Today we’re excited to share a presentation by Mike Allton from MaxLawCon 2021! Tune in to learn about marketing your business.
Mike is the Blogging Brute. He used to publish two to three blog posts per day, anywhere from six to fourteen blog posts per week. Mike once published a blog about a live video broadcast that he had been on just a few minutes after the broadcast ended. After years of publishing, speaking, and consulting, he developed a reputation as a bit of a brute when it comes to being able to write, publish and promote a blog post fast and well. In fact, there are some who might suggest that he is blogging right at this moment!
1:25 prolific blogger
4:27 fears, issues, concerns, needs, and goals
8:07 create a new note
12:19 effective piece of content
16:14 works with all the major social networks
20:00 deeper into your site
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Transcript: The Secret to Creating 10X Content 10X Better with Mike Allton
Speaker 1
In today’s episode, we’re sharing bonus content from Max law con 2021. Keep listening to hear Mike Alton as we share his presentation, the secret to creating 10 times content 10 times better. You can also head to the maximum lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Now to the episode,
Speaker 2
run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Mike Allton
In 2006, I quit my job I packed up everything I owned, and I moved from a little town in Ohio to this big city of St. Louis. With my trusty laptop and a cell phone and a small apartment I started my own internet marketing company began to test every possible way to market a business online. Started using brand new social networks like Facebook and Twitter. I placed online classified ads and more and I dipped my toes into the world of blogging. And that changed everything. My blog and blogging activities have led to a career in online marketing travel around the world and including destinations like San Diego and Paris book deal my best friend. Over the years, I’ve developed a reputation as a prolific blogger. I’ve even been called the hashtag blogging route. And it’s been suggested that I’m so good blogging, I might be blogging right now while speaking. But what do I think about that? No, the truth is a really good blog a lot. When I first started, I was publishing two to three blog posts per day, which sounds like a lot. But that’s easy to do when you don’t have any clients or work yet, right? Nothing but time on my hands. I’ve slowed down since that. But I still write and publish regularly. And so today, I’m going to share with you my system for generating blog post ideas and crafting those posts, as well as my best tips and tricks for creating 10 times better content 10 times faster. I call this the bloggers mindset. So what we’re going to cover today is number one, who should blink for let’s make sure that we’re targeting the right audience. And then we’re gonna get into the bloggers mindset how to always have great ideas for blog topics right there in front of you that we’re gonna cover really quickly how to make your content, Spark and make it compelling and interesting to readers, and how to make your content discoverable, so that you can capture new readers and potential clients right at the moment they need to. I’ve also set up a resource page on my site that lists every tool and blogger mentioned here so that you only have to remember one link the smh.co/blogging-resources. So let’s get started. Do you know where your blog is really for? There are three main areas of concern that need to be addressed before you start blogging and then continuously while you’re blogging, and those are focus targeting and metrics focus, it’s important to keep your blog content topics as narrow as possible. When you stray off into posts that are off topic, they’re usually a waste of time, it seems counterintuitive to keep narrowing and narrowing the focus of what you’re writing about. It may seem like you’re limiting your audience. But the fact is a highly focused set of topics will make it easier for you to figure out what you need to write about and grow a highly interested audience. I mentioned earlier that when I started blogging, I first opened my internet marketing business. And at that time, I thought that writing about anything business related would be good for my audience in great for my blog couldn’t have been more wrong. Those early posts that I wrote garnered no traffic, no leads no sales, and therefore were completely worthless. What I lacked was an understanding of the connection between the content needed to write and the audience I was trying to reach. This is why it’s a good idea to develop one or more personas for your blog and business persona. It’s simply a made up person that typifies your ideal or target audience. That person is not made up. That’s my beautiful wife. But when you’re setting up a persona, you can include demographic or geographic data if it makes sense to do so. Probably for most of you as attorneys, it does make sense to include geographic data. But the more important features are usually their fears, issues, concerns, needs and goals. You can get an understanding of what your audience needs and how they’re limited. You can create a picture of yourself of how you can help them when I was growing up. My dad was a partner at a law firm in that small town in Ohio and one of his colleagues decided to focus on DUI cases. We create a content for their website that’s centered around DUI law and the kinds of questions his target clients would be wondering, particularly in Huron and Erie County. where he practiced, he had a target client in mind. And we answered the kinds of questions they’d be asking so that when they search to Google for things like DUI, fine, you’re on county, his content came up, and the client would find their answer and simultaneously be on the website of an attorney who could help them. Once you’ve established one or more personas and have started to create content that you think is a better fit for them, you can use your analytics to confirm that the Google Analytics will help you see how your site content performs. And all the major social networks also offer reporting options to help you gauge the effectiveness of your social activity as well. In fact, whenever you’re on the fence about whether a particular topic is a good one, it’s often best to test it with a short social media post. Rather than invest the time it takes to write a blog post. If the social post resonates with your audience, you know, it’s safe to proceed with a longer article. Great example of a blogger with excellent focus is Peg Fitzpatrick pegson, marketing consultant and speaker so she’s targeting small to medium business owners and brands with her content. She knows that by sharing detailed articles about various aspects of social media marketing, she can position herself as an authority. She also knows that the people interest in her content will for the most part, be too busy to read all of her articles. There will always be people who need more help than you can provide in a blog post and be willing to pay for your expertise on the system that I use for coming up with specific ideas for blog posts, including taking advantage of trending topics is called the bloggers mindset. We’re gonna start by talking about idea tracking, because the number one problem facing most attorneys who want to leverage content marketing is knowing what to write about next, my blogging system completely removes that issue, and makes your blogging more effective and less time consuming. We’ll then dive into two distinctly different types of posts to include in your ideas and your publishing calendar, news jacking and bottom of funnel content. Now, idea tracking starts by selecting a tool. I happen to use Evernote, but you could use Apple notes, Google Keep Microsoft OneNote or other similar note taking apps. full blown publishing tools like Word or Google Docs are not as effective as we want to be able to easily see all of our notes and switch back and forth. It’s also critical to use an app that works and syncs with all of your devices. And once you have a tracking tool in place, I’m going to show you how to fill it in from all kinds of sources, including social media posts, emails, and apps you can use to research ideas within Evernote, I’ve got a notebook for my blog. And within that are notes for every single blog post idea that I’ve come up with. When you’re first starting out, do some keyword research and begin creating notes for various topics that you think your audience might be interested in. I usually title the note using an initial title idea for the blog post, and then include any other ideas or notes within the note. Then, during the natural course of my days, when I hear something or I read something that makes me think of a potential blog topic, I immediately create a new note within Evernote for that topic. This way, when I have time available for writing, and I do recommend you set aside 30 to 60 minutes per day for writing. All I have to do is scan through all these existing notes and see which topics I feel like writing about. Be diligent about this process, and you’ll create years worth of blog post ideas for yourself. Now as you turn your use of Evernote into a habit, your overall awareness of blog posts, ideas and potential topics will increase. You’ll begin to record ideas from comments, social media discussions, and more. The more often you do this, the more ideas you’ll generate. The other aspect of blog topics is knowing when there’s a trending topic or a story that you might take advantage of. This is generally referred to as news jacking. While it may not always involve an actual news story, let’s assume for the moment that something has happened, which relates to your business or perhaps your target clients in some way, such as a change to the law in your field. There’s a story out there, and you’ve got a brief window of opportunity to consider doing something. Now I have a series of questions that I asked myself each time I see a potential trending topic. First, ask yourself if your audience would be interested in the story in your take on it. The answer is yes. Proceed. Second, ask yourself if you are interested in the story. I mean, there’s no point in dropping everything to write about something you find boring, but if the answer is yes, proceed. Third, ask yourself if you have a unique angle or perspective to add. It’s easy to simply tweet a link to a news story. But if you can add your perspective and layer meaning for your audience, that can be powerful. So the answer is yes, proceed. You might ask yourself if you have time to write and publish this article, and if the overall timing is good, even the fastest writers need 30 to 60 minutes to create an article and even then, it does no good to publish an article at midnight, need to be able to get your content into the mix before overall interest in the topic has piqued and started to wane. If you have the time, and it’s not too late to publish, proceed. Here you can see an illustration from my friend, David Meerman. Scott, who writes that every news story, regardless of what it involves, as a life cycle, and your goal as a blogger, is to talk about that story as early in the lifecycle as possible. While most news jacking topics tend not to get traffic long term, they can sometimes result in massive, even viral amounts of social engagement, traffic and links, as you’ll see in a moment. One of the recommendation though when it comes to your blog, content and topic determination, is to think about bottom of funnel content. This is content that people will be searching for where they’ve already come to the understanding that they need something they need help, and now they’re doing their own research, and comparisons. If you’ve ever watched Glengarry Glen Ross, you’re Dallas familiar with Alec Baldwin’s explanation of AI da. This sales funnel concept is so important to the success of your content in business, that I’ve incorporated it into my instruction on how to go about deciding what to write about and publish. I call that a content pyramid which essentially, is the sales funnel upside down. As you create top of funnel content, which attracts potential prospects through awareness, you can funnel them into content further into the buyer journey that captures their interest and use bottom of funnel content to help them make their final decision and take action. Good example shared by Marcus Sheridan is that of Yale appliance since 2011, they’ve been focused on creating valuable content that their customers need and appreciate. And that’s led to dramatic increases in traffic leads and sales. For instance, many appliance owners are rightly concerned about the potential service needs of their investment. So you’ll appliance published an article titled the five most service least reliable appliance brands, well, not necessarily popular with the appliance manufacturers. It’s an extremely popular and effective piece of content, as an attorney need to be thinking about, for instance, describing in content in written content, what it’s like to work for you with you what it’s like to be a client going to trial with you as their attorney. Most clients have never been in a trial situation. But if you’re a trial attorney, you can put yourself in their shoes and create content like that that’s not only going to put them at ease, but help them make the decision to go with you. Have you ever
Speaker 4
felt overwhelmed with everything there is to do within your legal practice? How do you keep up with your legal work while making time for growing your practice and attracting clients? do important things like deadlines and even your family fall through the cracks? This is why you should join us at the number one conference for legal entrepreneurs Max law calm. We’re going to be focused on helping practices scale and bringing calm to the order. This conference is curated in order to accelerate your implementation. Based on where you are in your legal practice, we’re going to help you identify exactly what is most important right now. When you leave Max law calm, you go home with complete clarity, focus and a plan to make 2020 to your best year ever. And not only your best year in terms of revenue, but your best year in terms of time, time back with your family, more time to do the work that is in your zone of genius. Only taking the clients that you like, and more money in your pocket. It’s all at the maximum lawyer conference. Max law con is a two day event on Thursday, June 2 and Friday, June 3 In St. Charles, Missouri. Seats are filling fast. grab yours today at www dot max law con 2020 two.com.
Mike Allton
And getting back to newsjacking. For just a moment I want to share with you an example from my own site, the social media.com. In late October of 2016, I was glancing through my RSS feed notifications, and saw that a new article had been published to the vine blog later on a Thursday afternoon that was titled important news about Vine sounded ominous. So I clicked on it and quickly learned that one of the major social networks is being shut down. I knew that this was an important story that my readers would want to know about. And I also knew that they’d have more questions than what the original announcement just so I wrote my own piece. And despite being published late in the day, the article was immediately picked up and shared by many shocked marketers and Vine users. As more details emerged, I kept the article updated and the traffic levels for the first few days were incredible. Interestingly, as it so happens, that article continues to get high levels of traffic to this day, hundreds of readers eau de continue to Google. What happened to vine, and they come read my summary, resulting in 1000s of new visitors to the site, and new opportunities for me to make an impression. Speaking of impressions, let’s talk for a moment about what you can do to make your content really spark. First and foremost, every blog post needs a featured image, usually appearing above the text of the post, this image represents the overall article and the message that you’re trying to convey, should be branded in some way, and would typically incorporate the title or a version of the title the post in the backend of your site. That image is direct URL is used for a meta tag called Open Graph image. Open Graph is just a set of tags that provide specific pieces of data supporting platforms like Facebook. In this case, we want to make sure that we use Open Graph image so that whenever anyone shares your post to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, the correct image is displayed in the link preview. There are a few different ways you can go with regard to image size and ratio, but I prefer a two to one ratio, using a size of 1024 pixels by 512 pixels. All my future blog posts, images are size that way, which looks great in the posts themselves. And it works with all the major social networks. After that, there are number of things that you can do within and throughout the content of your posts to make them more interesting and readable. These include embedded images throughout the text, you know, in fact, there was a study by Buzzsumo, that actually indicated that articles with images appearing every 75 to 150 words are shared more. Imagine why that might be I mean, those images could be screenshots, gifts, graphs, infographics, and so on. It’s because those images, they break up the text they keep the readers interest in, the reader continues to read, on and on and on, if a reader gets all the way to the end of your article, even if it’s on a really long article, but but if they get all the way to the end, they’re going to be more inclined to share it. Quotes unquote graphics are also good. They help highlight important points, and sentiments within the article as well as add variety to the flow, if you can, embedding social media posts, like tweets, or even videos from Facebook or YouTube, that can be extremely effective. Not only do they make your article more engaging, but it’s possible for readers to engage or view the social media posts themselves, which adds social activity and visibility. And of course, break up your text with subheadings whitespace, short sentences, bullet points, and so on. That best friend I mentioned at the outset is Stephanie Liu. And she’s an inspiring live video strategist, and Communication Coach and all around incredible human. We love geeking out about a marketing techniques, and one that we’ve both employed over the years is live streaming. What’s particularly fun here is that when you live stream to a platform like Facebook, you can embed that video onto any of your blog posts. Whether it’s a recap of the live stream or another post that just happens to be related. Embedding interesting video into blog posts is a great way to keep your readers engaged, increase your time on site metric and therefore improve your search engine performance. Yeah, there’s a little ninja hack that you can employ here. While most bloggers would embed a YouTube video, Stephanie, I prefer to use the Facebook video. Why? Because we know that if a blog post reader watches the Facebook video, and decides to engage with the embedded post, by liking, commenting or sharing all while they’re still on your blog, they will send a signal to Facebook, Facebook will respond by putting that video back into the feed for people connected to that reader, thus breathing new life into your video that the live video was directly related to the blog post and you have a link to the blog post in the description, you can create a never ending cycle of new visitors, prompting new visitors through engagement. We’ve used this very technique on all of our 360 marketing squad Facebook Lives. And now you know this hack till now a great example of a blogger who really understands the importance of readability and visible interest is Rebecca reduce. She uses all of the above techniques, as well as a very unique and compelling brand style that’s carried through all of her graphics. Finally, we want to make sure that every time we publish a new piece of content, it helps to add to the total archive of posts that Google is indexing and ranking in search. Rather than share with you a long list of SEO techniques that may or may not have long term value, I’m going to share with you the three most important elements which will never change. Number one, make sure that all of your content within your site is structured and linked together accordingly. If you’re blogging about a state law, and you’ve got four articles on the topic, you’re gonna want to make sure that you find ways within your fifth article to refer back to some or all of the older posts and link to them. This is called deep linking. And it’s a common technique to get people reading more and deeper into your site. But then, once you’ve published that new post, go back and edit Those old articles and link forward to the new article. This interlinking of related articles gives readers more opportunities to find and read more of your content, which increases your time on site metric and decreases your bounce rate all positive signals to Google. The links also ensure that searchers are able to find an index all of your content. And more importantly, those readers who take the time to go through more and more of your content will be learning more and more about you, and getting to know like and trust you more with every piece. This leads to greater numbers of subscribers, prospects and clients to do your homework. Using research tools like sem rush, Google Keyword Planner and Buzzsumo, you can get a better sense for what keyword phrases your target audience is actually using, and what the competition is really like for them. And I know every one of you in the audience, you know how to do homework. There’s nothing worse for Blogger than to spend months creating content is nothing more than our best guess what people want to know about. Number three, as I mentioned before, right long form content. One that every post has to be 2500 words, the more the better, in fact, should be a goal for most businesses and bloggers to create a piece of epic content 10,000 words or more, once per quarter. If done well, those epic posts will become the pillars of your blog resulting in massive amounts of organic search traffic. Great example of this is indie Christina’s annual blogger survey which just came out this past week each year and he puts together a series of questions and presents them to over 1000 other bloggers. He uses this original research to create a tremendous amount of data and insight into the current state of blogging. As published research is able to answer questions he knows people are searching for, as well as provide ample opportunity for links and inbound referral traffic. Do you want to know my super secret way to get 10,000 word epic blog posts? This, my friends is how you’re going to create 10x better content 10 times faster. Starts with a Facebook live video where you interview one or more guest experts in your industry think about other attorneys with similar or complementary focuses you but who perhaps are serving clients in a completely different part of the country so they’re not in competition, and can speak to your subject matter. They’ll provide you with tremendous interactive video content that is educational and helpful to your audience. And once it’s done, you can download the video and upload it to YouTube one of the biggest search engines. But now that you’ve got that downloaded video file, you can do so much more. You can pull that video file into an app like iMovie and slice out short segments for use on social media. You can upload quick answers to questions or comments from your expert Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and of course YouTube and even Pinterest. You can also post to Instagram and Facebook stories. But wait there’s more. You can save just the audio portion from the video add an intro outro and a bumper in the middle now you’ve got a podcast uploaded to Lipson and now you’re distributing your content to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher and even Amazon. This is exactly what I’m doing every other week with Agora Pulse, his new show agency accelerated. You can also upload that audio to headliner and use that to create audio grabs that you can post to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest. But wait, there’s more. Take some of the great comments and quotes your guests said and turn those into quotes and quote graphics that can be shared to social. Then create two slides in Google Slides, download as a PDF, upload them to SlideShare and embed your YouTube video in between them to take advantage of the LinkedIn owned network. And the best part is that since you shot an hour of video, that’s approximately 10,000 words of text that you can have transcribed and your introduction text and a call to action at the end and publish to your site for your audience, giving Google and your readers a tremendous amount of 10x content. Now, I hope this presentation has provided you with greater insight into the world of blogging and content marketing. I’m sorry, I couldn’t be there live with you today. If you’ve got more questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly.
