Did you get the memo? With Google’s increased focus on content freshness and other social-laced algorithmic updates, marketers already keen on blogging and other recurrent content strategies have a definite leg up. But how far do SEOs need to go and at how great a cost for what results?

What results can churn-and-burn-puppy-mill SEO-laced assembly content attain? Are there advantages to going “high-end” and really making an ongoing content investment, and how might that affect results? Sure, we all know the objectives are to drive traffic, earn links, generate social signals, compel & motivate conversion… but what results are reasonably attainable for which types of content? Why are you looking at me as if I am speaking French?

Continuum Of Content Success
First, why do we create content, anyway? What are the ultimate objectives and how do we measure success? Here, marketers would say that content is successful when:

• Customers and potential customers are provided with valuable insights to demystify processes, lend perspective, solve problems, stimulate interest; pique emotions and serve needs. First and foremost, the objective is to serve and delight. Arguably, all results stem from this precept.
• Posts yield short-term concept-centric social media traffic to a businesses main website, social profiles (like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube). Social broadcast and rebroadcast results in surfacing the business website and social media profiles’ visibility in universal organic SERPs.
• Posts earn links on relevant anchor text that drive direct traffic and boost pages and profiles in organic SERPs, thereby driving long-term traffic. Links are not as important as they were before, but they are still essential to ranking algorithms.
• Associated traffic results in KPI conversions, which might include direct response, friendship, subscriptions, branding, other goals or whatever the KPI may be. At the end of the day, this is all about selling stuff.
• Posts spawn engagement and friendships for later remarketing, that is to say users are inspired to become friends to whom we can remarket to later. Friendship is like branding. Today’s branding is tomorrow’s conversion.

Various Levels Of Content Investment
Not every piece of content is link bait on a grand scale and not all content SEO is about home runs. In fact, sometimes link/social bait “happens” with a lower investment of time on an incredible idea. More often, great bait takes lot of research, can require cool graphics, lots of time other resources and production.

It’s prudent to budget the content mix investment, ranging between “good” quality content and truly outstanding link bait that requires a more serious investment of resources and time. You never totally know what will win, but as the saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

Whatever mix of content you settle on for the results you seek, it’s best to work from an editorial calendar. Each month, schedule the amount of time available for research, writing, vetting images, etc. Then, allocate those hours across a healthy array of investment in posts.

We typically advise clients to budget time for a mix of high-investment “Link-Bait” and solid production grade “SEO/Social Content.” Here’s a high-level list of a handful of content varieties to consider, or not. We’ve separated them by how much time investment it takes on overage for each grade and expected results. The following table is, of course, an over simplification but we think you’ll get the picture.

Of course, there are many other types of content out there at various levels of investment. To name a few:

Serialized vanity bait conventions, such as link roundups, ping mid-authority bloggers and often yield social broadcast and engagement. Content that results reputation alerts being sent, to those you link to and cite, are inherently viral and can often be quickly created to good results. The “Weekly This” or The “Monthly That” can lend a tone of credibility and longevity to a content strategy. This is especially effective when you cite people and publications systemically by saying their names or linking to their work. One of my favorite examples is SearchEngineLand’s “Daily Search Cap,” curated by Matt McGee and Barry Schwartz.

Rewritten press releases can introduce a social spin to repurposed content in social channels and leverage work-in-the-can. There is usually a human side to even the most technical of industrial offerings. Find it.

Publish news with an editorial spin that adds value when you’ve got something important to say. Summarize, put things in easy terms, or elucidate to enhance your readers’ understanding of an important news item. The news may not still be brand new, but your insights are evergreen.

Be a curator. Call it what you want, “custodian,” “keeper,” “steward,” “guardian” or “overseer,” curating is about the adding value to content by how its aggregated. Create lists and aggregate resources to make the whole greater than the sum of parts.

With Google’s swollen emphasis on fresh content and other social signals, marketers already dedicated to quality content have a definite advantage. However, it’s never too late for recurrent content. It’s important to invest enough sources to reach the goal, without over-investing. As such, an informed content mix is advisable. Take time to consider what types of content can yield various result-sets and budget accordingly.

photo credit: fotolio © Fantasista

My content marketing mentors were marvelous gray-haired men and woman, who cut their teeth during the Mad Men era. They trained me to develop story headlines first by brainstorming quickly through numerous theory statements, choosing the appropriate concept to develop, and then taking time to build out a polished headline.

The timeless premise is that it’s important to fully understand what needs to be communicated before attempting to package it in a headline. Otherwise, time may be wasted on spin and tone without a clear vision of what needs to be imparted. When one attempts to shred numerous ideas at the same time, as flashy finalized bytes for every idea on the table, it puts way too much pressure on the creative process and slows things down.

Sure, occasionally blow-away final headlines do come stream of consciousness, and no matter how hard we try and best the first idea, it can’t be topped. However, to many advertising writers, flashpoint creativity in the form of immediately conceiving a perfect headline, is the exception rather than the norm.  Start with a headline theory, develop the meaning that needs to be communicated first and then reduce the concept to a powerful snippet.

Get Started With Headline Theories
Start by writing out exactly what you want to communicate in as long a sentence as necessary, without worrying about style, syntax, vernacular, or length. Like an attorney planning the essence of a court case, spend some time blocking and tackling concepts, or as we call it, “crafting the headline theory.”  Express the theories as one or two sentence statements or comma-delimited strings. They do not even need to be grammatically correct.

Let’s use this blog post as an example. I know I want to write a short feature about headline composition techniques and headline theories. My first move is to quickly brainstorm various theories as to how the post might be approached. What’s cool is that there is no pressure whatsoever to think in flashy sound bytes because the only one who will ever see the raw theory document is me, prior to spending more focused time fleshing out a final headline. This enables me to speed through several ideas without stopping to smooth out rough edges. Here are four theories that took less than two total minutes total to write.

1. Discuss 8 different tips we use at aimClear for creativity in composing amazing headlines
2. Boiling down the fine art of writing headlines, to a technique, not always cut and dried but many similarities
3. Explaining the need for, meaning of, and specific technique of crafting headline theories and developing finished headlines therefrom to maximize creativity
4. Different brainstorming processes our team uses to flesh out headline ideas, how the group dynamic can totally affect the outcome

The theory I choose is in bold, far from a finished headline but clearly spelling out the concept of the post about to be written.  When deciding which theory to use, look for ideas that have multiple layers embodied in a sentence or two. The theory now becomes the blog post’s mission statement.

The next step is to build a more polished headline. Pretty much every blog post or ad I ever write has a list like the one that follows below, moving through numerous ideations of a title before landing on the final.  This process is different for each writer, but I prefer to type line after line quickly, worksheet style, developing many permutations on the headline until I find one that I like. Then I return to it over and over during the post writing process. For blog posts, I’ll usually leave 5-10 possibilities at the top of what I’m writing, add and subtract options, and finalize it sometime during the writing process. Here are the working titles for this post. The winner is in bold:

• Harnessing Creativity! Headline Theory To Polished Headline
• Harnessing Creativity! Headline Theory To Inspired Headline
• Harnessing Headline Creativity! Theories To Inspiration
• Harnessing Brainstorming Creativity! Following Theories To Finished Headline
• Harnessing Brainstorming Creativity! Theories To Finished Headline
• Harnessing Brainstorming Creativity! Theory To Polished Headline
• Harnessing Brainstorming Creativity! From Theory To Polished Headline
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Theory To Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Brainstorming Theories To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Brainstorming, Theories, & Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Brainstormed Theories To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Brainstorming Theory To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Theories!  Flashing Ideas To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Theories!  Flashpoint Ideas To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Theories!  Flashpoints To Final Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  From Theory To Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  From Theories To Polish
• Harnessing Headline Creativity!  Jamming Theories To Finished Polish

Look for the final headline to capture and boil down the true meaning of the content. We want it to be long enough to communicate the crux but short enough to have some bite. Sometimes the theoretical essence changes a bit during the writing process and the headline needs to be adjusted at the end, right before publishing.  Other times the mission statement offered in the initial theory holds steady all the way through writing the post. It’s usually a good idea to look over the final content that the headline theory inspired, in totality, for adjectives and concepts that could not be envisioned. In this case the word “flash” in the post inspired the final headline that I completed just now, right before publishing.

Team Work Puts The “Fun” In Fundamental
These concepts work really well for teams, especially working in a non-linear environment and even with virtual teammates.  Often times we’ll bandy ideas about via Google Chat, from thousands of miles away, exchanging theories and final options back and forth. This can take place at any time in the process. We believe that involving other creative teammates really adds energy, brevity and wit.  Also headline theory technique works really well for nearly any type of content that has a headline, from AdWords to Facebook Ads, SEO title tags to YouTube video names, and LinkedIn DM and email campaigns.  Happy headline writing folks!

Image: © Konstantin Li – Fotolia . com

Welcome back to aimClear’s coverage of #SMX East! It was the rank spank heard round the world: Google Panda, an algorithm update by-and-large focused on quality content, rolled out in waves starting February 24, 2011. Panda thematically dominated SMX Advanced back in June, and by proxy, the Best of SMX Advanced Track this go-round at East. The morning kicked off with Google Survival Tips and lead into the afternoon with inspirational and informative techniques for Panda-Proofing Your Content.

Moderator Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land, Q&A moderator John Doherty, SEO Consultant, Distilled, and speakers Horst Joepen, CEO, Searchmetrics, Heather Lloyd-Martin, President and CEO, SuccessWorks Search Marketing, and Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies, KeyRelevance took turns sharing actionable advice for creating top-quality content designed to satisfy users, rank well in search engines, and of course, please the Panda. aimClear live-tweeted this session via @beebow. Takeaways live after the jump.

Chris Sherman took the stage and welcomed the crowd. He raised a noteworthy statistic addressed earlier int he day, namely: Google claims only 12% of websites were affected by Panda. While that doesn’t sound like a ton, consider how many sites and pages are indexed by Google. Twelve percent of a trillion is pretty darn sizable, don’t you think?

Regarding Panda, Google has always said quality content is important. But there’s also technical aspects to consider when optimizing for the algorithm. While Panda has some site owners screaming bloody murder, it also presents a (perhaps previously overlooked) opportunity for them to seriously rework their content so it works to their advantage.

Heather was up first. She began by stressing that we are all content marketers. Websites are composed of content. If you own a website, you’re marketing it. Therefore: website owners are content marketers.

“Some see Panda as a slap,” Heather noted, “but it’s about emphasizing quality content… something we should have been doing all along.”

Pre-panda, folks focused on search engines and forgot about readers. That’s a serious shame! The war-cry was always, “Create content for the search engines!” Thing is… search engines don’t pay your bills. customers do.

“Make sure every word you write is focused on what your users want to read,” Heather stressed.

We all know what quality content is by being able to look at it, being able to paraphrase. In fact, here’s a paraphrased quote from Potter Stewart Heather shared with the crowd:

“Quality content is hard to define, but we know it when we see it.”

(Author’s note / question to the reader: Was I actually supposed to put quotes around that?)

Heather went on to comically lament, “At no other time in history did people create such crappy content everywhere and expect good results.”

As content marketers, we want to create quality content, but we don’t know how to start. Here’s Heather’s tip: View your content as parts of a whole.

Heather’s Guide to Panda-Proofed Content

• Create an editorial calendar that makes it easy to slice & dice your content & repurpose it for different mediums.
  • Quality content allows you to do this easily.
  • Crap content is like buying a cheap shirt you will wear for one season, then toss.
• Stop asking, “What does Google want?”
  • Focus on what your customers want, on what they’re interested in reading.
• Develop content around keyphrase research, customer questions, sales funnels, and stories you can tell about your company.
• Strategically repurpose content across different mediums.
  • From whitepapers, make blog posts, tweet stats that point to whitepaper, post facts on FB page, put in newsletter, etc.
  • From blog posts, make videos, share links on FB and LinkedIn, Twitter, start discussions, etc.
  • From sales pages and case studies, integrate video testimonials, tweet facts, link back, etc.
• Important: Keep track of your content assets with an editorial calendar. Stick to it! On-the-fly is no good.

Action Steps – What You Can Do Now, Yes, Now!

1. Evaluate your current content assets. What do you have? What have you done?
2. Get everyone on the same page about SEO content. This could be a fast chat, or an in-house training.
3. After researching topics, create your editorial calendar. Assign monthly content to in-house team, or outsource.
4. Watchdog the quality. Even post-Panda, some folks are confused about how to approach SEO writing. The content may not pass the test.
5. Have fun with content development. This is your chance to tell a story about your company and convert like crazy .

Heather wrapped up and turned it over to Horst, who was going to discuss more of an international perspective – on what our friend Panda did in other countries.

Looking at the history of reported or noted penalties and updates…

• 2006 – BMW goes black hat
• 2009 – The Vince & Canonical update
• 2010 – MayDay Update (May), Brand Update (August)
• 2011 – Panda hits U.S. (February), more U.S. & International affected (April), Pan-English (August)

What makes the difference? Why do some sites get penalized, others, not? With Panda, it was more of an auto-penalty or auto-quality rating. Previously, things were more of an analytics-supported (manual) quality rating and time limited penalties. Now, however, there’s a greater emphasis on permanent quality assessment during crawling / indexing, permanent pressure on KW positions, etc.

Early-Warning Signs: Do They Exist? What Are They?

• Quality content is necessary. What do search engines do with the rearrangement of rankings and the redirecting of traffic?
• Example: idealo.de vs. idealo.fr. No change in traffic for the German site. For the French site, there was a 39% loss of visibility. Conclusion: Brand protection goes a long way.
• Excessive linkbuilding example – the JCPenny rollercoaster. Why the hell did they do that? Lesson: Learn from your competition. Watch for penalties in your peer groups.
• Reasons for penalties will be built into Panda and algorithm improvements. Warning signs (instances of sites getting spanked) indicate what might hit you later.

When Examining Peers / Competitors, Look For…

• Which competitor got away?
• Who got hit, and why?
• Compare buckling structures, content and structure of competitor domains
• Compare AdSense and affiliate load (less is better!)
• Compare social network activities
• Compare user experience

SEO 2.0 Winning Traits

• Sites with original content, but not always the original wins
• Brands and established businesses are preferred

So you got spanked…

• Adjust SEO strategy
• Go long tail, don’t stand in between
• In the short term, compensate with PPC traffic or other universal channels
• Distribute content on subdomains
• Worst case, relaunch

Key Takeaways:

• The line has been moved up towards quality
• Leverage peer group monitoring to learn from others
• Don’t stand back, don’t go overkill– walk the line!

Last but not least was Chris Silver Smith.

“What is Panda?” Chris mused.

Vanessa Fox says it isn’t simply an algorithm update. It is a platform for new ways to understand the web and user experience. Danny Sullivan, similarly, says it’s not a new algorithm, it’s a new factor. Stephan Weitz and Maile Oyhe maintain Panda makes it easier to reliably detect social spam. Chris believe it’s a combination of automated metrics and human factors-  a method for modeling webpages and websites that have certain usage profile combinations scoring those combos then using scores to rank pages.

Usability and user experience have become more influential in ranking determinations. Have we seen an earlier incarnation? It seemed familiar to Chris. In the past, Google has gone after “thin affiliates,” and penalized them from ranking.

Quality Evaluator Tips, & Other Things to Consider

• Check out how your page looks in the search results. Is it what the user making the search query would want to see?
• Human factors with an impact: Clicks for SERPs, bounce rate, time on site, linking behavior, social media- shares / mentions / votes.
• Leverage a paid human evaluator staff, algorithmic analytics, and application of factor values.

Tips from Chris

• Remove/noindex pages of low quality or oath (remove error pages, aptly vestigial pages)
• Site: search for error pages, check server status codes for error pages
• Combine similar pages, redirect one to the other (KW term variation pages targeted by panda)
• Include more value-add features on your pages. relevant images, videos, maps, related links, charts
• Coordinate strong social media & pr campaigns if this is post relaunch, change usage profile model, improve it when it is next assessed by panda
• Don’t force users to click secondary pages to view vital info
• X testing – focus groups, usability testing follow clickstreams, personas
• Clean out spam from comments and gourds
• Use rel=author tagging for customer trust in pages
• Does article have spelling /s stylistic or factual errors? clean and fix
• Remove excessive ads that interfere with user access of content
• Become an authoritative source (links for Wikipedia)
• Publish a book about your business
• Avoid over-optimizations

—

Big thanks to the speakers for some awesome tips on pleasing the Panda and creating quality content. Stick around aimClear blog for more coverage from #SMX East 2011.

Photo credit: Nak Datta

Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of #SES San Francisco! A true content wizard, Lee Odden’s (@leeodden) Content Marketing Optimization session reminded the audience that content can make or break your website. When you’re looking to optimize your site, you have to take everything from rich media to web pages to digital assets to PDF documents to both created and shared content into account. Always remember: “If it’s searchable, it’s optimizable.”

With so many people looking to break into the already well-established online marketing realm, brand marketers have to go after the Holy Grail of content marketing optimization – that is to say, they must be efficient and improve the impact of their SEO and social media efforts. aimClear live-tweeted this session via @ericasendros Keep on reading for the real deal.

What does content marketing do for SEO? And where does it fit within an online marketing program? As content marketers, we create messages that are easily discoverable and share the content with people we connect with. Everything you create within your social network qualifies as content, and this applies to brands as well. As more companies adopt the brand as publisher, we see an increase in social content creation. The competitive landscape in search is leading to companies beginning to to expand their content circles to new types of media – everything from webinars to white papers to blogs to case studies. People want their data in a variety of ways, and it’s imperative to utilize every avenue of media that you can if you want to reach a wider audience. Create videos and write articles, guest blog, reach out to other thought-leaders to have them guest blog on your own site. Be proactive. Optimize all your content.

Sage Advice from a Master of the Online Marketing Craft
If you are a content creator searching for success, there are two things you must do:

• Make your content findable
• Make your content sharable

If nothing else, people need to be able to see what it is you’re trying to share. By spreading optimized content across various types of media, they will be able to find it in more place than one, thus increasing the chances they will share your content. Content marketing is basically just aligning customers’ needs with a brand’s objective.

How do you even get started writing your content? Lee suggests looking at segmentation of different customer groups as well as personas. What groups do your customers fall into? Find out and cater your content to them.

One Large Cup of Fresh Content, Please
The most effective SEO tactic is to have good content, but that’s also the most difficult to maintain. Creating new, fresh ideas on a regular basis (and optimizing them) is what makes a brand climb to the top of the search engine results.

If you want to write quality content, you need to have a process – a cyclical relationship with the community so you can have new and original ideas everyday. Reward your community for sharing, and they will continue to share. People like nothing better than to be recognized for their ideas, and by keeping your community happy, you’ll be opening the doors for more people to share content and original thoughts with you.

Companies should create content that can be optimized. Why go through the trouble of writing a thoughtful piece or shooting an informational video if you’re not going to optimize it? If you’e not going to optimize it, chances are it won’t be easily findable. Expending significant time on content should be rewarded with optimization. Generally, most of the head honchos in a company think they need to optimize their products or services first because that will ultimately result in more sales. This is certainly true, but what many managers fail to realize is how important it is for news, press releases and general information to be optimized. A customer is more likely to find your company or your product if your entire website is in keen optimization mode. There is a tremendous opportunity for SEOs to work with PR people, industry analysts and bloggers.

At Your Service, Dear Customer!
People are always searching Google for forums that will provide an answer to their question. Increase customer satisfaction by making their answer readily available, optimized, and easily navigable. Remember: Whatever can be searched can be optimized. Everything from images to video to tweets to Facebook updates to LinkedIn updates and Microsoft Office documents. These media types can be ranked on their own, but optimizing them makes them more findable. If it’s more findable, that’s less work for your customer.

Make sure that you master optimization for content across the customer’s buying cycle. What are you doing to optimize for customer experience?

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy!
After you have achieved the high quality content you want, you will need to work toward content marketing optimization and social media optimization. Here’s how:

• Research customer segments.
• Identify search keywords and social topics that are relevant to your customer needs.
• Content and promotion plan:
  • Where will you promote it?
  • Where will you re-purpose it?
  • Companies often publish their content only to never use it again.
  • Plan how to re-use your content.
• Optimize, socialize and promote your content. Grow your network everyday.
  • Who do you follow and associate with?
  • What are your customers content preferences?
  • How do they discover, consume and share content?
  • What are they looking for on search engines?
  • Align your business goals with the needs of your consumer.

A lot of SEOs optimize existing content for particular phrases they think will be most searched. That’s not enough to create relationships with customers. Find out why your customers want that product. Harvest the dialogue, organize it by keywords, and answer their questions. Collect data, identify commonalities, and cluster common characteristics.

Where do we get the data? Ask customers! If you were to search for a product, where would you search? What would you search for?

Courtesy of freefoto.com

Some Questions Worth Asking… Yourself

• Which phrases do competitors optimize?
• What high level keywords do you want to be known for?
• How will you promote that blog post?
• Where will you re-purpose it?
• What media will you include?
• How can you make it interactive?
• What are the top level concepts you want to dominate?
• Is this piece of content useful and interesting?

Bottom Line: If You Create Good Stuff, People Will Share It
Press releases that have embedded media far exceed press releases that are comprised of text alone in performance. To achieve more coordinated content, use a mix of different media types to appease all customers. Contributed articles and guest blog posts can be useful, but how do you find a willing, well-respected guest blogger? It’s as simple as checking search results for guest bloggers and reaching out to them. Most bloggers will love the exposure, especially if the blog is the center of your site. Are you being creative with getting your content out there? Creating networks at the end of each distribution channel is important. Its not enough to provide optimized content.

So, you’re ready to apply content SEO. Now what?
Oftentimes, the most difficult part of kicking off an optimization project is knowing where to start. If you’re in that boat, try these practical tips:

• Audit existing content and focus on current content and digital asset optimization.
• Optimize priority content and add new content according to marketing/PR purposes following SEO best practices.
• Re-vamp! Develop new site content and a new editorial plan while adding content according to keywords.

8 Ideas For Fresh Content
Tired of the same old content? Running low on fresh ideas? Need a new burst of energy? Try one of these eight tips Lee suggests:

• Google alert keywords – provide commentary and insight.
• Create short lists of tips according to keyword themes.
• Compile large collections of resources according to theme. As you find things online, collect them and categorize them. Over time, you will accrue a substantial list.
• Interview other bloggers. Either ask many bloggers one question or ask several questions to one blogger.
• Aggregate the best comments from other blogs and turn that into your own analysis.
• Run surveys, polls and contests that result in content. What did you discover?
• Get your staff to ask you questions, and answer as a blog post. It’s a gold mine for coming up with content ideas!
• Collect services/sales/FAQ information and then write about them.

Eureka! So THAT’s what they mean by content marketing optimization
Online competition is fierce. As marketers, we need to embrace our creativity and make it as accessible as possible. Let’s take the initiative to always remain one step ahead of our competitors. If your competition is performing, borrow their popularity by interacting in their conversation. After you’ve furiously produced some fresh, stimulating content and optimized it to Timbuktu, your competition will be the one trying to interact with you.

Remember what’s important! You have to be customer-centric, and you need a good team. Train your copywriters on SEO best practices, and go holistic with social and SEO. Likewise, you will need to train your SEOs on how to create an efficient content strategy. Lastly, don’t forget to set reasonable, adaptable goals and create feedback mechanisms to stay in contact with your customers and community.

Big thanks to Lee for an awesome session! Keep checking aimClear Blog for more conference coverage

Welcome back to coverage of Day 1 #SESSF!

Of course, we don’t all have the luxury of writing copy for lingerie and foxy sports cars. The sexiness therein is pretty much inherent. What of those marketing home insurance and funeral parlors and B2B medicinal equipment? Gussying up such content so that it excites people is no easy feat. And doing it on the cheap? Pfft.

Fortunately, Noran El-Shinnawy, Director of Marketing, BoostCTR was ready to led social-savvy speakers Liana Evans, Author and Co-Founder & CEO, LiBeck Integrated Marketing, Jeffrey Harmon, Chief Marketing Officer, Orabrush, Mike La Rotonda, CEO and Co-Founder, Votigo, and Jeff Revoy, Chief Product, Marketing & Strategy Officer, iContact through the late morning audience choice session, Like Me! Social & Viral Content Tips for Making Your Brand More Sexy. Together, the team of panelists shared case studies featuring… arguably less than sexy brands… and how they were able to gain meaningful traction by means of social media in a cost-effective manner.

aimClear live-tweeted this session via @beebow. Read on for the full effect.

Noran took the mic and introduced the panelists, highlighting three thoughtful details about each one. (FACT: Two of the four panelists were extreme mountain bikers. Up to you to guess which two!)

First to present was Liana Evans, who began by asking the age old question, “How do you get Likes for a business that isn’t quite so… sexy?” It’s natural– everyone wants to go viral. But it’s not so easy for the less sexy brands out there.

Come to think of it… it’s not so easy for the sexy brands out there, either. Yes, virility of a social media marketing campaign is something that is more or less out of the hands of those doing the marketing. Campaigns that do end up hitting the big time & garnering millions of YouTube video views, Facebook shares, and social buzz in general tend to have a common theme: the virility was a complete accident.

Most things that go viral weren’t constructed around the possibility of going viral, Li points out. This makes for a pleasant surprise when they do, but it also makes it difficult to measure the impact, or conversions, because oftentimes, no benchmarks were set in place, no one was at helm monitoring and managing all the buzz.

Characteristics of Successful Viral Campaigns

• With viral, timing is everything! Li emphasizes that viral is all about being in the moment. Life and culture are always changing—the current events and associated emotions are constantly evolving. In short: What works today won’t work tomorrow.
• Most viral videos do not sell. They’re funny, silly, poignant– there is something about them that catches your emotion. There is never an expectation of a purchase. They create value to the viewer, even if that value is simply a laugh or smile.
• You don’t have to be sexy to be valuable. Viral is short-lived. It’s about getting a lot of traffic, a lot of views… a lot of value!
• When you’re valuable, you’re “sticky.” Sticky means people keep coming back to you for more and more information, or more entertainment. They’re stuck on you When you’re sticky, people will likely recommend you to their friends — they will become fans, evangelists, ambassadors.
• When planning “viral” content, you have to be unique. Think differently than your competitors. Don’t be a copycat.
• Be valuable in your own community. Don’t focus on tapping into mainstream social media—that’s a big bite to swallow. Instead, focus on connecting with the community surrounding your product. You never know – it might take serious legs from there and infiltrate the mainstream on its own.

Casestudy: Big Tony the Plumber
Look. Plumbing isn’t sexy. Big Tony isn’t sexy (unless, you know… he’s your type). And yet… heaps of his DIY videos have tens of thousands of views. Tens of thousands of views! That’s nothing to scoff at! And if you’ve ever seen any of his vids, you’ll see they were made on the cheap.

Duhhh… How did he do that?!

What makes Big Tony’s videos resonate?

• They speak directly to the crowd with which he wants to connect – his own community of DIY-lovin’ homeowners.
• His videos offer valuable information to the user.
• Channel engagement is very high. Big Tony monitors his comment threads, and always engages when someone comes around with a question.

Understand Your Goal
Before you begin planning a viral campaign, examine your goal with wanting to go viral in social media. What do you want to achieve?

Take a look at the Old Spice Guy. What was the goal? To sell soap to men? No. If it was, you bet your fanny they would have used some drop-dead supermodel telling men to buy Old Spice.

No. The goal of this campaign was to was to change the perception of women regarding Old Spice. Most women, it seemed (myself included), when they thought of Old Spice, thought of their fathers, or their grandfathers. It is, after all, a pretty ancient product. Women didn’t think of sexy, steamy, chiseled, towel-clad Isaiah Mustafa their boyfriends or husbands.

(Also: note, the Old Spice Guy campaign didn’t go viral because the spokesman they chose was sexy, steamy, chiseled, and towel-clad. That didn’t hurt, of course… No – it went viral because they did not shove the product down viewers’ throats. Erhm…)

While the Old Spice viral campaign did translate to selling things in the end, but chief goal was to change perception of women. And it did. Boy, did it ever.

Make it Sharable
If you expect (want) something to go viral, make it sharable. Remember the Man with the Golden Voice? The first instance of that video came from The Columbus Dispatch. But that’s not the video that went viral. Why? It was poorly optimized. There was no share button functionality on the video. That news source was so concerned with controlling the content, they missed a huge opportunity to be on the coattails of an amazing viral sensation.

So, what did someone do? Someone ripped the video and put it up on YouTube. That’s the video that went viral. D’oh! MSNBC swooped in, made the video very sharable—very socially-friendly. All that link juice pointed back to MSNBC. Win!

How can you be that valuable resource?

• Find the passion of your community. Hitting emotion causes passionate actions.
• When you focus on what people want, you can connect with an audience in a meaningful way that provides value & garners attention.
• Focus on the quality of your community, not the quantity. Would you rather have 30k+ fans who follow you, or 1k fans who, over 50% read on your content?

When you solve a need, you become valuable, and [fans] wont want to let you go. – Liana Evans

Sage Advice:

• Give Up Control. It’s social media. You don’t really “own” anything anymore.
• Your audience wants to feel connected to you. They want to feel like they help make your success. Let them help J
• Don’t sit back and expect it to happen– act now! Get your audience involved! Ask questions, ask them to submit photos, give them polls, quizzes, interactive videos to play with, etc.
• Be realistic – don’t create pieces with the intent of going viral. BUT, be prepared in case it does.
• Know what you want to measure – traffic, buzz, shares, links, etc.
• Don’t forget to integrate – mix in social with efforts in PR, SEO, and other social channels. Optimize everything!

And with that, Li wraps up, and hands the mic over to Mike LaRotonda. Mike focused his presentation on using UGC (user generated content) in social media campaigns, i.e. – how you can get your users integrated with your campaigns – how to leverage communication for content.

Benefits of UGC

• Very cost effective
• Virally spreads your marketing message
• Builds community around brand
• Helps grow customer base

How do you get all that UGC?

• Ask for it! post Qs to your FB wall, offer polls, surveys, etc.
• Start slow, but… start J
• Seed with contests — photo or video.

If your product isn’t sexy, focus on intangible benefits. Does your product save people time? What do you do with saved time? Here, creativity is a must.

Tips for Successful Photo / Video Contests

• Clearly define objective.
• Pick your platforms.
• Make it social*
• Choose right partner.

* “Make it social” is two-fold. Aim to provide the right tools for sharing AND make it something that people would WANT to share.

Mike next ran through a couple case studies of less-than-sexy brands garnering success with social media.

• ShoreTel – An IP phone systemwith blah blah unsexy so unsexy I didn’t listen built in to it. ShoreTel created a “How do you untangle complexity?” video contest.
  • The results: 60 video uploads, meaning fresh Facebook content and YouTube content. Not bad
• FastSigns – They create signage for businesses. Ho hum. They hosted a video contest asking people to submit a clip explaining why they were most deserving of their own signage makeover. Campaign objectives – engage consumers, generate awareness, increase fans.
  • The results: 360 submissions. Not bad, not bad at all!

All in all: contests are where it’s at. They’re relatively inexpensive (mainly all your’e doing is asking other people to do something) and yield (hopefully) awesome UGC you can repurpose and share across your social channels.

Mike wrapped up and tossed the mic over to Jeff Revoy. Jeff focused on why social mdia is important and what you as a marketer should care aboug.

Why do brands and social media work? They tackle important concepts: reach, gather, deliver, position, gain.

Social media helps you extend reach and participate in a conversation that is connected with your brand, Jeff pointed out.

Some Stats

• 53% of marketer’s polled said their expenses on social media marketing is going up in 2011. That’s good!
• When asked if they were more likely to purchase from a brand after subscribing to one of its social channels, 37% of Twitter users polled said “yes.” That’s good, too!

Tips From Jeff

• Establish your objectives! Sample Objective #1 – Build brand awareness. What is the primary driver? Content.
• It’s so important, especially in social media, that content is extremely engaging. (Remember! The content DOES NOT need to be directly related to your product)
• The most important thing is making the content shareable. Make it something people want to share with their social circle!
• Social media – you want people to quickly engage, and then want to share it immediately.

Brands Doing More with Less

• Non-profits – Consider creating a social badge for users’ profiles. Allow them to share it. (E.G.: “I’m a devoted [X] donor!”) People are happy and proud to share such a status on their social profiles.
• Retailers – Offer exclusive deals specifically for your Facebook community. The value goes both ways – you are offering goods that are relevant to them, and it also means more fans for you.
• B2B – How to garner engagement? Repurpose the content in your email campaigns – spruce it up to speak to a social audience, and share it across Facebook and other social channels. One B2B company retailing LED lights, Jeff  mentioned, worked outside their immediate circle to write content about families (specifically, babies touching lights – myths, truths, dangers, etc.) There was no selling whatsoever. They engaged mother-readers on a poignant, near & dear topic. Tip: When you repurpose content, don’t turn it into an advertisement. Make it not about selling at all. Instead, aim to transform it into a truly valuable resource.
• Local Restaurants - Food trucks, for example, can leverage Twitter to share their current location with hungry customers-to-be. Brick & mortar local restaurants have used Twitter to connect with patrons, allowing them to make advanced reservations via tweets. Very clever J

And that about does ‘er! Oops. Wait. Until about 10 minutes before the end of the presentation, panelist Jeffrey Harmon was missing in action. When he suddenly reappeared, he delivered a presentation very similar to that morning’s Social Media Solutions on a Budget (click the link for a write-up of that preso). One awesome nugget he shared with us:

“A subscriber on YouTube is worth about fifty times as much as a Like.”

Nearly every panelist nodded in agreement.

So! That about does ‘er Stay tuned at aimClear blog for more coverage of Day 2 #SESSF, coming up later today.

The beginning of the end of Day 1 at #SESCHI 2010 found some marketers fidgeting in their final session rooms, anxious to get to the cocktail reception (free-drink tickets clutched tightly in clammy hands…). But it’s safe to say that those attending the “Delivering Great Content” panel were more anxious for the strategies sure to be shared by a power-house team of presenters more than anything else. Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR, Michael DeHaven, SEO Product Manager, Bazaarvoice & Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks dolled out great insights on three facets of content: video content, user-generated content and SEO copywriting strategies.

aimClear live-tweeted this session (via @lindsaylorraine). Read on for tips they shared with the Search Engine Strategies audience.

Video Content
Jonathan Allen, director of SearchEngineWatch, kicked off the session with a welcome and introduction of the first speaker. Greg’s presentation concentrated on using video as part of a comprehensive content strategy. Greg began his fascinating look into the whys and hows of video content by asking why marketers should care about video. That question can best be answered by one stunning statistic:

• Americans watch more videos a month on YouTube than they conduct searches on Google.

Upon hearing this, half the audience felt like they’d been hit by a truck. Jarboe stressed that if you’re not in the game, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. This applies not just to major consumer-facing corporations, but to small and medium sized businesses as well as B2B companies.

How to Develop Great Video Content
This often involved & consuming process can best be summed up with a good old-fashioned model of communication, namely:

• Who says what in which channel to whom and with what effect?

1) Identifying the who- this is arguably the most difficult step (who, meaning who will you put on camera). Relax, you don’t have to put your CEO on camera. While the who is important, it doesn’t need to be the most important person in your operation. Greg points out that you might want to use the CEO only if he/she is charismatic (a decently pretty face doesn’t hurt, either…). Although difficult for the C-suite to grasp, putting customers, employees—anyone but the usual suspects—on video can be a great strategy.

Greg offered this case-in-point that hit the nail on the head:

• During the 2008 election season, Barack Obama’s campaign made over 11,000 videos.
• Obama himself appeared in only 10% of them.
• Out of those, only 2% required him to take time out of his schedule to film.

What does this tell us?

• Developing great video content does not mean producing over-scripted, under-rehearsed talking-head snooze-fests.

2) The second consideration is what to say. Greg pointed out that humorous videos take the cake, but the second most popular genre is news. Another concept is how-to videos, which are incredibly popular. For evidence of this, look no further than YouTube itself, where the second most popular channel is ExpertVillage. Comical and how-to videos are equally popular. Being funny is difficult (especially for a bunch of executives, not to mention the legal department), but most businesses should be able to create some kind of how-to.

3) Once that fancy video is complete and ready to share, Greg moved onto the next step– determining where to put it. 86% of video searchers end up on YouTube (Hulu is 2nd with about 3%, but you can’t upload your video to that site). So where should you focus your energy on placing that video? Greg says:

1. YouTube.
2. YouTube.
3. YouTube.

Once it’s there, embed it on your website, post it to Facebook and look for other opportunities to share it.

4) What about effect? In other words, how do you know your content is great? Unsurprisingly, it’s not you or your boss who decides whether the video is good. The vote that matters is that of the community that watches the video. So, think like your customers, or potential customers. Need inspiration? Check out this hit, “The Stench that Stole Christmas.” This video helped OraBrush sell $1 million worth of $5 tongue brushes! How’s that for ROI?

Greg wrapped up with another stunner of a stat: a video is 50 times more likely to get a first-page Google ranking than a text page. So, boys and girls, the lesson here is that if you’re not doing it (video, that is—minds out of the gutter, please) you’re missing out big time!

User-Generated Content
Up next to discuss the merits of user-generated content (UGC) was Michael DeHaven. After flinging several screaming monkeys into the audience (seriously… fortunately they were meretoys & no one needed to call PETA), Michael delivered multiple knock-your-socks-off stats supporting his ultimate message: you need to have user-generated content, such as reviews and Q&As, on your site! Here’s why:

• Fresh content will increase crawls and site traffic
• Products with reviews convert 38% better
• Q&A increases conversions even more

Michael offered several real life examples of sites that have employed UGC, among them OpenTable and Cabela’s. Review content on pages caused a 17% lift in traffic from search engines on OpenTable, while reviews increased search traffic by 200% at Cabelas.com.

Michael explained that sites should use UGC to:

• Inject freshness and richness into optimized pages
• Expose UGC by creating UGC archives, and
• Ask users to contribute.

Be advised & aware that UGC has the potential to destroy your SEO work if you do it wrong. However, the upside is that users can write what you, as a marketer, can’t (without sounding like a fool). That means natural language, positively trending words, and much more.

So what should you do? As Michael put it, ask, ask, ask for user-generated content!

SEO Copywriting Strategies
Heather Lloyd-Martin rounded out the session with a look at some killer SEO copywriting strategies. Among the things to focus on, she explained, are customized landing pages. She suggested splitting landing pages into different verticals, offering ConstantContact.com as the shining example.

Constant Contact understands that the benefits of using its services aren’t the same for salons and restaurants, so there would be little to gain from serving a salon owner and restaurateur the same “We’re awesome for these reasons” marketing copy. These landing pages should offer specific benefit statements for each industry, which would results in content that resonates with readers.

Another consideration is to change how you write your copy. If you make it more personal, it can have an incredible effect on conversion rates. When writing web copy, tell your customers and potential customers specifically how you can help them. Keep in mind that storytelling sells, but don’t forget key phrases.

Checking analytics and review pages with high bounce rates is another excellent strategy. Think about how you can rewrite those pages to reengage customers. One of the top bounce-rate pages, incidentally, is the ‘About Us’ page on corporate websites. Heather, Greg and Michael each offered tips to improve this much-maligned mainstay of corporate America, namely:

• Reduce the marketing speak on the page. No one cares if your company offers “a multi-platform communication suite for cross-functional team interaction” if what you make is chat software.
• Ask others (preferably those external to, but knowledgeable in your business) how they would describe what you do and use that language on the page. You might also consider getting a feed coming in from Twitter or embedding video.

And don’t forget to optimize page titles. A title is like a headline. It is meant to entice the reader to click. Although space is limited, try to include key phrases, a benefit statement, and even a call-to-action.

Heather concluded by noting that all of this can be overwhelming. It is not meant to, nor should it be done all at once. She encouraged attendees to commit to a baby-step strategy. Start with the top 5 bounce rate pages, then create an editorial calendar to accomplish the other tasks.

With that, the panel wrapped up & the audience applauded. Then, almost immediately, everyone made a bee-line for the bar. But what a culmination to Day 1 of #SESCHI! Stay tuned for more coverage here in aimClear Blog, and of course, follow the aimClear team’s live-tweets from @aengleson (Alyssa), @beebow (Lauren) & @lindsaylorraine (moi).

As with many facets of technology, when it comes to SEO, the times they are (always) a-changin’. What was once advised by mostly technical means, search engine optimization has evolved to be noticeably impacted by more social elements, for example, blogs. Generating fresh content and comprehensive feed syndication are killer ways to help enhance your site’s overall SEO efforts, but never forget– “feeds” can be composed of so much more than simply blogs.

Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed, Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing and moderator Craig Macdonald, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Covario sought to wrap up Day 1 of #SESSF by feeding us tasty tips for optimizing blogs, but also opening our minds to think outside the blog and leverage other types of valuable, keyword-rich content to serve customers.

First up is Lee, ready to spill his Recipe for Blog SEO Success. (Note: cute analogy, but not so cute for a starving blogger at the end of a long day.)

While there is surely a structured list of SEO tips you can follow for content optimization, try to emulate the great chefs of the world: do they follow recipes down to the “T” every time? Nope, not really. There’s room for creativity. Lee advises we follow the guide he’s about to dish out,  but customize it in accordance with our own situations.

Blog SEO Prep

• Audience: Who’s coming to dinner? Who is your audience? As you plan your content, know who it is you are writing for.
• Keywords: What does your audience like to eat? Incorporate keyword queries that reflect your content. To know what works, you must do KW research.
• Content: What do you have in the kitchen? What are you writing about that’s topical? What problems are you solving for your readers?
• Blog CMS: Should we use the good china? Are you using Blogspot? WordPress? Custom CMS?
• Links & Social: Who can the guests invite? Are you implementing social share buttons? Cross-channel promotion attracts traffic and inbound links.

Tip: Match your editorial plan with keywords. Create different editorial plans for your search keywords, which advise blog content, and your social keywords, which advise social content.

Basic Blog SEO Tips

1. Title tag vs. on-page title– do these tags have the opportunity to be different? WordPress has a plug-in that will allow you to create one title for search engines and one title for people.
2. Implement keywords in the post URL (slug).
3. Create keyword-rich categories.
4. Thread keywords in copy, but use synonyms. Don’t be redundant in your verbiage.
5. Incorporate anchor text links to older posts.
6. Minimize duplicate content.
7. Encourage inbound links.

Flow of activity: socialize – personalize –> grow networks –> promote

Cycle of Social & SEO

• Create and promote optimized assets.
• You promote content, it gets noticed, it gets shared, you grow awareness.
• This increases exposure, attracts more subscribers, fans, friends, followers and links.
• This contributes to increased search engine visibility.
• Now you can mine all of this data for content you create and optimize for future consumers.

Blog Content SEO & Logistics

• Identify & train blog contributors on SEO (titles, body copy, linking out & internally)
• Create keyword & engagement guidelines
• Make content promotion part of the publishing process
• Provide feedback: search & social

Blogs can be very social things. You can syndicate automatically to Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can (and should) comment on other blogs, link out to other blogs, run surveys or polls as a way to engage people, respond to your own comments… these are all social activities. It’s not just about publishing your own content. You have to look at being social off the blog. Propagate the message of the blog off the blog so people can link back to you and boost your search visibility.

Your Goal: Socialize and be useful. Syndicate your content without duplicating it. Map it out, plan it out, time it, and execute!

The Benefits: Content sharing, direct traffic, social syndication, inbound links, build trust & authority, create and engage the community.

Cool tools:

• Keywords- Google Keyword Tool, SEMrush
• On-page Blog SEO – Scribe (automated)
• Comment Management- disqus, ECHO
• Link Tracking – Majestic SEO
• Social Media Monitoring – Trackur, Techrigy, Radian 6
• Social Management - Hootsuite, MediaFunnel
• Social Search – 48ers.com, SocialMention.com
• Engagement – PostRank, BackType

And wrapping up this adorable analogy, Lee’s Perfect Blog SEO Recipe:

• 1/2 cup audience focused keywords
• 1 well-optimized blog CMS (WordPress)
• 2 cups content & editorial schedule
• Stir – linkable content w/ promotion
• Shake- grow & engage social network
• Bake – ongoing keyword & content refinement through web & social analytics

Sally was up next with her Content Strategy for 2010. She began by citing the Impact of Real-Time Web acccording to readwriteweb.com: “The web isn’t about pages anymore. It’s about streams, feeds & syndication.” With all the social that we’re in now, the way people are into the real-time web, the way search engines have changed – your content strategy has to change, too.

Sally also cited Matt Cutts and the new SEO practices for a Google Caffeine world: “Sustainable organic growth requires a commitment to unique and valuable content creation on a regular basis and the wherewithal to deliver it effectively.”  In fact, Caffeine has been motivated by the social web and things going real-time. Search engines are constantly looking at all of the content put out there, and they’re nearly able to digest, index, and serve it up real-time. Blog posts are now being indexed in seconds. This is huge.

Moving Beyond the Blog
There’s got to be some system you’re feeding content through– that system may well be a blog. But the time has come to think about things over and a blog. Sally says you absolutely must blog. But there are other things you can (and should!) be doing, too.

• Tap into the real-time web.
• Make your content available in feeds.
• Make it easy to share and post to social sites.

There’s a reason why you put certain content on a blog– for sharing thought leadership, generating leads, etc. You blog in a certain, more personal voice, which is just one thing that makes it an appealing form of content. But don’t get stuck in thinking that a feed means a blog. Interestingly enough, Google’s definition of a blog is simply “a webpage with a feed.” There are so many other ways you can get all the value that you get out of a blog but with other types of content – just make sure it’s optimized.

SEO advice from Matt Cutts

• Create a blog and post content.
• Know the search terms your audience uses.
• Write good meta tags.
• Spotlight your search terms.
• Syndicate your content.
• Make sure you consistently generate fresh content.
• Work to get “citations” (an instance of someone mentioning you– this is not necessarily a live link) in the social web.
• Get relevant sites to link to you.

Link Building in 2010

• Get creative, be innovative, think about what people want.
• If you link this with your social media strategy, it all comes down to listening to conversations.
• Look at trends, observe gaps, pounce when opportunity arises, know what you can deliver, know what content you have, what you can create.
• Put it in a feed, put it out there, make it interesting so people say “OMG that’s brilliant!” and want to pass it on, link to it.

Think outside of the blog! You could leverage:

• News content- every company has a story to tell! Think about whats going on in your industry, what’s going on with you.
• Articles and product info (“how to” is the second biggest search onYouTube)
• Updates & alerts

As Sally says, “You don’t have to wait for the world to fall down or some huge merger  to happen- you can create news.”

Cold-Pitch vs. Natural Convo
Sally’s advice: don’t cold-pitch content. Ever. Syndicate content and watch who talks about it, watch who picks it up. Then, contact the blogger- simply reach out to them. Thank them for sharing your content. This opens the door to a natural conversation. Start with great content that will spark a conversation based on the right KWs. This will help you all the way around – from SEO to social.

Distribute & Aggregate
It’s important to distribute your content and just as important to archive it on your own website. This way, when people come to you first, without finding you from social media or content feeds, they’ll see the same goods on your site – links to your Twitter profile, YouTube channnel, Facebook page, etc.

So what’s the ROI of content feeds?

• Get links
• Attract bloggers
• Feed content to social web = citations
• Boost organic SEO
• It stands to note that within 6 months, feeds often become top drivers of traffic to sites

Sally wraps up by reinforcing that you absolutely must blog– but look at what else you can do, what other interesting content you have that you can put in feeds.

credit: Drew Coffman

Whether your company’s focus is on search or social media, when it comes to any successful marketing campaigns the old saying still stands: “Content is King.”  From digital assets to traditional media, your goal as a marketer is to not only create unique, relevant content– but to optimize content to the point that users find it valuable enough to share with their friends.

Continuing the afternoon of Day 1 at #SESSF, fellow Minnesotan and TopRankBlog.com CEO Lee Odden took the stage to deliver a solo presentation during the Content Marketing Optimization session. If you didn’t catch aimClear’s live-tweet coverage, or if you want to re-live the action and advice, read on for a full transcript of the session.

First things’s first: what is content marketing?

• It’s creating & distributing relevant & valuable content to attract, acquire, & engage a clearly defined and understood target audience.
• Nowadays, customers are expecting more. It’s not enough to just publish features & benefits and expect someone to buy something.
• Customers are using search engines for facts, asking friends on social sites, searching again…
• “Content is the reason search exists.” -@leeodden
• “Content is an outcome of social interactions.” -@leeodden

The Impact Of Social on Search

• Search engines syndicate social content. A lot of the stuff that happens on LinkedIn and Facebook happens behind a log-in (walled garden).
• There’s a lot of influence in the social world on the user experience in search results.

Common content marketing types: digital magazines, newsletters, blogs, video, podcasts, eBooks, webinars, websites…

Lee asked the audience, “How many of you are making sure the content you produce is properly optimized?”

• You have to leverage search insight to expand your reach as a marketer.
• One of the most effective tactics for increasing conversions is search engine optimization. Period!

The Changing Nature of Search
The evolution went like this: Standard –> Universal –> Personalized –> Real-time –> Third column (aka: Faceted search).

Optimization Best Practices Follow SERPs
Search engine optimization, digital asset optimization, social media optimization. As Lee famously says, ”If it can be searched on, it can be optimized for better marketing performance.”

Optimized Content Strategy

• Start with goals. What are your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)?
• “Are you going to keep chasing that carrot month after month or are you going to work on community, engagement, relationships?” -@leeodden

Digital marketing goals: search –> traffic –> inquiries –> sales

The Growth of Social Media: “A lot of people are very hiiiiigh on the social media drug.” -@leeodden

10 Things to Consider to Get the Most Out of Content & SEO

1. Set goals, KPIs, revenue expectations.
2. Buyer personas: get demographic info from social sites & research.
3. Traditional keyword research: don’t forget to consider social keyword research. Anticipate what people buzz about. Leverage Google Trends.
4. Content & assets. Know your customers, know what they need and want. Social interaction creates keyword-rich content.
5. Editorial plan. Who are your customers? What do they want? What kind of content are you going to author for them? (Also, understand where people are in the buying cycle and tailor content appropriately. )
6. Operationalize your SEO. Give KW lists to your social media team so they tweet/update FB/blog with in-demand KWs.
7. Develop off-site content. This is crucial! Repurpose content, i.e.: embed a YouTube video on your website, post screenshots on Flickr, etc. (Freebie blog idea: Tweet out some Qs. Take 10 tactical responses from thought leaders. Put them in a blog post, mentioning ‘em again. Genius!)
8. Socialize! Are you already repurposing content on social sites? It’s straight-up silly of you to not participate on those sites. Create connections!
9. Promote! Crappy content with a snappy title will kick the ass of fantastic content with a boring title. When you publish something great, you have to go out & promote it in a way that creates value.
10. Measure. Use social media monitoring tools. Great for research, great for seeing effect of promotional efforts.

PostRank.com

• Go to PostRank.com. Register, and behold! For any blog, see where people are getting comments, tweets, bookmarks, etc. Great insight!
• Use PostRank to see where your competitors have a loyal community. Then, try to tap into it yourself .

Grab your doggie bags for Lee’s top Session Takeaways:

• Develop & optimize content with personas in mind. Go beyond the keywords they use to find you. Think about the informational needs of your customers.
• Create and promote content regularly.
• Develop channels of distribution & social links.
• Leverage both web analytics & social media monitoring analytics.

Lieb emphasized how important expertly-crafted content is to SEO:

Search engines only understand words, they don’t understand podcast, videos or graphs. It is all about words.

Byron is up first diving right in.

How to approach content and optimization: craft a content marketing plan. Master the art of learning the wants and needs and the science of delivering it to them in a meaningful way.

Your plan and what you end up writing will change with what you learn about competition, your target market and your industry. Those variables MUST be research.

Research with the latest (free!) online research tools:

• idealaunch.com
• spyfu.com
• compete.com
• quantcast.com
• seomajestic.com
• raven-seo-tools.com

Find the hot topics within social media conversations. Use TweetDeck to monitor conversations about your brand, competition and industry.

Discover Your Customers’ Wants and Needs Creatively.

Research ideas:

• web search box
• social media sphere
• talk and listen
• surveys/polls
• navigational patterns
• tradeshows
• feedback on site

Establish specific content marketing goals: ie listing position, conversion rate, sales, traffic, user acquisition.

Once you’ve developed your strategy the next objective is: choosing the right venues.

Create a tip and advice center on your website. Become a resource for searchers. They’ll love you for it.

On-demand printing is the new age of publishing.

• ISBN authority
• Authority validation
• Speaking gateway

Webinars and videos turn browsers into believers.

Mircrosites are great to test different ideas and concepts.

Utilize podcasts to:

• interview experts
• testimonials
• idea feedback
• focus groups
• employees

SEO is the science of content optimization starting with keyword research.

Look at trend report, find hot topics and create content. Develop content maps on the hot topics and keywords. Choose topics for readers first, not search engines. You’ll only make money if people go to your site and only your mom will go if your content sucks.

The Art of Content Creation

• Identify the concrete ideas to drive the business.
• Create Mantras, not missions.
• Distinguish customer needs vs. reader needs (Readers want to be introduced to new worlds) They want to be surprised and delighted.
• Add surprise to your content to engage readers (Which of these animals is more likely to kill you: Shark or Deer? *read on for the answer* )
• Add emotion to content to make readers care
• Add emotion to your headlines (Readers make decisions in milliseconds based on the visual and headlines)
• Develop stories to make people take action

Join the Content Revolution

• Listen to customers wants and need
• Deliver content to them in a compelling way
• Test
• Catch readers traveling at high speeds
• Deliver with tools they use

Next, Lloyd-Martin outlined seven steps of excellent copywriting. But first asked: Why care about content?

The best SEO is good content -Seth Godin

Quality Content + Quality Links + Keyword Research = SEO Sweet-Spot

How the text is written has a huge impact on search positions and conversions. It’s not just about sticking keywords in copy. It’s not about keyword density. It’s about writing content that connects with readers.

Your Main Advantage: Control

People think SEO is uncontrollable. It’s not just up to Google or Bing, the content helps you control your positions and conversion rates.

Step 1: Who are you? Develop Customer Persona.

You should know your audience inside and out. Find out what makes your target audience tick. Discover their pain and pleasure points.

Write for the right audience. Consider:

• Who is your target audience (it’s not everyone)
• Do you have multiple target audiences?
• How old is your typical buyer/reader?
• What level of education have they reached?
• What are their average income levels?
• What benefits are important to them?
• What are their hopes, dreams, fears and desires?

Step 2: WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?)

Develop your benefit statements:

• What are the benefits of working with you? Why are they important?
• What specific objectives do you have to overcome?
• What is your competition doing and how do you position your company within your local or national marketplace?
• What tone and feel should you use to resonate with your audience?

How you say what you say is extremely important.

Step 3: Be a Content Psychic.

Keyword research helps you understand what information people are searching for and what questions they have. The more relevance, the longer they stay. The longer they stay, the more they trust you. The more they trust you, the more likely they’ll buy. Cha-ching.

Build out resource pages. Prospects often have question. Don’t just be a company, be a resource. It also helps in the SERPs and makes you look more credible.

Step 4: Free Yourself From “Fake Rules.”

Party like it’s 1999, but don’t optimize your site that way. It’s not about keyword density anymore.

General SEO content “rules”

• Keywords in headlines and subheadlines
• Keywords in hyperlinks
• Keywords throughout content
• Keyword-rich title

Step 5: Make Your Titles Sizzle Off the SERPs!

Think of titles as headlines.The SERPs is your first opportunity for conversion.

Step 6: Control What You Can Control. (take SEO copywriting baby steps)

Beware of the website mullet! Check for outdated copy

Worst Outdated Offenders:

• Press pages
• Conference/events pages
• Product pages
• Old articles

Set up an editorial plan to “clean up” old content. Schedule it.

Leverage content opportunities: start a blog or rewrite old, un-optimized pages.

Step 7: Follow the SEO Copywriting Checklist:

• Who does the writing
• What pages need to be rewritten
• Where does the budget/times come from (good writing takes time)
• Why don’t you look at other opportunities (twitter/blogs)
• How will you know if it works (conversion testing)

Readers first. Bots second. If you can’t do either, don’t bother. -White

And now for the answer:

* So, what’s gonna kill you? A Deer, by 300 times. (Seriously, if you hit them with your car, you don’t always win… Please, be safe out there.)

This SES New York 2009 session, “Search Advertising 101,”  was especially geared toward the SEO novice, with details on programs from major providers and advice on how to succeed.

The assembled audience was comprised of small business owners, agency representatives and in-house advertising representatives. The panelists provided a well rounded program chock full of sound basic approaches to what can be a very daunting road to travel.

The Moderator was: Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive. Speakers/Panelists: Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster, Mona Elesseily, Director of Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media, Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products & Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange

Matt Van Wagner entered from stage left and provided the group with a view of Search Advertising from 30,000′ (not literally, he was standing on the stage). His “back to basics” marketing 101 approach provides a solid base from which to work. He covered everything from ad structure to ad copy to quality score metrics with very strong clarity. Here is a snapshot of his approach.

Why He loves PPC
• New business friendly. Cost effective and quick to implement.
• Simple  and targeted ads are effective
• Targeted geographic approaches
• Investment in PPC is measurable and readily accountable to ROI models
PPC and SEO work well in concert.  They complement each other.
• Quick to implement and work well in conjunction.
• Strong model to manage risk and algorithm changes
• Predictable, dependable flow of traffic. Constant maintenance and activity can ensure a steady long term flow.
PPC allows you more control over your messaging
• You control the messaging through the use of text
• You determine what pages visitors see first
PPC is not “Said it and forget it”. It is a constant process. Remain active.
• You must create sustainable advantages. It’s not just about keywords, ads and bids. There are many more factors to creating strong PPC campaigns and they change every day.
• Develop a disciplined plan and use it. Create a system of constant testing and constant personal and client education…..and more testing.
Matt’s advice is simple.
“Get it right on google first…and then kick it around to the others.” And “If you don’t define success, you will not know how to get there”.

Next at the controls was Mona Elesseily and her top 10 list for Ad copy. Drumroll please………

1. Include Keywords in ad copy
• Be specific
• Keywords in ad copy are proven to increase conversion rates
• Acts as reinforcement for the consumer
2. Use Appropriate ad tone
• Gear ad copy to your industry category
3. Filter clicks
• Use the right ad copy to get the right people to click on your ads
4. Gear Ads to different buyers needs
• Price conscious (or unconscious), reassurance, Deals (buy it now!)
5. Consider the buy cycle
• People go through several stages before they purchase.
6. Include a direct Call to action (CTA)
• Be efficient. Limited space.
• Encourage action
• Helps in the tracking. Focuses the process.
• Spell it out. Be specific/literal.
7. Testing Yields results
• The way you will get conclusive results is through testing.
8. Use Multivariate testing
• Test multiple variables at the same time.
• Here is a great link to an awesome free tool to use for Mutivariate testing. http://www.adcomparator.com/
9. Get statistically significant data…and use it
• Provides you with the information backbone to fuel your message and placement
10. Ad copy takes time. Brainstorm!
• Segments (offers, CTA’s, USP’s, headlines ect.)
• String together in various combinations.
• Dynamics are evolving constantly. Language should be topical and relevant.
• Go for a walk, come back refreshed and then revisit the copy.
If there was a main theme running through this presentation it was “support all of your online marketing efforts with regimen of constant testing”.  (mine)
• Testing over time is key
• You will find that you will test in more detail as you acquire more experience. It will be less broad and more specific. This will come with time. Be patient.
Mona spoke of a couple of common test mistakes to avoid.
• Use more than one ad. Many “Newbies” do not use enough.
• Too many ads in play. Relax. The remainder of the “Newbies” go to the other extreme.
• Mutivariate testing is better served on high traffic volume sites than on low traffic volume sites.
She then made the unpopular move of sticking the group with homework. Let’s just say I have a dog and it has homework eating disorder.
Jay Sears took center stage (more to the far left behind a podium) and helped the audience navigate the issue of content based advertising.
• If you only by search you are missing 95% of the time consumers spend online.  Only 5% of a consumer’s time is spent searching. If you only buy search you are missing the boat.
• Search is not advertising it is demand fulfillment. Search is for closure.
• Content advertising will grow considerably in the next 12-24 months. Inventory is not an issue.  Over 1 million websites currently offer opportunities for Content ad placement. Search is at a saturation point.

Demand Generation versus Demand Fulfillment
• Search is about the “Last Click”.
• Content advertising is about “Demand Generation”.
• Separate your content and search ad groups.  Content drives scale, Search is efficient direct to conversion.
• Content advertising is more of a portfolio approach to marketing. Implicit interest. Cast a wide net.
• Search is Narrow and targeted.
• Keywords do not work as well in content advertising. They can appear out of context. Keywords assume explicit interest by the user.
• Content advertising ad copy needs to go wide. You are “Implying” interest.

Make sure you build your Content ad message to fit the model
• Scream! Grab their attention
• Bribe. Make it worth their while.
• Be emotional. Fear and Curiosity are strong drivers

Content Advertising plays well with others
• Highly effective when used in conjunction with Search advertising methods. It has proven time and again to provide significant and measurable”lift” to overall campaigns. Paid search conversion increases an average of 22% when used in concert with Content methods.
• Brand specific keywords searches increase.
• Reinforcement is a powerful tool

Don’t wait for the last click. With the application of Content advertising into existing Search campaigns you will get into the purchase continuum earlier, allow your brands to spend more time with the consumers and ultimately improve your conversion rates.
There is a constant evolution with new opportunities emerging every day.

Incredible innovation at all price levels.  Most tools available to the big boys are readily available to the smaller businesses and can provide the same success (to scale). Explore new options, implement new ideas and remember, there will always be a test afterwards.