Up next in 10
My WordPress writing workflow
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Jul 22, 2020
I talk about my WordPress writing workflow and why I start in Google Docs.
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hey this is uh todd with copy flight i
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wanted to do a really quick
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video i've been intending to do this
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anyway
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excuse me so um i'll go ahead and do it
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now
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a popular uh facebook group for
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um wordpress agencies asked the question
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on
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twitter about where you start your
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um your blog project or your blog or
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your article you're writing your blog
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post whatever you want to call it
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um and i answered um
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document and i even left a little uh
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note about you know how i started in
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google docs et cetera
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and somebody replied asking me basically
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why i did that and i said well
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here's the reason um i have written
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articles
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um my articles tend to be longer for the
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most part
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um there is a site where i write
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articles that are much much shorter but
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in general articles for uh agencies uh
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business that kind of thing
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tend to to be at least a thousand words
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for me
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sometimes longer i've got some that are
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in the two to three thousand
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word range
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almost always get the 1500 sometimes
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without even trying
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when you write more you you can do that
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it takes some editorial skills to pare
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it down
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um but anyway because of that
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um with a interruption internet or
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a database interruption or something
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like that you you can lose what you've
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done
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if you've written four or five 600 words
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and they're good and you lose them
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you're starting all over again and i
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just don't want to do that
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with putting them in google docs
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it'll save continuously and
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you know once the online if there is
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interruption once it comes back on
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your words are still there and it'll
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save it and so forth just keep it open
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it's much safer in that regard the other
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reason is when you're writing
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longer articles you want to spend some
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time organizing them
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uh based on what part of the article you
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think this area needs to
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be and that kind of thing so uh and and
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where the headlight headliner or the sub
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heads
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are those kind of things kinds of things
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i want to do that in the
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google document where there's less
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distraction in fact to be honest with
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you
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i will pull up notepad on my computer
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and work
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on a certain section of the article in
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notepad
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it's even more distraction free so
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i wanted to talk a little bit about my
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workflow
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and show you how that kind of happens
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uh so this is copy flight website the
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uh kind of the hub for what i do
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and i'm going to go over here to the reo
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framework this is an article i've been
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working on since
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june alas said it was june 24th you see
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i've got
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sidelined it's something that's been in
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my head
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been working through what i had time um
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certainly do you plan on trying to
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finish this and it might actually be
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more beneficial to me to actually
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uh break it into parts i don't know but
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the first page is
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essentially your intro um
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and this is the second point and as you
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see i've got
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a a link here for
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an area that i'm a reference uh i have a
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callout section here a um
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what it'll be a block quote in the um
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uh the wordpress and so that's
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these things i can call out for myself
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for easy finding
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when i go back to uh actually format it
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i want to format the
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article the final formatting i want to
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be done
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in the wordpress editor because
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i'm going to take advantage of the code
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that they use for
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h1 tags that kind of thing also
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when you write something in google docs
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they tend they put their own coding in
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there so
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what i try to do is drop the the actual
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content in the uh
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the editor that's uh considered text
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so that it copies the just the words and
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not the formatting
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because i want to format it in the
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wordpress editor
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so i can use things like block quote
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which this really doesn't have a block
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quote you can use an indention
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and italicize it but there's really not
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a block quote
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uh here and so i'm going to use block
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quote in the
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headline or in the wordpress editor now
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with the emergence of
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gutenberg uh the blocks will come in
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handy and i look forward to actually
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doing that
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haven't done that yet this article i do
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intend to post
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using gutenberg but just show you how it
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works
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i'm going to take this first section i'm
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going to highlight it
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uh because this will not be the whole
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thing and it's just a test
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just to show you i copy it i'm gonna go
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over to
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my wordpress editor now uh if i had
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gutenberg enabled on this i would uh
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have the gutenberg editor here
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and it would do we're not going to go
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into gutenberg right now
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but this is the text editor the text
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side
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here you got the visual where you have
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the the wizzy wigs at the top that
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allows you to
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make all the formatting but here i want
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to drop it in the text
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tab so that i get all the
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content without the formatting because
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i'm going to format
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in the article this title i don't need
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because that will be the title
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uh we'll go back to the visual and here
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i have
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and you can see my grammarly is already
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lighting up
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uh i really probably should uh
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do that part of the editing before i put
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it in here but if in case i don't
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grammarly is there and i don't
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use everything grammarly suggests a lot
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of times i disagree with their
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assessment so
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but like this right here typically that
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tent should be hyphenated
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uh same here uh actually you should be
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and
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so it catches little things like that
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for me that i don't
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catch very well but right here you see
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the big
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quote and when gonna go up here and hit
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the block quote
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and then i can put the link somewhere to
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highlight that and so forth that's where
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we are um
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so that's kind of my workflow
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uh i'll do one last go through editing
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it
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now if i have the luxury of having an
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editor look over
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he or she will be looking at that in
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google docs
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and i'll try not to move anything over
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until they've gone through it
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and had me uh make some changes if you
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know
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that changes need to be made so
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i will also at this point this is where
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i look for my images i will have an
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image
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i will put my tags in there if you're a
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writer and you don't
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do this part of it totally
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understandable but if you are a writer
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and you're actually putting the content
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in
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the the dashboard for your client this
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is where you would you know you'd add
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the tags
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choose category um
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uh you should have a place here for the
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feature image
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right there um then i have my little
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yoast uh
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seo uh area but if you use something
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like uh
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rank math they have a very similar one a
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little bit different but the the
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everything's similar uh one of my
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clients uses that so i'm
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well aware about using that um if
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i am writing for me like i am logged in
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through the main
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staff person so i would change the
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author to me
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and um i can make all the little
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adjustments then i would add my pictures
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break up the wall text you don't want
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ongoing wall text
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break that up and add my feature
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image and then usually i will save it
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and we will take a look
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of course this will be very plain
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because i have no images in there
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um but i would add a feature image which
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would go there and
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i have my share buttons and so forth so
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this is kind of my workflow
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once i am done with everything i've got
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it
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edited the images added the tags that
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way they need to be tagged and i'm
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publish it
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then comes the part of the workflow
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where we promote it
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this is an area i'm working to get
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better on i'm inspired by
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things i learned from ross simmons of
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foundation inc he's got some really good
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content about
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how you can distribute he calls it
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distribute i like that word
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uh because that's basically what you're
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doing in some cases you want to remix
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your content maybe i'll make a video
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based on this
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that links back to the article uh maybe
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i make a video snippet
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that i put on social media uh with some
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you know
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something that catches people's
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attention and links back to it
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um possibly i take us a really good
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nugget
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in there that's tweetable
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and we'll share that with the link back
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to it obviously share the the platforms
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i have
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uh there are certain ways you can remix
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and um ross and his team over there they
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have some really good content
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i actually have a little course too i
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highly recommend you checking that out
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but once we formatted it and published
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it
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that's when you do the content promotion
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certainly
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um you're not done until you've really
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began to do content promotion
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now if that's not your part of the job
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and the workflow
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then that would be up to someone else
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but if you're
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the person you're in the business or
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whatever and you're doing everything
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from concept to
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delivery then don't forget about
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distribution you'll certainly want to
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include it in an email maybe do a
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snippet or some something that gets
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people interested to actually go read
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the article
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kim doyle does this very well when you
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look at hers
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so things like that so you want to do
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that you want to
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do a good job of distributing it once
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you made it but that's kind of my
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workflow
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as i said i also use notepad so in
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notepad
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i will write maybe the intro
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kind of what's in my head will kind of
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come out
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sometimes i'm learning figuring it out
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as a go which is terrible
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don't tell other great content writers
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but sometimes i have strictly in mind
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what i want to do and it changes with
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how it goes but
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basically i have a a a
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wireframe if you will for the article
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these points i want to do
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and um and use the notepad for
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the little sections drop it into the
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google document begin
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formatting it a little for for structure
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not for how it looks for structure like
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okay
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i want this to be the title of this
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section i want to move this up here that
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kind of thing
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uh edit adding editing
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grammar and spelling which i'm not very
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good at and uh
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edit for how it sounds uh making it
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sound better
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uh those kind of things if i had a um
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graded editor every time i wrote you
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guys would think i'm an all-star
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and so anyway that's my little workflow
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maybe it explains a little bit about
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why i do it how i do uh be sure to check
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out copy flight
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copyflight.com the blog and uh our copy
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chat
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show and i'll talk to you next time