From our keyword tracking, the phrase “secure LMS solutions for governments” is currently performing best, our pillar post already ranks on page 1 (position 9) for it. Even though the search volume is small, it signals high intent and gives us an win for public-sector visibility.
So that brings me to my first post request. Who would be interested in writing a follow-up article tailored specifically to government agencies (in the upcoming sprint starting on the 11th November)? I’ll create a dedicated ticket tomorrow.
Hi @cassie . I’m not sure I’ll have room in this next sprint but I might in the sprint after. Feel free to assign it to me if no one else is sooner available.
@antoviaque@gabriel I need consistent help with writing blog posts, but it’s not always easy to get people involved. Do you have any recommendations? How did you handle it in the past? The Handbook doesn’t state whether team members are should contribute to blog posts as part of their role. I completely understand that not everyone is comfortable with writing, but sometimes I just need an expert to outline the core content, even in bullet points, so I can adapt it into our OpenCraft tone and style.
@cassie Yes generally it’s better to avoid forcing tasks, so just like for any task assignation generally the assignee would be deciding to accept to do the work or not. But if you have a specific task, whether it’s a full article to write, or a bullet point summary on something, it’s probably going to be easier to assign it as a task in a sprint; it will be more defined (which might be less scary ), and at the right place when people are planning their work.
And to help find an assignee, you can try pinging specific people that you think would be good to take it on, see if they are interested - I have seen that approach work well for other types of tasks that needed assignees. Asking the sprint planning manager of a cell could also help, they can help you identify who is missing work and might be happy to hear about a task to assign.
Okay @antoviaque. I am assigning this blog post in a sprint, and did ping a few people ahead of this next sprint. But perhaps schedules are full. Fox has said if no one else picks it up he can attend to it in the sprint after next. But I think asking the sprint planning manager is my next best bet. Thanks
With the above in mind, as sprint planning managers, @samuel@rpenido@mtyaka does anyone in your cells need additional work this upcoming sprint?
@cassie Glad to hear that the pillar post is doing well!
In terms of writing blog posts, I’m at my limit right now in terms of things I can reasonably handle at the same time. So I won’t be able to help with this particular initiative for a while.
@cassie To help with the assignment of any tasks, we have the Tentative Assignee process, where you flag the ticket and assign it to the person you think best suited to handle it or to review and reassign it.
Awesome, thanks @paulo This sounds really helpful. I might be missing it, but the process doesn’t explain how to flag a tasks as a tentative assignment. Can you let me know how this is done in Jira? With this ticket specifically: Log in - OpenCraft
I don’t think the main issue in assigning this task is cell capacity.
Personally, copywriting is way outside my skill set, and the closest I came to working with the government was a research internship at the robotics lab at the public university where I studied. Even with the low quality of AI copywriting, I don’t feel I can even compete with that! Did we consider using AI (erght!) for that? If the primary objective is SEO, it may be effective.
Can’t we consider hiring a professional copywriter to assist us with that? Or perhaps find someone from the field (e.g., government agencies) to co-author the blog post? I think these approaches would provide us with more thorough content, or at least more SEO-oriented content.
Additionally, do you already have any other blog post subjects in mind? Another subject may not be our first choice, but it can help us get the ball rolling since someone can easily relate to the topic.
@rpenido Thank you for you input For context, we do have an internal marketing strategy in place, it was reviewed and approved by a 3rd-party marketing agency earlier this year. However as our budget is limited, we need to keep things as lightweight and internal as possible for now.
I’ve been handling the SEO research and content planning myself, and we’re tracking performance through Matomo and Ahrefs. The “secure LMS solutions for governments” keyword is already ranking on page 1, which has been a nice validation that the current approach is working, and why I chose it as our first blog topic. We’re also working on an “Upgrading” case study. Anyone is welcome to review our pillar post to see if any follow-up topics spark interest. The idea is to build a hub of interconnected content that branches out from that main post.
That said, as our product-related work continues to grow, I completely agree that having some dedicated writing support will help. For now, I’ll keep managing it internally and continue to ask the team for help
Achieving page 1 is a huge deal, and congratulations on that! As I tried to say, I don’t even know how to start working on these things with SEO nowadays. When I suggested a professional copywriter, I was not meaning that we (and especially you!) were not doing great work. I’m sorry if it sounded otherwise! I was just pointing out that someone with that expertise (like you) would take minutes to do something that would take hours for ME, with a way lower quality output.
I want to help: I just think that I don’t have the skills to do it, and it would take a long time to master them.
Oh no I didn’t take your post negatively – I was just trying to give you the entire picture! I’m by no means an SEO expert. I’m learning on the fly and ask the team for input as much as I can.
@cassie I’m happy to take on another post, but next sprint might be a little tight. The research for tailoring to governments will be a bit longer, as it’s not something I’ve personally worked on. It’s certainly helpful for my role to learn as much as possible about it, so that’s a plus, I’m just not sure I can promise it for next sprint.
I’m very happy to write blog posts, and technical writing is a skill I’m interested to improve in. :) I think it just needs to be a topic I’m familiar enough with to write accurately.
+1 to creating tickets in a sprint and pinging or tentatively assigning.
It’s hard to tell at this stage due to tickets needing remaining estimate updated, but perhaps @tecoholic@farhaan@kaustav
@cassie do you have a ticket related to this thread I can log time on?
), and at the right place when people are planning their work.
Did we consider using AI (erght!) for that? If the primary objective is SEO, it may be effective.
and ask the team for input as much as I can.
