Blogs
SOP - How We Do this at Paddle Creative!
Here is best practice for creating blogs the Paddle way.
First task, read this blog (about blogs) as it answers many questions: Read Blog
Step 1 - Topic
- Select the topic of the blog. This may come from another Paddler or you may do Step 2 below first.
- The topic is likely to be a SEO clickbait (i.e. the sole purpose of gaining Google traffic) or a resource for clients (or both)
- There is a free Blog Title Generator here - use it.
Step 2 - Keyword Research
- First step is to identify the keywords you are trying to target.
- To do this you can use Ubbersuggest Keyword tool here.
- Ensure you select the market to UK English
- Then select keywords with a lower competition score but high volume. If in doubt, ask Matt for advice at this point.
Step 3 - Plan Your Content
- Make sure the content is well planned out
- Try to break it down into easily digestable sectiions
- The sub-headings for this content should be Keyword focused
Stwp 4 - Write Your Content
At this stage, you need to aim for the following deliverables:
- Length: 1,200 - 1,700 words length (can be longer but not over 2,500)
- Sub-Headings: Break up text content with sub-headers
- Sources: State sources of info (e.g. you can link to their website, try to keep sources authorative and not a competitor)
- Images: Imagery is important - try to source images as you go. NEVER get them from Google images or other websites. They need to be licensed (e.g. a stock image site or one produced by Paddle). This is important. Collect images as you go. You can use Envato where we have licenses.
- Internal Links: Aim for relevant internal links (to other pages on our site). Use a keyword for this purpose, e.g. a link to the 'branding' page of our site should include the word branding in the link text
- Meta Data: Write these in line with the Meta Data SOP
Tone of Voice
- The tone of voice is important. It should be a balance between informal and professional.
- Remember - we are the experts so speak with authority (e.g. not 'maybe' but 'it is').
- Limited use of slang is ok so long as it serves a purpose to illustrate a point.
- Minor swear words (e.g. crap) are ok in limited use cases
- Remember - we are Paddle and as such we need to think differently.
Step 5 - Adding to the Website
- Once the blog is written - time to add to the CMS
- Stop - before you add to the CMS, run it through the SEO checker on SEMrush (ask for login details if you dont have them). This will help improve SEO. This step may not be relevant for all blogs.
- Stop - run it through Grammarly (if relevant) to see if there are any obvious errors
- Now...you can add it to the CMS! Remember to 'paste as plain text' and re-format in the CMS
- Compress imagery using Squoosh before uploading
- Ensure you fill in all fields
- Save as a Draft
- Tag Matt in Monday and get it signed off
- Once signed off - boom time to Publish!
Step 6 - Social
You need to then launch onto social.
If in doubt - ask questions!
Thank you