Content Marketing Archives - Page 4 of 5

SEO Copywriting after Hummingbird

December 5, 2013 by Alan Eggleston

Some time ago, SEO copywriting for the Web was about maximizing for keywords. A whole industry solidified around writing for a certain percentage of a given keyword within the copy and managed the creativity or sell message around that. Then came Google Hummingbird. To be perfectly accurate, then came Google Panda, Penguin, and – finally – Hummingbird.

The Evolution of SEO Copywriting

The change in SEO copywriting habits has evolved.

First changes began in 2011 with Google’s introduction of Panda: Filtering content for quality, it penalized for poor quality such as duplicate content and content of little value.
In 2012 came Google Penguin: Filtering content for spam, it penalized for things like poor quality links and poor keyword strategies.
In 2013, Google totally rewrote its search algorithm folding elements of both Panda and Penguin into Hummingbird, upending much of the SEO copywriting practices of the past.

To recap from a copywriting perspective, here is where we are today.

Copywriting Rules After Panda and Penguin

Thanks to Google Panda (and continuing with Hummingbird):

No more duplicate copy; however, Google (and other search engines) can distinguish between same copy shared between global versions of a website. To be really sure, websites can mark one set with a canonical tag for indexing.
No more writing the same story for multiple sites and expect to rank for it.
No more slipshod articles written simply to rank for a keyword or keyword string and missing quality or value (such as content farms).

Thanks to Google Penguin (and continuing with Hummingbird):

No more spam activity, like writing copy by simply repeating a keyword or keyword string.
No more copy with links using the same keyword or keyword string for anchor text and links that do not lead to valuable content.

How Copywriting Is Different After Hummingbird

Google is now changing the whole search dynamic. How the user is expected to do a search:

Searching by asking questions
doing a search using mobile, while in motion
anticipating what you want before you finish the search string to speed up delivery of information

All will make how you write copy much different. Most important to you as a writer is helping establish nuance to your page.

Building Nuance in Your Copy

Before Hummingbird, you wrote around a keyword. Today, you still need to:

Begin with a keyword, the key concept behind your page.
Extend the keyword to keyword strings and work with synonyms for your keyword, letting the search engine know how much more your page is about than simply that one, solitary keyword.
Provide links that both verify your keyword and that build that extended meaning.

Add Authority to Impress Hummingbird

Hummingbird awards authority, so you need to build on page authority, by providing

information versus fluff
depth versus surface
backup versus bluff
the long read versus the short read (not necessary long sentences and long paragraphs, but lengthier information, more data or facts)
All of this together tells Google, Yahoo, and Bing, on complex searches, this is the many ways this page fits because this is the many things this page is about and it’s by someone of substance.

This is important for all types of copywriters:

sell copywriters
article writers
brand writers
white paper writers

It actually is important for anyone writing for the Web.

How to Work with Keywords Today

It is still important to begin with that basic kernel of the keyword or keyword string.

Google did away with its free keyword reporting tool, but it offers a free keyword planner in its Adwords program that doesn’t require actually planning an ad campaign to use.
Bing and Yahoo have a free keyword tool, too.
There are others with limited free use. Google “free keyword tools” for more.

You can still identify the most effective keyword strings as a beginning point for your page and build from there.
For some searchers, a simple keyword string search is still useful and for a while may suffice while users adapt to the new power opening to them through Google Hummingbird. So, don’t eliminate the keyword as a basic strategic tool!
But widen your word palate as you work with copy:

If you’re writing about Chevrolets, consider that they’re also known as Chevys, Malibus, Impalas, and Cavaliers.
They aren’t just automobiles, but also cars and vehicles and sedans.
A dealership isn’t just a sales floor but also a dealer showroom and service center and GM portal.
Find better ways to redefine your keyword in a meaningful way.

Link to a site’s Interior pages as well as to authoritative pages outside like

news sites
reference sites
universities and research pages
white papers
other links with authority

Link to pages that provide

definition
nuance
depth or breadth

Don’t link to pages simply of opportunity that lead the reader to nowhere.
One way to make use of question search strings is to write questions into your copy that search engines can pick up in a search. For instance:

Anticipate a search string as one of your first questions in an FAQ page and answer it, including a link to an appropriate page on the website.
Write a headline or subhead leading with “How” or “What” or “When” that builds into the keyword.

How to Copy Write for Hummingbird

Many of the old rules-of-thumb for SEO copywriting still apply.

Use keywords or keyword strings early on the page and in headlines and subheads.
Use keywords or keyword strings in meta tags.
Create unique page titles and meta descriptions for every page (no duplicates!).
Use keywords in anchor text for links in first use, vary verbiage in anchor text afterwards.
No more keyword stuffing! Write sensibly for your audience.

SEO copywriting has evolved, especially more recently. But its goal has always been the same: Reach the audience with dynamite copy. Today more than ever, that is done by writing quality content, in partnership with Google Hummingbird.

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.

Content Writing: 5 Essential Skills of Every Content Writer

March 14, 2013 by Gazalla Gaya

Your website today is truly your virtual office. It’s the place where a prospect is first introduced to your business and your product or service. Your content can make or break that first impression.

Here are certain key skills to look for in your content marketing advocate. Your content writer’s main job is to:

Be your brand advocate and promote your business with fresh content.
Write compelling copy that convinces and converts prospects and retains existing customers.
Increase your sales with messaging that motivates your customers to buy from you.
Ensure that your content is easily indexed by search engines.
Help you find new clients, new leads with effective lead generation techniques through content marketing. A good content marketer will be thinking of new ways to generate business, attract leads, prospects with the help of excellent content be it in the form of a webinar, the right eBook or whitepaper.

Your content writer should be versatile enough to able to write for different audiences and prepare different types of content marketing collateral such as:

Email newsletters
Whitepapers
Blogs
Lead generation collateral such as eBooks, webinars

#1. Passion for Writing and Selling

Your ideal content writer should be able to get into the mind of your customer and know their key motivators.
Here are some essential areas that an excellent content writer will have mastered:

The art of crafting a powerful headline.
The skill of creating perfect calls to actions as well as the skill of knowing to avoid content mistakes that cost valuable conversions.
The skill to create kick-ass landing pages that convert every time.
They should know how to speak to what the copywriting world calls “key motivators”. A good copywriter is one who can identify and speak to the key motivators such as fear, greed, guilt and pain.
It’s a no-brainer that your content writer needs to have the language skills to write error-free copy and these days it’s important from the seo perspective as well. Copy that has a lot of grammatical errors is instantly pulled out by the Panda filter as spam. Of-course the main reason is to have a professional looking site that is not sloppy.

#2. SEO Copywriting Techniques

In these days, you might as well be a dinosaur if your content is not easily searchable. With Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, the last thing you want to do is to have your content banished from the online world! it’s as important to know what works as it is to know what doesn’t. An ideal content writer will have thorough SEO knowledge and will also keep abreast of future SEO trends. Search engine optimization is a rapidly evolving field and your writer should be able to:

Create fresh content that search engines haven’t indexed before.
Research effective long-tail as well as head keywords and synonyms.
Have metadata knowledge so that each page has the appropriate title, description and keywords.
Know and use seo tools that enhance rankings.
Know basic html tags, especially the tags that help with increasing a site’s visibility such as alt tags for images and creating the right anchor text.
Keep up with the latest search engine updates, various filters such as Panda, Penguin and other algorithm changes that Google comes up with to enforce content standards.

#3. Social Media Strategies and Community Building Skills

Web content and social media these days go hand-in-hand and having a content writer that knows how to incorporate social media into your content marketing mix is crucial. The ideal writer should know how to:

Write content that engages your audience so that they are compelled to share with their network for added exposure.
Engage prospects and customers alike so they come back for more, subscribe, sign up for that eBook or webinar
Encourage a dialogue and build a community with lots of interaction in the form of comments, tweets, email feedback.

The days of passive marketing are over and we’ve entered the golden age of customer interaction, social media and community building.

#4. Site Architect and Content Strategist Role

Unless you are a large corporate site, the chances are that your web content writer is also going to double up as your site architect. A good writer should be your content strategist and should prepare your site with the user in mind for optimum ease of access and navigability. Content strategists need to have the big picture in mind and an in-depth understanding of how content can be exploited to it’s fullest potential. They also advise their clients on all content matters including identifying gaps in content, identifying the key overall messaging, the UX vision for your site and taxonomies.

#5. Knowledge of Analytics

Your site metrics are an important indicator of how well your content is being received. Your metrics will inform you of everything content related such as:

Content popularity
Search terms that are most popular
Shared content
Content value
Page views and bounce rate for your top content
Which content is ranking well and driving traffic through search engines

Good content writers know how to interpret site metrics so that:

they create more of the content that’s converting, optimizing and getting your business more leads.
they use Analytics tools to split test different versions of a page or call to action to see which version is better at converting or gaining more leads.

Other nice-to-haves include:

Image editing knowledge
CSS and site layout code
Knowledge and experience with different content management systems
Basic web design skills

In this market, what you pay for is what you get and although a content marketer with all these skills doesn’t come cheap you are guaranteed rich dividends in the form of better ROI and ultimately better cost per sale metrics, more business, more leads and of-course more prosperity.

Where Content Marketing Is Going In 2013: 5 Key Trends

February 5, 2013 by Carol Lynn Rivera

It wasn’t so long ago that simply having a website was impressive enough, never mind one with actual content…
And only within the last half-dozen years or so has social media begun to permeate our lives.

If you’re in my demographic, I bet you remember a day long before Facebook, cell phones and even computers. Come on, raise your hand and admit it… you’ve got a few “I remember whens” in your pocket.

Yet here we are, in 2013 when words like “cloud computing” and “smartphone” have not only been added to our vernacular but to our dictionaries (wait, do people still use those?) and the concept of content marketing has moved long past buzzword into the realm of marketing necessity.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the idea of content marketing hardly had a chance to spring up before it went mainstream and we started to see a glut of content in our inboxes, on our social networks and across the internet.
And whenever something goes mainstream there is always an inherent decline in its effectiveness.

What was novel and made a company stand apart not so long ago (blogging, wow!) is now expected and commonplace if a brand wants to be taken seriously.

So how are we – you and me, the average business folks – going to make content marketing work for us in the coming year?
How are we going to stand out, get noticed and grow our customer lists?

Well, it’s going to require work and dedication, but the good news is that it’s completely in our control – we’re not relying on advertisers or anyone else to grab eyeballs for us.

And if you know which direction the wind’s blowing, you can be smart about how you execute your strategy.
Here’s where content marketing is headed as we are looking ahead to a 2013 full of new opportunities.

1. Feeding The Mobile Monster

According to recent statistics, mobile usage in North America alone has increased almost 70% over the past two years. Asia and Europe are pushing nearly 200% increases.
If you’re impressed by those numbers, you should be!
And here’s another good one: about a third of cell phone owners use their devices for most of their online time.
I probably don’t have to cite studies that show people will eat, sleep and even use the bathroom with their cell phones. Hygiene aside, it’s pretty clear that mobile is dominating.
What This Means To You
Your content needs to be mobile friendly. From photos to blog posts to video, content must be optimized for speed and consumption on those tiny, tiny screens.
Goodbye gorgeous graphics and high-res photos.
Goodbye long paragraphs, long contact forms, aggravating pop-ups and sidebars crammed with ads and product offers.
When you think mobile, think streamlined and minimal. More importantly, test your website and check for anything that can sabotage your content marketing efforts.
Your most epic blog post will be utterly unread if you have an opt-in pop-up window that can’t be used or closed on a phone. Or if your photos take so long to download that your visitors stop waiting.
The success of your content marketing in 2013 and beyond is going to rely heavily on your ability to create a good mobile experience. It’s time to start considering things like responsive design. And it’s time to start obsessing about the speed of your site, which will not only help improve your mobile experience but also be a nice boost when it comes to search rankings.

2. Rethinking Owned Media

I’d like to slightly alter the definition of owned media to exclude social accounts.
The problem with putting your Facebook and Twitter content into the “owned” category is that it’s only sort of technically owned.
Yes, you do own the content that you create but since you don’t own the platform, what happens when Facebook changes the rules (as we know it’s famous for doing) or worse, when it declines and either goes out of business or loses enough steam that it’s not worth our efforts anymore?
What happens when Twitter or Pinterest or any of those accounts goes away?
If there’s one thing the internet has taught us it’s that things change with lightning speed.
And it’s something we need to be prepared for as we create our content and put together our content marketing strategy.
If you’re like me, you probably don’t have the clearly documented, labeled and backed-up library of content that you probably should.
What did you post on Facebook in June of 2010? I dare you to figure that one out without actually scanning back two years on your Timeline!
What This Means To You
It’s time to start obsessing about not only owning, but tracking and saving the content we create.
Content creation takes a whole lot of effort. All those videos, photos, social updates and blog posts command a lot of brainpower and either a lot of time, a lot of money or both.
Relying on third-party platforms to “save” our content is a recipe for disaster.
It may take a bit more up-front work to transcribe every social status update into a spreadsheet but then it really is ours, no matter what happens to the platform where we share it.
Even our photos and videos – especially our photos and videos – should be stored and backed up apart from the platform where they are shared. YouTube is not your personal data backup service. Better to keep these irreplaceable assets on your own server or in the cloud in an environment that you control.
And as a bonus for your efforts, a growing library of content will give you the ability to share, re-share and re-purpose content without recreating it every time.

3. The Choice Conundrum

The last time I was in an ice cream shop, I waited on line for twenty minutes before walking out and skipping dessert. The problem wasn’t the ice cream or the service.
The problem was the choices.
There were too darn many of them. Each customer who reached the counter had to choose among flavors, toppings, sizes, add-ons, mix-ins and a ridiculous array of cones and containers.
That might sound really great on paper but in reality it led to a whole lot of hemming and hawing and a whole lot less buying.
This has become a particular challenge of marketing online.
There are choices everywhere and the end result is decision paralysis.Instead of weighing the pros and cons and making an informed decision, people make no decision at all.
What This Means To You
People say they want choices but what they want is to be told what to do.
There’s a tendency for us to want to keep our options – and therefore our leads’ and customers’ options – open. So we invite them to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, pin this, share that, sign up here, buy this there.
How much of that do you think a single person actually processes?
I’ll tell you how much: about zero.
Here’s how many options we should give our leads, wherever they are: one.
To be successful at content marketing in an increasingly crowded, loud and distracting space, we need to start limiting options. Think of 2013 as the year of focus.
Next time you get someone to visit your website or blog, make it crystal clear – first to yourself and then to your lead – what the purpose of that content is. Choose a single action – whether that’s to grow your social following or your email list, or prompt a sale.
It’s no longer good enough to put content out there and let it speak for itself. There’s just too much content these days.
The real winners will be those who can focus their content toward a specific goal each and every time.

4. The Decline Of The Influencer And The Rise Of The Tribe

If you can get on the radar of an influencer who wants to promote your product or service to the world, then good for you!
But that’s a little like trying to win the lottery to pay your mortgage.
It takes time and whole lot of patience and effort to build the kind of relationship with someone that would pay off that big. And the last thing you want to do is to be creating content to impress those folks and forgetting your real audience.
The first bloggers had it made – they were doing something unheard of in a time when people were just learning how to do business online. They stood out, got noticed and were the people responsible for the growth of the content trends we’re seeing today. They became the influencers that most of us want to be.
But now that everyone’s doing it, it’s exponentially harder to stand out and be noticed.
The good news is that if ever a trend was moving in your favor, this one is it: tribes.
What This Means To You
You may not be an influencer, know and influencer or have the time or patience to get on the radar of an influencer but you don’t need to.
Just like you’re going to laser-focus your content marketing goals in 2013, you’re also going to laser-focus your niche – by growing your tribe and using the power of the people to grow and build your audience.
Your tribe is your community of fans, friends, peers and even customers whose business vision aligns with yours. They are the people in your social sphere who you build relationships with through the exchange of value and who you can rely on to promote your content as you promote theirs.
If your content marketing efforts are going to get off center, you need the momentum of your supporters. It’s no longer possible to do it alone.
But don’t let the nice, friendly idea of “group marketing” fool you – it’s hard work!
Everything you put out into the world for your audience has to be vetted and approved by your tribe first, and that can sometimes be tougher! I know I wouldn’t promote someone’s content if it wasn’t any good, because that would be a poor reflection on me.
But the beauty of the tribe is that you’ve got a content marketing machine behind you and they will keep you accountable to your audience by insisting on only the best.

5. Woe To The Attention Span

If you had told me a year ago that I would be writing one sentence paragraphs I would have given you a lecture in pacing, flow and style.
Now I write one sentence paragraphs, oh, about every other paragraph.
If attention spans get any shorter, I…
Wait, did you see that red…
I almost forgot to…
What?
I think we were talking about hats or something, but anyway… attention span.
Short.
Your content marketing depends on catching it!
What This Means To You
First, it means that content is trending shorter, punchier and more direct. People don’t have the time or patience for fluff. If you want to get literary, write a novel.
On the web, your content needs to be focused (there’s that word again) and it needs to be eminently readable.
Formatting can make or break your text content. Liberal use of bold, headings, bullet points and short paragraphs and sentences will not only play to shorter attention spans but also do double duty as mobile-friendly. Intersperse text-heavy content with imagery to keep people interested.
As for video, I personally can’t make it through one that’s longer than two minutes, no matter how amazing.
When it’s appropriate, deliver your content in short, focused snippets. Three one-minute videos may be far more successful than one three-minute video.
The second impact this has on your content marketing is that content that “works” is becoming increasingly personal.
By “personal” I don’t mean you should be talking about your cat and your Friday night. I mean that you need to be speaking directly and meaningfully to your audience.
Great content is no longer just about writing an excellent blog post, putting together an entertaining video, publishing an educational eBook… Lots of people can put together great content. Successful businesses can do all that and do it in a way that’s compelling and for their audience.
Successful content marketers in 2013 need to master the art of storytelling and be able to tap into the likes, dislikes, fears and desires of their audience. Great content – valuable content – will only be so if it connects on a human level.

The Wrap-up: Getting From Here To There

2013 is already upon us and as we get into it’s second month, I’ll leave you with this thought: content marketing isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s becoming more and more important for everything from gaining exposure in search results to attracting leads and customers on the social channels where they live.
This is the age of the empowered consumer so it’s up to us as businesses to empower them with what they need.
Start with your goals for the new year and take these trends into account as you plan. Even if you only make one incremental improvement today, you’re ahead of where you were yesterday!