Online Marketing Blog

View from our "boat" in Barcelona during Search Congress

I’m about to go on stage at the Search Congress conference in Barcelona and I thought I’d share the presentation that I’ll be giving. Don’t worry, only the title page is in Spanish but all the photos are from my last trip to Barcelona.

As a complement to the growing amount of Content and Social Media focused advice being given by traditional SEOs, this presentation is in line with our approach at TopRank to customer-centric content optimization.

Instead of focusing solely on keywords as inspiration for optimization, this presentation provides a framework and example of how a customer centric approach would segment customer data into personas and then map keywords, topics and content types according to each persona’s journey through the buying cycle.

A recent study “State of Digital Marketing Report” indicated that for both B2B (57%) and B2C (41%) websites, search engine optimization was the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation over paid search advertising and social media marketing. Keep in mind, the study was sponsored by a provider of SEO services and had a conservative sample size. Despite that, the findings are consistent with what many successful SEO practitioners have known for years.

There are a number of additional studies that have supported the notion that Search Marketing (PPC and SEO) are the most effective and efficient practices for improving website traffic, leads and sales. In fact, Google has compiled a number of case studies and examples of how online search has driven substantial offline sales. Earned, Owned, Paid and Shared Media all drive search as search drives both online and offline outcomes for business.

Amazing sunset outside of the TopRank office.

The agency (TopRank Online Marketing) that I started with Susan Misukanis celebrated it’s 10th Birthday this year and in all my time as an Internet Marketer, no other combination of marketing tactics has yielded results like Search Engine Optimization and Content. Over the past 5 years Social Media has entered the mix as an even more powerful amplifier to the effect of optimized content.

But there’s a key problem with how content marketing is implemented by many SEO-focused agencies and practitioners. Creation of “content” has escalated to amazing levels but there is a lot of that content fails to achieve the desired objective. In the midst of keywords, links, rankings and search algorithms there are several important pieces missing.

Content marketing is essential for B2B businesses providing both qualitative and quantitative returns.  And while 6 in 10 marketers are planning to increase content marketing spends this year, success-rates still vary greatly as it’s a new concept for most.

Maria Pergolino, director of marketing for Marketo (a TopRank Online Marketing client) shared a presentation at the Marketo User Summit on getting the message out, focused on social media and content marketing tips/tricks.

How do you succeed in content marketing?

• Create content that sells
• Create a content map
• Optimize content for search
• Repurpose content
• Learn to succeed even in situations with little or no content

B2B marketers have always been in the business of “content marketing“ with white papers, case studies, webinars, demos, free consultations, ebooks and the like. Longer sales cycles due to more complex products and services and business purchasing processes often require more information. The content used to educate buyers of B2B products and services can be a very valuable asset when it comes to content optimization and acquiring leads via organic search.

When assessing B2B client resources for optimization, most marketers focus on web pages and increasingly, digital assets and social media content.  Web pages are more often directly linked to by other sites vs images or video, so it makes sense to start optimizing a B2B site’s web pages.  The operative word in that last sentence is “start”.

The thing about internet marketing is that there is no “one right way” to solve a single problem. So much of the advice and commentary about content optimization for search engines at conferences and on blogs is tactical. Five tips for this and 10 ways to do that. We do it too, because people that are new or just dipping their toe into the stream of internet marketing knowledge need information packaged in an easy to understand and actionable format.

Between the changes and improvements that happen on search engines, adoption of new web technologies/applications and changes in the way people use search, tactical advice can get outdated pretty quickly.  

We continue our series of weekly SEO basics questions and answer today with a question that acknowledges the value of approaching search engine optimization holistically, but indicates a desire to keep things simple and focus on the basics.

“… you mentioned to use a holistic approach to aid in a better SEO, but specifically what might be the “top 3″ things can I do or focus on my website to best help improve my search rankings on Google”

Since Google dominates the search marketplace, you can read their “How can I create a Google-friendly site?” recommendations. Or you can read on for more SEO insight.