Gazalla Gaya, Author at Content Trends

5 Content Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2014

December 15, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

A recent study shows that brands who are using content marketing are seeing a huge ROI to their bottom line meaning more sales and conversions. So where are we headed? At the start of the New Year (almost- in 2 weeks!), it’s always good to look at current trends and how they will impact our future success.
A study by Content marketing Institute and Marketing Profs on benchmarks, budgets and trends for North America indicated that for the first time, 44% of marketers have a documented content strategy and 73% have a person who oversees content marketing strategy. What was surprising was that the smaller organizations seemed to fare slightly better in having a content strategy in place. 48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99employees) have a documented content strategy, compared with 41% of large organizations (1,000+ employees).
Let’s look at some interesting trends based on these studies and current SEO and social media trends. We’ll take a closer look so that you can shape your content marketing strategies accordingly as we head into the new year.

# 1. Social Media, newsletters and blogs will be the top content distribution channels

Although the use of social media is rising, brands are still not getting the message quickly enough as to how important social media is to successful marketing.

I think that in 2014 more brands will catch on and use social media as one of their top content distribution channels. In addition, corporate blogging will also be on the rise.

Ideas for content marketing success:

Spend money on blogging, getting influencers to promote your blog content and hiring blogging tribes to review your products.
Try Triberr’s new Influencer marketing campaigns that connect you to influential bloggers who would be willing to endorse your brand to their audience.
Create a definite social media strategy in place to promote your blog posts, whitepapers, case studies and seminars.
Increase your budget for using social media not only for content distribution but also as a way to increase customer interaction and engagement.

#2. Brands will need to market content to a multi-platform majority

For the first time, we’ve reached a point in the U.S. where more than 50 percent of Internet users are accessing the web using more than one device. A third of the average leading retailer’s monthly traffic now comes exclusively from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. While an app may not yet be a “must have” for every retailer, a mobile strategy is essential for growing retailers’ market shares and reaching new audiences who might be more inclined to shop via a mobile device.

A recent comScore data study on multi-platform use in North America

Ideas for content marketing success:

Outline a strategy that works for different devices.
Create content that is shorter and more relevant.
Have a responsive site so that every user can have a good experience.
Create apps to improve the user experience and make it convenient for your users.
Use geo-targeting and GPS to send customers the right rebates and discounts based on their location.

#3. Hummingbird will make conversational content more important

When the Hummingbird update was announced back in September, SEOs everywhere were wondering what the algorithm change meant for the future of SEO. Hummingbird is trying to ensure that Google understands the questions and long-tail queries that users are typing in (especially into their mobiles) but are also asking with voice search. No longer are we optimizing for single keywords but for the entire context of the conversation.
Hummingbird simply makes better use of conversational search and the relationship between words, which means that SEOs are now thinking more holistically about the relationship between different pieces of information on a page and how they are related.

Ideas for content marketing success:

Focus on long-tail queries.
Understand user intent and the questions that they are typing in.
Make your content more conversational. This is especially true for larger brands that tend to speak corporate.

#4. SEO and Social Media will be intertwined

Previously, in the democracy of the web, links were the number #1 way for search engines to recognize the strength and value of your content. Even though links are still important, social signals are gaining importance. The more people that are sharing a piece of content, the higher quality it’s likely to be. It’s no coincidence that the top-ranking search results tend to have lots of social shares, while those ranked lower have fewer. Besides this, social shares can serve as a stamp of approval (ie, a trust signal) for visitors landing on a page.

Although social signals still don’t carry the same weight as traditional inbound links, it’s undeniable that they play a big role in organic search rankings these days.

I predict that social signals will become at least as important as links in 2014.

Google Authorship and author rank

Most experts are predicting that author rank will soon be included in rankings. Author rank is currently loosely determined by the number of +1s your content receives, your number of circlers and authority in non-google networks.

Google+ pages

A Google+ page has page rank and page authority. It’s also the #1 place where info is pulled out for Google’s knowledge graph.
For more info on social and seo see my article on Is Social Media the New SEO?

Ideas for content marketing success:

Invest in some form of advertising on social networks be it Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
Invest time and effort in growing your social networks.
Use analytics to find out the networks where your audience hangs out.
Set up Google authorship, if you don’t already have it set up.
Have a Google+ page and invest time in making it grow.

#5. Conversions will become a more important metric in measuring content marketing success

Traffic is important but does not mean much without conversions. Most people are predicting a death of SEO. I predict that these two metrics will become more important in 2014: SEO and conversions. Both are directly related. The better your seo efforts, the more customers will find you and the more customers find you the better chances you have of converting them.
Brands will also become more aware of SEO in 2014. Let me rephrase that….brands will become more conscious of the new SEO and what that means with semantic search, Hummingbird and link-building.

Ideas for content marketing success:

Increase page rank, page authority with link-building and producing strong original content
Optimize for conversions. This means trying many different things such as a/b testing, Usabella and other tools to check heat-mapping.

What do you think of these predictions? Do you have any more to add? Please share in the comments below. Thanks.

10 Content Marketers Every Blogger Should Follow

November 22, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

What if you had all the money in the world and want to recruit the best content marketing team on the planet? You definitely want these content marketers to be part of your team.
As bloggers, these content marketers are generous with their knowledge and are always willing to share. All of them are thought leaders and have popular blogs. They have built up a following by posting useful content, tips and tricks that everyone can use to succeed in digital marketing.
Thanksgiving is also a good time to thank them for shaping my content marketing and SEO strategies for the past year.

#1. Joe Pulizzi

@JoePulizzi
I just discovered that Joe Pulizzi and I share something in common – apart from our love for content marketing, we both love the color orange! Joe is a household name in content marketing, is the founder of Content Marketing Institute and the various conferences on Content Marketing World. He evangelizes content marketing around the world through his keynotes, articles, tweets and books. His latest book, Epic Content Marketing (McGraw-Hill) is a must read.

#2. Ann Handley

@MarketingProfs

Ann Handley is co-author of the best-selling Content Rules, is Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, a keynote speaker and contributor to Entrepreneur magazine. Forbes recognizes her as the most influential woman in Social Media and one of the top 20 women bloggers. She has over 200,000 followers on her twitter handle @MarketingProfs where she shares her tweets on social media strategies and you guessed it, content marketing!

#3. Kristina Halvorson

@halvorson

Kristina Halvorson is a pioneer in the field of content strategy. Her book, Content Strategy for the Web is a go-to resource for content strategists. She is the CEO and founder of Brain Traffic. She initiated the 2009 Content Strategy Consortium, which was the first official gathering dedicated to the topic of content strategy. In 2010, she delivered the keynote address at the world’s first Content Strategy Forum in Paris, France.
Kristina is the founder of Confab, the first U.S. conference dedicated to the topic of content strategy. She also regularly conducts online seminars about content strategy and works closely with Fortune 500 companies as both a speaker and consultant.

#4. Jon Morrow

@JonMorrow

Jon Morrow is the associate editor for Copyblogger, one of the most widely read blogs on content marketing. I love his writing.
He has a fascinating and inspiring story. Jon can’t move from the neck down. He has SMA (spinal muscular atrophy), a rare disability but that has never stopped him from achieving his dreams. In his moving and popular post, How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World, Jon describes how an unfortunate accident broke his legs but more importantly made him assess his life. He decided to quit his job and become a full-time blogger. His blog, Boost Blog Traffic always has thought-provoking and inspirational posts on how to increase traffic to your blog.

#5. Kristi Hines

@kikolani

Kristi’s blog, kikolani.com is chock-full of information for bloggers to succeed in their blogging goals. I like to visit Kristi’s blog to get the latest tips, tools and tricks. You are sure to find valuable info. when you visit her blog. Her work has been featured on some of the top marketing blogs including Social Media Examiner, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, KISSmetrics, Unbounce, and CrazyEgg. Social Media Examiner included her blog as one of the top 10 blogs and Forbes has counted her as the top 50 social media influencers.

#6. Darren Rowse

@problogger

Darren Rowse is a blogger, speaker, consultant and founder of several blogs and blog networks, including b5media and ProBlogger.net. He lives in Melbourne, Australia. He is also author of two popular books on blogging, Secrets of Blogging Your Way to a Six-figure income and Build a Better Blog in 31 Days. His two main blogs are Digital Photography School which features photography tips and ProBlogger which features tips on blogging. These two blogs, according to Wikipedia get around 85,000-100,000 page views a day and over $20,000 in total ad revenue a month.

#7. Danny Sullivan

@dannysullivan

Danny Sullivan is an industry leader in the field of SEO. He is the founding editor of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. They are two of the most widely read marketing blogs. He also runs the SMX (Search Marketing Expo) series of conferences on SEO and SEM. He has the reputation for accurately predicting future SEO trends. Following him and listening to what he has to say is always a good idea. Not only is his content thought-provoking, you’ll also gain insights on how to adjust your content marketing strategies based on his extensive knowledge of current and future industry trends.

#8. Avinash Kaushik

@avinash

Analytics and Avinash Kaushik go together. Avinash is the Analytics evangelist for Google. He is the author of two bestselling books, Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. He co-founded Market Motive Inc., which provides online education and certification in six Internet disciplines. He has received several awards from the American Statistical Association and Web Analytics Association. He teaches at several universities such as Stanford University, University of Utah and University of Virginia. He consults with various Fortune 100 companies.

#9. Neil Patel

@neilpatel

Neil Patel writes long content-rich posts and does a detailed analysis of industry trends. He is co-founder of two Analytics companies, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics. Neil’s current blog, Quick Sprout, produces annual revenues over $1 million and has been featured in news outlets including Inc. Magazine, Forbes, Gigaom, and Business Insider. Neil is also a contributor to publications including Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, Mashable, Business Insider, SEOmoz, and Geekwire.

#10. Shama Kabani

@Shama

Shama is the author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue which is among the top three selling web marketing books on Amazon.com. She is the founder and CEO of Marketing Zen Group, an online marketing and digital PR firm. She is a media correspondent for major networks ranging from Fox Business to Bloomberg and contributor to Forbes.com.

5 Bloggers to Watch in 2014

I had to include the names of 5 bloggers I came in contact with thanks to Triberr. They always post useful, insightful content and I’ve learned a lot from them.
@gonzogonzo

Frederic Gonzalo writes about social media and how it affects the travel and hospitality industry. Even though his niche is travel, his posts can easily apply to all of social media marketing.

@CarolLynnRivera

Carol Lynn Rivera writes on Web Search Social. She covers the entire spectrum of digital marketing. She uncovers gems of info in her posts on the top marketing blogs of the week.

@AdrienneSmith40

Adrienne Smith writes about blogging and is truly an engagement superstar. Her posts always tend to generate tons of comments and she’s always delighted to share her tips with you.

@RebekahRadice

Rebekah Radice writes on Social Media Marketing and blogging. Her simple tips will help you shine in your online marketing strategies.

@adigaskell

Adi Gaskell posts interesting content about the latest case studies and academic research on social media and digital marketing.

I’ve gained a lot of insights reading their posts and I recommend that you visit their blogs ASAP.
It’s your turn. Who are your favorite bloggers? Why do you like reading their work? Please share in the comments below.

5 Ways to Make Google’s Hummingbird Update Work for You

October 28, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

Google’s Hummingbird update affects 90% of searches and it completely changes the way that Google understands a query. Although, Google made the official announcement for Hummingbird only in September, it has been working silently for the past few months and your current strategies are working well if your site has not been impacted. It’s important, however, for content creators to understand the impact that Hummingbird will have on all content marketing strategies.

How Hummingbird Works

Have you read sci-fi novels where your brain has only to think of something that you need and it materializes before you? That’s where Google wants to take the future of Search and their engineers are hard at work to make this current fiction into a future reality. Google Hummingbird, the Knowledge Graph, Entity Search, Google Now, the study of machine language and voice recognition are all steps into developing an artificial intelligence that understands and can even predict future queries.

Until recently, Google understood a query with the help of search terms or keywords that people were typing in. Now, Google is beginning to understand the context of the query, in preparation for its voice recognition and voice search which is how most future searches will be conducted. Voice search is gaining importance as more mobile users are searching for information directly from their mobiles. For ex. if I’m vacationing in Hawaii and I ask my cell phone, “Where is a good Thai restaurant?” Google will not only understand that I’m looking for Thai food but that I’m searching for this info. in Hawaii.

The Hummingbird algorithm is based on semantic search. Semantic search systems try to understand searcher intent and context and use many facts such as relevance, synonyms, knowledge matching and previous user behavior.

What Google’s Hummingbird Update Means for Your Content

#1. Focus Less on a Single Keyword

As content creators, we’ve been taught to repeat a single keyword so that search engines understand the focus of our content. Hummingbird is a shift away from this strategy as Hummingbird focuses less on a single keyword as it seeks to understand the overall meaning of the query.

Write articles that focus on the overall meaning of your content and less on a specific keyword.

Consider synonyms – the alternate words or phrases that describe what you do and that people might use, rather than focusing your content around an exact-match keyword. For example, if I were optimizing content for a hotel site, I would use synonyms such as lodging, motel, accommodation, tavern and inn.

Use focus terms that are related to your subject. For example a page on cancer care will have related terms such as radiation, chemotherapy etc.

#2. Understand Long-tail Queries

According to Amit Singhal, Google’s head of Search, Hummingbird is better at answering more complex queries that people are asking. Although Hummingbird impacts all types of queries, it focuses on longer, complex questions. He added that although most people still search for shorter terms, the long tail comprises of 40% of traffic with another 20% being of never-heard-before queries.
Here are some ideas that you can implement to understand long-tail queries.

Use the insights you receive from the Search box on your site to understand the long-tail queries users are typing in.

Tools such as Google Suggest, related searches, Uber Suggest, Twitter Search and even social media Q & A sites such as Quora are great to tap into for long-tail questions.

If you are using PPC campaigns, use your Search Query Report to dig in and find long-tail queries.

Last but not the least, check out the competition. Type in the terms that you are interested in and see who shows up first in search results. You will be able to get an idea from their pages the kind of queries they are trying to optimize the page for.

#3. Understand and Focus on User Intent

Hummingbird encourages us to understand user intent right from the start of the buying process. Focus on what you know that your customer came to your site to research. Here are some ideas on identifying user intent.

Use tools such as Qualaroo to understand user intent and preferences.

Talk to your team’s customer service people to find out what customers and prospects most want or need from your product.

Use Customer feedback forms, quick surveys and polls to identify customer needs.

Talk to the actual sales people to find out what customers want from you.

Identify intent, needs and problems. Provide solutions and answers. Look at queries and what they really need. If my site sold painting supplies and I saw a lot of queries for latest trends in color, guess which topics I will be creating content around? Not only would I post on the latest color trends but I would also post related content such what color choices mean about you, what colors tend to do to your audience etc..

#4. Increase Your Authority

I attended SMX East, earlier this month. I heard about the importance of Google authorship and author rank. Semantic search systems try to understand the authority of the site or publisher of the content. They give a higher priority to publishers with higher author rankings. Although author rank is not yet incorporated into search engine rankings, many experts are predicting that it will soon be included. You will be ahead of the game if you build up your author rank, so that Google and other search engines recognize you as an authority in your field. Author rank is loosely determined by your engagement level on Google+, the number of +1’s you get, your number of circlers, comments per post and authority on non-Google networks.

There is a stronger integration of social media with search and the more shares, comments and interaction your content receives, the higher it ranks in search.

#5. Use Structured Data to Mark Up Your Content

All semantic search systems use structured data to rank content. The major search engines including Bing, Google and Yahoo! rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages. Events, health, locations, products and pricing info and review sites will all benefit from structured markup. Visit schema.org to find out all the content types that will benefit from structured data.

What do you think of the Hummingbird update? Has it impacted your site? Do you have any other ideas to optimize your content for Hummingbird? Please share in the comments below. Thanks.

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7 Blog Metrics You Need to Measure Your Success

October 21, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

Are you creating blog content that engages your audience? Knowledge is everything, and knowing your blog metrics will help you to create blog content that resonates with your audience. Your metrics will inform you of all the content-related changes you need to make and you can use these insights to tailor content based on the needs of your audience.

The main objective of business blogging is to increase engagement and interaction. Your blog’s content is easy to measure, as each user interaction is valuable and can count as a success metric.
These insights will help you to adjust your content strategies and create more powerful content in these ways:

You can use your top content as a model for creating new content. Once you track which blog posts garnered the most interaction in the form of shares, comments, views you can create more content around these topics. Since I cover the entire spectrum of digital marketing, it’s always interesting for me to see if my posts on content marketing, blogging, SEO or social media gain the most traction.

If you are a business owner, your conversions will tell you which content is the most successful at convincing and converting your prospects to loyal customers.

Here are the 7 essential metrics to understand how your content is faring with your audience.
#1. Google Analytics

The Behavior section of Google Analytics will give you access to a thorough analysis of your site’s content.

The page views tab allows you to see the top pages on your site based on the number of views. If a blog post is very popular, it makes sense to create more posts around that topic.

The bounce rate will help you to adjust your content depending upon the percentage. If certain posts have a bounce rate of 80% you know that you are creating content that is either not resonating with your audience or that you are optimizing your blog post for the wrong search terms. Either way, your audience is leaving minus any engagement. On the other hand if you have a bounce rate of less than 50%, you are doing a great job and should continue to do whatever it is that you are doing so far.

If you have site search, then in these days of keyword not provided, you are ahead of the game. You can see the search terms that people typed in once they entered your site. These search terms will again help you in creating content that your audience would like to find on your site.

I like the Content Experiments section of Google Analytics. It’s a great way to optimize your website by testing different versions of a landing page to see which versions converts the best.

The landing pages tab allows you to get a breakdown of your top landing pages. You can fine-tune the copy of those pages that are not doing so well so that they become better converting pages with stronger calls to action.

I attended a Google+ hangout with Avinash Kaushik in which he talked about the Engagement tab being the most meaningful tab under Behavior in the Audience section. The engagement tab allows you to see the number of seconds that visitors spend on your site. Of-course, you can count them as an engaged audience if they spend a longer time on each page.

#2. Page Authority

Just as your domain authority is a great metric to understand the trustworthiness of your site by search engines, each page has a page authority. If you have the Google or Chrome extension for the Moz bar you can easily at a glance know the domain authority and page authority of every site that you visit. The page authority takes into account how long your site has been up, the number of links that page has collected and also the total number of pages of your site.

#3. Number of Quality Backlinks through Open Site Explorer

Each link that you get from another site counts as a “vote” for your site in the democracy of the web and the more links that you get, the more popular that piece of content is. The importance that search engines gave to links resulted in link-spamming and other black-hat techniques. Google began to clamp down heavily on link-spammers last year, with its Penguin update. Today, the links that count are from high-authority sites.

Open Site Explorer is a useful link analysis tool. It does a thorough analysis of the number and authority of external links that your post has collected. It’s also a good indicator of the success of your content. If a given page has a lot of engagement and page views, it will automatically have a lot of links.

Open Site Explorer examining the number and domain authority of my backlinks

#4. Social Media

The number of times that your content is shared on social media is also a pretty good indicator of the success of your content. I’ve had some pages that are shared 3 times more on social media than other pages. This insight allows me to create more of the content my audience seems to want to share. Since I cater to a diverse audience of digital marketers, if I see that a post on SEO is performing better than a post on blogging, then I know that my audience would like to see more posts on SEO.

Social media sharing will help your SEO efforts as well. Currently, search engines are using social media shares as an important factor in ranking blog posts. Google authorship is also an important SEO factor and author rank is loosely determined by the number of +1’s that you receive.

#5. Comments and Engagement

Nothing spells engagement more than feedback in the form of comments. Comments and feedback, for me are one of the most useful success metrics. They tell me that the content I’ve written resonates with my audience. Most users passively read and few are called upon to take the time and leave a comment. It’s also a fun metric as I love interacting with my readers.

#6. Email Open Rates

How many subscribers opened your email? It they are anything like me, then they are subscribed to a number of blogs and newsletters. I only open an email that I subscribe to if I feel that the information is so valuable that I need to read it.

A 2012 study indicates that email open rates average 19%, higher or lower depending upon the industry you are in. If you have a high open rate for a particular post you know that you have an engaged audience.

Aweber, showing me the email-open-rate of one of my posts

#7. Tools such as SEM Rush

Tools such as SEM rush do a good job of explaining the top positions that each site is ranking for.

Which metrics do you look at to understand audience engagement? Please share in the comments below. Thanks.

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Local SEO: Interview with an Expert

October 13, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

Last week, I had the opportunity to interview David Mihm and get his advice on the top 5 things that local businesses must do to be found online. David is a leading expert on local search strategies and local SEO. He was a panelist at a discussion on local SEO at SMX East, titled, “Must-Have Local Search Tactics”. I enjoyed his presentation and was engaged from the the get-go especially since local businesses can gain higher visibility using these SEO strategies.

David is the Director of Local Search Strategy at Moz. His annual Local Search Ranking Factors is the most well known study on local SEO. Every year, local search pundits and the entire SEO community eagerly await this study to determine their local SEO strategy for the year.

David usually presents at SMX and SES conferences. He blogs at DavidMihm.com and at Moz. He is also the co-founder of getlisted.org which is now a part of Moz. For those of you who are new to local SEO, Getlisted.org is a free resource to analyze and optimize your local search listings. David tells me that he and his team are constantly refining it to make it increasingly sophisticated every day.

Me: What are the top 5 things that businesses absolutely must do to optimize for local?

David: I ask this question every year to a panel of about 35 local search experts from around the world. Based on their responses this year, here’s what I’d say:

#1. Directories

Submit your business to as many important local directories as you have time to. You can start at GetListed.org, where we show you how you’re currently listed and/or not listed at all. At a minimum, you should do Google Places for Business, Bing Places, and Yahoo Local, along with Infogroup ExpressUpdateUSA, Acxiom, and Factual. Ensure that your Name, Address, and Phone number (your “NAP”) are accurate, and that you’re listed in as many relevant categories as those sites allow.

#2. NAP Citations in HTML format

List your business’s full NAP information on your website, in HTML format.
It’s critical that Google’s web crawler identifies your website as being associated with the physical location you submitted to Google Places for Business. The best way to do this is to make sure the same information you submitted appears in HTML — especially on your homepage, if you’re a single-location business, or on each location’s contact pages for multi-location businesses.

#3. Customer Reviews

Ask your customers for reviews. Reviews are becoming an increasingly important ranking factor in Local. Incentives for customers that leave reviews are generally frowned upon by search engines, but Yelp is the only one that doesn’t like businesses to ask their customers to review them. So ignore Yelp and focus on more business-friendly sites.

#4. Geographic Keywords in Title Tags

Include basic product/service and geographic keywords in your website’s Title Tags.
These are still the most important on-page elements that Google looks at to determine what kind of business you operate, and what city/town/region/state you serve.

#5. Local Community Engagement

Make sure you engage your local community. Whether that’s through being a member of community organizations like chambers of commerce, neighborhood associations, etc., donating to charities or local schools, hosting fundraisers at your place of business, all of these things lead to:

Shares and mentions of your place of business on blogs and other social media.

Links back to your website. These shares, mentions, and links are like “votes” for your business, and are one of the most important ranking factors in Local Search.

So, there you have it – the top strategies that you should follow so that your customers can easily find you online. Needless to say that these strategies will help you increase your business by getting you more traffic online from customers who can walk in and do business with you.

What about you? Do you have a local SEO tip to share that has worked for you? Please share with us in the comments below.

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