In 2016 content marketing will become even more important for a number of reasons. First and foremost is its ability to amp up Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your site. Positioning your business or blog to come up on the front page of Google and other search engines is essential to people finding you online.
Online SEO is particularly essential if your products or services or only offered online. Your site or blog competes with a mind-boggling amount of other sites and the more buried down they are on the Web, the more difficult it will become to be found and the more expensive if you are relying only on digital ads.
Advertising your way to your potential customers' eyes is a diminishing factor, because not only do people as a rule dislike intrusive online advertising, there is an increasing use of ad-blockers to actually prevent unwanted advertisements, like banners and pop-ups, from appearing on a web page. With new Apple technology digital ads can also be blocked on cell phones.
What do you do? Provide your readers or potential customers with SEO enhanced content about yourself, your products and/or services. Determine what words or search terms that your readers are likely to use when looking for your type of business. Once these are determined,be careful not to "spam" the search engines with over use of your key words and phrases which will be counter-productive and not liked by many search engine algorithms. Describe your products or services in an easy to understand manner.
Write additional copy on them segmented by questions or search terms that your readers or potential customers are likely to want information about. This is not the typical FAQ list, but helpful informative articles, White Papers or even e-brochure and e-book downloads that can help your business provide a value added service. You can also benefit from key word press releases that link back to your site and can be an additional path to attract site traffic from the Web.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
DotBiz Word Up: RankBrain Helps the Long Tail Searcher Find Your Specialized Content
In the last quarter of 2015 Google announced that it would begin using RankBrain, a machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) system that helps it process search results to provide more relevant results for users. RankBrain uses AI to embed a huge amount of language into mathematical vectors. If it sees an unfamiliar word or phrase, RankBrain can make a guess as to the words or phrases that have a similar meaning and filter search results accordingly.
RankBrain is not just about never-before seen queries, although they are a growing part of Google's 67% chunk of the global search market and Google's approximately 3.5 billion Google searches per day. With RankBrain Google can deliver better results for rarer search terms which sophisticated searchers increasingly use.
Google has said that never-before-seen queries account for some 15 percent of all searches. These and other phrases make up something called the ‘long tail’ search which is not a simple key word or even a couple of key words, but rather a specialized search term entered to return a more focused search result. RankBrain handles the increasing number of long tail searches that more specifically describe what a searcher hopes to find.
What this means for bloggers and other content providers is that frequency of particular keywords in your content is less important. Your copy need not and should not sound as though it is knocking a reader over the head with a particular word, even if that word is as favorable a word as chocolate.
The result will be that RankBrain can hopefully deliver searchers to your content who are in a way pre-qualified for the information you are dispensing or products and services that you are selling. For more information search RankBrain.
RankBrain is not just about never-before seen queries, although they are a growing part of Google's 67% chunk of the global search market and Google's approximately 3.5 billion Google searches per day. With RankBrain Google can deliver better results for rarer search terms which sophisticated searchers increasingly use.
Google has said that never-before-seen queries account for some 15 percent of all searches. These and other phrases make up something called the ‘long tail’ search which is not a simple key word or even a couple of key words, but rather a specialized search term entered to return a more focused search result. RankBrain handles the increasing number of long tail searches that more specifically describe what a searcher hopes to find.
What this means for bloggers and other content providers is that frequency of particular keywords in your content is less important. Your copy need not and should not sound as though it is knocking a reader over the head with a particular word, even if that word is as favorable a word as chocolate.
The result will be that RankBrain can hopefully deliver searchers to your content who are in a way pre-qualified for the information you are dispensing or products and services that you are selling. For more information search RankBrain.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Dot Biz Blog Says Intelligent Content Convenes March 2016 in Vegas
Okay, we can all see the first month of 2016 drawing to a close. The new year hype is old, the resolutions are same old, same old and we're all eager to see what's ahead, really ahead. For content marketers and bloggers what you may need is an infusion of new ideas via the Intelligent Content Conference coming up March 7-9 in Las Vegas.
ICC is all about schooling you on the need to scale your content, leverage the right technology, easily repurpose and reuse content, and deliver content to the right person, at the right time, regardless of device. Who attends these gatherings, will you feel out of place and is the trip something you can write off as a biz expense?
Well, the answer to the first part of that question is answered by the organization as the following: Marketing practitioners passionate about leveraging content as an organizational asset, including communications roles, content strategists, managers and creators, and internal content change agents. Sessions will lean toward larger enterprises and those companies that want to bring structure to their content marketing with process and technology.
So, the answer to the second part is only something you can answer, but if you're an indie content provider looking to hook up with a larger enterprise, networking may make that possible. If you want to continue to do you own thing with better insight into the larger scheme of things, chances are you will benefit as well. If you're already involved as a major player you will already know about this conference and have it on your calendar.
Can you write it off? You, bet. And if you're feeling lucky, who knows maybe your stay at The M Resort Spa & Casino, at the special attendee room rate of $150 per night (plus applicable taxes and fees)will bring in enough winnings to pay attending the conference. Check out the details now at Intelligent Content Conference.
ICC is all about schooling you on the need to scale your content, leverage the right technology, easily repurpose and reuse content, and deliver content to the right person, at the right time, regardless of device. Who attends these gatherings, will you feel out of place and is the trip something you can write off as a biz expense?
Well, the answer to the first part of that question is answered by the organization as the following: Marketing practitioners passionate about leveraging content as an organizational asset, including communications roles, content strategists, managers and creators, and internal content change agents. Sessions will lean toward larger enterprises and those companies that want to bring structure to their content marketing with process and technology.
So, the answer to the second part is only something you can answer, but if you're an indie content provider looking to hook up with a larger enterprise, networking may make that possible. If you want to continue to do you own thing with better insight into the larger scheme of things, chances are you will benefit as well. If you're already involved as a major player you will already know about this conference and have it on your calendar.
Can you write it off? You, bet. And if you're feeling lucky, who knows maybe your stay at The M Resort Spa & Casino, at the special attendee room rate of $150 per night (plus applicable taxes and fees)will bring in enough winnings to pay attending the conference. Check out the details now at Intelligent Content Conference.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
For Content Marketing, SEO and Related Topics Check Out SEJ
If you're an experienced writer just getting into blogging or into providing blog content, you'll want to learn more about the SEJ Search Engine Journal. It has daily posts about the topics of SEO, Search Engine News, Social Media, Entrepreneurship, WordPress, and Content Marketing. Besides daily updates, SEJ also creates in-depth content guides which are available as e-books for Kindle on Amazon. SEJ is a one-stop resource for white papers, pod casts and webinars on many of the things you want to know about blogging and providing content for your website or for others.
SEJ additionally offers an exclusive, invitation-only writers’ program that includes valuable perks such as conference press passes to its annual events and exposure on a site that gets about one million unique page views monthly. For details on these and the 2016 invitation only conferences check out Search Engine Journal.
SEJ additionally offers an exclusive, invitation-only writers’ program that includes valuable perks such as conference press passes to its annual events and exposure on a site that gets about one million unique page views monthly. For details on these and the 2016 invitation only conferences check out Search Engine Journal.
Friday, November 20, 2015
How Does Your Content Marketing Measure Up?
The results of the new 2015 survey by The Content Marketing Institute found that only 23% of Business to Consumer marketers successfully track their return on investment in content marketing. This year's survey reached more than 5,000 marketers,representing 25 industries in 109 countries.
Fifty-one percent, an increase of 15% over last year, say that measuring the effectiveness of content is a challenge. Only 27% of B2C marketers have taken the time to put their strategy in writing, while 50% of those surveyed only have a verbal strategy.
Other findings from this year's survey revealed that 69% of those responding are creating more content than they did a year ago and 45% of B2C marketers now have a dedicated content marketing group in their organization. On average they are using seven social media platforms this year compared to only six last year. The use of blogs dropped from 72% last year to 67% this year.
Seventy-one percent use print or other offline promotion, and while it is the paid method that they use most frequently to promote and distribute content, only 46% say that it's effective. The majority, or 57%, say that search engine marketing is the most effective way to promote/distribute content.
The 2015 survey included new questions showing that the average number of paid advertising methods for promoting/distributing content is four and that 48% of those surveyed say that they publish new content daily or multiple times per week. The average number of content marketing initiatives being worked on at the time of the survey was 13.
For more information on the findings from the 2015 survey visit the Content Marketing Institute site.
Fifty-one percent, an increase of 15% over last year, say that measuring the effectiveness of content is a challenge. Only 27% of B2C marketers have taken the time to put their strategy in writing, while 50% of those surveyed only have a verbal strategy.
Other findings from this year's survey revealed that 69% of those responding are creating more content than they did a year ago and 45% of B2C marketers now have a dedicated content marketing group in their organization. On average they are using seven social media platforms this year compared to only six last year. The use of blogs dropped from 72% last year to 67% this year.
Seventy-one percent use print or other offline promotion, and while it is the paid method that they use most frequently to promote and distribute content, only 46% say that it's effective. The majority, or 57%, say that search engine marketing is the most effective way to promote/distribute content.
The 2015 survey included new questions showing that the average number of paid advertising methods for promoting/distributing content is four and that 48% of those surveyed say that they publish new content daily or multiple times per week. The average number of content marketing initiatives being worked on at the time of the survey was 13.
For more information on the findings from the 2015 survey visit the Content Marketing Institute site.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Dotbiz Blog: Check Out Web.com for a Full Spectrum of Web Oriented Free Videos, E-books, White Papers, News and More
Small businesses can find a number of free resources on Web.com, a leading provider of Internet services and online marketing solutions. These include how-to videos, e-books, white papers, marketing tips, and more through its Small Business Forum, an online community built specifically for small businesses. Membership to the Web.com Small Business Forum is free (registration required. Once registration is complete, small businesses get instant entrance to a multi-purpose portal where they can access expert advice and tips to help them grow their businesses.
Web.com provides the latest small business and online marketing news with top stories from around the world added daily in both article and video formats. The E-books and White Papers section provides full access to Web.com's complete library of e-books covering some of today's most important small business and online marketing topics, with new e-books added every month. Members can also use the Small Business Forum to grow their personal and professional networks by getting help from other business owners and by sharing their own knowledge while building their online reputations from within the Small Business Forum's Groups, or its Guest Blogging program.
Web.com provides the latest small business and online marketing news with top stories from around the world added daily in both article and video formats. The E-books and White Papers section provides full access to Web.com's complete library of e-books covering some of today's most important small business and online marketing topics, with new e-books added every month. Members can also use the Small Business Forum to grow their personal and professional networks by getting help from other business owners and by sharing their own knowledge while building their online reputations from within the Small Business Forum's Groups, or its Guest Blogging program.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Dotbiz Blog: Google Changes Typeface of Logo To Make It Easier to Read Across Multiple Devices and Platforms
If you use Google for search, you probably notice that on September 1, 2015 the company launched a new logo. Why? According to the Google blog the popular search engine was once a destination reached from a desktop PC, while today people use Google products Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people access Google products from many different platforms,apps and devices including mobile phones, TVs, watches, automobile dashboards, and desktops.
So, the previous familiar logo with a serif font gives way to a simpler custom typeface that is sans-serif and thicker making it easier to read even on the smallest screens. The new logo tells you that you’re using Google, but also shows you how Google is working for you. For example, new elements like a colorful Google mic help you identify and interact with Google whether you’re talking, tapping or typing. And, the little blue “g” icon and replacing it with a four-color “G” that matches the logo and is used in places where the full name will not fit.
The new branding replaces the last Google logo, which the company has used since September 2013. The new san-serif logo is Google’s sixth logo since the company launched in 1998. Most of the updates have been subtle. In October 1998, Google change the color of the “G” from green to blue and added an exclamation point at the end. Google removed the exclamation point the following May.
Not everyone likes the new logo. My first reaction to seeing the old logo morph into the one was ugh, but I brushed it off because Google has artfully played with its search engine art in many different ways. I thought it was like a change for the day.
I actually prefer the old serif font, which lacks the utter simplicity of the new one. However, I do understand that serif type doesn't shrink down as well as san serif fonts. In instances when the type is used for a logo that needs to scale from really large to tiny, the new logo is better for that purpose.
Of note, there has been an on-going argument among those who take note of such things as to whether serif fonts are more legible than san serif. But such arguments always have to take into account the actual shape of the letter and the spacing between letters. With a logo that is just a font without other graphics parts are interplay the uniqueness, familiarity and memorability all
So, the previous familiar logo with a serif font gives way to a simpler custom typeface that is sans-serif and thicker making it easier to read even on the smallest screens. The new logo tells you that you’re using Google, but also shows you how Google is working for you. For example, new elements like a colorful Google mic help you identify and interact with Google whether you’re talking, tapping or typing. And, the little blue “g” icon and replacing it with a four-color “G” that matches the logo and is used in places where the full name will not fit.
The new branding replaces the last Google logo, which the company has used since September 2013. The new san-serif logo is Google’s sixth logo since the company launched in 1998. Most of the updates have been subtle. In October 1998, Google change the color of the “G” from green to blue and added an exclamation point at the end. Google removed the exclamation point the following May.
Not everyone likes the new logo. My first reaction to seeing the old logo morph into the one was ugh, but I brushed it off because Google has artfully played with its search engine art in many different ways. I thought it was like a change for the day.
I actually prefer the old serif font, which lacks the utter simplicity of the new one. However, I do understand that serif type doesn't shrink down as well as san serif fonts. In instances when the type is used for a logo that needs to scale from really large to tiny, the new logo is better for that purpose.
Of note, there has been an on-going argument among those who take note of such things as to whether serif fonts are more legible than san serif. But such arguments always have to take into account the actual shape of the letter and the spacing between letters. With a logo that is just a font without other graphics parts are interplay the uniqueness, familiarity and memorability all
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