My take on content creation and marketing Delivered on 16 March 2018 at SEMrush Meetup, Ahmedabad

1. “GREAT CONTENT”
from Cliché
to Competence
ROHAN AYYAR @searchrook

2. TOP 100 CONTENT
MARKETING BRANDS
IN THE WORLD
RECOMMENDED
AGENCY

4. MITROOON…
GREAT CONTENT HONA CHAHIYE
KE NAHI HONA CHAHIYE?

8. The question we ask:
How to create “great content”?
The question we need to ask:
Why do we need to create
“great content”?
(…and how did we get involvedin this mess?)

9. SEO & CONTENT MARKETING

10. MURGA

11. SEO = CONTENT ?
SEO / Marketer
Content

12. LINKS = CONTENT ?
Naturally, online marketers think of links before content.

13. LET’S DO SOME
CONTENT MARKETING…

14. I want to find out
Who my target audience is…

15. I want to find out
What they’re reading…

16. I want to find out
Which platforms they’re on…

17. I want to find out
Who influences them…

18. I want to find out
What they’re sharing…

19. I want to find out
How to contact them…

20. SO WHAT DO YOU DO?

23. WHAT DO YOU GET?

29. KIDHAR HAI MURGA?

31. YOU UNDERSTAND
NOTHING!

32. WHAT YOU CAN DO
INSTEAD…

33. THINK!

34. AUTHORS
See who is creating content that influences your audience the most.

35. PLATFORMS
Domains that your audience is visiting.
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Series2

36. https://moz.com/followerwonk/

37. ADVANCED TWITTER SEARCH
filter:links
from:semrush OR
from:dholakiyapratik OR
from:jaydipparikh

38. https://bit.ly/followerwonkfetcher

39. https://tags.hawksey.info/get-tags/

40. https://tags.hawksey.info/get-tags/

41. https://tags.hawksey.info/get-tags/

42. Excel template

43. AUTHORS
See who is creating content that influences your audience the most.

44. PLATFORMS
Pick and choose the domains you want to target.
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Series1
Series2

48. CREDIT
Richard Baxter
@richardbaxter
2013

49. WE ARE YEARS BEHIND THE LEADERS
1886 2020?

50. WE ARE GOOGLING.

51. THEY ARE TARGETING.

52. PRECISE TARGETING
Who are
you
targeting?
Who is
influencing
them?
What
content are
they
sharing?
Which
platforms
host this
content?
Who is
creating
this
content?

53. WHAT IS THE LEVEL OF
CONTENT YOU NEED?

55. MITROOON…
GREAT CONTENT HONA CHAHIYE
KE NAHI HONA CHAHIYE?

58. HOW WILL YOU BUILD
COMPETENCE?

59. THINK!

60. WHAT CONTENT WILL
YOU CREATE?
(I won’t tell you.)

61. HOW WILL YOU CREATE
THIS CONTENT?
(I won’t tell you.)

62. HOW WILL YOU MARKET
THIS CONTENT?
(I won’t tell you.)

63. I won’t tell you because…
I can’t tell you!

64. CONTENT MARKETING “STRATEGY”

67. PEOPLEWANT TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO, SO BADLY,
THEY’LL LISTEN TO ANYONE

68. WHO SHOULD YOU
LISTEN TO?

70. Your customers will indicate
What content you should create

71. You figure out
How to create that content

72. You figure out
How to market that content

73. What I can show you is…
How to think about it.

74. You decide…
How to go about it.

75. WHAT CONTENT WILL
YOU CREATE?

76. Rule #1 of Market Research
DO MARKET RESEARCH
(Don’t think like the customer!)
WHAT TO CREATE – DATA COLLECTION

77. 100 SALES TIPS FROM SALESFORCE

78. * Community platforms
* Surveys
* Focus groups
USER-DRIVEN ANALYTICS

79. COMMUNITY PLATFORMS
Could be social media, Q/A sites, review sites, forums, blogs, whatever…

80. SURVEYS
https://surveys.google.com

81. FOCUS GROUPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mneYvgVo-EI

82. QUESTIONS TO ASK
Pain points:
What difficulties in your business made
you look for a solution?

83. Priorities:
When evaluating various products, what
was most important to you?
QUESTIONS TO ASK

84. Outcomes:
What can you do better or quicker now
that you couldn’t before?
QUESTIONS TO ASK

85. LOOK FOR PATTERNS IN CONVERSATIONS
SEMrush throws up an
insane amount of
keywords that I never knew
my site could rank for.
More data means more
comprehensive reports for
my clients – they get all the
numbers they need.
I never run out of link
opportunities because of
the sheer number of
competitor backlinks I find.

86. CLARITY IN CONTENT
SEO made simple.
You hate guesswork. So we
made SEO less confusing.

87. SEO made simple.
You hate guesswork. So we
made SEO less confusing.
Affordable SEO tool suite.
The SEO tool that helps you
profit from search data.
CLARITY IN CONTENT

88. SEO made simple.
You hate guesswork. So we
made SEO less confusing.
Affordable SEO tool suite.
The SEO tool that helps you
profit from search data.
Don’t be limited by free and
biased reporting tools.
Get reports that Google
Analytics doesn’t give you –
without the headache it does.
CLARITY IN CONTENT

89. HOW WILL YOU CREATE
CONTENT?

90. HOW TO CREATE – STRATEGIC DECISIONS
CAMPAIGN VS. CONTINUOUS

91. Rules of Content Creation
* BE FIRST
* BE DIFFERENT
CAMPAIGN VS. CONTINUOUS

92. TIMETIME
TRAFFIC/ENGAGEMENT
 Campaign Only  Campaign + Continuous  Trend
TIME
TRAFFIC/ENGAGEMENT
TIME
TRAFFIC/ENGAGEMENT CAMPAIGN VS. CONTINUOUS

93. HOW TO CREATE – STRATEGIC DECISIONS
OUTSOURCEVS. IN-HOUSE

94. * Creativity * Speed
* Expertise * Control
(But, please,please, don’t consider the cost.)
OUTSOURCE VS. IN-HOUSE

95. HOW TO CREATE – STRATEGIC DECISIONS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) VS. HUMAN

96. NEWS REPORT
A shallow magnitude 3.3 earthquake was reported
Friday evening four miles from Burney, Calif., according
to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at
11:00 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 6.8 miles.
AI VS. HUMANS

97. POEM (IN SHAKESPEARE’S STYLE)
When I in dreams behold thy fairest shade
Whose shade in dreams doth wake the sleeping morn
The daytime shadow of my love betray’d
Lends hideous night to dreaming’s faded form.
AI VS. HUMANS

98. PAINTING (THE NEXT REMBRANDT)
AI VS. HUMANS

99. MOVIE TRAILER (MORGAN)
AI VS. HUMANS

100. * Cost
* Expertise
* Creativity
AI VS. HUMANS

101. * What data do you have access to?
* What stories can you tell with that data?
CONTENT AUTOMATION

102. HOW WILL YOU MARKET
CONTENT?

103. SEMANTIC SEARCH
GOOGLE TRIES TO INFER
USER INTENT

104. SEMANTIC SEARCH

105. SEMANTIC SEARCH
GOOGLE REWARDS
TOPICAL AUTHORITY

106. CONTENT SHOULD MATCH INTENT
CONTEXT
• SITUATION
• “Why would
someone want
to consume
this content?”
INTENT
• PURPOSE
• “How can this
content help
them
accomplish
their goal?”
RELEVANCE
• CONNECTION
• “Is this
content the
best match for
them at this
particular
moment?”

107. UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMER

108. DON’T CREATE PERSONAS

109. CREATE INTENT PROFILES
I am
frustrated
by…
I need
to…
I wish I
could…
I am
worried
by…

110. CLICHÉ

111. CLICHÉ COMPETENCE

112. Peter Kafka
@pkafka
“The trick for content
makers like myself is to find
work that only content
makers like myself can do –
work where human qualities
like experience, judgment,
and creativity get rewarded.
And if we can’t do that, we
ought to be doing
something else, anyway.”

113. DISCLAIMER
NO POLITICIANS, CHICKENS
OR CHILDREN WERE HARMED
IN THE MAKING OF THIS
PRESENTATION.

114. TWEET
YOUR
QUESTIONS
TO
@searchrook
#SEMrushchat
YOU ARE A GOOD QUESTION
NEXT!