by Marketing Manager | Blog, Blogging, Content Curation
In ancient times, a powerful king oppressed his people. The citizens of the land feared the king and begged the gods for help. So the gods created a wild man that could equal the king and stop his misdeeds. The wild man and the king fought a great battle, but the king showed superior strength. After all was over, the two men became friends and began a grand journey together that would see triumph, heartbreak, and the search for eternal life. This is the Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest surviving work of literature, written around 1800 BC. Human beings are natural storytellers. We’ve been sharing tales around the campfire since the invention of the campfire! Even ancient cave paintings from 30,000 years ago tell stories of the hunt. So what does the Epic of Gilgamesh have to do with blogging? Turns out, a lot! How Do Stories Draw in Readers? Stories help your writing to stand out. In the unending ocean of blogs (over 500 million of them!), interesting stories share personality and entertain the readers. While they may be searching for answers to their problems, they also want to have a little fun! Clever storytelling also helps the writer to connect to the reader. It shares your unique voice and displays your personality. Telling stories is how you can get people to look forward to your content eagerly, instead of reading a blog once and never coming back to your site. One study showed that a blog post that opened with a story saw nearly 300% more readers scroll all the...
by Marketing Manager | Blogging, Content Marketing, E-Mail Marketing, Marketing Tips, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Video Marketing
Digital marketing isn’t optional. The fact remains, though, that only 84% of businesses have a content marketing strategy as of early 2021. 16% don’t. If you’re one of the people who has put off digital marketing or done it haphazardly, it’s time to get serious about it. You may have claimed your Google My Business listing – and that counts as digital marketing. It’s also the bare minimum you can do. So, with that in mind, let’s talk about why every small business – including yours – needs digital marketing, and which marketing strategies we recommend. What is Digital Marketing? Some small business owners don’t understand what digital marketing is and that’s part of the problem, so, let’s start with a definition. Digital marketing is the sum of any efforts you make to promote your business online. It may include: Email marketing Blogging Search engine advertising (PPC) Social media posting Social media advertising Business listings SEO Video marketing The key to making the most of digital marketing is choosing the strategies that are most likely to deliver the results you want. Target Local Keywords The first thing you need to recognize is that in the world of digital marketing, everything is local. If you try to compete for the same keywords used by big corporations with huge marketing budgets, you’re going to lose. You’ll get far more bang for your buck if you think local. Local keywords should be a combination of industry-specific words that identify what your business does and local words that let people know where you are. For example, a dentist in Minneapolis might target words...
by Marketing Manager | Blog, Blogging
Guest posting has long been a tool in the content marketer’s arsenal. But it’s still one of the more misunderstood tactics, with unscrupulous SEOs sending out poorly written content and breaking the rules for links. When done right, guest posting still has a lot of value. So we’re going to talk about what it is, and how you can get started. What is Guest Posting? A guest post is a blog post that you write to be posted on someone else’s website. There are several benefits to writing guests posts: Get your name exposed to a new audience Connect with other industry professionals Establish yourself as an industry leader Some guest posting advocates also say that it is a useful way to get more backlinks to your website, thus helping your SEO efforts. But Google doesn’t agree — at least not if you’re only after the backlink. Some marketers have used spammy tactics in the past, flooding sites with crummy guest posts just for the link. That’s not helpful to users, so Google often penalizes sites who do it — both the site hosting the post and the site that the post is linking to. To avoid this problem, make sure you’re writing unique, valuable content. Great guest posts aren’t a 500-word rehash of topics already on the web. They’re often long-form, original works like case studies or thorough how-to guides. If you treat the guest post as a piece of important information regardless of the link, you should be just fine. The Rules for Guest Posting Google’s goal first and foremost...
by Marketing Manager | Article Marketing, Blog, Blogging, Content, Content Creation, Content Marketing
Ad campaigns are still effective, but the truth is they’re not as effective as content marketing. Bill Gates proclaimed “Content is king” back in 1996 and his words have proven to be remarkably prescient. Web users expect top-notch content from the companies they follow. Easier said than done, right? Well… maybe. There are lots of great tactics you can use to create the kind of content that your followers want. If you handle it properly, the content you post on your website and social media can turn casual visitors into leads and leads into customers. Here are 7 content marketing tactics that you should steal. #1: Content Diversification What kind of content are you creating? If you’re only creating blog posts or Instagram stories, then you may be missing out on marketing opportunities by not diversifying your content. The bottom line is that there are three types of content: written, audio, and video. Using all three will help you reach the widest possible audience. A good example is Daniel Moyer Photography in Philadelphia. In addition to a compelling website with tons of photographs of happy couples, Daniel also posts videos on Facebook, has a blog on his website, and co-hosts a wedding planning podcast called Put a Ring on It. #2: Specialized Topics Blogging is a marketing basic for many small businesses. However, if you’re posting only broad topic content that’s available elsewhere, you might be losing visitors who are in search of something unique and compelling. Keep in mind that a highly specialized topic may be more universal than you think. Likewise, a focused post can help bring...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Article Marketing, Blogging, Content Curation, Content Marketing
In today’s world of bite-sized social posts, it may be tempting to believe that long-form content is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth, and if you aren’t creating longer content, you are missing a lot of great benefits from your content marketing. Yes, producing 3000-4000 words for a post involves a lot of work – research, writing, editing – that may seem like overkill in an era of decreasing attention spans. But the reality is that long-form content has a lot of benefits that make the investment worth the effort. 5 reasons why you should publish long-form content Here are five reasons why you should still be creating long-form content for your business. 1. Increased viewing time The amount of time a visitor spends on your site is an important metric for a variety of reasons, from increased engagement of your visitors to better quality and relevance scores in search engines and advertising platforms. Longer content can increase the average time on site – It takes about eight minutes for a person to read through an 1800-word long post. It can also increase the likelihood that readers will engage with other content of yours as well. 2. Greater position of authority The ability to produce long content generally means that you have more information that can be useful for your readers, positioning you as an authority. Of course, it can’t simply be long for the sake of being long – it needs to be high-quality and demonstrate that you put in the effort to create content worthy of your reader’s time. 3. Higher quality conversions Making your...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Blogging
Content marketing and blogging have proven to be effective digital marketing methods. Done right, they can generate leads and convert people to the next stage of your marketing funnel. Yet, plenty of company blogs completely struggle to meet their content marketing goals. For one reason or another, they fail to find the right audience — or, for some, any audience at all. Other blogs earn plenty of traffic but lackluster conversion numbers. Still others have myriad issues of their own related to various mistakes in strategy, positioning, site design and more. To help you pinpoint where your issues may lie and how you can improve your blog performance, we have come up with five reasons why your current blog may not be working. These observations come from common company blog mistakes in the industry and how the top blogs fix them to find success. You Don’t Have Your Target Audience in Mind Before you write a new blog, you should always stop to check in with your audience goals. Namely: who is this blog for? Consider your ideal target audience based on who you think will help you succeed in your business goals. If, for instance, you are a B2B software company, you may assume that your audience has at least a small level of expertise in your line of work. But if you are a financial services provider to a typical consumer, then you are going to have to cover even the most basic concepts to ensure your audience can keep up. By the same token, you have to think about things your audience would be interested in...
