Content Marketing: the New SEO

GUESS WHAT? YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!

Ranking High in 2013

OLD SEO – Before April 2012

The emphasis before was about what was on the page not who wrote it. Tactics like keyword stuffing, invisible text, and more were used.

The problems came when low quality sites made a living on gaming the system. This is how we ended up with 800 news publications writing high quality stories such as “What time does the Superbowl start?“

How to Rank High in Search Today

The change is very simple — Google wants to prioritize content created by verified writers with authority in certain topics in its results.

Credibility is what makes Google’s search results as efficient and useful as they are. Filtering out the spam was the goal of PageRank, and SEO spammer and linking schemes still found ways around that.

Author Rank

Google is now verifying individual writers through its social network, Google+ with something called Author Rank.

The Google Influence Google doesn’t own social

networking, but it does own search and email (and surprise! new Gmail signups automatically get Google+ accounts). With Author Rank, it’s outsmarting SEO spammers while forcing content producers to use Google+. They may not like it, but the alternative — risk losing influence, isn’t much better.

Google + is Authority Rank Now, if a website

has connected its writer accounts with their Google+ accounts, search results show a writer’s headshot and byline next to the result for their article. Bylined stories rank higher, and they get more real estate.

Most importantly, they return clickthrough rates that are 40 percent greater than normal.

Being An Expert is Rank

Whether you believe it is good or bad, this change has ramifications for content creators. Brands know they must create content, not just to stay fresh and relevant in organic search results, but to engage their customers and act as thought leaders in their industries.

Not Just ANY Writer Will Do Most companies don’t hire

big name journalists for their content marketing –aside from the obvious ethical issues, they can’t afford them. It’s much easier to hire an anonymous consultant or copywriter to churn out content sans byline. No one cares who those writers are as long as the content they produce is viewed as legit to the almighty Google.

Until now, that is, when Google wants those writers to have identities.

Making It Stick

In an environment with zero publishing constraints—where it doesn’t cost anything to publish and there is infinite editorial space—most modern media outlets have adopted the simple but self-defeating strategy of publishing everything they possibly can.

Translation: throwing a bunch of pasta at the wall and hoping something sticks. Well, most doesn’t.

Publishing Everything

Unsurprisingly, readers have an awkward relationship with this kind of content. Mostly, they don’t value or trust it much. So nobody—or basically nobody—reads Business Insider every morning. They read articles from Business Insider (or Politico or Buzzfeed or Huffington Post or Bleacher Report), in a one-off capacity. Most readers have probably never even seen the home pages of these sites.

BEING INFORMED IS… SECURITY Did you know 70% of

business decision makers say branded content helps them make better purchase decisions?

If you are a B2C company; 80% percent of consumers are more likely to buy from companies that offer content about their products.

You want to make your clients feel GOOD. They trust experts.

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The Implications of Imagery

The emergence and growth of social media applications that focus entirely on photographs has required companies to take a closer look at the way images reflect their brand. The way in which Instagram and Pinterest and Google take the persuasive power of pictures to a new level, creating engagement between consumers and brands based entirely on visual cues, demands that the imagery put forth on behalf of your brand is coherent. Think, tag, tag tag.

In other words: PHOTOS & VIDEO ARE VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Traffic from Social Exceeds Search

Many bloggers and publishers today are seeing traffic from social exceed that from search engines; social sites like Pinterest, for example, are now top traffic sources for some retailers.

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HOW WE MAKE NEW SEO WORK…

1. We create content that people will have an incentive to share and… not just blogs or articles, but photos, videos, eblasts, you name it.

2. We do keyword research to see what topics are popular and interesting, so we don’t waste effort writing about things people don’t care about, we find the spin-off.

3. We lead this content to the same domain/subdomain. (your website!)

4. We show that you stand for something, and write about that. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. You are an expert, but why are you passionate about it? Why should anyone care?

5. We don't separate your brand from your content. For instance, Barbie sites that make fascinating infographics about men’s rights aren't going to last long.

Content Marketing is Social Content

Successful content marketing relies heavily on social traffic for timely impressions.

They build search rank for their archives almost as a byproduct of good social content.

Content Metrics, Reporting, and SEO

• Shoot videos, write

interesting blogs, and publish content that is optimized, keyword-focused, and well-linked. 

• Your Facebook page links directly to keyword-rich URLs with great anchor text.

•  Your content is easily sharable to the usual properties and your press releases and guest posts link back to relevant deep content our your primary digital presence.

You are on your way to becoming a keyword-driven, search-aware digital content powerhouse when you:

It’s a lot of work. It costs money and time.

New Dawn Media Engages

Good SEO is baked into good content.

Good content is shared on Social Media.

Good content ranks high if created by a credible source… if it has authority rank.

Good content comes from New Dawn Media.

We make sure your content engages your audience.