Business Consulting

I can appreciate the recent buzz surrounding the newly-launched satirical website WeOwnTheInternet.org, which smartly pokes fun at the corporatocracy’s indefensible position on Network Neutrality. Ann Handley points out that humor can rouse interest in an otherwise drab topic. But I sometimes worry about why this satirical website exists in the first place. To any […] Continue to read more…

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Download Episode 14 {Duct Tape Marketing} If you are an avid reader of the hugely-popular Duct Tape Marketing blog, you’ll want to rush right out and buy John Jantsch’s latest book entitled Duct Tape Marketing - The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. I had a chance to chat with John about his book, his […] Continue to read more…

Content is King and links are Queen. Together with a nice dose of marketing they make a nice little kingdom. But what if you have trouble generating new content on a regular basis? How can resource strapped bloggers and busy web site owners leverage what they’re already doing for the benefit of their online audiences […]

Content is King and links are Queen. Together with a nice dose of marketing they make a nice little kingdom. But what if you have trouble generating new content on a regular basis? How can resource strapped bloggers and busy web site owners leverage what they’re already doing for the benefit of their online audiences and better search engine visibility?

The answer to those questions lies in an analysis of the content creation processes within the overall organization. Companies like TopRank call that process consulting but in the meantime, here are 5 tips for those active in an industry to re-purpose content for the web.

• Get more power out of PowerPoint - Turn PowerPoint decks into articles and/or blog posts and vice versa. It’s smart marketing anyway, to build supporting editorial visibility to a topic you’re speaking on at conferences, with prospective clients or other situations requiring PowerPoint. Why not leverage the effort put into a PowerPoint presentation for inspiration to create a contributed article offered for republishing to other blogs or industry publications? Same goes for transforming a PowerPoint into a single or series of blog posts.Conversely, a great article that speaks well to your key strengths with research and examples can be a perfect outline for creating an effective PowerPoint presentation. Two birds, one stone. Nice.

• Let interviews do the talking - lf you’re fortunate to be interviewed by other bloggers, typically via email, leverage the answers you’ve given into a blog post or an article. Many such interviews do not include the full text of your reply, which you can use for your own online content. Another scenario is when the interview is by phone, podcast or video and you’ve been given prep questions in advance. Answer the prep questions in text and you have a great basis for several blog posts or an article.If the press and bloggers are not knocking on your door for interviews, no worries. Have a co-worker interview you using a digital camera about your perspective on a certain industry topic. Either transcribe the interview or have your co-worker create prep questions and answer them. You get video and show notes out of it, both great content for a blog.You could just write an article of course, but we’ve found the interview angle to be more motivating for many people not confident about exactly what to write.

• Break it up - Take a long article you’ve had published online or in a notable publication and break it up in to a series of blog posts. Do this AFTER the article runs in the publication! Add unique introductions and summaries along with plenty of related resource links. Of course this tactic assumes the original article is structured into topical segments, easy for breaking up. If you’re not writing articles that way, it might be time to start. Hint hint.

• Turn press releases into lemonade - Press releases written in AP style are pretty boring for consumers. Heck, they’re pretty boring for everyone. Take the key messages of the press release and rewrite conversationally as blog post making sure to cite examples, offer tips and to link out to relevant resources - ideally other influential blogs on the topic. There’s no harm in having a link to the original press release either.

• What’s old is new - A robust blog often posts an array of tips, insights and how to’s over time. We’ve been posting since Dec 2003 and believe me, there’s a lot of content update opportunities over 5 years of blogging.The search marketing industry changes pretty quickly creating the need to offer updated tips to stay current. What better source for those updates than old blog posts that were popular in the past? Update the title, ex: “All New Tips for Re-Purposing Blog Content” as well as the actual tips and make recent news references. Be sure to revisit what keywords are in demand by mining popular social tags and keyword research tools. Add new examples and links to external resources, ideally influential blogs on the topic. Those links out are like a virtual tap tap on the shoulder of the popular blogs and might just get you noticed. They can also be useful to readers and search engines.

Bonus:
When you shoot a video for online promotion, take screen shots of appealing moments. Share them on image sharing sites and social networks with a link back to the blog post where the video is embedded. If you manage multiple blogs on relevantly similar topics, show the image(s) on the other blog(s) along with a unique text transcription of the word content within the video. Link back to the blog post with video embedded.

These examples are bit close to home because many are what we do with Online Marketing Blog and our own involvement with the SEM industry. These tips are literally the tip of the iceberg and can be applied to just about any industry. It comes down to being both creative and understanding what your target audience wants. If they don’t respond well to repurposed content, then you’ll either need to hire a writer or get more creative in your packaging of information.

“Listen” to blog comments or lack thereof, web analytics and social media monitoring to get an idea of how audiences respond and also to get new ideas for more content. As with all marketing, it’s a matter of anticipating what the audience wants and doing your best to give it to them. If they don’t respond, use analytics and feedback to make changes and refine.

We’ve shown you some of ours, now how ’bout you show us a few of your tips for re-purposing content?

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Title: Manager Tools Produced By: Manager Tools, LLC Feed: http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/feed/rss2 Blog: http://www.manager-tools.com Overview: The Manager Tools podcast covers important topics of interest to any manager of people. Popular episodes include “How to Write a Thank You note,” “Your Admin and your email,” and “Secrets of a Great Handshake.” Each episode lasts about 30 minutes. We […] Continue to read more…

O.K. Podcast Producers! There are no excuses for missing the upcoming International Podcasting Expo as it occurs entirely online. I am really excited to follow this event right from the comfort of my own home this weekend. There are lots of great networking opportunities with other podcasters, podcasting seminars and workshops, and of course […] Continue to read more…

The famous eye tracking heat maps are just the start of understanding search behavior. What about what happens before they get to your site? Or while they are on your site? Search behavior is something a site needs to understand to get more users to their site. Here are a few of the […]

The famous eye tracking heat maps are just the start of understanding search behavior. What about what happens before they get to your site? Or while they are on your site? Search behavior is something a site needs to understand to get more users to their site.

Here are a few of the thoughts shared:

John Marshall

• It’s hard to get good search behavior update unless you have access to a search engine or HitsLinks.
• Lots of people look at the keywords area in analytics. This shows a narrow view of activity.
• We should be using site search data from your website to get visiter intent. This is very valuable.
• Often times, free data like this is often ignored and it shouldn’t be.
• Four things that usually go wrong with internal search data.
• Mixed case (Aa), multiple results pages, usual JS breakage, injected terms (search results as landing pages)

Pavan Lee

• Search listings has a branding value
• Paid search listings have a stronger branding impact that organic. Used together, it’s even more beneficial.
• Key takeaway: Power of three: synergistic branding impact.

Larry Cornett

• Yahoo really focuses on the search page, but knows that a lot happens before and after a search.
• People spend very little time on the search page.
• Users don’t want to do a lot of work to get what they want.
• Crafting searches is a pain point which is why they have the auto complete queries.
• People want to to go from todo to done.
• Using semantic/universal search to help users find more faster.

Bill Barnes

• The golden triangle very important. This is the paid and organic listing in the upper left of a search page.
• Tested good and bad paid ads and the result wasn’t much different. The location trumped the ad copy.
• People can judge the whole result page on the top result or two.
• Testing has shown a 16% increase in brand association when brand is in top sponsored and top organic spots.
• Would you purchase from this brand? 8% increase when top paid and top organic listings are achieved.
• Likelihood to purchase increases by 7% if you have both top paid and organic spots.
• Eye tracking testing showed fixation on brand in URL and link only, not in the description.
• Play with your enemies. If they are showing up, you should be too.

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Check out all of TopRank’s coverage of SES San Jose and sessanjose08 Photos.

Sponsored By: Follow TopRank on Twitter Get daily updates, insights and links

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I can appreciate the recent buzz surrounding the newly-launched satirical website WeOwnTheInternet.org, which smartly pokes fun at the corporatocracy’s indefensible position on Network Neutrality. Ann Handley points out that humor can rouse interest in an otherwise drab topic. But I sometimes worry about why this satirical website exists in the first place. To any […] Continue to read more…

There are hundreds of blogs out there that are writing entries solely on how to be a better blogger. Many of these authors aspire to become rich and successful simply because they are writing about how to become rich and successful, which has always been a cart-and-horse problem to me. When your blog […]

There are hundreds of blogs out there that are writing entries solely on how to be a better blogger. Many of these authors aspire to become rich and successful simply because they are writing about how to become rich and successful, which has always been a cart-and-horse problem to me. When your blog is just starting and you barely have triple-digit RSS subscribers, who are you to tell anyone else how to blog and how to market a blog?

This is the problem I’ve always had with articles about “how to blog”, “how to get more traffic”, and “how to boost your RSS subscribers” — so many of these articles are written by blogs that have no business writing about these topics. Heck, even when I’ve had a blog with thousands of RSS subscribers I didn’t quite feel qualified to write on these topics because I knew I was still low on the totem pole. Of course you don’t have to be qualified to talk about a specific topic on your blog — you can talk about whatever you want — but I never wanted to do a potential disservice to my readers.

Opinions are like a**holes, everyone’s got one. Some people like to spam forums with links to their blog to gain traffic, and others like to write cohesive and witty comments. Obviously in that scenario you can figure out which is the better method, so why is the spammy tactic the one that so many people write about as an effective method for promoting your blog? One reason is that bombing forums with links is a common talking point on lists that give you “Top 100 Ways To Promote Your Blog” which are taken to heart by newer bloggers. Just because people include it in an article doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, so don’t take these lists at face value since many of them are created just to get traffic to their blog.

Blogs about blogging, articles about writing articles on your blog, when does the meta craziness end? Well just because information on blogging is abundant doesn’t mean that you should read one blog, one article, one author, and then call it the gospel. You need to fact-check your information, read a dozen lists and articles, create your own best practices, and then create strategies that work best for who you are, what your blog is about, and who you’re trying to reach. The same moral rules that apply in the real world also apply online, so whenever you come across a “tip” that seems a little shady, just ask yourself, “would doing this technique/method make me annoying to someone else?” and you’ll figure out what’s a bad idea and what’s not. It’s actually pretty simple, but sometimes the goal of having a check get mailed to you once a month is more alluring.

Don’t take tips from just anybody, in fact, don’t take tips from me at face value either. Read many things, decide for yourself, and then create strategies that still uphold your moral values. Doing everything that someone puts on a Top 100 list is a fast-track to nowhere. Doing a few things really well (like leaving smart comments, emailing authors that you appreciate, writing accurate & interesting entries) will get you well on your way and you didn’t even have to sacrifice your morals during the process.

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Download Episode 2 The gang was a bit tired today, but we managed to cover a few interesting topics: Google Maps can let you do amazing things: Plug in a zip code to see your neighbors’ campaign contributions This map plots all murders in New York City for a two-year period This is a Google Map mashup for world […] Continue to read more…