Justifying the virtue of content marketing over traditional advertising can be difficult for some.

How can an online marketing professional effectively convince executives within their company (as part of a marketing team) or prospective clients (outside executives) of the value of developing informative content?

Content Marketing Institute recently compiled some tips from some of the best content marketers around on how to do this.

Here’s a couple of their responses to the question – “Content marketing can be a new way of thinking for some marketing teams. How would you explain the value of content marketing to a manager or executive who is primarily familiar with traditional advertising approaches?”

“Content Marketing has significant value in a few different ways.  For one, the content you create and distribute on the web has a much longer shelf life at a lower cost then any traditional campaigns you will run.  Each object of content you create can add the the total poll of content that represents your brand and works to get your customers talking back to you.  Over time when your collection of content grows larger, you will notice increases in online traffic and engagement.  A bigger collection attracts more interest.” Nate Riggs

“The value of content marketing lies in the engagement between the customer and your company. Traditional advertising shouts at prospect customers whereas content marketing talks with them. Essentially, it is about the creation and participation in meaningful conversations and development of relationships. Content marketing can benefit your company by increasing sales leads and positioning your company/brand as a thought leader, in addition to increasing the number of visitors to your website.” Amanda Maksymiw

Nate and Amanda hit on probably the two biggest advantages of content marketing over traditional advertising. One being cost – which one commenter says is one of the best ways to talk to someone clung to traditional advertising – and the other being the fact traditional advertising is not about the customer but about you.

As Amanda says, traditional advertising shouts while content marketing pulls up a chair and talks.

Other reasons you can provide your superiors or prospective clients include:

• Draw customers in through relevant content rather than one-size fits all materials
• More dynamic, easier to change
• Has a longer shelf life
• Easier to measure, more metrics and tools available
• Fewer risks and costs
• Reaches a wider audience
• …and more

Besides discussing the benefits of content marketing over traditional advertising, we also get a glimpse into some of the ways you can show your boss or prospective client the advantages of building content rather than using traditional advertising.

This is where testing comes in – nothing is more convincing than data to backup your claims of increased traffic, conversions and revenues. Show your prospect data from previously successful content marketing campaigns, provide word-of-mouth referrals and more.

Traditional advertising has been on a consistent downward trend for quite some time now. There are still some instances where it can work but as CMI and others say, there’s only one way to measure progress and that’s sales.

Providing these reasons along with some data to back it up will go a long way toward convincing your bosses or prospective clients that content marketing is an effective way to spend their marketing dollar.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Top 10 Ways to Connect your Customers with Good Content

Making your Content Work for You in Better, More Valuable Ways

In today’s fast-paced online world, negative press can spread like wildfire – and decimate your business in the process. This principle applies not only to online businesses, but brick & mortar outlets as well since many people research a business online before making purchasing decisions.

Just think about when you’re looking for products and services – would you trade with someone who has a lot of negative comments prominently displayed online?

Probably not…

So whether negative comments are legitimate or not, they can do great harm to your reputation and by extension, your business. That’s why adopting a comprehensive online reputation management strategy is an important, but often overlooked part of marketing a business.

Online reputation management can be broken down into two types – proactive and reactive

Proactive is just that…you go out and find where people are discussing issues relevant to your industry. You add to the conversation through blog comments, forum & social media discussions and targeted content to other sites. Syndicating content helps build your company as a thought leader in your industry, which builds trust and credibility among prospective buyers. Participating in the online discussion signals to prospective customers that you care, and are available to address their concerns.

In addition being a positive for your online reputation, participating in the discussion and adding unique content to external sites yields better search rankings for your firm.

Reactive reputation management is just the opposite. When someone posts a negative comment or complaint about your firm, you address their concerns promptly. Many of these comments though may be initiated by your competition, in which case you can contact the forum or blog and ask the comment be removed.

It doesn’t matter where negative comments come from – the effects are devastating just the same if they’re not addressed.

Promptly addressing complaints accomplishes two goals – one, it shows others that you’re prompt in addressing any concerns. Customers can rest easy knowing you’re there to help if anything goes wrong.

The other benefit to responding to negative comments is to dilute the negative press in search rankings. It’s commonly known that the vast majority of web searchers pay no attention to results past page 1, and especially past page 2.

If page 1 results for terms related to your firm are packed with negative publicity, that’s all anyone is likely to see about your firm. Responding to negative criticism and taking proactive steps outlined above pushes these negative reviews past page 2.

You may be asking…reputation management seems awfully similar to SEO?

In a big way it is. You’re trying to ensure that top results pose your company in a positive light. Proactive reputation management reinforces your on-site efforts to ensure you not only reach the top of the rankings, but stay there as well.

Check back often as we discuss different tools and methods for effectively managing your company’s online reputation.

SEO Buzz Marketing services from SEO Advantage help companies like yours harness these tools to effectively manage your online reputation. Check with us today to see how you can save money, enhance revenues and build a long-term basis for future growth.

Despite this, we thought some of these tips regarding Twitter would be a good substitute for now.

As you know from prior posts on the matter, Twitter is a powerful social media marketing tool taking the online world by storm.

Everyone from politicians to musicians and athletes to businesses are using this innovative tool to connect with prospective customers. It’s also a great way to engage with those who are already customers, turning them from simply people doing business with you into ‘evangelists’ for your brand.

We hope to eventually provide a synopsis of HubSpot’s webinar on optimizing relationships with social media soon.

But in the mean time, we invite you to examine 4 ways you can use Twitter to improve search rankings. There’s been a lot of discussion on whether Twitter helps boost search engine rankings. It can, provided it’s done properly according to Misti Sandefur and Danny Sullivan, who recently interviewed Google and Bing and confirmed this point.

Continue reading to learn more about how you can use this versatile ‘micro-blogging’ utility to boost your company’s position in Google and other search engines.

1. ‘Follow’ people in your industry who are considered authority figures

Most people you follow on Twitter will not follow you back. But if you’re following people relevant to what you do, the higher likelihood they will follow you back. For those who do, they will likely notice links to new content on your site or blog.

The result?

They very well may ‘re-tweet’ your post and share it with their friends. These links, over time, will provide a big boost to your search engine rankings.

2. ‘Re-tweet’ posts from other authority figures in your industry

It’s a two-way street. If you spot something on Twitter you find interesting, re-tweet it for your followers. Doing so will likely result in a ‘re-tweet’ on the other end for any good content you post on Twitter.

3. Add Twitter and other social media widgets at the end of articles and blog posts

You’ve probably noticed how all of our blog posts include a ‘share’ button where readers can share our articles through Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels. Including this capability not only makes sharing your content easier, it will make it more likely readers will want to share your content with their friends since hey, it’s so easy!

4. Use #hashtags when posting when posting tips and links

Twitter #hashtags are an easy way for people to spot what something is about. Therefore, find popular #hashtags relevant to your industry and use those in the beginning of your Twitter posts. Examples include: #jobs, #retail, #webmarketing and so on. See a more comprehensive list here.

The other important thing to consider when using Twitter is how you become an authority on the micro-blogging platform. Being considered an ‘authority’ figure in your industry will ensure you maintain a high number of followers. Becoming an authority figure takes time but posting relevant content and communicating with others on the network will help build your credibility.

Simply ‘tweeting’ blog content on Twitter isn’t enough. You need to also look at others’ content and comment on it as well.

As we’ve said before, the quality of your followers is more important than quantity.

With that said, keep in mind that things don’t happen overnight. But be patient and persistent…your efforts will eventually pay off.

Related Posts

Large Numbers of Followers Doesn’t Always Mean More Benefits

Social Media Architect Provides Valuable Twitter Advice

Can Twitter Get a Site Indexed in the Search Engines All By Itself?

5 Ways You Can Optimize your ‘Tweets’ for Search

From reading our web marketing blog and other resources on building search rankings, unique content is one of the major pillars to successfully harnessing online marketing channels.

And if you’ve seen anything related to the recent Google ‘Farmer’ update, you know that unique content is an absolute must.

With that in mind, it’s easy to think content can just go up on your site and be forgotten about…I’ve certainly thought this way in the past but experience now tells me this simply isn’t true.

Content like articles can be repurposed into blogs or even white papers or e-books and vice versa. Circumstances and information is certain change, requiring you update your content from time to time.

You want to be sure you’re providing your readers with the most up-to-date information – you do this to not only keep the hungry search engine spiders happy but to build credibility among your readers as well.

But getting that far is only half the battle

Just because you’ve got this great content promoting your brand and educating your prospects doesn’t quite mean you’re going to see significantly more clicks on the ‘buy’ or ‘contact’ button.

Unfortunately no…to really increase conversions and the average time someone spends on your site or associated social media channels, you not only need to create relative content that’s informative, you’ve got to make it accessible to where your readers are online.

Social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon and others have revolutionized the way people interact online. Gone are the days where they exclusively had to come to you.

That’s why content for social media is so important.

When you write a new blog or article, post it on your company’s Facebook and Twitter profiles. Developing exclusive content for social media is also a plus. For example, you could offer a quick overview of an important topic on Facebook then link to more extensive resources on your site.

Or you could hold a contest but require participants to ‘Like’ or otherwise interact with your Facebook profile.

One radical approach could be to develop a separate site devoted exclusively to interacting with your company through social media channels. Kate Spade women’s clothing and accessories is an example of someone who’s used this approach successfully.

Courtesy of Nick Usborne and WebContentCafe.com

While they do have their regular website, this site puts the visitor in a position to interact with the New York fashion company on their favorite social media networks.

Of course, this option works for this kind of company and may not for yours.

In addition to social media channels, adding links to other relevant content at the end of a blog post or article is also a valuable way to keep people on your site.

You may think that simply writing great copy will keep visitors on your site…when they’re through reading, they’ll gladly scroll back up the page and use your site’s navigation to keep looking around.

Yet another trap less experienced site owners and online marketers find themselves in

When you read a news story on a major site, you always see related stories linked from the bottom of the article. Many of these really big sites have automated systems that create this.

In addition to links at the end of your piece(s), you can link to other relevant content within your posts like we do in many of our blog articles on SEO-e.

But to really keep someone engaged and on your site, you need to show them what to do next.

That’s why having a list a 3-5 related articles at the end of your posts is a great idea to try. The longer you keep someone engaged on your site, the more likely they will move from being a ‘prospect’ to being a ‘customer.’

Going forward, we’re going to try this with SEO-e and see if it helps our readers learn more while they’re here. And if you’re on Facebook, ‘Like’ us and know precisely when we get new content online.

Related SEO-e posts:

7 Things Google’s Farmer Update Penalized Sites For – and What You Can Do About It

Latent Semantic Indexing and Keywords – A New Way to Look at Copy

Which Social Media Channel is Right for My Business?

By setup, I mean the actual infrastructure we use to post things to SEO-e and other blogs we handle.

WordPress is an open-source blogging platform used by many websites to build out their pages. Some simply use a URL through WordPress (yoursite.wordpress.com) but to build search rankings for your business, you need to use your own domain…like ours – (http://www.seo-e.com/).

This ensures your site and business get the search engine benefits of building out your site’s content.

WordPress though is more than just a blogging platform. With a few widgets, themes, plugins and coding, it’s also a very useful content management system.

According to Wikipedia, a content management system is a “software system which provides website authoring, collaboration and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage the site’s content with relative ease.”

You may have heard of these systems as often being used to manage content on large sites.

The problem with many of them – especially older versions – is that they cause several problems from an SEO perspective…you’ve probably seen some of these before.

Dirty URLs, especially common on large ecommerce sites, is one disadvantage of a content management system. If you see a URL with a ‘?’ in it, all of the characters past the question mark constitute the dirty URL.

Another drawback of content management systems (…especially older ones) is the tendency for content to be placed too deep in a sub-domain, example – http://www.yoursite.com/articles/how-to/use-our-products/model 2613.

Having this occur causes your pages and site to bleed PageRank. As you know, PageRank is a big factor in how Google ranks sites. The higher your PageRank, the better your rankings for the keyword terms you’re targeting.

In other words, websites using older CMS systems to manage their content usually don’t generate web pages crawlable by the search engines.

That’s why many search engine optimization pros like us don’t use them since one of the fundamental tenets to being successful online involves having a site that’s easy for the search engines to crawl and index.

With a few slight modifications though, WordPress is one content management system you can be sure will yield crawlable web pages.

And the best part is once you’re setup with a domain, design, categories and the necessary modifications to make WordPress into a CMS system, it’s as easy as pie to post new content online.

This post and SEO blog is one example of the easiness of this system.

Being successful at blogging requires a steady stream of fresh, engaging content. The more the better but usually once a week is the absolute minimum. Two years ago for instance, we were posting 3 posts a week on SEOe.

But building that content takes time – time to research, time to write, time to edit and time to manage comments and so on. With only so many hours in the day, it may seem daunting and maybe even impossible to write enough posts readers find engaging and informative.

If I had a nickel for every blog that gets started and putters out, I could retire to a life of leisure tomorrow.

Unfortunately though, many blog owners and small businesses find it very challenging to maintain a flow of consistent copy.

MyBlogGuest.com is a service where you can connect with other bloggers and find great guest material

Guest posting has several benefits for both blog owners and blog writers.

One benefit for you – the blog owner – is that you can maintain steady flow of content much easier. For example, if you’re too busy to write something from scratch yourself, find an article on MyBlogGuest.com to use.

Two ways blog owners can get material for their blog

One is to find articles authors have already posted on the site. There’s a wide range of topics available.

The other is to find authors in your niche and contact them directly.

Of course, guest posts benefit the blog owner by widening the audience. If you have a guest posting something on your blog, their readers are naturally going to be interested. And don’t forget the opportunities for networking and getting a fresh new perspective from others in your field.

For writers, guest blogging helps build their brand, reach new audiences and build links to their site(s).

To get more benefit from MyBlogGuest.com, you should write two or three posts/articles and put them on the site for distribution. Someone will eventually pick them up and use them on their blog. Of course, they have to be members to do this and must follow strict guidelines for crediting the author and linking to their site.

Ann Smarty, creator of MyBlogGuest.com, has a tremendously powerful tool here. I look forward to using it and helping others use tools like this to help them build their blogs. Expect to see more guest posts (…perhaps one a month) here on SEOe going forward.

And if you find any other services like these, let us know by leaving a comment.

Even in the age of SEO and social media tools like Facebook, this marketing funnel is still extremely relevant although some slight modifications are required. Each section of the AIDA funnel represents an important component of your marketing process. They help you set expectations and even determine metrics to measure your goals against.

Continue reading for a breakdown of this marketing funnel along with some additions in the new age of social media.

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

Awareness

Awareness is the bread and butter of any social media channel – whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any of the minor networks. Rather than being your point of sale, they’re more like your communications and outreach tools…think of them as the spokes of a wheel that lead back to the hub. The hub in this case is your blog, landing page(s), shopping cart and other places designed to convert visitors into customers.

Conversation frequency, increased mentions and sentiment are a few of the metrics to consider with awareness. Remember, you have to let people know you’re out there and that you can solve a problem they have.

Interest

Once you have their attention, you have to pique their interest. You can do this by offering something special like buy one, get one free, free shipping or some other offer. Provide compelling reasons as to why you’re better than the competition and how you can solve the visitor’s problem. If you’re talking about a specific product or service, link to a specific landing page rather than a homepage.

Click-thru rates (CTR), retweets/Facebook status updates and conversations about your products are a few of the metrics to consider.

Desire

Social media can also help build desire for your products and services. However, your corresponding site needs to be easy to use in order to carry that desire all the way to the end. If your site is hard to understand or navigate, then you’re likely going to kill any desire your visitors may have. Move your customer from interest to desire by having a clean, navigable site with lots of information.

Bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed and incoming links are some of the metrics you can use to determine the effectiveness of your efforts.

Action

At this point, your site is the primary tool. You’ve built the desire so all that’s needed from here is for you to close the deal…social media isn’t going to have much influence here. Therefore, like desire, you’re going to have to be sure you have a usable site that’s easily navigable.

Metrics like conversion rate and ROI will give you a full picture of how well your efforts are working…and the ones your boss will be most interested in.

Two More Levels to the Marketing Funnel – Loyalty and Advocacy

Loyalty and advocacy are two components that should be added to the AIDA funnel to better reflect the realities of social media and marketing online. Maintain loyalty by thanking customers through Facebook and Twitter and let them know you’re always available to answer questions or address concerns.

Advocacy is another important component of social media marketing, and the most desired. Customers who are happy with your products/services will let their friends know. But to make this happen, you need to make it easy for them to share your brand. “Like” and “Retweet” buttons in convenient locations are a great way to help this along.

The AIDA funnel certainly isn’t perfect and not all of the steps are required. You don’t need to live and die by this funnel…people can skip a level or go through multiple levels at once.

But it’s important to factor the AIDA funnel into your online marketing strategy. It should help you focus and prioritize your efforts for success.

Well in fact, you can if you do it right.

If done properly, you’re really developing relationships with other bloggers rather than fishing for links. Over time, this is a way more beneficial and practical approach. Other bloggers will see you read their material and benefit from it and may even cite something you write in one of their posts, giving you another organic link right there.

So how do I gain organic links for my blog through blog comments? Continue reading for 5 steps you can use to do just that.

1. Read the entire post you’re commenting on

You wouldn’t think so but many blog comments have absolutely nothing to do with the material in the post…this is a red flag for a ‘spammy’ comment. Be sure and read the entire post before commenting and either have some constructive criticism or a question to ask.

2. Identify yourself

You will also want to include your name in the right field. Many spam links contain keywords the link builder is trying to get links for. If you must include keywords, be sure you have your name first.

3. Be friendly and personal

Another way to build organic links and build relationships is to be friendly and personal. Address the blogger by their first name and thank them for the good post…just a couple ways to be friendly

4. Contribute something valuable to the discussion

Don’t simply say “great post” or something like that. Add to the points they mention in their post or provide some constructive criticism or ask a question. If you disagree with their conclusions, respectfully state why…don’t be rude about it.

5. Come back again and keep in touch

Don’t simply leave a comment and never return. Check in often and comment when you have something to add. Consistent visits and comments help you build the relationship that will lead to a link. Be sure to subscribe to their comments so you can see if they reply to you or if someone has something to add to your comments.

Commenting on others’ blogs is a great way to network with like minded professionals and build your online presence.

Links signal to the search engines that your blog and website are important and view links as a vote of confidence from whoever is linking to you. The bigger the site linking to you, the bigger the impact it can have. But start small in the beginning and grow the quantity and quality of your links in tandem.

What you first need to have is someone to interview, or an interviewee. You can find someone just about anywhere – maybe a coworker or the CEO of your company. Or maybe even a client or a prominent figure in your industry who can share their views with your readers.

Once you have someone in mind and they have agreed to be interviewed, you need to prepare for the actual filming. Continue reading for 9 steps to properly film a video interview to ensure your interview goes as smoothly as possible and accomplishes your goals.

1. Know what your interview is about beforehand

First thing you need to do is develop your questions and send them to the interviewee ahead of time. The interview itself isn’t the time to figure out what your story will be about…be prepared for that before you even enter the room.

2. Take a moment and get to know the interviewee before setting up

Before you get your camera equipment out, take a few moments to build a rapport with the interviewee. This will get both of you in a more relaxed state of mind for the interview. If one or both of you are new to interviewing, you will need to calm down before going any further. Let the interviewee see you care about them and are appreciative of their time.

3. Setup camera equipment before they sit down

Wait until you have setup your camera equipment before having the interviewee sit down. Once you’ve set all of the equipment up, have them sit down to make your final adjustments.

4. Make sure you like where the interviewee is looking

Once your camera is setup and the interviewee is in place, be sure you’re okay with where the interviewee is looking. You will want them to maintain eye contact with you so don’t stand directly behind the camera but next to it a couple of feet away.

5. Stay in one place

The interviewee will keep looking at you so if you’re wandering around, that will look weird on film. Stay in one place and maintain eye contact with the interviewee.

6. Focus your camera closely

A big face in an online video is a good thing…focus your camera closely to get more of the interviewee’s face onto the screen.

7. Be aware of your background

Do your best to have a background free of any distractions. Don’t have anything going on behind them and check to see how any tall objects like power poles or trees look on the video. You don’t want to have your interviewee look like they have tree trunk growing out of their head!

8. Pay close attention to lighting

While you don’t want the interviewee to be squinting because of light in their eyes, you don’t want to have sunlight or strong light behind them either. This will make it difficult for viewers to see the interviewee. If you’re indoors, you may need to move lighting or get a lamp to balance out other light sources in the room.

9. Wear headphones to filter out abstract noises

Any kind of noise can come along and ruin your video. Keep your headphones on to monitor any abstract noises that may come along and ruin your video.

These are a few of the things you need to keep in mind when filming an interview. Below you can see some both good and bad ways to position someone on camera.

In the end, you can edit the film, post it on YouTube, link to it through your blog and include a short summary of the interview for those who prefer to read (…and to reap some of the advantages of SEO). And you can let the interviewee know when it’s up so they can link to it from their blog, giving you another high-quality link to your site.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for the authorities so it’s important we’re all on guard so we don’t find ourselves in any trouble.

Privacy bill could mean increased disclosure requirements, privacy protections

One idea floating around Congress that’s seeing traction is an Internet consumer privacy bill being proposed by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), chair of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet.

Rep. Boucher’s bill is more of a privacy bill for consumers. Its main target is online advertisers who target consumers through behavioral advertising. Many online advertisers – including Facebook with their new ‘like’ features – examine behavior patterns online to target advertising to relevant parties, which in turn increases conversions.

Behavioral technology tracks a user’s searches, how long the stay on a page and even the sites they visit. Data is then taken by advertisers to establish behavior patterns and online demographics.

Web advertisers fear this bill will require web users to opt-in, causing them to lose an important tool in how they target potential customers. However, Rep. Boucher says he supports an opt-out option where web users can choose whether they want their information shared or not.

“If I were [a publisher or advertiser], I would want Internet users to have a sense that their experience is more secure, that they know what information is collected about them, and they be given much more control. They will be more trusting of electronic commerce. . . .it’s good for business,” says the representative from Virginia.

Whatever happens, there will certainly be increased regulation like new disclosure requirements and legal forms indicating how a site tracks data and uses it.

Financial Reform Bill grants new powers to FTC

Tucked inside the financial reform bill passed by the House last November was a provision expanding the Federal Trade Commission’s powers to allow them to impose civil penalties on companies engaging in “unfair” or “deceptive” trade practices.

Since the mid-1970’s, the agency had to hear public testimony and a congressional review had to occur before any penalties could be imposed on the business. With this new power, the agency will basically decide for itself with no public scrutiny what constitutes unfair advertising practices.

Ad industry groups fear this could lead to the FTC acting as an “unelected legislature,” basically giving it free rein over regulating Internet commerce.

The financial reform bill is currently being debated between the two chambers. The House passed its version late last year and the Senate this past April. Both chambers are reconciling their differences, which will need to pass. President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill when it arrives on his desk.

This bill seems more dangerous than Rep. Boucher’s privacy bill since it directly expands an agency’s enforcement authority.

Appointees to the FTC are chosen by the President so vesting this much authority in a centralized executive authority could be dangerous from a checks and balances perspective.

Boucher’s privacy bill is understandable in a big way but it will certainly add new requirements for webmasters and SEO marketers. The combination of the two could be a double whammy for any of us marketing our businesses online.

Stay tuned…