SEO Writing Tips: 5 Blog Writing Do’s and Don’t’s

Writing for SEO is not all that different from writing well in general. You want to make it clear, compelling, and as concise as possible. But there are a few essential SEO writing tips you should know if you’re new to the world of blogging.

We’ll start with keywords, word count, and a few notes on style.

1. Keywords

Writing for SEO means choosing your words carefully. If a word or phrase reoccurs throughout a web page, the search engine algorithms are more likely to dig up that page when someone searches for that phrase. Those are your keywords: words and phrases that help to define what your blog post is about.

Do: Use Keywords Them Strategically in Each Blog Post.

An effective keyword is one that:

1. Accurately reflects what the blog post is about.
2. Is something your customers are searching for.
3. Does not have steep competition for the keyword.

We visit the topic of how to use effective keywords in greater depth here.

Don’t: Stuff Blog Posts Full of Keywords.

Search engine algorithms look at more than the number of times a keyword reoccurs in a blog post; they also consider its semantic value. Algorithms penalize sites that engage in ‘keyword-stuffing’, which means cramming a dense volume of keywords into a post to try and game the system. While the ideal keyword density is up for debate, writing for SEO means integrating strategically-chosen keywords into natural-sounding prose.

2. Post Length

Ironically, it often takes longer to write a concise piece than a lengthy one. But there is such a thing as being too concise when it comes to writing for SEO.

Do: Write At Least 500 Words.

Like your high school English teacher, search engine algorithms may take points off if your work is too short. There’s no strict word count for blog writing, but any page with fewer than 300 words may come under scrutiny for having thin content. We generally aim for 500 words at minimum.

Don’t: Pad It Out With Fluff.

Most readers are looking for fast, clear answers. Don’t bury key information beneath a lengthy introduction or sprinkle it among irrelevant tangents. If you are stretching to reach 500 words, consider broadening your chosen topic.

3. Active vs. Passive Voice

There are two ways to write action. One approach puts the force driving the action first; the second focuses on the person (or place, thing, etc.) at which the action is directed. That’s the simplest way to explain active and passive voice, a choice which can have a big effect on a blog post’s readability.

What does this have to do with SEO writing tips? It’s simple: the more people enjoy reading your post, the more likely they are to consume it in full, explore the rest of your site, and share it with others. Search engine algorithms take these as signals of a high-quality post that should rank well in the search engine results.

Do: Use Active Voice Whenever Possible.

With few exceptions active voice makes for clearer, more effective writing. Active voice is generally more concise and transparent than passive voice, and it flows naturally. Try reading some examples of examples of active and passive voice out loud: you’ll notice how active voice is smoother.

Don’t: Use Passive Voice Unless You Have To.

Passive voice, on the other hand, is often stiffer and less exciting compared to active writing. While most readers won’t nit-pick your post for passive voice, it will affect their reading experience. Switching from passive to active voice is a small change that has a big impact on the quality of your work.

4. Grade Level

Grade level is a way of measuring how easy a post is to read. The higher a post’s grade level, the more work it takes to read and comprehend its content. You can assess your post’s grade level using Microsoft Word’s built-in writing tools or a free tool like Hemingway Editor.

Do: Write for An Accessible Grade Level.

Don’t shut out potential readers by using long, complex paragraphs and unnecessary jargon. For a general audience, we recommend aiming for a grade level of six to eight. This limitation also has the benefit of encouraging you to write clearly and concisely.

Don’t: Make Errors.

Writing at a sixth-grade level doesn’t mean you should make sixth-grade spelling and grammar mistakes. The occasional typo is fine, but readers are unlikely to read through a post that is rifled with errors.

5. Be Connected

Your blog is not an island. There are many reasons to incorporate outbound links to other sites into your post. Chief among them is the fact that high-quality links gives your readers more value when they visit.

Do: Vet Your Sources.

Emphasis on high-quality. Search engine algorithms judge you by the company you keep, penalizing sites that link out to sub-par pages. If you wouldn’t put something on your own blog, don’t link to it, either!

Don’t: Forget to Give Credit.

There are times when backlinking is mandatory. Borrowing content from other sites without attribution is plagiarism, which can tank your search engine ranking as much as your reputation. Always take notes on the origin of your information while you’re researching your blog post.

Video Marketing Tips: How to Use Your Video Assets on Social Media in 2018

We live in a time when all it takes to make videos is a smartphone and an idea. It’s incredible. Imagine how different our view of history might be today if our great-great-grandparents had been filming their daily lives a hundred years ago.

For businesses, the proliferation of online video presents unprecedented opportunities to connect with customers anywhere in the world. Video stands as one of the top ways people consume content online. By the year 2020, it will account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic.

Along with dedicated video sites like YouTube, all the major social media sites now serve as native video platforms (LinkedIn was late to the game when it joined in 2017.) Videos can also be embedded directly on a company website.

With so many ways to leverage video, it can be hard even to know where to start. Here, we focus on the major social media platforms. These video marketing tips will help you learn how to use your video assets to their fullest potential in 2018.

The Importance of Video Marketing in 2018

Gone are the days when you needed a script, a camera crew, and a budget to make high-quality, engaging videos. But don’t be fooled by the lucky few that go viral. It takes a lot of planning and behind-the-scenes work to make your video content succeed.

Small businesses often question whether video marketing is worth the time and effort. If you are looking to connect with customers online, the answer is a resounding yes. Studies show that most consumers would rather watch a video about a product or service than read about it. People are more likely to consume and engage with video than any other kind of content, and on Facebook, video content reaches an average of 135% more people than photos.

From an SEO perspective, video can be an enormously powerful tool. Well-optimized YouTube videos can rank at the top of Google search results, especially for instructional content like How-To’s. Videos that perform well on social media can be a generous source of social signals. And if you do happen to go viral, you can expect to get a torrent of backlinks to your site (look at what happened to the Dollar Shave Club when their launch video struck gold.)

How to Use Your Video Assets

If you know how to use your video assets, they can significantly boost the reach of your marketing efforts online. Implementing the following video marketing tips is a great way to get started.

1. Optimize Your Videos for Mobile Browsing

Social media is primarily a mobile activity. People between the age of 18 and 34 use mobile devices for social 78% of the time. To reach these users, make sure your video content translates to the tiny screens and fast pace of mobile browsing. Bold visuals and a clear message are essential.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube have all introduced vertical video formats so users can watch without rotating their screens. If mobile users are your target, craft content that fits this taller frame.

2. Use Custom Thumbnails

Thumbnails are an art in and of themselves. A compelling thumbnail image can make the difference between another ordinary video and a huge hit.

Look at popular videos in your niche and note the kind of thumbnails that generate the most clicks. Is it big text and bright colours? Tantalizing product photos? An influencer’s head shot? Spot the trends and borrow them for your videos.

3. Have a Strong Start

According to Facebook, 47% of the value in a video campaign comes in the first three seconds, and the first 10 seconds amount to 74%. It is in those crucial moments that viewers decide whether your content is worth watching.

Most videos on social media AutoPlay by default. You can use this to your advantage. Start the video with a hook: a compelling question, an exciting scene, or an offer they can’t refuse. Just be sure to deliver on the promise in the rest of the video!

4. Show, Don’t Tell

This is one point where social media best practice diverges from that of a video-based platform like YouTube. On social media sites, most videos AutoPlay without sound; as much as 85% of all video views on Facebook occur on mute.

Whereas YouTube is both an aural and visual medium, social media video marketing weighs heavily towards the visual. Your video’s story must unfold primarily via images and on-screen text. It’s not that the sound is irrelevant, but when it comes to social media, you should assume your viewers will not hear it.

5. Know Your Platform

The above tips will help you understand how to use video assets across various platforms. However, when it comes to a broader video marketing strategy, each platform will call for a different approach. Facebook has a different tone and audience than Twitter, for example. Optimizing videos for YouTube requires exploring the platform’s search engine algorithm.

Keep in mind the purpose of each platform when deciding how to use your video assets. If you plan to invest heavily in one site over others, tailor your content to match it.

In Short: How to Use Your Video Assets

1. Optimize for mobile browsing. Chances are, your audience will be watching on a 2×4’’ screen.
2. Use custom thumbnails. Learn from successful competitors in your niche.
3. Hook viewers in the first three seconds. That is where most of your value is.
4. Assume your viewers are not Create content that resonates on mute.
5. Tailor video to your platform of choice. Understand how different sites have different audiences and a unique tone.
   
   

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The Gutenberg Update: What You Should Know About the WordPress Overhaul Coming in 2018

The world’s largest website management system is about to change. How will the Gutenberg update impact the 60 million websites that run on WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the web. The platform powers over 29% of the top 10 million websites, including heavyweight publishers like The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.

WordPress is also the CMS of choice for millions of bloggers and small businesses worldwide — including yours truly.

The key to its popularity can be summed up in one word: flexibility. As an open-source platform, WordPress is open to extensive customization.

If you look under the hood of a well-crafted WordPress site, you’ll find an assortment of custom WordPress plugins, themes, and HTML codes. In fact, while WordPress itself is free to use, there’s an entire industry around developing premium WordPress themes and plugins for businesses.

But that’s all about to change in 2018.

Last year, the development team behind WordPress announced Gutenberg, a project in WordPress 5.0 that will transform how we build and manage WordPress sites.

While there’s no release date for Gutenberg yet, it’s time for bloggers and businesses who use WordPress to start thinking about how to adapt to Gutenberg.

What is Gutenberg for WordPress?

Gutenberg is a coming update to the WordPress post and page editing interface that replaces many of the plugins and widgets we use today with elements called Blocks. As of March 2018, the project is still in the beta phase. There is an optional Gutenberg plugin available to any WordPress developers who want to give feedback before the big launch.

Eventually, the Gutenberg editor will replace the editing interface WordPress users have come to know. The WordPress team has yet to say when this will occur, but the plan is to merge Gutenberg into WordPress 5.0 and launch by the end of 2018.

And that’s just phase one. According to the Gutenberg project page, the team also has its sights set on simplifying custom page templates and, ultimately, full WordPress site customization.

About Gutenberg’s Block System

Blocks will enable users to insert rich content like forms, social media posts, and multimedia within the WordPress post editor itself. The system resembles the editing interface on sites like Medium, which uses a similar drag-and-drop system for inserting rich content into posts.

The idea behind Gutenberg blocks is an ambitious one. Blocks are meant to simplify the patchwork of formatting elements used to build custom WordPress posts today, like plugins, widgets, and custom shortcodes.

Say you’re building a site for your business on WordPress. You want to create an ‘About Us’ page with employee bio’s. Rather than searching for a theme with a fitting template, or installing an ‘About Us’ plugin, you could ideally insert an ‘Employee Block’ that automatically embeds a photo, name, and biography.

Or, if you’re a food blogger, you could drag and drop a ‘Recipe Block’ that generates fields for ingredients, instructions, and photos into your posts.

There’s lots of potential in Gutenberg Blocks. But it also raises a big question: what will happen to all the custom WordPress sites out there today?

How Gutenberg Will Effect Your WordPress Site

 “Will Gutenberg break my website?”

That’s what many developers are asking ahead of the coming change. And it’s fair for them to worry. After all, many of the custom elements they rely on are set to become obsolete.

The good news is, Gutenberg will not break the part of your website users see when they visit. The update won’t change the WordPress front-end.  In other words, it should not impact your customers’ experience on your site.

The back-end is a different story. If your site relies on custom meta boxes and plugins, you may encounter issues the next time you edit a post. It will be up to the developers of your chosen plugins to bring their product up-to-speed with the changes, and if they don’t, you will have to find another solution.

One alternative is the Classic Editor plugin, which restores the classic editing interface and enables any WordPress plugins that extend it. The plugin can entirely replace the Gutenberg editor or add alternate “Edit” links that let you open a single post or page in the Classic editor, acting as a failsafe to keep the back-end of your site working as it should Gutenberg update drops.

Preparing for the Gutenberg Update

While the change has some developers wary, others are embracing the opportunity to modernize. The devs behind the incredibly popular Yoast SEO plugin are already talking about how to use Gutenberg to improve the user experience.

We’re still waiting on an official launch date, but there are things you can do in the meantime to prepare for Gutenberg:

1. Download the Gutenberg plugin and test it on your site. This is the best way to see how the Gutenberg update will effect your site. The project isn’t ready for production, but it will help you predict whether you will encounter problems when it’s
2. Review the Gutenberg FAQ and documentation. The official documentation answers many of the common questions people have about the Gutenberg update.
3. If your site relies on plugins, follow the development process. Popular plugins with a large user base are likely to be brought up to speed by their developers, but smaller ones could go obsolete. Now is a good time to review your plugins and make sure they’re up to speed.
   

We’re big fans of WordPress over here at TS, so we’re keeping a close eye on Gutenberg as it develops. We’ll be sharing our ongoing insights on this through our newsletter.

Contact TrafficSoda to Help with Your Content Creation

How to Make the Most of Your White Paper Marketing

Type a query into Google and you get millions of different answers. How many are reliable?

A good percentage are perfectly valid, while others are poorly researched or intentionally misleading.

The internet is a vast resource of information, but not all sources are credible. The world of business is no different. Some companies will just tell you what you want to hear, while others have so little grasp of what they do, they may even accidentally deceive you. So, how do you know whether to partner with another firm?

A great way to demonstrate credibility is to position your company as an industry authority.

White papers achieve this by presenting facts on a particular issue in an efficient and persuasive manner. The Content Marketing Institute reports that white papers remain one of the five most important marketing strategies for B2B businesses.

One thing a white paper should never be, however, is an obvious sales pitch. Your mission is to instruct and inform, not sell. That said, white papers can still effectively market a company and its capabilities if you remember the following:

Optimize Your Title

Keyword optimization is a crucial aspect of digital marketing. You need to choose words that will attract your intended audience in the most efficient way possible.

If you were looking for a white paper on this topic, what title would prompt you to download it? Create an eye-catching title that conveys what the paper is about and includes at least one keyword. Limit it to 70 characters as this is all that displays in search results.

Do the Work

A white paper will not fulfil its purpose unless it is well-crafted on all levels. Research the subject thoroughly and back up all claims with credible sources. The document should help readers solve a problem, not make them wonder why they don’t understand your information.

Craft the text with care. Remember that this document is meant primarily to inform, not serve as an advertisement for your services. The lure instead presents itself to the reader through the quality of the work on offer. Be clear and don’t waste words, but avoid being too casual.

Decide on keywords or key phrases and make sure to include them. However, do not stuff the text with these words or you run the risk of search engines penalties that defeat the purpose.

Carefully spellcheck and copy-edit your final draft. All your hard work is lost if you don’t demonstrate such basic care and craft. Include footnotes and a references section for both sources you cite and ones not mentioned by name in the text.

Provide Compelling Visuals

A sea of unbroken text is off-putting for many people and will cause them to stop reading. Visuals help to prevent this, while also reinforcing your main points (charts and graphs are effective in moderation.) For example, a list of statistics is easier to process and remember when presented this way instead of a block of text:

Sales	63%
Marketing	40%
Audience Outreach	7.2%
Financial Growth	54%
Product Management	17%

This makes the document more appealing to read, and makes readers more likely to share it with others.

Relevant images are also good at reinforcing your points. However, be careful when using stock images. Overused or irrelevant images suggest a lack of work on your part. If you can create new, high-resolution pictures, do so.

Should you choose a stock image, remember to buy it and include that version. A big watermark on a temporary image from a provider like iStock demonstrates an embarrassing lack of care.

Finish with a Strong Call to Action

A white paper that is compelling 95% of the way through can still fail from a marketing perspective without a strong finish. Encourage the reader to learn more by contacting you for more information, visiting your website, signing up for your newsletter, or following you on social media.

Create a Proper Landing Page

A white paper is something to be proud of, so don’t tuck the link away in a corner. Create a dedicated page that includes a few brief sentences about its contents, some interesting graphics, and a prominent download button.

Make It Easily Shareable

Don’t promote a white paper on a landing page with a dead download link. Be sure to test the link before making it live.

Choose a resolution that looks good, but does not take a long time to download. High-resolution graphics are great, but most people are only willing to wait so long for a document to become available to them.

Some companies provide a contact form the reader must fill out before the white paper download commences. This is an effective way to get contact information but will cause some to skip the white paper altogether. As mentioned in the Call to Action section above, there are other ways to find out who your customers are and how to contact them.

TrafficSoda is here to help with your White Paper Strategy

5 Steps to Getting a Journalist’s Attention

Media relations refers to the relationship a brand develops with journalists or influencers. Although the media landscape continues to shift, media relations remains an important aspect of any public relations strategy. Traditionally, media outlets consisted of TV, radio, and print, but now, media has expanded to include more digital channels.

When executed properly, media relations can influence every aspect of your digital marketing strategy. It plays a complementary role to content marketing efforts, helping to increase brand awareness and educate the public. Media relations can also have a significant effect on your SEO strategy, driving traffic to your website and maintaining authority. Finally, third-party articles make for perfect social media content and help to amplify your messaging.

Let’s be honest, getting media coverage is hard – but necessary. So, we’ve compiled a few tips and tricks that can help you garner more attention.

What’s Your Angle?

You only have a matter of seconds to grab a journalist’s attention before you’re ignored, spammed, or deleted. Off the top, it’s important to highlight what’s newsworthy or unique about your story.

Do your research to identify and present the right media angle for each outlet. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to prepare several angles – if your first approach doesn’t resonate, try a different story angle.

E-mail, Call Only If You Must

Trust us, there’s a reason why the ‘Contact Us’ page is so hard to find on a media site. Journalists and influencers would much rather be contacted by e-mail. So, unless you’ve been invited to have a phone conversation, call only if you must.

Short & To the Point

Keep it simple. The optimal length of a pitch is anywhere from 100-150 words, or three short paragraphs. You don’t want to give away too much information at once — pique their interest and have them come back for more.

Personalize Your Pitch

Do your research. Target journalists who have covered similar stories and ensure that their beat hasn’t changed. Familiarize yourself with their news coverage, follow them on social media and align your story with their interests. Use your findings to give your pitch a personal note, which shows you’ve taken the time to get to know them as a person.

At the end of the day, a significant part of public relations is creating and maintaining relationships that add value to all involved.

Follow-Up

When executed properly, media relations can influence every aspect of your digital marketing strategy. It plays a complementary role to content marketing efforts, helping to increase brand awareness and educate the public. Media relations can also have a significant effect on your SEO strategy, driving traffic to your website and maintaining authority. Finally, third-party articles make for perfect social media content and help to amplify your messaging.

Let’s be honest, getting media coverage is hard – but necessary. So, we’ve compiled a few tips and tricks that can help you garner more attention.

What’s Your Angle?

You only have a matter of seconds to grab a journalist’s attention before you’re ignored, spammed, or deleted. Off the top, it’s important to highlight what’s newsworthy or unique about your story.

Do your research to identify and present the right media angle for each outlet. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to prepare several angles – if your first approach doesn’t resonate, try a different story angle.

E-mail, Call Only If You Must

Trust us, there’s a reason why the ‘Contact Us’ page is so hard to find on a media site. Journalists and influencers would much rather be contacted by e-mail. So, unless you’ve been invited to have a phone conversation, call only if you must.

Short & To the Point

Keep it simple. The optimal length of a pitch is anywhere from 100-150 words, or three short paragraphs. You don’t want to give away too much information at once — pique their interest and have them come back for more.

Personalize Your Pitch

Do your research. Target journalists who have covered similar stories and ensure that their beat hasn’t changed. Familiarize yourself with their news coverage, follow them on social media and align your story with their interests. Use your findings to give your pitch a personal note, which shows you’ve taken the time to get to know them as a person.

At the end of the day, a significant part of public relations is creating and maintaining relationships that add value to all involved.

Follow-Up

There’s a fine line between being politely persistent and pushy. We like to wait about a week before we reach back out to the media following a pitch. Your follow-up is a good opportunity to provide a bit more information and attach a press release.

Let Traffic Soda Help Your Company Get The Press’s Attention!

Making Social Media and Content Marketing Work Together

Social media is a powerful marketing tool, helping businesses of all sizes and in all industries, reach their target audience. It’s the most effective way for a brand to connect on a more direct and personal level. While simply having a presence is good, developing a plan and tailoring your social media content to your industry and audience is the best way to optimize these platforms.

What is Content Marketing?

Traditional marketing tactics have become less and less relevant with the emergence of today’s digital landscape. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a “…strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”  

So, instead of traditional practices like pitching your product, content marketing allows you to provide truly relevant and useful content to your audience like video, blogs, etc. By focusing on sharing quality content on social media, a business can achieve great things.  

Building Relationships  

Posting quality content on social media can help a brand establish and build relationships with desired audiences.  

In life, the best relationships are built over time, based on mutual interests and philosophies, and grow strongest when tended to. The relationship between your brand and its audience isn’t much different.  

By doing your research, catering to your audience’s interests and producing quality content, you can build strong and long-lasting relationships.  

Amplifying Your Message  

Content marketing allows a brand to connect to its desired audience and build relationships by providing valuable information. The beauty of using social media platforms to share your content is that once it is out there, there are few limits to where it can reach.  

Brands can use social media to encourage users to share content in a variety of ways. Visual content usually gets more views, clicks, shares and likes than text-based material. So, turning that lengthy blog post into an infographic or finding the perfect image to accompany a post are two tactics that can further your content on social media.  

Quality content is meant to be shared and social media is the perfect vehicle to get your material noticed.  

Trust & Credibility  

Posting quality content on social media can help establish a brand as an industry leader and expert. 

Credibility online comes from a mixture of visibility and opinion. If your audience sees your brand out there, beyond your website, they will naturally find it more credible.  

When you take the time to educate, help and share through quality content, it reaffirms that your brand is trustworthy and credible. Using social media and content marketing in unison can significantly increase brand authority.  

Gain Valuable Customer Insights  

Brands can leverage social media to better understand consumers and gather insights to improve content. Social media has made it possible to glean information from authentic, real-time conversations that audience have with one another.  

As well, using these platforms to see what other brands are talking about lets you stay atop of industry trends. When developing quality content, it is important to develop ideas that are on trend and align with your audience’s interests – social media can help you gather these insights. 

At the end of the day, your brand should make social media and content marketing work together. By doing this you can build stronger relationships with your audience, amplify your messaging, develop credibility as a brand and gain valuable customer insights.

How Public Relations Can Amplify Your Online Efforts

According to the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS), public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics. An “organization” can be anything from a brand, an individual, or a company. As the business world continues to evolve, so does the practice of public relations. There are two main approaches to this practice, traditional PR and digital PR, which are differentiated by tactics. Although traditional PR is still relevant in today’s digitalized world, digital PR tactics can help an organization amplify their online efforts.

PR & Content Marketing

Public relations and content marketing share a common goal: to create and amplify quality messaging related to your organization. Part of a PR professional’s job is to study and predict trends across a wide spectrum of industries. Similarly, content marketers are tasked with staying on top of industry trends and consumer insights. PR and content marketers can work together to identify topics relevant to audiences and industry trends. As well, a PR professional can help amplify your organization’s quality content by reaching the right people. PR professionals create and maintain relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers. These relationships can act as a launch pad in amplifying your content.

At the end of the day, public relations and content marketing are working towards the same goals. By unifying these two practices your organization can increase brand awareness, educate audiences, and create better industry positioning.

PR & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When it comes to digital marketing, public relations and search engine optimization (SEO) go together like peanut butter and jelly. Understanding how audiences communicate about and with your organization online is a cornerstone of SEO. Using SEO keywords can help PR professionals develop content (press releases, blogs, etc.) that will drive targeted web traffic to your organization. Reaching out and maintaining relationships with industry influencers is a large part of public relations. A PR professional can leverage these contacts to get online press coverage, helping build natural editorial links from high-traffic, authoritative websites. As well, with increased exposure, chances are other publications will want to cover you, resulting in more exposure and links. It’s a powerful cycle.

Combining public relations and SEO practices is the ultimate game-changer in your organization’s digital marketing strategy. At the end of the day, it increases your organization’s visibility in the overcrowded digital world.

PR & Social Media Marketing

With a newly integrated and constantly evolving digital landscape, you have the ability to fuse public relations and social media to create notable results for your organization. Public relations and social media share the same goal: to manage your organization’s reputation and audience relationships. Public relations can present your organization with more formal and traditional communications, while social media can be done in more relaxed and conversational tone. Social media is also instantaneous and allows an organization to communicate with their audience quickly. This is a great asset when it comes to being proactive and managing your brand’s reputation in a time of crisis. As well, social media makes it easier for PR professionals to identify and reach digital content creators or influencers who can help spread your message to a specific audience.

Social media helps amplify PR efforts, while in turn, PR helps generate social media coverage. If you can seamlessly merge your public relations and social media efforts, you can achieve impressive results.

5 Key Marketing Lessons from the Most Iconic Canadian Brands

You don’t have to hop the border to see great marketing in action. In the spirit of #Canada150, let’s show some true patriot love for our most iconic Canadian brands!

Roots

44 years ago, a small leather goods store sprouted up in Toronto. Its line of comfortable, durable clothing caught on with Canadians who love the outdoors.

Today, there are over 200 Roots stores all around the world.

From its iconic beaver logo to its rustic store design, Roots capitalizes on our reverence for the Canadian wilderness. When we think Roots, we think nature. And when we think of nature-ready clothing, Roots is the first brand that comes to mind.

With so many distinctive cultures, it can be hard to pin down what it means to be Canadian. Roots succeeds by tapping into something that transcends cultural and generational lines: love for the great outdoors.

Hudson’s Bay Company

Hudson’s Bay Company holds the title of Canada’s oldest company, but the modern Bay bears little resemblance to the bygone fur-trading empire. The company dabbled in everything from fur to transportation to oil exploration before it finally settled on retail in the 20th century.

The retail face of Hudson’s Bay has evolved as well. When it broke ground in Quebec in 1965, the HBC gave its stores a trendy new title: The Bay/La Baie. The company later refreshed its brand and reclaimed the original name.

Throughout its incarnations, Hudson’s Bay has maintained an iconic brand identity. People immediately recognize the name and the four-colour stripe pattern (known as the HBC Point Blanket) as a symbol of quality. Hudson’s Bay has held its place as other large department stores struggle in tough economic times.

When times change, Hudson’s Bay changes with it. The original Canadian company owes its longevity to its ability to adapt without compromising on core values.

Aldo

Surprised? You’re not alone. Aldo is iconic, but many shoppers don’t realize their favourite shoe store is Canadian.

Aldo was fashioned from the remnants of Le Chateâu’s shoe division. Its key to success was bringing trends to its shelves before its competitors could. Its founder set out to capture the latest in street styles in record time. Now, Aldo has 2,000 stores in more than 55 countries.

Aldo sells itself as a global brand, and its social feeds feature photos of trendsetters from around the world. This has paid off to the tune of millions of followers on Facebook and Instagram. Its success proves Canadian brands don’t have to fly the flag to stand out in the world marketplace.

Molson Canadian

As the story goes, John Molson was committed to “brewing the best beer in the world for the people of Canada.” We could argue about the merits of his brew all night, but one thing’s for sure: Molson knows the Canadian people.

Molson first launched its “I Am Canadian” campaign in 1995. Canadians aren’t prone to self-promotion, but when Molson made the declaration a retort to Canadian stereotypes, it was a hit.

“I Am Canadian” has been the heart of Molson’s marketing ever since. Molson has since incorporated theme into mountains of merchandise and viral video campaigns.

We love brands that help us define our Canadian identity. Molson has leveraged this to build an incredibly loyal following.

Tim Hortons

Let’s face it: we can’t talk Canadian brands without mentioning Tim Hortons. Canada’s most trusted brand is so prevalent in our communities and culture that it’s practically a part of Canada itself.

It didn’t get there by accident. Though it has changed corporate hands over the years, Tim Hortons has always maintained a clear and consistent identity. Its advertising appeals to nostalgia and family values, and small communities embrace Tim Hortons for its sponsorship of sports teams and fundraising for local causes.

The Tim Hortons of today is the same one we stopped by for Timbits after hockey practice. It owes its success to the generations of good will it has built with Canadians.

Images: Roots

Blogging For SEO

Blogging may seem simple, but there’s a lot more to content SEO than just putting words to a page. Just because you’re able to write doesn’t mean your content will do well on the internet. Years ago all that mattered was what you said (i.e., keywords), but modern SEO needs you to pay close attention to how you say it.

If you want your content to rank, of course it needs to be optimized, but search engines are getting smarter every day. Google can tell when content is well-written, engaging, and informative by analyzing your content and monitoring how people interact with it. If you take nothing else away, remember this one key: content SEO relies on good writing.

Long tail Keywords

Before getting started, you need to decide on the keywords you want your content to rank for. The best way to think about this is to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and think about what they would type into their search box.

Of course, some keywords will be harder to rank for than others. If you sell t-shirts, you’ll never rank for the term “t-shirts,” but you might rank for longer keywords more relevant to your business. These are called “long-tail” keywords.

Instead of “t-shirts,” your long-tail keywords could be “custom designed t-shirts in Toronto.” The longer the search input, the more unique it is and the easier it is to rank for it.

Titling Your Blog Articles

There are two things that you need to think about when deciding on a title for your blog article:

1. Making it catchy and attention grabbing
2. Optimizing it for search engines

The best written blog is nothing if no one stops to click on its title. To grab your readers’ attention and make them want to click, figure out what would be appealing to somebody stumbling around on your site. Try to pique your readers’ curiosity with catchy words and a captivating concept.

Optimizing your title is relatively simple: just make sure your long-tail keyword is present. Search engines, not surprisingly, put more weight into a title when deciding where your content fits.

And don’t forget about subtitles. While not as important as the title, Google also uses the subtitles to decide what your article is about.

Writing a Blog Introduction

The introduction of your article is, arguably, the most important part. Unfortunately, it’s also often the weakest for new writers.

The introduction needs to set up your entire article, and be interesting and captivating enough to get someone to decide to continue reading. The best advice is to figure out why someone will stop to read your blog, and quickly tell them exactly what they want to hear. If you’re writing about how to clean a

carburetor but begin your article with a history or guide of all the engine components, you’re going to quickly lose your reader.

If there’s any part of your blog that you should focus on, it’s the introduction. Unless you can read it and picture a reader saying, “and then what?” or “oh wow, this is going to tell me exactly what I need,” you need to go back and rewrite.

In terms of SEO, Google also weighs the introduction of your blog heavier than any other paragraph in your article

Writing the Body

This is usually the easiest part for a writer. You already know what needs to be there, you just need to get it on the page in a way that’s easy to read and absorb.

Here are some quick tips for SEO writing:

• Avoid being wordy. This is a sign of an inexperienced writer. Sentences that are too long or have unnecessary words are extra work for the reader. Be short and to the point.
• Do NOT keyword stuff. Keyword stuffing is using the same key terms over and over again. This is not only bad SEO, it’s bad writing. Writers will always try to avoid using a word more than once. Why limit yourself when there are so many words in the English language? If you’re hyper-focusing on optimizing every word— don’t. Google and other search engines are smart enough to know that different words can have the same meaning. Your keywords should be in your blog organically. If they aren’t, your blog article has taken a wrong turn somewhere.
• Use your subtitles as an outline. Without an outline, it’s easy for a blog post to go off the rails. Keep yourself on track by creating an outline and sticking to it.
• Longer is not always better. Yes, longer content is better for Google, but not at the expense of readership. If you’re saying the same thing repeatedly, consider cutting out the fluff.
  
  

Proof Your Articles

It’s incredibly easy to write the last sentence of an article then sit back and think you’re done. Just read over a piece you’ve done this with after a few days or so and you’ll see the error of your ways. No writer has ever been happy with their first draft, and for good reason. A first draft of anything will always have errors, omissions, and poor wordings.

Editing and proofing is an absolute must. Not only will Google spot your errors, online readers are notoriously ruthless for jumping on any errors they find. Read over your writing out loud. It’s the best way to catch spots that don’t sound quite right or sections that seem to ramble on.

And if possible, get someone else to read it over. It’s not an easy task to catch all your own mistakes. That’s why even professional writers have editors.

Improve Your Writing with Practice

If you’ve finished high school, you’re probably confident in your ability to write. But even though we’ve all learned the nuts and bolts of writing, as with any other skill, you won’t just be good at something because you know how to do it. Do you think Tolstoy just decided to start writing one day and put together War and Peace?

Being a good writer takes practice, and becoming a great writer requires a lifetime of writing.

4 Ways to Connect With Your Audience Using Visuals

Storytelling can take on many forms. A blog post, a social media announcement, a website, an email blast, a presentation or a book. Whether your purpose is to inform, educate or entertain, adding visual content is core to how you can connect with your audience. People respond more to what they see than any other form of stimulation.

1. Break up text

In this age of “Big Data”, we are literally bombarded with information. Visual assets such as videos, photography, infographics and illustrations cut through all the noise and leave a powerful impact.

Are people just lazy readers?

Many readers will scan through large sections of text, picking out words, here and there, stopping at headlines, and maybe at an image or video that captures interest. It’s not that people are lazy readers or would not find your writing interesting. It’s just that there is such a large volume of available information, they have to move quickly to capture what is relevant to them. A reader will be more willing to read an article when colourful images are used.

2. Be more memorable

Blog posts with images and videos are more engaging to visitors.

• Web pages with more visual content rank better
• Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks and 150% more retweets

With 90% of information transmitted to the brain being visual, and a retention rate at 80%, it only makes sense to use visuals to their advantage.

Using visuals across all the major social platforms—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, increases the:

• Number of visitors,
• Level of participation, and the
• Reach of your post.

What makes an effective visual?

A good visual will reach out on an emotional level and leave a long-lasting impression. When you connect with your audience on an emotional level, they associate it with your brand and it nurtures a feeling of trust.

Effective visuals are relatable and sharable. The right infographic can transform a complex or large amount of data into a more manageable format.

3. Set a tone

Sketchy, trendy, artistic, dark or funny—the right image will set the tone or mood for your writing. Open the door and invite your reader in.

A brand’s values and unique personality can be defined by:

• Logos
• Use of colour
• Typography
• Use of icons and relatable imagery
  

4. Implement a visual content strategy

Keep in mind that competition for your audience’s attention is high. A strong visual content marketing strategy is key to attracting internet users and building brand credibility. Just as important as headlines, and calls to action, visual content deserves more than a second thought.

Remember to:

• Show, don’t tell
• Use testimonial videos
• Share feedback
• Show customer reviews as images
• Drive content production with polls

Engage employees

• Share behind-the-scenes activities
• Encourage sharing of staff picks
• Capture celebrations of your big moments

Increase reach and visibility

• Use social media cover images
• Design your call-to-action
• Offer downloadable white papers, or e-books
• Make your images sharable
• Use a feature box on your blog

Optimize

• Change your visual’s file name
• Add a text transcript of your visuals
• Optimize file size
• Watch your embed code strategy </>