61 - Tip Tuesday - Creating Awesome Content with Jules Taggart
Content can be one of the most paralyzing things for entrepreneurs when it comes to telling the world about you and adding value. And as scary as this can be, it's one of the most crucial things you can do to grow your business. In this incredible podcast we talk about how you can make your content stand out from the rest, and how you can come up with great, sharable stuff time and time again.
Jules Taggart came into content marketing when she had to find a new job after her husband moved to San Diego to go to law school. After helping so many companies build their brands and customer base with upping their content game, she decided to jump out and do this one her own.
What's a great way to come up with content? People come to your blog for a reason. They want to come and learn from you for one specific topic. Even though you feel like you're talking about the same thing, remember your readers are only seeing a portion of what you actually write. Jules suggests creating buckets within the larger topics. You can define 5 or 6 content buckets, and then stick to those specifically. Just think about the questions you get asked about all the time, and don't assume everyone knows the answers.
At first, cover all your frequently asked questions. If you have a section of those, then create a blog post around each one.
Then Jules suggests if you've been around for six months to a year, then go to your Google Analytics, and see how people are landing on your site. See if you're addressing the topics that people are searching for when getting to your site.
Another way is to go to a HubSpot Content generator. You can put in several topics at a time, and then it comes up with ideas for blog posts. It will give you combinations of those words you can come up with titles.
Is there a way to gage when you're first starting if you're putting out good content? When starting out, you'll have to see if you're growing, being stagnant, or if you're declining. Of course, that's if traffic is your measure of success. You can also measure by driving people to action, for example asking them to leave a comment. You can then start seeing what is gaining traction for you, and what's not, and then look at it over time. Don't go off your first five posts.
How do you encourage comments? Jules asks a question in each post, but she urges to make your question very specific. Don't do something like 'what do you think'? Ask a question, instead, that's really easy to answer, but also really specific.
What can you do to make your content stand out? Understand that people will choose you for you. So anytime you can insert a little bit of yourself and life experience into your content, it makes a deeper connection. Being vulnerable, especially on your About Page, is something Jules says not enough people do, and if they did do, it would make all the difference into finding more clients. Just find something you wouldn't feel comfortable talking about, but you know people would really connect with, and figure out a way you can spin that so it shows people you're real.
How vulnerable is too vulnerable? Jules looks at it as how detailed you want to get with it. Her advice is a 500 ft view is enough instead of a play-by-play, but just letting people know about the situation.
What are some tips and tricks you have for making your copy writing not look amateur? Jules talks about having some vulnerability in your about page. In your blog posts, try to infuse a story, and then go back for a second round to create a second draft. If you can take just 10 minutes to take a second look at it, you can make it way better with a few tweaks. She will go through and make a very audit. She will go through and highlight all of her verbs and see which ones are a bit weak, and then replace them with something stronger. Go through and highlight the adjectives and verbs and take out the ones that are rather boring.
Tension or discomfort are some great ways to get your readers to read the entire thing. You need to get them to the bottom of the page. To do that, you'll take them to the bottom of the page. Can you find a way to ask a question, and then give a completely unexpected answer?
What's your advice around the typical '5 Great Ways...' type of posts? Jules doesn't have specific advice around the frequency. If it works for you, then go with it. However, what's going to matter is what you put in the meta description. This is what shows up in the search results. Make sure that description is really interesting so people are going to your post over someone else's.
What's some standard advice around the format of your content? Jules advises to not be afraid of white space. Be discerning about how much emphasis you add, don't overdo it, but really think about doing 1 or 2. Remember most people read on a phone. You do about 3 scroll posts before you're bored, so make sure you're doing big headers while people are reading so it keeps it interesting, and let's people know why they should keep reading. Just don't do too many of them so it's not over doing it.
More About Jules:
Bio: Jules Taggart is the founder of amp&pivot, a content marketing agency working with women entrepreneurs to grow their personal brand and get the attention they deserve online. Amp&pivot was named one of Top 100 Websites for Writers by The Write Life and Jules has been featured as a content marketing expert on many leading podcasts and websites.
Free Resources:
My website: www.ampandpivot.com
Blog Revival Challenge -- free blogging tips and Google+ community: www.ampandpivot.com/brc
YESvember -- 21 days to focus on your last big project of the year: www.thrivehivelive.com/yes
Hubspot Content Generator tool: http://www.hubspot.com/ blog-topic-generator
Social Media Links
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ampandpivot
Twitter: www.twitter.com/julestaggart
Google+: www.google.com/+julestaggart
(P.S. Also here's the link for the social media webinar mentioned! Join me, it's going so much great info about making social media work for you instead of you working it! bit.ly/starterswebinar)