Looking for a great company for SEO in Troy, Michigan? Check out 212 Creative, LLC. We know how to write great content that will boost your SEO. It seems like everything I read about creating content for a website delves into the statistics of the marketing funnel, or what percentage their Click Through Rate (CTR) went up when the blogs that were posted were 800 words in length instead of 500 words in length. WHATEVER! Don’t care. That is so boring! I’m not saying you have to ignore research, metrics and trends, but there are some days when I’ve had enough. I don’t want to read about it, and I really don’t want to write well-crafted, five paragraph essays on the benefits of purchasing seasoned firewood versus unseasoned firewood, or whatever the topic may be.
Is it possible…just maybe… that if something is fun to read, maybe puts a smile on your face and perhaps gives you a little chuckle, it might just be fun to write, or even better, enjoyable to read? Google would agree. OF COURSE! I always love reading an article that is insightful, yet makes the salient points in a lighthearted, relatable and fun way. The amount of content doesn’t matter so much to Google when it comes to SEO. Google wants to see authentic, informative articles that are actually useful and readable to the client.
So, if you want to increase reader engagement, write in a way that is fun, relatable and engaging. Let’s talk about what NOT to do, and then some very specific things you can try.
DON’T do this
But wait. Full stop. While writing lighthearted, fun content is an excellent idea, go back and reread the first couple of paragraphs of this article again. At no time did I ever say “write funny” or “be funny” or anything in a sentence or phrase that contained the word funny. That’s because funny is HARD. Funny is fleeting, difficult to do, and even more difficult to write in a way that the reader will find your thoughts funny as well. So, for goodness sake, don’t try to be funny. Be authentic? Sure! Be insightful? You bet! Just don’t set out to tickle someone’s funny bone. It doesn’t work.
DO this…
So, what do you do? I would suggest:
- Starting small
- Using a formula
Don’t work your way up to being funny. Work very hard at being light. Be lighthearted, authentic, personable and relatable. Write like you are having a conversation with a really good friend. Whatever you need to do, just don’t try to be funny. It’s ok to talk honestly about your shortcomings, failures, blockages, etc. Just be honest and authentic. If it turns out to be humorous to someone because they have been in the same boat, that is a bonus, but not the goal.
Keep at it!
One way you can get better at being authentic and light hearted is just to keep at it. One of my favorite quotes about write comes from Octavia E. Butler. She wrote:
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
That is so true! Keep at it. Write a little every single day. Keep your feelers out for good topics and stories. Be aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which is the phenomenon of us humans thinking we are awesome at something, even though we really suck! Just know this “Unskilled and Unaware” phenomenon exists, let your ego marinate in the fact that what you are writing probably isn’t Shakespeare, and probably never will be. Not to say you can’t get better.
Write a little every day, and start off small. How about starting doing an exercise of writing a script for a video that is one minute long. That doesn’t sound too difficult. Ok, let’s up the ante: what if the assignment was to write a script for a 1 minute video, that would bring a smile to the viewers face, and make the product or service more relatable? That still doesn’t sound too difficult. OK, what if you had to write a lighthearted, fun script for a video about…firewood. Oh my log, I can think of few things more flat or uninteresting, than firewood. As the French would say “Tree boring”. Whoops, I meant to say “Tres boring”.
Start at the End
Would it be helpful to you if you had a magic formula for accomplishing this task, and countless others? I’ll give you two magic formulas Here’s the first one:
Start at the end and work backwards
Figure out what the most important point of your message is, then work backwards from that point. I’ll give you an example after we discuss the next formula.
The Five Why’s
The second magic formula is called The Five Why’s You may have heard of it before, but maybe not applied in this way. To understand The Five Why’s you should know a little something about a theory in neuroscience called The Primacy/Recency Effect. This theory states that we always remember best what happened first (Primacy) and what happened last (Recency). So the video should end with the main selling point, what you really want the viewer to remember. But how do you figure out your main selling point? Try the technique of The Five Why’s, also called Root Cause Analysis.
Invented by Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries, the technique involves simply asking the question “Why” five times as a way to get to the root cause of the problem, or the answer to your question.
So, I applied the Five Why’s to selling firewood:
The first Why: Why do people buy firewood?
To be warm.
The second Why: Why do people want to get warm ?
To feel calm and secure.
The third Why: Why do people want to feel calm and secure?
So they can enjoy life more.
The fourth Why: Why do people want to enjoy life more?
To make life worth living.
The fifth Why: Why do people want to make life worth living?
So they have good memories as they get older.
The script
Ok, remember the first magic formula: work backwards from the ending? Now, thanks to the 5 Why’s I had my ending. Ultimately, people in the modern world often buy firewood so they can sit around a campfire and make memories. Now I needed to work backwards. I wanted to have a serious, heartfelt ending, so how could I make firewood fun for the rest of the video?
I broke down what has to happen to make firewood. Chopping down the tree, cutting the logs, splitting the logs, delivering the firewood, then burning. Then I tried to do two contrasting statements with each step, like a set up and a punch line. I accompanied these statements with a video clip that exaggerated each step of the firewood process in a fun way.
What I ended up with was a video that contained:
- Ten statements
- 8 Video clips
- Total length of 56 seconds
Check out the video and see how it all came together. The purpose of showing you the video is for you to see one possible outcome of a million. It’s not about this video, it’s about see how you can use the two magic formulas:
- Start at the end and work backwards
- Use the 5 Why’s
To create a finished product. The video is not knee slapping, fall down funny. Is it Shakespeare? Nope. But it is lighthearted and, dare I say, fun?!
Good luck with your next SEO project.. If you are looking for an SEO company in Troy, Michigan, give us a call at 212 Creative, LLC. Call us, let’s begin. Why? Because we have a great reputation for getting excellent SEO results. Why? Because we know the science and the art behind creativity. Why…not just call us, it’s easier to explain over the phone.
