Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
Curated Digital - Hello, Digital Marketing
- 1. HELLO, DIGITAL MARKETING CLEVER, SIMPLE STRATEGY STUFF BY CURATED DIGITAL
- 2. CURATED WHO? WE’RE A DIGITAL MARKETING COMPANY curated-digital.com/figaro @curateddigital hello@curated-digital.com
- 3. SEO IS DEAD YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE CALLING IT THIS WEEK
- 4. SAY HELLO TO DIGITAL MARKETING
- 5. HUMMINGBIRD SHIFTED THE WHOLE FOCUS NOT JUST FOR SEO, BUT FOR EVERYTHING BYE, OLD SCHOOL TACTICSHELLO, ODD BIRD @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 6. SO WHAT? ARE TOP RANKINGS STILL IMPORTANT? @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 7. HANG ON A MINUTE…!
- 8. WHAT ARE YOUR REAL GOALS? BRAND AWARENESS ~ TRAFFIC ~ LEADS ~ SALES ~ ENGAGEMENT ~ EVERYTHING
- 10. 1. BE GREAT AT CONTENT PLANNING PLAN STUFF IN ADVANCE, AD-HOC ISN’T STRATEGY Planning content and strategy by writing on your walls is FUN if you can get away with it @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 11. 2. YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING NO SUBJECT SHOULD BE OFF-LIMITS Write interesting stuff for human beings who will engage, consume, love and share it @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 12. 3. CREATE A GREAT ON-SITE CONTENT HUB MAKE A SPACE FOR PERMANENTLY HELPFUL CONTENT
- 13. 3. CREATE A GREAT CONTENT HUB MAKE A SPACE FOR PERMANENTLY HELPFUL CONTENT @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 14. 4. MASTER THE ART OF CURATED CONTENT USER EXPERIENCE IS KEY. IT HELPS ORGANIC SEARCH TOO @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 15. 4. MASTER THE ART OF CURATED CONTENT USER EXPERIENCE IS KEY. IT HELPS ORGANIC SEARCH TOO @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 16. 5. BE BRAVE WITHOUT BEING TENUOUS YOU CAN STILL BE FUN AND USEFUL AT THE SAME TIME @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 17. 6. BE GOOD AT PROMOTING YOUR CONTENT PUSH TO RELEVANT AUDIENCES FOR ENGAGEMENT & SHARES STAND ALONE CONTENT CURATED CONTENT @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 18. 7. RETHINK HOW YOU RE-MARKET REMARKET TO INFORM AND EDUCATE, NOT HARD SELL CONVERSION CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT BUY THIS PRODUCT @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 19. 7. RE-THINK HOW YOU RE-MARKET IN PRACTICE: CANCER INSURANCE CONVERSION COVER AGAINST RISK QUIT TO REDUCE RISK HELP TO QUIT SMOKING HELP TO QUIT SMOKING BUY INSURANCE @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 20. 8. RETHINK HOW YOU SELL (1) ECOMMERCE AS LEAD GENERATION & CONTENT PROMO @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro VS
- 21. 8. RETHINK HOW YOU SELL (2) LEAD GENERATION THROUGH CONTENT PROMOTION @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 22. RE-CAP: STOP MESSING ABOUT • No content plan • Ad-hoc hit & hope content planning • Aim for top rankings as a goal • Expect instant results • Pay for links • Optimise for keywords rather than the user • Failing to keep user experience front of mind • Being spammy not helpful IF YOU DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING YOU WILL FAIL @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 23. RE-CAP: STOP MESSING ABOUT • Always write engaging, interesting content • Link your content together & always keep the user front of mind • Push your content in front of an audience who will love it • Don’t be afraid to spend money promoting content rather than products • Test and learn: its how you discover the best way of doing stuff IF YOU DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING YOU WILL WIN @curateddigital | hello@curated-digital.com | curated-digital.com/figaro
- 24. DOING THIS WELL TAKES TIME
Editor's Notes
- We’re a digital marketing company with vast experience in search (both organic and paid) as well as content marketing, paid advertising, social media marketing, email marketing and affiliates /partnerships. Simon Douglass, Founder Google taught me that there was a huge appetite for digital marketing but minuscule understanding and knowledge. When I left to work for various advertising agencies, I quickly realised that there was more to digital marketing other than just Google. Whilst in agency world, I also realised that different online marketing disciplines often worked in silos. Paid search sat in one corner, organic search in the other, email marketing was on a different floor and social media was in a different building. And they rarely talked to each other. The idea behind Curated Digital was to look at the customers goals (be it lead generation, sales, visits, branding…) rather than the individual marketing disciplines that could drive those goals. It made sense that there was a need to bring the different disciplines together to work towards the goal. No silos, just a curated digital marketing solution. And that’s why we’re here.
- SEO doesn’t work for the new way of doing things. It’s all in the ‘O’ for optimisation or manipulation. We’re not optimising or manipulating? We’re doing and telling…
- Say hello to digital marketing
- SEO as it is today is not SEO – it is now more about good digital marketing and good PR. SEO suggests manipulation and manipulation is a no-no Hummingbird kicked off the shift. Translated, Google told us to stop optimising for keywords and to start optimising for topics. From there we started to review the whole digital marketing space. And from there we think about how we position digital marketing around your goals, not individual tactics. Thing is, how can you hit those goals if they way you knew how to get them before, no longer exists? You should think about who you’re speaking to rather than getting caught up in bitty, often misleading tactical stuff such as high rankings and 1st positions. Forget looking at how high your competitors positions are, and focus on your own brand. If I rank in the top 10 of Google for what I think are my best and most relevant search phrases, but I don’t make any sales from it, what do I do next If you’re talking about your product in front of the right people, in the right places, then you won’t have any problem
- They might be a tactic as part of your wider strategy, but they are NOT a goal
- I’d advise you all to stop, and think. Are you still doing any of these things or thinking in this old fashioned way of doing SEO? These are tactics! You almost have to imagine that SEO never existed. Nobody every built links, nobody every tried to spam the hell out of Google. It never happened. Now, there’s a new form of marketing. Digital marketing – talking to your audience, your customer, talking about yourself, not manipulating yourself.
- The first port of call to trying to do this properly and think about digital marketing is to make a proper assessment on what your real goals are. Not tactics such as top position rankings etc… but what are your goals – brand awareness, traffic, leads, sales, engagement or all of them
- You can’t underestimate the importance of having a content plan. Make sure that you plan stuff in advance. Doing this on an ad-hoc basis isn’t strategy, and besides, it can be really stressful. Imagine that it’s the middle of the week, and for whatever reason, you’ve got some time to spare for content. Do you really want to be sitting there, commandeering your planning session with a thought as blind as ‘right, what 10 things can I write about for my client?’ Nobody wants that. Make sure you have a plan. We at Curated Digital like to write on walls. Well, not actually on the walls, but via Magic Whiteboards. Why should you have a great content plan? Well, as obvious as it sounds, it’s why most digital marketing projects fail. Some quick tips from us: – Plan content 2-3 months ahead – Allow space for disruptive / seasonal topics: i.e. Mother’s Day, breaking news – Have a big planning session (have fun, chat loads, write on the walls) – Invite the key stakeholders to the session (client, agency, suppliers) – Put the good stuff in an excel document afterwards, and share with all – Feel pleased with yourself and have a nice cup of tea
- No subjects should really be off-limits. In the olden days it used to be all about manipulation, writing for robots, and writing reams and reams of content just for shits and giggles. But hey, that’s all changed now: you have to write for people. Real people, with eyes and brains. You want to write stuff that appeals to these real people, so they’ll engage and share and love. For many companies this has been a struggle, but it’s forced a good move in getting them to really think about their audiences, and where those audiences are. So even for very niche B2B companies, there are people out there ready to read your engaging content that addresses their needs and concerns. Sounds good? Go get ‘em! Cardboard box example
- You’ve probably got some content on your site. Maybe even some great content, too. So how about making a space for it? How about putting the permanently helpful, need-to-know (we call this content ‘sticky’) content all in one place? Over 6-9 months, we spent time creating a content hub for one of our clients, The Formations Company. You can see this here: http://www.theformationscompany.com/help-centre. The idea behind this hub, or the ‘help centre’, was to cover all the different questions which people had when starting up, or trying to run a business. We wrote about everything from thinking about a company name all the way through to how to do tax and VAT, legal issues, and how to hire people, plus more. There’s a lot of content on there, but it’s not a finite list, and there’s more to come. We organised it into sections which are easily navigable, with each page of content linking to other useful pieces of content within that content, or via related content at the bottom of the page. This was all done with user experience in mind. There were multiple goals here: – Provide genuinely helpful content based on what we knew people were looking for – Help to increase the credibility of The Formations Company brand by delivering well written, expert advice – Get traction in the search engines for a whole bunch of long tail phrases. Remember, we’re not optimising for keywords, we’re optimising for topics, and by doing it this way we end up ranking for multiple different variations of questions, phrases etc… all related to that particular topic.
- You’ve probably got some content on your site. Maybe even some great content, too. So how about making a space for it? How about putting the permanently helpful, need-to-know (we call this content ‘sticky’) content all in one place? Over 6-9 months, we spent time creating a content hub for one of our clients, The Formations Company. You can see this here: http://www.theformationscompany.com/help-centre. The idea behind this hub, or the ‘help centre’, was to cover all the different questions which people had when starting up, or trying to run a business. We wrote about everything from thinking about a company name all the way through to how to do tax and VAT, legal issues, and how to hire people, plus more. There’s a lot of content on there, but it’s not a finite list, and there’s more to come. We organised it into sections which are easily navigable, with each page of content linking to other useful pieces of content within that content, or via related content at the bottom of the page. This was all done with user experience in mind. There were multiple goals here: – Provide genuinely helpful content based on what we knew people were looking for – Help to increase the credibility of The Formations Company brand by delivering well written, expert advice – Get traction in the search engines for a whole bunch of long tail phrases. Remember, we’re not optimising for keywords, we’re optimising for topics, and by doing it this way we end up ranking for multiple different variations of questions, phrases etc… all related to that particular topic.
- What’s more fun than writing content, to promote your own content? User experience is key here, and if done properly, it will really help your organic search to thrive! The theory: you have lots of useful content on your site. Try to break this content down into smaller chunks and then ‘curate’ new pieces of content that link to that content. But make it helpful: good curated content should lead to high engagement and shares. Again, taking The Formations Company as an example, we wanted to figure out a way to push some of our most helpful and interesting sticky help centre content as part of longer, helpful ‘how to’ guides. These are scheduled, but as we were thinking about doing this, the Apprentice Final was coming up. We also thought that a lot of what we had written on our site, mainly around business planning, designing logos, and running a business etc. fitted in with themes covered on The Apprentice, so we wrote a blog post to promote those key bits of sticky help centre content. You can read The Apprentice post here: https://www.theformationscompany.com/blog/apprentice-start-up-errors/
- What’s more fun than writing content, to promote your own content? User experience is key here, and if done properly, it will really help your organic search to thrive! The theory: you have lots of useful content on your site. Try to break this content down into smaller chunks and then ‘curate’ new pieces of content that link to that content. But make it helpful: good curated content should lead to high engagement and shares. Again, taking The Formations Company as an example, we wanted to figure out a way to push some of our most helpful and interesting sticky help centre content as part of longer, helpful ‘how to’ guides. These are scheduled, but as we were thinking about doing this, the Apprentice Final was coming up. We also thought that a lot of what we had written on our site, mainly around business planning, designing logos, and running a business etc. fitted in with themes covered on The Apprentice, so we wrote a blog post to promote those key bits of sticky help centre content. You can read The Apprentice post here: https://www.theformationscompany.com/blog/apprentice-start-up-errors
- You can be fun and useful at the same time. It’s perfectly possible to write about your core business whilst connecting it to interesting things people wouldn’t normally connect it with. That’s good for your brand, right? Right. Absolutely right. Take this example, again from The Formations Company. We managed to tie in business advice with the TV show Breaking Bad: https://www.theformationscompany.com/blog/walter-white-business-partners/ All of us in the office love BB, and a conversation started about how many bad decisions Walter White had made in choosing his business partners. We actually found that there were a lot of very interesting things to say about it, that might be useful for entrepreneurs looking to partner up. So we wrote it, and used it to promote a new section of sticky content on The Formations Company’s site about what to look for in a business partner. Whilst having fun writing it at the same time, of course. We’re not saying you should all go and write about Breaking Bad. We’re saying that there’s always an interesting, creative way to link your business to topics that at first glance, don’t seem related to what you do.
- You can’t buy links any more: you have to earn them. You do this by pushing and promoting your content out to audiences that will love it. Think about how you can push your content, or ‘curated content’, via social media paid promotion on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but also via native advertising and paid search, or paid search display networks, too. Either way you’re pushing people from a relevant audience (defined by targeting or search intent) to the content you think is relevant to them. They click, they read, they consume. Whilst this is happening, the internal linking is working hard behind the scenes to get your organic rankings excited! Top tip: always make sure you have a total budget for a piece of content. That goes for the writing of the article, and the budget to promote it. For example, let’s say you have a budget of £150 for the content. That means £100 to write the thing, and £50 to get it out there.
- Everybody hates re-marketing don’t they? Do you ever feel you’re just browsing the web, being bombarded with adverts for the same three things? The same three things which you a) didn’t search for (it’s a shared computer), b) you already bought and c) is completely irrelevant. How about this as an alternative? Re-market to people with content, not products. This can be a great way to pull a potential customer along the sales funnel: informing and empowering them along the way, and making the purchase decision easier when they are eventually ready to buy. The theory: – A potential customer reads content and engages with your site – They don’t buy from you (why?), but then they become more informed (YAY!) as they read your content – Via cookies, you re-market to that potential customer with a new piece of content once they are further along down the purchase funnel, making them more informed about a product or service – Continue to do this as many times as you’d like, or make the final re-marketing ad focused on collecting data by either a) asking them to sign up for something or b) pushing a product to them, possibly via an incentive to do so (i.e. a discount) – That potential customer is now a customer. They’re yours now. Continue to market to that customer via your own channels (i.e. email marketing) This can can also help to increase the pot on conversion terms at the bottom of the sales funnel of which there are already a finite amount of searches. If nobody is searching for a particular service or product then you need to create the demand. You create the demand by pushing content about that product or service in front of audiences that will create the demand for you.
- Everybody hates re-marketing don’t they? Do you ever feel you’re just browsing the web, being bombarded with adverts for the same three things? The same three things which you a) didn’t search for (it’s a shared computer), b) you already bought and c) is completely irrelevant. How about this as an alternative? Re-market to people with content, not products. This can be a great way to pull a potential customer along the sales funnel: informing and empowering them along the way, and making the purchase decision easier when they are eventually ready to buy. The theory: – A potential customer reads content and engages with your site – They don’t buy from you (why?), but then they become more informed (YAY!) as they read your content – Via cookies, you re-market to that potential customer with a new piece of content once they are further along down the purchase funnel, making them more informed about a product or service – Continue to do this as many times as you’d like, or make the final re-marketing ad focused on collecting data by either a) asking them to sign up for something or b) pushing a product to them, possibly via an incentive to do so (i.e. a discount) – That potential customer is now a customer. They’re yours now. Continue to market to that customer via your own channels (i.e. email marketing) This can can also help to increase the pot on conversion terms at the bottom of the sales funnel of which there are already a finite amount of searches. If nobody is searching for a particular service or product then you need to create the demand. You create the demand by pushing content about that product or service in front of audiences that will create the demand for you.
- Ever thought about how poorly you convert for some of your paid search terms? Especially with eCommerce, how hard is it to convert on generics at the best of times. Another way of thinking about this is to think about how you could acquire that customer in a better, more relevant way. And cheaper too. For example, rather than buying keywords to push someone to buy, you buy keywords to collect data from them, i.e. by having an email newsletter sign up, with ‘exclusive offers’ as the hook? Could you speculate, it would cost you much less to a) acquire this customer than it would if you were trying to make them buy something, and b) will they eventually become a customer and buy from you at a cost per sale which would be much cheaper than trying to get them to buy from the start? Worth exploring we think…
- Another example, using content to sell, could be that you place content talking about your product on an influential site which you know your audience visits. They read the content, they are engaged, and they trust that site enough to click through to the site you were originally promoting and have more confidence engaging and buying from you. This all involves just taking a step back, thinking about how much choice people have, how much time they have, how much confidence and trust they have, especially if you’re a new brand. By taking the customer on a journey through content (either yours or someone else), can you educate and inform? can you get them to trust you? Can you eventually win them over as a customer? We think yes.