Optimize E-Book

Lee Odden

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Attract, engage, and inspire your customers with an "Optimize and Socialize" content marketing strategy

Optimize is designed to give readers a practical approach to integrating search and social media optimization with content marketing to boost relevance, visibility, and customer engagement. Companies, large and small, will benefit from the practical planning and creative content marketing tactics in this book that have been proven to increase online performance across marketing, public relations, and customer service. Learn to incorporate essential content optimization and social media engagement principles thereby increasing their ability to acquire and engage relevant customers online.

Optimize provides insights from Lee Odden, one of the leading authorities on Content and Online Marketing. This book explains how to:

• Create a blueprint for integrated search, social media and content marketing strategy
• Determine which creative tactics will provide the best results for your company
• Implement search and social optimization holistically in the organization
• Measure the business value of optimized and socialized content marketing
• Develop guidelines, processes and training to scale online marketing success

Optimize offers a tested approach for a customer-centric and adaptive online marketing strategy that incorporates the best of content, social media marketing, and search engine optimization tactics.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Phase 1: Planning

Chapter 1: Setting the Stage for an Optimized State of Mind

Content Marketing Trilogy: Discovery, Consumption, and Engagement

The Intersection of Search Optimization and Social Media

Whatever Can be Searched Can be Optimized

Optimize for Customers

Optimize for Experiences

Are you Ready to be Optimized?

Action Items

Chapter 2: Journey: Where does Optimize and Socialize Fit in Your Company?

Optimized B2C Search Marketing

B2B Content Marketing Optimization

Optimization and the Enterprise

Public Relations

Customer Service

Recruiting and HR

Action Items

Chapter 3: Smart Marketing Requires Intelligence: Research, Audit, and Listen

Business and Content Competitors in Search Results

Research the Social Landscape

Technical SEO Audit of Your Website

Action Items

Chapter 4: In it to Win It: Setting Objectives

The Role of Search and Social Media with Content Marketing

Identifying Online Marketing Objectives

Online Public Relations Objectives

HR and Recruiting Content Optimization Objectives

Customer Service Objectives

Action Items

Chapter 5: Roadmap to Success: Content Marketing Strategy

Inheriting an Online Marketing Mess

Why Your Business Needs a Content Marketing Strategy

A Holistic Approach to Content Marketing

Search Engine Optimization Strategy

How SEO Can Work with Content Strategy

Five Essential SEO Audits

Social Media Marketing Strategy

Tying it All Together: An Optimized and Socialized Content Marketing Strategy

Action Items

Phase 2: Implementation

Chapter 6: Know thy Customer: Personas

The What and Why of Customer Personas

Why Customer Segments and Personas are Important

A Process for Developing Buyer Personas

Collecting Data for Personas

How Personas Guide Content Creation and Optimization

Action Items

Chapter 7: Words are Key to Customers: Keyword Research

A Perfect Keyword Brainstorm

Document Keyword Metrics

Keyword Brainstorm, Evaluation, and Filtering

Listen to the Voice of the Customer

Filter Keywords with a Research Tool

Building Your Keyword Glossary

Research Social Topics

Action Items

Chapter 8: Attract, Engage, and Inspire: Building Your Content Plan

What is Content Marketing?

Knowing Your Customer is Essential for Effective Content Marketing

Is Your Marketing Mechanical or Meaningful?

Create A Content Plan

Inventory Existing Content and Map the GAPS

Basic Process for Creating an Editorial Calendar

Social Content Promotion

20 Different Content Types

Hub and Spoke Publishing

Social Media SEO

Cycle of Social Media and SEO

Action Items

Chapter 9: Content Isn’t King, It’s the Kingdom: Creation and Curation

Creation Versus Curation

Content Sourcing

Content Curation Best Practices

Action Items

Chapter 10: If It Can Be Searched, It Can Be Optimized: Content Optimization

Seo Past and Present

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Content and Links

For the SEO Win, Go Holistic

Let’s Get Optimized: Content, Digital Assets, and Social Media Optimization

Action Items

Chapter 11: Community Rules: Social Network Development

A Practical Approach to Social Network Development

Where to Start with Social?

Customers are Not Your Only Social Audience

The Role of “Brandividuals” and Brands

The Big Five Social Networks

Facebook

Youtube

Twitter

Linkedin

Google+

The Social Networking Party is Just Getting Started

Action Items

Chapter 12: Electrify Your Content: Promotion and Link Building

Power up with Links

Use Case Scenarios for Link-Building Strategy

Link-Building Tactics

Social Links

Keyword to Link Mapping for Success

Action Items

Chapter 13: Progress, Refinement, and Success: Measurement

Approach to Integrated Content Marketing Measurement

The Role of Search Engine Optimization Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The Value of SEO for Content Marketing

Social Media Key Performance Indicators (KPIS)

Key Social Media Metrics

Business Outcomes

Analytics Tools

Action Items

Phase 3: Scale

Chapter 14: Optimize and Socialize: Processes and Training

Small Business: No Time for Content

Midsized Business: Social Commitment Issues

Enterprise: Too Big Not to Be Social

Assessing Search and Social Media Readiness and Training Opportunities

Conclusion

Action Items

Chapter 15: Are you Optimized?

A Different Way of Thinking about Optimization

An “Optimize and Socialize” State of Mind

Adapt or Die: Collective Social Wisdom for the Win

So, Are you Optimized?

About the Author

Index

Praise for Optimize

“Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, and Content are the three kings of modern digital marketing. In Optimize, Lee Odden tells the reader how to combine these three elements to attract new customers and turn existing ones into evangelists. Optimize is that rare book that combines strategic principles with practical recommendations while offering real life examples as proof points. It is mandatory reading for any marketing team.”

—William R. Wagner, EVP & Chief Operating Officer, Vocus

“Lee Odden is one of the true thought leaders in an industry where you are not always sure who to trust. Well, you can trust this book to help take your online and content marketing to the next level. Lee details both the strategy and the tactics to position your company as the true industry expert online. Everyone has content, but not everyone knows how to optimize that content for success. Lee shows you how in a way that makes sense for large or small brands alike.”

—Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute @juntajoe

“Optimize highlights a test, learn, and scale philosophy—vital to winning customer’s attention given the ever changing landscape of the web. Odden provides rich insight towards digital continual improvement; integrating SEO, social media and content strategy.”

—Amy Lamparske, Senior Digital Advisor, Walmart

“Lee’s no fly-by-night SEO and social media ‘guru’—he’s the real deal. He’s always sought effective results and ROI for his clients, and always communicated his advice excellently through his blog and at conferences around the world. Now you hold that wisdom in your hands. Cherish it, adhere to it, and have fun implementing it!”

—Mel Carson, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Microsoft Advertising

“I’ve always been impressed by how Lee has walked the talk on this subject—personally demonstrating, repeatedly, how SEO, social media, and content marketing weave together. Any marketer would be wise to take advantage of his wisdom now shared in this well-structured book.”

—David Alston, CMO, Radian6, a Salesforce.com company

“There’s a lot of ready, fire, aim happening in content marketing today. In Optimize, Lee Odden gives us important blueprints for sound, smart, strategic, and measured content programs. Required reading for any online marketer or communicator, Optimize includes tens of thousands of dollars worth of spot-on advice.”

—Jay Baer, co-author of The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social

“If you want to be easily discovered by your ideal customers and prospects, then you need to study the principles clearly outlined in Lee Odden’s book Optimize. You’ll discover why social and search must coexist and precisely what your business needs to do about it.”

—Michael Stelzner, founder, Social Media Examiner and author of Launch

“Optimize offers business owners a cutting edge methodology to more effectively create and optimize content by using high value signals such as buy cycle, persona, interest, and intent, thereby increasing engagement and retention that is guaranteed to improve digital marketing performance and increase revenue.”

—Bill Hunt, CEO, Back Azimuth Consulting & co-author of Search Engine Marketing Inc.

Copyright © 2012 by Lee Odden. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 978-1-118-16777-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-22638-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-23957-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-26427-0 (ebk)

Foreword

It’s time to leave some of the old wisdom behind and develop some new wisdom.

—Mike Grehan being interviewed by Lee Odden in 2007

I keep bumping into Lee Odden. All over the world, in fact. For the past four or five years, at conferences from New York to San Francisco, London to Barcelona, and Hong Kong to Singapore, we’ve discussed the subject of Internet marketing. These are deeply engaging conversations for one very important reason. When it comes to marketing, Lee Odden gets it.

As a classically trained marketer, Lee cuts through the clutter of the pipes-and-tubes element of Internet marketing to focus on content and customers. Already, he has a huge following on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. This is largely due to his steady transition from popular blogger and industry commentator to recognized thought leader.

Inspired by a “lightbulb moment” in conversation with a Google engineer, he was prompted into thinking about Internet marketing and business in new and different ways. It’s a new kind of wisdom, partly based on practical experience and partly based on training his mind to see around corners.

We’ve had an era of search marketing being front and center. But as we move into a new era of the constantly connected consumer with the prediction that, in a few years there’ll be 50 billion connected devices on the planet, it really is time to change the way we think about marketing. And this is not being driven purely by technology, it’s more about the change in the consumer—the new, transient media consumer.

Much of what we’ve learned in marketing is undergoing reconsideration. Major changes are taking place in consumer and business markets. Consumers no longer act independently of each other but are more connected to other consumers, to other channel members, and often to brands. Consequently, brands and companies are now vying for central positions inside consumer networks.

Consumers have become attracted to third-party information providers, through collaborative product reviews, ranking, rating, and price-comparison services. There are new and more complex concepts being applied to modern marketing. Lee Odden will help you craft new strategies and tactics in line with this new marketing environment.

In my capacity as chair of the SES Global Advisory Board, I’m honored to have Lee as a valuable member and supporter. I’ve watched him many times, either as a solo speaker or as a panelist at conferences. And without fail, when he begins to speak, keyboards begin to click as the audience takes note after note.

It’s funny, but a classic movie scene popped into my mind after reading something Lee says in this book. It’s from the movie City Slickers. Tough cowboy Curly (Jack Palance) holds up one finger, looks at Mitch (Billy Crystal), and says: “Do you know what the secret to life is?” Mitch replies, “Your finger?” “Just one thing,” says Curly. “What’s the one thing?” asks Mitch. To which Curly replies, “That’s what you have to find out,” and then gallops off into the distance.

I don’t know about life, but when it comes to marketing and business, this book is about just one thing you can do to improve it: Optimize!

Preface

At a large search marketing conference several years ago, I had a conversation with Maile Ohye from Google about public speaking, noting how impressive she was. As an active public speaker myself, I shared with her how I was able to get by with good information and enthusiasm, but without much polish. What she said next hit me like a ton of bricks: “You’re an SEO and you optimize websites for better performance in search engines, right?” To which I replied yes. Her follow-up was, “Then why don’t you optimize your speaking skills?”

Have you ever watched a movie where the camera is tight on a scene and, for dramatic effect, it pulls back in a blur? That’s what I was feeling when Maile made her simple, yet powerful recommendation. What hit me wasn’t just that I should work on my speaking skills, but the broader notion of optimization and how it applies to a persistent effort at improving just about anything for better performance.

ADAPT OR DIE

Reading this book is a great first step toward a new way of thinking about how you can apply optimization principles to your business. The sheer volume of content created each day, coupled with the explosive growth of social media accessed on the Internet and on mobile and tablet devices, can be overwhelming. I’ve spent an incredible amount of time testing and making sense of the search and social web. My hope is that you’ll find this book a quick study on the big-picture topics and deep on the practical resources for planning, implementing, and scaling a socialized and optimized content marketing strategy.

Millions of websites, with billions of pages and media, are indexed by search engines. Google alone handles more than 1 billion searches each day. A large number of the companies publishing information online that expect traffic from search engines have difficulty creating great content, let alone producing compelling content on a regular basis. Even companies that do create high-quality content often neglect how search engine optimization and social media marketing can expedite engagement between buyers and what the brand has to offer.

There’s nothing static about Internet marketing, but the one constant we can all count on is the persistent effort by search engines to improve search quality and user experience. Such continuous improvements can affect how content is discovered, indexed, and sorted in search results as well as what external signals are considered to determine authority. Companies that ignore the current state of affairs with search technology and quality guidelines may feel the sting, as many website owners did with Google’s Panda updates in 2011.

In addition to monitoring search engines, it’s essential for results oriented Internet marketing and communications professionals to understand the online information discovery, consumption, and engagement preferences of the people they’re trying to reach. A better grasp of how customers find and seek out resources, the content topics and formats that motivate them, and the social media platforms and tools they use to engage and recommend things can be incredibly powerful for successful Internet marketing programs. Putting those insights into action means developing a proactive, adaptive, and integrated approach to content, search engine optimization, and social media marketing. Those companies that have adapted, such as Dell, Intel, and Zappos, have thrived. Businesses that have ignored the transformation of consumer trends and web technology have not fared so well.

OPTIMIZED STATE OF MIND

Many companies treat their Internet marketing the same way I was treating my presentation skills. They get by with checklist SEO tactics, disconnected and difficult-to-measure social media marketing. On top of that, there’s the challenge of creating high-quality content on a regular basis over a long period of time. If a company doesn’t see the bigger-picture synergy of how to break social media, content, and SEO efforts out of departmental silos and approach Internet marketing and public relations holistically, how can they grow and remain competitive? To me, the notion of optimization is more about brands and customers than it is about keywords and rankings on search engines. Being “optimized” is a state of mind, and with this book, I hope to convert you into becoming more optimized in your marketing and communications.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 14-plus years of working in the Internet marketing industry is the uncanny ability that high-performing SEO professionals have to use out-of-the-box creative, analytical, and lateral thinking to proactively solve marketing problems and find competitive advantages. At the same time, my work in the public relations field has shown me how messaging, influence, and engagement sync perfectly to help brands become the most relevant solution for their category, whether it’s through search, social media, or other forms of online communications. The notion of search optimization might have a strong history with keywords, links, and pages in search engines, but an “optimize” mentality is a way of thinking that can give organizations like yours a competitive advantage in any area of a business that creates content online, from marketing and PR to customer service and human resources.

In that context, I encourage you to ask the same kinds of questions I pondered in my discussion with Maile, “Are your SEO, social media, and content marketing efforts optimized to work together? Are your marketing and communications optimized for specific audiences and outcomes?”

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU

This book is for the marketers, public relations professionals, small- to medium-sized business owners, and large company marketing executives who want to understand and implement a road map that incorporates the synergies of content, social media, and search engine optimization. In the three phases of this book, we build a crystal clear picture of how to plan, execute, and scale an integrated approach to social media optimization and content marketing.

What This Book Will Teach You

Phase 1 guides you in understanding the changing nature of consumer preferences and behaviors with search, social media, and content, as well as what that means for your online marketing strategy.Phase 2 explores optimized content marketing tactics from developing personas to social networking to content planning and measurement. We dig into key insights and examples of holistic search engine optimization for more effective search and social media marketing.Phase 3 is about scale and discusses processes and training you’ll need to grow and maintain an integrated social media, SEO, and content marketing program in your organization.

Are you ready to get optimized? Let’s get started.

Acknowledgments

So much more goes into creating a book than anyone realizes, especially for a first-time author. Even though I’ve been blogging for over eight years and have written over 2,000 articles and blog posts on my own, writing a book is by no means a solitary activity. Numerous people contribute to the ideas, perspectives, and knowledge that come together in a book’s creation. I’ve made many connections with amazingly smart, curious, and interesting people over many years of blogging, speaking at conferences, client consulting, and from being a participant on the social web at large. All the good people I’ve connected with have played a part in developing the point of view, insights, and perspectives shared in this book. For that I thank you all.

To our blog and newsletter subscribers, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Google + friends, and the TopRank Online Marking community on the web—I get to learn something new from our interactions every single day. Thank you for the opportunity to engage and learn together.

A very special thank you goes to Ashley Zeckman, who hit the ground running at TopRank Online Marketing and has been a true “right hand” during the most important phases of this book. Her tireless dedication helped make it possible. Thank you to all the members of the TopRank Online Marketing team, including Jolina Pettice and Mike Yanke who pitched in to help with Optimize and to my partner Susan Misukanis who provided support and took on additional responsibilities in order for me to write.

Numerous industry friends and peers were helpful during this process, some unknowingly. Thanks to authors Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Bryan Eisenberg, Mike Stelzner, Ron Jones, Greg Jarboe, Mike Moran, and Mike Grehan, who answered my questions, and offered encouragement and even fair warning about the before, during, and after of writing a book.

A tip of the hat goes to search, social media, and content marketing thought leaders who have been an inspiration to me for writing and the endless pursuit of knowledge in the online marketing and PR industries: Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Charlene Li, Michael Brito, David Meerman Scott, David Alston, Rebecca Lieb, John Jantsch, Danny Sullivan, Andy Beal, William Murray, Aaron Strout, Chuck Hemann, Katie Payne, Shonali Burke, Arik Hanson, Tac Anderson, Jason Falls, Brett Tabke, Rick Calvert, Heidi Cohen, Eric Schwartzman, Mel Carson, Vanessa Fox, Aaron Goldman, Avinash Kaushik, and Bill Hunt. Thanks to Chris Heuer for the spark many years ago that opened my mind to the world of social media. Thanks to Joe Pulizzi for bringing the rain of attention on content marketing—a rising tide lifts all ships, my friend.

Thank you to the editorial staff at Wiley and, in particular, the persistence and patience of Shannon Vargo, who saw potential where I didn’t and proved to be a great compass in my book writing journey.

Books are written nights and weekends and that means sacrifices in time from my wife, Susan, and especially “the munchkins” Dominic, Cameron, and Violet. They are the inspiration for anything and everything good that I do.

Without family there is nothing, and so I must thank my parents, Michael and Ruthe, for their unconditional support, love, and enthusiasm.

PHASE 1

PLANNING

CHAPTER 1

Setting the Stage for an Optimized State of Mind

Several years ago my family established a tradition of celebrating the tenth birthday of each of our children by taking them on a trip to a city of their choosing somewhere in North America. My son Dominic picked New York City. While I travel to New York several times a year for business, I really had no idea what kid-friendly activities we could find for a five-day vacation in one of the world’s greatest cities. Where did I go for advice and information? Some people reading this book will think of a search engine like Google or Bing. For others, Facebook or Twitter will come to mind. Some might even know specific people they could e-mail for travel tips or specialty travel websites that focus on New York. What did I do? I used all of these ideas.