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  • 7 Digital Copywriting Mistakes You Should Avoid

    7 Digital Copywriting Mistakes You Should Avoid

    7 Digital Copywriting Mistakes You Should Avoid

    If you are looking to improve your writing online, you are in for a treat! We have curated this post to help you identify and avoid the seven most common digital copywriting mistakes that are often seen online. This will help you drive more leads, convert more customers, and make more sales on your business online.

    “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

    Making mistakes is a part of life, it is growth, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you learn from them. The main goal of this post is to help your learning curve be a lot faster than normal. 

    The truth is, the internet needs good writers. In our world today, where over half of the population can write whatever they like on the internet, one of the best ways to make you and your business stand out is to have the best communication and cleanest copywriting on the block. Your audience will thank you for it with their wallets.

    Mistake #1: Not Having a Goal

    One of the biggest digital copywriting mistakes I have probably made in the past is writing a piece of copy without having a goal in mind. You must keep in mind that people have short attention spans and they get bored easily. You don’t have a lot of time to make a good first impression so you need to make sure that every word you put out on the internet counts.

    Think about something that you’re marketing for your business right now. What’s the first thing you’d like your potential customer to take? What’s the one thing that they could do that would help move towards success for your business? Think about what that is for you and then make sure that every word you are writing works towards that goal.

    There are many types of goals that you could aim for with your writing. Here are some ideas to get you started:

    Provide Value

    To attract customers and get them to buy from you, you should first aim to prove that your product, business, or service is valuable. Give and give to your customers over and over again without asking for anything in return. They will thank you for it with their loyalty.

    Get Information

    Now that you have already provided your potential customers with a lot of value, it’s the right time to ask them something in return. The best thing here is to ask for their contact information. Having this will allow you to follow up with them and continue to stay in touch with them so you can turn them into customers eventually. 

    Show Gratitude

    Pleases and Thank Yous go a long way with customers, especially on the internet. Show your appreciation to your customers, show them how grateful you are for having them pick you among other businesses to choose from. Show them that you care about their experience, this will make them want to keep buying from you again and again. 

    Keep your writing straightforward and simple. And make sure that every word you choose works toward an ultimate goal. This will keep you on the right track.

    Mistake #2: Writing For the Wrong Audience

    Who are you writing for? Because I guarantee that it’s not for yourself. Oftentimes, I see companies online talking way too much about their experience, talking from their perspective. This might be unpleasant to hear, but your customers couldn’t care less about your company’s history or what you did to get to where you are now. They just want to know if you can provide them the service or product they need. Think about the people who need your product or service. What’s their experience? Why do they need your help? What are they looking for? People go to you because they need something and they think you might be able to help them. Don’t waste their time talking about things that don’t matter to them. Be forward, get to the point, and give them what they need.

    Another way people mess this up online is by having a poorly translated website. Remember that the way you communicate with your customer matters, even if it’s not in English. Lots of businesses are trying to reach more audiences who speak different languages. If you’re going to do this, make sure that your translation is accurate. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not. If you need to communicate with your customers in a language that you don’t personally speak, don’t just put your words in Google Translate and call it a day. I’m telling you, this is not enough. Utilize the internet and find somebody who natively speaks the language you’re trying to communicate in. Have them look at what you’ve written so you can make sure that you are actually saying what you are trying to say.

    Mistake #3: TL;DR

    If you don’t know this yet, TL;DR stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read. The internet moves fast. Your audience and potential customer doesn’t have a lot of time to consider what you have to say before they move on to the next thing. If you want people to engage with your content online, you need to write in a way that respects their attention span. Here are a few key things to remember:

    Get to the Point

    Filler language is a waste of everyone’s time and your customer will not appreciate it. Show them that you respect their time by not wasting any of it. Get to the point.

    Don’t Bury the Lead

    Say you’re doing an online giveaway to gather email addresses for potential customers. Lead with the value that they are going to get from engaging with your business. Start with the thing that matters to them. 

    Wrap it Up

    Give your customer exactly the information they need to make an informed decision and that’s it. Keep your writing concise and to the point, and you will have a lot more success reaching the people you want to notice you.

     

    Digital Copywriting Mistakes

     

    Mistake #4: Answering the Wrong Questions

    To find out what your customers need, you need to look at the world from their perspective. Put yourself in their shows and try to understand why is it that they’re coming to you for help. For your customers to reach an informed decision, they will need to find out something specific about your business.

    For example – for a coffee shop, that could be the shop hours; for an esthetician, that could be the different services that you provide; or for a birthday clown, it could be what type of clown you are. Whatever type of business it is that you have, there is something specific your customer needs. 

    Oftentimes, businesses bury that information somewhere on their website, and it’s so hard for the customer to find out the things they need to know to decide on your business. Find out what that crucial piece of information is for your business, and then make sure you make it easily available to your customer.

    Things to keep in mind:

    1. Be clear about what your business offers. That may turn out to be exactly what your lead is looking for, or it might not be. Either way, help your customer make the right decision by being crystal clear about what it is that you offer.
    2. Avoid giving your leads an onslaught of information. Your goal should be to help them, no to beat them over the head with your words. Remember, TMI equals TLDR.
    3. In this day and age, there’s no need to guess at what your potential future customers need. Use the internet and social media to get to know your current customers and that will help you attract more people like them. 

    Mistake #5: Bad Fonts & Colors

    You’ve worked really hard on your copy, you’ve carefully chosen your words, and everything is written to work towards a goal. But something is still not working for some reason. If this is the case, maybe the problem now could be your design.

    Another one of the digital copywriting mistakes we are going to talk about now is bad design as it can seriously detract from your message. Bad design can draw your reader’s attention to the wrong thing. It can even make your viewer feel uncomfortable, and you don’t want that.

    Design elements like font and color choices evoke emotion. The best way to make this work for you is to think about how you want your customer to feel. Use your design to create that feeling for them. Here are some tips to keep you on the right track:

    Always Keep it Readable

    Bad color choices will make your texts hard to see. It will become unappealing and the readers won’t have a second thought at closing that tab. When in doubt, stick to light background colors and dark colors for the text. The same concept is applied when it comes to font choices. Readability should be the top priority.

    Use Multiple Styles (but do so carefully)

    This depends on what you are writing, but it is recommended to use about 2-5 different fonts and colors. Using different styles draws focus and attention to your readers. Just be careful not to go overboard or it can become distracting.

    If you have a website, it should comply with the American Disabilities Act

    Depending on your business type, it should be in compliance with the ADA regulations, this may even be a requirement for your website. 

    Mistake #6: Too Pushy

    Another digital copywriting mistake is being too pushy. You have to think about the push and pull between you and your potential customer, just like dating. If you come on too strong, you’ll scare them away. Use your writing to draw your lead-in. People are smart, and they can tell when a business is trying too hard to get their money.

    Give your audience and potential customers all the information they need to make a decision, and then back off. Give them the space they need to decide on their own pace, but this is not to say that you couldn’t engage with your leads repeatedly. Because you absolutely should. Just don’t push them too hard to do something for you. This is particularly true with online advertising. Offer your leads a whole lot of value first and then put your call-to-action in front of them at just the right moment. 

    If you want to avoid sounding pushy online, you need to keep these two things in mind:

    • On the internet, ALL CAPS is shouting. Use it very carefully. Think about how much you shout in normal life. You probably don’t do it often. The same social norms apply online. 
    • Don’t sound desperate. Why should people want to buy from or work with a business that doesn’t sound confident about what they have to offer? Use your writing to highlight the positive things about your business, your customers will notice this.

    Mistake #7: Spelling and Grammar Errors

    There’s no excuse but laziness for bad spelling and grammar errors in professional writing. But sometimes, mistakes are inevitable, we’re just humans after all. But some companies seem to go above and beyond the limit of punctuation and spelling mistakes they make online. And this just makes those companies look bad. The issue here is that many people don’t see spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes as a big deal. But this post is here to tell you that those people are wrong. Any writing you put out online could be your business’s first impression with someone. The first impression is everything and you need to make sure that it’s always a good one.

    Having these errors in your writing just makes your business look sloppy. Think of it this way: If your potential customer sees that your business doesn’t try very hard on their website, why should they think that you’ll try very hard for them? This is important for every type of business, especially for those companies where building trust with customers is crucial. You want your audience to feel confident that you can deliver on what they need, and little things like spelling and grammar errors make it look like you won’t. Your goal should be to fill your reader with confidence that your business is worth every penny you ask for. Don’t give your reader any reason to doubt that.

    We all have our strengths and weaknesses. We are not all born strong writers, and that’s okay. This is what the internet is for. You can outsource and look for someone whose strength is writing. Maybe you know someone who has a full grasp of the English language and can write well. You can ask them for guidance and maybe even let them take a look at what you’ve made. As an alternative, you can look for talented freelance writers online (in Craigslist, Upwork, etc.) and hire them to work for you. 

    It is okay not to be an amazing writer, but it is not okay to let your business look sloppy and lazy. Outsourcing and asking for a little bit of help can go a long way towards making your business look both professional and reliable online.

    Writing online may seem easy but there are some pointers you need to heed to make your business look reputable and trustworthy. I hope you learned something about how to write a digital copy that truly engages your customers and helps put your business’s best foot forward online. Keep these digital copywriting mistakes in mind and your writing online will surely improve.

  • Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline

    Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline

    Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline

    Most, if not all, of the content you create for your blog, is based on your writing. You are not limited to the format of a traditional written blog post, though, because even things like audio and video will often need some writing beforehand. This is why effective writing should be practiced at all times. So how do you do that?

    Writing is a great way to communicate ideas, but compared with in-person verbal communication, it comes with a certain handicap. Body language accounts for a significant portion of human interaction. Things such as facial expressions, posture, gestures, and eye contact can either support or negate the words that are being said. Body language is often used unconsciously to connect with people, gauge character, understand how someone is feeling, and many more.

    The meaning of what you say is based on how you say it. But when it comes to writing, many of those qualities are lost. Body language and tone of voice are not present in the published content. You are reliant on the words themselves, which makes effective writing much more important.

    The Importance of Effective Writing

    Effective writing gets you to build trust, share ideas, educate, and persuade people, all without the use of body language. Beyond that, remember that the nature of the world we live in today is ever-changing. At any given moment, thousands upon thousands of people and companies compete for your audience’s attention. Think about this: why should someone spend their precious time reading your content when they can do absolutely anything else? 

    The world of web content is more crowded than ever, and it’s only getting more competitive by the day. Some see that as a bad thing, as the surplus of content is driving down the value of the content itself. But the reality is, as the volume of content increases, so too do the rewards for those who create valuable, high-quality content. Valuable content is what you are going for. You want your content to be the diamond among the ordinary rocks, and effective writing can help you achieve that. 

    Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline

     

    Writing Irresistible Headlines

    An effective and irresistible headline is one of the most important parts of a good blog post, because this is where you deliver and nail the first impression. When people come across your content while scrolling on social media or the Google results page, there are only two things they’ll do. People are either going to click through your link or they are going to ignore it. A good headline is crucial because it’s the only information people are going to have at this stage. 

    When you are working on a piece of content, start it by having a working title. The title doesn’t have to be final, it just has to be something simple to identify what you’re working on and guide the general idea of the write-up. Once you’re finished, that’s when you come back to the headline and refine it. There will be times that you’ll end up writing a slightly different approach than you originally intended, so it’s usually a smart thing to write the final headline once you’re done with the main content. Take your final headline seriously.

    Don’t just type out the first thing that comes to your mind. Give it a thought before hitting the publish button. The headline is your one chance to grab the people’s attention so make sure that you spend enough time on it. 

    One thing you can do is to come up with a list of potential headlines, maybe five or so titles. Then narrow them down until you have the perfect one. 

    With that process in mind, these are the certain elements that you need to have in a perfect title:

    1. Be unique. If your headline looks the same with all of the other related content on your topic, your potential audience might not want to click it. With a lackluster and common headline, what reason does your audience have to think that you have any unique value to offer them? 
    2. Show a little personality and don’t be afraid to be different. A good example of this is the viral video that put Dollar Shave Club on the map. dollarshaveclub.com – our blades are f***ing great! It’s edgy and they took a risk putting the f-bomb in an official ad, but here’s the thing, it worked. The ad got people’s attention and it showed the people that the brand wasn’t just another razor brand like Bic or Gillette. I’m not telling you to be intentionally edgy and swear in your headlines. All I’m suggesting is that you allow your blog to have a personality and a unique, authentic style. 
    3. A good headline is specific. Be extremely clear about what you have to offer. Don’t stick to the common and general titles that don’t offer much insight at first glance. Be as precise as you can. If you are writing a post about how to grow a business with content marketing, a bad example of a headline would be “Content Marketing” or even “How to Grow your Business”. A good title for this would be “How I Increased My Company’s Sales by 50% Using Content Marketing”. This will make the readers know what to expect, and if they’re interested in what you have to offer, they will surely click through your link. 
    4. Your headlines should be useful, and it should convey a clear benefit to the reader. Just like the example given above, the title “How I Increased My Company’s Sales by 50% Using Content Marketing” is extremely clear about what the reader is going to learn from the article. 

    In summary, when writing headlines, make sure to always offer something unique, specific, and useful. Come up with a list of potential titles for your posts and narrow down the list to find the best one. If you’re stuck, you can run it by your friends to get fresh perspectives. In any case, always remember that your headline is your chance to make or break the first impression. So be sure to give it the attention it deserves. 

  • 3 Practical Tips on Writing A Great Headline

    3 Practical Tips on Writing A Great Headline

    3 Practical Tips on Writing A Great Headline

    If you are a content creator of any kind and you make blog posts, create YouTube videos, write kindle ebooks, or an online instructor, you need great headlines. But coming up with ones that are going to seize your audience’s attention can be a little challenging. In this post, we are going to talk about three formulas that are proven and tested on writing a great headline.

    Why These Formulas Work Writing A Great Headline

    The most basic reason why these formulas work is because they are based on a deep understanding of how a human brain works. Based on evolution, the human brain has developed into a solution-seeking device. From the dawn of humanity, people have to solve problems – may that be on how to hunt, how to build a fire, or how to defend themselves from predators to survive.

    Over the years, all of these things have made the brain solution-oriented, and this hasn’t changed until today. Although we have different problems today, we are still constantly trying to find solutions for them. This is the first factor that you should keep in mind when writing a great headline.

    The second factor is the most common word used every day. It’s not “love”, it’s not “money”. It’s the word “I”. Most often, when we’re not preoccupied with major problems, we think of and about ourselves. What will I eat? Where should I go for vacation? What should I wear? The list goes one. This does not make people good or bad, but thinking in this perspective can help you write good headlines.

    By keeping the reader’s needs, problems, and desires in mind, they will definitely want to hear you out because you are basically saying, “Hey, I know and understand how you feel. Let’s talk about your problems, I’m here to help”. Just a word of caution though, be careful when using those “how to get rich doing nothing” slogans. You can get in trouble if you are promising something that’s subjected to a lot of different factors, and it can sound very scam-y.

    To sum things up, keep these two factors in mind:

    • The human brain is seeking solutions
    • Always think about the reader’s benefits

    You’ll be on a fast track to writing mind-blowing headlines and making people want what you are offering.

     

    Formula #1: The “How-to”

    In writing a good headline, one of the easiest ways is by using the good old phrase “How-To”. This might be overused but it works. It works because it sparks up the reader’s attention and the solution-seeking function of our brains. 

    Example 1: Traveling to Thailand

    Assume that we are writing a blog post about traveling to Thailand. Instead of writing “Traveling to Thailand”, use the how-to formula and it will give you “How to Travel to Thailand”. With the latter, we are getting more specific. We’re targeting people who want to travel to Thailand, but we can do even better than that. We can be more specific.

    Keep in mind that catering to our reader’s needs and problems are our priority. The headlines we make should be able to address those needs and problems and show how to fix them.

    In this case, we can get specific by writing “How to Get to Thailand on a Bike”. Now, we are addressing people who are worldwide traveling bike riders, or we could write “How to Get to Thailand Without Spending a Dime”. Here we are addressing people who have no money to get to Thailand. This last example takes us to something called Objection Killing.

    Objection Killing

    Objection Killing is a useful technique when writing a good headline that grabs attention. By killing people’s objections, we are making them extremely interested in the solution that we are offering. In the example above, the objection killing for the bike riders could look like this: How to Get to Thailand on a Bike in Less Than a Week or How to Get to Thailand on a Bike Without Having a Flat Tire.

    We are addressing the most common problems and objections bike riders can have if they want to Travel to Thailand. Writing A Great Headline

    Assuming that you know your target audience and have already done your research, you already know what their most common objections are. 

     

    Writing A Great Headline

     

    Example 2: Making Your Kids Eat Vegetable

    Let’s assume that we are passionate cooks who promote healthy eating and have come up with a sure-fire way of encouraging children to eat veggies. A headline like “How to Make Kids Eat Vegetables” is the most obvious one. But if you want to add some objection killing in it, make it “How to Make Your Kids Eat Vegetable With a Smile” or “How to Make Your Kids Ask You to Cook Vegetable for Them”.

    We are addressing the parent’s objections who are most probably tired of trying to make their kids eat vegetables, so there you go. Writing a great headline

    That is how you use the How-To formulas to write great headlines. Remember to keep the audience’s benefits in mind, make it as specific as you can, and kill some objections along the way. With this, your headline will surely grab the reader’s attention. Writing a great headline

    Formula #2: The Power of the List

    We are living in a time when sharing content is a must for businesses to get noticed. So if you want your content to get shares on Facebook and/or Twitter, a list type of headline is a good fit for you.

    Lists have been popular today and it’s pretty obvious why. We have less and less time to do more and more things. Lists give out easy-to-digest bite-sized chunks of information and it gives the readers an exact idea of what to expect. 

    Examples: 

    • 10 Ways to Travel to Thailand Without Spending a Dime
    • 7 Easy Steps to Make Dieting Easy (No. 5 is particularly effective)

    You can see the power of the list right away. One glance allows you to understand what you can expect inside, and if you add some objection killing, you get yourself a click and a Facebook share.

    Does the size of the list matter?

    There may be one more question you are asking now. Does the size of the list matter? How many steps or ways or tricks does a list need? 

    The most common amount of things on the list you can see on your Facebook wall if you like profiles like Psychology Today and Business Insider is seven. Many consider this to be a lucky number, but it’s also not too long a list, or too short.

    It’s comprehensive and easy to digest. Of course, it’s not mandatory to make all your lists in sevens, but studies show that lists that are odd numbers not greater than nine are easier for readers to remember. If the list exceeds nine steps, try to end it with a five or a zero. So it should be 10, 15, or 25, instead of 11, 17, or 26.

    You can also use a top list, e.g. Top 3 or Top 10 ways of something. But remember that a list of top 9 or 6 won’t look too plausible, it will look like you just made it up and made it a top list. Writing A Great Headline

    The list is the second headline formula and it’s useful when you’re after those Facebook likes and shares. 

    More examples: 

    • 7 Easy Ways of Making your Kids Ask you to Cook Spinach for Them
    • 5 Tricks to Learn a New Skill When You are Stuck in Traffic
    • 5 Ways to Sleep Healthy, Longer and Wake Up Refreshed

    Writing A Great Headline Just remember to make it an odd number if it’s not greater than 9, and seven is the best. Round the list to zero or five if it has more than ten items, and you can always use the top list if you need some variety.  

    Formula #3: Question Headlines

    The question headline is an answer to people’s need to find a solution and a promise to reveal it after they click. 

    Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Picture yourself starting up Google and looking for an answer to a question your customer might have. What kind of information would they be looking for? How would they ask it? What keywords would they use? With a question headline, you can use one of these two tactics. Writing a great headline

    Tactic #1: Ask a Yes or No question and give an answer straight away or phrase the question so the reader must click to get the answer. 

    Examples: 

    • Are you paying too much for tennis lessons? This free report will tell you.
    • Can you hit home runs like this 7-year old?

    The reader, most probably a baseball enthusiast, would have to take a look inside to actually find out if there is a seven-year-old who can hit home runs better than he can.

    Tactic #2: Ask a question that implies the answer or the benefits. It’s as easy as using words like “this”, “these” or even “which”.

    Examples:

    • Are you make these mistakes planting a garden?
    • What makes a perfect gentleman?
    • Which latest gadget is the most affordable?

    Question headlines can be really powerful if you are asking the right questions. Just remember to get into your audience’s mind and think about what questions they might ask. Also, think about what keywords they might use to find the answer. And don’t forget to phrase the question in a way that would make a promise of solving a problem if the reader clicks on the headline.

    How to Evaluate Your Headlines

    If you are just starting out, most probably you’re not sure whether your headline is good. So, how can we check the potential effectiveness of our headlines?

    Two online sources can help in evaluating your headlines. The first one is the Emotional and Marketing Value Headline Analyzer. It’s a free tool you can find on the Advanced Marketing Institute website. This tool counts the total number of EMV words in your headline in relation to the total number of words it contains. Copy your headline and paste it on the analyzer window and click the Submit for Analysis button to get your results.

    The higher the number the better, but if you can score something around 30%, that is already good enough.

    The second headline analyzing tool is more of an in-depth study of your headline. It’s called the blog post headline analyzer that you are gonna find on the CoSchedule.com site. All you need to do is to paste in your headline and let the analysis begin.

    It will give you a detailed evaluation of your headline in terms of word count and balance. It will give you lots of useful data that you can use to spruce up your headline. And if you can see the green color, that already means your headline is good to go.

    These are the two easiest ways of evaluating your headlines. Remember to practice all the formulas you learned in this post and check which version gives you the best results. 

    Now that you have learned the three formulas for writing a good headline, it’s time you put what you’ve learned into action. You can try to mix these formulas together to see if you can get even better results. Keep on practicing because this is the only what that will make you into a real headline superstar. Writing A Great Headline.

  • Why Blog for your Business? 4 Best Ideas

    Why Blog for your Business? 4 Best Ideas

    Why Blog for your Business? 4 Best Ideas

    Blogging is not something new today, it’s been known for the past few years. A blog can be valuable for a couple of reasons, especially for businesses. But why blog, though? Business blogging is a marketing strategy wherein blogging is used to get more online visibility for a business. Just like social media and email marketing, a business blog is a marketing channel that will help support the growth of your business. 

    If you own a business and you’ve already set up your website but you’re still having second thoughts about making a blog for it, here are a few reasons why you should.

    Blogging drives traffic to your website.

    If you want more people to visit your website, blogging will be a great help to achieve this goal. Having a blog enables you to reach up to millions of people who frequent the internet. Blogging will help you promote your business and attract audiences outside your reach because it provides valuable things for them.

    How many pages do you have on your website? Do you often update them? I don’t think so. Now, by having a blog, you will be creating new content that will add one more indexed page on your website every time you publish one. This is one more opportunity for your website to appear in search engines and drive traffic to your website by organic search. Having a blog will let Google and other search engines know that your website is active and this will help your content show up in their pages.

    By having a blog, social media can also help to have your business discovered. Every blog post you publish, you will be creating new content that your audience can share on their networks. This will help expose your business to a new audience that you haven’t yet reached.

    Another benefit of having constant blog content is it can help your social networks going. Your blog content can serve as content for your social media as well. This will strengthen your social reach with content from your blog which in turn will drive back traffic to your website with the help of your social media. 

    So, why blog, you ask? One benefit is it can help drive more traffic to your website.

    Business blogs can help convert traffic to leads.

    With what’s said above, blogging can drive traffic to your website. Now that you have traffic, another benefit of having a blog is having the opportunity to convert this traffic into leads. Each post is an opportunity to generate new leads. How? By adding call-to-action in every blog you post to generate leads.

    Usually, these calls-to-action give out certain things for free like ebooks, fact sheets, templates, webinars, and the like. It’s basically anything that someone would be willing to exchange their information with. 

    Not clear about how this works? It’s basically like this:

    • A visitor comes to your website
    • The visitor sees the call-to-action with a free offer and clicks it
    • The visitor is led to a landing page with a form to fill in with their details
    • The visitor fills out the form, submits it, and gets their free offer

    There’s a disclaimer in this one, though. Not every reader of your blog will become a lead, and that’s okay. Don’t be discouraged and just do your best to improve each month by setting a benchmark for yourself.

    Why Blog for your Business? 4 Best Ideas

    Having a blog helps establish authority.

    Your blog can showcase your knowledge and expertise about your industry and it will help establish your authority in it. Having a wide array of blog posts that are significant, informative, and accurate will get the attention of relevant people in the same industry and will earn you recognition for being a reliable source.

    The best business blogs help answer the most common questions that their customers have. If you start a blog and be consistent in producing quality content, you will be established as an authority in your field. When you establish authority, people will keep coming back to your website to get help for their problems. Aside from this, having relevant content will make people share it with their platforms as well. 

     

    Blogging builds rapport and engagement.

    Aside from establishing authority, having your own blogsite will build your business rapport and engagement with your audience. Blogging can warm up your cold emails and calls. If someone receives any of the two and they have read your blog, they will be more responsive to it, especially when your content was relevant to them.

     

    It’s not too late, start your business blog today! As the internet and technology evolve each day and become more and more integrated into our daily lives, there’s no better time than now to start doing more for your business. The benefits of having a blog on your website are undeniable and are impossible to ignore. And unlike the earlier years, making a blog has become a breeze in today’s age. You don’t have to be an IT or need a computer science degree to make one. You just need trusty software like WordPress.org and follow a simple “how to make a blog” guide to get you started. 

  • Content Creation and Generating New Ideas

    Content Creation and Generating New Ideas

    Content Creation and Generating New Ideas

    In building a successful blog, it’s not a joke when we say content is everything. This cannot be stressed enough. The key to having success as a blogger is putting out high-quality content consistently. The idea is simple: the more valuable content you post, the more opportunities you’re going to have to connect with people, grow your audience, and build a profitable business. That’s why an endless supply of ideas for content creation is critical.

    To publish good content, the first step is to come up with good ideas. This is what we are going to talk about today. This post is going to cover a variety of strategies and tools to help you find ideas and inspiration for your next piece of content. 

     

    The Importance of Content Consumption

    As a content creator, one of the best things you can do is to make it a habit to consume content, lots of it. And it doesn’t matter what kind of medium you choose – books, social media, newspaper, journal, etc. Renowned author Stephen King has a great book called On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft. In it, he discusses how important it is for aspiring writers to dedicate time to reading. 

    The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor. – Stephen King, On Writing

    Content consumption is great for forming and creating ideas. There’s really no such thing as an “original idea”. This is going to be kind of weird to hear but it’s true. The “new ideas” we call are simply combinations of existing elements. When you get yourself immersed into those existing elements, you get to let your creative juices flowing and encourage the ideation process. 

    In the habit of consuming content, I don’t only mean that you consume content that’s relevant to your niche. Aside from the blogs in your space, you definitely should be also reading books, science, poetry, history, and even social media posts. You’d be surprised at how two seemingly unrelated topics and concepts can suddenly click and form a great idea, and this often happens when you least expect it. 

    There’s a concept known as unconscious creativity. This is when you’re working on a problem and then you stop it to do something else. Your unconscious mind keeps working in the background until suddenly, you have that light-bulb moment in the shower, your car, or wherever you are when you’re not actively trying to come up with ideas. So, make it a habit to consume lots of content and immerse yourself in all those existing elements, then step back and let unconscious creativity work its magic.

    Unconscious creativity can play a big role in the ideation process, but the truth is, you’re not going to always have an epiphany. Most of the time, you will need to be actively extracting those ideas from your brain, and one way to do it is to do a Brain Dump.

    Content Creation and Generating New Ideas

     

    The Brain Dump

    Here’s how to effectively use the Brain Dump:

    • Set a timer for 3-5 minutes to create a sense of urgency
    • Start jotting down content ideas as quickly as possible
    • Use any writing materials you are comfortable using: notepads, sticky notes, notebook, etc.
    • Write down all your thoughts and ideas without filtering them

    A brain dump is all about quantity, not quality. Don’t worry if your ideas are bad or good. Get all of those ideas out of your head and into the paper, and worry about refining them later. When the time is up, sort through the ideas you’ve jotted down and decide which ones are the best. Look for emerging patterns or combinations that could work. You may find more ideas come to you during this process so be sure to record them as well. You should have a solid list of ideas that can fit into your content strategy at the end of the process.

     

    Tools for Content Research

    Buzzsumo

    A favorite tool for content creators to generate ideas and inspiration for new content is a tool called Buzzsumo. This service allows you to see the most popular content on any topic or from any competitor based on social shared and backlinks. Just go to the website, enter up a topic related to your industry, and you’ll get a list of popular headlines from all around the web. You can click each link to open up the original post and be ready to get some ideas. 

    There’s also a wealth of data on the results page itself. Under each post title, you’ll see the author and the source. On the right side, there’s an overview of the number of times the post was shared on each of the major platforms. You can filter the results by content, type, country, language, country, word count, and specific domains. 

    Buzzsumo is a great tool to use to understand the mindset of your target audience and see what types of content they’re consuming. It’s also an opportunity to see where your competitors may be lacking, for example, topics they’re not covering or areas where you may be able to create something better.

    Quora

    Another favorite site is Quora. It’s a Q and A service where people ask and answer questions on thousands of different topics. Unlike the disaster that was Yahoo Answers, Quora has built an incredible community where you have absolutely everyone, from car mechanics to astrophysicists, answering questions about their expertise. If you consider yourself a curious person, this platform is a joy to use. 

    With these in mind, Quora can be an asset for your content creation efforts as it allows you to see what questions people are asking about your industry. 

    Go to Quora, enter a topic, and browse the popular questions and answers about that topic. If you click topic FAQ, you’ll have a curated list of the most common questions people have on that topic. You can also browse topics and do the same with each of those. Aside from knowing your audience better, you can also use core questions as a direct starting point for new content. If a lot of people are asking a particular question and you have the expertise to provide a helpful answer. That there is your new piece of content!

    Reddit

    Another way of finding inspiration and ideas is by exploring the places where your potential audience hangout online – groups and communities. Reddit is a great example of this. Reddit is a message board website divided into various boards or communities called Subreddit. These subreddits are each focused on a particular topic. This site is huge, and there’s a subreddit for just about any topic you could think of. If there are at least 4 people interested in a certain topic, there’s probably a subreddit for it. 

    Take a look around and see if you could find a couple of active subreddits that are relevant to your audience. Browse through the top posts and change the sorting into all-time for best results. Look at the links that people are sharing, read the text posts, and pay attention to any recurring questions or themes and consider how these might help you create your content strategy. 

    Other Groups and Communities

    You can also look into Facebook and Linkedin groups which are becoming more relevant in the age of social media. Public groups are searchable so find some relevant groups and do the same thing. Watch for any recurring questions and conversation topics and you should come away with some solid content ideas straight from the people you hope to serve.

    Blogs and Publications

    Finally, follow the major blogs and publications in your industry, as well as your competitors. Read their content and pay attention to what people are saying. Read the comments section and see how people are responding to certain topics. What questions or problems are they facing? How can you be a part of the solutions? The goal, after all, is to provide value in solving people’s problems.

    Also, monitor your own comments and social media interactions. Look for repeating questions and other trends that you could potentially use for future content. You can also ask your audience what they want from you by prompting them to leave a comment or having them fill out a survey or even interviewing readers one on one.

    Nobody knows your audience better than your audience. Ask them about their problems, their struggles, and their questions. You can even ask them about their reading habits if you want to get a closer look into their mind and understand what types of content they like to consume. 

    Your past contents are also something you can learn from. Take your most successful content and build on it with supplemental material. The content that didn’t do so well can be your learning experience.

    Monitor your analytics. Not just the traffic, but also the demographics of your audience and the keywords people are using to find your site. Be careful not to overlook your existing audience in your existing content when it comes to content creation and generating new ideas.