All posts tagged seo

7 Simple Must-Asked Questions to Have a Winning Content Strategy

Posted by on March 20, 2015

Strategically, with the help of any SEO consulting services, we can have higher traffic and ranking than the other sites and blogs. However, even when we seek SEO services,  it is still not a guarantee that we can achieve our desired rank when we have a poor and crappy content. We all know that content is the heart and soul of a site or blog.

 

manobyte.net

manobyte.net

Creating an engaging content for your website can be demanding at times. Implementing a content strategy itself needs our full attention. What more when it comes to creating appealing and engaging contents? Basically, the content must be precise and direct so the readers can easily and clearly understand what you want to tell them.

Writing a content means writing down your ideas. But sometimes, ideas won’t just flow more so when our minds are already tired and empty. A winning content observes and follows a good content strategy. Here are some of the must-asked questions if you want to have a winning content strategy.

  1. Who are your users/audience?

As a writer, you can’t write a content if you don’t know who your audiences are. To whom are you writing for? Who are these people that you want to impart your ideas to? And who are these people who would be interested and willing to read your articles or blog posts? These questions are essential for you to answer to identify your target audience.

You can’t determine the specific traffic on your site if you fail to determine your target audience. Also, you can’t identify what kind of people who usually visits your site or blog in terms of demographics. You may have a lot of target markets which can be difficult to write for, or you may have an ideal target market who you think will be interested in your contents.

Knowing your target market is a prerequisite of focusing more correctly on that particular market. such a process may boost the traffic to your site and let you obtain more qualified leads. Well, that is, aside from having better and higher page ranking on the search engines.

  1. Who are your competitors?

To know and identify your competitors mean that you are up for the challenge in a competitive world of online content consumption. Knowing who your competitors are is one way to being proactive and strategic enough especially when they want to take you off guard and copy your strategies.

If you are smart enough, however, you can get some of the ideas from your competitors. For instance, you may determine how they manage to have a successful content strategy particularly when it comes to letting the people stay and being engaged in the content they made. It is a matter of who gets the idea first and how you act on the idea. It could be you or your rival.

  1. What can you offer?

Since you already know your target audience and your direct (and even indirect) competitors, the next thing you must consider is what can you offer to your target audience that your competitors may not necessarily copy or imitate. That’s your unique value.

Some of the questions worth pondering are: What kind of content these particular groups of people need to know? What else can you teach them that they still don’t know? What kind of content will you give to them that they may be interested in?

Always remember that there are thousands of digital marketers who write and publish the same content as you do. The only way your content can stand out from the others is to make your contents unique, valuable, informative, relevant, interesting, useful and engaging.

  1. What does your target audience need and want to hear?

If you don’t have any ideas on what kind of content you should be writing for your audience, try being active online. It is necessary to socialize online so that you’d know what the trending topics are and for you to fit into the crowd and to your target audience. When you do, you know what kind of topics that they want to know.

You can get ideas by interacting with the other online writers also, perhaps through forums or any other social networking sites. Grab that idea and make an engaging content out of it for your target audience. The more engaging and interesting your topic will be, the more people will be reading, liking, commenting and sharing your content. In short, an engaging content is a magnet for worthy interactions!

  1. What is the purpose of your content?

Now yo know what to write about, the next thing you must consider is to know what is the purpose of the content. Is it purely for traffic and lead generation? Is your content intended for selling? Is it for entertainment? Will it be informative or educational? Is it intended for the kids or for adults?

It is important to know the purpose of your content so you may easily align the topic with the right audience. You may also identify which category your content belongs to and for you not to be confused.

  1. How often should you publish content?

When you start blogging, it is now your duty to give your target market an interesting content that they might not know yet. You must have a schedule on when to publish since you are tapping on your readers’ expectation. Eventually, your readers will look forward to reading your blog on that specific day. Will you publish one article per week or every other week? Or even every day?

Publishing a new content on a regular basis is also a daunting task. You have to think of a new and interesting ideas. There are instances when you cannot think of anything to write. Just always go back to the basics of why you are  writing in the first place.

  1. How will you distribute your content?

Publishing your content is not enough. You need to let the people know that your website or blog exists. Knowing where to distribute or post your content other than your website is a way to gain more viewers.

Be reminded that in publishing, you must be careful where you are going to post your contents. Not all publishing platforms are created equal. If you want to gain more viewers, you have to post your article on the sites wherein there will be lots of people that may notice and read it. The traffic of your blog also varies on how you should distribute it socially.

Sometimes, we complicate things when, in fact, having a good and winning content strategy is as easy as answering 7 must-asked questions. The secret is in the basics! And the basics that we are talking about are discussed above.

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Tips to Boost Your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted by on August 26, 2014

Wondering if you can produce more content to increase your site’s performance but have been missing a lot because of too much information? You may even have been jammed by a lot of things online and can’t decide how to simply put the marketing strategy. Well, just like any other SEO company that is aiming for the same goal as you, here are some tips on how to boost your content marketing strategy and make those write ups shareable online.

Know your audience

Take time to research the demographics of the different social media marketing platforms you will be using to share. Continue to be updated on what your audience interests are, what they are doing and what their needs and wants are. By this, it would be easier for you to create the information you want to give because you now have the idea of what your audience’s continuing needs and interests are.

 

Keep content relevant

Check also what your customers are sharing on social media. By this, you can base your content on what you have extracted from those social media sharing. You can also keep track on what contents to write and to share. Making your content unique is also one factor to make your content strategy even more effective and worthy to be read and shared because it contains your audience’s interests.

Constant self-reference is a no-no

Direct your message to your readers to stimulate engagement. Make it more personalized by using the word “you.” In this way, your posts will directly address the interest of your community.  As much as possible, make it to a point that what you have as contents will illustrate the benefits your business has to offer and not just something that tells them what you are and what you do.  As social scientist Dan Zarella says, “Stop talking about yourself.” Instead, “start talking as yourself.”

 

Share what works

Content sharing becomes plausibly effective if you know which works or not. And by this, it would mean creating collaterals that are effective and efficient. Consider also your own time schedule and talents. There are different formats wherein you can communicate your message. Some examples are writing short-form articles, infographics, photographs, short product demos or instructional videos, etc. Choose which format is more comfortable for you which will not only reveal what your business is like, but also on how creative you can get in relaying a message to your readers.

Curate

In content sharing, curating can be a necessary way in order to create relevant and shareable articles. It may sound like a lot of work because curating would need a human being to find and read and qualify digital content that is relevant to your readers. There are advantages on why curating is also a good move for a business. It is because in sharing content from others, your audience will look to you as a reliable source for information on a specific topic. Moreover, it would benefit you on broadening the conversation with others within your industry from being a third-party content sharer.

Write headlines

And not just any headline, but unequivocally humane headlines. There is nothing more notable and read-worthy than a very humane content title. By this, it would mean making topics that are interesting for humans to read like lifestyle, food, home, news, business or technology and relationships, the least. These are primarily categorized as highly shared topics because they tend to be very ‘human’ by nature.

Topics that discuss ‘what we eat’ or ‘how we live’ make up a huge portion of what we share online. And that is a challenge for content marketers to begin directing headlines in that direction.

Measure emotional value 

Emotions are what best triggers a human’s interest. Contents that contain such emotion-driven words or images prompt your readers and may allow them to share these to their friends which can be of good use or to let them share the same emotion inflicted upon them. More so, measuring the emotional value of your contents would help you know which and what kind of contents you should focus on and write about.

Content can be properly viewed

Contents, in this case, should be properly viewed in such a way that it can be accessed across different platforms and devices. Most web traffic is now coming from mobile devices, but sometimes—if not all—content does not look good or convert well for mobile visitors. Hence, it should be noted that your website content should be optimized for smartphone and tablet devices, so that readers can effectively consume the content.

Responsive design is one solution to this kind of problem. With regard to website ranking in search results, it is important to take this into consideration because Google is now including this standard for mobile user experiences. So if your site is not providing users with a great cross-platform experience, you may be putting your site at risk of losing Google ranking as well as prospective customers.

Make navigation easy

Users should be able to easily navigate around your website and quickly find what they are looking for. Navigation is one key feature a website could probably make or break its statistics. It enables the readers scan through your website, read from left to right, top to bottom and see what they can benefit from your website content presentation. With just a few clicks, probably made the experience worthwhile for the readers, which means, sales.

Tell a story 

Telling a story may be as easy as 1, 2, 3 but doing so would mean making it interesting. You can present your product by making a brief story of how customers would solve an on going problem with your product by doing it in a creative way.

Provide product reviews

Customers would love to read legit product reviews especially when they are looking out for more details on how they could benefit from your products or services. Provide a platform that makes it easy for visitors to access product reviews and comparisons.

You should be trustworthy 

Your site visitors would want to know that you are a trusted business. By this, it would also mean a lot for your readers if they see customer testimonials on your site that would speak highly about your product and services.

Quality over quantity

This is pretty much explainable. Although sometimes, contents are just being disposed with no further research and are written without pure depth and for content’s sake, which is pretty much a flawed approach. More pages or copy does not equate more traffic, engagement or sales. What’s important is your content delivers value (whether informative or pure entertainment) to your consumers, and therefore your brand.

 

Brand your content 

Your contents should say a lot about you, even if it only means having an infographic or an image or a video that is being shared. Make it to a point that your content associates and at the same time, complements your business’ brand. And with that, it would not only mean having being remembered, but also, allowing your readers, consumers and your audience that it is you they are reading, sharing and talking about.

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Why Social Media is “The Bomb”

Posted by on July 18, 2014

Social media has become part of every digital marketer’s language and it is inevitable not to include it as a tool for advertising. And it so explosive that it creates a chain like debris falling from the sky. Sure enough, social media can be accessed anywhere through smartphones and mobile apps. Individuals and even digital marketing agencies use this strategy in order to create desirable rankings for companies they are working with or to extend their networks.

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Reinforcing your knowledge on why social media can bring you to greater heights by recognizing these things can help you maximize your digital marketing options to produce a desirable and meaningful outcome.

Everyone is using it

Well, mostly. And when we say ‘social media’ the thing that comes into mind by most of us is Facebook. Yes, surely it is. And it has been creeping up unto most users. Teens are knowingly hooked into it but did you know that most adults are into social media as well? And with this, it has been considered among businesses to invest more on social media marketing because of the different types of people involved, not mentioning the number of users they can reach.

Helps you deliver customer service

Real time communication is essential for a business to thrive. Through this, customers will be addressed immediately if they have any concerns regarding your product. Having this kind of communication can not only gain you happy clients, but satisfied ones as well. If you go all the way from not just serving them through your product but through your service such as communication, then you will be able to gain trust from your customers.

And this is how social media works, it can help you connect and know the needs and wants of your clients, even if they are miles away. Who knows, you might get more customers if one or two of them gets satisfied and will have you broadcasted all over the Internet due to your fast and excellent service.

Social-media-for-business

For branding purposes

The social media can be one tool for your company to establish that brand image you want people to see from you. It can help you build your brand identity thus creating awareness among your customers about you. This would help your business become something people can relate into depending on their taste and personality.

By creating an emotional connection and some character with your customers, in turn, these steps will become effective and can help your brand stand out from your competitors.

Manage your reputation

Nowadays, people get so cautious about posting things, statuses and images on their profile pages because of the fact that people may be offended or may cause negativity among the online-sphere. Companies do this too in order to protect their reputation.

Managing your reputation online is such an integral part in any marketing strategy. And with the help of social media, it can provide you with a fast and effective way to maintain this. In dealing with sensitive comments and complaints, you can make instant feedbacks to your customers, which demonstrates a high level of customer service, which can diffuse negativity and resolve issues that the customer may have.

Keeps user engagement

Not only individuals who want to connect with their families and friends can use social media to get themselves engaged into each other’s lives, but also businesses. User engagement can be done over the Internet especially for businesses who want to connect with their clients. In order for this method to click, you can create some interesting posts on your social media accounts like images that may stimulate humor or could allow your users to share what they think about something you have posted.

You can always tell a story

Through social media, you can share anything you want. But that always depends on the audience you have and the type of person or business you are. Of course, it is also necessary to share a story to people; you might be interested to share to them how you started as a company or what your new products are.

Storytelling is one of the easiest ways to have an audience and social media can be a way for you to unleash those powerful and intriguing words to convey a notable message. Just keep in mind that it is better to keep it in a simple yet detailed way as not to bore your readers.

Obtain real customer insights

Insights and feedbacks are important results that can be obtained through social media. And these are significant in every business to know what marketing strategy they could do next. Social media makes an avenue for such feedbacks—well basically it really is an effective tool to be used for giving out reactions to anything—as well acquiring knowledge from these customer insights.

These insights can drive the development of your business’ social media campaigns and shape strategic decisions, which helps you make your website contents and product or service offerings more attractive and relevant to your customers.

It also makes it quick and easy for businesses to obtain feedback from customers through social media and will give you a clearer idea of brand sentiment and help you identify common points you can address to. 

trust

Increase brand or business trust

By being proactive and visible on your social media sites, this is one criteria a customer often finds for a business or brand to be trustworthy. Customers often find it overwhelming whenever they see alternatives that they can choose from. Moreover, because of those alternatives, customers want an easy way to authenticate a business that they are dealing with especially if it is a first.

Your social media activity makes it a trigger for potential customers to build their trust on you because they can see that you are always updating your accounts or social media sites. This means that customers are more at ease to know that you are active online, giving them signals that you care about them and once anything goes wrong, it will be easy for them to contact you. Plus bonus points for always being functional online!

Great way to promote your content

This is basically the bottom line of having a social media account. Not only in terms of SEO this shows how important content marketing is but also is a way to attract new customers. Social media helps increase awareness to your potential audience and can in fact be a way for your business to be recognized.

 

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The Marriage of SEO and SMM – Why They Cannot Leave Each Other

Posted by on July 17, 2014

the marriage of smm and seoToday, it takes more than just making websites visible online. It also requires online publishers to enhance and widen their social footprint with or without the help of an SEO company. Indeed, optimization strategies cannot be separated from social strategies especially if increasing searches and improving rankings are your goals (which should be).

Now here’s the perennial question: WHY ONLINE BUSINESSES MUST CARE? Perhaps, these figures will tell you blatantly why you cannot afford to ignore SEO + SMM (social media marketing) = SOCIAL SEO.

 

Demographics

  • Women are more active on social media than men.
  • Nearly 1/3 of all online users are a member of at least a social media network.
  • About 89% of young (aged 18-29) are socially active.
  • The folks (aged 50-60 and 65+) are also socially active at 60% and 43%, respectively.
  • About 72% of Internet users are active on social media.
  • About 71% of the users access social media through mobile devices.

 

Search

  • About 93% of all online experiences actually start with a search
  • Search is considered the best channel to drive direct sales
  • The #1 listing in organic results receives 33% organic traffic
  • The top 4 in SERP listings receive 83% organic traffic
  • Roughly 50% of mobile searches intend to find a local result
  • Approximately 61% of these searches actually result in a purchase
  • Monthly, Google processes 10.3 billion searches

 

Social Media

  • The most successful B2B companies use 7 social media platforms on an average
  • Social media is the #1 content marketing tactic at 87% followed by articles and e-newsletters
  • Social media sharing is the #3 metric used in measuring online success

 

Facebook

  • Facebook has a total of 1.2 billion users today (and growing).
  • About 23% of all Facebook users check their accounts about 5 times daily.
  • A company with more than 1,000 Facebook likes is likely to receive about 1,400 unique visits daily
  • About 70% of online businesses gain a new customer through Facebook.

 

Other Social Sites

  • Roughly 45% of B2B companies acquire a client through LinkedIn.
  • Approximately 20% of all LinkedIn users are below 30 years old.
  • Twitter has 550 million registered users, 215 million of which are active.
  • B2B companies that utilize Twitter generate twice as many leads on average than those that don’t.
  • Only 23% of all tweets generate an action (reply, re-tweet, etc.).
  • Google+ has 1 billion total users, but only 1/3 is active.
  • Google+ users spend 3 minutes per month on an average.
  • Pinterest has 20 million active users monthly.
  • Instagram has 150 million active users monthly.

 

the marriage of seo and smmNow that you’ve understand what you are missing, tying your SEO efforts with your social strategies is a must. Unfortunately, this is one aspect that is very difficult to pursue not because online marketers don’t know where to start, but they don’t know how to start.

Not to mention, there are challenges about SEO and SMM along the way that defy each component, so what more when they are combined. Here are some of these challenges that also cement the supposedly non-separation of SEO and SMM.

1) When to integrate?

Some online marketers deliberately chose to start their SEO and SMM efforts after building their websites. This is the culprit of all culprits!

SEO should be a fundamental part of the website design or re-design process. This is the reason there’s such a thing as ‘technical SEO.’ SEO and social media widgets, for instance, must be architected into the design early on, perhaps while still at the design stage.

2) How much to spend?

Unquestionably, marketers need to invest on a website. However, what good is a perfectly designed site if it lacks high quality content?

optimization and social mediaA business is an ongoing investment. Invest on brand journalists, too. These are the people who are ready and willing to align their goals based on the company goals. The secret is investing on quality. If it means investing a million dollar for excellent content, then so be it. You would eventually reap the highest ROI possible if you put a premium on excellent contents that convert.

Another culprit that Google itself is attempting to eradicate is the excessive buying of likes, shares, subscribers, followers, etc. All of these must be earned and not negotiated!

3) What approach?

The majority of online marketers are guilty of creating a portfolio of search and social tactics without having a clear focus on what tactics really work for their brand.

An all-or-nothing approach must be avoided. Instead, you should widen your knowledge base so you can make more solid decisions about which tactic works best for the nature and purpose of your business. For startups, trying most of the tactics will do to determine which ones will stay.

 

What to do now?

Think of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ as your primary engine to promote new contents. Organize social campaigns and write optimized contents for these particular campaigns.

When creating contents, follow the basics such as writing unique, informative and compelling contents, building well-structured pages, and following the SEO best practices. Don’t forget the metadata such as tags, images and authorship.

social media marketing smmCreate parameters, metrics or indicators, whatever you desire to measure the performance of the socially-shared contents. Look for rooms for improvement.

Silos won’t work. Think about this: why do you have two separate SEO and SMM teams? This is the essence of the lack of integration between the two. Break down the SEO vs. SMM barrier by combining the teams.

Further, have the team members meet on a regular basis so they may coordinate their strategies and together, they may set clear and measurable conversion and sales targets. The teams may also develop operational calendars to meet these targets.

 

SEO and SMM is not a one-time, big-time effort; it’s not an overnight success story as well. It is an ongoing process that takes time, money and effort to reap all the benefits of such. The secret is putting the right content with the right message in front of the right audience at the right time published on the right channel.

With this, nothing will stop the users from engaging with your contents and eventually with your brand. In short, create contents (the SEO part) for your target audience and publish the contents where your target audience is (the SMM part).

 

Sources:

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/01/17/20-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2014/

https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/83-exceptional-social-media-marketing-statistics-2014-160016146.html

http://www.imforza.com/blog/8-seo-stats-that-are-hard-to-ignore/

http://zerogravitymarketing.com/seo-statistics/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/24-eye-popping-seo-statistics/42665/

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