By Steve Shaw|2018-08-02T09:57:42+00:00September 11th, 2015|
Effective blog titles make all the difference between content that attracts traffic to your website (and business) on an ongoing basis for years to come, and content that barely gets noticed and has little benefit for you.
Even more significantly, when you repurpose your blog posts into say articles, videos, presentations, podcasts, and more, that difference in results is magnified many times over.
So spending time over your blog post titles is worth doing, and worth doing right.
Here are 10 sure-fire tips to help you create effective blog titles that increase your engagement and traffic.
By Steve Shaw|2018-08-02T09:48:43+00:00September 1st, 2015|
To err is human. And content marketing is no exception.
All of us doing content marketing will of course screw up and make mistakes every now and again. I’ve experienced practically every one of these blunders in all my years of content marketing.
The important things to remember the next time you screw up are (a) you’re not alone; and (b) you’ll live to see another day, a.k.a. “put it in perspective”. (And if you never screw up, firstly, I don’t believe you; and secondly, congratulations on being the exception to the rule).
Of course, mistakes have benefits too. That’s how we learn, that’s the nature of experience. It’s how we learn to walk, talk, ride a bicycle, drive a car, and everything else in life. Mistakes are almost essential to the learning process, and is how wisdom is gained.
Learn from the mistakes of others though, and you can shortcut your way to success. You won’t avoid making mistakes yourself, you’ll just make fewer of them and reach your goals more quickly. After all, that’s largely why people pay often significant sums for training and mentoring.
By Steve Shaw|2018-08-02T09:40:18+00:00August 13th, 2015|
So, someone’s consuming your content? Congratulations!
That’s the good news…
Sorry to spoil the party, but here’s the bad news…
The fact that someone is reading, watching or listening to your content means practically nothing unless you get them to take some kind of action as a result.
Here’s a brief outline of how content marketing benefits your business:
You create content of different kinds and in different media. You publish it on your own site and/or on other sites and content platforms across the web, preferably through repurposing.
People – your marketplace – are attracted to your content and consume it. In so doing, they are effectively raising their hand as a potential new prospect for your business.
You connect with them further to start building a relationship with them. (Otherwise you lose your new prospect as quickly as they found you!) You do this via an explicit and effective call to action – CTA – that tells the prospect exactly what to do.
You continue building a relationship with them, building your authority and credibility with them, and building up trust. This is how you transform that prospect into a customer, and create profits for your business.
If you miss out #3 and don’t have an effective call to action in your content, #4 never happens! […]
By Steve Shaw|2018-09-28T04:43:45+00:00July 2nd, 2015|
By using Twitter Cards, Tweets linking back to your site no longer contain just text and an optional image or two.
They allow you to create a ‘rich media’ experience for readers. That means additional visual, audio and textual content, with the ability to play video and audio from directly within the timeline.
These enriched Tweets can help them stand out from the pack, build your authority and credibility, and encourage deeper engagement including click-throughs from followers.
In addition, you can use Twitter Cards to capture new leads from directly within the Twitter timeline, and encourage users to visit your website with a special call to action button. Plus, when you choose to promote Tweets that use such cards via Twitter Ads, you can reach whole new audiences.
Presuming you are using a blog to publish the majority of your content and drive the rest of your marketing – as recommended in the “Be Everywhere” Online Marketing Blueprint – implementing Twitter Cards for your business is straightforward and only takes a few minutes. This post shows you how.
By Steve Shaw|2018-03-26T14:51:58+00:00May 28th, 2015|
Content is of course one of your most important marketing assets. It works 24/7 to attract people to your business. But many business owners struggle to know what to create content about. Or they create content that fails to properly attract their target market.
This post aims to solve both those issues. Here are 10 top ways to come up with new ideas for content that are laser-focused for your target market. You should never be stuck for content ideas again!
By Steve Shaw|2016-08-03T12:17:12+00:00April 14th, 2015|
Marketing automation software is one of the latest buzz words. It’s an industry experiencing huge growth, with businesses adopting such technology in increasing numbers. But what does it actually do? And more importantly, how does it help your small business grow and improve your bottom line?
This post aims to answer those questions. We review three main categories […]
By Steve Shaw|2017-09-08T12:32:08+00:00March 12th, 2014|
LinkedIn isn’t just for your resume. If your business is B2B, LinkedIn can be a primary source of quality traffic and leads. It’s another very effective channel through which to spread your brand and your message through content marketing.
In terms of numbers, LinkedIn currently has 277 million users, and 40% (111 million users) check in daily (source). And these are all predominantly professional, business-oriented users. The potential is obviously significant.
In fact, for B2B business owners, it makes for more sense to concentrate resources on LinkedIn rather than Facebook.
Think about how you use Facebook. Facebook tends to be where people go to socialize, catch up with family and friends, and generally switch off from work-related information. As a result, Facebook users can be far more resistant to business-oriented messages. It’s a bit like talking shop at a dinner party – they’ll go talk to someone else.
In contrast, LinkedIn users log on to work. It’s an active, often daily, part of their professional life. They are there to find nuggets of information of value to their work and their business, to build up a professional network, to look for new opportunities. The contrast is a significant and important one.
By Steve Shaw|2018-09-28T04:36:16+00:00February 25th, 2014|
It sounds almost magical. Create content for your business and you create profit for your business. The more content you create – presuming it’s good quality of course and targeted to the interests of your market – the more customers you reach and attract.
Think about how you come across businesses you end up purchasing from. Content on blogs, content on social media, content on YouTube, content via email, and so on.
This is the root of content marketing. You market your business through the active creation of content.
And that content continues to work for you often long after its initial creation. People find it via search engines or via other online links or recommendations. They read it, view it or otherwise partake in it, and this begins a relationship you have with them.
This relationship is further fuelled and strengthened by more content. At some point in that relationship, they may part with their cash and become a customer.
Ongoing communications – yet more content – encourage follow-on purchases. Did you know it can cost between five and ten times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one? It pays to keep in touch.
The issue of course is in how to create all that content to keep your marketing machine all fired up.
The good news is that you don’t have to create it all from scratch.
Presuming you have some content already – and most businesses do – you can reuse and repurpose it in creative ways. As well as opening up new audiences for your business and creating new lead acquisition channels, it also means your original investment in content creation is able to bring even more reward.
Here are five ways in which you can attract new leads for your business using old, tired content.
By Steve Shaw|2018-03-26T14:02:32+00:00January 28th, 2014|
I read a post on Google+ recently that mocked another post talking about keyword research, stating it was an old, outdated strategy from 2008 with no relevance to today’s online landscape. While I disagreed with such a quick dismissal of keyword research, it got me thinking.
What actually is the case for keyword research? Is it really still as relevant as it was? What part should it play in today’s content marketing?
By Steve Shaw|2018-03-26T14:53:43+00:00January 21st, 2014|
If only there was a secret formula for making every blog post you write go viral. Of course, if such a formula existed, we’d all be at it, wouldn’t we? Viral would be the new norm and wouldn’t be so great any more (super-viral anyone?)
But there are ways to increase your chances. Even if it doesn’t go viral, you’re still getting your content in front of as many eyes as possible.
The most important factor of course is to have great content in the first place. You need content that gives value in bucketfuls, content that informs, educates, amuses, and entertains. In brief, you need content that screams share me now!
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