Tag: Content Creator

How To Help Your Clients With Website Content Strategy

For small and medium-sized organizations, content is usually the trickiest part of putting together a website. That often results in it being the one thing web designers are left waiting for when trying to finish off a project. Even if the overall design and functionality are a go, a lack of content halts progress.

Over the years, I’ve found myself asking why this is such a challenge. But after seeing it time and again, a few things have become clear.

First, clients are generally not content creators. Most don’t sit there and write on a daily basis. Therefore, they don’t necessarily know what to say. Or, even if they have some talking points, they might struggle in articulating them.

Then there is also the obstacle of time. People who are busy running their business or non-profit may simply have trouble finding a few hours to concentrate on writing. Content strategy takes a back seat to other tasks.

This presents an opportunity for web designers to come in and save the day. With a little help, we can get the processes of creating and organizing content moving in the right direction.

Focus on the Most Important Details

If you’re redesigning or completely rebuilding an existing website, some of the hard work may be done for you. You can look to that content for clues regarding what’s important.

Even if that existing content is messy, it can still be useful. Search out the key selling points and discuss them with your client. Present them as a means to achieve their goals for the project.

Each organization will have their own unique message to share. An eCommerce shop, for example, may want to talk about their attention to detail when it comes to customer service. Meanwhile, a medical practice will want to concentrate on their expert staff and specialties. This type of information can prove vital in content creation.

The goal is to help your client to narrow their focus. Having a better understanding of the task at hand can provide them with confidence. They’ll be better positioned to produce compelling content.

Provide Visual Guidance

Another way to help clients develop a successful content strategy is through visualization. We do this by providing templates or prototypes that outline the various sections of a page.

This offers an immediate form of guidance that your client can reference when writing. They’ll have a better idea as to the desired length of content, along with how to make it easy to digest. It takes a lot of guesswork out of the process.

Of course, they may not exactly stick to the standards you’ve set. But that’s not the point. It’s more about getting them to think in terms of how that content will be seen by users. Even if they’re not initially thrilled with the mockup, you can work together on finding the right balance.

Another side benefit is that this trains clients to take a more consistent approach. In practice, this means that although the content may change from page to page, the format doesn’t. Users won’t be treated to succinct descriptions on the Services page while being expected to read a meandering, 20-paragraph opus on the About Us page.

By providing visual guidance, clients can simply fill in the blanks. It’s more efficient and less stressful.

Promote Common Sense and Ease-of-Use

When it comes to organizing content, things can get out of hand in a hurry. And they often become extreme.

Some clients may insist on cramming a massive amount of information onto a single page. Others could be just the opposite, with secondary pages that contain no more than a sentence or two. Neither of these strategies is likely to be a hit with users.

Thankfully, a little education can go a long way. When discussing content organization, focus on these fundamental questions:

  • How easy is it for users to navigate?
  • Is all the content on a particular page truly relevant?
  • What is the overall point of the content, and, is it obvious to the user?
  • Should a long page be split up into multiple sub-pages?
  • Are we missing any key information?
  • What’s best for SEO?

By asking these questions, you have the opportunity to fill your clients in on the finer points of a user-first approach. The answers should lead everyone in the right direction.

Write It Yourself

There are certain clients who may never become comfortable with writing and organizing content. Or they may just be unlikely to get around to doing the work. This is not only fine, but it’s also an opportunity for web designers.

Invest $500 to get $2500 in a week legit and real

By offering to write the content yourself, you will take some pressure off your clients – not to mention make some extra money. It could be a win-win situation.

You may find clients who are very happy to delegate this responsibility and pay you for it. In addition, it allows them to act in more of an editorial role. They can review what you’ve done and then collaborate with you to make the content the best it can be.

However, your work will likely be better received if you put in that initial research. As mentioned above, have a discussion about the most important messaging points. This will ensure a smoother process and better end result.

A Proactive Approach to Content Strategy

As with other areas of web design, being proactive with content is often key to a successful project. Keep in mind that your clients are most likely looking to you for some guidance. Therefore, your expertise and leadership may be just what they need to move forward with confidence.

And, just maybe, it means you won’t have to wait around nearly as long for that content to arrive.

By: Eric Karkovack

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The Digital Project Manager

How to get website content from clients without a headache? This is an age-old question that a lot of DPMs in our community are asking. Today, Alexa and I break down the approach we use to get the right files, on time, in the right format, when we manage website projects. Related Resources: When you’re done with this video, make sure you check out these related resources: Podcast: How To Get Website Content From Clients (With James Rose From Content Snare) https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/… Podcast: How To Project Manage A Corporate Website Build (With Rich Butkevic) https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/… Article: Deliver Your Next Website Project On Time With These 5 Tricks https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/… DPM Membership: https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/ Follow us on social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedigitalpr… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedigitalpm/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1809… Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedigitalpm

Find The Content That Works & The Influencers Who Matter

1.jpg

Of all the goals you have for your content, the most important is engagement. Sure, traffic is great, but if your content doesn’t engage that traffic, you won’t see the results you were after.

While many options exist, interactive content is designed with the sole purpose of grabbing your visitors’ attention and keeping it until they are satisfied. Fortunately, with the help of an interactive content marketing platform, it’s never been easier to produce this kind of valuable content.

4 Examples Interactive Content Marketing Platform

Furthermore, there are only four main types of interactive content you need to consider for your website. Better still,
with the right interactive content marketing platform, just about anyone can
create an engaging example quickly and, often times, for free.

1. Quizzes

Maybe the most popular form of interactive content is the basic quiz. They’re simple to create and take. Yet, quizzes can produce absolutely incredible results. In fact, Women.com owns well over half the engagement for quizzes, dominating even Buzzfeed, which is probably better known for this kind of interactive content.

Their quizzes aren’t overly complicated, either. Check out their most successful one, “Quiz: Only 1 In 50 People Can Identify These 16 Grammar Mistakes. Can You?”

SurveyMonkey
is an extremely popular interactive content marketing platform and is also completely free to use. Otherwise, Quiz Maker offers three different options.

2. Calculator and Tools

Online calculators do more than just help readers add and subtract. They help readers by making convoluted calculations much easier. For example, if you wanted to know what the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” would mean for you, the NY Times’ tax calculator requires you to only answer four questions.

Another extremely popular tool is a mortgage calculator. Just about every major mortgage originator and real-estate advice site offers one. That’s because those in the market for a new home absolutely need this information, but would rather not conduct complex calculations in order to receive it (or find out for the first time when they’re in a lender’s office).

Take a look at this mortgage calculator from NerdWallet for an excellent example of how you can use an interactive content marketing platform to create a winning webpage that will bring you traffic for years to come. If you’re looking for a free interactive content marketing platform to build your site a calculator, try uCalc or Calculoid. For those who may need more from their calculators, ContentTools is an excellent choice.

3. Interactive Visuals

Interactive visuals make it easier for people to understand complicated concepts by illustrating them with visuals. As opposed to an infographic, though, these visuals allow the viewer to adjust the input for specific outcomes. One really fun example that showed up in recent years was “Winds and Words”:

“Using data collected
from script dialogue and other sources, this experiment analyzes and visualizes
characters’ words and interactions from the first six seasons of HBO’s Game of
Thrones.”

If you watched the show, you know how daunting it could be at times to remember the dozens of characters’ interactions with one another, year-after-year. The fun tool shows users whom every character spoke to – and how often – broken down by season. This type of marketing asset is possible with an interactive content marketing platform like R Shiny. It’s too involved for any sort of free software, but the results are clearly
worth it.

4. Timelines, Sliders, and More

Finally, another fantastic way to use an interactive content marketing platform is to create a timeline or slider that shows the progression of a product, service, or event. For example, check out this cool timeline that documents the evolution of the iPhone. With just one click-at-a-time, you can watch as the model in front of you changes. That’s a lot more interesting than simply seeing them all laid out in one static visual because it gives you a much better sense of how the device’s dimensions changed over time.

Another interesting example shows how diversity in tech grew between 2014 and 2017. Once again, a simple side-by-side comparison of each year would have sufficed, but it’s far more engaging when you can look at each metric and see exactly how it changed with just a simple click. If your site needs a timeline, Preceden offers a free trial, yet it’s trusted by brands like Netflix and Slack. Otherwise, R Shiny is also great for this kind of content.

The Most Important Rule When Creating Interactive Content

Now that you understand what interactive content is and what your four main options are, the next step is deciding which would make the most sense for your business. As you research the different types of interactive content that is successful in your market, you’ll see that even in a single category – say quizzes – there’s no limit to what you can do. In terms of the questions you ask, the interface of the quiz, how results are provided, etc., the sky’s the limit.

However, remember this quote from the founder of “Convince and Convert,” Jay Baer, about content creation: “One of the best ways to succeed with modern marketing is not to try to be amazing, but just be useful.” Bells and whistles are great, but if your interactive content doesn’t actually provide the answers your market wants, don’t expect it to attract much attention for very long.

Keep in mind, too, that those answers don’t necessarily have to be life-changing. Finding out how much of a mortgage you can afford is great, but clearly, many of Women.com’s readers were interested in discovering if they could name “All 15 of These 80s Hits by One Line.” Different markets. Different interactive content.

It’s Never Been Easier to Create Interactive Content

Depending on the kind you want to create, an interactive content marketing platform could produce your next post by the end-of-the-day and for absolutely free.

By: Susan Moeller

Source: BuzzSumo: Find the content that works and the influencers who matter

1.58K subscribers

An introduction to the h5p framework, with examples.

How To Curate All The Content You Need In Your Business With Curation Lab

 

If you are thinking of writing the content yourself, you will spend 2-4 hours a day, 5 days a week. After this, you won’t have time left to focus on the money-making activities of your business.

Understandably…companies either outsource (content creation), hire full-time content writers…

…or just give up on creating quality content marketing plan for their business.

Which path will you take?

The first to go out of business are the ones that don’t have a content marketing SYSTEM in place.

Leaving out content marketing from your marketing strategy is suicidal for your business.

The second ones to go bust are the ones that outsource content creation on platforms like Fiverr and UpWork. As they say – when you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys! Most businesses that rely only on these platforms either end up paying too much, or pay too little for bad content quality. Which results in terrible content marketing.

Check how expensive these services can get:

So paying $500 for an article…

…or paying someone $125 per hour for content writing is not really financially recommended.

You can also choose to hire these people as freelancers, but to begin with, you will not be their only client.

…and at prices like these, they will soon run your bank empty, even before you start getting paid as an affiliate or product creator.

Why waste money when you can use our system?

…and it’s time to reveal this system to you:

Create UNLIMITED Content For Yourself And Your Clients…

The system that I want to share with you is – Content Curation.

More specifically – content curation on your blog and social media, to drive traffic and sales.

Now I know you’ve seen other people talk about this before.

You have probably even TRIED it, but not as successfully as you would like.

Well, we do something different.

We have introduced AUTOMATION into the system, so we don’t need to search everywhere for worthy content to curate.

In 3 simple steps, here’s how this system works:

  • You INSTANTLY find content that is trending or going viral (no need to hire people to do this, our system does it for you)
  • You share it on social media and your blog with a single click (no need to do manual copy and pasting!), and
  • You stack up campaigns so that you continue to get traffic, automatically! And you move FAST!

This is EXACTLY what these influencers were doing.

They were using expensive tools like BuzzSumo to find this trending and relevant content. Some even had teams of 5 to 10 people working AROUND THE CLOCK to curate viral content from RSS feeds, and other websites online.

Then, they were using this content to get more engagement and profits.

Upon realization, and looking at what existed in the market…

My team and I got to work and created a POWERFUL tool that was based on the SAME concept as BuzzSumo, but not as expensive.

A tool that helps us curate viral and trending content in just a few seconds.

The ONLY difference is that unlike these other guys – I am going to let you HAVE this tool (and my system) and save you a LOT of time and a HELL LOT of money…

Source: How To Curate All The Content You Need In Your Business With Curation Lab | Online Marketing Tools

Pixamattic PRO – Artificial Intelligent Designer & Social Media Automation

Pixammatic is an incredible content creation tool that enables you to produce all kinds of highly-converting visual content with no string attached! Coming with a click-and-drag platform that runs completely on autopilot, it can perform all the essential tasks involved in the process of building an ideal look for your business. As you might have known, highly-converting visual content can cost you an arm and a leg to create. However, once promoting Pixamattic, you can stay away from all the hassles and still manage to get the best result! Isn’t this great? Now, let take a look at what makes Pixamattic special! Well, this content creation tool provides you with a range of incredible templates that serve multiple in-demand niches. Your only job is to choose what you want and customize it. On top of that, it also gives you access to highly-converting sales copy as well as engaging VSL! In short, whatever you need, as long as it has something to do with visual content, Pixamattic will be there to help you out….Read more…

SyndBuddy 2k – Syndicate YOUR Content ALL Over The Web, So You Can Rank And Profit in 48 hours or LESS

We’ve built SyndBuddy on a powerful, credit-based system. This allows you to get real views from real people – which is the key to ranking on YouTube and Google. When you get real views from different locations around the world and from different IP addresses, Google takes notice, and your rankings increase. Because +1s are essential to get organic traffic from Google and YouTube, we’ve built this right into SyndBuddy’s platform. This gives you the ability to LEGALLY use Google’s own social network against them to claim ALL the page 1 rankings you’d like. Sharing is key to ranking and organic growth. And we’ve all heard about the POWER of Twitter when it comes to getting social syndication and backlinks. Now you can get tons of REAL Tweets from an ARMY of people, which will affect your social presence immediately…and I think you guessed it….your rankings increase!…Read more…

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