It sucks so much that you give up once you get a couple of dozen candidates and only test a handful.
So, you don’t hire the best possible writers you can afford.
You hire the best you can of the few you tested.
Then you spend too much time editing because their portfolio was way better than what they’re submitting to you, and they inevitably resign, or you terminate them.
Here’s the deal: just like the #1 lever for faster SEO results is publishing more content, the #1 lever for hiring better writers is evaluating and testing more writing candidates.
That’s it.
Whether you need sales-driven, persuasive writers or SEO-driven content writers, this process will get you results.
And Workello makes it possible to filter through hundreds of candidates to identify and hire the top 1%.
Why Content Teams ❤️ Workello
“Almost overnight, we had 100+ candidates that we could quickly filter through, and in about 2 weeks, we hired 10 writers.” – Kiril Kirilov, Founder, Rush App
“Workello has changed the game for us. In just under 2 weeks, we hired 4 really amazing, good-quality writers.” – Alan Martin, Founder, RNKD
“Our first hiring round with Workello has been our most successful hiring round so far. In the span of two weeks, we received about 140 candidates, tested 30, we shortlisted to 15 interviews and hired seven new writers that joined our existing team.” – Dr. Mark Coster, Founder, FairyDigital
“With Workello, we were able to test so many candidates that now we are absolutely confident that we hired the best people for the job.” – Alexander Heinle, Zavvy.io
“Never in my life have I managed to filter through 200 candidates in a space of two weeks, and actually get to a point where I’m ready to hire someone, and that for me was a game-changer” – Andrew Kemp, Managing editor, State of Digital Publishing
“With Workello, I can have a consistent stream of candidates that I can always reach out to very quickly and find new writers to help with our stories fast.” – David Adler, NetInfluencer
“Workello just brings it all into one easy place. I don’t have to chase around messages and portfolios in various different channels anymore, which was a nightmare to keep up with,” Jacob Andra, Founder, CustomerFaucet
“With Workello, it’s been so much easier to hire writers and video editors. The testing part is what really shines and makes our process more streamlined.” – Joey Daoud, CEO, NewTerritoryMedia
Start Accepting Candidates in 3 Minutes
It takes approximately three minutes to deploy your hiring funnel in Workello because it has pre-written and pre-optimized everything job descriptions and pre-hire assessments, based on the Workello team’s experience with hiring hundreds of writers.
Your job description is pre-written
Your pre-hire writing assessment is pre-written
Your candidate notification emails are pre-written
Everything is ready to go, so you can start hiring better writers ASAP.
Step #1: Sign up for Workello
Sign up for Workello and breeze through the setup in about a minute.
Step #2: Post your job ad on your favorite hiring channels
Candidates find your job ad on LinkedIn, Reddit, ProBlogger (or anywhere else you post) and complete their application on Workello.
Click here for an example of what your candidates will see.
Step #3: Watch candidates stream into your hiring dashboard
Step #4: Send pre-hire assessments to the best candidates
It only takes one click to send candidates a pre-hire assessment test or a polite rejection email.
This means you can filter through hundreds of candidates in just a few minutes.
Candidates receive emails inviting them to take a writing test on Workello.
Step #5: Review completed pre-hire assessments
Candidates who complete their assessment are moved from ‘Assessment Sent’ to ‘Assessment Received’.
Step #6: Invite your best candidates to an interview, or send them an offer
With just one click, invite your candidates to an interview, send them a polite rejection email, or click ‘Pass Assessment’ to send them to a holding status while you review your other candidates.
Best hiring channels for finding good writers
Now it’s time to get candidates.
You can post on all of the resources below in less than 30 minutes total.
If you’re not looking for generalists and only want writers with specific experience, check out Workello’s playbook on hiring niche writers.
LinkedIn
Did you know that you can post free job ads on LinkedIn?
Skip the generic “Hiring Writers’ Facebook Groups—they’re filled with terrible writers.
Don’t link to your Workello job ad in the post yet. External links reduce visibility in the newsfeed.
Return to the post 24 hours later after it’s had a chance to accumulate reach, and respond to each commenter with a link to your Workello application.
Check your ‘Other’ inbox on Facebook and reply to anyone who DM’d you with a link to your Workello application.
Paid Resources
ProBlogger costs $80 for a regular job ad, and it should get you about 100 writing candidates.
But if you upgrade to the premium job ad for $160, you’ll probably get 300+ candidates.
Go with the premium.
$160 might seem like a lot, but you’re going to spend at least $80 per page of content, and the #1 decision you’ll make as a content manager is who you hire.
Everything is either easy, hard, or impossible depending on that first decision.
Creating enough content to consistently engage with your audience on social media, drive traffic through your blog, capture leads with bottom of the funnel assets, and entertain your Youtube audience is no small task.
Wouldn’t it be great if you had a system in place that could generate content for social media from your Youtube channel? Or how about new ideas for blog posts every time you deploy a new Ebook or case study? A diligently executed content repurposing strategy may be the answer.
What is a content repurposing strategy?
Content repurposing is a well-known, but rarely executed strategy to give more life into your content marketing materials. If you’re struggling to publish enough content across all of your social channels, blog, Youtube, and lead gen campaigns, the solution might not be to hire more writers to produce new content, but to look inward and see what existing content can be repurposed and recycled.
A content repurposing strategy is a systematic set of steps to turn a marketing asset into one or more additional marketing assets without having to re-do the core research, writing, and messaging. Converting a piece of written text, video, or audio into a different format for a specific channel helps a marketing team extract as much value as possible from an original piece of content.
A common pattern in content strategies is that content created for a specific channel and customer profile and it isn’t used to create additional material. It just sits in its original location and becomes stale with diminishing returns.
To have a well-documented content repurposing strategy ensures that every new marketing asset will have the biggest impact as possible in contributing to the education of your audience and the acquisition of new customers.
What types of content should be repurposed?
Pretty much any content can be repurposed, but some formats and channels are better suited for the task due to their length and amount of research that went into creating it.
For example, it’s not hard to imagine how one might compose a series of Tweets from an Ebook, but it’s a stretch to expect someone to compose an entire case study from a single Tweet without a significant amount of additional time and effort. This would defeat the purpose of a content repurposing strategy. As a general rule, converting a large piece to a single or a collection of shorter pieces is a sure fire way to get the most out of webinars, blog posts, and interviews.
Convert long text into social posts
A single text-based asset like a blog post, case study, Ebook, white paper, or press release can be converted into a collection of social posts. The great part about this is that your social posts will have a coherent theme, tone, and point of view because they all originate from a single or a group of similar assets.
Blog posts and Ebooks are set up to naturally produce a series of social posts with their well defined structure of headers and subheaders (or chapters and sections). It’s common for a marketer to create a blog post and simply post a link on social media with a quick recap and call it a day. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about creating “zero-click” content that is native to the social platform. The goal is not to get the user to go to your blog, the goal is to get the user to engage with your social content. We’re simply using the blog post as a starting point to create new standalone content for social platforms.
Convert video to social
Video has become a primary marketing channel as people are consuming more and more content on their phone and on social media. With Youtube as the second largest search engine behind Google, most companies are realizing the compounding value behind investing in a video marketing strategy. However, high quality video is very expensive and time consuming to create, so it should be particularly important to extract as much value as possible from every video produced by your marketing department.
Repurposing video into social content can take two forms. First, you can simply break up the video and distribute it on social media as standalone content with accompanying text. It’s been shown that social content that contains graphics and videos have higher engagement than single text-based posts. Additionally, you can use the video content as a starting point and inspiration for completely new written content on social media.
Video content like webinars, interviews with subject matter experts, and promotional videos are rich with details and insights and can be used to assist multiple marketing functions from product marketing to brand development with repurposed content.
Webinar content is underrated.
People like to joke that ‘no one watches webinars’ but one webinar can become:
1 blog post 5 linkedin posts 2 twitter threads 1 linkedin carousel 6 video clips for social
Marketing teams that embrace repurposing have a competitive advantage.
Much like video content, audio typically has a lot of locked up value that should be repurposed and used as text or audiograms across social platforms. Interviews with subject matter experts should also be repurposed and expanded as standalone blog posts and Twitter threads.
There are a number of tools to help convert audio into a visual post for social media. Wavve and Descript are two top-tier solutions to get you started.
Convert one social channel into another
Although the ideal formats for different social channels are often different, content on one can easily be repurposed for another. A long LinkedIn post can be repurposed into a series of Tweets for a thread, or a series of Facebook posts to be posted over the course of several days.
What to avoid when repurposing content
It’s important to note that repurposing is not reposting, and that each social channel has a very specific format and tone that should be followed.
The language used in a webinar might not necessarily be appropriate for a Twitter thread, but the content within it can add a ton of value to your Twitter audience, so the conversion is certainly a worthwhile exercise.
Establish a repeatable repurposing process
Automated alerts
There are so many channels for new content these days with Youtube, blogs, PDFs, email, TikTok, LinkedIn, among others that it is difficult to keep track of new content published. Having alerts set up to let your team know when a new piece of content is posted is a good way to establish consistency in a content repurposing strategy.
A team member responsible for writing social posts on LinkedIn and Twitter may not be paying much attention to what is being posted on the blog or on the Youtube channel, but there may be a wealth of opportunity to use that content in her role as the primary social media content creator.
Schedule content on social
There are a number of social scheduling tools out there from HubSpot, to Hootsuite, to CoSchedule. With every blog post published on your site, you can set up five Tweets to be automatically published every day of the week and a LinkedIn post to be scheduled every other day. Front loading your work all at once makes it a lot easier to find consistency on social media with a pillar piece of content like a blog as the primary inspiration.
Content repurposing frameworks
There are many frameworks to follow (like this one by Justin Simon from Metadata.io) to establish a reliable repurposing habit that your whole team will follow. The most important feature of a content repurposing framework is repeatability. This relies on identifying patterns in your marketing assets that can be reliably exploited to produce additional content.
For example, if the structure of your blog posts are constantly changing, it will be difficult to design a framework that can be used on every blog moving forward. However, if you identify a pattern in your case studies that follows a well defined pattern that easily lends itself to generating a series of LinkedIn posts or Twitter threads, then this framework should be developed, documented, and executed with consistency.
Key Takeaways
A content repurposing framework can greatly reduce the workload for a writing team and help publish more content with less effort than creating a new piece of content.
Having a repeatable process to turn one marketing asset into multiple new ones helps maintain brand identity, messaging, and can improve consistency of your content creation pipeline.
Backlinks act as a powerup for your content, so being able to execute on backlink building strategies is key to SEO success. Here’s how it’s done at scale.
While the power and necessity of backlinks is a hotly debated topic in the SEO world, in my mind, backlinks are without a doubt an effective way to rank websites.
In fact, I’m getting sick of the content vs backlinks debate.
So, let’s try to reframe how you think about backlinks and then I’ll get into 5 backlink building techniques I use to get results for clients at scale.
Concept: Think of backlinks as a powerup for your content.
Sure, it’s easy to beat Mario without powerups, but do they make the game exponentially easier?
Is it more fun to play with powerups?
Do you beat levels faster than without?
Breezing through the game with superpowers is not only the better experience, but it’s also the fastest route to Bowser’s Castle. The same can be said for backlinks. It makes the SEO experience more enjoyable, more effective and you can get results much faster than without.
In reality, backlinks powering up your content looks more like this.
Over the last year working as a startup CMO, at my old day job and now full-time with Spacebar Collective, I’ve built hundreds of backlinks every month.
I did this using a variety of powerups, including:
Guest blogging
Niche edits
Broken links
HARO
Leverage
I didn’t reinvent the wheel, I just executed on well-known techniques.
And you can too.
Guest Blogging for Backlinks
Guest blogging is my #1 source of backlinks, by far.
It’s a scalable tactic that is only limited by your ability to:
send outreach emails to webmasters
produce guest blog content
With the right processes in place, it can be the difference between being stuck on page 2 and stealing valuable search real estate from competitors.
In my experience, webmasters work with guest blogs in a fairly binary manner. They either accept guest posts or they don’t. To some degree, it doesn’t really matter how good your pitch is because some people just prefer to do everything in-house. Therefore, it’s your job as a link builder to put time and effort into your prospecting, doing your best to identify websites that are most likely to accept guest posts.
Find topics a website logically should rank for but hasn’t covered already
Offer to rewrite an old blog that used to rank or get traffic but doesn’t anymore
Above all else, when pitching guest posts, you want to make sure you’re making the webmaster’s lives easier. No one likes guest posts that require massive amounts of editing or miss the mark with their existing readership.
Niche Edits
Don’t want to drain resources writing guest blogs? No problem!
Run cold outreach to sites asking if you can pay $ to guest blog for them. Yes, you read that right.
If they’re down, ask if you could just insert your link into an existing blog instead. They won’t have to edit or publish new content, but still get paid. You don’t have to write new content, but still get a link.
Here’s a cold email outreach template to give you an idea of how to pitch this:
Subject: Can I submit a guest post to {{companyName}}? Will pay $!
Hey {{firstName}},
This is Chris Tweten, CMO at Spacebar Collective. I was checking out the {{companyName}} blog and loved your content on backlink building strategies.
I noticed you don’t offer your readers any email templates, could I write a guest post with a bunch of the ones I use? Totally understand if this is something you charge a fee for, I’m willing to pay $ for a guest post on your site.
Let me know either way, it’d be good to hear back from you.
Cheers.
Broken Links
Again, I want to reiterate that I’m not reinventing the wheel. Broken link building is a staple of the industry, used by many SEOs for a long time.
The problem I’ve faced with broken link building is that reply rates in email campaigns have been abysmally low. While it seemed like no one was interested in updating their broken links, that just wasn’t the case.
People weren’t interested in updating broken links for old content they stopped caring about. That makes sense, considering they’ve left it with broken links and haven’t noticed or haven’t cared enough to update it themselves.
The solution?
Target websites with broken links in recent content.
Hit up ahrefs and go to the Best By Links section for a site with lots of links.
I used HubSpot for this example.
Now filter by 404s and sort by First Seen. This shows you all the most recent broken links on the site Broken links suck for SEO and suck even more for reader experience, so pitch your resource to replace their broken link and you should earn some backlinks.
HARO
Help a Reporter Out is an incredibly competitive place to farm links and it’s only going to get more competitive over time.
So, let’s forget all about pitching among the thousands of SEOs out there.
Sign up as a source instead!
Make a request asking for quotes for an expert roundup blog then ask people whose quotes you include to link back to your site in exchange.
The key to making this tactic work is all in the relationship building. You don’t want to get on bad terms with the HARO platform, as this can get your account banned and your domain blacklisted from being a source. Don’t ask everyone for a backlink, just the ones you genuinely connect with that are most likely to.
Leverage
Leveraging digital assets like templates and data is by far the most underutilized backlink building strategy out there
How can you provide value to others in a way that’s straightforward and quick?
Let’s go back to that broken link strategy as an example. Do you think HubSpot would find value in knowing ALL their recent broken links? You know, instead of just the one you want to replace?
Offer them the whole spreadsheet and ask for a link back in exchange.
When asked what Artificial Intelligence (‘A.I.,’ or AI) is, common answers might include descriptions of helpful machines that do everyday tasks in place of humans or Doomsday predictions about the extinction of humanity brought on by ruthless robots that are hellbent on global domination.
While the above describes current and hypothetical scenarios involving AI, the full answer to the question is more nuanced.
AI is the science of artificially reproducing the equivalent of human intelligence in a machine for many practical applications. The great promise of AI is in its potential to replace the human workforce when performing tedious and time-intensive tasks. This vastly increases the efficiency and productivity of various production systems, operation, maintenance, conservation, and more.
There are 3 types of AI that vary in terms of complexity and what they are able to do, and we will explore them below.
AI Classifications
AI is classified by the degree or extent to which a machine can replicate complex human tasks and behavior.
As a rule of thumb, AI with limited capabilities of self-instruction and self-improvement would be considered a lower-level AI. AI that can do both and generally perform tasks at a level that equals or exceeds human capabilities would be regarded as advanced.
One method of AI classification gauges how the AI reacts to stimuli and refines those reactions for improved future performance. This method also discerns whether the AI perceives the needs of other intelligent entities and responds to them with the nuanced and complex situational awareness of a human.
Reactive Machines
This type of AI has limited capabilities, which amount to direct responses to stimuli. It can come close to human performance levels in narrowly defined roles and functions but cannot independently improve its performance by “learning” from past instances. Thus, ‘Reactive Machines’ can only perform tasks precisely as they are programmed to do, and no more.
Limited Memory
‘Limited Memory’ AI machines can respond to stimuli just as Reactive Machines do but have the added capability of referring to saved data to inform their future operational decisions, thus gradually improving performance. Limited Memory machines are therefore capable of “learning” independently. Many types of current technology employ Limited Memory AI, such as facial recognition, chatbots, and self-driving cars.
Theory of Mind
‘Theory of Mind’ AI is an advanced form of AI that does not currently exist in a commercial or public scope, as it is primarily theoretical. It would possess the ability to gradually learn about and understand each entity it interacts with (i.e., a human, a chimpanzee, or a house cat) by analyzing their habits, tendencies, preferences, needs, and even emotions or beliefs. The potential applications of this level of AI are tremendous, as it would autonomously develop and refine its understanding of the human mind and human behavior to a high level.
Self-Aware
This is the most advanced stage of AI, and it is purely hypothetical at present. ‘Self-Aware’ AI would be so advanced that it would have its own self-consciousness. This type of AI machine would have its own thoughts, beliefs, and emotions and have the ability to understand or identify with abstract ideas, philosophies, and the feelings of other beings. It would arguably be an equivalent of a human being in all but physical form and appearance.
What Are The 3 Types Of AI?
Suppose someone were to ask, “What Are The 3 Types of AI?”. In that case, one can also refer to the second method of AI classification, which breaks down AI into the following types — Artificial Narrow Intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence, and Artificial Superintelligence. This method of identification and related terminology is commonly used in the field of technology today.
1. Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
Artificial Narrow Intelligence, also known as ‘Narrow AI’ or ‘Weak AI’, is designed and programmed for a singular purpose. This is commonly used in contemporary applications, such as in the hands-free operation of mobile device applications via speech recognition. This type of AI is, in many cases, faster and more efficient than a human in completing the task it was designed and programmed to do — however, that is about all it can do.
2. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Artificial General Intelligence, also known as ‘Deep AI’ or ‘Strong AI,’ is thus far a theoretical AI that can perform a task or mimic human behavior while also possessing the ability to adjust its future performance via experiential learning. In addition, AGI would also be capable of performing a much wider and more diverse array of tasks in comparison to Narrow AI.
In short, this type of machine can learn from experience and improve its performance independently. This type of AI would theoretically be capable of reaching human-level intelligence if given enough time and ‘experience’ (chances).
3. Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)
This purely theoretical type of AI would easily surpass all levels of human performance because of a self-learning machine’s unparalleled computational power. This translates to an exponential rate of learning that would enable the ASI to effectively master any task a human can perform and do it better and more consistently than any human.
The applications of this level of AI are limitless. Still, notable ones include maximizing efficiency in all areas of human life, from agricultural and industrial production, systems maintenance to relationship building.
To give some examples, this type of AI would be capable of doing the following and much more: advising humans via counseling, performing medical procedures, planning and building new settlements, fixing problems with urban or transportation infrastructure in the most efficient way possible, instructing humans in all fields of learning, building friendships and relationships with humans, directly facilitating the formation of relationships between humans, and directing groups of humans as a unit to achieve larger goals.
Key Takeaways:
When asked “What are the 3 Types of AI?” many people will express their impressions of AI influenced by popular culture or sensational news headlines. The truth is that the science of AI is still in its nascent stages, and it will take some time to create truly advanced AI.
Nevertheless, the study and development of AI is an exciting and cutting-edge field in technology today. It would be no stretch to say that AI is the ‘future’ of technology. The potential of AI is truly staggering. Experts in the field are hard at work in furthering advances in this field. The development of AI will undoubtedly continue to drive breakthroughs in technology and provide immeasurable benefits to humanity and the world.
By the time you’re done reading this, I hope you’ll be able to walk away with practical action items you can implement with your team to set yourself up for SEO success.
The way I see it, there are 2 scenarios where SEO makes the most sense as an acquisition channel for SaaS founders:
Launch: Designing your website with SEO in mind
Growth: You’re able to set aside $1,000+ per month for SEO
Why SEO is Important for SaaS Companies
Passive Lead Generation
Rather than chasing signups through PPC or social media, SEO brings signups straight to your door. By producing content for every stage of the customer acquisition funnel, your SaaS will be positioned to bring in organic signups.
Even if SEO isn’t going to be your primary acquisition channel, ranking highly on Google will allow you to earn new leads every month without active efforts.
Stronger Brand Positioning
Ranking highly on Google means your company is in the same ballpark as even your largest competitors—no matter how long they’ve been established and no matter how impressive their client base is.
Consider the impact of ranking next to tech giants and how it shapes your growth.
If the first page of Google looks something like this, you’re sitting in excellent shape:
HubSpot
ActiveCampaign
Your SaaS Here
One great thing about SEO that I love is that it’s a channel where you can win without investing obscene resources (other than your time investment). Depending on how competitive your software category is, this may take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to see desired results.
However, if you work with an SEO with a track record in SaaS, this time can be cut down significantly. For example, here at Spacebar Collective, we’ve built up relationships with software and marketing blogs to make link-building a much shorter, more affordable process. Think of it like a friend letting you cut in line; we’re here to help.
Brand Reputation
SEO principles work side by side with building a good reputation.
In 2019, Google made a core algorithm update that factors in what they call E-AT. No, it has nothing to do with food, although that was the first thing that came to my mind, too.
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a set of guidelines that Google uses to determine how high to rank a piece of content in its search results. To have strong E-A-T, your content must be written by an expert on the topic, be authoritative (backed up by other sources), and be trustworthy (free of errors and biases).
The most straightforward way to improve EAT is to make sure your website has the most basic pages that every reputable company has:
I’ll get into the above pages more in-depth with best practices you can leverage to earn signups in an upcoming article, so make sure to follow me on Twitter.
How to Do SEO for Your SaaS
On-Page SEO
When it comes to SEO, there are a lot of different moving parts to consider. But one thing that remains constant is the importance of following on-page best practices.
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. It’s a crucial part of any good SEO strategy.
And while the algorithms used by search engines are constantly changing and evolving, there are still some tried-and-true on-page optimization techniques that can help your content rank higher and perform better.
Here are 5 on-page SEO principles to keep in mind when publishing new content:
1. Use keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions.
When it comes to on-page SEO, one of the first things you need to do is make sure your titles and meta descriptions are keyword-rich.
Your title should accurately reflect the content of your article and include the target keyword. And your meta description should be a short summary of your article that also includes the target keyword.
2. Optimise your images.
In addition to optimizing your text, you should also optimize your images for SEO. This means including relevant keywords in your image file names and alt text.
3. Use internal links.
Internal linking is an important part of on-page SEO. By linking to other related articles or pages on your website, you can help search engines better understand the context of your content and improve its relevance.
4. Use external links.
In addition to internal links, you should also include contextually-relevant external links in your content. External links help show search engines that your content is authoritative and trustworthy. Just be sure you aren’t linking out to content that’s in direct competition with your page’s focus keyword!
5. Format your content for easy readability.
Make sure your content is easy to read and free of any errors or typos. Use short paragraphs, subheadings, and bulleted lists to break up your text and make it more scannable. You can use tools like Hemingway and Grammarly to improve readability.
By following these on-page SEO tips, you can help ensure that your content is optimised for maximum visibility and effectiveness. So don’t forget to keep them in mind the next time you hit “publish.”
Off-Page SEO
Citation Building
Citation building is the process of creating profiles and listings for your company in business directories and review sites.
While this isn’t actually a very effective tactic in modern SEO, it does have immense benefits in the SaaS world specifically. In fact, I would say SaaS is the big exception where citation building is an essential, must-do, can’t go without tactic.
While the backlinks from business directories aren’t nearly as strong as they used to be, the directories that you can list your SaaS definitely hold their weight. Software review sites in general, have very high authority and trustworthiness in Google’s eyes and in potential users’ eyes.
Some of these platforms allow you to have links specifically to your pricing page and product demo, which can be quite valuable for bringing in new users. I’ve included links directly to their vendor signup pages below to make things easier for you.
Software Review Sites You Should Definitely Consider
In terms of organization and keeping your workflow tidy, I would recommend starting with Capterra and recording all the information they request in a Google Doc or Airtable for future use on other platforms. It’s also important to keep a spreadsheet of which platforms you sign up for and which ones list your pricing. When you inevitably increase your pricing or change up your pricing tiers, you’ll be able to tackle updating all your listings in one fell swoop.
Creating citations can be a time-consuming process, but it’s well worth the effort. Not only will it help improve your SEO, but it will also help drive qualified traffic to your website.
Backlink Building
There’s a lot of debate in the SEO community about the value of backlinks. Some believe that they’re essential for ranking well in search engines, while others believe that they’re relatively unimportant.
Personally, I believe that backlinks are still incredibly valuable, but that their importance has diminished somewhat in recent years. As time passes, Google search engines place more and more emphasis on factors such as content quality and user experience. Maybe one day we’ll see ranking algorithms that don’t take backlinks seriously, but we just aren’t there yet.
Backlinks matter.
That said, backlinks can still be valuable for SEO purposes. They can help to improve your website’s visibility and organic traffic levels. Additionally, high-quality backlinks can also help to increase your website’s authority and trustworthiness.
If you’re looking to build backlinks to your website, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to have a few high-quality backlinks than a large number of low-quality ones.
Second, try to get links from websites that are relevant to your niche or industry. Getting links from irrelevant websites won’t do you much good.
And finally, avoid using techniques that could get you penalized by Google or other search engines. This includes things like link buying, link farms, and other black hat SEO tactics.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO includes any activity that makes sure your website is easy to use and understand, from both Google’s scrapers’ eyes and from a UX perspective. Page load speed is one of the primary focuses of technical SEO, but it might also involve other things that may impact Google’s ability to ‘read’ and index your website.
Technical SEO includes activities like:
Optimizing your website’s code so it can be read more easily by Google
Improving your website’s speed and performance
Making sure your site is accessible to both Google and humans
Setting up structured data so Google can better understand your content
Creating an XML sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console
Add Schema Markup
Schema markup is code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. It’s a way of giving structure to your data so that search engines can interpret it more accurately.
Adding schema markup to your website can be beneficial for two main reasons:
It can help improve your website’s click-through rate (CTR) by making your listings more rich and informative in the search results.
It can help search engines better understand the content on your website, which can lead to improved rankings over time.
If you’re running a SaaS business, then schema markup can be particularly beneficial. That’s because SaaS businesses often have complex pricing structures and subscription plans. This type of information can be difficult for search engines to understand without schema markup.
Adding schema markup to your website is relatively simple. You can use tools like Schemantra or Google’s own Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the code for you. Once you have the code, you just need to add it to your website.
Optimise for Speed
The faster your pages load, the better equipped your website is for SEO. Page speed is a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile searches, so it’s important to make sure your website is as fast as possible.
Using tools like GTmetrix or WebPageTest.org is the easiest method of pinpointing the improvements you can make for speed optimization.
If you want to be more efficient, you could refer to EXPERTE.com’s Bulk Page Speed Test, which makes it possible to automatically determine Core Web Vitals and speed for your entire website. The great thing about it, besides its cost (free – no signup required) is that it automatically crawls up to 500 URLs or 60 seconds worth of subpages, whichever comes first. This means you can check your entire website without having to input each URL one by one. It also has a URL list feature, so you manually input which URLs you’d like it to crawl.
There are a few key methods to improve your website’s page speed. One is to optimise your images. Make sure your images are the correct size and format, and that they’re compressed so they don’t take up too much space.
Another way to improve your website’s page speed is to minify your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This means removing all unnecessary code from your files, which will make them smaller and faster to load.
You can also use a content delivery network (CDN) like CloudFlare to improve your website’s page speed. A CDN is a group of servers that deliver content to users based on their geographic location. Using a CDN will help ensure that your website’s content is delivered quickly, no matter where in the world someone is trying to access it.
Finally, you can use a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache (WordPress) to improve your website’s page speed. Caching plugins store a copy of your website’s pages and files on a user’s computer, so they don’t have to be downloaded each time someone visits your site. This can help reduce the amount of time it takes for your pages to load.
Tips for Succeeding in SaaS SEO
Keyword Research and Content Planning
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the words and phrases that people use to search for information on Google.
Keyword research is an important part of SEO because it allows you to find and target the right keywords for your website. By understanding what people are searching for, you can optimize your site to attract more visitors and improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
There are a number of different tools you can use to do keyword research, but these are the industry staples:
If you’re scared off by their monthly price tags, that’s a sign you aren’t ready to tackle SEO as a growth channel. Sorry, but that’s the truth.
Build a Library of Linkable Content
Think of building a base library of content as a method of ‘priming’ your website for link-building efforts. Most webmasters aren’t willing to link to homepages of new companies, but they’re definitely keen on linking to valuable blog content their readers will find useful.
To make your content linkable, you need to give people a reason to link to it. This could be by providing useful information, or by offering something unique that people can’t find elsewhere. For example, if you’re a CRM, you could write an in-depth guide to how using a CRM increases sales or improves internal communications. Or if you’re a Chrome extension, you could write content about why your customers love using it.
Follow On-Page SEO Principles in New Content
SEO is a fundamental part of online publishing, but it’s often overlooked.
When it comes to SEO, there are a lot of different moving parts. But one thing that remains constant is the importance of following on-page best practices.
You don’t want to have to go back and re-optimize your new content, right?
Content Velocity
Content velocity is the rate at which you’re creating new content.
The more new content you create, the more keywords you’re able to capture search real estate for. You can only rank for keywords you produce content for, after all.
Of course, simply churning out new content isn’t enough. That content also needs to be high-quality and relevant to your target audience. But if you can strike the right balance between quantity and quality, you’ll be well on your way to driving more traffic and sales through your website.
So how do you go about increasing your content velocity? Here are a few tips:
Plan ahead. The best way to ensure that you’re creating new content on a regular basis is to plan ahead. By mapping out a content calendar based on your keyword research, you’ll always know what needs to be created and in what order it should be produced. This will help you stay on track and avoid last-minute scrambling to get something new up on your blog.
Batch your content creation. If writing isn’t your thing, then consider batching your content creation. This means setting aside a specific day (or even just an afternoon) each week to create all of your new content. This will help you be more efficient and productive, and it will ensure that you always have fresh content to publish.
Automate and recycle where possible. There are certain aspects of content creation that can be automated, such as posting to social media or sending out email newsletters. Free up some time in your schedule by taking advantage of these automation tools. Thinking vice versa, if there are other pieces of content you’re already producing, like podcasts or YouTube videos, you can think about how to recycle them for your blog.
Delegate and outsource. If you’re finding it difficult to keep up with the demands of creating new content, then consider delegating some of the work to others. You can hire a freelance writer or virtual assistant to help you with the heavy lifting. Or, if you have the budget, you can outsource the entire process to a content marketing agency.
Link Velocity
Link velocity is the speed at which a website acquires new links.
A high link velocity indicates that a website is growing quickly and gaining authority, while a low link velocity indicates that a website is not growing as quickly or gaining as much authority.
Most SEOs believe that link velocity is a major ranking factor, and many studies have shown that websites with high link velocities tend to rank higher than those with low link velocities.
In general, it is best to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to links. A few high-quality links are almost always going to be worth more than many low-quality links.
If you’re putting resources into scaling up your backlink-building efforts, it’s also important to consider the publishing velocity of others in your niche. If you’re building links at a lightspeed rate while competitors are at a snail’s pace, Google might think your website is gaming the system and penalize you. The main strategy to get around this is to slowly build up to your competition’s link velocity and to continue scaling at the same rate past them.
Earning Page 1 Rankings
As your SaaS grows, so too can your SEO efforts. The sky’s the limit when it comes to building organic search traffic, making it a highly scalable growth channel.
Unlike paid advertising, which can be turned off at any time, traffic from SEO is long-term and sustainable. Once you rank for a certain keyword, you’ll continue to get traffic from it as long as you maintain your ranking.
SEO is such a powerful growth channel for SaaS companies, and if this article didn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
15% of all Google searches have never been searched for before
It’s NEVER too late to start SEO
Your most profitable keywords might not even exist yet
As we move further into the 21st century, website content writing practices must evolve to keep up with ever-changing technology and consumer trends.
In this blog post, we will discuss some of the best practices for website content writing that you should be using in 2023 (and beyond).
This site contains affiliate links to software products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
How to Write Website Content in 6 Steps
Here’s how you can make your website content writing process easier:
Determine the Purpose of the Website Content: Before you start writing, take a step back and think about what you want each page of your website to achieve. Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start crafting content that will help you reach them.
Research the Target Audience: Who will be reading your website content? It’s important to keep your target audience in mind as you write because they’ll be the ones you’re trying to appeal to and engage with.
Research Competing Websites: What existing websites are out there that cover similar topics? You’ll want to look at what they’re doing well (and not so well) and use it as a benchmark for your content.
Plan How the Content Will Fit Together on Your Website: Before you start writing, it’s helpful to map out how everything will fit together. This will give you a better idea of what content you need to create and where it will go on your website. We recommend using a sitemap creation tool like SlickPlan or a visual planner like Figma for this step.
Create the Content: Now it’s time to start writing! Keep your audience and overall goal in mind as you create content that is both informative and interesting. Also, include calls to action throughout your website to encourage visitors to take the next step.
Edit and Proofread Your Content: Once you’ve written all of your website content, it’s important to go back and edit it for clarity, grammar, and spelling errors. This is also an excellent time to ensure that all of your content is consistent with your brand voice.
Content Writing Best Practices to Keep in Mind
1. Know Your Audience
Before you start writing, it’s important to understand who your target audience is. This will help you determine what type of content to write and how to write it.
For example, if you’re writing for SaaS, customers are often referred to as users. If you’re writing for an online course, you have students, not customers.
2. Have A Great Hook
Your hook is the first thing that people will read, so it’s important to make sure it’s interesting and engaging. A good hook will make people want to read more, so take some time to brainstorm a few different options before settling on one.
3. Compose Short, Simple Sentences
When it comes to website content, shorter is almost always better. People have short attention spans and will likely lose interest if their sentences are too long or complex. So, try to keep your sentences as short and simple as possible.
Longer, more complex sentences can be broken up into smaller ones. HemingwayApp is a great resource for improving readability to make your writing bold and clear.
4. Choose Your Words Carefully
The words you use in your website content can make a big difference in how it’s received. You should carefully mix up your words to avoid sounding repetitive. Additionally, using “power words” can help make your writing more impactful.
5. Write in Active Voice
When writing website content, it’s important to use an active voice. This means that the subject of your sentence is performing the action. For example, “The cat slept on the mat” is in the active voice. “The mat was slept on by the cat,” is in the passive voice.
6. Avoid Jargon
Jargon is language that is ultra specific to a particular field or profession. It can be helpful in some cases, but more often than not, it will just confuse your readers. So, unless you’re writing for a very specific audience, it’s best to avoid using jargon in your website copy.
7. Include Relevant, Helpful Visuals
In addition to well-written content, your website should also include relevant visuals. Visuals can help break up your text, making it visually appealing and easier to digest. Additionally, they can help convey information more effectively in some cases. So, be sure to include helpful visuals along with your written content.
8. Include a CTA
Every page on your website should have a clear call-to-action (CTA). A CTA is an instruction that tells the reader what you want them to do next. For example, if you’ve written a blog post, your CTA might be to “subscribe to our newsletter” or “like us on Facebook.”
9. Use Editing Tools
Even if you consider yourself a great writer, it’s always a good idea to run your website content through an editing tool before publishing it. This will help you catch any errors or typos that you might have missed. Here are some of the best editing tools so far:
Readability –HemingwayApp is a great tool for making your writing more readable. It’s very easy to use and will help you catch errors that you might have missed.
Spelling-Punctuation and Grammar –Grammarly is a popular grammar-checking tool that can be used for free or with a paid subscription. It’s available as a browser extension, desktop app, or mobile app.
Plagiarism Checker – Copyscape is a popular plagiarism checker that can help you ensure that your content is original. This tool is available for free and with a paid subscription.
10. When In Doubt, Use AI
If you’re still unsure how to write great website content, you can always turn to artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help you with everything from choosing the right words to use to structure your sentences. Additionally, it can even help you develop ideas for new content.
There are several different AI tools that you can use for your website content writing process, like Jasper and Frase. Jasper is a content writing assistant that can help you with everything from generating ideas to editing your finished content.
AI can help you to come up with the best ideas for your website content, and it can also help you to edit your finished product. There are many applications for it, but keep in mind that there’s a learning curve to get high-quality content out of it.
Key Takeaways:
Writing great website content doesn’t have to be difficult. As long as you have the knowledge and the right tools, you can make your website content writing process better than ever.
Keep your sentences short and simple, choose your words carefully, write in an active voice, avoid jargon, and include relevant visuals.
When writing website content, it’s important to use an active voice and avoid jargon. You should also include relevant visuals and a call-to-action (CTA).
If you’re still not sure how to write great website content, you can always turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help. AI tools can assist you with everything from generating ideas to editing your content.
Finally, be sure to edit your content before publishing it.
