The document is a summary of a content marketing workshop presented by Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures. The workshop covers the importance of content marketing and search engine optimization. It provides guidance on developing a content strategy, creating different types of content, optimizing content for search engines, distributing content across various channels, and measuring the results of a content marketing strategy. The overall message is that providing useful, relevant content to target audiences can help businesses attract more traffic, leads, and customers over the long-term.

1. www.verticalmeasures.com
CONTENT MARKETING WORKSHOP
Arnie Kuenn, President, Vertical Measures - @ArnieK
#ContentWorkshop #DEast13

2. ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER…
•President of Vertical Measures – A Search, Social & Content Marketing Agency
•Instructor for the Content Marketing Institute & Online Marketing Institute
•Been an Internet marketer longer than Google has existed.

3. ABOUT YOU…
•How many of you are webmasters or SEOs?
•How many are primarily marketing people?
•More than 1 location?

5. “CONTENT MARKETING”

6. CONTENT MARKETING HAS BECOME THE TOP PRIORITY

7. WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?
•Content marketing is the art of providing relevant, useful content to your guests without selling or interrupting them.
•Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your customers more informed before they buy.
•If you deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to your customers, they ultimately reward you with their business and loyalty.

9. THIS IS NOT A 30 DAY R.O.I.
BUT THE LONG-TERM PAYOFFS CAN BE HUGE

14. PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING
Only 5 to 10% of people click here – but can still pay off.

15. HOW IMPORTANT IS SEO AND SEARCH?
More than 90% of people click here!

16. HOW IMPORTANT IS SEARCH?
of all consumers use search prior to making a purchase
Source: GroupM
of searchers conduct non- branded queries
of buyers click on organic links vs the sponsored ads

17. ACHIEVING SUCCESS IS A CONTINUOUS, PLANNED OUT PROCESS

19. THINK LIKE A PUBLISHER!

20. WHY ARE YOU CREATING YOUR CONTENT?
•Have you taken an inventory of your current content?
•What will your new content accomplish?
–Client Retention?
–Increased Revenue?
–Lead Generation?
–Thought Leadership?
–Open New Markets?
–More Links (SEO)?

21. WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?
Your audience can be a number of different groups – depending on your hotel and location
–Current/potential guests? People spending booking your hotel now or in the future?
–Location? Do most of your guests come from a specific area?
–Seasonal? Does your hotel have any seasonality to it?

22. WHO WILL CREATE YOUR CONTENT?
•What expertise will you need?
−Creative writing?
−Sales copy?
−Local topics?
−Graphics?
−Video?
•Leverage your staff
•Business partners or suppliers may contribute

23. WHERE WILL THE CONTENT BE PUBLISHED?
•Your Blog?
•RSS feeds?
•Social accounts?
•News Feeds?
•Sites for Videos, Images, Slides, PR, etc?
•Your web pages?
•Will you have content to download?

24. DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGY - SUMMARY
•Strategy will evolve through the whole process
•Why are you creating the content you are creating?
•Who is your audience?
•What types of content will you create?
•Who will create your content?
•When will you develop your content?
•What does success look like?

25. SHARING TIME!
•Who is your audience?
•What will you measure?
•What does success look like?

28. WHAT ARE WE SEARCHING FOR?

29. LONG TAIL IS THE KEY!

30. START YOUR RESEARCH HERE!
http://www.verticalmeasures.com/content/content-brainstorming-tools-for-2013/

31. KNOW YOUR KEYWORDS

32. MORE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS
Google Keyword Suggest
Relate Searches

33. MORE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS
YouTube Related Searches

36. More than 410 questions about “visit the grand canyon” (exact match).
More than 3,400 using broad match!

37. Long tail searches are the key to success!

41. LIST ALL CONTENT IDEAS IN A SPREADSHEET

42. PUT TOGETHER AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR

43. SHARING TIME!
What 3 questions do you get asked by customers or potential customers all the time?

46. BENEFITS OF A BLOG
•Gives you a vehicle to post new content
•Allows for internal linking
•Keeps the search engines coming back – have 434% more indexed pages*
•Have 2X as many backlinks*
•Your site gets 55% more traffic*
•You have 79% more Twitter followers*
Source: *Hubspot

47. ADDRESS PRICING / COST

48. COMPARISONS
Showcase your product or service then compare and contrast to others.

49. INTERVIEWS – HELP MAKE YOU THE EXPERT

50. LISTS – PEOPLE STILL LOVE THEM

51. RESOURCE PAGES
38 links to this page
111 links to this page

52. CURATION OR AGGREGATION

53. INFOGRAPHICS ARE HOT RIGHT NOW

54. VIDEOS! – THEY ARE NOT THAT HARD
Product Demos
Fun
Interviews
Behind the Scenes

55. FREE GUIDES & WHITE PAPERS
- Lead generator
- Link attractor
- Long life span

56. SHARING TIME!
•What free guides can you develop in the next 90 days?

58. HOW SEARCH WORKS

59. SEARCH OPTIMIZATION ELEMENTS

60. SEARCH RESULTS – WEB PAGE CONNECTION
Webpage File Name
Webpage Title Tag
Meta Description

61. CREATE GREAT TITLES, META DESCRIPTIONS & URLS

62. UNIVERSAL SEARCH RESULTS
70+% of all search results

63. ALL DIFFERENT – BUT CORE ELEMENTS
Web pages, News, Local, Images & Videos
1.Links pointing to your content
2.Titles & title tags (viewed in results)
3.Description meta tag (viewed in results)
4.Image alt text tags
5.H1 Tag (headline tag – only one!)
6.Page load times
7.Freshness of content
8.AuthorRank

64. HOW TO OPTIMIZE IMAGES
•Image files should be compressed as much as reasonably possible to reduce file size. Smaller files mean faster site load speeds. JPGs generally offer the best balance of file size & quality.
•Use relevant keywords in image filenames, separated by dashes (not underscores). Instead of "DL000031.jpg", use something like "red-sports- car.jpg"
•Make sure <img> tags have their "alt" and "title" attributes defined with descriptive, concise, keyword- related text. Do not stuff <img> attributes.
•Context matters. Google looks at content placed around the image, like titles and captions, for context about your image.
•Be sure to include images in your sitemap. The XML tags provide additional opportunities to define an image's title, caption, and even geographic location.

65. HOW TO OPTIMIZE VIDEOS
•Specific, Compelling Title –Would you click on “Our Company” or “V00023.mov?” neither will your audience.
•Tags –This is where you can help your video appear in the “Suggested” or “Similar” videos section. Don’t be dishonest, but if there are pop culture or social media references in the video, tag them accordingly.
•Description - Say as much as you can in the first sentence or two, because many video sites will hide the bulk of your description. Include at least one link placed at the start of the description – with http://.
•Video Quality / Resolution – Shoot, edit and export the video in the highest quality available on the devices and software you use. The online video audience is very forgiving of skill level, but a low resolution video can make it difficult to see what is going on.
•Thumbnail Image – If it’s an organically made video (not planned), pick the most visually compelling of the options they give you.

66. HOW TO APPEAR IN GOOGLE NEWS
•Need to submit your URL to Google first
•Article URLs must be:
–Unique
–Permanent
–Display a three-digit number
•To see if a site is already included in Google News, type [ site:url.com ], into the search box and click "Search News."
•http://support.google.com/news/publisher/

67. DO YOU HAVE A GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGE?

68. +1 BUTTON: OPPORTUNITY FOR BUSINESSES

69. THE TOP 5 LOCAL RANKING FACTORS 2013
1.A physical address in the city
2.Associate your business with proper categories.
3.Have an address close to the centroid
4.Complete and accurate NAP (Name, Address, Phone) accuracy across the local ecosystem
5.High number of customer reviews on the new Google +Local

70. CLAIM YOUR LOCAL PROFILES

72. Image: athgo.org

73. TODAY’S PUBLIC RELATIONS
•Build Your Network
•Relationship-building approach vs. blanket pitch
•Engagement – two way conversation
•Conduct PR & Blogger Pitches

74. ACTIVELY ENGAGE WITH YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY
•Keep a list of the names and faces you most often see stepping up in the community.
•Look for folks that actively share content.
•Create specialized content and market towards social influencers
•Strengthen their relationship with your brand
•The more connected they feel, the more likely they are to share with their network.

75. PRESS RELEASES?

76. SHARING NEW CONTENT CAN BE VERY SIMPLE

77. HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU POST?
•The most common complaint from Facebook users is Newsfeed spam
•Posting just a few times per week produces 71% higher user engagement
•Focus on quality, not quantity on Facebook.
•Only 50% of your posts should be about your content. Organizations that share other content have a higher engagement rate.

78. FACEBOOK – THE MOTOR LODGE
•Beat the crowds with a sneak peek of the Courthouse Christmas lights tonight from 5:30-6:30pm (the official Lighting Ceremony is Saturday).
•Time to get shopping so, for our Facebook buddies we will add 15% to any gift certificate that you purchase for holiday giving. Think of it, you provide a fun place to stay for your favorite people while appearing to be 15% more generous than you really are...It's a win, win!
•We thought you should know that waterboarding at The Motor Lodge has stopped! In case you never had the chance to experience the torture that was our showers, imagine standing in a phone booth while a 55 gallon drum of water was dumped on you from 8' up (a classic case of form over function...sorry). New and improved, ...adjustable and reachable showerheads make cleansing your beautiful body an absolute pleasure. Enjoy!
•Time to name the cat that adopted us 3 months ago! Whoever comes up with the winning name wins a free night in our swankiest room, #6. The cat is a neutered male, very friendly, green eyes and has a hole in his left ear. Voting ends Sunday at 5pm. (The post included a video of the cat.)

79. By far the #1 reason users decide to “like” or “follow” a brand is?....
Coupons, Discounts and Sales Announcements!
*ROI Research & Performics

80. DON’T GET HUNG UP ON SOCIAL

85. DISTRIBUTE OR REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT
Source: CMI & MarketingProfs

86. VIDEO DISTRIBUTION

87. PINTEREST!

88. PRESENTATION DISTRIBUTION (PPT)

89. E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS
•Essential Elements
–Visually appealing and branded
–Incorporate into editorial calendar: plan frequency
–Segmenting: targeted messaging
–Great subject line
–Stay brief: Read More, Get More Details
•Distribution Services:
–Exact Target
–Constant Contact
–Vertical Response
–Mail Chimp

90. 47% OF EMAILS ARE OPENED ON A MOBILE DEVICE
SOURCE: LITMUS - September 2013

91. 80% DELETE EMAILS THAT DO NOT “LOOK GOOD” ON MOBILE

92. http://openmarketing.com/blog/the-importance-of-all-4-screens/

94. BUILD LINKS TO YOUR CONTENT
•Identify low hanging fruit
–Internal links
–Fix 404 and 302 errors
–Guest blog posts or articles
–Blog & forum participation
–Where you have relationships
–Local partners & listings
•The best links:
–Are from trusted sites
–Have varied anchor text
–Are from many different, relevant websites
–Determined editorially

95. INTERNAL LINKS
•Internal links are what make up your website’s navigation.
−Important for usability and visibility
−Internal links tell search engines what your site is about.
−Proper internal linking structure allows search engines to spider and index more pages within your site.
•Make sure keywords in URL structure match content on page.
•Keep footers clean and include a link to sitemap
•Use, but don’t abuse, internal text links within content

97. MEASURE!
•Measure for successes… and failures
•Check your rankings, traffic, conversions and other key metrics
•Focus on the strategies that are providing the best ROI and keep rolling out the content

98. TOOLS TO USE
•Google Analytics (Traffic, Time Spent, Conversions)
•Social Mention or Trackur (Share of Voice or Positive Vs. Negative Mentions)
•Open Site Explorer ( # links)
http://socialbarrel.com/10-free-social-media- monitoring-tools-you-should-use/46275/

99. Buyers need information that helps them make an informed decision.
Businesses that provide the content those people are searching for - will win.
IN SUMMARY…

102. ALL 8 STEPS ARE IMPORTANT!

103. Contact: 888-476-1881
www.VerticalMeasures.com
More Traffic. More Leads. More Business.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!