Saturday, September 24, 2016

#SEO Buzz: Penguin 4.0 Is Here, Changes in AMP Results

SEO Buzz: Penguin 4.0 Is Here, Changes in AMP Results This week: The latest Penguin update is here (finally), AMPed-up sites get some good news, and mobile search results now show images in snippets. Here's what happened this week in SEO. After a nearly 2-year wait, Penguin 4.0 has finally arrived. read moreTop Things Marketers Need To Know About SEO In 2017 Penguin 4.0 is the major algorithm update that people in the SEO industry ... mobile friendliness here.) Responsive design layouts and mobile app integrations will gain importance for getting higher rankings in the organic search results. read more

No, Google Says There's Been No Penguin Update This morning, I noticed a lot of buzz around a possible Google Penguin update. The SEO space was noticing huge changes in the search results from previously ... A Google spokesperson told us at Search Engine Land, there is no Penguin or other spam efforts ... read moreSEO trends to watch out for in 2016 and beyond 2016 has undoubtedly still got some surprises in store, but it could be the year that we see lots of longer running trends come to the fore in terms of their influence on SEO. Let's have a look at some of the big trends to watch out for. Despite initial ... read moreGuest Posting the Right Way for Link Building Make sure that your website is always ready for the real-time Penguin update. You can learn more in this FREE WEBINAR about what Google Penguin 4.0 (real-time Penguin ... across different niches by guest posting the right way. These days, getting a ... read moreThe Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist AMP pages get a ranking boost in the mobile search results ... Penguin, Panda and other known algorithm updates, you may be affected by a penalty. Read more about penalty assessment here. Google is changing its algorithm all the time. The most recent buzz ... read more2014 Google updates: What were the major updates in SEO? So, today take five minutes to read this post and find out what were the major changes that Google has made this year that had the biggest impact on search results. Here's what we'll talk about: Panda 4.0 and ... lot of buzz on a potential Penguin ... read moreSearch Buzz Video Recap: Google Local Algorithm & Updates, Penguin Status, SEO & AdWords Changes This week in search, we saw changes to the Google local algorithm and results. We also reported on how it doesn't seem there was a massive Google update earlier this week. We ran a poll on Penguin, do you think it will run again? Also, Google never said ... read moreWas the Recent SERP Shake up Result of Google Penguin Update? The extent of changes is one factor, which made it confusing for professionals to either deem it a "big animal" update or not. The Wait Continues Google Penguin 4.0 ... results to the new update. Google Penguin update is creating the right buzz. read moreSEO is Not Dead: 4 Reasons It's More Important Than Ever Here are a few important reasons why SEO is ... dramatic change in the way that consumers search for, and find, information means that websites must meet different standards if they want their sites and brands discovered on Google's results pages. read more

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Source: #SEO Buzz: Penguin 4.0 Is Here, Changes in AMP Results

Friday, September 23, 2016

SEO Copywriting – An In-depth Guide to Rank High and Wow Readers

SEO copywriting is the answer to one of the biggest challenges faced by many website owners these days. Users now have to create content that appeals to people and search engines alike.

After all, we not only want to rank well and generate traffic but also turn that traffic into buyers, customers, and subscribers, right?

These two goals used to be the responsibility of SEO specialists and copywriters and it used to be enough to be either or. However, the way search engines work today, that is no longer the case.

To be successful in today's online market, website owners and online marketers need to master both sides of the equation and embrace what is known as SEO copywriting.

If you are unsure what hides behind that term, this article will not only explain what it is but also show you SEO copywriting best practices to start using right away.

Sounds good? Then what are we waiting for?

What Is SEO Copywriting And Why Does It Matter?

To get a clearer idea of what we are talking about when we say SEO copywriting, let's have a quick look at the term itself. For that, let's look at the two parts that make up the word: "SEO" and "copywriting".

  • SEO — SEO or search engine optimization is a method of optimizing your web content in order to rank higher in search engines than other web pages that target the same keywords. To do so, SEO strives to increase both the relevance and authority of your content.
  • Copywriting — Copywriting, on the other hand, is the art and science of creating content that gets readers or customers to take an action. This can be buying your product or subscribing to a newsletter. Copywriters need to have an insight into what makes the people they are writing for tick and be able to craft headlines, words, and phrases that will move them toward the desired action.
  • SEO copywriting is a hybrid of both these areas. It has evolved in recent years as a consequence of changes to how search engines, particularly Google, rank content.

    Today it's no longer enough to stuff keywords into your post in order to achieve high search rankings. Instead, high-quality, often long-form content has become the key to dominating SERPs and winning over customers.

    Consequently, SEO copywriting is about creating compelling, informative, and valuable content that also targets specific keywords and will be both appreciated by search spiders and people.

    Clear so far? To understand even better, let's break down the elements of SEO copywriting.

    Elements Of SEO Copywriting

    Because SEO copywriting is a hybrid, it involves a number of different disciplines of online marketing. Most importantly:

  • Technical SEO — Technical site optimization forms the basis for your content's success. It includes fast loading time, proper markup, making sure your site can be indexed (e.g. by optimizing the robots.txt file), and having responsive design in place. Luckily WordPress takes care of much of this by itself but we also have a detailed article on technical SEO.
  • Audience and keyword research — SEO copywriting also includes classic SEO work like audience research and understanding user intent, finding keyphrases with enough traffic, and optimizing your content around them.
  • Content creation — Creating high-quality content aimed at your audience that is well written, easy to read, and understandable, grammatically correct and free of typos as well as chock full of relevant information.
  • On-page optimization — The final puzzle piece of SEO copywriting is making sure your content performs well on the web. That means strategically placing keywords, employing good linking practices, and providing all necessary information so the content is understandable for search engines and can be properly indexed.
  • In short, everything is aimed at making sure readers can find you in the search results and will be delighted when they do. Yet, that leaves the question, how do you do that in concrete terms? To answer this questions, let's look at some SEO copywriting techniques.

    SEO Copywriting Best Practices

    Now that we better understand what SEO copywriting is about, let's look at what kind of practices will get you there.

    Research Your Audience And Keywords Thoroughly

    Creating content always starts with deciding who to write for and what to write about. Researching and defining your audience is the first step in doing so.

    Knowing who you are writing for gives you topic ideas that will then lead to concrete keywords and search phrases to target. Good sources for this kind of information are:

  • Marketing personas — This means creating fictional versions of your ideal audience. Doing so allows you to create a profile of who you are writing for and understand them on a personal level. That way you are able to understand their needs and interests and create targeted content for them.
  • Website analytics — Analytics software like Google Analytics (check out our Google Analytics guide for beginners) provide important insight into your audience. Learn what brings them to your site, where they are from, the keywords they found you under, and much more.
  • Competitor analysis — Other people in your niche are also a treasure trove of information for what content works and the kind of information your audience is looking for. You can also gain valuable insights by looking at what their readers are saying in the comment section.
  • Social media — Social networks are a great source of information for what your audience is interested in. Find out what kind of content and topics work best by monitoring the conversation around your topic, following hashtags, and interacting with others.
  • Keyword research — Keyword research is a staple of SEO work and should definitely be a part of your effort. It's not only important to find worthwhile keywords, but also gives you a direct glimpse into the hearts and minds of your audience. Plus, you can find related search terms to sprinkle into your content.
  • For more details, we have an entire article on how to do market research for blogs and websites.

    Choose The Right Topic

    After gathering insights into your audience, it's time to come up with topics to write about. However, what makes a good topic? Here are the criteria:

  • Relevant — Content is all about the recipient. Good blog topics are those your audience is actually interested in, addresses problems or challenges they are facing, and provides information they need. If it's not relevant to them, why would they read it?
  • Goal oriented — When deciding on a blog topic, ask yourself what you are trying to achieve. Does the topic fit into the larger objective of your site? Can it help you achieve that objective? Topics that can't answer these questions are a waste of time.
  • Specific — In content marketing and blogging, it is easy to cast the net too wide. Beginners especially make the mistake of trying to tackle very broad topics with short keywords (e.g. "fitness"). A smarter approach is to pick one specific angle, one specific problem to solve, and create a piece of content that addresses exactly that.
  • Evergreen — Great blog post topics should be as relevant in a few years as they are now. Evergreen content is the gift that keeps on giving because it can be clicked over and over again. For example, people will still ask "how to be more confident" in a few years, but there is a time limit on the relevance of information on this year's election.
  • When you choose a topic that ticks all the above boxes, you have a true winner. After that, it's time to move on to preparing the actual article.

    Create A Clear Outline

    Often, when I tell people that I am a blogger, many say "I couldn't do that, writing is so hard".

    The funny thing is that writing is actually the easiest part and the part most bloggers spend the least time on. A lot more effort goes into other elements, most notably research, structuring, and editing.

    After all, you can't just sit down and start writing. You need to have some idea what to write about and in which sequence. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of time starting and stopping, rethinking and rewriting.

    So, before you get started, think through your piece first:

  • What is the purpose of the article? What are you trying to achieve?
  • What is the main question you want to answer or message you want to deliver?
  • What information do you need to write it? What do you want to include?
  • In what order will you present that information?
  • A good structure is important so readers can follow along. If your text flows logically, it is much easier to retain and read.

    Your content structure also has bearing on SEO. Your heading tags give search engines important information about what the text is about. They also allow human readers to skim the article.

    Write For Volume

    Once research is done and the article structure stands, it's time to write. As mentioned, this part is often the most effortless, especially if you have provided yourself with a clear outline. In that case, can just work your way along the scaffolding and fill in the gaps.

    It's important to keep in mind that this phase is only about volume, not creating a finished post. Many people make the mistake of thinking they need to churn out a near perfect post in the first try.

    That's boohaki! (Anyone else watch a lot of Friends?)

    The first draft is for nobody but yourself and its only goal is to get words down on paper (or, in this case, the WordPress editor). You can completely ignore grammatical mistakes or spelling errors. No need to go back and correct anything, all of that is done in editing.

    Make The Text Readable

    Yet, that doesn't mean that you can't make an effort to make the content readable from the get-go. Here are a few tips for that:

  • Write naturally — Always remember that you are writing for people and that they want to relate to a person, not read an academic paper. It's a good idea to convey some personality, make jokes (see my earlier boohaki comment) and let the person behind the writing shine through. If you write the way you would speak to a friend, it will make your content much more relatable.
  • Use paragraphs — Paragraphs break up text into more digestible pieces. That lets readers follow along easier. It also helps structure your text. Use one idea per paragraph with one core sentence and a few more to elaborate. Plus, use transition words to move readers from one paragraph to the next.
  • Use headings — Like paragraphs, headings help divide the text into smaller parts. They also allow readers to scan your posts first and gain an overview before deciding whether to read on. For more information, we have an entire article on the topic of headings.
  • Vary sentence length — To improve the rhythm of your text, it's a good idea to mix longer sentences with shorter ones. The same goes for paragraph length. This keeps readers on their toes and keeps them from getting bored. Because a bored reader is a gone reader.
  • For more tips on how to make text more readable, check out this article.

    Edit Like There's No Tomorrow

    Once you have your first draft, that's when much of the real work begins.

    Now it's time to read and re-read your post to improve and polish it. Particularly focus on:

  • Proofreading
  • Sentence structure
  • Paragraph structure
  • Overall text structure
  • See if your ideas are presented in a logical and understandable order and if the content flows. For a better understanding, read your text out loud. Hearing it with your own ears will help you spot weird formulations and bad structure.

    You can also ask others for feedback. Outside perspective can improve your text immensely.

    Optimize The Headline

    Once satisfied with the overall article, it's time to move to one of the most important elements: the headline. Why does it matter so much? Because a lot more people will see the headline than will see the rest of your article. Most of all, it's the most prominent thing in the search results.

    seo copywriting optimize headline

    For that reason, headlines are mainly responsible for getting people to click through. It is important to spend a lot of time crafting, rewriting, and optimizing it.

    Lucky for us, there are proven headline formulas to get us started and additional resources to learn more. Good places to begin are Copyblogger, CoSchedule, and Neil Patel.

    Optimize After The Fact

    Once you have a reader-friendly piece of content, it's time to go over it once more, this time, to please the search engines.

    Note the order. You are first creating an article that is completely geared toward solving a problem for your audience, easy to read, and bound to make their day. Only then do you see how you can improve it for search engines.

    To do so, pay attention to the following key elements:

  • Keyword placement — Your main keyword should appear in a number of important places: the post URL, title, introduction, main content, headings, image file names, and ALT tags. In every case try to place it in the beginning, not toward the end.
  • Keyword density — Although your key phrases should appear in many places, avoid overstuffing your content as it will get you penalized. You can figure out your density with this tool. Yoast thinks it should be somewhere between 0.5% and 2.5%. Also, don't forget to use synonyms and related keywords. Google now has a thesaurus and understand alternative words.
  • Title tag — Optimize your title tag, the one that appears in Google. It can be different from your article heading (though it doesn't have to be). Try to keep it under 55 characters to avoid having it cut off in the search results.
  • Meta description — Likewise, don't forget to set a meta description. This is the copy that will show up below article titles in search engine results. It matters for click through and if you don't set one, Google will pull random content instead.
  • Images and other visual media — Using visual media like images is always a good idea. They increase time on site, reduce bounce rate, and are a signal for content quality. Images can also add extra keywords and lead readers to your post via the Google image search.
  • Linking — Link generously both to other sites and pages on your own website. This is not only helpful to readers but allows Google to better figure out the topic of your content and the relative importance of pages on your website,
  • We have also written more about this in how to write for both readers and search engines and our guide for WordPress on-page SEO.

    Note that using SEO plugins like All-in-One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO (read our comparison here) makes many of these things much easier. Both plugins let you set an SEO title and meta description. In addition to that, Yoast SEO has a content analysis module that checks for many of the quality markers above, plus readability.

    Conclusion

    SEO copywriting is the secret weapon for website owners and marketers for high search rankings and conversions. Mastering it lets you create content loved by both Google and your readers.

    Luckily, while it takes some effort to create high-quality content, it is not overly complicated. By following the SEO copywriting best practices above your are well on your way.

    Let's quickly recap:

  • Invest a lot of time in researching your audience
  • Choose relevant, specific, evergreen content that fits your site objectives
  • Create a clear outline and structure before you start writing
  • Write for sheer volume, not perfection
  • Invest time in making your text readable
  • Edit your content thoroughly
  • Optimize the headline — it's a central piece of your content
  • Polish SEO after the fact
  • Following the above guidelines will help you greatly improve your content. While it's more work than churning out shallow, low-quality content, you will reap the rewards in time. I promise.

    What's your experience with SEO copywriting? Anything to add to the above? Let us know in the comment section below.

    Nick Schäferhoff

    Nick Schäferhoff is an entrepreneur, online marketer, and professional blogger from Germany. He found WordPress when he needed a website for his first business and instantly fell in love. When not building websites, creating content or helping his clients improve their online business, he can most often be found at the gym, the dojo or traveling the world with his wife. If you want to get in touch with him, you can do so via Twitter or through his website.


    Source: SEO Copywriting – An In-depth Guide to Rank High and Wow Readers

    Thursday, September 22, 2016

    SearchCap: AdWords call tracking, SEO failures, & SERP tools

    Get the best search news, tips and resources, delivered each day.

    searchcap-header-v2-scap

    Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

    From Search Engine Land: Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing: Search News From Around The Web:

    Local & Maps

    Link Building

    Searching

    SEO

    SEM / Paid Search

    Search Marketing


    Source: SearchCap: AdWords call tracking, SEO failures, & SERP tools

    Here’s Why You Really Need To Pay Attention To #SEO

    Here's Why You Really Need To Pay Attention To SEO Brands pay for each click ... became more desirable, and SEO became more integrated with online marketing. The more your brand is featured by trusted media, the better it is for its online visibility. Moreover, it will help you build that trust and ... read moreYour Blog with an Eye on the Needed SEO (Right from the Start) We all know that we need to pay attention to SEO (search engine optimization ... It is ensuring that our blog is SEO optimized, right out of the starting gate. Ok, have I really told you something that you don't already know? After all, that is likely ... read more

    Your Guide to Conducting SEO Link Audits What is a Link Audit and Why Do I Need ... you can set the tool to automatically score new links as it finds them. While noting low quality links, pay special attention to the domain and text surrounding your links. While pretty rare, negative SEO does ... read moreThe Ultimate List Of Free SEO Tutorials This guide from KissMetrics is more short-and-sweet, and comes at Beginners SEO from a business owner's point of view, instead of someone trying to become a professional SEO. It gives you a basic understanding of: Why ... you need to pay attention ... read moreSEO: Why Is It Important to Optimize Images? Quite unfortunately most of us don't pay as much attention to the images as they deserve ... more than 32% of the search results as compared to 26% in 2013. So, you need to be really serious about optimizing your pictures for search engine visibility ... read moreFast Growth Marketing: From 0 to 500,000 Users That sounds great, but what you need to understand is back in '13 and '14 as we struggled a way to get a product that was really engaging, there were many days where … When you first asked why didn ... You have to pay attention to SEO. read moreThe Best Advice for Solopreneurs on Building an Audience If they accept you, make sure you write the best content possible. You want to make as favorable an impression as you can, otherwise, people won't continue to pay attention to ... stop creating content. Why? Because there's really no point in growing ... read moreTop Reasons Why SEO is Slow They might turn into a great source of content or they might be another fly by night site that is only maintained for a few months which is why the search engines pay attention to domain age. The search engines don't want ... if you get traffic. SEO ... read moreHow to Boost Your Traffic: The Complete Beginner's Guide to SEO Search Engine Optimization can be a little tricky, and if you're not too sure what it means, or why it's important, check out this helpful SEO explanation ... be whatever you want. And more importantly, Google pays very close attention to your titles ... read moreHow To Support Data with Real-Life Interviews - Whiteboard Friday We can look at our analytics, entry and exit pages, bounces, pages that get a lot of views, all of that stuff really important and we can learn a lot from it. But with our interviews, what we're learning about is the why ... You want to pay attention ... read more

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    Source: Here's Why You Really Need To Pay Attention To #SEO

    Wednesday, September 21, 2016

    Mastering eCommerce Optimization: 5 Tricks That Never Fail

    September 22, 2016 Image courtesy of (Stuart Miles)/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

    Image courtesy of (Stuart Miles)/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

    Conversions are a critical aspect for an eCommerce site. Optimizing for conversions involves many elements like content, CTA, products, design, colors etc. It's all about attracting customers and making them reach the end of the sales funnel.

    Here are five tricks that have the highest chances of converting the buyer:

    1. Employ Smart Pricing Strategy

    Pricing is an absolutely necessary aspect of consumer psychology. CRO specialists often use a perfect pricing strategy to positively influence the mind of the customer to generate more sales. Here are some easy ways through which you can revise your existing pricing strategy for greater profits:

    Loss Leader Pricing: Under this strategy, the store sells goods that are below market price to attract potential buyers into their store. Once customers visit the site, they make up for the additional losses by buying products via cross selling and up selling.

    image1

    Slashed Pricing: The old prices of the products are slashed and the new discounted prices are shown to the customer in order to receive more profits as shown in the screenshot below:

    image2

    Odd Even Pricing: Prices that end in odd numbers tend to generate more sales. It works on a consumer psychology where odd pricing suggests a bargain which encourages buying. For example, a pricing of $39 works well as opposed to a price of $40. Odd Even pricing strategy is one of the widely used pricing strategies in the world today.

    2. Use Product Bundling to Drive Conversions

    Use product bundling to give offer suggestion to customers on their purchase. The offer can combine other products of same niche with the main purchase. The amount of money saved on product bundles drives sales and improves conversions.

    Either optimize product pages with bundle suggestions or provide consumers with a separate product bundles page. Check out the example below of different products being bundled together:

    image3

    Point out the money saved on the bundle purchase to drive sales. Consumers need not venture to different eCommerce stores to make the purchase.

    Optimizing related products with product bundle suggestion improves conversion rate. It helps to keep loyal customers happy and provides ease of shopping to customers.

    3. Optimize Landing Page to Drive Sales

    The ROI of the landing page is evaluated by the amount of revenue generated. Here are the tricks to improve sales for an eCommerce landing page:

    Create attractive headlines: The moment a visitor lands on a webpage, the headline should evoke instant interest in the marketer's objectives. Check out the landing page of Trulia which has a clear headline that engages and directs visitor to the next step with a precise CTA button.

    image4

    The ideal headline consists of emotional outreach, power words and sense of urgency to engage online visitors.

    Also:

  • Use only stunning images.
  • For effective and powerful layout, use negative/white space.
  • Use concise headlines with short sentences.
  • Optimize for mobile users.
  • For conversion rate optimization, test the conversion rate of a landing page with A/B tests by including a variety of images and content.

    The call-to-action button has to be easily spotted. A CTA button should be prominent in size and color and easy to spot by the online visitor.

    A landing page needs to be as simple as possible. It should be able to communicate the important points of marketing objectives with precise information in the form of images and CTA buttons.

    4. Use Video Marketing to Outperform Your Marketing Content

    The quality of rich content for customers on a site plays a major role in conversions. According to the survey by WVMP, "71 percent say video conversion rates outperform other marketing content."

    Some of the best video marketing campaigns did not promote services but, rather, entertained and indulged the audience with a marketing objective.

    Buyers look for reviews on video channels to get a closer look at products. And a single video shared on social platforms can reach millions of followers. Here are the ways you can increase engagement with your  targeted audience:

  • Provide your audience with expert information about a product. In the screenshot below, the professionals assist customers with skilled information as to how to install the pick ball net.
  • image5

  • Thank your audience for their support of your journey so far.
  • A product review video, (like the one shown below), makes the store more reliable in the eyes of consumers.
  • image6

  • Ask for 10 seconds of customer feedback and include it in the final piece. This can have direct impact on the number of social shares.
  • Align with an influencer to promote the video on the social channels. It increases the number of followers and people trust services marketed by a known face. Many brands have successfully used video marketing with influencers to promote services and attract new customers beyond their targeted zones.

    5. Add Schema.Org Markup to Improve Relevancy and to Improve CTR

    Schema markup aids search engine algorithms in identifying the content of a webpage. With schema mark up, you tell the search engine what the content is all about.

    Here are some schema markups that should be used across eCommerce websites:

    1. Schema Markup for Websites: To provide customers with site-links search box in SERP results as shown in the screenshot below:

    image7

    2. Schema Markup for Breadcrumbs: Breadcrumb list mark-up provides Google's algorithm with the website hierarchy. Customers can directly access the desired webpage instead of going through the complete website hierarchy.

    image8

    3. Schema Mark up for Website navigation: As you can see below in the screenshot, Amazon directs user to prominent pages for easy navigation.

    image9

    4. Video Schema Mark-up: The required fields to be added for Video schema mark-up are name, video description, thumbnail URL, upload date.

    image10

    5. Product availablity, reviews and ratings Schema Mark-up: Viewers can review services based on ratings and reviews. It provides customers with product price and status information in the SERP results only.

    image11                        

    Websites with schema mark-up have a better chance of ranking higher on search engine results. Add schema mark-up to the mentioned website content areas to improve relevancy and to improve CTR.

    A full optimization strategy has plenty of rewards for an eCommerce store. It results in an improved conversion rate and it drives sales.  Fill the gaps in your optimization strategy by including the above-mentioned tactics.

    Joydeep Bhattacharya is an internet marketer and owner of the SEO blog, SEO Sandwitch. He has been associated with SEO, SMO, PPC, ORM and other activities related to online marketing for the past 5 years.


    Source: Mastering eCommerce Optimization: 5 Tricks That Never Fail

    Tuesday, September 20, 2016

    How I Produce Content (So Quickly)

    Believe it or not, but I actually only got a B in my high school English exams, and up until the last number of years I was pretty bad at English. Writing & reading blog posts, and learning about content marketing is actually improved my English skills so much, as you'll probably see in this post.

    This blog post is 4,106 words long and took me 3.5 hours to CREATE – By create, I mean the ENTIRE process.. From coming up with the title, to doing keyword research, to writing, formatting and putting all the rest of the parts of a good blog post together. This should show you how quickly I can create high quality pieces of content.

    So in my last post I talked a bit about a book that helped my content production skills, with insights, formatting ideas and general copywriting "laws/rules" – I didn't give it much in the way of specifics, and there's a lot more to creating "great content" (puke) in a timely fashion than just what's inside that book.

    Considering I've been asked this question a hundred times, and probably more.. I thought the mixture of last weeks post on books, and the consistent bombardment of messages/how the f*cks, it was time to get round to answering the question so many of you have asked me:

    How Do You Produce Content So Much & So Quickly?!

    Before I get into the ins and outs of the actual creation process itself. I thought I'd explain 3 advantages I have that most other people in this industry do not.

    1) I Used To Play Video Games Competitively

    Now, this may sound a bit strange, but let me explain.

    Back when I was 14 – 16, I owned a competitive StarCraft 2 team, which I eventually sold to a much larger North American association, and became a player on their roster.

    For those that don't know, StarCraft is a real time strategy game that is classed as the biggest sport in Korea and requires an insane amount of reaction time, "micro" (aka actions per minute you can get on a keyboard/mouse) and knowledge of the game.

    Not only does the entire micro thing come into extreme handy when I'm writing multi-thousand word blog posts every week.. As I can generally write about 1k – 2k words/hour – That includes doing research, inserting any links, images, videos etc.. As well – I write straight from the WordPress editor, which I'll come onto later.

    It also massively helps with dedication and finding free information. Learning to master a game that has over 50 units you can create, over 30 buildings you can build and in excess of 400 separate hotkeys – That you HAVE  to remember. This kind of dedication to a computer helps you in the long run when having to sit at your desk for 12 hours/day 30 days a month. It also makes it 100x easier to learn where to find free information from.. As almost all gaming guides, tutorials and info you need to learn to become pro, are totally free: Mostly contained in the 30 page patch notes released every week, various YouTube guides and personalities, tons of forum & reddit threads to dissect and blog/news posts to go through.

    I'm not nearly as good as I was, and I've moved on to a different game now (League of Legends) but I still get the occasional game and sometimes get to release a bit of footage:

    Note: If you're a subscriber to my YouTube channel, you'll be happy to know that the video above is the first video since I bought a Sony Vegas Pro license.. So watch out for some way higher quality vids to come.

    2) My Age

    Unlike most of the 35+ year old folk in this industry, I've grown up with fast internet, in a generation that relies on social media for communication and streaming/downloading information on a daily basis is normal.

    Most of my friends at school had some basic understanding of how computers worked. That's something people who're in their middle ages probably never got to experience as a teenager, and I got it before my 5th birthday.

    3) Time

    Unlike most people, I have the ability to take time off if I want to, whenever I want to.

  • I've organized my affiliate sites to ALL be run by JV partners or "site managers" – The first, is a split revenue share, the latter being people I've actively hired and recruited to sites for me.
  • My agency is co-owned by myself and another fantastic SEO, who handles the day to day operations. I simply work on leads, promo and strategy rather than any actual work on the clients sites myself.
  • The only thing I actually run myself, almost completely (aside from the graphics and development work) is this project. My blog.

    I decided towards the end of June, 2016 that I'd cut back on my other projects to devote my time to growing out this blog, as realistically it's one of my best long term business models. I'm consistently growing traffic (organic, social, email etc) every month thanks to new content and aging, I'm growing an audience outside of just SEO which means I can have a much larger audience base than ever before and I've been able to monetize in such a way that is both rewarding to my other business goals (I've partnered with a number of people inside my course, for example) and extremely profitable in the long run.

    This means I can dedicate around 20 – 30 hours per week (I was previously doing maybe 10) to the blog, and growing it into a serious player in the internet marketing space. Yes, there are fulltime internet marketing bloggers out there (Woodward is a great example) but I'm more 50/50 – I still like to get down and dirty, I just prefer to do tests rather than physical work anymore.

    How To Write A Blog Post Quickly

    My technique only really works if you're blogging via WordPress or in a similar content editor CMS, but gladly the majority of you will be.

    On average, my blog posts are around 3,300 words and have video/image/audio content throughout – They also normally include some sort of microdata markup such as a schema review. On average, a blog post of this size/detail takes me around 2 and a half hours to create.. Not bad considering (in a 12 month period) that post will on average get about 4,500 pageviews.

    Step 1) Ideas & Research

    There's a lot of ways to get your creative juices flowing and come up with a way to create a really solid piece of content in a very short amount of time. Here's some techniques I use, and some examples of how I used them to generate traffic to my blog.

    Newsjacking

    If you're seriously stuck for ideas, then the best way I come up with content is looking at the news.. Generally, an industry news site will cover something in very little detail (Around 200 – 500 words, max) but the aforementioned topic will have a lot of relevance right NOW, because it's such a new thing. When Moz let go of over 25% of their employees, I put out an open letter which sort of "hijacked" the relevancy of that piece of news, and..

    Brandjacking

    Hijacking someone else's brand/terms/keywords is always a good idea. A further example of this, is when I did a case study on black hat world which now ranks (In G UK) #2 for the brand terms around it:

    rankings for bhw

    This post alone does about 700 organic visits a month thanks to some clever OnPage SEO.

    Skyscraper Technique

    Another way would be to use the "skyscraper" method, in which you reverse engineer your competitor's top level content. An example of me doing this, is vs Backlinko:

  • I ran Backlinko.com through Ahrefs to see his top referring keywords, in terms of organic traffic.
  • I noticed his "YouTube SEO" page did close to 4,000 organic visits per month but hadn't been updated in a considerable amount of time.
  • I went ahead and created my own YouTube SEO Guide, which had a large (not quite as big as Brian's) piece of content and a considerable amount of microdata/OnPage.
  • This page now does between 150 and 250 organic visits a month, with a one time 2 hour investment time.

    Yes, I successfully skyscraper'd the creator of the skyscraper technique and stole a portion of his traffic because of it.

    Reviews 

    If worst comes to worst, and you really cannot come up with an idea.. Then you can always fall back on the tried and tested affiliate method of reviewing something.

    Not only will it likely make you some money in the long run, but it's also a good way to practice your OnPage SEO skills.

    Simply look for a product/service/tool in your niche, see if it has an affiliate program and bobs your uncle (I do actually quite dislike that phrase) you've got a starting point.

    Step 1.5) SEO'ing

    Now that you have an idea, it's time to see if that idea is worth anything.

    First, I look up the main keyword I want to go after, as an example, I'll be using: how to write a blog – Which has 2,900 monthly searches in the UK.

    I'll then search that keyword into Google, and find the top 3 pages, in this case I get:

    how to write a blog google serp print screen

    I'll ignore #1 as it's a root domain and too generic.. But #2 and #3 can then be run through either SEMRush or Ahrefs:

    keywords-ranking

    This gives me a list of keywords to start basing my meta title & description of, as well as start looking at using specifics of these keywords in the post. All from a post I KNOW ranks well.

    I can also use these as an idea of the kind of length I need, though if you're running a smaller blog than the ranking pages, you'll likely need a considerably longer post. I can also dive into the backlinks of these pages, look for any link oppurtunities and start creating a link building strategy for the post – Though on this blog specifically, I don't really build links to it.

    Step 2) Initial Formatting

    I always start off a blog post the exact same way:

  • I write an "editable" title, that allows me to start formulating my ideas.
  • I write the introduction.
  • Once I've got both of those parts done, I then generally have an idea of how I want to proceed with the blog post, so I start creating "sections" of the post.. What I mean by this, is I start creating headers for sections of my post, like:

    writing-a-blog-post-formatting

    Of course you'll be able to see the full post now, but this is what it currently looks like whilst I am writing it up to this point.

    Step 3) Writing The Post

    The kind of formatting I showed above, allows me to go down bit by bit and start filling out each section in an efficient manner – As I'm going through, I also normally start adding more and more sections until I feel the post is complete.

    I'll also look at competing posts to see what sections they have covered, just in case I haven't thought of or have missed out a section I should of included. This also further helps to see the "style" people are using, if you haven't previously wrote a post on that topic.. As some topics tend to be worded in different manners, so seeing the social share/comment count of various posts in comparison to their style/length etc.. Is a great way to understand how you should write a post.

    Pro Tip: If you're blogging around anything to do with computing, then get a tool called Gyazo – It's what I use for all the above print screens, and you'll be able to take a screenshot, download it and upload it to your blog post within literally 10 seconds.

    Step 4) Final Touches

    Once I've got a nearly finished product, I spend a little bit of time going through and looking for any spelling/grammatical errors.

    I also add in the finishing touches that every blog post needs:

  • Social Markup – Things like Facebook OpenGraph, A Twitter Card etc.. (I use WP Social SEO Pro on this blog, it's super easy to configure all of your social markup for each site inside the post)
  • A Featured Image – Every post should have a featured image, if not to make your blog look prettier when people are searching it.. Then at least for things like your Twitter card. I do NOT suggest using a stock image for a cover photo, get a custom designed one for every post, though I'll cover this in the advice section later on.
  • An Exerpt – It's generally a lot better for SEO purposes if you write a custom excerpt than having your home & category pages show the start (or even full text) of a post. If you go to my homepage, you'll see it shows a custom description for each blog post.
  • Depending on your niche, audience requirements and various other factors.. There may be other final touches you want to include in your post as well.

    How To Make Videos Quickly

    If I'm not putting our a blog post every week, I am certainly putting out a video on my YouTube channel. As long as a video doesn't go into the >20 minutes length.. I can generally get an idea for a video, create it, render and upload all within an hour. Though I understand that some people may have a lot harder times when it comes to rendering/uploading – You need a decent comp spec, and a decent net speed for both to be time effective.

    Before I get into how I actually make videos quickly. I thought I'd cover something I'm not actually covering in this section, which is: How to get ideas for your videos. Generally, it's extremely easy to come up with ideas for videos.. Just answer questions people are searching for in short videos, and go for more generic keywords in the longer ones. Video also makes for a great tool for things like reviews and newsjacking.

    Always Use YouTube!

    I actually think Neil Patel's idea to use Wistia on his QuickSprout university videos are plain stupid. He could be generating hundreds of thousands of visits a year from the huge amount of content he has in his "universities" video library if it were on YouTube instead.

    I understand it when it comes to things like Rand's Whiteboard Friday – He wants to be able to blog around the video, and have an interactive comment section.. but Neil doesn't do this, and is simply losing out on a ton of traffic.

    People often forget that YouTube is actually the second biggest search engine in the world, and people often use it to find easy to follow content. Use YouTube to send even more traffic to your site/blog, there's no reason to use an alternative unless you're a bigger company or wanting to keep your content more private.. Being seen is what you want as an internet marketer, exposure.

    Step 1) Get A Setup

    It doesn't have to be insanely expensive, and if you're going to be pumping out a video a week it shouldn't cost more than a few hundred bucks.

    My setup consists of:

  • Camtasia Studio (For screen recording)
  • Sony Vegas Pro (For actual editing)
  • A 1080p HD Webcam – Cost me under £100 on Amazon, speficially the Logitech C930.
  • A Blue Yeti Microphone (in black) with a decent clip-on pop filter.
  • My office for my background.
  • In total, my setup cost me under $1,200 though the vast majority of that comes from the 2 pieces of editing software, which combined cost nearly $900.

    Step 2) Get A Default Design & Intro/Outro

    Something that'll save you a bulk amount of time when it comes to producing your video content is having 2 default designs:

    For Slide Shows/Presentations

    This'll allow you to quickly create presentations around specific topics, whilst keeping your branding on the video and having your social profiles at the bottom is always a good idea. This is perfect for when it comes to things like Newsjacking, as you'll be able to create presentations in minutes rather than having to custom design a new slide show each time.

    All you need is a 1080p background image for your main slides, and a standard image for your main title slide. You can also get a ending slide made up, though that's what the outro is for.

    For Your Thumbnail

    Uploading a video without a thumbnail is proven to lower the click thru rates from the YouTube SERPs.

    Get your designer to make a template, and send you a font.. You can then just edit it (and I'm not kidding) in PowerPoint with a couple PNG images and some text on top of it.

    Intro / Outro

    I highly recommend having an intro and outro made, it increases the professionalism of your videos and gives the end of your videos the ability to send traffic to your site and social profiles.

    Here's my intro and outro as an example:

    If you don't have a large budget, you can use Fiverr to create these. Though I had mine custom done, and it does look a lot more professional than the template based services on Fiverr.

    Step 3) Begin With An Introduction

    I (mostly) don't script my videos at all.. but what you can do is do some test records: By that, I mean start off by recording the introduction of your video a few times to see what kind of style you want to present the video in.

    Your introduction can literally just be "Hey guys, Charles here, and in today's video I'll be…" then let the intro play. This'll give you a basis for what you want to then go about covering in the video and give your audience an insight into what they can expect from it.

    The Easiest Video Editing Software: Camtasia

    If you want something super simple, then Camtasia is the software for you. You'll be able to literally just drag, drop and click about until your video is mashed into one.

    It comes in a really easy interface, with some basic transitions and audio/visual effects but nothing overly fancy at all.

    It's also only got a $300 price tag, and that's a one time fee for life.

    If you're just starting out, I highly suggest picking this up and spending an hour or 2 running through the training documentation before jumping straight into making a video.

    Better Videos? Sony Vegas Pro

    If you're looking to get more studio quality production, then Sony Vegas Pro is the product for you. It does come with a double the cost price tag in comparison to Camtasia, but for good reason.

    It's got a much more complicated interface, with way more diverse opportunities and a track interface that makes working with Camtasia look like a piece of cake.

    It's icons alone can be daunting, and will require a significant time investment to learn how to use it to it's best ability.

    As an example, this is what my project looked like for my minitage I linked towards the start of this blog post:

    a print screen of the sony vegas pro interface.

    And that's for a fairly basic project.

    Rendering

    When it comes to rendering a video, I always suggest rendering via a WMV file.

    This is a "windows media video" file that renders in 1080p, normally in 60fps – If you're in Vegas, render it at 8mbps.

    If you want to get a higher resolution, or just a generally higher video quality then you will HAVE to go down the route of using .mov files (the Apple rendering format) but note that this will take a considerable amount of time longer than the WMV render.. On average, it's about 3x longer for the same resolution and frame rate, just for a slightly higher quality.

    Further Advice

    There is a lot more than just the above things I wanted to cover, so here's some additional advice I wish I'd listened to when I first started properly blogging back in early 2013.

    Format Your Content With MicroData

    One of the easiest ways to increase your organic rankings is via "formatted content" –

    Very simple things like a table of contents and natural alt tags can massively increase your ranking potential, especially in SERPs where you're going vs some of the bigger publications.

    Note: If you want to step up your WordPress SEO game, get my eBook here.

    Get A Graphics Guy

    Get a freelancer that is good with graphic design.. There's tons out there. You'll notice the immediate increase in quality of the overall design of your blog, posts and YouTube videos when you have someone professionally creating graphics for you every time you release a new piece of content.

    This is also a massive time saver, as it can take a good 10 – 30 minutes to create even one basic graphic, and means you don't have to spend tens of hours learning PhotoShop.

    You will be paying for quality though.. I pay my designer (a discounted rate, due to the amount of orders I put in) around £25/featured image, £60/slide show design and various other prices for the other types of graphics I order.

    Use Social Queuing (I Use Buffer)

    In the long run, this will save you a HELL of a lot of time.

    Instead of manually going to your social profiles.. Use a service like Buffer (which is what I use) to schedule out your new pieces of content straight from your browser – Literally just navigate to the page, click the Buffer icon in Chrome and it'll do a tab overlay which allows you to configure your share for Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook.

    This also allows you to schedule out to the best times to share with your audience, and Buffer has a built-in tool that allows you to find the best times to post.

    Please, Don't Ramble

    It can become very easy to start rambling on about things you don't need to talk about.. but really want to. At the end of the day, all good writing is concise and to the point. People hate fluff and bullsh*t.

    Keep your ramblings for your videos, where your audience will likely find them either funny or a further explanation/talk on an interesting point.

    Don't Procrastinate

    I know, this probably sounds like the stupdiest advice in the entire world.. but it's the way to get posts created in a timely fashion in the easiest way possible.

    Leaving a blog post to go do something else can have a severe impact on it's quality. You'll always get the best results writing it from start to finish, because it'll be a thousand times easier to remember what you've already produced.

    Almost every post on my blog was created from start to finish, even my link building guide (over 9k words) was created in a 2 day period of madness.

    If you're a cereal procrastinator, then these tips might be of help:

  • Close everything – Your tabs, your Skype.. Everything.
  • Try using ZenPen – It's a minimalist writing environment that should help keep you focused.
  • Put your phone on airplane mode, so no one can bother you.
  • Put on relaxing music. You don't really want to be putting on extreme bass boosted songs, they overtake your brain and can halt creativity.. I find chilled house works best.
  • That's All I Got (Or Wrote?)

    Writing blog posts can be an extremely daunting process, but when done right it can be a path to a career of your choice, or even a life of your choice.

    Blogging is hard to be "taught" in the right way.. And depending on your personality/type, will depend on who your writing will resonate with. Generally, at first try blogging in something you're interested in, because it'll be a lot easier to create your own style around something you actually enjoy, than something you're forcing yourself to write.

    And as always… Be yourself. If you want to swear, fucking swear. If you want to put in a meme you find absolutely hilarious, do it! Put your soul into it, and people will resonate a lot more with you.. And at the end of the day, you should be blogging to build something you want to do for fun: Don't make it a chore.

    Thanks For Reading

    I hope you enjoyed this blog post and it gave you a bit more of an insight into how I go about creating my content, and in such a timely manner. Hopefully you've learnt a bit and can go out and produce your own content in the same amount of time.

    I'd love to hear your content creation time saving hacks in the comments down below, and if you have any tools you recommend as well.

    Don't forget to join my 7 day free SEO course as well.

    PEACE!


    Source: How I Produce Content (So Quickly)

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