Podnar Consulting, LLC

4 tips for when you don’t know what the heck to post on Instagram

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I should probably turn in my content marketing license, because I’m scared of Instagram.

Seriously — my dog has more instagram followers than I do.

You’re probably thinking “OK, boomer.” And, if you’re not, maybe you should be. After all, I know the statistics:

So I get it. The problem is that I don’t know what the heck to post on my Instagram account. After all, I make words. I don’t make pretty cakes (although I used to before the arthritis in my hands got too bad!). I’ve made three babies who have turned into pretty awesome teenagers. But I don’t do fashion or makeup or any of the other things that make for gorgeous images on Instagram. And I’m far from a digital nomad — I’m a work-from-home mom with a husband, three teens, and two dogs. I can’t post breathtaking photos from around the world. The view from my desk is a lot more humble.

But then a client whose business deals in professional services asked me the same question about Instagram: What the heck do I post? So I decided I’d better dig into Instagram and how it can drive business for people whose work doesn’t produce things that make for pretty pictures. Here’s what I found out.

Stake your claim.

The more ways you claim your online presence, the greater the chance that people will find you when they search for the services you provide. So think of your Instagram profile as another place to establish your business, just like Facebook or LinkedIn.

You should also have a business or professional account rather than a personal account. Or you could have both. But if you want to connect and engage with people who might need your services, you want a business account. Not only does it provide you with analytics, a business account also lets you promote certain posts. And the icing on the proverbial cake is that you can include a link to website, your contact information, etc. It just makes it that much easier for potential clients to find you.

Follow these instructions from Instagram for setting up a business account or converting from a personal account to a business account. But let me save you some time — you can only do it on a mobile device, not via your desktop computer.

Use your bio strategically.

Once you’ve got your business account set up, it’s time to fine tune your bio.

  • Use a professional headshot (I know you’ve heard this part before) or your company’s logo. If you don’t have a professionally designed logo, go with the headshot.
  • Your bio should clearly communicate who you are and what you do.
  • Take advantage of the real magic: A business profile lets you include a link. Ideally, that link would go to your business site, but, if you don’t have one, I’d recommend linking to your LinkedIn profile (and get to work building that website!).

Get your doctorate in hashtags.

OK, I might be exaggerating, but only a little bit. Hashtags are the fuel that feeds Instagram’s algorithm gods, and your posts will live or die based on the hashtags you use. (Posts with at least one hashtag get 12.6% more engagement than posts with no hashtags.)

Instagram hashtags tend to be kind of squishy: The most popular ones include #me, #love, and #cute. The challenge for a business is to find the right combination, and there’s no foolproof recipe. You’ll want a combination of popular, industry-specific, and brand-specific hashtags. And, within each of those categories, you’ll want a mix of broad and niche hashtags.

Fortunately, Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post, so you have plenty of room to experiment and find out what works best for your business.

I wasn’t kidding by much when I said you needed a doctorate in hashtags. There’s a lot of advice out there, and I’m not going to try to duplicate it. If you want a deeper dive, here are some of the best resources on Instagram hashtags:

Think about your business visually.

I’m not an intuitively visual thinker; my home has always been among words. Even when I’m shopping for clothes online, I find myself reading the description before looking at the picture. That’s why I started this post by saying I’m scared of Instagram. I always end up wondering “What the heck do I post on Instagram? A picture of the words on my screen?” And I assume the same is true for other professional services: accountants, lawyers, business consultants, etc. Not only is our “product” not photogenic, there are often privacy issues and NDAs to consider.

So…what the heck DO we post on Instagram?

Here are some of the ideas I came across in my research:

Happy clients

With permission, you can post pictures of your clients with you or your employees. For the caption, write a short description of what their problem was and how they solved it. Or you could share a picture celebrating your 10th anniversary of doing business together. If you’re a realtor, you could share a picture of yourself transferring the keys to new homeowners.

Post like these serve as testimonials and are good social proof for you and your business. Just remember that you can’t post pictures of clients (or anybody else, for that matter) without getting a release.

Glimpses of what goes on behind the scenes

This is an especially powerful type of post for people who work from home — we’re all a little voyeuristic, and getting a glimpse of someone’s home life is hard to resist. I shared this picture on Instagram and, for the caption, wrote about what was on my agenda for the day. My picture wasn’t staged, although it probably should have been. Candid shots aren’t inherently bad, but sitting-by-the-pool-with-my-laptop-and-a-margarita shots are the ones that earn a lot of engagement. So do working-while-curled-up-in-my-pjs-and-a-blanket-while-it-snows-outside shots.

I can go all day without leaving home when I’m busy, but if your work requires you to get out and about, you have tons of opportunities to make the ordinary extraordinary. Even being stuck in traffic on a rainy day can have a story behind it if you think hard enough. (i.e., What kind of work is piling up? What would you rather be doing?) And if you’re playing hookie one day (going fishing, getting your nails done, etc.)? Take pictures! Don’t be shy…share the fun; then get back to work.

Quotes

Quotes on artistically designed backgrounds (my teens sprout fangs if I dare to call them memes) are popular on Instagram. I often make one containing the title of my blog post and use it as the featured image. I’ll share it on Instagram with a brief description of what the blog post is about, and include the URL (although it won’t be an actual link).

But you can also share quotes from within your blog posts — those little nuggets of text that you’re especially proud of, or the ones that make a point you want to highlight. If you use pull quotes or one of those “Tweet this” plugins, that’s the text I’m talking about. You can do it with subheads, too, doling out portions of your blog post a bit at a time.

What if you don’t have a blog (please tell me you do!)? There’s no end to places where you can find text worthy of splattering across the right background. If you’re running a family business, maybe it’s something your great grandpa said. Maybe it’s something your favorite customer says all the time. Or it could be a quote that resonates with you personally and illustrates how you approach life and business.

One of my favorites is from Carl Sagan:

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Another is from a former colleague who was emphasizing the importance of meeting your audience where they are:

“You gotta put the hay down where the goats can get at it.”

And there’s probably a Friends quote for any situation imaginable.

  • Run a match-making service? “She’s your lobster.”
  • Provide house cleaning services? “Could your house BE any cleaner?!”
  • Have a limousine service that picks people up at the airport? “She got off the plane!”
  • A solopreneur coming back from a family vacation? “We were on a break!”

Unsplash is a great place to find royalty-free images. You can even search their portfolio for “background”. Or if you find something you like but it’s a bit too busy to serve as a background for text, you can use a photo editor like PicMonkey to blur the background so that the text will stand out

Using your own pictures

Unsplash has gorgeous pictures, but after a while you start to recognize them, which is why I prefer to use my own when I can. So whenever I’m out with my good camera (on vacation, at whatever sport — currently wrestling — is in season), I look for things that would make good background shots: flowers, leaves, even the raindrops on the stone pavers in our yard. Sunsets and clouds rolling over the ocean make great backgrounds, too. I even uploaded some of mine to Shutterstock to see if they’ll generate a little side income.

Anyway…when you’re out with your camera, keep background images in mind. That way you’ll have a custom image instead of seeing your same background all over the internet.

Networking

Let’s get the first rule of Instagram out of the way right now: If somebody takes the time to comment on one of your images, respond! You never know when the person commenting on your image has a connection to your next dream client.

And keep in mind that you shouldn’t always wait for other people to start the conversation. Search for hashtags relevant to your business or industry, and comment on the images other people have posted. Even though Instagram is image-based, it’s still about conversations and engagement. I actually got caught up in a Twitter conversation today where somebody asked people to post three pictures of their dog. It has nothing to do with my business, but if somebody happens to click on my profile, they might decide they need my help with content strategy.

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So what did I learn? Your business doesn’t have to produce tangible objects to have a place on Instagram. Those of us who work in content marketing or other professional services just have to use a little more imagination. I finally made the leap; will you?

Want some help? That’s what I do, so please get in touch.

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Proud to be included in this amazing resource!

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65 Content Marketers List the 44 Content Marketing Agencies Crushing It (Plus 70 Tips & 78 Myths Dispelled)
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The truth about why you’re not getting backlinks

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australian shepherdHonestly, I think brands, content strategists, and the writers they work with speculate about Google’s ranking factors as much as they speculate and gossip about who’ll win the next season of The Voice, The Bachelor, or some other reality show. Not only is Google’s constantly-changing algorithm shrouded in mystery and intrigue, but it directly affects our professional success. We all want to know how to get Google to send a little love our way.

Lately, conversations have focused on user intent, and I, for one, am a big fan. If Google’s fancy algorithms can figure out what people are actually searching for, it’s not so hard to figure out how to write that content.

But then there are backlinks. While experienced content marketers may disagree on where they fall in Google’s ranking factors, I haven’t seen anyone make the argument that they no longer matter. And so you have a lot of brands and bloggers investing a lot of time and money into trying to get them. Some people have built entire businesses around it, like Backlinko.

So I want to share my thoughts on why all of your backlink strategies aren’t working. Most of it has to do with underestimating the professionalism of today’s content strategists and creators.

Today’s content strategists and content creators know what we’re doing.

And we know what you’re doing, too.

Back when keyword stuffing was king, a lot of content was created by writers who made anywhere between $5-10 for an 800-word blog post. Today, I know very few content writers who’ll even consider anything under $150, and many charge much more. I can absolutely guarantee you that they know how to vet a source before they link to it, and so do the content strategists who are paying them.

social sharing logosWhat I’m trying to say is that, while there are still a few content mills out there churning out filler, the majority of the business has turned professional. Here’s what that means for you.

Clickable and shareable are not the same thing as linkable.

In other words, we don’t fall for clickbait headlines. No matter how many experts offer up statistics and psychological studies about how to write a headline readers can’t resist, we don’t link to content for its entertainment value. We’re writing blog posts for clients and need reputable sources to link to. While a headline like “X tools that will double your search traffic in just 6 days” might get a lot of clicks and shares, professional content strategists and writers are asking, “Uhm…proof, please?”  For us, it’s a huge red flag when a headline promises something very specific that can never be verified.  In fact, using any hyperbolic words in your headline turns us off. We’re not going to link to that.

We look for quality content.

And by “quality,” I mean professional. Here are a few things that tell professional writers your content might not meet that standard.

Poor website design

There’s one site that keeps showing up in my search results on a particular topic, but I won’t link to it because the site design is jarring, all red and yellow with white text on a black background. It makes me feel like I just walked into a Chuck E. Cheese. I’ve never even gotten as far as reading the content, because I have a hard time believing that anyone who’s capable of developing quality content wouldn’t know that their site design stinks.

Too much profanity

I’ve been known to let loose with a “crap” or two in the content I write for my own blog. But I would never use that language (and I’ve seen a LOT worse) in content I write for a client; nor would I link to an article containing a lot of profanity.

Too many superlatives

Sometimes you’ll read a blog post and can almost picture the author jumping up and down in excitement. That’s fine if you’re blogging from Area 51 after bypassing some of the best security in the world and discovering real-live aliens; but if you’re writing about yet another keto recipe, it’s overkill. Nothing against keto, but enough has been written about it that handsprings aren’t required.

Fishy facts

This is one area where I think bloggers and brands seeking backlinks hugely underestimate professional content strategists and writers. You may think we don’t spot these tricks, but we do:

  • Citing statistics from biased sources: In other words, if you’re writing an article on the dangers of global climate change, don’t source a study sponsored by the solar panel industry. The bias is inherent.cranberry juice

    Want another example? They’re easy to find, especially in the food industry. One study, conducted by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that drinking one glass of cranberry juice per day reduced UTI symptoms in women by almost 40%. What the press release didn’t say is that the study was founded by Ocean Spray, the biggest cranberry producer on the planet. Neither did it reveal that Ocean Spray scientists were directly involved in the study.

    That type of biased study is rampant in the pharmaceutical industry, too. For example, a paper published in 2007 noted that, in studies exploring the negative effects of corticosteroid drugs, those funded by the pharmaceutical industry were only half as likely to report negative side effects. Whether the methodology of the study itself was inherently biased or the scientists involved were pressured to find certain results isn’t clear, but the biased results themselves are clear as can be.

    And then there’s publication bias, in which only the findings favorable to the sponsor are published.

    So trust me on this. Content writers who are good at their job — and especially those with a journalism background — can smell this stuff from a mile a way. And we won’t link to it.

  • Using “alternate” facts. While “alternate facts” became somewhat of a joke during the 2016 election, they’re really a thing. Unemployment numbers are a good example. One study might include only those who lost their previous job, aren’t working at all, and are actively looking for full-time employment in their field. Another study might include people who are working part-time or in jobs that don’t use their complete skill set — architects working at Home Depot, for example. The resulting numbers would be very different, but both would be “true” based on the factors included in the study. Again, I get the feeling that many publishers underestimate professional content creators. We know how to check stuff like that, and we’re not going to link to content that plays fast and loose with the facts.
  • A lack of transparency: We tend to get highly suspicious when we can’t find out important information about you — how you generate revenue, for example. That’s an important thing to know when assessing whether a source is biased. Terms of service, privacy policies, accessibility statements, etc., are also factors that help us establish your credibility. And the lack of them sends up big red flags.
  • Poorly written content: We know that not everyone finds writing to be easy (if you did, we wouldn’t have a job). If you use “it’s” when you should have used “its,” we may notice, but we won’t completely write you off. But if every single paragraph is full of errors, that’s a problem. If you can’t afford a writer, you can at least use a tool like Grammarly or Hemingway. So really, really bad writing declares that you just don’t care. And we’re not going to link to that.
  • A lack of dates: For the love of all that’s holy, start putting dates on your blog posts. We know how much you want evergreen content; the SEO experts out there insist it’s essential. But here’s the thing: Most of the time, I won’t link to a post if the information in it is more than 3-4 years old…even less if it’s techy. So if there’s no date on your post — meaning that we have no way to tell how current the information is — we’re not going to link to it.

And then there are outreach emails (ugh!)

email outreachI know folks like Neil Patel and Brian Dean put a lot of focus on outreach emails. They provide step-by-step plans, starting with research and ending with the admonition to write emails that are scripted but sound like they aren’t.

That may work for personal bloggers, but professional content strategists and creators can smell those emails a mile away. They start with an ego stroke — “You create such valuable content, and I especially loved your blog about X” and end with a request to edit a piece of our content to contain a link to one of theirs.

Folks, this is the content marketing equivalent of telemarketers calling during the middle of dinner, and it’s as annoying as heck. That’s what makes marketing to marketers so dang hard. We’ve read all the same advice you have, and we know what you’re doing!

I know all of the advice tells you to mention a specific piece of content that made an impression on you. But, if you really want to go this route, take the time to personalize it. Why did you like a particular piece of content? How did you implement the advice it contained, and what were the results? And I mean that seriously. One week, after getting so many of these obviously scripted emails that my head was about to explode, I replied to one email and asked the sender exactly what he liked about the blog post he mentioned. You know what I got in return? Crickets.

When it comes to getting backlinks, you’re trying too hard.

First, I have to give credit to folks like Neil Patel and Brian Dean. They’ve each built successful content marketing empires that have generated tons of money. I have not. And they have the numbers to prove that their tactics work. But I have to say that their successes baffle me, because the strategies and advice they offer seems so over-the-top obvious, like the proverbial used-car salesman. I can see where their tactics would work with readers looking primarily for entertainment, but if you’re trying to get backlinks for your business, focus on credibility rather than virality. Realize that there are hundreds of professional content writers working every day to create credible content for our clients. We need credible sources. If you write great content and optimize your content for SEO, we’ll try to find you. And if your content passes our smell test, we’ll link to you, because we need those links as much as you do. And it can be hard to find them.

If you want backlinks from credible business sites, you have to be credible yourself. That means ditching any of the tactics that are more about obfuscation than delivering value.

The bottom line? Don’t be cheesy.

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Did the Jetsons worry that Rosie was a spy, with a network of IoT devices?

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Author’s note: This post isn’t specifically about content strategy. But you can’t talk about content strategy these days without also talking about the IoT — all of those connected devices that make our lives easier, but also make us more vulnerable, often without our knowledge. So I thought it was a good time to step away from content strategy and talk to normal families going about their normal lives in normal homes — except for the smart coffee maker, the smart lights, etc.

As families around the world excitedly gobble up gadgets that connect to the Internet of Things (IoT), home life is starting to look more and more like an episode of The Jetsons. (If you’re too young to have spent Saturday mornings watching The Jetsons, this clip explains a lot about our current fascination with household technology!)

But the Jetsons never seemed to worry about the security of the devices that made their lives so easy. It’s a different story for today’s homeowners (whether you know it or not). IoT devices are notoriously easy to hack — and cybercriminals know it. But you don’t have to give up all of your smart devices; you just have to learn how to secure them.

Just what are IoT devices?

 

“IoT” refers to the Internet of Things and includes all of those cool, helpful, and trendy devices that rely on a connection to the internet to work. Amazon Echo and Google Home are obvious examples, but there are so many more:

  • Doorbells that let you see who’s at your door via your smartphone
  • Light bulbs that can be turned on and off from your smartphone, helping you save energy costs (not to mention the more fun aspects like syncing them to a playlist when you’re having a party)
  • Smart locks that let you unlock your door remotely for your babysitter, dogwalker, or the Amazon delivery guy
  • TVs that let you stream content from Netflix, Hulu, etc.
  • Healthcare devices — from patches to ingestibles and implanted devices — that record vital signs and other information and, in some cases, transmit them to health care providers and family members.

There are even refrigerators that know when you’re out of milk (and add it to your grocery list) and diapers that let you know when your baby needs to be changed. In fact, there seems to be no end to our appetite for connected devices: There are already more of them in use than there are people on the planet. And it’s predicted that, by 2020, there will be around three devices per person.

Unfortunately, at this point, most of them are vulnerable to attack.

Why in the world would anybody want to hack light bulbs?

 

Because the light bulbs themselves aren’t the real target. Once hackers access that light bulb, they have access to everything else on the same network…which for many homeowners, is everything. Including the computers that store their personal data, the passwords to their bank accounts, etc. To build on the pop culture theme, remember that all Luke needed to do to take down the Death Star was to hit one tiny exhaust port.

Luke attacking the death star

When it comes to security, your smart devices are the equivalent of that exhaust port. If hackers can get into one, they can get into the whole shebang.

Is that really a thing?

 

Yep. One report stated that average smart device is attacked every two minutes (and that was back in 2017). Not that all of them were successful, of course, but far too many are. Here are some of the most notorious examples:

  • Back in 2016, a botnet took down huge portions of the internet, including sites like Netflix, Twitter, and CNN. That takes a lot of computing power, and, in this case, investigators determined that power came from hundreds of thousands of IoT devices —  things like TVs, digital cameras and DVRs — that were hijacked without their owners’ knowledge.
  • In 2014, an Ohio couple was startled awake in the middle of the night when they heard a male voice screaming, “Wake up, baby! Wake up, baby!” It turned out that someone had hacked into and taken control of their “smart” baby monitor. When they raced into their baby’s room, the camera turned toward them and started shouting obscenities.
  • Another couple had a similar experience one evening when their Alexa Dot started screaming “like a child in a horror movie dream.”
  • A family in Oregon received a call from one of the father’s work colleagues, letting them know that Alexa had sent him a recording of what they thought was a private conversation (fortunately, it was just about what kind of flooring to buy). An Amazon engineer was able to go through the logs and determined that it was the equivalent of a cell phone butt dial: Alexa heard certain words in a certain order and acted on what she thought was a command, even though nobody was talking to her.

And those are just a few documented examples. It’s not too hard to imagine some real nightmare scenarios:

  • What if your smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were attacked by a Stuxnet-like virus that turned them off while all signals indicated they were still on and functioning properly?
  • What if your security cameras or nanny cams were used to scout your home for valuables, so criminals would know whether to bother breaking in?
  • What if a cybercriminal hacked into your smart light bulb (something that can be done in as little as three minutes) and switched it to the “home” setting, thereby telling your smart hub to turn off your alarm and unlock your doors?

None of this means you have to give up your smart home devices, but it does mean you should give some serious thought to the security risks inherent in the Internet of Things and take steps to protect yourself and your family.

What homeowners can do to make their connected homes more secure

The easy answer? Education. There are a lot of simple things homeowners could be doing to secure their devices, but they’re not doing them because no one ever told them they should. Here are some of the most important:

  • Before you purchase a new IoT device, do your homework. First, think about why you want it, and ask yourself if it’s worth the security risk. If you decide that it is, start researching the product. Some brands are more secure than others. One non-negotiable: Make sure it can be updated with software and firmware patches. Many IoT devices can’t be updated when new vulnerabilities are discovered. Those are the ones you want to leave on the shelf!
  • Buy a router that allows you to set up more than one network: Newer routers often allow you to set up multiple networks. (Hint: You don’t have to stick with the router you got from your service provider.) Put your personal computers and anything else that contains sensitive data on one network, and put all of your IoT devices on another. That way, if one does get hacked, the damage will be contained.
  • When you buy an IoT device, create a new password: If a device comes with default login credentials, change them right away — when you set the device up. (Don’t think you’ll do it later, once everything is in place, because you’ll probably forget.) Why is this so important? Because the default password is often the same across an entire product line, and few self-respecting criminals would pass on the opportunity to hack so many devices at once. It doesn’t even take a hacking genius to find out what the default password is — the information is often available online.  So, to quote Nike, just do it.
  • For both your router and all of your connected devices, install software and firmware updates as soon as they’re available, since they’re often used to fix security issues. If possible, set your device preferences so that these updates are installed automatically. In most cases, though, you’ll have to go to the manufacturer’s website to see if there are any updates available, so set yourself a reminder to check for updates on a regular basis. (Or try syncing it to the time changes, like the reminders to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.)
  • Take the time to read the user’s guide. It may be boring, but it may still contain valuable information, like the fact that there are no plans to provide updates or patches (in which case I’d strongly recommend returning the device right away).
  • Avoid internet cafes and other places where you have to rely on public WiFi. Cybercriminals can camp out at a table in your favorite coffee shop and gain access to the smartphone apps you use to control your IoT devices. Once they’ve done that, they can access the devices themselves — as well as every other connected device on that network.

 

Taking these steps will make the average connected home much more secure than it is today. For homeowners who want to take their security even further, you can find advanced steps in this white paper about security in the smart home.

Featured image credit: Jon Betts via Flickr Creative Commons license

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“Traffic is everything!” is the big lie of content marketing

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It always stings when your heros let you down. And my content marketing heros (maybe yours, too) have been lying to us for years. And I’ve been holding in my rant for just as long. But I just can’t do it anymore. The lie?

I’ve always thought that was BS because it just makes sense that chasing traffic that will never convert is a waste of time and resources. But it wasn’t until I started writing this post that I realized just how pervasive that lie has become. Take a look at this. When I Googled “why focusing on blog traffic is a mistake,” I got this:

why focusing on blog traffic is a mistake

Even when I searched for “why focusing on traffic is a mistake,” the search results were all about increasing traffic. Yikes! You’d expect that from sites like Neil Patel and Backlinko, because that’s their business model. But even authoritative sites like CMI and Copyblogger (my biggest hero) sometimes act as if it doesn’t matter what happens after people read your blog post.

It almost seems as if today’s content marketing experts have never moved on from the days when blogging was primarily about making money from ad revenue. In that context, concentrating your efforts on traffic makes complete sense. You focus on clickbait headlines, trending topics, popular keywords, whether the number of searches for those keywords is increasing or decreasing, etc.

The problem arises when that same advice is aimed at businesses that make money from selling their own products or services instead of from selling ad space. A post about a spaceship landing in my backyard might get me a spike in traffic, but it’s not going to do me a bit of good unless the aliens are looking for a content strategist. And that’s where the big lie comes in:

pull quote not all traffic is equal

 

If you’re writing for a business blog, the only visitors that matter are the ones that have the potential to convert. A general interest post that hit the sweet spot and went viral could actually have a negative impact by clogging up your server. So let me just come out and say it: If you’re writing for a business blog, a very large chunk of the expert advice and “best practices” available online aren’t meant for you, even if they’re presented as universal truths. That’s because business blogging is different.

The real truths about business blogging

Traffic doesn’t mean squat if the visitors are unlikely to ever need your product or service.

Those aliens I mentioned earlier? They could share my post until it went universally viral, and the only thing I’d get out of it would be bragging rights. (And perhaps an unpleasant visit from some Men in Black). I’m not saying traffic is bad. The more eyeballs that see your content, the better the chances that at least one pair of eyeballs belongs to somebody who needs what you’re selling. Just don’t let the “traffic is everything” mantra convince you that you’re winning when the bottom line shows otherwise.

Business blogs are about sales.

Yes, they should be interesting. They should reflect your brand’s style and voice. They shouldn’t put readers to sleep. They should educate and enlighten readers at every step in the sales funnel, from those who don’t even know they have a problem to those who not only know they have a problem but are pretty sure they want you to solve it. The job of a business blog is to be there to answer their questions wherever they are in their customer journey. Remember, it’s all about conversions. Maybe not right away, but someday. So know who your prospective customers are, and write for them, not the magic SEO fairy. That witch tends to deliver little more than a lot of first-time visitors and high bounce rates.

SEO still matters, just not quite the way you’ve been led to believe.

Your content and metadata should still contain the keywords that best describe your business and what you’re offering. What youcracked windshield don’t need to worry about is whether a particular keyword is trending up or down. If you offer onsite windshield replacement, the fact that fewer people are searching for “onsite windshield replacement” this month than last month is irrelevant. The only thing that’s relevant is that single individual who’s searching for somebody who can replace a cracked windshield onsite.

Two crucial questions for content marketing

” What do you want people to think, do, or feel after they read this?”

For me, this question is way more important than what content marketing experts are saying about the latest Google update. It gives the content I’m writing a purpose. In this case, I want people to know that supposed content marketing “best practices” aren’t for everybody. I want them to understand that many are aimed at sites that need to drive traffic for ad revenue, and that’s a whole ‘nother thing than selling products or services.

I also want people to think, “Wow, I really need to hire Patti as my content strategist.” Sure, that’s a secondary goal, but it wasn’t the motivation for this post. My motivation for writing this post was that, if I didn’t, my head would explode from the frustration of experts giving advice without segmenting their audience. And I want to know that I’m not the only content writer who’s been holding a rant at bay for the last few years.

“What questions would people ask that would bring them here?”

This is SEO by reverse engineering, but it’s in line with Google’s move toward highlighting user intent in their search algorithms. Such tweaks are always intended to push the internet in the direction Google wants it to go (wouldn’t it be nice to have that kind of power?), and thanks to advances in AI and machine learning, Google can now put a user’s search terms in context, figure out what they really want, and serve up relevant results even if they don’t match any of the search terms.

What does that mean for your business? For your metadata, use terms that describe who you are and what you do. For me, that includes “content strategist,” even though that’s not the topic of this post. When it comes to the content itself, I’d ask myself which search terms might lead someone to this page. A few examples:

  • Is it really all about traffic?
  • Are SEO tips different for business blogs than for personal blogs?
  • Why do all of the experts seem to be saying the same thing when none of it fits my business’s goals for our blog?
  • What do I want from my business blog?

At that point I could go back and insert those questions — or some variation of them, since Google is so smart now — into the copy of my blog, increasing the chance that the people who reach this page will value the advice I’m giving here, because they, too, have permanent keyboard impressions on their foreheads after realizing that even the greatest minds in content marketing don’t seem to get that business blogs are different.

An aside for writers…

Know your audience. When you’re applying for a job, whether it’s a freelance gig or a permanent position, think about the goals of the blog you want to write for. Somebody who sells industrial pumps for manufacturing plants isn’t going to give a crap how many social media followers you have, no matter how impressive that number may be — because, unless they’re all in a position to buy industrial pumps, they offer no value. Build your pitch around the business needs of the organization you want to work with and your understanding of how the blog is connected to the organization’s strategic goals. It certainly doesn’t hurt to include your other successes, just make sure you build your pitch on what’s most valuable to the business.

What did I miss? What other ways are business bloggers being underserved by general content marketing and blogging resources?

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Got online privacy? Not as much as you think.

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Update: Google is planning some changes to its Chrome browser that reflect some of the user concerns discussed in my post. For more information: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/googles-chrome-will-soon-get-new-privacy-features-with-better-cookie-controls-and-anti-fingerprinting-tech/

The average American adult spends 11 hours a day on some type of digital media. A lot of that time is spent watching videos through platforms like Amazon Prime or Netflix, or reading content on news sites.

And then there are social media sites:

  • Approximately two thirds of American adults use Facebook, most of them daily.
  • 75% of American adults (and 94% of those in the 18 to 24 age bracket) use YouTube.
  • 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn.

But this post isn’t a lecture about how much time we spend online. I threw the statistics out there to set the stage for my main point: The more you use the internet, the more you feed the internet gods that follow you around, track your activity, and analyze it in a gazillion different ways. So I want to chat about online privacy and raise your awareness of what’s going on behind the scenes while you’re clicking away at home.

How the internet knows you better than you know yourself

The internet basically launders money (in the form of data) for advertisers. The more data a platform like Facebook or Instagram has on you, the more they can charge for highly targeted ad space. They have a myriad of ways of getting that data, and the general public is sadly unaware of many of them.

So let’s catch up, shall we? Here are a few of the ways the internet tracks your online activities:

Cookies

Most of us are so used to cookies that we click right through those notices that pop up on websites. But I think it’s time for a refresher on what cookies are really about.

Cookies are tiny pieces of data stored on your computer by the sites you visit. They help the site “remember” that you’ve been there before and what you did while you were there. Cookies help sites display suggested items based on what you’ve looked at or clicked on before.

Browser fingerprinting

Any time you visit a website, the device you’re using hands over a whole bunch of information: your operating system, your browser type and version, whether you have any active plugins, your timezone, your browser history, etc.

What’s the big deal? Well, the odds of two browsers having exactly the same configuration is approximately 1 in 286,777. All that’s left is to match that data to a known individual. If you’ve ever logged into a website that asked for your name, phone number, etc. (and who hasn’t?), your so-called “fingerprint” is now associated with your identity. No more anonymity for you!

Tracking pixels

Also sometimes called “web beacons” or “clear gifs,” these one-pixel images record a user’s online activity and even notify an advertiser if the you open one of their emails.

Geolocation

geolocationWhile most of us would be justifiably alarmed at the thought of “men in black” from the government following our every footstep, we broadcast that information freely through our cell phones all the time. More than 1,000 apps reportedly track your location through your phone, and they’re so useful that we rarely stop to think about the tradeoff in online privacy. Apps like Around Me couldn’t function without knowing your location. Neither could apps that help you locate your friends or direct you back to your parked car.

But geolocation tracking can also be used for purposes that aren’t so pure. Would-be thieves who get their hands on location data can tell when you’re not home. Divorce lawyers love geolocation tracking because it can be used to prove infidelity. And would-be employers might factor your weekly visits to a cancer clinic into their hiring decision.

Big data inference

Here’s where it gets kind of scary. Even if you try to be careful about online privacy and security, the internet machine isn’t dependent on specific facts you post. Big data algorithms gather tidbits of information and put them together to draw all sorts of conclusions about you: your mood, your health, your intention to change jobs or get a puppy, your religious or political affiliations, etc. What most people don’t realize is that inferred data doesn’t just consider the things you’ve explicitly said or posted online. It uses machine learning to draw conclusions, and it’s surprisingly accurate. In 2017, for example, academic researchers were able to use data from 40,000 Instagram photos to accurately predict depression in a group of 166 users.

Inferred data is also used to group you with people like yourself. And that’s when it can get weird. There have been reports of Facebook making friend recommendations among patients of the same psychiatrist or, even worse, the person your spouse is cheating on you with.

A little help from your friends…

social media privacyHave you ever downloaded an app only to see a screen asking permission to access your friends list, contact information, etc.? When you click “Yes,” you’re feeding the hungry data gods with your friends’ information. The app, Facebook, and other social media outlets will try to match that information to a profile they already have, giving them even more insight into that particular user. If they can’t match it to a known profile, they’ll use the individual’s phone number (from your contact list) to assign the user a shadow profile. Together with tracking pixels, they’ll record the user’s online activity and, eventually, place them in a social circle of people with similar online habits.

Third-party trackers

If I haven’t scared you away from your computer yet, hold on to your seat! Third-party tracking is when someone other than the site a user visits tracks the user’s activity on that site and, possibly, across the entire internet. If you have a favorite news site, for example, you probably expect that it tracks your activity across the site. What you may not know is that it’s made a deal with a third party to either sell them that information or for the third party to add its own tracking pixel that, from that point on, follows you everywhere you go.

But what about online privacy and security?

privacyAs users realize just how revealing their online activity is, demands for privacy are increasing. Laws like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act have made great strides by restricting the type of data that can be collected (there must be a demonstrable business need) and by requiring businesses to get explicit consent for each use of a person’s data. Other countries are working on similar laws.

In the U.S., it’s still buyer beware. Even if a business’s Terms of Use explain in detail how they gather, use, and store data, most of us don’t bother to read them. Of those who do, many will accept the terms if it’s the only way they can get the product or service they want.

While we’re still grappling with privacy laws, here are a few things you can do to maintain your privacy:

  • Use a tool like Firefox’s Lightbeam or Chrome’s TrackingObserver extensions to see just who’s tracking your online activity (first- and third-party).
  • Block any unwanted tracking. Start by making sure you have the most up-to-date version of your browser and reviewing your privacy settings. Some browsers have updated their options, giving you the ability to block third-party trackers, for instance. If you want even more protection, see what’s available in your browser’s extension store.
  • Take a course like this one from Udemy on how to protect your privacy online.

In 2019, it’s almost impossible to completely avoid the internet. Even if you could, the giant data machine can learn about you in other ways, like when a friend tags you in a photo. So until our laws catch up with our technology, my advice is to take these steps to protect as much of your internet privacy as you can and, other than that, just be aware of what’s going on out there. Don’t let the illusion of privacy make you too comfortable online.

 

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What are digital policies, and why do you need them?

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Lately I’ve been in the happy position of having as much work as I can keep up with. The downside means that I’ve been neglecting my blog. However, I made time today because I want to share an accomplishment and to talk about a topic I’ve come to care about very deeply: Digital policies.

A couple of years ago, I never gave much thought to digital policies, and, if I did, I certainly wouldn’t have thought they applied to me as a freelance writer. Since then, I’ve come to learn just how wrong I was.

That’s due to an email I received from Kristina Podnar. She reached out because of the coincidence of our shared last name and the fact that our professional interests overlapped. One thing led to another, and she eventually asked me to serve as content strategist for the book she was writing on digital policies. Much to our shared delight, it’s finally all wrapped up (if you’ve ever worked on a book, you know that writing it is only the first step) and is now available on Amazon:

The Power of Digital Policy: A Practical Guide to Minimizing Risk and Maximizing Opportunity for Your Organization, by Kristina Podnar.

Digital Policy Kristina Podnar

Why you need to read this book

The education I got while helping Kristina with this book is invaluable. I learned that, from solopreneurs to multinational corporations, just about everybody underestimates the risks inherent in your online activities (the opportunities are usually obvious). I can’t tell you how many times I stopped in my tracks and thought, “I. had. no. idea.”

Think you know more than I did? Maybe you do, because overall awareness has certainly increased since then. But why not verify your knowledge with this short, 5-question quiz I designed specifically for solopreneurs, bloggers, SMBS, etc. (A quiz for larger businesses would be a LOT harder!)

Results

Share your score!
Tweet your score!

#1 The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to my website.

Courts have determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to digital spaces as well as to physical ones. Some of the steps you need to take to be compliant:

  • Provide captioning for videos
  • Provide descriptive alt-text for images
  • Make sure there is sufficient contrast between your text and the background
  • Make sure your site can be navigated by a keyboard.

You can find more information here: W3C: Website Accessibility Initiative.

#2 I don’t have to worry about user-generated content (UGC) because the user freely chose to share it.

As valuable as user-generated content (UGC) can be, it doesn’t come without risks. A sampling of things that could put you at risk:

  • The user’s consent isn’t always enough. Images are a good example. A user can give you permission to publish and share an image from their role as photographer, but they can’t grant you permission to use the “image and likeness” of any people in the photograph. To be safe, you’d have to get permission from each individual pictured.
  • Publishing an image that includes a brand’s logo or registered trademark (someone in a crowd shot wearing a Nike hat, for example) could, in theory, be considered trademark infringement. While it may be unlikely that a large brand would bother suing a solopreneur or SMB, problems crop up when businesses experience rapid growth and forget that they’re no longer too small to be a target. That’s one reason it’s important to institute sound digital policies from the beginning.
  • If a user posts a picture or video of someone using your product in an unsafe way, allowing it to remain on your site could be considered an endorsement, exposing you to liability for any associated injuries.

You can read more about the risks of UGC here: What you need to know now about the risks of user-generated content.

 

 

#3 I need to understand the GDPR no matter how small I am or where I’m located.

The long arm of the General Data Protection Act (GDPR) isn’t bound by geography. It’s based on the EU citizenship of the individual. So, if your email list includes an EU citizen (look for those .eu addresses), you’re just as responsible for protecting their personal data as if you were a large organization headquartered in the EU. Since the law is still relatively new, it’s unlikely that regulators will be seeking out small businesses in the U.S. right away. But if your business starts growing rapidly, your risk grows right along with it, which is why you should make GDPR compliance (along with similar laws in other countries) a priority right now.

For more information: 10 Things You Need to Know About the GDPR; GDPR, from the Gig Economy Perspective

 

#4 I (or my organization) can drive traffic and gain exposure by joining the social media conversation on controversial topics.

Confession time: This was a trick question.

Yes, you can undoubtedly drive traffic and gain exposure by joining conversations on controversial topics. But that doesn’t mean you should. The answer to that question depends on a number of factors:

  • Is it important to your branding to take a public stance on the topic or issue?
  • If not, what are the chances that things will go wrong…that you’ll end up doing your brand more harm than good?
  • Are there any legal risks, such as posting before you have all of the facts?
  • Are you conflating your personal opinions with those of your business?

The siren song of social media can be strong. Even if it’s just you and your blog, a sticky note on your monitor that says, “Step away from the keyboard” can remind you to take a breath and think before you do something you’ll regret.

For more information, see: How the Covington High Incident Makes the Case for Digital Policies.

#5 Gated content is a great way to build your email list.

Another trick question — the real answer is “maybe.”

For years, using gated content has been considered a “best practice” for list-building, but the GDPR put a stop to that. It requires you to get separate consent for each use of an individual’s personal data. That means that, if someone gives you their email address to download a white paper or ebook, you can’t just automatically add it to your email list. You have to get separate consent to do that.

So, while that doesn’t mean you can’t have gated content, it does mean you need to really think about what you’re trying to accomplish and how it will help you. You might decide that the thought leadership you develop by leaving your best content available to everyone is more valuable than collecting email addresses you can’t use for marketing purposes.

finish

That’s just a very small taste of what’s in this book, but I hope it’s enough to make you realize just how important digital policies are, even if it’s just you and your keyboard. And the bigger you get, the more complex (and more important) your policy decisions become.

So don’t be like me, blogging away in ignorance for far too long. Be like Kristina, and learn how digital policies can help you avoid risks while still taking advantage of opportunities.

How to update your old blog posts with an extreme makeover

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Everybody who works in content marketing talks about how to update your old blog posts. It makes a lot of sense: Creating quality content is time-consuming and expensive, but it’s also necessary for attracting new readers and letting Google know that you’re still around. Sure, you can repurpose old content into a slideshow or video. But I’m talking about giving an old post new life by updating it with new information and — here’s the really important part — applying today’s SEO best practices.

How to update your old blog posts with an extreme makeover

Pick the right content

I don’t know anybody who has time to go through their content archives and how to revitalize your old blog postsupdate every single blog post without knowing if it’s going to be worth it. So start by picking one blog post — a single post that you think will help you decide whether a larger-scale effort is worthwhile.

The criteria, of course, are up to you, but could include things like

  • Your most successful post in terms of likes, shares, comments, etc.
  • Your most successful post in terms of lead generation
  • A post that should be performing better than it is
  • A post that is about a topic that is either always relevant or newly relevant

Those are just a few ideas, but there are dozens of things you could do. If a popular executive is retiring, for example, you could update an old blog post that was written when he first joined the company: a retrospective with a few modern updates.

Identify areas that need work

SEO

SEO is constantly changing, so the size of the job will depend on how old the content is. If it was written back in the days of keyword stuffing, you’ve got some work to do. That was awful even when it was a best practice.

But if you’re going to update your old blog posts, you could also take an “evolution of SEO” approach with a process similar to this:

Keywords

  • What keywords, if any, were the original post built around? Are those keywords still relevant to your current business model and your current customers? If not, what changed, and what does that mean for your keyword strategy? Do the same keyword research you’d do for a new post, and identify more relevant keywords that you could substitute without having to rewrite the entire post.
  • Does the original post contain any longtail keywords? It might, simply because longtail keywords make sense. They’re based on natural language that people use when they’re conducting a search, such as, “How to….”. If you find longtail keywords, try to make them more prominent. This is important to Google’s latest focus on user intent. 
  • Make sure your most important keyword(s) are in the first paragraph of the post.
  • Use your main keyword(s) in at least one of your subheads (preferably H1).
  • Come up with a list of synonyms (or longtail keywords that are phrased slightly differently) and work them in throughout the post, so that the language sounds natural and Google doesn’t ding you for keyword stuffing.

Links

There are two kinds of links: Internal and external links.

  • External links: If your post has external links, check to make sure that they’re still working and that you’re still willing to give the linked content what amounts to an endorsement by linking to it. If the link either doesn’t work or leads to outdated or incorrect information, replace it with a better one.
  • Internal links: Internal links serve a couple of purposes. First, they keep readers on your site by leading them to other relevant content. Second, they help Google index your site. Similar to external links, check your internal links to make sure they still work and lead to good content. But you’ll also want to add links both to and from newer content on your site. So, for the post you’re revamping, add links to some newer posts on your blog. In addition, take a look at newer posts and search for opportunities to link back to the older one.

Metadata

When I first started freelance writing after 10 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t know the first thing about metadata. (Heck, I didn’t know the first thing about keywords, since all of my experience was in print media.) I bet if I went back to the beginning of this site and worked my way to the present, at least 50% of the content wouldn’t be optimized for metadata.

old blog posts metadataIf your older posts are the same, you’ve got a huge opportunity to fix that without investing months of effort. Modern blogging platforms and themes make it easy for non-techy content creators to take on a major metadata cleanup. If your theme doesn’t do it, there’s probably an SEO plugin that does.

The point is that, while customers might not notice your metadata, Google does, and it can give your SERPs a big boost. Going back to that trial content you picked, here are some quick fixes:

  • Make sure your most important keyword ( or words) are in the title and the URL. (Protip: Remember that, if you change the URL, any existing links to the page will no longer work. If the page is still getting significant traffic, make sure you set up a redirect.)
  • Check the alt-tags of all images used in the article. They should contain your keywords. However, to satisfy accessibility requirements, they also need to be descriptive, so you might need to get a little creative (such as “small brown dog reading an article about improving metadata”).
  • Include your primary keywords in your meta description, which is a snippet, summary, excerpt, etc., of what your post is about. These are the descriptions that show up under your headline and (hopefully!) featured image in search results.The default is to use the first 55 words. But let’s say you’ve written an introduction that’s a great hook that makes people want to keep reading once they’re on the page. The problem is that it might not do a very good job of describing what the post is about, so some people may never click through.You can fix that by creating a great snippet that will show up in search results and tell people exactly what your post is about. And that snippet should contain your primary keyword.

Other considerations

While SEO is always a primary focus, there are other things to look for, too. These include things like:

  • Facts: Check to see if you need to update quotes or statistics.
  • Branding: If branding policies — color scheme, use of logos, use of official company name, etc. — have changed, apply those changes to the old post.
  • Cultural references: Just a few years ago, nobody could get enough of 50 Shades of Grey. If it came out today, bloggers and talking heads everywhere would be vilifying the trilogy as glorifying rape culture. Remember that popular opinion on controversial topics can flip overnight — and previously ignored issues can become controversial overnight. Keep your eyes open for those issues in your website content.
  • Laws and regulations: These, too, change quickly, especially as our update old blog postseconomy becomes more globalized. Currently, it seems as if everyone is focused on online privacy. If you operate multinationally, you’re not only bound by U.S. laws; you’re also bound by the laws and regulations of every country where you do business. And sometimes it doesn’t even require a physical presence, such as when the determining factor is a user’s citizenship or place of residence. If you have a customer from the EU, for instance, you’re bound by those regulations even if you don’t have a physical presence there.

What should you do with your revitalized blog post?

It depends on your reasons for doing an extreme makeover to start with. Here are a few options:

  • If it was already performing well, leave it alone except for adding a “last updated” date (well, make it part of your social media marketing, but you were doing that anyway, right?) and watch the metrics. You already know readers were finding value in the post, so if you did a good job with your SEO tweaks, you should see a spike in traffic.
  • If you think it should have been performing better than it was, repost it and see if the improved SEO makes a difference. Do, however, indicate that it’s a repost and include the date of the original post.
  • If you really did an extreme makeover — reworking content as well as SEO — go ahead and publish it as a new post, although you might want to link to the original as your source of inspiration.

A word about dates

Even some of the top experts in the industry disagree on whether or not you should include a publication date on content. Some don’t in the interest of making it seem evergreen. Personally, I rarely link to a post without a date, because I don’t want to be offering my readers advice that’s 10 years old. Even if it seems like good information, I just don’t take the chance. I guess it depends on your industry and strategy, but I have a tough time finding a good reason to not include the publication date.

Conclusion

So should you update your old blog posts? I think that’s a very personal question with lots of different answers. Here’s mine: I know that when I first started, I didn’t know much about SEO. So I’m going to go back and update SEO (especially metadata) on my older content that is still evergreen or otherwise still relevant. I probably won’t do an extreme makeover unless a topic is currently trending or I think that it would be a valuable piece with a fresh face.

And, with the post-holiday slump looming, updating SEO is a good task for those dreary winter afternoons when starting a new piece of content from scratch feels overwhelming. You can just turn to your list updates and make the rest of the day useful instead of spending it staring out the window!

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