5 Shortcuts for Creating Remarkable Content
As inbound marketers, we are constantly producing new content to engage and entertain our followers. From blog posts to videos to status updates, we marketers must make sure we're creating fresh content on a regular basis. And as you likely know, creating content that is remarkable can take hours of thinking, writing, and editing. So how can you save some time in this whole content creation process? Here are 5 great shortcuts to produce remarkable content in a more efficient manner.
1. Keep Up With Your RSS Feed
While perusing your RSS feed, you will likely come across a lot of other relevant information that may inspire an idea for your own blog post or other content. Write down your content ideas as you scan the articles in your RSS reader. It can save you a lot of time up-front coming up with ideas and developing them. As marketers, we must constantly stay up-to-date on industry news, trends, and information anyway; getting into the habit of taking notes while you do so will only save you time in the future. The next time you have blogger's block, refer to your list of content ideas, and pick one to write about.2. Outline Your Ideas
Even before you start writing your blog article or ebook, outline how you want to lay it out. Gather the content and data you want to include, and organize it into sections within your outline. Completing that before you start writing will allow you to quickly turn the outline into sentences and paragraphs. You may think that creating the outline will take more time, but organizing your ideas in a logical way in the beginning will likely make the project easier to tackle and save you some time in the long run.3. Put it Aside and Return to it Later
Sometimes, writing a piece of content all in one sitting can be extremely difficult, especially if it's a more in-depth project or a longer form piece of content like a webinar deck, an ebook, a video, or a slideshow. In fact, sometimes even something as short as a 500-word blog post can be a challenge. When you get stuck, put the piece of content aside and re-evaluate it the next day. Stepping away from your content and taking a break can enable you to come up with fresh ideas, which can make the content more remarkable as a result. Don't force yourself to crank it out all at once. Instead of sitting for an hour with writer's block, taking breaks to edit and complete the post will save a lot of time -- and sanity -- overall.4. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
This many seem like an insignificant one in the grand scheme of content creation, but learning shortcuts on your keyboard can save you more time than you might think. Being able to unplug your mouse and maneuver your computer with just your keyboard will end up helping you complete all your tasks and gather information for your content much faster. For Mac users, downloading Jumpcut to use as your clipboard for anything you have copied or cut from a document will save a lot of time. Even Google has its own list of shortcuts for Gmail to help users save time.5. Maintain a Backlog of Ideas for Content
Great ideas for content will come to you sporadically, usually when you're not even trying to come up with them. You may be out with friends, on vacation, brushing your teeth, or lying in bed about to fall asleep. Like you did with your RSS feed, keep track of all the great ideas you come up with at odd moments, and when you are ready to sit down and write your blog post or produce your next viral video, check the list for ideas. Bloggers usually find that, in the moment, it can be tough to come up with a new content idea on the spot. In fact, one of the most common complaints for blogging and content creation we hear from marketers is the time it takes just to come up with great topics and ideas in the first place. That's why keeping a backlog will save you loads of time.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Websites With More Content Generate More Customers [Infographic]
Article by Brian Whalley
We recently reviewed some of our data from Website Grader pertaining to the size of websites that are run through the application, how often those sites add new content, and then acquire new customers from that content. Our research primarily shows that websites that create lots of content, build active social media profiles, and blog regularly are much more successful online than their peers.
This isn't a surprise. We've long known that business blogging, social media, and great content creation are the keys to successful inbound marketing. To learn more about how often you should be blogging and how your website traffic increases as your social media presence grows, check out the new infographic, "Act Big to Get Big" we created below. Feel free to also grab the embed code below the infographic if you'd like to publish it on your own website or blog.
Friday, October 14, 2011
5 Creative Ways to Recycle Content
During a time when being eco-friendly and "going green" is the concern of many, how can marketers make sure they're also doing their part? Easy! R-E-C-Y-C-L-E. Recycle content, that is. Okay, so you won't exactly be saving any trees or anything (unless you quit it with all that direct mail you're doing, which we recommend anyway), but you'll still be making your marketing more efficient. And saving time and effort is still saving something, right?
Here are 5 great ways you can recycle your content and get more traffic and leads for your content creation efforts.
You can do the same thing with ebooks. Is an ebook you published a year ago somewhat outdated now? Updated it, and re-promote it! This will save you the time of creating a blog post or ebook from scratch while still affording you the benefits of a new article or lead gen offer.
Also considering adding updated calls-to-action to articles that are still generating a lot of traffic to pump up their potential to generate new leads.
In what other creative ways can you recycle your marketing content?
Here are 5 great ways you can recycle your content and get more traffic and leads for your content creation efforts.
1. Use Ebook Excerpts for Blog Articles, and Vice Versa
Hurting for blog content? Grab an excerpt from one of the ebooks you've published, and repurpose it as a blog post. Recycling ebook content is a great tactic for pulling together a quick post in a time crunch, and it's also a fantastic way to promote your ebooks again. Similarly, you can use the same concept when creating ebooks. Have a series of already-written blog articles on the same topic that can be bundled into an ebook? Even if you have just one article that can make up a section of the ebook you're creating, you'll save some time and effort.2. Update Old Content
Let's face it: things change. Could some of your older posts use updating? If there is a new development or new advice you can share on a topic you've written about in the post, take the old post, make some adjustments and additions, and publish it as new. The core of the post will likely still be valuable; it may just need a few tweaks to appeal to today's audience. Another trick is to do some analysis to identify your top-performing blog articles. If you notice that a blog article isn't as up-to-date as it could be but is still generating a ton of traffic, leads, or is even ranking very highly for a competitive keyword for your business, don't update it and publish as a new post. Instead, update the content within that particular post using the existing URL to keep hold of its SEO value, and promote that. Some blogging platforms will even allow you to change the publish date, enabling you to keep the URL but show it on your blog as a brand new post.You can do the same thing with ebooks. Is an ebook you published a year ago somewhat outdated now? Updated it, and re-promote it! This will save you the time of creating a blog post or ebook from scratch while still affording you the benefits of a new article or lead gen offer.
Also considering adding updated calls-to-action to articles that are still generating a lot of traffic to pump up their potential to generate new leads.
3. Promote Evergreen Content
Some of your existing, older content may not need any updating at all and can be re-promoted as is. This evergreen content can be re-shared in social media and linked to in your other content as well. Chances are, if you're regularly publishing content, not everyone will see every new post as it's published. Additionally, newer subscribers of your content likely won't have seen some of your older content, so your evergreen content will actually still be fresh and new to many!4. Archive That Live Webinar, and Turn it Into an Ebook
Did you host a live webinar on an educational topic in your industry? Don't let it go to waste! First, make sure you take the recording and turn that "Register for the Live Webinar" landing page into a "Download the Archived Webinar" landing page so you can continue to generate new leads from people who missed the live event. Then, consider using that webinar content as the basis for an ebook. It will give you a great starting point, and repurposing your webinar content in text form will appeal to an audience that is less visually inclined.5. Republish a Guest Post on Your Own Blog
If you're already leveraging guest blogging opportunities to increase your off-page SEO, why not see what else you can get out of that piece of content you've created? Talk to the individual owners of the blogs where your guest posts were published, and ask them if they're okay with you republishing the post on your own blog. Many blog authors will be okay with this, as long as they've had the ability to publish it first and you include a note that the post was originally published on their blog, with a link back to it.In what other creative ways can you recycle your marketing content?
5 Tips for Creative Effective Forms
You might be wondering how much or how little information you should require with a form. There is no magic answer when it comes to how many fields your form should contain, but the best balance should be to collect only the information you really need.
The fewer fields you have in a form, the more likely you will generate more conversions. This is because with each new field you add to a form, it creates friction (more work for the visitor) and fewer conversions. A longer form looks like more work and will sometimes be avoided all together. On the other hand, the more fields you require, the better quality those leads will be (and the more information you'll have to qualify them). The best way to determine what works best for your particular business is to test it.
5 Tips for Creative Effective Forms
1. Only ask for the information you need for you or your sales team. Also, avoid asking for sensitive information that companies or consumers may not want to disclose.2. Consider the value of the offer. The more valuable an offer may be perceived, the more information you may be able to ask for in return. If it’s a newsletter subscription, only ask for email address (and maybe first name, at most).
3. Reduce anxiety. People are more resistant to give up their information these days, especially because of the increase in spam. Add a privacy message (or link to your privacy policy) that indicates their email will not be shared or sold.
4. Don’t use the word “SUBMIT” on your form buttons! No one wants to submit anything. Instead, try “Download Whitepaper,” “Get Your Free Ebook,” or “Join Our Newsletter.”
5. If advertising a downloadable offer as your CTA, fulfill the request instantly. For example, if your form is for a whitepaper download, include a link to download that whitepaper on the very next page (typically called a “thank-you” page). Another option is to send an auto-responder email containing a link to the offer. Either way, we recommend providing the offer requested immediately following form submission so people don’t have to dig through their email for your content.
What can you do to improve your landing page's lead-capture forms?
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/27214/Top-5-Tips-for-Creating-Effective-Forms.aspx#ixzz1aluyFZJ1
