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How To Write Blogs To Generate Leads For HVAC, Plumbing, and Service Contractors - YouTube
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all right so in this episode today we're
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actually going to be talking with one of
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our team members
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kelly who is our content creator and our
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content team lead person
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and we're going to be discussing exactly
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how you can you know use blogs
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to generate leads so for all you hvac
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plumbing and contractor folks out there
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this is going to be a good video for you
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to
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tune into so you can get an idea of how
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you can actually use your blogs
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to generate leads stay tuned
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[Music]
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i want to welcome kelly fisher to the
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show this is uh contractor cass we're
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here today talking about
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blogging and kelly is our content editor
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slash team lead writing pretty much her
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and her team pretty much write all the
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content for
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all of our clients even for our own
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website um
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and so today we kind of just wanted to
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talk about uh
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the the best practices for blogging how
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to get those leads
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even though they may be long-term leads
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how to get those leads and how to write
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blogging for
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local you know home service contractors
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out there hvac plumbing et cetera
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um so welcome kelly how are you i'm
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doing well
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how are you today good good so just tell
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us a little bit about
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you know yourself a little bit um tell
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us what you do i i said a little bit of
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it but if you want to add to it a little
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bit that'd be awesome
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yeah um well as content team lead
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a lot of what i do is chasing down fires
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and putting them out
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um figuring out like resources who's
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available to do writing for
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a particular project at any given time a
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lot of mentoring
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um basic
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day-to-day team lead type stuff i also
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do all the editing
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um so if there are errors and typos it's
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my fault
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because i didn't catch them
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i got it so we know how to go after if
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that's the case
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um so yeah so so that so the topic today
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is just
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you know uh i guess the title of this
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particular one is how to generate
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you know or how to write effective blogs
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to generate leads
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um so give me sort of your take on on
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that we'll kind of just start off with
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that
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general broad scope and then we'll kind
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of dive into more nuances
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as we go well i mean
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generally speaking if you are writing
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blogs for the purpose of generating
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leads you're playing a very long game
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um blogs are more about establishing
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your expertise
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within the field and showing that
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amongst all of my competitors
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i know better what i'm talking about and
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so
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any leads you're going to gain from
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those are going to be because people
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trust you
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as an experienced person in your field
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rather than
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say um we have the best sales so choose
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us for a better price it's more
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we know what we're talking about we are
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experts in our field and you can trust
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us to do the work correctly
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so it's not going to be like a quick
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turnaround lead generation thing it's
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going to be
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like i said playing the long game
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so with that said you know i know that
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we don't write blogs for necessarily all
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of our clients you know we've got quite
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a few of them um what do you think
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uh today is that is that standard still
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pretty high that people want blogs or
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that they're
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familiar with what you just said that
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that's a long game and that's something
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that's included in your marketing or
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are people kind of going away from that
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i think it depends upon the goals of the
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business
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um the clients we have who are
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counting on us for blog writing they do
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understand that
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the blogs are meant to establish
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expertise
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and build a relationship and
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to more get brand recognition
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than leads leads are a wonderful side
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benefit but they're not the main purpose
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of having blogs written so the idea is
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that
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um they will show up in search and
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they will um be that go-to so like
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if you're looking for say
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how to tell if you're hvac it needs to
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be repaired
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a blog that has five symptoms of a
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broken hvac system
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will be what comes up and it won't be
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uh you hear weird rattling noises you
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smell
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funky smells coming your vents and these
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are reasons you need to call us to
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repair it's more
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these are signs that your system is in
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need of repair and you'll be needing
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a professional who can come and run a
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diagnostic
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and at the end of the blog point out
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that you are available in that area
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but if someone's making the search they
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may not necessarily find someone who's
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in their area because they're gonna find
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the blog that has the best expertise
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okay so you would hope
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with good seo that your blog will show
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up as the one with the greatest
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expertise in your area but it's entirely
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possible that i
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based in north carolina will be
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searching for this hvac blog and
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find that the best expertise is a blog
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in arizona or california places that
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have
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remarkably high temperatures in summer
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and therefore
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a lot of air conditioning issues so
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the idea is to yeah establish your
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expertise and give
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useful information that's easy to read
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easy to understand and
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makes a person feel confident in taking
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the next step
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and if that's not your business
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specifically at least they know what to
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look for in their own area
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and so you know what you just mentioned
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there about
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local versus global or you know finding
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blogs that are not in your specific area
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um you know just reiterating for our our
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clients and our viewers that
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obviously seo like you mentioned is
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still very very important
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that you definitely want to you know as
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best as you can
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focus in on adding those keywords so
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that
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people in your area who are doing those
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searches for ac repair or
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you know weird noises and that sort of
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thing are at least on the list of google
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hopefully
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you're popping up in there you know with
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your blogs and
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you know along with the folks in
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california and other places
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but that you know that localized seo
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stuff in those blogs helps you
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come up and then like you said you know
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hopefully down the line
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if they actually need that service from
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you um and that you know that brand
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recognition comes up where
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they're then ultimately choosing you
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based on the knowledge that you're
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sharing
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yep and of course with our blog writing
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we always do
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mention the area that they're in
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frequently because
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we do want to focus as much on seo as on
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establishing that expertise we want
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to make sure that if you are searching
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for
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those signs of a broken down hvac and
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you're in
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i don't know ottawa that you'll find a
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blog that was written
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for a customer who's in the ottawa area
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right but at the same time it doesn't
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guarantee that they'll get an ottawa
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hvac company they
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might find a block from someone in
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indiana
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or further south even okay
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and something you mentioned earlier too
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just in terms of the type of content
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i want to kind of dive into and maybe
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share with
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folks evergreen you know content so that
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you know stuff that and maybe you can
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just elaborate a little bit more about
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what that is i know that term gets
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thrown out there quite a bit but
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elaborate elaborate a little bit more
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about you know what evergreen content is
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and how they
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can you know focus more on that type of
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content and why that's beneficial
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so evergreen content is a type of
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content
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that basically no matter when you write
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it
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or when you publish it it's gonna be
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relevant it's going to stay relevant
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at all times so the reason they call it
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evergreen is because like an evergreen
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tree
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it just don't die um
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so as an example if
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you are a plumber a good piece of
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evergreen content
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would be um
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signs that you might have a leak this is
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no matter how plumbing industry changes
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throughout the years
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the signs that you have a leak are
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probably going to be pretty similar
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like we may not have iron pipes anymore
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but
[502]
at the same time if your water bill is
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getting higher and you don't know why
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probably you have a leak so that's true
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of
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iron pipes copper pipes pvc pipes
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whatever that's not going to change
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so if you were to write an article
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about signs that you have a leak and
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five years later you decide you want to
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recycle that article you can take it
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update it with more current terminology
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or
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you know if you've decided to move to a
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different um material or
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what you work on or you've gotten new
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certifications and you want to tout that
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you can add that to your blog update and
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republish it and
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the vast majority of what's in that blog
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will not have changed it'll still be the
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same content but it'll have some fresh
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keywords
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and maybe a few new sentences
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or you know different
[555]
type of piping used for repair work
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listed
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but it's still going to be basically the
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same content so that's why it's called
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evergreen
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okay and so i mean i think the the the
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point for a lot of those folks
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watching is just that you tend to want
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to stay away from
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things that will expire right because
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you don't want to have to
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constantly sort of go in and update logs
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um you want to have those blogs that you
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write
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like you just mentioned just be good for
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for years to come so that they don't
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have to
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uh you know make any changes to that in
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the line
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i mean more topical and less evergreen
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content
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is great as well like sticking with
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plumbing related issues uh let's say
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a few summers ago there was this really
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big hurricane that hit the houston area
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and caused all kinds of issues
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and several of our clients were wanting
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to do blocks that were
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typical to that specific hurricane i
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think was hurricane harvey
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um and so you know we had like what
[614]
we're doing to help our neighbors in
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houston
[616]
or um things that you can do to help
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with the hurricane recovery and these
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are
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great topics that are relevant right now
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but yeah five years from now it won't be
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relevant anymore
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but it's still something that helps to
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grow your
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presence in your community now and to
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show your relationship to your community
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and the things that you are doing to be
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basically a good neighbor and a company
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that people can
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trust and rely on and have that good
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relationship with
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so like there is definitely a place for
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non-evergreen content as well
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okay yeah i mean i definitely think you
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know showing all facets of your of your
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company
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um how you're beneficial to the overall
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community that's always uh
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always a good way to go about doing your
[661]
business um
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so on the on the on the technical side
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you know what's
[667]
what are some what is your
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recommendation in terms of blog
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length right so we got sort of the
[672]
content down on what you should write
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and why it's relevant
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but you know how long should it be how
[677]
short should it be most people don't
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have the time
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uh especially you know to do these blogs
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um
[683]
and then you know if you are hiring it
[686]
out you know what what should we be
[687]
looking for when it comes to blogging
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um well i know these days it seems like
[693]
the longer the blog
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the better um i think that depends a lot
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upon the industry and what we're talking
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about like
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i cannot imagine reading a 4 000 word
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blog
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about anything contractor related i'm
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not even sure that contractors
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themselves who are experts in their
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field have the attention span for 4
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000 words that's a lot um
[717]
so like we typically
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feel like somewhere in the
[724]
600 to 800 word range is
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a good comfortable space that takes
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about
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five to ten minutes to read and it's
[735]
short enough to keep people engaged but
[737]
it's long enough to be informative
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and so you know the idea is
[744]
you want people to get good information
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but you
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also want them to stay engaged and stay
[749]
interested and potentially
[751]
look for more information to maybe if
[754]
they really liked your blog
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look through the search function on your
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website to find related blogs to see if
[760]
they can get more information
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and so you know you don't want it to be
[764]
so long that people check out
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but you don't want it to be so short
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that they're just like well that wasn't
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helpful and they go looking somewhere
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else
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so you know i'd say somewhere in the
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five to 600 up to 800 word count
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range is a good comfortable length to be
[779]
able to wet your whistle
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but not bore you okay so
[784]
with that link now established what's
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some of the ways that you know
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folks can go out and and find the the
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topics to write about or
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you know um you know the type of content
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that they should be you know searching
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for or putting out on their on their
[798]
blogs um
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so tools that we have found really
[803]
useful um
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quora is a great website people go on
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there and ask questions and
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answer those questions so you can go in
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there and you could just put in
[814]
like the industry you work in and see
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all the questions that have popped up
[819]
and have
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a veritable gold mine of things that you
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could then blog about because
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these are questions being asked either
[826]
by consumers looking for
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information or by other contractors in
[830]
your field
[831]
looking for um peer
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information being you know looking for
[836]
advice on how to tackle
[838]
particularly naughty issues or
[842]
even ideas of how best to explain
[845]
something super complicated in a way
[847]
that a customer would be able to
[849]
understand it
[850]
and be able to make an informed decision
[853]
without just
[854]
feeling utterly lost in technical terms
[857]
and jargon
[858]
so quora is an excellent website for
[861]
getting ideas um
[863]
and of course another site would be
[865]
incredibly enough reddit like most
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people wouldn't
[867]
think that a social media platform is a
[869]
great place to go mining for content but
[872]
actually it really is because they have
[874]
all these subreddits and you can go into
[876]
the subreddit that is specific to your
[879]
industry and again
[880]
just like quora there's all kinds of
[882]
topics information um
[884]
even just spitballing from contractors
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that can give you
[888]
little gems that you can then use in
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your blogging
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and that's awesome because i think both
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of those are three
[896]
platforms that you can use um and so
[899]
that makes it a very valuable tool to
[901]
like you just mentioned two valuable
[902]
tools that they can really go out and
[903]
use
[903]
and then i think the other thing that i
[905]
find in dealing with clients is just
[907]
always just listening to your your
[909]
existing customers right so the
[910]
questions that you get on a daily basis
[912]
from your
[913]
existing customers um or you know people
[916]
who are calling you up
[917]
about certain issues you know there's
[918]
another way of perhaps getting
[920]
ideas for for writing blogs if you're
[922]
getting a consistent question if you
[924]
will
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yeah now we had had hope for a um
[929]
title generator tool there's this ai
[931]
website
[932]
that you can generate titles but um
[936]
i mean if you want to go there for a
[937]
good laugh you can but the titles they
[939]
generate are more for things like
[942]
magazines and fashion and style blogs so
[944]
like
[946]
i can't remember the name of the title
[947]
generator unfortunately because i would
[949]
absolutely encourage people to go
[950]
just to play with it and get a giggle um
[953]
one of the titles
[954]
because we were like um i think we put
[957]
in
[958]
like broken down furnace and it popped
[960]
up five ways that a broken down furnace
[962]
is better than britney spears crash
[963]
album
[966]
the links you know
[970]
yeah the topic ideas coming from that
[972]
website are terrible but hilarious
[975]
okay well and i think people don't
[977]
necessarily
[978]
know either that you know we we as an
[979]
agency we use a lot of tools right so
[982]
and we typically use tools that we have
[984]
to that we have to pay for
[985]
um and that's kind of what helps us uh
[988]
and obviously
[989]
kelly you're writing content for a bunch
[991]
of different sites a bunch of different
[993]
clients
[993]
you're getting ideas just as you're kind
[995]
of having those conversations with
[996]
different clients
[998]
but you know it's really tough for for
[1000]
us people at home or diyers who are
[1002]
trying to do this to
[1003]
find those same tools or same quality
[1006]
tools without having to pay for them but
[1008]
i'm glad you mentioned those two
[1009]
resources that they can use
[1010]
along with their clients to kind of keep
[1013]
going so
[1015]
that's really all i wanted to kind of
[1016]
touch on today i mean i i think that was
[1017]
pretty good
[1018]
i really like blogs because obviously
[1020]
they're you know
[1022]
just a great way to kind of add content
[1024]
to your site i don't think
[1026]
content is a bad thing from your
[1027]
standpoint the more content the better
[1029]
um and so what what do you think about
[1031]
that like a lot a lot of people go with
[1033]
these
[1033]
sort of slimmed down sites but you're
[1036]
your content person i would say
[1041]
more is not necessarily better i mean
[1044]
your content needs to be
[1045]
relevant and it needs to be good quality
[1048]
because
[1049]
a website full of pages that are
[1052]
nothing good on them it's just kind of
[1054]
trash nobody's going to stay on it
[1056]
because they're not getting anything of
[1057]
value
[1057]
from that site so you want to make sure
[1060]
that any content you're producing
[1062]
is valuable and that it is relevant and
[1066]
that it's something that if a person
[1067]
lands on this page
[1069]
they're going to read it and they're
[1070]
going to walk away feeling like i
[1071]
learned something today
[1073]
or i got information that is useful and
[1075]
that i can actually
[1077]
work with like if that's not a long page
[1082]
good like i had a professor in college
[1086]
that once said no term paper
[1088]
should be longer than it needs to be to
[1090]
get the point across
[1092]
like if you can get your point across in
[1093]
one page submit one page if you can get
[1096]
your point across in eight pages
[1097]
submit eight pages but don't write just
[1100]
for the sake of writing
[1101]
make it useful i think that's a perfect
[1105]
way to sort of
[1106]
summarize and and and put up you know
[1109]
a point on exactly what we just talked
[1110]
about that was really awesome i
[1111]
appreciate it so much kelly
[1113]
um and i hope that in the future we can
[1115]
have some more conversations about
[1116]
blogs and other content related subjects
[1119]
the next time awesome thank you so much
[1123]
so as always thanks again for tuning in
[1125]
to contractor cast and
[1126]
this episode where we discussed blogs
[1129]
and how you can generate leads with
[1130]
those blogs
[1131]
if you've got questions about your own
[1132]
blogs or you know how a company like us
[1135]
can help you generate
[1136]
leads from your blogs or if you're not
[1137]
blogging already how we could
[1139]
incorporate that in your current website
[1141]
reach out to us either through our
[1142]
website
[1143]
give us a call directly either way we'd
[1145]
love to hear from you thanks again and
[1147]
we'll see you in the next video
[1150]
[Music]
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