marketing Archives - Page 4 of 15

March 27, 2017

Google’s Featured Snippets: How to Get Your Content to Appear

In the rush to get on the front page of Google, a major SERP opportunity stands out as the most useful and most relevant available: featured snippets . The bits of text at the top of many informational searches in Google, featured snippets can drive a ton of attention toward your site and can be an invaluable weapon for marketers. How can you create content that has the chance of ranking in featured snippets? While many marketers assume featured snippets are the territory of SEO masters or brands with million-dollar marketing budgets, that isn’t true at all. In fact, it’s easy to rank for featured snippets with organic content only. You just need to know how. What are featured snippets? Featured snippets are the informational content that shows up in Google’s SERPs immediately after the ads and sponsored posts (if available). This search for “how to show ROI for marketing” features a snippet from Marketing Mo: If there had been sponsored ads around this search term, they would appear above the snippet, which ranks as the top organic result. Google shows what it considers high-quality content in this space because it’s focused on fulfilling user intent . 5 tips to create featured snippets The good news is that, as a form of organic content, the featured snippet box is available to everybody who knows how to optimize their content accordingly. Yet, it’s tough news — you have to work hard to gain it. How do you make your content fit? If you can’t buy the space, how do you take proactive steps to ensure that your page earns the top spot? Here are a few simple steps I’ve used to create content that ranks in the snippets. 1. Create content specifically to answer questions. Provide in-depth answers. Featured snippets […]

Content Marketing and Customer Acquisition: How to Calculate Your CAC, CLV, and ROI

A series of weekly videos shared on Facebook generated 15 new customers for you over the course of a month. Pop quiz: is that result worth the effort you put into it? There’s no way of knowing: You need to identify acquisition costs, marketing spend, lifetime value, and more; you need to compare stat A with stat B. In short, tou need to put the data into context. Content marketing in 2016 was an undisputed champion. A full 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each day. Content marketing leaders experience traffic growth that is 7.8x higher than that of content marketing followers. Inbound (i.e., content) marketing costs 62% less than outbound methods, but generates 3x as many leads. But (there’s always a "but") some may question the point of it all. Sure, content marketing spreads brand recognition, assists with SEO efforts, and builds your reputation and authority, but is that enough? If you’re on the content bandwagon but don’t know your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV), you’re playing a dangerous game: You might be spending thousands on blog posts or infographics and assuming it’s worth those seven new clients you picked up, but is it really worth it? To some, it always comes down to dollars and cents. They want to see facts and figures that demonstrate the monetary value of the strategy. In the past, that kind of talk had content marketers gasping, clutching their chests, and muttering about "engagement this" and "awareness that" under their breath. But you can show the financial side of content. It can even be simple. And you need to do it to understand the big picture. Ready? Even if math scares you a little, I promise this won’t hurt. The Building Blocks Customer acquisition […]

Which Content Marketing Strategies Have the Biggest Impact on Keyword Rankings?

The term “content marketing” is a wide umbrella. It encompasses a plethora of different strategies and techniques. But at the end of the day, one of your primary goals is to create content that ranks as highly as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is important because organic traffic is the number one means of generating traffic for many companies. A study from The Bright Edge even “found that organic search drives 51 percent of all visitors to B2B and B2C websites trumping all other non-organic channels.” This means one thing. You need to figure out the relationship between content marketing strategies and keyword rankings. This is instrumental in fine-tuning your content marketing campaign and finding the right areas to focus on. In this post, I analyze data from multiple studies and draw on my own knowledge and experience to give you a clear idea of the content strategies demanding the most attention. So, let’s see which strategies have the biggest impact on keyword rankings. Rich content I won’t waste your time telling you about the importance of creating quality content. You already know that. But I’d like to share with you this statistic from an infographic on Quick Sprout : That’s a lot of links! And I’m sure you know the integral role links play in SEO. This graph from Moz illustrates the importance of links and their influence on Google’s algorithm: Let’s put this information together. When you create rich content, it gets you more links. These links improve your overall SEO, which improves your rankings. So, being diligent about achieving and maintaining rigorous quality standards should be of the utmost concern. Long-form content Here’s the deal with long-form content. It’s hot right now. Scorching hot. I remember a few years ago when your average […]

To Drive Massive Online Traffic, Start With What Your Audience Loves

With content overload at an all time high, competing with heavy-hitting media sites seems impossible. They’ve staked their claim, and all the rest of us can hope for is to pick up the leftovers and eke out a meager living. Nonsense. On August 17th of 2016, Arthur Tubman and the team at Monday Monday Network did the impossible. Within the first 45 days of launch, their site attracted just under 9 million visitors and today their daily average visitor count clocks in over 600k. The question is: How? Answer: By adopting a them-first approach before pushing go on a single piece of monetized content. While much of their approach centered around Facebook, there’s nothing magical about Facebook ads and there are plenty of other creative ways to drive traffic . The lessons from the launch, however, prove that the bedrock principle of all marketing is still true: it’s not about you … it’s about them. Here’s how you can take that advice to heart. Start with what you love. When it comes to social media, brands are notorious for taking one of two misguided paths: “dominating” or “dumping.” With the first, businesses — particularly e-commerce — dominate their feed with heavy-handed promotions, pitches, and products. With the second, social is treated as little more than a repository for that same business’ usual onsite content — i.e., a digital dumping ground. Both approaches, while well-intentioned, amount to a social-media presence that screams, “Me first.” In contrast, consider Monday Monday Network’s approach. Today, the site hosts 24 separate topics — basically channels to which they post roughly 30 articles a day. Each of those topics began its life not as a column or blog, but as an individual Community Page on Facebook. Some communities they took over — like Addicted 2 […]

Marketing’s Artificial Intelligence Revolution Is Here

Chief marketing officers have one of the hardest jobs in the corporate world. According to research by the consulting firm Russell Reynolds, it’s only getting harder. Last year, CMO turnover reached its highest point since Russell Reynolds began tracking the data in 2012. After years of swift technological development disrupted marketing to its core, CMOs and their teams are now responsible for a bevy of critical company functions: optimizing the sales process, improving customer experience, and marketing the product across a complex array of channels. Meanwhile, CEOs understand that technology allows for accurate tracking of marketing dollars spent, creating immense pressure on CMOs to perform. Now, another technological breakthrough is on the horizon: artificial intelligence (AI). According to many experts , AI has the potential to be the most revolutionary technology since computing itself—and marketing is first in line for disruption. Should marketing leaders panic or celebrate? It depends on who you ask. The artificial intelligence hype machine 2016 was a big year for artificial intelligence. Google’s AlphaGo program defeated the world champion in the complex game of Go , a landmark in AI development. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all made significant investments in AI. Wired proclaimed that the world’s biggest tech companies are “remaking themselves around the technology.” In marketing, Salesforce and Adobe announced new intelligence programs, called Einstein and Sensai, respectively. We’re in the midst of an AI arms race. “I’m astounded in how AI is going to transform every industry,” said Leslie Fine, VP of product at martech giant Salesforce. “Companies today face an imperative to integrate AI into their products and services, or risk becoming less competitive with companies who are applying AI to improve customer experiences and make more intelligent business decisions.” But what is AI exactly? And how does it apply to […]

7 Easy-to-Forget SEO Steps You Need to Consider Every Time You Publish

“But I don’t really think about SEO very much anymore.” That was my initial reaction when we all agreed that March would be SEO month here at Copyblogger. At which point, of course, I knew I’d have to write about it. “Look, I just create useful content for people. Do that, get it read, get it shared, get links, have good hosting and fast page-load times … and productive search engine results will follow, right? I mean, what else is there to say?” Turns out, plenty. Keyword research is more fundamental to your content marketing strategy than you may think. Also, you may already be making fatal optimization mistakes . Plus, who knew SEO advice could be so … practical ? (Including #8, which will punch you square between the eyes.) I read those articles, rethought my position, and decided to examine exactly how much I actually think about SEO on a post-by-post basis. And, turns out, plenty. (Whether or not I realized it.) It’s easy to forget about the basic steps I’m going to outline below, but they shouldn’t be overlooked. Because the minute I stop doing them is the minute my content starts attracting fewer targeted visitors. Same goes for you. So let’s start at the top, because the first one is by far the most important of the seven — and it will take me the longest to explain. ( Note: I’m going to use my site AssemblyCall.com as an example throughout this post. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform , which has all of the tools I’m about to mention built right in. And thank goodness, or I’d probably forget about them. StudioPress Sites has all of these tools built in, too.) 1. Be extra intentional about your SEO title tag You don’t have to […]

The Science Behind Successful Content

Content marketing is truly a science, and creating a solid campaign that delivers results is the ultimate experiment. You’re testing different variables in search of the exact combination of content elements that will engage your readers, educate your prospective customers, and shine a positive light on your company—all while ensuring that each piece of content includes all the right ingredients in the right order (to reach the right people). In any one content marketing campaign, there are hundreds of decisions to make, approaches to take, and results to measure —and that can complicate the process for even the most experienced content marketer. Any scientist would tell you experimenting with possibilities yourself is half the fun . That said, beginning any experiment without an understanding of what you’re testing is never a good idea. We teamed up with Ceros, an interactive content creation platform , to research the anatomy of a successful digital content piece and dissect each element—from topic ideation and copywriting to design and distribution—so fellow content scientists can begin their own experiments with the right data. Explore the interactive infographic below to see the results. As you can see, content includes a number of variables. You won’t find much success if your topic misses the mark, you haven’t researched the right keywords, or your formatting or copywriting leaves audiences more confused than engaged. Content marketing is a science that requires your attention to detail and willingness to test. Focus on these elements of your next content experiment, and you’ll have a better chance of validating your efforts. Get more content like this, plus the very BEST marketing education, totally free. Get our Definitive email newsletter.

Why Does User Intent Matter So Much to Your SEO?

Once upon a time, search engines were robotic, mechanical, and mathematical. However, Google’s algorithm standards have since become much more focused on what those searching for information really want. As such, user intent is the key to creating the content that enhances the relevance of your pages and improves your SEO. Neil Patel describes “user intent” as the goal someone has in mind when typing a query into Google. In some cases, the intent is to purchase something. For others, it’s to find information or make a connection with a company or an individual. Just as you wouldn’t develop a product without knowing who the user for that product is going to be, you shouldn’t develop online content without knowing how it can help people and whose goals it will help fulfill. What’s more, you’ll enjoy the added benefit of standing out as a brand that cares deeply about its customers and their needs. As you seek to better incorporate user intent into your content marketing strategy , these three tips can help. 1. Consider different types of user intent “A person’s goal when they search something online” seems like a simple definition, but it can take many forms. As you probably see when you evaluate your own digital searches, not all Google queries are created equal. In fact, intent can (and does) differ from person to person and time to time. Neil shares these three types of user intent in online search: Transactional : A person wants to buy something. Navigational : A person seeks for a specific resource, page, or site. Informational : A person wants additional information on a topic or answers to their questions. Tailoring content for one of these types is critical. How do you do this? It’s simple. First, you look at keywords […]

Humanize Your Brand: 3 Ways to Create a Visual Social Media Calendar

Social media is arguably the most powerful growth tool on the internet. Ironically, it’s also the most difficult to master. In a study by Ascend2, 40% of digital marketers cited social as the “most difficult” channel to master (a tie for first with websites). Asked to identify the most difficult tactic on this most difficult channel, the answer — by a landslide — was three words: creating compelling content. How can you rescue your social media approach and create truly compelling content? The easiest way is to create a visually based social media calendar built around three of the primary reasons humans engage with social media: Celebrate holidays At the risk of stating the obvious, marketing revolves around holidays: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Halloween, Presidents Day, etc. Augment your holiday promotions with original content that celebrates the holiday … not your products or sales. Chubbies does this brilliantly and gets phenomenal engagement as its reward: In 2015, Samuel Adams reached viral status with its April Fool’s campaign announcing the release of a new “heliYUM” beer. The real social gold, however, is in the obscure holidays : Batman Day (Sept. 17, according to DC Comics), Star Wars Day (May 4), Bubblegum Day (Feb. 3 — not to be confused with Chewing Gum Day on Sept. 30), and many, many more. Building a visual social media calendar around these types of holidays involves two steps. First, get to know your audience. Outside of the usual suspects, the prioritized holidays should be a direct reflection of the people you serve. Sometimes a connection will be obvious. If it’s not, dig into Facebook Audience Insights to find pages and events your fans like, as well as the hashtags they frequently share. Second, get organized. Set up a visual calendar. Consider using tools […]

3 Types of Content That Gets More Traffic, Links and Shares Than All the Others

Why waste time creating content that doesn’t get you traffic, links, and shares? The problem for many content creators is they aren’t sure what type of content to focus on, so they try creating everything and anything they feel like creating in the moment. That works for some, but not for all (especially not for me). Let’s focus on 3 types of content that are proven to get you more traffic, links, and shares. If you focus on creating these types of content pieces you will start seeing better results. Good? Read on. 1. A Sure-Fire Way To Get Attention and Traffic Fast (Especially For Beginners) With A Recognition List Post Anyone doing something online whether that’s blogging, selling, writing, video publishing or email marketing love it when their work is recognized by others. Think back to when you were a teenager. Think of times when you put in […]