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A social media company didn’t publish new content for 30 days. Here’s what we can learn from their experiment.

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Beaker and test tubes filled with blue liquid

Take time to experiment with the content of your website or blog to find new ideas that could increase your growth.

Let’s face it – there’s enormous pressure to constantly add new content. The good news is you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time you want to publish something new.

Don’t feel like you can take a break from posting new content? Even the though it can be kind of scary, the only way to increase your growth quickly is to try new things. Tell your boss that if a business can do it, you can do it too.

Buffer is one of my favorite social media management tools and they recently took a month off from posting new content. Fortunately for us, they shared the details of their experiment and their lessons in a recent blog post.

There are some valuable lessons we can learn from their experiment. Use these ideas to increase the amount of content you produce with just a little extra effort, or to free up your time to focus on other projects.

1. It’s ok to re-purpose and repackage your existing content

Buffer didn’t stop posting anything for a month – they stopped posting anything new. They updated some popular articles, incorporated media, added new items to lists they already had, and more. They were creative with how they mixed and matched what they already have to present it in a new way or to add more value.

When you’re able to add these “updates” into the mix along with 100% new content, you’ll be able to free up some of your valuable time without neglecting your blog.

Here are some ideas:

  • Share a “top 10” list of your articles/resources with a specific theme. For example, try something like “Top 10 articles from 2015” or “Top 10 resources for addressing poverty.” Whatever your cause is, chances are you have a lot of resources on hand. Gather them together in one post to make a list people will love to bookmark and share.
  • Add a few more tips to a list you already have. For example, let’s say you have a list of 20 green gift ideas for the holiday season. Add five or ten new ideas to the list and you have yourself an updated post without having to start from scratch.
  • Add a new intro to an existing resource or post. Sometimes an event can occur that makes an older resource of yours suddenly relevant. For example, let’s say you’ve have some lesson plans prepared to teach students about climate change and new legislation on requiring schools to teach about climate change has just passed. Even though you’ve been sharing the lesson plans for a while, new legislation makes this resource both relevant and timely. A new intro is all you need to freshen it up.

 

2. Share the “old” stuff that is still relevant

Are you only posting your brand new blog posts on your social media profiles and in your e-letter? It’s time to put some of those oldies-but-goodies into the rotation too. Chances are, only a small fraction of your audience saw your post the first time around. And hopefully you’ve gotten some new followers and subscribers since then.

Check your website analytics to see which articles are the most popular. Don’t be surprised if some older articles make it to the top of the list – these ones have had time to get circulated and show up in search engines.

Of course, you don’t want to re-post very time-sensitive material like announcements of conferences, commentary about a specific news event that’s no longer relevant, or seasonal posts. But you’re losing out if you don’t put at least some of your older articles into your social media and e-newsletter rotation.

 

3. Experiment with different ways to package content

There are a lot of ways you can share information, and a written article is just one of them. Think about how you repackage your existing content into a Slideshare, video, podcast, infographic, or sample social media posts.

There may also be SEO benefits to adding more media to your content. It shows Google that your users are interacting with your site which can give your website a boost in search results.

Here are some ideas:

  • Post the PowerPoint of a recent speech on SlideShare
  • Put photos from a recent event in a slideshow (I recommend Animoto)
  • Highlight the top tweets from a recent event or Twitter chat
  • Record interviews when you’re writing a story and turn them into podcasts
  • Choose the top findings from a research report and turn it into an infographic

 

4. Update your most popular posts

It can take a lot of time to create a new story or pull together some great research. Don’t you hate it when you spend a lot of time creating that content and then the post seems like old news after just a couple months?

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and checking in on a project a year or two later can refresh your story bank.

Depending on the type of research, here are a few ideas to help you revive it:

  • New/Updated stories
  • New Census facts
  • A new intro
  • Updated list of resources

 

5. Make your content visual

Making your posts shareable is critical to increasing your traffic. One of the key ways is to make sure every post includes a photo or graphic. Even if you are not too active on social media, your followers might be. From Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest and more, a photo or graphic is what catches people’s eye on just about every social media channel.

Adding images is another opportunity to add keywords that will help boost your SEO. Make sure you file names and ALT tags are descriptive and use dashes instead of spaces in the name.

  • Add photos from your own photo bank to your blog posts
  • Search for royalty free photos to supplement images from your own photo bank
  • Add text overlay to an image to make it stand out
  • Find royalty free icons (try iconfinder.com) to make graphics for non-visual posts
  • Create infographics to make your content relevant beyond the original publish date
  • Create separate graphics for each item in a list

 

6. Connect with other blogs and websites to ask them to repost your content

An important part of creating content is sharing it with others. Posting it on your own website and social media channels is great, but to continue to grow your audience, ask others to repost your content. This kind of relationship can be mutual – if you post each other’s content, you’ll be able to have the same amount of new content with about half of the work. As a bonus, you’ll get an SEO boost when another website links to yours.

 

7. Create ebooks to get more email subscribers

If you have a lot of content already, you may be able to turn it into an ebook. Find a topic that many of your visitors are looking for and that would be more useful in a longer format. This could be a compilation your best tips, a list of the top-rated hiking trails of the previous year, plans to build an urban chicken coup, a pet adoption kit for newbies, etc.

This one is all about the packaging. You might already have the information in various places in different formats on your website, but making it short and visually appealing is the key. Hire a graphic designer if you have the budget for it.

Not only is this a great way to repackage your content, it’s also an excellent way to get people to subscribe to your email list. Instead of having the resource available to download from anywhere on your site, create a page that requires visitors to enter their email address in exchange for the ebook. You can ask for more information than an email address if you’d like, but remember that the longer your form, the less likely people will fill it out. Then set up an automated message from your email campaign sending them the download link to the ebook once they’ve subscribed.

 

8. Create an email drip campaign

An email drip campaign is an automated email series that is sent out at regular intervals after someone signs up for your e-newsletter. There’s a lot of potential here. Buffer saw 3-4 times more engagement with this tactic than with creating ebooks, so it seems like something worth trying.

If you have any step-by-step information, that’s a great fit for an email drip campaign. If you don’t, you still might have some bulky content that would be good spreading out over time. For example, you could create a campaign for some recent research report that highlights the five sections of the report and gives some top-level analysis for those who do not have time to read it word-for-word.

As a bonus, copy and paste those automated emails into blog posts for some extra content and another way to promote your research report.

 

9. Organize your content in different ways on your website

If you have a ton of content and it’s all organized by date, chances are there are some gems that are pretty hard to find, especially if you have multiple audiences or run multiple kinds of programs.

Help people find what they’re looking for right away by sorting your existing content. This could be as simple as tagging the content, or you might create separate sections for each audience. Then link to those sections in appropriate places on your website.

 

10. Make time to experiment

You can’t keep doing the same things and expect different results. From doing this experiment, Buffer found a lot of things that worked great, and a few that didn’t. It’s ok to pause one aspect of your work for a little bit to see what might get you bigger results for your organization. The key is to set a specific timeframe and goals. Measure your results so you can learn from your experiment. After reading this post, you shouldn’t be short on ideas!

 

When website visitors don’t enter through the homepage: Why it’s a problem and what to do about it

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website-visitors-enter-homepage

If the chapters were out of order in a book, you wouldn’t know where to start. If your website visitors don’t enter your site through the homepage, they may be confused too. Take a few steps to introduce your organization.

Imagine you open a new book and the intro chapter is buried in the middle. You would be a little confused, wouldn’t you?

When new people come to your website, they need to start at the beginning – learning who you are and what you do. Then they can start learning about the details of your initiatives and how to get involved.

If you look at your analytics, you may find that you have many landing pages. That means that the first page people visit on your site may not be the homepage. Surprised?

The homepage used to be the place to showcase your most current stories and tools. Now, social media has filled that role. While your homepage may not be the first page visitors land on when they visit your site, it’s still a place for new people to learn how to navigate your content. And since the first page many people see may not be the homepage, it’s important to have information about your organization readily available from any page on your site.

 

To do:

  • If you have a rotation banner on your homepage, make sure at least one of your banner images links to information about who you are and what you do.
  • Have information and links to learn more about your organization in the footer of your site.
  • Make sure it’s easy to find the homepage and the “about us” section from every page of your site.
  • Create a “welcome” page to help new visitors navigate your content.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get your message across

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why-need-use-captions-website

Baby goats can provide many lessons for getting your message across.

What??? Baby goats?! What do baby goats have to do with getting your message across? Not much (though they sure are cute). But your eye was drawn to the photo and the caption, wasn’t it?

Captions are often overlooked in web articles, but they’re a great opportunity to get your message across. People may not read the entire article, but they will likely look at the photo. And if they look at the photo, chances are they’ll read the caption too.

The caption is a chance to get your message across to people who may not read the article, and it’s also a chance to entice them to read more.

 

To do:

Look at your top 10 most visited articles. Do you use captions in your photos? If so, are they descriptive of the photo, or do they tell a mini story?

For example, let’s say you have a photo receiving an award for their project. A caption in a print publication might say something like, “Girl Scout Troop #857 from Oklahoma City receive the Mayor’s Award for outstanding service to the community.” The web isn’t print, so you don’t have to play by those rules.

Try something like, “These girl scouts devoted their summer break to rebuilding the run-down park and are now being recognized by the mayor for their service.” Doesn’t that sound a little more inviting? Then, if visitors want to know more, they can find details in the story. If they click away from your site without reading the full story, at least they might be aware of the work the girl scouts did.

Take a look at the captions in your 10 most visited articles and think about how you can use them to connect the photo with a key point in your content. The more useful captions you can write, the better.

Bonus tip: These updated captions could make great social media posts!

Why your website needs headings

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why-website-needs-headings

Like a menu at a restaurant, headings help your website visitors find what they’re looking for.

When you sit down at a new restaurant and open the menu, what do you look for? Maybe you want some appetizers to share, a list of local beers, or vegetarian entrees. Chances are you’ll use the headings to find what you want.

Your website visitors use headings on your page as well to skim the information and find what they’re looking for. Another reason to use headings is because they make your site more SEO-friendly. Here are some best practices for using headings:

  • The H1 heading should be the title of your page. Don’t use the H1 heading anywhere else.
  • Use your headings as-is. Don’t change the size or add styling like bold or italics. If you don’t like the style of your headings, work with your web designer to change them.
  • Only use your headings for their intended purpose …as headings. Don’t use them to style text in the middle of a paragraph.

 

To do:

Take a look at your top 10 most visited articles. How do you separate ideas on your page? Do you use headings, or styling like bold or italics? Or is your page one long article?

If you already use headings, keep up the good work!

If you don’t already use headings, take a look at your content and identify how you could break it up into sections:

  • If your page is organized in steps or uses bold or italics to break up the content, you already have natural places to use headings.
  • If it’s one long article, look for changes in ideas where you could add subheadings.
  • There may be some articles where you don’t add any subheadings at all, but always take the time to consider using them in your content.

Bite-sized is best: the importance of smaller paragraphs

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bite-size-importance-small-paragraphs

Sweets and website content are best served in bite-sized portions.

Cake pops. Brownie bites. M&M minis. These small sweets are both cute and bite-sized, which makes them fun and easy to eat. Hungry yet?

Your content should be in bite-sized portions as well. Breaking up paragraphs makes it easier to read and will help increase your retention rates.

The rule that a paragraph must contain at least three sentences doesn’t apply in web writing. Smaller paragraphs will help you get straight to the point, making it easier for your audience to understand your message.

 

To do:

Look at your analytics and find your 10 most visited articles. Do you have large blocks of text, or short paragraphs with a lot of white space?

If you chose the first answer, you have some room for improvement. Fortunately, you won’t have to change any of the words to make it easier to read. Go into the edit mode and experiment with breaking up the long paragraphs. Try doubling the number of paragraphs and see how it turns out.

Of course, the paragraph breaks still need to make sense – you shouldn’t break up ideas or thoughts in the middle of an explanation. Hopefully you’ll find that you can use them to your advantage to emphasize certain points you’re trying to make.

Once you’ve gotten a handle on breaking up paragraphs, implement this tactic in your other sections of the website if you have time. At the very least, remember this tip and commit to breaking up your future content into bite-sized pieces.

(Note: If you’re nervous to try this out on your most visited articles, you can try it first with your least visited pages. The purpose of editing your most visited content is because you want people to see your best work.)

Your homepage is old news. Here’s what you can do about it.

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Entering through the front door of a house is similar to entering through the homepage on a website. Nowadays, more visitors likely come to your site through other pages so you need to plan for it.

Entering through the front door of a house is similar to entering through the homepage on a website. Nowadays, more visitors likely come to your site through other pages so you need to plan for it.

Imagine if you threw a party at your house and your guests came in through windows, the basement, the porch door, and the garage door as well as through the front door. It would probably catch you off-guard, but the guests may also be a little disoriented and not know where to go.

This may be what’s happening with your website visitors. Nowadays, a lot of people may be following links on social media or other websites to get to your site. Many of those links point to a specific article or resource instead of your homepage. It’s more important than ever that your visitors know how to find information on your site, no matter which page they visit first.

 

To do:

Review your analytics and see which pages are your top “landing pages.” These are the pages on your website that your visitors see first. Your homepage will likely be at the top of the list, but you may also have a few others that are popular landing pages as well. Take a look at the top five, not including the homepage. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Will visitors understand the context of the content? For example, if it’s a “step 8” in a series of 10 steps, will they know that they should also check out previous steps before working on number 8?
  • Will visitors be able to easily find information about your organization from that page?
  • Is there a clear call to action?

 

Here are some suggestions to improve your landing pages:

  • Add an introduction to the page that gives context.
  • Use breadcrumbs to help visitors understand where they are on the website.
  • Link to related content. For example, if there are 10 steps, have clear links to the previous and next steps. Or, point them to more resources or articles in that category.
  • Use the “related content” feature in AddThis to automatically suggest another article.
  • Add information about your organization in the footer so visitors can understand what your organization is about no matter which page they are on.
  • Make sure the call to action is clear and not tucked away in a sidebar or on another page.

Too much of a good thing: How to prevent content overload

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People are busy. Highlight your best content so you don't overwhelm website visitors.

People are busy. Highlight your best content so you don’t overwhelm website visitors.

Which seems less daunting:

“See our 10 most popular blog posts”

–or –

“See all of our 1,698 blog posts”

 

Let me guess. You chose the first one, right?

People are busy and they want information that’s helpful. Reading through a list of 10 blog posts is going to take much less time than sifting through 1,698 of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to archive most of your posts or reduce the frequency of your posts. If you highlight your best work, you can still keep your library of content without overwhelming your visitors.

Hopefully by now you’ve identified what kind of content is “evergreen” and “time-sensitive” and a plan for archiving the time-sensitive pieces (if not, you have a little work to do to catch up, but that’s ok – you’ll get there!).

You may have some categories of evergreen content that has a lot of resources or articles in it. In this case, it’s important to highlight the most recent and/or most popular pieces of content so visitors don’t have to sort through a long list.

For example, let’s say you offer classroom activities to improve early childhood development and every year you add 20 new activities. At this rate, the list will get long very quickly. Arranging them by date or in alphabetical order will help keep the activities organized, but it can still be overwhelming to sort through so many activities. To help out your visitors, at the top of the page showcase your five most popular activities, or highlight the two most recent ones.

 

To do:

You have several options to make it easier for your website visitors to navigate long lists of content:

  • Highlight the most recently added resources or articles at the top of the list
  • Highlight the most popular resources or articles at the top of the list (look in your analytics to find out which content is most popular)
  • Create a hybrid of “featured” resources or articles that includes a few of your most popular pieces of content, as well as some that were recently added.
  • Write a blog post of your top 5 or 10 most popular resources in a particular category
  • Create multiple ways to sort your content

Note: Besides writing a blog post to highlight your top articles, you will likely have to work with your web designer to implement the rest of the suggestions. These will be relatively small changes that will make a big improvement in your site, and are worth the investment! Plus, if you have your web designer help you with the changes, it will help save a lot of time in the future because the feature will be built in to your content management system.

Simple steps to archive outdated content

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Keep older articles that are the most popular and archive the rest.

Keep older articles that are the most popular and archive the rest.

Have you ever looked up contact information from a 20-year-old Yellow Pages directory?

I didn’t think so.

And why not? Because the information is probably outdated. A lot has happened since then: businesses have added new locations, moved, gone out of business, and new ones have sprung up.

A lot has happened with your organization since then too. In the digital age, 20- or even 10-year-old content is ancient history. When you first established your website, you were likely looking for anything and everything to post, and this could have included information, resources, and stories from the 90’s. Think about it: that’s 20+ years ago now – an entire new generation has come of age since then!

Your website shouldn’t be the database for every article, story, press release, video, etc. that was produced by your organization. It should be a showcase of your best work. Sometimes this may include information that’s a few years old, but you do need to have a system for archiving dated material.

 

To do:

1. Identify evergreen content. These are the best pieces you want to showcase: information about your organization, a collection of stories and resources that never get old, studies your organization did that are often cited, etc. This content will need to be refreshed from time to time (if your most recent success story is 8 years old, people will be wondering if you’ve lost your charm!), but for the most part you shouldn’t have to update these pieces of content too often. This should be a fairly short list – remember, you want to showcase you best work, not everything you’ve ever done.

2. Identify content that will get dated quickly. This includes time-sensitive announcements (such as a new staff member joining the team), information about events, blog posts and resources related to current events, and e-newsletter archives.

3. Decide how old is “too old” for your content. The time frame depends on how much content you produce and how time-sensitive your materials are. You may have different time frames for each category of content. For example, you may archive your past e-newsletters after six months but keep your success stories for as long as four years.

4. Look at the statistics for your content in the past year. This can help you decide how long to keep your content. If people have mostly visited your stories from the past two years, then that might be a good marker. If only two people have visited your e-newsletter archives, perhaps you don’t even need to include them on your website at all. Looking into your analytics can also help you find older content that is still popular. If an older article or resource is still bringing a lot of traffic to your site, make an exception to your “dated content” rule.

5. Create a plan to archive your content. Who is responsible for archiving? What are the steps to archive content? Which content needs to be archived, and when?