10 Ways to Get Your Content Marketing Strategy in Motion Content has always been king, but more recently content marketing has started to get more of the attention it deserves in organizations with budget allocated to creating content. In recent years, we have also witnessed many new software platforms entering the market to help companies create content. As many of you would attest, it’s always easy to go out and spend money on creating content or any marketing campaigns for that matter. Alternatively, in my experience almost all companies have access to lot of content in-house, but for some reason they are either not surfacing them or not using their resources efficiently to create new content that can help them with their content marketing efforts. Content creation is a huge undertaking. 1. This is a classic way of creating content where you can use your favorite keyword tool and type in the keyword that you want to target. Most content creators are tempted to go with the first keyword since that has the most query volume. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
6 Social PR Secrets to a Better Website A brand’s website or blog should be its ROI hero, but in many cases it ends up being a public relations liability. The failing truth: “99% of the reasons why websites fail are 100% preventable,” Rebecca Murtagh reminds brands in her new book “Million Dollar Websites”. Critical. This rollercoaster of emotions might sound familiar if you’re working on the design or redesign of a website or blog. By far, one of the most critical components of today’s marketing is an organization’s website; the digital entrance that represents a brand’s aesthetic, culture, personality, mission, vision and business proposition. A recent survey reported by WhatUsersDo reveals: 60 percent of brand owners rate their website as average or below average.Despite the stated goal by 78 percent of those surveyed being “extremely” or “quite” committed to delivering a quality user experience to customers, an alarming percentage of brands admit knowing that their website will disappoint their customers. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
4 Ways to Create Content That Sells Let me just cut to the chase here: When it comes to business blogging, there is content, and then there is content that sells. Ask any business owner or marketer which they’d prefer and the obvious answer would be the latter. The fact is, all the business blogging in the world doesn’t help a bit if it’s not increasing sales. Make no mistake—a business is a business and it needs to make money. In this article I’ll discuss 4 ways companies can create blog content to bring in more sales. Here goes… #1: Teach With Story and Sell With Subtleness Of all the things I’m going to discuss in this article, teaching with story and selling with subtleness is really the most important. Here’s how this works. But first, customers want an answer to “What’s in it for me?” Here’s an example of how to first teach with story and then sell with subtleness. And I shared the story of a company doing just this. That was the “teaching” segment of the article. Enable your employees to be content producers.
5 Pillars of a Successful Modern Web Design To compete successfully in today's new media landscape, simply having an optimized website isn't enough. You must now consider a number of new factors when designing your website. These factors include modern design and content, usability and conversion, and search and social media. Not only has the SEO technological market changed with new on- an off-page SEO considerations, the way the consumer views and consumes content and changed. Building Outside of a Silo Gone are the days when a web developer builds a site, the SEO consultant optimizes the site, a conversion expert looks at the site, and then the business owners review the site. To make your new website work for your business it essential that a marketing led approach is implemented that involves technical, search, social, usability, and design teams. Objectives are set by the business so that your site reflects not just your brand but also meets your business objectives and conversion goals . Tip: The 5 Pillar Approach 1. Tips: 2. 4.
20 Content Marketing Tips to Boost Traffic, Engagement and Sales With the explosion of sites like WordPress, YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, content can go viral very quickly. By creating high quality, engaging content your brand can be shared around the world within minutes – something that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing costs ten years ago. The social media revolution has changed the way we market content. 2 billion videos are watched daily on YouTube200,000,000 blog posts can be read on WordPress50 million tweets per day on TwitterMore than 1 billion active users on Facebook But the shift towards content marketing can also be credited to Google. An if that wasn’t enough Google launched Penguin in April 2011, an update to the algorithm that penalized websites with low quality links and over-optimization. Both of these updates lead to a change in the SEO industry. Content marketing is a must-have if you are an online marketer, and it is fast becoming the most valuable way to increase brand awareness and nurture leads.
5 Steps to Create a Website That Both Your Customers & Search Engines Will Love A major mistake businesses often make when it comes to SEO is optimizing their website at the expense of their customers. Have you ever entered a website while researching a product or service, only to be confronted with massive amounts of content on a poorly designed website? This probably resulted in not only a frustrating experience, but also your exit from the site, and a lost sale for that business. Here are five steps you can implement to avoid this scenario, and create a website that both your customers and search engines will love. Step 1: Understand Your Customer This seems obvious, but business owners tend to design websites that are appealing to them, rather than figuring out what is appealing to their customers. If you don’t already know, figure out why your existing customers buy from you, rather than your competitors, and make this differentiation readily apparent on your website. Step 2: Don’t Attempt to Create a Work of Art Websites don't have to be beautiful. Conclusion
Content Brainstorming Tools for 2013 When it comes to content marketers, there is one question that always piques our interest – Where do others get their ideas? And with more brands creating content than ever before, it can be challenging to continually keep ahead of trends, churn out fresh concepts and repurpose ideas – let alone do so across multiple platforms. To inspire the creation process, I’ve highlighted a few resources to help guide your brainstorming and idea generation efforts for 2013. Whether it’s a long-form blog post, a resource article, an infographic or video, a good brainstorming process should be your jumping off point to fuel ideas. Here are a few brainstorming techniques to try out for your next group session: …but first a few ground rules as a good reminder: Encourage Free-Thinking, No BoundariesNo Criticizing or DismissingKeep the Process MovingLet Ideas You Don’t Understand Go Mapping Brain Writing Trigger Method Online Mind Mapping Tools And if you still find yourself at a dead end…Just Google it!
Tips to Create the Right Content for Your Audience A common question I hear from clients who are blogging for business is: How do I come up with content that interests my target audience and motivates them to take action? It’s not enough to start writing about what you think your audience wants to know about your business or industry. Researching and listening to your audience’s problems or questions are important steps before creating content. So here are a few tips to help you create the right content for your audience. 1. Listen to current customers. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Use these tips to learn more about your target audience and create the content that is right for them and your business. Image courtesy of pippalou/Morguefile.com