Ten years ago, I accepted an offer for $14/hour as a content writer at an SEO agency without benefits. No benefits? Low pay? When you’re a 23-year-old creative writing graduate and getting paid to do what you love — write — who cares.
Before that, I was working as a glorified secretary at a BMW performance shop. I helped them build an ecommerce site on the early version of Shopify, but aside from product descriptions, not much writing got done.
Writing for an agency? I’d be able to write all day. And when I was not having unpaid lunch breaks with my crazy content crew, I did. Client tasks would come in through Basecamp and be assigned with a keyword and due date. That’s it. Which was fine. I was writing.
I would take that keyword, check out the client’s website, and write an 800-word “SEO article” for either their blog, a microsite on Squidoo (lol) or Hubpages (lol), or an article on Ezine Articles (how is this site still alive?!). The goal was not to publish valuable content, but to create a page that ranked for a keyword and linked to a high-value page like the client’s homepage or a product/service page.
We were hacking Google with “content” and it was fun. Low stress. Because no one really cared about what was written, they just wanted a page to feed the bot. I would write up to four articles in a single day. These days, it can take four days to create one.
That place was a total sweat shop and I loved it for as long as I was there. But then I read an article on Copyblogger about how “content” sounds like something you drop in a bucket. And I realized that’s what we were doing at the sweat shop: dropping words into the bucket called the internet.
Over time, this did not sit well with me. At one point, I even applied for a Google grant to make a Chrome extension that allowed people to rate the value of a web page (piece of content). This would support Google’s algorithm in helping authentic content rank a the top of search engine results pages. I didn’t receive the grant but I did start to change my approach to content marketing.
These days, I don’t fill the bucket. I’d rather be poor or go broke than fill that bucket. Because everything you create matters. And because filling the bucket doesn’t work anymore. The bucket is full. That’s why bloggers, SEOs, and old school content marketers are always complaining about traffic dips. They’re trying to fill the old rusty SEO bucket that’s already full.
A better approach to content marketing is sharing an original perspective with storytelling. You con’t have to publish something epic, but it does need to be authentic, and the KPI should not be traffic. The KPI should be: how authentic is this piece of content? With some content repurposing and SEO, the metrics will take care of themselves: organic traffic, referral traffic, subscriptions, followers.
When I got Google-thirsty at my previous full-time job, my manager said: “Rob, why does this organic traffic matter?” The dude sucked but had a point. Because it doesn’t, unless you’re saying something true. I’ll admit, half of that content was bucket content. The other half, either authentic or epic.
With my current client at TWN, I’m focused on creating what’s authentic — consistently. We’re publishing on Substack because it supports authentic voices. It also rolls a newsletter, blog, and social network into a single platform. It feels nice here, so please content folk, let’s use it wisely. Let’s not make it another content bucket.
P.S. — This was blog post was initially written on paper.
Robert: I looked on Amazon for the pen I use. I don't recall paying this much, but it is still worth it.
https://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Namiki-Vanishing-Fountain-Carbon/dp/B073VRKZVZ/ref=sr_1_15?crid=2FRWSAXTLNNKF&keywords=pilot+vanishing+point+retractable+fountain+pen&qid=1680868316&sprefix=pilot+fountain+pen+retr%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-15&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.f5122f16-c3e8-4386-bf32-63e904010ad0
I had always coveted a Mont Blanc Diplomat Fountain Pen. My son got one for me when he was in Asia a few years ago (a fellow nomad). He wasn't sure if it was a knock off or fell off a truck, but it seems to be the right thing. I doesn't work as well as the Pilot fountain pen I use on a daily basis.
My handwriting is terrible and the fountain pen forces me to slow down just enough so my penmanship is legible. I will send you a link to it when I come across it because it uses capsules and is very reliable.