Presentation by Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz. Delivered at the Turing Festival in Edinburgh on Friday 19 August 2016.

1. The Worst Advice Content
Ever Gave to Marketing
Rand Fishkin, Founder, Moz | @randfish

2. What Makes
Content Successful?

3. It Accomplishes its
Creator’s Goal(s)
@randfish
Simple.

4. But… There are
Two Kinds of Goals:
@randfish

5. Not-So-Smart Goals
@randfish

6. Go Viral!
@randfish
Lots of shares and views… But
what does that accomplish?

7. Grow Our Traffic!
@randfish
Unless you’re a media property or social
network, traffic probably isn’t your true goal.

8. Boost Sales!
@randfish
Many businesses invest in
content because they’ve read
headlines like this, and think
there’s a 1:1 relationship
See! A magnet! It gets
customers! I want a magnet!

9. Smart Goals
@randfish

10. Match the Org’s Most Important Priorities
Grow top-of-funnel for
product X by 25% this year
Help us win more head-to-
head deals vs. competitor Y
Earn 10% more leads for our
sales team via our free tools
Top 3 Priorities:
ID & create content that
helps audience in our field
Create comparison pages &
rank for us vs. Y terms
ID searches our tools answer
& create content to rank
Content Tactics

11. Show the Connection Between Goals & Metrics
@randfish
Grow top-of-funnel for
product X by 25% this year
Twitter follower growth is correlated at
0.7 with growth in traffic from our tweets
Twitter growth rate (& 2017 target): 14% (20%)
Twitter followers (& 2017 target): 12.5K (22K)
Twitter monthly visits (& 2017 target): 4.5K (10K)

12. Accommodate for Content’s Indirect & Slow ROI
@randfish
Me make
content.
Humans
click.
Them buy.
Me get
money.

13. @randfish
CaveRand know.
That not how
content work.

14. How Content Really Works:
Me Make
Content.
Humans click.
If them like,
them
remember.
Maybe see more
my content.
Visit again.
Me build trust,
relationship.
When them
need me, them
come back.

15. Let’s Fact Check Some Oft-Given,
Content Marketing Advice

16. We’ll Use Politifact’s Scale:
Via Politifact.com

17. e.g.
Via Politifact.com

18. Common Themes in
Content Marketing Advice8

19. Content Brings Direct
Leads & Sales
@randfish

20. @randfish

21. Content is An Indirect Acquisition Channel
Via Jauntaroo
Jauntaroo’s tool serves as leadgen
for Expedia, but only a small
percent of searches ever lead to
conversion on a first visit.

22. Content is An Indirect Acquisition Channel
Via Moz
At Moz, we observe folks visiting our site ~8X on
average, before they take a free trial of our software.

23. Converting Directly Often Brings
Lower LTV Customers
@randfish
Folks whose 1st Moz experience is clicking
this & signing up stick with their subscription
for less time, on avg, than those who visit
lots of Moz’s content before signing up.

24. Conversion is Much Less Likely on a 1st Visit
Via Larry Kim

25. Interruption Tactics & Dark Patterns Can Work…
Via Copyhackers

26. Via Copyhackers
e.g. This overlay yielded many more email signups

27. But They Can Also Backfire
Via Marketoonist

28. Via Danny Richman

29. Growth Hacks Are The
Future of Marketing
@randfish

30. @randfish

31. Roundup Posts?

32. The Infographic Craze?
@randfish

33. Ubiquitous Guest Posting?

34. Auto-Follow Software?

35. Aggressive Email Pestering

36. Hacks Tends to Follow the
Law of $h*#&y Clickthrough Rates:
Via Andrew Chen

37. But, Hacks Can Be Useful When Applied to
a Functional Content Flywheel

38. Publish
Amplify
Grow network Rank for slightly
more competitive
terms & phrases
Get links Grow authority
Earn search
traffic
If you know that
amplification is where your
flywheel is dying, hacks to
reach a larger group may
indeed be powerful!

39. (e.g. Rand’s Facebook Hack)
I first published this on my personal
blog, but the post went nowhere on
Facebook, so I deleted the original
FB post and put up this one to my
Medium version (which links to the
original), and got ~5X the reach.

40. Facebook is Everything
@randfish

41. @randfish

42. You’ve Probably Seen Headlines Like This:
Via AdWeek

43. But, Facebook is <5% of Web Traffic Referrals
Via SimilarWeb

44. Yes, In Some Sectors, Facebook is Huge
e.g. the “Humor” category is, not surprisingly, dominated by social referrals (data via SimilarWeb Pro)

45. Facebook Wants to Keep You There;
Not Send You Somewhere Else
Via MarketingLand

46. Overinvest in Facebook at Your Peril
Via FinancialBrand
Today, both these numbers
are ~1/5th of what they
were in 2013 when
“reachpocalypse” hit.

47. Amplification Starts
After You Hit Publish
@randfish

48. @randfish

49. Lots of Amplification Work Does
Happen After Publication
Via Moz’s
WB Friday

50. But, If You Haven’t Set Up Your
Content for Amplification Success…
@randfish
The Probability that
“It’ll Just Spread Naturally”
is Very Low.

51. Before You Produce Content, You Need
a Great Answer to the Question:
@randfish
Who Will Help Amplify This and Why?

52. Say you want to help this content spread:
Via Polygraph.cool

53. A Crappy Answer:
“Movie people will like this.
I know movie people. I have
the best movie people.”
- a soon-to-be-sad
marketer

54. A Great Answer:
Via Followerwonk
It’s only *great* if you’ve actually
built these relationships and
have buy-in from these folks.

55. Paid Channels Are How
You Boost Content’s Reach
@randfish

56. @randfish

57. Paid Can Certainly Boost Reach…
Via Buffer
$5/click is a little
pricey, IMO…

58. But, 90%+ of All Social Clicks Go to Organic
Via Nanigans Q1 2016 Facebook Report

59. On Google, It’s ~80% of Clicks to Organic
~20% of all clicks
~80% of
all clicks

60. Paid Demands High Confidence in ROI
Via Hubspot

61. Ironically, Paid Works Best on Content
that Amplifies Well Organically
Via Larry Kim
Twitter is a great,
free, low-risk
testing platform
for sharing.

62. Be Wary of Overinvesting in Short-Term Paid,
When That $$ Could Go to Long-Term Organic
If I spend $1.07 X 3,000 clicks/month for 6 months… that’s $19,260.

63. Or I could invest $10,000 in a content effort that might get me
10X the traffic for years to come.

64. Use Keywords And
You’ll Rank in Google
@randfish

65. @randfish

66. Keywords Still Matter for SEO

67. (& Other Forms of Discoverability, Too)

68. But Keywords Are Only the Beginning
Via Backlinko
Google is much smarter at
understanding topics and,
most SEOs already do KW
optimization, making it a
less powerful way to
stand out

69. The Modern SEO Pyramid
Crawl Accessibility, so engines can reach & index your content
Compelling content that solves the searchers’ query
Keyword Optimized to attract searchers & engines
Content that naturally earns links & citations
Title, URL, & description that earns high CTR
Amplification via social/word-of-mouth
Schema & markup that stands out in SERPs

70. Once You Do KW Research…
Via WB Friday

71. 2)Uncoverrelatedterms,phrases,&topics
3)Craftatitle,subtitle,&metadescriptionthatwillstandout
intheSERPandhavestrongrelevancetothequery
4)Useaformatthatwillservevisitorsoneverydevicefast
5)ProvideuniquevaluethatnooneelseintheSERPdelivers
1)Investigatewhatanswers&contentsearchersneedso
youcaneffectivelyservetheirneeds
Follow This 5-Step Process
/

72. Correlation is a
Recommendation
@randfish

73. @randfish

74. The Best Times to Tweet?
Via Buffer

75. The Ideal Length of Content?
Via Medium

76. The Types of Content that Works Best?
Via OKDork

77. Treat Correlation as Paths for Inquiry &
Experimentation; Not Rules to Follow
Via Bloomberg’s What’s Warming the Planet?

78. Make Great Content
And They Will Come
@randfish

79. @randfish

80. The *Best* Grilled Steak?
Via
(actually, this doesn’t deserve a link)
If you want some
crappy, over-
seasoned, poorly
cooked meat, listen
to Bobby. It’s “easy.”

81. Via
SeriousEats
If you want the
best steak of
your life, read
Serious Eats
instead.

82. Need a Great Resume Template?
@randfish
Sadly, none of
these are going
to help job
seekers stand
out L

83. Try ResumUP
Via ResumUP
They’ve got data to
back up the
performance of
their templates
Sadly, they don’t
rank well, & haven’t
gotten the shares
they deserve.

84. Quality Alone Cannot Overcome a
Competitive Landscape

85. Nor Reach a Hard-to-Attract Audience
@randfish

86. Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Aim for 10X Content
Via 10X Content

87. Just Don’t Expect “Greatness” to
Compensate for Marketing
@randfish
The correlation between quality
and ubiquity is not always high…

88. Our Job is Not to
“Make Great Content”
@randfish
Our Job is to Make Content
that Accomplishes Our
Organization’s Goals.

89. A Lot of Content Marketing Advice…
Is self-serving
Suffers from survivorship bias
Applies in some fields, but not others
Works for only some flywheels
Only helps if you’re an early adopter

90. None of these Caveats Mean
the Advice Isn’t Useful…
@randfish

91. It Just Means We Need to
Apply It in Context
@randfish

92. Don’t Ignore the Experiences
of Others…
@randfish

93. Build a Model for Evaluation
& Experimentation
@randfish

94. Slides Online: bit.ly/worstcontentadvice
Follow Rand: Twitter.com/randfish
Rand’s Blog: Moz.com/rand
Thank You!