3 Steps to Attracting & Engagingwith your Audience

www.RebeccaWardlow.com

Today’s Agenda

Step 1: Be intelligent: research, listen, create customer persona & keyword research

Step 2: Setting your objectives

Step 3: Build your content plan & Optimize your content

Be intelligent: research & listenWhat will research give you?

Business ideas & focusProduct & Service ideas & focusArticle & blog post topicsPossible partnerships

Four Things To Look for in ALL your researchLook for the bottom line end RESULT your market wantsLook for your market’s FRUSTRATIONLook for your market’s DESIRESLook for WHOM ELSE is doing what your are doing

How to do keyword research

How to do keyword researchOnline Research Tools

Keyword Spy: www.keywordspy.com Google Keyword Tool: http://bit.ly/ZtK0qF Google: www.google.com Amazon: www.amazon.com Magazines: www.magazines.com Blogs and Forums

Offline Research

Who To Talk to …

Past clientsCurrent clientsCenters of InfluenceBusiness colleagues who know your target market.

Offline Research

How to Approach ThemContact at least 6 people via email or phone call to interview and set-up time to “chat”Tell them you are doing research to better serve people like them and you would love their advice.Schedule a 10-15 minute conversation.

Offline Research

How to Interview themFace-to-face or over the phoneRecord the conversation (freeconferencecallhd.com)

Take notes. Write their exact language. Don’t edit what they say.Ask lots of questions that get to the heart of the issue.Stay on ScheduleThank them

Do Your Own SEO Audit

Reviewing current website search traffic (Google Analytics) Tracking inbound links (Magestic SEO) Check the speed of pages (Google Page Speed Online) Review the content management system, templates and source code.Check for duplicate, thin, or poor-quality contentOverview site SEO readiness (Alexa Site Audit)Document site URL structure and map (Xenu Link Sleuth)

Access basic crawl issues (Google Webmaster Tool) Document keyword ranking

“Content Marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer actions”

- Joe PulizziContent Marketing Institute

Setting your objectives

Setting your objectives

Set Goals specific to SEO and Social Media focused-content marketing

Increase trafficIncrease leadsIncrease salesImprove media coverageAttracted talented employeesServe online customers

Setting your objectivesKey Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

Search VisibilitySocial MentionsWeb page linksSocial SharesSocial LinksVisitors to your websiteVisitors to your social destinationsNewsletter subscribersBlog and social content subscribers, fans, friends and followersComments

Measurable marketing outcomes

DownloadsWebinar or other online eventLeadsSalesReferralsBrand advocacy

Creating your customer persona

Understand customer needs, behaviors and preferencesIdentify common characteristics and patterns “ideal customer” & “worst customer”Understand their pain pointsCreate content based upon their need

How to build your content plan

“Content marketing is an approach to attract, engage, and inspire customers to a logical conclusion to buy and share through content that empathizes with the varied interests and behaviors during the buying cycle” – Lee Odden

You must know the answers to these questions:

What are your target customers’ needs and goals?What do they search for, and what do they talk about on the social web relevant to your solution?

How to build your content plan

Creating an Editorial Calendar

Content Types

ArticlesBlogsCase StudiesDigital NewsletterE-BookE-mailImagesInfographicsMobile contentNews releases

PDFsPodcastsResearchSlide showsSocialTraditional MediaVideosWebinarsWhite Papers

How to optimize your content

Keyword Placement on WebsiteTitle tagOn-page title (H1)Body CopyImage alt textAnchor text linksFile nameSocial ShareSEO copywritingMeta description

Press Releases

Best way to distribute content outside of email, blogs and social networks.

Well-written press release can attract anywhere from 50 to 500 inbound links

Optimize for people first, then keywords

Images

Find the right images. Take your ownRoyalty-free stock photosCreative Commons

Use keywords in file namesUse focused keyword phrase in the image alt textInclude a description or caption

Video“YouTube SEO involves including keywords in the title, description and tags. Attracting views and ratings is also helping for better rankings on YouTube. Web Video SEO involves using keywords on the page the video is embedded in as well as in the anchor text links to the page. Filenames and metadata are also opportunities for keyword inclusion” - Greg Jarboe

Inbound MarketingRiver Pools & Spas 2001Market crashes 2008 Within 48 hrs, lost 5 deposits for in-ground poolsJan 2009 bank account overdrawn (16 employees)No money to spend on advertisingMarch 2009 - Started blogging by answering ?’s

http://youtu.be/9bXer2u9F2w

Marcus Sheridan“They ask, you answer, great formula for blogging”First post - How much does a fiberglass pools cost1.2 million in sales from that one post!!!

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