Content marketing works. I mean, the proof is there. I've been sharing these statistics
for 8 years now. HubSpot has done this famous study on blogging. They looked at over 13,500
bloggers and they found out that the blogs marketers published, the more inbound traffic
they got to their website. And they found that an accumulation of more content brings
more leads. For example, those who published more than 400 blogs got twice as much traffic
as those that have less than 400 blogs. And if you've read my blogs, you know this one
too. The current ROA (Return on Advertising) is as low as 0.6. That went way down from
11.8 times ROA back in 2016. Compare it to the ROA on organic content, which is anywhere
from 14 to 16 percent conversion from your onsite traffic. But here's the thing. The
average time spent to see content marketing results are anywhere from 12 to 18 months.
That's what Joe Pulizzi said. Now, after 8 years of building content, we
see results like Top 3 of Google results in as little as 30 days, but that's not realistic
for most new content marketers. Here's the thing about content marketing that you have
to know; it works but only if you set it up to work.
Hey guys, I'm Julia McCoy, I'm a growth-focused content marketer. I identify as a content
hacker, which is the name of my new brand launching this June. I'm also the CEO of Express
Writers and Author and Blogger.
Thank you so much for joining me on today's video. So, those statistics on content marketing
that I shared at the beginning of this video, that more content equals more leads; consistency
is key and the proof is there that content does work way better than traditional advertising.
Well, I've been sharing those for years now and what I see are a lot of marketers still
stuck in a rut. Today's video is for those that are in that
rut. I'm going to call you out because I care about you. I think that many of you are just
a few feet away from what could be content marketing greatness. But here's the thing,
if you're not getting the fundamentals right, which we'll go over in a minute, and you're
not being consistent about producing great content, all the while complaining about a
lack of leads, traffic, visitors and ultimately sales. Well, I can tell you if you just sat
down and fixed some of these glaring problems, those leads, those visitors, those sales would
come. \ The real problem in concert marketing is that
most content marketers think of content as a quick fix, instead of building a house,
which to really be successful that's what it's like. And why are thinking of it like
that? They're over here complaining about all the things they don't have - those traffic
leads and sales - which they could have if these fundamentals and principles were right.
We've got to stop being absent on our company blog. We've got to fix our site fundamentals
that are wrong. We need to have a professional take a look at all that icky content we've
just let hang on our websites. It\'92s time for us to stop complaining about the things
we wish we had and start doing something about it. Content marketing action takers are the
content marketing winners. \ I'm a College dropout and I figured out content
marketing after years of trial and error. My story is proof that anyone can see content
success. I've been blogging, I haven\'92t missed a week for 8 years now. We're at 90,000
visitors a month on our site and 14 to 16 percent of those leads are converting. We're
not the only success story of content; Moz, Unbounce, CoSchedule, these are a few big
players in the marketing and software industries that have built their presence through great
content. OK. So, if you're here watching this and you're
just not seeing success from your content, let's talk about how to fix that. I'm going
to give you 3 ways that you can start implementing today and you will see results start to happen
right away. And long-term, you\'92re going to be building that foundation for a great
house where leads can find you, interact with you and then eventually, buy your stuff. \
Number one: if your site isn't fast, well built, stable, user friendly, or built at
all, this is your first step. \ OK guys, so Google has said that conversions
drop by 12 percent per second of load time. The more time it takes to load your site,
the less your human lead, buyer, audience member, is going to stick around. And a recent
study done in 2017 has showed that one full second - ready for this - can decrease conversion
rates by 70 percent. So, if you have a website and you're not in that bracket of don't even
have a website yet, we'll talk about you guys soon. You can use this tool - I'm going to
put it on the screen www.tools.pingdom.com this is a free site speed checker. So, use
this. See how fast your site is and if it's not fast, then you need a site developer to
help you fix your site speed. \ OK. So, for those of you need who need your
website fixed, rebuilt, and then for those people who don't even have a website yet,
go get a WordPress developer. And you can use a site like Upwork to quickly find top
rated freelance developers that work per hour, so it's going to be easy to budget. You can
set a budget, have them work by the hour, pay them by the hour and for work done. WordPress
developers can clean your site, fix your site, rebuild it if it's broken. If it's not on
WordPress, put it on WordPress, which by the way, is one of the most SEO-friendly platforms
out there. And make your site clean, beautiful, user-friendly, fast. This should be your goal
with your website and nothing less. And this will lead to fit everything you do in content
because without a good site, you can't serve good content. And you don't even need to spend
more than $30 to $50 an hour to find a really good WordPress developer to help you out.
And if you're needing a brand-new site done, that could cost you anywhere starting at $500
- $1000, depending on how many pages you want to start out with. So, go get a great website,
rebuild one if yours is crap, build one now if you don't have one. You'll thank me later.
\ Number two: research and put together an SEO
report.\ I do this weekly. I research keywords for
almost every new blog we create. Think of finding the right keywords like this: you
have a great house built, but you don't have your driveway yet and you don't have your
house number, how are people going to find you? As do your keywords; optimizing your
site with the right keywords to pull in the people that are looking for you and your services
on the web is like adding that number to your house on the mailbox or paving that driveway,
so people can drive up to your house and access it. Without this house number, without this
driveway, people are not going to find your house. The same is true of not doing keyword
research. Now, if you're already known, you\'92re an influencer, you're a celebrity, you don't
have to do keyword research. But if you're none of the above, you should be doing it.
\ After 8 years of doing consistent SEO research,
I still find all these untapped opportunities of low hanging fruit, where there is very
little competition for a keyword and I can create some great content around it, and rank
in in the top 3 or 5 of Google. No matter your niche, your industry, there are keyword
opportunities out there. And get a Pro to help you research these keywords if you don't
know what you're doing. These tools are expensive. For example, SEMrush is $100 a month but it's
one of the best tools you could use. Keyword Finder is another great tool; it's a little
bit less cost, it starts around $20 or $30 a month. But once you have these tools, you
need to know what you're looking for, that's an art in and of itself. A link to a resource
in this video description, where I talk about how to find good keywords. \
And remember, a heavy trend in SEO is the quality of the content on your site. So, once
you have those keywords, the work isn't done. You need to create high quality content around
those keywords. Otherwise, Google is just not going to rank your site. If your content
is riddled with typos, if the facts are missing, if links to back up statistics aren\'92t there,
this list goes on, that continent isn't quality and Google isn't going to rank it. So, just
like you wouldn't try to build your house yourself or remodel your kitchen yourself,
unless you were a professional contractor, don't write your content yourself. If you
don't know how to build high quality onsite content, get a writer and the long-term dividends
will truly pay off. I promise you. \ OK, number 3, the last point: plan and set
a consistent amount of content to happen on your site on the regular. \
The best and easiest way to do this is through a blog on your website. So, I've been able
to uphold this goal of one high quality blog per week, going strong for 8 years now. Some
weeks, we publish two, three, four but our goal is one per week at the minimum. So, we've
been doing that for 8 years. I know marketers that have been doing that for 20 years and
that's how they've built a huge presence and a huge following. So, consistency in great
content is really most of the secret sauce to great content marketing once you have your
fundamentals right. Also, images are really important. You don't just want to post content;
you want to add great visuals. Take a look at The Write Blog. So, everything we publish
here has a uniquely designed header set. This is something that I ask my designer to create
for us, she creates it in Adobe Illustrator. It's super high quality and all the colors
and styles match our brand - we have a clear brand style. Using images, creating beautiful
custom images for each blogpost, is a great way to help your blog get more eyeballs. And
don\'92t forget your social media, you need to be sharing the content out that you create,
so your friends, your followers, people that might eventually become clients can find it
and read it and interact with it. \ Email Marketing is going to be important of
blogging too. You want to build a list, send your new blogs to your list every week. \
OK, so that's it, 3 ways to start getting your fundamentals right so you can see content
marketing success a lot sooner. And like I said, this is a lot like building a house.
This is not that cheap or fast or overnight trick to get more sales and leads. It's a
consistent over time effort to bring long-term results. And if you think about it, isn't
everything good in life kind of like that? For example, marriage, you know; I have to
work it out every day. I have to choose to love my partner every day. Parenting is a
lot like this too; you have to love your kid, nurture your kid every day. So, why would
we think of Marketing as anything different? Why would we think that a quick trick is going
to get long-term huge results? It's just not going to happen. \
I wanted to say this for the end because I don't want you to feel like you're being pitched.
Value is my main focus but if you need your keywords researched, great content written,
even a free content strategy consultation, we do all that at Express Writers. We're here
to help businesses like yours grow through content. You can get in touch with us today.
You can actually see our services and our pricing at www.expresswriters.com/content-shop
Thanks so much for watching today's video. Want more content marketing real talk? Hit
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time I publish a new video. And I'd love to hear what you thought of today's
video in the comments. So, let me know and I'll see you guys around.