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#059 Content Marketing Newsletter

Ready for actionable insights on copywriting, BOFU content, and free SEO tools?

Sk Rafiqul Islam

Jul 4, 2022

💡 1. Proven Copywriting Framework To Master Cold Emailing [by Marketing Examined]

One cold email can change your life, career, or business.

Only if they open it and respond.

Your cold email needs to get the recipients’ attention, spark their curiosity, and induce action for that to happen.

And the AIDA framework makes that possible (Attention – Interest – Desire – Action).

Here’s how Nik Sharma used it to get Mark Cuban to join his best friend on his podcast:

Attention: Nik used social proof (1.5M downloads) in the subject line to get Mark Cuban’s initial attention.

Interest: Nik generated interest by introducing the large audience Mark Cuban would get exposed to.

Desire: Nik makes the ask and personalizes it.

Action: Nik crafts the email for a quick reply and links to past episodes.

Here’s a quick rundown for your next cold email:

Personalize the email
Add social proof
Make it easy to reply
Make it short

And, don’t forget to make the benefit clear for the recipient.

👉 Insights from Alex Garcia (Subscribe to Marketing Examined for more copywriting and marketing insights)

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💡 2. SaaS Content Types For Bottom-of-the-Funnel (BoFu) Phase

Content helps you win traffic, engage the audience, and even convert the traffic into leads/sales.

Here are some of the content formats (most preferred for SaaS) that will strengthen your BOFU marketing:

1. Brand/Product alternatives

‘[Your competitor brand] alternative' put this into Google, and you'll see a list of pages where your product can fit into.

For example →

[Notion] alternative
[Dropbox] alternative

Make a list of competitors that offer the same product/service like yours.

Successful example: Appsumo created 50+ articles targeting product alternatives to drive targeted audiences to their marketplace.

2. Case studies and report

Case studies or reports are common and effective ways of getting leads and converting them into paying customers.

Here’s what to do:

If getting leads is your primary goal, it’s better to make your content gated.
Focus on getting more details upfront for downloading the report/case study. Conversion might be low, but the quality of leads will be high.
Send an immediate thank you email. Follow up with a free consultation or relevant CTA.

Successful example: Semrush has created a hub of case studies and customer success stories.

3. Comparison - [Your brand vs. competitor brand]

This is the kind of content format that the audience wants to know, but brands are afraid to talk about.

One example is Ahrefs.

Instead of making a biased guide, Ahrefs decided to make the comparison guide (Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz) as neutral and data-driven as possible.

Find similar opportunities in your niche. If you find so, don't be afraid to share the pros and cons of each brand (including yours).

Another example is Asana (product management software) which has created pages for most of its competitors.

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💡 1. Free Alternative To Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research tools can cost $80+/month.

A FREE, simple process you can follow instead:

1. Go to Reddit and find the subreddit for your niche

2. Note down each question you find

3. Google them to analyze the competition

4. Use Google Keyword Planner to check volume

[Note: You may also research Quora, AnswerThePublic to find related questions. And, while analyzing each question on Google, use free extensions like keyword surfer to get a rough search volume idea.]

👉 Insight From Cristina (Follow for insights on SEO & niche site)

💡 2. Quick way to find eCommerce SEO issue (by Brodie Clark)

Brodie Clark ran a research on image thumbnails issues and how they help in SEO.

One of the findings from the research is that relying on JavaScript for images could potentially impact your chances for not getting multi-image treatment.

Example of a multi-image thumbnail treatment showing for an eCommerce category page

Here's a quick way to run a test:

1. Open the URL in a Chrome browser

2. CMD+Shift+N (Incognito)

3. CMD+Shift+C (DevTools)

4. CMD+Shift+P > Type ‘Disable JavaScript’

5. CMD+Shift+R (Refresh)

“If product images are showing similar to the following images, JavaScript being reliant on image rendering could certainly be a contributor.

If all of your images rely on Javascript, and you're not receiving the multi-image treatment, you could have a problem.”

Run the test and check whether your eCommerce store is facing similar issues.

👉 Insight From Brodie Clark

🗓️ Learning Resources and Tools

💡 1. A Free SEO NGram Keyword Research Tool [With Related Questions]

This SEO tool lets you break down related search terms, your own keyword list, or webpage copy into Ngrams to help with keyword research and site comparison.

Now, you can also find related questions for your search terms.

Here’s a screenshot:

Search term relationship map for automation testing

👉 Try the SEO tool for free

💡 2. How One Google Patent is Changing The Content Marketing Game [6 min read]

Nowadays, the web is full of copycat content.

As a result, you’ll see web pages compete with little to no information difference and even copying each other’s backlink profile.

It is hard to compete with content when there is little to no information gain

“For content marketers, this is a problem of differentiation: unless you’re able to outrank those huge skyscraper articles, there’s little incentive to bother contesting the keyword.” – Ryan Law.

This article is an eye opener for all SEOs that discusses key concepts like:

Adding information gain
Future of SEO
Differentiation as a content strategy
Building information moat with original research

👉 Learn about information gain

💡 3. Complete SEO Audit Template [Downloadable for Free]

Download this complete SEO audit template (Google spreadsheet) that includes the list of tasks to consider while doing an SEO site audit.

You’ll find audit templates and checklist for:

Technical SEO
Website quality
On-page SEO
Web analytics
Keyword research, and more.

👉 Download the SEO audit template (insight from Shaun Anderson)

💡 4. List of SEO chrome extension (by Ahrefs)

This article shows you 14 free SEO chrome extensions that will help you in tasks like on-page SEO analysis, technical SEO, etc.

Don’t have much time? Access the full list of chrome SEO extensions below:

On page SEO purpose

META SEO Inspector
SEO Minion
TextOptimizer
Keyword Surfer

Technical SEO purpose

Hreflang Tag Checker
Link Redirect Trace
View Rendered Source
Ahrefs SEO Toolbar

Keyword research purpose

SEO Search Simulator
Glimpse

Outreaching purpose

Hunter
GMass

Others

Similarweb
Data Scraper

👉 Insights from Ahrefs (by Nick Churick)

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