Matt Cutts Answer To : Does using stock photos on your pages have a negative effect on rankings?

Images are a very important aspect of any website. Images speak louder than words but to select the right images for a website is always a time consuming task. Many opt for the stock photos available on the web. But, does the use of stock photos have a negative impact on search engine rankings. This is what Matt Cutts – the head of the spam team at Google has to say. In August 2010 we wrote a blog Post http://blog.webpro.in/2010/08/type-of-images-you-use-on-your-website.html which shared the following thought regarding this question. A picture speaks louder than words. Images on a website have got their own importance from the search engine’s bot perspective as well as from a visitor’s perspective. Hence the images that we add on each every page should be well thought of and of related to the content. The images add the color coefficient to the web page and also offer text content to the search engine robots in the form of ALT TEXT which is one of the on-page optimization factors for SEO.
Stock Images And Search Rankings
handshake isolated on business background (Photo credit: SalFalko)
Usually, we see most of the sites buy ready images from the numerous websites available for the same. We see board room images, people shaking hands denoting partnerships and finalizing deals. These images have perfect models modeling for the pictures and having perfect smiles which may be a dentist’s delight. But, the questions asked in this context are: • Do these images project the right impression of your company? • Is your team so well-groomed (look-wise) as depicted in the website images? • Don’t you think that such images are an insult to the hard working team that you have? I am sure you have the answer for the above questions. No company has a perfect looking team and the atmosphere at work is constantly not all grins and smiles and achievements. To reflect the true image of your company the images put for the product page,’ the team ‘or ‘about us’ page should be the actual pictures of your team members and the actual shop floor pictures of the product being manufactured or the of the office in which your staff is working to make the targets set by you a reality. Having no images on the site is better than having the artificial smiling images. If you just adopt this change I am sure it will add to the credibility of your online business. Focus on the content and value your product and people by putting them forward on the real estate of your web page. Putting the right content and reflecting the true image of your company is like adding the soul to your website. Matt Cutts in the video mentions that maybe in future Google might think about this. Hence according to me letting the website be an actual reflection of the business image you have real time and the website reflecting the actual infra structure and team is always a better option than having stock photos reflecting people and the office place as something totally opposite of what your actual business is or you and your team are. As Matt Cutts mentions in the video original photos may be considered as a quality factor but though they are not a ranking factor now but it is pure logic that having a true identity will surely add to the trust factor in the minds of the visitors and gradually when Google incorporates this in the algorithms then it surely will add on to the online trust factor too. As Google says cater to the user qualitatively and the search engines too are taken care off eventually, when they are ready and have updated their algorithms to add those signals.
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The Digital World Challenge Faced By The Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) In 2013

My first guest post for SEJ in September 2010 was about the shift from the traditional media of marketing to the internet media of marketing http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-traditional-media-of-marketing-to-the-internet-media-of-marketing/23947/ at that time this question of who should manage the digital media which demands a multiple partner proliferation had just started brewing . In 2013 it has reached a turbulent stage as is described by the 2012 CMO Insights survey by Accenture.

The 2012 CMO Insights survey is the third in a series of studies sponsored by Accenture and aimed at understanding the opinions, challenges and points of view of senior marketing executives from around the world.

Results are based on online surveys across 10 countries with 405 senior executives who are key marketing decision makers in their companies.

According to this survey,

Turbulence is the new normal for chief marketing officers (CMOs). The main reason being competing business demands, proliferating channels and partners, and a disconnect between the talent they have and the capabilities they need.

Every digital marketing company I am sure will be able to relate directly to this as we face a real challenge when an overall ROI has to be calculated. It becomes more challenging when there are multiple marketing services providers but the tasks of each of these service providers are mutually inter-dependant for overall success.

For example if SEO , Social Media , Content Creation are handled by different agencies with no clear strategic leader coordinating all these activities then a lot of confusion, chaos and the blame game begins which is not less than a catch22 situation.

According to the survey for business survival CMOs need to:

• Fundamentally change the marketing operating model.

• Build new skills internally.

• Get the right set of partners.

• Drive digital orientation throughout the enterprise.

The Partner Proliferation list according to the survey is as follows:

When all these activities are to be managed in-house it requires a very big budget and specialized skill sets or if outsourced it needs precise coordination. The challenge that the online business owners small or big brands face today is how to the get the maximum ROI from the selected set of the above activities they decide to focus on for a wider and a qualitative digital presence.

From the list above it is very clear that the digital orientation is the most important demand of the day but 19% of the CMOs say that digital orientation suffers from the lack of integration across the business and when it comes to other partners they are weak at execution and delivery.

Hence the need of the hour is to:

· Fundamentally change the marketing operating model

· Build new skills internally

· Get aligned with the right set of partners

· Drive digital orientation throughout the enterprise

The main focus being the digital orientation which is needed throughout the organization. The shift is not only on the media used for marketing but a shift is needed towards a whole new process of thinking from the digital perspective in order to gain a profitable overall ROI .

The whole survey is summarised as below and the full report can be downloaded on http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-CMO-Insights-Report-PDF.pdf

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The Concentric Circles Of Quality Web Presence

Today a quality web presence is the lifeline of every organization. In early 2000 anyone who had a website and had submitted them to search engines took pride on being visible in the search results and proudly printed the website URLs on the business cards and letter heads.

A decade down the line the world wide web is a more sophisticated place with the search engines and the search behaviour both having evolved qualitatively.

Today having a web presence does not mean only having a website. One needs to have a correlated quality web presence across the web. In order to achieve that objective a planned approach and a dedicated team is needed. SEOs and digital marketers have been filling the blogosphere with this message but yet when it comes to the website owners there is an aura of confusion and there is a need to understand the connectivity and correlation among all the online platforms – SEO, Social Media, and Regular Content Creation.

All these activities supplement each other and boost the quality search presence in the long run. One cannot focus only on one activity and then immediately jump to another just because it is being declared as the latest trend by some. This is very misleading for website owners.

Blog posts like SEO Is Dead, Content Marketing is the new SEO, Email is Dead, Social Media marketing is the latest online trend, etc. make the website owners especially the SMBs who have limited budgets skip from investing in one activity to another without actually benefitting from any.

Just the other day an SEO client wrote to us an email strictly mentioning that the coming months were the peak season for their business and we should have an aggressive SEO strategy to increase the traffic to the site.

We started working on their site in Dec. 2012 and till date the increase in organic and overall traffic is as follows . As the site deals in seasonal products the period of comparison is very important.

Hence we took to compare the period of Dec. 2012 to April 2013 (After Our SEO Efforts) v/s Dec. 2011 to April 2012 (When the Site was Optimized by some other company)

As you can see that the SEO efforts have succeeded and the traffic has improved and yes the traffic is targeted and also the site is having a good search presence for most of the keywords. The SEO has done his bit. Now the client has to understand to enhance the quality of this search presence there needs to be an additional focus on content marketing, social media presence, take necessary steps as per the analytics reports, work on call to action, try out A/B testing to improve conversions, etc.

But just because you branch out to an additional activity you stop focusing on the previous one is not a viable solution. The saying, “The rolling stone gathers no moss “, proves to be very true here. Hence a coordinated effort to supplement the benefit from each activity is needed.

All these activities are like the concentric circles drawn around the same centre but with different radii.

The Concentric Circles Of Quality Web Presence

Usually people start with developing a website and at the most sign up for an SEO contract and then expect for the overall results to accrue but that is like drawing a small circle or drawing just a part of the circle. The search presence or the SEO circle is one of the concentric circles.

The Concentric Circles Of Long Term Quality Web Presence:

  1.  The website is at the centre hence each circle originates from there.
  2.  SEO via the on-page, off-page and technical factors increases the probability of the website and content to be found by users who are searching for the relevant information. It takes necessary steps to see that the site is being regularly crawled and indexed by the search engines. SEO also keeps track of the algorithmic updates and helps the site to be as per the norms of the search engines.
  3.  Regular quality content creation backed by authorship extends the quality aspect of the search presence and makes the SEO of the site worthwhile and helps develop your online brand and helps to build trust and relationships. Quality content further has the potential to generate valuable user generated content which has a multiplier effect on the quality factor.
  4. Social Media gives the necessary leverage to the content strategies and helps you to listen to the voice of your potential and existing customers and also helps you to understand your competition better. It helps you to establish the online reputation and gives you an online persona.
  5. Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools monitoring gives you the data to measure the ROI. This data helps you to track and monitor the SEO efforts, the social media efforts and also gives you an insight about your website and other crucial metrics to gear the efforts in the right direction.

A website owner can outsource each activity to different service providers or all these can be managed by one company but the correlation between all these activities will determine the actual success. As all these circles have the website as the centre as you draw each circle you go on increasing the circumference of the outreach.

This can be also co related to the structure of an atom where the website is the nucleus and each circle is an orbit which possesses the electrons of influence and outreach.

SEO is a necessity, content marketing is a strategy and social media is the channel.

If just one of the steps mentioned above are executed even with full sincerity, precision and dedication it will yield limited results only. In order to measure the overall ROI first one needs to measure the ROO (Return On Objective) of each outer circle . The objectives achieved with the activities of each circle will determine the total ROI (Return On Investment).

Today the challenge for the website owner is how to keep these activities coordinated and connected and make each task benefit from the other and get an overall boost to the online presence by capitalizing on the digital assets created thereby. It becomes more challenging if these tasks are performed by different services providers.

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SEO Is A Necessity, Content Creation Is A Strategy And Social Media Is The Channel

SEO in 2013 is about quality web presence, thought leadership, popularity, user generated content, company blogs , social media, guest blogging and every foot print on the web which helps you in implementing this online. SEO in 2013 has evolved to such a stage that it is a necessity and is finely woven into each and every online activity which helps you determine your search and web presence.

Social media has recently been the most rapidly growing channel which helps you get the much needed outreach whether it is B2C or B2B business.

According to a recent eMarketer survey the statistics are as follows:

social media platforms 2013

social media benefits 2013

As we can see above, FaceBook and Blogging (Content Creation) are the 2 main social media platforms and the major benefits accruing from these platforms are increased exposure and increased traffic.

No brand can afford to neglect the social media presence as the benefits which can get accrued via social media are multifold and again are woven into each and every online marketing activity which any brand decides to opt for.

SEO is a necessity, social media is the channel and the content creation strategy determines your online brand identity.

As we can see above the benefits from social media mentioned above are interdependent and one benefit leads to another.

Social Media presence helps you to get increased exposure , this increased exposure increases the inbound traffic, the increased traffic and content on your site helps develop loyal fans which spreads a good WOM (Word Of Mouth) and generates leads, increase business partnerships and thereby increase sales. All the footprints and social signals created in the process give a boost to the SEO which in turn again generates all these benefits via search presence.

In theory this sounds very simple and logical but when put in practice a lot of effort, insight and an eye for defined goals is needed else all the time, money and effort can just go down the drain.

What Is Responsive Web Design? Why We Should Opt For It?

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design (RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices -from desktop computer monitors, tablets to mobile phones. Responsive web design is the latest web design trend of 2013 and becoming a standard practice for the web design industry .

A website developed using Responsive Web Design adapts the design of the page depending on the device it is going to be viewed. Hence, RWD uses fluid proportion based grids, flexible images and CSS3 media queries.

  • The fluid grid concept calls for page element sizing to be in relative units like percentages, rather than absolute units like pixels or points.
  • Flexible images are also sized in relative units, so as to prevent them from displaying outside their containing element.
  • Media queries allow the page to use different CSS style rules based on characteristics of the device the site is being displayed on, most commonly the width of the browser.

Why Is Responsive Web Design Becoming The Hottest Web Design Trend Of 2013 ?

The Forrester Research Mobile Advertising Forecast, 2013 To 2018 (US) predicts that mobile ad spend (smartphones plus tablets) will represent more than 29% of the total online ad spend in the US by 2018.

According to eMarketer the devices used to access the internet by US consumers from July 2011 to Jan 2013 were as follows:

As you can see the desktops use was reduced 3 %, the use of tablets increased by 6%, and the use of mobile phones increased by 10.5% which means an over all increase by 16.5% for hand held devices.

The time spent on Mobile Internet by US Mobile Users in the first quarter of 2013 by activity is as follows:

As we can see that email and social networking are at the top which directly is related to business hence as the smart phones become smarter and people become more dependent on them no company website can ignore responsive design in the coming future.

If the use of various devices by the user is increasing on a regular basis and the choice of the device depends on the place the user is surfing from, then surely the website has to get adapted to the device and display the right content according to the size of the display unit of the device.

According to Jeffrey Veen (The Vice President of products for Adobe): 

“Day by day, the number of devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site grows. Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come.” Earlier to assure a good browsing experience the web designers had to keep in mind the browser and accordingly write code to assure the correct display for the users. Now it is about having one site for screens of various devices used commonly.

According to - Jeremy Keith :

“Stop Thinking in Pages. Start Thinking in Systems”.

Jeremy Keith in the video on  http://vimeo.com/50745034   explains some of the following points and much more:

  • Responsive Web Design requires the rewiring of our brains to think about designing for the web just as we started thinking differently when we started using CSS and separated the content from the design.
  • Responsive design is not about taking your existing device specific design and shrinking it for smaller devices. One needs to start from scratch.
  • We need to think about content outwards rather than about canvas inwards as on the web we don’t know the canvas. Content over here is not necessarily copy , text or words but can be anything from a task or a user flow like the check out function on a shopping site or a post to a forum page, etc. are all fundamental units of content.
  • Prior to Responsive web design visual designers sort of dictated the system requirements to the user like the browser used, internet speed specifications , javascript capabilities, etc. but responsive design is more like a dialogue between the designer and the user and ensures that the website meets the user wherever he is.
  • If you want to be future friendly one of the best techniques is to be backwards compatible.
  • He ends the presentation with a constructive thought that responsive design is not about mobile but about the web.

Responsive Web Design And SEO: Does Google Support RWD?

Yes, Google supports Responsive Web Design

1. Google supports sites which use same URLs for different device specific layouts i.e the HTML is the same for every device but only the CSS changes as per the display required for the specific device.

2. Or, if the URLs remain the same but the HTML and the CSS change as per the user agent.

3. Or, have separate sites for mobile and web.

4. Be sure not to block the crawling of any Googlebot (i.e for the web or mobile) for the page assets (CSS, javascript, and images) using robots.txt or otherwise. Being able to access these external files fully will help Google algorithms detect your site's responsive web design configuration and treat it appropriately.

5. Googlebot and Googlebot-Mobile should should automatically be able to detect this setup while crawling the page assets like HTML, CSS, Javascript.

6. The Vary HTTP header helps Googlebot discover your mobile-optimized content faster, as a valid Vary HTTP header is one of the signals Google uses to crawl URLs that serve mobile-optimized content.

7. If the responsive design servers use different URLs for desktops and mobiles then on the desktop page, add a special link rel="alternate" tag pointing to the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site's mobile pages.On the mobile page, add a link rel="canonical" tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL.

8. This rel="canonical" tag on the mobile URL pointing to the desktop page is required to avoid duplicate content issues which have an adverse effect on the SEO.

9. Google supports the rel="alternate" annotation for the desktop pages in Sitemaps as follows but the required rel="canonical" tag on the mobile URL should still be added to the mobile page's HTML.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<url>

<loc>http://www.example.com/page-1/</loc>

<xhtml:link rel="alternate"  media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="http://m.example.com/page-1" />

</url>

</urlset>

Is HTML5 The Right Choice For Responsive Web Design?

Matt Groener, Intel Developer Zone development team manager says:

  • "HTML5 is the backbone of the new and interactive features of responsive Web design,"
  • "Developing in HTML5 benefits all of the ecosystems because you get to market faster,"
  • "You don't create an iOS app and then, when time permits, bring it to Android or Windows. You can do it in any or all ecosystems at exactly the same time."
  • “It will only get better for developers as HTML5 matures, becomes faster and adds more features that put it on par with native application development. The future is more responsive rather than less responsive. I don’t see that ever changing.”

Don’t you think it is high time to opt for Responsive Web Design and let your virtual presence flow to fit any device the user has?

What do you say?


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Company Logos In Google SERPs using " Organization Mark Up"

Google launched the support for organization mark up as per schema.org . This mark up is for organization logos which is a way to connect a site with its iconic image.

For example, a business whose homepage is www.example.com can add the following markup using visible on-page elements on their homepage:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
<a itemprop="url" href="http://www.example.com/">Home</a>
<img itemprop="logo" src="http://www.example.com/logo.png" /> </div>

Markup like this is a strong signal to Google algorithms to show this image in preference over others, for example when we show Knowledge Graph on the right hand side based on users’ queries.

In fact lately I had observed many people adding the rel = “me” tag on static sites and by way of cross-linking their profile to their Google+ page the relevant image was getting displayed in SERPs.

This totally beats the purpose of the authorship mark up because in such cases I usually observed the site owner pics. which were getting displayed. As the publishership mark up did not get the green signal from Google this organization markup will surely help to keep a check on this and help the content to get correlated to the rightful authors which will in turn establish their thought leadership and of course the authority will also get passed on to the organization for which they write.

But the Rich Snippets Tool currently not displaying the logo in the preview although it detects the structured data on the URL tested.

Google I/O 2013 : Just Say “OK Google” To Search Hands Free in Chrome

Amit Singhal presented the future search experience which had a focus on the following 3 aspects of search:

Google I/O 2013


  •  Answer 
  •  Converse 
  •  Anticipate what the user might ask and offer the answers before the user can ask further questions. 

He said, all this is possible due to the Knowledge graph which Google announced last year. Now Knowledge Graph is available in Polish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese languages.

Google has updated its voice search feature with what it calls a "no-interface" approach for Chrome and Chrome OS.

Singhal revealed that there are now over five hundred and seventy million entities in the Knowledge Graph.

Singhal said, “Last year when we launched the Knowledge Graph, it was a huge advance in search technology. Knowledge graph enabled Google to move beyond keywords and understand real world entities.

The user can ask questions to Google like a friend and Google will answer back. This kind of verbal command is already being used by Google Glass and the command has to start with “OK Google....”

The conversational voice search and hot wording experience is soon coming on chrome and what is different is that Google says you’ll be able to continue the “conversation” to keep searching and it will understand where you are and when you ask how far is the airport from “here” then Google already knows without having you to say name of the place.

View the demo by Johanna Wright - VP Search And Assist Mobile  at Google

Penguin 2.0 And What Is In Store For SEO In The Next Few Months For Google

Penguin 2.0 By Google -  May 2013Matt Cutts had been announcing on Twitter lately that there soon is going to be a major algorithmic update  and yesterday the WebMaster video by him gave an idea about what to expect out of it in the near future.

Matt Said:
  1. Google is on the verge of launching a new generation of Penguin updates i.e Penguin 2.0 which is more comprehensive than Penguin 1.0 which will go deeper to combat spam.
  2. If you pay for Ads. Then those ads. should not flow PageRank. There should be a clear and conspicuous disclosure if an Ad. is displayed on the site so people know that it is a paid display.
  3. Search queries that tend to be spammy in nature, such as [pay day loans] or some pornographic related queries, will somewhat be less likely to be a target for Google’s search spam team at the moment but will surely get Google's attention soon.
  4. Google has some nice ideas to deny value to link spam and Google is working on a more sophisticated system for link analysis.
  5. Google hopes to detect hacked sites better and communicate with webmasters better to help clean up the hacked sites via webmaster tools and many other resources.
  6. If you have been doing high quality SEO you should not worry about these changes.
  7. Google is doing a better job now to detect authority in a particular space and will make sure that they rank higher.
  8. Google is looking for ways to “soften” the impact of the Panda Update for sites which are found in the grey area and have some high degree of quality signals.
  9. Once you see a cluster of results of one domain then you will see less of that site in the results as you go deeper in the results so that they can keep the results as diverse as possible.
  10. People who are doing link spam and black hat are less likely to show up by the end of summer after this update and Matt Cutts thinks that this will give small businesses and webmaster following white hat rank better.
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Some Valuable Content Gems From The B2B Content Conversions Conference April 2013

The B2B Content Conversions Conference was held recently on 22nd and 23rd April 2013 - Times Center NYC. This conference presented key insights on how to manage the content lifecycle. The reputed speakers http://content2conversion.com/speakers/ shared their thoughts which were shared on Twitter -   #B2BContentEvent .

content2conversion.com
I hope the cut, clarity and the true color of these content gems have been preserved as we share the valuable content gems of the conference as follows:
@TripKucera Trip Kucera, Aberdeen Group
  • 32% of companies have a robust content marketing strategy, up from 16% in 2011
  • We're in the age of data driven marketing
  • Content marketing has got to be about value
  • Marketers need to understand when and where they see content.
  • Lead Management is like scotch: Distillation generates value!
  • Good leads are made through valuable interactions
  • Offers are becoming content-like
  • Marketing leaders save $10k cost per new customer compared to followers. Do it right.
  • leaders say it takes 10 marketing touches to fully engage a qualified buyer
  • top 3 challenges: need skills, content quantity and content relevancy for content marketing success Top challenge for content marketing: lack of talent and resources.
  • Leaders are more likely to have a robust strategy in place
  • Become subject matter experts to offer great content
  • Content marketing is everyone's responsibility
  • Content marketing is primarily managed internally because it is strategic
  • It's content marketing, not content sales
  • Leaders align content with buyer personas & the right stage of the sales funnel. Followers don't.
  • Measure content specifically in the context of the buyer's journey.
  • it is becoming more critical to bring Sales into the content conversation
  • Think about content as marketing offers. Get granular in the way you measure content
  • Content marketing is the alchemy of intent
  • 37% of firms are managing it all in-house
  • Think about the incremental value of content
@juntajoe Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
  • Content marketing is a business strategy
  • We're not renting the media with content marketing- we're owning it!
  • When you start a content marketing strategy , it can never stop. It goes on forever
  • Content Marketing is creating & curating valuable, compelling & consistent content to change or enhance behaviour
  • Content Marketing is a promise to our customers that we're going to give them something of value
  • Content marketing should change or influence behavior.
  • Content Marketing is a lot like sex. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you're good at it
  • If you do not have a documented Content Marketing strategy, you don't know where you REALLY stand
  • 85% of corporate blogs have 5 or fewer posts
  • Only 36% believe that content marketing is effective.
  • Have a content marketing mission- the ultimate litmus test!
  • 600% increase in leads for indium when Content Marketing  strategy became 'engineers talking to engineers
  • Content Marketing Mission: 1. Core target audience 2. What will be delivered? 3. Outcome for that audience?
  • Think like a Publisher or Journalist, not like a Marketer, when developing your Content Marketing strategy
  • Pull back - more content may not be the answer
  • Develop content marketing mission first
  • marketers are doing much and not seeing  ROI
  • If you're thinking about video, stop thinking of it as an advertising piece. Look at it as a value-add tool
  • The most important thing about video is audio, and keep it short.
  • Think about ROO: Return On Objective,
  • Have someone that owns the content feedback
  • Content marketing is a promise to our customers that we're going to provide true value.
  • Get Found, Get Shared, Get Leads
  • Content Marketing's home has always been in customer retention.
  • The biggest untapped opportunity for B2B content marketers? SlideShare,
@marketingprofs Ann Handley, Author
  • Features of the best content marketing: Utility, Inspiration, Empathy
  • Want to make your content share-worthy? Think about helping your customers. What would they thank you for
  • It's not about a task or channel, it's a mindset. Creating the kind of content that is sustainable
  • Don't think content tactics before you create a content strategy.
  • The best marketing feels like something you WANT to consume
  • My pet peeve: we make Content Marketing  WAY too complicated!
  • Content marketing can be boiled in the 5 Ws of who, what, when, where, why and then how.
  • The best content is packed w/utility, seeded w/inspiration & is honestly empathetic
  • The Content Team graphic  pic.twitter.com/EgBUYDpD4f
  • Newer content channels popping up: Instagram; Tumblr; Slideshare; Pinterest all poised for growth
  • Use social sites as storytelling platforms rather than just sharing platforms
  • A real test of meaningful content marketing: would your network thank you for it
  • If your customer signed your paycheck, what would your marketing look like?
  • The biggest piece of being a publisher is to think of your content in the eyes of your customer.
  • If you're thinking about video, stop thinking of it as an advertising piece. Look at it as a value-add tool
  • If your customers love what you do, they will follow you.
  • 2 things that go into the success of content: the science and the art of it.
@BrennerMichael Michael Brenner, SAP
  • It's not about what we sell- it's about what we do for our customers.
  • Our buyers are bored
  • Our buyers are looking for marketers to feel interested in their needs
  • In Content Marketing, act like a publisher—and publishers need to make money
  • We're bombarding our prospects with too many messages.
  • Our buyers are looking for marketers to feel interested in their needs
  • Deliver what your customers are looking for
  •  Stroytelling should be at the center of your Content Marketing .
  • If buyers ask a question, you must answer - Deliver the answers they are asking for
  • Create an editorial board @ your company if there are multiple people creating content.
  • 50% of SAP's content is coming from external sources, including 100's of authors - Author Curation
  • Author curation: Find authors on selected topics.
  • Content mktg metrics: reach, engagement, conversion.
  • Influencer Marketing is key to amplifying your content (stories)
  • SAP is starting to include calls to action within their Content Marketing articles
  • We exist within a content ecosystem
  • The biggest challenge in marketing is to get people to stop selling.
  • Content Marketing should not focus on talking about what you sell, it should focus on what you do for customers
  • The blog post @BrennerMichael mentioned during his presentation http://bit.ly/15DVgVv 8 Steps To Build A Content Hub That Converts [Slides]
  • Focus on subscribers as your conversion objective.
  • digital attribution is still a huge challenge, with last click metrics still ruling the day
@Tweetsfrompawan Pawan Deshpande, Curata
  • Curation is everywhere, reddit, digg,etc.
  • 32% of marketers share content from blogs, industry pubs or online outlets w/ custrs
  • curation is relevant now b/c consumers have too much content
  • Why is curation relevant? Consumers have too much content. Marketers have too little
  • The content beast has a very high metabolism:
  • think beyond your brand… include your competition
  • 95% of marketers are using OPC( Other people's content) today
  • CMOs care about both creative and metrics

@jasonthibeault Jason Thibeault, Limelight Networks

  • Stories are a container of ideas
  • By 2017 video will take up much of internet traffic
  • You message needs to be connected regardless of device.
  • Narrative arc is what connects us to our audience, gives them a reason to connect with our stories.
  • The digital relationship pyramid  pic.twitter.com/nnBiTQgXzU
  • If it is not connected the audience gets disengaged
@MargaretMolloy Margaret Molloy, Velocidi
  • Content means Brand, trust and relationship builder
  • There is no single attribution. It's a math problem
@lbfeldman Lori Feldman, Cigna International
  • Don't underestimate the importance of listening. Listen before you speak and develop content.
  • Stopping and listening, and seeing what's resonating in a given market is key
  • Listen to your audience and create content accordingly
  • The days of the one-size fits all website text are over
  • Don't forget pictures and graphics in your content. Images can resonate globally
  • Common mistake in Content Marketing : publishing without engaging, not initiating two-way conversation with customers
  • Revenue is important. but don't forget relevance & shareability of content to get audience to come back.
  • If we're not all sharing in this digital world, we're doing ourselves a disservice says
  • To get to the point of revenue, marketers must not forget the point of sharing (targeted/compelling) content
  • Think like a publisher; be an educator. Your audience is looking for insights. -- Tell, don't sell
Mark Wilson, @Avaya
  • Be provocative in content marketing,
  • Content Marketing must be... simple, unexpected, offer credibility, have a motive and told as a story
  • Instead of asking people what keeps them up at night, tell them what should keep them up at night.
  • Marketers are probably the worst people to write content
  • to make your content compelling, be provocative and snarky when writing
  • Marketing needs to look like a Newsroom, not a cubicle farm
  • Come up with a non-standard point of view and defend that view.
  • Content Marketing must be... simple, unexpected, offer credibility, have a motive and told as a story.
  • Serving a niche market is how you get BFFs - become the definitive source for that community
  • great content doesn't distribute itself - split out publishing from editorial. In Content Marketing  separate editorial (is it interesting?) from publishing (medium, frequency)
  • For a quick Content Marketing win, segment, then address audience needs
  • I don't care how many people are tweeting, not tweeting, etc. At the end of the day, we're here to drive revenue
  • Mobile content is a lot more popular
@LeeOdden Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing
  • 81% of b2b buyers start with search engines
  • Optimized marketing means your brand is the best answer when and where buyers need it
  • Must integrate SEO and content, but optimize for customer experience
  • Anticipate demand with search and create [I would say satisfy] demand with content
  • Search often validates what users find on social
  • The definition of optimized marketing pic.twitter.com/lJHCYiNtc1
  • Great content isn't great until it gets found, consumed and shared.
  • Not everyone in your audience will be motivated by an infographic
  • Be the best answer for customer needs and that matches your brand value
  • Optimize for engagement AND conversion, then through to purchase and advocacy
  • Optimizing is about making it easy to attract, engage, retain
  • Facts tell, stories sell. Stories are essential for your brand. It's key to amplify
  • Optimization is an ongoing process! If people have a great experience they're more likely to DO something
  • every author at your company should have Google+ account
  • 4 types of content: Evergreen, repurposed, curated, and co-created
  • 16% of daily Google search queries have never been seen before. Keyword research is a goldmine for content ideas
  • There are many content marketing tactics, but are they integrated? Alignment is powerful in the customer journey.
  • Investing in high quality content doesn't mean anything if people cannot consume it, says
  • You want to create anticipation
  • Real influence isn't huge fan & follower counts, it's niche communities that take action.
  • The quality of your content will contribute to shorter sales cycles
@CroweHorwath_US Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing
  • You have to be able to understand who you're targeting.
  • Target market segmentation is key in lead nurturing.
  • Talk about the buyer's journey, the buying cycle.
  • In lead scoring, pay attention to digital body language
  • An innovator isn't about new products. It's about someone who wants best practices.
  • 28% of invited executives engage in program after 7 months.
  • Don't underestimate the power of e-Comms and landing pages.
@madisonlogic Thomas Koletas, Madison Logic
  • The average buyer is in the research mode for 4 to 6 days.
  • Leads from content mktg are often not followed up for 2 weeks
  • Wanna be salesy in your copy? You've got to segment your audience
  • Video is most compelling content right now. Segmentation is pretty key too
  • Key question: How do you get intent data
@Robyoegel  Rob Yoegel, Monetate
  • You have to remember that everything you do goes back to the customer
  • The key is getting the right content in front of the right person at the right time
  • start Content Marketing by creating content that the sales team needs
  • Social drives 25% of inbound traffic!!
  • Search isn't dead - it isn't going away.
  • Content development should be someone's job
  • Only those who TALK to their customers know what their customers want
  • Sales people should be educators
  • If you don't have the answer, your competitors will.
  • You can't really have a content calendar without knowing what to write about,
  • Ask your audience what they want to read -- critical tactic.
  • marketers should have content addressing the first questions your buyers ask when researching
  • Only those who TALK to their customers know what their customers want
  • 4 ebooks a year can fill up your content calendar,
  • Nothing gets our hearts pounding more than video
  • More effective lead gen with video by thinking outside the frame
  • Traditional video is based on an old television model
  • Content Telemetry = measuring content use, engagement & impact
  • Engagement: moving visitors from passive to active consumption,
  • If marketing automation is the rocket, then content is the fuel
  • People have more tolerance for longer content with knowledge of where it's going and for how long
  • When content is wired for interactivity, clickstream can be captured
  • Adobe should allow measurement of engagement in PDFs.
  • One can't make Spielberg production with every video. Need a strategy using multiple types of video
  • The key to using video is figuring out how to survive the rest of that video strategy
@JeffFuhriman  Jeff Fuhriman, Adobe
  • Use everything you've got to keep it personal
  • lets its customer tell the story - the Adobe experience.
  • Personalization drives easily 40% more conversion on our website
  • Find your most valued area -- You'll fall fast, learn fast and reiterate fast.
  • Adobe Target + Demandbase IP can ID who you are BEFORE cookies. Skeaky, but nice given how flawed cookies are
  • The odds of winning today: 4 every 650 leads,1 deal closes in 19 months.
@fdonny  Frank Donny, Marseli
  • Sales leadership will not respect you unless you have skin in the game
  • A sales person is concerned about 2 things: time and money
  • On average, 60% of all qualified sales opportunities end up in no decision
  • Clever analogy of sales and marketing as relay race supporting the revenue supply chain: inquiry > nurture > qualification > selling
@jill_rowley Jill Rowley, Eloqua
  • Definition of sales enablement: content, tools & training.
  • Its not quantity of leads, but quality and conversion rates that matter
  • Contacts from a conference are not leads, scoring means getting sales-ready leads
  • People don't buy from those they cannot trust.
  • Sales is only managing 43%
  • Use social to find, engage and amplify them
  • Read the content your buyers read and share it across your own social platforms
  • Enable your salespeople to tell customer stories
  • Some see prospects, I see future advocates
  • Social selling is different from social stupid
@TRiesterer Tim Riesterer, Corporate Visions, Inc.
  • You have to think of it through the entire spectrum.
  • Sales enablement answers: what are you going to say when you get the meeting
  • Give sales lead with a cheat sheet on what the lead is interested in to facilitate the first conversation
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