Building a Content Strategy That Search Engines Love - Dylan Sellberg

Creating A Content Strategy That Search Engines Love

(and that you love too) 2017 Design Bloggers Conference

Who is HubSpot?

A Global Movement - INBOUND!

- HQ in Cambridge, MA

- HubSpot Offers a Full Stack of Products for- Marketing - Sales- Customer Relationship Management

- 21,000 Customers in 90 Countries

- 2.3 Million Social Followers

- 19k+ Annual Registered INBOUND Attendees

- 54k HubSpot Academy Certifications

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Who am I?

Dylan Sellberg

- Implementation Specialist at HubSpot

- Started first business at age 11

- Managed multi-million dollar marketing campaigns

- Consults with 30+ marketers each week on marketing and sales best practices

- Favorite social platform is Twitter @DylSell

- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

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2017 Design Bloggers Conference

Diving In

Design Bloggers Conference

Your Current Content StrategyOh, I have an idea - I’ll post it!

Today’s Search Engines How they work and what is new

Your New Content StrategyThis is a big idea, hang onto your hats

Building a Content Strategy That Search Engines <3 and you do too

My goal is to introduce a content strategy that will help

you and your business

Use #EVENTHASHTAG and I’ll respond to any questions from the Twitter Thread both during

and after this talkQ+ALet’s go DEEP here

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How It All Fits TogetherHow a new content strategy will change your results

What is going on with Search Engines?

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How does the Google Machine Work?

The goal of search has always been the same. Enter a question...you get an answer. But... questions have changed as users have become more sophisticated...

The New Search Engines

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1. Obtain backlinks to your site2. Add keywords in your meta description, and H1 tags3. Add a lot of keywords in the body of your content. The more, the

better.4. Add “hidden” keyword mentions in the HTML of your page.5. Rinse & repeat

The New Search Engines

Before now

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*This system is easily gamed by SEOs, marketers, content writers, everybody

But search has evolved

Inside Google’s Search Algorithm

Inside the machine are various algorithms that take hundreds of factors into account to deliver the most relevant result to the searcher.

Each update is just another piece of the overall Google Search Algorithm.

The New Search Engines

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Mobile

Panda

Rankbrain

Penguin

Hummingbird

3 Most Important Ranking Factors

1. Content2. Links

The New Search Engines

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3. RankBrain

A machine-learning artificial

intelligence system that’s

used in the Google Search

Algorithm to help process

results.

RankBrain is intended to help

primarily understand long-tail

queries and user intent.

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HubSpot Internal Only

RankBrain is “involved in every query,” and affects the actual rankings “probably not in every query but in a lot of queries.”

Jeff Dean Computer Scientist, Google

(plus it’s the third most important factor affecting search)

Target searchers' intent and concepts, Google will do a good job recognizing content and figuring out the keywords that it maps to

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2015, Content Marketing Institute

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Your current content strategy

Your Current Content Strategy

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A spontaneous idea equals a blog post

1. You have limited bandwidth

2. Have a hard time creating content on a consistent basis

3. Unable to connect content to your goals or mission

Your Current Content Strategy

Roadblocks with this “Strategy”

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The “See What Sticks” Strategy

1. Difficulty generating concrete ideas

2. Difficulty connecting content generated to your business goals and strategies

3. Trying to mesh your pages with keywords conflicts with your writing style

Your Current Content Strategy

Roadblocks with this “Strategy”

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The “Keyword Research” Strategy

You are not alone.

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The majority of marketers don’t have a documented content strategy. In fact, Only 35% of B2B marketers and only 37% of B2C marketers have a documented content strategy.

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2015, Content Marketing Institute

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A Story

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2 years ago, HubSpot launched the our CRM and created an Inbound Sales Framework...

And...we launched a TON of content

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And it was SO keyword optimized...

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And, the results were like...

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Then, it hit us...Write for humans, not for robots

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So we tried a new framework...

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And the results were like...

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So, how can you do this?

Develop a content strategy!

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That search engines love...

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And you do too...

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Introducing...

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The Content Cluster Framework

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Topics Over Keywords

Key

Sub Topic

Core Topic

Hyperlink

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Topics Over Keywords

● Links off to sub-topic / cluster content and resources

● This is the anchor of topical content on your site

● Typically a web page on your main site

Pillar Content | (10x Content)

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● Holistic view of where you stand on a given topic

● Will increase authority on topic to return results no matter the search

● Google takes care of parsing a search query and returning your result

● This can be a blog page, checklist, case study

Topics Over Keywords

Topic Content

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Topics Over Keywords

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Scandinavian Design

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Minimalism at work

Emerging Scandinavian Design Companies

Functionalism at workin office spaces

Which Nordic country produces the best products

Is Scandinavian Design played out?

How to put this into play

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Map out 5-10 of the core problems that your

buyer has

Build out each of the core topic with subtopics using

keyword research

Map out content ideas that align with each core topic with corresponding

subtopics

Validate each idea with industry and competitive

research.

Create, measure, and refine

Group each of the problems into broad

topic areas

Creating A Content Strategy That Search Engines Love (and that you love too)

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3 Most Important Ranking Factors

1. Content2. Links3. RankBrain

Thank you.

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Q+APlease, no softballs

Out of time? Dsellberg@HubSpot.com

1. Matthew Barby (and his blog)https://www.matthewbarby.com/blog/

2. Angela DeFranco3. Joseph Del Bene 4. How to create 10x content (Moz) 5. Anum Hussain Topics over Keywords 6. All About RankBrain (Search Engine Land)

Thank you’s + resources

The Real Pros

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