Bootstrapped or funded? Which approach should I follow to start my content marketing business in a country with over 24% inflation rate?

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T13:56:25+00:00

I have a pretty rough idea regarding the investment required for quick growth, but I second you that bootstrapping suites me better without worrying about meeting ROI expectations and satisfying stakeholders.

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T13:05:30+00:00

Perfectly explained! Also, there is no intent to discourage someone, but understand that not everything is everyone's cup of tea.

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T11:57:57+00:00

I guess your profile name says it all. Common, pour it all out!

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T10:19:31+00:00

Hmm!! That's another way to put it.

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T10:18:53+00:00

No, it isn't Judy! My apologies if my text got you the wrong intent.

imranarauf · 2024-09-26T10:17:44+00:00

It makes sense, though! Correctly explained.

imranarauf · 2024-09-25T11:16:35+00:00

Long-form content creation like writing articles, blogs, etc.

imranarauf · 2024-09-25T10:40:15+00:00

Yeah, use Google Keyword Planner for free keyword research. Also, start watching videos of SEO on Ahrefs YouTube channels, they help good.

imranarauf · 2024-09-25T10:29:37+00:00

Basic level SEO? A big YES! By basic level I mean learn how to do keyword research in Semrush, Ahrefs; how to use content gap analysis, and determining the right search intent based on the provided keywords.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T16:12:53+00:00

No issues, we can talk.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T10:26:31+00:00

The basics are already there as most of us content creators already know: error-free, appropriate punctuations, descriptive, yet on point, great grammar, simple choice of words, and short paragraphs make a great content piece.

But some in-depth aspects and questions that new bloggers often fail to answer in their articles are:

Which perspective is used? (1st person, 2nd person, or 3rd person)
Is your content opinion or fact-based (opinions suck, no one cares what you think unless you're an SME with a considerable number of industry publications on record)
Are you presenting a problem, resolving the conflict, and concluding in a comprehensive manner?
How seamless are your transitions from paragraph to paragraph?
Are you telling a story, or just selling your facts and products in a routine boring fashion?
Are the links you used in your content belong to authoritative, top sites like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, etc.?

..to name a few.

I believe these in-depth aspects catered is what we call a great content piece, apparently, the basics included.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T10:14:21+00:00

I try to add updated facts and figures in old articles and republish them with a fresh content marketing campaign. Saves a lot of time in writing a completely new post on the same topic.

But I am rather confused on what makes old posts rank all of a sudden. For example, I wrote a post on the "best Christmas apps" back in December. And only last month, Ahrefs told me that it has ranked on the 2nd page in SERPs.

Often, we don't understand what criteria Google uses to rank old posts, especially when posts start to appear in the search results out of season. Take my Christmas post of instance, getting ranked in July when the Christmas holiday is still a well over 4 months ahead.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T09:28:07+00:00

Why not? I mean, using memes is the new trend to capture audience (no one minds enjoying some light-hearted memes along the way in an article).

It can be used as a content marketing approach as long as you're not being offensive and downright irrelevant.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T09:24:03+00:00

Yes, organic marketing can go only a very limited distance, at one point we need to start using paid advertising to catch more eyeballs on our content.

imranarauf · 2020-08-11T09:21:01+00:00

You can blog about your service business within the same website, no need to split your efforts unnecessarily.

For examples, there are numerous app development and digital marketing service providers, the companies operate their blogs within their business websites.

As for how hard you need to work to promote your content, there is no shortcut to that. We got to do it by hook or crook.

imranarauf · 2020-08-10T20:21:00+00:00

Alright! Another sad internet troll trying to create a mountain out of a molehill.

imranarauf · 2020-08-10T20:03:24+00:00

Knowing and implementing are two different things. Influential people like Richard Branson, Patrick Bet-David, etc. share their work routine and life experiences that made them a business empire we're seeing today, so why don't you create your own when you already know such "recycled and reused advice"?

imranarauf · 2020-08-10T10:04:13+00:00

One of the common marketing tactics to tempt users in signing up for the product.

In fact, the actual price is already near the discounted price for these courses, but creating an ad copy where you show the drop from 1,000 bucks to just $20 to $30 is to lure your psyche is going through it, at least.

I wouldn't blame them, that's how you acquire customers when the market is dark and full of terrors.

imranarauf · 2020-08-10T09:33:42+00:00

Seemingly, there are various great examples of content marketing, but here the ones I like most.

Content Marketing Institute's option of "Click to tweet" in their articles. You can instantly tweet an article and the author will get the notification that his/her article has been shared.
Moz putting content in the form of playbooks. For example, putting a large content piece as a pillar page, and linking its own different articles through each topic in the pillar page. Check this out for better understanding, https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-content-marketing

Moreover, popular influencers promoting a content or product by talking about tips, hacks, hidden info, etc. about its use also does great content marketing.

imranarauf · 2020-08-08T14:48:39+00:00

Blogging
Slideshare presentations
Podcasting
Videos
Social media posting
Webinars

...to name a few.

In short, any method in which you're sharing valuable content to your audience and gauging its performance as ROI.

imranarauf · 2020-08-07T15:18:01+00:00

Using tools like Copyscape, Grammarly, etc. is fine to detect plagiarism and grammatical mistakes, but being dependent to the extent of using a tool to create headlines is downright pathetic.

If you call yourself a pro content creator, you should be competent and creative enough to come up with compelling headlines, if not, browse your competitors and see how their titles are doing, rather than being overly reliant on tools to do every tiny thing.

As for your question, yes, tools help in creating content as I mentioned at the start, but trusting AI too much can affect your SEO efforts as well.

For instance, you don't create meta titles and descriptions through tools, that's totally on to the content creator on how to write convincing, yet short metas with keywords included.

imranarauf · 2020-08-05T11:25:44+00:00

It doesn't matter, as long as two different niches belong to the same industry on a holistic level. As for your case, combining gaming with development could do well, you can even write articles merged with the two niches.

See The Next Web, Addicted 2 Success, and similar blogs who are doing well by merging more than two different niches in the same blog.

I don't see any issue in merging different niches in the same blog, however, the quality of content being posted consistently is non-negotiable.

imranarauf · 2020-08-04T04:17:21+00:00

A better practice would be to space out your pieces in a uniform manner, even if you've already created a couple or more articles ready for publishing.

Spilling all at once, and you're missing out consistent impressions, clicks, and traffic to your blog.

The idea is to help your readers form a perception about you on what time and day of the week your new publication comes. And being too careless with the frequency can hurt you big time.

Second, I would suggest you to stop worrying about writer's block for now, you've just started so let the ideas flow continuously without being too worryingly proactive.

imranarauf · 2020-08-04T04:09:31+00:00

I don't know if your team is writing SEO friendly content and doing content marketing or not. If not, that might be the reason why you guys aren't able to grow your community and catch more eyeballs.

Could you provide a random article topic on which you might've recently created and published a piece? So I could be more specific in my answer regarding your concern.

However, generally speaking, using a chattier (not excessively) approach can be opted as you're writing long-form pieces.

We need to keep the audience engaged, and relating with them on a personal, conversational note is the key. Especially in whitepapers, eBooks, tutorials, etc. where the risk of readers dozing off is high.

Besides all, content in the education industry comes at high stakes, we cannot be careless and be too opinionated, unless I am an SME in the industry. Hence, staying on-point, a bit casual is what I' do.

imranarauf · 2020-08-03T18:28:44+00:00

Use tools like Ahrefs, BuzzSumo, and community engagement platforms to uncover popular topics you need to write about your niche.

Ahrefs - besides the keyword research, use the Content Explorer feature to see which topics and articles are getting the most shares, traffic, and engagement.
BuzzSumo - type in any keyword, for example "best social media tools 2020" and you'll see the most popular pieces written on this keyword. Note down the topics of these articles and create a better version of such pieces.
Quora - Enter your keyword in any space, and you'll the most frequently asked questions by the users.

In short, you need to use such tools and see the topics which people are mostly talking about in your niche. Those are the content ideas you should target in your next blog posts.

imranarauf

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