Content Strategy and SEO Strategy

01/08/13 by lizm | Portfolio | No Comments »

“Search engine optimization” has become “search everywhere optimization.” Once upon a time we created video, audio, local, mobile and social content to justify a keyword-rich link who’s purpose was to help us rank higher in Google. Today they are destinations and platforms and mediums that have specialized optimization needs of their own.

However, you can still say SEO Strategies revolve around technical, onpage and offpage factors. And it’s still true that you can’t win at any of them if you can’t be indexed by the engines (or the social network, or the video site, or the mobile platform, etc.) in the first place. So there are some basic things we’ll always need to do to make sure your business can compete online.

• Please see our Clients list for examples of SEO Strategy projects we have done.

But this evolution has led to a supposedly new kind of inbound marketing commonly called “content marketing” (it’s the “new” part that makes me laugh) and to two possible definitions of content strategy that in turn has led to a whole lot of discussion in a lot of groups and forums about how I should define myself and what I do. Here’s my take on it.

Content Strategy A = or basic content strategy, is where I help I client make sure that the content portion of their project is handled properly to be delivered on-time and on-budget. Whether I’m auditing their existing site, conducting a gap analysis, or managing a team of producers moving and creating new content for a launch, migration, redesign or whatever. It’s just management of the content process from start to finish…on-time and on-budget.

Content Strategy B = frequently comes from the content strategy A or SEO Strategy work I do for clients. Here’s how that can happen.

As part of a thorough SEO project for a client, I’ll conduct some keyword research that uncovers a whole new set of keyword terms the client hadn’t considered before. Or, I’ll find them when I do a little digging for a competitive review. In either case, we’ve now identified a gap in my client’s content arsenal that could be earning them money/clients/etc. I will propose a strategy that includes what kind of content should be developed and where that content should be placed to reach the target audience at the right time in their buying cycle to maximize the return on the effort to create that content.

Here are some examples of the kind of deliverables that are created during either type of Content Strategy project:

• content matrix: new and existing
• content migration and owners

Mary Meeker’s view of the web

06/06/12 by lizm | Just Sayin' | No Comments »

Mary Meeker is a partner at Kleiner Perkins and a genuine thought leader. Her latest strategic presentation on the State of the Web was a comprehensive look at not only global platform shifts (we’ve all heard that mobile is the future), but global economic shifts (interesting and current data) and global social shifts (re-imagination as she puts it).

I spend a lot of my coffee contemplation time this morning lingering over her “reimagination of everything” section. It was more than half a century ago that we  first heard “the medium is the message.” Today, you can still make the argument that a book is still a book whether it is printed on paper or digitally delivered.

Still, I can’t help but feel we are close; very, very close to the precipice. Web 2.0 has turned in on itself with Facebook’s IPO mimicking any other Big Cap offering and proving the the people are now “the man.” We are ready for a much bigger change than the screen size of our Internet devices.

We’re ready for web 3.0. While I’m not sure what it will be, Mary is showing us where and how the framework for it will be built. If you share this niggling feeling, or think you have an idea of what the next paradigm will be, please comment.

SEO Rules in yet another infographic proven way!

03/26/12 by lizm | Search optimization | No Comments »

LOL…have I told you lately that I love infographics?

Stats are so important to everything I do for my clients, but they have always been the most difficult thing to explain and work with. I give people headaches when I talk about analytics. I can see it in their eyes. They understand how important stats are too, but it’s just so damned difficult to wrap your head around a number, put it in a column next to another number and visually track down to the bottom line of a long report to see…what? A total? A ratio? That means?

Anyway, I digress. This infographic clearly shows how important SEO remains in an age of social. Scroll down near the end and clearly see that SEO delivers twice the conversion of social.

BUT then you have to repeat after me. “You don’t need to choose just one. You can do them both, and PPC too!” They all contribute.

Thanks Hubspot for another great graphic