Your Content is Only as Boring as You Let It Be

December 21st, 2011 Nick Stamoulis Posted in Content Development, content marketing, content writing No Comments »

Every month my company attends the Boston SEO Meetup, a Meetup event for local SEO and internet marketing professionals, business owners and anyone else interested in learning more about SEO. At November’s event, founder Dave Matson spent a few minutes talking to the group about some of the challenges he has writing content for his clients, criminal defense attorneys. He explained that it’s hard to get people excited and wanting to share a blog post about DUIs, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find creative ways to incorporate trending topics into his content marketing and still have it accurately reflect your brand.]

He recently wrote a blog post that talked about what Occupy protestors should do in case they were arrested during a protest. It got picked up by some of the bigger Occupy Facebook pages and received 1,000 Likes in the process! He explained that the information was pretty basic, but that it was repackaged for the right audience at the right time. Dave found a way to create content that would get people’s attention and was still in line with their brand.

Content marketing isn’t as hard as you think it is!


The number one problem most of my clients (and a lot of businesses in general) have with content marketing is that they don’t think they don’t have anything to say. First off, if you’re not passionate about the industry you’re in, it might be time to find a new job! Secondly, there are fascinating aspects about every industry that the right audience is eager to hear more about. Many of us know our industry inside and out and we forget that our audience isn’t privy to that same insider information. What you consider common knowledge might be a eureka moment for one of your readers.

A lot of B2B marketers understand the value of a strong content marketing campaign, but don’t think their products/services are as glamorous as some B2C products. Sure, it may be more fun to blog about expensive cars or designer handbags, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to make a blog about personal finance more interesting. Just look at what Mint did! You don’t even have to step that far outside of your niche to create engaging content that will not only help you connect with your audience and build your online brand, but that you’ll actually enjoy writing.

If you are really stuck for blog topic ideas, check out this content marketing topics post over on the Brick Blog.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

How Much Should Content Writing Cost?

October 20th, 2011 Nick Stamoulis Posted in cheap content writing, Content Development, content writing No Comments »

Many businesses don’t have the internal resources to fully commit to content marketing, so they look to hire a freelance copywriter to shoulder most of the work. If you don’t have the writing skills or time to devote to content marketing, this is a great idea! A good professional copywriter has the skills and know-how to craft great content for your website or blog and capture the attention of your target audience to get your brand noticed. But hiring a freelance SEO copywriter to handle your content writing begs the question, “How much should I be paying for my outsourced content?”

There really is no “right” answer for how much it costs to outsource your content. Factors like the length of the post, amount of research needed, the writer’s experience and skill level and deadlines all play a part in how much you could end up paying. In my experience, most companies should expect to be paying anywhere from $50 to $200 per article.

Now, $200 an article might be a little much if you’re looking to outsource your business blog entirely. At one post a day that’s $1000 a week just to keep your blog supplied with fresh content! If you have $1000 a week to throw at your business blog, by all means do so! If you’re operating on a smaller budget, I’d recommend taking that $1000 and hiring an SEO firm to handle your content marketing as well as the rest of your SEO. You can stretch that budget a lot farther and get more bang for your buck. For instance, not only would the SEO firm provide the content, but they would also handle the content promotion aspect to get more exposure for your content and drive links.

You could also take that $1000 (which is $4000 a month!) and hire a full-time employee with the writing skills and experience you’re looking for. You could also invest in a few writing courses to enhance your own writing skills. The point I’m trying to make is that you don’t have to be shelling out the big bucks for great content if you can’t afford to do so.

A few things to remember about outsourcing your content:
1. You never want to send your content overseas . It may be the cheaper option now, but it’s very unlikely you’ll get great content that can actually provide value for your brand and your readers.

2. Don’t rely on interns to write your content. They don’t have the in-depth knowledge about your business and industry to produce quality content. A professional copywriter will immerse themselves in your business until they know just as much as the rest of your employees.

3. You get what you pay for! A $5 article is a $5 article. How much effort would you put into something if you were only getting $5 for it?

AddThis Social Bookmark Button




OK!