Skyscraper Pages: Powerful & Authority-Building Content

[00:00:00] The Women Conquer business show is an educational how-to women in business podcast. That features stories, marketing news, and real life experiences from fun and friendly hosts. Jen McFarland and Shelly Carney. Join us as we dive into the details. So you can slay marketing, overwhelm, streamline processes and amplify your impact.

[00:00:21] You'll learn strategies and tactics, leadership skills, and practical advice from successful women entrepreneurs. To help you grow, nurture, and sustain your business.

[00:00:35] hello? Hello. I don't know why I'm giggling, but there's something today about the amplify, your impact that just made me giggle, even though I've heard it for weeks and weeks. Hello and welcome to women Cocker business. My name is Jen McFarland. I'm joined by Shelly Carney. The amazing Shelley Carney. This week, we're going to talk about skyscraper pages.

[00:00:58] These are powerful authority building content that you can have to help your small business. Last week, we talked about topic clusters. If everybody remembers the whole chocolate cake example, that's making lists of topics or content themes based on your expertise. It's nice, and it's good to have a list, but what do you do with it?

[00:01:16] So this week we're gonna talk about sky scraper pages. There's sometimes called pillar posts. 10 X content. They have a whole lot of different names for it. And we're gonna talk about this technique and think of it as the center of that topic cluster. So if we're thinking about the ultimate guide to chocolate cake and then how you break it all down, so you can really stand in your expertise.

[00:01:40] So I, what I wrote is think of this as the ultimate guide to ultimate guides. so that's what we're gonna talk about today, but there's also a lot going on. In the world and in our lives. So let's talk. Everything, every, all the things,

[00:01:57] how are you doing Shelly? That's I am doing well. I [00:02:00] am expecting my husband to come to pick me up in Arizona.

[00:02:03] He's coming tonight. We'll be here for a couple of days together and go home on Sunday. So I'm pretty excited about that. And my mom is doing well. I think. Everything takes about two weeks. She's been home two weeks this Saturday. So I think she's well transitioned. She's been to see the doctor.

[00:02:19] She's got her meds lined up. She's got her home healthcare workers lined up. Everything in medical equipment-wise is in place. So I feel like they're ready for me to go ahead and go home. And my, my studio is here. I'm leaving everything here. If I need to come back. And I'm also going to teach them how to do video.

[00:02:39] Doctors visits before I leave so that oh, good. She doesn't have to get into transportation and go to the doctor because that it's a big effort. And it's very stressful for them both. So I will teach them how to do that. And they've got that lined up with the doctor on making those visits with the video camera.

[00:02:57] So we're excited about

[00:02:59] that. That's really awesome. And after my dad died and we've have the same. Situation lined up where, because you'll still be coming back and forth. So you need to have something set up so that you can come and work and do things. And it's the same thing with me going back to Boise to visit mom and help her out with some things.

[00:03:19] I have a setup. Now I, this last time I actually did what you did when I was there in what you did. Mm-hmm when I I was there in April, where I went. Have a whole setup in a bag like that. I can just plop on the desk so that I'm able to work and get things done because it's.

[00:03:35] It's just the reality when life changes that you have to be prepared for that. So Toby calls

[00:03:39] that a field kit, he packs it over totes. Whenever we have to go somewhere, he can just grab it, and throw out the truck. We got a field kit. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:48] And I saw in your newsletter that Toby's outta town and then.

[00:03:51] We had it affirmed this morning when he called before show, which is not something he would normally do if he's in the same time zone, but he's several time [00:04:00] zones away. So that's pretty neat too. I'm glad that he's doing that and getting to see his family.

[00:04:05] Last night he was talking to me about maybe moving to Florida to be with those grandkids.

[00:04:10] And I was like, oh, I, I'm not gonna stand in your way on something like that because the family's

[00:04:14] important, family's really important. So yeah. How about if I save my Crow story until the end? Okay. There is a lot also going on in the world. Yeah. And I would say it's been as a.

[00:04:29] survivor of sexual assault. And as the owner of Women Conquer Business, has been phenomenally difficult to see everything that has changed in the world. I don't really feel like we are conquering anything as women right now. , it's a very difficult time for in, in the United States for women's health.

[00:04:52] It it's just been very difficult. That's

[00:04:54] right. I think back to high school, when I had friends, some got pregnant, some had their baby, some had abortions, some gave their baby up for adoption. I, we experienced the entire gamut in high school. And these girls are now being told.

[00:05:11] Everything is illegal, you don't have any choice and for a Millennial, a Gen Z person to be told you don't have any choice what's gonna happen there. I think I see a lot of pushback. coming

[00:05:26] a lot. It's interesting because Roe was instituted before I was born.

[00:05:31] So it's not something that I've ever known. It's just something I've seen or read about. So it's, it is a very. Difficult time. It is again, it's the totality of it as a, again, as a sexual assault survivor. If cases of rape and incest and when the mother's life is in danger in particular.

[00:05:56] I am pro-choice, but it's also in these [00:06:00] cases that are considered generally considered exceptions even in the pro-life movement, like that are just gone now for 50% of the population. They don't have,

[00:06:12] so we're gonna lose our OB GYNs, yeah. I'm very likely gonna have to have a hysterectomy this year and I'm like, I need it now.

[00:06:20] before there's a a scarcity of OB GYNs to go to. Yeah.

[00:06:25] We live in different states and that's the complexity here. I live in the one state in the union that has a law that says it absolutely cannot be taken away. At least right now, and that's Oregon. And it's the only state in the union like that.

[00:06:38] So I acknowledge that my situation is different. other people. So it's really about making sure that resources are available so women can make health decisions. So so it has been very difficult. , I don't wanna spend too much time talking about it. Just kinda an acknowledgment on it. I

[00:06:55] acknowledge that we feel the same things.

[00:06:58] You are all feeling, and please reach out to us. We are open to having discussions with you about whatever it is you need to talk about. And if you are interested in starting your own live streamer podcast to get. Your message and your voice out into the world where people can hear you and what you've got to say in your activism, please contact us and we'll help you get through that initial transition.

[00:07:23] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. My chat today so my chat item that I had put down is actually related to the podcast and it's a, and because I have a really good podcast episode about this whole incident that happened, and it was one year ago today. So it was when I was doing off and on podcasting last year, just when things would come up, I would do an episode about it.

[00:07:47] And so a year ago today, a Crow. A live Crow.

[00:07:53] flew down. I listened to that episode. How, when I first discovered you, that was what I listened [00:08:00] to was that one. And I'm like, okay, this woman's wild and crazy.

[00:08:04] So we, and the amazing thing about this is, so we had a Crow fly down our chimney and we're like, man, we should really get some chimney caps, like cuz like you can put.

[00:08:16] A lot of people here have 'em you could put caps on your chimneys. So like that stuff doesn't happen. Have we done it? No. chimneys still need caps. So what happened last year? I can put a link to the show in the show notes is, so those Crow flew down the chimney and we have like glass doors. So like the glass doors were shut.

[00:08:34] All of a sudden we start hearing this Crow and I'm like that Crow. Really close. And so I like look in and I was like, ah, crazy at the fireplace . And so it's like this whole, like chain of events we called all over the earth to try to find somebody who would come and they're kinda like, best of luck lady.

[00:08:53] go for it. Yeah. So there's this whole story with a soccer net and like all kinds of stuff that we did, to shoe the Crow out. It turned out when we went to get the Crow. Like it, the Crow was just relieved and wanted out anyway. So like it had no interest in flying around the house, but that was our fear was that this Crow would be like wildly flying around the house.

[00:09:14] And so I used that episode. I used that incident to talk about. How to deal with the unexpected in your business. At least that's how I remember that episode being. And that episode goes into much more detail in the hilarity of that whole incident. And it's funny because I mentioned the chimney caps last week to my husband when we were walking around the neighborhood.

[00:09:36] And but I had forgotten that it had been a year ago. So that is a funny. That happened. And I, it really made me smile to see that Facebook post of here's what you were doing a year ago.

[00:09:48] chasing

[00:09:48] at crow and we had a crow in the chimney trying to figure it out. So with that I guess it's time to go onto breaking news,

[00:09:55] breaking news.

[00:09:58] We don't have any music today. [00:10:00]

[00:10:01] we're, it's a work in progress. Breaking news. Okay. So this in, from descript, descript is the transcription app that Jen and I use we take our audio, we put it up into descript and it very quickly transcribes it. And then you can pull out filler words and there's lots of little great things in there to help you manipulate that text.

[00:10:24] And then you can also create audiograms and descript is announcing that. They are unveiling a transformative new way of making video. You can already do some video editing in there, but it's clunky. It's a good place to go. If you don't know anything about video editing, because it's a simpler way to do it, but it is a bit of it's clunky for those of us who know how to edit video in another way.

[00:10:50] Yeah. About the only way I use it for editing video is it will take out the filler. Automatically and edit the video and I use it for that, but yeah, no, I don't use it for the other stuff. And you probably know more about editing video than I do. And it makes me a little crazy.

[00:11:05] Yeah it's very time-consuming to edit video, and that's why we just do live streams.

[00:11:10] Live stream, send it directly to a podcast. Then the only time you're spending on it is the prep work and the actual creating of it. So on July 13th, The, they will have a live stream at 10:00 AM, Pacific 1:00 PM Eastern. And we'll put the links to find that in the description box, but you can just go to their YouTube page for D script and they'll be teaching about their new way of making videos.

[00:11:36] So I'm looking forward to that.

[00:11:38] Oh, that's awesome. Can you put those links in the chat just in case people need it? Yeah. And I'll take the before we start the training I'll just take the, a minute to mention something else. About privacy. I mentioned it in my newsletter. There are some concerns about things like using period apps and you know that now that, abortion is a crime.

[00:11:56] So if you track your. Abortion or if you [00:12:00] track your period and that can be subpoenaed by law enforcement, that's a very real concern. That's actually how people don't realize how much information is available on the internet. That's something that. and how much information is tracked. And that's something that I worked in for a long time at the city of Portland was data security and keeping information safe.

[00:12:22] And so if you are using any online tools for your business, for your personal life, Be really aware of all the things that you're putting out there. And there are some really great articles. There's a, I can put a link to my last newsletter, which is also kinda like a blog post up. My, my friends over at near media also did a podcast episode about it in a blog to describe.

[00:12:45] Kind of the intricacies of how that privacy works and how that kind of changes for women. So just be aware of that. It's that it's making the rounds on social media, but it really is a very real thing. And I can. I can, we can put some links in the chat about that, but just be aware that in general, the Google and Facebook and apple, and they all know tremendous amounts about us based on what we post online.

[00:13:12] So be sure that you keep that in mind. Not just in terms of health information that you have out there, but also just in general to keep your privacy safe. Oh, what does that say? Oh, it's Julia. Hi, Julia. How about when your iPhone asks you, if you allow apps to track, are they tracking? Even if you say no, they're not supposed to.

[00:13:33] I would say that if make sure that you use more enterprise grade apps that are more likely to abide by the rules. It's better than. , some offbrand kind of app that the truth is we don't really know. We don't really know for sure what's being tracked and what's not I will say, and I was gonna do it for my newsletter and it's just, it's too complicated.

[00:13:57] There are ways that you can go [00:14:00] into Google and check your security of, if you have a Gmail account or if you have a work Google account, I recently saw through. Google security that my. Business name, address, phone number and email had all been compromised. so it's very real. I'm getting all kinds of weird stuff now that looks real, that isn't.

[00:14:22] So just be really careful and yeah, if you allow apps to track just know that they're tracking everything, and there are some apps that track, like your keystrokes, that track, like everything that you're typing in and. So you wanna get in the details sometimes about what it is that you're doing.

[00:14:40] And I, I have a whole blog post about this, about website security and privacy. John Oliver has done a couple of episodes where he talks about things like data brokers and selling of your data. I like these, even though. Super in depth because it makes it achievable for people to wrap their head around it.

[00:14:59] And so he talked about it twice. He talked about who owns the internet. That was like probably about two weeks ago. And then about a month plus ago, he also talked about data brokers, which is to say that there are people just. Capturing all of the data , Google, so Google and Facebook get as much information as they can.

[00:15:16] And then they sell it to data brokers and they use it for whatever, cuz they're selling it to other people that use that information. So when we track, when we allow people to track us, we don't really know where that information is going. And that's one of the reasons why it's scary and we have to think about it.

[00:15:33] So that was a really good question, Julia. Thank you so much. Thank you again for watching and listening and asking questions. So that's right. Are we ready to talk about skyscraper pages and content?

[00:15:48] Yeah, let's climb the size skyscraper. Get in that elevator and hit the, get

[00:15:51] in there. Boom. Look at that.

[00:15:54] So I did make slides again. Last week I was able to embed them in my website , [00:16:00] which is a cool little breaking newsy type thing that you can, embed your Canva into your website and make it look like a little slide show which was cool. That could be why a lot of people watched last week's show and.

[00:16:12] And versus listening. So what we're gonna talk about are skyscraper pages or other types of content that you can use to build powerful authority, building customer attracting content to help you build your business. So just to review a few things from last week, because they're. Some people who maybe didn't have a chance to listen or watch.

[00:16:36] And I think it's just really important to look at some of these things again and again, it really helps it sink in. So the first is, how are you communicating and bearing in mind that. This is what Google looks for, but it also is what is really helpful for you as an entrepreneur in terms of how you communicate and how you bring yourself forward.

[00:16:58] So Google is really interested in the expertise of the creator, meaning you as the business owner. So how good are the resources that you're providing? What is it that, what are the other things that you're talking about in the ecosystem of your expertise? That helps you rank better. It helps people find you for a certain expertise.

[00:17:19] Then we have the authoritativeness of the content. So it's not just you as the person. It's also what it is that you're saying. and how you're putting that out into the world. Are you linking to other people, are people responding and reading the content that you create? And then the third aspect is the trustworthiness of your website.

[00:17:39] Has it been around for a while? You can also buy up multiple years of your domain name. So you can I do this where you prepay five years out and it just shows that you are serious about your website. It helps Google understand that you're not a fly by night web scraper, just putting stuff up that you actually [00:18:00] have the intention of keeping your business around for a while.

[00:18:03] So expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness is called eat. And that's what Google's looking for. The second step is to really think about the content funnel, understand that people are looking for things for a specific reason. Some people just want a general information. Some people are navigating and want like a mega guide or a walkthrough.

[00:18:23] Some people are looking to buy something. It's they're trying to compare products cause they wanna buy something they're ready to buy. Now they're looking for things like testimonials that say this is the right product for me to. And it's important to understand all of these people are looking for different things, but ultimately, they might become a client.

[00:18:43] So you want to really look at your content through these different filters, because it helps you. Build out the content that makes the most sense. Are you still there? Shelly? I'm actually, I don't have multiple monitors, so I can't still here right now.

[00:19:00] we're working on Jen

[00:19:01] having a second monitor. We're working on this.

[00:19:03] We're efforting. The second monitor, maybe Toby can send me some ideas. So you're still there. Yes. Do you have anything to add to these, to the review so

[00:19:12] far? Nothing that I didn't already say last week, which is just keep these in mind and each one of those can be a video or you can combine all of them into one video depending on that's right.

[00:19:22] What it's about. That's right.

[00:19:23] And then you use the script to transcribe it and make it into a blog post. Yeah, Honestly the third part of the review is we had our topic clusters example, which is to say that you have a topic like chocolate cake and you break it down into smaller post.

[00:19:39] But today, what we're actually gonna talk about is that ultimate guide, we're talking about the center of your topic cluster. So you have one topic. And when I was talking about my own business, one topic could be marketing. This is all within the marketing realm. And so I might have one. One post that really brings forward my philosophy around marketing [00:20:00] and then all the little subtopics it could be SEO, it could be email marketing, it could be, everything around marketing that's specific.

[00:20:07] But they all relate to marketing. So what we're gonna talk about is. The chocolate cake. So the center of our topic cluster. And so now we're gonna start talking about some new things. So there are lots of different words that can be used to describe skyscraper content or long form. And I'm saying long form ish content types, because not all of these are necessarily longform.

[00:20:33] I think that when. The reason we went back and talked about eat is that you don't wanna just make things long for the sake of being long . It has to genuinely be a broad topic that is worth being long. Shelly, you can't just talk about something ad nauseum if it's not interesting. Yeah.

[00:20:52] Oh yeah.

[00:20:53] And you'll know because people start repeating themselves and you're like you had that further up in the blog post, and now you're repeating it and now you're repeating it again. I don't need to see it three times. Are you an AI or a human being, cuz a human being shouldn't be doing that kind of thing.

[00:21:09] Absolutely. And you'll look on here, there's four different types of content cornerstone content, and that is content related to your customer journey. So it's not necessarily long form. This is more function over length, and it usually links out to a lot of things. It sounds like it uses your topic cluster.

[00:21:29] This is where you're gonna see a lot of these things overlap. So you're gonna send people out to other. About your expertise. So that's one form of topic clusters being used to link out to other things. Another one is skyscraper content, which is the word that we use to describe today's episode. And that's around Brian Dean from Backlinko.

[00:21:49] This is the term that he uses. And he's talking about building backlinks that emphasize length and what backlinks are it's content. That's so good that other websites [00:22:00] link back to. And part of his philosophy is about how to go out and pitch people to link back to your websites. I get these pitches all the time and sometimes they're just nonsense only go out and ask people to link back.

[00:22:12] If it's a worthwhile. Cause of doing it. But skyscraper content emphasizes length. So you're really dissecting all of the different pieces. And then if you link out to your own content, guess what? It sounds a lot like pillar content. It sounds a lot like cornerstone content. And so that's the second piece.

[00:22:30] So that's skyscraper content. The third content type is 10 X content. And this is you go out and you look on the Innerwebs and you see all of the things that are ranking for your topic. And you're like that's not very good. I'm gonna do something that's 10 times better. And that was that's a 10 X content was coined, I believe by Rand Fishkin and in about 2015, I think.

[00:22:57] And so that just means that you're gonna write something that is 10 times better than what's ranking now for a particular topic. And that sounds a lot like cornerstone content, cuz you're really writing something that has a function that is really serving your customers and helps people more than what is already available out there.

[00:23:19] So that's the third type. The fourth type is pillar content, which is often com compared to skyscraper content, which is, publishing a comprehensive guide with a cluster of supplementary pages. EG topic, clusters and pillar content was created or coined by HubSpot. So those are your four types of content.

[00:23:43] The pillar content is very similar to skyscraper content, very similar to 10 X content and. Cornerstone content. So if you're looking at all this and you're like what the heck do I have to do? Guess what? You're not alone. , I'm calling this the small business content dilemma. And [00:24:00] that means you only have so much time, so much money and you have to have the best value.

[00:24:06] I use different iterations of this in my presentations. You don't have time for all four different types of. You just don't if you're a small business owner and honestly, even if you're a solo content creator, you don't have time to be constantly focusing on all four of these content types. You don't have the money or the resources for an army of content creators to help you build out all four post types.

[00:24:31] And so you need everything to be valuable to you and your customers. And when all of these things are in balance, it's no longer a dilemma. You are a happy content creator. . What do you think about that,

[00:24:43] Shelly? I think that. Individual content, creators, content entrepreneurs have an advantage because we can, and this is what I do.

[00:24:55] We can take content that is good. And we can read it and ingest it, all on one topic. And this is how I wrote my article on LinkedIn this week. I read the other articles on that topic. I thought about it. Then I made it personal. I told my story. From my point of view, what's going on in my world, but I brought in all of that information and.

[00:25:18] Basically I showed it in action right here is, yeah, here is it go? Here's where it goes on in real life. Here's how it works. And here are some examples and that to me is just illuminating. I can read all the dry, boring textbooks, but until you've. Shown me how it works in real life, how you can implement that day by day.

[00:25:41] Then I can't use that information. So you can be that person that interprets right. All. Jen does this. She takes that brainy nerdy stuff that, that people have a hard time with, our brains turn off sometimes with certain things. Mine's like math. I don't wanna, I don't wanna deal with math, but if a financial person could [00:26:00] come in and say, here's what my client did and here's how it worked.

[00:26:04] And they did this. I can relate to that. I can read and understand and enjoy and consume. And I wanna read that. So that's how I feel about that

[00:26:14] topic. I agree with you and we're. I'll, I will show you how much I agree with you. on the next slide on the next slide on the next slide, but what I, Bridget, the Bridget Willard, the great came in with a question, skyscraper pages.

[00:26:28] I'm curious. So what we just talked about is skyscraper pages are very similar to pillar content, pillar, post content. They are also very similar to 10 X content, where you go out and make something better. Skyscraper content was brought up by Brian Dean of Backlinko around having content of length that people are likely to come back and backlink to.

[00:26:52] So that is that it's like pillar content. Yes. We make up all these words. You'll have to go back and see all of the things. Yes, it's very similar to pillar content. It's very similar to cornerstone content, 10 X content. So here is what I believe is the small business content reality.

[00:27:10] Nobody has time because nobody has time to do all four content types. We have a real opportunity as Shelly said, and I really I really believe that this is how it works. What we have to do as small business owners is we have to create cornerstone content, no matter what it is that we make, it has to be relevant to our customer.

[00:27:33] that's like the bottom line. It doesn't matter how long it is. it doesn't matter. It just has to be relevant. So that's why last week, when we talked about topic clusters, it was all about what is a main topic that you can talk about, for example, marketing, and then what are all of the subtopics around that, that you can talk about that are making a lot of.

[00:27:54] That are related to that topic. I'm getting distracted by comments. I'm gonna try and not look at comments and at the [00:28:00] same time do this. So cornerstone content is really the main bucket for what it is that we need to focus on. As business owners who are creating content, it always has to be relevant.

[00:28:15] I pause it that no matter what it is that you create, it's 10 X content, meaning it's 10 times better than other content because it's within your expertise. So you have to always remain in your expertise because it's always gonna be better because it's original. It is about what it is that, it's likely to be also be skyscraper content.

[00:28:38] If it's relevant. And it's necessary for it to be longer. It is more likely to get links. People are more likely to link back to it. So what I will say is, for example, , as we've discussed a couple times before I was interviewed for a documentary, because I wrote a snappy article about clickfuns and why it shouldn't be used by every online business out there.

[00:29:05] And a lot of people linked back to it. A lot of people are finding it. Because I wrote something interesting, different and necessary. That was also very relevant to my customers who were small business owners. So that's an example, of skyscraper content that got a lot of attention and got a lot of links.

[00:29:23] I didn't do the work that Brian Dean suggests, which is going out and actively hunting down back links because I'm a small business owner. I don't have time to go out and do that. I just write interesting stuff. and I pay attention to the keywords I'm using. so that it's more likely to get more eyeballs and more attention, which brings us to the pillar post, which is also directly related to our topic clusters because it also shows expertise and ad depth of knowledge.

[00:29:52] So pillar posts like skyscraper content are very long and relevant and also [00:30:00] branch out into your topic cluster. But for me, everything has to fall into the cornerstone bucket. And then length is determined by relevance and necessity. What do you think about that, Shelly?

[00:30:14] I just wanted to mention that Jen does actually.

[00:30:17] Ask people to back link to her stuff, but the way she does it is an automation. And she taught me this through missing letter. She puts her content out there as curated and promotes it. And people can, get that, see it and decide if they wanna share it with their audience. So in that way she's taken that step of.

[00:30:41] Sharing out her content and having people link to it and share it with their audience, but in an automated fashion. And I think it works really well.

[00:30:50] It actually does. I always forget about missing letter curate. It's just part of, what's baked into my process now that like after the, after a podcast is over, we go, I post the link in missing letter curate and it gets out there.

[00:31:02] So like for last week's show, for example, it's already. Scheduled to be shared by, I think like 80 people. It's just crazy and these are people, I don't know. So I do have baked in there, but I don't go out and individually like talk to people. And so I get like a social boost from it and I think some people do end up linking to it on their own websites.

[00:31:23] That's the hope so that is how I do it because I don't have time to go do it. There's a lot of different ways of doing it. I also, my weekly newsletter is like a blog post and I link out to like different things that it's related to. So like today it's a one year anniversary of the Crow in my house.

[00:31:40] . So now we're gonna link back to that episode. And that's one way of saying, oh, this is relevant. And this is the other thing that I've talked about. It's natural, right? Because it's just organically. What happens when we link out to it because I am living in that same content reality.

[00:31:55] Shelley's living in that same content reality where we can't create four different types of [00:32:00] posts and fuss around with it. So we are doing it ourselves. We're finding a way to navigate this. Anything to add there. I just went to where I can't see you again, Shelly. Oh,

[00:32:11] I think that when you've been doing it long enough, and as Jen has said that your first a hundred blog posts are practice when you've been doing it long enough, you automatically start including all of those things and everything that you write.

[00:32:25] And then every now and then you'll go. I need to take a stand on this and that becomes your pillar post, and then you wanna say more about it. Yeah. So those are your branches that you're coming off of that pillar post with. So it just happens organically for you once you've been doing it long enough.

[00:32:42] Yeah. I will say that click funnels post was in me for years before I ever let it out. so one of the reasons it was so long is that I had so many clients struggle with it. So many issues that it finally just erupted into this one post. And that's why it gets attention because I took a stand on something and it's not necessarily a popular.

[00:33:03] although if you talk to a lot of small business owners that will say that ClickFunnels did not work for them even though it works for some. And so it's important to take a stand and talk about things that are relevant and helpful to your customers and understand that you don't have time to do all of the things that all the experts tell you

[00:33:17] So this is why this is around setting priorities around what you create, how you create it and how you maximize it to help your customers and also help your. So here is another way of looking at it. Just some questions and advice on like how to navigate this. So for your cornerstone content, it's what do my customers need to know that will help them understand my expertise and make a buying decision that should be your guidepost for whatever it is that you're creating and how to help them.

[00:33:51] Understand holistically who you are and why you do what you do and how you do it. So it, and that's like the overall, the [00:34:00] overarching idea around the content that you create then inside of that, the, if you think about the 10 X content it's, how can I make the information out there better? Or D.

[00:34:13] And this is really important. Sometimes you don't realize how much different your stand is on something until you start to dive in there and you'll look at what other people say. And you're like that's, that doesn't make any sense. so think about this as like a guiding question, a piece of advice that you can use.

[00:34:32] when it comes to things like skyscrapers and pillars, it's really what are other people saying in my industry, people are more likely to link back to you. If you're saying something a little bit different, something a little bit interesting, or even if you're aligning with other people notice I, I gave full credit to HubSpot, Rand Fishkin, and Brian Dean around these different.

[00:34:57] Of content. Like these are thought leaders in my industry. So I am saying they're right. There are all these different types of things. And then I'm further making it a little different by saying, and if you are a small business owner, this may not work for you to create all these different types of things.

[00:35:14] So I'm also making it a little bit different. The pillar content you want to think about. How does it relate to other content that I have or can create? And that's going back to the topic clusters that we talked about last week. So you have a broad topic, and then you can break that topic down into all of the different pieces to share the depth and breadth of your expertise.

[00:35:42] So when you put all of that together, again, we come back to. making sure that whatever you create is helping guide your customers into what it is that they need to know in order to understand your expertise.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] You still there, I'm still here.

[00:36:05] just being quiet, but yeah your customers need to know the information, but they also need to know. How to use that information. Yeah. And why it's important. And you can give them an example of how you use it or how a client uses it. Then that's going to help them understand it better. The more you can fill in those gaps with real life examples and how it actually works.

[00:36:35] Then the more useful it is to people.

[00:36:39] A hundred percent. Yeah. Yes that's exactly it. So when we look at it in practicality, if we go back to our chocolate cake example, you might have an ultimate guide to chocolate cake.

[00:36:54] Versus starts off with eat and then you're going chocolate cake. And

[00:36:56] again, and again, there's no picture chocolate's

[00:36:58] sponsor on this show.

[00:37:00] so like Betty crocker

[00:37:02] or what is this ? I don't, haven't had time to reach out, so dunno. But if we had the ultimate guide to chocolate cake, you might have a paragraph about how to find the right recipe. Just a paragraph, little part of it, whoa, what just happened there? You might have a little paragraph about, finding the right recipe, but it might link out to various chocolate cake recipes.

[00:37:20] So you might have a, another post that really goes into, more in depth around it. You might have a section about gluten free options. In making chocolate cake that would link to chocolate cake recipes that might include a gluten-free option, or you might have a separate and you might have a separate post.

[00:37:36] Also that is gluten is flowerless chocolate cake gluten-free and then guess what the chocolate cake recipes would link to is flowerless chocolate cake gluten- cuz you might have a recipe in the flowerless chocolate cake. And then you might have another paragraph. That is why chocolate cake is good for your health.

[00:37:56] Please. Somebody tell me that it's good for my health . And then [00:38:00] that paragraph would link out to some of the nutritional facts about chocolate cake. So as you can see, none of, then that would all be within your ultimate guided to chocolate cake post. That links out to more in depth information about a specific dimension.

[00:38:17] So this is one example for how you can create expertise driven posts or content. And again, this content can also be created on social media can be created on video. However it is that you are creating content. You can break things up in a certain way and give the value that your customers need.

[00:38:40] And at the same time, Giving them a little entry, giving them a little bit of guidance on how to navigate things and then, oh, by the way, if you want more, , here's how you can hire me. This is how this content wheel works. But you'll notice that there's no post on here that suddenly is like coming outta left field.

[00:39:01] You know how to buy the best baseball glove. Like it's not related to that. I give a talk last week where somebody was a consultant and had a post that was ranking really well in a topic that was completely unrelated to the work that they did. And we had a little conversation about how important it is to stay.

[00:39:23] Within your expertise when you are sharing about what it is that you do on your blog. Or even on social media, you always have to tie it back to your expertise, because if you're getting a lot of traffic on something that isn't related to, what it is that you do, it really. Doesn't, it's not really helpful.

[00:39:43] yeah. You don't wanna just get traffic for the sake of traffic. You wanna get people coming to your site that are likely to be interested in what it is that you do and how you do it because you don't have time for, random celebrity posts or things like that. , that's

[00:39:58] exactly what I was thinking is [00:40:00] celebrities giving political opinions and it's they're not a politician.

[00:40:03] They don't work in government. Do they really have much weight to their opinion just because they're on television or they have a large platform. And, and we forget that sometimes that, oh and so said it was true. So it must be true. Maybe it's not that's not their lane of expertise.

[00:40:19] They're, if they're an actor and then their lane of expertise is. Being an actor anything related to that?

[00:40:29] so if you like this kind of training and these kinds of hot tips, I highly encourage you to subscribe to the women conquer business newsletter that is@womenconquerbiz.com slash newsletter that's.

[00:40:43] And do you wanna talk about your weirdly. LinkedIn newsletter

[00:40:48] you betcha. I'm gonna paste the link and the chat. And so this week's LinkedIn newsletter. I talk about personal brand. How do, what is a personal brand? Why is it important? What goes into a personal brand? And I give examples and I, and explain the reason that this came up in my personal life, what it means to me, why I needed to understand it better.

[00:41:10] And then I share my understanding. In my LinkedIn newsletter. I also relate it to today's show. I talk about, pillar posts, being a part of creating your personal brand. What is important to you? What your experience has shown, what your expertise is all about, that goes into your pillar post. And it's also.

[00:41:32] Helping to define your personal brand. And the reason it's weird is because I use weird Al Yankovic as a personal brand example, and talk about all the things that he's done. And he's one of the longest live Personal brands out there and he's capitalized on weird being weird. And I talk about that in, in my article because my daughter is a big fan and she wants to [00:42:00] have a podcast related to weird AIC.

[00:42:03] So it's all tied together and it's all very personal, but it also gives some some light to the topic of personal branding and what it's all about. Yeah.

[00:42:13] Yeah. Getting mad props from Bridget Willard. Great info ladies. I hope everybody else is getting a lot out of this. If you enjoy this please share it.

[00:42:22] Please subscribe to the channel. If you're watching it on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, wherever it is please share it and like it and we hope that we're really helping everybody out there. Are we ready for some tweaks of the

[00:42:35] week? We are tweaks of the week, first week. I dunno. Tweet.

[00:42:40] OK, go ahead.

[00:42:42] You got this.

[00:42:43] All right. Toby and I found a new product on app Summa this week that is available for lifetime purchase. It's called product Dino, and it is a product selling and delivery platform where customers can access all of their related purchases from you in one place. So if you're offering free downloads PLR courses paid and.

[00:43:06] Free if you're offering any type of digital product whatsoever, you can put it on this platform and you send them all to one place and they can find it all, or you can, they can find just what you want them to find. So you can place a product and you can put it in a collection and have people come in.

[00:43:25] It's got the, the email integrations. It's got integration with a program called Womba, which is a word of mouth type. Reward system for people who purchase or even get your free stuff that they share it with their social media contacts and you reward them for that through this it's already set up.

[00:43:47] So you don't have to think about that or understand it that well, because it's. Done for you. which I love is I see all these things out in the world and I'm like, oh, I wonder how they do that. Oh, that looks so hard and complicated [00:44:00] here. It's done. It's also got an LMS, which is your your learning management system, so that you can work with people who are going through your courses more closely and help guide them and give them quizzes and just check on their progress.

[00:44:13] And there's a lot of a. Analytics baked into it as well. So we're really enjoying that. It is touted to be an alternative to podium, think if and Kajabi. So if that is something that you've been looking at or thinking about for your own business, but they're outta your price range as they are for me this might be a great alternative for that.

[00:44:32] It's interesting as you were talking about it, and I know we talked about it before the show, but when you're mentioning it, this could be a really great alternative to member. It sounds a lot like member vault to me. And for those of you out there who maybe were priced out of member vault, because they recently changed their pricing structure.

[00:44:51] This could be a really good alternative for that. It's called again, product. I know I, when I saw this in the notes, I was, it reminds me of another product that's that does something completely different. So I was surprised when you told me what this is. I hope that this is good. I. I'm always very intrigued my tweak of the week.

[00:45:09] it's so funny. It also happens to be from app Sumo. I have some clients called snap downloader. I have some clients who are pulling their content off of Facebook. have other clients who just wanna move their videos to someplace else. Snap downloader. It lets you download videos from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and it says other places as well.

[00:45:30] It is typically a subscription product. So it is monthly annual that type of thing. It's also available on app Sumo for $30 right now that in here I have been using it this week just to test it out. And so far I've had. really good luck with it. If you've ever tried to capture some of your content from other places and like you usually they're really scammy, like websites that you have to go to, to put in the link and then it says you can download it.

[00:45:59] And it usually seems [00:46:00] not something that you wanna do, getting back to the privacy stuff that we talked about earlier. This is a really good product for that. It's $30 one time lifetime to use snap, download. and I'm definitely gonna send it to a couple of clients who, like I said, are interested in moving platforms.

[00:46:17] It's just important to have, if it's content that you own, if you don't wanna buy this, just make sure that you have a backup somewhere of everything that you create so that you can keep it, cuz it's yours, you made it. And I don't know if this is part of your workflow, Shelly, when you work with clients or not, that you help them.

[00:46:34] Download the videos from stream yard or whatever so that they can keep a copy. Some.

[00:46:39] We do recommend it. And of course, Jen is in our stream yard. So she has total access to all the videos and audios and so she can take them in, put them on a hard drive or do whatever she needs to do with them.

[00:46:51] We, once they're up on YouTube, we're pretty happy with that because you can always. Go into your YouTube channel and just download it from there. It's very simple. But if you've only been putting it on Facebook, then it does just go off into the ether. So I would recommend something like this for for that type of situation.

[00:47:10] Of course, you can't always rely on YouTube to keep your stuff forever, but. How far back do you wanna go? It kinda, yeah. What are you gonna do? Yeah. And

[00:47:19] yeah, and I think it works too in, in the case of, Twitter spaces and different things. LinkedIn lives, if you're only going to one spot, it's really good for that.

[00:47:27] You can't, you absolutely can. I always forget about all of the capabilities of YouTube but you can download already. This was just slick because you could just put in the YouTube link. And hit download and it does it so it's more of a ease of use. I think when it comes

[00:47:42] to using now, if you do have a show where you are showing other people's content and then you're giving reaction to it, or, you're showing it as an example this might be a really great tool for that as well.

[00:47:53] Just always ask, I would always encourage you to ask permission from the owner of the content. If you're gonna show it on your. . [00:48:00] Yes. We have people that do that with us all the time. They'll ask us can I show a piece of your content? We've also had people who just flat out, stole our content and put it up and Yeah, but too, shut that down through YouTube. So you gotta get the eye out for stuff like that

[00:48:15] sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is a, this is very much about use your powers for good . Yeah, this is not use it for your. Benefit of stealing other people's stuff. For sure. Yeah. Okay. What you got, I feel like being inspired.

[00:48:28] You wanna be

[00:48:28] inspired? Yeah. today's inspirational. Nugget comes from Marcus Aros meditations. I maybe saying that wrong. I apologize to Marcus, he's dead. So he is not gonna know he said the mind adapts and converts any. To its action into a means of achieving it. That, which is an impediment to action is turned to advance action.

[00:48:57] The obstacle on the path becomes the way, and that sounds really cool, but it's like, what does that even mean? so you have the power of turning obstacles upside. Taking a negative circumstance and using it as an opportunity to practice an unintended virtue or form of excellence. So whenever something comes up, that's an obstacle or seems like a really negative occurrence.

[00:49:26] Take a look at it and say, how can I use this obstacle as an opportunity? What can I learn from this? Where's the gift. I'm always asking myself, where's the gift in this. And I'm sure that more things will come. From those obstacles that we don't see yet, I have faith that doing what feels important and right, is always the right course.

[00:49:47] Even if some other things need to be put on hold. And in the case of myself, I had to put my business on hold and come to Arizona to. Be here with, for my mom for my [00:50:00] family. And that was the number one priority. Now that they're in a good place, I can, go back to what I was doing, but things will come up in our lives and we have to say, Yes to those.

[00:50:13] And then we have to say, I can put my life on hold while I focus on this, because it's going to bring me so many rewards, even though it doesn't seem like it right now, it will, in the end, bring me those rewards. I feel closer to my family than I have. Probably ever my brother and I've talked more in the last couple of months than we have since we were kids.

[00:50:36] And, there are just so many things that we can get out of these situations if we just look for the gifts. . Yeah,

[00:50:44] absolutely. Thank you. That was good. Yeah. I liked you.

[00:50:49] Yeah. And I hope that helps some people feel a little bit more hope. I know this is a really difficult week for a lot of people.

[00:50:56] So look for the gifts. How can you make a difference? How can you find a way to, to rise in this current situation? Yeah.

[00:51:09] Thanks everyone for being there. And we hope that this has been really helpful. If it has please subscribe, share, talk to your friends about it. This is the Women Conquer Business show, and we will see you next week.

[00:51:24] Thank you for joining the women conquer business podcast posted by Shelly Carney and Jen McFarland, please subscribe and leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging content creation or business problem. Then share this podcast with family and friends so they can find the support they need to expand their brand and share their message with the.

[00:51:45] Check the show notes for links to valuable resources and come back again next week.