Common Mistakes Businesses Make When Creating Blog Content

Most businesses understand the value of a blog. Blogging is a simple way to populate your website with fresh content, which feeds the algorithms. You can also link back to your posts from social media, which serves to boost website traffic. Sounds great, right? Writing blog posts weekly or even daily is a good idea. In practice, it is very easy to make mistakes that hurt your brand and impede your website’s SEO. Why is that? Read on to find out. It’s amazing how many people think they can write. Because writing is a basic skill, taught in schools, most people assume that if they can string a few words together, they can write engaging content. Yet writing content for websites and blogs is not as easy as one might think. There is a skill-set needed, which is why good content writers charge premium rates. Here are the main mistakes inexperienced content writers make. Choosing the Wrong Topics Just because a topic floats your boat, it doesn’t mean it’s a great one for your company’s blog. Writing blogs that are too technical are a big no-no. Unless your target audience is comfortable reading highly technical content, steer clear of topics that need a PhD to make sense of them. Try and write about subjects that appeal to the widest possible audience. That way, if someone visits your site searching for information on a topic they don’t know much about, they are more likely to stick around. Not Doing Keyword Research Keywords are very important. Search engines look for keywords in content to confirm the content is what someone is looking for. A person is more likely to have a good search experience if a blog post contains relevant information. For search engines like Google, this is paramount. Always use a keyword planner before writing content. Look for keywords relevant to your niche and plan content around them. There are lots of keyword research tools, many of them free. Try a few out to see which one suits you best. Some of the most popular include: Moz Keyword Search Tool Ahrefs Keyword Generator Google’s Keyword Planner SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool Don’t try and stuff your content with as many keywords as possible. This is a very bad idea. Instead, add a few keywords and long-tail key phrases naturally, so they don’t look contrived. Writing Big Blocks of Text Reading text on a screen is a very different experience to reading text in a book. Overly long paragraphs are hard to read. Most people will click away when confronted with a wall of text. Break up your content with sub-headings. Keep paragraphs small, ideally 3-5 sentences long. Keep your sentences short. Long run-on sentences are confusing and hard to read. Poor Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation Unless your readers are grammar fiends, they won’t care if they spot the occasional typo. We all make mistakes and it’s easy to miss an error when you write blog posts and don’t have an editor to proof them before publication. However, publishing blog posts full of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors is not a good look for any brand. Content that’s full of errors looks unprofessional. Readers will assume you didn’t put a lot of effort in when writing the piece. And if you can’t be bothered to proofread a blog post, the rest of your work product probably isn’t up to scratch either! Luckily, you don’t need an in-house editor to check the content. There are plenty of tools online that can check for mistakes. Try the Grammarly plug-in for Word, or paste your writing into the Hemingway App. Content checkers like this look for spelling mistakes, grammar, and punctuation issues. Some also check for excessive use of passive voice, unnecessary adverbs, and hard-to-read sentences. The fewer errors your content has, the easier it will be to read. These are the three main mistakes to avoid when producing blog posts in-house. If you’re not comfortable writing for your company blog, or you don’t have time, why not outsource the work? Ink Elves is here for all your content needs. Drop us an email or use the Contact Us form. Our experienced content writers are here to help you!

Give Your Blogging Strategy a Refresh for 2020

Nothing lasts forever. Remember VHS tapes and Woolies pick & mix? It’s the same in the blogging universe: Google publishes a new update and in less than a day, blows your most recent blogging strategy out of the water. Reader preferences also evolve with time. One minute everyone is searching for payday loans and the next, they want information on climate change. It’s your job to stay on top of the latest trends, search terms, and more. Before you slump over your desk in a fit of depression – who has time to keep up with all this?! – fear not, we have the facts for you. So, grab a coffee and read on. Google’s BERT Update Google is not the only search engine, but it wields the most influence. For this reason, it’s essential to stay on top of Google’s updates. The BERT update, which was rolled out for English language queries in October 2019, will likely have a huge impact over the next year. BERT is an acronym for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. In simple terms, BERT pays close attention to the subtle nuances of search queries, such as prepositions (to, of, at, etc.) It uses them to provide more relevant results. BERT will work in conjunction with RankBrain, Google’s first stab at an AI search algorithm. In terms of blogging, it’s important because you no longer need to use precise search phrases to rank. Instead of using sometimes unnatural search phrases, such as “pizza restaurant NYC”, you can use the individual components of the key phrase more naturally in a sentence for the same SEO value. For example: “Look for the best-rated pizza restaurant reviews in NYC for a great dining experience”. Naturally, BERT is probably going to have the largest impact on blogging in 2020, so ignore it at your peril. Other blogging trends to pay attention to include: Long-form Content Here at Ink Elves, we’ve already noticed a move towards long-form content. There was a time when a 300-word post was the norm, but not anymore. Now, clients want 1000+ words, and often 2000+ words. In our opinion, this is a good thing. Longer content allows the writer to deliver a more in-depth piece of work. Instead of skipping over the details in favour of a general overview, the writer can discuss topics in greater detail and really dig deep. It’s better for the reader, who is more likely to stay on-page for longer. It also encourages search engines to give the page a boost. Happy reader = happy search engine. Everyone’s a winner! Back to Blogging Strategy Basics It’s also a good idea to back up your assertions with facts and link out to reputable sources. Again, this improves the reader’s experience and helps to establish trust (thus earning you another gold star from Google). If you quote stats, facts, and figures, find the original source and link to it. There is an awful lot of crap floating around online; don’t add to it. Publishing inaccurate material helps no-one, least of all you. Roll With It in 2020 Now is an excellent time to review your blogging strategy. Can you improve your content? Can you write longer articles? Can you make your posts more appealing, for example, by adding better quality images or embedded video content? Make a point of regularly reviewing your blogging strategy. Keep on top of the latest SEO updates. Subscribe to SEO sites such as searchengineland and moz. If something is in the air, these sites are usually the first to let their readers know. Focus on your writing process. Put as much care and attention into your writing as possible. The better quality posts you publish, the easier it will be to rank. And if your writing isn’t the best, hire us to produce some top quality posts! Contact us today if you want to give your blog a serious boost in 2020. Our Ink Elves are ready to meet the challenge!

3 SEO Trends That Will Dominate 2020

Search engine optimisation is a fast-moving field. As Google races ahead to implement new innovations and update its existing algorithms, businesses often find themselves scrambling to keep up. Below we have laid out the three SEO trends that are going to be most important in 2020, especially in light of Google’s latest algorithm update. The Decline Of The Keyword Keywords are so integral to the SEO process that it seems absurd to suggest they might be on their way out. However, while it might be an uncomfortable reality, keywords are a relic from the earliest days of internet searches. Keywords were great when people used the internet as a library – you simply typed a subject of interest into the search bar and the search engine would retrieve content that matched your keyword. However, we no longer search for vague keywords. Google’s search algorithms have been increasing in sophistication for a couple of decades now and their ability to discern a user’s intent from their search query is one of the most important manifestations of this improvement. Users are no longer searching for simple keywords, which means that businesses need to start targeting what they are searching for. Whenever you have the opportunity, ask your customers about their journey to purchase. Pay particular attention to the kind of search queries they are using and focus on these instead of traditional keywords. Zero-Click Searches Google’s SERPs are much more dynamic than they once were. If you type a relatively straightforward question into Google, it will often return a SERP that contains the answer without the need for the user to click through to another website. On the surface, this might sound bad for businesses – if a user’s query is answered on the SERP itself then the user has no incentive to visit the business website. However, it is important to be realistic. A user searching for a phone number or other simple information probably wasn’t going to convert anyway. Had they been searching for a product or service that you provided, a zero-click search would not have yielded results. In fact, you can use zero-click searches to your advantage. Google’s SERPs sometimes contain featured snippets. These are previews of content that are relevant to the user’s search query. Google is very selective about what it includes in these snippets, so you need to ensure that your data is structured properly, and your content is of high quality. If you can land a featured snippet, though, you can expect significant returns. All Hail BERT! BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is the latest update to Google’s search algorithm and represents the biggest change to how Google searches work since RankBrain. According to the search giant, BERT will impact around 10% of all search queries made through Google. BERT is designed to enable Google to better understand the nuances of human language and interpret search queries accordingly. We mentioned the declining importance of individual keywords earlier – BERT is part of the reason for that decline. BERT is also the missing link that will enable businesses to target a user’s intent when they search, not just the string of characters they enter. Taken together, these three trends are indicative of the direction that SEO is heading in. We are moving away from keywords and towards intents, away from what the user is searching for, to why they are searching for it. The businesses that are able to adapt to this new approach the quickest will have a significant advantage over their competitors.

4 Good Reasons to Outsource Your Company’s Content

Creating content is hard work. Many startup owners who choose to perform their own marketing quickly realise how difficult it can be.  It’s not only time consuming, but it’s also tough to come up with high-quality angles for your content that engages your target audience. However, struggling to write content doesn’t have to mean you’re unable to create or distribute it.  And it definitely doesn’t mean you can’t see substantial returns from it.  The solution is to outsource. According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, up to 44% of businesses now outsource their content writing, and up to 57% of businesses outsource their content writing, their editing, and their design. Why do they do this?  Because it’s beneficial. Below are four compelling reasons to outsource your company’s content. 1. It’s Easy to Scale If you choose to go down the route of hiring an in-house content team, you’re taking a risk. You may need to hire a lot of writers in a short space of time to keep up with demand.  And when you don’t need as much content, you may be forced to lay off some of your staff to avoid losing money. When you hire a content creation agency, you are only limited by your budget.  When you need a lot of content, you can outsource it to an established agency and get it ghostwritten quickly.  And when you don’t need any content, you aren’t being forced to pay wages to people who have nothing to do.  This is a huge bonus for a startup company. 2. Your Team Can Specialise Some small businesses opt to hire content marketers who can take care of every aspect of the marketing process.  However, while this sounds good, it can also be problematic. If your marketers need to come up with creative ideas, write blog posts, distribute content, send out press releases, update social media feeds and more, they won’t have the time to create the high-quality posts that a content marketing agency specialises in. With content being the most important part of marketing, it makes sense to outsource this to an agency that can purely focus on its creation, rather than hoping your in-house staff can fit it in when they have the time. 3. Stay on Google’s Good Side We mentioned above how many jobs an in-house marketer can be expected to complete.  Another thing worth mentioning here is Google. How many times have small businesses been targeted by Google for things that were previously above board?  Do your in-house staff have the time to keep up to date with the content marketing landscape?  The answer is likely ‘no’. A good content marketing agency will ensure they remain on top of Google’s rules.  They understand how to write posts that meet an audience’s needs while staying on Google’s good side.  They are worth the money. 4. An Agency Can Target Different Clients Speak to one content writer and ask them what they specialise in.  It may be a specific type of writing – press releases, for example – or it may be a specific industry, such as travel.  A good content writing agency has many different writers working for them, enabling you to get high-quality content written by experts on as many different topics as required. Whether you need blog posts writing about cryptocurrencies and the financial landscape, or web content writing for a travel agent, a content agency can match their writers to your needs. The end result is higher quality content that targets the specific audience segment you are aiming to attract. Don’t DIY When you first start a business, it is easy to think you will be able to handle everything yourself until you grow.  However, growth often happens overnight, and by that time you’ll wish you had an agency in place to help you with your content. You wouldn’t try doing your taxes without the help of an accountant, so why would you do the same for your content? Writing content is tough, really tough if you don’t know what you’re doing.  And while many people believe outsourcing will only lead to poor quality content, the opposite is actually true.  When you work with a skilled agency like ours, you will receive: Well written content, whenever you need it Content that meets Google’s latest practices Articles that are written with both your readers and the search engines in mind. Different types of content on various subjects 100% original content that is written with your brand in mind Increased engagement and conversions With 93% of businesses now using content as part of their marketing, don’t be left behind.  Contact us today and ask us to help!