Episode Summary
In this episode of the 7 Figures and Beyond eCommerce Marketing Podcast, host Greg Shuey is joined by John Doherty, founder of Editor Ninja, to discuss the evolution and enduring importance of content in ecommerce. Both veterans of the SEO and content marketing industries, they reflect on the constancy of high-quality content amid evolving algorithms and technologies. They emphasize that for ecommerce businesses to thrive, not just survive, content must be optimized for both search engines and users, improving site visibility and user experience. The discussion covers the essential types of content for ecommerce websites, such as business-related, educational, and category page content, and explores the need for quality over quantity. They also touch on the importance of content promotion and continuous updates, stressing that content must directly support business goals. The episode concludes with insights on future content trends, including the need for concise, user-focused content and the potential challenges of AI in content creation.
Video Replay
Key Takeaways
- Content Must Serve Both Search Engines and Users: The episode emphasizes the critical importance of content that is optimized not only for SEO but also for the user experience. This dual focus ensures that search engines can effectively rank pages, and users are engaged, which is essential for ecommerce growth.
- Three Essential Content Types for Ecommerce: To thrive, ecommerce businesses need to invest in three main content types: business-related (like press releases and case studies), educational (like blogs and resource pages), and category page content. Each serves a distinct purpose in driving traffic, building authority, and enhancing user experience.
- Quality Over Quantity: The discussion highlights that simply producing content in high volumes without maintaining quality is ineffective. Brands should focus on creating concise, topic-focused, and user-oriented content to stand out, especially as competition increases and attention spans shrink.
- Effective Content Promotion and Updates Are Crucial: Publishing content is only the first step; brands must actively promote it across channels like social media, newsletters, and industry publications. Regular updates to existing content ensure relevance and can significantly enhance SEO performance over time.
- Content’s Role in Business Success: Content strategies must align with broader business goals. Rather than viewing content as a standalone channel, it should be integrated into the overall marketing mix, enhancing other channels like paid ads and SEO. Brands should continuously measure content’s impact on key metrics such as traffic, leads, and sales to ensure it contributes to business growth.
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
John Doherty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfdoherty/
Editor Ninja: https://editorninja.com/
Episode Transcript
Greg: 0:27
Hey everyone, welcome to the Seven Figures and Beyond e-commerce marketing podcast. I hope everyone is absolutely crushing it today. I’m super pumped because I have one of my good buddies on with us today. His name is John Doherty and his business is Editor Ninja. So John and I have grown up in the SEO and the content marketing industry together over the last 20 or so years and, to put it very short, we’ve been through a lot in those 20 years Countless algorithm updates, the rise and fall of massive SEO agencies, new technologies, technologies getting replaced and falling by the wayside. I mean, you think of it, you name it right Like it has been a lot.
Greg: 1:21
And as we think back over the last, you know, 15, 20 years, the one thing that has remained constant over time is the need for really great content that is optimized not only for the search engines but also for the users. I mean that has been a big focus over the last five to 10 years is it can’t just be optimized for SEO, it has to be optimized for the user as well, and so it’s a critical component of your e-commerce marketing strategy. Is that content piece. When we think to the search engine side, the search engines absolutely have to have content on page to really understand what that page is about. As they go through and they crawl that page. If they don’t have that content on, you know your landing pages, your category pages, your product pages they just can’t figure out what it’s about and they can’t figure out how to rank you for specific search queries that your potential customers might be looking for, queries that your potential customers might be looking for, and it really leaves them guessing and that either results in low rankings or it results in the wrong pages being ranked altogether, which just provides for a poor user experience.
Greg: 2:36
So in our discussion today, we’re going to be talking about the three types of content that every e-commerce business needs in order to thrive Not just survive, but actually thrive especially right now, when times are a little bit tough, and I know that a lot of brand owners question the value of content. It’s a discussion that I have all the time, as I’m talking to. Potential customers is like do I really need this content? Yes, you do, so we’re going to unpack this and really help you understand what you need, why you need it and what it should do for your business, and I’m excited, so let’s jump in, john, thank you so much for being with us today.
John: 3:13
Thanks for having me, greg. That was a great introduction. I always love hearing the overviews of other practitioners in this space, so, yeah, stoked to be here, man. It’s been, as you said, we’ve known each other a long time, so it’s good to be on this and get to chop it up again. It’s been too long.
Greg: 3:27
Yeah, it has. So before we jump in, will you just take a few moments to introduce yourself to our listeners and share a little bit about your personal story and how you’ve gotten to where you are today?
John: 3:37
Yeah, for sure. So on the personal side which is, I think, the most important side for a person and a professional, I live in Denver, Colorado, so just to the east of Gregg, one state over, and I’m married, been married to Courtney for 10 and a half years, have two kids who are five and almost 10 months old and, yeah, love it here in Denver. Professionally, I started my career as a web developer, um became helped run a publishing company, um from Europe, from Switzerland, for a couple of years. Um, then I came back to the States, went in house, uh, with a couple of different agencies, including SEO agency distilled, so worked on a lot of large websites kind of where I started really working on um I call them very large websites a lot of technical SEO and that sort of stuff. So million plus pages in Google’s index was when I was just doing SEO was my specialty. I went in-house for a couple of years with Zillow, where I led marketing on hotpadscom, and then Trulia Rentals, briefly for a few months and then, long story short, I got laid off and I started building my last agency, which is called Credo, getcredocom, doing lead generation for marketing agencies, agencies like Strive. We worked with Greg and the team for quite a while and I ran that for a number of years and I eventually sold that in September of 2022. So almost two years now and I’ve been building Editor Ninja since then. I actually started Editor Ninja before I sold Credo but moved on to it full time around the start of 2023. And we’ve edited almost 10 million words since then.
John: 5:05
So we have a great team of editors and lead editors and project managers and all of that and we’re, you know. I like to say that we we edit great content at scale. So we’re not, you know, we’re not offshoring it, but we’re working with with teams marketing teams, marketing agencies, especially some publishers and such as well. We do some books, but teams marketing agencies, especially some publishers and such as well. We do some books, but I mean, most of our content is it’s SEO, blog content and content that’s meant to rank.
John: 5:32
So all of our editors have some education in SEO as well and really we’re trying to take good content and make it great and do it at scale, working with each of our clients or customers, personalizing our editing to them, to their style guides, their tone of voice, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, it’s a lot of fun, and I love thinking about content and talking about content. I started blogging in 1999 and I wrote my first and only book. To this point, though, I’m working on my first real business book. I wrote that when I was nine or 10 years old, so like I’ve been a writer and just content creator for a really, really long time, and so love talking about content, love seeing brands that are building, love seeing companies that are building their brand using content as well.
Greg: 6:16
So that’s amazing. Well, again, thank you for joining us. I’m excited to hear, because you see a lot of brands and you see the type of content they’re producing and you have a lot more insight at scale than I do, so it’s going to be a fun discussion. So let’s start out by talking about the types of content that an e-commerce brand absolutely positively must have on their website. So can you share what you’re seeing from your side, like, what are people ordering that you move a lot of content. So what? What are they? What are they asking for?
John: 6:51
Yeah, so there’s, there’s quite a few things in. You know, over the last couple of years, as I’ve been doing this full time, we’ve been increasingly kind of focusing down on the kind of content that we’re best at All of our editors are. Most of our editors have dual masters, so they’re professionally trained and hard into like style guides, like AP or MLA, that sort of stuff, though a lot of the brands that we work with, a lot of the agencies we work with, don’t really have one yet, and so we actually help them get those together as well to really like firm up what the tone and voice of the content that they’re putting out for all of their lawyer clients are, like that sort of stuff. Um, and then also with brands, brands, uh, companies, in-house marketing teams, et cetera, tend to have a much better take on like what their content looks like and have much better examples. So, um, you know, with those, the, the kinds of content we we edit, kind of break down into there.
John: 7:39
There’s really four that that I think about when it comes to writing specifically, and then there’s kind of a fifth one. The four that I think about that we see a lot are number one is just business-related content, so press releases, white papers, case studies, like that sort of stuff, really highly produced stuff. Then we get educational content, so that’s more like blog content, resource pages, resource sections, that kind of thing. And then we see for e-commerce, specifically like category pages, so you know, adding in good, unique, topic, focused, helpful content at scale. We’ve worked with a couple of teams that, a couple of companies that do that as well, using AI and then applying, applying a human editing layer and then product pages, you know, and a lot of that is just making sure that descriptions are, you know, they’re unique, they’re free of typos, all that sort of stuff. There’s one study that was done in the UK that I believe it was 76% of polled respondents said that they would be less likely to buy from a brand if there was one typo that they saw on the product page. Wow, so like, this stuff matters, you know, and honestly it’s.
John: 8:45
I have a hard time selling it to people and really making people care, but like man, you look at that and like any e-commerce, you know, entrepreneur, like man, if literally three fourths of the people coming on the page are less likely to buy, even if it’s 5% less likely or 10% less likely that, that that it’s huge. It’s huge and that can make or break, like the profitability of your campaigns, the ability to scale and all of that. And then, like a down in a downturn, in downtimes it can literally mean profit or not and keeping your doors open or not, right, so like it’s, it’s absolutely huge. Um, and then the fifth one, um, which, which isn’t really like.
John: 9:16
It’s hard to do any commerce with written content, but I call it brand building content. So this is like video content. These are like the Red Bulls and such of the world, but you know, you don’t and you don’t, you also don’t need a Red Bull like budget in order to do content. Well, and we’ll talk about that more than like. This is where I see content going, you know, especially like video content. And then written content is kind of going in a in a different direction. Those are kind of the the, the buckets that we, that we see in, the ones we really deal the most with, are business-related content, so press releases and newsletters and letters to investors, that sort of stuff when we’re working with non-profits. And then educational content, so good, educational blog content at scale.
Greg: 9:56
Cool, awesome. So can we take just a minute and kind of unpack each one of those and dive into what should go in to these pieces of content?
John: 10:06
Yeah, we can. So, uh, the one I think kind of the main ones to to talk about are, especially as it relates to content and SEO, um, are really like the educational content, and then your category page content, um, but talk about, like business related content, you know, press releases, white papers, case studies. Let me put it in context Blog content usually costs somewhere between depending on the length of the article and if it’s a subject matter expert, and turnaround time and all that stuff there’s. All these things kind of go into the pricing Somewhere in the thousands, right? Press releases are going to be, or obviously aren’t, but white papers, case studies, et cetera, they’re going to cost you in the thousands of dollars and these are the ones that you’re really relying on to help you convert people, right? Yep, and that’s a lot in the B2B realm, which is mainly where Editor Ninja swims. So we’ve definitely worked with, you know, e-commerce companies and agencies work with e-commerce that are producing, you know, continent scale for SEO purposes. But you know, white papers are, you know, or just more like, highly produced. You know content like this, especially like press releases. They have a very strict, as I said, they’re going to cost you more. At least press releases are not.
John: 11:35
But the style has to be perfect, right, like there’s a specific editing style. Usually it’s AP styles. You can get away with using the Oxford comma as well, right, which is a comma. When there’s sets of three, it’s like first one comma, second one comma and then the third one. So, and the Oxford comma has become like quite, uh, quite widely accepted, even in press releases. So, but strict AP style has to be adhered to. So we have, like, we have PR teams that we work with that hired us because they’re all trained in AP style. There’s like six or seven of them, but they were putting out press releases that weren’t like perfect AP style and so they were getting rejected, and so, literally, they hired us basically to make sure that they’re perfect. Um, so, like, like those, it really really matters the polish really matters.
John: 12:18
Um, educational and blog content, uh, like how to’s and um and and that sort of stuff. Um is, uh, I mean it’s definitely more. I would say it’s more effective in B2B, but it can work really well in e-commerce as well. Um, you know, and you look at brands like like REI or even backcountrycom and ones like that, that in the past they invested quite a bit into more like educational content and like written content. That also includes videos and that sort of stuff how to you know how to, how to put up a, how to put up a tent, how to find a campsite, like that sort of stuff.
John: 12:52
I’m big into the outdoors world, so that’s something I think about. So that sort of stuff, I mean that’s straight, it can be, it’s meant for the user, but it’s also straight SEO content, right, so well-optimized headings and make sure you’re hitting not only the keywords but also what are the search engines and users? What are they going to expect? Right, like you’re talking about like, um, you know, finding a campsite like or not even that. Like, let’s think about something like product focus. You’re thinking about like you know how to pick a pair of skis. Like, if you’re not mentioning any brands. Right, you’re not mentioning like dps or line or icelandic or whoever like that. That’s stuff that the search engines and users expect to see, right? Um, so it’s much more like topic focused and super helpful.
John: 13:35
Um, and then on category pages is kind of the the big one, that uh, that that we that I see a lot of e-commerce brands need to be investing more in is um, cause, these are the ones that are like and you know, greg, you know this even better than I do Like, these are the ones that are going to drive a lot of your qualified like, like purchase intent traffic. Um, like purchase intent traffic, but having unique content, yeah, like images and reviews and that sort of stuff. But also just like blurbs about, like, if you’re trying to rank, for example, icelandic Skis for sale, right, icelandic is based in Golden, right near me, and I know one of their co-founders, their Colorado brand. If you’re backcountrycom or a smaller site and you’re trying to rank for Icelandic skis for sale, having the history of Icelandic on that page, right, who are the founders of Icelandic? Like, that’s the stuff that the search engines are going to expect to see and that also people looking to buy, especially, like you know, in the outdoor space, like they’re going to resonate with that.
John: 14:30
Why was it created? Right, it was created by three dudes from evergreen that grew up skiing on skis that didn’t fit their free ride style. Right, like, straight up, that’s who they are and so, like, that’s who that and those are the people that want to buy it. Right, and so they want to know that. Like, this is made by skiers for skiers like me, for example. Um, so producing that content and also then producing that content at how much should you? Which of these pages should you be putting it on, like that sort of stuff? So yeah, those are kind of like the. Those are the big ones that I really think about when it comes to written content, especially like content for SEO.
Greg: 15:03
Yeah, and I think you know one of the things that I do when I look at like what needs to go into these pages is you just go look at the SERP Type in the keyword that you’re trying to rank for, look at the SERP, dive into each of the top five pieces and see how long are they, what are they talking about, what kind of media are they including, so that you can really get a handle on that and then almost emulate it and then try to make it better. If you make it better and more impactful and more resourceful and helpful, you’re going to have a better opportunity to rank.
John: 15:34
Well, and especially now, post like helpful content, update or, you know, and I have some, some strong thoughts around like what that was actually meant to target and why from Google’s perspective.
John: 15:45
But gone are the days of walls of text, you know, they’re just not like, it’s just not going to work, and especially in something like e-commerce. It’s so visual and it’s so like identity based and that kind of thing. Like you go and you look at not only just the pieces that are ranking but also the search result itself and that can tell you, like you know, if they’re showing images high up, like you got to have a lot of images on your category pages, right, and then like, make them load fast and all that sort of stuff, high quality imagery, that kind of thing. But videos and all of that, right, like, yeah, you produce a video, it goes on your category page but also goes on YouTube and you can kind of double stack, right, like that’s all and that’s all content.
John: 16:20
You know I actually have a hot take that like content other than like content strictly for SEO isn’t. It’s not a marketing channel, right, it’s, it’s just marketing collateral that is used in all of your other channels. So, you know, I think that’s a better like mindset and like frame to think about it through and so like when you’re thinking about okay, so what kind of we need content on this page? What kind of content is it Then? I think what you said is a great way to do it.
Greg: 16:47
Awesome, cool. So one of the questions I get all the time, like almost every day right is how much content should I be producing on a monthly basis? I hate that question because most people that I talk to are like, yeah, I want to do two blog posts a month and that’s just not enough. So how do you gauge that when you’re asked that question?
John: 17:07
Yeah. So what I try to do when I’m asked that question is I ask them questions back. I’m like, well, what are your goals? What are you trying to do here? Are you trying to get another a hundred visits a month? You’re trying to get another 10,000 visits a month, right? Um, and then from, and then they tell me or they like, they, they give their like answer, whether they thought about it or not, and it’s like make them think about it. And then, and then from there we can actually talk strategy and how much should be created.
John: 17:33
I like to ask questions around what are your competitors doing? And it’s simple math that if your competitors are producing more than you, they have the same potential traffic volume and conversion. They’re going after the same customers. So everything is the same, except for how much content they’re producing. The same customers, right, so everything is the same except for, like, how much content they’re producing. Um, if they’re producing 10 pieces and you’re producing two pieces, like in a year’s time they’re going to, they’re going to produce 120 and you’re going to produce 24, right, like, they’re just, they’re just straight up going to be able to target more keywords and more topics and all of that than you are Um, and so you know you’re you’re not really going to be able to compete, and then, over time, that gap just gets like worse and worse, um, so and and, and then also like with the results.
John: 18:19
Right, okay, how much traffic are you looking to get? Especially educational content? It converts at a lower percentage than like straight. Like you know Icelandic skis for sale? Right, how to size your skis? That traffic? Yeah, it might traffic, yeah, it might be more volume wise, but it’s going to convert a lot less than like someone actually searching for like a brand or something like that. So, you know, we also try to take that into account. Like, do you have any numbers around that? Okay, well, you know, let’s say, like studies tell us that it’s like half a percent of that traffic is going to buy something in the first 30 days, as opposed to like 5% coming to your category pages.
John: 18:50
So, how much, how much revenue do you need to make from this? Right, I actually like to take it back to not just like traffic focus but really like business focus and it’s like is this actually going to help you meet your business goals in the time that you need to see those results? And then I try to set their expectations around like how much it costs and budget and how long it’s going to take to kind of scale it up and that kind of thing. No-transcript, you don’t have the team built for a strategist and a writer and an editor and a marketer right To actually promote it. Um, that stuff all takes time, um.
John: 19:26
And so also saying their expectations around like look, let’s like minimum, that that I think a brand, like a seven figure especially brand, should be creating is minimum two pieces a week, minimum, um, and that’s like educational, like blog content, right, and then, and then looking at like bigger pieces, so like white papers or case studies or or videos or whatever, like really like to move the needle for like a seven figure brand with content. A, it’s going to take some time, so it’s going to take some patience three, four months to really like see much at all, um, and then also uh and yeah, so so it’s just going to take that time and then like figuring out what really resonates and getting the team in place and all that, like scaling it up, you know, over time and really aiming for, I would say, 10, 10, 12, 15 pieces a month is really like what it’s going to take if you want to succeed with content in e-commerce.
Greg: 20:17
Yeah, I’ll even add the caveat in even if your competitors aren’t doing content, you need to be doing it, right? Yeah, Because that’s another thing that I hear is oh, you know my top three online competitors. They look like me and they’re not really doing blog content. Well, do we want to start creating a lot of momentum and making it so they can’t catch you at the end of the day, right, yeah?
John: 20:40
one other thing I want to say there, greg, is if a brand hasn’t done it before and they’re in a space like I mean, if you’re hearing this all the time like I I would really talk about um. And for e-commerce owners, speaking to them specifically, if you’re producing, say you want to produce 10 pieces a month for the next 12 months right, let’s just keep the math easy 120 pieces. The faster you can create those 120 pieces, especially for SEO-focused content, the better. So don’t think about okay, we’re kind of going to scale it up and then by the end of 12 months, we’re going to be producing like 15, 18 pieces a month.
John: 21:17
Just because you started two or three, like just the averages, means you’re going to have to produce that much more at the end in order to hit that goal of number of pieces of content. But if you can get out like 50 pieces in the first two months, three months, like, that’s going to do so much more for you, because it’s all, it’s going to get indexed, it’s topical authority, because it’s going to get indexed, it’s topical authority, all that sort of stuff. And then after three, four months, you’re going to start to see a pop, as opposed to if you’re ramping it up, it’s going to take quite a while and then you’re probably going to stop investing in it before you see the pop and then you’re going to regret stopping investing in it. So the more you can produce upfront, the better.
Greg: 21:48
I love it. Awesome. So one is promoting. So once the content’s up, you don’t want it to just die or get buried on the website. So what should brands be doing to really push that content and get the most mileage out of it?
John: 22:06
Yeah, so there’s a few things. So one is, I mean, once it’s published, promoting it everywhere, right, emails, social media, that kind of thing, especially like bigger pieces, like pieces that are meant to drive like a lot of traffic or they’re just meant to capture, I mean, in the B2B world, leads, but really like newsletter subscribers and that kind of thing. You got to push that stuff a lot harder, especially with like written content for SEO building backlinks, that sort of thing. So you got to push that stuff a lot harder, especially with like written content for SEO building backlinks, you know that that sort of thing. So mentioning it on, if you’re on like podcasts, you’re speaking to industry events or something like that, or like you have a team that’s going out and they’re they’re, they’re you know they’re writing, right, maybe they’re a travel blogger and they’re writing on like the points guy and places like that, like if they’re able to like, like linking back, you know, to those, to those pieces, um, so talking about them as as broadly as you’re, you know, as you’re able to, um, sometimes paying to promote them, to promote content, um can be really effective as well. Um, especially from the in the SEO world, like where you and I came up, greg, and when we’re maybe some of these like e-commerce operators, um, have come up as well Like the idea of paying for something feels very taboo.
John: 23:21
If you’re white hat, right, it’s like oh no, we don’t pay for placements, right, but newsletters like, like that sort of stuff, industry like, uh, publications, that kind of thing, magazines hell yeah, pay for that stuff, right, like that’s really you have, you have to. That’s how you get in there. And once you’ve been paying for it for a while, maybe occasionally they’ll like just because they know you, you’ll get organic mentions and such, but you have to pay to promote it there. So you have to break that belief if you have it that I’ve had it and I’ve had to get over it that paying for placements is bad. No, paying for placements is how the world works.
John: 23:55
And then the other thing for content for SEO purposes if you’re producing a lot of it, you also have to be keeping it up to date. Brands come and go, sales come and go, that sort of stuff, and so going back and updating content that you produced a year ago, even six months ago, a year ago, that kind of thing, yeah, yeah, keeping an eye on you know, having your SEO crawlers running and broken links and you know kind of doing like content maintenance and that sort of stuff. But what I recommend is, every 12 to 18 months or so, going back to each piece that you’ve produced and update and doing a sizable update to it. This is actually why one of our like services at editor ninja is actually updating content, because it helps you rank better.
John: 24:39
You know and and so in information gain right, like as new things come on, like content is going to stop ranking over time If you’re not. You know you’re not mentioning new brands or or whatever, mentioning new things that have happened in the space, or last year’s great winter or bad winter or whatever it is. And so one thing I think a lot of people forget about when it comes to concept for SEO is updating it, which also then can bring it back higher in your site architecture, so it’s going to rank better and all of that, and you can repromote it as kind of a new piece, even if it’s been out for a long time. So I think those are the things that brands, from an SEO perspective, should be doing to get more mileage out of it.
Greg: 25:14
Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So this is a fun question. What are brands getting right and then also what are they getting wrong? When it comes to content production and kind of the distribution promotion side, what are you seeing?
John: 25:28
Yeah. So a couple of things. Number one is especially with SEO content. They’re just they’re throwing a bunch of words on a page and expecting it to rank and expecting it to convert. Like they’re not. They’re not investing enough in quality, Especially if it’s like video and that sort of stuff. But even if it’s written, you know there’s turning out a bunch of stuff. They’re not. You know, there aren’t like like experts kind of looking at it making sure that all the necessary things are, you know, are in there. They’re not starting from a good brief that like, yeah, we’re talking about like how to size skis and like here are the seven brands that we need to make sure to mention and link to them, and like that sort of stuff. There’s just a lot of like missed opportunities in content, even today, even in 2024.
John: 26:11
Right and dude, we’ve been talking about this since like 2010, 2011,. And it’s still happening. So you know, maybe we’re, uh, maybe who who was it? Einstein with his like definition of madness is is doing the same thing over and over, even when you’re getting the same results. But I don’t know, maybe maybe we’re just suckers for, for punishment, but, but. But I still believe this and I see that and we see brands that are willing to improve the content that they’re creating. They’re the ones that are winning, right, and so, like, if you want to win, if you don’t want to win, like, go do your thing whatever, but if you do want to win, quality is where it sits, especially because everyone is a content creator these days, every brand is creating content for the most part. And so, like, if you actually want to stand out, like, you need to invest in quality for sure, and so it’s going to mean paying people better, it’s going to mean getting, it’s getting experts, it’s going to mean having a review process, like all of that sort of stuff. And then you know the other thing I think that people aren’t getting right, like it’s the same as ever. It’s promoting, promoting your content effectively. So you know we’re we already talked about that, so we don’t need to beat that horse anymore.
John: 27:12
But, but, but I will also say that, uh, you know content that good, like high quality content that grabs people, right. And you’re selling. You know selling the vacation, not the flight, right, you’re selling being out on the mountains with your friends on an Epic powder day, not, not, not buying a new pair of skis. You know Um, especially to like the, not not the like you know, especially if you’re selling to people that, like they buy a pair of skis every like six to eight years. Not the people that want, like you know, this year’s like you know newest line of skis or whatever Um, but like the content you’re putting out really needs to grab people and then content that’s done well is going to spread in and of itself.
John: 27:50
So, like, I don’t believe in the and I don’t think you do either the like you know, build it and they will come kind of thing. But if you build it right, then people are going to kind of do, are going to do the marketing for you, or more of the marketing for you after that initial push. So it’s actually going to cost you less to promote it to get the same results if it’s higher quality and people are like oh my God, did you see this latest Like you know this video from like so-and-so brand right.
Greg: 28:15
They’re going to share it on social. They’re going to link to it. They’re going to just make that thing snowball.
John: 28:21
And the people that you want to buy your stuff. No other people that want to buy your stuff, so they’re your best marketers. I love it Cool.
Greg: 28:29
So what are the best ways to measure the impact of your content efforts?
John: 28:37
I mean, at the end of the day it comes down to if it’s meeting your objectives. So you know things like. You know you’re looking for more organic traffic and sales, right, I mean, it all comes back to revenue, right? You look for more organic traffic. That’s great, we’re getting traffic. But is there actually an uplift in? You know the other metrics, right? Newsletter subscribers, you know email list subscribers, and then ultimately, sales, right? Looking for wider reach, looking for more followers on your social media channels and that sort of stuff, that’s great. And your individual contributors that are operating those channels. Looking to grow it great. Is stuff growing Good? But are sales from those channels also growing? Really?
John: 29:13
It comes down to there’s kind of like your leading metrics, right, like Greg, with SEO, you’re selling traffic increases right, at the very top level, and I don’t want to be offensive in saying that’s what you’re selling. But with SEO, that’s where it starts, right? Sure, so that’s like the leading metric and you kind of have to do that first and then it’s okay. But are people staying? Are they subscribing? Are they buying? You know it’s like with ads. It’s like are these ads getting served to people? Are people clicking on it? Are they? Are they, you know, submitting a lead, or are they submitting their information, and then are they getting on a call and then are they buying Right. So so we have to take it down those steps. And it starts with for SEO, especially for content. It’s getting traffic there and then all the other steps down the funnel.
Greg: 30:05
Cool, great, all right. The million dollar question is where do you see content going over the next few years? I keep hearing that written content’s going to die. It’s not dying anytime soon, but what are you seeing?
John: 30:17
yeah, so I’m not seeing it dying, um, I’m seeing it changing. So, um, first of all, when it comes to like video content and that sort of stuff, like I think production value just has to improve. Um, like, if you want to, if you want to stand out, it had your content just has to be frigging awesome and like make that, make that your thing. You know it’s going to be more like kind of traditional, like you know TV advertising, like kind of going with the mindset of what if every like piece of content you put out could be a Superbowl ad right, cause, like brands go all out for Superbowl ads. But what if you’re producing a piece of content a month that was like super highly produced maybe it costs you 10, $15,000, but it’s a Superbowl ad, right, and it’s, and it’s going to spread, it’s going to go viral. Have more, a higher chance of going viral, that sort of stuff.
John: 31:05
When it comes to written content, man, I’m I’m kind of betting that that uh, written content is going to stick. Um, and I, and I think it is, um, but I don’t see people’s attention spans going back to reading long form content. I really don’t. And so if it’s educational content, it needs to be crisp, it needs to be engaging, it still needs to be obviously well optimized for search engines and all that sort of stuff. But we’re not gone. Are the days of 5,000 plus words being written for something that can be answered in 500, because some guru told you that it should be 5,000 plus words. If users want 500 words, they want it crisp, they want the one, two, three, four, five, six steps. They’re going to bounce off of the super long stuff that is just filled with SEO crap.
Greg: 31:50
We could say I’ve taken all of our guides here at Stride and those 5,000 words and I’ve turned them into 10 blog posts. Right, absolutely all little blog posts, and it works.
John: 32:02
So much better, so well, so much better, so much better, most of the stuff that we’ve produced at editor ninja for like educational content is 600 to 800 words. Yeah, um, and we have some longer stuff, but that’s much more like thought leadership and that kind of thing like that. It’s just not the stuff that people want to read anymore. And so really my thinking is like, if, if users want the shorter stuff, that’s also search engines want to reward what people want, um, and so they want to serve up what people want because it’s a better user experience, we’ll come back more often. They can sell more ads, so that’s what we should give them, um, and I think that so.
John: 32:34
But this kind of content, it is, uh, who was it? I believe it was like, uh, I don’t think it was Hemingway, but it was someone like that that they were like, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter, right, like it is hard to to write short, like shorter, crisp content. This is where editors come in honestly, like just making it, making it crisper, making it, making it communicate. Uh, you know what you wanted to communicate better in, in fewer words? Yeah, man, it’s hard, it’s really hard. Um, so, yeah, so, so, and and then I just think that like educational content is going to be harder and harder to make work, like as a, as a marketing channel. Um, like, I saw my friend, ryan law he’s the editor in chief or head of content or something like that at at, uh, ahrefs and he was basically saying that it’s just overnight. With the rise of AI, it’s just a much harder thing to make work and we just need to be more sophisticated about how we’re going about it.
John: 33:26
And, honestly and it kind of pains me to say this as a veteran SEO and then someone running a company that we edit content but I think fewer and fewer brands should hang their hat on content as, like, their main channel. Um, I think we need to move to it being a like, it’s a, it’s an, it empowers all the other channels that we’re doing our paid advertising, our SEO efforts, like all that sort of stuff. Um, I don’t, I don’t know man, I struggle to see it, especially for, like an e-commerce brand. I struggle to see it, especially for an e-commerce brand. I struggle to see it being the channel that that brand should invest in. Just to be completely 100% honest, as much as it pains me to say it.
Greg: 34:06
I just don’t see it anymore. Sure, and it can be kind of the springboard to take that piece of content and turn it into a video and then turn it into 10 TikToks and then like whatever right Like. It should all be part of the strategy.
John: 34:20
Yep, yep, and people are going to come back to it. But, yeah, like, take that information and then, yeah, use it to build your, you know, your, your TikTok, tiktok scripts or whatever that is, turn it into a YouTube video, or start from the YouTube video and then use that to chop it up and create a blog post out of it. Like, I mean, content repurposing right Is is something that that people talk about a lot.
Greg: 34:38
So, um, yeah, I, I think that’s just kind of the direction that everything’s going and we just need to keep up with it. Cool man. Well, as we wrap up, do you have any final words of wisdom?
John: 34:49
Uh, yeah, I think the big thing that I just want people to remember is that content and has to map back to your business goals. Like I see so many people just focus on the craft of it and and don’t get me wrong, like the craft is amazing, um, and and like it’s like it’s hard to to create really good stuff. But like, as, especially like as a seven figure operator, eight figure, like e-commerce, like business operator, you know you can’t just let someone you know go with it and not look at the results and all that and like and actually be willing like, actually be measuring it. How much traffic are we getting? How many newsletter, how many email like lists, signups have we gotten? Um, you know how, how, like, if you’re using I know that, like you know discounts, I get $15 off your, you know your first and then get another 10% off. You give us your, like, your phone number, like that sort of stuff. Like, if that’s like a main way that you get people into your funnel, you get people to like buy stuff initially. How many more people are seeing that offer?
John: 35:45
Right, like, looking at that kind of thing is going to be like it’s just ultimately where the rubber meets the road, and if content isn’t getting you, isn’t letting you serve your offer to more people, it’s not getting more eyeballs on your products and more add to carts and all that sort of stuff.
John: 36:00
You got to rework it, you got to rethink it. It’s just something isn’t working there, and so not being afraid to adjust your tactics, your strategies over time is just I don’t know. I just see too many people that they’re like I think it kind of works, so we’re just going to keep our budget where it is. But, like, my take is like, if you’re just keeping your budget where it is, that means it’s not really working. So you either need to cut it or you need to make it work so you can scale it. Because if it’s working and it’s profitable for you, you would put as much money as you can into it, and so if you’re not willing to double down, it’s never actually going to work and you’re going to end up with a ton of things, that kind of work and nothing that really works, and that’s not how you scale a business 100%.
Greg: 36:43
I love it. That’s a great stopping point. Thank you, sean, that was amazing. Thank you for spending 35, 40 minutes with us today. I think you shared just a lot of fantastic information, so I appreciate you being on. Yeah, I think you shared just a lot of fantastic information, so I appreciate you being on.
John: 36:57
Yeah, thanks for having me, man. This was a lot of fun. I talk a lot of B2B and B2B SaaS and lead generation and such, and so it’s fun to actually get to talk to e-commerce operators and owners because it’s just, I don’t know different opportunities.
Greg: 37:11
Different opportunities, and the reason we focused on e-com is because I think it’s more fun, right? It’s way more fun than driving leads for a law firm, you know, and it’s awesome, cool For sure. Well, that’s it for today. I hope that everyone were able to pull just a couple of nuggets out of this that they can take and they can start executing for their business. So, as always, take what you’ve learned here, make a plan and then take massive action. So thank you everyone for joining.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
