Blogging and writing doesn't have to be REDRUM horror

You Can Still Do Blogging Even If You Hate Writing; Here’s How!

The Venn diagram above shows the intersection of three characters from three classic movies centered on writers. Jack Torrance from The Shining can’t get past the blank page and an axe gets put through a door among other things. Barton Fink faces the blank page and ends up waking up to a bloody corpse in bed. Paul Sheldon from Misery meets his ultimate creepy superfan. 

These three movies about writers all intersect in REDRUM. The message is clear. Writing is horror … WRITING IS MURDER!

If you are a SMB (small and mid-sized business), you know writing, specifically blogging, is an effective way to shill your product or service online.

Perhaps you have no phony angst about writing, just don’t have time for it or even dislike it and want to focus your energy on some other aspect of your business. Whatever your deal is, this post is a guide on how to do it yourself quickly and cheaply without mayhem and horror.

What is Blogging and Why Do You Need It?

The consultants, coaches and other assorted court jesters of the professional class tell you to pivot to video, carpet bomb social media, get nice with an influencer or buy a ton of expensive podcasting equipment that will collect dust in your office.

Is blogging even relevant? What is it exactly?

Simply put, blogging is the act of putting text, photographs, and other media on a self-published website. The act of publishing a personal blog post began as a way for individuals to update their audience on their daily lives using their free blogging sites with a free domain. However, business potential is what has taken blogging to greater heights via the self-hosted WordPress blog.

 Blogging has evolved from simply putting up text with photographs, to using those media to promote brands or act as support for businesses and services. The growth has seen blogging become a part of content marketing.

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Blogging can disseminate your message beyond ad blockers

 Your own personal brand or business will absolutely benefit from having its own blog to enhance its digital marketing strategy as a whole. It is always advisable to use online ads to get to customers. However, the number of people using ad blockers has risen steadily over the years. It is now estimated that 42% of internet users block ads.

 When you think about it, ads cost a pretty penny, and the campaign will come to an end. That is the compelling reason to start a blog. In the long term, content marketing will be cheaper in comparison to ads.  This is especially true for evergreen content that will see users flocking to your website in search of answers and solutions.

 How To Blog Without Killing Someone (Or Yourself)     

Well, you’ve made up your mind to start a blog. That means you have to get web hosting and a custom domain on a blogging platform known as a content management system. You can start with free blogging platforms that have free hosting to get a feel of what it takes to run a successful blog.

 The best way for you to start blogging on your own blogs is to install WordPress. Start with a free blog, and many WordPress hosting companies will automatically install WordPress and even hook you up with your own domain to use on your free WordPress site. 

 From here, you can use the free themes or a website builder to design a beautiful blog site, whether it is a news blog, a fashion blog, or a personal brand. You don’t need to be an expert in web design to start your blogging journey. With a good WordPress theme, just publish content consistently and engage positively with other bloggers.

 The blogging community of your chosen niche, whether food blogs, travel or sports, can become a valuable asset. They can refer you to great blog hosts and offer great insights into your editorial calendar.

 When you start blogging, you can make money online by selling ad space on your blog. By far the most popular ad service is Google AdSense. These ad services work best on news blogs such as The Wall Street Journal, since they tend to have more traffic, but you can still sell advertising space on a niche blog.

 Before you develop your first blog post, consider this; whenever you are checking something on your favorite search engine, you will simply put in your query, and the search engine will do its best to give you results that match it. Why does that happen?

Research Keywords So People Will Find Your Posts

Keywords are the terms or phrases that people use when doing a search. If you want your content to be easily found, you will need to use keywords that relate to your content. Before you sit down to write, you should do some keyword research.

Traditional keyword tools can be quite costly. Luckily, there are affordable alternatives. One such alternative is Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest. The best part is, Ubersuggest can show you the exact keywords you can use to rank quickly on search engine results pages.

 Visit Ubersuggest and type in the keyword that you want to research.  You will then get a report that lists a number of useful metrics. However, what’s important is the Keyword Ideas button on the left-hand navigation panel.

 

Doing keyword research for blogging doesn't have to be insanely expensive. Use tool like Ubersuggest

 

On the new page, just above the table, there is a Page 1 Ranking Potential button. Click that and enter your website’s domain. Ubersuggest will analyze your website and suggest to you the keywords you can use to easily get on page 1 of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Brainstorm by Talking Into a Transcription App

 

Brainstorm with an app like REV and turn it into an outline for a blog post

Once you have your keyword suggestions, it’s time to put your brain into search mode. This means coming up with creative content ideas to write about, and potential headings to use.

People get ideas in different ways. It can be while walking your dog, waiting in the drive through line or playing MINECRAFT. Brainstorming is a process that needs you to let go of your internal critic/editor and just fire whatever comes into your mind unfiltered.

You can use the REV app to dictate your babble. When it’s time to get down to business, you can then transcribe the formless ideas and get an outline or “angle” to turn your ravings into a blog post.

Structure the Brain Fart

Once you have the transcription, it’s time to attempt to give it a structure. For this, it would be best to get rid of all distractions. Feed the cat or dog and let the kids out to play. Schedule your spouse/lover for an appointment at the DMV, so they will be gone for hours.

Transcription in hand, structure your idea and then do a vomit draft.

Don’t be squeamish or offended by the vulgarity.

The purpose of the “vomit draft” is to release the words or copy for the post as quickly as possible WITH ZERO EDITING. The idea here is not to be perfect or try to reword your lines or ape being a prestige author like Hemingway or Virginia Woolf. The point of the vomit draft is to get to the end of the damn post as quickly as possible. If you can’t think of a word, do not THINK or look something up. Insert an “x” or “—” and come back later when rewriting your formless vomit draft into a masterpiece.

Writing Is Rewriting

Surfer SEO is a tool that is easy to use and affordable

 

Writing or any creative effort is much easier when you have something to work with. Vomit draft on hand, you can turn your base prose into flowing poetry or just a string of words that describe why your product or service helps solve a problem of your audience. 

You can use digital tools like Surfer SEO to help structure your vomit draft and make it rank quickly. Surfer SEO is widely hailed and loved for being an affordable option.

Their Content Editor tool makes things easier for you. Just start with picking the right keywords and creating a draft. From there, you can analyze your competitors to get a bearing on the kind of content you should come up with. Subsequently, Surfer SEO will provide you with metrics such as word count that you should aim for.  

The content creation tool will also give you suggestions for terms and phrases to use. These words are picked directly from Google’s APIs, which means your content will become fully optimized for the terms that users rely on for accurate results.  

Congrats! You Have a Finished Web Log With Minimal Drama

You did it! You finished the post without strangling your beloved cat or hubby. Writing isn’t so bad, is it?

 If you put this post into practice and still find writing and blogging equivalent to the act of moving in Hades 24/7 or dragging a cold corpse through hell, just get in touch. We have ample experience and can sojourn said corpse on your behalf.

September 17, 2021 Content No comments yet
Yes, Content Is a Buzzword King but there is no doubt content marketing delivers tangibly results over other marketing strategies

Is Content Marketing Worth It?

I bet you’ve come across cliques like ‘content is king’ in your recent online escapades. Or better yet, maybe you’ve heard ‘quality over quantity ‘ or ‘content strategy’ among many other content marketing buzzwords.

 

The truth is, while most people have an idea of what content marketing is, many find it hard to determine if content marketing is worth it. Before we get to whether content marketing adds any value to your business, let’s define it first.

 

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the creation, sharing, and promotion of different media to attract, engage and retain clients. Compared to other forms of marketing, content marketing is an indirect promotion of a brand and its products.

 

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Content marketing is the creation, sharing, and promotion of different media to attract, engage and retain clients. Compared to other forms of marketing, content marketing is an indirect promotion of a brand and its products. Click To Tweet

 

The main objective of content marketing is to stimulate interest in potential customers to learn more about your company. The media, aka the content used in content marketing, can include blog posts, video content, podcasts, email newsletters, and social media posts. If content marketing is the road to paradise, content is the signposts that give directions to la-la land.

 

That said, distributing valuable content is only aimed at a clearly defined audience. This can only happen after thorough research and the creation of buyer personas. Furthermore, content marketing only provides a positive ROI or online sales after consistent and strategic campaigns aimed at the target audience.

 

Is content marketing the same as inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing and content marketing are basically the same but often thought of differently, courtesy of industry jargon. Both have the goal of creating value for business prospects, attracting them, and finally, retaining clients. Content marketing, or should I say inbound marketing, does all the above subtly while providing solutions to potential clients. Inbound/content marketing will both involve a blog, video, podcast, infographic, SEO, and definitely lots of words. While most say that the two are different, they mean the same thing and have one common goal: Help the customer see the value of your business and how it solves their problems. This begs the question, are content marketing efforts worth it, or just hype and time waster?

 

Content marketing is effective

Yes, this is a bold statement, but there’s a ton of data from Demand Metric to support it.

 

Less expensive, more qualified leads

As per Demand Metric’s infographic, content marketing costs 62% less than any other marketing strategy. This can be attributed to the long-term returns of content marketing. For instance, creating an evergreen post that solves a reader’s need and ranks well on search engines will see you getting leads months after the publish date. Just because content marketing is cheaper doesn’t mean the results are awful.  On average, content marketing gives you 3x as many leads compared to traditional marketing.

 

Go ye to where your customers are at

If that’s not enough for convincing, here’s another stat: 20% of internet users’ time is spent online reading content. Additionally, 57% of people read content marketing titles at least once a month. As the game of brand awareness shifts online, more than the traditional media, content marketing proves valuable. Not only do you get to show off your brand subtly, but you also get to help consumers with their questions, which increases brand recall. You wouldn’t easily forget someone that helped you in the past, would you?

 

Ads are not a customer favorite

While ads are effective to some extent, consumers don’t want nor tolerate them. By 2015, 200 million people were using ad blockers, and the number is expected to rise as privacy breaks the ceiling and rattles ad-dependent content marketers. Furthermore, 86% of people will skip adverts, and 70% will choose articles, any day, over paid advertising

 

Content Marketing is building relationships

On the flip side, 60% of people, after reading brand content, are inspired to seek out a product from the business. What’s more, 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand from custom content.

 

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On the flip side, 60% of people, after reading brand content, are inspired to seek out a product from the business. What's more, 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand from custom content. Click To Tweet

 

These stats show that online content marketing, when done right, can hand you the consumer’s heart, loyalty, and brand advocacy. Interesting content takes the spot on why people choose to follow your business on social media, which leads us to the next point.

 

It’s not just about creating content and closing that chapter. It’s a game of consistency, and no matter how cliche it may sound, Quality over Quantity.

 

Content or inbound marketing isn't a numbers game, but quality game

 

As Orbit Media reports, consistency in content marketing leads to better returns. The report shows that bloggers who intentionally pump time and effort into blogging do make money. Orbit Media is not alone in making this claim. HubSpot complements this truth with its own. The CRM company notes that blogs with 16 posts a month can expect to triple their website traffic.

 

As Brian Dean puts it, the more time spent creating content, the better the results. Consumer’s bar for quality is only going higher. The ultimate truth still remains — it takes time to create content that is useful and share-worthy.

 

To achieve this type of useful and share-worthy content, you need a content strategy. The beauty of a content strategy is how it leads to organic lead generation subsequent to compounding traffic.

 

Let’s see content marketing at work with the content marketing examples below.

 

Case study: Realtor’s content generates leads

John Garuti III is a Southwest Florida realtor who invested heavily in advertising to develop leads. He found Google Ads leads were weak and decided to pivot a content-driven strategy focusing on video and written content.

 

He developed a “lead magnet” or buyer’s guide for Babcock Ranch, the community he specializes in. He has earned 270 leads from this content thus far, including 6 in the last month.

 

A piece of content or "lead magnet" generated new business for John Garuti III, a SWFL realtor

 

We started working with John recently to generate content. We created a content marketing strategy and focused on the keywords that he was well-positioned to rank for quickly.

 

For example, we did a post focusing on the keyphrase “homes for sale babcock ranch” a few weeks ago.

 

The result?

 

John is already in the first few pages of Google for this keyword and moving up quickly, as you can see.

 

Content marketing, specifically blogging, helped a SWFL realtor improve his search engine rankings

 

Creative Content leads to even greater results

Remember the stats I shared above? One of them stated that 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand through custom content.  For content to be custom and attractive to prospects, it needs to be creative content.

 

Take our client, Cloud Compliance Solutions, for instance. We got them started on HubSpot and kicked off several email campaigns that framed their services as a NASCAR pit crew.

 

 

IT professionals responded to the creative framing positively, and we achieved an email CTR of 5.2% (the average CTR of email campaigns is 2.6%).

 

Conclusion

Again, we have to admit that a content marketing campaign can be a whirlwind when you have other business operations to think about. However, the value content marketing brings to the table is undeniable. If you want to get the positive ROI content marketing is sure to give, schedule a free consultation with our content marketing team. We will develop a content marketing strategy, custom-tailored to your business needs.

September 8, 2021 Content No comments yet

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