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Simple Tips for Writing Headlines That Attract Readers

Posted on June 11, 2013 by skulkaew

Crafting high quality headlines that resonate with readers is one of the most deceptively difficult components of writing for several different reasons.

For starters, headlines need to draw attention to your topic and attract the right readers. We could write “Justin Bieber has nervous breakdown on stage” on the Bravo Design, Inc. blog and receive 10,000 hits, but it wouldn’t really help our business. Unless, we missed this huge market that loves both the Beebs and graphic design, but I’m pretty sure I already looked into that. Second, they need to relay context. And third, headlines should assure prospective readers that the time and energy they invest will yield a positive return. All of this is made harder by the fact that all three boxes should be checked in around 10 words.

So with no further ado, here are tips on improving your headlines.

The Mosquito Bite

One method to use is intrigue. By enticing readers to discover more, you provide compelling reasons for them to click on an article then move from the headline to the next line to the next.

“The Information Gap Theory,” was made famous by George Loewenstein, a leader in the field of behavioral economics and professor at Carnegie-Mellon. According to Loewenstein, curiosity is brought about when we feel a gap “between what we know and what we want to know.” Jonah Lehrer of Wired Magazine succinctly summarizes this by writing, “This gap has emotional consequences: it feels like a mental itch, a mosquito bite on the brain. We seek out new knowledge because that’s how we scratch the itch.”

Just remember: if you give up all the pertinent information in the headline, people won’t feel the need to read more so focus on the itch first and the scratch second.

What to Post

e.g., “You have a problem; we want to help you. Here are X, Y and Z solutions.”

People want useful information, especially when it provides solutions to problems or offers tips that improve their lives making them easier and/or better. Lists and how to articles foot the bill here along with pieces that answer the five W’s (who, what, why, when and where) These types of posts are perfect for building your authority and demonstrating your area of expertise which is critical for business blogging.

Incorporating Keywords

Should you utilize keywords in headlines? Yes, absolutely. We probably wouldn’t use the title, “How to find a graphic designer, graphic design studio, graphic design agency Los Angeles,” but who knows? I like a shameless promo plug every now and then. No, I’m kidding.

Write for an audience in their terms using your keyword research. These terms can be related to anything from problems to solutions to brand names to service offerings. It’s a win-win because you’re able to engage readers and attract search based traffic.

What NOT to do + Other Headline Landmines

I’ve said it numerous times in the past, but your products and services won’t appeal to everyone. Bummer, I know. But what’s worse is watering content down for mass appeal. I’ve made this mistake and really encourage you not to do the same.

Other things to avoid are overselling, fear mongering, trickery, desperation, hubris (desperation’s distant cousin) and the obvious ad. All of which are likely to scare prospects away before they go from browser to reader.

Practice Writing Headlines

With print media you don’t get to try multiple headlines for national audiences. You pick one, the material gets shipped, and you hope for the best. But with social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, you can test different headlines to see which garners more attention, and it’s very much measurable.

Just keep in mind that with practice, you can only get better (even if all signs point to the contrary), especially if you’re providing useful information with real problem.

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Bounce Rate + Site Optimization

Posted on June 4, 2013 by skulkaew

Over the course of the last few weeks, we’ve shifted the focus on the Bravo Design, Inc. blog from a semi-random traffic grab to generating meaningful content for better overall engagement. And outside of gaining a regular following (i.e., growth in repeat visits), a peripheral goal of mine is to decrease our bounce rate as needed and optimize the BDI site for visitors.

“Are bounce rates and exit rates the same thing?” you ask.

No, your bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on a page and leave before navigating to the next. They might be on that page for one second, one minute or one hour, but they’re not going anywhere else before leaving.

The exit rate is defined as the percentage of traffic that leaves your site from a given page based on how many visits that the particular page has received. These visitors have landed on other pages, going from pages X, Y to Z and jumped on the last.

While it may be inferred that high bounce rates are always bad, it’s really just a matter of context. For example, if a user navigates to your site, finds a succinct answer to their question and leaves, that specific page has successfully completed its goal. It becomes a problem when the bounce rate is high at the top of the funnel (e.g., on your homepage or halfway through a paginated article).

“So what does a high bounce rate mean?”

One, you’re acquiring the right kind of traffic, and your pages are doing their job. All is well like in the example listed above. This might be true if your visitors are successfully completing a call-to-action and exiting immediately after.

Two, you’re drawing in the wrong traffic, a segment uninterested in what you have to offer. We publish an article showcasing our featured film release almost every week. And for the longest time, we were receiving tons of traffic for a horror movie called The Apparition. Yes, traffic is cool but much more so when it’s relevant.

Now that might not be the best example given the fact that we do a lot of movie marketing work, and a featured release series is right up our alley. But we know that the visitors who frequent these pages shouldn’t be misconstrued as potential customers interested in custom WordPress development of graphic design work. They want to know more about a movie, and we’re happy to oblige.

Three, there’s a disconnect between what visitors anticipate to find and what they actually see. Not too long ago, I subscribed to Ramit Sethi’s newsletter, “I Will Teach You to Be Rich.” He’s enormously popular; author to a New York Times bestseller; etc., and I was looking for practical ways to save money here and there.

One of the first e-mails I got from him was titled, “Congrats, Your 1-Week MBA on Earning More Money Starts Tomorrow.” Really? In it, Ramit goes on to say that he went from making $20/hour to $3,000 in just a few years, and that might be true. It might not be. I have no idea, but claims that seem too good to be true make me increasingly more apprehensive as do “30-Day Courses on Hustling.” As a result, I didn’t read any of the additional literature sent to me.

This also takes shape in the form of link bait. The people who frequent your site and follow you via social media do so as a vote of confidence. Don’t abuse that.

Four, your website is killing them, Smalls. This might be due to technical bugs, a lack of user-friendliness, poor design, slow load times, etc. It’s impossible to diagnose without actually seeing your site, but we’d be happy to give your site a look if you drop a line in the comment box below with your URL and e-mail address.

“Why does any of this matter?”

Imagine that you’re going out to dinner. You’ve heard raving reviews from everyone and their mom, and you’re amped to finally get the chance to try it out. Only, when you walk into the foyer of the restaurant, you see a giant rat dart across the corridor. What do you do? You probably leave regardless as to what you’ve heard and call the health department before pulling out of the parking lot.

If the homepage of your website is in any way similar, and your prospective clientele exits as soon as they enter, you have a serious problem. Bounce rates provide you with insight as to how your website is performing and will help you determine if landing pages are performing up to standard. Because in the end, vanity metrics like web traffic are pretty meaningless and a huge time suck.

If you’d like some feedback on your website free of charge, leave a comment in the box below with your URL and e-mail address or send us a Tweet with the hashtag feedback (#feedback).

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Traffic & Engagement

Posted on May 28, 2013 by skulkaew

I’ve made a mistake and now it’s time to own up to it.

Over the course of the last year, I made it a priority to maximize Bravo Design’s traffic volume and broaden our content marketing pipeline going the route of “accuracy by volume.” I figured that if conversion rates held constant with growing traffic, more visibility would produce more business.

Through 2012, visits more than doubled and so did page views compared to 2011. We ranked on page one for graphic design and web development related keywords locally. But did our conversion rate double as well?

No, it did not.

Why? Because I didn’t engage them effectively. Instead of talking with people, I was talking at them. And unless you’re YouTube or a site that makes its money off of ad impressions, web traffic is a vanity metric that doesn’t correlate to revenue on the backend.

More important than attracting visitors is attracting customers.

For fans of .GIFs, this is what it looks like when you target one-off visitors who won’t follow you over time or do business with you (i.e., the wrong people).

So what should you do?

Focus on the things that matter.

Objectivity

Your people are your greatest asset. A lot of businesses think they know who their customers are and what they want, but few ever take the time to find out for sure.

In 2011, I had broken my leg badly enough to require surgery and was completely dependent on the people around me for probably about a month, and a huge chunk of that responsibility was shouldered by my parents. When I couldn’t get off the couch, my dad would come home from work during his lunch break to cook for me and later on again for dinner in the evening. It was huge, and I’m both grateful and humbled by that love.

But just so you know, my family is Thai. So by default, my dad cooks the spiciest food ever. It’s not spicy where you pound down a glass of milk or water and keep trucking on. It’s debilitating where confusion is followed closely by its friend panic. He doesn’t do this on purpose of course. He just knows what he likes to eat and thinks that everyone else will enjoy it too.

I didn’t, and still don’t, have the heart to tell him that his cooking stresses me out, and I actually don’t think he’s ever asked. But your customers will most definitely let you know if your product offering isn’t up to par. That might come in the form of negative feedback or a pass so take a step back and reassess. Optimization is an ongoing process, and you need to be objective.

The Perfect Customer

In a webinar on Attracting the Right Customers to Your Business, Sonia Simone of Copyblogger encouraged her listeners to, “spend 10 minutes describing [their] very perfect customer. That’s the person who can afford what you sell. They need and want what you sell. They’re ready to buy it.”

That’s obviously a highly specific group, but it’s who you should be targeting.

If you were in the market for a new car, let’s say a Porsche. I would probably be hard pressed to sell you a Dodge Grand Caravan. The same would be true the other way around. And while it pains me to say this, I must. You can’t be all things to all people.

On the upside, really understanding that affords you the opportunity to concentrate on viable prospects.

Apparent Value

Most of your content should be about your customer, specifically the one you’ve spent 10 minutes to describe, and should demonstrate why you should be trusted and why your product is valuable.

Each and every week, I receive an impressive amount of SEO spam from strangers that goes straight to the trash. It would be one thing if they were to say, “We helped XYZ Company in Burbank, California reach the first page by doing yadda, yadda, yadda” or offered a case study, but they never do.

One person who has e-mailed me numerous times simply says, “We can increase rankings of your website in search engines. Please reply back for more details.” No, sketchy guy. I’d prefer if you didn’t carpet bomb our website, and it get de-indexed.

Brian Clark says, “That’s the beauty of social media, blogging, Twitter, Facebook. People will tell you. Sometimes they will tell you with the sound of crickets chirping and you have to say, ‘Well, I screwed up.’ And move on. Don’t give up. Try something else.” Conversely, if it is something your people like, they’re going to let you know by commenting on it or sharing it with their circles.

Moving on

There are more points I could (and maybe should) touch on, but I’ll do that that in the coming weeks. If you’re not following us on Twitter or Google+, make sure to do so. We’ll keep you posted on tips and tutorials as well as the sequel to this part. As an added bonus, I find the best .GIFs.

Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If you’re unable to successfully engage customers, switch it up and do something different like throw your parents under the bus. Just kidding. But sorry in advance, dad.

https://vimeo.com/bravodesignince

WordPress

Posted on May 20, 2013 by skulkaew

If you own your own business, you need an online presence. That’s non-negotiable.

That doesn’t mean you need a website equipped with every bell and whistle, but your online traffic is likely to find you through organic queries, at least in part. And since search is by and large intent based where users know or have a general idea of what they want, basic information should be made available to streamline matchups with potential customers.

A locksmith might post hours of operation and a telephone number via Google Places; a restaurant its menu for customers to peruse through on Yelp or GrubHub; and a graphic design agency a blog for readers to find tips and tutorials or browse through an amazing portfolio that showcases its incredible work. That’s my one shameless plug for the week.

That’s not to say that a locksmith wouldn’t blog. It’s just that the minimum viable product requirements are different for them than, say, a brain surgeon. Primarily, because you’d want to obtain as much information as possible on surgical candidates who would potentially open up your head versus a seemingly interchangeable supply of locksmiths. For those who disagree with this point, make sure to leave a comment in the section below.

In any case, an excellent option to cover all your bases is a WordPress si

A Live Look at Activity Across WordPress

WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that has taken the world by storm. Known primarily for blogging, it has grown to be much more than that. It powers nearly 66 million websites, with 100,000 more popping up each day. Notable users include: E-Bay, The New York Times, TechCrunch, Reuters, Katy Perry, UPS and a wide array of Fortune 500 Companies. Each month, 371 million people view more than 4.1 billion pages on WordPress sites, and the number of posts created is continuing to trend upwards.

The Number of Posts WordPress Users Are Publishing

It’s Cost Effective.

Because it’s open-source, it’s free to download and use, making it extremely cost-effective even if you do decide to purchase themes or widgets; whereas coding a custom CMS with similar functionality could cost a boatload. It’s robust and professional looking and one of the best ways to manage your SEO on the cheap.

Yoast is a plugin that let’s you optimize page information along with meta descriptions, using snippet preview functionality to see what it would look like in Google. If you have pages you don’t want indexed by search engine robots, you can hide them per page. And lastly, you can canonize pages, distinguishing originals from derivatives. Best of all, it’s free.

Yoast, “Why You Should Be Using WordPress”

It’s Flexible.

WordPress is extremely flexible and pragmatic. If a specific feature isn’t built-in to a template, there are currently 24,897 plugins available to enhance your site’s functionality making WordPress a serious contender as an e-commerce platform. With active members contributing from around the world, as well as developers for hire, the customization opportunities are endless.

As an FYI, if you’re a developer looking to chat with peers, you can do so via the #WordPress-dev channel on IRC or using #WordPress. If you’re new to the process like myself, sign up at WordPress.org and use the Codex and/or forums to start learning.

It’s Easy to Use.

Prior to working at Bravo Design, Inc., I had zero experience working with CMS no less WordPress, but learning is a piece of cake. Rest assured, you’ll pick it up quickly too. Everything from backend navigation to adding posts, media or tweaking metadata for search engine optimization is really straightforward.

That’s the beauty of WordPress.

This last week, I uploaded my own demo WordPress to tinker around with, marking my third install ever. I’ve done one via WAMP, one through GoDaddy’s easy install and this one onto the Bravo server. While it wasn’t quite done from scratch because I had a pre-configured FTP login, hosting and a tutorial on hand, it was pretty simple. When I say “simple,” I mean a novice could do it and not “simple” as in the way Ikea describes its kitchen installations.

In the coming weeks, we’ll try and upload an easy to use tutorial for those of you who want to install their own WordPress. But for those of you who already have websites, what CMS do you use and why?

Photo Credit: WordPress.org, Webdesign.org

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Tips on Avoiding the Pitfalls of Content Marketing

Posted on April 29, 2013 by skulkaew

I was reading an article by Mauro D’Andrea on KISSmetrics the other day where he wrote that: most blog adopters were successful because they adopted content marketing early on. They anticipated a trend at a time when few others did and were able to stand out and be noticed. Today, content marketers face competition in every segment of the economy, and many aren’t accomplishing it in a great way.

You and I? We’re a little late to the party, at least I am.

Content creation is a core component of inbound marketing and, hands down, one of the best ways to generate traffic to your website. That said, doing so effectively is really difficult. Outside of coming up with things to write about on a regular basis and actually writing, you’re clamoring for attention amongst a countless number of distractions whether that be Facebook, Candy Crush Saga, Amazon, YouTube, Reddit, possibly even your local competitors.

According to MBAonline.com, each day, two million blog posts are posted, enough to fill Time magazine for 770 years, and 532 million statuses are updated. Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, revealed that 400 million tweets go online daily.

So how does that bode for those trying to break through the noise? Not great though the task is certainly not insurmountable. Whether you’re launching a new blog or getting back on the horse, here are tips on amplifying your message.

Users Can’t [Don’t] Read

They skim. At least that’s what Jakob Nielsen has said time and time again. To summarize the latter study, when supplied with a dataset detailing nearly 60,000 page views provided by Harald Weinreich, Nielsen found that as users encounter pages with ever increasing amounts of information, they’d expend an average of 4.4 seconds for each additional 100 words. And since the average reading speed is estimated to be around 300 words per minute (WPM), an additional 4.4 seconds would net 22 of the 100 words meaning that readers would only consume 22% of additional information shown. Nielsen used 250 WPM as his benchmark and landed at 18% hence the variation.

While one takeaway might be that the average web user has little or no patience, another might be that we, as content providers, are failing to provide things worth spending time on. Instead of trying to skirt this by pruning copy, prioritizing information above the fold, A/B testing, calls-to-action, etc., we should aim to optimize the experience as whole.

Remember: humans are visual creatures and while exceptional content is paramount, content takes form in different shapes and forms outside of text (e.g., pictures, tables, infographs, videos, etc). Switch things up to take full advantage of each medium’s strengths and to play them off one another. Pamela Wilson has an excellent article on Copyblogger with simple tips to get more people to read your content.

Share Your Content on Channels off the Beaten Path

Next, if you’re sharing content via Twitter, Facebook and Google+, you’re on the right track. But you can also use Reddit, StumbleUpon and Pinterest to supplement the process. According to data released by Shareaholic, Pinterest “continues to outpace Yahoo! organic traffic and hold its spot as a significant traffic driver.” StatCounter ranks it as the second most frequently used social site just behind Facebook.

If you’re employing StumbleUpon, use the su.pr URL shortener so that when users click on links, they’ll see the StumbleUpon dashboard where they’ll have an option to give you a thumb up. In turn, whatever you originally shared will then be shown to other users with similar interests. Free traffic? Yes, please. After tinkering with a few mediums, you’ll know which ones to invest in more heavily when searching through your referral traffic on Google Analytics.

Network or No One Will See Your Message

And last but certainly not least, you need to expand your network by interacting with other bloggers and readers, prospective or otherwise. That might mean grabbing coffee with people who might help you further your message, regularly commenting on blogs, going to conventions or just providing answers to questions on Yahoo! or Quora. Though it might pain you to resist going to completely obscure conventions and/or answer random questions, neither are likely to help your content marketing efforts even if they are hilarious.

I wanted to touch on this point because even if you are sharing your content via social media, without a following, you’re really just screaming into the abyss. It took me forever to figure out that by tweeting random followers back and forth and by failing to form real relationships, I wasn’t setting Bravo Design, Inc. apart from any of its competitors. It was just this weird dance, and I’d like to help you avoid making that mistake if at all possible because it can be a huge time suck.

TL;DR (Because You Skim)

I hate to end this entry with a quote, no less a long one, but Seth Godin capped this off so succinctly in an article on Fast Company. In it, he wrote: “I’m driving through France with the family. And for the last 12 and a half hours, there’s been nothing but a ruckus. Suddenly, it’s quiet. My kids are transfixed, looking out the window at these beautiful cows. Then it’s a ruckus again. Because cows are boring. If you’ve seen one cow, you’ve seen them all. But what if one of the cows were purple?

Purple cows are remarkable. At least for awhile. Remarkable means two things. One, it means cool, neat. Two, it means worth making a remark about. If you make stuff that’s worth making a remark about, you’re 99% of the way there.”

We challenge you to be purple cows. In the comment section below, let us know how you engage and share remarkable content with your audience!

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Content versus Design

Posted on November 1, 2012 by skulkaew

Design, it’s totally and completely inescapable and impossible to overlook.

In publishing eras past, it was an afterthought. Content was first and foremost and appearance a secondary or tertiary concern. If you’re shaking your head thinking, “Content is still king,” I’ll touch on that in a moment. But over the course of the last century or so, there’s been a shift in focus between the two, and that much is evident in the changes we’ve seen with newspapers, and how front page formatting has evolved over time. There are a lot of reasons as to why this his happened, but I’d like to focus on how reader demographics have changed, as have their reading habits, without oversimplifying everything else. Because we consume information significantly differently than we did five, ten and fifteen years ago, organization has been changed to facilitate and streamline that process. The slideshow below shows how The Los Angeles Times has changed since its first edition from a paper crammed to the brim with information to something more cogent and palpable for readers.

“The Los Angeles Times” Headlines from Bravo Design, Inc.

Online, a website’s design is just as important as its content, if not more so, and can be the difference between a visit and a pass or a qualified lead versus an unacceptable bounce rate. To be clear, when I say web design, I’m not just referring to its aesthetics. I also mean its usability. Yes, content will drive traffic and have visitors coming back for repeat visits, but most guests won’t stick around initially if your page is difficult to navigate through or you’ve used GeoCities to build your business page. That’s not actually possible since the service is defunct. And yes, there are always exceptions to the rule, but you know what I’m getting at. There’s a direct correlation in increased conversion with a well crafted website, even if it has its shortcomings, and subpar metrics with one that’s poorly designed. This tidbit of advice isn’t esoteric. It’s money in the bank with real world application.

So what do you do? You build better. Sure, you can use your site but can your guests? If you paused for even the smallest of moments before answering that question, listed below are web design considerations you should mull over.

First and foremost, consider your goal(s). I can’t stress this point enough. What do you want from your website? Are you looking to increase readership for your fratire blog or are you selling <insert anything> or just schooling the general public on your service offerings? In Alice in Wonderland, there’s an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat that’s paraphrased: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” The quote is all-applicable to life, love and, most of all, your website. Figure it out and then plan accordingly, then plan some more and then execute.

Who’s going to be using your site and how will they be using it? Web content and print content are totally and entirely not the same, so you’re going to have to tailor your writing style to the demographic you’re targeting with their browsing habits in mind. Remember, no one (including marketers) likes marketese so try not to write that way. Next, ask yourself if you’re being engaging? Good design and substantial content will draw users in, which makes them want to connect with you. Without personality, your visitors aren’t going to feel compelled to stay, and this can be detrimental to your conversion rates in the long run.

Manage attention and try to not squander user patience. Two points to think about are lowering barriers to pave the path of least resistance and not providing too many options. The less action that’s required for a visitor to access your site, the better. First-time users who want to read an article or peruse through your site probably aren’t going to want to fill out contact forms or register accounts, and are apt to bounce when confronted with the like, so don’t make them do that. Second, if you’re offering way too many choices, your average user is going to have a difficult time making up their mind. That’s the difference between going to a restaurant that has what seems like an endless menu with samplings from each and every continent and going to one that serves three different kinds of hot dogs.

Last but not least, simplify. This point, though seemingly intuitive, is often the hardest to apply. The best designs speak for themselves, and as Dieter Rams said once upon a time are “as little as possible.” With minimal or no instruction, a child should be able to use it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. You just need to focus on the essential while pruning away everything else.

If you’re still shaking your head, when it comes to content versus design, I’ll cede that they’re equally important, but that’s all. You can leave a comment below if you fervently disagree. If you’re thinking about shopping around for web development assistance, we have a write up listed in our design blog, which might help out in your search. When I initially wrote the entry, I forgot to include that the expert you hire should be SEO savvy, but you already know that. Just remember that the best designers are translators who can turn a vision into something tangible and that our portfolio is also pretty groovy.

If you’d like to download this entry in Word format, click here: Content versus Design.

Photo Credit: Tactile Design Group

https://vimeo.com/bravodesignince

Curating and Sharing Content for Beginners

Posted on October 8, 2012 by skulkaew

Mush. That’s what my brain feels like after curating our Twitter and Facebook feeds, digging through Inbound.org, Hacker Network and a dozen other news sources for high-quality content on search engine optimization (SEO), advertising, graphic design and web development to share throughout the day. All of which is made significantly more difficult due to the fact that there’s so much information to sort through online, plenty of which is deficient in some way or another. According to MBAonline.com, every 24 hours, two million blog posts are written, and 864,000 hours worth of video are added to YouTube. All in all, about 168 million DVDs worth of information is consumed by Internet traffic every single day. As Mitchel Kapor, an entrepreneur and software developer, says: getting information off the Internet is like drinking via fire hydrant.

So why do we do it?

At the end of last year when I was going through the interview process here at Bravo Design, part of what was discussed was how the company could foster and grow its online presence. And since then, we’ve seen some real progress in terms of our web traffic, due to our improved search engine ranking, and in the increase in our social media fan base. Not everything has gone as planned, and progress has sputtered from time to time, but we’ve stayed steadfast in our commitment to write about current events and trends in the industry to position ourselves, so we can serve as a resource for both our visitors and our clients even if it’s just a random something to make them smile. With so much great information online, often in obscure places, it’s been a priority of ours to put our readers in touch with content and tools that have the potential to make their lives easier and/or run their businesses more efficiently. Up through now, it’s been a great learning experience. That being said, I really want to encourage you to start curating great content and sharing it with your friends and followers. If you want to read more on the subject before making the leap of faith, Michael Fern from Intigi has a great write up on the topic.

Listed below are a few considerations that will help you get started.

1. Determine what you want from this exercise by setting goals on the front end. Are you looking to monetize your site by driving sales or with ads and need to increase traffic and return visits? Are you looking to increase your readership? The sooner you know, the better prepared you’ll be to set milestones to gauge success along the way.

2. Know your audience, so you can share content they find useful or interesting. This means getting comfortable reading through your website’s analytics and tracking hits, click-through-rate, interaction and propagation. If you’re two steps ahead on that front, here’s an article on actionable and vanity metrics and measuring what matters.

3. The audience you’re reaching out to is likely widely disparate, so you might have to use different forms of media like podcasts, videos, white papers, infographics and so on to increase your brand’s exposure. That also means using different channels/platforms like social media, mobile as well as content curation and industry communities.

4. Each piece of content you share should serve as a stepping-stone that guides your audience from one interaction to the next. Of these considerations listed, adhering to this might be the most difficult. Just tacking on a URL isn’t good enough, and neither is simply adding contact information.

Curating and sharing content, like some of the other exercises we’ve detailed in the past, takes both time and patience. You might not get much feedback early on, but interaction with your audience will ramp up if you’re engaging and sharing solid pieces of content. If you’re not following us on Twitter or Facebook, you’re missing out. When you do, shoot us a message or leave a comment in the field below, so we can reciprocate the favor in kind.

Photo Credit: Mike Segar (Reuters) and Iloveseo.net