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Your 20-Step Checklist to Write the Perfect Blog Post

write the perfect blog post

The perfect blog post does exist.

One that draws in new audiences, keeps readers engaged, builds your brand reputation, improves your SEO rankings, and converts customers.

There are more than 70 million blogs published every single month and most get very little traffic and no social engagement.

But your blog posts can accomplish exactly what they’re intended to do — whether that’s build readership, grow your subscriber base, improve your market position, or increase conversions and sales.

You can leverage your content to be in control of your own destiny.

Impossible, you think? We’ll show you why it’s not. And how to create the perfect blog post. One that generates pageviews, engagement, leads, and sales you can measure.

Quick Takeaways

  • You can plan high-performing blog content with proven post formats and high-quality keyword research.
  • Personas and customer journey maps help you build content around your customer needs and goals.
  • Our “Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post” provides the key components you need in every blog post.
  • Best practices around readability, SEO and SERP optimization, and timing impact how well your content performs.
  • Our final blog post checklist ensures you never miss a detail when you’re publishing content.

🔥 Bonus: Here is a link to your own usable copy of our perfect blog post checklist. Just click on File, Make a Copy to create an edit-able version for yourself.

Blogging Basics

Before we go step-by-step through writing the perfect blog post, we’ll start with some important basics:

  • types of blogs
  • keyword research
  • customer discovery tools
  • brand message

Without these, even the best blog idea will get lost. These serve as the foundation for all of your blog content.

Types of Blog Posts

How-Tos

How-to posts are popular because they help readers accomplish something specific. They cover step-by-step instructions and allow readers to leave with actionable ways to solve a problem or challenge.

Ultimate Guides

Ultimate guides give readers a comprehensive overview and detailed explanation of a topic. Guides include both research and examples, and they are meant to help readers increase their knowledge and understanding.

Listicles

Lists are easy to digest and fun to read. Listicle blog posts can list anything — tips, resources, dos and don’ts, examples — whatever is useful for your reader.

News and Opinion

News and opinion pieces can be great brand reputation builders because they show thought leadership. Providing your take on current events and giving your opinion on topics in your industry demonstrates expertise and gives you a chance to shape your brand’s personality.

Case Studies

Case studies are the perfect way to show what your brand is capable of by telling a story. They highlight the details of what you do well and give real examples of your success, building social proof and trust with potential customers.

Keyword Research

When most people think of keyword research their mind goes right to SEO, and there is no doubt it’s an important part of it. SEO is critical to search engine visibility and driving traffic to your website.

But there are also other benefits to keyword research that can help you shape blog posts to give your readers valuable content and ultimately increase conversions.

Keyword research gives you insight into your customer, what they’re searching for, and the intent behind their visit to your blog or website. It also helps you allocate dollars to the right keywords and shape other marketing and advertising efforts around them.

Finally, keyword research gives you a bird’s eye view of where the traffic is going around your industry.

We use tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to conduct quality keyword research that helps you create hyper-relevant, engaging content and optimally position your brand.

🤫 PS – I put together these 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch Now!

Persona and Customer Journey

Content should always be created with a customer-first mindset, and there are two awesome tools you can use to better understand your customer: personas and customer journey maps.

Personas are fictional examples of your real buyers that help you build strategies for selling your products and services. Good personas are build around what your customers are trying to achieve. Focusing on customer goals makes your personas actionable for your brand and helps you make your content actionable for your customers, too.

Customer journey maps are visual representations of your customer’s journey from their first awareness of your brand through to making a purchase. They include all the touch points customers have with your brand throughout their journey.

Check out these videos for a more in-depth guide on creating personas and customer journey maps.

Brand Message and Content Strategy

Your brand message is the common thread that holds all of your content and other marketing efforts together. It’s your value proposition, the core of your brand, and you need to be 100% sure of what it is in order to create perfect blog posts (or any truly effective content).

Once you know your brand message, you can build a content strategy around it that shares your message in different ways. Blog posts are one of those ways.

Having your brand message and content strategy in place lays the foundation for planning the types of blogs you’ll write and the topics you’ll cover. Over time, it also makes for a content library that is consistent and complementary.

😜 PS – Check out our weekly blog content service to grow your website traffic and leads!

Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post

The perfect blog post looks a little different for every brand, but there are key components that are important to always include. Click here to download the anatomy of a perfect blog post or check it out below:

the anatomy of a perfect blog post

Blogging Best Practices

Your perfect blog post has all of the components it needs — great. But there are still some really important factors to cover to ensure your blog is engaging and enjoyable to read.

Readability

Your blog should read smoothly with no mistakes (even just one mistake can turn readers off to your brand) and the right tone. Here’s what to check:

  • Grammar – It should go without saying, but you’d be surprised at how often otherwise great content has simple mistakes that are distracting and off-putting. Proofread your writing for grammar before you publish.
  • Conversational tone – Blogs are a casual medium for customers to interact with brands. In general, it’s best to take a conversational tone and talk directly to your reader.
  • Language Complexity – Here you’ll need to strike the right balance. While some industries are more technical than others, it’s usually best to avoid extra jargon and write in laymen’s terms so your content stays relatable.
  • Skip the Fluff – Respect your reader’s time and only include content that’s relevant and adds value to the blog. Fluff content added just to meet word counts can hide the important content and make your content seem less valuable.

SEO and SERP Optimization

More than half of all organic website traffic is initiated by search, and 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. Without optimizing your blog for search engines, you’re basically writing for no one. These SEO strategies ensure your blog posts are traffic magnets for your website:

Internal Links

Internal links are hyperlinks in your blog content that link to other pages within your domain. You should include 1-2 internal links in every blog post.

Article Title

Use your focus keywords in your blog title so it can contribute to your SEO ranking. Remember it’s also what the user will see on the SERP; a catchy title can significantly affect click through rates (CTRs).

Meta Description

Your meta description will appear under your title and should also include your focus keywords. Make sure your meta description is under 160 characters and describes your article in a compelling way that grabs attention.

Featured Snippet Optimization

Featured snippets are pulled from the top 5 or so search results for a given search and displayed at the top of the SERP to provide the most direct, relevant answer to the query. To increase your chances of inclusion in a featured snippet, use clear and concise language that directly addresses questions related to your keywords.

Hub Pages

Hub pages are central repositories for content covering a certain topic. They serve as a consistent place for you to link back to and send users looking for keywords related to the topic. There are several kinds of hub pages you can utilize to fit best with your content organization and strategy.

Skyscraper Content

Skyscraper content basically reverse-engineers standard SEO and keyword research. Rather than search for new keyword opportunities, you find a piece of high-performing content that ranks for relevant keywords and topics, then create an even better piece and promote it.

Length

Your blog length should always be as long as needed to effectively cover your topic, but the most successful blogs fall into the 1000-1800 range. Depending on the format of the post, some of your blogs will be longer than others (and that’s okay!).

Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are high-value content assets offered by brands in exchange for a person’s contact information. They need to offer something different than your free web content.

A good question to ask when thinking about lead magnets is: “What would my reader want next after reading this content?” In addition to offering high value, you want your lead magnets to be specific, easily accessible, and actionable for your reader.

Some great examples of lead magnets include access to gated content, purchase discounts, PDF checklists and guides, e-books, digital tools, and video resources (like topic webinars).

Engagement

It goes without saying that your content can’t be boring, but it takes even more than an interesting topic or even great writing to make your content engaging. Try these tactics (maybe not all at once!) to make your content more naturally engaging and interactive for readers.

Controversy or Strong Opinion

It’s good to have strong, informed opinions about relevant topics (even controversial ones) because your reader is looking for expert commentary and help forming their own understanding and opinions.

This doesn’t mean diving into highly sensitive or political topics that could cause a stir (although that’s fine if it works for your brand and makes sense in your industry). Controversy can mean addressing buzzworthy topics in your industry from a different perspective, like when we suggested that actually, a lot of buyer personas really suck or when Justyna Polaczyk suggested that the customer is not always right.

Comments

Keep the comments open and respond to people who take the time to give you feedback. The comment section of your blog is where some of the best thought leadership happens as industry professionals discuss the blog topic. It’s also a place to get direct reader feedback and respond to questions.

Social Sharing Options

First thing’s first: you have to create content people want to share. When your blog content is interesting and engaging there’s a higher likelihood your readers will share it with their friends or post it on social media, helping you drive more traffic to your blog.

You also want your content to be easy to share. Make social media buttons prominent and enable tools like Click to Tweet so people can easily repost your blogs.

Call to Action (CTA)

Don’t just publish content and hope for the best. Remember your customer journey? You have to help your readers get to the next step!

CTAs tell readers what their next step is for interacting with your brand, and they can increase conversion rates by 121%. Include calls to action like starting a free trial, subscribing to an email list, or scheduling a free consultation. Whatever you do, definitely don’t leave your readers with no clear option.

Interactive Element

Create a content experience by using interactive elements that encourage readers to actively participate somehow. Use tools that allow your readers to vote on polls, include video content they can watch, and call out specific things for them to comment on in your comment section.

Design

  • Font – Don’t overlook your blog font! It’s a great way to show your brand’s personality. The main rule: choose something readable. Look into the most popular blog fonts and strategies for choosing one.
  • Mobile viewability – More than half of all content is being viewed on mobile. Your content should be at least mobile-friendly but ideally mobile-optimized.
  • Visual CTAs / Banners – Adding visual CTAs (like clickable buttons or forms) and banners within your blog post can break up long text and help drive conversions.

Timing of Publication

When you publish and share your content is just about as important as what you put in it. While you won’t find a magic day and time of the week when you should always hit the publish button, there are important timing considerations to always keep in mind as you manage your content calendar and publish your blogs:

Time Zones

Who is your audience and where do they live? It’s going to affect when you want to publish your content.

Don’t think about the time zone where you’re publishing but the one where your target audience is located. If you publish and share in the middle of their night, your tweets and social shares have already fallen down the feed by the time they log on.

Type of Content

When would your audience want to read your content? If it’s a how-to they would use during the workday, you could publish it earlier so they can see and use it during working house. If it’s a longer opinion piece, you might want to wait until the end of the workday when people can sit down and really digest it.

Social Sharing

It’s always a good idea to share your blog posts right away when they’re published. Utilize automatic social sharing through your content management system when you can, and schedule follow-up posts to give it a boost.

Blog Frequency

Blog post frequency directly impacts organic traffic. To really see the best results you should aim to post 2-4x per week.

Consistency is really the key to driving traffic, so the most important thing is for your brand to create a schedule and stick to it.

Social Media Platform Trends

While there’s no universal best time for publishing your blog, individual social media sites track engagement traffic and trends. You can align your content schedule with the highest engagement times for the platforms you use, but remember by posting at the busiest times you also run the risk of more competition around you.

Promotion

  • Email – Feature your blog posts in your email marketing plan
  • Social media – Always share posts on social media simultaneously at the time you publish them.
  • Influencers – 75% of brands who have a content marketing budget allocate resources to working with influencers. Influencers can increase your visibility, help shape your brand personality, and build trust for your band with their follower base.
  • Link Building – As you blog consistently, establish your brand’s position, and increase your rankings, other brands will share your content more in their own blogs. This helps to enhance all of the above metrics.

Repurposing

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you need new content. In fact, when you know a certain topic or piece is getting high traffic and engagement, it’s a good strategy to repurpose that content in new ways.

You can repurpose content by distributing it in new formats like infographics, e-books, and videos, or syndicating it like we talked about already.

🔥 PS – Check out our latest case study that shows how we helped one company double their leads!

The Prefect Blog Post Checklist

Use our proven perfect blog post checklist to be certain you never publish imperfect content. Read it over before you start and go through it before you publish every blog post (we always do!).

checklist for the perfect blog post

Did you research the keyword to understand the search intent? What do the top articles on Google for your focus keyword cover? Gain a deeper understanding and context of what people want when entering a specific query on search engines

Did you outline the article based on key information from top-ranking content? Study the top performers on Google for your topic. Chances are, if those articles are ranking on page one, you can benefit from covering similar points and following a similar format.

Did you answer who, what, why, how, when, and where? Addressing your topic holistically will give visitors more thorough answers to the questions they’re asking.

Did you include 3-5 key takeaways? You can pull these out and add them at the beginning of your article in a bulleted list or simply incorporate throughout your piece. Just make sure they’re easy to digest and remember.

Did you use the focus keyword in the title? If you want to rank for your focus keyword, you should integrate it into specific locations throughout your blog post. That way, Google and visitors understand what you’re covering in the article.

Did you add the focus keyword to the meta description? Here’s another important place to add your primary keyword. Your meta description should be fewer than 160 characters and describe or summarize your article.

Is the focus keyword in the image alt tag? After finding a relevant image for your article, add alt text that accurately describes it. Integrate your keyword naturally (so it doesn’t feel forced).

Did you incorporate the focus keyword into the first sentence or paragraph? Adding your focus keyword at the beginning of your article helps users know they’re in the right place. It also tells search engines your blog post is covering what it claims.

Is the focus keyword in a subheading? Incorporate your keyword naturally into at least one of your main subheadings, preferably your first Heading 2 (H2) tag.

Did you use semantic variations of the keyword throughout the article? Add some closely related keywords to your original keyword to give search engines more insight into your topic and page. Addressing related queries also helps you go more in-depth on the subject.

Did you source a relevant image by searching for the focus keyword and cite it in your blog as an example? Visuals attract attention and help tell a story. Your featured image should give readers a good idea of what to expect when reading your post.

Did you embed a relevant video from a focus keyword search and cite it as an example? 69% of people prefer watching a video to learn about a product or service.

Did you add at least two internal links throughout the content? By linking two articles that cover similar or complementary content, you’re establishing a hierarchy on your website and showing Google how it’s structured to increase crawl-ability.

Is there at least one external link with a high domain authority (DA) that connects readers to a statistic, quote, or research? Experts believe external links are the most important source of ranking power. Search engines consider external links as “third-party votes.”

Did you add a relevant and contextual call to action (CTA) at the end of the article? Placing a strategic CTA at the end of your article will encourage users to take further action to lead them down the sales funnel.

Are sentences 2-4 lines or text or less? Short sentences are easier to comprehend. If you’re too wordy, you’ll quickly lose people.

Are paragraphs no longer than 4-5 lines of text? Short paragraphs are much easier to read (and less intimidating) than long ones.

Did you use bullet points to break up large blocks of text and summarize key points? Bullet points help keep your page organized and scannable.

Did you write the article in active voice? The active voice sounds direct and confident while keeping your writing concise and easy to understand. You’ll use fewer words and more efficiently convey your message than if you were writing in the passive voice.

Is the blog post 1000-1800 words long? Blog posts should be as long as necessary to address a topic comprehensively. However, the most successful blog posts are more than 1000 words. “What is” blog posts should be at least 1300. “How to” articles should be at least 1700. Listicles should be longer.

Ready for perfect blog posts?

Writing the perfect blog post is hard, but our trained writers can do it for you — not just once, but every week for a year (or more). Learn about our Content Builder Services and schedule a free consultation to get started today!

The post Your 20-Step Checklist to Write the Perfect Blog Post appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How Many Words Should a Blog Post Be?

Let’s cut to the chase. The simple answer from the research is clear:

In general, blog posts should be more than 1,000 words. And longer content is more likely to rank higher in Google searches.

The longer answer is a bit more complicated.

Of course, blog articles should only be as long as they need to be. Some posts can get their message across in 300 words. And many people argue that no one is reading anything online that takes more than a few minutes to read. But the fact is, when researching online, most readers want more information than a 300-word article can convey.

Most topics also need extensive research to provide the kind of in-depth information that a variety of readers might need.

We also need to consider your overall website goals. You don’t want to just create one article on a topic and be done. Some topics require multiple articles to gain accurate coverage and depth. And you know we are big fans of consistent blog posts because posting on a regular basis, drives more traffic and leads than any one single post ever could.

That’s why the most successful blogs publish weekly posts at around 1,000 words or more. This length keeps reading time under six minutes on average. Your readers are 94% more likely to read your posts to the end when you keep it within that six-minute margin.

When you dig down into a topic, there are usually lots of angles to cover. For example, in this post, not only do we need to show you how many words your blog post should be, but we also need to cover other factors that go into making a post something readers will devour, such as these:

Quick Takeaways:

  • A blog post should be well over a minimum of 500-700 words to cover the topic adequately— at least 1,000 words.
  • Longer blog posts need to contain actionable information that will help their readers solve problems.
  • To retain readers’ attention, though, you need to split up the text in smaller, scannable chunks— with attention-grabbing subheadings, visuals and bullet points.
  • Blog post length, however, isn’t the only factor that helps your blog move up in the search engine ranks.
  • To rank well, you must publish posts often — at least two to four times a week.

Shushing Face on Noto Color Emoji, Animated 14.0 PS – I put together these 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch Now!

Write 1,000-Plus Word Blog Posts as a Rule of Thumb

With Google’s search engine algorithms getting smarter by the day, they have come to see synonyms — words that mean the same thing — as keyword equivalents. Furthermore, they look at related words and phrases as complementary to that topic.

Naturally, the more in-depth your post, the more likely you will rank #1 for your main keywords in search engine queries. The same is true with synonyms and related terms.

For example, a longer blog post about “How to Care for Your Cherry Tree All Year Long” will usually involve care for the blossoms in the springtime, as well as specialized care for the different varieties.

Subheadings, therefore, could include:

  • Cherry Blossom Tips for a Successful Spring
  • Picking Cherries in the Summer
  • Fall Cherry Tree Care
  • Wintering Cherry Trees Successfully
  • Tips on Caring for Each Cherry Variety
  • Sour Cherry Care
  • Caring for Yellow Cherry Varieties
  • Black Cherry Care Pointers
  • Sweet Red Cherry Care

All of the parts in this hypothetical blog post deal in some way with the major topic. (This is how we research and write for our blog and our clients as well, btw).

Google’s algorithm will pick up on those related words, phrases and paragraphs to rank the post higher than shorter posts that tell you only a few basic facts that you probably know from common sense anyway.

Regardless of Word Count, Blog Posts Should Provide Useful Information

Google algorithms prefer helpful and informative posts plugged into their ranking criteria. Google didn’t rise to the top of the online search platforms by disappointing readers.

Early on, it took the lead in penalizing blog posts stuffed with keywords and little actionable information. As the algorithm underwent improvement down through the years, it “learned” to recognize an informative post through its logical structure and natural keyword usage.

Winking Face PS – Check out our weekly blog content service to grow your website traffic and leads!

Make Longer Blog Posts Easy to Read and Share

You’re not only writing for search engines. Many bloggers make that mistake, concentrating on the keywords more than on making their 1,000-plus-word posts easy for human readers to finish.

Not only do you want your readers to finish your posts, but you also want them to share those with their friends and colleagues. Believe it or not, backlinks from shares or mentions are often more valuable than getting the keywords right.

Here are some ways to make your readers want to read and share your blog posts:

  • Make sure you’re meeting your target customers’ needs. People aren’t reading your blog posts for fun. They’re looking for information, trying to solve problems. To find topics that will grab their attention, start with your customers’ needs, likes, pain points and goals. Then create blog posts that address those needs. Once you do that, your readers will want to share your posts with others who have similar needs.
  • Break up the text into smaller, scannable chunks. Readers today have a short attention span. Start with your subheadings. Title each section clearly. Keep each section relatively short — less than 350 words if possible. Use bullet points to draw your readers’ eyes to lists.
  • Vary sentence and paragraph length — but err on the side of brevity. If a shorter word, sentence or paragraph can do, don’t tack on extra words to meet your target word count. Instead, provide more in-depth information on the topic. The same goes for words. You’re not showcasing your command of the dictionary. If a simpler, shorter word will get your point across, use it.
  • Use active voice verbs and the power word “you” whenever possible. Active voice verbs —  like their name sounds — move the action along, keeping your readers on the edge of their seat. Wouldn’t you rather read “You need to use data to drive your revenue” rather than “Data should be used to drive a business’s revenue?” So do your readers. Talk directly to your reader and keep the action moving.
  • Use visual content to break up the monotony. Studies show that visuals entice people to read your content by a factor of 80 percent. The more images or videos you can intersperse with your written content, the greater likelihood there is for a reader to share your content — up to two times as often on average. All the latest video marketing trends are geared towards enticing people to sharing and engaging with your content.

Fire on Noto Color Emoji, Animated 14.0PS – Check out our latest case study that shows how we helped one company double their leads!

Other Factors Affect Your Blog Posts’ Search Performance

Simply writing blog posts of 1,000 words or more won’t cut it in today’s competitive digital environment. You need to publish relevant blog content regularly.

Consistent publishing builds trust in you, your brand and your products. But don’t take my word for it. The statistics tell the story. A content marketing strategy that emphasizes consistency yields 13 times the likelihood that you’ll see a positive ROI.

Frequent Blog Posts Drive Better Results

Finally, you need to publish blog posts often to get the traffic you need to rank high in searches for what you sell. Our studies concur with other industry results: Companies that publish two to four blog posts each week show the best results in both visits and conversions.

Size doesn’t matter. Your industry doesn’t matter. Whether you sell to other businesses or directly to consumers — it doesn’t matter. When you blog that many times per week, you’ll see a dramatic result.

“But,” you say, “I barely have enough time in my day to do what I started my business to do. How in the world can I write a lengthy blog post twice a week — let alone four times a week?”

Glad you asked. A blog writing service can help your business realize a higher return on your marketing investment than practically any other marketing campaigns.

A blog writing service specializes in writing quality, keyword-optimized blog posts of the proper length to hit the SEO sweet spot. With an average yield of three times more leads than paid search ads, the ability to increase your website traffic by 2,000 percent, and six times more revenue than websites without a blog, it pays to outsource your blog writing to a proven professional. It’s an excellent investment in your business’s future.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today–and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post How Many Words Should a Blog Post Be? appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Great Customer Experience Starts with Great Employee Experience

Great Customer Experience Starts with Great Employee Experience

If you only get three things from this blog post, one would be, you can’t fool your customers if your employees aren’t happy. 

We recently did a project for a company in San Diego where the company was not delivering on their brand promise, and then expecting marketing to try to solve it by papering over it.

You can’t have employees that are grumbling and grumpy and don’t like their job and still deliver an excellent product with excellent customer experience. You can probably deliver a mediocre product and a mediocre customer experience, but without that true employee journey being as good as it can be, you’re not going to get there. You’re not going to get their above and beyond, their creative thinking in their free time because they love their job. Their passion is going to be missing.

This is not a Human Resources responsibility. What we are talking about here is a positive employee experience on a day-to-day basis, which HR does not have any control over. We’re not talking about the annual retreat, and how fun is that sexual harassment training, and do we all get bonuses at the right timeframe. This stems from something in the workplace called Team Alignment and Psychological Safety.

What Does Great Employee Experience Have To Do With Great Customer Experience?

Absolutely everything! Here’s a simple definition: team alignment is the team’s ability to work together and learn from each other. As researchers have tried to study and measure this trait, they have settled on the term “psychological safety” and defined it as having four key domains or areas that can be assessed:

  1. Attitude to risk & failure: does the team see failure as a necessary byproduct of growth and innovation? Or is it punished and avoided at all costs?
  2. Open conversation: do team members feel comfortable expressing concerns and reservations as they work together? Can they learn from one another and hear constructive feedback in the spirit it is intended?
  3. Willingness to help: Does the team have a spirit of being “in this together” and do they easily pick up slack for the benefit of the whole? Does this shake out fairly or do some team members take advantage of others?
  4. Inclusivity: Does the team work hard to ensure all perspectives are represented, even from those who are not always first to speak?

The Benefits of Psychological Safety

People want to come to work at a place where they have these four qualities so they feel included. They want to know they can fail in front of each other without repercussions. 

Can I say to my boss, “I think that’s a terrible idea. It’s probably going to flop and or I want to try this thing that might flop.” Are you going to punish me for it? An environment rich in psychological safety fosters attitudes of “I like the people I work with”, “I feel trusted and respected, and I can get my job done.”

So again, not HR stuff, but middle manager kind of stuff. This is what makes teams work well together. The pain points of misaligned teams, people who hate coming to work and they’re not working well together are plainly visible. When you fix it, it works.

If you ask a CEO, what makes people stay, they’ll spit out a list about salary raises and bonuses and PTO all these HR things. And if you ask people, in a lot of exit interview surveys, for example, why do you leave? They talk about all the things about psychological safety. 

Sure, employees need to have benefits, a good salary, and baseline advancement opportunities, but those aren’t the ante for staying in the game. After that, employee experience and employee satisfaction are the above and beyond things. If you look at the research about employee satisfaction and why they stay at their jobs and employee engagement, it really comes down to “I like working on my team.”

Asking your employees to start going above and beyond for your customers requires you to start going above and beyond for your employees.

From Employee Experience to Customer Experience

You can see we’ve connected the dots from Team Alignment to Employee Experience. Now we can connect the next dot from Employee Experience to Customer Experience. Happy employees make happy customers. If you care about CX, you must care about employee experience; if you care about a positive employee experience, you must care about team dynamics. These can be measured through this concept of psychological safety.

From Employee Experience to Customer Experience

Employees are not going to be able (or willing) to do more, unless they’re getting more, and these are low costs. There isn’t a capital investment necessary for people to feel like they can have open conversations on their teams. It’s about setting an expectation with managers, holding them accountable, and finding ways to qualitatively survey your employees monthly or quarterly in an anonymous way where they can tell you whether or not they feel good about these four qualities.

Don’t employees always want more? Yes. There will be individuals that are satisfied at a lower bar. Then, there will be individuals that are never happy and will leave no matter how awesome you are. But what we’re trying to do is get that bell curve where most employees feel safe and heard and challenged.

Taking Customer Experience from Good to Great

When we think about what makes a customer experience go from good to great, it’s about a bunch of soft skills. It’s about listening to your customers. It’s about focus grouping; it’s about taking the time to journey map where there might be pain points that they’re not telling us.Moderate or mediocre average CX comes from solving known pain points, while excellent CX comes from uncovering unknown pain points. That takes the effort of digging for problems that did not present themselves to you.

If you’ve got employees that feel like they understand their mission and the mission of the company culture is aligned to CX, tell them:

“We trust you to innovate. We’re not going to slap you on the wrist. If you dig up a problem, it’s not necessarily going to be your problem to solve. We’re going to be in this together.”

Can we guarantee improving the employee experience is going to improve the CX? I don’t know that one could guarantee that. However, I can guarantee you can’t get to a good CX or a great CX without a great employee experience.

Great CX is digging up problems that your customer is not telling you about. Employees aren’t going to dig for problems without a level of comfort that comes from a good employee experience.

Great CX Is Digging Up Problems That Your Customer Is Not Telling You About.

Great CX is about taking up problems your customers maybe haven’t told you about yet. 

The real crux of this problem is that no employee is going to go looking for problems if they’re afraid it will make more work for them. They have to know whatever work comes out of it will be distributed fairly. We want our employees to be motivated to go above and beyond and to really have that sense of “CX is my job”. Great CX requires every employee to feel, “This is my job”, regardless of their job title, or where they sit in the organization.

Whose Job is Customer Experience?

The best CX has all-in employees who take CX as their job very seriously. 

Think about the stores that provide a great customer experience, and anyone on the floor will help you. You never get an attitude of, “Oh, that’s not my department” kind of thing. Think about how this translates to an individual’s motivation: “What motivates me to make CX part of my job?” 

Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, provides a framework of autonomy, mastery and purpose. Those are the things that get individuals up in the morning to change the way they’re doing something.

A lot of companies will never achieve great customer experience until they go through this painful process of internal change management. It has to be done at many different managerial and operational levels, culture on down, and everything all-in to change the course of that massive ship. Until that gets done, all the new software, all the new training programs to make their CX meaningfully better is going to fail.

If a CEO heard a high-priced consultant prescribe that medicine, a very likely response would be, “You’re absolutely right. We need a companywide two-day retreat. We’re going to hire the best Human Resources culture trainer to do a thing.” No, no, no. That is not what you need. 

Set Up Psychological Safety for Great Employee Experience

It is a bottom up, almost like one-to-one combat kind of thing. Survey all the teams that work together, find the teams that are not working well. Go to that manager and work on team alignment and say, “These qualities you didn’t score high on, let’s talk about it and train on the ones that are the worst.” 

Be open to setting these expectations. Say you are open to failure, and that you’re going to have open conversations like these. Bottom-up solutions that don’t come down from above. 

Ask questions like, “How is this working for you?”, “How does this team feel to you?”.Your employees will tell you. Honestly they’re dying for you to know these answers. Undeniably they will tell you, if they have a safe place to do it. Thus try an anonymous survey or some other mechanism. And if they think something’s going to come out of it.

Isn’t Psychology Safe the Same Thing as Trust?

We bring this up again because people ask, “Isn’t that just trust?” No. 

The Difference Between Trust and Psychological Safety

Trust is typically between two individuals. I can trust you, but when you and I go to the UX team meeting, if there’s a trust dynamic in that room where everyone can trust each other and enjoy having coffee together in the conference room. 

The way the team operates is its own personality; it’s a culture of that little team. So, think of the trust element of a team dynamic as opposed to all the different individual dynamics.

What Next?

  1. Take a hard look at your organization, across all departments and assess — really use a process that gathers unbiased data — to assess the degree of whether each team’s dynamics are broken or running like a well-oiled machine.
  2. Use that knowledge to formulate a plan to improve the areas in the worst shape, with an open mind to determine what degree of change management is probably required. This isn’t easy.
  3. Create your UX task force (much better word than “committee”) to establish their group’s culture, process, goals, expectations, and accountability. Publicize this internally for all to see. Remember, CX is everyone’s job!
  4. If needed, seek guidance and outside expertise at any stage of the process. Great CX is not a destination, it is a journey that has the potential to surprise and delight your most disgruntled customers. This flows to the bottom line.

 Enjoyed this article? You may also be interested in:

The Two CXs You Have to Deal With — Customer Experience vs Customer Expectations
Why Brands Believe Their CX is Better Than It Really Is
The Audience Experience is More Important than Customer Experience

Jenny Magic is a Strategist with Convince and Convert with additional expertise in Strategy & Team Alignment, a true “Marketing therapist” for teams with big goals and a top-rated speaker & workshop facilitator.

Something about Jenny’s LinkedIn and the Fearless Organizations. Her upcoming book is titled Fearless Organizations.

The post Great Customer Experience Starts with Great Employee Experience appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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5 Blog Post Templates to Help You Create Remarkable Content

Blog writing is one of the best parts of a solid content marketing strategy. Writing articles to draw people into your website is a creative way to get your product or service out there for the world to see.

Writing quality content for your client base is important in the growth of your business. But let’s face it – sometimes the creative well runs dry.

Drawing on tried and true methods from the major players in the industry can help guide your business’ blog writing strategy.

Here’s a quick video about blog writing from Neil Patel for a quick background for the concepts ahead:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Companies spend A LOT (even too much) on advertising
  • Blog writing is a sustainable way to create new traffic to your website
  • Starting off strong can build your organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than exclusively using paid advertising

Blogging Basics

While paid advertising is great for a short term boost, article publishing and blog creation helps boost long-term organic engagements from prospects and your current customers.

On average, it takes about 3-4 months of consistent, quality content to see larger yield. One article per week is a solid start, but getting into a daily rhythm of publishing will give you the quickest result over a shorter period of time.

Source: Marketing Insider Group

This process is especially beneficial for businesses that expect their prospects to seek education and information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is why you write a blog in the first place.

So, what does quality content look like? Well if you’re looking for blogging advice, we’ve got you covered with our guide to the perfect blog post. But for good measure, here’s the essentials for publishing content on your website.

1. Keep your word count between 1000 – 1800 words

Google likes articles within this range. Too little or too many might keep your hard work from ranking where it should!

2. Know your keywords

SEO/SEM is most successful when you know what words are the most important to what you talk about. Back to our party favor example, words like party, favor, event, would likely contribute best to a higher ranking among similar articles.

3. Have a compelling meta description

Source: Kinsta.com

The hook is everything, right? Having a good description under your article title will be the blurb prospects read. If it’s boring or irrelevant to them, why would they click on your article?

Keeping these rules in mind for every blog post you write, we’ve assembled our favorite blog post templates to keep you on the right path for your content marketing strategy:

Lists

Like this one! Articles that give the reader a variety of examples and options grant a better shot at giving them the most optimal solution to a problem or task.

SEMrush.com says:

The perfect listicle title is attention-grabbing but NOT clickbait. A title is clickbait if it is overly emotional or shocking in a way that doesn’t reflect the content. To avoid this, make sure you only use titles that accurately reflect your article as a whole.

You can get pretty creative with your lists. Remember, the object is to get a prospect to your site to become aware of your product – leading them down the marketing funnel.

For example, let’s say your startup sells grilling aprons. Creating content focused around keywords like recipes or grills will bring your target prospects (grillers) to your site. As they read your blog, they’ll realize “wow, I DO need a grilling apron for all this brisket I’m cooking!”

Some articles you’d write using this template would be:

The 15 Best Tools for your Grill

Top 10 BBQ Recipes for the Summer

RANKED: What Sauces are best for Grilling?

This isn’t just for selling products – the same idea applies to selling services too! If you’re trying to gain clients for say, your real estate business, some article ideas include:

What to Look For When Buying a House

10 Things First-Time Homeowners Get Wrong

Top 5 Places to Live In (Your Area Here)

How Tos

What’s one of the reasons you use the internet the most often? For me personally, I look up DIY projects and how-tos. As marketing professionals, we have to capitalize on potential customers doing the same!

How-to articles describe a step by step process (or solution) to a problem or task. Often the titles start with How To ___ and are followed by a separate clause that builds trust like, and how to stick with it or and why you should.

Let’s stick with the grilling example. Here are a few ways we could apply this blog template to the world of BBQ:

How to Get Your Grill Ready for the Summer

How to Find The Best Grill Tools: and Why You Should Look Now

This content is literally designed to propose a solution to a problem the reader may not have even known they had when they opened the article. Creating a sense of need through your blog posting is crucial to its overall success. 

Comparisons

Comparison articles should seek to differentiate between two similar concepts or the pros and cons of extremely different ideas. This formula is commonly referred to as X vs Y. This type of article is particularly helpful if you expect your clients to be doing research on your product or industry.

Some examples of this format from us at Marketing Insider Group include:

Virtual Events & Webinars: What Are The Key Differences?

Organic Search vs. Paid Search: Which is Better?

Retargeting vs. Remarketing: What’s The Difference?

It doesn’t always have to be vs. It can just be a comparison of two relevant topics to inform your reader of nuance and detail.

Definitions (What Is?)

A common thread in every business (B2C or B2B) is the definitions category of blog posts. Think about it, how many times have you searched up something on the internet you wanted to know more about?

For a B2B, this category is a treasure trove. For example if you run an SEO consultancy, you would target keywords like SEO, search results, and Google trends.

Definition articles should be a general overview of whatever topic you think your target audience would be researching (or would grab their attention!). Using an SEO consultancy as an example, some definition / general overview articles could be:

What is Search Engine Optimization: And Why Should You Care?

What is the Point of Digital Marketing?

The Ins and Outs of Google Trends: Building Your Brand Online

Get creative with your titles! You should have some diversity in your articles to draw in different people looking for different things. It’s important to experiment with these templates to find the content that works best for your website.

Expert Guest Posts

If you’re struggling to find inspiration or just don’t have the time, consider hiring a guest writer! Guest writers can provide legitimacy to your brain with their expertise and even bring over their audiences to your site. Not to mention, they probably already know how to write the perfect blog post.

Hiring professionals in your industry can bring another layer of legitimacy to your blog. Not to mention, many experts bring readers with them wherever they go, providing an immediate boost to your viewership and clickthrough rates.

This one is pretty open for the format, but creating a strong introduction for the writer and leading them in can help inform your normal audience why they should care about the wisdom offered. Sometimes you have to discuss experience and credentials to get your audience to pay attention.

This looks a bit like:

Intro from you or your writer about the expert

-> Intro from the expert 

→ Actual content produced from the expert

Wrap Up

No matter which template you use, what’s important is that your blog is reiterating the need for your product or service. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should have a big BUY NOW button at the end, but writing about unrelated topics is a disservice to you AND your prospect or client.

By keeping the basic rules of writing a perfect post at the forefront of your blog writing efforts, you can continue furthering your overall content marketing lead conversion rates and keep your ad spending down. Now that you have some fresh ideas, get to writing!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? What luck! Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post 5 Blog Post Templates to Help You Create Remarkable Content appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How to Turn Your Blog into a Lead Generating Machine

lead generation

So, you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re pumping out content like it’s your job! Now it’s time to optimize your blog for lead generation, because what else is it there for, really?

Creating great content is just the first half of the equation. If you’re publishing a perfect blog post onto a crappy webpage, you’re defeating the point of said great content.

Another daunting task is starting you in the face… How do you optimize a web page for lead generation? You’ve landed yourself in the right place. Here are 10 tips to make your blog a lean, green, lead generating machine.

Quick Takeaways: 

  • Before you start optimizing, you need to understand exactly why blogs are the perfect opportunity to generate leads. 
  • The type of content you create also plays a role in lead generation, like presenting yourself as a thought leader in your field and offering exclusive content to obtain more contacts.
  • The layout of your blog can make or break your lead generation efforts. From banner ads to sidebar real-estate to social media sharing, there are multiple aspects to optimize.

How Blogging Helps Generate Leads

1. Establish Your Position as a Thought Leader and Build Trust

Thought leadership is a type of content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business to consistently answer the biggest questions in the minds of your target audience on a particular topic.

When you produce insightful content on a regular basis, you demonstrate industry expertise. Providing valuable content that few others are offering will quickly establish your position as a thought leader.

Educating your readers about the industry you belong to will turn your brand into a go-to resource. When you do this on a regular basis, you’ll be acknowledged as an important and trustworthy voice who is deserving of your audience’s attention and patronage.

Establishing trust takes time. There’s no shortcut to gaining a new prospect’s confidence. You need to prove that you’re the real deal and not just a fly-by-night operation. Stay consistent, be reliable.

Publishing quality content in a steady fashion shows that you’re offering a service or product that is here for the long haul and that you’re not simply looking to make a quick buck.

2. Boost Your SEO

Blogging increases your digital presence so that you’re more visible on search engines like the almighty Google.The more valuable pages you put out there, the more favorable your ranking will become.

Blogging increases inbound links by as much as 97%, which improves your search rankings. These factors, in turn, attract even more visitors through search and improve your blog readership.

web traffic for companies that blog

Image Source: HubSpot

3. Build Domain Authority

When you have domain authority, your content will perform better on search engine results pages (SERPs). Another bonus; building domain authority through blogging is an owned asset. The benefits of your blogging don’t screech to a halt just because of a budget decrease. Paid assets on the other hand, well the results stop with the buck.

4. Engage Your Audience

Quality content attracts the right audience. It pulls them in, captures their attention, and increases your chances of turning them into loyal customers.

Your blog can be a venue to answer questions through the content you publish there. But, you have to make sure you’re doing this on a consistent basis to maximize results. You also need to prioritize the type of content you’re creating. If you come across as too sales-y, no one will care about what you have to say.

5. Better Lead Quality

Once you’ve captured their attention, offering a suitable reward in return for their contact information is a great way to generate qualified leads.

A blog can be used as a lead magnet where visitors are offered something of value in the hopes that they’ll provide their email, address, zip code, and other details in exchange for something of value you’re providing.

Quality leads are more likely to have a better customer lifetime value compared to cold leads. You can also use their contact info for target marketing and advertising purposes.

10 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Lead Generation

How do you turn your blog into a lead generating machine? Here are a few ideas you can work with:

1. Offer Exclusive “Gated” Content

Remember how we presented ourselves as thought leaders earlier? This is where that comes into play again.

Leave out a little extra content for loyal followers that casual readers won’t normally get. Do this alongside the free content you’re already posting on the blog to maximize the benefits of each. (We use the WordPress plugin AdRotate to place non-abrasive banner ads within our content.)

gated content pros and cons

Image Source: Orbit Media Studios

By establishing yourself as a thought leader through consistent blogging, people are more likely to opt-in for gated content.

Create an ebook that gives more detail on your process. Tease your audience with your public post and urge them to download your ebook for more. You can also host webinars that provide detailed feedback that’s customized for clients who provide their contact and personal information.

The goal is to obtain contact information for potential customers. Once you have that you can begin nurturing these top of the funnel leads.

2. Your Blog Should be Integrated into Your Main Website

You might be tempted to put your blog on a separate domain, but you’ll miss out on many opportunities to generate leads if you do.

Unfortunately, if you make your blog a separate entity, your main site won’t benefit from the search engine rankings you’ll get from inbound blog links. Your brand identity on the blog should consistently mirror what is on your main website.

A visitor’s first encounter with your brand might be via a blog post, and they might not even land on your homepage. Give them a seamless customer experience with your brand regardless whether they’re on your blog or the main website.

3. Try Marketing Tools Like a Slide-in CTA or the Hello Bar

A slide-in call to action (CTA) is a nifty tool you can use for blog readers who’ve managed to scroll all the way to the bottom of your post. It’s an indication that your prospect is interested enough to consume all of your content. This is where the Slide-in CTA comes into the picture—literally.

A box on the lower right-hand corner slides in with an irresistible offer your prospect can’t refuse. Your CTA could come in the form of a white paper, in-depth details about the post, or other valuable content in exchange for the reader’s contact information. This type of CTA is generally a lot less annoying than a pop-up.

A Hello Bar is a bar that appears at the top portion of a website, typically spanning the page. It’s hard to miss since it is located in the area on the screen where a visitor is likely to see first when the page opens. Hello Bars often include a call to action to help drive traffic to landing pages or squeeze pages.

Readers who don’t click immediately but read the post will find that the “Hello Bar” follows them as they scroll through. It has been proven to be an effective tool to drive targeted traffic and build your email list in a relatively short period.

4. Link to Other Useful Internal Resources as Often as Possible

When you write a blog post, be mindful of specific words or phrases that are related to other posts or content within your site. Throughout the post, link these words (i.e. Database Marketing) to other resources on your site.

Keywords can be linked to landing pages or other pages, and you can have these lead to related offers or deals that your prospects might find interesting. It could be a webinar or course sign up, a free trial, or an ebook that expounds on a certain topic. Your possibilities are endless!

5. Maximize the Real Estate Around a Blog Post

The “leaderboard” at the top of the blog, the sidebars on either side of a post, and the space at the end of an article are prime real estate on your website. Don’t let these spots go to waste by not putting CTAs, banners, or buttons on full display.

article wireframing

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

The footer following a blog post is also a great opportunity to include a supplementary offer or another exciting piece of content. That space can also be used to link to landing pages to encourage subscription or CTAs that require email registration.

Each of our blogs is accompanied by a newsletter sign-up as well as our top blogs of all time and more content related to the blog you’re already reading. As you scroll, this right hand column also displays a button to download The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.

6. Include Irresistible Perks

Make them an offer they can’t refuse. If you’re selling a tangible product, consider adding free shipping or discounts when they sign up for your email newsletter. This boosts your chances of gaining new subscribers and interested customers. Every online store I go to gets me with this one… Who am I to refuse 15% off!?

In some cases, offering a physical catalog could be used as a way to collect email addresses. IKEA generates leads this way by giving prospects the option to download an online catalog or have a printed version snail-mailed to their delivery address. You just need to fill out the form that includes your email address or physical address.

This is also a chance to keep in touch with a prospect through an opt-in button that adds them to your email list for updates or other special perks.

7. Add Subscription Services

Offering a subscription service gives your visitors an easy way to sign-in to receive regular blog updates through email and RSS feeds. When they do, a subscriber is notified each time you publish a blog post.

Most blogging platforms include subscription plug-ins, while other email marketing services can integrate a plug-in that allows you to build your subscription list. Other providers can offer this for free such as FeedBlitz or Mailchimp.

Capitalize on your subscription services even more by implementing a lead nurture series for new subscribers.

8. Make it Easy to Share Your Content on Social Media

You can do this by adding social media icons in and around your blog post. This encourages visitors to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other sites, which in turn, helps enable your audience to expand your online network.

You want to drive traffic to your site as much as possible and social sharing is an excellent (and easy) way to complement your lead generation campaign.

9. Utilize Guest Posting

You’re already creating great content, so why not let it live on other websites as well? Guest posting can help you build authority even further and expand your audience beyond just your website’s scope. Finding blogs to partner with will essentially let each blog benefit from the rankings of the other. Say you really want more small business owner leads, but you don’t have authority in their industry. Guest posting on different blogs is your key to reaching an audience that wouldn’t normally visit your website.

10. Stick to an Editorial Calendar

Aside from creating quality content, the key to successful lead generation through blogging is consistency.

You have to abide by a schedule for creating regular content and publishing a post based on your editorial calendar. You can either do this manually, use automated platforms or work with an agency that maps out topics and publishing schedules on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual schedule.

To avoid burnout, make sure that you create a sustainable plan by delegating certain tasks to freelancers and different content creators on your team. This might mean outsourcing your content creation plan entirely.

Make Blogging Your Secret Weapon

If only engaging content could be summed up in a neat algorithm, fed into a machine, and used to create blog posts at a flick of a switch, blogging would be so much easier.

Until then, the best thing to do is to come up with a strategy that enables you to churn out quality content on a regular basis.

In the end, remember that blogging is a means to an end. In this case, the end is lead generation (and a healthy bottom line). It’s also an opportunity for you to connect with customers in a way no other software or app can ever replicate. But, for it to work, it needs your active involvement!

Make blogging a fundamental part of your business and lead generation efforts. Follow best practices and your perseverance and persistence will pay off in the long run.

Did you make it to the end of this article and feel a sense of overwhelm? Outsourcing your blogging strategy might be your best bet. Luckily, you’ve landed on the right website. Check out our SEO Blog Writing Services or schedule a free consultation today to learn more.

The post How to Turn Your Blog into a Lead Generating Machine appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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