Evergreen 7 Secrets to Write Epic Content for Blog and Website

Do you struggle to write some compelling posts? I know: it’s quite hard to keep writing quality posts.

Of course, you can write a compelling post once in a while, but you find quite hard to replicate your success. You are wondering how some bloggers can make so many fantastic articles. 

Evergreen 7 Secrets to Write Epic Content for Blog and Website

Right when you think that one of them just made his best post, he shows an even better masterpiece!

How can they get a standing ovation for each post?

You’d like to know their secrets – as people want to know the Coca-Cola secret ingredients.

You are pretty sure that they know something that you are missing out. You want to consistently make the same epic posts that they make. That kind of posts can help you to achieve the success you want – engage your audience, get more comments and shares, be recognized as an authority, get backlinks and many more.

Maybe I got some good news for you , But, before let me ask you one question:

How Much Time Did You Invest in Your Last Post?

45 minutes?

1 hour?

2 hours?

It sounds like a lot of time. After all, it was just one post. Do you know how much time I invested in my last guest post for Firepople Marketing?

About 20-30 hours!

Ok, that was an insane post, but most of my posts take me many hours. I’m not the only to do that: many successful bloggers invest many hours in their posts.

Epic Content Requires Time

If you want to make something epic you have to spend time on it. You can’t avoid that. If remarkable goals didn’t require time, everyone would accomplish them, and they wouldn’t be truly remarkable.

That works for your posts, your podcast series, your videos and your roast – especially I would put much time in the roast: crude meat is quite unhealthy, and it has a horrible taste!

How to Write Epic Content Step-by-Step

Time and energies are crucial to make an epic post, but if you don’t use them in the right way you’ll waste them. My motto is “the best results with the least effort”. I want to share with you the way to maximize your efficiency, so you can make your best posts without selling your soul. I outlined the 6 step process that I use every time I want to make an outstanding post.

1. Find One Problem

All starts with problems. If there weren’t problems, we wouldn’t need to solve them! People search information to solve their problems.  People search solutions to their problems. The best thing that you can do is to give people what they want.

Why do you think I’m writing this post? 

I’m writing it because you want to know how to produce impressive content. To make something extraordinary you have to give value to people. To give value to people you can do two things:

Solve their problems

Give them good emotions

If you can accomplish both of them, you are going to win the full jackpot. Focus on solving problems because it’s the most effective approach in content marketing – if you want to sell your stuff, this is preferred approach. Anyway giving good emotions can work well in certain niches, like the entertainment one.

You may wonder: “How do I find the one problem to talk about?

You have countless ways to find the answer:

Read the comments on your blog.

Read the comments on other blogs.

Think about the problems you encountered.

Look at successful products/courses

Ask to people

With these few suggestions you have potentially infinite problems to write about.

2. Offer the Solution

Ok, now that you know that people have a certain problem you want to offer them the solution(s).

If you just write about the problem, but you don’t offer the solution, people won’t pay attention to you.

Try to offer an excellent solution.

The more practical your solution is, the better it is for people.

Add as many details as you can.

Assume that people who read your stuff don’t know anything about that topic. Step-by-step solutions are what work the best – did you notice that this post is a step-by-step solution to one problem? 

Offering a solution means that you already applied what you say and that it works. There is no way you can skip that. Don’t suggest something that you didn’t try: it won’t work. That lead us to say that you need to solve a problem by yourself before you can talk about that.

If you can’t solve your problem, you won’t help other people with that problem.

3. Edit your post

Once you finish your post, read it and re-read it. While you are writing you may make many mistakes. It’s non-negotiable: you have to edit your posts. Especially if you are writing in a non-native language you need to put much attention in this step. I’m not a native English speaker so I need to edit my posts carefully once I write them. Sometimes I spend more time editing a post than writing it. Even if you write in your native language, you can always re-write some of your sentences better. You can add something that you forgot or you can improve the structure of your post.

4. Include Images, Videos and Links

Do you want to make a masterpiece? If you do, you need to enrich your posts. Think about your post like a Christmas tree: you have to put many decoration on it. Images, videos and links are your decorations. With images you can better explain your concepts and your ideas.

As you know “One picture is worth thousand words”.

Don’t insert random images that distract your visitors, insert relevant images that add value to your posts. Videos work even better than images for explaining your concepts. If you can insert a relevant video to your posts, do it. The best examples, to help you understand the role of videos, are tutorials: a written tutorial is not as useful as a video tutorial.

The last decorations are links. Links are perfect to give people additional information. You can’t know everything, so it’s ok to provide other useful sources of information. To provide the maximum amount of value you should tell people where to find complementary information. Notice that not only links to other blogs are useful, but also interlinks improve the quality of your content (interlinks are links between the posts on your blog).

How many images, videos and links should you add to your posts?

It depends. Your goal is to make an exhaustive post, so insert as many links, images and videos as you need to reach your goal. Sometime it takes 2 links; sometimes it takes 5 links, 8 images and 1 video.

5. Forget About Your Post

Once you complete the 4th step, your post is complete, but wait, don’t publish it. It’s complete, but it’s not the best post you can make , You can bring it even further. Right after you finish it, you can’t see what you can improve. Don’t worry, it’s normal: you just need a break.

Take one entire day of break from your post. ENTIRE DAY. In this way, you’ll take off your mind from your post. That will bring you an objective perspective when you examine your post.

Your mind will also produce fresh ideas. Work on something else…or just go to the park with your friends/kids/pets.

6. Improve Your Post

After the day off from your post, you have a detached point of view to better analyze your work.

Start with a calm and slow reading. While reading try to adopt this mentality: “If I didn’t know anything about the topic of the post, what would I understand and what would seem confused?”.

That mentality will help you to make your post so clear that even people who are not really familiar about the topic will understand.

The clearer your post is, the better. Once you finish reading and changing your post ask yourself the following questions: What can I do to better communicate my ideas?

How can I improve the post?

Can I make the content better than it is now?

Is there anything that I forgot?

Answer those questions and you’ll surprised by the improved version of your post.

7. How Much Time Will the 6 Steps Take You?

I guess that you already know the answer: it depends. You may need 2 days to write your post or you may need an entire week.

Don’t rush, take your time.

It takes the time that it takes.

Ok, using this strategy you’ll publish fewer posts, but I can assure you that the quality of your posts will dramatically improve. That will translate in more shares, more readers, more comments and more backlinks. Try it, you’ll touch the results with your hands.

What are your biggest issues when it comes to make high quality content? What is holding you from reaching the sky? Let’s talk in the comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Tracking the Economic Slowdown in this 2008

The media’s coverage of the troubled economy has shifted repeatedly in the last year from a narrative about mortgages to one about recession, a banking crisis and now largely gas prices—a changing storyline and one that differs from medium to medium.

Tracking the Economic Slowdown in this 2008

 Moreover, the connection between media coverage and economic events has often been uneven. Sometimes, coverage has lagged months behind economic activity, when the storyline was dependent on government data. Other times, coverage has tracked events erratically, as with housing and inflation. But when the story is easier to tell, as in the case of gas prices, coverage has been closely tied to what is actually occurring in the marketplace.

 These are some of the findings of a new detailed examination of how the American news media have covered the economic slowdown over the last two years, produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The economy has been a bigger story in older media—print, the three network evening newscasts and traditional news radio—and a noticeably smaller one in the newer—the more opinion-oriented platforms of cable TV and talk radio. The relationship between media coverage and public concerns about the economy is a complex one. Going back to late 2007, Americans’ attention to the issue generally outstripped the level of media interest.

While the public considers the economy its No. 1 concern, for instance, the media have been far more interested in the presidential campaign—by a factor of nearly 5-to-1 between January 2007 and June 2008. But it’s also true that public attention to the story and pessimism about the state of the economy both grew as the media began to pay more attention in 2008. The PEJ study is based on an analysis of more than 5,000 economic stories from January 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008, drawn from approximately 1,955 hours of programming on the three major cable news channels, 1369 on network morning and evening TV, 978 on radio, and 469 days’ editions of 21 different newspapers, and the five leading news websites, some 48 different news outlets in all.

 Among the study’s findings: Overall, the economy has been the No. 2 story so far in 2008 in the U.S. media, moving ahead of the Iraq war. But coverage has not come close to that of presidential campaign. For the first six months of this year, the various storylines that make up the story of the economy, including rising energy costs, have filled 8% of the newshole studied by PEJ. The next biggest story was events inside Iraq at 3%. The race for president, by contrast, has filled 37% of the newshole. Often the press coverage has lagged behind economic events, sometimes by months. In the first quarter of 2008, for instance, media attention to a possible recession began to spike, though in reality the economy was strengthening some, because economists were arguing about data from the last quarter of 2007.

Then, as the economy began to weaken again in the second quarter, the media narrative shifted away from concerns about an economic slowdown. The only change in the economy that reliably predicts more press coverage in the last year has been rising gas prices. While public attention to economic news does not always translate into more coverage, more coverage of the economy can be correlated to deepening public worries. After press coverage of the economy jumped in the first quarter of 2008, the number of Americans who considered the economy to be ailing doubled.

The economic picture improved slightly during that period. What Americans know about the economy, and how much they know, also may vary based on what media they consume. Parts of the economy are a bigger story in one medium than another, and some media are generally less concerned overall. Gas prices, for instance, are a bigger TV story.

Banking and housing are bigger in print. And unless there is a clear political wedge issue to argue about, the economy does not tend to become much of story on cable news or on talk radio, at least not during the key time slots when most people are tuned in. Since January 2007, the economy has been about a third as big a story on cable news and talk radio as in newspapers and on network television.

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Best Ways to Market Your Small Business on a Blogging budget

When budgets are tight, marketing might be the first expense you look to cut.While traditional advertising methods are costly and hard to measure, small businesses have never had greater access to cost-effective, trackable marketing tools.Relationship marketing is about forming long–term relationships and focusing on customer loyalty. It stands in contrast to the more traditional transactional marketing approach, which focuses on increasing the number of individual sales. In the transactional model, a customer may be convinced to select your brand one time, but without a strong relationship marketing strategy, the customer may not come back in the future.

Let me stop you right there.

 It’s like with people. We want to spend time with those who we have a great relationship with and who care about us, rather than with people we don’t know anything about and whose communication style is official. If it’s so obvious, it’s hard to understand why some brands seem to don’t get it.

But with so many digital tools available, how do you know where to start?

Email marketing is the tried and true digital marketing channel with an average return of $38 for every $1 spent.

If you’re brand new to email marketing, you can try it out for free! Sign up for your free 60-day trial of Constant Contact here.

Email and social media marketing are just the start. Here are ten marketing strategies that can help you market your small business on a shoestring budget.

1. Craft an elevator pitch

You should be marketing all the time — wherever you are. Therefore, you need a compelling elevator pitch.

Research shows the average attention span of an adult is about six to eight seconds. That’s all the time you have to grab someone’s attention.

If you successfully engage them, then you only have a little over a minute to really sell them on your product or service. Invest the time to craft a killer elevator pitch. The return on your investment will pay huge dividends in terms of creating business opportunities.

2. Leverage your community

You don’t have to think big when it comes to your marketing efforts. Think locally. What’s going on in your community?

Sponsor a Little League team or a 5k charity walk/run. Print bookmarks and leave them at the local library. Get to know your ideal customer and think about how and where they spend their time.

Then search for opportunities to get in front of your customer with your marketing message.

3. Collaborate

Put together a group of synergistic, non-competitive businesses in your area and agree to cross-promote.

You can use coupons, fliers, reciprocal website links, bundled promotions or social media platforms. By collaborating with each other, you can expand your customer base because you’ll be reaching new people.

4. Network

I’m a huge fan of networking. I don’t think there is any better way to build a business than to get out there, shake some hands, and get to know people.

Networking requires a time commitment and it doesn’t provide instant gratification, but a strong network is one of the greatest assets any business person can have.

5. Give a speech

A lot of people hate public speaking. However, there are many organizations looking for qualified, subject-matter experts who can present to their groups.

Take a deep breath and volunteer. You don’t have to be a pro as long as the information you share is helpful to the audience. And the upside — the more you do it the easier it gets. Plus, it positions you as a credible authority in your field.

6. Create buzz

I started my corporate career in the field of public relations and the business has changed significantly because of technology.

Today, a small business owner can accomplish a lot without hiring a professional firm. Subscribe to Help a Reporter Out. You can respond to reporters’ queries that are looking for story ideas and resources. Some are small media opportunities, but others are major media outlets that use this service too.

7. Ask for referrals

Don’t be shy about asking for customer referrals. The majority of people say they are willing to provide a referral if asked, but very few take the initiative to do it on their own.

Referrals make it easier to get in the door with new customers. If you aren’t asking for them, you are missing opportunities.

8. Build relationships

It is a lot less expensive to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. That’s why establishing strong relationships with your customer base is crucial. One of the ways you can do that is by keeping in touch with people through email marketing.

Ask customers for their email address when they visit your store or website. Then, make your communications informative, helpful and professional — something your customers will look forward to receiving.

9. Offer coupons

Coupons are a good way for many businesses to attract new customers. Research shows that people will go out of their way to use a coupon, proving that this method is successful in expanding your customer base.

Coupons can also generate return visits. For example, if you give a customer a coupon for a discount to use on future business, there’s a high probability they’ll be back.

10. Give it away

If someone has the opportunity to experience your product or service, chances are they will want to purchase more.

Don’t be afraid to give someone a free trial or a sample. In today’s economy, people are more comfortable purchasing something they have been able to experience first.

These ten, inexpensive marketing strategies will help you engage customers, build relationships, and ultimately keep your brand top-of-mind. It’s not always about the money you have to spend on marketing, it’s about the time and effort you put into it and above all, the relevance it has for your customers.

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