by Mark Bloom | Jul 3, 2018 | Content Provider
Because Delivering Quality Content Is Effective
You have many choices when it comes to developing online content. You can write it yourself, you can get a staff member to write it or you can hire a professional. If you hire someone, you’re going to see broad ranges in price: everything from $5 to $1,000. But before we divulge our professional advice, we have to issue two warnings:
- This blog post may seem a little self-promotional at times. We are experts in the field of online content, and we provide what we think is the best solution for the money.
- You’ll learn a lot about why delivering quality content matters, why we don’t lower our prices to $5 and why you should insist on quality too.
The writers at Ray Access understand all too well about the “competition” that may charge as little as $5 for a blog post. But those writers or writer websites aren’t our competition at all. If you’re looking to fill your blog with $5 content, go ahead. You’re not looking for what Ray Access offers. You’re innocently unaware of the difference between what we do and what a $5 writer does.
Cheap, Fast, Good
You probably recognize these three adjectives — cheap, fast and good. They represent the three main qualities of products and services. Unfortunately, you can only choose at most two of them at any one time. Likewise, as a B2B consumer, when you choose to buy a $5 blog post, you’re getting something that’s cheap. You may also get fast, but you definitely won’t get good. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get fair.
On the contrary, Ray Access has been delivering quality content fast, and while we charge significantly more than $5, we aren’t going to break your budget. Our offices are in Asheville, NC, not New York City, and that helps us keep our expenses down.
Delivering Quality Content
When you publish content that cost you $5, you’re going to have two problems:
- The content that you paid so little for may be plagiarized from another website. If you publish it on your website, you may be penalized by search engines.
- That $5 content is going to end up being worth less than that. If it doesn’t generate any interest from either search engines or visitors to your website, it’s essentially worthless.
The purpose of your website, ultimately, is to generate awareness and increase your revenue. Delivering quality content does both. Since quality content is original, you won’t have the first problem above. And since it’s directed at your target audience, it strikes a chord with both visitors and search engines. It ultimately becomes worth more than what you paid for it because it keeps working day after day, week after week, month after month.
We Value Quality Over Everything Else
At Ray Access, quality isn’t just a tagline and it’s not just a buzzword. It’s not just what sets us apart. You could say that delivering quality content is our passion. It’s why we’re in business. It’s what we live and work for.
We know that quality content pays dividends. Once you publish and promote quality website content, its carefully developed and strategically placed keywords attract visitors to your website. The finely tuned content then works to persuade those visitors to contact you. As long as that content is up on your website, it continues to work. Now, isn’t that worth more than $5?
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Jun 19, 2018 | Website Content
It’s Just Ones and Zeros, Right? What’s So Hard?
Website cost seems to have skyrocketed recently. You used to be able to pay your nephew or your neighbor’s kid $100 to build and publish a website on the internet that looked decent. What’s so hard about that? There are even simple tools now that provide a template. All you have to do is plop in some royalty-free stock photos, add some words and BAM — you have yourself a website.
One of the reasons your website cost has increased is that your nephew and that neighbor kid are now young adults working for companies that charge thousands of dollars for a website. And they’ve learned a lot in the intervening years. OK, the new sites look a little better today than they used to, but a website is a website, isn’t it?
Not All Websites Are Created Equal
Those slapdash websites of the 1990s wouldn’t cut it in today’s market. They are so slow to load. They look clunky, the images are tiny and what’s with that blinking text?! Those websites even look outdated, if it’s possible for a website to look old-fashioned after just 20 years.
By comparison, today’s websites are fluid. They load quickly and work on all kinds of devices. They take advantage of scrolling, zooming and collapsing menus. Ordering is easy and secure, as long as you confirm that you’re not a robot. What would someone from the 90s think of that?
The Elements of a Modern Website
Another reason for high website cost is the various specialties required to complete a business website project. It’s not one kid in a basement anymore. Website development agencies need:
- Project managers, who act as the liaison between the customer and the website agency. Communication must be timely and fluid, as website projects often require tweaking from phase to phase.
- Website designers, not just to make the website pop, but also to fit the design to the business’s target audience. AARP has a much different design than Red Bull, even though both act as a landing page for stories.
- Website developers, the down-and-dirty code-jockeys of website agencies. They do the actual coding to make the websites work as designed. Even when an agency offers template-driven forms, there is still coding to be done to customize a site for a particular business.
- Content writers to create the new content that populates the pages. Content isn’t the last step or an unnecessary extra. Some development firms start with the content. They know that without effective content, a new website will just sit there and underperform, no matter how well it’s designed and developed. Every piece works together to make a website work.
And that isn’t all — you have graphic artists, SEO experts, photographers, marketing pros, assistants, accountants and the beat goes on… As you can see, that’s a lot of mouths to feed, all of whom drive up the website cost. Most website development projects take a minimum of three months, from initial meeting to launch. That means a lot of people are putting in many hours on your website.
But It’s Totally Worth the Expense
Your business only needs a brand-new website maybe once every five years. Some companies update the look more frequently than that, but a five-year-old website doesn’t necessarily look old or out-of-place. You can always swap photos and insert new pages of content, but a completely new website is an infrequent expense.
Your website cost, ameliorated over its functional life, is fairly inexpensive, especially when compared to other business costs, such as advertising and personnel. And unlike personnel, your website works for you every minute it’s up, without a break. If it’s effective, it may be bringing in leads as fast as your best salespeople. Now you’re not thinking about website cost; you’re considering the website ROI.
Effective Websites Have Effective Content
Ray Access is a business-to-business company. In other words, we don’t sell our writing services to the public, but to other businesses. As a result, we work with smart companies to improve their websites, to make them more effective by attracting attention and encouraging visitors to contact our clients.
In fact, more often than not, we work with the web developers who create the sites because they know the importance of good content that blends in perfectly with the overall design and style. They don’t want their site launch held up while they wait for their business client to deliver or fix content.
Website Cost vs. Return on Investment
If you’re worried about website cost, think of it as an investment in your company’s future. Think of it as a marketing and advertising expense, since it’s your information listing and your outward facing image. In a way, that’s exactly what it is, if it’s done right. And a website that’s not done right isn’t worth the paper it’s not printed on.
So, when you’re considering a new website, make sure you hire someone to develop your content too. Ray Access writers understand what a website has to do. They know how good websites work. And content is always edited, so that it always sounds like it comes from the source: you.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Jun 5, 2018 | Small Business Advice
So Why Isn’t Your Business Taking Advantage?
Who wants to start an email newsletter when you have so many other marketing strategies in play. Consider all the efforts you put in to promote your business. Depending on your company’s size, resources and growth strategy, you may be doing:
- Print advertising
- Online marketing
- Blogging
- Social media campaigns
- Webinars or speaking engagements
- Networking
- Sponsorships
- Sales promotions
- Giveaways
No matter which of the above activities you’re doing, you must be tracking responses and weighing your return on investment. As any business person will tell you: “Why continue to do something that isn’t working for you?” Tracking where your business comes from is as important as promoting your business.
If you’re satisfied with these undertakings, you may believe you have no reason to start an email newsletter. Everything else is working, and you’re growing. Starting a newsletter takes work, coordination and above all, content. Where will you find the time?
But You Can’t Afford Not to Start an Email Newsletter
Getting a newsletter off the ground isn’t as difficult as you think. And the rewards can be phenomenal. To persuade you to start an email newsletter, here are the best five reasons to get on it today:
- You collect a list of email addresses. To start an email newsletter, you need email addresses. To get email addresses, you have to entice people to sign up and voluntarily give you their email addresses. Giving away a free webinar, ebook or company swag may be enough. Many companies just ask for an email at the checkout or as part of the client contract.
After a brief email address-collecting campaign, you’ll have enough of an audience to start sending out your email newsletter. And that list of email addresses has suddenly become a company asset. It’s a list of current and potential customers! It’s a gold mine if you use it properly. Collecting those email addresses is valuable enough for any business to want to start an email newsletter.
- You put your company branding in front of your audience every month. Most email newsletters go out monthly. That means every month — 12 times a year — you get to put your message in front of a growing number of customers and potential clients. You get to share news, offer tips and maybe promote special discounts. And it goes out electronically to as many people as you can get to give you their email addresses. There is no upper limit.
What your email newsletter contains should be worth reading, of course. You want your audience to look forward to your newsletter and to open it when it arrives in their inboxes. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. But think of it: your brand in front of a willing audience every month. That kind of face time via any other media — television, radio, print, social media or online ads — would be prohibitively expensive.
- You gain access to detailed reports at a click of a mouse button. All email newsletter delivery services — and there are many — offer analytics. For each newsletter you send, you’re able to find out how many were delivered, how many were opened, how many recipients clicked through from a link in the newsletter to your website. Some services break down the numbers by location, gender and age. Sometimes, you can get even more granular data.
Think of how valuable that information is to your business. Companies large and small often spend enormous amounts of time and money to find out who’s buying from them and what they want from your business. When you start an email newsletter, that information is readily available. Soon after you send your first newsletter, you can start collecting and analyzing that data.
- You can reuse the content from your newsletter. Remember that one of the objections to starting an email newsletter was finding the time it takes to develop the content for it. And it’s an expense, whether you do it in-house or hire a firm like Ray Access to write it for you. But this is content that gets delivered through email. It’s not posted online, so Google won’t penalize you for duplicate content. That means you can reuse that content in other ways.
Pull out the discount promotion from your newsletter and use it in a print ad. Grab a couple of pull-quotes and add them to your home page. Reprint a newsletter article as a blog post on your website. (You also can use your unique blog posts as fodder for the newsletter if they’re well written and pertinent.) The money you spent developing that content isn’t wasted; it’s a bonanza! You can never have too much good content about your industry, your business, your products or your services.
- You may want to run advertisements for your partners in your newsletter. After you start your email newsletter, you have to let it grow before considering this last tip. But once your newsletter has a big enough recipient list and you know your audience is opening it — you know the numbers and can back them up with reports — you can sell ads in your newsletter. You have to carefully curate those ads so you know they’ll be useful to your audience, but you may reach a point that your email newsletter is paying for itself … or even making your business a little money.
When you’ve started a successful email newsletter, you have a way of reaching out into your target market, an audience that’s already interested in your business. You can continue to provide value-added content to keep them hooked, but you can add ads, slowly at first, small enough to not get in the way, to gradually capitalize on that market. If the ads are in line with your values and are for businesses that complement yours, you can build on your success.
Start an Email Newsletter Today!
So, what are you waiting for? You now have enough ammunition to persuade your boss or your lender that you should start an email newsletter. You now know the value a newsletter can bring. A successful email newsletter creates many advantages and two distinctly new assets that add value to your business:
- The newsletter itself
- The list of email addresses
That’s just the bare minimum of benefits your newsletter can deliver. By slowly building up your newsletter, you broaden your company’s reach while satisfying your customers’ desires for inside information, special deals and useful tips. It’s time for your business to start an email newsletter. Here’s what you need to know. Make it even easier, and let Ray Access develop, write and distribute it for you. Contact us for an estimate!
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | May 22, 2018 | Agency Advice
Online Services Can Be Anywhere, Even in India
The world is changing. The business world may be changing even faster. Think about all the things you used to go down the street to buy that you can now purchase online:
- Groceries
- Cars
- Books, even used books
- Movie rentals
- Movie tickets
- Flowers
But even in this grand global economy we share, certain jobs — specific services, especially — must remain local. For example, you have to go local for:
- Haircuts
- Landscaping
- Home and office cleaning
- Gasoline
- Dental work
- Car repair
Local and Online Services — Choose Wisely
Services for your business present a whole other dimension. Many business services are available locally, regionally and internationally. Common services you might find in your town or remotely include:
- Writing services
- Accounting
- Social media marketing
- Advertising
- Human resources
- Website development
The Skinny on Local Website Developers
When you need a website for your business, you need professionals to design it, build it and create content for it. You can’t do it all yourself; you have a business to run. Plus, when you leave these services to the pros, they do it right. Admit it — professionals do it better than you ever could.
Local website developers go through a process to get your website up. There are meetings, drawings, wireframes, navigation charts and more. While you can hire a firm in another part of the country or even overseas in a country like India, you’re often better off finding a local firm for so many reasons. Here are 10 of them.
10 Reasons Why Local Matters
When you hire a local website developer, you get something you can’t get from a distance:
- A local website developer has a local office. You know where he works. You can have face-to-face meetings, look him in the eye and ask the important questions.
- Once he’s passed your interview and audition, you still need to follow up. Ask for references from past clients. Get their contact info and call them up. You actually may know some of them if they support local, too.
- If your business serves locals, it only makes sense that you should hire a firm that knows your neighborhood and your clientele. Locals know what’s going on. Locals are connected to the community. You’ll get work that’s appropriate for your business and connects to your audience. You’ll be totally connected to the local community in more ways than one.
- Being local improves the communication between you and your website developer. You’re both not only in the same time zone, but maybe even in the same ZIP code. Emails, calls and texts are returned promptly.
- Do you network locally? Even if you’re an informal networker, the type of person who doesn’t do networking meetings, but always says hello people around town, you can benefit from hiring a local website developer. Word gets around, and doing business locally means you’re networking without even working at it.
- You have a thriving business, which is why you need a new website. Your local website developer takes pride in his work too. If he surpasses your expectations, delivering everything he promised and more, you’re more likely to recommend him. And as he gets to know your business, he’ll do the same. It’s an added advantage of local work.
- Hiring locally keeps your dollars in the community. When you pay him, he pays his local staff. And you all probably shop in the same grocery stores, clothing boutiques and tattoo parlors.
- When you hire locally, you’re both putting your reputations on the line. Many communities — like Asheville, which Ray Access calls home — are tight-knit. If your local website developer does a poor job, you won’t be able to stop the flood of bad reviews. But a great website draws raves for both of your businesses.
- The cost of living in New York City is higher than most anywhere else. If you’re not in NYC, why hire a New York firm? You can probably find less expensive options in your local market than you can from afar. Now granted, that may not apply to website developers in India, but then you’re dealing with different issues. Shop around locally for the best talent at the best price.
- With a local website developer, add-ons are easy. Once the website’s done, maybe you want to start a blog or an ecommerce store. Smaller projects are easier to complete after the main site has been delivered. When they’re local, you can just pick up the phone or stop by.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | May 8, 2018 | Small Business Advice
An Entertaining Look at Business Gone Wrong
In all the years Ray Access has operated — delivering website content, blog posts, press releases, you name it — we’ve never missed a client deadline. We may have to pull a few late nights. We may beat the deadline by just an hour, but we always deliver. It’s a point of pride.
But Ray Access has a team of writers, and sometimes we’ve had to cover for their missed deadlines. Many writers are deadline junkies. If they get an assignment due in a week, they often put it off until the day before. It’s a plan that doesn’t always work — which brings us to this week’s topic: the best excuses for missing deadlines. Enjoy.
Some of the Very Best Excuses for Missing Deadlines
We’ve heard them all, and ranking them is impossible, but here are our all-time favorite best excuses for missing deadlines:
- The internet connection crashed while we were downloading 115 songs from a piracy site.
- Is 6:00 am the next morning still considered the day before?
- I thought the deadline was flexible.
- I got unexpectedly sick from eating three-day-old pizza and couldn’t finish the assignment.
- My baby got sick, and while I was rocking her in my arms, she threw up all over my computer.
- An old friend dropped by, and I hadn’t seen him for, like, five years, so we just had to go out and catch up. I didn’t think I’d be gone for as long as I was.
- I struggled with the subject for three days and just decided I couldn’t do it.
- I had to help my neighbor jumpstart his car. He was so grateful that he drove me around all day.
- My mother-in-law came to visit, and I had to get out of the house.
- My laptop battery died, and the rabbit bit the cord, so it wouldn’t charge.
- I just started rehearsing for a new play!
- I thought I’d watch just one episode of Game of Thrones, but of course, you can’t watch just one episode.
- Instead of doing the assignment, I spent my time coming up with the best excuses for missing deadlines.
- When the kids got the flu, I thought I could still manage and meet the deadline. When my husband came down with it, I still thought I’d manage. Then I got sick…
- My computer told me to update the system. I had no idea it would take so long.
- I won the lottery! No I didn’t, but I thought you’d enjoy that more than “I overslept.”
- My mom passed away. It was 10 years ago, but it was right around this time of year, and it always chokes me up so that I can’t concentrate.
- A friend gave me a free ticket to the Biltmore Estate. I had to go!
- The dog jumped the fence again. We had to look for him for hours.
- I was working on the assignment in a café, but I got so jacked up on coffee that I ended up embroiled in this deep conversation about how best to eat ramps.
- My boyfriend is a real ass.
- It was on my to-do list, just further down than it should have been.
- I got locked out of my house, and my daughter wouldn’t let me back in.
- On the day I put aside to do this project, I got called in to my other job as a barista.
- I started a new diet that makes me irritable.
More of the Best Excuses for Missing Deadlines
Sometimes, one of our writers turns in the assignment on time, but well short of the targeted length. To us, that’s as bad as not turning it in at all. Their excuses included:
- My studio apartment is too small to write 1,000 words, so I only wrote 500.
- I ran out of ideas, and I’ve been wracking my brain to think of something else to add. I couldn’t. That’s why it’s short.
- My computer crashed while I was writing. Since I hadn’t saved it, I had to recreate the whole thing. But I could only remember half of what I wrote. Here it is.
- I got distracted by a visual thesaurus program, so I only finished half of the assignment, but it’s really good!
- I didn’t really know what you wanted, so I scribbled some thoughts down. That counts, doesn’t it?
- I kept going back and rewriting the beginning. That’s where all the time went. Sorry.
- I didn’t see the length requirement until I was almost done. That stopped me. I hope this is all right.
What are some of the best excuses for missing deadlines you’ve heard? Leave yours now!
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 24, 2018 | Social Media
Small Businesses Need to Promote Themselves
If you think your business is immune from social media, think again. Companies that ignore social media do so at their own peril. And that includes website developers — whether your business is a booming agency or a small one-person operation.
Despite the recent privacy issues hovering over a certain social media platform, social media in general is gaining traction in the global population. That makes it a prime target for marketing and building brand awareness. Companies that ignore social media don’t take advantage of these possibilities.
People Are Active on Social Media
As a web developer, your clients are most likely other businesses. That’s a broad spectrum, so maybe you target a specific niche:
- Small businesses
- Medical practices and hospitals
- Finance and capital markets
- Government projects
- Lawyers’ offices
- Real estate companies
- Local-only businesses
You know whom you’re trying to attract. You should know, therefore, where you can find those decision-makers so you can reach out to them. Since most people spend some part of their day or week on social media, find the right channel and broadcast your message!
Marketing Requires Full Coverage
Companies that ignore social media aren’t reaching millions of potential customers. Physical marketing — on a billboard, in a newspaper or on your vehicle — only reach those people, including business owners, who see it. Unless your business only works with local companies, you’re missing a huge segment of the population.
There are few places to market to a national — or international — clientele outside of the internet. Few people read industry magazines anymore, and if they do, it’s online. Referrals still work as the number one way to land new business, but even that often takes place through social media sites! Effective marketing, as you likely know, requires reaching out on multiple channels. In other words, you must advertise not just through blog posts on your website, but on social media too.
People who buy your services need to see your company name three times or more before it sticks. Multiple channels increase your odds. So, don’t emulate companies that ignore social media and the value it can bring. It’s time to embrace social media.
How to Reach Your Social Media Audience
Business owners, marketing directors and other decision makers for the businesses you target as potential clients are online and on social media. It’s up to you to find them. Several examples to help guide you to the most appropriate platform include:
- Creative business owners may be spending time on Pinterest or Instagram. They’re more likely to be young and perhaps looking for inspiration.
- More traditional business people — including financiers, lawyers and realtors — likely spend time on LinkedIn. A business-first social media platform, LinkedIn can connect businesses.
- Very many people have Facebook accounts, but usage varies, and the accounts are often personal, not professional. Your business can, however, build brand awareness by posting regularly and with smart content.
- Twitter also hosts a mixed bag of users, but it’s more business-friendly than Facebook. Twitter has helped numerous industry leaders develop devoted followings. You can too.
Try your hand in your chosen platform. Be consistent. Post interesting and relevant content. Link back to your website. Engage, direct and share. By avoiding the tactics of companies that ignore social media, you can gain an advantage. Good luck!
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog Writing
How to Connect to Your Audience When Writing
To learn how to connect to your audience when writing, you have to study the elements involved. The simple trick is a technique that’s as old as storytelling, yet as relevant today as the latest Oscar winners and the most successful brands. To tell a good story or write a successful blog post, you have to remember who your audience is.
Advertisers have been tapping into this phenomenon for centuries. Blogging is no different, really; it’s just so much more fun and way less intrusive! So here are five tips to discover how to connect to your audience when writing blog posts. These techniques will help you write more effective blogs for yourself or your clients.
1. Know Your Audience
This first step is the most straightforward, but perhaps the most difficult. You may think you know your readers, but until you do some research, you’ll never know how to connect to your audience when writing your blog posts. Your resources, including time, determine how thoroughly you dig into this aspect of audience evaluation. Some common methods include:
- Develop personas. Use all your market research data to create specific individuals who represent large segments of your audience. A persona may include a photo, a name, family members, employment, income, hobbies — everything you need to personalize and get to know that segment. You can develop multiple personas, if desired.
- Send a survey. The most direct way to learn who’s reading your blog posts is to ask them. Publish a survey, asking just the most important questions you want to know. The longer it is, the less likely your readers will complete it.
- Study the analytics. Technology has advanced to the point that your computer can track who stops by your website. Analytics breaks down that data by location, age, gender and more. Use this information to better target your readers.
2. Learn What Questions They’re Asking
If you want to know how to connect to your audience when writing, you have to write about topics that matter to them. If they’re worried about taxes, to give a topical example, then provide information about taxes that they can use. If conversion rates are keeping them awake at night, write about how they can improve those rates.
You can’t learn what questions your readers are asking until you know who they are. You can’t know what they search for or care about unless you do the research. Find out, if you can, what information your target audience is searching for. Think about yourself. Ask yourself: what are the last three phrases you typed into a search engine? That’s an enlightening first step in this process.
3. Answer Those Questions
It sounds so simple, but this process is often anything but. People change day-to-day. What was topical and relevant yesterday may be old news today. But depending on your business and your industry, some information is always going to be relevant. If you’re a plumber, write about how to fix a leak. If you’re a web developer, tell your readers what a website does, what it needs and why.
If you can help your audience learn something or gain valuable information, you’ve earned their trust. Gaining trust is the biggest single accomplishment when you want to know how to connect to your audience when writing. Once you become a trusted source, your readers not only accept the information you provide, they look to you for those answers.
4. Use Language They Can Understand
How to connect to your audience when writing blogs takes your readers into consideration with every word you commit to the page. Make sure they understand the point you’re making. Make sure the word you use is clear in the context you’ve presented it. English is a versatile language, and there are often many ways to say the same thing. And yet only one will do.
If you have the most useful information ever, but if you don’t deliver it in a way your audience can understand, you’ve failed. Write in a tone that’s comfortable for them. Use words like “you” and “your” to engage them. Once you’ve gained their trust, they’ll have a better aptitude to learn.
5. Deliver It in a Timely Way
Your audience doesn’t always ask the same questions every day. Some are more topical than others. Address those topical questions in a timely manner. If a holiday’s approaching, determine the trending worries, questions and issues. Then tackle them in your blog. You’ll generate more traffic if you’re answering the right questions at the right time.
Learning how to connect to your audience when writing blog posts means keeping up with the news and discovering how it may affect your target readers. If it’s relevant and timely, it’s worth exploring in a blog post. It’s also a good way to draw attention to your blog. When it comes to writing a blog, your readers are the most important audience.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Mar 19, 2018 | Website Content
What Makes Good Website Content Effective?
Consider: does this question keep you up at night? Do you wonder how your website content measures up? We’ve written about this topic before in What Is Good Content? But that article was more like a hands-on how-to with specific tips and general guidelines.
This article, in contrast, describes the actual attributes of what makes good website content. You need to know the destination before you step onto the path. As George Harrison sang, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” But that’s not how you arrive at good website content.
What Bad Website Content Looks Like
To learn what makes good website content, you first have to learn to recognize bad website content. Then the difference becomes as clear as the finest crystal. Based on the numerous examples that are unfortunately still live on the internet, bad website content:
- Tries to sell visitors products or services before building any trust
- Jabbers on and on about what the business does and how great it is without proof
- Works hard to connect to too many different audiences at the same time
- Uses words like “I,” “we” and “our,” without once saying anything about “you”
- Relies on too little content, just photos or videos, or provides huge blocks of dense text
Competition for eyeballs is fierce. Attention spans are short. If your website doesn’t serve your visitors, your visitors won’t stick around long enough to learn what makes your company great.
What Makes Good Website Content
Effective website content, on the other hand, does certain things very well. Regardless of the website design you use — although a modern design supports the content and tells readers that you keep up to date with IT trends — what makes good website content is that it:
- Identifies its audience right away
- Answers questions that people are asking or searching for
- Builds rapport by providing valuable information for free
- Builds trust by doing what it says it will do — the opposite of “clickbait”
- Solves a problem its visitors have or have had
- Uses engaging language that’s directed outwardly, toward your visitors
You have to put some thought into your website content. It’s not the same as writing a brochure. Your website may be your digital storefront, open 24 hours a day, but if all you’re touting are your sales, you’ll become known for being different because you’re cheap. Is that your competitive advantage? Sure, it works for WalMart, but is that really your business model? Is that model you’re trying to follow?
Your Website Isn’t About Your Company
As counterintuitive as it seems, your website doesn’t serve your company; it has to serve your audience, your visitors. A book without readers ultimately fails. A business without customers must also. Your customers keep you in business, so honor them by gearing your website to their needs, their questions and their priorities.
That, in a nutshell, is the essence of what makes good website content. You can measure website traffic and conversion rates until you’re blue. Instead, examine your website from your visitors’ point of view. And then ask yourself if it satisfies the criteria above for good content.
And when you’re ready to make an adjustment toward a website that not only attracts new visitors, but also converts those visitors into new customers, contact Ray Access. With world renowned quality at affordable prices, Ray Access delivers content that’s not only thoroughly researched and guaranteed original, but is also professionally edited, often multiple times.
by Mark Bloom | Mar 5, 2018 | Small Business Advice
The Best Web Agencies in 2018 Fit Your Needs
When it comes to your website, turn to a professional. It doesn’t matter if you need help building your website, revamping your site or improving your internet presence. But unless you’re in the web development industry, you may have difficulty figuring out what makes the best web agencies in 2018 rise to the top. Even if you work in the field, it’s still a chore.
While interviewing potential web developers, remember that professionals tend to specialize. You may need to talk to a website design firm, a website developer or a company that specializes in search engine optimization (also known as SEO). Some of the best web agencies in 2018 offer all those services under one roof, but that may not be the best fit for you.
Finding the Right Agency
Ray Access has been seeking to partner with web agencies to offer our services to them and their clients. As a result, we’ve done a lot of the research you need to do to find the best web agencies in 2018 for your needs. Here’s what you need to know:
- Full-Service or Specialty. The type of agency you need depends on what you’re looking for:
- If you want to rebrand your company, you may want to start there before thinking about a website.
- If you want to scrap your existing website and relaunch with a new one, look for a full-service agency that offers design, development, content and marketing.
- If all you want is to market your website, find several that specialize in SEO and interview them to find the best match.
- Big or Small. Big firms may offer more services than smaller agencies. But smaller firms provide personalized service and more flexibility. The best web agencies in 2018 work with you to deliver whatever it is you need, no more and no less.
- Communication. Find a firm that listens to your goals. That’s a sure sign you’ll end up with a product (your new website) and services (design, content and marketing) that satisfy you.
- One Shot or Repetitive Work. Some creative firms, including the best web agencies in 2018, give you options when delivering their services:
- Web design firms give you different designs to choose from or different color palettes to match your goals.
- Content writers often provide a free revision to better target the tone and style you want to portray.
- Online photographers take a lot of pictures to find the one you like best.
- Web developers, however, may only build your website once. Changes may cost extra.
- Price. Some agencies may charge you an arm and a leg to build your website, and if you don’t know what you’re getting, it may seem reasonable. That’s the value of shopping around and getting several quotes before you enter into an agreement. Tips to make sure you keep your costs in order include:
- Have a budget in mind. If it’s unrealistic, the agencies you contact will tell you, and you’ll have to reassess what you need and what you can afford.
- Weigh the price with their promises and the feeling you get from them. Ask for references and referrals and then call them. Every reputable company can put you in touch with past clients.
- Be clear about your goals and ask about alternatives. Some services are more expensive than others. If you want monthly help to market your website and your company, for example, it can run into the thousands of dollars, whereas publishing a weekly blog on your website may be minimal.
- Ask for a contract. To avoid escalating fees and add-on charges, know what’s included when you sign an agreement.
Do Your Homework
No matter what you’re looking for or how much you have to spend, you must do some research even before you start talking to agencies. The best web agencies in 2018 love talking to potential clients who are knowledgeable about what a web agency can and can’t do. Talk to more experienced small business owners who’ve already gone through this phase to get a general idea of what you may need and its market value.
And ultimately, make sure you end up with what you want – a website that’s working for your business. It should look good (and be reasonably modern). It must function seamlessly and respond quickly, with compelling images and engaging content. It should, ideally, get visitors to contact you.
If you want a referral from the best online content firm in the world (aka Ray Access), contact us and we’ll give you the names of some reputable agencies. The best web agencies in 2018 are the ones that deliver what you want, for the price you expect and by the deadline you’ve agreed to. And remember that Ray Access is the leader in providing the words for your blogs and website that empower your business.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
