No that’s not a brand of beer. When we refer to “Draft Number 10,” we’re talking about Word docs. Oh. Which begs the question: Why embrace that? Just by its moniker, “Number 10,” it’s daunting and annoying. Who in their right mind would ever enjoy, let alone embrace, the tenth draft of anything? Wouldn’t you be automatically burned out? Let’s answer that “in their right mind” question first. This is business, not art If you’re a painter or a poet, up in your garret, you can dream and wile away the hours, finessing your grand opus—“a hundred visions and revisions,” in the words of T.S. Eliot—and you’ve only yourself (and perhaps your muse) to answer to. But we’re not talking about art here, despite our decades of experience (not to mention lots of awards) in creative services. We’re talking about business. Money. Deadlines. ROI. Where, then, does a Draft Number 10 even come from? Quick oh-now-you’ll-get-it answer: A client who’s a perfectionist. Aha. Now everything should make sense for you. We have a client—we’ve actually had lots of clients like this—who’s a perfectionist. Who will revise and revise and revise a draft until it’s almost perfect… and then decide that it’s anything but, and then trash it, and start over, and then revise and revise and revise again, taking us along for the ride. As a creative resource, you could fight this. But you know that that would get you in trouble, and perhaps fired. You could just go with the flow: “Oh, this is the way they like to work. I’ll just… endure it, without complaining.” It’s possible that you could coast along like this indefinitely. But neither of the above approaches benefits anybody. Thus our advice to you in these situations: Embrace it. Heck, enjoy it. See it for the invaluable paid education that it is: Our fastidious client in this story—like most of the clients we’re lucky to work with, whether they’re fastidious or not—is quite brilliant. We would pay to learn their thought processes. To try and osmose just a tiny bit of that genius. Why do they toss Draft 5 and do a wholesale rework for Draft 6? Incidentally, the method behind the madness reveals—if you pay attention—that overall, these drafts get better as they go. It’s not a simple straight slope, were you to graph it. But the trend would be positive. Put it this way: Wouldn’t you love to see Einstein’s notes en route to e = mc2? We get paid for our services. It’s incumbent on us to remain profitable. So we don’t lose money on assignments like this—while, at the same time, we don’t take advantage of our clients’ generosity. And while we get paid in dollars, often the greater reward is the knowledge. The insight. And, frankly, the ability to help other clients like this in similar situations. As we’d said, we’re not along simply for the ride. We dive right in, on every single draft, seeing what’s changed and doing our best to make it better throughout. That’s why our clients entrust us on this journey. Need help with a client, or project, that feels unending? Contact us. We’d be happy—truly happy—to help.
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You’d never tell any client that they’re your favorite. If you say that to one of them, you have to say it to all of them. But c’mon. You know that you have a favorite client. We all do. It’s human nature. It’s also a tacit business proposition: How do you “clone” that client? Wouldn’t you love more of them? (And by extension, fewer of the, um, less-favorite ones?) In this article, we’ll review what makes a “clone-able” client. And then we’ll get to the crux of the matter: Doing the actual cloning. Nobody’s perfect You can certainly describe an “ideal” client. And odds are, your favorite client won’t check all of the boxes. That’s fine. We live in the real world. And it’s hardly a compromise to want to clone your favorite client. But what makes them your favorite? Why are they hovering up near the “Ideal” space? It’s easy to rattle off a bunch of positive attributes of this favorite client of yours:
Wouldn’t that list resonate with you? (Have other attributes we’d missed? Add them to the comments below.) So. How do you go about cloning such a wonderful client? This is a multi-step process—or multi-pronged approach—and while you may know some of the checklist items we’re about to discuss, you probably don’t know them all. The feeding trough Where is this client of yours turning, daily, for information? Are there various groups they belong to? Trade shows they attend? Websites they visit? Answer as many of these as you can for your favorite client, and then “feed from the same trough.” Example: Look up which LinkedIn groups your client belongs to. Then join them. You’ll see the same conversations they’re seeing; you’ll see which posts they like, which articles they read, and which influencers they follow. When you actively join in and comment on a forum like this, LinkedIn rewards you by making your comments visible to more people. In fact, if you can get a vigorous conversation going, LinkedIn will really tell the world about you. We could call this “The Kardashian Effect.” So as your street cred grows, you’ll get exposed to more people like your favorite client. You can then connect with them, comment on stuff they’re posting… and then, politely, ask for a quick chat or Zoom, just to say hello. If you really do this, as a person, and not like some LinkedIn bot that automatically spits out five pages of “personal” messages as soon as you click “Connect” (hate that, don’t you?), you increase your odds of making a real connection. Shake the trees Ask yourself: How did this client find you in the first place? Think through every step of that process—because it contained numerous steps—and then replicate it. Was it a certain person who had referred you? Then reach out to that person. Was it at, say, a certain event? Be sure to attend the next one. On paper, this is a very simple exercise in reverse-engineering. In the real world, few people take the time, or make the effort, to do it. Which is a shame, because there’s a lot of doppelganger favorite clients out there, just waiting for you to discover them. Lubricate the revolving door We have a wonderful client that, well, has a high churn rate when it comes to their employees. And what do we do? We stay in touch with those employees when they move on. LinkedIn is great for this. We can’t tell you how many of them have gone on to become new clients of ours, as they’ve brought us along to their new gigs. And they invariably become very good clients, since our original client did such a nice job of vetting these people for us in the first place! These are just a few tips. There are others. For example, we’ve not even touched upon the entire (huge) topic of marketing outreach to this ultra-targeted audience… and that’s really our specialty here at Copel Communications. Want to learn more? Contact us. We’d be delighted to hear from you. It’s that time of year again: time for our annual year-in-review wrap-up of our top articles from Copel Communications. We do two of these each December: one for our “Creatives” audience, and another for our consultants audience. This one (although it's posting first) is the latter. Here are the top articles we’ve published for consultants, chock full of counterintuitive tips and business-building tricks. In case you missed any of these, here’s your chance to get some fast, free pointers. Enjoy!
Have suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover next year? Contact us. We’ve love to hear from you. It’s that time of year again. Time for our annual wrap-up of business-building posts for consultants from Copel Communications. If you missed any, here’s your chance to catch up; if you had some faves, here’s an easy place to revisit them. We hope you had a good year, and that 2021 was better than 2020... and that 2022 will be even better than that. Meantime, enjoy the biz-building reading below!
Have a topic you’d like us to weigh in on next year? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you. How to find and hire a ghost writer—or do it yourself Halloween it still over a week away, but since it’s October, what better time to address the topic of ghost writing? People always seem to be impressed when we tell them that we do a lot of ghost writing. Maybe there’s some connotation to the term, implying that it’s being done for, say, a celebrity or politician. That’s not the case, in our case. Still, we do tons of ghost writing. You could almost argue that, aside from blog articles like this one, it’s all we do. Put it this way: Whenever you write something that’s ostensibly written by someone else, you’re “ghosting.” But does that mean you’re putting your words into someone else’s mouth? Dispelling the myths The answer to the above question is: “You’d better not be!” The whole idea of ghost writing is to help your “author” express their ideas, only better/faster/more efficiently than they could on their own. Every word should read as if it were written by them. This, incidentally, is why we tag ourselves as a “secret weapon” on our website. By reading this article, you know what we do. But most of the readers of the material we create don’t even know that we exist. And that’s the way it should be. Another myth about ghost writing is that it’s glamorous. We’ll admit that it’s fun, and intellectually stimulating, but “remaining anonymous in the shadows” isn’t exactly a red-carpet activity. It’s a job to be done. And done right, it’s all about helping your “author” to shine. In our case, “shine” means “drive in more business.” This isn’t some touchy-feely branding exercise. This is about helping time-constrained business leaders to get their thought-leading ideas, views, and sales pitches out to their intended audiences, for maximum impact and ROI. So, in case you hadn’t thought about it, our ghost writing encompasses virtually every kind of written communication medium. It could be a thought-leadership article. It could be a book. It could be a sales presentation or video script. It could be—and often is—an email, addressed to, perhaps a C-level prospect. Think about it: Do you honestly believe that our clients—these incredibly smart and busy people—want to spend the time organizing their arguments, let alone word-smithing the copy? They’ve got far bigger fish to fry. Hence the need for ghost writers. Finding the voice Here’s a neat story. We have a client—let’s call her Sue (not her real name)—who, like most of our clients, is downright brilliant. She’s also shy and soft-spoken. Yet we needed to create a piece for her, in her voice, that would sell. There was a mismatch of tone. But after speaking with her at length, and asking her about a certain topic she’s passionate about, that passion started to come through. Indeed, when we probed about specifics, she got even more heated and enthusiastic. And we realized: That’s the voice we need. It’s “Sue, Pissed Off.” So, interviewing her, we got all the facts we needed for this piece. And that’s a job unto itself. It’s important to respect her time and let her go down any rabbit-holes she likes, so long as they’re at least tangentially relevant, and take great notes. It’s not her job, incidentally, to organize these thoughts, or think about the end product’s structure. She just needs to “spout.” Our job—which isn’t easy—afterward is twofold: 1) We need to organize all of those random thoughts, and find the thread which aligns them into the most compelling possible argument. 2) We then need to make that argument in the “Sue, Pissed Off” voice. Is this “putting words into Sue’s mouth”? Hardly! Finding the fit Now let’s turn the tables. Let’s say you need to hire a ghost writer for, say, that upcoming marketing outreach piece that will have your byline at the top of it, or your signature at the bottom of it. What do you do? Well, you can find your list of candidates by whatever means you see fit, whether it’s a LinkedIn search, or through a site such as Upwork, or whatever. But this is not about just finding someone who can write well and will work within your budget. This is all about finding the proper fit. Can that person interview you well and tease out the information that’s needed for the piece and its tactical intent? Do you feel comfortable chatting—indeed, venting—to that person at length? And most importantly, can they empathize? Can they find, and “speak” in, the right voice that you want to project to the world, which will 1) best present your argument, while 2) ringing true as “you”? This is the crucial yet subtle compatibility factor that you really need to weigh, first and foremost, into your hiring decision. Staying on-message Unfortunately, after the interview is over, your work—as the putative “author”—isn’t done. You’ll need to review the draft your ghost writer submits, and check it not only for accuracy but for tone. Does it ring true? Does it “sound” like you wrote it? If you don’t feel comfortable, you’ll need to kick it back. Lest we remind you: Your name, not the ghost writer’s, will be on this thing. It’s personal. This is “you,” to the world. You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about the product. To the contrary: You should be delighted. When you get a great ghost-written piece, you should be downright elated. We have clients who share our pieces with family and friends, they’re so excited by how they’ve come out. So that’s the bar you want to reach. Have a project you need ghost written? We can help with that. Simply contact us for a no-obligation consultation today. Tips for this essential marketing and copywriting service We’ve heard it pronounced “Smeee.” We’ve heard it pronounced “S-M-E.” Either way, it refers to “subject-matter expert” or SME. As experts, SMEs are often tapped for their wisdom. That’s what this article is all about. Why would you need to conduct a SME interview in the first place? It depends on the assignment. Here at Copel Communications, we’re often tapped to ghost-write thought-leading articles for business leaders. This is a classic case of “call in the SME.” Or you might be crafting a strategic situation analysis for your company or another company. You need to know the lay of the land. Consider using a SME when you need to get well-informed opinions about topics such as:
Note, importantly, that we said “opinions” above. This is huge. The whole idea of interviewing a SME is to get opinions, more than facts. Think about that. For “facts,” you could basically go on Wikipedia and seemingly get your questions answered. That’s not worth much, and it’s certainly not unique. The whole advantage of a SME is that this is someone who is toiling at the front lines, at the very bleeding edge of their area of expertise. So naturally they’ll have strong—and well-founded—opinions about all of the topics listed above. And that’s what you want to get from them. Every opinion they offer, of course, will be couched within the context of the facts that surround it. Such as “This new technology is the hot new darling of Wall Street, and the valuations of companies who manufacture it are going through the roof.” That’s the fact. Then comes the opinion: “But as far as I’m concerned, this is all smoke-and-mirrors; it’s another dot-com bust just waiting to happen.” If you’re not asking “Why?” right now, you need to hone your interviewing skills. Succeed in advance Clearly, the example above is made up. But it’s typical. We encounter these types of exchanges all the time. And they’re the best part of the interview. We’ll take ten minutes of opinion for every one minute of facts. Not only that, we love to probe in instances like this. Dig deep. Keep asking “Why?” Get your SME riled up, indignant, and on their high-horse. This stuff is solid gold. All of the above, of course, assumes that you’re already hip-deep in the interview. So let’s back up a little and help you set it up in the first place. Conducting a good SME interview is all about preparation. You want to be totally prepared. Some checklist items to consider:
The medium for the message Not long ago, we did all SME interviews by phone. Post-pandemic, that’s changed. There’s a lot more video going on. But that doesn’t mean that you need to use video. Let’s consider some of the advantages and disadvantages of each:
Key takeaways Depending on the assignment, you might nail the interview in one shot. Sometimes it will go so well, you’ll effectively get two interviews’ worth of information out of a single one. And sometimes the opposite is true: You’ll only get half of what you need. In that case, you’ll need to book a follow-up to complete the assignment. All of this, incidentally, is work. That’s in addition to having, and employing, “soft skills” such as putting the subject at ease, especially when they’re a highly technical person who might not be terribly social or outgoing. This is where we come in. We know how to do great SME interviews, because we do them all the time. We also craft the materials—everything from white papers to blog articles to case studies—that result from them, to our clients’ benefit. Need help with that next SME interview or the deliverable it will inform? Contact us today. We’d be delighted to discuss your needs. So many marketing topics seem straightforward, until you dive into them. This is one of those. The germ of this story came from a client assignment we were handed recently. Our client was going to be presenting at a prestigious webinar, and wanted us to write a blog article about the event. So the question became: When should this article run? Before the event? After the event? Which would be better? The answer, incidentally, depended on the answers to a few other questions. Think ahead As always, we wanted to know who the audience would be. Again, not so simple! Because there are two audiences at play here: 1) the audience our client would be presenting to, in the webinar, and 2) the audience for the blog article. You can’t assume they’re the same. Indeed, they weren’t. By the way, we’ve been saying “blog article,” because that’s what this client asked us to write. But it could just as easily have been “press release,” “e-blast,” or “social campaign.” They’re all different flavors of the same assignment. So here are the answers we got to the who-the-audiences-are question: 1) The audience at the webinar would be professional peers within an internal-services vertical that our speaker represented, within the client’s business. 2) The audience for the blog post was to be wholly different: Prospective clients of our client’s business—and not other internal-services professionals. In other words, this was a prestige play. Our client was to be showing off their thought leadership to a distinguished audience of professional peers, and they wanted the rest of the world to know that they were thought leaders, top-to-bottom, even in internal-service functions that prospective clients wouldn’t experience firsthand. Follow? Do the two replies above help to answer the “timing” question? Not on their own. But they’re essential input for creating the blog. Who owns who? (Or what?) The next question we asked was: “Who’s hosting this webinar? Is it you? Or someone else?” Answer: “Someone else.” Aha. That’s the big one. Because if our client were hosting this upcoming webinar, the obvious follow-up question is, “Would you like to boost registrations and attendance?” The obvious answer to that would be “Of course.” And then the obvious answer to “When should this get posted?” would be “In advance. Naturally.” But that wasn’t the case here. Some other entity—in this case, an industry trade group—was hosting the webinar. They were doing all the promoting and attendance-building. That was their problem. At the same time, they had a whole slate of featured speakers to promote; our client was just one of them. So our client would get lost in the sauce of the trade group’s promotional efforts. Which is why they wanted their own self-promoting blog. Which is why they turned to us. Again: Follow? So now we had enough information to discuss with our client, and come to a mutual agreement on, the timing. They certainly could have promoted it in advance: “We will be proud to be presenting at the ABC Webinar next month!” That would show that we’d been selected to join this prestigious group of presenters, so that’s not bad. Side note: There isn’t “the right” answer to the timing question. It’s more like “the best” answer to the timing question. You need to weigh different factors. Working with the client, we chose to promote this after-the-fact. Because it would still show that we’d been selected to join this prestigious group of presenters, so no loss there. We’d have the benefit of final attendance info to bolster our blog (“Over 10,000 attendees from more than 15 countries!” “Keynote speakers included Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, both of whom made last-second commitments!” That kind of stuff.) We could quote the rave reviews our client-speaker received. And, unlike the trade group, we had zero vested interest in boosting attendance in advance. See? “Best answer.” Not “the right” answer. Rules of thumb You might not have noticed this, but all the advertising for a big Hollywood movie always appears before the movie opens. The idea is to build as much hype and excitement as possible in order to have the biggest-possible opening weekend. Once the movie opens, the advertising virtually vanishes. You might not have noticed this before, but watch for it next time—even as theaters are shuttered and “openings” become more firmly cemented online. This is Hollywood’s approach. Is it the best approach? That’s the topic of a different blog. Is your opening-weekend box office the most important thing anymore? Highly debatable. Similarly, you’ll see hype about politicians unveiling their latest initiative... after they do it. They generally won’t tell you, in advance, “We’re working on some new thing.” Sure, you could find that info if you dig, but it’s not what they choose to hype. Their reasoning? They want massed glory and constituent approval, all at the same time. Our point here is that there are pre-existing conventions for the timing of different hype-able events, and you can learn, and draw your own conclusions, from how they are similar, or dissimilar, to your situation. Have a promotional-timing issue you’d like to discuss? Contact us. We dive into these thorny weeds with our clients all the time. Keep that pipeline replenished Ordinarily we equate September with back-to-school. That may get cramped by social-distancing and/or Zoom classrooms, but the need to keep current—especially if you’re in the professional-services business—is ongoing. Let’s call it the continuing challenge of continuing education. In this article, we’ll review the “why,” the “what,” and the “how.” Let’s not waste time: The “why” is hugely important. Why continuing ed is vital It’s not degrees. Or awards. Or certificates. Or accreditations. It’s income. Simple as that. Put it the other way: If you can get by, and keep current, and prosper, without continuing education, then by all means, do so. Because education is an investment. And you want ROI. Thing is, no one can keep current, and properly prosper, without continuing education. Know why? Things change. It’s the entropy of business. If you don’t keep up, it’s your loss, quite literally. Think of the common business metaphors you often hear:
Need we go on? If there’s one thought that encapsulates this—if there’s one takeaway in this article that should motivate you—it’s this:
If that doesn’t make your blood chill, then nothing will. Let’s be more specific. What, exactly, changes? What do you need to learn about? Here are some examples:
At this point, you should rightly be wondering: “But how does all of this pertain to education? This goes way beyond what you learn in school.” Bingo. You’re on the right track already. A not-so-tangential tangent: Back when scientists were first measuring the speed of light, they encountered a puzzling phenomenon. No matter what the speed of the observer, the speed of light was always measured as a constant. Think about that, and it makes no sense. If you see a car approach you at 50 mph, that’s one thing. But if you’re also racing toward it at 50 mph, then, clearly, your rate of closure—the apparent speed of the approaching car—is 100 mph. But light didn’t behave like a car. No matter how they measured it, the scientists always came back with the same speed. What were they doing wrong? Turns out that they weren’t measuring anything wrong. Their measurements, to the contrary, were quite accurate. But these brilliant scientists were thinking wrong. And it took an even-more brilliant scientist—yep, Albert Einstein—to realize that in the classic “speed” definition of “distance over time,” the variable here wasn’t distance, but rather time. He figured out that time changes. So the speed of light seems the same. Conceptually, it’s very simple: If one of the two variables isn’t changing, then the other must. But no one, before Einstein, could wrap their heads around it. It was this germ—this passel of head-scratching experimental data about the speed of light—that led to his immortal Theory of Relativity. In other words, he asked the question that no one else was asking. To return to our thread: There is a certain Einsteinian logic to your question about continuing ed. That question about “what they teach in school.” Think big(ger) Yes, you can certainly go (back) to school for your continuing ed. Colleges these days, given the drought of students in the wake of Covid-19, would be more than happy to accept your tuition. And it needn’t be on-campus or even in-person; virtual learning is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic, along with tech enablers like Zoom and GoToMeeting. So you could do that. But can you sense our, um, indifference toward this topic? There are so many more opportunities available to you these days. And so many of them are richer, cheaper (free, even), faster, more efficient, and infinitely more fun. Now, we can’t narrow this article to your one specific field of professional-service consulting. But we work with enough consultants to know “the usual suspects” when it comes to ongoing educational opportunities:
Those are obvious. We’re also somewhat wary of professional associations—specifically, the ones that are more interested in your dues than delivering value. How much are they charging you, each year, to tack a few letters after your name? Do your clients, um, care? The important question—think like Einstein!—is “Am I gaining new insights that help me grow my business right now?” That’s a good litmus test. Through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole So there’s traditional education. There’s professional societies. Fine. But the interesting, third, often-overlooked category is what we’d call “nontraditional education.” And it’s where you’ll find the answers to some of the thorniest questions. It’s where you’ll gain peer-around-the-corner insights that will impress your clients, and entice prospects to sign on. The fun thing about this third category is that it’s, well, fun. Think about stuff you do when you’re not working, but should be. You might read the news. Watch a TV show. Read a book. Spend time on a social platform. Write in a journal. Do a crossword. Binge on YouTube. Guess what? There are continuing-education iterations of every item on that list. Don’t believe us?
Get help We know about these continuing-ed tricks, because we practice what we preach. A lot of it is in-going attitude. If you approach it like a chore, it will be. If you come at it like it’s something you shouldn’t be doing—like it’s self-indulgent goofing off—you’ll have more fun, and end up learning more. That said, you can also avail yourself to other resources. Like us. Like you, we strive to keep current, because it equips us to help you with your marketing and communications challenges. Contact us today to learn more. In this article, we’re going to show you how to create a pillar page. Isn’t that great?! There’s only one question. What the @#$% is a pillar page? We’re so glad you asked. The answer, incidentally, can have a big impact on your business’ presence on the web. Okay, what is a pillar page? To answer this question, you need to back up a little and consider the world from Google’s point of view. That’s what search engine optimization, or SEO, is all about anyway. The “SE” in “SEO” is basically code for “Google.” Spoiler alert: Pillar pages are all about SEO, kind of a newfangled skeleton key for improving your search rankings. Back to Google. In the old days—not very long ago, actually—Google would scour the web for information it could organize (the company’s foundational mission) by searching for keywords: phrases that would indicate the contents of a given page. This, incidentally, is what transformed Google from a dot-com also-ran into a global behemoth: They figured out that they could monetize the search for keywords. Today, Google AdWords is basically still that: A reverse auction whereby advertisers bid on the keywords they want to own. So keywords still exist. But over the years, Google has gotten much, much smarter than just looking for keywords. It’s also searching for metatags, depth of content, appropriate images, video, and so on. The overarching goal, now as before, is to serve up useful content. Google has gotten much better at this. We’re sure you remember, not too long ago, when you might search Google for a certain term, and the top hit would appear to be exactly what you were looking for. ...But then you’d click that link and discover that it was essentially junk: Just a landfill of “aggregated content” and slapped-together keywords, created solely for the purpose of tricking Google into ranking it highly. You’d see a page like that, get frustrated, and go back to your search results. Only this time, you’d be wary: Would the second item on the list yield the same junk? There was a good chance of it. Today, you rarely encounter such situations. Credit Google: They’ve gotten smarter. Not only do they update their search algorithms, they update them continually, and in secret, so that junk advertisers like the one we just described can’t easily reverse-engineer Google’s search parameters and thus game the system. In an article about “pillar pages,” you might think that we’ve gotten significantly off-topic. In fact, we haven’t. The bigger picture Google, as we said, wants to serve you the best information it can. (It also wants to make the most possible money doing so, but that is actually off-topic here.) Now. Think. What is one particular website that’s known, better than every other site on the internet, for the information it serves up for free? Here’s a hint: Imagine a student trying to write an essay about “The Roman Empire.” What’s the first site they’d visit? It sure wouldn’t be “RomanEmpire.com,” (We just made that up.) It would be—no suspense—Wikipedia. Here’s where things get interesting. Wikipedia is, inarguably, a great source of information. But it’s not always the best source. Still, the way it presents its info is clear, logical, and authoritative. So if you’re Google, wouldn’t you want to find other websites that are equally clear, logical, and authoritative? Of course you would. And those—ta dah!—are pillar pages. Here’s a quick and dirty definition of a pillar page: A pillar page is single, long-form, informative page that’s structured very similarly to Wikipedia, but doesn’t reside on Wikipedia. A counterintuitive approach Wikipedia gets tons of traffic. It’s one of the most-visited sites on the entire internet. Wouldn’t you love to have even a sliver of that kind of traffic for your business? This is where the pillar page comes in. If you can craft a good pillar page, then Google will recognize it, and reward you with strong placement for your efforts. But if you’re new to this, prepare to go in unfamiliar directions. Again, think of Wikipedia. Does it have advertising? No. Does it self-promote? No. Does it feature a call-to-action? No. These are all things that you naturally assume would be on any website page you create! But in the land of pillar pages, they’re verboten. Incidentally, we keep saying “Wikipedia.” But it’s not the only example. Wikipedia is, after all, infamously dry and boring. So you’re free to do a better job. You can make your pillar page fairly conversational. You can make the layout pretty. Think of, for example, a good introductory college textbook. So you’ll want to craft a pillar page about a topic you absolutely own. Something you’re a world-class expert on. You’ll create it just like a Wikipedia page—replete with a table of contents at the top, hyper-linked to all of the chapter subheadings—and devoid of hype that promotes your business, or even a call-to-action. You’ll want the thing to be deep. Aim for 4,000 to 5,000 words. (You can always update it and lengthen it, going forward. In fact, Google likes it when you do.) Include Google-friendly elements, such as diagrams, illustrations with metadata and captions, bullet lists, embedded video clips, and so on. So how does this build your business? Well, the answer is subtle. First off, this big, huge, authoritative page does not reside on Wikipedia.com; rather, it lives on your website. So Google is driving all the traffic there. That’s the second benefit: the obvious SEO boost, if you do this right. And once those visitors arrive at your site, they automatically associate this authoritative information with your business. And they’ll be able to learn more about you: Your pillar page can still include things like top nav-bar links to the rest of your site, and ads for your services here and there, which can link to landing pages on other parts of your site. Admittedly, this is an unusual exercise. If you’re used to creating strong, promotional web content, prepare to downshift to a stranger gear. But it’s worth the effort: A good pillar page can really dominate its intended search results. We know: We’ve helped clients attain this exact goal. Need help creating a pillar page of your own? You don’t have to go it alone. Contact us today. We’ll help to ease the journey, and improve the destination. It’s that time of year again! Time to round up our top tips from the year that’s rapidly winding down. Here’s a quick recap for you, replete with links, so you can catch up on what you’ve missed, or simply revisit one for a refresher. Enjoy!
Which of these articles helped you the most? Which ones might warrant follow-up articles? Let us know! We’d love your feedback. And we’d love to help you with that next business challenge. Contact us today for a free initial consultation. |
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