content creation 101, smx sydney 2011

Content Creation

Getting your on-page copy correct:

How keyword research, link building and copywriting go hand-in-hand.

About This Presentation

1. The Case for Content

2. Your Content Strategy

3. Sourcing Your Content

4. Bookmarks

Part 1

The Case for Content

Unique and relevant content....

...why bother?

Getting Discovered• Users spend longer looking at organic

results than paid (User Centric)

• Top 10 organic results all get better clickthrough than paid results (eight-eleven)

• 50% of consumers prefer sites with more than one result in SERPs (Performics)

• 73% of consumers prefer articles to advertisements (Custom Content Council)

• Google says: Create unique and compelling content on your site and the web in general (Webmaster Blog)

• Panda favours sites with unique content

Crawlability and Surfability

Investing in content enables you to create a website structure that both Google’scrawler and your human visitors can easily navigate.

A simple, flat structure like this one makes very specific pages deep within your siteaccessible within a few clicks of your homepage.

More pages means more tailored and more relevant results.

Link Bait and Social SharingUnique, relevant content givesthird parties something to link to,which means more traffic and better search results.

It also gives you something to sharevia social media and RSS, which increases your reach and improvesuser engagement.

“…great content that naturally has links, and some good social media marketing so that people are linking to

it organically” (Matt Cutts)

“…first you have to have great content... then you need to tell people about it… social media marketing can be a great

way to do that.” (Webmaster Blog)

Exploiting the Long-tail

Keyword research is aboutfinding the middle groundbetween ultra-competitive, high-volume terms and easy-to-win terms that nobody is searching for.

Adding new, specific pagespopulated with relevant,unique content helps you toexploit the long-tail.

You give Google’s crawler andyour target audience a morerelevant and useful result.

Dwell Time and ConversionRelated contentI like red sports cars, so I’ll click on links to more content about red sports cars and spend more time on this site.

Relevant resultsWhen targeting long-tail keywords, point traffic at specific pages on your site to increase conversion opportunities.

The Case for Content

Better natural search performance• More fresh, unique and relevant pages that naturally

feature your keywords.

• Your site is growing and easy to navigate.

• You’re producing something for third parties to share and link to.

Improved user experience• More relevant results that can compete on longer-tail

searches and improve conversion

• Easy navigation and lots of related content to improve dwell time

+

Part 2

Your Content Strategy

The right content mix...

...and good on-page SEO

Content Mix

Stat

ic C

on

ten

t

Landing pages

Reference material

How to

Service descriptions

Product guides

White papers

Add new pages over time

Dyn

amic

Co

nte

nt

Company blog

Industry news

Media releases

UGC

Add new pages daily

Static and Dynamic content complement one another, enabling you to build a high-value, content-rich website that always has something new to offer.

On-page SEO

Writing Rules

• Relevant to your audience

• Unique to your website

• Ongoing process for adding new static and dynamic pages

• Sharing your content beyond your website

• Best practice on-page SEO

Part 3

Sourcing Your ContentContent will cost money wherever you get it from.

Here is our quick rundown on 3 different options and the pros and cons for each:

• Freelancers

• Agency

• In-house

Sourcing Your Content

Freelance Writers

Short-term agreements, no tie-in

Established writing expertise

Restricted scalability

Limited back-up

High cost per article

Sourcing Your Content

Third Party Suppliers

Existing expertise

Complementary skills

Resilience and scalability

Degree of detachment

Contract tie-ins

Sourcing Your Content

In-house Writers

Full control over the content creation process

Long-term, large-scale content strategy

Cover for sickness and holiday

Training, management, legal liability

Office space, tools, benefits

BookmarksGoogle Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Google Webmaster Central: http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Rankchecker by SEO Book: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Keyword Spy: http://www.keywordspy.com/

Keyword Samurai : http://www.marketsamurai.com/

Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Wonder Wheel: http://www.googlewonderwheel.com/

Keyword Suggest by SEO Book: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

SEOMoz Blog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog

Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/

Matt Cutts Blog: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Eight-Eleven: http://eight-eleven.com/

User Centric: http://www.usercentric.com/

Performics: http://www.performics.com/

Custom Content Council: http://www.custompublishingcouncil.com/

Elliance: http://www.elliance.com/

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