Melissa is presenting at Confab Central in Minneapolis in June. It has finally happened. After months (or years) of publishing your blog and working your content marketing magic, you finally have a smash hit. A post takes off, and the page views, social shares and comments start racking up. All of a sudden, that one post has twice as many page views as your previous No. 1, seemingly everyone who reads the post is liking, sharing and retweeting, and there’s a spirited, good-natured debate happening in the comments section. Congratulations, you have captured content lightning in a bottle. Now, the temptation comes: That quiet voice inside your head (or the gleeful voice of your boss), immediately insisting, “We’ve done it once; we can do it again! Let’s find out what caused that spike and make it happen again! And again! Bigger! Better! More!” It’s alluring. There is pressure, from […]
Why It’s Time to End Self-Promotional ‘Content Selfies’
Why It’s Time to End Self-Promotional ‘Content Selfies’ “We need to create valuable content that speaks to our buyers’ needs.” “Sell value, not products.” “Our marketing needs to be less about us, and more informative.” Content should be at the center of your marketing efforts. That’s not earth-shattering, but an all too obvious fact in our buyer-centric world. A recent survey from Demand Gen Report and SnapApp found that the majority of B2B marketers are already using or are planning to use content as a central component of their campaign strategy. We can talk the talk but, as it turns out, have trouble actually delivering on what we promise. We’re doing a whole lot of speaking in platitudes like “content is king,” but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of “doing” actually happening. A small number—just 18 percent—of B2B marketers say they are “extremely confident” in the […]
Stop Killing Your Content Team: 3 Ways to Scale Work With Existing Resources
Year after year, many content teams are asked to deliver more and better content with the same staff and budget. In fact, 73% of B2C marketers say they plan to produce more content in 2017 than they did in 2016. But how? Here are three foundational tips for increasing output without burning out your team and losing the talent you rely on. (You may be surprised that only one tip is directly related to the content.) 1. Learn to say no to unnecessary work One way to scale your work with the resources you have is to let go of any content tasks that aren’t meeting your team and company goals . While this can be tricky to determine, there’s one simple question to ask, according to Michele Linn : Would anyone miss your content if you did not publish it? Ouch. Obviously, if you’re just starting down a […]
User Intent: It’s the Future of SEO
In recent years search engines have been optimized around users needs and their search experience . Google has evolved in rewarding content that is valuable and relevant to readers. Modern-day SEO is all about user intent , and you can improve your online presence by focusing on several key psychological principles to entice your readers, rank well in the search rankings and ultimately, help grow your business. Let’s take a look at some ways you can understand your au
dience and the steps needed to create content that gets found in Google. Customer Personas Should Direct SEO Online marketers love to get into the heads of their customers. We do this with A/B testing, analytics, and other methods to understand what our audience does when they consume our content. One tool to understand the mind of your target audience is to build customer personas.
A System for Easily Publishing Consistently Great Content – A Pamela Wilson Series
This five-part series is a guest contribution from Pamela Wilson of Big Brand System . Content marketing works — you know that. It’s one big reason you read ProBlogger! You like the content here and you want to learn more about how to create it yourself. It’s all well and good to talk about how to write content effectively, of course. But at some point, you’ve got to actually do it. Regularly. Content marketing works best when it’s done consistently over time. One single piece of well-written content won’t turn your business around. It’s the act of creating and publishing useful content over time that creates business results. Prospects and customers begin to trust you when you show up and are helpful week after week. You become like a wise friend who’s always there to lend a hand. Which, of course, can seem like an incredibly daunting task and […]
How Virtual Reality Could Change Content Marketing
No longer the domains of ultra-early adopters and video gamers, virtual reality and augmented reality are poised to take off in the coming 24 months. “We see qualities in VR/AR technology that can take this from niche-use case to a device as ubiquitous as the smartphone,” Goldman Sachs Research wrote in its Virtual and Augmented Reality report. More consumers are expecting to see the power of virtual reality too. According to Greenlight Insights 62% of consumers say they would feel more engaged with a brand that sponsors a VR experience and 71% of consumers think a brand is forward-thinking if it uses virtual reality. Expert insight Sarah Hill is the CEO and chief storyteller for StoryUP, one of the early pioneers in virtual reality for brands. She explains why VR is finally gaining a foothold, and what marketers should understand before they dive in. CCO: Describe what virtual reality […]
The 7 Traits of Successful Content Marketers
One of the most influential authors of my personal and career journey is Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich was first published in 1937. Now, in its 80th anniversary year, Mr. Hill’s lessons are still extremely relevant and valuable. I had the opportunity to dust off my copy of Think and Grow Rich (from 1960, with dog-eared and coffee-stained pages) a few weeks back during the holiday break. In its relation to content marketing, I noticed some clear takeaways that most corporate marketers simply do not embrace. In the book, 15 powerful chapters are helpful to all individuals, but seven chapters were spot-on relevant to content marketing . Here are quotes from the seven chapters with my notes for each one. Caution from Joe: The book is extremely chauvinistic. If you read it, just prepare yourself for that. 1. Desire “Whatever the mind can conceive and […]
We have now entered a phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online
A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.
A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.
A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.
In 1983, Thomas Wolf wrote an essay for Esquire about Intel Founder, Robert Noyce . Noyce grew up in midland Iowa on a family farm and he revolutionised office design by incorporating the egalitarian landscape of his childhood. Gone were the cubicles, offices, and hierarchy. Instead, he introduced the first “open plan” space where employees were perceived as equals and had free range of the farm, er, I mean firm. A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can […]
How to Diagnose Your Traffic Issues with These SEO Tools
Believe it or not, SEO is not a rocket science. In most cases, it comes down to the most obvious common sense things, like easy-to-understand website structure, well-written relevant copy, carefully picked descriptive page titles, etc. Some more complicated problems may occur (those that require professional help) from time to time, but in most cases, you can identify and fix things with tools. Here are 5 SEO issues preventing your site from getting more traffic and tools that can handle those: 1. Broken Links and Redirects It’s the most widespread problem, for both big and small websites. The Internet never stops growing: Many pages go down in redesigns, website moving or selling, outdated or sold-out product page, etc. There are plenty of reasons why a page may cease to exist. An estimated 37,000 websites are hacked every day which results in hundreds of thousands of non-existent pages and broken […]
8 Awesome Ways to Declutter Your Digital Marketing Life
Digital clutter is anything but Zen. It’s the problem every marketer has and nobody talks about. Easy to ignore, hard to see, but what is all the extra stuff and fluff really costing your digital marketing life in time, money, and resources? The number of messages, files, accounts, passwords, subscriptions, notifications, tools, and networks seem to be growing at supersonic speed. Yesterday’s bright and shiny must-haves are ready for the virtual museum of has-beens. There is no doubt: clutter in your digital space will have a negative impact on your mind, mood, and motion. Just take a look at these facts and read on: 80% of what we have, we will never use. The average professional spends six weeks a year looking for something we can’t find. We spend 30 hours a week checking email. People spend up to four hours a week preparing for meetings. The Zero Inbox […]