UNCON F E R ENC E

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How to Create, Curate,& Convert Great Content

UNCONF E R ENC E

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And some stuff about pandas

What Do I Know About Content?

Involved with search industry since 1997

Previously managed several thousand domains with several million indexed pages

Most importantly, I know within a vacuum great content by itself means nothing

Have played both sides of the coin, creating software for autogen content as well as hiring in-house staff for premium portals

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Joe SinkwitzCRO, CopyPress

What is GREAT Content?

It must serve a specific purpose

Content can come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and formats

Beautiful by my definition is something that is useful to the desired end user

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Product Page Copy

Blog Posts

Infographics

Video

Interactive

Product Page Copy

Great content needs to be unique

Most big retailers use the same manufacturer feeds – only one of them will win online; Amazon

MACY’S PRODUCT COPY >>

EXAMPLE

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Blog Posts

Great written copy can cover KW holes in most content marketing strategies

Long-format, well-researched content engages users, attracting links better than {automated|overseas|intern-level} content

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INFOLIFIC >>

EXAMPLE

Useless, thin content is panda fodder

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Infographics

Best use is in taking a complex subject and simplifying through imagery

It HAS to be unique; there’s a lot of crap floating around where the same theme and concept is overplayed

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ORSYP >>

EXAMPLE

A great infographic is digestible, educational, and entertaining

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Video

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Multi-purpose medium where you can actually tell a story to a captive audience

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BESTLIFEQUOTE.COM >>

EXAMPLE

Sales pitch? Education? Pure entertainment? You can get all three

Interactive

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The current King of user engagement

Interactive is also just so awesome right now with HTML5

Very difficult for someone to scrape and replicate; publications need to link to the resource vs copy/paste without attribution

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NBA DRAFT BOARD >>

EXAMPLE

Fark.comHumorous, intentionally and unintentionally viral stories

Vibrant community that continually sources material

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Curating Great ContentE X A M P L E

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Tripadvisor.comIt isn’t just a hotel. For our Hawaii trip we used the curation of experiences and entire trips to plan which hotel, restaurants, and activities to undertake

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Curating Great ContentE X A M P L E

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Pinterest

Curating Great ContentE X A M P L E

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If your content is at all image based, run like hell to get started – your coupon friends in the audience can tell you how much money is to be made here

Every topic is doable!

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Google+

Too soon?

Curating Marginal Content

For…Google employees and those wanting to talk to Google employees

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Vine.co

Curating Great ContentE X A M P L E

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Only a few seconds per video, but powerful follower base

Humor wins here, but fantastic for branding

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HE-MAN IS GETTING GREAT

BRANDING FROM THIS

HANDSOME FELLOW >>

EXAMPLE

Hey Strategists

When deciding to make great content will it be

to live on your site or specifically to get ‘curated’

by a specific community?

The best pieces attempt to work on multiple

levels, satisfying both user needs onsite and

piquing interest from curators

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Panda Time

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Quick evolution of Panda from the eyes of a practioner; how I got out of the first wave (and into penguin) and how I’ve gotten out of subsequent waves

Things to do to mitigate Panda risk

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Making That Great Content {Smarter|Better|More Useful}

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In a word, visibility that results in action

There’s lots of ways to drive traffic, which

I’ll delve into

Dave loves native…and Italian meatballs

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Organic outreach & relationship building

Yes, buying openly advertised links still can work, but the time horizon before getting slapped is increasingly shrinking

Systematically building long-term relationships devised to share great content, especially when the relationship drives traffic, will stand the test of time

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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PPC

Other similar toll roads

Similar to native, PPC style campaigns devised to drive traffic can result in an increase in brand queries + secondary organic links, when properly managed

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Display Networks

Similar to native, display ads targeted to user-specific demographics can yield brand exposure + sales

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Social promotion

Facebook Ads, Sponsored Tweets, Stumbles

Low-intent, high volume traffic that has its place if CPM focused

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Traditional PR

PR is going to merge with SEO as organic outreach shifts back from being technically oriented to biz dev oriented

Getting placement in Time or Washington Post is hard to undervalue

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Offline

TV

Dead Trees

Radio

These mediums are still gigantic and though typically requiring larger spends, some content is ideal to be placed here

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Email and email listbuilding

Overlooked far too often by big publishers that don’t know how to interact with their audience

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Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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Think product placement embedded on TV shows

I view it as fancy terminology for advertising that matches content to the context in which a user is using a site

The goal is less ad blindness and more interaction. The ad is designed to be useful/entertainment, hence higher CTR!

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Native: Promoting Content E X A M P L E

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How Does the Combo Work?

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Great content needs eyeballs to matter+

By sourcing the right mix of native traffic, advertisers can get:+

Higher incidence of branded search queries, boosting authority signal

More qualified traffic than the stumbleupons and reddits of the world

Search benefit of secondary organic links

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The best conversion method is dependent upon the level of consumer interest and level

of core product knowledge

Converting Great ContentL E V E L

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Converting Great ContentL E V E L

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{ User } Casual readers ignorant of advertising

{ Publisher } New to the market, lacking core product knowledge

{ Product } Adsense, media.net, etc

{ Goal } Go for clicks and basic banner views

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Converting Great ContentL E V E L

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{ User } Casual readers jaded by advertising

{ Publisher } New to the market, lacking core product knowledge

{ Product } Facebook, Twitter embeds, email signup

{ Goal } Go for future engagement; monetizing will lead to tears

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Converting Great ContentL E V E L

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{ User } Tire-kickers and information gatherers

{ Publisher } Average understanding of market and product

{ Product } Email + affiliate level advertising

{ Goal } To build the future email list and attempt to monetize current interest

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Converting Great ContentL E V E L

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{ User } ‘Ready to buy’ queries used, Impulsive

{ Publisher } Expert understanding of market and product

{ Product } Leadgen form or shopping cart integration

{ Goal } Move user into sales funnel, capturing email as a process

Why My Particular View

I’ve been in a lot of affiliate industries

Though anecdotal, I find a new site might be best skipping

monetization initially and attempting the engagement of likes/

tweets until product knowledge increases. Monetization can

then shift to click networks and CPM deals, then through future

maturation, affiliate relationships, and ultimately once mastery

is reached, owning the product/service outright for full capture

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Let’s see an example already!

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The impact of great content + native: +

92 links, ALL organic, as of April 29th

33,000+ unique pageviews and going

Another Example!

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{ Result } Page 1 for the topic question discussed

Hub-concept client that used

static IG and connections to

gain in the organics

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MOAR Examples!

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{ Result } Page 1 for many retail interview queries

Client needed topically

relevant post + social

sharing to spread story

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How can you take advantage of this knowledge?

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If you only have in-house design/development talent you can commission someone to help with native and other forms of promotion

If you only have native and promotion skills you can commission someone to help you with design/development talent

If you have neither, you can work with an outreach company and a design shop

Or, you know…CopyPress for any and all of the above

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Joe Sinkwitz@CygnusSEO