by admin | Feb 19, 2023 | Business Owners, Career Professionals, Content Creators, Marketers
Whether you write content for marketing, blogging or presenting, you need a strategy to make your content memorable. Memorable content is engaging, provides insights and guess what, people share it.
Firstly, you need to know who you are writing for. So your topic and content can resonate with them.
Secondly, you need a strategy or technique to keep them continuously engaged. i.e. consistent posting. If they visit your site and do not find new content, they will stop coming. As simple as that.
Lastly, you need a variety of forms in which you present your content. It takes ‘”boring” away, and keeps things interesting.
Let’s begin…
- Understanding your target audience:
You first need to understand who you are writing for. i.e. your target audience. It could be a recruiter or hiring manager if you are a student.
Your audience could be prospective customers or influencers whose attention you are seeking. Or they could be senior executives to whom you are interested in presenting your business ideas.
3 attributes that your content must have:
Your content must be:
- Relevant
- Engaging
- Insightful
2. Posting content consistently:
Since content is the lifeblood of your blog, you have to entice your readers to visit your site on a regular basis.
For this you need to publish content regularly, or on a consistent basis.
Consistent could mean weekly, daily or even every other day.
This is where you can best use Ai tools such as ChatGPT.
Ask ChatGPT for blog-post ideas on your topic and selected keyword. Ask it to provide ten ideas, and then another ten.
Then ask it to write out a post for you on one of the titles that you like.
Then another, and another.
It is easy to get drafts for about 50 posts in less than an hour.
Once you have those, then you spend time fine-tuning, adding keywords, finessing the title (use ChatGPT) and proof-read (again, ChatGPT) and posting (or scheduling the posting) on WordPress.
I have published about 10 posts (once the drafts were ready) in about an hour.
So in a few hours, you can realistically schedule your weekly posts for the next six months!!!
If you can use ChatGPT creatively, you will never complain about not having enough content to post.
3. Varying your content to make it more interesting:
To keep your readers interested, you need to bring some variety to your content “type”. This means that you present content in different ways.
The following are some of the content types that you can successfully deploy to keep your reader interested and spend more time on your site:
A. Stories
Stories help build a personal bond between yourself and your reader. Any lessons you have learned from your experiences with your topic can be converted in a story post. People love stories, and when a story is not only related to your topic but also weaves together your passion, frustration, and challenges, it makes for a very interesting read.
When you can reveal how you overcame a challenge, or even discuss a time when you failed, the lesson stays with the reader. If you can show them how they can possibly avoid a pitfall you encountered, your story becomes invaluable. I love this one from Tim Urban of Wait But Why.
You cannot go wrong with stories.
B. Techniques
Any “how to” post can be converted into a technique post. People are always looking for ways to accomplish certain tasks. Once they know how to do something, they look for ways to do it faster, cheaper and more efficiently. Supplement a technique type blog post with a worksheet, image, questionnaire or other tools.
Here’s a good example of showcasing a technique for cleaning out frosted glass.
C. News
News content can be pulled from events around the world, provided that they are related to the topic of interest. Not all topics lend themselves to a news-type of blog; such content is most relevant for technology, politics and other fast-moving topics.
News content will not be timeless; anyone visiting your site in six months may not find it relevant. Therefore, instead of adding a series of news posts, consider having news as a separate page on your site and periodically but frequently “replacing” the content.
D. Reviews
People are always looking for reviews from sources they trust. Whether they are about software, a book or a new gadget, reviews always generate interest.
Consider all the merchandise, software, training, subscriptions, etc. that your readers can buy in connection with your blog topic. Start writing reviews on those.
Make sure the content is valuable. Your expertise should come to the forefront. Your review will be meaningful only if you can speak from personal experience. Therefore, you must ensure you have experienced the product.
Here is a great example on comparing MailChimp and AWeber.
E. Interviews
One of the easier ways to begin a series of posts is to borrow someone else’s credibility by interviewing a few experts.
The interview technique is very well-suited to some blog types. Tim Ferriss of the “4-hour work week” is big on interviews. His posts are mostly interviews and podcasts. Check this interview of Rick Rubin on Tim’s blog.
Additionally, interviews provide the following side benefits:
- They help spread the word – you can bet that the interviewee is sharing the post with her friends (at least in cases where you are able to disclose the interviewee’s identity).
- There is an implicit testimonial added to your blog when the “achievers” you interviewed share those interviews with their own contacts.
- Your list of contacts grows and this, over time, can result in other business leads.
F. Curated Articles
Content curation is the process by which you gather a group of carefully-selected articles on a specific topic, weave a story around these articles, provide your insight, judgment or recommendation, and publish it as a paper or post on your blog.
It is hard to think of any content type more powerful than curation. As you curate content, you are providing the following services to your reader:
- Helping them get diverse perspectives from different people
- Assembling the information in one place so they don’t have to scour the web
- Filtering so that only the most relevant, interesting and high-value articles are selected for curation
- Contributing your own spin, story and insights on the topic
The author of the original post accrues the following benefits:
- Their post is now hand-picked and posted on an authority site. This helps them achieve higher search result rankings.
- They get higher viewership when your readers go read their article. This means more publicity and marketing potential for their blog.
- You, as an authority blogger, become their contact.
You and your blog benefit from the following:
- A different type of content publishing that gives you ideas for future posts
- Better value to your readers increases engagement with your blog
- Establishment of relationships with experts in your topic
- Marketability for your blog, since the expert authors whose articles you curated are now sharing your post with their followers
Thus, curation creates a win-win situation.
G. Surveys
Another excellent way to generate content ideas is to do a reader survey. This is a great way to stay in touch with your readers, ask for suggestions on how to make your blog better, confirm or refute hypotheses you may have and discover what your readers want to hear more about.
Use Google Forms or Survey Monkey to create and send surveys. Don’t send surveys too often; run them at very infrequent intervals. The appropriate frequency for surveys depends on your blog topic. For my readership, I have decided to stick with one survey a year.
You need to build a relationship with your readers to ensure that you get at least 50 to 100 responses, surveys can’t be done on Day One.
To make your surveys successful, keep the following points in mind:
- Use surveys sparingly and design them with care.
- Use a sophisticated survey tool such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey.
- Don’t overload the questions by asking too much at once.
- Use “other” option or open responses to elicit subjective information.
- Publicize the survey on your social media, mailing list and your own website.
- Offer prizes to elicit more responses.
At Accelevaite, our guides and courses help you write better and get noticed. Keeping your writing engaging and interesting is of paramount importance. Better writing is a sure way to find your next job, get customers to take action and generally have your ideas and thoughts recognized. You can build credibility and a powerful presence online with your writing.
by admin | Feb 19, 2023 | Business Owners, Career Professionals, Content Creators, Marketers, Students
A solid content generation strategy has some essentials.
Impactful content, that achieves the expected results, should satisfy all of the following conditions:
- Relevant or appropriate
- Engaging
- Insightful
Whether you are presenting a business idea to your executives, writing content for your customers or crafting your resume, these rules apply.
- Relevant:
Relevant = closely connected to the matter at hand
Appropriate = suitable or proper in the circumstances, fitting to a particular purpose or to a target audience
How would you know what these are?
You get the chance to establish this – by declaring the “focus keyword”.
The focus keyword is the primary property of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
You will lose your customer if you write for the wrong keyword.
2. Engaging:
When a user clicks on a search result and begins consuming your content, they should get what they are looking for.
The user provides the input, in the form of the focus keyword.
You, as content provider, should ensure that the title and the description, that appear in the search results, provide exactly what would be expected when someone plugs in the keyword.
Your goal should be to provide highly relevant, interesting and valuable content to keep the user on the page for as long as possible. Provide valuable links to other pages on your site, and to other relevant sites.
Time your reader spends on your post/page = Degree of engagement as recorded by Google. The more time they spend, the more engaging your content or site is.
3. Insightful:
Your reader should always get more than what they already knew, before they read your content.
There are various methods of providing insights:
- Arouse curiosity
- Provide a framework
- Provide data or information
- Save them time by bringing information from various sites into yours (through content curation; not duplication)
- Answer their questions (anticipate questions and use them in the form of keywords)
- Teach them something new
- Provide them with results of a survey (i.e. other peoples’ opinions)
- Bring them expert advice (through guest interviews)
If there is no insight, your content won’t be engaging.
At Accelevaite, our guides and courses help you write better and get noticed. Better writing is a sure way to find your next job, get customers to take action and generally have your ideas and thoughts recognized. You can build credibility and a powerful presence online with your writing.
by admin | Feb 13, 2023 | Business Owners, Career Professionals, Content Creators, Marketers, Students
Whether you write content for marketing, blogs or build presentations, there are some components that help make your writing catchy and sticky.
I have listed a number of these components here. Consider these next time you write content and watch your writing improve.
A good quote makes you ponder. Some quotes are powerful enough to change people’s behavior. Everyone has a favorite quote, or two, or three.
My favorite quote is an African saying which ends in “…..when the sun comes up, you better be running”.
You can use powerful quotes to set the stage for a presentation.
Dilbert cartoons works just as effectively.
I have written three examples of striking headlines. Use in your subject lines or blog titles, and watch the open rate climb up.
Next time you feel the urge to click on a headline, pause and examine what made you click.
Lists make for easy reading. They are good for SEO. When you add a sub-heading to each list item, your writing becomes powerful.
Here are three examples of re-framing technique. The idea is to get your customer to pause and re-think their cancel decision.
Whether you write a blog, a white-paper or a presentation, have an outline. Better still, show that to your audience and then stick to it.
Having an outline before you write, let’s you gauge completeness and flow.
Ask chatGPT to write you an outline of whatever you want to create. Then follow the outline.
Too many CTAs confuse the reader. On one page, or one blog-post, ask for one action. Click here, subscribe to my mailing list or buy now.
Better way is to assertively describe the action. Instead of “buy now”, say “get your awesome guide today”.
The internet works on SEO. SEO helps rank websites, products, profiles and almost all content in the online world. Search results work off of keywords.
If you write well for the wrong keyword, you are attempting to sell to the wrong audience. Your customer will not see your product.
This post shows you how to pick out highly relevant keywords.
Don’t leave home without it.
You have to understand SEO. If you are a student, mid-career professional or business owner. If you are marketer, content creator or a website owner. Everything is subject to SEO. Lower ranking causes invisibility, as in invisible presence or sales.
There are rules for readability. Search engines rank easily readable sites higher.
The Hemingwayapp helps you check if your writing is good for, say, sixth grade (considered good readability).
You already know about ChatGPT. Also check out midjourney, copy.ai, synthesia.io.
They all help you write better and create content at scale.
When you display numbers, people are better able to compare, or understand the magnitude of something.
Ranked in the top 1% in my school (250 students) tells you something.
550 single star ratings can mean anything.
Out of 5000 it is 10%. But if a product has 550 single star ratings out of 100,000, it has an entirely different meaning.
- Psychologically appealing:
Use psychological techniques such as FOMO, anchoring, sunk cost, recency bias, emotional desire, etc. to get people to act on your messaging.
Appeal to the human side for urging decisions. Where logic does not work, try appealing to emotions. People make decisions from their gut, and then use logic to justify.
When you use analogy, people understand better.
This post contains an example of analogy for influencing your customer’s mind and two other creative pricing techniques.
- 10-20-30 rule for presentations:
I love the 10-20-30 rule from Guy Kawaski on presentations. You can’t go wrong with his prescription: 10 slides, 20 mins, 30 size font.
Did you know you can use ChatGPT for proof-reading? Just paste a block of your content and ask it to check spelling, grammar, etc.
Oh, by the way, it can write code for you as well.
For capturing your reader’s attention, add images, audio and videos. That is good for your customer, and also for SEO.
At Accelevaite, our guides and courses help you write better and get noticed. Better writing is a sure way to find your next job, get customers to take action and generally have your ideas and thoughts recognized. You can build credibility and a powerful presence online with your writing.
by admin | Feb 13, 2023 | Business Owners, Career Professionals, Content Creators, Marketers, Students
Every now and then you come across something that instantly arouses curiosity in your mind. You want to know the answer immediately.
Here are three examples of well-crafted, attention-grabbing titles:
- Hovding: The world’s safest bicycle helmet isn’t a helmet.
Then what is it? Right?
See for yourself at https://hovding.com/
2. Book title from the authors of Feakonomics:
Not many people can resist thumbing through Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s book “When to Rob a Bank”hoping to get the answer quickly.
3. Blog-post on peeling a banana: When someone asserts that you have been doing a very common thing incorrectly for a long time, you have to know the right way. As simple a thing as peeling a banana.
When you see a title like “You’ve been peeling bananas wrong your whole life, and it’s time to stop” then you will have an irresistible urge to learn the right way. Click this link to find out.
Writing titles that instantly grab attention is a skill that comes with practice. Accelevaite provides guides and courses to help you write better and get noticed. Better writing is a sure way to find your next job, get customers to take action and generally have your ideas and thoughts recognized.
by admin | Feb 12, 2023 | Business Owners, Content Creators
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus” – Bruce Lee.
With the explosive rise in ecommerce, more than a third of the world (2.64 billion people) shops online.
If you have a business, any business, you better have a presence on the internet. People “google” to get information online first, before going out or online to purchase.
Even if your business cannot be digital (e.g. a furniture store, or a plumbing service), you should still have an online presence to notify and engage your customer community.
Setting up a digital business has another huge advantage. You can reach people beyond your territorial limitation.
If you are looking for ideas, here are 3 business with massive scale on offer.
- Build a WordPress plug-in:
WordPress has over 800 million sites. About 500 sites are created each day on WordPress. There are more than 55,000 plug-ins for WordPress. Once you have your own site, you will find some issues that are unique to your situation, and do not have the a good plug-in. That is your requirement to build one. Or, find out areas where the good plug-ins do not perform as expected and you can improve on those.
Cost of building a plug-in is not too high. WordPress developers average $30 – $50 an hour. And now with Ai tools such as ChatGPT you can get it to write or review code.
2. Set up a consulting/coaching business:
For a third grader, a fourth grader is God. A fourth grader can teach them something they don’t know. I read this in “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers. So you only have to find appropriate third graders to teach them what you know. It could be gardening, baseball, plumbing, or anything.
That’s it. You have a business.
Set up your website, and build your digital products.
Products could be: guides, coaching sessions, webinars, courses, speaking engagements, etc.
Your website should contain your story, a privacy policy, your products and a blog.
You should set up an email list, integrate with a payment provider (Paypal, Stripe) and manage your customers.
3. Have a dropship store:
What better than to sell other well-known brands from your own store? You can set up your drop-ship site on Shopify, Squarespace, etc. Drop-ship means exactly that. You take customer orders and the manufacturer will drop the shipment at the customer’s doorstep. You don’t have to handle the product or returns.
You have to set up the store, list the products and manage customers and marketing.
More details here.
Nearly 650 million people made a purchase from a Shopify store in 2022.
You can also buy a store that is already set up.
The internet and explosion of ecommerce has made it very easy to set up a business. Even finding products, shipping them and collecting them is a piece of cake.
The difficult part is pulling in customers and engaging them. That you can only do with a solid online presence and putting out compelling and engaging content consistently.
Accelevaite guides and courses help you write better and get noticed. Better writing is a sure way to find your next job, get customers to take action and generally have your ideas and thoughts recognized.
