The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

The Found Gen

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How to Build a Blog Strategy That Works for You

Have a website but no site visitors? It could be because your blog is lost in the Google wastelands, or worse, you don’t have a blog at all. If you want to improve traffic to your website and start converting prospects to customers, there’s a relatively simple and cost-effective way to do so. While it does not guarantee overnight success (slow and steady truly wins the race here), an effective blog strategy will in nearly all cases move the needle on your website’s performance. And when your website performs better, more customers will find you and more sales are sure to be had. Here’s where to start.

Building Out Your Blog Marketing Strategy

Step one in developing a blog strategy is to first have a blog. If you’re brand new to the blogging game, you may want to just ask for some help. It’s not hard, but there can be a learning curve depending on which web hosting provider you use.  

Once your main blog page is built, it’s time to get serious about strategy. Sure, you could just post random thoughts of the day but that takes the whole “strategy” component out of the equation. Your blog needs to be intentional if you want it to be effective. These are ways to focus those intentions.

  • Decide who will write and manage your blog – There are a few logistical things you’ll need to figure out as you launch your blog. One is deciding who will write your posts and manage their publication. You may have just one writer or a small team of writers, or you might decide to outsource this job to a marketing agency. Regardless of who does the writing, each post should have a similar tone and voice, so you showcase a consistent brand message to readers. Here are some other tips for whipping up a winning blog post.
  • Decide on cadence – How frequently do you want to publish content? To optimize your site for search engines like Google, we recommend publishing fresh content at least once a week. Internet bots index sites roughly once a month so offering new blogs for the bots to chomp on will help you score favorably on search engine results. 
  • Create a content calendar – This is where you will map out your blogging strategy. It can be useful to take a 12-month view so you can consider your full business cycle as you align content in your calendar to your business goals. If you still don’t know where to start, an easy place is always with the seasons. For example, a gratitude post in November always hits home. Another thing to think about is how your content can build off itself. Consider content themes that all tie together. This will help position you as an authority on certain topics and will give you a boost when it comes to all the backlinking you’ll be able to do.
  • Research keywords – As part of your content calendar development, you’ll also want to account for all those search terms your clients are looking for. Spend some time doing keyword research and incorporate those findings into your strategic plan. 
  • Promote your blog – Your blog does not live in a silo. It should be connected to all your other marketing efforts. While over time, site rankings on Google will improve as more pages on your site get indexed, this doesn’t happen overnight. You need another way for people to find your content. Promoting posts in your newsletter or on social media sites is an effective way to generate new traffic.
  • Track and analyze blogging metrics – Lastly, your blog strategy should continually be refined, and you do this by monitoring metrics. Which pages are getting the most views, how long are people staying on your site, where is your traffic coming from? All these indicators will help inform your content plan as you move ahead. 

When done right, your blog will transform your website’s performance and deliver new clients by the dozens. If you’re curious about how we can help you maximize your web presence and increase your conversions, give our team at The Found Gen a call today.

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What Constitutes a Good Blog Post

A good blog post is part art, part science. The art part has to do with how well you engage, inform and entertain your readers, while the science component has to do with how successfully you achieve back-end SEO objectives. 

A good blog post is in no way formulaic, but there are some elements that differentiate the best from the rest. Here are a few noteworthy features to keep in mind when writing your next blog post:

  • Tune in to your audience – We produce content for people. It can be easy to forget who’s on the other end of your post when sitting at your desk, but this is rule number one for creating captivating content. Your blog needs to meet a need – maybe it’s answering a specific question, offering new information, sharing tips, or just generally being useful. Don’t lose sight of who you are writing to when sitting down to draft a post.
  • Make it readable – Readers seek out your content because they are looking for information, and when you can provide that information in an engaging and fun way, you’ll be rewarded with loyal readers who may even convert to customers (that’s right, blogging for the win!). The key to a good post starts with a strong headline and captivating lead. Then, you can improve the readability (and scannability) of your blog by adding headers to break up large chunks of text, using bullet points, and including images or break-out boxes to add visual variety to your page.
  • Consider length – We’re often asked if there’s a perfect length for a blog post. In times like these, we can’t help but harken back to our high school English class days when our teachers would remind us that it’s not about word count but about answering the question effectively. Can you write a very good blog post in fewer than 300 words? Yes. Can you write a very good blog post in more than 1,000 words? Yes. The point is: take as long as you need to write the best post possible to achieve your objective (though 300-500 words will usually do). You’ll start to lose readers if the post gets too long just for the sake of word count. Side note: it can, however, be useful to sprinkle in an occasional longer post here and there to help the internet bots as they index your site. Google does love itself a good long-form post with lots of backlinks that demonstrate your credibility and know-how.
  • Don’t forget keywords – Don’t take this as permission to start keyword-stuffing your posts, but we can’t deny that keywords matter to SEO. Include keywords in your meta description, url and image alt text. A few relevant keyword placements in your post title, intro and conclusion don’t hurt either. 
  • End with a call to action (CTA) – Lastly, you want to end by telling your readers where to turn next. Maybe it’s another blog post with more information about the same topic or an ask to subscribe to your newsletter. Whatever it is, make sure it’s relevant to the content of your post and continues to guide them to a next step.

There’s no one way to write a perfect blog post – and you wouldn’t want them all to be the same anyway. Keeping content fresh, varied and personal is the best way to remain engaging with your readers and relevant to search engines. If you find yourself stuck as you get started with writing, just ask us for help.

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Why is Blogging So Vital for SEO Marketing?

Here’s the hard truth: When it comes to the World Wide Web, Google still reigns supreme, and if you are not a loyal servant to the Google gods, your site will plummet to the depths of the deepest crevasse and customers will never, ever find you.

Is that doomsday enough for you?

Fortunately, we have an easy solution to shake the dark and dreary clouds that have just descended upon you, and it starts with blogging. Even better is that it’s an inexpensive strategy that delivers a major return on investment.

What is SEO Marketing?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy that aims to improve a website’s ranking in search engine results so your site can land near the top of a user’s search. The effort includes writing content (i.e., blog posts), adding backlinks, using relevant keywords, adding meta descriptions, optimizing images and applying other backend configurations to optimize your website. 

How Does Blogging Help with SEO?

The primary reason blogging helps with search engine optimization has to do with crawlers (and not the creepy kind). Web crawlers are internet bots that systematically browse the internet for indexing. Indexing is basically Google reading your webpage to assess what content is on the page so that later it can use this information to determine how useful your site will be in a search result. 

Web crawlers comb through hundreds of billions of web pages every few days to roughly a month. As they crawl, these bots organize data, follow links and bring back all this collected information to Google’s servers. 

To remain relevant with Google, you need to demonstrate to the internet bots that your website is keeping fresh. You do this by blogging. When you add at least four new pages of content to your site every 28 days, the bots will keep chomping on your site, and you’ll be in the best position to boost your SEO ranking.

What’s Next?

At the end of the day, Google favors websites that are relevant and useful to a user’s search. A website that’s stagnant and old doesn’t have a lot to offer in terms of engaging with customers’ current conversations. Remain relevant and searchable by giving your blog a little boost. We can help. Contact our team at The Found Gen to get started.

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When is the Best Time for Client Appreciation?

Everyone expects a little lovin’ on their birthdays and holidays, but the notes of affection and gifts of gratitude that really hit home are the ones that come on a random Tuesday in August. Yes, it’s those unexpected moments that surprise and delight that truly make for a memorable and impactful impression. And isn’t that the whole point of client appreciation anyway? It’s to let our best customers know we think they’re amazing (and to remind them, hey, by the way, don’t forget about us either!).

What is Client Appreciation?

Client appreciation is not some shady sales strategy to bribe customers into buying from you. When done right, and by that we mean genuinely showing your customers you care about them and understand their needs, client appreciation can boost your retention rates and increase your ROI.

When is the Right Time to Show Appreciation?

There’s no right or wrong time to celebrate your customers. While National Customer Appreciation Day is April 18, you don’t need to wait for a holiday to show your appreciation. You can make a big deal out of any day of the year! 

The choice of when to show gratitude can be random or planned, but keeping your sales cycle in mind when selecting a date may improve its effectiveness. One idea is to choose a day during a traditionally slower time of year to boost sales. Alternatively, you could offer discounts during an already busy time of year to further augment a sales boom. 

Ways to Show Appreciation

Get clients excited about client appreciation day by slathering on as much fun or oozing out as much cheese as appropriate for your brand and story. Let them know the day is coming by whipping together a fun marketing campaign to build suspense. Here are some ways you can show clients how much you love them:

  • Offer a free gift with purchase (maybe it’s a personalized gift?)
  • Share discount codes or gift cards
  • Write an old-fashioned thank you card
  • Spotlight customer success stories
  • Consider philanthropic opportunities

As you develop your client appreciation strategy, consider your business, your brand and (duh!) your customers. Put yourself in your client’s shoes to determine what token of appreciation you would most enjoy and use that as a starting point to build out your marketing campaign. If you’re at a loss of where to start, fear not. Just give us a call today. If there’s one thing we love more than showing our customers a little love, it’s helping our clients do the same for theirs. 

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Content Marketing is Not New Age PR. Here’s Why.

With all the hype around content marketing in our ever-more digital worlds, it can be easy to make the assumption that content marketing is just PR of the future – hey, we’re all out there just trying to spread the word, right?

But, that’s where we’re going to stop you.

Content marketing and PR have two very different (albeit similar) objectives, and if we start treating them as one in the same, we risk diluting the effectiveness of both strategies.

Traditional PR, according to the Public Relations Society of America, is really focused on the perception and relationships formed between an organization and its public. Getting it right can be a herculean task. Getting it wrong can potentially damage a brand forever.

Content marketing is also focused on brand perception, but it goes about building brand recognition and trust in a much more specific way. According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing’s objective is to effectively reach an audience by providing “valuable, relevant, and consistent content… and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Whereas PR is concerned with “reach,” content marketing is driven by “action and conversions.”

Here at The Found Gen, when we partner with clients, our goal is not only to get more eyes on your message, product and services, but also to encourage readers and potential clients to go one step further and take action. Our content marketing objectives look a little something like this:

  • Consistently engage your audience with timely and useful content that answers their questions or helps them solve a problem.
  • Build your brand narrative by sharing stories and helping readers hear your authentic voice.
  • Establish trust between your audience and you by providing authoritative content.
  • Generate leads by writing click-worthy content and sharing them via a variety of channels and platforms (both digital and print).

Spreading the word about your awesome products or services is definitely a team effort and requires a multi-pronged approach, but when your goals are focused on conversions, a strategic content marketing plan will go a long ways towards helping you achieve them in a way PR just can’t do. Give us a call when you’re ready take your brand to the next level.

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Should You or Shouldn’t You Use Facebook Ad Manager To Distribute Content?

Whether you’re a novice marketer or have been doing this for your whole career, the basic principles of promoting and growing your business remain the same – you have to create the right message for the right people at the right time. If you can’t do that, you may as well be throwing your ad dollars out the window.

So, in a world of hyper social activity, short attention spans and even more ad clutter filling our screens, how is this even possible?

Enter Facebook Ad Manager.

Facebook can make it incredibly easy to target relevant content to the right audience and give you valuable reporting data, too. But before you go all in, let us help you break a few things down:

  • Cost –Facebook Ads can be very cost-effective. You are 100% in control of your budget, and you can run an effective ad campaign for less than you what you spend on your daily cup of joe.
  • Content –the number one thing you can do to ensure success with your Facebook ads is create relevant and engaging content that stops scrollers in their tracks. Even better, it should make them want to take action (e.g., learn more, take a quiz, buy your product, etc.).
  • Promotion –For the biggest bang for your buck, you have to be smart with what you choose to promote. Otherwise, what’s the point? Boosting your most popular content will put your best assets in front of the right audience.
  • Retargeting –If someone engages with your content, the best thing you can do to reward their interaction is serve them up additional content that provides even more information on the same or similar topic. With Facebook Ad Manager, you set the parameters for retargeting and then get ready to watch the leads roll in.

Bottom line: If done right, Facebook ads can be an effective tool in your marketing arsenal. If done poorly, well, we already talked about that…

When you’re ready to take the plunge into Facebook ads, give us a call. This stuff is right in our sweet spot.