Traditional and mobile SEO can’t continue to work as separate marketing initiatives. They must become synonymous.

According to the venture capital firm KPCB, there are more than 244 million Internet users in the United States and 358 million mobile device subscribers, 48% of which have smartphones.ComScore reports that 52.1% of U.S. mobile phone users access a browser on their device. This equates to 187 million U.S. mobile browser users.

Does this mean marketers need to shift all of their attention to mobile search? Not yet. But the trend indicates a definite shift in the devices people use for search. And that will have a significant impact on how digital marketers engage, acquire, and retain customers for years to come.

The rate of increase of mobile Internet users illustrates the need for marketers to stop thinking about traditional and mobile SEO as two distinct programs. Marketers need to start developing strategies to merge traditional and mobile SEO into a single multichannel marketing process that is device and platform agnostic.

The merger: Traditional SEO meets mobile

The rapid rise in consumer mobile phone use for local search and e-commerce necessitates an equally robust shift in a brand’s search strategy. Marketers need to cater their search and SEO campaigns to consumer interests and habits, regardless of the device used.

Mobile can no longer be thought of as a separate search component. Running a comprehensive search and SEO strategy that targets users on all devices opens up many customer acquisition opportunities for brands. Here’s a look at three such opportunities worth considering:

1. Ranking for mobile-specific searches. As more consumers switch from desktop browsing to local mobile search, there is a big opportunity for brands to launch paid and organic search campaigns aimed at mobile devices. Digital marketing on mobile devices remains less competitive than traditional desktop marketing, which makes mobile SEO-specific campaigns a low-hanging fruit.
2. Use Google’s mobile-specific search content index. Google has a separate index of content for mobile search than it does for its traditional search product. The results on a mobile device can be much different than those on a desktop for a given search query. One of the key differences in how Google selects its results on mobile is whether a webpage is user-friendly on a mobile device. A website that is not optimized for mobile will often provide a poor user experience on mobile devices. In those cases, Google will likely rank a more mobile-friendly page higher on the list of results.
3. Tap into local. Search results on a mobile device are more geocentric than desktop-based search results. Google recognizes that mobile users are on the go and are often searching for something close to them. Local businesses should have a mobile-friendly website, as well as optimized pages in each of the major local search engines, such as Google+ (formerly Google Places), Yahoo! Local, Bing Local, etc.

The Web is becoming more mobile. Marketers must realize and embrace blended desktop and mobile search and SEO campaigns to remain competitive. The mobile SEO era is now upon us.

How is your brand adapting its search strategy to take advantage of mobile-specific SEO opportunities?

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The post LoMo: Why the Future of SEO is Local Mobile appeared first on MediaWhiz.

Much of the recent talk in the online marketing world has centered around the emerging concept of SoLoMoCo. For the uninitiated, that stands for SOcial LOcal MObile COmmerce. Boiled down to its most basic parts, this funny looking acronym encapsulates the future of digital marketing: everything social, everything local and everything mobile.

It’s with that perspective in mind that a recent report issued by the Local Search Association (look them up here) caught my eye. The report finds that nearly half (48% to be precise) of mobile phone owners use their device to look for local information.

The Local Search Association findings point to the increased role that smartphones and tablets are increasingly playing for the search industry in the United States. In particular, the report points to the need for marketers to view mobile at a local level.

From local search and SEO, to local mobile (what we at MediaWhiz call “LoMo”), online marketing is becoming more targeted and geo-specific. That presents huge opportunities to marketers that wisely find ways to blend their traditional and mobile SEO campaigns to achieve comprehensive search results.

As my colleague Marc Purtell, MediaWhiz’s director of SEO, attests, the future of SEO is local mobile.

Search marketers need to cater to consumers regardless of the device they use.

Mobile can no longer thought of as a separate search component. Running a comprehensive search and SEO strategy that targets users on all devices opens up several new opportunities, among them:

1. Ranking for mobile-specific searches
2. Using Google’s mobile-specific search content index
3. Tapping into local

Need help with your local mobile search campaign? MediaWhiz is here to help! Learn more about MediaWhiz Mobile, our mobile performance marketing practice, here.

How is your brand adapting to the local mobile search/SEO era? 

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The post Local Mobile Search Is Reshaping Online Marketing appeared first on MediaWhiz.

By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO

It’s not uncommon in today’s SEO landscape to wake up and find a sudden drop of organic search traffic and/or keyword rankings. When such a disaster occurs, most large brands have access to a qualified SEO agency or robust in-house team to identify and rectify any issues that led to the drops. For smaller brands with limited budget allocated to SEO, this could mean the end of the organic search channel as a driver of business.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As I explore in a new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” there are a variety of excellent free SEO tools that marketers can use to analyze the situation and identify the problem and solution.

By taking advantage of the intelligence that is available for free, brands with low budgets can recover from SEO issues in order to return to leveraging the organic search channel as a revenue generator. Below is a review of three such SEO tools.

 RELATED: 3 Free SEO Tools for Auditing and Troubleshooting Onsite Issues

Google Webmaster Tools

An invaluable resource for SEO experts and webmasters alike, Google Webmaster Tools suite provides insight into the overall health of a website and explicitly points out many issues that can negatively affect a site’s organic search health.

Getting started is as simple as signing up for a Google account and verifying ownership of the website in question by adding either a verification file to the website’s server – including a verification meta tag on the homepage – or signing in to the site’s domain name provider.

This tool is provided by Google at no charge so there is no excuse for any website to not have an account.

Once a Google Webmaster Tools account is active, upon logging in Google will provide a list of recent alerts for each website being managed under the account. This is the first place to look for any issues that may have caused a loss of performance. More information on the issues identified as well as a list of recommended actions can be seen by clicking on “View details”.

If there are no alerts or if the recommended actions from the alerts do not remedy the issue, the next place to look is in the “Health” section within the Google Webmaster Tools interface using the left sidebar navigation. There are several reports in the Health section, including Crawl Stats, Blocked URLs, Fetch as Google, Index Status and Malware.

The Crawl Stats report is very useful in troubleshooting because it provides both a list of URLs that return errors and a timeline showing the total number of errors found on a day-to-day basis. This timeline can help pinpoint the day things went awry if there is a sudden increase in errors detected. For example, if a recent change to the website caused a number of pages to return server errors, that could definitely account for the loss of organic traffic.

The Index Status report is another useful tool in troubleshooting on-site issues that can cause decreased traffic and keyword rankings. Reviewing the timeline for sudden changes in the number of Web pages Google has indexed can provide insight into exactly when these changes occurred so they can be attributed to on-site changes or search engine algorithm updates.

Google Webmaster Tools provides a wealth of additional information, reports, alerts, recommendations and analyses that can not only help identify recent issues, but ensure maintenance of a healthy website going forward and is constantly being updated with increased capabilities.

Screaming Frog

In order to fully understand how a website is capable of performing in organic search, it’s important to understand exactly what search engines will find when their spiders crawl the site. The best way to do so is by running one’s own crawl of the website. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool is a desktop program that can do just that – for free.

Crawling a website with Screaming Frog returns a vast amount of data and is capable of identifying server errors, duplicate content, broken links, etc. that may not have been reported in Google Webmaster Tools.

After downloading the desktop program, simply run it by entering the URL of the homepage and clicking “Start”. The crawl will return various data points, segmented out of different tabs. For example, the “Internal” tab will list all internal pages linked from the page that was inputted, along with the status code. This makes it very easy to find broken internal links so they can be fixed immediately.

Similarly, the “External” tab, will list all outbound links along with the status code. This will inform broken outbound links and more importantly links to pages that are redirecting. It’s good practice to see where those URLs are redirecting to because there is potential for them to redirect to bad neighborhood sites (i.e., adult content, gambling, pharmaceuticals, etc.), which could reflect negatively on the website in question.

The “Page Titles” and “Meta Descriptions” tabs can help pinpoint duplicate content issues by identifying duplicate title tags and meta description tags, respectively. If duplicate tags are identified, there is potential that the on-page content of those URLs is also duplicate.

Even if performance issues have not occurred on a website, it’s always a good idea to run regularly scheduled (i.e., monthly) Screaming Frog crawls simply to ensure there are no new problems that could lead to performance issues down the road.

BrowSEO

While Screaming Frog is useful for looking at a website as a whole and identifying server errors, and duplicate meta tags, it’s also important to understand exactly what a search engine spider sees when it crawls each page.

BrowSEO Spider Simulator provides a free look into a page as viewed by search engine spiders. In many cases, a webpage may have great information for users, but that information may not be visible to search engines. Therefore, the page does not get any credit for it by the search engines.

BrowSEO is very easy to use. Simply input the URL of a webpage and click “Browse”. The tool will return two columns: a left-hand column containing each page element as it would be seen by a search engine spider (i.e., images, image alt tags, links, body copy, etc.); and a right-hand column that provides details about the various page elements (i.e., server response, word counts, character counts, meta tags, heading tags, etc.).

Compare the spider simulation of the page to the actual version a user sees. If there is any important content visible to users but not spiders, the page is likely not being credited for that content and there is missed opportunity for organic search performance.

When using BrowSEO for troubleshooting something like a traffic drop, a useful feature is the “Check for Cloaking-Attempt” available from the “Check for fraud” link in the right column. Cloaking will often exist on a page inadvertently, leading to search engine penalties. This feature compares the version of the page a spider sees to the version a user sees to ensure there is no cloaking being performed on the page.

What are your favorite free SEO tools for auditing and troubleshooting onsite SEO issues? Share your recommendations in the comments.

Want more insight like this? Download our new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools” today. 

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The post The Best Free SEO Tools for Competitive Intelligence appeared first on MediaWhiz.

By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO

It’s not uncommon in today’s SEO landscape to wake up and find a sudden drop of organic search traffic and/or keyword rankings. When such a disaster occurs, most large brands have access to a qualified SEO agency or robust in-house team to identify and rectify any issues that led to the drops. For smaller brands with limited budget allocated to SEO, this could mean the end of the organic search channel as a driver of business.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As I explore in a new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” there are a variety of excellent free SEO tools that marketers can use to analyze the situation and identify the problem and solution.

DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK

By taking advantage of the intelligence that is available for free, brands with low budgets can recover from SEO issues in order to return to leveraging the organic search channel as a revenue generator. Below is a review of three such SEO tools.

RELATED: 3 Free SEO Tools for Identifying Target Keywords

Google Webmaster Tools

An invaluable resource for SEO experts and webmasters alike, Google Webmaster Tools suite provides insight into the overall health of a website and explicitly points out many issues that can negatively affect a site’s organic search health.

Getting started is as simple as signing up for a Google account and verifying ownership of the website in question by adding either a verification file to the website’s server – including a verification meta tag on the homepage – or signing in to the site’s domain name provider.

This tool is provided by Google at no charge so there is no excuse for any website to not have an account.

Once a Google Webmaster Tools account is active, upon logging in Google will provide a list of recent alerts for each website being managed under the account. This is the first place to look for any issues that may have caused a loss of performance. More information on the issues identified as well as a list of recommended actions can be seen by clicking on “View details”.

If there are no alerts or if the recommended actions from the alerts do not remedy the issue, the next place to look is in the “Health” section within the Google Webmaster Tools interface using the left sidebar navigation. There are several reports in the Health section, including Crawl Stats, Blocked URLs, Fetch as Google, Index Status and Malware.

The Crawl Stats report is very useful in troubleshooting because it provides both a list of URLs that return errors and a timeline showing the total number of errors found on a day-to-day basis. This timeline can help pinpoint the day things went awry if there is a sudden increase in errors detected. For example, if a recent change to the website caused a number of pages to return server errors, that could definitely account for the loss of organic traffic.

The Index Status report is another useful tool in troubleshooting on-site issues that can cause decreased traffic and keyword rankings. Reviewing the timeline for sudden changes in the number of Web pages Google has indexed can provide insight into exactly when these changes occurred so they can be attributed to on-site changes or search engine algorithm updates.

Google Webmaster Tools provides a wealth of additional information, reports, alerts, recommendations and analyses that can not only help identify recent issues, but ensure maintenance of a healthy website going forward and is constantly being updated with increased capabilities.

Screaming Frog

In order to fully understand how a website is capable of performing in organic search, it’s important to understand exactly what search engines will find when their spiders crawl the site. The best way to do so is by running one’s own crawl of the website. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool is a desktop program that can do just that – for free.

Crawling a website with Screaming Frog returns a vast amount of data and is capable of identifying server errors, duplicate content, broken links, etc. that may not have been reported in Google Webmaster Tools.

After downloading the desktop program, simply run it by entering the URL of the homepage and clicking “Start”. The crawl will return various data points, segmented out of different tabs. For example, the “Internal” tab will list all internal pages linked from the page that was inputted, along with the status code. This makes it very easy to find broken internal links so they can be fixed immediately.

Similarly, the “External” tab, will list all outbound links along with the status code. This will inform broken outbound links and more importantly links to pages that are redirecting. It’s good practice to see where those URLs are redirecting to because there is potential for them to redirect to bad neighborhood sites (i.e., adult content, gambling, pharmaceuticals, etc.), which could reflect negatively on the website in question.

The “Page Titles” and “Meta Descriptions” tabs can help pinpoint duplicate content issues by identifying duplicate title tags and meta description tags, respectively. If duplicate tags are identified, there is potential that the on-page content of those URLs is also duplicate.

Even if performance issues have not occurred on a website, it’s always a good idea to run regularly scheduled (i.e., monthly) Screaming Frog crawls simply to ensure there are no new problems that could lead to performance issues down the road.

BrowSEO

While Screaming Frog is useful for looking at a website as a whole and identifying server errors, and duplicate meta tags, it’s also important to understand exactly what a search engine spider sees when it crawls each page.

BrowSEO Spider Simulator provides a free look into a page as viewed by search engine spiders. In many cases, a webpage may have great information for users, but that information may not be visible to search engines. Therefore, the page does not get any credit for it by the search engines.

BrowSEO is very easy to use. Simply input the URL of a webpage and click “Browse”. The tool will return two columns: a left-hand column containing each page element as it would be seen by a search engine spider (i.e., images, image alt tags, links, body copy, etc.); and a right-hand column that provides details about the various page elements (i.e., server response, word counts, character counts, meta tags, heading tags, etc.).

Compare the spider simulation of the page to the actual version a user sees. If there is any important content visible to users but not spiders, the page is likely not being credited for that content and there is missed opportunity for organic search performance.

When using BrowSEO for troubleshooting something like a traffic drop, a useful feature is the “Check for Cloaking-Attempt” available from the “Check for fraud” link in the right column. Cloaking will often exist on a page inadvertently, leading to search engine penalties. This feature compares the version of the page a spider sees to the version a user sees to ensure there is no cloaking being performed on the page.

What are your favorite free SEO tools for auditing and troubleshooting onsite SEO issues? Share your recommendations in the comments.

Want more insight like this? Download our new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools” today. 

• 

The post 3 Free SEO Tools for Auditing and Troubleshooting Onsite Issues appeared first on MediaWhiz.

By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO

Choosing the right target keywords builds the foundation for an entire SEO campaign. If the right keywords with the highest potential for return are not selected, the foundation of the campaign will be weak and, therefore, success is nearly impossible.

In order to select the right keywords, data must be collected and analyzed so projections on return can be made. Gathering the necessary data, however, can be expensive and many businesses will not invest in best-of-breed SEO tools.

For those with limited budgets and without access to paid SEO tools, impactful keyword data is not out of reach. There are plenty of data sources and tools that can be used for free or offer free versions. By leveraging several free tools, advertisers can generate enough information to make informed decisions on keyword targets and set themselves up for successful SEO campaigns.

Below are three such tools. In subsequent posts, I will examine the best free SEO tools for auditing, troubleshooting and gaining competitive intelligence. For a full account of the 10 best free SEO tools, download MediaWhiz’s new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools.”

DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

The first step in choosing the right keywords is to understand what keywords consumers are searching and the demand of each of those keywords. This data can be determined using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. In order to gain full access to the data you need to sign up for an Adwords account. You do not need to set up any campaigns or spend any advertising money.

There are three main ways to find relevant keywords using this tool, including inputting the website or page that is to be optimized, the category of the products or services the website offers, or a seed list of keywords related to those products or services. Before researching the keywords, however, it is important to implement the correct settings. Since we are looking for specific keywords that the market is searching, we want to analyze at the demand of exact match keywords rather than variations. In order to see the demand (search volume) of the keywords, use the “Match Types” option in the right sidebar and select [Exact].

The first way to identify keywords is to input the domain or page you are trying to optimize. Google will crawl the website and return a list of suggestions based on the content. For example, if you are looking for keywords relevant to www.MediaWhiz.com, you would enter the domain into the Website field and click the Search button for a list of relevant keywords. Once results are returned, be sure to select the Keyword ideas tab as opposed to the Ad group ideas tab. This will provide a comprehensive list of keywords with associated search volume. This can also be done using the domains of direct competitors.

For keywords related to a specific page, simply input the URL of the page rather than the domain into the tool for a list of keywords specific to that page.

The second way to identify relevant keywords is by selecting the category. In this instance you would input the category of the products or services offered instead of a domain or URL. For example, if the service offered is “marketing,” you would select the “Advertising & Marketing” category in the Category field and click Search. This is not always the best use of this keyword tool, however, because the categories are often very general and some categories are not available.

The third and most common way to leverage the Google Adwords Keyword Tool is to input a list of seed keywords (typically the names of the products or services offered) into the Word or phrase field. This will return a list of popular searches related to those seed keywords.

Google Analytics

Another method of identifying potential keyword targets is to look at the phrases that are already generating organic traffic to a website. This gives insight into the possibility to increase that traffic via optimization. Using Google Analytics, advertisers can review the keywords that are driving traffic organically to a website. Of course, having a Web analytics platform in today’s digital marketing world is essential for many reasons and this is just one. There are many good analytics platforms, some of which have very high price tags. The standard version of Google Analytics is, in my opinion, just as useful as any other platform, with the only difference being it is free of cost.

The keywords driving organic traffic can be seen in Google Analytics using the Organic Search Traffic report. This can be found by navigating the following sequence within the right sidebar: Traffic Sources>Sources>Search>Organic.

In order to see the specific keywords generating traffic, ensure “Keyword” is selected as the Primary Dimension.

This report will pull up the keyword level organic traffic metrics for the time period specified. It’s recommended to look at a minimum of the last three months of data. If the business is seasonal, look at the time period reflective of high season.

Since this provides a list of keywords that are already sending traffic to the website, it is often the case that this traffic is generated because the keywords have some organic presence in one or more search engines. Optimizing against those keywords provides the opportunity to rank higher in the search engines in which the site is already ranking as well as infiltrating the organic results of additional search engines. Make a list of non-branded keywords from this report for further investigation. This may include inputting keywords into the Adwords Keyword Tool mentioned above to check the demand and into the Rank Checker tool mentioned below to see where the website is currently ranking.

There are some other important metrics to look at when determining target keywords for an SEO campaign. This analytics report also gives insight into engagement factors, such as bounce rate and average visit duration at the keyword level. By focusing on keywords with low bounce rates and a good amount of time spent on the site, the campaign will be focused not only on the keywords most likely to drive traffic, but also to drive visitors that are likely to perform an action on the site.

Rank Checker

Finally, when starting a new SEO campaign, especially with a small budget, it is helpful to identify and target the low-hanging fruit. A good strategy is to target keywords that a website already ranks for but are not yet in a position capable of garnering strong results. Oftentimes, a website will rank low on page 1 or on page 2 for a strategic keyword without any optimization effort. By implementing an optimization plan for those keywords, the website can often quickly move up the ranks into a position that will garner strong results.

There are many paid tools to track keyword rankings but there is an excellent free tool that allows users to check the rankings of up to 100 keywords on the fly. Rank Checker is a Firefox extension that can be downloaded after signing up for a free SEOBook account. Once downloaded, Rank Checker is available via an icon located at the bottom right of the Firefox browser.

The usefulness of Rank Checker for keyword targeting comes in conjunction with other tools for keyword discovery such as the Adwords Keyword Tool or Google Analytics. After using those tools to identify lists of potential keyword targets, it’s easy to find some low hanging fruit using Rank Checker.

The first step is to set the options by right clicking the Rank Checker icon at the bottom right of Firefox and selecting “Options”.

You can opt-in to check the rankings of your keywords in Yahoo and Bing as well as two different country-specific versions of Google simultaneously. The country-specific versions of Google and Yahoo can be selected using the drop-downs. Finally, in most cases you will want to check off the “Don’t use Google personalized search results if any” option to get an idea of where the site ranks in general, not using your browsing history.

Now you’re ready to run Rank Checker. Simply add your domain and keyword list (up to 100 keywords at a time) and usually within about a minute you will have the rankings. Look for high-value keywords that the site is already ranking low on page 1 or on page 2 or 3 to see what low-hanging fruit is available. The fact that the site is already ranking on one of the top pages shows there is already some authority for that keyword that can be built upon. These are typically quick-win keywords.

The above tools are my recommendations as three of the best free SEO keyword resources marketers can find. In my next post, I will analyze free SEO auditing and troubleshooting tools.

What are your favorite free SEO tools for identifying target keywords? Share your recommendations in the comments.

Want more insight like this? Download our new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools” today. 

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The post 3 Free SEO Tools for Identifying Target Keywords appeared first on MediaWhiz.

Today, we’re releasing a new eBook in our growing stable of Insights reports (read them all here). Titled, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” the report outlines our top picks for the best free SEO tools and resources marketers can use to identify target keywords, audit and troubleshoot onsite SEO issues and gain competitive intelligence.

Below is a snippet of the many useful insights you’ll find inside the eBook. Download your free copy to find more.

Download the Free eBook

Performance in organic search engine marketing requires an investment. Depending on the goals of a search engine optimization campaign, that investment can be quite substantial. Budget often must be allocated strategically in order to stretch it enough for success.

Part of the investment in any SEO campaign goes toward tools that help brands analyze data, strategize and track results. To do so, marketers need a bevy of tools and resources.

This is an area in which marketers can be frugal, if necessary. There are hundreds of great paid search marketing tools that will help generate a strong return from an SEO campaign. If budget must be used sparingly, however, there are ways around paying for high-end tools.

This report analyzes the best free tools marketers can use to track and measure the success of their SEO campaigns, troubleshoot problems, gain important competitive intelligence and plan for future SEO success.

Key Takeaways

1. Using a free tool or combination of free tools can often eliminate the need to invest in a paid search marketing or SEO tool.
2. SEO tools are important in selecting the right keywords to target in an SEO campaign.
3. Troubleshooting on-site SEO issues becomes much easier with access to the right tools.
4. Competitive intelligence tools can be a great asset for building a successful SEO strategy.

Download the Free eBook

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The post Free eBook: The 10 Best Free SEO Tools appeared first on MediaWhiz.

Content marketing can provide tremendous value to a search engine optimization campaign, as outlined in our recent eBook, “Content Marketing Like a Pro.” There are many different content types that can be leveraged as a vehicle for lead generation with a strong return on investment. Today, we’ll examine how you can choose the right content type to increase your brand’s SEO value.

RELATED: Download MediaWhiz’s FREE eBook, “Content Marketing Like a Pro”

eMarketer recently published a study conducted by CopyPress in which marketers were asked which types of content are the most cost effective. Results of the study showed the growing demand among marketers of content marketing as a leading digital focus. Thirty-five percent of marketers surveyed identified content marketing as their leading focus in 2013 as compared to 19% in 2012. It is no secret that content marketing is a powerful lead generation tool and that the return on investment is high.

When it comes to segmenting the various types of content, a vast majority of the marketers surveyed identified featured articles as the content type with the best ROI. The main differentiator between featured articles and other media types is the relatively small cost and simplicity of development which makes the investment very low. The minimal hard costs and effort associated with producing featured articles combined with the innate value of any content marketing piece that follows best practices, makes these articles very attractive to utilize.

Another advantage of featured articles that makes them a priority content marketing piece is the ability to use authorship mark-up to help promote the content and improve organic search authority. Since featured articles typically contain a byline, the rel=“author” rich snippet can be leveraged to tie the content to an authoritative author, making it much more likely to rank for keyword-targeted search queries in search engine results.

One thing that has been overlooked by many respondents in this study is the indirect return value of the various content types. For example, infographics scored relatively low for ROI ability because of the higher costs involved with production and implementation. Therefore, when looking at top-level numbers, they wouldn’t show the same level of ROI as a featured article. However, rich media such as infographics provide a great deal of SEO value because they are more commonly shared via social media and linked to, which increases the organic search rankings of the website hosting them. The website authority generated from a content marketing piece is much more difficult to measure than direct ROI and is therefore not always considered when deciding what type of content to invest in.

Regardless of the type of content used, content marketing is a growing initiative with strong potential for high return. In order to be truly successful, a full content marketing strategy should leverage multiple types of content and include strategic planning for a distribution schedule. It is also important to look past the top-level metrics and dig in to gain as much learning as possible on how content marketing is affecting other channels and indirectly increasing the ROI of those.

Download our new eBook, “Content Marketing Like a Pro,” to learn how you can improve search engine visibility and your brand’s SEO value with content marketing. 

How is your brand using content marketing to improve SEO? What are some of the best practices you have found for incorporating authors’ authority to improve the search rankings of your content marketing pieces?

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The post Content Marketing: Choosing the Right Content Types for SEO Value appeared first on MediaWhiz.

Today, we released a new eBook on content marketing. Titled, “Content Marketing Like a Pro,” the report outlines the key pillars to content marketing and advises marketers on best practices for crafting and executing successful content marketing programs.

Download the eBook

This eBook also provides a framework marketers can use to improve their brand’s SEO and generate leads via a content marketing program.

When consumers first encounter a brand digitally it’s not always the brand’s website that makes the first impression. What makes the greatest impression is the authority of the brand’s website measured by where it ranks when a consumer searches.

Content marketing is a method to build this authority and rank.

Learn how to use content marketing to generate leads and improve your brand’s SEO with MediaWhiz’s new eBook, “Content Marketing Like a Pro.”

Key Takeaways

1. Content marketing can drive leads directly and indirectly. Direct click-throughs can be created from content marketing pieces to a website for lead-generation purposes. Leads can also be generated indirectly by impacting the performance of other channels, such as SEO.
2. Focus on the audience. Even if content marketing efforts are utilized with the goal of improving SEO, it is important to focus on how the content will benefit consumers. By defining the target audience and performing the research necessary to understand what that audience values, content can be created to provide value to the consumer that will in turn lead to engagement and success.
3. Measure results. There is a great deal of learning that comes from each content marketing campaign. By tracking and analyzing key performance indicators associated with the efforts, this data can be leveraged to improve future campaigns and understand the types of content that resonate most with the target consumer.

Download the eBook

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The post [REPORT] How to Generate Leads Using Content Marketing appeared first on MediaWhiz.

By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications

SMX West comes to beautiful San Jose, Calif., in two weeks (March 11-13, 2013), and the MediaWhiz search and SEO teams will be there in full force. If you’re in San Jose for the conference, be sure to visit booth #321 to chat with us about our search marketing and SEO products and services. Several of our SEO and search marketing experts will be on site to discuss best practices for improving your brand’s SEO and search marketing campaigns.

MediaWhiz Vice President Daryl Colwell will take that discussion a step further during his March 11 presentation, “Content Marketing Like a Pro: Tactics and Techniques to Increase Search Engine Visibility.” Here is a brief overview of Daryl’s presentation:

Time/Date: 3-3:20 p.m. PST, Monday, March 11, 2013
Location: Theater B, San Jose McEnery Convention Center

Session Description
It’s no longer enough to have great SEO for your website. In today’s Google-controlled era of search engine marketing, brands need great content that is engaging, informative and sharable to rank well and generate leads. Join MediaWhiz’s Daryl Colwell to learn about his best practices and techniques to increase your brand’s search engine visibility through content marketing. You’ll come away from this session with a top-10 list of content marketing best practices that the pros use to generate leads and improve their brand’s SEO.

Must-Have Information
MediaWhiz will be exhibiting at SMX West, March 11-13, 2013. Meet us at booth #321.

Contact Keith Trivitt for more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the conference.

What to Do in San Jose
San Jose is one of America’s most innovative cities. Centered at the heart of Silicon Valley, it is the home to many of the world’s leading technology companies, including Cisco, Adobe and eBay. It also has a vibrant night life and plenty of fun, free activities. Here are some helpful resources you can use to plan your time in San Jose during SMX West.

• Visit San Jose
• Best Things to Do in San Jose
• 65 San Jose Attractions

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The Online Marketing Summit has become a perennial favorite for us at MediaWhiz. Often held in a sunny, relaxed city, such as last week’s event in beautiful San Diego, the conference features the best and brightest in online marketing, advertising, search and SEO.

This year was no different. OMS San Diego featured a stellar lineup of speakers, a well-stocked exhibit hall and plenty of attendees to stoke plenty of debates and discussions about the trends shaping online marketing.

And MediaWhiz was right in the thick of it.

Our SEO business TLA exhibited at the conference, holding the coveted first exhibitor spot on the trade show floor. The TLA team spent much of their time discussing on- and off-site SEO strategies with conference attendees, including how to generate and promote content as a means of improving a brand’s SEO.

A packed house greeted Daryl Colwell’s OMS presentation, “Content Marketing Like a Pro”

But we didn’t stop there. Our own Daryl Colwell, vice president of business development, presented at OMS. During his 45-minute talk, “Content  Like a Pro: Tactics and Techniques to Increase Search Engine Visibility,” Daryl entertained and informed the audience of 200-plus with his insight on how marketers can use content marketing to not only improve their brand’s SEO but generate actual leads and sales.

Judging by attendees’ tweets and photos, the presentation was a big success.

#omsummit session: #ContentMarketing Like A Pro…by @mediawhiz Most packed session so far. Standing room only! Hot topic? Oh yeah!

— Stephanie Hackney (@brandingmasters) February 12, 2013

Lead Gen 101 A few best practices: #omsummit listening to @mediawhiz twitter.com/Julienbrandt/s…

— Julien Brandt (@Julienbrandt) February 12, 2013

PRNewswire’s Paula Henderson has a nice recap of Daryl’s presentation. Below are some of the points she found most interesting:

Benefits for SEO writing:

• Attracts Authority Signals (links, social shares) – improves SEO performance
• Positions brand as authority on relevant topics
• Increases conversion rates
• Educates users on topics that are difficult to understand.

While it is important to write with these SEO tips in mind, you’re not a computer so write for humans!

Top-5 tips MediaWhiz provided for Content Marketing:

1. Know your audience: Write for a specific reader or customer. Know what they want and how/where they consume information.
2. Include images: Images will “pop” when content is shared.
3. Commit: Not a one-night stand. Establish an editorial calendar and publish often.  Give customers a reason to keep reading.
4. Engage the right buyers with the right content. Write content for all levels of the sales funnel.
5. Repurpose content. Turn blog posts into white papers; white papers into infographics, etc.

We hope you enjoyed Online Marketing Summit San Diego as much as we did. Let us know in the comments some of the highlights and insights you learned from this year’s conference. 

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