I’m responding to several articles I read this week.
First is a rant by Greg Ciotti on Bidsketch about why writers aren’t getting the same level of respect (or pay) as designers.
In that same vein is an article by Ed Gandia that tells freelancers how to position themselves for higher paying work. This is the perfect answer to Greg’s rant.
Then there was the news that SEOmoz changed its name to Moz. SEO isn’t a respected term any more, and they want to distance themselves from it.
Finally, not really an article but a discussion I had earlier this week, about how optimization has changed in recent years.
All these thoughts seem to be buzzing around in my head and intersecting, and the overarching idea is how often we undervalue what we do.
Think about this.
As an entrepreneur or marketer, how easy is it to tell people what you do?
It’s hard, isn’t it?
- We can’t see through the tasks we perform to understand the value we deliver.
- And if we can, we struggle with talking about it because we feel like we’re bragging.
It’s easier if you have a job. The job title is what you are, and your boss tells you whether you’re delivering value or not. You never have to sell yourself.
Now, on occasion, as an entrepreneur, you’ll get that sort of feedback from an expressive client or colleague. But for the most part, you just have to know your value.
That takes a lot of self-confidence.
Then there’s the optimization discussion.
It looks unrelated, I know, but it isn’t, because it’s also about positioning. One of the reasons SEOmoz took the SEO off its name is because Google has changed the game. SEO implies keyword stuffing and manipulating a page-one position in the SERPs.
But Google now crawls your site for evidence that people respect you. If people share your posts and quote you, you’re likely an authority. If they leave comments on your website, they likely trust you.
Though they use keywords to identify what you’re about, when it comes to search engine ranking, they’re looking for trust signals, not keywords.
That’s what your customers are looking for too. Trust signals. Evidence that you are who you say you are.
And it all boils down to whether you’re a trusted authority. People want to know what’s in it for them.
If you’re a service provider, they don’t care about the tasks you perform. They’re looking for value. They’re more interested in the bottom-line result they’ll experience after you’ve finished performing your tasks.
If you’re a retailer, they want to know what you’re selling and that you’re there if they have a problem.
Content marketing is a really good “fix” for all of this.
Inbound marketing. Blogging. Content marketing. It’s all the same, really.
You want to offer value up front so people can see that you’re trustworthy. They can explore your website and read your articles to get to know you a little:
- What you stand for.
- The way you talk.
- How you look at things.
- Whether your solutions align with their ideas.
Your blog gives them insight in several ways. It helps them feel like they know you. It proves that you’re actively involved in the industry, which suggests you’ll be accessible after the sale. It also tells them whether you know what you’re talking about—are you talking smack, or do you really know how to deliver XYZ results?
It also helps with that pesky SEO stuff.
It’s true. Old-style SEO isn’t going to help you rank well. But content will.
Content doesn’t just give you authority with prospects and customers. It also indicates authority to search engines. After all, if you post an article every week for two years, you must have something to say.
And if you post those articles on Google+ and people engage with it, you must be providing value.
Once Google determines you’re trustworthy, you start ranking better, and more people find you, which leads to more engagement and trust signals. It’s a positive cycle you want to get caught in.
But first, you have to define your value.
One of the reason people resist content marketing is that, even if they’ve been in business for 50 years, they don’t really see the value they deliver.
Write content, they ask. What would I write about? I don’t have anything to say.
See how this all fits together? You have to know you deliver value. Really know it. And you need to be able to articulate what that value is.
Remember, though, value isn’t expressed in terms of what you do. The tasks you perform don’t matter nearly as much as the outcome.
So rather than being a freelance writer, perhaps you’re a content provider. As Greg Ciotti mentioned in the Bidsketch article above, people aren’t looking for a “freelance writer.” They want “content marketing.”
So content is your deliverable.
Make that well-written, relevant content that generates traffic, and you’ve suddenly added value.
See how it works? You need to know what people need, and position your own product or service as something that meets the need. Then start building value into your deliverable.
Once you do that, your next step is to build authority. Start writing articles that talk about the issues related to your industry, the problems people face, and other interesting topics.
Engage in fearless content marketing. Then post comments and curate interesting articles through social media.
Get on people’s radar as someone they can turn to when they need answers. It’s an easy next step to buy your products.
