Group Marketing Director - Host Europe Group, Nick Leech presents tips, insight and know how into creating digital marketing assets and campaign with limited funds and resources.
These are the slides from my presentation at the Internet Librarian Tuesday night session.
For speaking engagements please contact PC Sweeney at https://pcsweeney.com/speaking-at-your-event/
Common mistakes accountants make on their website – and how to fix them. By Matt Ellis, from https://honcho.agency.
Download The Perfect Accountancy Website Book here: https://honcho.agency/the-perfect-accountancy-website-book
Happy landings! 30 brilliant b2b landing pages, why they convert and what you...Sticky Content
The best way to absorb best practice is to experience it in action.
In this presentation, you’ll take a whistlestop tour of 37 B2B landing pages (good and bad). See who’s making the best first impression on their customers and prospects and what tips and tricks you can take away to use tomorrow.
Led by popular speaker and Sticky Content founder Catherine Toole, this presentation will:
• Inspire you go back to work and punch up your landing pages
• Trigger some ideas for new ways to engage with prospects
• Give you plenty of good examples to share internally
• Identify some key writing techniques you could use to your advantage
• Give you a benchmark against which to audit your own pages
• Trigger ideas as to how to present dull content in a more impactful way
• Make you chuckle – with some B2B examples played for laughs
You can also register for an extended webinar version on 16 July at 3pm here: http://www.b2bmarketing.net/events/webinar-happy-landings-%E2%80%93-how-you-can-write-brilliant-b2b-landing-pages-convert
These are the slides from my presentation at the Internet Librarian Tuesday night session.
For speaking engagements please contact PC Sweeney at https://pcsweeney.com/speaking-at-your-event/
Common mistakes accountants make on their website – and how to fix them. By Matt Ellis, from https://honcho.agency.
Download The Perfect Accountancy Website Book here: https://honcho.agency/the-perfect-accountancy-website-book
Happy landings! 30 brilliant b2b landing pages, why they convert and what you...Sticky Content
The best way to absorb best practice is to experience it in action.
In this presentation, you’ll take a whistlestop tour of 37 B2B landing pages (good and bad). See who’s making the best first impression on their customers and prospects and what tips and tricks you can take away to use tomorrow.
Led by popular speaker and Sticky Content founder Catherine Toole, this presentation will:
• Inspire you go back to work and punch up your landing pages
• Trigger some ideas for new ways to engage with prospects
• Give you plenty of good examples to share internally
• Identify some key writing techniques you could use to your advantage
• Give you a benchmark against which to audit your own pages
• Trigger ideas as to how to present dull content in a more impactful way
• Make you chuckle – with some B2B examples played for laughs
You can also register for an extended webinar version on 16 July at 3pm here: http://www.b2bmarketing.net/events/webinar-happy-landings-%E2%80%93-how-you-can-write-brilliant-b2b-landing-pages-convert
Découvrez en téléchargement gratuit un extrait de mon livre Plumes de Bijoux, et commandez la version complète ( en numérique et en papier ) sur le site de mon éditeur.
***
Find out a preview of my book and order the full electronic version here : http://www.edilivre.com/plumes-de-bijoux-2304b93409.html
In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, click-bait headlines, Twitter streams, Instagram feeds, gifs, video, Snapchat, YOLO, LOL and #tbt...does writing seem useless and ordinary? And what if you’re not a writer?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. And in our content-driven world, we are all writers.
Learn how to choose words well, write with economy, style and honest empathy and tell a true story really, really well with “Everybody Writes” author Ann Handley.
Découvrez en téléchargement gratuit un extrait de mon livre Plumes de Bijoux, et commandez la version complète ( en numérique et en papier ) sur le site de mon éditeur.
***
Find out a preview of my book and order the full electronic version here : http://www.edilivre.com/plumes-de-bijoux-2304b93409.html
In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, click-bait headlines, Twitter streams, Instagram feeds, gifs, video, Snapchat, YOLO, LOL and #tbt...does writing seem useless and ordinary? And what if you’re not a writer?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. And in our content-driven world, we are all writers.
Learn how to choose words well, write with economy, style and honest empathy and tell a true story really, really well with “Everybody Writes” author Ann Handley.
A visual guide to inbound marketing with tips on how to grow your business.
This is a bonus addition to the newly released 2nd edition of "Inbound Marketing" the book by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
Jumpstart: The Guide To Growing A Startup With Inbound MarketingHubSpot
Jumpstart your startup with inbound marketing. A simple guide for entrepreneurs that want to grow their business using SEO, blogging and social media. From the makers of the original #CultureCode deck
The Future of Content Marketing: 10 Things to Consider Today
Over the last few months. Joe Pulizzi has been sharing exclusive insights in CMI’s weekly newsletter, The Content Marketing Revolution. These tips are things that struck him each week, but when we looked at them in total many had a theme: they help marketing leaders prepare for the future of content marketing. The ideas range from big to small and quick to implement and a bit longer-term, but all are things you should be thinking about today. For more exclusive insights from Joe, subscribe to The Content Marketing Revolution. What do you really need to know to prepare for the future of content marketing?
Pioneering Chat Bots, Intelligent Agents and AI Interactions on the WebFlorin Muresan
In my paper, Pioneering Web 3.0 Through Smart Sites (which I wrote and published back in 2010) I basically predicted that interactions on the web will be made Human - to Machine - to Human, not just Human 2 Human, as it was in web 2.0;
Fast Forward to 2017 and everything on the Internet has a machine learning component and a Personal Assistant experience. Just look at Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, Siri.
Responsive Discovery: The underpants of a great web project Steve Fisher
Responsive design and content can be daunting, especially within big systems. But don’t be afraid! This is your chance to find the humanity in your project: the emotional, political, cultural, and functional issues that make the difference.
Your discovery process can make or break your responsive project. Learn from our great successes—and horrible ideas that didn’t go quite as planned. Practical examples will show you what makes a discovery process work:
Understand how a responsive design process impacts team dynamics and workflow.
Learn how to encourage collaboration across departments and silos.
Find out how a responsive discovery can change a project (and why that’s okay).
Get cozy with your customers, stakeholders, and content authors. We are all allies in the fight to make the web a better place.
No business can thrive without the discovery of a great idea. But, then again, an idea needs to undergo proper development to transform into a successful business venture – else your unpolished idea dies a quick death. In this article, we will talk about how one can turn an idea into a business.
How does Hummingbird affect your business4Ps Marketing
Ruth Attwood, Advanced Search Consultant at 4Ps Marketing discussed the impact that the Google Hummingbird algorithm update will have on your business at 4Ps annual conference Digital EDGE #4PsEDGE
Melanie LoBue
What is content marketing? Why does it matter? How the heck do I do it?
The #1 thing to know about content marketing is that it works to help you grow your business and that its success is measurable.
This session will provide a bit of history on what this content buzzword is all about, offer solutions to common pain points in getting content creation off the ground, but mostly it will provide hacks and tools to get you and your team started right away. You will learn:
Proven ways to generate content creation ideas that work
Which free content tools can save you time & make you a more effective communicator
Ways to measure your progress and adjust accordingly
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
Videos are more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there. That’s why it’s estimated that 82% of consumer traffic will come from videos by 2025.
And with videos evolving from landscape to portrait and experts promoting shorter clips, one thing remains constant – our brains LOVE videos.
So is there science behind what makes people absolutely irresistible on camera?
The answer: definitely yes.
In this jam-packed session with Stephanie Garcia, you’ll get your hands on a steal-worthy guide that uncovers the art and science to being irresistible on camera. From body language to words that convert, she’ll show you how to captivate on command so that viewers are excited and ready to take action.
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User JourneysSearch Engine Journal
Digital platforms are constantly multiplying, and with that, user engagement is becoming more intricate and fragmented.
So how do you effectively navigate distributing and tailoring your content across these various touchpoints?
Watch this webinar as we dive into the evolving landscape of content strategy tailored for today's fragmented user journeys. Understanding how to deliver your content to your users is more crucial than ever, and we’ll provide actionable tips for navigating these intricate challenges.
You’ll learn:
- How today’s users engage with content across various channels and devices.
- The latest methodologies for identifying and addressing content gaps to keep your content strategy proactive and relevant.
- What digital shelf space is and how your content strategy needs to pivot.
With Wayne Cichanski, we’ll explore innovative strategies to map out and meet the diverse needs of your audience, ensuring every piece of content resonates and connects, regardless of where or how it is consumed.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
Short video marketing has sweeped the nation and is the fastest way to build an online brand on social media in 2024. In this session you will learn:- What is short video marketing- Which platforms work best for your business- Content strategies that are on brand for your business- How to sell organically without paying for ads.
How to Run Landing Page Tests On and Off Paid Social PlatformsVWO
Join us for an exclusive webinar featuring Mariate, Alexandra and Nima where we will unveil a comprehensive blueprint for crafting a successful paid media strategy focused on landing page testing.With escalating costs in paid advertising, understanding how to maximize each visitor’s experience is crucial for retention and conversion.
This session will dive into the methodologies for executing and analyzing landing page tests within paid social channels, offering a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical insights.
The Pearmill team will guide you through the nuances of setting up and managing landing page experiments on paid social platforms. You will learn about the critical rules to follow, the structure of effective tests, optimal conversion duration and budget allocation.
The session will also cover data analysis techniques and criteria for graduating landing pages.
In the second part of the webinar, Pearmill will explore the use of A/B testing platforms. Discover common pitfalls to avoid in A/B testing and gain insights into analyzing A/B tests results effectively.
The digital marketing industry is changing faster than ever and those who don’t adapt with the times are losing market share. Where should marketers be focusing their efforts? What strategies are the experts seeing get the best results? Get up-to-speed with the latest industry insights, trends and predictions for the future in this panel discussion with some leading digital marketing experts.
10 Video Ideas Any Business Can Make RIGHT NOW!
You'll never draw a blank again on what kind of video to make for your business. Go beyond the basic categories and truly reimagine a brand new advanced way to brainstorm video content creation. During this masterclass you'll be challenged to think creatively and outside of the box and view your videos through lenses you may have never thought of previously. It's guaranteed that you'll leave with more than 10 video ideas, but I like to under-promise and over-deliver. Don't miss this session.
Key Takeaways:
How to use the Video Matrix
How to use additional "Lenses"
Where to source original video ideas
Unleash the power of UK SEO with Brand Highlighters! Our guide delves into the unique search landscape of Britain, equipping you with targeted strategies to dominate UK search engine results. Discover local SEO tactics, keyword magic for UK audiences, and mobile optimization secrets. Get your website seen by the right people and propel your brand to the top of UK searches.
To learn more: https://brandhighlighters.co.uk/blog/top-seo-agencies-uk/
Come learn how YOU can Animate and Illuminate the World with Generative AI's Explosive Power. Come sit in the driver's seat and learn to harness this great technology.
A.I. (artificial intelligence) platforms are popping up all the time, and many of them can and should be used to help grow your brand, increase your sales and decrease your marketing costs.In this presentation:We will review some of the best AI platforms that are available for you to use.We will interact with some of the platforms in real-time, so attendees can see how they work.We will also look at some current brands that are using AI to help them create marketing messages, saving them time and money in the process. Lastly, we will discuss the pros and cons of using AI in marketing & branding and have a lively conversation that includes comments from the audience.
Key Takeaways:
Attendees will learn about LLM platforms, like ChatGPT, and how they work, with preset examples and real time interactions with the platform. Attendees will learn about other AI platforms that are creating graphic design elements at the push of a button...pre-set examples and real-time interactions.Attendees will discuss the pros & cons of AI in marketing + branding and share their perspectives with one another. Attendees will learn about the cost savings and the time savings associated with using AI, should they choose to.
Monthly Social Media News Update May 2024Andy Lambert
TL;DR. These are the three themes that stood out to us over the course of last month.
1️⃣ Social media is becoming increasingly significant for brand discovery. Marketers are now understanding the impact of social and budgets are shifting accordingly.
2️⃣ Instagram’s new algorithm and latest guidance will help us maintain organic growth. Instagram continues to evolve, but Reels remains the most crucial tool for growth.
3️⃣ Collaboration will help us unlock growth. Who we work with will define how fast we grow. Meta continues to evolve their Creator Marketplace and now TikTok are beginning to push ‘collabs’ more too.
Digital marketing is the art and science of promoting products or services using digital channels to reach and engage with potential customers. It encompasses a wide range of online tactics and strategies aimed at increasing brand visibility, driving website traffic, generating leads, and ultimately, converting those leads into customers.
https://nidmindia.com/
SMM Cheap - No. 1 SMM panel in the worldsmmpanel567
Boost your social media marketing with our SMM Panel services offering SMM Cheap services! Get cost-effective services for your business and increase followers, likes, and engagement across all social media platforms. Get affordable services perfect for businesses and influencers looking to increase their social proof. See how cheap SMM strategies can help improve your social media presence and be a pro at the social media game.
57. This isn’t a 1, 2, 3
step process.
Its cyclical.
58.
59. Digital Marketing for Next to
Nothing
Questions?
Twitter: @Nick_Leech
123-reg .UK roadshow 2014
Editor's Notes
A little bit about me.
I’ve been in digital marketing since these guys were around.
I like starting businesses, and started a digital advertising agency back in 2000, a year when there was just £1m spent on advertising online… globally
Just for contrast, Google alone took £3bn in the UK in 2013.
And its important that I should add that not all my businesses have been a success. I’m sure I could think up something about how failure is motivational but it doesn’t always feel like that!
Right now I am the Marketing Director at 123-reg.
We look after people throughout their online journey, from buying a .uk domain, setting up an email service, building your own website; all the way through to launching a cloud hosted application.
No matter what stage you’re at, we’re here to help you get your business online.
Small business – or at least my experience of small business – have plenty of **effort resources. But not much **cash resources.
I’ll be showing how you can use the resource you’ve got to drive traffic and sales for your business
It’s about driving traffic to your website with online media.
**Google AdWords
**Banner Advertising
**Email
**Social Media
But the problem is that **Google Adwords cost money
And that’s the same issue with **Banner advertising
Email is good, but you have to **have people to send it to.
The type of marketing I am going to talk to you about today will help with both your **SEO and your **social media. And all it costs you is some effort.
I’m talking about content marketing.
It’s about creating interesting content – words, images, video – to make people talk about your business and link to your website.
Sometimes that content should be published on your own website.
Like a picture of cat.
No, its not really about pictures of cats.
But if it’s content on your own site, it might take the form of an amazing, interesting or funny image that people want to share with others.
I’m obviously going to show you some better ideas than a cat meme, but believe me cat pictures get shared on email and social media.
I have no idea why.
Sometimes that content should be published on other people’s websites
If it’s on other’s sites, it might be an interesting article written by you which positions you (and your website) as a referred to authority
It’s worth pointing out that whatever anyone says, content marketing isn’t new. It used to be called PR. The key difference here is that it’s happening online rather than in the real world.
And the tools and techniques are new.
It’s all about putting your website at the centre of a network of websites and people who know and talk about you.
So what lies behind the best content marketing? Ultimately it comes down to knowing what your audience will be interested in.
What will get them to read the stuff you’ve written?
What will get them to tell their friends about it? Recommend it? Email it around, share it on Facebook?
What problems are they facing that you can help solve? What day to day challenges are they looking for answers to?
Of course you should sort of know this anyway. You’ve started your business to solve a problem that people have. How else can you help your potential customers out, and get them to think of you as knowledgeable?
You need to work this out before you start any content marketing.
So what’s the content marketing process?
Sounds simple, right?
First of all: We all have ideas. But they don’t tend to come to you when you’re sitting at your desk, answering emails, filling out spreadsheets. They come when you’re shopping, when you’re in bed, when you’re on the train.
The single best piece of advice I’ve ever received? Note your ideas down when you have them.
I used to use a notebook.
I now use Evernote. its really useful to save any ideas you have, images you see, articles you read, and then get them on any device. And search through them all
Second: Make sure you have a list of websites who are in your niche.
Read their content and find out what they write about. The chances are they’re racking their brains for ideas too, so piggy back that.
Keep up to date with their latest posts. A good way to do this is with an RSS Reader. My favourite for this is feedly.com, where I gather the latest posts and read them whenever I get a spare 5 minutes.
For me, I want to know what kind of advice start up businesses are interested in, so I’ll read the latest posts on sites like startups, growingbusiness, marketingdonut, moz.com. These sites all have editorial teams, they’re thinking about what startups are interested in all the time. Be inspired by the topics they pick.
Third: Find out what questions your audience are asking.
If you know what they’re asking, you’ll know what your content should be answering.
Quora is a great place to find out what questions people are asking.
On Quora users ask questions and have them answered by experts.
Just search for the topic that you’re interested in and find out what people want to know.
Here’s an example. Let’s say I have a running shoe shop, and I want to produce content that runners will be interested in.
If I type ‘running’ into Quora I get a list of questions that have been voted the most popular.
Lo and behold, here are some great ideas. I’ve got
What are the top running technique suggestions?
Should I run if sore?
What is the best run meal?
Each of these are not just ideas in isolation, each of them spark a lot more topics.
For example, for the question ‘what are the top running techniques’ here’s half a dozen related ideas.
All of these could be turned into content that’s interesting to my audience.
Fourth. Another great place to come up with ideas is Facebook.
If you’ve already set up your business on facebook, or even if you are active in your community on Facebook, you can get lots of ideas from the people you interact with.
How?
Ask a question.
One of our brands is Heart Internet, and we wanted to produce some interesting content about how businesses can make their facebook page look great.
We’re lucky enough to have built up an community of web designers and people who have their own website, so it’s a topic they’re really interested in.
We asked the question ‘How can you make your Facebook page look great and represent your brand effectively?’ Now we only got 8 answers, but the level of thought and detail of those answers meant that we immediately had lots of content ideas about how to make a facebook page look great.
And by the way, its not ripping off ideas. Asking questions and getting answers from a community is crowdsourcing.
Of course if you are concerned about ripping off ideas, then you can always attribute the idea to whomever you got it from. The chances are they will love to see their name appear in your content and will be more likely to share it themselves.
Fifth. Another great source of ideas for content is Google Consumer Surveys. I encourage anyone to try out this fantastic tool.
Here you can ask survey questions at a cost of just $0.10 per response. So with $100 you get a statistically valid survey.
Google asks these questions of a random sample of UK (or US) internet users. Users answer the questions in exchange for premium content.
Its really easy to set up, the survey takes just a few days to run….
…and at the end of it you get loads of interesting information, presented in compelling, interactive graphs, which you can turn into press releases, articles, infographics and blog posts.
Here’s an example survey that we ran to try and produce some content about ‘the cloud’ – a topic that technology companies seem to go on about all the time.
We wanted to find out if people actually knew what ‘the cloud’ was. And it turns out they don’t!
Not only do they not know what it is, they also don’t realise that most of us use it every day, with services like iTunes, Dropbox and so on.
You can manipulate the data to focus on specific respondents on your survey. For example: **Gender, Age, Geography.
And you get lots of options about how to display the data too, with **these toggles on the top right.
There’s no point in having all these ideas for the sake of it. They need to be turned into great content. And the easiest way to do that?
There’s writing, and there’s writing. You need to be able to write in a style that is interesting, engaging and easy to digest.
People on the web don’t read in the same way they as they do for books and newspapers. Their attention span is short. Your text has to compete on the internet with some pretty interesting stuff!
There’s Youtube, Facebook, cat pictures.
To start with, know that blocks of text are boring and don’t get read.
At best someone will read the first paragraph, and then the first line of some others. But many won’t get beyond the first sentence.
To start with, break up your text with some headlines. It looks less daunting to readers, they know they don’t have to commit as much, and at worse they can get a meaning just from the headlines.
Then add a sprinkling of bullet points or a list. These help users quickly navigate to the important stuff, and helps them retain it in their visual memory.
Trying breaking up your content with images. Cliché I know but they speak a thousand words, and give people a different way to digest your content.
Use the active voice.
What I mean by this is: don’t let your readers only understand the meaning of your sentence by reading all the way to the end of the sentence.
Look at the difference between the
With this version I only find out the key thing – that it’s the cat that’s sitting on the mat, until I’ve got right to the end of the longer sentence
Above all, the web is a visual medium. So always think how you can turn the content the you’ve created into something that’s visually compelling.
Fortunately, there are some useful tools to help you visualise your content.
With infogr.am you can create amazing, clear infographics that turn your dry data into something that’s really interesting to look at and read
You can also illustrate your data, and use anything from…
…Bubble charts…
…To tree maps
Piktochart is another fantastic, and free tool to turn your content into compelling visuals, infographics and charts.
Who would have thought that management culture could be interesting!
… or that customer service in Latin America might be capture a readers attention.
Its through great visuals that dry facts, stats and narrative can come to life
Now we need some places to put our content.
We want it to be consumed to an audience of people who we think are most likely to buy our products; or who will influence people to buy our products.
In other words, lets find the websites that our potential customers are reading
Fortunately, there’s lots of tools out there to make the job a bit easier.
First of all there’s Google. Google can tell us which websites are important for people who might be interested in our products.
Just searching on Google will throw up a load of websites where we might want to place our content.
Going back to my original ‘running’ shop example, a search of ‘running’ brings up quite a few prospects that might be right.
Looking a bit deeper though, these are pretty high profile sites. Do I really stand a chance of getting in the Guardian or on Runner’s World?
Now I’ve tried being a bit more specific. I’ve lengthened the query to ‘running shoes’, since I know that runners love talking about their trainers.
And I’ve told Google that I only want results from ‘blogs’. Any site with a blog is going to want to get my great content.
It’s also worth searching under ‘discussions’. See what this reveals - Lots of prospects
What’s interesting here is that Google knows that my running shop is in tunbridge wells, so not only has it brought me back some prospects who publish content all about running; many of them are local too.
I’ve got a much better chance of selling my running shoes to local people, so these are a great bunch of sites.
There are lots of potential searches you can do to find relevant websites, and different ways in which to use Google, all of which bring back relevant results.
So we now run into a bit of a problem. It’s almost like we’ve got TOO MANY places to publish our content. We don’t have time to pitch all of these.
We need to decide which of these sites are worth pursuing and which aren’t. We need a bit of help.
The seomoz.org toolbar, which you can download for free from moz.com, will **‘score’ every website on Google with a metric called ‘authority’.
The score is out of 100.
So to keep it really simple, install this toolbar and use the scores it gives you to evaluate your prospect.
So to go back to our previous example, all of a sudden you can see which of your prospects you should contact first.
Anything over 60 is great. 40 is OK. 20 – 40 – don’t spend so much time on these. And its below 20 don’t bother.
Once you’ve found your prospects, you need to work out what sort of content their visitors actually like.
Now they’re hardly likely to give you a peak at their Google Analytics so you can see which are their highest traffic articles.
But what you can do is take a look at which of the articles got shared a lot on social media. It’s a good indication that something was popular with users.
It’s obviously quite long winded to look though all their content to see which has been shared the most; fortunately there’s a free tool for that.
Social Crawlytics can give you an almost instant view on any websites’ most shared pages. Here I’ve got a running website I found, and I can see that one of the most shared articles was about 5 unique marathons to run.
So I know that I can pitch them an article about amazing races or epic runs to do before you die; not to be missed races you might not have heard of.
OK hang in there, we’re almost finished.
Last of all, I should say that this process isn’t really a 1, 2, 3. Its cyclical
You can’t come up with ideas, and then create content, without finding publishers, if you then find those publishers don’t want the content you’ve produced.
It might well be that by looking at those publishers you get the ideas for the content.
You need to think about the process happening in parallel.
That was Digital Marketing on a Shoestring!
Now we’ve Got Barney Grossman..