How to Write Content for a Website like David Ogilvy: A Quick Guide
Do people have questions?
What’s the price? When will be delivered? Who else got it to work? Any reviews?
People want answers before they splash the cash.
If you don’t answer someone else will.
So who gets the sale?
Not you.
Here is the🗝 Key to Write Content for a Website – faster
The key is having web systems⚙ processes📐and checklists☑.
You are losing sales, money and “time freedom” if you are winging the writing process.
Time to stop losing big time!
Don’t worry, I am Urban Renström, there is always science and research involved in everything I talk about, teach, and demonstrate.
Google updates its search algorithm all the time. The most important is the Helpful Content Update.
Why the Google “Helpful Content Update” Update Matters
In August of ’22 and September 23, Google updated the “Helpful Content Update”.
The September 2023 update rewards:
- Targeted SEO first or Search engine first content
- Change the verbiage to “…helpful content for people in search results” from “helpful content written by people, for people, in search results”. Which is a stance change on the use of AI to help produce content
- The update could negatively impact websites that host third-party content
The August 2022 update rewards:
- Web content that satisfies search intent
- Web content with a clear site structure, and
- Web content that serves a particular group of people
Use this update as your guiding light 🔦🕯, your north ✨star, and your content strategy raison d’etre.
The goal of the “Helpful Content Update” is to “ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people” in search results. As compared to “…content created for search engines…“. Write web content that “focus(es) on people-first content“.
Now we know the why and what and for who all this content is. Yet, the $60,000 question is how do you write blog posts faster?
How Should You Write Content for a Website Faster?
The secret cheat code is to use systems, processes and checklists.
For example:
If your top-level business goal is to increase revenues by 20% YoY…(selling more courses, books, guides templates etc.)
…then the goal of your content is to build up the know, like and trust factors with visitors so they buy from you.
A content marketing strategy supports both goals by increasing traffic from traffic sources. More traffic…more readers…more subscribers…more customers/clients and business growth.
Decision makers and practitioners who succeed with Content Marketing do two things exceptionally well.
- They know what to write about and
- Use systems⚙ process📐and checklist to shorten the time to results.
Let us break down #1 and #2.
Knowing what to write about has two parts – knowing the questions people are asking and how to organize the answers in a coherent, cogent and sensible way. The first is organizing the content before we do the “how-to”.
First – Where to put all this “Content”?
All this content is on a Pillar Post and Topic Cluster.
Here’s the deal:
The questions are directly related to their problems and people want answers…before they splash the cash.
I think I hear you say:
How does creating a “Pillar Post” help me publish faster? Why does aiming before firing help me hit my target?
Ah….the simple fact of having a plan will help you write faster.
Look:
The rate of work you output has two parts – effectiveness and efficiency.
➡️Effectiveness is doing things in the correct order (pillar content and topic cluster).
➡️Efficiency is taking the fewest steps when doing things (e.g. Lean Six Sigma, anyone?).
Both are how you GSD (get sh!t done).
Consider these 5 pillar post examples:
- “The Best Way to lose weight in 2022”
- “How to Train Your Dragon”
- “How to Master your Digital Marketing in 2022”
- “How to buy and use your first Charcoal BBQ” or
- “Learn to play the Guitar like Ed Sheeran”
Each one is a top-level all-inclusive subject covering one topic.
Think about it:
“The Best Way to Lose Weight in 2022” is a large subject and cannot possibly be explored on one page. The best approach is to break it into topic cluster sections/blocks. Each “topic cluster” tackles a section on losing weight. This allows for easier understanding, and reading and presents the information in a logical learning and information flow.
Each topic section is described and discussed on the pillar page but, is completely hashed out on separate pages.
If we use the “The Best Way to Lose Weight in 2022” example then,
the chapters are:
- H2 – “Why being fit and healthy is important”,
- H2 – “food we eat”,
- H3 – High-fat food
- H4 – “How to cook with low-fat oils”
- H3 – “How to grocery shop”
- H4 – Organic vs. Processed food
- H3 – “Receipts for healthy eating”
- H3 – High-fat food
- H2 – “exercise”, and
- H2 – “Mental health/fitness”
The H2, H3, and H4 relate to the Pillar post-hierarchical graph below.
The individual chapters of the pillar post link down to the topic cluster (subchapter) and they in turn link up to the Pillar Page.
That is how you structure content – now let us do your keyword research and fill in the gaps of what to write about.
The second step is Keyword Research
Before Google’s “helpful content update” one of the guiding principles of digital marketing and search engine optimization is that web content must “satisfy search intent“.
What does “satisfies search intent” mean? Look at these example questions:
- “Fix a flat tyre”,
- “stop a leaking toilet”,
- “my car won’t start”.
The intent of each is that “I have a problem I need to solve now“.
Compared to these examples:
- “How does a toilet work”,
- “Which tyres are the rated the best for wear”,
- “How does a car ignition system work?”
These examples are information seeking.
Keywords ensure you write articles that “satisfy search intent”. Different keywords relate to different intents. And search intent relates to different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Your “job”, I believe, is to uncover the keywords that are at the intersection between what a) people use, and b) relate to your products and services.
Free tools like “Answer the public” help you find the keywords people are asking on a specific topic. And from the keywords, you infer intent.
Download the questions into your favourite spreadsheet tool. Then group the question into Why, How and What buckets. See my sheet below.
(mea culpa- I cannot remember where I got this image – if you know the source drop the answer in the comments and I will link back.)
Use a “keywords everywhere” Chrome plugin tool or Google Trends and determine the monthly search volume for each question in the Why, How and What buckets.
“Why” content is the yes/no answer type. Why questions and keywords are the foundation level (H4s) of your pillar content, pyramid and the buyers’ journey.
Look for “Why” questions with 10-30/monthly searches.
“How” content is people looking for knowledge on a subject. “How-to” articles are the teach me to do___. “How” content is at the middle of the pyramid (H2, 3) and buyers’ journey. How content has 40-90ish/monthly searches.
The “what” content is at the top of the pyramid and buyers’ journey.
The “What” content has 100- 200/monthly searches.
Look:
“Satisfying search intent” using keywords is the basis of every successful digital marketing, content marketing and business strategy. Keywords used in content “correctly” and following SEO principles both fulfil search engines’ desires and people’s answers.
Here’s the deal:
Keywords are the basis of a blog post and use them to set the scope of the article. Containing stops the “feature creep” evil and helps you write faster.
The third facet is accepting you are not writing Pulitzer Prize, New Your Times bestsellers books (unless you are)! The everything is a rough draft mentality will accelerate your writing to a cantering pace.
Third – Accepts that Every Blog Post you Write is a Rough Draft
A Rough Draft – does not imply incomplete, sloppy, or not fit for publishing! Nope! And when you write content for a website speed is your best talent.
“What about the spit polish, professionalism and brand integrity?” Yes, critical and the “rough draft” mentality are not mutually exclusive to professionalism. You can have your cake and ice cream with a cherry on top and eat all three.
Everything can be improved. Everything. Perfection is the enemy of success and the enemy of speed. Ever heard the phrase “Launch Ugly“?
My early writing on this blog is pure dribble and I did keyword research and it did not “satisfy search intent”.
Loads of spelling, grammar and structure mistakes – because I did not know any better. Maths and science are my strengths. English is my second language – no excuses. But I learned, improved and did not give up.
For example, the Mango Chicken I cooked on Friday was ok, but not great. Yesterday’s Chicken Tikka Masala was damn good. Did I taste Friday’s Mango Chicken and say “nope I’m not serving this crap” and let the family go hungry? Nope. Did I serve it up, learn from my poor effort and move on? Yes, I did.
Accepting the “Rough draft” mentality does not suggest accepting low-quality writing, shotty paragraphs or throughout concepts. Nope.
The “Rough draft” mentality accepts that time⏰ is the most precious resource you have. You must stop rewriting, editing, and rewriting wasting🗑 time.
Time to results is your goal. Yet, to write and output content faster you must have better and different systems, processes and checklists.
Master writing headlines because David Ogilvy said: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
The fourth wall is Headlines.
Fourth – Your headline is the 1st hook to get Readers to Click
Headlines matter. “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”
Right? Headlines matter, and so does the URL and meta description. The red arrow is the URL with the main keyword. The Blue arrow is the Headline and the green arrow is the meta description.
People consider the Rolls-Royce advert one of the best advertisements ever written. Ogilvy himself said it’s the best headline he ever wrote. About headlines, he also said:
- Make the headline value-centric – be to the point on the subject matter. “Get 20% Off Your from Big Toy Store.”
- Be specific – “Dentist recommend” versus “9 out of 10 Dentist recommend”? Which is more powerful?
- A headline is a summary of the content
- Make your headline compelling but not spammy
You might ask “How do I write good headlines.”
Practice, practice, practice.
And use a few tools. The Rolls-Royce headline was the 60th headline David Ogilvy wrote. 60th! Let that sink in. Sixty tries to get something right.
Ok. writing 60 headlines is not following the rough draft mentality. But, Rolls-Royce was David Ogilvy’s client and can only contemplate the fees which were exchanged.
“Headlines that include a benefit sell more than those that don’t.” – David Ogilvy
This headline in digital marketing is important and this analyzer from coschedule is good. Also, headlines.sharethrough.com is an interesting tool.
Headlines are the advert to get the click. Your outline is how you write faster
Fifth – Outline your Blog Post and Stick with it
I use three different outline templates for the three types of articles I write for my pillar pages.
One template for each of the Why, How and What buckets of keywords. And also a few different versions for each.
Begin with the keyword and the user intent to decide the key learning points/steps/division. These three or four points are the blog post subheadings.
If we use “How to buy the best BBQ 2022?” as our keyword. Then the subheading would be:
- #1 Gas grill vs. charcoal grill
- #2 Cost of grill vs. quality
- #3 Time of year to grill considerations
- #4 BBQ rubs for food
Here is my simple outline for articles. I’m using WordPress and the reusable block feature is the best time saver.
Go to WordPress/Post/add new enter your title then click on the + to insert, and Reusable.
This template contains the following
- A Headline
- Introduction section – 2-3 sentences
- the Read more WordPress block
- Signature Paragraph Block
- #1 H2 Subheading
- #2 H2 Subheading
- #3 H2 Subheading
- #4 H2 Subheading
- Related Articles block
- FAQ block
- CTA
The WordPress reusable block is a template for your article writing process. Do not ignore this time-saving feature.
Better again:
Templates remove the guesswork stress and the apprehension of writing blog posts. Is my template the best of the best and a world-beater? Nope. But this template is better than no 🙈 template!
Sixth – Writing tools Speed up the Process
Grammarly and the Hemmingway Editor apps help with basic grammar and sentence structure. Both are your friends. Grammarly is a Chrome plugin and even the free version helps…
The Hemmingway app helps you write web content in plain language using short sentences and at a reading level for easy reading.
Check out these before and after images. The differences between the two are subtle, yet important.
Seventh – Add Featured Images To Every Blog post
When you write content for a website every blog post requires a featured image. These featured images support your writing. “They,” say a picture is worth 1000 words.
Featured images reinforce your branding and are eye-catching. My SOP for finding images is simple.
- Choose an image from Unsplash, and download the Medium size (1920*1280).
- Upload the image to Pablo by Buffer.
- I use a Blue Tint filter.
- Text in Header only – Font: Merriweather, size medium A, the position is centred, box size is full width, colour is white.
- Logo – size 45 px, centred in the image, bottom justified.
- “Share and Download” – download.
- The Pablo by Buffer image is in PNG format. I convert all photos to JPEG as they are smaller.
- Open the website PNG to JPG .com
- Convert image to JPG.
- Download to your computer
- Change the file name including the blog post keyword
- Upload to your WordPress media library
- Go to your blog post Settings/post/featured image – upload.
Eighth and Beyond
So there are lots of things we did not talk about in this post.
Do you agree that I only skimmed on how to write content for a website topic? Let me know in the comments.
Content Marketing for Non-Techies: Your Priority Reading List
In earlier📆 articles we learned that Website Content is Important to answer the questions 🤔 people ask. Those answers drive traffic 🚥to your website. This 👉 How to Write Website Content post and this post (you’re reading) approaches writing ✍️ from different angles and reasons. We learned the importance of creating 🧱a Variety of Web Content, using different modalities, because some people read 🔠, some watch 📺 videos, and some listen to podcasts👂🏻. This back-to-basics post walked through the best Web Content Management System ⚙️to use to publish a website. We also learned that refreshing and updating your website content keeps pages and rankings in search engines. This leads to the question of where and how to find content to publish on your website.
The featured image is by Leo Sammarco @MediaMonkfishUK
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