In the Beginning, Man Drew Pictures

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If ancient cave-scribble is the accepted evidence, our oldest ancestors believed and practiced this inaccurate statement. However, the concept is too simple, the application to limited in scope. It ignores the proven value of written content marketing.

Professional writers understand the value of words. From story telling to content marketing, the written or spoken application of language carries a much greater capacity for detail than do mere pictures. For example: Modern-day movies are often stuffed with an extended barrage of profanity. It appears that viewers cannot comprehend a character’s frustration via standalone graphic displays.

As soon as intelligence granted the capacity, words became the primary companion to almost every form of graphic content. Even black and white photos include dates, names and places. Some form of scribbled proclamation that identifies the artists typically accompanies great art.

From the beginning of movie history, men recognized the value of utilizing cinema as a means of brand name recognition. Even as early as 1895, cinematic presentations were utilized for the purpose of content marketing and product placement. Many historians suggest that the birth of cinema was mostly driven by the power of economic kickback to advertisers.

Silent films gave way to movies with grunts, speech and surround sound. Without intelligent conversation, the big screen cannot relay the subtle details of a complex plot. Computers utilize all types of buttons and icons, yet nearly every website concedes to the necessity for including the words Home, About Us, Services, and Contact Us.

The tactics have never changed. Advertisements have become more colorful. The graphics are often comical. But in the end, it is content in the words that usually drive the sales pitch.

Pictures imply. Words reveal.

Song and Music – Perhaps the Greatest Form of Content Marketing

Music is a language unto itself. It stirs the emotions, awakens the imagination and ignites the inner soul. Yet without the aid of words, music lacks the ability to fully express the thoughts and feelings that surround a story.

Aside from poetry, songs may incorporate the most condensed form of content marketing. Within two verses, a country song can relay the tale of a broken down Chevy pickup, a lousy marriage, a broken heart and the silence of a falling star. Pop, rock, the blues and modern rap are no different in the concept of relaying ideas with only a few words.

Modern day songs may merge video with the music, but unlike merging words with pictures, the exact meanings within the song can survive without the accompanying video. Advertisers understand these truths. Song is a primary means of product marketing.

The bible records Jubal as the inventor of musical instruments (Gen 4:21). The first actual mention of song occurs in Gen 31:27 as Laban interviews Jacob. The Hebrews used songs to expound history, give praise, and share fellowship.

If modern content writers use history to gain any insights into successful content marketing, they will focus on the methods and applications applied to songs.

A Timeline of Content Marketing

The timeline of content marketing is not limited to the current computer age. It traces back to the very first charcoal symbol traced upon the inside wall of an ancient cave. It travels forward, picking up along the way applications in text, music and video. All of it mounts together, and all of it combines to form the informational product promoting content that is so popular in today’s electronic processes.

Perhaps you think I missed too much or that I have over-simplified a very complex process. Well. The door is open. Start typing.

rmharrington r is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

Content marketing, by any other name (customer media, customer publishing, branded content, corporate media, corporate journalism, branded media, et al) is the reigning king of web content. Do you agree with many observers? If you’re not creating useful, valuable content for your targeted audience, you’re not marketing at all.

Consumers Are Tuning Out Traditional Marketing and Advertisements

Whether you like it or not–particularly if you or a client spent a baronial fortune on a recent advertising campaign–consumers are rejecting most classic marketing programs. Professional writers, companies large and small, and blog writing gurus are creating compelling copy rich in content and value.

The traditional marketing goal remains constant: To attract and retain customers that result in sales and gross revenue. However, the preferred–some say, the “only”–method that works is now content marketing. Chatting with your target market while offering useful information, absent direct sales messages, is effective, timely and engaging.

Instead of turning off your audience, turn them on with interesting, valuable content. This technique is beyond a “soft sell” program. It’s more like a “no sell” strategy. Have you seen a strong salesperson and a content marketing professional at the same time in the same room? I think not.

While you probably have a favorite mental picture of a strong advertising campaign, you may not have a clear image of the features of and techniques employed in content marketing. Along with its wide variety of names, organizations use various road maps to arrive at a common destination, engaged consumers.

What Is Content Marketing’s Personality?

When you think of blog writing, you probably picture having a conversation with your readers. Whether supportive or contentious, you are engaging your audience. Their comments, positive or negative, indicate the relevance of your posts.

Web content that spurs visitors to action–hopefully to purchase product–also displays creativity, excitement, value, and interest. You have reached your targeted audience.

Companies using professional writers to author content for their web pages, social media sites, e.g., Facebook, tip and advice centers, newsletters, and ezines are reporting continued success and increased sales in a troubling, struggling economy. It’s obvious their target markets are responding.

Is there a common thread? If content marketing were a humanoid, how would you define his/her personality?

Think of a person you know who is engaging, honest, positive, interesting, well read, and thought provoking. How would you describe his/her personality? Much like content marketing, it would probably be difficult to select one word or single phrase that accurately identifies their personality.

Alas, there are all too few people that are so well-rounded and interesting that they would fit your definition. However, content marketing, when properly executed by professional writers, exemplifies your definition, regardless of the name you choose. Those content marketers who understand the concept and translate their knowledge to blog writing, web content, or social/corporate media outlets are akin to a mega stash of gold.

Matching interesting content with the personality of the writer or company delivers the results clients want: Increased revenue and a loyal customer base. Although a single, stratified word for its personality is difficult, effective content marketing has an “engaging, interesting, relevant, and riveting” personality.

William P is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

It’s one thing to simply post to a blog, and other thing altogether to really write for it — the kind of writing that feels like genuine content, arresting the eye and kindling a fire in the mind. Serious blog writing takes the same degree of skill, persistence and old-fashioned hard work as any other form of writing. It’s no wonder, then, that bloggers and SEO writers can benefit from the same basic writer’s resources that can help novelists, playwrights or other content writers. Here are a few suggestions for resources that can help boost your blogging efforts:

Mechanics

Once upon a time I would have recommended that you keep a good, solid dictionary and thesaurus on your desk, but in this digital age you can simply bookmark the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or other authoritative resources. But your desk should hold a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. This evergreen classic has helped prevent countless writers from embarrassing themselves. When in doubt, check it out.

The Creative Library

When you face a writing challenge, either in your blog or in any other project, it’s comforting to have ready access to other writers’ advice and experience. You might start with Zen in the Art of Writing by the legendary Ray Bradbury. In this short tome Bradbury touches on everything from how he launched his writing career to some of his maxims for staying productive (including the famous command, “DON’T THINK!”). If you feel paralyzed by fear when you sit down to write, take a moment to leaf through Ralph Keyes’ The Courage to Write, which illustrates how several famous authors overcome their fears, psychological traumas or other impediments to their writing.

If you’re thinking of expanding from blogging into general copywriting, you’ll enjoy Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer, which serves up a generous platter of practical tips on how clients hire writers and writers find clients. If you want to amplify the impact of your words, check out Hypnotic Writing by Joe Vitale. While it tends to focus on how to craft compelling sales letters and direct-mail copy, these advanced techniques for grabbing and holding the reader’s attention can enhance any kind of persuasive writing.

Software

Today’s professional writers have some marvelously helpful software applications to choose from. Scrivener, for example, allows you to create an individual piece of work, such as a blog post or book chapter, and then drag and drop these bits around inside larger project folders. This Mac program (which now offers a beta version for Windows as well) makes it a snap to collect your blog posts into a larger manuscript or simply keep them organized. If you need help focusing, try WriteRoom (for Mac OSX) or Q10 (for Windows). Both of these programs give you a plain, full-screen “blank page” that allows you to think about writing and nothing else. If you struggle with productivity problems, you might benefit from the Pomodoro Technique. This training and self-timing program, which forces you to take regularly scheduled breaks, can help keep your brain sharp and your body relaxed during lengthy writing sessions.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, but now you can see just what a wealth of informational and practical resources await you. So hit your local bookstore, get to Googling, and start your building your very own “toolbox” today!

William R is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

Search engines are still one of the most popular ways for people to find your site. And, if you aren’t showing up in the top ten results for your search terms, potential customers may have a hard time finding you. How do you get your site higher in the results? Quality search engine optimization — commonly abbreviated as SEO — and targeted content marketing can help. Here are some of the best ways to get results:

1. Adding a regularly updated blog to your site is one of the best ways to get your site higher in Google’s search results. If you do not have the time or skill to blog, hiring an SEO writer to do the work for you can be an excellent investment. The more often you update, the better. Experts say that you should update a professional blog at least once a week.
2. Social marketing is a big help. Both Google and Bing have shared that these links can have a big impact on your place in search engine results. Make sure that you have a presence on FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.
3. Make sure your site is free of duplicate content. Google tends to give less credence to duplicate sites. Hire someone who offers content services to create unique content for your site. This isn’t only good for search engines — it provides more value to your visitors, too.
4. Backlinks — those links from other sites and blogs to yours — matter. The more sites link to you, the more important search engines consider your site. Two great ways you can get backlinks by asking other sites to review your site, and by offering to do guest blog posts. You can also get other bloggers talking about you and linking to your site by offering your products as prizes in contests on their blogs.
5. The keywords in your page titles are some of the most important words on the page. Google uses these to determine what your site is about.
6. Sharply honed keywords are important. For instance, if your site promotes your lawn care service in Savannah, Georgia, why try to fight it out with every site whose keywords include “lawn care”? Instead, focus on geographically targetted keywords such as “Geogia lawn care” or “Savannah lawn service.”
7. Google provides free tools for finding the best keywords for your site’s text. Adwords can tell you how many searches are done for a particular keyword in a given month. Google’s Webmaster Tools can give you tips to make sure that your site is not blocking robots or doing anything else that can make it search engine unfriendly.
8. Does your business have a brick and mortar location? Make sure that you are showing up in Google Places. Optimizing your site for your locale can mean more local web traffic for you.
9. Offer quality content. Updating regularly is important, but, don’t post just to post. Remember, while it is important to court the search engines, ultimately, you need to have content that is of value to your visitors. Hiring professional writers can help if you are having trouble coming up with ideas.
10. SEO is an ongoing process. Just because you hit the first page, that doesn’t mean you’ll stay there. Continue your SEO efforts to keep your site relevant and visible.

Lara S is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

In today’s world of marketing and consumerism, few things are more iconic than seeing well-known brands or logos such as the golden arches of McDonalds or a white apple (minus a nibble) superimposed on a black background. When we see these logos, we’re instantly aware of the products they represent. We see them on television, in magazines and on the Internet. Creating this kind of market consistency through the use of logos has long been mastered by advertisers and marketers. When we transfer the same concept of consistency and continuity to the world of web content and content marketing, suddenly we’re left in the dark.

Many Voices, Many Styles
If you’ve had the fortune of being able to work with one content writer to develop your brand, your website and your content, then you’re lucky. Chances are, however, that you’ve had a team of writers creating your content. Each writer has their own voice which translates across their work. One writer’s article can be vastly different in tone, language, and voice than another’s. This does not create the kind of content consistency that is becoming increasingly more important.

Groupon-Speak
Consider Groupon; their style of writing has become so easily identified that it is now being given its own adjective, “groupon-style”. Love it or hate it, when you hear the words “groupon-style”, you are immediately aware of that style of writing. Groupon has managed to create continuity throughout their content despite having a huge team of writers creating different content.

Content Baselines
Creating content consistency doesn’t mean you need to instruct your writers in a new language, or that you need to have a unique style of writing that pertains to your product. It can be as simple as determining if your content is written in an active or passive voice, if you allow familiar terms such as “you”, or if you want the level of writing aimed at a particular demographic. This can be achieved by creating a content baseline.

Content baselines can be developed to capture the key features that you want writers to adhere to when creating your content. Professional writers are already familiar with following guidelines set by clients, but rarely does a client ask for stylistic nuances that will help their content be consistent in tone and style.

Consistent Content Is Important
The ever mysterious Google and their constantly changing algorithms have made one thing clear: quality content will be rewarded. Having quality written content, however, is no longer the only standard that you should look for when hiring writers. By maintaining a consistent tone, voice or style in your content, your readers, customers, clients and networks become familiar with your brand no matter on which platform they read about it. Facebook, blogs, articles and other forms of social media can all carry your message using the same tone or style.

There’s more to the world of content marketing than just uploading a steady stream of articles or blogs to your site. Work with a small, select team of web content writers to truly capture a voice for your brand and you will set your brand apart from all the others.

Jennifer A is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

There’s an advertisement I keep seeing on Youtube, a small, square banner image. I’d been seeing this ad for months and I kept wondering why it kept catching my eye. The girl in the image was attractive enough, but pictures of pretty girls are hardly a rare commodity on the web. Finally, it hit me: I went to high school with this girl.

Now, this is going to sound like a paranoid fantasy, but I did a little research, and apparently what I was looking at was a customized ad based on certain data that had been collected about me, namely, my hometown. They matched me with a stock image of a model from my area and it caught my attention.

It’s no different from, say, a text ad that informs you that a single mom from [YOUR HOMETOWN HERE] has found “one weird trick” to fight plaque, but seeing that face from my past, I have to admit, spooked me out just a bit. This was the moment where I started to feel like Winston Smith in “1984.”

Generally speaking, the way all of this data is collected and used in selecting and placing ads is pretty harmless and subtle. The unseen hand of Google gathers some reference points regarding the web surfer and then picks out a few ads accordingly. If you do a lot of searching for ninja swords, then chances are you’re going to see a lot of ads for ninja swords, even after you leave the search engine.

The deeper I looked down this rabbit hole, however, the more fascinated (and I’ll admit, a little creeped out) I became. As it turns out, Google keeps a sheet on users: Everything you’ve ever searched for on their engine is recorded and logged. Google creates a sort of digital composite of your interests, your questions, your curiosities, they know what kind of food you like based on the recipes you research, they know what kind of people you’re attracted to because you typed “Tall blondes” into the Image search that once, and on and on.

This automated process collects a lot more information than you may realize. I’ve run this by friends in marketing who were surprised to find that Google doesn’t just delete that information or record it seperately from ip addresses. Since you’re using their services voluntarily and independently, they’re free to record any and all information you put into their search bar, just as convenience stores are legally allowed to record you on their cameras.

Google has, thus far, used this power for good. Generally speaking, this data has allowed for marketers to deliver a more responsive and immediate web experience to users, as you really do know exactly what the customer wants, anymore.

There have been no precedents thus far that would allow for, say, the FBI to access Google’s records and use them in a court of law to obtain a prosecution. If the police want to raid your computer, they still have to do it the old fashioned way: By just taking it from you and searching on it themselves. The Big Brother paranoia may be a little misplaced.

Then again, perhaps not. Fortunately, the panopticon is not so much an oppressive regime of militant fascists as it is a collection of marketing data. The warning from the future seems to be something along the lines of “Big Brother is watching, and he wants to know if you’re happy with your long distance provider.”

That websites collect data for advertisers is old news, but you might not know just how far it goes and just what they’ll do to provide customers with an immediate, personalized experience. If you can utilize this data in new and innovative ways, it’s easy to imagine a marketer breaking new ground with subtly customized ad content.

Gilbert S is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

In the world of content marketing, it’s either sink or swim. It’s a live or die, by-the-minute business, and the only way to stay on top of the water is to keep abreast of the latest and greatest technologies. Giving readers the type of content they want, when they want it, in the means that they want it, is one of the most challenging tasks in this industry. Keep ahead of the curve by knowing the technology consumers want—before they even realize they absolutely have to have it.

1. Tablets: It is predicted that by the year 2015, there will be more than 500 million tablets in the market. This is clearly how consumers want to get their news and information, therefore making it one of the most vital technologies in the industry. One of the best ways to adapt content marketing to the tablet is to create iPad apps. According to Switched on Media, Net-a-Porter is one of the best iPad apps for content marketing, giving fashion-forward consumers the latest fashion news at their fingertips, via videos and interactive articles.

2. Interactive e-books: Gone are the days when consumers used e-readers to simply read books. E-books now have the challenge of adapting themselves to become more than just words on a screen, and transform themselves into interactive applications. Al Gore’s “Our Choice”, available on the iPad and created by Push Pop Press, is an example of an interactive e-book. In addition to the book itself, this e-book includes animations, photographs, interactive graphics and more than an hour of documentary footage. This is a game changer when it comes to the creation of e-books and the way readers wish to use them.

3. Chartbeat and Newsbeat: In the world of content curation, success is measured in numbers—and there are no better numbers than real-time web traffic updates. This service allows you to see in real-time when people are visiting your website, what they are clicking on and how long they are staying there. It also allows you to set alerts in order to figure out when peak times are, and when web traffic is slow. This kind of data is essential to surviving in this ever-competitive industry.

4. Recommendation Engines: This technology is an essential tool to any content platform, giving readers more reasons to keep digging within the site and providing them with relevant information. Recommendation engines provide consumers with additional articles, multimedia and photographs they might also enjoy on that particular website. Patricia Seybold Group predicts that nearly every content platform will have recommendation engines incorporated into them within three or four years—but the fact is, consumers want them now, so it’s a great technology to add to any content platform.

5. Community-Generated Content Platforms: User-generated content is an ideal way to have a constant stream of high-quality content available for your platform. For instance, if a company has a Facebook page—consider allowing the top fans to take over blogging and updating. Consumers will consider the company more reliable, as third-party sources are confirming the quality of the business, and the company’s top promoters will feel a sense of engagement with the company. This creates a loyal following that will help the brand grow into the future. Citizen journalism cannot be ignored any longer, as it is a valuable way to develop intrinsic relationships with consumers and customers alike.

What types of new technology are you using when it comes to content marketing? What are the positives and negatives of the ever-changing industry and its reliance on technology?

Catherine C is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.

Like many looking for a serious and efficient platform for a web presence, you turned to WordPress as your tool of choice. Its versatility, wide range of free and lost cost professional templates and plugins, and interactive nature made it an easy decision. The site is up and everyone comments on how professional it looks and how great the posts are. But there’s just one problem; regardless of how often you post to that snazzy site, the posts just aren’t showing up in search engine results.

WordPress is a great choice for serious bloggers, but like any out of the box solution it has a few limitations when it comes to search engine optimization. The good news is that there is a world of free and inexpensive WordPress SEO plugins to solve any problems you might be having. They will help your WordPress site stand up and be noticed in the search engine crawling wars. Not wanting to go unnoticed, the two best plugins are first in this list:

All in One SEO Pack—This free plugin can be used by beginners and experts alike and allows for a fair range of modifications to your WordPress blog. Customizing your post title, description, and tags on each individual post is a snap. You can use this tool to set basics like page titles, keywords, meta tags, and descriptions across the entire blog.

SEO Sniper—Yes, this one costs something, but it is a small investment for the kind of power this catch-all SEO plugin brings to experienced SEO writers and developers. Based on the Dan Thies’ SEO Fast Start manual, this plugin is made for those already fairly proficient in SEO that want to take control of their WordPress site to a whole new level. The list of features is so long that the best thing you can do is give this one a test drive for yourself. It comes with a risk-free guarantee and is well worth the money.

The rest of these plugins are free, so knock yourself out:

Broken Link Checker—An essential; it notifies you when a link has become a dead-end to search engines. Nothing outside your own site is in your control, but dead links wreak havoc on internal SEO quality. This plugin will also alert you to missing images.

SEO Friendly Images—An optimization plugin that automatically updates every image on your site with correct alt and title attributes. This one simple correction can multiply your results in Google Image Search results.

SEO Slugs—Search engines such as Google are apt to disregard common keywords such as ‘a’, ‘the’, and ‘what’. By removing these keywords search engine rankings rise. What makes this little jewel so great is that it does this automatically without you having to give the task another thought.

Robots Meta—It is often a good idea to prevent indexing of search results and category pages, as some search engines see these as duplicate content, thus lowering your page rank. This free plugin allows for control over which pages and posts are indexed and which aren’t.

These plugins are a good place to start, but know that this is only the beginning of what is available to optimize your WordPress site. To learn more, check out WordPress.org.

Tim G is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

See if this sounds familiar. Your blog started out like a first date with a gorgeous heartthrob. You couldn’t wait to spend time together, and spent all day thinking about all the things you want to tell them. But then one day you looked forlornly into the eyes of your WYSIWYG editor, and had the sinking feeling that the date had become a relationship you weren’t quite prepared for. A few 300 word articles per week didn’t seem like much to begin with, and you hit your first 500 regular visitors in a flash. But as the weeks dragged on, you realize you’ll need to put in a lot more time to grow this thing than you first realized. Here are a couple of practical ideas for both managing and growing your blog, so you don’t end up neglecting and ultimately ruining that coveted relationship.

A Simple Way to Stay Ahead of the Game

Because consistently fresh and meaningful posts are essential to the life of a growing blog, you need to have a plan for future content. A simple, free tool for managing content is Windows Live Writer. Microsoft’s Windows Life Writer is a blog content service that has a clean user interface that makes managing your blog simple, regardless of where and how it is hosted. As you get an idea for a new post go ahead and give it a name and get started. You can then save the post as a draft and publish it later. This way, when you get an idea for a post you can get started, flesh it out along the way, and then publish it when you are satisfied you’ve done the best possible job with it.

Live Writer helps organize your posts through categories. With some forethought you can plan what articles you need to be working on based on popular categories in your blog. As information crosses your desk that jives with a category that isn’t needed until next month, you can begin an outline of the post ahead of time. The longer you use this system, the quicker you will find yourself finishing posts and moving on to other things that need to be done.

How to Avoid Hitting the Wall

Some bloggers don’t have much success growing their blog because they have no real way to measure visitors. Don’t use comments as a gauge of how effective your blog is. The ratio of visitors to comments on a business blog is almost always very low. One of the most measurable tools you can use is something like Networked Blogs in conjunction with a Facebook business page. Networked Blogs is also free and allows you to build a network of followers that is visibly measurable. Status comments about your blog can be made directly to followers of your blog via Facebook.

Like a relationship, the key to a growing a blog is not to rely on just one thing to make it grow. RSS feeds are great, as are tools like Feedburner; and there are plenty of great tools being developed every day for the ever-growing community of bloggers. But to increase blog traffic, one learns to use choice tools that work for them, and in a more multi-faceted approach. Everything you do should point back to that blog in some way and, if you have a business website, everything in your blog should point back to your site.

Tim G is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

As a blogger and web content writer, I was a tad embarrassed that I wasn’t familiar with the term “content curation.” One article I read said curation might eventually take the place of algorithm search mechanisms. Admittedly, I don’t know the difference between “algorithm” and Alfredo sauce, but I do know I welcome any research tools that make my job easier. When I’m content sourcing, the time I waste wading through irrelevant data is not time that I can bill a client.

Content Curators

Web researchers and the general public couldn’t function without search engines. But you’ve surely noticed that search results can get a little bulky and off-point. Just like curators at museums sort, catalogue and combine relevant pieces into collections, content curators sift through the flood of Internet information to find usable content.

There are two components to successful research and content sourcing – a good, reliable search engine and a skilled researcher. In reality, the search engine is only as useful as the human who initiates the search. As a writer, if I don’t define, limit and contain my search criterion, that’s user-error. I can’t blame the search tool if I’m not doing my job.

Curation Tools

So, how can you become a better curator? A few tricks that can help are:

• Narrow your parameters even more. Google is helpful here. Think of the specific result you want and tailor your search. If you are looking only for guidelines for filing a homeowner’s insurance claim for someone injured on your property, add “How do I…?” to the latter part of that sentence.
• Search by lists, rankings, quizzes, favorites. Yes, I realize there may be 2,000 “My favorite Twilight character” lists. But you’re more likely to get highly-rated responses in the category.
• Use social media criteria. Again, searching Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn might be overload, but if social media is your desired result, this is your framework.
• Specify video, images, maps, etc. If you want to copy Keira Knightley’s hairstyle, don’t waste time wading through text like movie reviews, etc.

Not Just SEO

Because a huge part of my job, especially as a content writer, is to use SEO, it has to be on top of my list of search criteria/rationale. But good writers want to employ keywords without hitting people over the head with them. So I can see how content curation is helpful to weed out heavy-handed SEO. By being a bit more discriminating with my content sourcing, I’ll produce material that utilizes SEO, but also delivers readable, valuable information.

Nancy L is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.