And you’ll find that all that relationship building can segue easily into sales funnels if you’re authentic and transparent.

Taylor Gilliam, the Director of Social Media at ReadyCloud.com, says, “We’ve used content marketing to great impact for our company. By using education-based content, we have greater appeal to our client base and to industry leaders who influence prospective clients. It has been the most effective way to develop credit and establish our brand as an authoritative resource.”

“Content marketing has also helped us build a cohesive brand imagine that extends into infographics, videos and social media outreach,” says Gilliam. “Currently, branded content drives at least 200k unique web visits per year, and it serves as a gateway to our sales funnel. It has helped us improve our reach massively, especially when combined with retargeting and native ads.”

3. Write a lead magnet book

Vince Massara from We Make Lead Magnets takes the educate and inform premise even further, tying it into lead generation.

“We have seen great success with eCommerce owners using some new content marketing strategies,” says Massara. “Many are using a book, which would typically be a trip-wire lead magnet in eCommerce, as the core of their content marketing. By writing the right book to the right audience, you can put a few advertising dollars behind it to quickly grow a list of interested leads. From there, you create your content with an audience in mind, rather than starting out at zero and waiting months or years for the content to start to pay you back.”

Successful Content Marketing for eCommerce Isn’t Formulaic

Always remember that successful digital marketing doesn’t adhere 100% to a single formula. There’s simply too much going on online for a one-size-fits-all approach to work for anyone; take a look at WordStream’s eCommerce statistics to get an idea of how many approaches you can take to online marketing and why they’re all important for different types of brands.

The key is to figure out what works (and is important) to your brand.

A successful content marketing mix is one that performs for you, so start with the basics and expert tips above to build out your content. Then, test, tweak and test again. Because if there is one truth for all eCommerce businesses it’s that the online marketing job is never finished.

The post Content Marketing for eCommerce: 6 Types of Copy You Need to Succeed appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Ghostwriters are the secret forces hired to write some of the most recognized literary works in the world, but they also mastermind magazine articles, web content, blogs, and so much more.

If you’ve ever wondered “what could a ghostwriter do for me?”, you’re about to discover that the answer is rather complex—and full of potential.

Ghostwriting at a Glance

Simply put, a ghostwriter is someone who creates content that will be published under someone else’s name. Some ghostwriters get a secondary byline or “title credit,” but most are sworn to secrecy and sign non-disclosure agreements banning them from ever claiming the final work.

Though the exact details vary from project to project, ghostwriters are most often the unseen, unrecognized talent that helps everyone from musicians to industry influencers to politicians build an audience and a reputation.

ALSO – Ghostwriters – The Secret to Maximizing Your In-House Writing Team

Ghostwriting as You Probably Know It

Ghostwriters are probably best known for being the talent behind celebrity tomes. When an A-lister wants to share their story, they bring on a professional writer who can turn a life’s work into a work of art. But that’s just the beginning of what a ghostwriter can do.

Politicians almost exclusively rely on ghostwriters to create stump speeches and translate policy—a writer may not come up with the answer to healthcare, but they can put legalese into layman’s terms, so their boss’s next press conference actually makes sense. Political ghostwriters may see to constituent correspondence too, writing response to letters regarding everything from immigration to traffic complaints to requests for arts funding.

The Business Case for Hiring Ghostwriters

Businesses often use ghostwriters, but rather than creating novels and political speeches, they’re focused on creating a wide variety of professional content.

When you’re already running yourself ragged trying to manage a growing company, the last thing you have time to do is sit down and write your weekly newsletter. Dashing off some bullet points and handing them off to a ghostwriter means you can offer your audience cohesive, on-brand content without stretching yourself ridiculously thin.

For entrepreneurs looking to establish a secure foothold in their industry, a guest post on a high-traffic site can work wonders, but only if that post is well-written and compelling. In this case, hiring an industry expert ghostwriter can do the trick.

Then there are on-site blog posts—the ones brands put on their own websites to help increase traffic, generate leads, and establish a rapport with consumers.

You’d be surprised how many big-name influencers, life coaches, CEOs, marketing directors, athletes, lifestyle gurus, Kardashians, and other notables employ a professional writer to turn their blogs into something special. Sometimes there’s an entire team of ghostwriters involved; one writer may specialize in the “color” posts while another will give authority to more technical content.

Social media is ripe for ghostwriting, too. While Kim Kardashian certainly posts her own selfies, she also has a social media team creating sponsored posts under her name, and she’s far from the only celebrity to do so. Many high-profile people understand the necessity of an ongoing, engaging online presence but few have the time to post regularly. A social media ghostwriter adopts their client’s personality and creates tweets, status updates, and promotional posts to help further the client’s reputation and career.

Even famous authors bring on help from time to time. Some have more ideas than they can feasibly execute, so they create detailed outlines and then allow ghostwriters to write the actual books. V. C. Andrews, an author known for her edgy work in the young adult category, passed away from breast cancer in the ’80s, but thanks to her family and a ghostwriter named Andrew Neiderman, Andrews’ legacy continues with new fiction books published for decades after her death.

How Ghostwriting Benefits Your Brand

First and foremost, ghostwriters save you time. Even if you’re a skilled scribe with tons of content under your belt, creating new pieces requires setting aside a chunk of your schedule, often repeatedly.

Do you have the resources to take your eyes of other projects and concentrate solely on content? Hire a ghostwriter and your book or blog will show up ready for your stamp of approval, and the timeline will likely be far more faster than if you had written the content yourself.

Secondly, ghostwriters know how words work. No sending off your book to a publishing company and then doing exhaustive rewrites because there’s a total lack of cohesion or numerous typos in every line. A pro writer or author can create a narrative and make your story flow from beginning to end.

Finally, partnering with a ghostwriter means double the ideas. You have someone to brainstorm with, someone who’ll tell you whether something’s working or not, and a voice of reason when you’re straying too far from the subject matter or not digging deep enough. If your ghostwriter is an expert in content marketing, you’ve also got someone who knows what will connect with online audiences and how you can make your writing SEO friendly.

The Transformative Power of Ghostwriting

One benefit of ghostwriting is so monstrously compelling it deserves its own callout. That benefit? An authoritative, trustworthy voice.

You may be downright deft with an Elmo Band-Aid, but if you break your arm, you’re going to see an actual doctor. If your car goes kaput, you take it to a mechanic, and if you need to get from Sacramento to Syracuse safely, you hire a trained pilot, not your cousin Ralph who once flew a drone.

The same principle applies to ghostwriting. Your message is only as strong as the words with which it’s conveyed; poor writing can easily obscure your story, while great writing can turn a fledgling idea into copy that converts.

If you’re a business that recently launched or is just entering a new niche, you might hire a ghostwriter to give your content clout. For instance, if you’re a DIY store that just expanded your catalog with a ton of security products, a ghostwriter who specializes in smart-home tech could create content that sounds authoritative and offers value an in-house writer couldn’t touch.

For businesses eager to compete, meaty content can lead to a huge boost in visibility. Authority, along with relevance and trust, is one of the three pillars of SEO, meaning it plays a major role in how search engines like Google will rank your site.

Check out this post for some ideas on how you can find a writer that has that niche expertise you need to build authority in your content.

Hire a Ghostwriter and Give Your Ideas a Chance to Shine

Across the board, ghostwriters deliver content that’s authoritative and trustworthy. When something is written well, it’s easy to believe—how quickly do you dismiss a blog with a typo in the title or nonsensical sentence in the first paragraph?

Ghostwriters are experts, so they also write more efficiently, more effectively, and they’re known for producing work that’s humorous, impactful, memorable, educational—whatever your heart desires.

If you’ve ever wanted to give your brand a leg up in terms of marketing or need help speeding up your writing projects, it’s time to consider having your content written by a ghostwriter.

Crowd Content’s platform gives you access to professional freelance writers who specialize in everything from Facebook posts to e-books to blogs. To connect with a ghostwriter, sign up today.

The post What Is a Ghostwriter Best Able to Help With? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Today I’d like to share a few ideas and suggestions to hire freelance content writers who specialize in your industry. You can try navigating the hunt on your own or take advantage of these ideas and suggestions, as well as Crowd Content tools that help simplify the process.

Tip 1: Reach Out to Writers Whose Work You Admire

When you read great blogs posts in your industry, see which great content writer is behind all that pithy prose. You’re already seeing the author’s talent at work, making it easier to see how they approach your niche.

Their voice might also be in line with your vision.

Often a content writer’s byline will also connect to their website, portfolio or an author page for that specific publication. Take a moment to sift through their catalog for insight into their body of work.

This approach allows you to skip the “Do you have any samples?” back-and-forth that typically goes with the interview process. But you may find that published writers have an exclusivity clause or are not interested in freelancing.

Tip 2: Create Job Postings

Job postings are a great way to let you specify the exact knowledge and experience you need your writers to have. Many companies post these directly on their own sites, and you can also choose to post job ads on sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter. 

Other places you can post on include various writing service sites, industry job boards and on social media (linking back to a posting on your site).

Creating a digital “help wanted” ad can help you find candidates who should have the niche expertise you want (if they pay attention to your requirements before applying).

Doing this often results in many, many applications, and the sheer volume of applicants may make it a bit overwhelming to sift through and qualify.

There’s a good chance you can find a great writer with the niche expertise you want among all those applications, but it can prove very time consuming to review large numbers of them. Remember, you’ll also have to review samples, check references and generally vet all applicants before working with them.

Tip 3: Casting Calls

Casting calls are a special Crowd Content feature that let you audition a large number of vetted writers as quickly and painlessly as possible. With casting calls, qualified writers come to you.

Your casting call lists important project information and may share other details such as pay rate and scope. You’ll specify questions that all applicants need to answer in their submission, and you can also ask for a project-specific sample to help whittle down your choices.

Casting calls are a lot like job posts, except you’re shrinking the applicant pool significantly. Rather than broadcasting your opening to the entire world, you’re targeting Crowd Content’s cache of qualified writers. And, you can even restrict your casting call further to only make it available to writers of certain ranks and qualifications.

This system gets you responses and samples tailored to your business, so there’s no guessing as to whether a writer’s past work is a good example of their ability. You also won’t have to imagine how they’d interpret your niche.

The only downside here is you’ll still have to do a bit of digging. Most casting calls get a lot of applications you’ll still have to review, but you can rest easy knowing that Crowd Content has already qualified these writers for you.

Plus, you can also review each applicant’s profile on the site to learn more about them, see how other clients have rated their work, and see more samples.

And that leads me to the next tip…

Tip 4: Writer Search/Profile Reviews

Curious who’s a search engine optimization wunderkind and who rocks at writing website content? Crowd Content clients have an option to search and view writer profiles, sharing insights into everything from a writer’s areas of expertise to their performance stats.

Each profile includes all of the following:

• A short bio created by the writers themselves, detailing their education, experience and key writing skills
• A quality star level determined by Crowd Content’s performance-based rating algorithm
• Category badges denoting whether a writer is among the top 10 in a specific category
• Testimonials and client ratings/reviews
• Performance stats by category
• General writer statistics such as average words written per hour and how many orders a writer currently has in progress
• Samples of the writer’s work

These are metrics you wouldn’t normally have access to, even if you had a contract with a marketing agency or had your own in-house writers. After all, who has the time to track so many moving parts?

Ahem…. Crowd Content’s awesome algorithm

Tip 5: Networking in Industry Groups

Word of mouth is powerful in any industry, but it’s especially valuable in content marketing. Consider asking for writer recommendations from colleagues. You’ll quickly learn which writers are known for great content, who delivers on-time, who nails ideation and whose copy has increased conversion rates by 300 percent.

You may even meet writers themselves, and you’ll be able to zero in on a few high-quality candidates without opening yourself up to a barrage of hopeful contractors who are also total strangers.

You probably already know some great industry groups locally, but consider checking out professional groups on LinkedIn, Reddit and Slack communities for some online recommendations.

This approach might not be as scalable as others, but it can help you find really authoritative writers in your niche.

One caveat for this approach — while industry experience is great, it doesn’t always mean that the writer’s writing is strong enough for you. Be sure to still check out samples of their writing before starting any projects.

Not All Roads to Niche Expertise Are Equal

There’s no inherently wrong way to to find a freelance writer who knows your niche, but some paths may be more difficult. Ultimately, you’ll have to decide which approach makes the most sense for your business.

But, the benefits of finding a great niche writer with solid writing chops are huge.

Regardless of your niche, save yourself time and energy by connecting with writers who are proven performers.

If you’d like a hand finding the perfect writer for your business, sign up for Crowd Content services today or call our team at 1-888-983-3103 to talk about our talent.

The post How Can You Find a Great Content Writer Who Has Niche Expertise? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The path to incredible content is best traveled with care, and selecting a writer is just the beginning. What you really want — what you really need — is a writer who can create blog posts that drive traffic. Why? Because traffic is the lifeblood of any marketing campaign.

Bring the people, and they might buy. Write a compelling headline, and they will come. Start sharing great blog posts, and those people might even stick around. Pair all those features with high-quality copy from homepage to post-purchase thank-you emails, all peppered with irresistible calls to action, and you just might see sales soar.

But I digress.

Long before you get the satisfaction of nudging your mouse across your screen, hitting publish on your blog and watching your writer-for-hire‘s words dance across the internet, you have a job to do. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to give your writer everything they need to understand how to write blog posts you and your audience will love.

Recruit Writers with Proven Experience in Your Niche

If you’re a baseball player dealing with a possibly career-ending knee injury, are you going to book an appointment with a general practitioner or call a board-certified orthopedist with stellar references and a jaw-droppingly impressive track record? The answer is obvious. You wouldn’t trust your livelihood, your passion or your future to just anyone.

Good writers aren’t that hard to find. Great writers who specialize in the type of content you need are far more difficult to source. Did you know there are three main categories of writers? And each of those categories explodes into a plethora of subcategories.

Writers may specialize by topic, such as hospitality or personal finance, or they may narrow their focus to email marketing or landing pages. Some writers are riveted on a teeny tiny slice of the pie, tailoring their offerings by both topic and content type.

What kind of writer are you looking for? Decide before you jump headfirst into your search. It’ll help you stay on target — no shiny object syndrome when you spot a writer who looks great but is completely wrong for the task at hand — and expedite the hunt.

How do you gauge a writer’s experience?

• Check their samples. Most writers have some kind of portfolio, though these days ghostwriting and NDAs may make it more difficult for even the most experienced writers to share their best work. That’s why it’s a good idea to…
• Let the writing speak for itself. Whittle your list down to two or three writers and hire each of them to create a post. This way, you’re getting a true sense of what they can do given your parameters, your topic, and your brand’s style guide.

To further streamline the process, use Crowd Content’s platform to search and review writer profiles or set up a casting call and let the talent come to you.

Provide Examples of Good Posts

Most people have an idealized version of the things they like, and everything that comes after is compared to that paragon. When you order a piping-hot slice of pizza or listen to an up-and-coming rock band’s new song, you’re automatically (if unconsciously) comparing it to the best pepperoni pie you’ve ever had and hearing the Rolling Stones in your head. Blog posts are no different.

It’s human to gravitate toward a writing style or certain blog post ideas that makes you feel something. If you want your writer to evoke those same emotions, give your freelancer a solid starting point. A couple links or a short list of names accompanied by a few notes sets the bar, letting writers know exactly how high they’re expected to jump.

Include a Detailed Creative Brief and Style/Brand Guide

One of the most common mistakes in content marketing is skipping the creative brief. It takes time and energy, and it requires you to focus on mapping out a project from start to finish before you hand it off to your team. That’s daunting.

Putting your ideas on paper is a big hairy deal because it’s a gigantic part of conveying your vision to the people tasked with bringing it to life.

You’ll need to include:

• A brand statement
• An introduction to the project objectives
• Central messaging
• Pain points you intend to address
• Who the audience is
• Where the content is going to go

It’s essentially a blueprint on how to write blog posts that will resonate with your readers, advance your branding and capture reader attention in a lasting way.

Style guides are similar in that they serve as a road map to how you want your content to look, read and feel. They’re crucial for one gargantuan reason: cohesion. If you’re working with multiple writers or really any team members other than yourself, a style guide ensures everyone stays on the same page. From logos to color schemes, font preferences, tone and so much more, your brand or style guide spells out your identity, so customers learn to recognize you even when your name isn’t front and center.

Share Persona Info

No matter how many times you give your freelancer tips to write a blog that rocks, if they have no clue who they’re writing for, you’re just wasting your time. In content marketing, the audience is everything. In fact, 63 percent of smart marketers create content around a specific buyer persona, and they do it because they know buyer personas fuel dynamic content.

Learning how to develop a buyer persona is a specialized skill in of itself. Simply closing your eyes and guessing who your ideal customer is won’t cut it. It’s funny how often the reality of who follows your brand differs from who you think is loyal to your company. Gather information gleaned from user surveys, sales insights, email capture forms, subscriptions, app opt-ins and general industry/market segment profiles and identify some common denominators.

Telling your writer they’re speaking to Paul, a 33-year-old software engineer from Indiana with two kids, a mortgage and a serious Fortnite habit is beneficial beyond words. This is the same info you’ll later use to target Facebook ads and perfect your sales funnel, so make your research count.

Give Detailed, Ongoing Feedback

Copywriters may be many things — creators, strategists, SEO experts, social media gurus, spelling and grammar purists — but they’re not mind readers. They can’t correct something if they don’t know it’s wrong. On the other hand, creative types often become attached to their work, and wondering whether it’s being appreciated can feel stifling.

Clients jump at the chance to offer feedback after the initial sample or at the start of a new project, but that’s frequently the end of the road. The rest of the partnership goes by without comment until one of three things happens:

• The writer starts to feel like a nameless, faceless cog in the wheel and their creativity stagnates
• The writer makes a mistake and, after a long period of silence, gets negative feedback out of the blue
• You become so accustomed to the status quo you skim the intro to each blog post and barely read the rest, gradually becoming disconnected from the heart and soul of your content strategy

Making feedback part of your process from the very beginning helps prevent critiques from feeling personal. If your writer feels attacked they won’t perform as well, but freelancers do want to hear how they’re doing.

Editing and performance reviews are par for the course in this industry, and anyone who is unwilling to accept they have room to improve won’t last very long—but that doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to rip apart every draft.

When giving feedback:

• Be specific. Saying “it just doesn’t feel right” isn’t useful. Saying “the tone doesn’t match our brand voice” or “I prefer shorter paragraphs” is.
• Be respectful. This is your brand’s reputation at stake, so you deserve to get the content you asked for. That said, belittling a writer won’t get anywhere.
• Be constructive. You’re not trying to show how much you know, you’re trying to empower your writer to think bigger and be more proactive.

Above all, remember you hired this writer for a reason. Ask questions if you’re doubtful about sentence structure or word choice, but also trust you were savvy enough to partner with someone who’s an expert in their field.

Share Performance Data

No one performs well in a vacuum. Imagine being a dedicated long-distance runner but never knowing how fast your competition runs or whether you’ve improved your own time since your last outing. It’s frustrating.

Content writing and digital marketing are ever-changing works in progress. Your writer wants to get better, they want to improve conversion rates and create even more compelling content, but they can’t do that without some knowledge of where they’re starting from and how they’re doing along the way.

When you contract a new freelancer, be up front with your current state of affairs. Have you been disappointed in your social media engagement? Are you getting blog hits but no sales? Do your landing pages fall short? All of this should be part of the initial instructions or you’re not giving your writer everything they need to succeed.

Once you’ve established and shared your starting point, deliver regular updates. If a blog performs particularly well, send your writer a message. If you’re seeing a steady rise in conversions, mention that too. When numbers are going in the opposite direction, that’s important information as well — though recognize that the writing may not be the only factor contributing to your burgeoning success or stuttering traffic.

Bringing It All Together

Remember, the writer-client relationship is a partnership, and communication is imperative. Your writer is going on a trip and you’re not going to be in the passenger’s seat the whole time, so give them what they need to reach the correct destination in one piece. The whos, the whats, the whys, the hows — it all matters. Your writer knows good blogging, but you’re a stranger until you step up, introduce yourself and make it clear what you need.

Your brand is one-of-a-kind. Help your writer help you shine.

For more help kicking off the writing process, contact the Crowd Content team or reach out to your customer success manager today.

The post A Proven Process To Show Writers How To Write Blog Posts That Drive Results appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

I get it. White papers seem boring. They’re dry and full of data, and they’re almost never the right place to shoehorn in a sweet cat joke. Or at least that’s what people seem to think. In reality, white papers can be as formal or as funny as you like, and even when they’re light on the cool factor, they more than make up for it in ROI:

• 76% of buyers said they’re willing to share their personal information in exchange for a white paper
• One poll found that 79% of B2B buyers felt white papers were the type of content they were most likely be share with coworkers

White papers give the reader confidence in whatever product or service you’re selling, and that can mean the difference between a casual would-be consumer and a loyal customer.

Author Gordon Graham is known as “The White Paper Guy” — which makes sense, seeing as he literally wrote the book on the subject. Graham may not have been the first to identify the three main types of white papers, but his names for these powerful marketing tools are now widely used, even if most people don’t realize where those names originated.

The Backgrounder

Brands looking to disrupt the industry with a new piece of technology or innovative service often struggle connecting to audiences. It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around the unfamiliar, and it’s even harder to get consumers to spend their hard-earned money on something that feels confusing.

The “backgrounder” white paper includes educational content summing up the most important features and benefits of whatever it is you’re marketing — think of it as your what and your why. While a product description grabs attention, it barely scratches the surface in comparison to a white paper filled with technical details.

Use your backgrounder to:

• List study data to support science-backed claims
• Explain how a product works and why it’s a game changer
• Establish your brand as an industry leader based on performance, innovation or some other documentable characteristic

You can use this type of white paper in several places in your sales funnel. It works near the beginning as a strong introduction for B2C customers or educational tool for journalists (think stating your case to a Consumer Reports contributor, for example), but it can also help turn a warm lead into a completed sale.

The Numbered List

Numbered lists mimic one of the most popular blog post formats seen these days, and for that reason they’re regarded as an accessible way to convey information to varying demographics. Light on the tech speak and created with readability in mind, numbered list white papers answer common questions about a product or service while presenting your brand in a positive light.

Titles like “5 Life-Changing Benefits of Programmable Refrigerators” or “10 Ways to Revolutionizing Your Digital Marketing Strategy” help reframe information in a way that’s less intimidating and, if you’re up for it, fairly entertaining.

In fact, numbered list white papers can be as provocative or tame as you wish. If you want to push the envelope and challenge your competition, you can do that here. If you want to infuse a bit of humor or even fear (“3 Things That Prove Cold-Brew Coffee is Your Real Boo” or “6 Reasons Why You Can’t Afford to Miss the Blockchain Train,” for example), you can do that too. That kind of flexibility makes listicle white papers suitable for almost any stage of your sales funnel and almost any audience.

The Problem/Solution

Problem/solution white papers are serious docs for serious people making serious decisions. Often viewed as the most logical and overtly persuasive white paper, the P/S identifies a business problem common to the target audience and clearly and convincingly shows why your solution is the best one available. Business-to-business marketers often use this format to bolster their case when speaking to potential partners or clients, which in itself is a compelling reason to commission one ASAP, and the fact that P/S white papers have a long shelf life means your investment is more likely to keep paying dividends.

Whether you’re looking to change public opinion, build a following, enhance your sales and marketing plan, generate new leads or carve out a place in your industry, a problem/solution white paper could be exactly what you need to shake up the status quo and establish your authority.

If you need to inform and persuade your audience — and really, who doesn’t — you need a white paper. Understanding which type of white paper you need and how it’ll fit into your content marketing strategy may take some time and the input of a specialist, but the potential for attention-getting thought leadership is worth the effort.

The post The 3 Types of White Papers – And Why You Should Care appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

In short, you get a ghostwriter.

Everyone from Richard Branson to Michelle Obama has brought their books to market with the help of professional writers who know how to turn a life well lived and meteoric business successes into a narrative the public would ultimately devour. Other authors, like Bond-inventor Ian Fleming and thrill-expert Tom Clancy used ghostwriters to create new works of fiction in order to meet audience demand.

Whatever your goal, realizing your long-awaited book project isn’t as easy as hiring a ghostwriter and awaiting the finished copy. This is without a doubt a collaboration, and it all hinges on you setting your writer up for success.

Recruiting Talent

When interviewing ebook ghostwriters, consider — or outright ask — the following:

• How are they with deadlines?
• Are they working on other projects, or can they dedicate their time solely to you? (If it’s the latter, be prepared to pay accordingly.) Hiring an ebook writer who tells you they don’t have the time to work on your project midway through could set you back significantly.
• Do they have set work hours? In other words, will they return an email on a Saturday, or should you expect a couple days before you get a response? Every ghostwriter works their own schedule, so knowing this upfront is key.
• Do they have experience writing in your niche? There are different types of writers, and not all will be well-suited for the task at hand. Can they reference any other ghostwriting clients of theirs?
• Are they willing to do interviews or conduct research, if applicable?
• How flexible are they? Can they adjust their writing style to fit your tone?
• Can they handle constructive criticism? Will they act as a book coach and be proactive or are they only willing to take a passive role?
• Can they share examples of other quality ebooks they’ve written?

These questions help you identify if a writer has the experience you need and if their working style matches yours. It’s critical you know this upfront, because given the time, research and writing that goes into ebooks, discovering your writer isn’t a good fit mid-project can be very costly.

Once you know what you’re looking for in a writer, the question turns to where you can find them.

You can place ads on well-known job sites and sift through resumes or ask friends for referrals; if you have a social media following or room in your budget, sponsored posts and ads may work too.

I know this sounds like a ton of work and it will take a lot of time, but there’s a shortcut: shop for writers via a platform like Crowd Content. We’ve already vetted our talent and have account managers standing by to help streamline your experience, so you won’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty details like writing up a contract or arranging payment.

Laying Out Your Objectives

Once you’ve chosen “the one” (swoon!), make your intentions clear. Traditional companies include a detailed job description in the onboarding process, and you should too. Your writer shouldn’t have any doubt as to what you’re trying to accomplish.

There’s a huge difference between writing for an audience already familiar with your work or writing a book intended for mass-market distribution. There’s also a big difference between creating a book that will be downloaded as part of an email-capture campaign or writing a book you hope will one day be turned into a major motion picture.

How the finished asset will fit into your overall campaign or sales funnel will shape the entire project. Skip this step and you put your writer at a major disadvantage — and you’re unlikely to get the results you’re hoping for, either.

Putting Together a Game Plan

Some things in life are more fun when they’re left to chance. Ghostwriting is not one of those things. You need a framework in place that includes a comprehensive to-do list and shared milestones — basically checkpoints where you and your writer will touch base or exchange notes.

Everyone’s method is different, but in general your plans should look a little something like this:

1. Know your goals, budget and basic content design elements such as target length and tone
2. Identify a few promising candidates, conduct interviews and ask your finalists for their project proposal
3. Choose your ghostwriter
4. Hand over any existing research and other relevant materials
5. Decide on an outline for the book
6. Set dates for a call or series of calls so the writer can ask whatever questions they need to flesh out the outline
7. Agree on an expanded outline that includes a detailed chapter-by-chapter blueprint
8. Look over a single-chapter draft and evaluate for structure and tone, and then let the writer loose
9. Receive and read through an entire draft
10. Offer feedback and go through the agreed-upon number of revisions
11. Submit for editing (if you’ve hired a separate editor)
12. Revel in your monumental accomplishment

Providing Data and Info

If you want data-backed results (and you do), you must start out with plenty of data your writer can use to paint an accurate and authentic picture. The type of information involved depends on the kind of book you’re creating. For an autobiography, you may want to gather everything from elementary school report cards to pictures from spring break ’99.

A business book on launching a startup won’t work without real-life success stories, while a company manual will be almost entirely made up of tech-speak you’ll probably want to run by your legal and mechanical experts before sharing.

Other bits of data are linked to your objectives. Things like your buyer persona are crucial — no one can write quality content without a specific reader in mind.

Communicating with Your Writer

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: some writers are serious introverts. And by serious, I mean that some of my favorite content writers would rather give up their beloved Oxford commas than answer a phone call. I get all that, I really do, but ghostwriting jobs are more demanding and, in many ways, more intimate than typical freelancing gigs, and your chosen form of communication should be more personal as well.

Feel free to use email to create a paper trail of ideas, trade edits or scribble and send moments of inspiration, especially if your best brainstorming happens in the wee hours. When it comes to your initial communication and ongoing discussions, though, it’s often better to connect via phone or video conference. From a face-to-face interview to shared readings of chapters currently in progress, picking up the phone or signing on to Zoom is a fast and efficient way to quickly iron out any kinks and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Reviewing Drafts and Formulating Feedback

Real talk: you aren’t doing anyone any favors by being too nice.

Your penchant for passivity? Ditch it.

Your tendency to swallow critiques because you don’t want anyone to feel bad? Stop it right now.

Your book is your baby. That’s why you’re investing time and money into finding a professional ghostwriter to whip your concept into an award-winning book. When your ghostwriter sends you a draft, pore over it like it’s in the running for Oprah’s book club. Depending on the type of book and intended audience, you may be more concerned with grammar and citations or tone and feel.

Do the chapters feel isolated or does the book read like a cohesive whole? Does the narrative feel authentic and personal? Does the introduction grab you immediately? Is your message clear? Does the conclusion give the reader a sense of finality — or leave them wanting, depending on your goal? Are the statistics or study numbers accurate? Is this book something you’d be proud to put your name on?

It may help to read the draft out loud. Repeated readings are also useful, especially if you read the book once, sit on it for a day or two, then read it again. Don’t rush the editing process. When you do make comments, be clear about what you don’t like and why. “This doesn’t feel right” isn’t an actionable piece of feedback, but “This has a more negative tone than I wish to convey” does.

If you’d like more tips on revising effectively, check out The Writer Center’s guide for some great advice.

A Quick But Effective Process

To sum things up, remember these core tenets:

• Hire smart. A blog post is not a book, and hiring a writer who excels at one form of content doesn’t necessarily mean they can nail your ghostwriting project.
• Pony up the data/details. We’ve all read a book that went on and on without saying a thing. That’s not what you want from your own project, is it? Nope. Whether you’re sitting on client surveys, Yelp reviews, case studies, Google analytics, personal anecdotes, proof of concept — whatever it is, it should be in your writer’s inbox.
• Communicate often. Cultivate a relationship with your writer that encourages an open dialogue. If you value your writer’s opinion, they’re more likely to make suggestions that could exponentially improve your book.
• Own your results. With ghostwriting, you’ll only get what you give and ultimately, your book sales are your responsibility.

The world is waiting for your story. Isn’t it time to write a book and give your readers what they want? If you’d like to get started today, check out our ghostwriting services to find the perfect writer today.

The post How To Get a Ghostwriter To Craft an eBook That Drives Results appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

You need a writer who can convey the best aspects of your product or service to consumers and convince them to buy in; numbers and data work, but only if they’re buoyed by emotion. People want a reason to stop scrolling by and tricking them into clicking through to a web-based snoozefest just isn’t going to cut it.

With so much at stake, it makes sense to hire a freelance copywriter to write your landing page copy, but outsourcing comes with its own unique set of key considerations. Follow these tips for making the most of landing page copywriting services and see what high-converting landing pages can truly do.

ALSO – What is Copywriting and What Are Its Best Practices?

1. Hire the Right Person for Your Landing Page Copywriting Job

Many business owners aren’t aware that copywriting and content writing are different.

Copywriters specialize in creating copy closely tied to sales — think ads, landing pages, websites, billboards, brochures and product descriptions — while content writers lean more toward informative writing and storytelling, creating blogs, press releases, white papers, books and so on. Hiring a copywriter who excels at landing pages is a crucial part of properly shaping and sharing your brand’s message and reaching your goals.

ALSO – Do You Need a Copywriter or a Content Writer?

2. Double-Check Whether Your Writer Knows Their Limits

No, I’m not talking about pushing your contractor to eat three squares a day and get decent shut-eye. Some forms of content come with restrictions. Violate them, and the content could be less effective or even unusable. Landing pages often rely on templates that have fixed lengths for text — does your copywriter know what those limits are, and can they write fluid, compelling content that fits?

Crowd Content lets users build templates that dictate how long each content element can be (either by word or character count), keeping writers on task and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

3. Be Crystal Clear About Your Offer

Writers who work in the dark rarely submit picture-perfect content. It’s difficult if not impossible to create a high-converting landing page if you don’t understand what the page is supposed to do. Tell your writer:

• Where the landing page fits in the funnel
• What the purpose of the landing page is
• Where the user is at in the buyer journey

Paint a vivid version of the big picture and your writer will be better equipped to craft any landing page that helps you accomplish your goals.

4. Know Where Your Page’s Traffic Will Be Coming From

…and share that information with your copywriter. Landing pages should be relevant to the buyer journey, and that means continuing a conversation that started elsewhere. Whether the buyer clicked on a Facebook post or a paid ad or an affiliate link, they’re already mid-conversation and it’s up to the writer to create a landing page that’s consistent.

Remember, ad platforms also rate your page’s user relevancy—Google Ad’s Quality Score and Facebook’s ever-changing ad algorithm have the ability to scan your landing page and decide whether it’s in line with the content used to send consumers there. At the very least, you need to give your writer info on which audience is being targeted, and a set of keywords would be helpful too.

ALSO – Copywriting For SEO

5. Give Your Writer the Gift of Social Proof

Social proof is kind of like the modern, more positive version of peer pressure. Every time you look at a restaurant’s Yelp reviews before making a reservation or buy into the “4 out of 5 moms recommend…” line featured in a diaper commercial you’re taking action based on the actions of others.

Marketers use social proof to give new concepts, products and services perceived value. Consumers are understandably hesitant to spend their hard-earned cash on a fancy frying pan that could easily be a dud, but show those same consumers a Facebook video of people flipping golden-brown pancakes and talking about how the pan revolutionized breakfast and the hesitancy starts to disappear.

It’s possible to write landing page copy without social proof, but writing copy that incorporates testimonials, case studies or social media engagement figures is a far more effective way to urge potential customers through the sales funnel.

6. Compare Your Landing Page Copy with Split Testing

Even the most experienced copywriter isn’t omniscient. All the writing talent, word acrobatics and technical marketing expertise in the world can’t predict with absolute certainty how a landing page will connect with your ideal customer. The only way to know for sure is to ask your copywriter to create variants for key text elements—headlines, bullet points versus block text and so on — then use A/B testing to compare conversion rates and choose which page to launch in full.

You can also choose to A/B test other elements of your landing page; vary your offer, reframe your selling point, swap out images, or tweak your forms and see how consumers respond. While those decisions are for the client to make rather than the writer, your offer also informs the landing page copy, so if you change one, you’ll need to change the other.

7. Don’t Skip Over the Small Things

Why pay someone to dither over a few words here and a call to action there when you can dash them off yourself? Well, there are several reasons actually, but here’s the big one: you hired an expert, and you should let them do their job.

Cohesion is vital to the success of a landing page, and that’s best achieved by sticking to one voice, one writer, one cook in the kitchen.

Every word on that page plays a role and it often takes writers hours or even days to wrangle those words into submission. You may not be able to see how one stray phrase here or there could make a difference, but trust me, consumers can sense a disjointed message from a million miles away. Great copy is like alchemy—you don’t need to understand how it happens in order to appreciate the result.

Wrapping It Up

A good copywriter is worth her weight in gold… and sometimes more. But, even the best copywriter will struggle to craft copy that drives results if they’re lacking clear instructions along with information and context about how their work fits into the buyer’s journey.

In my experience, following the 7 tips I’ve outlined above will set your writer up for success, and in turn, setup your campaigns to print money.

The post Can You Outsource Landing Page Copywriting? 7 Things to Consider First appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Hiring outside help is a phenomenal way to boost marketing efforts while ensuring your brand is in experienced, linguistically capable hands — but writers aren’t all created the same. In fact, there are several different types of writers, all of whom have their own strengths, weaknesses and areas of specialty.

Finding the right person to write content for your website isn’t just a matter of connecting with someone who can string together a convincing combination of nouns and verbs.

For your content to excel, you need a writer whose skill set and expertise matches the project at hand.

With that in mind, here’s a quick overview of the three types of writers your business might consider hiring and for what jobs.

Copywriters

Copywriters are the word-spinning geniuses behind marketing content and other kinds of promotional material. “Copy” generally has three goals:

• Connect with the target demographic
• Communicate brand messaging
• Convert, as in compelling a sale or inspiring the reader to click, email or call

Think of copywriting as action-based writing. It’s sales, but instead of knocking on doors and demonstrating the handy-dandy features of an upright vacuum cleaner or convincing car shoppers that they really need that upgraded interior, copywriters are using the power of the written word to position a client’s products or services as the solution to a specific pain point.

ALSO: What is Copywriting?

You might hire a copywriter for:

• Ads
• Product descriptions
• Landing pages
• Sales pages
• Copy-based search engine optimization (SEO)

Some copywriters dabble in multiple niches, while others are the master of landing pages or Facebook ads and won’t touch anything else. If you’d prefer to have one writer take care of everything, make sure you discuss that up front, but also know that sometimes it’s good to have a surgeon, anesthesiologist and scrub nurse all on your team. In other words, there are occasions when a copywriter with a practically Lilliputian area of expertise is far more valuable than a supposed jack-of-all-trades.

ALSO: Copywriting for SEO: How to Be Sure Your eCommerce Copy Converts and Ranks

Content Writers

Content writing is also part of marketing, but it’s a softer sell and involves more layers of the overall sales funnel. Depending on the piece, content writers may try to inform, entertain, establish authority, nurture rapport and build trust — or all of the above.

Where copywriting seeks to make a sale, content writing is how you soften up a potential customer, laying the groundwork for the idea and promise behind a product.

Most often, content writers create content that’s top of funnel near the awareness and interest stages. Copywriters tend to create content at the desire and action stages.

Content writers are responsible for projects such as:

• Blog posts
• Articles
• White papers
• Ebooks
• Social media posts
• Press releases
• Reviews
• Web content
• Employee bios

As with copywriters, the content writers you hire may do a little bit of everything, or they might stick to a single industry — say, plumbing or wine — or a single category of content.

ALSO: How to Tell Freelance Content Writers What You Really Need

Fiction Writers

All writing involves a certain level of imagination, but creative writing has more leeway. Fiction writers may be inspired by real-life people and events, but they aren’t tied to that narrative. They can conjure characters out of thin air. They can even conceive of entire worlds a la Tolkien or Rowling, writing a book that takes readers places nobody on the planet has ever been before.

It may not seem like fiction writers have a place in the cold, hard world of sales and marketing. While it’s true that both content writing and copywriting require a strong factual thread that lends credibility and legitimacy, how you flesh out that truth skeleton is up for grabs.

Some people choose to fuel their marketing initiatives with pie charts and statistics. Others turn to storytelling to share information in a format that’s attention-getting and gently leading. It’s not surprising, then, that some of the greatest literary minds of the last century also offer up some sage marketing advice.

ALSO: How to Revolutionize Your Copywriting Strategy

How They All Work Together

While many freelancer writers specialize in one kind of writing — and some niche down even further, focusing their energies just on newsletters or blogs posts, for instance — others offer overlapping services. You may find a talented writer who churns out unbelievably pithy social media posts but also creates catalog copy and collaborates on children’s books on the side.

Sound confusing?

It can be. Maybe this will help: Pretend you have a business selling a new kind of mop. Everybody needs mops, right? But there’s also a thousand other mops on the market, so you need to find a way to differentiate your brand.

A fiction writer might create a story around your mop, introducing the Duke of Dirt and the Princess of Perfection who are locked in an eternal battle of clutter versus cleanliness.

Your content writer will build on those tales from the Land of Tidying Up by referencing them in blogs, using the characters to connect with consumers on social media or author an article that uses the Duke and Princess to recount the many benefits of clean floors and research behind your brand’s cutting-edge mop technology.

Finally, a copywriter steps in to create a sales page to convince those clicking on a Facebook post or blog CTA that this is the mop they want — no, the mop they need.

The point is this: take the time to vet and hire a writer who knows how to open closed doors and invite readers in. Whether you’re looking to publish a book or launch a new website, the writing process doesn’t start when your freelancer picks up an order and starts tapping on their laptop’s keyboard — it starts when you choose the talent whose skill set best serves your needs.

The post The Three Types of Writers Your Brand (Probably) Needs appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

And, content marketing is no longer the simple game it used to be ten years ago, when just publishing a decent piece every now and again would be sufficient.

Not anymore — with over 2 million blog posts published online every day, the occasional piece of average quality just won’t cut it. To cut through the noise and produce strong results for clients, agencies need to deliver high-quality content that provides significant value to the reader.

But, that isn’t always so simple or easy.

From our experience, many agencies are faced with multiple dilemmas when it comes to writing content for their clients. I’ve reached out to a number of digital marketing agencies and asked them what the most common challenges in content writing for agencies are.

Here are the most common challenges they reported.

The Need for Expert Insight

Finding a capable writer — who also happens to be an expert on a specific niche or highly technical topic and is available to produce content when you need it — is no more different than hunting the proverbial unicorn.

Why?

Simply because the vast majority of content writers are generalists. Sure, they possess excellent language skills, the ability to adapt their style to effectively capture the unique voice of each brand they’re working with, and a very good understanding of different content structures — from blog posts to press releases, whitepapers, product descriptions, and beyond. Their SEO knowledge is also pretty polished and they know how to work in the right keywords to boost the reach of every piece of content they produce.

While talented, content writers may lack the expertise required to create top-level content in extremely specialized industries. They’re jacks of all trades.

But, they can’t deal with the more advanced stuff. Like, say, gramework, or the golang web framework.

What does that mean for your agency?

Simply – finding expert writers among a sea of generalists could prove challenging. And, for certain clients, finding those experts could be critical to creating content that’s going to help their business.

According to Julien Raby, president of web marketing agency Combustible, “In the past, we tackled this issue with extensive research on our end, but the result was bland, uninspiring content and our clients weren’t happy with the results.”

There are many industries that require that expert knowledge to create content clients will be happy with. For your content to stand out, you need someone who is intimately acquainted with that industry area or niche; someone who can artfully combine their professional expertise with their exceptional writing skills to produce expert-level content sprinkled with some good humor and a dash of personality; someone ready and willing to pour himself into every bit of the creation process.

In these cases – you need a specialist.

For most digital marketing agencies, it’s downright impossible — and decidedly unrealistic — to have specialists on staff for every single industry area or niche there is.

ALSO – Ghostwriters: The Secret to Maximizing Your In-House Writing Team

Unrealistic Expectations

Successful content marketing is “a byproduct of strong planning and consistent execution,” as Ben Sailer of digital marketing giant CoSchedule very well puts it.

Before any content is created, agencies need to articulate an effective plan, with both short- and long-term goals, and share it with clients.

There’s no shortcut to achieving content marketing success. It doesn’t happen overnight, and there’s no telling exactly how long it can take to see any results.

I’ve chatted with agencies whose clients regard content creation and content marketing as a small part of their overall marketing mix and under-appreciate the great deal of work that goes into every step of this process. And, they often don’t appreciate that it can take time to yield results.

Writers and content marketers work really hard to produce content and promote it.

And writing exceptional content is no easy task, especially when there’s a specific goal or need to be addressed.

According to Nelson Jordan, co-founder of Agency Match, “Although most clients understand that content creation [and inbound marketing] can take months or years to bear fruit, other stakeholders with a lesser understanding of content marketing can sometimes questions why results haven’t been achieved, particularly if they’re more familiar with the instant results that paid advertising can generate.”

When clients realize their content isn’t garnering any ROI, they may get concerned. They want results — the kind of immediate results they get when boosting a Facebook post or running a Google AdWords campaign. Instant. Almost palpable.

We all know it’s not going to happen in a flash. But there’s no definite answer as to how long content marketing takes to produce positive ROI. Three, maybe six months, seems to be a good estimate.

It’s only natural that your clients will fear they’ll invest in content marketing for months on end without anything to show at the end.

But that’s all the more reason why agencies should educate clients on the huge potential they have for generating ROI with content marketing. Results from paid advertising will stop generating anything the moment you stop your campaigns, whereas each piece of content you publish will continue to generate compound traffic growth and leads over time. It’s a bit like real estate.

There’s so much potential, but you’ll need to prepare your clients to be patient.

Budget Constraints

The U.S. is the largest market for content marketing, with spends estimated to have exceeded $16 billion in 2016. A 2018 study by the Content Marketing Institute shows that successful B2B marketers spend a staggering 40 percent of their marketing budget on content, which is higher than the industry average of 29 percent. At the same time, as much as 37 percent of marketers who aren’t successful with content marketing blame it on their inadequate budget.

The average recommended budget for content marketing ranges from 7 to 8 percent of gross revenue for companies with annual revenues below $5 million and a net profit margin — after all expenses — in the 10 percent to 12 percent range.

Unfortunately, smaller companies often don’t have the financial resources necessary to map out and execute well-articulated content strategies consistently. “Smaller budgets see smaller campaigns and smaller results. Rarely will clients invest all that is truly needed for a really impactful content strategy,” says Katie Mayberry, senior director of social media marketing agency Releventure.

But it’s not just smaller companies that don’t invest. Larger companies with more sizable revenues aren’t always willing to allocate reasonable budgets for their content marketing, either, which limits agencies’ ability to grow their content marketing efforts.

If you don’t have a robust strategy in place with both short-term and long-term goals and a well-laid-out plan to achieve them, your efforts will fall flat, point blank. And, if you don’t have the resources to execute in both the short and long term, your efforts will fail.

Quality Versus Quantity

Marketers are under pressure to create more content than ever. The 2017 B2B Content Marketing Report by Content Marketing Institute shows that 70 percent of marketers expect to produce more content this year.

It takes a lot of perseverance to make content marketing work, and delivering content consistently is of the utmost importance. Eighty-five percent of top performers publish content on a regular basis, compared to 58 percent of the overall sample and 32 percent of bottom performers.

For every digital marketing agency, the same old dilemma almost always crops up: should you scale back on the sheer volume of content you’re producing for clients and focus on quality, or should you increase the volume and let the quality suffer in the process?

For agencies with limited creatives, this dilemma becomes a serious concern. Spending more time producing less content means you’re paying more for less — not to mention you could be delivering more content in that same time. But churning out content that is devoid of any value won’t help your content marketing efforts, either.

Why? Simply because:

• Every piece of content you produce should accurately capture the unique voice of your clients and portray their values.
• Your content must address very specific content marketing goals.
• Your content must be authentic, engaging, and valuable.
• Google is rewarding content that best solves searcher intent, which means your content needs to comprehensively address each topic you cover.

But as I always say, your content marketing strategy isn’t measured in volume or quality — it’s measured in results. And you’ll often find that, to get results, you need to strike the right balance between the two.

You need to produce content consistently, and the content you produce must really resonate your client’s target audience, rank well with search engines, and showcase thought leadership — something I talked about in this post.

Content is just words until you put motivational goals behind it.

A Mismatch Between What the Client Wants and What Works

According to Jason Lavis, managing director of Out of Box Innovations, one of the biggest pain points when managing a content strategy is the mismatch between what the client wants and what actually works.

“A business owner might genuinely care about their technology or processes, whereas the customers — and the public in general — might prefer entertainment or fundamental information. This mismatch makes it harder to achieve growth in page views or social media following.”

It’s all a matter of trust, as Steve Page of Giant Partners points out: “Getting them to trust you to do what’s right is a struggle. They know they need to do something different to transform their business but are hesitant to do so.”

And it’s no surprise, given the great level of commitment that comes with every content marketing strategy. If digital marketing agencies cannot earn their clients’ trust, they cannot build the kind of campaign that would actually produce results.

ALSO – Build a Brilliant Content Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

Not Committing to Content Promotion

In the content marketing world, creating and publishing content are just the very first steps of the journey — critically important but scarcely sufficient on their own. To maximize the reach and visibility of the content you produce, consistent promotion is a must.

Overlook it, and you’ll end up missing a huge chunk of ROI.

Yet the need for consistent promotion might catch some clients by surprise — isn’t content, in itself, already designed to market their business?

Sure, provided people see it.

If the content sits without any promotion, then nobody is likely to just stumble upon it. Promotion means more people will see the content, and this increased visibility will eventually pay off later on.

Content promotion starts with an initial distribution across key external channels. Think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even email, if that’s what works for your client. Spread the word, spark some interest in the content, and you’ve got yourself a solid audience that wants to hear what you’ve got to say — or to be precise, what your client’s got to say.

Moving on.

After the initial distribution, you need to think about ongoing distribution, which usually takes place in the long term. There likely are many who’ve missed the initial distribution, so why not give them a few “in case you’ve missed it” opportunities along the way?

For many agencies, content promotion is a time-extensive process. If you’re one of them, you’ve very likely come across at least one client who was unwilling to commit to promoting their content.

After all, if they’re already paying you to write great content to promote their business and generate ROI, they may not want to spend more.

If you can convince them that ongoing content promotion actually helps them maximize their ROI, you can often alleviate this concern.

Content promotion shouldn’t be an option, like having an extra dollop of chocolate drizzled on top of your vanilla ice cream or a brand-new garage door with built-in smartphone connectivity (heck, I’d love one for myself).

Content promotion should be an integral part of any effective content marketing campaign — and the keyword here is integral.

Addressing Content Writing Challenges

I could probably list out a dozen more challenges, but you’ve probably picked up on a couple common themes by now — clients won’t benefit from sub-par content, nor by overlooking or neglecting any of the steps involved in content marketing.

If your agency simply doesn’t have the manpower or resources to produce the kind of content your clients need to achieve content marketing success, consider checking out our agency services.

The post Boiling Down the Top 6 Challenges in Content Writing for Agencies appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

As noted by AdWeek, “Consumers have flat-out become fatigued with the standard fare historically represented in brand marketing.” Companies must find a way to create content that breaks the mold, engages potential customers and ultimately drives increased revenue.

And, with over 70 percent of companies outsourcing content creation, finding the best outsourcing option is critical in today’s environment.

When it comes to blogging, buying pre-written articles or ordering custom-created articles offer a way for companies short on time, expertise or capacity to quickly scale up, but what’s the best route? Are pre-written pieces the best investment, or does custom creation provide better returns?

Let’s dig into the pros, cons — and everything else — that comes with buying articles.

The Content Conundrum

Recent research shows that companies are struggling with content management. As the Content Marketing Institute points out, 72 percent of organizations say they’re “challenged with managing content strategically,” and 61 percent point to their top challenge as a lack of skilled staff to ensure content meets expectations and marketing is effective across channels.

Read: How to Build a Brilliant Content Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

Beyond a reliable content pipeline and the ability to ensure content regularly reaches customers, businesses also need to make sure that what they’re producing engages and excites users. In a content-rich market, potential consumers won’t bother stopping for articles, case studies or white papers that don’t immediately grab their attention and offer actionable information.

According to Business 2 Community, the sheer volume of available content now means that, “Even if you’re filling your site with countless blog posts jam packed with stellar written content, you may still be disappointed.”

Why?

Because well-written content is no longer enough to grab attention. It must also offer something unique to consumers; something they haven’t seen before.

Read: Thought Leadership in Content – What Does it Really Mean?

Pre-Written Versus Content Development Services

To reach consumers and drive revenue, companies must find article sources that are reliable, high-quality and in alignment with business expectations.

There are two broad types available: Pre-written content and custom-created articles.

Pre-written articles are exactly what the name says: Already written, ready to be purchased and posted.

There’s also a subset of pre-written pieces known as private label rights (PLRs). As noted by Medium, what makes PLR pieces unique is the associated licensing. Companies can edit articles and change author attribution as needed. They can also resell the articles and basically do whatever they want with them.

Often you’ll find PLR articles in packages offering dozens for a surprisingly low price. The reason they’re so affordable is that the seller is selling the package to many people, so you can’t be sure your content is unique.

Custom content, meanwhile, is typically governed by resell rights that let companies keep 100 percent of the profits if content is resold via gateways or as part of subscription services but limits the ability of businesses to change author attributions or modify content. In general, ownership and attribution rights are typically bound by the service agreement you establish when working with your writer.

Over the past few years, pre-written content use has declined while custom writing services have enjoyed a significant uptick. Part of the change stems from evolving search engine algorithms, which tend to prioritize unique, never-before-seen content over similar articles tweaked just enough to suit businesses needs.

Social media also plays a role in this shift. Social giant Facebook now claims over 1.47 billion daily active users as of June 2018, making it more important than ever for companies to deliver content that’s easily consumable, provides a unique perspective and compels users to share it with friends and coworkers. This content needs to engage users — and be unique.

But, there’s still a case for pre-written and PLR content, since it lets organizations quickly customize and repurpose content as required.

For example, a single blog post can be purchased immediately and posted across corporate blogs, social media sites and leading industry publications. For companies looking to keep up with the pace of content consumption, PLR provides a viable solution in a pinch.

Pre-Written (and PLR) Pros

Let’s dig a little deeper. Beyond the basics, what are some of the key benefits associated with pre-written pieces?

• No waiting time: Pre-written marketplaces are full of already-written articles waiting to be claimed. You don’t need to create a content brief, find a writer, conduct edits and finally make payment — available articles are complete and ready to use.
• See before you buy: Since these pieces are already written, you can view and evaluate them before making a purchase. While this does mean some time spent searching article inventories, it makes it possible to find content that aligns with content strategies before making a purchase.
• Evergreen offerings: PLR generally only works for evergreen content (newsworthy content has a very short shelf life), since it’s been written previously and designed for on-demand modification. Many sites offer deals on evergreen content, helping to fill gaps in your content strategy or flesh out your website with articles that remain relevant over time.
• Volume discounts: If you’re willing to purchase large volumes of articles at once, it’s often possible to find bulk discounts. It makes sense. Pre-written content is often sold to many customers, so sellers can earn more money selling discounted content to multiple buyers instead of charging full price to one.
• Makes it easy to jump-start content campaigns: As noted by Forbes, “You don’t need 15 pre-written articles to launch. You just need one.” Choosing an article that covers one high-level, relevant topic can jump-start blogs or other offerings while content strategists develop next steps. The instant availability of pre-written articles also makes it easy to quickly build out campaigns across multiple social channels.

Drawbacks of PLR and Pre-Written Content

While buying pre-written articles can help get campaigns off the ground and streamline content deployment, they also come with potential drawbacks, including:

• Lack of specificity: Pre-written content wasn’t created for your brand in particular but rather based on current search and social media trends in your industry. This means PLR articles are inherently off-brand and must be either used as “filler” content or modified to empower brand-driven engagement.
• Higher cost: While the basic cost of a PLR piece is less than one produced by custom content writers, it may be more costly in the long run. Why? Because making it useful for your brand often requires significant revisions and updates, meaning staff must spend time — which costs you money — to ensure pre-written articles meet expectations. (Read: How Businesses Can Save Money by Spending More on Content Writing)
• Minimal SEO focus: Your SEO differs from other brands and similar companies in your industry. Pre-written articles may provide general SEO targeting but don’t identify specific searcher intent or address semantically related topics, making these pieces potentially less valuable than they appear.
• Lack of Unique Content: Look at 10 pre-written pieces for the same topic, and they’ll bear strong similarities. In the case of PLR articles, they might even be identical. While they’ll be different enough to pass basic plagiarism checks, this content won’t stand out from the crowd.
• Missing Links: PLR and pre-written content isn’t designed with your business in mind, so it won’t contain any links to product pages, other blog articles or thought leadership pages. You can embed these links, but this may require significant restructuring to ensure articles don’t lose readability.
• Quickly out of date: Pre-written content is continually created to match potential needs, meaning it may be weeks or months old. Considering the velocity and volume of big data and the speed of social trends, PLR pieces can quickly outlive their usefulness.
• Limited applicability: Companies must now manage multiple channels and content streams to ensure they’re reaching the right customer base. Pre-written articles are often too broad and generic to drive interest across diverse content channels.

Final Thoughts

Pre-written pieces have potential — they’re an easy way to fill in gaps in your content calendar and give you the power to change author attributions to suit business needs.

Content development services, however, have largely overtaken pre-written marketplaces as organizations recognize the need for unique, high-quality articles that deliver targeted SEO and compelling content.

The main advantage of buying pre-written articles is that you can buy them and post them instantly. This is certainly appealing, but with the extra time you need to spend editing and making the content fit your brand, it might actually take longer.

Doing the math and calculating your time spent with both options might surprise you.

The post Buying Pre-Written Articles: The Pros, Cons and Everything In Between appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

• Will they “get” your company’s brand voice?
• Can you rely on them and still make your crucial deadlines?
• Will they understand your customers and the best ways to motivate them?

These are all valid concerns and important considerations for a content manager to mull over before hiring a ghostwriter. You don’t want to sacrifice quality for quantity, after all, even in the name of content. There’s good news, though: more than one in ten working adults identify themselves as a freelancer or a member of the so-called gig economy, so there’s rich variety of ghostwriters to choose from.

At the end of the day, your asks and results need to stay the same, and adding new team members can send ripples through your carefully plotted content path. So what’s the best way to introduce a ghostwriter to your in-house team to maximize results and minimize issues?

One Big Happy Content Family

Beyond the immediate relief of tension in your content calendar, ghostwriters can increase the effectiveness of your existing teams, offer unique points of view and help your company look its best, no matter what industry you’re in. But…they can only do that if they’re chosen and introduced the right way.

There aren’t many hard and fast rules to bringing a ghostwriter into your content creation team, but there are a few guidelines to help you make the transition smoothly:

• Ask your current team what they consider to be the most important points of creating content for you and potential pitfalls your ghostwriter should be aware of.
• Assure your current writing team that you’re offering them additional support, not attempting to replace them.
• Set clear reporting lines so that your ghostwriters know who to approach with questions on projects.
• Set a budget up front, complete with volume expectations and deadlines to avoid miscommunication when it comes to the structure of ghostwriting work.

If you can address all of these points and collect them in a quick-start guide for new writers, you’ll find new recruits will be up and running very quickly.

Addressing Some Common Questions

While hiring ghostwriters can quickly improve an in-house team’s capacity and expertise, many content managers can get hung up on a few questions about working with ghostwriters.

Here’s a quick collection of the most common ones I’ve seen.

But I Have a Writer Already…

Many business owners echo that sentiment — they’re under the impression that they either need to choose between hiring professional writers to work in the office or great ghostwriters to work as needed.

Often, the ideal answer actually comes from a harmonious blend of the two, not from treating your content as an “Option A vs. Option B” writing scenario. Ghostwriters are excellent as standalone freelancers, but they also routinely work together with existing brand and company writing teams to follow the voice and tone of a business.

For example, when it comes to eCommerce, there’s a virtually endless appetite for content — even the best in-house writing teams often can’t keep up. Many companies maintain relationships with multiple ghostwriters who have learned their brand voice and style guide, so they can quickly send overflow work to these writers and receive copy they can publish immediately.

Imagine doubling your writing staff overnight or assembling an entire team from scratch in a matter of hours. If you’ve been wondering how the big guys get high quality content and blog posts churned out so quickly, ghostwriters are the secret.

But I Already Do My Own Writing…

No one is more passionate or informed about your business than you are, of course, so it can be difficult for many content managers to trust writers to convey that passion you do in your writing. But as businesses grow, most content teams have to expand and find writers who can also convey that passion.

And while capacity often requires businesses to bring on writers, in some cases the need for exceptional writing ability necessitates it. Even the most passionate manager doesn’t always translate their passion for their business well to the page. A love of sunsets, for example, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily good at painting them, nor does a deep appreciation for classical music give you innate skill with a cello.

In these situations, the best way to convey your brand enthusiasm to your audience is often calling in a professional writer to do the proverbial heavy lifting.

Finding the right ghostwriter means that you can find someone who shares your enthusiasm and has the technical ability to take your content to the next level. Having team members like that can really help your business scale effectively.

Will a Ghostwriter Understand My Business?

The best freelance writers available for hire may work with dozens of clients every week, often spanning several industries, length requirements and tones. They are flexible and quick on the uptake, able to scan style guides, your past content or even your rival’s content for context clues and ideas about your ideal customer base.

In short — they can get up to speed really quickly.

While good ghostwriters are extremely adaptable, you can also find writers with tangible expertise in your industry. At Crowd Content, we work with over 5,000 writers, so clients can always find an industry expert to write for them if needed.

Between strong adaptability and industry knowledge, you can start working with a ghostwriter that gets your business very quickly.

Plus, you can also specify certain keywords to be used in your content, templates or layouts that you prefer for your web pages, and even hyperlinked in-text sources for Google-approved credibility on your subject matter once you publish.

Strong communication, especially when starting work with a new writer, can also help them understand your business quickly. Be sure to add notes, ask questions and even ask for writing adjustments in the rare case a revision is needed.

It’s in a ghostwriter’s best interests to impress you, as repeat clientele offer a consistent source of income. This is also an incentive for them to work closely with your in-house team, achieving a seamless brand voice for your customers in the process.

What if I Need More Than Blogs?

Ghostwriting used to be strongly associated with the process of writing a book, moving into blogs and landing pages as the internet grew. Today, a ghostwriter can handle almost any type of written content.

While this can help your team’s capacity, it can also help its capability.

For example, if you use an in-house team for product descriptions but suddenly find yourself in need of a new product press release, a ghostwriter can bridge the gap.

Their expertise and recent experience writing press releases for other clients will ensure that their approach is fresh, accurate and designed to grab attention. If, on the other hand, you rely on your product description writers, the results might be less targeted and less successful.

What Do Ghostwriters Cost?

Don’t let cost deter you from hiring a ghostwriter: it’s become such a common process that there’s professional writers for hire on nearly any budget. On platforms like Crowd Content, clients are able to set writing quality star levels to determine their end cost: one star offers very basic content to complete web pages, while four stars offers premium, highly-experienced writers. Prices range from 2.2 cents per word to 12 cents per word.

Plus, there are a number of cost savings to consider. Ghostwriters don’t need to be on-boarded through human resources, they don’t need benefits or paid vacation days and, as a total resource, you can find and work with a ghostwriter at virtually any hour, any day and on nearly any deadline.

In addition to their inherent affordability, it’s worth noting that their work — inbound-centric content creation — costs up to 62 percent less than outbound lead generation, per DemandMetric in a 2017 Content Marketing Institute report.

Can I Afford a Ghostwriter?

The question should really be can you afford not to hire a ghostwriter? Leaning too heavily on your in-house staff can be risky in terms of volume, and it can also put undue stress on your employees as well.

A creative team should know they have backup on large or unexpected projects, and ideally be given the discretion to vet and choose ghostwriters they can work with. This will not only ensure they feel appreciated and supported, it will also free up your in-house team to take on larger and more complex tasks parallel to the growth of your business.

Don’t Wait For a Content Crisis

Assembling a content team before an immediate need gives you the time and space to find writers that truly align with your needs. You can put up a few small projects as try out pieces to narrow down candidates, or solicit guidance from platform professionals to laser-focus on the “write stuff” for your needs.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that ghostwriters aren’t fantastic for that unexpected crunch time — you know, when that big project is looming — but planning ahead takes a lot of stress out of the equation.

There’s no time like the present — get started today and discover the perfect writer for your brand. You’ll be glad you did the next time you’re facing down a deadline and your in-house team is running on coffee fumes.

The post Ghostwriters: The Secret to Maximizing Your In-House Writing Team appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What does all that have to do with editing? Everything.

Businesses tend to pony up for copywriting services without too much hesitation, but when it comes to the other two tiers in the content marketing system (editing and quality assurance), the ROI isn’t always so easy to identify. A good writer should be able to forge a cohesive message, work in the right keywords, and arrange words in an entertaining and accessible manner, but even the best scribes benefit from a keen eye and the digital version of a big fat red pen.

Investing in copy editing services is like supercharging your copywriter; their talents are suddenly magnified and, at the same time, given extra focus until your vision is expertly tailored for maximum connection, conversion, and engagement.

Crossing I’s and Dotting Your T’s

See what I did there…? Seriously though, as potent as great content can be, web copy or blogs marred by typos and grammatical oopsies can be just as potent — albeit in a decidedly negative fashion.

Editors are the gatekeepers who swoop in and clean up any literary detritus accidentally left behind by the creative types. Some writers are technically brilliant; others are stellar at generating compelling concepts but wouldn’t know an infinitive from a gerund.

A talented editor ensures that you’re never called out on social media for an oh-so-egregious your vs. you’re error (and we all know how forgiving those eagle-eyed commenters can be) or surprised by awkward copy that makes your new site launch less than perfect.

I can practically hear the “but what about Grammarly?” protests already, and it’s true that there are tons of online editing tools that will catch basic errors and keep you from inserting commas willy-nilly, but AI editors are deeply flawed too.

Grammarly flags every instance of passive voice with admirable enthusiasm but eliminating those completely will likely cause your content to read aggressive or robotic. Other times you’ll intentionally use colloquialisms or grammatically incorrect language to make a point or reinforce a specific voice; Grammarly can’t recognize tone and giggle at cheeky reference the way a real editor can.

When you’re commissioning content for a live audience, you should hire a live editor to review it.

A Quick Review: Two Types of Editors

The confusion over why you need an editor when spellcheck is so darned effective (not) is probably at least partially connected to the misconception that an editor is an editor is an editor.

Nope.

A copyeditor is the hawk-eyed specialist who pores over things like parallelism and punctuation. They can typically rattle off the finer points of Chicago style or AP guidelines with the greatest of ease, and their ability to spot even the tiniest typo is legendary.

A strategic content editor, on the other hand, is your audience’s representative during content creation. Your customers have wants, needs, concerns, and questions. They have pain points that must be addressed and preferences in terms of visual components. Your editor looks not so much at how a piece is written, but at how it reads. Does it tick all the boxes attached to your brand persona? Does it slot into your overall content marketing strategy? Is it useful? Will your audience care?

A copyeditor is valuable; a strategic content editor is priceless.

Ann Gynn, editorial consultant for the Content Marketing Institute, defines these two types of editors this way: “Strategic editors (or someone who has that role) are critical to ensuring first that the content meets the needs of the audience and the company. Second, this editor can review and edit the piece to ensure the content is written appropriately — it puts the topic in the relevant context, includes pertinent details (and excludes unrelated ones), is accurate, and explains the topic in a way that the audience can understand and wants to read/consume.”

She goes on to say, “Then, this editor can smooth the rough edges, refine its structure, and make it audience ready. A line editor or proofreader who is fresh to the copy will be able to catch grammatical and style errors more easily.” As the strategic editor for CMI, she focuses on making sure that the content published speaks to the brand’s audience and meets the company’s business goals and needs.

With the rapid evolution of technology, we’re now also seeing what you might call a third type — AI-based editors. Cynthia Spiers, who heads up content and digital at Acrolinx, relies on human content creators, but then everything is put through the company’s content optimization platform. “Powered by artificial intelligence, it ensures the content we produce is aligned to our content strategy. That means that the platform understands our standards for brand, style, tone, and terminology, and it evaluates our content against those standards,” she reports.

Here’s the Sad Part

We heard from more than 50 companies on the subject of how critical an editor is to the content creation process, and more than half of them don’t understand that there are different types of editors. In fact, they view editors as little more than human spell-checkers. These are brands that are missing out.

Shelby Rogers, content marketing manager for Solodev and DigitalUS, sums things up quite nicely on this front: “I’ve seen on a handful of reputable marketing resources that editing should be an afterthought, and I cringe each time. Clearly, no one thought to edit that piece of ridiculous advice. Editing — both prescriptively and conceptually — plays a massive role in our content creation.”

Highlighting Your Differentiator

Brands get ahead by showcasing whatever makes them different from their competitors. That much you probably already know, but the how of this whole scenario is harder to pinpoint. Some C-level suits turn to a strategist, but marketing mastermind Seth Godin backs a different approach.

According to Godin, the key to building a better brand media property is to avoid playing it safe and instead figure out how to make your content more interesting. “You need editors, not brand managers,” says Godin, “who will push the envelope to make the thing go forward.”

Good editors are strategic and largely responsible for driving results. Have a specific business goal in mind? Editors shape drafts to better conform to the task at hand. When your messaging threatens to meander away from the point, an editor can step in and tweak the content until it better adheres to the directive. Concerned that your core values aren’t reflected in your home page? Editors also look over content to see whether you’ve had a chance to shine.

There is such a thing as flawless content that is also lifeless. Cold copy never drives traffic. Bring on an editor who has a feel for your brand’s heart and soul and you have another person on your team who’s dedicated to capturing the spirit of your message rather than just joylessly adhering to the style guide.

The Importance of Consistency

The modern editor isn’t just a proofreader with an attitude but a smart and savvy brand tactician that knows how to wield content on a way that fuels max ROI. When you’re churning out content on the regular – and by all accounts you should be – it can be tempting to try and be all things to all people. Don’t.

Random acts of marketing are disorienting, and a disoriented audience isn’t inspired to take action. It’s fine to have blog posts, newsletters, emails, eBooks, white papers, case studies, and social posts all in various stages of development and publication, but each type of content needs to relate to each to each other and back to a central strategy for any of it to make sense. Editors are big-picture people who monitor flow, delivery, and cohesion, asking for rewrites or revisions and rallying the troops so that everything that arrives in your inbox commands the right kind of attention not just separately but also as a whole.

As Lisa Barone, Chief Marketing Office for New York-based creative agency Overit, puts it, “It’s great for content to be well-written and grammatically correct, but if it doesn’t connect to the larger marketing strategy than it isn’t truly serving its purpose.” Her content editors are tasked with upholding strategy and brand standards and ensuring a high level of quality control.

Barone goes on to say, “A good editor is someone well-versed in the industry and larger business goals who can help guide a writer to make sure he or she is touching on the important aspects of a topic, that they are finding the right way to engage, that they are using terms with correct context (not just grammatically correct), and that they are seeding content for reader shares from the very onset. There is a lot more to content than simply words on a page and a good editor can help guide this process.”

At Crowd Content, we utilize a three-tier editorial system that funnels content from the writing stage through editing and QA, so our clients get the best of copyediting and that strategic eye. You get exponentially more attention, and those extra steps often translate into content that sells faster and reaches farther. In other words, it fuses the talents of our visionary writers, editors and reviewers into a dynamic, multitasking Transformer-like entity that could very well save the world. Or at least give your brand the market share it deserves.

The post Are Editors Essential to Your Content Marketing Success? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

• Pens
• T-shirts
• Notebooks
• USB sticks
• Lanyards
• Keychains
• Stress balls

I should probably mention pens twice.

These are all great items to pick up and are often good to bring back to the office and share among your colleagues. That said, when we decided to exhibit at SMX Advanced last month in Seattle, I was determined that we’d hand out something a bit different that didn’t ring true to the classic swag cliche.

With that in mind — and given the fact I’m a major dog mom — I decided that we’d give out something that attendees’ fur babies could enjoy.

After a bit of searching, I found these awesome dog bandannas:

I must say, we were a bit unsure about this decision up until the moment the first rush hit our booth. Fortunately, many dog parents were in attendance, and it was great to make friends while chatting about our doggos.

Reasons why this swag worked:

• It’s unique and memorable
• Great conversation starter or subject changer
• Three people took one for their child (multipurpose?)

When we handed these out to attendees at the show, we also asked them to send us pictures of their dogs wearing them…because, why not?

I was overjoyed to see some of our new friends sending their pictures in, posting them on Instagram and Facebook, and I’m happy to share them with you now.

Here Are The Dogs of SMX

The post Introducing the Dogs of SMX appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Finding a trusted content partner is a crucial part of unlocking a brilliantly successful future, but zeroing in on the right contractor is harder than it seems. You’re about to put your brand’s image and online communication in someone else’s hands. Do you know if you’re making the right decision?

Some 91 percent of B2B marketers use content in their strategies, and 85 percent of B2C marketers do the same. Of those few marketers not currently incorporating content, 54 percent have plans to launch soon. Content marketing is hot, and where there’s heat there are tons of agencies and platforms eager to get a cut of the profit.

The key to wading your way through the noise and finding a content partner you can trust is knowing what questions to ask and what answers will likely serve you best.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”d7_4j” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Here are the 6 questions you should ask before hiring a #content partner. [/ctt]

1. What is the Production Process?

There’s an old saying that advises “you don’t want to see how the sausage is made,” but this is one time that a behind-the-scenes peek does a body good. You need to know how your content is being produced and who is managing the project while it’s in progress. Is a 20-something recent grad with little to no practical experience in charge of your account? Or is it an expert editor with a flair for content strategy and an eye for detail?

Project managers who are familiar with both the writer and client side of things are better able to convey instructions, interpret feedback, facilitate an efficient and effective onboarding process, anticipate needs and make recommendations when appropriate.

More from Meghan: Holder of the Content Marketing Budget? Here are 3 Awesome Ways to Spend It in 2018

2. Does the Prospective Content Partner Have Any References?

Looking for a content team with big-name experience? Everyone and their dog says they’ve worked with the biggest Fortune 500 companies, and sure, that seems impressive, but in what capacity did they serve? What kind of content did they produce? Is the relationship current? If not, why did the contract end? Did they mess it up?

You ask your in-house hires for references alongside their resume, so why wouldn’t you expect the same credential check and character testimonials from the company about to get custody of your content? Ask for the contact information of a couple current clients (some may subject to an NDA agreement, but not all of them), and you’ll find answers to all your burning questions.

• Listen to see if the reference offers enthusiastic feedback or canned phrasing.
• Ask what type of content they purchased and how they felt the deliverables measured up.
• Are they happy with their account manager?
• Has work ever been late? If so, why?

3. What’s Their Take on Scale v. Quality?

Content marketing isn’t a one-and-done deal. Even if you have a stellar strategy in place when you launch your business, your marketing efforts will need to evolve as your operations expand — in fact, one often drives the other. Scaling up your content efforts is both exciting and expensive, so finding a way to do it right truly matters.

Ask your potential content partner how they handle volume. If you suddenly surge from 20 articles a month to 200, what systems are in place to oversee the change? How will deliverables be structured? Are there enough writers, editors and admins to handle your new workload in stride?

4. How Will They Manage Your Writing Team?

Some smaller-scale projects only require a single writer, but when you’re ordering up a few thousand product descriptions or contracting weekly blog posts for each of your dozen franchise sites, you’ll more than likely have a team of content experts assigned to your account. There is a bevy of pros to that approach, including more access to fresh ideas and the ability to generate mass content in shorter periods of time, but some important new questions crop up as well:

• How will you ensure cohesion of your brand message and voice?
• What measures will be in place to prevent duplicate topics and boilerplating?
• How will quality be monitored and maintained so that it doesn’t tank a few months into the contract? Are there editor and quality control steps? Or does content go straight from the writer to the client?

Learn More: The Struggles with Content Planning – and How to Overcome Them

5. What Experience Do the Writers Have?

A talented writer can do some research and generate an interesting take on almost any topic, but if your company is in a particularly nuanced niche or an industry with a ton of high-level lingo then you may need a writer or two who specializes in your field. Some companies — an online magazine with multiple columns, for instance — require a bank of writers to cover a variety of topics relevant to their expertise, and diversity becomes much more important.

The last thing you want to do is hop from platform to platform or agency to agency in search of the right writer for the right piece. Ask your potential content partner what their writer roster looks like, how writers are vetted and whether your account manager will play matchmaker when you’re ready to build your team.

6. What is Their Track Record in Terms of Time Management?

When deadlines loom large, you can be sure there’s a writer chugging coffee and furiously typing as the clock ticks down. That may be life as they know it in the crazy world of freelance writers, but your company has a schedule to stick to and blowing a deadline could force you to appear less than reliable to your own clients.

Ask your content agency or platform contact how they manage timelines and determine the pacing of a project. How long does turnaround typically take? For larger projects, will you get everything at once or will there be a series of milestones to keep everyone on track? What happens if something is submitted late, and how often does that happen?

You don’t have time to micromanage writers or proofread press releases, but spending a few hours investigating your list of content partners could prove to be exponentially beneficial. Content marketing costs less than paid search, generates more than triple the number of leads compared to outbound marketing and turns boring blogs into lead-generation factories. All you have to do is connect with a platform that knows how to turn words into wins.

Keep Reading: Content Seasonality – How Far Out Should You Plan Your Calendar?

The post 6 Crucial Questions for Finding a Content Partner You Can Trust appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of words, but what you might not know is that I play favorites. I don’t really care whether you serve me guacamole or salsa with my chips, but I’ll happily shout from the hilltops about my favorite adjectives and verbs — seriously, give me half a chance and I’ll be hollering. But amidst all that love and affection there is some caution, too, mostly in regards to some of the industry buzzwords that keep coming up time and time again.

One of the biggest “hmmm” bits of terminology flying around right now? Thought leadership.

People love to talk about thought leadership, but few people can accurately explain what the phrase means. Even fewer people embody thought leadership in a way that means anything.

That’s not good — not for the industry, the influencer or marketer in question or for the reader.

See, thought leadership is all about content, authenticity and value, wrapped up in a pretty bow and delivered with a generous yet balanced sprinkle of confidence and humility.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”209Mg” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Thought leadership involves originality, but that originality has to be grounded in reality. It either makes sense or you lose face, and when you lose face, you lose your readers’ trust.[/ctt]

What is Thought Leadership?

Think of your audience as thousands of pilgrims who are lost in the desert. They’re determined to find an oasis, but they’re dying from thirst as they struggle aimlessly through the endless miles of sand. You know where they can find water. Better than that, you’ve got an ingenious way for those pilgrims to pump, clean and store that water so they never go thirsty again.

No one cares if you went to school to study the history of water divination or if you spent 10 years studying under Bob Mapovitch, the guy who charted all the known underground water sources in the Sahara.

What people care about is that you have an answer to their question and that answer is new, exciting, unique and effective.

That’s thought leadership.

Being Unique Versus Being Insane

The difference factor can be difficult to sort out. You want to be a thought leader. and that requires a singular point of view. But it feels like every great idea has already been discussed, dissected and immortalized in print, art or via a 2 a.m. Tweet, so you decide to get a little zany. Maybe you could bomb the desert and see if the exploding sand reveals a long-forgotten well? Perhaps you can tell people to collect their own set of Infinity Stones and use them to reveal a life-giving water source.

Sound nuts? That’s because it is. Thought leadership involves originality, but that originality has to be grounded in reality. It either makes sense or you lose face, and when you lose face, you lose your readers’ trust.

Originality is hard to come by. If it wasn’t, everyone would be a Steve Jobs-level innovator. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by making it square, try to rethink originality altogether:

• Use a new medium to breathe life into an older, staler concept
• Draw on your own experiences to find an exciting solution to a pesky problem
• Explain an existing solution from a different angle

More from Meghan: Holder of the Content Marketing Budget? Here are 3 Awesome Ways to Spend it in 2018

Why Does Thought Leadership Matter?

If you’re interested in thought leadership, chances are you’re building or revamping a brand. Thought leadership and successful branding are forever intertwined; it’s nearly impossible to build a business based off of a hackneyed concept or without a forward-thinking solution.

Become a thought leader, and you shove your expertise into the spotlight. Nice, right? But people don’t fall in love with companies because their CEOs are oh-so smart. They love them because the CEO developed a product or concept that’s irresistible and showcased it in a way that’s interesting and attention-grabbing.

The amount of content hitting the internet is mind-boggling. Every 60 seconds, people:

• Hit “like” on Facebook 4,166,667 times
• Like Instagram posts 2,430,555 times
• Upload some 300 hours of video on YouTube
• Send 347,222 Tweets

Add to that more than 83.6 million posts that hit WordPress each month — and that’s just WordPress!! — and content has reached near-cacophonic levels.

Thought leadership is how you initiate a conversation that can steer the entire consumer journey. It’s how you rise above the noise and get noticed for the right reasons.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”B4GxU” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Thought leadership is how you initiate a conversation that can steer the entire consumer journey. It’s how you rise above the noise and get noticed for the right reasons. [/ctt]

What Thought Leadership is Not

There are some muddy waters here, and it can be difficult to wade through the muck and mire to find what thought leadership really is. To aid in your journey, get a firm understanding of what content leadership is not:

• Regurgitation. Anyone can act like a parrot, but few people want to listen to one. If your content simply summarizes the ideas put forth by others, you’re not anywhere in the neighborhood of thought leadership.
• Confirmation. You’re not trying to remind people of what they already know, but rather inspire them to see an existing problem in a new light.
• Flippant. Jokes are great. I love a giggle-inducing blog post or a wry meme just as much as the next person (probably more), but at the heart of thought leadership is a metric ton of meaning. A dime-store solution to a major problem isn’t even worth the ten cents you’ll spend on it. A thoughtful, purposeful, useful fix, on the other hand, is practically priceless.
• Boring. If you’re doing thought leadership correctly, it’ll stop people mid-scroll. This is how difference-makers capture a following. They don’t wait for someone to discover their genius; they use that genius to make something no one can ignore, then they deliver it in a way that grabs the reader by the eyeballs.

Keep Reading: The Struggles with Content Planning and How to Overcome Them

Thought Leadership at Work

Perhaps the best way to understand thought leadership is to see it in action.

Let’s take a look at Gary Vaynerchuck, the former wine retailer turned digital marketing pro is a millionaire many times over. Sure, that fortune started with his family’s liquor business, but things really took off for Gary Vee when he started Vayner Media and began offering social media-based advice in his now-signature off-the-cuff, no-holds-barred style. He tells it like it is, and he often peppers his delivery with curse words and blunt truths. He’s solving people’s problems with zero apologies for his methodology. Are his ideas new? Not necessarily, but he’s presenting solutions in a way his audience understands, many of them for the first time — and there is real value there.

I could give you a dozen examples of thought leadership in the real world, but I think you get the picture. Now you need to put it into practice. This is how you’ll clamber over the competition to sit at the top of your industry. Be smart. Be beneficial. Be a thought leader. The world is waiting for you to tell them what they need to do next. What do you have to say for yourself?

The post Thought Leadership in Content: What It Really Means appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Are you a 58 percenter? Have you often found yourself staring into the editorial abyss or crying onto your jumbled desk calendar? Would you give your left earlobe for some insight into content planning strategies that actually work?

Fear not, friends. You’re so not alone.

Look, I’ll be honest. I’m an old hat at content planning but I’m still not perfect. If you’re like me, choosing what you’re having for dinner tomorrow night is an epic feat, so the idea of laying out your content calendar months or even a year ahead of time is enough to make you duck back under the covers and watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine GIFs in peace. Andy Samberg – swoon. To achieve any measure of content planning success, it feels like you need to be part psychic and part thought leader with a whole lot of educated guessing thrown in.

The best approach? Experts agree that top-notch content planning is an ever-changing combination of solid strategy and calculated room for growth. Add a splash of intuitiveness and a shot or two of tequila (your mileage may vary), and you just may have a recipe for audience engagement.

Laying it Out Long Term

Most major publishers plan their content out a few months in advance. That’s an ideal timeline for content you know won’t change. Scheduling your Top 10 Sugar Cookie Recipes and Gift Guide for Wookie Enthusiasts posts to drop right after Thanksgiving or posting your ode to all things Irish in early March is pretty much always going to work. Marketing Land refers to these types of content as“time-based” and “event-based.” Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and imagine what they’d like to see pop up on their smartphones. What would draw them in? What would make other publishers and news outlets take notice and share?

The same goes for evergreen content that’s going to be interesting and useful no matter when it’s read. A buyer’s guide for blenders might be slightly more useful right around Mother’s Day (kidding), but people shop for small kitchen appliances year-round. Put up the initial post when it makes sense, then reshare on social media when the topic becomes particularly relevant again.

Worried about getting out of sync with your readers? Don’t. First of all, you’ll be balancing out this long-play content with more timely stuff (see below), but there’s another factor at work. As an editorial master, content guru, chief strategist and lead planner with all the power, you’re not just following the crowd, you’re telling them where to go. Prep for Vogue’s iconic September issue starts 6-8 months in advance. Are they worried about relevance? On the contrary, they’re deciding what will be relevant and it works because the editorial staff is supremely confident.

More from Meghan: Holder of the Content Marketing Budget? Here Are 3 Awesome Ways to Spend It

Space for Special Features

Here’s the thing: If you plan all your content out ahead of time, your blog is going to get staler than an extra-large bucket of discount movie theater popcorn. To be an authority, you also need to create content that oozes urgency. Of-the-moment references, breaking news, day-of reactions — all of these things teach readers that you have your finger on the throbbing pulse of society (or of your industry, as the case may be), and that lesson will drive traffic in some pretty impressive ways.

Posts that go from ideation to creation to publication in hours or days have a certain magic to them. Readers can smell the importance. They’ll feel the buzz, feed off it and begin to associate your brand with being “in the know.” That can be a key asset when it comes to establishing and/or reinforcing your authority. Want to be an influencer? Then this kind of content is imperative.

Looking at an Overview

I like a three-pronged approach to calendar creation (though, to be completely transparent, I’m constantly tweaking my strategy and finding new ways to be more efficient — or to compensate for procrastination). Brands that post 16 or more blogs per month more than triple their traffic compared to low-posting competitors, but how you allocate those blog posts matters too.

• Start by plugging in seasonal features: spring cleaning, summer vacation ideas, back-to-school sales, how to winterize your home.
• Next, add in your monthly features and regular columns. This could be the newsletter you send out the first of every month or the bi-weekly “Ask Arnie” Twitter chat that’s taken the interwebs by storm.
• Finally, leave a little space for spontaneous acts of marketing. These could be a simple as writing up a reaction to a news item or creating a day-of ad drumming up interest in the act you just booked into your nightclub for this weekend. By building in wiggle room, you’re ensuring that you get a full calendar without being the company that overloads everyone’s news feeds with a motormouth-like deluge.

Here’s the kicker: Content planning is a lot like being a Kanye West fan. Just when you think things are plugging along nicely, something happens, and your entire belief system is suddenly thrown into chaos. You have to be able to roll with the punches, and having a firm foundation — those long-play content ideas we discussed above — is your key to remaining creatively available and strategically open to those last-minute topics that resonate with trend-hungry consumers.

Remember, the majority of marketers create at least one new piece of content every single day. If you don’t fancy living life tethered to your keyboard, you better start thinking ahead.

Keep Reading: Scaling Content Creation: What Can Go Wrong and How To Mitigate the Risks

The post Content Seasonality: How Far Out Should You Plan Your Calendar? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

First, take your content strategy’s temperature. What worked last year? What didn’t? Then, armed with that knowledge (and a plan as to how you’ll up your game over the next 365 days), decide how you’ll allocate this year’s finances for maximum impact and ROI.

Not sure where to start? I’ve got you covered with three smart ways to spend your money and win the race for conversion and customer loyalty in 2018.

Video Marketing

In a 2016 study conducted by Buffer, 83% of marketers said that video creation would be at the top of their no-budget, unlimited-resource wish list. Those marketers are obviously zeroed in on the power of video content, and more than 40% are specifically interested in live video. It’s not surprising that industry experts are going gaga for moving pictures; we all shift gears in response to public opinion, and right now, the public is drawn to video like a cat to a canary.

• More than 80% of people with Twitter accounts use the platform to watch videos
• There are a billion users on YouTube
• 500 million people watch videos on Facebook on a daily basis
• Marketers who use video grow almost 50% faster than those who don’t

More importantly, though, is how effective video is at encouraging audience engagement. At a time when brands are practically begging consumers to sit up and take notice, video makes an immediate connection that is proving to be more powerful than plain text or static imagery.

Why is that?

Well, there are several possible reasons. Personally, I love the written word, but I’m always crazy busy. It’s hard to do more than skim a lengthy blog post when I’m also trying to juggle my own to-do list, client emails and actually hit the grocery store so I don’t starve, but I can watch a video while I’m standing in the TSA line or waiting for my dry cleaning.

Live video also inspires urgency. You’ve got a direct line to a knowledgeable influencer who’s offering up their authority on a silver (screen) platter. Facebook says that sense of immediacy leads to triple the watch time and more than 10 times the engagement.

Live video can be used for/by:

• Q&As
• Product demonstrations
• Real estate agents taking viewers on a tour of a newly listed property
• Event companies showcasing their work
• Bands broadcasting a show
• Coaches sharing key tips for the day or week

It can also be gated so people can only access it if they provide information or join a private Facebook group, or it can be open to all; the first approach is great for nurturing an existing brand-customer connection, while the latter generates fresh leads.

There are plenty of options for video creation, too. Live is often best left to someone intimately connected to the brand while you can turn to your own team or outsource the creation of pre-recorded videos. Either way, you’re using one of the biggest tools in the marketing universe to shine a light on your authority and your brand’s authenticity, and that’s something your audience can’t help but gravitate toward.

More From Meghan: How To Build a Brilliant Content Strategy In 6 Easy Steps

Voice Search

It doesn’t matter if you have extra money in the budget or just enough to get by, you have to earmark some of those funds for exploring what’s hot in marketing tech. Trends are unfolding and shaping B2B and B2C communication as we speak — quite literally — and it all sounds a lot like Alexa.

The idea of voice-enabled search as part of your content marketing strategy can seem way too Blade Runner to actually be practical, but — surprise! — Blade Runner is set in 2019, so the future is now.

We’ve graduated from treating Alexa like a glorified DJ to having the option of asking Amazon’s #1 robotic know-it-all how to perform CPR, the best way to grill ribs or which kind of dog is the most kid-friendly. All of these queries are questions usually plugged into a search engine, but voice search allows for an animated, engaging response that establishes an instant connection.

There’s no greater endorsement of this brave new marketing world than some of the top marketers themselves. No less than the great Neil Patel and Eric Siu have taken to Alexa, offering their subscribers 10-minute daily doses of actionable marketing tips and expert advice. Ask Alexa for digital marketing tricks or inquire as to what’s in the news, and you’ll get snippets of content that are easy to soak up while you sip your morning espresso.

Duane Forrester, Yext’s VP of Industry Insights and author of the e-book, “How Voice Search Changes Everything”, talks about voice-activated content as a way to empower businesses and manage data. Software is becoming more and more complex, causing the nuances of voice search to deepen as well. As the voice search landscape expands and more developers and technology companies jump into the fray, voice search is poised to shift from an optional addition to an essential marketing component.

How can you start incorporating voice search? Forrester encourages marketers to dive on in: “If you really want to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes, to really learn what their journey is like, you’ll buy the main voice-enabled devices on the market today. Set them up and use them all day, every day. This practice will uncover new features and highlight new opportunities for you to align with the customer’s journey.”

Outsourcing

Wish you could clone yourself? The ability to make like Dolly the sheep is almost definitely not in your 2018 marketing budget, but you can create some workers in your image if you take the time to strategically outsource.

Here’s why I say “strategically outsource:”

• Not all freelancers are the same in terms of quality, reliability and skillset (just as not all employees are identically competent)
• Sometimes bringing on an independent contractor is the right choice; other times, partnering with an intermediary such as a content marketing platform or agency will take a lot of the vetting, interview process, management and editing off your plate
• The more information you give your outsourced talent, the more effective, interesting and on-brand the content will ultimately be

Building a team of contracted marketers, strategists, graphic designers and content writers is a phenomenal way to expand your bandwidth without taxing your current infrastructure. When you hire full-time in-house employees, you’re taking on another responsibility. There’s insurance to consider, sick days and paid leave, 401Ks and payroll tax — it all adds up to paying a lot more than you’d dole out for outsourced talent.

Contracting a freelancer content writer is like playing Super Mario Bros. and powering up with a mushroom or fire flower. You only take advantage of the extra help when you absolutely need it, which is nice, because then you’re not running around with your overalls on fire when business is otherwise quiet. Outsource the tasks your core group of employees can’t tackle on their own and you’re revving up productivity without burdening your bottom line.

Real talk: content marketing costs a staggering 62% less than traditional marketing but returns triple the number of leads. That’s the very embodiment of value. Don’t waste your time, money, or energy on strategies that don’t work. Think smart, outsource smarter, and use all the advancements flooding our exciting industry to give your brand the boost it so richly deserves.

Keep Reading: The Struggles With Content Planning and How to Overcome Them

The post Holder of the Content Marketing Budget? Here Are 3 Awesome Ways to Spend It In 2018 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Content planning is the foundation for everything good and pretty that comes next for your brand. You can buy beautiful words, but they don’t mean anything if no one sees them. A well-stocked blog only matters if the posts are cohesive and relevant to your readers.

So yes. Content planning matters. But it’s also hard. The struggle is real but so are the solutions. Luckily, I’m a veteran of content combat, and I can show you how to win the war (or just beat out your competition) by strategizing your way to the top.

Setting Goals

If you’re the type to set out on road trips without a clear destination in mind, then this doesn’t apply to you. But if you want to give your content marketing the best chance of success, you need to figure out what your goals are and put strategies and tactics in place to support them.

You could:

• Attract an audience
• Build your authority
• Drive engagement
• Generate leads
• Support sales
• Increase awareness of your brand or a specific product or service
• Boost conversions

The smart play is pick one primary goal and, if applicable, a few secondary goals. Don’t try to do it all your first time out.

Identifying the Who

Would you pour out your heart in a love letter without having an idea who the recipient was going to be? Okay, maybe if you were starring on the Bachelor or mass texting on Tinder, but most consumers prefer a more personal (and less intense) approach. That means writing tailored content that address the needs and wants of a defined customer base.

Figuring out “the Who” can be a pain because it’s not always who you think it is. Huge Fortune 500 companies might have separate Whos for each division or even each product. Smaller companies are more likely to have one Who that’s interested in much of their catalog. Agencies could have hundreds of Whos once all clients are taken into account. Decide which applies to you and then put together a buyer persona that acts as a mock-up of Joe Customer — where does he live, what does he do, how much money does he make, does he like espresso or black diner coffee… pretend you’re Joe and imagine a day in his life.

More From Meghan: How to Build a Brilliant Content Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

Deciding Which Type of Content to Create

We tend to associate content marketing with blogs, but those posts are just the beginning. Content can be anything from your email drips to podcasts to product descriptions. Landing pages count too, as does your social media feed and the ebook download you make available in exchange for someone’s email address. All of these content types are good; not all of them are good for you.

For instance, Facebook Live is huge right now and video can be a powerful way to stop people in their tracks, spur enthusiasm, and convey personality… unless you wilt at the sight of a camera lens and swallow your tongue in front of a crowd (anonymous and internet-based though they may be).

Not every format is going to be an ideal fit for every brand or every situation, so it helps to have a big bag of tricks that can be raided whenever the need arises. SEO and marketing agencies run into this dilemma quite frequently – they’ve unintentionally become a one-trick pony because their in-house content writer has tons of blog experience but hasn’t ever formatted a white paper.

Learn your limits, don’t be afraid to outsource, and always focus on the type of content that’s going to get the job done. Anything else is too much icing and nobody will even remember that you wanted them to taste the cake.

The Endless Need for Ideation

Give me a blank slate and tell me to brainstorm and I’ll give you 1001 ways to procrastinate. Ideation is hard, especially if all the burden of turning on mental light bulbs is sitting on your shaky shoulders.

When in doubt, give your cerebral cortex some stimulation:

• Google your topic or even just a keyword and see what others are writing about
• Do a topic search on Quora and use the questions as inspiration
• Poll your social media networks to see what they want to know
• Riff on something in the news
• Hire a writer or team or writers who’ll bring their own perspectives and ideas

Bonus tip: If you’re going to brainstorm, brainstorm in bulk. Become the Costco of content conjuring and write up a year’s worth of titles in one go. It’s a lot easier than going through the motions every week and coming away with just a single subject. Trust me.