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The ABCs of SEO: A Project Manager’s Perspective

To say that there is a lot to know about SEO is quite an understatement. For not only is there a great deal of knowledge, skill and experience required to be truly competent at planning and managing SEO campaigns, but the rules keep changing. Google is constantly changing the landscape, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, but each new algorithm can drastically influence the effectiveness of your efforts. Mastering SEO is like going to school, and the class never ends.

That being said — and acknowledging upfront my ignorance to the wild inner-workings of Google’s algorithms and how to tame them — this article deals with a top-level approach to SEO.

Whether you work for an agency, a small enterprise, an international conglomerate, or a non-profit organization, SEO is one of the tools you use to improve your online presence. If it isn’t, it should be. Virtually every organization these days benefits from a strong online presence, and SEO is an integral part of the online marketing mix. But what do you know about SEO and are you confident in how to approach it? Hiring knowledgeable people is an excellent first step, but you still need to be able to manage these people, as well as your company’s expectations.

We’ll start with a quick clarification, SEO can include the following tactics:

– Organic: Writing strategic content (web pages, blogs, white papers, social media, etc.) to help your website rank higher in searches.

– PPC (Pay Per Click): Paying Google (and other search engines) for keywords and ads to drive interested traffic to your website.

– Advertising: Paying other websites and online publications for banners and other online ads to drive interested traffic to your website.

[NB  Paid efforts can also be referred to as Search Engine Marketing or SEM.]

Here are three important criteria for project managers when considering SEO. Your staff, contract workers or agency should be able to explain and address each of these areas to your satisfaction.

 

Accountability

First and foremost is getting results. So what do you need to provide I order for your SEO efforts to be successful? Your agency, or inside team need guidance and information to direct their strategy and tactics. Consider the specific campaign objectives, areas of focus, targeted markets (demographic, geographic, industry), content, keywords and budget.

Then, what should you expect from your agency or staff? They will quantify your objectives (how many leads, submissions, page views, clicks, etc. are required to meet your objectives), perform keyword research and assessment, create/edit targeted content, design/write ads, create an implementation plan, provide ongoing monitoring and reports with recommendations. Working as a team, you will constantly refine and add to the tactics and work closer to your objectives.

Note that SEO is not a quick fix. Attracting new traffic with content is essential and long-term, but may take months to have a measurable effect. Even PPC and ads, which can generate traffic quickly, typically take some time to consistently drive the right audience to your website. Moving the new web traffic through your funnel, or nurturing the desired behaviour (e.g. register for a course, ask for a quote), is also a process that takes time to prefect.

 

Benefits

A marketing rule of thumb is that no-one does anything with receiving some form of benefit. It may more altruistic than “What’s in it for me?,” but there needs to be some form of gratification or reward to encourage action.

Consider how your targeted markets will benefit from engaging with you and articulate that clearly and in a compelling manner. Look at each action you would like your new web traffic to take (e.g. clicking through to website, clicking on a CTA/banner, signing up for your blog or e-newsletter, asking for a quote) and provide some incentive to help them along the path.

 

Congruency

Some see the ultimate objective of SEO to drive more traffic to your website; of course, it’s more sophisticated than that. Increasing traffic is a step towards developing business, so certainly it is important, but you need to attract the key audiences that fit your ideal personas. So, if you’re an organization that is focused on serving parents of elementary school kids, you’ll only be successful if a good portion of that new web traffic fits that demographic.

Beyond the audience you attract, your SEO initiatives must represent, and ideally promote, your brand (which should already take into consideration your mission vision, etc.). Organic, PPC or advertising all revolve around content. Ensure that the tone, vocabulary and information presented all embrace your organizational brand and culture. Even if one of those parents mentioned above does not click through to your website, you’ve had an awareness and branding opportunity to positively position your organization in their mind; maybe next time they will click through.

And, of course, your SEO efforts need to flow with any other marketing and advertising campaigns your organization is running. Not just from a brand perspective, even theme. You may be able to increase the effectiveness by leveraging the theme from an existing campaign.

What would you add to this list of important criteria for a project manager to consider when employing SEO? Add your thoughts to comments below.

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Sharpspring and CASL Compliance

Letter with barbed wire.

Building a Prospect List With CASL

Marketing automation is a useful tool in any business, but it becomes more important with Canada’s Anti-Spam Laws (CASL). In order to be CASL compliant, companies must provide evidence of compliance in the form of opt-ins and records of transactions in order to establish the communication to their prospects is consensual. This can be difficult to manage, require constant updating, and can drain resources away from other facets of your business. It can also make your website less effective, because you’re not holistically tracking your customer base.

However, with tools like SharpSpring, you can determine worthwhile leads, use forms to opt-in, track lead behaviour, and use lists to qualify leads. SharpSpring also automates the tracking of who has opted in and not, and has options to track purchases.

Letter with barbed wire.
credit: s576/ getty images

Forms

Forms are, by far, the strongest SharpSpring tool for CASL compliance. By including an opt-in on all gated content, you increase your odds of receiving permission to send email communication.

All opt-ins can then be stored in a separate list (more on lists later), meaning you never have to worry about sending communication to somebody who has not opted in.

Using forms also allows you to capture emails and get a barometer for who is seeking out your content, giving you better audience data and allowing you to improve your future campaigns.

 

Track Lead Behaviour

If somebody doesn’t check the opt-in box, that doesn’t mean the contact is useless. You can proceed to track how much they use your site, what pages they visit, and see if they’re worth manually calling (something not covered under CASL), or transferring them to an “opt-in” list after they’ve made a purchase from you (at which point, there is implied consent).

SharpSpring allows you to both set a lead score based on behaviour, and has an option to trigger workflows that notify your salespeople when a lead has done actions that your company has deemed important. Both of these features allow you to use methods other than email campaigns to further your sales efforts, making CASL less of a concern.

 

Lists

Arguably one of SharpSpring’s more powerful features, lists allow you to segment all contacts by criteria you determine. Not only can you separate those who have opted in versus those who haven’t, but you can create rules-based lists that adapt according to lead score or user behaviour.

The previous two features (forms and tracking lead behaviour) are critical in helping you build lists. While the most obvious uses for lists is creating email campaigns, lists can also be used to qualify prospects. By assigning lead score points based on pages visited, number of return visits to the site, and number of forms filled in, a sales team can establish which leads are qualified and ready to make a purchase. Instead of following up with every lead, salespeople can limit themselves to following up on leads who are more likely to produce a return on the investment of selling to them.

 

Overall

Automated marketing is a vital tool to maintain CASL compliance. In order to best cover your legal bases, it makes sense to purchase a tool such as SharpSpring and work with a partner to best establish how you can advance your business without relying on random email marketing.

 

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SEO Plugins: Do they Help or Hinder?

What if the only thing your tax accountant could do was add?

What if the only thing your auto mechanic could do was change spark plugs?

What if the only thing your doctor could do was provide band aids?

I ask you these questions so you can consider how important it is to recognise limitations and to be careful about not getting lulled into a false sense of security. SEO plugins are very popular. Many people believe SEO plugins are all that’s required for SEO success. Although it’s true that SEO plugins are helpful when used properly, there’s a danger they’ll hinder the effectiveness of your SEO, and possibly of your overall marketing efforts.

 

SEO Plugins Are Good for Helping with Specific Tasks

Many content management systems, such as WordPress, don’t give you ready access to control the properties of your website that could help you influence your performance in the search results. That’s why there are SEO plugins. They provide you with this extra functionality.

With them, you can do things at the individual page level such as:

  • Implement a title tag that’s different than your page title.
  • Implement a meta description tag without having to go into the html code

Some SEO plugins also provide advanced options such as:

  • The creation of XML sitemaps so search engines can more easily discover your entire website
  • The creation of specific instructions for how search engines are to crawl and index your website

SEO Plugins Don’t Replace SEO Strategy and Actual Work

To create an effective SEO strategy, one needs to understand what potential clients are searching for. This involves an understanding of their needs and how the website’s offerings meet those needs. Then keyword research can be done to bridge the two. Without keyword research, the keywords implemented into your on-page SEO elements are baseless and possibly ineffective. Skipping the keyword process and jumping to on-page SEO elements is like putting the cart before the horse.

SEO plugins often provide feedback, such as scores, that are meant to reflect a web page’s SEO strength. This is fine as long as we remember to recognise the limitations. This tool can’t factor in how the page is meant to fit within an overall SEO strategy. Case in point: People often forget that you not only want your search result to appear in front of a lot of eyes, you also want a lot of people to click through to your website, and to be satisfied with what they get when they arrive. An automated SEO score may give you a poor score for not putting your keyword in your meta description, but the true priority of the meta description is to provide the best possible sales pitch to entice people to click on the search result and move on through the sales process. This can be done with our without the keyword.

There’s something else you need to be aware of.  Be very careful about using the advanced features of SEO plugins. Changing these settings could cause serious unintentional consequences, such as making your website invisible to search engines. If something like this were to happen, and it’s not immediately traced back to the SEO plugin setting, a lot of time and money may be spent trying to resolve the problem.

SEO Plugins Can Hinder Marketing Efforts

As mentioned, the lack of proper keyword research before implementing on-page SEO elements can cause problems. Here are some more:

  • Time gets wasted – If the person who gets tasked with this doesn’t have a decent understanding of SEO, their time will be spent trying anything to get a good score or a green light. This is time that would be better spent doing other marketing activities.
  • Marketing messages get restrained or derailed – the person tasked with this could make changes to page content that will end up disrupting the journey you intend the visitor to make towards becoming a customer.

Nobody wants to see bad scores or red warning lights, even if there’s a reasonable explanation. This, as we can see, can lead to problems. It helps in moments like this to take a step back and look at the big picture. Truly successful companies know that every decision and every action must properly align with the overall mission of the business. If they don’t, then why do them? Will fussing to make all the SEO plugin’s lights turn green contribute to the success of the company? I think not.

So, Help or Hinder?

SEO plugins have the potential to do either, or perhaps both at the same time. Therefore I recommend using them to do specific tasks, but take their “analysis” or “advice” with skepticism. Don’t take it literally, or you may compromise actual quality.

Keyword research is so fundamental to effective SEO, it really ought to be done by someone who knows what they’re doing. In regards to on-page SEO, if you don’t have access to a SEO professional, it’s a good idea to provide your staff with a guide regarding on-page SEO best practices so they can have the proper context for the various tactics.

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Nomophobia: The Reason Why Your Business Should be Mobile

You heard it first! Nomophobia!

Now before you start wondering what that is and how it impacts your business, just quickly look to your left, and now to your right or at the most, in your pocket. Did you find your smartphone yet?

women looking at phone in misty woods
gpointstudio/Thinkstock

Like 73% of people, if you don’t find your phone immediately or don’t feel it at hands reach, you might start to feel panicked or a little nervous and worried while trying to remember where it is. This fear of not finding your phone is called Nomophobia and as you can see, close to three quarters of your customers might be victim of the same faith. Now, how does that play in your favor? That means that more than half of your audience are always or constantly on their smartphone browsing the Internet to find new products, deals and the latest provider for their required service. If you are not mobile yet, this is the time to join the trend.

Nomophobia aside, 1st Aerial created an infographic that puts into perspective the importance that we place on our smartphone and main arguments why your business should be mobile friendly and offer a mobile adapted website. To see the full infographic, click here.

Now why should your business consider this statistic:

4.77 billion of mobile users worldwide

There are 4.77 billion people worldwide that own a smartphone. The statistic goes even further by confirming that more people own a smartphone than people that own a toothbrush. That is a massive audience that cannot be ignored. Although these people are still regular customers in your store or online on their laptop, the fact that so many people today own and use a smartphone can only mean more potential customers are moving their purchases online and will be getting a first impression about your brand through a phone screen instead of on a computer or in person.

crowd using cell phones
Michael Blann/Thinkstock

Without necessarily offering an app or bringing your entire business onto mobile, there are advantages of adapting your website to be mobile friendly and offer a great experience to your customer every time they look you up on their phone. My colleague, Claire Phillipowsky, also covered the topic of mobile friendly websites in The New Mobile-Friendly Website Imperative: What all Top Businesses Already Know.

 

83% of internet usage is mobile

It is a fact that purchasing has moved online and more and more people will go into a store to evaluate an item but will most probably go online to find a great deal and complete their purchase. Now, on top of that already challenging step in the customer journey, nearly 83% are doing most of their internet searched on their mobile. This number clearly examplifies the current behavior of your customer and is a very good reason to be online and to easily be found when your name gets typed in to a search. As a business, you might already be investing in Adwords and online search advertising but make sure with your agency that mobile searches are being included in your potential reach.

 

More than 60% of people are more sociable with their mobile than real people

The survey showed that 35% of people admitted to looking at their phone when they are in public or have nothing to do. And another 33% said that they pretend to be busy in a restaurant or a bar by browsing through their phones instead of talking to people around them. So over 60% of your customers and potential customers are using their smartphones as an excuse to keep themselves occupied and not look bored. A great way to do that is to shop on their mobile, look up their next purchase and plan their next trip thanks to your mobile friendly website, your latest app or your SMS filled with tips.

two people using cell phones facing each other
Image Source Pink/Thinkstock

Out of sight, out of mind, so make sure to be present in your customers mobile experience and help them choose you as their ideal provider, partner or simple marketplace! For more advice about how to bring your business forward and add a mobile component to your marketing, meet with a PROSAR team member today.

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The 4 Best Analytics Reports to Chart Your SEO Progress

PROSAR_SEO_Analytics_Report_2.png

SEO is an ongoing process that requires time, effort, and many types of actions. Results often aren’t immediate, so tracking over time is necessary to see how well you’re achieving your goals. Luckily, the tools to do this are at hand. In fact, Google provides them for free. The one you’re likely familiar with is Google Analytics. I’ll show you two different reports that shed light on how organic traffic is finding your site and viewing your content. You may or may not have heard of the other Google tool. It’s now called Search Console, but was previously known as Google Webmaster Tools. It has a very insightful report generator called Search Analytics. It not only has click metrics, it also sheds light on your website’s SEO performance before the clicks happen.

Organic Traffic within Google Analytics 

Landing Page Visits

Google Analytics is no longer any good at showing what keywords brought people to your website from the search engines, but it still allows you to see overall SEO traffic, and how well each of your pages is performing in terms of attracting people to your website. This is valuable information if your SEO activity has been focused on specific pages.

How to Generate This Report

  1. Log into your Google Analytics report.
  2. Choose the date range you wish to view. This is done at the top right.
  3. Click through the following path in the left menu: Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels, then click on Organic Search in the chart.
  4. The numbers at the top of the chart provide the overall numbers. Sessions are the term used for visits. Above the chart, at Primary Dimension, is the ability to select Landing Page. This is more insightful than the Keyword dimension. Furthermore, if goals have been set up, you can select the goals at the right side of the chart in the drop-down box at Conversions.
  5. If you would like an easy way to return to this report, use the Shortcut feature at the top of the page.

Pageviews

The other way of evaluating traffic from the search engines is to look at what content is consumed beyond the landing page. The metric for this is organic pageviews. These are pages seen by all SEO visitors. These people have come to the website through a variety of different pages such as your homepage, a blog article, or an about-us page.When these people find their way to the pages on your website that promote your company’s products, it should be considered a successful outcome because these people are now one step closer to becoming a customer. This is an important part of the story because SEO efforts needn’t always simply focus on your product pages. In fact, you’ll likely find that your other pages are ideal to use for targeting valuable keywords. The organic pageviews reporthelps you reflect these efforts.

How to Generate This Report

  1. Log into your Google Analytics report.
  2. Choose the date range you wish to view. This is done at the top right.
  3. Click through the following path in the left menu: Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
  4. Go to the area above the graph where there are two long rectangles. One is marked “All Users” and the other is marked “+ Add Segment.”
  5. Click on “All Users”, scroll through the list and put a check in the box beside “Organic Traffic”, scroll back up through the list and uncheck “All Users”, and then click “Apply.”
  6. If you would like an easy way to return to this report, use the Shortcut feature at the top of the page.

Search Analytics within Google Search Console

Another method of looking at your SEO progress is by using the Google Search Console. The Search Analytics report within Search Console offers a more in-depth view than Google Analytics because:

  • It provides the extra dimension of ‘Impressions’, which represents the number of times your website appeared in front of someone in the search results. This is regardless of where or not the person clicked through to your website. It also provides metrics such as CTR, the rate that impressions turned into clicks, and Position, the average ranking in the search results.
  • It provides much richer information on keywords than Google Analytics. They refer them as ‘queries’, which are the phrases people typed into Google.
  • It allows you to dig into the various aspects of your search traffic. For example, you can view the most popular queries by country.

Keyword Usage

Many companies are tempted to track SEO progress by tracking the rankings of individual keywords. There is, however, a better way. A more encompassing method of tracking keyword performance can be accomplished through the Search Analytics report:

  1. Log into your Search Console account.
  2. In the left navigation, go to Search Traffic and then Search Analytics.
  3. Select the date range you want. The default is 28 days, but you can look at up to 90 days.
  4. If you do business primarily in one country, locate “Countries” above the chart, click on “No filter”, select “Filter counties”, and select your target country.
  5. Click on Queries. The report will generate a list of queries.
  6. You can add extra metrics to this list, and the chart, by checking the boxes at the top of the report that say“clicks”, “impressions”, “CTR”, and “position”.

Landing Pages

You can also look at all these metrics in term of the landing pages. You do this by clicking on “Pages” at the top of the report. If you’re looking for a particular landing page, you can either scroll through the results until you find it and click on it, or you can use the filter located under the word “Pages”. Selecting a particular page, will provide you with the information for just that page, which can be looked at by clicks, impressions, CTR, and position. You also have the option to click on Queries. The page filter will remain in effect, and you’ll see all the queries people used to land on the page you’re focusing on.

Mastering SEO Analytics

Within these reports are the answers to many of your questions regarding your SEO performance.  The key to unearthing the answers is in learning how to dig down into the data using filters and dimensions. Develop this ability through curiosity and practice, and you’ll soon have ready access to how well your website is performing in the search engines.

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Effective Simplicity – 3 Steps to Building an Online Marketing Plan

Effective marketing can help a business soar. Business people know this. Just watch a few episodes of the CBC’s “Dragons Den” to hear the most common response to the question, “What do you need the money for?” Pretty much everyone’s reply includes “marketing”. From launching a new business to growing an existing enterprise, the business world knows the difference marketing makes.

Online businesses rely on marketing to spread the word of not only their stellar products and services, but also word of their very existence on a very crowded Internet.

A marketing plan is the cornerstone of marketing a business, regardless the size or type of business. Online businesses must have a plan in place as an anchor and a guide. Plans can be as complex or as simple as businesses themselves, but for our purposes today we will talk about the components in a simple, basic plan.

 

effective marketing plan

 Avosb/Thinkstock

1) Pick your channels.

The Internet offers many marketing channel choices:

  • social media marketing
    • Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter ads and sponsored posts
  • online marketing
    • content creation, search engine optimization, blogging
  • online advertising
    • online display ads, search engine marketing (Adwords)
  • offline advertising
    • print ads, TV, radio
  • events marketing
    • trade shows

You must pick those that make sense to your particular business. The shotgun approach of trying everything and throwing as much as you can to see what sticks makes no sense. This leads us to the next important point:

2) Do a few things extremely well.

Having picked your channels, now is the time to define what you are looking for from these channels and to execute them effectively.

The quick answer to what you are looking for is “more sales”. This is in no way specific enough. You wouldn’t tell your sales staff to just go forth and make “more sales” without being more specific on what’s expected of them. The same holds true for your selected marketing channels.

Examples of further goal definitions include:

  • increased visits to the website
  • requests for demos of products and/or services
  • click-throughs to online offers
  • increased engagement with potential clients/customers
  • downloads of unique content specific to your business

Obviously your end goal is to sell, but these specifics help to define which channels would be the most effective with these mini-goals. In online, rarely does a visitor go directly to a sale without involvement of the above.

Execution of these channels and tactics must be done effectively. Every detail possible. It’s far better to do something thoroughly and properly that doing lots of things half-assed. The key approach is take your time and learn this stuff really well.

3) Measure, tweak, and measure again.

Measure the results of your efforts. Is there room for improvement? What needs to be tweaked or changed?

The eventual results (or lack thereof) will either lead to your happy place or to the realization that this or that channel is simply not working.

The greater the expertise you have in these areas the easier it will be to get the results and the more efficient you will be with your time and resources. There are some really great tools for measuring how things are going at any time in the process. A common complaint is there are too many tools and no one has the time to learn them.

A simple, basic online marketing plan, in concept, is not that difficult to conceive or execute. There are many online resources to assist in learning all the details. The channels, themselves, such as Google Adwords and Facebook advertising, are deceptively simple to use by just about anyone.

Why, then, are there agencies and specialists that offer help in these areas? The answer lays in the details. Specialists know this stuff, inside and out, and can deliver these services effectively and efficiently. You can do it yourself, but it’s like those TV ads of the guy holding a scalpel to his chest while on the phone with a surgeon – should you really be doing this?

Regardless if your online marketing plan is DIY, or supported by the pros, simple and basic is a good starting point. Often, a simple approach is the most effective approach.

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Is Guerrilla Marketing Still an Option for Smaller Companies?

Guerrilla marketing can be a surprisingly effective means of gaining awareness and strong brand positioning. The benefits of a successful campaign or event include:

  • Position your brand with impact
  • Gain instant awareness, hopefully even go viral
  • Motivate staff and encourage a cohesive team
  • Strengthen recruitment and attract like-minded candidates

So the allure is obvious, but is guerrilla marketing still within the arsenal of small and medium-sized business?

From Wikipedia: The term “guerrilla marketing” is traced to guerrilla warfare, which employs atypical tactics to achieve an objective. In 1984, the term guerrilla marketing was introduced by Leo Burnett’s creative director Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Advertising.

Levinson was a brilliant marketer, and perhaps his interest in such tactics stems from the late 1960s with John Cleese appearing in a bikini saying “And now for something completely different.” Cleese turned a typical and boring “And now a message from our sponsors” message on its head with drama and comedy. In three seconds he cut through both the noise and monotony to earn your rapt attention. (Marketers can learn a lot from watching Monty Python.)

But guerrilla marketing is not simply shock and/or awe, there needs to be a strategic intent. On YouTube, there is a limitless supply of testosterone addled young males willing to do stupid stunts à la Jackass. Slapping a corporate T-shirt on someone as they ride a bicycle off a 20’ cliff into a children’s pool filled with Jello has limited value. The key consideration is not just being noticed, but associating your brand with a positive experience or outcome. Simply getting people’s attention isn’t branding.

Here is a smart example of positioning a brand or concept; who wouldn’t want to check out the Copenhagen Zoo after seeing this bus in downtown Copenhagen? Check out creativeguerrillamarketing.com for many examples of effective, fun and incredible in-your-face and experiential marketing.

Copenhagen_Zoo_Guerrilla_Marketing.jpg

 

By definition, guerrilla marketing employs atypical tactics. And may seem more difficult to successfully pull off a stunt today, with the public’s sense of awe dulled by years of reality television and YouTube binge watching, but some still rise to the challenge.

Remember when flash mobs were popular? Seemingly, out of nowhere strangers started dancing and joining a choreographed number. The public was typically mesmerized and overcome with joy at having stumbled into a Bollywood moment. Marketers and corporations were quick to see their value and dreamed of long-lasting brand attention with viral video play. Originally associated with low cost and a one-time or short-lived event, once corporations jumped on the band wagon these attributes went by the way-side — big budgets, slick production and involved campaigns replaced sweat equity.

Planning and successfully implementing guerrilla marketing is not easy It requires an out of the box or novel idea, great creative and coordination, superior planning and logistics… a truly talented team is required, and the finances to pay for it. But, if you have the resources and you can pull it off, the effect can be tremendous.

Perhaps Coke launched the biggest guerrilla marketing blitz yet with their campaign for Coke Zero, which (uncharacteristically for guerrilla marketing) uses virtually all forms of advertising (albeit interactively). A very sophisticated, technologically advanced, and expensive marketing campaign that is most definitely unexpected. (Check out their YouTube overview.)

These days, with higher public expectations, and the need to support with a large media buy and significant logistics to navigate, it seems that only large corporations have the financial strength to play with the guerrillas. Perhaps smaller firms can take advantage of social media to even the playing field a bit, and the PROSAR team will explore that in a future blog article. For now, what are your thoughts on the use of guerrilla marketing by smaller companies, or better yet, do you have an example of how it has worked for your company?

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How to Unleash Your Content Marketing Superheroes

In marketing your organization online, “content is king” is more truth than cliché. All the advertising in the world cannot compensate for a lack of substance on a website. As Bill Gates observed back in 1996, “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”

Generating original, relevant content can be a daunting task for many organizations. Transmitting expertise and knowledge, in just the right online doses, can be difficult to start, edit and polish. It can cause procrastination and neglect in building a website beyond something that just looks good. The power to rise above your competitors resides in your own staff. These tips will help shed reluctance and release their inner content marketing superheroes.

Content marketing superhero
Image Credit: cyano66/Thinkstock

Commit to a Content Strategy

At a minimum, everyone should commit to extending your organization’s expertise and value to your online presence. This will help bring the internal perception of your website to something more than just an online brochure and as something that is important to everyone in the organization. This can get staff thinking about what needs to be online to reflect what your organization is really about and how to attract and impress new visitors.

Draw up a Content Calendar

A content calendar is your plan on how your business will deliver its expertise and uniqueness online. It is the details on how to implement your content strategy.

A content calendar describes the topics, details and schedule you will follow to keep an ongoing delivery of your organization’s value online. Content delivery needs to be consistent with no gaps. Visitors need a reason to return to your website. Each time they do is your opportunity to further a relationship. A calendar keeps you focused on your online commitment.

Start With an Outline

Content can be in any form that your target audience finds engaging; blogs, guides, videos, case studies. All of these formats begin with an outline. Begin by answering this question: What is it that you are saying and to whom? Answering this should lead to what would be the most effective format for your message.

After the “what” and “who”, make notes of the major details to deliver your message. Point form is fine. The idea is to capture your ideas without a lot of censoring at this point. Editing and polishing are the last steps.

Get Help if Needed

If your organization has the necessary skills in copywriting/editing, graphic design, video production, website maintenance, and content promotion, you are ready to polish your content and publish it via (or linked to) your website. If not, you’ll need some help.

Many businesses do not have all of these skills. Not having all of these may have held them back from producing original content in the first place. The point is that the guts of original content best comes from your organization, regardless if you have all of the resources to complete the package. Your organization’s expertise and knowledge is the foundation to all original content creation, and original content is the best content.

You may need help with the strategy, or the calendar, or the polish and promotion of the content. Regardless, your own staff can be content marketing superheroes by tapping into the knowledge they have and use everyday. They just need to commit to it and get started. They may be surprised and proud of what it can end up as. Some of the greatest superheroes are those that didn’t know they had it in them.

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Video: Now a Must and no longer a Maybe

YouTube_crazy.jpgAs a marketer, of course, I believe in video and integrating it into my overall marketing strategy. But as a project manager with a budget to manage, whenever something had to go, it would also be the video topic that would be postponed or assigned to later ”when we have more money”.

Although video is a must in any content strategy, it is also difficult to startup and even more, to maintain. Yes, you will read many blogs, especially these days, that state: Video is a MUST! 2015 was even proclamed as the year of video with 50% of online videos accounting for 50% of all mobile traffic.

Here are my top 3 tips on how to do video the right way and for the right reasons…Not only because you read a blog about it or because you want your company to be YouTube famous!

 

Tip 1: Be Authentic

No matter what you do, remain true to your brand. Yes, video can be your way to do something different, test the waters or think outside the box but whatever the strategy, remember your brand. No need to be boring if you are the head of marketing at a stuffy and conservative company but also no need to be making a dance video and having your staff make a lipdub to look cool. Take the time to think about your message and the goal of your video project:

– What is your message?
– Who is your audience?
– What emotions or values do you want to express in your videos? And how can you do that?
– What do you want to put forth? Your Customers? Your Product? Your Service? Your Staff?

 

Tip 2: Be Proud

Invest the money and produce good quality. It is that simple. I have recently gone through the experience of searching for an agency and realized that depending on the quality you want, prices can vary. But remember to keep it simple and be proud of what you produce.

If you don’t yet have a Hollywood budget than don’t look for a Hollywood storyboard!

Sometimes, we get overly excited by what is being proposed and forget what is the purpose of the video project or, other times, we are so focused on costs that we start producing shaky and cheap  videos with no intro or exit animations although we want to communicate our company’s professionalism. Can you see the confusion or possible misinterpretation?

– Take the time to go through the thought process in tip #1 and look carefully at the proposals you receive.
– Call and talk to agencies to invite the right ones to your bid and avoid being disappointed or
– Start with a good freelancer and test him out to see what he is capable of…you might be surprised and it might be enough for year 1.

To learn more about content marketing and how to keep up with the ever increasing speed of content generation, read up on the Marketing Process with my colleague Scott Vetter.

Tip 3: Be a Game-Changer

What I mean here is not to want to go viral over night or make an impact in the YouTube world but more to make a difference for your customers. Are you adding value to their overall experience? And remember to centre their needs in the goals of your project.

– Your customers are asking how to use your product? Create clear and concise tutorials that look professional, are helpful and clear.
– You want to become a reference in your market? Get your customers in front of a camera and share their best experiences with your new potential audience. It will also reinforce your business relations and add credibility amongst your partners.
– Your want to put show your great service? Share the spotlight with your staff and talk about all the great work they do in a day for your customers.
– You want to become a thought leader in your market? Interview your CEO and discuss important topics in your industry. Create content that will be shared and that can be used for years to come, by anyone.

 

The only way you will make a difference is by being transparent, honest and real. Produce content that you would also be proud to share and promote and remember to stay true to your brand.

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Can’t see the fundamentals for the trends?

Creating a meaningful website

Natural photos and bold colours. Hero sliders and parallax feature strips. Material Design and micro-interactions. These were among the trends to watch in 2015 and the predictions for 2016. Trends are ever-changing – otherwise, they wouldn’t be trends! – and it’s important to keep up with current design and navigation preferences to give your website visitors the user experience they are seeking. However, in our rush to keep up with the online Jones’, it’s important that we don’t get lost in the trends and forget about the basic principles of a good website.  If you fail to deliver meaningful, relevant content and a welcoming, accessible user experience, you’ll end up with a pretty-looking website that still fails to engage your target audience.

Giant redwood trees, Felton, California
Photo credit: Jupiterimages / Creatas / Thinkstock / 86532049

So, what are the fundamentals?

  • Above all, identify your business objectives: What does success look like for your business? What does your website need to offer to help make that happen? What do you want visitors to accomplish on your site? What unique value do you offer them?
  • Next, define your target audiences: Who are you ideal customers? What do they want to achieve when they come to your website? What sort of content are they looking for?
  • Develop a strategy and stay focused: How will your website help your leads, qualified prospects, and customers achieve their goals? What web elements will complement your customer engagement efforts and facilitate your sales process? How can you make your site inviting and useful without being cluttered?
  • Develop your site structure with the user in mind: How does your target audience want to interact with you? How should your site menus be set up so that your valuable content is easy to find? Does your site navigation enable your visitors to achieve their objectives each time they visit?
  • Invest in the creation of compelling, intelligent content: Is your content written specifically for the web to ensure easy scanning and readability?  Have you added engaging graphics, video, and audio to augment the text? Is your content truly relevant and valuable to your target audience?
  • Make it easy for your audience to communicate with you and share your content: Do you have easy-to-use contact and feedback forms? Sharing buttons? Links to your social media channels?
  • Incorporate SEO: Did you consider Search Engine Optimization, with relevant and on-trend keywords, tags, and messaging throughout your website? Have you identified where you can provide links to external content and expert resources, and which of those expert sources are willing to provide links back to your content?
  • Foster ongoing lead generation and nurturing: Do you have Calls to Action (CTAs)that drive visitors to your website in all your promotional campaigns, social media activities, and events? Have you published blogs or articles that establish your expertise and set you apart from your competition? Have you implemented workflows that nurture leads through your sales funnel?
  • Evaluate and respond to your website traffic– Have you set up analytics tools to assess site traffic, performance and achievement of goals? Have you asked your audience for feedback on whether your site is meeting their needs? Do you have a process in place to follow up on that feedback and the results of your analysis?

 

Whatever the current trends or the “next big thing” may be, these essential building blocks for a successful website never change. So go ahead and add that widget or wiz-bang feature that you heard about on Twitter, but make sure they are building on, not taking the place of, your strategic, content-driven foundation.

One last thought worth mentioning: In some cases, the lines between trends and fundamentals are blurred. Case in point: Responsive Web Design has held a prominent spot in “Top 10” lists of trends for the last few years, but this has moved beyond trendy to become a design imperative – a fundamental – given the predominance of smartphone and table browsing today. Similarly, well-implemented micro-experiences promise to make a user’s interaction with your site simple, streamlined and personal. For example, “web applications where, instead of transferring to a new screen to enter some data or complete a task, the cell simply adapts to allow the task to be completed right there on the spot.”[i] Think also “of funny images, expressions, hidden functionality, smart personalized data and more.” [ii] But as appealing and user-friendly as these elements are, they will still fall short if the proper groundwork isn’t laid first.

A shrewd strategy, well-crafted content that delivers real value to your prospects and customers, and carefully considered measurement and follow-up are the roots of an effective website that will convert leads, close business, and delight customers. Make sure you can see the forest despite the trees.

 

[i] Source: “Web design trend predictions for 2016 – 2017” by Matthew Mombrea for Bytestream, IT World.

[ii] Source: “Top Web Design Trends To Watch In 2016” by Tomas Laurinavicius  for Forbes.I