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.

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

Why Marketers Should Integrate Video Marketing Into Their Content Strategy

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There’s no denying that we’re witnessing a shift in the way content marketing is delivered. The rise of “stories” on Instagram and Facebook has changed the way brands deliver messages to their audiences. While there was once a time when long pages of text (like this) dominated content marketing strategies, today’s market is shifting toward the ephemeral, the fun and the visual.

A recent study found that 83% of marketers believe that video marketing is becoming more important for reaching and engaging new audiences. Among millennial audiences, two-thirds of social media users reported engaging with a brand after watching a video posted on social media.

Clearly, video marketing has reached maturity, and all indications suggest that it’s here to stay. We at IronMonk constantly use and recommend video marketing for our clients. One of our clients in the travel niche, for example, saw a 120% increase in conversion rates for tour packages when we created short-form videos to promote each of those tours. The company also gained 5,000 YouTube subscribers in less than a year.

Video App Suite - Devices Compatibility

In this article, we’ll discuss future trends in video content marketing and how your brand can capitalize on these growing trends in the year ahead.

What The Critics Say

Let’s face it: Email marketing isn’t as attention-grabbing as it once was. These days, our inboxes are jammed with Mailchimp blasts and “last-minute” ads for the hottest deals at every retail store you’ve ever been to.

I’ve heard critics who believe that video marketing is headed in the same direction. They suggest that the medium of video is becoming too highly saturated on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. As a result, videos command less of our attention, and eventually we’ll scroll past them without paying them a second thought.

What They Get Wrong About Video

What the critics don’t realize is that video content marketing and email marketing represent a classic apples-to-oranges comparison. On one hand, email marketing is a “push” technique that directly contacts individual prospects and customers and attempts to incentivize repeat sales. On the other hand, content marketing “pulls” new prospects to attract initial sales and leads.

An effective, diversified digital marketing strategy should include email and video marketing content. However, to suggest that video marketing will suffer from the same type of saturation as email marketing is to misunderstand the medium of video fundamentally.

The Rise Of Video Content Marketing And Its Growth Forecast

Many of today’s consumers want to be entertained. Rather than scroll through text or messages in an inbox, consumers may prefer to watch videos that are personalized to their interests. In fact, recent surveys indicate that over 50% of consumers are interested in watching videos from brands they support.

When done correctly, video content can make an excellent addition to your existing marketing strategy. According to a 2019 survey of business owners, 66% rank video as the most effective form of content for their marketing strategy.

I predict strong year-over-year growth in video content marketing engagement in the first half of the coming decade. There are two factors that point us in this direction. First, our mobile devices are becoming increasingly video-oriented; second, videos are most popular among younger demographics.

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We’re all committed to continuously supporting, updating and improving all Video App Suite apps behind the scenes, with no downtimes or disruptions, ever!

Rest assured that every app included with Video App Suite will just keep getting better and better in the future. Our developers are committed to keeping up with future innovations and technical changes as needed to keep all apps performing optimally!

And don’t forget, you’ll be able to easily access any app on your Video App Suite dashboard from virtually any browser, with nothing to download or install – ever!

More than 70% of the U.S. population (subscription required) owns a smartphone. And as the number rises, more consumers will be able to access mobile video marketing. Further, a recent report found that 85% of millennials have purchased a product after watching an online promotional video, a figure higher than any other demographic. The widespread popularity of, and engagement with, video content among this generation leads me to believe that video-based content will continue to be a dominant marketing channel in the coming years.

Getting Started With Video Content

Considering integrating videos into your content marketing strategy? Before you get started filming your first batch of content, consider that there are a variety of highly engaging video formats that make for easy introductions to the medium.

Interviews: Interview an expert in your niche or field. These videos should be one to five minutes in length. We love doing these within our company and for our clients. You’ll first want to come up with a list of people who are popular in your niche, and then send them each an email requesting the interview. It’s a win-win because the interviewee gets exposure, and you get a video with unique insights.

Company Culture: This is a slice-of-life introduction video to workplace culture and environment, and should be one to three minutes in length. This is the type of video you want to promote on your careers or jobs page. You can also add it to your custom Indeed profile so applicants can see how great your company culture is.

Product Introductions: Demonstrate a new product feature and its use cases in a 30- to 90-second video. Your Instagram and YouTube accounts are thirsty for these! Make sure these are professionally produced, as they can impact your bottom line directly. You can afford a little bit of amateurism while doing interviews, but aim for perfection when shooting product videos.

Webinars: A Google Hangouts-facilitated educational video conference can introduce prospects to your sales funnel. Keep these between 10 and 60 minutes. Webinars are great for educating clients or prospects about a new product or feature. They can also allow you to answer the most frequently asked questions by your users, as well as live questions. Use them to showcase your expertise and authority!

Is Video Marketing Right For You?

With the increase in video marketing, it’s not unreasonable to think that video content might be a bubble. However, analyses suggest that video is a booming market for tech-savvy brands looking to appeal to a younger audience.

Increased conversion rates, superior reach and the ability to personalize are three main selling points of video marketing. By incorporating video content into your content marketing strategy, you can capitalize on this growing medium and engage your audience before your competition does.

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

Amine is a tech entrepreneur and writer. He is currently the CMO at Regal Assets and CEO at IronMonk Solutions. Read Amine Rahal’s full executive profile here.

Source: Why Marketers Should Integrate Video Marketing Into Their Content Strategy

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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

Making Sure Your Content Distribution Strategy Connects at the Right Time and Place – Kyle Harper

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In the same way that each person has a unique fingerprint, every brand seems to have their own complex publishing workflow. Your mix of ideation, editorial creation, and distribution sets you apart from any other—and your audience notices. For all the work involved in bringing even a simple blog post to a page, marketers want to know that their content will actually be seen……

Read more: https://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/marketing/making-sure-your-content-distribution-strategy-connects-at-the-right-time-and-place/

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The idea is simple, more content you have, more traffic you get, more leads and more Commission you generate. By using this amazing app you will Build your own beautiful and super engaging Viral website with 3 simple clicks and Put most profitable links on your sites using artificial intelligence. Create and post viral videos and content in just one click and Post Videos and Content on 10+ social media networks in single click. Create SEO friendly pages automatically with Built in Free Remarketing system included…..

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