WARNING!
This article was written in 2005, for Squidoo, a website that went out of business in 2013.
I'm going to leave I up, for historical purposes, so you can see how content writing was done in 2005 on the Squidoo website.
HOWEVER: Be warned that what worked on Squidoo in 2005, may or may not work elsewhere or even at all by today's standards!
Keep in mind too, that I have not done ANY content writing since Squidoo went out of business, so NONE of the articles on content writing or copywriting, that you find here on my site, NONE of them are up to date on current standards and trends in content writing and/or copywriting.
Because of this ALL articles about content writing and copywriting and content marketing, are all older than 2013, and are likely EXTREMELY outdated.
I have not done copy writing or content marketing in over a decade now, so I have not kept up to date on current trends, and I will NOT be updating these articles with current info.
Okay... so I went and read your article.
I find it interesting your unusual use of the word "backlog". It's not the dictionary definition. And I've never heard it used in this way.
In magazine and book publishing the term backlog refers to content already published and archived, to be used as the author's portfolio to show to future publishers, thus generating leads/offers for new writing jobs. The reason for the term backlog, comes from "back issues" and "published logs" combined together.
The term backlog has been around since the 1800s, so not a recently invented word, though I must say you recently invented use of it is an example of someone taking a word and applying it to other things, while still using it to come out with the same meaning.
You say in your article:
>What is a content backlog? Your content backlog is a list of content you could eventually write for your audience.
I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion, actually. Did you invent it yourself r did you read someone else say it?
But yeah, backlog is always used to describe content already published. For example, on YouTube, videos you published last year, are your backlog. I've never seen the term backlog used to describe ideas you had but did not yet write/create, so put aside for later. That's actually a rather interesting concept. I like it, because though it is an incorrect use of the word, give the same overall meaning, just to your unpublished works.
>My question for you all is, do you use content backlogs?
Yes. In both the traditional definition of the word, and the newer meaning you've described in your article.
For the traditional use of the term: My site was started in 1997 and I've been adding to it on a near daily basis. As of today it has 9,772 posts on it. Most of them evergreen and continuing to bring in traffic. This massive backlog drives steady traffic, increases subscribers, and consistently keeps people returning for the new posts as well.
For your newer meaning of it: I have an external hardive (3TB) that I keep all my article ideas in. It's divided up in folders based on topic/subject.
I write a wide range of topics (novel writing, world building, character creation, raising fish/ plecos/ catfish/ bettas/ ranchus, art car building, web site building, seo, offline marketing, embroidery, beadwork, rose growing, vlogging, gaming, rving, local history, watercolour, etc.)
Then within each folder, are subfolders, with titles such as: title, idea, started, first draft, needs editing, etc. indicating the level of work already done on the particular ideas. That way I can find at a glance the topic, then the level of work down, allows me to know at a glance how much more time it needs, so I can search quickly for an idea that I have time to work on.
>If so, what elements make up your content backlog in your process?
I like your content calendar!
I do a similar thing, not quite as in depth as yours.
On my phone, I have the Google Calendar app.
Every day I publish a new article/post/page.The topic varies by season. But each page has a youtube video embedded in it. I have over 2,000 videos, each video has it's own page on my site.
I do 3 types of videos...
The vlogs often border into "self help" topics, while the let's reads often feature reading how-to books. These often tie into my article topics...
Back to the Google Calendar app on my phone....
Okay...
So what I do is, I spend one day a week, to sit down and read and entire book. I try to keep the episodes at 15 to 20 minutes long, and most books I can read a chapter per episode. If chapters are long, I do a section per episode. I'll end up with a set of 10 yo 20 episodes/videos per book.
Next I upload them all at once to youtube, scheduling them to publish at a rate of one video per day.
Next I go to Google Calendar app and make note of which days each episode is scheduled to go live.
Now... I have to write an article to match each episode.
I use the list of scheduled videos, in my Google Calendar app, to tell me which topic I need to write, what day I need to publish it (so that I can embed the video in the article, as soon as the video goes live) and in the end, the calendar acts as my "deadline schedule" so that I know how much time I have to write each article, and when each one is due to be published.
>a content backlog gives you more creative flexibility. You don’t have to feel pressure to come up with great ideas on tight deadlines or feel rushed to post content that isn’t fully developed. Not to mention, you’ll have more free time to focus on your other projects as well.
Yep, yep, yep. Completely agree with you on this.
Also, in addition to just having ideas...if I'm in a rush, or have a medical emergency or something to work around, having a backlog of drafts already written and just needing editing, allows me to still get a post published each day, even on days when I've no time to write. So I highly recommend keeping a set of drafts in your backlog in addition to a set of ideas.
>It’s likely you’ve thought of dozens of ideas for posts over time.
Dozens! LOL! You ain't been writing long. I can tell.
Actually...
That database I just told you about? It has 55,000 files in it.
That's 55,000 articles in various stages of waiting for me to finish writing them.
A bit more then a few dozen.
I also find it interesting that you recommend people write articles of 500 to 750 words each. What scam artist fake MLM guru gave you that outdated 1990s number?
Since 2012, Google:
penalizes articles under 2,000 words
boosts articles over 3,000 words
down rank pages under 1,000 words
blacklist/unindex pages under 400 words
They posted their most recent article about it in the Google Help Blog about 7 or 8 months ago and have written about 70 other articles about it since 2012. You might want to read them.
So 500 to 700 words is NEVER going to rank very high in the first place and it's dangerously close to the blacklist level of 400 words.
You might want to rethink your word counts if you want to rank very high in search engines.
>A content backlog is a nice way for you to keep track of your content ideas,
>A content backlog is one of the first steps that goes into developing an effective content system.
>Developing a content backlog forces you to think about your audience’s interests long-term
>A content backlog acts as a roadmap and gives your content more depth. Instead of simply whipping together ad-hoc, unrelated pieces of content, a content backlog acts as a compass and ensures each piece of content is related and complements the others
I'm just fascinated by your odd use of backlog.
I also see you take advice from the Warrior's Forum. How black hat of you.
*tisk, tisk* And here I was liking you.
So, you write "ad hoc" huh?
I guess that explains the recommendation of 500 to 750 words per article. You don't give a shit about your readers. You don't care that they desire USEFUL content. Why would you? You're just hacking out 500 words per article to have some place to slap those affiliate banners.
Let me tell you something...
While there's nothing wrong with putting ads on your site to pay for your hard work, there's everything wrong with putting filler on your ads to dupe reader.
Shame on you!
Do you really think you can share valuable, useful information in 500 to 750 words?
You know there's a reason Google down ranks pages under 1,000 words and boosts pages over 3,000 words right?
It's called: providing readers with sustenance vs scamming them into clicking your ads.
And then people like you wonder why their web sites are not making any money?
Put yourself in the readers' shoes. Would YOU even give a second glance at a one paragraph nothing hidden between so many ads you can't even find the so-called article?
No!
You wouldn't read 500 word crap like that and you know it. So why do you expect your readers to do the same.
If you cared about your readers, you'd provide them with actual content. Maybe you should try that next time.
NOTE: These links go to other authors' websites. Clicking the below links will take you away from EelKat.com and direct you to outside websites.
I'm an author. This is an author home page. It's about me, my life, my books, my hobbies, my home town, and anything else that applies to me and my life.
Since starting my writing career in 1978, I have written 130+ novels, 2,000+ short stories, 6,000+ non-fiction articles (ALL are found on this site), a few dozen stage plays, 12,000+ blog posts, and a few comic book scripts for Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck (I only worked for Disney one year (in 2005) and only wrote a few stories for their Danish comic books).
NOTE: I ONLY write the Quaraun series (aka The Twighlight Manor series aka The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane). In recent years there has been an issue with impersonators trying to pass books off as written by me, notably several non-fiction and Erotica books. I write neither nonfiction nor Erotica.
ALL of my books and their cover arts are listed on my website here. Beware of any books you find claiming to be me. If the books are NOT listed here on my website, they are NOT my books.
In fiction works, I specialize in Weird/Bizarro Tales set in 40th century CyberPunk-Quasi Medieval, Cozy Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction worlds featuring an intersex Elf and his Faerie husband main characters. I DO NOT WRITE ANY OTHER SERIES - THIS SERIES IS THE ONLY ONE I WRITE.
Non-fiction (found ONLY here on my site) is daily updates of events in my life, and how-tos on how I write my novels.
I DO NOT write Erotica.
I DO NOT write books with HUMAN characters.
The Erotica books and books with Human characters, that you are finding, are written by scammers trying to impersonate me.
There is an ongoing FBI investigation into this matter. If you find any such books, please report them to FBI Agengt Andy Drewer @207–774–9322
| Index |
How did you build your audience?
Not online, that's for sure.
aka How to sell ten million books
aka How I sold ten million books.
The Park Bench Method of Writing
(just the article)
or
The Park Bench Method of Writing
(with the list of 10k writing prompts - takes a LONG TIME to load - SEVERAL MINUTES!)
Crazy Woman Just Attacked - No Clue Why or Who She Is
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