Cornwall SEO

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Content Creation

60 Second Website Review of The Raw Chocolate Company

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This is a 60 second website review for the Raw Chocolate Company

I’m taking quick, video snapshots of website design, usability and brand building of websites I think are worthy of sharing. This is intended to be a series that will help to give an overview of numerous great websites and highlight the good stuff they do. I can give your website a video review and add it to the review section of Cornwallseo.com for a low introductory offer. Click here for more information.

The website is the therawchocolatecompany.com, it sells snacks based on the raw food concept and follows an ethical path, sourcing foods from Fairtrade suppliers.


The main things that struck me about therawchocolatecompany.com was:

* Clarity of purpose
* Fresh design
* Strong brand image and ethos
* Aspirational tribe, strong lifestyle image

Raw chocolate

Products – Raw chocolate bar
The design of this website is clear, fresh and tells me exactly what it wants me to do. It wants me to buy one of it’s products and love the brand.

How it all started
The founder gives insight into lifestyle and ethos, and the desire to create an ethical and aspirational brand, which builds emotional attachment to the brand as we respond to personal information in a positive way.

The design is vibrant and reflects the products in its design without being cliched, cynical or too obvious.

Our story Brand ambassador – Kjersti Buaas
The “our story”, section, allows us to experience the journey the founder has taken and a look at the lifestyle of evangelist, Kjersti Buaas, as we are taken on a journey of snowboarding and wild Icelandic fjords.

Malawi orphanage
The website supports charities and causes, listing them on the site, and you get the feeling this is not just marketing, but they actually mean it, giving you a further reason to love the brand.

How could the site improve:

The blog could do with some work. For example a 12 minute interview with the founder was linked to, this should have been embedded into the site with further thoughts from the founder given.

Most sites fail to give clarity of purpose and instead present you with a confusing amount of options, which leads to cognitive confusion. This can induce a negative emotional response, which is then associated to the brand.

This connection with life style re-enforces the themes of the tribe of health, living life to the full and having great experiences. This is the emotional image that the target tribe aspires to. Without concentrating on the fact that the food may well be eaten in an office cubicle under fluorescent lighting, whilst thinking of the hellish commute which awaits.

The biggest asset to the brand is the founder, Linus Gorpe and the website reveals enough of him to want you wanting more. I expect a book and possibly a TV show to follow. But I would like to see “A day in the life of….” stories on the blog. I would also like to see some of the rabid fans (which I am sure exists) interviewed on the blog.

Businesses such as this have the tendency to stop when they get to the objective of giving the founders a specific lifestyle. But you get the feeling that the people behind this business and website are evangelists and such will build a strong brand and tribe.

In conclusion:

This site achieves its objectives very well. It is more about building a tribe and brand, rather than worrying too much about Google and in this social media world that can only be a good thing.

Disclaimer:
No Raw chocolate Goji berries were exchanged for this review. Although if I am sent some I will be very happy.

This Tribal Website review was given as an example of the content reviews Cornwallseo.com offers, learn how to give your website a 60 Second Video Review right now.

An Alternative way of looking at the content creation process

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eve

When creating a piece of content repeat the concept in as many flavours as possible. This will sharpen the parts that work and reveal fresh and unique aspects of the idea.

In the video we have Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan playing with the idea of the announcement of a television drama with Trevor Eve. What is interesting is how many times it is repeated just a little be differently to find that sweet spot. We should approach web content the same way.


Why you need to stop building “Quality Content” and start solving problems

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Quality content

A huge amount is written about content, which is all fine and dandy.

But your job is not to produce content.

“Hold on, yes it is. I am a content creator.” You may say.

That may be technically correct and it may be what it says on your Linkedin Page.

But what you really are is a communicator, an influencer, a persuader.

The content is merely a container to carry your thoughts into the mind of the reader and get them to think a certain way or to perform a specific action.

This is very important to understand because it underpins how you create your content and also how you promote it. Before the initial idea you need to think about the person that you want to influence and understand what drives them.

This is why “Everyone”, should not be who you are creating content for and that the more you narrow down your focus the easier it will be to create content that will influence.

For example, lets say we wanted Stephen Fry to tweet our content or even link to it.
Well, Mr Fry has a thing for gadgets and he has a thing for Apple.
But that is not nearly enough, as there are huge amounts of content about gadgets and Apple.
Content needs to be unique to get noticed.
But Mr. Fry has also played Oscar Wilde and has a thirst for interesting literary characters.
So we combine the two.

  • 10 Gadgets Oscar Wilde would love
  • Why Oscar Wilde would be a Mac Man
  • What Oscar Wilde would do with Twitter

Having trouble creating content? Just think of one person you know, and if you don’t know anyone invent a character who represents people in the space you operate in and create content that excites them, that fulfils a need. And that need can simply be a list of cool things to buy that solves a specific problem. You don’t need so called “quality content” or even amazing content, you simply need to solve a specific problem that an individual is having at that moment in time.

To influence and persuade, that is the purpose.

The most useful thing about the phrase “Content is King”

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I love it when people spout off, “Content is King”.

It allows me to know how much brain power they have devoted to the problem of producing content that works to get people to your website and persuade them to feel good about you and your brand.

Anyone with half a brain can see that content is not King, and yet people still use the phrase.

I doubt that Millennials use it much, they know too well the value of content.

The truth is, people are king, not content.

As proved by this chart which I just made.

King

Joking aside, it’s clear that it’s people you need to focus on, simply churning out stuff does not work. Whenever people lay out their case for “Content is King”, they always pick out the best content as an example, but most content being produced right now is going to have viewing figures in the single digits.

It’s only the content that is crafted for people, rather than it’s own existence is ever going to have a positive effect.

Think about the people you want to consume your content and then create the content

Is your SEO Cheeky Nandos?

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Let me make one thing clear, I probably only understand about 20% of what the term “cheeky Nandos”, actually means. And that is exactly how it should be as I only need to know enough to be able know if it fits my publishing strategy.

It’s a brand new term that is tearing up the UK social media pipes.

This chart depicts searches for KFC vs cheeky Nandos over 30 days in the UK.

Cheeky Nandos Stats
Cheeky Nandos Stats

As you can see from the data it briefly overtook searched for the US Corporation, although now we see it dropping as the mainstream get in on the act and the tabs cover it.

Metro

But what does a “Cheeky Nandos” mean?

Lincolnshire Echo

The main point of slang is to create an us and them. You are not supposed to get it if you are not in the tribe. And it’s probably something to tut at as you buy your Moroccan Houmous from Waitrose, (another phrase that you may not fully understand the cultural implications of.

But that’s OK, we don’t need to fully understand some terms to make hay with it. We are publishers not readers, we are dealers not junkies. When stuff like this happens we need to be on it and see if it fits in with our publishing strategy.

Those people who tweet, “WTF is cheeky nandos”. They are not in our tribe and will distract you from your goal of content marketing Nirvana. But those who plug the term in Google Trends, search on Twitter for it, measure and asses the cultural capital of the term and question if it reaches our demographic. Now there is someone you need to pay attention to.

How to create new Content ideas for Blog articles, SEO Viral content…

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I’ve never found coming up with content ideas a problem.

But I know others do, and this is not because I am more intelligent than them, it’s because these people have their skill set focused on another areas, such as web design, programming, seo… etc.

It’s also because their heads are full of the successful stuff they have just seen, but you can’t just copy and get away with it. You have to add another element, you have to take nothing, and create something.

A lot is talked about creating content, but very little on the process of coming up with new, fresh, vibrant ideas. This is probably because very few can do it, very few can teach it and most of those who can do it cannot explain it.

These are the simple steps you need to take to create content ideas

ingest

Ingest means first creating a state of mind that allows you to suck in as much content as possible and then deconstruct it to its constituent components. Figuring out exactly why it works.

Daydream, means to allow the mind to wander amongst its vast library of memories, create “what if’s”, or “what would they think if I did that?”. all the while underpinned by the knowledge about what excites people and why.

Go wild, means to have no barriers. Freedom of thinking and criticism. To know where the line is you first need to cross it. You wont be able to cross it if you are sitting in an office, at a desk, under fluorescent light, wondering how come the boss can afford a Porsche and not buy decent coffee for the office. You need the ability and permission to roam the desert, searching for the shamen who will give you the answers.

Write, means you have to do the work. You have to stare at the blank page of nothingness and engage. If you have a problem with this, start to write whatever is in your head. If you can’t do that you need to either train in the craft or change careers or take up something easy like SEO 😉

You need the knowledge and you need the process. This creates the state of mine, the 1,000 yard stare any content idea creator develops after a while in the trenches.

Some people think coming up with ideas is easy, but unless you are actually pushing the ideas out into the world, then they will only ever stay an idea in your head.