Content Marketing Blogs- What's new with Content Optimization

Best Ways to get Maximum Outreach to your Blog Posts

May 16, 2018/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Ancy

How To Improve Our Blog Traffic Best And Easy Methods

How To Improve Our Blog Traffic Best And Easy Methods-;Most of the blog writers are eagerly waiting to know the traffic in blog post. But just imagine after publishing the content, if nobody reads it, after carefully working out each phrase. Your precious words are not read by anyone! This is enough for a writer to become demotivated from writing. Actually, the suggested solution is to make your content less and including styling the text so it’s easy to read and thus attract the readers and can hold their attention.

A study from 1997 showed that 79 percent of web users scan the content than reading. Just think the way you search for an information and, if you visit a web page and don’t find the right information then you may go back and look other web pages for the same. The web is a “lean forward and participates” medium. So let us check on how to engage the readers who reach your page, ie, is to make to stay on your pages and interact with your information.

Prepare the content fractiously.

$Prepare the content fractiously$

To become a successful web writer, you need to forget some things that you have learned in English class. First of all be aware that people who visit a web page scan it, they won’t read it completely. So accept the reality and work for it.

If you are dealing with a complex topic, break it into a series of posts. Since breaking the posts into smaller paragraphs makes your reader easier to digest the content and keep them coming back in search for more topics.

Always structure your paragraphs in inverted pyramid style. This means state your conclusion first, then support it with the following sentences. This will help the scanners to move from point to point and helps to make a decision whether to dive in deeper. If you have done this, then use the following techniques to make your content more reader-friendly

Wrap the line break

Here let us go through the easier ways to make the content more readable. A complex content can be made much more reader-friendly with a simple introduction and a lot of white space. In a single paragraph feature one idea and keep it short with three or four sentences. Also, try writing some paragraphs with one sentence.

Break the content by including subheadings

A strong headline is very important for the readers to check out in the first place. An impressive subheading will keep the readers engaged and to keep them moving through the rest of the content. The subheadings must be very informative. Web readers are very sharp, so don’t expand. You may lose your credibility if you expand it. After writing the subheadings, review them to understand whether the reader can understand.

Use bulleted lists

By including the bullets readers can scan the content very easily. It is also a good manner to present multiple points. Bullets provide a visual break for the reader, so it looks different from the rest of the text.

Include Captions

Studies reveal that image captions are a most-read copy on a page. Try to include a strong image with a deep caption. Deep captions may be two or three sentences long. It may be enough for a reader to get an idea about your whole article.

Cast suitable and accessible links

Internal links will keep people on your site and make them read your best material. External links demonstrate that you’ve researched the topic and want to highlight the other experts. Good content expands your reader’s understanding and adds value. Another advantage of internal links is they make it less frustrating.

Focus on the content strategically

It’s best to make the important concepts in bold. It will be easy for your readers to scan and pick out important information at a glance. Also, keep in mind to highlight key points so the scanner can quickly pick them out.

Tackle with the numbers

Numbers have the power to capture the attention and to keep the reader oriented. Numbers make a post more attractive and inviting. Your post can also be made more compelling by numbering your main points. Just try it out.

Does your formatting turns scanners into readers

If you have included the subheadings, numbers, bulleted lists, and other formatting styles to focus the key elements of your post, read through it again to check its worthiness. Make sure that you pulled out the interesting and relevant words.

Also, tell your favorite techniques for getting readers to lean on your content. Let’s have a discussion on it in the comments.

How To Do Content Audit?

April 25, 2018/0 Comments/in Content Creation, Content Marketing /by Nikitha

A Simple Definition Of Content Audit And It’s Purpose

Content is the king of SEO. So it is important to keep quality contents and remove unwanted or low-quality contents. For this, we do the content audit. By using some performance metrics we can analyze the content and from that, we can understand which to keep, which to remove and improve. The purpose of a content audit is to improve the domain quality, trust and other ranking things on the site. Here we explain how to do content audit.

How To Do Content Audit

The content audit is not a simple thing. If it is not done properly it will affect your site. The content is analyzed by using different metrics. We must have the inventory data and depend upon it we do actions.

It has three phases:

1) Inventory And Audit

2) Analysis And Recommendations

3) Summary And Reporting

1) Inventory And Audit

The inventory of contents begins with crawling of the site. The difference between the technical audit and content audit is, in technical audit crawls are mattered with crawlable content and in the content, audit crawls are concerned with indexable content. URLs are the unique identity of websites. Some URLs contain important contents and worth the entire application. But to get the effect of the URLs it may take one or two years. So in such cases, the process given below will help.

Step 1: Crawl All Indexable URLs

Website crawl can be done by Screaming Frog crawler. Also collect URLs from Google webmaster tools, XML sitemaps, Google Analytics, the internal database of the e-commerce website and these URLs can be crawled in the crawler. Add these URLs to your main URLs and obtain a complete list of indexable URLs. But there are some URLs that are not actually indexable. So exclude them. You can avoid URLs like

Error 4XX and Error 5XX
Robots.txt and blocked URLs
CSS file, JavaScript files, SWF files
Images and redirecting URLs which have canonicalize to other URL

Crawling New Technologies

Crawling of large websites
Crawl only the indexable content. No need to crawl all URLs of the site.
Divide the site into crawlable parts
If the site is too large you can crawl single directory at a time.
Machine Upgrade

To hold data during the crawl time you need more RAM. So install additional RAM on your computer for this. It will improve performance.

Change to proper URL

In WordPress like sites, the URL structure may be like numbers. This is not good. So always add your keyword in URL and it must be simple and meaningful one. If the URLs contain numbers and not a meaningful one then redirect them to correct URLs.

Adapt your tools

To get more from the crawler screaming frog provides speed adjustments, query strings, search depth etc. To avoid hanging and data loss leave some GB to the spider.

Use Other Tools

At the time of the content audit, there is a lot of bandwidth waste. This may due to the crawling of the entire website and it may contain an indexable URLs. There are some other tools too like Deep-crawl and Botify.

Dynamic Mobile site crawling

In the mobile setup, there are two codes one for mobile and other for desktop. But for both these version, only one URL is there. Depending on the type of device the URL may vary. By using JavaScript frames works it affect the speed in the mobile version.

Step 2: Choose additional metrics

Crawlers will give URLs, metrics, titles, meta tags, word count and descriptions. You also get information about internal and external links, traffic etc. and by these, you can make an informed data during analysis of content audit. URL profiler world well with screaming frog and URL profiler is the best for it.

2) Analysis And Recommendations

In a large organization, it’s tempting to have a junior SEO do all of the data-gathering up to this point. We find it useful to perform the crawl our-self, as the process can be highly informative.

Let’s check how to do Analysis.

Step 3: Put the data on the dashboard

Do the work details in Excel and upload it to Google sheets later. Because while using Google sheets you may face performance issues. The dashboard creation is easy just add action column and details column in the spreadsheet. The action column must have three options like leave as-is, remove and improve. In the detail, column adds instructions for implementation.

Step 4: Do the work depending on the content audit dashboard

Now you have all the data and you may work differently from others. Some content related issues may cause algorithmic filter look for these issues and start with it. This may cause penalty issues. For big websites, it is better to do content audit periodically.

3) Summary and Reporting

The content audit is very useful. The report should contain all details and recommendations.The clients are going to find the greater benefit in our final content audit report, which include high level overview of our recommendations.

Step 5: Report Writing

The report should contain finding, recommendation and next steps from the audit, and should start with an executive summary.

Five Content Marketing Trends of 2017

September 7, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Brahmadas R

Content Marketing Trends

Content marketing trends are changing rapidly over time with the change in the way user is interacting on the web and the way search engines are changing the algorithms. This is helping the brands to get maximum exposure in the search engine results.

By staying on par with the latest content marketing trends will help you to tweak the content marketing strategy regularly and let you keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing to get huge traffic and sales to the business.

Five best content marketing trends of 2017 that you need to think about include:

Bots will soon replace the writers

With the evolving of digital world, we are finding various means that let us to do all the works for us quickly. This is wonderful news for the brands, but a little sad news for the writers.

The Robot algorithms are giving informative information to the audience about the simple topics. For instance, audience are able to get quick information about the climatic conditions and temperature of a specific place or city briskly. Probably, the content writers who write basic articles will have less work in the near future. This is helping the brands to save a huge amount of money on promoting their products and services through content marketing.

The industry experts believe that the algorithms get more advanced and would be able to deliver even the complex content down the line. However, we are not sure that the content generated by the robots will be of same quality as developed by the expert and accomplished bloggers in that particular niche. The brands are more excited about the outcome of using the algorithms and generating the content rather than its uniqueness.

Content is portrayed in a visual format

Picture will be incorporated in the content. The infographics are used to portray the content in a visual format. Undoubtedly, the multimedia tweets would get more re-tweets over the tweets that are filled with text. Moreover, every blog post that is published in the recent times will certainly have pictures to engage the audience.
The demand for pictures would grow at a rapid pace. You can find more content in a visual format including infographics, gif, videos, and pictures. This content is easy for the readers to go through and understand over reading the content. Undeniably, this content is pretty straightforward and engaging for the readers.

Rise in interactive content

A content marketing strategy is said to be successful only when the content is engaging and when the business get qualified leads through the blog posts. The best way to engage the audience on your blog post is to craft interactive content.

Many brands are coming with new ways to interact with the customers. Few of the ways that are embraced by the advertisers to interact include conducting polls, surveys, maps and through social media.

Consider the Buzz feed quizzes that you find on Facebook

No one will care to share the quiz which tells whether their friends are snow white or about their eyeliner style. You can take the quizzes to share about your personality with your friends on Facebook. Few of your friends may share the result of the quiz you have attempted. Basically, buzz feed quizzes have become a buzzword of Facebook in the recent times. The online visits, shares and ad revenue it generates will raise your eyebrows.

Undoubtedly, the success rate of interactive content is very high. People will participate in the quizzes to express their opinion about the topics on social media. It is the sheer responsibility of the advertisers to come up with the ways to interact with the audience to improve shares and re-shares of the content. This gives maximum brand exposure, traffic and sales for your business.

User will aggregate informative content

Basically, the user on social media gets more information through shares from their friends rather from the brands.
In the recent times, Facebook has released a new algorithm news feed which will showcase the content shared by the friends and acquaintances on the timeline. When it is shared by any of your friends, maximum exposure can be acquired.

There are many content aggregation tools, especially the most famous one that is developed by Twitter, i.e., Project Lightning will let you to aggregate videos, images, hash tags and other information and create a trending story.
The publishers have to create a unique piece of multimedia content to make their content appear in the aggregate content to let their voice heard by millions of audience globally.

Social media offers innumerable options

Social media is offering umpteen ways for the businesses to circulate their content to the target audience in every nook and cranny of the world. To get noticed by the potential audience briskly, the instant articles that are published by the businesses on Facebook are posted on Newsfeed.

Soon, the Search engine Giant, Google will release an instant article format for the mobile users to let the brands gain maximum visibility even from the users using mobiles.

You need to incorporate these techniques in your content marketing strategy to boost the brand image in the virtual world. Unarguably, you cannot expect a sea of traffic to visit your website after publishing an instant article. You need to wait until your content goes viral and the audience interact with your content.

Day by day the content marketing trends are getting complicated with the increase in the positive results it is reaping for the businesses. It is crucial for the business to come up with latest content marketing trends to reach the target audience globally. However, it is important for you to make changes to the content marketing strategies as per the trend to strengthen your brand in the internet world.

Save

Best Content Marketing Strategies 2017

August 25, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Brahmadas R

Best Content Marketing Strategies 2017

Be it you already have a content marketing strategy in place or want to create a new strategy. You would need to revamp the existing strategy to accomplish the current goal of your business for the year 2017.

The reason behind this is that there is a huge competition to content marketing strategy compared to the last year. In fact, a survey has found that many B2B marketers have developed more content this year over the preceding year.

To give a tough competition to your rivals, you need to have a powerful content marketing plan. This helps you gain traffic and sales for your business. Many businesses that are in the nascent stage could not come up unique with ideas to plan a perfect content marketing plan. However, if you need any blooming ideas, then keep reading this article.

You can get a marketing plan for the year, in a matter of few minutes using the free generator.

In this post, you would learn the importance of content marketing plan for the business. Also the steps you need to follow to create the best marketing strategy that fits in your business goals.

Role of Content Marketing for Businesses

Content marketing will motivate the users to know about a business products and its services and compel them to take a desired actions. In addition, the website with fresh and informative content will let you gain a sea of traffic and conversions for your business. Imagine of developing a blog post by incorporating a link to free e-book or to download the tool developed by your company will generate huge traffic and sales for your business over time.

The quality traffic and conversions generated after reading your content will give you the confidence to explore other marketing strategies to generate huge revenue including advertising on social media, sponsored content and distributed content. The best thing is that, the informative content created will educate the new customers about your products and services and let them evoke you, when in need of your products/services down the line beside helping you gain leads.

Now, it is time for you to get acquainted with the steps involved in creating a solid content marketing plan.
Here are the seven steps that you need to embrace to create a perfect content marketing strategy that meets your business goals.

Have a Goal in Place

You should have a clear cut idea of why you are developing a content marketing plan and the purpose of developing content. Unarguably, having a goal in place will let you make most of the content marketing plan that you have created in this year.

Do thorough Research on the buyer’s personal

When you are developing a content marketing plan, you should know whom you are targeting. This helps you create a successful plan that strikes the right chord and let you achieve your sales target. It is critical to know the buyer’s persona without which your plan would go futile. More importantly, knowing the target audience is important when you creating a marketing plan newly. By knowing the audience, you would create the content that they are looking for and love to read.

Know Your Audience & Add Best Value in Your Contents

Give Value for your Listeners and Viewers. If you can add good value in your contents, you will become an authorized person for your audience.

Be it you are a new or expert marketer, your perspective would differ. No matter whether you want to target the current set of audience to improve your customer base or want to target on a new set of audience, it totally depends on your business goals. However, you would need to know the interests of your target audience every year by doing a thorough marketing research to improve the base.

Do Content Audit

Many companies have their own blogs and keep posting about the latest news about their business, product launches and other information about the products in it. But, if you want to try promoting your business creating other piece of contents, then you need to figure out the right one. For instance, if you are continuously posting blog articles on your blog, then you can create an eBook adding all the articles that you created in the year and give it as a guide to the target audience. There are different types of contents you can create to create awareness about your brand.

If you already have a content marketing plan in place, then it is time for you to track its performance and check whether or not your efforts have turned fruitful. After analyzing your performance, you need to set a new goal for the following years to accomplish them.

Pick the best Content Management System

You need to have a perfect CMS where you can manage the content. Few of the integral tasks of content management include creating content, publish and tracking its analytics.

If you are an existing hubspot customer or a new customer who is looking for the best CMS for the organization where you can plan, create, publish and guage the results, then without a second though, you need to buy Hubspot software. There are other CMS available in the market. Few of the popular ones include WordPress and CoSchedule.

Come up with new and unique content ideas

You need to come up with the new content ideas to tell about your products to the customers. Few of the tools that lend hands to get new ideas include

HubSpot’s Website Grader: This is the best tool that let you know the place where you are standing in marketing. From blogging to promoting on social media, this tool thoroughly analyze all your marketing efforts and prepare a detailed report that helps you to find out the weak areas in your marketing plan and focus on those areas to improvise the plan. This tool gives you powerful content ideas which makes your website more SEO friendly.

What To Write: This tool will give fresh content ideas which you can use to create a blog post that is informative and can pull the audience to your site. There are a few questions that are probed by this tool which let you to brainstorm and come up with new ideas. More importantly, after answering the queries, it gives you a series of blog post ideas which you can use to create a solid content marketing plan.

HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator: You can get the blog post ideas for the whole year using this tool. In this tool, you need to enter the topics or keywords about the topic that you would like to project. Then this tool does the needy for you.

Feedly: This RSS feed helps you to stay on par with the digital marketing trends and come up with new content ideas which you can use to create blog posts.

Buzzsumo: You can get the solid content ideas using this tool. The best part of this tool is that, it gives ideas about whether the content you would like to prepare has good scope and is popular on social media or not. This informative will let you decide on what type of content you need to write to attract the audience.

Content Forest: This has two tools including KeywordKiwi and ContentIdeator. These tools help you to find out the blog posts of your competitors that have gained a huge traffic and keywords to be used in the content and get content ideas under one umbrella.

Blog Post Headline Analyzer: This headline analyzer help you to create catchy headlines. When you put the headline created by you in this tool, it find give valuable feedback on the headline length, words you choose, grammer and the search volume of the keyword embedded in the title. You can put your headlines in this analyzer to check how strong the headline is. Also, you can make changes to the headlines to make it powerful.

Content Marketing Tips

Find the contents you need to create and publish: There are umpteen options that are available for you to create different types of contents. Few of the piece of contents that are created by many marketers to boost brand reputation, improve traffic and sales. These contents are published by considering the content marketing tips.

Blog posts

If creating blog post is a part of your marketing strategy, then keep posting fresh content that attracts new customers to your business. Undeniably, blogs are the best way to get new leads. The posts that you create should be worth reading and sharing on social media. It is highly recommended to create the blog posts of around 1000 to 2000 words, but you need to experiment posting short and lengthy articles time to time and check the responses.There are many templates avilabale in online to write curation, listicles and newsjacking posts.

Ebooks

When the customer land on your site and go through the content would get motivated to download the ebook where they can read and know more about your products. E-books are the best way to get potential customers. Ideally, these ebooks are a small version of books that are rarely published over ebooks. But will grab the attention of many visitors to your website. Ebooks are the integral part of inbound marketing process. Once they read the blog post, to know more information about your business, they would provide the contact details to download the ebook. More importantly, the sales team will have the contact details to get in touch with the prospective customers. There are many templates available in online to start writing ebooks.

Templates

While writing a piece of content whether it is a blog post or an ebook, you need to have a template in place which lets you to present the content in a structured way. This engage the customers until the last point in the ebook or blog post. The beautifully projected content will enlighten the customer and generate leads for your business. The content that is posted by you would be regularly read by the customers.

Infographics

Undeniably, a picture speaks louder than words. Infographics are the best way to portray content in a graphical format. This is perfect piece of content, if you would like to share ample content with the audience. This clearly portrays what you want to convey and make the audience understand it with ease.

There are many infogrpahics templates which can use to create an infographics with the available data in a few hours.

Videos

Videos are the powerful way to promote your products and services. Today, in the busy life, peoples prefer to watch videos instead of reading contents. These can be shared on social media platforms to read wider audience. To create a quality and enriching video, you need more resources and time. With the increase in demand for visual marketing, it is crucial to create videos that tells about your brand story.

Podcasts

Podcast is one of the best ways to reach the audience in every nook and cranny of the world. If the audience do not have enough time to read content, they can download the podcast and listen. The people who are listening to podcast are increasing at a rapid pace. In the year 2016, it was found that over 57 million people have listened to podcasts every month. If you have the conversation of thought leaders or industry experts, then posting those interviews will motivate the customers. They can download those posts and listen to them whenever they find time. This is another content format that is worth experimenting.

After creating the content, it is time for you to publish them on blogs, social media, and other platforms. Also, you can post the content on various niche sites. You can also re-purpose the content or create a fresh article and post them on your social media pages.

Post and manage various content formats

The content marketing plan should not just be about creating content, but should be about how you are promoting. There are a few people who post less and promote more. This is the mantra followed by expert marketers. To post the content regularly, you first need to create an editorial calendar. Based on this calendar, you need to create different contents and post them on websites or other platforms. In addition, you also need to create social media calendar to promote and manage content. You need to keep posting the fresh content that is according to the trend rather than posting other topics. Your editorial calendar will help you create contents regularly and generate a huge traffic.

Many people start to post marketing content on important occasions to drive quality traffic to the website. But instead of focusing on special days, you need to focus on every week to post unique content. If you believe that the content published about a particular niche during niche holidays. Then you need to post content related to it and share on social media. You need to consider the holidays while creating an editorial calendar.

Following these steps help you create a perfect marketing plan. But you need to use your creativity and spend time to make your strategy a big success. From creating a solid content marketing plan to finding the best CMS tools, it would be a piece of cake for you.

If you are able to get awesome ideas on Best Content Marketing Strategies 2017, feel free to share the post with your social media friends. You can share your valuable comments and opinion about this post.

Save

How to start a Content Marketing Campaign with no Money

July 25, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Brahmadas R

How to start a Content Marketing Campaign

There is a saying that “Content is King”. It has the ability to pull the eye of the audience towards your business and compel them to take a desired action of buying a product or subscribing to your newsletters and at the same time, it can take a toll on your business. There are many platforms where you can post fresh, unique, and informative content related to your business, products, and services to educate the target audience. To start a Content Marketing Campaign with no Money only way a business or a brand can speak to the audience is through their content. It is acting as a medium between the company and the end-user.
Today, content marketing has become an integral part of digital marketing strategies so,How to start a Content Marketing Campaign with no money is one of the important thinks. Many B2B marketers are using marketing strategies to promote their business in various marketing channels. There is a misconception that businesses, especially who are in the nascent stage cannot spend a huge amount on marketing. Basically, a company will allocate budget to every marketing channel and coming to the content marketing, there would be dearth for the budget. However, you can instigate the Content Marketing Campagin without investing a single pie in the following ways.

Do extensive research on Google

If you do not have money to hire a market research company to do competitor analysis, you can start your own research by delving in-depth about your target audience. It is crucial for you to identify the demographics of your audience, especially the age group of people who is landing on your site, from which country they are viewing, timing at which they are accessing your site, and also check the gender. In addition, you need to keep a close eye on the type of content your competitors are crafting and whom they are targeting the most. It is crucial for you to research on your major demographics to find out their online behaviour and their purchases. This information gives a clear idea to create the best content campaign.

Create a free blog with the template customized for your industry

It is a piece of cake to start a blog with the availability of umpteen blogging platforms including WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, etc. These user-friendly platforms have a few templates which let you to customize the blog as per your requirements. You need to create the blog with the available templates that is easy to navigate for the target users. Unarguably, you do not need a platform that should be dynamic and perfect instead should allow you to post the content easily.

Create a business page on different social media sites

Many businesses that lacks budget for marketing are using social media to reach the target audience in every nook and cranny of the world. Undeniably, a piece of unique content that is posted on the social media pages will go viral in a few minutes, if it is useful for the audience. It is crucial for you to create a catchy business page on every social media site with your brand name. You can publish the fresh content on the business pages to create awareness about your brand to the global audience in a short time. The audience who like your products will become your customers. In addition, it improves your visibility in online.

Pen down your ideas

Every business should write what the audience are looking for rather than their dumping trash. Basically, the content will speak volumes about your brand, product and service. If you are not a professional writer, you can still put down your experiences. As you are expert in your own profession, so pen down the insights and what you know about the product in-depth. Undeniably, there would be thousands of users who would evince interest in reading the articles published by experts in their respective field.

Use free images

To entice the users to read the informative content and retain their attention span, you need to incorporate a few images in between the content. This will glue the audience to read until the last point in the article. You cannot copy the images that are published on other sites, due to copyright issues. So, there are a few sites where you can find free images that are easy to use. You do not need to hire a designer or spend money to buy the images. Example of the famous free images site is Wikimedia Commons. This site let you search your desired image easily.

Boost brand reputation in online

Though, you have created a social media profile for your brand, but having a personal identity on the social media would add value to your brand. You need to focus on building your personal brand image rather just focusing on your company. This may help you to reap more lucrative career opportunities down the line. In addition, you can build your own customer base that follows you even when you switch to another business.

Build a network

After creating a personal page on the social media channels and gained a little social media presence, it is time for you to network with the people on your social media profiles. You need to be an avid social media user and actively like, comment and share your views on the posts that are shared by your friends, family, and acquaintances. You need to initiate talks with the active followers and start following other people who may become your follower in the future. Everyone with whom you socialize or network would add to your audience base. You may come cross guest posters and influential who will contribute in improving your content marketing campaign.

Set a goal

Like every marketing strategy even a content marketing campaign should have a goal. A campaign without a goal is worthless. You should know what you want to accomplish by promoting the campaign and how many new customers you want to gain for your business. For that, you need to add a call to action at the right places in the articles you post. This motivates the audience to take a desired action. You also need to know whether you want traffic or sales for your business for the created campaign. It is crucial for you to post informative content and retain the online visitors on your site for a long time to learn more about your brand and turn them into your potential customers. If you have a goal, it shows you a path to follow for earning huge revenues. In addition, you can also tweak the campaign a little and invest in it to make it even stronger.

Invest in the content marketing slowly

Needless to say that, your aim is How to start a Content Marketing Campaign, but you need to invest in the campaign as you keep flourishing in meeting your business goals. If you are aiming to earn huge profits, then you need to invest your time and money.

You can start investing peanuts and gradually increase the investment when your returns demand. You need to have a strong team of prolific writers, talented designers, digital marketers and brand experts to attain your business goal. And, if you want to save money, you can outsource these works to the reputed service providers. Interestingly, you get double and triple of what you invest in content marketing. Though, you start with nothing, but over time you can earn profits, a part of which you can invest in content marketing campaigns to take your business to newer heights.

Save

Free Content Marketing Tools from Google

July 11, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Brahmadas R

Free Content Marketing Tools for Content Marketing Professionals

This blog post presents free content marketing tools provided by Google. Reading this blog post can help you to enhance your content marketing results. Because these free tools are simply awesome. These free content marketing tools can help you to simplify your tasks. As a content marketer, I use these tools in most my projects.

You may have many years of experience as a content marketing professional. Then you would certainly agree that there are different ways to improve your performance. Or you can use these free content marketing tools. You would certainly agree if you can try these tools. If we say that social Media as number one platform for online exposure, along with Google’s Keyword Planner which would help you become a powerful content marketing professional. Some of these free tools like Google Keyword planner, Analytics, Web masters tools (search console) etc are most favorite tools in my SEO practices.

There is something really appealing for you! You can choose to follow these simple steps to enhance the performance yourself as a Content Marketing Specialist!

Many of you would call Google simply as a search engine. It’s certainly not wrong to have your website ranked as number one. However; you should not forget the process that is involved in getting your website to be ranking as number ‘1’. You need to have the right set of tools to rank your website at top. You can achieve significant impact good results if you use these free content marketing tools from Google.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an amateur in content marketing field. Even if are an expert in this fields, this post would certainly change your perspectives of approach towards content marketing in the future. Below are the ten free content marketing tools available for free; which can be used by all the content marketing folks. Do not worry about using all these tools all at once or may be even once. But, it is certain that these tools are going to create an impact on the content, from a search engine point of view.

1. Google AdWords: Keyword Planner

Are you in search of a tool that can help you focus on the right kind of keywords for your business?

Though there are a lot of tools available in the market, which can give you good results, Google Keyword Planner tops the list. It is one of the most suited tools that would perform a keyword search. There are a lot of good things to be liked about this tool along with its user-friendliness.

It becomes the job of a content marketing professional to search for those kinds of keywords which would boost the performance of your write-up, blog or a website. The only suggestion to make use of this tool would be through, thorough experimenting process. You need to run a lot of searches to understand the functionality of this tool better. You can also choose to run multiple searches in order to get a different perspective on how the tool works.

For instance, “content marketing” could be one of your focus keyword. You know that this is the best keyword. However; you would certainly know how difficult it is to rank number ‘one’ with such simple keywords .You need to have long-tail terms which would better your search results. Try to check for different keywords that are suitable for your article or write-up. Try to use a long tail keyword as your first important keyword to increase the search results.

You should know that ‘Google Keyword Planner’ is just a fundamental tool, but it is one of the most effective ‘Free Content Marketing Tools’ for content marketing professionals who would like to do research on the keyword strategy to increase the search results.

2. Google Analytics

What are your goals for your content marketing strategy?

If you are unable to answer this question, you should sit back and think thoroughly, because your website performance is completely based on the kind of strategies you make. It’s good to have some goals set and if you are aware of them already, it’s now time to understand the other functionalities of ‘Google Analytics’ in depth. ‘Google Analytics‘ functions differently to different people and if you are into content marketing, there are a few mandatory things to know about it.

Start using this tool to get a quick view on the performance of your website for a particular time period. Google Analytics is one of the means to track the status on the goals you have set to achieve. You can slice and dice the data with the usage of Google Analytics. You would be able to extract data in depth as you start exploring every section on ‘Google Analytics’. Details on the real-time users, bounce rate and top visitors along with demographics can be checked using Google Analytics and this will set your goals even clear.

3. Google Search Console or Google Webmasters Tools

This tool is another boon for all the content marketing professionals. The more you spend time on exploring this tool it makes your content marketing life better. As there’s a lot knowledge to gain from Google Search Console or Google Webmasters Tools, do not be surprised if you get lost in data mining that is needed for your website analysis.

Apart from keeping a tab on the website status, there are a lot of other things that you can achieve using this tool. As a content marketer, you need to know the entire working functionality of ‘Google Search Console’ to gauge the performance of your website.

4. Google Trends

Are you facing challenges to constantly come up with some amazing concepts for your website? You would certainly not deny that, ‘Keyword Planner’ helps you with a lot of keywords with relevance to your industry. But it is good to have an alternate tool to perform the key search alongside the ‘keyword planner’. Hence, it becomes important that you check ‘Google Trends’ to get newer ideas to write articles or blogs for your website.

You can use ‘Google Trends’ to check the trending topics along with the “trending stories,” to check if there is something relevant to the business or industry you are into. For instance, any topics related to politics especially, the upcoming political debates on the candidature for ‘President Debates’ are sure to be trending.

You can always check ways to link these things to your website, blogs or any other content marketing concepts. Every time you write something about politics or any latest news, you know that there is a lot of scope as there is a lot of information available. In such cases, ‘Google Trend’ will help you to explore the creative side of yours. Keeping the above example on mind, you can probably choose to write a blog post entitled: “How Donald Trump is Using Content Marketing.”

While you connect on a trending topic, you are also giving a lot of information on what your target audience would be interested to know about, isn’t it? You do not have to be experienced to know the functionality of this tool; all you have to do is review the topic and start writing creatively.

5. Google Sheets

It becomes very important to maintain a systematic recording of every task you do as ‘Content marketer’ and at times you may have to discuss these details with your team as well with different accessibility options. For instance; I’m often asked about the best way to keep a tab on the outreach campaigns that happens through e-mails.

While you have a lot of other software to perform this task, there are a few with high-end features as well but, you may not want to spend money for any of these. These features may not be available on ‘Google Sheets;’ But it is one of the amazing means to keep a systematic track on the data and it would also allow you to remain organized. If you are looking for a good impact on the efforts you are putting on ‘Content Marketing’, it is necessary to have the sheet updated timely.

Pro tip: try to use ‘Google Sheets’ to maintain a task list for the to-do things, and a lot of content marketing professionals rely highly on this to keep them organized.

6. Google+

Though Google+ has not be able to take that spot in the list of ‘Social Media Websites’ like the others, It is still considered to be one of the best tools that can be used to grow the audience. Google+ helps you to establish connections with your prospect clients and also helps you to share content effectively. It is great to have a profile created on G+ and post the content, though you don’t want to be as active as in any other channels. Check out Google Plus company page of SoftLoom IT Solutions.

As a content marketing professional myself, these are three ways I suggest to all of you; If you are planning to grow as a professional Content Marketer using ‘Free Content Marketing Tools’.

1. Share the details on content with your fan followers
2. Try to increase the number of contacts
3. Check for content that would help you increase and have a positive growth on your business.

Like you post regular updates on your other ‘Social Media Websites’, updating your G+ profile with relevant content is also equally important.

7. Gmail

You need to keep in contact with a lot of your contacts if you want to excel as a content marketing specialist with ‘Free Content Marketing Tools’.

You can always use Gmail to send your write-ups and articles to your contacts. Emails are one of the right means to achieve your Content Marketing goals. Gmail has always been one of my favorite email clients; I would like to thank the in-built functionalities that Gmail offers. Apart from the features that you see, there are a lot of other hidden features of Gmail.

Wide ranges of plugins that can make your Gmail account work the way you want it to. You can create custom signature using ‘Wise Stamp’. You can also use ‘Followup’ to keep a tab on the follow-ups on the emails related to content marketing.

Check if you can start using Gmail services as a service provider to meet all your email requirements. You can save a lot of effort, time and money if you choose to make this change happen. You can always customize your Gmail inbox to meet your requirements.

Pro tip: You may go ahead with any email service provider for communicating with your team and clients. But you can still stick to Gmail as part of your content marketing strategy.

8. Google My Business

For larger companies, ‘Google My Business’ would not be a great deal but for local businesses it becomes little important as you would be able to achieve a free business listing on Google. It allows you to add a lot of information apart from the basic information; like name, contact details and business type.

The benefits of using ‘Google My Business’ include:

You can attract a lot of potential customers and also tell about your business to people; who would be interested about your business.
There are chances of people getting to know about your business to a greater extent.
Always use appropriate images that show the uniqueness of your business along with the customer reviews.
Content Marketing strategy should involve everything alongside having high quality write-ups and blogs.
When you start searching for results; the listings made by Google My Business are on top priority. You can choose to use it to be one of your content marketing strategies.

9. Google Docs

Always keep a tab on my blogs, you would certainly realize that I keep updating my blogs very frequently and as you know it takes a lot of effort in creating good quality articles or write-ups. This is one of the ways to improve your efficiency and in the quest to achieve that excellence; I always prefer to use ‘Google Docs’ as there are a lot of features that comes along to be explored.
Here are some of the things that I love about ‘Google Docs’.

It automatically performs a check for any spelling mistakes by providing a proper count of the words used.
It helps you to insert the necessary screenshots and sharing of the document becomes simpler.

There are a lot of content creation tools available in the market. Yet it is important to choose the one that you are comfortable working with. Content marketing also involves a lot of content creation and if you are not comfortable; It becomes very difficult to provide high-quality posts.

10. Google Calendar

Organizing your day by keeping Content Marketing on mind is one of the important things and to achieve this, you can go ahead and use the ‘Google Calendar’. You can utilize your time to its maximum with the usage of Google Calendar. May be Google Calendar does not have all the features like all the other paid tools. But it is certainly useful to keep a track on all the things you would want to do; as a content marketing professional. You can do the following, using ‘Google Calendar’.

Marketing tasks are very important things and it will be necessary to have events created for it. This can be easily done by using Google Calendar.
Using Google Calendar , you can create necessary events
Share your available time and slots with your team.
It is good to understand “open spots” in your schedule, as this allows you to organize your day better.
Google Calendar may not be used like any other tools; but it will certainly help you to organize your day better for sure.

No matter how much ever you claim your efficiency as a content marketing professional, you should always know that there is a large scope for improvement. You can always improve your search by using long-tail keywords in all your write-ups and articles. I have a personal liking towards almost all the tools developed by Google. Some tools are a lot more effective and powerful than the others. You can always give it a try to use these effective tools. If you have used any of these ‘Free Content Marketing’ Tools that are available from Google; Do not forget to put up your thoughts in the comments section. Do share this post if you found it helpful to improve your content marketing efforts.

Save

Best Lead Generation Tips with Content Marketing

May 29, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Brahmadas R

Lead Generation Tips

This blog post can help you to improve your knowledge on lead generation tips with content marketing. Article is mainly useful for digital marketing professionals, content marketers & SEOs

One of the most important components of inbound marketing is the Content. If the content is not relevant, compelling or timely, inbound marketing may not be able to succeed as a form of lead generation tool. Your website might be thought of as a marketing machine, but technically speaking it is the content that should be considered as the fuel; the fuel which generates the leads, drives the conversions and creates engagement.
Yes, that doesn’t sound too easy, doesn’t it? But contrary to how it sounds, creating compelling content is not an easy task. The entire process boils down to one simple thing – and that is getting the most apt content for the right audience. Here we have given you some tips which would help you generate leads.

Get in touch with your Principal Personality

Like we just mentioned above, great content is that which is apt and that which speaks to the audience; the audience which is considered right for you. All this needs to start with the personalities of the buyer – that is your target audience’s representations. This is where your creativity and research should come in. Your content would not be able to bring in any apt leads if you are not familiar with your buyers. You need to create buyer personalities so that you can create targeted content as well. Start the process by asking questions – question their goals, concerns or motivators. The following are some questions you should be asking while creating the buyer’s personality.

•   What problems is she/he trying to find a solution to?
•   What concerns does the industry bring up?
•   Is the buyer a decision maker? What would his/her role be in the company?
•   What are the factors that drive the buyer’s needs?

Use Analytics to your advantage

You need to use the analytics in such a way that they work for you. Take advantage of the site’s analytics and use them to create compelling content as per your buyer’s personalities. Give attention to the most popular pages or posts. When you go through popular content, you would get an idea of what the visitors consider as interesting. You would find out the rates of bounces as well. If you find that too many new visitors are ‘jumping off’ the site then that means that something is wrong and that you need better and good quality content. Use the metrics and get in touch with the factors which drive page views, landing page conversions or page views. Run A/B testing, analyze, monitor and see what is working and what isn’t. So a landing page development must be completed after grabbing enough lead generation tips.

The following are four ways in which analytics can be used to boost leads
Find out what kind of content brings in more site visitors and connects with them.

•   The CTA or call to action content’s alignment needs to be improved.
•   The rates of visitors which get converted to leads across channels needs to be compared.
•   The content that is reproduced needs to be successful.

The Content Needs to be Audited

You might be an expert or a long time creator of content. But you still need to take a breath and evaluate the content. This is extremely important as far as the lead generation campaign goes. Everything boils down to the most important motive which is to align the content with the personas of the buyers. When you audit your content you might come up with some loopholes or errors which would push you to cut them out and get right on track.

• You need to make up a spreadsheet and make an inventory of the content’s catalog right from the previous year. Take into account everything right from eBooks and blog posts to presentations and Webinars.

• Make up groups of the type of content, the topic, the persona of the buyers, the creation of data and the customers or leads that have been generated.

• Bring up each of the buyer persona profiles and take a note of the content that was created for every persona. Check how many was based on text and how many say based on the visual content.

• Check the response rates for each audience and content.
The audit findings for the content can help you in the content marketing strategy. It is pretty much like a roadmap for you. Whatever you learn from the audit, apply it and keep a track of the results on a periodic basis.

Line up the content and the buying cycle

Through the entire buying cycle, the prospect’s behavior might differ. While a customer is in the research phase, he might have a different interest as compared to a customer who is in the evaluation stage. Hence, to generate more and apt leads, you need to align your content with the entire buying cycle. Imagine yourself as the buyer and think of the various issues that might matter to you during every stage of the buying cycle. The content that is created for the sake of generating awareness would be naturally different from the content which is created for the purpose of lead conversion into customers.

For example, a prospect who is in the research phase might have just come to know about your brand. So then is this person the right candidate for content that is educational? Yes, Absolutely!

You need to make sure that the content is right for every stage of the sales process – Knowledge, Research, the comparison and the final purchase. It has been seen that the kind of content can actually affect the decision of the buyer at particular stages of the cycle.

Knowledge – Educational Webinars, social media updates and Blog posts.
Research – Tip sheets, eBooks, videos on how-to, industry reports and webinars.
Evaluation and Comparison – Data sheets, case studies, customer testimonials and demo videos

The final purchase – Live Demos, analyst reports, free trials and consultation
Set and commit yourself to a budget for the ongoing content.
It is but obvious that resources are needed for content marketing. In fact, online content is probably another mode of paid advertising. Some of the marketing funds need to be allocated to ongoing content creation. If required, move some funds to content marketing and development from other paid media. This is how important content is. This way you would better your offers, bring in more leads and convert those leads into customers.

The conclusion – Lead Generation Tips

Imagine you are a sales manager at a fashion retail store. A customer walks in and is just browsing around. Whether she becomes a customer or not, depends on how you approach her. If you start pushing a dress on to her; you might throw her away and get her annoyed. This is her awareness stage. So depending on what she is looking for, you need to educate her and give her the information that would be useful to her. Be open to questions. If she finds you impressive and the information that you gave her as useful, she would be open to the idea of coming back and picking up more dresses.

This very same concept is applied to online buyer personalities. Buyer personas differ during every stage of the buyer cycle. Some might be just weighing their options while some might be ready to purchase. However, the one thing that is similar in all stages is that the buyer wants themselves to be approached in the right way.

The right content needs to be aligned with the right audience with the help of marketing intelligence. Also the content calendar needs to be regularly evaluated to make sure that pathways are laid out for the generation of leads.

But mind you, once you have attained your goals of lead generation the content alignment should not end. It has been seen that usually out of the leads 50% are qualified enough but are not ready to buy immediately. Hence, the content creation needs to be able to solve their problems. You need to make sure of that. Your leads need to be nurtured; and there needs to be an ongoing tactic for it.

Make sure that you implement all the above important points and build the groundwork for a thriving lead generation platform. Combine your content with social media, SEO, nurturing of leads, analysis and measurement and thus charge up the lead generation campaign.

If at all you are ever doubtful, you just need to evaluate the process from the point of the view of the buyer. You need to ensure that you push solutions and not push purchases.

If you like this blog post on lead generation tips with content marketing, please feel free to share with your friends and you can give your suggestion in comment portion.

Save

10 Incredible Content Creation Tips to Turbo-Charge Your Content Marketing Strategy

October 15, 2016/0 Comments/in Content Marketing, SEO /by Maryam

Could you characterize what precisely is “High-Quality Content”? All things considered, it can’t be clarified plainly as there are such a large number of methods for composing content and every visitor likes to read different types of content- some like descriptive and some like to read only the highlight points.

Creating quality content that is tempting to the audience out there is the most critical variable in making your website stand out like hot chicks! Considering that there are so many bloggers taking part on the web, it can be a quite a challenge crafting content that has the top notch substance, to the point that’s noteworthy as well as feed the visitor’s needs. Obviously, blogging nowadays is not all that simple and you need to surpass such a large number of obstacles to get on top.

Secrets to Creating Killer Content – Content Creation Tips

So here I give you certain insider facts that are not privileged insights but rather hot tips that can make your content and SEO strategy better than average and emerge from the group.

1. Charming Blog Headlines

This is the one that catches a visitor’s eye when he’s going through Google’s search results. Since this is where he is going to begin judging what’s on your site, the headline should interest the visitor, so he clicks on to your site.

Regardless of whether the nature of the content is extraordinary and upgraded to the best, all endeavors go futile if the user is not going to click onto your site/blog.

Other than containing a fascinating feature, it ought to appear rare and if possible, even weird and negative. You can have a go at utilizing numbers, power words (or adjectives) like “important”, “unbelievable”, “fantastic” and trigger words like “what”, “why”, “how” and “when”.

Invite the visitor with a promise and deliver your content based on that promise.

2. An Interesting First Paragraph

Now the visitor has seen that great headline and has clicked into your site. He has begun reading the principal section, the first paragraph.

What he needs there is something that conveys the promise made by that dazzling headline. A few bloggers do the strategy of making astonishing headlines and after that compose a content that is absolutely boring and dull.

The result? It’s an immediate press of the “Back” or “Close” button on the user’s browser. One out of ten individuals look down through an online blog entirely and read the whole article.

After the headline, your duty has increased more. You have to snare the visitor who’s trying to run away from your site with a powerful content that describes in a simple and brief way, what you will be discussing in the coming paragraphs of your blog. This section of your blog is where the visitor figures out if reading this entire content is worth his time and attention and you can’t afford to lose it with boring sentences.

3. Express What You Know Best

Obviously, the matter in your blog ought to be enlightening and fill in the blanks of the user. It should give knowledge into some new regions in the niche which you are blogging/selling on.

It’s best to compose on what you have solid knowledge about. If by chance, which is highly likely, you are composing something new or something that is not your specialty, do an intensive and broad examination on the subject before you write the content.

4. Pass on something special like a story

A story-line always interacts with a reader. Attempt to make a few stories that match with your content in some or the other way. This can catch the user’s psyche and if he or she has gotten some experience like the one in your story, he is intrigued to go further and read more.

5. Pick a Target Audience

Despite the fact that positioning higher on Google is important, it is much more critical that individuals who click on to your site like you and trust you. When they believe you, they will hear whatever you say and take what you bring to the table for them.

Making trust in a vast crowd is not all that simple and I agree it’s a Herculean task. But be sure to particularly address and speak out to each one of the guests who is searching for what you are blogging about or those individuals who are now in the same field as you are in.

Devote all your efforts to offer them the answers to their questions in a proficient and conversational style. It is best to keep 10 out of 100 guests connected with you as opposed to making a decent attempt to get a 100 out of the billion individuals on the planet to go through your site.

6. Create content that is shareable

After you have figured the group of people that ought to visit your site, you have to figure out how to make content that is convincing and sufficiently enticing to make individuals share that on online networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Research on existing content online that has been shared significantly on online networking and take notes on the quality points the content has got to offer and makes it shareable.

On that note, construct something new based upon your insight and as your individual writing style.

7. Add links to other powerful websites from your content

Backing your content with links from high-power sites (like Wikipedia) enhances your reader’s trust in your website. Give credits to an influence blog or website that has given you thoughts to create content for your site.

Connecting to such authority websites increases your Page Authority significantly and you are giving your visitors all the right reasons to stay associated with your blog.

8. Your content must compel them to make a move or take a step they haven’t done before

In spite of your content being of shareable worth, it ought to be one that initiates some sort of activity from the reader.

A content that challenges the reader to explore a new territory or do something that’s different makes your content an actionable one.

9. Have an incredible website design

Since individuals skim a content whatsoever, an awesome content should be presented with great design. The use of pictures which gets the user in touch with any of his feelings or by arousing his interest can expand the engagement rate for your article rendering it a converting piece.

10. Attempt to make Timeless Content

An immortal or timeless content, basically, is one which is intriguing and is significant for a long stretch of time. If your content is ceaselessly new and applicable, odds are that the content will get more linked and voted for popularity. So try and create content that’s immortal and evergreen.

Do you like this blog post about Content Creation Tips?. If yes, please feel free to share your ideas. Hope this post give some impulse for easy content creation for your marketing purpose.

Save

9 Marvelous Ways to Get Everyone to Read Your Content

October 12, 2016/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Maryam

You slaved, carefully crafted each phrase. Your precious words and sentences. You just know that they will attract the audience you are targeting. You finally hit the “publish” button. And then, what happens?

No one reads them. No likes, no comments, no shares and tweets! You keenly watch the number of page views in your Analytics dashboard but they move at a snail’s pace!

It’s enough to send a blogger into a stage of grief and depression and de-motivate him from producing great content consistently.

Do you think spending another 10,000 hours perfecting your writing skills will improve it? No way!

As a matter of fact, the solution is just a lot easier than what you would expect!

Write less and style your text so it’s easy to read or rather scan (more on that later) could be all you need to do to attract and hold attention.

Consider those Impatient searchers out there

According to Jakob Nielsen’s study on “How Users Read on the Web” in 1997, 79 percent of web users scan rather than read. And only 16 percent read word-by-word.

Just pause and think how you would use the web. You are searching some information. And if you don’t get in the page you visited, you click on “close” or “back” button, to go look for it elsewhere.

The web is more like a “lean forward, concentrate & participate” type of medium. Contrarily, television is a “lean back, relax & let it wash over me” type of medium.

What writing tactics can you use to engage your readers so they lean into your content, pay attention to the information you have written out, and interact with it?

1. Write in the Inverted Pyramid Style

To write successfully for the web, you need to forget some of w1hat you learned in English composition class. You might be familiar with the writing that starts with an introduction to a particular subject, then gradually builds up on it in the body part only to end with a conclusion.

It’s totally boring!

Accept that people just scan your page, rather than reading it in detail. Work and write with this reality in mind, rather than trying to fight it.

If you are covering a complex subject, consider breaking it into a number of posts. It’s also a great tactic to make people come back for more. And your reader will easily be able to digest your content as you provide them in controlled portion sizes.

Use the inverted pyramid style to structure your paragraphs. With this style, you start with your conclusion first, support it with the important facts in the sentences that follow and then give a background. It’s used widely by journalist and as readers break away in the middle of reading the content, they have already grasped the most important information.

The inverted pyramid style helps scanners move from one point to another in a breeze. As they read along, they get to decide where they want to dive in deep.

Next, use these easy design techniques that follow and get your content to be more reader-friendly.

A few minutes is all it takes to turn a post from an overwhelming block of black text to something that magnetises the reader’s senses and pulls him/her in.

2. Break up your content with compelling subheadings

A basic writing technique often repeated around everywhere, is to write your headings and subheadings first.

A strong, promising headline is essential to get readers to check you out first. And when you combine them with solid subheads, it keeps readers engaged. Subheadings are like “mini-headlines” that keep your readers moving throughout the rest of your content.

Make your subheads thought-provoking and informative. Don’t tick off your readers’ BS meters, by exaggerating or you are going to lose credibility. “Compelling” doesn’t mean “hyping.”

After you have written your subheadings, review them to see if the readers/scanners will understand your article by just reading them. Have they got a compelling storyline? Will they get the gist of what you are saying?

3. Embrace lots of white spaces in between your content

This is one of the few easiest ways to render your content more readable. Even complex, tough content could become more reader-friendly with the simple usage of lots of white space.

Keep your paragraphs short and feature just one idea per paragraph in three to four sentences, nothing more nothing less.

And write some paragraphs with just one sentence only.

4. Use bulleted lists

There’s a reason why they are called “bulleted” lists.

They create a compulsion that your readers just can’t resist.
They can be easily scanned to infer multiple points.
They are like visual breaks for your reader as they look different from the rest of the text.

5. Harness the Power of Numbers

Think that numbered lists are boring and way too plain? Think again.

Incredibly, numbers are an effective way to capture attention and keep the reader on your page.

Just by numbering the main points, you can make a post much more compelling. Give it a try yourself.

6. Add links to relevant and helpful content

Internal links benefit you by backing to the cornerstone content on your website itself. It keeps people lingering on your site, reading your best material.

External links prove that you have done a research on the topic and want to credit the other experts. A good piece of content uses both internal and external links to give insights to your reader besides adding value.

7. Use image captions

As studies have shown, images are processed 60,000 times faster than text.

Pair an image with a caption that’s two to three sentences long. It’s enough to get your reader intrigued to dig and dive into the whole of your article.

8. Highlight certain parts of your content strategically

Add emphasis to certain parts of your content by bolding important facts. It helps the reader as he is scanning through the page and grasp the most important information in just a glance.

Don’t highlight each and everything as they would simply have the same effect of highlighting nothing. Instead, bring emphasis to the key points so the reader can easily single them out.

9. Format and Re-Arrange your content to turn the scanners into your readers

After you incorporated all pf the above design techniques, read through the whole article again — looking only at that part of the text you have drawn special attention to.

Will your readers get the gist of what you are saying? Have you singled out the interesting and relevant words, the words that will be singled out by your scanners in and converted by them into your readers?

How about you? What are your favourite tactics for captivating your readers with your content? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.

10 Quick Editing Tips to Create Awesome Content

August 14, 2016/3 Comments/in Content Marketing, SEO /by Maryam

Whether you are a bestselling novelist or a small online blogger, you have got to edit your work. Your first draft is always a garbage of your thoughts disorganized and points that are uncertainly stated. Ever since writing dawned, it started with chaos and was restructured to end in order. Editing is such an important part of writing that you should be dedicating a big chunk of your writing time. While you go through your first draft, you need to check if your content is the best you have to offer and whether it’s got a flow or a rhythm going on in it.

Every writer creates a piece of content with a goal. For most of us, saving time while also polishing our writings is the main goal. Here are ten quick editing tips just to help you achieve this goal of presenting your best work in no time.

Write Awesome with these 10 Quick Editing Tips

So you have just finished writing your first draft and now it’s time to edit before you hit that “publish” button. But before you edit, I suggest you run away and leave off that piece you have been writing. If you were to do it all in just one sitting, you are committing the big blunder of letting all the errors fool your eyes into believing they don’t exist. Talk about ghosts in your content! When it’s time, wear those horn-rimmed eyeglasses and use these quick editing tips to make sure that you have hit the right notes and end up with the perfect final piece of content.

Tip #1 Skim the cream off your content

People read quickly these days and skim your content as much as possible without going over each and every word. So why not make it easy for your audience by keeping your content crisp, brief and fat-free? For your readers’ sake, don’t add so much fat into content by dragging out your sentences. Break up your content into bullet points with interesting benefit-driven sub-headers.

Take a look at these sentences and see the difference when reading them without the bolded words.

Every single person should read.
But the real issue here is people have a short attention span.
You are going to have to keep your writing short and brief.

Don’t you feel that these sentences are better off with the bolded words?

Tip #2 Use commas only wherever needed

In the English language, there are lots of rules to be followed when using punctuation. Even the usage of the little comma is subject to so many rules and regulations. Don’t over-complicate commas by putting them here and there like mayo on your sandwiches! The idea is to read your sentences out loud and if you feel that a certain sentence is longer than ordinary, break it up with a comma. Alternately, use commas on those spots you feel that the reader is going to stop reading.

Tip #3 Remove Empty Filler Words

The use of phrases like “here is”, “it takes” and “there is” takes the focus from the nouns in a sentence. They require other filler words to combine with them like who, how and when. Such phrases also stretch your sentences longer than necessary.

If your sentences contain a lot of these phrases, then it’s time to rewrite them.

Here are some examples so you can teach yourself to rectify them:

It’s fun to read- Reading is fun
There are many people who love to read- Many people read
Here are some DIY ideas for you to try- Some DIY ideas for you to try are

If you have already given a little description on the subject, then it’s okay to use words like “here”, “it” and “there”. For instance: I love being an SEO Analyst. It’s a great profession.

Tip #4 Replace weak verbs with strong ones

Certain words can reduce the impact of what we are implying. Look out for those words and replace them with strong, powerful verbs. It can drive home the point you are stating through your content, besides making it interesting.

Certain examples:

She had gone from Greece to Rome- She traveled from Greece to Rome
Dominos is giving out coupons- Dominos offers coupons
Make out a plan- Create a plan

Tip #5 Use Powerful Adjectives

Avoid using so much of “really” and “very” when you are describing something. Many people use “very good”, “really bad” to emphasize something while speaking. It looks good when you speak but when you write it down on paper, you get to see the difference. Words like “very” and “really” sound inadequate and are so much less of an intensifier than they ought to be. Keep in mind your reader’s time is precious. It pays not to waste his time by being as concise as possible. Get straight to the point with confidence using power words.

Really bad- Dreadful
Really good- Exceptional, Marvelous
Very Huge- Enormous, Tremendous
Very impressive- Catchy

Example: 5 Marvelous Benefits of Data Entry Service Outsourcing

When you use power words, remember to deliver your readers something that’s in pace with those adjectives. Don’t charge up your audience’s expectations and then give them some mediocre content to read. I gotta tell you, it’s a crime!

Tip #6 Use contractions

Contractions make your writing sound more friendly, conversational and informal. You don’t want your reader thinking that he’s reading a newspaper or a textbook. Examples of contractions are it’s, I’m, you’re, gonna, wasn’t, haven’t and so on. They are easy to pronounce and make your post easy to comprehend. So do me a favor and use as many contractions as you can in your post and connect better with your readers.

Tip #7 Remove those unwanted ings in your posts

“I am writing about…”, “She was running to…”, or “We are thinking about…” When you see so many ings in your copy, think twice about whether they are really needed or not- simply because you probably don’t.

You can get rid of an “ing” and say “I write about…”, “She ran to…”, or “We thought about…”. This gets your copy clear and easy to read.

Tip #8 Use Bullet points that match up

Talking about breaking up sentences, you might be doing it with bullet points. Bullet points state points quick and clear (like a bullet!) without much fuss. They are popular for breaking up long content and making your copy more readable. When using bullet points, make sure it matches up to the blog post title as well as the surrounding content. Many of the writers do the mistake of creating bullet points that are completely different and totally not related to each other.

For example, in a post that’s titled “5 Mistakes that could ruin your interview”, here’s a bullet point that actually goes along:

Forgetting to prepare a formal introduction

Here’s one that doesn’t go along with the title (because it’s not actually an error- you are suggesting what is to be done, not the mistake):

Prepare a formal introduction

If you are writing a post with a title that goes “5 Tips for Instant Success at Job Interviews”, you should be laying out “tips” in your bullet points.

Another quick tip for bullet points is keeping them symmetrical as possible. If your first bullet point finishes in a line, make the rest of them finish in a line. It’s good to the eyes and hence, easy for the reader.

Tip #9 Unpack longer sentences

A simple guide to writing better is to use one idea in a sentence. Long sentences make your writing a drag. Hunt for those long sentences in your copy and fix them as follows:

Eliminate unnecessary words
When you see a comma, think twice about whether it could be a full stop
If you see the words “which” and “that”, think if you can start a new sentence
Rewrite and rephrase

Tip #10 Track your mistakes while editing

As a final piece of advice, keep track of the mistakes you make. It can be a spelling mistake too. Certain words are hard to spell correctly. For example, I tend to add an s after onward. So when I edit my posts, I keep an eye out for onward so I can make sure I was not butchered again. When you keep a list of your writing mistakes, it becomes an important reference resource. It just helps the task of editing in future a lot easier and is a sure fire way of not making the same mistakes over and over again.

In Conclusion

Grammar is something you might hate right now. But a good writing that encompasses good grammar earns so much respect and credibility from its readers. (Personally, bad grammar is my pet peeve!)

If you care about your readers, you must edit your copy and proofread it over and over again. Tweet it!

It’s key to making your content marketing strategy work out great for the long term. Have more editing tips that worked out for your content? I would love to hear it over your comments.