You might be in a hurry to scan whether this post has anything worthwhile. It does. I promise.
When helping clients build business online, here’s what I often encounter: they under plan, costing them thousand$ in lost business and redoing the site down the road. They don’t realize that rushing ahead based on intuition can limit their entire business for years to come – or worse, doom the site to failure.
Who wants to plan? Nobody. Let’s just get going. Build the site already. I know what it basically needs to say and what it needs to do.
Problem is, this common mistake can cost thousands of dollars in lost business and even more when you finally get around to redoing it.
Stop the RUSH – Seriously, STOP IT – Please!
If you have a concept for a new site or want to revamp and old one, let me give you one of the most powerful pieces of advice I can give you.
Don’t Skimp on Your Initial Homework – Take Your Time or Pay Someone Who Knows How Do It
Your content and entire website needs to be structured around true intelligence gained from the web. That is, if you want to create maximum impact. There are countless sites on the web that just sit there. Much of the reason why is described above.
Research Your Niche Online – Don’t Rush. Don’t assume everything is the same online as it is offline. It’s not.
What’s happening in the space? What are people talking about? Why would anyone need what you have? Is it the superior replacement to anything? Is it different? What’s your angle? What are people looking for? Folks, this is not accomplished by using google trends tool and calling it a day. Though I love the tool and its great:
Visit Google Trends Here:
There is more than meets the eye and that is a subject for future posts. But:
Time & Resources Properly Invested In Doing Adequate Online Research FIRST, Will Pay You Back Many Times Over
We are sharing exactly how to develop winning content strategy for original content – not rehashing others’ ideas or doing a cookie cutter site.
So after you:
- Define Your Niche
- Prioritize What You Want Your Website to Do
Now it’s time to #3 : Create & Research A Top Level Outline.
Nope it doesn’t sound fun and it isn’t sexy – sorry. No I am not, because if everyone knew how to do this…
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So with Tip #1, you hopefully narrowed who you are (who you are not), what niche you want to focus on and within your niche, what is uniquely valuable that you offer to others. Be specific.
Great. For that exercise, it doesn’t matter whether you are working on a brand new site or yours has been around 10 years. Avoiding the puppy and butterfly syndrome online is an important FIRST step to developing a winning content strategy.
As case and point to illustrate how Step 1 could look, let’s ask ourselves: What, specifically, will our readers and clients find here on this site www.seo-web-copy-jockey.com that is valuable to them? The answer might look something like this:
Most people have website issues. We focus on turning websites from chumps (those that may look good but haven’t delivered business the way they NEED to) to champs (those that ‘win’ online, producing what their owner’s expect). To that end we provide:
- SEO Copywriter Tips
- Keys to Strategic Internet Marketing
- Info about how revolutionary a Website Assessment by qualified experts can be for people’s online business.
- Services related to each
Basically, if it doesn’t have to do with one of these categories above, you won’t find it here.
What about your website? What exactly will visitors find on it that’s valuable to them over time? Real value, not hype.
YOU should have something like this scrawled on the back of a napkin or in a fancy pdf from your boardroom minutes, we don’t care. Now on to the next step.
Rushing around the web? Take a breath.
That’s what most people don’t do… when it comes to creating an original, winning content strategy.
Today’s tip is something that gets missed a lot.
Tip #1: Avoid Puppy & Butterfly Syndrome When Starting Out: DEFINE YOUR NICHE
You have seen it.
- Puppy chases butterfly #1.
- Puppy doesn’t catch butterfly #1.
- Puppy keeps trying.
- Butterfly #2 & #3 float by.
- Puppy forgets about butterfly #1 and chases butterfly #2 & #3.
- Puppy keeps chasing.
- More butterflies float by.
Online many people act like this: Stumble on whatever attracts attention. Anything exciting, tweet it.
Its one thing to do this when you are a popular personality or niche guru with an engaged following – Huge mistake if you not and just trying to be like one. That is NOT how you get there (and not how they did originally either!). Here is how:
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Today we’re going to address a few common problems most internet marketers face as they work on their websites. If you’re not working on yours or a client’s – skip it. If you are – GOLD here.
Over the next posts we’ll go step by step on content strategy, using tactics we have learned from clients and web projects around the US, Canada & the Caribbean.
One common issue is that people think they’ll just take an offline business or mindset online and presto – “we’re in the internet business”. So they build a fancy new site loaded with all the best descriptions of how great they are and plenty of genuinely cool other stuff – but the site still doesn’t do business.
The web is loaded with them. Look good. Smell good. But business ain’t good.
While these people are often busy raising the bar on design (which can be a good thing), others are building business with less design and more content strategy.
When it Comes to SEO, Stay Away from One Trick Guru’s
Yeah, specializing is one thing… but…
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