Zero Traffic from Google—that is what more than 50% of online content gets everyday. Ahrefs found this out last 2020.

And yet, countless websites continue to put them out regularly—a problem made even worse with all the AI-powered content tools out there. The result is an endless flood of low-quality blogs and posts that are, ultimately, not useful for anyone who reads them. 

So, what did Google do in response? They put out another addition to their algorithm, called the “Helpful Content Update.” Their goal with this one was to help make sure that valuable content that actually helps their users (a.k.a., people-first content) would be able to rank. 

Much like with every update, SEO professionals like you and I need to revisit our strategies to stay ahead of the game. In this article, I will show you some tactics I use to write content for people first, while maintaining good SEO practices. 

What We Know About Google’s Helpful Content Update

The Helpful Content Update algorithm update by Google was designed to improve user experience by putting high-quality content written for people higher up in the SERPs. 

Here’s how Google put it in their own words: 

“The system generates a site-wide signal that we consider among many other signals for ranking web pages. Our systems automatically identify content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.

Any content—not just unhelpful content—on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search, assuming there is other content elsewhere from the web that’s better to display. For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.”

While this update was first announced back in September 2022, it has now progressed into a global update, impacting all languages. Google also announced that the system will continue to publish new signals over the coming months, helping their site identify more content created primarily for search engines versus people.

What does this mean for your website? Well, there are a lot of changes that others have documented in the last few months, which I summarize for you here: 

• Purely AI-generated content is considered spam, and Google will be using its machine learning algorithm to detect it.
• Content made for clicks (i.e., ad monetization) won’t work anymore. 
• There may be no manual penalties, but sites have experienced losing organic visibility. 
• It seems to affect the overall site performance, rather than hitting specific pages—and Google won’t be telling you which pieces of your content it has deemed as not useful.

Google’s Danny Sullivan also talked about this update possibly working in connection with future updates:

So, like Hummingbird, this update may become fundamental to ranking algorithms—which means that its exact effects could be only observed over the next few years.

Even so, it already puts a stronger emphasis on your content. Writing with a “search engine first” approach should no longer be your angle. 

After all, Google is, primarily, a space for users to learn. So, it makes sense that they’re making no room for unhelpful content.

While this update will undoubtedly be more damaging for poor-quality sites, it also presents an opportunity for well-maintained sites to take a second look at their content strategy. 

How Does Google Evaluate my Content in this New Update?

Google’s complete guidelines on creating helpful, reliable, and people-first content can easily be found on Google Search Central. But, I’ve gone through the list and summarized it into the five most important criteria:

1. Content and quality: Does your content have original, substantial information? Does it avoid copying and rewriting existing content? And, does it provide value, compared to others in the search results?
2. Expertise: Does your content demonstrate your expertise, as well as clear sourcing of supporting evidence? Is it factual? Is it written by someone who knows the topic well?
3. Presentation and production: Is the content written well, free of any spelling or stylistic issues? Does it avoid excessive ads or marketing? Does it display well on mobile devices?
4. People-first approach: Does the content have a clear purpose or focus? Does it meet that purpose or focus? Does it provide useful information  that helps create a a satisfying experience for the reader?
5. Avoidance of search engine-first content: Was the content written with the reader in mind first, rather than search engine rankings? Does it avoid manipulation of search algorithms (such as through extensive automation, summarizing others’ content without adding value, etc.)?

How to Optimize Your Content—and Make it More “Helpful”

With this update, we have to start thinking about our content holistically, rather than just trying to gain as many clicks as possible (or maybe even a featured snippet).

To achieve this, you have two main action points to consider: improving your intent and processes, and providing high-quality content.

Let’s go over some tips I’ve come up with in the last two months to better tackle these points (and enhance your writing): 

Review Your Intent and Your Audience

Before you even start on your next blog post, you need to know who your audience is. 

Ask yourself, who are you writing for? What are their needs, and why are they asking these questions? What do they need help with?

These questions will help you tailor your content to help your target audience. Otherwise, it’s likely that whatever you write won’t be considered helpful by Google—and you won’t be able to reap the benefits from your work. 

If you’re having trouble understanding who your audience is, then take a look at your Google Analytics data, under your demographic details report. This is the best place to gain some insight into who is currently looking at your content, as well as other things they might be interested in. 

So, beyond inserting your keyword into your blog post, consider factoring both your intended audience and relevant adjacent content. 

Provide Real Expertise, Insights, and Experiences

When it comes to making helpful, valuable content, it’s a big plus if you have some first-hand expertise to add to your writing. 

Avoid writing on topics that are trending, but you know nothing about. I also highly recommend against simply regurgitating information you’ve seen in other posts. Instead, your insights and experiences with the topic should be the main focus of your writing.

Not an expert on the particular topic you’re currently drafting? That’s okay—not everyone can be one. You can still produce helpful content by doing your due diligence, diving deep into research, and sharing what you’ve learned. 

Remember, readers can see right through you if you’re faking being an expert, so avoid making false claims at all costs. 

Use AI Content Strategically

Though this update may be primarily aimed at reducing the amount of AI-generated content out there, that doesn’t mean your tools no longer have a place in your work. 

AI tools, such as the increasingly popular ChatGPT or our recently-reviewed Content Marketing Platform from SE Ranking, can still be used to improve your work and productivity. The key is to use them strategically. 

Use them to lighten your workload, and avoid depending solely on them. For example, you can use your tools to help you generate better titles or introductions—but always remember to add a human touch to whatever they make. And, make sure that the bulk of the ideas come from you! 

Try to Hit Related Queries (Such as the People Also Ask (PAAs))

I mentioned that we have to start approaching our writing holistically, and that means providing as much valuable information to our readers as possible. 

Now that being helpful is the name of the game, it’s a great time to take a look at all the related queries users have for your intended topic. Here’s what comes up when I google ‘wedding catering:’

Check the PAAs and related searches that pop up when you type in your keyword. These aren’t just generated questions Google thinks people might ask—they’re actually being searched up by real people! These will provide good subheadings to include in your next blog article.

Ask Yourself: Will Readers Be Satisfied After Reading Your Content?

Things like word count and keyword density are now a thing of the past with this update. The most important thing now is that your audience enjoys what they’re reading, or they learn something of value from your article. 

In short, they leave your site feeling satisfied. 

So, always gauge your writing by asking this question: will people be satisfied after reading this?

For example, if you’re writing an article on how to properly brew specialty coffee, will the reader come away from your article with more knowledge than before? Will they have all their questions answered? Will they know how to properly brew their new coffee beans?

If the answer is yes, then you’re doing great. But, if you’re unsure—or the answer is a resounding no—you must make some changes. 

That said, not every reader that comes across your work will be happy with what you’ve written. It is, after all, impossible to please everyone each time you publish something. However, as long as a majority of your audience is satisfied, then you’re doing something right! 

Revisit Your Old Posts

Lastly, because this update affects you sitewide, it’s a good idea to look at your previous work. 

If you’re like me, then you’ve been blogging for upwards of a decade—and that might mean some of your posts aren’t as valuable to readers today. The content might be outdated, or not up to snuff with newer guidelines, but either way, this bank of legacy content can bring your traffic down.

So, revisit your work and review its ability to provide your readers with the answers and experience they’re looking for. Take the time to check if you need to make some additions to make it useful once again, or redirect them to newer content. I highly recommend prioritizing evergreen content, which is something I covered in my Blog Writing 101 guide.

This is especially important if you’re in any industry that moves fast (think fashion or tech). Content here usually goes from helpful to obsolete in a matter of months! 

Key Takeaway

Google has always favored people-first content, and this recent update is just the latest in many of their attempts to make sure the right content gets to their users. 

The Helpful Content Update will continue to release tweaks to their signals over the coming months, so it’s prime time for us SEO specialists to take a second look at our content and writing strategies.

Luckily, this update could be a win for you—just keep these tips in mind, and you’re on the right track to getting the most value from your content efforts. 

The post Optimizing Your Content for Google’s Helpful Content Update appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Nothing is more frustrating than when your team creates outstanding content, and nobody reads it. If you want the content to work in your favor, you need to make sure it ranks so it gets relevant readers right away. 

So if you are a blogger and want to win over your readers, if you run a business and need to outperform your competitors, or if you want to increase your revenue, you need to make sure that all the textual content produced by you or your team is optimized with SEO fundamentals and your chosen content strategy. 

That way, you can ensure your site ranks on the first page of Google Search and gets significantly more traffic. 

In a Content Marketing Institute survey, 88% of marketers reported that content marketing was successful in building brand awareness and credibility, 78% reached their goal of building loyalty with their clients and users, and 64% of marketers confirmed success in nurturing leads. 

By the way, if you need help reaching any of the objectives above, read our guide on 5 easy ways to build a solid content strategy. 

In this blog post, I’ll be reviewing a content optimization tool that can make your life easier: it’s a new roll-out by the SE Ranking team called the Content Marketing Platform. 

The Content Marketing Platform from SE Ranking is a time-saving tool for creating content to advance to the next level in marketing and business. It’s a simple-to-use, all-inclusive content marketing solution for SEO that covers a range of SEO factors stemming from content production efforts. Let’s check it out! 

Exploring SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform is a tool that takes your content to the next level. It saves time by helping your writers automate their work and provide your business and clients with exceptional marketing results. 

With the help of an AI algorithm, the tool analyzes all competitors’ content. So, in addition to keeping an eye on your rivals, you can create insightful briefs for your content marketers and copywriters and get suggestions on how to improve your messages from an SEO perspective. 

The Content Marketing Platform has two main tools: the Content Idea Finder and the Content Editor. With the help of these tools, you don’t need to spend hours scrolling through articles in search of relevant and up-to-date content ideas that will bring you thousands of readers. 

Features of SE Ranking’s Content Idea Finder

Let’s look closely at the Content Idea Finder. One of the fascinating things about this SE Ranking tool is that all you need to do is write down the desired topic. In a matter of seconds, you get keyword groups, which are accompanied by key SEO & PPC parameters such as search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and level of competition.

Another valuable feature of this tool is that it allows you to find interesting topics for your readers and the most effective keywords, which search engines also take into account. 

Thanks to SE Ranking’s tool, you can get a list of the top 10 articles with the best performance in the SERP, according to the keyword in your cluster with the highest search volume.

If you still can’t pick the right keywords for your article, you can use a mind map to see a visual comparison of keywords ranked by difficulty and search volume. You can then transfer some keywords to the Content Editor to continue working on your piece of content.

Features of SE Ranking’s Content Editor

To ensure that your future content is fully aligned with SEO requirements, you can create a comprehensive brief for your writers with the Content Editor. 

Setting up a brief

With the help of an automated AI-powered tool, the software analyzes the top-ranked content of your rivals. You can select the most relevant pieces from a list of competitor publications that is automatically provided according to the search intent and based on domain and page trust indicators, the total number of referring domains, word count, and the website’s visibility. 

Below is what it looks like.

Then according to the list of articles, the tool suggests the length for your content, the number of used media elements, and other content parameters. 

SE Ranking’s AI algorithm also suggests terms and common expressions with the needed SEO information for you to use in your text. All these suggestions are data-driven, so you can boldly rely on them (unless, of course, you know better because of niche experience).

Another part of setting the brief is the content structure. With SE Ranking’s Content Editor, you can see how your competitors build their texts and can then add their H1-H6 headings to your SEO technical assignment or use them as a reference and create your structure from scratch, and add the notes and comments with your copywriter. 

When the brief for your article is finally ready, you can share a link with your content team so your writers can collaborate on your project, even without logging into SE Ranking’s account. Another option is sharing your brief via email.

Editing an article

Using SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform, your writers can insert the Content Editor outline from your brief and start working on the text right there on the Platform, instead of Google Docs or Microsoft Word, as the tool has all the needed text formatting features. 

To make sure that the text is fully aligned with your brief and SEO requirements, the Content Marketing Platform checks all the content’s parameters and keywords, even as the team is creating the piece.

The Content Editor also has its own  assessment of the quality of drafts. The program checks the grammar, spelling, and punctuation of texts. It also defines the stop-words and grades the piece’s overall readability score. So you can be sure that your article will be high quality and bring you the best possible results. 

Pricing

Even though SE Ranking released its Content Marketing Tool only three months ago, it has already been ranked by G2 as a niche product among the market’s Content Analytics Software, according to user reviews. To join those clients and assess the Module yourself, you can try SE Ranking’s SEO tool for free for 14 days and get two free content pieces with access to the Content Marketing Module.

Note: A paid SE Ranking account is needed to continue working with the Content Marketing Platform. You can get 15 articles per month for an additional $29, 30 articles for $49, or 120 content pieces for just $99.

Key takeaway

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform elevates your content to the highest possible standards. The Module analyzes competitors’ content in just minutes, and with the help of the AI algorithm, you can build a customized brief with all the needed SEO requirements and notes of your content team. 

Within the Content Marketing Platform, you can assess the quality of created texts and their SEO parameters, making sure that your content is also SEO-friendly. 

If you want to ensure that all of your content is appreciated by readers and search engines and effectively attracts traffic to your site, check out SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform.

The post An In-Depth Look at SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

You are stuck in a maze and you’ve tried every possible turn but there is no way out.

This is what our brains feel like sometimes and if you haven’t tried banging your head against the keyboard out of frustration with your content strategy, you have no business reading this.

Yes, even I have those days when getting the mix of SEO and the client’s technical writing desires in your content strategy seems like an unsolvable puzzle.

So here are 5 things to keep close when planning your content strategy so you don’t ever have to damage your keyboard again. You will rank and you will also provide the best possible content to your client and your readers – win, win and win.

The Importance of a Strong SEO Content Strategy

Before anything else, it’s important to acknowledge that quality content is one of the defining components of an SEO strategy. Great content paired with SEO efforts has always been the backbone of any successful campaign. Regardless of other standard SEO practices- if your content isn’t good enough for Google, then your website isn’t good enough to rank.

Ways of Setting Up An Effective SEO Content Strategy

Do Keyword Research Above All Else

Keyword research is like the egg to your omelet- all your ingredients won’t come together without it. Never start building your SEO content strategy without gathering your keywords first. Your keywords will be the foundation of any type of content that you’ll be publishing to your web pages. It’s important to keep in mind these guidelines when doing your keyword research:

• Use keywords that acknowledge your target audience
• Ensure keyword relevancy to your website
• Understand the search intent of each keyword in the list
• Only consider keywords that have good monthly search volume

Learn more about the latest keyword research practices!

Identify Website SEO Content Opportunities

It’s a fairly general SEO practice to commit all your content publications as blogs for your website. While this particular SEO content strategy proves to still be very effective in attracting website traffic- wouldn’t it be ideal if you could attract THAT traffic straight to pages that have higher possibilities to convert?

Imagine an e-commerce site with a web page that purely displays product listings as its content.

By including a frequently asked questions (FAQ) type of information, we allow that page to target SEO-friendly keywords increasing the chances for it to have a strong online presence.

This is an example of an “SEO content opportunity” on your website. Instead of simply publishing blog articles, you can direct your writing efforts to pages where there’s an opportunity to target a keyword.

You can mainly identify these SEO content opportunities by analyzing search results and identifying what type of pages are ranking. For example- when searching for the term electric scooter, the search result returns product listings. Therefore, there’s a higher chance of ranking a page that mainly displays products. Which makes it a good target for additional content.

Keep Your Content Human

Build your content for users.

The rising popularity of AI-written content allowed web pages to rank high within search results. This led to unnaturally written articles being presented to users. As a result, Google continues to release algorithm updates that punish these pages’ rankings.

It is very important to note in your SEO content strategy how the articles should be written. Always bear in mind to present information in a way that’s digestible and easily understood by readers. Not only will this help keep Google’s eyes away from you, but it will also increase user retention.

Acknowledge Your Competitor’s Content Strategy

In any card game, there’s a benefit to knowing what hand are your opponents playing. The same concept applies when building your SEO Content Strategy. Your competitors have done the work, so why not learn from them?

Noting your competition’s implementation of content in web pages, topics they publish in their blogs, and how they’re structuring their content can give you an idea of how can you improve your own content strategy.

The tool that I mainly use to gauge my competition is SE Ranking’s competitive research tool.

This allows me to see what organic keywords are they using on their website, in addition to manually browsing through their content.

Optimize As Much As Needed

Let’s assume that you’ve already started publishing your content- the only way to maintain and improve its quality is to perform regular on-page SEO optimizations. Not only can it serve as the solution to ranking changes, but it also allows you to be flexible in the content you have on your website.

Here are some of the things that you should consider when performing on-page SEO optimizations:

• Maintain the quality of the SEO factors being implemented in your pages by ensuring proper keyword usage in SEO factors such as title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and the like.
  
• Look for opportunities to improve/update existing content- such as enhancing keyword usage and content comprehension.
• Point out and correct any existing UI/UX issues to improve the visitor experience
• Ensure proper indexing practices such as appropriate robots and sitemap implementations that guarantee website visibility.

Key Takeaway

There are honestly a lot of ways that you can approach your website’s content. But instead of overloading yourself with information, learning these 5 ways of building a solid SEO content strategy can allow you to focus on the basics. Only then can you start applying other SEO practices that can help you formulate a successful SEO campaign.

If you want to learn more about content marketing, check out our guide on how to write your content!

The post The 5 Key Elements for Successful SEO Content Strategy appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

It’s been over four years now since Matt Cutts famously declared, “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done.”

According to Matt Cutts, at the time, guest blogging has been overdone and is mostly abused as a spammy tactic for link building — and it is pretty much dead.

A few things have happened since then, for those who have been paying careful attention:

1. Matt Cutts no longer works at Google.
2. Guest blogging is far from dead.

In fact, for followers of this blog, it is no secret that guest blogging is Sean’s favorite link building tactic for the following reasons:

• It gives the opportunity to gain links.
• It gives you access to a larger audience.
• It improves your author rank.

There are many more benefits of guest blogging. It is also my favorite link building and marketing tactic, and if you pay careful attention to Cutt’s post published four years ago, it is very clear that the kind of guest blogging he is denouncing is the low-quality, spammy kind of guest blogging.

Real guest blogging, the kind that focuses on getting quality backlinks on relevant, authoritative blogs isn’t just alive, but it is growing stronger.

Below are some examples of what I’m talking about:

(my guest post on Business Insider)

(my guest post on Adweek)

(my guest post on Entrepreneur)

(my guest post on The Next Web)

I could go on an on with the list of screenshots, but without boring you suffice it to say that I’ve been published and syndicated on some of the biggest publications in the world: Fast Company, CNBC, Yahoo, Glassdoor, and Upwork are just some of the other notable publications I’ve been featured in.

Like Sean, guest blogging is my favorite link building tactic. It’s been my main method of promoting my site where I review web hosts, and it’s one of the most effective content marketing techniques I know of for achieving strong backlinks, quality endorsement, traffic, and exposure all at once.

Over the years, I’ve perfected a process for getting published on some of the biggest publications in the world, and I believe this process can help you get published almost anywhere. In this article, I’ll break down my process for you:

Step #1: Compile Your List of Target Blogs

My first step for guest blogging is compiling a list of target blogs I plan to write for. When compiling a list of target blogs, I focus on two things:

• Ensuring that the target site is really authoritative; generally, I tend to use Ahrefs Domain Ratings (DR) to determine which site to guest post on, and I tend to focus on sites with a DR of 70 or more.
• Ensuring that the target site is relevant; in certain cases, I go for really strong, general sites like the media publications earlier referenced.

To find target sites, I use a variety of techniques:

• I use relevant Google search queries to find target blogs. E.g. marketing blog + “write for us,” marketing blog + “guest post by,” or some other query similar to this that will lead me to the guest post guidelines of a blog or to guest posts by other authors on that blog.
• When I notice the name of a particular guest author appears on two or more key blogs in my niche, I do a Google search on the author’s name + guest post to find guest posts by that author on other blogs. I then filter the list of the blogs to determine which of these blogs I want to use.
• Occasionally, some top publications link to other relevant publications like them, or that are owned by their parent company; I follow these links and vet the publications to see if I am interested in any of them.

Step #2: Carefully Study Your Target Blog

Once I’ve decided on what blog I will be approaching for guest posting, the next step is to carefully study the blog.

When I study a blog, I pay attention to two things:

• The content type the blog likes to publish. Is it case studies? Success stories? How-tos? Top lists?
• The content angle. Does the blog like approaching topics from a controversial angle? A deep dive into very niche topics?

In most cases, it can be difficult to say much about what a blog wants based on content type; most top publications use a mix of content type. The angle a blog uses matters a great deal, though. Some blogs want articles that are carefully articulated opinion pieces and nothing more. Some want deep dive into niche topics backed with research. By the time you review 5 – 10 pieces (preferably by guest authors), you should have an idea of the angle a publication prefers.

Step #3: Identify the Editor of Your Target Blog

Once I’ve decided on the content approach I will be using with a blog or publication, the next step is to identify the editor of that publication.

I know, most blogs tell you to use a submissions form or to send an email to a particular submissions email. Some even go far to tell you that if you do otherwise you won’t be hearing back. The problem is that you do just that and hear nothing.

What has been most effective for me is identifying individual editors of the blog I intend to target and pitching them directly. In very few instances, some have directed me back to use the submissions form/email. Usually, though, many simply ask me to send an article.

Step #4: Pitch The Editor of Your Target Blog

The next step is to pitch the editor of your target blog. Don’t send draft articles without pitching an editor first; this can be quite problematic. If your article is custom-tailored to them and they decide not to respond, your effort is wasted. If they take too long to respond and you send the piece to another publication that publishes it and they later also publish it, that could be problematic.

It’s better than to pitch the editor of your target blog with an idea first and let them respond before sending them your article.

Most of the pitches — including the ones that got me on top publications like Business Insider — are in the following format:

“Hi, Editor,

I’d like to inquire/ask about the steps involved in writing for Your Publication.

I have been published/featured on several top publications including ABC Publication, XYZ Publication, and ETC Publication.

Kindly let me know how to become a Your Publication contributor.

Warm Regards,

Name”

The above approach works for a few reasons:

• I address the editor directly by name; it shows I have done some research.
• I include relevant publications I’ve been featured in for social proof; I tend to get better responses when I do this compared to when I don’t use social proof.
• The email is clear, concise, and to the point.

I don’t include links to samples of my guest posts in my pitch, unless it is specifically requested by a publication, in order to avoid triggering spam filters. Occasionally, I include ideas in the first email if the publication prefers it that way; otherwise, I try to get the editor to respond first before sending ideas to save time.

Step #5: Submit Content that Wows the Editor of Your Target Blog

Finally, it is important to realize that having an editor approve your pitch is no guarantee that your content will be accepted and published.

Once you have editor approval, the only guarantee of publication is by submitting content that wows an editor. Here are some tips:

• Ensure your content is well-researched, well-thought-out, and well-written.
• Longer isn’t better; while most blogs in the marketing industry might prefer comprehensive posts 1,200 words or longer, editors at top publications like The Next Web and Business Insider would prefer something in the neighborhood of 700 – 1,000 words. Make sure your post isn’t longer than what your editor will prefer.
• Pay careful attention to the formatting requirements of the publication and format accordingly. Do they prefer shorter paragraphs? Use of sentence case? What is their policy on headings and bullets? Etc.
• What is their policy on links? Internal and external links?
• What is their policy on image use?

It is very important to consider all of the above factors and write your content accordingly to ensure your content is accepted and published after an editor has approved it.

Conclusion

Spammy guest blogging is dead, but the kind of guest blogging that focuses on publishing useful, well-thought-out guest posts on authoritative blogs based on the steps outlined above is still very well alive. With the above tips, you can take your guest blogging from average/below average to excellent.

Author Bio

John Stevens is the founder and CEO of Hosting Facts.

The post Guest Blogging for Links and Traffic: My Five-Step Process for Getting Published on Top Publications appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Building brand trust and authority is always a challenging process that requires great marketing and promotion. With so many choices in the market, customers want to ensure that they picked the right brands. When it comes to promoting a brand, there is a diverse selection of strategies that can help establish an effective and powerful campaign.

There have been many successful marketing campaigns in the past, some of which have helped give their brands their identity, along with being cemented in modern culture. While being successful with a marketing campaign in the present is always a great thing, being able to maintain that momentum is what helps sets the best brands from the good ones. Maintaining brand presence is one of the main objectives of an effective SEO strategy, and Nostalgia Marketing helps generate more traffic that can help boost your rankings.

One of the latest marketing trends that has been done was nostalgia marketing, which aims to capture (or in most cases, re-capture) the audience’s attention by tapping into older and more familiar trends from the past. Some of the most established brands in the world have utilized this type of marketing to full effect, achieving excellent results. Here are some of the most important reasons why Nostalgia Marketing matters.

Invoke Past Memories and Famous Moments

One of the best ways to capture the audience’s attention is by helping them remember the best memories from their past. This can come in different forms, such as old music, famous historical events and figures, celebrities, and even old fads and trends. Take Adobe’s “The Joy of Sketching” series, which featured an actor who portrayed famous television painter Bob Ross, who had one of the more popular shows in the 1980s.

Another excellent example of invoking past memories through advertisement is from Microsoft’s promotion of their new and improved Internet Explorer, which featured some of the most famous fads and trends during the 1990s, like the Tamagochi, snap bracelets, and even Trolls.

One of the important things to remember is that these fads and trends are meant to help promote your product or service, as going overboard would mean that you are selling these fads and trends instead of selling the product itself. There are also times that some of these past trends and products would be revived due to insistent public demand, which helps put a brand into the spotlight, helping generate more revenue and visibility. Invoking wonderful memories of the past invokes positive emotions that would sway them into your brand.

Generate More Social Media Traffic

Social media platforms are some of the most active websites on the internet, with millions logging in worldwide each day. With a wide user base, creating social media campaigns would help boost your site’s traffic and generate more leads and sales. Nostalgia Marketing campaigns on social media generate some of the most buzz in the internet, with some posts becoming viral.

One of the most popular hashtags on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is #ThrowbackThursday, in which users post pictures and videos from yesteryear. These posts garner a heavy amount of reactions and show the effectiveness of Nostalgia Marketing. To show some proof, the above image is one of Pepsi’s Throwback Thursday posts, which garnered a significant amount of reactions from the users on Twitter.

Some brands take advantage of these throwback posts and create events based around that theme. For example, some establishments have 80s and 70s nights, which can generate some worthwhile buzz that generates a good amount of traffic. With social media becoming an integral element in SEO and digital marketing, taking advantage of this platform would help promote your brand, and would lead to users looking for your brand on search engines as well.

More Authentic Campaigns

Another reason why Nostalgia Marketing is very effective is because it makes advertisements, promotions, and campaigns look more down-to-Earth and more authentic to the audience. Reception for these kinds of marketing tend to be highly positive, as it is influenced by the positive emotions and memories of the users. A good example of this is Sony’s Playstation Commercial, which takes the audience down to memory lane, through the various games and Playstation systems through the years.

This kind of marketing shows that these brands care for the different generations of customers that they have served through the many years. When it comes to improving and strengthening your brand image, Nostalgia Marketing is one of the best methods.

Key Takeaway

Sometimes, it is best to look back at the good times of yesteryear, and this is more evident in marketing. Through Nostalgia Marketing, brands are able to establish viral campaigns that generate more buzz and traffic to web pages, and generate more revenue. If you are looking to create an effective marketing campaign, Nostalgia Marketing is an idea you can consider.

If you have any questions about Digital Marketing and SEO, leave a comment below and let’s talk.

The post Linking The Past: Why Nostalgia Marketing Works appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

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One of the most effective link building practices that help generate more traffic on a webpage is guest blogging. This is one of the best ways to be able to connect with an entirely new audience, and boost your rankings entirely. With that in mind, the quality of a guest blog is very crucial, as there are times that some poorly-made guest blogs can be seen as “spammy”, which can make it challenging for some people to post on guest blogging sites.

Guest blogging is not a simple feat to do, as you will always encounter different kinds of challenges when it comes to pitching on different kinds of sites. With that in mind, it is important to avoid some mistakes that would make it even more difficult. Here are some of these guest blogging mistakes that you should definitely avoid, along with some helpful advice.

Not providing a proper introduction

First impressions count a lot, which is why it is always a must to write an introduction that can catch someone’s attention. One of the common mistakes that link builders tend to do that affect their pitch is not provide links to their social profiles, which means that they would not be able to do a background check on the person wanting to post a guest blog.

Another mistake that commonly occurs in guest blogging pitches is not including your idea on the post itself. Blog editors are usually busy when it comes to going through different pitches, and seeing that your pitch does not even have an idea to begin with, they won’t even bother taking another look at your email.

Solution: Provide your personal details and social media links on your introduction to make sure that editors get to know more about you, and see you as a legitimate source. Next, it is mandatory that you already have a guest blog idea before even sending your pitch, as this is the main purpose of the pitch in the first place.

Poorly written pitches

This does not only apply for guest blogging pitches, but also for emails in general. Poorly written emails that have grammatical and spelling errors do not give a good impression to any editor you would be sending your pitch.

Solution: It is best to do some proofreading before sending any email, to make sure that you have all of the details accurate, and your grammar correct. There are a good number of grammar checking tools that you can use, such as the Grammar Checking Tool of SERPed.net, which is just one feature of this versatile tool.

Not following the proper guest blogging guidelines

Every guest blogging website has their own guidelines when it comes to posting, and not following them means not having your guest blog being posted. These guidelines include what topics the website prefers to post, topics that are not allowed, and how to submit your post. These guidelines are specific, and make sure that your guest blog would be compliant to what they are looking.

Solution: Carefully read these guidelines, as each website has different guidelines that you need to follow. Making sure that you comply would mean having your guest blog posted with no problem.

Using automated pitching templates

Automated pitching tools are commonly used in guest blogging, as it allows you to follow a specific email template that you can use to contact editors quicker than the usual. However, this has become used so much that editors know how templated emails look like and ignore them.

Solution: While using automated pitching email templates is not a bad thing, it is advisable to customize it for different editors, so they’ll know you applied your personal touch. A presentable email pitch is almost always worth a good look.

Insincere/Rude Tone

Tone is important when it comes to pitching anything, and it definitely pays to be kind and sincere. Having an insincere or rude tone on your pitch would definitely sway away editors from even considering your pitch.

Solution: Once again, proofreading is your friend. Have a fellow writer or editor take a look at your email pitch before sending it. You would be able to adjust the language and tone of your pitch, and make it sound even better than it was.

Not doing proper research before writing

Now that you have your post ready to be written, make sure that you have done your own share of research which helps you know more the topics and crucial details of your guest blog. Poorly written guest blogs would most likely not see the light of day, and will remain as just a pitch.

Solution: Gather around a good number of sources for each post that you are going to make to have a solid and well-written post. You can have as much sources as you would need, and this makes sure that what you are writing is accurate and true.

Forgetting your byline

As a guest blogger, a byline is a short description about you, along with a link to your personal website. This is placed on a guest blog for users to access. This helps you get more leads and new contacts, which is why forgetting to add one would make your guest blog incomplete.

Solution: Add a short, yet sweet byline which briefly describes you, what you do, and a link to your website. 2 to 3 sentences is already enough for this, which also means that it would not take up space on your blog.

Key Takeaway

Guest blogging is crucial in the world of SEO, and doing it well helps generate better traffic overall. By avoiding these mistakes, you are guaranteed that you would be able to get your guest blogs posted in no time.

If you have questions about guest blogging, or SEO in general, leave a comment below, and let’s talk.

The post Mastering Guest Blogging: Common Mistakes That You Should Avoid appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Have you done it?

Now I want to ask, is that how you do your content marketing campaign?

If I’m going to make a wild guess, I think “No” is probably your answer. And if I’m going to be really frank with you, this is also why your content marketing campaign is failing.

In this article, I would like to tell you about the step-by-step process of content marketing and the importance of each. You’ll also find misconceptions of many people about content marketing and how to avoid them. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll realize that as much as content marketing is fun and effective among any other online marketing strategies, it also requires time and patience.

Reason #1: You think you can write whatever topic you like

Sure you can, it’s your blog anyway. But if you’re aiming for visitors, take time to plan for your topics. You can’t write random topics and expect your traffic to spike.

Here’s how you should do it:

Option 1: Follow the skyscraper technique

If you’re not familiar with it yet, you may check it here or here.

You can use BuzzSumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer to look for topics that are already gaining good numbers of traffic and social shares, then create a better version of it.

This technique not just expedite the process of topic creation, but also gives you a clear view of what audience are really interested in.

Option 2: Find an answer to, “what is the world asking for?”

Some people assume that topics that they think are interesting are also interesting to others.

That’s why you end up writing content that only you can relate to.

You need to stop assuming and start building content that people are actually searching for.

You may browse questions in Quora where real people interact with each other. You’ll be amazed by the amount of questions people have, and how they crave for answers.

Once you know what people want to read, you can start writing epic content to quench their curiosity. When you’re done, don’t forget to share it on threads where you found those questions.

Reason #2: You think SEO is not important

Some marketers think that optimizing content for search engines is too technical, that SEO is only all about keyword stuffing.

Well, then, you’re missing a big chunk of success whenever you think that way.

SEO is a vital part of content marketing, hence you don’t have to overdo it.

In fact all you need is a little bit of keyword research, because let’s face it, you want to rank for keywords that people are searching for.

After that, you just need to allow yourself at least five minutes to put proper title tags, meta descriptions, slugs, alt tags for images, and interlinks.

Don’t take SEO for granted. There are tons of great content out there, but failed with putting proper meta descriptions and title tags, this diminished their chances of getting higher click-through rates.

Reason #3: You think that you’ll miraculously be viral

You might think that after hitting the ‘publish’ button that your job is over.

Heck no, you’re not even close.

You can’t write and hope that someone will notice and share your blog post. It doesn’t work that way.

When I started blogging about my personal experiences almost a year ago, I only have two readers: myself and a friend from college.

But, my blog isn’t a diary, and no matter how random my blogs are, I still want readers – we all do.

So, I started joining communities, started asking questions and started answering questions through my blogs. That’s when good things start happening.

To amplify your content, you can:

1. Join or build community – being part of a community will not just give you an avenue to share your post, but will also help you build relationships with other bloggers or experts
2. Broadcast – share your post in all your social media accounts, as well as through e-mail.
3. Tap the same people who already shared related content – if you used BuzzSumo or Content Explorer to look for popular content, there’s an option where you could check where it’s being shared, and who’s sharing it. List it down, and start reaching out to those people.

You may also check comments from the original post, and reach out to those who commented. Let them know about your remake content.

Here’s a good example of an outreach:

This usually works because you know that you’re tapping the right people.

4. Paid advertisement – if you have the budget, it’s completely okay to advertise your content through Google AdWords or Facebook. It’s been working for us so far.
5. All of the above – it’s best to try all the options

Reason #4: You disregard analytics

Creating topics, producing content, optimizing and amplifying it – I know, the whole process of campaign is such a tedious task, that’s why most marketers stop on the amplification part.

But measuring your success is very important, especially if you’re planning to do the same process again. You can’t keep following the same flow if you don’t have any proof that it’s working well for you.

Reason #5: You gave up too easily

Just because your efforts are not converting to high traffic or sales, doesn’t mean you should give up.

Content marketing takes time, and there will be occasions when you will need to analyze each step, find out what’s lacking. Then, there will also be times when the whole strategy wouldn’t work – at least not yet, and it’s okay.

Success doesn’t happen overnight.

When the SEO Hacker blog started mid of 2010, it didn’t have a lot of visitors.

Traffic is inconsistent.

These inconsistencies only inspired us to write better content. From 500 visits a month on 2010, now we’re getting 50, 000+ visits per month.

It’s because giving up is not part of our vocabulary.

Conclusion

The problem with many marketers is that they look for the easiest and fastest way to market their content, while it’s not bad, let’s admit that long term benefits usually come from long and hard work.

Now, it’s time for you to share your experiences. What’s your content marketing process? Do you have any content marketing misconceptions? And were you able to avoid them? Share us your insights by commenting below!

Bonus: Check out this article by Marco Mijatovic on the 3 best blogging SEO tips by experts.

The post Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Is Failing: Key Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Last week we shared to you some of content marketing ideas from experts. Today we will continue with the second and last part of our two-part  post about Content Marketing for start-ups according to experts.

Note: If you haven’t read yet the first part, I suggest you read it first. To give you a short recap, the following are the questions answered by industry experts:

• Question #1: What is content marketing and how do you use it in your start-up?
• Question #2: What are your objectives and key results in using content marketing?
• Question #3: In light of those objectives and key results, how do you measure your content marketing efforts?
• Question #4: How has your content marketing efforts impacted your company so far? (Traffic, shares, searchability, email leads, etc.)
• Question #5: Is there a special training you provide your writers in order for them to support your content marketing efforts?

Now, let’s continue with the rest of the questions…

Question #6: Who are the people in your team who are responsible for the company’s content marketing efforts? (Not the names, rather the job types)

Rand Fishkin: We have a marketing team of 16 folks today, and of those, 3 are exclusively dedicated to content (they’re called the “content team”). Cyrus Shepard leads that group, which includes two content strategists who help design, manage, edit, and curate all the stuff we publish. We also have a team of 4 on social, led by Jen Lopez, and they handle a lot of the promotion and interaction of that content through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. But these aren’t the only folks who are content creators or social interactors at Moz!

We have another dozen or so folks from around the company (myself included) who contribute heavily, and another 50-60+ who’ve occasionally written a blog post, published a visual, given a presentation and put it on Slideshare, or interacted with our customers on social networks. It’s a big, broad, cross-team effort.

But, beyond Moz, we actually have a huge team of contributors from around the web marketing world. Almost half our content isn’t created by Mozzers – it’s created by professionals who read Moz and want to give back (and leverage our platform to boost their own visibility). We love this symbiotic relationship and we do a lot of hard work to make sure that our guest contributors look good when they publish on Moz.

Neil Patel: We have one person per company. Their title is director of content marketing. They focus on creating content, recruiting writers, editing, posting, and promoting. They also measure the blogs traffic and figure out the types of content that drive more visitors and cause conversions.

Michele Linn: If you look at the composition of the CMI team, the editorial team is the largest team in the organization. I lead our efforts, but we have people who focus on various aspects of or content efforts. For instance, we have a managing editor for our print magazine, a director who focuses on original research, a director who leads our podcast efforts and managing editors or leads who manage our blogs (one for CMI and one for a new property, Intelligent Content Conference). We also have a person who curates or repackages all of our internal content and another person who is dedicated to “hardcore” editing our blog posts. We also employ a copy editor as well as some freelance writers.

Jeff Goins: It’s just me.

Question #7: Is there any other marketing method you are using to supplement your content marketing efforts?

Rand: Sure, I’ll list a few we lean on heavily:

• SEO is a huge traffic driver for our content, and helps us get very targeted audiences (more so than most other channels).
• Social media is often the catalyst for how content reaches our audience and new audiences, and it’s a powerful initial driver of traffic, attention, and links/referrals from other sites (which then help our SEO, too).
• Referrals make up 15-20% of our traffic, and come from all over the web – blogs and news sites, forums, online magazines, and many more.
• Email – specifically, our Moz Top 10 newsletter (sent out biweekly) – is a terrific source of traffic for our content, and for others. We usually include 2-3 links to Moz’s own works, and another 7-8 links to pieces published by others in our field. We want to showcase the best from around the web in our newsletter, not just the best from Moz.
• Paid traffic is something we’ve invested in very little when it comes to content promotion, but we have been dipping our toe in that water and may do more in the future if the ROI proves valuable.

Neil: No, content marketing is our main form by far. If we do have time we release webinars, but we first focus on content marketing.

Michele: We have a marketing team who focuses on email, social and other more traditional marketing.

Jerod Morris: Everyone in our company is responsible for content marketing. That is one of the byproducts of being a company built around content marketing concepts from the beginning. And nothing…NOTHING would work without the amazing efforts of our support staff. But in terms of day-to-day content creation and management, our CEO, VPs of Marketing, blog Editor-in-Chief, Chief Copywriter, Chief Marketing Officer, and Director of Special Projects have the most prominent roles in our content creation and promotion.

Nicole Kohler: Outreach! When we put a substantial amount of time into the production of a piece of content, we also try to put at least that same amount of time into telling people about it. Outreach can amplify your content immensely and earn you incredibly valuable pageviews, social shares, and links.

Rick Eliason: I am a strong believer in re-purposing content so that for a little extra work you can reach completely new audiences, tell your story in a slightly different way and ultimately get more bang for your buck. Working in a busy agency creating a piece of content is a big undertaking so being efficient in re-using it in slightly different ways where appropriate is important. We usually think about all the different ways it can be used so we factor this into our creation time and have a solid promotion plan in place where one instance supports the other and so on.

For example, a tips series could be posted individually on Google+ and Twitter, collected together and embedded into one blog post, then used to create a slide deck or even a typography style video and then finally into images to be posted on Pinterest or Instagram depending on the topic. From one initial research and creation task we have now created 5 or 6 different content types for a not-huge extra effort.

I also love using plugins and tools to help content go further such as Click-To-Tweet, Snip.ly, embedded slide decks etc. Next on my list is using Wistia’s powerful video platform features such as the in-video CTAs to drive actions.

Question #8: How much of your marketing efforts does content marketing consume?

Rand: I’d estimate content marketing in all its forms, including promotion and interaction/engagement, started as 100% of our marketing efforts and is now, after more hires, more investments in other channels like paid, business development, and product marketing, down to 65% of all the marketing we do.

Neil: It consumes 80%.

Jeff: 99%.

Rick: My day job is SEO so it has evolved over the past few years. Content marketing used to be used to help conjure up some links when necessary. Increasingly though content marketing fuels everything that contributes to success in SEO.

If you’d have asked me this question 3 years ago, I’d have said around 15%. Now its more like 80% with a 30/70 split between creation and promotion. The other 20% contains things like technical SEO, link reclamation, local SEO and drinking coffee.

Question #9: If there is one thing you are going to tell a start-up company regarding content marketing, what would it be?

Rand: Don’t expect success in your first year. It takes a long time to discover the content that truly resonates with your audience, and a long time to get the flywheel going on promotion and traffic-driving from sources like search, social, and referrals. If you anticipate a short-term return, you’re going to be disappointed. By the way – this is what makes content such a great investment; most of your competitors will give up long before it pays off.

Neil: If you are going to leverage this tactic, don’t expect results in the first 6 months. This is a long term approach.

Nicole: Content marketing isn’t about you. It’s about the people who are searching online to learn about a topic, to get answers to their questions, and to solve their problems. The last thing someone is thinking about when they search for “how do I solve this issue I’m having?” is “gee, I should buy something.”

The best way to start a relationship with a customer through content marketing is to thoroughly and completely answer their question or solve their problem. If you give them a tip or two, they’ll forget you as soon as their issue is resolved. If you go out of your way to help them, or deliver information that can’t be found anywhere else, you’ll have a better chance at shifting the focus from “I have an issue” to “wow, this was really helpful, I wonder what else this website has?”

Jeff: Do it.

Rick: For a start-up I think content marketing is even more important than a more established brand. A start-up needs recognition, recollection and visibility. Serendipity marketing – getting content in places where your target market is likely to frequent so they “discover” or stumble upon your brand – is so so important, yet many start-ups are quite lazy and think people will find them naturally.

If I was to say one thing to start ups its this: Piggy-back off others’ success. By that I mean find sites, blogs, vloggers, influencers etc that align with your brand and relationship-build like crazy. Find a way to get them to feature you, your content and your brand. Sometimes you can buy your way in – other times you will have to offer them something special, something exclusive, something they WANT to push to their audience that doesn’t compromise them in any way.

The best way I have found is by creating content in such a way that doesn’t exist elsewhere and makes them look good. Let them take the credit if necessary as long as you get exposure. Do this several times in the early days and you’ll be well on your way to establishing a brand of your own.

ProTip: Keep these relationships alive – you never know when you might need them later!

Conclusion

Like what we usually say, content marketing is a tedious task, as you won’t see results in a blink of an eye. But the best thing about this is that it works for many marketers, and their success is not limited to ranking to search engines, but to growing visits, customers and referrals.

You’re also an expert!

I hope you learn something from our content marketing experts, and that you’ll be able to apply the strategies they shared, or perhaps develop it in a way that you can really call it yours.

Maybe you want to share insights to these questions. Feel free to share it with us by commenting below!

The post Expert Insights: Content Marketing Strategies for Start-ups (Part 2) appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Have you ever asked yourself whether you really need to write blogs or not? How about growing your content in order to rank for search engines? Is it a requirement that you should meet?

Truth is, you can never tell unless you try. I’ve seen companies try to grow their business’ website without too much content. Others take a big step on content marketing, and eventually find their way on top of Google.

While many find content marketing as an alternative, others view it as “the only way.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I believe that the future of world wide web will be filled with relevant content – even better than what we have right now. Bloggers will write for people instead of search engines, and people will value the most relevant, helpful, and truthful content.

Maybe we’re on the same page on this, or you simply want to try this strategy but you feel like you need to understand it better first. Either that or maybe you just want to be certain that there are people like you, who run businesses and have found content marketing as a big help to their success – whatever it may be, I hope you find this post helpful to your career.

In this third part of our mini series, “Key Elements Your Website Needs to Improve Conversion Rate,” we asked some of the best content marketers in the industry today – questions as simple as, “what is content marketing,” to complex “how to’s” on the strategies they prefer and apply.

Note: This is the first half of our two-part post about Content Marketing for start-ups according to experts.

Question #1: What is Content Marketing and how do you use it in your start-up?

Rand Fishkin: Content marketing is the practice of creating and promoting content (blog posts, guides, visuals, videos, free tools, quizzes, email newsletters, and almost anything that can be consumed) to earn traffic, brand awareness, trust, and hopefully, eventually, conversions from your audience.

At Moz, we produce literally all of those things I just named and do a lot of promotion and optimization of them, too. We believe part of our mission is to help marketers understand how search engines, social platforms, and web users work and content is a huge part of that education process. Serendipitously, it also means that we have a terrific way to attract SEO professionals (our primary customers) to our site, which then often leads to a free trial or purchase of our software.

Neil Patel: Content marketing is the creation of information that benefits your current and potential customers. If you can educate them, you’ll gain a larger audience and it will cause your company or startup to generate more customers. A startup can use this by blogging. With a simple WordPress blog you can educate people.

Michele Linn: At Content Marketing Institute, we define content marketing as a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action. More here.

If you are a startup, content marketing can be the way you differentiate your business and engender trust with your customers and prospects. It’s something you can use to generate awareness in your brand all the way to helping customers evangelize your business.

Jeff Goins: I use content marketing to build trust with my audience and add value to their lives. I believe that giving is better than taking.

Rick Eliason: Content marketing is important to every single business operating on the web. It sounds like a horrendously large undertaking but chances are you are already doing it without even realising.

If you share a blog article on social media with the intention of getting people to read, learn something and remember the brand that produced it – that’s content marketing. If you spend time researching and crafting a customised product description, you are content marketing to help sell the product. (If you then go and create a video to show off the product’s features beyond what words can say, you are nailing content marketing!).

If you re-purpose some high-level, technical information into engaging slide decks, or distill that same information into beautifully simplistic infographics to get through to your end user – that again is content marketing.

Content marketing is not this flashy “flavour of the week” marketing tactic, it’s what savvy businesses have been doing for years – ensuring that the hunger for information from their target audience is not only sated, but is crafted in such a way that builds their appetite for more.

Venchito Tampon: Content is any useful brand elements that provides information and details on what the brand is all about (it could be the images in the office, teaser video and blog posts written on other relevant blogs).

It is commonly used in promoting a certain idea or message that is tied up to what the brand wants to share to its target audience.

Question #2: What are your objectives and key results in using content marketing?

Rand: The objectives are threefold:

1. Help people do better marketing through education, sharing, and discussion.
2. Build and grow the brand of Moz to web marketers worldwide.
3. Acquire targeted traffic that converts into subscribers of our software

We measure our key results through a lot of numbers at three levels – leading indicators, marketing KPIs, and business metrics that I’ve illustrated below:

Neil: The main objective is to educate and help potential customers. Not just with issues related to your business, but just help them with any problems they may be facing. This will cause them to indirectly sign up to your product or service.

Michele: Of course, your objectives for content marketing, and the subsequent results you are looking for, are dependent upon your business goals and objectives.

That said, if you are a startup, I would highly recommend using content marketing as the way to build your “owned” audience. An owned audience is one that has provided you with permission (i.e. opted in) to receive your emails. While Twitter followers or Facebook fans are useful, there is no substitute for having information about – and permission to contact – your audience.

Bonus Tip: Think beyond collecting an email address and strive to build our details of your list so you can better segment your audience and send them more relevant info as your business grows.

Jerod Morris: Our primary objectives with our content marketing is to produce useful content that helps our audience achieve their goals and leads to us achieving our goals, which means selling the Rainmaker Platform as well as StudioPress, Synthesis, and Authority.

Jeff: To help people. That’s it.

Rick: At Reload Digital, as a small agency, we use content marketing to drive awareness of the brand and our service offerings. We have carefully selected our target market and tried to understand their “Monday morning problems”, pain points and stress-inducing tasks and craft content around those.

We take a similar approach for our clients. We spend time getting to know the business as a whole (not just what they think they want to achieve online) and their core customer. Everything revolves around this. If you craft content for the wrong person – sure, you may get eyeballs, but it won’t lead to anything great. We want to ensure our clients benefit from the time we put into their content marketing by working with them to create things and an online experience that delivers to the bottom line.

Our measurements and metrics revolve around how that content is absorbed, leads people further down the purchase funnel or results directly in a sale. Of course the metrics vary depending on the client.

Venchito: There are two things you can measure in content marketing. One is ROI (return of investment) which is equivalent to the conversions generated from content assets less content production costs. The other is the viral potential of the content, which is now measured through the number of shares and quantity of backlinks pointing to the page or content.

Question #3: In light of those objectives and key results, how do you measure your content marketing efforts?

Rand: We have several tools that collect this data including Moz’s own Moz Analytics, Followerwonk, and Fresh Web Explorer. We also use True Social Metrics to keep track of our promotional and engagement on social networks. And, of course, we have our analytics tools like Google Analytics, which we’ve now bolstered with Omniture and Mixpanel.

The tools spit out lots of data, and our marketing team actually builds their own dashboard through Google Spreadsheets that anyone in the company can see. Thus, we can track over time the growth in Twitter followers, or the quantity of visits to our guides section of the site, or the average engagement of subscribers who signed up for a Moz account after visiting our site 8+ times vs. those who visited less than 4 times.

Finding signal amongst that noise, and patterns or trends to pay attention to – now that’s the hard bit.

Neil: I measure the results by traffic and conversions. The more visitors I see, the more people are seeing what I have to offer. And a portion of those visitors should convert into customers.

Michele: If your goal is building an audience, I would look at email subscribers plus percentage of profiles that are completed (i.e. which contacts do you have key info for?).

Jerod: We measure revenue, first and foremost. And we measure key engagement metrics like subscribers and open/click rates for our email lists. We also dive into Analytics data to know which posts and pages are performing well, and how important each channel is to conversions.

Jeff: If people tell me I’m helping them, I feel pretty good about what I do. I also pay attention to Google Analytics and email subscribers. I believe that if I help people, my audience will grow.

Rick: We use tools fit for purpose so it all depends on what part we are looking to measure. Of course Google Analytics always features but we also rely heavily on data coming through 3rd party platforms we have utilised to amplify content such as Slideshare, SocialBro and YouTube.

I have recently been playing around with Snip.ly to piggyback on others’ content to gain exposure to our articles for instance so I use data from that platform to gauge various things.

Venchito: For ROI-driven content marketing, you can measure your key results using Google Analytics (remember to set up conversion goals first before tracking results). For viral content marketing campaigns, you can use Ahrefs to identify the total number of domains linking to your content and Topsy and social sharing buttons installed in WordPress to see the number of social shares.

Question #4: How has your content marketing efforts impacted your company so far? (Traffic, shares, searchability, email leads, etc.)

Rand: We’ve seen incredible results. Moz today has nearly 2.5M visits a month (which is pretty huge for a niche, B2B software company), thousands of social interactions and shares each week, about 1M monthly visits from search alone, 250K+ subscribers to our email newsletter, and approximately 150 people taking a free trial of our software every day.

Neil: It’s the main way we drive sales for any of my businesses. Blogging is our number 1 channel by far.

Michele: This perhaps comes as no surprise considering the name of our organization, but content marketing has been instrumental in building our business. Traffic, shares, subscribers and event attendees (a key goal for us is Content Marketing World attendees) can be directly attributed to our content marketing efforts.

Jeff: It’s built the entire company.

Question #5: Is there a special training you provide your writers in order for them to support your content marketing efforts? After all, content marketing starts with content, right?

Rand: We don’t just think of content as written content – we do videos, interactive pieces, free tools, etc. But yes, we do have a Moz “voice” that we seek out and help train for in our work, and I think that’s helped keep the brand’s voice consistent over time and with our values.

Neil: Yes, we have all writers read this guide: The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing.

Nicole Kohler: We work with a lot of writers who are highly knowledgeable and skilled at their craft. However, just because someone is a good writer doesn’t mean they’re a good content marketer. If I’m working with someone on a content project, I try to do two things right away:

1. Talk to them about their content’s role or position in the sales funnel (ex. “This will be someone’s first exposure to the brand…”).
2. Show them very specific examples of similar content that has worked well that they can use as a reference.

It’s not uncommon to run into situations where the writing delivered is world-class, but there are strong calls to action or self-promotional bits littered throughout the content. That’s why taking those first two steps is so important, to me, because a large majority of the content I oversee would fail if it started with a hard sell. So in that sense, content marketing doesn’t necessarily start with content – it starts with education.

Jeff: Yep. Here’s a free course.

Rick: We are just going though a repositioning and as such are taking a hard look at not only the style, tone and topics of writing but also how it is presented to the end user. What’s great is we all have a say in it all and all contribute to the Reload voice which is an amalgamation of all of us – therefore there is no training as such, but we all come from slightly different backgrounds and all educate each other from our individual strengths and what we think will work well in each situation which is a really good way to keep the team bonds strong.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a very tedious task. It will definitely take your time – from planning, down to its execution. But, if your goal is to bring value to people, just like what these folks are doing, then this is definitely for you.

So, stay tuned for the second half of this post as we will be sharing with you more strategies that support content marketing efforts, from the best experts around, as well as competent advice for startups.

The post Expert Insights: Content Marketing Strategies for Start-ups (Part 1) appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Remember when newspapers were the most efficient and credible medium in gathering news, even advertising products?

That was the ‘content marketing’ we had decades ago. Nowadays, we have too much that we tend to exert lesser efforts every time, when searching for news or updates about certain events. Perhaps it’s because we’re only a click away from everything we need to know.

But, what’s more amazing about content marketing is how it suddenly became the main strategy of the many – to the point that majority of marketers are only dependent with content marketing, and believe it or not, it works for them.

In a recent study conducted by Content Marketing Institute together with Direct Marketing Association UK, in UK alone, 88% are using content marketing and 48% of them find it effective.

The question now is, will these statistics increase in the next months to come? Or will we find another, perhaps a better way to market our products and services?

My answer is, yes. It will only increase. And that’s not just a wild guess. I would prefer calling it the obvious answer backed by conspicuous events from the past, and those that are happening now.

Past of Content Marketing

Years ago, we’ve seen how digital marketers stepped out of their comfort zone by creating different kinds of content – infographics, videos, podcasts, slideshows, eBooks – everything to avoid being stagnant from the typical blog posts.

The rise of content marketing had also inspired many developers to create tools and applications that will only strengthen the desire to inspire marketers to move from traditional marketing to content marketing. Tools like Buzzsumo, Alltop, Contently, Dribble, Evernote, Trello, Canva, Unmetric and a lot more!

We’ve also found it more effective to invest in producing great content to rank and be viral than to just build links from different sites without the desire to share valuable insights.

Present of Content Marketing

The present of content marketing is nowhere far from its past. How we innovated before, just to come up with different ways to share content, is still how we do things now. And even though we feel like we’ve already used up all the possible types of content and resources, we could still think out of the box. One example would be the use of GIF’s, instead of posting regular photos , because it’s proven to get more attention and make blogs viral.

We’re becoming more and more creative.

And as days have passed, we are more convinced that marketing is incomplete without great, compelling content. This is the same explanation as to why many social media, SEO and even PPC strategies fail – because there’s no good content to support these strategies. We’re becoming more and more aware of the need to produce good content to back other strategies, may it be link building, social media managing or email marketing.

These are all the effects of Google’s initiative to make search more user-friendly and favor only relevant results – forcing many to invest in content marketing.

Future of Content Marketing

The past and present of content marketing will remain, and will improve.

1. Guest blogging will change its meaning. Guest blogging will no longer be for the sake of link building but to purely, and intentionally, share relevant ideas.
2. Search will give more favor to valuable content. Like I mentioned earlier, Google’s algorithm will keep on improving – eliminating black-hat strategies.
3. Many will start writing for people and not for search engines. Because of Google search’s constant improvement, those that make up the fibers of SEO will be keeping up by investing more in valuable content for people, instead of for search engines.
4. Visual content will grow. The impact of images will continue to be the reason why great numbers focus on creating and using images to support and manifest their ideas. With that, the demand for infographics, as well as decks, will only increase in as time goes by.

But, there will also be new trends this coming year.

1. Guest video will start. We’ve seen guest blogging become the most powerful tactic in link building and in growing network and reach. Aside from that, we’ve seen how video marketing has evolved. Combining these two strategies would be one of the main things to look forward to and most exciting that could ever happen next year.
2. We’ll see a decrease with reader’s retention rate, resulting to the creation of more concise articles and materially relevant images. Even though we’ve heard of predictions saying audiences will find whitepapers and eBooks more relevant, with all the available resources – videos, photos, blogs, slides – people will look for the best and most straightforward content they deem efficient.

A lot of things could and would happen, but one thing I’m pretty sure of is that marketers would be more sensitive to the needs of their audiences – strategies will be more personalized and focused on improving user-experience.

We’ll see how marketers bend some of the old and traditional strategies. Just like creating and managing social accounts, we’ll find that more and more businesses will work on building their social presence. But, in the same light, we’ll also see how many will shut their social accounts down after realizing that it’s not working for them.

So, what do you think? Would next year be the year you strategize with content marketing? Tell us more about it by commenting and sharing your thoughts below!

The post What Content Marketing Will Look Like in 2015 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.