Dale Kiefer, Author at Triple Canopy Media

How Learning About Long Tail Keywords Can Improve Your Website’s SEO

11JulJuly 13, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

If you know how to make optimal use of them, long tail keywords can be one of the secret weapons in your company’s SEO arsenal. Depending on your industry, figuring out the perfect long tail keyword or long tail keywords that will help you reach your ideal customer could be transformative for your business.

We’ve talked about long tail keywords before and how you need to pay more attention to them as online searches continue to evolve. For instance, with the increased use of voice search on mobile devices, as opposed to typed searches on desktops, long tail searches are likely to give potential customers a quicker shortcut to companies that demonstrate that they can meet customers’ needs for specific products and services.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

First of all, before defining long tail keywords, maybe we should talk about keywords in general. A head keyword (or simply keyword) is a term, used in online searches, that is highly relevant to what your business does. If your business provides search engine optimization services, then “SEO” is a keyword that describes your business. If you sell pecans, then “pecans” is a keyword that applies to your business.

Long tail keywords are usually longer versions of these keywords. Regardless of their length, they are more targeted and more specific than regular keywords.

(The reason that long tail keywords are called “long tail” is because they would occupy the long tail of a graph showing search results. There are fewer overall searches for long tail keywords than their more-general cousins, keywords. But this means that it is easier to rank for them because there is less competition. And that’s just one of the reasons why they can be very valuable to your business.)

Because long tail keywords are more detailed and more targeted than regular keywords, they can also reveal more about the needs and intentions of the customer who uses them to conduct any given search.

As a result, long tail keywords can help businesses and customers connect with each other more quickly. If you’re a business, and you want to reach a customer base with a particular set of pain points, then utilizing long tail keywords in your content will be one of your best strategies for doing this.

Your Customers’ Pain Points

Remember the term “pain points”? You’ve surely heard that phrase. It’s a major element of Marketing 101. The customer has a specific problem. If your business can solve that specific problem, then you’re more likely to get hired by that particular customer.

Of course, you have to get found by that customer in the first place. (And, naturally, you have to demonstrably excel at solving the customer’s problem, but let’s assume that you do, again, for the purpose of illustrating the point.)

To show how marketing and content creation that is both precise and targeted can help you better identify pain points and thereby find your ideal customer, consider the following list of terms, all of which could be Google searches:

cars
sportscars
vintage Corvette
vintage Corvette repair
vintage Corvette repair near me
vintage Corvette repair near me transmission

This list obviously starts out with a very general term and then proceeds to a highly specific one. A person who searches for “cars” could conceivably be looking for a place nearby that performs vintage auto repair work. But that searcher could just as likely be trying to learn about the cast of the Pixar movie with that name.

Even someone searching for the less-general term, “vintage Corvette,” could be a person who loves classic cars but does not own one and is not currently in a position to purchase one. It’s not that easy to tell just from these very broad search terms.

On the other hand, a person who searches for the last term in this list, “vintage Corvette repair near me transmission,” is using the search query to tell you exactly what they need. You can probably safely assume that this searcher is a person who owns a vintage Corvette, has a problem with its transmission, and is serious about getting it fixed somewhere close by. That’s a well-defined pain point. And that exact pain point comes out loud and clear in this long tail search.

What Can Your Business Do to Reach That Customer?

Now, let’s say that you own and run a business that repairs vintage sportscars. Maybe you specialize in American-made sportscars, and Corvettes most of all. Perhaps fixing transmissions is where you particularly excel. We probably don’t have to tell you that you really want to find a way to connect with the person who conducted the last search on the bulleted list in the previous section.

How will you reach this customer? Remember that this person is using a search engine, (most likely Google), and that search engine is scouring the web looking for relevant matches that fit the searcher’s query. And Google, like any business, wants to provide high-quality service that keeps users happy.

Your business should have a strong web presence. As a component of that strong web presence, you should have a website with a solid amount of high-quality content. And in that well-written content, you should discuss that your business specializes in “vintage Corvette transmission repair” or, if you’re based in North Canton, you could say that you’re “North Canton’s leader in vintage Corvette transmission repair.” Basically, the more that you can say about exactly what you do and match it to what your ideal customer is going to search for, the more likely it is that you’re going to connect with that customer. And if you can connect, then that means more business for you!

A Quick Note about Voice Search

Keep in mind that long tail keywords are going to become an even more vital component of SEO as voice assistants on mobile phones and other devices become the primary methods that people use to find the information they need. In the future, it will become more likely that people will search for the goods and services that they want using complete sentences than ever before.

Yesterday’s typed “SEO near me” becomes tomorrow’s “Hey, Google, show me companies that do SEO near me.” Again, more and more online searches will be conducted using long tail keywords as voice assistance devices get more deeply integrated into daily life. According to Forbes, by 2020, half of all searches online will be voice searches.

Trust us here at TCM: Your business will not want to be one of those that gets left behind in this rapidly-changing online landscape.

Think Like a Searcher; Write Like a Searcher

One pitfall that companies can fall into involving long tail keywords is making the assumption that customers will describe what they do using the exact same language that they use. Sometimes insider jargon is exactly that.

Your customer may have a specific need that you can meet. You may be the very best and most appropriate business to do so. But if the language that you use online is not the language that your potential customer is using, then you may not actually cross paths online. And that’s bad for your business.

To illustrate this, let’s say that you operate a business that repairs vacuum cleaners. You may be the very best at this service for miles and miles around. You could put every other business that repairs vacuum cleaners in the whole United States to shame with your vacuum cleaner-related skills and knowledge.

But because you live, breathe, and dream vacuum cleaners, you may sometimes forget that these devices are not always top-of-mind for those who are uninitiated in the finer elements of the art of vacuum cleaner repair.

Continuing this hypothetical, be careful that you aren’t inclined, when composing content for your vacuum cleaner repair business, to say that you provide “integrated sanitation device engineering solutions.”

We’ve got news for you: No layperson is going to search for that term! Someone who needs a vacuum cleaner repaired is likely going to search for “vacuum cleaner repair.”

Okay, okay, that’s an extreme example. We know that not all vacuum cleaner technicians are going to describe their businesses that way, (though some might!).

The point is that experts in the field of SEO and content creation will be able to get inside the head of a given company’s ideal customer in a way that the technicians who work for that company often cannot. And the masters of SEO will excel at devising the long tail keywords that an ideal customer is most likely to use.

Did we mention that we here at Triple Canopy Media are masters when it comes to SEO and content creation?

In Conclusion: Triple Canopy Media Will Connect You with Your Ideal Customer

Search engine optimization and content creation—that’s what we do best here at TCM! We’ll give your company’s website a full SEO audit, pinpoint its shortcomings, identify opportunities, and devise effective, game-changing solutions. Our approach is comprehensive. We’ll tighten up your website’s security, optimize your images, create stellar content, elevate your social media presence, and more!

Can your business afford to not be at its best online? Let TCM be your long-term long tail keyword authority!

Search Engine Optimization and Punctuation, Capitalization, and Special Characters

27JunJune 27, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Triple Canopy Media wishes to inform you once again that high-quality content must be an essential part of your company’s website. Simply put, you need engaging, informative content to both demonstrate to Google that you’re an authority in your field and show that your website is well-maintained and polished.

What may not be as clear to content creators is how search engines might deal with some of the little differences that they find in your content. For instance:

Can the way in which a content creator uses punctuation affect SEO? Will overloading or omitting commas and other punctuation marks harm a webpage in the rankings?
Does capitalization, or a lack of capitalization, affect searches conducted by Google?
Will special characters such as the copyright symbol (©), the trademark symbol (™), or the registered trademark symbol (®) get picked up by search engines?

Let’s take a look!

(Incidentally, some younger readers might be asking, “What does it mean to sound like a broken record?” If you don’t understand this idiom, know that a broken record is usually one that is scratched. A scratch on a record may cause the needle on the record player, which facilitates playback, to get stuck and thereby repeat the same few seconds of music over and over again. Still unclear? Text your parents or call your grandparents for clarification.)

Capitalization and SEO

Does capitalization matter to Google? Are searches case-sensitive? The consensus on a Quora forum addressing this subject is that capitalization doesn’t affect keyword searches. What this means, then, is that someone searching for “North Canton Ohio SEO” will get the same results as someone searching for “north canton ohio seo” as the below set of screenshots shows:

And:

As you can see, the first search capitalized the location name, and all of the letters in the acronym “SEO.” The second search used nothing by lowercase letters, but still turned up the same top-five page results.

(Allow us to point out, in case you missed it, that Triple Canopy Media holds the top two spots in both searches. You’re welcome.)

But Wait! Does Capitalization Ever Matter?

Yes! It turns out that capitalization does matter when it comes to a website’s URL.

A website’s domain name is always going to be rendered in lowercase. It doesn’t matter if you type “triplecanopymedia.com” or “TripleCanopyMedia.com” or “TRIPLECANOPYMEDIA.COM” when you want to visit the TCM homepage. Your browser will send you there regardless.

In contrast, where capitalization does matter is in the portion of the URL that follows the domain name. This is called the “path,” and it indicates the exact location of a page, post, or file.

In the web address, “https://www.triplecanopymedia.com/category/blog/,” the path is the part of the URL that follows the first single backslash, in this case, “category/blog/.” It’s here, in the path, that capitalization matters.

This is essential to keep in mind when you’re creating pages for your website.

There IS a difference, as far as Google is concerned, between https://www.triplecanopymedia.com/category/blog/ and https://www.triplecanopymedia.com/CATEGORY/BLOG/. In this example, the second page doesn’t exist. Even though the domain name is correct, the page name is not because the path is capitalized and the actual page has a lowercase path. If you were to input this exact address, with the path capitalized, Google would not redirect you to the correct (existing) page, though it would do so if you capitalized just the domain name.

What does this mean for you if you’re creating new webpages for your site? It shows that it’s a good idea to conform with web conventions and make sure that the whole path is in lowercase.

If you fail to be mindful of this, then you might end up with a situation where capitalization could negatively affect your SEO. Placing duplicate content on two different pages that each have a different path may ultimately cause Google to value the authority of each page less than it should. The solution? Both for the sake of SEO and internal consistency, make sure all of your pages have paths that uniformly use lowercase letters.

How About Punctuation and SEO?

To begin our discussion of punctuation, rather than thinking about how Google will look at your page, think about how a human reader will respond to it. If your website’s content is full of errors, not just typos, but also in punctuation, then readers probably won’t stick around for very long if they happen to land on it while browsing. And the lack of time that real humans spend looking at your site will have a negative effect on your search results.

This means that you should be mindful about using basic punctuation marks correctly. A misplaced comma here or there probably isn’t going to harm you very much, if at all. But failing to ever use commas in your content or not placing any periods at the end of your sentences likely will have a negative impact.

But Punctuation and URLs, on the Other Hand…

Again, there’s a difference between on-page content and your page’s URL. You should place hyphens or underscores in between the words in your URL’s path (as in https://www.triplecanopymedia.com/social-media-aligns-connection-customer-service/). This ultimately makes the page easier on a human reader’s eyes. But avoid using other punctuation marks in your web address that you might readily put in page content such as question marks or exclamation marks. After all, remember that the URL for Yahoo! is yahoo.com and not yahoo!.com.

SEO and Special Symbols Such as ©, ™, or ®

Finally, we come to this set of special characters. According to Search Engine Roundtable, in an article published in 2017, for SEO purposes, Google ignores all symbols such as those which indicate copyright. The search engine reportedly treats any word that is next to a copyright symbol just like it treats that word without the symbol.

So does it matter at all if the copyright symbol is there?

One user on this Moz Q&A forum agrees that it doesn’t from an SEO standpoint. However, this commenter goes on to state that including these symbols is not only wise from a legal standpoint, it might also improve CTR (click-through rate) by showing that your business is professional and honors trademarks. Including the trademark symbol is therefore a respectful practice that apparently won’t have any negative effect on your place in search results.

In Conclusion

In your website’s content, it’s generally best to adhere to proper writing conventions when dealing with capitalization and punctuation. After all, that’s likely to make a higher number of human readers happy. And Google rewards content that gives people what they want. But the same rules don’t apply to URLs, which are far more particular. When in doubt, follow the conventions. But, above all, as always, try to make your content as engaging, informative, and readable as you can.

Content Remains King. So What Makes a Piece of Content Worthwhile?

13JunJune 13, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

In his profoundly influential Poetics, Aristotle said that any good plot will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This wise counsel doesn’t just apply to tragedy, though. Any piece of writing, including web content, should be constructed in the same way. This blog post will help you focus on some of the qualities you should infuse your content with if you want it to be more effective at enticing readers.

If you’re a writer, you should begin every work with an introduction that gives your audience a view of your piece from 30,000 feet and then eases each reader into the points you’re getting ready to make. On the other side of the body, or middle, of the piece, comes the end. Make sure that you provide the reader with a conclusion that summarizes your work in a concise and memorable way. And as for the middle, well, yes, you really ought to provide useful, substantive information in the body of your work.

So, that’s the basic structure of a complete written work. Beyond that, what are some of the other qualities you should fill your writing with to make sure that it is readable, effective, and engaging? Check out this list and ponder how good writing is…

Accessible: When you think about accessibility, consider the often-asked thought experiment question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Why? Because it’s reasonable to wonder, “If you write something, and nobody bothers to read it, is it helping your business succeed?” Maybe. After all, Google might still find your content even if no one will actually end up reading it. But you probably shouldn’t count on that, especially since you want people to not just find your page, but stay there. Instead, as a writer, you should concentrate on making your writing accessible and engaging. And make it interesting and lively, too. If you’re creating content of any kind, whether it’s for a blog that is personal or business-related, make sure you’re changing up the words you use. (Synonyms are your friends, your buddies, your pals.) But don’t fill up your writing with words that everyone but a time traveler from the 16^th century will have to look up.

Consistent: In order for writing to be coherent and effective, it should be consistent. This should be true across the board. It applies to tone, form, and topic. As a writer, you should heed this advice:

- Tone: Don’t start out any piece of writing with a light and lively air and then grind it all to a halt by turning dour. You should stay consistent throughout the piece in order to prevent your audience from getting disoriented. And, needless to say, your tone shouldn’t just be internally consistent. It should also be appropriate for the subject matter itself. If you’re writing a review of an action movie, it should be full of action verbs. But if you’re writing copy for a funeral home, save the flippant asides for another day.

- Form: You want your audience to be able to read your writing with relative ease. Some of your readers could do some skipping and skimming here and there. It’s okay—they can still get your message if the writing is accessible enough. One way you can facilitate this, though, is to keep the form and structure of your content consistent all the way through. In much the same way that you don’t want to start out with lighthearted asides and end up composing a eulogy, so also should you avoid starting out with brief, easily digestible sentences but then descend into long, twisty, winding, rambling, meandering, never-ending…you get the point, right? At the same time, keep in mind that if all of your sentences contain nearly the same exact number of words, then that will also turn readers away. Avoid monotony, regardless of your subject matter.

- Topic: Stay on point! Focus! Maybe that can be a challenge, especially since it seems like so many of the aspects of what you’re writing about are interconnected. And maybe they are. Nonetheless, it’s important that you make sure not to wander too much from your main subject. If you’re composing something expository—that is, explaining how to do something—focus on the step by step. If you’re writing to persuade, then make sure that your argument is airtight and that you stick with relevant information when you’re presenting your case. And if you’re composing a listicle, every item on the list should actually illustrate your theme or topic.

Polished: There are times when you might be on a roll. If you’re typing, maybe your fingers are flying and they can barely keep up with your thoughts. You just want to get all of those words onto the page! That’s great! If this happens to you, then you’re the envy of every writer suffering from writer’s block. Be sure to relish those moments of inspiration. But this swiftly-composed work is in no way a final product. You have to go back and edit it. There’s no shame in this. Every writer needs to revise. That’s where the best writing comes out anyway. Read over your work to ensure that it makes sense. Did you stay on topic or did you wander? Does the piece flow well, or are there starts and stops? Is it an engaging read? Deadlines are often tight in the world of content writing, but if you can, put the piece aside and look at it later, preferably the next day. Problems will jump out at you that you might have missed shortly after completing the work. And if your coworkers won’t think that you’re crazy, read the piece out loud. Nothing will bring out issues with tone, transitions, or word choice more readily than your ears.

In Conclusion

Writing remains more of an art than a science. Nonetheless, there are still rules that you should follow. Set up your premise, explain it to your readers, and then summarize it for them so that they will walk away with all of your main points in their heads. Make your writing easy to read and digest, and be sure that it is true to itself and reflective of your subject matter. Finally, double check everything before releasing it into the world. And don’t forget that practice makes perfect. Now, sit down and write!

Content Is King. So What Should Your Company Look For in a Content Writer?

30MayMay 29, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

We’ve written about content before, (actually more than once), and will certainly discuss it here again in the future. If you want your company to succeed online in the 21^st century, then you’re going to need to produce lots of good content. And someone is going to have to write that good content. Needless to say, that someone should be a writer well-suited to the job. Just what qualities should that writer have? We’re glad you asked.

Ideally, your company’s chosen writer will satisfy the major requirements we spell out below.

Your writer should love to write

Or at least like writing a whole lot. Ideally, we should all enjoy what we do every day. Although a person can still do outstanding work when that person isn’t particularly enamored of the vocation, (fueled by dedication and professionalism), isn’t it better for everyone if your writer actually loves to write? Writers who love to write relish the opportunity to connect with an audience using their words. Writers who love to write get a jolt of excitement from devising clever turns of phrase. And, most of all, writers who love to write are always striving to make their writing better.

Your writer should excel at the craft of writing

Writing, like any other skilled occupation, calls for a craftsperson who knows how to do it well. Perhaps this goes without saying, more or less, but we still feel that we can’t stress it enough. Good content plays such a major part in the online prosperity of your business. It can determine whether or not your business lives or dies—figuratively, anyway. Would you board an aircraft with a pilot who doesn’t even know how to take off? Don’t park your company’s future in coach on a grounded plane.

Your writer should believe that writing is important

We hope you can forgive our hyperbole when we say that writing is a calling. Whether or not you fully subscribe to that notion, your writer should take writing seriously and respect the power of the written word to inform, persuade, and inspire readers. When we use the word “seriously” though, we don’t mean “joyless.” Your writer can be as free and funny as your subject matter and audience will permit. The craftsmanship of a humor piece should be just as fine as that of a white paper or a homily.

Your writer should have some life experience

This is not to say that young people are incapable of producing good, compelling content. Nor is it the case that any person off the street is a skilled writer just by virtue of having walked the earth for a certain number of years. It’s not that simple, of course. But experience helps. More time on earth means more time perfecting the arts of crafting an argument, describing an initiative, or understanding how other people think and see the world. If you want to converse with people through your writing, you should have some idea about how they think. From there, you can find them where they are and inspire them to follow your lead. Meeting people in the neighborhood helps a lot, though we gladly award bonus points to those who have cross-cultural experience earned by living abroad.

Your writer should have a passion for research

Effective writing doesn’t just spring fully formed from the head of its creator. Good writing is informed by research. Chances are, your writer already uses Google extensively in other (non-writing-related) aspects of life, so harnessing that ability and applying it to blogging or content creation won’t be an enormous leap. Incorporating sources into any piece of writing is a necessary skill. And infusing your content with backlinks, as we’ve discussed before, is a great way to lend authority to your site.

Your writer should still be able to communicate (when not writing)

No less a writer than Ernest Hemingway spoke about writing as a solitary pursuit, and who are we to argue with a Nobel laureate? But when it comes to blogging, for instance, the most successful posts are often the most engaging ones. And the posts that are the most engaging are usually the ones that are the most conversational in nature. You want your readers to feel as though you’re speaking directly to each of them. There’s a lot of value in being personable. We’re not saying that you should exclude the shy or the introverted from your writing rosters. (Where would we be without the bookish, after all?) But we are advocating for that subgroup of writers who also know how to paint pictures with their words in real time.

Your writer should be willing to listen

But isn’t this true of any employee? Yes. Still, we maintain that this is especially true of anyone you have composing copy for your organization. Your company’s content should be a reflection of its personality. Your writer should be able to accurately represent that on the page. That doesn’t just mean following project directions (though that certainly helps). It also means picking up on the “company voice” and reproducing that in the form of promotional or informative content. Consistency is key here as well since, ideally, your company’s content will make your readers feel like they’re a part of a conversation. And why not be that old, trusted friend that people keep wanting to come back to?

Your writer should be willing and able to take constructive criticism

We all get better at what we do through a reexamination of our own work, whatever it may be. Yet oftentimes it’s a beta reader who is able to provide the best guidance after objectively viewing our writing through fresh eyes. Every writer needs an editor. Every writer needs to revise. All writers benefit from the insights of others. Find yourself a writer who invites feedback and will use critical observations to continually improve, and you’ve got a long-term ally and advocate.

In Conclusion

A great writer will bring the same qualities to the table that your company should expect from any other model employee: passion, expertise, dedication, experience, diligence, and personability. Your organization needs a distinctive and trustworthy online voice. If you can find a writer with these qualities who can also reliably speak your company’s language, add that person to your team and then watch your business thrive.

How Long Should Your Blog Post Be? Is There an Ideal?

16MayMay 16, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

If you’re a blogger and you’re serious about your craft, you no doubt spend at least some of your time pondering how to compose that perfect post. And assuming that you’ve developed a suitable answer to that most basic query—What should I write about? —then you’ve probably moved on to trying to answer some other key questions. These may include the following: How should my blog look on the page? Who’s the blog for? What’s the ideal length for a blog post?

It’s that last bit of soul-searching that we’d like to focus on right now. Model blog post length. You’ll never be alone in trying to seek an answer to the question of how long a blog post should be. In fact, everywhere online you’ll find the Knights of the SEO Round Table off on that never-ending quest for this Holy Grail. The search for this ideal piece of writing is not exactly like the pursuit of that famed chalice of yesteryear. But still, wouldn’t you love for the “ultimate” blog to give your business eternal life? And if you could just land on the formula for that perfect post, you think, you’d finally know infinite abundance in the form of unrivaled website traffic.

Perhaps it’s best to save the Arthurian Romances for another day. Let’s bring this discussion back to the 21^st century. Does a perfect blog post length actually exist?

Laying a good foundation for your post

Before we can begin to tackle the question of blog post length, we have to address some blog post basics.

What’s the point? Sorry if this seems too basic or sounds, perhaps, too existential. But before you can rightly know how long your blog post should be, you need to land on what it’s going to be about. Are you blogging about hot topics in your industry to raise your company’s profile? Would you like to use your blogging platform to transform a hobby into a business? Are you, personally, striving to become an online influencer? You could have several, overlapping reasons for taking to the blogosphere. The only wrong answer is no answer at all.

Who’s it for? Next, you need to figure out your blog’s primary audience. To a certain extent, this will be linked to your subject matter, and you should always be writing primarily for readers, not search engines. Are you hoping to have a lot of direct engagement with your potential audience in the form of comments on your blog? Will you benefit the most from having people share your blog insights on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or some other social media platform? Or, do you want to win Google’s heart through SEO? Whether it’s comments, shares, or rankings you’re after, you may want to adjust the length of your blog post accordingly. (More on that below.)

Quality is job 1: Regardless of subject matter and readership, you need to make sure that your writing is good. The rules that we all learned back in fifth grade haven’t gone out the window. Don’t confuse “your” and “you’re” or “to,” “too,” and “two.” Be mindful of run-on sentences that meander forever. And remember that passive voice is to be avoided. Were you paying attention just now? Let’s try that again: Don’t use the passive voice, especially when making a call to action.

Keep it lively and engaging: It’s not enough to simply consider the mechanics of your writing. You also need to make your blog posts enjoyable to read. After all, who’s going to add a positive comment to writing that’s boring or incomprehensible? Write for people, even if SEO compels you to think that Google is actually your primary audience. Search engine algorithms are sophisticated enough these days to differentiate good writing from bad. Think of your blog post as a chance for you to have a direct conversation with your readership and you’ll stay ahead of the curve.

And now let’s move on to blog post length

So, now that some of the groundwork is out of the way, let’s get to why you’re really here: blog post length.

Sorry if this is slightly unsatisfying, but there is no simple, straightforward answer.

There are, however, guidelines, based on what you want the primary function of your blog post to be. In general, longer content is better than shorter content, but don’t sacrifice quality in order to achieve length. If you can say what you need to say in fewer words, do that if you believe that people will still want to read it.

Here’s a detailed numerical breakdown showing the word count range you should strive for based upon the result you’ll most want your blog to generate:

Comments: An effective blog is a conversational blog. Write as though you’re speaking directly to an audience, make your argument easy to absorb and digest, and you’re much more likely to gain engaged readers. If your goal is to elicit very direct and visible responses from them, then a shorter blog post—meaning under 1,000 words—might be the best way to do this. After all, if it’s short, then it’s more likely that busy people will read it all the way through and want to say something back. Blog posts this short are not the best when it comes to SEO, but if that’s not your main purpose in writing, and your audience will like it, then it’s fine.

Shares: If you’re writing a blog post hoping to get readers to share it on social media, you’ll probably have to make it longer. Medium-length pieces—at least 600 words, but preferably beyond 1,000 words—are the ones that are best equipped to give you that result. At that length, readers may do some skimming, and not linger over every word, but they will usually be able to come away from the post with enough confidence to know whether or not they want to tweet it on to their followers.

Rankings: If SEO is your driving force as a blogger, then you’re going to want to make sure that your posts are even longer. Ideally, according to recent data, your posts should be around 2,500 words long if you really want them to rank high. Google views longer posts as being more authoritative. This is consistent with the idea that lots of content is going to cover lots of territory. And the more you write, the more you have a chance to get those keywords out there into the blogosphere. (We don’t think, in 2019, that we have to point out the difference between keyword stuffing and incorporating keywords into a well-written blog post, do we? Good.)

Above all else, your blog should serve its purpose

Most of all, remember that you should write your blog posts to be read by people. A blog post should inform, illuminate, or inspire. And it should be as long as it needs to be in order to do just that. Plus, any rule that experts might sell as “universal” today simply won’t be set in stone. After Google performs another major overhaul on its search algorithm, all of us will have to reassess what we know about SEO once again. Content will have to keep up.

If your post sets out to answer a particular question, and you can do that in 300 words, then that’s fine. This is especially true if there’s not going to be that much competition to answer a particular query, whether because the answer is fairly straightforward or because the field is quite specialized. The scope of responses to the question, “What’s the difference between a bowline knot and a running bowline knot?” is going to be quite different compared to what’s given in response to the query, “What are the biggest SEO trends of 2019?”

In conclusion

There’s more to think about when composing a blog post beyond just the word count. Keep not just the composition of your audience in mind as you write, but also what you hope they will do in response to your words. Above all, in blogging, as in life, you should always do your best work.

Time to Get Organized! (It Really Will Make All the Difference)

02MayMay 2, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

Let’s say it right off the bat: You don’t have to wait until the start of the new year to make a resolution about getting organized. You can do it right now. Believe it or not, there’s nothing stopping you from forging a plan and following through except for your own inertia. And what’s good for you in your personal life is great for your business.

What’s that protest echoing through the corridors of your company? We’re too busy to make a major change right now! A classic objection. We’ve made it this far doing things this way! Alright, but you don’t want to grow?

You may be investing a lot of time just in staying afloat. Sure, we get it. You may have always done things the way you’re doing them now, and yet you’re still in business. Fine. But is Ford still building the Model T?

Have you considered the possibility that part of the reason why your business acts like that proverbial headless chicken is because you haven’t systematized processes and procedures? Though that chicken may have been full of energy, it probably wasn’t going to win any productivity contests. And neither will you if you don’t get your company’s head on straight.

It’s easy enough to see the worst-case scenario here. Your business can’t stay on an even keel due to the chaos that comes with lost communications and missed meetings. On staff, everybody’s workload is unpredictable, leading to fatigue, both physical and mental. Good people get exhausted and leave. And then you lack the capacity to handle the clients you already have. Perhaps these customers then start dropping off, heading for the exits in the hope of finding a more attentive partnership. Good luck getting new clients, especially if your company now has a reputation for turmoil within your industry. And the downward spiral continues from there.

Let’s say it together: It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here are some steps you can take to make sure that your company keeps the winning edge by getting organized:

Let’s get physical: That is, let’s start with the spaces you can see. Einstein may have famously had a messy desk, but unless you’re in the relativity business, clutter is not likely to be an asset. Even a certified genius needs some kind of structure to get those brilliant ideas into production. A good approach is to make sure that every item in your office has a designated place. You may have discovered that you don’t lose your keys when you’re at home if you always put them in the same spot just as soon as you walk through the door. You can manage all the items in your office space the same way. Do you really think it’s good business to have to spend time looking for a hard copy of an important document by sifting through stacks of old papers? Which brings us to our next step…
Let’s get digital: Here in the 21^st century, you have an advantage over Albert and Sir Isaac and those other geniuses of yesteryear. You don’t have to record things on paper. Or, at least, you don’t have to use paper as your primary delivery vehicle. If you don’t already type your notes directly into a device in real time, instead relying on paper to record, say, the minutes of a meeting, you can always scan that paper later on and thereby free yourself from clutter bondage. And if you’re still tied to the pen, you should consider exploring the many options out there for taking virtual notes. Microsoft OneNote, for instance, is note-taking software that enables you to collect and organize text, both handwritten and typed, and store it on the Cloud. Sharing ideas as they blossom has never been easier. And there’s nothing to misplace!
Speaking of sharing: If your business isn’t already using a project management tool, then you need to schedule an upgrade—and do it yesterday. Applications like Basecamp allow your company to easily categorize all of your work under specific project headings. Within each project bucket, you can upload docs and files, schedule and assign tasks, set up to-do lists, display ideas on a virtual message board, and more. Naturally, tools like this are valuable because they organize all of your work materials in one place. But their true indispensable nature comes out in the way that they allow an office to function efficiently when all of the people working in it don’t actually occupy the same physical space or time zone. Got workers on the other side of the globe? Give them a task to do before you leave at night, then wake up in the morning and find it done.
Calendarize it: You may carry a small planner with you everywhere you go. That’s good. Your business may also use a shared calendar like Google Calendar. That’s even better. It goes without saying that missing an appointment or a deadline with a client is unprofessional and just an alternate way of saying that you don’t actually want to do business after all. If only 50 percent of your company’s designated representatives show up for a meeting, then that shows that you’re only half-serious about winning that client. That’s not going to cut it. A shared calendar gets everyone on the same page including, and especially, those employees who aren’t based in a central location.
One big push: Getting yourself organized might seem like a daunting task. You look at the uneven stack of papers on your desk or at your email inbox, bursting at the virtual seams, and think that it can’t be done. But you can do it. And the time to start is now. Entropy will have its way with the universe, so the amount of disorder in your office is going to increase naturally unless you do something to control it. Sort those papers, file those invoices, set up a system and then stick to it. Once it’s there, conforming to it will become automatic, even if getting to that point seems like an insurmountable challenge.

In conclusion, if your business suffers from disorderliness, lack of structure, or 20th-century syndrome, the time to address it is now. Make it a task, put it on the calendar, and let everyone know. Your bottom line will thank you.

Why a High Turnover Rate is Harmful and What Companies Can Do About It

18AprMay 2, 2019 By Dale Kiefer

Many companies face staffing challenges. It turns out that it’s not only hard to recruit talented people; it’s also tough to keep them. Few things can be more detrimental to an organization’s well-being than high turnover. If your company has a (figurative) revolving door for an entrance/exit, then that’s a sure sign that it’s definitely not functioning as it should. And when employees don’t stick around, this not only adversely affects company cohesion, it also impacts your customers or clients. This, in turn, is going to cut into your bottom line, which inevitably worsens morale, creating a vicious and self-perpetuating circle of underperformance.

For many business owners and operators, it may be difficult to come to terms with the fact that management style can often be a huge factor when it comes to retaining staff. A recent survey on employer-employee relations revealed a very startling but telling truth: A majority of workers reported that, if given the choice, they would actually rather have a better boss than get a pay raise. The abusive boss who screams and throws tantrums may be a Hollywood cliché, but in the real world you’re much more likely to encounter an oppressive micromanager than an overgrown toddler.

Still, whatever the cause, high turnover will devour your company from within. Here are just a few of the ways that it will not only destroy your spirit, but cost you money as well:

Growing pains: Even if, as a recent hire, you’re an expert in what you do and enthusiastic about hitting the ground running, it will still take you a while to get into the swing of things in a brand-new place. There’s formal orientation to go through and adjustments to a new company’s culture. If a high percentage of an organization consists of new hires, then productivity will suffer as all of these recent arrivals simultaneously try to find their way.
Training time: High turnover also has a negative impact on the productivity of the employees who do stick around. That’s because they often end up shouldering multiple burdens. First of all, if there are gaps in the company workforce, then someone has to bridge that divide. That means that some employees will end up working extra hours and may have to tackle projects outside of their assigned departments or formal job duties. Plus, these same veteran employees will eventually have to devote a significant amount of time to training the new arrivals. That inevitably cuts into productivity.
Does anyone know how to…? When people leave an organization, they take their knowledge and experience with them. Maybe some of them were quite thorough when it came to leaving handover notes behind. Still, documents are no substitute for a real, breathing person who can answer questions in real time. If no one at your organization weathered a storm through tough times, that makes it all the more difficult for you to do it in the future.
Putting on the same face: Customers value continuity and consistency. If you get a different person on the phone every time you call an organization that you’re supposed to trust, does that make you feel more or less confident that they have the capability to focus on your needs? And there’s nothing more irritating than having to explain who you are and what you need from a company over and over again each time you call them because everyone you’ve ever dealt with before has left.

Alright, so high turnover is bad, and is likely a symptom of a larger problem within the organization. If you accept that, then the logical next question is: What can a company do to prevent it?

It should be about trust: You’ve gone through the trouble of recruiting, vetting, interviewing, checking, double-checking, training, orienting, and (one hopes) welcoming a new member of staff to your team. And now, after all that, you feel that you have to stand over that person and monitor every keystroke? Save the micromanaging for house-training your new puppy and let the professionals create and manage their own task lists.
Don’t run anyone ragged: Great managers provide their staffs with a clear set of responsibilities, goals, and objectives. Mercilessly piling (sometimes barely relevant) work on employees, even out of perceived necessity, is going to burn your people out. And once they get to that stage, they’ll be looking for the door.
Stay flexible: We’re well into the 21^st century now, and in many professional fields the days of rigid in-office hours and cubicle confinement are a thing of the past. Allow employees to take advantage of technological advances to make their work-life balance more balanced, and you might be amazed at how it actually improves both productivity and morale. In this day and age, an employee can attend a meeting without actually being in the room and still be every bit as insightful. Managers who get that, get to keep the best workers.
Invest in your people: There are many things you can do to make someone feel valued within your organization. One of the most impactful of all is to give that person a path to greater professional enrichment and advancement. Encourage your employees to build their skill sets and then create systems and structures to allow them to pursue self-improvement. Plan and fund ways for your workers to enhance their resumes and they’ll feel loyalty to the company. Plus, you can consider this to be your company’s version of the “rising tide lifts all boats” aphorism. If the people who work for you know more, your company knows more, and that’s just smart business. And if you’re concerned about the cost of additional trainings for your employees, you should know that it’s a lot less costly than onboarding new ones!
Listen: This may be the most vital thing that any manager can do to hang on to good talent. Listen! Communicate! It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that the main key to success in a business setting is the same as that in a personal context. Be open, honest, and receptive when it comes to your employees’ concerns, and they’ll feel empowered to share them.
Be the change you wish to see: Some bosses rule by intimidation. That might allow an organization to skate by in the short term. But if you really want to build up your company, nurture your employees, and create a culture of work that actually works, then you should choose inspiration as a motivating tool instead. Even just saying “thank you” to someone on your staff can make a huge difference in shaping attitudes and boosting morale. We all want positive recognition and appreciation. Don’t be stingy with gratitude. You can produce it in-house for free!

Reducing employee turnover isn’t something you do by waving a magic wand over your organization. It’s something that you must live every day; it should be woven into your company culture. Losing staff goes hand-in-hand with losing customers. Don’t find out the hard way.