www.verticalmeasures.com

THE INTERSECTION OF CONTENT MARKETING AND SEO

Arnie Kuenn

President, Vertical Measures

@ArnieK #WACVBTechSummit

“8 Steps to Discovering & Creating Content Your Market Will Love”

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER…

• President of Vertical Measures – A Search, Social & Content Marketing Agency

• Instructor for the Content Marketing Institute & Online Marketing Institute

• Been an Internet marketer longer than Google has existed.

“CONTENT MARKETING”

CONTENT MARKETING - THE TOP PRIORITY

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?

• Content marketing is the art of providing relevant, valuable content to your customers without selling or interrupting them. 

• Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your prospects more informed before they buy.

• If you deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to your prospects, they ultimately reward you with their business and loyalty.

THIS IS NOT A 30 DAY R.O.I.

BUT THE LONG-TERM PAYOFFS CAN BE HUGE

ACHIEVING SUCCESS IS CONTINUOUS, PLANNED OUT PROCESS

SOME FACTS

of all consumers use search prior to making a purchase

Source: GroupM

93%

86%

90+%

of searchers conduct non-branded queries

of buyers click on organic links vs the sponsored ads

WHAT ARE WE SEARCHING FOR?

WE ARE BECOMING BETTER AT SEARCHING

• The general trend is that people who are searching for 2 or 3 word phrases is decreasing, while people who are searching for 4, 5, or even 8 word phrases is increasing.– 4-word searches = 14.89% (previously was 12.83%)– 5-word searches = 8.68% (previously was 5.64%)– 6-word searches = 4.65% (previously was 2.32%)– 7-word searches = 2.49% (previously was 0.98%)– 8-word searches = 3.43% (no one did 8-word searches in 2004!)

Research by Hitwise

LONG TAIL IS THE KEY!

START WITH RESEARCH

http://www.verticalmeasures.com/content/content-brainstorming-tools-for-2013/

KNOW YOUR KEYWORDS

MORE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

Google Keyword Suggest

Relate Searches

MORE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

YouTube Related Searches

More than 410 questions about “visit the grand canyon” (exact match).

More than 3,400 using broad match!

Long tail searches are the key to success!

LIST ALL CONTENT IDEAS IN A SPREADSHEET

PUT TOGETHER AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR

BENEFITS OF A BLOG

• Gives you a vehicle to post new content

• Allows for internal linking

• Keeps the search engines coming back – have 434% more indexed pages*

• Have 2X as many backlinks*

• Your site gets 55% more traffic*

• You have 79% more Twitter followers*

Source: *Hubspot

HOW SEARCH WORKS

SEARCH OPTIMIZATION ELEMENTS

SEARCH RESULTS – WEB PAGE CONNECTION

Webpage File NameWebpage Title Tag

Meta Description

UNIVERSAL SEARCH RESULTS

70+% of all search results

HOW TO OPTIMIZE IMAGES

• Image files should be compressed as much as reasonably possible to reduce file size. Smaller files mean faster site load speeds. JPGs generally offer the best balance of file size & quality.

• Use relevant keywords in image filenames, separated by dashes (not underscores). Instead of "DL000031.jpg", use something like "red-sports-car.jpg"

• Make sure <img> tags have their "alt" and "title" attributes defined with descriptive, concise, keyword-related text. Do not stuff <img> attributes.

• Context matters. Google looks at content placed around the image, like titles and captions, for context about your image.

• Be sure to include images in your sitemap. The XML tags provide additional opportunities to define an image's title, caption, and even geographic location.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE VIDEOS

• Specific, Compelling Title –Would you click on “Our Company” or “V00023.mov?” neither will your audience.

• Tags –This is where you can help your video appear in the “Suggested” or “Similar” videos section. Don’t be dishonest, but if there are pop culture or social media references in the video, tag them accordingly.

• Description -  Say as much as you can in the first sentence or two, because many video sites will hide the bulk of your description. Include at least one link placed at the start of the description – with http://.

• Video Quality / Resolution – Shoot, edit and export the video in the highest quality available on the devices and software you use. The online video audience is very forgiving of skill level, but a low resolution video can make it difficult to see what is going on.

• Thumbnail Image – If it’s an organically made video (not planned), pick the most visually compelling of the options they give you.

HOW TO APPEAR IN GOOGLE NEWS

• Need to submit your URL to Google first• Article URLs must be:

–Unique–Permanent–Display a three-digit number

• To see if a site is already included in Google News, type [ site:url.com ], into the search box and click "Search News."

• http://support.google.com/news/publisher/

DO YOU HAVE A GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGE?

+1 BUTTON: OPPORTUNITY FOR BUSINESSES

SHARING NEW CONTENT CAN BE VERY SIMPLE

BUILD LINKS TO YOUR CONTENT

• Identify low hanging fruit– Internal links– Fix 404, 500 and 302 errors– Guest blog posts or articles– Blog & forum participation– Where you have relationships– Local partners & listings– Competitive research for similar content

• The best links:– Are from trusted sites– Have varied anchor text– Are from many different, relevant websites– Determined editorially

MEASURE!

• Measure for successes… and failures

• Check your rankings, traffic, conversions and other key metrics

• Focus on the strategies that are providing the best ROI and keep rolling out the content

HOW ABOUT A RECAP?

CUSTOM TRAINING PROGRAM?

• 1 year content marketing training & coaching program

• Beta – looking for 3 organizations to work with us at highly discounted pricing

BOOK RAFFLE TIME!

Contact: 888-476-1881 www.VerticalMeasures.com

More Traffic. More Leads. More Business.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!