Content Marketing Today

It's All about the Maximizing the Frequency of Critical Keywords on Your Homepage

I have believed that integrating the two content marketing components was important since the very beginning of my own online efforts. 

Of course, your content marketing strategy relies on providing relevant, compelling, and frequently updated information that targets your best customers. By integrating a blog into the homepage of your website, you have the opportunity to do exactly that. You can write lots of articles and organize them in a logical way so that your visitors can find exactly what they need quickly.

But, until last week, I seriously underestimated why the integration of those two is so very important to getting found by Google and by your prospects. And, after all, getting found is what makes great content valuable to you and your organization.

Findability Flows Naturally from Homepage/Blog Integration

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Lessons from an Eye Doctor Website That’s Not Visible Enough for Search Engines

Of course, your website must provide relevant and compelling content for your prospective customers.

Ideally, that content should combine both text and images to grab your visitors attention and to keep them on your site long enough to get to know and trust you.

Here’s what is less obvious. Google does not see your site exactly the way your visitors see it. As far as Google is concerned, your website is a bunch of text whose structure and formatting make clear what is most important to the visitors who will benefit most from the site’s content.

Therefore, although you may have a beautiful website with strong visual appeal, it will fail in findability, unless Google discovers text information that it sees as truly relevant to a keyword search.

Google Needs to Find Text on Your Website Structured and Prioritized the Way it Wants

While I was doing competitive research for a doctor client, I uncovered  an example of a missed SEO opportunity by examining the website of one of his competitors.  I found it by doing the opposite of what real patients would do. I dug many pages down on Google search results. In fact, among the top keywords, this competitor’s best ranking is #32. For eye doctor, he comes in at #58 and for eye surgery he comes in at #113.  That’s much too deep for most patients who are looking for eye care solutions using the most popular keyword terms.

The problem boils down to failing to give Google the text and structure it needs to generate valuable search results.

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Gulfshore Insurance Shows They Care How the Hottest Issue in a Generation Impacts Their Clients.  Big Bank/Insurance Giant Ignores It.

I think we can all agree that the health insurance reform legislation of 2010 will touch each and every one of us. It will impact both businesses and individuals.

If you are a business owner, it is vital that you understand how it will affect you and your employees.  Why? Because, unless you are a very small business, you will either have to provide healthcare insurance or pay a penalty for failing to do so. You will have to make some tough decisions in the years to come about how to handle your employees' health insurance needs.

Because of the dramatic impact of this legislation, there is an urgent need for comprehensive and understandable information so that business owners can plan intelligently.

This creates a uniquely powerful opportunity to provide relevant and compelling content for your current and prospective customers. You can demonstrate thought leadership at a time when business owners are desperate to find an information source they can trust.

One local agency is doing exactly that.  Gulfshore Insurance in Naples, Florida is doing a superb job of content marketing at the exact moment that the health insurance paradigm shift looms large for everyone in the United States.

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[Updated Version]

If any self-described search engine expert tells you that comments like the following actual example will get you SEO-friendly links back to your blog or website, I suggest you neither pay for nor follow their advice:

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Another Excellent Infographic Offers Content Marketers a First Baby Step to Findability

Courtesy of PPCBlog.com

If you're in business today, you have to be on the Internet.  But, being there is barely a beginning.

Once you are on the Internet, it's vital that your potential customers can find you and your content by searching on Google and other search engines. That’s what SEO is all about.

Before Fretting about SEO, First Get a Clue About How Google Works from PPCBLOG’s Infographic

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When They Learn How Hard It is to Do It Well,  They Will Turn to You as the Trusted Solution Provider of Choice

If you provide professional or other  services, you and your organization must be expert at what you do. Therefore, with your advice and instruction, your customers can learn to install their own wall-mounted TVs, organize their own closets, create their own business plans or optimize their own sites for search engines, etc., etc.

You might wonder why you’d want to offer that invaluable assistance at no charge. Wouldn’t you be working yourself out of a job by teaching them to do what you do so very well?  Here’s why I think you don’t have to worry.

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Even small companies can make a news splash by emulating these best practices on PR Web

The iPad is the new computing superstar with 2 million units sold in 2 months. As a result, plenty of small companies are benefiting from the apps they have developed for the new tablet computer. Within this new environment, startups can thrive by creating unique and usable software applications that enable iPad users to be more productive.

Todo from Appigo is one such app. It's a very intuitive application that helps users manage to-do lists, tasks, and projects on their iPad. Because the iPad is hot news, great apps are potentially newsworthy, too. Unfortunately, there are plenty of competitive choices even at this early date.

How, then, can this one small player stand out from the crowd?

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That's the key word from veteran SEO expert Heather Lloyd-Martin

SEO is not about creating a website sausage overstuffed with key words and phrases. It’s all about creating relevant and compelling content that transforms you into a thought leader who can become a trusted provider That is ultimately how you convert visitors into buyers Of course, this is gospel for me and many content marketers. But, it is still poorly understood by many marketers and SEO practitioners who swear that cramming a ton of “search engine friendly” words and phrases deemed into every nook and cranny of your website will place you high on the results page. So, I was both encouraged and inspired by Heather Lloyd-Martin's recent post. She has been helping clients get great search results for more than a decade. Since Heather does search engine optimization for a living, it's wonderful to hear her say that it's ultimately all about the content. Read More

Patsi Krakoff simplifies search engine marketing for business.

The Internet now looks a lot like Carl Sagan's famous description of the universe. But, instead of billions and billions of stars, it contains billions and billions of websites.  How on earth will you ever be found on the web amidst all that competition? According to blogging expert, Patsi Krakoff, on her blog, Writing on the Web, the key is content marketing: Read More

In a great post from PlanWebs.com the vital nature of content comes through once again. The author, Brent Csutoras, emphasizes that, for both social media and search engine optimization, the easy ways of bringing your site to the top have largely evaporated. As we have written frequently and at length, the only long-term marketing strategies that will survive revolve around content.  That's true whether your marketing efforts are in person, in print, or online. Brent heartily concurs that it's all about the content. Read More