Joe Pulizzi at AZIMA, Pic courtesy of @ArnieK

I just got back from the monthly Arizona Interactive Marketing Association event which was on Content Marketing featuring guest speaker Joe Pulizzi of Junta42. As an SEO I dabble quite a bit in content creation, content syndication and content marketing, so I was excited to hear his speach, and Joe certainly didn’t disappoint. I had also just recently finished his book, Get Content, Get Customers, and I’d definitely recommend it if you’re interested in a good introductory text to content marketing. He also gets extra cool points for signing my book after his talk.

In the very beginning of his talk, Joe noted that if you took away just one thing from his presentation, then his talk would be a success.

That one “ah-hah!” moment for me was this sage piece of advice:

Try to create 10 pieces of content for every one idea you have

While seemingly simple, its a very powerful tip for bloggers like myself. Why?

1. It will help you to produce more content - no more writers-block or starring deeply into the computer screen wondering what to write about this week – as long as you can think of one idea every 10 weeks, you can produce a new post every week!
2. It forces you to go more niche – instead of writing on a very broad subject, you’ll break that subject into 10 seperate blog posts (or articles), and those 10 posts will be much more targeted & focused on a more-specific more-niche subject – this is better for SEO (think of the power of the long tail), better for readers (more focused), and better for conversions (more qualified lead generation)
3. It forces you to write more concise posts – if you’re splitting one idea into 10 posts, you’re less likely to ramble. Added bonus: shorter posts are easier to read, which is better for your audience.
4. You can spread your content out over time – keeping up with your content schedule (e.g. one post per week) can be tough, but if you have an inventory of ideas stockpiled, you don’t have to worry.
5. You can compile your 10 posts into a Content Series – this content series all about one over-arching idea/concept can then be re-purposed into a newsletter, e-book, best practices presentation, white paper, etc. Now you have even more content at your disposal!

There you have it – my favorite takeway: turn one golden idea into ten, all with just a little content marketing magic.

My second favorite takeway – people love numbered lists. Hence the list of five ideas above

Twitter & Facebook don’t have a monopoly on short messages.

1. They are placed in a prominent location for quick navigation
2. They don’t need to be put in a category so you can have really simple URLs if you are using optimized URL permalinks like described in my earlier post.

These are most commonly used for pages like About this Blog, About Me, Links, Partners, etc. These are permanent pages that you think everyone should read, and these “posts” won’t get buried once you post new content – a link to them will always be easy to find. So as you start out your new blog, go ahead and make a few pages so that new readers can quickly learn more about you and what your blog is all about. You create a Page just like you’d create a new Post through the Admin panel (only you go to Pages – Add New instead of Posts – Add New) – just remember to make the Title of the Page something that will easily fit into your quick links navigation at the top…

Here is where the pages show up on my current theme, called “Carrington”