Here are 12 to-dos that will help you succeed with your online marketing (in a somewhat particular order)…

1 – Critique your site

We’re always looking to improve ourselves – lose weight, eat healthier, make more money, etc. The best way to achieve these goals is to first identify our bad habits through honest self-examination.

Your site should have goals too – get more traffic, convert more traffic into leads, etc. In order to achieve these goals you will first need to critique your site and identify those “bad habits”.

Make an honest and objective appraisal of the quality of your site’s design, structure, content, calls to action, etc. You will need to look at your site statistics (Google Analytics) to see which pages are popular and which sections of the site need some love.

Think of this as the equivalent to sending your site to a shrink for some deep analysis. Sometimes you might be too biased to make an objective assessment. If so, consider bringing in a consultant.

Or you could ask a handful of clients to critique your site. If you ask clients, make it easy for them. Put together a survey they can fill out online within a few minutes, and make sure you ask them what would make the site better for them. Either way prepare to be surprised by the results.

2 – Develop a keyword list

Some will argue that this is the first thing you must do before engaging in any sort of online marketing. Be that as it may, it is simply important that you DO have a list.

As you engage in any online marketing activities – blogging, social media marketing, email marketing, white papers, video, eBooks, etc – you will want to have a list of targeted words and phrases that are important to you AND your clients. They are important in the sense that these are the words and phrases your clients use to find you in an online search.

There are a few ways to go about developing this list. You will again want to take a look at your site statistics to see what words visitors to your site are using to find you. You will also want to do some searches on those words and see what the competition is doing. I am over-simplifying a bit of course.

There are many resources out there to help you with this process. For the purposes of this article, I will leave you with some suggested resources…

1. Outspoken Media
2. SEOMoz
3. Search Engine Land
4. Search Engine People
5. Google

3 – Eliminate bad content

Hopefully as you review your site and your site statistics in order to develop a keyword list, you will realize that some of your content has got to go. Maybe it’s a page that gets no traffic because it’s out of date, poorly promoted or just plain wrong. Instead of putting “lipstick on a pig,” try a radical approach… get rid of it.

Bloat used to be OK. For some search engine professionals (who shall remain nameless), it was part of a content strategy. Not anymore.

It is much more effective to think about all content as it relates to the intended user. If it serves them no purpose or – worse yet – confuses or misinforms them, get rid of it. Pretty simple.

4 – Rewrite old content

Of course not all of your old content is completely useless. There could be old blog posts, white papers, case studies, etc that still hold some relevance. Instead of eliminating them simply because they’re old, why not try and re-imagine them (h/t to Content Rules).

Take a fresh look at old content. Perhaps try rewriting it or leave the original content and add to it. Think about a news story online. Sometimes news sites will leave the original story for context and then offer updates below.

Again, consider the user. What is the best way to rework this old content in a way to better serve a client?

5 – Develop a content strategy

If you haven’t read Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman, do so, soon. In this book you will find a very easy to follow overview of content marketing. In online marketing, content is king and content marketing is the king’s horse.

On today’s internet the companies that offer valuable information to users where they are seeking it are the clear winners. If you are a sought after resource online, you will get leads and your site will get traffic.

Content marketing is how this is done. You write blog posts that empower the user. You shoot video that educates and entertains. You create presentations and host webinars that inform. And you do these things through your channels – your website, your blog, your social media channels, etc.

But before you do any of this, you want to have a strategy. Once you have looked through your existing site (and ripped it apart) and identified the needs of your target audience, you’ll be able to better identify what content you need to create and where you should post and promote that content so it’s easy to find.

Some other resources that will help you with your content marketing efforts are these incredibly useful blogs…

1. Marketing Profs
2. Junta 42 and Content Marketing Institute
3. Copyblogger

6 – Update your design

Yes, design still matters. If you think design doesn’t matter, you must dress in the same gray clothes, drive the same gray car and all the walls in your house must be a shade of off-white. Let’s face it, we judge things on some level based on their looks.

If your site looks old and tired, you look old and tired. If your site looks out of touch, you look out of touch. And if your site is boring and uninspired… well, you get the picture. Try sprucing things up a bit. Maybe it just needs a little curb appeal. Maybe it needs an extreme makeover.

Either way, I am willing to bet there is always something you can do to improve the look and thereby improve the user experience of the site.

7 – Start blogging

Blogs are no longer just for bloggers. You don’t have to have aspirations of becoming the next Perez Hilton to be effective at blogging. You just need to know the needs of your target audience and write about it.

You are sitting on a mound of expert information that you need to share. Don’t believe me? Read this post about business blogging.

Or, simply look back through your email inbox, notepad, sales materials, presentation materials, etc. You talk to your clients everyday (members and volunteers are clients too if you live in that world).

Be the same expert in a blog that you are everyday in the real world. You will benefit from an SEO standpoint because of the useful keyword rich content you’re adding to your site. You will position yourself as an authority in your field. And you will steadily be “out there” talking about what it is that you do.

8 – Embrace social media

As you engage in a content marketing strategy, you will quickly realize that blogging, video, online presentations and the like NEED social media. You also need social media. Why? This is where your clients are. Yes, they are, trust me. The numbers do not lie.

That said, there are going to be some differences from group to group as to where they prefer to spend their time. So, take a little time and look around. They may be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or in lots of different places. As an example, let’s use LinkedIn…

Are your clients spending time in LinkedIn discussion groups? Yes? Share your blog posts with them, along with posts from other experts you think would be of value to them.  Most importantly, engage them. Talk to them and have meaningful discussions.

Read this very short yet powerful post from Seth Godin to see what I mean here - One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you’re in the room…

9 – Develop an editorial calendar

Are you overwhelmed yet? Don’t be. These are tasks that can be easily integrated into your marketing and communications workflow (there really is no other choice). The key to success is to map this all out.

This can be done using what’s called an Editorial Calendar. Here is a post from Jason Keath in Content Marketing Institute that really lays this out nicely… How to Put Together an Editorial Calendar for Content Marketing

Mapping out your content marketing efforts in advance will allow you to see the bigger picture. It will also help you to set deadlines. If you commit to content marketing for your organization but make no written outline of the what’s and when’s, you will fail.

If you treat this like a regularly scheduled task that is just as important as say paying the rent, you will see results.

10 – Read

There is so much content out there. Go and find it, devour it and report back. There are books of course. Personally, I love my Kindle and it is loaded with books on marketing, social media, web design, etc. But, I also subscribe to a bunch of blogs and I check my Google Reader everyday.

I guarantee you that there is at least one blog out there that is filled with great information about your industry. Chances are there is more than one. The key is to find them and set some time aside each day or week to read the posts that catch your eye. And then report back to your followers, subscribers, etc on what you’ve read.

Reading is fundamental. It’s fundamental to your continued success. It keeps you in the game with a fresh perspective on what it is that you do. Start by setting some Google Alerts using the keywords from your list (see above). This way, you are guaranteed delivery of content related to those terms. You will have to sort through some junk, but you will eventually find some sources of great reading material and, therefore, wonderful inspiration.

You will want to subscribe to the usual suspects that show up in your alerts – the blogs and sites you go to time and again.

11 – Take the keys from the intern

I’m not sure when and why it became acceptable to give all online marketing tasks to your intern or part-time summer help. I like interns, I think they serve a great purpose. We even hired one full-time.

But, do you think they really should be the ones managing your brand and your online reputation? If you task them with managing your social media or your blog or your email newsletter, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Take control. At the very least monitor what the intern is doing. But even then, you really want to be much more involved than that. This is the front line. This is where the meaningful connections are made. I would not leave this up to the intern.

12 – Be a resource

We’ve been saying this since day one, literally. Our very first article (before we and everyone else had a blog) was titled “Turn Your Website into a Resource”. It’s still true today. As I’ve said already in this list, you are already an expert, be that expert online.

But don’t just be the expert that tells everyone what to do. Be the expert that everyone looks to for guidance, for the best information and for thought leadership. Do that by creating your online expert persona. Being a resource means you share anything that your readers, followers and fans would find useful, regardless of the source.

If you’re even the slightest bit successful right now, chances are you are doing this already. It’s just time to fine-tune your efforts to get the maximum return from your online marketing efforts. If you are struggling to find business, maybe it’s because you’re not “out there” enough.

13 – Prepare for the zombie invasion

Just in case, I added a 13th tip. It’s actually quite apropos. The Center for Disease Control or CDC has prepared an online communications effort aimed at protecting the population from a possible zombie invasion.

This is a great example of using content marketing, and a sense of humor, to deliver what is actually important information to the general public. This campaign was launched this year and has been an amazing success. Plus, it is quite fun.

I hope you got something from this list. If you are doing any or all of this already, good for you! Keep it up! If not, what are you waiting for??? This is the new norm! It’s time to embrace online marketing, content marketing and social media because its not going anywhere and more importantly, it works!

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below…

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Chances are you’re probably doing some of this. Most businesses today have a website, some have a presence on social media channels, and some even have a Blog (or two). Let’s break this content marketing definition down a bit…

• Relevant and valuable content – Blog posts, video, podcasts, eBooks, white papers, etc.
• Attract, acquire, and engage – make a connection that has value to them and you
• Defined and understood target audience – your ideal client
• Driving profitable customer action – your goals met, be they monetary or otherwise

At Wood Street, we’ve created lots of websites, lots of blogs, and have worked with many of our clients to help them integrate social media marketing into these and other content channels. This is all important and useful.

If you’re doing some or all of these things, good for you! But, is your business getting the most it can out of all of this content? Do all elements of the definition above apply to your content marketing efforts?

Content marketing should be fluid. Before I expand on that, let’s take a look at what the word “fluid” really means. According to Merriam-Webster, fluid means…

1a: having particles that easily move and change their relative position without a separation of the mass and that easily yield to pressure : capable of flowing

1b: subject to change or movement <boundaries became fluid>

2: characterized by or employing a smooth easy style <the ballerina’s fluid movements> <fluid recitation of his lines>

When you think of your content, do words like move or change come to mind? Is your content capable of flowing? Does your content have a smooth easy style? It should.

The idea behind content marketing is that you’re targeting your potential clients with valuable content where they’re looking for it. And you’re doing this with the intent of driving them to some sort of movement. Action.

Fluid content can live anywhere. An idea on Twitter can lead someone to a Blog post. A post on your Blog and be shared on your Facebook page and then transformed into an eBook or a YouTube Video or SlideShare presentation – all working towards a common goal, allowing an idea to change position without a separation of the mass.

In order to have a fluid content marketing strategy, you must accept the fact that you’re aiming at a fast moving target. Your audience, more than ever before, is on the move – blogs –> websites –> YouTube –> mobile…

You need to know who you’re marketing to. What are your buyer personas? What do these people look like? What are their hopes and dreams? Ok, a bit far, but you see what I mean.

Let’s say you run a local chapter of the Humane Society. You know your target audience is made up of people concerned about animals who are looking to adopt a pet or looking to care for the pets they have.

What content is going to help them achieve their goals when it comes to their pets? Blog posts about pet care? Sure. Video about animals? Of course. A white paper on the endocrine system of a parrot? Maybe, but that’s one you need to work up to.

The white paper example is important to look at. A white paper can be an important part of your content marketing efforts. But, can you post a technical white paper and expect hoards of pet enthusiasts to flock to it? No, of course not.

Your content marketing is an organism made up of many parts working together as one. Our parrot example could have many parts. Sure, you have the white paper about the endocrine system of the parrot. But, this would be considered “in the weeds” and not the first place someone with a parrot issue would necessarily look.

They’re going to look for quicker answers to their questions. Answers contained in blog posts, a video showing what a parrot experiencing pain looks like or a podcast interview with a parrot specialist talking about a parrot in pain – all placed on the society blog and then shared…

These concerned parrot owners are going to ask their Facebook friends or Twitter followers for resources on pet bird ailments. They might search through YouTube for helpful parrot care videos. Is your content marketing fluid enough to reach all of these places?

As you can see in the graphic above, all of this should lead back to your website and blog, where you have strategically placed, targeted calls to action. For a local humane society, this could be a callout to signup for an upcoming workshop, or a button to donate online.

As you can see, there isn’t one line with a beginning and an end. Content marketing is not linear. It’s fluid. It moves and transforms itself so that it can be where it needs to be when it needs to be there.

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Before the Show

1 – Promote Your Booth on the Trade Show Website

Most attendees will try to plan their visit to the show. They will do this by visiting the show’s website and/or using an online or mobile planning tool. What is your presence in those places? Consider purchasing a featured listing so that your company is listed at the top of applicable searches.

2 – Promote Your Booth on YOUR Website

And don’t ignore your own website! Prominently place the show’s logo and your booth number there to let your site’s visitors know you’ll be exhibiting. Blog posts giving the inside scoop on your planning process also raise interest and make attendees feel more connected.

Don’t forget to use your social media accounts to raise interest and take some time now to make sure your website content is fresh and appealing.

At the Show

3 – Use QR Codes to Handle All the Many Visitors

If you’ve done a good job promoting your booth, you won’t be able to personally speak with everyone who stops by. Make sure your booth gives attendees the power to attain the information they seek. QR Codes are a great for this. At each product display in your booth, include a QR code that your guests can scan. The QR code may take them to a product spec sheet, or to a video of your product in action.

(note – SMS is a great alternative to QR Codes)

4 – Create Mobile Landing Pages on Your Website

You could also have a QR Code that points to the landing page on your corporate website where attendees can sign up for your newsletter. Just remember, if you direct visitors to your website during the show, they are likely to be accessing it from a smart phone or other mobile device. Make sure your web site has mobile-friendly formatting. And be sure to let your social media followers in on the action with frequent news from your booth.

5 – Use Available Technology to Capture Leads

Ensuring your visitors can get information from you is only half the battle. How will you get contact information from them? Many trade shows offer mobile applications you can use to collect sales leads not only in your booth, but in the shuttle bus or at the hotel bar.

If no official sales lead retrieval is offered, consider using a mobile app to scan business cards. Card Munch, for example, let’s you take a picture of a business card. Then it parses the information and stores it in your phone’s contacts.

After the Show

6 – Blog about Your Time at the Trade Show

It’s hard to stay motivated after an exhausting trade show, but making it fun makes it easier to endure. Now is the time to brag about your presence at the show. A post-show re-cap blog post is a great way to share your success with customers and prospects who couldn’t make it to the show.

Post pictures and video from your booth and from other show events in which you participated. Share the good times you had!

When exhibiting at a trade show it’s easy to get wrapped up in what’s going on right in front of you for the few days the show is open. Using the web and social media, you can expand your presence not just beyond your booth, but beyond the event!

What unique things are you doing with your trade show marketing? Let me know in the comments below.

Siobhan Connellan, Senior Manager of Exhibitor Operations, Experient

Siobhan Connellan

For over 18 years, Siobhan Connellan has developed and delivered a wide array of lead retrieval products to exhibitors at over 200 of the largest trade shows in the country. She is currently the Senior Manager of Exhibitor Operations for Experient, the nation’s leading source for integrated meeting and event services.

Her mission is to develop products and services that integrate exhibiting companies’ marketing efforts across events, social media, and traditional media. Siobhan’s current efforts include capitalizing on mobile technology to facilitate exhibitors’ efforts to collect sales leads at trade shows and events.

She is a regular presenter to large and small groups regarding exhibit marketing, sales lead capture, and follow-up.

Your website is like a restaurant. Google is the busy corner location on which every restaurant wants to open. Your goal is to get your restaurant on that busy corner. Keywords, social shares, backlinks (links back to your site from trusted outside sources), etc are all roads leading to that busy corner.

Here’s the problem with this analogy. It still matters what your food tastes like, how attentive your staff is and whether or not the place is a dump. Let’s take this analogy a  bit further…

1 – The Food – The Site Content

Content is king. Your content is your food. It’s why people come. If your content is just keyword rich junk they may leave full but probably not very satisfied, and not very willing to recommend your food to someone else.

If your content is tasty, just the right amount, and unique, you are more likely to make that valuable positive impression. Not only are the food critics (Google, bloggers, etc) going to enjoy it and write favorably about it, but the patrons will talk about your food to all their friends, co-workers, and family.

Make the food the most important piece of the experience. But, the food isn’t everything.

2 – Your Staff – User Experience

Just like a dining experience, a website offers a user experience. And much like a restaurant having a quality staff to ensure a quality dining experience, your website should have its own “staff” to help with the user experience.

Your staff includes:

• the host (the landing pages)
• the servers (the navigation)
• and the server’s suggestions (calls to action)

You know those great restaurants where the staff is so amazing, you hardly notice them. In other words, they do their job so well that you focus mainly on the quality food and not much else.

Your website should do exactly the same thing…

1. Hosts – just like a good host, your landing pages should welcome the user and make their entry into your site a seamless, hassle free experience.
2. Servers – your navigation needs to be clear and easy. You want the user to easily find what they want without too much uncertainty or confusion.
3. Server’s Suggestions – these calls to action help drive the users where you want them to go. Just like a suggestion from the server, these are the special items deserve extra attention. The choice is a no-brainer.

3 – Ambiance - Site Design

Yes, looks still matter. If you go to a restaurant that’s dirty, dark and smells bad, are you going to stay and eat? Probably not. Sure, there are exceptions but they are rare and the food better be the best food ever to overcome the dump factor.

Just like a restaurant, your website needs to be visually appealing with appropriate decor and a unique feel. The pages should be clean and free of clutter. The action pages should be easy to manage. If the user is comfortable then the time they spend there will be much more enjoyable.

This can go a bit further. Hip trendy restaurants have unique decor, cool art and maybe the staff has a slightly different approach that enhances the patrons experience. A website should be unique. You want to be memorable and for all the right reasons.

In other words, simply having an abundance of decent food isn’t going to help a mediocre  restaurant. By the same token having an abundance of decent content isn’t going to help  a website. You have to consider the entire experience.

Just like Goldilocks it has to be just right. The check has to come when you are ready to leave. The food has to be at the right temp. The server has to show up when your glass is empty. Any other ways you would compare a website to a restaurant? Let me know in the comments below…

We are asked repeatedly about the best ways to develop and use content. I was already following @marketingprofs and @cc_chapman on Twitter when I saw the announcement about their new book…

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series), ©2010 Ann Handley, CC Chapman; (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp.

Naturally it made sense for me to pick this up.

Content Rules Cover Courtesy of ContentRulesBook.com

I am very glad I did. This book is a combination of many things we already tell our clients about content marketing plus some new ideas that I hadn’t really considered. It’s an easy read and very well thought out with practical tips and real world case study examples of their principles at work.

Some key elements of the book I found to be quite useful…

1. Chapter 5: Reimagine; Don’t Recycle: Anatomy of a Content Circle of Life – this is a great overview of how to repurpose content that you are already creating without simply regurgitating the same stuff over and over again.
2. Chapter 7: Stoke the Campfire – in this they compare content marketing to storytelling around a campfire. A great analogy focusing on using the storytelling principle. Some good tips and some easy content marketing lessons.
3. Chapter 10: Attention B2B Companies: This is the Chapter You Are Looking For – any B2B companies out there with doubts about the benefits of content marketing – blogging, seminars, podcasts, etc – need to read this chapter.

Of course there is so much more. I would like to be able to write some negatives about this book so I don’t sound like a screaming teenage groupie, but there just aren’t any that I can see.

Have you read Content Rules yet? Let me know what you thought of it in the comments below.

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So, what is User Experience exactly? Wikipedia defines it in the following way:

User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. – Wikipedia

In this case the system is your website. Now you might be thinking “how they feel??? who cares!” or something along those lines. But consider this: if someone gets to your website, how do you think they need to feel in order for your site to convert them from a user into a client? Let’s break this into warm and fuzzies and eww gross…

Warm and Fuzzies – A Positive User Reaction

1. Comfortable, Safe – these are feelings that you want the user to have. You want them to feel comfortable that your site is the place where they will find what they are looking for (even if you want to scare the crap out of them, you want them to feel that you are the one that will make everything OK).
2. Validated – there is something rather satisfying about knowing you’ve made the right decision. Well, if you’ve chosen to go to a site from a list of search engine results and the site you go to has what you need, you will feel validated in your choice to click.
3. Eager – if the user has the two previous feelings, then they will most likely be eager to poke around on your site. This is good, because once you get users to visit your site and find information they want, they are invested and more likely to buy/join/download/whatever.

Eww, Gross – Bad Site, Head for the Hills!

1. Uncertainty – is this site for real? Can I trust this site with my information? Is the owner of this site a real person who actually cares? If someone is asking themselves these questions and is unsure of the answers they hear in their head, then they probably feel that they’re not in the right place and will want to get the heck out of there.
2. Lost – if they get there and have some initial comfort but then feel lost or confused after a minute or two, then frustration sets in and they are gone!
3. A Bit like Dorothy – when the wizard came out from behind the curtain, we were all a little disappointed. If the users feel there is something shady going on behind the scenes, they will bolt. They are bombarded with spam, etc. and don’t want to do business with anyone they think has a hidden agenda.

Of course, User Experience goes deeper than just initial reactions to a website, but this stuff is very important. Consider your own web surfing experience. How do you react to different types of websites? The users want a positive experience and they want it without having to think.

So, how does this happen? How can you design and develop a website that gives a user the warm and fuzzies? Here are some quick tips that will help you get there:

Comfortable, Safe

A user will feel comfortable and safe for a number of reasons and most are well within your control…

1. Good design – let’s face it, first impressions still count and visuals make up a lot of that. If your design is appropriate without being distracting, then the user will not even notice it, or if they do, they will like it. The key is to not let your design get in the way of the user interacting with the site. This goes for users who are visually impaired; design and code matters a great deal here as well.
2. Clear message and direction – no one likes to wander around aimlessly looking for information. They want it and they want it yesterday. Use your copy and your design to make sure they can find what they want and quickly (knowing what they want helps too!).
3. Knowing real people are behind what they see – if the user knows that the people responsible for this site are real and even accessible, then the comfort level goes way up. If all they can find is contact@wedonotcare.com and a PO Box, then their willingness to give anything beyond a quick glance is going to be minimal. Make sure they can easily figure out who is in charge.

Validated

Once a user feels comfort and safety, they will then be looking for validation. They want to know they’re making a good choice by being on your site. They want to feel that their choice to click on your listing was a good one. Knowing them is really the key to this one…

1. What do they want – if you know your audience and what they want, then you can give it to them. Placing this information in the obvious areas of the design will mean that they will find what they want quickly. This lets them know that they are in EXACTLY the right place.
2. Other users agreed with their choice – adding things like user ratings for products or client testimonials will also help the user feel that they are in the right place because other people with similar needs are telling them so.

Eager

So, if the user is comfortable with your site and they feel validated in choosing to visit, then what’s next? They want to do something. Think about it: if you get to a store, it looks nice, you feel good about being there and your buddies told you it was a great place, you are going to want to go shopping right away. Users are going to be in a mad rush to get more. Don’t get in their way…

1. Make your CTAs (call to action) obvious – people need to be guided through an experience. Your CTA needs to be obvious without being obnoxious. Place the useful qualifying information on your site followed by a clear call to action (what you want and expect them to do next: call, email, buy, etc.).
2. Don’t over-complicate the message – get to the point! No one is going to wade through tons of information to get what they want. They want it now! They want to click once and be there. Do as little as possible to complicate this process.
3. Keep the aisles clear from debris – no one likes their shopping experience to be a cluttered one. They want free and easy access to the products they wish to purchase. In the case of a website, this means that they want to find the information they are looking for quickly. You want your site’s navigation and support features (search, help, etc.) to be intuitive and effective. Testing is important here because designers and developers sometimes miss the obvious roadblocks.

Working with your marketing team, web design and development team, and yes, even your clients, you can think through and plan for the user experience from start to finish. If you build this site with the user’s experience in mind, you will see better results. If you build the site with only your goals in mind, you will miss some opportunities to convert a user into a client.

What are some of your best and worst examples of user experience?

“Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases.” – Wikipedia

According to Google’s Eric Schmidt “, every 2 days we create as much information as we did up to 2003”. In other words, every 2 days we create as much content as was created up to 2003. That’s a lot of content. And it keeps coming.

With social media, mobile and an all-but-universal access to the web, accessing content is easier than ever before. And with so many tools available now, creating content is easier as well.

While this is revolutionary, it poses a bit of a problem for marketers: cutting through the noise. How can your content make an impact? Where will all of this content come from? And how does it help you reach your goals?

First, let’s establish one thing: quality content is important. This is a fact. There are plenty of studies to back this up. But let’s just look at the announcement for Google Panda, which is the latest algorithm Google uses to evaluate and rank your web site…

“Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.” - Google Webmaster Blog, from the Panda Announcement

Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and mindless link exchanges and backlinks. Google Panda has been designed to search the web for quality sites that offer valuable user experiences and rank them accordingly.

So, what is quality content? I would define it as content that offers the consumer something unique and of value. Quality content goes beyond just words; it is information created that empowers the user in some way.

To that end, this post is not about the creation of content. This is about achieving goals, converting visitors online, and growing your brand. How does your content break through the noise? Let’s talk about strategy…

Content Marketing Strategies

Matching Content with Goals

If you don’t know what your goals are as a business, stop reading this and go work on that. Assuming you do have a clear idea of where you are heading and what success looks like when you get there, then you are in good shape to start (or continue) to build your content marketing strategy.

Sometimes visual reminders are best. As you start to put together content, be it repurposed or fresh, you will want to cross-reference the content, the approach, and the audience against your list of goals. Having a list of those goals handy could prove very useful.

If you are creating content simply to fill a void or to increase the keyword count on your site, you are missing the point. If you are building a web site first and then backfilling it with content, you are missing an opportunity to convert an online user into a client, member, fan, what have you.

Your content marketing strategy should not be a shotgun approach. Each piece of content should be created to achieve some goal or to promote some aspect of your organization as it relates to the needs of the consumer. This is important because these days the user has more control, so they will need to see what’s in it for them.

Consider your web site. The question is not where you need to “fill in” content. Rather, the question is where can this content live on your site where it will have maximum effectiveness? Where can you use your content on your site to drive site traffic AND increase online conversion?

Maybe certain topics are great for Blog posts, like how-to articles and lists. Some content might work better as a video interview, webinar or white paper. And some of it might be able to be used in various ways across multiple forms of content.

Which brings me to the next point…

“Re-imagine Content”

If you’ve read Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman, then this term should sound familiar. If you haven’t read it, do so.

Chances are very good that your organization produces content of some kind every day. This could be as simple as an email to a client or as complex as a white paper or case study.

The point is that your organization is not starving for content if you know where to look for it. In their book, Ann and CC talk about ways to think about your content strategies so that you can re-imagine all the content you create for use in other mediums.

For example, if you create a white paper on a specific topic, you could re-imagine parts of that content and turn it into a Blog post or video. Or the inverse, you might have a strong series of Blog posts or articles that could be combined and re-imagined as an eBook.

All of these things can be used as content on your website, since they are content rich with keywords and phrases that your target audience is searching for. But not only that, this is content that they want, need, and will be forever grateful to you for posting.

But this only works if you have an overall content marketing strategy with specific goals in mind. You need to know your audience and what they want.

Your Content Needs Fans

Content needs fans to grow. Think about music or entertainment. Fans of a song or movie or TV show will share it and promote it again and again. This works in B2B too. For example, if you have a problem and find a Blog post that offers a great solution, you will share that Blog post with others, right?

Content cannot exist in a vacuum. Effective content is promoted. As you are creating or reimaging your content, try to also consider how you will be promoting it.

Are you going to post it on Facebook? If so, what do those folks want that will inspire them to come to your site, read (and act on) your content, and like or share your post on Facebook?

Or think about guest blogging. If you are blogging on a regular basis and seeing some success from that, maybe it’s time to venture out a little farther. There are tons of services to look for guest blogging opportunities.

But I would recommend starting closer to home: friendly competitors, trade orgs, etc. Offer your services as an experienced blogger. Owners of blogs are always looking for good content.

There are other ways to promote your content. Here is a list of some very useful content syndication tools:

1. YouTube.com – start a channel and post all of your videos. Include catchy titles and keyword-rich descriptions. Then, when you post a video on your site, use the YouTube version. This has very strong SEO benefits as well.
2. SlideShare.com – this is a great way to share your PowerPoint presentations to promote them to users who might not find your site directly.
3. BizSugar.com – This is an easy way to promote your Blog posts. These are listed in a directory where people can vote on and share this content easily.
4. Social Media – of course, any social media channel would be good for promoting your content. The trick is to match the target audience with the content and to promote accordingly.
5. There are more, but I think I will save them for another post.

How are you using content to promote your organization? Share in the comments section below.

Is Facebook headed the way of the Dodo like MySpace, Friendster, etc? No, at least not anytime soon. It is still very much a social media powerhouse. But Facebook is not invincible and it certainly cannot sustain perpetual growth.

According to an article in Business2Community.com, Facebook has lost 6 million users in the U.S. Growth among users in other countries is on the rise but stateside Facebook may be losing some of its luster.

Another recent article in MediaPost points to a possible saturation point for Facebook in the U.S. Facebook is now needs to rapidly monetize its current user base, the article also points out. So, look for more aggressive marketing efforts from Facebook most likely at the expense of user privacy.

So, could this spell trouble for the Social Media Juggernaut? Sure, in some ways it does. But the real lesson here is one we’ve seen before. Clinging to trends as a marketing solution is not a solid strategy. Taking advantage of trends and using them based on solid market research and planning makes more sense.

Social Media is not and will never be the one solution for all of your marketing woes. Social Media platforms are in constant competition with each other for your business’s ad dollars. They are constantly trying to outdo one another. Just take a look at Google’s latest attempt at Social Media, Google+ in this article from Search Engine Journal.

No one social media offering or new technology product is going to magically solve all of your marketing problems. Social Media isn’t going to make marketing and engagement a “snap”, it takes work. These things are tools that are to be added to your marketing toolkit.

It’s important that you have some control over your message and your marketing efforts. It is good to diversify your efforts making use of all the appropriate resources at your disposal. But ultimately you should be driving them to a property that is uniquely yours, like a web site or mobile page/app. This is where conversion happens.

In another article from BusinesstoCommunity.com they reference the “Commit to Quit” day back in May where numbers of users committed to cancel their Facebook accounts in protest of the ongoing privacy issues Facebook is having. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Don’t get too caught up in hype. Stay smart and market using common sense. What works is knowing your audience, marketing to them where they are, and driving them to a place where you can convert them to a customer.

Do you market with Facebook? What do you think about their decline in the US?

So, what does this mean? First, it means that simply having a Facebook page doesn’t lead to increased site traffic. It also means that if you have a targeted and effective Social Media Marketing campaign, you can see an increase in site traffic.

These two things may seem contrary to each other, but the simple fact remains that we are, as marketers, still learning a lot about the effectiveness of social media on our marketing efforts.

However, one thing that hasn’t changed is that a web site is still important and that the strategy for that web site is crucial. Social media marketing is about conversation and your web site is about conversion. This is where you make the connections that lead to business.

I’m not saying that you can’t make business connections in social media channels. Of course you can, but your web site is where you can readily convert a prospect into a client.

To illustrate this point I want to focus on 3 reasons your web site is still your most important marketing piece:

1. You Own It!
2. Search Engines Look For It!
3. Content Marketing Needs It!

You Own It!

We all know that Facebook is popular, will readily admit that LinkedIn is still the best professional social network out there, and am definitely a Twitter fanatic. But does this mean it’s time to abandon your web site in favor of these? No.

Here is the main reason why, you do not own them: these pages are not yours. Don’t believe me?  Read the terms and conditions. Plus, these sites are forever changing the rules. The headaches of having to redo your Facebook fan page when they removed FBML are proof enough. This is not your site and you have limited control.

Your web site is yours, you own it! You can design it and control the look, message and tone there. You can also do a lot more to control the user experience to drive better conversion. Plus, it is all about you – no friends, ads, or other distractions to overshadow your message.

Take advantage of ownership:

1. Make your web site unique with strong design that reinforces your marketing efforts. This is how you stand apart from every other WordPress template site and Facebook Company Page.
2. Think through the user experience – work with your web designer and a group of advisors and valued clients to craft a meaningful user experience with a strategically-developed site architecture.
3. Think about goals, you have more control here, so focus on what your goals are and how you can use the navigation and design to drive goal conversion.

Search Engines Look for It!

Yes, social media is being integrated into search more and more each day. The search engines are crawling these pages in an effort to identify your social authority and what kind of reach and influence you have online.

More importantly, the search engines are still looking for your web site. They are looking for the best possible answers to their search queries. Do you think Google wants to show a top 10 results page full of Facebook links? They want the search results page to be diverse yet effective and relevant.

Search engines will list social media pages but mainly when you search for the proper name associated with it (ex: if you search my name, you will see my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles). For more keyword specific terms, you will find results that list blogs, forums, etc. So, include these on your web site:

1. Host your Blog on your domain, e.g. www.yourdomain.com/blog. This way, your Blog content shows up in search engines and is tied to other areas of your site that are targeted towards conversion.
2. If you have video, podcasts or webinars, add an archive section on your web site. You can and should post these on sites like YouTube and SlideShare, but you also want this content on your site.
3. You can also post video and reviews of that video on your Blog. This is more keyword rich content driving rankings for your site.

Your web site should be driven by content. Develop a strong content strategy starting with your web site as the main content repository and you will have your editorial calendar in place to keep you moving forward – placing quality, keyword rich content on your site regularly.

I would argue that it continues to be important from a search perspective for your company to have a well built website with targeted landing pages and a solid content marketing strategy.

Content Marketing Needs It!

Content marketing is a newer term for an old idea. If you push useful content, become a resource for potential clients and show yourself to be a trusted expert, you will win business. You might remember this from your old-school networking days… “the giver’s gain”.

The basic premise means that you provide quality content that is of some immediate value to the user. You can do this on social media sites like LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook, etc. and you should.

But your site should be the centralized source of all of this content. You want your web site to be your central content marketing hub – the destination from your outreach efforts and the source of your content push.

Why? Because, as we previously covered, you control the user experience on your site. You can bring users in with valuable content and through smart design and effective navigation you can convert them into clients. This is not as easy to control on social media outlets because there are too many distractions getting in your way. Marketing on social media can sometimes be like herding cats.

Your site should contain a Blog with entries that appear on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It should have a video feed from your YouTube channel. It should be the source of any eBooks you promote. And the majority of the information you promote in your email marketing should live here.

The web is changing and you need to be able to change with it. But this does not mean that you should relinquish control. Marketing is still about crafting the message and controlling its delivery. Sure, it’s become easier for the user to control but at the end of the day, content still needs a source. Make sure that source is your web site!

I don’t mean to pummel a dead horse here but this is very important. If your idea of content marketing is placing a mention here and there about what you do, you’ve got it all wrong. Content marketing is much more than that:

1. Start a Blog and make it useful to the reader
2. Host seminars and webinars, record these and post them on your site
3. Post white papers, eBooks, studies and published articles with source reference
4. Ask people to guest Blog, guest host a seminar or webinar, and post this on your site
5. Host contests and integrate with a specific social media channel
6. Even more! Be creative, thinking about the user

The important thing is that all of this is focused and tied to goals. Your marketing approach needs to be targeted. And the best anchor for all of your content marketing and general marketing efforts is your web site.

What do you think about a web site’s importance? Let me know in the comments below.

However, I can make two statements with confidence…

1. Social Media is not going anywhere.
2. People are still using search to find information.

The real debate here should be about online advertising, but that’s another Journal altogether.

When looking at SEO (Search Engine Optimization) today, you have to factor in a few more things than in the past.  In previous years, you only had to worry about content, and before that (in the olden days), you could get away with a decent set of META Tags and a nice smile.

Today, you need to consider Mobile, Blogging, Bing, Facebook, Twitter and more.  You simply cannot just focus on Google, although it is still very important.  For this post, I want to focus on 4 things you can do now to make sure your SEO is on target and the traffic is coming…

1. Link Building
2. Social Media Marketing
3. Site Structure and Code
4. Tracking and Measurement

Link Building

This is, as it sounds, building links to your web site (inbound links), as well as building an effective linking structure within your web site.  Of course, the best inbound links are from the big boys, i.e. Google, Bing, etc.  These occur through indexing, where you are ranked and listed favorably for specific targeted keywords and phrases.

But there are other ways to build the number of good inbound links to your site.  Think of it this way, you are a restaurant and you need customers.  The inbound links are the roads that lead to your restaurant.  You want more roads leading to you, but you want these roads to bring the right clientele.  So, you want roads coming from the right parts of town, making the trip for your targeted clientele an easy one.

So, how do you build these inbound links?  This can be in the form of guest Blog posts on a popular Blog in your industry or a Blog for a partner company, trade org or friendly competitor.  All you have to do is ask them if they would be interested in you writing a guest post.  The worst they can do is say no.

These guest posts will contain links back to your site.  And, in that post, include references to articles or your services that link back to specific pages on your Blog or web site.  Then, within your own blog posts, add links to the services pages you reference in your post.  For example, you see that we’ve linked to the SEO services page on our site from this post.

The links can also be in the form of simple listings, a member page on a Chamber site, a profile in a group site, trade organization, etc.  Make sure you optimize these pages to include keyword-rich profile bios and link to as much as they will let you.  If they allow you to add in the RSS feed for your Blog, do that.  Take advantage of these listings to the fullest.

Another way to build these inbound links is to distribute your press releases to online publications.  Depending on your budget, this could be something you do yourself, or you might use a service like PRWeb.  Either way, getting your press releases picked up about a new product, new hire, expansion, book or published article, award, etc, is a great way to build keyword-rich links back to your site.  If you have the money, use a good service and a quality copywriter that knows SEO and the web.  They get you the most reach for you money.

Social Media Marketing

We know social media is not going anywhere, but I will argue that the vast majority of small businesses do not know how to use it to bring traffic to their web site.  Social media is social, promotional, conversational, and interactive.  What it isn’t is direct sales.

Social media marketing is about getting the word out and then getting a response.  You don’t want to go crazy and post your web address on a bunch of Facebook profiles or post ads in LinkedIn groups.  This will drive people nuts.  Instead, you need to engage.

Post useful information in your Twitter stream that you did not write.  Be a resource.  Then, when you post something from you, they are more likely to click.  All the while, all of this leads back to your Twitter profile with your web site link on it.  And these Twitter posts are getting picked up by Google and Bing.

If you have a Blog, use a tool like NetworkedBlogs on Facebook.  This tool is very useful for promoting Blog content on Facebook and also has some great promotional programs.  With this tool, you can create great keyword rich inbound links back to Blog posts on your web site.

If you are on LinkedIn, start a company page for your business.  Then, link your Blog’s RSS to this.  More links.  You can also start discussion threads in LinkedIn based on your most recent Blog posts and link back to that post.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Engage –> Be a resource –> Blog –> Integrate with Social Media –> link back to your Blog and your web site.

Site Structure and Code

The code and structure of your web site are very important for lots of reasons, SEO being one of them.  Search engines will search through your site (indexing) using the code as a guide, bad code = bad indexing.

There are many ways to enhance your code for search engine visibility.  A few right off the bat are page titles, proper use of heading tags, ALT attributes and overall code structure.  These are all areas within the site’s code that should contain targeted keywords that are well organized.  If you are not sure if this was done properly, ask an SEO expert to take a look.  They should be able to give you a pretty quick assessment of your code.

Site structure is important as well, mainly when it comes to navigation.  For example, if you use Flash in your web site, do not use it for your navigation, since search engines do not read Flash and it will block or hinder indexing.  Or, if you are using landing pages, make sure there are easy ways to bypass them or that they link to your main site effectively.

You don’t want to put up coding or structural “road blocks,” as these will block the indexing of your site.  Another tool you can use to make sure the engines index your site properly is an XML site map.  An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of the URLs (web addresses) that exist within a web site.  The search engines use this as a guide to the content contained within.

Mobile search is booming.  More and more users are looking for you on their handheld devices.  Coding will matter here as well.  Not just in how the page looks on a mobile device but also how the site is structured.  Because when a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) lists your site on a mobile browser, you want the link to be to the appropriate page and you want that page to be structured so that it drives conversion, quickly.

This is all somewhat geeky stuff so make sure you have adult supervision before going in and making and major coding and structural updates, especially if you have something like WordPress or Joomla and are using a plug-in.  Plug-ins are great but if you do not know what you are doing, you can potentially do damage.

Tracking and Measurement

Of course this is all meaningless if you don’t know how well it’s working.  The great thing about SEO is that you can track and measure the results of your efforts.  Metrics through tools like Google Analytics can tell you a lot about how well your site is doing.

With Google Analytics, you can track what keywords were used to find your site, what your most popular pages are, what search engines people used to find you and so much more.  The tricky part is navigating this information and understanding what it all means.  Google offers demos and tutorials on using Google Analytics, and we have also written a few blog entries about the subject you might find useful.

There are other tracking tools out there that serve more specific purposes.  For, example, you can see what kind of influence your Twitter account has using tools like Klout.  Or you can use the many site grader tools (Google offers these as well) out there to get an analysis of your site’s current effectiveness.

The one problem with these tools is that it usually just gives you raw data (and some of this data can be incomplete).  Some give a little advice on how to use that data but you really need to be able to apply this information back to your overall marketing efforts.  This is why SEO should always be a strong part of your overall marketing plan.  It all ties together.

I hope you find these tips useful and that you now see that SEO is still very important.  If you do what we suggest in this article, the search engines will index you and hopefully rank you favorably.

Questions, comments?  Let me know if the comments area below…