Posts About ‘content marketing’

Key Considerations for International Content Creation

3D User Content Crossword

Good old content! Everyone’s favourite topic in 2013, developing content strategies, producing engaging and original content and getting it shared is consuming more and more of a marketer’s time. So thinking about doing all of that in numerous languages can be pretty daunting.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. Creating decent content in multiple languages is going to take time and cost money, but doing it right will bring rewards. Of course, you could pay a visit to Google Translate (don’t do it!! Ever) or use an agency to blanket translate everything you’re ever written but that is unlikely to help you achieve the results you’re aiming for. I’ve taken a look at just some of the things to think about when creating or localising content for different countries and audiences. (more…)

Why We Are NOT Accepting Guest Posts Anymore

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In the past few months there has been a lot of talk about content marketing. Another ‘buzz term’ of which I sometimes think many don’t even understand what it actually is. Many bloggers are giving and getting the advice to ‘go out there’ and create a profile for themselves and find the right place to share content. The biggest advice: guest post.

Guest posting has different advantages after all: as a blogger you get your profile out there, you make good use of Google’s authorship markups (get your face plastered around the web some would say) and last but not least: it might get you a nice link.

All nice, there is however a big downside to this trend: my inbox has exploded with (in many cases) low quality guest post requests.

Now it is not necessarily my inbox I’m worried about here though: the quality of content in general is rapidly decreasing this way. As the one running State of Search I have now decided to ‘do my share’ and make a statement: no guest posts are accepted anymore. Let me explain. (more…)

Creating Content For Online Stores (when people don’t really read)

content

Last week I was lucky enough to attend BrightonSEO – and right from session one it became clear that content is a BIG topic for digital marketers in 2013 and the years to come. I’m pretty lucky since my job requires me to attend various search conferences and I have seen that even the exhibitor landscape has slightly changed since Google’s Panda and Penguin updates in 2012 – whereas you’ll now find numerous article writing services promising “services for unique and exclusively written content created to your specification”.

This slight conference exhibitor shift emphasises the surge in demand for content creators. Plenty of blog posts are advising us to think twice before hiring a new addition to our marketing team – we might want to consider hiring a writer rather than a career marketer – I am sure this is old news for you though. What triggered my curiosity though were the findings of a Nielsen study I came across a few weeks ago. (more…)

Go Big or Go Home – #brightonseo

Big Content Gambling

One of the opening talks for BrightonSEO promised to be a really interesting one. Hannah Smith, Principal Consultant at Distilled (and one of our own State of Search bloggers) challenged the common perspective of link building, and told the conference attendees to ‘Go big or go home’.

Hannah’s talk identified a number of misguided ways of thinking, ultimately tackling why mediocre content is unlikely to cut it. But she also took the time to recognise that there are risks associated with big budget content. Find out more about her talk and see her slides below. (more…)

Content Marketing Cause and Effect

Content Marketing Cause and Effect

Over the last 12 months with Google upping the ante on web spam in particular related to link building, there has been a general shift from the use of Free directories, article marketing to blogger out reach, PR and of course content marketing. Some great tools have been produced to help your efforts, whether it be to think of content suggestions or find ideas which have worked well.

Last year Yousaf Sekander launched his https://socialcrawlytics.com/ tool, which was basically a web software that you could put any site in and see which pages were shared the most and you could view number of tweets, Facebook shares etc. This was a great tool to look at what content has done well, not only on your own site but competitors or influential blogs etc.

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Entrepreneurship & Content Marketing Half Day #SearchLondon

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Wednesday the 20th March saw the first of Search London’s half day events taking place in Google Campus in London, an area widely referred to as the Silicon Roundabout. The event was set to focus on Entrepreneurship and Content Marketing, and, having been to a number of Search London events before, I knew that it wasn’t due to disappoint. If you don’t know, Search London is a long running and much revered London SEO meetup, ran by passionately by State of Search’s very own Jo Turnbull, amongst others. The half-day promised a line up of great speakers, including: (more…)

Sharing Your Story Through Images Has Never Been So Powerful

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In the digital marketing space content is currently on everybody’s lips and has become the key to the success of any digital marketer. The challenge faced by the industry is therefore JUST how to create compelling content to genuinely engage their audiences. Nowadays, everyone is a content creator from your neighbour’s 15 year old daughter who tweets every 10 minutes about Justin Bieber to mummy bloggers who passionately share the latest baby products with their peers.

We have seen numerous blog posts on how to create great content inspiring us with content idea suggestions such as running polls, competitions, Slideshare, running guest blog posts, adding video, interviewing a person of authority – the list is endless! I recently came across a tech start-up called ThingLink who have developed a tool that is truly in the position to change how your readers engage with images and pictures. The invention allows you to transform a static image into a truly unique navigational surface allowing readers to explore media rich and relevant content within images – improving the user’s experience and knowledge dramatically. (more…)

All About Infographics: Claire Stokoe #Linklove:

LinkLove

Claire is going to take us on a journey of discovery… We’ll look at what an infographic really is and why people hate them. How to create the perfect sharable infographic. How to create the worst infographic on earth. How to make sure you give your infographic the best start in life imaginable. How to get the big links while not looking like an idiot, and how to do your job and not feel as though you’re sacrificing your passion.

Infographics, they are a great topic and controversial because of the abuse, and tricky because doing great infographics is not all that simple as we think. (more…)

A Photo Is Worth A Thousand Links: SMX West

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In San Jose the last few days SMX West took place. Gemma Birch is there and reports back on some of the sessions for State of Search.

The phenomenal rise of Pinterest has confirmed that images are more popular and important than ever before. This final session of the day looked at how we can better use images across our online marketing efforts.. (more…)

Content Isn’t Just King, It’s Also Queen and Ace #SMXWest

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In San Jose the last few days SMX West took place. Gemma Birch is there and reports back on some of the sessions for State of Search.

Unsurprisingly, content features heavily on the SMX agenda. The 3 speakers on the panel shared some tips for planning and developing effective, quality content, as well as re-purposing content you already have. (more…)

Where Does SEO Belong in the Overall Marketing Mix?

SEO name badge

I believe that there is a problem that SEO is facing in 2013, and will continue to face moving forward. I believe there is the risk that, as SEOs, we will spend too much time focusing on what we’re going to call ourselves and forget exactly what it is that we should be doing. Both to raise the profile of SEO as an industry, and continue to push the boundaries. While we’ve heard the pleas that ‘SEO is dead’ for a long time now, and SEO has had it’s fair share of criticism. I believe this is unfounded, spend in SEO is burgeoning and grown hugely, and it is not going to go anywhere soon.

However, a spate of new monikers or ‘rebranding’ in the industry has only served to confuse things in a way that we are siloing ourselves and causing alienation amongst the broader online marketing community. (more…)

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