In my line of work, I’m often asked, “What is this SEO thing I’ve been hearing a lot about, and why should I care about it?” These days, businesses already have to worry about website design and social media, so most business owners may not even be aware that search engine optimization (SEO) is a thing. If this sounds like you, then this guide might be of some help.
What is SEO?
Simply put, SEO is the process of optimizing your website in order to get organic or unpaid traffic from search engines like Google or Bing. It increases both the quality and the quantity of traffic to your site.
This means making changes to your website’s content and design that will make it rank highly on different search engine results pages. But why should you care about your website being the top result on Google? Why is generating organic traffic better than paying for ads?
The Internet’s Librarians
Imagine that you are one of the librarians for the most complete repository of knowledge and data that humanity has ever created. Imagine that millions of people come to you every day looking for information on a specific subject—for example, on Nietzsche or the Oscars or how to cook the perfect steak.
In order to help each person find the information they are looking for in a fast, efficient manner, you will need to know a bit about what each book in your library is about. You also need to arrange all the books according to some type of system—perhaps alphabetically, year of publication or by topic or keywords.
Search engines act like the internet’s librarians. They try to match the user’s search terms with the most relevant information in their database, and we need to understand how they do this in order to understand why SEO is so important.
How Search Engines Work
Search engines work in three steps. First, they send crawlers through all available content on the internet—webpages, images, audio, video and so on. Crawlers are bots that send snapshots of all accessible content back to the search engine’s servers.
Next, the information is organized into a searchable list. This huge list is called a search index and can serve as the basis for a raw keyword search. But good search engines like Google and Bing go one step further.
These search engines rank all the pieces of content relevant to a searcher’s query, using an algorithm to order the generated list from most relevant to least relevant. These algorithms are always changing, with Google, in particular, making constant adjustments.
Search engines that consistently deliver relevant results gain repeat users. These loyal users learn to depend on that search engine above all others. Recent data shows that Google and Bing make up almost 85% of all internet searches. This indicates a high level of user trust in these search engines.
Getting Ranked
Recent market share statistics show that most people begin their online experiences through a search engine. That’s why it is important for your website to rank highly on search engines: A high rank indicates high relevance, and high relevance brings trust in your brand and your website.
Google determines its ranking through a mix of hundreds of different ranking signals, but three have remained consistent: quality on-page content that satisfies the searcher, links pointing back to your site, and RankBrain, which uses artificial intelligence to simulate a human “gut feel” approach to interpret difficult searches.
Content Marketing
Google and Bing employ metrics such as clicks, page views and time on page to measure the levels of user engagement throughout your website, which indicate how satisfied users are with the information they find on your site.
The more quality—and, therefore, more relevant—content you have on your site, the higher your pages are more likely to be ranked by the search engines. Good content makes satisfied users!
Links To Your Site
Another way search engines measure a website’s relevance is by external sites that link to it. The quality of the backlinks is just as important as quantity, as search engines will ban sites that attempt to spam backlinks.
A better way to build backlinks is to build relationships with the community. Fans and other satisfied users will link back to your website when they write about it and mention it on social media. This builds organic backlinks that are far more valuable than a hundred spam links generated by bots. Quality content is more likely to be shared.
SEO Versus Paid Ads
So, why use SEO instead of other methods of increasing traffic, such as paid ads? After all, Google itself offers a paid AdWords system where advertisers bid on keywords.
It helps to return to the library metaphor we used earlier. Imagine a book’s publisher launching a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign to increase awareness of a new book about, let’s say, building birdhouses. There are television ads and radio spots, print ads in newspapers and Google AdWords for the keyword “how to build birdhouses.”
These campaigns may boost sales of the book temporarily, but eventually marketing campaigns end, and the next clueless nest box enthusiast will have to go down to the local library and ask a librarian to recommend a book on building birdhouses. This librarian will most likely recommend a book that has satisfied previous birdhouse queries before, whether it was a bestseller when it was first released or not.
That’s the beauty of SEO and why it is the foundation of any small business marketing plan. It may take some upfront time and investment to set up properly, with quality content and a network of organic backlinks. But a well-designed website that follows the principles of SEO will continue to generate a steady stream of organic leads and traffic for your business, for free.
There are several reasons video marketing is a very effective content marketing strategy to relay your business story and messaging.
Highly Engaging
One of the most powerful advantages of video marketing is the fact that it is highly engaging. The human brain is programmed to pay more attention to moving images and sound.
Have you noticed times when you are talking to someone and think they are paying attention, but they aren’t? Instead, they are actually looking straight past you at a television screen behind you?
Even if the sound is off, the moving images on the screen still draw in their attention away from you.
They usually aren’t doing this on purpose; it is just human nature to look at moving images.
Think back to your youth when you were in school. Remember those days when the teacher would show a movie or video in conjunction with a lesson?
Even when the topic wasn’t something particularly interesting to you, just the fact that you were able to watch it, drew in your attention.
This is a powerful reminder to business owners to utilize this advantage of video marketing to attract the attention of their target audience.
It’s Passive
Watching videos doesn’t require the viewer to do anything and requires no effort. This means it is a passive act of receiving information.
Once exposed to a video, especially those that play automatically, you are immediately drawn to look at it.
How long a viewer stays and watches the video, depends upon how engaging and compelling it is.
It is up to the business to make sure that once they grab the attention of their target, they can keep them watching long enough to see or hear your message.
Establishes Your Authority and Creates Relationships
Using videos is an excellent opportunity for your business to create a relationship with and develop your authority with your target market.
Even though it is common knowledge that videos are a powerful marketing initiative, not all businesses utilize them.
There are many reasons why not all companies use videos, including not having the time, money, or expertise to create them.
Put your brand in front of your competitor’s by making sure that you are doing video marketing.
Stand out from the crowd in your niche by including videos on your website and sharing them on the social web.
Cost-Effective
Not all videos are created equal. Simply throwing anything on your website is not going to help you.
In fact, poor quality videos can actually hurt your brand by making you look unprofessional and sloppy.
Creating videos doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. If your company has a large budget and can afford to hire a professional videographer to come to your office and take live footage and use professional narration, go for it.
If, however, you have a limited budget, there are numerous ways to create quality videos. You can use high-resolution imagery or video animations to deliver your business message.
Highly Persuasive
Your first job is to capture your audience’s attention and impressed them with your professional videos. However, the onus is on the business to make sure their message is persuasive enough to keep them watching.
Remember, you are talking directly to your target market. It is your chance to explain to them. Whether you are speaking your message or letting animations do the talking for you, why you are the answer to their problem.
Use your brand’s personality in any video you create. Some companies choose to use humor as part of their brand, while others prefer to be more business-like.
Many Ways to Use Video
Another use of videos in marketing is to educate. Not all videos should be about selling your products or services. Doing so can turn off your audience.
Messaging: Blogs are abundant on the web. Try creating a video that relays the same type of helpful or relevant information as a blog post. You can even re-purpose blog content into a video.
Culture Videos: This is a great way to show your companies personality by showing videos of events in your office. Some examples are:
Employee interviews
Office pranks
Birthday parties
Interviews: Conduct interviews with others who are either in your niche or a complementary one. You can leverage their knowledge to provide value for your target audience and create content for you.
Tutorials: Showing your target market how to do or use something that they find helpful, will keep them coming back for more.
Events: Take a video at your next holiday party and share it with your potential and current customers. The next time you go to or exhibit at a trade show or conference, take candid video shots and share them.
Don’t forget about the power of music in eliciting emotional responses. Adding music to your videos will draw in the viewer even more and will appeal to their human side via emotions.
Any message delivered in the video format is received better than plain text. Provide value in the form of helpful information, tips and tricks, or any other relevant message that will contribute to your target market seeing you as a trustworthy source and an authority in your niche.
Everything you need to know about effectively and efficiently targeting your audience through social media.
40 percent of the world’s population and 69 percent of Americans aged 18-29 are active users of social media. Social media has revolutionized how companies communicate with, listen to and learn from customers, much like TV advertising did in the 20th century.
A marketing strategy involves identifying a target market, establishing actions to reach that target market and continual analysis and adjustments. A social media strategy, on the other hand, educates engages, and excites your customers and builds brand loyalty. Excited and engaged customers bring in 23 percent more profits. Through video sharing sites customers can quasi-experience products as well, making a purchase more likely. Here are four areas of social media that all entrepreneurs should know.
1. The power of blogging and content marketing.
According to the book M: Marketing, 78 percent of customers prefer to get to know a company through articles rather than ads. Content marketing has six times higher conversion rates and has the potential for a 7.8-X boost in web traffic than other social media tools. In 2018, U.S. adults spent an average of 3 hours, 35 minutes per day on smartphones. Most of this time lends itself towards content marketing. For example, customers spend 11 percent of this time on personal productivity and finances. Customers want content marketing about personal finance management. They want to read it.
If you sell medical devices, you should have articles about any health issue surrounding the problem that your product solves. If you sell makeup, you should have how-to articles about makeup application and likely skin care guides. If you own a restaurant, provide information about food trends, dieting, or perhaps event planning.
To start a content campaign, figure out what your customers might care about and start writing. Local experts may be happy to provide articles because that is free social media advertising for them. Also, content marketing generated toward a political or charitable cause is impactful because 73 percent of all customers want to buy from companies that communicate upstanding moral philosophies.
2. Read and respond to reviews and complaints.
84 percent of customers trust online reviews. Ask your customers to review your company. You can manually check sites, like Google, or use reputation management software to track online comments and reviews. Respond to comments on social media rapidly! 53 percent of customers from all sites and 72 percent of Twitter customers expect a response in one hour, according to M: Marketing. Social media is now the number one place where customers want their complaints handled. No response or a template response are bad responses. Someone inside your company should personally address each complaint.
3. It’s not just about Facebook anymore.
All other social media channels should be used based on your specific target market. 68 percent of Americans use Facebook. Overall Facebook usage has been slowly declining and may be unprofessional. If you have a good webpage, there is no reason to have a Facebook page. It can confuse and overwhelm customers. A local farmer’s market announces events, like strawberry picking dates, on different sites like Facebook and Twitter at different times. Confusion and added time searching turn customers away. 32 percent of Americans not on Facebook will give up as well. Stick with a robust homepage.
M: Marketing says that the average cost per click on a Facebook ad is $1.72. There is a 0.77 percent conversion rate on these clicks. That means that it costs $223.37 to gain a customer from Facebook plus the cost to create and manage the ad. You will likely not get a return on this investment although there are exceptions.
Two hundred sixty million people use LinkedIn each month; 40 percent daily. Use it for business-to-business content marketing! LinkedIn users prefer more word count per article than other sites. The most read articles, by more than a factor of three, were articles over 1,900 words. LinkedIn also has the highest conversion rate of all the sites. The lead to conversion rate is 2.74 percent versus Facebook (0.77 percent) and Twitter (0.69 percent).
Since Google bought YouTube, it shows up prominently in searches. Seventy-three percent of Americans use YouTube, the highest percentage of all social media forms. With video, you can engage emotion and excitement better. You can post a how-to and other useful videos. Even incredibly professional companies like the Cleveland Clinic use YouTube to demonstrate their innovations and accolades.
Dr. Dre launched “Beats by Dre” using social media. Instagram was influential in building brand awareness, attracting approximately 2.5 million followers. 35 percent of Americans use Instagram. Instagram, like YouTube, is a place to build excitement quickly.
Sites like Twitter and Pinterest have an audience of less than 35 percent of Americans. Pinterest is a great place to show home décor products and vacation pictures and would be helpful in those markets. Twitter can be a low investment place to respond to user comments rapidly.
Third-party bloggers are like a combination of content marketing and online reviews. Disney is famous for its use of Disney Moms. A group of 1,300 select moms receive perks, but not compensation, to visit and blog about their experiences. The moms talk about real issues, like dealing with food allergies or what to pack for a day in the park. Third party blogs are more credible and relatable.
4. Use data to learn, analyze and adapt.
An advantage of social media usage is the available data. You can use social media metrics to gauge attitudes, preferences, and trends. Available metrics are hits, page views, bounce rates, click paths, conversion rates and keyword analysis. There are numerous software packages available to examine each metric. Do not put too much weight on keyword optimization. Google regularly changes its search algorithms so sites should never be designed to game the Google system.
Use social media strategically. Make sure you know your target market. Use the tools to communicate in an engaging, informative, and caring way. Content marketing and responding to online reviews are the most important social media tools. Use the available metrics to revise your actions.
Dr. Linda Orr is a Marketing Professor at the University of Akron. She has taught marketing and sales courses for over two decades and is the author of five books and many articles. Dr. Orr has experience in the record, restaurant and finance industries, along with numerous consulting experiences.
Getting organic traffic to your website firstly takes time and patience to do. You will NOT get any overnight success with this!
By being consistent and having a long term strategy, you can start to see you ranking on the search engines and have more traffic to your website.
Top two strategies to driving traffic to your website are:
1. Social Media Marketing
2. Content Marketing
Here I will dive into how both tips can work for you and what steps you should be taking.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a popular way of targeting specific groups of people. But it is also a way of truly engaging with them and turn them into high-quality leads.
When it comes to using social media, unless you are a large business with large teams of staff, only stick to 1 or 2 platforms and dominate them.
Every platform is targeted to different segments of society, so you need to be strategic in choosing which platform is best for you.
– Facebook Targeted towards B2C and generation Y and older (so people born no later than the mid-1990s)
– Twitter Used by a whole variety of different segments of society. Though some businesses will find Twitter more useful than others. To find out if Twitter is a good path for you to take, look at your direct competitors and your target market.
– Instagram A mainly visual platform that is mainly used by Millennials. As a business, you can take advantage of this by using ‘influencers‘ to market your product.
– Pinterest Another mainly visual platform, where you can post a picture that gets redirected to your website. Pinterest is also great for SEO, as Google images show Pinterest images.
– LinkedIn The ultimate B2B platform, where businesses are networking with businesses. If you are in the B2B industry then LinkedIn is the only platform you should be taking advantage of.
Content is all about creating content for your target market that they will love and want to use you as their go-to resource, then eventually buying from you. The biggest trick to content marketing is to stay consistent, give value and be useful!
Here is a little guide to how you CAN do content marketing in your business.
– Keyword Research
Keyword research is a must done starting point for any content creator. To do keyword research effectively look at Facebook groups and forums with your target market in and look at what the hot topic of discussion is.
– Blog or Vlog Regularly
Blogging or vlogging (video blog) regularly then you will start to attract regular visitors to your website. Make sure you optimize your blog or vlog with specific keywords (in the vlog description).
– Linking (internal and external) To Create A Structure
What Google loves the most is when websites have a structure. Google wants to see you linking to other pages or posts within your website. Also, Google wants to see you linking out to other websites. Using external websites to back up what you are saying in your post or an affiliate link is the normal method to do external links.
Those are my top 2 tips for driving more traffic to your website. If you have enjoyed this post then please share it on social media or comment below.
We know that exceptional content is what makes a brand. We also know that analysing our data to very specifically target audiences is crucial for great ROI. But we rarely put the two together and use the data available to actually analyse what content works – and why.
Yet knowing exactly why content works can give us that winning edge. And, luckily, the ability to see what indisputably resonates the most with our audience – and drives our bottom-line – is already in our hands.
The state of play
In the climate of the current ‘data boom’, audience targeting naturally takes precedence, with the majority (55%) of marketers saying ‘better use of data’ for audience targeting is their priority in 2019, according to Econsultancy.
It makes sense. On a daily basis, we’re faced with countless blogs, podcasts, speakers and everything in-between promising that if we perfectly optimise our targeting, our messaging will beat the daunting odds of the 0.9% CTR cited by WordStream. And so, we dedicate hours and hours every week to creating personas, hypothesising about audiences, segmenting users and running lengthy A/B tests to find the piece of content that our audience love. We add to our already-complex marketing stacks tools that tell us what messaging has been more successful, in order for us to optimise.
But when we do find that winner, do we know why it works? Do we know exactly what features caused the higher CTR? Do we know how we’re going to recreate it in our next campaign, to make it better, even?
This lack of knowledge – despite all the tools and techniques we use to offer insight – is what we at Datasine call the ‘black box’ because when it comes to understanding why, we are left in the dark. Just looking at results doesn’t give us the insight needed to truly understand content preferences in an actionable way.
Semantic content analysis
To crack open the black box, we need to start conducting in-depth semantic analysis of our content. Only then can we begin to truly understand why some content resonates and some doesn’t.
As experienced marketers, we come prepackaged with a deep understanding of – and fascination with – psychology and our audience, meaning we’ve already got the skills on paper to analyse our content. It’s simply a matter of breaking it down into parts. We’ll look at this in terms of images and text.
If you want to analyse your imagery, you can take all the image assets you’ve ever created and note down the particular elements you used in each, then check to see if there are any patterns which relate those choices to your ad performance.
For example:
Did you use a photo of your product outdoors? Or in the showroom?
Were people visible in the shot?
What was the size of the text, and the colour of any overlays or CTAs?
It may even be worth inviting a panel to judge your images on the emotions that they evoke, or photographers to assess the quality and composition of the shot.
You can do the same for text content, approaching this by categorising how you describe your product or service. For example:
Do you appeal to your product’s ease of use?
Are you emphasising your innovative credentials?
Do you use particularly casual – or formal – language?
With this process, we can see which types of content are receiving the most engagement. And we can use these features to keep creating great campaigns that we further optimise as our understanding of customer content preferences grows.
Scaling content analysis
If we have just a few campaigns on the go, content analysis is easier, but it gets harder as we scale. It stops being practical to expect humans to spend days, weeks, even months labelling what goes into each piece of content. Here’s where machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) come to the rescue.
By embracing semantic content analysis and working collaboratively with AI, we can feel confident in understanding exactly what content is going to work before we hit send.
Oh, look. Another death of email marketing headline. All too often, we see posts that lead with this provocative clickbait proclamation, while keeping the contradicting nuances under the surface.
Ironically, this kind of practice is exactly WHY email marketing has seen its reputation tarnished. The focus has shifted too far toward style at the expense of substance. Marketers became so singularly obsessed with compelling opens and clicks, through irresistible subject lines and poppy CTAs, that many of us lost touch with the core value of this digital channel: direct, one-on-one engagement.
I’m here to tell you that this value still exists, and might be more essential today than ever, in spite of (maybe even because of) the waters becoming so muddied. Recipients will welcome a little freshness and clarity in their inbox, from those brands and influencers that are willing to buck the trend.
Dead? No way. Email marketing is alive and well, and it can still be a central component of a successful, customer-centric marketing strategy when done right.
The Rise and “Fall” of Email Marketing
This life experience might be unique to fellow millennials, but I’ll never forget the jolt of excitement I felt as a preteen logging into America Online in the mid-90s and hearing those three magical words: “You’ve got mail!” The internet in general was too new and grand a concept for my young mind to grasp, but anyone could take delight in a mysterious message sent expressly to you — like a present waiting to be unwrapped.
Fast-forward a couple decades, and the quaint charm of a full inbox has largely disappeared. Irrelevant messages began to proliferate and pile up like AOL trial discs. Spam started running amok, to the point where — as of March 2019 — 56% of all email messages were categorized as such. The sheer volume of messages we receive, and the dread of digging through them all, can cause legitimately troublesome levels of stress and anxiety.
As a result, many emails are now being cast aside, either because inundated human users click delete instead of open, or because increasingly stringent filters are diverting them to the spam folder — especially if they come from a company or unfamiliar sender.
There’s no doubt that trust has been shaken. Anecdotally, I’m sure most people reading this have been scarred by an experience where they had to completely shut down an email address because it became overwhelmed by promotional junk, or where they repeatedly tried to unsubscribe from an unwanted newsletter to no avail.
It is at times like these that well-intentioned, creative, value-driven marketers can answer the call and rise above the fray. Here’s how.
Rejuvenating Your Email Marketing Strategy
A fact that might surprise you: open rates aren’t in a state of steady, ceaseless decline. In fact, according to Super Office, the average rate has generally been increasing (or at least remaining steady) year-to-year over the past decade-plus:
Meanwhile, a new Email Usage Study from Adobe finds that the average person spends 5+ hours per day checking email, including 3+ hours at work.
As Adobe’s Sarah Kennedy puts it in a blog post: “The Adobe survey findings solidify how important email still is in the everyday lives of our customers, and this means there is still a big opportunity for marketers to utilize email to engage with people in relevant and useful ways.”
Relevant and useful. Therein lies the key. Here’s how we can pursue these ideals.
Refine Your Mailing List
First of all, opt-ins are essential. If you can’t verify that a person on your list actively volunteered to receive emails from you, remove them. You might even want to consider a double-opt-in (send a confirmation email once a person signs up). It’s better to write for 10 people who truly want to receive your messages than 100 who are ambivalent or worse.
From there, any type of segmentation you can do will help. Can you divvy up your list based on areas of interest or specialization? If so, you’ll be able to create different content (or even slight variations of the same content) oriented more toward the specific individuals receiving it. A little personalization goes a long way.
There are multiple problems with salesy emails. One: people generally don’t like them. Two: spam filters tend to be triggered by the terminology used in these messages. Three: they represent a fumbled opportunity.
When someone opts into your newsletter and then starts getting overtly pitched right away, it can feel like a betrayal of trust. As a relatively direct and personal form of marketing communication, email should be used to deliver value and build brand affinity. This is not to say you must avoid any type of lead generation elements in your messages, but make them subtle and sparse.
Your emails should never come from an address that looks like this: [email protected]. Use a real person’s name in the sender field (an executive or marketing manager or whomever you want to use as the face of your outward brand communications) and craft content in a way that feels human and friendly.
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, has an awesome newsletter called TotalAnnarchy that epitomizes this genuine vibe. At Social Media Marketing World earlier this year, she gave a talk about creating a newsletter people want to read. Among her tips: focus less on the NEWS and more on the LETTER, make it delightful, and write as if your message were only going out to one person.
I love the way Ann frames the present value of this channel as a marketing tool: Email is the only place where people, not algorithms, are in control.
This is tricky terrain because different email clients will display images differently (and sometimes not at all) but in general it’s wise to err on the side of making your emails more colorful and lively. Among their examples of powerful B2B marketing campaigns, Campaign Monitor shares this webinar promo email from AdWeek featuring an animated GIF to infuse their content with understated movement.
Just like on social feeds, compelling visuals can make your emails stand out in a crowded inbox. But make sure you don’t cross the line into gaudiness.
Make Email a Thoughtful Part of Your Overall Strategy
“We need more traffic to our blog post. Do an email blast.” This kind of reactionary thinking is a problematic aspect of email marketing.
As we say repeatedly, promotion should be built into campaigns from the start, and every channel should have a distinct purpose. Connect your email strategy with your goals and give it the proper effort to become a worthwhile standalone piece rather than an obligatory add-on.
Bring Your Email Marketing Strategy Back to Life
The rumors of email marketing’s death are greatly exaggerated. This channel can still be a key fixture in your content strategy if you give it the care and attention it deserves. But like other content channels, in order to maximize its efficacy we need to emphasize quality over quantity, focus on building trust-driven relationships, strike a human resonance, spice up the visuals, and connect it to our larger goals and strategy.
When you achieve this, you just may reignite that “You’ve got mail!” spark of wonder that recipients feel when your messages pop up in their inbox.
Who says you have to spend money to get more traffic?
For today’s blog post, I thought it would be fun to break down all of the free SEO tools. Sure you may know of some, like Ubersuggest, but there are many more options than just my own tool.
Now before I dive into the tools, I’ve broken them down into the following categories:
Keyword Research
Content Marketing
Rank Tracking
Link Building
Technical SEO
So, are you ready to dive in? Let’s get started!
Keyword Research
All of the tools in this category will help you find more keywords. Many of them have different ways of coming up with keyword suggestions, so you may want to check them all out.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest has many different keyword research options. First of all, it shows you how many searches a keyword has had over the last 12 months so you can see if there is any seasonality.
In addition to that, it pulls keywords from a few different sources such as Google Suggest and its own database, it shows you all of the keywords your competition ranks for, and it provides keyword suggestions based on questions, comparisons, and prepositions.
My favorite feature of Ubersuggest’s keyword research capabilities is that it not only can you see how competitive a term is, but it also tells you how many links the average ranking website contains.
That way you know how many links you need to build to rank well.
What’s also unique about Ubersuggest is that it provides local keyword suggestions. This is great if you are trying to do local SEO.
Answer The Public
Answer The Public leverages Google Suggest to find all of the questions people may have related to any industry or keyword.
Just type in a keyword and it will give you a laundry list of questions people are searching for related to that keyword.
Similar to Ubersuggest it also shows you comparison and preposition related keywords.
What I like about the tool is compared to any competing tool, it represents the data in nice visuals.
KeywordTool.io
SEO doesn’t just exist on Google. You can also rank higher on Amazon, YouTube, Bing, and tons of other sites.
KeywordTool.io uses the same concept of Google Suggest, but for a handful of sites like Amazon, Play Store, and YouTube.
If you are performing SEO on sites other than Google, you should check out KeywordTool.io.
FAQfox
FAQfox is a neat little tool that finds you questions people want to be answered based on any specific site you want information from.
For example, you can type in the word “cat” and quora.com as the URL and it will show you category based questions people are asking on Quora.
You can do this for Reddit or any other site you want keyword ideas from.
Google Keyword Planner
Of course, the search giant, Google, has its own keyword research tool.
You’ll also notice that a lot of other keyword tools have CPC data, but chances are they are pulling it from Google Keyword Planner.
When you are using Keyword Planner, look for terms with a high CPC as they tend to convert well when you rank for them organically.
Google Trends
Out of all the tools on the list, I probably use Google Trends 3 to 4 times a week. That’s how much I love it.
What I love about Trends is that it shows you what is hot right now. In addition to that, it tells you if an industry is getting less search volume or more over time.
You can also filter your data based on a specific country or you can look at the data from a global perspective.
Soovle
Soovle takes the concept of Google Suggest (autocomplete) but for a lot of the popular sites around the web.
Soovle pulls all of the popular keywords on Google, YouTube, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing, Yahoo, and Answers.com.
You enter in a handful of terms you want to target and it will combine them to make different variations for you.
Not all of the keywords will be popular when it comes to search volume, but it will give you a sense of how you can go after long-tail variations within your site.
Keyworddit
Reddit has a ton of categories (subreddits) and Keyworddit helps you find all of the keywords within that subreddit.
What’s neat is it even breaks down the volume for each of those keywords. That way you can quickly see if any are worth going after.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to use tools like this as it will give you a new perspective on keyword research.
Pulling results from Google is something that all SEOs already do. Because of that, you need to use other sources if you want to get a leg up on your competition.
Bulk Keyword Generator
The Bulk Keyword Generator by Higher Visibility does keyword research a bit differently than most of the keyword tools out there.
First, you pick a business category. Then you select the type of business you have and enter in any locations you are targeting.
You’ll then be given a list of keywords that you can potentially target.
What I like about this tool is that it makes things super simple, especially if you are new to SEO.
WordTracker Scout
WordTracker Scout is a browser extension that gives you a list of keyword ideas from any web page.
Just browse any site or check out your competition, click a button and boom, you are given ideas on keywords that other people are using.
It breaks the keywords down by relevance and volume.
SearchVolume.io
When you are doing keyword research, how do you know a keyword is getting enough searches?
SearchVolume.io lets you bulk upload up to 800 keywords and it tells you how popular each keyword is.
The tool also works for a handful of other regions, such as Brazil, France, and Italy.
Google Location Changer
Serps has a neat tool that works well if you are doing international SEO.
Their Google Location Changer allows you to search Google in any country or city. Just type in a keyword and you’ll see who ranks.
Using this tool in combination with WordTracker Scout can give you unique keyword suggestions.
Content Marketing
Content is the one thing we all have to create if we want more search traffic.
Here are free content marketing tools that can help you get the most out of your search traffic.
Animalz Revive
Have you noticed that your rankings decrease over time?
It’s not just because of Google algorithm updates. In most cases, your old content won’t perform as well because it’s old.
Animalz Revive shows you which content pieces are dying over time.
That way you know what to focus on. Just look at the ones that have declined the most and then spruce them up so you can get more rankings.
What’s cool about this tool is it will save you a lot of time. For example, my team updates 90 pieces of content a month. The last thing you want to do is waste a ton of time on content that never had much traffic.
Google Search Console
Most people use Google Search Console to see which keywords are driving them traffic.
My favorite way of using Search Console is to see which one of my blog posts are getting a lot of search impressions but have less than a 4% click-through rate.
I then go in and modify each of those pages to include the right keywords in my meta tags. Then I look to see which keywords I am ranking for but not really targeting yet, and then either create new content around those terms or modify existing content to also target them.
Content Ideas
Ubersuggest has a feature similar to Buzzsumo but it is 100% free. It’s called Content Ideas.
All you have to do is enter in a keyword or phrase and it will show you all of the popular blog posts that contain that term.
The blog posts are then sorted by social shares, backlinks, and search traffic.
This helps you create content around topics people want to read, which means more traffic.
Hreflang Tag Generator
One of my biggest traffic gains has come from translating my content.
A lot of people ask me if they would be penalized from duplicating and translation their content.
This tool creates tags for you to place in your HTML code so Google knows you are targeting specific languages and countries with certain content pages.
Portent Title Generator
For every 10 people that see your headline, only 2 on average will continue to read your content.
In other words, content marketing is all about the headline.
It may not sound important to you, but if your titles look off, people may not click through from SERP results to read your content, which can decrease your rankings over time.
Which do you think Google prefers? Ranking a blog post that reads well or one that contains a lot of spelling and grammar errors?
Grammarly helps you avoid spelling mistakes. This is really important if you want to rank on Google.
Google SERP Tool
Have you noticed that some listings on Google get cut off because the title is too long?
A big misconception is Google uses character counts for meta tags. In reality, they count pixels.
Google SERP Tool will tell you how many pixels your meta tags contain and if they will get cut off by Google.
It also shows you a preview of what your web pages will look like on Google.
Rank Tracking
Google Analytics is a great tool to show you your overall traffic, but it doesn’t tell you where you rank.
If you want to track your rankings, you’ll need to use some tools.
Google Search Console
I know I mentioned this tool above, but Google Search Console is the most unique rank tracking tool out there.
Because this tool is from Google, they can tell you your average ranking for any one of your pages per country.
And because the data comes from them, they average it out to give you accurate information.
You can also go back 16 months and see how your rankings have changed over time.
Ubersuggest
Again, I know I also mentioned Ubersuggest above, but it now has a free rank tracking feature.
It provides the same features as those paid rank trackers. You can track your rankings daily for any keyword or groups of keywords for any country, city, or county.
It also saves your data for you so you can go back as far as you want to see if your rankings have been increasing or decreasing.
Search Latte
If you want to track your rankings manually, you can do so with Search Latte.
Just put in a keyword and select the language and country so you can see all of the sites that rank in the top 100.
You can then manually find your site and keep track to see if you are improving or declining.
You may want to use Search Latte in combination with Excel as you can create a daily log of your rankings.
Link Building
You used to have to pay for tools if you wanted link data, but that’s not the case anymore. Here are the free link tools you can use.
MozBar
This is probably my favorite link tool that I use.
Even though Google doesn’t use domain authority, in general, the higher the authority of a site that is linking to you, the better off you are.
MozBar shows you the domain authority and page authority of every page on the web.
If you are going to build links, focus on the sites with the highest authority.
SEOgadget for Excel
If you are like me, you probably love using Excel when you are building links.
SEOgadget for Excel makes it really easy to pull in data from Majestic and Moz.
If you haven’t tried this yet, you should consider it. It will make it easier for you to find new insights and run your own calculations.
Backlinks
Backlinks is a free tool that shows you all of your backlinks. There are no limits in row count or anything like that… you can just see everyone who links to you.
You can see if any of your links are dofollow or nofollow as well as the anchor text.
You can filter the results to find backlink opportunities when researching competitors and you have the option to look up link data on a domain, subdomain, or a specific URL.
It will also show when a link was first found and last crawled and the authority of each link.
Bulk Metrics Checker
Tired of looking up the domain and page authority manually on each of your pages or sites?
Just upload a list of URLs and within seconds you’ll have a list of your page authority per URL. You can also do the same for domains and upload dozens of domains at once.
Technical SEO
SEO has changed. You no longer can do just a few things and expect your site to rank well. You have to do everything if you expect to beat your competition.
And when I mean everything, that includes technical SEO.
SEO Analyzer
If you haven’t already, try running your URL through my SEO Analyzer.
It will tell you what’s wrong with each of your web pages.
From duplicate meta tags and redirect errors to sitemaps and much more… it pretty much looks at every major factor when it comes to SEO.
It will even tell you your overall site speed and what you need to fix in which order to get the maximum results.
And if you register for a free account, it automatically checks for errors each week on your behalf.
Google Analytics Referrer Spam Killer
When you are doing SEO, there is a good chance that your Google Analytics gets messed up by referral spam.
Google Analytics Referrer Spam Killer solves that problem by connecting with your Google Analytics account and blocking off the most common referral spam.
Once you connect it, you’ll find that your data is much more accurate so you can make better SEO decisions.
Pagespeed Insights
Speed is everything. The faster your site loads the better you will rank, especially when it comes to Google’s mobile index.
Pagespeed Insights tells you what you need to fix for your site to load fast on any device.
It doesn’t matter if you are optimizing for tablet devices, desktop, or mobile… it will tell you what to fix.
Pingdom
Fixing your code is one thing, but you’ll also want to make sure your site loads fast overall.
Your overall load time is affected by things like your server and CDN.
In a nice graph, it shows your traffic over time and tells you if a Google update has caused your traffic to go up or down.
Structured Data Markup Helper
A simple way to increase your search traffic is to use schema markup.
But there is one big issue, schema markup is a bit complicated to implement. Because of that, Google created a Structured Data Markup Helper to guide you.
All you have to do is select what kind of markup you want to use, type in your URL, and go through the walkthrough wizard.
And at the end, you’ll be given code that you just paste within HTML.
Woorank
Looking for a simple SEO analysis? Woorank shows you a simple report of what’s wrong with your web page.
All you have to do is type in your domain and within a minute you’ll see a thorough report of what you need to fix.
What I love about Woorank is that it is a great tool for beginners because of their easy-to-use interface.
SEOptimer
Just like Woorank, SEOptimer is a simple tool that gives you a technical overview of your on-page SEO as well as your content.
It breaks down things like page speed as well in addition to showing you how your website loads for both desktop and mobile devices.
You can even see social sharing data.
Varvy
Varvy provides a detailed technical checklist of all things related to your SEO.
From your Robots.txt file and your sitemap to security settings and even your links, it covers all the bases.
If you don’t have a technical background, Varvy might be a bit complex unless you take the time to read each of their articles that outline what each tip/recommendation means.
301 Redirect Code Generator
When you are doing SEO long enough, eventually you find yourself changing your older URLs.
But if you don’t add a 301 redirect, you’ll lose your rankings.
He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
A few years ago I was working on the Coffee vs Gangs content series. After a successful launch, which saw Kenco help young Hondurans out of gangs by training them as coffee farmers, l found myself in an all agency meeting. After some initial self-congratulatory backslapping, discussion of the ‘raw authenticity’ led to a new addition to the group confidently chiming in.
‘I loved the first series and was wondering if it might be possible to see some of the kids from the gangs drinking Kenco’.
Awkward pause.
We’ll come back to that.
Fast-forward a few years to The Drum Content Awards, of which I recently had the pleasure of sitting on the judging panel. To kick off the day all the judges took part in an ice breaker, where we were asked to share our thoughts on ‘authenticity’ in content.
A question like this is catnip for content professionals. And the 25 of us, all released from our respective agencies formed a warm cosy echo chamber. One which made us feel reassured that we are all saying the same things to our clients and none of us are doing it wrong.
I listened. But I contributed nothing. Because the only thought I had ringing around my head was ‘isn’t all this just bollocks?’ Which wouldn’t have gone down well at all.
That’s not to say that my fellow judges didn’t engage in an intelligent and considered discussion. But this wasn’t about them. It was about the concept of ‘authenticity’ itself.
Before I go on, I dare any current creative or content specialist to review their proposals, treatments and pitches delivered in the last three months and not cringe at overuse bordering on abuse of the word.
The truth is, it’s become a dog whistle we blow on in front of our colleagues and clients to try and sell ideas without thinking about it. But when you actually think about it, it means very little on the outside world.
When was the last time anyone saw a piece of content and said ‘I love it because of its authenticity’?
Never.
Because no one ever says that.
Alongside ‘disruptive’, ‘authentic’ has become a nonsense husk of a word that means nothing and everything to us in our comfy communications and marketing circles.
That’s not to say that Kaepernick or Patagonia Black Friday didn’t come from a truly brilliant place. In the same way that featuring a bunch of troubled kids from gangs drinking Kenco obviously comes from a hideous one. But let’s not over inflate the sentiment behind this too much. Or to bastardise the words of Scroobius Pip –
Nike. Just a brand
Patagonia. Just a brand
Kenco. Just a brand
When a consumer engages with any form of content made by a brand or business an unspoken contract is entered into. ‘I know you are trying to sell me something or make me like you so I eventually buy something. But I’m willing to let you do that in exchange for getting something back’.
And this is far more authentic than authenticity. Because authenticity may be dead, but the authentic value exchange is very much alive.
I am willing to engage with your marketing, communication or advertising in exchange for you entertaining me. Making me laugh. Teaching me something new. Helping me with utility that enables me to do my job better.
Authentic value exchange. Much better. Not hiding behind the fact that something is authentic just for the sake of it when we all know what’s going on. Consumers are not stupid.
And that’s what was great about judging The Drum Content Awards. To see so many examples of exceptional work that creates a compelling value exchange between brand and consumer.
Examples that used comedy in exchange for brand trust around online security (Santander), that answered fuel economy questions in exchange for consideration of an electric alternative (Nissan Leaf) and that showed future parents what having children really looks like to build market share of their baby wipe brand (WaterWipes).
And by the way, in case you were interested.
We never featured any gang member drinking Kenco.
Now that’s authentic.
Feature Image Credit: ‘Who actually loves authentic content?’ Brands need to understand their value exchange
Ryan Reddick, creative director, Edelman is a judge for The Drum Content Awards 2019. A full list of the finalists can be found here. The awards ceremony will take place in London on October 30 at The Marriot Grosvenor Square Hotel, tickets can be purchased now.
Landing coverage in reputable news outlets is essential in this era of dwindling public trust. Skilled practitioners can seize the moment, with help from technology for metrics and scale.
Drastic changes in the media and cultural landscape have altered PR and marketing in recent years.
Challenges for PR practitioners include a faster-than-ever news cycle and what seems like constant political and cultural controversy. Combine that with an erosion of faith in government and private institutions, and it can make for a difficult environment.
How do we navigate the media landscape when “fake news” accusations are thrown around and the very business of media is under siege?
Yet the business of public relations is thriving. One reason is that PR is more relevant—and valuable—than ever. Here’s why:
1. Credibility is paramount.
According to the Cision State of the Media Report, 59% of U.S. consumers say they are suspicious of news content. On social media platforms, skepticism is far greater, as it should be.
This means the credibility of media outlets and other information sources is more important than in the past. The public values journalism, and people are moving to media channels they trust. Traditional news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post have reported double-digit increases, and cable news ad revenue is up a whopping 25%.
PR practitioners understand that a brand or personal reputation built through bylined content, executive speeches, legitimate user reviews and media profiles will earn the credibility that comes from implied endorsement by recognized third parties. That beats self-promotion every time.
2. PR drives SEO.
PR’s role goes beyond earned media coverage, but it’s still an essential piece of many PR campaigns. Established publications that link to a brand will boost search listings due to their domain authority, and ever since Google determined that brand mentions are “implied links,” they work harder to drive SEO. Anyone who has managed a content marketing program understands high-quality, “evergreen” content can live for years, pushing up page rank and attracting traffic for a brand or business.
3. PR generates influence.
Beyond earned media, typical PR tactics build relationships, engage influencers, and even help change public perception and behavior. PR skills once used exclusively in media relations are easily transferred to social community management, influencer relations, and content marketing. Word-of-mouth PR spread on social media platforms is not only cost-effective, but highly trackable and persuasive.
4. PR is (nearly) immune to ad blocking.
Publisher panic over ad blocking has largely receded, but the number of blocked impressions on mobile is growing as browsing migrates to mobile devices. What’s bad for digital content providers is also bad for the PR industry. Ad blocking cuts revenue for digital publishers just when they need it most. Yet PR programs that generate visibility through earned and owned content are more valuable than ever during times of digital marketing disruption.
5. PR is more measurable than ever.
Today, the outcomes of a PR program are more measurable than they’ve ever been, thanks to a concerted effort by the industry, but also to digital tools. Of course, metrics will always vary by program, but even with simple (and free) tools like Google trends and access to web analytics, we can often pinpoint the impact of earned and owned content and social sharing with a fair degree of accuracy. One digital business service has found that business profitability coincides almost perfectly with peaks in web analytics driven by earned media.
6. Goodwill has value.
What is more valuable than a brand (or personal) reputation? Many PR deliverables are powerful in building reputation over time, and social media accelerates and amplifies their impact. A glowing review (or unfortunate video interview) can blow up on social platforms in the time it takes to say, “Call the PR firm.” It’s hard to put a price tag on customer loyalty or positive perception, but in today’s unpredictable media environment, it’s like money in the bank.
7. Technology helps it scale.
What we do to generate earned media is not always efficient, and it has traditionally been hard to scale. Yet many agencies have added capabilities in content marketing, digital content creation and brand journalism that can amplify earned media or add to its impact through shareable content. Automation has changed intelligence gathering and data analysis, which often inform a PR program’s messaging and content.
Here are ten ideas for creating a solid content marketing strategy.
1# Set your goals
SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. You need absolute clarity about what you want to achieve with your content and how you will go about promoting it. Do you want to generate leads, promote your brand, or build a community?
If you don’t have a clear goal, you can’t focus your content and it will be difficult to know where to promote it.
If you want to create a simple marketing calendar including details such as topic, content details, keywords and target persona, Hubspot offers some free Microsoft Excel templates for this purpose.
2# Know who you’re writing for
A top priority for 73% of content creators is to create more engaging content. The only way to do this is to get to grips with who your customers are and what they are really interested in.
You need to create a customer persona from data which you can obtain in many different ways such as surveys, telephone and face-to-face interviews.
Building up a comprehensive persona gives you the power to write directly to a person. At the very least, you need to make sure you know the age ranges, gender breakdown, geographic location and purchasing power of your target audience.
3# Identify content that resonates with your audience
It’s no use writing content if it doesn’t resonate with your audience. If you’re writing for an audience of sophisticated, fashionable woman, how-to articles revealing style tips would be a good fit.
If you’re writing for millennials, entertaining content full of gifs would be more appropriate. There are endless types of content and topics and you need to focus on what your audience will read because it offers value to them.
4# Produce consistent, high-quality content
It is better to create fewer high-quality posts than huge volumes of lackluster content. Make sure your headlines are arresting – don’t over-sensationalize but try to capture the attention of your audience.
Always include pictures because humans process images much faster than text. A good mix of content includes videos, infographics, images and text.
Everything you publish should be well-researched – always check your facts and never make promises you can’t deliver on. If you don’t produce content on a regular basis, you will lose out on traffic and if necessary, use the help of freelance content creators.
If you are managing the marketing for your business and also studying part-time or if you are a full-time student, it’s better to take help from a dissertation service or an essay writing service for your writing requirements for thesis, dissertation and college essays.
This will allow you to have more free time and focus equally well on college work and the website or the brand that you are working on for content marketing. The essay writers service helps you choose the best best paper writing service reviews for your writing needs. Specialized my assignmenthelp offer you quality work in less time.
5# Use the right marketing channels
Spend time creating practical, credible, entertaining content and then spend more time distributing it through the right channels.
This may sound daunting but here are some ideas for a content distribution strategy.
Post your content on your social media channels.
Reach out to communities or forums that may be interested in your content.
Send emails to your current customers with links to your latest content.
Let influencers know if you mentioned them in a blog post.
Syndicate your content piece on large news sites.
Transform your content into another type of content and publish it on a different platform.
6# Make your content actionable
You need to make sure that people are able to act on what you put out. Pull people in by promising to fix their pain or add value to their lives. Provide them with solid, evidence-based information and you will earn their trust. Once you have earned their trust, they will be ready to take the action you suggest.
If your content is not producing sales for your business, it is failing in its purpose. You need to use calls to action – they won’t be obnoxious or annoying to your customers if you’ve already built trust and they will bring results. Put your calls-to-action in optimized, strategic positions, run A/B tests on them, and invite users to buy your products.
7# Appeal to the emotions
Your content will have more impact if you can appeal to the emotions of your audience. The brands that tend to thrive are those who are adept at eliciting the right emotions. They know how to evoke awe, laughter, amusement, or joy. Using images and stories is a great way to elicit emotion.
Images of faces and certain colors can help to make your audience feel a specific emotion. Why not identify a specific color that’s tied to a certain emotion and incorporate it in your content. For example, if you have a romantic post about Valentine’s Day gifts, incorporate the color pink.
8# Improve your conversion funnel
You may know how to produce high-quality content, but you may not understand how to turn it into sales. Your conversion funnel is the path a customer takes from being a first-time visitor to an actual customer.
You should be able to define the main channels a customer passes through, such as visiting your site, becoming an email subscriber, visiting your sales pages and becoming a customer.
You can use analytics to find out if you have an effective conversion funnel. If no-one is buying your products, it could mean that your product doesn’t meet the needs of your audience – either you have the wrong product or the wrong audience.
Search Engine Optimization has evolved over the past ten years and SEO experts use many different best practices to earn ranking. SEO is complex and you might not want to go into all the intricacies.
However, it doesn’t hurt to at least research targeted keywords and learn how to use some basic website optimization to improve your rankings. There are many resources available to help you test your site’s SEO health over time, such as SEMrush.
10# Use influencer content marketing
Consumers are becoming blind to advertisements and you need to incorporate different strategies to appeal to them.
Aligning with an “influencer” or someone who has a large following and credibility in a certain niche enables co-creation of content that will build awareness and drive sales.
Using social media influencers helps to generate measurable results when they subtly promote your brand.
Conclusion
What is of primary importance is to create quality content and then do whatever you can to share and promote it. You don’t have to worry about all the more complex aspects until you have mastered the basics.
By putting these ideas into practice, you will be able to make sure your content marketing is focused and brings you better results.
Author Bio:Sharon is marketing specialist in essay writer service and writer from Manchester, UK. When she has a minute, she loves to share a few of her thoughts about marketing, writing and blogging with you. Currently, she is working as a marketer at BestEssay. You could follow Sharon on Facebook.
