Content Strategy: University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Andy Crestodina@crestodina

Content Strategy

- Guy Kawasaki

“If you have more MONEY than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing.

If you have more BRAINS than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.”

How content works…

Where there’s traffic, there’s hope...

Traffic: Social, Email, Search

“Achieve business goals by maximizing the impact of content.”

Content Strategists…

Source: Contentini

Don’t sell.

Help your audience make a buying decision.

do they want to read?

What

Obvious, right?

Your website is the mousetrap,

Your content is the cheese…

1. Keywords2. Q&A Sites3. Listening

Sources of Topics

Finding Topics: Google Suggest

Finding Topics: Ubersuggest

Source: Ubersuggest.org

Finding Topics: Google Keyword Tool

Finding Topics: Competitors’ Rank

Source: SpyFu.com

Finding Topics: Analytics

Finding Topics: Yahoo! Answers

Source: Yahoo! Answers

Finding Topics: Quora.com

Source: Quora.com

Finding Topics: Listening

1. Sales Team2. Customer Service Team3. Client Stories

Source: Deana Goldasich

Choose your words

“Don’t think OF the market ….think AS the market”

Source: Social Triggers

Source: Ann Handley

Source: Ann Handley

should you sound?

How

Source

• More formal• Longer (polysyllabic)• Fancy, proper

Examplesacquire, transmit, construct, resist, deposit, imitate, determined

Latinate Words

Anglo-Saxon Words

• Less formal • Short (often monosyllabic)• Forceful, direct

Examplesget, send, build, stop, put, mock, set

Choose your words

Choose your words

…but don’t dumb it down

Write like an 8th grader!

Source: NN Group

SEO has 3 parts

Source: SEOmoz, 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors

How Search Engines Work

Links = How trustworthy your site is

On-Page = How relevant the page is

Keyphrases = What the page is relevant to

SEO (over) simplified

do I find these keywords?

How

3 Criteria for Choosing Keyphrases

Text

Search Volume

Resource: Google Keyword Tool

Search Trending

Resource: Google Trends

Regional Interest

Resource: Google Trends

Competition is high if the sites on page one…

• Are famous (wikipedia, etc.)

• Have title tags that begin with the keyphrase

• Lots of AdWords ads

• Have a higher domain authority than you*

Competition

*see Open Site Explorer

What’s a <title> tag?

It’s the link in Google search results…

It appears above the address bar in your browser…

• Local (change tactics/choose another phrase)

• Videos (opportunity?)

• Images

• Products

• News

Check for Universal Search Results

Text

Relevance

More here: Headline Hacks

52 Headline Hacks

do I put these keywords?

Where

On-Page SEO

• Once at the beginning of the title <title>

• Once in the first header <h1>

• Four to six times in the body of the page

• In links on other pages that link to the page.

More Internal Linking

Email List GrowthGrow your list fast

Before…

After…

1900% increase. Not bad!

Why it works

1.Prominence

2.Promise

3.Proof

GOOD

BAD

Oh My! What a big list you have…

Do this tomorrow…1. Find a relevant topic

2. Research keyphrases, pick a phrase that

aligns with the topic

3. Write 500 words, use on-page SEO

4. Share it through social media

5. Send it as a newsletter

…watch your Analytics jump!

Template &Tools

Thank you!

Andy Crestodina@crestodina