Author: Franz Malten Buemann

This article is part of a larger series that focuses on diversity and equity in marketing through the amplification of Black and racially diverse authors. As a company, we are committed to identifying actions we can take in the fight against racism and injustice, and elevating BBIPOC voices is paramount to inspiring change. Follow along and read other posts in this series here.

This post is authored by Kiana Fitzgerald, Music Journalist and Cultural Critic.
In June 2014, a precocious teenage Black girl nicknamed Peaches Monroee hopped on the now-defunct video-sharing platform Vine to share a personal announcement. “We in this b*tch, finna get crunk,” the message began. Then came the phrase that would dominate pop culture for years to come: “Eyebrows on fleek.”
When Monroee, whose real name is Kayla Newman, invented this phrase on the spot, she had no idea the impact she would soon make. 
The term “on fleek” spread like wildfire throughout the Black Vine space, and Black culture at large. It became the community’s contemporary, insider way of saying “I’m on point.” However, it didn’t take long for the phrase to be co-opted by brands. “Hashbrowns on fleek,” the diner chain Denny’s tweeted in September of 2014. Not to be outdone, rival restaurant IHOP would tweet “Pancakes on fleek” less than one month later. 
The tweets elicited responses that ranged from confusion to amusement to outright frustration. 
Despite her hyper-popular phrase taking over pop culture, Newman didn’t see a dime of revenue. “Everyone has used the phrase/word but I haven’t received any money behind it or recognition,” Newman revealed in 2017 in the campaign summary of a partially successful GoFundMe, which she started to raise money for the launch of her own beauty line. 
And thus began—and ended—another tale of Black people creating a cultural moment and being swiftly swept aside.
Appreciation
Late last year, it seemed as though history was set to repeat itself. In December 2020, a car salesman named Durell Smylie, who goes by Relly B on social media, recorded himself comically stepping out of the trunk of an SUV. Upon setting foot on the ground, Smylie immediately begins an entertaining spiel that goes above and beyond any car salesman pitch ever heard before. 
Toward the end of the video, Smylie begins repeating an earworm of a phrase, telling potential customers where they can find him: “Where the money reside, where the money reside, where the money reside,” he says liltingly, with a megawatt smile on his face.
It took all of a few days for the video to spread across social media platforms, with the term being turned into a viral hashtag. Music stars like Megan Thee Stallion and Mary J. Blige have since used the phrase as captions on their social posts. Other people in the Black community have borrowed the phrase to speak their own dreams into existence. Meanwhile, a creative bunch took the time to recreate Smylie’s video, in homage, which he approved of. 
Appropriation
However, Smylie called out a white person for doing the exact same thing. 
The individual in question recreated the original video in an attempt to sell cars at another dealership, using Smylie’s mannerisms, vocal tone, and key phrase. “Please stop posting that colonizers casserole version of my video,” Smylie tweeted in early January. In a follow-up tweet, which quoted a video of a Black woman’s near-exact replication of Smylie’s video, Smylie explains the difference between the two examples. “Just so we clear – THIS is appreciation and not appropriation!” he posted. “I’m not being arrogant or none like that me and my team just want to make sure #wherethemoneyreside STAYS IN OUR CULTURE.”
The difference here is the recreations made by Black people were done in jest intracommunally, and in genuine support of Smylie, while the white person was deliberately looking to capitalize off of Smylie’s persona for his own material gain. 
When questioned by supporters and curious minds about how he was going to save himself from an “on fleek” future, Smylie said he was in the process of trademarking his signature phrase, something Kayla Newman struggled to do. (In a 2017 interview with Teen Vogue, Newman stated that she still hoped to trademark “on fleek,” despite the passing of a number of years. According to public records, her trademark application has been suspended since 2019, due to being “abandoned.”)
What brands should know
While Smylie is taking steps to legally protect his own viral slogan, the issue at hand is that companies and entities outside of the Black community consistently attempt to insert themselves into the cultural narrative, for the sake of profiting. 
No leg work is actually done to build a relationship with the Black creatives, much less actually provide any kind of compensation for that creativity. 
There are lessons to be learned from these examples of appreciation vs. appropriation. There are also questions that should be raised—and answered—before ever repurposing content created by Black people:

Is our company in any way connected to the Black community? Further, do we have more than one Black person on staff, if any?
Will our usage of this viral content come from left field?
Can we reach out to the creator of the viral content directly and establish a relationship with that person?

If at all possible, can we collaborate with the creator for our own inspired content? 

In answering these questions, it should be abundantly clear whether or not a company can or should co-opt a phrase for its own gain.

Kiana Fitzgerald holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism (2011), and a master’s degree in new media in mass communication (2013) from Texas State University. She’s been a freelance writer, multimedia reporter, academic and editorial researcher, photographer, social media strategist, collegiate instructor, web developer, and more. 
She’s worked for NPR, and more recently Complex Networks where she interviewed artists, critiqued albums, songs and videos, both mainstream and underground. As a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow at True Blue Inclusion, she researched, analyzed and presented the effects of politics on media and culture and continues to write and analyze DEI efforts today.
Visit this page to see more in the series, or check back in a week for our next guest post.
CM Group is a family of global marketing technology brands including Campaign Monitor, CM Commerce, Delivra, Emma, Liveclicker, Sailthru and Vuture. By joining together these leading brands, CM Group offers a variety of world-class solutions that can be used by marketers at any level. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, CM Group has United States offices in Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and global offices in Australia, London, New Zealand and Uruguay.
The post Appropriation vs. Appreciation appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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This is a guest post by Kevin Payne.
The way we interact with email is different now. We no longer have the attention span to read through plain text emails with paragraphs and paragraphs of text.
Enter custom HTML emails—the reason why we see beautifully-designed email content, from sending eye-catching promotional content, engaging calls-to-action, and even interactive content like surveys. Custom HTML emails will help you get better ROI for your clients, and better results for your shop’s bottom line.
Are you still wondering whether it’s worth it to add custom HTML email design services to your agency’s service menu? Consider some of the ways you can use custom HTML emails to get clients excited and drive results for them, and determine if it makes sense for you. Then evaluate the best custom HTML email design service platform platform options to make production simple and ROI high.
In this post, we show you some of the best reasons you and your marketing team might want to subscribe to email campaign software that lets you create custom HTML campaigns.
Why offer HTML email design services
There’s a long list of reasons agencies should consider offering custom HTML email design services.
High ROI all around
Email marketing consistently drives among the highest ROI of all channels for agencies and clients alike. That’s partially because of the remarkable results it can achieve in driving revenue and conversions, but also because of how affordable and accessible it is to brands of all sizes, from startups to global enterprises.
Big results means happy clients, and happy clients mean bigger accounts, better renewal rates, and an easier time attracting new business. And the low ongoing cost of providing this service means great margins for your shop.
It’s the next logical step
Many agencies get started as highly specialized boutiques, then methodically expand their services over time. If you’re a growing creative agency or a specialized marketing/advertising provider, HTML email design services are a natural next step into broadening your offerings and revenue sources.
When you already have much of the talent and process in place to make beautiful marketing materials or develop a high-performing campaign, this is a big win you can earn with minimal incremental effort and investment.
Visually appealing emails 
When it comes to marketing, looking pretty always comes secondary to getting results. Fortunately with HTML design services, you don’t have to sacrifice on either.
That means you can put the full breadth of your agency’s capabilities on display all at once. While other agency work can be hard to quantify or contextualize, it’s always easy to show off a beautiful email—and then to point to the results it drove.
The result is great material for your sizzle reels, case studies, sales decks, and client meetings.
Even the science supports it: the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than it would text. Show, don’t just tell.

Source: Campaign Monitor Template
A stable source of recurring revenue
One of the hardest things about managing an agency is keeping up consistent cash flow. Accounts can sometimes come and go unexpectedly. And even among reliable clients, their needs will wax and wane throughout the year (along with their billable hours).
HTML email design is a consistent need, once you have clients sold on it. Ongoing campaigns, newsletters, transactional emails and more all require ongoing care and attention to perform optimally. That means reliable work and recurring revenue you can count on.
Flexible to use for multiple campaigns
One great thing about custom HTML email designs is that you can adapt the designs for just about any campaign. For almost any client need, there’s a solution to be found with a thoughtfully built and well-designed email. And if you find an incredible template works well for one client, you can transfer that structure over for use in other accounts. 
You can even use them as an effective tool in promoting your own agency! Use a different email template to share an announcement or a client success case study, to promote your best-selling services, to send an RSS feed of your most recent blog posts or podcast episodes, to share discount codes or special email-only promos, and more.
Use different designs to share new products (top) or to share your most recent articles (right).

Source: Campaign Monitor Gallery
5 Factors to Consider When Choosing an Email Design Service Provider
Convinced that custom design emails are for you and your agency? Great. Now the question you’re probably asking is, “Which custom HTML email design service provider is right for me?” Here, we list five different factors you can consider when looking for the best email marketing service for your business.
1. Email marketing features
Some custom HTML email design service providers might not have the most robust email marketing features in general. This could mean you won’t make the most of your email campaigns. Because of this, search for a custom HTML email provider that offers important email marketing features, including but not limited to:

Customer relationship management (CRM) to see how your leads are interacting with your emails
Segmentation and tagging or grouping
Mobile-optimized email delivery
Automation

Visual editors—if you want an easier time creating custom HTML emails, then you’ll want to look for providers that have visual editors for drag-and-drop email building instead of simply coding HTML emails from scratch.

Campaign Monitor’s visual email editor comes with pre-made elements and templates to help you build your campaigns.
2. Security and support infrastructure
Make sure your vendor has the features and qualities as a company that will prepare you and your clients for long term success.

Security and reliability: Ensure you the platform you choose is reliable, because your clients will perceive it as an extension—even a product—of your business. The technology you choose reflects back on your brand and your client relationships. If it’s unstable, it makes your business look unreliable. What exactly constitutes “reliable” when it comes to selecting an ESP? As a reference point, Campaign Monitor has a 99.9% uptime.

Support: Occasionally, even world-class email marketing solutions don’t work exactly as you might expect them to. So it’s important to assess the vendor’s support offering to make sure you have support when you need it. But what’s the standard of support you should be looking for? Campaign Monitor offers around-the-clock email support, with phone support options available on certain plans. It’s worth considering whether anything less than this could be a hindrance down the road.

Deliverability: Your agency may be full of design and content experts, but you likely don’t have a team dedicated to understanding deliverability laws. Find an email marketing vendor that will worry about that for you and ensure your clients’ emails always land in their inbox.

3. Overall user experience
User experience design is playing an increasingly important role, especially when it comes to digital product and service development. That includes custom HTML email design service providers, especially if you’re operating on a model that allows clients to manage and send their own campaigns.
How your customers interact with your custom HTML email design tool matters. If it’s a pain to use or interact with, you may end up wasting precious time and resources trying to understand what should be a simple process.
With the right HTML email design service, the designing process of your email campaigns can be drag-and-drop for your team and, when appropriate, your clients. This helps ensure your emails are fast-loading, user-friendly, and don’t end up in clients’ spam folders.
4. Your budget
Finally, your budget may play a big role in determining which custom HTML email design provider you want to invest in. Fortunately, many of these providers offer flexible email marketing plans and pricing, depending on the size of your list and the features you want for your business. 
Note, however, that just because an email marketing provider is cheap doesn’t always mean that it’s the best. You may be sacrificing essential features or benefits that are well worth the upgrade.
Of course, you always have the final decision in your business, so don’t be afraid to test out email marketing services that have the features you and your agency needs—if you make the most of your plan, the return on investment is usually worth it.
Key Takeaways
How can you use custom HTML email designs in your own business? We’ve already shown you different use cases, but as long as you can imagine it, you can meet high design standards with the right service provider. 
If you want top-notch custom HTML emails complete with the best marketing features and customer support team, sign up for a free account at Campaign Monitor and start building your first email marketing campaign today.
The post What Are Custom HTML Email Design Services Worth to Your Bottom Line? appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Digital marketing works best when your various channels and platforms work together. A cohesive, multi-channel brand experience creates a more personal connection with your followers by presenting a holistic impression of what your brand stands for.
Today’s consumers want community. They want the chance to know the people behind their favorite companies as well as the other brand ambassadors. A strong social media presence allows them that opportunity. 
Through your posts, they get to know you. Through comments and custom hashtags, customers get to know one another. 
But social media is notoriously fickle. You don’t own the platform and you don’t own the data. At any time, social media platforms can—and do—change up the algorithms that allow you to engage with your followers.
What is a 21st century brand to do?
Social media and email marketing in tandem
The answer to that question is simple: Integrate. It’s time marketers stopped thinking of social media and email marketing as either/or. You should consider them different channels for the same holistic message for your brand.
Both channels allow you to connect and interact with followers in a one-to-one capacity. Both channels allow you to promote your values and tell your story, building the emotional connection with customers that leads to better results for your business.
The key is to use social media and email in tandem. Introduce custom hashtags online to generate user-generated content (UGC) you can use across your website, social platforms, and email. Promote your subscription online to grow your list. Feature social proof from your social media followers in your emails to encourage conversions.
The benefits are endless. And with Campaign Monitor’s drag-and-drop builder, including links to your social profiles has never been easier.
Sign up to get started building your email for free.
Need some inspiration? Read on to discover how our favorite emails feature social media.
How to integrate social media into your email campaigns
The best place to get started when you’re ready to integrate your social media and email campaigns is by creating an email that keeps your social media front and center. Dedicate an email every few months to promote your social profiles, a custom hashtag, or feature UGC from your loyal fans. Here are a few examples.
1. Dunkin Donuts
Dunkin Donuts promotes their social media profiles by dedicating an email to loyal fans. This will encourage your subscribers to engage with you on another platform—always a plus—and it also leads to greater investment from your followers.

When people see their social posts in your emails or when you repost their content, it tells them you’re listening to them and paying attention to them. They aren’t just shouting into some void. Rather, they’re interacting with you directly. 
Seeing their posts on your profile and in your email engenders warm and fuzzy feelings in your subscribers. It proves to them that you want to hear from them and value their part in your story.
With our updated social links tool, you can include links to your social profiles wherever you like, removing one less barrier for your subscribers.
2. Quiz
Quiz clothing taps into the power of social media and email marketing by running a social media contest. By including information about the contest in their email, Quiz ensures their most loyal and dedicated followers don’t miss the opportunity to participate and win.

This campaign also includes physical ads. Quiz has integrated their most powerful channels for marketing into one campaign in order to achieve the most impressions possible. They take their digital campaign and give it a physical, experiential component.
You know the people most likely to engage with your brand are already on your email list; that’s why it’s so successful as a marketing tool. These are the people who are most likely to take the effort to go find your ad and follow-through with the multiple steps to enter this contest. 
By combining the max reach of social media with the max engagement of email, this campaign multiplies its opportunities to be a huge success.
You can make your own email campaign like this effortlessly by dragging and dropping your social links directly into prominent positions within your email with our new update!
3. Parabo Press
Parabo Press features some of their favorite posts that use their custom hashtag, #ParaboPress. When it comes to social media, simplicity is key. They’ve found a way to regularly connect with their VIPs, Very Important Printers. 

This email encourages subscribers to engage with them on social media. The beautiful images from customers helps subscribers visualize what Parabo Press’ products will look like in their own homes, which will lead to more conversions.
By including these user-generated images, Parabo Press is incorporating social proof and encouraging subscribers to make a purchase. 
How to do this in Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor recently updated how you can incorporate social profiles into your emails, now making it fast and easy to uncage them from the footer or header sections. 
The great news is that using our increased customization options is simple and straightforward. All you have to do is insert the social media module in the drag-and-drop email editor and place them wherever makes most sense for your strategy. Already a customer? You can click on the social icons in your footer to access the new customization options.

That’s how you can get started in Campaign Monitor and get sending in one day.
Wrap up
Now that you have some inspiration for getting started, we can’t wait to see how you integrate your social media and email marketing strategies. Both channels encourage one-to-one conversations. When you combine the trustworthy and reliable channel of email with the reach and discovery power of social media, you ensure that your marketing efforts reach their maximum potential.
We’d love to see what you create with these new tools. Don’t forget to tag us when you share your experience combining social media and email marketing!
The post Combine Social Media and Email Marketing for Better Branding appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

When you search for “content writers” on LinkedIn, you’re bound to come across an incredibly diverse range of professionals.
For instance, you’ll see some content writers create social media copy for small businesses, while others write press materials for insurance brands.
You’ll also find that some content writers write long-form editorial content for glamorous magazines, while the more entrepreneurial-type write scripts for their own branded content, like podcast or video.
So, what’s going on here … Are some of them lying?
In fact, they’re all telling the truth. Content writing can take various forms, but in essence, it comes down to creating content for digital formats — and (at least in our case) for marketing purposes.
Here, we’ll explore what content writing is (hint, hint … I’m currently doing it), as well as tips to take your own content to the next level. Plus, we’ll explore examples of incredible, high-quality content writing.
But, to start — What is content writing, anyway?
What is content writing?
Content writing is the process of writing, editing, and publishing content in a digital format.
That content can include blog posts, video or podcast scripts, ebooks or whitepapers, press releases, product category descriptions, landing page or social media copy … and more.

Simply put, content writers are the storytellers for their brand. They convey meaningful, helpful, and insightful messages to inspire and move an audience to take action — that action being a final sale.

Nowadays, content creation is a critical component of most businesses marketing strategies — in fact, as of 2020, 70% of marketers now actively invest in content marketing.
This means the role of content writer is more in-demand than ever before. However, the role varies depending on both industry and business needs.
For instance, some businesses might invest heavily in a social media strategy, while other companies prefer creating content in the format of blog posts or e-books.
Regardless of format, a content writer is critical for creating high-quality content that represents and strengthens a brand’s voice, while attracting, engaging, and delighting the right audience.
When done right, content writing has the power to convert readers into prospects, and prospects into paying customers. So it’s undeniably important for your business’ bottom-line that you’re able to consistently create helpful, engaging content.
But that’s easier said than done. To help take your content to the next level, let’s dive into some of my favorite content writing tips (these have personally helped me, as well).
12 Content Writing Tips
1. Write unique and original content, and go above-and-beyond what you find online.
Whenever I start a new blog post, like this one, I start with plenty of online research — but that’s not where it ends.
After Googling relevant topics, including “content writing tips”, I begin creating an outline using some of the information I find online.
However, your piece will never rank if you just copy-and-paste the same information that already exists online — and, even if it does, when your readers catch on (and they will), they’ll lose trust in your brand as an authority within the industry.
Once I finish my rough outline (which will include about 60% of the information I found through online research), I fill in the remaining 40% with unique, original insights. If I know about a topic personally (as is the case with “content writing”, since I’m a content writer myself), I’ll fill in the outline with original anecdotes, tips, or personal examples.
However, if I don’t know much about the topic at-hand, that doesn’t mean I simply use what’s already online. Instead, I’ll reach out to internal HubSpotters who are experts on the topic or use other original internal-company resources, or I’ll conduct external outreach via my social networks to find a reputable source willing to provide tips, quotes, or original examples to beef up my piece.
Additionally, I’ll look for content regarding the topic across a wide range of sources — including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, as well as podcasts — to ensure when readers’ come across my content, it’s both comprehensive and unique.
If they can find the same information elsewhere on Google, why should they stay on your page? As a good content writer, it’s your job to take your content to the next level, always.
2. Write a good hook to grab your reader’s attention.
Sometimes, it’s easy to write a good hook — particularly if the topic is intriguing or exciting to you, as the writer.
But what about more boring, mundane topics, like Rel=nofollow?
In certain cases, writing a good hook requires pulling back and looking at the bigger picture. For instance, while rel=nofollow isn’t the most fascinating topic (in my opinion), what is interesting to me is SEO, and how SEO can directly impact a company’s ability to reach new audiences — plus, how Google has needed to change regulations in recent years due to an increase in illegitimate sites.
Which means, when I started writing 3 Reasons Why SEO’s Are Upset About Google’s Rel=nofollow Announcement, I used that angle to inspire my hook, and painted a picture: Myself as a Wikipedia editor, writing about zebras, and getting paid $500 to link to a fake news website.
(Now you’re interested, aren’t you?)
My Creative Writing background helps in this case, and I’m willing to bet your own passion for writing will help you create exciting hooks, as well.
Oftentimes, the introduction and hook is your best opportunity to use your writing skills to truly inspire, move, surprise, and delight your readers from the get-go. Take advantage of that space by thinking: What would make me and my friends want to keep reading?
3. SEO-optimize your content for search engines.
Your writing can be absolutely stunning, but if it’s not SEO-optimized, no one will ever read it.
As a content writer, it’s critical you become familiar with SEO when it comes to writing.
Being an SEO-savvy writer can help you ensure your content ranks on whichever platforms you’re publishing, including YouTube, Google, or even social sites like Instagram.
Plus, you can use SEO to ensure you’re writing about the most popular topics related to your products or services, and covering the right sub-topics when you’re writing about a given topic.
For instance, “content writing tips” is a keyword phrase I found when conducting keyword research on the topic of “content writing” as a whole — it’s not necessarily a sub-topic I would’ve considered covering in this blog post had I not done the research to recognize HubSpot readers are seeking out that information.
Ultimately, learning key SEO tactics will help you become a writer whose more attuned with your readers’ challenges, and ensure you create content that more accurately answers those challenges.
4. Consider how you can attract an audience across a wide variety of platforms.
While SEO is critical for ensuring your content ranks on search engines like Google, it’s not the only opportunity for distribution.
To reach a wider audience, it’s helpful to learn how to write content that performs well on various platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, or email.
Plus, you might be a content writer whose sole job is to write newsletter content or social media copy, depending on your business’ needs.
To ensure your content reaches and inspires audiences regardless of the platform they prefer, it’s vital you consistently consume content via email and social to pick up writing tips specific for those sources.
5. Incorporate multimedia components to break up the text.
Whenever possible, try to incorporate videos, images, graphs, or other multimedia content to break up the text and make it easier for your readers’ to consume — particularly if it’s long-form content, like pillar pages or whitepapers.
Consider, for instance, the blog post I wrote: “How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide”.
That blog post is long, with over 3,000 words. To break it up, I embedded videos and other multimedia elements (like blockquotes), to keep the reader engaged throughout.
This is also a good opportunity to increase traffic to your company’s various marketing materials. For instance, if you have a new company podcast, try embedding episodes in relevant blog posts to drive listeners to the podcast while providing additional value for your readers — a win, win.
6. Segue into appropriate and relevant calls-to-action.
As a content writer, your job isn’t just to create good content (that’s what novelists are for). It’s also to ultimately convert those readers, listeners, or viewers into prospects and customers.
As such, it’s vital you learn how to appropriately include relevant CTAs throughout your content, particularly if those CTAs can help your readers learn more about the topic at-hand.
Consider, for instance, the relevant CTAs embedded in the body text of HubSpot’s YouTube video, “How to Understand Facebook Video Insights (Guide)”:
These in-text CTAs direct YouTube viewers to explore other HubSpot offerings, including HubSpot Academy social media courses. The CTAs aren’t jarring or off-putting — instead, the content writer did a good job ensuring the CTAs were relevant and truly valuable for the viewer.
When you’re creating your own content, it’s important you ensure you’re consistently directing your audience to various business offerings to convert those viewers into prospects and, ultimately, consumers.
7. Edit, edit, edit.
Whenever I finish a first draft of a blog post, I take a few hours off and then return to it at the end of the day. With a fresh perspective, I’m able to edit for small grammatical errors or fix structural issues.

Good content writing is impossible without good content editing.

We’re all human and will continue to make mistakes in our writing: That’s okay, as long as you remember to go back and edit for those errors, later.
Additionally, small grammatical errors can ultimately make-or-break a readers’ trust in your brand as a whole. If they notice you’ve forgotten periods or misspelled words, they might make the judgment that your content isn’t as authoritative and clean as other content on the web, and look for future information elsewhere.
8. Jam-pack value into every sentence.
When I worked with an editor a few years ago, she consistently told me: “If your sentence isn’t telling the reader anything new, delete it.”
This was a tough pill to swallow. That meant some of my most beautiful, moving sentences needed to be deleted. But it’s a fair point: In content creation, you need to move quickly onto your next point, or you’ll lose your reader entirely.
Most of your readers are busy people with plenty of distractions, including other businesses’ social posts, blog articles, or YouTube videos. Make it easy for them by making your point — and then moving on.
9. Play around with interesting angles.
Good content writers consistently test out new, surprising angles to keep readers engaged and coming back for more.
Consider, for instance, how often “consumer product” has been written about. I’m willing to bet if you’ve ever researched the topic, you’ve already seen a wide variety of angles as different content writers try to make an old topic feel new again.
But … have you ever seen consumer product compared to water, before?
Articles like “Be Like Water — A Guiding Principle for Consumer Product” do an excellent job at finding new angles to pull readers’ in, even if those readers have seen plenty of consumer product-related content before.
The more unique and surprising your angles are, the more likely you are to capture new audiences.
10. Incorporate original quotes from thought leaders or colleagues to paint a well-rounded argument.
No matter how good my writing is, my readers still don’t necessarily want to hear my advice on protecting your mental health while working from home.
Which is why I didn’t try to tackle the topic myself — instead, I found a psychologist to provide well-researched, helpful tips to take my piece to the next level.
Even if you’re an expert on a topic, consider how you might provide alternative opinions to create a more well-rounded argument. If you’re writing a blog post like, “Video vs. Podcast: Which Is Better For Your Business?”, see if you can get quotes from both podcasters and video producers (or your own internal colleagues who feel passionate about the subject).
Expert quotes or original insights will impress readers and show them that what they’re finding on your website, they won’t find elsewhere on the web. And that’s powerful.
11. Tell the reader why what you’re writing about matters to them and their daily lives.
Let’s say you’re creating an ebook: “A Comprehensive Guide to Excel”.
Not exactly what excited you most when you majored in English, is it?
Imagine how your readers feel: Sure, they might download your ebook if they need the information to excel (ha, ha) in their jobs, but they won’t necessarily be excited about it.
Consider, however, how critical Excel is for certain functions. Excel can help a company’s financial department analyze year-over-year performance to determine how much budgeting a marketing team will receive in the upcoming year.
That budget contributes to critical growth, and the business’ ability to reach and convert new customers. Without it, the marketing team won’t be able to increase brand awareness as effectively as they’d like — and the business will suffer, as a result.
When you recognize that Excel can actually be tied to a person’s job security, it suddenly becomes much more fascinating, doesn’t it?

Content writing isn’t just about creating pretty sentences. It’s also about telling a reader why a topic should matter to them, and how your content can help them become better in certain areas of their lives — be it work, family, health, or travel. Now that’s purposeful.

12. Ground your advice with examples.
As I’ve covered these content writing tips, I’ve tried to include a few relevant examples (i.e. my Rel=nofollow blog post).
Examples can help ground your advice and drive a message home — and they can also help demonstrate how readers can apply your advice to their lives.
Particularly when you’re writing about loftier, less tangible topics, it’s critical you show your readers what you mean, rather than just telling them.
But what better way to demonstrate the importance of examples than to … Show you some examples? (Great segue, huh?)
Let’s dive into some examples of powerful content writing, next.
Examples of Content Writing
Along with the examples I’ve included above, let’s take a look at some impressive examples of content writing.
1. Harris and Harris Wealth Management’s Blog Post, “What Keeps Me Calm For Clients As Markets Gyrate”:

Why It Works
If you have the chance to read the whole article, do — the entire piece is informative and engaging. But what this introduction does particularly well is hook the reader with an opening that’s surprising and intriguing. 
“You never see it until it happens … We were due … I just didn’t expect it …” are all phrases that work to create suspense and encourage the viewer to keep reading. Zaneilia Harris, the author of the post, uses emotion to engage with her readers and make “market downturns” as a topic both personal — and universal. A great example of using a powerful hook to attract, surprise, and delight readers. 
2. The Rachel Hollis Podcas‪t‬, “No Motivation? Here’s How to Create Your Own!”

Why It Works
The podcast script is exciting, relevant, and powerful. I found myself nodding along as I listened: something most content writers hope will happen in reaction to their content. 
In particular, take a look at the description for the podcast (if you don’t have the time to listen to the whole episode): “This week … Rachel is delivering her best secrets for creating a firestorm of motivation inside a season where even a spark feels hard to find.” 
The language is compelling and unique — and who doesn’t want a firestorm of motivation? This is an excellent example of content writing that encourages a reader to complete a task: In this case, downloading the episode. 
3. Trello’s Business Plan Template post via LinkedIn.

Why It Works
Simply put, sometimes, timing is everything. 
Trello’s content writers published the right message at the right time —in this case, the very beginning of 2021. Entrepreneurs were likely attracted to the hook, “Are you thinking about turning your passion project into a real-life business in 2021?”
Additionally, the copy uses a wide-variety of examples to attract as many viewers as possible. For instance, the copy mentions the template can help you organize product descriptions, finances, or industry analyses.
Whenever possible, it’s helpful to ensure your copy can attract audiences with different challenges or needs — which this post does well. 
4. Brian Dean’s YouTube video, “How to Start (And Grow) a YouTube Channel in 2020”:

Why It Works
When the video starts, one of the first sentences Brian says is this one: “These are the exact same steps I used to take my channel from zero subscribers to over 5,000,000 views.”
That’s powerful script writing, and goes a long way towards convincing viewers to keep watching. Why? Because it tells you the content that follows actually helped someone succeed, and creates a level of authenticity that could be missing if Brian simply said, “I’ve heard from others that these tips work.” 
5. Ally Bank’s “Save for what matters in 2021” newsletter email:

Why It Works
I was immediately drawn to the punny slogan at the top of this email when I opened it in my inbox, which reads: “On your mark. Get set. Goals.” The rest of this newsletters packs a punch, too — each sentence is jam-packed with valuable information, and best of all, the content is directed right at me, the reader. 
And who doesn’t want to make 2021 the “year you save for what matters”?

What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free platform for anyone with a website to monitor how Google views their site and optimize its organic presence. That includes viewing your referring domains, mobile site performance, rich search results, and highest-traffic queries and pages.

At any given time, I have GSC open in 2 to 10 tabs. It’s helpful on a macro and micro level — both when I need to see how many impressions HubSpot is gaining month over month or figure out what’s happened to a high-traffic blog post that suddenly fell.
I’m a content strategist on HubSpot’s SEO team, which means GSC is particularly useful to me. But anyone who’s got a website can and should dip their toes in these waters. According to Google, whether you’re a business owner, SEO specialist, marketer, site administrator, web developer, or app creator, Search Console will come in handy.
I remember the first time I opened GSC — and it was overwhelming. There were tons of labels I didn’t understand (index coverage?!?), hidden filters, and confusing graphs. Of course, the more I used it, the less confusing it became.
But if you want to skip the learning curve (and why wouldn’t you), good news: I’m going to reveal everything I’ve learned about how to use Google Search Console like a pro.
This guide covers:

Adding your website to Google Search Console
Setting up owners, users, and permissions
Submitting a sitemap
Understanding dimensions and metrics
Adding filters

Using GSC (24 use cases)

First things first. If you haven’t already signed up for GSC, it’s time to do so.

How to Add Your Website to Google Search Console

Sign into your Google account. Make sure you’re using your business (not personal) account if it’s a business website.
Go to Google Webmaster Tools.
Click “Add a property.”
Choose “Website” from the drop-down menu and enter the URL of your site. Make sure you’re using the exact URL that appears in the browser bar.
Click “Continue.”
Pick a way to verify you own your website (HTML file upload, domain name provider, HTML tag, GA tracking code, or GTM container snippet).
If your site supports both http:// and https://, add both as separate sites. You must also add each domain (for example, hubspot.com, blog.hubspot.com, and www.hubspot.com).

Google starts tracking data for your property as soon as you add it to GSC — even before it’s verified you’re the site owner.
Verifying Your Site on GSC
Because GSC gives you access to confidential information about a site or app’s performance (plus influence over how Google crawls that site or app!), you have to verify you own that site or app first.
Verification gives a specific user control over a specific property. You must have at least one verified owner per GSC property.
Also, note that verifying your property doesn’t affect PageRank or its performance in Google search. Of course, you can use GSC data to strategize how to rank higher — but simply adding your website to GSC won’t automatically make your rankings go up.
GSC Verification Methods

HTML file upload: Upload a verification HTML file to a specific location of your website.
Domain name provider: Sign into your domain registrar (like GoDaddy, eNom, or networksolutions.com), and verify your site directly from GSC or add a DNS TXT or CNAME record.
HTML tag: Add a <meta> tag to the <HEAD> section of a specific page’s HTML code.
Google Analytics tracking code: Copy the GA tracking code that you use on your site. (You need “edit” permission in GA for this option.)
Google Tag Manager container snippet code: Copy the GTM container snippet code associated with your site. (You need View, Edit, and Manage container-level permissions in GTM for this option.)

Google-hosted sites, including Blogger and Sites pages, are automatically verified.
URL Versions: WWW Domain or Not?
True or false: hubspot.com and www.hubspot.com are the same domain.
The answer? False! Each domain represents a different server; those URLs might look very similar, but from a technical perspective, they’re two unique domains.
However, if you type “hubspot.com” into your browser bar, you’ll land at “www.hubspot.com”. What is this sorcery?
HubSpot has chosen “www.hubspot.com” as its preferred, or canonical, domain. That means we’ve told Google we want all of our URLs displayed in search as “www.hubspot.com/……”. And when third parties link to our pages, those URLs should be treated as “www.hubspot.com/……” as well.

If you don’t tell GSC which domain you prefer, Google may treat the www and non-www versions of your domain as separate — splitting all those page views, backlinks, and engagement into two. Not good.
(At this time you should also set up a 301 redirect from your non-preferred domain to your preferred one, if you haven’t already.)

GSC Users, Owners, and Permissions
There are two GSC role-types. I know you might be itching to get to the good stuff (cough the data) but it’s important to do this right.

Owner: An owner has total control over their properties in GSC. They can add and remove other users, change the settings, see all data, and access every tool. A verified owner has completed the property verification process, while a delegated owner has been added by a verified one. (Delegated owners can add other delegated owners.)

User: A user can see all data and take some actions, but can’t add new users. Full users can see most data and take some actions, while restricted users can only view most data.

Think carefully about who should have which permissions. Giving everyone full ownership could be disastrous — you don’t want someone to accidentally change an important setting. Try to give your team members just as much authority as they need and no further.
For example, at HubSpot, our technical SEO manager Victor Pan is a verified owner. I’m an SEO content strategist, which means I use GSC heavily but don’t need to change any settings, so I’m a delegated owner. The members of our blogging team, who use GSC to analyze blog and post performance, are full users.
Here are detailed instructions on adding and removing owners and users in Search Console.
There’s a third role: an associate. You can associate a Google Analytics property with a Search Console account — which will let you see GSC data in GA reports. You can also access GA reports in two sections of Search Console: links to your site, and Sitelinks.
A GA property can only be associated with one GSC site, and vice versa. If you’re an owner of the GA property, follow these instructions to associate it with the GSC site.

Do You Need a Sitemap?
A sitemap isn’t necessary to show up in Google search results. As long as your site is organized correctly (meaning pages are logically linked to each other) , Google says its web crawlers will normally find most of your pages.
But there are four situations a sitemap will improve your site’s crawlability:

It’s really big. The more pages you have, the easier it is for Googlebot to miss any changes or additions.

It has lots of “isolated” pages. Any page that has few inbound links from other pages is harder for a web crawler to discover.

It’s new. Newer sites have few backlinks (links from other sites) making them less discoverable.

It uses rich media content and/or shows up in Google News. In these cases, your sitemap makes it easier for Google to format and display your site in search.

Once you’ve built your sitemap, submit it using the GSC sitemaps tool.
GSC Sitemaps Report
After Google has processed and indexed your sitemap, it will appear in the Sitemaps report. You’ll be able to see when Google last read your sitemap and how many URLs it’s indexed.

GSC Dimensions and Metrics
There are a few terms you should understand before using GSC.
What’s a Google Search Console query?
This is a search term that generated impressions of your site page on a Google SERP. You can only find query data in Search Console, not Google Analytics.
What’s an impression?
Each time a link URL appears in a search result, it generates an impression. The user doesn’t have to scroll down to see your search result for the impression to count.
What’s a click?
When the user selects a link that takes them outside of Google Search, that counts as one click. If the user clicks a link, hits the back button, then clicks the same link again — still one click. If then, they click a different link — that’s two clicks.
When a user clicks a link within Google Search that runs a new query, that’s not counted as a click.
Also, this doesn’t include paid Google results.
What’s average position?
This is the mean ranking of your page(s) for a query or queries. Suppose our guide to SEO tools is ranking #2 for “SEO software” and #4 for “keyword tools.” The average position for this URL would be 3 (assuming we were ranking for literally nothing else).
What’s CTR?
CTR, or click-through rate, is equal to Clicks divided by Impressions, multiplied by 100. If our post shows up in 20 searches, and generates 10 clicks, our CTR would be 50%.

Filtering in Google Search Console
GSC offers several different ways to view and parse your data. These filters are incredibly handy, but they can also be confusing when you’re familiarizing yourself with the tool.
Search Type
There are three search types: web, image, and video. I typically use “web,” since that’s where most of the HubSpot Blog traffic comes from, but if you get a lot of visits from image and/or video search, make sure you adjust this filter accordingly.

You can also compare two types of traffic. Just click the “Compare” tab, choose the two categories you’re interested in, and select “Apply.”
This can lead to some interesting findings. For example, I discovered this color theory 101 post is getting more impressions from image search than web (although the latter is still generating more clicks!).

Date Range
GSC now offers 16 months of data (up from 90 days). You can choose from a variety of pre-set time periods or set a custom range.

As with search type, you can also compare two date ranges in the “Compare” tab.
Queries, Page, Country, Device, Search Appearance
Click “New” next to the Date filter to add up to five other types of filters: query, page, country, device, and search appearance.

These filters can be layered; for instance, if I wanted to see data for SEO-related queries appearing on mobile search, I’d add a filter for queries containing “SEO” on mobile devices. If I only wanted to limit the results even further to posts on the Marketing Blog, I’d add another filter for Pages containing the URL “blog.hubspot.com/marketing”.
You can get very specific here — I recommend playing around with different combinations of filters so you see what’s possible.
Index Coverage Report
The index coverage report shows you the status of every page Google has tried to index on your site. Using this report, you can diagnose any indexing issues. Each page is assigned one of four statuses:

Error: The page couldn’t be indexed.

Warning: The page is indexed but has a problem.

Excluded: The page is an alternate page with content duplicate with a canonical page. For this reason, it has been purposefully excluded while the canonical page has been found and indexed.

Submitted Sitemaps
In this area, you can make your sitemap available to Google and see its status.

Can you see why I love GSC? Let’s dig into each use case.
1. Identify your highest-traffic pages.

Click Performance.
Click the “Page” tab (next to Queries).
Change the date range to “Last 12 months”. (A full year gives you a comprehensive overview of your traffic, but feel free to adjust the time period.)
Make sure “Total clicks” is selected.
Click the small downward arrow next to “Clicks” to sort from highest to lowest.

2. Identify your highest-CTR queries.

Click Performance.
Click the “Queries” tab.
Change the date range to “Last 12 months”. (A full year gives you a comprehensive overview of your traffic, but feel free to adjust the time period.)
Make sure “Average CTR” is selected.
Click the small downward arrow next to “CTR” to sort from highest to lowest.

Note: It’s useful to look at this in tandem with “Impressions” (check “Total impressions” to see this information side-by-side). A page might have high CTR but low impressions, or vice versa — you won’t get the full picture without both data points.

3. Look at average CTR.

Click Performance.
Click the date to adjust the time period. Choose whatever range you’re interested in. (Alternatively, click “Compare” to analyze two date ranges at once.)
Look at “Average CTR”.
Click Performance.
Click the date to adjust the time period. Choose whatever range you’re interested in. (Alternatively, click “Compare” to analyze two date ranges at once.)
Look at “Total impressions”.
Go to Status > Performance.
Click the date to adjust the time period. Choose whatever range you’re interested in. (Alternatively, click “Compare” to analyze two date ranges at once.)
Look at “Average position”.

4. Monitor your CTR over time.
I recommend keeping an eye on CTR. Any significant movement is significant: If it’s dropped, but impressions have gone up, you’re simply ranking for more keywords, so average CTR has declined. If CTR has increased, and impressions have decreased, you’ve lost keywords. If both CTR and impressions have gone up, congrats — you’re doing something right!
5. Monitor your impressions over time.
As you create more content and optimize your existing pages, this number should increase. (As always, there are exceptions — maybe you decided to target a small number of high conversion keywords rather than a lot of average conversion ones, are focusing on other channels, etc.)
6. Monitor average position over time.
Average position isn’t that useful on a macro level. Most people are concerned when it goes up — but that’s shortsighted. If a page or set of pages starts ranking for additional keywords, average position usually increases; after all, unless you’re ranking for the exact same position or better as your existing keywords, your “average” will get bigger.
Don’t pay too much attention to this metric.

7. Identify your highest-ranking pages.

Click Performance.
Click the “Page” tab.
Change the date range to “Last 28 days.” (You want an up-to-date, accurate snapshot of your pages.)
Make sure “Average position” is selected.
Click the small upward arrow next to “Position” to sort from smallest (good) to highest (bad).
Click Performance.
Click the “Page” tab.
Change the date range to “Last 28 days.” (You want an up-to-date, accurate snapshot of your pages.)
Make sure “Average position” is selected.
Click the small downward arrow next to “Position” to sort from highest (bad) to lowest (good).

Because you’re looking at average position by URL, that number is the mean of all of that page’s rankings. In other words, if it’s ranking for two keywords, it might be #1 for a high-volume query and #43 for a low-volume one — but the average will still be 22.
With that in mind, don’t judge the success or failure of a page by “average position” alone.
8. Identify your lowest-ranking pages
Follow the same steps that you would to identify your highest-ranking pages, except this time, toggle the small upward arrow next to “Position” to sort from highest (bad) to smallest (good).
9. Identify ranking increases and decreases.

Click Performance.
Click the “Query” tab.
Click “Date range” to change the dates, then choose the “Compare” tab.
Select two equivalent time periods, then click “Apply.”

At this point, you can look at the data in GSC, or export it. For an in-depth analysis, I highly recommend the second — it’ll make your life much easier.
To do so, click the downward arrow beneath “Search Appearance,” then download it as a CSV file or export it to Google Sheets.

After you have this data in spreadsheet form, you can add a column for the position differences (Last 28 days Position – Previous 28 days Position), then sort by size.
If the difference is positive, your site has moved up for that query. If it’s negative, you’ve dropped.
10. Identify your highest-traffic queries.

Click Performance.
Click the “Query” tab.
Click “Date range” to choose a time period.
Make sure “Total clicks” is selected.
Click the small downward arrow next to “Clicks” to sort from highest to lowest.

Knowing which queries bring in the most search traffic is definitely useful. Consider optimizing the ranking pages for conversion, periodically updating them so they maintain their rankings, putting paid promotion behind them, using them to link to lower-ranked (but just as if not more important) relevant pages, and so on.
11. Compare your site’s search performance across desktop, mobile, and tablet.

Click Performance.
Go to the “Devices” tab.
Make sure “Total clicks,” “Total impressions,” “Average CTR,” and “Average Position” are selected.
Compare your performance across desktop, mobile, and tablet.

12. Compare your site’s search performance across different countries.

Click Performance.
Go to the “Countries” tab.
Make sure “Total clicks,” “Total impressions,” “Average CTR,” and “Average Position” are selected.
Compare your performance across nations.

13. Learn how many of your pages have been indexed.

Start at “Overview.”
Scroll down to the Index coverage summary.
Look at the “Valid pages” count.

14. Learn which pages haven’t been indexed and why.

Go to Overview > Index coverage.
Scroll down to the Details box to learn which Errors are causing indexing issues and how frequent they are.
Double-click on any Error type to see the affected page URLs.

15. Monitor total number of indexed pages and indexing errors.

Go to Overview > Index coverage.
Make sure “Error”, “Valid with warnings”, “Valid”, and “Excluded” are all selected.

The total number of indexed pages on your site should typically go up over time as you:

Publish new blog posts, create new landing pages, add additional site pages, etc.
Fix indexing errors

If indexing errors go up significantly, a change to your site template might be to blame (because a large set of pages have been impacted at once). Alternatively, you may have submitted a sitemap with URLs Google can’t crawl (because of ‘noindex’ directives, robots.txt, password-protected pages, etc.).
If the total number of indexed pages on your site drops without a proportional increase in errors, it’s possible you’re blocking access to existing URLs.
In any case, try to diagnose the issue by looking at your excluded pages and looking for clues.
16. Identify mobile usability issues.

Click Mobile Usability.
Make sure “Error” is selected.
Scroll down to the Details box to learn which Errors are causing mobile usability issues and how frequent they are.
Double-click on any Error type to see the affected page URLs.

17. Learn how many total backlinks your site has.

Click Links.
Open the Top linked pages report.
Look at the box labeled “Total external links.”
Click the downward arrow next to “Incoming links” to sort from highest to lowest backlinks.

Every backlink is a signal to Google that your content is trustworthy and useful. In general, the more backlinks the better! Of course, quality matters — one link from a high-authority site is much more valuable than two links from low-authority sites. To see which sites are linking to a specific page, simply double-click that URL in the report.
18. Identify which URLs have the most backlinks.

Click Links.
Open the Top linked pages report.
Click the downward arrow next to “Incoming links” to sort from highest to lowest backlinks.

If you want to help a page rank higher, adding a link from a page with a ton of backlinks is a good bet. Those backlinks give that URL a lot of page authority — which it can then pass on to another page on your site with a link.

19. Identify which sites link to you the most.

Click Links.
Scroll down to “Top linking sites” > “More.”

Knowing your top referring domains is incredibly useful for promotion — I’d recommend starting with these sites whenever you do a link-building campaign. (Just make sure to use a tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs to filter out the low-authority ones first.)
These may also be good candidates for comarketing campaigns or social media partnerships.
20. Identify the most popular anchor text for external links.

Click Links.
Scroll down to “Top linking text” > “More.”

Anchor text should be as descriptive and specific as possible — and best case scenario, include your keyword. If you find websites linking to your pages but using anchor text like “Click here” “Learn more”, “Check it out”, etc., consider sending an email asking them to update the hyperlink.
21. Identify which pages have the most internal links.

Click Links.
Scroll down to “Top linked pages” > “More.”

It’s normal for some URLs to have more inbound links. For example, if you run an ecommerce site, every product page in your “Skirts” category will link back to the “Skirts” overview page. That’s a good thing: It tells Google your top-level URLs are the most important (which helps them rank higher).
However, a heavily skewed link distribution ratio isn’t ideal. If a tiny percentage of your URLS are getting way more links than the rest, it’ll be difficult for the 95% to receive search traffic — you’re not passing enough authority to them.
Here’s what a heavily skewed distribution looks like:

The optimal spread looks like this:

Use GSC’s link data to learn how your links are distributed and if you need to focus on making your link distribution more smooth.
22. Learn how many total internal links your site has.

Click Links.
Scroll down to “Top linked pages” > “More.”
Look at the box labeled “Total internal links.”

23. Find and fix AMP errors.

Click AMP.
Make sure “Error” is selected.
Scroll down to the “Details” box to see which types of issues you have and how frequent they are.

Google recommends fixing errors before looking at the pages in the “Valid with warnings” category. By default, errors are ranked by severity, frequency, and whether you’ve addressed them.
24. See Google how Google views a URL.

Click the white magnifying glass at the top of the page.
Enter the page URL. (Make sure it belongs to the property you’re currently viewing.)

Here’s how to interpret the results. If the URL is on Google, that means it’s indexed and can appear in search.
That doesn’t mean it will — if it’s been marked as spam or you’ve removed or temporarily blocked the content, it won’t appear. Google the URL; if it shows up, searchers can find it.
Open the Index coverage card to learn more about the URL’s presence on Google, including which sitemaps point to this URL, the referring page that led Googlebot to this URL, the last time Googlebot crawled this URL, whether you’ve allowed Googlebot to crawl this URL, whether Googlebot actually could fetch this URL, whether this page disallows indexing, the canonical URL you’ve set for this page, and the URL Google has selected as the canonical for this page.
The Enhancements section gives you information on:

The AMP version of this page, if it exists, and any AMP-specific issues
Status for job posting and/or recipe structured data

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.