Video marketing is the leading form of marketing today. If you’re not making videos, you’re being left in the dust. Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358602 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, 6 Ways to Strengthen Your Video Marketing Strategy, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/6-ways-to-strengthen-your-video-marketing-strategy/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com
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Let’s talk about meta tags — what they are, why they matter, and how to do them better. First things first — what made you click on this article to read it? Maybe the title caught your eye, or perhaps it was the short blurb you saw. You might have clicked simply because this article comes from a source you trust. If you found this article via a search engine, though, there’s a good chance you found and clicked this article because of meta tags. Meta tags are the foundation of SEO, and the first thing you’ll find yourself setting up when building a web page. Without meta tags, you can’t reach readers organically. It doesn’t take much time to generate meta tags, but it’s more important than you might think. That’s because 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. This is why so many online marketers are so focused on getting SEO right. Organic search traffic is the holy grail of SEO, so it can’t be ignored. Your content needs to be readable and appealing to users on search engines. There’s a very specific syntax needed. It’s similar to how bookstores and libraries organize their archives of books — and that’s what meta tags are, essentially. What are Meta Tags?Meta tags are a type of HTML tag that provides search engines with information about a website page. Let’s take a look at the basic elements. The title and description tags make up almost the entire entry. If not for these meta tags, all you’d see in Google SERPs would be my URL. Title and description tags are the two most-used tags for SEO purposes, but SEO isn’t the only part of digital marketing. Advanced digital marketing requires the use of even more tags that improve page rank and overall user experience. Just like this search result, you’ll soon find out that these tags control how your entire digital presence is viewed and navigated. Machines can read URLs just fine. If I wrote for machines, my website would look like this: Google prioritizes certain tags because they provide context for people. I built my website for people as well, so it looks like this: This polish is what marketing is all about. In this blog post, we will explore meta tags and see how they affect your overall digital marketing efforts. While simple, the devil is in the details, and every detail counts. How Meta Tags Affect Brand Image and Click-Through RatesYou absolutely can judge a book by its cover. It’s what covers are designed for. Your title and meta description tag create the cover for your web page. They’re your first impression on most visitors. It’s not just about search engines, but how we view the Internet. Reddit is a basic link-aggregation site that takes away all the bells and whistles. Reddit depends on the title and image to entice conversations and clicks. Using meta tags correctly is like using the correct format for a business email. Sure, you can put whatever you like out there, but there’s a level of professionalism that’s expected at some point. Even Amazon will only give you a picture, title, and short description to make your point. Think of these tags as your elevator pitch. You’re given about as much space as a Tweet to sell your entire brand and product. Which means you need to nail it. You can’t just call in this detail and polish everything else. If you do, nobody will ever see the rest of what you polished. We already know how meta tags affect SEO, but that’s not the only element. Meta tags will make your email marketing and marketing automation efforts easier by providing information for emailed links. Tags are a crucial element that determines what my automated social media posts look like. When other bloggers, YouTubers, and social media influencers (and micro-influencers) share your content, tags make it easier. Think of meta tags as the packaging for your product. If your packaging isn’t spot-on, nobody will ever buy your product, no matter how great it is! So what are some best practices to implement for tags? Meta Tag Best PracticesThere are a TON of different HTML tags that can be used on a web page. We’re only going to focus on a handful of significant tags. We’ll start with the one that might have brought you here today. 1. Title TagsIt’s not technically a meta tag, but it shows up in the header and is used as one. As of July 2017, the character limits for title tags in Google search results are 78 on mobile devices and 70 on a desktop. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should use all those characters, and 60 is the generally recommended limit. Long-tail keywords make a difference. Here are the top meta titles in the SERPs for “How to make content marketing effective.” By adding the year, we get an entirely new set of results for “how to make content marketing effective 2017.” Some users will want basic information, while others will want the most current. By adjusting our title tag, we can affect which of these searches we rank for. Ultimately, the goal is to hit both, but that’s not always feasible. Make sure your keyword is in your title, or you’ll find your articles buried in search results. For example, when I search for the “best tacos in Tucson,” some restaurants are on page 10 below, even Del Taco. That’s a wasted opportunity for that taco capital of the country! These small businesses could greatly improve their search results, sales, and ROI by simply adding “best tacos in Tucson” to their title tags. Here’s a sample of the HTML required for a title tag located in your header. <head> <title>The Best Title Example I Could Come Up With</title> </head> In WordPress, it’s as easy as giving your page a title. You really can’t miss it. That’s all there is to it! 2. Image TagsLike title tags, Image tags aren’t labeled “meta.” But they’re clearly used by search engines, link aggregators, and other sites to identify your site. There are two image descriptions actually crammed into one tag. Here’s what the HTML code looks like. <img src=“image.jpg” alt=“image description” title=“image tooltip”> Both the alt and title tags should be defined for the best experience. The title displays on your screen when you hover your cursor over it. The alt text displays when the image can’t be rendered (or is spoken to the blind and visually impaired). When uploading an image to WordPress, you’ll be prompted to enter the title, caption, alt text, and description. The more fields you fill out (even if you use the same information), the more searchable your images become. Anywhere from 20-60% of all Google traffic goes to sites with well-optimized graphics. Why wouldn’t you want to be included? It’s also a matter of ADA website compliance. There are approximately 58,200 people with some level of visual impairment per million in the U.S. alone. That’s a huge segment of the population that wouldn’t have a great user experience without alt image tags. Optimize your images for search engines and users. 3. Description Meta TagsA meta description tag gives you a chance to provide an overview of the page’s content. They’re limited to around 160 characters and aren’t directly tied to Google’s search algorithms at all! Once again, the reason you need description tags is to improve the user experience. Description tags encourage click-throughs. Here’s what the HTML looks like: <head> Without a meta description, Google will default to whatever preview sentence it feels best encompasses the content. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This post doesn’t have a meta description (I rarely use them), and it ranks well. Of course, my blogs are filled with relevant content in short, sweet sentences. Most of them would work as descriptions on their own. Still, there’s no harm in adding additional information to make your content more searchable. 4. Robots Noindex and Nofollow Meta TagsRobot meta tags aren’t always necessary. By default, all of the pages and links you create on your website are indexed as ‘follow’ by search bots and web crawlers. Whenever you want to redirect them, you’ll need a robot meta tag. Here’s the noindex HTML code: <html><head> This would be within the header and indicate this page doesn’t need to be indexed. It’s useful for syndicated and duplicate content that your customers/readers could use, but you don’t want credit in search indexes. Here’s the HTML for a robot nofollow. <meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”> This is used for links you don’t necessarily want to endorse. For example, readers leaving links in my comments aren’t exactly endorsed by me, so a nofollow tag above the comments section keeps my site clean for bots. Here’s a great infographic on when and how to use nofollow tags. Now we get to one of the most controversial meta tags. 5. Keyword Meta TagsKeyword tags aren’t used by search algorithms to determine search ranking. Here’s what the HTML looks like: <meta name=”keywords” content=”HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript”> I coach my SEO clients to ignore keyword tags because they don’t affect SEO. That doesn’t necessarily make them useless, however. They’re especially useful in WordPress. Keyword tags and categories can help Google determine which page on your site should rank for a search. They also create a page in WordPress that provides one more indexed page. This means that, while your blog posts are focused on long-tail keywords, your tag and category pages have feeds covering the shorter keywords. Categories can be used for the URL format, providing one more keyword to the page address. This is accomplished under Settings – Permalinks in WordPress. Adding this format provides context to your content. Google loves context for search results! Keywords also provide a big-picture overview of how many pages you have for each keyword. You can use them to help plan your editorial calendar. 6. Viewport tagsYou don’t spend much time thinking about viewports, but they’re especially important in today’s mobile-first world of search. On mobile devices, pages are shown in a popup window called a viewport that extends past the device’s border. Here’s an illustration of what I’m talking about. Developers can set the viewport size to increase mobile usability. WordPress users can check this tag to learn this information for their templates. But you probably didn’t know that unless you’re already a web developer. Since Google increasingly focuses on mobile-friendly websites, this meta tag could mean the difference between success and mobile failure. Now that you have a basic understanding of meta tags and why they’re important, I’ll show you some of my favorite tools for manipulating them. Free Tools to Add and Check Your Meta TagsDon’t worry if this all sounds overwhelming — there are tons of tools to make it easy to get meta tags right. Here are two of my favorites. Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPressYoast is a powerful SEO plugin for WordPress and one of the most-downloaded SEO and meta tags tools. With Yoast, all of the pages and posts you publish have back-end options to increase social sharing, optimize SEO, update tags, and other metadata. With Yoast installed on your WordPress site, a few clicks and a few seconds of your time are all it takes to add meta-tagging to your process. Yoast also allows you to enter a focus keyword that doesn’t get added to the meta tags, allowing the back-end program to analyze your post. BuzzStream Meta Tag ExtractorIf you need a quick chart of the metadata that’s being used by your competition, BuzzStream’s Meta Tag Extractor is a sleek and simple solution. Copy and paste a list of URLs, and you’ll be presented with the meta tag information. There’s even an option to download as a CSV file so that you can scrape large lists quickly. It’s a quick and easy way to organize this data when you need it. This free online tool does its job without all the bells and whistles. Less Popular (But Still Useful!) Meta TagsSo to be fully transparent, here’s a chart of HTML meta tags. An author meta tag can be used to tell search engines who wrote a piece of content. Authors have been used in the past for search results, but it’s not a factor anymore. However, you might use author tags if you run a multi-author blog. WordPress does add this information to blogs when multiple users are contributing content. It’s more a badge of honor for bloggers than anything else. Most of the rest define parameters that should already be controlled on a server level. While I ignored these meta tags, it doesn’t mean you have to. Feel free to add whatever information you’d like. It doesn’t help search rankings, but it doesn’t hurt them, either. ConclusionMeta tags are a basic part of HTML — and can impact SEO. Back in the early days of the internet, they were a signaling factor for search engines to understand what content is on a page. The internet (and our relationship with it) has evolved exponentially since then. Contextual search, AI digital assistants, and mobile devices are changing the way we view content. Search engines are incentivized to provide the best search results possible, so meta tags are less important. However, some, such as the titles and meta descriptions, are more important than ever before. While less metadata is used, it’s still the first impression you’ll make on both robots and people. What do your website’s meta tags say about you? The post What Are Meta Tags? appeared first on Neil Patel. Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/why-meta-tags-are-so-important/ via https://neilpatel.com The original post, What Are Meta Tags?, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/what-are-meta-tags/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Find the best timing and approach for your email campaigns this holiday season. Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358471 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, How to Maximize Your Email Results This Holiday Season, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/how-to-maximize-your-email-results-this-holiday-season/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing can be one of the quickest and most effective ways to drive customers to your site. But it can be hard to make money through PPC ads. It’s all too easy to make common mistakes that can wreck your campaign. Luckily for you, I’ve got plenty of tips that can help. And there’s one strategy I’ve borrowed from my business analyst friends, which I’m going to share with you today. It’s called a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis can help you see a different side to your PPC campaign and improve its performance in the process. This article will help you carry out your own analysis and take your PPC campaigns to another level. What is a SWOT Analysis?A SWOT analysis is a corporate evaluation technique that can be used to assess anything from an entire company right down to a single PPC campaign. So, what does SWOT stand for? It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, things you control. Opportunities and threats are external factors. These are happening in the market right now, whether you like it or not. You may not be able to change them, but you can react to them. Typically, SWOT analysis is used at an operational level to help business leaders assess a company’s current position in the market and highlight areas for future growth. It can also be used to assess your PPC campaigns. A SWOT analysis can show you how well your campaign is performing, what’s holding you back, and how you can improve. Why Your Company Should Do SWOT Analysis for PPC CampaignsA SWOT analysis should be considered essential if you don’t want your PPC campaigns to fail. Too often, when brands try to optimize their PPC advertising, they look at their campaigns in isolation. They only analyze their own keywords, bids, and landing pages. But your PPC campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum. You are competing with hundreds of other brands for the same cherished three or four spots. A SWOT analysis will help you to understand external factors that may impact your PPC campaigns. Things like competitors, the economy, and the state of your industry can all affect the performance of your ads and the likelihood that someone will buy when they click them. You’ll also identify new opportunities for your campaign. That could be doubling down on what you do well, or it could be fixing one of your weaknesses. When you lay out what’s working and what’s not, it’s much easier to put together a plan that involves more than just raising your bids. Ultimately, it will help you to look at your PPC campaigns in a different way. Despite the wealth of advice out there on optimizing PPC campaigns, it’s easy to get stuck in a routine of researching keywords, testing new ad copy, and creating new landing pages. There’s much more you can be doing to improve your campaigns, and a SWOT analysis will help you take your PPC campaigns to the next level. How to Do a SWOT Analysis of Your PPCAll you need to do is sit down and brainstorm each of your campaign’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. They are typically displayed in a 2×2 grid. But you can just make a list below each header if that’s easier. It can help to have a goal in mind when starting your SWOT analysis. By focusing on your PPC campaigns, you have already narrowed your focus, but can you get an even clearer picture of what you want to achieve? Maybe you want to figure out why your PPC campaign isn’t driving as many sales as your Facebook ads, for instance. Or find ways to maximize what is already a profitable channel. It’s best to do a SWOT analysis with more than one person. The more views and opinions you can capture, the more complete a picture you’ll be able to develop. You can brainstorm together or complete the analysis individually, coming together at the end to share your thoughts. Finally, try to keep things as even as possible when brainstorming. If you have 10 strengths, find 10 weaknesses. Find a threat for every opportunity. You get the picture. SWOT Analysis S: StrengthsStart by making a list of all the strengths of your PPC campaign. Strengths are all the internal positive factors about your PPC efforts. For instance, maybe you have an excellent ROI or a high Quality Score. Covering hundreds of relevant keywords could also be a strength, as could your CTR or bounce rate. Think about the advantages you hold over the competition, too. That could be the PPC agency you partner with, for instance. It could even be the quality of your products or the strength of your brand. There’s no reason to limit your strengths to things that are specific to your PPC campaign. Don’t be modest, here! Now’s the time to boast if ever there was one. SWOT Analysis W: WeaknessesNext, examine your PPC campaign’s weaknesses. These are things you are in control of that are stopping you from increasing your ROI and generating more revenue. They could also be things your campaign currently lacks, like A/B testing. But they could also be broader weaknesses like a small budget or a lack of PPC experts. Remember to only include things you have control over in this category. Having a bigger, better-funded competitor is not a relevant weakness of your campaign. Operating in a very competitive market is, on the other hand. You can’t control your competitor, but you can choose not to compete. Or at least not compete directly. When in doubt, look at your strengths section and think about the opposite. SWOT Analysis O: OpportunitiesNow consider any external positive factors that could improve your PPC campaigns in the future. You could be launching a new advertising campaign, for instance, that would increase the demand for your product. Maybe a competitor is on the verge of bankruptcy or is pivoting their business model. Take into account the time frame of these opportunities. A new marketing campaign may only increase demand for a few months, whereas ongoing market growth (like the acceleration of e-commerce) may last for years. Don’t forget to combine what you’ve done so far by including weaknesses that can be turned into strengths. SWOT Analysis T: ThreatsFinally, look at threats to your PPC campaign. These are also external factors that you have little to no control over. And this is where you’d list those bigger, better-funded competitors who are constantly outbidding you. It’s not just your competitors you need to consider, however. What’s the market like for your current product? Are consumers shopping somewhere other than Google? Could anything change that would impact your success, like one of your employees taking a new job? It can help to think about your company and your industry at a broader level, too. Does your product risk becoming obsolete, for instance? Or could changes to the market weaken demand for your offering? Visualizing and Displaying Your SWOT AnalysisThere are several different methods to display your SWOT analysis. As I have shown above, the most common format of a SWOT analysis is a 2×2 chart. This makes it easy to visualize your analysis as a whole, as every section is displayed in relation to each other. But it’s not the only way you can display your SWOT analysis. There are plenty of ways to make your analysis more digestible and visually engaging. Check out this graphic analysis of a Nike SWOT by Business Strategy Hub. Or this creative McDonalds SWOT graphic by Creately. If design isn’t your forte, Lucidchart has a SWOT analysis generator you can use instead. Making Your SWOT Analysis ActionableOne problem with a SWOT is that it doesn’t produce actionable results. It only helps you understand where you currently are. You need to make your analysis actionable. Start by looking at the relationship between each section. For instance, ask yourself whether you can use your strengths to create new opportunities, or whether you can remove threats by improving your weaknesses. Let’s start by looking at how you can turn your strengths into new opportunities. Basically, this means doing more of what you are good at. In the example above, we highlighted landing page creation as a strength. You could turn this into an opportunity by creating more landing pages for your ad groups. Doing so could improve your quality score, decrease your bounce rate, and increase your conversion rate. Next, identify how you can turn your weaknesses into strengths. Again, in the example above, I listed a lack of a dedicated PPC account manager as a weakness. Assuming you have the budget to hire a new employee, this is a pretty easy one to fix. Alternatively, you could work with a digital marketing consultant. Now let’s look at opportunities. Is there any way you can capitalize on the opportunities you’ve identified? We listed e-commerce growth and new products as opportunities above. One option is to increase our budget to take advantage of the growth in e-commerce. Another would be to create new ads and landing pages for our new products. Finally, look at the threats. You probably won’t be able to change any of these directly, but you figure out ways to mitigate the threats. For instance, if you have a larger competitor with a bigger budget, you can maximize your ROI as much as possible or target longer tail keywords. Examples of SWOT Analysis for PPC CampaignsAre you ready to start your own SWOT analysis? Hopefully, you can use my examples as a jumping-off point. But just in case you need more guidance, here are a couple of other examples of SWOT analysis for PPC campaigns. The first is by White Shark Media. You can see they get very specific listing ad KPIs in both the strengths and weaknesses columns. They also do an excellent job of balancing strengths with weaknesses and opportunities with threats. The second is by SEMrush and Hanapin Marketing. This is a much broader approach to PPC SWOT analysis, including things like product prices and availability. They also do a nice job of matching up strengths with weaknesses and opportunities with threats. ConclusionA SWOT analysis is a great way to get a different perspective on your PPC campaign. Remember, your campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither should your optimization efforts. By thinking about your ads in the context of the broader market and economy, you can optimize your campaigns at a level your competitors can only dream of. Why stop at creating new ad copy and running A/B tests when you can find out ways to capitalize on new consumer sentiment or shifts in the market. What have you uncovered with your SWOT analysis? Let me know in the comments! The post How to Do SWOT Analysis For PPC appeared first on Neil Patel. Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/swot-analysis-ppc/ via https://neilpatel.com The original post, How to Do SWOT Analysis For PPC, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/how-to-do-swot-analysis-for-ppc/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Ascend Agency CEO Jonathan Jadali tells us why it’s crucial to think beyond sales when trying to build a loyal customer base Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358736 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, Follow This Entrepreneur’s 3-Step Approach to Cultivating a Killer Brand, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/follow-this-entrepreneurs-3-step-approach-to-cultivating-a-killer-brand/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com It’s time to put your money where your customers are. Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/357852 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, Now or Never: Why Manufacturers are Moving Dollars to Digital Engagement, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/now-or-never-why-manufacturers-are-moving-dollars-to-digital-engagement/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Is your company having a hard time finding the exact type of customer you want to market to? If so, there might be something wrong with your ideal customer profile. Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358552 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, 5 Questions to Ask When Creating Your Ideal Customer Profile, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/5-questions-to-ask-when-creating-your-ideal-customer-profile/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Eight ways to optimize business exposure and improve conversion rates during November and December. Original content source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358380 via https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/marketing The original post, How to Win as an Online Business During the 2020 Holiday Season, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/how-to-win-as-an-online-business-during-the-2020-holiday-season/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com Every minute, 500 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube. With that much competition, you might have counted yourself out and accepted that getting enough Youtube subscribers isn’t worth the effort. But what if you’re making a social media mistake? What if you could break through the noise and become popular on YouTube? One of the best ways of measuring popularity on YouTube is by looking at the number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more you can consistently achieve high view counts on your videos. Not everyone who is uploading a video to YouTube has laid out a strategy that will allow them to increase subscriber numbers, which leads some to buy YouTube subscribers — which is a huge mistake. When you buy YouTube subscribers, many of those accounts are fake. Even if they are real people, they are unlikely to engage with your content and actually buy what you have to offer. In short, buying YouTube subscribers is a waste of time. Instead, work to build a strategy to boost subscriber numbers — then you can join the ranks of companies seeing massive success on YouTube and earn free YouTube subscribers. In this post, we’ll look at how you can grow your YouTube subscriber count. We’ll analyze a variety of media marketing strategies and show you how to implement them. By the end, you should have a good sense of how to create a strategy that will allow you to use YouTube to grow your business. Give Your Channel a Theme to Gain YouTube SubscribersBefore you do anything, you need to give your channel a theme. If you look at many of the top YouTube channels, you’ll notice that many of them stick to a theme. Take a look at the Derek Halpern‘s channel, for example. Notice how a lot of the YouTube videos he creates are on topics related to business and success. Having a theme makes it easier to create consistent YouTube content. On top of that, you can make your channel the ‘go-to’ place for specific content. This is the goal of a social media platform. If your channel caters to a specific niche, then people who care deeply about that niche will want to become subscribers. For example, imagine your videos are all about Facebook marketing, and you aim to help business owners. If a business owner who wants to learn more about Facebook marketing subscribes to your YouTube channel, they’ll get an update any time you post content. This helps them stay ahead of the curve without having to do a lot of work. If you’re struggling to come up with a theme for your channel, think about the problems your business solves and who it solves those problems for. Then, produce videos based on the topics you know will help the people your business serves. Post Incredible Content to Gain YouTube SubscribersMany marketers agree that video converts better than other forms of media. If you want to drive conversions, you need to learn how to create incredible content on your media platform. Plus, if you can create incredible content, then a lot of the work related to growing your subscriber count is already done. When people subscribe to your channel, they’re essentially signing up to get updates whenever a new piece of content is posted. If your content is great, people won’t mind hearing from you again because their initial interaction with you and your content was positive. Whether that’s a learning experience, an entertainment experience, or both — it’s worth watching your videos. And remember that people take the time to watch great content. According to Hubspot, 54% of people want to see more video content from marketers. This is a good foundation for your media platform that will expand social networks. If your content is excellent, then you’ll benefit from the fact that 54% of senior executives share content with their social networks. So how do you produce incredible content that makes viewers want to subscribe and share? Start by focusing on producing content that is relevant to your target audience. Provided that you’re sticking to a theme, as mentioned before, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a way to produce valuable content. Then, use these tips. Look for Popular Keywords on YouTubeLet’s say that you want to create a channel that covers the topic of ‘pencil drawing.’ One way to develop content ideas is by simply entering the broad keyword of ‘pencil drawing’ into the YouTube search engine. YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally, so we know there’s going to be some relevant data here. When we type in the keyword, we see the suggestions above. Now, those topics might seem a little broad, so you may want to pick one of those keywords and go through the same process again so that you can generate something more concise. Let’s add the word ‘tutorial,’ for instance. By adding the word tutorial, we are now provided with more concise keywords. The fact that these keywords appear in the suggestions lets us know that people are searching for these videos. You might argue that there is a lot of competition for such keywords. And while that may be true, later on in the post, we’ll figure out how we can get people to view our videos, even when there is a lot of competition — so don’t let it be a concern for now. The great thing about the approach above is that it gives us a place to start. If we want to produce content for a certain niche, this technique lets us know what kinds of content people will already have an interest in viewing. My tool Ubersuggest is another great YouTube keyword research tool. Simply type in your main key term and click “Keyword ideas” in the right sidebar, and it will deliver more than 400 keywords for you to consider. You can also use the Google Keyword Planner tool to come up with content ideas. That’s because there will be some coherence between Google search results and YouTube search results. Let’s stick with the topic of ‘pencil drawing.’ In the ‘Your product or service’ box, enter a keyword-based on your business. If I were running a business that taught people how to do a pencil drawing, I’d enter ‘how to do a pencil drawing.’ You want to keep the keyword broad at this stage because it’ll allow for the keyword tool to develop a wide range of ideas for you. Once you’ve entered the keyword, you’ll then see this page. It shows several ‘Ad groups’ of keywords. Each group of keywords centers around a certain topic. As you can see, I’ve arranged the groups in terms of ‘Average monthly searches’ and descending order. This gives us a sense of where there might be a lot of competition. Let’s click on the mid-range group called ‘Drawing Techniques.’ I’ve highlighted a few keywords that might represent good YouTube content opportunities. I chose these keywords because it’s clear to see how you could create a focused, high-value video centered around these keywords. You might think that these keywords don’t have that many searches and, therefore, aren’t worthy in terms of effort required. However, remember we’re not just going to post a handful of videos and then be done with it. Cultivating a YouTube channel so that it eventually has many subscribers often requires posting a lot of content. In fact, the biggest YouTube channel has over 4,200 videos. If you want to publish massive amounts of content while keeping it relevant, you need to be able to niche down your content as much as possible, so each video provides value. If you niche down, it’s only natural that the level of searches per month will go down. Even if you focus on low volume keywords, they’ll all come together to help you build momentum and establish yourself in a YouTube niche. You’ll also notice there isn’t a ton of content for those lower volume search terms, which represents an opportunity. Look at what happens when I type in the ‘Simple drawing techniques’ keyword. There’s a playlist there, but other than that, there aren’t any fully optimized titles or even videos based solely around the topic of ‘simple drawing techniques.’ Improve the Production Quality of Your YouTube VideosProduction quality shouldn’t be a top priority, but it can definitely increase the number of YouTube subscribers after a certain point. As long as your videos are rich in value and provide the viewer with the information they need, you’re doing a good job. When the videos start to bring you a return, then you can focus more on production quality. Here are a few tips. Ensure what you’re saying can be easily heard. You must speak clearly and enthusiastically. You’ve got to project your voice. Otherwise, people might not be able to understand what you’re saying. They might even get bored. You don’t need to act like an extrovert; just try and prevent your voice from becoming monotonous. If you’re recording your content using a phone or a laptop, the microphone might not be enough. So, you may want to invest in a quality external microphone. However, test it to see how things actually sound before you make this investment. You also need to ensure that your video is easy to watch. You don’t want to make it hard work for your viewers to see what is going on. This means you need to ensure lighting is adequate. If you’re recording a talking head style video where you’re talking to the camera, ensure that your face can be clearly seen. If someone is recording you, then ensure the camera isn’t shaking. If you’re recording your laptop screen, make sure your actions can be clearly seen and that anything you type can be read. Use Video Editing to Improve the Quality of Your YouTube VideosWhen it comes to video editing, you have a couple of solutions. When speaking about video editing, what we’re referring to is improving your videos’ style and not so much about removing minor mistakes. More often than not, you’re going to make minor mistakes when recording your video. You don’t need to put tons of focus into removing these bits, as they don’t harm your video all that much. In fact, they might even help your video as they let other people know that they’re dealing with a real person rather than a sly media marketing salesman. Where editing can come in handy, though, is when you need to create cuts in your video or add a title screen. If you’re not an accomplished video editor, you could seek someone from Upwork or perhaps even Fiverr. Alternatively, you could purchase a video editing suite and learn to do everything yourself. That method might save you a bit more money, though you might end up spending a lot more time learning how to edit videos on your own. This takes time away from your media marketing. That might not be the best trade-off, depending on your circumstances. As mentioned, you don’t want to over-edit your videos, though you want to give them a sense of style that separates you from the crowd. Often, the easiest way to do this is by having custom intro music and a custom title screen. Another way that you can post incredible content is by creating videos based on your product being used. Demonstration videos can go a long way in showcasing your product as something worth buying. You can even turn some of your blog posts into videos. Nearly 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read a chunk of text. Okay, so that’s the basics of creating incredible content. The next point will be essential if you want to ensure that your YouTube subscriber rates grow consistently over time. Get More YouTube Views by Posting Often and ConsistentlyThis is probably the hardest part of growing a YouTube following — though it can also be one of the most important. The average company posts 18 YouTube videos a month. Posting content consistently is a great way for you to compete. Plus, if you’re constantly posting new content, then people have a reason to become a subscriber and share it on their social networks. After all, people are less likely to subscribe if you’re not going to post any more content — why should they? If you use the tips mentioned earlier, then coming up with ideas for posting new content is pretty easy. You just need to set a schedule and stick to it. How Often Should You Post New YouTube Videos?If you want to keep things simple, look at what your competition is doing, and then one-up them. If they are posting twice a week, aim for three times a week. Sometimes, however, the best plan is the one you can stick to. Consistency in your media marketing campaign is important, as it’ll keep existing subscribers coming back for more. This will result in more YouTube views — and also improve engagement. Engagement on a video tends to come in the following forms:
Ideally, you want to improve the engagement levels in each of these categories through any social media site. People like to engage with content on YouTube — did you know that over 100 million people per week take a ‘social action’ on YouTube every week? Another mind-blowing fact is that 700 videos are shared every minute on Twitter. So while YouTube is not a social media site, it is a valuable tool for any social media marketing platform. Great engagement will help make the video more visible in the YouTube search engine. This will expose your video to more people, who can then become subscribers themselves. If you want to view some statistics in terms of how your videos perform, you can use the YouTube analytics dashboard. You don’t have to be at a computer to post content consistently. That’s because you can use the scheduling feature provided by Google. To gain access to this feature, you must first turn on monetization for your videos. This means that you are willing to show ads on your videos. If you don’t want to show ads on your videos, don’t worry. You still have control over which videos are monetized and which ones aren’t. Let’s take a look at how you can get that done.
Now, you’ll be able to access the scheduling features provided by YouTube to program your media platform. You’ll also be able to access a lot more in the way of YouTube analytics. If you want to schedule a video, click on the ‘Upload’ button. Then click on the dropdown menu and select the ‘Scheduled’ option. Then drag and drop your video, or click the icon to upload it. On the next screen, you can adjust the scheduling options. Now enter the date and time you want the video to go live. If people are subscribed to your channel, they’ll get a message when your video goes live. Make sure to schedule that date into your social media management platform, if you have one. This will ensure that Tweets, Facebook updates, and LinkedIn posts are sent out simultaneously. If you have an email list relevant to your video, you might even want to send a message out to those folks. Consider staggering the messages, so you’re not bombarding people on multiple platforms all at once. Consider Turning Long Videos into Multiple Short VideosIf you’re struggling to develop content ideas daily, consider splitting up longer videos into several shorter ones. In long videos, you likely cover several points about one main topic. You could edit out certain topics and then create mini videos using those topics. Shorter videos are more convenient for social network sharing. In fact, Hubspot found that 2 minutes is the optimal video length on YouTube for their audience. You’ll notice that the channel ‘Inside Quest’ does this a lot. Here’s one of the videos on their channel. Note how it is nearly 49 minutes long: For someone new to the channel, that video length can be pretty intimidating. So, they have broken down the video into some ‘highlight clips,’ covering interesting points and topics. Note how short each of these videos is — just around a minute. Short videos can be a great way to introduce people to your channel by giving them a taste of your content and building your media marketing campaign. Create Evergreen YouTube VideosA great way to consistently generate subscribers is by creating evergreen content. These are videos that will relevant whether they are viewed today or five years in the future. This will apply to some niches more than others. For example, I spoke earlier about the pencil drawing business, which naturally lends itself to producing a lot of evergreen content. A video about Instagram marketing, however, might be out of date in five years. Take a look at your niche and see if you can create ‘how-to’ videos that will stand the test of time. Even if you’re not looking to create evergreen content, it’s worth creating ‘how-to’ videos to provide value. Optimize Your Videos to Increase YouTube SubscribersBefore anyone can become a subscriber to your channel, they need to first click on your videos. No matter how good your video is, once it is seen in the YouTube search engine or sidebar, it will have some competition in the form of other videos. So how do you get people to pay attention to and click on your video? You need to focus on three areas — the headline, the thumbnail, and the description. These three elements will have the biggest impact on influencing YouTube users to click on your videos. Be sure the meta tag is relevant and includes key points. This is because they’ll help your rankings in the YouTube search engine. They’ll also improve your videos’ ability to entice users to click on them and share them on social media. YouTube categories and cards can also drive clicks, so we’ll cover those too. How to Create a Good Headline for YouTube VideosIf your video is based on a certain keyword, then the video’s title must include this keyword. When you do this, you increase the chances of someone clicking on your video. If the video’s title matches what they were searching for, they’ll assume that the video covers everything that they need to know about that topic. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should be ridiculous in how you’re creating your titles. ‘Keyword stuffing’ can hurt you much more than it can help you. One way you can get around this problem is by using a colon. For instance, earlier, we identified the keyword — ‘simple drawing techniques.’ If we had a video on that topic, we could write the headline like this — ‘Simple drawing techniques: 5 tips that will make drawing easier.’ Side note: An interesting experiment might be to split the ‘simple drawing techniques’ title into separate niches. This is a common social media marketing technique for blogs and helps videos too. For example, ‘simple drawing techniques for cars’ or ‘simple drawing techniques for eyes.’ This is a great example of how you can take a big niche or keyword that is receiving a lot of traffic and identify opportunities within that niche. As I mentioned, you’ll have to experiment a little when you do things this way. But, there’s no telling what kind of opportunities you might uncover. As you can see in the example above, the video title uses a colon to separate the text. You’ll also notice that there are videos where the ‘|’ symbol is being used. You’ll have to test which one works better, though it could just be that this symbol serves a similar purpose to what the colon would have done. When it comes to creating YouTube headlines, you’ll want to follow the rules that already exist for blog posts. You need to have a mix of something that people are searching for and something that grabs their attention. This is core media marketing that can lead to social network inclusion. You can do that by using the keyword your video targets in the headline and then including power words in the gaps. As we’ve discussed, the style of your videos is going to influence the headline. If you have a ‘how-to’ video, then you’ll need to account for that in your headline. Similar to blog post headlines, numbers also tend to work well in YouTube headlines. Use Engaging YouTube ThumbnailsWhen it comes to the thumbnail, there are a couple of approaches that you could take. The first is to show a clear image of whatever the video is about. For example, if you’re talking about a laptop, you’d want to include a picture of a laptop. Like this: Alternatively, you could just show a picture of a person interacting with whatever the video is about. Like this example: However, one of the increasingly powerful ways of creating video thumbnails is by adding text, like this: Don’t just drop some text and call it good. You can also heavily edit the thumbnail image so that it clearly stands out. Here’s another one: If you want to create thumbnails like this, you need to follow these rules. How to Create a Custom Thumbnail for YouTube VideosYou can create a thumbnail using Canva. If you want to learn more about using Canva, going through their initial setup process might be helpful. They have a YouTube thumbnail template, so use that to get started. If you have some images of your own, you can upload them and then overlay text onto them. I’ve just gone with the option of creating a basic thumbnail from scratch. Obviously, you can create something much better than this. If you want to upload a custom thumbnail for a video, just go through the normal upload process. On the page where you can adjust the video information, pick the ‘Custom thumbnail’ option. You’ll then have a custom thumbnail that will be shown around the YouTube platform. Create Better YouTube DescriptionsCreating a description for your YouTube videos could become an entire post in itself. We’re going to cover the basics here. You need to keep in mind that you have a lot of space here, and YouTube tends to use what you say to rank your content. Don’t ignore the meta tag and its importance. The first couple of lines on your description should be written so that they are easy to read in the search results. Here’s a great example. In this section, you may want to use some of the keywords you used in your title. That way, you can ensure that it has some coherence. This will also improve the ranking ability of your video. When people click on your video, they have the option to click on the ‘Show More’ text. This will expand the description. You can use this space to insert a ‘subscribe to channel’ link. If you want to do that, use the following link format -- Make sure that you enter your channel name after the ‘=.’ So, for Kissmetrics, it would be -- When people click on this link, they’ll be taken to your channel page, where a subscribe box will pop-up. You can also enter some other information, such as your other social media profiles, important links, and even your content posting schedule in the description. You can also describe the things that are being discussed in your video, like this -- You could even highlight what is discussed at certain time sections in your video like this: 21:48 – How to prevent your website from being penalized by Google. These timestamps will actually take those who click on them directly to the specified location in the video. Add Tags to Increase YouTube ViewsIt’s also important to add tags. This will help improve the chances of your video appearing in the YouTube search engine. You don’t want to use anything that is misleading here. Have a mix of some really specific tags that describe your video. Then, add a few broad tags that are still related to the genre. There’s no harm in using some of the suggested tags provided by YouTube, as long as they align with what your video is actually about. Use YouTube CardsYouTube Annotations used to be the best way to engage users by directly adding links and other content to your video. However, annotations were disruptive and were discontinued and then deleted in 2019. Today, you have the option of using YouTube cards. You can add up to five cards to your video with a customized image, text, and call to action. Here’s how you would go about creating a ‘YouTube card’ for your video. Select the ‘Video’ option inside of the ‘Video Manager.’ Then click on the ‘Edit’ drop-down menu for the video you want to add a card to. Then select the ‘Cards’ option. You should then see this screen. Click on the ‘Add card’ option and then choose the ‘Channel.’ Then, enter your channel name and add text. The teaser text is the text that appears on the little graphic that appears in the video. Here is how it will look: If you want to adjust when the card displays the ‘teaser text,’ adjust the slider below. You’ll notice, however, that the ‘i’ will always be visible in the video. If people hover their mouse cursor over the ‘i,’ they’ll see the following. This card will also appear at the time that you have chosen above. Clicking on this will take users straight to your YouTube channel. However, no subscriber box will pop-up. Engage Your YouTube AudienceAnother way to boost your YouTube subscriber numbers is by engaging with your audience and creating a community. There are several ways that you can do this. Respond to YouTube Viewer CommentsResponding to comments is a simple — but effective — way to engage users. This will show YouTube viewers that you value their opinion. Plus, the fact that you’re going through this effort might encourage them to subscribe. You could even argue that this counts as customer service work that improves the customer experience. When you look at it through that lens, you use the fact that 22% of people post positive things on social networks about a company after having previously posting something negative — all because they got a response. If you’re getting any negative comments on your YouTube videos, address them promptly. This can increase YouTube subscribers because people see this interaction and appreciate the fact that you engage. Host a Q&A SessionYou can do this using Google Hangouts on Air or YouTube Live. You might even just ask at the end of a video for viewers to post their questions in the comments section. Then, in the next video, you could spend some time going through the questions you received. Ask Viewers What They WantAnother way to engage your audience is by creating videos based on what they want. For example, you could use a survey to ask your audience what they want to see you talk about. You can then create a video based on a viewer’s suggestions and call them out in the video to say thank you. Consider Collaborating With Other YouTube Video CreatorsWhen it comes to boosting subscriber numbers, you also have the option of doing collaborations with people in your industry. Collaborations can massively boost your video marketing efforts. If you go about things in the right way, you may just end up joining the 18% of companies that regard their video marketing as ‘very successful.’ The best way to go about this is to find channels with a similar audience. Both of you could then arrange an event where you can both benefit from the interaction. When you collaborate, you must encourage people to subscribe to your channel. Also, make sure the videos you publish immediately after the collaboration are amazing, so they want to subscribe. Host Interviews to Increase YouTube SubscribersAlternatively, consider doing interviews on your channel. If you can find a way to interview the top people in your niche, you’ll be able to attract their audience to your channel. When your channel has a decent number of subscribers, you’ll have a greater ability to attract these opportunities. Of course, you shouldn’t let low subscribers be an impediment that stops you from trying. Email a few people who might be worth having on your channel and ask them if they’d be willing to be a guest. If they say no, respectfully ask if they’d be willing to do a show when your channel has more subscribers. See if they can provide you with a ballpark figure that they’d be happy with. You don’t want to be rude, but there’s nothing wrong with asking for a potential future way to make it happen. Consider YouTube AdsI’ve already spoken extensively about using YouTube Ads. To get the most out of ads, target keywords your videos are created around. This will ensure that your videos appear at the top of the search results when people enter that keyword. If you are just getting started, you might want to get a feel for the platform first. But, if you’ve got a solid YouTube monetization plan, ads can be an effective way to drive subscribers and YouTube views. ConclusionIgnoring the potential on YouTube is a huge mistake. One of the keys to consistent success on YouTube is increasing your subscriber count — but don’t fall victim to those buy YouTube subscribers scams. Instead, work to create exceptional content that will keep your audience coming back for more. Then, make people want to click on your content using brilliant thumbnails and killer headlines that draw them in. When people finally click on your video, then you can ask for a subscription. Once you’ve got those fundamentals down, you’re free to experiment with things like collaborations and YouTube Ads. If you put enough effort in, you’ll see those subscriber numbers start climbing — which can lead to website clicks and more. All you need to do is get started! What have you found to be useful when it comes to boosting subscriber numbers on YouTube? The post How to Double Your YouTube Subscribers (Without Buying Them) appeared first on Neil Patel. Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-real-secret-to-growing-your-youtube-subscribers/ via https://neilpatel.com The original post, How to Double Your YouTube Subscribers (Without Buying Them), has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/how-to-double-your-youtube-subscribers-without-buying-them/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com As a digital marketer, you know just how important the tone and message of your blog are to the overall success of your business. A cohesive approach to your digital content, especially the content on your blog, is critical to your brand. The best way to ensure your site is editorially cohesive is with an editorial style guide. This article will walk you through the basics of an editorial style guide. You’ll learn the steps you need to follow to create your own style guide whether from scratch, with the use of a template, or with help from a freelancer. What is an Editorial Style Guide?An editorial style guide is a set of guidelines for the writers and editors on your team. These guidelines will include standards for grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and image use. The goal of a style guide is to ensure your content stays consistent and high quality no matter who is writing or editing the article. Why Does Your Website Need an Editorial Style Guide?More than just a preferred list of grammar rules, an editorial style guide provides your content team with guidelines for the creation of useful, on-brand content. An editorial style guide ensures a standard baseline for quality and consistency. This will become more critical as your in-house editorial team grows. Perhaps you think your website is too small, or you can always create your content now and flesh out the details later. The truth is, the sooner you can get your editorial style and processes nailed down, the less work for you and your team. Without clear guidelines in place, your inbox will soon be flooded with questions from your writers and editorial staff. Your editorial staff may think that lack of guidelines gives them free reign over content. This may result in inconsistent and maybe even poor quality work that has your brand name all over it. Elements of a Style GuideThere are specific elements all style guides should include, such as: GrammarDo you expect your writers to use the Oxford comma? Are there instances where you prefer the semicolon over the em-dash? These are the grammatical rules to call out in your style guide. Other grammatical elements to take a stand on include where punctuation falls in relation to quotation marks (inside or outside), prepositions at the end of a sentence, and starting sentences with conjunctions. SpellingA subscription to services like Grammarly takes care of the majority of misspellings. There may be times where a word can be spelled correctly in two or more ways, so which one should your writers choose? The most common spelling differences are those with American English versus British English variations. Examples include:
You should consider where the majority of your audience lives when deciding on a spelling “style.” But the most important thing is to choose one style and be consistent. Voice and ToneThe voice is the overall expression of your brand, while the tone is how that message is delivered. The tone will vary depending on the medium (e.g. social media post, blog post, newsletter, press release), but the overall brand voice will be your writers’ guiding light. Is your brand voice considerate and simple like Uber or functional and expressive like Starbucks? Once you have found your brand voice’s sweet spot, it’s time to determine what your tone is and when that may change depending on the medium or circumstances. Perhaps your tone is casual and conversational in blog posts, but witty in social media posts. You’ll want to include relevant examples here as Uber does in the Applications section of their style guide. These will help to solidify your stance while also giving your writers a handy guide to refer to should they need it. Sentence and Paragraph LengthFrom witty one-liners to groupings of five to six sentences, there are many valid ways to form a paragraph. Here you want to outline your general preference and when exceptions should be made. On academic websites, for example, longer sentences and paragraphs are the norm. This is because there is a lot of high-level information that needs to be delivered at once. On recipe or hobby blogs, however, shorter sentences and paragraphs can help to drive a point home. LinksThis section of your style guide should discuss how links on your blog should be formatted, but also how often to use links and to where (e.g. external versus internal content). If you’re a medical or academic marketer, for example, you may require that links to outside sources meet a minimum quality standard. If that’s the case, you should provide explicit examples of websites and sources that you trust. ResourcesYour editorial style guide should be in-depth, but if it’s too long it can be difficult for your writers and editors to use effectively. One way to reduce your style guide’s length without compromising content is with resources. The resource section of your style guide should include links to guides that you have properly vetted. These may include:
You want to set up your writers to be self-sufficient. An expansive resource section within your editorial style guide is a great place to start. Images and Other Media in an Editorial Style GuideIf you encourage the use of images and other media in your website content, you’ll need to be explicit about formatting, attribution, content, and more. What do these elements cover?
There are very real potential consequences to improperly attributed imagery, so this part of your style guide should be very specific. It’s best to provide examples and even templates for your writers and editors to use. Creating Your Editorial Style GuideNow you’re ready to create your own style guide. Where should you begin? Before you become overwhelmed with the process, let’s discuss three ways you can go about creating your own style guide. Hiring a Freelancer to Create Your Editorial Style GuideYou can hire a freelancer for just about any blog or website-related task, so why not consider hiring a freelancer to create your style guide? Freelancers with experience in writing industry-specific content, including style guides, do exist. If you can find a freelancer with experience creating a style guide in your field, then even better! There are various freelance recruitment platforms, such as Freelancer and Upwork. You can also reach out to your personal and professional network for recommendations. An experienced freelancer can walk you through the process of editorial style guide creation. You should come to the table with some information prepared, though. For example:
You hired the freelancer for their knowledge and expertise, so don’t forget to utilize it. If your freelancer has created an editorial style guide in your niche, then ask them for recommendations based on their previous work. You may be surprised at the sections you didn’t even think to add, and others that you can cut. Using this previous experience can boost the quality of your style guide and prevent issues caused by ambiguity. Creating an Editorial Style Guide From a TemplateIf a freelancer isn’t in your budget, you don’t have to go it alone. There are many style guide templates available for you to work with. The best place to look for such templates is on marketing, branding, and design blogs. TechWhirl offers a Word document template for download, and Lucidpress has its own template you can customize using their online editor. You may also have luck with template repositories like this one from Microsoft. The important thing to remember is a template is a guide, not a rule book. You don’t need to include all of its sections, and you’re free to add any sections you feel necessary. Creating Your Own Editorial Style GuideIf you prefer to create your own style guide from scratch, then consider the step-by-step process outlined below. Start With a Solid BaseAt this stage, it’s time to choose an established style guide as your base. There are plenty of options as described below, including APA and MLA. By choosing one of these guides as your baseline, you make it easy to create the foundation of your style guide. These established guides already include rules on grammar, structure, and formatting. You can then build upon those rules to create a robust editorial style guide for your website. Establish Brand Voice and Set the ToneTwo critical elements of marketing content are often overlooked: brand voice, and tone. The reason these are so often overlooked isn’t because they’re unimportant, but because they can be difficult to distinguish. The voice is your brand’s personality. This remains the same throughout the life of your brand. Skittles, for example, has a playful and upbeat voice. Their marketing campaigns are slightly fantastical with an eye towards bright colors, loud sounds, and catchy quips. The tone is the inflection on your brand voice that will change depending on the situation. Even if you have an army of writers, you can ensure your blog stays cohesive by setting a tone for your writers and editors to abide by. Remember the Big Three: Tense, Voice, and Point of ViewNow you know the tone of your content, it’s time to outline the “how-to.” How do you intend for your writers to speak to your audience? The answer will depend on the tense, voice, and point of view you prefer. Writing tense refers to the three tenses: past, present, and future. There may be reasons all three tenses are used on your website or blog. You should still pick a dominant tense for your writers to defer to in most circumstances. Voice refers to active voice versus passive voice. That means putting the subject first (active) or putting the object first (passive). Active voice is the standard for most bloggers and marketers. It offers a more conversational tone readers find compelling. Point of view refers to the perspective of the writer: first, second, or third person. Bloggers and marketers will typically utilize first person (“I” statements) or second person (“You” statements). The point of view you choose will depend largely on your content niche and your overall tone. It’s best to have a default recommendation for all three of the above. You may include exceptions to the rule, but be sure to provide specific examples if you do so. Establish Standard FormattingThe way your content flows is largely dependent on its formatting. Some basic formatting guidelines to consider are headers and subheaders, bold and italic text, and hyperlinking text. You may want to consider your content management system and any potential limitations when it comes to header tag guidelines. If you are heavily relying on a style guide such as the APA, you can utilize their recommendations for text formatting. For example, italicizing terms that have a technical or special meaning. Define Image RequirementsThere are many good reasons to include imagery on your website. However, images can take up precious space, and they come with their own copyright risks. This is why you must define image requirements within your style guide. On the technical side, you should define minimum and maximum image size. This will largely depend on your content platform, and it may vary by image type (featured image versus in-content image). With copyright infringement always being a risk, you also want to provide strict requirements when it comes to including images in content. If you use a premium image repository, like Shutterstock, you may include account login details in this part of your style guide. You can also link to free image repositories such as Unsplash or Pexels. Beyond that, you should clearly outline (with examples) the desired format for image references. What should be included, and how should it be formatted? Again, it may be helpful to fall back on your chosen style guide’s standard. Incorporate Standards of PerformanceHow will your writers know when they hit the nail on the head or, conversely, miss the mark? This is where standards of performance come in handy. Standards of performance are guidelines that your writers and editors can refer to when evaluating their content piece. The more objective your standards of performance, the better. When it comes to establishing standards of performance, it helps to think of a grading rubric. For each standard, it’s possible to score anywhere from one to five points. What standards can you choose that will be easy to evaluate on a five-point scale? A few examples include:
The standards of performance will be beneficial to your writers, as well as your editorial staff. Picking a Preexisting Editorial Style Guide as a BaseThe likelihood is something will inadvertently be left out of your editorial style guide. This is why having a default style guide for your writers and editors to refer to is crucial. These style guides have typical use cases, though they can be adapted for uses beyond the norm. Let’s look at the four most common style guides. Associated Press (AP)The Associated Press (AP) style guide is most commonly used by journalists. Its focus is on disseminating information clearly with simple formatting. American Psychological Association (APA)The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide is most commonly used in college in science and social science courses. It has a slightly more formal bent than the MLA, though not so formal as the Chicago Manual of Style. This style guide is ideal for academic writing, including blogs or websites dedicated to discussing academic subjects. Modern Language Association (MLA)The Modern Language Association (MLA) style guide is most commonly used in college-level English courses, and it’s also the default for many bloggers, marketers, and content writers. This guide offers a more laid-back approach desirable to writers, editors, and readers alike. Chicago Manual of StyleThe Chicago Manual of Style is the most rigorous of the style guides. This style guide isn’t a popular choice for most bloggers due to its meticulous nature. The key differences between the four style guides are largely related to formatting, though there are some grammatical and structural variations as well. There isn’t one style guide better than the other as they all have their strengths and weaknesses. The guide you choose will depend largely on preference, ease of use, and familiarity. Picking a Platform to Host Your Editorial Style GuideYou’re ready to create your style guide, but where should you host it? You have a few options, and they each have their pros and cons. Microsoft WordA word document is perhaps the simplest option. The most obvious limitation of word documents is the inability to automatically update the guidelines. You would need to send the updated document out to all writers and editors as additions or changes are made. Google DocsIf you like the idea of a simple document, then consider Google Docs. You will still have access to the basic content tools offered by a word document, but updates will be reflected live. You can also collaborate with members of your editorial team. SharepointPerhaps you want a more secure platform than Google. If that’s the case, then Sharepoint may be for you. Sharepoint is compatible with the Microsoft Suite, including Word. Using Sharepoint, you can upload an already existing Word document or create your own within the platform. Just like Google Docs, your changes are reflected immediately and you can collaborate with as many team members as needed. ConfluenceIf more robust collaboration is needed, especially when you’re just beginning to create your editorial style guide, you may prefer a platform like Confluence. This is a wiki-style platform that enables you to create your style guide with your team. Resources to Create a Quality Editorial Style GuideAs you create your style guide, you’ll find yourself going down many rabbit holes. With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of helpful resources to get you started on your research. To familiarize yourself with institutional style guides, check out these resources on the AP, APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style style guides. Are you finding yourself needing some inspiration? Take a look at the style guides created by institutions like Princeton and Rutgers. Your favorite companies and brands may also have their style guides publicly available, including Mailchimp, Google, and Atlassian. ConclusionAn editorial style guide ensures there is no ambiguity in your requirements. When utilized correctly, this style guide will help you to maintain a high standard of quality for your site and consistency across your written content. It can also clear up any confusion or questions from your team and contractors, to cut down on the back and forth questions. What unique elements will you be sure to include in your editorial style guide? The post How to Create an Editorial Style Guide appeared first on Neil Patel. Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/editorial-style-guide/ via https://neilpatel.com The original post, How to Create an Editorial Style Guide, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/how-to-create-an-editorial-style-guide/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com |
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