The Guide to Developing a Content Strategy for "Boring" Industries The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. There have been multiple articles that have discussed the value and opportunities that content marketing brings to SEO - from organically building external links and ranking for more long tail keywords, to establishing a community and building brand awareness. As the SEO industry slowly moves away from manual linkbuilding and adapts a more long-term and forward-thinking approach (whether it be forced as a result of recent aggressive Google algorithm updates or because as an industry, we're starting to seek a sustainable methodology to establish authority), the challenge is in figuring out how to set up a proper framework that would help our community develop a content strategy for all websites. Image courtesy of SEOmoz Image courtesy of Distilled Step 1: Asking the Right Questions (Learning About the Industry) How do tire shoppers use the Internet?
12 Things You Should Be Using Your Blog For (Besides Blogging) So you want your business blog to perform better. What do you do? Uhh ... Blog harder? Well yes, you could set to your keyboard and type away 'til your fingers bleed, or you could think of ways to get more out of your blog without just increasing content volume. After all, you only have so many hours in the day, and writing isn't exactly a quick task. Before we get started, let's get one thing out of the way -- none of these tips are intended to be replacements for a consistent volume of high-quality blog content. 1) Solicit Content From High-Profile Sites If that caveat about still having to create blog content was, indeed, a total bummer, this tip should strike your fancy. And not only does your blog's clout skyrocket, but it's also likely that your guest blogger will promote the post to their network, too. 2) Work on Increasing Subscribers Speaking of your blog's reach, it may be worth your time to invest in increasing your blog's subscriber base. 3) Optimize Past Post Titles
How to Build and Operate a Content Marketing Machine Content Marketing is hot. White hot. SEO and digital marketing thought leaders are declaring that Content Marketing is the next big thing. Even Rand is touting its importance. The strategy of Content Marketing makes sense: instead of pushing messages about your product at prospects, pull prospects towards you by publishing content about your prospects’ interests. So the conversation is no longer about if or why an organization should practice Content Marketing. So if you’re wondering “How?” The Machine First, let’s take a look at the machine, all of its pistons, cogs, smokestacks and miscellaneous parts. Now we’ll go over the machine, part by part. Goals & Plan What is the goal, the end output for your Content Marketing Machine? Your plan then becomes to create a content-powered path that takes your prospect from where they are today to the end goal. What questions does the Persona want to answer at this stage in the process? Team So you’ve got a plan. Ideas Production Audience Development
Multitasking Makes You Stupid: The Case for Outsourcing Content -- Joe Pulizzi Content Author-blogger Joe Pulizzi is one of the sharpest content evangelists on the Web. In this year-end post, he explains why brands ought to outsource their content and poses the eternal question: Is your content stupid? ©istockphoto.com/Yulia Akatyeva I’m a big proponent of outsourcing content. There are a number of reasons why brands should seriously consider outsourcing their content. Content is everywhere. I could go on. I’ll explain. So now there’s a group of people who have to do their current jobs, and also have this content thing to do as well. In almost all cases this is a bad idea. When brand managers throw content marketing in the mix as just another individual or group task, the result is bad content. Is your brand story important enough to foster in its own right, or is it just another item in the marketing pile? Is your content stupid?
36 Books on Digital Marketing The rapid expansion of both the internet and ecommerce has resulted in some seriously dramatic shifts in terms of business marketing best practices. If you’re feeling a bit lost in this new world of digital marketing, take a look at any of the following recommended resources to help get you up to speed! Digital Marketing The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly – David Meerman Scott If you’ve done traditional direct response marketing or promotional work in the past, Scott’s book will give you all the tools needed to transfer these skills to today’s digital world. Available in both print and Kindle editions. Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation – Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones Ryan and Jones have produced a great overview of the world of digital marketing, encompassing everything from search to social media to mobile marketing and more.
The Ultimate Guide to Content Planning A transition is in effect. The web is maturing and like any form of media that has gone before it that can mean only one thing: That content is now at the epicentre of audience creation once again. The introduction of Penguin, as we know, is forcing every online business to re-examine how it ‘does’ online marketing and begin looking for ways to grow reputation, reach and visibility via content rather than the link building practices of old. As Google turns up the algo to promote great content and social gives us all access to the social graph and the network effect it offers there has never been a better time to get your content game in shape and pull together a killer strategy for your brand. I recently wrote a piece for another digital marketing site that goes into a little more detail around why content is coming to the fore and so for extra context it is certainly worth a read. How to Plan Stage one of any great content strategy is the plan. Understand your Brand Understand your Audience
Five Lessons from Content Marketing World This is the year of Content. For sure. It’s used so much and by so many people, it must be, right? But I hate the word. I really do. As a wordsmith, I hate that Content is used primarily as a web/digital/mobile “strategy.” I attended two content conferences this year and both were some of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. The indefatigable Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 was behind this year’s Content Marketing World, held last week in Cleveland. Well, actually, he would. Content is fascinating I learned a new word at Content Marketing World. This was the first presentation and it speaks to the high quality of the conference overall that the presentations didn’t let up. In a world where our attention span is down to nine seconds, the key to attention is through fascination. Content has hit the real time The real difference, to me, at least, between “old” and “new” media isn’t delivery or metrics. He’s right. Friend the Muppets It’s the story, stupid. Story, story, story. Be honest
15 social media tips for small businesses You and your small or micro business need to have a social media presence. That we know. If your potential clients, customers, and audience live on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and so on, then it's only reasonable that you go to those places to reach them. Rarely do small businesses have the resources to hire a social media manager, meaning the fate of your online social presence likely rests on your shoulders. The following 15 social media tips are designed to help you set up and manage a social media presence for a small business or brand. 1. I see so many businesses (not just small ones, either) set up social media profiles without having any idea of what they want to do with that presence. Do you want to provide answers and assistance to your customers or readership? If you don't know what results you want, using social media will be a huge waste of your time and resources. 2. 3. On Facebook, use the search bar to look for your business or brand. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
An Eight-Step Plan to Get PR-Driven Links In a past life I worked exclusively in traditional print and broadcast PR, where digital coverage was viewed as a bonus. But since landing a job as a PR consultant at Distilled, all of that has changed. My goals have shifted. Previously my goals were things like brand awareness and changing audience perceptions—and these were driven by press coverage. But, while these goals still come in to play, I have a new goal too—to build links. So, eight months down the line, I feel it's time to share what I've learned. An eight-step plan There are a few tried and tested methods for PR driven link-building, like guest posting and pitching for by-lined articles, but these can be slow-burning processes. What I'm going to talk you through is a process which, if invested in and executed well, is much more likely to result in multiple links from high quality, authoritative news sites. There's no quick fix. For any marketing campaign you should be looking to use multiple channels. Step one: Find the story 1.
ntent Strategy Generator Tool - V2 Update > Please give me the tool now! Way back in September we released the first version of our content strategy tool, and due to popular demand and awesome feedback I’m excited to be releasing an even hotter version of the tool! This blog post takes a quick look at some of the cool new features in this latest update. Since the launch of the first version of the tool, there have been numerous updates across a number of websites forcing the xpath to return a null value, or to change the value returned. The first part of this update restores values for any empty fields, and reformats a number of elements of the tool for a cleaner, more digestible appearance. More Insight from Google Insights We all know how useful and powerful Google Insights can be for identifying trends and finding out what is ‘hot’ right now to provide you with the ability to spot opportunities to create new content. Both sets of data for ‘Top Searches’ and ‘Rising Searches’ can now be found within the content tool: