It’s hard to attract the right people to your business – and not getting the right employees can have a detrimental effect on your business growth, which is something you want to avoid at all costs.

So, how can great content help to get the best employees to apply to your upcoming vacancies? 

Get noticed by the best candidates in a challenging job market 

According to a recent survey by Monster, in 2023 51% of UK recruiters claim finding candidates with the necessary skills is the most significant challenge they face. 

So when finding great people is difficult, you need to do everything in your power to stand out and make applying to work with you attractive. 

If you can get your brand values and company culture across in your content marketing, you’re one step closer to attracting the right employees. It won’t reduce the HR side of hiring new employees but it will make your candidate pool stronger. 

Why? Because people remember good content. And bad content (or a lack of it altogether) can have a negative impact… As it’s harder to get behind a company you don’t know anything about or dislike their approach. 

Get into the head of the modern job seeker

Consider this… Lots of people in today’s world care about social, economic, environmental, and political issues when looking for an employer. And they can take their pick with the current candidate shortage. Research by Gartner shows that 65% of employees want to work for organisations with a strong social and environmental conscience.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, people are looking for good company culture, flexible working, and well-rounded HR policies. Work well-being is considered more than ever before… So people want to know what you’re doing to support employees. 

88% of employees believe it’s no longer acceptable for companies to make money at the expense of society at large. And nearly 70% of employees say they wouldn’t work for a company without a strong purpose. 

All this means you have an opportunity to appeal to the best candidates by telling people you care about these things. Shouting about it not only attracts new employees but also helps current employees to be aware of what you’re doing for the greater good. 

So as long as it’s not all talk, there’s no downside to sharing your values or purpose through online content! 

Attract top talent to your company with content marketing

Earlier this year at Jammy Digital, we put a job advert out for a Content Manager. The response was overwhelming with applicants and the person who got the job (who’s also the very person writing this blog post) applied because they’d seen our content. 

POV: How did content attract me to the role of Content Manager? 

When I saw a LinkedIn notification saying Jammy Digital was hiring, even though I wasn’t specifically on the job hunt, I couldn’t help but look… and after only a few moments, I decided to put an application in.

So, why was applying for the role of content manager a no-brainer?

Jammy Digital was already on my radar. I’d attended webinars hosted by Martin and Lyndsay, I’d been on their mailing list, and I’d even filled out their recent survey about mental health in entrepreneurs. 

I liked everything I saw. From reading their content and being involved in their other events, I knew they ran their business in a way I truly valued… with kindness and honesty. And they seemed like great people (which, by the way, they are!).

Many marketing companies out there are cut-throat and don’t care about people’s well-being. I’ve experienced it myself as a freelancer and heard 101 horror stories. But not Jammy Digital – Martin explains in the Content Fortress book introduction the reason they started this version of their business was to protect their mental health, not be overloaded, and to have their business support a happy lifestyle. This makes them stand out in a crowded industry. 

So when I saw the job advert before meeting them ‘officially’, I felt like I already understood what they were about… and the rest is history!

Receive more tailored cover letters and relevant applications

Last month, we’ve also advertised for a Content Writer position. Many of the applicants specifically mentioned that they enjoyed and related to Jammy Digital’s content, which spurred them to apply…

We had messages that said this like, ‘Your values resonate with mine, and I know you’d be fantastic to work with‘ or ‘I’ve been a fan of yours for ages and LOVE how you do business!‘

This really does go to show your content can work wonders for hiring amazing people, as the candidate pool for this position was top-notch. And – sorry recruiters – but we’ve not had to outsource any of the hiring process! 

So, how can you attract the right people to your team with your content?

You’ve already found out why we think sharing great content is important for hiring the right people… 

Now you’re here to attract the right team members to you, right? Ok, well let’s run through 7 ways you can apply this to your business so it’s easy to hire people who ‘fit’ with your company values.

1. Communicate your purpose 

What’s the big picture of your business? That’s your purpose… And as we’ve already discovered, purpose matters to employees. People want to feel a part of something. So start telling people. 

Share your purpose on your website – a great place for this is your ‘About’ page. Regularly talk about your company’s goals and purpose on social media, link it to case studies for customer success stories, and mention it anywhere else you can! 

2. Share your opinions about the industry 

Here at Jammy Digital, we’re vocal about what we like – and don’t like – about the marketing industry. By voicing your opinions, you attract people with similar views… and put people off who disagree. 

There are always going to be people who think about things differently, especially when your industry can be subjective, so publicly sharing opinions shows your beliefs. 

3. Build trust using multiple forms of content marketing 

Sure, we love blog content… but having videos, live webinars, and emails creates a well-rounded online presence for our audience. Meghan had multiple touchpoints with Jammy Digital, and experiencing our content through different channels helps to build trust. 

So we encourage you to take a look at your full digital footprint: 

• Are you creating video content, so people can hear you talk and see your expressions? 
• Do you host live events where your audience can ask you questions? 
• Are you talking to your audience on different social media platforms? 
• Do you reply to their comments and engage in conversations?

All these things add to your credibility and authority in the industry, which helps for all elements of your business growth but can be especially useful when looking to hire great candidates. 

4. Tell people your brand values 

Are you actively saying what you care about online? Every business has its own values and reasons for doing things in certain ways. When you start expressing that, people can find out what’s important to you and your company, and if they agree you’ll stay in their minds.

If you have a particular focus on the environment, for example, are you writing or talking about it online? These things matter to people and can be the reason they apply – or don’t – to your job vacancy. 

There are many candidates out there who may not be looking for a new role yet but if they like what they see and agree with your values, it may make them reconsider. We had people actively say they weren’t looking for a job but applied for this very reason. As with all content marketing, being consistent pays off. 

5. Demonstrate company culture 

Like with your purpose and values, it’s important to show your real company culture. What’s a day in your office like? How do employees really feel about working with you? How do you demonstrate your values into that culture? 

You may have to get creative if you have a remote team. It’s possibly harder to show ‘behind the scenes’ images if your team works remotely, but it’s not impossible. Share online, from the employer’s perspective, success stories or awesome things your employees are doing both at work and during their free time. 

6. Don’t just get employees – get brand advocates

If your employees are talking about how great it is to work within your company, it will help to build brand advocates. Think about how quickly word can spread to their friends, online connections, and other people they chat with. Before you know it, you’ve got your employee’s brother-in-law looking out for vacancies. 

How do you do this through content? Ask employees to write guest posts, share video testimonials, and populate their own LinkedIn profiles. But it can’t be forced on them (as that will look inauthentic)… They have to want to do it to spread the word about your company. 

The same goes with your customers and business contacts – if you’re doing a great job, they will help to spread the word. This builds your own reputation and credibility, especially if it comes from a well-respected person. 

For example, people applied to us having seen we were recommended by Daniel Priestley or the foreword to our book was from Marcus Sheridan. 

Everyone loves a referral, and any time another person mentions your brand or company online you’re getting in front of way more people. 

7. Show your personality (both as a brand and humans)

Now, the last point is that not everything has to highlight your values and the good you do to connect with the right people. Sometimes it’s as simple as sharing the things you love or mentioning an element of your past that adds to your personality. 

Lyndsay mentions her obsession with Harry Potter and cats on our About and Meet The Team pages. Yes, it’s a simple little addition, but it draws people in and makes you more memorable (Plus, would we really want to work with someone who doesn’t love HP?).

And a few brilliant candidates mentioned Harry Potter when they applied to us!

People crave connection – so don’t hold back on what makes you, you! Add personality to your content. 

I’m hiring right now – is it too late to share content that attracts great employees? 

The beauty of content marketing is that you can publish things instantly across multiple channels. If you’re reading this today and you’re hoping to attract more people to your current vacancy, don’t panic – it’s not too late. 

Here’s a few ideas about what to focus on:

• What the day-to-day life in your company is like and how you work as a team – told from the perspective of a current employee 
• What your company’s big vision is and how a new employee plays a part in that 
• Highlight the key perks of the role, such as extensive training, flexible working, etc.
• Does your company get involved in any charitable acts or have strong environmental policies? Explain this through online content. 
• Is your About or Meet the Team page updated? 

So, what could that look like? 

3 example content ideas to illustrate these points

1. Can you ask an employee to share their experience in a video interview? Perhaps they have asked for specific training to support their role, have learned a lot from other team members, or feel a deep sense of pride in their work. Ask them a few questions and post this online. 
2. Can you showcase your daily company culture? Take photos of your team meetings or office spaces on ‘real’ days (i.e. not staged for cameras).
3. Have you helped a local charity recently or supported another business in need? Write a blog post about community projects explaining why that’s important to not just them, but also your values. 

Not ready to hire? Attract the best freelancers instead! 

You might not be ready to employ someone permanently, which is perfectly okay. Maybe you’re here to be nosey about what we did in our own business!

Well, the good news is the same concept goes for if you’re looking to partner with expert freelancers to build your team… You still want to work with the best people to do your business justice (even if it’s on a short-term basis).

The content you put out there will show freelancers what your company is like to work with, so consider this if you reach out to them or put a call-out for an expert. What you say online in your content marketing will impact their decisions to work with you or not. 

Felicity of The Brand Language Lab regularly partners with agencies to deliver work, and she said a defining factor of working together is:

“Case studies that show work with wow factor and go in-depth about the strategy and steps to make it happen. It shows there’s method behind what they do and that they genuinely care about doing their best for the end client, too. It helps me judge if our values, beliefs, and approach to work align, which is a big deal for me…”

So if you want to partner with that coveted expert, make sure you’re communicating what’s important to you to attract the right people to you and not giving off any red flags. 

Get help producing consistent stand-out content for your business and fill your vacancy with awesome candidates

Are you feeling inspired to be a bit more creative in your approach to content marketing – considering it from the point of view of potential employees instead of just potential clients? 

There really aren’t any downsides to producing stand-out content! 

But planning, writing, and publishing content is time-consuming… And that’s without the added pressure of coming up with new ideas every month. Don’t worry – we love it and can take it off your to-do list.  

At Jammy Digital, we believe there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing our clients grow their businesses through awesome, stand-out content. That’s why we offer fully managed content marketing services, where the work you put in is minimal. Think of us as your partner to start growing your business on autopilot. 

What do we offer? Our two main regular services are SEO blog content and short-form video content packages. So, no matter your audience, you can share content in a way that feels right for you. 

Meghan Downs

The post How to attract the best talent to your company through content appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Okay, it’s not quite a Lord of the Rings adventure, but still, it’s one you and your customers embark on almost every time you purchase something.

And when you read this article, you’ll start to recognise your buying behaviours. 

But more importantly, you’ll know EXACTLY how to use this process to reach your customers at every stage of their buyer’s journey. 

You’re the guide; your customer is the hero

If you’ve ever read Storybrand by Donald Miller, you’ll recognise this metaphor well. 

Your client is Luke Skywalker, and you are Yoda.

You’re the guide, and your content should aid your mighty protagonist (i.e. your customer) in navigating their journey, avoiding stupid mistakes, slaying the bad guys and reaching their goal, i.e. making a buying decision. 

Ready to learn how to do this? 

What is the buyer’s journey? 

The buyer’s journey is the process someone goes through before buying a product or service.

Let’s have a look at this journey in action…

1. Unaware – your prospective customer or client doesn’t even know they have a problem yet! They’re blissfully unaware, but they still have a problem!
2. Problem aware – someone in this phase knows they have a problem, but they’re not quite sure what they need to do to fix it. For example, many of our clients realise they have a problem when they want to spend less on ads. They think, ‘Oh, if we spend less on ads, we’ll have fewer leads. We really need a way to get new leads without relying on ads! They are aware of their problem (spending too much on ads) but unaware of the solution.
3. Solution aware – someone at this stage has looked at some solutions that could solve their problem. In our example above, it could be that the person has considered a few things – SEO, content writing, social media management, email marketing, etc. They’ve gone through the different options and have picked a solution by now. But at this stage, they don’t necessarily have a provider in mind. And they certainly don’t know of a specific product or service just yet.
4. Product aware. When they reach this stage, someone knows about you and your specific product or service. They’re also aware of your competitor’s products or services too. They’ve probably started to list pros and cons for each and are comparing features and prices.
5. Most aware. At this stage, your prospective customer fully understands your product or service. In fact, they’re so confident by now that they’re just about ready to buy.

Guide your prospective clients through the various stages – WITH CONTENT!

Pretty cool, right?

The thing is…

…Your prospective customer isn’t going through this journey and moving from one stage to the next just because. 

They won’t wake up one day and magically land on your product or service and feel absolutely sure that you’re the answer to all their prayers! If you’re really lucky, this might happen for some people. But you can’t just rely on luck, can you?

So your job is to guide prospective customers through the various stages of the buyer’s journey. And the way to do that is to produce awesome content for each of the 5 phases.

How exactly will you do that?

1. Content for someone who is problem aware 

Why haven’t we started with the unaware stage? 

When someone is unaware of their problem, they won’t search for it. So creating content for people when they’re unaware is difficult. If you’re selling a product or service to people unaware of their problem, you may need ads or an awareness campaign to make people realise they have an actual problem. 

So we will kick off with the ‘problem aware’ stage because it’s where your customers will look into their problem and how to fix it. 

Someone who is ‘problem aware’ is likely to Google their problem. They don’t know yet what the solution might be, but they know something isn’t quite working, and they want to change it.

Your job is to create content that people can find on Google that helps with their problems. And while you do that, you can also present them with the potential solutions to fix it.

For example, imagine you’ve just realised your website isn’t ranking in Google. You don’t know what or what’s causing it, but you’ve just realised it’s a major problem – you’re now, problem aware! 

This happens to be a real problem that some of our prospective clients have, so we wrote a blog post called 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It.

Examples of content for the ‘problem aware’ stage

So what content should you create for people in the problem-aware phase?

• • How To content – this teaches people how to do the thing they have a problem with, for example, this article from Andrew and Pete about How you can get on big-name podcasts as a guest
  • Problem + How to fix it – just like the one we mentioned above – 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It.
  • Guides –  the clue is in the name! This teaches people how to do something comprehensively. Such as this article from Dogwood Adventure Play: Taking your dog on holiday: everything you need to know to have a stress-free break!
  • Example-led content – exactly like this article. There’s a reason I’ve added (with examples) in the title. It’s because that’s what people search for. They want to know how to solve their problems and see other people, in action, solving the same problem as them!
  • Templates – how often do you think you’ve Googled ‘XYZ templates’ to help solve your problem? I know I have loads! A good example of this is this article published ScoreApp about How to write an email sequence for your quiz [+ 13 email templates]
  • What is a? To introduce your industry and what you do, you could write a ‘what is a’ article – this article simply tells people, well, what it is you are! For example, What is an SEO Content Writer?

These types of content give your prospective customers and clients plenty of valuable information and options on how they might want to solve their specific problems.

2. Content to help someone become solution aware

For many of us, our industry isn’t the only thing that can solve our customer’s problem. 

Let’s look at someone who wants to lose weight and all the avenues available to them. There’s…

• Personal trainers 
• Nutritionists
• Gym memberships 
• Calorie counting apps 
• Hypnotherapy 
• About a gazillion books 
• Memberships like Slimming World 

The opportunities are endless! 

So your job, as the guide, is to help them find the right pathway for this person. Now, at this stage, you don’t have to talk about you specifically (although you can). Your job here is to guide someone down the right path. 

And you need to explore the options in an unbiased, helpful way. 

It’s the exact approach we took for these blog posts:

SEO Content Writer vs SEO Agency: Which One is Best for Your Business? 

We’re not a freelance SEO content writer or an SEO agency (we kind of sit between the two), and yet, we published this article because it’s helpful for our audience. It helps them find the right solution. 

Or SEO Content Writing vs Facebook Ads: Which One is Best for Your Business?

Examples of content for the ‘solution aware’ stage

Or you might want to create some use cases or case studies showing how your solution worked for someone else. 

Other ideas for content you could create here include:

• This vs that. Content that directly compares two different solutions so someone can see the pros and cons of each. We have an example here: SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business?
• ‘Stealthy’ case studies, where you show how you got results for another client. This obviously shows prospective clients that your solution works and is a worthwhile investment.
  For example, Facebook Ad Strategist Jo Francis here created a blog post on how she increased someone’s email list by 1000 subscribers for just £110.00. If you’re having a problem with increasing your email list and aren’t sure which solution is best, you’ll see that Jo does a great job of selling Facebook ads here! And her Facebook ads service specifically.
• Exploring the common myths about a particular solution, that your audience may have dismissed or heard (incorrectly) about a particular industry, such as this article from Eden School Fees Planning, The top 9 myths about private school
• Outlining the ‘best’ solutions for your audience to help them make the right decision for them. For example, this brilliant article from Andrew and Pete: The Best Business and Marketing Conferences in the UK 2023
• Content around when it’s time for you to invest in a particular solution (or when it’s not time to invest in one), such as this article from Eden School Fees Planning: Signs you need to see a financial planner BEFORE you send your child to private school
• ‘How much does it cost’ type content. How much do you Google ‘how much does it cost for X?’ – A LOT, right? Well you should answer that in your content! 

By the time your website visitor has read these kind of posts, they’ll be much clearer on what they need! 

3. Content to get someone product aware

Someone in the ‘product aware’ stage has decided on your solution. Whoop! Now, they’re going through each product and service to determine what’s right for them. 

We see many business owners and content marketers make the mistake of not producing enough of this type of content. 

And that’s a real missed opportunity because, as we just pointed out, your competitors aren’t producing this content either. And that means you can stand out from the crowd for all the good reasons!

But also, at this stage, your prospective customers or clients are primed to buy. They know they want to buy the thing you offer – they just need to know whether they should go with you or your competitor. 

And some people will be brave enough to pick up the phone and call you to ask any questions. 

But others would rather see all this information in black and white in front of them so they don’t have to go out of their way to ask. And your job is to serve all this on a silver platter.

We find that product-aware content is the easiest type of content to produce because you’re the absolute expert in how your products and services work. All you have to do is to give them everything they need to know to make an informed buying decision.

And that includes all the nitty-gritty stuff about your product or service. No question is too small here – if someone has ever asked you a question on a discovery call or an email enquiry, answer it in a piece of content. And make sure to also address (this is very important!) any objections people might have for not wanting to work with you.

So let’s talk about that a bit more…

Why ‘repelling’ content makes for brilliant problem-aware content! 

Contrary to what many believe, ‘repelling’ content is brilliant for people in the problem-aware stage. 

Repelling content is designed to push away anyone who isn’t right for your business. Someone may have decided to work with you at this stage, but if they’re not suitable for you, it won’t end well – for you or them.

So you’re better off helping them ‘disqualify’ themselves from your services. It may all sound scary and counterintuitive. Who in their right mind would push business away, right?

But if you’ve ever worked with someone who wasn’t the right fit, you’ll know how time-consuming, stressful and costly that was. In fact, according to our own research of over 500 small business owners, 81% of entrepreneurs have worked with a difficult client in the last year – week! 

To help prevent this, state clearly who is not a right fit for your business. And don’t be scared about this! After all, you’re doing them a favour by allowing them to move on to the next provider and solution (one that will be right for them, potentially). And you’re doing yourself a favour by ensuring you’re only talking to the right people.

This is brilliant because it builds trust with your ideal clients, and it makes them feel like you understand them on a deeper level and that you’re talking directly to them.

Here are a few examples of product-aware content we created:

• 10 Reasons We’re Not Right For You.
• Or Why is our SEO content writing & blog management service so expensive?

Examples of content for the product-aware stage

Here are some more ideas for product-aware content you could create:

• Directly comparing two different products (product A vs product B), such as this whopper of an article from ScoreApp: “Typeform quiz vs Scoreapp quiz” which one should you choose?
• ‘What do you need in place before you invest in [your product]’, such as the article: what do and don’t you need in place before you hire an SEO content writer?
  
• ‘Who isn’t the right fit for [your product]’ such as Kylie Lang’s article: Who isn’t the right fit for my quiz funnel service?’
• Objection-led content, such as this brilliant article from Andrew and Pete at Atomic about the most common myths about attending ATOMICON. This examines every potential objection (or myth) someone might have about attending the UK’s biggest marketing conference. And busts it!

4. Content for someone who is ‘most aware’ 

At this point, you just need to give your prospects a little nudge, and they’ll take the plunge and buy from you. Hurray!

This is where having an email list comes very, very handy, which is why we always recommend you have a way through your website and social media channels for people to subscribe.

If you do have a list, you might find that a lot of people have been there for a while but haven’t bought yet. In fact, we know that 9 out of 10 of our clients are on our list for at least 3 months before they decide to buy. 

So how are you going to get them off the fence and help them go from ‘prospective clients’ to actual paying customers?

With content, of course!

Examples of content for the ‘most aware’ stage

‘Why we’re raising our prices’ type content

Here’s an example from our website: Why Are We Raising Our Prices For Our SEO and Content Management Service?

Whenever we raise our prices, we always let people know in advance by publishing a blog post on our website to explain why we’re doing what we’re doing. That’s not only great practice (and shows your prospective customers that you’re honest, upfront, and transparent), but it also helps people who are still undecided to go ahead and buy. No one wants to pay more for something they were going to buy anyway, right?

So by letting people know you’re raising your prices in advance, you give them a chance to buy at the old price. You get the sale and your customers save some money. It’s a win-win!

If you want to know more about this, have a read of the blog post Publish This Easy Piece of Content Before You Raise Your Prices (And See Amazing Results!)

‘Everything you need to know’ type blog posts

An example on our website is Everything You Need to Know About our Content Fortress Course.

These types of articles are exactly what they say on the tin – they include everything that a prospective client needs to know about your product or service. 

Think of it as a super in-depth blog post that includes all the answers to any questions someone may have during a discovery call. It’s a bit like the FAQ section you’d find on a website service page, but all put together in one coherent piece.

After reading this, someone should literally know your product or service like the back of their hands. They should have no further questions and feel 100% ready to buy.

More examples of content for the ‘most aware’ stage

• Case studies. We’ve mentioned case studies before in previous stages, but they are super powerful! When done well and in detail, the story and example of how you worked with someone else and got them results can answer any remaining questions and dispel any doubts someone might have before they’re ready to go ahead and work with you.
• Demos and video explainers also work well for prospective customers in the most-aware stage because they give tangible evidence, proof, and reassurance that your product or service is real. You can show how things work, answer questions, and shred those last objections to pieces.
• Added bonuses. As we mentioned earlier, these work really well if you have an email list. But you can advertise bonuses in other ways too – through social media or via your website, for example. A bonus (especially one that disappears on a certain date) is a great incentive for someone to make the decision to buy right now rather than at some point in the future.
• Discounts. We’re not so keen on discounts because if your product or service is great and gives people results, you shouldn’t need to devalue it. Just like added bonuses, discounts work though. And it’s a strategy we see a lot of marketers use in their businesses.

Create your content calendar based on the awareness stages 

So how do you put all of this together? How can you make sure you have content that covers all the various stages of the buyer’s journey?

Here’s what you need to do in a few easy steps.

• Write down each service or product you offer. This is a super quick step, and it’s as easy as making a list. In fact, it might be a great opportunity to also review your offering, see if everything you sell is still profitable and relevant to your market, and adjust as necessary.
• Imagine what questions someone will have at each stage. Again, unless you’re launching a brand new business, product, or service, this should be super easy. You may already have a list of questions people ask you all the time (during discovery calls, on social media, or via email enquiries). So gather them all up and split them by the various stages of the buyer’s journey.
• Write it all down and build a picture of the content you’ll need. Once you’ve written down all the questions, you can start looking at what type of content you already have against the various stages and what’s still missing. 
• Do some keyword research. Now that you’ve decided what type of content you need to create, it’s time to do some keyword research. Why? Because you want your content to be SEO-friendly or optimised for search (i.e. so people can find it on Google!) If you want to find out more about this, here’s a helpful blog post: WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Posts.
• Create your content plan. And last but not least, create your content plan and get writing! You can see a quick sneaky example of our content plan below taken from our Stand Out Content Course. 

Want some help? Check out our Blog Management Service

And there you have it. This is everything you need to know to be able to create content for every stage of the buyer’s journey. And if it all feels like something you’d rather not do yourself but hand over to an agency to take care of for you, we can help!

If you want to create standout content that people easily find on Google and want to get more website traffic and sales without having to write a single word yourself, just give us a shout.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How To Create Content for Every Stage Of The Buyer’s Journey (With Examples) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We like to do research, and this research can be a little messy.

The time between researching a product or service and buying said product or service could take a few minutes or years!

That’s because we all go to the Internet with different intent. We might be looking for information, wanting clarification, or we may be ready to buy something. 

So if you want to get in front of your potential customers, you need to make sure you create different content that answers the different types of search queries your potential customer will type into Google.

AND you need to optimise that content, ensuring you maximise your chances of ranking.

But how the heck do you do all of that?

Let’s break it down and simplify it all before this whole idea makes you break out in hives. 

(Honestly, this isn’t as scary as it sounds!)

First things first, what is a search query?

A search query is simply the words or phrases you put into Google to find something you’re looking for.

When you’re trying to figure out where you’ve seen that actor before on TV, what do you do? You Google it! That’s a search query.

All you need to know is there are three different types of search queries, and your customers will use these to find you and potentially buy from you.

Don’t believe us? According to a study, 81% of people research online before buying.

We all do it. We can’t even buy a toaster without a bit of research!

So yes, you will need to create content if you want to get in front of people researching. Because if you don’t, your competition will!

What are the 3 types of search queries?

When you search for anything on Google, it normally falls into three categories:

• Informational.
• Transactional.
• Navigational.

Different search queries lead to different results, i.e. different types of content.

So let’s look at each type individually and understand why you should produce (and optimise) content that falls under each category to help more of your prospective clients find you and to make more sales.

1. Informational queries and the content you can create

What is an informational query?

An Informational query is what it says on the tin. It’s the kind of stuff people look for when they need information on how to do something or find out what something is.

For example, you might type into Google: “How to make pumpkin pie”, “How to fix a broken zipper“, or “What does stoozing mean?“

How can you create content for informational queries?

A lot of this is by answering ‘how’ or ‘what’ based questions; you can easily use this in your business too.

To get in front of our audience who are using informational queries, we use content like:

• How to use humour in your marketing so people fall in love with your business (+11 prompts to help you!)
• What is an SEO content writing service? And how does it all work?
• Or How to Make Content Part of Your Sales Process (so you get more sales, faster!)

Why is informational content good for you?

The benefit of publishing content for informational search queries on your website is that it helps you attract website traffic and rankings.

What does this mean?

When prospective customers are looking for “How to” content, they can find your informational content.

Many of us use informational search queries. So if you can help your audience by answering their questions about the information they’re looking for, you could rank in search engines and get those people on your email list. Or even buy!

Of course, it takes time and effort to get website traffic and rankings from content that answers informational search queries. You need to think about keyword research, content writing and optimising the content, etc., but you get the gist. And if you need help with that, our SEO checklist for blog posts should help!

All sounds perfect so far, right?

But let’s play devil’s advocate.

Are there any drawbacks to publishing informational content?

We 100% recommend that you publish content that answers informational search queries (we certainly do!), but if you only focus on this type of content, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. Because while you’re attracting lots of people (yay!) they might not be looking to buy from you (oh dear!)

Remember that at this stage, people are looking for information. They want to find out how to get something done. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re considering buying anything at this particular moment.

The idea is to get a lot of traffic using that content, and SOME of that traffic will eventually buy. But most won’t.

The good news is that you can (and should) publish other types of content, too – types of content that get people to buy…

2. Commerical/Transactional queries and the content you can create 

What is a commercial/transactional query?

A commercial/transactional query is what someone types into Google when they know what they want to buy, but they don’t know what company or person they want to buy it from.

Commerical/transactional queries are specifically about products/services/companies. For example, let’s say you’re looking for project management software. You can imagine typing into Google, ‘monday.com reviews‘. Or even ‘monday.com discount code‘. These queries show buying intent.

Commercial/transactional content is what pops up when someone is searching for your products or services specifically.

How can you create content for commercial/transactional queries?

If you look on our website, you’ll find blog posts like:

• 11 Reasons our SEO content writing service is not right for you
• Why is our SEO content writing & blog management service so expensive?
• Or What’s Our Black Friday Offer 2022 All About Then? 

We have many more examples as we create A TON of transactional content.

And as you probably know, if you’ve come across our content before, we are big fans of the teachings from They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. The key here is to focus on what your ideal customers ask you (face-to-face during meetings or sales calls, over the phone, or by email) and take the time to answer those questions in detail through your content.

Ideas for transactional/commercial content YOU can create

If you think you have nothing to write transactional content about, think again because the minute you start looking at your customers’ questions, the idea floodgates will open. But if you’re sitting there scratching your head and wondering how this might work in your world, here are some more examples.

• Content that answers cost-related questions. For example, “How much does a Dyson cost?”
• Case studies and success stories from previous clients.
• “The best” type of content. Examples of this could be “The best website builders for beginners” or “Manchester’s best co-working and freelancing spots.”
• Myth-busing content, that tells people (nicely!) what they get wrong about your products or services 
• Jargon-busting content, like “What depreciation means to you and how our accountants can help.”
• Original research you made in a specific area of your industry.
• Or objection-led content. This is content that you create specifically in answer to the objections (explicit or implicit) you hear from your customers repeatedly. Things like, “I don’t have time to…” or “This won’t work for me because…”, or “I can’t afford this right now because…” This is where you tip the argument and explain why these objections aren’t valid. Acknowledge that you see and understand your prospective clients’ worries, but take the time to break them down and show them how they will get results from working with you.

Why is transactional/commercial content good for you?

You’ll want to publish transactional content on your website because it helps you attract more of your ideal customers and convert leads into sales.

Because ultimately, you want to sell, right?

The people who are likely to come across this type of content are already thinking about buying your products or services. 

They might not have decided to buy from you just yet, but this type of content is designed to sway them in the right direction! 

Why?

First of all, you’d be surprised, but many business owners don’t create transactional content (all the more reasons why you shouldn’t stop at informational content!) So this makes you stand out from your competitors.

But also, transactional content helps you showcase your services and explain how you work and what you offer. By creating content of this type, you’re pre-empting many of the questions, objections, worries, and doubts your prospective clients have around making that final decision to buy (or buy from you).

Think about producing transactional content as providing a service – helping prospective customers make a more informed decision. You’re making it easier for them to buy. And as a consumer, yourself, don’t you just love it when that happens?

Are there any drawbacks to publishing transactional content?

There aren’t that many drawbacks to publishing transactional content. The only thing that slightly plays against it is the fact that it’s sometimes not the best type of traffic-generating content.

This means it won’t necessarily attract tons of traffic to your website from search engines (it depends on what type of content you create). But the traffic it does attract is more primed to buy. 

3. Navigational content

And finally, navigational content is the type of content people land on when they’re looking to find a specific website or page. So when someone is typing in the name of your company or brand into a search engine, they’re performing a navigational search.

Of course, this means they already know you. They know your brand name and the products or services you sell, they’re probably interested in buying, and they want to find the correct website or physical location (like a specific product or service page) to get what they’re after.

Like transactional content, navigational content comes in handy when people are already in your world – they know your brand or business name. But it’s still important to optimise the correct pages on your website to ensure your customers find what they’re looking for.

For example, on our website, you’ll find the page Blog Writing & SEO for time-poor businesses, and that’s optimised for “content writing packages” “SEO content writer” or ‘SEO content writing”. So if someone were to type that in, they’d be directed to this page and find all the information they need.

We also link back to our service pages from other pages on our website or from our blog posts (just like we did above), and that helps our prospective customers find what they’re after.

Why is navigational content good for you?

In a nutshell, it helps you sell!

Take our service page for Blog Writing & SEO as an example again. It has all the information that someone needs to make a decision:

• We open with a short video where you can see us (and see we are real people in the flesh and not robots!) and where we introduce the service.
• It talks about the problems that our ideal customers are experiencing and want to solve.
• It shows them what life could be like – what they would get if they invested in our service.
• Then it explains the service – step by step.
• It spells out how much time (and therefore money) our clients could save with our help.
• And finally, it outlines the simple steps someone needs to take to get the ball rolling with us.

It breaks it all down for our ideal clients, so the only thing left to do for them is get in touch with us! That’s how brilliantly navigational content can work for you.

Are there any drawbacks to publishing navigational content?

Navigational content is an essential component of your website. Just like you need a Home page, you need product or service pages. Otherwise, how will your prospective customers know what they can buy from you and how?

But navigational content alone isn’t enough.

Plus, it tends to be static, meaning that (unless your services change every other month) this type of content isn’t likely to change very often. And if you don’t publish anything new regularly, Google and the other search engines can’t see that you have anything relevant or useful to share and are less likely to rank you high in the search results.

If you only have navigational content on your website with no other content whatsoever, it will be really hard for new prospects (i.e. people who don’t already know you and your business) to find you.

So if you want new customers to find you and your fantastic business, you need to publish fresh and helpful content (both informational and transactional).

Would you like our SEO blog agency to help you?

Your website needs a clean structure with the right type of content (i.e. an active blog with useful, in-depth, optimised articles) and optimised pages for your products and services so that more of your ideal customers can find you via the search engine results and buy from you. That means you need to plan for different types of content, set time aside for keyword research, and then create all that content.

And yes, we know this takes time! That’s exactly why we can create that content for you so you don’t need to worry about a thing.

We create:

• Content that helps you rank on Google and delivers you traffic.
• High-ranking content that helps your potential customers.
• Content that pre-qualifies your customers and helps you attract those who are right for you.
• And content that helps you make more sales.

And, of course, we do all the keyword research for you. Want to find out more? Get in touch and let’s have a chat!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post What are the three different types of search query? And what content can you create for each type? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Content can support you with a variety of goals. The key is knowing what type of content can help with which goals, so you can be more intentional and strategic about what you create and share.

Sounds good?

Then let’s take a look at your business goals for 2023 and at the type of content you want to create to achieve those goals.

1. Growing your audience/email list

The more you become ‘known’ in your industry, the more customers you’ll attract. It’s that simple.

But even though social media is great and everything, nothing quite beats growing your email list. Having your potential customers’ emails means you can speak to them directly, whenever you want, with little distraction. It’s a powerful tool.

We know this ourselves because we’ve personally managed to grow our business on a tiny marketing budget. All we did was publish the right kinda blogs, convert readers into email subscribers, and, when we’ve built enough trust, sold them our content writing services.

Unfortunately, a lot of small businesses struggle to build a sizeable email list. In a study of over 1000 small business owners by Andrew and Pete at ATOMIC, they found that over half of respondents have an email list of 0-51 people 😬

When you don’t have your own audience, i.e. a list of people you can communicate directly with, you’re reliant on ads (which are pricey), referrals (which are inconsistent) or social media (which can be unreliable).

So how can the content you publish on your website help you grow your audience and your email list?

You can grow your audience by producing more SEO content.

What is SEO content?

SEO content is what you create in direct response to your customers’ internet search queries. It’s in-depth, well-written, engaging content that’s both informative and educational.

And it’s also optimised content, meaning that is written in a way that helps your content pop up in the search results.

The benefits of SEO content

The main focus of SEO content is to help you rank on the first page of Google so that more of your prospective customers can find you.

Being in the search results on the first page is the ultimate aim here because, unfortunately (and you know this as a user yourself), people hardly ever click on the second page or beyond. In fact, according to research, only 0.63% of all Google searchers do!

So for your website to show up higher in the ranking, you need to create SEO content regularly and consistently and always optimise it for search.

This means you need to:

• Research keywords on topics that are relevant to your industry and that are sought-after by your ideal customers (i.e. what are people searching for?)
• Make sure that those keywords are organically (i.e. naturally) included in your content in strategic places (for example, the title, the sub-headings, the description of the images, etc.) You want your content to read well – not sound like it was created by a robot!
• Make sure your content includes both internal and external links to other helpful and related content (just like we’re doing in the next line).

Related content: WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Posts.

Examples of SEO content

A simple way of understanding SEO content is by thinking about some of your own web searches. What do you typically search on the internet? Often, we’re after information or tutorials (‘How To’ type of content), such as “How to complete your tax return” or “Best pet-friendly cafes in Liverpool.”

Here are some examples of SEO content on our website:

7 Ways To Write An Irresistible Blog Post Headline.
What is an SEO content writing service? And how does it all work?

What makes for ‘bad’ SEO content?

Having SEO content on your website is a must. But we see a lot of business owners not quite hitting the mark with this.

Yes, your aim is to rank on the first page of the search engine results, which means the SEO content you produce must be driven by the type of searches your ideal customers type into Google. And you can use the internet and other more specialised SEO tools to decide what topics you should create content around.

But that doesn’t mean your content needs to be boring. Or that it needs to be the same as everyone else.

Quite the opposite, in fact!

You want to make sure your voice, personality, and your individual experience and expertise shine in your content. You’re creating educational and informative content, but you need to be doing this as you.

Because that also gives you a chance to highlight how you’re different and to start creating the brand awareness people need to decide to go ahead and buy from you.

Related content: How to use humour in your marketing, so people fall in love with your business (+11 prompts to help you!)

2. Increasing brand awareness

If your goal is to increase brand awareness with your content, you need to create thought-leadership content.

This is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but is an essential part of content marketing. With so much content out there, the only way to stand out is to create that positions you as the leader in your industry.

You can increase brand awareness by creating thought leadership content

What is thought-leadership content?

Thought-leadership content uses your expertise, insight, and experience to help you become the go-to source of information in your industry.

Rather than a specific type of content, we like to think of thought-leadership content as an approach to content creation. It can be about expressing controversial or outspoken opinions if you want it to be. But it doesn’t have to be.

It’s definitely not about picking fights with people! It’s more about not sitting on the sidelines and letting your audience know what you think about certain topics. We’d like you to see it as content that’s authentically and recognisably you, with a strong brand voice.

So thought-leadership content will typically include:

• Stong and/or controversial opinions
• Evidence of new findings within your industry based on your experience
• A desire to share your knowledge without any limitations – i.e. showing us the why and the how!
• Original research conducted by you and your business and your findings
• A strong voice or different approach to whatever it is you do.

The benefits of thought-leadership content

The main benefit of sharing thought-leadership content is to help you build credibility as a business and be seen as an expert. That’s a sure way to strengthen brand awareness with your prospective customers and clients.

Examples of thought-leadership content

Thought-leadership content can cover the following topics:

• Original research
• Business decisions you’ve made and why you’ve made them
• Expert interviews with others in your industry
• Customer client stories and case studies – ones that show the exact steps you took to overcome a problem with lots of evidence and value. Not just saying nice things about yourself
• Insider looks into your business that is actually helpful for your target audience e.g. publishing your income and expenditure every month and breaking down how you made sales that month (we always love these articles when we see them!)

Here’s an example you might recognise from our website:

How to market your business during a recession: 20 industry experts give us their views

What makes for ‘bad’ thought-leadership content?

Thought-leadership content is almost always a good idea unless you’re trying to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. Remember you’re not trying to pick an argument here!

There’s a difference between saying what you think and firmly drawing lines in the sand and explaining why you believe what you believe and trying to pick a fight with your prospective clients or competitors.

Be mindful of the difference!

Thought-leadership content will typically attract the people who are right for you and your business and ‘repel’ the ones who aren’t. But it doesn’t mean that you have to offend people or burn bridges in the process. There’s no need to criticise a competitor or expose a client, for example. You can express your opinions with objectivity and balance while also being kind to others!

Related content: SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business?

3. Converting more leads

Another goal you might have in 2023 (and you should have this goal all year round every single year!) is to convert more leads. This goal is just (if not more important) than the first goal of growing your audience or email list. Because yes, it’s great doing that, but a large email list doesn’t pay the bills, you’ve still got to convert those subscribers into paying customers.

And that’s something businesses often neglect!

So what type of content can help you convert more?

You can increase conversions by creating sales-enablement content.

What is sales-enablement content?

As it says on the tin, sales-enablement content is what you produce throughout the selling process to engage with your prospects and directly address their concerns.

It shouldn’t just talk up your products or services, but it should also tackle the ‘objections’ your prospective customers have towards working with you. Whether they vocalise them or not, it’s your job to identify them, break them down, and explain (step-by-step) either why they’re not applicable or how are you planning to address them through your work.

For example, if you offer online fitness coaching, someone might think the service isn’t for them because they think they won’t be able to keep themselves accountable unless they have their coach physically in the gym with them. So how do you address that? How can you show them, through your content, that your service can actually help them and solve the problem they’re experiencing right now?

The benefits of sales-enablement content

Sales-enablement content help you gently guide your prospective customers towards making the informed decision to buying from you.

It’s not about being pushy or ‘salesy’ here. You’re not trying to convince just anyone to buy. You’re explaining to the people who are right for you what you can do for them and how, so they can feel reassured and confident in thinking you’re the right choice for them.

Examples of sales-enablement content

Sales-enablement content can include:

• Case studies from clients
• Objection-led content – problems with your industry, products or services, why you’re priced differently, why you don’t do something that others in your industry do etc
• “How to find the right…” type of content, such as “How to find the right Virtual Assistant for your accountancy business.”
• Buyer’s guides
• Use cases
• Content that breaks down the process of working with you
• FAQ style content

Some examples you can find on our website are:

What is our Black Friday offer all about then?
Why is our SEO content writing & blog management service so expensive?
Biggest Problems with SEO Companies (and how you can avoid them!)
SEO Content Writer vs SEO Agency: Which One is Best for Your Business?

What makes for ‘bad’ sales-enablement content?

When creating sales-enablement content, you don’t want to be overly promotional. But there’s an easy way around this – think about your customers and what they need. Put yourself in their shoes:

What are they worried about?
What’s holding them back from going ahead and working with you? Is it money? Lack of time? Lack of self-confidence? Something else?
And what fears or doubts might they be experiencing right now?

Spend some time thinking about these questions (or even better, ask your prospective customers directly, if you can) and address them in your content. This will allow you to create sales-enablement content that does its job of helping you convert leads into sales while also being helpful and not pushy.

Related content: How to increase your sales using objection-led content and How to Make Content Part of Your Sales Process (so you get more sales, faster!)

4. Retaining more customers

The last goal you might have (and one that completes the sales cycle quite nicely) is retaining customers.

You’ve done all the work to attract people into your world, wow them into becoming your customers, and now you want them to be loyal and stay. You want them to be so happy with the results they get from working with you that they buy from you again and again.

You can retain customers by producing customer service content

What is customer service content?

This is content that helps your audience achieve their goals by using your product or being part of your service.

Remember you’re addressing your customers now – not just leads and prospects. These people have already bought your product or service – they already know you’re brilliant!

But they still have questions about how to use your product or what to do next. So think about what type of content you can create that helps you serve your existing customers.

Ultimately, your aim with this content is to make your current customers reach their goals faster and more efficiently – which is good for both you and your customer!

The benefits of customer service content

The good thing about sharing customer service content is that it helps both you and your customers. How?

For one, it saves you time in answering questions. If one customer has a question about how to use your product or service, chances are that others will too. So answer these questions at scale and through your content – you do it once, and you don’t have to keep repeating yourself.

And when it comes to your current customers, it keeps them super happy. Have you ever been in a position yourself where you’re not sure about asking a question about a product or service you bought? You may feel embarrassed or think it’s a silly question. But if the business owner has already pre-emptied and answered that question, you don’t even have to put your hand up and ask!

One of our SEO content writing clients recently told us that their customer service team shares our content with customers every single day, and it has saved them hours every week in admin time! 

Isn’t that brilliant when you can just find all the information you need? That’s exactly what customer service content can do for you.

Examples of customer service content

An example of customer service content we wrote back when we were web designers is How To Write Your Website About Page.

We used to create the design and graphics for our website design clients, but they’d need to write their own copy. So we served them with content that helped them make the most of the service they were buying from us.

Another example we think is brilliant is this blog post from ScoreApp – 29 Simple Ways to Launch Your Quiz Lead Magnet.

Once you’ve set up your quiz, ScoreApp also produces content that helps you launch it, so you can take the next step. That’s customer service for you!

What makes for ‘bad’ customer service content?

The only thing that makes customer service content ‘bad’ is the lack of it! We don’t see many businesses regularly producing this type of content. And ‘product updates’ don’t quite count, especially if they sound technical and boring. This isn’t customer service.

Customer service content still needs to be helpful, engaging, informative, educational, and in your own voice. The only difference from the other types of content we talked about is that it’s aimed at your existing customers rather than your prospects.

You’ll often find that customer service content is all helpful for non-customers too. They’ll find it, learn more about you and your business and become a lead. So there are no excuses!

Would you like our help to achieve your business goals for 2023?

In this blog post, we discussed four different types of goals. You may have decided to focus on one or two as priorities for 2023 or you may want to work towards all four. There’s no right or wrong answer here.

But whatever your goals, content marketing can play a big part in helping you achieve your objectives, as long as you produce content that aligns with your goals. If that sounds overwhelming and like too much work for the time you have available, we can help!

Our Blog Writing and SEO Agency is the ultimate time-saving solution for ambitious and time-poor businesses. So if you’d like us to help you research and write your content for you, get in touch!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post What content do you need to create to hit your business goals in 2023? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But did you know that you can become a thought leader yourself?

You can then integrate this into your content strategy, to help attract customers and grow your business.

In this blog, we’re looking at the difference between SEO content and thought-leadership content to help you decide which is best for your business.

What is SEO content?

At Jammy Digital, we spent years designing functional and beautiful websites. And everyone always thinks that’s enough for the business to come flooding in.

But the truth is, it’s difficult for your website to rank without a stream of in-depth, informative, and educational content. Google isn’t too bothered about how ‘pretty’ your website is (just that it works!)

It’s estimated that the number one listing on Google accounts for 27.6% of all click-throughs. And only 0.63% of all Google searchers continue through to the second page of results.

So it’s not only crucial that you create content, but that you create content that ranks on search engines. Otherwise, your potential customers will struggle to find you online.

SEO content is well-written, engaging, and informative content, with a primary focus on getting your website to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s all about creating content your customers are searching for, so you show up higher in rankings.

SEO content harnesses the knowledge of SEO and keywords, optimising content for search engines, so the right people find it.

Related content: SEO content writer vs SEO agency: which one is best for your business?

What is thought leadership content?

First things first, let’s define thought leadership by itself, before going onto the content.

Thought leadership is the delivery of content that uses expertise, insight, and experience to help you become the go-to source of information in your industry.

Thought leadership isn’t so much a type of content, but rather an approach to content creation, created by tapping into the expertise, insight, and experience within your business and the wider community.

People often think that thought leadership content has to include controversial or outspoken opinions, and it can, but it doesn’t have to.

What it does need to be is authentically and recognisably you, with a strong brand voice. No sitting on the sidelines; it’s about letting people know what you think.

Thought leader content can include:

• Stong and/or controversial opinions
• Expertise
• Experience
• Authenticity
• A desire to share their knowledge

This type of content helps businesses and individuals build credibility and be seen as an expert.

The different types of thought-leadership content marketing

I like to split thought-leadership content into different categories including:

• Original research content…
• Business decisions content…
• Expert interview content…
• Customer client stories content…

Examples of thought-leadership content

1. Original research content

This could be via surveys or analysis, for example, reviewing websites and reporting your findings.

If you do this right, you can become the ‘original source’ for a particular topic, meaning lots of others will link back to your article, which can skyrocket your rankings.

An example is from Backlinko, which analysed 3.6 billion pieces of content to better understand evergreen content.

2. Business decisions & strategies content

Want to stand out as an expert?

Give a little insight into your business and the decisions and strategies that you have implemented.

You can detail why you made those decisions and whether or not they worked. If not, you can let people know what went wrong – and what you learned from it.

In this example, Orbit Media shares its 15-year-old content strategy, detailing what worked and what didn’t. It’s a great way to showcase their expertise in SEO and content strategy – the service that they offer.

3. Expert interview content

As much as you would like to be, you probably aren’t an expert in everything.

So, why not capitalise on the expertise of others and bring that knowledge to your audience?

This can be done via guest blogs, but a great medium for this type of content is podcasts.

A great example is Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO podcast – where Steven interviews different leaders and CEO, bringing you their top tips, learnings, and insights from their careers.

4. Client stories content

You can tell your potential clients how great you are, but it’s much more believable if it comes from someone else.

So, why not let your clients do the talking?

This blog from Buffer puts one of their clients at the forefront and lets her write her own case study on how she used the scheduling tool.

It’s common for people to write blogs on product and service features, but this type of blog talks about them in a way that actually teaches potential clients something. It’s a powerful way to show the impact that your product or service could have on a business.

SEO content vs Thought leadership content: what results do they get your business?

Results! Let’s face it, most of us aren’t creating content (thought-leadership, SEO, or otherwise) just for fun. As exciting as creating content can be, I’d personally rather be eating chips on the beach or reading a good book (or both).

Content is all part of a wider marketing effort to increase traffic, leads, and ultimately sales. If your content is not getting you results, then it’s a waste of time and energy – two things you don’t have to spare running a business.

So, in order to compare the two, we need to understand the results that you can get from each.

What does SEO content help you achieve?

When creating SEO content, it’s all about getting your website to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). The goal is to discover exactly what your potential customers are searching for and create content to answer those questions.

As the stats show, if you don’t rank your website within the first couple of search results, then it’s unlikely people will click on your website.

So, great SEO content should help you to:

• Increase your search engine rankings for a variety of keywords
• Increase your website traffic
• Increase your backlinks from high-authority websites

Plus, there are the intangible benefits of SEO content, that enable you to attract the right customers and have better quality conversations.

But ultimately, the primary goal of SEO content is creating content that helps you rank highly and get found online.

Related content: How to 10x your website traffic

The results of thought leadership content

Unlike SEO content, thought-leadership content is not about what people search for. It’s about building authority and positioning yourself as a subject matter expert.

However, while the content is not focussed on ranking, it does still have some pretty incredible results when it comes to traffic and conversions. According to SEM rush, 81.4% of thought leadership content results in organic traffic. And if that’s not enough, 47.6% generates the all-important leads and sales.

Why?

It’s partly down to the fact that by the very nature of thought-leadership content. It’s WAY more likely to get you backlinks from other content creators.

For example, let’s relook at “original research” content – one of the types of thought-leadership content previously mentioned. This is a style of content that Brian Dean at Backlino has absolutely nailed. He carries out in-depth research on relevant topics and creates content with details and specificity that no one else has covered.

Thought leadership is not necessarily an SEO strategy. However, it increases the likelihood of backlinks (we’ve even used some in this article), establishes expertise, and optimises the website for rankings. Therefore it does benefit SEO, although it’s not targeting that.

The mechanisms that enable thought-leadership content to drive your business include

• Brand credibility and authority
• Generates backlinks, shares, and mentions
• Attract potential customers

SEO content vs thought-leadership content: when should you use it?

Content is sold as the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to growing your business. But the truth is, there is no one size fits all, and not everyone will need to implement the same content strategy.

But which one is right for you?

When should you use SEO content?

Relying on referrals to grow your business?

Struggling to bring in leads?

SEO content is all about utilisng and capturing the existing search traffic within your market in order to drive revenue and grow your business. And it’s extremely valuable at helping you rank and convert when correctly implemented.

This is why we recommend that all businesses implement an SEO content strategy, assuming you have the following in place:

1️⃣ An up-to-date website (that wasn’t designed in the 90s)

2️⃣ A website that’s easy-peasy to navigate (no use getting loads of traffic to your website if all those people end up getting lost and then leaving.)

3️⃣ Decent and clear website copy

4️⃣ Products or services that sell right now (great content will not make up for a bad product/service)

5️⃣ Access to your actual website and blog (ie. your web design company isn’t holding it hostage)

Assuming you have these things, you can get started on creating a successful SEO content strategy that helps you will all the benefits we’ve already discussed. Start by thinking about what your potential customers are searching for and create content around that (or hire us to do it for you).

Related content: Why referrals are bad for business (and what to do instead)

When should you use thought leadership content?

As we now know, the point of thought-leadership content is not to rank, but to influence and gain authority.

The challenge is, that without an existing audience it’s hard to gain traction with thought-leadership content.

This is why thought-leadership can be seen as a more advanced form of content, that builds upon an existing content base. Think of SEO content as your BA honors, and the thought-leadership as your Master’s course. You need the foundations of the SEO content and the audience that comes along with it in order to really make an impact with thought-leadership content.

There are also undoubtedly industries that lend themselves to thought-leadership content more easily (such as business and marketing), as there is no one right way to do things. Although this creates huge potential in more traditional industries, as no one else is creating this type of content.

So, if you are already creating content, and driving organic traffic via search, then I’d recommend starting on a thought-leadership content plant too.

Thought leadership content vs SEO content: can you outsource it?

As a business owner, you wear a hundred different hats every day, and content is just one more thing to think about.

But can you successfully outsource content that sounds authentically you?

Or, is it something that you have to keep in-house?

Can you outsource SEO content?

A good SEO content marketing strategy requires a near constant supply of high-quality, search-engine optimised content – and that takes time to create ⏰.

In fact, we estimate that it takes around 10-16 hours in total per blog to create high-quality content, which includes:

6-8 hours: to write, edit & proofread your content
3-4 hours: of content design & formatting
1-2 hours: optimising each of your blog posts

Yes, you can pump content out at a much faster rate, but if you want to create in-depth and engaging content that ranks, then you’ll need to spend a little longer on it. This is why a large part of the reason why over half of businesses outsource their content marketing.

In addition, most owners know their business inside out, but that doesn’t mean they can write about it in a way that’s going to rank. SEO content writers are experts in writing engaging content that speaks to potential customers AND the Google algorithm.

While some argue that you can’t outsource SEO content writing, we definitely think that you can.

In fact, not only do we believe that you CAN, we think that it’s a positive step for your business. That’s why we’ve built our SEO & blog management service around outsourcing your content.

Yes, the content still needs to be informed by a subject matter expert in your business, but partnering with a talented SEO writer to outsource content can be a brilliant business decision.

Outsourcing to SEO content writers helps fill a skills gap in your team while saving you time and making you money.

Related content: Why is our SEO and blog management service so expensive?

Can you outsource thought leadership content?

You might think that thought-leadership content is harder to outsource. After all, it’s so dependent on your voice and expertise that surely it’s impossible to replicate via an outsourced writer.

And we agree, it is harder…but not impossible.

In fact, you might be surprised to find out that 48.7% of businesses outsource thought-leadership content.

However, it’s not something that an ad-hoc freelance writer will be able to achieve.

To successfully outsource thought-leadership content, you will need to develop an ongoing relationship with a writer or content marketing agency. But once you have a writer that you trust and that understands you, it’s possible to create high-performing thought-leadership content.

Again, it’s important to work with an experienced writer or agency that is able to translate your expert knowledge into influential content. But assuming you have a way to communicate that knowledge, there is no reason that you cannot successfully outsource thought-leadership content.

This is part of the reason that we don’t offer ad-hoc writing but, instead, a full SEO and blog management service. It allows us to form a relationship with our clients, understand their business, and convert their expertise into clear, informative thought-leadership content.

Can you have thought leadership content that also ranks?

Ranking on search engines is not the primary aim when it comes to thought leadership content, but it’s certainly not impossible.

As mentioned previously, the nature of thought-leadership content means that you are more likely to get backlinks from other relevant content creators. These backlinks are essentially votes from other websites, alerting Google to the fact that you have created helpful and relevant content.

The latest update from Google “the helpful content update” is an effort to ensure that searchers are seeing more “original, helpful content, written by people for people”.

So, while ranking is not the priority for thought-leadership content, it’s certainly possible. Originality leads to backlinks, which in turn build domain authority and ultimately boost SEO.

Plus, it’s certainly still possible to ensure that any content created is optimised for search engines (whether it’s the main aim or not) to make sure it’s positively viewed via algorithms.

Are there agencies that do both SEO and thought-leadership content?

While SEO content and thought leadership are separate, they are not two entirely distinct strategies. And while the results and means differ slightly, ultimately, both are aiming to increase revenue.

In our opinion, thought leadership content should be a part of a wider content strategy. You can’t become a thought leader without creating consistent content, it does not exist in isolation. However, it’s a brilliant way to set yourself apart from the increasingly noisy marketplace – and all the millions of blogs being published daily.

SEO content serves customers who are currently searching for what you offer and driving consistent organic traffic, while thought leadership content allows you to position yourself as an industry expert.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Burger King followed up this tweet with more tweets highlighting the discrepancy between male and female chefs in restaurants.

Some people thought it was a great way to attract attention and highlight a problem.

But unfortunately, most of Twitter did not agree, and Burger King was heavily criticised. 

Watching a brand get kicked through virtual mud on social media is enough to scare anyone off being funny. 

But if you’ve ever felt fear at the thought of incorporating humour into your marketing, all you need to do is ask yourself some questions…

Am I being funny to deliver value to my audience in an entertaining way? Do I genuinely want to make them laugh? 

Or is this about me? Is it about exposure? Is it about getting attention for myself? Is it about being controversial for controversial sake? 

Like Burger King, you can’t control how someone interprets your message. But you can control your approach to comedy, to begin with. If it’s the former (i.e. delivering value to your audience in an entertaining way) you know you’re on solid ground and that your intent is good. If it’s the latter, maybe rethink your approach! 

So you think you’re funny, do ya? 

So you’ve asked yourself the question, do I want to be funny to entertain and give value to my audience? 

Yes, Lyndsay. I do! 

So the next question is: How do you use humour in your business? 

The problem is, you might be funny to your friends and family. But sometimes, that humour doesn’t transfer to your business. 

My four-year-old finds me hilarious. But I don’t think my clients would find my walrus impression using breadstick teeth particularly funny. (Although, hit me up if that’s something that tickles your funny bone). 

So that’s why in this blog post, I’ll walk you through the actionable ways you can be funny. And I’ll also give you 11 prompts too, which will help amuse even the most serious of audiences. 

This isn’t about being contrived or unauthentic. It still has to come from you. This blog post will get your funny juices flowing, but you’re the one who will need to think of the content. 

Ready? Let’s go. 

The psychology behind using humour in your marketing 

You know ‘Terry the tight-arse’ who never buys a round on a night out but makes you spit your drink in laughter?

There’s a reason ‘Terry’ can get away with it: because he is funny. 

Making people laugh is a superpower. Humour is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful ways to communicate. It can help your audience relieve tension, boost self-esteem and establish a connection to you. 

Ultimately, it makes your audience feel good. And making people feel good helps you sell stuff. Wild, right? 

Humour is subjective: but this isn’t a big problem 

Some people find Mrs Brown’s Boys funny. I’ve never met such a person, but I’m sure they exist somewhere. They must do; it was voted the best sitcom in the UK. 

Yet, I would rather have a root canal while simultaneously doing my taxes than watch it. 

And this is the biggest problem people have with using humour in their marketing. It’s subjective. What appeals to one person will turn off another. 

But this isn’t a bad thing for your brand. 

The creators of Mrs Brown’s Boys won’t give two hoots I don’t like the show, and, in the same way, you shouldn’t worry that some people might not like your humour. 

The only people who you should think about are your target audience. Not your mum, or your mates, or your competitors or business buddies…your audience (and we’ll come on to this a bit later). 

It’s better to have 100 raving fans who find you hilarious and 100 people who find your humour a load of rubbish than simply 200 people who can’t even remember your name. 

Some people might find me a bit dry or sarcastic. Some won’t find me funny at all. And that’s okay. Because they’re not my audience. 

What are the ways you can be funny in your marketing? 

So here’s the nitty-gritty bit. 

And I’ll be honest, whenever I write a blog post, I always snoop around to see what other people have published on the topic. 

A lot of people talk about why you should use humour. And there are lots of good examples out there, mainly from bigger brands like Dollar Shave Club. 

But I have yet to come across someone who tackles the different ways you can be funny, and this is what I’m going to do in this blog post. 

I’ve looked at the different ways businesses (and I’m mainly talking about small to mid-sized businesses here) use humour in their marketing. 

I’ve broken these up into different categories, which you can find below. You don’t have to use all of these. But they should give you some really good ideas. 

1. Making fun of your audience/customers

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU, LYNDSAY?! 

I know, I know. I am fully aware that pointing and laughing at our potential customers is not a good sales tactic (duh). So when I say ‘making fun of your audience,’ I mean in the right way. 

But I notice A LOT of people get this wrong. But I understand 100%, why they get it wrong. 

I once worked in a chocolate shop and had a customer berate me because her Easter egg melted after she’d left it in her car for 4 hours in 35+ degree heat. 

And yes, when I’d replaced the egg, and the customer had stormed off with a new one, my colleague and I did go into the back room and laugh about it. 

Because we’re human. And sometimes, we will run into customers who do or say things that seem utterly bizarre (and probably hilarious) to us. 

Laughter is our way of dealing with the situation. It’s a way of relieving stress and tension. It’s a way of getting through the damn day when things are rubbish, and perhaps customers are being utterly weird and unreasonable. 

Now the problem is, many people don’t have staff rooms or colleagues or an outlet for them to find someone to laugh with about these happenings. 

So they turn to their trusty friend, the internet! 

I’ve seen countless posts that make fun of customers. Some are more justifiable than others. Some about late payments or rude behaviour. Others blame customers for their lack of technical skills or knowledge or ‘perceived’’ stupidity. 

Typically, people do this because they seek laughter and perhaps comfort from their business friends and others in their industry. 

Now, I’m not here to wag my finger at you and tell you what you should or shouldn’t post on the internet. 

But, when you post something like this, you could potentially discourage customers from working with you. 

So you need to make sure you do it in the right way, and by that, I mean to provide value. 

There’s a way of poking fun at your audience while getting them to learn something new or come to a realisation, and THAT’S where you can connect with them. 

An example of how poking fun at your customers’ works 

I’ll use our example here. On April 1st 2019, we published an article about how to create the perfect website. The date was, of course, April Fool’s Day. 

In the blog post, we poked fun at the most common website mistakes business owners make. 

This was everything from wanting a logo so ginormous it gave the website user ‘a virtual punch in the face’ to harassing your website visitors with pop-ups until they’re forced to give you their information. 

This article gained us two new clients. 

Mostly, people took it in good grace. Some people admitted that they were guilty of doing some of the things we’d described. 

But the point is, they gained value from it. We had some people laugh and say they’d changed things on their website because of our post. 

It wasn’t a personal attack on someone’s character, it simply made fun of common website mistakes. 

If you do this the right way, you can attract better customers 

Yes, many of our website designer and copywriter friends found this funny, but, more importantly, it allowed us to attract better clients. 

People who read this understood that we were experts at website design. We don’t exactly come across as pushovers, right? So we attracted the kind of clients who wanted an expert and not someone to boss around! 

An overview of comedy that pokes fun at your audience 

Pros: can position you as an authority and can make customers understand what they’re doing wrong

Cons: there’s a fine line between getting your audience to laugh at themselves and downright insulting them–so try not to cross it. 

Poking fun at your audience prompts: 

1. What does your audience get wrong (around what you sell)? For example, if you’re an email marketer, your audience could be guilty of only emailing their list every three months when they have something to sell. 
2. What classic things does your audience say that you disagree with? For us, it’s ‘my audience doesn’t expect to see a price on a website. They prefer to talk to us.’ (Said no one ever). 
3. What expectations does your audience have around your product or service that are incorrect? For example, for us, it’s that SEO is long-term, and it takes forever to see results

How can you turn the answers to these questions into funny anecdotes? Give it a try!

2. Personal Brand Comedy

Personal brand comedy is exactly that, it’s comedy related to you. It’s to enhance your personal brand. And it doesn’t (necessarily) have anything to do with what you sell. It can be more to do with your personality. 

Now, I will hold my hands up and say that I used to struggle with this. 

Not because I’m especially introverted–even though I am–but because I’m obsessed with giving value. 

But not everything has to be value driven, particularly if you’re raising your profile. Simply making your audience laugh is value in itself. 

Personal brand comedy will make you memorable. So when someone thinks who should I hire for this, they’re like, ‘oh yeah! Julie. They’re so funny, I love them!’

An example of personal brand comedy 

Janine Coombes is a marketing coach and all-around business whizz. She’s also bloody hilarious. 

Her LinkedIn is full of valuable, actionable business advice. But she also posts funny videos that have absolutely nothing to do with what she sells. 

Like this video, all about Janine’s love of water butts (yes, water butt fans are a thing). 

https://www.tiktok.com/@janinecoombes/video/7104621343974444293?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7077921590222292485

And you might think, well, what the heck does this have to do with anything? 

Well, number one, when someone says the phrase ‘marketing coach’, I without question think of Janine. Her smiley face pops into my head immediately, and of course, I recommend her. 

But also, imagine you’re looking for a marketing coach–someone you have to talk to regularly over a long period. You’ll want to find someone who you like, right? And if you’re comparing two marketing coaches who offer a similar service and have similar knowledge, are you going to go with the bland one or the one that makes you laugh? I bet it’s the latter! 

When you let your personality shine through using humour, you will attract like-minded people who love who you are and how you work. 

An overview of personal brand comedy 

Pros: it can make you stand out, and people could choose you over your competition

Cons: too much of it can make people forget exactly what it is you do. You have to balance it with more relatable, actionable content 

Personal brand comedy prompts: 

1. What weird shit are you into? Okay, try not to go too weird. But don’t be afraid to show your quirky side. For example, I happen to know that health coach Hayley has a love for Louis Theroux. It makes me laugh every time I see her talk about him.
   
2. What’s something funny that happened to you today? Take me, for example, having an utterly disastrous conversation with a woman in a cafe and using it for content…

3. Making fun of your industry 

Do you know what I find utterly bizarre? When I see more people making fun of their customers than their competition. 

Newsflash – your competition does not pay the bills! 

Now I’m not saying you should slag off individual companies, that’s a recipe for disaster (and a lawsuit), but there are often things about our industry our customers find bewildering, frustrating or downright dodgy. 

And you’re well within your right to call that shit out and make fun of it (if you like). 

Because when you point all of this stuff out, you’re saying to your prospective customers, I’m not like this. You may think that everyone in our industry does this, and many do, but I don’t. You immediately position yourself as more trustworthy. 

We’re in the SEO industry, and I’m not sure if you’ve come across the industry, dear reader, but if you have, you probably know there’s A LOT of stuff I could make fun of. 

A lot of shady shit goes down, from companies that make SEO sound like some sort of dark art to those who make their customers hand over their firstborn child before they give an actual price. 

You might be in a similar industry. You may see your competitors do stuff that makes you wince or winds you up. Or even stuff you find quirky or odd. Whatever it is, it makes for great, funny content. 

And hey, you might just find you give people in your industry a laugh too. 

An example of making fun of your industry

Mike is a funnel-building expert and author of Five Figure Funnels. And I love what Mike has done here. Here’s made fun of a subset of the marketing industry, ‘bro marketers’. 

You may have come across bro marketers before, they tend to sell you a rags-to-riches story after they discovered some super secret success sales formula (they like to alliterate with the letter S) which they will sell to you for just five grand. 

So I enjoyed Mike thoroughly taking the piss out of them. Will he offend ‘bro-marketers’ who identify with what he posts in the video? Probably. Should he care? Absolutely not. Because ultimately, he’s putting his customers first. He’s showing them the kind of people they should avoid and positioning himself as someone with a completely different ethos and approach to ‘bro-marketers’. 

An overview of comedy that makes fun of your industry

Pros: positions you as someone who isn’t like the ‘competition’ and attracts new people

Cons: you could face disagreements from others in your industry, but that’s okay! 

Making fun of your industry comedy prompts: 

1. 1. What do others do in your industry that annoys you? For example, if you’re a SaaS company, this could be others in your industry not giving essential product features on their lower plans–forcing customers to move up. Or getting charged so much more for extra features.
   2. What’s something that’s the ‘norm’ for your industry that you don’t do? For example, for us, that’s the whole ‘have a call with a client, send a proposal, and only THEN give a price’ thing. We’re upfront with our SEO content writing prices. 

4. Relatable business comedy 

This is probably the most common form of comedy you’ll come across. Relatable business comedy takes everyday shenanigans that we experience and turns them into…well, comedy. 

This can be related to what you sell or completely unrelated. For example, Innocent crack me up yearly for their social media commentary on Eurovision. Eurovision has absolutely nothing to do with smoothies (but it helps brand loyalty and awareness). 

So it’s entirely up to you how you do this. But one thing that is difficult about this is thinking of it on the spot. Some people can do it, but most cannot (I personally find it difficult). I prefer to note something funny that happened in my day. They make great stories.  

Example of relatable business comedy 

Dead Happy, a life insurance company (yes, that is their name), will have you in literal stitches with their relatable comedy all about the topic of…death. 

Their content is aimed at the 8 million people in the UK who wouldn’t use a financial adviser but do need life insurance. 

It’s not stuffy or formal –as co-founder Phil Zeidler puts it, it’s ‘like talking to a mate at the pub about death, which for many us has an edge of humour’. Dead Happy is trying to get people to be more open about death in a humorous, informal way. Or, in their words, ‘Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant. Talking about funerals won’t make you dead.’

Here are some of their recent social media posts so you can see what I mean. 

FYI, top middle for me. 

All of the above for Martin. As he explained, ‘I’m not fussy,’ which made me feel extra special. 

And here are a few more examples…

An overview of relatable business comedy 

Pros: mass appeal and usually makes people laugh! It also doesn’t have to be controversial or attention-seeking.

Cons: too much of it and people can easily forget what you do! 

Using relatable business comedy prompts: 

1. What are some funny things you laugh at all the time in your business  For example, for me, it’s the number of people who find learning about SEO truly painful or boring (which is why I wrote this…)
2. What happened to you today that was funny?
   Our good friends Rob and Kennedy gave us a great piece of advice–there are stories in your day that can easily be turned into entertaining and valuable content. You just have to look for them. What happened today to you that was funny? Can you use this? 

5. Political humour

Have you ever heard of the phrase, ‘belief-driven buying’? 

Simply put, it’s when a customer buys a product because the brand aligns with their values and beliefs. According to a study by the Edelman Trust in 2019, 64% of people classed themselves as ‘belief-driven buyers’, an increase from 51% in 2017. 

This ain’t just a millennial or Generation Z ‘thing’ either:  ‘Almost as many consumers aged 35 to 54 buy on belief as 18- to 34-year-olds. And 60% of people overall said brands should make it easier to see their values and position on important issues at the point of sale.

So if you’ve steered clear of politics for fear of putting people off, you may find that talking about your views isn’t such a bad thing. It tells people who you are and what you stand for, which will attract customers with similar beliefs and ethics. 

Don’t manufacture something to care about 

The problem is, brands have never had to prove that they care about something until recently; they could just tell us they cared. 

But now we can find the proof, and we can also find out when they’re lying. All you have to do is take a look at the news every once in a while, and you can see the stories of brand hypocrisy; for example, stories of ‘greenwashing’, where brands claim that they care about the environment but actually do things that harm the planet.

Or the companies giving lipservice on International Women’s Day, only for a Twitter Bot to highlight the differences in pay between their male and female employees. 

Ultimately, it’s better to decide not to discuss anything political in your business rather than manufacture something to care about.

If you’re going to talk politics, make sure you walk the walk. Because no one likes a hypocrite. 

But if you do want to talk politics, bringing in a little humour to get your point across is one of the best ways to do this. 

An example of political humour

There are very few rules I’ve stuck to that I had at the start of my business ten years ago, except this one: AVOID POLITICS. 

That was until July 2022, when I decided to call out the UK government. What I decided to call them out on was important to me–but more importantly–to my audience. 

In all its wisdom, the UK government decided to advise businesses to cut their marketing spend prior to the upcoming recession (I know, they’re just so good at filling businesses with confidence and a positive outlook). 

So I decided to highlight just how bizarre this advice was, and  I posted about it. It’s one of my most successful LinkedIn posts to date. 

Sometimes, a political issue doesn’t have to be part of your brand, it can just be something that annoys you! 

An overview of political humour 

Pros: can attract people with similar values and ethics as you

Cons: your views could potentially turn people off 

Using political humour prompts: 

1. What don’t you agree with that’s happening right now? For example, like me with the government’s decision to advise businesses to cut their marketing spend. 
2. What do you and your audience care about?
   For example, if that’s the environment, can you incorporate that into your marketing and brand? This won’t always have a ‘humourous’ slant, particularly if it’s a serious topic, but sometimes it can. 

What’s your next step? 

The first thing to do is just test it out. Be a little funny in your blog or post something humorous on social media. 

But what if I don’t get anything back from my audience? 

I’ll hold my hands up and say I’ve tried to be funny only to see tumbleweed in return. Sometimes you won’t always hit the mark. You learn from it and move on! 

Or if you’d like us to write you hilarious content that ranks on search engines, check out our content writing packages.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to use humour in your marketing so people fall in love with your business (+11 prompts to help you!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

That’s how website design impacts content marketing in a nutshell.

But hold your horses because that’s not all you need to know.

What you really need to know is how you can design your website to make your content irresistible to your web visitor.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do.

Because there’s no use in creating content if something about your website turns people away, right!?

Just a head’s up! When I say content, I mean things like your blog articles, podcasts (with transcripts and notes) or video pages on your website.

There’s a problem with how content is presented on websites

Through our membership, we’ve reviewed over 500 pieces of content on websites, usually in the form of blog posts and podcasts. And one of the most significant pieces of feedback we give is not about the content itself but about the way it is presented.

If you think that the way you design your content is not a big deal, it really is.

According to Nielson Norman Group, website users read on average 20% of the text on the page.

Users don’t have the time to read everything word-by-word. You’ve probably even skipped some parts of this article already!

*I’m waving if you’re still here.*

How does web design impact content marketing?

You can’t expect your user to read every single word you write.

But when your website and content are visually appealing, you’ll start to see significant engagement with your content, i.e. people consuming it, sharing it and buying from you.

So how do you make the content on your website more visually appealing and engaging? And what aspects of website design impact your content negatively?

Let’s find out how website design impacts your content marketing!

1. User experience impacts how people find your content

User experience means your web visitor can easily navigate your website and find what they need. Everything works seamlessly as your visitor makes their way through your various website pages.

But your visitors may find it difficult to find your content if your website has bad user experience. And if no one is finding your content, you won’t see any results!

Ways to improve your website’s user experience and increase traffic to your content

At the very least, you should feature your blog, podcast or video page:

• In the main menu on your website
• On your homepage (often people use their last three or four articles or podcast episodes)
• In your footer
• On your about page (people always forget that an about page must lead to further pages on your website)

An example of good user experience and easily found content!

Nicole Osborne, a marketing coach for agencies based in the UK, features her content prominently on her website’s homepage. It’s super easy to access and grabs your attention right away. Well done, Nicole!

2. Searchability impacts how people search your content

Your website must make it easy for your visitor to search and find the content they are looking for.

If you publish a regular blog or podcast episode, you will end up with pages and pages of content. If you don’t make this content easily searchable, users have to trawl through all those pages to find something they like.

This gets even more difficult when you also have content like free guides, checklists and other downloads.

So how do people find all of this fantastic stuff? And how can you encourage more engagement and email sign-ups?

Ways to improve your content’s searchability

Categorise and tag each piece of content

Your content management system (i.e. the backend of your website) should allow you to categorise and tag each piece of content.

Pick one category and four or five tags for each piece of content. For example, this article is categorised under ‘content marketing’ and tagged under ‘content design’, ‘user-experience’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘website tips.’

You can then feature things like a search bar at the top of your blog or podcast pages. When your website visitor types something like ‘content marketing,’ only those articles categorised and tagged as ‘content marketing’ would appear.

Add a learning centre

A learning centre is a page on your website where ALL of your content is easily accessible to your website users in just a few seconds.

It can allow people to search through your content, access any free guides or giveaways, and access content on different platforms (such as videos, podcasts or articles). You can look at our learning centre to show you one in action!

This works if you have a lot of content and want to give your users an easy way of searching for it.

Example of good ‘searchability’ of content on your website

Okay, so I’m pretty proud of our learning centre, alright? So I’m showing it off to you. There are different elements of the learning centre that allow people to find what they’re looking for easily. Theres’ the:

• Search bar – for people who know exactly what they want
• The categories of content (such as content marketing or SEO) for people that want to search by topic
• Our quizzes and extra freebies to encourage sign-ups to our emails
• Most popular questions, with direct links to articles

We wanted a page that helped people find all of our content, and it’s one of our most popular website pages!

3. Readability impacts how people consume your content

It isn’t 1882. A giant wall of text ain’t going to cut it, my friend. This is the internet, and people want scannable content that’s easy to read.

The way you design your website will impact the readability of your content. Everything from fonts, text size, headings and subheadings and colours will affect how your user reads your content.

If it looks difficult to read, people won’t read it. It’s that simple.

Ways to improve the readability of your content

Add headings and subheadings

It would help if you used headings and subheadings throughout your content (otherwise known as H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 tags).

Your main heading and subheadings should differ in how they look to reflect each section and where everything sits within each section. I.e. don’t just use all your headings randomly.

A H1 tag should be used once for the main title of your piece of content.

You should use H2 tags as your main subheadings. You should use H3 tags for the subheadings in H2 sections and so on.

I get that this is not easy to visualise, so here’s an image to help! (From an old design of our website, ahhh how times have changed!)

Make sure the hierarchy of your headings is correct

Think about the hierarchy of your headings and subheadings. Your main title should be the largest and most prominent. H2 should be bigger than H3, H3 should be bigger than H4, etc.

Finally, use subheadings often in your content to break up the text and make it easy to read.

In fact, people should get the general gist of your blog post just from the subheadings. Try it with this one. Just read the subheadings and see if you can gather a lot of information from just those!

Increase the white space…then increase it some more!

White space is the space in between all the elements on the page and the elements themselves. Even the space in-between each word and each line of the text is ‘white-space’. It also doesn’t have to be white (just to add to the confusion).

My husband is a graphic designer, and whenever I have tried to design anything, his mantra has always been, ‘more white space’. (I still can’t design, but I got that bit).

White space makes your content easier to read. It’s not all mushed up and close together. People need regular breaks (e.g. space between the paragraphs).

Make sure your font is large enough

Again, this is all about making your content easy to read, so it’s not rocket science. But we give ‘increase the size of your font’ feedback on people’s content ALL. THE. TIME.

We use 16px (12pts) for the size of the text you’re reading right now. This is the minimum you should use.

Anything below size 16px (12pts) is too small (as you can see. Or not see, as is probably the case).

An example of good ‘readability’ on a website’s blog

I picked Orbit Media’s website here (below) as an example because even though it’s a simple web page and could be described as basic–it’s easy to see why less is more.

You want your website visitors focused only on your content. That’s why on this website, there is plenty of white space at the sides of the content.

The text is also quite large, and regular subheadings break up the text.

Finally, notice how each line is short, so your eye doesn’t have to go from left to right so much. The text sits centrally on the page, and there are approximately 7-9 words on each line. This makes it incredibly easy to read.

If you want to learn more about this, check out our blog post on how to make your blog posts look good.

4. Accessibility impacts how much everyone can access your content

The way you design your website has a huge impact on how accessible your content is.

Website accessibility means everyone can use, navigate and understand your content–including people with disabilities.

If our business were a shop or building, we’d want to make sure that everyone could come in and find what they are looking for. We’d like everyone to feel welcome. And we wouldn’t want the layout of the shop or building to prevent anyone with a disability from accessing it.

It’s the same with websites. But unfortunately, in a study from 2021, 96.8% of home pages had accessibility issues.

However, things are changing. As website designers originally, we’ve noticed that the website design/development industry has started to take accessibility more seriously.

But what are some basic things you can do within your website design to make the content on your site more accessible?

All the things we’ve talked about above (searchability, readability and user experience) help make your content more accessible to everyone.

But here is what else you can do.

Ways to improve your content’s accessibility

Make your links clear

Throughout your content, you’ll link out to other internal pages on your website and external websites. Therefore, you need to make sure your links are clearly links.

You can do this by changing the colour of the links, and you could also add an underline.

Use clear wording that says what the user is going to click on. Don’t just put ‘read more’, ‘click here’, or ‘learn more’. You need to explain what you’re linking to.

Contrast the text with the background colour

We prefer a lighter background and dark text. But whatever way round you do it, make sure there is a sharp contrast between the text and background colour.

Contrasting background and text colours make it much easier to read. Unfortunately, many websites–particularly those in the fashion industry–use a light grey text against a white background. This makes it so difficult to read. My dyslexic brain really struggles with this!

Make sure to add ALT text to all your images

ALT text is like a label for your image–it explains exactly what it is. Many people can’t ‘see’ images, so they rely on ALT text to understand what the image is.

Make sure you give each image ALT text when you upload it to your website. It’s super easy to do and makes a massive difference for those who can’t see images. Plus, it has added SEO benefits too.

Use sentence form in your ALT text too. Imagine someone points to your image and says, ‘what’s that?’ That’s how you should describe your image. For example, the ALT text for the image below is, ‘Black cat climbing white shelf’. Simple.

Example of website content with good accessibility

It’s safe to say we have a lot of work to do to improve the accessibility of our websites (us included). But as I said, the website design/development industry is changing in this area. There is definitely a thirst for more education and training around accessibility issues.

In terms of websites that do this well, HubSpot is a great example (below).

The text is clear and in contrast to the background. The links are clear, and all the images have ALT text (on the blog post I checked at least!)

But also, it’s incredibly simple. There’s no flashy stuff, no automatic videos playing, no stuff cluttering the page. Simple is a word you’ll notice a lot when it comes to the design of your website and content. Often the simpler, the better!

5. Conversions impact how you well your content delivers leads or sales

The way you design your website can have a huge impact (both good and bad) on conversions, i.e. the number of leads and sales you get through your website.

Ultimately, that’s what your content is all about, right? Increasing conversions! There’s no point continuously creating content and getting nothing back from it.

Our content brings us a steady flow of leads because we’ve designed our website to encourage email sign-ups. So how can you do the same?

Ways to improve your content’s conversions

Add a sidebar to your blog or podcast

We’ve added a sidebar to the right that follows you as you scroll on our blog.

Adding a sidebar is controversial, as some people prefer a clean page with nothing around the text. However, we’ve found this works incredibly well for getting email sign-ups, and it’s not too cluttered or distracting.

Try not to feature too much here; include things like one call to action and some links to your other content.

Add a call to action in the footer

You can also add a footer to each blog or podcast page, which encourages your user to take action.

This could be encouraging someone to sign-up to your newsletter or download a freebie.

Encourage people to consume more content

When you categorise your content correctly, you can showcase similar content that might be of interest to your reader at the bottom of the post or page.

This is pulled through automatically to every single page. So at the bottom of this one, I’m hoping you can see other articles related to content marketing!

This works because it hooks your website visitor into more content from you, building trust and credibility in the meantime.

Example of website content that encourages leads

Mike and Callie, AKA, The Membership Geeks have a fantastic blog that not only is an amazing resource for those who run membership sites, it’s well designed too!

In the sidebar of their blog, they have a few call-to-actions such as buttons to their free Facebook group or downloading their blueprint. They also include a box that encourages you to join their academy, which follows you as you read their blog.

These elements aren’t intrusive and don’t steal the attention from the fantastic content. But I imagine they work well for encouraging email sign-ups and sales.

6. Technical issues impact how long people stay on your content

This last one is a biggie! If your website experiences technical issues then this will impact the success of your content. Your website visitors may leave if there are issues, and Google may limit your appearance in their search results. After all, Google doesn’t want to show their users websites that don’t work, right?

You may need a website developer to fix any specific issues, but here are a few things to watch out for.

Ways to solve any technical issues that impact the success of your content marketing

Check it works on mobile

First thing’s first, check your website works on mobile. And not just works but looks and works just as good as it does on a desktop computer.

We tend to view our own business websites from a laptop or desktop, but don’t forget about mobile! In the last quarter of 2021, mobile devices accounted for over 54% of all internet traffic.

The simplest ways to check your website works on mobile is:

• Get your friends to check on their various phones!
• Use Google’s mobile-friendly checking tool

Keep checking it regularly too, you never know what will crop up.

Make sure your site loads quickly

We’re an impatient bunch, aren’t we! Unfortunately, people will not wait while your content loads on their screen. If it takes too long then they’ll hit the backspace button and go to another website that answers their question.

Ideally, your page should load in less than two seconds. Any more than that, and your website visitor will start to get antsy.

To check your page load time, you can use a tool like GT Metrix to help. Just pop in your URL and it’ll give you all the info you need.

Make sure your website is secure

Finally, make sure your website is secure by installing an SSL certificate. This isn’t the only thing you should do to secure your website, but it is something your users (and Google!) will notice.

If you don’t install an SSL certificate this could impact your search engine rankings AND users may notice that it’s not there. An SSL certificate makes sure there’s a secure connection from your webserver to your browser.

The best way to check is to look at your URL, if there’s a little lock symbol then your website has an SSL certificate.

If you don’t have one, speak to your web developer or host about getting one installed on your website.

What’s next for you?

That’s pretty much all the ways that website design impacts content marketing.

If you’re creating website content yourself and want to know how to improve the look and feel of the content, then check out our blog post on how to make blog posts look good!

Alternatively, if you’re looking to hire an SEO content writer, you might want to check out our blog management service. As well as writing content we also optimise it for search engines, do all the keyword research and strategy and format it and make it look good.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How does web design impact the success of content marketing? [With examples] appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Even if we love the product, it’s not something we’re going to jump up and down with glee about. 

So it’s no wonder you’re nervous about increasing your prices for your current customers. 

You may think to yourself, ‘what if they complain?’, ‘what if they stop working with me?’ ‘what if they think I’m money-grabbing?’ or worse, ‘what if they head on over to the competition?’ 

So how do you increase your prices without losing customers?

Most People Are Understanding…If You Do It Right 

BUT, most people are reasonable. And we say most because of course you get a few that are entirely unreasonable. But if you attract the right customers to begin with, you should be fine. 

But they are only reasonable IF you do it the right way. 

This blog post will help you do that. Below, I’ve listed the 6 ways you can communicate a price increase that will keep your current customers happy. 

Before we get into it…

There are some people who try to advise you to use clever hacks when communicating your price increase, such as reducing the quantity or quality of your products rather than increasing your prices (anyone else notice that chocolate bars are getting smaller?)

This is not what this blog post is about. This blog post will help you communicate a price increase clearly and effectively, without the need for sneaky bullshit. Yes, we are mad about the chocolate bars, okay? 

So let’s get into it, shall we? 

1. Create public content around your price increase 

This is the biggie when it comes to building trust with your customers. 

If you want to increase your prices without losing customers then create public content around why. 

Imagine you’re raising your prices for your current customers and instead of explaining why in an email, you send them to a public blog post. This lets your customer know that this is a ‘company-wide’ policy and not something personal to them. 

Our favourite phrase is, people don’t care what you say, they care what you publish. You can say anything privately. But unfortunately, the only true way to show transparency is to create public content. 

It also allows you the space to fully explain your price increase and remind your customer of the benefits of working with you. 

An example of how to raise prices for your current clients 

We love this blog post from Sara Bussandri, which she sent to her clients that were receiving a discount for her writing services. We should know, we were that client! 

Sara explains in her post why she no longer offers a discount to her current clients (and any future clients). She makes it personal, by stating that when she started out she ‘fell into the trap of underpricing and underselling my services.’ And she also includes pictures of herself, to remind the reader that this is a person (and not a company). 

And then she goes into detail about why she no longer offers discounts. 

2. Say the actual words ‘my price is increasing’

We’ve seen companies use the words ‘price adjustment’ or ‘changes to our pricing’. Don’t do this. Don’t use fluffy language that tiptoes around the topic. 

Don’t use passive voice either, i.e. the price is being adjusted in 2022. By who, exactly? Fairies? An evil price-adjusting ogre? 

Nope. Own the message. State clearly, ‘We are raising our prices for x. And here’s why.’ This brings clarity to your customers who will appreciate your honesty and transparency. One sure-fire way to lose customers is to use confusing messaging when communicating your price increase. 

An example of a confusing price increase message

We remember receiving this email from a company that sold baby products. We were so confused. Are they raising their prices? Are they not? We get what they’re trying to do here but there’s no real incentive to buy now, and there’s no real communication as to whether the price is or isn’t increasing soon. 

If you’re going to increase your prices, stand firm in your decision and communicate it clearly! 

3. Sell them the benefits of your price increase (and avoid losing customers)

Just because you’re talking about increasing your prices doesn’t mean you have to turn into a negative-nelly. Use this opportunity to explore why you’re raising your prices and remind your customer of the value you deliver. 

Let’s say for example you’re a web designer and you want to increase the prices of your monthly maintenance plan for your current customers. You could explain how you’re investing in better software to keep your customer’s websites safer and more efficient. 

It’s important you flip the message from you to your customer. What do they care about? What do they value? How can you make them the heart of your message? 

An example of selling the benefits of your price increase 

When we increased our web design prices, we wanted to make sure that we communicated the benefits of working with us (and therefore why we were increasing our prices). 

So we created a blog post explaining why our prices were increasing. This wasn’t aimed at our current customers, but the principles remain the same, we moved the message away from us and our price increase and turned into the things that our customers cared about. 

4. Tell the story and make it personal 

When you’re asking someone to pay more money, there’s nothing worse than some impersonal, cold email, written in the third person. 

Just because you’re not ‘face-to-face’ doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a personal approach. 

Remember to tell the story of why you’re raising your prices, use the words ‘I’ and ‘we’, and communicate with your customer like they’re an actual human-being. 

A Good Example of a Price Increase Notice to Customers 

I love this video from Cara MacKay, MD of Gillies and Mackay who make sheds and garden homes in Scotland. 

It feels like Cara is talking directly to you in this video, and she tells the story of the challenges Gillies and Mackay have faced with their timber supply. There’s no formal stuffy language or unclear messaging, Cara remains frank, personal and respectful to her customers. This video could’ve been sent to a thousand people, and yet it would feel personal to you. 

5. Give an actual reason for your price increase

This may seem obvious, but we see quite a lot of emails about a price increase but people don’t actually explain why they’re increasing their prices. It’s just taken as a given. A ‘just because’. This usually happens at the start of the year in January where maybe people expect the price will go up. 

But this is frustrating for your customer who won’t understand why you’re raising your prices and will simply assume that you’re doing it to get more of their money. 

So give an actual reason for your price increase.

6. There’s no need to say sorry for your price increase

It’s tempting to apologise for a price increase. We personally struggle with this because even though we know that raising prices is a must and absolutely justified, we still feel the need to apologise. 

But there’s no need to say sorry.  Remember, sorry is a feeling of regret, and we shouldn’t regret raising our prices. If you deliver a good product and offer value, then there’s zero reason you should be sorry about it. And actually saying sorry communicates that you’re uneasy about your decision. 

Where should you start with it all?

If you want to raise your prices, then grab a piece of paper and a pen (or your keyboard) and start writing down the reasons why your prices are increasing. With every reason, also write down how this benefits your audience. For example, the cost of materials is going up could be the reason you’re increasing your prices. But this benefits your customers because you’ve decided not to cut corners and get cheaper materials.

We’re not saying it’s easy, but trust us, once you start with this kind of content you’ll find it easy-peasy to come up with ideas. And above all else, your customers will appreciate your honesty and transparency. 

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 Ways to Raise Your Prices in 2023 Without Losing Customers appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Well, stop. 

Step away from the keyboard. 

And don’t you dare sneakily update your prices on your website (not yet anyway.) 

Because there’s something we’d like you to do first. 

Something that will help you both increase sales, AND build trust and loyalty with your audience. 

We want you to create content around your price increase. 

Before we begin, this is aimed at you if you want to raise your prices for brand new customers (i.e. people who aren’t your customers already). If you need help on how to raise your prices for current customers, have a read of our article here. 

What is ‘Why I’m Raising My Prices’ content? 

This piece of content goes into detail about why you’re raising your prices. It explains what your prices are now when they’re going to increase, and what the new price will be. 

It’s an easy-peasy piece of content for you to create. But it’s also great for sales and delivers excellent customer service. 

Why is this content so effective? 

There are three main reasons why this piece of content works so well.

1. It’s sales content. It’s a piece of content that promotes the benefits of your products or services. It says ‘Hey, I’m raising my prices because I’m pretty awesome. Here’s why…’ 
2. It can act as a ‘heads-up’ to those who are on the fence about working with you, giving them an opportunity to buy from you at your lower prices. We did this with our blog post and earned 25K in a week. 
3. It’s incredibly helpful and transparent and builds trust with your audience. 

Why do I have to tell my audience why my prices are increasing? 

You’ve received one of those emails right? The ‘get in now before the price goes up tomorrow!’ type thing. You probably get one at least once a week. 

Hell, just walk past any furniture shop and there’s always a sale ending ‘soon’. 

The problem is, we’re used to this fake scarcity sales tactic. It just looks to your audience like you’re raising your prices to pressure them into buying from you. 

But the actual reasons behind you raising your prices are legitimate and justified. And when you sit down to think about it and consider why you’re raising your prices, you’ll probably come up with a whole host of great reasons. 

Think about your customer when it comes to explaining your price increase 

A lot of these reasons will relate to your customer and their experience. And when explaining a price increase, you should put your customer at the heart of it. Think about what will benefit them. 

Ultimately, take the narrative away from you and your price increase and put your customer at the heart of the message. 

For example, for web design, we explained that we were raising our prices because…

1. The projects became more time-intensive (because we spent more dedicated time with each client and took on fewer clients as a result)
2. We invested in more expensive tools and software (so the websites we created performed better and were more secure) 
3. We invested more in our own learning (and passed that onto our customers to make them more effective websites) 
4. We took on a more ‘consulting’ role during projects (so we could advise our clients on how to make their website a success, with help on content marketing to website copy)

The stuff in brackets above is what the customer cares about–the parts that actually benefit them. And that’s what led to us landing four new clients in one week from this one piece of content (earning us £25K). 

But we would not have done that if we’d simply emailed our list and told them our prices were going up without explaining why and how our customers benefit. 

Why does this content need to be public? 

We hear you. Creating public content around your price increase is scary, to say the least. What if your competitors see it? What if you put people off? What if you’re on the fence about raising your prices? 

Our favourite thing we like to say is ‘people don’t care what you say, they care what you publish.’ 

When something is published publicly it’s more trustworthy than something that is private. You can say anything privately or by email. But, public content is out there for the world to see, and when you’re talking about money, it’s instantly more trustworthy. 

Do you have to give a deadline? 

A big part of the success of when we did this was that we gave our audience the opportunity to buy from us at our current prices before they increased. 

However, you don’t have to do this. If it’s important you raise your prices and not offer your current rates that’s okay. You can still create this kind of content. It’s still incredibly helpful for your audience to understand why you’ve increased your prices and the benefits of what you offer. 

How do you promote your price increase content? 

The thing about price increase content is…people love to see it! 

Why? Because people love a good nosey that’s why. Our most popular blog post (in terms of social shares) is the one about why we’re increasing our web design prices. 

So don’t just create this content and shy away from any promotion. You have to take full advantage of your price increase and share it everywhere for it to be effective. 

Here are some ways you could promote it…

1. Send it to your email list 
2. Post on LinkedIn (company and personal page) 
3. Post on Facebook 
4. Go live on Facebook or LinkedIn 
5. Create Instagram stories or posts 

Make Sure You Promote this Time-Sensitive Content 

Remember, this is a time-sensitive piece of content because once your prices have gone up it becomes less interesting and relevant to your audience. 

So you need to give yourself time to promote it, and if you have a deadline where people can buy from you at your current prices you need to give your audience time to take up that offer. The amount of time will depend on what you sell. When we did this with our web design service, we gave a month’s notice as the investment ran into the thousands. You might not have to give that much notice with a cheaper product. 

What format should the content be in?

There’s no particular rule for what format your content should be in. Just that it’s public and shareable. We do everything via our blog. 

What if don’t want to publish your prices publically? 

Now, all of this is futile if you don’t actually publish your prices publicly. There’s no point saying your prices are going up if you don’t want to state how much they are now. 

If you don’t currently do this (or at least, give an indicator on price) then seriously consider doing so. The benefits for your business are huge, as highlighted in this blog post about why you should publish your prices on your website. 

The best question to ask yourself when it comes to publishing your prices is this, would you rather find out the price of something from a website. Or would you rather call someone and speak to them? 

Most people prefer the first option, right? Even if it’s not an exact price, just an indicator. We’d prefer to have an idea before we speak to someone in advance. 

Publishing your prices is just good customer service, as well as having a whole host of other benefits. 

Need some extra help? Try our blog post templates! 

If you’d like some extra support when it comes to writing your ‘price increase’ content, then check out our blog post template pack. This pack includes 10 blog post templates (including a raising your prices template) and saves you so much time when it comes to writing content. Check it out below. 

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Publish This Easy Piece of Content Before You Raise Your Prices (And See Amazing Results!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

• Best salesperson, bringing leads and sales to your business 24/7
• Trusted customer service advisor, informing and building trust and loyalty with your customers
• Knight-in-shining-armour, defending you against those crappy clients or customers who absorb all your time and cause you stress
• Personal ‘Town-Crier’, someone who will pull in the crowd and get traffic to your business

Publishing content consistently could help you rank higher in the search engine results and drive more traffic to your website. More traffic from the right kind of people means more leads and, ultimately, more sales. Ka-ching!

But getting results from your business blog takes time, and you have to be doing ‘all the right things’. This is why we put together this guide for you – covering everything you need to know about running a successful business blog.

Ready to grab a brew, sit comfortably, and get stuck in?

How to create a successful business blog

The first thing you need to decide (before you even get started) is what you want to achieve with your blog. Maintaining a business blog requires time, focus, and consistency, so you don’t want to do it just for the sake of it, right? Like with anything you do in life and in business, you need to have a specific goal in mind. Otherwise, how do you know if it’s working or not?

For your blog to be successful, you need a goal for it first.

So what do we mean by goals? What can a business blog actually help you achieve?

Here are some examples…

1. Drive more traffic to your website using your blog

Publishing regular content on your business blog can help you drive more traffic to your website. How? Well, how many times in a day do you search for something on Google? Loads, right? Every time we need information, we head over to Google. And your ideal customers are exactly the same.

So if you publish content on your business blog that answers their questions, bingo! You immediately increase the chances of your website popping up in the search engine results (ideally super close to the top), which in turn means that more people might click on the link, go visit your website, and read your articles.

Want some tips on creating content that gets found on Google? Check out our SEO For Beginners: The Ultimate Guide.

2. Attract more qualified customers with your business blog

Once you get people on your website, your amazing content is your chance to show them who you are, what you have to offer, and how you work. And your web pages (like your Homepage, your About page, your sales pages, etc.) can do that to an extent. But with the articles on your business, you can showcase who you are, what you stand for, and what you know in a lot more depth.

So what happens when people land on your website and find all your valuable content? They either feel they can relate to that (and find it interesting and relevant), or they don’t. And if they don’t, they’ll hit the back button, go back to Google, and move on to the next piece of content.

Now, that might seem like bad news for you. But it’s not, really. Because if someone can’t relate to you your content, they’re not the right people for you! You don’t want to work with them as much as they don’t want to work with you!

We’ve written loads about this, so if you want to find out more, check out How and Why You Should Create ‘Wrong-Fit’ Content, or How to Stop Customer Issues Before They Happen (Using Content Marketing).

What you really want is for the people who are the right fit for you and your business to stay on your website and engage with your content. Because these are the people you ultimately want to work with – the people who will buy from you and who will prove to be great clients. These are much better-qualified prospects. And you can attract them (like moths to a flame) simply by sharing awesome content on your business blog.

3. Increase your sales by blogging

Did you know your website can sell for you? That’s right. A lot of people treat their websites as fancy online marketing material. But if you play your cards right, your website can actually make sales for you.

How? Because people don’t care what you say – they care what you publish. And the content you share on your business blog can help your ideal customers get to know, like, and trust you. When you answer all their questions, reassure them you’re the right choice for them and the person who can solve their problem, the next logical step is for them to press the buy button and work with you.

And wouldn’t it be nice if instead of spending hours on a sales call with a prospective client, that call only lasted 15-30 minutes? If you publish enough of what we call decision-based content on your website, people will start to self-qualify, meaning that they’ll only go ahead and get in touch if they’re truly interested in working with you. So by the time they jump on that sales call with you, it’s only to finalise the details, sign on the dotted line, and ask when they can get started!

If you want to find more about that, here’s a handy blog post we wrote: How to Make Content Part of Your Sales Process (so you get more sales, faster!)

4. Grow your email list through your blog

Another goal you can achieve through your business blog is to grow your email list. When you give people something of value through a lead magnet (this could be a pdf guide, a quiz, an eBook, etc.) you can ask people to give you their email address in return. And with that, you get the privilege of landing straight into their inbox as often as you like.

Sure, you can advertise your lead magnet on your Homepage, but how well do people know you by then?

Probably not much.

But when they consume content on your business blog and learn about your views about a certain topic, it’s a lot easier for you to include what we refer to as content upgrades that people can download for free by entering their email address. Once they’re engaged with your content, your readers are more likely to want to grab the freebie you’re offering and land on your email list as a result.

So now that you know what you’re trying to achieve with your business blog, let’s try and work out how often you’ll need to share content.

Important! What to do if you have multiple goals...

You’ll probably have multiple goals for your blog.

In fact, our blog helps us achieve all the points above. We use it to get traffic, increase sales, deliver excellent customer service and to make sure we attract the right people to our business.

We know At some points in the year, we focus on sales – creating sales content for specific products or services we want to promote at that moment. 

During non-sales-focused periods, we focus on creating content that will drive traffic to our website and grow our email list (this blog post is an example of that – notice it’s published in December, a particularly quiet month for us). 

And then there’s the content we create that helps deliver excellent customer service and helps us attract only the right customers – this generally will come from the questions that people ask us. 

How often will you blog for your business?

If you’ve decided to start a business blog, the worst thing you can do is to publish one blog post and then disappear from the face of the earth for months on end. (Seriously, don’t do that).

Unfortunately, as much as we all wish blogging was like waving a magic wand, it’s not. It’s a game won with showing up regularly and consistently. So if you’re going to start, make a solid commitment and stick to it!

Yes, we know it’s hard. And that’s why we run our 90-day Content Marketing Challenge a few times a year to help you produce consistently good content that gets ranked on search engines. We also help you get faster and more efficient at content creation and, ultimately, get more leads and sales from your website. The cherry on top? We give you accountability and feedback and break down all the technical stuff that’s holding you back so it becomes super easy and actionable.

You can find out more and join the next 90-day content marketing challenge here.

Decide on your blogging frequency

So, now you’ve made the decision you’re going to blog, you need to work out how often you’ll publish new content. We find that consistency is key, so whatever you go for, make sure you stick to the deadlines you’ve given yourself.

Ideally, if you could blog weekly, that would be amazing, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have a library of content yet. Nothing stops you from blogging more though – you could publish content 2-3 times per week or even daily if you wanted.

Blogging frequently tells Google and the other search engines that your website is updated regularly, which must mean you have great content to share. So by publishing more content you’re not only giving yourself more chances of being found for more search terms that are relevant to your business, but you’re also telling Google that your website is the place to be to find new and relevant information.

Having said that, you need to strike a good balance between quality and quantity.

Publishing a piece a day of only 300-500 words might not give you as much as going really in-depth into a topic and writing a good 1,500-2,000+ word article. So if that means blogging every fortnight or every month, then that’s a great start. But be consistent. Because your audience will expect to see new content from you on a regular basis, and delivering on your promise helps you build trust with your readers.

Decide on your platform – where should you put your business blog?

We’ve seen some companies use various platforms for their business blog, including…

1. A separate website for their blog
2. A website they don’t own like Medium
3. Using LinkedIn articles to replace their blog
4. Housing their blog on their own website

We recommend you house your blog on your own website. That way your articles will rank and get found by people searching on Google. And then easily be able to find out about your products or services or sign up to your email list.

You can always repurpose your blog posts for Medium or LinkedIn articles, but it’s wise to publish on the platform you own first!

What will you share on your business blog? 

I know what you’re thinking now. “This is all well and good, but I don’t know what to write about!”

Well, we know that getting started with something new is always tricky. But once you get going, you’ll have so many ideas you’ll never run out again. Promise!

So let’s look at some content inspiration for you.

“How to” content

This is the most popular form of content you’ll find on the internet and business blogs in general. There’s a reason for it – it’s great for website traffic. Because when you don’t know how to do something, you head over to Google to find the answer, right? So your “How to” articles provide your audience with the know-how they’re looking for.

Although this blog post you’re reading doesn’t have “How to” in the title, it’s a “How to” piece of content. It tells you everything you need to know about the topic of starting and running your own successful business blog.

So think about the kind of things you’re an expert in. What do you teach in your business? What do you find yourself explaining to your customers or clients over and over? Sit down with a cuppa and make a list of topics – you’ll end up with an awesome starting list of potential articles for your business blog.

Here are a couple of examples from our own business blog:

• How to Write Website Copy for SEO.
• How to Create a 90 Day Content Strategy.

“They Ask, You Answer” content

In a nutshell, this is about answering the questions that your existing customers or prospective clients ask you all the time. The term comes from the book They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan. You may have heard us talk about this book before (we love it!), and that’s because its teachings have literally transformed our business and the way we use content marketing to generate leads and sales.

If you want to find out more about the exact topics that Marcus Sheridan recommends you create content about and want more inspiration, head over to the blog post, How to Plan 50 Pieces of Content in 30 Minutes.

“Content Fortress” Content

If you’ve come across any of our content at all, you’ll probably be familiar with the phrase “Content Fortress”, which is the title of our book and online course.

So what does this phrase mean? Imagine your business is the ‘castle’ you’re trying to protect. To keep it safe, you might want to build a wall or some sort of structure around it. And for us, the way to build this ‘fortress’ is to create content. That’s it. Creating a content fortress means protecting yourself (as the most important asset in your business) with content.

With us so far?

“But protect yourself from what, exactly?”, you might ask.

Glad you asked.

From bad clients, for example. From people who aren’t right for you and your business – people who come with the wrong expectations or assumptions. Or people who might be after a product or service you don’t even offer!

See, the thing is – when you create the right type of content around your business (and publish it on your business blog), you start to attract more people who are right for you and repel those who would you might say yes to despite your gut telling you not to, and they turn out to be people who aren’t a great fit for you (or you for them).

Like we said earlier, repelling clients might sound like a bad thing, but it’s really not! Especially if it protects your mental health and ensures your business occupies a positive place in your life.

If you want to find out more about all this, head over to the blog post, What is a content fortress?

“Pillar” content

Pillar content is long-form content that goes really in-depth into a topic. We’re talking 2,500-4,000+ words here. Yes, it’s epic! But that’s what’s so good about it. It’s comprehensive, it goes into detail, it answers loads of questions that your ideal customers might have, and it’s great for SEO. It’s your typical “Everything you need to know about X” content.

Here’s an example we have on our website, SEO For Beginners: The Ultimate Guide.

When you write this type of content you’re not just providing a great customer experience for your users, but you’re also increasing your chances of being found on Google. Why? Because when you write long-form content you’re probably going to use lots and lots of handy phrases that people might search for (a.k.a. keywords) and also link to other pieces of content you’ve created. And these are the kinds of things that the SEO gods absolutely love!

Plus, with articles of this length, you’re also telling the search engines that their users are more likely to find what they’re looking for in your piece, rather than in your competitors’, who may have written a short 500-word article on the same topic. So you’re winning all round!

News-related content

There’s a lot you can do here. You could share newsjacking content, which is all about creating a piece showcasing your thoughts and opinions based on trending news topics or breaking news stories. This could be anything you have an opinion on, but we’re talking about your business blog here, so ideally, stick to topics that relate to your industry, niche, or business.

For example, are there any changes coming up to rules and regulations that affect your industry? Could your readers benefit from you breaking down key information and explaining how the changes impact them? Say you’re an accountant. I’m sure you have loads of clients who could do with an easy explanation of what Making Tax Digital is all about and how it impacts them, right? (No, seriously, are you that accountant? Help!)

And finally, when it comes to news-related content, it could be something about your own company. Although, we always say to try and limit this because as much as this is your website and your business blog, the harsh truth is that your prospective customers don’t care about you – they care about how you can help them.

So whenever you’re sharing news about yourself and your business, make sure they’re relevant to your audience. An example of this may be talking about ‘your why’ (i.e. why you started your company and do what you do).

But how do you write one of these blog posts?

Once you know your topic, then you actually have to write them damn thing. And even if you’re a seasoned blogger, there’s always so much room for improvement. We know, we learn something new on every post we create.

You’ll want to make sure you hit the key points that make a great blog post. Including…

1. A killer headline that attracts attention (and helps you rank)
2. An opening paragraph that grips the reader and gets them to read on
3. A structure that is easy-to-understand and follow
4. A conclusion that gets your reader to take action

We’ve actually created an in-depth blog post on how to write a blog post.

What will your blogging schedule look like?

Okay, so now that you know what you’re going to blog about, it’s time to look at how you’re going to do it. How will you distribute content across your business blog?

You have a few options here:

• You could mix and match your topics, choosing from the different types of content we shared in this blog post. This gives your audience a good variety of topics and ensures you’re not only just creating the same kind of article week on week. This is exactly wa
• Goal-focused approach. If you have a particular goal you’re trying to achieve (for example, increasing your website traffic), you could decide to create a lot of ‘How to’ or Pillar content to attract more visitors to your website from the search engines. Or, if you’re trying to rank for a particular keyword, you might decide to create a series of articles on that topic for a month or two or until you’ve said everything you wanted to say about that topic.
• Campaign-driven approach. This is about choosing the one thing you want to sell and going to town with creating content around it. If you want to read more about this approach, head over to our piece, How to create a 90-day content strategy.
• Awareness days content. You could also decide to create content around specific awareness days, such as Mental Health Week, Dry January, or whatever you choose. Again, you want this content to ideally be relevant to your industry and your business, as this gives you a chance to let your readers see what your take is on a particular issue and add value to them. 

How will you optimise your blog posts?

So you now know how often you’re going to blog, what you’re going to blog about, and how you’ll distribute your content creation. What’s next?

You’ll notice we talk a lot about SEO and the fact that having a business blog where you publish regular and valuable content will help you be found on Google.

But the thing is – it doesn’t just happen by magic. There are things you need to do before, during, and after writing your blog posts to make sure they are picked up successfully by the search engines. This is called optimisation, and even if you don’t know the first thing about it, you don’t need to be a techie or hire an expensive SEO agency to be able to do it.

You can learn everything you need to know about optimising your blog posts in this handy guide, WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Posts.

And once you’ve done that, simply set aside an additional 20-30 minutes to optimise each of your blog posts, and you’ll be good to go!

How will you drive traffic to your business blog?

Now that you have the most amazing business blog, the last thing you need to do is to start driving traffic to it. You’ve got this incredible content you’ve spent all this time and effort creating, so of course, you now want to make sure people find it, right?

Definitely (and pleeeease) don’t fall at this last hurdle! We see so many business owners do this, but your job when it comes to business blogging doesn’t stop when you hit the publish button. You need to get eyeballs on your content. Because that’s the first step to generate leads and sales from it.

So what are some of the things you can do to promote your blog posts?

1. Repurpose your content

Optimisation is of course the first big step in making sure you’re ticking all the right boxes so that Google and the other search engines pick up your content. But you can’t just leave it at that. So the next thing you can do is to repurpose your blog posts into other pieces of content to get them in front of more people.

So, for example, you could repurpose your blog posts into:

• LinkedIn articles.
• Guest posts on more influential websites with a broader reach than yours.
• YouTube videos.
• A series of slides, a talk, or a presentation.

To get more ideas and information about what repurposing is (and find out how to do it), head over to the article, How to Repurpose a Blog Post (and Save Yourself So Much Time!)

2. Share on social media

Sharing your content on social media also gives you a chance to reach more people. However…

How many times have you seen a post from someone on your social media feed saying,

“Hey, here’s my latest blog post! Go and read it! Here’s the link.”

Do you honestly stop scrolling and go and read it? We’re willing to bet that most of the time you don’t. (Unless the title or the title image happens to jump at you as the thing you’ve been wanting to look into for a while).

So instead of just broadcasting and letting your social media audience know you’ve published something new, try repurposing that content (see above). You can do that by pulling out some of the key points you covered in your blog post and inviting people in that way. You’re more likely to grab their attention and have them click on your link to head to your website and read.

3. Share with your email list

If you have an email list (and if you don’t, why not?), it’s another great chance to let more people know about the new content you’ve published on your website. A brand new blog post gives you a nice excuse to email your list, but (again) don’t just drop the link and run. Make sure your email shares something of value that links nicely to your latest blog post. And then you can drop the link.

And if you’re looking for tips on how to grow your email list, head over to the article, The Ultimate Guide to Generating More Leads From Your Website.

4. Paid advertising

Another way to drive traffic to your website is through paid advertising. You could run paid ads via different social media platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) While this isn’t free (the clue being in the name), when done right, paid advertising gives you the chance to get in front of new audiences, especially if you don’t already have a large following on your social media channels.

You see, social media platforms hold lots of information about their users that you could never dream of getting direct access to – things like where people live, how old they are, what interests they have, etc. So by using social media advertising, you’re in a much better position to utilise that data and get your content in front of more of your ideal customers and clients.

How to generate leads and sales from your blog

So now that you’ve driven traffic to your website, what’s next? Well, the last thing you want is for people to just come and have a quick read and then click the back button and never come back. When that happens, you have no real visibility of who’s been on your website, which means you can’t interact with them and steer that relationship in any way.

Instead, you want to generate leads – i.e. capture your visitors’ details. You want people to give you their email address in exchange for some sort of freebie or giveaway. It could be someone booking a call with you or filling in your contact form.

As we explained earlier when talking about using your business blog to grow your email list, you can do this by offering:

• A freebie or lead magnet. This is something you offer on your website to all your visitors.
• Content upgrades. This could be, for example, a free checklist or PDF that expands on the content you covered in a specific blog post.
• A paid product. Similar to a content upgrade, this product fits in with the content of your blog post, but instead of being something your audience can download for free in exchange for their email address, it’s a paid-for product.

You can learn more about how generate leads through your blog and website in general in our blog post, how to create a lead generating website.

Want to Cut Your Blogging Time in Half?

So there you have it. Everything you need to know about business blogging! As you can see, there’s A LOT that goes into blogging and creating a blog post can take a lot of time. This is why we’ve created our Blog Post Template pack. It includes 10+ fill-in-the-blanks blog post templates that will save you so much time and increase your traffic and rankings!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Ultimate Business Blogging Guide appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

They described this as ‘hitting different pain points or nuggets of info that seemed totally unconnected, but always magically ended up at the promo.’

And the key to this is simple. All you need to do is understand exactly what your audience needs to know in order for them to buy from you.

And then talk about it – in your blogs, on social media, in video, in email and in your sales page copy. Hit everything your audience could possibly need to know.

But Here’s The Tricky Part

You need to do this by asking yourself some important (but pretty uncomfortable) questions.

The more honest you are, the better. And then all you need to do is share your unbelievably honest answers with the world.

So in this blog post, I’m going to tell you exactly what awkward and uncomfortable questions you should ask yourself, and your answers will make great content.

What Are The Uncomfortable (But Essential) Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before You Create Content?

Let’s get stuck into some pretty awkward questions, shall we?

1. Why wouldn’t someone buy your products or services?

Thought I’d start you with a gentle one to ease you in. Just kidding. I’m starting off mean.

I want to know why someone wouldn’t buy from you? What is it about the product or service that you sell that makes people nervous?

An Example of How We Would Answer This Question

I’m going to use an example of when we designed WordPress websites. There’s a whole bunch of stuff about WordPress that makes people nervous. Such as, is WordPress safe? I’ve heard WordPress isn’t as secure? Isn’t Squarespace or Wix much easier?

Or let’s say you’re hosting a virtual event. Some people might think that ‘virtual’ means less social. Less exciting. Less actionable. Of course, you know this isn’t true. But that doesn’t matter.

Turning Your Answer Into Sales

It’s your job to explore all the issues people may have with your product or services. Explain why people may be wrong or misinformed. Or explain why they might be right, but what they can do to combat the problem. Or what you do to help.

But most importantly, be honest. Don’t just say there isn’t an issue when there is one. Explain the issue and describe, as the expert you are, the best ways to deal with it.

2. And why wouldn’t someone buy from you?

And you thought the first question was mean.

Sorry. But it’s only going to get more and more awful.

By this question what I really mean is: what the hell is wrong with you personally?

What puts people off about you?

An Example of How We Would Answer This Question

Here’s something that put people off working with us when we did website design. (It’s a long list, bear with me).

We don’t sit at our desks 9-5. We don’t have a fancy office with bean bag chairs and whizzy coffee machines. We don’t do face-to-face meetings. We don’t have a massive team but we still charge just as much as bigger agencies. We don’t work weekends and we don’t wear suits.

Phew. That’s a big list, right?

But does it scare us? Did we try to hide these things? Or do we make ourselves miserable and not do these things just so we can make sales? Nope. We stuck with them and we were upfront about them. And I’ve explained why below.

Turning Your Answer Into Sales

In spite of all the perceived things that are wrong with you, I bet you still deliver an excellent product or service, right? I bet your customers bloody love you. We certainly still delivered great websites.

So, your job is to explain why the stuff that is ‘wrong’ with you doesn’t actually matter. In fact, it isn’t all that wrong at all. And why you still deliver a great product or service.

By speaking about this stuff you will start to build trust and loyalty amongst people on your wavelength. Amongst the people who love you for your negative points (not in spite of them).

It’s no surprise that more modern and flexible businesses came to us for a website, rather than more traditional or old-fashioned businesses.

The more modern businesses weren’t chained to their desks from 9-5 either. And they hated face-to-face meetings or wearing ties just as much as we did.

Basically, your weird will attract similar weird. And that makes for a really enjoyable working environment for you.

3. Who will not get a decent ROI from working with you?

Ahhhhhhhhh!

What are you talking about, Lyndsay! Everyone gets a good ROI with me.

Do they though? Would everyone in the entire world benefit from your products or services?

I’m going to guess the answer is no. They won’t.

I want you to start thinking about who really wouldn’t get a decent ROI from working with you.

An Example of How We Would Answer This Question

When we ran a web design agency, we wouldn’t work with new business owners.

That’s because new business owners hadn’t yet established their brand, target audience and outlined their services. And this meant that investing 10K in a website (that was likely to change 6 months later when their business changed) would not be a wise investment.

Or for our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge, it’s those who don’t want to make time to create the content. Because if you’re not going to take the time for it then there’s no point joining the challenge, right?

Turning Your Answer Into Sales

Think about who won’t benefit from your products and services and create content out of this. Why? Because if you highlight who won’t benefit from your products and services, you strengthen the trust and loyalty with those who will see the benefit from your products and services.

They will consume your content and see that your product/service is exactly right for them, and they’ll definitely see an ROI. They’ll respect your honesty and transparency and feel confident in working with you.

4. Who are you not the right fit for?

Have you ever worked out who you’re not the right fit for and spoke about this publicly?

Now, I’ve seen people try to tackle this question with things like, ’If you don’t want to make 6-figures in less than a week, then I’m not for you!’

That’s not an answer. That’s just bullshit. Because of course, everyone would want to earn 6-figures in less than a week. So you’re not really stating who you’re not the right fit for. You’re just trying to use some weird reverse-psychology crap to make a sale.

An Example of How We Would Answer This Question

For us, in web design, it was people that wanted a ‘techie they could boss around’. People who had zero interest in our website strategy advice. There were also a bunch of other things too. You can actually read more on our blog post – reasons we’re not the right fit for you.

Turning Your Answer Into Sales

Doing this means you only attract those who are truly your ideal customers (no wasting time with the wrong-fits) And it builds trust and loyalty with your ideal customers too.

Your ideal customers understand that you’re not out to make a quick buck from anyone and everyone. You’re choosy, and you care who you work with.

5. Why do you charge what you do?

Most businesses’ pricing structure is unique. Even a tin of beans (I’m British, okay) varies in price between 25 pence and a pound. Why such a difference for the same product?

Your customers want to understand why you charge what you do. Okay, maybe not for a low-cost purchase like beans. But for most things people buy, they are interested in the cost.

You could cover things like…

• • Why you’re more expensive than other companies. Don’t cringe. Your customers are wondering this anyway, so just answer it!
  • Why are you so cheap? Yep, customers are also suspicious of stuff that’s cheap. So explain why you’re priced cheaper than others. Or why you’re product is so affordable.
  • Why do you quote different businesses at different prices
  • Why are your prices increasing?
  • Why do you not offer discounts?
  • How much money have you made? Yep, we’ve also answered this one too.

An Example of How We Would Answer This Question

We have answered many questions about our pricing structure. But a successful one was a blog post about why we charged larger companies more for web design.

We tackled a particular objection large companies may have had had, which was ‘they’re probably charging us more because they know we can afford it’. This wasn’t true, and we set out to explain why.

Turning Your Answer Into Sales

This works because it’s incredibly open and transparent. It takes a lot of trust for someone to invest in you. And if you break down why you charge what you do then you help build enough trust and understanding for someone to move forward and invest.

Why Does This All Work? Because Objection Handling Is Broken.

There you have it – five uncomfortable questions you should ask yourself that can turn into great content.

You’ll notice that all these questions are essentially about answering people’s objections about working with you.

And do you want to know my one problem with objection handling? It relies on the prospective customer voicing their objection. And this is a problem because prospects can be shy (they don’t want to offend you) or defensive (they don’t want to admit they can’t afford it).

This is why creating content around these objections works so well. Because you voice them. You say out loud what the customer is thinking in their heads.

And they, in turn, will be hugely impressed! They’ll feel understood and heard. And they will appreciate that you brought it up first so they didn’t have to.

What’s Next For You?

If you want to take your content to the next level, check out our Content Strategy Guide which will help you create a lead-generating content strategy in under 10 minutes!

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Five Awkward Questions You Should Ask Yourself To Create Great Content appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Scenario A – you arrange a call with someone in order to get answers to your questions about a product or service they sell. 

Scenario B – you get all the answers to your questions and objections via this company’s website. 

Hmmmmmm…

Sales call where you have to wait to chat with someone, and possibly feel pressured into the sale.

Or…get everything you need, as-and-when you need it. 

It’s just so tough, right?

Nah, not really. We’re option B all the way. And you probably are as well. 

But a lot of business owners force their prospects onto ‘sales calls’. Or hide information from them until they at least get in touch. I’m not saying they do this is on purpose. Often it is this way because everyone else does it this way. It’s accepted as the ‘norm’. 

Unfortunately, this is highly frustrating for your potential customer. But it’s also a pain in the arse for you too. Because it means you have to spend your time with lots of people who are potentially not the right fit. 

People Don’t Care What You Say, They Care What You Publish 

One of the main reasons we use content to ‘do the selling for us’ is exactly that – people don’t care what you say, they care what you publish. 

Buyers are cynical and they fear getting ripped off, or making the wrong purchasing decision. They don’t want to waste money (understandably).  

And even though I’m sure you’re a super-honest person who delivers an excellent product or service – it’s difficult for your buyer to tell on a sales call or even in email. That’s because you could say anything to them. They have to take what you say with a pinch of salt. 

That’s why bringing content into your sales process works so well. If you create public-facing content and send this to your client/customer, it’s instantly trustworthy because it’s out there. It’s content for everyone to see.  

How to Use Content Within Your Sales Process 

In this blog post, I’m going to tell you how to bring content into your sales process at 3 key stages of the sale…

1. Just before someone gets in touch with you 
2. Once they have got in touch with you 
3. Once they’ve purchased from you 

And if you do this, you’ll see so many benefits. You will

• Deliver excellent customer service to your potential and existing customers – wowing them and building trust 
• Deliver sales faster and more efficiently 
• Get sales from your ‘ideal clients’ who are eager to buy from you 

Ready? Let’s get stuck in! 

Content Marketing and the Sales Process: Just Before Someone Gets in Touch

Most content marketing is aimed at helping people. That’s why you see so much ‘how-to’ content. Like this article, for example. The aim of this article is to educate business owners about content marketing. 

But what this article (and many, many more like it) doesn’t do is talk about our products or services directly. It doesn’t help you make a decision about whether or not you should buy from us. 

And that’s the biggest mistake business owners make with their content. They produce too much content like this, and zero content that helps their readers invest in them. 

What they need to do is create content that’s aimed at the decision stage of the buyer’s journey i.e. content that helps people decide whether they should work with you. 

What Happens When You Don’t Create Decision-Stage Content

We grew our business by creating lots of helpful content. However, our enquiries looked a little like this…

We attracted anyone and everyone! And a lot of these people simply weren’t the right fit. So we wasted a lot of time with the wrong people. Or worse, we’d take someone on as a client and they wouldn’t be the right fit for us. 

Decision-based content tackles this. It helps your prospects qualify (or disqualify) themselves from your business. And it increases trust and loyalty because you’re prepared to publicly talk about your products or services in a frank and transparent way.  

What Does Decision Based Content Do? 

Decision-based content helps your prospect make an informed buying decision. If they are comparing companies to buy from, it helps them understand you and your products/services better. 

There are a few key elements that make good decision-based content: 

1. It’s content that directly relates to your products and services 
2. It’s content that informs your customers and gives them what they need to make a buying decision 
3. It’s not overly ‘salesy’ i.e. it’s not pushy! It is helpful first and foremost

What Are Some Examples of Decision Based Content? 

These are some examples of decision-based content that you use in your business right now…

• Why I’m Not The Right Fit For You 
• What is My Step-By-Step Process 
• Everything You Need to Know About My X Service/ Y Product 
• Why We’re More Expensive than X
• Reasons You’re Not Ready to Invest in My Product/Service 
• How Much Do I Charge for X? 

You can see clearly how this kind of content will help your website visitor make a buying decision. This should be the content that either: 

1. Encourages your audience to get in touch
2. Repels the wrong fits from your business

You can find out more about this kind of content via these two articles: What is sales content and how can it help you get more sales and how to get more sales with objection-led content.

Content Marketing and the Sales Process: Once Someone Does Get In Touch 

So, you get an email into your inbox from someone asking to work with you. If you’re a service-based business, many prospects will request a call or face-to-face meeting at this point. 

And we have one thing to say to this!

You don’t have to go on a call with a prospect at this point. 

You have no idea at this point whether your prospect is the right fit i.e. will they have the right budget, do they have what they need in place to start working with you, are they ready for your service, do they have the right timeframe in mind etc? 

There’s no point wasting an hour meeting with this person if they’re completely wrong. 

So at this point, we recommend you send your prospect some content. 

Sending Content Before You Meet: An Example in Action!

It may go a little something like this… 

Example email from your prospect:

Hey Emily

I’ve just finished my fiction book and I’m looking for an editor. I came across your website. You were recommended to me by a friend and I’ve checked out your website. All looks great, can we arrange a chat? 

Kind regards, 

Steve

Instead of jumping straight into the call, you can send content at this point to make sure they’re right for you (and also deliver some extra customer service magic). Your reply could go a little something like this. 

Hey Steve, 

Thanks so much for getting in touch. Huge congratulations on finishing your book! 

A call sounds great. Just before we do that, here is some content about me and my business that will help you decide if we’re the right fit. If this all looks good, just let me know and we’ll arrange a call. 

1. How Much Do I Charge? 
2. What Is My Process? 
3. Everything You Need to Know About My Editing Service 

Kind regards, 

Emily 

Do you see how simple that is? In this example, Emily has prevented wasting her time with Steve if he isn’t the right fit. 

What she’s also done is provide Steve with excellent customer service. Imagine how impressed you would be if you got the answers to your questions like this, without having to speak to someone first? 

Plus, when the call does go ahead, it’ll be a much more productive and engaging meeting. That’s because don’t have to talk too much about price or process or how something works. All that’s been covered by your content, so your prospect can ask more specific questions. 

This is just an example and it works differently for every business. Sometimes, we might send prospects to an article called ‘Why You’re Not The Right Fit For Us’ – this is usually when we pick up on something in their initial email that tells us they might not be the right fit. 

Every time You Waste Your Time…Prevent It From Happening Again 

This is a good rule to follow. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of time-wasting in business. People want to absorb your time and before you know it you’ve had a few calls and your day is completely wiped out. 

This isn’t a criticism of the people who book those calls or want to speak to you face-to-face. They’re usually unaware of what they’re doing. And they’re unaware of how much time you have (or lack!) 

So it’s your responsibility to prevent time-wasters. A good way to do this is to create a piece of content every time someone wastes your time in order to prevent it from happening again. 

For example, as web designers, we were often asked to pitch for work. We’ve pitched once in our lives a long time ago, and it took days out of our business. We had to prepare a presentation, do research, and come up with ideas. We even mocked up a homepage of a website. 

So we decided to never, ever pitch again. And when someone asked us to pitch we’d politely say no. But it still took time explaining why. 

So we published a blog post about Why We Don’t Pitch for Projects, and never again have we done this or had to explain why we don’t do it! 

And the amazing thing is, we’ve actually been hired by companies who initially wanted us to pitch because they appreciated our honesty. 

Next time someone asks you a question as part of the sales process that requires a lengthy explanation, create content instead! 

Content Marketing and the Sales Process: Once Someone Becomes a Customer 

Have you ever bought something and then wondered what the hell was going on right after you bought it? 

Or have you ever bought something and immediately felt like the company’s initial enthusiasm about you completely waned as soon as you handed over your cash? 

I know I have.  

And it’s a horrible feeling to face as a customer, right? You instantly start to question your purchase. You may feel ripped off. You may feel angry. You may have buyer’s remorse. 

This is the absolute last thing you want your customers to feel as soon as they buy from you. 

In fact, you want them to be more excited after they’ve bought than they were before they bought from you. 

But this takes time, right? To make every customer still feel excited and at ease. 

Actually, it doesn’t have to take too much time, because you can you content to support you. 

Sending Content to Someone Once They Become A Customer: An Example in Action!

As part of our onboarding process for our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge, we send all new subscribers a document on exactly how the challenge works, where they can find everything they need and what to do next. 

This isn’t public content (although it can be) and it’s actually just a simple Google Doc – to show you what we mean, you can check it out here if you like. 

It’s nothing super fancy, but it helps answer any questions our new members might have and it also makes people feel at ease. You don’t want anyone confused about what is happening!

Content is So Much More Than Driving Traffic…

Content isn’t just about getting more traffic. It can be used throughout your entire sales process. And it can do a lot of communicating on your behalf – saving you time, making sure you attract the right people and delivering excellent customer service. 

If you’re ready to take your content to the next level, then check out our content marketing challenge…

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to Make Content Part of Your Sales Process (so you get more sales, faster!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

‍Best salesperson – that will deliver you actual direct sales (as well as be helpful) 

‍Knowledgeable customer service advisor – to help your potential customers make the right buying decision 

Knight in shining armour – to protect your time from those who are the wrong fit 

Advertiser – encouraging lots of footfall (i.e. web traffic) to your business

But we’ve noticed that some of our blog posts are the ‘shining stars’ – they work really hard for us (and other businesses too). They pull their weight by saving us time, increasing sales, and getting lots of traffic to our website. 

And the best thing is, you can create content like this too. And if you’re not sure where to start with blogging or need some help, then read our ultimate guide: how to write a blog post. 

So in this blog post, we’re going to tell you about 5 key killer blog post ideas that will work hard for your business.  

1. Blog Post Idea One: How much does it cost… 

What’s the one thing you Google? 

How much does it cost. 

How much does it cost to hire a marketing coach/personal trainer/book editor? 

How much does a shark hoover cost? 

How much does a swimming pool cost? 

How much does a mansion cost in London? (I already know this one – way out of my budget)

You get the picture. 

And better yet, creating a ‘how much does it cost’ piece of content is easy because you already know the answer inside out. You’ll know and understand the variables that can make the cost of your product or service go up or down. And you’ll know and understand the market and what the minimum/maximum price might be for your product or service.  

Top Tip for this Blog Post Idea!

The one thing I would recommend when creating content like this, is that you give someone an indication of what you charge within the content too.

For example, you could go into details about how much it costs for a website, what the variables are, what can make the price go up or down etc. And then you could say, I charge between £x and £x or I charge ‘from £x’.  

How Will This Content Work For You? 

One of the biggest benefits of this content is that it ranks – especially if your competitors shy away from this topic. This is something we learnt from Content Marketing master, Marcus Sheridan in his book, They Ask, You Answer. 

The reason we recommend you also include your costs is because…

1. It’s just good customer service if you do this 
2. It saves you time -it prevents people from getting in touch with you when they don’t have the right budget. This can save you hours on emails, calls and writing proposals. 

Key advantages of ‘how much does it cost’ article:

• Rankability 
• Time saver – you can send it to new prospects once they get in touch, providing help and advice and preventing you from spending time with people who don’t have the right budget

Example of this blog post idea in action!

Fit Roots Martial Arts School do a great job at this with their article, How Much Does Martial Arts Cost? And it shows how this can work not just for B2B business but also a B2C business.

2. Blog Post Idea Two: Everything you need to know about x service/product

I personally follow a lot of people because they deliver thought-provoking, helpful content. 

They give and give and give. 

And…I don’t have a clue what they do. Not specifically. 

Their website might be unclear. Or I just soak up their content on social media and never actually visit their site. 

This is the danger when you only give helpful content. There’s got to be a point where you ask for the sale and explain what it is you do.

This is where a piece of content can help. We love ‘everything you need to know about my x product/service’ or ‘how to work with me’ type content.

This is a very specific piece of content that walks the reader through the key features and benefits of your product or service in a simple way. It’s a great way to get eyeballs on your products and services. You can share it on social media and email it to your list. 

It grabs the attention of those who love you but may not have considered working with you before. Or it gives those people who have been considering you a little nudge in the right direction. 

Top Tip For This Blog Post Idea

This content isn’t a sales page. So try to avoid over the top, unnecessary sales copy. Imagine this content is a good customer service advisor, providing helpful advice on a particular product or service – that’s exactly how it should sound!

How Will This Content Work For You? 

This isn’t content that ranks on Google. And that’s okay. Not everything has to rank. This is something very much aimed at people at the ‘decision stage’ of buying from you – where your potential customer is looking at different companies to buy from and weighing up which one suits them best. 

This content delivers good customer service and it fills in any gaps missing from your sales pages. It also shines a light on your products and services as you can share this on social media and in your email. 

Key Advantages of an ‘Everything You Need to Know’ Post

• Sales generator
• Customer service 

Example of this Blog Post Idea in Action:

I love Adele’s blog post all about her Greek Retreat. It tells you everything you would need to know without being salesy or overly promotional. It’s frank and informative. Exactly what’s supposed to be. 

We also published an Everything You Need to Know post about our 90-day content marketing challenge. In exactly the same way, this is an unbiased overview of the product – the exact opposite of the sales page!

3. Blog Post Idea Three: ‘How to find the right x’

We all hate making a bad buying decision. We fear wasting money and time. We fear looking silly. We fear getting ‘ripped off’. And that’s also why we do a lot of research before we invest in things. I can’t buy a bloody toaster without doing a deep dive on reviews. 

That’s why it’s a good idea to hold your audience’s hand when it comes to buying the products or services you sell (even if they don’t directly buy from you). This is where the ‘How to find the right x for you’ content comes in. 

This is content that helps guide people to find the right person for them. It could be how to find the right editor, coffee machine, graphic designer, estate agent, personal trainer, content writer, social media expert, recruitment agency etc. 

Whatever it is you sell, people need help buying it. Your job is to help them. 

Top Tip For This Blog Post Idea

When you create this kind of content, it’s not about selling you specifically. It’s about helping your audience find the right person for them. 

It has to be unbiased and incredibly helpful. Sure, mention what you do (definitely don’t shy away from it) but that’s not the sole purpose of it!

How Will This Content Work For You? 

You can deliver excellent customer service and rank on google too. People often search for ‘how to find the right x’ and similar key phrases, so it’s a good one to go after. 

It also builds a huge amount of trust with your audience. Imagine struggling to find the right personal trainer. Then you come across a helpful blog post that tells you exactly how to find the right personal trainer for you. 

Who are you going to remember? And who are you more likely to use as your personal trainer? The person who helped you, of course!

Key Advantages of a ‘How to Find the Right X‘ Post

• Rankability
• Customer service 
• Trust Builder 

Example of this Blog Post Idea in Action:

I love this example from Denise, who actually published a podcast on how to find the right editor for you. It’s great content that really does help the audience. There are so many different factors that go into hiring an editor, and in one piece of content, Denise clears everything up!

4. Blog Post Idea Four: Reasons you shouldn’t work with me 

This is the juiciest piece of content you will ever create, and it’s fun and highly therapeutic! But most importantly, it’s the best kind of content for attracting the right people to your business and repelling the ones you don’t want. 

This content is a simple list of reasons why someone shouldn’t work with you. It could be something you don’t do – for example, a fiction editor might say, ‘I don’t edit non-fiction’. 

Or it could be something more specific to your service, such as ‘I don’t work with people who have a budget of less than £5,000.’ 

It could even be something to do with mindset or attitude, for example, when we wrote our repelling content (that’s what we call it!), we stated that we didn’t want to work with people who were searching for a ‘yes-man/woman web designer.’ Essentially, we didn’t want to be told what to do and treated as an employee. 

Top Tip For This Blog Post Idea

It’s quite easy to slip into arrogance when you create this content. You might not do it purposefully. But when you create a list of reasons why people shouldn’t work with you, it can understandably come across as egotistical. 

Just have empathy for your reader when you create it. Come at this from a ‘good customer service’ point of view. You want to help your reader understand if they’re the right fit for you. You want to prevent them from wasting their time (as much as you don’t want to waste yours). 

So leave your ego at the door. And if someone isn’t the right fit (if they haven’t got the budget, for example) then point them to resources that can help them too. 

How will this content work for you?

Creating this kind of content works well for two reasons: 

1. You don’t waste your time communicating with the wrong people
2. You increase your trust with your ideal clients as they understand you’re exclusive. And you’re not out to make a quick buck from everybody out there. It shows pride and confidence. And people like that. 

We use this in our sales process quite often, particularly if someone gets in touch and they’re already bossing us around! But that’s rare now. Just having the content there really does prevent the ‘wrong fits’ from getting in touch. 

Key Advantages of a ‘Why You’re Not the Right Fit For Me’ Post

• Customer service
• Prevents bad clients
• Saves time

Example of this Blog Post Idea in Action:

I love this piece of repelling content from the content writer, Debbie Ekins. It’s confident and respectful and hits the perfect tone of repelling content.

If you’d like help creating this kind of content, check out our blog post on how to create repelling content.

5. Blog Post Idea Five: What’s the Process of Working with Me? 

How does it work? What’s the process? What’s the next step?

Ever asked yourself those questions when you’re thinking of working with someone? 

I have. All the time. And I hate it. I personally hate not knowing what’s going to happen. It makes me suspicious. 

I’m not interested in mystery and in the secret formula you promise to show me (once I hand over my cash, of course). 

Nope. I (like many other people) want to understand the EXACT process. 

And this is where process content comes in. 

Process content is extremely simple. It outlines the step by step process of working with you. 

There’s an argument to suggest that your prospects don’t need to understand the exact ins and outs of how you work. But in our experience, people do want to know your step-by-step process, even if it’s just a basic overview. And of course, it really does depend on the level of investment. You’re going to want to know more if you’re spending thousands. 

How will this content work for you?

Process content can work in many different ways. Firstly, it can actually be a way of generating sales because if someone sees your process they understand you know what you’re doing. 

You can also use it at various stages of working with someone. We add our process to every proposal we send and we also send it to each client at the start of them working with us. This means no one has that horrible ‘I’ve just paid money and don’t know what happens next’ feeling! 

Key Advantages of a ‘What’s the Process of Working With Me’ Post

• Customer service 
• Saves time 
• Can lead to sales!

Example of this Blog Post Idea in Action:

This is one of our oldest blog posts but it still pulls its weight 4 years on! This is the blog post where we listed our web design process step by step. 

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 Must-Have Blog Post Ideas That Work Hard For Your Business appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

‘But I don’t have time to invest in x.’ 

‘But you’re more expensive than that other company.’ 

‘I’ve invested in something similar before and it didn’t work. Why should I trust you?’ 

These are the kind of thoughts running through your customers’ brains. 

So what’s the best way to deal with them? 

BY SHOUTING EVEN LOUDER ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF YOUR PRODUCTS/SERVICES! 

Because that’s pretty much what we do, right? We avoid bringing up the ‘negative stuff’. We prefer to talk about all the good stuff around who we are and what we do. 

But if you avoid your customer’s objections then you run the risk of losing sales.

Is your content a crappy salesperson or a good salesperson? 

A crappy salesperson will apply pressure to get a sale at all costs. They will lie. They will flatter. They will use trickery and psychological hacks. And they certainly won’t talk about anything negative. 

A good salesperson will encourage a prospect to voice their objection. And a good salesperson will be able to talk through this objection – presenting a different view or solution. 

A good salesperson may even agree with the prospect’s objection, and advise them not to buy the product/service (a frightening thought, right?) 

Your content should act as the ‘good salesperson’. It should explore your prospect’s objections and give honest answers to their concerns. 

Why You Need to Get a No, to Get a Yes…

In the book, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, Chris describes the importance of getting the ‘no’ from a prospect. 

Prospects will often tell you what you want to hear, especially in face-to-face situations. People don’t want to offend you so they’ll say ‘oh that sounds good’ or ‘yes, I think we’ll go ahead!’ and then months go by and you’ve heard absolute zip from them. Despite you chasing multiple times. What fun. 

But once you get the ‘no’ you’re actually one step closer to getting a yes. When you get a no, you get to understand your prospects’ objections, for example, ‘it’s too expensive”, ‘I don’t have the time’ or ‘that guy over there is cheaper’. That’s then your opportunity to be the ‘good salesperson’ and counter those objections. 

Getting an objection (or a no) from a prospect can also give you a clue as to what others are probably thinking about your product or service. And this can be hugely powerful. Because this gives you the opportunity to tackle that objection before it comes up in conversation. 

Why You Need to Tackle the objection before your prospect mentions it 

There’s a phrase I see bandied around a lot. It’s… 

‘I see you.’ 

It’s important in relationships. If I’ve spent the day running around after our toddler, cleaning the house and working it’s nice when Martin says, ‘You’ve done so much today, thank you!’ 

It’s nice to feel appreciated. It’s nice to be ‘seen’.

It’s similar to what happens with objection handling. 

If you get in there first by voicing your prospects’ objections it will make them feel seen. It will make them realise that you understand them and that you respect them enough to bring up this objection yourself. It also validates their feelings and takes the awkwardness out of the situation (for example, I get that I’m more expensive). This automatically builds a huge amount of trust and loyalty with your prospect. 

So do not wait for your prospect to bring up their objection, tackle it head-on beforehand. 

Not sure what your prospect’s objections are? Ask yourself this question…

I get it. 

Getting to the heart of your customers’ objections is tricky. People are nice and often won’t tell us the ‘real’ reason they don’t invest. 

So if you’re struggling, ask yourself this one key question…

Why would someone not buy from you? 

It’s one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself in your business. 

You’ll need to examine it fully. Think about things like…

• How your product or service compares to your competitors
• How expensive/cheap your product is 
• How much time investment is required by your prospect
• Is there something about you that perhaps could put people off 

List all these things and you’ll have a good idea of your prospects’ objections. 

How do you tackle objections before your prospect mentions them? Through Objection-Led Content! 

Now for the fun part. Because once you have an idea why people won’t buy from you, you can then tackle this head-on. 

And the best way to do this is by using content. 

Why should you tackle objections through content?

Typically, when we talk about objection-handling we think about it in terms of a sales call. Of speaking to our prospects directly.

And you might think to yourself, well, why shouldn’t I wait until I’m speaking to my client directly to talk through the objections? 

You could, but the point is they may not get to the sales call in the first place. 

People expect answers to their questions without having to speak to someone face-to-face. 

We value self-service (just look at the number of self-service tills in use at the supermarket). It’s easier and it gives the consumer more control. And we’re becoming more accustomed to it. 

Essentially, people don’t want to talk to you to find out the answer to their question. And if your website and content fail to answer that question they’re not going to pick up the phone and call you. They’ll move on to someone else. 

How to create objection-led content that actually sells

So how do you create objection-led content that actually sells what you do? Below are three great examples of objection-led content that will transform doubt-ridden prospects into paying customers. 

1. The Common Misconceptions/Concerns Content

I love this kind of content. This content essentially lists your prospects’ objections loud and clear, and then goes into detail about why your prospect might be incorrect in their objection. 

A fantastic example of this is from one of our 90-day challenge members, Fit Roots Martial Arts School, based in Slough. Jasmin published an article called, Kids Kickboxing: 6 Common Misconceptions Parents Have. 

It’s a fantastic article that tackles the potential customer’s objections head-on. 

Jasmin lists each point, such as ‘Misconception 1: Kickboxing is dangerous’ – she then goes into more detail about why this thinking is incorrect and backs up her point using a quote from a British taekwondo fighter. 

But my personal favourite is: ‘Misconception 5: Kickboxing is too aggressive’

This is where Jasmin states, ‘So, you’re trying to get your child to STOP fighting with their siblings, not learn how to get better at it.’ This made me laugh. Because it’s clear Jasmin knows her audience well and she’s voiced the exact concern some parents might have with their child learning kickboxing.   

And I love how she counteracts this objection with, ‘Kickboxing, just like many other Martial Arts can teach your child to channel their energy in a positive way. All you need to do is find the right school or instructor.’ 

This introduces the idea that Fitroots Martial Arts School is, of course, the perfect school to teach children how to channel this energy positively. 

This is exactly why this content works so well, you take the objection, empathise with it, state why it’s wrong and how your product or service can solve their problem. 

2. The ‘Why’ Content 

Prospects are like toddlers, they ask ‘why’ a lot. 

Why are you more expensive than that other company? 

Why do you take so long? 

Why do you expect so much of me? 

Why are you charging me more than that person? 

Why is your product made from x material and not y material? 

Unfortunately, they tend to ask these questions to themselves (unlike toddlers who ask them out loud every four seconds). But this does mean prospects fill in their own answers. So when a prospect says to themselves, ‘hmmm why are you more expensive than other companies?’ they’ll fill in their own answer. Which is generally not so positive, like  ‘they’re probably ripping me off.’ 

This is where ‘why content’ comes in. 

Why content explains why you do something. 

We did this with our blog post – Why we charge large businesses & public sector organisations more for website redesign.

On our web design pricing page, we stated that our website packages started from £5000+. But when we spoke to larger companies or public sector organisations we’d usually charge £15,000+. 

On a sales call, a prospect hinted around this, and we explained why we charged large companies much more. 

But we realised, this could be a potential objection for larger companies, who might think, ‘are they charging me more just because we’re a bigger company and can afford it?’ 

So we wrote a blog post tackling that issue head-on, and we sent this blog post to larger companies when they got in touch about hiring us. We had a few compliments thanking us for our transparency! 

For you, this could be completely different. But try to think about those ‘why’ questions your prospects or customers ask you. 

Another great example of this is from Tutti Frutti clothing, with their blog post ‘Why Tutti Frutti Clothing is not a certified organic brand‘

This is an excellent blog post that tackles a potential customer objection head-on. Rather than hide it, Ali goes into detail about why she’s not a certified organic brand, but how ‘the majority of my clothing is made using GOTS certified fabric…’ 

So the potential customer understands why Ali isn’t yet certified, but they also feel confident that Ali really does care for the environment and uses organic materials. 

3. The Proven Case Study Content  

Another great way to overcome your audience’s objections is by using ‘case study’ content. This is great content that acts as proof that your prospects’ objections might be incorrect. 

For example, Jo Francis created an excellent blog post all about how to grow an email list using Facebook ads for just £110.00. 

For anyone who thought Facebook advertising didn’t work or was too expensive for their business has suddenly been proven wrong. 

A lot of business owners only add case studies to their website, but once you turn them into content they become share-worthy. You’ll notice that Jo doesn’t call it a case study. And it isn’t formatted as a case study. Instead, it’s an incredibly helpful blog post that has elements of a case study in there. 

It sells Jo but is incredibly helpful at the same time. 

This kind of content can work brilliantly if you also bring in objections to the content. For example, you could say ‘Before working with us, client x believed y.’ This will allow your prospective client to identify with the person featured within your content – building even more trust and smashing those objections! 

What Are Your Next Steps For Creating Objection-Led Content?

So there you have it. How to increase sales using objection-led content. Now it’s time to get cracking with your first piece of objection-led content! Remember, your first step is to ask yourself…

Why wouldn’t someone work with you? 

If you loved this and want more sales-generating content ideas and guidance, check out our course, Content Fortress. This in-depth course will help you use content to attract your dream clients that love who you are and are eager to work with you.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to increase your sales using objection-led content appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Yeah, you might quietly mutter the words ‘I never, ever don’t want to work with that guy.’

But you wouldn’t dare say it publicly, right? 

But if you don’t say it publicly, you could be missing a trick. 

When you explain who you’re not the right fit for publicly, two things can happen: 

1. You no longer waste your time communicating with people who aren’t the right fit
2. You increase your trust and loyalty with those who are the right fit. Because they understand that you don’t just work with anyone and everyone. And that you’re not out to make a quick buck! 

But the question is, how do you say it? 

And more importantly, how do you say it without coming across as a complete arse? 

This is where a ‘who we’re not the right fit for’ piece of content comes in. 

What is ‘wrong fit’ content? 

Wrong-fit content is a clear way of stating, well, who you’re not the right fit for. The idea comes from our Content Fortress framework, which helps you attract your dream clients (and repel the ones you don’t want!)

It’s clear and direct. It usually comes in a basic list format and is a pretty easy piece of content to create. 

Preventing problem clients from happening again 

You can (and absolutely should) use your own experience to create your wrong fit content. 

Chances are, you’ve worked with people and realised, for whatever reason, they weren’t the right fit. 

• Maybe they expected too much. 
• Maybe they expected things done too quickly. 
• Maybe they didn’t do something they had to in order for you to do your job. 
• Maybe you didn’t like the way they spoke to you. 
• Maybe someone misinterpreted what you offer. 

Whatever the reason, this content can help. 

Because when you have a problem with your clients, it’s your job to prevent that problem from ever happening again. 

If a client fools you once, that’s on them. If they fool you twice…well, you know how it goes. 

That’s why we recommend that you create content that prevents the same issues from cropping up in your business. 

Why is ‘wrong fit’ content so effective? 

Imagine you spend two hours every week talking to people who aren’t the right fit. This could be…

• Replying to emails 
• Going on video calls 
• Writing proposals 
• Meeting people face-to-face

All with people who aren’t the right fit for your business. 

Now multiply those two hours by your hourly wage. Let’s say £50. 

Over the course of a year that would be £5200. 

Now imagine at the end of the year I gave you an invoice for £5200 for absolutely nothing.

You wouldn’t be very happy, would you? 

And yet, this is what we’re doing day-in-day-out in our business. We’re wasting time with people who aren’t the right fit that ultimately cost us money. 

And don’t get me started on what happens if you actually take on a wrong-fit client. Because that’s even more stress and, potentially, wasted money!   

Essentially, wrong fit content prevents you from attracting people who will suck all your time, energy and money from your business. 

And when you put it like that, you can clearly see the benefits. 

First things first: how do you work out who you’re not the right fit for? 

Hold your horses! 

I know you want to drive right into creating this content. (It’s actually the most fun content to create). 

But, sometimes we really need to establish who we’re not the right fit for. 

And it’s not as obvious as you might think. 

Obviously, you don’t want to work with that guy who expects a reply to his email at 11 pm and never pays on time. That’s kind of a given! 

But think about…

1. Who isn’t quite ready for your products or services? 
2. What do people often ask you to do that might be out of scope?  
3. Who can’t fit within your processes? 
4. Is there anyone you clash with in terms of values or beliefs? 
5. How do you hate to be treated? 

Dig a little deeper into who really isn’t the right fit for your business, and once you have this, you’ll be able to create compelling ‘wrong-fit’ content. 

The Three Rules of Wrong-Fit Content

The problem with ‘wrong fit’ content is that it can easily go in the wrong direction. It can come across as arrogant, or disingenuous. That’s why you should follow these three rules. 

1. Don’t be sleazy 

Ever see one of those pop-ups that encourages you to sign up for someone’s freebie or newsletter? And when you want to exit it, it says something like ‘no thank you, I don’t want to be a millionaire who never has to worry about money again.’ 

Ugh. So sleazy! 

Unfortunately, this kind of thing can happen when you create wrong-fit content. If you’re saying things like ‘you’re not the right fit for me if you don’t want to be a millionaire’ or ‘you’re not the right fit for me if you want to work every hour in the day’ etc, then you’re doing it wrong. 

This is not an opportunity for you to sell yourself. Wrong-fit content is a way of getting people to prequalify themselves and understand if they are the right or wrong fit for you.  

2. Don’t be rude 

Another common problem with ‘wrong-fit’ content is that people can come across as rude. Let’s say you’re more expensive than your competition. You could say, ‘I’m not the right fit if you’re looking for the cheapest option or solution’ and then go on to explain how much you charge. 

But some people might word this badly. They might say, ‘if you’re a cheapskate, don’t hire me!’ or ‘you get what you pay for and if you’re looking for cheap then you’ll fail.’ Stuff like this (even if you think it’s justified) can come across as rude. 

3. Think of it as good customer service 

Ultimately, you have to think of this kind of content as ‘good customer service’. If you walk into a shop and a salesperson approaches you, how nice would it be if they told you honestly who wasn’t right for the product? If they were matter-of-fact, genuine and knowledgeable? If they were confident? 

This is how you have to imagine this piece of content. You are helping people make an informed buying decision. And in the process, you’re also benefiting yourself by only attracting the right people to your business. 

What are some examples of ‘wrong fit’ content?

I love learning by example. And luckily there are some amazing businesses producing this kind of content that will inspire you. 

Content 10x 

I love this article from Amy at Content 10x. They make it abundantly clear who they’re not the right fit for. And I love the handy little table at the start of the article. 

I also love how they state that ‘When we work with the right people, it helps us to do our very best work, which generates the best results for our clients.’ 

This is how a ‘wrong-fit’ article works so well. Because, yes, it repels those who are the wrong fit, but it also increases trust and loyalty from those who are the right fit. Just reading that sentence you understand that Content 10x doesn’t just work with anyone and everyone. They’re not out to make a quick buck. They care who they work with, and want to make sure that they get the best results for their clients. 

Mira Rutter 

I love Mira’s ‘wrong-fit’ article that she published as part of our 90-day content marketing challenge. And I particularly like how Mira takes into account who aligns with her values and beliefs. 

In her article, she explains that she doesn’t work with people who ‘are in business just for the money.’ 

Mira states that ‘It’s important to me that you truly care about the core of what you do. You use your talent, skills and knowledge for the betterment of the world.’ 

Mira’s has a clear idea who her ideal client is, and she isn’t afraid to say that she won’t work with people who just want to make money and nothing else. 

This means she gets to work with people who align with her values. Mira gets to do the thing she really loves – which is to help women achieve their financial goals and also make a difference in the world. 

Denise Cowle 

I love this no-nonsense blog post from MYMO member and amazing non-fiction editor, Denise! 

Denise states clearly that she doesn’t work with offensive material, explaining that ‘When I say offensive, you can take that to mean any form of hate speech: racist, sexist, mysogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, whatever.’ 

This makes sure she doesn’t have to get to the point of viewing material before she declines to work on it – which would take a lot of time out of her business! 

Denise also makes sure she helps those who aren’t the right fit. For example, she says she doesn’t work with fiction writers or writing that’s highly technical or scientific. But she doesn’t just leave it there. She actually helps those who aren’t the right fit by directing them to other editors that can help. 

Denise has really used this content to deliver excellent customer service. 

What are your next steps?

Ask yourself the questions I listed above and start creating your content. It can be a simple list of reasons why someone isn’t the right fit for your business. It’s actually one of the easiest and most enjoyable pieces of content you can create! And you can always check out our blog post on why we’re not the right fit for you too, for inspiration. 

If you want more content ideas like this and exactly how to create them, check out our book Content Fortress. It’s available from just £5.99! And it tells you exactly how to attract clients who respect your time and expertise, are eager to work with you and love who you are and what you do! 

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How and Why You Should Create ‘Wrong-Fit’ Content  appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Having a strategy for your content is the best way to achieve success (i.e. make some sales), save time and hit your overall business goals.

But Why A 90 Day Content Strategy?

Do you remember January 2020?

We had our usual ‘business away day’ to discuss what we wanted to achieve for the year. We had the entire year mapped out. Done. Sorted.

And then what happened? Oh yes, the entire world broke.

And our plan for the year went out the window.

Okay, so this is an extreme and (hopefully) a once in a lifetime example.

But 2020 showed us the power of moving fast and adapting.

1. A Year Is Just A Tad Long

This is why a 90-day content strategy works. It allows you to focus on one thing for 90 days. And it allows you to adapt and change if you need to. We have to move faster in our business more than ever. And take advantage of new opportunities. That’s why a 90-day strategy works.

It’s also easy to become complacent when you have a twelve-month goal. You think ‘I’ve got ages to achieve this!’ and your motivation is no way near as high as it is when you just have 90 days. We are human after all, and the looming deadline causes us to take action much faster!

2. But a Month Is Just a Smidge Short…

On the other hand, 90 days is just long enough to make some real gains with your content marketing. You can see a transformation in those 90 days (whereas a month is a little short). Like one of our members, Debbie Ekins who increased her traffic by 92% and added £10,000 a year in sales to her business.

3. When Life Gets in the Way, You Don’t Get Disheartened

We are human. And sometimes life just gets in the way. We’re thrown a curveball and it means we have to take a break or take things a little slower. That’s okay. With a 90 day strategy, you get right back to it when you’re ready. Whereas if you become stuck during a twelve-month plan, it’s a lot harder, mentally, to get back on the horse.

Creating Your Content Strategy: Taking Stock Of Where You Are Now

A lot of people recommend you do a humongous audit of your current content before you form a content strategy. And although, yes, this can be useful, it can take time and can cause us to procrastinate and overthink.

But, it is good to check a few things before you start, that way you can see how you’re doing when you implement the content strategy. We’re big fans of numbers as they tell us if we’re going in the right direction. So here’s what you should take note of before you create your content strategy.

1. Your Current Website Traffic

You can access this info from your Google Analytics. If you produce good consistent content during your 90 days, you should certainly expect an increase in website traffic.

2. Your Current Search Engine Rankings

You’ll want to see what keywords and phrases you’re currently ranked for in Google’s search results. If you create and implement your 90-day content strategy correctly, then you should increase your rankings for various keywords and phrases – appearing on page one of Google for lots of different searches. If you want to understand more about this, have a look at our Ultimate Guide for Beginner’s SEO post.

There are a few places you can check your current rankings, but we are loving the Hoth’s free ranking tool for this! Note down how many keywords you’re ranked for, and see this number increase during your 90 days of content marketing!

3. Your Website’s Domain Authority

Domain Authority is a way of checking how likely your website will rank in Google’s search results. It was created by Moz, and they give you a score out of 100. Don’t worry if it seems low, over the course of creating content this should increase.

What Platform Should You Use to Create Your Content?

One of the biggest questions we get asked is what platform you should use to create your content.

Pick One Platform That Will Deliver You Organic Traffic

We advise picking one platform that can deliver you organic traffic 24/7.

This could be your blog – where you can get found from Google.

Or a Youtube channel, where you can be found from…you’ve guessed it, people searching on YouTube.

Or a podcast where you can get found from people searching for podcasts in various places.

The point is, if you use these particular channels you don’t have to constantly update them. You create the content once and people can find you (if you do it, right) for a long time.

Pick One/Two Platforms To Share and Repurpose Your Content

Then, we advise picking one or two places to promote your content (and repurpose it) on social media. And what social media platforms you use for this will really depend on both your audience and your personal preference.

Here’s the typical way we do it…

1. Write a blog post.
2. Create 4-8 LinkedIn posts out of that blog post
3. Create Instagram graphics from that blog post

We do other things too, like email it to our list or post about it on Facebook. But those are the three main avenues we use.

It’s the most time-effective way of producing content that gets us found on Google and gets engagement and sales from our social media channels.

If you want to understand more about this, then check out our blog post on how to repurpose a blog post.

What are your business goals (and how can content help you achieve them?)

Okay, so now you understand why 90 days is the optimum time for a content strategy and what platforms you’d like to use. Let’s now talk about how you can put your strategy together.

Firstly, think about your business goals, i.e. what do you want to achieve in your business?

This could be…

• Build an email list of 5,000 people by x date
• Get five regular coaching clients every single month
• Earn 20K in revenue in 12 months from your digital product

How to Create Content That Supports Your Business Goals

Whatever your goal, content can and should support you. Let’s take some of the goals from the examples above and see how content can help…

How Can Content Help You Build Your Email List?

If your goal is to increase your email list, you should use content to help. You could create one blog post per week every week. You will optimise these blog posts for search engines in order to maximise website traffic. Each blog post would promote a ‘freebie’ you can give to the audience in exchange for their email address. If you do this for 90 days you will see results!

How Can Content Help You Achieve a Sales Goal?

If you want to earn a certain amount of money from selling something, you can create ‘helpful’ content around the topic of the thing that you sell – the kind that ranks on search engines and delivers you traffic.

Then you can also create sales content around the specific product itself.

Here’s an example of how we did this recently with our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge. We…

• Created helpful blog posts about content marketing
• Created sales posts about the challenge specifically, such as our blog post – Everything You Need to Know About the 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge
• Created helpful social media posts about content marketing
• Created social media posts to promote the challenge specifically
• Sent emails promoting the challenge

It’s the winning combination of…

1. Helpful content (that ranks and gets you traffic)
2. Sales content (that directly sells your product/service
3. and repurposed social media content (that spreads the message) 

This is where you hit the sweet spot! And if you can create a content plan for one thing you offer that hits those three points over a 90 day period, you will see results.

Why Do You Need a Combination of Helpful and Sales Content?

The buyer’s journey consists of three stages: awareness, consideration and decision. And it’s a process that your customers will go through before they buy your product or service.

At the awareness stage, the buyer realises they have a problem.

At the consideration stage, they begin to research all the potential solutions to that problem.

And finally, at the decision stage, they’ve decided on a solution strategy and are looking at suppliers or companies to buy from.

The reason why you have to create a combination of helpful content and sales content is that it hits people at different stages of their buyer’s journey. The helpful content will help people when they realise they have a problem. And the sales content will help them once they’ve decided on the solution to that problem.

How do you stick to the Content Strategy for 90 Days?

Once you’ve…

1. Evaluated where you’re at right now
2. Picked your content creation and promotion platforms
3. Understood what content you need to create to reach your business goals (and planned out what you will create)

Then you’ve created a 90-day content marketing strategy. Well done you!

The plan is the fun bit, but now it’s the difficult stuff. How on earth do you stick to a 90-day content strategy? We all start these things off strong, right? But then client work gets in the way. Or that holiday. Or just a pile of accounts stuff to do.

What you need is someone to hold you accountable. To guide you and help you with things like SEO or copy. To be part of a group of people who are creating content every week to help inspire and champion you.

This is exactly what we offer in our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge. The next challenge starts on Monday 17 May 2021. Sign up now or find out more. 

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to Create a 90 Day Content Strategy appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We’ve all heard that we need to produce valuable, in-depth content and that ‘content is king’.

And that’s absolutely true. But if you tried it in practice, you also know how time-consuming content creation and can be. Plus, let’s not forget that your prospective customers and clients are busy. Just because you’ve shared a piece of your awesome content once, it doesn’t mean they’ve seen it!

So here’s something a content strategy you may have not considered – content repurposing.

In this blog post, we are going to share 6 different ways for you to repurpose a blog post (and save yourself a hell of a lot of time in the process!).

But first thing first…

What is Content Repurposing? 

Content repurposing means taking a piece of content that you’ve previously created and turning it into something that you can reuse and re-share somewhere else. Easy, right?

Repurposing can take many forms. You can record a YouTube video or a podcast episode and turn that into a blog post. Or you can take sections from a blog post and share them as a series of social media posts. You can even pull out interesting quotes from a piece of content and create beautiful graphics, memes, or infographics out of them. That’s repurposing too!

When it comes to content repurposing, you have plenty of options, but we always recommend that you start with a blog post first.

And here’s why…

Why Repurpose a Blog Post? 

We tell all our clients and members to have a ‘website first’ mentality.

Are you now wondering what that even is? Well, fair enough.

It’s simple, really. It means you create content for your website first and then slice and dice it however you like and repurpose it into different pieces. And once you have repurposed it, you can share it in different formats and on other platforms, like your email list or social media, for example.

But why start with your website?

Because the more content you share on your website, the more chances you give yourself to rank on Google for different keywords. And that gives you opportunities of being found by your ideal customers or clients.

Pretty cool, right?

We think so.

Because if you don’t publish content for your website first, you’ll miss out on all those search engine searches that could easily land more and more people on your website. If you want to read more about how creating content helps you drive traffic to your website, head over to our article, SEO For Beginners: The Ultimate Guide.

But the blog post is the foundation of your content strategy – it’s where it all starts.

So now that you’ve got some amazing blog posts, what can you do with them?

1. How to repurpose a blog post onto LinkedIn 

The great thing about creating a longer piece of written content first (and that’s your blog post!) is that you can then easily take sections of it and create 5-10 individual posts that you can share on social media.

We use this method from Content Writer Sara Bussandri to repurpose our blog posts on LinkedIn, but it works for Facebook or your Instagram feed too.

All you need to do is to grab a section of your blog post (a teaching, a lesson, or a key point you want to share) and ‘dress it up’ for the social media platform you’re sharing it on.

Using Sara’s method, to put your post together, you need:

• A ‘hook’ – an interesting line or question that will stop people in their tracks. You want them to quit scrolling and read your post.
• A short introduction to your topic. Why are you talking about this today? Why does it matter to your audience?
• The lesson or point you want to make. This can be taken directly from your blog post. If it works, copy and paste. If not, rephrase and summarise.
• A conclusion or question to encourage your audience to engage with your post. You want people to comment on your post, as that tells LinkedIn that your content is interesting and popular. And in turn, it will be shown to more people.
• And finally, some hashtags. These work as keywords. If someone searches for a particular term or follows the hashtags you’ve used, they will see your content pop up in their feed.

LinkedIn posts are limited to a maximum of 1,300 characters, so you’ll have to break your blogposts down and repurpose the content.

An Example of a Blog Post Repurposed into a LinkedIn Post

Below, is an example of how we turned a blog post about creating a lead generating website, into a LinkedIn post. The main part of the LinkedIn post (the 3 key steps to get leads on your website) comes from this blog post. Every time we write a blog post we also write up 5-8 LinkedIn posts too. This is because the blog post is fresh in our minds and it makes it a much faster process!

Repurposing Your Blog Post Into A LinkedIn Article

But nothing stops from you sharing longer articles on LinkedIn.

You can either create a LinkedIn article out of your entire blog posts or use parts of it and encourage your readers to go and read the full version on your website. Publishing articles on LinkedIn can help with your brand awareness and visibility. And it’s also a great way to build relationships with your connections.

If you want to find out more about creating LinkedIn articles, our awesome member Louise Brogan wrote this piece: How to Create LinkedIn Articles That People Will Read and Share.

Repurposing your blog post into a LinkedIn Carousels

We don’t ordinarily see LinkedIn as a visual platform. But this recent article from Content Repurposing Expert, Amy Woods at Content 10x, was really interesting! Amy talks about how you can repurpose your content into a ‘LinkedIn carousel’ which is multiple images that you need to swipe through. These images tell a story or explain something. And they work incredibly well on LinkedIn. This isn’t something we’ve tried before but it’s on our to-do list after reading the article!

2. How to repurpose a blog post on Instagram posts and Stories 

Compared to LinkedIn, Instagram is a much more visual platform. So if you are going to repurpose your blog post content for Insta posts or Stories, you need images!

When we repurpose content for our Instagram account, we create graphics out of the content. We use templates from Viral Marketing Stars to help us, which can be customised with your brand colours and fonts in Canva. They’re designed to generate engagement and grow your following and have been working really well for us. 

Obviously, if you’re posting on your Instagram feed, you also need some written content to go with your image. The graphic will capture your audience’s attention and stop them from scrolling, but the text in your post is your chance to encourage them to engage with your content and go and check your website.

So make sure you write a unique and engaging post to introduce your blog content. You don’t want to just tell them to click on the link in your bio! You can use the same tips we shared for creating LinkedIn posts to write your Insta posts too.

An example of how we repurposed a blog post to an Instagram Post…

Below was one of several graphics we made based on our blog post, what to put on your homepage. As you can see the image doesn’t just say, ‘hey we have a new blog post!’ It gives people some actual advice (such as the 8 things you should include on your homepage).

3. Repurposing your blog post into a Podcast 

Your blog post can also be turned into a podcast. So once you’ve written your blog posts and organised all your thoughts on a particular topic, it’s easy enough to record a podcast episode out of it.

You can either record yourself as your read out your article like a script and then upload your audio file onto your podcasting platform, or you just use your blog post as a starting point and guideline. Instead of reading, you talk your audience through it naturally. And that will become your podcast episode.

Awesome, right?

If you don’t have a podcast show already, you may have a few other things to think about, including equipment, graphics, etc. To find out more about how to start your own podcast, check out this article from Colin Gray, a.k.a. The Podcast Host, How to Start a Podcast: Every Single Step for 2021.

And if you are a podcaster and your content creation machine starts with podcasting rather than with your website, you can fix that. Your podcast episodes can also be turned into blog posts that you can publish on your website to drive more traffic to it. For more information on how to do this, check out this blog post from Content Writer Sara Bussandri, How to turn your podcast episodes into blog posts.

An example of how we repurposed a blog post into a podcast episode…

We took a blog post on how to create the perfect website and transformed it into a podcast episode called: The 6 Elements That Make a Successful Website. Both contain the same 6 key elements that make a successful website. And both break these 6 elements down.

The podcast and blog post are both similar, only one is written and the other is spoken. So if you have blog posts and you’re planning to start a podcast, remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! You have plenty of content on your blog that you can transform into podcast episodes.

4. Using your blog post within an email 

Your blog posts can also be used to share content with your email list.

Again, we recommend that you don’t just send out an email that reads,

“Hey! I’ve written a blog post. Here’s the link. Go over and read it!”

Honestly? No.

You won’t get a lot of people who actually go and click on that link to read your awesome blog post.

Think about it – if someone’s trusted you enough to give you their email address it’s because they liked what they saw on your website, and they wanted more of it. So your email needs to deliver some value!

You want your lovely subscribers to learn something from your email, so don’t just ‘link drop’. When you put your email together, include at least some of the content from your blog post. Pull out the most important or interesting points, for example.

Obviously, you can still give them a link to it, but we’re talking about repurposing here. So ideally you want to use your blog content in the newsletter and give your audience the information they’re after.

An example of how we repurposed a blog post into an email newsletter

As we said, you can’t just link to your blog post in your emails. It’s good to actually give some content within the email itself. In this example, from our bi-weekly newsletter, The Jam Sandwich, we break down just one point from our blog post, The Ultimate Guide to SEO.

We go in-depth on this one point and ask people if they want to read the whole blog post. But the point is, they will have learnt something even if they don’t go on to read the whole post.

5. Create a lead magnet out of your blog post 

Another way to repurpose your blog posts is to create content upgrades or lead magnets.

A content upgrade is a piece of content that you offer to your readers as a bonus or as additional information in exchange for their email address. It’s basically a lead magnet that goes with your blog posts.

Why add bonus content to your blog posts? Because that way you can capture email addresses and turn anonymous website users into subscribers. And once you have those people on your list, you can then nurture that relationship, offer value, and hopefully, one day turn that subscriber into a loyal customer.

Cheatsheets, checklists, or guides work really well as content upgrades, and you can create them yourself with very little effort using a free resource like Canva.

An example of how we repurposed a blog post into a lead magnet

You can find a content upgrade example in our blog post, The Ultimate Guide to Generating More Leads From Your Website. Right in the middle of our article, we have a call to action that invites our readers to download our 10-minute Lead-Gen Guide.

6. Use your blog post in a presentation 

And last but not least, you could also repurpose a blog post into a presentation. Once you have a series of nicely designed slides, there’s a lot you can do with them.

For example, you could:

• Upload the presentation as a Document on LinkedIn.
• Give a talk at a networking meeting, an industry event, or inside a private membership.
• Share your content during an online webinar on social media (for example, in a Facebook live).
• Upload the slideshow onto your YouTube channel.
• Talk through it and record a Loom video that you can then upload onto your website.
• Use the content in a paid training session or workshop.

As you can see, there’s a lot you can do with your content, and it all starts from a blog post!

Want some help with consistent blogging?

Thinking up fresh new content for your website, social media, your newsletter, and any other marketing channels you might be active on is so difficult! But hopefully, you can see now why we advocate creating content for your website first. Repurposing your blog posts will make your life easier and save you time too.

And if you’d like some accountability, our next 90-day Content Challenge (or 90DC for the cool kids) kicks off on the 17th May 2021. We encourage you to create a fresh piece of content every week for 13 weeks. It can be any type of content you like, but if you create and publish blog posts, imagine how much you could get out of 13 pieces of content in terms of traffic to your website and repurposing opportunities!

When you join the 90DC you get:

• Accountability.
• A dedicated feedback channel.
• A Private community group.
• Weekly training.
• SEO and Content Marketing courses.
• Content Strategy Planning sessions.
• And even Canva blog post image templates.

All for only $297 for the full 90 days! Or you can join our membership for just $59 per month and get access to the challenge and so much more You can sign up for the 90DC here. See you there!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Repurpose a Blog Post (and Save Yourself So Much Time!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

That karma would shine down on me and clients would fall from the skies eager to work with me.

Did this happen?

No.

Because when you do this you’re playing a waiting game.

Your audience laps up all that free content, and you sit there waiting for the sale.

Your audience is in control.

But at some point, you’ve got to bite the bullet and ask for the sale. And you have to do it directly! Not at the end of a really helpful blog post where you scurry out like a mouse and say ‘oh, by the way, you might find my services helpful go check them out’ and then scurry back into your hole in the wall.

No. You have to directly and confidently tell people what it is you do, who you help and how you help.

Yes, you cover this on your product or service pages on your website. But people have to naturally find their way to these pages.

I’m talking about getting this information directly in front of your audience.

I’m talking about creating sales content.

What is Sales Content?

Sales content is exactly like it sounds, it’s content that is designed to get you sales. It includes everything you might talk about on a sales call. It answers all those questions you get from your potential customers. And it relates directly to YOUR products and services (not your industry as a whole).

We talk a lot about sales content in our book, Content Fortress. Sales content makes up one of the key pillars of content marketing.

The Huge Problem With Content Marketing…

Ever heard of the buyer’s journey?

The buyer’s journey is a process that your customers will go through before they buy your product. It consists of three stages: awareness, consideration and decision.

At the awareness stage, the buyer realises they have a problem.

At the consideration stage, they begin to research all the potential solutions to that problem.

And finally, at the decision stage, they’ve decided on a solution strategy and are looking at suppliers or companies to buy from.

An Example of The Buyer’s Journey

Awareness Stage Example

Let’s say you’re at a networking event and someone says to you, ‘oh, you sound great, do you have a website?’ and you realise that you don’t and this may be a turnoff for potential customers. You’ve become aware of the problem.

Consideration Stage Example

So you go home and begin to research all the available solutions to that problem. Building your website yourself on Wix. Building it using page builders such as Elementor. Hiring a freelance web designer. Hiring an agency. Lots and lots of lovely research. You download some checklists or guides from these websites to help you.

Now you’re at the consideration stage, where you’re researching all the potential solutions to your problem.

Decision Stage Example

You do your research and then you decide you decide on hiring a freelance web designer. And then you go about comparing different people.

You’ve found the solution strategy. 

Most companies produce content that covers the first two stages. They produce helpful content that teaches people how they do what they do (how to build a website, for example). Or they help people get to the ‘decision stage’ by creating content that helps them choose the right solution strategy. For example, like our blog post ‘should you hire a cheap web designer or design your website yourself?’

But they fail to produce content that hits people at the decision stage. That sells themselves (over their competitors).  

The Buyer’s Journey Can Be A Slow One: Speed It Up With Sales Content

The buyer’s journey process can be quite slow – particularly for service-based businesses or high-cost products. It could take someone weeks, months or even years to go through this process.

When we create helpful content we imagine our audience reading it then thinking ‘oh that was helpful. I am now going to read their entire service page and then get in touch with them if I think they’re right for me.’

The reality is a bit messier.

The reality is they go away. Other stuff takes priority. You’re still in the back of their minds but they need more time.

In 2019, we looked at our previous 10 clients. 7 out of 10 of those clients were on our email list for at least 3 months. One person was on it for two years, consistently consuming our content until they made the decision to buy. Proof that this is much messier than we think!

This is why you need sales content because it hits your audience right between the eyes! They’re not just continuously reading your helpful content. You suddenly present your audience with sales content, and they then are encouraged to make a decision as to whether they should work with you.

How Sales Content Earned us £25,000+ From One Blog Post

In 2019, we produced a piece of sales content called ‘Why we’re raising our web design prices.’ In it was a clear call to action that said: if you buy before x date, you can still get our prices at the current rate. We emailed it to our list and made $25,000+ from that one blog post (that we can trackback directly).

Sales content was the content we’d been missing all along. People kept consuming our free helpful content but they needed that nudge help them decide if they actually wanted to work with us or not.

Get Your Web Visitors’ Email Address

That’s why it’s a good idea to get your readers email address. So you can continuously bring them back to your content. You can find out more about how to get someone’s email address in our blog post, how to create a lead generating website.

If you have an email list, you can simply send your sales content to them.

How often should you use sales content?

It’s worth pointing out that you shouldn’t use sales content all the time. People will get a little tired of it. Sales content should be used as a seasoning, not the main meal. Usually, one out of every five pieces of our content is classed as sales content.

More Examples of Great Sales Content…

We encourage our members in our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge to create sales content. Here are some examples to inspire you!

The ‘Everything You Need to Know’ Blog Post: Debbie Ekins

We love ‘Everything You Need to Know’ Posts. They are blog posts that tell you…well, everything you need to know about a particular product or service.

They work well because it helps summarise what your product or service is all about and it answers all your audience’s questions or potential objections.

What we love about Debbie’s ‘Everything you need to know about my blog writing services‘ post is that she doesn’t shy away from the kinds of questions many businesses don’t like to answer (but our customers really want to know!) – things like ‘how much do you charge’ or ‘when do I need to pay’.

The ‘Case Study’ Blog Post: Jo Francis

I personally love case study blog posts. Most people put their case studies on a dedicated page on their website. Which means someone has to actively find the case study.

If you have a ‘case study’ blog post you can get in front of more people. You just have to reframe it slightly. A traditional case study is more about how you helped your client. A case study blog post looks at the steps you took to help your client achieve a particular result. It’s half helpful blog post/half highlighting your services.

Jo, a Facebook ads specialist, does a great job with this in her blog post: How to grow your email list by 1000 contacts for £110 ($150).

Jo explains how she worked with her client to grow their email list using Facebook ads. I particularly like how useful this blog post is to the reader. She breaks it down step-by-step. But Jo also doesn’t shy away from promoting herself too – and why shouldn’t she! Jo clearly gets great results for her clients.

The ‘Reasons to Buy’ Blog Post: Adanna Bankole

A ‘reasons to buy’ post generally focuses on the benefits of your products or services rather than the nitty-gritty details.

These posts work well because they highlight exactly what your customers will get out of your products.

I love how Adanna approached this blog post because it’s actually a pretty scary one to write! In her blog post, ‘4 Reasons to Buy My Business Plan Templates‘, Adanna talks about why you should invest in this product. She lists her reasons clearly like ‘it will save you time’ or ‘it’s more convenient. She also features a testimonial from someone who has bought the templates – a really nice touch!

The ‘My Services Explained’ Blog Post: Sara Bussandri

This is typically where you explain how your products and services work and why they work so well.

Even though it may seem obvious to you, a lot of people might not understand how your products or services actually work, and they may have a lot of questions about it.

Sara does a great job with her blog post: My blog writing service and packages explained. She explains why she doesn’t just write individual blog posts, why she doesn’t offer a ‘trial’ and she tackles the issue of how someone can actually write for another business (without being in it).

The ‘I’m Raising My Prices’ Blog Post: Janine Coombes

This is my ultimate favourite blog post! Is it scary? Yes! But it’s so much fun to write and it’s the one we’ve found delivers really good results.

We all should raise our prices at some point during our business careers. Normally, we do this ‘under the radar. We don’t tell anyone about it, we just simply change our websites to reflect our new prices.

With existing clients, it’s trickier, because we have to email them to let them know that there will be a price increase.

This is why we love the ‘why am I raising my prices’ blog post. Because it’s your opportunity to tell people how flipping brilliant you are and how much value you deliver. And therefore why (justifiably so) you’re raising your prices.

This is also a great thing to send to existing clients. As we always say, people don’t care what you say, they care what you publish. And if you state publicly that you’re raising your prices,  your client will believe and trust that this is a decision you’ve made for all your clients. Not just for them.

We love how Janine, a marketing coach, tackles this in her blog post: The 5 reasons I’m putting my prices up. Janine is super confident. She states that she’s raising her prices because ‘I’m seriously good at what I do.’ And then she goes on to explain what she’s done for her clients.

She breaks down exactly why she’s raising her prices in a transparent and frank way. And it works incredibly well for building trust and authority.

What Are Your Next Steps When It Comes to Creating Sales Content?

So there you have it. Some great examples of businesses using sales content. And there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t do this too!

If you want help, support and some accountability when creating sales content (and lots of other content too), why not join our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge? This THE challenge that will help you create content that delivers you rankings, traffic, leads and sales.

The doors are next opening on the 22 April. Join the waitlist now.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post What is Sales Content and How Can It Get You Sales? (With Examples) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And how, then, can you prevent them from happening?

We’re not suggesting you use a crystal ball to see into the future to predict any client/customer issues.

(Besides, the first thing we’d all do if we had a crystal ball is check out those lottery numbers, right?)

But there are things you can do to prevent client problems before they actually happen.

How To Prevent Customer Issues Before They Happen

Have you ever had a problem involving your customers or clients? We know we have. It’s safe to say that the majority of businesses have. We are human, after all.

These problems could be things like…

Taking on the ‘wrong fit’ client

– someone who doesn’t respect you or how you work. Or someone who can’t follow your processes. Or simply someone who is not on your wavelength.

Scope creep

– a common problem for business owners who end up doing much more than what was originally agreed.

Clients not doing their ‘part’

– if you’re anything like us, you may need your clients to do things in order to complete the project. For us, this is things like providing a website copy or a logo. You may find that some of your clients are a little sloth-like when it comes to giving you what you need.

Customers not knowing what happens next

– they may have started out excited to buy from you, but they’ve ended up confused about what’s going on

What you need to do is think about all the problems you’ve experienced before, and think about how you can prevent these from happening again.

But to do this successfully, you need to rethink how you view these problems…

Changing Your Mindset: Problem Customers Are YOUR Responsibility

You may feel that when issues crop up with your clients or customers, this isn’t your fault. Perhaps you feel that the customer is unreasonable or demanding or just won’t put in the work they need to do?

Here’s the thing, regardless of whose fault it is, you need to take responsibility for it.

And we get how hard it is to take ownership and responsibility for something (especially if you feel it isn’t your fault).

But by taking responsibility, we’re not saying that you should be a pushover and do exactly what people tell you to do – quite the opposite.

We’re talking about accepting that the problem happened, understanding why it happened and using content marketing to prevent it from happening again.

[bctt tweet=”Accept the problem happened, understand why it happened, and use content to prevent it from happening again. ” username=”Jammy_Digital”]

A Proactive Rather than Reactive Approach to Solving Customer Issues

This all stems from having a proactive approach to problem prevention (rather than reacting as soon as problems crop up!)

This is how content marketing can help. You can create content that proactively prevents problems from happening in your business BEFORE they happen.

The Contract Myth: Why Not Use A Contract to Prevent Issues?

When business owners start to think about proactively preventing problems in their business, the first place they start is the contract or terms and conditions.

This isn’t a bad thing – far from it, it’s always a good idea to have a contract! But, a contract can give you a false sense of security.

It can make you feel protected. But, it relies on your client or customer reading it (and a lot won’t). And secondly, if something does happen, do you really want to utter the phrase ‘as per the contract’? Can you imagine saying this phrase every month or week? Eugh. It gives us the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

That’s not the best foundation for good customer relationships.

So yes, a contract is a good idea and it will offer you legal protection.

But referencing your contract with your client is really the ‘last case scenario’ card.

[bctt tweet=”A Contract Should Not Replace Good Communication With Your Customers” username=”Jammy_Digital”]

It’s much better if your potential customer is educated about who you are and how you work before they even get in touch with you. Rather than down the line when issues crop up.

How Do You Use Content Marketing to Prevent Customer Issues?

There are actually a lot of ways you can use content marketing to prevent customer issues.

1. Make Sure You Only Work With The ‘Right Fit’ by Creating ‘Repelling’ Content

Ever taken on a client and realised they’re not the right fit? This could be for different reasons: they could see you as an employee – someone to boss around or interrupt at any time of day.

Or they could be someone who isn’t yet ready for your products or services. They’re not bad, just not suited for what you offer.

Taking on clients that are the wrong fit can cause huge amounts of stress (for both you and the client). That’s why you need to be crystal clear…

• Exactly who you help and what you will and will not do
• Communicating that to your prospects

You can do this through something we call ‘repelling content’ which is specific content that repels the ‘wrong fits’ from working with you.

How Repelling Content Prevents Customer Issues

It prevents you from taking on clients who are the ‘wrong fit’, and better still, it prevents you from even talking to the ‘wrong fit’ clients. The last thing you want is to waste your time communicating with people who aren’t right for your business, and this content hits them before they get in touch.

The beauty of ‘repelling content’ is that it also works to attract those dream clients too. It shows that you’re selective about who you work with and that you’re not for everyone. It makes those who are the right fit feel special and part of a select group.

Examples of our ‘repelling content’ include:

Reasons You Shouldn’t Work With Us
Why New Businesses Shouldn’t Invest Thousands in a Website

*If you want to delve deeper into how content can protect your business, check out our book, Content Fortress. 

2. Communicate Better With Customers By Using Process Content

Consistent customer communication is the key to happy customers. And happy customers, as you guessed it, means happy business owners.

But, consistent customer communication is actually a lot of work!

Particularly if you have long, in-depth projects with lots of moving parts and you need your clients to do some work too.

To do this, we recommend you create ‘process content’. Process content is a way of communicating with your customers/clients, informing them of what’s happening during every step of your process. It can be public content and also private content. But the best part about it is you create it once and use it time-and-time again.

How Process Content Prevents Customer Issues

Your clients/customers are happy as they’re getting regular, educational content that tells them exactly what’s going on. They’re not left confused, or worse, wondering if they made a bad buying decision.

Better yet, you’re happy because you create this content once, and use it again and again with your clients/customers. Saving you loads of time (and impressing your customers too).

Examples of some of our process content:

• How we build your website from start to finish
• Why the cost of your project might go up

3. Attract Customers Who Are On Your ‘Wavelength’ With Opinion Content

Opinion content is, you guessed it, content that revolves around your opinion. This could be something to do with your industry, products, or customers, or even something personal to you.

Often opinion content stems from your frustrations. It comes from experience and that voice within that tells you, ‘okay, I really need to say something to stop this from happening.’

How Opinion Content Prevents Customer Issues

Some people will disagree with your opinion. Others will agree with it. Either way, if you produce ‘opinion content’ you will attract those with similar beliefs (and repel the ones with opposing beliefs).

This works because you end up attracting customers who are on your wavelength. They get you and what you’re all about.

Plus, it makes people aware that you have an opinion, and this is based on your experience and expertise. You position yourself as an authority and as someone who isn’t just a ‘yes-man/woman’- simply there to take orders.

Examples of some of our opinion content:

• 5 Ways Your Ego Turns Off Your Website Visitors
• Why referrals are bad for business

Remember, it’s All Your Responsibility

Remember it’s incredibly freeing when you take ownership when things go wrong in your business. Because it’s all in your power to prevent it from happening again.

By using content, you prevent issues in your business right from the beginning. It’s a pro-active, preventative measure that helps you stop problems before they happen.

If you’re interested in reading more about how to work with your dream clients and repel the ones who aren’t the right fit, then pre-order a copy of our book, Content Fortress.

Those who pre-order a copy will be part of a training session with us, which delves deeper into how to use content marketing to protect and grow your business…

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Stop Customer Issues Before They Happen (Using Content Marketing) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But, in this case, what’s inside the fortress is your business. And instead of stone, the fortress is made up of content.

It may sound a little drastic. Having to ‘protect’ your business with a fortress of content. This isn’t life or death, is it? We’re not at war.

Of course not. But you are the most important asset in your business. And you must protect yourself to guarantee the future health and success of your business.

We’ve found that the easiest, simplest and most effective way to protect yourself and your business is through content.

Our Fancy-Pants Definition of a Content Fortress:

A Content Fortress is about using content to protect your business, time and even your mental health.

It’s a proactive prevention strategy, ensuring you only attract and serve the right customers. Each piece of content that you create, using this strategy, is another stone in your content fortress.

Content Fortress: A Happy Accident Born From Unhappy Circumstances

We’d used content marketing to grow our business. And it worked well…

• We ranked on Google
• We 10x our website traffic
• We had a steady flow of leads and sales
• We raised our prices

BUT…

Something was wrong.

None of this stopped us from getting stressed. In fact, when we reached this level of success, we were more stressed than we’d ever been. We were constantly busy, sometimes dealing with difficult or demanding clients, and our work/life balance was pretty much 100% work/ 0% life.

So it got us thinking. If we could use content marketing to grow our business, could we develop a way of using content to protect our business from difficult client situations and, more importantly, protect our time?

That’s when we started to build a Content Fortress (although it didn’t have such a cool name at the time).

Identify Your Gaps – Fill Them With Content

Building a Content Fortress is all about identifying the gaps in your business–in your processes, in your communication, in all those problem areas that cause you stress and hassle–and using content to improve them (or eradicate the issues entirely).

On the flip side, as well as preventing problems, it’s also about working with your dream customers. It’s about how to educate your prospects, and get them to a place where they’re your dream customers, who understand who you are and how you work. The kind of customers that get you out of bed in the morning.

An Example of Content Fortress in Action…

If you want to see an example of this in action, we published a blog post why new business owners shouldn’t thousands invest in a new website.

We did this because…

• New business owners needed a lot of our time and support (not just with their website but with setting up a business)
• The projects took a long time as they didn’t have website-copy, a logo or branding.
• They would want to wait until their site was live until they started selling (and had to get their investment back quickly)
• They would need to change their website shortly after it went live, because a lot changed for their businesses within the first twelve months.

It’s fair to say that new business owners weren’t the right fit for us. And, spending thousands on a website wasn’t the right thing for them either.

By creating content, we prevented new business owners from working with us. But we also educated them on the best route to take.

Instead of saying no in an email, feeling awkward, typing and then deleting the email a thousand times. Or coming across as arrogant–like we didn’t want to work with new business owners. We explained our reasoning through content.

It saved us time, money and stress.

Since then no new business owners have asked us to build them a website. But…people have read that blog post, and come back years later when they were in a better position to invest.

People Don’t Care What You Say. They Care What You Publish.

We could just send an email every time a new business owner asked us to design a website. We could just explain our reasons why we don’t do it.

But when you publish something, it commits you to it. It proves to your prospect that this is true. It shows them you take it seriously. And it shows them that this is not just something that applies to them, it’s how you run your business for all your customers.

You can say all sorts of things to your prospects and customers. But, the sad fact is, people, don’t care what you say. They only care what you publish.

[bctt tweet=”People Don’t Care What You Say. They Care What You Publish. ‘What is a Content Fortress and Why Is It Vital For Your Business?’ ” username=”Jammy_Digital”]

Making A Commitment To Yourself

Building your Content Fortress helps you stick to your own rules. Because we’re all tempted to take on the wrong fit or bend our processes a little. Especially when money is waved in front of us. Even if you have that niggling feeling in your stomach, telling you something isn’t right. You say, oh it’s fine. Yes, there are some red-flags with XYZ. But it’ll be okay.

You’re only human. We all get tempted! But content is a great way to keep ourselves in line. We can’t go back once it’s published.

The Eight Pillars of the Content Fortress

There are eight pillars that make up a content fortress. By producing content around these eight pillars, you will…

1. Attract your dream clients
2. Prevent customer issues
3. Communicate better with your customers
4. Have happier customers who are more likely to recommend you

The Eight Pillars That Make Up Your Content Fortress

During stressful or uncertain times in our business, we turned to content to help us. We wanted to create a business that supported the life we wanted to lead. And we discovered that there are eight different types of content you can create in order to protect your time, and work with your dream customers.

In our book, Content Fortress, we do a deep dive into each of these pillars, with examples from businesses who do it well. But here’s an overview to help…

Repel Content

There’s a lot of talk about attracting your ideal clients. But not so much about repelling those who are the wrong fit. You have to actively repel the ‘wrong fits’ from buying from you. And you have to do this BEFORE they get in touch. Why? Because you don’t want these people taking up any of your time. You don’t want them disrupting your day. That’s why content is the best way to do this.

Attracting Content

In the same way as repelling content, you have to ‘actively’ attract your dream clients. The problem is, our ‘dream’ clients aren’t always paying attention to us. You need to create content that proves to them that your products or services are helpful and relevant–even if they’re unaware of you, your product. Or even if they don’t think you can help.

Sales Content

Sales content is for those lurkers who are ‘on the fence’ about working with you. They know who you are, and they know how you can help. But they’re still a little unsure. This kind of content gives them the push (or shove) that they need. It gives them the confidence that you’re the right company for them. It sells your products and services just like a good salesperson could face-to-face.

Pricing Content

Every single customer who gets in touch with you will ask you about the cost of your products or services. But the kind of ‘pricing content’ we’re talking about goes way beyond talking about the cost of your products or services. It’s about creating specific pieces of pricing content that will attract your ideal customers and keep your current customers happy. It’s not ‘here’s what I charge’. It’s ‘this is why I charge what I charge’.

Guiding Content 

Guiding content is content that helps your prospects become better, more well-informed customers. This means by the time you take them on as a client or customer you spend less time educating them. You get started on the project or deliver the product much quicker, and your customer feels completely at ease.

Process Content

Process content tells your customer exactly what is happening at every stage of the buying journey. From the moment your customer hands over their precious cash, to the moment you deliver your product (and beyond) they should be informed about your process and what happens next. This is a biggie in terms of keeping your customers happy.

Culture Content

Culture Content is a way of using who you are, your values and your story to attract your dream clients. Knowing and promoting who you are and what you stand for isn’t some cringy marketing exercise (well, it doesn’t have to be). It’s vital when it comes to attracting your dream customers. The kind of customers that get you out of bed in the morning.

Opinion Content

We all have opinions about what we do. About our work, our customers and our industry. We form these opinions through experience and knowledge. But often, we don’t share these opinions with our prospective clients, and we definitely don’t do it in our content. But we should, because this is the way you can attract like-minded customers who you’ll love to work with.

Try This Simple Task…

Now all of that can feel a little…scary. It seems like a lot there. But you don’t need to produce content for each pillar straight away. Try this simple task first.

Think of the last time you had an issue in your business – it could be a miscommunication with a customer or taking on the wrong kind of client.

Now, think of how you can prevent this from happening again. Because you’d do things differently, right? Now think of a piece of content you can create to combat this problem from happening again. Just like we did with the blog post, ‘why new businesses shouldn’t spend thousands on a website’.

That’s all you have to do, think about it. Got it?

That’s Content Fortress. It’s learning from all those issues in your business and using content to prevent them happening again.

If you want to delve deeper into what Content Fortress is all about and how it can help your business, pre-order our book. It’s £12+ delivery. And 10% of sales go to the mental health charity, Mind.

Also, those who pre-order will get a place on our Content Fortress live training taking place in October – for free. Click the link below…

Martin & Lyndsay

The post An Introduction to Content Fortress, and Why is’s Vital for Your Business appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Yeah. We are. 

Why? 

We all have questions when we buy something, don’t we? Especially something new. Something you can’t see. Like our Content Planning Toolkit. 

So in true “content marketing” style, we wrote this article to answer all your questions. 

But I get that this is our product, and I’m naturally biased. So I’ve tried to make this as unbiased as possible so you can make an informed buying decision. 

After all, you don’t want you to buy something that isn’t right for you. And we don’t want that either. We want super happy customers.

So have a look at our blog post below to see if the Content Planning Toolkit is right for you. 

What is the Content planning toolkit?

The toolkit is a combination of tools and training videos that help you plan and schedule your content for an entire year.

What’s included in the Toolkit?

We’ve included a number of content planning tools such as:

• A 5-part mini course showing you what kind of content you can create to generate more leads and sales
• An (expanded) Content Matrix that will give you over 500 content ideas that you can use for blog posts, videos and podcast episodes
• A Content Planning Cheat Sheet that you can use before you produce every piece of content to get the best results
• A Blog Post Checklist to ensure you get the best results from your effort
• A YouTube Checklist so you don’t miss an important factor that could impact your rankings
• A Podcast Checklist to save yourself wasting time when recording 
• A Progress Tracker so you can track how your stats improve over time
• A content Schedule Trello Board so you can plan when your content will be published in the weeks and months ahead
• Instruction Videos for each tool so you know how to use it.

How much does the Toolkit cost?

The entire toolkit costs $47 (+VAT if applicable). 

This is a one-time fee so there are no ongoing fees and you get access to this product for LIFE.

Why does the toolkit cost $47?

I’m always suspicious of stuff that is too cheap. I generally feel that it may not deliver what it promises. Sometimes, it’s true, you do get what you pay for. 

But truthfully, we didn’t want price to be an objection when it came to the Content Planning Toolkit. 

We think content marketing can be really beneficial for your business if you do it right. And we’d like to help more people get started (rather than just a few), hence the reason this is VERY cheap.

Is there a refund policy?

With the downloadable nature of the content inside, we do not offer any refunds. However, based on the feedback we’ve already received,  we’re pretty confident you wouldn’t want a refund 😉

Who is it for?

The content planning toolkit is not for everyone and we only want you to buy it if it’s right for you.

This is for IF:

• You struggle to come up with content ideas
• You don’t have much time, and you need a few tools to make producing content easier and faster
• You want to create content that helps educate your customers before they get in touch with you 
• You want better rankings from your content 

This is NOT for you if:

• You don’t want to put in any work 
• You don’t think content marketing is worth the effort
• You’re not open to new ideas
• You’d rather spend lots of time on the phone/email speaking with potential customers 

Will this work for my Niche?

The tools and information in the toolkit will work for any industry. I honestly can’t think of a niche that wouldn’t benefit from this product.

Here are some of the business types that have seen results using this method…

• Freelancers
• Service providers
• Coaches and consultants
• Bloggers
• Vloggers
• Podcasters
• Big businesses

How long will it take to go through the toolkit?

The mini-course is made up of 5 videos each lasting around 10-15 mins each.

Each of the tools has a video to explain how to use it at around 5 mins each

To fill in the content planning matrix and give yourself a content marketing strategy takes around 20-30 minutes. 

In total, I would estimate that this would take you around 1.5 hours, but you don’t have to do it all at once to get hundreds of content ideas.

Who are the trainers?

Lyndsay and I (Martin) will be guiding you through the various tools and training inside the content planning toolkit.

Lyndsay will be guiding you through the mini-course, and I will be showing you how to use the various tools.

How do you access the content planning toolkit?

Once you have purchased the toolkit, you’ll get an email to welcome you and an email to set your PASSWORD, you’ll then be able to log in at https://contentplanningtoolkit.com/ 

All of the content is available straight away, and you can access everything from the dashboard.

Why have we created it?

People think content marketing is hard work, and it can be. BUT it’s extremely rewarding if you do it right. We’ve been there ourselves, and we’ve seen the results.

The reason we created this was to make your life easier when it comes to planning and producing content. 

What results can I expect?

Your results will obviously depend on how much work you put in, but I can tell you that since we started creating content we have…

• Increased our traffic by 10x in the first 12 months
• Raised our prices by 500% due to demand
• 90% of the proposals we send go to sale
• Spend 50% less time communicating with clients because our content does the talking for us.

How should I sign up?

If you’re interested in joining us, you can sign up here or by clicking the link below, and get instant access for a single payment of $47.00 +VAT if applicable. 

I’m still not sure…

If you have any further questions, just email us as hello@jammydigital.com 

What’s next? 

If you decide to buy the toolkit and back into or start content marketing, then we’re so EXCITED for you! We’d love to know how you get on! Drop us an email at hello@jammydigital.com

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Everything You Need to Know About Our Content Planning Toolkit appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

That’s how many blog posts are published EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.

So the big question is…how do you write a blog post that people actually want to read?

Now you might think to yourself, ‘No worries here. What I write about is unique. No one else is writing about it.’

Are you sure about that?

Even the topic ‘underwater basket weaving’ generates 1,200,000 results on Google.

The chances of you writing something original are slim. And that means we have to compete for both search rankings AND our readers’ attention.

To do that we have to write compelling blog posts that connect with our readers from the title, all the way to the conclusion.

I’m going to tell you how to do exactly that. In this blog post, you’ll learn…

• How to write a headline that both readers and search engines love
• How to write an introduction that excites the reader
• How to structure a blog post so people get it
• How to write a lead-generating, inspiring conclusion

Ultimately, you are going to learn everything you need to know about how to write a blog post.

Ready? Let’s get started…

1. First Things First: Your Blog Post Topic

The Biggest Mistake You’re Making With Your Blog Post Topic

One of the biggest issues with blog posts is that they go wide on topic and thin on detail. We like to call these ‘pancake posts’.

For example, let’s say we wrote a blog post called, ‘Ten things you can do to improve your website’. Point number one might say, ‘Make it mobile-friendly.’ And point number two might say, ‘Make sure you choose the right font’ and so on.

The problem with these kinds of posts is that they only provide surface-level information about a wide variety of topics. This means that…

• You won’t get as much search traffic
  Most people won’t search for ‘how to improve my website’. But people do search for ‘How to make my website mobile-friendly.’ or ‘What font should I use on my website?’ People want specific answers to specific questions.
• You’ll provide little value to the reader
  Because you try to cover so much ground in these blog posts, it means you can’t go into much detail. You merely skim the surface of many different topics. Whereas if you can focus on one thing, and go in-depth, you’re going to provide much more value to the reader.
• Your Lead Gen won’t work
  Want to use your blog posts to capture leads? That’s much more difficult if your blog posts cover a wide variety of topics. This blog post is all about blogging. And that’s why I feature our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge as our lead capture just below 😉

When your blog posts cover a wide range of topics, it’s difficult to find a lead magnet that will get your users to click – because you don’t actually know what they need help with specifically.

What Should You Do Instead?

You don’t want to waste time and energy on something that doesn’t give you any results. The best thing you can do when creating any piece of content is to pick one question and go in-depth with the answer.

2. The Dreaded Headline: How to Write a Blog Post Title

In all honesty, I write the headline to my blog post right at the end. I start with the idea and general topic. So for this blog post, I wrote the words, ‘Blog Post Structure’ at the top of the page. But I didn’t actually finalise it until the end.

Why?

Because you’re the clearest on your blog post right after you’ve finished writing it. Trying to do this before you’ve completed it can feel like a lot of pressure. And sometimes when we start writing our focus changes, which is why you see blog titles that don’t quite match the main content.

The Biggest Mistake You’re Making with Your Blog Post Title

Not saying what the actual article is about!

One of the biggest things to remember (before you get clever with your copy or try to make your heading SEO friendly) is to actually say what the article is about.

Imagine I’d called this article, ‘Writing Blog Posts’ – that actually doesn’t tell anyone what this blog post is about. But for some unknown reason, a lot of people do this with their titles.

How to Write a Title That Conveys What The Post Is All About…

The easiest way to do this is to tell the reader what you’re teaching, and what the outcome your reader will get if they read your article. This is why we’ve called this article…

How to Write a Blog Post [what we teach] That People Will Actually Read [the outcome your reader will get if they read your article].

You don’t have to follow this exact format but do make sure you make it clear what your post is about. This is the most important bit – more so than clever copy or SEO.

SEO vs Fun – Which Should You Choose For Your Blog Post Title?

The main title of a blog post is hugely important for SEO. If you want to rank on Google, you want to make sure that your title contains your keywords or phrases. (If you want to know more about how to optimise your blog post for search engines, have a look at our SEO Checklist for Blog Posts article.)

Sometimes, this means there’s a battle between SEO and fun copy. Martin and I have this argument discussion quite a lot. I want the fun headline, he wants the SEO friendly one.

But there is a way to compromise. Yay!

The Blog Post Title Formula: Combine What People Search For + Make It Intriguing!

Let’s take a hypothetical blog post about ‘The Problems with WordPress.’

If I wasn’t thinking about search results, I would want to call this ‘Things that make us angry about WordPress (from two WordPress Web Designers).’

Because that will get people to click, right? Ooooh, these guys are angry about something! And why are they insulting the platform they use? Oh, this sounds interesting!

The problem is, no one searches for ‘things that make me angry about WordPress.’ They search for ‘common problems with WordPress’ or ‘problems with WordPress.’

Now for the exciting part…

In the title of your blog post, we always recommend combining what people search for and potentially adding on a twist that can get people to click. This could be, ‘Annoying Problems with WordPress and the Easy Ways to Fix them.’

We added the word ‘annoying’ to intrigue people. We still included the keyword ‘Problems with WordPress’ and we added the outcome that the reader will get (an easy way to fix these problems).

And that’s not to say we couldn’t use ‘things that make us angry about WordPress.’ We’d certainly lead with that on social media, but just not in our main title.

This is one of the reasons why our blog post ‘11 Reasons Why You’re Not Ranking On Google and How to Fix It,’ brings us in over 1000 visitors to our website every month. It’s a specific problem that people search for (‘why am I not ranking on Google?’) and it promises a solution. Although, if I were to rewrite this I would add the word ‘Easy’ by putting ‘…and easy ways to fix it.’

Why? This brings me on to my next point…

Use Your Power Words in Your Title

Power words in your titles are irresistible words that people can’t ignore. They make us feel something – like the example I gave above, ‘Annoying Problems with WordPress and the Easy Ways to Fix them.’ The words annoying and easy are power words that will pique someone’s interest. The word annoying gets people feeling an emotion, and the word easy attracts people because…well, we all want the easy solution!

Unfortunately, there are plenty of websites that overuse power words, and it makes us wary about using these words in our own marketing (I’m looking at you, Buzzfeed).

We don’t want to get a bad reputation for being clickbaity. But remember content is only ‘clickbait’ if the title fails to deliver what it promises.

I remember Laura Robinson, a copywriting coach, gave a good tip about using power words. She said to use them sparingly. Pepper them in your content. Think of them as a seasoning!

Some examples of power words are:

Easy
Free
Instant
Results
Shocking
Unknown
Ultimate
Proven

You get the picture. If you use these words and combine them with what people search for and you’ll have a search engine friendly, compelling blog post title that gets people to click!

3. How to Write Your Blog Post Introduction Without Boring the Reader

Like the title, I always write the introduction to a blog post at the end as that’s when I’m most clear on the topic.

You don’t have long to grab your reader’s attention. Mere seconds, in fact. So you have to make those seconds count.

The biggest mistake people make with blog post introductions

What’s the biggest mistake people make with blog post intros?

They tell the reader something that they already know.

For example, imagine we started this blog post saying, ‘blogging is a good way to connect with your audience and build trust.’

Well…duh. Yes. That’s why you’re here. You know that. You know the benefits of blogging. If you thought blogging was a load of crap that didn’t get you results then you wouldn’t be here learning more about how to do it.

But this is something people do ALL.THE.TIME!

Bloggers tell the reader something that they already know. And that’s usually because bloggers start with the intro first. They treat the introduction as their warm-up writing. The-writing-before-you-get-into-the-writing, writing.

But no one should treat the introduction this way.

The introduction is the make it or break it zone. You have to stop someone from hitting that backspace button. You have to hook them in.

The question is…how?

The Easy-Peasy Question and Empathy Introduction

Martin openly states that he is not the best writer. But he has consistently blogged since 2017. In that time, he’s found little ways to engage readers quickly, and one of the simplest ways to introduce a blog post is to ask your reader a series of empathetic questions and confirm you understand their problem.

For example, I could’ve started this blog post like this:

Are you getting crap results from blogging?

Getting frustrated when you squeeze in writing in the evenings and at weekends and see nothing in return?

Are you beginning to feel like blogging just doesn’t work for your business?

I get it.

A few years ago, I would spend 12-15 hours a week writing a blog post. I’d publish it with high hopes – imagining a flurry of web traffic, a surge in search rankings and lots more leads and sales…only…

Nothing.

I got nothing back. And I began to think, ‘is blogging just a waste of time?’

But actually, it wasn’t that blogging was a bad strategy.

I was just doing it wrong…

This is the easiest way to engage your reader. To have them nodding along. It’s even better if you can use their phrases and language back to them. Rebound their frustrations in their words and you’ll have them hooked.

The Story Introduction

This is a personal favourite of mine. I love the use of stories in blog introductions, but they have to be used carefully. You may be the protagonist of the story, but the reader should imagine themselves in the scenario you describe.

For example, I could’ve started this blog post like this:

A few years ago, I sat down to bash out yet another blog post, until I stopped and thought…’wait, how many hours have I spent blogging without seeing anything in return?’

I did a rough calculation…

184 hours.

Wow.

At my hourly rate, that’s £150 x 184 hours.

That’s £27,600 I could have earned.

What the hell?

How could this happen?

It was like I was autopilot, churning out these blog articles with no real reason or purpose.

All because I thought it was something I had to do.

I knew other business owners blogged successfully. And if I did it long enough, I could be successful too right?

Wrong.

In fact, my entire approach to blogging was wrong.

And if you’re reading this too, I’m guessing you can relate. But don’t worry, I’m about to tell you how to create the perfect blog post so you can…

Get found on Google
Get more loyal followers
Get more leads

If you’re going down this route just remember not to take too long on your story. No one wants to read your memoir (sorry).

Finally, loop it back to the reader at the end by stating that you’re guessing they’ve felt/experienced the same thing.

The great thing about doing these is that you can also use them in social media and over email. This story can easily be repurposed elsewhere.

The Stat Introduction

This is usually my least favourite option as introducing anything with a statistic automatically sounds snooze-worthy.

Often people use a statistic with a stuffy reference right at the beginning, like ‘According to the Institute of Things That Are Utterly Boring, if you start a blog post like this, people will press that backspace button within 0.00000002 seconds.’

That’s why I hate statistical introductions. But, if you do it right, it can have a big impact. And it’s the method I’ve used in this blog post.

You’ve just gotta make sure that the stat is something that’s shocking and impactful, and is used to really hammer home your point.

One-Liners Work Every Time

The opening line of your introduction should act as your chat-up line (one that doesn’t make the recipient want to throw up).

Ideally, you want just one sentence. Even better if you can get it all on one line.

Why? Because people don’t want to run into a wall of text when they land on your blog post.

Take our blog post.

We could have opened it like this…

According to WordPress, there are 70 million new blog posts published every single month. For us bloggers, this is a frightening statistic. How on earth can we compete when so many other businesses are doing the same thing?

But we opened it like this…

70 million.

Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the first version, but the second definitely gets your attention!

The purpose of the opening sentence is to get your reader to the next one. And that’s why a quick, snappy line works really well.

Sell Them On the Blog Post

It’s a good idea to tell people what they’re going to get out of the blog post in the introduction. But again, don’t do this to such a degree that it bores people.

People don’t want to read a long introduction. They really want to get to the meaty part of the content.

So don’t do as your English teacher always told you and write a 500-word intro telling your reader what they’re about to learn.

Instead, write a quick sentence or some short bullet points that highlight the main benefits the reader will get from reading your post.

4. How to Structure the Main Body Of Your Blog Post

Ugh. The structure of the blog post is the part that always trips people up. Me included.

I’ve reviewed a lot of blog posts in my lifetime. And one of the most common problems with blog posts is that they lack consistency. They feel convoluted and confusing to read. They hop from one subject to another.

And this is usually down to one simple thing…

The Biggest Mistake People Make With Their Blog Post Structure…

Zero planning.

That’s it.

There are two types of fiction writers – planners and pantsers. A pantser is someone who flies by the seat of their pants and just writes.

Steven King is probably the most famous pantser.

And most of us (me included) cannot write like Steven King.

We have to plan. If we don’t plan, we ramble in many different directions.

Whereas when you take five or ten minutes to plan before you sit down to write, it creates a much more cohesive and focused piece of content.

I start planning by bullet-pointing the main things I want to cover in the post (you can see this in the two pictures below).

Essentially these become my main headings.

Then I break that down into further points.

If I hadn’t completed that task, I bet you anything I’d have gone on to talk about SEO for blog posts, or tone of voice or how to make your blog posts look pretty. And it would turn into this mammoth mess of a post.

Your plan keeps you on track and on topic.

Keep the structure the same!

Our brains love patterns. And they love to know what’s going to happen next.

In this blog post you’ll notice I follow a similar structure.

I have five main headings in this blog post – ‘Topic, Title, Introduction, Structure and Ending’.

I break each of these down by giving each a small introduction. Followed the biggest mistake people make with each. And then finally, I follow it up with some tips on how to do it well.

This structure is repeated five times.

Each main heading has the same style. Each subheading has the same style.

It’s clean, structured and easy to understand.

Repetition is so helpful in blog posts as it helps our brains predict what will happen next. This means that we don’t have to work as hard to understand the blog post.

The easier you make it for your end reader, the better!

Use Headings and Subheadings

Use plenty of headings and subheadings in your blog posts.

Readers skim. I’m sure you’ve skimmed through some of the points in this post. And what makes that easier is having headings and subheadings which tell the reader exactly what’s coming next, so they can decide whether they want to read it.

It also helps to break up the text and give the illusion of more white space on the page. Remember you don’t want your reader to feel overwhelmed by so much text. They’re much more likely to read your posts if you give them lots of breathing space.

5. How to Write a Blog Post Conclusion

The ending is just as important as the beginning, as this is your opportunity to get the reader to take action. You managed to keep them hooked the entire blog post, and now is your time to get a little reward.

The Biggest Mistake People Make With Blog Post Endings

Not giving a crap about the ending.

Sometimes I think we’re either just so relieved to finish the blog post or excited to get it out there that we forget to actually…well, finish it.

We sort of run out the door, shouting a vague ‘hope you enjoyed this blog post! Please comment below with your thoughts!’ Which, obviously, no one ever comments on.

But we really need to take our time with the ending. Just as much as we would any other part of the post.

Should You Reiterate What The Reader’s Learned?

Ugh. We’re back to English class again. This is the last thing you should do…

And now you have read said-blog-post, you’ll have learnt the following…[goes into massive list]

No. Don’t do this.

What you should do instead is give the reader one key takeaway from the blog post that they can remember and use straight away.

Will you remember everything in this blog post? No. Of course not. But if I can have a small impact on you then that’s enough. If I can change your thinking in a little way. If I can make your life that bit easier then I’ve achieved something.

That’s what you need to do.

At the end of Your Blog Post Get Your Reader to do Something

Oh, what’s this? You’d like to get leads and sales from your content?

Well, if so you’re going to have to get your reader to do something.

Instead of getting your reader to comment, ask them to take that next step with you. This could be…

• Downloading a free guide/cheatsheet/video series from you – it doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s helpful and a similar topic to the blog
• Booking a call with you – this should be used sparingly and more with content that talks about your products or services
• Actually asking them to purchase a product

This is your opportunity to get direct with your reader and tell them what you’d like them to do. Don’t waste it on getting them to comment!

Want to Know More About How To Make Your Blog Posts Awesome?

Here is some further reading!

How to optimise your blog posts

How to make your blog posts look good

How to create your tone of voice

Your Next Blog Post

So I hope you enjoyed this blog post, please comment with your thoughts below.

(Haha, joking).

As we already know, this would be a CRAP way to end my blog post.

The biggest thing to remember when it comes to writing blog posts is, don’t overcomplicate it. Keep the topic simple. Make sure the headline is clear. And keep the structure clean and easy to follow. As time goes on, you’ll get better at the creative stuff. But get the foundations right first.

What’s next for you?

If you want to gain more leads and sales from your content, then check out our 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge. In this challenge, you submit one piece of content every week for 13 weeks. WE hold you accountable, give you feedback and give you access to so much training to help you.

Check it out below…

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to Write a Blog Post That People Will Actually Read appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

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What Is A Start Here Page?

A Start Here page is a way of welcoming a website visitor who’s unsure what to do next on your website. They’re unfamiliar with you and your business, and a start here page gives them a tour of your site and explains what you do.

In this podcast episode, you’ll learn…

• What is a start page and whether you should or shouldn’t have one
• What to include on a start here page
• How a start here page can convert
• How we go against what many others say should be on a ‘start here’ page

Resources

54 Ways To Increase Your Website Sales

Facebook Group

Make Your Mark Online

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 45- What is a Start Here Page and What Do You Include On One? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

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Website copy is one of the key elements that will make your website a success. That’s why, in this episode, we’ll give you four easy ways you can instantly improve your writing.

You’ll learn…

• How to make your copy more engaging
• How to identify passive voice
• How to make your copy less clunky
• How to use rhythm in your writing

Resources

54 Ways To Increase Your Website Sales

Facebook Group

4 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Writing: Transcript

Welcome to Episode 44 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today I’m going to give you 4 instant easy-peasy ways you can improve your writing.

But before we get into that, this show is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Community, this is our signature membership community where we help small business owners build and grow a successful website.

So let’s get on with the show.

Now firstly, who am I to tell you how to improve your writing? I own a web design company after all. Well, your website’s content is one of the key elements to its success. So, no, we don’t write your website copy, but we really do care when it’s a load of crap. Because that means your website won’t be as successful as you want it to be, you’ll be sad, we’ll be sad. There are just crappy feelings all around.

So I actually spend a lot of time learning about how to write business copy, so I can pass this knowledge onto our clients and our members too.

So, my first tip…

1. Cut the fat

We use a lot of excess, unnecessary words in our writing, especially if we write how we talk. So it helps to cast a glance over our writing to try and spot words or phrases that are redundant i.e. we don’t need them. Why bother doing this? Well, the more the brain has to read, the harder it has to work. Brevity is beautiful, so it’s a good idea to cut as much as we can without losing the meaning of the sentence.

My favourite redundant phrase is 100% true. I use it all the time. I even know when I’m writing it that I have to go back and edit it, and often I forget. Of course, there’s no percentage when it comes to truth. Something is either true or not true (unless you’re a politician in which case there seems to be some sort of different scale of truth where things can be kinda true.) But for most of us, it’s either one or the other. So in this instance the ‘100%’ is redundant. You just need to say something is true.

Some other common redundant words or phrases are – I absolutely guarantee. It’s just I guarantee. Or the end result. It’s just, the result. The basic fundamentals – I see that one all the time. It’s just the fundamentals. Let’s collaborate together, that’s a good one. Obviously it’s let’s collaborate. Actual experience – as opposed to…what? That fake experience that seems to be going around these days. Actually, my CV when I was 20 had a lot of fake experience so maybe that one does make sense. But you get the picture.

You won’t pick up on all of these but if you have an awareness of it you should be able to catch a few of them in your writing.

2. Use active voice

So this may sound like I’m sending you back to school, but that’s not what I’m trying to do here. There’s a huge difference between active and passive voice and they can have a remarkable effect on the reader.

Passive voice is when the noun becomes the object of a sentence. Whereas active voice is where the noun is the subject of a sentence. But let’s give some examples.

The letter was posted by me, that’s a passive sentence.
It makes the letter (or the object) the subject of the sentence. It essentially makes ‘the letter’ the most important thing in that sentence, and the ‘by me’ is like an afterthought.
Whereas if I say ‘I posted the letter.’ That’s active. ‘I’ is the noun which is made the subject of the sentence. And you can see the difference ‘the letter was posted by me.’ ‘I posted the letter.’
So you could have ‘the training programme must be attended by all staff.’ But it would be better to say ‘All staff must attend the training programme.’ It’s stronger, isn’t it? It puts the noun, in this case, ‘the staff’ at the forefront.
And this is a common problem in writing. I think this happens when we’re trying to tiptoe around things, like the training programme must be attended by all staff. It sounds less bossy than all staff must attend the training programme.
But what happens when we use passive voice is that we don’t sound as engaging. And we end up using more words too, words like was, were, been, be – the training programme must be attended by all staff. It just makes the sentence clunky and doesn’t inspire action. Particularly on sales pages, this is really important because you want sharp, focused copy. Not a rambly mess.
Although saying that, Martin often moans at my bluntness on WhatsApp or Facebook messenger because once you start doing it, it does become a habit, so perhaps just be wary of it in emails. Or just add a smiley face emoji. That’s what I do when I think I’m being blunt, I’ll just throw in a smiley face emoji and hope for the best. You see, you’re getting the best writing tips ever in this podcast episode.
Now, I said in the beginning that I’ve always struggled with grammar and spelling and spotting active/passive voice is no exception. So I use a handy tip from a school teacher called Rebecca Johnson who tweeted about this. Rebecca said, if you can add the phrase ‘by zombies’ after the verb in a sentence then you have passive voice. The letter was posted…posted being the verb. The letter was posted by zombies. The training programme must be attended by zombies. Our business is recommended by zombies.
And every time a politician says ‘mistakes were made’ I swear you’ll say ‘by zombies’ in your head.

I don’t know what’s with me and politicians today, they seem to have annoyed me. Who knows.

3. Sentence rhythm

Okay, so I realise you’re not a poet or musician. Well, you might be, in which case this will be a doddle.
So essentially when our sentences don’t have rhythm, the reader will get bored. And quickly.
Now rhythm is a tricky subject but I’m going to go through one tip that helps me with my sentence rhythm and I’m going to do it by first showing you a bad example.
Sometimes I get emails. And they’re usually from men actually. I have no idea why. But it goes like this. And by the way every sentence I’m going to read is on its own individual line.
Lyndsay.
Your Business is Dead.
You don’t have sales.
You don’t have leads.
You don’t have hope.
I have the solution.
Yes, that’s right.
I have the solution.
Ready to hear it?
I bet you are.
No, not really mate. Because I’m bored with this incessant style of writing style. Short, sharp sentences are really useful, but only when peppered amongst longer sentences. To create that rhythm we need peaks and troths. If you use too many short sentences, they lose their power. If you use too many long sentences it can become boring and tiring. So mix it up.
There’s a brilliant quote from Gary Provost who is an American Writer about this. I’ll pop it in the show notes because it’s a great one but it goes:

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

And I think that pretty much sums it up.

4. Stop with the stuffy

I used to be a copywriter and if I ever did receive negative feedback it was always the same thing: People used to say, ‘I don’t feel like the copy is professional enough.’
The thing is, before I would write anything I’d phone the client and say, pretend I am a prospective customer and tell me about this service or that product. But what I was listening too wasn’t just fact and figures, it was their tone of voice. The way they spoke, phrases they used, how formal or informal they were, where I could hear the excitement, how they got to the real benefits of what they sold.
So when I received the feedback that the copy sounded unprofessional. I would ask them if it sounded like them, sounded like a conversation they’d have with a client. ‘They would say yes…but it’s different for a website.’ I would explain, that really, it wasn’t. What you want your website to do is to connect with the reader, make them understand who you are and how you help. And they’d say ‘Yes, but my competitors’ doesn’t sound like this.’
And that’s the crux of the problem. We want to look good in front of our peers so we say things like established in 1982, suchabody financial services, offers a complete solution to your financial needs (I had to do that in that voice by the way.)
And I get it, being different is scary. Just think about school. Many of us wanted to fit in, right? But there was always that one kid that was different, who owned being different and didn’t care what others thought. And you know what, she or he actually got respect for it. That’s what your business needs to do. It needs to be that kid. Don’t worry about what your competitors do, however you speak to your clients is the way that you should write your business copy. Of course, it should be well structured and without all the ums and arrhs. But it doesn’t have to be super formal.

So I hope you found that episode.

And if you’re wanting regular feedback on your website copy or content, then check out our membership community, Make Your Mark Online. We host a 90-day challenge where our members produce one piece of content every week which we then give feedback on. If that sounds good head to makeyourmarkonline.net to find out more.

So that’s it for today’s episode, we’ll see you next time on the Make your make online podcast

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 44- 4 Easy Ways To Instantly Improve Your Website Copy appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

If you want to access our 30-minute Content Marketing Planner, you can download it here.

Have you downloaded it yet?

Are you ready to get planning?

Then let’s go.

Step 1 – list all your services

First things first, start by listing all the services you offer. Don’t miss this step because it will give you a structured way to come up with lots of content ideas. Once you’ve got this list, you can then think of content ideas for each of your services.

Step 2 – put yourself in your ideal customers’ shoes

Let me ask you a question. What’s the one thing you did before you made your last big purchase?

I bet you searched for whatever it was on Google.

As savvy consumers, we always do our own research before we buy anything. A study from Google found that 70% of buying decisions are made before the customer even contacts the business for the first time! And that’s because people research before buying – we all want to make informed decisions and avoid wasting our time and money.

So if you put your business owner’s cap back on, how can you help your ideal clients to make informed choices?

Step 3 – use content marketing to educate your clients about your business

Our advice? Stop sharing ‘fluff’ content about your latest awards or office move, and, instead, create a good combination of these two types of content.

• Traffic content. This is content that drives traffic to your website. It’s what people directly search for on Google. It’s content that answers a particular problem, question or need that your ideal customers or clients might be having. And in providing the best answer to their question, you’re attracting visitors to your website. They may not be ready to buy just yet, but they could be in the future.
• Conversion content. This is not necessarily content that people would search for on Google. But it’s something that your ideal customers or clients would pay attention to it if they were already on your website or interested in working with you. Think about people who follow you on social media and regularly visit your blog, previous clients, or subscribers on your email list, for example.

With these definitions in mind, you should then plan your content ideas around 6 key topics:

1. Price.
2. Problems.
3. Comparisons.
4. ‘The best’ content.
5. Reviews.
6. ‘How to’ content.

These topics come from the book They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan. You may have heard us talk about this book before (especially if you’re in our membership or listen to our podcast), and that’s because his teachings have literally transformed our business and the way we use content marketing to generate leads and sales. To read more about that, head over to our post: How to 10x Your Website Traffic.

So let’s get into the 6 topics.

1. Price

Price is the one thing we all want to know about when we do our research. We want to find out how much something costs before we commit to buying it – no matter how big or small the purchase is!

So how can you relate this back to your business?

• Write about the price of your products and services.
• Talk about the costs related to your industry and where you sit within it.
• Discuss what can make the price of your service go up and down.

Here are a few examples of the price-related content we’ve created over time:

• How much does it cost to build your WordPress website?
• Why the cost of your website might increase during the build?
• Why We’re Increasing Our Web Design Prices.
• Why are we so expensive?

2. Problems

No product or service, company, or industry is perfect. So instead of burying your head in the sand and denying that there are any problems in your area of work, tackle your customers’ problems (or ‘perceived problems’) head-on. Being honest and upfront about this helps you build trust and authority with your audience. And ultimately, that’s what helps you convert your audience into buyers!

How do you do this?

• Talk about a problem in your industry and specify how you’re different.
• Create content around something that’s personal to you and your business. For example, we’re a small web design agency, and some big companies might be worried about working with us. So we pre-emptied our prospective clients’ concerns by writing the piece: Why Are We So Cheap? Working with us vs a Larger Agency.

Acknowledge your clients’ objections, show them that you understand them, and advise them on the best course of action. What’s there not to love?

3. Comparisons

This type of content helps your prospective clients decide whether they should buy a certain product or service or another one. Or whether they should buy from this company or that company. It’s all about comparing two products or services (or two companies) directly against one another.

Here’s an example of how we did this in our business: Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner vs Jammy Digital’s 90 Day Challenge Workbook.

The reason why you need to create this type of content is that your clients always have a choice! And while doing their research, they’ll come across your competitors too. So why not be the person who acknowledges this choice and helps them make an informed decision? They’ll certainly appreciate you for it!

Of course, directly comparing your products or services against someone else’s can be one of the scariest and most difficult things you’ll ever have to do in your content marketing. But the key is to approach the topic in an unbiased way. Take yourself out of your business and think about what will benefit your customer or client. Put yourself in their shoes, look at the products or services as objectively as you can, and use your knowledge and experience to guide your audience towards making the best possible decision.

So here’s what you could compare:

• Similar products or services.
• Different industry methodologies or tools.
• Companies or businesses (including yours).

Don’t miss the opportunity to be the creator of this type of content – it’s a genuinely helpful thing to do for your audience!

4. ‘The best’ content

When we invest in anything, we want the best for our needs, don’t we? That’s the reason why we do all this research in the first place!

The trouble is that this type of content is often published by independent websites, which means your products or services (or your company) may not be mentioned (and simply because the creators of the content don’t know you!). So why don’t you produce this type of content yourself?

This might mean that you have to mention the competition, but it’ll work in your favour because people will find you on Google!

Want to know how we know? Because we did this! We wrote the article Top 10 Best Web Design Companies in Manchester in 2017. And years later, we still rank on the first page of Google and have received a lot of business directly from this post over time!

So how can you do this?

• Evaluate other people’s work – their products and services. Talk about what they do, but also about what you do and how you are different.
• Go into detail about why you’ve picked the companies you’ve chosen and what criteria you used to rate them.

This type of content is also incredibly helpful if you ever need to recommend another company to someone who isn’t the right fit for you, or in case you’re fully booked and can’t take on any extra clients at the moment. (Great position to be in, right?).

5. Reviews

Just like product or service comparisons, reviews are often done by independent websites. But you can be the business who reviews products and services in your industry and help your customers and clients make informed buying decisions.

You can review:

• Other companies in your industry.
• Specific products.
• Industry-specific tools.

The key here is to be honest and helpful to your reader. Not every single product or service you sell is suitable for everyone. So focus on the fact that you only need to attract your ideal audience. As for everyone else, they’re not your target audience – and that’s fine!

When you think about it, all you’re doing here is offering great customer service. If you were to walk into a shop, you probably wouldn’t want the help of the salesy or pushy member of staff. You just want the salesperson who comes across as helpful, unbiased, shows a deep understanding of the products or services they sell, and has your best interests at heart. And that’s what content marketing should do for you – it should act as the best customer service person for your business!

6. ‘How To’ content

Although Marcus Sheridan (who came up with these topics) talks about the Big Five, he also says that the sixth type of content that business owners should consider creating is ‘How To’ content, which is ideal for generating traffic to your website.

Think about it from a user perspective. We type ‘how to’ into Google all the time! Creating this type of content is good for showcasing your knowledge and expertise and providing your reader with something useful at the same time – teach people how to do what you do or how to find the right products or services in your industry.

But at the same time, don’t shy away from letting them know that if they need any help, you can be the person who makes their to-do list a little lighter.

Join our community and take part in the 90-day Content Marketing Challenge

So there you have it – the exact steps you need to follow to plan lots of ideas for content in 30 minutes! And if you’d like some accountability or help when it comes to creating that content, we are running a 90-day content marketing challenge in our community – Make Your Mark Online.

Our members produce one piece of content each week, and we provide tailored feedback. We run the challenge 3 times a year, so if this sounds like something you’d want to find out more about, head over to Make Your Mark Online and sign up!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Plan 50 Pieces of Content in 30 Minutes appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

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In this episode, we’re going to go through some of the changes that have happened with Google and SEO. How these changes could have an impact on your business and finally what you can do to keep (or even increase) your search traffic.

In this episode, you learn…

• The issues with Google that could lead to less organic traffic to your website
• How you can still maintain and even get more traffic from Google even with these changes

Resources

54 Ways To Increase Your Website Sales

Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

How Much of Google’s Search Traffic is Left for Anyone But Themselves?

Facebook Group

Is Google Dead: Transcript

Welcome to Episode 43 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about whether Google is dead. So that’s nice. I’m going to go through some of the changes we’ve seen in Google, what impact they’ll have on you and essentially, what you should do about it.

But before we get into that, this show is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Community, this is our signature membership community where we help small business owners build and grow a successful website.

So let’s get on with the show.

Okay so firstly, what’s happening Google?

What have we done to deserve this?

Now you may have noticed that Google’s got a little frosty with those of us who use it (or for the many of us who rely on it) for organic traffic. And there have been a few changes that have sounded pretty scary for us business owners.

Rand Fishkin, the CEO of Moz – and if you know anything about SEO, Moz is pretty much the frontier in providing SEO knowledge. But Rand Fishkin wrote an article in 2019 that stated that less than 50% of Google searches result in a click to a website. For mobile, that’s even scarier, at less than 27%. I’ll link to this article in the show notes so you can go look at some scary graphs and cry into your bowl of cereal.

But maybe before you do that, you could just listen to the rest of this podcast and hopefully, it will put your mind at ease.

Why Are Is Our CTR (Click Through Rate) Decreasing?

Well, there are many different factors. Firstly, you may have noticed something called featured snippets in search results. So when I type into Google ‘How much does it cost for a website’ – Google provides me with an answer without me having to click on the website that provided me with the answer.

So, it takes the information off the website that answered that question and delivers that as an answer on its own platform. And in this case, it’s a gives a reasonable ish answer, it says it costs between $100-$500 to build your own website and up to $30,000 to get a custom-built site. And it’s quite difficult to see the name of the company that wrote the article and provided the answer.

Which is why some people argue that a featured snippet is resulting in a decrease in people clicking on your links in Google search. The data certainly seems to show that.

So, that’s pretty scary, isn’t it?

And the answer to that is yes and no.

The problem with this data is that it doesn’t factor in what people are searching for. So I don’t know if you do this, but when Martin and I watch a film, we’re like, is that Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon? I’m like, it’s Matt Damon, definitely. And Martin’s like, no it’s not, it’s Mark Wahlberg. No, you’re completely wrong. Okay, Google it. And then you Google the name of the film and you get your answer straight away without having to click on a website. So it’s not taking into account all the millions of people who are also performing these kinds of searches.

So, when we talk about there being fewer clicks from Google, it doesn’t necessarily categorise what people are and are not clicking on. Essentially, yes, overall click-through rates from Google are down, but that’s not necessarily true of educational content.

Take the search query I mentioned before – How Much Does It Cost For a Website. Google gave the answer between just between $100-$500 or up to $30,000 dollars for a custom site. Now the likelihood is, someone will need more information than that. Between $100 – $30,000 isn’t particularly helpful. So there’s that to consider.

And there was actually a study by Hubspot that stated that these featured snippets get more clicks than organic search results, so that’s good news here.

So it conclusion, yes it’s a worry and I’m going to talk about how to combat all this later. But it’s probably not all doom and gloom as you might think.

So let’s move on to some other obstacles Google is throwing at us.

The second is how Google is changing the way it displays ads.

In fact, this is changing regularly. I used to instinctively know which results in Google were ads, and I’d just click on the results that I knew weren’t ads.

Now it’s trickier. The way ads are displayed is changing so much that we don’t really have time to get used to how they look and well…avoid them.

And it’s often more difficult to get to the organic traffic too. We’re on the first page for ‘top web design agencies manchester’ and yet you have to scroll down to halfway down the page to find that search result. And that’s because there’s a lot of ads and a big map in the way. So, thanks for that Google.

So what do we do?

Do we just not bother anymore? Forget content marketing and forget having a website and just focus on social media?

Well, no. Good God no.

In fact, this is an opportunity to invest more in educational content. If someone types into Google, web designers in Manchester they’re just going to see ads and a map and maybe click on a company in the organic results, maybe not.

If someone is typing into Google a question like ‘how much does it cost for a website?’ then they need education. Educational content is the best kind of content to use in order to get traffic from Google. We’ve certainly found this too, the majority of our traffic has come from our educational content, even now. And in a lot of cases, our educational content gets more traffic than our homepage.

In summary, if someone needs educating, they’re generally going to need more information than what’s included in a 40-50 word featured snippet. Not always, but mostly.

But more importantly, this highlights something bigger.

You cannot rely on one single platform in your business.

Now it’s scary when we see people building businesses using just Facebook, and we’re like, ‘oh my God, get a website!’

But equally, perhaps we web designers haven’t been very clear about how we shouldn’t rely solely on Google either.

We cannot control Google. They are there to make money, not be our friends. And they don’t owe us anything.

This is why it’s frustrating when we see websites rank purely for search engines. If you look at some of the websites that are on the first page of Google for ‘How much does a website cost?’ yes the articles are helpful but some of them are…well just kinda boring. They aren’t memorable. The businesses have no personality. No brand. Nothing. I’d read their article and then I would forget their names.

What we need to do instead is elevate ourselves, build our brand, be clear on who we are and have that come across in our content. We need to provide helpful content but also have personality too. We need people to find us and remember us.

And we also want more and more people searching for our business name. If there’s one thing Google can’t do, it provides other answers to our business name. When I want to know something about SEO, I don’t type that question into Google, I search for Moz and then I use their internal search to find what I’m looking for. Essentially, you want your own website to become the Google of your industry. So we all end up with a bunch of tiny Googles!

To do that we need to, as I said merge both personality and content marketing. To make sure we’re found and also remembered.

We can still optimise our content for Google, of course. But we can’t put our eggs in one basket. We need to use social media too. We need to join communities and make connections. We cannot sit back anymore. To get traffic to your website you need a constant proactive approach.

In short, don’t rely on anyone but yourselves.

So I hope you found that episode useful and not too scary!

And if you’re wanting to learn more about how to grow your website so it acts as the best salesperson for your business, then check out our membership community, Make Your Mark Online. We do talk a lot about SEO in our membership especially how it relates to content marketing. If that sounds good head to makeyourmarkonline.net to find out more.

So that’s it for today’s episode, we’ll see you next time on the Make your make online podcast.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 43- Is Google Dead? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

1. You don’t know anything about the clients you are attracting

One of the major issues with relying on referrals to build and grow your business is that you don’t know much about your prospective customers or clients.

We like to use a blind date analogy when explaining this. Picture this situation – your mum sets you up on a blind date with someone. Of course, you have no idea who they are. The date might work out, and that person might be just perfect for you. Or they might not! And your blind date might turn into an experience you’d rather forget. But that’s the point – you just don’t know, do you?!

In a way, business referrals aren’t that different. Your existing customers and clients may have recommended you to their friends or colleagues, but you don’t know anything about them. And they might be a perfect fit for your business. Or they might not. And if they aren’t, you might both run into problems when you start working together. That’s not ideal, is it?

2. Your prospective clients don’t know anything about your business

When someone recommends you to a prospective customer or client, you don’t know anything about them, but they don’t know anything about you either. Sure, you came recommended, but they’re not aware of the way you work or don’t know what to expect from you.

By the time you’ve explained it all, they might realise you don’t offer the right service for them. Or they might not be willing to pay your fees. And what happens then? You don’t know how your prospective customers or clients are going to react when they find out all the details. And again, it might work out (and the referral might pay off), or it might not (and you might end up in an awkward situation!).

3. Your business cannot grow 

Before 2017, our business was relying solely on referrals. Money was coming in, and month-on-month our business wasn’t getting worse. But it wasn’t growing either. It was stagnant. We were offering the same services at the same prices.

Truth is, we had no idea where our next client might be coming from. We had no leads in our pipeline and had our referrals dried up, we would have been in trouble with no other prospective clients to contact.

Looking back, the reason is obvious. We were getting little traffic to our website, and we weren’t building our email list! We had no active way of increasing our leads or sales, and that’s because we weren’t in control of our own sales process. Plus, seeing that our previous or existing clients were kindly referring us to others, we couldn’t easily increase our prices either, as we felt obliged to offer the same prices to our newest clients.

In a nutshell, we weren’t building our personal brand, and our business wasn’t growing.

How to use content marketing to grow your business

If all this sounds familiar, what can you do to attract the right customers or clients, build a pipeline of leads, and increase sales to grow your business?

You can start content marketing.

In 2017, we made the life-changing decision to start blogging on our website. Before then, we had published little content and hardly had a presence on social media. And while referrals were great, things didn’t always work out. So to change all this, we started writing and sharing regular content on our website.

1. Use your content to attract the right customers

We started off by answering questions from our prospective or existing clients, who’d want to know how much we charged or how we worked, for example. And as a result, we created posts including:

• Why are we so expensive?
• Why are we so cheap?
• How long will it take to build your website?
• 10 Reasons We’re Not the Right Fit for You.

And many more!

Over time, writing and sharing blog posts regularly meant that we were able to build a library of content on our website that allows our prospective clients to find all the information they need to decide whether or not we’re the right fit for them.

The people who do get in touch with us tend to have read our content beforehand. And more often than not, they’ve already made a decision to work with us based on what they’ve learnt on our website.

2. Use content to create a pipeline of leads

Content marketing also allowed us to grow our business by attracting more traffic to our website. This, in turn, meant we could increase our email list. And over time, we created an engaged community of subscribers and a pipeline of leads that we could tap into when we had something to sell.

3. Use content to increase your prices or pivot 

Sharing content was also key to pivoting our business. By investing in our email list, we were able to build a base of people who already knew us, either through working with us or through our content. They had trust in us – they liked working with us – and they were ready to buy any other products or services we might offer.

Content is what allowed us to introduce our membership in 2018. Make Your Mark Online is aimed at people who want to build their website but are struggling to drive sales through it. And the reason we were able to successfully launch our membership is that we had worked on building a strong community – mainly through content.

So if you want your business to look any different in 6-12 months’ time, you need a pipeline of leads who are invested in you, know that you know what you’re talking about, and who trust you. And the best way to do that is to share content regularly and become an authority and a leader in your industry.

4. Share content with your referrals

So can content help with referrals too? It certainly can. Whenever someone recommends us to a new prospective client, we send them 3-4 key pieces of content to read. Once they’ve gone through our blog posts, we jump on a call with them to answer any questions they might have and find out more about their business and the project.

We often share our Website Buyer’s Guide too, which is an unbiased piece of content that teaches people how to buy a website. This gives them an opportunity to learn more about us and how we work and decide whether they feel we’re the right fit for them. By the time we speak to people on the phone or via video, they are already committed! There are no surprises about prices or processes. And often this means they’ll become our clients. Hurray!

So when a referral comes through your business, rather than diving into the working relationship straight away, invite them to read your content. You don’t need to turn referrals down. But do use your content to educate and inform people about the way you work. And if they like it, they’ll come to you.

Would you like some help with planning your content? 

So there you have it – the reasons why referrals aren’t always ideal for your business and how you can use content to attract the right customers or clients. You can think of referrals as an added bonus for your business. But they shouldn’t be your lifeline.

As you can see, content marketing can help you grow your business in a different way. So if you want to know more about planning the type of content that will help people make informed decisions about working with you before even getting in touch, we’ve created a content marketing planner that does just that. Our 90-day challenge workbook helps you create the type of content you should be producing in order to educate and inform your prospective clients and to increase leads and sales in your business.

Some of our lovely Make Your Mark Online (or MYMO) members are already using the workbook to produce weekly content for our 90-day challenge. The idea is simple – you create one piece of content every week for 90 days, and we provide personalised feedback to you, so you can improve your content and use it to attract better clients into your business.

If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, head over to Make Your Mark Online to find out more. Our first 90-day challenge has already started, but if you missed it, don’t worry. We’re running two more this year, so you can join us for the next one, starting in May 2020. Just head over to Make Your Mark Online or give us a shout if you have any questions.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Why referrals are bad for business (and what you should do instead) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

In this super practical podcast episode, we’re going to tell you exactly how to produce over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes.

You’ll probably want to grab a pen and paper for this episode, or better yet, download our content planner which will help you.

In this episode, you learn…

• How to relate your content to the products or services that you offer
• The type of content that delivers more leads and sales
• The six key topics you need to cover in your content
• How to get in front of people searching on Google
• Why you need to view your content as a customer service tool
• How to create over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes by following along to this episode

Stitcher| iTunes | Radio Republic | Soundcloud

Everyone wants their website to look great. And I get it. When our websites look good, we look good. And we feel confident driving traffic to it.

But often we get too caught up in how a website looks and we neglect everything else.

Your website is not a piece of art to be looked at and admired, it’s a tool that should be used to drive action – usually by delivering leads and sales.

So although strange of us as web designers to say, we need to stop obsessing over how our websites look and start thinking about how they’ll drive leads.

There are actually 6 elements that make a great website, and all these need to be carefully balanced. In this episode, we’ll go through exactly what those 6 elements are, and how you can apply them to your website.

In this episode, you learn…

• The 6 key elements that lead to website success
• How to balance these elements across your website
• Quick wins to make your website that bit better – and get more sales!

Resources

54 Ways To Increase Your Website Sales

Content Planner

Big, Bold Statment 

Facebook Group

Website Buyer’s Guide

Homepage Blueprint

The 6 Key Elements that Make a Successful Website: Transcript

Welcome to Episode 42 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about the 6 elements that make the perfect website.

But before we get into that, this show is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Community, this is our signature membership community where we help small business owners build and grow a successful website.

So on with the show!

Everyone wants their website to look great. And I get it. When our websites look good, we look good. And we feel confident driving traffic to it.

But often we get too caught up in how a website looks and we neglect everything else.

Your website is not a piece of art to be looked at and admired, it’s a tool that should be used to drive action – usually by delivering leads and sales.

So although strange of us as web designers to say, we need to stop obsessing over how our websites look and start thinking about how they’ll drive leads.

There are actually 6 elements that make a great website, and all these need to be carefully balanced.

1. User Experience

User experience is the biggie. Above all else, this should be your main focus when building your website.

We want our user’s to know exactly where they need to go on your website to get what they are looking for.

One of the key places to do this is your homepage. We like to think of your homepage as the reception area of your website. A reception area of a busy building gets lots of questions, where are the lifts (or elevators as you may call them), where are the loos, I need to speak to sucha body. That’s what your users need from your homepage – where’s your blog, I want to contact you, I want to find more about sucha service.

And like any good reception area, your homepage needs to efficiently direct people to the right place on your website. And quickly.

You do not want people congregating around your reception area, trying to understand where to go. Because they will just leave.And that’s just one example of something you have to consider when it comes to user-experience. There are so many things to think about – do your call to action buttons (so your ‘find out more’ or ‘contact me’) buttons stand out, do you have images that reflect what the text says, is there plenty of white space on the page, can the user flow through your website with ease?

As web designers this sort of becomes automatic. But when you’re DIYing your website, you have to constantly question yourself – is this easy for the end-user to understand and use?

The reason a lot of people get this wrong – and that includes big, fancy agencies – is because they focus too much on how the website looks. If you go on many high-fashion websites you’ll find this is the case, it’s all just too pretentious to actually be user-friendly.

2. Website copy

Yes, you can have a beautiful website but if the words on the page don’t connect with your reader then no amount of beauty will make up for it. Like when you discover that really hot person you’ve liked for ages actually doesn’t have any personality. That’s the same thing, it’s all very disappointing.

People most often get their website copy wrong just because, they don’t really think about it. They just start typing without consciously thinking about the reader, what their problems are and why they’re on your website.

A lot of people also copy off their competition, and often the competition doesn’t know how to write website copy either. So everyone just ends up with…crap website copy.

I think the problem is people tend to overcomplicate website copy. But it really shouldn’t be difficult. As business owners, we speak to people about our products or services every day. We’re able to articulate what we do and what the benefits of our products or services are verbally. All you need to do is to write it down.

Some major things to get right with website copy is making sure people know exactly what you do as soon as they land on your homepage. And you can do this by coming up with what we call a big, bold statement, which essentially summarises what you do. We have recorded a podcast about this and written a blog post about it and we’ll pop this in the shownotes.

Another thing is making having a page for each service you offer and making sure you include everything about that service so your reader can make an informed decision about whether to work with you – so the benefits of the service, the cost, FAQ, the process and previous testimonials.

Finally, it’s about not overthinking the writing. You constantly have to balance copy with user-experience and SEO. This is why calling things like ‘My Journey’ instead of about page is a bad idea because it’s just confusing for your user.

And calling your service a funny name that Google won’t understand will not help you rank on Google. For example, calling an editing service ‘the wondrous wizard package’ just doesn’t make sense. You have to kind of balance creativity with, well, what your readers and search engines will understand.

3. Content Marketing

There’s zero point having a beautiful, user-friendly website without getting traffic to it. It’s like the perfect shop stuck in the middle of the dessert. Sorry, I’m all about the bad metaphors today, you’re just going to have to bear with that.

The problem is, people try content marketing but they produce what we call ‘fluff’ content. So that’s ‘look at this client we’ve just landed’ or ‘look at this award we’ve won’ or even very basic ‘7 ways to blah, blah, blah’ posts. Now these aren’t always bad but sometimes they’re just very basic overviews of a topic that have less than 500 words. They don’t really give the reader any value.

But content marketing isn’t just about driving traffic to your site, it’s about building trust and authority. It’s about answering those questions that none of your competition will answer. It’s about being the go-to person for your particular topic.

If it’s done correctly, content can deliver more leads and sales but it can also deliver better customers, the ones who are the right fit for you.

Some of the major mistakes people make when it comes to content marketing is not answering a question. They skim the surface of a topic but don’t delve in and try to give the best, most informed, most researched answer.

But even when people do, do this what they then fail to promote their content. You need to spend a lot of time getting eyeballs on your content.

Finally, people don’t produce content for every step of the sales process. They focus on ‘awareness content’ – basically making people aware that they exist and that they are knowledgable. But people rarely produce content about their products or services. And this is a huge error. That’s why we produce so many blog posts about our products or services. In fact, we’ve just had one out this week called, Why we charge large companies more for a website redesign.

4. Lead Generation

By lead generation, I mean collecting email addresses or getting people to get in contact with you or book a call.

Now there are usually two camps when it comes to lead gen…

Those who make zero effort to capture leads
Those who harras you so much for your email address on your website that if they were an actual person you’d probably call the police

If you haven’t yet guessed, what we’re after is somewhere between the two.

The reason you can’t harass someone is that it’s just not good user-experience. And good relationships aren’t built by stalking people unless your that weird bloke off 50 shades of grey.

Equally, saying nothing won’t get you anywhere either.

Now, there are ways of capturing email address or getting people to get in contact with you without being annoying and I actually talk about that in my last podcast episode. But offering things like content upgrades to your blog posts such as helpful checklists or planners to go alongside the topic you’re talking about is a great way of doing this.

Using a sticky hello bar at the top of the page if you’ve got a webinar coming up or something new and exacting is another.

Including a contact form on every single service page is also one.

So you see, you don’t have to be Christian Grey to get leads. You can do it respectfully.

5. Appearance

Okay, so I harped on about how appearance is not all that. But it is something. No, your website doesn’t have to be a victoria secret model but it does help if it’s ya know, showered and put on clean underwear. Your website has to be presentable, easy to use, and yes, have good images and easy to read text as a minimum.

The biggest mistakes we see websites make when it comes to appearance is one, it looks like the 90s has thrown up on the page. Or 2. They copy everyone else.

You see it all the time. Look at the IT industry. Every website looks exactly the same. They use a lot of blues, oranges and whites. And they have a lot of stock photos of people wearing headsets.

The problem is, people won’t remember you.
With your appearance, you generally have to use good images and this is exactly why we recommend people invest in a photographer before they get a website.

You have to make sure you use plenty of white space, so give your text and images room to breath don’t squash things in so close together.

You also have to break things up into sections, particularly on your homepage where everything can feel a bit crowded. So dedicate one section of the page to just about you with an image, dedicate the next section to just your content. Don’t try to cram in testimonials next to your about you text with several images, it just looks and feels messy.

6. SEO

The next thing is SEO. Now the basics of SEO is just good user-experience mixed with website admin. For most of us, this is pretty much all we need to know.

One huge mistake business owners make is worrying too much about SEO and going way to deep with it all that they actually forget about their actual business.

Another thing to remember is that producing content on your website i.e. blogging is also a great way to rank for the questions that people ask you.

So don’t overcomplicate it for now.

But there are some rules you want to follow, such as using your H tags correctly. H tags are essentially your headings on the page. You H1 tag tells Google what the entire page is about, H2 tells Google what the following paragraph is about, and if that paragraph is broken down further you’ll use H3 and so on. This is actually just good user-experience to break up the text and tell the user what the next section is about. It’s just you’re telling Google at the same time.

And you may want to do some keyword research too, and drop these keywords naturally – the key word here is naturally- throughout your copy and your headings too.

In your blog posts, you’ll want to link to other relevant content. And you’ll want to make sure you give all your images appropriate names.

You want to keep your URLs short.

Now, if you’re furiously typing don’t worry you can stop I do have a checklist for this that I’ll put in the show-notes or you can also check out our blog post on how to make the perfect website.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the 6 key things that will make your website a success – user-experience, website copy, content marketing, lead generation, seo and appearance.

Now, remember this can seem overwhelming but you’ll get this right over time. No website is perfect. Ours isn’t perfect. I could visit our website right now and pick at things. But if you have an awareness of these 6 things, and consciously implement them when you work on your website, I guarantee it will be that bit more successful.

So I hope you found this episode useful.

And if you’re wanting to learn more about how to grow your website so it acts as the best salesperson for your business, then check out our membership community, Make Your Mark Online. We actually create one-click-install website pages for our members such as the homepage, about page or even things like lead capture pages and sales pages. These are built with our knowledge and experience so a lot of what’s been talked about in this podcast episode such as user-experience or appearance has already been covered.

If that sounds good head to makeyourmarkonline.net to find out more.

So that’s it for today’s episode, we’ll see you next time on the Make your make online podcast.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 42- The 6 Elements That Make a Successful Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

In this super practical podcast episode, we’re going to tell you exactly how to produce over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes.

You’ll probably want to grab a pen and paper for this episode, or better yet, download our content planner which will help you.

In this episode, you learn…

• How to relate your content to the products or services that you offer
• The type of content that delivers more leads and sales
• The six key topics you need to cover in your content
• How to get in front of people searching on Google
• Why you need to view your content as a customer service tool
• How to create over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes by following along to this episode

Stitcher| iTunes | Radio Republic | Soundcloud

In this super practical podcast episode, we’re going to tell you exactly how to collect email addresses on your website.

In this episode, you learn…

• What I class as pushy or annoying ways to capture leads
• The best way to capture email addresses from your blog
• How to get people to get in touch with you when they’re on your service page
• What information you should ask for when capturing people’s data
• How you can capture leads from your homepage

Resources

54 Ways To Increase Your Website Sales

Content Planner

Facebook Group

Website Buyer’s Guide

Hellobar – sticky bar at the top of the page

Homepage Blueprint

Transcript/Notes

This all started with a question from one of our members, Helen – who asked how she could capture leads on her website without being pushy or irritating. And I think that’s a pretty good question because we all want to grow our email list but we don’t want to do it by being annoying.  

So that’s what this episode is about. We’re going to go through how to collect email addresses without being annoying and also look at what are annoying and spammy tactics.

And just to clarify, when I say lead I mean someone enquiring about your products or services or someone giving you their contact details such as their email address. 

Now, in all honesty, collecting email addresses is something we really struggled with in the past. We didn’t prioritise it for years. I think this was just to do with plain old apathy. We’d built our web design agency through content marketing – essentially giving away everything and being open and honest about the way we worked. And this definitely worked well for us. 

Until one day, we said, do you know what, we’d also like to launch a membership and we were there with an email list that consisted of my mum and dad. We had this idea for something exciting and new, but we had no one to sell it too. So we had to kind of shift our way of thinking a little. 

And in that short time, we’ve learnt a lot about building an email list, but more specifically how to build an email list without being pushy. So that means we don’t use things like annoying website popups – because they’re crap for user experience. Or gating our content, such as only letting people know our prices in exchange for an email address. 

So, here are the ways you can capture leads, without being annoying…

1. Content ‘upgrade’ 

Patt Flynn describes content upgrades as, ‘Smaller, unique, bite-sized lead magnets that directly relate to what people are already consuming.’ and that was a way better description than what I came up with so let’s steal that. 

To give you an example, we recently released a blog post about how to create a perfect website. We then created a lead magnet, which was a free website checklist that directly related to that blog post so people could see where they needed to improve. The content in the blog post and in the checklist was exactly the same, it just came in different formats.

This works really well for many reasons, we didn’t have to write new content, and we didn’t have to hide any content and get that icky ‘I’m only going to tell you this if you give me your email address’ feeling. 

And just another thing, we add information about the content upgrades within the body of our blog posts and at the end. The reason we do both is that often people don’t read all the way to the end, so this is a way of capturing their attention. Like this 😉 

2. Pop a contact form on every service page 

A lot of our leads, funnily enough, don’t come throughout the contact page, they come through lots of different pages on our website. 

So if someone is finding out more about your services, they may have questions as they’re scanning through. Imagine just a little box to the side or at the end of the page that said, ‘Got questions about x service?’ pop in your details below. That’s a great way to capture a lead because they probably do have questions, and you’re making it super easy for them. 

3. If you’re an E-commerce business, offer a discount

A really nice feature, which is great for eCommerce businesses, is to offer a discount as a way of capturing leads. So you could say something like ‘get 10% your first order’. Lots of companies use this. 

You can display this on a sticky bar at the top of the page, which is essentially just a bar that stays their permanently. 

It’s not like a pop-up, so it doesn’t disrupt the user at any time, but it is on display permanently, and with the right copy it will capture their attention. 

The only caveat to this is, obviously, you will have a section for a discount code on your checkout and if someone doesn’t have a discount code, maybe they’re a repeat customer that may mean they feel a bit down about it. Or if you’re like me, you go off in search of a discount code and before you know it you’ve forgotten what you’re buying anyway. So just be aware of that.

4. Don’t ask them for war and peace

When capturing leads, you don’t want to ask for anything you don’t need. I always see forms that ask for your address, and telephone number and blood type. Stop it. Most of us, unless we’re an eCommerce business, will just need a name and email. 

And of course, this is good for GDPR too. We don’t want boatloads of people’s personal data. 

5. Don’t make them identify traffic signs 

Talk about annoying. I get it, we all hate spam but asking people to identify traffic signs is incredibly irritating. I don’t even know what a traffic sign is on these things, I’m always squinting, like is that a stop sign or just some other kind of sign. Is it a lollypop lady? Or something else? Who knows. 

6. How to capture leads on your homepage 

You can create a bar that sits within the first third of your homepage that offers your freebie. This is a great way of capturing people when they first land on your website but without being intrusive. 

On our website homepage, we offer our homepage blueprint which runs through how to create a great homepage. That’s done really well too. 

7. Sell the benefits 

We go on about this a lot. But join my newsletter is not a compelling enough reason to get people to give you their contact details. Give them the benefits and tell them what’s in it for them. Weekly tips on such a thing, or discounts and exclusive offers. 

Also, tell them that by joining your email list they’re joining hundreds or thousands of their peers, give them that social proof that they’re in the right place and with others just like them. 

8. Tell them what will happen next 

Once someone fills in your contact form, then what happens? Don’t just have something that pops up and says, ‘thanks’ 

Equally, if someone wants to download one of your lead magnets, take them to a thank you page. Tell them what happens next.

So I hope that’s been useful to you. I think when considering this, think of yourself as a shop owner. If a customer comes in, would you jump out and shout ‘Sign up to my newsletter!’ Sorry, I seriously hope you weren’t driving then. 

But no you wouldn’t. Then obviously a popup as soon as someone lands on your site probably isn’t the best. 

The worst one by far is giving people these ridiculous options. So you may have seen this where you click the x on the pop up because you don’t want to hand over your details and they say, okay, could you just confirm that you don’t want your life to change and you don’t want to be super-wealthy? And then you have to click ‘Nah I don’t want to be super wealthy, thanks’ 

I can’t actually say what I really think when I see those because Martin wants the entire podcast to be marked as non-explicit but you can guess.

So I hope you found this episode useful.

And if you’re wanting to learn more about how to grow your website so it acts as the best salesperson for your business, then check out our membership community, Make Your Mark Online. This community helps people build and grow a successful website, and do it without being annoying. 

So that’s it for today’s episode, we’ll see you next time on the Make your make online podcast

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 41- How to Capture Leads On Your Website Without Being Annoying appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

In this super practical podcast episode, we’re going to tell you exactly how to produce over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes.

You’ll probably want to grab a pen and paper for this episode, or better yet, download our content planner which will help you.

In this episode, you learn…

• How to relate your content to the products or services that you offer
• The type of content that delivers more leads and sales
• The six key topics you need to cover in your content
• How to get in front of people searching on Google
• Why you need to view your content as a customer service tool
• How to create over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes by following along to this episode

Stitcher| iTunes | Radio Republic | Soundcloud

In this super practical podcast episode, we’re going to tell you exactly how to produce over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes.

You’ll probably want to grab a pen and paper for this episode, or better yet, download our content planner which will help you.

In this episode, you learn…

• How to relate your content to the products or services that you offer
• The type of content that delivers more leads and sales
• The six key topics you need to cover in your content
• How to get in front of people searching on Google
• Why you need to view your content as a customer service tool
• How to create over 50 pieces of content in just 30 minutes by following along to this episode

Resources

Content Planner

Marcus Sheridan’s They Ask, You Answer

Facebook Group

Website Buyer’s Guide

Why We’re Increasing Our Prices 

Top 10 Best Web Design Agencies in Manchester

Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook vs Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 40- How to Plan 50+ pieces of content in under 30 minutes appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Mostly, you’ll find diaries and planners and journals. But there are a few planners/workbooks out there that specifically help you increase leads and sales in your business. We released one of these late 2019 – the 90 Day Challenge Workbook. 

A diary you may have also come across is Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner. 

Both are business-related. Both are what you might class as ‘stationery’. Both help you plan your ‘content’. 

But the question is, which one should you choose?

It’s actually a question we’ve been asked a few times since we launched the workbook – mostly in the form of, ‘What’s the difference between your workbook and Janet’s diary?’ 

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at which diary/workbook you should choose. 

Erm…why would I trust your opinion? 

That’s a good question. 

Obviously, we’ve produced one of these products and we earn money from it. BUT, we are strong believers in your content marketing delivering good customer service. Which is why we are going to take an unbiased approach, look at the facts, and report all this back to you, so you can make the best buying decision. 

This, of course, is still my opinion, but as a fellow-stationery-geek, I want this to be super-helpful so you make the right choice. 

An Overview: Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner

Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner is an A4, spiral-bound, desk diary that helps you plan your content for your social media updates, blog/vlog and email newsletter. 

The diary includes…

• Guidance on how to create your content plan for 2020
• Yearly and quarterly content planning pages
• Key awareness days, such as ‘Blue Monday’ or ‘National Tea Day’, for each month of 2020 
• A week-to-week spread so you can plan your social media/blog/podcast content every day
• Prompts and ideas for content 
• Notes sections 
• Different front covers to choose from 

An Overview: Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook  

The 90 Day Challenge Workbook is an A4, spiral-bound, desk workbook that helps you plan your blog post, video, podcast or website page once a week for three 90-day ‘challenges’ or stints. 

The 90 Day Challenge Workbook includes…

• An overview of the six types of content topics you should produce
• A planning section to note down your content marketing ideas 
• Sections for evaluating where you are currently, such as your current website traffic and search rankings 
• One page per piece of content you need to produce as part of the 90-day challenge- with prompts on target keywords and call to actions 
• Blogging, podcast and video checklists 
• A section to evaluate how successful each challenge has been 
• Notes sections  

Price/Number of Pages: Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner

The cost of the diary & planner is:

£39 + P&P  for a physical copy of the diary. 

Shipping Costs: 

£3.55 if you are based in the UK.

For international P&P, the prices vary, such as…

£13.35 (for customers based in the United States)

£14.10 (for customers based in Australia)

The number of pages the diary has is: 

168

Price/Number of Pages: Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook  

The cost of the workbook is:

$9 (Approx. £6.88)+VAT for the PDF version 

$26 (Approx. £19.87)+VAT, +P&P for the physical copy which also includes the PDF

Shipping Costs: 

£2.99 if you are based in the UK.

For international P&P, it costs: 

£10.00 anywhere you are in the world

The number of pages the workbook has is: 

119

Key Similarities Between Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner and Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook

• A4 Desk Diary/Workbook 
• Spiral Bound
• Classed as Stationery 
• Helps you plan your content 

When Should Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner be used/purchased? 

You can use this diary at any time of year, but ideally, to get the most out of it, you would want to start the diary from the beginning in January. It would make a great gift for a business owner, so would also be good to purchase for Christmas. 

When Should Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook be used/purchased?

This can be used at any time. The workbook includes 3x 90-day challenges, which can be completed at your own pace, although it’s recommended you leave just a month between each challenge. 

What does Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner help you do? 

Janet’s Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner, helps you plan out your entire year of content – blog/vlog/email/social media, through annual, quarterly, weekly and daily planners. 

The diary also includes key awareness days for the entire year, so you don’t have to struggle for content ideas. 

What does our 90 Day Challenge Workbook help you do? 

Our 90 Day Challenge Workbook, helps you stick to three 90-day Content Marketing Challenges throughout the year, where you produce one piece of content per week. 

The planner also includes sections on how to improve your SEO and evaluate before and after each challenge. 

How does each diary/workbook define ‘content’? 

This is one of the key differences I’ve noticed between the workbook/diary. Both of them help you plan your ‘content’, however, the ‘content’ they describe is actually quite different. 

Janet’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner, helps you plan your social media updates, blog, vlog and your email newsletter. 

Jammy Digital’s 90 Day Challenge Workbook, helps you plan your blog, video, podcast, website page, eBook or infographic. 

The only cross over here is with the blog posts ideas. 

What’s the difference between a diary and a workbook in general? 

A diary helps you plan or keep a record of events. And Janet’s diary does that, it helps you with a yearly, quarterly, weekly and daily plan for your content. 

A workbook contains instruction and exercises. And that is exactly what our workbook does, it’s focused on completing a content marketing challenge, three times a year.  

What Extra Support Does Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner Provide?  

Free Support – Monthly Email

When you purchase the diary you get a monthly email which updates you with further key dates such as new books, films, TV programmes to add to your diary. 

Paid Extras: The Media Diary Owners Club

The Media Diary Owners Club includes the physical copy of the diary as well as a PDF version. It also includes a 90-minute online class which shows you how to use the diary and extra ways you can use it, additional printables, a quarterly group coaching call and weekly newsletter. 

Total Cost – £102.00

What Extra Support Does our 90 Day Challenge Workbook Provide?  

Free Support – Facebook Group 

When you purchase the workbook, you can also join a free Facebook group which gives you tips on how to use it, training videos and answers your questions. 

Paid Extras: The Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Within our Membership Community, we run a 90 Day Challenge three times per year. Every week, members receive feedback on their content on a group call, access to training on the type of content to produce, a private channel to ask questions and gain feedback, and the PDF version of the workbook. 

Total Cost – $39 per month+VAT or $390 per year+VAT

An Overview of Key Benefits: Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner 

• Space to plan for 365 days of content – so you never miss a day
• Key awareness dates make it easy to think of content ideas 
• Ability to see your full year of content  
• 4 beautiful designs to choose from 
• Great quality paper and front cover 
• A great gift to give a business owner 
• Extra email support 

An Overview of Key Benefits: The 90 Day Challenge Workbook

• Set goals for each piece of content such as target keywords or calls to actions 
• Plan each piece of content using one of only six content topics 
• Blogging, video and podcasting checklists – which help you set up, optimise and complete your content on each platform
• Facebook group support 
• Measure success – take stock and evaluate before and after each challenge
• A great gift to give a business owner 

In conclusion, which one should you choose? 

That’s the tricky question, isn’t it? And the truth is, it depends. It really does depend on what you need. 

The diary and the workbook are actually very different. 

Janet describes her diary as a ‘content planning toolkit’. And I would certainly agree with that. It helps you plan an entire year’s worth of content across many different channels, such as all your social media channels, blog and email newsletter.

Our workbook helps you stick to a  specific challenge – consistently producing one piece of content every week for 90 days, three times a year. You pick one platform to produce your content such as blog, video or podcast and we help you set your aims for each piece of content. 

Janet’s diary has a huge focus on planning content across your social media channels. Whereas our workbook has a huge focus on planning one piece of content consistently on one channel.  

So, if you need a content overview of your year and need ideas for social media updates – Janet’s diary may suit you better. 

If you want to produce one piece per week consistently on one particular channel, then our workbook may be the better option. 

It also depends when you plan on purchasing a diary or workbook. Janet’s works well right at the start of the year when you really want to get into planning!

Ours works well at any time of year. It’s less about having a full overview of content and more about sticking with one piece of content per week for 90 days, which can be completed at any time. 

How Will I Be Using the Diary and Workbook? 

So, after all those facts, what’s my personal opinion? 

Obviously, I’ve got a workbook – it would be pretty rubbish if I didn’t give myself a copy. And as well as running the 90 Day Challenge, I’ll be taking part in it too. Our workbook will help me with this, and I’ve already filled a lot of it in for the next challenge starting on Monday 13 January. 

But I also have a copy of Janet’s diary too

I’ve already started filling this in. I love blogging/podcasting/video but could do with extra help with social media updates and this is where Janet’s diary is really useful! Plus, I love having an overview of my year. 

So personally, I’ll be using them both for different things. Although there is some cross over too, for example, I’m planning some social media updates in Janet’s diary that are centred around the content I’ve come up within our workbook. 

Finally, as I said in the beginning, I am a stationery geek and LOVE stationery design. There is no doubt about it, Janet’s Media Diary is friggin’ beautiful. The copy I have is pretty and feminine and has really good paper-quality (this is important to us stationery geeks). 

And I personally love the design of our workbook too. It’s not your typical stationery design with pastel colours and golds – it’s bright colours and pop art style. And I like how it’s a bit different. 

I hope that was helpful to you and you now know which option suits you best. 

Whatever option you choose, I recommend a brew, some biscuits and an afternoon filling in the diary or workbook. Pure heaven for a stationery-geek. 

Find out more about or purchase Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner

Find out more about or purchase our 90 Day Challenge Workbook

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner vs Jammy Digital’s 90 Day Challenge Workbook appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But how do you get more people to visit your website? In this post, we share how we increased our website traffic by 10 times in 12 months in 2017 and give you some tips to help you do the same.

Using your website to sell

Before 2017, we used to get approximately 250-300 visitors to our website per month. At the time, our business was going well – we were getting plenty of referrals from our existing and previous clients, and we had enough projects to pay the bills. But while we were busy working on our clients’ websites, we were neglecting our own.

We might be professional web designers, but we were suffering from what we call ‘website shame’. Just like a lot of our clients do before they start working with us, we were using our website like an online business card – a glorified billboard for our business that we’d send people to when they wanted to get in touch with us.

But that’s now how you should use your website! Your website should act as an ‘unpaid salesperson’ for your business – it should help you generate leads and sales. Sell your products or services.

Also, because we weren’t creating any blog content for our website, we didn’t have anything to share on social media or with our email list. And as a result, we weren’t building our brand, and our business was growing excruciatingly slowly.

But in 2017, we started producing regular content for our website, and everything changed.

Publishing regular content on your website

Fast-forward to 2018, and we were regularly getting 2,500-3,000 visits to our website per month. Considering there’s a lot of competition in our market, those stats aren’t bad for a web design agency. But what’s key is that we increased our website traffic by 10 times compared to where we were a year earlier. And that’s something!

So what did we do differently?

At the start of 2017, we joined a 90-day content marketing challenge with a group of like-minded business owners through the former Content Marketing Academy (CMA) led by Chris Marr. By signing up for the challenge, we made a decision and a commitment to create a new piece of blog content every week and to practise what we preached.

We started using our website to:

• Build a personal brand.
• Get more traffic.
• Drive more enquiries.
• Make more sales.

But how did we do it? And how can you commit to creating regular content on your website?

1. Measure your benchmark

Do you know how much traffic you’re currently getting on your website every month? In our experience, most website owners don’t. So if you haven’t already, use your Google Analytics to find out.

2. Use your time efficiently

Prior to 2017, we had probably published 2 or 3 blog posts in a year. We used the excuse that we were too busy with client work to find the time to write. If you don’t make time to market your business, your business will stay still. And maybe that’s okay for now, but what about in 6 months or a year?

As a result of publishing regular content, we got more work. But more importantly, we attracted clients that were better suited to our business and who paid more. We did this and still found time to write weekly. This just goes to show that if you put your mind to it and prioritise working on your own business and website, you can make it happen. All we needed to do was to plan ahead and be more efficient with our time.

So what can you do to make better use of your time? Could you set aside a couple of hours a week to create content? Could you maybe take yourself out for half a day every fortnight to work on your website? What worked for us was planning out our content in advance, that way, we knew exactly what to write. We did this using a content planner, that we’re now giving away free to you. Just click to download below!

3. Create accountability

What worked really well for us was taking part in a content creation challenge with other business owners. This gave us the motivation and accountability we needed to keep going when the going got tough and always meet our deadlines. It wasn’t always easy, and it involved a lot of last-minute work on a Sunday night. But we had a group of people supporting us and cheering us on. And that made all the difference in helping us meet our deadlines.

Plus, we got feedback too, and this helped us get better and faster at producing content.

4. Answer your clients’ questions

During the 90-day challenge, we followed the principles from the book They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan. We learnt that when people are thinking about buying from you, they’ll do their own research first. And typically, they’ll look for information around price, read reviews and comparisons, etc.

Just ask yourself, what did you do the last time you made a purchase? Before you bought the product/service? Research, right? We can’t even buy a toaster without researching!

Using Marcus Sheridan’s method, we came up with a huge number of ideas. We wrote blog posts around our prices, we created industry-related comparisons and reviews, and we generally tried to answer any question our existing or prospective clients would ask us. Essentially, our content was a customer service tool.

Some of the blog posts we wrote back in 2017 still attract the largest number of visitors to our website. To give you an idea, here are some examples of content we wrote in answer to our clients’ questions:

• 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Work With Us
• How to take payments online for services. PayPal vs Stripe vs SamCart vs GoCardless
• Top 10 Best Web Design Agencies in Manchester 

The last blog post, for example, is one of the many posts that has attracted paying clients into our business. So creating content that answers people’s questions isn’t only great for increasing traffic, it should be used to deliver leads and sales too.

If you want to start publishing regular content, record all the questions that your clients ask you. Whether it’s over the phone, on email, during a face-to-face conversation, a coaching call or a consultation, make a note of them. If one client (existing or prospective) asks you something, chances are that others will do too. And if you’re just starting out and don’t have many clients yet, Facebook groups and conversations on social media can be a great place to start to find ideas.

To help you plan all this content, you can download the content matrix, which is the exact framework we use to plan our content for the entire year.

5. Optimise your content for search

Once we gathered ideas for content from our clients, we then used keyword research tools to articulate those questions in a way that would help our ideal clients find our content on Google. ‘Optimising your content for search’ effectively means using words and phrases that people will use when searching for your business or for related information online.

So use keyword research tools to make intelligent decisions about the titles and the sub-headings you use in your blog posts. And once you’ve identified the relevant keywords, make sure you include them in:

• Title tags.
• Meta descriptions.
• Image names.
• And the Alt text on your images.

If you want to find out more about how to do this, head over to our blog post: 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It. (We wrote it at the back of a real question, and it’s still one of the best-performing blog posts on our website!).

You can also download our checklist of the exact ways to optimise your blog posts.

While we always recommend optimising your content for search, by creating content centered around our clients’ questions, we didn’t always target high-traffic keywords. And yet, some of the blog posts we wrote following this approach still attract the majority of the traffic to our website, like this post: Why are we so expensive?

6. Delve deep into the topic

If you look at some of the blog posts we linked to, you’ll notice that our content is always quite in-depth. Generally speaking, the higher the word count, the more traffic you can expect to receive to your blog post. There’s enough data out there to prove that the more effort you put into your writing, the more opportunities you have to include:

• additional keywords,
• internal links,
• and optimised images.

All of this encourages Google to rank you higher on the search results. So aim to create the best piece of content on a certain topic, and you’ll be rewarded by Google sending more traffic your way.

And if you’re worried about not being able to create long-form content, don’t! As a business owner, you confidently answer the questions your clients ask you day in and day out without thinking twice about it. So look at writing blog posts as an efficient way to share the knowledge that’s in your head. Focus on how you’re making life easier for your readers – you’re educating, informing, and entertaining. You’re being of service.

Be honest and transparent. Don’t be afraid of giving away your knowledge – it pays back, as you can expect an increase in traffic and in enquiries. Just be mindful of the fact that longer content doesn’t mean boring. So keep your end-users (the people consuming your content) in mind, and make your content interesting and relevant.

7. Rinse and repeat

Once you’ve followed these steps once, rinse and repeat. Do this weekly for a year, and you’ll see huge results, much like we did. It’s by creating 25-30 blog posts in 2017 that we managed to increase our website traffic by 10 times. It’s hard work, but as long as you commit to it and find a way to keep yourself accountable to the process, you can make it happen!

Sure, we found it challenging at times. When we first started, we second-guessed ourselves, and we weren’t sure anyone was even reading. But as time went on, people started noticing our content, sharing it, and giving us praise. Our audience started to see us differently because we had this wealth of knowledge that was now available on our website for the world to see.

Publishing regular content changed our positioning in the market. And it changed the type of discussions we’d have during sales calls. We found that people would read our articles before jumping on a call with us. And by the time we spoke to them, they already had trust in us. This made our sales process much quicker and easier.

In 2017, our website started doing some of the selling for us.

And if you commit to publishing regular content on your website, you can get these results for your business too. You can start this whole process by downloading the content matrix which will help you create your entire content for the year. But it’s not just any content, this content will actually help deliver you sales and leads.

Would you like to join our 90-day challenge? 

In 2020, we are running three 90-day content marketing challenges inside our membership, Make Your Mark Online. Our challenges will start on the 13th of January, the 11th of May, and the 7th of September 2020, and we’ll ask all our members taking part to produce one piece of content every week. We’ll support them with weekly calls, training videos, and a private Slack group, giving them the support, motivation, and accountability to use content to increase website traffic and make a difference to the bottom line of their business. If you’d like to find out more and join us for the next 90-day challenge, head over to Make Your Mark Online, or give us a shout if you have any questions!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to 10x Your Website Traffic appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

What’s a Learning Centre?

Have you ever come across a Learning Centre on someone’s website? Maybe, just like on our website, you may have spotted a menu item called ‘Learn‘.

The term Learning Centre is something we originally picked up from Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask You Answer. Since then, we’ve not only built one on our website, but we’ve created Learning Centres for our clients too.

First thing first, what’s a Learning Centre?

[easy-tweet tweet=”A Learning Centre is a page on your website where you can organise your content in a way that’s digestible and accessible to your readers. “]

With the information all in one place, it becomes really easy for your website visitors to find your content and consume it in the way they prefer. Literally, at the click of a button.

If you regularly create any type of content (be it blog posts, podcast episodes, videos, PDFs, etc.), you’ll need a Learning Centre.

Problems with a Blog

A website blog in the traditional sense is a page on your website that houses all of your written content. It’s a fantastic way for you to generate traffic to your site and show your visitors how knowledgeable you are. However, when it comes to accessibility and relevancy of content, a website blog poses a few problems.

1. Your latest piece of content isn’t always relevant to your website visitors

If someone lands on your website today and clicks on your blog, they might see a blog post about a topic that’s relevant and interesting to them. But someone else who happens to find your website on the same day might feel that your latest article isn’t helpful.

And what do you think they’re going to do when that happens?

Click away.

Sadly, they’ll never find out that only a few weeks prior you had published something that was exactly what they were after!

Because of the way a blog is set up, you (the business owner) cannot pick and choose what type of content is displayed when you want it to. Different visitors may want different information from your website. And because your website blog displays your content in reverse chronological order, it may not always be easy for your readers to find posts that are relevant to them.

2. People don’t like clicking through lots of pages

As much as we’d like to think that our website visitors will click onto the next available page of our blog until they find what they’re looking for, the reality is that not many people will do that.

Think about it. When you’re online, do you ever click on the second or third page of the Google search results?

Probably not.

And if people don’t take the time to wade through pages of content when it comes to Google, are they likely to do that on your website? Chances are they might miss that epic piece of content that you took weeks to create and is now collecting dust on the fourth page of your blog, where no one will see it.

3. Older posts don’t tend to perform as well

People presume that older posts are less accurate. This is something that’s been shown over and over again. When you type something into Google and see results from 2014, you’re not likely to click on them. Not if you have the option to access something that was produced later.

You may have content on your blog that’s evergreen and still relevant. But people will just assume that because it’s older it’s not as accurate. And they will skip through that.

4. You can’t showcase your best content

The other problem you have with a blog is that it doesn’t allow you to showcase your best content.

We know what our best content is. And we also know what content drives people to get in touch with us. But with a typical website blog that displays your content in reverse chronological order, your prospective customers and clients aren’t able to access your best content unless you organise it differently.

And this is where a Learning Centre would come in handy and solve all of these issues.

Should a Learning Centre replace your blog?

We’ve given you so many reasons why a blog in the traditional sense doesn’t do your content much justice, that you’re now probably thinking you should swap out menu items and have a Learning Centre instead of a blog.

No, you shouldn’t.

Please keep your blog.

Do not get rid of your blog under any circumstances.

And here’s why.

Yes, a blog might display your content in reverse chronological order, but people still access content via your blog because a blog is what they know. A Learning Centre, on the other hand, is still a new concept to a lot of people. If you swap your blog out for something that a lot of your visitors haven’t heard of before, you may not get as many clicks on your content. And you don’t want that.

So keep your blog in the main menu item, and then find a place to put a Learning Centre page as well. If you don’t want to call it Learning Centre, ‘Learning Zone‘, ‘Learn‘, or ‘Information Centre‘ are also good alternatives. Whatever you want to call it, as long as you use it as a way for your visitors to access your content in a nice, easy-to-use way, you’ve got one.

To give you an idea of how we encourage our visitors to use our Learning Centre on our website, have a look at our Home Page. As you scroll down it says ‘Visit our Learning Centre’, and it links to our blog, our videos, and our articles.

How do you create your own Learning Centre?

The answer will be slightly different according to what it is that you do. The Learning Centre page for an e-commerce shop will be different from a service provider’s, for example.

But all learning centre’s should be:

• User-friendly
• Give people content in a way they like to consume it.
• Easy for people to filter through your content.

You can create a learning centre based on what your target audience needs and what you offer, but here are some examples of what you can include.

1. The search field

This is the single most important element of a Learning Centre. A search field is a place where your readers can type in a word or a phrase to find out more information about a specific topic.

When your readers search for something in this field, they’ll be returned with all the relevant pieces of content that relate to that topic. This doesn’t just include blog posts. If you have podcast episodes or video content on your website, this can be displayed as well.

From a design point of view, your search field is the biggest part of your Learning Centre. It’s right there at the top of the page, or ‘above the fold’ as we say. You don’t want people to miss it.

Plus, it’s a great handy feature for you as the business owner. We use it all the time to quickly find our own content and signpost people to it!

Example of a Learning Centre search field

We can’t talk about a learning centre without, of course, talking about Marcus Sheridan. On his company website, River Pools, he provides the reader with everything they’ll need to make an informed buying decision when buying a pool. For people to search through all his content (and there’s a lot of it), River Pools provides an easy search field. You can even use it to filter down by resource or topic.

2. Links to popular topics

Another element you want to include in your Learning Centre page are links to popular topics.

Let’s say someone is browsing your website, but they don’t yet know what you do and how you help people. Sure, you have a search field at the top of the page, but at this stage, they’re not entirely sure what they should be searching for.

So how can you help your users?

You can help by giving them some prompts.

And you do that through the links to popular content you provide.

Example of links to popular topics on a Learning Centre

This is a great example of a learning centre for an ecommerce website by Picture Frames Express.

They break down their learning centre by particular topics, which the customer or potential customer can easily sift through. It’s all their helpful information in one place.

3. The ‘Most Common Questions’ section

This is the bit where you answer the questions that people ask you on a regular basis. Having some of the answers on this page means that when someone decides to get in touch with you, they’re already familiar with the way you work. It’s a bit like the self-serve checkout! It’s great for your users, and it saves you time.

If you don’t yet have a lot of content on your website, consider using an FAQ plugin or an accordion-type setup to display your most common questions. That way, when a reader clicks on the question, the website just shows them the answer with a couple of lines of text.

Example of ‘Most Common Questions’ on a Learning Centre

Rachel from All Things Inc has over 1250 blog posts teaching people all about internal communications. Rachel joined our membership community, Make Your Mark Online, and made use of our free, plugin, learning centre template. We LOVE what she’s done. Especially the section ‘Most Common Questions’. She answers each question on this section with a link to an in-depth article. Really helpful stuff.

Example of ‘Most Common Questions’ on a Learning Centre

Another great example of this is from Debbie Ekins who produces amazing content for Eagle Leisure, a hot tub and spa supplier. Eagle Leisure answer their readers’ most common questions with links to blog posts and videos – an amazing way of delivering excellent customer service.

4. Give people access to the different types of content you provide

Do you offer content in a variety of different formats? For example, do you share articles on your blog but also have a podcast or a series of videos? Then give people the choice to consume your content in whichever way they prefer.

The worst thing you can do on your website is to just show the content in one format (or in the format that you prefer) because that may not be the way some of your prospective customers or clients like to consume it. Some people prefer video. Others prefer reading. And vice versa.

Example of ‘Most Common Questions’ on a Learning Centre

On our website, we offer our readers the opportunity to consume our content in different ways. Now, this sounds like a lot of work, but we actually repurpose a lot of our content into different formats. For example, this blog post was previously a podcast episode!

5. Include links to recent content

Another element you might want to include on your learning Centre page is recent content. So, for example, you could include links to your three most recent posts, podcast episodes, or videos.

This isn’t always necessary, especially if you already have a lot of content. But if you’re still building your content library, this is definitely a nice-to-have.

Example of ‘Most Recent Content’ on a Learning Centre

We loved designing Superfast IT’s website. They provide IT support to business and have so much helpful content on their website. They list their most recent blog articles on their learning centre, encouraging people to click through.

Reading resources

This is a section where you can add any guides, tools, or resources you want people to be able to access. So if you have any free giveaways, this is the place to showcase them on your website. Otherwise, your visitors might miss them. This is a great opportunity for you to add value to your readers but also potentially build your email list.

Example of ‘Free Resources’ on a Learning Centre

We love Yva’s learning centre over at Content Boost. Yva uses her reading resources as lead capture tools on her learning centre page. The design is fab, and it’s really easy to access them all in one place.

Your Best Resources

By selecting your best resources, you’re directing your reader to your best converting content. This could be more information about how you work or a particular product. Of course, it’s got to be helpful, but it’s a good idea to highlight these pieces of content.

Sara also joined our membership community, and made use of our free, plugin, learning centre template. We love how she’s highlighted her best resources here. Her blog post series, advising people how to batch write their blog posts, is so helpful! But she’s also featured information about why you should hire Sara, and more about podcast repurposing (a service Sara offers). This is a smart way of offering helpful content that also sells you at the same time.

Would you like a FREE Learning Centre template?

As most of you know, we run a monthly membership called Make Your Mark Online (or MYMO for short). This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website.

Recently, we’ve done something really special for our members. We built them a Learning Centre template free of charge that they can just plug into their website and customise to match their branding and preferences. It literally takes two minutes to do this. And of course, we have a video inside our membership walking our members through how to set it all up, step-by-step.

If you’re interested in becoming a member, the doors for the membership are currently open! It’s been amazing to see so many of our members get great results with their websites since they joined in October last year. So if you want to find out more, check out our membership, and we’ll see you on the inside!

Over to you

Have you ever heard of a learning centre before? Is this something you’ll consider doing now? We’d love to know your thoughts!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post What is a Learning Centre and why do you need one on your website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

That kind of content, the kind that’s honest and transparent, takes me far longer to write and publish than anything else.

Why? Because it scares the crap out of me.

Scary thoughts run through my mind. Things like…

What if we never see any enquiries ever again?
What if we’re so honest that no one wants to work with us?
Isn’t it best to get people on a call first to convince them what we’re worth before we reveal our prices or processes?

But you know what? None of my worst fears have ever come true.

We’ve published blog posts like, Why Are We So Expensive, How Much Money Have We Made From Free Website Critiques?, Why We Don’t Do Ad-Hoc Amendments, Top 10 Best Web Design Companies in Manchester and Why You Shouldn’t Work With Us.

On the face of it, it looks like we’re majorly shooting ourselves in the foot, doesn’t it? But in fact, by being brutally honest through our content we’ve managed to attract MORE of our ideal clients.

Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why you need to bring some brutal honesty to your business.

1. You’ll get found on Google

I distinctly remember when Martin told me he was going to write an article about the top 10 web design agencies in Manchester…and not include us.

‘Are you feeling alright?’ was my first response. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ was my second. There was probably a swear word or two in there as well.

But Martin, being Martin, stubbornly went ahead and has been smug about it ever since.

Back then, we were getting a lot of enquiries from people who just weren’t the right fit for us. They weren’t bad potential clients, it’s just they didn’t have the right budget or they needed a much larger agency. In the interest of good customer service, Martin wrote a blog post about other web design agencies in Manchester who he thought were great and would be happy to recommend.

Essentially this blog post was all about saving us time when responding to enquiries and delivering good customer service. BUT, this one article actually had another, more profitable side-effect.

What Were Our Results?

We received (and still do receive!) a lot of traffic to this blog post. We are ranked on the first page of Google for ‘Best Web Design Manchester’/ ‘Best Web Designer Manchester’/‘Best Web Design Agencies in Manchester’ and all associated keywords.

In fact, four days after we published this post, we received a phone call from a completely cold lead. Someone asked us to design their website on the spot, and they’ve been a loyal client ever since. That’s about 6K from one blog post (that we can account for directly).

They found us from typing into Google ‘Best Web Design Agencies in Manchester’. And they wanted to work with us because they valued our honesty.

You can see why Martin was smug.

How Can You Do This?

Think about what your audience will type into Google about your products and services and answer that question.

It’s that simple.

Yes, it might make you squirm a little. Yes, it’s scary. But if you’re answering that question and delivering the best customer service, people will find you on Google and you’ll blow the competition out of the water.

Of course, there are things you can do to enhance your chances of getting found, check out this blog post on how to optimise your blog posts.

2. You won’t waste time with people who aren’t right for your business

Before 2017, we were spending A LOT of time talking to people who just weren’t right for our business. This ranged from people who wanted a cheap web designer for a few hundred quid to people who wanted a full-service agency with £50,000+ to spend.

But it’s not just about money. We also spoke to people who wanted a ‘yes-man’ to do exactly what they asked or people who wanted an agency to update their website daily without doing anything themselves.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these particular clients. At all. They’re just not the right clients for us. But we were spending hours and hours each week talking to these kinds of people. They booked calls with us and sometimes we’d even get to the proposal stage before it became clear we were the wrong company for them.

That’s why we write articles like ‘Why You Shouldn’t Work With Us’, that’s why we talk about our pricing and that’s why we joke that we’ll never, ever wear a suit. We’re just not that kind of agency.

At first, writing this kind of content is scary. You’re putting yourselves into a corner. You’re drawing a line in the sand – this is who I do work with, this is who I don’t work with.

What Were Our Results?

Now we attract our ideal clients, and by that, we mean people who are the right fit for us, but equally, we’re the right fit for them.

How Can You Do This?

Firstly, you need to think about who you’re ideal clients are and who your crappy clients are. And I’m not just talking about clients with the right budget, I’m talking about clients you want to work with.

For us, that’s people who are quite happy to get their hands dirty with updating their website themselves, and people who want to hire an agency for their expertise (they don’t just see us as designers to boss around).

You need to establish the type of people you want to work with then use your content and your web pages to make it clear who you’re suitable for and who you’re not.

3. You tackle people’s objections

You know those little niggles you have when you’re purchasing something…‘It seems a little expensive’, ‘will this deliver a ROI?’, ‘will this really help me to x,y,z?’

Every time a potential customer visits your website, they have these same ‘niggles’.

You can do one of three things to tackle this:

1. Completely ignore them in the hopes that the potential customer just decides to invest in you anyway
2. Invest in ‘soft’ strategies that help give you social proof, essentially proving to the potential customer you are reliable and trustworthy. You can do this by showing reviews and testimonials, case studies and awards etc.
3. Tackle the issues head on through your content.

A lot of business go with option one. Some do two. Very few go with option three.

And yes it’s scary. Why is it scary, I don’t know? Maybe it feels like we’re shining a light on the perceived downsides of our products and services?

That’s what it felt like when we wrote the post ‘Why are We So Expensive?” Aren’t we just reaffirming a bad point to our potential customers???

Nope.

We knew our customers were asking themselves why we cost more than other web designers. It’s not as if by writing this content we were putting those thoughts in their heads. They were already there.

So, if those thoughts were already there, what did we have to lose by explaining why we charged more?

What Were Our Results?

When people question why we charge what we do, we simply send them that article. It essentially explains the difference between us and other agencies. And you know what? It does really well at converting those potential customers into paying customers! Just because we tackle their concerns head-on.

How Can You Do This?

Think about the main concerns people have about working with you. Think about…

1. What are your customer objections?
2. What are the reasons you’ve been turned down in the past?

Now, this can be difficult as often people don’t want to admit why they don’t want to work with you, either out of politeness or embarrassment (if they can’t afford it, for example).

This is where it’s good to ask your peers and other business owners what their objections might be for working with you. Once you have these objections, you can start writing content around that.

4. You’ll build trust and loyalty

This is possibly the biggest benefit we’ve seen in producing ‘scary’ content. Scary content is usually honest content. It’s saying something that others in your industry don’t talk about, or even hide from their customers.

Scary content is about delivering the best possible customer service, and in doing this, you will build trust and loyalty.

One of our scariest pieces of content was – Why new business owners shouldn’t spend thousands on a website.

This was based on our experience. We’d designed websites for excited new business owners only to find that a year or so later their business had changed direction. This meant they had to come back to us to tweak their website or even redesign it.

It occurred to us that this was a huge waste of time and money for new business owners. So we made the decision not to accept clients who were brand new business owners and recommend they invest their time building a website themselves first.

What Were Our Results?

Did we lose money? Yes.

BUT, this was only a short-term loss.

We’ve had several clients who originally took this advice and spent their time building their business and website only to come back to us when they were in a better position to invest.

Our advice meant that when they were ready, they came back to us at a better time for them to spend money. There was no chance they were going to go anywhere else.

How Can You Do This?

This is about taking the decision to be better.

We know so many wonderful web designers but we also know the industry is rife with money-grabbing, crap-bags too.

We constantly strive to be better and make the right recommendations to our audience. Sometimes, this is tough, as it can feel like you’re losing money. But in the long-term, it works out better for both the client and you.

5. You’ll get traffic

Do you know what happens when you’re the only one in your industry talking about something? You get traffic. And tons of it!

One thing that people hate talking about is money (I think it’s a British thing). But, we all have a secret interest in it, don’t we?

We decided to share how much we’d made from delivering free website critiques in our Facebook group. The point of this article was to show people how they can make actual money from giving away free content. We used us as an example because we could see a direct correlation between our free website critiques and our sales.

What Were Our Results

This blog post received a lot of traffic and was shared a lot across social media. Other people said they were going to do something similar, even other web designers!

How Can You Do This?

My biggest fear was that I was going to come across as braggy. I didn’t want that.

So, instead of just saying this is what we did, look at how much money we made and aren’t we just ace, we broke it down. We said how we did this and why it worked, and we talked about how our audience could do something similar.

Just come at it as if you’re sharing something that works, and you’re wanting to help your reader do the same.

6. You actually sell

We’ve made a commitment to being open and clear with our pricing, which is why we have a pricing page on our website.

But this year, Martin and I sat down at the kitchen table and made the decision to increase our prices. Now, we could’ve just edited our pricing page and had done with it, but we wanted to explain why we’re increasing our prices.

In an effort to be transparent, what actually happened was we outlined how we deliver value and a healthy return on investment for our clients.

What were our results?

As a result of that blog post, three people confirmed they wanted us to design their website for them, resulting in over £15,000 worth of sales.

How can you do the same?

If there are changes within your business – such as price increases, don’t shy away from telling people about them. Tell them, but explain why these changes are happening, what value you are giving and how it’s a benefit to your clients and customers.

But, even if your prices are going up from external factors outside of your control, such as the price of goods, explain why clearly. People get that costs go up and if you’re upfront about it, you will gain (most) people’s respect and understanding.

To Sum Up

Scary content is exactly that, scary. Of course, there are massive benefits to you, as I’ve listed above. But ultimately, this is about your audience and what will be hugely helpful to them. If you put them front and centre of everything you do, you can’t go wrong.

We didn’t think of this ourselves (I wish we did). This all comes from the teachings of Marcus Sheridan and Chris Marr from Content Marketing Academy. It’s all about producing content that helps your audience make a better buying decision.

Your thoughts?

Have you ever produced a piece of scary content? What was it? And what were your results? We’d love to know!

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post If Your Content Doesn’t Scare You It Won’t Work appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We’ve all been there. Creating content is hard. But coming up with content ideas? That can be a killer.

It’s best to create content when you follow a proper strategy, because that’s the best way of using content to reach your business goals. However, we get that sometimes you just need inspiration!

So here are some of the best ways to find brilliant content ideas…

1. Write Down Every Question a Customer or Client Has Ever Asked You

Go do it now.

Done?

Good.

Now answer them!

And yep, even those awkward ones like, ‘how much do you charge?’ or ‘why are you more expensive than your competitors‘?

It doesn’t matter how you answer them. On your blog, video, vlogging from your bubble bath (if that’s your thing). Just answer them.

And there you have it, lots of lovely new content marketing ideas. Ones that users will search for and find informative and helpful.

2. Involve your team

Great things happen when you get people in a room and talking. You come up with the most brilliant ideas.

Make sure you regularly make time with your team to think of content ideas – your team could’ve been asked an interesting question from a customer, or come across an insightful article, or even spotted a trend on social media.

Remember, every team member, whether they’re in sales, tech support, or design, offers a unique perspective that can add immense value to your content strategy.

3. Keep a Pen and Paper Handy

Did you know J.K. thought of her amazing, beyond amazing idea about a boy wizard on the train when she didn’t have a pen and paper? Avoid that mistake. Ideas hit us at the most inconvenient of times. So, make sure you have something with you in order to jot them down.

4. Jump on the Trend Horse

Create content based on what’s happening in the news and or trends. If you have expertise in a domain that’s making the rounds, it’s your cue to weigh in and share insights!

Stay relevant. Stay vocal.

5. Join Forums and Groups

Hang out where your audience hangs out and watch out for the questions they ask – this is a treasure trove of content ideas. Also, make sure you keep an eye on the language they use too – this can tell you how to word your content so it reflects exactly what your audience is asking and needs help with.

6. Quora

Quora is an addictive Q&A site that gives you an idea of what information people are after. So type in the kinds of questions your audience might be asking, and away you go! In a short space of time, you’ll know what topics people are interested in surrounding your business.

7. Explore Analytics

The data doesn’t lie! Look into your website or social media analytics to see what posts or topics have gained the most traction. This can give you an indication of what your audience likes and wants more of.

8. Podcasts and Webinars

Tune in to popular podcasts or webinars in your industry. They’re a goldmine for relevant topics and discussions. Plus, they might inspire a different angle or a deeper dive into subjects that are merely brushed upon.

9. Conduct Surveys

Your audience is your best source of information. Send out surveys or polls asking them directly what they’d like to read or learn about. Their feedback can be the birthplace of your next big content piece.

10. Bookshelf and Magazines

Don’t just stick to online. The old-school route of scanning books or magazines in your niche can offer insights or even just inspire a fresh take on a recurring theme.

11. Mind-mapping Sessions

Set aside time for brainstorming. Start with a core idea and expand outward, jotting down every related topic or subtopic that comes to mind. This can help you visualize a multitude of potential content avenues.

12. Competitor Watch

It’s not about copying, but observing. See what topics your competitors are covering. Can you offer a different perspective or go more in-depth? Or did they miss out on a crucial point that you can highlight?

13. You Don’t Have to be Unique, but Try to be Better

Try not to spend time coming up with brand-new, completely original content. It’s the internet. Your idea has probably been thought up before.

But what you can do is make your content better, more informed, funnier, more opinionated etc. And that’s how you can differentiate yourself.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 13 Ways to Find New Content Ideas appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

‘Clickbait’ gets a lot of bad rap, and sometimes, it’s for good reason. If you click on something and find yourself on a slow-loading page, rammed with ads and content completely unrelated to what you expected, then you’re going to be pretty annoyed.

However, clickbait has been prevalent for centuries, just in different forms. From the summary at the back of a book, to the Oliver Twist look-a-like kid shouting ‘extra, extra read all about it!’ – these are all ways to get you to engage with the author’s content.

There’s no problem at all with readers being lured into clicking on your article but only if they’re rewarded for their curiosity with good quality, engaging content.

But how do you get them to click? Below, I’ve listed the most common ‘clickbait’ techniques, with the ones I think you should be using and ones you should definitely steer clear of!

1. Lists posts

Yep, we know, we’re guilty! But lists are a great way of gaining visitors to your content.

The user knows the article or video is going to be in easily digestible, bite-sized pieces and that’s always more appealing than big chunks of text. It’s also more likely to be actionable content, with facts instead of opinion pieces.

2. Boobs

I can’t believe I have to say this. But please don’t use women in bikinis unless your article/content is directly related to bikinis! The amount of times I see articles that have nothing to do with the female anatomy, using a picture of a woman dressed in barely anything is scary. And it’s not just prevalent in content marketing but advertising in general.

Don’t get me wrong, for some companies it may work where that kind of thing is part of your brand – just look at ads for gambling and gaming, but for most it just makes you look desperate and kind of confused about what you’re selling. Plus, you’re potentially putting off 50% of your market.

3. Being mean/horrible/bitchy

I know it sounds cheesy but I treat people how I like to be treated, so causing unnecessary hurt or anger would be something I’d certainly steer clear of.

I’ve seen articles with headlines such as ‘Celebrities with ugly partners’ and ‘Stars who have piled on the baby weight.’ Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure these ‘articles’ – if you can call them that – gain a lot of traffic, but it’s not something I’m into. We’re all human, including celebrities, and I would hate to think I’d hurt someone purposefully over something I’d written.

4. Sarcastic headline

16 reasons you shouldn’t wear sunscreen, 12 reasons not to visit New York, four reasons you should put a fork in the plug socket.

This particular one is a real Buzzfeed favourite and although a little annoying at first, it does have that punch to the stomach value.

For example, what’s a more powerful message…

Neglecting to wear suncream over long periods of time could cause skin cancer

or

Don’t bother wearing suncream, who cares about skin cancer anyways!

The second one certainly has the shock factor.

I’m not a big fan of this method but I do see its benefits. I’d advise to use with caution.

5. We like number 5 the best!

Which one do you like the best

Yep, we’ve gone and done it again in the article headline! By stating which one out of your list is your preference/the most shocking/made you laugh etc. your intriguing web users. They want to know what number five is and they want to see if they agree.

Overall, it’s not the most advanced strategy but it does work!

6. Humour

Sometimes, you don’t want to learn anything or digest a load of information. You just want to laugh and be entertained – hence the sheer popularity of cat videos.

So inject some humour into your headlines (if applicable to your brand, if you’re a funeral director maybe not – although it would make me laugh!)

7. Controversial headline

This can be tricky.

Firstly, I see a lot of people use a controversial headline to lure people in, and then backtrack the headline in their article.

Someone did this recently using the headline ‘SEO is dead.’ I clicked on it and the guy went through all the benefits of SEO. What he actually meant was some methods of SEO have been phased out – but of course, that’s not as exciting as ‘SEO is dead.’

I think controversy is good, if you truly believe in your opinion and you have stats and facts to back yourself up. Healthy debate is what keeps us up-to-date. However, using controversy to gain links should be avoided, because essentially, you’re just going to annoy people. See example above!

8. Stupidity

Again, like the boobs, I’m not really sure why I have to say this but some people think that being purposefully stupid will attract web hits. And it will, but from people who want to tell you that you’re an idiot.

Please don’t resort to stupidity to gain links, instead be an expert on your chosen topic and earn respect for your knowledge.

9. What happens next will make you cry…

Tearful content

This is actually one of my pet peeves! But I understand why they work so well.

You can usually spot these on Facebook; it’ll link to a video featuring puppies and sad music and annoyingly, you may start to get a tear to your eye!

I hate them because I don’t like feeling manipulated but some people do enjoy them and overall, they seem to receive positive comments. I suppose this one is down to preference!

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 9 most ‘clickbait’ headline techniques – we like number 5 the best! (Oh, the irony!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

1. “I don’t have time.”

Ahhh that old chestnut.

This is the one I use most. How can I possibly find the time to do all this content marketing stuff!

There’s one very simple answer…

Make time.

I know, I’m sorry. I wish I could give you a magical machine that would stop time, but if I had one I’d probably be swanning it in the Cayman Islands drinking cocktails or something.

Content marketing should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. It builds your brand, helps SEO, and creates authority and trust with your audience. The benefits far outweigh the time.

But I would say this. Be smart about your Content Marketing. Don’t join eight different social media sites if you can’t keep up with them. Just have two or three you do really well. And aim to create a video/infographic/blog post etc. in realistic times frames. So if that means once a week/fortnight/month, then so be it. But make sure you do it.

2. “I don’t know what to write about”

Sure you do.

YOU are an expert in your field. Whether that be; gardening, roofing, hair and beauty, money management, budgies, cosmetic surgery, divorce settlements, underwear or spider monkeys, you are unique because you know more about your industry than the average man or woman out there.

So what does this mean?

It means you get to talk about the thing you love!

I love writing and content marketing. But often, when I start yabbering on to my friends/family about it, they roll their eyes and their head hits the desk.

But online, it’s different. Your audience are after the very thing you’re passionate about. And you get to talk about it without someone snoozing! How amazing is that?

3. “My writing isn’t good enough.”

Content isn’t just about writing. There are plenty of other things you can do. You can tweet about it, use Facebook, do videos, interpretive dance, create infographs, and take photographs.

If all that seems a tad scary and you do just want to stick to writing, remember, the majority of people are just after great content – answers to their questions, entertainment, something to make them laugh or cry or both.

They’re not going to be going through you’re work with a red pen giving it a big fat ‘F’.

And so what if you make a mistake? And some smartarse in the comments section tells you you’ve spelt necessary wrong (*cough* true story *cough*). Then just say, ‘silly me!’ and move on.

You will notice that as you keep writing it will improve over time. I recommend everyone use Microsoft Word for the handy spell check. Just remember to select the right word. For example: definitely and defiantly are often confused via spell checker!

You can also use software such as grammarly, that will check your spelling and grammar for you.

4. “What if people just do it themselves?”

So many clients say this to me and I always go back to the same example.

I had this discussion some years ago with a lady who now owns a successful bakery. I advised her to do YouTube videos on how to make and decorate cakes. She looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Won’t they just go away and do it themselves if I tell them how to do it?” she asked.

And she was right. There’s always a risk that some of your potential customers will go away and do it themselves. But the risk is very small.

Do you think that anybody will be able to copy what you’ve spent years and years learning and crafting? No.

Do people have the time to spend learning what you’ve learnt? Generally, no.

So she did it. And it allowed her to become an authority as a cake making extraordinaire and her business grew from strength to strength. She’s even introduced bakery classes!

5. “I’m afraid of putting myself out there.”

Now, this one I can sympathise with. Putting yourself out there is scary and there’s always that niggling feeling that people will judge you.

But trust me when I say this, I have only ever seen a hugely positive response to people putting themselves out there, if they do it in a helpful and engaging way.

People are generally good people. Yeah, the Internet is full of a few weirdoes but they’re easy to spot and ignore. But what if someone disagrees with you view? Then great! That means what you’re doing is working; you’re creating conversation and debate.

The hardest thing to do is that first blog post or video. You want it to be perfect and wonderful and for everyone to just love it. Well, that would be lovely but the chances are it won’t get all the attention you want it to. Content Marketing is a slow game and you will improve immensely over time. But the trick is to keep going, make sure your work is the best it can be but don’t overthink it. Just shut your eyes hit the post or upload button and I swear only good things will come of it.

No one ever got anywhere by being too afraid.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Top 5 excuses to get out of content marketing – and why you should ignore them. appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.