Content Archives - Page 11 of 17

February 15, 2017

7 Tools for Generating Infinite Content Ideas for Your Blog

Blogging sucks. Okay that’s a bit extreme. In fact, there’s a lot that I enjoy about blogging—mainly connecting with you guys. But what does suck is having to constantly come up with new ideas for blog posts. It’s a grind that can be quite exhausting, especially if you’re simply coming up with ideas off the top of your head. Research from The Content Marketing Institute found that “57% of B2B marketers say that producing content consistently is their biggest struggle.” And the struggle is real. If you’re like me and writing up to eight posts per week while juggling multiple businesses, it can be seriously draining. So out of pure necessity, I’ve experimented with a plethora of different tools to aid me in the process of generating new content ideas. Some have been home runs and some have been strikeouts. But there are seven in particular I really like […]

These Six Content Marketing Tactics Will Give You 142% More Traffic in Six Months

You don’t need me to tell you how potent content marketing is. I could spout off a laundry list of stats, e.g., “ conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters” or “content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.” You get it. But the term “content marketing” is a wide umbrella, encompassing a nearly infinite number of strategies and variations. What you really need to know is which content marketing tactics will get you legitimate results—which ones will boost your traffic and generate sustained leads. In other words, which strategies are truly worth your time? In this post, I’d like to discuss six key tactics I feel are most pertinent for content marketers in 2017. More specifically, these tactics will give you 142% more traffic in six months. Here we go. 1. Create multiple landing pages […]

SEO Checklist for Content Marketers: 21 Common Mistakes to Avoid

With so much content being created, published and promoted online every second—as well as consumers becoming increasingly self-directed in their quest for answers —competition to capture your audience’s attention has never been more fierce. As a result, quality and strategic SEO has probably never been more important for helping you be the best answer whenever and wherever your audience is searching. But as seasoned marketers know, SEO has gone through a tremendous evolution since its early days of keyword-focused content. With more than 2 trillion searches happening on Google every year, today’s SEO is about finding the perfect balance between user-centric content and convincing search engine crawlers that your content is supreme. Of course, on the journey to creating the perfect content for both humans and search , you may make some mistakes. But the good news is that may are easily avoidable. Below we dive into some of […]

How to Create Exceptional Content Even If You Suck at Creating Content

One of the myths on the web today is that the people we look up to were mysteriously placed there by alien forces. They have some unknowable advantage over us that made them rise to the top. But that’s not the case at all. Everybody starts at the bottom. Everybody can rise to the top. This post will prove it. I just finished writing my sixth book, an epic tome called KNOWN: The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age . The publication is the result of more than a year of research conducted to answer one burning question: Is it possible for anybody today to use the Internet to become known in their field? First let me explain that being “known” is not the same as being famous. It’s not about having millions of fans and red carpet appearances. Being known is about […]

Do You Have a Plan to Scale Content Creation?

< All Articles    Content marketing seems simple enough…at first. You write content, then you publish it. I can’t help but be reminded of this scene from Mrs. Doubtfire : Daniel : What do I do? Tony : Well you take all these cans, you box ’em, you ship ’em. Then you box those cans over there, ship them, then more will come in. You box those, you ship those. Any questions? Daniel : After you box them…? Tony : You ship ’em. Lotsa luck, smartass For small marketing teams with one or two people, the content creation process can seem just as straightforward. Everyone is on the same page. You what’s being published and when. There are few points of failure. But what happens when the amount of content increases tenfold? What happens when you have 5, 10, or even 20 people contributing content on a […]

Live Content is Rising in Popularity

At the beginning of 2016, everybody was talking about how big video will be and how important it will become for every small, medium business or even enterprise. And as we can see, the video has become a big challenge for many brands out there that try to get some results with their content marketing strategy. But what the specialist didn’t say is what type of video will rise. We can have documentary videos, movie videos, ad videos, presentation videos, review videos or vlogs. Social media cannot be compared to the television or radio. People use social media because they want something different from this platform. They are tired of prepared shows and videos. They are tired of directed shows that they can’t pause whenever they want. The consumer wants to have the power of getting into the conversation and wants to be part of the experience. This is […]

8 Old School Off-Page Optimization Techniques You Could be Penalized For

Search engine optimization never stands still. It must evolve quickly to stay on top of the algorithm updates released by Google’s never-resting R&D team. Neither digital marketers nor SEO professionals are machines who can easily upload and process dozens of GBs of data. We are humans, and it takes us time to research, learn, and adapt new promotion and optimization techniques to our everyday processes. It is difficult, so many prefer to stay inside their comfort zones until Google hits really hard. In this article, I’m not going to challenge you to leave your safe SEO waters. What I’m going to do, though, is dig deeper into the history of search engine optimization and cover old school off-page optimization methods, which will definitely get your site penalized by Google today. So, let’s start our time machine and get going! #1 Link Building with “Rented” Paid Links Nowadays, paid links […]

How Data-Driven Insights Build Strong Brand Community

As humans, we like to feel like a community member. We strive to connect with others who share common interests, beliefs, and passions, both in person and online. We engage with the content that aligns with our interests and beliefs, and we ignore the rest. We share or follow what we believe to be valuable and hold meaning. Brands also want to feel like a community member and want to build meaningful connections with their customers. They know that today, consumers choose to purchase from the brands that align with their cultural identity and provide value beyond their purchases. “A strong brand community increases customer loyalty, lowers marketing costs, authenticates brand meanings, and yields an influx of ideas to grow the business.” – Harvard Business Review As explained in an article by 12/ahead, “Having the best or cheapest product on the market is not enough, if you can build […]

A Marketer’s Guide to Selecting the Best Images for Your Content

If you’re creating content without images, you’re missing a huge opportunity to increase engagement, reach a wider audience, and maximize conversions. We’re visual people, inherently drawn to content that contains rich, attractive images. Adding images to an online article can nearly double its views , and 67 percent of consumers say images are more important than product descriptions when making a purchase decision. Of course, just throwing any image into your content won’t catapult it to the top of the search results. Images need to be carefully selected and high quality and they need to add true value to your content . They should be visually appealing, relevant, and appropriate for your company and the marketing channel. The following guide will help you choose the right image for your next project. How Do You Choose the Right Images? When picking an image for your blog or online marketing effort, […]

9 (More) Lessons From the World’s Best Content Marketing Brands

I write for CMI regularly, and each year the post that garners the most interest shows content marketing examples from brands who are killing it from around the web (you can also see the posts from 2015 and 2016 ). Of course, brands are continually impressing me with lessons both big and small. Combined with an advanced knowledge of content marketing , these nine inspiring brands will help to skyrocket your own content marketing campaign. 1. Surprise your audience like GE GE’s tagline of “Imagination at Work” couldn’t possibly ring more true. The 125-year-old brand consistently comes up with new ways of employing content marketing and is known for successful strategies on every medium imaginable. Consider the company’s foray into science-fiction comic books. In the mid-1950s, GE began publishing a series of comic books to get children interested in science. In 2015, it partnered with Wattpad to reimagine the […]