#making the content engaging and easy to digest. He also includes helpful visuals
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#The Ultimate Guide to Successful Rental Property Investing: A Bloggers Perspective#I recently finished reading The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner#and I must say it's a fantastic resource for anyone looking to delve into the world of real estate investing. Turner#an experienced investor and co-host of the BiggerPockets podcast#shares practical advice#strategies#and insights that can help both novice and experienced investors build wealth through rental properties. The book is divided into several#each focusing on a specific aspect of rental property investing. Turner covers a wide range of topics#from the fundamentals of real estate investing to more advanced strategies for growing and managing a rental property portfolio. One of the#you'll find valuable information and actionable tips in this book. One of the key takeaways from The Book on Rental Property Investing is#understand the local rental market#and calculate the potential returns on a property before making a purchase. He also provides practical guidance on negotiating deals#managing properties effectively#and dealing with common challenges that landlords may face. Throughout the book#Turner shares personal anecdotes and real-world examples to illustrate his points#making the content engaging and easy to digest. He also includes helpful visuals#case studies#and checklists that readers can refer to as they navigate their own rental property investments. Whether you're interested in buy-and-hold#house hacking#or Airbnb rentals#there's something in this book for everyone. One of the aspects of The Book on Rental Property Investing that I found particularly valuabl#establishing a budget#and managing personal finances in a responsible manner. By laying the groundwork for financial stability and understanding the basics of in#readers can set themselves up for success in the world of rental property investing. Overall#I highly recommend The Book on Rental Property Investing to anyone who is interested in building wealth through real estate. Brandon Turner#real-world experience#and accessible writing style make this book a must-read for both aspiring and seasoned real estate investors. Whether you're looking to sup#build a retirement nest egg#or achieve financial freedom through rental properties#this book provides the tools and knowledge you need to get started on your investment journey. So
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Which are the Best YouTube Channels for MBBS 1st Year Students?
Embarking on your MBBS journey is both thrilling and challenging. With vast amounts of information to absorb, having access to the right educational resources is crucial. YouTube has become an invaluable platform for medical students, offering high-quality lectures and tutorials that cater to various learning styles. Whether you're diving into anatomy, physiology, or biochemistry, here are some of the Best YouTube Channels for MBBS 1st-Year Students that can help you excel.
1. Dr. Preeti Tyagi
Dr. Preeti Tyagi is one of the Top Physiology Faculty in India and her YouTube channel provides high-quality physiology lectures. Her ability to simplify complex physiological processes has made her a favorite among MBBS 1st-year students. Dr. Tyagi's lectures are not only informative but also designed to help students build a strong foundation in physiology. For those looking to complement their studies with top-notch resources, Dr. Preeti Tyagi’s channel is a must-follow.
2. Armando Hasudungan
Armando Hasudungan’s channel is renowned for its visually engaging hand-drawn diagrams. His videos are particularly helpful for understanding physiology and pathology, offering clear, concise explanations that make even the most challenging topics easier to digest. His unique approach caters to visual learners who appreciate detailed, step-by-step explanations.
3. Dr. Preeti Sharma
Dr. Preeti Sharma’s channel is a treasure trove of detailed lectures tailored specifically for medical students. Her content covers essential subjects like physiology, anatomy, and biochemistry. Known for her thorough explanations and practical approach, Dr. Preeti Sharma is a go-to resource for students looking for structured, in-depth learning.
4. Dr. Najeeb Lectures
Dr. Najeeb’s YouTube channel is legendary among medical students. With over 800 comprehensive videos, he simplifies complex concepts through detailed illustrations and clear explanations. Whether you need to grasp the basics of biochemistry or explore the intricacies of human anatomy, Dr. Najeeb’s channel is indispensable for MBBS 1st-year students.
5. Osmosis
Osmosis is a popular educational platform that offers concise, high-quality videos designed to make complex medical concepts more accessible. With a focus on anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry, Osmosis uses innovative teaching methods, including mnemonics and quizzes, to enhance learning and retention. It’s an excellent supplementary resource for MBBS students looking to reinforce their knowledge.
6. Kenhub
Kenhub specializes in anatomy, offering detailed video tutorials that break down each system of the body. Their step-by-step approach, coupled with high-quality 3D models, makes understanding anatomy much easier. For students who find anatomy particularly challenging, Kenhub’s focused content is a valuable resource.
7. Dr. Matt & Dr. Mike
Dr. Matt & Dr. Mike bring a fun, engaging approach to medical education. Their channel covers a broad spectrum of topics, including physiology and biochemistry, in a way that’s both educational and entertaining. Their videos are ideal for students who prefer learning with a touch of humor and a visual learning style.
8. Khan Academy Medicine
Khan Academy’s medicine section is a comprehensive resource that covers all major subjects for MBBS 1st-year students. The structured, easy-to-follow videos make complex topics accessible, ensuring that students can build a solid foundation in subjects like anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry.
9. The Noted Anatomist
The Noted Anatomist offers detailed videos that focus specifically on anatomy. Each video walks students through the anatomical structures of the body, making it easier to visualize and understand this challenging subject. The channel is particularly useful for practical exam preparation.
10. Medical Learning by Dr. Mukesh Bhatia
Dr. Mukesh Bhatia’s channel is popular among students for its detailed lectures and exam-focused content. Covering a wide range of subjects, including physiology, anatomy, and biochemistry, Dr. Bhatia’s videos are designed to help students deepen their understanding and perform well in exams.
Conclusion
For MBBS 1st-year students, finding the right educational resources can make a significant difference in your studies. These YouTube channels offer a wealth of knowledge, presented in various styles to suit different learning preferences. From comprehensive lectures to quick revision aids, these channels provide everything you need to master your subjects. Incorporating these resources into your study routine can help you excel in your MBBS journey. For those particularly focused on physiology, don't forget to check out Dr. Preeti Tyagi, a leading figure among the Top Physiology Faculty in India, and consider using the Best Physiology Mobile App to further enhance your learning experience.
Happy studying!
#medicaleducation#drpreetityagi#physiology#turningbrain#drpreetityagilectures#physiologylectures#mbbs#bestmedical#medicalstudents#anatomy
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Week 10 Activity: Reading Log #3
Graphic Novel
Citation: Telgemeier, Raina (2019). Guts. Scholastic.
Summary: This autobiographical graphic novel follows Raina throughout her fifth grade year and chronicles her experience with anxiety and digestive issues. Through therapy, Raina learns mindfulness techniques to help calm her anxiety and understand her own thoughts and feelings better. Though she keeps her experiences secret from her friends throughout most of the school year, she eventually opens up to them and finds that they are quite accepting of her in the end.
Comments: This graphic novel does an amazing job at realistically depicting the experience of anxiety. There are a few points throughout where Raina’s anxiety is visualized as a swarm of words (representing everything she fears) circling around her head with a green, sickly-looking background. I found this to be a very accurate depiction of what anxiety feels like, and believe it could help young readers with anxiety realize that they are not alone in their feelings. Though the cover of Guts is simple, it perfectly depicts the content of the story in the way that it displays a drawing of an anxious and sick looking face.
Library Use: I would definitely include this title in a display for Mental Health Awareness Month in May, as it does a great job of realistically and positively depicting the experience of going to therapy as a child.
Fantasy
Citation: Dahl, Roald (1961). James and the Giant Peach. Puffin.
Summary: This story follows James, a young boy who became an orphan and was forced to live with his two cruel aunts after his parents were eaten by a rhinoceros. One day, a mysterious old man offers James green glowing crystals and states that if he eats them, unbelievable things will happen to him. James ends up accidentally losing all the crystals after he spills them near a peach tree. As a result, the tree sprouts a peach which ends up growing larger and larger. James discovers a tunnel leading into the peach and climbs inside of it, where he meets a collection of bugs who, as a result of eating the spilled crystals, have grown into the size of humans and can now talk. James befriends the bugs and together they escape James’ cruel aunts by cutting the stem to the peach and allowing it to roll away into the ocean. It is then carried away by hundreds of seagulls and eventually lands in New York City, where James and the bugs end up living successful, happy lives.
Comments: According to Vardell, “The characters of fantasy are essential for the reader’s engagement with the story. It should be possible to identify with the main character(s), even if they’re not human” (235). This definitely applies to James and the Giant Peach’s collection of insect characters - they all have very human-like personalities and become James’ family when he has none. I also liked the way it combined fantastical elements (like talking, human-size bugs) with a sense of realism. For example, the bugs still retain their normal “bug functions” and these are sometimes used as points to move the plot forward, like when the spider and silkworm create strings to attach to the seagulls that carry the peach away.
Library Use: I think this would be a really fun book to do a reader’s theater activity with, as the characters are all full of personality and would be exciting for children to play. The fantastical elements of the story would allow the children taking part in readers theater to use their imaginations throughout the activity.
Non Fiction #1
Citation: Cherry-Paul, Sonja (2021). Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You. Little Brown.
Summary: This is a middle grade adaptation of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jayson Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. It tells the story of how racism originated in America over the past several centuries and explains how racism continues to affect America in the current day. It also discusses current antiracist movements such as Black Lives Matter, and provides strategies for young readers to identify and stop racist thoughts/feelings that they might carry themselves.
Comments: Cherry-Paul did an excellent job at adapting Reynolds and Kendi’s YA novel for a younger audience. Each chapter focuses on a specific subject, and these chapters contain visual elements such as illustrations and timelines to aid readers’ understanding. There is also a section at the end of each chapter where readers are prompted to “pause” and discuss/reflect on key ideas and themes they have learned. This book does a great job of not only explaining the complex history of racism in America in a way that is easy for young readers to understand, but also takes several opportunities to address the reader directly and has them confront and examine their own previously-held thoughts and beliefs.
Library Use: Though this book is one that middle-graders should be able to get through on their own, they will definitely get more out of it if an adult reads it alongside them and serves as a guide/discussion partner. For a library, it would make for a great book for a discussion group - the prompts at the end of each chapter can serve as prompts for the discussion and the librarian can serve as the guide/moderator.
Non Fiction #2
Citation: Kay, Katty; Shimpan, Claire; Riley, JillEllyn (2020). Living the Confidence Code: Real Girls. Real Stories. Real Confidence. HarperCollins.
Summary: This is a collection of stories from inspiring young women around the world who chronicle their successes, failures, and missions to make the world a better place. Some of the young women featured in this book include activist Greta Thurnberg and Paralympic athlete Haven Shepherd.
Comments: This collection of stories is inspiring and accessible for young readers. The format in which these stories are told switches up with each new story, keeping things fresh and interesting throughout. Some are told in interview-style, some as essays, and even some in the style of graphic novels. Along with the stories themselves, there are confidence tips included throughout for readers to apply to their own lives. At the end of the book, there are blank pages designed for the reader to write down their own story, which I thought was a nice touch.
Library Use: Since this book gives readers the option of telling their own story at the end, I think it would be fun for participants in a discussion group for this book to be able to each share their story with the rest of the group (if they feel comfortable to).
Ebook
Citation: Bogert-Spaniol, Megan (2015). 10 Little Kittens. Cantata Learning.
Summary: This interactive ebook introduces young children to baby animals and the sounds they make with a song that also has them count to 10 and back again.
Comments: This was one of the titles included in Capstone’s collection of interactive ebooks. I liked the way the first page provided a brief introduction to baby animals and prompted the reader to turn the page upon hearing the sound of a baby animal. The next pages consisted of the “10 Little Kittens” song, with each new verse introducing a new baby animal and the sound it makes. Each word on the page lights up as the narrator reads/sings it, allowing children to follow along. Though this ebook is simple in terms of its interactivity, it is useful in teaching very young children early concepts around animals, sounds, and numbers.
Library Use: This interactive ebook reminded me a lot of library story time events designed for young children, especially the song included within the book. I would feature this ebook and ones like it as part of a “story time at home” collection, so children have the opportunity to get some of the fun and educational moments these story time events provide outside of the library.
Educational App/Game/Website
Citation: checkology.org. News Literacy Zone.
Summary: This news literacy site provides interactive lessons which teach students how to separate fact from fiction when it comes to information they see in the news, on television, or on social media.
Comments: We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by information from a variety of sources. Because the majority of this information is able to reach us without being fact-checked, we are vulnerable to being swayed by misinformation. This is especially true for young people, who have grown up entirely under this kind of information landscape. This website is incredibly useful in helping students look at information from a critical perspective. It contains several lessons on topics such as InfoZones and Misinformation. I did the InfoZones lesson, which separates information into six different purposes: to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to sell, to provoke, and to document. The lesson defines each of these purposes and has students watch video clips and look at screenshots from news articles or social media sites, and then identify the purpose of each piece of information. The videos included in the lesson are fairly short, as to not risk the learner losing interest. Some of the example pieces of information cover topics that middle/high schoolers will find relevant, such as school lunch pricing issues. It is free to register for checkology and take several of the lessons, though some content is behind a paywall.
Library Use: This is definitely something I would promote as a librarian, since news literacy is a topic that I feel is incredibly important for young people to be knowledgable in these days. I would probably use it as an element of a larger news/information literacy program that focuses on teaching young people (probably late elementary-middle school age) how to fact check and identify misinformation.
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(1) What was the genre model you used as a reference point for your interview blog? Attach a link to it here.
The below is the interview that I will be referring to as a genre model. I really like the design structure of it. It is broken down very chronologically and well-thought out. In terms of style it has a very relaxed, laid back, and straightforward tone. It opens with a brief summary of who the artist is, and what he is known for, such as the style of his art and how his art became his career. The article also features multiple images of both the artist, and his artwork which gives the interview visual context and lots of media integration. After that, it goes into each question and answer. In terms of sourcing, the many different art pieces done by Lee are depicted and referenced. I really like the structure of first introducing the subject before diving into the interview questions. It was very clear and easy to comprehend.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/of-el-greco-and-emoticons-an-interview-with-artist-austin-lee-785675
(2) What was the style of your genre? Tone? Detail? And how did you model that in the presentation/packaging of your interview?
The style of my interview’s genre is very straightforward and to the point. Much like my genre model, I wanted my blog to be quick and easy to digest for the reader, and easy to follow along with. The tone of my genre is very relaxed and laid back. I did not want the reader to feel overwhelmed or confused. I achieved this relaxed tone by keeping the Q & As brief yet informative so that the reader can quickly take in the important points and information without having to sort through unnecessary text and fluff. My blog has a relaxed, laid back tone. In terms of detail, my interteview blog follows a similar structural breakdown to that of my genre model. I incorporated lots of media though the use of images, and followed a specifically thought out order of elements that would make the most sense. I certainly modeled this carefully organized, relaxed, straightforward presentation/packaging in my interview through the intention use of brief clarity and visual elements.
(3) What was the design of your genre? What was the look? The format? The use of media? How did you model that on your own?
The design of my genre is very minimalistic and clear, which was an intentional choice to fit with my straightforward tone. I designed my order of posts to be easy to follow and to make sense as the reader scrolled through my blog. I integrated the appropriate media in the appropriate spot so that it would fit with the correlating question or introductory description.
(4) How did the digital delivery mechanism of a blog affect your design?
The digital delivery mechanism affected the design of my blog mostly by choosing an appropriate theme that fit my style design and sourcing. I wanted a minimal, clean, and simple theme that allowed the reader to engage with the content of the blog effectively and efficiently. I also had to think about the digital realm of scrolling that is used with blogs and the order that the posts would appear in to make the most sense.
(5) What type of source material did you use, and how?
My main source material was my artist interview genre model, as well as material I got from Evie, my interview subject. I reached out to Evie for photos of her artwork in terms of both her studio artwork as well as some of her Communications Design projects. I also received the approved picture of Evie from Evie herself. All my media is the form of images, because that is what was most appropriate for my blog.
(6) What was your rhetorical situation (audience, purpose, content and writer’s perspective? Identify each clearly and specifically and talk about how each affected what you said and how you said it?
The audience for the blog is high school students or young adults who are potentially interested in Syracuse University, or more specifically, pursuing a major and career within the field of design. Therefore, the purpose of my blog is to provide a glimpse into how Evie ended up in the Communication Design major and how her artistic background shifted from art to design. The purpose of my blog is to inform my specified audience about SU’s Communication Design major, allowing them to make educated decisions about their major decision. The content of my blog is very clear and concise. I kept the Q&As brief yet very helpful and relevant to my audience and purpose so that the reader gets answers about the major efficiently. The writer’s perspective is very informed because while writing it I had these goals and intentions in mind. I designed and wrote the interview blog to be helpful to potential design students who wanted a glimpse into how one may end up in a program like Communications Design.
(7) Were there ways you did not meet reader expectations of your blog? If so, explain.
I think I met most of the reader expectations of my blog, although looking back on it I suppose I could have included more about SU in general in addition to my main focus on the path from studio art to Comm Design major information.
(8) What was the biggest thing you learned about genre and/or rhetorical situation in this unit while working on your interview project? And how was it similar to or different from your review project from the first unit?
The biggest thing I learned in this unit while working on my interview project was to always have the target audience in mind while creating your media project. Throughout my entire process of this Unit 2 project, I made sure to always have my audience in the back of my head that each decision was an informed one based on how the audience would like to have the blog presented, set up, and written in a straightforward, casual manner. This is an important theme to keep in mind that certainly can be implied to Unit 1 as well, but I especially learned this notion during Unit 2.
(9) How did you use The Method and/or notice, focus and ranking to draw interpretations about the interview for your audience? Where did you put this information when presenting/packaging your interview on your blog?
I used the Method (notice/focus/ranking) to draw interpretations and conclusions about the interview’s audience in terms of recurring themes that appeared as a developed my written portion of the blog. I noticed the recurring themes that came up within my Q&A and within my free write, and used these to create a title for my blog that had a strong correlation to the main recurring themes. I used the Method to help come up with a strong title for my blog, as well as write a rhetorically sensitive introduction and conclusion that had themes the audience would connect with.
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Index:-
Definition.
Introduction.
Meaning.
History of Content Marketing.
Strategies of Content Marketing.
String Ideas.
Target Kite.
Supercharged Content.
Key Personnel.
Types of Content Marketing.
Infographics.
Web Pages.
Podcasts.
Videos.
Page awareness.
Window shopper.
Helps me.
Inform me.
Persuade me.
Show me.
Why is Content Marketing important?
Conclusion.
Definition:- Content Marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on creating, publishing, and distributing content online ( such for example videos, posts on social media written blogs) for a targeted online audience.
Introduction:-
The term content marketing is a type of marketing, which involves the creation and sharing of online material, (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts, etc ) in which it does not promotes the brand's product and services.
The content of the video, blogs, and social media posts, etc should be related to its keywords.
The content you are going to post should not be anything for just formality, it should be helpful to your readers in some or another way.
Content marketing is the main aspect for your growth of the website, the quality of your content has the traffic it will arise for your website and it results in ranks it at the top of the search engines.
The King of content marketing is referred to as Benjamin Franklin because he is the only one who produces content in such a manner that no one has expected and he is the only writer who is most likely to read by the people in 1732.
Meaning:-
The writer of the content should write his content in the way his/her readers are understandable. The content should have quality and quantity both but it's okay that the content has the only quality and not the quantity, the readers must understand what the writer is narrating to us. The content you are posting should look attractive and should be unique in some or way. The content is not only the word or letter written on the page it should also contain video links, images, graphics, and backlinks (backlinks for a word to its Wikipedia).
History of content marketing:-Content marketing is a new tool in the marketers' world to get more traffics and boost up your website. Content marketing practice got more popular in the last few years in the world. In the year 1885, the publisher 'John deere' published the first issue called THE FURROW, a magazine on an agricultural basis. After a few decades, the issue got millions of each issue and popular among the audience. The article of THE FURROW is still printed to know about the well-known example of CONTENT MARKETING. While looking at the well-known article of 'THE FURROW' some brands like P&G and MICHELIN in the 1900s. MICHELIN started the free car travel ride to increase interest in the car. The first Audio Content Marketing was brought into the market by P&G with radio programs known as "SOAP OPERAS".
The Beginning Era of Content Marketing
. 1885:-
In the year 1885, 'john deere' published the magazine which was easily communicative towards people and sold millions of copies.
While looking towards magazines of john deere brands like P&G and MICHELIN they also decided to publish magazines.
. 1890:-
MICHELIN decided to give free travel rides of cars to people to grow their interest in cars and to grow the value of the company to level up.
The publications started to decide to give well-researched, focused, valuable travel pieces of advice to the audience.
· 1930:-
Well-known brand P&G started to collab with brands like DUZ and OXYDOL to produce products like radio and television which is known as "SOAP OPERAS".
· 1987:-
In 1987 brand called LEGO CLUB decided to publish a magazine call BRICK KICK MAGAZINE which is now known as LEGO CLUB MAGAZINE.
The Lego magazine was about the advertising of lego products such as lego products, games, comics, tips of modeling, special offers, kick bricks, etc.
THE SECOND ERA OF CONTENT MARKETING
· 2004:-
In 2004 Content marketing enters the era of the digital age full of blogs, articles, E-Commerce, videos, webinars, and podcast.
And MERRIAM-WEBSTERS DICTIONARY declares "blog" as the word of the year.
· 2006:-
As the digital age was successful a company called BLENDTEC uploaded a video series " will it blend?" on youtube
· 2010:-
In 2010 company called CONTENT MARKETING INSTITUTE comes with information to the industry and community with conferences, benchmark reports, publications.
· 2012:-
In 2012 KRAFT company focuses on content marketing with an increase of ROI on 4X results over achievement on Advertising around the globe.
· 2015:-
In 2015 the digital world is full of ranking top in search engines the content marketers decided to make videos of cutting low-quality noise from videos to boosting up in the digital age.
The second era of digital content is full of making content more awful, amazing, and easily digested to the audience.
· 2016:-
Content marketing is advanced in 2016, 88% of companies and brands over the globe started using content marketing for ranking up and boosting the values of the companies.
Strategies:-
The content strategy Benjamin Franklin used to become a successful man is known as the Law of Content Success which includes:-
String Ideas.
Target Kite.
Supercharged Content.
Key Personnel.
The strategies are explained below:-
String Ideas:- The string idea is the strategy that works for you in 90/100 situations, the string idea is the details related to your keyword and it should not contain only one keyword but it should contain 5-6 keywords. The content you provide should be right and valid for the user or reader, if the content you provide is wrong and invalid (e.g-copied) the search engine will flag it as the wrong source of information and misleading information which will result in not ranking in the search engine. The keywords you are using should be inter-related to each other and if you got some useful content from another website you should provide a backlink of the same page.
Target Kite:- The target kite is the strategy which is the basic and most used strategy which is being followed by everyone in their content. The meaning of target kite is to target one particular keyword which is the most searched and arise more traffic to your website on the search engine and one should provide as much detail as he can on the particular keyword or target. The targeted keyword can be elaborated with the help of video, images, and infographics too.
Supercharged Content:- Supercharged content is a strategy that is very helpful for the writer to satisfy his/her users and reader in detail with the help of graphically designed images which creates the webpage very attractive and creative. The website should contain thousands of words and plenty of images too, which makes it supercharged and overpowered.
Key Personnel:- The key personnel is the strategy where a whole team works together to achieve some goal set by their organization which contains editor, graphic designer, content creator, and web developer. Where all these specialists come together and work as a team to achieve the goal.
Types:-
Some of the basic and useful Types of Content Marketing.
Infographics.
Web Pages.
Podcasts.
Videos.
The examples are explained below:-
Infographics:-
Infographics mean to communicate with customer with visual and imaginary information quickly and clearly. The infographic contains charts, text, images to make it easy to understand the topic. infographics mean the combination of data, content, and designing of Graphics. They allow marketers to present information or transform it into a graphic.
Infographics are used to display large data based on images, charts, or graphics. They have been looking for reasons like they are entertaining, blows the mind, attract the mind, and information is easily digested by the reader and very useful too.
If infographics are effective and well designed it attracts the users to tell a good story and easy to understand.
Infographics improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the visual system of a human being to see trends and patterns.
Infographics are used for the representation of visual data, the data may be included with infographics. The infographics tell us the story through text, data, charts, graphs, and images.
Web pages:-
A webpage is used to provide information to the audience, through images, videos to help the audience through important topics.
A webpage is also used to increase the sales of the company or organization.
A website typically consists of many webs linked together.
A 'web page' is a metaphor for paper pages that are bound into a book together.
Webpages are major B2B content marketing pieces, it's a passive tool.
It allows the company to share helpful information to guide a user without needing a sales or marketing person all the time.
Podcast:-
The podcast is the digital audio file that can be downloaded by the user on their device and can listen to it.
The podcast is also available streaming live on radios and music apps. The podcast is also easily available.
The podcast usually features one or more hosts in a show engaged in the recurring meeting, chats about a particular topic.
The discussion in podcasting is eventually scripted completely.
Some of the podcast is free to download but some are payable.
The history of the podcast was developed in the year 2004 by Adam curry the former MTV video jockey and DAVE Winer the software developer started coding a program known as iPodder, which can be easily downloaded on a radio broadcast on the internet through their iPods.
And by the year 2005, the big companies started to know their opportunities towards iPods.
FunFact: In 2005 the word 'Podcast' was declared by the New Oxford American Dictionary the 'Word of the Year'.
Video:-
Video content marketing is the marketing that utilizes marketing that advertises based on content on videos that engages the audience to get clear about the products and promote the brand.
Video marketing is one of the best components of marketing to Highlights the keypoints and gets clear about the product.
Video content is also good to use to get the highest ranking in search engines to rank.
The strategy of video marketing is utilized by the marketing teams to well design the video which can be utilized to get their targeted audience.
The good sense of ideas of videos is to keep engage the audience towards brands and to be easily digested simply.
Page awareness:- The term page awareness contains what your page should be containing or including.
(WHIPS)
Window shopper.
Helps me.
Inform me.
Persuade me.
Show me.
Window Shopper:- The window shopper is the user or reader who is interested in purchasing or reading something but it might not be from you from someone else.
Help Me:- The help me is the query of the user or reader from you to solve it but you should not overcome it.
Inform Me:- The user or reader will say to inform me and aware of me that there is a solution but not aware of him where to get it.
Persuade Me:- The persuade me is another query of the user or reader from you to do a comparison between some products and suggest to him the better one.
Show Me:- The show me is a command given for a particular or targeted thing or product by the user or reader to give the final push to the product or a thing.
Why is Content Marketing important?
Content Marketing is very useful for advertising a particular product which helps the B2B (Business 2 Business), marketers.
It helps the organization or the writer to attract, acquire, and engage a particular group of audiences.
Content marketing is important because it is can contain relevant and helpful information and your expertise which can not be able to publish in the traditional type of business.
Content marketing is marketing that focuses on content given in the ads or videos in the product.
Content marketing simply focuses on media rather than borrowing it.
It helps to make your social media strategy level-up.
It helps your search engine grow and ranking at the top in SEO. SEO ranks the site which contains unique, quality, well-defined content rather than copy-paste from another site.
Content marketing helps to build trust with your visitors and audience.
It awards audiences about your brands and spreads awareness among visitors.
Use great organic search (SEO)
Make attractive content, relevant content for ideal buyers.
If great content is on your site it attracts ideal and honest buyers
Buyers share your content on social media.
There should be backlinks to keep your visitors on your page for more time.
Give chance to your ideal buyers to come back to your site to visit again.
Conclusion:-
If you seriously do content marketing you will get good results in the form of ranks and if you do it needlessly and only for the formality you won't be able to achieve enough success.
#Bestcontentmarketinganditsstrategies#Contentmarketinganditsstrategies#contentmarketing#contentmarketingstrategies
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Help your child to play
“In play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behaviour; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself”
Lev Vygotsky, child psychologist
When you watch your child attempting a task that is beyond their current capabilities (the nail biting moment your baby decides to cross the concrete patio for the first time or your toddler scales the kitchen cupboard) you will notice how focused they are. How they suddenly seem so grown up and yet still so vulnerable all at once. During play, children take those risks and push boundaries in order to progress.
So, where do we come in? Is it simply our duty to stand by, hyperventilating every time they take a risk or do something new? Do we hold their hands and hover over them to assist in every new step? Name the animals for them when they’re on the tip of their tongue? Adults are actually providing much more than we give ourselves credit for and it goes much further than protecting them from falls and naming colours.
Table of contents
Providing for children’s physical and emotional needs
Adults are architects of the environment
Finding time to engage in play with your child
How can adults be involved in play?
Providing for children’s physical and emotional needs
Care needs
In order for human beings to function effectively our physical needs must first be met. We need to be well nourished, feel safe, be healthy, comfortable and revived by sleep. Children are no different and as parents it is up to us to ensure that children are physically cared for. A stable routine (that works for your child) is essential in ensuring that children have what they need in order to develop. You know your child best and you can tell what they need and when. Respond to their needs using their cues and your instinct as their parent.
A safe base
It is not simply physical care that we provide. What a cold existence if this was the case! When babies are born, they spend the first few months very much in the arms and laps of their parents or carers. They receive physical contact, affection and closeness. As they grow, we feel sad every time they push to get off of our laps and onto the floor, hold their own bottle or even go off to university. Each little step towards their independence can feel like a step away from us. But it is because they feel loved, safe and confident due to the secure base you have created, that children take those first steps towards independence. As a child’s first and most enduring educator, you will be their safe base, their foundation to build from, and they will continually return to you for reassurance during their play and exploration of the world around them (and during holidays when universities are boring and they need washing done). Your child may simply look at your face as they play to gauge your reaction. This alone is their way of seeking reassurance and so long as you are there and they can see you, in some instances this is support enough.
Adults are architects of the environment
Your home is the first place that your child will explore. It wasn’t designed as a nursery or playroom and it has to function as a home for all who reside there. If it is your first child, you will be adapting the environment as you go to ensure safety and stimulation for your child. If you are 5 children into your role as a parent, you will likely be more well-versed in what a supportive play environment may look like. Whatever your home situation and however you choose to structure your home, it is a safe space for you and your child to explore, both together and for them alone.
Providing resources
Ensuring areas are safe is often the first step in managing the home environment when you have a child (relentlessly covering your house with plug socket covers, corner bumpers and cupboard guards will spring to mind). But the ‘environment’ also refers to the content and resources available to your child within this space. You will find that your child gathers many toys, very quickly and suddenly your home looks like a preschool. But how do we display these resources and make them available to children in a way that maximises their use? If you walk into a very disorganised room, that has walls and floors covered in pictures and objects, it can be hard to think can’t it? Children can feel equally as overstimulated in some environments. Parents can organise these environments by:
Using containers to store groups of toys so that they can be accessed easily, but also stored away when not in use. For example, drawer units with separate containers for small world, blocks, loose parts etc.
Or perhaps you have less space and have a series of baskets or bags to store things so that you can pack them away out of sight when not in use.
Using nap time as an opportunity to set up the room for when they wake up can encourage children to participate in new activities, however they may have worked very hard on a creation and tidying this away before the next day could cause them to feel a sense of loss and potentially interrupt a valuable experience.
However the resources are managed, it is beneficial to consider how these are displayed and used. For more information on play resources, see articles on…
Sensory overload
The environment is more than what can be seen and physically manipulated. It includes sounds, smells and textures. Have you ever been driving with music playing and had to turn it down so that you can think where you are going? This is the same with children in noisy or chaotic environments. Their thought processing can be interrupted by too much noise or visual stimulation. Creating an environment that is calm and allows children the space and peace to think and create their own sound and chaos. Television and radio can be valuable but having everything on all the time can be too much and a barrier to their concentration and development.
Outside
Being outside is a lovely way of engaging with sensory experiences. Lots to see, hear, smell and touch, with fresh air and less enclosed spaces. Children feel the breeze on their faces, watch it blow the leaves, flowers and clouds. Making time for being outside in any weather is a wonderful way to engage children with their natural world and escape the confines of rooms and ’stuff’ (see article on outdoor play).
Rotating toys
When children have too much choice, they can become overwhelmed. They move quickly from one thing to another because they are driven to explore the world around them, but they sometimes lack focus when offered too much in one instance. Bagging up sets of toys and using them on a rotation basis can help to reduce this feeling of chaos and allows children a chance to really engage with each resource before being presented with fresh toys and repeating the process (read more about how to effectively rotate toy groups here)
Going out and staying home
Changing environments is also beneficial as children gain new experiences that stretch their own knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Visiting farms, relatives or friends’ homes, shops, or changing from city to coast and vice versa, are all valuable experiences that families treasure. But home itself is that safe space where children often feel bravest, boldest, most confident and it is where they digest and process all of the information that they pick up from visiting other places. Balancing outings with plenty of time for children to spend at home in familiar surroundings, is a great way of allowing them a chance to consolidate new information and feelings.
Finding time to engage in play with your child
We have a tendency as parents in a capitalist society to continually spend money in order to support children’s development. We purchase toys and games, resources and experiences, all in the name of educating our children. The one thing we cannot get back, we cannot buy, and we cannot stop, is time. Giving your child some time to engage with you, share their world with you or even for you to simply watch them at play, is a far more valuable resource than all of the toys in the world.
It isn’t easy to provide time in today’s society. Many parents work full time, have a home to run, have more than one child, have other responsibilities aside from being a parent. When we factor all of this in, it is clear that allocating time to watching your child deeply engaged in play may not always be easy. But this time doesn’t have to last for hours. Sometimes just 10 minutes to really engage in play, is as valuable as a day of being out and about, where you may be together, but between travelling and going in and out of cars and buildings, the time spent together is more passive than of any real quality.
How can adults be involved in play?
Be invited
During play, children often return to an adult for reassurance, to share something or to engage in play. When you are invited into play, it is the child’s choice and as such fits into whatever their current train of thought is. They call us to the play without us having to shake something in their faces or call their name 40 times until they look at a teddy. Allowing children time to engage in uninterrupted play gives their brains a chance to make and reinforce lots of synaptic connections (how the brain remembers skills and information). Long periods of time to explore their world and develop complicated games and stories, provides opportunity for children to really explore one subject in depth. Play is also how children work through what they have seen, experienced, how they feel and what they learn. Time to explore these things helps children to really understand their own feelings and where they are placed in the world around them (see articles on types of play and schemas).
Interacting not interfering
We sometimes have the tendency as adults to become involved in children’s play at times that suit us. We may have some time between other tasks to engage with our children and so we approach them with questions and suggestions while they play. We correct them, assist them and finish things for them, without being aware that we are taking the opportunity to learn away from them (we don’t need to prove we know how to finish a puzzle, yet we somehow take the opportunity to do just this when our child is struggling with the last piece!). Sometimes this interaction can be well placed (see this article on Sustained Shared Thinking). For example, extending learning by asking relevant questions or encouraging speech as children articulate their ideas. But sometimes we interrupt play, and this can disrupt the thought process of children as they construct knowledge. Allow your child to lead and bring you into their world as they see fit.
Observing your child
Sometimes, just watching the play is one of the simplest ways to support your child, whilst also being one of the most magical aspects of being a parent. Watching them work through problems, create worlds, use language to imagine stories and scenarios, is all a wonderful way to find out what they are thinking, how they are learning and what you could offer them to extend this. Watching your child playing with their toys will show you what they are experts at and what you could encourage them to try next. You could identify what their favourite toys are and how they tend to use them. You can share what you see with other people who care for your child so that they may also be able to provide similar resources when your child is in their care. Watching your child play is not just supportive to them, but it’s a huge dopamine hit for you! This chaotic world often steals our time for tasks that we do not gain from emotionally. Watching your child play will recharge your batteries and fill you with a kind of joy that silences even the noisiest minds.
Choose the right toys
If all the above makes sense to you, you understand that your role is to engage in dialogue and to help your child solve interesting problems (whether or not you are present). This doesn't have to mean lots of new toys. Make open-ended play your starting point. Old pots and pans, boxes and baskets, pegs and paintbrushes, are all useful, both indoors and out, in encouraging children to experiment with different sounds, textures, schematic processes (see article on schemas) and imaginative games. If you're new to 100 Toys and would like some guidance on choosing the right toys and activities, The 100 is a great place to start.
Fundamentally, our children look to us for reassurance, love, kindness, safety, inspiration, knowledge, care, compassion and much more. The reality is, the moment you become a parent, your instincts begin to kick in and much of what you are providing already will be innate and just what your child needs. Every child is different and what works with one may not work with another (even within the same family) and as such an adult’s most important role is to know and understand your individual children for the unique little magicians they are! Let us enjoy them because they’re really not little for long.
Amy Fitzgerald
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7 Effective Visual Content Marketing Tips To Grab The Attention of Your Target Audience (infographic)
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7 Effective Visual Content Marketing Tips To Grab The Attention of Your Target Audience (infographic)
Digital marketing has evolved significantly over the last decade. From a handful channels to a hundreds of them, digital marketers have to choose platforms where their target audience spend their most time. With human attention span at all time low, you cannot expect your target audience to read long blog post with large blocks of text.
Content marketers have to change their strategy and come up with alternative solution and they did. They started using visual content and it started working for them. Fast forward to today, we now see a barrage of visual content irrespective of which website you are browsing. From photos, to videos, infographics to interactive content, visual content is everywhere.
If your brand is struggling to get the best out of visual content marketing efforts then, you might find this infographic from Branex useful. In this article, you will learn about seven effective tips to grab the attention of your target audience with your visual content marketing.
Boost Engagement With Interactive Content
With constantly changing search and social algorithm, getting organic reach has become a challenge. When you share something on social media, it only reaches out to a minute percentage of users, which makes it almost impossible to get the engagement you want.
The best way to boost user engagement is to use interactive content. Use surveys, polls, tutorials, videos and call to action. Take a look at HubSpot and notice how they incorporate interactive content into their tutorials. They combine everything in one place. There are polls, lesson selection options, call to actions and even tabbed content. This forces the users to interact and engage with their content in one way or another.
Use Copywriting Techniques In Infographics
One of the most popular form of visual content is infographics. It helps you present complex information in a more visually appealing and easy to digest manner, helping your target audience to understand sophisticated concepts easily. Irrespective of how good the design of your infographic might be, it wont do well until you accompany it with the right text. Use your copywriting skills and add more value to infographics. Instead of highlighting the problem, focus on the solutions. Tell them how your products can solve their problems. Show empathy by telling them that you understand their problem. This will help you build stronger, long term relationship with your target audience.
Also read: Top 7 Digital Marketing Trends That Business Owners Should Follow (infographic)
Use Data Visualization For Reports
Presenting reports is part and parcel of business. If you are an employee, you might have to present it to your boss. If you are the manager, you might have to present report in front of higher management. There are instances when these reports include tons of statistics and presenting it becomes a challenges. Make your statistic laden report simpler by using data visualization. Visually represent your data so it can easily be understood by audience you are presenting too. Add color to your boring presentations by using eye catching visuals to represent data.
Make A Statement With A Quote Card
Ever wondered why so many blog posts and social media posts from brands contain quotes? The answer is simple. Quotes can help you convey their message and make a strong statement. In fact, quote card can be used to fulfill many different purposes as well. For instance, you can use it for reinforcing your company mission, educate your readers, create a connection and even bring a smile on your reader face by adding some humor.
Combine Images With Text and Graphics
A picture is worth a thousand words. You might have heard it on countless number of times but did you know how much a video is worth. A video is worth more than a million words. When you combine images with text and graphic, you can make a huge impact. A static image might look boring but the when you add some text to the same image or add some motion or graphics to it, it becomes much more appealing to your target audience. More importantly, it gives your images a unique look that makes them stand out. When your images stand out, users will notice it. You never know they might stop scrolling through their newsfeed when your interesting image containing text and graphics pop up. This is exactly what you want as a brand on social media. This increases your brand exposure and hooks your target audience. With a interactive image, you can not only grab the attention of users but you can also keep them interested and engaged for a long time.
Use What’s Trending In Your Images
Want to cut through the digital noise and steal the limelight? Grab the attention of users by using trending elements in your visuals. Cats and puppies are two such examples. People love cat videos and cute puppies. You can use them in your visual and instantly divert the attention of users towards your visuals. Keep an eye on what’s trending and incorporate them in your visuals. I am not saying that you should add them to every visual you create but make sure you do it subtly and use it smartly so that it does not feel awkward and unprofessional. No brand likes to be seen as unprofessional.
Related: How Visual Is Transforming the Search Landscape for Digital Marketers (infographic)
Avoid Stock Photos
Last but certainly not the least is ditch stock photos. Yes, you might be tempted to use stock photos because they are easily available and everyone else is doing it but if you want your visual content and brand to stand out, you should take your own pictures or create your own images. Users tend to ignore stock photos but pay attention to unique and original photos. For example, Richard Branson share pictures of real people, which is why he has a large fan base who constantly interact with him on social media.
Read next: 5 tips for harnessing exponential business growth (infographic)
Source, N;
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How can Visual Search Change SEO for E-Commerce?
How can Visual Search Change SEO for E-Commerce? written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing
The visuals of a website attract more users than a mere text. A web page that is facilitated with images, videos and infographic earn 94% more views than the one having a bulk of the textual content. The more the people are engaged in your eCommerce business, the more they place orders, and the more you earn.
The human minds are programmed to process visuals at a speed of 60,000 times higher than the text. We forget the facts and figures, but remember a lot of visual details. Due to the facts, the eCommerce websites are recommended to ensure the display of visual content to improve the SEO and website usability.
According to 3M &Zabisco research, 90% of information that enters the brain is visual. While it is also more digestive compared to text, customers are found to respond faster to it.
The search engine optimization is all about facilitating the end user with the best possible search results. Visual search is also a step forward in creating ease and comfort for the users to search products by images.
The problem with conventional search tools
Usually, a user is required to remember the name or any detail of the product he searches online or has the communication skills to describe it in a word or two. If he fails to do so, the search engine or your eCommerce website may bring forth irrelevant results.
The visual search comes to the rescue when a user is ignorant about the brand, style, design, make or model of his favorite item, but has an image to search for. He feeds an eCommerce website with that image and gets a list of matching products to his requirements.
Visual search is powered by pixel-by-pixel comparison technology to help the end users get easy access to all the products that match their provided images, videos, logos, etc.
Neiman Marcus is the reaping the benefits of visual search tech
Neiman Marcus, a famous fashion clothing brand, is following the trend to maximize users’ comfort in finding products of a similar style and design. They have switched their focus recently to the visual search technology that is allowing users upload a photo and get a complete suggestion list of the products that matches the color and design.
How a visual search option improves SEO?
Visuals have an enticingly amazing presence on your eCommerce website. The search engine frequently indexes the images and videos from your website, which elevates website rankings according to its quality and usefulness.
In terms of off-site SEO, images and infographics can play a vital role in maximizing your business reach through social media platforms that are famous for visuals. For example, Pinterest is a prominent platform to exhibit your products where people search for images. Instagram is also emerging with higher potential to business promotions.
While considering the on-site SEO factors, visual search is a brilliant tool to improve the usability and user experience of an eCommerce website. Following are some of the different ways a visual search can contribute towards the user and SEO-friendliness of your website.
Remove multiple steps in finding products
A conventional eCommerce website requires the users to select between different categories and browse through the entire list of products to find the one they need. This procedure of carrying a user through multiple steps towards a product search is a hectic job and the core reason for a decline in conversions.
The visual search removes the hassle of going through a typical method. A user is required to input an image and find matching search results. The removal of additional steps turns out to be more user-friendly.
It is a valuable tool for users who visit your online store for a specific product. They might not be interested in digging your website deep as they are concerned about their required store items.
Practically speaking, a checkout process that includes multiple steps right from the product search is prone to a higher cart abandonment rate. For example, the user experience starts with searching for a product. If the beginning is time-consuming and stressful, what do you expect the users to proceed to the checkout page?
Improve the on-site search experience
There are loads of search filters to have on your web store for assisting users in easily finding their required products. For example, you can allow users to search a product by its brand or manufacturer, or by an attribute. It requires the users either to know the brand or an attribute of the product they are looking for.
The visual search has no such criteria. The users are no longer required to know the product name or anything related to it, but an image. They can get a snap of a product they like the most with built-in cameras in cell phone and any other mobile device. And, upload it on your website to have the results of similar products. It is that much simple.
The SEO is all about improving the shopping experience for your targeted community. Having a high quality and well-optimized images on product pages of your website does not only communicate a better picture to the search engine algorithm, but also to the end users.
How an improved on-site search benefits your website?
It enhances the user experience and achieves customer satisfaction
It narrows down the search and increase conversions
The users save a bunch of time in getting to a landing page
It improves your website exit percentage
Expose more products in suggesting similar searches
Skip the dead ends
The dead end occurs when the user reaches a category page and do not find the required items. In a conventional eCommerce structure, a user enters a query similar to a product or clicks a brand logo to find quality products. This may provide a list of products, but not the relevant ones. And, the user may leave your website.
With a visual search, the users find a lot of results that may not exactly match the one they are looking for, but quite similar to those. It eliminates the dead end with the message, “Sorry! Your search didn’t match any results.”
It is quite relieving for the end users to have a list of similar products then finding nothing in your store. They are engaged in their findings and consider buying it on the spot or save it for later. It brings you qualified leads, which are expected to convert sooner or later.
For instance, a consumer needs Nike Joggers that his peer was wearing in the morning walk and captured it through his cell phone. He might be sure about his manufacturer, but not about its design.
The conventional method is that he will visit your store and browse different subcategories in men’s shoes. He may be fed up for the search difficulty of your website and may switch to another tab to find the same somewhere else.
But, by allowing him to try a visual search, you can facilitate his search in finding the exact or similar product on your store. And, there, you get a qualified lead.
How to implement visual search technology into your website?
The addition of a feature or functionality requires the webmaster to write a code or install a plugin among the available ones. Every eCommerce platform has a range of tools for adding a technology, whereas you can select from the third part suppliers as well. Some of the worth considering options include Visenze, Slyce, and Cortexica.
Any feature is added to an eCommerce website with the intention to increases the conversion. The incorporation of visual search does not assure higher conversions, as a feature is not necessarily fruitful for everyone. So, you need to thoroughly measure the conversion rate, cart abandonments, page views and page exits. It will help you study the impact of a visual search so that you can take precautionary measures if the results are not satisfactory.
Final Thoughts
The search engine optimization has drastically changed with the increased internet population. Today, the websites are not ranked on the basis of their higher number of poor backlinking strategies, but the way it is helping the users to solve their problems.
The addition of visual search to an eCommerce help the users easily find products of their choice. It is assisting them to visit the landing pages they need and save time in roaming around the websites. In this post, different ways are discussed to help you understand the significance of visual search for an eCommerce website.
About the Author
Asad Ali is a digital marketing strategist having experience of more than 7 years. Currently, he is heading the marketing team at Go-Gulf Saudi Arabia – a custom web design company. His vast exposure to SEO, design optimization, boosting conversions and targeting relevant customers makes him an industry expert.
from Duct Tape Marketing https://www.ducttapemarketing.com/visual-search-seo-e-commerce/
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Copy: 66 Copywriting Tips that Will Boost Your Conversion Rates by 327%
The famous American television and radio host Larry King, used to say to his audience a very witty story about his father. He says that his father, a Ukrainian jew, came to the US thinking that America is the greatest land of all, where even the streets are paved with gold. However, shortly after arriving, his father realized three things:
The streets weren’t paved with gold.
The streets weren’t paved at all.
He was the one to pave the streets.
There is no secret for anyone that content marketing is a must. And the truth is that copywriting isn’t just about writing blog posts anymore; it’s about telling good stories well. How do you get to create those stories that will increase your conversion rates hundreds of times?
We do not claim to have discovered the magic formula that will boost your business guaranteed. However, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of essential copywriting tips that will surely revamp your content, and it will blow up your conversion rate.
Write in Short Paragraphs
Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Laser-Focused as Possible
Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Forget Academic Writing
Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Show Empathy with the Reader
Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Do Your Psychology Homework
Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
Write List Posts
Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Take Advantage of Power Words
Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Make Efficient Use of Social Media
Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Write Your Own Description Tag
Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Create a Content Strategy Calendar
Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Originality Is a Must
Existing Content Needs Love, Too
Timing Is Everything
Spot your competitor’s most engaging content
Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
Creativity Is Key!
Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Repurpose Your Content
Make Use of Content Convergence
Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
1. Write in Short Paragraphs
There a few things more off-putting to a reader than a whole block of text with no spaces. You’ll do nothing but chase away your readers with such type of content. Writing in short paragraphs is an effective way to write on the web as it provides ‘eye relief’ throughout the page. Short paragraphs are easily digestible and can be skimmed over at a glance.
2. Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Focused as Possible
Long content or short content? Which one is better? What is the case? The more, the merrier, or less is more? Well, if you are looking for a short answer to this question you need to know that there isn’t one, as it depends on rankings, conversions, followers, popularity, authority, engagement, keyword optimization, etc. Yet, it seems that shorter articles are better correlated with higher ranks. We’ve detailed this matter in a previous case study we invite you to take a look at.
The bottom line is that you have to be very savvy about the number of words you use in your website copy, depending on what you want to achieve. Write according to your readers’ needs and remember that nowadays digital readers have a limited span attention.
3. Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Big words don’t make you seem smarter.
Being able to explain complicated things in simple terms, however, truly is the sign of intelligence.
There are obviously times when you need to use technical terms or introduce complex concepts. But try not to get too comfortable using jargon and keep forcing yourself to remain accessible to as large an audience as possible. When not sure if you’ve met this, ask yourself: Would a newcomer to the field have an easy time following your text? Would an outsider grasp the importance of what you published?
4. Forget Academic Writing
When we talk about academic writing we don’t necessarily mean scientific articles. But there’s a certain rigor to that writing which might not appeal to the general audience. This is not to say you should dumb things down. Essay Tigers expert recommends using everyday language to engage with as wide an audience as possible. There’s a simple, two-step approach for making this happen:
Read what you’ve written out loud. If some parts don’t sound like something you’d say to a friend in real life, then change it.
Read what you’ve written out loud to someone else and ask them to tell you what the copy is about. If they can’t tell you easily, then change it.
5. Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
We’ve touched on this before but it’s worth repeating: clarity is key. You’ve probably got the best lesson in writing in primary school: everything needs to have an intro, a body and a conclusion. And all of these need to be clearly laid out. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to touch on: What is the point of your copy? You’re writing a new text because you have some claim to make, some wisdom you want to share.
If you were to write it in a single sentence, what would that sentence be?
How do you know what you claim is true? You need to present evidence (case studies, statistics, expert opinions) and explain why your evidence is relevant… Just because it happened in some instances, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to be true for everyone. Why does any of it matter? In public speaking, there’s the concept of “WIIFM” – “What’s In It For Me?”
The reader needs to know what they’re gaining by reading your article.
What’s the best thing they can do with the newfound wisdom?
6. Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
This is a delicate balance because explaining too much could make knowledgeable readers bored, while not explaining enough could make inexperienced readers feel left in the dark. But it’s always better to err on the side of caution and explain the background of something. Why is phone encryption suddenly a problem? What is the deal with fake news? Even if a lot of your readers might know a great deal about your topic, you can still provide details while also putting a new spin on it.
Source: http://coschedule.com
7. Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
You don’t just write to a mass content. Each piece you publish should have a goal in terms of the effect on the reader.
The best scenario is when the reader will actually take an action as a result of reading your piece.
For instance, if you publish a DIY instructable, you might get people who read or watched it try to do the same. That is, of course, quite ambitious and not all pieces need to elicit action from the readers for them to be successful. Yet, looking at the screenshot below, you can easily follow the steps presented, right?
You could also write an article where you explain a new concept or study something people knew certain things about (but didn’t know what to think of it). That means your main goal was to expand your readers’ knowledge. Or you could simply publish a piece on a subject that’s quite well-known and invite people to comment about it, thus facilitating an exchange of good practices between people who otherwise might not have interacted with each other. There’s more than one way to make a difference and you just need to set up realistic goals.
Source: ideas.evite.com
8. Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Don’t have enough time to write a long piece? Having a bit of a writer’s block?
There’s a lot of ways to publish content other than text: mix it up with images, create a video out of it, make a podcast, etc.
Sometimes the choice about how to reach your followers is pragmatic (it takes less time to record a podcast than to write the same content); other times it’s about strategy – maybe your followers are more easily swayed by videos or maybe it’s easier for them to follow content as podcast (while driving) than writing. When in doubt, just mix it up – it’s always best to cover more ground. And always build compelling copy for each method.
youtube
9. Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Writing good copy should be a bit like writing good journalism.
“One paragraph, one idea,” is a very useful motto when it comes to structuring your text.
Set out a claim, explain why it could be true, illustrate it with an example and then see what the implication of that claim might be. Then discuss that implication in the following paragraph. When you have a longer text, bring out some quotes or poignant phrases that might draw the readers’ attention, so that they can better focus and find the section they need more easily.
10. Show Empathy with the Reader
Answering the reader’s WIIFM (What’s in it for me) question is a great start, but if possible, you should try to go beyond that.
Try to understand your readers’ frame of mind: what are their expectations, what might they be worried about?
Sometimes it could be as simple as tapping into their shared history
Look, we’ve all been there: trying to meet the deadline even though…
Other times, you need to tap into something that drives your readers and what their expectations (positive or negative) could be (“You’re probably thinking that this is too hard for you to do – that’s a normal reaction, but…”). All in all, it’s about putting a face to your audience and making the writing more of a dialogue than a monologue.
Source: brettrelander.com
11. Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Sometimes we can get too technical about things and assume our readers are information-parsing-robots. They’re not. They’re human beings and have a natural tendency to like stories and be attracted to the coherence and consistency of a well-told story. You can keep all the facts and all the logical analysis you wanted to pour into your copy, but if you really want to strike a chord, make sure to wrap it in some nice storytelling tropes:
Is there a hero to your story, trying to overcome difficulties? Is there an antagonist trying to stop the hero from succeeding? Does goodness get rewarded in the end, despite hurdles along the way? Etc.
Source: echostories.com
12. Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Read this aloud: “He only told her he loved her.” Which word did you emphasize? There wasn’t a correct way of saying it, but how you chose to say it made a big difference. It might also have been influenced by your traits, beliefs, experience and social background. This is not just about using correct grammar (which, as the Internet warns us, can save someone’s life).
It’s also about using punctuation with purpose.
You want to convey a sense of urgency? Use short sentences and replace semicolons with full stops. You want to make a short detour in the middle of your sentence? Pick your weapon wisely: commas, dashes, parentheses…
You want people to pay attention?
The exclamation mark may have worked before, but it’s now been so overused on clickbait sites, that people just tend to ignore it and what it’s meant to signify.
These may seem like details at first, but once you understand how punctuation impacts not only the reading, but also the understanding of a text, you might decide to pay these details a lot more attention.
13. Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
We tend to like having a sense of completion. Especially with a work that’s quite sizeable, it’s nice to have smaller milestones. It’s encouraging to know that while the end is not necessarily near, we’re definitely heading in its direction.
Sub-headings help your readers stay motivated.
But they also serve a very practical purpose: they make particular content easy to find both for first-time readers and for recurrent ones.
14. Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
This should go without saying, but it’s important to understand why this is important. It’s not just that it can make readers annoyed because they have to do a double take on a sentence. It’s also not that even small typos can lead to inaccurate statements, in particular when they’re easy to miss (writing “you’re now allowed to…” instead of “you’re not allowed to…” changes the whole meaning, but is grammatically correct in both cases).
Spelling mistakes underscore lack of professionalism and lack of concern for the reader.
The message is pretty straightforward: “We didn’t care enough about the people reading this so as to spend just a little more time on making this copy look like a polished product. We think this is good enough.” And that’s not what you want them to think.
Source: liquidbubble.co.uk
15. As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
There’s a lot of carefulness and consideration put into most writing. But when they’re not doubled by authenticity, when the text doesn’t seem to be coming from a real person, or to be addressed to one, that attention comes across as disingenuous and unnatural. So try to stay honest with your audience and use your unique selling point.
Be open about your intentions and about your experience and abilities.
Admit when you’re not up to speed on something. Don’t jump on bandwagons. Talk about what matters to you. It’s really hard to define what “authentic” is, because we should always try to get outside of our comfort zones. But I think authenticity comes from being able to admit, having tried something new or that everyone is raving about, that you didn’t like it that much and you want to do something else next time. That honesty is what keeps followers interested and engaged.
16. Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
This goes beyond fonts and colors. It’s about page layout and how everything looks (and feels). In a way, it’s a bit like fashion – some types of content just go better with certain types of layouts. If your pieces are lengthy and complex, with pictures and charts and graphs, make sure you have a page layout that makes that kind of content attractive and easy to go through.
A more traditional style might help the reader keep focused on the text.
If you work in short bursts of content, be it text, photo, or video, create a layout where every other element points toward your content marketing strategy (rather than distracting from it). Once you’ve settled on a style, try to keep it in mind whenever you’re writing new content: where is this paragraph going to be on the page? Should you insert this picture to the left or to the right (or in a medallion)? How easy is it going to be to flip to the next page? Etc.
17. Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Try to define your style. There’s obviously going to be a lot of adjustment as you grow and find out more about design, but you should document these changes as much as possible. Coherence and consistency in style are rewarded by readers, even though most of the time their influence is subconscious. So keep up and create a manual to document your decisions: What font, size and color should article titles be? What about body text?
How big should the pictures, videos and other objects be? How much space should they take relative to other elements?
What colors do you use, aside from the colors already visible on your site? What colors and styles to highlight words, show hyperlinks or frame text boxes? Etc.
Of course, these things can be defined in various ways, so that you’re still left with enough flexibility.
18. Do Your Psychology Homework
We’ve referenced psychology quite a few times in this list already, when talking about what we want, expect or like. There’s a whole field out there about economic behavior and it’s still expanding. Turns out we’re not actually those rational individuals we believe ourselves to be (no, not even you, sorry to say). Most of us are actually pretty irrational when seen from an outside perspective, even though we abide by our own internal logic.
We don’t always make the best buys, the best choices or act in our best interests.
Why are so many of our behaviors counter-intuitive? There’s no easy answer (no single answer either, for that matter), but it will definitely help you to find out more about what the explanations might be. Writers like Ariely, Duhigg, Goleman, Kahneman or Taleb all featured extensively on the bookshelves in the past few years and with good reason.
Source: http://irrationalgames.com/
19. Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
A lot of content comes from wanting to share experience. You know something most other people – even those in your field – might not know. You are excited about that and want to make them aware of your new gained wisdom. The important thing to remember is that the focus should stay on sharing and not on you as the source of wisdom. That’s not to say your opinions have no place in your writing, on the contrary. But always ask yourself these 3 questions:
Will this info help my readers to better understand the subject? Will this info help my readers to better apply this knowledge for doing something practical? Will this info help me to look cool but not add anything valuable to this piece?
If the answer to the first two questions is a resounding “Yes”, then you should definitely include that piece of information in your copy. If the answer to these questions is “No” and the only “Yes” comes from the third question, well… you’ve got yourself a pretty good conversation opener for the next party.
20. Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
As you gain more readers, start thinking about them as potential clients. Who are they? How can you split them into smaller groups based on age, gender, line of business, interests, income, etc.? You might not have all this information all the time, but you should at least try to find out as much as you can about them. Because if you are to have an ongoing dialogue with them, you need to try and understand what they’re like. Are they typical representatives of a certain generation (X, Y, millennials)? Do they even fit the definitions or are they a group with much more specific characteristics? It would help if you could listen to them – have a way to collect their feedback and allow them to voice out their opinions.
The better you get to know your readers, the more likely it is you will be able to write directly to them and keep them interested in your company.
21. Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
With so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to think we know a lot. In reality, we know very few things well. We know a bit more superficially. Most of the topics, we just have a very inaccurate understanding of. But what happens when we try to talk about something we know little or nothing about as if we knew and stumble upon someone with actual knowledge on the topic? The result, as you’ve guessed, is disastrous. Do your homework before publishing any new content. Do more than just a cursory overview of the information that’s been published lately. Go in depth:
Read books, not just articles; Watch documentaries and videos of experts in that topic; Try to get in touch with people who’ve actually experienced that topic first-hand.
You’re still not going to be an expert even after doing all these things, but at least whatever you write about that topic afterwards will be a valuable contribution to the ongoing dialogue. You can use tools such as BrandMentions to easily research topics that interest you an to get updated on the subject.
22. Write List Posts
List posts can be really useful – just look at this one. Joke aside, there is actual value to list posts. Sure, you don’t get to go into a lot of detail, but the richness and variety of ideas will compensate for the lack of depth. Readers are aware of the fact that lists tend to gloss over details and they’re OK with it, mostly because what they’re looking for is variety of ideas.
Quality usually beats quantity, unless it’s exactly quantity that you’re after.
23. Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Lead with your most important data. Don’t try to attract users with cheap, vague clickbait tactics like the one below:
You won’t believe how many writing tips we have in this list!
A lot of editors seem to have forgotten that what people really need is information, not mystery. And people will read your article for what you promise them in the title – and leave satisfied after getting what they wanted. Moreover, sometimes the numbers are impressive in themselves.
Here are couple of examples of numbers that make you think and want to find out more:
Wi-Fi and mobile-connected devices will generate 68% of all internet traffic by 2017.
In 2015, 64% of all in-store sales, or sales to the tune of $2.2 trillion, were influenced by the internet.
Only 44% of web traffic is from humans; a massive 56% of web traffic is from bots, impersonators, hacking tools, scrapers and spammers.
A single second delay in your website loading time can result in a 7% loss in conversion, and 40% of web users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Source: hostingfacts.com
24. Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Ever heard of the KISS rule for public speaking?
Keep It Short & Simple.
That’s exactly how you should think about your persuasive copy. We’ve already mentioned earlier in the list that you should think of your texts as an ongoing conversation. Most people talk in short bits during a conversation, to allow the other person to process what they’ve heard (and also leave plenty of opportunities for interventions). This formula grabs attention easily. Admittedly, your readers can’t jump in while reading your text to alter its course, but they still need to process what they read. They’ll appreciate a clear and simple structure, where everything seems to flow naturally, rather than verbose paragraphs whose main purpose seems to be to obfuscate them.
Remember: one paragraph, one idea.
If you’ve changed ideas, it means you need to change paragraphs as well (or, at the very least, sentences).
25. Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Try to make your text read like a real conversation (with actual people). Obviously, that’s not 100% possible; you’re not writing plays, after all. But you get our gist.
People have conversations in their heads anyways.
You read a text and find yourself muttering out loud “true, true…”, “wow, that’s crazy!” or sometimes even “that can’t be right, can it?!…” You can even try to interact with the reader when you’re sure your text will elicit a certain reaction. Just said something counter-intuitive or shocking?
You could try to start your next sentence with something like “I know what you’re thinking: ‘surely that can’t be right.’ But it is entirely accurate.” It might not always work and you will have to even resist doing this sometimes, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a possibility.
Source: printwand.com
26. Take Advantage of Power Words
Do you know anyone opposed to progress? What about anyone who rejoices at the sound of the word suffering?
Not all words are created equal and some words have more power than others.
It is usually because of a specific cultural background of that word, the way it has been used consistently by people to mean a certain thing; so much so, that a particular association is now the only one that comes to people’s minds. Richard Weaver, a 20th century rhetorician, introduced the concepts of “god terms” and “devil terms” to refer to words that have an almost universal positive, respectively negative, connotation. There is a thin line to balance here between being rhetorically savvy and being manipulative, but power words are definitely worth exploring if you want to create better texts.
In his incredible book “Predictably Irrational,” Dan Ariely dedicated a chapter to the power of words in the process of decision making. Long story short, to test the power of the word “free” concerning concrete value, Ariely asked a group of people to choose between a 1 cent Hershey Kiss or a 15 cent Lindt truffle. Most of the people opted for the second version. Nothing intriguing so far. Another random group of subjects were asked to make the same decision just this time both products were cheapened with 1 cent. The results? As you can see in the image below, the subjects seemingly flipped on their opinion of these two treats.
Do not underestimate the power of “free”.
27. Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Writing is a skill, not a trait you’re born with.
Sure, some people have more talent than others, but just like with a lot of artistic skills, hard work, passion and determination can overcome a talent “deficit.” On the other hand, natural talent withers if it’s not exercised regularly. Read viciously what your favorite copywriters publish. Read books about writing. Go to classes about writing. Listen to podcasts and watch videos about writing. And most importantly?
Write every single day. Always with intent, always trying to get better at something.
Look into style and try to emulate various writing styles. Take what is useful from each of them. Look into creative writing and push yourself to write about things you never cared before. Not everything will stick – in fact, most likely won’t. But being better at writing is something that happens slowly and in bits and pieces. It’s also something worth pursuing.
28. Make Efficient Use of Social Media
We’ve touched on this before in our posts and it’s as relevant now as it was then: social proof can be a huge help, as long as you use it strategically. There are plenty of statistics out there about what works best: how many words to use in your posts, what time to post on each network, when to use tags and what to use them for. These statistics are a good starting point, but you’ll have to put in some work, too. They represent average findings of everyone online. You might discover different findings for your business or line of service, as long as you’re willing to put in some time for trial and error tests.
We’ve conducted a very in-depth study to figure out if social signals influence SEO and one of our findings was that a strong presence on social networks is correlated with better rankings, as you can see in the screenshot below.
29. Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Write every time like that’s the most important thing to publish.
Don’t think of anything you write as a throwaway or filler.
You need to believe that what you write is important, otherwise there’s little chance the reader will think it.
30. Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Synonyms have been managed automatically by Google for years now, yet what you may not know is their high influence not only on your copy but also on rankings. We all use Thesaurus now and then to “beautify” our content.
You might not know that you can use synonyms for rankings as well.
Let’s say that you are in the “laptops” niche and you write content on this matter. It wouldn’t be bad if you used not only the exact match laptops, but also synonyms or words from the same area with this one : computers, notebooks, etc. And this is because Google is becoming increasingly smart and it returns results not based on the exact matching word but by the intent of the user, using sometimes synonyms of the words or their lexical family.
Use synonyms smartly on your website in order to rank higher not just because you’re obsessed with ranks, but because your website might be relevant to people who search using similar but not quite exactly the same words. More on how to take advantage of this technique can be found on a previous in-depth research we’ve done on how to exploit the synonym technique to increase your traffic.
31. Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Most of the time we speak about things we think our readers want. But they may be interested in different things, or talk in different ways about those things. Think of a piece of software, for instance: how the developer might describe its functionalities (“Formatting text in XProduct”) is not how users might ask questions about it (“How do I make my text bold in XProduct?”). Therefore go ahead, check the forums and search for the exact word your readers use.
32. Write Your Own Description Tag
Copywriting doesn’t imply just blog writing and in-depth article research but also every piece of content written that is related to the business you are working for. Therefore, one of the things you make sure as a killer copywriter (and/or SEO professional) is that you write your own description tag for every important page on your site. Otherwise, Google will do that for you. And you might not want that.
Why is this useful for your copy?
Usually, when someone does a Google search they want answers really fast and very relevant.
This means that if they search for Copywriting Tips and Tricks they would expect to see at a glance exactly what they searched for. And if, along with the title, in the description tag you show them the quick wins they will have, you get more clicks.
33. Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you have to offer. Regardless of the fact that it might be easier for your content to rank higher when using long tail keywords, it is also a better way to connect with customers. We’ve written more on this subject in a previous post.
34. Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
It does hurt to say, but the more you read meaningless content on the web, the more you expect the next link you click on to give you hands on content.
If you’re unlucky enough to be the fourth or fifth and the reader is already bent out of shape, you clearly wouldn’t like to be in the position of disappointing him. It’s harder to work for content than it was for linkbait and clickbait years ago, because this time there’s no shortcut to get people’s attention. You’ve got to be fair and you’ve got to deliver. Let’s call this Attention Web.
Only promise what you can deliver!
35. Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
We all have belief biases – this means that when facing a logical argument, we’re more likely to believe it if the conclusion seems more plausible instead of analyzing the supporting evidence. Bold points of view are lifesaving. They raise eyebrows and tickle curiosity, while sending the impression of reliability. Which is why people will read the first sentence of your post – unfortunately, after this they realize you’re about to contradict their prior beliefs and leave. Just like that.
36. Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Suppose that you’re lucky enough to write about the topic someone’s recently been interested in – this only means they’ll notice your work, at best. From here to actually reading your content there is a lot of work paved with intermediary steps.
Digging too deep into a topic often implies taking a lot of extra risk.
We only read in-depth content analyses; we do our homework properly, we’re never out of touch and we can tell you what’s trending from sleep. And yet, there’s nothing easier than losing the interest of your readers.
Source: slate.com
37. Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs.
The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss. The truth is that we care more about maintaining our Status Quo (state of facts) than we do about truth; and if you’re saying otherwise, chances are your brain is playing some tricks on you.
Therefore, if it’s not imperative to change, innovation for the sake of novelty is the number one enemy of reader loyalty.
38. Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Content we share doesn’t always equal content we’ve engaged with. It’s a lot easier to share content based on its title than it is to actually engage with it. Yet, it’s highly important to know how to measure the success of a piece of content. Metrics for on-page behavior, for SEO, bounce rates, average time spent on page, the number and quality of the comments or the metrics for social media performance are elements you should always keep an eye on.
It is not just the people who convert are important, but the pages they convert from.
Here you can find how to constantly monitor and learn from these metrics
39. Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
No, you won’t need night vision goggles or an invisibility cloak to monitor your community.
What you do need is to pay attention to your surroundings. Working inside of a system often makes us lose what’s most important in succeeding—the holistic view of the industry.
40. Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
There’s no place more insightful than your own community—you’ll find plenty of ideas there if you just take the time to look at it. Being part of an industry often takes a lot of time, especially in domains that seem to be so competitive, in a never-ending effort to become better. However, sometimes we should just stop. And see what it is that’s missing—there’s always a glitch—something that you haven’t discovered yet. Start from there. I know it might sound like a task hard to achieve but tools such as Brand Mentions can really ease your job.
41. Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Whether you are a content marketer who is interested in the content from a specific area or you are into more generic matters, first thing first, you need to check out what is going on in that niche and find some inspiration from those findings.
Correlating search trends with the most recent mentions on the web seems to be a great formula, regardless of the niche you are interested in.
42. Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Through all its efforts, a company/business/website is trying to find a way to best reach its audience. Some efforts are sort of an “indirect” contact with the public through online content but there are also some others who are in direct contact with the user. A discussion with the sales and support team might be a great opportunity for you to better understand your audience’s needs or challenges and adapt your marketing copy accordingly.
Source: helpscout.net
43. Create a Content Strategy Calendar
After collecting a bunch of great article ideas you need to gather them together in a way that will be efficient and effective for your website or blog. And creating a content calendar is a method to get the best results out of your ideas. Although “Content Strategy Calendar” might sound a bit pretentious and you might get discouraged or think it is a very complicated task, the truth is that even a simple Google Doc Spreadsheet can help you out. What you need to keep in mind for each article you are going to write is that you have to take in consideration items such as:
What type of content is it? Where do you intend to publish it? What is the article’s audience? How and where are you going to promote it? How are you going to scale the result?
Source: meistertask.com
44. Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
The more we try to put information in pretty wrapping, the harder it will be to present it without visual support. It is just one among other smart copywriting formulas. Every attempt to make web content more interesting contributed to this borderline surrealistic change to the way we perceive content online. It seems that our brain really loves graphics more than you’d imagine:
visual information has increased by 9,000% since 2007
color visuals increase willingness to read by 80%
we receive 5 times more information than we did in 1986
we don’t read more than 28% of the words when visiting an online page
Source: contently.com
45. Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
The online and the offline often find themselves in competition and it shouldn’t be like that. In reality, although the two environments should not be compared, it’s impossible not to weigh one against the other. Yet, regardless of the advantages and disadvantages each one brings, one thing should be clear: they need to be coherent altogether and they both need to tell the same stories, even if with different lines.
Source: blog.hubspot.com
46. Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Because technology today can store so much information, we can’t keep track of it anymore.
Writers in the 17th century claimed they had read everything written in their language throughout history.
Today, this statistic is unachievable even to those of us who try to keep themselves up-to-date in their fields of expertise.
Nowadays, our attention span is 8 seconds and falling. Approximately 66% of our attention is spent below the fold , especially when it comes to content, and we’re impatient to get over the (often) boring introductions directly to the heart of what interests us.
47. Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
Figuring out what works for your niche is crucial. Looking at the content that performs best in your niche might be intuitive. Even though you might think it’s redundant to look at the bottom of the list, there are insights to be learned from your weakest performing content, too.
You need to see which pages have attracted the least amount of visitors and what type of content is not of interest to your viewers.
Creating uninteresting content isn’t useful for anyone. It is not useful for your target audience, and it’s clearly not productive for your business.
48. No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Content creation and shareability are parts of the content strategy concept and you can’t separate one from each other.
It would be a true shame to create great and useful content that does not receive any love from the community.
Just like us, you’ve probably seen a lot of bloggers create great articles that impressed you. But, they received little to no engagement. While creating content has its obvious benefits, maximizing shareability assures the success of your content strategy.
49. Originality Is a Must
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel on a daily basis.
You may also create content that has been done before as long as you augment it with a new spin.
As long as it’s a fresh and interesting approach to an idea, go ahead with it.
Remember that most of the times originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
The most original writers borrowed one from another.
50. Existing Content Needs Love, Too
When creating content, we tend to never look back and always think of the next idea.
You should always take your existing content and see what you can gain from it.
Maybe create a sequel, maybe an update, maybe there are some ideas in that piece of content that weren’t fully discussed. And even if it’s evergreen content we are talking about, remember that this kind of content is relevant for people now and it’s going to be relevant for them after a year, too. We’ve written a blog post on exactly this matter, where we put together some of the best ways to repurpose existing content.
51. Timing Is Everything
As the famous lines say, there is a time for everything : a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. And this applies in copywriting as well.
It’s obvious that writing the right article at the right moment is crucial.
There are times when important changes occur in the niche you are addressing and clearly you need to react on the spot and have a piece of copy ready for the moment. Yet, there are times when you need to know what new trick you need to unveil in order to capture your audience’s numb interest. Also, an important part of this matter is maximizing the shareability of your copy. Therefore you need to figure out when you’re going to get the most out of your content, at which moment of the day, the week or month you should share the content to receive the most traffic.
52. Spot Your Competitor’s Most Engaging Content
Content marketing – done correctly – can be a very effective way to attract and retain clients, but the problem is more and more companies produce more and more content. It’s highly important to understand how to produce content that will engage your target audience, but is also vital to know what your competitors’ most engaging content is. To figure this out you don’t have to spend ages collecting and analyzing all that content, you can do things way easier and efficiently if you use the proper tools.
53. Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Everyone has wrapped their brains around the idea of content creation and knows they should create amazing content to engage with their target audience. And that’s how content curation, the less known brother of content creation, gets left out in the cold.
A professional content curator picks and polishes the most amazing content and serves it up to the community and also gives credits to the owner.
It is definitely a power that can be harnessed, and remember that content curation is not content marketing.
54. Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
This applies before actually writing the piece of content but also after the copy has been unleashed to the world. Learn to monitor the places your content is published and analyze the traffic. Visitors who come and go are an invaluable resource of information regarding the content’s usage pattern. Watch out for data like keywords, bounce rate, and click patterns to learn more about their interests. Also, ask about the blogs and social networks where they spend their time online. You may find discussions that may shed a light on their needs and interests.
On the internet, in an age where everything is monitored, you are bound to find data about anything.
55. Creativity Is Key!
There is this common perception that creativity is a taboo subject or that is a “feature” that only the chosen ones are gifted with. As Steve Jobs once highlighted, most of the times creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
However, copywriting and creativity go hand in hand. This is why while sticking to your business plan, you enter a comfort zone, which is the worst enemy for creativity. When you empty your mind of all past concepts, you’re going to fill it with creativity. You have to liberate yourself from the limitations of what you already know.
56. Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
An information gap is a construct, a theory or an idea that the audience believes should be informed on, but doesn’t seem to be explained quite extensively. Rather, the reader feels like the information comes in bits and pieces, like an underlying premise of any discussion that derives from the matter. Here is where your content jumps in. Yet, for the strategy to work, the information will have to be relevant and systematized, while offering an in-depth perspective on the topic. Become a reference and the results will follow.
Once you’ve proven yourself as a trusty, authentic go-to blog, your leads and email subscription rates can dramatically increase.
57. Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Micro-targeting paints a big picture. The more you invest in targeting the right long tail keywords, the bigger a shot you have at accessing a key audience interested in a specific topic. Choosing topics for content writing should always be the result of a targeting process. Once you do this, the chances to grow a solid audience with an increase intent in your business are sizable.
58. Repurpose Your Content
Running a blog with constant valuable and high quality content might sometimes be difficult as it is a resource-consuming process. Therefore, why not getting the best out of the content that you’ve already worked on? Repurpose the content you already have. Not only will you save resources, but you’ll also extend the reach of your blog and maybe find new ways to reach your audience. Here are some great ideas of how to repurpose your content:
59. Make Use of Content Convergence
Before asking yourself how this might help you, allow me to explain what this is about.
It refers to merging one boring, dull topic with a more exciting topic, whilst giving it a theme which gets attention.
If you are to write copy for, let’s say, plumbing supplies or for air conditioners, you might find it difficult sometimes to remain consistent, creative, original, etc. Here is where convergence might help you. Try giving the content a snappy title, make it more about the reader than about the website, As we’ve detailed in a previous blog post, by introducing a new element to the narrative you’ve made a boring item more interesting and opened up your website to getting links from places your competition would find hard to replicate.
60. Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Undoubtedly, relevancy is a must.
While being relevant, a diverse mix of content can be used in order to keep things interesting for your readers.
This might require videos, case studies, articles, e-Newsletters, webinars, blog posts, data visualization posts, competitions or photographs. This might require some market and consumer research skills in order to understand consumer expectations with regards to the kind of content they want to read. Yet, it’s totally worth it.
61. Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Whether you agree or not, “Content is king” is one of the widest spread Internet memes. You will see the phrase referenced all over the place. And we tend to think that mostly Google is “the guilty” one for this matter. For a while now, Google has been promoting the importance of content and it has even shaped an algorithm on exactly this matter, ready to penalize sites that do not respect content quality guidelines.
The thing you need to remember is that you need to write good, relevant and qualitative content for the sake of your readers but also to avoid any Google Penalties.
62. Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
As the saying goes, we are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
You’ve written a blog post and you have thousands of shares and appreciations? That’s a great. Yet, that one time performance won’t keep you on the top for long. On the contrary, once you’ve set the bar high, you need to keep up with it to have killer content.
This is similar to the one hit wonder music bands.
We all remember the musical hit, we sing it at birthdays parties for a period of time, yet we probably won’t buy the album just for that tune.
Same thing may happen to your content. If you want your readers to look at your blog/brand/name with respect and put you in the trustworthy content category, make a habit out of delivering quality.
63. The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Every site owner’s dream (and goal) is to rank as high as possible for their target audience. Every search engine’s dream (and goal) is to make sure that the most relevant websites rank the highest. Therefore, it’s a vicious cycle.
Yet, keywords used in the titles of your copy have a high ranking importance. We’ve conducted a study where it seems that keyword appearance in the title makes a clear difference between ranking 1st or 2nd.
When creating the title of your content you should really think things through, as the title must not be only relevant and attractive but also SERP friendly.
64. Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Do you ever use rhetorical questions in your writing? Like this one, for instance?
Rhetorical questions make your arguments more persuasive.
Also, your audience will become engaged. And if your arguments are strong and valid, readers will be more likely persuaded by them.
65. Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Around here we put a lot of emphasis on content and go on and on about how it comes first. But that doesn’t mean we’re blind to aesthetic choices. If you have good, original, insightful, even life-changing content, but choose to display it in green Comic Sans over a pink background, you can count us out. And a few other readers, too.
Choice of font and color scheme can greatly influence the success of a piece by being a factor for accessibility.
Certain fonts make for easier reading when it comes to big blocks of text, while certain color schemes make it easier on the eye to spend long amounts of time on landing pages. Font and color also go a long way in terms of credibility: some combinations simply look slick and professional, while others give an “untrustworthy” vibe, despite potentially good writing.
66. Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
Negative frames describe something that isn’t taking place. Positive frames, on the other hand, describe something tangible, something that is happening. Studies show that we need more mental resources to process negative frames as they reduce comprehension and degrade the impact of your message. Therefore, positive frames should be the one you should look for.
NEGATIVE: Don’t be late. POSITIVE: Arrive on time.
NEGATIVE: Don’t drink excessively. POSITIVE: Drink responsibly.
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Copy: 66 Copywriting Tips that Will Boost Your Conversion Rates by 327%
The famous American television and radio host Larry King, used to say to his audience a very witty story about his father. He says that his father, a Ukrainian jew, came to the US thinking that America is the greatest land of all, where even the streets are paved with gold. However, shortly after arriving, his father realized three things:
The streets weren’t paved with gold.
The streets weren’t paved at all.
He was the one to pave the streets.
There is no secret for anyone that content marketing is a must. And the truth is that copywriting isn’t just about writing blog posts anymore; it’s about telling good stories well. How do you get to create those stories that will increase your conversion rates hundreds of times?
We do not claim to have discovered the magic formula that will boost your business guaranteed. However, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of essential copywriting tips that will surely revamp your content, and it will blow up your conversion rate.
Write in Short Paragraphs
Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Laser-Focused as Possible
Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Forget Academic Writing
Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Show Empathy with the Reader
Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Do Your Psychology Homework
Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
Write List Posts
Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Take Advantage of Power Words
Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Make Efficient Use of Social Media
Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Write Your Own Description Tag
Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Create a Content Strategy Calendar
Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Originality Is a Must
Existing Content Needs Love, Too
Timing Is Everything
Spot your competitor’s most engaging content
Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
Creativity Is Key!
Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Repurpose Your Content
Make Use of Content Convergence
Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
1. Write in Short Paragraphs
There a few things more off-putting to a reader than a whole block of text with no spaces. You’ll do nothing but chase away your readers with such type of content. Writing in short paragraphs is an effective way to write on the web as it provides ‘eye relief’ throughout the page. Short paragraphs are easily digestible and can be skimmed over at a glance.
2. Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Focused as Possible
Long content or short content? Which one is better? What is the case? The more, the merrier, or less is more? Well, if you are looking for a short answer to this question you need to know that there isn’t one, as it depends on rankings, conversions, followers, popularity, authority, engagement, keyword optimization, etc. Yet, it seems that shorter articles are better correlated with higher ranks. We’ve detailed this matter in a previous case study we invite you to take a look at.
The bottom line is that you have to be very savvy about the number of words you use in your website copy, depending on what you want to achieve. Write according to your readers’ needs and remember that nowadays digital readers have a limited span attention.
3. Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Big words don’t make you seem smarter.
Being able to explain complicated things in simple terms, however, truly is the sign of intelligence.
There are obviously times when you need to use technical terms or introduce complex concepts. But try not to get too comfortable using jargon and keep forcing yourself to remain accessible to as large an audience as possible. When not sure if you’ve met this, ask yourself: Would a newcomer to the field have an easy time following your text? Would an outsider grasp the importance of what you published?
4. Forget Academic Writing
When we talk about academic writing we don’t necessarily mean scientific articles. But there’s a certain rigor to that writing which might not appeal to the general audience. This is not to say you should dumb things down. Essay Tigers expert recommends using everyday language to engage with as wide an audience as possible. There’s a simple, two-step approach for making this happen:
Read what you’ve written out loud. If some parts don’t sound like something you’d say to a friend in real life, then change it.
Read what you’ve written out loud to someone else and ask them to tell you what the copy is about. If they can’t tell you easily, then change it.
5. Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
We’ve touched on this before but it’s worth repeating: clarity is key. You’ve probably got the best lesson in writing in primary school: everything needs to have an intro, a body and a conclusion. And all of these need to be clearly laid out. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to touch on: What is the point of your copy? You’re writing a new text because you have some claim to make, some wisdom you want to share.
If you were to write it in a single sentence, what would that sentence be?
How do you know what you claim is true? You need to present evidence (case studies, statistics, expert opinions) and explain why your evidence is relevant… Just because it happened in some instances, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to be true for everyone. Why does any of it matter? In public speaking, there’s the concept of “WIIFM” – “What’s In It For Me?”
The reader needs to know what they’re gaining by reading your article.
What’s the best thing they can do with the newfound wisdom?
6. Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
This is a delicate balance because explaining too much could make knowledgeable readers bored, while not explaining enough could make inexperienced readers feel left in the dark. But it’s always better to err on the side of caution and explain the background of something. Why is phone encryption suddenly a problem? What is the deal with fake news? Even if a lot of your readers might know a great deal about your topic, you can still provide details while also putting a new spin on it.
Source: http://coschedule.com
7. Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
You don’t just write to a mass content. Each piece you publish should have a goal in terms of the effect on the reader.
The best scenario is when the reader will actually take an action as a result of reading your piece.
For instance, if you publish a DIY instructable, you might get people who read or watched it try to do the same. That is, of course, quite ambitious and not all pieces need to elicit action from the readers for them to be successful. Yet, looking at the screenshot below, you can easily follow the steps presented, right?
You could also write an article where you explain a new concept or study something people knew certain things about (but didn’t know what to think of it). That means your main goal was to expand your readers’ knowledge. Or you could simply publish a piece on a subject that’s quite well-known and invite people to comment about it, thus facilitating an exchange of good practices between people who otherwise might not have interacted with each other. There’s more than one way to make a difference and you just need to set up realistic goals.
Source: ideas.evite.com
8. Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Don’t have enough time to write a long piece? Having a bit of a writer’s block?
There’s a lot of ways to publish content other than text: mix it up with images, create a video out of it, make a podcast, etc.
Sometimes the choice about how to reach your followers is pragmatic (it takes less time to record a podcast than to write the same content); other times it’s about strategy – maybe your followers are more easily swayed by videos or maybe it’s easier for them to follow content as podcast (while driving) than writing. When in doubt, just mix it up – it’s always best to cover more ground. And always build compelling copy for each method.
youtube
9. Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Writing good copy should be a bit like writing good journalism.
“One paragraph, one idea,” is a very useful motto when it comes to structuring your text.
Set out a claim, explain why it could be true, illustrate it with an example and then see what the implication of that claim might be. Then discuss that implication in the following paragraph. When you have a longer text, bring out some quotes or poignant phrases that might draw the readers’ attention, so that they can better focus and find the section they need more easily.
10. Show Empathy with the Reader
Answering the reader’s WIIFM (What’s in it for me) question is a great start, but if possible, you should try to go beyond that.
Try to understand your readers’ frame of mind: what are their expectations, what might they be worried about?
Sometimes it could be as simple as tapping into their shared history
Look, we’ve all been there: trying to meet the deadline even though…
Other times, you need to tap into something that drives your readers and what their expectations (positive or negative) could be (“You’re probably thinking that this is too hard for you to do – that’s a normal reaction, but…”). All in all, it’s about putting a face to your audience and making the writing more of a dialogue than a monologue.
Source: brettrelander.com
11. Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Sometimes we can get too technical about things and assume our readers are information-parsing-robots. They’re not. They’re human beings and have a natural tendency to like stories and be attracted to the coherence and consistency of a well-told story. You can keep all the facts and all the logical analysis you wanted to pour into your copy, but if you really want to strike a chord, make sure to wrap it in some nice storytelling tropes:
Is there a hero to your story, trying to overcome difficulties? Is there an antagonist trying to stop the hero from succeeding? Does goodness get rewarded in the end, despite hurdles along the way? Etc.
Source: echostories.com
12. Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Read this aloud: “He only told her he loved her.” Which word did you emphasize? There wasn’t a correct way of saying it, but how you chose to say it made a big difference. It might also have been influenced by your traits, beliefs, experience and social background. This is not just about using correct grammar (which, as the Internet warns us, can save someone’s life).
It’s also about using punctuation with purpose.
You want to convey a sense of urgency? Use short sentences and replace semicolons with full stops. You want to make a short detour in the middle of your sentence? Pick your weapon wisely: commas, dashes, parentheses…
You want people to pay attention?
The exclamation mark may have worked before, but it’s now been so overused on clickbait sites, that people just tend to ignore it and what it’s meant to signify.
These may seem like details at first, but once you understand how punctuation impacts not only the reading, but also the understanding of a text, you might decide to pay these details a lot more attention.
13. Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
We tend to like having a sense of completion. Especially with a work that’s quite sizeable, it’s nice to have smaller milestones. It’s encouraging to know that while the end is not necessarily near, we’re definitely heading in its direction.
Sub-headings help your readers stay motivated.
But they also serve a very practical purpose: they make particular content easy to find both for first-time readers and for recurrent ones.
14. Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
This should go without saying, but it’s important to understand why this is important. It’s not just that it can make readers annoyed because they have to do a double take on a sentence. It’s also not that even small typos can lead to inaccurate statements, in particular when they’re easy to miss (writing “you’re now allowed to…” instead of “you’re not allowed to…” changes the whole meaning, but is grammatically correct in both cases).
Spelling mistakes underscore lack of professionalism and lack of concern for the reader.
The message is pretty straightforward: “We didn’t care enough about the people reading this so as to spend just a little more time on making this copy look like a polished product. We think this is good enough.” And that’s not what you want them to think.
Source: liquidbubble.co.uk
15. As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
There’s a lot of carefulness and consideration put into most writing. But when they’re not doubled by authenticity, when the text doesn’t seem to be coming from a real person, or to be addressed to one, that attention comes across as disingenuous and unnatural. So try to stay honest with your audience and use your unique selling point.
Be open about your intentions and about your experience and abilities.
Admit when you’re not up to speed on something. Don’t jump on bandwagons. Talk about what matters to you. It’s really hard to define what “authentic” is, because we should always try to get outside of our comfort zones. But I think authenticity comes from being able to admit, having tried something new or that everyone is raving about, that you didn’t like it that much and you want to do something else next time. That honesty is what keeps followers interested and engaged.
16. Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
This goes beyond fonts and colors. It’s about page layout and how everything looks (and feels). In a way, it’s a bit like fashion – some types of content just go better with certain types of layouts. If your pieces are lengthy and complex, with pictures and charts and graphs, make sure you have a page layout that makes that kind of content attractive and easy to go through.
A more traditional style might help the reader keep focused on the text.
If you work in short bursts of content, be it text, photo, or video, create a layout where every other element points toward your content marketing strategy (rather than distracting from it). Once you’ve settled on a style, try to keep it in mind whenever you’re writing new content: where is this paragraph going to be on the page? Should you insert this picture to the left or to the right (or in a medallion)? How easy is it going to be to flip to the next page? Etc.
17. Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Try to define your style. There’s obviously going to be a lot of adjustment as you grow and find out more about design, but you should document these changes as much as possible. Coherence and consistency in style are rewarded by readers, even though most of the time their influence is subconscious. So keep up and create a manual to document your decisions: What font, size and color should article titles be? What about body text?
How big should the pictures, videos and other objects be? How much space should they take relative to other elements?
What colors do you use, aside from the colors already visible on your site? What colors and styles to highlight words, show hyperlinks or frame text boxes? Etc.
Of course, these things can be defined in various ways, so that you’re still left with enough flexibility.
18. Do Your Psychology Homework
We’ve referenced psychology quite a few times in this list already, when talking about what we want, expect or like. There’s a whole field out there about economic behavior and it’s still expanding. Turns out we’re not actually those rational individuals we believe ourselves to be (no, not even you, sorry to say). Most of us are actually pretty irrational when seen from an outside perspective, even though we abide by our own internal logic.
We don’t always make the best buys, the best choices or act in our best interests.
Why are so many of our behaviors counter-intuitive? There’s no easy answer (no single answer either, for that matter), but it will definitely help you to find out more about what the explanations might be. Writers like Ariely, Duhigg, Goleman, Kahneman or Taleb all featured extensively on the bookshelves in the past few years and with good reason.
Source: http://irrationalgames.com/
19. Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
A lot of content comes from wanting to share experience. You know something most other people – even those in your field – might not know. You are excited about that and want to make them aware of your new gained wisdom. The important thing to remember is that the focus should stay on sharing and not on you as the source of wisdom. That’s not to say your opinions have no place in your writing, on the contrary. But always ask yourself these 3 questions:
Will this info help my readers to better understand the subject? Will this info help my readers to better apply this knowledge for doing something practical? Will this info help me to look cool but not add anything valuable to this piece?
If the answer to the first two questions is a resounding “Yes”, then you should definitely include that piece of information in your copy. If the answer to these questions is “No” and the only “Yes” comes from the third question, well… you’ve got yourself a pretty good conversation opener for the next party.
20. Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
As you gain more readers, start thinking about them as potential clients. Who are they? How can you split them into smaller groups based on age, gender, line of business, interests, income, etc.? You might not have all this information all the time, but you should at least try to find out as much as you can about them. Because if you are to have an ongoing dialogue with them, you need to try and understand what they’re like. Are they typical representatives of a certain generation (X, Y, millennials)? Do they even fit the definitions or are they a group with much more specific characteristics? It would help if you could listen to them – have a way to collect their feedback and allow them to voice out their opinions.
The better you get to know your readers, the more likely it is you will be able to write directly to them and keep them interested in your company.
21. Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
With so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to think we know a lot. In reality, we know very few things well. We know a bit more superficially. Most of the topics, we just have a very inaccurate understanding of. But what happens when we try to talk about something we know little or nothing about as if we knew and stumble upon someone with actual knowledge on the topic? The result, as you’ve guessed, is disastrous. Do your homework before publishing any new content. Do more than just a cursory overview of the information that’s been published lately. Go in depth:
Read books, not just articles; Watch documentaries and videos of experts in that topic; Try to get in touch with people who’ve actually experienced that topic first-hand.
You’re still not going to be an expert even after doing all these things, but at least whatever you write about that topic afterwards will be a valuable contribution to the ongoing dialogue. You can use tools such as BrandMentions to easily research topics that interest you an to get updated on the subject.
22. Write List Posts
List posts can be really useful – just look at this one. Joke aside, there is actual value to list posts. Sure, you don’t get to go into a lot of detail, but the richness and variety of ideas will compensate for the lack of depth. Readers are aware of the fact that lists tend to gloss over details and they’re OK with it, mostly because what they’re looking for is variety of ideas.
Quality usually beats quantity, unless it’s exactly quantity that you’re after.
23. Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Lead with your most important data. Don’t try to attract users with cheap, vague clickbait tactics like the one below:
You won’t believe how many writing tips we have in this list!
A lot of editors seem to have forgotten that what people really need is information, not mystery. And people will read your article for what you promise them in the title – and leave satisfied after getting what they wanted. Moreover, sometimes the numbers are impressive in themselves.
Here are couple of examples of numbers that make you think and want to find out more:
Wi-Fi and mobile-connected devices will generate 68% of all internet traffic by 2017.
In 2015, 64% of all in-store sales, or sales to the tune of $2.2 trillion, were influenced by the internet.
Only 44% of web traffic is from humans; a massive 56% of web traffic is from bots, impersonators, hacking tools, scrapers and spammers.
A single second delay in your website loading time can result in a 7% loss in conversion, and 40% of web users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Source: hostingfacts.com
24. Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Ever heard of the KISS rule for public speaking?
Keep It Short & Simple.
That’s exactly how you should think about your persuasive copy. We’ve already mentioned earlier in the list that you should think of your texts as an ongoing conversation. Most people talk in short bits during a conversation, to allow the other person to process what they’ve heard (and also leave plenty of opportunities for interventions). This formula grabs attention easily. Admittedly, your readers can’t jump in while reading your text to alter its course, but they still need to process what they read. They’ll appreciate a clear and simple structure, where everything seems to flow naturally, rather than verbose paragraphs whose main purpose seems to be to obfuscate them.
Remember: one paragraph, one idea.
If you’ve changed ideas, it means you need to change paragraphs as well (or, at the very least, sentences).
25. Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Try to make your text read like a real conversation (with actual people). Obviously, that’s not 100% possible; you’re not writing plays, after all. But you get our gist.
People have conversations in their heads anyways.
You read a text and find yourself muttering out loud “true, true…”, “wow, that’s crazy!” or sometimes even “that can’t be right, can it?!…” You can even try to interact with the reader when you’re sure your text will elicit a certain reaction. Just said something counter-intuitive or shocking?
You could try to start your next sentence with something like “I know what you’re thinking: ‘surely that can’t be right.’ But it is entirely accurate.” It might not always work and you will have to even resist doing this sometimes, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a possibility.
Source: printwand.com
26. Take Advantage of Power Words
Do you know anyone opposed to progress? What about anyone who rejoices at the sound of the word suffering?
Not all words are created equal and some words have more power than others.
It is usually because of a specific cultural background of that word, the way it has been used consistently by people to mean a certain thing; so much so, that a particular association is now the only one that comes to people’s minds. Richard Weaver, a 20th century rhetorician, introduced the concepts of “god terms” and “devil terms” to refer to words that have an almost universal positive, respectively negative, connotation. There is a thin line to balance here between being rhetorically savvy and being manipulative, but power words are definitely worth exploring if you want to create better texts.
In his incredible book “Predictably Irrational,” Dan Ariely dedicated a chapter to the power of words in the process of decision making. Long story short, to test the power of the word “free” concerning concrete value, Ariely asked a group of people to choose between a 1 cent Hershey Kiss or a 15 cent Lindt truffle. Most of the people opted for the second version. Nothing intriguing so far. Another random group of subjects were asked to make the same decision just this time both products were cheapened with 1 cent. The results? As you can see in the image below, the subjects seemingly flipped on their opinion of these two treats.
Do not underestimate the power of “free”.
27. Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Writing is a skill, not a trait you’re born with.
Sure, some people have more talent than others, but just like with a lot of artistic skills, hard work, passion and determination can overcome a talent “deficit.” On the other hand, natural talent withers if it’s not exercised regularly. Read viciously what your favorite copywriters publish. Read books about writing. Go to classes about writing. Listen to podcasts and watch videos about writing. And most importantly?
Write every single day. Always with intent, always trying to get better at something.
Look into style and try to emulate various writing styles. Take what is useful from each of them. Look into creative writing and push yourself to write about things you never cared before. Not everything will stick – in fact, most likely won’t. But being better at writing is something that happens slowly and in bits and pieces. It’s also something worth pursuing.
28. Make Efficient Use of Social Media
We’ve touched on this before in our posts and it’s as relevant now as it was then: social proof can be a huge help, as long as you use it strategically. There are plenty of statistics out there about what works best: how many words to use in your posts, what time to post on each network, when to use tags and what to use them for. These statistics are a good starting point, but you’ll have to put in some work, too. They represent average findings of everyone online. You might discover different findings for your business or line of service, as long as you’re willing to put in some time for trial and error tests.
We’ve conducted a very in-depth study to figure out if social signals influence SEO and one of our findings was that a strong presence on social networks is correlated with better rankings, as you can see in the screenshot below.
29. Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Write every time like that’s the most important thing to publish.
Don’t think of anything you write as a throwaway or filler.
You need to believe that what you write is important, otherwise there’s little chance the reader will think it.
30. Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Synonyms have been managed automatically by Google for years now, yet what you may not know is their high influence not only on your copy but also on rankings. We all use Thesaurus now and then to “beautify” our content.
You might not know that you can use synonyms for rankings as well.
Let’s say that you are in the “laptops” niche and you write content on this matter. It wouldn’t be bad if you used not only the exact match laptops, but also synonyms or words from the same area with this one : computers, notebooks, etc. And this is because Google is becoming increasingly smart and it returns results not based on the exact matching word but by the intent of the user, using sometimes synonyms of the words or their lexical family.
Use synonyms smartly on your website in order to rank higher not just because you’re obsessed with ranks, but because your website might be relevant to people who search using similar but not quite exactly the same words. More on how to take advantage of this technique can be found on a previous in-depth research we’ve done on how to exploit the synonym technique to increase your traffic.
31. Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Most of the time we speak about things we think our readers want. But they may be interested in different things, or talk in different ways about those things. Think of a piece of software, for instance: how the developer might describe its functionalities (“Formatting text in XProduct”) is not how users might ask questions about it (“How do I make my text bold in XProduct?”). Therefore go ahead, check the forums and search for the exact word your readers use.
32. Write Your Own Description Tag
Copywriting doesn’t imply just blog writing and in-depth article research but also every piece of content written that is related to the business you are working for. Therefore, one of the things you make sure as a killer copywriter (and/or SEO professional) is that you write your own description tag for every important page on your site. Otherwise, Google will do that for you. And you might not want that.
Why is this useful for your copy?
Usually, when someone does a Google search they want answers really fast and very relevant.
This means that if they search for Copywriting Tips and Tricks they would expect to see at a glance exactly what they searched for. And if, along with the title, in the description tag you show them the quick wins they will have, you get more clicks.
33. Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you have to offer. Regardless of the fact that it might be easier for your content to rank higher when using long tail keywords, it is also a better way to connect with customers. We’ve written more on this subject in a previous post.
34. Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
It does hurt to say, but the more you read meaningless content on the web, the more you expect the next link you click on to give you hands on content.
If you’re unlucky enough to be the fourth or fifth and the reader is already bent out of shape, you clearly wouldn’t like to be in the position of disappointing him. It’s harder to work for content than it was for linkbait and clickbait years ago, because this time there’s no shortcut to get people’s attention. You’ve got to be fair and you’ve got to deliver. Let’s call this Attention Web.
Only promise what you can deliver!
35. Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
We all have belief biases – this means that when facing a logical argument, we’re more likely to believe it if the conclusion seems more plausible instead of analyzing the supporting evidence. Bold points of view are lifesaving. They raise eyebrows and tickle curiosity, while sending the impression of reliability. Which is why people will read the first sentence of your post – unfortunately, after this they realize you’re about to contradict their prior beliefs and leave. Just like that.
36. Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Suppose that you’re lucky enough to write about the topic someone’s recently been interested in – this only means they’ll notice your work, at best. From here to actually reading your content there is a lot of work paved with intermediary steps.
Digging too deep into a topic often implies taking a lot of extra risk.
We only read in-depth content analyses; we do our homework properly, we’re never out of touch and we can tell you what’s trending from sleep. And yet, there’s nothing easier than losing the interest of your readers.
Source: slate.com
37. Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs.
The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss. The truth is that we care more about maintaining our Status Quo (state of facts) than we do about truth; and if you’re saying otherwise, chances are your brain is playing some tricks on you.
Therefore, if it’s not imperative to change, innovation for the sake of novelty is the number one enemy of reader loyalty.
38. Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Content we share doesn’t always equal content we’ve engaged with. It’s a lot easier to share content based on its title than it is to actually engage with it. Yet, it’s highly important to know how to measure the success of a piece of content. Metrics for on-page behavior, for SEO, bounce rates, average time spent on page, the number and quality of the comments or the metrics for social media performance are elements you should always keep an eye on.
It is not just the people who convert are important, but the pages they convert from.
Here you can find how to constantly monitor and learn from these metrics
39. Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
No, you won’t need night vision goggles or an invisibility cloak to monitor your community.
What you do need is to pay attention to your surroundings. Working inside of a system often makes us lose what’s most important in succeeding—the holistic view of the industry.
40. Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
There’s no place more insightful than your own community—you’ll find plenty of ideas there if you just take the time to look at it. Being part of an industry often takes a lot of time, especially in domains that seem to be so competitive, in a never-ending effort to become better. However, sometimes we should just stop. And see what it is that’s missing—there’s always a glitch—something that you haven’t discovered yet. Start from there. I know it might sound like a task hard to achieve but tools such as Brand Mentions can really ease your job.
41. Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Whether you are a content marketer who is interested in the content from a specific area or you are into more generic matters, first thing first, you need to check out what is going on in that niche and find some inspiration from those findings.
Correlating search trends with the most recent mentions on the web seems to be a great formula, regardless of the niche you are interested in.
42. Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Through all its efforts, a company/business/website is trying to find a way to best reach its audience. Some efforts are sort of an “indirect” contact with the public through online content but there are also some others who are in direct contact with the user. A discussion with the sales and support team might be a great opportunity for you to better understand your audience’s needs or challenges and adapt your marketing copy accordingly.
Source: helpscout.net
43. Create a Content Strategy Calendar
After collecting a bunch of great article ideas you need to gather them together in a way that will be efficient and effective for your website or blog. And creating a content calendar is a method to get the best results out of your ideas. Although “Content Strategy Calendar” might sound a bit pretentious and you might get discouraged or think it is a very complicated task, the truth is that even a simple Google Doc Spreadsheet can help you out. What you need to keep in mind for each article you are going to write is that you have to take in consideration items such as:
What type of content is it? Where do you intend to publish it? What is the article’s audience? How and where are you going to promote it? How are you going to scale the result?
Source: meistertask.com
44. Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
The more we try to put information in pretty wrapping, the harder it will be to present it without visual support. It is just one among other smart copywriting formulas. Every attempt to make web content more interesting contributed to this borderline surrealistic change to the way we perceive content online. It seems that our brain really loves graphics more than you’d imagine:
visual information has increased by 9,000% since 2007
color visuals increase willingness to read by 80%
we receive 5 times more information than we did in 1986
we don’t read more than 28% of the words when visiting an online page
Source: contently.com
45. Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
The online and the offline often find themselves in competition and it shouldn’t be like that. In reality, although the two environments should not be compared, it’s impossible not to weigh one against the other. Yet, regardless of the advantages and disadvantages each one brings, one thing should be clear: they need to be coherent altogether and they both need to tell the same stories, even if with different lines.
Source: blog.hubspot.com
46. Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Because technology today can store so much information, we can’t keep track of it anymore.
Writers in the 17th century claimed they had read everything written in their language throughout history.
Today, this statistic is unachievable even to those of us who try to keep themselves up-to-date in their fields of expertise.
Nowadays, our attention span is 8 seconds and falling. Approximately 66% of our attention is spent below the fold , especially when it comes to content, and we’re impatient to get over the (often) boring introductions directly to the heart of what interests us.
47. Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
Figuring out what works for your niche is crucial. Looking at the content that performs best in your niche might be intuitive. Even though you might think it’s redundant to look at the bottom of the list, there are insights to be learned from your weakest performing content, too.
You need to see which pages have attracted the least amount of visitors and what type of content is not of interest to your viewers.
Creating uninteresting content isn’t useful for anyone. It is not useful for your target audience, and it’s clearly not productive for your business.
48. No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Content creation and shareability are parts of the content strategy concept and you can’t separate one from each other.
It would be a true shame to create great and useful content that does not receive any love from the community.
Just like us, you’ve probably seen a lot of bloggers create great articles that impressed you. But, they received little to no engagement. While creating content has its obvious benefits, maximizing shareability assures the success of your content strategy.
49. Originality Is a Must
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel on a daily basis.
You may also create content that has been done before as long as you augment it with a new spin.
As long as it’s a fresh and interesting approach to an idea, go ahead with it.
Remember that most of the times originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
The most original writers borrowed one from another.
50. Existing Content Needs Love, Too
When creating content, we tend to never look back and always think of the next idea.
You should always take your existing content and see what you can gain from it.
Maybe create a sequel, maybe an update, maybe there are some ideas in that piece of content that weren’t fully discussed. And even if it’s evergreen content we are talking about, remember that this kind of content is relevant for people now and it’s going to be relevant for them after a year, too. We’ve written a blog post on exactly this matter, where we put together some of the best ways to repurpose existing content.
51. Timing Is Everything
As the famous lines say, there is a time for everything : a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. And this applies in copywriting as well.
It’s obvious that writing the right article at the right moment is crucial.
There are times when important changes occur in the niche you are addressing and clearly you need to react on the spot and have a piece of copy ready for the moment. Yet, there are times when you need to know what new trick you need to unveil in order to capture your audience’s numb interest. Also, an important part of this matter is maximizing the shareability of your copy. Therefore you need to figure out when you’re going to get the most out of your content, at which moment of the day, the week or month you should share the content to receive the most traffic.
52. Spot Your Competitor’s Most Engaging Content
Content marketing – done correctly – can be a very effective way to attract and retain clients, but the problem is more and more companies produce more and more content. It’s highly important to understand how to produce content that will engage your target audience, but is also vital to know what your competitors’ most engaging content is. To figure this out you don’t have to spend ages collecting and analyzing all that content, you can do things way easier and efficiently if you use the proper tools.
53. Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Everyone has wrapped their brains around the idea of content creation and knows they should create amazing content to engage with their target audience. And that’s how content curation, the less known brother of content creation, gets left out in the cold.
A professional content curator picks and polishes the most amazing content and serves it up to the community and also gives credits to the owner.
It is definitely a power that can be harnessed, and remember that content curation is not content marketing.
54. Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
This applies before actually writing the piece of content but also after the copy has been unleashed to the world. Learn to monitor the places your content is published and analyze the traffic. Visitors who come and go are an invaluable resource of information regarding the content’s usage pattern. Watch out for data like keywords, bounce rate, and click patterns to learn more about their interests. Also, ask about the blogs and social networks where they spend their time online. You may find discussions that may shed a light on their needs and interests.
On the internet, in an age where everything is monitored, you are bound to find data about anything.
55. Creativity Is Key!
There is this common perception that creativity is a taboo subject or that is a “feature” that only the chosen ones are gifted with. As Steve Jobs once highlighted, most of the times creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
However, copywriting and creativity go hand in hand. This is why while sticking to your business plan, you enter a comfort zone, which is the worst enemy for creativity. When you empty your mind of all past concepts, you’re going to fill it with creativity. You have to liberate yourself from the limitations of what you already know.
56. Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
An information gap is a construct, a theory or an idea that the audience believes should be informed on, but doesn’t seem to be explained quite extensively. Rather, the reader feels like the information comes in bits and pieces, like an underlying premise of any discussion that derives from the matter. Here is where your content jumps in. Yet, for the strategy to work, the information will have to be relevant and systematized, while offering an in-depth perspective on the topic. Become a reference and the results will follow.
Once you’ve proven yourself as a trusty, authentic go-to blog, your leads and email subscription rates can dramatically increase.
57. Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Micro-targeting paints a big picture. The more you invest in targeting the right long tail keywords, the bigger a shot you have at accessing a key audience interested in a specific topic. Choosing topics for content writing should always be the result of a targeting process. Once you do this, the chances to grow a solid audience with an increase intent in your business are sizable.
58. Repurpose Your Content
Running a blog with constant valuable and high quality content might sometimes be difficult as it is a resource-consuming process. Therefore, why not getting the best out of the content that you’ve already worked on? Repurpose the content you already have. Not only will you save resources, but you’ll also extend the reach of your blog and maybe find new ways to reach your audience. Here are some great ideas of how to repurpose your content:
59. Make Use of Content Convergence
Before asking yourself how this might help you, allow me to explain what this is about.
It refers to merging one boring, dull topic with a more exciting topic, whilst giving it a theme which gets attention.
If you are to write copy for, let’s say, plumbing supplies or for air conditioners, you might find it difficult sometimes to remain consistent, creative, original, etc. Here is where convergence might help you. Try giving the content a snappy title, make it more about the reader than about the website, As we’ve detailed in a previous blog post, by introducing a new element to the narrative you’ve made a boring item more interesting and opened up your website to getting links from places your competition would find hard to replicate.
60. Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Undoubtedly, relevancy is a must.
While being relevant, a diverse mix of content can be used in order to keep things interesting for your readers.
This might require videos, case studies, articles, e-Newsletters, webinars, blog posts, data visualization posts, competitions or photographs. This might require some market and consumer research skills in order to understand consumer expectations with regards to the kind of content they want to read. Yet, it’s totally worth it.
61. Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Whether you agree or not, “Content is king” is one of the widest spread Internet memes. You will see the phrase referenced all over the place. And we tend to think that mostly Google is “the guilty” one for this matter. For a while now, Google has been promoting the importance of content and it has even shaped an algorithm on exactly this matter, ready to penalize sites that do not respect content quality guidelines.
The thing you need to remember is that you need to write good, relevant and qualitative content for the sake of your readers but also to avoid any Google Penalties.
62. Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
As the saying goes, we are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
You’ve written a blog post and you have thousands of shares and appreciations? That’s a great. Yet, that one time performance won’t keep you on the top for long. On the contrary, once you’ve set the bar high, you need to keep up with it to have killer content.
This is similar to the one hit wonder music bands.
We all remember the musical hit, we sing it at birthdays parties for a period of time, yet we probably won’t buy the album just for that tune.
Same thing may happen to your content. If you want your readers to look at your blog/brand/name with respect and put you in the trustworthy content category, make a habit out of delivering quality.
63. The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Every site owner’s dream (and goal) is to rank as high as possible for their target audience. Every search engine’s dream (and goal) is to make sure that the most relevant websites rank the highest. Therefore, it’s a vicious cycle.
Yet, keywords used in the titles of your copy have a high ranking importance. We’ve conducted a study where it seems that keyword appearance in the title makes a clear difference between ranking 1st or 2nd.
When creating the title of your content you should really think things through, as the title must not be only relevant and attractive but also SERP friendly.
64. Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Do you ever use rhetorical questions in your writing? Like this one, for instance?
Rhetorical questions make your arguments more persuasive.
Also, your audience will become engaged. And if your arguments are strong and valid, readers will be more likely persuaded by them.
65. Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Around here we put a lot of emphasis on content and go on and on about how it comes first. But that doesn’t mean we’re blind to aesthetic choices. If you have good, original, insightful, even life-changing content, but choose to display it in green Comic Sans over a pink background, you can count us out. And a few other readers, too.
Choice of font and color scheme can greatly influence the success of a piece by being a factor for accessibility.
Certain fonts make for easier reading when it comes to big blocks of text, while certain color schemes make it easier on the eye to spend long amounts of time on landing pages. Font and color also go a long way in terms of credibility: some combinations simply look slick and professional, while others give an “untrustworthy” vibe, despite potentially good writing.
66. Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
Negative frames describe something that isn’t taking place. Positive frames, on the other hand, describe something tangible, something that is happening. Studies show that we need more mental resources to process negative frames as they reduce comprehension and degrade the impact of your message. Therefore, positive frames should be the one you should look for.
NEGATIVE: Don’t be late. POSITIVE: Arrive on time.
NEGATIVE: Don’t drink excessively. POSITIVE: Drink responsibly.
The post Copy: 66 Copywriting Tips that Will Boost Your Conversion Rates by 327% appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.
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Copy: 66 Copywriting Tips that Will Boost Your Conversion Rates by 327%
The famous American television and radio host Larry King, used to say to his audience a very witty story about his father. He says that his father, a Ukrainian jew, came to the US thinking that America is the greatest land of all, where even the streets are paved with gold. However, shortly after arriving, his father realized three things:
The streets weren’t paved with gold.
The streets weren’t paved at all.
He was the one to pave the streets.
There is no secret for anyone that content marketing is a must. And the truth is that copywriting isn’t just about writing blog posts anymore; it’s about telling good stories well. How do you get to create those stories that will increase your conversion rates hundreds of times?
We do not claim to have discovered the magic formula that will boost your business guaranteed. However, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of essential copywriting tips that will surely revamp your content, and it will blow up your conversion rate.
Write in Short Paragraphs
Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Laser-Focused as Possible
Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Forget Academic Writing
Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Show Empathy with the Reader
Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Do Your Psychology Homework
Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
Write List Posts
Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Take Advantage of Power Words
Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Make Efficient Use of Social Media
Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Write Your Own Description Tag
Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Create a Content Strategy Calendar
Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Originality Is a Must
Existing Content Needs Love, Too
Timing Is Everything
Spot your competitor’s most engaging content
Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
Creativity Is Key!
Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Repurpose Your Content
Make Use of Content Convergence
Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
1. Write in Short Paragraphs
There a few things more off-putting to a reader than a whole block of text with no spaces. You’ll do nothing but chase away your readers with such type of content. Writing in short paragraphs is an effective way to write on the web as it provides ‘eye relief’ throughout the page. Short paragraphs are easily digestible and can be skimmed over at a glance.
2. Set Yourself a Word Count to Make Your Copy as Focused as Possible
Long content or short content? Which one is better? What is the case? The more, the merrier, or less is more? Well, if you are looking for a short answer to this question you need to know that there isn’t one, as it depends on rankings, conversions, followers, popularity, authority, engagement, keyword optimization, etc. Yet, it seems that shorter articles are better correlated with higher ranks. We’ve detailed this matter in a previous case study we invite you to take a look at.
The bottom line is that you have to be very savvy about the number of words you use in your website copy, depending on what you want to achieve. Write according to your readers’ needs and remember that nowadays digital readers have a limited span attention.
3. Don’t Use Terms that Might not be Widely Understood
Big words don’t make you seem smarter.
Being able to explain complicated things in simple terms, however, truly is the sign of intelligence.
There are obviously times when you need to use technical terms or introduce complex concepts. But try not to get too comfortable using jargon and keep forcing yourself to remain accessible to as large an audience as possible. When not sure if you’ve met this, ask yourself: Would a newcomer to the field have an easy time following your text? Would an outsider grasp the importance of what you published?
4. Forget Academic Writing
When we talk about academic writing we don’t necessarily mean scientific articles. But there’s a certain rigor to that writing which might not appeal to the general audience. This is not to say you should dumb things down. Essay Tigers expert recommends using everyday language to engage with as wide an audience as possible. There’s a simple, two-step approach for making this happen:
Read what you’ve written out loud. If some parts don’t sound like something you’d say to a friend in real life, then change it.
Read what you’ve written out loud to someone else and ask them to tell you what the copy is about. If they can’t tell you easily, then change it.
5. Make Sure Your Copy is Well Structured, Clear and Logical
We’ve touched on this before but it’s worth repeating: clarity is key. You’ve probably got the best lesson in writing in primary school: everything needs to have an intro, a body and a conclusion. And all of these need to be clearly laid out. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to touch on: What is the point of your copy? You’re writing a new text because you have some claim to make, some wisdom you want to share.
If you were to write it in a single sentence, what would that sentence be?
How do you know what you claim is true? You need to present evidence (case studies, statistics, expert opinions) and explain why your evidence is relevant… Just because it happened in some instances, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to be true for everyone. Why does any of it matter? In public speaking, there’s the concept of “WIIFM” – “What’s In It For Me?”
The reader needs to know what they’re gaining by reading your article.
What’s the best thing they can do with the newfound wisdom?
6. Be Detailed when It’s the Case; Don’t Assume Your Readers Know Everything
This is a delicate balance because explaining too much could make knowledgeable readers bored, while not explaining enough could make inexperienced readers feel left in the dark. But it’s always better to err on the side of caution and explain the background of something. Why is phone encryption suddenly a problem? What is the deal with fake news? Even if a lot of your readers might know a great deal about your topic, you can still provide details while also putting a new spin on it.
Source: http://coschedule.com
7. Know the Goal of Each Piece of Your Content
You don’t just write to a mass content. Each piece you publish should have a goal in terms of the effect on the reader.
The best scenario is when the reader will actually take an action as a result of reading your piece.
For instance, if you publish a DIY instructable, you might get people who read or watched it try to do the same. That is, of course, quite ambitious and not all pieces need to elicit action from the readers for them to be successful. Yet, looking at the screenshot below, you can easily follow the steps presented, right?
You could also write an article where you explain a new concept or study something people knew certain things about (but didn’t know what to think of it). That means your main goal was to expand your readers’ knowledge. Or you could simply publish a piece on a subject that’s quite well-known and invite people to comment about it, thus facilitating an exchange of good practices between people who otherwise might not have interacted with each other. There’s more than one way to make a difference and you just need to set up realistic goals.
Source: ideas.evite.com
8. Content Does not Necessarily Mean Just Words
Don’t have enough time to write a long piece? Having a bit of a writer’s block?
There’s a lot of ways to publish content other than text: mix it up with images, create a video out of it, make a podcast, etc.
Sometimes the choice about how to reach your followers is pragmatic (it takes less time to record a podcast than to write the same content); other times it’s about strategy – maybe your followers are more easily swayed by videos or maybe it’s easier for them to follow content as podcast (while driving) than writing. When in doubt, just mix it up – it’s always best to cover more ground. And always build compelling copy for each method.
youtube
9. Use Plenty of Paragraph Breaks and Quotes to Make Your Copy More “Readable”
Writing good copy should be a bit like writing good journalism.
“One paragraph, one idea,” is a very useful motto when it comes to structuring your text.
Set out a claim, explain why it could be true, illustrate it with an example and then see what the implication of that claim might be. Then discuss that implication in the following paragraph. When you have a longer text, bring out some quotes or poignant phrases that might draw the readers’ attention, so that they can better focus and find the section they need more easily.
10. Show Empathy with the Reader
Answering the reader’s WIIFM (What’s in it for me) question is a great start, but if possible, you should try to go beyond that.
Try to understand your readers’ frame of mind: what are their expectations, what might they be worried about?
Sometimes it could be as simple as tapping into their shared history
Look, we’ve all been there: trying to meet the deadline even though…
Other times, you need to tap into something that drives your readers and what their expectations (positive or negative) could be (“You’re probably thinking that this is too hard for you to do – that’s a normal reaction, but…”). All in all, it’s about putting a face to your audience and making the writing more of a dialogue than a monologue.
Source: brettrelander.com
11. Don’t Forget about the Power of Storytelling
Sometimes we can get too technical about things and assume our readers are information-parsing-robots. They’re not. They’re human beings and have a natural tendency to like stories and be attracted to the coherence and consistency of a well-told story. You can keep all the facts and all the logical analysis you wanted to pour into your copy, but if you really want to strike a chord, make sure to wrap it in some nice storytelling tropes:
Is there a hero to your story, trying to overcome difficulties? Is there an antagonist trying to stop the hero from succeeding? Does goodness get rewarded in the end, despite hurdles along the way? Etc.
Source: echostories.com
12. Use Punctuation Carefully to Make Your Copy Impactful
Read this aloud: “He only told her he loved her.” Which word did you emphasize? There wasn’t a correct way of saying it, but how you chose to say it made a big difference. It might also have been influenced by your traits, beliefs, experience and social background. This is not just about using correct grammar (which, as the Internet warns us, can save someone’s life).
It’s also about using punctuation with purpose.
You want to convey a sense of urgency? Use short sentences and replace semicolons with full stops. You want to make a short detour in the middle of your sentence? Pick your weapon wisely: commas, dashes, parentheses…
You want people to pay attention?
The exclamation mark may have worked before, but it’s now been so overused on clickbait sites, that people just tend to ignore it and what it’s meant to signify.
These may seem like details at first, but once you understand how punctuation impacts not only the reading, but also the understanding of a text, you might decide to pay these details a lot more attention.
13. Use Sub-headings to Highlight Your Key Points
We tend to like having a sense of completion. Especially with a work that’s quite sizeable, it’s nice to have smaller milestones. It’s encouraging to know that while the end is not necessarily near, we’re definitely heading in its direction.
Sub-headings help your readers stay motivated.
But they also serve a very practical purpose: they make particular content easy to find both for first-time readers and for recurrent ones.
14. Make Sure Your Copy Is Free of Spelling Mistakes
This should go without saying, but it’s important to understand why this is important. It’s not just that it can make readers annoyed because they have to do a double take on a sentence. It’s also not that even small typos can lead to inaccurate statements, in particular when they’re easy to miss (writing “you’re now allowed to…” instead of “you’re not allowed to…” changes the whole meaning, but is grammatically correct in both cases).
Spelling mistakes underscore lack of professionalism and lack of concern for the reader.
The message is pretty straightforward: “We didn’t care enough about the people reading this so as to spend just a little more time on making this copy look like a polished product. We think this is good enough.” And that’s not what you want them to think.
Source: liquidbubble.co.uk
15. As Much as Possible Be Authentic, Honest and Trustworthy
There’s a lot of carefulness and consideration put into most writing. But when they’re not doubled by authenticity, when the text doesn’t seem to be coming from a real person, or to be addressed to one, that attention comes across as disingenuous and unnatural. So try to stay honest with your audience and use your unique selling point.
Be open about your intentions and about your experience and abilities.
Admit when you’re not up to speed on something. Don’t jump on bandwagons. Talk about what matters to you. It’s really hard to define what “authentic” is, because we should always try to get outside of our comfort zones. But I think authenticity comes from being able to admit, having tried something new or that everyone is raving about, that you didn’t like it that much and you want to do something else next time. That honesty is what keeps followers interested and engaged.
16. Always Keep the Design in Mind when Creating the Text
This goes beyond fonts and colors. It’s about page layout and how everything looks (and feels). In a way, it’s a bit like fashion – some types of content just go better with certain types of layouts. If your pieces are lengthy and complex, with pictures and charts and graphs, make sure you have a page layout that makes that kind of content attractive and easy to go through.
A more traditional style might help the reader keep focused on the text.
If you work in short bursts of content, be it text, photo, or video, create a layout where every other element points toward your content marketing strategy (rather than distracting from it). Once you’ve settled on a style, try to keep it in mind whenever you’re writing new content: where is this paragraph going to be on the page? Should you insert this picture to the left or to the right (or in a medallion)? How easy is it going to be to flip to the next page? Etc.
17. Create a Style Guide for All Your Copy
Try to define your style. There’s obviously going to be a lot of adjustment as you grow and find out more about design, but you should document these changes as much as possible. Coherence and consistency in style are rewarded by readers, even though most of the time their influence is subconscious. So keep up and create a manual to document your decisions: What font, size and color should article titles be? What about body text?
How big should the pictures, videos and other objects be? How much space should they take relative to other elements?
What colors do you use, aside from the colors already visible on your site? What colors and styles to highlight words, show hyperlinks or frame text boxes? Etc.
Of course, these things can be defined in various ways, so that you’re still left with enough flexibility.
18. Do Your Psychology Homework
We’ve referenced psychology quite a few times in this list already, when talking about what we want, expect or like. There’s a whole field out there about economic behavior and it’s still expanding. Turns out we’re not actually those rational individuals we believe ourselves to be (no, not even you, sorry to say). Most of us are actually pretty irrational when seen from an outside perspective, even though we abide by our own internal logic.
We don’t always make the best buys, the best choices or act in our best interests.
Why are so many of our behaviors counter-intuitive? There’s no easy answer (no single answer either, for that matter), but it will definitely help you to find out more about what the explanations might be. Writers like Ariely, Duhigg, Goleman, Kahneman or Taleb all featured extensively on the bookshelves in the past few years and with good reason.
Source: http://irrationalgames.com/
19. Your Copy Should Be Much More about Solving Problems than about Self-Expression
A lot of content comes from wanting to share experience. You know something most other people – even those in your field – might not know. You are excited about that and want to make them aware of your new gained wisdom. The important thing to remember is that the focus should stay on sharing and not on you as the source of wisdom. That’s not to say your opinions have no place in your writing, on the contrary. But always ask yourself these 3 questions:
Will this info help my readers to better understand the subject? Will this info help my readers to better apply this knowledge for doing something practical? Will this info help me to look cool but not add anything valuable to this piece?
If the answer to the first two questions is a resounding “Yes”, then you should definitely include that piece of information in your copy. If the answer to these questions is “No” and the only “Yes” comes from the third question, well… you’ve got yourself a pretty good conversation opener for the next party.
20. Define Your Readers and Create Content for Them
As you gain more readers, start thinking about them as potential clients. Who are they? How can you split them into smaller groups based on age, gender, line of business, interests, income, etc.? You might not have all this information all the time, but you should at least try to find out as much as you can about them. Because if you are to have an ongoing dialogue with them, you need to try and understand what they’re like. Are they typical representatives of a certain generation (X, Y, millennials)? Do they even fit the definitions or are they a group with much more specific characteristics? It would help if you could listen to them – have a way to collect their feedback and allow them to voice out their opinions.
The better you get to know your readers, the more likely it is you will be able to write directly to them and keep them interested in your company.
21. Always Do Your Homework. Research your topics
With so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to think we know a lot. In reality, we know very few things well. We know a bit more superficially. Most of the topics, we just have a very inaccurate understanding of. But what happens when we try to talk about something we know little or nothing about as if we knew and stumble upon someone with actual knowledge on the topic? The result, as you’ve guessed, is disastrous. Do your homework before publishing any new content. Do more than just a cursory overview of the information that’s been published lately. Go in depth:
Read books, not just articles; Watch documentaries and videos of experts in that topic; Try to get in touch with people who’ve actually experienced that topic first-hand.
You’re still not going to be an expert even after doing all these things, but at least whatever you write about that topic afterwards will be a valuable contribution to the ongoing dialogue. You can use tools such as BrandMentions to easily research topics that interest you an to get updated on the subject.
22. Write List Posts
List posts can be really useful – just look at this one. Joke aside, there is actual value to list posts. Sure, you don’t get to go into a lot of detail, but the richness and variety of ideas will compensate for the lack of depth. Readers are aware of the fact that lists tend to gloss over details and they’re OK with it, mostly because what they’re looking for is variety of ideas.
Quality usually beats quantity, unless it’s exactly quantity that you’re after.
23. Include the Important Numbers in the Headline
Lead with your most important data. Don’t try to attract users with cheap, vague clickbait tactics like the one below:
You won’t believe how many writing tips we have in this list!
A lot of editors seem to have forgotten that what people really need is information, not mystery. And people will read your article for what you promise them in the title – and leave satisfied after getting what they wanted. Moreover, sometimes the numbers are impressive in themselves.
Here are couple of examples of numbers that make you think and want to find out more:
Wi-Fi and mobile-connected devices will generate 68% of all internet traffic by 2017.
In 2015, 64% of all in-store sales, or sales to the tune of $2.2 trillion, were influenced by the internet.
Only 44% of web traffic is from humans; a massive 56% of web traffic is from bots, impersonators, hacking tools, scrapers and spammers.
A single second delay in your website loading time can result in a 7% loss in conversion, and 40% of web users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Source: hostingfacts.com
24. Use Short, Well Structured Paragraphs
Ever heard of the KISS rule for public speaking?
Keep It Short & Simple.
That’s exactly how you should think about your persuasive copy. We’ve already mentioned earlier in the list that you should think of your texts as an ongoing conversation. Most people talk in short bits during a conversation, to allow the other person to process what they’ve heard (and also leave plenty of opportunities for interventions). This formula grabs attention easily. Admittedly, your readers can’t jump in while reading your text to alter its course, but they still need to process what they read. They’ll appreciate a clear and simple structure, where everything seems to flow naturally, rather than verbose paragraphs whose main purpose seems to be to obfuscate them.
Remember: one paragraph, one idea.
If you’ve changed ideas, it means you need to change paragraphs as well (or, at the very least, sentences).
25. Write Your Copy in a Conversational Way
Try to make your text read like a real conversation (with actual people). Obviously, that’s not 100% possible; you’re not writing plays, after all. But you get our gist.
People have conversations in their heads anyways.
You read a text and find yourself muttering out loud “true, true…”, “wow, that’s crazy!” or sometimes even “that can’t be right, can it?!…” You can even try to interact with the reader when you’re sure your text will elicit a certain reaction. Just said something counter-intuitive or shocking?
You could try to start your next sentence with something like “I know what you’re thinking: ‘surely that can’t be right.’ But it is entirely accurate.” It might not always work and you will have to even resist doing this sometimes, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a possibility.
Source: printwand.com
26. Take Advantage of Power Words
Do you know anyone opposed to progress? What about anyone who rejoices at the sound of the word suffering?
Not all words are created equal and some words have more power than others.
It is usually because of a specific cultural background of that word, the way it has been used consistently by people to mean a certain thing; so much so, that a particular association is now the only one that comes to people’s minds. Richard Weaver, a 20th century rhetorician, introduced the concepts of “god terms” and “devil terms” to refer to words that have an almost universal positive, respectively negative, connotation. There is a thin line to balance here between being rhetorically savvy and being manipulative, but power words are definitely worth exploring if you want to create better texts.
In his incredible book “Predictably Irrational,” Dan Ariely dedicated a chapter to the power of words in the process of decision making. Long story short, to test the power of the word “free” concerning concrete value, Ariely asked a group of people to choose between a 1 cent Hershey Kiss or a 15 cent Lindt truffle. Most of the people opted for the second version. Nothing intriguing so far. Another random group of subjects were asked to make the same decision just this time both products were cheapened with 1 cent. The results? As you can see in the image below, the subjects seemingly flipped on their opinion of these two treats.
Do not underestimate the power of “free”.
27. Make Efforts to Become a Better Writer
Writing is a skill, not a trait you’re born with.
Sure, some people have more talent than others, but just like with a lot of artistic skills, hard work, passion and determination can overcome a talent “deficit.” On the other hand, natural talent withers if it’s not exercised regularly. Read viciously what your favorite copywriters publish. Read books about writing. Go to classes about writing. Listen to podcasts and watch videos about writing. And most importantly?
Write every single day. Always with intent, always trying to get better at something.
Look into style and try to emulate various writing styles. Take what is useful from each of them. Look into creative writing and push yourself to write about things you never cared before. Not everything will stick – in fact, most likely won’t. But being better at writing is something that happens slowly and in bits and pieces. It’s also something worth pursuing.
28. Make Efficient Use of Social Media
We’ve touched on this before in our posts and it’s as relevant now as it was then: social proof can be a huge help, as long as you use it strategically. There are plenty of statistics out there about what works best: how many words to use in your posts, what time to post on each network, when to use tags and what to use them for. These statistics are a good starting point, but you’ll have to put in some work, too. They represent average findings of everyone online. You might discover different findings for your business or line of service, as long as you’re willing to put in some time for trial and error tests.
We’ve conducted a very in-depth study to figure out if social signals influence SEO and one of our findings was that a strong presence on social networks is correlated with better rankings, as you can see in the screenshot below.
29. Remember that All of Your Content Matters
Write every time like that’s the most important thing to publish.
Don’t think of anything you write as a throwaway or filler.
You need to believe that what you write is important, otherwise there’s little chance the reader will think it.
30. Use Synonyms and Help Google to Help You
Synonyms have been managed automatically by Google for years now, yet what you may not know is their high influence not only on your copy but also on rankings. We all use Thesaurus now and then to “beautify” our content.
You might not know that you can use synonyms for rankings as well.
Let’s say that you are in the “laptops” niche and you write content on this matter. It wouldn’t be bad if you used not only the exact match laptops, but also synonyms or words from the same area with this one : computers, notebooks, etc. And this is because Google is becoming increasingly smart and it returns results not based on the exact matching word but by the intent of the user, using sometimes synonyms of the words or their lexical family.
Use synonyms smartly on your website in order to rank higher not just because you’re obsessed with ranks, but because your website might be relevant to people who search using similar but not quite exactly the same words. More on how to take advantage of this technique can be found on a previous in-depth research we’ve done on how to exploit the synonym technique to increase your traffic.
31. Stalk Forums for the Exact Words Your Readers Use
Most of the time we speak about things we think our readers want. But they may be interested in different things, or talk in different ways about those things. Think of a piece of software, for instance: how the developer might describe its functionalities (“Formatting text in XProduct”) is not how users might ask questions about it (“How do I make my text bold in XProduct?”). Therefore go ahead, check the forums and search for the exact word your readers use.
32. Write Your Own Description Tag
Copywriting doesn’t imply just blog writing and in-depth article research but also every piece of content written that is related to the business you are working for. Therefore, one of the things you make sure as a killer copywriter (and/or SEO professional) is that you write your own description tag for every important page on your site. Otherwise, Google will do that for you. And you might not want that.
Why is this useful for your copy?
Usually, when someone does a Google search they want answers really fast and very relevant.
This means that if they search for Copywriting Tips and Tricks they would expect to see at a glance exactly what they searched for. And if, along with the title, in the description tag you show them the quick wins they will have, you get more clicks.
33. Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you have to offer. Regardless of the fact that it might be easier for your content to rank higher when using long tail keywords, it is also a better way to connect with customers. We’ve written more on this subject in a previous post.
34. Write Up to the High, Positive Expectation
It does hurt to say, but the more you read meaningless content on the web, the more you expect the next link you click on to give you hands on content.
If you’re unlucky enough to be the fourth or fifth and the reader is already bent out of shape, you clearly wouldn’t like to be in the position of disappointing him. It’s harder to work for content than it was for linkbait and clickbait years ago, because this time there’s no shortcut to get people’s attention. You’ve got to be fair and you’ve got to deliver. Let’s call this Attention Web.
Only promise what you can deliver!
35. Be Crystal Clear and Give Quick Previews that Make Your Points of View Acceptable
We all have belief biases – this means that when facing a logical argument, we’re more likely to believe it if the conclusion seems more plausible instead of analyzing the supporting evidence. Bold points of view are lifesaving. They raise eyebrows and tickle curiosity, while sending the impression of reliability. Which is why people will read the first sentence of your post – unfortunately, after this they realize you’re about to contradict their prior beliefs and leave. Just like that.
36. Deliver Something Valuable in an Intuitive Way
Suppose that you’re lucky enough to write about the topic someone’s recently been interested in – this only means they’ll notice your work, at best. From here to actually reading your content there is a lot of work paved with intermediary steps.
Digging too deep into a topic often implies taking a lot of extra risk.
We only read in-depth content analyses; we do our homework properly, we’re never out of touch and we can tell you what’s trending from sleep. And yet, there’s nothing easier than losing the interest of your readers.
Source: slate.com
37. Go with the Status Quo Over Newly Presented Facts
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs.
The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss. The truth is that we care more about maintaining our Status Quo (state of facts) than we do about truth; and if you’re saying otherwise, chances are your brain is playing some tricks on you.
Therefore, if it’s not imperative to change, innovation for the sake of novelty is the number one enemy of reader loyalty.
38. Learn how to Measure the Success of Content Marketing
Content we share doesn’t always equal content we’ve engaged with. It’s a lot easier to share content based on its title than it is to actually engage with it. Yet, it’s highly important to know how to measure the success of a piece of content. Metrics for on-page behavior, for SEO, bounce rates, average time spent on page, the number and quality of the comments or the metrics for social media performance are elements you should always keep an eye on.
It is not just the people who convert are important, but the pages they convert from.
Here you can find how to constantly monitor and learn from these metrics
39. Learn where Your Readers Get Their News and Information from
No, you won’t need night vision goggles or an invisibility cloak to monitor your community.
What you do need is to pay attention to your surroundings. Working inside of a system often makes us lose what’s most important in succeeding—the holistic view of the industry.
40. Get Inspired by Your Community’s Interest
There’s no place more insightful than your own community—you’ll find plenty of ideas there if you just take the time to look at it. Being part of an industry often takes a lot of time, especially in domains that seem to be so competitive, in a never-ending effort to become better. However, sometimes we should just stop. And see what it is that’s missing—there’s always a glitch—something that you haven’t discovered yet. Start from there. I know it might sound like a task hard to achieve but tools such as Brand Mentions can really ease your job.
41. Thoroughly Document on Your Niche to Find Content Inspiration
Whether you are a content marketer who is interested in the content from a specific area or you are into more generic matters, first thing first, you need to check out what is going on in that niche and find some inspiration from those findings.
Correlating search trends with the most recent mentions on the web seems to be a great formula, regardless of the niche you are interested in.
42. Talk to the Sales and Support Team
Through all its efforts, a company/business/website is trying to find a way to best reach its audience. Some efforts are sort of an “indirect” contact with the public through online content but there are also some others who are in direct contact with the user. A discussion with the sales and support team might be a great opportunity for you to better understand your audience’s needs or challenges and adapt your marketing copy accordingly.
Source: helpscout.net
43. Create a Content Strategy Calendar
After collecting a bunch of great article ideas you need to gather them together in a way that will be efficient and effective for your website or blog. And creating a content calendar is a method to get the best results out of your ideas. Although “Content Strategy Calendar” might sound a bit pretentious and you might get discouraged or think it is a very complicated task, the truth is that even a simple Google Doc Spreadsheet can help you out. What you need to keep in mind for each article you are going to write is that you have to take in consideration items such as:
What type of content is it? Where do you intend to publish it? What is the article’s audience? How and where are you going to promote it? How are you going to scale the result?
Source: meistertask.com
44. Remember that Visual Information Makes Readers More Thorough
The more we try to put information in pretty wrapping, the harder it will be to present it without visual support. It is just one among other smart copywriting formulas. Every attempt to make web content more interesting contributed to this borderline surrealistic change to the way we perceive content online. It seems that our brain really loves graphics more than you’d imagine:
visual information has increased by 9,000% since 2007
color visuals increase willingness to read by 80%
we receive 5 times more information than we did in 1986
we don’t read more than 28% of the words when visiting an online page
Source: contently.com
45. Harmonize Your Online Content with the Offline One
The online and the offline often find themselves in competition and it shouldn’t be like that. In reality, although the two environments should not be compared, it’s impossible not to weigh one against the other. Yet, regardless of the advantages and disadvantages each one brings, one thing should be clear: they need to be coherent altogether and they both need to tell the same stories, even if with different lines.
Source: blog.hubspot.com
46. Always Keep the Attention Span Matter in Mind
Because technology today can store so much information, we can’t keep track of it anymore.
Writers in the 17th century claimed they had read everything written in their language throughout history.
Today, this statistic is unachievable even to those of us who try to keep themselves up-to-date in their fields of expertise.
Nowadays, our attention span is 8 seconds and falling. Approximately 66% of our attention is spent below the fold , especially when it comes to content, and we’re impatient to get over the (often) boring introductions directly to the heart of what interests us.
47. Learn from Your Most and Least Shared Content
Figuring out what works for your niche is crucial. Looking at the content that performs best in your niche might be intuitive. Even though you might think it’s redundant to look at the bottom of the list, there are insights to be learned from your weakest performing content, too.
You need to see which pages have attracted the least amount of visitors and what type of content is not of interest to your viewers.
Creating uninteresting content isn’t useful for anyone. It is not useful for your target audience, and it’s clearly not productive for your business.
48. No Shares, No Likes, No Comments = No Traffic
Content creation and shareability are parts of the content strategy concept and you can’t separate one from each other.
It would be a true shame to create great and useful content that does not receive any love from the community.
Just like us, you’ve probably seen a lot of bloggers create great articles that impressed you. But, they received little to no engagement. While creating content has its obvious benefits, maximizing shareability assures the success of your content strategy.
49. Originality Is a Must
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel on a daily basis.
You may also create content that has been done before as long as you augment it with a new spin.
As long as it’s a fresh and interesting approach to an idea, go ahead with it.
Remember that most of the times originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
The most original writers borrowed one from another.
50. Existing Content Needs Love, Too
When creating content, we tend to never look back and always think of the next idea.
You should always take your existing content and see what you can gain from it.
Maybe create a sequel, maybe an update, maybe there are some ideas in that piece of content that weren’t fully discussed. And even if it’s evergreen content we are talking about, remember that this kind of content is relevant for people now and it’s going to be relevant for them after a year, too. We’ve written a blog post on exactly this matter, where we put together some of the best ways to repurpose existing content.
51. Timing Is Everything
As the famous lines say, there is a time for everything : a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. And this applies in copywriting as well.
It’s obvious that writing the right article at the right moment is crucial.
There are times when important changes occur in the niche you are addressing and clearly you need to react on the spot and have a piece of copy ready for the moment. Yet, there are times when you need to know what new trick you need to unveil in order to capture your audience’s numb interest. Also, an important part of this matter is maximizing the shareability of your copy. Therefore you need to figure out when you’re going to get the most out of your content, at which moment of the day, the week or month you should share the content to receive the most traffic.
52. Spot Your Competitor’s Most Engaging Content
Content marketing – done correctly – can be a very effective way to attract and retain clients, but the problem is more and more companies produce more and more content. It’s highly important to understand how to produce content that will engage your target audience, but is also vital to know what your competitors’ most engaging content is. To figure this out you don’t have to spend ages collecting and analyzing all that content, you can do things way easier and efficiently if you use the proper tools.
53. Make Use of Content Curation to Boost Your Influence
Everyone has wrapped their brains around the idea of content creation and knows they should create amazing content to engage with their target audience. And that’s how content curation, the less known brother of content creation, gets left out in the cold.
A professional content curator picks and polishes the most amazing content and serves it up to the community and also gives credits to the owner.
It is definitely a power that can be harnessed, and remember that content curation is not content marketing.
54. Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
This applies before actually writing the piece of content but also after the copy has been unleashed to the world. Learn to monitor the places your content is published and analyze the traffic. Visitors who come and go are an invaluable resource of information regarding the content’s usage pattern. Watch out for data like keywords, bounce rate, and click patterns to learn more about their interests. Also, ask about the blogs and social networks where they spend their time online. You may find discussions that may shed a light on their needs and interests.
On the internet, in an age where everything is monitored, you are bound to find data about anything.
55. Creativity Is Key!
There is this common perception that creativity is a taboo subject or that is a “feature” that only the chosen ones are gifted with. As Steve Jobs once highlighted, most of the times creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
However, copywriting and creativity go hand in hand. This is why while sticking to your business plan, you enter a comfort zone, which is the worst enemy for creativity. When you empty your mind of all past concepts, you’re going to fill it with creativity. You have to liberate yourself from the limitations of what you already know.
56. Fill Information Gaps – Become a Reference
An information gap is a construct, a theory or an idea that the audience believes should be informed on, but doesn’t seem to be explained quite extensively. Rather, the reader feels like the information comes in bits and pieces, like an underlying premise of any discussion that derives from the matter. Here is where your content jumps in. Yet, for the strategy to work, the information will have to be relevant and systematized, while offering an in-depth perspective on the topic. Become a reference and the results will follow.
Once you’ve proven yourself as a trusty, authentic go-to blog, your leads and email subscription rates can dramatically increase.
57. Targeting Longtail Keywords to Engage Your Audience
Micro-targeting paints a big picture. The more you invest in targeting the right long tail keywords, the bigger a shot you have at accessing a key audience interested in a specific topic. Choosing topics for content writing should always be the result of a targeting process. Once you do this, the chances to grow a solid audience with an increase intent in your business are sizable.
58. Repurpose Your Content
Running a blog with constant valuable and high quality content might sometimes be difficult as it is a resource-consuming process. Therefore, why not getting the best out of the content that you’ve already worked on? Repurpose the content you already have. Not only will you save resources, but you’ll also extend the reach of your blog and maybe find new ways to reach your audience. Here are some great ideas of how to repurpose your content:
59. Make Use of Content Convergence
Before asking yourself how this might help you, allow me to explain what this is about.
It refers to merging one boring, dull topic with a more exciting topic, whilst giving it a theme which gets attention.
If you are to write copy for, let’s say, plumbing supplies or for air conditioners, you might find it difficult sometimes to remain consistent, creative, original, etc. Here is where convergence might help you. Try giving the content a snappy title, make it more about the reader than about the website, As we’ve detailed in a previous blog post, by introducing a new element to the narrative you’ve made a boring item more interesting and opened up your website to getting links from places your competition would find hard to replicate.
60. Make It Interesting and Diverse, not Just Relevant
Undoubtedly, relevancy is a must.
While being relevant, a diverse mix of content can be used in order to keep things interesting for your readers.
This might require videos, case studies, articles, e-Newsletters, webinars, blog posts, data visualization posts, competitions or photographs. This might require some market and consumer research skills in order to understand consumer expectations with regards to the kind of content they want to read. Yet, it’s totally worth it.
61. Don’t Forget about the Content Monarchy
Whether you agree or not, “Content is king” is one of the widest spread Internet memes. You will see the phrase referenced all over the place. And we tend to think that mostly Google is “the guilty” one for this matter. For a while now, Google has been promoting the importance of content and it has even shaped an algorithm on exactly this matter, ready to penalize sites that do not respect content quality guidelines.
The thing you need to remember is that you need to write good, relevant and qualitative content for the sake of your readers but also to avoid any Google Penalties.
62. Quality Is not a One Time Act, It Is a HABIT
As the saying goes, we are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
You’ve written a blog post and you have thousands of shares and appreciations? That’s a great. Yet, that one time performance won’t keep you on the top for long. On the contrary, once you’ve set the bar high, you need to keep up with it to have killer content.
This is similar to the one hit wonder music bands.
We all remember the musical hit, we sing it at birthdays parties for a period of time, yet we probably won’t buy the album just for that tune.
Same thing may happen to your content. If you want your readers to look at your blog/brand/name with respect and put you in the trustworthy content category, make a habit out of delivering quality.
63. The Title of Your Content Will Influence Your Rankings
Every site owner’s dream (and goal) is to rank as high as possible for their target audience. Every search engine’s dream (and goal) is to make sure that the most relevant websites rank the highest. Therefore, it’s a vicious cycle.
Yet, keywords used in the titles of your copy have a high ranking importance. We’ve conducted a study where it seems that keyword appearance in the title makes a clear difference between ranking 1st or 2nd.
When creating the title of your content you should really think things through, as the title must not be only relevant and attractive but also SERP friendly.
64. Ask Rhetorical Questions to Engage Readers
Do you ever use rhetorical questions in your writing? Like this one, for instance?
Rhetorical questions make your arguments more persuasive.
Also, your audience will become engaged. And if your arguments are strong and valid, readers will be more likely persuaded by them.
65. Choose the Fonts and Colors Carefully
Around here we put a lot of emphasis on content and go on and on about how it comes first. But that doesn’t mean we’re blind to aesthetic choices. If you have good, original, insightful, even life-changing content, but choose to display it in green Comic Sans over a pink background, you can count us out. And a few other readers, too.
Choice of font and color scheme can greatly influence the success of a piece by being a factor for accessibility.
Certain fonts make for easier reading when it comes to big blocks of text, while certain color schemes make it easier on the eye to spend long amounts of time on landing pages. Font and color also go a long way in terms of credibility: some combinations simply look slick and professional, while others give an “untrustworthy” vibe, despite potentially good writing.
66. Use Positive Frames to Describe Information
Negative frames describe something that isn’t taking place. Positive frames, on the other hand, describe something tangible, something that is happening. Studies show that we need more mental resources to process negative frames as they reduce comprehension and degrade the impact of your message. Therefore, positive frames should be the one you should look for.
NEGATIVE: Don’t be late. POSITIVE: Arrive on time.
NEGATIVE: Don’t drink excessively. POSITIVE: Drink responsibly.
The post Copy: 66 Copywriting Tips that Will Boost Your Conversion Rates by 327% appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.
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17 Email Newsletter Examples We Love Getting in Our Inboxes
When people first start doing email marketing, they often assume they need an email newsletter.
“It’ll have everything our customers care about, all in one place,” they rationalize. “Our list will be different — people will actually look forward to getting our newsletter,” they argue. “Since we’re only sending it once a month, it’ll be a breeze to put together,” they say.
And while all of those things may become true for a few lucky individuals, lots of email newsletters flop. They become an uninteresting mush of content people automatically ignore, archive, delete, or straight up unsubscribe from. And this isn’t great for you, your metrics, or your company’s success. So if you’re thinking about creating an email newsletter, read this blog post and think really hard about whether that’s the right move for you in terms of your marketing strategy. If you’ve decided that you want to start an email newsletter, or you want to revamp one that’s not performing well, keep on reading. We’ve compiled some of our absolute favorite email newsletters to inspire you to make the best email newsletter for your company possible. Each newsletter on this list is fabulous for different reasons. Some have exceptional design, some have exceptional copy, some have exceptional calls-to-action … but all are exceptional at solving for their subscribers’ needs. Additionally, if you’re unsure what you want your own newsletter to be about, or how you should design one for optimal conversions, keep reading — we’ll explore that, next. Email Newsletter Ideas Email newsletters can include a weekly round-up of blog posts, case studies regarding your product or service, upcoming company events and webinars, or even a behind-the-scenes look at your company. Of course, you don’t want to create a newsletter just for the sake of creating one — instead, you should do thorough research on what your audience might prefer, and what your company is well-suited to offer. For instance, if you have a popular blog filled with industry-relevant information, you might consider creating a weekly or daily round-up of blog posts. However, if you work for an ecommerce company that sells workout gear, you might find a round-up of blog posts doesn’t resonate with your audience. Instead, you could consider a membership newsletter that includes deals and promotions on new items, as well as a round-up of workout apps, inspirational quotes, and training courses all revolved around fitness. If you’re looking for general email newsletter inspiration, you’re in luck. Here’s a list of some of our favorite ideas for email newsletters: Round-up of popular or recent blog posts or videos New job openings at your company New case studies or product launches Membership/customer deals and promotions New best practices or tips Industry news Quotes Recent survey results related to your industry Internal employee news, including anniversaries, promotions, and birthdays Listicles (i.e. “10 Best Vacation Spots of 2020” if you work for a Travel publication) A team spotlight with pictures and bios Photos or stories customers have shared Behind-the-scenes at your company, or interviews with company executives Monthly business recap New training opportunities FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and answers Upcoming webinars, or recordings of past webinars Next, let’s explore some newsletter designs to inspire the aesthetic of your newsletter. Email Newsletter Design Your company’s newsletter should be a true reflection of your brand. For instance, if your website features minimalist design and clean, plain black-and-white text, then you don’t want to create a super colorful newsletter, which might confuse new subscribers. There are a few best practices, however, you can employ to ensure your design is up-to-par. Of course, you’ll want to A/B test whichever design(s) you choose, to ensure they resonate with your audience. Here a few newsletter design best practices (although, again, the design should be industry and brand-specific): Clean, crisp images (no blurry images) Text (use same text throughout), company logo, and icons Try filters, memes, or video Make the CTA clear and obvious — and just have one (i.e. “Click here to shop” or “Click here to read”) Create a hierarchy with CTA early-on Mobile-responsive Test the length of your newsletter to ensure it’s not too short or too long for your audience Of course, the design of your newsletter will depend on your brand, as well as the message. For instance, you might want to create a colorful, attention-grabbing newsletter if it largely focuses on visuals of new products — alternatively, if it’s a round-up of recent blog posts, perhaps you try a more minimalist look to mimic the appearance of a letter. I’d also recommend looking into pre-made templates if you’re not familiar with designing emails. If you’re a HubSpot customer, you’ll have a bunch of pre-made templates in the email tool. However, if you’re still unsure about your newsletter design, there’s nothing better than looking at examples for further inspiration. Take a look at the following 17 newsletters that knocked it out of the park, and consider using some of their design elements as inspiration for your own.
Best Email Newsletter Examples NextDraft REI Austin Kleon FandangoNOW InVision Community.is Vox Sentences Fizzle TheSkimm Medium BrainPickings Litmus General Assembly This. SaaS Weekly The Ringer Hacker Newsletter
1. NextDraft NextDraft is a daily email written by a man named Dave Pell, which is a curation of the best web content of the day. As Pell describes it, “Each morning I visit about fifty news sites and from that swirling nightmare of information quicksand, I pluck the top ten most fascinating items of the day, which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight.” You can tell he’s a great writer. His copywriting is one of my favorite things about the newsletter. It starts with the subject line, which is usually a play on words or a clever one-liner on the top news of the day. It then extends to the body of the email itself, which is always descriptive, accurate, and clever. Finally, the minimalist design is fantastic. Not only is content delivery is clear, organized, and digestible, but also the inclusion of social share buttons underneath each story is brilliant. Rather than assuming that the reader is going to make it to a social sharing option at the bottom of the newsletter, Pell provides them with multiple opportunities throughout. Social engagement can play a big role in growing your newsletter, as every share on social opens up a valuable opportunity to attract more subscribers. For those who’d rather read news like this in a mobile app, the NextDraft app is free in Apple’s app store.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 2. REI REI, the recreational sports outfitter, is a model of success in several areas of content marketing — and their membership email is no exception. We included this email newsletter on our list because it does what many ecommerce and consumer product vendors find challenging: promote good products with good content. In the newsletter example below, you’ll see how REI delivers many different types of material to its subscribers, and each type relates to one another. Following the seasonal product offerings at the top of the email, the company offers trainings to help educate readers on its new products and blog posts for even more insight into the outdoor lifestyle. Did you notice something else about this newsletter? It’s dedicated entirely to runners. Catering your email newsletter to a single audience — even if that audience belongs to an even bigger buyer persona — can help you tell a story in your email that resonates with the recipient from start to finish.
3. Austin Kleon Not to play favorites, but this newsletter from Austin Kleon is one I really look forward to. First, I love the simplicity. It’s not flashy, nor is it overly promotional. That’s the hallmark of a successful email newsletter: The most effective newsletters aim to educate, not sell. I also love the overall informal tone he takes, as it makes it feel as though you’re hearing from a friend. If you’re looking to lower the barrier between your company and your audience, consider using language that is friendly and inviting, not buttoned-up and jargony.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 4. FandangoNOW FandangoNOW is a movie streaming app that allows you to build a library of purchased and rented movies around your interests. And it uses the below email newsletter as part of its customer retention strategy. The email below offers movie suggestions for the weekend, making it a well-timed newsletter if it lands in your inbox on Friday afternoon. In addition, its design is easy to digest, despite being so graphic-intense. Using numbered icons and consistent “Buy” and “Rent” CTAs in corners of each movie tile, the email compartmentalizes a lot of content while still connecting each movie to the FandangoNOW brand.
5. InVision InVision’s newsletter is a weekly digest of their best blog content, a roundup of their favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt. Not only is their newsletter a great mix of content, but I also love the nice balance between images and text, making it easy to read and mobile-friendly. They make great use of animated GIFs in their emails (which you can see when viewing the whole email here). I also love the clever copy on their call-to-action buttons: “Cat GIFs on Every Page” “Set Your Sights” “Why So Serious?” In addition to classic CTA buttons, they engage their audience at the bottom of every newsletter with a “You tell us!” text CTA.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 6. Community.is Community.is is a handcrafted newsletter created for people who “put people at the center of their work.” This unique concept attracts a variety of readers from executives at ad agencies, to community managers at startups, to marketers and creatives of all shapes and sizes. In an effort to cater to their melting pot of subscribers, Community.is adopted a three-tier format: Short, Mid, and Long. While an executive may only have time to skim the short stuff, a marketer might be looking for a more in-depth read to spark some inspiration for their next campaign. Organizing a newsletter in this way helps ensure that you’re serving the distinct needs of your audience without it being too confusing.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 7. Vox Sentences Vox Sentences is a nightly email meant to quickly get its readers up to speed on the best stories from the day. The content ranges from the day’s top news to fun stories from all over the web. They do a great job balancing their own content with external sources, and the stories they choose are always really high quality. You can read Vox’s entire newsletter from start to finish and get a great sense of the stories they’re covering — but you can also click through to any of the linked stories to get a more in-depth approach.
8. Fizzle Fizzle’s newsletter is aimed at entrepreneurs who want weekly tips on building a business sent directly to their inbox and all in the email itself. Although they have a business blog and a podcast, what makes Fizzle’s newsletter unique is that the email content is independent from those other content assets. In other words, it’s written entirely for their subscribers. The copywriting style makes the newsletter unique and appealing, too: It’s casual, honest, and written like the author is writing to a friend. The writing gives off the vibe of real, down-to-earth business advice — without the fluffy stuff. At the same time, it’s written with clear headers and sub-headers to break it up, and the important stuff is bolded, making for easy skimming.
9. TheSkimm If you want to stay up on what’s happening in the world and have some delightful writing delivered to your inbox first thing in the morning, look no further than TheSkimm. It’s a daily roundup of what’s happened in the news in short, punch paragraphs. The best part? You don’t have to click out of the email to read the news if you don’t want to — although they do link to their sources if you want to read further. And when it comes to more complex news topics (think: Brexit or the Cannes Film Festival), they’ll cover the most recent updates but link to their Skimm Guides, located on their website. These guides provide context for larger topics, and are written in the same style as the emails. For your own email marketing, TheSkimm is the place to go if you’re looking for writing inspiration or for emails without much visual content.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 10. Medium Medium is a blog-publishing platform that has been continuously building momentum since its launch in 2012. Publishing on the site has really picked up in the past few years, and nowadays, there are a ton of people publishing posts on the site every day. Of course, that means there’s a lot of content for the average person to filter through. To help bring great content to the surface, Medium uses email newsletters. And after I open this newsletter every day, I end up going to visit several Medium posts without fail. (Mission accomplished for Medium, right?) Here’s why: The newsletter feels pretty minimal. Because of the way that Medium uses colors and section dividers, they’re able to give you a ton of content in one email without it feeling overwhelming. Plus, they offer both a daily and a weekly version of the digest, allowing users to opt in for the email frequency they feel most comfortable with.
11. BrainPickings BrainPickings is one of the most interesting newsletters out there. In fact, the folks who write it call it an “interestingness digest.” Every Sunday morning, subscribers get the past week’s most unmissable articles about creativity, psychology, art, science, design, and philosophy — topics that are really appealing to a wide audience. At its core, it explores what it means to live a good life. This is one of the longest newsletters I’ve ever read, but what makes it still work well is how high quality and well packaged the content is. (Bonus: Check out the delightful microcopy in the top right-hand corner.)
[Click here to see the entire email.] 12. Litmus You’d hope that an email marketing testing company would have great emails … and Litmus definitely does. While the content of the emails is certainly interesting, I’m especially digging the design. The blocks of color help break up the newsletter into sections that are easy to differentiate. I also like that the text calls-to-action at the end of each post’s description don’t just say something generic, like “Read this post.” Instead, they are matched with specific actions related to the post’s content, like “Get the checklist” and “Discover why you should test.”
[Click here to see the entire email.] 13. General Assembly There are a lot of creative things you can do with images in your emails, from designing your own custom graphics to creating animated GIFs. General Assembly, an organization that helps expand professionals’ skill sets, likes to employ tactics like these in their newsletter. From their attractive and minimal layout to their concise copy and helpful information, this is a great example of a newsletter that gives subscribers quick information in an easily scannable format.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 14. This. This. (yes, the full stop is part of the brand name) is another great newsletter for finding — and sharing — the best and most entertaining content on the web. What makes their newsletter unique is that it isn’t just content curated by one person or one team; it’s content curated by a community of people on the internet. Members are allowed to share one, single link every day — presumably the best content they find the entire day. The result? “We’ve built something we hope will connect you to the best the web has to offer — all its weirdness and beauty and diversity and ambition,” reads the website. The newsletter consists of the editor’s picks from all the amazing content their community members have shared. Subscribers also have the option of signing up for a custom newsletter, which includes the editor’s picks and a custom feed from curators they can pick and choose. That’s some pretty cool personalization.
15. SaaS Weekly This is the ultimate SaaS newsletter, from a guy that kind of knows a thing or two about SaaS. (Hiten Shah is the co-founder of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics). While his approach is simple, this roundup is packed with value and organized in a way that makes it easy to discover content around your specific interests. Shah does this by breaking the list of curated posts into different sections — Business, Product, Marketing Growth, Tip of the Week, etc. — which makes it easily scannable.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 16. The Ringer Remember Grantland, the sports and pop culture blog owned by ESPN that was started by sports journalist Bill Simmons? In October 2015, ESPN announced it would be ending the publication of Grantland. Shortly thereafter, Simmons formed Bill Simmon Media Group and recruited a whole bunch of former Grantland staffers to launch a brand new newsletter in March 2016 called The Ringer. Although The Ringer is written and run by many former Grantland employees it’s a different project than Grantland was. Where Grantland focused on sports and pop culture, The Ringer branches out into other areas like tech and politics. Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, is among the contributors. I like how focused they are on experimentation: “We want to have fun, take chances, analyze, theorize, obsess, and try not to take ourselves too seriously,” said Editor-in-Chief Sean Fennessey. Another differentiator? The Ringer’s website was developed in partnership with publishing platform Medium — which means the newsletter reflects that clean, minimal design.
[Click here to see the entire email.] 17. Hacker Newsletter Many marketers don’t frequent Hacker News, but they should still check out this hand-picked curation of the social network’s top stories of the day. Why? The newsletter is clean and minimal, but still sends a ton of really great content its subscribers’ way. The way it distills potentially overwhelming information is by bucketing content into sections. The newsletter also looks very similar to the site, so for those who love the site and how it’s laid out, the newsletter feels like a comforting, familiar way to consume content.
[Click here to see the entire email.] Even though newsletters are one of the most common types of emails to send, they are actually some of the hardest to do right. We hope these examples gave you some quality inspiration so you can create newsletters your subscribers love to get in their inboxes.
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Five steps to generate tons of backlinks using infographics
Your website needs backlinks the same way plants need water. Getting sufficient backlinks consistently will allow you to flourish your website, while the lack of backlinks will slowly make it wither.
Backlinks are still one of the most important factors that Google uses to determine website rankings. When tons of other websites link to you, Google’s algorithm will see that as a sign that you provide valuable and relevant content.
When talking about generating tons of backlinks, there’s no other tool quite as effective as infographics.
Why infographics are so effective?
1. Humans are visual creatures
We are naturally visual learners, as we’re attracted more to visuals than text. As a result, infographics have a much higher chance of attracting readers than articles. Indeed, a study found that infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than text-only content.
2. Easy to digest
Still connected to the previous point, people understand a text 323% better if it’s accompanied by an illustration. This applies to infographics too, which is the combination of beautiful visuals and short-written copy. Thanks to the simple and easy to read format, people can read and understand infographics faster and better.
3. Highly shareable
Thanks to its bite-sized nature, infographics are extremely shareable because they can fit on almost any platformㅡ websites, emails, social media platforms, and even on printed advertising material such as brochures and pamphlets. Thanks to this trait, infographics are three times more likely to be shared than any other kind of content.
Five steps to backlink generation using infographics
Now that you know what makes infographics so effective, let’s learn how to use it properly to attract tons of backlinks to grow your website. Here’s the step by step process of using infographics for link building:
1. Content creation
The first step is to obviously create the infographic. Not just an infographic, but a valuable and useful one. For starters, don’t waste your money on creating fancy and expensive infographics. Using free and affordable infographic tools and platforms are fine, as long as you can provide valuable content.
The more valuable your infographic content is, the more likely people are going to link back. Here are a few tips on creating content that’s valuable:
Content that attracts the most backlinks is usually the one that contains data statistics because every marketer needs them to back up their arguments. Conduct your own research, study, or survey and then present the findings via infographic.
If you don’t have the time or resources to conduct your own research, you can always make a compilation of data statistics from various sources and present them as one.
Creating an ultimate guide about a certain topic also attracts backlinks, because when writers don’t have enough space to explain about something, they can refer to your content for a deeper take on the subject.
2. Infographic publication and submission
After creating the infographic, publish it on your site and infographic directory sites like Pinterest or Infographic Journal. When posting on your own site, remember that page speed is an actual ranking factor. So, make sure to optimize your page speed with these free tools.
Moreover, submitting your work on infographic directories will give you free backlinks with relatively minimum effort, though some sites will charge you a certain amount of money to publish your infographic. Here’s the complete list of infographic sharing websites compiled by SEOblog, containing over 150 sites.
3. Potential websites search
Besides infographic directories, you also have to aim to get your infographic published on other websites that have a similar niche to you. How? Well, you need to reach out to them. First, you need to search for the websites to reach out to. We recommend you to use tools like Ahrefs to compile tons of websites in an instant.
It’s simple to use, just sign up, go to the “content explorer” section, type in your keyword, and then the tool will give you every web page on the internet that contains that particular keyword. For instance, if your infographic is about summer vacation, the result of the content explorer will show over 30 thousand web pages with that keyword:
Next, export those web page data and move it to Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheet to manage and curate it in an easier manner.
4. Email addresses collection
After curating the websites to see which fits to publish your infographic and which doesn’t, the next step is to collect the email addresses of people working on those websites. It could be a writer, content manager, editor or any person that’s responsible for the content of that website.
Using tools like FindThatLead can help you collect the email because the tool has the ability to find email addresses based only on domain name and social media link (LinkedIn and Twitter only). It also allows users to verify an address to see whether it’s valid or not.
5. Email outreach campaign
With all the verified email addresses, now it’s time to do email outreach to promote your infographic. There are two ways to do it, the first one is by using automated email tools like Mailshake and the second one is by manually sending the emails one by one.
Each of the methods has its own benefits and weaknesses. Sending emails manually takes a longer time, but you’ll be able to personalize the email more. On the other hand, using automated email tools will allow you to send tons of emails in a short time, but the content of the email will be the same and generic.
Whatever your method of choice is, remember these tips to increase your email engagement and open rate:
Optimize it for mobile, because 46% of people open their email from mobile devices.
Keep your subject line short, because shorter subject lines get much higher open rates.
Include an emoji in your subject line if you can, because it helps you to stand out from other emails on the recipients’ inbox.
Personalize the email beyond just including the recipients’ names on the subject line, although it still helps to increase clickthrough rate.
Include a clear CTA at the end of the email, so that the audience knows what to do next.
One important thing to remember is that no one wants to publish your work for free, so you have to be prepared to give them something in return that benefits both of you. One of the widely used and most effective ways is to offer them a guest post. This way, the recipients get free content for their blogs and you gain a valuable backlink.
Conclusion
Backlinks are one of the deciding factors to determine whether you can rank first on the SERP or not. To gain backlinks only by creating valuable infographics is not enough, you also need to promote it. Manual email outreach is the way to go if you don’t want to spend a penny in generating backlinks. All you have to do is to look for potential websites, collect their email addresses, write interesting email copy and offer, and then send them one by one. If you’re still not sure how to make a proper infographic, these infographic templates could certainly help.
Brian is a content writer of Milkwhale. He likes to write about infographic and video marketing, as well as other topics in the field of business and marketing.
The post Five steps to generate tons of backlinks using infographics appeared first on Search Engine Watch.
from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/12/05/generate-backlinks-using-infographics/
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Better email content begins with these best practices
They say you can earn $44 for every $1 spent on email marketing, but they almost never tell you how.
So we’re gonna take a crack at it.
At the very least, you’ll hopefully learn something about creating email content that improves your odds of getting a desired result.
And who knows? Maybe you’ll even make liars out of us by doing a lot better than $44 .
Getting started with email marketing: You’ll need a few things
Email lists
You can build your email list by getting people to sign up for things like newsletters and gated content. You should always build your list organically rather than buying email addresses from a third party. That way you know some level of interest is there and you reduce your risk of getting spam complaints.
A marketing or email automation platform
Pardot, MailChimp, Drip, Marketo—something to help you manage your lists and distribute your emails.
Segmentation
Align contacts as closely as possible to your customer personas. Understand their location, demographics, industry, job titles, prior interests in your content (what were they reading when they decided to subscribe?). This will help you tailor messages later on.
Content
Content is a powerful incentive to get people to give you their email in the first place, and it gives you an excuse to email them again (example: “Liked our eBook? There’s more where that came from!”).
Realistic expectations
Email was born to build revenue. It’s cost-effective, highly targeted, it often follows some sort of interaction (meaning there’s precedence for the contact), it can be used anywhere in the sales funnel and it’s fairly easy to record conversions.
But open rates for all marketing emails are only about 20.8 percent. Click through rates (when recipients click calls to action or links) are only 2.4 percent. These numbers are even worse for say, prospecting emails (5 to 10 percent open rate, 0.5 percent CTR).
So don’t panic if you see numbers like these. They don’t mean that you’re failing miserably. They just come with the territory.
Best practices by type of marketing email
How you write your email will depend on the type of message you’re sending.
Let’s cover best practices for some of the most common email types before we get into more general writing tips:
Welcome emails
Send these emails after someone entrusts you with their email address. For instance, somebody signed up for a mailing list while shopping at a store. Or an interested web user subscribed to your newsletter or downloaded a gated whitepaper.
A good welcome email should do three things:
Be gracious (“thanks for subscribing!”).
Tell you what to expect now that you’re signed up.
Say something about who your brand is.
Here’s an example:
Notice this example includes a video for the “who we are” portion of the email? That’s far preferable to an in-line manifesto.
You can’t see it in the image, but the subject line is “Welcome to the club!” Keep it simple, a little playful if you want, and always to the point.
Do not skip the welcome email. It has a higher open rate than most other types of engagement emails (nearly 60 percent) and a higher CTR (14 percent).
The high open rate should tell you that subscribers expect it. It’s the first impression your brand makes, and it can affirm they’ve made a good choice or send them running.
Prospecting emails
Even the other name of this email (“cold”) juxtaposes the warmth of the welcome message. Prospecting emails are largely unsolicited and mostly ignored.
They often don’t work, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t work. The three most important “dos” of prospect emailing are:
Get to the point.
Give the reader information they can do something with. Prospecting emails aren’t introductions; they’re more like mini demonstrations of value.
Give the recipient a single, clear action (should they contact you and, if so, how? Are they downloading something? Choice is the enemy here).
For example:
Other pointers?
Personalise. The example above very clearly targets a specific person (Tracy), ostensibly from a particular company, and most likely someone who can either influence or make a decision about actions to improve website performance. This is where segmenting really comes in handy.
Also, there’s a graph in there. You don’t necessarily have to use imagery, but it beats a big wall of text any day, and it can give the eye something to immediately latch onto.
Newsletters
A newsletter is an email series spotlighting the week’s (or day’s) content.
Because people opt into them, newsletters tend to have higher open rates than prospecting emails.
The hard part is keeping those open rates high and driving CTR (you want people clicking on links). We recommend:
Concise copy in an elegant, eye-pleasing template. Your audience won’t tolerate too much text or overly busy design work. They want something digestible.
A subject line that says something other than “[Company] newsletter.” Use the week’s top headline or a short and punchy sentence that summarises the week’s theme.
Copy that speaks for itself. Entice with strong headlines, a relevant or interesting thumbnail (preferably not stock) and a brief synopsis of why they should care.
(See more examples of newsletters we like, here.)
Other general tips:
You can pepper in content from other sources if you think it’s relevant to your brand or in some way adds value or intrigue to your audience’s day.
Feel free to recycle old content in a new context. On occasion, an evergreen post chases a recent study or news article quite nicely (especially if those breaking stories support your thought leadership).
Try to be aware of the content sequence in newsletters, as CTR does drop farther down into the email. Descending order of importance or newsworthiness might be best one week, chronology might be better the next. On another week, there may be a benefit to arranging content in a very particular order. Just be mindful of opportunities to present newsletters that are more than smatterings of marketing content.
Also, your target audience cares about what’s on the other side of each click. The blog post, video or eBook has to be as good as the wrapping for them to keep opening emails and clicking away at the links.
Lead nurturing emails (and specifically drip campaigns)
A lead nurturing email is broadly any email intended to move a lead closer to buying. You could probably argue that any marketing email that isn’t a transactional email is a lead nurturing email.
But we’ll sidestep the semantics for now and home in the microcosm of all lead nurturing emails: the drip campaign.
A drip campaign is an automated sequence of emails that adjusts the next message based on the action a recipient takes.
Here’s one of our favorite visualisations of the concept:
The main things to keep in mind for creating content for a drip email are:
Create all your email copy before sending out a single message so each stage flows nicely into the next.
Every word, from subject to sign off, should be centered around the single action that you want the user to take for that email.
Play it cool. Don’t send one email right after the other, because that’s basically spam (and it’s a bit desperate).
Not all of the lead nurturing emails you send will be part of a drip campaign. Maybe you’re conducting a survey. Or maybe a compelling whitepaper or ebook would delight specific contacts on your email lists (say, mid-level managers in accounts receivable), and you want to make sure they see it.
Fair game, go for it. But don’t do it too often, or you’ll seem spammy.
Event invitation emails
Event invitation emails can promote a webinar, attendance at a conference, your own expo, a company lunch and learn or some other event.
Some marketers think more information in the body of the email is better, which is why you might come across something like this on a list of “great” event invitation emails:
We love Neil, and he certainly provides solid information in this email. One could even argue that these types of messages are part of his brand.
But we hold fast to the philosophy that shorter is better. The reason?
You’re not Neil Patel. You may have some solid brand recognition, but people are very choosy about the sender when it comes to combing through 200 words.
Data. Boomerang’s analysis of 40 million emails found that 50-125 words is the ideal length if you want people to respond or take some other desired action.
Landing pages. This is where all the event’s nitty-gritty details and information should live. Your email’s job is simply to build interest with the basics (who, what, when, where, why and how to learn more).
Also, there aren’t a lot of clear calls to action in Neil’s message, and there’s almost nothing going on visually.
Here’s an example of an event email follow-up from a different bald guy that gives all the most important information up front, has copy that conveys a sense of urgency (using numbers, no less) and finishes with a strong CTA:
For the actual event invitation, you can lean a little more into visuals like in this example:
It tells you the name of the conference, the date, where it’s happening, what it is (“Two full days of insights”) and encourages signup (“Get your tickets now”) within the first fifth of the email.
As for subject lines?
Keep them action-oriented and to the point. If the event is obscure, lead with the value (“Learn X at [event]” or “Master X during [webinar]”). If the event carries clout, then lead with it (“Join us at X for Y” or “We’re going to X: Attend our keynote address about Y”).
Product updates
These email messages promote new products, services, features, templates and other updates of interest to existing users or customers.
Don’t gloss over product update emails. They play an important part in the customer journey—upsells, rebuys, moving freemium users to for-pay users and building loyalty.
When it comes to crafting them, context is everything. For example:
New features for freemium users
You’re Canva and you just added some new design layouts for users. Something like this passes with flying colors:
It’s simple, to the point and it links straight to the new goods.
Big updates to your product or service
On the opposite end of the spectrum, let’s say you’re a software-as-a-service vendor who just made a significant update to your application.
In this case, you need to craft emails from a customer service mindset because change can be scary. Always take a positive, reassuring tone, be forthright about what’s changing, briefly explain why it’s better, link to any tutorial or help resources, and make yourself very available for support or questions.
Keep in mind that some clients won’t like learning about big changes that affect their day-to-day operations through mass email, and may require a more personal touch.
Everything in between Maybe you added new metrics or a new dashboard to one of your apps. Or perhaps you just released a new feature on the for-pay version of your app or service that might also sway free users.
Whatever the case, keep a few things in mind:
Your audience. Does the update pertain to them?
Targeted messaging. For example, if you’re using a product update to get freemium users on the for-pay version, create two emails: a basic one informing existing for-pay users, and a lead-nurturing email incentivising freemium users.
Tone. It should be informative, brimming with new possibilities and, in the case of much bigger overhauls, reassuring.
Transactional emails
Transactional emails are updates about any account activity.
Examples include onboarding emails, order confirmations, delivery updates, setting adjustments, security notifications, payment reminders, etc.
They have the highest open rate of all other types of email by a long shot. This is because they convey basic information that’s of great value to existing customers.
Most service providers and retailers rely heavily on email automation for transactional outreach, and they generally require a bit less craft than say, lead-nurturing emails.
Other types of emails?
There are plenty we won’t have the chance to discuss here, but a few that deserve mention include:
Surveys, interactive quizzes, requests for reviews
These engagement emails help you collect information that can be used to create new content, further personalise your email marketing and turn existing customers into brand advocates, respectively.
Deals and promos
The approach should closely mirror an event email. You want that same sense of urgency and forthcomingness about what product or service is on sale, when, where and how to cash-in on the discount or promo.
Cart abandonment This is akin to a transactional email in that it’s typically automated, with a little bit of lead nurturing in the mix since you’re trying to spur purchasing behavior. They can be fairly basic like this one from Amazon:
Or a bit more playful and visual like this one form Dollar Shave Club:
The idea is to nudge the shopper over the finish line with a simple reminder.
Finally, a few email content general best practices
1. Give each email a single goal
Craft your email copy and design around that singular goal, and make it easy to achieve (CTA buttons that say “read more” or “start your free trial”).
2. Create pithy subject lines
You don’t want them too long because they’ll get cut off, or too short because they won’t convey meaningful information. Otherwise, data suggests there isn’t actually a relationship between length and open rate, just a few dubious correlations. We’d say around 55-65 characters makes sense in terms of logistics (getting the point across and displaying the entire subject).
3. Don’t spoil endings
Curiosity works in the email marketer’s favor. “Find out which WordPress plugins marketers use most” gives more of a reason to click than just saying the answer outright.
4. Be concise and conversational
Use first names, and say things in simple language. It makes the message feel a little more intimate and disarming.
5. Use active language and short sentences
You only have a few seconds to make your point, so make it fast.
6. Break up copy to make it more scannable
Make one point per paragraph and use bullets when listing things.
7. Use second person pronouns
Uncle Sam doesn’t want that guy over there. He wants you!
8. And first person, too
We, I, us and our convey humanity.
9. Personalise, but not too much
Personalisation is good when you reach out to a prospect about a demo after they download a product-specific eBook. It’s bad when Target breaks the news to a man that his teenage daughter was pregnant (true story).
10. Embed imagery in moderation
Graphics, charts and GIFs all have their place in email, but a hyper-polished look is easy to associate with spam. Even Google is into textural design these days, so don’t overdo it.
11. Create multiple drafts
Not just for A/B testing, but because it’s rare that you’re first draft is your best or your most concise.
12. Keep mobile in mind
About 50 percent of all emails are viewed on mobile devices. A mobile-unfriendly email template will halve your odds of engagement, and users delete an email in 3 seconds or less if it loads poorly.
13. Don’t be spammy
Roughly 20 percent of permission-based emails end up in junk folders. Evading spam filters today is less about using a dedicated IP address and more about being smart. Always send welcome emails, grow lists organically instead of buying them and follow the law—like including an “unsubscribe” button and a physical mailing address. (MailChimp has a few more useful tips.)
Measuring your results
As you employ these best practices across your email campaigns, the key performance metrics you’ll want to track include:
Bounce rates: Percent of recipients who never receive your emails in their inbox. Inversely, you can track this as deliverability rate (those who do receive the emails). High bounce rate likely indicates problems with your email lists.
Open rates: Percent of recipients who open your emails. Pay attention to which messages see the best open rates.
CTR: Percent of recipients who clicked on the links in your emails.
Conversion rates: Percent of recipients who completed a particular action after clicking through (they successfully registered for a demo or event, for instance).
Unsubscribe rates: Percent of recipients who no longer want to be subscribers. It’s OK if they’re relatively high, especially in the early days.
Complaint rates: Percent of recipients who mark your email as spam. This is also known as abuse rate.
An objectively good rate for these metrics can vary by industry.
For example, CTR is highest in the hobbies industry (4.78 percent) and lowest in public relations (1.63 percent). Across the board, it’s 2.43 percent.
As for ROI: In theory it’s just the amount of money the campaign brought in minus the amount spent.
Recurring expenses like monthly cost of your email service and marketing automation platform are fairly easy to tally up.
Time and effort put into crafting email content is harder to track. And attribution (figuring out the exact piece of content responsible for a sale) is notoriously challenging.
Still, email technology is objectively cheap, and attribution is easier to pinpoint than for most other content marketing channels.
More importantly, most B2B marketers (74 percent) say email is their most successful method for distributing content. Among B2C marketers, email is cited as one of the most effective channels for achieving specific marketing goals.
Our advice on ROI?
You’re welcome to take a stab at finding a dollar figure. Some businesses like Sleeknote and Sendgrid provide free online tools that help make the calculations for you.
But that’ll just give you a number without very much context.
Close scrutiny of engagement metrics will show you precisely what you’re doing well and where you’re falling short. In other words, they’ll tell you if you’re doing email marketing right.
And once you’re doing it right, we can begin to take a harder look at that $44 figure.
from http://bit.ly/31NaQhh
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Top 7 Email Marketing Tools For Small Businesses
If you are reading this post, I’m sure you know how important is to create a mailing list to retain the loyalty of your blog users. It’s essential to weave a deeper relationship with your subscribers, communicate and get to know them better.
There is nothing more wrong than using your mailing list just to communicate the release of your latest article.
Your subscribers should be treated as privileged: you have to give them added value! Send exclusive content, new discoveries, case studies or your future plans. This helps to establish a really deep connection between you and your readers.
This post at WHSR suggests to always have something to offer in you emails, whether that’s a freebie or an idea or an opinion, always make the person feel special.
Now, even if it may sound easy, I can tell you that managing a successful newsletter is a trivial task.
Today, millions of emails are sent every day in the world and, with the current pace of life, no one can read all the emails he receives. Due to the limited time available, each person decides in an instant if he is going to read or not a message, often, by simply scanning the object or the sender.
For this reason, you must know the basic strategies of the email marketing, which includes using the right service provider.
In this post, I’m going to list the top 7 email marketing tools in the industry. It’s up to you deciding the one you like more.
1. GetResponse
GetResponse is, in my opinion, one of the best email marketing providers. With an intuitive user interface and beautiful design, you can create attractive email newsletters to boost your business.
I like the email creator feature that checks how the messages will look on desktop or smartphones, so to make the proper changes before sending them out. There are more than 500 templates to choose from, plus, there are more than 1000 free iStock images you can insert into your emails to make them more visual appealing.
One of the main features is the autoresponder, the most loved tool of bloggers and marketers. Using this tool, you can create a series of emails that are sent to users automatically at specific intervals of time, once subscribed to your mailing list.
This is actually a powerful strategy, that gives you the opportunity to stay in touch with your audience for a long time. And it’s an automatic system. Once you set it up the first time, it works the same way for every new subscriber.
GetResponse also offers an easy to use landing page creator (it’s a feature included in all plans, something that you don’t see on many other ESP).
There are more than 100 templates to choose from, with good-looking “thank you” pages that match the design of the template chosen.
The drag’n’drop WYSIWYG editor is really simple to understand. Without particular HTML knowledge, you’re able to move and edit every element of the landing page (such as buttons, texts or boxes).
I particularly like the extra option to publish the landing page on the tab of a Facebook fan page (other than on websites or a free GetResponse sub-domain).
Every template is mobile-friendly, which is really important nowadays.
The last feature I want to talk about is the webinars (something that just GetResponse offers included in an email marketing service plan).
As you know, a webinar can boost your business and improve your audience, by creating online events where you can share your knowledge on certain topics. This is a perfect occasion to gather new contacts for your mailing list.
Pricing is competitive. From $15/month for unlimited emails to 1,000 contacts or $25/month for up to 2,500 contacts (included the landing page builder, other than email creator and autoresponders). The next step is at $49/mo, including also the webinar service.
2. AWeber
AWeber is another popular choice, which used to own the market monopoly until a few years ago (I remember it was the obvious choice when I started blogging in 2010).
It has many high-end features, inlcuding autoresponders, sign-up forms, email deliverability, email newsletters with a drag and drop editor.
I particularly like the easy-to-use templates and segmentation capabilities.
There are a few cons, however. AWeber doesn’t support mobile platforms and doesn’t host images on its own servers.
You can make use of landing pages with Aweber, using a series of third party tools or (if you have enough expertise) by manually coding your landing page and inserting the Aweber form (unlike GetResponse which offers the landing page editor included in all its plans).
Prices are quite hard to digest. Plans range from $19 per month for just 500 subscribers, scaling at $29 for up to 2500 and $49 for up to 5000.
3. MailChimp
MailChimp is a good solution for very small businesses. The free plan offers lots of third-party integration and a good number of help materials. There are built-in templates and editor to customize the campaigns.
The free version supports up to 2,000 users and up to 12,000 emails per month, switching to the paid version costs $15 (or up to $240) per month depending on how many subscribers you have.
Good integration with mobile and awesome appplication for Android and iPhone.
There are a few cons. Features like spam filtering, analytics tools and auto-responding abilities are absent in the free plan. Even with paid plans, reports aren’t real-time and are quite slow to refresh.
When your mailing list is over 2000 subscribers, with MailChimp the service can cost quite a lot. With 2,500 contacts, the price would be $30, scaling at $35 for 2600 users and $40 for 2700. Quite expensive, even with unlimited emails.
As a bottom line, I can say that MailChimp is easy to set up and simple to use. If you are a small business looking to get started with email marketing with the least amount of investment, MailChimp should be your solution.
4. Constant Contact
If you are just starting with email marketing, other than MailChimp, ConstantContact could be a great solution.
They offer a powerful and user-friendly interface with a wide selection of email templates.
There are a huge selection of materials to leverage email marketing for your business, such as webinars, tutorials, user guides and tips to help you in this industry.
ConstantContact offers great event management tools and useful social media campaign resources.
But there are a few cons. They miss some advanced options, such as triggered campaigns and an RSS to email function (these features are powerful when you want to automate part of your campaigns), or even A/B split testing, which is another important omission (I’m sure you understand how A/B testing can improve your conversions).
They have quite high prices for the industry, starting at $20 per month to send unlimited emails for up to 500 users and scaling to $35 per month for 2,500 contacts and $55 per month for up to 5,000.
5. Benchmark Email
Benchmark Email offers a free plan which allows you to send up to 10,000 emails per month.
There are a lot of user segment options and their customer support is great. I liked the Google Analytics tracking option.
With the paid plans, you can get other premium features, such as online surveys, email templates, and track email statistics.
Overall, I can say that Benchmark Email grants a simple to use interface and a good number of features.
The cons are that Benchmark does not offer Gmail or other third-party contact integration. Plus, there’s not a mobile preview option. I also found email editor a bit glitchy in testing.
Prices start $9.95 per month for 600 emails and max out at $375 for 100,000 emails per month.
6. Ominsend
Omnisend is a great tool for those who want to take their email marketing to the next level. Not only does this platform offer sophisticated email marketing automation workflows, but you can include additional channels into the same workflow.
This means you can create complex workflows including channels such as SMS, web push notifications, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, and more, extending your campaigns across several channels at once.
But email stays at the core of what Omnisend does, and they do it well. You don’t need HTML savoir-faire to create emails with this tool, instead just use their drag-and-drop visual composer. That same visual aspect is used for when you’re creating popups, landing pages, or anything else in Omnisend.
Another interesting point to note is their segmentation. They allow you to layer segmentation so that you can target by profile data, campaign engagement, customer behavior, or a mixture of the three. This allows you to get pretty precise when you’re targeting your campaigns.
The biggest con with Omnisend is that there is no mobile app at the moment. So if you’re trying to send your campaigns on the go, it might be a good idea to bring a laptop.
Prices start from $16 per month for their Standard plan, and their free plan for basic email marketing allows for up to 15,000 emails per month.
7. EngageBay
EngageBay are the new kids on the block but fast becoming the preferred email marketing service for many startups and small businesses out there. They offer a wide array of email marketing templates powered by a simple drag and drop interface. Moreover, the segmentation and targeting functionalities are great.
The ability to personalize your emails, rich formatting options and an easy option to track your campaign performance makes EngageBay a great marketing automation software to go for.
Grow your business with powerful email marketing. Choose from several ready-made email template or create your own. Personalize every part of the email and send them in a click. Track and analyze your results. Choose from a wide array of email marketing templates to suit your business needs. Use their simple drag and drop interface to create a template that suits your business need. Segment and target your subscriber lists. Personalize your emails. Track and optimize your campaigns.
But it’s the pricing that really stands out:
Pricing per contact
Up to 1,000: $0/mo
Up to 10,000: $7.79/mo
Up to 25,000: $14.99/mo
Up to 50,000: $29.99/mo
What we like about EngageBay: The amount of features it offers at a competitively low price point. Their flexible, customizable plans are good too. The user interface is simple and user-friendly and their support is commendable. It is a modern platform for small businesses that cannot afford higher-priced solutions.
What they should improve: Emails are branded so if you’d like to send emails without the EngageBay brand, you’d have to pay extra.
Who is this for: those who are looking for a powerful yet affordable tool to reach customers via different channels (emails, SMS, push notifications, etc). Also, in case you are looking for a free tool, they offer a decent deal for $0 a month.
Final Words
While it’s always up to you the final choice, I’d like to hear what you think about these 7 email marketing tools I talked about in this post.
Do you have experience with any of them?
Please share your views in the comments below, thanks!
Top 7 Email Marketing Tools For Small Businesses published first on https://mysingaporepools.weebly.com/
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