TopRank Internet Marketing News

When should you start with Content Marketing?  Today’s online marketing is a race where the stakes are high, competition is tough and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to create a sustainable, competitive advantage. Consider these questions to help you answer, “When Content Marketing is right?” for you:

• What’s the right time to understand who your best customers are? Who are your “worst” customers?
• When is it a good time to know what your prospects and customers care about and why they buy?
• What triggers your prospects to discover, consume and engage with content that inspires sales, social shares and referrals?

Blogs are great for promoting key messages and distributing information about a brand, company or organizations. Starting a blog can be a valuable tool to help businesses sell their products while making better connections with customers, but it’s not as simple as slapping up some content. Creating a blog that is seen, shared and respected takes some research, strategy and consistency. Here are a few tips that I incorporate at Online Marketing Blog which other companies can follow to increase the value their corporate blog provides.

LinkedIn has long been the social media tool of choice by many professionals.  In the past it was used mostly as a contact database of everyone you have interacted with on a business level.  Recently LinkedIn has added some additional features that make it easier for marketers to reach their target audience. What are some best practice approaches to using LinkedIn for engagement?

Update Your Status Frequently
Your LinkedIn contacts will be very interested to know what you’re doing professionally.  Why? The majority these contacts will most likely be colleagues, prospects, or networking contacts. Your LinkedIn personal profile is a great stage for sharing your professional development and sharing things that you think they will find to be of interest.

The culmination of a deal signed just over a year ago is that Microsoft’s Bing now powers Yahoo! search. The actual search impact remains to be seen, but it’s worth noting that the two search engines together (Yahoo! and Bing) account for only about 30% of U.S. searches – with Google at 65%.

As with any other type of content published in support of content marketing initiatives, mobile content must be findable.  And this means adjusting your optimization and creation efforts to ensure you both identify – and produce – content that effectively reaches your mobile audience.

Because different mobile devices will render your site in different ways, it is most critical to first determine what percentage of your audience is accessing your content through a mobile device – and, of course – what type of mobile device they are most commonly using.  The ‘Mobile’ visitor segment in Google Analytics will provide you an overview of this critical data point.

The Wind & The Sun, arguing over who is stronger, decide to settle their dispute based on which can compel a passing traveler to remove his coat.  The harder the wind blows, the more the traveler clutches his jacket tightly.  The sun, meanwhile, must simply shine gently until the warm traveler is compelled to remove his coat of his own accord. -Paraphrased from Aesop’s Fables

If you are a marketer breathlessly trying to convince your C-suite of the need for content marketing, you likely identify with the wind’s role in the fable above.

A fairly common – and quite fair – question by many companies when seeking a social media consultant is, ‘can you help us with Facebook?’

The answer, provided by most firms, is ‘of course.’   But what positions some social media consultants above others is this:  the best consultants will never agree to such a narrow focus.

For metaphorical purposes, let’s pretend the consultant in question is a golf instructor.  Each day, you pay the instructor, and he helps you master the first hole of stunning 18-hole course.  Weeks later during a tournament, you double-birdie the first hole – and don’t come within a whisper of the competition the entire balance of the day.  Would you consider the money paid to the golf instructor as money well spent?

At its core, the answer to this content marketing question lies within social etiquette.

For instance, the key to ensuring a group of people listen to what you have to say at a party – or to later share what you’ve said with their other groups of friends – is to say something that they will find engaging and valuable.  And the key to determining what  others will find engaging and valuable is to listen to what they are saying – in regards to both topic and tone.

Ask yourself:

• Am I regularly publishing high quality, original content on my website?
• Would a new reader find my website content useful and engaging?
• As a new reader, would I trust the content that I see on my website?

A negative answer to any of the questions above could spell trouble.  In fact, it was these types of questions that helped to shape Google’s new algorithm, referred to as both Google Panda and Google Farmer.

It’s been widely reported that nearly 12% of websites worldwide have been affected by Google’s update – the search giant’s boldest attempt yet to filter low-quality content sites (or so-called ‘content farms’) out of the highest ranking positions.

For most companies, having both a blog and a newsletter are complimentary options.

Blogs are an excellent source of steady content which can both inform an audience and improve the online visibility of your company. A business can increase the likelihood of future sales by providing information that is valuable to potential customers and serving as a resource.

An email newsletter which is issued on a less frequent basis, most companies choose monthly, can be developed to include a wide range of topics versus a focused blog post. Newsletters keep consumers engaged and informed in a simple manner and many consumers still prefer receiving news to their inbox. The mix of information can highlight both company news as well as industry information that benefits the recipient.