Creative Marketing Channel

SEO for Central PA and beyond.

Danny Sullivan, editor and chief of Search Engine Land broke the story first.  Any day now Google will release a focused new algorithm update whose sole purpose is to seek out and penalize over optimized websites. Should you be wary of Google’s impending update? What exactly is an over-optimized site?

1. An over optimized site has too may keywords says Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google. For example, let’s say your company wants to market to Lancaster, New Oxford, Abbottstown, Hanover, Gettysburg, York, Harrisburg, and Camp Hill Pennsylvania. Well, that’s a mighty long list of keywords. An outdated or uneducated web designer or SEO company will litter a list like this throughout your site – in your meta data (the hidden area only search engines read), behind your photos, in your header and footer, and throughout your content. Cutts says these websites will get the smackdown.

2. An over optimized site has exchanged too many links, according to Cutts. Did your website or SEO company participate in a link exchange program on your behalf? If you’re not sure, you’d better find out. Very soon, websites with an overabundance of backlinks acquired from link exchange sources will feel the pain.

According to Cutts, one of the best things you can do is remove low quality content (like long keyword lists) from your site and replace it with compelling, useful content which answers visitor questions and inspires visitor actions. If a user finds the answer to his/her search question on a website, he/she will not bounce out, return to search, and click further search results. Instead, he/she will stick around, showing Google this website answered a query with useful content. The result: This visitor is happy. Sullivan reminds us, “You have to think beyond signals that are just SEO: They (search engines) are extracting sentiment now. ” In other words, it matters whether visitors are happy or annoyed. Social sharing, leaving a comment, spending time, signing up, and visiting more than one page are all indicators of visitor happiness.

If you’re concerned about Google’s upcoming algorithm change, email me at CatLockey@gmail.com. I’ll look over your website content and code (for free) and let you know if I see any keyword stuffing, weak content, or other visitor deterrents.

To learn more about the difference between low quality content vs. compelling, useful content, check out these posts:

Your Content Marketing Core Matters

Six Content Marketing Myths – Digital Marketing Wisdom for Businesses

6 SEO Ripoff Dead GiveAways: Don’t let that Marketer Make a Clown out of You

Corporate Content Marketing for Best in Class Results

Content Marketing: What it is and Why it Works

The Creative Marketing Channel belongs to oz 2 designs LLC – a small, flexible, full service digital marketing agency.  Connect with us on YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, Google+and Facebook or call us at 717-586-8386. Email us at cl@oz2designs.com.

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SEO for PA, MD and beyond.

Sharks circle when food is nearby and small businesses who vaguely grasp SEO are good food.  Perhaps your business has received a call like this, “Hi this is James Walker, data service provider for Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  Hey listen wanted to give you guys a call, we’ve got a really good opportunity there in your marketplace, uh, we’ve got openings on the first page of the search engines specifically for your your industry, um so when you get in, give me a call … Essentially what this does is that anybody in your area that’s looking for the products or services that you offer, uh, it’s guaranteed your your website, your business  will come up on the first page of the search engines, um, so call me when you get it, huge huge opportunity…”

SEO is optimizing digital assets (website, blog, videos etc…) for search.

SEO definitely offers your businesses a “huge, huge opportunity.” At least that much is true about the cold call script above.  Fact is, more than any other marketing strategy, SEO has the greatest impact on lead generation. Therefore; small business owner, you’re on track when you say you need SEO.

What’s the worry?  SEO is SEO right?

Not all SEO is good SEO. I love this statement from Hubspot’s Corey Eridon’s  7 Sure-Fire Signs Your SEO Sucks,  “There are lots of things from the 90s that are still quite magical … alternative music, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, boy band choreography. 90s SEO is not on that list. That means if you are trying to reach an arbitrary keyword density percentage, creating keyword dense doorway pages that redirect to another destination, freaking out over your meta keywords and keyword stuffing your meta description field, or engaging in link buying, link farming, or link exchanges, your SEO is way out of date. Not only will these black hat tactics not help your SEO, but they will also fiercely harm it. Google Panda has made sure of that.”

How to protect your business from the 90′s SEO specialist.

Here is your armor. The only SEO that offers a huge, huge opportunity is the written word.  Those paragraphs on your website – they matter a whole lot. A real SEO specialist is a content marketer who will optimize your website (and other digital assets) based on your business goals and research findings.  She/he will create useful, compelling, optimized content around longtail keyword phrases. We’re talking about pages of the written word both visitors and search engines  read.  Optimized content will answer visitor queries, draw the reader in, and inspire comments and social sharing.  For deeper understanding read “Your Content Marketing Core Matters”  which details how to optimize a website.  Small business takeaway – SEO  is about content.

2012 SEO is Content Marketing.

Google continues to weed out  B.S. on the web by penalizing all of the black hat tactics listed above as well as weak content, redundant content, copied content, poor visitor engagement, shoddy backlinks and too many ads on a website.  Google rewards websites and other digital assets for fresh, relevant content that answers visitor queries,  encourages visitor engagement and inspires visitor actions – especially social sharing on Google+.

Call or email the Creative Marketing Channel

Improve your Google rank, deepen visitor experiences, and increase brand awareness, leads, and conversions through proven SEO strategies – call or email us at 717-586-8386 or cl@oz2designs.com.   Connect with us on YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, Google+and Facebook.  The Creative Marketing Channel belongs to oz 2 designs LLC – a small, flexible, full service digital marketing agency.

Learn more about SEO here:

Your Content Marketing Core Matters

Six Content Marketing Myths – Digital Marketing Wisdom for Businesses

6 SEO Ripoff Dead GiveAways: Don’t let that Marketer Make a Clown out of You

Corporate Content Marketing for Best in Class Results

Content Marketing: What it is and Why it Works

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Best in class companies utilize content marketing for brand awareness, customer acquisition, lead generation, and customer retention. It’s no surprise more than 60% of ALL companies plan to substantially increase their content marketing efforts in 2012.  Why is content marketing so popular? What content marketing tactics do best in class companies employ? Here, in part six of my six part content marketing series, I answer these questions and more.

Why is corporate content marketing so popular?  Great content ranks well in search and a good search ranking leads to more traffic, leads, and conversions. Google’s Panda update in 2011 changed SEO forever declaring content the primary force responsible for best rankings.

What kind of corporate content does Google like best? According to Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, Google rewards interesting, unique content because this type of content fosters visitor happiness. Yes, Google actually looks at visitor happiness now. Is your content engaging? Do visitors spend time reading it? Does your content answer visitor queries? Does it motivate visitors to perform an action? Does it inspire them to return to your site (your content core)? If you answered yes to these questions then Google is already giving your content and your search rank a big thumbs up. “Think more broadly about on page optimization – not just keywords,” explains Fishkin. Compelling images and creative content encourages a deeper experience for your visitors. (From Advanced On-Page Optimization – Whiteboard Friday by SEOmoz). Big takeaway: More relevant, unique and interesting content directly correlates with higher rankings and a deeper visitor experiences.

How do best in class companies create all of their great content? Producing enough engaging content continues to challenge most companies to some degree. One way they meet this challenge is outsource their content marketing to businesses like mine. Take a look at the percentage of companies who outsourced content marketing in 2010 and 2011:

(Data from MarketingProfs B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends).  Since 60% of all companies intend to increase their content marketing in 2012, I predict outsourcing percentages will grow as well.

What content marketing tactics do best in class companies employ? According to the MarketingProfs /The Content Marketing Institute’s report ” B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks report, Budgets & Trends,”  best in class companies share 7 content marketing practices:
1. They invest 31% of their marketing budget into content marketing.
2. They segment their content based on the buying cycle.
3. Content marketing is C-Suite supported.
4. They plan to increase their content marketing over the next 12 months.
5. They use at least nine content marketing tactics.
6. They outpace less effective companies adopting blogs, articles, videos, eBooks, social media, and mobile content.
7. They have an effective distribution network using at least 3 – 4 social channels at a higher rate than their peers.

The Creative Marketing Channel specializes in optimized corporate content marketing and distribution. Improve your Google rank, deepen visitor experiences, and increase brand awareness, leads, and conversions when you hire The Creative Marketing Channel to create your company’s content.  Connect with us on YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, Google+and Facebook. Email us at cl@2designs.com.

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Content marketing for Philadelphia, PA and beyond – Part IV of a Six Part Series.

In the last five years video has transformed itself into a non-negotiable content marketing asset. Video viewing, now part of nearly everyone’s online behavior, is proven to directly influence online buying.   If you haven’t jumped into video yet, here are compelling reasons you should.

Millions watch billions of online videos every day.
101 million people in the U.S. are going to watch 1.3 billion videos TODAY.  “178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in June (2011) for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month … ”  Online video is a significant part of our online lives with a 706% growth in the last five years. Today,  84% of all people aged 12-65+ consume online video. Although both men and women equally likely to watch online video, men watch 1.7 times more than women. (From comScore Releases June 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings and comScore’s Online Video by the Numbers)

Online video influences C-Suite behavior.
26% of US executives view work related videos daily, 20% view them several times a week and 20% view them several times a month. What’s most interesting is C-Suite behavior after they’ve viewed an online video.  64 – 66% of the time they visit the video vendor’s website and  53% of them conduct a search for more information. Of the executives who view videos daily, 51% of them make a business related purchase after watching a work related video. (from eStrategy after hours Executives and Online Video Charts based on Forbes Insights data.)

Sharing video is a popular past time.
People not only like to watch videos, they like to share them with others. One in three online video viewers will leave a comment, two in five viewers upload videos themselves, and one in two viewers regularly shares videos with others. More than half of all viewers watch online videos with others as well. (from comScore “Online Video by the Numbers”)

Create a video marketing plan before you start.

Put together a video action plan with discrete goals (plan from comScore “Online Video by the Numbers”)

Is your goal to…
Increase website/microsite visits?
Improve brand opinion?
Introduce a brand message to a larger audience or a more niche audience?
Drive direct online or offline purchase behavior?
The technology infrastructure of the Internet affords these opportunities to you.

Determine where and how your target audience is consuming video

Keep your mind open to using the new opportunities online video affords:
Using a YouTube Partner as a brand advocate
Developing branded content that spurs conversation
Cross pollinating your social media campaigns with video
Use the many resources and measurement companies available to determine if your goals have been met
Most any goal can be easily and discretely measured

Does your business need to integrate video into a smart content marketing strategy? The Creative Marketing Channel belongs to oz 2 designs LLC, Pennsylvania and Maryland’s first choice for video animation and special effects, website design, content marketing, print design, email marketing, and all things interactive and digital.   Inquire about hiring us here. Connect with us on YouTube,  Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Email us at cl@oz2designs.com and stay tuned for part 5 of this 6 part content marketing series.

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Content Marketing for Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Camp Hill, PA and beyond – Part III of a Six Part Series.

The biggest trade show in the world is happening right now and it’s hard to miss those businesses participating.  That’s because the show is online and active participants know how to show up on search.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Content Marketing for PA and MD businesses – Part I of a Six Part Series.

A marketing and PR phenomenon has exploded online and its name is content marketing. Businesses of all sizes know content marketing brings active participants more traffic, leads, and conversions.  Data shows the more content you have, whether it be website pages, blog articles, or landing pages, the better your results. Read the rest of this entry »

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So, you want the ultimate WordPress website and accompanying blog to represent and market your organization.  Great idea!  It’s true, a well designed search engine optimized website is an amazing digital marketing tool. Before you embark on this exciting, new adventure, understand what a WordPress website can do and be aware of the the good and bad that comes with it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Various digital marketing strategies impact your visibility on search. One often misunderstood yet extremely important marketing strategy is link building. Every month there are 14 billion searches (yes I said billion). Even more interesting, 63.7% of all searches are done on Google, therefore; it’s imperative you understand how Google rates websites and how this rating affects your visibility. Here we demystify the backlink. Read the rest of this entry »

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