Secret to Create Awesome Content

If you needed heart surgery, would you let a plumber operate? Me neither! Obviously, you’d want an experienced surgeon to do the job. You’d be wise to follow the same line of thinking when it comes to your content program. Let’s look at why it’s important to work with professional writers.

Your content is a significant brand element

Companies spend millions – even billions – of dollars creating and protecting a strong brand. They set strict branding standards, and are vigilant about making sure folks abide by them. Yet these very same organizations don’t think twice about allowing just about anyone to write for them.

This is a problem.

However, businesses need to recognize that the content they publish represents their brand, and that it has the potential to affect them — their image, authority, credibility, and sales — in a positive or negative fashion.

Given that, companies should be just as concerned about the content they develop as they are with other important branding elements. Because of its importance, they should establish some standards and work with professional writers to produce the best content possible.

Content that misses the mark

Now you might be thinking, sure, professional writers and journalists are great for newspapers and magazines, but do I really need them for my content program?

The answer is yes! In fact, I believe they are the secret to creating awesome content!

I speak from experience that straddles the worlds of content marketing and journalism. Prior to becoming a search marketing manager, I was trained as a journalist, and wrote for Hearst Media. But today in my digital marketing work, I regularly see content that could have been so much more impactful if a professional writer had been involved. How so?

There are many reasons. I often see companies that cover the same topics again and again. Or businesses that produce material that speaks to an isolated group, such as practitioners, rather than to a wider community that includes their customers and prospects. Or content that fails to cover the basics, is hard to follow, or lacks value. In each case, poor quality material – content that misses the mark — leads to a less than positive brand image.

When I encounter such content, I can’t help but wonder why the company even bothered, and if they realize how it reflects on their brand.

Understanding the value of professional writers in content marketing today

But professional writers can do a lot for your content efforts. Because of their training, they are able to cover a variety of interesting and relevant topics, support their stories with rich sources, and illustrate their subject in a way that excites the reader.

They also work to remove jargon from their material in order to convey your message to your target audience clearly and succinctly, help you reach the widest audience possible, and differentiate you from the competition.

As a result, the outstanding content they produce will enhance your organic search metrics and increase your inbound marketing leads.

Overall, trained writers will help your content efforts position your company as a true authority that is knowledgeable, completely professional, and worthy of consideration.

Journalism tips to improve your content program

Below are 4 tips from the world of professional journalism that will help your business get the most out of your content efforts:

1. Avoid “one-trick pony” writers:

Whether you develop your company’s content in-house or via contract or guest authors, you should strive to create material that covers a wide range of topics. Having a variety of content will help you improve reader engagement, and boost your company’s keyword authority, search visibility, and inbound leads. Given that, it’s important to work with writers who can discuss many subjects, not just one or two topics.

But often, companies find that their content efforts are limited by their writers’ range. For instance, a business in the digital marketing industry might have a writer who can develop content on social media engagement tactics or on-page optimization, but that’s about it. While these topics are perfect for their audience, what’s next? How will they develop additional material on other topics so they can continue demonstrating thought leadership and authority in the marketplace?

This is exactly the danger of working with a one-trick pony. You need writers who can offer you variety and depth. When you are ready to hire writers to develop your company blog or website, look for three things: experience articulating a variety of topics, a range of understanding (from basic 101 advice to high-end, technical processes), and the ability to research and discuss new topics.

A good way to assess the strength of a potential writer is to ask them to develop three short articles that cover different subjects. For example, you could have them write one article on a topic directly related to your company and its services, and the other two articles could be on current events and/or something completely niche, such as alternative forms of energy, or how to build a computer step-by-step.

By challenging potential writers in this way, you’ll not only be able to get a feel for their current knowledge base, but also have the chance to assess their ability to learn about new areas and expand their range.

2. Make sure your writers know what the five W’s are

Before a great writer figures out how to introduce creativity and excitement. into a story, they make sure to cover the fundamental points first: Who, What, Where, When, and Why. And it’s important that your writers do the same. Addressing the 5 W’s and developing the content in an inverted pyramid format will help you capture online users’ attention. By immediately offering the most critical points of the story to the reader at the start – and funneling the rest down — you are able to satisfy their demand for information and answers, and position yourself in a way that supports their continued interest in your business website. Style and creativity are important for keeping your readers engaged and interested, but you need to work with writers who are able to provide an educated base for your readers to progress through. This will help ensure that they see your organization as credible and intelligent.

Producing a wealth of content that demonstrates your organization’s depth of knowledge will also help search engines view you as an authority. As search engines become more sophisticated in how they judge the quality of content, working with writers who offer substance and creativity will go a long way in making your company’s digital properties more attractive. As a result, search engines will pull content from them on a regular basis.

3. Leverage your writers’ talents to create the greatest reach

When you develop your content marketing strategy, make sure that the material you publish can reach and attract a large volume of online users. This will help your business continue to grow in recognition, search visibility and of course, sales.

To accomplish this, you need to tap into the full range of your writers’ talents. Strive to work with writers who understand how to create a mixture of hard news and evergreen content.

Hard news is anything that is current and only relative to the time period it was published within. For example, a piece published on Google celebrating Julius Richard Petri 161 birthday with a petri dish doodle on May 31, 2013 would be considered hard news.

Conversely, evergreen content is considered be timeless information that can be understood and utilized regardless of what is going on at the moment. An article on the top 7 SEO tasks to complete before thinking about hiring an SEO agency would fall into this category.

Working with writers who are able to produce an assortment of hard news and timeless content will benefit your business in two ways: it will help you capture immediate conversions in the short-term, and improve your search visibility in the future.

4. Create interest and differentiation with exclusive interviews

There is a reason that newspapers — and the media in general — promote interviews that are exclusive to their publication or outlet: it attracts significant attention that is exclusive to them!

And it is a very effective strategy.

But, if you were to quickly scan your competitors’ blogs, you would be hard-pressed to find any that offered their audience exclusive insight from a popular thought contributor or expert.

This is a mistake.

All too often, businesses develop content that is completely dissected and discussed in technical terms, rather than elaborated on and supported by actual experts and authorities.

Instead, you should strive to incorporate exclusive interviews into your content strategy. Have your writers be responsible for setting-up interviews with industry experts that pertain and relate to your company.

This approach will enable you to offer your audience something that they can only obtain from you, which will separate your brand from the competition.

In addition, not only does this tactic increase credible links to your site (since others will want to relay your exclusive content to their audiences and social followers), but also it positions your company as exceptional since you have such industry experts on hand.

Good writing is at the heart of a successful content program

Content marketing is very popular today because it pulls your audience in by providing value. Consequently, everyone is trying to generate more and more content. However, the quality is often lacking. Remember, good writing is at the heart of a successful content program. If you really want to leverage your content to improve your organic search metrics, establish your organization’s authority and credibility, and boost your inbound marketing leads, work with professional writers. They are the secret to creating awesome content! Just as you wouldn’t let a plumber perform heart surgery, why would you let just anyone write for your brand?

What do you do for your content program? Do you work with professional writers? What have you done to produce quality content? Do you have any tips you can pass along?

Using Social Media to endorse Your Local Business

Too often local businesses set up social media accounts and then leave them empty. I'd more or less rather a business owner not even have a Facebook page than create one and walk away from it. Social media marketing is a incredible way to promote your local business, connect with current and potential customers, and drive foot traffic through your doors but you only get out what you put in! Social media is not a set it and forget it platform, so be sure you are actively inviting and encouraging your customers to get involved. Ask questions, post pictures, promote specials--give them a reason to connect with you! The more times you can interrelate with someone online the better chance you have of ultimately drawing them into your store.

Here are 3 ways local businesses can use social media marketing to drive physical foot traffic and grow their online occurrence:

1. Connect with local bloggers and online personalities in your industry.

Most cities have their fair share of local bloggers and online personalities and these are the kind of online authorities you can unite with via social media to help promote your local business. For instance, a vegetarian restaurant could reach out to vegetarian food bloggers in their area, local food growers and suppliers, the organizers of farmer's markets and so forth. While these online personalities might not have a huge national presence chances are they have a strong foothold in the local community, which is precisely where your foot traffic is coming from! Invite them to check out your local business, ask them to review your products, form business partnerships and cross-promotions and so forth. They can promote your business using their own social media accounts to a wider audience and help draw new customers in.

2. Continue involved with other community events.

It's dangerous to be overly self-promotional. Yes, you have every right to endorse your events and sales on social media but you have to remember that social networking sites are not just another soapbox for you to stand out and talk about how awesome you are. You are a local business so get involved in the community and stay involved with related local events! For example, a book store could sponsor and help promote the library's summer reading program. Or a pet store might volunteer at the local shelter's adoption day and promote a "pet of the week" on their social profiles to help animals find new families. When you help promote other local businesses you also get the chance to introduce your brand to their customers/social followers, which might drive more foot traffic your way in the end.

3. Reward your social media followers with a special offer.

In addition to special discounts and sales for your best customers, local SEO expert Chris Silver Smith had an outstanding idea for your social media followers. He suggested that local businesses "have a night where your store is empty and social media can be a great option for filling the place up with more customers and more sales!" For example, a local clothing store could host a fashion night in for their best customers and give them the first chance to buy new pieces. A restaurant could hold a wine tasting or create a special pre-fixe meal that is just for their social media followers. Turn a slow night into a huge success for your local business and foster some good will with your best customers! At the event be sure to give confidence your social followers to take and post pictures, check-in on Facebook, use an event hashtag on Twitter and so forth.

In my opinion, just about every local business can influence social media in some way to not only augment their SEO and online presence, but also help drive foot traffic. The key is to keep finding new ways to give your social followers a reason to interrelate with your brand. Sales and promotions are great, but what else can you do to attract attention, both online and in-store?

Google: Improve Your Site's Rank by Building High-Quality Sites, Not Links

For years webmasters have been following one of SEO’s golden rules: get lots of quality backlinks in order to help your site get top rankings on Google. And over the past couple years this has become a lot trickier as Google began penalizing sites with poor quality backlinks.

As a consequence, many webmasters have shifted a lot of their work from link building to creating quality content that visitors want to share, and now Google has updated their Ranking help article to reflect accurately this.

First spotted by Erik Baemlisberger, the article now states:

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.

Previously, the article stated:

In general, webmasters can look up the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.

For those who despise link building, and the negative SEO aspect of competitors pointing bad links to websites, the fact that Google is putting greater importance on sites that users want to use and share will be good news to many webmasters.

It also isn't surprising that Google wants to put that emphasis on the sharing feature as well, particularly with Google+ and how it interacts with searchers who are logged into their Google account. I believe aspects of this will be given greater weight in the search algorithm, at least until the spammers figure out how to develop it on a large scale.

Google's Matt Cutts not long ago signalled this shift, when he mentioned that putting too great of an emphasis on link building is one of the top 5 basic SEO mistakes.

"I wouldn't put too much of a tunnel vision focus on just links," Cutts said. "I would try to think instead about what I can do to market my website to make it better known within my community, or more broadly, without only thinking about search engines."

New in AdWords: Add Descriptions to Sitelinks

Google AdWords is introducing an additional new feature to encourage advertisers to exchange their campaigns to enhanced campaigns. Google is now allowing advertisers to suggest specific text that will display for their sitelink descriptions within their ads.

Back in February 2012, Google began showing sitelinks displaying additional detail on some Google AdWords advertisements. This was pulled from other ads in the count or for those advertisers who created sitelink information within their My Client Center.

Now, Google’s allowing advertisers to identify, or nominate, the specific text advertisers would like to appear for their sitelink descriptions. This gives advertisers much more control over what is appearing on their improved advertisements and to be specific about what text they would like to appear.

For example, here's how the new sitelink details look on a search for [ses san francisco]:

This is pretty significant for advertisers to consider, since Google has found that click-through rates on ads that appear with sitelinks with further detail are much higher than traditional AdWords ads. They also states that the sitelinks offer additional detail that searchers frequently find more useful and relevant.

If you haven’t upgraded to improve campaigns, the option will not be active until those campaigns have been upgraded. All upgraded campaigns will now find a new description field when creating or editing a sitelink.

It is worth noting that not all advertisers will see sitelink extensions due to a variety of reasons such as quality score, positioning, landing page quality, and other ad extensions within the same campaign, search terms used, and the significance of competitor's ads on the same page.

With all campaigns being upgraded to improve campaigns on July 22, it is worthwhile to start upgrading accounts now and take advantage of the new sitelinks before all advertisers have it enabled and competition for those sitelinks being displayed becomes much greater.

Is Link Building Dead? 3 Tips for Link Builders Post-Penguin 2.0

”We’ve detected that some of the links pointing to your site are using techniques outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines….”

For enterprise SEOs, receipt of this notification is typically followed by a deep, sinking feeling in your chest.

You check your keyword head-terms in the SERPs and understand that you can’t find your website anywhere.  A lump forms in your throat as the realization sets in — you’ve been penalized by Google.

The Link Building Challenge

Google’s crackdown on unnatural links over the past few years has raised the question within SEO circles: “Is link building dead?”

The reason folks might think its dead is because Google’s definition of what constitutes an “unnatural” or “artificial” link seems a bit…broad:

“Any links intended to influence a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme.”

Not to talk about the penalty for “suspicious links” is quite severe. Whereas sports celebrities are fined or suspended from a few games for breaking the rules, businesses whose websites violate Google’sWebmaster Guidelines could find themselves losing a lot more.

Some good businesses have taken main financial losses as a result of the infamous Google Penalty. Estimates suggest that costs to big box retailers and enterprise e-commerce companies might easily hit $5 million per month in lost natural search revenue.

Smaller businesses facing such penalties could end up ruined, having to close their doors.  Yes, Google can put you out of business — whether you deserve it or not.

The fear Google has instilled into the hearts of SEOs over bad links is unparalleled.  Is it any wonder that so many are asking, “Is link building a dying art?”

Link Building Lives!

The answer to the above question is an emphatic, “No!” Link building is not dead; in fact, link building is alive and well. But you do need to be careful.

While all the recent reports about Penguin 2.0 might lead traditional SEOs to advice against active link building, the vast majority of page 1 rankings are on page 1 because of their link profile.

Links are Google’s “weak link” in the search industry. Google still remains heavily dependent on links as its primary form of ranking websites within its search results pages.

So, how can enterprise SEOs navigate link building without getting penalized for building links? How can you rank organically, using good links, while avoiding penalties? Read on for the high road to link building, according to three link experts.

1. Perform a Link Audit

This is hands-down, your first step. Conducting a link audit will need several phases and tools; however, if you follow Chuck’s advice here, you’ll be able to get through it.

In How to Conduct a Link Audit, Chuck Price does a great job walking readers through all the steps concerned in a link audit. Whether you plan to do any link building or not, I highly recommend you do a link audit now — doing so may help you avoid possible issues down the road.

Chuck explains how to “Download Latest Links” from Google Webmaster Tools and how to get a complete backlink profile. This will allow you to decide which links need to be reviewed and considered for removal/disavowal, including:

Links from a domain not indexed in Google

Links from a website containing a malware or virus warning

Links on the same page as spammy, unrelated links

Links on a page with Google PageRank that is gray bar or zero

Links coming from link networks

Sitewide links – especially blogroll and footer links

Paid links

2. Keep It Relevant

Your next significant step is to ensure relevancy. Ken Lyons wrote an excellent article on how to build relevant links to your website.

Ken’s article, “Link Building: Get Relevant or Die Trying,” is a fantastic read. He includes Authoritative Guides, Infographics, Industry Spotlights, Group Interviews, Industry Awards, Guest Posts, and, yes…”Buying Links” as a applicable link tactic. This is a must-read for all SEOs.

Ken describes link relevancy as Google’s way to determine trust, decipher the topic or context of a target document, deliver relevant information in the right context (i.e., relevant query results) and sort out link spam.

Speaking of relevancy, Ken also provides tips on a few more relevant link tactics such as:

In-Depth Reviews: noteworthy products or services

Free Tools: prime targets for link outreach

Curated Content: extensive articles and weekly round ups

Broken Link Building: unearthing high-authority, relevant link opportunities

Niche Microsites: dedicated to a exact topic or niche

3. Exploit PR Strategies

Lastly, I want to recommend something not often elaborated upon: using PR to build links. Cassie Gillette, Director Online Marketing at KoMarketing, has an outstanding article written recently, “5 PR Strategies You Can Use To Build Links Now.”

Cassie reviews PR-focused tools that let you find content, post pitches and seek those looking for sources — all great ways to “make connections and discover potential link opportunities.”

She points out the fact that reporters are using social media to source stories, which has given search marketers, “a huge window of opportunity for link building.” She also offers tools for creating segmented reporter lists and gathering data.

Another enormous source of links can be event interviews. Cassie points out how there is always someone looking to interview attendees before, during and after the show — at some conferences, they’ll even set up interviews for you!

Lastly, she suggests monitoring editorial opportunities, which can offer quite a few outstanding methods for building high quality inbound links to your website.

Thanks to these creative professionals above (and there are many more), link building is alive and well. Everyone knows that links are the bedrock for SEO results — so I persuade you to consider these tactics.

This isn’t the end-all answer to link building by any means; however, enterprise SEOs can’t go wrong by including the above steps in their linking strategy: 1) perform your link audit, 2) keep it relevant, and 3) develop your PR strategies.

Google Targets Spammy Queries, Bad Mobile Sites with latest Ranking Updates

Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has announced that a new ranking update, one that targets spammy queries is now live. Separately, Google is warning that if you have a bad mobile website, your search rankings will soon be hurting.

New Ranking Update for Some Spammy Queries

The ranking update for spammy queries, which will impact 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent of queries in English, shouldn’t come as a surprise to most. This was one of the changes we were told by Cutts to look forward from Google this summer. . Cutts particularly mentioned that the change would affect queries such as “payday loans” on Google.co.uk and pornographic queries.

The ranking update is a work in progress, Cutts noted on Twitter, adding that it’s an “a multifaceted rollout that will be happening over the next 1-2 months.”

Smartphone Rankings Changes

Bad mobile SEO will cost you. In a post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog, Google warns that “we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

Google called out two specific areas in their blog post – faulty redirects (“when a desktop page redirects smartphone users to an irrelevant page on the smartphone-optimized website”) and smartphone only errors (when “sites serve content to desktop users accessing a URL but show an error page to smartphone users”).

Google’s advice on properly configuring your mobile site: “Try to test your site on as many different mobile devices and operating systems, or their emulators, as possible.”

In addition, just as site speed has played a part in Google’s web search ranking algorithm since 2010, you can expect site speed to have an impact on the rankings of mobile sites, Cutts announced at the SMX Advanced conference.

Google under Fire Again for Providing Easy Access to Prescription Drugs

Google is allowing illegal prescription drug activity online and profiting from it, according to a report by USA Today.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood claimed Google was up to its old tricks by allowing websites to be found that sell illegal prescription drugs.

"On every check we have made, Google's search engine gave us easy access to illegal goods, including websites which offer," Hood said.

USA Today also reported the group Digital Citizens Alliance establishes Google was allowing ads on YouTube videos that feature illegal content, such as buying drugs without a prescription.

While the ad itself might not be for illegal drugs, USA TODAY speculates the profit still remains. For example, videos on how to buy painkillers without a prescription show ads for managing chronic back pain.

Google: No Pain, No Gain?

You may remember the 2011 debacle when Google paid $500 million to avoid criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice for profiting from ads by Canadian pharmacies illegally selling prescription and non-prescription drugs.

It came to light that Google was aware of the activities all the way up to CEO Larry Page, and one con man that profited from the Internet giant's loose regulations became instrumental in the Google pharmacy sting, which uncovered the illegal activities.

In a statement, Google said of the recent allegations by Hood, "We take the safety of our users very seriously and we've explained to Attorney General Hood how we insist on policies to combat rogue online pharmacies and counterfeit drugs. In the last two years, we've removed more than 3 million ads for illegal pharmacies, and we habitually remove videos that are flagged for violating YouTube's Guidelines regarding dangerous or illegal content."

Google Now: Taking the Search Out of Search

In a world where we're distracted by some 30,000+ brand messages per day, effortlessness in the user experience is becoming a highly attractive quality. Crafty Google, in realization of this, has been working overtime on the most effortless experience possible.

Released as a standalone app for Android and as an integrated update to the Google App for iOS, Google Now assesses the behavior of a user logged into his or her Google account, and, over time, develops an understanding of what that user wants and needs.

As engagement with the app progresses, customized content begins to filter into the UI in the form of categorical “cards” – weather alerts, breaking news, calendar reminders and so forth – all compiled based on past behavior, current context, and ongoing communication.

The more you search and use other Google tools like Gmail and Google Calendar, the more Google learns until your require to actually expend any effort whatsoever – talking, tapping, or otherwise – dissipates altogether:

Wondering what the weather will be like today? Just open now and the weather card will automatically display the forecast for your current location.

Bad at remembering special occasions? Now will pop up reminder cards from your Google Calendar for birthdays.

Running late on your commute home? Now will automatically create a card with info on the next train or bus to your destination.

Essentially, Google Now takes the search out of search.

 Google Now Cards

The app launched with 15 preset categories including such essentials as Gmail, Places, sports, travel, and news, but the early iteration was just the beginning.

At the recent Google I/O conference, several new categories were announced, including music, video games, books, TV episodes, public transportation, and research cards – a custom category based on specific niche topics you've shown interest in by virtue of search or other behaviors. It's everything you would have searched for, served up proactively before you even think to search for it.

Though the tools for actually performing a search are pretty impressive as well. As of last count, there are 60+ known commands, which, when typed or spoken will produce results cards.

For example, ask for a stock quote, the definition of a word, the square root of pi, who directed "Gone with the Wind" – and you'll get results served up neatly in card format. As an added bonus, Android users enjoy additional features that put together deeply into other applications, enabling them to use commands to verbally compose an email or text message, make a note, and set a reminder or alarm.

A Glimpse of the Future of Predictive Search

Call it what you like – predictive, unified, aggregated – Google Now is a glimpse at the seamlessly personalized, contextually complex, nascent future of search.

Picture a business traveler in a foreign city for work with Google Now installed on her smartphone – or, even more likely, her Google Glasses.

The viewfinder of her glasses with built-in Now functionality will guide her seamlessly throughout her day in a unfamiliar locale, presenting visual maps and directions to her calendared meetings, flashing safety alerts, translating price tags into more familiar currency and presenting her with real-time tips on local business etiquette – all without her having to do more than blink.

She'll be able to text, email, and post to Google+ simply by speaking and gazing at her surroundings as she goes about her day, more efficiently than if she had a real human assistant in tow.

This is a blue skies vision of what's likely to come but it's fair to say that now is truly the first essential personal assistant worthy of the title.

Still, there are the Requisite Drawbacks

As with Siri, the voice activated functions have a way to go in terms of usability, though this is bound to get better with time. And, in order for a user to truly enjoy the full benefits, one needs to be using Gmail and Google Calendar not to mention an Android device (it is a Google service, after all)

Like all things Google, advertising based on your data is predictable. Google has already announced that brands will be able to insert markup into their email campaigns that will join together seamlessly with Now, triggering special content cards and alerts when a user receives an email to their Gmail address.

It's already possible for airline boarding passes to be automatically added to the Now interface from a Gmail message (an improvement on the Passbook model that requires proactive user input) and it's likely that offers and incentives won't be too far behind.

As Now catches on, it's very potential that we'll see more users migrating to Gmail and other Google tools in an effort to get the best possible Now experience.

Brands Will Make the Most of Google Now

It's also very likely that we'll see more and more brands asking their search agencies to build up a Now strategy that aligns with their SEM and SEO planning. With Google dominating mobile search and free Google tools like Gmail continuing to increase in popularity, it's a given that Now will become status quo for users and consequently, for marketers as well.

Of course, it's too early in the game to know what the rules for optimization, both usual and paid will be. At present, a limited number of partner brands have been built-in the beta, allowing them to tag their email content with elements that will be flagged by Now and allow for translation to cards.

But there's little doubt that tools for brands will be rolling out in short order. The inherent effortless of it – what we referred to earlier as “taking the search out of search” is really what will cinch uptake for end users and brands alike. The congestion of data in our always-on, real-time world is making us crave simplicity – the more wired we get, the lazier we become.

'Technology Should Do the Hard Work'

As Google CEO Larry Page himself said at Google I/O last month that “Technology should do the hard work so that people can get on with doing the things that make them happiest in life."

The brands that are tuned in to that simple fact, like Google, are the ones that will win out in the future not just of search but of marketing overall.