Content, Usability and Calendars: Three Fundamental Factors to Focus On

Content creation is an actual and time-consuming topic today. The way you create content is much more difficult you may presuppose. Writing high quality content involves a great amount of efforts and profound understanding of the whole process. As a rule, this leads to the creating a calendar for planning content creation in order to help streamline the work.

Let us take a look at these factors in detail. 

Usability

Usability presents the way how difficult or easy it is for website visitors to interact with your website and implement their goals. 

According to Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D. and Principal at Nielsen Norman Group, usability is dependent on 5 quality elements:

• Learnability: Make easier for website visitors to carry out basic tasks, when they come to your site for the first time

• Efficiency: Shorten the time users spend on performing tasks

• Memorability: Make your website design memorable. When users return to your website after a certain period of not using it, how easily can they go over website details?

• Errors: Think about the possible errors users can make. How fast can they recover from them? Are these errors really severe?

• Satisfaction: Is it pleasant to use your website design?

Content

Digital marketing is an activity spectrum driven by quality content.  There are a lot of different effective content strategies for a digital marketing plan and all of them are based on three main questions:

1. who your core audience is;

2. which are the best methods to reach them out;

3. what are your best available resources in order to produce high quality content.

In fact, content can come in 4 fundamental forms: plain text, graphics, specially formatted text and videos. Firstly, consider which content form would be the most appropriate and valuable for reaching your core audience. Then think about the resources available to you, including budget plan. 

Next question to consider is determining what types of content you have to develop. Here is a list of the content types that can be useful for your digital marketing campaign:

• Industry news

• Product launches 

• New hires

• General product information/product details

• Discount offers 

• Case studies

• Inspirational Quotes/Images

• White papers

• Quick Tips

• Blog posts

• Fun Facts/ Life stories/anecdotes

• Event/Webinar/Teleseminar announcements

• Press Releases 

• Testimonials

• Press coverage

• Tutorials or How to’s (video/text)

• Contests 

• Motivational Videos

• Product Presentations (SlideShare/PowerPoint)

• Helpful resources (+ Infographic)

Calendar

Developing a calendar for your digital marketing campaigns is a wonderful way to cling to the line. 

There are a variety of Content Calendars forms, however most are performed in an Excel model and include the following items:

• Publish date

• Deadline

• Content Source

• Content Type

• Content publisher/creator

• Platform (social site/blog/etc.)

• Tracking method/code

• Landing page 

Hopefully, the article will help you come up with some good ideas about how to develop your content perfectly and manage a useful calendar.

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Domain Equity Development: a Fresh Eye on Link-Building Strategy

 The world of SEO continues to be focused on links in many ways. However, because of considerable changes have happened to SEO in recent times, link earning is gaining popularity and replacing link-building.

No one can say that links have become less important to online visibility. Conversely, they are just becoming more and more important. Building links is an essential element of a successful SEO. Today, in order to make SEO strategies work, there is a need for a spick-and-span new approach.

A Fresh Eye

The old link-building methods were quite easy to implement. Most people would start with compiling a list of websites with high PageRank (PR) and send an e-mail to each webmaster asking for a backlink. Other popular techniques were poor-quality guest posting, comment links and article marketing.

Now everything has greatly changed. Today using these old techniques will not bring you results. Forward looking SEO specialists are changing the methods they are used to apply and developing new approaches to link-building.

Domain Equity Development

Domain equity development, so-called DED, is considered the new link-building approach today. It includes some constituent elements of traditional link-building techniques linked with radically new solutions. Domain equity development gathers up various techniques from all marketing channels in order to give value to your organization’s domain. Today successful link-building requires the holistic digital marketing approach.

A quality Domain equity development formula includes Content Marketing + Subject Matter Expertise + Brand Recognition + Link Building + Social Signals.

DED uses the holistic approach not only for link-building, but also for overall success measuring. DED focuses on such KPIs (key performance indicators) as brand visibility, website traffic, UX and relevancy.

It’s All About Content

Content marketing is always the base of any campaign. High quality content is topical outside of time. Just be sure you’re doing everything right. Focus on professional organization, effective management, and considerable encouragement. Give your content the importance and time it requires, and you will be rewarded for your efforts.

Social Media

In recent months, there were a lot of talks about the importance of social signals for search visibility. Some people consider that Google’s algorithm takes these signals into account, however Rankwinz specialists thinks that it actually doesn’t. But if we forget for a moment about whether it influences ranking factor or not, social media is still a very important SEO tool! Moreover, it’s a key to successful domain equity development.

Social media is a hidden and at the same time most effective way for getting content shared.

It also opens a variety of other advantages, including interviews, networking opportunities, writing opportunities and so on. Social media fuels the holistic approach to digital marketing.

Conclusion

The main differences between old link-building techniques and domain equity development approach are the priorities and timescales. Old link-building had short-term results and short-sighted solutions. Innovative DED creates long-term value. So catch new trends and make your choice!

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Why Content Marketing is the New SEO

In recent years, SEO has considerably changed. Today you cannot just take a poorly designed website, fill it with second-rate content, create some links and expect good rankings. Now you have to go to great lengths by creating a really top-quality website, publishing really informative and engaging content, building thousands of links and making your customers a really good offer to solve their problems.

But not so fast, now! It is quite difficult to scale all of this. Developing thousands of top-quality links manually is not an easy task and, let’s say, costs a lot! And even if you are ready to spend this large chunk of money on it, it will take many months to make those links work. Moreover, you also should have any quality information to shareу on the social web.

So, how do you create thousands of links organically and get social shares? Your salvation is Content Marketing.

Content marketing is considered one of the most effective ways and the cheapest, by the way, to do SEO today. Not only producing good-quality content builds links at a faster pace, but also making the job manually. It will result in getting shared this content naturally on Google+, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

The enormous difference between Paid SEO and Content Marketing

There is one considerable difference between paying for SEO and spending money on content marketing. Content marketing isn’t affected by algorithm updates! And this is a huge advantage of content marketing! Content marketing is a long-lasting solution that is always worth investing.

Conclusion

Now you understand why content marketing is considered the new SEO? However not all types of content can guarantee strong results. According to the course of detailed content researches, there were discovered the following types of content, which have better results than others:

·         Detailed content – short blog posts get fewer links than detailed articles. So focus on quality.

·         Easy-to-understand infographics – make complex data digestible by using such visual aid as infographics.

·         Social profiles – a key to a successful content marketing tactic is a quality completion of social profiles. Make sure you have built up strong Facebook, Twitter and Google+ profiles and use them to spread your content.

·         Collect emails – make e-mail opt-in forms in your sidebar and collect more e-mails. If you have an extensive e-mail list, you can e-mail to your potential clients every time you make a website update or publish a new informative blog post.

·         Make sure you publish quality content on a regular basis.

·         Headlines really matter – no matter how good your content is, if you can’t write attractive headlines, no one will read your content. Learn ho to write attractive headlines here.

So, what do you think? Is content marketing the new SEO?

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7 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL SEO

We often forget that the people who search things on Google and those who read our content are the same people. So the task is not just get people there, but also make them stay.

1. One of the most important things about attracting reader’s attention is stories. Original stories always win. Writing stories that people would like to share and write about is the simplest organic way of successful SEO. As a rule, people are searching for original, high-quality, in-depth content.

2. Potential customer and keyword research are still important. As a rule, writers use all the available opportunities to find out optimal content themes. Such keyword tools as Bing Keyword Tool, Google Adwords Keyword Planner or Übersuggest can help you to determine the volume of content already optimized for key terms relative to the queries made for them. 

3. Headline really matters. Regular plain headlines are cut-throat for articles. We’ve already talked about the importance of headlines in our yesterday’s article “7 Ways to Get More Clicks Using Headlines”. Let it be said in a couple of words: in order to attract attention, headlines should be special, provocative. It may contain numbers or straightforward facts. Headline is the first thing that potential reader sees to decide whether he wants to click on it or not. 

4. More content vs. better content. Most marketers waste a lot of funds on producing a great amount of content. However, they forget that huge content volume usually damages the content quality. Be honest to yourself about your content, try to improve it if it is not informative or engaging enough, add specific headline and keywords. In case your website has numerous pages with copywriting of the same content, think about fresh content creation and page updating. 

5. Optimize on both the platform and page level. Beyond page-level production strategy, intelligent platform technology is the life blood for quality content. By cleaning HTML code, fixing server errors, H1 headers and URL structures, you are able to encourage natural search results boost greatly.

6. Get inbound links. Even if you have original, interesting content, getting inbound links is still important. In recent times, guest blogging has gained a great popularity as a method to increase inbound link amount. It is considered an effective way to build brand identity and awareness. However, don’t do it in the prejudice of quality!

7. Social networks also matter. Social networks play a critical role in attracting traffic to a website. When anyone has a need to solve his problem, he usually searches not only on Google, but also all over Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+ and other social networks. The circle of influence between social media and search is indisputable.

So stay up-to-date with best practices and don’t be afraid of innovation! Be self-confident. Improve quality. Work hard. And the success will be on your side!

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7 Ways to Get More Clicks Using Headlines

Headline makes 70% of your success.

Headline is the visiting card of your article. It is so important to the success that some writers spend hours to make it sparkle. Why do they do this? It’s quite evident. If the headline does not command your attention, nothing else about the content can ever make it.

No matter how exciting your content is, your potential readers would never see it without a really strong headline.

So the next time you would like to make your headline attractive, remember the following thumb rules:

•           Use numbers. Headlines that contain numbers attract much more attention than plain headlines. According to researches, the headline «9 Ways to Make Your Content More Interesting» grabed a 38% click rate while the plain headline «Ways to Make Your Content More Interesting» only got a 12%.

Make sure you use odd numbers in your headline. According to the Content Marketing Institute researches, “Headlines with odd numbers have a 20% better click rate than headlines that contain even numbers.” 

•           Headlines containing between 8 and 18 words work best. Don’t forget that we are talking about English headlines! Headlines in other languages can have different ideal length standards. For example, best Italian headline length is about 12 words.

•           Don’t use hyperbolic statements often. One of the best ways to perform hyperbolic statements is to use them just once. As a rule, one hyperbolic statement can boost discussions, but more than one can be very dangerous.

•           Fuel fear. It sounds paradoxical, but using such element as negativity or fear in a headline can generally get results. Nothing stimulates more than fear.

•           Stand out from the crowd. This is one of the fundamental rules of headline creation. If you are in doubt between 2 headlines, choose the more specific one. Being specific makes your headline more believable. A headline telling “60% of the success depends on your self-confidence” might sound quite skeptical. However, a “55% of the success depends on your self-confidence” headline sounds more real.

•           Images matter. People do love visualization more than text. Adding a picture near your headline gives you 28% response more, according to Guardian’s survey. 

•           Colons and Dashes greatly Help. The same Guardian’s headline survey tells that headlines, where punctuation elements are used, particularly dashes and colons, get about 11% more clicks than plain headlines.

And don’t forget that one of the keys to the success is to not be afraid of innovation and experimentation. So you won’t know if it works until you try!

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How to Use Site Search to Improve Your Business

You try various methods to attract traffic to your site, including PPC, SMM, tweets and blog posts. Such activities of high quality are usually expensive and time-consuming. 

So when you’ve convinced someone that your site is worth looking at, carefully listen to what this prospective consumer is saying. It never hurts to check if your site needs any improvements.

Where Did Visitors Come From?

One of the most effective ways to manage the visitor intentions is to discover where they came from.

·         Brand or direct search. Direct search is when visitors type into your website home page. It happens when they already know who you are. In such a case, your website search just helps visitors to get to what they want quickly.

·         Social. Social visits with on-site search are quite telling. Almost any promotional facebook post or informative tweet can bring potential customers to your website. What is interesting is that you can examine the terms typed into your search box and get an idea who is your prospective consumer and what he wants. Here your website search helps you to learn more details about the type of consumers social media can attract to your site.

·         Paid search. Visitors that are drawn to your website using generic search terms, and then searches on site is where there is a great opportunity for site improvement.  Let us take a deeper look at this particular segment.

Web Search and On Site Search: How does it work

Firstly, a consumer feels a need. Than he goes to Google in order find how to meet his need. After some promotional work you have done to your site to show up in search engines, your website appears on page 1 of the search results, and the visitor clicks on your website link, hoping you are a potential problem solver for him.

When a visitor comes to your website, he actually has 4 choices: he can contact you, he can make a purchase direct from the site, he can leave the website or he can dig deeper. Website search is one of the ways to dig deeper.

Key take-aways

So analyzing search term box results, you have an opportunity to greatly improve your website content, your services provided and even get an idea about the orientation of your next new product line. 

And there is an another important thing. Most web platforms offer you to direct certan on site search terms to a page of your selecting. If your site platform allows it, create search redirects, which can quickly get consumers to your best content relevant to their search.

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How to Apply Storytelling Techniques

Storytelling is one of the marketing world’s new forces. Storytelling is considered one of the most powerful business skills for the next decade.

So how can storytelling be practical?

Storytelling is the oldest way to deliver a message. Even the Bible uses storytelling.

Everybody automatically uses storytelling in in the common discourse of his life, however it’s never late to improve your skills. So look through the following 7 techniques that can help you to explain your business better.

It can seem to be in over his head, but it is really one of the simplest ways to promote anything you need.

Here are 7 storytelling techniques:

1. A Hero and an Enemy

Every intriguing story must have an enemy and a hero. The enemy can be represented by a thing or “the system”. The storyline refers to how the hero overpowers the enemy.

2. Focus on the Conflict

Conflict is the inherent incompatibility of enemy and hero. Conflict also describes the obstacles you encountered on your way to success, whether they were problems with your bank or with a tornado.

3. Omit any Unnecessary Detail

Omit all the unnecessary details that don’t develop the characters. Keeping the readers’ attention is a strongly important thing, so if they don’t need to know about your green T-shirt to catch your storyline, just don’t tell them about it.

4. Informal storytelling format

Formal-format ruins stories. Talk like you would usually talk. If you sound a little too corporate to pass as an average person, hire a storyteller.

5. Make It Visual

Use images in your blog stories. Images bring a story to life. Use images of the real people in the story, not stock photo models.

6. Add Surprise

A regular story with no unexpected turns is quite boring. This is an essential to a story as conflict.

The stronger you make the story, the more effective your reach will be for your audience.

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