5 Tools for More Engaging Content

In previous articles including my SEO for beginners guide, I discussed the importance of producing high quality content. Companies and people use blogs as a channel to engage consumers and increase website traffic. Blogs with engaging content are rewarded by search engines. The problem, however, is the idea of having to produce high quality content on a continuing basis. This concept scares many beginners from even starting to blog. The great news, however, is that there are tips that everyone can use to write posts that are engaging and SEO friendly. We’ll start by looking at the first component needed. 1. Interesting Title With over 2 million blog posts written each day, the ability to grab a reader’s attention and sway them from clicking on the competition is harder than ever before. Simply put, there’s a lot of noise out there. As marketing guru, Seth Godin once said, “The only way to stand out from the noise is to become a purple cow.” Simply put, unique and catchy titles are the best way to increase click rates and traffic to your website. 2. Short and Precise 55% of readers spend less than 15 seconds on an article. For the half still reading, the need to be concise in your writing is vital. Avoid sentences that contain a lot of fluff by re-reading all your work before you post. Remember, the shorter you can make your sentences, the better and more engaging your content will be. 3. Videos Most blogs only use pictures and infographics to engage readers. Sites that only contain pictures and graphs are missing out on an even better tool for engaging readers and increasing their SEO. Videos are highly affective at increasing backlinks. In fact, posts that include videos increase inbound links 3 times more than plain text posts. Also, blogs that contain a video increase the amount of time a person spends on the post by 100%. 4. Pictures Although I mentioned that videos are more affective than blogs with pictures, this doesn’t mean to avoid using pictures all together. Studies show that articles with images receive 94% more total views than posts without images. Overall, images help make a post more attractive to read compared to just text, and keeps the attention of the reader. 5. Keywords The point of any post is to gain traffic to your site. In order to do this, keywords will be necessary. Ideally, you want to use 1 to 2 long-tail keywords for each post. The reason being is to avoid coming off as spam to search engines. If your content has too many keywords, search engines will penalize your post and website. Putting it all together Overall, before starting any blog post, write out what your main topic is. From here, you’ll be able to decide what you want to discuss, which keywords make the most sense for your post, and a catchy title to go with it. Finally, deciding your topic before you write will make your writing more precise and focus, and will allow you to decide which pictures and/or video makes the most sense for your post. By mastering these steps, you’ll be well on your way to writing high quality content.

Social Media: Is it worth YOUR effort?

Oh, social media! When it comes to online marketing, nary a day goes by when it isn’t part of my conversations with clients and internet professionals. Here’s an interesting scenario for you to ponder: You’re spending 10 hours per week curating, posting, managing, planning and engaging your community members. From your social metrics tools such as Adobe Social or Google Analytics, you see that there are people from your social media community signing up for your newsletters, asking questions via your website’s contact page, and some are even buying your products from your e-commerce store. Your social media strategy looks like it’s working, but are all your social media efforts contributing enough to your business’ bottom line to justify the time commitment? Perhaps these reasons should give you an added inspiration for staying on top of your social media game: Social media signals are a part of Google’s myriad ranking factors; Having a social media element in your traffic acquisition strategy makes your website’s traffic and inbound marketing efforts more defensible; Social media provides a captive audience, making your content syndication and customer acquisition efforts easier; In addition to customer acquisition, social media also provides an alternative way for you to answer potential customers’ questions, clarify misconceptions or dispel misinformation, and thank customers for their reviews. The first point is reason enough to keep engaging and accumulating social media followers and fans. Assuming all things are equal, your efforts in social media can equate to better rankings for your target keywords in the long run especially if you put your efforts in engagement and social shares. The second point is obviously also important. If, for whatever reason, your rankings drop for your top performing keywords, it’s good to know that you still have some sort of a traffic fall-back system through your inbound marketing efforts which, ideally speaking, includes your social media strategy. The third is where you entice new and repeat-customer business. Sales events, new product introductions, and showing your expertise in your industry are part of what makes point number 3 important. Online reputation monitoring is perhaps the highlight of the fourth point. The better you are at listening to what people are saying about your brand and your products online, the more chances for engagement you’ll get. And as with everything social media, engagement and shares are what you should be after. Of course, there are other considerations that you should be aware of, such as your social media reach and paid sponsorship options. Our resident social media expert Kassie shared something with me last Friday that should be of interest: Studies show that your content will only be seen by as much as 2% on Facebook and about 5% on Twitter. As more content noise is generated on social media, you’ll eventually see a decline in reach and along with that, engagement and social shares as well. The only way to combat this is to a) produce great content and b) extend your reach via paid post sponsorships, which obviously adds another layer of complexity and requires more time. But fret not. Next week, we’ll talk about content ignition and how to maximize your social media reach in today’s crowded social media environment. Stay tuned!