Earning Authority: How To Create Content People Actually Want To Read (And Link To)

Erin Everhart SEO Manager, The Home Depot

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They say link building is dead

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“Links aren’t for driving traffic.”

via http://www.gsinc.co.uk/seo-food.html

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Anchor text overload

via http://moz.com

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Sidebar, footer, home page, sitewide?

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This is just hurting my head

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“Editorial links pass more value.”

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Enter the wave of crappy content

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And we beat that to death, too

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To old times, my friend

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Via http://www.imdb.com/

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Link building (and SEO) can’t die

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As long as people use search engines, SEO is alive and well. And SEO needs links.

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via Pew Research Center

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But it has changed

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Via http://www.girardbrewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/new-coke-logo.jpg

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We know content is king

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“King Content” with no strategy

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It starts with your users, who actually are pretty cool people.

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Here’s your new engine! What car is this bad boy for?

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The Cutie-Patootie SX

Well, damn.

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Buyer personas

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Buyers buy

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Users use

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Surveys •  Survey Monkey

•  Hello Bar

•  Pop ups

•  Embeds

•  Google Consumer Surveys

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Interviews

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But what do I ask them?

•  When did you know you needed it? •  Talk to me about your shopping process. •  What was your timeline? •  What are your pain points? •  What were the top three things that ultimately helped you make your decision? •  How do you use it? •  Did you consider others? •  How did you hear about it? •  What did you do after buying?

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Keep in mind

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• Don’t only talk to your existing customers • Set expectations • Let them talk: Ask open-ended questions •  Don’t be leading

•  Bad: Is the feature helpful to you? •  Good: Is the feature helpful or not helpful to you? Why or why not?

•  Personalize the questions •  Bad: What is the most important thing about this product? •  Good: As a working mom, what do you look for most in this product?

• Ask questions they can actually answer •  Bad: What did you eat for lunch most often in July? •  Good: What did you eat for lunch the last 2 days?

• Try to get people’s opinions/emotions without directly asking them •  Bad: How engaged are you with marketing copy? •  Good: How frequently and what do you research before buying?

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Pay attention to the words they use

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Map to your buyer journey

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Awareness

Consideration

Decision

“I have a problem.”

“What’s out there to fix this problem?”

“I’m going to fix this problem.”

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That exact content may already exist

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Content Audit

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Step 1: Scrape your site Step 2: Analyze your content Step 3: Update it, promote it or delete it

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Got it. So, what about the content?

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You don’t have to create a lot of content.

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“Content is still king, but it doesn’t have to be king of just one thing.” @latrointhemist

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Don’t end your content’s life at a blog post

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Break it down to bite-sized pieces

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Expand it into a whitepaper or ebook

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Turn it into a webinar

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Via http://www.elearningonlinetrainingsoftware.com/

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Or better yet a Google Hangout

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Via http://gigaom.com/

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Remember: This isn’t a sales pitch

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Via http://www.travisberry.com/

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Promote your content, not your service

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Personalize it

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Make it available – everywhere

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Via http://www.mobileapptesting.com/

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Just give your users what they ask for

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Because then they’ll probably convert

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And that means more money for you

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Thank you!

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