Be a Better Copywriter: 7 Lessons From 4 Legendary Books

Although digital copywriting is relatively new, copywriting has been used for hundreds of years to sell products.

Some of the best books on copywriting I have ever read were written decades ago. Some are even older than that.

And it’s a shame that they don’t get the attention they deserve—mainly because we often equate new with better.

But a lot of the new marketing and copywriting lessons and techniques you read about on blogs aren’t new at all.

In this article, I’m going to break down seven lessons from the following four books:

• Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
• Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
• Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz
• Cashvertising by Drew Eric Whitman

In my mind, these four books have all achieved legendary status.

Every section of each book is gold, which is why I encourage you to read them.

That being said, I’ve picked out some of the most important lessons that I think will apply to your online marketing and business. I’ll bring any dated advice into the 21st century with some current examples of it in action.

Let’s get started… 

1. You should read the rest of this article because it’ll make you a better copywriter

Animals instinctively react to certain noises in a specific way because more often than not, that action pays off.

It turns out that even though humans might be a little higher on the sophistication scale, they too have these automatic reactions.

Dr. Ellen Langer, a renowned social scientist, conducted a study in 1978 to find out how everyday people react to certain words. She had actors approach a line of people waiting to use a Xerox (copy) machine. She instructed them to use one of the following three sentences to try to get in front of the line:

1. Request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”
2. Real information: “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
3. Nonsense information: “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make copies?”

What do you think happened?

When no reason was given, 60% of people still allowed the actor to go ahead of them and use the Xerox machine. I’m a little surprised that it was that high.

What about when the actors said they were in a rush? Ninety-four percent of people let them go ahead.

Wow.

So, clearly you just need to come up with a great reason and you can get what you want, right?

Not quite. The final line that the actors used produced some surprising results. An incredible 93% of people still let them skip ahead.

Go back and read the line they used (#3). Their reason for jumping the line was because they needed to make copies… But of course, they needed to make copies! Why else would they want to use the copy machine?

So what can we conclude about this? It turns out that people—when not paying close attention—often follow simple scripts, just like animals.

In this case, since the favor was fairly small, the people followed this script:

favor asked > reason given > comply

But there’s one thing I left out: another part of the experiment was making a larger request. The actors used the same lines but asked to copy 20 instead of five pages.

When they did this, the actors had the following success rates:

• Request only: 24%
• Real information: 42%
• Nonsense information: 24%

In this case, the request was large enough to get people to consciously pay attention and evaluate the request. Since the last explanation was silly, it made no difference in people’s response rate compared to the request-only scenario.

Here’s the conclusion: When making a small request of readers, give any reason why they should do it.

For example:

• Could you share this article on Twitter because I would like more people to see it?
• You should read the rest of this because…(hint: go look at the headline for this section)
• Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

Does that make sense?

Let’s look at using “because” in action.

I’ve noticed that Pat Flynn has used this in his post introductions in the past. For the long posts (asking more), he comes up with detailed (good) reasons why the reader should read:

If it was a shorter post, he could give a briefer and less convincing reason.

The reason why “because” works is because people like to have a reason for what they’re doing. It just seems logical.

You can use this concept in blog posts, landing pages, widgets, social media, or even in emails.

I took a look at Brian Dean’s latest sales page for his course. He used the word “because” a whopping 17 times:

Does it have to be “because”? I know you’re thinking it, and it’s a great question. That original experiment only tested the word “because,” but the conclusion shows that the word doesn’t really matter.

It’s the principle that matters.

For small requests, as long as you provide a reason (any reason), readers will be more likely to comply.

2. Your product matters more than your talent

Have you ever heard the phrase:

He could sell ice to an Eskimo.

It’s often used to describe the perfect salesman: the guy who could sell someone something that they don’t need.

If there was one lesson from Scientific Advertising that you should take to heart (there are many), it’s this:

The main reason for a lack of success from advertising is selling people what they do not want.

If your conversion isn’t good, chances are it’s not because you’re not an expert salesman.

Sure, being good at selling will help you maximize your conversion rate, but the main factor behind your conversion rate is the value you provide:

So why does this matter to you and your business?

The next time you see that you conversion rates aren’t great, take a hard look at your offer.

You don’t need to read more blog posts about the latest tips and techniques to make a great landing page. You need to learn more about your visitors.

And this goes for anything, not just a landing page. If you’re trying to get visitors to click something, watch something, sign up for something… anything that requires them to give up something valuable (email address, money, a lot of time), you need to provide value.

If people aren’t signing up for your email list, instead of trying a different color button, try a different lead magnet. The more your visitors want it, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Is learning about selling and CRO pointless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that CRO and sales techniques are useless, but they are a much smaller part of the puzzle than the value you provide.

You’ll be better off:

1. knowing exactly whom you’re targeting (hint: build a buyer persona)
2. testing different offers (find out what they value)

After you’ve done that and achieved a solid conversion rate, then start split testing your headlines, copy, and buttons.

3. Successful marketing is not guesswork

Another lesson from Scientific Advertising I wanted to include in this post is this:

Successful marketing does not involve guessing. Ever.

It sounds simple, but many “marketers” spout BS about their results without ever measuring the impact of their work.

Let me share a few stats with you…

Almost 80% of marketers do not directly track their email ROI. That’s shocking. Email marketing is one of the easier types of marketing to track.

A study found that only 44% of companies are able to measure paid search ROI effectively.

That just gives you an indication of how much low-quality work is out there. If traffic goes up over a few months, how do you know you had anything to do with it if you didn’t track it? You don’t.

If you don’t track your ROI, you could be throwing money down the drain by pursuing marketing methods that don’t produce tangible results while missing real opportunities.

Step 1: Start tracking

If you’re a marketer, you should be tracking everything you do on a client’s or your company’s site. If you’re a site owner, this would be a good time to start.

Having too much data is better than not having enough.

What do you need to track?

At the very minimum, you need to track:

• money spent
• conversions

That’s it. You can do that with free software such as Google Analytics, or you can get a little more advanced with KISSmetrics.

But what about referral traffic, search engine traffic, click-through rate on ads, etc.?

The answer is that you sometimes need to track them, and it’s usually a good idea to track them all the time. It really depends on your focus.

If 95% of your conversions come from PPC ads, then search engine traffic isn’t a big concern.

The good news is that most of this data is collected automatically by your analytics software or ad platform.

Step 2: Determine marketing ROI

Return on investment is a simple concept. You can calculate it with a simple formula:

ROI = ($ of profit)/($ of cost) * 100%

If you’re tracking your ad spend, content cost, or whatever your marketing campaign consists of, figuring out the cost is easy.

Assuming you’re tracking your sales correctly through your analytics software, it’s also fairly easy to see which sales came from your campaign.

A marketing ROI of 5-10% is your goal, but if you’re able to exceed that, you’re doing great.

Step 3: Revise marketing strategy based on ROI 

The results of a marketing campaign will tell you if you need to adjust your marketing strategy.

If you break even on your ROI, you can usually continue the campaign. Once you optimize it, you can typically achieve profitability.

If you get a negative ROI, your time and resources are probably better spent on other marketing tactics. Re-adjust your overall marketing strategy to reflect this.

4. Commit your prospect to buying

Are you a hypocrite?

Ask anyone, and they will tell you: “Of course, not!”

Which is strange when you consider that hypocrites are everywhere. In fact, most people (including myself) can point out an instance when their behavior might have been hypocritical.

So, what does this all mean? It means that sometimes people behave like hypocrites without even realizing it. But if you brought their beliefs to their attention right before that potential hypocritical action, they wouldn’t take that action.

This is a principle called consistency, explained in Cialdini’s Influence.

People like to act consistently with their principles and beliefs.

And it makes sense. The reason why we believe in and value things is because we think we’re right—we think we know what’s logical and important. So, of course, we’re going to try to act consistently with those principles and beliefs whenever we get the chance.

Use consistency in your copy: Before you ask a reader to do anything (share, answer, purchase), mention a related principle or belief. Sometimes you don’t even need to mention it explicitly. All you need to do is frame your request in terms of that principle or belief.

This is a lesson that I’ve seen many bloggers pick up on fairly recently, particularly in pop-ups.

For example, if you go to ConversionXL, you get the following pop-up:

If you’re at the blog, it’s because you’re interested in learning about optimization from some of the best pros on the topic.

It’s easy to brush off most pop-ups, but when you actually have to choose: “No, I prefer to suck at optimization,” it changes things. To choose that option, you’d have to act against your primary motivation.

Of course, exiting the pop-up doesn’t mean you suck at optimization, but this phrase alone will help the site collect an extra percent or two of its visitors’ email addresses.

5. ALL people care about these 8 things

Humans are complicated, right?

Everyone’s their own special snowflake, right?

Not quite.

Although each of us is unique in some way, we share many of the same traits.

In Cashvertising, Whitman lists the “life force 8”, which are 8 motivations of all people. At our core, we’re driven by the same things, and you can use that to write better copy.

Here are the life force 8 motivations:

1. Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension.
2. Enjoyment of food and beverages.
3. Freedom from fear, pain, and danger.
4. Sexual companionship.
5. Comfortable living conditions.
6. To be superior, winning, keeping up with the Jones.
7. Care and protection of loved ones.
8. Social approval.

We’ve known for a long time that people buy based on emotion, not logic.

If you can relate your product to any of the life force 8 factors, you can stir up emotions in your reader that will help you improve your sales and conversion rates.

I’m going to break down each of the life force 8 motivations and give you examples of how you can use them in your marketing.

1. Survival comes first: Unless someone has a mental health issue, they will do almost anything to survive.

You might have heard of or seen the movie 127 Hours. It’s based on Aron Ralston’s real-life adventure. He was exploring a canyon in Utah when he slipped and his arm became trapped between a bolder and a wall.

After exhausting all possibilities and unable to free himself, Ralston thought he was going to die. But he didn’t. Ralston amputated his own arm with a dull blade.

People will go to great lengths to survive.

If you have a product that could potentially save someone’s life, show it. If you can get a visitor to see themselves in a dangerous situation, you’ll make your sale much easier.

In one article on the Home Security Superstore website, the author writes about how pepper spray can be used to protect oneself:

Our first example today is from San Diego where a man grabbed a female pedestrian from a local roadside and sexually assaulted her until she pepper sprayed him and broke free. The assailant jumped the woman as she was leaving her car. After she sprayed him he let her go and ran off.

If you’re a guy, you might not understand how much of a common fear this is. In big cities, particularly in certain areas, assault of any kind is a serious risk for (typically) smaller women.

Every time a woman reads the above passage, it brings her very real fear to life.

They soon get to the end of the article, which has multiple links to products and reviews on the site:

Guess what most readers will do now?

If you guessed go to the store and check out pepper sprays, you’re right.

I think a short video illustration would be even more effective. The more “real” you can make it seem, the more emotional your reader will be.

2. Food is an easy sell: We are wired to like food. It’s not surprising that as food has become easier to get and more reliable to produce, people have gotten more obese.

If you have a delicious food product, you should have a pretty easy time selling it.

Describe the flavor and experience of eating your product, and people will be ready to buy it in an instant. Pictures or video will make it easy for people to imagine the taste.

Even though pizza commercials haven’t changed much in decades, they still work. All they need to do is show a few different types of pizzas, and the goal is accomplished. For example:

Are you hungry now?

However, you can easily apply this offline as well. If you do marketing for a bakery, offer free samples to people walking by. After one bite, most people won’t be able to resist walking inside and buying something. This is a big part of many big bakery chains’ marketing plans.

Finally, don’t be afraid to associate your product with food. Food will get your visitors’ attention, and if you can convince them that your product will make their meal better, they’ll buy. You can sell, for example, cookware, dishware, furniture, TVs (to watch while eating), etc.

3. No one likes fear or pain: People go to great lengths to avoid pain, and fear is just an extension of pain. Being afraid is natural when you think something bad is about to happen.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that fears and pains are based on physical problems—just as many are mental.

Again, anything you can do to clarify fears and pains and then show how your product can relieve them will help sales.

Take Logitech for example. They know that most parents fear leaving their children with babysitters, even those they trust. That’s why they market their home security cameras by speaking directly to this fear:

4. No one wants to be alone: If you’ve ever stepped foot into an Internet marketing forum, you know how popular the dating niche is. Online dating is a $2.1 billion industry.

Although most products don’t directly help people find a partner, many help indirectly. Think about products and services such as:

• clothes
• gyms/fitness classes
• personal trainers
• cosmetics
• flower shops

Basically, any product that can be framed as a tool to help you appear more appealing to the opposite sex, will awaken an emotional response.

When you see an advertisement for a gym, do you see overweight, unfit people in it? No, you see attractive models, and you feel the desire to look like them.

5. Comfort is underrated: “Comfortable living conditions” is what Whitman calls it, but I like to think of it more as a lack of stress.

Think about a time where you weren’t sure how you were going to pay rent or worried that you were going to be laid off. These are extremely stressful and worrying times. And at those times, you would have given anything to know that your bills were taken care of and that you had a steady income.

If your product helps solve a problem for people in uncomfortable situations, show it.

This is really what the insurance industry is all about. They portray their products to make you feel anxious if you don’t have them.

6. People like to win: Even though we might try not to, we constantly compare ourselves to others. We look at others to see:

• how much money they make
• how big their house is
• how happy they are
• and so on…

This is one of the biggest factors behind word-of-mouth marketing.

It’s one of the hardest emotional drivers to market to, but it can be done if you have a “high status” product.

Essentially, you need to create a product or brand that, when seen, will make others envious and cause them to want to purchase it.

Apple has done this extremely well by making electronics that are slightly more expensive than those of competitors’ but with a great look.

Everyone knows that Apple products are stylish, which is why people stand in massive lines for each product release. People want the latest product that puts them ahead of the curve:

7. We protect one another: Just as we don’t want to be alone, we also don’t want those close to us to be taken away from us or hurt.

One way of marketing your product is to tie it to the happiness of others.

In the weeks leading up to all major consumer holidays, including Valentine’s Day, companies frame their products as a way for you to show the people in your life you care about them.

8. People just want to be accepted: Yes, people want to be loved and to find a mate, but they also just want to be accepted and liked by others.

You can tap into this by marketing your product as a way for your site visitors to fit in with others or become part of a tight-knit group.

One great example of this is Tough Mudder. It’s a company that puts on insane obstacle courses. People run through water and mud, and over massive obstacles. But the real appeal is the comradery:

The event requires you to sign up and complete the challenge as a team.

In essence, the company is offering an experience that makes you think along the lines of:

“Yes, I’m paying for something that’s grueling, painful, and unpleasant. But we’re doing it together, so it’ll be fun. We’ll help each other, suffer together, and celebrate in the end together.”

6. Simplicity always wins

The hardest thing for most marketers to understand is that your visitors don’t have the same level of knowledge as you do.

You’ve likely spent years reading about marketing and learning about your product or service. This makes it really easy to talk over the head of your visitors.

The problem is that if a visitor can’t understand what you’re offering, they won’t buy.

Whitman summarizes the 4 concepts of successful simple writing in Cashvertising. Here’s my take on them:

1. Use short, simple words. There’s no need for fancy, rarely-used words. Whitman recommends writing at a 5th grade reading level. I actually write at just below a 4th grade level. You can test your writing level by pasting some of your writing into this online calculator.
2. The shorter your sentences, the better. I rarely write long sentences because that’s when they get confusing. Try to limit sentences to 10-15 words.
3. The short, short paragraph trick. Whitman correctly advises to limit regular paragraphs to 4-5 short sentences. Having even fewer is better. Most of my paragraphs consist of 1-2 sentences, which makes skimming easier.
4. Pile on personal pronouns (e.g., I, you, me, he, she, him, they, them, etc.). Writing in a conversational tone helps you connect with your readers. It helps your writing feel personal instead of it sounding like another corporate message.

While all these rules apply to print copy, they apply even more to web writing. I’ve addressed similar points in the past.

7. How to stand out from (any) competition

The final lesson is from Breakthrough Advertising, and it’s about 4 states of sophistication.

In plain terms, that means that there are 4 stages that a market can develop into. They go from stage 1 to 4:

1. You are first in your market: When you’re the absolute first to cover a topic or create a product, your copy can be simple and direct.

Put the need your product fulfills, or a claim of what it does, in the headline. That’s all you need to do to attract attention.

For example, when SEO was first starting to get popular, a simple 400-word article with “What is SEO?” in the headline was all that was needed to get traffic:

2. Second in your market: If you’re not quite the first, but you’ve caught a topic early, just take the direct claim a bit further.

For example, Buffer’s guide to beginner SEO talks about how search engines work at a basic level. It’s a good explanation of why SEO is important and how it essentially works.

3. Prospects have heard all the claims, all the extremes: Once most visitors know the basics, you need to include more practical information to sell them your product or servce.

In other words: show, don’t tell.

A guide to SEO on Search Engine Land goes through all the basics of how SEO works using videos, text, and pictures. But the creators go one step further and include links to SEO tactics and techniques.

4. Elaboration and enlargement: Once everyone meets those minimum standards, you need to go all out. You need to expand on all aspects of the content or product and make it better.

You could make it easier, quicker, more reliable, simpler, or add extra useful features to it.

To continue with our example, the SEO niche is pretty advanced now. When I created the “Advanced Guide to SEO,” I included everything about the topic. There were tons of current tactics that worked, accompanied by step-by-step instructions.

These 4 stages are essentially the Skyscraper Technique in action, except that they were written about many years ago.

Each stage of maturity for a topic or product raises the bar. Make things substantially better, and you will get attention from customers.

Either create something before it gets popular, or take it to the next level.

Conclusion

I’d like to finish this article by giving you one additional lesson: you can learn a lot from the past.

Whenever you’re learning about a new subject, whether it’s copywriting, marketing, design, or something completely different, don’t head to the most popular blogs right away.

Instead, read through some of the highest rated books of the past, no matter how old they are. You’ll learn about how some of the fundamental concepts of the field came to be. It’s those lessons that you can build upon so that you can become more adept in a particular field.

I’ve given you seven lessons that are jam-packed with useful copywriting and marketing knowledge, but I haven’t even scraped the surface of these four legendary books.

If you learned a few new things from this article, I strongly encourage you to read or re-read any or all of those books.

What other copywriting and marketing books have you read and loved? Let me know in a comment below because I’m really curious.

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Don’t Get Fooled: 17 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO Company

Pretty scary, right?

Hiring SEO help can make or break your company.

A good SEO will get you on the path to making tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, but a bad SEO could cripple any existing search traffic you get.

It’s important to choose carefully, and that’s what I want to show you how to do today.

If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO company, I’ve put together 17 questions that can help you make the right choice.

You should ask these questions before hiring anyone so you know exactly what to expect.

Finally, you don’t need to ask all of these questions, but I’ll explain why each is important so that you can decide if a question is relevant to your situation. 

Types of SEO help

Before we get into the questions, I want to go over the different types of SEOs:

• individual SEO consultants - these are freelancers who offer their SEO services.
• SEO companies/agencies - these companies have teams of SEOs and standardized SEO processes for the most part. They typically work with businesses of a decent size (with budgets of at least a few thousand dollars per month for SEO).
• in-house SEOs - if your business is very large or is growing rapidly, it often makes sense to hire an in-house SEO team. You can set it up yourself or hire an SEO consultant to help put things into place and come up with an initial strategy.

The questions in this post are primarily for the first two types of SEOs.

There is a lot of variation in freelancers and SEO agencies. Some are great, others are terrible.

Here’s what I can say: a great SEO will never charge low prices. If you’re hunting for a discount, chances are you’ll end up with an SEO who cuts corners and hurts your site in the long run.

That being said, a high price doesn’t guarantee quality work either. Many agencies will mark up prices of basic work by an obscene amount. Since most website owners don’t know how to evaluate SEO work, these SEO companies can get away with a lot.

Luckily, you’re not an average website owner.

At the very minimum, just by reading this article, you’ve shown that you’re taking initiative to carefully weed out bad SEOs.

As long as you ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers (I’ll show you how now), you should be able to find an SEO that makes a positive impact on your business.

Ready? Let’s start…

1. How will you improve our search engine rankings?

You don’t get any significant results without a serious SEO strategy.

If you decide to randomly target keywords or to build links, you might see some small sporadic results, but you’ll never see consistent traffic increases.

What this means is that all good SEOs have a process, whether they freelance or work for an agency.

They probably won’t be able to tell you: “We’re going to get links from X, Y, and Z websites.”

What they can tell you, however, is something along the lines of: “We’ll start with an on-site technical SEO audit to identify any areas for quick wins. Then, we’ll identify the best keywords to target.”

Ask about the links: Backlinks have been a big part of search engine algorithms for a long time and will continue to play a big role in the future. All SEOs will “build” links to your website in order to attempt to improve rankings.

As you might know, not all backlinks are created equal.

One good backlink is worth more than thousands of low-quality backlinks.

Low-quality backlinks are the ones that can be automated and are often used for spam link building. Think of the typical gigs you see on Fiverr where you can buy hundreds or thousands of good links for $5-10.

A single good link will cost a minimum of $20, and that’s a best case scenario. Usually, a link from an agency will cost you more than $100 each.

If someone is promising you a large number of links, and it works out to $1 or less per link, run the other way.

2. How will you keep me informed of changes you make to our website?

A good SEO company will send you regular reports. The most common frequency is once per month (typically at the end), but some will send you quick weekly updates as well.

The first thing you’ll need to give an SEO company is access to your website (at least part of it). This is one of the main reasons it’s important to hire an SEO company that you can trust.

You can mitigate any risks, if you like, by having all website changes made by an in-house developer. The obvious consequence is that changes will be made slower, and you will have to make sure there is an open and constant line of communication between your developer and your SEO company.

Some SEO consultants won’t ask for any website changes to be made. If this happens, it’s another red flag. While off-site work is a large part of SEO, on-site work is often more important, especially at the start.

Changes need to be tracked: You need to make sure that your SEO company is diligent about any website changes they make.

If something goes wrong, you need to know exactly what caused it.

If an SEO company says that they track changes internally, that’s not good enough.

Think about what would happen if your SEO freelancer or agency suddenly became non-responsive (yes, it does happen) and you were stuck with a broken or damaged site.

In order for you or an emergency consultant to fix the problem, you need to know what caused it.

Any good SEO company will be prepared to send you a detailed log of any website changes they make.

3. Can you share information on some of your past clients and their results?

Shopping for an SEO company is just like shopping for anything else. You want to see reviews, testimonials, case studies, and who their past clients were.

You shouldn’t expect an SEO company to hand over their entire address book, but most will be happy to give examples of 2-3 big name clients. In addition, they should be able to easily show their results (ideally over a long time period).

If they can’t give you any examples of clients who are legitimate businesses, that’s a pretty big warning sign. Either they weren’t able to deliver for big clients in the past, or they don’t have the experience for that level of SEO.

Then, follow up by asking who their longest active client is: I’ve already mentioned that one of the biggest problems with shady SEO firms is that they use short-term risky tactics.

They want to show clients quick results, not caring if they’re doing anything that jeopardizes the site in the future.

If you’re interviewing an SEO company that has been around for a while and their longest active client has been with them for under a year, that’s a red flag.

A good SEO consultant or team is worth their weight in gold. Good SEO alone can grow a business by 5-15% per month. And I’m talking about on a consistent basis, year after year.

No sane client is going to give up an SEO firm that produces great results unless they decide to build an in-house SEO team or the SEO company decides to end things.

4. Do you always follow Google’s best practices?

Following Google’s (and to a lesser extent Bing’s and Yahoo’s) best practices is crucial to long-term traffic growth.

Google applies approximately 500 algorithm updates per year. All of these updates are for one purpose: to provide better results for searchers.

The guidelines are essentially the “golden rules” of user search, published by each respective search engine.

When you violate the rules, Google isn’t happy.

That’s why it has released certain algorithms that have penalized a large number of manipulative sites. On-page violations are penalized by algorithms such as Panda, while off-page violations are penalized by updates such as Penguin.

When you get hit by one of these, your traffic will be hit hard.

The biggest problem is that it can take months or even years of recovery work (depending on the skill of your next SEO) to correct the penalty. You’ll miss out on tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue during this time, which is why emphasizing the long-term results in SEO is typically best.

5. Which tools do you use?

While many people are under the impression that any SEOs that use tools are “blackhat” SEOs, that’s not the whole story.

The word “tool” typically describes a wide variety of applications when talking about SEO.

Tools allow you to process lots of information in a short amount of time. This can save a ton of time and money, which is good for everybody.

But there are different tools:

• Reporting tools - While reports could be created manually, it’s a lot easier to create a custom report that combines analytics, keyword rankings, and other SEO metrics. Most of the report can be automated, which saves time, plus you know exactly what to expect as a client.

• Link building tools - These allow you to create hundreds or thousands of links with the click of a button and a few proxies (more on these below).
• Technical SEO tools - Tools such as Screaming Frog allow SEOs to crawl large sites quickly for a variety of technical issues. This would take a long time to do manually, and you can often find important problems that need to be fixed.
• Research tools - There are now tools such as BuzzStream that allow you to gather contact information of a large number of people in minutes. These tools in general help you gather prospects and conduct keyword research.

Most of these tools are good. They help you comply with Google’s guidelines for good SEO. However, pure link building tools are bad…very, very bad. (Did I mention that they’re bad?)

These tools are designed to comment on hundreds or thousands of blogs, forums, or web 2.0 websites (think Blogger, Weebly, etc.). These are the lowest quality links you can build, which can easily lead to penalties.

If your SEO company mentions tools such as Xrumer, SE Nuke, or Bookmarking Demon, stay away.

One more tool I want to mention is Scrapebox. Scrapebox can be used for spam blog comments, but it can also be used for legitimate research and reporting activities. If your SEO company specifically mentions Scrapebox, ask for more details on how they use it.

6. What types of SEO work will you do?

This may come up when you ask other questions on this list, but if it hasn’t yet, make sure to ask this question at some point.

There should be at least a basic technical SEO audit done once you hire a company. If this isn’t part of their process, they likely aren’t very good SEOs.

Technical SEO involves all of the background aspects of SEO that search engines still care about. Finding and addressing web crawler errors, 404 pages, redirect problems, and evaluating site navigation are all part of basic technical SEO.

7. Can you guarantee that our site will rank #1 for a major search term?

This is the easiest way to weed out the SEO salesmen from legitimate SEOs.

If an SEO freelancer or company is simply trying to make a sale, they’ll typically be happy to say that they guarantee #1 rankings (in Google).

Here’s the thing though: no one can guarantee #1 rankings every single time—especially not in any specific time period. Here are a few reasons why:

• No SEO knows the exact Google algorithm - Google had a revenue of $17.3 billion in the first three months of 2015. Most of this revenue is only possible because of Google’s search engine. Suffice to say, they protect the exact algorithm closely. If anyone claims to know the exact algorithm, they’re lying. (If you knew the algorithm, you could make way more than you could as an average SEO consultant).

• No one knows how Google’s algorithm will change – Google pushes out more than one algorithm change per day on average. Unless you’re working at Google, you can’t know when or how Google will change in the future. You can certainly guess, but be prepared to be wrong quite often.

• Penalties can come out of nowhere - Penalties can be algorithmic (like from Panda or Penguin) or manual. Google doesn’t often say when certain algorithms will be run. The next Penguin could be run in a week, a month, or a year. In addition, manual reviews and penalties can be triggered at any time.

What all of this means is that while SEOs should be able to increase your search traffic consistently over time, they can’t guarantee specific keyword rankings. If that’s their main promise: run the other way.

There’s one important caveat though: Some SEOs might ask you which keyword you’re targeting or might suggest one. If you’re targeting a very easy keyword, they might offer a guarantee.

Note that offering a guarantee and guaranteeing a #1 ranking are two different things. Offering a guarantee typically means that they expect that you will rank #1 for an easy term, but if they can’t help you do that, they’ll give you some sort of refund.

This type of guarantee is okay although you need to be careful because it might lead to them being overly aggressive to get short term results, which could be dangerous.

8. How often will you report on your work, and what will it look like?

We talked about SEO companies reporting on any website changes they make, but they should also report on their activity and results.

I’d say that you should look for a monthly report—that’s pretty standard. If you prefer a different reporting frequency, most SEOs will try to accommodate you.

All SEO reports should include a few things:

• summary of activities – this should include things such as details about email outreach campaigns, content creating, and how many new links came into the site.
• search traffic – one of the most important markers of progress is an increase in search traffic. A report should show your search traffic for the month as well as the percentage change from last month and last year (the same month).
• search rankings - if you’re targeting any main keywords, you should get a quick update in each report.
• conversions – The most important of all: how many search visitors are converting to the next step(s) in your sales funnel? Without conversion, there is no return on investment, regardless of search traffic quantity.

This question won’t typically help you tell a good SEO from a bad one, but it will tell you what to expect from the company if you hire them. Having clear expectations from the start will minimize frustrations on both sides in the future.

9. What is your payment structure?

Different SEO companies use different payment structures.

It’s important to know how much and when exactly you will need to pay so that you can factor it into your budget.

Because SEO can be done in so many different ways, many consultancies will charge by the project. In fact, according to a Moz survey, 70.1% of SEOs offer project-based pricing. If this is something you’re interested in, you can find someone who offers it. Expect to pay between $1,000 and $7,500.

The survey also revealed that retainers range anywhere from under $500 to $2,501-$5,000. A retainer is a monthly payment that essentially reserves time of an SEO to work on your site.

Another option is to pay by hour, which is a popular option if you’re dealing with freelancers (although agencies also offer it). Expect to pay $76-$200 per hour for a good SEO.

Finally, find out when you’ll have to make your payments. Freelancers typically like to be paid as soon as possible, but paying 30, 60, or even 90 days after an invoice isn’t unheard of. Find out if there is an interest fee for late payments.

10. How will we contact you?

SEO is different from other services in that you don’t typically need to contact your SEO company more than a few times a month.

However, if something does go wrong, or you have an important issue to discuss, you want to be able to get a hold of them as soon as possible.

Find out which methods of communication they prefer, and also tell them yours (they should ask you at some point anyway). Also ask how to contact them in case of emergencies (if the site went down or if search traffic dramatically declined).

11. How will your work tie into our other marketing efforts?

SEO is no longer separate from marketing—it should be one seamless system. It doesn’t always work like that, of course, but that’s the goal.

Because of this, many SEO agencies or consultants have rebranded themselves as digital marketing or inbound marketing specialists.

While they are similar, here’s a quick definition of each:

• inbound marketing - focuses on creating content of all kinds that attracts links, which can then improve search traffic.

• digital marketing - essentially covers all parts of marketing online, including inbound marketing. They will typically have experience in PPC, email marketing, SEO, and other branches of marketing.

So, when you’re looking for an SEO company, don’t automatically rule out agencies that primarily brand themselves as marketing consultancies. They often still have SEO specialists on board but can provide other highly valuable services.

12. What happens if we terminate the contract?

This is for your own protection. It’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into.

Understandably, most SEOs want you to sign on for at least a minimum period (usually at least a few months). It takes time for SEOs to make changes, and it takes even longer for those changes to produce significant results.

At the same time, if your company has a crisis and suddenly can’t afford to pay for SEO services, you need to know your options. (It’s rare but it does happen.)

There are other scenarios in which you would want to break the contract. Maybe you’re disappointed with the work the SEO has produced, or maybe your marketing department wants to focus resources on a different traffic source.

Regardless, find out if there are any fees written into the contract for early termination. Have them changed if you need to.

13. Have you worked with penalized sites? If so, how did you fix them?

Penalties weren’t really part of the SEO landscape until a few years ago.

Instead of penalizing sites for violating certain guidelines, like building backlinks, Google used to devalue the backlinks. Once Google was able to accurately determine which sites were using spam tactics, it started penalizing sites (like with Penguin).

Since 2011 or so, both manual and algorithmic penalties have skyrocketed. If your SEO has been working for at least a few years, they’ve no doubt been involved in working with a penalized site.

Once a site has been hit with a penalty, it’s not easy to recover it. However, good SEOs can still achieve a pretty high success rate.

Find out how successful your potential SEO has been at bringing sites back from the brink as well as how they will prevent those penalties from occurring in the future (to your site).

14. Are you up to date with the latest algorithm changes?

While I told you earlier that Google releases about 500 algorithm changes per year, they aren’t all significant.

Most of them have a very minor impact on any one site.

There are, however, a select group of algorithm updates that were significant enough to deserve being named. All SEOs should be familiar with all of these.

You can see an updated list of algorithms at Search Engine Land:

Ask your SEO to describe a few of them, and then confirm that they know what they’re talking about by reading through those links.

All you’re trying to do here is filter out incredibly inexperienced SEOs or the ones that are just trying to make a quick buck without having much expertise in the field.

I don’t know if it needs to be said, but ask these over Skype/phone or in person so that they can’t just Google an explanation and email it back.

In addition, you want an SEO that stays up to date with SEO news. Ideally, they should be active in forums and other SEO communities.

One way to quickly test this is to ask them to name a few of the most recent major algorithm updates.

Moz keeps an updated list of all major algorithm updates that you can use to check if they’re correct:

It’s not important that they know the exact date of an update, but if they can say: “There was a Panda update in July and a Quality update a few months before that,” they obviously know their stuff.

15. How will your team adapt your strategy to my industry?

In my experience, most small to medium sized business owners are hesitant to invest in SEO because they’re not sure that it will work for their industry.

If that’s you, you’re not necessarily wrong; some SEO strategies and tactics will not work in your industry.

That being said, a good SEO/marketer knows how to adapt an SEO strategy to work for virtually any industry. If you ask them this question, they should be able to address your concerns.

16. How do you determine if you’re successful?

If your expectations are not met, you’ll feel frustrated.

The clearer you are on what to expect from your SEO, and the better they understand what you need from them, the less frustration both of you will experience.

This question is designed to shed some light on how your potential SEOs determine if their work has been successful.

• Do they aim to increase traffic by %X in Y months?
• Do they want to see a %X increase in a specific metric?
• Do they consider themselves successful if they can get a main keyword onto the first page? top 3 rankings? number 1?

Whatever their answer is, it will help you determine if you think a successful result on their end would justify the investment you’re about to make on yours.

Also, ask: “Which metrics do you track?” If this didn’t come up when you asked them about reporting, ask it now.

This is a really easy way to differentiate between experienced, successful SEOs/marketers and the rest.

Pretty much any SEO will include the following:

• keyword rankings
• search traffic
• on-page metrics (bounce rate, time on page, etc.)

But for the most part, only solid firms and freelancers will mention one of two things: either return on investment (ROI) or conversions, possibly both.

Although keyword rankings and traffic increases are nice, they don’t really mean anything. You want traffic that actually builds your business.

Yes, those metrics all go hand-in-hand most of the time, but experienced SEOs and marketers know that they don’t always, which is why more attention needs to go to ROI and/or conversions.

17. Why should we hire you over other SEOs?

This is obviously a very open-ended question. It doesn’t have a right answer.

What you’re really looking for are a few red flag answers. If they respond with anything involving:

• we’re cheaper than other options
• we can build you more backlinks (instead of better quality)
• we don’t know
• we can get you faster results,

then you need to proceed cautiously.

Good SEO will not come cheap. Why? Because as I said, good SEO work can add tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to your bottom line. It is an investment that takes at least a few months to see significant results.

If the SEO you’re interviewing is advising you to cut corners or be extremely aggressive with link building, it’s best to move on to the next candidate.

Ideally, when you ask this question, they will respond by pointing to their track record that should include their past successes, current and past happy clients, and the respect their name and brand have in the industry.

Conclusion

Remember that SEO is a long-term investment.

It’s going to take months before results, or a lack of results, become apparent. One of the biggest reasons why shady SEO firms continue to stay in business is because they aren’t found out for many months.

Many of the 17 questions I’ve laid out for you in this post are designed to help you weed out those shady SEO companies and individuals.

The other questions will help you decide if a particular company offering SEO help is worth hiring for your business.

Use as many or as few of these questions as you need to ensure you find SEO help you can trust.

It may be a pain, but trust me, a good SEO team can be essential to building a business to 7 figures or more.

If you have any questions about these points, or if you think I forgot to mention something important on the topic, leave me a comment below.

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18 Tools for Better Content Creation: Improve Your Writing with Less Effort

I create an immense amount of content.

Currently, I post one massive blog post every weekday, plus I do guest posting. And I have other work too.

The main thing I pride myself on is creating high quality content.

In order to create a high volume of high quality content, you need to be as efficient as possible. 

I’ve shared a few of my secrets with you in the past, but today I’m going to show you a collection of great tools that will help you create better content.

If you use the right tools, you can create better content and more content and do it with ease. That’s the power of using great tools.

Tools go a long way in solving the most common problems of content marketers:

Producing enough content and creating engaging content are the two challenges that affect over 50% of B2B marketers. Similar surveys for marketers in general have found that almost half of marketers struggle with producing enough of engaging content.

In addition, 70% of marketers want to create more content this year than they did last year, which makes this problem even more significant.

Here’s the thing: Tools won’t solve everything, but they’ll get you on the right path.

Some marketers have realized that tools could really help them. Fifty-six percent of marketers use some sort of content marketing tools in their content workflow.

The problem? Only 23% of marketers are satisfied with the variety and quality of tools available to them. Most are either unimpressed (neutral at 65%) or dissatisfied.

While there is definitely room for new and improved tools to come out, there are some great content creation tools out there already. You just need to know what they are.

Luckily, I’ve done some ground work for you. The 18 tools that I’m going to show you in this article are all excellent tools.

See if any of them can eliminate some of your current content bottlenecks, and give them a shot. I promise you can find at least a couple of tools worth your time.

Tools for a great headline

A headline is usually only 5-15 words long, or less than 1% of most articles. And yet, I spend a lot of time writing about how to create better headlines for your content:

• 10 Ways To Create High Converting Headlines
• The Formula for a Perfect Headline
• The Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Powerful Headlines

Writing great headlines is the single skill that separates okay writers from great writers, at least when it comes to content marketing.

We know that on average, eight out of 10 people will read your headline. But only two out of 10 will go on to read the article.

If you can’t capture a reader’s attention with your headline, you’ll lose them to the thousands of other competing pieces of content that have more enticing headlines.

In addition, tests done at Upworthy found that traffic varies by up to 500% based on the headline.

Pick the right headline, and you’ll get five times as much traffic as you would have with a bad headline. Imagine if that difference affected every single article you wrote.

If you had two identical sites—one with mediocre titles and one with great titles—over time, the site with great headlines would leave the other site in the dust.

Suffice to say: the headline is crucial. That’s why I created this section specifically for tools that will help you write better headlines.

1. ContentIdeator headline generator

This headline generator can be used not only to come up with headline ideas but also content ideas.

It’s simple to use. Enter a keyword into the search bar, and press Submit. Give it a second to retrieve results, and scroll down to see a ton of headline ideas.

There are many headline generators out there. But the reason why I like this one is because the titles it produces are actually relevant.

Look at the sample search above: all these titles are clearly SEO-related rather than randomly generated by general title-generators like most tools are.

One important thing to keep in mind – don’t copy these: To be fair, there’re a few solid headlines in most batches of results. However, if you’re using a fairly common keyword, chances are many other marketers are seeing the same titles.

You don’t want to end up using the same headline as someone else.

The more important reason why you shouldn’t copy any of these suggestions is because you can do better. Use these headlines as a starting point and inspiration, and then come up with an even better headline.

2. Emotional Marketing Headline Analyzer

How do you evaluate whether your headline is good or not?

There’re a few different ways to do so, and this tool is one of them.

It may not look fancy, but it gets the job done. Enter your potential headline into the text box, and pick a category from the dropdown menu below. Finally, press Submit:

Once you submit your headline, a new page will load with your EMV (Emotional Marketing Value) Score:

Your EMV score is expressed as a percentage. The maximum possible percentage is obviously 100.

My example headline from an old post scored 60% on the scale. At first, this might seem bad, but when you learn more about how this calculator works, it’s not bad.

From the author’s own explanation (included in the above picture), only top headlines score greater than 50%.

The reason why it’s hard to score high is because the tool works by analyzing your headline for the number of “EMV words” that it contains. EMV words are those typically related to emotion.

The ideal time to use this tool: What this score essentially tells you is how likely your headline is to produce an emotional response.

As you might know, most buying decisions are based on emotion.

It follows then that emotional headlines are most important for landing pages, sales pages, case studies, and reviews—any type of content that would ideally lead to a transaction.

Not all blog posts need to evoke emotion, but for the above situations, this tool is quite handy.

3. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

This tool is very useful for critiquing headlines from a variety of different viewpoints. It’s mostly useful for blog posts but could be used for other content as well.

As you’d expect, you enter a headline into the textbox, and click “analyze now”:

What I like about this tool is how in-depth it is.

Your result will appear on the same page just below your entry. It will start with an overall score:

In a random example headline that I took from a past article, I scored 77.

Again, the maximum score is 100, but it’s also incredibly difficult to get near it.

The actual score that you get doesn’t matter, but the score relative to different headlines does.

What I mean by this is that if you enter in a bunch of old blog posts that score 50 on the tool, don’t aim to get 90 on your next headline, but try to get 55 or 60. Over time, as you get better at writing headlines, your score will keep creeping up.

Eventually, you won’t need the tool to tell you if you have a good headline or not.

Further down, you will see a breakdown of the words within your headline into main categories:

Common words are self-explanatory; they include words such as “that”, “a”, “me”, etc.

It’s good to have some common words in your headline. They’re words that nearly everyone understands.

Uncommon are the opposite: they aren’t used often in everyday writing. It’s okay to have some because they often stand out and attract attention, but don’t go overboard with them because they can make your headline confusing.

The last two types of words are the most important.

Power words (or phrases) are words that cause readers to take action. According to CoSchedule, most great headlines have at least one of these in them:

Finally, there are emotional words. These are the words that are associated with—you guessed it—emotional responses.

In my opinion, there’s some overlap between power words and emotional words, but as long as you have at least a few of one type or the other, you can craft a solid headline:

Become a better writer

If you’re like me, you were never keen on English classes in school.

But while those classes might not have been much fun, they likely taught you something about writing well.

I’m the first to admit that you don’t need to be a great writer to create great web content. My writing is far from perfect, but it clearly does what I need it to.

That being said, you should always try to be a better writer. The better you are at communicating your ideas, the more you will connect with your audience, and the better results you will get.

4. Hemingway Editor

This is a beautiful little tool that highlights common problems in weak writing.

Not only does it identify issues, but it also classifies them into different categories so you know how to fix them. Here’s an example passage that shows all the different errors. Pay special attention to the readability score in the next few pictures.

I pasted a small passage from my Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing into the tool.

It gets automatically graded and highlighted:

Quite a few areas for improvement! (even though none are critical).

Look at the readability there: it’s at grade 8 level. This is fairly high for web writing. In general, you want to write as simply as possible to reach the biggest audience.

I quickly fixed those highlighted problems so that I had no more errors. Look what happened to the readability level:

Now it’s at grade 7 level—still on the high side, but better.

In general, when you fix your mistakes and make your content more concise, your readability goes up.

If you want, you can paste your whole post into this tool. Or you can paste a part of it each time (I recommend the introduction). This way, you will get a little bit better at writing each post and eventually won’t make the same mistakes.

5. Grammarly

This is another tool you can use to learn how to write better. To start, you will need to create an account (free).

Once you create an account, you can either click New to paste your text there, or you can upload a full document:

The main thing that Grammarly does is, shockingly, find grammar mistakes. If English isn’t your native language, this could be a very useful tool.

As you can see in the demo document below, the tool outlines grammar and spelling mistakes:

You can click on the correction in the sidebar (in green) to apply the fix.

The one drawback with this tool is that the free plan is fairly limited. It will catch the basic mistakes, which is good, but you don’t get to see the advanced mistakes unless you upgrade to a paid account.

Great content requires research

I strongly encourage all marketers and bloggers to write posts that are data-driven.

Supporting your content with statistics and case studies will make it much more useful for your readers.

Here are a few tools that you can use to create more credible content:

6. Google with a twist

Not only is Google an incredible traffic source, but it’s also one of the best research tools out there.

There are hundreds of ways in which you can use Google for research, but I’d like to go over two in particular.

Tactic #1 – Basic search for statistics: When you write a data-driven post, there’s one thing you always need: statistics.

Luckily, Google makes it easy to find large collections of relevant statistics. Search for:

keyword + statistics

Let’s say I’m writing about content marketing. This is what my query and the results would look like:

As long as you picked a fairly well-known keyword, you’ll likely have multiple results of useful statistics about the topic you’re writing about.

Tactic #2 – Feature an expert: Experts are an invaluable resource. You can quote them in your article to add credibility to it, and then you can reach out to them and ask them to share the post.

In addition, experts know their subject matter better than anyone else. So, when you’re trying to fill in gaps in your knowledge, their content can clear things up.

For example, if you were writing a post about content marketing, you might want to read a few posts on the topic on Quick Sprout.

You can find these posts by searching for:

site:URL + keyword

You can then read these articles, learn a bit, and maybe find a few quotes or resources that will help make your article better.

With this particular tactic, it’s good to get specific. Don’t just type “content marketing.” Search for something more specific such as “content marketing tools” or “content marketing principles.”

7. Google Docs research tool

If you’re a fan of Google Docs, you may or may not know about the built-in research panel.

When you go to “Tools > Research” or press “Ctrl + Alt + Shift + I”, a research panel pops up on the right side of the content:

This allows you to search any part of Google for a resource and then either quickly view it or insert a link into your article.

For example, if I just wrote “how to write better headlines” and wanted to find a good link for the phrase, I could highlight that text, bring up the research panel, take a peek at an article, and then insert a link to that article:

Once you get good with this, you will save quite a bit of time.

8. Evernote

Evernote is an awesome tool in general, but it can also be used to create better content.

If you’re not familiar with Evernote, it’s basically a personal notebook that you can access on any of your devices. You can save content for later, make notes, make reminders, and a lot more.

While there’s a ton to Evernote, there’re a few features in particular that are great for content writing.

First, you can compose posts in Evernote. It features a simple text editor, and you can expand your writing page to full screen.

One of the main uses for Evernote is to save a great piece of content for later. Writers can use this to save posts and pages that have great research, statistics, or ideas for posts so that they can refer to them later.

This is better than simply bookmarking a page because you can add personal notes (e.g., “this would be a great idea for a post”) or tag anything that you save (e.g., “statistics”, “research”, etc.). You can then search your notebook for that information when you are ready to use it.

Visual content without a designer

If you’ve ever read any of my posts before, you know I love images.

Images help add value to your content as well as break up content, making it easier to read. For many reasons, visual content improves just about all user metrics (bounce rate, time on page, etc.).

Unless you’re a professional designer, you’ll need some tools to help you. I have some great ones here for you.

9. Canva

Canva is an amazing tool for “design-challenged” bloggers. It allows you to create custom images that look great and take a fraction of the time to create compared to an alternative design software.

Although I can’t go into many details here, I’ll show you the basics.

You can create a custom canvas (of any size) and add shapes, text, pictures, icons, etc. to it with a click of a button.

It’s also extremely easy to edit any elements you add (change color or size):

The built-in search engine lets you find any particular pictures or shapes you’re looking for. You can add them to your canvas with one click:

Once you get familiar with the tool, you can create attractive pictures like this one below in less than 5 minutes (for free):

If you want to learn more about Canva, check out my guide to making custom images for your blog posts without a designer.

10. Piktochart or infogr.am for infographics

I’ve written a lot about how effective infographics are for attracting shares and links.

I typically spend about $1,000 per infographic. I understand that not everyone can afford this.

If you can’t, you have two options: hire a cheaper designer or create infographics yourself.

You won’t get the same results as I do, but it can still be worth it.

Picktochart and infogr.am are two of the most popular infographic creators, but there are many others.

They allow you to use pretty good templates and then type in custom text and sometimes upload custom images.

You’re obviously not going to get the same quality as you would with a professional designer, but you can’t beat these tools when it comes to creating a decent looking infographic quickly.

11. Skitch or the Evernote web clipper

I already showed you the main Evernote program, but there’s more.

Both Skitch and the Evernote web clipper allow you to create beautiful annotated pictures with minimal effort.

You probably see pictures created with these programs all the time in blogs and don’t even know it—pictures like this one:

All the text and arrows in pink were created in under 30 seconds using the web clipper.

Skitch is a program you can download on Apple products, while anyone can use the web clipper in Chrome. Both tools work almost exactly the same, but Skitch is a little more robust.

With the web clipper, you can select a full screenshot, an email, or a full page of content or select a specific part of a webpage.

After you do, the part you selected will open in a new tab, where you can annotate it using the toolbar on the right:

12. Thinglink

Using interactive content is a great way to improve your reader engagement rate. It’s new; it’s fun; and it can be used to achieve better results with your blog.

Thinglink is a tool that allows you to create a specific type of interactive content: clickable images.

I’m not just talking about putting a link on a picture. I’m talking about putting multiple links, images, and more.

Take a look at this picture that VerticalResponse made with Thinglink:

You can hover over different parts of the picture and get a different message, depending on where you hover.

While you wouldn’t want to overdo Thinglink, it’s a fun type of content that can help you add some entertainment to certain blog posts.

13. Quickmeme

If you’ve been on the Internet much, you know what an Internet meme is. Typically, it’s a recognizable picture with large text on it that represents a certain part of Internet culture.

For example:

If you want to learn more about memes, check out this basic guide.

I’ve seen memes creeping into more and more blog posts lately. I believe this is for a few main reasons:

• they’re easy to make – if you use the tools I’m about to show you, you can make a new meme in a minute.
• they’re visual – more visual content is usually a good thing. Memes are an easy way to break up text.
• they’re personal - when you see a meme done right, it comes off as casual and conversational. Both of these are good things for blog posts. Memes are often funny and amusing.

So, how do you make a meme?

Quickmeme is probably the most well known meme-making tool, but there are many more. You can also try:

• Make a Meme
• Meme Generator
• Imgflip

With quickmeme, click “caption a meme” on the top menu:

Then pick an appropriate meme background. You will need to know how each meme is usually used. Refer to this subreddit for examples.

Once you pick a background, fill in the text fields.

The tool will put the text over the image background and let you save it.

14. Haiku Deck

Slideshows can be great additions to your blog content, but you’ll obviously need a tool to create them. You can’t just embed a PowerPoint file into your post.

Haiku Deck is a solid tool that helps you create a beautiful slideshow.

For each slide, you can pick a background image from the Haiku Deck library and then add your text.

It’s very user-friendly, fairly similar to Canva.

Here’s what the slide editor looks like:

Once you’ve created your slideshow, you can download it as a PDF or a PowerPoint file or embed it on your website by pasting some simple HTML code.

Write more efficiently

The final set of tools in this article will help you write more efficiently.

Tools can help you write faster but also enjoy the process more—important if you want to produce good content consistently.

15. Word2CleanHTML

Microsoft Word and Google Docs are the two most common pieces of software used to write posts.

The annoying thing is that when you paste your post into WordPress, things don’t always go according to plan.

Usually there are extra spaces that you need to spend a minute or two sorting out. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it adds up to a few hours over the course of a year.

This tool converts your MS Word or Google Docs text into clean HTML.

To show you what the tool does I pasted a small section of my old post (not created in WordPress) into the tool and clicked “convert”:

Here’s what it would have looked like if I just pasted the original file right into WordPress:

It’s ugly to say the least.

Now look at the code generated by the tool:

Much cleaner.

Now, I can select and copy the HTML code or just click the link in the bottom right corner.

When pasting your posts into WordPress with this method, you’ll typically get much better results.

16. Rainymood

Distractions can cause your writing speed to drop by 50% or more. While the occasional noise won’t impact you much, if you live or work in a noisy area with traffic or kids around most of the time, this tool can help.

As the name implies, this tool plays a constant sound of rain.

For me and many others, rain is a pretty soothing background noise. It obscures distracting sounds and lets you focus on your work.

Background nature sounds have been proven to improve both mood and productivity.

This is a great tool when you just need some peace and quiet.

17. Tomato timer

This tool was built to help you use the Pomodoro technique. It’s a technique that is supposed to help you work more efficiently on a consistent basis.

Here’s the gist of how the technique works:

• You set a timer for 25 minutes
• You work until the timer stops
• You take a 5-minute break
  • All of that is one Pomodoro

Then, you repeat that process four times. After the fourth 30-minute period, you take a longer break.

The Tomato Timer tool is very simple. At the top, you can choose from three options, depending on where you are at: your work period (Pomodoro), short break, or long break.

Based on what you choose, the timer will change. You can start and stop it as you like.

If you’re a fan of this technique, this tool is quite handy.

If you’re intrigued by the Pomodoro technique and would like to learn more, refer to this ultimate guide.

18. Scrivener

Many professional writers use Scrivener. It was created because basic text programs weren’t meeting the writers’ needs.

Although originally designed for Mac, this tool is also available for Windows.

Scrivener is mainly used by writers other than bloggers: novelists, screenplay writers, technical writers, lawyers, and more. However, I think it’s a legitimate option for bloggers as well, especially for those that take writing seriously and spend a lot of time creating long, in-depth content.

The tool is divided into multiple sections. You can easily open different files (which may be part of the same project).

You can also make edits and notes in a “rough draft” window, while previewing the final result on the right:

A word of warning: Scrivener is a powerful writing tool, which means that it has quite a steep learning curve.

Expect to spend some time learning about all the features of the tool, which will save you time in the long run and help you write better content.

You can certainly create great content without Scrivener, but it is an alternative to Word or Google Docs if you find that they aren’t enough for you.

Conclusion

Creating the best content possible for your readers should always be your top priority.

But to produce a sufficient amount of high quality content on a regular basis, you need help.

I’ve given you 18 tools in this article that can be used to strengthen any weak points of your content creation process. You don’t need to try them all at once, but give one or two tools that you find the most intriguing a try.

These are some of the best tools I’ve tried or come across. But there are others.

If I’ve missed any content creation tools that you love, please let me know what they are by leaving a comment below.

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