Long, long ago…in a galaxy far, far away, someone did some research and found that longer articles rank higher in Google and are more likely to be shared on the socials.

That’s the story of how the long-form content craze was born. Since then, all content marketers are trying to pump out 2,000, 3,000, even 10,000-word blog posts. We assume that if we publish super in-depth articles that thousands of blog views will come pouring in.

Hard truth: that usually doesn’t happen. According to SEMRush, that’s because your content creation strategy is fundamentally flawed.

A few of those fundamental flaws…

1) You’re thinking too big. By that, we mean that you might be targeting keywords that are too competitive. Sometimes, no matter how good your piece is, it just won’t rank. If you’re a small content marketing agency and wrote literally the best piece in the world on content marketing, it still won’t beat out the HubSpots and Forbes of the internet world.

Instead, use a tool like SEMRush to analyze the difficulty of your target keywords. Niche down until you find a lower competition keyword so you can write the best piece in the world.

2) You forgot about the user experience. Almost more important than the content is the user’s experience with your content. The best piece of content in the world isn’t actually that good if the website visitor has difficulty reading and navigating your website.

Wanna know what makes a great user experience for content? Look at Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO for inspiration. It’s an amazing piece, that’s easy to navigate, read, and understand.

3) You forgot to ask the audience. Interview industry experts for your piece. This kills two birds with one stone.

First, it’ll give your piece more credibility if a well-known expert is part of it. Second, that well-known expert probably has their own audience and might share it with their audience.

But, don’t just create a mediocre roundup piece. That isn’t great content at all. That’s just lazy.

Breezed through this one, but there’s a ton we couldn’t cover. Get it all 👇

When we say “10K marketers are super fans of the Daily Carnage” that’s known as social proof. (Not tryna brag. We’re just stoked and humbled to be able to say it.) It’s the idea that customers make purchase decisions based on what other people have to say.

AdEspresso is mapping it all out for us and there’s seriously so much to cover. We’re skipping all the philosophical Q’s. Just know social proof is legit.

Fake it till ya make it
Trick #1: For agency crews, piggyback on third parties and get certified. It might not seem like a big deal. But people take notice to certifications because it means you’re knowledgeable in an industry. A good example is Google’s Analytics Academy. It’s all about being credible.

Trick #3: Write content for your niche. When you’re just building an audience, interview well-known people in your industry instead of trying to be interviewed. And don’t just give them a little shout out. Promote them.

Trick #5: There’s proof in the numbers. Take full advantage of the number of users, sales, reviews, and much more. Put those deets on center stage! Because like hips, numbers don’t lie. Unless of course, you lie about the numbers…but, like, don’t do that.

Please sir, can I have social proof?
So how do you even get the social proof data to use?

Ask #1: Encourage your customers to leave reviews after buying something. Adding an incentive for customers to do so never hurts either. This can be easily automated through email platforms like MailChimp too. When you send that confirmation email, include a link that redirects the customer to your website for a quick star rating or review.

Ask #5: Highlight case studies based on customer experience. All you have to do is be straight about the problem, explain your solution, and include the results.

After all that, we still only scratched the surface. Click through for so, so much more…

We’re still searching hard for those terrifying Halloween ads, and still coming up blank.

Has the ad world gone soft? Is Halloween old news? Are people too desensitized to be scared? Those questions, and more, answered tonight at 11 (jussst kidding, we’re not answering those questions).

Anyway, Farmers Life Insurance did come out with a Halloween ad, but it’ll make you laugh, rather than scare the bejeezus outta you.

This ad features a zombie promoting life insurance. Obviously, this zombie doesn’t need life insurance; she’s dead. But, she should have gotten it when she was alive. That way her family would’ve been able to use it if anything bad happened (like her turning into a zombie).

Really starting to wonder about the legalities of life insurance when someone turns into a zombie. Would the insurance company actually pay out? Better check your life insurance policy…