Showing posts with label Content Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Content Writing. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

How To Make YOUR Blog Posts Stand Out?


2 million blog posts are written every day, here's how you can stand out..

If you are creating 500-word me-too blog posts that get read by no one, you are completely and absolutely wasting your time.




It's Not Your Fault

You've been told by so-called experts for years that if you blog consistently, you will see truckloads of traffic, thousands of subscribers, and millions of dollars in sales.

The thing is, a lot of these experts cut their teeth in the early years of the Web, when 500-word blog posts could win you fame and fortune.

Now? Not so much.

If you're serious about standing out from the 2 million blog posts pumped out every day, here's what you need to start doing.



1. Start Writing Better Titles

A part of me dies every time I see an "SEO-optimized" title seemingly meant to destroy all joy from the act of writing (or reading). I'm talking about titles like these:

In general, any title that looks like it was vomited out by a keyword tool might please Google, but it definitely won't drive users to click on your link.

Google is an algorithm. Your users (and eventual customers) are human. It's high time you start writing for the humans.

The stats don't lie: 80% of readers will read the headline, but only 20% will read the rest. A strong title can lead to 500% more pageviews.




Upworthy didn't become the fastest-growing media company in the world without obsessively testing titles.

So how do you create "human-optimized" titles?

That's a big question, and people more qualified than I am have written about it, but for the most part you...

--Incite curiosity, but don't fulfill it (the "curiosity gap" or the "you won't believe what happened" headline).
--Exaggeration and hyperbole (the "this is the most epic thing ever" headline).
--Shock, incite, outrage (the HuffingtonPost school of headline writing).
--Be unusual (like the headline of this article you're now reading).
--Be incredibly useful (e.g., by creating the definitive guide to SEO ranking factors)

For a crash course, check out Jon Morrow's e-book, Headline Hacks.



2. Have A Voice (or at least write in the first person)

Want to experience crippling sadness and depression? Go ahead and start browsing through some corporate blogs.

You'll see page after page of droll corporate-speak offering no real value or opinion, punctuated by the saddest sight in all of blogging: "0 Comments."

The worst of the lot will stick to third-person, seemingly distancing the author from all expressed opinions and making the blog that much duller.

Writing in a unique voice is not particularly difficult; you write the way you speak. It requires confidence more than it requires skill. With enough of the former and a bit of the latter, anyone can write in a unique voice.

How do you build up this confidence? Just follow these three simple rules:

--Read good writing, and read a lot.
--Write every day.
--Share your writing with the world.

Yup, it really is that easy.



3. Write Longer Pieces

I know, long pieces are hard. You have to spend hours researching the topic, organizing the content, and writing the post. You'd much rather fire up Word, pump out a 500-word post, and call it a day.

Except, those 500-word posts will only work if your first name is Seth and your last name is Godin.

If you feel tempted to write short blog posts, here are a few arguments to the contrary.

A. Longer blog posts rank better in the SERPS

The average number of words for the top 10 results in Google was more than 2,000, According to a study by SERPIQ


Simply put, Google equates longer content with higher value. Which means better rankings and more traffic.



B. Longer posts get more shares

Buzzsumo did the math and found that the longer the post, the more shares it gets:




A 3,000-10,000-word post effectively gets 2.5 times the shares of a 500-1,000-word post.

A caveat before you hunker down and write that 10,000-word epic post: analyze the benefits of the additional shares vs. the cost of producing a 10,000-word behemoth.

For most businesses, the benefits do not justify the cost. Stick to 1,500-3,000 words; you'll balance effort with traffic, and you'll be golden.

C. Longer posts convert better

CrazyEgg increased conversion rates 363% by switching to a long-form page.

Meanwhile, in a study conducted by Marketing Experiments, long-form pages converted 40.54% more than short-form pages.



D. Long posts get more backlinks

Here's a chart of the number of posts on the Moz.com blog by word count:

Short answer: longer content performs better in every aspect.



4. Make It Pretty

The future will belong to publishers who can present content beautifully.

No, you don't have to spend $100,000 and rebuild NYT's Snowfall story, but a few graphs, pictures, and readability hacks will go a long way toward getting people to stick around.

Articles with pictures get shared more than twice as much as those without.




Your readers will also naturally pause at images in an article (which is why BuzzFeed has all those picture-riddled lists).

Here's a few things you can do to make your content prettier:

A. Use gorgeous header images

You can get breathtaking stock images for as low as $1. Alternatively, you can use a free tool, such as Canva, to create simple and useful header imagery.

B. Create short infographics for key information in a post

Short images that pack key concepts from the post into an easy-to-share, easy-to-consume format are a wonderful way to break up posts into sections and give readers something to linger over.




Spread them throughout the post in long articles, and you will improve readability and cut down on bounce rates.



C. Improve readability

Nothing scares off readers faster than big chunks of text. It's not their fault; it's a fault of the format. Readers want to read dense pieces of prose, but only when it's in the form of a substantial long-form article or book.

For your typical business blog, that doesn't really apply.

To make your post more readable, try to...

--Break up key concepts into bullet points.
--Use short, 2-3 sentence paragraphs.
--Keep sentences as short as possible. Feel free to break this rule if it interferes with your ability to write better.
--Use images to break up content into sections.

D. Use Animated GIFs

Nope, never use GIFs. GIFs are evil and should remain on BuzzFeed.



5. Stick To A Plan

You do have a content plan, right?

I'm still amazed at the number of startups, other businesses, and "serious" bloggers that start blogging without a plan or strategy.

They spend months writing whatever they feel like, then wonder why they get no shares, traffic, or comments.

You wouldn't start a road trip without a map... so before you put down a single word on (metaphorical) paper, chart out a detailed content strategy for your blog.

(HubSpot has a handful of resources.)



6. Promote Like Crazy

Jon Morrow of BoostBlogTraffic says to be successful as a blogger you must spend as much time promoting as you do creating your content.


When Jon speaks about blogging, I tend to listen to what he has to say.

It doesn't matter whether you are blogging for a budding startup or penning down thoughts as you backpack across the globe, at least half of all your blogging time and budget should be devoted to promotion.

Here are some strategies to help you kick-start your blog promotion:

--Influencer outreach: Build relationships with influencers; use their platforms to promote your content via guest posts, article reprints, etc.
--Paid promotion: Throw a few dollars into Facebook ads every time you publish to drive the initial rush of shares. If you have strong visual content, try Pinterest promoted pins. For higher-value, B2B focused content (whitepapers, e-books, etc.) Google AdWords can work as well.
--Link-building: Use old-school link-building techniques. such as outreach, broken-links, and the excellent "skyscraper technique" by Brian Dean of Backlinko.




7. Gather Data

Quick questions: What was your best performing blog post last year? What was its keyword/topic? How did it receive the bulk of its traffic organic, social, or direct?

If you don't have ready answers, you probably aren't tracking data obsessively enough.

Gathering data and using it to improve the blog is often the number one differentiator between successful and not-so successful blogs. The best blogs (and their creators) know what works and they pump out more of it.

Take some time to learn Google Analytics. A one-day investment in mastering GA will give you a world of previously unavailable insight into your business. Liz Lockard's introductory course is a good starting point. Jump into Avinash Kaushik's posts on advanced analytics when you're familiar with the basics.

A day or so invested in understanding data will go a long way toward improving your content performance.

Guest Authored By Puranjay Singh. Puranjay is Founder of GrowthPub, a provider of content marketing for start-ups. Follow Puranjay on Twitter.





"There is a war for attention, and you have only a few seconds to make an impact.

You can't afford to be dull, stale, or boring.

To turn visitors into readers, readers into leads, and leads into customers, you need content that stands out.." -PuranjaySingh


    • Authored by:
      Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)
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    Wednesday, November 1, 2017

    Good Writing Through Social Media?


    For all the hype Millennials get, nearly every K-12 student today is part of its successor generation—Gen Z—a group more plugged in and social than ever before..




    According to one Common Sense Media report, on any given day, around 60 percent of teens use social media, spending an average of two hours on platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, all of which are having a big impact in the way they engage with the written word.

    “I think students are reading and writing more than ever,” says Jeremy Hyler, an eighth-grade English teacher at Fulton Middle School in Michigan. “Is it quality writing? Not all the time.”

    Hyler has co-authored two books including “From Texting to Teaching: Grammar Instruction in a Digital Age,” and has made it his mission to immerse himself in the platforms, rules of conduct and digital argot that comprise the communication habits of a generation where efficiency, humor and graphic media are given priority over formal grammar.

    Naturally, social media plays a big part in Hyler’s writing instruction. He acknowledges that a lot of the writing that students do these days is informal and social, and thus today’s writing instruction must focus on teaching students how to artfully master both registers.



    “I tell them, ‘I respect the fact that you write in these informal spaces, but I want you to understand that there are these formal spaces you need to learn how to write in as well,” he says. “So let’s mix them together and talk about them both.”

    Even in middle school, Hyler still sees students struggle with concepts such as proper capitalization and tone, as they navigate between texting with friends and crafting essays or emails to adults.

    “It’s a process. It does not happen overnight,” Hyler says. “But it’s like learning how to write an argument for the SAT. The more they practice it, the better they get. They see the different spaces and learn how to differentiate between them.”

    Making it explicit may help. Five years ago, Hyler created a grammar template in Google Slides to teach concepts like complex sentences. Using a mentor text from the curriculum, students analyze a sentence and recreate it for various media and audiences.



    Recently, Hyler’s class read middle-school staple “The Outsiders” and adapted a sentence for Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, email and Google Docs.

    Afterward, they talked about what a complex sentence might look like on each platform. “Students like it better than having a worksheet that’s boring or repetitive, and because I’m not saying you have to get rid of writing informally,” Hyler says.

    The exercise also gives students a chance to explore their creativity as both a writer and a user of social media. To illustrate the complexity of the sentence, “one student used a picture of a Rubic’s Cube, because a Rubic’s Cube is complex,” Hyler says. “I never would have thought of that. I’m thinking of something like a wiring system for an internet network—that’s complex to me.”



    The Power of Brevity






    In particular, she points to the work of Chicago teacher Gregory Michie, whose work with students mixes written text with hand-drawn artwork, video and music. “All of that is storytelling,” Roberts says. “It’s the whole blend of images and words—it’s quick little videos or snapshots. That is a story that a writer is telling.”

    Of course, there’s still a place for longform essays and formal writing, and strong writing instruction will effectively incorporate both, she says. “Instead of ditch that and teach micro writing, it’s more of an and you can teach micro writing,” Roberts says. “It’s an extension.”

    Learning Like Students

    In her role as a literacy consultant, Roberts often leads groups of writing teachers in professional development workshops where she encourages teachers to try the writing assignments they assign to students for themselves. But first she has them examine the role formal and informal language plays in their own writing.



    “I have the teachers break out their phones and examine the last few texts they sent,” Roberts says. “The goal is to have them figure out: ‘Who was your audience? Where was your conventional language? Your more conventional shorthand?’ Getting teachers really curious about how they engage in those platforms is a really nice first step.”

    After that, teachers can consider how they might teach digital writing in their classrooms. “The best advice I can give is to respect the students space, but bring it into their classroom,” Hyler says. Tech adverse teachers may struggle at first, he admits, although even that can turn into an opportunity for learning.

    Guest Authored By Stephen Noonoo. Stephen is the K-12 Editor at EdSurge. Previously, he served as editor of eSchool News and as an education editor at THE Journal and SmartBrief. As a consultant for CUE, California's ISTE affiliate, he edited its quarterly publication OnCue Journal and assisted with its popular YouTube channel Infinite Thinking Machine. He has moderated sessions or spoken at FETC, ISTE and CoSN and has helped put together various online and in-person professional development events for companies such as PCM-G and Cisco. He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico where he earned degrees in English and French, a language he loves but is always forgetting. Follow Stephen on Twitter.




    “If you’re unsure of how that lesson would go, learn alongside your students,” Hyler suggests.

    “Have them show you how they’re writing and ask them questions: ‘Why are you writing that way?’

    There’s a lot of power in that.”

      • Authored by:
        Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)
      Follow Me Yonder..                     Instagram
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      Location: Loveland, CO 80538, USA
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