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Image by author, September 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\nThe squinting was worth it for all the lovely data.<\/p>\n
I know or have interacted personally with a high percentage of my audience at one time or another, so why would my tone be impersonal and stiff when writing for them?<\/p>\n
Too often, I come across industry press that reads like an undergraduate\u2019s dissertation.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I am writing about an industry where some companies are described as \u201c500-pound gorillas\u201d and where a market downturn can lead me to use the word \u201ctrillion\u201d next to the word \u201cdollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers and quotes your content needs will be out there somewhere.<\/p>\n
Your readership and the search engines will appreciate you taking the time to dig around the internet to find and present them without the needlessly big words.<\/p>\n
At the start of this year, I spent two hours at the end of every day finding the financial and operational metrics for all publicly traded real estate portal companies worldwide for the last four years.<\/p>\n
Incredibly tedious work, no doubt, but it\u2019s a unique set of data that allowed me to show expertise as someone who is still relatively new to a high-value industry.<\/p>\n
SEO benefits of combining \u201cneed to know, hard to find\u201d data with a less formal tone:<\/p>\n
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- It allows you to show expertise, especially if you are new to the niche.<\/li>\n
- Addressing your readers informally can help build community and repeat engagement, especially if combined with a personalized newsletter.<\/li>\n
- Collecting stats is the first step toward building graphs and visuals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Avoid Numbers In A Paragraph. It\u2019s All About Visuals<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019ve taken the time to get the \u201cneed to know, hard to find\u201d data, don\u2019t waste it by just writing numbers in a paragraph.<\/p>\n
When I had to read industry news in a previous job, I ignored numbers in a paragraph.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest (and, on reflection, most apparent) lessons from my last two-and-a-half years of telling people about property portal performance is: Neither does anyone else.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the subconscious, lizard-brain stuff about humans preferring to look at images than text \u2013 graphs help readers contextualize numbers instantly and boost engagement rate.<\/p>\n
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Image from OnlineMarketplaces.com, September 2022<\/span><\/div>\nIf you can\u2019t be bothered making a graphic, maybe the numbers aren\u2019t worth including.<\/p>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
We found that our articles with at least one graph have a 34% better session duration than those that are just plain text.<\/p>\n
It might take longer and mean learning to use Photoshop, but using data in some good quality images with proper alt attribution will go a long way with search engines. It can be the difference between the #2 blue link and the featured snippet.<\/p>\n
SEO benefits of taking the time to build graphs and visual resources:<\/p>\n
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- Users will stay on your page if they have some eye candy.<\/li>\n
- If you give them relevant titles and Alt attribution, Google will index your graphs and images, and you\u2019ll see a traffic boost from Google Image search.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Word of warning here. We used a plugin that rendered all our graphs using Javascript. That meant Google wasn\u2019t indexing them as images, and they were slowing our pages down.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of plugins out there that make nice-looking graphs. You might want to use one to build graphs in the back end and then use a screenshot image on the front end.<\/p>\n
Opinions Make For Lively Content And Can Lead To Links<\/h2>\n
Good creators read a lot, and they replicate what engages them.<\/p>\n
I try to read a lot outside of my industry and have a board where I keep any niche content I particularly enjoy. Most of the articles on that board take a side and advocate for something.<\/p>\n
Invariably, a writer\u2019s subtle expression of their opinion makes for more engaging copy.<\/p>\n
My boss, for example, has a lot of opinions about our niche.<\/p>\n
I recorded one of our conversations and put it on YouTube \u2013 it generated a lot of feedback and led to a counter-argument interview with another industry notable.<\/p>\n
If your opinion is contrived, aimed at selling something, and not sustained throughout your work, you might as well not bother.<\/p>\n
I have another board named \u201cHow not to write.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five out of the first ten entries have been put in there to express the incredibly bland opinion that \u201cPropTech is the future of the property industry\u201d \u2013 an opinion that is probably aimed at selling something.<\/p>\n
Maybe you want to see more equality in your niche. Perhaps you want to see faster adoption of technology, or, like some people in my niche, you are strongly anti-monopoly.<\/p>\n
Whatever your position, express it consistently, carefully, and preferably with some humor, and you\u2019ll have people asking you to repeat it on their blog, podcast, or social media.<\/p>\n
SEO benefits of lacing your niche content with some subtle opinions:<\/p>\n
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- When expressed consistently and appropriately, opinions can lead to content collaboration opportunities.<\/li>\n
- Opinions make your content lively, build community, and increase engagement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Pro tip<\/strong>: The trick here is to know the time and place for a sprinkling of opinion. Don\u2019t let your opinions define your publication!<\/p>\n
Keep Detailed Records Of Your Output, Analyze It, Adjust It, and Repeat<\/h2>\n
The data I\u2019ve collected from our site over the last two-and-a-half years shows that when it comes to the types of news articles we cover, there is an almost inverse relationship between Google traffic and how much companies want you to write them up.<\/p>\n
Stories about M&A do well, as do any stories about redundancies or controversy. Stories based on straight-laced company press releases about a new product or partnership do poorly.<\/p>\n
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Image by author, September 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\nNot all news is created equal. Word count, category, day of the week, number of visuals, companies mentioned, where you shared it, who amplified \u2013 it\u2019s all data you should be recording and analyzing.<\/p>\n
I might get a few groans from freelancers I work with when I ask them to fill in all the information, but that data tells me what works and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
SEO benefits of keeping detailed records of your content output:<\/p>\n
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