SEO content marketing roundup, week ending May 22nd
In this week’s latest and greatest online marketing news, it’s all about Google, Google, Google…with Yahoo coming in a close second via its purchase of Tumblr.
Social media marketers are buzzing about “the new Google+, a stream with style and smarts” and its 41 new features.
Other discussions in the forefront include Social Media Examiner’s 2013 industry report, Facebook’s continued status as the social network of choice after surviving its first year post-IPO, reputation management, and social media strategies.
And of course, the SEO and search community is focused on all that flowed from the Google I/O 2013 conference, especially its introduction of the Hal-like OK Google.
Other discussions center on post-Penguin linking strategies, mobile search, Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr, analytics and referral data recovery, as well as Google’s continued experimentation with Authorship and its new company logos markup feature.
In the meantime, content marketers feel the stress of competition as everyone seems to be getting into the content creation and publishing game, and discuss B2B marketing, brand-generated content, and the native advertising trend in their industry.
Ready? Go now, and enjoy this week’s selections!
Content Marketing
Robert Rose posts “Be Remarkable or Fail: Changes Content Creators Must Make” at Content Marketing Institute.
Lyena Solomon discusses sustainable content creation with “Scalable content generation strategy: The online marketer’s formula for success” at SEO Copywriting.
Lee Odden discusses “Integrating Digital Marketing & PR – Breaking Down Silos Through Content” at TopRank.
Ritika Puri discusses “Core Tech Concepts that Marketers Need to Know” at The Content Strategist.
Gini Dietrich gives a lesson in Google Analytics 101 for content marketers with “Three Goals Every Blogger Must Have” at the Feedblitz blog.
Andrew Isidoro makes the case that “Guest Blogging is not Content Marketing” at The Wall Blog.
Lisa Buyer lists “60 Digital Marketing resources shared in South Beach” from the inaugural Interactivity Digital Conference.
Melissa Fach shares Angie Schottmuller’s Interactivity Digital Conference presentation with “Lots to Learn From: Conversion Optimization – 6 Power Tricks of the Trade” at AuthorityLabs.
Miranda Miller discusses “The Power of Visual Content and Brand Visuals in Action” at TopRank.
Daniel Ellis-Ferris posts a video excerpt from Contently’s Social Content Summit with “How Top Brands Create Content that Works” at The Content Strategist.
Deborah Bates discusses “How 5 brands took huge risks on controversial content” at iMedia Connection.
Joseph Cruz posts “A Guide To Choosing A Competitive Title For Content Marketing” at Search Engine Journal.
From an SEO perspective, Richard Kirk posts “Designing a Content Strategy to Destroy Your SEO Nemesis” at Search Engine Watch.
Bob Geller shares “9 Surefire Content Promotion and Distribution Tips” at WindMill Networking.
Referencing the rise of native ads, Joe Pulizzi discusses “Next-Wave Content Creation Strategies for the End of the Online Ad Era” at Content Marketing Institute.
Chris Crum reports “Native Advertising Trend Has Some (Including Google) Concerned” at WebProNews.
Lee Odden shares “11 Examples of Killer B2B Content Marketing Campaigns Including ROI” at TopRank.
eMarketer posts “B2B Email Marketers Focus on Targeting Content.”
Caroline Watts posts “Beyond Lead Generation: How to Use Content for Sales Enablement, Lead Nurturing and Retention” at Marketo.
Michele Linn posts “B2B Marketing: 9 Ideas for Solving Your Biggest Content Challenges” at Content Marketing Institute.
Events:
- The Neilsen Norman Group’s Usability Week 2013 conferences will be held in Toronto from June 3rd thru the 7th, and Washington, D.C. from July 15th thru the 19th.
- Marketing Sherpa’s Optimization Summit 2013 is scheduled for May 20th thru the 23rd in Boston.
- Confab Minneapolis 2013 is on for June 3rd thru the 5th.
- Ad Age CMO Strategy Summit 2013 will take place June 4th in San Francisco.
- GigaOM’s Structure conference on the future of cloud computing and internet infrastructure will be held June 19th & 20th in San Francisco. Supersaver rate ends Friday, May 24th!
- Content Marketing World 2013 returns to Cleveland, OH, September 9th thru the 12th. Early bird rates expire May 31st, and all coupon codes will expire August 23rd
- MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum 2013 will be held October 9th thru the 11th in Boston.
SEO & Search
Dan Lyons provides an overview of Google’s I/O 2013 conference with “Google I/O and the Push for Better Context” at HubSpot.
Danny Sullivan summarizes the Google I/O 2013 opening keynote and lists links to several individual “breakout stories“ related to Google’s deluge of products and announcements from the conference, at Marketing Land.
Of the more notable products from Google I/O 2013 is its OK Google multi-screen conversational search feature, as reported by Jessica Lee with “OK Google: ‘The End of Search as We Know It’” at Search Engine Watch.
Matt McGee critiques yet another Google I/O product makeover with “A Tour of the New Google Maps [15 Screenshots]” at Small Business Search Marketing.
Chris Crum reports on a Google I/O Knowledge Graph session for developers with “Google Shows You How To Use Its Knowledge Graph Data In Your Own Apps” at WebProNews.
Citing eMarketer data, Aleyda Solis shares her Mozinar presentation on adapting to the reality of mobile search with “The 3 Steps for Success in a Multi-device Search World” at SEOmoz.
Referring to a study by Google, Jessica Lee posts “Google: Mobile Search Helps 82% of In-Store Shoppers Make Purchase Decisions” at Search Engine Watch.
Bharati Ahuja posts “What Is Responsive Web Design And Why Should We Opt For It?” at WebPro Technologies.
Anthony Verre discusses “What Google Knows & The War Against SEOs” at Search News Central.
Ian Lurie discusses “How Google Ruined Marketing” at Portent.
Referring to “the SEO buzz kill” that is post-Penguin link building, Marty Weintraub posts “SEO Link Building ALERT! Paid-Organic Social Content Distribution Is The Future” at aimClear.
Jon Ball posts “How to Be a Badass Link Builder” (even in the post-Penguin world) at Search Engine Watch.
Matt McGee reports “Google Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers Hit” at Search Engine Land.
From #MyBlogGuest Twitter Chat comes “Guest Blogging for Co-Citation: the Benefit of Linking out” at MyBlogGuest.
Heather Lloyd-Martin discusses “Penguin 2.0: Should you rewrite your evergreen site copy?” at SEO Copywriting.
Rand Fishkin posts “How to Move Rankings Up On Older, Existing Content” (Whiteboard Friday) at SEOmoz.
Expanding on a recent Google Webmaster video, Barry Schwartz reports “Google’s Matt Cutts: Domain Clustering To Change Again; Fewer Results From Same Domain” at Search Engine Land.
Tom Pick shares “16 Remarkable Web Analytics Guides, Tips and Techniques” at Webbiquity.
Josh Braaten shares “16 Secret Google Analytics Advanced Segments Worth Their Weight in Gold” at Search Engine Watch.
Tim Resnik shares his (SEOmoz) Mozinar on “Reclaiming your Google referral data” via his SlideShare platform.
Alex Moss reviews “10 Essential WordPress Plugins to Improve SEO & Usability” at Search Engine Watch.
Ginny Marvin posts “Google: Nearly 2 Million AdWords Campaigns Are Now Enhanced, Early Results Are In” at Search Engine Land.
Aaron Wall discusses “Why the Yahoo! Search Revenue Gap Won’t Close” at SEO Book.
Chad Kearns posts the second of his 6-part series with “Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understand Your Campaign Settings” at Portent.
Benjamin Vigneron posts “Analyzing Competitiveness In Your Paid Search Account” at Search Engine Land.
Reporting on a recent Google Webmaster announcement, Thom Craver posts “Company Logos Coming to Google Search Results, Thanks to New schema.org Markup” at Search Engine Watch.
Danny Sullivan also reports on the new markup with “’Organization Markup’ Supported As Non-Google+ Way To Put Logos In Knowledge Graph Box” at Search Engine Land.
Nathan Safran cites data supporting “Google+ in the SERPs Increasing; Authorship Adoption High” at Search Engine Watch.
Janet Driscoll Miller posts “Google Continues To Experiment & Expand Authorship” at Search Engine Land.
Barry Schwartz reports on another UGC (user generated content) spam penalty with “Google Notifies Sprint of Spam Penalty; Seeks Advice In Google Help Forums” at Search Engine Land.
Peter Kafka posts “How to Spend a Billion-Plus on User-Generated Content, Google Edition” at All Things D.
Jeff Bercovici posts “Yahoo’s Mayer Vows To ‘Let Tumblr Be Tumblr’ – But With A Few More Ads” at Forbes.
Jay Yarow and Nicholas Carlson co-author “Why Yahoo’s $1.1 Billion Tumblr Buy Is A Great Idea” at Business Insider.
Cotton Delo posts “Is a Yahoo-Owned Tumblr More Attractive to Brands?” at Ad Age | digital.
Events:
- SMX Paris is scheduled for June 6th & 7th.
- SMX Advanced Seattle 2013, June 11th and 12th, is sold out and the wait list has been closed. Workshop and networking passes are still available. Save on each option by registering online by June 10th!
- SES Toronto 2013 is on for June 12th thru the 14th. Early bird savings of $300 have been extended until tomorrow (Thursday, May 23rd).
- MozCon 2013 (SEOmoz) will be in Seattle (of course) from July 8th thru the 10th.
- ReelSEO’s Video Marketing Summit 2013 will be held along with Liveclicker’s Video Commerce Summit 2013 for a two-in-one offering July 25th and 26th in San Francisco.
- Search Exchange 2013 will be held July 29th thru the 31st in Charlotte, NC.
Social Media Marketing
Michael Stelzner announces the release of Social Media Examiner’s fifth annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report (2013), available for free download through May 30th.
Based on Social Media Examiner’s 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Lee Odden posts “Top 5 Social Media Questions Marketers Want Answered” at TopRank.
Google+ shares a sleek 56-second video on its new upgrade with “Meet the new Google+: A stream with style and smarts” at its YouTube G+ channel.
Danny Sullivan live blogs “Grow Your Audience With Google+” from the Google I/O 2013 session by the same title, at Marketing Land.
Chris Crum rounds up Google’s “slew of new features” for Googe+ – noting they number 41 – with “Don’t Miss These Google+ Talks From Google I/O” at WebProNews.
And of course, “Google+ Redesign” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news.
Danny Sullivan posts “Up Close With The New Google+ Related Hashtags” at Marketing Land.
Just one thing…Nick Statt posts “Google: Please Fix The Crippling Problem Plaguing Google+” at ReadWrite.
“Twitter on steroids”? Jim Lodicoo posts “Google+ Comments Poised to Change Social Media…But Not Yet” at JAL Communication.
Citing eMarketer data, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols posts “Facebook remains top social network, Google+, YouTube battle for second” at ZDNet.
Kim Lachance Shandro takes a look at “Facebook Hits and Misses Since Its IPO” at Entrepreneur.
Greg Sterling posts “After The IPO: Facebook Survives Its ‘Year Of Living Dangerously’” at Marketing Land.
In response to a dubious but widely-shared Manta survey, Mark Schaefer presents the facts with ”Are businesses failing to find an ROI in social media? Another view.” at {grow}.
Nur Bremmen shares “83 incredible examples of social media marketing” at memeburn.
Leo Widrich posts “For the first time, you can now schedule retweets” at The Buffer Blog.
Kathleen Davis shares a brief post and infographic, “The Key to Building a Strong Online Reputation,” at Entrepreneur.
Jay Baer shares an excerpt from Geoff Livingston’s Welcome to the Fifth Estate with “5 Reputation Management Lessons from Prince, Dell and Beyond” at Convince and Convert.
Brian Solis posts “Getting Back to Basics: Why Brands are Getting it Wrong in Social Media” at his blog.
Mark Shaefer entertains a new model of influencer and outreach strategy with “Influence marketing: What’s next?” at {grow}.
Julio Viskovich discusses “The Benefits of Embracing Real-Time Marketing on Social Channels and Beyond” at Marketo.
Sorcha Mullis shares “Simple Steps to Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy” at Search Engine Journal.
Biz-Zoom Marketing shares an interesting “Infographic: What Drives Social Media Searches and Engagement?”
Colin Walker posts a thoughtful “Of circles, communities and serendipitous discovery” at his site.
Ana Hoffman shares “Triberr: Your Step by Step Guide to Being Heard” at Traffic Generation Café.
Heidi Cohen shares “33 Blogging Tips to Maximize Social Media Reach” at her site.
Devon Glenn posts “Google Glass Gets Social With Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Other Apps” at Social Times.
Events:
- Zenith SocialCon 2013 reutrns to Duluth, Minnesota, on May 30th.
- EmMeCon Emerging Media Conference will be held June 3rd thru the 6th in Seattle. Tickets are selling out fast!
(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)
“HAL in vector” image thanks to abelmon007 (Abel)
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Penguin 2.0: Should you rewrite your evergreen site copy?
May 20, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Matt Cutts, a distinguished engineer from Google, recently released a video announcing the next wave of Google algorithm updates. He specifically discussed Penguin 2.0, saying it will roll out this summer.
So Google is giving site owners a big heads up!
Also, on last weeks’ SEO Copywriting Certification call with Bruce Clay, he discussed Penguin 2.0 and what it means for site content. So Heather thought she would address this update today because it is a big deal to a lot of site owners!
Tune in to learn what web copy on your site might need rewriting, before the imminent Google updates hit:
Are Some Of Your Pages So-So At Best?
- Does your site have any low-quality posts or articles?
- Does your sales copy walk a keyphrase-stuffing line?
When speaking to the SEO Copywriting Certification folks last week, Bruce Clay advised listeners to go through their websites and locate those pages that are of so-so quality, and make them as good as they can be.
A lot of companies have these so-so pages on their site. They might not be technically keyphrase-stuffed, but they’re not necessarily high-quality or well-researched either.
These mediocre pages might be articles that you kicked out all at once and under deadline, so maybe you or the writer in question were working a little bit more quickly than normal. Or you might have some lower-quality blog posts on your site from way back when you first started out.
There also may be old sales copy on your site, where you thought you were supposed to include more keyphrases than you really should, and they are walking that keyphrase-stuffing line.
These are all examples of evergreen content that is ripe for a rewrite.
Also consider that you’re probably not getting much promotional value from them, because you know they’re not good. You never link to them, you never talk about them, and you may haven’t had the time or the inclination to go through your site and make those posts or those sales pages as good as they can be.
Well…
Now Is The Time To Make Some Changes!
- Google wants to recognize authority sites.
- Identify low-value and low-quality content and rewrite it.
- If your blog hasn’t been updated in months, it’s time to start blogging again.
In his Google Webmaster Help video, Matt Cutts made it very clear that Google wants to recognize – and reward – authority sites. And Bruce Clay emphasized in his presentation that if you have those kinds of pages on your site that are so-so at best, now is the time to revisit and rewrite them.
So identify that low-value and low-quality content! And if you don’t have time to go through and rewrite those pages, now is the time to find someone who can help you with it.
That way, when the Penguin update does hit, you know that all of your pages are exactly the way you want them to be: they are well-written and well-researched, and you’re able to link to them and refer to them without embarrassment!
And if you’ve neglected your blog for months, now is the time to get back to it. Again, Google wants to recognize and reward authority sites, and the way that you can establish yourself as an authority in your niche is by blogging about it – consistently!
If you tackle this evergreen content rewriting project now, then when Penguin 2.0 and other Google SEO updates roll out, you should be in good shape!
Thanks for tuning in! Have any questions or feedback? I’d love to hear from you! You can leave them in the comments, or email me directly at heather@seocopywriting.com. You can also find me on Twitter @heatherlloyd.
photo thanks to nick.amoscato (Nick Amoscato)
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SEO content marketing roundup, week ending May 15th
May 15, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Content and social media marketers discuss the reality of a youthful audience and its preferences for mobile, social, and visual content. Meanwhile, YouTube introduces paid channels, Bing helps Klout out with its new “experts” feature, and local search shifts to mobile apps in a big (and affluent) way.
The SEO and search community buzz about Matt Cutts’ forecast for SEO over the next few months, and discuss the need for a new mindset around link strategy as Penguin 2.0 looms ever larger on the horizon.
Enjoy this week’s picks!
Content Marketing
Alex Clifford posts “Content Marketing in 2023: Expert Advice on the Trends that Will Matter” at Content Marketing Institute.
Lee Odden shares eight optimization fundamentals with “Want to Improve Your Online Marketing? Master These Search & Social Media Tactics” at TopRank.
Frederic Lardinois reports “Google Launches Content Recommendation Engine For Mobile Sites, Powered By Google+” at TechCrunch.
Josh Byers posts “Three Reasons a ‘Mobile First’ Philosophy is Critical to Achieving Your Business Goals” at Copyblogger.
James A. Martin shares a slideshow, “The Content Marketing Hall of Fame: 13 Ways to Build Your Business” at CIO.com.
phrase HQ assembles an illustrious list featuring “The 101 Best Copywriters in the World” at their site.
Alicia Lawrence posts “Writing Pixelated: Visual Content for Generation Y” at Spin Sucks.
Steve P. Young posts “The 2013 YouTube Marketing Guide” for video content marketers at KISSmetrics.
Tom Pick features “30 Awesome Blogging Guides, Tips and Resources” at Webbiquity.
Miranda Miller discusses “Content Marketing Tactics: Business Blogging Pros, Cons, Best Practices & Brands Doing It Right” at TopRank.
Ben Straley posts “3 Keys to Activating an Audience with Smarter Content” at Search Engine Watch.
Arnie Kuenn posts a video interview with Curata’s Pawan Deshpande on “Content Curation for Your Website” at Vertical Measures.
BtoB Magazine has released its annual “B2B Media Power 50”, listing the top b-to-b advertising vehicles in eight different categories, posted by Kate Maddox.
For fun: Simon “Media Guy” Dumenco posts “What Happens Next in Media? 9 Predictions” at Advertising Age.
Seth Godin posts “The reason they call it a browser” at his blog.
Shelly Bowen discusses “Exploring Your Brand’s Personality with Story” at Pybop.
Rae Hoffman posts a self-described rant, “Content Marketing is the ‘Escort’ of Online Marketing” at The SugarRae Blog.
Mark Emond discusses metrics and ROI with “Four Foundational Elements of Marketing Analytics Success” at MarketingProfs.
John Bonini discusses “How to Fix 6 Failing Marketing Metrics Your CEO Actually Cares About” at HubSpot.
Zach Bulygo discusses “How Being an Authority can Boost Your Online Sales” at KISSmetrics.
Lee Odden shares his keynote presentation to the Portland Communicator’s Conference with “Digital Convergence of Public Relations & Marketing” at TopRank.
Laura Hazard Owen reviews “Ping.it: Not a Google Reader replacement, but a tool to discover emerging viral content” at paidContent.
Roger Dooley posts “Persuade with Visual Metaphors” at Neuromarketing.
Karen J. Bannan posts “How real-time analytics help email marketers” at BtoB Magazine.
Danny Sullivan shares an infographic from Email Monks with “Infographic: The Challenge Of Email Success In A Fragmented Mobile World” at Marketing Land.
Jakob Nielsen shares insights into why users often fail at new tasks with “Usability for Novel vs. Routine Tasks” at his Alertbox blog.
Events:
SEO & Search
Matt Cutts discusses “What to expect in SEO in the coming months” from his Webmaster Help video, re-posted at his blog (Gadgets, Google, and SEO).
Chris Crum covers Matt Cutts’ main points nicely with “For Better Or Worse, A Lot Of Change Is Coming To Google SEO” at WebProNews.
In step with Matt Cutts’ video and post, Heather Lloyd-Martin asks “Are you writing content ‘for Google’?” at SEO Copywriting.
Referring to a tweet from Matt Cutts earlier in the week, Danny Goodwin posts “Matt Cutts: Google Penguin 2.0 Coming in ‘Next Few Weeks’” at Search Engine Watch.
Peter DaVanzo discusses post-Penguin linking strategies with “Link Madness” at SEO Book.
Michael Garrity posts “Could Google+ Play a Role in the Upcoming Penguin Update?” at Website Magazine.
Sean McGinnis shares “Link Building Techniques That STILL WORK!” at 312digital.
David Harry speaks to SEO link-building addiction with “It’s Time to Change the SEO Mindset” at Search Engine Watch.
Ron Garrett discusses “Positioning Your Business for the Future of SEO” (Whiteboard Friday) at SEOmoz.
Mani Karthik discusses “The Future Of SEO in a Socially Driven World” at Search Engine Land.
Barry Schwartz reports that “No, Publishership Isn’t Coming Soon To Google Search To Join Authorship” at Search Engine Land.
Courtney Ramirez addresses client enlightenment and managing expectations with “SEO client education: It’s your most important job” at SEO Copywriting.
Rob Toledo discusses explaining SEO to non-techies with “How My Mom Thinks Search Engines Work” at SEOmoz.
Amy Gesenhues reports “Another One Bites the Dust: Google SMS Search Shuts Down Without Warning” at Search Engine Land.
Jessica Lee discusses the website Gwern.net with “Can This Data Analysis Predict Which Google Products Will Close Next?” at Search Engine Watch.
In the first of a six-part series, Chad Kearns posts “Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure” at Portent.
Trond Lyngbo posts “How To Double Your Revenue With SEO” at Search Engine Land.
Tim Ash posts “The Secret Ingredient for Successful Websites: Effortlessness” at ClickZ.
Jennifer Horowitz posts “Site Redesign: Avoid These Mistakes” at Level 343.
Jill Whalen shares the “SEO Tools and Extensions” she uses on a regular basis at High Rankings Advisor.
Tom Demers posts “Web Analytics Software Comparison: Identifying The Right Web Analytics Tools For Your Business” at Search Engine Land.
Marc Purtell posts “Beyond Search Rankings: Using SEO to Improve Site Optimization” at Search Engine Journal.
Cyrus Shepard posts “How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint” at SEOmoz.
Glenn Gabe discusses “Facebook Graph Search: Local Search Ranking Factors” at Search Engine Watch.
Spencer Yao discusses “How Your Domain Name Will Impact SEO & Social Media Marketing” at Search Engine Journal.
Anna Bager discusses “How to Benefit From the Mobile Shift in Local Search” at ClickZ.
eMarketer reports “Affluents Drive Local Search App Use.”
Allison Howen discusses the latest development in the Bing-Facebook connection with “Bing’s Social Sidebar Gets Interactive” at Website Magazine.
Another Bing alliance: Anthony Ha reports “Klout Gets Into The Q&A Business By Launching Klout Experts (With Help From Bing)” at TechCrunch.
Mark Schaefer posts “Klout innovation will power search engine results” at {grow}.
Events:
Social Media Marketing
eMarketer posts “Which Social Networks Are Growing Fastest Worldwide? Twitter, Google+ see major gains in active users.”
Todd Wasserman reports that while Google+ may be catching up to Facebook, it still lags in average time spent on the site, at Mashable.
Josh Constine reports “Facebook Previews New Features For Home, Which Is Near 1M Downloads And Increases Users’ Time Spent On Facebook By 25%” at TechCrunch.
Andrea Vahl discusses “How Your Business Can Use the New Facebook Cover Photos” at Social Media Examiner.
Mark Burgess discusses “Building Your Brand With Google+” at Blue Focus Marketing.
Re-posting a video interview, Ad Age reports “Foursquare’s Crowley on Automatic Check-Ins and Privacy: ‘Just the Natural Progression.’”
“YouTube Paid Channels” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news.
Frank Strong discusses “The End of Free” at Sword and the Script.
Acknowledging its 10th year, LinkedIn’s Outstory posts an interactive infographic, “A Brief History of LinkedIn.”
Host G+ Hangouts? Tim Schmoyer posts “How to Create A Permanent Link for Your Hangouts-On-Air [Creator’s Tip #90]” at ReelSEO.
Rachel Freeman posts “Overlooked and Underappreciated: the Social Share Button Strategy” at Search Engine Journal.
Peter DaVanzo posts an in-depth discussion on “Measuring Social Media” at SEO Book.
Debbie Hemley collects “26 Social Media Marketing Tips from the Pros” at Social Media Examiner.
Brian Solis discusses “New Digital Influencers: The Coming Youthquake” at his blog.
Bonnie Fuller posts “Baby-Boomer Marketers Are Misreading Millennials’ Media Behavior” at Ad Age | digital.
Gini Dietrich looks at “The Best of the Least Engaged Brands on Twitter” at Spin Sucks.
Rachel Miller asks “Is Your Company Social Media Friendly?” at WindMill Networking.
Jeff Bullas shares “How to Make Money from Your Blog: 11 Powerful Case Studies” at his blog.
Kristi Hines posts “How to Generate More Leads With Your Blog: 5 Tips” at Social Media Examiner.
Rebecca Debono posts “Top 5 hottest social media tools” at iMedia Connection.
Greg Jarboe posts “Unruly Unveils Top Vine Metrics and 100 Most Tweeted Vines” at ReelSEO.
Events:
(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)
photo thanks to Bitterjug (Mark Skipper)
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SEO Copywriting Checklist: Are you writing content “for Google”?
May 13, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
The idea that you need to write content in a particular way for it to position well in search results is a tenacious misconception. It’s also an unhealthy one, both in terms of search engine appeal and user experience.
Tune in to hear what Heather has to say about writing “for Google” and how to correct for this stubborn tendency in your own SEO content:
“Gift Baskets” Is Repeated 9 Times!
So here’s an example of what writing content “for Google” can mean, where the term “gift baskets” is repeated nine times within a teeny-tiny block of copy!
I’m sure that the person who wrote this content didn’t do so thinking “Im gonna try to spam the engines and get up to the top results!” But the problem is that a lot of folks still think this kind of keyword stuffing is the way you write good SEO content.
Relax! Google Wants You To Write Good Content
So if this has been your mindset – that you have to write separate pages “for Google” or stuff the page full of your keyphrases in order to get a good ranking – you can relax: Google wants to you to write good, quality content. Really!
- Never write copy “for Google”. Write it for your readers.
Instead of hanging onto the notion of writing your content for Google, think about writing for your readers – always focus on their experience!
You don’t want to include a keyphrase so many times that it becomes distracting. People may well bounce off your page and out of your site to find another source of information that sounds more reputable, and offers content that is easier to read.
Additionally…
- Keyword stuffing won’t help your SEO.
Google has closed that loophole. Once upon a time, sure, jamming your copy full of keywords might’ve worked – but not today. So there’s no reason to do it!
- Unsure if you added too many keyphrases? Read the copy out loud.
If you aren’t sure whether or not you’ve been heavy-handed with the use of keyphrases in your content, sometimes the best thing to do is to just print that page and read it aloud.
The same applies if you’re a site owner working with a copywriter: when s/he submits the copy, read it out loud. That way you’ll hear if the keyphrase has been used too many times.
- Think quality – not quantity.
When thinking about your content, it’s always best to think of it in terms of quality.
It’s not about how many pages you can kick out so Google starts thinking you’re an authority on “X”. It’s about how many good pages you can write for your readers, so you attract more traffic and build your brand that way!
Thanks for joining me for this week’s video! As always, if you have any questions about today’s post, or anything else for that matter, I’d love to hear from you! You can email me directly at heather@seocopywriting.com, or find me on Twitter @heatherlloyd.
image thanks to warrantedarrest (Tomas de Aquino)
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SEO content marketing roundup, week ending May 8th
May 8, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Content marketers discuss mobile trends and innovation, the future of PR, cross-platform content creation realities, and the interplay of SEO and content marketing.
The SEO and search community note Google’s new offering in real-time analytics as well as its quiet elimination of yet more search tools. Other notable discussions include the impact of Google Now on search, the implications of its acquisition of Wavii, post- (and impending) Penguin link-building strategies, and the new role of the SEO professional.
Social media marketers discuss LinkedIn’s introduction of visual content, YouTube’s premium content monetization, Google+ overtaking Twitter, and Twitter’s extending its platform to all advertisers.
Enjoy this week’s picks!
Content Marketing
Arnie Kuenn posts his presentation on “The Intersection of Content Marketing and SEO” via Vertical Measures on SlideShare.
Lee Odden discusses “What Should Lead Your Online Marketing Strategy: SEO or Content Marketing?” at TopRank.
Joe Pulizzi shares “The Top 10 Content Marketing Strategy Lessons from the Last 15 Years” at Content Marketing Institute.
Eric Enge shares post-Penguin strategy with “How to Shift From Guest Posting to Content Marketing in 6 Basic Steps” at Search Engine Watch.
Forrester has released its 2013 Mobile Trends for Marketers report, highlighting how to become “more strategic with … mobile initiatives” as well as “game-changing mobile topics.”
In her ongoing series on mobile innovation, Christina “CK” Kerley posts “Innovating Value Propositions Through Mobile” at MarketingProfs.
Kelsey Libert shares “The Secret Recipe for Viral Content Marketing Success” at SEOmoz.
Dan Tynski posts “Mining Current Events for Content Marketing Home Runs” at BuzzStream.
Sujan Patel discusses “Mining Your Social Networks for Content Marketing Ideas” at Search Engine Journal.
David Gould posts “Rethinking Relevance in Content Marketing” at Vertical Measures.
Jeff Ogden posts “How to Organize a Digital Marketing Team – Lessons from Hubspot” at Fearless Competitor.
Gini Dietrich shares her Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference keynote with “The Future of PR: It’s Our Time to Lead” at Spin Sucks.
Paula Andruss shares “The Secrets of 7 Successful Brands” at Entrepreneur.
David Soyka posts “Be Your Brand: 5 Tips To Help Your Brand Connect With Customers” at My Blog Guest.
Jay Baer interviews Kyle Lacy of Exact Target on content creation vs. engagement with “Don’t Ignore Content in Favor of Engagement” at Convince and Convert.
MarketingSherpa’s weekly research chart is on “Use of analytics to inform customer theory.”
Cheri-percy posts “Data vs. Personas for Content Planning” (a DistilledLive video discussion) at Distilled.
Courtney Ramirez discusses “How to Perform a Content Audit” at Greenroom Interactive.
Seth Godin posts “Remind you of anything? Simple typography for non-professionals” at his blog.
Heather Lloyd-Martin discusses readability with “Does your web content pass the quick-scan test?” at SEO Copywriting.
Dan Virgillito posts “How to Write Copy in the Post-PC Era: Surrender to the Cross-Device Reality” at KISSmetrics.
Amanda Clark shares “10 Essential Components Of Effective E-mail Marketing Copywriting” at Business 2 Community.
Ben Settle discusses profitable email marketing with “How To Sell Without Selling” at Copyblogger.
Karen Talavera shares “Three Powerful Ways to Measure the Impact of Your Email Marketing” at MarketingProfs.
Heather Lloyd-Martin shares “7 tips for sales call success” at SEO Copywriting.
Miranda Miller posts “Conversion Rate Optimization Software: Choose the Right Tools for Your Business” at TopRank.
Events:
SEO & Search
Guillaume Bouchard posts “How Google Now Will Impact SEO: What You Can Do to Get a Head Start” at Search Engine Watch.
Bill Slawski discusses the ramifications of Google’s purchase of Wavii in “With Wavii, Did Google Acquire the Future of Web Search?” at SEO by the Sea.
Danny Sullivan reports “Yahoo Extends Microsoft Search Deal & Revenue Guarantees” at Search Engine Land.
Jayson DeMers discusses the anatomy and how-to of co-citations with “SEO co-citations: What they are & why they matter” at SEO Copywriting.
Michael Martinez shares “Link Building Strategies for 2013” at SEO Theory.
Pratik Dholakiya posts “The Definitive Guide to Recovery from the Unnatural Link Penalty” at Search Engine Journal.
Nick Stamoulis discusses “Who’s Name to Use for Link Building?” when using blog commenting as a linking strategy, at Brick Marketing.
The latest (non T-shirt related) Matt Cutts’ Google Webmaster Help Video addresses the question: “What’s the latest SEO misconception that you would like to put to rest?”
Citing Cutts’ video (above), Brafton posts “Is Matt Cutts saying Authorship updates are not imminent?”
Nathan Safran posts “SEO Branding: Appearance In Search Results Impacts Brand Perception” at Search Engine Land.
Rand Fishkin discusses “Why We Can’t Just Be SEOs Anymore” (Whiteboard Friday) at SEOmoz.
Thom Craver posts “New in Google Analytics: Real-Time Conversion Report” at Search Engine Watch.
John E. Lincoln posts “The Ultimate Guide to Multilingual and Multiregional SEO” at Search Engine Land.
Tom Pick shares “11 Expert PPC Guides, Tips and Techniques (and One Rant)” at Webbiquity.
Ginny Marvin reports “AdWords To End Product Extensions As PLAs Take Over,” at Search Engine Land.
eMarketer reports on declining CPC rates and rising global paid search ad spending with “Mobile Gets One Out of Five Paid Search Clicks.”
Garrett Moon discusses “5 Things You Must Do Before Jumping Into Paid Internet Advertising” at KISSmetrics.
Describing mobile, local, and apps as “the trifecta in web marketing,” Jessica Lee reports “Local Search via Non-PC Devices Quadrupled in 2012 [Study]” at Search Engine Watch.
Another search feature removed: Barry Schwartz reports “Google Local Results Drops ‘More Results Near…’ To ‘Improve’ Local Search Experience” at Search Engine Land.
SERP URL displays on Google’s chopping block too? Chris Crum posts “Webmasters Hope This Google Test Doesn’t Become A Reality” at WebProNews.
George Freitag assures with “5 SEO Strategies We Swear Aren’t Going Anywhere” at Portent.
Derek Edmond shares “5 Ways to Create Productive B2B SEO Benchmarks in a ‘Not Provided’ World” at Search Engine Watch.
Carrie Hill discusses “Using Advanced Segments & Scroll Depth To Test Content Types in Analytics” at Search Engine Land.
Lori Kirk posts “Not all traffic is created equal: Qualifying SEO & PPC visits” at Brafton.
John Gagnon shares “5 Free Excel Add-Ins to Help Digital Marketers Decipher Big Data” at ClickZ.
Cyndie Shaffstall posts “23 Keys to Targeted Landing Pages: Conversions, Attribution and SEO” at Target Marketing Magazine.
Jim Yu discusses “Optimizing For Facebook Graph Search: SEO Meets Social” at Search Engine Land.
Bill Slawski takes a departure from patents with “Bill’s Most Excellent Top 10 SEO Rules” at SEO by the Sea.
Starting off a monthly SEJ video series, Srinivas Rao posts “A Sit Down With SEO Expert Alan Bleiweiss” at Search Engine Journal.
Events:
Social Media Marketing
Thomas Watkins posts “Suddenly, Google Plus Is Outpacing Twitter To Become The World’s Second Largest Social Network” at Business Insider.
Chris Atkinson reports “Google+ Hangouts-On-Air Now Feature Live Rewind, Instant Publishing” at ReelSEO.
Ryan Hanley posts “Building Authority Online using Google Plus with Mark Traphagen” at his Content Warfare Podcast.
“LinkedIn Visual Profiles” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news.
Kristi Hines posts “The 2013 LinkedIn Marketing Guide” at KISSmetrics.
Maura McGowan reports “New Instagram Feature Allows Users to Tag Brands” at Adweek.
Eric Schwartzman shares a podcast on “Why Salesforce is Closest to Pulling KPIs from Social Media” at Social Media Today.
Amada Sibley posts “Twitter Opens Advertising to All: Here’s How it Works” at HubSpot.
From Business News Daily comes “The Best Twitter Accounts for Entrepreneurs” at Mashable.
Chris Atkinson posts “YouTube Trends Adds Nifty Map for Popular Videos Across the U.S.” that shows what people are sharing as well as watching, at ReelSEO.
Mitch Joel advises “Pay Closer Attention to YouTube” via Six Pixels of Separation at Twist Image.
Adam Morgan reports “YouTube Will Now Monetize Its Premium Content” at Search Engine Journal.
Jeff Bullas shares “21 Awesome Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2013” at his blog.
James Dohnert discusses a recent LinkedIn study that indicates “Nearly 90% of Affluent Consumers Use Social Media” at Search Engine Watch.
Craig M. Jamieson discusses connection vs. engagement with “How Engaged Are You With Your LinkedIn Contacts?” at Adaptive Business Services.
Danny Brown discusses “The Crossroads of Influence Marketing” at his blog.
Rachel Sprung shares “5 Ways Marketers Can Stay Updated on Facebook Changes” at Social Media Examiner.
Jay Baer shares “4 Ways to Thump Your Competition with Better Facebook Analysis” at Convince and Convert.
Christopher Penn posts “More than 1 in 6 access Facebook only on a mobile device” at Shift Communications.
Lisa Buyer shares “22 Facebook PR Secrets Every Community Manager Should Know” at Search Engine Watch.
Scott Gerber discusses “8 Facebook Graph Search Pros and Cons for Marketing” at Mashable.
Michael Stelzner interviews Facebook wizard Jon Loomer with “Facebook Ads and Beyond: What Marketers Need to Know” at Social Media Examiner.
Semil Shah shares several good references in posting “Iterations: A Youthful Rebellion Against The Permanence Of Facebook’s Walled Garden” at TechCrunch.
Jennifer Horowitz talks social media planning and blogging consistency with “Does Your Blog or Social Interaction Suffer When….” At Level 343.
Brian Solis shares an edited excerpt from his new book (What’s the Future of Business…) with “The First Mile: The Broken Link of Social Media Customer Service” at his blog.
Brent Leary interviews Sprout Social’s Justyn Howard with “Social Media Management Evolution” at Small Business Trends.
Kelsey Jones posts “How To Organize A Social Media Content Strategy” at Marketing Land.
Natalie Saumure shares “2 Great Tools to Help with Your Sales Process” via social media marketing at Business 2 Community.
Events:
(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)
photo thanks to UggBoy<3UggGirl
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SEO Copywriting Checklist: Does your web content pass the quick-scan test?
May 6, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
A visually overwhelming page filled with dense copy isn’t inviting. More likely than not, a reader confronted with such a page will bounce off it in preference for a competing site with more reader-friendly content.
So tune in to learn how to structure your copy for quick scanning to leverage time-on-site and conversions!
Do You Really Want To Read This Copy? Really?
This first screenshot is an example of a visually overwhelming page. Chances are, when you’re looking at this page, you might see the headline, and a lot of text – but you’re probably not going very deep into the copy and reading it.
That’s the challenge for really copy-dense pages. You don’t see a lot of white space, and the text is structured in such a way that it looks like a whole bunch of paragraphs that just go on, and on, and on…
If you think about your own searching behavior, it’s likely that if you were to land on the page like that shown – even if you might be interested in the information – you might back out of the site to find another source, because this is just hard to read!
Much Better!
Now compare this to a page from 37 Signals (I’ve written about how much I like their site before).
As you can see from the slide, there’s certainly a lot of text on this page, but it’s structured in a way that makes it easy to read: you have bullet points, you have a headline, you have sub-headlines, and smaller paragraphs.
Things To Think About
- Write shorter paragraphs, use bullet points…anything to add more white space.
- Sub-headlines are great for quick-scan readers.
- Remember your mobile readers!
Besides breaking up your content with shorter paragraphs and bullet points, you want to think about using sub-headlines: they’re great for quick-scan readers!
Looking at the 37 Signals example, you’ll notice that even if you don’t read what’s in the paragraph copy, you can really get a feel for what they’re saying just by scanning the sub-headlines: “Great service is everything” and “Our customers are our investors”.
Also, you’ll want to remember your mobile readers! Going back to the example of visually overwhelming, dense copy, try to imagine looking at that page on your smart phone – it’s really going to be difficult to read!
If you’re getting a lot of mobile traffic and have these kinds of challenging pages, you’re missing a lot of conversion opportunities! So you definitely want to structure your content with your mobile audience in mind, as well.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s SEO Copywriting Checklist video! As always, if you need any help or have questions, or if you have feedback on today’s post, I’d love to hear from you: zip me an email at heather@seocopywriting.com, or find me on Twitter @heatherlloyd.
image thanks to Naomi Ibuki
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SEO content marketing roundup, week ending May 1st
May 1, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Content marketers share rich online marketing resources, and discuss mobile app usage, video content marketing, Authorship and AuthorRank, blogging, and content curation.
In the SEO and search community, Google Now displays omniscient predictive powers and hints at a future of machine-learning search technologies, the Penguin update is predicted to come soon and with a vengeance, while discussions and presentations on social media’s influence on search (as well as Authorship and AuthorRank) abound.
For its part, the social media marketing industry notes the search perks of Google+ (even for B2B), and discusses Facebook’s open graph, LinkedIn’s new Contacts feature, branding, influence, reputation cleanup, and ROI.
And to lead off, CERN marks 20 years’ of the World Wide Web by recreating the first website ever, with “Twenty years of a free, open web.” (More discussion of CERN’s “techversary” celebration and its broader mission can be found at Gizmodo and Engadget.)
Enjoy this week’s picks!
Content Marketing
Kristi Hines compiles “The Top 75 Must-Read Online Marketing Blogs” at Unbounce.
Referring to content marketing as “the new SEO,” Neil Patel and Kathryn Aragon co-author “The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing,” available as a free download at Quicksprout.
Mauro D’Andrea shares “51 Practical Resources to Increase Blog Traffic” at Blog Growth.
Reader favorites on the art of blogging are shared with “Blogging: 4 experts share their favorite tips & strategies” at SEO Copywriting.
Isla McKetta posts “How to Blog: Humanizing Your Brand” at Portent.
Sarah Perez posts “Flurry: U.S. App Audience Now Roughly Equal To Internet Users On Laptops & Desktops” at TechCrunch.
Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang’s Marketo Keynote on Converged Media is featured with “The revenge of content in marketing and media” at the Interact Congress Blog.
Lee Odden shares insightful lead generation stats among different marketing channels before discussing “The Best Marketing Investment You’ll Ever Make” at TopRank.
Marketing Sherpa’s weekly research chart looks at “Measuring website optimization ROI.”
Katie Burke asks six experts to give their input with “6 Expert-Endorsed Ways to Improve Your Marketing TODAY” at HubSpot.
Leo Widrich discusses emotion and color theory with “Why Facebook is blue: The science of colors in marketing” at The Buffer Blog.
Jakob Nielsen talks usability with “Users’ Pagination Preferences and ‘View All’” at his Alertbox.
Danny Brown’s Sunday Share features “Disruptive Technologies and the Digital Revolution” by Carlos Domingo, President and CEO of Telefonica I&D.
Mike Volpe shares findings from HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report with “10 Inbound Discoveries That Will Disrupt Marketing Forever” at HubSpot.
Dennis McCafferty posts “How to Stop Jargon from Pulling the Plug Out of Your Powerful Content” at Content Marketing Institute.
Gary Hennerberg and Perry Alexander co-author “Short Video vs. Long Video: The Results” at Target Marketing Magazine.
Shelly Bowen posts “Writing Video Content: Strategy Makes It Easier” at Pybop.
Ted Karczewski interviews key people at video solutions provider Conviva with “Why video content analytics are critical for an optimal user experience” at Brafton.
Mark Walker addresses B2B marketers with “How to Use Video Content to Drive Awareness, Leads, and Sales: A Guide” at Content Marketing Institute.
Ann Smarty publishes her Pubcon NOLA presentation, “Google Authorship & AuthorRank for Content Marketers” on SlideShare.
Brad Miller shares five takeaways from his interview with Guy Kawasaki with “Guy Kawasaki Talks Content Marketing, Social & Google+” at Search Engine Watch.
Pawan Deshpande posts “Content Curation Guidelines for Where to Share” at Curata.
Anthony Kosner posts “New Wave of Curation Platforms Hit Targeted Audiences” at Contently’s The Content Strategist.
Virginia Nussey discusses “SEO-Friendly Content Curation in a Post-Panda World” at Bruce Clay, Inc.
Purna Virji posts “How to Create Effective Content to Help SEO & Sales: 3 Top Ideas” at Search Engine Watch.
Barry Feldman discusses “Why You Shouldn’t Do Content Marketing” at Convince and Convert.
Joe Pulizzi discusses “The 3 Building Blocks to Content Marketing Strategy” at Content Marketing Institute.
Miranda Miller posts “Do Advertorials & Native Advertising Fit In Your Content Marketing Strategy?” at TopRank.
Events:
SEO & Search
Simon Penson paints a picture of “Digital Marketing When Computers Can Think,” asking several industry experts for their take on marketing in the future, at Zazzle Media.
Danny Sullivan posts “The Amazing ‘Google Now’ – When Google Searches Before You Think To” at Search Engine Land.
Beyond Google Now’s predictive capabilities, there’s mobile thinking potential…Bill Slawski posts “Google Granted Patent on Mobile Machine Learning” at SEO by the Sea.
Jennifer Cowan reports “Google Now Hits iPhone, iPad (Apple’s Siri Could Be Usurped By Competitor)” at SiteProNews.
Citing a new report on mobile search by Google and Neilsen, Claire Brinkley posts “55% of mobile search conversions happen within an hour” at eConsultancy.
Ian Lurie posts “Machine Learning and Link Spam: My Brush With Insanity” at SEOmoz.
Kristi Kellogg interviews Bruce Clay on Google’s imminent Penguin update with “Bruce Clay on Expecting and Escaping Google Penguin’s Wrath” at Bruce Clay, Inc.
Citing recent Matt Cutts’ (Google Webmaster Help) video(s), Chris Crum posts “Google Has People Scared To Link To Their Own Content” at WebProNews.
David Ciccarelli shows “What a Penguin Recovery Looks Like” at YouMoz.
Daniel Dannenberg distinguishes between literal and semantic search with an infographic showing “How Google Understands You” at Vertical Measures.
Jonathan Schikowski reviews a cool tool he created for browsing from a search engine’s perspective with “The world really needs another SEO browser” at Search News Central.
Charles Montgomery posts a “Pubcon NOLA Recap: Key Themes to the Future of SEO” at TQE Marketing.
Jayson DeMers outlines a great metaphorical SEO strategy with “Why SEO Is Like An RTS Game (and why you should care)” at SEOmoz.
Matt Morgan shares “Top Google Website Optimization Resources” at Search Engine Watch.
Robert Miller shares “5 Google Analytics Time- and Sanity-Savers” at ClickZ.
Annie Cushing posts “Deduplicate Your Google Analytics Reports in Excel” at Search Engine Land.
Michael Martinez posts an in-depth look at “Which SEO Tools Should You Use and When?” at SEO Theory.
Avinash Kaushik discusses data strategy metrics (or lack thereof) with “Eight Silly Data Things Marketing People Believe That Get Them Fired” at Occam’s Razor.
Rand Fishkin discusses “Fixing the Broken Culture of SEO Metrics” in the latest SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday presentation.
Citing a recent eMarketer report on robust U.S. retail ecommerce, Brafton posts “SEO content helps brands take advantage of rising ecommerce spend.”
Heather Lloyd-Martin addresses ecommerce retailers with “SEO Copywriting Checklist: Are your product descriptions costing you customers?” at SEO Copywriting.
John Doherty posts “Competitor Research In An Inbound Marketing World” at SEOmoz.
Alan Bleiweiss shares his Pubcon NOLA presentation, “In-House SEO Strategies – Using Data To Gain Allies” on SlideShare.
Aaron Wall takes Google to task for encouraging user-generated spam on social media sites with “Getting Granular With User Generated Content” at SEO Book.
Tom Bennet posts “Forum Spam – A Practical Guide” at SEO Gadget.
Alluding to Google’s Content Quality Guidelines, Josh McCoy posts “Website Indexation Audit: How to Find & Remove Non-Essential Content” at Search Engine Watch.
Gabriella Sannino posts “Social Media or Search: What You Should Know” at Level 343.
Arnie Kuenn shares his PubCon NOLA presentation, “Social Media Influence on SEO,” at the Vertical Measures SlideShare channel.
Eric Enge shares his Pubcon NOLA presentation on “Authorship and Author Rank: The Interaction with Social Media” at his SlideShare channel.
Mark Traphagen pens an in-depth post, “Google Author Rank and Authorship: What We Know So Far” at WindMill Networking.
Jayson DeMers posts “How Social Media is Changing the SEO Industry” at Search Engine Journal.
Amy Gesenhues posts “Facebook Offers An In-Depth Look At The Natural Language Interface Of Graph Search” at Search Engine Land.
Events:
Social Media Marketing
Referring to Google’s rollout of “interactivity” to Google+ posts, Greg Finn describes “How Google+ Interactive Posts Push CTAs & Deep Linking Directly Within A Post” at Marketing Land.
Finn also reports “Google Rewards App Developers Using Google+ Sign-In With Better Visibility On Google Search” at Search Engine Land.
Jeff Ogden posts “B2B Marketers See Google Plus Becoming An Increasingly Useful Social Platform” at Fearless Competitor.
“LinkedIn Contacts App” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news.
In greater detail, Pamela Vaughan posts “LinkedIn Launches New Contacts Tool to Make Relationship Management Easier” at HubSpot.
Brian Solis discusses “The Imminent Shift from Social to Digital Engagement” at his blog.
Rebecca Murtagh posts “10 Vital Steps to Building Social Influence” at Search Engine Watch.
Kelly Jo Horton discusses “What Facebook Graph Search Means for Your Business” at Marketo (B2B Marketing).
Mark Luskus posts “How Facebook Advertising is Changing with Open Graph” at KISSmetrics.
Justin Lafferty posts “Facebook’s Page Admin Panel Trades Mediocrity for Monetization” at AllFacebook.
Ian Cleary shares “21 Social Media Tool and Technology Tips that will Make your Day” at Jeffbullas’s Blog.
Emil Protalins reports “Digg finds over 40% of respondents are willing to pay for a Google Reader replacement, beta coming in June” at The Next Web.
Gini Dietrich shares “Eight Steps to Clean-Up Your Online Reputation” at Spin Sucks.
D Bnonn Tennant discusses “What Branding Really Means, and Why it’s Usually Code for BS” at KISSmetrics.
Giselle Abramovich lists “15 Alarming Facts About Brands” at Digiday.
Katie Elizabeth discusses “3 Recent Facebook Updates Brands and Businesses Must Know About” at Level 343.
Greg Levitt discusses the significance of click-back rates with “Are Publishers Only Getting Social ‘Half Right’?” at ClickZ.
Amanda Alvarez posts “Predicting Twitter popularity is all about probability” at GigaOM.
Dilip Venkatachari posts “Finding the ROI in Social Media: No Silver Bullet” at ClickZ.
Ken Yeung reports “Twitter is reportedly testing two-factor authentication following multiple hacks on user accounts” at The Next Web.
Jeff Bullas posts “How to Herd Cats on Twitter” at his blog.
Michael Stelzner interviews business trainer and Pinterest marketing aficionado Melanie Duncan with “Pinterest: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Site With Pinterest” in Social Media Examiner’s weekly podcast.
Events:
(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)
photo thanks to Rick McCharles
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Blogging: 4 experts share their favorite tips & strategies
April 30, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Following up on that thread and twisting it a tad, today we feature four reader favorites about blogging by experts who shared their favorite tips and strategies with us!
Learn: how to land a guest post gig, what to watch for when writing and publishing your blog, how to write a quality post in a time crunch, and the content marketing mojo of blogging beyond SEO.
And enjoy!
8 steps to landing guest posts
Widely known in the SEO and blogging community as the owner of MyBlogGuest and SEOsmarty, Ann Smarty writes an expert mini-guide on how to land guest post gigs, every time!
Beyond SEO: The content marketing power of the blog
Brick Marketing’s Nick Stamoulis discusses why blogging makes for a powerful content marketing strategy and savvy business practice in establishing yourself as a go-to resource for your clients and becoming an expert in your vertical.
5 things that make me stop reading a blog post
Written from her perspective as the (then) Managing Editor of Search Engine Journal, Melissa Fach discusses what she can’t abide in a blog post. With its inclusion of readability and usability, this is especially helpful information for aspiring bloggers!
Write a (good) blog post in 1 hour – here’s how!
Our own Heather Lloyd-Martin shares 8 pro tips for cranking out a fun, informative, quality blog post in a time crunch. (It can be done, and well!)
image thanks to Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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SEO Copywriting Checklist: Are your product descriptions costing you customers?
April 29, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Today’s video is addressed to those of you in e-Commerce retail, and asks: are your product descriptions costing you customers?
Tune in as Heather shows what works, and what does not, in well-optimized product copy:
YAWN…There’s Nothing Here That Screams “Buy Me!”
Well-written product descriptions are a blind spot for a lot of e-retailers, as evidenced by this first screenshot: you have the picture, and then a very, very short description of the product.
As written, the text certainly does the job in terms of the product’s technical specifications, but it doesn’t have any descriptive copy that screams “buy me!”
There’s nothing here that is targeted towards the reader that will tempt them to take that next conversions step.
Compare this example to what you’ll find on the lululemon site…
Great, Descriptive SEO Copy
This second screenshot is actually just a snippet of the product page. There’s a big picture at the top and there are the technical specifications for the shorts down below, but there the similarities end.
The product description is definitely SEO copy – the keyphrases are in there – but the tone and feel of the content is very fun: it’s engaging, and it’s highly targeted towards their audience.
And the lululemon copy provides much more information about the benefits that people will realize when they buy these shorts, as opposed to the previous example.
So you can see how this content is much more compelling. Especially if you’re dealing with products with a higher price point, then the more compelling the content, and the more you can demonstrate that value and the benefits, the more items you’re going to sell!
Highly Descriptive Copy Sells – And Makes You More Money!
At the end of the day, highly descriptive product copy will help you make more money from your site. So if you’re selling products online:
- Think beyond super-short product descriptions.
I know in a lot of cases you may think it’s easier to just do it short and sweet, and let the picture do the selling, but in many cases people want to have more information. And because…
- People can’t touch the product online – so you need to create highly descriptive text.
Rich, descriptive copy helps potential customers visualize what it would be like if they owned that product, so it definitely helps them take that next conversions step.
And like the lululemon example, you can…
- Use tone and feel to differentiate your offer.
This is especially important if you are selling products that other retailers sell online as well – and it might be that you and your competitors have similar price points, as well.
So who are people going to buy from?
They’re going to buy from the site that they “click” with the most, so that tone and feel of writing towards the target audience can really help generate more sales!
Thanks for joining me for this latest installment of the SEO Copywriting Checklist series! As always, if you have any questions at all, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at heather@seocopywriting.com, or find me on Twitter @heatherlloyd.
photo thanks to StormKatt
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SEO content marketing roundup, week ending April 24th
April 24, 2013 • written by Laura Crest
Other highlights include B2B marketing, Facebook’s new mobile design for business pages, Twitter’s keyword ad targeting, and the “failure” of social media for small businesses.
Meanwhile, SEO and search marketers are crying foul over Google’s removal of yet another useful tool, related searches, as well as its depletion of organic traffic via its Knowledge Graph and Google Maps.
Enjoy this week’s picks!
Content Marketing
Ian Lurie shares his University of Washington Web Council presentation with “Weird, Useful, Significant: Internet marketing in 2013” at Portent.
Joe Pulizzi discusses “12 Roles Essential to the Future of Content Marketing” at Content Marketing Institute.
Tom Pick compiles and reviews “33 Phenomenal Content Marketing and Copywriting Guides and Tips” at Webbiquity.
Joe Lazauskas posts “Why Smart Brands Are Breaking the First Rule of Content Marketing” at Contently’s The Content Strategist.
Chantielle MacFarlane posts “Don’t Let Your Content Marketing Hit A Wall” at Unbounce.
Danny Brown’s The Sunday Share features a SlideShare presentation by John Lane of Centerline Digital, “Content Marketing Art of War,” featuring case studies “on how brands are adapting to the new content-driven marketplace.”
Angie Nikoleychuk continues her Content Criminal Minds series with “Content Criminal Minds: Fast & easy ways to streamline your content strategy” at SEO Copywriting.
Shelly Bowen posts a “Content Strategy Spring Cleaning Checklist” at Pybop.
Jason Hirthler discusses “Seven Essential Skills for the Content Strategist” at MarketingProfs.
Mike Pantoliano posts “Measuring and Increasing the ROI of Your Content Resources” at SEOmoz.
Jenny Halasz discusses user search intent with “The Informational Content Advantage” at Search Engine Land.
Bob Geller posts “How to Curate Content Like a Pro” at WindMill Networking.
Reporting from PaidContent Live 2013, Eliza Kern posts “5 startups changing the way the news business delivers content” at paidContent.
Anthony Kosner posts “What Publishers Can Learn from Google’s Patented News Article Rankings” at Contently’s The Content Strategist.
Celina Jones posts “Is your Content Boring? 8 Types of Content Every Business Should Consider Publishing” at Jeff Bullas’s Blog.
Ginny Soskey posts “7 B2B Companies to Admire for Exceptional Visual Content” at HubSpot.
Lee Odden discusses holistic B2B marketing with “Drive More Demand for Your B2B Business with Optimized & Socialized Content Marketing” at TopRank.
MarketingProfs’ sponsor, Optify, has released its 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, available as a free download.
Citing a recent study of U.S. B2B marketers, Vahe Habeshian reports “B2Bs Struggling With Online Marketing Mix; Sales Cycle Gets Longer” at MarketingProfs.
MarketingSherpa’s weekly research chart, based off its 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report, looks at the most frustrating challenges with marketing analytics in 2012.
Frank Strong discusses “Five Ways to Inspire a Culture for Content Marketing” at Spin Sucks.
Carl Friesen posts “Thought Leadership Strategy: 3 Ways to Leverage Live Event Content” at Content Marketing Institute.
Mitch Joel posts “Die, Thought Leaders, Die, Die, Die…” at Twist Image’s Six Pixels of Separation.
Seth Godin posts “You don’t have to pander” at his blog.
Events:
SEO & Search
James Dohnert digests Google’s 31-percent increase in year-over-year Q1 revenue with “Google Reports $13 Billion in Q1 2013 Revenues” at Search Engine Watch.
Danny Sullivan warns site owners to pay attention to user-generated content on their sites, reporting “Google Hits Mozilla With Spam Penalty Over User Generated Content” at Search Engine Land.
Matt Cutts warns against uploading too much content at once in this Google Webmaster Help video.
AJ Kohn sounds off on Google for removing a valuable tool with “(Hulk Mad) Google Removes Related Searches” at Blind Five Year Old.
Ben Goodsell posts “SERP Conditioning: How Google Maps & the Knowledge Graph are Stealing Organic Traffic” at Search Engine Watch.
Tommy Landry posts “Semantic Web: Are You Taking Advantage of Semantic Search?” at Search Engine Journal.
Arnie Kuenn shares his PubCon NOLA presentation, “Social Media Influence on SEO,” at the Vertical Measures SlideShare channel.
Dan Barker shares “6 Free Realtime Google Analytics Dashboards” that work for any type of site, at his Notes.
A “Quick Guide to Universal Analytics for E-Commerce” is posted at Website Magazine.
Based on the SES New York 2013 session by the same name, Amman Badlani posts “Driving Consumer Insights With Mobile Analytics” at Search Engine Watch.
Benjamin Spiegel posts “Optimizing Videos for YouTube Search” at ClickZ.
Neil Patel posts “How to Effectively Build an SEO Campaign From The Ground Up” at Quicksprout.
Thom Craver reports “Google Site Speed Study Says the Web is Getting Faster” at Search Engine Watch.
Speaking of the need for speed, Andy Schaff posts “Portent.com: They’ve gone to plaid” at Portent.
AJ Kohn discusses Google’s “internal metric” of search success with “(Why You Need To Understand Google’s Obsession With) Time To Long Click” at Blind Five Year Old.
Brian Dean compiles an ambitious “Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List” at Backlinko.
Heather Lloyd-Martin posts “SEO Copywriting Checklist: Don’t neglect your keyphrase research!” at SEO Copywriting.
Ruth Burr speaks to a holistic approach to keywords with her Whiteboard Friday presentation on “Keyword-Driven Personas” SEOmoz.
Sean Quadlin posts “Know When It’s Time to Delete Your Paused Keywords” at PPC Hero.
Emma North discusses “Why Landing Page Analysis Is The New Rank Tracking” at Koozai.
Jayson DeMers posts “[How To] Create Landing Pages that Convert & Rank Well in Search” at Unbounce.
Peep Laja discusses “5 Principles of Persuasive Web Design” at Conversion XL.
Alex Moss shares “5 Basic Tips to Improve WordPress for SEO and the User Experience” at Search Engine Watch.
Andres Isidoro posts “Public Relations SEO: How AuthorRank Can Help” at Spin Sucks.
Ted Karczewski shares “6 Authorship examples – including three businesses that get it” at Brafton.
Events:
Social Media Marketing
Pamela Vaughan posts “Facebook Launches New Mobile Design for Business Pages” at HubSpot.
“Facebook App Chat Heads” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news.
Gareth Morgan reports “Twitter Launches Keyword Targeting in Timelines” at Search Engine Watch.
Miranda Miller posts “Never Miss an Opportunity to Engage: Social Marketing Tools to Connect with Influencers” at TopRank.
Mark Schaefer posts “25 social media influencers Forbes ignored, and why” at Businesses {grow}.
Bill Miltenberg interviews Margot Sinclair Savell on measuring influencers with “Measuring Influence Requires More than Counting Social Media Followers” at PRNews Online.
Cotton Delo reports “Tumblr Launches Mobile Ads…In Big Revenue Push” at Ad Age | digital.
Tomer Cohen posts a video featuring LinkedIn’s new mobile app, “A New Mobile Experience Designed for the Everyday Professional,” at the (Official) LinkedIn Blog.
Josh Wolford reports “To Help Content Creators, YouTube Will Up Video Visibility on the Homepage” in its efforts to make its homepage ‘smarter,’ at WebProNews.
Mitch Joel addresses “The Failure Of Social Media” for “the vast majority of small businesses” at Twist Image’s Six Pixels of Separation.
Shanelle Mullin posts “How to Master Social Customer Acquisition” at KISSmetrics.
Danny Brown posts “Empathy is a Social Currency” at his blog.
Courtney Ramirez posts “How to ‘Spy’ Your Way to Better Social Media Writing” at WindMill Networking.
Mark Jackson interviews Rob Garner, VP at SEMPO and author of Search & Social, with “Search & Social Synergy: Build Buzz, Get Links, Grow Your Brand,” at Search Engine Watch.
John Paul Aguiar shares “11 Steps To Building Your Brand On Twitter” at his blog.
Drake Baer discusses “What It Means To Your Personal Brand When You Connect On LinkedIn” at Fast Company.
Jay Baer’s latest Social Pros Podcast features Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You, with “How to Take Charge of Your Personal Brand,” at Convince and Convert.
Events:
(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)
photo thanks to PsJeremy
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