Content Creation Wednesday

How to build a unique content marketing platform

by JimRaffel on May 15, 2013

Image of SheHe Media content marketing platform

Content marketing is not as easy as the pros make it sound. Oh wait, were you expecting a blog post that was going to give you the secret to making a seven-figure income from blogging and other content creation? Sorry, this isn’t that post; but it will inform you how to build a successful content marketing platform that will contribute handsomely to your income stream.

Start with experimentation

When I started an email newsletter (for customers of my ColorMetrix business) back in 2005, I had no idea that what I was doing had a name – content marketing. When that email newsletter grew into this blog (I know that sounds backwards in retrospect), I didn’t know what SEO was and that it would eventually help me build an audience both on this site and others. When I opened a Twitter account in 2008, I had no idea that it would help grow readership and eventually find me both customers and a business partner.

All those activities I listed in the previous paragraph I approached with curiosity and an open mind. I viewed it all as marketing research and development. I feel the same way today as I look at new social platforms such as Pinterest, Vine, Google+ and even Facebook, for which I’m still searching for the value. And then there is my new favorite tool for growing audience: webinars. I say new because it’s just in the last year that I’ve figured out how to use the tool effectively to grow my audience. I have, however, been using a webinar tool, Webex, since 2003 for sales demos and technical support purposes.

Find what works and refine it

The tools and technology you choose for your unique content marketing platform are important, but not nearly as important as the topics and styles you choose to tell you stories. A couple of years ago, Shelby and I started a series of blog posts on this site that we called “She Said, He Said.” Those blog posts quickly grew into a Twitter chat and then into live speaking engagements. Eventually that led to consulting clients and the formation of a new venture She / He \ Media. If the story ended there, it would be an example of a successful unique content marketing platform.

But that is not the end of the story. We decided to see if we could take our unique combined voice and use it to also grow the content marketing platform for ColorMetrix. Again, it took a bit of experimentation but eventually we found someone willing to let us speak at their conference in our back-and-forth style calling on our respective backgrounds in the print production world.

We turned that speaking experience into qualifications to lead webinars with partner companies that are now helping us greatly expand the audience that ColorMetrix reaches. Each time we perform a webinar, we are reaching hundreds of folks without ever getting on an airplane or spending money for a trade show booth.

Being unique is hard work

There is a reason I don’t write for this site as much as I used to. While this is part of the content marketing platform for the brand that is me, it’s not the most effective platform I have at my disposal. I’ve found that by partnering my content creation efforts with Shelby for both She / He \ Media and ColorMetrix we get a better return on investment than either of us was getting separately.

Finding that unique voice that is the two of us combined did not just happen. We’ve had to work at and refine the voice that comes out when we speak together. Sure we disagree – a lot – but that is part of the voice. I’m not going to say we plan our disagreements, because we don’t. What we do work on and plan is how to temper the disagreements so that the audience can take away more value.

The other tool we’ve added to the arsenal is webinars. By presenting to audiences numbering in the hundreds each month we are able to reach far more people for far fewer dollars than any other platform we have utilized to date. Here again, presenting via webinar is not the same as standing on the stage in front of a live audience. It takes hard work and preparation to make sure the message is properly conveyed.

The secret to build a unique content marketing platform

The secret is equal parts experimentation, refinement of what works and continued hard work. The hard work comes in the form of constantly hustling for audience, creating great content and improving upon that content to make it better and better each time you deliver it.

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Continue Reading 1 comment }Content Creation Wednesday, Marketer, Marketing 101

SEO success for WordPress bloggers

by JimRaffel on November 7, 2012

image of scribe content software screen shot

Why if fewer people on average visit my newest blog posts on publication day are two things happening:

  1. My businesses continue to be successful.
  2. The overall traffic on the WordPress-powered sites I write for are stable or growing.

The answers lie in search engine optimization or SEO. While I’ve been blogging on this site since 2005, it wasn’t until three years ago that I got serious about growing the audience here and on the other sites for which I write. I started with two approaches: an email newsletter promoting the most recent two or three posts and sharing each new post on several social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

Before SEO

Email and social sharing proved to be successful at creating spikes in readership on the specific days the promotion was occurring. What I noticed as I became more cognizant of site traffic (or analytics) was that on off days traffic was low or almost non-existent.

It was about this same time I learned about RSS feeds and the ability of some RSS services to convert your feed to an email if that is what the subscriber preferred. I believe RSS is one of the reasons initial day traffic is down for new blog posts. A couple hundred of folks have subscribed to the RSS feed on this site and, when I add those numbers back in, there are actually more people reading new posts today than three years ago.

Bring on the SEO

As I took a closer look at site statistics, I began to see that traffic on the off days was coming from Google (and other search engines). That’s one of the advantages of utilizing WordPress as your blogging platform; the built-in SEO is not half bad. As I reviewed the traffic analytics, I realized I was getting three kinds of traffic on the sites I manage.

Three kinds of traffic you get

Clearly intentioned: These folks have followed a link from social media or found the article via the RSS feed.

Possibly intentioned: They found the site through an Internet search for a key word that matters to your mission. There is a pretty good chance these folks are ones you’d want to become members of your regular audience.

Glad you’re here but I’m not sure how much help we can be to each other: These are people who arrive though Internet searches that are just curiously dropping by to see if the article in question has any value for them. And because I just found my focus this year, some of that traffic is a bit random at the moment.

Fine tuning your SEO

I began to research ways to improve the SEO of each blog post I was writing. I knew about things such as Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions and Keywords; but I wasn’t so sure how to properly optimize them in the WordPress framework. I quickly learned that the theme framework I had chosen for most of my sites included custom fields to manually tweak these key SEO values. I’ve since learned that using theme specific SEO custom fields is not a great idea. It makes it difficult to migrate to another theme in the future. I also have discovered the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast works with virtually every theme and untethers your SEO from your theme.

The Yoast plugin is good for two groups of folks. If you just want to improve WordPress’s out-of-the-box SEO installation, you can use Yoast and leave all the defaults alone. Or if you are an experienced SEO person, you’ll find Yoast is a huge help in automating some of what you probably used to do manually. If, however, you were somewhere in the middle like I was (trying to learn more about SEO while improving site rankings with search engines), you may want to take another step.

Professional level SEO

image of scribe content wordpress pluginFor almost three years, I’ve been making use of the Scribe content marketing software. I’ve written about Scribe before and have even beta tested the last two major releases of the product. So while I am an affiliate marketer for Scribe, I have also been a paying subscriber for almost three years. I’ll warn you up front that Scribe is no longer inexpensive. Starting at $97/month, this is now a tool for those serious about blogging or perhaps running an agency. Despite the expense, the results are amazing.

Three years into utilizing Scribe, the vast majority of the traffic on this site originates from search engines. So when I’m too busy to properly promote a new post via social media or email, the traffic keeps coming from search. Sure it’s not perfect traffic; but people are still reading and responding either via comments on posts or by filling out the contact form.

The best place to learn about Scribe is their site but here’s my brief overview. I prefer the Scribe WordPlus plugin because I can do my SEO research, analysis and improvement all without having to leave my blog post editing environment. From right within WordPress, you can research keywords related to your topic and then analyze what you’ve written to see what keywords a search engine will pick up. In the newest version of Scribe, you get an analysis (and score) at both the site level and for the specific blog post on which you’re working.

But don’t take my word for it. Go check out the Scribe site where they have plenty of free resources to help you learn more about SEO. You do need to sign up for their email list to get the free ebooks.

Now it’s your turn. What sort of tips and tricks do you have for folks learning the ins and outs of SEO?

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Continue Reading 0 comments }Content Creation Wednesday

The case for publishing less

October 24, 2012

Originally, I was going to entitle this post “the case for writing less,” but the reality is I’m not writing less. I’m just publishing less frequently and in more places. Almost two decades of being self-employed have shown me the importance of adapting and changing frequently. That knowledge is what has driven the changes in [...]

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Finish that blog post

October 17, 2012

Recently after I had finished a blog post and then re-read it, I realized it wasn’t finished. What I’d forgotten to include was the takeaway of the blog post, and the funny thing is the takeaway is almost always the idea that inspires me to write the post.  In selling, we use the terms features [...]

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The most effective business email template I ever created

October 3, 2012

Today I’m writing about the most successful business email template I have ever created. The tricky part is that this email format was only successful because we had a few years of product development and marketing to back up our claims. Get your products and marketing message right before you try this at home. Breaking [...]

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How Reading More Improves Your Writing

September 19, 2012

One surefire way to improve your writing is to read more. The tricky part is to find more of the right kind of content to read that will help improve your writing. If you’re a fiction writer, then you will want to read more fiction to improve your fiction writing skills. If your writing focus [...]

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Writing successful affiliate marketing blog posts

August 29, 2012

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to get a handle on what it takes to create a successful affiliate marketing blog post. Recently I’ve written a couple of affiliate marketing posts that have done well in terms of metrics, which we’ll get to in a minute. What’s changed is I stopped writing affiliate [...]

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Two WordPress content framework tools
to build your online business

August 22, 2012

Development and maintenance of your website(s) becomes an ongoing task when you choose to take your businesses online. It’s also important to note that just having an online presence does not mean you have taken your business online. Let’s address that difference before I share two tools that are helping redefine my online businesses and [...]

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Little money, lots of passion? No problem!

August 15, 2012

Not too long ago, my friend Michael Joesfowicz shared the message in the image to the left on Twitter. His thought had me thinking a great deal about how much more important passion is than money in almost any business or personal situation. With true passion for your goal, it’s possible to overcome even the [...]

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Paradise by the WordPress Dashboard

August 8, 2012

The WordPress Dashboard is possibly one of the most powerful, yet misunderstood tools on the entire internet. I say this because left to its own devices the dashboard will become a disorganized mess of widgets installed by your chosen theme and various plugins. I wonder if you even know you can select which widgets are [...]

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