Thursday, December 3, 2015
This Green Tech Entrepreneur Is Converting Industrial Air Pollution Into Clean Power (And Cash)
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
7 Self-Limiting Behaviors Successful Entrepreneurs Never Do
The Tightwad’s Guide to Creating Competitive Content on a Budget
Do you need to spend a lot of money to create exceptional content?
In a word, no.
The barriers to entry for publishing on the Internet are extremely low. That’s why we see so much mediocre content everywhere we look.
But you’re here reading Copyblogger. That tells me that “mediocre content” is a phrase that’s not part of your vocabulary. You’re aiming to create content that’s remarkable. Content that attracts an audience and builds your business.
Today we’re going to cover how to produce winning content on a budget. A really small budget.
The fact is, you don’t need to outspend the competition.
You need to outthink them.
1. Gather ideas from all over
The first tip involves a mindset shift.
It’s about seeing the world around you — both your business world and your personal life — as a source for ideas. Because when you’re creating content on a regular basis, the world can inspire your writing if you let it.
Some of the most interesting content forms when you take a seemingly unrelated aspect of your life and apply it to your content marketing.
To explore this concept, read The Content Crossroads: Supernatural Success at the Intersection of Ideas.
Once you shift your mindset to one of always-on idea gathering, you’ll need a place to capture and save your ideas.
Look for something you’ll always have on hand, whether it’s a small notebook you carry around or an app on your computer or mobile phone. Make sure it’s easy and fast to use, and use one — and only one — location to store ideas so you don’t have to track them down in more than one place.
For more idea-gathering inspiration, read these posts:
- The Art of Finding Ideas
- How to Find More Content Ideas than You’ll Ever be Able to Create
- Conquer Content Shock with Illegitimate Ideas
Read the posts above, and set up a place to capture your ideas.
COST: $0
2. Develop a plan and work it
One reason why people churn out mediocre content is they approach the blank page like this:
“Oh no, I need a post for tomorrow! What should I write about?”
When you develop a strategy for your content and keep your goals in mind, you eliminate the “I have no idea what to write about” problem. You see the holes in your content marketing efforts and write or record information to fill those holes.
If you’ve never spent time thinking through your content strategy, we’ve got help for you — Demian Farnworth has written extensively on the topic. The posts below will get your content strategy off to a strong start:
- 13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content Strategy [Free Worksheet]
- Don’t Create Your Content Strategy Until You Research These 6 Things
- How to Use Customer Experience Maps to Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy
Read the posts above, create and record your content goals, and put them somewhere you can reference frequently.
COST: $0
3. Hold yourself to high standards
You can spot mediocre content from a distance because it usually has multipple speling and gramattical erors.
We’re lucky around here. The line above would never make it past Stefanie Flaxman, our eagle-eyed Editor-in-Chief.
Fortunately, Stefanie has been very generous over the years about sharing her techniques, so that those of us who can’t count on an editor to review our content can use some of her sophisticated methods for spotting and correcting the content errors that make our words seem less authoritative.
Aim for writing that’s clear, clean, and error-free.
When you’re ready to go beyond the traditional “sleep on it and look at your writing with fresh eyes the next day” advice, study these posts:
- 15 Copy Editing Tips that Can Transform Your Content into Persuasive and Shareable Works of Art
- Catch More Writing Mistakes with This Underutilized Proofreading Trick
- The Traffic Light Revision Technique for Meticulously Editing Your Own Writing
Read the posts above, and carefully edit and proofread your posts before they go live.
COST: $0
4. Add meaning with images
Carefully planned, beautifully written, and meticulously edited content will help you attract the attention you want.
To tap into a completely different part of your site visitors’ brains, try pairing your words with well-chosen images.
Images are processed in a different part of our brains than words. Combining words and images on your pages will light up your site visitors’ brains and (bonus!) make your content more attractive and shareable:
- Use Images (Not Just Words) to Turn Your Distracted Visitors into Engaged Readers
- The 8 Types of Images That Increase the Psychological Impact of Your Content
- How to Fully Engage Your Readers’ Brains with Images
Adding the perfect image to your words is that extra step that many content creators can’t be bothered with. And as you’ll see in the posts above, it doesn’t take a lot of money to find the right image — just effort and practice.
Read the posts above, and explore the free image resources and editing tools mentioned.
COST: $0
5. Create a publishing schedule and stick to it
Publishing content consistently builds trust. Your content becomes a reliable resource your readers can count on — information they look forward to reading.
But how often should you publish? Three times a week? Once a week? Once a month?
Whenever you feel like it? (Hint: don’t choose this one.)
We recommend you keep one important concept in mind when weighing your options:
Publish as often as you can create exceptional content.
That said, if you’re just entering into the content marketing arena and you’ve created your content strategy, you’ll want to publish often enough to execute that strategy and populate your pages with searchable, shareable information.
That’s why we recommend a minimum of one solid post or podcast each week. This schedule should be achievable. For more ideas on how to make it happen, see the first post in the list below:
- A Simple Plan for Writing One Powerful Piece of Online Content per Week
- The Write Way to Answer Your Most Pressing Questions
- The Single Best Way to Create Hit Content in Record Time
Read the posts above, commit to a publishing schedule, and note it on your calendar.
COST: $0
6. Use social media to share your work
As Beth Hayden smartly notes in the first post in the list below, “The very purpose of the Internet (every blog, website, and virtual gathering place within it) is to let people connect, communicate, and collaborate.”
Take advantage of the inherently social nature of the Internet and promote your content.
Yes, social media can be terribly distracting. And we agree that it’s not always efficient, especially if you spread your efforts too thin.
If you’re not doing much to share your content on social media, these posts have practical ideas and techniques you can try:
- A History of Social Media [Infographic]
- The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing
- The Proper Way to Automate Your Social Media Activities (and 5 Other Best Practices)
Read the posts above, and experiment with a new social media technique this week.
COST: $0
7. Track your results
Many content marketers don’t make the time to do this step.
Which is sad, because it’s so easy to get information about how your content is performing.
Ignoring how your audience responds to your content is a missed opportunity.
To get started tracking your results, take a look at the posts here:
- A Quick-Start Guide to Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts
- Wait, Was That a Click or a Conversion?
- Why Your Site’s Search Rank May Be Falling (And 4 Simple Ways to Fix it)
Read the posts above, and mark the days and times on your calendar when you’ll review your content marketing results.
COST: $0
How to outthink (not outspend) the competition
Remarkable content doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg to produce.
Use the tips here to outthink your competition. Set high standards for the content you produce. Your content marketing efforts will stand out from the crowd when you do.
Most people won’t put in the extra effort to make their content truly effective.
But you? Well, here you are at the end of this article, so you’re one of the special ones.
About the authorPamela Wilson
Pamela Wilson is Executive Vice President of Educational Content at Rainmaker Digital. Follow her on Twitter, and find more from her at BigBrandSystem.com.
The post The Tightwad’s Guide to Creating Competitive Content on a Budget appeared first on Copyblogger.
Stop Writing Boring Headlines: 11 Types of Headlines That Pique Reader Interest
You put in hours crafting a great post, but then you come to the hardest part:
The headline.
It seems like it should be easy to create a solid headline, right?
I mean, it’s usually 5-10 words long. How long could that possibly take?
So you write a few different headlines, but they just don’t quite click. They’re okay, but your audience isn’t going to go nuts over them.
And while you’re trying to come up with other headline ideas, the frustration creeps in. How can writing a single line take so much time?
Because you expect to be able to write headlines quickly, it gets frustrating when you can’t do it.
Most marketers end up just picking the “least sucky” headline and getting subpar traffic as a result.
The solution is actually really easy:
Expect to spend more time on your headline.
Copywriting legends like David Ogilvy would spend up to half of their time creating a headline for an advertisement or article they are working on.
Ogilvy once reported that he rewrote a headline 104 times for a Rolls Royce ad.
Another master copywriter, Gene Schwartz, often spent a whole week on the headline and an intro of a sales piece.
So when you don’t have a great headline after two minutes, don’t worry about it. That’s completely normal.
As long as you understand that, you won’t get frustrated, and you’ll be able to continue until you find a headline that’s right.
Your headline is the biggest factor determining the number of social shares your content gets: The fact is most people don’t read your content, no matter how good it is.
What they do is read the headline.
Around 80-85% of people will read headlines, while only about 20% will read the actual article.
Based on the headline itself, people make the choice of whether or not to read on.
This is one of the biggest reasons why a great headline is so important.
But there’s one reason that’s even more important:
Most people will share content based on the headline alone.
It seems strange, but it’s been shown time after time.
After extensive split testing, the co-founder of Upworthy found that an excellent headline can make up to a 500% difference in shares and traffic.
Through research, we (marketers) have learned a lot about which headlines attract the most shares and traffic.
And I want to show you the 11 best types of headlines to write as well as ways to use them effectively.
You can use them immediately to increase your website’s traffic and social engagement.
Understand the potential of a headline: Before we dig in, there’s one last thing you need to understand about headlines.
Even if your headline is the most impressive headline ever written, that doesn’t mean you’ll get thousands or millions of shares.
Why?
Because there are two other factors at play:
- Your topic/niche
- The number of people who see it
Some niches just aren’t “sexy.” You’re never going to get millions of shares on an article about cleaning floors.
In addition, if you only have 1,000 followers on social networks, it’s going to be difficult to hit that viral threshold of initial shares.
Simply put: the more followers you have, the more shares you’ll get.
One way to make up for a lack of followers is paid advertising. But you’ll need a decent volume of one or the other.
The reason why understanding these factors is important is to help you keep your expectations realistic.
In this post, you’ll see headlines of content that has hundreds of thousands of shares. You may be able to produce similar content, but you may also be limited based on the above two factors.
Your goal should be to get as many shares as possible (based on your headline). If you do this well consistently, your site will grow.
While going viral is nice, consistently maximizing your shares and traffic is what will bring you reliable success.
Ready? Let’s get started.
1. The “ultimate headline”
This first headline formula is a great way to break down headlines into specific components.
Although it’s probably been defined many times over the years, I came across it in a post by the infamous Jeff Goins. Let’s call it the “ultimate headline formula”:
The idea behind this formula is that it can describe just about any highly effective headline.
There are five main parts to it:
- Number – You know what a number is.
- Adjective – A word that describes a thing (noun). For example: best, adorable, surprising.
- Keyword - A keyword or short phrase that tells us what the content is about (possibly also for SEO)
- Rationale - The main way that value is delivered in the content. For example: reasons, ways, secrets.
- Promise – What will the reader get from reading the content?
These are pretty simple, and you can probably get your head around the main components.
That’s actually the easy part—many bad headlines also have these components.
The hard part is combining the right parts together to produce something special.
And that’s why I started with this formula. Now you understand the main parts of a headline. It’s essentially an overall strategy.
However, for the rest of the headline types in this post, we’ll look at specific implementations of one or more of these components (think of them as tactics).
2. “X” Reasons why list headlines are amazing
Let’s start with the first component of most great headlines: the number.
List posts are not only highly readable but they are also very handy when it comes to writing an effective headline. You automatically have a number of items in your list to add to your headline.
In an analysis of about 1 million most popular headlines, it was found that list posts are by far the most shared.
People love list posts.
And we have more data to prove it.
A comprehensive Conductor survey showed that people actually prefer headlines with numbers in them.
These types of headlines make a specific promise, and the reader knows what to expect going into the content. This is likely why these types of headlines are preferred.
On top of that, the survey also had participants rank the clarity of different types of headlines.
As you might have guessed, list posts were viewed as the clearest:
While we’re on the subject, list posts not only attract extra attention (because of their headlines) but they are also typically read more.
Lists are much easier to read, and readers can skim them, moving quickly from one section to another to see if there’s anything they’re interested in.
List post headlines in action: Take a few minutes to visit some of your favorite sites. If they have a “popular content” section, pay attention to which headlines are list posts.
In most cases, a large portion of them will be.
If you go to Boost Blog Traffic, about half of their most popular posts (in the sidebar) are list posts (the number at the start makes it obvious):
In addition to the already mentioned reasons why readers love list headlines and posts, there’s one more great aspect to them.
You have the option of creating incredibly long lists.
Long lists automatically make people value the content higher.
Let’s say you saw these two headlines:
- “3 ways to lose 20 pounds”
- “178 ways to lose 20 pounds”
Which one would you be more drawn to?
In most cases, it’s the one with the bigger list.
Many bloggers have taken advantage of this to create content that automatically gets extra shares and traffic.
For example, Brian Dean made a list of all known possible Google ranking factors. It’s accumulated over 10,000 shares to date:
An article about five ranking factors wouldn’t be impressive. But 200? Wow, that’s incredible.
And that’s exactly why it has been shared so much.
Making your own list post headline: The good news is that one part of your headline is decided for you.
If you have a list of 25 items, then “25” will go into your headline.
So, that just leaves the rest. The other tactics in this article will help you fill in that part.
3. “How to” write a descriptive and interesting headline
Another effective type of headline is a “how to” headline.
The general format is:
How to + Action (do something) + Unique benefit
For example, “How to Fall Asleep In Under 1 Minute”, which is actually a real post.
To say that it went viral on social networks is an understatement. It’s received over 300,000 shares on Facebook alone:
In this case, the “action” is falling asleep, and the unique benefit is that it can be done in under a minute.
The real selling point comes from the unique benefit. It has to be something desirable.
With this example, people are desperate to fall asleep quickly, so if you have a solution that works fast (as the headline claims), readers will be interested.
If you actually have a good article to back up your headline, it will get shared.
Why it works: There are a few reasons why more bloggers should be using “how to” headlines when possible.
First, they’re simple to write.
Break it down into the two main components:
- the action
- the unique, desirable benefit
The action is usually pretty straightforward, but spend a few minutes looking at different ways to incorporate it into the headline.
For example, with the action of falling asleep, you could follow “How” or “How to” with:
- “I learned to fall asleep”
- “Fall asleep”
- “Get to sleep”
- “I nod off”
The reason why the first one won in real life was because it included the word “learned.”
Think about it from the reader’s point of view. They don’t really care about your falling asleep quickly—they want to do it themselves. If you were just born with the unique ability to fall asleep quickly, it wouldn’t be an interesting article.
However, if you’ve learned how to do it yourself and can share that solution, all of a sudden the headline becomes much more intriguing.
Now, to the second part of the headline. This is a bit harder.
Make a list of all the potential benefits of the action you’re telling the reader to take. Again, try to focus on it from the reader’s point of view.
Let’s come up with a few for our example:
- “In under a minute” (the original)
- “In less than a minute” (a variation)
- “In under 60 seconds” (another variation)
- “No matter where you are” (a different benefit)
- “And wake up energized” (another benefit)
You could come up with a list of 20 headlines pretty easily, composed of different benefits and different ways to describe them.
It still takes practice and experience to be able to create and pick the best option. But at least this way, you have a formula that you can repeat over and over again and improve your headline writing skills.
4. Three common mistakes of headline writing
Okay, time to come clean…
This section isn’t actually about mistakes of headline writing.
But admit it, it made you curious.
What this is about is incorporating the word “mistakes” into your headline. It’s a magical adjective that draws the attention of just about any type of reader, which makes it versatile.
In general, people are afraid of making mistakes.
No, it might not be a crippling fear—many understand that everybody makes mistakes.
However, it’s ingrained into almost everyone that we should try to avoid making mistakes whenever possible.
So, when you see a headline with the word “mistakes” in it, you want to make sure that you’re not doing something that might be considered foolish.
Here’s an example:
Even if you’re not in that audience, you can understand the allure of that headline.
So far, that post has over 204,000 shares on Pinterest.
Here’s another example:
So far, it’s received over 148,000 likes and shares on Facebook:
I encourage you to go look at this second example. The content is very mediocre. However, the strong headline, combined with a solid social following was enough for this post to get viral traction.
What mistakes should you write about? The good news is that you have one word in your headline already decided for you: mistakes.
The part that requires some practice is determining if your audience is interested in a certain type of mistakes.
It’s a good idea to consider this before creating the content as well.
And to do this, you need to answer one major question:
What do your readers care about but are uncertain about?
First, your audience needs to care. If I write an article about mistakes marketers make when choosing their hairstyles, you probably won’t be very interested.
But if I write an article about mistakes marketers make when trying to sell something with email marketing, a very large portion of my readers will be eager to read it.
My readers care about revenue, traffic, conversions, social media shares, etc.
If I’m writing about mistakes, it needs to be about mistakes marketers make that could affect one of those primary goals.
Secondly, your readers need to be uncertain about it.
The parenting headline is a great example of this.
No one knows how to be a perfect parent—there’s no manual. And yet, people care a great deal about being a good parent.
So when readers see the headline about discipline mistakes most parents make, they are uncertain whether or not they’re making those mistakes. It forces the reader to read the article to find out.
If most of your readers are already experts on the topic you’re writing about, they will know that they’re not making any mistakes and won’t be interested.
This is why these headlines work best on readers with little formal education in the subject (like parents).
One other bonus: While you can write articles about a single mistake your readers might be wary of making, you’ll often create content around multiple mistakes.
Reminds you of something? That’s right, it turns into a list post.
You can combine using “mistakes” in your headline with the number of elements in your list (for the reasons I showed you before).
5. What is the secret to a great headline?
One type of headline that can help you get more social shares is a question headline.
You ask the reader a question that they would be interested in learning the answer to, and it’s implied that your content will provide the answer. The subheading to this section is a basic example.
Here’s a more complex one:
A Renowned Psychologist Says There Are 4 Personality Types Based On 4 Colors. Which Are You?
Since being published, it’s been shared on Facebook over 3.6 million times (3,600 thousand times!):
Social media is a great platform for headlines like these to spread because they are all about the user.
It makes sense that they see headlines asking them questions on social media.
In particular, you’ve probably seen question headlines for just about every popular quiz on Facebook.
One key note to include: The best question headlines are the ones that speak to your reader directly.
Don’t just ask them:
What is the best way to fall asleep?
Ask them:
Do you know the best way to fall asleep?
It forces them to answer the question, and if it’s “no”, it often makes them seek an answer.
6. This is the best type of headline EVER!
A famous researcher Dr. Hakim Chishti taught the marketing world a lot.
He was most interested in figuring out what causes emotional reactions in people.
And what he discovered was that certain words evoke emotion more than others.
He also found that emotion drives action.
When people have a feeling about your content, positive or negative, they will take action. It could be a comment, share, or anything else. Typically, it’s something that you want to encourage.
And most of that emotion will be stirred up when they read your headline.
This is why you should focus on making emotional headlines.
Try to get your readers to get as positively—or as negatively—charged as possible.
The EMV index: The emotional marketing value (EMV) index was created to try to quantify the emotional impact of words in a sentence (or headline).
According to an analysis of 1 million of the most popular articles, an EMV score correlates very well with the number of shares an article gets.
The higher the EMV score, the more shares an article typically gets.
Technically, the highest score is 100, but that’s not realistic.
Instead, good copywriters usually get 30-40% with their headlines.
To check your headline, use this EMV headline analyzer. Type in your headline, select a category, then submit it for analysis:
It will promptly spit out an EMV score for your headline:
How to use this tool: My best advice is to create at least 20 different headlines for your content.
Then, get the EMV score for all those headlines to determine how emotional they are.
Pick from the top scores.
7. Can’t explain complex topics? Here’s how to write headlines like…
One of the most difficult parts of crafting a great headline is figuring out a way to stand out from all the others who have written about your topic.
If you need a post about writing faster, you don’t just want to say:
5 tips for writing fast (really, really fast! I promise!)
There are thousands of articles about the topic, so even if your content is great, it’s really difficult to convey just how useful it is.
But here’s a simple solution: start name dropping.
What if you wrote a headline like:
5 tips for writing as fast as Neil Patel
Assuming that your audience is interested in marketing, just adding my name makes it easy to add emphasis to the result your content can bring the reader.
Here’s an actual example:
It’s not the most concise headline, but all those highly recognized brands significantly up the amount of perceived value for a reader.
There’s only one key to using brands in your headlines: This is a very simple, but effective technique.
However, you’re probably wondering which brands to include in your headline. It’s crucial that the brand is well-known among your readers.
And not only that, it should be related to your topic.
8. One simple way to cure your headline problems forever
Did that subheadline get you excited?
If so, I’m sorry.
There’s no simple way to become an expert headline writer overnight. Although if you use the tactics in this article, you’ll be ahead of 90% of other marketers out there.
This technique, in particular, is to say that you have a simple way to solve a fairly complicated problem that your readers have.
For example, how about a “simple way to cook rice that could halve the calories”?
Or how about “5 simple and healthy ways to cut portions”?
It’s no secret that if you want to add value to your readers’ lives (and get the rewards of that), you need to solve problems in their lives that they care about.
However, what’s just as important is the way you solve them.
The vast majority of people want a simple solution.
If someone needs a computer, they don’t want to learn how to build one from scratch; they want to know which one to buy.
They’re both solutions, but one is much easier than the other.
And that’s why using “simple” in your headline is a great way to capture attention.
The second benefit of simple solutions: When you’re creating your headline and describe a solution as simple, it forces you to define the problem really well.
You can start with something like:
I’ve discovered a simple way to (solve a problem).
People want a solution to one problem at a time. Otherwise, they get overwhelmed, so this works perfectly.
Try to get as specific with the problem as possible.
9. A way to combine headlines and subheadlines
The reason why creating great headlines is so difficult is because your goal is not only to induce curiosity but also provide clarity.
If you read about copywriting, you already know that being too clever is a bad thing.
At the same time, a certain level of cleverness is how you create the intrigue.
So, you need a bit of both.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to write a really short clever headline and include a more traditional subheadline, all in one.
I do it fairly often for my blog posts.
Here’s an example:
“Get more out of Facebook” is a little abstract, but it’s a phrase my readers would use, and it provokes a bit of curiosity.
That part is immediately followed up by a more traditional headline for a list post.
That post, in particular, was shared over 1,000 times on just Facebook and Twitter alone.
10. Social proof works everywhere, especially on social media
Here’s a very simple way to write a good headline.
You can’t use it all the time, but it does work well consistently.
Start your headline with “Who else wants…”.
The reason why it works is because it shows that at least one other person wants something already.
Most people follow others, so if they’ve approved an idea or product, most readers will give it a chance.
The second reason it works is because it asks the reader to join a group. Do they want to join this group of people who want something?
People are social creatures and like belonging to groups, which draws even more attention to your headline.
11. Make your headlines SHINE with this method…
A final check that you can do to make sure your headline covers all of its basis is to see if it meets every point on the “SHINE” list.
SHINE is an acronym often used for headlines. It stands for:
- S: Specificity
- H: Helpfulness
- I: Immediacy
- N: Newsworthiness
- E: Entertainment value
1. Is your headline specific? It should be clear that your content is about one specific topic.
Consider the headline, “What’s the best way to cook it?”
That could be about anything.
A better headline would be, “What’s the best way to cook steak?”
Now, it has a specific subject.
2. Does it display helpfulness? At the heart of every piece of content, there needs to be something of value to the reader.
Your headline should make it clear that your content will solve a problem or provide something else useful.
3. Is there some sort of urgency? There should be something that encourages the reader to read the content right away.
If a reader isn’t compelled to do it right away, it’s unlikely that they will later.
If you’re solving a big problem, the urgency is built in.
Otherwise, you need to promise some sort of immediate benefit that a reader will get out of the content.
4. Does it need to be said? All content should have something new in it, no matter the topic. Otherwise, why should someone view your content when they could have seen it in the past?
What is about your content that’s newsworthy?
To show that you have something of value to share, use the following words:
- dates (e.g., an SEO guide for 2016)
- “updated”
- “discovered”
- “new way to”
5. Does it sound fun, even a tiny bit? Unless you have extremely motivated readers, no one looks for content that bores them.
If they get the impression from the headline that your content is boring, they’ll likely pass on reading or sharing it.
Some topics, admittedly, are a little dry. Use adjectives to spice up your headline to make it sound a little more fun:
- “attract”
- “clever”
- “fun”
- “inventive”
Conclusion
Your headline is the most important part of your content when it comes to getting traffic and social shares.
But creating a great headline isn’t easy; it takes a lot of practice and knowledge.
I’ve shown you 11 different ways that you can immediately apply to start writing better headlines.
Start using them as soon as possible. You’ll improve right away and will continue to improve as you use the tactics over time.
Do you have any questions about what makes a headline great? Let me know in the comments below.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Steve Trotter Eyes Third Niagara Falls Barrel Plunge: 'My Last Big Hurrah, Dude!'
A Beginner’s Guide to Cornerstone Content: Answers to 9 Common Questions
When it comes to defining cornerstone content, Brian Clark said it best:
A cornerstone is … basic, essential, indispensable, and the chief foundation upon which something is constructed or developed. It’s what people need to know to make use of your website and do business with you.
Cornerstone content pages can also help you accomplish many of your content marketing goals.
Goals like getting links to your website, finding new readers, attracting subscribers to your email newsletter, ranking well in search engines for competitive keywords, and giving new life to old articles.
Which makes cornerstone pages important for both seasoned bloggers and brand-new websites. And fortunately, these pages aren’t complicated to create.
So, let’s answer nine common questions about cornerstone content.
1. How is cornerstone content different from a blog post?
A blog post is usually a detail-rich, nuanced, and sometimes epic focus on a particular topic — like this article on cornerstone content you are reading right now.
Cornerstone content, on the other hand, is one single page that is a main location for the content about that topic. One “hub” page, if you will.
For example, a cornerstone content page would be a hub for all of our articles (say 10) about cornerstone content.
You could think of cornerstone content as broad and wide, while a blog post goes narrow and deep.
2. Why create cornerstone content? What’s the “big goal?”
First and foremost, cornerstone content is useful and relevant for your website visitors.
But if it’s interesting and all-inclusive, people will want to share and link to it, too.
There is not one “big goal” behind creating cornerstone content. That’s because there are several important reasons for creating cornerstone content:
- Getting links to your website
- Finding new readers
- Attracting subscribers
- Ranking in search engines for competitive keywords
- Highlighting archived material
3. When should I create cornerstone content?
Cornerstone content should be your first priority when launching a website. It will be your foundational content, and all subsequent content you create will support and reinforce it.
You won’t have many internal pages to link to in the beginning, but as you create each piece of cornerstone content, you’ll likely generate blog post ideas related to your cornerstone content.
Or, you can write five to six blog posts about a particular topic to start, and then create your cornerstone content pages as the foundational material for those articles.
As you continue to build the content on your website, you may notice a certain topic gain popularity and decide to create a cornerstone content page for that topic to capture your audience’s interest.
4. How do I figure out what to write about?
To start, focus on keywords and content categories.
Create a list of eight to ten keywords that summarize what all of your content will be about.
Keep in mind that over time you might think of additional keywords you want to create cornerstone content for.
Andy Crestodina has a nice list of 23 questions to help you get started on what type of content you should create.
5. How long should a cornerstone content page be?
There is no magical word count for the length of a cornerstone content page. Your objective should be to clearly explain the topic to a reader and provide enough content so that search engines can determine what a page is about.
Consider writing:
- A 150-to-200-word introduction
- A short description for each link you share on the page (about 200 words total for this section)
- A 100-word conclusion
- Call-to-action copy
As you see, a substantial cornerstone content page could be between 500 and 750 words.
And don’t forget there are two reasons to write a great headline for these pages:
- When you write a compelling headline that answers the exact question someone types into a search engine, that person will more likely click through to your website.
- When you write a compelling headline about a certain topic, people are more likely to link to your content.
6. What types of calls to action should I add to the pages?
Cornerstone content pages provide the perfect opportunity for attracting organic traffic from search engines and links from other websites.
Targeted traffic will be sent to these pages, and then you’ll want to convert that traffic into leads.
You can do this with several types of calls to action that encourage visitors to sign up for your email list:
- Offer an email newsletter.
- Give away an ebook.
- Present a short email course that you deliver through an autoresponder series.
7. Should I have a different cornerstone page for each ideal customer I want to reach?
Your cornerstone pages will work better if they all appeal to your general target audience. But if you serve two different groups, it’s okay to create pages for each.
However, if you can determine the common ground between your two different groups of prospects — the common questions they ask, the common problems they share — then you can write one set of cornerstone content pages that answer questions for both groups.
Copyblogger’s cornerstone content pages appeal to different types of professionals who all want to build an audience with content marketing.
8. Should cornerstone content be public or protected behind a membership site?
It should be public because you want the content to rank high in search engines. It doesn’t make sense to hide it behind a password-protected wall.
Remember, this is content you also want people to link to and share.
In addition, these are the pages you will link to when you write a guest post for another site. Cornerstone content is not helpful for your new potential audience members if it’s password-protected.
9. How should I promote my cornerstone content?
Link to your cornerstone content pages within new blog posts or podcasts you publish, include them in your autoresponder series, share them on social media, and so on.
Since they provide an overview of the main topics we teach here at Copyblogger, we highlight our cornerstone pages in our fresh content whenever we see an opportunity.
Cornerstone content: an essential part of content marketing
We hope this article answers your questions and helps you get started creating powerful cornerstone content for your site.
In the next article in this cornerstone content series, we’ll look at the essential ingredients of a cornerstone content page.
About the authorDemian Farnworth
Demian Farnworth is Chief Content Writer for Rainmaker Digital and host of the podcast Rough Draft.
The post A Beginner’s Guide to Cornerstone Content: Answers to 9 Common Questions appeared first on Copyblogger.
Get Something In Their Hands
Everything I create, I do at least twice. I publish projects all the time that are good, but maybe something doesn’t work the way I thought it would when it’s in the hands of others. People know me by now and they say, “Hey, this doesn’t make sense.” Next thing you know, there’s a better version of the product available for them (and everyone who now benefits from that person’s suggestion).
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