by Mark Bloom | May 30, 2017 | Content Provider
Write to Connect to Your Readers, Not to Sell
Business writing is rhetorical writing. That’s not a bad thing to admit; if you’re honest, you’ll agree. When you write for your business — or if you’re like Ray Access, when you write for another business — you’re writing to persuade the reader, to change behavior and yes, probably to sell products or services. That’s the point of business.
But it needn’t be that blatant. Businesses exist for many purposes besides sales — although sales do wonders for keeping a business in business. But sales happen when you connect to your readers. If you think about it, you’ll see that some businesses have motives beyond profits:
- Disney, for example, wants to entertain as well as make money.
- Amazon set out to change the way the world shops.
- Ray Access wants to improve the quality of online content everywhere.
Connect to Your Readers and the Rest Follows
The writers and editors of Ray Access are more than just professional writers, they’re professional ghostwriters. That means they have to know who their clients’ readers are. They have to know what their clients’ readers want. And they have to deliver that content in a way that connects with those readers.
Along the way, they’ve picked up a few tips to help you connect to your readers. Here are the top five ways:
- Write to your readers, not at them. When you write, whether it’s a blog post or a website page, use the word “you,” not the word “we.” To connect to your readers, write to them as if you’re talking to them. When you write intelligently, not taking your readers for granted, you connect with them and earn their trust. Once you’ve established that relationship, sales will happen.
- Don’t write about you; write about them. Contrary to what you may think, your website is not about your business; it’s about what your customers (and potential customers) can get from your business. In other words, it’s not about the features your product has, but about the benefits your products deliver. Explain to your readers what they’re buying. Give them reasons to buy. This is the only way to persuade people to buy from you; you have to give them something they need.
- Deliver timely information that’s of value to your readers. Write about what your readers want to know, not what you want to say. The ultimate goal of any blog post is to go viral. The only way to achieve that lofty goal, which is nigh impossible, is to provide the answers to questions people are asking. Why, for example, is it important to engage your audience? Because that’s how you connect with them. That’s how you build trust in what you have to say. That’s how you gain credibility and respect. That’s how, ultimately, you generate sales and lasting customers.
- Give away your expertise. You are the expert in your field. You know more about your business and your industry than your customers and potential customers do. Use your knowledge to your advantage by sharing it. Educate your readers to become better consumers. Give away tips and advice. Provide valuable information, and you gain your readers’ trust, especially if your competitors aren’t sharing. The Internet is a level playing field. Readers can’t tell how big your company is, but they can judge your business based on how helpful you are. That’s what your readers will remember.
- Be entertaining. This may sound superfluous, but it’s absolutely true and the best way to connect to your readers. People do business with companies they like. People like Disney. Consumers trust Amazon. Both companies are entertaining in their own way. If you’re entertaining while delivering valuable content, your content has the chance of going viral, and your readers will remember you when they’re ready to buy. Be entertaining, but know who your readers are. That’s the best defense against going overboard and the best way to determine that you’re hitting the mark.
Connect to your readers, and you’ll connect to future sales. Good luck and remember: if you get stuck, you can connect to experts. We’re just a phone call away.
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 16, 2017 | Content Marketing
Justifying the Cost of Marketing Your Business
Let’s start with the basics. Marketing is what you do to promote or sell your products or services. It can include advertising, building brand awareness and market research. Content marketing, on the other hand, is specifically online marketing that employs videos, blogs, and other targeted articles to stimulate interest instead of explicitly promoting your brand.
Measuring the ROI of content marketing, then, is to determine its worth in hard numbers. Is that even possible, given the definition above? Yes, it is — for two very good reasons:
- Businesses conduct activities for the sole purpose of selling more; therefore, the concept of content marketing would not even exist if it didn’t accomplish that goal.
- Content marketing has to be tied to a specific business goal, which can be measured.
The Goals of Content Marketing
Many companies begin content marketing to deliver “leads, leads and more leads.” So the prize is not just building brand awareness, but establishing a growing base of people who actually want to do business with your company. In this media-savvy market, that means marketing outside the traditional venues of advertising.
Companies are eschewing traditional advertising for content marketing. Nearly 30 percent of marketers report reducing their digital advertising budgets to produce more content. Content marketing reaches people in a way they don’t despise. That, in itself, generates brand acceptance. It’s also the first step toward creating leads.
How Content Marketing Works
Before you can measure the ROI of content marketing, understand the principles behind it. Traditional marketing uses content no one really wants. It’s forced on people as advertising. Content marketing, on the other hand, is content people want. It comes in the form of:
- Desired information — such as How Much Does Website Content Cost?
- Entertaining articles — such as Unique Wedding Invitation Ideas
- Added-value tips — such as Tax Tips for Home Buying
By the way, these are all blog posts written by Ray Access. But the goal here is to educate you, not just promote Ray Access. If you have the time and talent to create your own great content, do it. Once you know how it works and what you need, your business will benefit.
Bear in mind that for online content, the most effective results come from longer blog posts. The typical word count has risen from 808 words in 2014 to 1,054 words in 2016. Longer-form content generates something on the order of nine times more leads than shorter-form content.
The Costs of Content Marketing
To determine the ROI of content marketing, you need to know its costs. If you’re developing your own content in-house, you can accurately measure your monthly costs. You’re paying a managing editor, the person in charge of not only directing the work, but also editing the content so that it aligns with your goals and embodies your business’ personality. You also have costs associated with hosting and publishing.
If you outsource your content creation, you still have hosting and publishing costs. Depending on the size of your company, these costs can vary from about $100 a month all the way up to $32,000 a month. That’s quite a range, but it shows the difference between one blog post a month and a full strategic marketing effort across many platforms.
We’ve written about the cost of website content before. You need both alluring blog posts and effective words on your website for your business to generate ROI. One without the other leads to either low website traffic or high traffic with few conversions, so you need both to determine the ROI of content marketing.
The ROI of Content Marketing
Remember that the goal of content marketing is to increase leads, which adds sales, assuming your website can successfully convert those leads into customers. You can, therefore, measure the number of leads your website delivers. And since you know your costs, you can determine your cost per lead. This is basic business.
One study by the Content Marketing Institute found that content marketing produced a lower cost per lead than paid advertising. For large businesses over a two-year period, the difference was as much as 41 percent — 31 percent for mid-sized businesses. That quickly adds up to dramatic savings.
Proof of Content Marketing’s ROI
Ray Access isn’t the only company touting the ROI of content marketing. Many other concerns have achieved proven results, either for themselves or for their clients. For example:
- Ray Access has always said that content marketing is the least expensive, most effective way to market your business. When you examine the ROI of content marketing, it costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing while generating about three times the volume of leads.
- As more and more consumers rely on online content, your content marketing campaign aligns with this shift in media consumption habits. Nearly 75 percent of all marketers considered online content more valuable than traditional advertising.
- Buyers trust online content that connects with them. It’s becoming part of the normal purchasing process. About 90 percent of B2B buyers reported that online content played at least a moderate role in their purchasing decisions. Meanwhile, 95 percent of B2B buyers consider trustworthy content when they evaluate your company.
- Unlike paid advertising, the benefits of which stop immediately when you stop paying for it, content marketing offers long-term ROI. In fact, 10 percent of blog posts increase in value over time, delivering more organic search traffic.
- Effective website content drives conversions, too. The conversion rate can be six times higher for companies using content marketing than those that don’t.
In savvy hands, content for websites and blog posts can be versatile and reusable as well. Nearly 60 percent of marketers reuse and repurpose their original content two to five times. Ray Access delivers website content and blog posts as ghostwriters, meaning you own it and can reuse it however you wish.
Measuring the ROI of Content Marketing
How will you measure success? You can capture your growing brand awareness through the number of website visits, especially for first-time visitors. You can count the number of email or form-driven contacts. And you know how many of those become customers. Even if you use these simple metrics, you can determine the ROI of your content marketing.
In the future, more complex formulas will be available for measuring your efforts. Of course, also in the future, content marketing is likely to shift to more complex products — beyond effective website content and blog posts, which by then should be as commonplace as storefront signage. Two predictions are:
- “Companies will share more stories of corporate social responsibility, highlighting people and programs focused on sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and community involvement.” —Cara Cannella, senior brand editor
- “We’re going to see an increased investment in storytelling as a core communications strategy. Visionary leaders will form centralized content teams responsible for managing all content across the enterprise, and laggards will simply task their staff with ‘telling more stories’.” —Dan Gottlieb, senior sales executive
On the advice of marketing experts, therefore, you need to build the basics of your content marketing plan before you can calculate the ROI of content marketing. Blog regularly and create engaging content on your social media outlets to generate leads. Make sure your website content converts visitors into customers. If you don’t do that much, the ROI of content marketing for your business will be zero.
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 2, 2017 | Small Business Advice
Decoding Your Life’s Passion into One Sentence
It may seem strange to discuss the fire of your life’s passion with the clinical rationality of a mission statement for business. As if the burning core of your soul could be summarized by a line in your company fact sheet. And yet that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen when you develop your mission statement.
A mission statement for business isn’t about dollars and cents. It’s not about operating strategies, marketing techniques or product development. If you’re a small business owner, your business must derive from your passion, or you’re just punching a clock. Starting and running a business is too dang hard not to have skin in the game — in other words, your business has to make your passion come alive.
Finding Your Passion
Before you can start, of course, you’ve got to know what your passion is. Many know what they’re passionate about already. It can be big, but it doesn’t have to be. It might be:
- The environment
- Education
- Perfectly manicured lawns
- People using turn signals
- Urban green spaces
You could develop a business that encompassed each of those passions. For education, for example, it could be starting a charter school, designing better classrooms or publishing new textbooks. And that only scratches the surface of possibilities. So, ask yourself: What’s my passion?
Putting Your Passion to Work
Once you’ve identified your passion, you can evaluate how it fits into your work. Your passion should form the basis for your mission statement for business. It’s what’s supposed to drive your business. It’s what gets you up in the morning. As Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.” In our words, “Work your passion.”
In real terms, that means putting your passion into your mission statement. The mission of your business should align with what drives you. If you can accomplish that, your business will thrive because you’re doing what you love.
The Mission Statement for Business That Drives Us
For Ray Access, communication is a passion, but not only written communication — although that’s certainly our little piece of it. But our passion is bigger than that. We want nothing less than to educate the world to be aware (and be wary) of media. We want people to recognize and appreciate content — and be able to recognize when it says nothing.
The principals of Ray Access visit many websites every day in the course of their work, and they see many that offer nothing — absolutely nothing — of value. When a website doesn’t work, nobody wins. Visitors don’t find the information they’re after, and the business loses a sale. So, that’s become the Ray Access mission statement for business:
“To help companies succeed online while educating business leaders about the value and purpose of well-crafted content. It’s not enough for you to say something; you have to say something meaningful. Your message must be worth your customers’ time and attention.”
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 17, 2017 | Content Marketing
Answers You Seek Regarding Content Marketing
It’s a question that has been around as long as the Sears catalog: Does content marketing work? If it really, truly worked, every business would devote a significant portion of its marketing and advertising budget to content marketing — instead of, say, Super Bowl ads or Sunday newspaper coupons. And good content writers would be in demand and appreciated for what they do.
The short answer is that content marketing does work and good content writers are in demand. The long answer, however, is a bit more complicated. In this heavily researched blog post, you’ll learn the complex truth about content marketing — so you can stop asking, “Does content marketing work?” and start asking, “How can content marketing work for me?”
Define Your Goals
Any marketing strategy is only successful if it accomplishes its goals. So, when you begin a content marketing campaign, you have to first decide what you hope to achieve. Some marketing firms have general goals for your business, such as generating a personal connection, enhanced visibility, and sustained credibility on the Internet. But Ray Access sees these as social media goals, not content marketing goals.
Ultimately, you want your efforts to pay off in more sales. That’s why you’re willing to invest in the expense of content marketing — which, by the way, costs less than most other marketing strategies. Most businesses want their content marketing to achieve the goals reflected in an article by GaggleAMP:
- Generate consistent content
- Market the content you produce
- Grow your website traffic
- Convert your new visitors into customers
Getting to Profitability
According to The Content Marketing Ninja and ProfitWell.com, your business requires two factors to answer “Does content marketing work?” They are:
- Amazing quality in your content
- A marketing strategy
Quality has to do with both the proficiency of your writers and the purpose of the writing. Experts believe that the purpose of content marketing is to educate, inform or entertain. Since you never know what may go viral, you have to first give people a reason to read your content.
Great Content Isn’t Enough
Does content marketing work? For you to answer that question, you have to fully commit to the effort, according to the Search Engine Journal. While creating good content is a start, you must realize you’re going to spend more time promoting than creating.
Indeed, Innovative Marketing Resources (IMR) asserts that great content is only part of the equation; you also need a sales process. Marketing has to lead to sales to be effective. In one terrific analogy, they compare gasoline to content: “Gas to a car is what content is to content marketing.” In other words, you need the car to get anywhere. Pouring gas over four tires and engine parts gets you nowhere, even if you add more gas.
Specific Targets Are Required to Triumph
Remember START. You must learn about the people you want to buy your products or services. As James Ellis has shared: “Whoever knows his audience best, wins.” You have to provide content that your audience wants. It has to be relevant to them in their lives. Even IMR directs content marketers to continue to ask questions about your customers to overcome their objections.
Instead of asking, “Does content marketing work?” ask yourself, “What type of people are in my audience?” There are three different types of people:
- Freeloaders. There are many people who never pay for anything. They search the web to find answers to their issues so they can do it themselves. Provide them the information they seek, but never expect them to pay for your products or services.
- Try It Yourselfers. Most people fall into this category. They want your information so they can try it themselves. They soon realize they need what you offer, bite the bullet and buy from you. Since your content got them started, they remember you.
- Professional Businesspeople. These people are, surprisingly, quite rare. They value their time enough to know right away what they can and can’t do. They see the worth in buying what you have and don’t hesitate if it can help them reach their own goals.
Does Content Marketing Work?
To succeed at content marketing, you need quality content, but that’s just the place to start. Put that content in front of as many eyeballs as possible — and as many SMART eyeballs as possible. The Freedompreneuer Business Academy believes in spreading content-rich information through multiple channels and platforms, including:
- Blog posts
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Videos
- Books and ebooks
- Free downloads
James Ellis points out that attraction content doesn’t convert, and conversion content doesn’t attract. You need both: content to attract traffic and then content that can convert that traffic. Ray Access creates blog posts that attract your audience and website content that converts your traffic.
Does content marketing work? It doesn’t matter whom you ask, the answer is yes. But you’ve got to work your strategy. Content marketing only begins with great content. You’ve got to target it, promote it and distribute it.
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 4, 2017 | Content Provider
So Your Website Shouldn’t Emulate CNN or Fox
“Focus your message.” That’s what professional writers and newspaper editors tell you. Don’t make your readers work for the message — give it to them straight. When it comes to your business website, the advice is unsurprisingly the same: focus your message.
While main news websites like CNN, Fox News, BBC, and USA Today tell their writers to focus their message, they don’t always follow their same advice when it comes to their websites. Their front pages are a conglomeration of stories that each compete for your eye when you visit. You really need to work to find what’s important to you.
What News Sites Get Right
News organizations are designed to please everyone; they want to satisfy all the demographics with one product. And in their own way, news websites do follow the “focus your message” advice, despite the plethora of competing stories and the mix of ads and editorials:
- News sites effectively compartmentalize departments.
- Large headings draw your eyes to the biggest stories first.
- White space plays a role in guiding your eyes.
- Placement indicates, however subtly, what’s more important.
News websites have to organize their content so you can find the stories you’re looking for. The most important stories are at the top of the page and to the left, delineated by the largest heading. If you want the sports scores, you know to go to the Sports section. And of course, all news sites have a robust search feature.
What News Sites Get Wrong
If you’re used to news websites, you’ve learned how to get around, but to a newbie, the pages are a mishmash of words and pictures. Instead of focusing their message, it seems more like they’re throwing everything on the page to see what sticks. And in a way, that’s exactly what they’re doing — in hopes you’ll find what you’re looking for.
The front page of any news site just seems to keep going and going as you scroll down. One story after another. Videos. Advertisements. Links. Headlines. It can be overwhelming. And most days, the biggest news story isn’t obvious. Readers often give up or give in to the shortcut of the Search field.
Focus Your Message
When you look at your own business website, ask yourself how focused it is. Are you delivering one message or ten? Does your content compete with itself? When you first open your website, where are your eyes drawn?
Your website message should be clear, consistent and focused. Unless you’re trying to offer something for everyone, you can’t afford to throw copy on the wall hoping something sticks. When visitors arrive at your website, they should be able to tell right away what your company does, the benefits your company offers and the reasons to buy from you. Your website content must focus your message, boiling it down to its essence.
The Purpose of Your Home Page
Today’s website designs allow for long pages. With a lengthy home page, you have the space to identify your target audience, answer common questions and explain the advantages of your products or services. You need that space to differentiate your business from your competitors. If you don’t have much content on your home page, apart from photos, you’re missing an opportunity.
Ultimately, your website has a purpose: to generate phone calls and emails from your next customers. If it’s not doing that, then you need to change it. Populate your home page with compelling content. Just don’t mimic a news website. Focus your message.
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 21, 2017 | Communication
Use an Informal Writing Style to Engage Visitors
It’s easy, when you’re face-to-face with people, to connect with them. You shake their hands. You look into their eyes. You use inflection to share your mood. Studies have revealed that 93 percent of personal communication is non-verbal. When communicating, more than the actual words you use, it matters:
- How you look
- How you hold your body
- How you use facial expressions
Connecting with people online, therefore, is inherently more difficult. No one can see you, unless you post a video — which is always a good idea when feasible. Usually, as in this particular case right now, you can’t see an expression or interpret body language. All you get are these words. Even with an informal writing style, how is it possible to connect online? We’ll tell you.
Write Like You Speak
Do you see what we did at the end of the last paragraph? That little aside — those three words — created an intimacy between the writer and the reader. An informal writing style helped create the connection, but it also helped that it flowed naturally out of the conversation. And yes: even a one-sided conversation can create a connection.
When you’re creating content for your website, either right on the page or in a blog, write like you naturally speak. With an informal writing style, in addition to being clearer, you get two distinct advantages:
- Your personality shines through the words. People who know you can tell you wrote it, and those who don’t know you gain a sense of who you really are.
- Your words tend to relate to your readers better. When you talk, you’re speaking to someone else, not at them. You often invite a response. Write like that, and you’ll engage your readers.
Connect with Your Online Audience
Below are five ways to keep your website visitors reading. All of these suggestions have been proven through the experience of professional website writers and bloggers. You can use them yourself to craft more engaging online copy:
- Informal writing styles charm your readers. Most people are surprised to find answers to their questions written in a comfortable, everyday tone. They expect an academic exercise in comprehension. Everyone has had the experience of coming upon a website or online report that seems like it was written for a professor. And that can insult your readers who may not grasp your intentions or your meaning.
- Use contractions, just like you do in everyday speech. Very few individuals talk without using contractions. If they do, they appear stilted, awkwardly formal and not someone you want to spend more time with. Be the opposite, and readers willingly spend more time with your words.
- Informal doesn’t mean humor or profanity. You can be professional without resorting to humor or profanity. The purpose of online content is to build trust with your readers. You can’t do that by swearing. Be professional. Provide answers. Say what you mean. But keep it informal.
- Keep your sentences relatively short. Good writing mixes long-winded sentences together with short, stout declarations. Like this. But don’t overdo the long sentences. They’re difficult to read on a screen, and they don’t lend themselves to comprehension. Don’t lose your audience to verbosity.
- Use whitespace effectively. Yes, it matters even where there are no words. It can be daunting for a reader looking for a specific answer to stare at a long block of text. An informal writing style includes short paragraphs, numbered or bulleted lists and subheads. Make your page look attractive and easy to navigate.
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 7, 2017 | Small Business Advice
Is It Valuable or Just Email Inbox Filler?
According to numerous experts, including Entrepreneur.com, email marketing is still an effective means of promoting your business and generating sales. This seems to be true despite anecdotal evidence suggesting that most people receive more than 100 email messages a day. Before you click that Send button, consider your own email habits.
Your email inbox is like your family. You think everyone treats it the same… until you learn otherwise. Some people keep their inboxes sparkling clean by dealing with each piece of email as it comes in, whether it’s important or just email inbox filler. These people are probably OCD. Other people fail so miserably that it feels like a victory whenever they get their inbox down to fewer than 20 waiting emails.
Things That Clog Up Your Inbox
Your email inbox isn’t just where SPAM goes to die; it’s also where all your notifications, newsletters and sales pitches end up. It’s strange that someone you don’t know would send you an email to sell you something you don’t want or need, but that’s just one type of email inbox filler. And they’re the emails that are easy to delete. Click… and gone.
But the notifications and newsletters — ostensibly things you’ve voluntarily signed up for — are a different matter. You want to read them, but you can’t find the time. So they just sit there: email inbox filler that takes up space and makes you feel guilty about not participating in the modern world. Eventually, they last long enough to lose their relevancy or you get tired of opening and closing them, like you sometimes do with the refrigerator door when you’re vaguely hungry. Then, click, and it’s gone.
Don’t Send Email Inbox Filler
Whenever you send email, whether it’s to one person or 100 people, bear in mind that your recipients don’t receive your message in a vacuum. It becomes part of the deluge to their email inbox every day. No matter how much time and effort you spent crafting your message, it might end up in the Trash.
To overcome that tendency, you can’t use email to sell your products or services to unaware recipients. If you try: click, and it’s gone. Instead, offer something of value:
- A free ebook that suits their interests
- Free entertainment, such as a link to a movie
- Free insight into your business that they can put to use immediately
- Free ways to save money on something they want
- A free lunch — although everyone will tell you there’s no such thing
Consider Your Audience… First and Foremost
It’s easy to compose an email to sell your products or services. After all, you know the benefits better than anyone. But unless you can give a valid reason and a sense of urgency, no one will even open your email. Unless you can show clear benefits, no one will follow the link to your website. Unless your recipients are in the frame of mind to buy — and buy now — you won’t make a single sale.
Ray Access sends out a newsletter once a month. You can sign up on our website. We try our best to provide value to all our friends, colleagues and customers. If we give you something you can use, our newsletter has done its job. We don’t expect you to race to our website to hire us. But we do hope that when you’re in the market for writing services, you’ll remember us. That’s the only job of a newsletter.
And that’s worth the risk of sending something you may consider email inbox filler, even just once in a while. We strive to improve with every single issue — to give you something of value. And that includes advice like this.
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 | Feb 21, 2017 | Editing
And Other Best Editing Practices That Can Help
Every article, blog post or website page — in fact, anything that will appear online — must be edited before it’s published. This seems like a no-brainer, an assertion that’s so obvious that no one would argue against it. But as you likely know, not everyone follows best editing practices. And it’s both unfortunate and so easy to fix.
Any professional writer worth her salt knows that a piece of writing is only as good as the editor behind it. Once you’ve seen your share of typos, misspellings, dangling modifiers, vague pronoun references and creative grammar, you begin to see the light. It’s like one of those “Ah-ha!” moments. You realize that if just one other person had read through the writing before it was published, 90 percent of the problems could have been corrected.
Mistakes Happen
It’s usually best to give your work to another person because a second pair of eyes can catch things in your own writing that you’ll never see for yourself. For example, your eye will fly right over mistakes such as:
- Misspelled names
- Missing words
- Incorrect pronoun use
- Wrong word use
You can find the mistakes you know are there, but it takes another person to see the mistakes you make that you don’t even know you make. You won’t pause to double-check names that look right to you. Your mind will fill in the missing words, so you won’t even notice they’re not really there. And the other errors will seem correct.
Best Editing Practices That Are Easy
Editing doesn’t have to be a difficult, expensive or drawn-out process. While a professional editor should review anything that involves your business, you don’t need to hire one for your personal blog. But you should learn some common editing tips so you too can get closer to best editing practices. Easy editing techniques include:
- Sleeping on it. This little tip really works, especially if you’re a good writer. Basically, after you’ve finished the first draft — and that means finished it completely — put it aside and don’t even look at it. Return to it the next day, when you’re refreshed but it’s not so fresh in your mind, and reread your words, checking to see if it’s as wonderful as you remember. Be objective and make the changes you need to make to improve the article. You will find lots of mistakes and things to change.
- Read it out loud. This tactic is common among novelists and screenwriters, but it can work for your online content, too. It’s one of those best editing practices that seems too easy, but simply by reading something out loud, to yourself or to another person, highlights obvious errors that you’d otherwise miss. Your eye’s trained to read just what’s on the page so the absence of words jumps out at you.
- Read it backward. If you’re sure what you wrote is bullet-proof, read it backward. You’ll find misspellings, and odd word choices that you’ll feel compelled to change. You won’t catch any grammar mistakes doing this exercise, but you’ll be amazed at what you do find. This may become your standard practice.
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 | Jan 31, 2017 | Website Content
Reasons Content Marketing Outperforms SEO
Your website content has to deliver your promise and communicate your value. As more and more people get online to find answers and do their shopping, it’s become increasingly vital that your business be visible, front and center. That’s the business of search engine optimization or SEO. But it’s also why your content is king.
We’ve written about this idea before:
SEO for the Rest of Us
But there’s still more to say. For many business owners, SEO is a “black box” that seems like a marketing necessity, but no one quite knows how it’s supposed to work. Ask five different SEO experts, and you’ll likely get five different versions of the best way to approach SEO for business websites.
Some say backlinks drive ranking. Others say you need long-form content on every web page. Still others swear by keyword research and Google Adwords campaigns. Then there’s the growing reliance on landing pages. While all these strategies play a role in improving your website rank toward that coveted Number One on the First Page listing, they may all fail without website content that converts.
Content Is King Because…
SEO delivers eyeballs to your website. It maximizes your website to attract the people most likely to buy your service or product. It positions your website listing so that more people see it. But it’s your website’s job to convert those visitors into lasting customers. Without useful and persuasive content, your website wastes all the chances that SEO delivers.
Content is king because it prepares your website for all the traffic it sees. When it’s done properly, your website content:
- Communicates your competitive advantage
- Connects with your target audience
- Delivers useful information and answers questions
- Makes your site the “go-to” destination for your industry and location
- Persuades visitors to contact you
Keywords and Content
Keywords do actually work to help people find your website. But once they’re there, reading your content and perusing your pages, the keywords should be virtually invisible. This doesn’t mean hiding your keywords in invisible ink at the bottom of each page — that kind of behavior now gets you punished by search engines, and rightly so.
Keywords need to appear within the content, as part of the content. But if content is king, your keywords are the pawns that shouldn’t knock your readers senseless. In other words, if a visitor to your website notices obvious keywords, you’re overusing them. Subtlety is the champion of effective website content. Ray Access writers shoot for a one percent keyword density and sometimes purposefully under-deliver. A higher density smacks of an advertisement.
Attract, Don’t Repel
For your content to achieve all of the goals listed above, it must speak to your audience and it must deliver value. It can’t do that if it screams out its keywords every chance it gets. Above all, make friends with your audience. Offer your virtual hand and provide something that’s worth the trust you’re asking for.
In other words, provide value to your website visitors. If you can do that, they’ll remember you; they’ll think of you first when they’re ready to buy — or recommend — what you offer. As one content marketing firm once wrote: “To be good at SEO, you need to stop thinking about SEO.” Because content is king, it remains at the top of all online marketing efforts.
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.
