While writing the “perfect” PR blog may seem overwhelming, it can be a lot of fun. Rather than your usual structured service page or on-page optimization copy, you can let your creativity run the show. The biggest problem is keeping yourself from getting carried away, but how? Let’s dive into everything copywriters need to know to write effective PR blogs.

What Are PR Blogs?

PR blogs, or public relations blogs, are digital marketing tools companies use to earn backlinks, drive website traffic, and expand their reach beyond their traditional target audience. Think of them as a bridge between the brand and the general public, offering a way to communicate and build relationships. 

They take data from various sources (house-made surveys, Google Trends, etc.) to highlight interesting topics and trends using engaging copy. Although it differs by brand, PR blogs are typically written using informal tones to catch the attention of readers and journalists and make the data easily digestible. They also usually include visual graphics to make the data more accessible and appealing. 

PR blog topics can range from branded (obviously related to your products or services) to tangential (seemingly not relevant at first but can still be tied to the company in the end). While branded content can be beneficial, tangential content is the more eye-catching, curiosity-inducing content people can’t help but click on. To give you a better idea of the type of content found in tangential PR blogs, I compiled a list of some of my favorite examples that I’ll reference throughout the article.

• The Scoop on Every State’s Favorite Ice Cream

• The More Popular Half of Iconic Celebrity Couples

• The Most Expensive Airbnb in Every U.S. State

• The Best and Worst States at Family Feud

Tips for Writing Effective PR Blog Copy

Now that you have a better understanding of PR blogs, you’re almost ready to get writing! Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, more likely), take a look at these 8 tips for writing effective PR blog copy.

1. Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is key when writing PR blogs because it shapes everything from your tone to the topics you cover. Think about it: if you’re writing for industry experts, you can dive into the nitty-gritty details and use technical jargon. But if your readers are everyday consumers, you’ll want to keep things simple and relatable. Understanding who you’re talking to helps you craft messages that resonate, engage, and drive the right action. Plus, when you know your audience well, you can anticipate their questions, address their concerns, and ultimately build stronger connections. It’s all about making your content feel like it was written just for them.

2. Know Your Brand Voice

Knowing your brand voice is crucial when writing PR blogs because it ensures consistency and authenticity. Your brand voice is like the personality of your company—it’s how you “sound” to your audience. Whether your brand is playful and casual or professional and authoritative, sticking to a consistent voice helps build trust and recognition. It’s the difference between feeling like your content comes from a real, relatable person versus a faceless corporation.

3. Keep intent in mind

Keeping your intent in mind when writing PR blogs is vital because it helps you stay focused and ensures your message hits the mark. It’s easy to get sidetracked by interesting data or tangents, but straying off-topic can dilute your main point and confuse your readers. When you have a clear intent, every sentence serves a purpose and supports your overall goal. This focus not only keeps your writing sharp and effective but also helps your audience quickly grasp the key takeaways.

4. Balance Creativity and Data

Creativity grabs your audience’s attention and makes your blog enjoyable to read, while data provides solid evidence that backs up your claims. Think of it like the “based on a true story” disclaimer in the opening credits of a movie. Just like dealing with data, it’s easy to give your creative flair a bit too much free reign. You have to weave these elements together to create a narrative that’s not only engaging but also trustworthy. This balance ensures that your blogs are simultaneously entertaining, persuasive, and informative.

5. Focus on the Facts

While a spreadsheet full of data provides endless opportunities for interpretation, it’s important not to go overboard. The overarching goal of digital PR blogs is to generate backlinks. To do this, journalists and other media outlets have to want to share the information showcased in the content. They aren’t going to be interested in blogs that have already explored the data in depth because there isn’t a new perspective for them to take. While some interpretation might be necessary to craft a compelling narrative, it’s best to stick to the data itself as much as possible to give journalists room to put their own spin on it.

6. Don’t Oversell

This tip might seem counterintuitive, but hear me out: don’t put too much emphasis on your brand or services when writing tangential content because it can deter readers. You want to use PR blogs to get your brand out there, but you can (and should) do it without plugging them every chance you get. In my experience, the best way to prevent overselling is not to mention your brand or services in the body copy. It’s like an ad interrupting the most dramatic scene in your favorite show. So, try to discuss your company only in the introduction and conclusion sections of PR blogs. Even then, find an engaging way to tie them in, like the following example: “Just as MRO Electric services are essential to keeping your business running smoothly throughout the year, ice cream is the sweet fuel that helps us all power through the hot summer months.”

7. Craft Compelling Headings

This may be common sense to experienced copywriters, but it’s an important aspect of writing effective PR blogs to check off the list. Headings organize content and tell readers what to expect. In PR blogs, they have the added responsibility of encouraging them to keep reading. To achieve this, keep your headings clear, relevant, and pithy. Incorporate SEO keywords where possible and put yourself in the audience’s shoes—would that heading make you want to keep reading? In The More Iconic Half of Celebrity Couples, for example, we could have used a heading like “Which Ex has the Highest Search Volume,” but chose to go with “Battle of the Former Flames” instead to keep readers interested.

8. Make Your Methodology Clear

Although copywriters aren’t typically the ones gathering data or conducting surveys, we are responsible for making sure readers understand where the information we use comes from. This builds trust and gives the data a strong leg to stand on. Depending on your guidelines, you can include the methodology in the copy or have a separate section for it. Either way, keep your explanation concise and avoid using jargon that the average reader may not understand.

Conclusion

Writing PR blogs is an art form that any copywriter can master. It just takes patience, practice, and a lot of focus. Remember, it’s all about telling informative, engaging stories that boost your brand visibility. So, keep these tips in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to writing PR blogs that truly shine. Happy writing!

A Copywriter’s Guide to Writing Effective PR Blogs is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Evergreen content is an essential component of many successful digital PR campaigns, but what exactly is it? Evergreen content is like a good bottle of wine – it only gets better with age!

Evergreen content refers to content that remains relevant and useful to your target audience for an extended period of time, often months and years after it was first published. Unlike timely content, such as breaking news or seasonal updates, evergreen content remains fresh and informative long after its initial publication.

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Why is evergreen content important for digital PR strategy? Here are three key reasons:

Longevity

When it comes to creating evergreen content, one of the key benefits is its longevity. Unlike news or trend-based content, which tends to have a shorter lifespan, evergreen content can remain relevant and useful for years to come. By focusing on topics that are timeless and not tied to a specific moment or event, you can create content that continues to drive traffic and engagement to your website long after it’s published. This is particularly important in today’s fast-paced digital world, where new content is constantly being created and shared.

Another benefit of evergreen content is its ability to provide value to your audience over time. By creating content that answers common questions or provides helpful tips and advice, you can establish your brand as a reliable source of information and expertise in your industry.

Another benefit of creating evergreen content is that it saves time and resources in the long run. Instead of constantly creating new content to keep up with the latest trends and news, evergreen content can continue to drive traffic and engagement without the need for frequent updates or maintenance. This allows content creators to focus on other important tasks, such as promoting existing content and developing new evergreen pieces, without sacrificing the quality or relevance of their content strategy. Overall, evergreen content offers a sustainable and efficient way to build a strong online presence and attract a loyal audience over time.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Evergreen content can also be a powerful tool for improving search engine rankings. By creating content that provides long-term value to your target audience, you can attract high-quality backlinks, boost your domain authority, and improve overall SEO.

Backlinks are an important ranking factor for search engines, as they signal to search engines that other websites consider your content to be valuable and worth linking to. By creating evergreen content that remains relevant and useful over time, you can attract more backlinks, which in turn can help improve your domain authority and overall SEO.

By investing in evergreen content, you can generate passive coverage over time. Evergreen content’s potential to reach journalists is not limited to a specific outreach window but can be a resource for journalists and reporters in the future. 

Thought Leadership

By creating evergreen content that showcases your expertise and knowledge in a particular area, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and authority figure in your industry. This type of content can take many forms, including blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, and videos, among others.

Creating evergreen content that is informative and valuable to your audience can help you build trust and credibility with your target audience. As you establish yourself as a thought leader, it becomes easier to attract media attention and coverage for your brand. This can lead to more exposure and recognition for your brand, which in turn can lead to increased traffic and engagement on your website.

In addition, evergreen content that positions you as a thought leader can also help you attract high-quality backlinks from other authoritative websites in your industry. By improving your site’s domain authority and search engine rankings, you can attract target audiences.

The key to creating effective evergreen content that establishes you as a thought leader is to focus on providing long-term value to your audience. This means creating content that is not only informative and educational but also actionable and relevant to your target audience’s needs and interests. By doing so, you can build a loyal following of engaged readers who turn to your brand for valuable insights and information. For example, if you’re a jeweler you may want to publish content around identifying the perfect engagement ring. 

The reasons why evergreen content works are important to keep in mind as you begin to craft your evergreen content. However, it’s not enough to simply understand why it works — you also need to know how to create it. By following these steps, you’ll be able to create content that will remain relevant and valuable to your audience for years to come.

Writing an Evergreen Pitch

Once you’ve created your evergreen content, it’s time to pitch it to the media. The first step to writing an evergreen pitch is to identify a topic or angle that is relevant to your target audience and that will remain relevant over time. This could be a topic that addresses a common pain point or challenge that your audience faces, or it could be a trend or issue that is likely to persist for years to come.

Once you’ve identified your evergreen topic, it’s important to craft your content in a way that emphasizes the long-term value of your brand, product, or service. This means focusing on the key benefits that your audience will receive from engaging with your brand or product, rather than simply highlighting the features or capabilities of your offering.

In addition, it’s important to include relevant data, statistics, or case studies that support your claims and demonstrate your content’s merit. By providing concrete evidence, you can increase the likelihood that your pitch will be picked up and that your content will receive coverage.

Finally, it’s important to tailor your pitch to the specific media outlet that you are targeting. This means researching the outlet’s audience, tone, and editorial focus, and crafting your pitch in a way that aligns with their needs and interests. By doing so, you can increase the likelihood that your pitch will resonate with the outlet’s editors and that your brand will receive valuable media coverage as a result.

In summary, writing an evergreen pitch requires careful research, planning, and crafting to ensure that your content remains relevant and noteworthy over time. By focusing on the long-term benefits of your brand, including applicable data and case studies, and tailoring your pitch to the needs of your target media outlet, you can increase the likelihood that your pitch will be picked up and that your brand will receive favorable media coverage.

Maximize Your Evergreen Content

Check out the following tips below to help get the most out of your evergreen content:

1. Update the Content Regularly: While the content may be evergreen, the data and statistics included in it may not be. It’s essential to keep your evergreen content up-to-date by updating it yearly with the latest information and data.
2. Repurpose the Content: Evergreen content can be repurposed in various ways, such as turning it into an infographic, a video, or a podcast episode. Repurposing can help reach new audiences and increase engagement.
3. Optimize for Current Trends: While the content may be evergreen, it’s still important to optimize it for current trends and topics. You can do this by including relevant keywords and topics in the content and promoting it on social media during relevant events or holidays.
4. Use Storytelling: Storytelling is a powerful tool for making evergreen content more engaging and relevant. By including stories and anecdotes that relate to your audience, you can create a connection and make the content more memorable.
5. Use Timeless Examples: Use examples in your content that are timeless and not tied to a specific event or trend. This will ensure that the content remains relevant even as trends and events change.
6. Consider the Format: When creating evergreen content, consider the format that will make the most sense for your audience. For example, long-form articles may be better for in-depth tutorials, while listicles may be better for quick tips.

Making Evergreen Content Timely

Creating evergreen content doesn’t mean it has to be irrelevant to current events. You can still make your content timely by tying it to current events, news, or trends while maintaining its evergreen nature. For example, if you have a blog post about “10 Tips for Effective Time Management,” you can update it with a section on “Time Management during Remote Work” or “Time Management for the Holidays.” By adding these sections, you keep the content fresh and relevant while also preserving its evergreen value. This approach can attract both new and returning readers who are interested in the topic, and you can repurpose the content across different platforms, such as social media or email newsletters, to reach a wider audience. 

Overall, the key to making evergreen content timely is to balance the evergreen nature of the content with current trends and topics. By doing so, you can create content that remains relevant and useful for years to come.

Now that we’ve discussed how to make evergreen content timely, let’s move on to the pros and cons of creating evergreen content. While there are many benefits to producing content that remains relevant over time, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider. Let’s take a closer look at both sides.

The Pros and Cons of Evergreen Content

Pros:

1. Long-term Traffic: One of the biggest benefits of evergreen content is it can continue to drive traffic to your site long after it’s been published. By creating content that remains relevant and useful for years to come, you can attract visitors to your site for a long time without having to constantly create new content.
2. SEO Benefits: Evergreen content can also be great for improving your search engine rankings. By attracting backlinks and establishing your site as a trusted source of information, you can boost your domain authority and improve your overall SEO.
3. Thought Leadership: Creating evergreen content that showcases your expertise in a particular area can help establish you as a thought leader in your industry. This can lead to increased trust and credibility with your target audience, as well as more media coverage for your brand.
4. Time-Saving: By creating evergreen content, you can save time and resources that would otherwise be spent constantly creating new content. This can free up your team to focus on other important areas of your business.

Cons:

1. Less Timely: One potential downside of evergreen content is that it may not be as timely as other types of content. While evergreen content can provide long-term value, it may not be as effective at capitalizing on breaking news or other timely events. Evergreen content also provides reporters less incentive to cover it at the moment, as it will remain relevant to write a story about in several months; timely content has tighter deadlines and gives reporters more of an excuse to cover it now. 
2. May Become Outdated: While evergreen content is designed to remain relevant for years to come, there is always the possibility that it may become outdated at some point. This means you may need to update or refresh the content periodically to keep it relevant.
3. May Not Be as Shareable: Since evergreen content may not be as timely, it may not be as shareable on social media or other channels. This means you may need to work harder to promote the content and attract visitors to your site.
4. May Require More Research: Creating high-quality evergreen content often requires a significant amount of research and expertise. This means you may need to invest more time and resources upfront to create truly valuable content that stands the test of time.

Overall, evergreen content can be a powerful tool for driving traffic, improving SEO, and establishing thought leadership in your industry. However, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons before investing significant resources into creating this type of content. By understanding the potential benefits and drawbacks, you can make an informed decision about whether evergreen content is the right strategy for your business.

Looking at Examples of Evergreen Content: 

Examples of evergreen content include: “how-to” guides and tutorials, industry overviews, expert interviews, infographics, webinars, and in-depth analyses of trends or issues within your industry. 

The campaigns below have proven to be evergreen because they continue to generate interest and engagement long after their initial launch. This is because they were designed with a focus on providing long-term value to their target audience, rather than being centered around a specific moment in time or trend.

• The Best U.S. Cities for Mental Health:

The topic of mental health is a perennial issue that affects people of all ages and backgrounds. By providing evergreen content that ranks and analyzes the best U.S. cities for mental health, readers can gain valuable insights and resources to make informed decisions about where to live and seek support. This type of content remains relevant and useful for years, as mental health concerns continue to be a top priority for individuals and communities across the country. As such, the information provided can continue to attract readers and drive traffic to the website for an extended period, making it a valuable and evergreen resource. This piece attracted coverage from DeseretNews, NewsBreak, and more. 

• Analyzing Digital Equity in Cities Around the U.S.:

Digital equity is a topic that is evergreen because it addresses an ongoing issue that affects many people. The digital divide, or the gap between those who have access to technology and those who don’t, is a persistent problem across the country. By providing data and insights, this type of content can continue to be relevant and informative to readers for years to come. As technology continues to advance and play an increasingly important role in our lives, the issue of digital equity is likely to remain relevant and important, making this an evergreen topic. This gained coverage in City Monitor, and WRAL Tech Wire, among others. 

• What’s Your Personal Data Worth? :

This is an example of evergreen content because it offers readers valuable information and resources to better understand the complex topic of personal data collection, usage, and sale. This content remains relevant to a large and diverse audience over time and continues to be a popular and in-demand topic, as privacy concerns remain a critical issue. By providing this data and empowering readers to make informed decisions about their personal information, this content can continue to educate readers for future years. This earned coverage in PCMag, Digital Information World, and more.  

By creating content that speaks to long-term interests and needs, these campaigns can maintain relevance and value for their audience, resulting in ongoing engagement and success. These topics remain relevant for a longer period of time than time-sensitive or trending topics, making them evergreen content. 

At Go Fish Digital, by incorporating evergreen content into our digital PR strategy for our clients, we create a strong foundation for your brand’s online presence, attract high-quality traffic and leads, and establish your brand as a thought leader within your industry. 

Don’t forget the power of evergreen content – by creating content that remains fresh and useful for years to come, you can drive long-term success for your brand. If you need help with evergreen content for your digital PR campaigns, reach out to Go Fish Digital today. We specialize in digital PR, tangential, branded, and evergreen content for your campaigns. 

Evergreen Content: The Backbone of Digital PR is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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In a lot of ways, management is a pretty unique job. Being the best widget maker on the planet does not necessarily make you the best manager of widget makers. Widget making and management may require incredibly different skills, and to be successful in management, those skills must be deliberately learned, practiced, and prioritized.

I learned everything I know about management in my past life as a teacher. As I’ve changed roles, transitioned careers, and stepped into digital marketing, I’ve found that the successful management of students and their education is not all that different from the successful management of adults and their professional projects.

Regardless of the work setting, management requires a clear and measurable vision and the ability to motivate others to work hard in pursuit of that vision, even if they don’t necessarily find it all that visionary. Both require a balance of listening to others, seeking advice, delivering feedback, receiving feedback, and taking ownership over the success of the group. And finally, all contexts of management require a deep commitment to improving the lives of the people you manage.

From the classroom to the workplace, below are the three main pieces of advice I’d give to anyone considering a management position.

1. Take an Internal Inventory

Before accepting or seeking out a management position, ask yourself: Is management truly the best fit for you? I stepped into management rather early in my career and, admittedly, I was swayed by the glamor of the role: the title, the compensation, the influence. I was ready to make big changes and achieve big things. I was not, however, ready for the responsibility that came with it. I was not ready to navigate my new role with people who were more like friends than coworkers. I was not ready for the backlash when my big ideas overwhelmed and irritated others. And I was not ready to balance my workload with helping others balance their own.

Before stepping into a management position, consider:

1. Do you enjoy working with other people and helping them solve problems?
2. Are you comfortable taking responsibility for the failure of projects?
3. Are you comfortable holding others accountable?
4. Will you still find success rewarding when the glory goes to the people you manage rather than yourself?

If your response to these questions is ambivalent or you find yourself thinking, “No, I want to expand my technical skills or improve the product I work with.” Then, maybe you want to consider career advancements that allow you to work on bigger projects or take on more technical responsibility.

This is especially possible in the world of digital marketing where there are always more complex problems to solve. Diving into your area of expertise to be the most technical expert on the team or an influential thought leader in the industry may be the path for you.

Management is only one option for career advancement, and there should be only one reason you step into management: because you care about the people you work with and believe you could make their professional experience better, easier, and more rewarding.

2. Master the Art of Being Direct

Without question, the hardest part of management is providing clear and direct feedback to the people you work with. We’ve all seen managers try their best to circumvent this uncomfortable reality in various ways.

There is the vague, generalized feedback that’s directed at the group but only applies to a few people. “If we could all try and start our shifts on time, that would be great.”

There is the apologetic feedback. “Hey, I hate to have to mention this, but I really need you to start your shift on time. Again, I know you’re busy and I hate to stress you out, but I’d really appreciate it.”

There’s the delayed feedback that comes up in annual reviews, and worst of all, there is the feedback you hear indirectly from other people.

All of these forms of feedback are problematic and erode trust within a group. It is difficult and awkward to say, “Hey, I noticed you’ve arrived late to your shift three times this week. Moving forward, please make sure you arrive at least five minutes early so you’re prepared to start on time.” However, providing this kind of clear, direct, and timely feedback is an art form you must master if you’re going to be a successful manager.

Like any craft, it takes practice and commitment to excel at difficult conversations. I highly recommend the book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone for anyone looking to improve their ability to navigate challenging conversations with peers, coworkers, employees, friends, partners, parents, or even children. Difficult conversations are a fact of life. Knowing how to engage in them with purpose and empathy to reach solutions that serve you and the other party will strengthen your ability to manage and support others, both within and outside of the workplace.

3. Be Relentless in the Pursuit of Your Vision

Lastly, it is important to be relentless in your pursuit of the vision you set for yourself, your team, and your company. People are motivated by clear, actionable, and meaningful goals. As a manager, you have the opportunity to set those goals for others and be the catalyst behind achieving extraordinary things.

This is one of the best parts of management. It can be so energizing to see people come together and work incredibly hard in pursuit of a vision you set. However, the opposite is also true. It can be incredibly devastating to lead people down a path destined for failure because the vision you set was not backed up by careful planning and measurement. There is nothing more stress-inducing than working for a manager who has lofty goals but lacks the ability to manage people and projects in a way that achieves them.

To be successful in setting a vision, you must feel comfortable determining roles and responsibilities for team members, communicating clear deadlines, and holding team members accountable to the expectations you set. After all, you’re the visionary who brought your team on this exciting journey, you also need to be the shepherd that safely guides everyone over the finish line.

At the end of the day, you are responsible for your team. There is a difference between empowering others to make decisions and putting the success of your vision on their shoulders, leaving them out to dry without direction. One is collaborative management, the other is gaslighting, and never has that led to long-term success.

Management is hard, but it can also be incredibly fulfilling work. With dedicated practice, patience (with yourself and others), and good mentors to guide you along the way, you may find that through management you’re able to achieve big things, improve the lives of the people you work with, and ultimately find a bigger purpose in your work.

3 Tips for Becoming a Manager is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

For example, the value of metadata is typically underestimated and disregarded. In addition, page layout and content are often implemented haphazardly even though they are imperative to how web crawlers view a page. Lastly, many know that images can be a snake in the weeds when it comes to page speed yet extra-large images are still common across the web. These elements may get glossed over, as many people look for “smoking gun” issues that will provide quick resolutions to their SEO woes. Unfortunately, that’s not always how SEO works.

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If you’re new to SEO or just need a refresher on best practices, I’d like to go over five major SEO mistakes you should avoid. Keep reading to learn more!

1. Simply Having A Title Tag Is Good, Not Great

Title tags are likely the primary piece of copy that the average user first takes note of, so it is important to be intentional about what is included in this bit of copy. It is also well known that title tags and meta descriptions are central contributing factors to click-through rates. Although a component as small as a title tag may seem trivial it is important to be aware that this could be the first interaction users have with your site.

There are a few key tricks to creating an effective title tag:

• Ensure the intent of the included keywords aligns with the content on the page by reviewing the existing search results for those terms.
• Place your primary keyword towards the front of the phrase to be most impactful.
• Keep your character count at or below 65 characters to avoid truncation in the SERPs.

2. Take Advantage Of Your Meta Description

We can’t forget about the importance of meta descriptions when it comes to metadata. This is your chance to really draw users in, but it is often overlooked since it likely isn’t a formal ranking signal in search algorithms. It is important to be clear and concise here as users tend to scan SERPs very briefly before making a decision about which link will get their click.

Here are some things to keep in mind when developing a meta description.

• Include a persuasive call to action that entices a click.
• If possible, naturally incorporate eye-catching words like “get,” “free,” “best,” “easy,” etc.
• Keep the character count at or below 156 characters to avoid truncation in the SERPs.

3. Don’t Mix Up Header Hierarchy

While working on a variety of websites and on-page optimizations, I’ll sometimes come across page headers that are all over the place. This is often due to the fact that the headers have been used stylistically instead of strategically. In many website templates, setting a piece of text as a heading element (H2, etc.) can make the copy larger and more pronounced, but that is not its only purpose. The heading elements of a web page work to guide search crawlers and outline content hierarchy. For instances where you want your piece of text to look like a header but it falls outside the natural hierarchy of proper heading element structure, consider using CSS to mimic the visual appearance of a header without adding an HTML tag to the code.

With all of this in mind, I would recommend these tips for headers:

• Ensure the H1 is the first header on the page.
• There should only be one unique H1 per page.
• Be logical about the order of your headers, strategically nest content together and use headers in numerical order.
• Avoid using header tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) in any type of templated or navigational elements.
• Heading elements should only be used in the body of a web page and not in sitewide elements like the header or footer

4. Content Quality Versus Quantity

When it comes to content, more is not always better. As search engines evolve, improvements in machine learning are becoming more focused on language understanding. In short, this means you will be less likely to get away with content that is not meaningful, no matter how much of it there is. Furthermore, Google’s E-A-T initiative highly stresses the importance of quality in terms of expertise and accuracy.

A few things to consider when it comes to content:

• A web page does not have to be overly long to be effective, length does not define performance.
• Including an author’s biographical information and sources can signify to search engines and users alike that a site or piece of content is authoritative and trustworthy.
• Content should be structured so that it is easily digestible on both desktop and mobile screens.

5. Double-Check Images To Save Time

Extra-large images can slow your page down substantially, which can reduce SEO value and overall success. Images are common culprits that contribute to low site speed scores and poor user experience. Plugins are a great way to resolve these issues in a snap. Although they aren’t always a perfect fix in every situation, WP Smush and WP Rocket are two favorites I often test out.

Image do’s include:

• Resize large images to the actual size you are hoping to render on a page.
• Compress your resized image even further, try to stay below 100 KB, some great free tools include https://tinyjpg.com/ and https://imagecompressor.com/.
• Include descriptive alt text that explains what is happening in the image and how that relates to the page.
• Use a lazy loading configuration when possible to defer loading requests until they are needed.

All too frequently, people are under the impression that merely checking SEO boxes is enough to create real results. As with most things in life, the easy way is not the best way. Every aspect of SEO requires diligence and this is true for even the most basic items. Although optimizing metadata, content, and images may not be the most groundbreaking tactic, it is one that is proven to work.

Are you curious about any other facets of SEO? Read all about our data-based approach to SEO or drop us a comment below!

5 Basic SEO Mistakes To Avoid is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

We wanted to get insight into how our copywriting team actually goes about creating blog posts for our clients. We sat down with LaRhonda Sparrow, Associate Copywriter, and asked her 5 quick questions to learn more.

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What is your writing process?

When I sit down to write a blog, I begin by finding out all of the specifications of the client, including their overall goals and how they write to their audience. Then, I just start writing to get all of my initial ideas down on paper. I then go back through the copy to refine the overall message. Lastly, I continue editing the copy to ensure that it’s exactly what the client is looking for.

So, generally, my written process includes getting any requirements from the client, putting my ideas down on paper, refining my message, and then copy editing the piece to make sure it fits in with the client’s goals.

How do you come up with blog ideas?

When brainstorming topics for client blogs, I like to lean on my experience as a consumer to take a step back and think about what type of content would make my interaction with a website better. So, I spend some time on the client’s website to find questions that I would want answers to if I were interested in buying their products. 

For instance, I was writing a blog for my furniture retail client one day, and I looked through their products for inspiration. I found a sofa that I was personally interested in and I immediately asked myself how this sofa would look in my home, how I could style it for different times of the year, and how I could keep it clean. Those are all questions the average consumer is asking themselves as well, so it’s completely worth it to develop them out into blogs. When I look at brainstorming in that way, the ideas start flooding in.

What is the ideal blog length?

In my opinion, there is no ideal blog length. The only requirement is that you get your point across in a clear, concise way so you won’t lose your reader. One blog I wrote had less than 300 words, but it ended up being really successful because it relied on graphical components to convey its message. On the other end of the spectrum, I recently wrote a post that was around 2,000 words, but it faired well because it was written for a highly-technical audience who generally expects to read more robust pieces.

My advice is to research your audience to know what they want out of a blog post and to use your discretion when coming up with a word count. 

Why should a writer use formatting in their blog posts?

Proper formatting really can be the difference between your blog looking intimidating, and not getting any traction, and it going viral. If you open a blog and there’s a huge block of text, there’s a very low chance that someone is going to read through it.

I recommend breaking up your copy with headings, bullet points, and images throughout so it looks as user-friendly as possible. An example of a perfectly formatted blog is a piece by my colleague, Ally Mickler, who wrote an article detailing how to set up an A/B test on the Go Fish website. Even though the subject matter is relatively specialized, it’s broken up nicely with different headings, helpful images, and numerical lists, which makes it much more approachable visually.

With good formatting, a reader won’t be intimidated by your content and they’ll be much more inclined to read it, which is exactly what we want!

What word processor would you recommend using when writing blogs?

I prefer to use Google Docs when I’m writing for clients. Google Docs is a great tool because it allows you to share and collaborate easily with both your project team and your client. Through a single link, you can see each version of a document, comment on things you want more clarity on, and even get quick answers through the built-in chat function. You really can’t go wrong with it.

To learn more about our Copywriting service and how it can help your company, reach out to us today!

How a Professional Copywriter Writes Blog Posts is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

My team consists of 12 people. But, more importantly, it consists of 4 Harry Potter geeks, 3 podcast addicts, 3 Marvel superfans, 1 Excel aficionado, 1 fast food and dining deal finder, 1 British gentleman, 4 Target-goers, 5 dog owners, 4 cat owners, 10 sport fanatics (the sports we obsess over vary), and the list goes on and on. We’re all passionate about different things individually, but together, we combine our passions into campaigns that examine pet preferences according to Harry Potter house and popular podcasts across the US. We embrace our inner nerds, and that’s really where our creativity begins.

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We have a strong and positive team dynamic that allows for these types of interactions to happen, and we work better, harder, and smarter because of these seemingly inconsequential conversations. Given this, I wanted to look at why exactly this brand of productive creativity works in our favor and learn how other content teams can bottle up this same magic. Let’s get started.

Live Like Leonardo

It could be argued that these off-topic conversations are not work-related and should, therefore, be confined to lunch breaks or after work drinks. However, these occasional detours into internet black holes are often the most valuable conversations our team will have all day, and according to Time Magazine’s The Science of Creativity issue, there’s a reason for that. It turns out that we’ve been living and working according to the philosophies of Leonardo da Vinci himself.

Da Vinci was a creative genius, no doubt about it, but he also advocated techniques for creativity that, when employed, allow people to think more creatively on a regular basis. The article outlined tactics that include:

• Seeking for knowledge for knowledge’s sake – Whether it’s random bits of trivia, sports stats, or the latest romantic comedy, a key part of creative thinking involves diving into what interests you, whether it relates to your job or not.
• Go down rabbit holes – Don’t limit yourself to one article or website. Explore all of the sources you possibly can.
• Collaboration – What’s better than one creative mind looking at a project? Two or more creative brains.
• Imperfection – Pursuing perfection limits your options and forces you to work inside a particular box. Creativity, by definition, involves thinking outside the box.
• Create for yourself – Creating for clients is all well and good (and it involves a paycheck) but ultimately, you should try to create for yourself.

The ideas laid out above are what drive our team’s random conversations and forays into very weird corners of the internet. They’re generally quick, usually completely unrelated to our current workload, and in many cases, have resulted in an idea that turns into a wildly successful campaign. We fully immerse ourselves into all things geeky to contribute to an overall culture of creativity where whacky ideas are welcome. We love nothing more than someone dropping a link into the group chat with the caption “This is so weird/cool/interesting/bizarre.” It’s the employment of da Vinci’s theories that keep us moving forward at a pace that allows us to meet our deadlines.

So, don’t be afraid to have those raucous workplace conversations that highlight the topics you love to talk about. In fact, dive deeper into them to nurture your creativity. If it can work for Leonardo da Vinci, it can work for you too.

Flexing Our Creative Muscles

It’s a common belief that creativity is an asset that you either have or you don’t. This person is creative while another person is not, this person is more numbers and logic-oriented while this person thinks outside-the-box. That’s simply not the case. Creative thinking is a skill that can be cultivated, and just like anything else, you have to work hard to make it great. If you want to run a marathon, what do you do? You train. The same goes for creative thinking.

In my experience, one of the most effective ways to flex your creative muscles in content marketing is to (unsurprisingly) immerse yourself in content and collaborate. Our team looks at our daily research, news feeds, and general responsibilities as a smorgasbord of potential innovation. It’s a practice that we encourage in each other, and that ideology is what ultimately leads to our consistent creative success. By inviting multiple people to look at projects, we combine our points of view to create engaging content that we would jump to read — if we hadn’t produced it ourselves, that is.

This ties back to the idea of “creating for ourselves” that da Vinci championed. While we ultimately work for the client, we also make it a priority to find projects that we would love to work on. When we get to put one of these projects into action, they tend to be extremely successful, not just because they’re a creative option, but because we throw our heart and soul into them.

The Takeaways

While we all have days where the creative juices just won’t flow, we have many more days that involve rabbit holes, hysterical laughter, random thoughts and ideas added to our dream campaign document. Even as we work to maintain high productivity levels, employing these day-to-day tactics helps us think outside the box and keeps us from burning out or, even worse, relying on the conventional. These techniques are relatively easy to employ in your own life, not to mention a fun excuse to nerd-out over your favorite things. By living and breathing our passions, we’re able to carry that originality to every aspect of our jobs, which is ultimately what allows us to be great at what we do.

The Go Fish Geek Squad: Unpacking the Art of Productive Creativity is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

I’m sure every blogger, professional or otherwise, has asked themselves: “what’s the best way to promote my content?”

It’s a fair and important question to consider; there are a ton of different strategies that you could use to promote your content and a million different sites to display it on, but how can you possibly know which one will provide the most reach and content engagement?

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I’ve got great news – I’ve done the hard work for you in an attempt to answer this question. Through this guide, I’ll show you seven of the best strategies to promote your blog effectively.

1. Facebook Ads

A lot of people have a negative connotation of Facebook ads because they believe that they aren’t worth the money spent. Here at Ahrefs, we’ve actually found that the opposite is true. Each click we get costs us an average of $0.30, meaning that we get around 100+ clicks for just $30. So, for our purposes, Facebook ads are a great money-saving tool that can be used to promote content.

But, if you don’t have the money or don’t want to spend it on content promotion, then you’ll have to pay with your time, which could lead to a much bigger spend.

For example, you could choose a free way to promote your blog, such as using Quora, where you will have to take a few steps:

• Search for relevant threads and try to pitch your posts
• Respond with high-quality answers to the questions
• Add links within your answers

This may sound pretty easy, but in the long run, it could be, in fact, counterproductive.

Consider how many hours it would take to post 10 comprehensive answers on Quora. Taking the above steps into account, it would you take about 2 hours of your time. Now, think about how much you would typically earn for 2 hours of work. Is that amount of money lost worth the time you spent trying to promote your content?

Let’s look at it in a different way. If you skim through Upwork, you will see differing hourly rates of freelancers:

In this example, we can see that this freelancer makes $50/hr. If they go through the same steps we detailed above, they’ll spend $100 worth of time developing and posting answers on Quora.

My question to you is: “how many clicks will this person get with the help of these 10 (free) published Quora answers?”

Nobody knows for sure. It could be 10, maybe 100, or even no clicks at all. But, regardless, this person would still be out of $100 when they could have only spent $30 on Facebook ads, guaranteeing them at least 100 clicks.

Ultimately, how you choose to spend your money and time is up to you. When investing your money on content promotion, you have to decide whether you’d rather spend your time or money. My advice is to think twice before you make that decision in order to determine which will yield the best value to you and your content.

2. Don’t Forget About Your Audience!

It’s not uncommon for bloggers to send out a notification to their audience once they publish a blog post. And while this can seem like a great strategy, have you ever asked yourself: “what happens when you share your content with your existing audience via email and social channels?”

The simple answer is that you will end up bringing the same people back to your website over and over again.

Here’s how it looks:

You may think that your existing audience helps you to gain initial traction by sharing your content across social channels, but this isn’t necessarily true.

Why?

First of all, when you launch an email campaign, you can’t expect to reach everyone in your existing audience initially. It would be great if you reached even 30% of them.  

Also, the people that you do reach will likely not read your posts from A to Z and they are even less likely to tweet or share it with their friends, which severely stunts your ability to reach new people.

To maximize your chances of gaining new audience members and improving traffic, you need to use outreach methods.

Email list

To best present this idea, I’ll show you some of the numbers and statistics that we collect at Ahrefs.

We have more than 53K users on our email list and we notify each of these users every time we release an update. We track metrics such as clicks and open rate to see how well each email campaign performs. For example, here is one of our best performing campaigns:

53K recipients got this email and of that number, 16.9% opened the email and 5.2% clicked through it, while most of our emails have a click-through rate of 3-4%.

You should keep track of all email campaigns so that you’re able to analyze similar components in those that have been successful. This way you’re able to improve upon your overall email campaign.

Your followers on Twitter

Ahrefs has around 31.1K followers on Twitter. However, we only get an average of 400 engagements per tweet. This is only 1.3% of our followers on Twitter that we are actually engaging with regularly. Check it out:

This tells us that we won’t get enough traffic just by tweeting our articles once. One tactic we use to get around this is sharing our content multiple times with differing taglines, therefore attracting the widest variety of consumers. Here’s an example:

3. Produce Content That Is Worth Sharing

I’m sure that you’ve seen or heard the statement “content is king,” and that’s for a good reason. One of the most critical aspects of a blog is whether its content is share-worthy. Many key benefits coincide with having valuable content:

• It impresses your readers and gives them valuable information
• It makes your target audience spend hours on your blog and come back again
• It makes people share a word about your blog everywhere

For instance, these users recommended Ahrefs blog on Reddit without any influence from us:

We didn’t have to do anything to make people speak about our blog and suggest it across different forums. The main reason that this is able to happen naturally is because of the quality content that we create on the Ahrefs blog. People read it and like it, so in turn, they suggest our blog to others.

Creating high-quality and share-worthy content will pave the road for your blog’s success, but remember, you have to put in a lot of time and effort to make it valuable.

4. Traffic from Google

There is a pervasive phenomenon in the blogging world that happens when you publish a new blog post and it initially brings you a lot of traffic but that traffic quickly fades away. These fluctuations are called the “spike of hope” and the “flatline of nope.”

Source

This can be a frustrating cycle that begins like this:

• You spread your newly published content to your target audience via emails and social shares
• Your audience shares it further with other people
• You spend your money on Facebook ads to reach out to the new users

Afterward, it ends up like this:

• Your audience and other peers have already seen your content
• You don’t have any money left to run more Facebook ads

I’m not saying that nobody will ever read your posts. If your content continuously ranks highly on Google, you will always have readers. What I am saying, however, is that you need to create content that will not immediately die out.

If you’re wondering how to create this kind of content, it’s simple:

• Discover topics that spark the interest of your target audience
• Write better material
• Get links from other highly-reputable websites

I know that’s easier said than done, but it’s an important practice to implement when you’re trying to drive and sustain traffic to your blog. Like we said before, you have to put in a lot of time and effort to make your content valuable.

5. Deal with Relevant Audience

Unfortunately, for those who have just recently launched a blog, it can be especially challenging to promote your content, and here’s why:

• You probably don’t have a large budget that you could spend on Facebook ads
• You don’t have an existing audience
• You won’t get traffic without getting links from other websites

The good news is that you can create high-quality and share-worthy content that will give you a great boost in your initial promotional efforts. But, you’ll still have to put in a ton of effort to build your audience over time. To help expedite that process, you should show your content to a wide variety of people in your industry. The best way to do that is outreach.

Before you launch your outreach campaign, however, you need to ask yourself: “why would anyone even care about what I want to send them?”

If you have already found the answer to this question, then your outreach strategy is more likely to be successful. But for the rest of us, I think it would be helpful to share a couple of strong approaches that will lead to a more successful outreach campaign.

Mentions

Everyone likes to be praised. However, those gurus in your niche that get praised on a daily basis won’t think twice about another mention of them. The best way to increase your chances of getting a reply is to build connections with a representative in a “big fish” division of your audience. That way, when they see your name, they’ll recognize it, which makes it much more likely for them to reply and for you to get a lot more engagement on your piece.

Introduce a Breakthrough Post

What would compel an expert to share your post on social channels without having been asked to do it?

It’s simple – your content is worth being shared. In other words, try to create a notable piece of work and others will notice it without any extra effort on your part.  

In regards to content promotion via outreach, you should focus on showing others the material without directly asking them to share it. We follow this same strategy at Ahrefs; we never ask people to share our writings but instead to share a personal opinion about a given piece of content:

As you can see, we aren’t asking them to share the post or link to it, instead, we are interested in what the person thinks about our research.

Unfortunately, I must admit that even our efforts with outreach don’t guarantee us a high level of shares, but that’s for another post entirely.

6. More Activity in Relevant Communities

Communities are wonderful places that allow people to discuss any topic with like-minded people. But, even more so, communities are a place where people argue over those same topics. When these disputes arise, a great way to bring in a strong counter-argument is to include a concrete piece of content that could help prove your point and resolve the debate.

Unfortunately, that’s where things can get tricky when you want to share your blog post. A lot of communities restrict users from posting self-promotional material within the threads:

These guidelines give you a clear idea of what is not allowable in the group, but this doesn’t mean you cannot still be an active member. It gives you an opportunity to link to other relevant sources of information. Here’s an example:

Here, you can see that, even though Matt Post didn’t link to his content, he helped resolve an issue someone was having, making him look like an expert people can turn to in the future. It’s important to employ this same strategy often in your own communities to position yourself in the same way.

If you’re wondering where you can find the right communities to join, here are some pieces of advice:

• Facebook. There are millions of communities on Facebook, so a simple search will point you in the right direction
• Reddit. Finding relevant subreddits is equally straightforward – a simple search will do
• Forums. Google can offer you different forums related to your niche, just type “your_niche forum” and you’ll find what you need

7. Content Repurposing

If your content is failing to gain the traffic you had hoped for the first time, then you may want to consider repurposing your content.

Content repurposing is a great way to breathe new life to a topic that had been covered on your blog before. Here is a personal example of how we’ve done it. We have a blog post that covers a few ways of finding anyone’s email address, and we decided to repurpose this topic into the video on our Youtube channel, which got over 11K views.

In addition to these tactics, my colleague created an infographic to display the same information:

We have repurposed this same topic twice  – into a video and infographic – but there are many other ways that this could be done, such as creating a powerpoint presentation or participation in a podcast.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you repurpose your content, but it’s important for you to do so in order to get the most traction on a single topic as you can.

To Wrap Up

All of the information that I have given you thus far can be summarized into the following phrase:

“Concentrate on producing high-quality work and don’t be aggressive about promotion.”

Although you aren’t able to force people to promote and engage with your content, you do have the ability to write an epic post that will compel the audience to share it with their peers. And with these 7 pieces of advice, you can do all that and more, which will help you on your way to successfully promoting your blog.

If you have other ideas that would be helpful here, please feel free to share them in the comments!

About Sergey:
Sergey Aliokhin is a Marketing Manager at Ahrefs. Apart from working at Ahrefs, he likes spending his time with family, studying martial arts and plucking fat bass guitar strings. Don’t hesitate to contact him.

How to Promote Your Blog in 2019: 7 Strategies You Can’t Miss is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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In addition to putting a pair of human eyes on every resume that comes in, I am every candidate’s main point of contact. Naturally, this means I get asked a lot of questions. But there is one question in particular that I get asked pretty frequently:

“What does your company culture look like?”

Oh, boy – where to start?

The Key Ingredient to a Flourishing Culture

When a candidate inquires about culture in 2018, they are asking what it feels like to work for your organization. They want to know how much trust you will place in them, how they will relate to their coworkers, how casual or buttoned-up your atmosphere is, and what potential growth or promotion opportunities exist. And for some companies, it can seem like a loaded question.

But, here’s a secret. The way to create your organization’s desired culture will always be the same. It’s not branding or social media posts or office furniture – it’s the people.

Suppose that XYZ Company wants to create an office culture based on flexibility and creativity. Their mission statement touts their out-of-the-box thinking and innovation and expression of individual personality is encouraged. They even offer unlimited PTO and bring in ping-pong tables, nap pods, and maybe a bark park so employees can bring their dogs to work. However, having these cool things in place isn’t enough to build a culture. Regardless of how much a company invests in the trappings of creativity and unconventionality, it’s the people who occupy the office that determine the nature of the place.

Finding the Right People for the Job

A company must do more than simply look at past work experience when reviewing a candidate. They need to know whether the candidate is a great culture fit. How much direct supervision does this person need? Are they comfortable with asking questions and admitting what they don’t know? Does a competitive atmosphere bring out the best in them or the worst? Are they more likely to thrive when creating their own way of working, or in faithfully adhering to long-held practices? These are all questions that you need to make sure you answer before bringing a person on.

Hiring folks who feel most comfortable in a more cutthroat, every-man-for-himself environment can kill open collaboration. Someone who flourishes under strict direction from management may flounder in a flat work structure. An employee who is less intense about her work lowers the bar in a competitive environment where others thrive under pressure. And let’s be clear – it’s not that these employees have the wrong idea about how to work. They may be terrific assets in the right environment. But when an employee is placed into a culture that doesn’t match their work style, the results can be disastrous.

Our Culture at Go Fish Digital

We are fiercely protective of our office culture at Go Fish Digital. We want a workplace that buzzes with collaborative energy, allows employees to find their own best work style, and reduces the time and number of approvals needed to turn a good idea into reality. And because we are so protective of our culture, we are particularly choosy (some would say picky) when it comes to building our workforce. Our interview process is fairly lengthy and asks a lot of the candidates moving through it. In the end, we are rewarded with a staff that creates our ideal culture. Our employees are unafraid to ask questions. They are extremely generous with one another, not only with their efforts but also with their time and their personal expertise. Our employees seek professional growth, but never through competition.

We are very picky, but, honestly, all organizations should be. The people you have at your organization are not only shaping its culture, but they are also actively shaping its future. While it may be easy to dismiss culture as a fad or consider it as an issue that only concerns less serious organizations, potential employees legitimately care about this part of the job and its importance should not be overlooked.

Aside from the culture question I mentioned before, there is another one that lags only slightly behind in its frequency. I’ve come to expect it, and I can answer it right away.

“What do you like most about working at Go Fish Digital?”

That’s an easy one. It’s the people.

A Great Company Culture Starts With One Key Ingredient is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.