John McCoy

A long while back, I had a client who was absolutely convinced that the only correct length for a blog post was 2,000 words. You're the boss, man. So I wrote 2,000-word articles, no exceptions. Well, as it turns out, this was not rooted in any verifiable truth whatsoever. And that's fine; it won't really hurt to write them longer. It's just going to cost a lot more without any real gains. According to Ahrefs (thanks for the killer graphics!)

Day 5 Fall is the best season of the year, and nothing can convince me otherwise. Yes, I know winter comes next, and I don't think anyone's a huge winter fan. Maybe people who live in places where you can actually do real winter activities, and also complete psychopaths. For the rest of us, it's just a season you have to get through to get to the other side. But fall is incredible. The weather is nice: it's rainy, overcast, and cool, so you can open the windows most of the fall. There's Thanksgiving, pie, chili, and cinnamon rolls. Of course, I was born in the fall, so I'm probably predisposed to favoring it over other seasons. Every year that comes and goes reinforces my belief that it's the best season.

Sweet it still costs $90 to fill my sienna

Getting your deadlift up to 405 will do far more for your life in a positive way than pissing and moaning about election results, which does nothing. With that said, I'm going to be totally transparent: it's really hard to get back into the grind after a long layoff. My layoff is nearing 2 years now, with very sporadic lifting. It started when my youngest was born, and I figured it'd be about 6 weeks or so before I got into it. That was nearly 20 months ago. I can't promise anything because life is busy, and time gets away from all of us. I do want to include all of you on my journey back to getting into a regular routine and seeing where my weights go. It's an important part of my life that is exponentially more important than the results of any elections or any other item I have no control over. I love lifting weights because you can always control the outcome. You can't make that 5 lb jump, so you take it down to 2.5 lb. You can't make a 2.5 lb jump, so you bust out the fractional weights and do 1 lb. You can do 0.5 lb, but you're always moving forward. You're always going up, and you control all of it.

Who's got time to black pill when the sun's out?

This will do FAR more for your life and the lens you look at it through.

Day 4 There's something about writing these off the cuff and unscripted. All my other posts follow a set rhythm and function much the same way. I plan them out, do keyword research, and see what other people are writing, what hits, and what doesn't, but this is fun. I get to do this because I want to. My friend and comrade in arms, Wade Skalsky, has a maxim: all creatives need their own personal creative outlet. It's what they do for the sake of creating, not for the sake of making revenue. I agree with that. Unfortunately, that thing almost always takes a back seat to paying the mortgage, buying groceries, and paying off braces. But we creative types need it. We need something to nurture and create on. Otherwise, we cease being creative people. After all, you can only talk about your skill set so many times.

Selling anything on Facebook is a great reminder that poor people are the absolute worst to deal with and work with. The most demanding and least yielding demographic on the planet

Truth

I think you all should know that you can just start talking about stuff on the Internet and if you do it enough, you can just turn it into your job. It’s pretty cool.

One of the biggest mistakes a previous client of mine made was a fundemental misunderstanding of search intent and what to do with it. This isn't to say the idea was wrong, per se, and I didn't argue with it because, at the end of the day, I'll do whatever the client wants. But I will say it wasn't consistent with how search intent works. Before drafting dozens (or hundreds) of articles on a given topic, and around the time we start keyword research, we need to discuss intent. What is the purpose of this specific article, or this batch of articles? Is it worth building a pillar for deep topics, or for many interrelated topics or products? And what is the endgame for these pieces of content? One thing I noticed is that all the new content was transactional. That's fine...but if you look at the blog's history, the best-performing pieces weren't transactional. They were largely informational or commercial, and they brought in a lot of traffic. But then, it all went to transactional for the next year-plus. These never really took off because they were so specific and niche, aiming for search terms that maybe only had ~10 clicks per month. The moral of the story is that you need to understand your audience. Yes, you want transactional posts to work, but if that is your entire brand strategy, it probably won't work the way you want it to. ____________________________________________________________________ Hey there! I am John McCoy, a professional aviation & aerospace writer. If you liked what you read here, let's talk about my services. I ghostwrite for founders and execs, write SEO content, and write emails and newsletters; I also handle content strategy and content management. If you are in the aviation or aerospace industry and need these services, my DMs are open.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I've been combing over the blogs from the major SEO providers (Ahrefs, Semrush, Backlinko, etc.) looking for industry trends- generally, what's new. Turns out it hasn't really changed that much. Keyword research still remains the standard for both SEO and AI visibility. Keyword research continues to tell you the most important metrics: ✈︎ The questions your audience asks ✈︎The language they use to describe their specific problems ✈︎ What are the solutions they are comparing ✈︎Their current pace in the buying journey So, regardless of your industry or niche, keyword research is still the foundation for creating content that meets demand rather than educated guessing. Anyone can guess and throw slop against the wall to see if it sticks, but that usually doesn't move the needle toward meaningful actions like purchases, sign-ups, or requested demos. As an SEO content writer, my first stop is my Semdash dashboard to start keyword research and run a domain analysis. I don't present a single outline until we all know what we are looking at and what we are looking for. ____________________________________________________________________ Hey there! I am John McCoy, a professional aviation & aerospace writer. If you liked what you read here, let's talk about my services. I ghostwrite for founders and execs, write SEO content, and write emails and newsletters; I also handle content strategy and content management. If you are in the aviation or aerospace industry and need these services, my DMs are open.

Lame. Ain’t nobody making it out alive anyway.

Day 3 I've always been a hopeless avgeek. There's nothing I can do about it. I've loved looking up at the sky since I was a little kid. One of my favorite pictures was when I was about 3 years old. I was sitting in the pilot and co-pilot seat of an old Rockwell Aero Commander in Garden City, Kansas. My parents used to run bank routes, picking up checks and taking them to the Garden City Airport. Then they had to be flown to Kansas City for deposit. They ran this route every night, and I was hooked. I started flying at 15, soloed at 16 in high school, paid my way through, hit a lot of setbacks, and was broke. I finally took my checkride at 19, about 3 days before I left for basic training in the Air Force. Then real life happened. I had my first kid in those first 4 years in the Air Force. I've never been able to get back in the pilot seat, but I've been blessed to spend a 20-plus-year career in aviation. 10 years in aircraft maintenance and over 12 years in airport operations and management and flight operations, with side gigs as the air traffic and airspace officer, alternate safety officer, and a handful of other titles. At this point, I'm pretty hopelessly wedded to aviation and aerospace, and I'm cool with that. For the longest time, I thought I needed to branch out and get away from aviation; it was too narrow, too niche. But it turns out I was just looking at it all wrong.

I've finally got the back pasture and both front pastures fully mowed this year for the first time in years, and it looks so good against the gloomy autumn morning background.

I saw this response to a previous post, and I couldn't agree more. I always wonder, honestly, what a client who brings me on for 1-2 SEO articles actually wants to get out of it, because it doesn't work that way. I just wrapped up my longest-running project, and it lasted for just shy of four years with about 300 articles published. Needless to say, that company has deep pockets, and they understand it takes a lot of time and effort to rank. So yes, social media allows for great connection and an awesome lead-in to our websites and services without spending a fortune and a million years building content to get there.