When we think of written content, we think about what is there: the copy itself.
But what’s not there in your content—in other words, the white space that breaks it up—also has a huge impact on meaning, readability, SEO, and results.
Here are a journalist’s best practices for creating just the right breaks in your blog posts, articles, case studies, and white papers.
Got a case study on your to-do list? To create a case study that converts, it’s crucial that you ask your customer the right questions—otherwise you’ll end up with 1,000 words of sales talk and unconvincing fluff. (“Company X is great! Rah rah rah!”)
My team and I recently created a compelling case study that earned our client a lot of kudos, and we pulled together a list of the interview questions we routinely ask to create tension-filled, reader-grabbing case studies like that one. (Want a free PDF copy of this list? Download it here…no form to fill out, just click and grab!)
Good writers know that there’s more to captivating an audience than coming up with a killer content topic. Anyone can come up with an idea, but it’s what you do with that idea once you have it that makes all the difference.
Ready to earn more attention with your content? These elements have been repurposed from journalism best practices to bring authority, trustworthiness, and relevance to your content.
You can also download a handy infographic version of this list. Here’s the PNG version, and this is the larger PDF.
Before I launched Hero’s Journey Content this year, I spent 22 years writing magazine articles, books, and content on a freelance basis.
Now I’m in the editor’s seat, testing out writers to make sure we onboard the very best talent.
We typically give a writer one or two small assignments to see how they fare before adding them to our team. And, sadly, I’m not surprised at how many writers with amazing samples just…can’t write.
In content marketing, we’re always wanting more, more, more. More content. More clicks. More engagement. More subscribers.
But trying to max out on every content metric can hurt your business.
Self magazine cut the amount of content it publishes on its website in half, starting with eliminating “social news writing aimed solely at generating clicks.”
You’ve probably read that you should curate interesting content from others on social instead of having all your posts be about “me, me, me.”
Well, I’m not one to believe everything I hear online—especially since there are so many self-styled “content gurus” out there who don’t know what they’re talking about—so I tested this advice for a client:
If you want to get the most out of your content, you need to know your KPIs from your CTAs.
You cram a lot of people into the top of the funnel, and only a few come out the bottom to become customers. Somehow this is considered a good thing.
A romanticization of the process whereby someone learns about your product or service and buys from you. Thinking of it as an incredible journey for the customer makes content marketers feel better about their lives.
In today’s climate of clickbait and fake news, your audience is craving reliable, credible content.
When I started out, freelancing mostly on the journalism side, every article I turned in would be thoroughly checked by an in-house fact checker. That person would call my sources to verify their quotes, validate the stats and facts against the backup materials I sent them, and make sure the copy was as clean as can be.
Of course, most businesses don’t have the luxury of an in-house fact checker. So what to do when you want to be sure to get it right?
Is your brand not landing the kind of coverage you’d like? It could be because you’re not looking at your PR pitches through a journalist’s eyes.
Sign up for HARO, then check out these tips from a content studio founder who’s been on both sides of the table.
