Tag Archives: content writing

High Quality Blog Content: Keep It Simple

Posted on by
Computer with Content on Screen

High-quality website and blog content builds brand awareness, and turns website visitors into customers and referral sources. The 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks report shows that 96% of the most successful content marketers strongly believe that their organization’s credibility has increased because of high-quality content.

Below is a list of some of the elements that constitute a high-quality blog post. If you follow this checklist, you are well on your way to creating quality blog content.

The Content is Aligned With Brand Objectives

Our objective in creating this blog post is to establish ourselves as experts on content marketing, SEO and brand development.  If this article does not at least partially support this objective, than it is not high quality. Having a one-on-one conversation with the website visitor that helps that visitor to better understand the subject matter at hand is the objective.  To have organized and well written content will further help to achieve that goal.

The Content is Designed to Provide Solutions

High-quality content solves specific problems and offers actionable advice that the readers can apply to their situation.  In our case, many of the solutions require technical expertise that most of our customers do not possess, but it is still comforting to know that there is a resource or a procedure available for solving a problem.

The Content Shares Specific Tools To Solve The Problem

Useful content provides resources to solve problems.  For example, we often cite resources like SEMRush, Ahrefs.com, and Google Search Console that help to provide solutions for various SEO problems ranging from backlinks to keyword research to on page SEO techniques.  The point is that you should not be shy about providing the sources of your solutions. That is what makes your blog content unique and valuable.

The Content Should Be Easy To Read.

A study by the Nielsen Group found that 79% of website users scan the content on a webpage for highlighted headings. In fact, the study shows only 16% of users read the content word for word. Use highlighted headings, keep the content brief and to the point, and use graphs and illustrations to explain complicated concepts or conclusions that require a lot of data to support.  Use language that is conversational and easy to understand, even when explaining technical subject matter.

Conclusion: Keep It Simple

Creating high-quality content is not complicated.   The key is to have a firm understanding of the topic that you are writing about, and explain it as if you are talking to a friend who is not in your industry, or better yet, explain it like you are speaking to a new customer of your firm.  If your discussion covers the problem at hand and provides the theory and assets necessary to create a solution, then you have satisfied most definitions of high-quality content.

Eric Van Cleave is the CEO and Digital Director for Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa California Digital Marketing and SEO Agency.

How to Amplify Your Content

Posted on by

Today we have a guest post and infographic for you from the multi-talented Ivan Serrano about how you can amplify your content! Take it away, Ivan.

Back in its early days, many marketers focused on link-building techniques to get a higher ranking on Google. With Google focusing more on providing relevant content to its visitors, these old tactics are now a great way to get your site flagged. Now their focus has shifted to the quality of the content. This switch has forced brands to change their tactics to content marketing. 93 percent of B2B marketers currently use content marketing for a couple reasons:

  • Seven out of ten consumers prefer custom content because it is tailored to their interests.
  • Good content is a major reason consumers follow brands on social media.

While creating quality content is definitely important, the problem is that every brand is doing the same thing. If you’re just expecting to earn a huge following simply by creating a blog entry or white paper, you’ll be in for a rude awakening. With so much new content available to consumers on a daily basis, if you don’t promote it, there’s no way anyone will ever find it.

Content Amplification

Content amplification is a strategy where you increase the value of your content and reach the largest audience by promoting it on the right channels. All content amplification starts with your owned media which includes:

  • Social media profiles
  • Blog
  • Website
  • Email list

From there, you can and should utilize different avenues of paid media like Facebook ads or Twitter’s Promoted Tweets so you can reach a wider audience. The best part is that these paid social ads allow you to pinpoint your amplification strategy to exactly the right people, who ultimately will help build your community. The infographic below provides more information on how to amplify your content properly, the questions you should ask yourself when creating your content and the tools to find influencers (click to enlarge).

Amplified Content

click to enlarge

Other Services

Best Internet Marketing Company SEO Web Design Services Geo Search SEO

The Importance of Storytelling in Marketing

Posted on by

Too often, we forget that people connect to storytelling. No matter the medium, your business has to tell a story. It can be written, visual, audio, or anything else you can think of. Don’t be afraid to take a risk and be innovative!

Recently, a story of a man and his wife went viral. Through photographs, the man documented his wife’s battle with, and eventual death from, breast cancer. The story told through those photographs was moving, emotional, and powerful. Similarly, a short commercial from a Thai company made waves with its incredibly moving story that unfolded in only three minutes. It’s even possible to incorporate humor into an irreverent storyline that still manages to conjure up memories of family and spotlight employees.

There’s a reason these things go viral. People crave that human connection, that feeling of rising and falling with another person. Ever since our species could create symbols and form words, we’ve been storytellers.

Storytelling In Marketing

What story does this scene tell?

Photo Credit: goldsardine via Compfight cc

Unfortunately, this is a step that many businesses tend to skip when it comes to marketing. It’s all well and good to create an “About Me” page with bios for your staff, but is that all your website has going for it? We think you can stretch further. But where do you start?

What’s your unique story? Everybody’s got a story. You just have to find the story that fits with your business and will appeal to your customer base. Easier said than done, right? Maybe it’s the way your business got off the ground, or the inspiration for starting it, or the way your employees interact every day.

How can you best tell that story? What resources do you have available? Do you need to hire outside help? Your opportunities are as big as your imagination. You can tell the story with photographs, video, text, artwork, audio… what speaks to you? Perhaps more importantly, what will your audience respond to?

Utilize all your online resources. In today’s marketing age, you don’t have to rely on television and radio to be heard. It’s certainly not as easy as posting a video and sitting back to wait for views, but you can now streamline your marketing efforts with a little of your own creativity and elbow grease.

Have fun. Don’t be afraid to test out all those wild and kind of ridiculous ideas that you have floating around. Ask your staff for their ideas. Work together to create something amazing!

The hardest part of any story is making people care. There are lots of technical bits, too – pacing, structure, dialogue – but in the end, it means nothing if you can’t get anyone to care. Think of your favorite stories. Now think of why they’re so important to you. How can you create something similar for your business?

The effort involved in this process ranges from minimal to exponential. It all has to do with your manpower and time constraints. If you need some help, you know who to call! (It’s us. We’re talking about us.)

Stephanie Wargin is the Social Media Strategist at Zenergy Works, a web design and SEO company located in Santa Rosa, California. Her friends like to brush her hair into her eyes whenever she talks about Facebook.

What’s New for August 13, 2013 – Graph Search and Content Ideas

Posted on by

Facebook Graph Search

Facebook Graph Search Is Fully Launched

Facebook has announced that the new graph search is now available to all US English Language Facebook users.

The announcement from Facebook read as follows:

Graph Search makes it easier to make new connections; you can continue to search for friends and Pages by name, or use simple phrases to find something specific across people, photos, places, interests, and more.

Graph Search was originally seen as competition for Google, but upon further review, it seems to be a completely different way of accessing information online. Log into Facebook and give it a try. Please notice the personalization of information.

Content Creation

Good Blog Post and Content Ideas – Where Do They Come From?

Where can you look for ideas for fresh content and blog posts for your website and social media sites?

When trying to come up with ideas, I always start with these sources of information:

1. Reviewing questions that my customers ask me in the course of business. If one customer asks a question, chances are good that others are wondering the same thing. Poll your sales and customer service teams regarding topics that customers ask of them, as well.

2. Follow social media conversations with others in the industry and your own social media sites, if you have them. Topics of conversation in social media, chat rooms, and forums are great ways to find out what customers want to know. To help make this task less time intensive, consider using a tracking tool that will allow you to track conversations online that center around the keywords you select.

3. Don’t neglect images. Images that depict problems your products can solve or the happy results of the successful use of your product or service will help to engage online viewers.

4. Review search terms that website visitors are using to find your website. Look at the most popular search terms that website visitors use to find you, and make sure that you provide ample information about those terms. Search competitors and review search terms that they are optimizing for to identify industry trends that you may not see from your customer base. Look at those competitors that are in large or “cutting edge” markets for your field. For example, if you are in a high tech business, Palo Alto would be a more relevant market than Los Angeles. The reverse would be true if you are in the entertainment field.

5. Keep current with published articles on topics that relate to your field. If a print publication is writing about it, chances are the public is interested in it. Many marketers neglect industry or trade publications, but many emerging technologies, ideas, and trends can be found when the insiders of an industry talk with each other.

6. Do not neglect topics that are more during certain times of the year. For instance, an HVAC contractor would be better suited to advertise air conditioning repair in the summer than in the winter months. Updated content shows your audience that you are current and relevant to their lives, and that is a key component of engaging an online audience.

Generating these ideas and then strategizing with a calendar is a daunting task. Many companies work with an annual calendar, but I am fond of a strategy never plans more than 45-60 days in the future. The modern world is constantly changing, and website and blog content needs to be current and valuable to its users. I certainly do not know what I will want to know more about 12 months from now, do you?

Bottom Line: Content is king, and looking for the right content to feature on your website or blog has become a hot topic for those actively marketing online. It is a grind to constantly create new content, but the reward of successful SEO and Social Media campaigns is huge.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Website Design and Online Marketing Firm.

Tips for Creating Great Content Writing

Posted on by

There are many different ways to increase the effectiveness of your content writing and encourage more interaction. Blogs, social media, and websites all require different approaches, since their used for different goals. Your first step toward creating interesting content and increasing the likelihood of interaction from your audience starts by figuring out what you want.

Are you interested in leads or brand recognition? Receiving reviews or making sales? Climbing search engine rankings or creating a loyal customer base? All of the above? Then make sure you select the correct approach. Technically, if you’re creative, any of the following could be used for any of the aforementioned goals. However, here’s how they’re most frequently used.

writing good content

Website content is the static content available on your website, both on your homepage and your internal pages. It is often used to create brief marketing copy to give users a bite-sized synopsis of what your business does, aids in local SEO services, and give calls to action.

Blog content can be purely informative or highly creative. If you want to build a loyal audience, you’ll want to approach with innovation and write about topics that draw responses. If your goal is to further your website’s relevance to search engines, then creating interesting content isn’t going to be as important as creating informative, relevant content. If you can combine the two, you’re golden.

Social media content has become incredibly multi-faceted. It can be used to increase your company’s weight on search engines, but it can also be used to build brand recognition, practice customer support, or weigh audience sentiment. It’s shorter, punchier, and designed for fast and easy consumption. Brevity is key.

Approaching your content takes slightly more skill than throwing some keywords into a paragraph and throwing it up on your website. It’s always best to work with a professional copywriter, particularly one who’s up to date on the most recent SEO requirements for the major search engines. You have to be willing to really sit down and decide what, exactly, you want your content to get people to do, and then put a plan in place to make it happen. Magic works in storybooks, but not in marketing.

A few more tips to live by:

If you want readers, you have to be readable. This sounds like complete non-advice, we know, but extrapolate a little. Research other blogs and social media in your industry to see what they’re doing that’s working… or not. If you’re not getting bites, change course. When people respond, take note of how and why.

Succinct delivery defeats verbose posturing… within reason. This tip comes with a caveat: sometimes it’s okay to be a little long-winded. Google’s getting smarter, which means it can figure out when you’re just repeating the same content with different keywords. Organic content – content that reads naturally rather than structured – is gaining prominence. For marketing purposes, make your point quickly and cleverly. For relevance and gaining authority, learn to write good, organic content. If you want to be read, either write short or write quality.

Ask for what you want. Don’t be afraid to directly ask people to share your content. Make sharing easy by adding share buttons. Tell people what you want them to do. Don’t be pushy, but do be direct.

Stephanie Wargin is the Social Media Strategist at Zenergy Works, a web design and SEO company located in Santa Rosa, California. Her friends like to brush her hair into her eyes whenever she talks about Facebook.

Jennifer Filzen & Steph Wargin, Social Media Optimization

Posted on by

Meet the Zenergy Works Social Media Optimization Team!

Jennifer Filzen for Social Media Optimization

Jennifer Filzen, Content Writer

Social media is an important tool for any company or brand hoping to engage with customers, fans, friends, and industry cohorts. From the start, Zenergy Works has used Social Media Optimization (SMO) to attract new customers and generate interest for our clients’ websites through active engagement with the online community.

Because SMO has become such an important marketing tool for businesses and brands of all types, Zenergy Works has expanded its Social Media Optimization services. To stay on top of the ever-changing environment, we have two team members that take great care of our SMO clients.

If you have not yet met our Social Media Optimization Team, allow us to introduce you to Jennifer Filzen and Stephanie Wargin:

Jennifer Filzen started working with Zenergy Works in 2010 and was our first online community manager. Jennifer comes with an eclectic background of songwriting, event promotion, sales, and marketing. A “Jill-of-all-trades,” Jen has written content for the bulk of our SMO clients and SEO clients, as well.

Stephanie Wargin for Social Media Optimization

Stephanie Wargin, Social Strategist

Stephanie Wargin joined us in late 2012 as a Social Strategist and is a tremendous asset to our SMO team. She comes with a background as an author, blogger, programmer, and social media marketer. Steph will be taking over the lion’s share of our existing SMO accounts in 2013 as we take our SMO strategies to the next level.

We are very fortunate to have these two great copywriters on the Zenergy Works team. Together, they will help build a lively and engaged community around your business or brand. If you have questions about how this dynamic duo can help with your Social Media Optimization, contact Zenergy Works for a free consultation.

Translate »