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Dare to Be Different: 5 Fresh Examples of Innovative B2B Content Marketing

The post Dare to Be Different: 5 Fresh Examples of Innovative B2B Content Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Dare to Be Different: 5 Fresh Examples of Innovative B2B Content Marketing posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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The ultimate guide to robots.txt

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WooCommerce 3.6, AMP plugin update, WPGraphQL and WordPress news

It’s time for another roundup, packed with updates. Today’s headlines: WooCommerce finally embracing the Gutenberg editor fully, AMP for WordPress delivering great improvements with their new update and an introduction to WPGraphQL. So much WordPress news to cover!

WooCommerce 3.6 Loves Gutenberg

WooCommerce saw an update that delivers much better integration with the new Block Editor. This update introduces blocks for Products by Category, Best Selling Products, Hand-picked Products, Newest Products, On Sale Products, Top-Rated Products, Products by Attribute and Featured Product. And I’ve got to say, having these blocks available is a huge improvement in this Gutenberg-powered era.

It’s also really good to see WooCommerce working hard on improving performance. That’s something we at Yoast are big fans of, and highly recommend all developers to have a strong focus on. You can learn more about WooCommerce 3.6 in their introductory post.

Big update for the AMP plugin

The AMP project aims to make the web faster. And that’s exactly what the new 1.1 release does. The WordPress AMP plugin saw some nice new features and bug fixes. I’m especially happy that the image rendering bug has been fixed.

WPGraphQL making strides!

If you haven’t yet heard of GraphQL, or its WordPress equivalent, WPGraphQL, I encourage you to check out this data query solution. It’s a very performant way to work with WordPress data.

With GraphQL, the client makes declarative queries, asking for the exact data needed, and in exactly what was asked for is given in response, nothing more. This allows the client to have control over their application and allows the GraphQL server to perform more efficiently by only fetching the resources requested.

WPGraphQL

They released a WPGraphQL integration plugin with ACF last week. This plugin makes working with custom data provided by ACF a very smooth experience, with a lot of potential.

WordPress and mental health

There’s a project growing inside the WordPress Community that deserves a bit more exposure: WP&UP. It aims to support and promote positive mental health within the WordPress community. From their website:

WP&UP recognizes that members of the WordPress community can potentially manifest mental health issues from a variety of pressures. The WP&UP Health Hubs are designed to provide holistic support for the individual.

WP&UP website

During WordCamp London, I met the team recently and learned more about their mission and goal. If mental health is (or should be) a focus of yours, do check out their website and see how they can help you.

WordPress 5.2 postponed for one week

Looks like the Release Candidate for WordPress 5.2 is going to be delayed for a week. And this invariably means the release itself is going to be postponed as well. So, what to do with all this extra time?! Well, you can start reading up on the Block Editor changes in WordPress 5.2 or a good summary of the new Fatal Error Recovery Mode in 5.2.

The post WooCommerce 3.6, AMP plugin update, WPGraphQL and WordPress news appeared first on Yoast.

WooCommerce 3.6, AMP plugin update, WPGraphQL and WordPress news posted first on https://yoast.com/seo-blog/

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Top Takeaways from LinkedIn’s New ‘Enlightened Tech Buyer’ Report

Technology is one of the fastest-growing B2B sectors, for reasons that are self-evident. As new solutions and innovations continue to enhance the way businesses operate across every industry, every key department has increasing tech needs and buying power these days. The folks at LinkedIn* recently released a 2019 global report, The Enlightened Tech Buyer: Powering Customer Decisions from Acquisition to Renewal, and it merits attention from marketers of all stripes. As the “enlightened” descriptor implies, tech buyers (for reasons that are also self-evident) tend to be ahead of the curve when it comes to research, consumption, and purchase behaviors. Today we’ll take a deeper look at LinkedIn’s new data around this trendsetting cohort, breaking down five key revelations within.

5 Telling Trends Revealed in LinkedIn’s Tech Buyer Report

Here are some of the most eye-opening tidbits we saw based on LinkedIn’s survey of “5,241 global professionals who participated in or influenced the purchase of various hardware or software solutions at their organization within the last three months.”

#1 - Tech Buying Committees are Expansive and Diverse

We all know that, in general, B2B buying committees are expanding faster than the Night King’s army of wights. This dynamic is especially pronounced in the tech space. “Where previously 3/4 of enterprise employees were part of technology decision-making,” LinkedIn reports, “today the total universe of end-users and decision-makers who impact business technology investments encompasses 4/5 of employees (roughly 86%).” As tech products and services become increasingly integrated with every aspect of an organization, more voices are coming into play. End users, external influencers, and cross-functional stakeholders all tend to have a role. This reinforces the imperative of establishing strong brand awareness throughout a business, which is a central focus of account-based marketing.  

#2 - The Purchase Cycle is Shortening

The report notes that the process of reviewing, selecting, and implementing new tech solutions has accelerated over the past few years, with the average purchase cycle now checking in at about 25 months. This could be viewed as good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, that’s still a fairly long timespan, providing plenty of opportunity for marketing content to make an impact. Meanwhile, the increase in velocity could suggest buyers are becoming more deliberate and urgent in identifying solutions. But on the other hand, this also means that we as marketers have a smaller window than before to engage and persuade. We now need to make each interaction count more than ever — especially if we’re pursuing a new account. LinkedIn’s study shows that shortlists are becoming more competitive than ever for vendors.

#3 - Vendor Websites Are a Prime Resource

Across every B2B tech category, vendor website/mobile app is the top research destination for buyers. In aggregate, this source is followed by blogs/forums/discussion boards, product review websites, and technology media/trade journals: In short, buyers are seeking out trustworthy information — be it from a company’s own website or from unbiased third party resources. This accentuates the importance of building credibility with best-answer content, which can satisfy a decision maker’s questions during research while also positioning your brand as helpful and knowledgeable.

#4 - Buyers Want Partners, Not Sellers

Above all, tech buyers value the overall quality of a product or service above all when choosing a vendor. (Duh.) But the next two factors are interesting: both the ability to consistently meet a buyer’s needs, and the ability to answer questions to a buyer’s satisfaction, rank above affordability/pricing in importance: This is why the customer experience is becoming such an overarching imperative. Effective marketing now goes beyond the scope of traditional functions. Brands need to be readily available, with the right content at the right time. Strategies must account for every touch point. Always-on approaches are becoming the norm. And this level of attentiveness should go beyond the actual purchase itself...  

#5 - Smooth Implementation is Essential

Per LinkedIn, “The #1 indicator of customer renewal success is successful adoption and product satisfaction.” No surprise there. But it’s another reminder of why the full customer experience needs to be addressed. “The data shows direct vendor engagement among buyers dropping off in later stages of purchase, meaning that there’s an opportunity to be more present and engaged with customers post-sale,” according to the report. “Marketers need to play an active role in the implementation and adoption process of new technology. A seamless customer experience also demands alignment with customer support in activities, training and key education resources.” How can marketing continue to shape experiences in these later stages and after the sale? It’s a vital consideration for profitability, since we all know the relative cost of acquiring new customers compared to retaining existing ones.

Follow the Tech Buyers

None of the nuggets revealed in LinkedIn’s “Enlightened Tech Buyer” report are especially surprising, but they do reinforce some of the trends we see playing out at large:

Buying committees are becoming more distributed

Researchers seek out objective information and best-answer content

We need to help, not sell

Marketing is starting to impact more parts of the customer experience

To get the full scoop on today’s B2B tech buyer preferences, check out LinkedIn’s report. *Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post Top Takeaways from LinkedIn’s New ‘Enlightened Tech Buyer’ Report appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Top Takeaways from LinkedIn’s New ‘Enlightened Tech Buyer’ Report posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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10 Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action

While Instagram influencer marketing is expected to hit $8 billion in spend by 2020, the growth trajectory of influencer marketing is not limited to consumer brands. B2B companies are also realizing the value of collaborating with influential experts for marketing purposes and count the practice as one of the top 4 tactics planned for 2019, according to a study by Spiceworks of B2B tech marketers in North America and Europe. Many B2B brands are considering engaging influencers for marketing but are not clear on exactly how or what the best practices are. Having worked with B2B brands that range from Dell to SAP to LinkedIn on influencer marketing programs over the past 6 years, I’ve had a chance to dig deep into exactly what makes influencer marketing work for B2B. To help illustrate how business brands we work with are driving results with influencer marketing, I’ve pulled together ten examples of B2B companies that represent a mix of approaches and performance outcomes.

B2B tech marketers��� adoption of influencer marketing is expected to grow to 48% by the end of 2019. @marketingcharts

1. Prophix - Driving a Message of Innovation and Influence with Interactive Audio

Situation: Prophix is a corporate performance management software solutions company serving the finance industry. They believed that finance leaders have the opportunity to shape the future of business and take a more prominent seat at the leadership table. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will be critical to the innovation of finance, so Prophix wanted to start conversations and answer key questions on the role of AI in the next evolution of finance amongst its target audience. Solution: To build thought leadership for the brand around AI and ML innovations in finance amongst its audience, experts collaborated to co-create an industry resource. To add a tech-savvy flavor to the content experience of this resource, a simulated AI personality voice named Penny was created to help users navigate a microsite featuring industry experts. The site was titled, Adapt & Innovate: AI and the Next Evolution of Finance. The microsite was complemented with a mix of content including promotional motion graphics video, email promotions, landing page, supporting blog content, social content and custom graphics for the contributing influencers to share. Results: 642% increase in engagement, new relationships with top influencers and numerous conversations amongst the target audience about AI and finance in connection with the Prophix brand.

2. DivvyHQ - Create Thought Leadership & Lead Gen Momentum with Multi-Campaign Influencer Program

Situation: As an award-winning content planning and marketing software company, DivvyHQ wanted to elevate its reputation and more actively engage potential buyers. Solution: A survey was conducted to surface top challenges and insights around content planning and marketing, sparking a multi-campaign program focused on future-proofing content marketing that included over 30 marketing influencers. Each of the 5 campaigns focused on content and influencers specific to the topic ranging from the research report to a strategy ebook to a series of video interviews about content planning. The final campaign repurposed the “best of content” from the first 4 campaigns into an interactive microsite using a Back to the Future theme. Each campaign was supported by blog posts, organic social content, influencer promotion and some paid social. Results: Each campaign exceeded goals including 300% more downloads of the research report, hitting some KPI goals within a week of publishing, thousands of video views, new relationships with top marketing industry influencers and 140% of one conversion KPI within a week of publishing.

3. Introhive - Improve Lead Quality with Influencer Insights and Research

Situation: The legal industry has been slow to adopt Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, something that Introhive, an automation solutions provider wanted to change. Solution: With the goals of raising awareness and leads from the legal community, Introhive wanted to engage the audience they were marketing to through an industry survey and insights. The survey identified the top challenges and Introhive designed a Playbook to solve those problems with a combination of brand insight and expertise from speakers at the industry’s Legal Marketing Association event. During the conference, the contributors shared the playbook and Introhive promoted it using the event hashtag. Additional pieces of the content mix included 12 blog posts, landing page, organic and influencer social shares, paid social and email promotions. Results: Improved marketing qualified lead quality, more playbook downloads in the first month than in the entire lifetime of previous reports, nearly 50% of all brand blog content views for the quarter and an 85% increase in new Twitter followers.

4. Cherwell Software - Achieve Thought Leadership, Engagement & Lead Gen Goals with Influence Optimization

Situation: With ambitious objectives to continue its rapid growth, Cherwell Software wanted to increase brand awareness as a leading ITSM software provider and develop a network of IT influencers. Solution: Using insights gained from research of target accounts, 15 influencers were researched, identified and engaged to co-create content and promotions around next-generation IT Service Management. The content mix included blog posts, IT Service Management 2020 ebook, landing page and both paid/organic social content for influencers to share. Results: The ebook was viewed 170% more often than previous assets and shared nearly 2,000 times. Additionally, this one campaign was accountable for 22% of all sales leads for the entire year.

5. SAP SuccessFactors - Increase Performance with a More Sophisticated Influencer Mix

Situation: Wellness programs are common but SAP SuccessFactors wanted to accentuate the importance of employee wellness from a more holistic approach to wellbeing. Solution: To raise awareness of their health care management suite, SAP SuccessFactors developed a program to share relevant, useful and actionable insights about wellbeing from trusted experts, peers and even one business celebrity. Just as the best wellness solutions are holistic, so was this approach to partnering with influencers including industry influencers, internal experts, SAP partners and clients. The content mix included an ebook titled The True Impact of Health and Well-Being featuring 10 influencers, motion graphics, landing page, social content for the brand and influencers to share. Results: 272% increase over the goal and a 68% conversion rate on the ebook downloads. Influencer shares represented 86% of all ebook views and 69% of the conversions.

6. Dell Technologies - Increase Brand Thought Leadership with Influencer Interview Podcast

Situation: While many companies focus on working with influencers, Dell Technologies wanted to partner with industry influencers to simultaneously create useful content for their customers and increase the influence of their internal experts. Solution: Dell has developed relationships with a network of influencers including Mark Schaefer and Doug Karr, who host the Dell Luminaries podcast. Their discussions with technology visionaries from inside Dell and out, putting a human face on technology innovation. Results: The Dell Luminaries project effectively created a single platform to bring voices from multiple companies under the Dell brand together following a common thread while staying true to their individual expertise and influence.

7. 3M - Humanize Science with Influencers and a Podcast

Situation: Science can seem out of reach to many and 3M wanted to make the innovations and complexities of science accessible to the everyday person. Solution: 3M conducted the largest ever science study about global attitudes about science, the State of Science Index research report along with the launch of 3M’s first podcast: Science Champions Podcast. Hosted by 3M’s Chief Science Advocate, Jayshree Seth, the first season of the podcast featured twenty one science experts and influencers on topics ranging from an introduction to science in everyday life to careers in science. Results: Outside of creating relationships with science influencers and showcasing an internal influencer, the Science Champions podcast exceeded all expectations for downloads and engagement, resulting in the launch of season two in March 2019.

8. Content Marketing Institute - Activate Event Awareness & Engagement with Themed Influencer Content

Situation: There are many choices for marketers to attend industry events and Content Marketing Institute wanted to create broader awareness of its conference and showcase its speakers in a way that tapped their influence and helped them become more influential. Solution: Many months before the conference, a selection of content marketing speakers were identified and engaged to share their expertise on specific content marketing topics. With a conference theme of “Game on", the 36 influential marketing speakers’ contributions were assembled into a 48 page ebook called The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing with a retro video game theme. Each section of the ebook was supported by corresponding animation videos using an 8-bit video game theme featuring game character avatars for each influencer. The content mix also included 6 long-form interviews, multiple promotional blog posts, email marketing, custom social graphics for the brand and influencers to share, organic and paid social promotion. Results: A 258% increase in views of the main ebook asset and over 30,000 views of the promotional 8-bit video game interviews.

9. SAP - Create New Platform Thought Leadership & Credibility with Influencers

Situation: SAP launched its Leonardo platform at the annual SAPPHIRE conference. With an event this large, key announcements can blur in the noise of communications. SAP wanted to launch Leonardo as a transformative technology vision. Solution: An interactive experience called The Path to Digital Innovation was created showcasing SAP CEO Bill McDermott and 32 top industry influencers sharing insights across transformative technologies including IoT, machine learning, AI, blockchain, analytics, big data and cloud. Results: 100% of participating influencers shared the Leonardo Path to Digital Innovation content, many of them multiple times. Reach was unprecedented, with over 21 million views of the interactive experience.

10. Oracle Dyn - Create Credibility for a New Capability with Relevant Influencers

Situation: Known for world-class managed DNS services, Oracle Dyn wanted to create awareness and authority for their web application security solutions focused on bot management and mitigation services. They also wanted to develop relationships with relevant industry influencers. Solution: To create awareness and credibility for this new cybersecurity capability, internal subject matter experts and relevant industry influencers including Eric Vanderburg and Kevin L. Jackson with authority in the cybersecurity space were engaged to collaborate on The Cybersecurity Intelligence Report: Bot Management and Mitigation. Results: 100% of the influencers engaged shared the report and all program goals were exceeded within 60 days of the launch.

Where Does B2B Influencer Marketing Go From Here?

In the research report, Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing by Altimeter Group’s Brian Solis, 48% of B2C companies are running ongoing influencer marketing programs vs. only 11% of B2B brands. Nearly half of B2B brands are still in the experimentation stage, according to the study, which was conducted by Traackr and TopRank Marketing. But this trend is changing and more B2B brands are realizing that while different than B2C, working with influencers in a business to business context represents a significant opportunity to create more credible content that can be promoted to interested buyers by people they trust. Many of the examples in this article started with customer research and added outside expert commentary in a way that was relevant to both the brand and the audience. This shift in focus from the brand talking about itself towards a more collaborative approach involving external and internal influencers represents a key change successful B2B marketers have realized. Trends come and go, but the value of trusted sources of information to customers looking for solutions couldn’t be any more timeless. For more information about how TopRank Marketing works with B2B brands to improve industry awareness, increase influence and community engagement, drive leads and sales by partnering with industry experts, check out the influencer marketing section of our website. A version of this post originally published on the Digital Marketing Institute website.

The post 10 Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

10 Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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How to use headings on your site

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Digital Marketing News: Influencers Try Escapex, Gating B2B Content, YouTube’s Quality Watch Time, & Pinterest Conversions

The post Digital Marketing News: Influencers Try Escapex, Gating B2B Content, YouTube’s Quality Watch Time, & Pinterest Conversions appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Digital Marketing News: Influencers Try Escapex, Gating B2B Content, YouTube’s Quality Watch Time, & Pinterest Conversions posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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Why storytelling is good for SEO

Once upon a time, there was this woman – let’s call her Mia – and she wanted to write beautiful stories for her blog. Mia noticed she was not getting much traffic from Google, while other bloggers seemed to attract a lot of visitors. She wondered what she was doing wrong. One day, at a blogging conference Mia heard about a wonderful thing called SEO. She learned that she should use the words her audience was using, she learned she needed to think about the words she wanted to be found for. And she needed to use those exact words. It was a game changer for Mia. After applying these tips, Mia attracted much more traffic to her blog. Eventually, she even started making money with her blog. Mia blogged happily ever after.  

Stories are nice to read. Storytelling is a great tactic. But what does it have to do with SEO? Is it a good idea to use storytelling if your main goal is to rank for a specific term? In this blog post, the fourth in a series about storytelling, I am going to explain how storytelling can be an effective SEO tactic.

Storytelling and SEO may seem counterintuitive

An important part of SEO is focused on using the right words – the words you want to be found for- in your text. But if you use storytelling, if you use metaphors.  If you tell a story by making an example, chances are that you are not using your focus keyphrase then.

At the beginning of the post you are reading right now, I shared a little story about Mia. In that story, I am not using my focus keyphrase – the words I want to rank with, with this particular post. I want to rank with ‘storytelling SEO’. But in the entire first paragraph, the word ‘storytelling’ does not pop up. That, in itself, is not beneficial for your SEO. The Yoast SEO plugin will definitely suggest using the focus keyword in your first paragraph. So, you’ll have one bullet that’ll not turn green. That’s okay. It is totally okay to have a paragraph – or two – that does not contain the focus keyphrase.

So why is storytelling a good SEO tactic?

Storytelling is good for SEO because it will make your post nice to read. And, creating content that people like is exactly what Google wants. If you’re writing blog posts people enjoy reading, you’ll increase your chances to rank high in Google. In my previous post about storytelling, I’ve explained how you can use storytelling in a blog post.

If people like your content, you’ll also have a higher chance that people will remain on your website. Your time on page increases and your bounce rate will decrease. These factors will help tremendously with the ranking of your post.

Next to making your blog post more fun to read, storytelling is beneficial for SEO for another reason. If people like your post, they’ll be more likely to engage with it. They’ll leave a comment; they’ll share it on their social platforms. That’ll already increase traffic to your post. But these things will also increase the likelihood Google will rank a post. Google loves content that is written with people in mind. Google will notice that people like to read your text and that will result in higher rankings in the long run.

Conclusion

Use little stories as metaphors and examples. It’ll make your content so much nicer to read. Don’t worry about having an orange or red bullet. As long as your overall bullet in Yoast SEO is green, it’ll work out fine. Stories are beneficial for your SEO, more beneficial than a perfect keyword density or keyword distribution. Storytelling will allow you to write content that is so good that people will want to stay on your page. That’s very, very good for SEO!

Read more: Using storytelling op product pages »

The post Why storytelling is good for SEO appeared first on Yoast.

Why storytelling is good for SEO posted first on https://yoast.com/seo-blog/

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Everything Old Is New Again: Why & How to Refresh B2B Content

Content creation—it’s the linchpin of our B2B content marketing strategies. And 56% of B2B content marketers have upped their investment in content creation over the past year—more than any other spending area. Without a steady cadence of fresh, quality content we can’t proactively adapt to our audience’s changing needs nor consistently reach, inform, engage, entertain, or inspire action within them. And for most content marketers, this effort is often grounded in creating net-new content. But freshness is the eye of the beholder; quality content creation doesn’t have to be done from scratch. Refreshing existing content is a massive opportunity, playing an integral role within your always-on content marketing strategy. It’s not only more efficient to produce, but when done strategically, it can also boost results, improve user experience, and extend the life and relevance of the content you’ve worked so hard to produce. As it’s been sung, everything old can be new again. Below are all of the reasons why you need to identify refresh opportunities and how you should approach it.

3 Reasons to Refresh Existing Content

#1 - Content takes time to “mature in search”—and needs to be nurtured.

SEO is a foundational element of content marketing. You know your buyers are becoming increasingly self-directed in their search for answers, and you’re creating SEO-informed content to satisfy their queries. But if you just focus on new content creation, you’re leaving potential on the table. We’ve all experienced those sweet, near-instant wins in search results after a new post goes live. But typically, it takes time and smart optimization to gain consistent organic traction. In its post analyzing top ranking factors, Moz’s Jeff Baker discusses three different correlations between the age of a post and its keyword position. Based on their research, it took roughly 100 days or more for a new article to realize its full potential. Image credit: Moz.com While pages need time to mature, without the proper nurturing their relevance can degrade over time; this is the “fresh” factor. Essentially, strategically updating older posts can improve rankings as search algorithms prefer fresh over stale content. Data and insight should guide the type of updates you make, but updates could include optimization tweaks to capitalize on new related keyword rankings, expanding or refining content around certain themes, and link building. Once again, Moz illustrates how freshness can fade in the eyes of search engines. Image credit: Moz.com [bctt tweet="Content takes time to mature in search, and it needs to be nurtured. @annieleuman #B2BContentMarketing #contentrefresh" username="toprank"]

#2 - Refreshing allows your content to grow WITH your audience.

Search is constantly evolving. Not only are search engines getting more sophisticated, but the way people are searching has changed as well:

Half of all smartphone users use voice technology. (comScore)

Mobile phones are expected to be used for 80% of all internet access in 2019, a 10% increase from 2017. (Quartz)

Mobile searches for queries with questions like “do I need”, “should I”, and “can I” have grown by at least 65% over the past two years. (Google)

As queries get more specific and question-based with natural language, making tweaks to your content to match those relevant queries and opportunities allows you to better match users needs. It paves the way for being the best answer, whenever, wherever, and however your audience is searching. Read: Hey Alexa: How Do I Bake Voice Search Into My B2B Marketing Strategy?

#3 - Refreshing could give you leg-up on more than just your competitors.

Content marketing is no longer the new shiny object in the B2B realm. Content marketing is simply modern marketing. As content continues to proliferate you’re likely competing for visibility and reach with your direct competitors within your industry, as well as indirect competitors such as third-party review sites, industry publications, independent bloggers, technology providers, and so on. There are hundreds of billions of webpages in the Google Search Index, and while serving different audiences and thought leadership purposes, there’s likely some overlap in keyword targeting. Let’s take “B2B content marketing” as an example—industry publications such as Search Engine Journal, tools like BuzzSumo or HubSpot, platforms like LinkedIn*, and of course B2B marketing agencies like us, have all produced content on this topic. So, when it comes to refreshing content, you have the opportunity to see how your content is stacking up to all the competition and make data-informed tweaks to differentiate and personalize for your core audience.

How to Get Started with Refreshing Content

Identify Refresh Opportunities With a Content Audit

You’ve published a lot of content. And more than likely you have several that are top-performers, bringing in tons of traffic. You also may have some good performers or rising stars in there, as well as pieces that simply haven’t gained any meaningful traction. Refreshes can help you bolster those top-performers and hopefully improve performance of other pieces. To know where to focus your refreshing and optimization efforts, you need to know how your existing content is performing with an audit. By auditing your current content for current rankings, position changes, traffic trends, and more, you can see which posts have the greatest opportunity. [bctt tweet="Content refreshes can help you bolster those top-performers and hopefully improve performance of other pieces. @annieleuman #B2BContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

Put Experience in the Driver Seat

Refreshing is about both your audience and the search engine. So, when you revisit posts to make optimizations, you need to ensure you keep both parties in mind. Focusing solely on your audience could mean missing out on a critical SEO opportunity. And the opposite could be said when zeroing-in on SEO. To tick both boxes, carefully research your content’s current user experience with metrics like time on page, click through rate, bounce rate, pages per session, or scroll depth. Analyzing these data points should give you an indication of which areas of the experience need the most attention and which sections of your content may need adjustments. This helps you avoid delivering an unsatisfactory user experience that results in drop-offs from both your audience and site crawlers.

Repurpose Where It Makes Sense

There’s refreshing and repurposing. Refreshing is updating something that already exists. Repurposing is taking something that exists and using it to create something new. And there’s a place for both in your content strategy. When should you repurpose and when should you refresh? A top-performing, broad post is a great repurposing opportunity. You’ve covered the topic with broad strokes. And through repurposing you can dig a little deeper into some of the specific themes or opportunities, using some of the existing content to support your narrative. Conversely, in-depth content that is ranking for several long-tail keywords is another good repurposing opportunity. If you split the content into several pieces, with each one targeting a different long-tail variation, you could drastically improve those organic rankings and traffic — all by repurposing and restructuring the original piece. In addition, repurposing can help you personalize content for specific verticals or audience segments. Through repurposing, you can take an existing article and tailor it for a different target audience with new data that’s relevant for them, solutions to their biggest pain points, and more. Read: A Tasty, Strategic Addition to the Content Marketing Table: ‘Repurposed Content Cobbler’

Refresh for Success

Everything old can be new again. From SEO to growing your content to match your audience’s needs, there are several benefits that come from refreshing content. Refresh for success by conducting a content audit, keeping both humans and search engines in mind, and repurposing when and where it makes sense.

via GIPHY How else can you maximize the value of your B2B content? Get an inside look into the future of B2B Content. *Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post Everything Old Is New Again: Why & How to Refresh B2B Content appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Everything Old Is New Again: Why & How to Refresh B2B Content posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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A story about Schema, structured data and robots

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Why Twitter Lists Are Still a Great Tool for B2B Marketers

The post Why Twitter Lists Are Still a Great Tool for B2B Marketers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Why Twitter Lists Are Still a Great Tool for B2B Marketers posted first on http://www.toprankblog.com/

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Yoast SEO 11.0: Structured data awesomeness

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Schema.org is hard; we’re making it easy

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Trust Factors: How Best Answer Content Fuels Brand Credibility

Page one. Answer box. The top result. In the minds of marketers, these prime destinations have largely been associated with SEO success. From the days of keyword-stuffing and algorithmic alignment to more nuanced modern approaches accounting for semantic voice commands, influencer integration, and search intent, edging competitors on that SERP has been a key source of aspiration. As it should be: heightened visibility on Google makes a big difference in terms of driving traffic. But it’s a little short-sighted to think only about that first, fleeting interaction — the search, the discovery, the click. What about the deeper impact? As customer experience becomes a central focus for brands everywhere, we should be more considerate of what happens after a user clicks through that search result, and how it affects your brand. We talked recently about how best answer content helps fuel strong SEO results. But as part of our new “Trust Factors” series, which examines practical ways for marketers to strengthen trust with their audiences, we’ll shift our perspective and break down the critical benefits of effective best answer content when it comes to building credibility and authority in your niche. [bctt tweet="As #CX becomes a central focus for brands everywhere, we should be more considerate of what happens after a user clicks through that search result, and how it affects your brand. @NickNelsonMN #ContentMarketing #SearchMarketing" username="toprank"]

Beyond the Click: The Lasting Impact of Best Answer Content

Brian Dean of Backlinko is a masterful creator of best answer content. He preaches, and practices, a quality-over-quantity approach. At the recent Social Media Marketing World 2019 conference in San Diego, Andrew Pickering and Pete Gartland (the hilarious speaker duo @AndrewAndPete) shared the story of how Dean decided on a plan of publishing one blog post every 4-6 weeks, investing huge amounts of time into making sure each of those pieces was as robust, useful, and comprehensive as possible. To get an idea of what this output looks like, you can check out his SEO in 2019 or Link-Building for SEO, either by clicking those links or simply typing the basic terms into Google; his posts will show up near the top. Using this approach, Dean reported his blog was receiving more than 200,000 unique monthly visitors with just 51 total blog posts, which is a pretty amazing feat. Obviously, the premium SERP placements have helped him achieve those gaudy numbers. But it’s the substance beyond the headlines and meta descriptions that really makes his content powerful. Perusing one of his in-depth resources, you’re going to learn a ton. The posts are extensive but navigable; technical but understandable; fun but serious. They include videos and images to illustrate concepts and break up the copy. Most importantly, they answer pretty much every ancillary question a searcher could ask about their respective topics — accurately and actionably. And that’s how Dean turned his SEO training company from a humble startup to a seven-figure business in five years. His credibility speaks for itself. People trust him and want to learn from him because of the content he creates — not because it ranks so well, but because of how it ranks so well.

How Best Answers Build Trust

He’s a great example, but Dean is hardly the one out there building trust through best answer content. At TopRank Marketing, this methodology is fundamental to our integrated strategy mix, and we’ve seen plenty of awesome results with our clients. As two examples, there was this content and strategic PPC campaign for DivvyHQ, and this SEO-driven content program for Antea Group. While both of those efforts drove excellent results in terms of traffic and reach, what’s really heartening in both cases is the deeper business impacts.

“Lead quality has definitely improved,” said DivvyHQ Co-Founder Brody Dorland. “The prospects coming through our website front door are much closer to our ideal customer than they have been in the past.” “We’ve been able to marry our field and digital marketing efforts together, resulting in numerous digital leads, real revenue opportunities to the tune of millions of dollars, and credibility with our clients, partners, and media as a go-to source for EHS&S information,” said Antea Group USA Solutions Marketing Manager Margaret Uttke.

As any sales team can tell you, prospects who are both well qualified and predisposed to respect your brand are vastly more likely to convert and become happy customers. Here’s how effective best answer content achieves these outcomes:

Demonstrable Authority

This more or less speaks for itself. When someone finds content on a topic they’re looking for and it gives them everything they need, expertly articulated, it paints your company as a trusted source: These people know what they’re talking about. They know how to present the info. They’ve done it well enough that Google’s algorithm — which now heavily weighs dwell time and quality inbound links — has elevated it above most or all others.

Value First

Sometimes, content marketing can get away from its essential purpose: providing value. Pressured to show results — even if just vanity results — some practitioners blur the line between pull and push with strictly gated content or thinly veiled promotion. Best answer content gets back to the basics. When done right, it’s all about delivering value and earning trust before you ask for anything. Dean spends weeks researching and composing his hefty Power Pages, which are freely available to anyone who visits. He even makes them downloadable in PDF form if you can’t consume all of that content in one sitting, and while the assets are technically gated, in that you must enter an email address to receive them, you aren’t required to fill out a long contact form. [bctt tweet="Best answer content gets back to the basics. When done right, it’s all about delivering value and earning trust before you ask for anything. - @NickNelsonMN #ContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

Competitive Positioning

Yes, it’s helpful to outrank competitors for key terms because you are more likely to bring in that search traffic. But there is also an important reputation element. When you outrank a direct competitor, the optics are compelling. And even if you’re not at the top, simply ranking in the vicinity of a giant company or reputed publication enables you to soak up some of that “second-hand trust.”   It’s a simple psychological phenomenon, as Neil Patel explains on his blog: “This is not just a convenience issue for users. It’s a trust issue, too. When a result appears first, second, or third, users tend to trust it, believing that it is somehow more reliable, popular, or more legitimate than anything lower in the SERPs.” Given that Google is increasingly structuring these SERPs based on indicators of query fulfillment, that’s a valid shorthand conclusion for searchers. And when your page delivers a definitive best answer to back up the ranking, you’ve made the right impression.

Organic and Inbound

It’s getting harder to build trust through ads. That doesn’t mean you should ditch the paid side by any means, but it does raise the stakes for organic content. As digitally native millennials grow to account for more and more of the buying population, we must be cognizant of their ingrained instincts. They are more likely to trust information they find themselves, as opposed to sponsored results or content that is (in truth or perception) pushed on them.

Gaining the Top Rank Is About More than Search Placement

Yes, it’s great to rank at the top of a SERP, for a variety of reasons. But it’s also vitally important to rank at the top of your audience’s mind for strategic topics, through content that satisfies their curiosities and provides legitimate value. As Google’s algorithm continues to evolve and prioritize the most satisfying results rather than the most technically optimized results, you can trust that best answer content — which, when done right, covers both of those bases — is increasingly a no-brainer. Want to learn more about TopRank Marketing’s best answer framework in action? Check out our CEO Lee Odden’s post on How A Best Answer Content Strategy Drives B2B Marketing Results.

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Tips to enhance your experience with the Block Editor

Today I’d like to highlight two plugins that supercharge the new Block Editor experience. They’re very different in nature, but I find them both equally impressive. There’s some news about the upcoming WordPress 5.2 release, and there might be mention of a bonus link. Come and find out.

Gutenberg on steroids

We’re four, five months into using the new Block Editor and by now, I’m sure, you’ve started to get the hang of it. I mean, I sure have. I love how I can easily play around with rich media in new, exciting ways with just a couple of clicks.

Having said that, there are times when I wish I had a bit more control over a certain block. So, I looked around and found two wonderful plugins that enhance my Gutenberg experience.

Advanced Rich Text Tools for Gutenberg

This is the most lightweight of the two, but a sweet one at that. It only does three things at the moment, but it does them perfectly:

It adds code, subscript (sub), and superscript (sup) buttons to the formatting toolbar.

It also adds inline text and a background color panel.

And, it adds a “Remove formatting” button.

Like I said, only three things, but it gets a lot of joy out of these three little options. Find out more information here.

Advanced Gutenberg

The second plugin I found is a bit more complicated. It adds a plethora of options to existing Gutenberg blocks. I choose it for wanting a smarter way to display Gutenberg gallery images on one of my playground sites, a site about old German cars. Specifically, I wanted them to show in a lightbox pop-up when clicked on.

However, that’s only one small thing this plugin does. For example, it also allows you to configure:

Default block configuration.

Advanced Gutenberg icons block color.

And, you’re going to love this if options is your thing, it adds more than 20 different blocks to do all kinds of fancy things. Find out more at the WordPress.org plugin page.

WordPress 5.2, beta 3

WordPress 5.2 keeps being refined and improved. We’re currently already at beta 3. This beta release also marks the soft string freeze point of the 5.2 release schedule. If you speak additional languages besides English, now’s a great time to help to make sure WordPress 5.2 is properly translated in your language. WordPress 5.2 is slated for release on April 30, and we need all the testers we can get. Head over if you’d like to help out.

Bonus link

If you’ve ever needed to limit access your site to visitors who are logged in or accessing the site from a set of specified IP addresses, Restricted Site Access is the plugin you’re looking for. It’s a great solution for extranets, publicly hosted intranets or heck, you can even use it for your staging sites.

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LinkedIn’s List of 24 B2B Marketers You Need to Know

In honor of it's fifth anniversary, LinkedIn has released a revamped edition of The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn. The eBook features a powerful array of digital marketing smarties, each who shared their insights and practical advice on how to get the most out of LinkedIn—from optimizing your profile to expanding your network.  The TopRank Marketing team was privileged to work with LinkedIn team to identify, engage, and gather fresh insights from these brightest marketing minds. If you're anywhere near the B2B marketing world, social selling or recruiting, getting to know LinkedIn is more essential today than ever. Why? Check out these statistics:

With over 610 million members in over 200 countries and territories, more than 1 out of every 3 professionals worldwide is on LinkedIn.

Professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate of more than two new members per second.

LinkedIn counts executives from nearly all 2018 Fortune 500 companies as members

More than 30 million companies are represented on LinkedIn

There simply isn't another social network with that kind of community and momentum for business professionals. And while most professionals have been using LinkedIn for years and may see it as a jobs marketplace, many simply haven't taken the time to optimize or maintain their profiles. They also haven't discovered all the ways you can capitalize on LinkedIn as a marketing and social selling tool. The good news is that quite a few people have. In The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn, there are 55 pages of advice on reaching the right people and taking your marketing to the next level directly from marketers within LinkedIn, as well as some of the top B2B marketing professionals in the business. There's also an excellent list of 24 B2B marketing experts in the U.S. that LinkedIn suggests we get to know, selected by staff at LinkedIn—and that's where we'd like focus today. Many of the names on the list will be familiar to you, such as our own CEO Lee Odden. But some are likely to be new discoveries. Congratulations to those on the list and to anyone who downloads and reads The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn.

24 B2B Marketers LinkedIn Says You Need To Know

Robert Rose Chief Troublemaker, The Content Advisory Twitter: @Robert_Rose LinkedIn: /in/robrose Aaron Orendorff Founder, iconiContent Twitter: AaronOrendorff LinkedIn: in/aaronorendorff Ryan Robinson Content Marketing Consultant Twitter: TheRyanRobinson LinkedIn: in/theryanrobinson/ Carla Johnson Chief Innovator, Type A Communications Twitter: CarlaJohnson LinkedIn: /in/carlajohnson Allen Gannett CSO, Skyword Twitter: Allen LinkedIn: /in/allengannett Shane Barker Co-Founder and CEO, Content Solutions Twitter: shane_barker LinkedIn: /in/shanebarker Ann Handley Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs Twitter: MarketingProfs LinkedIn: /in/annhandley Katie Martell Marketing Consultant, On-Demand Marketing Twitter: KatieMartell LinkedIn: /in/katiemartell Mandy McEwen Founder and CEO, Mod Girl Marketing Twitter: MandyModGirl LinkedIn: /in/mandymcewen Michael Brenner CEO, Marketing Insider Group Twitter: BrennerMichael LinkedIn: /in/michaelbrenner Lee Odden CEO, TopRank Marketing Twitter: LeeOdden LinkedIn: /in/leeodden Nancy Badillo CEO, NancyBadillo.com Twitter: NancyBadillo13 LinkedIn: /in/nancybadillo Jay Baer Founder, Convince & Convert Twitter: jaybaer LinkedIn: /in/jaybaer Jason Miller Brand Marketing Lead, Microsoft Twitter: JasonMillerCA LinkedIn: /in/jsnmiller Vin Clancy Founder, Magnific Twitter: vincentdignan LinkedIn: /in/vincentdignan Andrew Davis Keynote Speaker, Monumental Shift Twitter: DrewDavisHere LinkedIn: /in/drewdavishere Heidi Bullock CMO, Engagio Twitter: HeidiBullock LinkedIn: /in/hbullock Gina Schreck CEO, SocialKNX Twitter: Ginaschreck LinkedIn: /in/ginaschreck Doug Kessler Creative Director and Co-Founder, Velocity Partners Twitter: dougkessler LinkedIn: /in/dougkessler Gabe Villamizar Global Sales Evangelist, Lucid Twitter: gabevillamizar LinkedIn: /in/gabevillamizar Suzanne String Nguyen Video Evangelist, Shootsta Twitter: StringStory LinkedIn: /in/stringstory Joanna Penn Director, The Creative Penn Twitter: thecreativepenn LinkedIn: /in/joannapenn Janet Murray Content Marketing Expert Twitter: jan_murray LinkedIn: /in/janet-murray74 Janet Murray Content Marketing Expert Twitter: JuliaEMcCoy LinkedIn: /in/juliaemccoy No list is ever perfect, so who would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments. If you're ready to dig in to the 2019 The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn, start now and grab your own copy here:

The post LinkedIn’s List of 24 B2B Marketers You Need to Know appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Rank with that cornerstone content!

Cornerstone articles are those posts that are most important to you. The ones you really want to rank with. The posts that make people come back to your site or buy your stuff. But how do you get those cornerstone articles to end up high in the search engines? How do you get the most out of your cornerstone articles?

To rank with these articles, you need to make sure they’re the best articles you can write. You also need a kickass internal linking structure. Luckily, Yoast is there to help! In this post, I’ll explain just what cornerstone content is and how to rank with these articles! Are you struggling with implementing cornerstone content? Check out how Yoast SEO can help you with your cornerstone strategy!

What not to do when trying to rank

Before we cover what to do, let’s first briefly discuss what not to do, and how ranking works. Without a doubt the most common question we are asked is: “how do I make my site rank for keyword X?”. What most people don’t realize, is that they’re asking the wrong question. You see, sites don’t rank: individual pages rank. If you want to rank for a particular keyword or keyphrase, you’ll need to determine which post or page you want to rank for that particular keyword.

Adding that keyword to the title of every page is not helpful; you should use a focus keyphrase only once. What also won’t work is writing 200 articles around variations of a keyphrase, without one central article linking them all together. You need one single page that is the center of the content about that topic – a “hub” page, if you will. That’s where cornerstone content comes in. But how do you make sure your cornerstone content articles start ranking in the search engines?

How to rank with your cornerstone content?

Create awesome content

Your cornerstone content will need to be 100% awesome in every way. You need to think about keyword research, headlines, awesome content and more. Not sure where to begin? Check out our detailed post on what type of article cornerstone content should be.

Read more: How the Yoast SEO cornerstone analysis helps you create your best articles »

Now go ahead and create that post or page on your site. Take your time, as this is going to be the content that’ll make you rank, but not just that, it’s going to be the content that ranks. Which means real people are going to read it as well, and you need to convert those people. So, think about search engines by all means, but think even more about the visitors who will end up reading that page – and give them something valuable.

Which keywords to target with cornerstone articles?

Your cornerstone articles should be optimized for your most ‘head’ or most competitive keywords. Of course, you should still be realistic when determining these head keywords. But, your internal linking structure will help your cornerstone pages rank (more on that below), which is why these articles should aim to rank for your most competitive keywords.

Positioning that new cornerstone content on your site

Now let’s talk about where to place that content on your site. Important content deserves a place within your core site structure, not a news item or blog post drifting around somewhere. It should be easily found in a few clicks.

This also means you should not create other pages within your site that target the exact same keyword! And you really don’t have to, as there are many ways to use keyword variations for these other pages and use these in your site structure.

Build a great internal linking structure

Like external links, internal links are very important for SEO. If you want your cornerstone content to rank well, your site structure needs to be impeccable. Google considers the articles that have most internal links pointing towards them the most important content on your website. That’s why you need to make sure your cornerstones get most internal links. These are the ones you want to rank with!

When you’re adding links to your cornerstones, use the keyword you’re targeting as the anchor text for that link, if possible. But most importantly, link from within the content. Don’t just add some site-wide sidebar/footer links. The reason for this is simple: links from within content are way more valuable than links from sidebars.

In addition to that, you need to make sure that you’re linking to your cornerstones from pages that actually are related. Contextual links are the ones that’ll help you rank. Adding hand-picked, relevant links that are useful for someone visiting your website, is the best way of achieving this. Automation will not give you quality results. That means that building a decent linking strategy is a lot of work, especially if your site is large.

Finding internal links in Google

You can use Google to find relevant internal links. The easiest way to figure out which pages Google thinks are relevant for your keyphrase is a ‘site:’ search in Google. So if I were to try and find the most important page for our local SEO plugin within yoast.com, I’d search for:

site:yoast.com local seo plugin

If you do this for a keyphrase on your site, you’ll probably find quite a few pages. Edit each of those pages and add a link to your new cornerstone content. As you can imagine, this can be a lot of work!

Boosting your internal linking structure with Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO has two features to help you work on a great internal linking structure for your cornerstones. The text link counter and the internal linking tool (Premium). Both will make it a lot easier to work on that perfect site structure for your cornerstones.

The text link counter shows you how many incoming and outgoing internal links a post or page has, so you can keep an eye on the amount of internal links your cornerstone article gets.

The internal linking tool helps you to quickly pick related links to add to your posts and pages. It analyses all of your posts to figure out which articles are related. In the sidebar, you can easily pick articles that are relevant to link to. You can simply drag and drop the links in your article. The articles will be related and contextual because the plugin analyzed the content of all of your posts on prominent words. If you have indicated that your article is a cornerstone article, it will pop up highest, because they are the most important. Make sure to link to these, whenever they pop up.

Promote your cornerstone content

If well-written, your cornerstone content should be something to be proud of! Something that others willingly share and thereby also something that will attract links. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other people who have written about related topics: show them what you have created and that it might be worthwhile for their visitors to see. You might even want to offer to write a guest post for them on the topic, linking back to your article.

Conclusion: how to rank with cornerstones?

Your cornerstone articles deserve special attention. They need to be written carefully, to be the most complete and authoritative. They should also be easy to find on your site! Cornerstones need many contextual links pointing towards them to make Google see that they are the most important articles. That’ll make them rank in the search engines. That’ll get them the traffic they’re worthy of!

If you want to learn more about cornerstone content and setting up your site structure, we recommend…

…finding out how to set up a cornerstone strategy with Yoast SEO

…reading our ultimate guide on site structure

…this article on internal linking: why and how

…completing our site structure training

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