Content Marketing for SEO – Conceptualisation

and ImplementationLukasz Zelezny and Sam Jones

Sam@delvermedia.comTwitter @sameljonesLukasz@Zelezny.co.uk

Twitter @lukaszzelezny

Where to Start?

Why do content marketing?

- It’s the best tool we have for brand and community building- It’s a Google proof form of SEO- Search engines want it- Customers want it- It’s the best source of traffic generation!

How to start the creative process

1. Identify the audience – your customers2. Identify where the audience are3. Mind map content topics!

It’s really as easy as 123

Identify the audienceWhat is your customer persona?

- Create profiles of what you think your customer is like- For each type of customer you identify try to work out what

motivates them – e.g. streamlining processes, satisfying personal or business need, feeding desires etc!- For each type of customer work out the content they would engage

with the most.

Exercise – Developing PersonasDevelop 3 Personas that represent core customers/markets for your company.Think about1. Who they are?2. Why they need your products or services?3. What information would help or encourage them to buy your

products or services?4. What type of content would appeal to them – short/long,

video/ebook, fact centred/emotion centred.5. Where do each persona spend the most time – blogs, news,

industry sites, social media, email.

Reaching your personasArmed with our customer personas we can now start planning our content marketing strategy.

We start with research aimed at finding out the best places to externally place our content for greatest exposure. Place this into an excel spreadsheet so you can refer back to it.

This can be done in 2 stagesStage 1: Identify the thought leading sites in your industry; news sources, journals, magazines, blogs. Stage 2: Identify the people behind these sites.

Stage 1 - Research

Google searches(Industry) (industry) news(industry) blogs(industry) magazine(industry) books – also done on Amazon!

Site searchesAlltop.com – find social media influencersTechnorati – BlogsLinked In – PeopleHelpareporter.com – this is for news sources and to add yourself too!

Stage 2 – Finding the people

Rip contact details from websitesConnect on twitter, facebook linked inWho is domain checks etc.

Add these details to your spreadsheet.

Laying some groundwork

Before we start planning a content marketing campaign it’s a good idea to touch base with your high value targets and influencers. This can be simple as sending them a question, posting a thoughtful comment on their articles.

At this stage we wouldn’t ask for anything we are just getting our company on their radar.

Content Topics ExerciseTypes of content – Can you name them all?

Obvious content types1. Blog posts 7. Surveys2. News Articles 8. Competitions3. Infographics 9. Podcasts4. Guides 10. Video5. eBooks 11. Courses6. Brochures 12. Tutorials

Traffic and Competition Analysis1. Google Adwords2. SEM Rush3. Search Metrics4. SEOQuake

Then we look at the actual content………..

1. Gaps in the market – Look for knowledge gaps, information gaps and ways you can improve existing content.

Exercise – Plan Content1. Plan an in-depth landing page that targets 1 or more of your

personas.- Identify the problem or topic to be addressed- Information to cover – i.e contents- Tools and resources – videos, tools, widgets, slideshows- Structure- Knowledge level

2. Plan how you would turn this into an ebook or eCourse

Creating Content - GuidelinesCreating compelling, engaging and useful content can be tricky.

What we’ll look at here are some key structures and pointers to make your content come together more effectively.

Outline- Write an answer to the following questionsA: Who is the content for?B: What are the main points we need to cover?B: Where will the content be placed? E.g. This will be placed on-siteC: What value are we giving readers? E.g. This page will teach users unfamiliar with our software how to use it.D: What additional (non-text) content would be useful for readers? E.g. Diagrams, video tutorial, worksheet, infographics.- Bullet Point Contents- Write a 3 sentence summary. This needs to tell the user exactly what

they will get from reading your content.

Structure1. Introduction – 2-3 sentences.

2. Contents listing – All the major points people may want to jump to

3. Additional Resource – Video, courses, other relevant landing pages for more in-depth information.

4-n. Content sectionsBreak up with- Bullet points- Images- Tables- Diagrams- Instructions- Video- Call out boxes

5. Conclusion – 200 words tops. 2-3 sentences. Starting with a call to action.

WritingWrite the first draft content!

Now go through every section and do the following

1. Remove Unnecessary Adjectives2. Break up any sentence longer than 15 words into 2 or more sentences3. Break up any blocks of text (8 or more lines)4. Clarify the language, remove jargon (Or use call outs to explain jargon)5. Insert soft calls to action where they would be useful to the reader6. Insert internal links where they are useful (set to open in new window)7. Insert named anchors (<a href="#Mark_1">Mark 1</a> <a name="Mark_1">)8. Make sure each section makes sense in isolation from its counterparts and provides

significant value

Repurposing Content

Once we’ve created these epic landing pages we have a golden opportunity to repurpose the content.

This means – turning into presentations, turning into video, podcasts, using as the basis for articles, creating webinars, ebooks, ecourses etc.

We then use this content to enhance our landing page and gain traffic and links from other sources.

eBooks

Turning big content projects into eBooks is a great way to get extra mileage out of your content.

1. Design a branded front cover2. Add a table of contents3. Include extra links to internal pages and to the original landing page4. Add a company bio page and detail your expertise

Publishing eBooks

Publish everywhere- Amazon- Kobo- Scribd- Smashwords- Lulu- Project Gutenburg

Link Baiting Your eBooks

To get more leverage for your landing page and eBook we can use it as link bait.

So we contact our identified partners from earlier. - We offer them the opportunity to share the book on their site or to their

email lists. - We offer them the opportunity to publish a section- We offer them the opportunity to contribute an additional section- We ask for a link to the original (but don’t demand it – as the book is

already branded and linked to our landing pages)

With all our content projects we need to think about where they can actually be delivered, repackaged and repurposed.

1. Industry Sites and Blogs2. Newsletters, giveaways, embedables3. Video – YouTube, Vimeo, dailymotion4. Audio – iTunes, Soundcloud, ipodder.org, podcastalley, odeo.com,

Yahoo5. Infographics – Visual.ly, coolinfographics.com,

infographcisbin.tumblr.com, infographepedia.com, infographics.alltop.com

Building AuthorityThe more authority you are perceived to have the easier it is to get exposure, backlinks and to make connections.

So how can we get more authority quickly?

Google NewsNews general guidelines - News content. - Journalistic standards. - Authority. - Accountability. - Readability.

News technical guidelines - Article URLs. - Article Links. - Article formatting. - Robots.txt or metatags. - Multimedia content.

News quality guidelines - Stick to the news--we mean it! - User-friendly. - Proper use of our meta tags.

Share your site with us

http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/news/2007/10/tech_wizard_of_oz_breaks_broadband_speed_limit/

- Who needs to be involved in creative process?

- Who is best placed to create content?

- Who is best to implement content?

Creating Content

- Who needs to be involved in creative process?In

itial

stag

e Senior management

Rese

arch In-House

SEO Team

Cont

ent c

reati

on In-House Copywriters

Opti

miza

tion In-House

SEO Team

Initi

al st

age Senior

management

Rese

arch In-House

SEO Team

Cont

ent c

reati

on In-House Copywriters

Opti

miza

tion In-House

SEO Team

- Who is best placed to create content?

Initi

al st

age Senior

management

Rese

arch In-House

SEO Team

Cont

ent c

reati

on In-House Copywriters

Opti

miza

tion In-House

SEO Team

- Who is best to implement content?