content isn't just king it's also queen & ace

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Content Isn’t Just King It’s Also Queen & Ace by Brian Harnish Internet Marketing Specialist Bisnar | Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, LLP Twitter: @brianharnish LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view? id=40366504 Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

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SMX West 2013 Presentation - Content Isn't Just King, It's Also Queen & Ace

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Page 1: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Content Isn’t Just KingIt’s Also Queen & Ace

by Brian HarnishInternet Marketing Specialist

Bisnar | Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, LLPTwitter: @brianharnish

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=40366504

Twitter: @brianharnish

Email: [email protected]

Page 2: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Elements of Superb Quality Content

Superb quality content should be relevant.

Superb Quality content should be interesting.

Quality Photos

Quality Headlines

Photos That Are Professionally Formatted

Lists and bullet points summarizing important points.

Sub headings (H2s, H3s, etc.)

All of these elements provide a pleasing, structured separation between paragraphs of text content.

Also, videos are an important part of quality content.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 3: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Elements of Superb Quality Content

One of the #1 elements of superb quality content?

It should be unique.

You don’t want visitors coming to your site and seeing content they’ve seen

everywhere else. The #1 thing people are looking for is unique, relevant

content that entertains them or helps them accomplish a specific task.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 4: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Elements of Superb Quality Content

So how DO you make content unique and relevant to your industry vertical?

RESEARCH! Find out what people in your industry are interested in.

Competitor research – Find out what your competitors are writing & talking about.

Build on that and create content that is the superb example throughout your industry.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 5: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Elements of Superb Quality Content

Analyze your industry’s top content.1. Who are your main industry competitors?

2. What does your industry write about most often?

3. When does your industry publish?

4. Where does your industry get their ideas?

5. Why does your industry publish what it does?

6. How does your industry publish it?

7. How often does your industry publish?

8. How does your industry share it?

9. How does your industry engage customers?

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 6: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Google’s Guidelines for Content

This is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for Design/Content

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy/information architecture.

• Offer a sitemap to your users that point to the important parts of your site.

• Keep links on a page to a reasonable number.

• Create a useful, information-ritch site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

• Think about the words your users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 7: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Google’s Guidelines for Content

This is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for Design/Content

• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler does not recognize text contained within images. If you must use images for text content, consider using the ALT attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.

• Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

• Check for broken links and correct HTML

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 8: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Does Google Have Guidelines for images and video content? YES!

Don’t embed important text inside images“Avoid embedding important text in images for

elements like page headings and menu times. Not all users can access them. To ensure maximum accessibility, keep it in regular HTML.”

Tell us as much as you can about the image”Give your images detailed, informative file

names. Make your file name this-is-the-name-of-the-image.jpg rather than IMG123456.jpg. If we can’t find suitable text in the page on which we found the image, the filename will be used as the image’s snippet in our search results.”

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 9: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Google Guidelines for images and video

Create great alt textThe alt attribute is used to describe the contents of

an image file. It’s important for several reasons: It provides Google with useful information about

the subject matter of the image. This is used to determine the best image to return for a user’s query.

It’s also important to use for screen readers and to help users with other impairments who many not otherwise be able to see the image.

Be descriptive with your alt textInstead of using just one keyword to describe the

image, use a phrase that includes keyword phrases you are targeting, like so:

Good:<img src=“DeLorean.jpg” alt=“DeLorean”>

Best: <img src=“DeLorean.jpg” alt=“Classic Car 1981 DeLorean Automobile”>

Never use: <img src=“DeLorean.jpg” alt=“DeLorean, automobile, car, classic car, cars, DeLorean 1981, 1981 DeLorean, DeLorean car, DeLorean Back To The Future, Back to the Future 2, Back to the Future 3, DeLorean automobile”>

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 10: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Even More Google Guidelines

Provide good context for your images.• For example, the page the image is on as well as the

content surrounding the image provide search engines with important information about the subject matter of the iamge.

Think about the best ways to protect them through various licensing methods.

• Make your images available under a license that requires attribution, such as a creative commons license.

• Provide an HTML snippet that other people can use to embed your image on their page while providing attribution.

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 11: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Google Guidelines for VideoMark up your videos using Schema.org markup.

Submit a Video Sitemap or mRSS feed to Google.

Tell Google when you remove videos from your site.

Create high-quality thumbnail images

JavaScript, Flash, and Hash Tags

Create a great user experience.

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 12: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Google’s Quality Guidelines Boil Down To...

Make your pages geared primarily towards the user, not the search engines.

Do NOT deceive your users.

Avoid “tricks” intended to improve rankings.

Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging, and make your website stand out from others in your field.

This information is direct from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769&topic=1724121&ctx=topic

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 13: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Now That We Have Gone Over Google’s Guidelines...

Evergreen Content Why would you want to take advantage of Evergreen content? Evergreen Content is timeless, quality content that keeps your

visitors coming back again and again. It’s a steady stream of traffic to your site that’s almost never-

ending. It helps set your site above the rest.

Let’s Explore Evergreen Content!!

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 14: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

The Characteristics of Evergreen Content

It is narrow in focus.

Usually can take the form of a how-to article, but many times also comprise different types of articles.

Examples of Evergreen Articles include: Top 100 lists How-To Articles Comprehensive Video Tutorials Content exceeding 2000 words, going extremely

in-depth into the subject matter.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 15: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Q+Q=T^2 (squared)

Don’t worry, this isn’t a math class. The equation, Quality + Quantity = Traffic Squared is a

great equation to aim for and leverage in order to excel in content marketing. How do you take advantage of this equation?

Study your competitors. Find out how they are exceeding in quality & quantity for your targeted keywords.

Create your content in order to take advantage of the lack of quality & quantity in your competitor’s website.

Leverage your team to output quality and quantity of content to your site.

But be careful! This does NOT mean to Spam or not pay attention to Google’s guidelines.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 16: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

How to Analyze Your Competition for Superb Content

One of the best ways to keep ahead in just about any industry is analyzing your competition for superb content. To analyze your competition effectively, it is important to look at several different aspects of quality content:

Frequency of posting (Google has a freshness factor in its algorithm)

Word count How they format their content How they link their content What do they write about? How long is there content?

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 17: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Leveraging The Use of a Team

If you are consistently unable to keep up with the demands of your industry in terms of quantity of content, perhaps it is time to consider building a team for the express purpose of publishing content.

This team can be responsible for quality as well as quantity. For quantity – are you trying to output many articles a week? Use

content writers to come up with the content, then use your team to publish it.

Once you start up the momentum, it’s important to keep it going. Say you want to publish 20 articles per week. It’s probably difficult

for a normal human to keep up with right? So, use your team and build an efficient content production calendar around it.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 18: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Example Of an Effective Content Production Schedule

Say we are trying to rank for and drive traffic for several keywords in an ultra competitive niche. The competitors in this niche output on average 10 articles per day, so, 50 articles per week. This is just an example. You could never do this on your own, so you may consider outsourcing your articles.

Outsourcing can mean using a writer outside your company in the U.S., or you can even go so far as to find a writer in India to do your articles.

You could schedule your writers to write 50 articles per week. Once you get these articles, you can then setup your team to publish 10 articles per day. This is relatively easy for one person to accomplish in an 8 hour period. This allows for considerations of coding, high quality content publishing, and other considerations that go into publishing this content.

Once you have the wheels turning, it can be easy to keep this production schedule going.

Remember to always follow Google’s guidelines when adding content to your website. This will help you avoid getting trapped in the next Google Panda update.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 19: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

My Own Case StudyMy own case study focused on achieving higher rankings for particular key words, but not traffic. It was done purely to study the Google Algorithm and its own emphasis on quality content.

I used the following methods: Wrote 1500 word articles per keyword I was going after. Setup Webmaster tools accounts for Google and Bing. Used Fetch as Googlebot in Google Webmaster Tools. There was no link building involved. It was just its own single page.

Results:• Google rankings of #16, #43, #42 for 3 different targeted key

terms within the first 48 hours of launch.• This is without including social media, videos, or other

elements within content. Had I included these, no doubt these would have increased rankings even further.

Takeaways from the Case Study:• Google still considers lengthy, high quality content to be key for

higher rankings. Don’t ignore other paths to SEO: link building, community building, and other SEO. It’s important to have variation in your strategy.

• But – it’s always important to follow Google’s guidelines when publishing your content!

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 20: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Examples of Quality ContentA friend, and fellow SEO Aaron Friedman, used this photo of him in a wedding dress to spark a sharing trend across social networks. It’s actually a post about Facebook’s photo album foibles. A great example of tying in unique, memorable photography with a compelling subject.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 21: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Examples of Quality ContentSearch Engine Land is one of the best examples of quality content: It’s the news of SEO: timely, lengthy, and always of great quality.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 22: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Examples of Quality ContentSEOmoz, a well known blog in the SEO industry, consistently outputs some of the best content you will ever find. They use their own team to write blogs, rather than outsourcing the writing, and it’s consistently top notch, very lengthy, extremely detailed, and superbly well done.

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]

Page 23: Content Isn't Just King It's Also Queen & Ace

Thank You!

Brian Harnish

Internet Marketing Specialist

Bisnar | Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, LLP

Twitter: @brianharnish

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @brianharnish Email: [email protected]