Content is King
Youthful Moves = simple useful fun
อย่ากลัวการออกกำลังกาย จนกลัวการไม่ได้ออกไปใช้ชีวิตเพราะร่างกายไม่พร้อม
Another tip: Youthful Moves = simple useful fun
Another tip: Define your UVP before writing anything else. Without having to scroll too much, your user should understand who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why you’re so good at it.
Blending
Courageous
Decisive
Driven
Dynamic
Encouraging
Focused
Friendly
Habitual
Insightful
Intentional/method
Knowledgeable
Organized
Natural
Passionate
Practical
Purposeful
Relatable
Resilient
Sensible
Sharp
Structured
Systematic
Timeless
Understanding
Your distinguishing factors might be things like: A better customer experience A service or product that is easier to use A more streamlined process Faster shipping Combining multistep processes or software programs into one hub Removing the hassle associated with something traditionally difficult
TurboTax makes it easy for people to file and submit their taxes digitally without an accountant. It's a good fit for people with simple tax situations who don't want to go through the hassle of finding a CPA or waiting weeks for a refund. Users are guided through a step-by-step process, get reminders from the software when they haven't submitted yet, and can easily check the status of their refund check and return submission online.
• No BS Active, a video-content exercise app, targets people who want to work out from home with fun trainers. With their subscription service, users get a new workout video five days a week from two trainers. One trainer, a popular reality TV star known for her person-ality, offers modifications for people with injuries or other special needs. This service is geared toward people who can't or don't want to go to the gym, might be nervous about exercising, and who want to connect with a fun-loving reality star for daily exercise.
BrainPOP, an educational tool, provides short lessons with a cartoon man and robot for all kinds of school subjects. It's a great way for teachers to introduce something complex in an attention-grabbing and understandable way.
Each of these examples has taken a traditional problem, such as finding and working with an accountant or how to get in a workout when you don't want to go to the gym and need modifications, and made solving that problem their UVP.
Emphasizing what you love and what is most important to you can dramatically increase the chances that someone not only connects with your copy but also with you as a person. In many solopreneur businesses, in fact, your customer is purchasing you rather than the service or the product you provide.
They believe in what you do and who you are, and the more you can sprinkle this throughout your website content and copy, the more successful you’ll be. To figure out your solopreneur UVP, start by creating a list of what you love.
TV shows or books you're obsessed with and turn to again and again
• Activities that make up the majority of your free time and you wish you could do more of
• Music genres or hobbies that make you feel alive
• Celebrities or experts you follow and respect
From there you can brainstorm additional ideas, such as synonyms related to your core personality. Check out a thesaurus and look for words that describe who you are and what you do. For example, imagine that some of your past clients have commented on how energetic you are and see this as an advantage of working with you. They are buying into your energy. To brainstorm beyond that word and think about how you can work this idea into your UVP, search for synonyms along the lines of zest-ful, animated, vibrant, bouncy, lively, sparkling, or perky.
Head on over to Facebook and type into the search bar “interests liked by people who like _______.” Fill in the blank with the name of a competitor or another interest of your ideal audience member. You’ll get a list of information about your target audience members and other things they like. You can use this material to provide context and also to highlight those other details throughout your copy.
Navigate to Facebook.com\ads\audience-insights. In the interests section, type in your industry or other terminology people would use to describe your industry. Then narrow down by demographic information. You can gather a great deal of valuable data in this process. Don’t forget to look at the lifestyle section of the Facebook audience insights to identify goals and challenges of your potential target readers.
If you don’t enjoy the writing process or if you’re planning to use other writers from Day One, you need a system to ensure your brand voice is used consistently. This can include branding guidelines and checklists. If no rules are in place, things quickly become sloppy and unclear, which can impact the reader’s experience.
Check out w3.org from W3C for more advice on how to review your own site for accessibility.
Here are some questions to evaluate as you brainstorm your first round of editorial guidelines: How would I describe the overall tone of my brand voice? (Examples include professional, light, witty, or sarcastic.) Do I prefer a specific style guide (such as AP or Chicago) for addressing formatting concerns? Are there any words or concepts I don’t want reflected in my brand? What are the “must-haves” for high-quality content published on my website? (Every piece of content should include these items before it’s published, such as a recap section, FAQs, clear how-to explanations, or other things specific to your brand.) How do you want writers to handle citations and use of other resources? Are certain resources preferred? Are any prohibited (such as competitor content)?
Other people might mirror clients’ limiting beliefs and issues, but these clients haven’t yet realized that the problem is their own limiting beliefs. They might attract toxic people parroting these limiting beliefs into their world without knowing it, but some of them are also aware of a disconnect in their vibe between what they want to believe with their abundance and the way that plays out in their current mind and real life.
Content Cores for Brand
Celebration
Susan's ideal clients are a community that loves to celebrate one another. Not long after someone posts a win in the Facebook group, others are not only happy for this person and chime in to celebrate, but they also see this as evidence that Susan's teachings work.
- Feeling deserved and worthy
- Tapping in to real desires
- Defining an ideal day
- Being open to receive more
- Living life * Fine-tuning a specific area of my life
- Maximizing my potential
- Loving myself
- Personal freedom
- Manifesting whatever I want
- Being grateful
- Success/manifestation
- Feeling lighter
Community
- "This group of people I am surrounded with only has love."
- "I'm right where I need to be."
- Testimony of gratitude * "You might not even realize that you're the only person in your life who feels this way or cares about solving this particular problem."
- Feeling like they were trying too hard on their own * Money family
Evidence and Results
- Manifestation at work
- Seeing the evidence * Just got a big piece of evidence * Quick results with Susan: "Susan helped me shift faster than I knew what was happening."
- Specific reactions to results from working with Susan:
- Ridiculous
- Amazing
- "I get excited to wake up and see the chapters and comments."
- "Out of nowhere"
- Proof
- Other words to use:
- Belief/believe it
- You'll see this showing up everywhere in your life.
- Quick shifts
- Words not to use:
- Guaranteed
- Easy
- Fast|
Genuine/Authentic
Everything in the brand stems from who Susan is—in her marketing, on a daily basis with her, in her emails, and so on.
- Susan has lived the system.
- She can be trusted.
- She actually shows up to help people on live calls. She promises support, and she follows through with it.
- Other words to use:
- Real
- Genuine
- An actual person
- Living proof - Been there before and remapped a new way of thinking for herself first. One client shared their experience as a "180-degree change on life," and this is very similar to Susan's own shifts.
A Proven System
Susan unlocks receiving, results, and freedom for her followers.
- Let go of things that aren't serving me.
- Stop the struggle.
- Before Susan: Why doesn't it work for me?
- Best and most effective ways.
- Always focus on the positive future ahead and the fact that Susan didn't have advanced degrees, money training, or expert financial knowledge when she got started, either. The idea is to make her work accessible to everyone of all backgrounds, no pre-requisites required. Show the concept of hope and new opportunities even for people facing serious financial challenges like bankruptcy.
- Meet people where they are at. When writing, it's OK to call out the fact that many people struggle with money both internally and externally. It's good to reference that they might have tried other things like positive affirmations, debt consolidation, or reading books on the matter, but it might not have worked. Avoid statements/words that could make someone feel more guilt, shame, and blame for themselves.
Website Page Content Template
Purpose of content
Name of page/title
URL
Main keyword (You'll learn more about keywords in Chapter 7.)
Target length
Internal links to use
External links to use
Where is the reader psychologically when they land on this page?
What do I want them to know or feel when they finish reading this page?
What aspects of a certain persona, if any, do I want reflected on this page?
What aspects of our story, if any, should be a top focus on this page?
What is our call to action, if any?
I create a page overview for every page of the site. Each page overview basically consists of a brain dump of what info the page needs to contain, calls to action, downloads or resources the page will need, and any other details I can think to include. I also include notes about possible links to other pages within the site.
Then I get organized. I make a checklist, breaking each page down into smaller copywriting tasks. My checklist might include tasks such as:
- Write main copy.
- Write CTA.
- Write freebie or download offer.
- Write copy or captions for graphics."
Additionally, as I'm writing, I like to keep the site visitor avatar right in front of my face. What information are they looking for when they come to the site? What do they want (or need) to know? How can I make this site a useful resource for them? What copy can I write to make the site more interesting?
Home Page
Here are a few questions to consider as you brainstorm your home page content: What is the strongest message rather than the biggest collection of messages I can share with my audience on my home page? How can my home page quickly and clearly introduce who we are and what we do while leading the reader to the next most important step we want them to take?
Here is a simple visual formula to help you create a great home page: Navigation Bar, Catchy Opening Statement, Ways You Help People, Introduction to You, Invitation to Follow You or Connect with You, Feedback or Achievements of Note, Footer
About Page
Turn to the techniques of fiction writing to help you craft your about page. Sta: by setting the scene and explaining what things looked like before your company began, and introduce the problem that encouraged you to take action. You can then navigate into how you went about determining a solution and starting the business and some of the obstacles you've faced along the way or the early accomplishments you've achieved. As you close out your about page, talk about what's next for you or the company and its goals.
Lean into your personal background and how it led you to where you are today.
Here's a quick template for an about page:
- A few sentences about who you are at a high level
- How you got into this field
- Why you're passionate about what you do
- The unique approach you bring to the table
Key Questions to Help You Write Your About Page
- In one sentence, who is your ideal customer?
- What is the mission you're trying to achieve, personally and as a company? * How do you help other people achieve their goals?
- Why should someone work with you and not your competitors?
- What are one to three fun facts that make you relatable and interesting to your target audience?
Questions to Consider When Drafting Services Pages
Your services pages should be focused on what you do for your readers and how you do it differently.
Briggs, Laura. Content Is King (p. 80). Entrepreneur Press. Kindle Edition.
Each person's services will be unique, but a few common themes tie them together. Consider these questions as you write out how your service helps your target customer:
- Why are you able to get the results you do? (What is your UVP?)
Why are you the right person to help your clients with their primary pain point? - In this section, you'll explain that you understand their pain. Have you been there before? Were you inspired by going through this personally, or with a family member or friend?
What process do you use when meeting a customer who has a pain point you can solve? - How do you break down what might seem overwhelming or overloaded and make it accessible or even enjoyable?
- Why do customers love working with you on this process?
Copywriting Principles Checklist
Once you've had a chance to draft your pages, review your work using the following checklist:
• My content educates rather than sells.
• My content is relatable.
• I've avoided using all caps.
• My content is unique.
• Each page of my site has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• My content has been proofread for grammar and spelling issues.
• I've read my content out loud for concision and looked for ways to cut things down.
• My content is reader first.
• I'm not attached to what I think will work. I wrote my content based on data and best practices.
• Quality first, quantity second.
• My brand voice is consistent throughout my content.
SEO
Although we’ll never know the perfect formula to get our content to rank on page one, we can make some good assumptions based on the history of search engine rankings that the following factors are influential:
Posting high-quality website and blog content
Making sure the title of the content matches the searcher’s intent
Posting new content to your website over time
Making content scannable and visually organized for digital readers (using subheads)
Providing additional SEO information such as alt tags on photos, links to other pages on the same website, and links to authority pages off-site
Here are a few ways to make content scannable for a digital audience:
Use subheads at least every few hundred words (every hundred words is better).
Add images to break up long blocks of text.
Try to avoid having more than five or six lines of text in a paragraph.
Don't use annoying fonts or font sizes on your website that could make your text hard to read.
What Kinds of Backlinks Should I Seek Out?
Not all links are created equal, and simply pursuing a cheap but widespread linking strategy could land you in hot water. If low-quality websites drive traffic and links to your site, that will not give you a higher domain authority score. Here's what you do want:
- Links from sites related to yours in topic area or niche
- High-quality links, such as from sites that already have their own established domain authority rankings
- Diversity of links, meaning not all the links pointing to your web-site come from the same small number of places
Content Strategy
The Brain Traffic Model
Content Strategy for the Web uses what it calls the brain traffic model to map out the most important elements of content strategy. Following are the five primary components of content strategy:
- Core: How will the content be used?
- Substance: What content is needed?
- Structure: How is that content organized?
- Workflow: How is content created?
- Governance: How do we decide what to do?
To get started, you'll need to focus on your marketing goals and your capacity to create and implement, beginning with one specific plan.
At its foundation, your content marketing strategy should consider your target audience, the content you use to reach them, and the benefits those readers will obtain from connecting with that content. An easy way to do this is to fill in the blanks in this sentence: We create ……kind of content to help ……. target reader accomplish…….
KPIs
Some of the KPIs you might set include:
- Number of organic page views of your blog per mont
- Number of keywords ranking in the top 10 or top three on Google
- Percentage of keywords making improvements month over month
- Increasing email subscribers as a result of on-page visitors
- Better social media engagement
- More podcast downloads
- More sign-ups for your opt-in email list
using Google Analytics. Visit Audience, then Interests, and then Overview to see the market segments your current web visitors fit into. You might include a content marketing strategy that sets specific goal numbers for how many pieces of content you’ll produce each month in the form of:
Short blog posts
Long blog posts
Social media content
Podcast episodes
Case studies
White papers
Infographics
Ebooks
Videos
Email marketing, such as newsletters
How to Determine and Allocate Resources for Your Content Marketing Strategy
Some of the questions you'll consider as you assess content resources include:
- What digital tools do you need to create content?
- Who will be in charge of producing and updating content?
Will you need a copy editor or other final proofreader to help keep an eye on minor details? - What does the publishing process look like, including scheduling and publishing of content?
Setting Up a Content Workflow
Developing a workflow will help keep things on track and ensure consistency across your entire brand voice. Your content production process should include steps such as:
- Determining topics and primary keywords
- Creating outlines and getting them approved
- Writing posts yourself or outsourcing them to the person who will write them
- Sending posts to the editor
- Creating accompanying social media images and additional links
- Doing a final pass review
- Making revisions or passing revisions to a freelance writer
- Uploading content
- Publishing content
- Executing on the promotional plan for that piece of content
Blogging
Your process might look like the following:
Research keyword topics.
Brainstorm additional topics with team.
Determine whether topics need to align with specific dates, such as holidays or special company promotions.
Draft outlines. Write blogs.
Edit blogs.
Publish blogs.
Share on social media or in your email newsletter.
What Makes a Good Blog Post?
As with many things SEO-based, a great blog is about connecting with readers.
A good blog:
- Provides helpful information in an easy-to-read format
- Considers its readers' common questions and objections throughout
- Goes beyond basic information readers could find elsewhere
- Positions you as a thought leader in your field
How to Create an Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar makes it easy to choose what to write about and when, removing decision fatigue in the future when it’s time to sit down and write a post. Your editorial calendar is essentially a roadmap of your content marketing plan. For most, this will reference planned blog posts, dates when drafts are due, and when the final pieces will publish. For companies using more complex content marketing strategies, this calendar can also include details about other outputs such as infographics (images sharing data visually) or lead magnets (free reports, checklists, and the like), along with email newsletter sends and social media topics.
Complex Editorial Calendar
Week 1: Blog Post #1, keyword adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Social media post: How to know if you have adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Infographic: Breaking down the rise of adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Email newsletter: Do you need a formal diagnosis of adrenal fatigue syndrome?
Week 2: Blog Post #2, keyword adrenal fatigue causes
– Social media post: Biggest triggers of adrenal fatigue
– Email newsletter: What triggered your adrenal fatigue?
– Lead magnet: 14 causes of adrenal fatigue
Week 3: Blog Post #3, keyword adrenal fatigue test
– Lead magnet: Checklist of adrenal fatigue test options
– Email newsletter: Are all adrenal fatigue tests the same?
– Social media post: Are adrenal fatigue tests accurate?
Week 4: Blog Post #4, keyword symptoms of adrenal fatigue
– Lead magnet: Quiz—Do you have adrenal fatigue?
– Email newsletter: Which symptoms are most likely signs of adrenal fatigue?
A personal trainer knows that people have a lot of motivation to get things back on track toward the beginning of the year. They might cover topics such as how to stick with resolutions or building healthy habits to coincide with people’s natural interest during that time frame.
a blogging routine
A few things will impact the time commitment for your blogging routine:
The depth of research required for the topics you’ve chosen
Your target word count length
How often you post
Whether you’re also the same person adding bells and whistles such as pictures after the piece is written
Your personal writing process
The best thing you can do as a new writer is to feel out what your own process looks like and then look for ways to systematize the work.
Here’s an example of a possible production schedule if you’ll be writing weekly blogs:
End of quarter: Define and confirm all blog topics for the following quarter.
End of quarter: Draft writing guidelines or outlines for month one publish dates.
Last two weeks of the quarter: Draft blog post one for the next quarter.
Month one in new quarter: Edit and publish blog posts, and create outlines for the following month.
= What to Post: Fitness Trainer Example
Let's walk through an example of what you could potentially post on your blog. Imagine a fitness trainer who intends to promote themselves for personal training sessions. Relevant articles could include fitness tips to help build that trust and knowledge. But people who tend to be into fitness might also be interested in meditation tips; weight loss ideas; breaking down myths about dieting, health, and fitness; nutritious eating; quick and easy meal planning; reviews of CrossFit; or new types of exercise or exercise videos that have come out recently. Or they might want to read about general exercise guidance, such as common mistakes people make in the gym or with weights, medical benefits of exercise and how that can translate to other areas of life, or how you can hurt yourself if you don't know what you're doing. Or perhaps this trainer could write a series of articles about exercising too long, exercising too often, using too much weight, or doing too much cardio and not enough strength training.
All these articles target SEO keywords while also building the credibility of the fitness trainer, because they have the opportunity to talk about their unique perspective and convince readers they really know what they're doing. And then they might add new stories about current research around fitness benefits, weight loss, or even how many people are not exercising. That could be a great way to capitalize on something that's already trending. Whether I'm writing for myself or for a client, I usually start with a brain dump and brainstorm all the different categories we could use. In this trainer example, we might have fitness tips, healthy living tips, healthy eating, meal planning, and even meditation. And that makes it really easy to provide enough variety for the reader without going too far in the direction of losing some of that SEO traction.
Building Core and Additional Content on Your Blog
For a weight loss blog managed by a nutritionist or personal trainer, you might be thinking of exercises or recipes you could suggest to your clients, or your favorite weight loss tips. These are the core pieces of content that speak most specifically to the target audience.
Let's imagine an example related to weight loss. If your website primarily targets people who are looking to lose weight, your gut reaction might be that everything you write about needs to be associated with diet, perhaps supplemented by content related to workout plans. However, these are only the most basic concepts in that topic area, and your readers likely have other interests as well. Furthermore, because such stiff competition exists for weight loss blogs on the internet, you'll need to create materials in a way that is specific to you and your company, which you can ultimately link to those core pages.
One level beyond the most basic and obvious level of content includes things that might also be relevant to that same audience but maybe aren't weightloss specific. People who care about weight loss will also be interested in related subjects that might expand well beyond typical diet, weight loss, and recipe topics. So your target reader might be going back to the gym or starting a running regimen. And a related concern could be:
Do I need special shoes to do that? What shoes do I buy if I haven't worked out in 10 years and I'm going to the shoe store to pick something up? Do I get cross trainers? Do I get walking shoes? Do I get running shoes?
Maybe you write about how to get your shoes fitted properly. Another fun idea could be apps to help you find a friend to exercise with who will keep you motivated. And you could provide some stats in there about how having some form of accountability helps people achieve their workout goals. Some people choose to pursue weight loss without doing any exercise at all. So that exercise focus might not be relevant to the entire audience of the weight loss blog, but it is related content outside that simple core. You could also talk about other things in the health and wellness space. So you might be researching the connection between diet, sleep, and weight. How are all these topics tied together? What role does stress have in helping someone feel motivated when waking up in the morning? That might not initially seem relevant for a weight loss blog, but it is. A person who wakes up in a bad mood or feeling tired is not going to the gym. They will have a harder time doing their meal prep, and they're planning for different things.
Remember Your Target Audience
Remember from Chapter 3 the work you did to define your target audience. Who is this person who we hope will read the blog? How did they spend their day? Are they in a particular age category? Are we trying to reach a particular gender? Are we trying to reach someone who has a very specific problem? Considering those questions is a great way to expand beyond that basic idea of content. It's almost like creating a character for a fiction book. Who is this person? What motivates them? What challenges do they face in their life? What is leading them to search for this particular issue? Why are they taking that specific action? What other content might be relevant for that specific person as they're reading through this information?
Thinking Like Your Audience
One of the most powerful ways to directly address the needs of your primary readers is to think about the kinds of questions they ask. What questions have clients asked you in the past? What are people asking your sales team? This method helps you craft content specifically for your target audience. Your readers will feel as though you can solve their specific concerns.
One of my freelance writing clients shared that some of his customers were concerned about whether filing married taxes separately or jointly influenced student loan repayment options. We did the keyword research to phrase this concern as a question in the blog title. This had multiple benefits. First of all, the client already knew this was a hot topic and one he had personally worked through with clients. And he was able, from this blog post, to direct them to book consultations with him because he showcased that he was an expert, but each situation was different and would require a consultation. This signals to readers that the accountant has already handled this kind of complex case.
Second, this post provided information in the form of a question and answer for the end readers of the article, who would likely start by typing that question into search engines. Using the same question increases the chances that the audience will click on the article and read the whole thing.
If you don't have actual client data to pull from, you can still think about the state of mind of your readers when they click on the search engine. Let's imagine that the blog in question belongs to a financial professional. I might start brainstorming by thinking about questions that would ultimately lead someone to a financial professional. What would prompt somebody to call a financial professional? Perhaps they've had a major windfall and don't know what to do with it. Maybe they just turned 35 or 40 and realize they haven't done enough or anything for retirement planning and are ready to get serious. Maybe they've inherited some type of stock or large asset and aren't sure about the best way to leverage this over the course of their future. Maybe they recently completed a debt consolidation program or read a book about financial planning and are looking for the next steps to implement this into their life.
All these scenarios provide clues to the mindset of the person who might end up on the financial professional's blog. We might even create content that targets each of the people in these situations. This helps to draw the connection between the reader and the website while also drawing in SEO. When you can balance those keywords and other technical aspects of SEO with the psychological perspective of the person who is searching at that point in time, you can build that know, like, and trust factor with your reader. From here, you will likely have tons of ideas you can write about, which supplement the keyword research you did earlier. I like to store all this information in a document or a spreadsheet. If you include the metrics that are most important to you, such as number of keyword searches per month or the relevance each idea has for your audience, you can sort by those metrics later. You can return to this database or brain bank when you need inspiration as you build your quarterly or monthly editorial calendar.
Max Out Your Content Ideas
Your own brain is the inspiration for this initial list of possible content ideas. But you certainly don't need to stop there. Sources of additional ideas for your blog are everywhere.
Once you have maxed out everything you can think of for initial content, supplement your list by researching and identifying other possibilities for topics and titles. Use this as an opportunity to collect as much information as possible, and don't worry about editing your list until you have gone through each of the following sources and come up with as much material as possible. This is how you can build your master brain dump list.
Organizing and Planning
The next phase of building your content marketing calendar is to organize all the ideas you have collected. Some will ultimately be turned into blog posts or other pieces of content marketing, such as infographics or social media posts. One key aspect of this is to determine the right title. When planning blog titles, make sure the primary keyword is included, but also that the blog title accurately describes the material that will follow in the blog post itself.
The blog should also flow from the beginning to the end, providing helpful information for the reader in a sensible way. Imagine the following example, where you've determined you want your blog title to be "Is power washing safe for pets?"
What might the reader's experience be if the order of the blog with that title was as follows?
- Where to buy power-washing tools
- Chemicals in power washing
- How to power wash
- How often to power wash
This would be a confusing experience for the reader, right? First of all, only the second subhead addresses the primary purpose of their search (and your post title). Someone who is trying to find out whether power washing is safe is probably curious about whether it is safe with different types of machines and whether it is better to do it by yourself or outsource to a professional. Having only one section of this blog directly addressing the chemicals included in the power-washing process could be confusing.
Furthermore, starting the blog with where to buy power-washing tools doesn't really match the intent or create the ideal flow. Putting that information at the end of the block, after you have made a compelling argument about whether power washing is safe, would make a lot more sense. Make sure the content flows in an order that will be logical to a reader. You might come back to this a couple of times before beginning to draft a blog, but that's OK. It is well worth the effort to make sure you actually meet your reader where they are.
A better outline for this topic might be: - Is power washing safe around pets?
- Chemicals used in power washing
- How to power wash safely
目 Generic vs. Specific
By now you know that some questions and topics that pop up in your keyword research may seem very general in nature. When coming up with topics for your blog, strike a balance between things that are more specific (usually your long-tail keywords) and those more general topics, so your site becomes a resource hub.
Here's what I mean by generic content: It's something that 15 to 20 other people have already written about in depth. Because Google ranking competition is so fierce, it will be really hard for a generic topic to rank if that's all you have on your site.
If we post the blog on how to fix a flat tire, that mechanic is competing with everyone around the world who has a blog post called "How to fix a flat tire." There's no differentiation, so it probably won't attract the exact readership that mechanic wants. But if that mechanic is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and only services clients in the Pittsburgh region, we could make that title or topic specific to Pittsburgh, such as "Places in Pittsburgh you're most likely to get a flat tire" or "What to do if you get a flat tire on X Street in Pittsburgh."
Another way to differentiate it might be to write about how to fix a flat tire when you have no tools in your car. Are there any ways to temporarily fix a flat until you can get to a mechanic or call for help? If you can help people who have none of the tools and no spare in their car, that's something they might want to read. Although the generic content of how to fix a flat tire is probably super helpful, we need to add some type of twist beyond that generic content. If this blog is helpful to readers, it might help the mechanic's site to rank in a search for "how to fix a flat tire" for searchers all over the country. A local mechanic, however, just wants
clients in their specific region.
A good example might be "10 exercises that help after a breakup" or something else specific to your process. In this case, think about the process you as the coach would use to help someone jump back into the dating pool after a long time out of it.
How to Think Like a Reader
Before you even come up with ideas, the most important thing you can do is think like a reader. You yourself are the Googler.
So think about that search process. As you’re coming up with topics, consider your clients’ main concerns, issues, and questions that lead them to Google and how they find information about a specific problem. What would get your client’s attention? What would prompt someone to open and read the article you posted? SEO content needs to go one step beyond providing helpful information that is aligned with where the reader is in the funnel. Your content also needs to capture your reader’s attention, usually with a meaningful topic and an excellent headline and title.
Videocasting, Podcasting, and Blogging: How to Repurpose Content®
You can repurpose your existing video or audio into written formats. For example, I have repurposed my 10- to 15-minute Facebook Live videos into text-based-quote social shares, image-based social shares, one-minute video clips, and even full blogs. The main idea here is to keep the essence of your main points and teachings while cleaning up the text so it reads well in written form.
Here are a few tools that can help you with the repurposing process:
- Descript or Otter.ai can create automated transcripts of your video or audio files quickly.
Grammarly can help you find major errors from spoken to written word in an uploaded document. (Their Chrome extension also makes grammar checking simple in Google Docs.) - Headliner.app (and others) let you upload audio files to turn them into short video clips.
When looking for material for social media posts, create templates inside a tool like Canva to make sure the branding is consistent. You can pull main ideas, quotes from a guest or host, or the title of the episode into social media image templates that you use each time you release an episode. If you've got an in-house graphic designer, they can make new designs for each episode. If you're looking to keep costs down, pay a graphic designer once to make you a full suite of templates that you can add new headshots and text to every week.
Sales Copy
Elements of Great Sales Copy
While the length and overall style of sales copy might change from one company to another, a couple of core threads should be in place throughout. They include:
- A focus more on the benefits of an offer than its features \
- Emotional triggers that make the reader feel as though you're speaking directly to them"
One big mistake made in the realm of sales copy is listing out all the features of an offer instead of the benefits. Both elements belong in your sales copy, but if you had to choose one that's more important, it's the benefits.
One of these refers to tangible aspects of your offer and the other refers to intangible aspects. Features are tangible-those are the direct things customers will receive by purchasing.
For example, if you are a life coach, the tangible features you offer to clients are the weekly sessions that you would coach with them. Benefits, however, are what those features can do for them. **In the life coach example, the benefits of engaging in life coaching are feeling more confident, owning your productivity, and setting and achieving goals you can be proud of. **The vast majority of sales copy should address benefits.
Benefits—what you are truly selling—are based on emotions, while features are what you think you are selling. When people purchase a product or a service from you, they are not only purchasing that product; they are purchasing the transformation or the outcome they’ll get from that product.
The buyer is truly making their purchase for what it can enable in their life. The features are just something that supports the overall benefit the person is receiving.
How to Leverage Emotion in Sales Copy
One way to improve your connection with your audience and encourage them to act is through the power of emotions. One of the most compelling emotional motivations is time. All too often, advertisers and copywriters focus on making life simpler or saving money, and these are certainly compelling benefits for someone using a service or a product. But saving time is increasingly important. People are more overloaded than ever with responsibilities and feeling stressed from their jobs. Time is something you can't get more of and yet is profoundly important.
If time (or lack of it) is a trigger for your audience, you might infuse that concept into your sales copy.
Another way to introduce time-based emotions throughout your sales copy is to consider the instant gratification society we live in. Words like right now, immediately, and instantly all speak to people who want their solution faster.
As the global COVID-19 pandemic showed us, time is precious and people are choosing to value it more and more. Using time as a sales copy technique can include telling someone they can save time doing something they don't want to do, encouraging them to stop wasting valuable time with a process that could be automated or simplified, or helping them spend more quality time on activities they do want to do.
Luxury and Influence
The desire for luxury and influence is another emotional trigger you can use if those desires embody your ideal audience member. This taps into the idea of prestige, which can make you feel good or make others see you and your business in a particular way. Elements such as exclusivity, which can align with luxury or influence, can also help you stand out in the market.
Family
For most people, belonging to a family, whether found or biological, is an important component of their life. The more you can play up the concept of family, the easier it will be to forge connections with your audience's ideals. For example, think about advertisements that talk about keeping the family together, keeping them healthy, allowing children to enjoy their childhood, how their family may struggle without their financial contributions, and more.
Landing Pages and Lead Magnets*
What happens if someone lands on your website, gets value from what you've posted, but then disappears only to forget about you and your company name? To avoid this, most companies include a landing page and lead magnet strategy in their business. This gives the company permission to remarket to that same follower multiple times. When someone fills out a landing page, they're usually sharing an email address or a phone number. For sharing that information, the reader receives some kind of free offering
You might hear the terms ethical bribe, opt in, freebie, or lead magnet used to describe the free offering you give to someone in exchange for them joining your email list, social media group, or text message marketing. These all essentially mean the same thing, which is that you're creating and giving away something free to introduce the reader to your expertise. This is a strongly recommended part of your marketing funnel. Once people know the quality of your free information, they will likely feel more confident investing in your paid materials.
Landing Page Basics
A landing page can receive traffic from pop-ups, ads, social media posts, or links in your email newsletter, among other places. The landing page is the place where you offer your lead magnet, a free item such as a report, checklist, video series, or audio file.
The landing page can be as simple as a few lines of text with an image of what is being offered, along with a place where they can add sign-up details such as their name and email address. It can also be much more involved if you're trying to get them to commit to something more complicated, such as a five-day challenge.
On a landing page, the primary goal is to get the reader to realize there is a significant benefit for signing up for the offer. This means you need to make it compelling and directly aligned with their primary pain point. Once your landing page is live, you will measure its success based on the conversion rate. The conversion rate is the number of people who have viewed the page compared with the number of people who have signed up for that particular offer. When evaluating a landing page that is performing poorly, you might look at the copy, the images, the detail or level of information requested from the subscriber, or the offer itself.
Lead Magnet Basics
Your lead magnet might be an ebook, a PDF, a checklist, or a quiz. These are tools to encourage people to join your email list. As part of your bigger content marketing strategy, the primary purpose here is to provide information that goes beyond the basics or to give people a usable template or checklist. Here are some examples of how various companies might use lead magnets:
- A personal trainer might create a PDF of their favorite healthy smoothie recipes.
- A landscaping company could create a checklist of top end-of-summer tasks that anyone can do to improve the health of their lawn before winter hits.
A company culture specialist might create an assessment or a quiz that companies can use to score themselves on how great their workplace is.
Lead magnets highlight expertise and take the reader one step further in the marketing funnel.
A lead magnet is directly connected to the landing page, because the two work together. The landing page sells the benefit of the lead magnet, but the lead magnet is where you deliver on your promise.
- A landscaping company could create a checklist of top end-of-summer tasks that anyone can do to improve the health of their lawn before winter hits.
A few other ideas you might consider as a lead magnet include the following:
- A quiz that gives someone a very specific result
- A checklist that helps readers ensure they've considered all the details or steps of a process
- A free report that debunks a myth or simplifies a process
- Swipe files or templates that make it easier for the reader to do something
Sometimes content creators or business owners go overboard with their lead magnet. After all, if giving a one-page PDF helps highlight value, wouldn't it be better to offer a 15-page PDF? In most cases, the answer is no. One of the biggest challenges marketers and customers face right now is overwhelm. From spending too much time on video to having too many emails to being targeted with too many advertisements, customers are savvier than ever, but they are also overloaded with messages. The more you can make your lead magnet easy or simple for someone to take on, the easier it will be for them to absorb it and to feel an immediate win.** Providing too much information can make the reader feel like the process is too difficult, and they'll walk away feeling that you're knowledgeable but that they are not ready to continue with the project.
For example, imagine that you're a closet organization specialist. You might offer a lead magnet that gives someone a 15-step process to reorganize every closet in their home. Your intention is well-meaning, but a person who is buried in clutter will simply find this overwhelming. You might start with a smaller piece of the process, such as how to set goals for picking things to give away to charity or for a garage sale. This is only one step of the process, but it can give someone an easy, early win that makes them feel motivated to continue with the process and believe that you're the right person to help them. Small, bite-size achievements and wins are best to target here, so continue to edit your work down again and again until you feel you have given someone a quick, clear, achievable outcome.
Tips for Writing Lead Magnets
If you plan to create lead magnets, here are a few important notes to keep in mind.
Tip 1: Know Your Customer
The first rule of writing lead magnets is to know the customer. Who is the end reader who will be enticed by this particular freebie? Lean into their pain points. Think carefully as you brainstorm ideas for possible lead magnets. What are the biggest challenges they face in their daily life? What obstacles are they most interested in overcoming? What keeps them up at night?
A great way to find this information is to search questions on Reddit, AnswerThePublic, or Amazon reviews. You'll get a lot of amazing information about what's important to people, such as what drove them crazy about a product or what they loved about a particular service. Exploring these sites is also a great way to pull keywords. What is most important to your potential clients? Let's say you are a podcast production company and you're trying to reach somebody who wants to launch a podcast. You might go through Answer ThePublic and look for phrases such as "how hard is it to start a podcast?" to see what actual people have said about it.
The purpose here is not to steal work that others have already done. Instead, you're finding an insight into where others have not gone far enough to answer questions and how you might be able to position your lead magnet as the answer to a common concern. You will learn a lot more about the pain points of your ideal audience.
Tip 2: Match Your Magnet
The next thing to consider is creating a lead magnet that matches where your audience is in the funnel. Remember the person who's getting ready to make that podcast? We don't want to offer them something at the awareness level. If they're making decisions such as "Where should I host my podcast?" or "How should I create the show art for my podcast?" we don't want to give them "Five Steps to Launching Your Podcast" or "Three Tech Tools for Creating a Podcast." They're already past that point. And likewise, we don't want to offer something that's really far down the funnel for someone who's only at the awareness stage, because they're not ready to make a commitment yet. It doesn't help them.
Tip 3: Don't Overwhelm Your Customer
A common mistake in lead magnets is giving too much. Many companies do this with the best of intentions. They think, well, if giving something away for free is a great model to build trust, what if I give away something extremely valuable for free? This often backfires, because too much information is simply overwhelming. I've seen, time and time again, that these overwhelming lead magnets do not convert as well. Instead, try to pick something concise.
I used to have a 20-page report on Upwork, and people just didn't buy it until I switched it to a one-page profile checklist. That thing converted like gangbusters. I am continually looking at ideas and testing them as lead magnets, and I encourage you to do the same.
A good portion of information for people to consume is a three-step offer, such as "Three Steps to Choosing Your Business's Domain Name." This doesn't promise them everything they need to know about starting a business, but it gives them one particular piece, which is clarity on how to choose a domain name.
What wouldn't work, on the other hand, is something like "67 Steps to Starting Your First Website." That might seem like a really good giveaway, because you've organized all 67 steps, right? You've told the reader everything they need to know. But it will be really overwhelming for people. And they'll probably get stuck on step two and not do any of the rest. So break it down. Maybe some of those 67 steps can be put into an email sequence. And some could go into a paid ebook or a course at the end of the funnel. But we don't want to throw everything at people at once.
Tip 4: Avoid an Unclear Outcome
A lead magnet description that is too vague or otherwise not clear can cause a disconnect with a reader. If people don't understand what they're getting, they will not opt in for your "Hear More about My Thoughts on This" or to "Join My Weekly Newsletter," even if those thoughts or newsletter are free. A good example might be "Six Steps to Filing Your Taxes in Two Hours or Less." As a potential customer, I'm like Yeah, I do not want to spend more than two hours working on my taxes this year. What is less great here is this lead magnet copy doesn't tell me anything about what's in the report. It doesn't tell me if this addresses taxes for business or if it's specific to a certain state. As a potential customer, I'm wondering if this is just a promotional report selling an accountant's services. Make sure your lead magnet description is really specific and clear, because I promise you that people will not opt in for a vague offer.
Tip 5: Avoid Bad Design
The design of your lead magnet does need to look professional. Bad design of a lead magnet can shortchange your results or kill amazing content.
A professional design can include your color branding, or it can be in templates you've created. It shouldn't just be something you throw together in Microsoft Word. When it comes to design, don't just export a Word document into a PDF and give that away. Put copyright language on it. Include the company's name and website. We want it to be branded. Once a reader has learned something from your lead magnet, they want to easily be able to contact you for work.
How to Align a Lead Magnet with Your Target Customer
We've talked about lead magnets at a very high level. Now let's dive into how to align a lead magnet with where the customer is in the marketing funnel. You need to know the customer's awareness status and where they are in that process. You always want to meet the reader exactly where they are. If they're at the top of the funnel and not even aware there's a problem yet, much less a solution, you don't want to give them a side-by-side comparison of your company's offer against that of your competitors.
Your awareness-stage reader is not quite ready to make that level of decision yet. Instead, our goal is to build trust and move these readers further along the funnel. The lead magnet, no matter what it is, should always provide a quick win. It shouldn't be so overwhelming that the person feels like they can't accomplish it, or that they don't even finish reading or working through it. Your lead magnet should give them a quick win, both in the sense of how long it takes for them to consume but also in the specificity of the offer itself.*
You don't want to tell your audience how to solve all 12 problems they have. Instead, narrow in on one. Then because they were able to establish one quick win from the free material, they will be curious to hang around and see what else is out there. You've built some trust. When a reader is at the awareness stage, a few types of lead magnets make the most sense for them. These include blog posts, white papers, webinars, tools, and audio files such as meditations or affirmations.
Free trials, on the other hand, give someone who's already in the buying stage an opportunity to decide if they like the company. In exchange for sharing their email address and setting up an account, they get to see if the product or service works for them before making a bigger commitment. Free short sessions can work really well for consultants, coaches, and practitioners of things like astrology or anything like that. In this instance, those business owners are delivering a service, a short consultation, a discovery call, or perhaps a sample session. These all provide the opportunity to decide if someone is the right fit. And I find that these short calls can be really powerful when you know that your reader or customer is in the decision phase.
Case Studies
Feedback from people who have worked with you is really powerful for storytelling with new readers on your site. Case studies are very strong social proof stories about someone's experience working with you. Case studies might exist as their own individual blog updates or pages on your website, as lead magnets, or as email newsletter topics. If you want to resonate with your followers, you might use case studies to tell a story about what your past clients experienced.
Gathering this information is slightly different from creating a blog post from scratch. However, you can use case studies in many ways. Case studies help connect people with the role you play as the expert guide in the customer hero's journey. You might want to capitalize on someone who showed interest by getting them to take one action step beyond visiting your website, so you could provide a case study as a lead magnet for becoming an email subscriber. That gives you further permission to contact that reader by coming into their email inbox with the other content you've created to drive them back to your website or to take additional steps with your company, such as scheduling a phone call to learn more about your services. The choice is up to you and depends on where you're targeting customers in the marketing funnel.
As we've discussed in this chapter, people don't buy features; they buy benefits. They're buying the possibility of the transformation they might achieve by working with you or using your product.
Case studies are extremely effective for conversions. The person in the case study isn't just a happy customer. Instead, this customer went one step further by sharing their story. Their words will resonate with readers because readers will connect with that customer's pain points. Case studies are a great marketing tool to have in your arsenal, because you can repurpose them in many formats beyond your website.
Here are some tips on how to use case studies more effectively:
- Focus on the pain points the customer had before they used your product or service. This helps to clearly showcase the "before" picture, so the transformation is more obvious later.
- Showcase what the customer experienced during the process. (Hint: This is part of your UVP! Refer back to Chapter 3 for more info.)
- End the case study with what the customer experienced at the end of the transformation. What did they walk away with?
Case study length can vary, but a good target length is between 1,000 and 1,500 words. You can always repurpose shorter excerpts as needed.
Here are some prepared questions you can use: - What prompted you to hire or purchase?
- What hesitations did you have before purchasing?
- What surprised you about the process, the service, the people, or the product?
- If you had one piece of advice to give to someone in the position of considering this product or service, what would that be?
- . Without having to scroll too much, your user should understand who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why you’re so good at it.
Blending
Courageous
Decisive
Driven
Dynamic
Encouraging
Focused
Friendly
Habitual
Insightful
Intentional/method
Knowledgeable
Organized
Natural
Passionate
Practical
Purposeful
Relatable
Resilient
Sensible
Sharp
Structured
Systematic
Timeless
Understanding
Your distinguishing factors might be things like: A better customer experience A service or product that is easier to use A more streamlined process Faster shipping Combining multistep processes or software programs into one hub Removing the hassle associated with something traditionally difficult
TurboTax makes it easy for people to file and submit their taxes digitally without an accountant. It's a good fit for people with simple tax situations who don't want to go through the hassle of finding a CPA or waiting weeks for a refund. Users are guided through a step-by-step process, get reminders from the software when they haven't submitted yet, and can easily check the status of their refund check and return submission online.
• No BS Active, a video-content exercise app, targets people who want to work out from home with fun trainers. With their subscription service, users get a new workout video five days a week from two trainers. One trainer, a popular reality TV star known for her person-ality, offers modifications for people with injuries or other special needs. This service is geared toward people who can't or don't want to go to the gym, might be nervous about exercising, and who want to connect with a fun-loving reality star for daily exercise.
BrainPOP, an educational tool, provides short lessons with a cartoon man and robot for all kinds of school subjects. It's a great way for teachers to introduce something complex in an attention-grabbing and understandable way.
Each of these examples has taken a traditional problem, such as finding and working with an accountant or how to get in a workout when you don't want to go to the gym and need modifications, and made solving that problem their UVP.
Emphasizing what you love and what is most important to you can dramatically increase the chances that someone not only connects with your copy but also with you as a person. In many solopreneur businesses, in fact, your customer is purchasing you rather than the service or the product you provide.
They believe in what you do and who you are, and the more you can sprinkle this throughout your website content and copy, the more successful you’ll be. To figure out your solopreneur UVP, start by creating a list of what you love.
TV shows or books you're obsessed with and turn to again and again
• Activities that make up the majority of your free time and you wish you could do more of
• Music genres or hobbies that make you feel alive
• Celebrities or experts you follow and respect
From there you can brainstorm additional ideas, such as synonyms related to your core personality. Check out a thesaurus and look for words that describe who you are and what you do. For example, imagine that some of your past clients have commented on how energetic you are and see this as an advantage of working with you. They are buying into your energy. To brainstorm beyond that word and think about how you can work this idea into your UVP, search for synonyms along the lines of zest-ful, animated, vibrant, bouncy, lively, sparkling, or perky.
Head on over to Facebook and type into the search bar “interests liked by people who like _______.” Fill in the blank with the name of a competitor or another interest of your ideal audience member. You’ll get a list of information about your target audience members and other things they like. You can use this material to provide context and also to highlight those other details throughout your copy.
Navigate to Facebook.com\ads\audience-insights. In the interests section, type in your industry or other terminology people would use to describe your industry. Then narrow down by demographic information. You can gather a great deal of valuable data in this process. Don’t forget to look at the lifestyle section of the Facebook audience insights to identify goals and challenges of your potential target readers.
If you don’t enjoy the writing process or if you’re planning to use other writers from Day One, you need a system to ensure your brand voice is used consistently. This can include branding guidelines and checklists. If no rules are in place, things quickly become sloppy and unclear, which can impact the reader’s experience.
Check out w3.org from W3C for more advice on how to review your own site for accessibility.
Here are some questions to evaluate as you brainstorm your first round of editorial guidelines: How would I describe the overall tone of my brand voice? (Examples include professional, light, witty, or sarcastic.) Do I prefer a specific style guide (such as AP or Chicago) for addressing formatting concerns? Are there any words or concepts I don’t want reflected in my brand? What are the “must-haves” for high-quality content published on my website? (Every piece of content should include these items before it’s published, such as a recap section, FAQs, clear how-to explanations, or other things specific to your brand.) How do you want writers to handle citations and use of other resources? Are certain resources preferred? Are any prohibited (such as competitor content)?
Other people might mirror clients’ limiting beliefs and issues, but these clients haven’t yet realized that the problem is their own limiting beliefs. They might attract toxic people parroting these limiting beliefs into their world without knowing it, but some of them are also aware of a disconnect in their vibe between what they want to believe with their abundance and the way that plays out in their current mind and real life.
Content Cores for Brand
Celebration
Susan's ideal clients are a community that loves to celebrate one another. Not long after someone posts a win in the Facebook group, others are not only happy for this person and chime in to celebrate, but they also see this as evidence that Susan's teachings work.
- Feeling deserved and worthy
- Tapping in to real desires
- Defining an ideal day
- Being open to receive more
- Living life * Fine-tuning a specific area of my life
- Maximizing my potential
- Loving myself
- Personal freedom
- Manifesting whatever I want
- Being grateful
- Success/manifestation
- Feeling lighter
Community
- "This group of people I am surrounded with only has love."
- "I'm right where I need to be."
- Testimony of gratitude * "You might not even realize that you're the only person in your life who feels this way or cares about solving this particular problem."
- Feeling like they were trying too hard on their own * Money family
Evidence and Results
- Manifestation at work
- Seeing the evidence * Just got a big piece of evidence * Quick results with Susan: "Susan helped me shift faster than I knew what was happening."
- Specific reactions to results from working with Susan:
- Ridiculous
- Amazing
- "I get excited to wake up and see the chapters and comments."
- "Out of nowhere"
- Proof
- Other words to use:
- Belief/believe it
- You'll see this showing up everywhere in your life.
- Quick shifts
- Words not to use:
- Guaranteed
- Easy
- Fast|
Genuine/Authentic
Everything in the brand stems from who Susan is—in her marketing, on a daily basis with her, in her emails, and so on.
- Susan has lived the system.
- She can be trusted.
- She actually shows up to help people on live calls. She promises support, and she follows through with it.
- Other words to use:
- Real
- Genuine
- An actual person
- Living proof - Been there before and remapped a new way of thinking for herself first. One client shared their experience as a "180-degree change on life," and this is very similar to Susan's own shifts.
A Proven System
Susan unlocks receiving, results, and freedom for her followers.
- Let go of things that aren't serving me.
- Stop the struggle.
- Before Susan: Why doesn't it work for me?
- Best and most effective ways.
- Always focus on the positive future ahead and the fact that Susan didn't have advanced degrees, money training, or expert financial knowledge when she got started, either. The idea is to make her work accessible to everyone of all backgrounds, no pre-requisites required. Show the concept of hope and new opportunities even for people facing serious financial challenges like bankruptcy.
- Meet people where they are at. When writing, it's OK to call out the fact that many people struggle with money both internally and externally. It's good to reference that they might have tried other things like positive affirmations, debt consolidation, or reading books on the matter, but it might not have worked. Avoid statements/words that could make someone feel more guilt, shame, and blame for themselves.
Website Page Content Template
Purpose of content
Name of page/title
URL
Main keyword (You'll learn more about keywords in Chapter 7.)
Target length
Internal links to use
External links to use
Where is the reader psychologically when they land on this page?
What do I want them to know or feel when they finish reading this page?
What aspects of a certain persona, if any, do I want reflected on this page?
What aspects of our story, if any, should be a top focus on this page?
What is our call to action, if any?
I create a page overview for every page of the site. Each page overview basically consists of a brain dump of what info the page needs to contain, calls to action, downloads or resources the page will need, and any other details I can think to include. I also include notes about possible links to other pages within the site.
Then I get organized. I make a checklist, breaking each page down into smaller copywriting tasks. My checklist might include tasks such as:
- Write main copy.
- Write CTA.
- Write freebie or download offer.
- Write copy or captions for graphics."
Additionally, as I'm writing, I like to keep the site visitor avatar right in front of my face. What information are they looking for when they come to the site? What do they want (or need) to know? How can I make this site a useful resource for them? What copy can I write to make the site more interesting?
Home Page
Here are a few questions to consider as you brainstorm your home page content: What is the strongest message rather than the biggest collection of messages I can share with my audience on my home page? How can my home page quickly and clearly introduce who we are and what we do while leading the reader to the next most important step we want them to take?
Here is a simple visual formula to help you create a great home page: Navigation Bar, Catchy Opening Statement, Ways You Help People, Introduction to You, Invitation to Follow You or Connect with You, Feedback or Achievements of Note, Footer
About Page
Turn to the techniques of fiction writing to help you craft your about page. Sta: by setting the scene and explaining what things looked like before your company began, and introduce the problem that encouraged you to take action. You can then navigate into how you went about determining a solution and starting the business and some of the obstacles you've faced along the way or the early accomplishments you've achieved. As you close out your about page, talk about what's next for you or the company and its goals.
Lean into your personal background and how it led you to where you are today.
Here's a quick template for an about page:
- A few sentences about who you are at a high level
- How you got into this field
- Why you're passionate about what you do
- The unique approach you bring to the table
Key Questions to Help You Write Your About Page
- In one sentence, who is your ideal customer?
- What is the mission you're trying to achieve, personally and as a company? * How do you help other people achieve their goals?
- Why should someone work with you and not your competitors?
- What are one to three fun facts that make you relatable and interesting to your target audience?
Questions to Consider When Drafting Services Pages
Your services pages should be focused on what you do for your readers and how you do it differently.
Briggs, Laura. Content Is King (p. 80). Entrepreneur Press. Kindle Edition.
Each person's services will be unique, but a few common themes tie them together. Consider these questions as you write out how your service helps your target customer:
- Why are you able to get the results you do? (What is your UVP?)
Why are you the right person to help your clients with their primary pain point? - In this section, you'll explain that you understand their pain. Have you been there before? Were you inspired by going through this personally, or with a family member or friend?
What process do you use when meeting a customer who has a pain point you can solve? - How do you break down what might seem overwhelming or overloaded and make it accessible or even enjoyable?
- Why do customers love working with you on this process?
Copywriting Principles Checklist
Once you've had a chance to draft your pages, review your work using the following checklist:
• My content educates rather than sells.
• My content is relatable.
• I've avoided using all caps.
• My content is unique.
• Each page of my site has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• My content has been proofread for grammar and spelling issues.
• I've read my content out loud for concision and looked for ways to cut things down.
• My content is reader first.
• I'm not attached to what I think will work. I wrote my content based on data and best practices.
• Quality first, quantity second.
• My brand voice is consistent throughout my content.
SEO
Although we’ll never know the perfect formula to get our content to rank on page one, we can make some good assumptions based on the history of search engine rankings that the following factors are influential:
Posting high-quality website and blog content
Making sure the title of the content matches the searcher’s intent
Posting new content to your website over time
Making content scannable and visually organized for digital readers (using subheads)
Providing additional SEO information such as alt tags on photos, links to other pages on the same website, and links to authority pages off-site
Here are a few ways to make content scannable for a digital audience:
Use subheads at least every few hundred words (every hundred words is better).
Add images to break up long blocks of text.
Try to avoid having more than five or six lines of text in a paragraph.
Don't use annoying fonts or font sizes on your website that could make your text hard to read.
What Kinds of Backlinks Should I Seek Out?
Not all links are created equal, and simply pursuing a cheap but widespread linking strategy could land you in hot water. If low-quality websites drive traffic and links to your site, that will not give you a higher domain authority score. Here's what you do want:
- Links from sites related to yours in topic area or niche
- High-quality links, such as from sites that already have their own established domain authority rankings
- Diversity of links, meaning not all the links pointing to your web-site come from the same small number of places
Content Strategy
The Brain Traffic Model
Content Strategy for the Web uses what it calls the brain traffic model to map out the most important elements of content strategy. Following are the five primary components of content strategy:
- Core: How will the content be used?
- Substance: What content is needed?
- Structure: How is that content organized?
- Workflow: How is content created?
- Governance: How do we decide what to do?
To get started, you'll need to focus on your marketing goals and your capacity to create and implement, beginning with one specific plan.
At its foundation, your content marketing strategy should consider your target audience, the content you use to reach them, and the benefits those readers will obtain from connecting with that content. An easy way to do this is to fill in the blanks in this sentence: We create ……kind of content to help ……. target reader accomplish…….
KPIs
Some of the KPIs you might set include:
- Number of organic page views of your blog per mont
- Number of keywords ranking in the top 10 or top three on Google
- Percentage of keywords making improvements month over month
- Increasing email subscribers as a result of on-page visitors
- Better social media engagement
- More podcast downloads
- More sign-ups for your opt-in email list
using Google Analytics. Visit Audience, then Interests, and then Overview to see the market segments your current web visitors fit into. You might include a content marketing strategy that sets specific goal numbers for how many pieces of content you’ll produce each month in the form of:
Short blog posts
Long blog posts
Social media content
Podcast episodes
Case studies
White papers
Infographics
Ebooks
Videos
Email marketing, such as newsletters
How to Determine and Allocate Resources for Your Content Marketing Strategy
Some of the questions you'll consider as you assess content resources include:
- What digital tools do you need to create content?
- Who will be in charge of producing and updating content?
Will you need a copy editor or other final proofreader to help keep an eye on minor details? - What does the publishing process look like, including scheduling and publishing of content?
Setting Up a Content Workflow
Developing a workflow will help keep things on track and ensure consistency across your entire brand voice. Your content production process should include steps such as:
- Determining topics and primary keywords
- Creating outlines and getting them approved
- Writing posts yourself or outsourcing them to the person who will write them
- Sending posts to the editor
- Creating accompanying social media images and additional links
- Doing a final pass review
- Making revisions or passing revisions to a freelance writer
- Uploading content
- Publishing content
- Executing on the promotional plan for that piece of content
Blogging
Your process might look like the following:
Research keyword topics.
Brainstorm additional topics with team.
Determine whether topics need to align with specific dates, such as holidays or special company promotions.
Draft outlines. Write blogs.
Edit blogs.
Publish blogs.
Share on social media or in your email newsletter.
What Makes a Good Blog Post?
As with many things SEO-based, a great blog is about connecting with readers.
A good blog:
- Provides helpful information in an easy-to-read format
- Considers its readers' common questions and objections throughout
- Goes beyond basic information readers could find elsewhere
- Positions you as a thought leader in your field
How to Create an Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar makes it easy to choose what to write about and when, removing decision fatigue in the future when it’s time to sit down and write a post. Your editorial calendar is essentially a roadmap of your content marketing plan. For most, this will reference planned blog posts, dates when drafts are due, and when the final pieces will publish. For companies using more complex content marketing strategies, this calendar can also include details about other outputs such as infographics (images sharing data visually) or lead magnets (free reports, checklists, and the like), along with email newsletter sends and social media topics.
Complex Editorial Calendar
Week 1: Blog Post #1, keyword adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Social media post: How to know if you have adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Infographic: Breaking down the rise of adrenal fatigue syndrome
– Email newsletter: Do you need a formal diagnosis of adrenal fatigue syndrome?
Week 2: Blog Post #2, keyword adrenal fatigue causes
– Social media post: Biggest triggers of adrenal fatigue
– Email newsletter: What triggered your adrenal fatigue?
– Lead magnet: 14 causes of adrenal fatigue
Week 3: Blog Post #3, keyword adrenal fatigue test
– Lead magnet: Checklist of adrenal fatigue test options
– Email newsletter: Are all adrenal fatigue tests the same?
– Social media post: Are adrenal fatigue tests accurate?
Week 4: Blog Post #4, keyword symptoms of adrenal fatigue
– Lead magnet: Quiz—Do you have adrenal fatigue?
– Email newsletter: Which symptoms are most likely signs of adrenal fatigue?
A personal trainer knows that people have a lot of motivation to get things back on track toward the beginning of the year. They might cover topics such as how to stick with resolutions or building healthy habits to coincide with people’s natural interest during that time frame.
a blogging routine
A few things will impact the time commitment for your blogging routine:
The depth of research required for the topics you’ve chosen
Your target word count length
How often you post
Whether you’re also the same person adding bells and whistles such as pictures after the piece is written
Your personal writing process
The best thing you can do as a new writer is to feel out what your own process looks like and then look for ways to systematize the work.
Here’s an example of a possible production schedule if you’ll be writing weekly blogs:
End of quarter: Define and confirm all blog topics for the following quarter.
End of quarter: Draft writing guidelines or outlines for month one publish dates.
Last two weeks of the quarter: Draft blog post one for the next quarter.
Month one in new quarter: Edit and publish blog posts, and create outlines for the following month.
= What to Post: Fitness Trainer Example
Let's walk through an example of what you could potentially post on your blog. Imagine a fitness trainer who intends to promote themselves for personal training sessions. Relevant articles could include fitness tips to help build that trust and knowledge. But people who tend to be into fitness might also be interested in meditation tips; weight loss ideas; breaking down myths about dieting, health, and fitness; nutritious eating; quick and easy meal planning; reviews of CrossFit; or new types of exercise or exercise videos that have come out recently. Or they might want to read about general exercise guidance, such as common mistakes people make in the gym or with weights, medical benefits of exercise and how that can translate to other areas of life, or how you can hurt yourself if you don't know what you're doing. Or perhaps this trainer could write a series of articles about exercising too long, exercising too often, using too much weight, or doing too much cardio and not enough strength training.
All these articles target SEO keywords while also building the credibility of the fitness trainer, because they have the opportunity to talk about their unique perspective and convince readers they really know what they're doing. And then they might add new stories about current research around fitness benefits, weight loss, or even how many people are not exercising. That could be a great way to capitalize on something that's already trending. Whether I'm writing for myself or for a client, I usually start with a brain dump and brainstorm all the different categories we could use. In this trainer example, we might have fitness tips, healthy living tips, healthy eating, meal planning, and even meditation. And that makes it really easy to provide enough variety for the reader without going too far in the direction of losing some of that SEO traction.
Building Core and Additional Content on Your Blog
For a weight loss blog managed by a nutritionist or personal trainer, you might be thinking of exercises or recipes you could suggest to your clients, or your favorite weight loss tips. These are the core pieces of content that speak most specifically to the target audience.
Let's imagine an example related to weight loss. If your website primarily targets people who are looking to lose weight, your gut reaction might be that everything you write about needs to be associated with diet, perhaps supplemented by content related to workout plans. However, these are only the most basic concepts in that topic area, and your readers likely have other interests as well. Furthermore, because such stiff competition exists for weight loss blogs on the internet, you'll need to create materials in a way that is specific to you and your company, which you can ultimately link to those core pages.
One level beyond the most basic and obvious level of content includes things that might also be relevant to that same audience but maybe aren't weightloss specific. People who care about weight loss will also be interested in related subjects that might expand well beyond typical diet, weight loss, and recipe topics. So your target reader might be going back to the gym or starting a running regimen. And a related concern could be:
Do I need special shoes to do that? What shoes do I buy if I haven't worked out in 10 years and I'm going to the shoe store to pick something up? Do I get cross trainers? Do I get walking shoes? Do I get running shoes?
Maybe you write about how to get your shoes fitted properly. Another fun idea could be apps to help you find a friend to exercise with who will keep you motivated. And you could provide some stats in there about how having some form of accountability helps people achieve their workout goals. Some people choose to pursue weight loss without doing any exercise at all. So that exercise focus might not be relevant to the entire audience of the weight loss blog, but it is related content outside that simple core. You could also talk about other things in the health and wellness space. So you might be researching the connection between diet, sleep, and weight. How are all these topics tied together? What role does stress have in helping someone feel motivated when waking up in the morning? That might not initially seem relevant for a weight loss blog, but it is. A person who wakes up in a bad mood or feeling tired is not going to the gym. They will have a harder time doing their meal prep, and they're planning for different things.
Remember Your Target Audience
Remember from Chapter 3 the work you did to define your target audience. Who is this person who we hope will read the blog? How did they spend their day? Are they in a particular age category? Are we trying to reach a particular gender? Are we trying to reach someone who has a very specific problem? Considering those questions is a great way to expand beyond that basic idea of content. It's almost like creating a character for a fiction book. Who is this person? What motivates them? What challenges do they face in their life? What is leading them to search for this particular issue? Why are they taking that specific action? What other content might be relevant for that specific person as they're reading through this information?
Thinking Like Your Audience
One of the most powerful ways to directly address the needs of your primary readers is to think about the kinds of questions they ask. What questions have clients asked you in the past? What are people asking your sales team? This method helps you craft content specifically for your target audience. Your readers will feel as though you can solve their specific concerns.
One of my freelance writing clients shared that some of his customers were concerned about whether filing married taxes separately or jointly influenced student loan repayment options. We did the keyword research to phrase this concern as a question in the blog title. This had multiple benefits. First of all, the client already knew this was a hot topic and one he had personally worked through with clients. And he was able, from this blog post, to direct them to book consultations with him because he showcased that he was an expert, but each situation was different and would require a consultation. This signals to readers that the accountant has already handled this kind of complex case.
Second, this post provided information in the form of a question and answer for the end readers of the article, who would likely start by typing that question into search engines. Using the same question increases the chances that the audience will click on the article and read the whole thing.
If you don't have actual client data to pull from, you can still think about the state of mind of your readers when they click on the search engine. Let's imagine that the blog in question belongs to a financial professional. I might start brainstorming by thinking about questions that would ultimately lead someone to a financial professional. What would prompt somebody to call a financial professional? Perhaps they've had a major windfall and don't know what to do with it. Maybe they just turned 35 or 40 and realize they haven't done enough or anything for retirement planning and are ready to get serious. Maybe they've inherited some type of stock or large asset and aren't sure about the best way to leverage this over the course of their future. Maybe they recently completed a debt consolidation program or read a book about financial planning and are looking for the next steps to implement this into their life.
All these scenarios provide clues to the mindset of the person who might end up on the financial professional's blog. We might even create content that targets each of the people in these situations. This helps to draw the connection between the reader and the website while also drawing in SEO. When you can balance those keywords and other technical aspects of SEO with the psychological perspective of the person who is searching at that point in time, you can build that know, like, and trust factor with your reader. From here, you will likely have tons of ideas you can write about, which supplement the keyword research you did earlier. I like to store all this information in a document or a spreadsheet. If you include the metrics that are most important to you, such as number of keyword searches per month or the relevance each idea has for your audience, you can sort by those metrics later. You can return to this database or brain bank when you need inspiration as you build your quarterly or monthly editorial calendar.
Max Out Your Content Ideas
Your own brain is the inspiration for this initial list of possible content ideas. But you certainly don't need to stop there. Sources of additional ideas for your blog are everywhere.
Once you have maxed out everything you can think of for initial content, supplement your list by researching and identifying other possibilities for topics and titles. Use this as an opportunity to collect as much information as possible, and don't worry about editing your list until you have gone through each of the following sources and come up with as much material as possible. This is how you can build your master brain dump list.
Organizing and Planning
The next phase of building your content marketing calendar is to organize all the ideas you have collected. Some will ultimately be turned into blog posts or other pieces of content marketing, such as infographics or social media posts. One key aspect of this is to determine the right title. When planning blog titles, make sure the primary keyword is included, but also that the blog title accurately describes the material that will follow in the blog post itself.
The blog should also flow from the beginning to the end, providing helpful information for the reader in a sensible way. Imagine the following example, where you've determined you want your blog title to be "Is power washing safe for pets?"
What might the reader's experience be if the order of the blog with that title was as follows?
- Where to buy power-washing tools
- Chemicals in power washing
- How to power wash
- How often to power wash
This would be a confusing experience for the reader, right? First of all, only the second subhead addresses the primary purpose of their search (and your post title). Someone who is trying to find out whether power washing is safe is probably curious about whether it is safe with different types of machines and whether it is better to do it by yourself or outsource to a professional. Having only one section of this blog directly addressing the chemicals included in the power-washing process could be confusing.
Furthermore, starting the blog with where to buy power-washing tools doesn't really match the intent or create the ideal flow. Putting that information at the end of the block, after you have made a compelling argument about whether power washing is safe, would make a lot more sense. Make sure the content flows in an order that will be logical to a reader. You might come back to this a couple of times before beginning to draft a blog, but that's OK. It is well worth the effort to make sure you actually meet your reader where they are.
A better outline for this topic might be: - Is power washing safe around pets?
- Chemicals used in power washing
- How to power wash safely
目 Generic vs. Specific
By now you know that some questions and topics that pop up in your keyword research may seem very general in nature. When coming up with topics for your blog, strike a balance between things that are more specific (usually your long-tail keywords) and those more general topics, so your site becomes a resource hub.
Here's what I mean by generic content: It's something that 15 to 20 other people have already written about in depth. Because Google ranking competition is so fierce, it will be really hard for a generic topic to rank if that's all you have on your site.
If we post the blog on how to fix a flat tire, that mechanic is competing with everyone around the world who has a blog post called "How to fix a flat tire." There's no differentiation, so it probably won't attract the exact readership that mechanic wants. But if that mechanic is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and only services clients in the Pittsburgh region, we could make that title or topic specific to Pittsburgh, such as "Places in Pittsburgh you're most likely to get a flat tire" or "What to do if you get a flat tire on X Street in Pittsburgh."
Another way to differentiate it might be to write about how to fix a flat tire when you have no tools in your car. Are there any ways to temporarily fix a flat until you can get to a mechanic or call for help? If you can help people who have none of the tools and no spare in their car, that's something they might want to read. Although the generic content of how to fix a flat tire is probably super helpful, we need to add some type of twist beyond that generic content. If this blog is helpful to readers, it might help the mechanic's site to rank in a search for "how to fix a flat tire" for searchers all over the country. A local mechanic, however, just wants
clients in their specific region.
A good example might be "10 exercises that help after a breakup" or something else specific to your process. In this case, think about the process you as the coach would use to help someone jump back into the dating pool after a long time out of it.
How to Think Like a Reader
Before you even come up with ideas, the most important thing you can do is think like a reader. You yourself are the Googler.
So think about that search process. As you’re coming up with topics, consider your clients’ main concerns, issues, and questions that lead them to Google and how they find information about a specific problem. What would get your client’s attention? What would prompt someone to open and read the article you posted? SEO content needs to go one step beyond providing helpful information that is aligned with where the reader is in the funnel. Your content also needs to capture your reader’s attention, usually with a meaningful topic and an excellent headline and title.
Videocasting, Podcasting, and Blogging: How to Repurpose Content®
You can repurpose your existing video or audio into written formats. For example, I have repurposed my 10- to 15-minute Facebook Live videos into text-based-quote social shares, image-based social shares, one-minute video clips, and even full blogs. The main idea here is to keep the essence of your main points and teachings while cleaning up the text so it reads well in written form.
Here are a few tools that can help you with the repurposing process:
- Descript or Otter.ai can create automated transcripts of your video or audio files quickly.
Grammarly can help you find major errors from spoken to written word in an uploaded document. (Their Chrome extension also makes grammar checking simple in Google Docs.) - Headliner.app (and others) let you upload audio files to turn them into short video clips.
When looking for material for social media posts, create templates inside a tool like Canva to make sure the branding is consistent. You can pull main ideas, quotes from a guest or host, or the title of the episode into social media image templates that you use each time you release an episode. If you've got an in-house graphic designer, they can make new designs for each episode. If you're looking to keep costs down, pay a graphic designer once to make you a full suite of templates that you can add new headshots and text to every week.
Sales Copy
Elements of Great Sales Copy
While the length and overall style of sales copy might change from one company to another, a couple of core threads should be in place throughout. They include:
- A focus more on the benefits of an offer than its features \
- Emotional triggers that make the reader feel as though you're speaking directly to them"
One big mistake made in the realm of sales copy is listing out all the features of an offer instead of the benefits. Both elements belong in your sales copy, but if you had to choose one that's more important, it's the benefits.
One of these refers to tangible aspects of your offer and the other refers to intangible aspects. Features are tangible-those are the direct things customers will receive by purchasing.
For example, if you are a life coach, the tangible features you offer to clients are the weekly sessions that you would coach with them. Benefits, however, are what those features can do for them. **In the life coach example, the benefits of engaging in life coaching are feeling more confident, owning your productivity, and setting and achieving goals you can be proud of. **The vast majority of sales copy should address benefits.
Benefits—what you are truly selling—are based on emotions, while features are what you think you are selling. When people purchase a product or a service from you, they are not only purchasing that product; they are purchasing the transformation or the outcome they’ll get from that product.
The buyer is truly making their purchase for what it can enable in their life. The features are just something that supports the overall benefit the person is receiving.
How to Leverage Emotion in Sales Copy
One way to improve your connection with your audience and encourage them to act is through the power of emotions. One of the most compelling emotional motivations is time. All too often, advertisers and copywriters focus on making life simpler or saving money, and these are certainly compelling benefits for someone using a service or a product. But saving time is increasingly important. People are more overloaded than ever with responsibilities and feeling stressed from their jobs. Time is something you can't get more of and yet is profoundly important.
If time (or lack of it) is a trigger for your audience, you might infuse that concept into your sales copy.
Another way to introduce time-based emotions throughout your sales copy is to consider the instant gratification society we live in. Words like right now, immediately, and instantly all speak to people who want their solution faster.
As the global COVID-19 pandemic showed us, time is precious and people are choosing to value it more and more. Using time as a sales copy technique can include telling someone they can save time doing something they don't want to do, encouraging them to stop wasting valuable time with a process that could be automated or simplified, or helping them spend more quality time on activities they do want to do.
Luxury and Influence
The desire for luxury and influence is another emotional trigger you can use if those desires embody your ideal audience member. This taps into the idea of prestige, which can make you feel good or make others see you and your business in a particular way. Elements such as exclusivity, which can align with luxury or influence, can also help you stand out in the market.
Family
For most people, belonging to a family, whether found or biological, is an important component of their life. The more you can play up the concept of family, the easier it will be to forge connections with your audience's ideals. For example, think about advertisements that talk about keeping the family together, keeping them healthy, allowing children to enjoy their childhood, how their family may struggle without their financial contributions, and more.
Landing Pages and Lead Magnets*
What happens if someone lands on your website, gets value from what you've posted, but then disappears only to forget about you and your company name? To avoid this, most companies include a landing page and lead magnet strategy in their business. This gives the company permission to remarket to that same follower multiple times. When someone fills out a landing page, they're usually sharing an email address or a phone number. For sharing that information, the reader receives some kind of free offering
You might hear the terms ethical bribe, opt in, freebie, or lead magnet used to describe the free offering you give to someone in exchange for them joining your email list, social media group, or text message marketing. These all essentially mean the same thing, which is that you're creating and giving away something free to introduce the reader to your expertise. This is a strongly recommended part of your marketing funnel. Once people know the quality of your free information, they will likely feel more confident investing in your paid materials.
Landing Page Basics
A landing page can receive traffic from pop-ups, ads, social media posts, or links in your email newsletter, among other places. The landing page is the place where you offer your lead magnet, a free item such as a report, checklist, video series, or audio file.
The landing page can be as simple as a few lines of text with an image of what is being offered, along with a place where they can add sign-up details such as their name and email address. It can also be much more involved if you're trying to get them to commit to something more complicated, such as a five-day challenge.
On a landing page, the primary goal is to get the reader to realize there is a significant benefit for signing up for the offer. This means you need to make it compelling and directly aligned with their primary pain point. Once your landing page is live, you will measure its success based on the conversion rate. The conversion rate is the number of people who have viewed the page compared with the number of people who have signed up for that particular offer. When evaluating a landing page that is performing poorly, you might look at the copy, the images, the detail or level of information requested from the subscriber, or the offer itself.
Lead Magnet Basics
Your lead magnet might be an ebook, a PDF, a checklist, or a quiz. These are tools to encourage people to join your email list. As part of your bigger content marketing strategy, the primary purpose here is to provide information that goes beyond the basics or to give people a usable template or checklist. Here are some examples of how various companies might use lead magnets:
- A personal trainer might create a PDF of their favorite healthy smoothie recipes.
- A landscaping company could create a checklist of top end-of-summer tasks that anyone can do to improve the health of their lawn before winter hits.
A company culture specialist might create an assessment or a quiz that companies can use to score themselves on how great their workplace is.
Lead magnets highlight expertise and take the reader one step further in the marketing funnel.
A lead magnet is directly connected to the landing page, because the two work together. The landing page sells the benefit of the lead magnet, but the lead magnet is where you deliver on your promise.
- A landscaping company could create a checklist of top end-of-summer tasks that anyone can do to improve the health of their lawn before winter hits.
A few other ideas you might consider as a lead magnet include the following:
- A quiz that gives someone a very specific result
- A checklist that helps readers ensure they've considered all the details or steps of a process
- A free report that debunks a myth or simplifies a process
- Swipe files or templates that make it easier for the reader to do something
Sometimes content creators or business owners go overboard with their lead magnet. After all, if giving a one-page PDF helps highlight value, wouldn't it be better to offer a 15-page PDF? In most cases, the answer is no. One of the biggest challenges marketers and customers face right now is overwhelm. From spending too much time on video to having too many emails to being targeted with too many advertisements, customers are savvier than ever, but they are also overloaded with messages. The more you can make your lead magnet easy or simple for someone to take on, the easier it will be for them to absorb it and to feel an immediate win.** Providing too much information can make the reader feel like the process is too difficult, and they'll walk away feeling that you're knowledgeable but that they are not ready to continue with the project.
For example, imagine that you're a closet organization specialist. You might offer a lead magnet that gives someone a 15-step process to reorganize every closet in their home. Your intention is well-meaning, but a person who is buried in clutter will simply find this overwhelming. You might start with a smaller piece of the process, such as how to set goals for picking things to give away to charity or for a garage sale. This is only one step of the process, but it can give someone an easy, early win that makes them feel motivated to continue with the process and believe that you're the right person to help them. Small, bite-size achievements and wins are best to target here, so continue to edit your work down again and again until you feel you have given someone a quick, clear, achievable outcome.
Tips for Writing Lead Magnets
If you plan to create lead magnets, here are a few important notes to keep in mind.
Tip 1: Know Your Customer
The first rule of writing lead magnets is to know the customer. Who is the end reader who will be enticed by this particular freebie? Lean into their pain points. Think carefully as you brainstorm ideas for possible lead magnets. What are the biggest challenges they face in their daily life? What obstacles are they most interested in overcoming? What keeps them up at night?
A great way to find this information is to search questions on Reddit, AnswerThePublic, or Amazon reviews. You'll get a lot of amazing information about what's important to people, such as what drove them crazy about a product or what they loved about a particular service. Exploring these sites is also a great way to pull keywords. What is most important to your potential clients? Let's say you are a podcast production company and you're trying to reach somebody who wants to launch a podcast. You might go through Answer ThePublic and look for phrases such as "how hard is it to start a podcast?" to see what actual people have said about it.
The purpose here is not to steal work that others have already done. Instead, you're finding an insight into where others have not gone far enough to answer questions and how you might be able to position your lead magnet as the answer to a common concern. You will learn a lot more about the pain points of your ideal audience.
Tip 2: Match Your Magnet
The next thing to consider is creating a lead magnet that matches where your audience is in the funnel. Remember the person who's getting ready to make that podcast? We don't want to offer them something at the awareness level. If they're making decisions such as "Where should I host my podcast?" or "How should I create the show art for my podcast?" we don't want to give them "Five Steps to Launching Your Podcast" or "Three Tech Tools for Creating a Podcast." They're already past that point. And likewise, we don't want to offer something that's really far down the funnel for someone who's only at the awareness stage, because they're not ready to make a commitment yet. It doesn't help them.
Tip 3: Don't Overwhelm Your Customer
A common mistake in lead magnets is giving too much. Many companies do this with the best of intentions. They think, well, if giving something away for free is a great model to build trust, what if I give away something extremely valuable for free? This often backfires, because too much information is simply overwhelming. I've seen, time and time again, that these overwhelming lead magnets do not convert as well. Instead, try to pick something concise.
I used to have a 20-page report on Upwork, and people just didn't buy it until I switched it to a one-page profile checklist. That thing converted like gangbusters. I am continually looking at ideas and testing them as lead magnets, and I encourage you to do the same.
A good portion of information for people to consume is a three-step offer, such as "Three Steps to Choosing Your Business's Domain Name." This doesn't promise them everything they need to know about starting a business, but it gives them one particular piece, which is clarity on how to choose a domain name.
What wouldn't work, on the other hand, is something like "67 Steps to Starting Your First Website." That might seem like a really good giveaway, because you've organized all 67 steps, right? You've told the reader everything they need to know. But it will be really overwhelming for people. And they'll probably get stuck on step two and not do any of the rest. So break it down. Maybe some of those 67 steps can be put into an email sequence. And some could go into a paid ebook or a course at the end of the funnel. But we don't want to throw everything at people at once.
Tip 4: Avoid an Unclear Outcome
A lead magnet description that is too vague or otherwise not clear can cause a disconnect with a reader. If people don't understand what they're getting, they will not opt in for your "Hear More about My Thoughts on This" or to "Join My Weekly Newsletter," even if those thoughts or newsletter are free. A good example might be "Six Steps to Filing Your Taxes in Two Hours or Less." As a potential customer, I'm like Yeah, I do not want to spend more than two hours working on my taxes this year. What is less great here is this lead magnet copy doesn't tell me anything about what's in the report. It doesn't tell me if this addresses taxes for business or if it's specific to a certain state. As a potential customer, I'm wondering if this is just a promotional report selling an accountant's services. Make sure your lead magnet description is really specific and clear, because I promise you that people will not opt in for a vague offer.
Tip 5: Avoid Bad Design
The design of your lead magnet does need to look professional. Bad design of a lead magnet can shortchange your results or kill amazing content.
A professional design can include your color branding, or it can be in templates you've created. It shouldn't just be something you throw together in Microsoft Word. When it comes to design, don't just export a Word document into a PDF and give that away. Put copyright language on it. Include the company's name and website. We want it to be branded. Once a reader has learned something from your lead magnet, they want to easily be able to contact you for work.
How to Align a Lead Magnet with Your Target Customer
We've talked about lead magnets at a very high level. Now let's dive into how to align a lead magnet with where the customer is in the marketing funnel. You need to know the customer's awareness status and where they are in that process. You always want to meet the reader exactly where they are. If they're at the top of the funnel and not even aware there's a problem yet, much less a solution, you don't want to give them a side-by-side comparison of your company's offer against that of your competitors.
Your awareness-stage reader is not quite ready to make that level of decision yet. Instead, our goal is to build trust and move these readers further along the funnel. The lead magnet, no matter what it is, should always provide a quick win. It shouldn't be so overwhelming that the person feels like they can't accomplish it, or that they don't even finish reading or working through it. Your lead magnet should give them a quick win, both in the sense of how long it takes for them to consume but also in the specificity of the offer itself.*
You don't want to tell your audience how to solve all 12 problems they have. Instead, narrow in on one. Then because they were able to establish one quick win from the free material, they will be curious to hang around and see what else is out there. You've built some trust. When a reader is at the awareness stage, a few types of lead magnets make the most sense for them. These include blog posts, white papers, webinars, tools, and audio files such as meditations or affirmations.
Free trials, on the other hand, give someone who's already in the buying stage an opportunity to decide if they like the company. In exchange for sharing their email address and setting up an account, they get to see if the product or service works for them before making a bigger commitment. Free short sessions can work really well for consultants, coaches, and practitioners of things like astrology or anything like that. In this instance, those business owners are delivering a service, a short consultation, a discovery call, or perhaps a sample session. These all provide the opportunity to decide if someone is the right fit. And I find that these short calls can be really powerful when you know that your reader or customer is in the decision phase.
Case Studies
Feedback from people who have worked with you is really powerful for storytelling with new readers on your site. Case studies are very strong social proof stories about someone's experience working with you. Case studies might exist as their own individual blog updates or pages on your website, as lead magnets, or as email newsletter topics. If you want to resonate with your followers, you might use case studies to tell a story about what your past clients experienced.
Gathering this information is slightly different from creating a blog post from scratch. However, you can use case studies in many ways. Case studies help connect people with the role you play as the expert guide in the customer hero's journey. You might want to capitalize on someone who showed interest by getting them to take one action step beyond visiting your website, so you could provide a case study as a lead magnet for becoming an email subscriber. That gives you further permission to contact that reader by coming into their email inbox with the other content you've created to drive them back to your website or to take additional steps with your company, such as scheduling a phone call to learn more about your services. The choice is up to you and depends on where you're targeting customers in the marketing funnel.
As we've discussed in this chapter, people don't buy features; they buy benefits. They're buying the possibility of the transformation they might achieve by working with you or using your product.
Case studies are extremely effective for conversions. The person in the case study isn't just a happy customer. Instead, this customer went one step further by sharing their story. Their words will resonate with readers because readers will connect with that customer's pain points. Case studies are a great marketing tool to have in your arsenal, because you can repurpose them in many formats beyond your website.
Here are some tips on how to use case studies more effectively:
- Focus on the pain points the customer had before they used your product or service. This helps to clearly showcase the "before" picture, so the transformation is more obvious later.
- Showcase what the customer experienced during the process. (Hint: This is part of your UVP! Refer back to Chapter 3 for more info.)
- End the case study with what the customer experienced at the end of the transformation. What did they walk away with?
Case study length can vary, but a good target length is between 1,000 and 1,500 words. You can always repurpose shorter excerpts as needed.
Here are some prepared questions you can use: - What prompted you to hire or purchase?
- What hesitations did you have before purchasing?
- What surprised you about the process, the service, the people, or the product?
- If you had one piece of advice to give to someone in the position of considering this product or service, what would that be?
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