Why it’s time to stop obsessing over search engine #Rankings

Why it's time to stop obsessing over search engine rankings | AutoTraffic Why it's time to stop obsessing over search engine rankings Why not? Because we noticed that it accounted for less than 3% of our total search engine ... rankings occupied by market-dominating competitors. There are some battles you are never going to win. Instead of obsessing over the SERPs and pouring time ... read moreHotties 'n' Notties: Natalya, Beth Phoenix & Jeff Hardy. She is my desktop background, all over my facebook and I even beg the editor to change my byline in the newspaper to Chantal Phoenix (she refuses to though GRR.) So when the 3-time Womans Champion ... nails â€" erm why? It’s barely passable ... read more

The UnPopular Opinion: Marvel's The Avengers I watched his eyes glaze over at the tons of toys and t-shirts lining the shelves at Target. He has both an Iron Man and Captain America costume in his closet that he dons with regularity. So every time he had a really good day, I would pop on the trailer ... read more

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Source: Why it's time to stop obsessing over search engine #Rankings

Pinterest Improves Search With Enhanced Suggestions, Trending Searches, and More

Pinterest has made it easier to find the pins and users you're looking for with more streamlined search suggestions, the company stated in an announcement today.

Previously, search results would be cluttered with various filter settings for pins, users, and boards. Now Pinterest's search function more closely resembles what you would expect to find when using other leading social networks.

As soon as you start typing in Pinterest's search box the most closely related suggestions will begin to populate. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, prominent pinners will be indicated with a checkmark.

Search filters will still be available via the new filter button that appears once you tap or click into your results. With the new filter option you can switch between seeing boards, users, other people's pins, or just your own pins.

You will also be able to instantly find what's trending on Pinterest simple by tapping on the search bar. As an iPhone user this reminds me of Apple's iTunes and App Store with how you can see top trending searches as soon as you click on the search tab. For now, this is limited to only what's trending in the US.

Pinterest search has become smarter, in the sense that it will do its best to determine with you have made a spelling mistake and show you results for what it thinks you meant to type.

With this new functionality, people, businesses, and brands may see an increase in their Pinterest following. According to early tests, over two times as many searchers are finding the brands, people and boards they want to follow.

Source: Pinterest Improves Search With Enhanced Suggestions, Trending Searches, and More

Liverpool #Ranks better on #Google than in the Premier League

Liverpool ranks better on Google than in the Premier League Chelsea may have won the Barclays Premier League this season, but when it comes to visibility in Google UK searches, it trails its biggest rivals. A study by Searchmetrics, search and content optimisation company, analysed the online visibility of the web ... read moreRanking the 20 Best Premier League Players Available on Free Transfers This slideshow ranks the 20 best players who were ... Perhaps Davidson is not suited to Premier League football. It wasn't a fit for Borja Valero, who went on to achieve bigger and better things post-West Brom. It could be the same for Davidson. read more

Departures Give Liverpool Room to Manoeuvre Although Liverpool finished sixth the league table, rank fifth in Premier ... than their relative importance to the club. Kolo Touré is staying on to supplement Mamadou Sakho, Martin Škrtel, and Dejan Lovren even if a younger player may have been a ... read moreWhy Burnley goalkeeper Heaton outperformed Hart and Green in Premier League Heaton, who was the only goalkeeper in the Premier League to feature in every minute of all 38 games, fared much better than Hart and Green in terms ... of Tottenham's Hugo Lloris in the rankings, while Liverpool's Simon Mignolet was last. read moreFree and easy? Liverpool FC's past record signing out-of-contract players Their national team has risen to number two in the FIFA rankings with their players spread across the Premier League. Liverpool are no different ... The less said about Andriy Voronin's hair the better Ukraine international forward Andriy Voronin arrived ... read moreBastian Schweinsteiger to Manchester United wouldn't surprise me, says Bayern Munich legend Roy Makaay The ex-Netherlands striker, who watched Schweinsteiger come through the ranks ... Premier League. 'A friend of mine, Sander Westerveld, came here to be the goalkeeper at Liverpool,' he explained. 'Being a goalkeeper in England is very different than ... read moreWales v Belgium Euro 2016 qualifier: The inside track on Belgium's Premier League stars... by the men who watch them week in, week out Belgium have soared towards the top of the FIFA world rankings with a plethora of Premier ... Lukaku's form, though, was generally better in Europe than in the Premier League. He started the campaign slowly, with critics frustrated by his poor touch ... read moreLiverpool's hope for return to Champions League could be made harder by Juventus and the Italian revival England's dismal showing at last summer's World Cup Finals in Brazil, followed by the failure of Premier League ... Things were not much better in the Europa League, either. Only Everton made it further than the last 32, with Liverpool following ... read moreLiverpool told to pay £8m for Danny Ings Reds boss Brendan Rodgers was hoping to pay no more than ... Premier League goals this season but could not save Burnley from relegation. Liverpool do not want to pay over the odds though as they have their sights on adding a big name striker to their ranks. read moreMarc Bartra: Barcelona centre-back should be a Liverpool target this summer At just £8.6 million, Bartra is a player Liverpool must target. After progressing through the La Masia ranks ... per 90 in the Premier League last season, while none made more successful interceptions than Bartra. Bartra is a highly intelligent centre ... read more

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Source: Liverpool #Ranks better on #Google than in the Premier League

Search Marketers: The 4 New Expectations Of You In A Cross-Channel World

We all understand what cross-channel is, but how many of us really walk the walk and approach every day like cross-channel marketers?

Most of us were trained (or trained by people who were trained) in an era where we have chiefly worked side by side with other channels, but not so deeply integrated.

While a majority of marketing organizations today run multi-channel campaigns, most still execute Search as a separate channel with very limited consideration to the others. Maybe we start our search promotions at the same time as our colleagues in other channels, coordinate budgets, or use very similar creative directions, but holistic cross-channel coordination across teams, technologies, and partners still eludes us.

Even though there are pockets of cross-channel opportunities such as search retargeting to display or product listing ads across search to social, the tools haven't really caught up yet. The data show that most marketers are at least aligned with their channel strategy, but only a limited number are coordinated.

Now is the time to start really thinking hard about how your career is about to be affected once cross-channel does take center stage.

Defining Multi-, Cross- & Omni-Channel

Although many marketers interchangeably use the terms multi-channel, cross-channel, and omni-channel, I offer the following definitions (in order of marketing maturity).

Multi-channel. A marketing approach that runs multiple marketing channel at one time. Maybe some simple coordination and a few cross-channel tactics, but a very simple, straightforward approach.

Cross-channel. Multiple channels used together in a very strategic way that has a greater effect than each single channel could contribute by itself.

Omni-channel. All channels connected and working together to seamlessly market to each customer in a 1:1 manner at scale.

So, for example…

Multi-channel: A national retailer's online marketing portfolio includes search, display, mobile, social, and online video ads.

Cross-channel: A national retailer runs display ads targeting search visitors with product images based on the pages they visited on the website. Social ads are coordinated during their TV spots to take advantage of second screen and multi-tasking consumer usage habits. They also target video ads to their best customers tracked from their loyalty reward email preferences.

Omni-channel: Every time an individual consumer intersects with the digital marketing of a national retailer, their ad experience is determined on-the-fly based on the data of every previous interaction (whether they were months, weeks, days, or even seconds prior) to provide 1:1, highly relevant marketing at scale and in real-time.

Slowly, but surely, we are moving into the era of cross-channel marketing en masse. It will be advertising Darwinism where the companies stuck in multi-channel will fall behind the ones who are able to figure out the cross-channel conundrum. Eventually, the tools will be available for marketers to mature into an omni-channel approach, and they too will overtake those who fail to evolve.

What adjustments will you have to make very soon in order to become the cross-channel search marketer your organization and clients need you to be? Here are the four new expectations of you in a cross-channel world:

1. Embrace Your Contribution Value In A Cross-Channel Measurement System

"Marketing attribution" has been a buzzword for almost a decade, and many marketers have been either able to implement or at least experiment with this approach. However, this has historically been an initiative driven by the top of an organization and rarely embraced by the practitioners on the front lines.

Some search marketers have seen drastic deltas between the conversion and ROI tracking that an attribution system generates versus their own, trusted SEM tools. This leads to skepticism, doubt, and ultimately pushback on the validity of the attributed measurement results.

In some case, the search teams literally give lip service to the attributed measurement and keep working as if it didn't exist! For performance marketing agencies who are paid out based on the results they drive, or in teams bonused on goal thresholds, attribution could absolutely impact their wallets if not rolled-out carefully with all issues addressed.

Ironically, when these same marketers are challenged philosophically about which is better — last-ad click or holistic, attribution measurement — common sense immediately dictates that measuring things in silos is not really the right way to go. Attribution, as a concept, has been embraced, but often fails in practice.

You, the cross-channel search marketer must not only agree to run your SEM strategy via attributed measurement, but actually learn to embrace and prefer it. It's okay if your ROI "drops" as long as the key stakeholders understand that doing so will drive better results for ALL of their marketing investment.

The bottom line is that search marketing doesn't live in a bubble. The same consumers impacted by SEM are also being bombarded with online and offline ad impressions all day, every day which must be measured together for true context.

Become a cross-channel leader and accept your place in the cross-channel measurement story. When done right with every team's buy-in, attribution should lead to better marketing than a siloed approach.

2. Utilize Data From Every Channel In Your Search Strategy

In the multi-channel world, search marketers have been trained to pour through their account data to find the golden nuggets of insight that can drive awesome optimizations. For example, an ad group with falling click-through rates will get a creative makeover using the highest performing ads as the template to build out new ones. Or, a campaign is doing really well in ROI or ROAS but not spending enough so the answer to that challenge is to bid up keywords.

In the cross-channel world, search marketers will also look outward for the exogenous factors impacting their accounts from other channels. Maybe searches on a brand of shoes spiked because a teen idol is wearing those shoes in a product placement ad for in a web series? Or possibly, certain SEM ads are performing poorly because a giant banner buy is stealing that traffic for a week? There's data there that can absolutely help improve Search optimization.

Other online channels such as Display, Email, Video, Social, Mobile, etc. can be tied back to search visitors fairly easily in today's world — especially when there's a login event on the advertiser's website that connects the user across devices. These channels have loads of interesting metrics and metadata that will help search marketers understand what mix of messaging led to the search visit that paint a very clear picture of how to best drive consumers through the customer journey.

Offline data, such as CRM records, can provide search marketers with consumer information that will help connect the dots. For search visitors who convert online, a portion of them will also have offline historical CRM data that can provide search marketers interesting intel such as previous purchase history, loyalty card status, and demographic/geographic data. Imagine indexing specific SEM campaigns against segments such as frequent buyers, gold-card members, brand loyalists, moms, sports shoppers,

There's so much value there!

Once cross-channel data begins flowing through the teams, search marketers will have a mountain of new insights to sift through that will help them understand their consumers better, craft stronger strategies, and build more impactful SEM keywords, ads, and account settings. The search marketers who utilize and master the power of the external marketing channels will be able to market more effectively than those who don't.

3. Provide Curated Search Data Streams To The Rest Of Your Channel Partners

Just as getting other channel data into your search programs will enhance their power, the other channels will desperately need you to share your search data with them to help power their programs.

As I wrote in last month's column here at Search Engine Land, "7 Audience Targeting Data Types Versus Search Data (The Keyword Is Still The Undefeated Champ)," the keyword that a consumer searches for (as well as the ad copy they clicked) is one of the most valuable single data points an advertiser can leverage. It can enhance display targeting, providing more context for social ads, and cross the device barriers seamlessly due to the platform ubiquity of the engines, etc.

Getting data out is not a big deal when using an enterprise level search platform, but in the cross-channel future, non-search teams are going to want more than just an ftp upload. They're going to want you to help them understand the data stream, aka a curated feed.

Which keywords are the most valuable? Which new ad copy seems to be working? Has the volume of impressions on a set of keywords been trending up or down recently? Are these brand or non-brand terms? Which keywords have the most competition? These are easy questions for a search guru like you who is very intimate with your account data, but for the non-search teams, they need your expertise and insight to best utilize the feeds.

Search data is an incredibly powerful, 1st party stream that will help your channel colleagues increase the targeting capabilities of their own platforms. They will need your help here to make it useful.

4. Coordinate With Cross-Channel Reach & Frequency Channels

Although anchors in most marketing channels, "reach" and "frequency" are virtually absent in the search marketer's vocabulary.

Search marketers generally approach SEM as an "on-demand" marketing channel…meaning that if any consumer searches for a keyword we've uploaded and then clicks an ad after reading it, then they are absolutely qualified for that impression. Of course, the fact that paid search is also a pay-per-click channel means that search marketers don't even have to worry about wasting budgets on unseen ads.

So, do reach and frequency matter to SEM?

Not in a multi-channel world, but reach and frequency are the rice and beans of the offline world and even many digital programs. GRPs and TRPs, the key performance metrics of television — the marketing world's biggest channel — are reach and frequency driven. For search marketers to have a seat at the cross-channel table, they will need to embrace these metrics and understand how their channel fits into these models.

In reach and frequency models, search marketers may find that keywords in a siloed search world that seem pricey will actually be key in reinforcing the total marketing program — even if the ROI on the single channel model doesn't support the higher bid.

This is more than just a an attributed measurement conversation. If a big, summer blockbuster is coming out and the tv, radio, billboard, online video, and online display ads are pushing hard during the week of the release, the search team needs to be ready to handle the increased volume to close that loop and help the overall initiative. There isn't time to measure and optimize very impression and react accordingly. You have coordinate these things ahead of time using a single approach — and for many of the channels outside of search, reach and frequency are the most important variables.

Of course, reach and frequency are impossible to control in an on-demand media channel such as paid search. But search marketers will need to better understand what drives the strategic decisions of their non-search counterparts in order to best work together.

What other things are you thinking about regarding cross-channel marketing's effect on SEM?

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Be a part of the world's largest search marketing conference, Search Engine Land's SMX East. The robust agenda covers the latest tactics in paid search, SEO, mobile, analytics and more. Register today and save $300, or come as a team and save 10%-20%.

About The Author Josh Dreller has been a search marketer since 2003 with a focus on SEM technology. As a media technologist fluent in the use of leading industry systems, Josh stays abreast of cutting edge digital marketing and measurement tools to maximize the effect of digital media on business goals. He has a deep passion to monitor the constantly evolving intersection between marketing and technology. You can follow him on Twitter at @mediatechguy. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)
Source: Search Marketers: The 4 New Expectations Of You In A Cross-Channel World

Sub#Domains vs. subdirectories for #SEO: No #SERP benefits for sub#Domains anymore #articles

Subdomains vs. subdirectories for SEO: No SERP benefits for subdomains anymore | AutoTraffic Subdomains vs. subdirectories for SEO: No SERP benefits for subdomains anymore A subdomain ... subdomains and subdirectories similarly for the sake of SERP diversity should encourage marketers to choose the format and site structure easiest for them. An in-depth SEOmoz post offers some other insights on the benefits of organizing ... read moreSubdomains or Subfolders : Which are Better for SEO? An SEJ Reader send in the following question : Subdomains or Subfolders? What's better for a blog/forum/etc: a subdomain (eg ... ex-Googler and contributor to Search Engine Land: Google is no longer treating subdomains (blog.widgets.com versus ... read more

How To Permanently Delete Your Facebook Account Photos, friends, messages, status updates etc… According to Facebook, there is no way to restore your account and your data once it has been permanently deleted. With that in mind, please move forward reading all large and fine print. So let's get ... read morePay Per Click Party Over? The world is competing for keywords and bidding them up as necessary. Some may look for other Internet marketing options but the world is a big marketplace and so far there is no shortage of bidders. The rising cost has its biggest impact on small business ... read morefirms develop products and marketing strategies that appeal to the customer tastes? "What Do You Do?" Is This The Trickiest Job Interview Question? I had always thought that "Tell me about yourself" was the trickiest job interview question. Then I read a blog by Laura... Stop and Smell the Cucumber Melon: Your Fave Teen Fragrances ... read more

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Source: Sub#Domains vs. subdirectories for #SEO: No #SERP benefits for sub#Domains anymore #articles

How Often Should I Report to My #Marketing Clients?

We live in a technology-obsessed culture, where our thoughts can turn into the written word and be broadcast all over the world in mere seconds. The mobile office is becoming an increasingly accepted reality for many. Yet, for some reason, many of us are still failing miserably at retaining our clients for the long haul.

Our addiction with instant gratification not only has us obsessed with marketing our business to only new customers, it has also allowed us to forget about those existing ones who have helped build our brands and business in the first place.

KISSMetrics found that "companies focus on acquisition more than customer retention, even though it can cost 7x more to acquire new customers."

Instead of worrying about sending an email to the client that's already put the money into our pockets, we spend too much time obsessing about what news story we're going to share on Twitter!

The result? We lose those clients.

KISSMetrics also discovered that when a business relationship ends, "61% of consumers take their business to a competitor." Furthermore, the "average value of a lost customer is $243."

Because of these bad habits, our ability to report to our clients in a more consistent fashion has become more important than ever before. The question for many agencies, however, is how do we go about making sure that our existing clients are happy and satisfied with our service?

Knowing when and how to report to a client using all the different methods available will help us foster better relationships with our current customers, as well as keep them around. When this happens, they'll be padding your bottom line and spreading the word about how important your services really are.

Let's talk about the three main methods used to report and communicate with our clients and cover some best practices for getting them right.

Setting the Right Expectations

It is imperative when the new client is brought on board, you establish a precedent for how communication should take place over the course of your relationship.

Making sure to set the right expectations with your client by outlining how to effectively communicate with you and your team will prove to be one of the smartest moves you'll ever make.

For example, the first layer of communication you'll probably offer to a client's new service is offering unlimited email support 24 hours a day through a support portal. Then maybe five hours of phone support included in the service designated at specific times of the day.

Then, there might be a monthly conference call included. There's also the possibility of a once a month or bi monthly in-person meeting, depending on the location of the clients and the type of industry you are in.

Finally, there could be a monthly reporting email that touches on specific benchmarks you are responsible for. Outline this kind of reporting with your client so they know what to expect from you.

Failure to do this can sometimes leave the clients in the dark about what is going on and what kind of work you're doing. Even worse, there's the opposite; the client is constantly calling you on the phone asking questions and putting more stress on your team than originally expected.

Do yourself a favor and communicate with the client right out of the gate so that everybody is on the same page.

Email

There's no doubt that the bulk of your reporting with your client is going to be through email. However, it's not as simple as just stating email will be the main communication tool. Both you and the client have to establish some ground rules first.

You don't want to have a client who is sending more emails than you and your team can handle. Make sure you express the the best way to get to the bottom of a problem or task at hand.

Let the client know who to email specifically about certain problems that might arise, how to share files properly with the team, and response times should be outlined so that the client's expectations are met.

Project management tools, such as Basecamp, are needed to organize the communication via email even further – especially if many team members are involved. Ten emails at different times of the day may prove to be a great process, but those emails can also be a recipe for disaster if not managed properly. Make sure your team understands how to properly report updates and milestones to your client so that effective communication is taking place.

Phone

We've already discussed the importance of setting the right expectations and even further doing so with email. What's possibly even more important is how you set those expectations with regards to phone calls. To put it simply, there are people who really do not like talking on the phone. Conversely, there are plenty of people who believe that phone calls are superior or texts or email communication.

Expectations from the get-go should include knowing how often and when they are allowed to give your team a ring on the phone. Obviously in certain situations, especially those that are considered an emergency, calls are unavoidable.

These kinds of calls need to be dealt with, but you don't want to have the phone ringing off the hook all day long answering client questions and concerns.

In order to not find yourself in a compromising situation with a client, when creating your contract, detail phone call protocols. These could include having a specific phone number or toll-free phone number setup for technical problems to having a general office number with hours of operation. Also, consider only giving your personal cell phone number out to those clients who have earned your trust and who have not abused their phone privileges.

However, that doesn't mean you can't give them a quick call from time-to-time. It shows that you actually care about them and not just a signature on a paycheck.

Conference and In-Person Meetings

While email and telephone support is going to be the bulk of your interaction with a client, there is nothing more important than the periodic conference call with the team or, if possible, the in-person meeting. This is especially true in today's mobile office, where people work from all over the world together on various projects. Nothing will make a relationship stronger than having those meetings where actual hands get shaken, smiles are shared, and deep levels of trust and respect between clients are established.

These face-to-face meetings are especially true in the performance-reporting phase, where you can actually see the reaction of your clients face, giving you a better understanding of how your company is doing and how the client feels about where they are spending their money – plus it puts a face to a name.

As mentioned before, the mobile office is changing the dynamics of how we work together and there are many successful companies that exist that have employees and clients who live far away from each other.

The companies that succeed are those that go out of their way to make sure that even if it's once a year, their team gets together in one room and gets to know each other on a personal level – and then goes out for a drink afterwards.

And the same goes with their interactions with clients. When you have more than one of your team and client on the phone at the same time, you build a level of camaraderie that you just can't get on a regular phone call or email conversation.

Conclusion

Making sure you effectively and frequently communicate with your clients – whether through text, a phone or face-to-face – is crucial in keeping the client relationship solid. It's also an important part of the service you offer, which you might not have considered, but one you should.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Bacho via ShutterstockImage #1: Dragon Images via Shutterstock

Source: How Often Should I Report to My #Marketing Clients?

The Basics of #SEO Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Creating revenue with a small amount of resources and the unlimited number of tasks associated with running a business are challenges every entrepreneur faces – and they aren't likely to change. You are likely short on time as you try to get your brand off the ground, create findability, and build an organization – which means you lack the bandwidth to learn and execute the daily tasks associated with every role.

When it comes to SEO, a few important basics can greatly improve your presence in the increasingly crowded online space.

Since SEO has evolve to include a content-centric view of rankings and incorporate social media and local engagements, there are fewer shortcuts and a larger focus on quality. While it sounds time-consuming, quality content has benefits that reach beyond SEO, as good content is useful across all marketing mediums, and forces you to think through messaging from a topic and keyword perspective – ensuring you're honing in on what actually matters.

Below are a few things I think are important:

Know Your Audience(s) and What They're Looking For

This is a helpful exercise regardless of whether or not you care about SEO. You've got to know who would buy your products or services, and what they're looking for, in order to find them. Your initial assumptions may be accurate, but you may also be missing things that could drive additional traffic, potential messaging opportunities, or new market segments.

You'll want to do some research up front (if you haven't already) and map an audience to the keywords, topics, and phrases they're using in and around your industry. It's also helpful to map the keywords and topics back to your content and the ways people are sharing it so you'll know what types of content perform best on each channel.

Image by author

If you don't have the time to go through that exercise in its entirety, a look at how people are currently finding your content using your analytics provider (like Google Analytics) is a good start.

Map Competitor Content

If you're looking for increased traffic, and not just any traffic but relevant traffic, you need to know what you're up against. Mapping out your competitors' content will help you understand what's already out there, what's missing, and how similar products and services are being messaged.

To get started, create a spreadsheet with the following information:

The competitor name (e.g. Acme)

The keywords / topics that you're targeting that they are also ranking for (e.g. "anvils")

The content they've created that is currently ranking above yours or in the top 10 on search engines (e.g. "how to trap a roadrunner" – be sure to include the title of the content as well as the URL.)

Note any key elements of the content such as videos, images, long-form content, lots of discussion on the post, etc.

Armed with this information, you can better allocate the limited time and resources you have to create content that truly stands out against the competition.

Certain tools will do this for you automatically, and will also highlight things like search and CPC data, which can be a great option if you have a highly competitive or volatile market.

Screenshot from ginzametrics.com

Create a Content Repository

Creating increased traffic and revenue comes from having the most useful content for your audience to consume. Whether that's in the form of landing pages, blogs, email, social media, ads, or other assets – you'll need to focus on the findability of your specific content. Having a content idea repository will ensure you've always got a list of topics and fresh information for your audience.

In your repository should be the following:

Ideas for new content gathered from forums, Q&A sites, LinkedIn, etc. (Questions around your industry, products, and marketplace can be great blog posts, FAQs, Slideshares, videos, landing pages, and email subjects.)

Content ideas to ensure you're on par with your competitors when it comes to covering topics and questions in the industry and around your company.

Unique messaging for your brand and products based on the keywords from item number one.

Once you've done this, map keywords and topics back to each content topic to ensure you're writing with those in mind when it comes time to create the content.

Set Keyword Expectations and Manage Them Accordingly

You're going to want to run your keywords and topics through a tool like Google's Keyword Planner to make sure  the topics and keywords you have chosen have enough search volume and potential traffic to warrant time spent. Be sure to take into account the relevance of the search to your audience. The narrower the topic focus, the lower the traffic typically, but this is often offset by the accuracy and interest of the audience.

For example, a broad search might be "running shoes" which has a very high volume and competition for space. You may not want to create content just for "running shoes". Instead, consider a focus that maps back to your content ideas and create keywords and topics such as "women's trail running shoes."

Set Up Your Site & Content Structure for Success

As you create content, you'll want to make sure each page is optimized for crawlability, page speed, mobile friendliness, and overall findability. Initial investment in a site audit or recommendations for establishing a few initial best practices will pay out results ten-fold.

A few of my favorite resources are:

Depending on your budget and how much site content you've already created, you may want to conduct a site audit of your current content or use a recommendations tool that will highlight current issues and help you update them.

Track Progress

You're going to want to keep an eye on the keywords and content you're creating and to track competitor movement in the space. A lot of sudden movement by a competitor on a group of keywords could signify intent to increase marketing efforts in that area, add additional products that competes with yours, or other issues to be aware of in your space.

For example, if you are currently responsible for marketing mens trail running shoes at Nike and you see a large increase in rank by Reebok for the same trail running shoe keywords – you might want to take a look at the content they're creating and the marketing movement they're making with your audience.

Start using a rank tracking tool for your site, even if you don't have all of the content set up yet, to keep an eye on how you're performing. If you choose an integrated analytics tool you can track rank, keyword performance, social analytics, and other items all in one place so you'll be able to better understand how your content affects your overall traffic and revenue.

Make Time for Adjustments & Optimizations

As you track progress and release new content, you should start to see what works well for your audience, whether it's specific channels, content types, or messaging (or a combination of the three.) From there, dive back into the keywords and topics and get specific about each keyword list for your updated audience groups, marketing channels, etc.

The more you can narrow down your marketing efforts, the better your conversions will be. For example, if you have a younger audience segment that uses Twitter and Instagram – look at what topics and keywords relate to that audience and then match your Instagram content to those. If you have another audience segment that focuses on Pinterest or Slideshare, see what their specific needs and topics are and focus the content you create for those mediums on those keywords.

This is especially important when considering mobile content consumption, as people are often accessing apps and sites, and asking different questions when searching on a mobile device versus a tablet or desktop.

At the end of the day, focusing on quality content that can be easily found by your target audience will benefit all of your marketing and sales efforts – so spend a little time on the things above and the rest will fall into place.

Source: The Basics of #SEO Every Entrepreneur Should Know