Common Pitfalls
Maddie Cohen
Lessons
Class Introduction to Content Marketing
01:36 2Tell Your Story
02:47 3Communicate with Customers
01:31 4Be Competitive
02:19 5Establish Your Brand Voice
02:59 6Easily Repurpose Your Content
01:01 7Improve Your Website Traffic
02:30Quiz: Chapter 1
9Write to Your Audience
03:50 10Common Pitfalls
05:58 11Quiz: Chapter 2
12List Posts
01:50 13How-To Guides
01:35 14Roundups
02:35 15Personal Stories
01:12 16Case Studies
02:53 17Interviews
01:34 18Checklists
02:29 19Quiz: Chapter 3
20Develop a Content Calendar
02:53 21Craft a Compelling, Accurate Headline
05:23 22Outline Your Post
02:45 23Write a Lede with a Gripping Hook
04:04 24Include a Call to Action in Your Post
01:40 25Include an Image in Your Content
01:50 26Make Your Content Readable
02:21 27Quiz: Chapter 4
28Keywords
02:48 29Internal Links
01:00 30Meta Descriptions
00:37 31Image Text
00:22 32Tags and Categories
00:40 33SEO Plugins
02:27 34Quiz: Chapter 5
35Revision Process
01:36 36Copyediting
01:31 37Proofreading
03:14 38Quiz: Chapter 6
39Commit to a Specific Posting Frequency
02:23 40Track Your Analytics
00:57 41Be Flexible
01:07 42Quiz: Chapter 7
43Wrap-up
03:33 44Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Common Pitfalls
defining your audience can help you avoid a number of pitfalls. These include pitfall one writing for your competitors rather than your target readers. Say you work in software, your natural inclination may be to write about coding, or maybe you work as a freelance writer like I do, and you decide to write blog posts about writing. Or if you work in the pet care industry, you may choose to write about caring for cats and dogs and you may think this sounds great, but it isn't necessarily not exactly by writing about your industry without focusing on a problem and a clear solution, meaning the things your audience cares most about, You'll end up writing content for your competitors to avoid this right to the people you want to work with, have a conversation with them. If you work in software, write blog posts on how your product can help businesses work more efficiently, go deeper than your code and discuss the benefits of what you have to offer. Maybe your software provides cutting edge...
security or it's reasonably priced and easy to use. Let consumers know how you can help them. If you write for a living, let your readers know how they can give their brand boost by hiring a professional writer list the benefits of sharp witty social media captions discuss how working with the ghost writer can help them get their content in front of more people. And if you work in pet care, rather than listing off dog sitting best practices, let your prospects know how to go about choosing the best possible pet sitter, teach them how having a fenced yard can save them time and hassle and remind them of how important it is to keep their pets safe in extreme temperatures. Make sense Right to your audience and your blog posts will be much more effective. You and your writers will also have more fun piecing the content together because writing to your audience gives you an extra push to explore new relevant topics instead of the material you already know. And now another pitfall you can avoid by defining your target audience. Pitfall two writing to prospects instead of your existing customers, attracting new customers. Sounds great. Right? Well, what's even better is maintaining your existing customers helpful hint? You should be writing to both your prospects and your existing customers, but hear me out, earning new customers is much more expensive than keeping your existing customers. And if you want to maximize engagement, a loyal audience is key. This is where defining your target audience can help when you write based on subject matter alone. Like we discussed a minute or so ago, you limit the people you reach with your content by focusing on a single subject. Your content will only appeal to a small group of readers and these people may not have much in common outside of their interest in this one subject. Plus it's unlikely they'll share your content outside their own community. Here's an example. Maybe you own a surf company and even writing about surfing day in and day out instead of blogging about the sport Over and over again consider writing to a better to find audience. You may realize your target audience is passionate about the environment. At which point you decided to write about strategies for protecting the oceans and slowing the effects of global warming. These are topics your audience cares about, and by exploring them, you'll attract people who might not have engaged with your content. If you only wrote about surfing, get what I'm saying by defining your target audience, you can build a powerful community rooted in the values you share your blog post topics will be more interesting and your audience will be more loyal as a result. And now a third pitfall you can avoid by defining your audience pitfall three writing about the same subject over and over again, say you run a company that specializes in employment background checks, you launch a blog and over and over again you write about background checks, the benefits of background checks, what the background check process looks like, why companies might invest in employment background checks, granted this approach isn't bad. Exactly, it could be worse, but it's redundant. Just think about things from your audiences perspective, if you're forced to read about the exact same topic time and time again, you'll get bored, you won't learn as much because you'll be less engaged. You may even stop reading the brand's blog altogether. I mean, after a certain point, you'll assume you already know everything there is to know about the subject matter. So what can you do? You can define your audience, you can consider what they want, what they care about what they fear and what they hope to accomplish. And then you can dive deep into those topics. So back to the background check example, you can take things a step further. You can reframe the problem in this case by writing about a company that absolutely thrived after screening all their candidates or by showcasing several businesses that have hired felons and discussing why those organizations chose to overlook the results of their employment background checks. Or you could kick off a new year by describing how employment laws have changed by defining your audience. You can explore new but still relevant topics and you'll be more creative as a result plus your audience whom you've defined at this point. Well, thank you for it. So, a short summary of this chapter the next time you write a blog post, keep your target reader in mind, have a clear image of your ideal customer and write as though you're speaking to them, avoid pitfalls like writing for your competitors instead of your target audience. Writing to your prospects instead of your existing customers and writing about the same subject over and over again, remember our Adidas example here, the brand generated great relevant content on topics ranging from yoga to pollution prevention, with these best practices in mind, you'll be well on your way to blogging success. Moving on now, though, let's review all the different blog post types you can choose from.
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