Content Marketing Archives • FocusCopy®

Answering Your Top Questions About Blogging For Your Business

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / March 13, 2023 March 13, 2023

What’s the big deal with blogs?

Don’t worry! You’re not the first to ask.

However, you’re the next to learn about the power behind writing blogs for your business!

Not all blogs are the same. And not all are created with sales in mind. Some people simply utilize blogging platforms to share their thoughts and practice their own writing skills.

But blogging for your business, if done right, just may be the key to growing your brand awareness and increasing revenue. I’m not a betting woman, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that right about now you’re thinking that sounds like a pretty good plan for your business.

If you’ve read this far, you’re at least a little interested in what all the blog is about. So I’m going to break down the top FAQs for writing blogs for your business.

The Top 6 FAQs For Writing Blogs For Your Business

We’ve put together the most common questions we receive about blogging for your business into a neat little package – this blog.

If you’re ready to see real results from your marketing efforts, we should chat.

Schedule a time to talk so we can take your marketing impact to new heights!

1. How Does One Start Blogging? Is There A Secret Club & Initiation?

There’s no secret society of bloggers. I mean, there might be…But I wasn’t invited to it. Did it stop me from blogging? Nope!

The truth is, the trick to writing a blog, like so many other things in life, is to simply start. Pick up the pen, sit at the computer, and get rid of that blank page before you. Seriously, open up that dirty window. Then, let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find. Okay…Sorry about The Hills reference.

Back to blogs…Whether or not you need a nostalgic song to kick-start your blog productivity to help grow your business, we’ve got you covered. The key is to truly get rid of the blinking white page on the screen. Simply start writing. Get your thoughts out. Go back and look at it with fresh eyes the next morning. Have a trusted confidant proofread and be receptive to their feedback.

Even the best of us suffer from writer’s block. But we’ve found that just getting started is the quickest way to make the hesitations and second-guessing disappear.

2. I’ve Read So Many Blogs With Different Formatting, Isn’t There A How-To Guide To Do It Right?

It’s great that so many people utilize blogging platforms to share their life. Does that mean all of them are doing it right?

Nope!

But we’re not judging anyone who’s doing their own thing. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere. However, if you want your blogs to make an impact on your business, it’s better to follow proven formatting methods.

For instance, Google (you know, the holy grail) uses an algorithm to rank websites on the search engine results page (SERP). The ranking is a direct result of search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. While yes, the algorithm constantly changes, professional writers like my team at FocusCopy keep up with the trends to help our clients achieve success.

However, there are some tried and true methods to the madness that will likely be sticking around. If you take a closer look at this blog you’re reading right now, you may notice our use of headers.

We usually start with a header 2 to re-emphasize the topic and keyword(s). Then the body of the blog is done in sections marked with header 3s. Any further differentiation in sections would happen in the next header down, and so on. It may seem silly, but Google cares about the difference in header sizes.

Moreover, the word count is also a biggie. So don’t go wild with a 4-thousand word blog. In fact, Google would prefer you keep it under 2-thousand words. The sweet spot is somewhere between 1200-1800 words. This excludes pillar posts.

Equally important is to keep the content between each header under 300 words. Yep, another surprising but factual point that can make a difference in your Google ranking.

Psst…We’re big fans of Yoast SEO to help keep our formatting, word count, and word usage in check.

3. Does The Number Of Blogs I Write & How Often I Post Them Matter?

Yup. But here’s the cool part…You don’t have to write more frequently than you want. It’s actually better that you remain consistent than spend your energy trying to reach unattainable goals. In the long run, setting unrealistic blog goals may even hurt your SEO efforts and, as a result, knock you down in the Google ranks.

Instead, you should focus on publishing blogs consistently. One a quarter, month, week – whatever works for you. Here’s another cool thing, you don’t have to wait until 3 days before your self-assigned publish date to start writing your blog for your business.

As professional copywriters, we prewrite many blogs for ourselves and our clients to have on hand to publish according to the schedule that works best for the respective company.

To get started, take a list of topics that:

You enjoy discussing
Facts you wish your target audience knew
Answers to the questions you receive most often

Then, schedule some time to sit down and write as much about each topic that you can. But don’t do your best and stash it away for 6 months. Schedule more time in the near future (like within the same week) to review your writing with fresh eyes. And finish it up! We recommend sending it to a friend, colleague, or family member to proofread. Trust me, you’d much rather your nearest and dearest point out your mistakes than hundreds of critics in the Reddit gallery.

Want a professional writer and editor to take a gander at your blog before you hit the big, shiny publish button? Well, you’re in luck because FocusCopy offers copyediting services for our entrepreneurs who enjoy writing for themselves. Schedule a discovery call with me today to learn how we can support your business’ marketing efforts.

4. With So Many Bloggers Out There, How Can I Make Mine Standout & Get Noticed?

SEO is the key to ranking high and getting noticed on the world wide web. With an estimated 7.5 million blogs posted every day, it may feel impossible to ever see your company at the very top of the SERP.

Don’t sell yourself short before you give it a try. We’ve proudly seen so many of our own clients rise through the ranks to the top spots with our blogging service.

The trick is to research, study, implement, and practice SEO. This means including keywords that your target audience is searching for online. And of course, sticking to the right formatting and word count. But it also goes so much further.

Google is smart enough to recognize AI-generated and poorly written content. Don’t expect to see those at the top. Instead, use power words and write like a human. Yes, the same writing style to engage your audience and convert them into paying customers also pays off in the SEO world. But with good SEO, that target market is more likely to actually see your brand messaging.

5. After Spending So Much Time Writing A Blog, Can I Make Further Use Of The Content?

Repurposing content is truly one of the tricks of the trade. We’ve also taught so many of our clients how to do this, too!

Say you have a blog. Does it focus on or mention any specific seasons or years? Are you referring to something that’s in the news right now? If so, that is a timely piece. Go ahead and publish it. Take out snippets to create social media posts to promote your blog. Then, re-work the same blog into an email newsletter to keep your best fan base in the know.

But if you’re not including time specific aspects…Congratulations – you have written an evergreen blog! This is a great asset to your marketing toolkit. You’ll be able to reshare, repurpose, and refer to this blog for years to come. Literally, evergreen content is such a blessing.

6. What If I Absolutely Despise Writing & The Thought Of Doing It Makes Me Cringe?

Then don’t ????????‍♀️ Work with a copywriter with a proven ability to enhance your business’ marketing for real growth.

At FocusCopy, we’ve created original content for over 100 businesses (let’s see where this number gets when we repurpose this blog in 7 years). This includes everything such as blogs, newsletters, grant proposals, social media posts, social media ads, LinkedIn articles, podcast scripts, promotional brochures, and so much more.

And we don’t blame you for hating writing. Because we love it. I mean, I created an entire business around it. Then, I hired copywriters who also love writing. Together we make up a team that supports our clients by taking on the task they either don’t want to do or don’t have time to do.

Leave Blogging To The Pros & Get Back To What Matters Most

If after reading this, you’re still not sold on writing your own blogs – that’s okay. But hopefully you’ve learned a few things about SERP, SEO, Google ranking, and are making plans to bolster your marketing plan.

We’re here to support you as a business partner by writing converting copy in your brand voice. Seriously, not even your sister will know someone else wrote it.

Schedule a discovery call with me and let’s get going on your blogging journey!

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

7 Reasons Why Blogging Is Important For Business

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / March 13, 2023 March 13, 2023

Are you a business owner with a blog you haven’t updated in a while?

Perhaps you’ve thought about launching a blog but aren’t completely sure why blogging is important for businesses.

As copywriters, one of the questions we receive most often includes whether businesses really need a blog or not. But, it’s a loaded question with a (somewhat) complicated answer.

You should first know that about 77% of people read blogs online regularly. That alone might not be enough to convince you to get going on your blogging journey, but you should also know that 61% of online users make a purchase after reading a blog.

See? You have much more of an influence than you might think.

Try to think of your business’s blog this way…

You don’t need to have an extra voice within your industry to be seen, heard, and understood. But wouldn’t it help if you did?

Interested in starting a blog for your business? Let’s talk about how a blog can help your profitability, brand awareness, and so much more.

1. Build Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness through your business’s blog makes customer interactions feel more like a friendly conversation instead of an outright sales pitch. If used the right way, your blog can be seen as a tool for your audience.

In fact, more than 40,000 Google searches occur every single second. Of these searches, many people turn directly to How To, DIY, and other blogs that teach them how to do something.

Whether it’s exactly what they were looking for or not, they increase engagement and web traffic for that business with every click. It’s like being able to walk down the street and pop into stores they’re interested in without feeling the immense pressure to purchase something.

If your audience likes what they see, they’re more likely to share it with friends, family, co-workers, and beyond. The more your message is spread, the more opportunities you have to make an impact with your business at the forefront.

2. Include Long-Tail Search Keywords

Long-tail keywords are essential for blog writing. This is because when most people perform an internet search for something, they usually type in a thought, phrase, or string of keywords that will give them the results they need.

For example, let’s say you’re a local bakery looking to drum up more business. Your audience could just search “sugar cookie” and end up with a few million results. But they’re much more likely to find exactly what they’re looking for by typing in more specific, long-tail keywords like “best classic sugar cookie recipe with butter” or something similar.

As your bakery’s blog creator, using the entire long-tail keyword within your heading, subheadings, and overall unique content pushes your blog to the top of a user’s search results. This means you’re more likely to be seen by your target audience.

Meanwhile, your target audience is more likely to click on your blog to find what they need and potentially explore other offerings like your products and services. They might even feel inclined to sign up for something – which leads us right into our next big benefit.

3. Construct A Larger Following

Use your blogs to attach powerful call-to-actions (CTAs) like:

Subscribe to our newsletter
Follow us on social media
Join our course
Download your free guide

And these are just to name a few!

Your CTA options are unlimited and serve as a great way to keep your audience engaged with your brand long after they’ve hit the little x button. Use your blog and a solid CTA to gain more followers interested in your brand.

4. Increase Crosslinking Opportunities

One of the best ways to create an authentic experience through your blogs is by crosslinking within them. Crosslinks in blogging are one of the best SEO tools you can use to improve your online presence. It boosts your SEO and gives you a chance to optimize the use of your owned domains to the best of your ability.

What Is Crosslinking?

Adding crosslinks to your blogs allows you to guide readers to other pages on your website that you want them to see. They also provide an opportunity to attach shared categories or tags to them. This way, you continue showing up higher in search results.

Crosslinking allows businesses like yours to increase exposure with minimal effort. So, even if you’re a marketing business discussing blogging for businesses, you can also pique the interest of your readers who might simultaneously be searching for copywriting for businesses (see what we did there?).

5. Widen Content Splintering Opportunities

Alright – you have long-tail search keywords to help you with blog topics, a few ideas for CTAs, and an understanding of how crosslinking can help.

It sounds exhausting! But you don’t need to create everything only to use it once.

Take the information you’ve given in your blog and splinter it into other marketing avenues for your business. Doing so means that you can avoid:

Retyping your thoughts
Spending more time on content creation
Skipping out on posting to your socials

Break everything down section by section, point by point, or however else you see fit.

Want to create a wealth of content starting with a blog for your business? Let’s get going!

6. Become An Authority Leader With Each Topic

This is a good one.

Blogging establishes your voice within your industry and community. By offering valuable information that readers can truly rely on, you become much more trustworthy and memorable moving forward.

And you know what we love to say about people who do business with others?

People do business with businesses they know and trust.

Offering your voice as an authority leader within your industry allows current and potential customers to feel as though they know you, can trust you, and can look to you for future insight – which brings us to our final reason for having a blog for your business.

7. Offer Valuable Answers & Advice

You are able to offer answers to many frequently asked questions that your customers continuously have. Answering them in a blog (or several blogs) gives your audience direct access to you and your expertise without wasting time on the phone or in your inbox going back and forth about the answer.

The truth is that there are certain things you know about your business that others might not know. This makes blogging about it the perfect way to bust any popular myths while providing tangible solutions through your products or services.

We Know Why Blogging Is Important For Businesses Of All Types

Our team knows how important it is for businesses to have a blog. We also know that entrepreneurs are usually strapped for time with no idea where to start (it’s part of our why).

FocusCopy is here to help.Need help launching your business’s blog? Chat with us to get started.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

15 Ways To Improve Your Writing Skills As An Entrepreneur

Content Marketing, Copywriting / By Lauren Jefferson / March 10, 2023 March 13, 2023

Have you ever thought about finding quick ways to improve your writing skills as an entrepreneur?

Business owners tend to feel an immense amount of pressure to be able to do it all and do it all well. Writing for your business is one skill you must nail to feel successful.

However, we also understand that even the most high-achieving entrepreneurs can feel burnt out, against a wall, and just plain ol’ uninspired when writing for their business.

For some, it’s been a while since you’ve sat in a classroom fine-tuning your creative writing brain. And for others, writing anything is your worst nightmare – even with all of the coffee in the world to keep you going (we’ve been there, too).

But we’re not here to gatekeep the best ways to improve your writing skills as an entrepreneur, which is why we’ve created the list below.

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Improve Their Writing Skills

As an entrepreneur, you have many many many hats on your head. Writing is one of those hats that will continue to serve you over and over again.

Similar to accounting, you need to know how to do it. Whether you should do it – that’s an entirely different question.

But when it comes to your words, you need to have the skill sharpened. When you know how to communicate effectively through the written word, you are able to:

Close sales on the deals you actually want
Attract the right types of clients
Secure financing through traditional loans or investment
Motivate your team, vendors, and clients
Limit the back and forth in email because you got your point across clearly

The limits are endless when you know how to write well.

How To Improve Your Writing Skills

Yes, writing is a skill. This means you need to practice every now and then to avoid making mistakes while getting your message across clearly. Here are 15 ways to improve your writing skills as an entrepreneur.

1. Create A Daily Practice To Write

Again, writing is a skill much like swimming or cooking. You can excel at it, but it takes time and practice.

To clarify, you don’t need to sign up for another college course or set aside hours of your day. You can polish your general writing skills in as little as 15 minutes a day using quick writing quizzes from free sources like the Academic English Cafe.

If you’re looking for less structure, pick a fun prompt you can use to write a short story for yourself. Set the clock and write as much as possible in 15 minutes, then stop. Plug your story into software like Grammarly to check for spelling and grammar and see how to improve your style.

No extra time on your hands? We’re here to help. Let’s talk about what you want out of copywriting for your business.

2. Diversify Writing Styles

Go back to choosing a fun prompt. This time, take only a few minutes to write using 3 different styles. You can alter anything you want to make it sound…

Extra professional
Positive and lighthearted
Extremely emotional
Sales focused
Exciting
Straight forward

When you’re done, take a look at all 3 and read them aloud to yourself to get a better idea of which styles you excel at and which could use a bit more work. Believe us when we say there’s a big difference between writing styles depending on your voice and tone.

3. Time Yourself

There are 2 solid ways you can practice timing your writing in 15 minutes or less:

Answer an industry-based FAQ you definitely know everything about
Discuss an industry-related hot topic you wish you knew more about

The first will allow you to see how much and how well you can get your point across in those 15 minutes. The second will give you a short chance to research and write what you know with the same previous goal in mind.

Reread both finished prompts and try to pinpoint places where you could improve.

4. Select Your Favorite Passage Or Page To Copy

Have you ever read something that you truly admired?

Whether you were looking at another company’s website or e-blast, you can emulate a similar style in your own writing without being a complete copycat. Here’s how to do just that using a landing page like this one:

Find a landing page you admire
Break down the page line by line into clear sections like…
1. Headlines
2. Subheadings
3. Body copy
4. Call-to-actions (CTA buttons)
5. Final statement or header
Write about your own business following a similar style

Once you feel like you’re going in a good direction, take a step back, and admire your hard work.

Thinking about adding engaging landing pages for your business but don’t know where to start? We’ve got you covered!

5. Record Yourself, Then Transcribe

Let’s say you’ve been chosen to give a speech on a popular topic in your industry. Keep the speech under 5 minutes and simply speak on the topic while recording yourself.

As soon as you’re done, start transcribing what you’ve said. Chances are, you’ll notice right away the number of times you say things you would NEVER write. This includes words like…um, err, uh, like, and anything else that isn’t truly a full thought (Hint: Don’t include those). From there, you can write down everything else you’ve said and edit it to make it more concise and digestible to read.

Psst! If you do this, you can create a blog or social media post for yourself.

6. Edit Someone Else’s Writing

One of the best ways to hone your writing skills is to edit other people’s writing. This allows you to get used to various styles and personalities to see what fits where best. Don’t know where to look? Start with editing friends’ or family members’ social media posts or emails they’ve sent (just don’t be so quick to point out their errors ????).

If you’re comfortable, ask someone to write something for you to edit it for them. You never know, it might spark up some pretty interesting conversations about writing choices and preferences.

7. Let Someone Else Edit Your Writing

Whether you pick a friend, colleague, spouse, or whomever, this practice will require you to be open to criticism. Choose something you’ve written before or something you haven’t yet published. Pass it on and be patient. Allow your editor time to read, edit, and offer other feedback if necessary.

It’s important to be open here because making mistakes doesn’t need to feel like the end of the world. Try to see it as a learning experience so you don’t make the same mistakes moving forward.

8. Don’t Be Afraid To Travel Back To The Basics

Let’s talk about timing yourself to gauge your typing speed. Most people consider this the number of words you type per minute (WPM). You can use a free tool online like this one from LiveChat to see where you stand on the writing race track. This is a good tool to use every now and again to get a quick measure of your WPM and the number of errors made. Continue practicing until you reach a new higher WPM with zero errors.

9. Try Benefits > Features

Every business owner knows which cool, innovative, or unique features they offer. But knowing the difference between a feature and a benefit is even more important.

For example, if you run a dental clinic, described features usually look like:

Customer Parking Lot
Open Late On Tuesdays
Fast Service
Kids Dental

But here’s what they could look like when turned into true benefits to really entice your customers or potential customers:

No-Stress, Free Parking In Nearby Lot
No PTO Needed With Late Tuesday Appointments Available
Wait Time Is Always 10 Minutes Or Less
Quality Dental Services For Kids Ages 4+

So, what about your business? Write down your offered features and turn them into big benefits your audience can’t wait to learn more about.

10. Be Your Own Headline Hero

Take 10 minutes to jot down as many headline options you can think of for your business. Good, bad, and ugly – write them all down! Don’t overthink it or focus too hard on perfecting each one. This is a fantastic exercise to do when you feel uninspired, unfocused, or everything in between. Have fun with it! Use puns, wordplay (personal favorites), bold statements, and questions to spark your creativity.

11. Practice Punctuation.

We like to have fun here…But honestly, practice using the correct punctuation throughout your writing. You can use a simple spell-check tool to see if you got it right or to explore other options. For example, if you’ve never truly been strict about using the Oxford comma, give it a shot and see how it fits with your writing style. In addition to improving accuracy, practicing punctuation is also a good way to explore different writing styles.

12. Dear Diary Journal

You’re a working professional and entrepreneur, so we can go ahead and call it journaling now ????.

Make journaling a short practice that you do every day or even once a week using an actual notebook (just smell those fresh pages) or your laptop, phone, or tablet. You don’t need a prompt to journal. You don’t even have to think about anything in particular to start writing! Simply write what you feel for a few minutes before you start work.

Do you have night owl energy?

Journal late at night before going to bed and reread your thoughts in the morning!

13. Access A Writing Course

There are so many professional-quality writing courses for businesses available online. You just need to find the one that aligns with your goals. Courses like these don’t need to take up too much of your time and should be easy to follow. Courses like these also offer the most benefits as they allow you to chip away at their entirety on your own time. When you’re finished, you have a wealth of new knowledge you can use throughout all of your writing assets moving forward.

Join ours here: Launch Your Website Copy Academy

14. Explore Other Words

If you’ve done any of the above before, you can probably pick out words you might be overusing or repeating often. Put those words in a list and expand each one with 2 to 5 new words you can use in their place. Some commonly used words you should consider switching up include:

Great
Amazing
Different
Utilize
New
Hard
Change
Important

Do you use these words too often in your writing? Add some flair when necessary to spice it up for your readers.

15. Sleep On It

Seriously!

Once you’ve written something, taking a little break from it before hitting publish is okay. Give yourself the time to walk away from your writing and return to it with fresh eyes. You might find that you have a better way of saying what you’re trying to say when looking at it a second time.

No Time To Practice? Leave The Pen To The Pros!

Writing can feel overwhelming, and not everyone is comfortable writing for their business. But we are.

Contact FocusCopy for a hearty cup of copy for your business goals.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

11 Places You Should Share Your B2B Content

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / March 1, 2023 March 1, 2023

In an age of influencers and content creation, businesses are forced to participate in content marketing.

But what happens when you actually produce that content?

It’s a waste of time to create content and never repurpose, splinter, or repurpose what you’ve created. That’s why we created a list of different places you should share your B2B content.

So let’s stretch your content’s value as far as possible!

What Is B2B Content?

B2B content is content developed expressly to add value or develop authority with other businesses. While you may have consumers that read your content for whatever reason, the primary target audience is other businesses.

What Are The Places You Should Share Your B2B Content?

Here are 11 places you should share your B2B content.

Your Blog

First things first…Make sure that your content is optimized for search engines and is posted on your website. Do not neglect the power of SEO and organic traffic! For one brand that we posted weekly blogs for 2 years, we grew their organic traffic from a million hits a year to 7.5 million hits.

Need help writing SEO’d blogs? Let’s chat about your content marketing and traffic goals.

Medium

Medium is another great platform, similar to your blog, to post original content. Keep in mind that they do have pretty strict publishing guidelines here.

We love LinkedIn! It’s not only a great networking tool, but it’s also fantastic for building one’s brand. When you post your content, be sure to post it both on your personal page and business page. You can do this in the form of posts, articles, or newsletters.

Email

Email marketing is by far one of the most effective but underrated places to share your content. Not only does it have the highest marketing ROI out of any strategies, but it allows you to have a little more of an intimate conversation with your audience. And when you develop the relationship, you are more likely to convert that prospect into a paying client.

Facebook

Like LinkedIn, Facebook should not be underrated. While it may be a struggle for some to master the ever-changing algorithms, post on your personal page, business page, and any groups you’re part of. With Facebook Groups, make sure that you’re abiding by the rules or guidelines the admins have set for that community.

Twitter

If you have an audience on Twitter, it’s a great platform to splinter your content into bite-sized pieces of content. This is also a great platform for speakers or authors to create quoted content.

Quora

This forum platform is a fantastic way to not only answer questions you know your audience is asking, but also answer questions directly. And while you’re posting, you may as well get a few ideas of what you should create next.

Alignable

Alignable, meant to be a small business networking site similar to LinkedIn, is a great opportunity for you to either post your new content or slip your content into conversations with those in your network.

Instagram

From Reels to posts to stories, there are so many opportunities for you to share your content on Instagram. With almost 2 billion monthly active users (Hootsuite), there is so much potential for your target audience to get their eyes on your content. Give it a try!

Google Business Profile

Previously called Google My Business, your Google Business Profile is a fantastic way to prove your company’s legitimacy, boost SEO, garner testimonials, and update prospects with your information. But did you know that a weekly post on your Google Business Profile can help support your visibility in Google? Give it a try for a couple of weeks and let us know how it works out.

Pinterest is probably one of the most underutilized SEO platforms out there. It isn’t just a pretty virtual board. No ma’am, it’s a search and eCommerce beast. While we’re personally working on our Pinterest and finding out what drives traffic to FocusCopy, personalities like Jenna Kutcher have seen tremendous growth.

Start Boosting Your Content Marketing Impact

If you’re ready to boost your content marketing impact, it’s time to take a deeper look at your actual content. Is it supporting you well? Is it communicating what you need it to? Does your target audience actually care about the topic or want to read about it? Schedule a discovery call with us today to deep dive into your content marketing.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

How To Create Content Pillars To Boost Your Authority

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / February 28, 2023 February 28, 2023

Ever wonder what you’re going to write about when it comes to your blogs, emails, and social media? It feels a little more like pulling out teeth. And if you’ve been thinking too long about it, you’re probably falling into writer’s block – the death sentence for writing.

That’s why we create content pillars – to make the content creation process so much easier.

Writing is difficult enough. Make the process simpler when you learn how to create content pillars.

What Are Content Pillars?

So what are content pillars? Content pillars are general topics of which you are an expert on, and they support your overall brand.

For example, I may be an expert in stand-up-paddleboarding or SUP (I’m not, by the way). But does SUP align with FocusCopy? No! In fact, you’d probably be really confused as to why I’m talking about SUP.

At FocusCopy, our content pillars are:

Copywriting and content writing
Marketing
Entrepreneurship

All of these support what we do as a brand and we can splinter them into many different subtopics.

When & How To Use Content Pillars

You’ll want to use your content pillars for just about anything product, marketing, sales, and content related. Content pillars are a great test to see that whatever you release into the marketplace aligns with your brand.

You won’t see FocusCopy releasing any SUP courses, but you may find various copywriting courses. You may also find future workshops that help you grow your revenue.

See below for an example of what your content pillars could look like. You see how there are multiple topics underneath each pillar that we can tap into.

Steps On How To Create Content Pillars

It’s one thing to show what content pillars are and how to use them, but it’s an entirely different thing to create them for your brand’s success.

Identify Your Target Audience

First, you need to know who your target audience is.

What are their pain points? What problems do they wish would disappear or resolve themselves? And what do they care about or need to know about?

Figure out what really drives your target audience to move forward.

Remind Yourself Of Your Expertise

Then you need to reconnect with yourself. What are you an expert in? What inspires you or interests you? Why do you care about what you’re interested in?

The best content pillars are those that you’re familiar with. You don’t need to do a whole lot of research when writing about those topics. You simply know.

Reflect Whether Your Expertise Matches Your Branding Statements

Take your newly (re)identified expertise and determine whether those topics align with your branding statements. Your branding statements may include your mission statement, vision statement, unique selling proposition, value proposition, and company description. Does your expertise align with your brand?

Summarize Your Expertise Into Big Topics

Take the topics that you claim to have expertise in and start to categorize them. For example, my expertise may lie in the following:

Email marketing
Marketing automation
Customer journey
Funnel building
Conversion copy
Website copy
Content marketing
Blogging
Content creation
Female entrepreneurs
Personal development
Perfectionism

All of that is great, but how can we group them together? It may look like the following:

Copywriting
- Conversion copy
- Website copy
- Content marketing
- Blogging
- Content creation
Marketing
- Email marketing
- Marketing automation
- Customer journey
- Funnel building
- Conversion copy
Entrepreneurship
- Female entrepreneurs
- Personal development
- Perfectionism

Test Your Content Pillars

Lastly, test your content pillars. Does your target audience care about them? Can you quickly create content around them? Do these pillars support and enhance your brand?

If the answer is no, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Ready To Create The Content For Your Content Marketing?

Creating the content pillars is the first big step to creating a strong content marketing strategy. But the execution of the strategy is where most fail to deliver. If you want to release valuable content that resonates with your target audience, let’s start the conversation. Schedule a discovery call with our team today.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

4 Questions To Ask To Generate 20 Blog Topics In <15 Minutes

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / October 10, 2022 October 10, 2022

Inspiration is a funny thing. It’s everywhere and can leave you dreaming of possibilities for hours, especially if you’re a business owner.

Your entire business model might come from a streak of inspiration you decided was worth pursuing. However, the not-so-great thing about inspiration is that it doesn’t occur on command…at least not for most people.

When you’re thinking about blog topics for your business, you may feel stuck about what to write.

You think…Do I simply talk about my business and what I know? Do I need to be creative and go outside of my comfort zone? Is it okay to discuss other things related to my business?

These are good to think about when you sit down to write, but they aren’t particular enough to help with content creation. Strong blog topic ideas should be specific enough to answer a question your audience might have. At the same time, you should make sure the topic is relevant to your brand and can tie into your business offerings. Creating blog topics based on this notion alone can quickly become confusing. So, it’s an even better idea to ask yourself these 4 specific questions, which helps you generate 20 blog topics in less than 15 minutes.

Need to pick up your blogging pace? We can help! Contact FocusCopy to get your blogs written, approved, and published.

Create 20 Blog Topics In 15 Minutes Or Less By Asking 4 Simple Questions

If it sounds too good to be true, all I have to say is give it a try! Even if you spend the next 5 minutes reading AND brainstorming, you’ll get something valuable out of it – you simply have to trust me. Let’s generate blog topics!

1. What Questions Does My Audience Have Right Now?

This should be an easy one! Take a second to think about potential sales calls, meetings, and client feedback you’ve heard. What are the questions you repeat the answers to most?

For example, as copywriters, we often hear…

What is SEO and how does it work?
What type of content needs to be on my website?
How can hiring a copywriter save me time?
What’s the problem with me doing my own copywriting?
How long does it take for a copywriter to write a website, blog, etc.?

We have answers for all of these commonly asked questions. We also have a knack for turning these questions into conversation pieces, which gives the answers enough oomph to become a relevant blog for our brand.

So, do you have any questions at top of mind? Write them down! You can easily come up with 5 (or more) questions that you can turn into blog topics.

If your audience doesn’t have too many questions up front, here’s another one you should ask.

2. What Problems Does My Audience Encounter?

To answer this question, we’re first going to get into what you do, why you do it, and why your audience cares.

Our own example is…We’re a cost-effective digital copywriting firm supporting small to medium-sized businesses because it saves business owners time, money, and the extra stress of having to write their copy themselves.

Did you see that?

Right there in our own answer are a few problems we can pick out right away, which includes:

Small to medium-sized businesses don’t typically have a huge budget for their digital marketing efforts
Supporting small businesses is critical to our collective success
Business owners don’t have the time to write for themselves
Writing stresses most people and business owners out
Business owners don’t have time for marketing when they have more important responsibilities to attend to

And just like that, we have 5 new topics of discussion for our blog. We’ll even take it one step further to show you how you can create headlines for these points, turning them into digestible nuggets of information.

10 Beneficial Effects Copywriting Has On Your Small Business
Why Digital Marketing Is Important For Small & Medium-Sized Businesses
How Hiring A Copywriter Can Save Your Business Time & Money
5 Tips From A Copywriter To Help Relieve Your DIY Writing Stress
Why Quality Content Rules Over Quick Copy That Doesn’t Deliver

By now, you should be able to see how fast and easy it is to come up with new blog topics by answering questions about your business – which brings us to our next question to ask to generate blog topics without breaking a sweat.

Still struggling to come up with topics for your business? Hire the experts to hash out the details and come up with an effective copywriting strategy.

3. What Advice Does My Audience Need To Hear?

This question may seem too general to answer, but try looking at it a different way. When customers or clients call your business after…

Attempting to do what you do themselves
Hiring someone less qualified
Hiring someone whose services are cheaper
Letting their problem exist for too long

What happens?

If you focus on what your audience has complained about in the past, you’ll find your advice neatly folded into your answers. We’ll switch it up and use a hypothetical client as an example here.

Texas Plumbing Company (a fictitious company) hears from customers all day, every day. And if they could tell their audience crucial information that could save them time and money, here’s what that could look like…

7 Major Hazards Of DIY Plumbing
Why Hiring A Certified Plumbing Professional Matters
5 Reasons Why Expert Routine Pipe Maintenance Matters For Your Home Or Business
Top 10 Common Mistakes Homeowners Make With Their Plumbing System
Here’s What Can Happen If You Ignore A Leak For Too Long

If you’re a plumbing pro, each of these blogs is full of information you already know about and could probably recite in your sleep. But your audience doesn’t know anything about plumbing, so it helps to offer your expert advice.

4. What Lessons Have I Learned That Would Be Helpful For My Audience To Know?

Have you ever watched Gilmore Girls? Stay with me here because I promise there’s a point.

So, there’s a scene where small town diner owner, Luke, is being yelled at by his ungrateful and reckless teenage nephew, Jess (skip to 1:05). Jess attacks his uncle by throwing Luke’s job and business in his face in an attempt to make Luke feel small and unimportant.

Sure, Luke only has one other employee. And there isn’t a special parking spot in his name or a mahogany desk for him to sit at. But he doesn’t let Jess get to him for a second and defends himself by saying, “Hey! I own this business. I built it, kid. This is mine!”

The only reason I’m diving into this is to point something out. Entrepreneurs like you have something special that other people will never be able to relate to. You have moxie, my friend! And in case no one has told you lately, you don’t need to downplay your accomplishments or your business. Chances are, you didn’t get to where you are without learning a few hard lessons along the way.

Ask yourself…What have I learned?

The best part about this exercise is that you only need to think of about 5 things you’ve learned. Maybe you learned more about how to value yourself and your services. Perhaps you reached a breaking point when it came to dealing with certain clients. Or maybe you have a story about investing in something that didn’t work out. All of these can be great blog topics for your audience, which should bring your total number of topics to 20.

Find A True Writing Partner With FocusCopy

Don’t have enough time to write for your business (or even generate blog topics)? That’s okay! Many business owners don’t. But that doesn’t mean you should let it affect your digital marketing or brand awareness.

Reach your marketing goals with the team at FocusCopy.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

5 Benefits Of Content Writing For SEO

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / October 4, 2022 February 20, 2023

In marketing, the term SEO gets thrown around A LOT. But hearing it coming from so many different directions doesn’t necessarily define its importance or why it should matter to you.

Have no fear, FocusCopy is here to explain the benefits of content writing for SEO!

For starters, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In more basic terms, it’s the strategic process of getting your web pages to rank higher in Google’s search results.

Are you wondering why Google is the SEO ledger board when other search engines are at play? According to Statista, companies that rank on Google are more likely to get the most business than those who rank on Yahoo or Bing.

When you search a topic in Google, do you sift through the results and choose to read an obscure article on the 8th page?

Okay, so maybe you do.

But the majority of audiences click on links closer to the top of the first page. It’s easier and safer to assume those results will be most in line with what you’re searching.

How Content Writing For SEO Helps Your Business

Wondering if keeping SEO a goal in your content writing is worth it? Here are 5 reasons content writing for SEO helps businesses succeed.

FocusCopy can help your business create the right kind of buzz with successful content marketing strategies. Schedule a time to chat here.

1. Increases Your Google Ranking

Where your business ranks on Google can seriously affect your business. After all, you want your ideal audience to be able to find you, right?

If you’re not ranking high enough in search engine results, then you are severely limiting your brand’s reach. Content writing for SEO can help you seriously increase your rank and visibility to a larger audience.

However, it’s important to remember that content writing for SEO is a science. Successful content writers utilize specific elements to write quality content that positively impacts SEO.

Google’s algorithm uses over 200 factors to rank web pages. However, these factors also tend to change. This means copywriters, content writers, and other marketing professionals are responsible for always keeping up with the latest trends and changes.

To save you hours of valuable time, here are a few things to keep in mind for your content writing:

Strategic keyword placement
Formatting should include elements like H2 and H3 headings
Thoughtful use of the meta description and title tag
Backlinks to your website and other credible sources
Legal use of personal or public images

However, the real science lies in utilizing these SEO boosting tools while keeping emotion-provoking content as the central element. More simply, don’t forget there are people on the other side of the screen craving a human connection.

2. Builds Your Brand Awareness & Authority

You believe in your business. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have started it in the first place. Give other people a chance to believe in and support your business, too.

But to do this, you need to let them know it exists.

Content writing for SEO is a great tool for building your brand awareness. Even better, content writing for SEO can also elevate your brand as an industry leader. With more visibility and higher authority, your audience has more confidence in your business. Otherwise, you risk being just another business in a long line of results.

FocusCopy leverages your brand messaging and credibility to write content that helps your business reach and engage with a larger audience.

3. Keeps Your Audience Engaged

Capturing the attention of your target audience is one thing. But keeping that audience engaged requires an entirely different strategy.

If you consistently publish meaningful content that answers your readers’ questions, they are more likely to return to your website. And after finding value in your website, the likelihood of them converting into paying customers also increases.

However, too many dead ends after clicking on your links will have your audience saying, “Thank you, next.”

Don’t let your message fall flat. Instead, learn how content writing for SEO can have your audience giddy to see your latest newsletter, read your latest blog, and more.

Celebrate each stage of engagement as it is a stepping stone in your customer journey. Furthermore, nurture each engaging audience member because you would never want to alienate what could be your biggest lead yet!

Need help strategizing how to engage your audience and boost SEO? Connect with me here and let’s start planning!

4. Boosts Your Business’s Conversion Rates

Different from copywriting, the goal of content writing is to engage your audience with information or entertainment. But it’s important to realize that content writing is an effective tool you can use alongside copywriting.

For context, the goal of copywriting is to persuade readers to take action. Think of content writing as copywriting’s sneaky sister.

Thoughtful content writing keeps your audience engaged. Meanwhile, the goal of both content and copywriting is to market your business’s offerings.

All this to say, quality content helps increase your business’s conversion rates. This means you can effectively utilize your content to make more sales and grow your business.

5. Helps Your Ideal Customers Find You

Word-of-mouth marketing can work in certain situations. But the problem is that it severely limits your brand’s reach.

For your business to be successful, you need to get out of your social circle. Help all of your ideal customers find you by boosting your web presence. Opening up your brand awareness to a larger audience means higher conversions, sales, and, ultimately, revenue.

As marketing professionals, we’ve seen too many small businesses get caught up in the whirlwind of friend and family support. Some small businesses have even made the choice to scale based on their successful first quarter. But the problem is that you can’t count on your friends and family to be your main source of income.

Instead, you should hold back on scaling until your business is successful among a broader customer base.

Build Your Brand’s Credibility With Professional SEO Copywriting Services

FocusCopy is the non-agency copywriting firm that specializes in only writing copy. While marketing firms and agencies stack their plates with a plethora of services, I realized that writing is consistently the most grueling task that knocks other projects off balance and behind schedule.

By offering copywriting services, agencies, firms, small businesses, and entrepreneurs can outsource their writing needs. And this means they can focus on their most important tasks.

Whether you need an SEO-boosting blog, an engaging newsletter, converting website, or anything else copy related – the FocusCopy team is here to help. Schedule some time to learn how FocusCopy can help you meet your marketing goals today.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

What Are Content Categories?

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / September 9, 2022 September 6, 2022

Want to publish a diverse amount of valuable content?

Or do you want to make sure that relevant content is published at the right time?

As a business owner, it can feel overwhelming to come up with a content plan. But it doesn’t have to!

In fact, successful marketers create content categories, also known as content buckets, to organize and schedule the right content at the right time.

Everything You Need To Know About Content Categories

Creating a backlog of content is a great way to ensure you always have something to publish, send, or post. This helps to keep your audience engaged.

Moreover, consistently publishing blogs is a great way to boost your SEO ranking. And here’s the sometimes surprising part…It doesn’t necessarily matter how often you publish, as long as it’s consistent.

Choose what schedule you can sustainably do, whether that be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Whatever you choose, simply stick to it.

However, creating blogs, email newsletters, and social media posts ahead of time can result in a hodge-podge of mixed content. That’s why grouping your content into categories is so helpful.

For instance, the FocusCopy blog page has a list of tags that describe the various blogs we’ve published. This makes it much easier for our readers to find valuable information quickly rather than sifting through a dozen pages full of blogs.

But this organization starts way before we hit publish. If you’ve been following along, you know we use and love ClickUp. As a versatile task manager, I’m able to create content labels for each of our FocusCopy blogs as I assign them.

This process allows my copywriters to look through assigned blogs on our editorial calendar and know exactly what category each task falls under. Some of our content categories include:

Business
Content Marketing
Marketing
Processes & Procedures
Copywriting
Lead Generation

With these category labels in place, I’m able to publish blogs easily without reading through the dozens that have been written. Furthermore, this helps to publish blogs in theme with any specific campaigns we’re promoting at the time.

Want to learn how FocusCopy can build your business’s brand awareness through compelling copy? Find some time to chat here.

How to Create Content Categories For Your Business’s Marketing

When creating tasks in ClickUp, we include the “Category” column. I have the different categories we write about for FocusCopy pre-filled on a drop down menu. This makes it easy to simply select the appropriate category.

However, being such a versatile task manager, there are several ways to go about this in ClickUp. You can instead opt for tags that appear next to the title of each task. Plus, several other options to view your content categories at a high level.

Since FocusCopy’s blogs are (mostly) all about copywriting in marketing, our categories branch from our main topic.

Content Categories Streamline Your Production Calendar

As mentioned above, publishing content consistently is important to keep your audience engaged and to rank higher in Google searches. However, it’s important to remember planning is key to keeping your production calendar on track.

Need a refresher on creating a system to manage content creation and publication? Check out my previous blog, How To Build An Editorial Calendar With ClickUp That You Can Actually Stick To.

An effective editorial calendar will be your best friend when it comes to publishing your business’s content. However, for it to be successful, make sure to incorporate content categories from the very beginning.

Already have an editorial calendar but missed the content category memo upon construction? That’s okay! Just pencil in some time on your calendar to create your content categories and adjust accordingly. Moving forward, you’ll be able to assign tasks into content categories as they’re created.

Going through these steps will help streamline your production calendar, save time, and prevent unnecessary stress.

Ready to publish copy that really converts? Get in touch with me here and let’s get to work!

Identify Your Business’s Ideal Content Categories

Now it’s time to make content categories work for you!

First, think about your brand messaging and what it represents. Next, search Google, Reddit, your social media platforms, and other channels to see what exactly your ideal audience is searching for. There are also other helpful websites like DemandJump that will help you choose the best terms and keywords.

Knowing what terms your audience searches is important as you define your content categories. Because, in case you haven’t heard me say it before, what you publish needs to be about your audience – not you.

For example, an IT expert may also refer to themselves as a Managed Service Provider (MSP). While the term fits their offerings, a successful marketing campaign would take into account that not all potential customers know the term MSP.

Keep this in mind when defining your content categories and overall strategy. Because, while many people love an opportunity to learn, even more people will simply move to the next article in their search results if they’re unfamiliar with the terms being used.

How FocusCopy Utilizes Content Categories

You may not know this about me, but my former mentor and boss unexpectedly passed away several years ago. Because of the aftermath, I make sure my company documents everything. You see, while I have the utmost respect for this person, the order of operations lived in his brain and his brain alone.

Needless to say, content categories are one of FocusCopy’s many standard operating procedures (SOPs). These SOPs are great for several reasons. One being that my team can access specific how-tos in regard to any and every process. The second reason is that if I get hit by a bus (or win the next big lottery and take off to my very own private island), my business can continue without missing a beat.

We utilize content categories to streamline our to-do lists efficiently. For instance, if I want to make sure to publish 3 different types of blogs in one month, I just have to filter through the categories of unpublished blogs.

By prioritizing planning in our editorial calendar management, I have created a system that saves time and allows me to publish quality copy consistently.

Develop Content Categories & More With The Copywriting Experts

FocusCopy works with small and medium-sized, women-owned businesses to produce concise, focused, and converting copy. Our proven processes allow for timely production schedules so our clients can always count on us to produce quality copy on time.

Whether you need help with blogging, email campaigns, engaging your audience on social media, building a credible and converting website, or anything else – we’re here and ready to help. We’d love nothing more than to grab a coffee and discuss your business’s copywriting needs. Schedule a time to meet here.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

What Are Content Pillars? INSIDE: A Content Pillar Strategy For Your Business

Content Marketing / By Lauren Jefferson / September 2, 2022 February 20, 2023

Stuck in a content rut?

Trying to figure out how to say what’s on your mind in the right way on the right platforms?

Grouping and organizing your ideas into content pillars is the go-to process successful marketing professionals use.

At FocusCopy, we use content pillars in client projects and our own. It allows us to zero in on a subject matter, splinter across platforms, and provide a one-stop educational stop for readers.

Content Pillar Basics: What Are Content Pillars?

Basically, a content pillar is a single long-form piece of content that you can break down into derivative sections.

You know all those marketing channels you’re struggling to fill?

You can utilize one large piece of content (the content pillar) and then break it down into smaller (quicker to read) pieces of content.

By focusing on a single content pillar, you can easily turn the sub-sections into additional blog posts, infographics, email newsletters, social media posts, and more. Moreover, this will help to reach your ideal audience through the different platforms where they linger – essentially helping customers find you!

As an example, do you know what an MSP is?

(Psst…it’s an acronym for Managed Service Provider, another term to define an IT expert you would want to hire for your business.)

While an MSP is extremely helpful in keeping a business’s networks optimized and secure, a content pillar helps to explain the “why” to customers.

So, in this instance, we could write a long-form content pillar blog about MSPs. In this blog, we may include sections such as:

What is an MSP?
Which tasks do MSPs handle?
What questions should I ask a potential MSP?
Signs your business needs an MSP
Things to look for in an MSP

Now, we have one go-to blog that covers all the details.

But it gets better!

We can use each of these sections to write an entire short-form blog about that specific topic. Not only does this help answer any questions readers may have, but we get strategic with SEO, too.

Need help devising a content pillar plan? Get in touch to learn how FocusCopy can help you!

How To Efficiently Plan Content

I love a whiteboard moment! ClickUp’s whiteboard integration allows the FocusCopy team to visually brainstorm blog topics. Essentially, we’ll start with the main topic in the middle and branch off.

To change things up, let’s look at another example. Consider a health and wellness coach who wants to provide quality information on how readers can start living healthier lives. Let’s use “healthy living” as the central topic.

Within the whiteboard, I’ll branch out ideas of healthy living. These ideas may include the following:

Meal planning to make healthy eating easier
Quick exercises you can do at home
Benefits of strength training
How to stick to a bedtime routine
Get your circadian rhythm in tune with the sun
Which vegetables are best eaten seasonally

Honestly, my team could go on and on with a list like this! And what’s really cool (yes, this is cool to us!), we can easily branch out of each of those bulleted items above for additional content. All this to say, if you want to write about health and wellness, we are ready!

The idea is to write one long blog about healthy living. This long-form content pillar blog will include all of the items listed above. Then, we’ll write individual shorter blogs focused on each of the specific topics.

However, the whiteboard isn’t the only tool available to brainstorm. I personally love it because I’m able to create tasks within ClickUp directly from the whiteboard. This allows me to make the most of each moment of my time. Plus, my copywriters can get to work writing away as soon as their tasks are posted to the calendar.

The Benefits Of Content Pillars

Content pillars are more than just a way to utilize a brainstorming session. Here are a few of my favorite benefits of content pillars.

Streamline Content Organization

Figuring out how to organize content can sometimes be the most difficult task. While we have SOPs on SOPs, each client we work with has their own process. They may get their content ideas to us through topic review meetings, a single email with everything provided, or a sequence of attachments, references, and inspiration.

However, it’s our job as copywriters to bring that information together in a digestible format that our clients’ readers want to read. After all, with so much data at our fingertips, the copy has to be compelling, or readers will quickly move to the next blog.

Streamlining helps us organize the tasks on our end and how we organize the content in everything we write for clients, like blogs, newsletters, website copy, and more.

No time to brainstorm your content pillars and other copy needs? Reach out to FocusCopy and we’ll get started!

Effectively Provide Information About Your Business’s Offerings

Blogging is a not-so-secret tool that has a load of benefits. However, I’d argue the two most important benefits are:

Offering credible information to readers to help them learn more about your business
Increase SEO ranking to help your future clients find you on the internet

Consider a business that sells card games. They are cute enough to give as gifts and great to pack for vacations. But could you do more to incentivize readers to make a purchase with blogs that:

Talk about the amazing memories made by sitting around a table with an old fashioned deck of cards
Explain the rules for more complicated games
Game night necessities like a music playlist, a themed cocktail, or a spread of easy-to-eat dips
Game night no-go’s like fragile crystal wine glasses and messy meals

Providing this type of information in blogs gives your readers answers to their most common questions. Plus, it provides inspiration for a fun night with friends and family.

With a content pillar, you can write one long blog with everything your readers need to know about game nights. Then, you can splinter this info into content to engage your audience across all your different channels.

Boost SEO & Help Your Ideal Customers Find You

Marketing is a science. And it’s been proven that organic growth is more sustainable than abrasive in-your-face marketing tactics. That’s why we love SEO missions!

By writing a content pillar blog and more niche follow-up blogs, you put your business in a position to publish consistent material – both in terms of time and remaining true to your brand voice.

Plus, when you backlink your relevant blogs (and other credible sources) to each other, the SEO algorithm likes it. Which gives your brand the SEO boost it needs for a larger audience to find your business and convert into paying customers.

No Time For Content Pillar Brainstorming? Leave It To The Pros

Hearing the phrase “content pillars” may make a copywriter’s ears perk up, but we realize that not everyone feels the same way. And, we understand that, as a business owner, you have your hands full – to say the least.

Rather than dive into the task of writing a content pillar and then splintering it across your channels, hand it over to the experts. At FocusCopy, we take the dreaded task of writing off the heavy shoulders of small business owners.

Together, we can come up with a plan, and then my team will get to work producing quality copy that will help grow your business. Want to chat about content pillars and other copy for your business? Schedule some time to chat with me here.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words

How To Build An Editorial Calendar With ClickUp That You Can Actually Stick To

Content Marketing, Processes & Procedures / By Lauren Jefferson / August 31, 2022 August 31, 2022

Do you ever wonder how content creators find the time?

Especially businesses with heavy workloads, they somehow still have quality blogs, social media posts, newsletters, and updated web pages that get lots of traction.

Want to know the secret behind the folks who always have something to post?

It’s all about the editorial calendar.

But effectively planning out your editorial calendar can make the difference between publishing quality content and letting your greatest ideas fall through the cracks.

What Is An Editorial Calendar?

Essentially, an editorial calendar is a multi-functional calendar creators use to manage content creation and publication.

With the right software, you can schedule campaigns with the themes and tasks included. Plus, you can look at your content to-do list at a high level. But you can also take it to a granular level to input inspiration, references, and data for each small task.

Have you ever thought about your 5 or 10-year plan, and then worked backward to list the work and milestones required to meet your goals?

That’s pretty much the gist of an editorial calendar but with your short and long-term marketing goals in mind.

Need someone to take over the reins of your editorial calendar? Contact us today and start sharing quality, high-converting copy.

Why Create An Editorial Calendar On ClickUp?

Personally, ClickUp is the software that we use. It also helps that it’s very effective at storing ideas, planning content, and getting it published efficiently.

Plus, ClickUp allows users to view tasks in lists, boards, and in a calendar setting. This means that while planning, I can look at our to-do’s at a high level. Meanwhile, my employees can filter through tasks assigned to them with access to the notes and objectives for each piece.

Process To Build An Editorial Blogging Calendar With ClickUp

One of the best things about ClickUp is its versatility. You can customize it to fit your exact needs. However, this also means that coming at it as a blank slate can be overwhelming. There is an abundance of free tutorials available. But if you want to get straight to creating your editorial calendar, I’ve made it easy with a step-by-step guide.

1. Do The Prep Work

One thing I’ve learned is you can’t count on inspiration to always hit at the right time. With so many different ongoing projects for my own business and my clients, the prep work is non-negotiable.

Identify Content Pillars

After research comes the strategic part of the prep work: the content pillars. This is where we identify several topics that will tie into each other. For example, we’ve written several FocusCopy blogs about copywriting – because that’s what we do. Within these blogs, we include backlinks to our other blogs relating to copywriting.

If you check out our blog page, you’ll find blogs with topics centered around writing copy, including:

While that’s just a teaser because we have loads more blogs about copywriting, the goal is to answer as many readers’ questions as possible. But how do we know what readers are asking? Research.

Not only does grouping similar topics into content pillars provide value in the form of educating readers, this method also helps to increase our Google ranking.

For example, FocusCopy’s content pillars are Copywriting, Content Writing, and General Marketing, Systems, and Entrepreneurship. If there is something we are considering, we always run it through our pillars. If it doesn’t fit, it’s thrown out or we rework it to give it a different angle.

Pro Tip: Do not select more than 3-5 content pillars. The key is to focus.

Identify Calls To Action

This is where the objective comes into play. Ask yourself, what do you want readers to do? It could be…

Subscribe to your newsletter
Download a lead magnet
Follow your business on social media
Schedule a time to grab a coffee and discuss your business goals

You may think that a reader will automatically know to contact you if they are interested in your product or service. However, you are giving readers too much credit. Not because they are lazy or unable to find your contact info on your website, but because we all have fish brains when it comes to searching the web. It’s too easy to close out and go on to the next blog or website if we’re not finding immediate answers to our questions. That’s why we need calls to action to tell readers exactly what steps to take next.

We live in a digital world with more data than we can even begin to comprehend and it’s literally all at our fingertips. According to Portent, “Website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time.”

If the goal of your marketing efforts is to convert readers into paying customers, time is of the essence. You need a quick-loading website and linked calls to action to tell your readers exactly what to do.

Now that you have your calls to action listed (and understand their importance), it’s on to the next step!

Not sure what calls to action you need to include? FocusCopy can help! Get in touch with us here.

2. Create The List In Your ClickUp

Managing your editorial calendar is simple when it’s all in one place. Create a list and name it “Editorial Calendar”. You’ll be able to track and organize your upcoming blogs at high and granular levels with ease.

It should look something like this when you’ve created it.

3. Create Fields

Let’s get into the details! This step is all about getting the nitty gritty specific subtasks, data, and labels down.

Rather than going through this process for each blog topic, create one blog task with all the fields below. You’ll be able to use this as a template to easily duplicate.

We suggest creating the following fields in this order:

Content Pillar using the Dropdown field
Call To Action using the Dropdown field
Type of Blog using the Dropdown field
In Progress using the Website field
Published Link using the Website field

If you want to go all out, you can include the following fields:

Author
Target Keywords
SOP

This is what it looks like inside a given task.

4. Brain Dump All Your Topics As Tasks

Input all of your topics as separate blog tasks. Over time, you will learn what parts to tweak. But for now, this will be a functional home for your editorial calendar to-do list.

Now that you have your template blog task with the appropriate fields, right-click and select “duplicate”. ClickUp will prompt you to adjust the name and what elements to copy over. If you’re using an open blog template (not a completed task), then I suggest simply changing the name and including all fields.

You can also create a template inside of ClickUp so there’s no need for duplicating.

5. Fill Out As Much Information In The Fields

After you input blog topics as tasks, it’s time to fill out those fields. This is much easier with the dropdown fields mentioned above.

The great thing about ClickUp is you don’t have to cover all the details. So if there’s something you’re unsure about – like the due date or which employee to assign to said task, just leave it blank for now.

However, it’s best to fill out as much information as possible at this point. Go through the bullet points above under “Create Fields” and watch your editorial calendar come to life!

But remember, if you’re unsure about something, don’t let it create a bottleneck in your workflow. Simply move on and fill out what you can. Make sure to schedule time in your calendar to go back to complete these fields. Sometimes making appointments with yourself is necessary to make sure everything gets done!

6. Schedule Your Blogs

While it would be great to complete all tasks as they are created, that may be edging on wishful thinking. To ensure that nothing falls through the cracks, it’s time to schedule the blogs with due dates.

But it’s not just the final due date. Instead, schedule dates to start and complete each subtask. For instance, say you want to publish a Halloween-themed blog on October 31st. To ensure that you or your employees have enough time to make the deadline, schedule the outlining portion of the blog for 3 weeks ahead of time. Then, schedule the drafting to take place over a couple of days, 2 weeks ahead of time. Next, you’ll want to make sure to schedule the process of checking SEO, editing, addressing edits, finalizing, and finally…publishing!

With enough lead time, and a little cushion (can’t forget about clients!), you’ll be able to post your spooky Halloween post with timely relevance to the holiday season.

Bonus Tips

As I said before, ClickUp has a ton of features! So many, in fact, I can’t imagine one business needing to utilize every single one. But that also makes ClickUp a versatile tool that can be used throughout many industries. Here are some additional tips to help expand your ClickUp experience.

Use “Whiteboard” To Generate Content Ideas

More of a visual brainstormer? Me, too!

What’s cool here is you can create tasks directly out of Whiteboard. This means that you can arrange your pillar content and branch off into more niche topics from a high level. Being able to create tasks this way takes collaboration and creating your editorial calendar to a whole new level!

Look Via “Schedule” To View It On Calendar View

Need to get a view of your overall calendar?

Again, ClickUp’s versatility comes in clutch. Select the calendar view to see how all your tasks appear over the course of a week, month, or year. You can filter down the dates for your exact needs.

Want To Skip The How-To & Publish Quality Blogs For Your Business?

You can always skip the tutorials and go straight to the experts. At FocusCopy, we work with small female-owned businesses to produce high-converting copy.

And the best part? While we do what we do best (writing copy), you can focus on running your business. You can confidently get through your to-do list knowing that quality copy is on its way to boost your brand’s reputation, SEO, and overall growth.

Want to learn more about how FocusCopy can position your business for success? Reach out and let’s start the conversation.