7 Essential Skills Digital Content Writers Need

- What you should do as a writer is have concise statements. (soft, upbeat music) Before you start, make sure you subscribe to this channel. And if you're on YouTube, click the alert notification. - And now the first thing you list is Google Analytics. Now, can you tell us why it's so important for

writers

to understand, as well as marketers and businesses? - Sure, so if you're a writer, you're writing to attract more attention and eventually convert those eyeballs and attention into leads, right? Google Analytics tells you what

content

they like, what they don't, and what makes them bounce.

It won't explicitly tell you what is causing them to bounce, but you can make some educational guesses based on the data they provide. It will also tell you the type of

content

that converts best and the type of content that doesn't. That way, when you write, you can do it with the end goal in mind, which is eventually where you want to have a conversion, whether someone buys right then and there or becomes a lead, and that will give you that data. If you continually write and write blindly, and you write based on what people tell you is awesome, your friends do, that's cool and great and great, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what you're writing is going to convert. in income. - Well, that relates to the next topic, which is content strategy.

You know, obviously this is becoming an increasingly important skill. What do you think about it and where do you see the industry right now when it comes to content strategy? And again, the opportunity for

writers

? - Sure, there are more than a billion blogs on the Internet. That's about one for every seven people. There are many blogs. The amount of content published every day is overwhelming. We don't really

need

much more content, they're all regurgitating the same information. If you don't have a strategy, how are you going to be different? How are you going to stand out?

How are you going to convert people? What topics are you going to cover that will resolve your clients' points? If you don't have a strategy in place and an action plan, then all you're going to do is produce content that doesn't really do anything at the end of the day. Even if you think it's better to rely on analytical data, but you don't have the strategy and how you're going to attack it and how you're going to move forward, then you're just wasting your time. and energy. -So what are some of the ultimate goals of the strategy?

You know, when you say you

need

a strategy, well, how do I know where to start creating that strategy? - So the first step in this strategy is to attract attention. And what you'll want to do is see what's in your space that's popular. There is a tool called Ubersuggest that I have and you can use it for free. You can type a keyword or phrase and click when you're in Ubersuggest to go to the content ideas report, it will tell you what's popular as shared on social networks, like Facebook and Pinterest. Search traffic, what ranks well on Google and how much traffic you get and what keywords you rank for.

And the third thing is the links. What other sites link to it because they like the content? So you want to see the exact themes and title that are working well, and it will also show you in the tool what is not working well. Therefore, you should focus more on creating content that is popular and that people like. Now, you don't want to just copy that and regurgitate what already exists on the web, you want to make something that's better than that. Think skyscrapers. And in the United States we may have the Empire State Building, and then there may be someone in Dubai who says, ah, we're going to create the Burj Khalifa, I think that's what it's called.

And it will be even higher, it will be twice as tall. I'm making it up. Someone in China is going to say: we are going to triple the height, we are going to make our buildings reach the clouds. What I mean is that you want your content to stand out and be unique, going beyond what people are already doing. because if something is already popular and has done well, if you make something that is double or triple better, it is much more likely that your content will also do very well. - And I think it's also important for writers and marketers to take a step back and what is the end goal?

Is it just getting... Is the end goal really sales or is it just building the list? Is there different content for different purposes? - There is. And you know this better than anyone, right? If you're trying to get someone to opt-in to a lead, it's easier to get them to opt-in to a lead than it is to get them to buy. So if they opt in to a lead, you may just need to write content that gives them a quick solution or some educational tips. If you want someone to buy, you have to answer a lot more objections, direct points of view, social proof, all those things matter, right?

Then you have to think about what stage the person is in and what type of content they want to see. - Well. Now, I also heard you say that marketers need to learn how to leverage video content. Now, what do you think is the best way to do it? - The best way is to take out your phone (laughs), do it yourself and upload it to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Now some might say: Hey, how do I optimize it for SEO and get the most traffic? Don't worry about it at first. Only worry about connecting with people from the visual aspect, because nowadays everyone is watching content.

YouTube is very popular and even Facebook is, Instagram is, they all have videos. Even LinkedIn has video. If you can leverage video, you can build a deeper connection with people. That connection also builds trust and that's what helps people become customers too. - Alright. And that ties into one of the other

skills

that you recommend writers and marketers have to be successful in the

digital

world. And that storytelling is something that AWAI obviously focuses a lot of time and energy on, but I also love hearing it from your perspective. - The narration is amazing. If you don't tell stories, I don't know how you help people get through the ups and downs.

People need that emotional rollercoaster, just like they see on reality TV, unless it really gets them hooked, and storytelling has been that age-old marketing tactic that still works today. - Let's talk about email. I spoke with Ryan Deiss recently and he believes email is having a renaissance. And that's what cool kids do is what he said now. So how does email writing relate to your strategies, including bringing it to funnels, upsells, downsells, and everything else that emails work with? - Yes, what we found is that with emails, the faster you sell them, the more likely they are to convert.

Maybe it's just us. We don't believe that if they were on your list for a year, they are more likely to convert. They are more likely to unsubscribe by then. So try to get them as quickly as possible. But the key with emails is how to personalize them for whatever phase of the journey they are in. Today there is marketing automation. So if someone saw something, but didn't buy it, I would send them a different email compared to if they were just reading some educational article. And the key is to simply help them based on where they are in their journey.

And if you can have personalized emails for every step of the way, you're much more likely to convert. - So, in your opinion, what is changing? What are the big changes we are seeing in 2020? - Voice search is huge. According to Comscore, more than 50% of searches today are by voice. So... - Then I'm going to stop you for a minute. So, with that in mind, what does that mean? - So what does that mean, our first stop before we get into what you need to do as a writer is to have concise statements. Because if you are a writer and you write long answers to a question, think about Quora.

Quora is really popular and receives more than a hundred million visitors a month, according to Similarweb. And my number could be wrong, but I think it was kind of ridiculous, but either way it's popular. The reason it also happens is that with Quora you get short answers, right? Here is the question, here is the answer. That's what people want to hear. They don't want to ask Alexa a question and then read for five minutes. But as a writer, if you can't be concise and direct, you won't do well. - Well, that relates to short educational content, which I heard you talk about and you think is a growing trend.

Could you talk a little about that, please? - Yes, no one wants to... No one doesn't, actually that is an incorrect statement. Many people want faster on-demand content. So we found that hands-on education works very well. My friend and I, Eric Siu, have a podcast called Marketing School. We experimented with what happens if we do five-minute podcast episodes a day about something marketing-related, if you do it right, and we have over a million monthly listeners every month and it's been done well because people want quick information. Before that, he tried longer information and did fewer episodes, but we found a trend where people want quick, actionable information in the shortest time possible.

And that's what the study shows, right? They say humans have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. This shows that the faster you can transmit information, the better off you will be.