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Written by: Zach McDonald
Writing and publishing on your firm’s blog is one of the best investments you can make in your business – hands down.
It’s a great way for you to explore topics, it brings visitors to your site, it increases visibility for your website, it lays the groundwork for your marketing funnel – I could go on and on.
But in a world overrun with content – there are more than 600 million blogs on the internet – it can be hard to set yourself apart.
That’s an issue we face every single day at Three Crowns. Blogging is our bread and butter. Advisors and fintech companies hire us specifically for our ability to create unique, engaging content for their blogs.
So I thought I’d pull the curtain back a little and share how we approach individual blogs in the hopes that it will help you as you develop your content. For every blog we write, we go through four steps:
- Choose your angle
- Make it engaging
- Prove it
- SEO it
Let’s explore each step a little more in-depth…
1. Choose your angle
Many of the topics you will write about have been covered before. There is no shortage of articles on retirement planning and investing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about these subjects – you just have to approach them from an interesting angle.
Here are three questions you can use to help you identify your angle in an engaging way:
What question will my article answer?
When I’m writing an outline for an article, the most important sentence I write is “This article will answer the question: ___________?”
For instance, if I’m writing an article about the upcoming 529 to Roth conversion opportunity opening up next year, my driving question might be “What are the pros/cons of a 529-Roth conversion?”
At the bottom of everything, that question should drive your entire article. When you go back through for a revision round, ask yourself if you have answered the question to the best of your ability.
What is the key takeaway?
This one overlaps with the last question, but this is where you can plug in your best advice. Advisors often struggle with adding a takeaway because your answer to client questions typically depends on the nuances of an individual client’s situation. Of course you don’t want to get too specific, but you should be able to at least provide some guardrails to help your readers think through the question at hand.
For instance, for my Roth conversion article, the key takeaway could be: Even if you qualify for a 529 to Roth IRA conversion doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.
Who is my audience?
As always, personas are key – if you’re talking to CEOs, you can probably add in some business jargon. If you’re talking to retirees, ditch the lingo.
2. Make it engaging
Even if you get the angle right and are speaking your audience’s language, if it’s not engaging, then it won’t go far. Here is a quick checklist to help you keep it engaging:
- Does the headline pop? The right headline can be the difference between showing up on the first page of search results versus being buried so far down that no one sees your article besides your built-in audience (subscribers, clients, your mom).
- Does the intro grab your attention? There’s so much content online these days, you can’t expect people to read something that doesn’t make them want to read it.
- Did you deliver on your promise? Your headline made a promise that your article has to deliver – does it?
- Did you stay on topic? Similar to question #3, be sure to stick to the subject at hand and avoid unrelated tangents.
- Are you speaking your audience’s language? Avoid excessive industry acronyms and the finer (and more confusing) details of financial decision-making.
3. Prove it
“Show, don’t tell.” It’s one of the most important rules in writing – don’t just tell your audience what you want them to believe, show them it’s true. It makes for much more effective messaging.
Consider this statement on its own: The vast majority of people are not prepared for retirement.
Now how about this: The median retirement savings for baby boomers is just $202,000 – that comes out to less than $700 per month!
After you’ve written your article, look for places you could plug in statistics to increase the authority of your message.
4. SEO it
If you’re going to go through the process of blogging, you want to make sure your articles are optimized for search engines. We have a brief checklist we use to help us double-check our content when it’s done and make sure we’ve covered the basics.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but if you can just address these items, you’ll be doing better than the vast majority of other financial firms out there.
- Include target keyword in URL
- Keep the URL short when possible
- Include target keyword in title
- Use keyword in meta description
- Use keyword in first 150 words
- Use keyword in headers
- Use synonyms and related terms (a.k.a., secondary keyphrases)
- Add 3 to 5 internal links
- Add CTAs to relevant lead magnets
That’s it! Follow these four steps and you will be well on your way to writing unique content that connects with your desired audience. Here they are for you again:
- Choose your angle
- Make it engaging
- Prove it
- SEO it
Related: The Advisor’s Guide To Evaluating Tech Vendors at Conferences