Marketing consultant Bridget Willard announced the first commercial content pack for her Launch With Words project. Last week, she released a set of 12 blog posts for roofing contractors, but there are more on the way for industry-specific content.
In January, alongside Ronald Huereca of MediaRon, Willard launched the Launch With Words plugin. The initial project supported a single “starter pack” of draft blog posts to prompt website owners to publish something new each month to build their brand. The plugin itself is primarily an importer.
For the developer crowd, Huereca has a post that covers the technical details of the project. It is well worth a read to see how he approached building the plugin.
The idea was unique. Willard had written starter content for both the default Twenty Nineteen and Twenty Twenty WordPress themes. She then asked why no one was doing the same for post content. Thus, a new product was born.
The roofing content pack carries a price tag of $497. Companies can publish the posts directly on their sites or customize the content for their locale.
The imported content is a set of 12 blog posts specific to the roofing industry, each set as a draft that users can publish on their own schedule. Each is around 500+ words and includes headings, links, and quotes.
“So many roofing contractors don’t address the frequently asked questions from property owners,” said Willard. “These blog posts address 12. Having content that is turnkey ready allows them to have more content to share on social media as well as helping their SEO efforts.”
She has been writing about the construction industry for over 20 years, so this was an easy jumping-in point. The challenge was creating this first pack while also publishing two new books and wrangling client work. With things settling down a bit, she thinks monthly pack releases are a more realistic target.
Future Content and Starter Packs
Willard is already working on a new content pack that focuses on general contractors, which she may split into two products between residential and commercial. She plans to have at least one ready by the end of the month.
The long-term goal is to hire other writers to cover industries where she has less knowledge. First, she needs a few more sales to bring others on board.
She may also create some industry-specific blogging prompts similar to the starter pack that is available for free. These would also come at a lower price point of around $97.
“The starter pack (blog prompts) aren’t mutually exclusive with the premium packs,” said Willard. “They can be used together. Ideally, they should be used together. Because the content packs are JSON files, and the posts are imported as drafts, they can be written (prompts) or localized (premium) and scheduled. It’s the best of both worlds.”
Writing, Writing, and More Writing
“Writing is the way I can teach and solidify my legacy,” said Willard. “It’s super important for me to create a life worth living. Sadly, I found this out after a mental health emergency in February of 2020.”
Her most recent book is The Only Online Marketing Book You Need for Your Nonprofit, co-authored by Warren Laine-Naida. Adrian Tobey, the founder of Groundhogg.io, also contributed an extra chapter.
“You can’t create unless you consume,” said Willard when asked how she kept up her pace and the creative juices flowing. “I prioritize reading fiction and nonfiction, watching documentaries, taking walks in my neighborhood, going to a museum or a park alone to think and reflect and spend time with my friends laughing and playing card games.
“The best thing for a writer to do is to write. Don’t worry about whether other people already talked about your subject. Don’t worry about what people will say. This is why we love WordPress. Start publishing.”
Ok let’s break things down. 12 posts for $497 – which makes it about $41/post, which by further calculations comes out to about $12 a word assuming each blog is 500 words.
Alright, this is not my area of expertise, so let’e get the SEO gurus in here here.
My understanding is the Google ideally is looking for 2000+ word posts, and these posts are one quarter of that.
If people will just publish the posts, or don’t make enough changes to the text, isn’t Google going to mark the posts as duplicate content, or even worse, plagiarized content?
So, if my assumptions are true, one has to expand the content of each post by 4 times !!!, and/or make enough changes to the text to the degree that he/she might as well write the whole thing themselves, and save the $497 …
Again, someone with knowledge please correct me if I’m wrong… what am I missing?