How important is the content on your website? On a scale of 1 to 10, we would probably put it on 15. It is often the first touch point for a prospect who has discovered or stumbled upon your website. In the absence of a human driving sales, the content needs to speak, connect and convince the customer to trust you enough to take their journey with you. Let’s add a few real-time complexity layers to this. Your brand is new or relatively less known among its users. Another layer is your competition who is also wowing your customer either with product and service quality or price points and discounts. To add to this, there is the search engine layer which determines the usefulness of your website based on its content and the user journey it creates. So you see, content is the one thing you simply shouldn’t take a chance with as it can make or break your business. Most people, though, when making websites, approach it like a commodity that can be brought off the shelf. They think that you can get ‘almost any writer’ to write content and often choose to work with the person who offers the best price. The choice of who works on your website content is a big decision. And since everyone loves a good checklist, we’ve made one that can come handy when you have to get down to writing clear, concise and converting content for your website. Let’s get you started on the journey from good to great content. 1. Allow content to shape design While most people generally pick a design theme and fit content into the available buckets, try doing the reverse to see that you are covering things from a user journey perspective. Here are some of the questions you need to find answers to: What would a new and returning user expect from the website? Where would they most likely go to fulfill their intention of interacting with or purchasing from your brand? What are the quick wins for user gratification? What are the key demographic buckets for your users and will their needs on the website vary? How will you generate trust with content? What are the best ways to showcase? As you answer these questions your answers will most likely be a series of pages which allows you to showcase the answers. This will lead you to step 2. 2. Determine all the pages you’ll need on the site in the next year One year? Yes, that’s right. You see, getting a chunk of your planning done when you create the website will save you both time and money. Going back to create small buckets of content which you have missed out will definitely come at an additional cost which is the result of not planning well in advance. Your website will have two sets of pages – static and dynamic. Static pages are mostly functional pages like About us, Contact Us, FAQs, Service pages, Team, Vision and Mission and the likes which won’t change on a day to day basis. Of these, two important pages you simply shouldn’t miss are ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Terms and Conditions’, which will keep you safe in a worst-case scenario. The second set of pages are dynamic which will get added as you push new content. It could be new products, listings or blogs that will add depth to your existing content. At this stage when you are creating a new website, you can create content templates and guidelines which can work as the beacon for the coming year. Put down a set of clear static and dynamic pages which will allow the assessment of the volume of content that needs to be created before launch and after launch. 3. Create content templates Most pages or set of pages on a site will follow a content and design format which will ensure that you don’t have to go back to the drawing book every time a new asset has to be created. Here are some of the features you can consider having on your pages a. Feature image Images are as much a part of the content as words, and they often speak louder. You’ll have to zero in on images for your site either from your own stock or by purchasing from an online image bank like iStock. A lot of times, when you are in the under-construction phase, it is great to identify free stock photos as a filler which will give you an idea on the look and feel without costing a ton of money. Want to know where to find them? See our detailed blog about the top free stock photo sites on the internet. Also think of the size of the image, dimensions, and plugins required to ensure they look good even after compression. b. Headline The statistic that 80% people don’t read beyond the headline is enough to get thinking what the headline for each page should be. You can have an intriguing hook, a question or a statistic along with the keyword for the page in the headline. c. Short and long description The short description, along with the headline, will be the pull factor for the page when someone discovers it via search. The long description will contribute to the ‘authority’ factor of the page which will build user trust in terms of topic expertise. Search engines are often said to love pages having upwards of 2000 words. d. Meta and SEO information The additional meta title, description, keywords, img name, img alt text, link name, and alt text, schema and structure form the important information set that you need to have for search engines to read and rank your page. e. Testimonial Genuine testimonials are the best way to build trust into your products and services. But it is important to not have this as sketchy or untruthful. You can use a third party industry reviewer where possible to give a neutral
Month: May 2018
Building a website? Here are 10 things you must know to get it right
Things change quite fast in the online world these days. Fast enough to make you wonder if the website you build today will be likable or even be looked upon as tech-savvy a year down the line. It is not just the features and tech spec. It is also what search engines are predicted to love after a year, or how the social landscape can change or even the way content is consumed. Building a website can take anywhere from a few weeks to half a year depending on the complexity. In the meanwhile, the universe is constantly conspiring and adding new products and plugins that can do the heavy lifting. So, building for the future and staying agile is a key requirement when you make your to-do list. Here’s more to add to that list to give you a well-rounded coverage (and a good night’s sleep). 1. Start with the right domain name If you are a business, it is simple to make the business name your domain name. Except, it isn’t that simple. The most relevant businessname.com got sold on GoDaddy before even you thought of the idea. So you may have to end up settling for a less-popular version of the domain name or extension. In case you are a startup, you better check the domain availability before you coin a wacky name. Other general hygiene around the name like spelling, complexity in what it sounds like, unusual extensions and meaning in popular languages can also be a hindrance. From a tech perspective, the age of the domain, previous owners, and likeability by search engines will matter too. Choosing a domain name is not something to be taken lightly. 2. What do you want to achieve You are building a website for a reason – be it building a community, providing information, sharing content, sell products or build a reputation. Ask yourself and your team this question long and hard until you have finite answers that are surrounded with goals, KPIs, and metrics that push you back into thinking why you are doing things the way you are. A lot of it starts with visualizing what you want the user to do on the site and think of multiple user paths. Link these journeys to clear outcomes like ‘filling a lead form’, ‘buying a product’, ‘clicking on an affiliate link’ etc. 3. Choosing the right CMS Content management systems aren’t easy to switch so it is best to access your future requirement while making a plan today. For example, if you see the site growing to accommodate several hundred guest bloggers, it is best to choose a CMS now that can support and grow with your users. If you visualize the site to do some heavy lifting on the back end with a few hundred thousand pages, it is best to prepare a CMS that can effectively support this agenda without crashing. If you go with WordPress, start by choosing the right WordPress version (.com and not .org). There are other upcoming platforms like Wix and Squarespace but you need to decide if they can fully cover what you have in mind in terms of your brand image. 4. Choosing a secure website Have you heard nightmare stories of sites being hacked and hackers doing everything from pranking to blackmail to outright insults and tonnes for PR money to patch user trust back? If you don’t want to be that ‘someone’, it is best to have basic hygiene security measures like an SSL certificate. Be sure to have extra firewalls to protect customer data, even from new employees. Other than this, doing regular checks and testing needs to be planned at intervals to combat with the new type of malware and threats. 5. Designing for mobile responsiveness Being mobile responsive is no longer a choice. Customers are increasingly on mobile. Search engines are giving huge weightage to mobile-friendliness. There is a difference between having a mobile responsive website and having an app for the site. You have to choose what you need and the most cost-effective way to make it work. Being mobile responsive will also come with riders on which browsers or devices you’ll choose to optimize for. 6. Compatibility Speaking of browsers, you will also have to work around versions of the browser for which you want to appear compatible. While there are several jokes about using Internet Explorer/, it is still considered to be important to stay optimized for the latest version. 7. Design and content Most people put the first slot of static content in place for the website to take things up later as they come. The design too is done to accommodate the first trench of the website. Things tend to change when you start getting a thrust with user-generated content or want to start building new content blocks to get an SEO thrust. 8. Looking at competitors There are more than enough spying tools in the market that can open your competitors marketing strategies in a way that wasn’t possible a few years back. From Ahref to SEM Rush to Moz, you can find everything from keywords to links about your competitor. But it is also great to observe your site from a customer perspective to pick out strategy nuggets that are missing from your arsenal. 9. SEO and local business listings via GIPHY There is no question that SEO is one of the must-do tasks for a new site. Making your site search-engine friendly is a must to start receiving organic traffic. In addition to the page, off-page and technical SEO, also pay keen attention to getting the right local business listing if you are one. It gives a good thrust to rankings if you have good reviews and images. In addition to this, you can also do a 360-degree virtual tour of your business for SEO brownie points. 10. Cost By now, you must have seen the varying highs and lows that different development agencies quote when
Want content marketing to work? Be ready for a marathon run
As content marketers, we are often approached by businesses who want content marketing programs designed to achieve quick results. And even though people are coming of age with their understanding of what content marketing is, I am sad to report that the current state of affairs isn’t very great. Most businesses understand content marketing as something that will either lead to quick results or a race that has to be run once. Most brands and the top management do not understand that content marketing is a long-term game. And even if they do, most CEOs are in a dilemma on whether they actually want to commit to a longer-term thing. So What should be done Here is one thing to remember – if you are a brand looking at embracing content marketing then do not look for quick fixes. As the CEO, do not ask your marketing team to produce immediate results or short-term results. You must be in it for the long haul. As a content marketer and a strategist, I have found that the best way to work around this is to make sure that your client understands what content marketing actually means. Also, we make it a policy to not work with businesses that do not have the time or patience to understand what real content marketing and are always looking to cut corners on what is actually needed. Over time, we make sure that if we are working with a brand which requires content marketing, they understand the following – 1. Content marketing – understanding the whole picture Brands often want to invest in content marketing without understanding the real deal. Hence it’s important to convey that content marketing is not just about creating some pieces of blogs and articles in a month and pushing it out through your owned media. Or it’s not just about doing SEO or SMO and targeting some 10 or 30 keywords. Content marketing works as a whole. You cannot create just create content and not plan how to distribute it. You cannot create random content based on certain keywords and market it to just everyone. You will need a content strategy that will define what needs to be written and how it is to be written and a marketing strategy that will define how that entire content set will reach the targeted audience and set the inbound traffic wheels working. So get the understanding correct and make sure the top guys are willing to invest that time and money into the whole process. 2. Content Marketing is not a quick fix Get this thing sorted right at the start. What does the brand want and how much time does it think it can invest in getting the results. We have heard answers like – “I need XXX amount of sales in 3 months because I am launching a product.” “I think content marketing is trendy. Our CEO wants some content written because he feels it will get us some traction before this summit we have next month” “What is the ROI on this monthly investment that you want us to make. I finally want my products selling. I want my stuff to sell fast.” If you hear the above answers, your client probably does not understand a thing about content marketing. Content marketing is not just a quick race that will lead you to the victory stand. It’s not something that you do quickly that will get your products to sell fast. Content marketing is about building trust about your brand, product, services. It’s about creating brand awareness among the target audience. It’s about providing value to your users and establishing that belief in your brand. It’s about connecting with your target audience without pushing for sales. 3. Its okay to start small as long it is done in the proper way Sometimes, certain businesses will understand the full thing, but the top management might not be prepared to go the full hog without seeing the results. In such cases, it’s okay to start small – like a certain line of the business or a certain product. Make sure you are working small but working with the basic set of content marketing ammunition – a proper strategy, buyer persona mapping, content creation according for all channels and platforms to be used, a content distribution and promotion plan, and tracking of metrics. Without the implementation of the whole plan, results will not be achieved and it might be difficult to see the big picture. Conclusion Content marketing is difficult. The results need time. And clients need to be ready to give the buy-in time. But once the results start coming, there is no stopping it. So are you ready for the marathon? Want to know more about content marketing for your business? Write to us at sales@justwords.in or drop in a query here. Want to read more check the curated list below. 9 best ways to reuse that blog pile in your archive and get more traffic [Video] Why Exactly Should You Do Content Marketing And How? [Video] 5 Copywriting Sins That Weaken Your Content ROI 10 CONTENT MARKETERS YOU NEED TO FOLLOW TODAY AND WHY
9 best ways to reuse that blog pile in your archive and get more traffic
With the amount of content created churned out into the digital universe, it is a little amazing to see how people keep coming up with new things to write about and others make the time to read (some of) it. We say this from the perspective of a content marketer who has to churn new, interesting, relevant, SEO-friendly, traffic driving, conversion-oriented content with high frequency. Even with all the hacks and tricks outside the book, it still isn’t an easy job to keep the content calendar full for many of us. That’s why, when we create a content master plan for our client, we are very specific about doing a thorough content audit about all the content that has been created until the date and see how it fits in with our plan going forward. This helps us map out the analytics around that content and also see how the content can be purposefully reused. While new and fresh ideas are always welcome, ignoring the evergreen content you’ve created putting in your blood and sweat is a criminal offense. Old content pulled out from the archives can very simply and easily be used to support your existing content strategy. To Begin With Other than solving your ideating problem, repurposing content is good for you in multiple ways. To begin with, it will save you a ton of time. Content creation is a time-consuming process which involves multiple resources in your company. Everyone from the editors to writers will be devoting time to creating new content. In addition to this, the content marketing team will work up a strategy to get it the attention it deserves. Contrary to this, old content will need a fraction of the efforts to repurpose it. Your content marketers will create a funnel strategy to analyse and use the medium which has worked well for the content before not making it a shot in the dark. And believe us, Google is also going to love you for doing so. Fresh and better content around a topic can generate additional opportunities for you to rank on a targeted keyword. The enhanced quality can also mean better backlinking opportunity. Here’s how you can get started. 1. Do a content audit to find the content you can repurpose Content that can be reused multiple times over the years is essentially evergreen content. This could be content about your brand, product or industry which has remained constant over time. To find such content, head over to your Google analytic and look for content that has been receiving steady or incremental traffic over the last couple of years. For example, the blog that we published last July “How to write an SEO proposal that will get the client on-board”. It still ranks as one of our most visited blogs over the years. The next step is to look for blogs that you think could have done better in terms of traffic and continue to be relevant. These will need minimum edits and a better push from the marketing team to experiment on traffic pull. 2. Flip the Format Once you identified a piece of content to be worthy of repurposing, the simplest way to do it will be to change the packaging. If it is long-form content, you can convert it into a listicle with pictures. If it a short piece, you can make an infographic or video out of it. The other options are to do a ‘How to’ piece, podcast, slides and more. 3. Add an update to existing content Have you been following the Facebook data breach fiasco? Who hasn’t? And beyond a point, many people have fragmented updates from multiple sources. This is a perfect case for creating a piece of content and keep updating it as more news comes in. This will give you the authority you need to rank for a topic and also keep your readers happy to have just one piece of news to follow. 4. Convert listicles into detailed pieces We’ve all written “Top 5 ways to…” content which follows the catchy headline style and a quick list that can be surfed during a commute. If any such topics have caught your audience’s fancy, you can pick out points from the listicle and expand them into complete articles. This builds a strong internal link system and also helps with creating authority content on a topic. 5. Refresh it for social Remember the article about Cannes fashion that you had written about last year? The bloopers never seem to stop getting attention. Take advantage of the back history of bloopers you’ve already covered, add a new one and voila, you have another audience magnet ready to grab attention. With a news and dated headline, this can easily get attention from your social audience. Another example of refreshing for social comes with writing different angles to the same content based on the medium it is consumed from. Let’s say you are working with a local destination tour operator. You are more likely to share stories via Facebook, nugget facts via twitter, visuals via Instagram and business overview via Linkedin. You can look at the avenues you’ve missed and created specific content for specific media. 6. Pick your top five blogs and give them a mix If you have written multiple pieces of content around the same topic, you can get the best snippets from these articles to create a fresh view on the same topic. It isn’t the most exciting way to repurpose content but it works to attract new target audience as they may not have access to such content elsewhere. 7. Create a series Take an article like this. Each point in this article can be repurposed into a chain in an email series that can be sent at regular intervals to keep the interest alive about the topic. Besides, it will keep people coming back for more if you do it right. 8. An eBook is often the ‘free giveaway’
[Video] 5 copywriting sins that weaken your content ROI
Imagine if there is a toolbox to fix your content marketing wagon, then effective copywriting would be one of the most important devices in that kit. No matter what people may say, copywriting is much more than ‘writing those sales pitches without sounding like one’. A well-written copy is not the one that is able to sell stuff to one consumer one time, it’s the one that turns the one-time visitor into a loyal customer. Here are 5 ways you can up your copywriting game. Tell the clients how your product is different from others. Know your target audience. Analyse who is reading and responding regularly to your which kind of posts. Write keeping them in mind. Establish the “What’s In It For Me?” factor for the client by clearly stating why he/she should opt for your product. Tell them all the features and benefits without ambiguity. Back the article with thorough research but don’t overload it with information. Also, the article should not read like a sermon. Keep it interactive. Don’t make silly grammatical and syntax errors. Proofread at least twice before publishing. A copy full of mistakes can put off the reader. With content marketing touching an all-time high and millions of content pieces being generated every day, it’s the art of copywriting that is suffering in the bargain. As David Ogilvy has said, “The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.” So its time we write with that image in mind and write the best we can, without the mindless sentences, ridiculous errors and silly grammar mistakes. Every piece of content can be made better and that’s what we writers should all be aiming to do. Start now by watching this video on “5 deadly sins that you must avoid for effective copywriting”. Want to read more check the curated list below. How Content Marketers Can Use the Power of Clickbait for Good [Video] Why Exactly Should You Do Content Marketing And How? Different Ways Your Business Can Use Videos To Its Advantage Should You Use ChatBots For Your Small Business?
How Content Marketers Can Use the Power of Clickbait for Good
“I have lost respect for Rahul Dravid”. This article appeared at the bottom of another article I was reading on my iPad on a Sunday morning. I waited 3 seconds before I gave into the temptation of reading about what had the former Indian cricketing captain, known for being generally a good guy, done enough to lose the respect of a fellow countrymen. Image Source: Outlook As I landed on the page, I realized fast enough that this was just a clickbait headline that had worked so well. I felt irritated at haven fallen victim to such a headline but then thought of how much the copyeditor must have worked to get that headline to work. That sort of cut down my irritation. Turns out Rahul Dravid had not done much to lose respect. He had just not disclosed about his wedding to the media and the writer’s wife was making the above statement because of that. AND to top it all, I was reading an article written in 2003. No idea how I had landed there. In short, I was forced to read what I didn’t want to read. But again, did anyone force me? No. I was simply tempted. I found that headlines irresistible. So the question now is “do clickbait work”? Successful but clickbait aren’t as popular Let’s understand one thing. Clickbait is not valued much and there are many experts, who advise against using them. Brands like Google and Facebook are fighting to get the online world rid of clickbait titles. But why? Well, that’s because clickbait titles, in general, don’t aim to provide you genuinely valuable content. Their purpose lies more in simply bringing in more clicks and thus, advertising revenue. As long as they are successful in getting you to click, they don’t care if you are left disappointed by what was served to you. The fault in our psyche But before training our guns at content creators, we have ourselves to blame. The answer to why we feel so compelled to click a clickbait, lies in our psyche. The headlines provoke us with suspense like ‘If you haven’t seen this’ or challenge us like ‘It’s beyond your imagination’ and we take the bait. We want to know what is it that we have not seen or what we can’t imagine. Sometimes the tone is commanding or confusing and thus, we are enticed to follow the command or solve the riddle. It’s our psyche that makes clickbait so effective. A visual content and digital marketing specialist assessed the top performing articles over three months that were featured on 24 high-traffic sites known for their clickbait titles and found out that 17% were listicles and 29% titles mentioned “you”, “I” or hinted at a personal story. While only 8% mentioned an animal, 63% made a pop-culture reference, trending news or mentioned food. 79% of the articles contained an element of shock. How to use clickbait, ethically But as time passed, consumers got tired of this trope and began to avoid websites that bank on clickbait content. Clickbait gradually lost its credibility. The content creators then found themselves asking —what’s more important: revenue or reputation? For long-term loyalty from consumers and for emboldening the brand image, content creators and marketers began thinking about using clickbait as ethically as possible. Following are some of the possible ways of doing that Use clickbait titles but also make sure the content, you are promising, lives up to the hype to a large extent. Don’t dupe the consumer. He may not be fully satisfied but don’t let him go away vowing never to come back. Bounce rate is never good for a website. Write headlines that are high on SEO. Use clickbait to lure in the consumer but once he visits, he should find a world of relevant content. Link the ‘bait’ article with other articles that have sensible and direct headlines within your own website. The language plays a huge role. In titles, use positive connotations instead of challenging or insulting the visitors. ‘Check out 21 Messi facts about your favourite footballer’ is more professional than ‘21 things, we bet you didn’t know about Messi’ Now imagine what if the visitor knew 15 of them. In the first case, he will feel proud of knowing them, while in the second, he will be judging the intellect of the content creator. Also, the tone of the article is important. If you know the content is not good, at least make it interesting. If you can’t engage with them at the intellectual level because the article is not that informative, then use the tool of humour or pathos to engage them emotionally. Even though BuzzFeed and Upworthy have made a fortune out of it, clickbait is seen by experts only as a passing fad. There’s a huge difference between good content and content designed to manipulate. Let’s make a better choice. Want to read more check the curated list below. How to be Effective at Customer Support on Social Media? [Video] Why Exactly Should You Do Content Marketing And How? Different Ways Your Business Can Use Videos To Its Advantage Should You Use ChatBots For Your Small Business?