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- 3-2-1 Friday: Introducing characters/ideas early in an article, ranking for difficult keywords, subject-verb agreement
3-2-1 Friday: Introducing characters/ideas early in an article, ranking for difficult keywords, subject-verb agreement
Welcome to today’s issue of Efikó, a weekly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, with a focus on content marketing, writing, social strategy, and living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you!
Hey content superstars,
How’s everyone doing?
I started running for 20 minutes every morning. And damn, I feel so pumped every day. I haven’t run regularly since moving to Canada.
And I had forgotten the effects of runners high.
Ronan also started daycare this week.
Separation anxiety is real, my people!
3 Things I learned This Week
i.
If you ghostwrite for SMEs. or have to turn an interview into an article, you’ve probably come across this challenge before.
You are 800 words in. And suddenly, you discover a new idea in the transcript. Or a new character. So, do you plop them into your piece at that point?
No, rockstar.
That would surprise your reader. And in some cases, it can be jarring. Don’t make the reader ask the question: Where the hell did that come from?
When writing these sorts of articles, your first task is to collate all the ideas and characters that’ll show up in the piece and introduce them to the reader early. How?
Ideas. Synthesize the ideas into the primary thesis and use that as the foundation of your introduction.
Characters. Introduce them in the first couple of paragraphs.
No one likes surprises. Even you!
ii.
So, you need to write a blog post. But the keyword difficulty score is in the 50s and above. And your domain authority is struggling to cross 40.
No biggie.
Use your keyword research tool to find the long-tail keywords with the same search intent but lower keyword difficulty. For example:
Content marketing —- keyword difficulty is 88 (that’s super hard.)
Content marketing objectives —— keyword difficulty is 12 (much better but talks to the same audience)
Or content marketing expert —- keyword difficulty is 19 ( also easier to rank for and similar search intent)
The volumes here are likely to be lower than the seed keyword. But these niche keywords are easier to rank for. And as your domain authority grows and your start to rank for these keywords, you can create pieces targeting the difficult ones.
iii.
Your verbs have to agree with their subjects.Singular subjects need singular subjects.Plural verbs need plural subjects.
For example:
One of the saddest memories Dozie has are those memories of losing his mom - wrong
One of the saddest memories Dozie has is the memory of losing his mom - right.
Yes, it can get more complicated than this. But start with these basic rules first.
Some other more complicated rules:
Collective nouns like committee, state, and team are singular nouns and need singular verbs, while team members and state officials are plural and use plural verbs.
Third-person pronouns like they can be singular or plural depending on the context. So use the verb accordingly.
Indefinite pronouns such as somebody, nobody, or each one use singular verbs.
2 Things I am Thinking About
i.
Invest in preparedness, not in prediction.
We can’t predict if good or bad things will happen, but we can invest in making sure we are robust enough to be around and experience whatever the future holds—no need to obsess over predicting the future.
ii.
Redundancy is the price we all pay for longevity.
Shane Parrish
1 Book Recommendation
Go buy How to Live by Derek Sivers. That’s all I’ll say. Derek makes a compelling argument for living your best life in a chaotic world.
Content Writing Jobs - May
All the best, folks. Could you please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this helpful?
If you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here. Or just hit the reply button.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Be good out there. If you can't be good, be careful
I’ll be back on 5/13.
Dozie
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