content creation 101, smx sydney 2011
DESCRIPTION
Slide deck from Castleford Media's presentation at Online Marketer / SMX Sydney in April 2011. How to build a successful content strategy for your website.TRANSCRIPT
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/
About Castleford
Custom news, blogs and evergreen content for websites and
social media.
castleford.com.au
twitter.com/castlefordmedia
facebook.com/castlefordmedia