Content Marketing is Simple But Not Easy
Content Marketing is a skill set every online marketer should be improving upon in 2013. There is mounting evidence that social signals and social shares are beginning to influence the SERP’s. When you consider the fact that every 48 hours, we produce in volume the same amount of information we produced from the beginning of mankind until 2003, it’s obvious getting our message found, seen, read, touched and shared is as difficult as it’s ever been. I got this scary factoid from a video I found by Gary Vanderchuk when he gave the keynote speech at the INC 500 2011 event.
Social Shares is the Future of SEO
Many SEO experts (me included) predict that social signals and social shares will eclipse link building as the key ranking factor in the not too distant future. For the past 13 months, I’ve been focusing on how to build a DiY Content Marketing system any small business owner can operate, once they have gone through the 7 Step content marketing and planning processes.
7 Steps to Content Marketing Success
There are 7 steps to this DiY Content Marketing System. Each of these processes need to be addressed before you can launch an effective Content Marketing System. As is usually the case, it’s ALL in the Planning. Here’s the 7 Step process you’ll want to execute;
1) Read the Top Content Marketing Planning Guides
I have them indexed and rendered on Bitly and PearlTrees
2) Install SMB and Social Dashboards to Google Analytics
Top Cities, Top Content Shared, Top Social Network Traffic
3) Scan your Website using Best-of-Class SEO tools
SEOmoz, Majestic SEO, Market Samurai, Rich Snippet
4) Inventory Your Top Social Media Profiles
Start with your top 10 – define the next top 10 too
5) Critique Your Top Social Media Profile Branding
Color Scheme, Logo, Tagline, Head shot, Meta, Geo
6) Set-up Social Monitoring and Social Listening Triggers
Code for niche, topic, geo, competition and authority
7) Set-up RSS Content Curation Feeds
Feedly, RSS Feed Reader, Trap.it, Scoop.it
Details on each of the above found on my WorkFlowy Social Media Audit 2013 (Master file)
Content Marketing Planning
Once you’ve read and gone through ½ dozen of these CM planning guides, you will be in a much better position to know why Content Marketing is one of the most important skills you can acquire this year. Some of these reads are 5-7 minutes, some are 22-30 minutes. The 2 Infographics contains all the numbers you will want to know about. This is powerful information if used properly.
I created this SlideShare deck to inventory to top level action items with links to the source files hosted on my Google Drive. The neat thing about SlideShare is you can embed a YouTube Video in between slides to convey the message using video vs. foils. This deck covers;
- Tier 1 Socials
- Tier 2 Socials
- CM Planning Guides on PearlTrees
- Social Media Audit Master (on Drive)
- YouTube Video (19 min. shorter version)
- Social Content Syndication Model 1 (see below)
- Social Profile Branding (FB, T, G+, YT, Scoop.it)
- Social Signals and RSS and Engagement (Scoop.it)
- Social Monitoring + Listening Triggers (Commun.it)
- Social Content Marketing Schedule (daily, weekly, monthly)
- WebMeUp Social Metric Monitoring (socials, links, KW rankings)
Conventional SEO still Matters
Your on-page optimization for SEO is still very important. Hopefully, you’re running on the WordPress platform and your mobile friendly version is in the works!
Your off-page optimization SEO and link building are still important! Links still heavily influence the SERP’s and will continue as such, so you can’t skimp on building links yet.
Suffice to say, your Rich Snippet connected the content you create and curate and syndicate to your top socials will take time to percolate. the good news is, once this is fully baked, the 1,000′s of social signals and shares and engagements your content creates will be worth its weight in gold, so when Author Rank is “officially” integrated into the major Google algorithm, you’ll be in the pole position.
Social Marketing Sphere of Influence
Being able to get the right message to the right person at the right time on the right social network will have a major impact on the results of your content marketing effort. That’s why it’s so important to know who your ideal customer is, where (which social network) he/she will most likely find, see, touch and share your content (marketing message) have a blueprint on how to identify what social signals you should be monitoring so you can find your way into the social dialogue and (when appropriate) engage your future customers by adding value to the relationship, so when the time comes that they want/need your services, you are a know and trusted entity.
Content Marketing is Simple But Its Not Easy
One of the most sought after social seo experts recently wrote a landmark article entitled: Build your Authority Not your Author Rank. In his article, AJ Kohn details his insight into what Author Rank could be and might be vs. what it is today and more importantly, what to monitor as this new social SEO dynamic becomes more mature over time. But like his title says, your objective is to build your authority not your author rank.
The Name of the Game is Get in the Game
In other words, get in the game and perfect your presence over time. A year from now, you will wish you had started today. I predict that he with most social signals and social shares who’s content gets shared by trusted identities wins the SERP war!
Summary
There are many steps and moving parts involved in designing, developing and deploying a social DiY Content Marketing System. Over the past 13 months, I’ve produced a significant body of work that details the many social media tools, apps and sites one would need to know about and learn how to use to successfully roll out an effective and efficient content marketing system.
This body of work includes, Social Shares SEO on Listly, a Flickr set of 80 images that details the top social apps, tools and sites I reference in my 29 minute YouTube video that details each of the images and where they fit in my DiY Content Marketing System.
This SlideShare desk is a scaled down version of the process into more digestible portions with links to Social Media Audit Master and my WorkFlowy Project management Schedule and notice it includes the updated video. This is my social web 2.0 link wheel on content marketing in motion.
The DiY Content Marketing System update video is the 19 minute condensed version of the original 29 minute video and still I hear its more than most want to consume in one sitting. Suffice to say, content marketing done right is not a meager undertaking and the payoff can be huge once it’s up and running on all cylinders. By creating and syndicating this body of work on my top socials, even Pinterest, I am alerting Google this contextual content is all connected and coming from my Rich Snippet
Next Step
If you’re in the market for a self service content marketing system that will help you add to your Authorship, increase your social signals and social shares, identify and engage your target audience and favorably influence the SERP’s I invite you to contact me to arrange for a no obligation 30 minute consultation to determine if us working together is a good fit. Click here to set a meet or call me and we can talk about it.
In Closing → please +1 and share this article if you found it informative and useful
Tags: Authorship, Content Marketing, JNFerree, Rich Snippet, Social Shares, social signals
As Social Signals continue to impact search rankings the ability to create amazing content and promote it on social media is the most important skill an internet marketer can have. In 2013, social signals will eclipse link building as a key ranking factor.
Click the Image to Visit the Flickr Image Set
Content Marketing System Defined
Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable information to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into buyers. The type of content you share should be closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. Source: CopyBlogger
DIY Content Marketing System
Content Marketing System Strategy
I scoured the web to find the best articles, videos and strategies on how one should go about designing and deploying a content marketing system. In doing so, I came across this social media guide produced by the folks from Simply Business, based out of the UK. Parts of this guide are a little dated, but the core process is one of these best models I found for defining a content marketing strategy.
Click image to open interactive version (via Simply Business).
As I stated in the above video, its critical that you set up your Google Authorship so that the content you create, curate, and syndicate has your G+ Credentials connected to this content so the Google algorithm can credit your “trusted identity” and elevate your Author Rank accordingly. To better acquaint yourself with why its so important to properly set up Authorship on your WordPress site, I collected the Top Articles from the experts I follow on Google Plus. And oh by the way, I’m using a Bit.ly Bundle to inventory these 10 articles, since I strongly believe in “eating your own dog food” and walk your talk.
I create a Google+ Community for those who want to have a venue to discuss the ins and outs of building a content marketing system to increase your social signals so the search engines can rank your web pages higher in the search results. Click Here to peruse and join the Social SEO Community on Plus. If you would like me to send you the Social Media Master file I mentioned in the video, all you have to do is complete this Google Docs Survey and I’ll see that you get it straight away.
Tags: Content Curation, Content Marketing, Content Marketing System, Content Syndication, Social Marketing
Attorney Marketing and Law Firm Marketing in general is very competitive these days regardless of the practice area. This is especially true if you are a Bankruptcy Lawyer. An Attorney marketing strategy in the Bankruptcy practice area that includes optimized video marketing content will produce better results, here’s why.
Attorney Marketing on YouTube
If you search YouTube for Attorney Marketing, you will see there are over 7,000 videos for that search term. Search YouTube for Bankruptcy Attorney there are over 14,000 videos for that search term. Search YouTube for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Attorney there are over 6,000 videos and if you search YouTube for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Attorney there are 6,030 videos for that search term.
Attorney Marketing Video Marketing Strategy
Its common knowledge that to compete in the ultra competitive YouTube space, you must produce quality video content. What’s NOT commonly known, is how to get more YouTube views for the same amount of time and effort. That’s where the new attorney marketing video model I’ve developed comes into play. I developed this under the radar technique that let’s me (and my clients) dominate the suggested video feed on YouTube!
Watch this video entitled: How to Get More Views on YouTube
As you saw in the video, by using my suggested videos optimization techniques, you will greatly increase your YouTube video views without spending any more time or effort. The more you use this technique, the more likely your “suggested videos” will become your #1 Traffic Source like it has for me! The trick is to make sure your video content is fully optimized by having the right;
- Video Title
- Category
- Description
- Closed Caption Transcript
- Custom Video Thumbnail
- Social Friendly YouTube Channel
and a few other video marketing optimization “trade secrets” techniques that I will deploy in your behalf if you decide to hire me and we use this powerful attorney marketing video marketing technique to increase your video views.
Dominate Suggested Videos on YouTube
Here is a screen shot of a client who is targeting “Sacramento Bankruptcy Attorney”. As you can see, six of his other videos dominate the “after video” screen. Ideally, you will want to have a minimum of 6 videos so that your attorney marketing video messages populate both the right side of the page and the end of video thumbnails on YouTube.
Here are two simple techniques you can use to “brand” your videos.
- Create a custom thumbnail that is relevant to your video series
- Shoot your videos in the same setting like Fraley did in the screen shot above
The reason for this is that the common visual queue will (over time) become your YouTube branded thumbnail and use this visual as your video calling card. I developed a 4 step process using PowerPoint that let’s me create a custom thumbnail and resize it so it renders perfectly on YouTube. I then upload each of these custom thumbnails to my Flickr account. I then optimize each image to mirror the YouTube Video and the accompanying Blog posts thereby creating an SEO triage effect.
Suggest Video #2 Traffic Source
Over time, as your videos populate the suggested video feed and the end of video on feed to your target topic, you will soon realize that your videos are being viewed simply because you own the YouTube content page for that search topic. The goal is to become recognized as a thought leader or subject matter expert in your field. If you would like more details on the costs involved in deploying this attorney marketing video model, give me call. You can find my contact digits here.
Tags: Attorney Internet Marketing, attorney marketing, JNFerree, law firm marketing, Law Marketing, lawyer marketing
This is a How To tutorial for setting up an Attorney Internet Marketing SEO campaign.
It doesn’t matter if your firm trying to get your site ranked at the top of Google for your target keyword + target city (i.e.) Sacramento Bankruptcy Attorney or if you’re a Plumber trying to accomplish the same thing (i.e.) get your site ranked at the top for Los Angeles Plumber, the same 6-step formula should be applied in both cases. Here’s the 6-steps you or your SEO consultant need to do.
- Conduct Your Keyword Research
- Conduct Competitive SEO Analysis
- 1,000 Word Article (Optimized KWs)
- Repair W3C Markup Errors (Red Alerts)
- Launch One-Way Link Building Program
- Track One-Way Link Progress (Rinse & Repeat)
Attorney Internet Marketing Keyword Research
There are dozens of keyword research tools to do this task. I use “Best-of-Class” tools. Namely, Google Keyword Tool, Market Samurai, Micro Niche Finder, Premium SEO (proprietary app). I start my keyword research via Google keyword tool. I’m looking for keywords with high for search counts that compliment my client’s niche markets. The goal is to find keywords with high search demand and filter this data for trends, CPC costs, competition and estimated traffic. I use phrase match vs. broad match. Once I find my high demand keywords, I enter the top 3 into my Premium SEO application.
Attorney Internet Marketing SEO Analysis
The objective in this step is to identify where the competition is vulnerable. This helps me develop a strategy for getting your site ranked on page 1 of Google for your target keyword and target city.
This report highlights:
- where the competition is strong
- if their site is optimized (or not)
- # of backlinks (since its inception)
- # of backlinks (in the last 30 days)
- the popularity of the links
- keyword phrase density
- phrase aggregate
and a few proprietary SEO metrics that reveals the critical path to a page 1 ranking.
1,000 Word Optimized Home Page Submission
We all know how important on-page optimization is to a website SEO appeal. It requires more than just tags, titles and keywords. Metrics like: total word count, keyword phrase density, aggregate density, internal linking and the average # of links per referring domain are elements in the Premium SEO formula. When the search engines crawl a site, the home page must have these elements in place to be fully optimized and for this SEO strategy to be effective. As a rule of thumb, when authoring say an Ezine article we use 300-500 words as a marker. When authoring your home page narrative we use 1,000 words as a target word count. Following this formula is how SEO Pros do their SEO.
Repair W3C markup validation errors
Google is all about user experience. It prides itself on its algo being able to serve up the top rated pages for a given keyword search phrase. Mobile devices and mobile searches are becoming more dominant these days. This is why site speed is becoming an important SEO metric. And this is why scanning your site via the W3C validation markup engine is needed. When the search engine crawls a site, if it gets bogged down trying to scan a site’s coding errors, it will simply exit the site and not index it. Our W3C experts are well equipped to find and fix these W3C coding errors. Depending on how corrupt the code is, the fee to scan and repair W3C coding errors runs $100-$300 per site.
Attorney Internet Marketing SEO Link Building
Link building is one of the most important factors in getting a piece of content (webpage, article, video) ranked at the top of a SERP like Google, Bing and Yahoo!
Building links is critical to promote your website. Done correctly, link building will increase the number of links pointing to your website, significantly improve your SE ranking and greatly increase traffic to your site. This translates to better search engine visibility and more importantly, more qualified leads for you to engage with. One of the critical aspects of a successful link building campaign is that it must be natural. In addition, the links should include appropriate alt-text (using the 2-3 target keywords) anchors. Avoid those SEO shops that do these tasks using automated software. It may take longer and cost more to do this manually, but the results are well worth the added time and expense, especially in managing our sites in a post-Panda and post-Penguin SEO world.
The Importance of One Way Links
One-way links are links to your website where you do not have to provide a link back to another website in exchange. One-way links or non-reciprocal links establish a more authoritative view of your website with the search engines, so long as you adhere to the Dos and Dont’s of one-way link building.
One-way Backlinking Dos
- get links from real websites
- focus on getting links to inner pages of your site
- build natural domain authority
- add lots of new content to your site
- make sure your web page is optimized for EVERY keyword phrase
- make sure your content is shareable see Web 2.0 Link Wheel
One-way Backlink Building Don’ts
- build only site wide links
- build only site interlinking (especially) if you’re using keyword rich anchor text
- build only blog comment links
- build only article marketing links
- build only RSS syndication links
- build only directory links
How Social Shares is Impacting SEO
It should come as no surprise that social media marketing should have a major role in your SEO strategy. Some experts predict social shares will rival if not replace conventional link building, although not in the immediate future. Still, it’s not a minute to soon to find out which social networks your prospects and customers participate and make sure you have a strong presence there as well. Look at this way. If a major person with 50,000 Facebook Fans or a guy with 1.3 million people in his Google+ Circles decides your article is the bomb and clicks your Google +1 Button so everyone in his social network will get an alert indicating you’re a credible source on topic “x” – this will greatly impact your SEO appeal on multiple levels.
Authorship SEO Links
Google calls it a Rich Snippet. We in the SEO space call is Authorship or rel=author code. Regardless of what you call it, the time to connect your Google credentials to your website content is now. Here’s why.
Quality content is and will always be at the top of the food chain. You want to be known in your space as the go to expert. When your G+ profile and accompanying photo is linked to your authored content, this is a very effective method to brand yourself or your company and a proven tactic for amplifying your social signals.
How to Dominate Your Local Market
Hopefully, the above information has convinced you that becoming the big dog for a given keyword in a given metro is very doable, so long as your SEO consultant follows a strict SEO methodology. The first step in determining how much and how long it will take to get your website to rank at the top of the SERP is to figure out the right target keyword for your target city in your niche market.
I’ve partnered with Premium SEO with a focus on Attorney Internet Marketing SEO campaigns. The table below is a small sampling of the page 1 rankings we’ve acquired for a variety of law firms in major USA cities. Click the target keyword and notice that each of these law firms rank on page 1 of Google, usually in the top position for their given targeted keyword. What would a page 1 Google ranking do for your business?
Summary
As I mentioned in the video above. I wrote this article as a DIY guide for setting up an Attorney Internet Marketing SEO campaign. If your intention is to do this work “in-house” feel free to print this article using the java script button below, have at it and good luck!
However, if you would like me provide you and estimate on how much and how long it will take me to get your law firm ranked at the top of the search engines for your target keywords and target city, simply fill out the form below. I’ll perform an prelim analysis of your website, ID your optimal Keyword(s) determine an appropriate link building schedule and give you a quote on how much and how long it should take me to get you ranked at the top of Google. If my numbers appeal to you, I will design for your firm a comprehensive 100 day Attorney Internet Marketing SEO campaign.
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Tags: Attorney Internet Marketing, Backlinks, Link Building, Link Wheel, SEO
As Social Shares become the New SEO, its more important than ever that you see and be seen on the social networks your Customers and Prospects are using. If you do this right, you can more quickly and effectively and efficiently engage your target audience with your (USP) unique selling proposition.
The first thing you need to do is identify which social networks you have an active profile. To get started, you need to find out where you already have a social profile. An easy way to do this is to visit KnowEm and enter in your real name or your brand / business name into their search bar. KnowEm will scan 350 social networks from all over the web and return to you a list of which social networks your name or brand contains an active profile with your name on it. Once you know where you have a social profile, you’ll want to enter your profile info into a spreadsheet so you can keep track of the details on each profile. This will help you develop a plan on where you will want to social shares
Social Shares is the New SEO
- You gain exposure to your target audience
- You acquire quality links to your website
How Do Social Shares Improve SEO?
Danny Sullivan from Search Marketing recently posted an article detailing how and why social shares improve a site’s SEO. Another article that is a quite a bit more technical in nature on how social shares is the new SEO can be found on Mashable.
Lastly, you would be well served if you add the Author “iPullRank” to your Google+ SEO Circle. Mike’s guest post on SEOmoz is one of the best articles I’ve read to date on how social shares is impacting SEO.
Social Shares Plugin
Its important and easy to track your Social Shares. Its important because you want to confirm which social networks you prospects and clients are active on and you want to measure the effectiveness of the content you syndicate to the social networks. All you need to do is:
- Install Google Analytics on your WordPress site
- Closely track which social network gets the most action
Its pretty obvious from my Google Analytics dashboard — Twitter, Google +1 Button and ReTweets are generating the most social shares on my blog. The likely reason for this is that I have 20,000 Twitter followers and I send a lot of Tweets using the Buffer App. I have 1,500 people in my Google Plus Circles and post a lot of relevant content on Social and Local and Video SEO to my Google Plus Stream.
If you visit your Klout page, you can see from the diagram below the metric Klout tracks on your Twitter and Google+ shares. This is an aggregate view only. You can’t tell where the person came from nor what page, article or digital content they liked?
Social Share Benefits & Summary
If you do a search for Social Shares becoming the New SEO, you will find a ton of articles and infographics and expert opinion that support the concept that social shares are in fact having a major influence on the SEO landscape. Now that Google has rolled out Google Plus SYW and has made is fairly easy for a website owner to add “Authorship” code to their site so when they create and syndicate content, their G+ avitar is connected to that entry, the more social shares you get from your visitors and readers, the better your pages will rank in the SERPs. The sooner you get your social shares plan in place, the sooner your website will produce the high rankings you seek.
Tags: Google Plus, KnowEm, Social Media, Social SEO, Social Shares
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