A brand without a blog is like an Oreo cookie without its creamy center. I know what you must be thinking. What about social media? Podcasts? Email newsletters? All these communication tools have their place in your marketing plan. Still, none have the power to build your business the way a well-written blog can. Blogging remains one of the most effective ways to boost brand awareness and reach target audiences. A business blog gets twice as much traffic from content than email campaigns. Authoring content relevant to consumer searches guides consumers to your products and services while establishing your brand as an authority. Do you need more convincing that a brand blog is the way to go in 2022? Here are some reasons to compel your brand to give blogging a go. Blogs help search engines find your brandSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) is a tricky skill. Just when you think you have mastered it, search engines like Google change their algorithms. Using SEO when you blog is worth the effort. Professional bloggers and SEO copywriters rely on keyword research to discover which keywords will help your content rank higher organically. For instance, let’s say you want to blog about choosing an air purification system to reduce the spread of germs in residential settings. Using a keyword tool identifies words relating to the topic based on search engine activity. Plugging in the phrase “air purification system germs” and optimizing for Google produces a list of potential keywords to include in your content. Some of the suggestions:
In addition to SEO, you also can find out what searchers are looking for by doing a search yourself. Go to your search engine of choice and enter “air purification system germs” again. The results will produce a list called “Common Searches” that reveal the key phrases others are using to find information related to this topic. Include those in your blog as subheadings to maximize your searchability factor. This is super easy to do in a blog. Blogs target your audience with relevant contentHard as it is to imagine, businesses did not always have the advantage of touting their wares online to a global audience. Once upon a time, they had to print ads, buy mailing lists, and send those mailers out to potential customers in their service area to entice them. Direct mail campaigns have not completely disappeared. They can be quite effective under the right circumstances. However, they can eat into your advertising budget. The average cost to produce and send a direct mail advertisement is between 30 cents and $10 per mailer. Cost varies and depends on whether you use professional copywriters and designers to produce the advertisement and a printing/publishing company to mail them. Blogging eliminates much of the cost associated with targeted mailing campaigns. Hiring a professional writer to plan and produce the content can cost between $50 and $2,000 depending on the blogger’s experience level and length of content produced. While you certainly can find writers who will crank out a blog post for $30, you likely will not get the kind of quality that tickles the fancy of Google and other search engines. Copywriters that charge low rates tend to produce “copy mill” content that is recycled from other information they find online. Search engines look for relevant content that adds value. Producing copy that helps your target audience solve a problem attracts both prospective customers and search engines. “How to” blogs featuring your products or services can attract an audience and eventually convert them into valuable customers or business partners. Blogs establish brand authorityBuilding your brand requires earning the trust of your customers. This is known as brand authority. An effective method for gaining customer confidence is to provide relevant content that solves problems or answers questions. Establishing brand authority is easy with a well-crafted blog. Choose topics to which your target audience can relate. Then, commit to producing the kind of quality content that will have them returning to your site for more tips and tools. Brands that provide accurate and compelling content build lasting relationships with their target audience that convert to eventual sales. Once consumers realize your blog is a source of valuable and trustworthy information, you can build rapport. Helping customers solve a problem before do business with your brand convinces them to return when they need your products or services. After repeated exposure to your blog, they will view you as an authority. They enter the sales funnel with pre-existing knowledge of what you bring to the table, making it easier to convert them. Blogs help with brand storytellingConsumers today want more than impersonal sales transactions with a brand. They want to connect with your products or services and the people behind them. Blogging is an effective way to tell your brand story and give target audiences a reason to return to your business. You can feature news about team members doing incredible things in their communities or announcements about the launch of helpful new products or services. Best of all, since it is your blog, you can control what information is shared and verify its accuracy before publication. Blogging allows businesses to show their human side. Customers never want to feel like they are nothing more than dollar signs. Humanizing your brand can help flip the narrative. There is no limit to what kind of storytelling you can do on a brand blog. Blogs drive long-term resultsBlogs are the gift that keeps on giving. Sure, you might spend $1,000 on a professionally crafted piece of content, but it has the potential to drive long-term results. Once you hit that post button, blogs can continue to drive traffic to your site and convert customers eager to do business with you. Blogs that perform well in search engines offer the best return on your investment. Once your blog begins ranking, it remains relevant in most search engines for months or years, depending on the topic and how much competition there is for the SEO keywords. Well-written blogs continue to work hard for your business. Copywriting professionals call them compounding posts because they contain evergreen content that continues producing leads. Hiring a pro to help with your brand blogBefore you rush off to your computer and start writing your first blog, you may want to consider bringing in a pro to assist. Just because anyone can write does not mean they should write. Content production is not as easy as it sounds. First, you must develop a content strategy that aligns your mission, vision, and values with any copy produced and published. Then, you must identify your target audience. Your brand cannot provide value without fully understanding who it is serving. Other aspects go into content planning, including competitive analysis and researching information from credible sources. A professional blog writer can assist with these steps required to establish your brand authority through blogging. Reach out to the brand blogging experts at The Write Reflection™ to learn how we can leverage the power of blogging for your brand. First-time customers receive a 25 percent discount on their first blog order. AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words.
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Someone I had worked with a few years ago contacted me out of the blue last week, espousing their disappointment over the flat sales for their new eCommerce business. They had a great idea, but their momentum fell flat one week after their official launch. I spent the better half of an hour digging for more details in a quest to help get their newest endeavor back on track. Truth be told, this client was not experiencing an unusual struggle. Achieving sustainable growth with an online business is hard work. In fact, 22 percent of eCommerce businesses fail within their first year. eCommerce is not as easy as it looks. You can have the most innovative products on the market and still not attract customers.businesssearch.org/faq-small-business/ There are several reasons why eCommerce websites fail. Here are just a few:
Ditch the poor design A poorly designed eCommerce site can cause potential shoppers to flee in a hurry. Information overload is one of the biggest faux-pas online business owners commit. Trust me when I say more is not necessarily better. Cramming too much information onto a single page will cause visitors to bounce faster than Tigger on his way to a picnic with Pooh. The only thing worse than too much information on a page is low-quality graphics or an over-abundance of them. Flashing gifs, colored backgrounds on top of other colored backgrounds, and low-resolution photos enlarged until they are super fuzzy do not make a great first impression. Not everyone is an artist or a graphic designer. Consulting with a person well-versed in graphics can help with avoiding this pitfall and is worth the investment. Pop-ups also annoy visitors to your site and make it difficult to navigate to pertinent information. I’m not saying you should never use pop-ups on your site. Use them sparingly and do not program them to continue to emerge until visitors take you up on whatever you are offering. If they must keep closing a pop-up box every time they navigate to a new page on your site, they will abandon your page. These are just a few tips for designing a more user-friendly eCommerce site. I can get into more detail with online retailers interested in improving their sites. Streamline the checkout process To say consumers have become spoiled with free shipping over the years is an understatement. They don’t just expect it, they demand it. Online businesses that fail to offer this perk will find online shoppers committing cart abandonment and taking their dollars elsewhere. There are ways to incorporate the cost of shipping into product pricing so that you aren’t losing money on free shipping. Somewhere in the back of their minds, most customers know this happens. Still, there is something about seeing a $0 next to the estimated shipping costs line during checkout that makes them giddy. Other ways to streamline your checkout process:
As of the writing of this blog, 1.8 million online retailers were operating in the U.S. alone. If you add in global eCommerce, the figure jumps to 7.1 million. That is a lot of competition, which is why online business owners must go the extra mile to help themselves stand out from the crowd. One of the most trusted and relevant ways to build brand authority is with quality content. Whether it is a blog offering tips about how to use your products, or a weekly podcast to discuss the state of the industry, providing value-added tools for your customers boosts engagement and encourages brand loyalty. eCommerce SEO tactics also draw eyeballs to your site. Take the time to use relevant (and unique) keywords for every page and every product on your site. Yes, it is a lot of work to do this, but the effort is well worth the reward. Create a top-notch marketing strategy There is more to marketing your online business than taking out a few paid ads on Facebook or other social media platforms. Investing randomly in advertising does not produce fruitful results. Sometimes it propels your eCommerce site into a death spiral from which it cannot recover. Claiming your Google My Business account and tapping into influencer marketing are just a few of the marketing strategies that convert leads into loyal customers. Working with a marketing professional is the best way to craft a plan that takes your unique selling proposition and goals for growth into account. Crushing your eCommerce goals Ready to crush it online? Do you dare to think big and ditch those limiting beliefs that stand between success and failure? Reach out to The Write Reflection™ today for more tips on how to go from eCommerce newbie to online sales sensation.
Oscar Wilde once espoused that, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” That may be true, but that does not make it any easier to see someone outright stealing your hard work and passing it off as their own. Academics are all too familiar with this practice. It happens to them frequently. They spend hours researching topics and writing original theses, only to have an unscrupulous person swoop in and take advantage of their efforts without so much as a well-earned credit. You know who else gets their stuff lifted a lot online? Copywriters. I do not mean someone borrowed our ideas and reworked them into their own brand voice (although that is kind of annoying, too). I am talking about full-on, outright plagiarism. The word-for-word, not even embarrassed they were too lazy (and unimaginative) to come up with their own stuff, kind of plagiarism. And man, that burns. What is plagiarism? It is difficult to believe that people do not grasp what plagiarism means. Yet, I find myself explaining it to some of the most educated folks sometimes. There is no such thing as borrowing something you have seen online. You must – let me say that again for the people in the back – you must give credit to other people’s hard work. Taking someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own is plagiarism. At least that is how my good friend, the Oxford English Dictionary, puts it. Plagiarism is a little more complex than that, so let me break it down even further so there is no chance of misunderstanding. There are several types of plagiarism. The two that most apply to my blog today are direct plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism. Direct plagiarism is self-explanatory. Someone has copied word-for-word information from another source without giving attribution. This kind of plagiarism can involve a few sentences, a paragraph, or entire web pages of content. I once had someone take a piece of my original poetry and claim it as their own. Word. For. Word. To say it was infuriating is an understatement. Some professionals have had entire websites full of copy directly plagiarized by competitors because their content ranks well in search results, and the rival wants to achieve the same outcome. It is difficult to fathom people do not know what they are doing is wrong. Yet some feign ignorance when caught red-handed in the act. Mosaic plagiarism is the term for using direct phrases from someone else’s published work and failing to use quotations and properly attribute the information. Another way mosaic plagiarism occurs is by using the exact wording of an original author and substituting their words for synonyms. In the writing business, this is known as “patchwriting.” Content farms are famous for this kind of plagiarism. I am sad to say that some basement-bargain copywriting services are guilty of this as well. They hire writers and pay them quite poorly to regurgitate copy on a variety of topics for clients. It is just one more reason why if you need quality online copy, you should consider working with a reputable copywriter. You risk your reputation when you pay for cheap, subpar work that likely is guilty of mosaic plagiarism. Does copyright law apply to online content? You bet your bottom dollar it does. Whether it is an image, a video, a logo, or a blog post you crafted, once you post it online, it becomes a “work” that falls under the protection of U.S. copyright law. It does not matter where you post it online. Social media accounts and personal or business websites are all protected by copyright laws. Once you produce content and post it, it belongs to you and cannot be used or reproduced without your consent or attribution to its origins. Yet, that does not stop people from stealing online content ad nauseam. That brings me to my next tidbit of helpful advice on what to do when you catch someone helping themselves to your hard work. Stopping plagiarism in its tracks
Now that you know U.S. copyright law covers your online work, what do you do when someone has borrowed your words or other creations without your permission? The first step is to send a letter on official letterhead from your favorite lawyer. If you want to be scary and effective, take the time to have your business attorney – or one familiar with copyright laws – draft it for you. Yes, it may cost you some moolah to do it, but it is well worth the expense. The letter should clearly state the content in question and advise the offender they must remove it, or you will consider your legal options. Most times, this is enough to scare the pants off plagiarizers. Other times, they just ignore you. When that happens, you must follow through on your threat or risk further victimization. Your attorney can discuss how to proceed with a potential lawsuit for copyright infringement. Another option you can take (if you want to avoid the expense of a lawsuit) is to report the offender to Google. If the content they have swiped is from your website, reporting them to Google can get them banned from search results. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you can file a complaint and request Google intervenes to remove or penalize a website using your stolen copy. Google’s data analytics capabilities can help prove when copy was placed on your site and when it appeared on the suspected plagiarizer’s website. Here is one more remedy you can seek that sometimes earns a major payoff. Contact the offender’s website hosting service. ICANN|LOOKUP is a great resource for identifying which website hosting service a website uses. Simply enter the website URL where your content is duplicated, and the registration data tool produces information on the registrant. Reach out to the domain host once you have that information and ask them to remove the duplicate content. Sometimes they will go as far as to take down the entire site. Will plagiarism hurt my SEO ranking? This is a common concern among my clients who have discovered their digital content was stolen. Thankfully, someone else’s sticky fingers do not hurt your SEO ranking. Remember when I said earlier that Google can tell when your content was drafted and posted? That handy skill is better for more than just going after plagiarizers. When Google’s web crawlers notice two different sites with the same wording, it prompts further evaluation. Since Google can see which site launched first, the offender is automatically penalized for copying your content. Your website always will rank higher for the keywords. Sometimes Google goes the extra mile in its punishment and refuses to rank copycat websites at all. A final word on digital content thievery Living in the digital age has its advantages. Information at our fingertips with a few keystrokes is one of them. That advantage also is a disadvantage because it makes it a lot easier for people to lift your work and pass it off as their own. Unfortunately, it is difficult to prevent someone from stealing your stuff. The best you can do is keep tabs on your copy and take swift action against anyone who dares “borrow” it without your express permission. Need help drafting original copy to keep your brand an authority in your niche? Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. New clients enjoy a 25 percent discount on their first order with The Write Reflection. AI content writing is not a new thing. Up until now, I admit that I have not given it much thought. The AI content marketing tools I had seen before now did not really intrigue – or worry – me. I had zero fears of my livelihood being replaced by a nameless, faceless automaton that cranked out copy at a customer’s behest. Most AI-powered content marketing tools were inferior to the quality copy a human trained in wordsmithing could produce. I would go so far as to say most of it was laughable nonsense. Anyone who would pay for it was wasting their money, in my humble opinion. Flash-forward to now and using AI for content marketing is becoming a hot topic among my fellow copywriting professionals. Some, like me, debate the value of using them. Others fear they are just one AI-generated piece of content away from losing their jobs. I think the truth of AI content marketing tools lies somewhere in between. What is AI-generated content marketing? Since Alan Turing first posed the question, “Can machines think?” in the 1950s, man has been obsessed with artificial intelligence. AI has advanced the medical and industrial fields, to name just two of its profound impacts. Digital marketers started leveraging AI-powered content marketing tools as far back as 2017. According to the 2020 Salesforce State of Marketing Report, 84 percent of marketers admit to using AI. This is a 186 percent increase from the number of marketers using AI in 2018. Most of the AI tools marketers use focus on data collection and analysis. There were no specific data available for the number of copywriters who use AI content marketing tools to assist with their writing tasks. AI tools for content marketing AI copywriting tools use natural language processing (NLP) to spit out copy. If you are wondering what the heck NLP is, no worries. Let me explain. NLP is nothing more than the automatic manipulation of our natural language patterns for both speech and text. When NLP works as intended, it bridges the communications gap between humans and computers. The goal is to help computers understand – mimic, even – the speech and language patterns of humans. Most AI tools for content marketing work like this:
Real copywriters dish on AI content generators What do real copywriters think about AI content generators? Some leverage their power to increase their output and the number of clients they can serve. Others refuse to use them, citing a lack of quality and mediocrity in the content produced. Yker Valerio of Bon Vivant Caffe uses Conversion.ai to improve content quality and boost his writing process. “It’s like having a writing partner. A weird writing partner, but productive nonetheless.” He said he has tried a few other AI content generators but prefers Conversion.ai. Kyle Vine, the marketing director at CKLU Radio in Ontario, Canada, said he had the privilege of meeting the person who runs the IBM Watson program for AI a few years ago at a conference. “I discovered that (AI) can be good for proofreading, but the main way it can be good is with speak.ai or other apps that transcribe speeches to use for SEO applied to your copy. Otherwise, I’ve found there aren’t many options to use AI in copywriting because it’s 75 percent experience and word flowability. AI comes in with the last 25 percent for tiny things just to suggest better SEO/conversion words in my experience.” Archana Karthikeyan from The Marketing Vogue has used AI copywriting tools for about four months. The benefit is that it sometimes helps her with a new direction for her writing if she is experiencing the dreaded writer’s block. Another advantage is it can help save her time during the writing process. The biggest drawback is it is written by AI, not a human. She and her team have discovered facts need to be rechecked any time the AI program she uses creates content to ensure accuracy. My personal experience with AI content marketing tools is mixed. Like Valerio, I have found Conversion.ai to work well for generating titles and content ideas. I am not as impressed with its other content. Depending on the topic, it can be clunky and needing a human touch to make it more readable. I also am beta testing a new AI writing tool now that is not very impressive. In a recent topic I gave the generator for a sales description I was writing about stand mixers, it generated this gem: “The item is circular, about six inches across. It has a lid.” Factually, the tool is correct. Stand mixers are circular and have lids. Does knowing that make me want to buy one? Nope. This was an epic failure. Another time, I asked the tool to generate a direct and adventurous headline for an article about first-time surfers in Australia. Here is what it gave me: “Surfing is a fun and easy sport to learn.” Once again, I do not consider this a success. While the statement is true, there is nothing adventurous about it. The tool still is in the early stages of development, so these results are expected. I will not mention it by name in this blog, but I will provide a more detailed review of it once the beta testing phase is over. How copywriters can leverage AI tools While I respect their opinion, I do not understand copywriters who fear AI-powered content marketing tools. I personally do not think AI will ever get to the point that it will totally replace humans for writing. Humans must teach AI software how to be more, well, human. Computers only know what we teach them. The success or failure of AI content generators rests on the capable shoulders of copywriters like myself willing to serve as teachers to AI. Computers do not understand – nor can they convincingly mimic – brand voice or persona. Humans are very much still needed to finesse any copy an AI produces to improve engagement and tone. My fellow copywriters can breathe a sigh of relief and embrace AI as a teammate rather than fearing it as a competitor. Need help humanizing your content? Reach out to The Write Reflection today to schedule your hassle-free consultation to discuss your needs. AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words. Psst. You want to hear a juicy secret? This is something I have never admitted out loud before. It is something I have carried around for a while now, and it really eats away at me. I think it might be a great idea to get it off my chest. Today is as good a day as any and you are a nice bunch of people so I know you will support me. Just make sure you are sitting down. Are you sitting down? I can wait a minute until you get a chair. OK, here we go. *Takes a deep breath* My name is Shari Berg, and I suck at writing headlines. I know, right? It is utterly shocking. How could such a skilled wordsmith struggle with writing compelling headlines? Yet, I do. This horrible affliction goes all the way back to my days in journalism school. I used to break out in a cold sweat and feel nauseous every time I was tasked with coming up with an attention-grabbing headline for the student newspaper or a class assignment. I would watch all my fellow journalism students and student newspaper staffers generate awesome headlines like it was second nature. No matter how much I practiced, headline writing never got easier. Back then, there were not many tools to help spur your creativity. Sure, you could do some good old-fashioned brainstorming with other creative folks. But then you would have to admit that you sucked at writing headlines. Nobody wants that, Amiright? If you are a bit headline-challenged like me, headline analyzer tools are a saving grace. There are plenty of choices on the market, so I reviewed a bunch to save you the headache of wading through them. Here are my top 3 choices. They all have their pros and cons but do share one common benefit: they are all free. That is right, my friends. Free, free, free, free, free, free, free. One of the best-sounding words in the English language. Free does not mean inferior. Give these headline analyzers a try. I promise they will make you a better headline writer. EMV Headline Analyzer Of all the headline analyzers I am sharing with you, this one is my go-to for writing amazing headlines. Created by the Advanced Marketing Institute, it targets a reader’s emotional side. Research tells us the best way to get someone’s attention is by appealing to their emotions. Writers do this by using “power” words that evoke action. When I put the headline for this blog post through EMV Headline Analyzer, it rated it at 33.33 percent with a “spiritual” classification. What does that mean, exactly? Well, according to the analysis provided with my score, words with spiritual impact make up the smallest number of words in the English language. They also have the strongest potential for influencing your readers’ emotions. I was advised to aim for headlines with scores between 30 and 40 percent if my goal is to influence others’ emotions and prompt them to act. Capitalize My Title This handy tool is my runner-up because it challenges me to keep tweaking until I have the right balance between readability, SEO, and sentiment. Simply enter your suggested headline into the analyzer bar and then ask the tool to either analyze or capitalize it. Using the same headline that I generated for this blog (the one EMV Headline Analyzer loved), I earned an overall score of 64. My score was circled in green, which indicates it is sufficient for achieving my goal of getting people to read my article. How did it come to that conclusion? It averaged out my scores from the three categories it rates. Here is how it breaks down: - Readability: 90 - SEO: 70 - Sentiment: 30 Capitalize My Title uses the Flesch-Kinkaid Readability Score. Here is how it works: What my score tells me is that my headline is written at a reading level that makes it accessible to most people. That is a good thing. At least when you are writing news stories or informational pieces. Now, with academic writing, you would want a readability score in that 0 to 30 range. Your audience matters, so do not always aim for that 90 to 100 range. My SEO score also performed well. I kept my word count between 5 and 7 words (Google likes that sort of thing) and used both power words (do, your) and appropriate SEO keywords. Capitalize My Title ranked my sentiment score close to what EMV rated it, so that was nice to see the tools shared the same opinion in that category. As previously mentioned, this headline analyzer also offers a “Capitalize” option. What does that do? It makes suggestions on capitalizing words within your title for more effectiveness based on writing styles (AP, Chicago Manual of Style, APA, MLA). I have never really used this option. It might come in handy if you are trying to generate titles for email campaigns. ShareThrough This headline analyzer is my third choice. It does a decent job but is not as effective as my top two choices. Since it is free, I hesitate to criticize it too much. It does have value. When you plug in your suggested headline, it will generate a quality score just like the other two headline analyzers on my list. It breaks your score down into strengths and suggestions. When I fed it my title for this blog, my limited use of positive sentiments and passive language earned me a 59. That is a good thing, according to this analyzer. As they like to say in the news industry, “if it bleeds, it leads.” Unfortunately, negativity sells. At the very least, it attracts attention. ShareThrough also gives me a list of suggestions for improving my title. With my current blog title, it recommended the following: - Increase your headline length - Include your brand identity - Reference the body of the blog - Use context words - Try adding a celebrity This is the part of the tool I am not keen on. Some of those suggestions – increasing headline length and brand identity – are good suggestions. The rest? They are not always appropriate depending on your topic. I also disagree that I did not reference the body of the blog. I think it is clear I am going to discuss writing crappy headlines from my title. Still, the analyzer has value, so it never hurts to plug in your title and see what it has to say about it. Getting your money’s worth Yes, I know. These tools are all free. (I told you I sucked at writing headlines). What I am going for here is the sentiment behind that phrase. If you are going to use these headline analyzers, make sure you use them to their fullest potential for the best results. While EMV Headline Analyzer is my favorite, I am going to let you in on another secret today. I never just use it when crafting headlines or sub-headers. I take the time to sample my headlines in all three of these tools on my list. It gives me a different perspective and helps me create more well-rounded titles and sub-headers. Give it a try. I promise it will make you a better headline writer. If you try out any of these headline analyzers, I would love to hear what you think about them in the comments. Have other favorites not included here? Toss those out for consideration as well. I am always looking for new tools to try to improve every aspect of my writing. Happy headline writing everyone. Try not to suck. AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words. Can you provide me with a source for your claim? How many times have we all seen that challenge issued to someone online? Usually, it happens during a nasty back-and-forth between two or more parties disagreeing on a topic. Facebook is great for this. Go there right now and I will wager that within less than a minute you will witness it. News pages and community groups are rife with them. It is exhausting feeling like you must do research for other people all the time. Why are they not capable of Googling themselves? Some people state as much when confronted with the demand for a source. Even when the other person plays along and lists a source, they are likely to be met with accusations of #fakenews. Sometimes legitimate information is deemed fake news because the other person does not want to concede that their points in the discussion are invalid. Other times, they may be right that the source another person is using to back their claim is less than reliable. I am about to drop a truth bomb on you. Not everything you see on Google is true. After you pick yourself up off the floor, read that again. Not everything you see on Google is true. There are entire websites that are chock full of someone’s opinion without any real evidence to support their claims. There are even so-called online “news” sites out there that post derogatory claims and twist facts to suit their narratives to garner views. They do this because they know it is darn near impossible to prove libel and defamation. Quite a bit of damage is done when people read and believe without verifying that what Google spits out in the search results comes from trustworthy sites. You cannot blame Google for offering up choices. The search engine giant uses an algorithm and web crawlers to search websites for keywords searchers are using. Then, it generates a list of websites and online resources with any mention of those keywords. It is up to the consumer to validate the information they are reading. This brings us to the topic of our post: how to ensure the information spit out by the all-knowing Google is from a credible source. Yes, this means you will have to do some digging. Yes, it means you will have to be responsible. Trust me, it is worth it. Knowledge is power. Make sure yours is gained from credible sources. Here are the top 3 ways to spot “fake news” and to validate the information you find online. 1. Consider the source Website credibility lends a lot of weight when determining the accuracy of information. For this reason, I suggest avoiding websites and other online sources that are user-created when digging for verifiable facts. It may rile a certain segment of the population when I say this, but Wikipedia is a perfect example of a user-created online source that is less than reliable. While it may look credible because there are sources cited, oftentimes those sources are misconstrued or misrepresented by the Wikipedia authors. If you want to validate any of those sources, go to them and read them directly from where they originate. If it is a scientific study, read it. Make sure what the Wikipedia post is claiming the study or research is saying is true. YouTube videos are another source rife with misinformation. Just because a “talking head” is stating something does not make it true. Many viral hoaxes begin on YouTube. Sometimes people create them for grins and giggles, and other times they are intended to deliberately deceive. YouTube’s algorithm is a huge part of the problem. So, how do you know when a website is legit for quoting as a source? Websites with articles, news, and even blogs that are verified by experts in the field it is representing are considered reliable. Here is a perfect example of what I mean. This website requires all materials to undergo a review by healthcare experts to verify information shared is accurate and follows best practices for the industry. If you look right underneath the headline for the article, it states who reviewed and verified the facts in the piece. Online resources that have expert reviews and cite sources are considered safe bets as well. Healthline is great at following this protocol. Their articles come with a fact-checked guarantee (along with information on who verified the facts), plus links to cited sourced within the text of the articles. 2. Check for satire The Onion. Babylon Bee. Sports Pickle. What do these three things have in common (besides being incredibly entertaining)? They are not real news sites. You would never know it, though, by how some people quote them online. These online publications are the first to loudly proclaim to their readers they are satire. Some people who miss the proclamations are utterly fooled by the content. I have witnessed more than one post consumed by outraged individuals convinced that articles with headlines like “CIA Replaces Waterboarding With 12-Hour Lectures On Intersectional Feminism” are even remotely factual. Even when someone else points out the article is satire, the original poster sometimes sticks by their claim that it is a valid source. I do not know what to tell you when that happens. Sometimes arguing with the ill-informed is not worth the energy. 3. Conduct an advanced search
Google has this handy setting on its search page that allows you to get specific about where you would like it to look for search results. Here is how it works. Once you enter a topic into the search bar, you will see the options for settings at the top right. Click on it and from the expanding menu select the option for advanced search. Here, you have a variety of options for streamlining your results. One I like to use is under the site or domain option. It allows you to require Google to search only sites with .edu or .gov, where information is fact-checked and verified via multiple sources. You also can head over to places like Research Gate to find peer-reviewed studies. Just the facts, ma'am These are just three of the ways you can make sure your sources are reputable before tossing them into the fray. Interested in learning more about spotting fake news? Check out my interview with Nour Negm, where we discuss some of the best sources online for verifying information before you post it. Happy fact-checking, everyone! And remember…there is no such thing as alternative facts. When I was a reporter, I often found myself smiling and nodding my head while secretly wondering what in the world some of my sources were talking about. Covering education and politics can have that kind of an effect on a person. I am certain if you all think about it long enough, you will come up with a time (or several times) this has happened in your lives. You struck up a lovely conversation with another person, only to find they began talking about a subject you know nothing about. To make matters worse, they used jargon specific to the topic, which further confused matters. No matter how educated you think you are on a subject, there always is someone who knows more. Any time I found myself struggling to understand what a source was conveying I would ask them to explain it to me like I’m 5. It was my way of indicating that while they may be an expert in their field, neither myself nor the people reading the article were as well educated on the matter. Using simple words to break down complex ideas was going to be necessary for me and for my readers. It was a method that served me well throughout my reporting career. Flash-forward to today and this method is everywhere. If you regularly visit social media and other online platforms, you have likely encountered the “explain it to me like I’m 5” phenomenon. Sometimes it is simply conveyed with the alphabet soup ELI5. Sometimes people use it as a sort of underhanded insult to suggest another person is out of their element and should leave the conversation. Other times, they are genuine in their request to have a topic explained in simpler terms so they can grasp another person’s view on a topic or issue. When an ELI5 suggestion is made online, how well it is received depends on the parties involved in the exchange. It is an unfortunate possibility that the listener to whom the information is being conveyed will feel the communicator is insulting their intelligence by “dumbing it down” for them. The communicator also might feel slighted if they are asked to explain something in a way that they feel does not showcase their knowledge of the subject. A third possibility is that both parties will agree ELI5 is a great idea, and an amazing exchange of information will occur. To help increase your odds of achieving that third outcome, here are five secrets to simple communication anyone can use. Whether you are having a face-to-face conversation, giving a lecture, or writing a blog post about a topic, the ELI5 technique works well when you incorporate some (or all) of these strategies.
AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words. As a professional copywriter, one of the questions I get frequently from prospective clients is, “How long will it take you to write a blog post?” That query usually is followed up by, “How much will it cost to write a blog post?” Reputable copywriters have a process and always are happy to explain it to their clients. Where we tend to get into a conundrum is when clients come into the process with a preconceived notion of how long a project should take and what is involved in producing the work. One of my favorite assumptions as of late is the idea that any copywriter worth their salt can write the perfect blog post in an hour. Apparently, there is a so-called expert out there claiming this, complete with instructional videos on how to create the perfect 1,500-word blog post in one hour. That sure does sound appealing. I can understand why clients would be enticed by such a claim. The problem is it is not realistic. Can you write a blog post in an hour? Sure. Is it going to be top quality? Probably not. Let’s break down the rationale behind this “perfect blog post in an hour” promise and explore why it is not the best method for producing the kind of content search engines will adore. Claim #1: Hit lists Keeping a “hit list” of articles reduces writing time. The theory is that if you have a go-to list of topics that already includes relevant keywords and some subheadings for inclusion, it will save you time later. This is not an entirely bad idea. Many copywriters who have clients in specific niches find creating such a list helpful. The downside to this is if you have several clients within the same niche, you risk repeating copy for clients. Then you get into spun content territory, which never ranks well on search engines. What is spun content? It is taking the exact same copy and reworking it just enough that it appears slightly different to search engines. It contains all the same keywords and basic ideas, just rearranged a bit. Sometimes search engines can be slow to catch on to spun content, but Google’s bots are getting better at detecting it. Google dislikes this practice, and if it catches a website egregiously using spun content, it will penalize it by ranking it poorly. Claim #2: The guy next door Some of these self-proclaimed writing experts suggest you can cut your research time in half by taking the “guy next door” approach in your response. Rather than do proper research, the notion is to admit you are not an expert in the subject and that you had to do some quick Googling yourself to get the answers. Then just state the information without citing your sources. While the “I’m not an expert, I just play one on TV” approach might work sometimes, it is not appropriate for every blog post. Some clients may be experts in their fields and require content that establishes them as an authority. In fact, 95 percent of the content I write for clients falls into this category. Conducting proper research and citing sources takes time (most definitely more than an hour). Claim #3: Earning rich snippets Anyone can earn a rich snippet if you just follow this guide to writing the perfect blog in an hour. At least, that is the claim from some self-appointed writing gurus. Before we explain why it is harder than it looks, you are probably wondering what the heck a rich snippet is and why you need to earn one. Amiright? A normal snippet displays the page title, the URL where it is located, and a short description of what the page is about. A rich snippet includes extra information above and beyond the norm. It can include photos and reviews or ratings from customers if it is a product or business page. Rich snippets are important because they tend to produce a higher click-through rate on websites. Consumers love search results that give them a lot of information upfront. Here is an example of what a rich snippet looks like: The claim says to earn the coveted rich snippet, you should write your opening sentence and paragraph before you do anything else. You must write it in a question-answer format known as a response-style blog. A response-style blog poses a question (ideally in the headline or opening sentence) and then answers it within the first paragraph of the blog post. To help boost your chances of earning a rich snippet, these experts suggest bolding the answer part of your response. The thinking is bolding text will help Google’s bots know you mean business and to reward you for your efforts. While bolding text is an old SEO copywriting trick to attract Google’s attention, it is not a surefire technique. Why can it go wrong? Well, we can think of a few reasons. The most obvious is that your content is not original. We are going to circle back to that whole idea of spun content again. If you did the “guy next door” approach to your research, chances are, there is not much new or unique about your bolded content. So, even if the bolded text initially attracts Google’s web crawlers, they still may refuse your content a rich snippet if it is just like 20 other posts on the same topic. Claim #4: Subheads can hurt your ranking Long-form content ranks better with search engines. Why? Thorough content has a greater chance of earning quality backlinks that can boost your rating with search engines. One of the final aspects of these so-called perfect blogs in an hour is a warning that Google can sometimes treat long-form content like puny, thin content. Why? Their rationale is the subheadings lack substance and are irrelevant to the original topic. On this, we can agree – to a point. Copywriters who shove subheadings into a blog just to reach word count are doing their clients a disservice. If the content does not add value, Google’s web crawlers will completely discount it. The best way to keep long-form content relevant and exciting to Google and other search engines is to turn long-tail SEO keywords into subheadings. It is a sneaky way to ensure your extra words stay on target while giving them some extra oomph. Quality trumps quantity every time Cranking out the perfect 1,500-word blog post in an hour is simply unrealistic. The methods that some of these writing gurus tout will not earn your blogs the ratings they promise. Like any other “get rich quick” scheme, it really is too good to be true. It will just end up causing you frustration when these methods do not produce the promised results. Quality trumps quantity every time. Any good copywriter understands this and will never agree to methods that do not promote thorough research that produces engaging and relevant content. Ready to learn more about the right way to produce unique content that adds value to your brand? Contact us today to schedule a no-obligation consultation. AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words. |
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