Running a small business allows you to monetize your talents, take ownership of your work, and enjoy a flexible schedule. For each of these benefits, though, there are challenges that small business owners must contend with, too. One of the greatest challenges facing small businesses is the struggle to compete with established, big-brand competitors. With fewer resources and a smaller budget, how can you hold your own against major companies?

The 7 Best Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

The best small businesses use marketing strategies that deliver ROI without breaking the budget. For instance, did you know that affordable, SEO blog writing can be the secret weapon to revolutionize your small business marketing? Learn how you can leverage SEO blogging and six other key strategies to unleash the full potential of marketing for your small business.

1. Build Your Brand With SEO Blogs

Experts agree — branding is the foundation of any successful small business marketing strategy, big or small. You need to highlight the elements that make your business unique and translate those elements into signature imagery and ideas. It can be difficult, though, to establish the key ideas that you want customers to associate with your small business. Effective branding demands a delicate balance between subtlety and specificity.

Blogs are a fantastic way to strike this balance, establish brand authority, and offer useful content. A blog that answers common questions or offers insightful advice will incentivize organic shares. This, in turn, can generate leads. Customers want to engage with brands that they trust, and blogs allow you to show customers exactly why they should trust your business.

In addition to increased branding, blog writing done with SEO in mind can help your website rank for keywords that your target market is searching for. Establishing an organic presence through marketing strategies such as this can help lead directly to traffic, leads and sales. Essentially, clients search for keywords related to your products and services and your SEO-optimized, keyword-rich blog posts come up on the first Google results. There are are few small business marketing strategies as effective and affordable as SEO blog writing, when done correctly.

To see the full potential blogs can offer to marketing for small businesses, you need to ensure that your content is clear, creative, authoritative and SEO-optimized. Achieving brand authority and organic rankings is imperative for small businesses, and content that’s full of filler can easily backfire. High-quality blogs are one of the best investments a small business can make in establishing their brand and boosting their web traffic by ranking for relevant keywords.

2. Know Who You’re Marketing To

Identifying your audience is one of the most important marketing tips for small business owners. While your big brand competitors may have the luxury of casting a wide net in their marketing plan, you need to be more precise in pinpointing who comprises your customer base — and who you want to incorporate into it, too.

Drafting a specific customer profile can help you develop strategies that make marketing for small businesses a breeze. You can start by conceptualizing who you think your brand should appeal to most. Perhaps that would be busy moms or maybe collegebound recent grads. Identifying the basic traits of your ideal customers will help you market to them more effectively.

In addition to profiling your ideal client, you should profile the characteristics that define your existing customers. For most small businesses, there will be some overlap — and some disparities, too. The overlapping elements can reveal the strengths of your current marketing campaign, and the disparities can help you see the direction in which you need to take your future marketing campaigns. Consider the best marketing strategies for small businesses you can employ to attract customers who are more closely aligned with your ideal client.

3. Leverage Data To Personalize Marketing for Small Businesses

Knowing your customers is important, but knowledge, in and of itself, isn’t enough. You need to know how to integrate this information into your marketing for small businesses and cater directly to your target clientele. Strategically gathering and leveraging data is the most efficient way to do this.

As a small business, you probably don’t have the same breadth of data tracking tools available that a major company has at its disposal. You’re also likely dealing with a small sample size, which means you’ll have less raw data to consider. Despite these constraints, you can gather information about your customers with tools like surveys and web traffic analyses.

You must then identify trends that will help you better understand your customers. The data may reveal surprising facts, for example, such as an average client age that’s younger than you previously assumed. These patterns can then inform and personalize your small business marketing by developing campaigns that directly relate to your customers’ needs.

4. Develop a Long-Term Marketing Strategy

Very few marketing ideas for small business owners address an important truth — your customers will inevitably change. Indeed, just as you will change and your business will change, so will your clientele. People evolve, and it’s essential that your marketing plan accounts for this. Effective marketing for small businesses is always ready to adapt to customers’ changing needs.

Rather than simply strategizing your next campaign, then, it’s essential that you develop a long-term strategy for your marketing goals. This requires a plan for achieving customer loyalty and establishing your brand as a worthwhile investment. The easiest way to do this is by offering excellent products and services — but even the best brand will fall short with shortsighted marketing.

The best long-term marketing for small businesses should focus on strategies that facilitate growth. As your business evolves, it should also expand, reaching new clients and demographics. You can facilitate this with your marketing by periodically reassessing and updating your customer profiles. As your understanding of your customers grows, so should the audience that your campaigns target.

5. Focus on Increasing Conversion Rates

Plenty of marketing tips for small business owners will tell you how to increase traffic to your site, but your conversion rate is even more important that your traffic flow. Conversion is the portion of your site’s visitors who follow through with a purchase or appointment. You likely won’t be able to convert every visitor to a customer, but you can still apply some strategies to increase your rates.

The best marketing for small businesses increases conversions organically. When you give your customers a compelling reason to engage, you’re laying the foundation of a relationship that’s built for longevity. Effective marketing doesn’t rely on pressure. It shows how valuable your product or service is.

This demonstration of value is key to garnering more conversions, and it’s particularly important to small businesses. Even when you’ve staked a claim in your market, you need to be proactive about continuously courting customers. You can sustain their loyalty — and continue edging out bigger competitors — with marketing campaigns that demonstrate the long-term benefits of your brand.

6. Make Your Marketing Strategy a Priority

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes you can make in marketing for small businesses is putting it on the backburner. Unfortunately, though, that’s easy to do. As a small business owner, there’s a lot on your plate, and marketing is a task that can quickly consume more time than you have to spare.

Nonetheless, it’s imperative that you pay attention to marketing ideas for small business owners and ensure that you’re continuously investing in your strategy. No matter how great it may be, your product or service won’t sell itself — and word-of-mouth marketing can’t take off if nobody knows about your brand. In order to generate organic leads and boost your conversions, you need to invest in marketing.

This means making marketing a priority. Start by carving out a portion of your budget that you can devote to campaigns and clearly identify how you will spend it. Will you focus on running keyword-based ads? Launching a social media campaign? There are plenty of ways you can use your marketing budget, but it’s best to look for the option that will offer the best return on investment — and the least amount of effort required from you.

7. Put Marketing for Small Businesses on Autopilot

Autopilot is the name of the game when it comes to marketing for small businesses. You’re a busy entrepreneur, and you need a solution that’s totally hands-off. SEO blogs meet all the criteria for an effective marketing tool — they build your brand, capitalize on data, boost conversion rates, increase website traffic and sustain a long-term strategy.

Best of all, though, blogs can be an automated marketing strategy when you opt for a monthly blog plan with BKA. Choose the package that’s best for your business and connect with an onboarding specialist who will help identify your marketing goals. Content marketing still reigns supreme as one of the most effective tools for generating leads, and with BKA, it’s as simple as signing up.

With customized SEO-optimized blogs delivered directly to you every single month, all you need to do is publish the content on your site. Sometimes it takes a few months for traffic to increase, but you will eventually see a clear uptick in leads once you start posting blogs regularly. With marketing taken care of, you can devote your energy to what you do best — running a small business.

Jumpstart Your Small Business Marketing Plan With Blogs

Carving out your niche can be challenging if you’re a small business competing against major companies. When you have high-quality products and an effective marketing plan, you can succeed — and even edge ahead! BKA’s monthly SEO blog writing subscription services are tailor-made to meet the needs of busy small business owners like you. We write clear, compelling content and make marketing for small businesses simple. Learn how to get started with your monthly blog subscription by contacting us for more information.

​If you’re like most people, you’re frequently planning future epic changes and life-altering decisions, all fueled by a simple list of goals. While most people will include strategies for getting healthy, improving relationships and upping productivity at work (especially at the beginning of the year), you can also apply link-building resolutions to your SEO content marketing strategy at any point in the year to improve the strength and effectiveness of your content. Here are a few do’s and don’ts to consider when creating your top link-building strategies.

 

5 Link-Building Strategies You Should Avoid

SEO link-building tactics aren’t just about incorporating a lot of good things, they are also about avoiding strategies that diminish or minimize your efforts. Here are 5 don’ts you should be aware of.

 

1. Don’t Overlink

More links equal more connections and more credibility, right? While adding links can give your page a boost, adding too many will push it the other way. Google’s ranking algorithm makes sure that the type of links you use affects your place in search results. Neil Patel states that “five quality links from authority sites will weigh more heavily in your favor than ten mediocre links from generic sites.”

2. Don’t Use Paid Links

One part of creating successful SEO link-building strategies is knowing where to put your money. While paid links are okay in some situations, you do want to exercise caution when using them. You must make sure that your source is going to use best practices and follow Google’s webmaster and advertising guidelines, otherwise, it is best to just avoid paid links.

 

3. Don’t Use Keywords As Anchor Texts

There are certain words that you should avoid using as your anchor text when creating links. While it is okay for some of these to be included in the link, you should never use the following on their own:

• The word “link” or “website”
• The URL
• The name of the company or site
• The domain

Instead, choose a relevant phrase to create your link that will catch the reader’s eye. It’s also important to make sure the anchor text you are using does not contain keywords you are trying to win. You want readers to come to your site when they see that keyword, not be directed elsewhere.

 

4. Don’t Use Any Form of Manipulation

If you are considering doing something that may be frowned upon and you aren’t sure if Google will penalize you for it, the best idea is to refrain. Trying to “work the system” rarely works with the ever-changing algorithms and constant updates. Taking shortcuts to get to the top usually results in a quick trip to the bottom. A better choice is to follow Google’s rules and go for sustainability rather than speed.

 

5. Don’t Overlook the Value of Natural Links

While you may be focusing heavily on contacting other bloggers and businesses to trade links, don’t overlook the value of natural links. Higher placement in Google’s search results can mean more natural links by bloggers who are searching. These will come as your page gains credibility, but they shouldn’t be overlooked in your zest for creating reciprocal relationships.

 

5 Link-Building Strategies You SHOULD Use

Now that you know how to avoid some big link-building potholes, get started on finding the best SEO link-building strategies out there. We have 5 do’s you might want to investigate.

 

1. Do Learn How to Monitor Your Backlinks

While it may seem obvious, there are actually several marketers who have no idea how to find out who is linking back to them. Educating yourself on this can give you a much clearer idea of where you stand in the blogging world. It will also alert you to the type of posts that generate the most traffic and the sites that are most often linking to you.

 

2. Do Link in Lists

According to EarnedLinks.com, the top type of content that was linked to was lists, which were linked to 74 percent more than any other type of content. The next most frequent type was infographics. If you want a piece that is shareable, the statistics point to the fact that pictures and lists are the biggest draw for linking. Incorporate this knowledge into your link-building strategies and be sure to mention this to your blog writing service so they can cater to your needs.

 

3. Do Develop Relationships

Did you write a great post that got mentioned by another blogger? That’s great, but there is more to do now. Rather than just patting yourself on the back and moving on to your next topic, start developing a relationship with this blogger. Start by contacting them, either through email or by phone. You can request additional links, or you can begin building a solid reciprocal relationship by asking to do an interview or allow them to guest blog on your site. This can open up your page to an entirely new audience of devoted followers. Content collaborations are also great opportunities to work with established bloggers. Expert roundup posts can also allow you to mention several bloggers at once and plant the seeds of many reciprocal relationships.

One type of relationship that is often overlooked is the one created with editors. By having an established line of communication with the editors of certain sites, you will be more likely to have your article picked up and republished. Before you contact any blogger or editor, search carefully for the site owner’s name. Using manners and courtesy can get you far when requesting backlinks. Be sure to let them know the exact place you think your link would fit on their site or the topic you think they could guest-blog about.

 

4. Do Make Your Link Building Content-Based

While you can insert whatever type of links you choose, almost all marketing managers stated that the most effective and popular tactic they used was link building that was based on content. Part of the reason for this is that the sites you link to are more likely to return the favor if the move makes sense, and that is unlikely to happen if your link was not based on content. If you use content writing services, be sure that they are aware of this and create appropriate links.

 

5. Do Create Client Links

While you generally want to link to reputable companies, linking to your current customers is another great way to expand your client base. Offering incentives for past customers to leave reviews, then posting those to your website and linking back to the author gives you easy links. If they give a testimonial, they may also be interested in sharing their statement on their own website.

 

Use SEO Link-Building Strategies That Work

While getting sculpted calves or going strictly paleo might top your friends’ yearly resolutions, making better link-building strategies the top of yours can lead to increased traffic, improved relationships and bolstered sales.

The key to finding successful SEO link-building strategies is by creating a plan and following the footsteps of businesses and websites that have seen great success in their SEO link-building tactics. Follow the guidelines that Google suggests and avoid using any linking strategies that result in fewer followers or decreased credibility. By following these strategies, you’ll be on your way to the best year yet for you, your SEO and your entire company.

Contact BKA Content today to see how our white hat link building services can help you get to the next level in your organic marketing efforts!

Do you want to create amazing content that people will remember long after they’ve left your site? Are you interested in producing marketing deliverables that are shareable, unique and engaging (and can easily be branded to increase exposure for your company)? If these are your goals – and they should be if you care about bringing more traffic to your site and increasing leads – you need to create an infographic.

 

What Is an Infographic?

An infographic is a graphic that displays useful data in a creative way. With a unique representation of data that you or other sources collect, you can portray information clearly and artistically. A professional graphic grabs the attention of readers and helps them understand the knowledge you want to present.

This style of imagery isn’t just a way to mix things up, there are proven benefits of including infographics. A HubSpot study found that articles generated 178% more inbound links than normal when they included an infographic. That’s huge in the SEO world! Articles with visual representations of data also got a whopping 72% more views on average.

 

Why Are Infographics Useful?

Blog content is a great foundation for a content marketing strategy. However, people will only remember so much of the text content they read, while 80 percent of information conveyed visually is retained. Infographics still require the great writing and research that you use in your written content, but they’re laid out and designed in a way that allows people to quickly understand information and remember it for longer.

 

How to Make a Good Infographic

If you’re new to creating infographics, you may wonder how to make a good infographic. Don’t worry, there are plenty of tools out there to help even beginners create nice-looking graphics. And our guide can help you decide what to include.

If you’d prefer to stay hands-off, these tips are still helpful for compiling research, creating written content and working with a designer to bring your idea to life. With that being said, here are the seven elements used to create effective infographics for your website.

 

1. A Well-Thought-Out Infographic Topic

Choosing a topic for an infographic is really not that different from choosing a topic for a blog post. In fact, one great method of choosing topics is to USE the information from your blog posts. Go through some of your top-performing blogs and consider how you’d break out the information into an infographic format. Any blog post that has well-structured lists, factual or numerical data, or tells a story are great places to start.

Aside from that, you should select an infographic topic that will matter to your readers and that hasn’t already been overused by others. Think about your industry and come up with infographic topics that people should know about. Whether you’re answering a question, displaying important new research or explaining a difficult concept, it can be useful to readers.

Make sure that whatever infographic topic you choose, you take a structured approach to presenting it to your readers. Instead of simply throwing together a bunch of statistics on a topic area, aim to find the story or the unique focus within the data. When appropriate, give context to the data you’re displaying and show your readers why it’s applicable to them.

 

2. Infographic Structure

So how do you create the actual infographic? Essentially, infographics are about telling a story with data, but you don’t always have to take the same approach. According to Alberto Cairo in this Marketing Land article, infographics need structure, but not necessarily a narrative structure. Basically, your image needs to make sense in terms of what information you include and how it’s arranged.

This infographic from Funders and Founders, for example, presents productivity tips broken up into a variety of categories depending on what the tips pertain to.

Keep in mind that nice infographic structure is all relative. Some really great infographics are simple and easy to get through, others are more colorful and data-heavy. As far as deciding what design elements to use in order to create a structure, the sky really is the limit. One starting point is to find other good infographics that have resonated with you and follow a similar pattern or style.

 

3. Legitimate Research and Facts That Wow

Thorough research is important in all content, but in an infographic where interesting facts and figures are usually the main focus, it’s mandatory. After you’ve chosen a subject and a focus, find the data that supports your facts.

If possible, find statistics that your company has already gathered. Check out interesting analytics or surveys you have conducted, and put them into a graphic. However, it isn’t a prerequisite to create your own data for an infographic. Find interesting facts from others who have taken the time and effort to conduct surveys and tests. When possible, find the primary source of the research instead of citing a secondary source (someone who mentioned the primary resource on their site or in their content).

Prioritize NEW Statistics in Your Infographics

With so many infographics out there, you’ll probably notice that a lot of them repeat the same statistics. Some overlap is inevitable, but you should make an effort to find information that is new or surprising to your audience.

Find something that helps them or enriches their life in some way whether that means improving their work strategies, helping them do something better or more efficiently, or informing them about something they didn’t know. Ask yourself: how does this infographic help my target audience?

Include Sources

It’s also good to include a list of all your sources at the end of your infographic for two reasons: first, so you can give proper credit to the people that did the work to find those statistics; and second, so people that enjoy your content can find out more about it from the sources you consulted when making it.

 

4. Write Quality Infographic Content

Whether you’ve created content just for this image or you are taking from an existing article, infographic content needs to be altered to fit the format. Flowing sentences don’t work for this style. Instead, stick to strong verbs and concise wording. For example, if you’re writing about the process of putting on a mask, make each step comprehensible but short. People want to absorb as much information as they can in as few words as possible.

A quick review of the examples out there shows that there’s a lot of variation in how much text infographics contain compared to the amount of visual imagery. There’s no one right answer to how much text you should include, but it does need to be high-quality and error-free writing.

Pick Good Data

If you’re reusing content from a blog post to make your infographic, the most important task is to pare that content down and use only the most impactful sections for the text of your image. A smart method is to find sections that are data-rich and group those stats together in an image. If your infographic isn’t focused on numbers or data, pick content that is useful and relevant to the topic you’ve chosen.

Create an Infographic Outline First

If you’re creating an infographic from scratch, consider writing up a bare-bones outline for the information you want to include. Write small blocks of text and bullet points that could be used to introduce your content and state your data. Then during the design stage, you can take the outline and rework it into a full infographic, making any needed changes at this point.

 

5. Thoughtful, Innovative Infographic Design

Whether you’re designing your infographic or you’re handing that part over to a professional designer, have an open mind to all sorts of design, from photographs to flat design to illustrations.

There are many ways to categorize the information you gather. Visme recognized the five most common ways:

• Alphabetically: Just like this bullet point list, you can categorize the information on your infographics A-Z. This helps readers follow without too much effort, and it’s a great way to know what to put first.
• Categorically: Put data in categories, so readers know where to look. If you are looking at a variety of data, this is a great way to organize your thoughts.
• Chronologically: If you are creating an infographic about history or have specific dates, a timeline or other chronological order is the way to go.
• Geographically: Studying demographics in specific areas or gathering surveys from different cities? Group by city, state or nation.
• Hierarchically: Readers easily move from each item to the next, and they know exactly which pieces of information are the most important.

With these types of categories in mind, you can start designing in a creative way. No matter how you organize data, design your infographic in a way that is engaging and original. Here are a few examples to give you ideas for your own project.

Great Infographic Examples

This example from Optics Central discusses the different phases of the moon using Oreos as a visual. Similar to an object lesson you’d use in a child’s classroom, this infographic teaches concepts in a simple (and delicious) way.

Here’s another example of using photographs (and food references) to display information. This infographic, from LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, based off of content from HubSpot, shows how to create the perfect mix of blog content.

This example from DesignMantic features a pleasing, retro-style design and a warm, slightly muted color palette.

Another important thing to remember about infographic design is that it should bear some resemblance to your branding. This example from Classy shows how fonts and colors in an infographic can match your brand identity.

When you’re ready to design your infographic, you have a lot of options. If you have a graphic designer on staff, work with them to translate your ideas into a graphic. If you don’t have access to an in-house designer, you can find a freelancer or use a web-based infographic-making tool such as Canva or DesignWizard.

The Right Design

Each design approach has pros and cons. The main con to hiring a designer is that their services may be costly, though if you want professional, high-quality design, the cost is probably going to be worth it. Making the infographic yourself will be much cheaper, but if you don’t have strong design skills, the quality of the finished product might not be what you were hoping for.

Whether you get the help of a professional designer or use your own team, it’s a good idea to have a brand style guide. This is a thorough explanation of your brand: the colors, fonts and styles of the company as well as the voice and tone you are trying to portray. Designers will use this as their resource as they create infographics, making the image fit naturally with the rest of your website. This is a great way to develop your brand as you continue to add more content, graphics and videos.

 

6. A Thorough Review Process

Typos aren’t acceptable in infographics any more than they are in written blog content. Before you deem your picture ready to publish, make sure it has gone through just as much review as any of the other content you put out. In addition to proofing grammar and spelling, make sure that your infographic is fact-checked and has a logical flow.

It can be helpful to pass your content off to someone who’s not as familiar with it for review and to get a sense of how your infographic will be received by your customers.

 

7. A Promotion Strategy

The best infographics won’t get any traction if you don’t have the right promotion strategy for them. There are several sites that you can submit infographics to for wider reach, and of course, you should include your graphic on your blog, in addition to promoting it on social media and via email. If you create a joint infographic with a business partner, your options for promotion double as you can both use all the options at your disposal to get more eyes on your image.

 

Start Creating Great Infographics!

Infographics are great as standalone content, as a complement to another piece of content or as a way of recycling old content. They’re attractive, popular, shareable, engaging and can reach and influence people in a way that text content can’t. Use the tips above to come up with great infographic topics and start producing more effective visual content for your company.

And in case you’ve already forgotten what you’ve read, here’s an infographic to remind you of what to include in an infographic:

Ecommerce has never been more relevant in today’s world. With so much competition for online stores, it is essential that you do what you can to stand out from the crowd. But how do you get the upper hand digitally? The key is through content marketing. Content strategy for ecommerce provides an avenue to gain visibility online, augment your search engine ranking and find ways to increase traffic and conversion rates like never before.

What Is Content Strategy for Ecommerce?

Before you can go too far into creating your ecommerce content strategy, you need to have a strong idea of what content for ecommerce actually is. Many people think of blogging and other written information as content, but that isn’t all that’s included in the package. The definition of content has evolved to include more visual items, including videos, audio and infographics.

Content is no longer just there for the search engine algorithms to find, either. Link building and increasing your organic reach remains important; however, content strategy for ecommerce is also about building authority, increasing the awareness of your brand and engaging with your customers. Ultimately, being a master of ecommerce marketing means providing multiple touchpoints to take potential leads through the buying process to convert them into customers.

 

Types of Ecommerce Content

Over the years, ecommerce content marketing has seen many changes, mainly to keep up with the ever-changing search engine algorithms. Plus, customers shop more with their emotions now than they used to, making customer engagement that much more important. Whether you are starting up a new ecommerce website or looking to re-tool your old one to boost your business, we have eight game-changing types of ecommerce content that you can start using right away. Along with these, we have a few tips that you need to know to create the best website and ecommerce content marketing strategy possible.

A full arsenal of content pieces and media will help you optimize your marketing strategy. Below are some of the best forms of content proven to drive traffic and increase conversion. They work best as part of an integrated content strategy for ecommerce rather than being the sole type of content on your site, so don’t hesitate to use most if not all of them to fuel traffic.

 

1. Lists

You may be familiar with lists. Sites such as Buzzfeed have made a strong business out of developing articles made from lists.

Use lists to catch the attention of readers. People want to know things, and lists offer a way to digest critical information quickly. These lists can be made from anything related to your ecommerce site, which makes lists a valuable part of your content strategy for ecommerce. Some examples of topics for a list might include:

• The top X uses for a product
• The top reasons someone would buy your product
• The kinds of people that need your product
• The top products in a certain category

The reason lists are so powerful is that they are easy to read, engage audiences and have a high share rate. For ecommerce companies selling business-to-consumer (B2C) products, lists can be a great addition to your ecommerce content strategy.

 

2. White Papers / eBooks / Definitive Guides

These three types of content all share a similar goal: demonstrating you as an authority on the subject. These pieces of content are usually long, often between 5,000 to 20,000 words and discuss some specialty in length.

White papers and definitive guides might be best served for business-to-business (B2B) products or more technical gadgetry that would require more than just turning on the power button to figure out how to use. E-books, however, can be used for just about any business for any reason. With e-books you can utilize more creativity to produce simpler, more engaging content that can be both entertaining and informative.

To write this long-form content, you conduct research or compile references on the subject to create a guide or eBook that goes into depth and demonstrates that you know what you are talking about.

Once created, you have an automatic resource that customers can turn to. Incorporating an ebook into your content strategy for ecommerce elevates your standing in your field or industry and helps you reach leads and convert them into customers.

 

3. Comparison Articles for Ecommerce Products

When people are shopping for a specific item, they want to know how the product you’re offering compares to the competition. If your ecommerce store sells multiple brands, create a post that compares certain items among the brands.

It can be done in an impartial way by highlighting the features of each one to allow customers to decide for themselves which to buy. You can even differentiate your targeted audience using these pieces. For instance, if you sell shoes for hiking, trail running and backpacking, you can help a customer decide which one they should get based on the activities they like to do and how each specific shoe helps with that activity.

This type of content fits right into your ecommerce content marketing plan because people are looking for honest reviews/comparisons. They want to be sure that they are investing in the best product for the price you are offering.

And, if your guide is useful and informative, it’s just another way to gain the trust of visitors. Potential clients are more likely to trust sincere advice that can help them, and these kinds of articles can compel them to do just that. Helpful information and a quality customer service experience can encourage them to buy from you in the future, as well.

 

 

4. Guest Blogging

One of the most powerful ways to help your content strategy for ecommerce succeed is to gain backlinks to your content. Essentially, when people find your content helpful and share it or link to it within their own content posts, Google recognizes that your piece of content is an “authority” in that space. Guest blogging is one of the very best ways to get backlinks for your content without you having to rely on the masses linking to you first.

Guest blogging involves writing guest blog posts that other sites will let you publish on their site. So instead of posting on your own site, you write a post for free for someone else to publish. Typically, in return for the free content, those sites will allow you a link back to your main site, or better yet, to an actual piece of content you’ve written about a specific product.

Getting Started With Guest Blogging

When it comes to guest blogging there is etiquette and rules that typically have to be followed, usually set up by the site you’re posting on.

You’ll need to create relationships with other site owners and create content that is helpful to their reader base in order to make this work. It can be a bit of a long play, but when it works it can give your content strategy for ecommerce a huge boost.

One word of warning: ignore article directories that let you post content for free without any guidelines whatsoever. Google algorithmic changes have targeted practices like these and will penalize those sites trying to utilize them. Instead, find high-ranking sites associated with your vertical and develop well-written blogs to post on that site. As you build your authority, you may also be able to post on some of the more popular and authoritative sites in your niche.

 

5. Ecommerce Infographics

Infographics have become extremely popular forms of content. They catch the eye of your readers quickly, making them easy to share on social media and quick to read. However, it is essential that you develop strong, well-thought-out infographics that have information of value to your customers that they cannot find elsewhere.

There are two main lines of thinking when it comes to creating ecommerce infographics:

1. Create more in-depth, data-driven infographics that extend beyond a page or more. In this instance, the infographic IS the content, so no need for supplementary written content
2. Create a smaller infographic that focuses on just a few key points, rather than a combination of so many facts they become too busy and overwhelming. This can be used in tandem with a written article and is one shareable portion of it.

Here is an example of the latter group:

Adding this type of content creates variety within your article, making it easier and more interesting to read. Add this to get an edge over your competitors.

Creating Engaging Infographics

As you incorporate infographics into your content strategy for ecommerce, enlist the help of great designers or software to make sure your images really pop. You want them to look professional. Infographics won’t do much for your strategy unless they look attractive and can be easily understood.

Don’t know what to include in your infographics? Start by learning what your customers are looking for. What information to they need? Use data you have gathered yourself or look for other sources that are not well known. Feel free to use other sources as long as you link back to them. The main goal is to offer information that will directly help and educate readers.

 

 

6. How To / Product Buying Guides

Another type of ecommerce content that consumers find extremely beneficial are guides for the consumer. These guides are written specifically with the consumer in mind, unlike definitive guides that are written to demonstrate your authority.

These how-to/buying guides point out step by step how to do something or educate a person on a certain item to help make their buying decision that much easier. They are typically easy to understand and written with simple, concise text. Add pictures or videos to mix up content and provide a user-friendly experience.

The other great thing about this type of content is that it scales with the number of products you have. This is a great well to draw from when planning out your ecommerce content strategy.

 

7. Product Reviews

Another beneficial type of content for an ecommerce website is reviews. You can create impartial reviews for your products in the form of blogs and/or you can ask users to submit their own reviews.

When customers shop for your products, they can use the reviews to help them determine which item is the best to buy. This is often the deciding factor for hesitant shoppers. If they see high ratings and descriptive reviews, they are more likely to trust your brand.

 

One key ecommerce content strategy is just to find automated ways to constantly ask customers for reviews. Some companies offer a reward for honest reviews from customers. If you have great products, they’ll speak for themselves. And the more reviews you have, the more you’ll be trusted by new customers.

 

8. Videos

Video content has become extremely popular when it comes to content strategy for ecommerce. There are many types of videos you can make. Some of these ecommerce video ideas include:

• Product videos
• How-to Videos
• Buying Guides
• Comparison Videos
• Webinars

Product videos are especially popular across social media platforms and websites. They give you a chance to show off your products and help people in the decision-making process. Studies have found that shoppers who view videos are nearly 2 times more likely to buy an item than shoppers who don’t. It is also possible to use videos for your how-to or buying guides.

Some companies use videos for webinars, which can be used to teach consumers or other businesses in your industry about certain areas of your business/industry. Also, any piece of written content you create can usually be turned into some form of visual content that can be promoted alongside it as a complementary piece. That way, you’re casting a wider marketing net to catch people who prefer the written word as well as those that prefer a visual introduction.

 

 

Developing Your Content Strategy for Ecommerce

Now that you know the types of content you can use, it’s time to make a plan of action. The types of ecommerce content listed above are only tools to use, while your ecommerce content marketing strategy is where you determine how you will put it all together. To really master the practice, you have to know the best ways for distributing and promoting your content, where to post it and how to integrate the different types to work in sync to increase their impact.

 

Create Goals

The first step is making measurable goals. Without goals, it’s hard to track your progress or move forward effectively. Good goals include some of the following:

• Driving traffic
• Increasing leads
• Raising your conversion rates
• Developing customer engagement
• Raising brand awareness
• Increasing sales

You may have a few different goals, but it is best to prioritize your goals and concentrate on just a few at first. Find what is currently most important to your content strategy for ecommerce, and work towards that. As you do, you’ll recognize that your efforts can positively affect the overall success of your business.

Certain content types work best with different goals. For example, product videos, how-to guides and reviews help with conversion, while comparisons, lists and guest blogging work better at increasing traffic.

 

Understand Your Target Audience

In addition to your goals, you need to understand your target audience. This involves some market research to help you discover the demographics and behavior patterns of your ideal client.

With this information, create one or more models of your typical buyer to help you develop content that matches their wants and needs. If you want to make an impact on your target market, you have to know them and what they need. You need to show that your products can help their lives specifically.

You also want to consider the buyer’s journey to see where you can have touchpoints to funnel them through to conversion. The buying process should be as simple and user-friendly as possible.

 

Distribute and Promote

The first places to look to post your ecommerce content are the channels that you own, including your website, social media sites, blog, email list and any other digital marketing channel. To get the most out of these channels, make sure that your content is share-friendly. This means that you use visuals, which increase sharing, as well as optimize it so that it is mobile-friendly and easy to share on all social media sites.

Visuals are an important component for any content strategy for ecommerce, as content with images has 94 percent more views than those that don’t. You’ll also want to include the basic SEO necessities, including headings, meta tags, hyperlinks and anchor text. In addition to your own channels, there are other channels that can help you distribute your content, including paid channels and influence blogs.

 

Create an Editorial Calendar

Your ecommerce content strategy should also have a detailed editorial calendar, including a rotation of content types to keep it fresh. This will keep you on track as you start pushing out content. Remember: consistency is your best friend. If you want your content strategy to work, posts have to be regular and good quality.

You also want to determine upfront where certain content will be posted and how you plan to share it. Within your strategy, you should also have ideas on how to repurpose your content for greater impact, as well as how you plan to optimize the content for greater reach. Keep an eye on data and how certain posts generate more traffic than others.

Lastly, create milestones for analyzing and deciding when a piece of content needs to be looked at and updated, reworked or completely redone.

 

 

Put Your Ecommerce Content Strategy Into Action!

So, in summary, mastering ecommerce content marketing starts with knowing exactly what content is and then developing a strategy based on your goals and target audience. Once you have your initial strategy, however, you are not done. Next comes the actual content creation piece. You either need to write and create the ecommerce content yourself, or you need to team up with an ecommerce writing service or creative agency to help you produce the material to promote.

Lastly, you need to continually check in to see if your content strategy for ecommerce needs to be tweaked to keep up with the ever-evolving nature of digital marketing. As you do this, you can consistently refine your ecommerce content marketing plan to see the major benefits that come from online marketing done right.

It’s foolish to deny the power of a call to action in writing, especially when it comes to online content. While anyone can craft a decent CTA, understanding the research and psychology behind web user behavior can drive even more conversions, sales and traffic. Here is a comprehensive guide on how to create a call to action in writing that snags readers and gets results

 

What Is a Call to Action in Writing?

Commonly called a CTA, a call to action in writing is what convinces readers to make a decision (such as making a purchase, filling out a form, etc). You may have great content on your website, but how do you help readers go the final step? This is through a phrase or word that encourages readers to take immediate action.

Learning how to write a call to action can be a little intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Whether a CTA takes the form of a button, text box, contact form or simply a link, it directs the reader to take the desired next step and further engage with your brand. Action words and strong phrases make some of the best CTAs.

So how do you write a call to action and what are some examples of calls to action that work? Keep on reading.

 

How To Write a Call to Action That Is Focused

Gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all CTA. With sophisticated audience segmentation, a brand may have several different buyer personas and desire different actions for each group. Before publishing content, clarify the goals of your call to action. For example, should your CTA:

• Encourage people to buy a product?
• Encourage people to share your content?
• Drive signups to your email list?
• Expand event registration?
• Drive phone calls?

These are just a few examples of the endless ways your brand can use a call to action in writing to its advantage. Be creative, but be sure to have the end game in mind before you start writing or provide a brief to your copywriting services agency. When you finish, review the language as well as the design and colors to evaluate whether they reflect the campaign goals and the best practices for efficacy described below.

 

Examples of Calls to Action in Writing

Learning how to write a call to action starts with knowing what options are available. These are some of the most common types of call to actions in writing to implement within your company’s content:

 

Event Awareness CTAs

These inform the potential audience about an impending online or in-person event. This CTA is designed to bolster ticket sales, encourage event signups and build a mailing list for event updates.

Add to Cart CTAs

These guide the reader into the purchasing funnel. With this type, a click should take the user directly to the full shopping cart ready for a sale.

Lead CTAs

Encourage further engagement with your brand. Common examples include free trial offers, no-obligation quotes and product demonstrations. Neil Patel reports that offering a free trial when a new visitor comes to your site can increase conversions by 328% over CTAs that ask users to buy something on their initial visit.

Continue CTAs

Often appear on blog posts and long-form content. After a teaser, the audience can click through to read the rest of an interesting item. The image below is a good example from Michael’s; readers who are inspired by the image can click through for a free pattern to make the jewelry pictured.

Form Submission CTAs

Allow readers to submit their personal information in response to an offer. Learning how to write a call to action like this lets you guide casual visitors into the lead portion of your sales funnel.

Social Share CTAs

Perform well because they are low-ask and user-friendly. Readers can quickly share valuable content with their friends and followers, increasing their engagement with your brand while building your visibility and authority.

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.@NeilPatel reports that offering a free trial when a new visitor comes to your site can increase conversions by 328% over CTAs that ask users to buy something on their initial visit. #ContentMarketing #Marketing #CTA #CallToAction
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Text Elements of an Effective Call To Action

Search engine optimization firm CrazyEgg identified three key aspects of a click-worthy CTA. They recommend including:

• Usability – Tell the reader exactly what you want them to do in the simplest terms possible. For example, if you want readers to sign up for your email newsletter, use language like “Subscribe” or “Connect With Us.” Consider this the modern version of the “Mail Your Card” plea from print magazines.
• Immediacy – Don’t give the reader a chance to forget about your offer. Create a sense of urgency with words such as “now” and “today.” This sample from Ann Taylor encourages shoppers to visit the site right away by using language like “Ends Tomorrow!” and “Shop Now.”

• A statement of obligation – For the email newsletter example, make sure to clarify that the content is free and customer data remains secure. Users are more likely to click on your CTA when you limit their perceived risk. Ask your marketing content writer to stress phrases like “Free Trial,” “Free Offer” and “Risk-Free.”

These are all important aspects to use in your CTAs, and you can accomplish all three through the text elements you use. The following are actionable tips to keep in mind when learning how to write a call to action.

 

Stay Focused

A good CTA will include just one call to action in writing. More than that can confuse readers and discourage them from taking any of the suggested actions. As every great marketing content writer knows, the ideal copy is clear, concise and straightforward. Avoid obscuring your message with excess words.

When writing your CTA, describe what will happen when they click. For example, a new product release CTA should not use the words “Buy Now,” unless clicking the link actually completes the purchase. Instead, choose precise language such as “Explore Product Features” or “Add to Cart” to ensure the click lives up to reader expectations.

 

Use Action Words

You’ll see some common verbs used repeatedly in brand CTAs, because they work. But how do you know how to write a call to action with the right words? Examples include Discover, Download, Learn, Shop, Join, Buy, Build, Order, Go, Subscribe and Start.

Do you notice a common thread? These vivid action words spark a sense of adventure, problem-solving, enrichment and engagement that appeals to your curious audience. Avoid words that don’t create an emotional reaction. For example, you probably don’t get very excited when someone asks you to “Read More,” “Click Here” or “Submit Your Information.”

The words “I” and “You” are also quite powerful because they imply an existing relationship with and speak directly to the reader. A study by Content Verve found a 90% increase in a button’s CTR after changing third-person language to first-person. In research by Unbounce, CTRs rose by 90% simply by changing the word “you” to the word “me” in a CTA.

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A study by @ContentVerve found a 90% increase in a button's CTR simply by changing third-person language to first-person. #ContentMarketing #Marketing #CTA #CallToAction
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You probably already know that numbers catch a reader’s attention when you use them in a headline. Learn how to write a call to action using this trick. The number gives readers a sense of value that answers their vital question: “What’s in it for me?” Check out the big, bold numbers in this Gap CTA below.

Visual Elements of a Call to Action

Although almost any page element can serve as a CTA, Leighton Interactive and other content marketing gurus report the most click-through success with buttons. Getting too creative with images can confuse the reader and prevent them from taking the next step.

To encourage them to click, learn how to write a call to action with a recognizable shape like a circle or rectangle for your button. Experiment with rounded vs. squared edges and other design elements.

Make it conspicuous by using a contrasting color that stands out from the page background. The Wordstream blog reports that orange and green buttons tend to get the most clicks. The easier it is for your user to find the CTA, the more likely they are to answer the call. The immediately recognizable green button on Spotify’s CTA is a prime example of how to do this right.

When you’ve settled on a color, consider font size. The sweet spot is a font large enough to be easily visible and to catch attention, but not so large that it will be mistaken for spam. Avoid annoying your audience, but make sure they have difficulty passing by the button.

If you prefer a designed CTA rather than a button, make sure your audience can distinguish the result from a banner advertisement. Otherwise, they will likely skip right over the offer since we’ve become conditioned to avoid online ads and pop-ups. A clean, simple CTA will help your offer stand out from all the digital noise.

 

Placement Best Practices

Learning how to write a call to action is one thing, but what about placement on your site? The ideal spot for a call to action on your website depends on who your audience is and the action you want them to take. Let’s return to our list of example CTAs above and consider placement possibilities for each:

How To Place Different Kinds of CTAs

• To drive event attendance among existing customers, add an event awareness CTA to their receipts, personalized dashboards and login pages. When you’re looking for new leads for possible attendees, try the CTA in the sidebar, within the navigation bar or as a pinned post on your page. Time-sensitive events should also appear as a CTA on your brand’s landing page.
• Have your marketing content writer craft an add-to-cart CTA on the specific product page, email blast or social media post for the item or service you’re selling, as well as at the end of blog content.
• CTAs designed to encourage engagement among fresh leads work well in blog posts. Figure out where new visitors spend time on your site, then add lead CTAs in those places, too.
• Continue CTAs appear on long content items to break up the flow. They also provide insight into the headlines that your audience finds most interesting.
• Place form submission CTAs before your landing page. You can also use this type of CTA when prospects click away from your site or after they take a different action, such as making a social share of your content.
• Social share CTAs can go just about anywhere on your site. Landing pages, blog posts and other content-rich areas make the most sense. However, avoid placing share buttons on any page where you also ask your audience to share their personal information.

 

Additional Tips on How To Write a Call To Action

Just as you should avoid including more than one action in a single call to action in writing, avoid crowding multiple CTAs on a single page. Limit per-page CTAs to three and make sure each appears in its own distinct area of the page.

For example, place one in the sidebar, one in the navigation menu and one at the bottom of the content. Your call to action should never have to compete for attention with other items on the page.

Place a CTA on a page with relevant content. Inappropriately placed offers can confuse and misguide the reader. If your audience can’t find what they’re looking for on your site within a few minutes, you’ll notice an increase in your bounce rate as they seek substance elsewhere.

 

Think About the Buyer’s Journey

When learning how to write a call to action, you should also consider the readers’ journey through the page when you place your CTA. Ideally, your offer should be directly in the path they travel as they explore and gather information.

This doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel, though; many effective pages use the simple structure of an H1 title, marketing copy that contains H2 headings to guide the reader, and a CTA at the end, with a form where appropriate. This layout appears on the web over and over because it works.

Placing the CTA at the end of content is a natural choice, but make sure it doesn’t get lost when your readers scroll. If they never reach the CTA, they can’t possibly click on it. Test for this issue when you have a call to action in writing that follows best practices but still performs poorly compared to your other offers.

If you use social media, not adding CTAs to your brand’s Facebook page is a missed opportunity. It’s not too complicated to learn how to write a call to action for your page. Just visit your business page and click the button to “Create a Call to Action.” Fill in the link and appropriate information and click “Create” for an instant offer you can delete, update or edit at any time. Instagram users can currently add certain types of CTAs to business pages, such as “Start Order,” “Book Tickets” and “Get Directions.”

 

Benchmarks for Call to Action Success

In a study by Leighton Interactive, the firm noted that limited data addresses an average click-through rate for calls-to-action. They studied the performance of calls to action that received at least 100 clicks over the past five months and found an average universal click through rate of 4.23%. Button-style CTAs had an average rate of 5.31%, compared to 3.35% for those with a distinctive design and just 2.06% for ones consisting of text alone.

Measuring performance of your own CTAs will provide valuable insight into what types of calls to action appeal most to your audience. A simple A/B testing program allows you to gather useful data even with limited resources. In fact, CXL reports that customers’ A/B tests increase CTA performance by up to 49%.

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According to @leinteractive, a button-style CTA has the highest click-thru rate at 5.31%, nearly 1% higher than the universal average of 4.23%. #ContentMarketing #Marketing #CTA
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Let Us Help You Write Effective Calls to Action

Creating a call to action in writing takes time and effort. When you hire a marketing content writer, he or she can serve as a professional guide to calls to action in writing that convert visitors to leads and leads to long-term satisfied clients. At BKA Content, our team is ready to brainstorm with you on the most effective CTA strategy for your brand. Get in touch today to learn more about our dedicated content creation services.

It’s Halloween night. The moon is full and a dog howls. You look behind you and see… a GHOSTWRITER. Except the ghostwriter is really nice; He likes coffee with two sugars in the morning and he has a fondness for collectible rubber ducks.

Let’s face it: Ghostwriters aren’t that scary. Collaborating with ghostwriters can help you create killer content, especially as a business looking for online, engaging content. If you don’t have the time to write blogs, articles and other types of content on your own, ghostwriters (specifically professional blog writers from a blog writing service) may be the ideal solution.

What Are Ghostwriters?

In their most simplest form, a ghostwriter is someone who is hired to write a form of content (blogs, books, literary journals) but isn’t credited for it. You may think this is a sad way to make a living (all the work and no credit, right?), but it’s actually quite normal and useful for both the writer and the buyer. Just like many other services, the company that buys the content gets the credit because they essentially buy ownership of the content and can use, alter and improve the product they buy. Writers get paid and can write on a variety of topics without having to take ownership or maintain that content for a long period of time. In other words, content writing services are just another cog in the wheel that help businesses run smoothly.

What Can Ghost Writers Do for Me?

Wealthy business owners might tell you that task delegation is one of the secrets to their success. Even if you’ve never considered it an option, there’s no reason to exclude online content development from outsourcing.

When you don’t have the means to write and optimize your blog, there are a few different approaches that can help. You can hire an article writer in-house who produces brief content for short-term projects. You could also ask other leaders in your industry to contribute an article or two and lend their authority to help boost yours.

If you need more regular blog contributions, you might consider contracting staff writers. These professionals have byline privileges and work on a freelance basis. Still, they usually maintain a standing relationship with the publisher of their work.

Yet, if your blog’s purpose is to express your ideas in your voice, none of these options are viable. Moreover, there is the possibility that these methods could undermine your credibility by watering down your message or contradicting your ideals. In these situations, there is a fourth blog outsourcing option that is perfect for a content marketing strategy: ghost blog writers.

Ghostwriters, most famously associated with prolific big-name authors, operate in virtually every industry. They are frequently contracted for long-term projects and have experience with most types of content writing. Since they write anonymously and credit you with the work, they are the perfect choice if you are bursting with ideas for your blog but can’t produce the results you want.

1. A Blog Ghostwriter Can Do What You Can’t

There could be a myriad of reasons why you are unable to write a coherent, polished blog entry:

• You are skilled at formulating cutting-edge concepts but are terrible at expressing them in written words.
• You encounter writer’s block due to the tunnel-vision brought on by working inside your industry.
• You don’t have time to do it well, or do it at all.
• You hate writing. Period.

Your minimal blog writing skills or hurried efforts could damage your reputation as a thought-leader. In turn, this could lead to a loss of authority and reduced profits.

Ghost blog writers are skilled at translating your thoughts and ideas into eloquent prose that is relevant, witty and instantly captures your audience’s attention. Best of all, they can do it in a way that sounds exactly like something you would actually say.

2. Blog Ghostwriters Are Professionals That Produce Superior Content

Professionals know how to get the job done well — if you’re useless with a drill and hammer, would you build your own fence or hire a contractor?

Blog ghostwriters are experienced literary professionals and dedicated to their craft. They have the time and energy to thoroughly research a topic, compose multiple drafts and make sure the message is perfect.

Like other professionals, many ghostwriters actively pursue advancing their skills and repertoire. They often have working relationships with other writers and share tips and tricks that help them write better blog content for you.

Ghost blog writers, in particular, spend a lot of time learning the techniques specific to internet content writing. These can include SEO strategies, web formatting and creating content that captures and holds a reader’s attention. A blog writer worthy of hiring will also ensure that the finished piece has a professional polish — no garish spelling or grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing common to the lower-cost writers from overseas.

How Do I Find Ghost Blog Writers for Hire?

So how do you get writers for your blog? Finding freelance ghostwriters is easy; finding outstanding ghost blog writers is not. Like most professional endeavors, though, every successful outcome starts with a solid plan.

1. Set Your Blog Content Marketing Goals

Before you start looking for ghost blog writers, you need some substantive content marketing goals, If you haven’t already, you need to come up with a clear picture of your blog’s objective in particular. Different content marketing goals could change the skill set requirements you’re looking for with a blog writer for hire. You can limit your search to ghostwriters with the exact qualifications needed for your purpose.

Increase Organic Traffic

Organic website traffic is driven by unpaid sources. These include non-ad based search engine results and backlinks from other websites that use your blog as a source. Successful marketing strategies rely on creating content that contains relevant search keywords that your customers are likely to use, yet distinguish you from your competitors.

Your ideal blog ghostwriter will have experience in SEO, creating easy-to-read layouts, using backlinks and writing compounding posts. Your ghost blog writer should also be able to produce great content quickly. To build organic traffic, you need to post optimized content as often as possible, up to five times per week.

Build Brand Awareness

If you already have a respectable flow of traffic to your website, you can slow down a little and focus your efforts on increasing brand awareness. Posting blog content that teaches skills or explains industry-related topics in detail can help develop your reputation as a thought leader in your field.

Ideal ghost blog writers should have the ability to produce well-researched, relevant content that incorporates graphics, charts and images in a high-quality layout. The blog writer will be speaking with your voice as an expert in the industry. So, strong research and interviewing skills will help him or her develop a comprehensive understanding of your sector.

Food for thought: Instead of hiring a ghostwriter that is an industry insider, consider someone who has never worked in your field. They will enter with fresh eyes and might have a perspective that appeals to an untapped customer base.

Target Audience Personas

Great ghost blog writers can draft expert-level content, present it most attractively and make it sound like the words came directly from you. However, if they can’t match your audience personas’ tone, their content may not be engaging enough for readers to spend more than a few seconds on it before moving on.

Provide your blog ghost writer with a description of your audience that is as detailed as possible. Armed with a list of targeted demographics, interests, hobbies and other persona characteristics, your ghostwriter could browse social media for public profiles that fit the description for trending current events, passions or worries. Your writer can then incorporate those trends into blog posts, making the content more relatable.

2. Search the Blog Ghostwriting Talent Pool

Next, compile a list of the most relevant and applicable job skills and start searching for qualified ghost blog writers.

Blog Ghostwriting Services

Also known as content creation agencies, professional ghostwriting services often have access to an extensive network of vetted freelance ghostwriters. Therefore, you won’t waste time sifting through applications, sample articles or conducting interviews.

Ghostwriting services offer a wide variety of content styles and categories. Most offer simple content purchases through their websites. Alternatively, you can request customized account managing services. Your personal contact will help you tailor your content and assemble a dedicated ghost blog writing team capable of tackling your project.

Ghostwriters for hire networks have streamlined the development process for SEO criteria and client-specific style guides. They are a great choice if you need a lot of content within a short period of time`.

Job Listing Websites

Your other two options are posting a job listing or perusing blog ghostwriters’ resumes. There are a multitude of websites that connect companies and workers, ranging from free online classifieds to professional social networks to job portals where freelancers pay a subscription fee for full access to listings. Keep in mind that you’ll need to implement selection criteria, or you’re likely to be overwhelmed with applicants, many of whom know very little about your industry.

3. Vet the Blog Writing Applicants

If you decide against using a professional ghostwriting service and choose to hire your own ghost blog writers, these steps can give you a solid start, especially if you’ve never conducted a vetting process before. When either receiving responses to an ad or reaching out to freelancers, the first step is to review samples of candidates’ published work.

Create a Short-List

After you receive a flood of responses to your ad, there are a few simple criteria that can significantly separate out the chaff:

• Follow basic instructions: The best blog ghostwriter candidates will answer every question you ask and follow your instructions to the letter. Ditch the application if they send you a 20-year-old college essay after you request a recent article in a major publication.
• Correct spelling and grammar: This is a must. Don’t be too nitpicky, though — many finer points of grammar are stylistic rather than unequivocally wrong — errors that a standard spelling and grammar checker would point out are a red flag.
• High quality of writing: Essentially, if you don’t enjoy reading it or if you have a hard time understanding it, file it in your recycling bin. Don’t waste your time trying to teach a blog ghostwriter how to write satisfactory content.

If, after applying the criteria, you still have a long list of candidates, narrow the parameters until you have only several applicants remaining.

Audition the Blogging Candidates

Before you go any further, make sure that they are willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement. This is a standard operating procedure for ghost blog writers, and if a candidate balks, it is better to know now.

Competent, organized ghostwriters will have a portfolio ready and may have even tailored it to feature work that they feel is most applicable to your blog needs, based on the information you’ve given to this point. Examine it to get a feel for their experience. More importantly, try to gauge how well they adapt to different industries and writing styles.

Next, give each applicant a writing assignment specific to your blog’s niche. Specify that they have free rein to format the blog content as they see fit on a content management system.

Include a detailed list of requirements; for example, the due date, a minimum word count, keyword placement and source links are a few of the standard items on a style guide. You don’t have to go too in-depth in crafting your list; the point is to test the writers’ attention to detail.

Set a favorable precedent by offering to pay the ghost blog writer for the assignment. At the end of the hiring process, their content will be yours to use as you see fit.

Additional Tips

Here are a few things to look for in their completed assignments:

• Writing instructions: We’re repeating this one for a reason; a writing professional may not produce the best content at first, but don’t waste your time with a ghostwriter that doesn’t make the extra effort to nail every single detail of your request. Remember, at this point, they are trying to impress you, and if their best effort doesn’t meet basic requirements, there’s not much hope for improvement later.
• Content: Your ideal blog ghost writer will begin with a concise, intriguing title and compose engaging, non-generic content that is relevant to your business. He or she should write in the first or second person narrative, and the source links should be to reputable websites.
• Format: Your ghostwriter should format the blog for readability. This includes breaking up the content into short paragraphs, inserting subheadings, and using techniques that draw the eye downward, such as charts, lists and images.
• Clarification: Don’t write off candidates simply because they ask a ton of questions about your instructions or goals. These are the writers who take extra steps to get it right the first time. Also, look for questions that indicate a willingness to go above and beyond. This can include a request to increase the word count or add components that you didn’t initially request, such as videos or sound clips.

However, if they add too many extras without asking you first, it might be a warning sign of a rogue writer that could potentially damage your reputation with content that doesn’t adhere to your message or style.

Finally, prepare interview questions: Medium has recommendations for interviewing freelancers on its website. Conduct your interviews face-to-face with a video conferencing app. If that’s not possible, you could interview ghostwriting applicants over the phone, but never settle with email. You may pick up on intangible personality characteristics during a spoken conversation that might not appear in written correspondence.

Is It Unethical To Contract Ghostwriters for Blogs?

If you’re feeling slightly uneasy about someone else writing a blog entry for you and then publicly claiming it as your own, you have company. Some professional bloggers believe content written by undisclosed ghostwriters is unethical, especially on social media and blogs that aren’t strictly informational.

Their premise is that since the object of those posts is to cultivate a personal relationship with readers, there is an expectation that the people publishing the content are doing the writing. Therefore, if a ghostwriter writes the content, then the readers’ relationship would be with the social media ghost writer and not the personality associated with the website.

There is a certain distaste in that scenario, for sure. However, most professional or branded blogs on the internet are designed to deliver useful or fun information. That information is directly supplied by the entity that puts its name on the website. Here, the ghost blog writer’s role is simply to translate concepts into written words that are both polished and the best expression of the originator’s meaning and intent.

Here’s a more practical way to look at it:

• Do all haute couture clothing designers have the skill to weave cloth and sew perfect seams to bring their art to life, or do they need the most talented master sewing professionals available?
• Do Supreme Court Justices have the time and energy to publish their own decisions and opinions, or is it permissible to give the job to their judicial clerks?
• Does an international public speaker learn every language spoken in each country, or would a translator with prodigious skill better cross the language barrier, conveying not only the words but also the intended meaning?

No one expects industry leaders to perform 100% of the tasks involved to produce the finished product, so why should your company’s blog be the exception?

1. Using Experienced Blog Writing Professionals for Specialized Tasks

The most commonly accepted (and comparable) example of ethical ghostwriting is the work done by presidential speechwriters. Successful politicians realized long ago that if they could articulate their ideas in a way that spoke to people’s emotions, they had a better chance of being elected.

Judson Welliver, a White House “literary clerk,” was recognized as the first official presidential speechwriter during the 1920s, although Alexander Hamilton famously wrote a considerable portion of George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796. Basically, the notion of a professional writer putting words to a public figure’s ideas is nothing new.

The best blog ghostwriters will collaborate extensively with you to gain the most accurate perception of your personality, philosophy, and idiosyncrasies. That way, when you publish their work under your name, it seems as though you might have written it yourself.

2. Pushing Ethical Boundaries

While ghost blog writers traditionally and happily remain anonymous, no policy requires you to either disclose your collaboration with a ghostwriter or display your name over any content you did not write. Still, there are a few types of content where using ghost blog writers could raise ethical questions:

• Blogs created to interact directly with an audience: Either a sudden switch to or between ghostwriters will often cause a shift in tone that many readers will detect, no matter how skilled the blog writer. Readers who discover that they were interacting with a ghostwriter instead of the expert figure could feel personally violated, leading to a significant loss of credibility and respect.
• Blogs written by ghostwriters with minimal input: While not strictly unethical, many would consider content claimed by an expert figure who contributed little or nothing to the effort to be fraudulent.
• Scholarly blogs or papers written for academia: Students and professors are assessed not only on their original concepts and theories but also on their ability to communicate them accurately and wholly to their peers.

Hire Professional Ghost Blog Writers for Your Site

As you can see, the process of hiring and vetting a blog ghostwriter yourself can be very involved. If this is the first time you’re using ghost blog writers, you may easily be overwhelmed just by the search process, let alone the effort it will take to manage your new content writer.

In the beginning, when you’re still testing the blog waters and not sure exactly what you need, the quickest and easiest solution may be to use a blog ghostwriting service. An experienced content account manager will ask you for all the information you didn’t know you needed to supply and take care of the busywork. You may also consider using our monthly blog subscription plan to get well-written content consistently.

Now, all you have to do to implement your content marketing strategy is to sit down with paper and pencil (or laptop) and let your progressive, industry-altering blog topic ideas flow.

What if you were able to reach a larger audience in your industry while also adding credibility to your brand? Contributing to guest blogs is a great way to gain the trust of potential customers, increase your exposure and ultimately boost your SEO. Adding guest blogging to your own content marketing efforts is a crucial step to produce unprecedented online marketing success.

Read on to find out everything you ever wanted to know about guest blogging for SEO, including how to get started.

 

What is Guest Blogging for SEO?

So what is guest blogging for SEO? Guest blogging is commonly known as a marketing tactic whereby someone writes an article (or guest blog post) to be posted on a third-party website or blog. Typically, you’ll be labeled as a “guest contributor” and your blog will be scheduled to be posted on the website at a later date. Along with your name, you’ll usually be able to include a picture of yourself in your bio, a small description, as well as a link to your website and social media profiles.

 

What are the Rules of Guest Blogging?

One important thing to note is that each website that allows guest blog post contributors usually has their own set of “best practices” that must be followed in order to post on their site. Some of the ground rules for guest blogging on other sites may include the following:

• No self-promotional or sale pitches in the article about your company – must be purely informational
• Must be relevant to the reader base of that site and provide value
• Needs to be a certain word count
• Should be formatted a certain way to follow that site’s writing style guide
• May need to include images or ideas for images
• Usually can’t include links in the content back to a page on your website (outside of the one link you’re given in your bio)
• Must be submitted by a certain date and is subject to revisions by the site editor

While this is not a comprehensive list of guidelines that come along with guest blogging for SEO, these are some of the most common. Being familiar with traditional rules that come along with guest blogging on other sites can help you to make sure you’re not spending time on areas that will have to be changed later anyway. Once you do find a website that allows for guest blog posting, then you’ll want to read through their style guide and adhere to it in your writing. More on that later.

 

Why Guest Blog?

There are many reasons to write a guest blog post, but some of the most compelling reasons are to create links back to your site to help with rankings on SERPs and also to get exposure to another website’s followers and reader base.

Guest blogging has been a subject of much debate in the world of internet marketing, yet it is still considered one of the best content marketing strategies that you can cultivate. It has the potential to bring awareness to your brand, expand your network, and increase traffic to your business website. Guest blogging is beneficial for both your business branding and your authority as a writer. It can be a powerful tool if you use it right.

 

What are the Benefits of Guest Blogging for SEO?

First, it’s important to understand the benefits of guest blogging as a whole, then we’ll get into the specifics of how to get started. Here are some of the many benefits of guest blogging in general.

1. Expand Your Network

Guest blogging on sites in your niche is a great networking tactic to use in any content marketing plan. By contributing to niche blogs, you have an opportunity to engage with audiences you may never have had access to on your own. The more guest blogs you contribute on, the more readership bases you can reach. If your content is helpful, engaging and provides real value, you may have people following you directly on social media to see when your next post drops.

Not only that, you have the opportunity to potentially collaborate with other authors on other industry sites. Getting the attention of other industry influencers and quoting them, and subsequently getting them to quote you back, gets you in front of their loyal followers.

Getting active in the community through commenting, sharing, and posting is a great way to build relationships in your niche, establish yourself as an expert and attract attention to your own blog.

 

2. Increase Social Media Following

Social media presence is one of the leading content marketing methods that attract customers to your business. Guest blogging for SEO can boost the number of eyes that see your content and help deepen your pool of followers. Often, guest blogging enables you to link to your own social media platforms in your contributed piece. Not only that, many guest posting sites will promote your content through their own social media channels as well, tagging you in the process.

The number of shares your content gets through social media establishes trust and credibility. There have been some cases where writers gained as many as 200 followers a day after contributing to a blog with their social media links attached. Quality content builds the trust of your target audience, which can spread more easily through these social media channels. Enabling feedback and engaging with your audience also helps build a trustworthy relationship.

The key is that your content is shareable and useful to an audience. Once you’ve checked that box, you stand a greater chance of gaining a larger social media following through writing guest blog posts.

 

3. Gain Authority

Trust begets loyal customers. Your audience may respond to your content if you establish credibility as an industry influencer through other blogs within your niche. Guest blogging for SEO gives you the opportunity to appear on any number of trustworthy sites in your industry. Appearing as a guest blogger may add authority to your own information on the subject and draw positive attention to your brand. The more you post, the more recognizable you become and the more people will trust you as an expert.

Not only that,  guest posting leads to MORE guest posting. As you add to your portfolio of sites you’ve written a guest blog post for, it’ll open up doors to other sites that were once off-limits.

4. Bring Awareness to Your Brand

Brand voice is an important factor to keep in mind as you write guest blog posts. Once you’ve become a recognizable voice within an industry, your audience will look for that voice in your own brand. This is your chance to show your audience what you have to offer and what sets your business apart. Bring something fresh and exciting to the table! It will help keep customers interested in your brand and allow them to connect on an emotional level

. If you’re having a guest blog writer help you, you’ll want to make sure you find one that can accurately convey information the same way that you would.

To gain your target audience, you must contribute to blogs that already have an established flow of traffic. Your contribution to a blog should be relevant to the kind of content you provide on your own site. This helps the audience maintain interest in what you have to say. Building better backlinks will help optimize your success in gaining relevant traffic. Contributing to popular blogs in your niche is a great way to introduce your content to an audience rather than waiting for them to find you.

5. Increase Backlinks

Backlinks are a metric used by search engines to show that a site is relevant, popular and an authority in a certain space. When it comes to links, this benefit is true both singularly, as well as compositely. Singularly, just the number of backlinks you have to your site from different domains is looked at positively by Google. If lots of other sites are linking back to your site, despite what their site content is about, search engines assume you are a reputable site with shareable content.

Compositely, if the blogs/sites that are linking back to your site have to do with the products and services that you offer, it can help to raise your rankings specifically with industry keywords. This is the best of both worlds. So if you sell clothes and have lots of links coming back to your site from fashion websites, Google takes into account you must be an expert on fashion. Even though most of these links to your site are just in the form of your main domain name, they are still valuable when it comes to diversifying your backlink profile.

6. Boost Direct Traffic

Lastly, if you can contribute to guest blogging sites that already have a lot of authority and have a huge reader base, just by nature of being a “contributor” you raise your level of authority to readers. They immediately look to you as an expert in the industry. The more your name is seen through guest posting and the more valuable your content, the better chance you have of people coming directly to your site to get expert help from you, the expert. This type of direct traffic is incredibly valuable, as the potential customer already views you as an expert and trusts you’ll be able to help them.

Ultimately, guest blog writing for SEO increases your chances of getting backlinks to your website, raising your rankings for targeted keywords and upping your traffic levels as a whole. More website traffic to your own site leads to more potential chances to make a sale. Links aren’t given out freely though (aside from your main domain name) so getting guest posts that include anchor text links on targeted keywords can be pretty hard to come by naturally – but that’s a topic for another day.

Still, getting links to your main domain still raises the floor of your website authority as a whole and is a worthwhile endeavor.

 

How Do I Find Sites that Allow Me to Write Guest Blog Posts?

Now that you understand the wide-ranging benefits of guest blogging for SEO, the next step is to find places that allow you to submit authority guest posts! This is also known as learning how to leverage guest blogging networks. There are a few easy ways to get started with this and you aren’t limited to just one – many companies take advantage of all of these guest posting methods and more in order to get a jump on the competition.

Identify “Information Wells” in your Industry

First, you need to find where people within your industry are getting their latest news/trends and important information. Obviously, there are major business sites like Forbes that would be fabulous to get on, but you likely won’t be able to post on a site like that in the beginning (unless you’re willing to shell out some dough for a sponsored post). One pro tip is to start smaller, local even. Are there local business news sites that you could publish on? When you google keywords related to your “industry” news, what comes up?

Start compiling a list of these different sites and the contact information of who you might need to reach out to (or a link to their contact us page). Many of these sites may already have established contributor guidelines, where others may not and it will be something you set up in a custom setting.

Build Relationships with Online Journals That Allow Guest Blogging for SEO

Next, you need to identify which of these sites allow authority guest blogs from contributors. Likely, you’ll have to go through a vetting process to become a regular content contributor, and you may need an existing writing portfolio before you’ll be considered. This is where writing on your own blog comes in handy because it is at least one published source of your writing you can show off to a site.

Once you get access to a site as a contributor, you’ll usually be given the green light to write guest blogs a few times a year, if not more. This is a great way to establish yourself as an authority in your space, since you’ll be in front of many more eyeballs than a typical business website, and you’ll have multiple chances to write about topics they may be interested in.

Build Relationships with Other Site Owners That Complement Your Products/Services

This method of guest blogging for SEO is the most organic of them all, and the strategy is slightly different than the one we just discussed. Essentially, you are working to develop relationships with other site owners related to your industry and writing guest blogs for them. On the flip side, you are also potentially letting them write for you as well. You’ll want to make sure you’re genuine in your guest blog post pitches and that you’re trying to appeal to their reader base instead of just wanting a link back to your site.

The idea is to find another company that has complementary products and services in your industry that you don’t compete with directly. If you are competitors, you’ll never work out a deal to swap posts/links. If it’s a business site that does something similar to what you do but isn’t the same, these are the best to reach out to. In a sense, you can scratch each others’ backs to get in front of each others’ reader base. You also can probably work out a deal to get the coveted “anchor text” backlink from one of your highly targeted keywords as well.

The only con to this method is you may only get one or two guest blogs published before you’ll want to move on to a different site. That being said, one or two posts is a huge win if you can get an anchor text link utilizing a top keyword.

Employ a Guest Posting Service (aka Link Building Service)

A form of guest blogging can also be done through guest posting services that have developed their entire business model around helping business owners get guest posts and backlinks. The quality of the sites that your guest blogs will be posted on may not be the best, so your link value may not be as high, but typically the volume of posts and links you get makes up for that.

Link building companies typically get you “anchor text” links as well, meaning the actual keyword you’re trying to rank for will be the one being sent back to your site. This is the most coveted of all backlinks because it’s an obvious indicator to Google and other search engines that this other site sees you as an expert for that exact keyword. Otherwise, they would not have created a hyperlink using that text.

Backlinking using a guest posting service can be a worthwhile avenue to go down, but it doesn’t usually increase the branding, reputation or authority of your site on a human level. Because of this, you likely shouldn’t replace the direct guest blogging you’re doing on your own to establish your brand. Rather, these two things can complement each other very well.

 

How Do I Get Started Writing Guest Blog Posts?

OK, so we’ve outlined the major benefits of guest blogging as a whole as well as how to identify sites that will let you contribute. So what’s next? How do you get started writing a guest blog post? Do you use a guest blog writing service? While you definitely need help with the writing, you also need to make sure you have a content marketing plan and some keyword research in place.

Get Your Content Marketing Ducks in a Row

Before you can write a blog or properly utilize a guest blog writing service to help you craft high-quality, authoritative guest blog posts, you need to make sure your content marketing campaign is set up and you have metrics to help measure success. You are writing to target a specific audience (or audiences). Identifying the right niche and tailoring your post to gain that audience’s attention are important factors in getting successful results.

Utilize Keyword Data

Content writing with keyword research in mind can help you when developing the guest blog posts that will bring customers to your business. As we’ve outlined here, guest posting offers wider opportunities for search engine visibility and lets an audience get familiar with your brand. Because guest blogs usually incorporate links to your own blog, using relevant keywords may pad your backlinks and make them more visible to search engines.

Consider your keywords and content carefully before you start to write; to generate the best results, you need to make each word count.

Hire a Guest Blog Writing Service

Last of all, just because you know you need to write guest blog posts it doesn’t mean you have to write them yourself. In fact, in many cases you SHOULDN’T write them yourself. If you don’t have a background in writing and editing, writing a guest blog post can not only be incredibly hard but can take you a very long time. As an industry expert (or someone in the process of establishing themselves as one), you need to spend your time being at the cutting edge of technologies and trends in your industry.

Take a cue from some of the top industry influencers worldwide and get yourself a ghostwriter to help take your thoughts, bullet points and ideas and translate them into a flowing, engaging blog post. This provides you with the opportunity to scale your guest blogging for SEO and make your efforts much more worthwhile. There are many guest blog writing services that exist (like us!) to help pair you with a writer (or writers) of your choosing that have experience in your industry and can learn to speak in your voice, style and tone.

 

Guest Blogging for SEO Recap: It Can be Done!

So while there is a lot to know about guest blogging for SEO, it’s also something that every business can start venturing into. Start small, make your writing count, and start building your guest blogging portfolio from the ground up. The longer the go, the more your brand will benefit and the better chance you have of increasing traffic, leads and ROI.

Have any other great guest blogging tips? Leave them in the comments below!

 

Artificial intelligence continues to grow by leaps and bounds. From smart home speakers to recommendations from your favorite streaming services, AI is becoming more integrated into our everyday lives. With sophisticated processes for understanding and generating language, artificial intelligence is embarking on a new frontier: content creation. This brief guide explains what you need to know about AI writing: its technology, uses, and limitations.

What Is AI Writing?

AI writing is what it says on the tin: content composed by artificial intelligence. It uses machine learning to create words, phrases, and sentences. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains that machine learning is a subset of AI, allowing computers to learn how to think and do some things like human beings. Think of how often you let predictive text finish your words and send an SMS message. That’s an everyday example of machine learning.

AI content generators are used to write a wide range of materials: social media posts, website landing pages, product descriptions, email messages, e-books, and blog posts. Major news outlets are even employing AI to create news stories — hence the rise of robot reporters like the one used by the Washington Post.

Why Do People Use AI To Write Content?

People use artificial intelligence writing software to create content in an attempt to save time and effort. Sometimes, their goal is to reduce workloads. With so much demand for new content, keeping up can feel challenging. Content is king, after all. Yet that content must capture its audience’s attention, deliver the intended message, and be relevant enough for the audience to care and take action.

At other times, people struggle to generate unique content without accidentally plagiarizing themselves. Repetition is a good thing when increasing brand recognition and familiarity. However, repeatedly recycling the same content can bore one’s audience and drive them away.

How Does an AI Produce Written Material?

AI writing software uses natural language processing to create content based on how humans write. IBM blogger Eda Kavlakoglu explains how NLP works. NLP combines several areas of knowledge — linguistics, data science, computer science and artificial intelligence.

Derived from computational linguistics, NLP seeks to understand human language structure and meaning. Based on this accumulated knowledge, an AI can perform functions such as autocorrecting text, powering virtual assistants, operating chatbots, and organizing email using filters. NLP involves two components: natural language understanding and natural language generation.

Natural Language Understanding

NLU involves analyzing both semantics and syntax in any given text. Semantics focuses on meaning and interpretation, while syntax refers to grammar and word arrangement. Semantics can incorporate denotations, which are the standard definitions of words. Yet it also includes connotations, the interpretations of those words. Syntax varies by language and dialect.

NLU is the first critical step in AI content generation. Before you can have output, you must have input. That means gathering data — in this case, previously written content. Depending on the AI, this data mining process may include everything from Wired blog posts about virtual assistants to detailed research reports about AI in medical imaging technologies.

AI must be sophisticated enough to understand how human language varies in expressing ideas. For instance, it would need to know that “I done told you before” in Southern American English means the same as “I have told you before” in other forms of American English.

Natural Language Generation

Once you have enough input from natural language understanding, you can finally have some output. Natural language generation creates said output using the data gathered and processed during NLU. Using the semantics, syntax, lexicons, and word relationships it’s learned, AI writing software uses NLG to choose words, construct phrases, and put together sentences.

Each artificial intelligence writing software works differently. That said, most follow a similar process or algorithm. TechTarget breaks down the six stages used by AI content generation programs:

• Content analysis: Filtering data to determine output content
• Data analysis: Decoding data, understanding its context, and finding patterns
• Document structuring: Creating a document plan and a narrative structure
• Sentence creation: Generating phrases and sentences to convey the desired information and message
• Grammar structuring: Analyzing sentences and rewriting them in correct grammar and natural-sounding language
• Content output: Final content output in the desired format

What Are the Advantages of AI Content Writing?

For humans, the writing process involves several steps: thinking about a topic, choosing key points to express, and then transforming those ideas into text. We may also research to find facts that back up our claims. Some of us create document outlines to help with structure, then write content following those outlines. Before publication, we revise and edit to improve the quality of our written work.

Computers and artificial intelligence can perform many tasks faster than humans, including generating text. Natural language processing has made this possible. Depending on the type of content needed, AI writers can create large volumes of it within a short time. An AI-assisted writer can usefully convey or summarize existing information.

What Are the Limitations of AI Writing?

An AI-assisted writer can outperform human writers in several aspects. Let’s assume the software has learned from content that already follows grammar, syntax, semantics, and spelling conventions. Within these parameters, AI writing software produces error-free text. However, that content is only as good as the data models used by the AI. With this in mind, let’s look at other notable limitations of AI-generated content.

It Still Needs the Human Touch

AI-written text can look completely flawless on the surface. Yet many human elements could still be missing. AIs aren’t humans, so you may not find vital details that make human language what it is: metaphors, analogies, cultural context, humor, empathy, and emotional richness. Humans must still review and revise any AI-generated text to incorporate such details.

Its Applications Are Limited

While AI writing software capabilities are incredible, you can’t use it for everything. AI does best at generating short text pieces — about 200 words or less. Beyond that limit, AI-written text can contain errors or unintelligible content. It can also become repetitive or monotonous. There’s also the risk that ideas won’t flow clearly from one section to the next. You may need to tweak the final text or rewrite portions of it before publication.

It Lacks Human Knowledge and Expertise

Artificial intelligence can learn faster and assimilate more information than a human being. While that’s astounding and useful in many situations, it doesn’t automatically make an AI content writer better than a human one. If you need material such as technical manuals or research reports, an AI probably won’t be up to the task. Again, you have potential issues with the logical flow of ideas and the risk of low-quality content.

AI May Struggle With Content for Niche Audiences

Human writers can do another thing AI writers can’t: change their style and tone to suit the audience. AI-generated writing may sound formal or even a bit stiff at times. If you host a blog with a niche audience — for example, PvP gamers — you want content that draws them in. When done right, slang and dialect help you better connect with your audience. Can an AI content writer produce such content? It can get close. But at the end of the day, you still probably want a human reviewing the content to make sure nothing out of the ordinary slipped through.

Content Quality May Be Inconsistent

Sometimes, experimenting with an AI’s writing capabilities can produce fun or unexpected results. One example is “Sunspring,” a short science fiction film written by an artificial intelligence named Benjamin. Ars Technica debuted the film, shot from a script that included strange stage directions such as “stand in the stars and sit on the floor.” Text like this is uniquely poetic language in one context but downright confusing in others. With more development and refinement needed in the mechanics behind AI language generation, it’s not quite ready to produce specialized content without human review.

The Question of Authenticity

With digital technologies expanding every year, new ethical questions arise. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have made content like deepfakes possible. These have prompted concerns about privacy, journalistic integrity, and impacts on democratic societies.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have tested methods for detecting AI-written text. Meanwhile, debates continue about the nature of this content. Does it result from acts of creation, or is it the product of sophisticated mimicry? Such questions tap into major issues about sentience and personhood. Meanwhile, your content must build trust with your audience. You need to create blog posts, product descriptions, articles, and other types of content that accomplish this goal.

The Final Verdict

Artificial intelligence has developed significantly within the last decade. The mechanics of AI are undoubtedly sophisticated and powerful. However, human writers have many strengths that AI-assisted writers still lack: creativity, understanding, command of language, and the ability to convey meaning, feeling, and impact.

Emotion, empathy, the interpersonal dimension, and expertise are vital to forging a connection with your audience. They are all critical in creating content that captures people’s attention, moves them emotionally, and encourages engagement. Ultimately, AI writing cannot duplicate these qualities completely on its own. However, AI can be an assist in many content writing projects when overseen by a human writer with the right expertise. Here at BKA Content we’ve done an extensive amount of testing utilizing AI to help generate content that we can help you to navigate the ins and outs of using AI-generated content when appropriate. We also specialize in completely human-written content that’s properly SEO-optimized for more specialized content where AI isn’t a good fit.

By partnering with BKA Content, you benefit from skilled writers and editors who create high-quality content every day (with or without AI). No matter if you prefer human/AI hybrid content, or human only content, discover how BKA Content’s blog writing services and managed content creation services can help your business reach its organic marketing goals.

Approximately 13% of marketers devote their efforts primarily to traditional advertising techniques, such as print, television, and radio ads. Another 60% focus their attention on digital marketing, including material created by a digital content writer for dissemination on the web. So, which approach is more successful?

It’s a trick question.

The fact is that the most successful marketing approaches combine both traditional and digital marketing techniques. This helps to reach the widest number of potential customers in the first place, then move them more effectively through the marketing funnel toward an eventual sale. Let’s take a look at why you should consider a more integrated approach, how to combine digital and traditional marketing techniques, and what role a digital content writer plays in your integrated strategy.

 

Why Should You Integrate Digital Content Writing and Other Digital Strategies Into a Traditional Approach?

Traditional marketing techniques include print ads, billboards, television spots, and radio promos. Though some marketers view them as outdated, these techniques can be very valuable. In particular, traditional marketing is effective at moving potential customers into the top of the marketing funnel by attracting attention and gaining interest.

Here is where such efforts can hit a snag.

Consumers find information about goods and services they want to buy by conducting research on the internet. However, they do not necessarily conduct the search immediately after seeing or hearing the ad, although mobile search makes this possible. Chances are, the follow-up web search for more information may not happen for several more hours or even days.

If you’re lucky, your potential customers remember your company name perfectly from your ad and enter it accurately into a search engine. However, it may be more likely that the prospects don’t remember your name exactly, but they remember what you do. Therefore, they may conduct a search for the goods and services that you offer.

Without a strong web presence with digital content optimized for searches, your company may not show up in the search results. This is where having a digital content writer comes in handy. Though every web search generates thousands of web results, a majority of users never scroll past the first page. This means that if you are not one of the top search results, you may as well not be included in the search at all.

The picture can get even bleaker. If you have competitors who have more successfully integrated SEO into their digital marketing strategy, their web pages are likely to rank higher in the search. Rather than scrolling through pages of results to find you, your customers are more likely to just click the top web result. Thus, your traditionally focused marketing can be very successful … at helping your competitors.

 

How Do You Integrate Digital Marketing Into Your Traditional Approach?

When it comes to integrating digital techniques into an existing traditional strategy, there is a right way to do it and a lazy way to do it. The lazy way is to create a lot of pages that include keywords to get search results but that offer no substantial content. These may get you hits, but they are unlikely to lead to conversions. Your customers are looking for valuable information, and if they can’t find it from you, they will go elsewhere for it.

Putting out content that is meaningful and helpful to your customers is more likely to convert leads into sales. However, maintaining a consistent publishing schedule of quality content is extremely time consuming. Hiring a digital content writer is one way to maintain such a schedule while allowing yourself enough time to tend to the other vital aspects of running your business.

 

Why Should You Integrate Traditional Marketing Techniques Into an Existing Digital Strategy?

Maybe you’re at the other extreme of the spectrum. You see traditional marketing as a thing of the past. You’re looking forward to the future, so you’ve devoted all your advertising resources to a digital content writer and online marketing:

• Optimized web design
• Extensive social media presence
• Online banner ads
• Link building

You’ve congratulated yourself for being on the forward edge of the digital revolution. There is just one problem: You are not seeing your leads convert to sales.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. One of the most recognizable brands in the world, Pepsi, took initiative early in the last decade to discontinue all traditional means of advertising and devote all their resources to a digital-only strategy. In an effort to stay closer to the brand message, Pepsi did all its advertising in-house, severing relationships with external marketing agencies in the process. Instead of buying television airtime during the Super Bowl, as it had done for 23 years prior, it devoted that $20 million to a corporate social responsibility campaign called Pepsi Refresh, promoted via social media. That campaign attracted a lot of attention but didn’t necessarily translate into higher sales.

Pepsi’s digital-only marketing strategy was a bold move. It lasted only a couple of months.

The theory behind it was that a digital-only strategy would garner a heavy social following that Pepsi could market to directly. However, the one-dimensional technique failed to target a large proportion of their existing audience. Since then, not all of Pepsi’s television advertising efforts have borne good fruit, but they have succeeded in reconnecting with their target audience.

 

What Makes Digital-Only Marketing Less Effective?

One theory is that the sheer volume of digital material is overwhelming. While using social media, your customers become saturated with tweets, trends, hashtags, campaigns, and promotions. It is difficult to keep up with it all. With so many brands and companies clamoring for consumer attention all at once, people tend to tune out even messages that they would otherwise be interested in and attentive to.

This theory demonstrates the importance of quality content, not just quantity. Whether it be a social media post or a longer-form piece, content created by professional article writing services may help to amplify your brand voice over the digital cacophony.

 

What Does a Successful Integrative Marketing Campaign Look Like?

Interestingly enough, we can look to Pepsi’s biggest competitor, Coca-Cola, for guidance on how to integrate traditional and digital marketing techniques successfully. A few years after Pepsi made its disastrous foray into digital-only marketing, Coca-Cola introduced its integrative “Share a Coke” campaign. Bottles of Coke products bearing people’s first names on the label served as the centerpiece of this campaign. Personalizing your message is already an effective way to connect with customers, but Coke solidified the connection with heartwarming television advertising depicting a diverse range of people sharing personalized bottles with friends and loved ones in emotional situations.

These traditional techniques were effective at attracting people’s attention and creating a demand for these personalized bottles. Customers didn’t want just any random name on their Coke bottles; they wanted their own names as well as those of their friends, families, crushes, etc. Coke then directed customers to visit its website to purchase bottles featuring the names they wanted. The campaign was wildly successful, with the “ShareACoke” hashtag featuring in 235,000 tweets and Twitter impressions reaching nearly 1 billion.

 

Why Is an Integrative Marketing Approach Effective?

Cross-channel advertising created by a digital content writer involving both traditional and digital approaches is effective for a number of reasons:

 

1. Human Psychology

In a fascinating article for Search Engine Watch, Howard Jacobson explains why watching ads on both television and YouTube results in twice the brand recall. The whole article is well worth a read, but here is an outline of the factors he describes:

Essentially, Jacobson argues that viewing ads on multiple channels helps us to remember by forming meaningful and recognizable patterns. Additionally, seeing your advertisements everywhere may give your audience the impression that your company is a bigger deal than it really is.

 

2. Relative Permanence

Digital content and advertising can be ephemeral. Despite your best efforts, your content can sometimes get lost in the shifting sands of the internet. While television and radio ads can be similarly transient, print ads have more staying power. This can make it easier for your audience to revisit those ads as needed if seeking more information later.

 

3. Less Intrusiveness

Sometimes the way to get someone’s attention is not to actively try to attract it. Here again, print media can have an advantage because it is viewed as a less obtrusive form of marketing. Using traditional methods to play “hard to get” can provoke interest in your ad. Customers may start seeking more information, which is when SEO article writing can work in your favor.

 

4. Active Encouragement

Once your combined traditional marketing and SEO efforts have attracted customers to your site, digital marketing in the form of interactive web design encourages immediate action. An SEO article can include a link at the end that the user can click immediately to accomplish one or more of the following:

• Place an order
• Schedule an appointment
• Get directions
• Call for more information

Your traditional ads may include a call to action that uses language encouraging your audience to take the next step but do not provide any mechanism by which to do so. Therefore, using a digital or web content writer to create specific landing pages can be the guiding light that brings your customers further down into the funnel.

 

What Role Does a Digital Content Writer Have To Play in an Integrative Marketing Strategy?

To answer this question, let’s take another look at the marketing funnel:

While digital marketing can be a factor at all points in the funnel, it tends to be most effective at providing a bridge between the top and the bottom. Therefore, the role of the digital content writer is to create search engine optimized articles that offer meaningful and useful information about your goods and services with the goal of increasing desire and spurring the audience to action.

Research shows that the content marketing aspect of your digital marketing campaign sees better results the more often you post and the longer each article is. You can increase your web traffic by a factor of 3.5 by posting new content approximately once every two days compared to once every seven days. You are also more likely to see “strong results” from an article of 2,000 words or more, even though most blog posts range between 500 and 1,000 words, and 1,050 is the average.

If you try to create all that content by yourself, you may soon run into a problem. Quality content takes time to write. Composing a single blog post can take six hours or more. The average is 3.5 hours, which is still almost half of an eight-hour workday. Creating your own content for your blog can start to seem like a part-time job without the extra salary.

It can be tempting to sacrifice quality for quantity, but that’s a lazy shortcut that is likely to do you more harm than good. Not only is your lower-quality content unlikely to stand out from the daily digital deluge, but publishing subpar content just for the sake of getting your name out there is unlikely to improve trust in your company or spark desire for your goods and services. Creating content for marketing purposes is already the digital content writer’s part-time or full-time job. Therefore, he or she can devote not only the time but the resources to creating quality articles that reflect well on your business and help transform interest into desire and, hopefully, action.

 

What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Digital Content Writer?

When you hire a single freelance digital writer on a contract basis, you pay for only the content you order without having to pay costs associated with employment, such as salary, benefits, training, etc. You gain the flexibility of being able to order content when you need it and the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your task is in the hands of a qualified professional.

When you hire article writing services that work with teams of multiple digital content writers, you get all those benefits plus a few more. Having more writers on a project results in greater scalability. You should be able to order as much or as little content as you want at any given time and potentially get your order back more quickly. With a larger pool of writers at your disposal, you gain the benefit of all their collected experience.

“Collected experience” refers to writing knowledge and skills, obviously, but it also refers to a background in your own or related industries. Writers have diverse origins, and all their past education and professional history can benefit you. The result is sophisticated material that can speak directly to the unique pain points of your readers.

Article writing services such as BKA Content also offer a wide variety of different types of digital content. Peruse our shop to see what we our digital content writers have to offer your business.

Since the re-explosion of content marketing in the 21st century, content creation has quickly evolved into an essential business activity. As with any essential business activity, brands need to determine the most cost-effective way to get it done without compromising quality.

Typically, this means deciding between one of two strategies: Developing an in-house writing team or outsourcing SEO content writing services to a content writing agency.

So what’s the difference between the two and what are the pros and cons of SEO content writing services? We’re here to answer your questions.

 

Insourcing Versus Outsourcing Content Creation

Quality SEO content writing is the primary driver of traffic, leads, conversions and profit. For these reasons, you probably already have a content marketing strategy in place. (If you don’t, keep reading, as this article can help you save time and money on creating a strategy that works best for you.)

For content to achieve all of its touted benefits, you must publish original, informative, helpful and engaging content on a consistent basis — consistent meaning multiple times a week. Whether brands have an existing strategy or not, most can agree that getting to the point where they’re able to publish quality content with the necessary consistency is no easy task. Brands that have been in the content race for a while also know that there are two common ways to get to the finish line:

• Insourcing Content Creation: Brands develop a culture of content within their organization and either hire in-house copywriters or delegate content-related tasks to some or all team members.
• Outsourcing Content Creation: Companies pay freelance copywriters, blogging companies, SEO content writing services or similar third-party entities to write content on their behalf.

Having helped thousands of brands realize their content marketing objectives as an agency, you’d think we’d be biased and say, “Choose us, choose us!” We’re not going to do that. We realize that making the most of your content marketing efforts is not as simple as picking between options one and two. You need to do your homework, weigh the pros and cons of all possible strategies and understand how your final decision aligns with your long-term goals.

 

Pro: Save On Overhead, Benefits, Overtime, Training and Other Items

At first glance, it may seem like hiring a web content writing agency is more expensive than hiring an in-house copywriter. While pricing structures and fees vary from firm to firm, you can expect to pay anywhere between $25 and $150 per blog post from an agency. Depending on your content needs, that can quickly add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Before you balk and say “No, thank you,” consider the alternative.

The average salary for an in-house copywriter is $49,982 per year. When you have a full-time employee, you need to offer benefits. Those amount to about $21,625 per year. Add to those figures the cost of hiring ($4,000), payroll taxes ($4,119) and equipment ($2,800), and your “average-priced” copywriter suddenly costs you $82,526 per year.

Even if you were to buy SEO content writing services on the high-end at $150 per article order one article every day, you would still pay less to outsource content creation than if you were to hire an in-house writer.

Balance Your Needs Through Outsourcing

When calculating costs, you also need to factor in content need versus output. According to the results from a recent survey we conducted, the average in-house writer can pump out 87 500-word articles per month. For a small business to stay competitive, the data shows it needs to publish no more than 30 blog posts per month. As a small business, hiring a full-time writer would not be worth the expense.

But what if you are an SEO agency, large enterprise, e-commerce business or some other corporation that requires a large volume of content each month? A single writer would not suffice, but two or more writers would still end up costing you too much. At the end of the day, and if cost is one of your main concerns, outsourcing your content creation to SEO content writing services makes far more financial sense than keeping the work in-house.

 

Pro: Gain a Fresh Perspective

Though this perk is only available through large SEO content writing services and companies with tens, hundreds or thousands of writers on payroll, it’s a strong one. By working with an agency such as BKA, you gain access to dozens of qualified writers, each of whom has his or her own distinctive writing voice. Each writer also takes unique angles to similar topics, providing each blog or website with much-needed diversity.

While it is true that consistency is crucial to building a loyal following, you don’t want to be so consistent as to bore your audience or, worse, scare off potential readers. Additionally, whereas a single author may get stuck in a rut after writing about the same topic day after day, agency writers often approach each new topic with enthusiasm because the topic is new to them.

Agency writers are also more likely to explore new ideas you or an in-house writer might have overlooked, or to go more in-depth on topics that seem like general knowledge to you but on which your readers may want additional clarification.

 

Get Specific With SEO Content Writing Services

If you desire a mix of both consistency and diversity, many agencies will allow you to pick your writers based on samples. You can identify writers whose voices align with your brand and isolate those that may be best suited to specific projects.

Finally, though the client onboarding and writing processes vary across agencies, at BKA, we welcome branded style guides. Our writers use these guides to inform their writing and ensure that each deliverable is in line with clients’ expectations.

 

Pro: Save Time

One of the main reasons business owners outsource content creation to SEO writing companies is that they do not have the time to hire and train new employees. According to Investopedia, it takes, on average, 42 days to find and hire the right candidate to fill a position. Integrating new hires and getting them to the point of 100% productivity can take another six months of training. If you don’t have time for that kind of commitment, you’re not alone.

When you hire SEO content writing services, you can count on the writers to be fully trained and qualified from the get-go. If training is necessary, the agency will take care of it — not you. Not only does this free up time for you to focus on other, more important aspects of your business, but it also allows you to implement your content marketing strategy sooner rather than later. Instead of having to wait six months to see any sort of return on your investment, you can start seeing results within a matter of weeks.

 

Pro: Scale Your Efforts

Some of the greatest perks of working with a blog writing service are the flexibility and scalability it promises. On the one hand, SEO content writing services have access to several writers — often hundreds — meaning they can meet your content needs at every stage of business growth.

If you’re operating on a small budget, you can negotiate entry-level packages or, if working with BKA Content, order standalone pieces. As your business and budget grow, you can increase your investment without having to worry that the agency won’t have the means to keep up. When business slows, you can scale your efforts back until it picks up again.

Content writing agencies also afford you greater flexibility. Because they work with writers from a variety of backgrounds and with varying levels of experience, you can play around with different content types, including but not limited to blog articles, web pages, landing pages, product descriptions, infographics, recipes, white papers and E-books.

 

Pro: Get Content On a Consistent Basis

Consistency is key across all aspects of your content marketing strategy. We touched on consistency in terms of style and tone in the “Perspective” section, but a consistent publishing schedule is just as important.

According to Forbes, an inconsistent strategy can confuse visitors and reduce a brand’s value by as much as 20%. On the other hand, consumers view brands that maintain regular strategies as more credible, reliable and trustworthy, and more able to provide a better customer experience.

Several factors may affect a single writer’s ability to maintain a rigorous writing schedule, including meetings, in-office distractions, vacation days, sick days and writer’s block. Because most SEO content writing services have several writers to take on assignments, however, you can have peace of mind that none of these factors will interfere with your content creation schedule. If a writer assigned to your project suddenly falls ill or decides to take an impromptu “personal day,” your account manager can reassign the project to an available writer and ensure it reaches your inbox as promised.

 

Con: You Get What You Pay For

When it comes to content creation, this old adage rings true. While we at BKA believe that content shouldn’t break the bank, we also know that good writers don’t come cheap. If you do decide to outsource, be wary of agencies or freelancers that offer too-good-to-be-true rates as, chances are, their services are too good to be true.

If a writer or agency agrees to write articles at $5 a pop or to deliver a month’s worth of content for just $200, beware: Either the writer or firm will relegate your project to the bottom of the to-do list, or you will likely receive low-level, hard-to-read, keyword-stuffed and overall bad content.

 

Con: Lose Expertise

Consumers are smart and incredibly perceptive, especially when it comes to spending money. As a result, most are able to discern between a “fluff” piece written for marketing purposes and a piece written by a real expert. This is especially true in highly technical fields, such as technology, health care, finance and software.

In these types of industries, buyers desire valuable content that delves deep into a given topic with the kind of specificity and accuracy that only a subject matter expert can deliver. SMEs are typically involved in the day-to-day operations of an organization and speak industry lingo naturally, both in their speech and their writing. You cannot fake content from an SME, and, in many cases, you shouldn’t try to.

Another thing to consider when hiring SEO content writing services is a lack of familiarity with your brand. While you can always provide style guides and feedback to get agency writers to the point where they can emulate your brand’s voice, no one will know your brand values quite as well as you or your employees do.

 

Con: Lose Time

When outsourcing content creation, there are two main problems companies routinely run into that can cause them to lose time. The first is an inability to find a reliable and/or quality content writing agency. For content marketing to be successful, the efforts must be consistent and of value. It may take you a while to find an agency or writer that offers both — possibly longer than the seven or so months it takes to hire and train an in-house writer.

The second challenge you may face involves managing freelance writers. From keeping tabs on productivity to ensuring projects get done to handling payments and tax forms, you will quickly learn that working with contractors requires a whole different set of skills than managing your in-house team.

 

Con: Get Pushed to the Back Burner

Though a reputable agency has several measures in place to prevent unmanageable workloads, some — especially younger companies — may take on more work than their writers can realistically handle. While there is no way for you to control an agency’s workload, there are aspects you can look at to determine its commitment to deadlines. Those include company age, customer reviews, client roster, portfolio and team roster.

For example, a one-year-old company with two customer reviews and a small portfolio likely has only a handful of writers on staff. On the other hand, a 10-year old agency with several account managers and a client roster that includes well-known brands probably has the means to tackle sizeable projects in a timely fashion. Though you should not discount younger agencies, if you anticipate ordering large amounts of content on a consistent basis, it may make sense to work with more established SEO content writing services.

 

Con: Struggle To Find a Reliable Agency

In your search for the right agency for your brand, you may discover that not all content writing firms are created equal. Unfortunately, there are several so-called agencies out there that are, in fact, “content mills.” These mills prioritize profits over all else, which is evident in everything from their low-quality writing to poor customer service to complete disregard for client deadlines. You may have to go through one or several bad apples before finding the right fit, but with persistence, you will find it. That said, the same conundrum holds true with in-house writers.

 

BKA Content: The Best of Both Worlds

At the risk of sounding redundant: Not all SEO content writing services are created equal. You have your freelancers, your content mills, your subscription services and everything in between. While you can learn about the various types of content writing companies here, you can reap the benefits of both an in-house writer and a content writing agency when you choose to work with BKA Content.

 

Writing Options

At BKA, we offer several tiers of service depending on your content needs, one of which is our managed services model. Under this model, you get access to our thousands of writers, all of whom must undergo a rigorous application process and training period before being granted the freedom to select articles. Once onboarded, writers are either invited to join or try out for “teams” according to their interests, industry knowledge and writing levels.

 

Managed Accounts

Each team consists of writers who have specialized expertise in certain fields, such as law, medicine and IT. A personable account manager oversees each team to ensure writers complete projects on time and in accordance with clients’ expectations. The same account manager maintains ongoing communication with clients and acts as an intermediary between them and the writers. This model gives you the same level of control you would have with an in-house writer, but without the hassle of actually having to manage the writers yourself.

 

Scalability

Our solutions are also scalable. From standalone articles to monthly orders to large, one-off batches of high-quality optimized content, we have the team and the resources to tackle it all.

 

Mindset

Finally, our team cares. We truly do. We understand that for many business owners, the decision to hire an in-house writer over SEO content writing services comes down to relationships and loyalty. They want to know that their writers are just as invested in their bottom lines as they are. We get it, because here at BKA Content, we prioritize relationships, too.

Though our team is mostly virtual, we strive to maintain a family atmosphere and one in which everyone feels appreciated. At the end of the day, we believe that it is this value that enables us to deliver a better content experience time and time again.

 

Ready To Hire SEO Content Writing Services?

If you’re ready to partner with BKA Content, or if you want to give our SEO content writing services a test run, browse our Content Shop to learn more about our self-service options. Or, you can reach out to us directly to learn more about our managed services option.