Sarah Shade is the Content Specialist at Express Writers.
In order for customers to want to read your online content, it needs to be valuable, unique and exciting.
No big deal, right?
While everyone knows that creating, curating and distributing valuable content on your website and throughout all your web marketing is the key to online marketing success, it’s not always that easy to create content that wows your audience in a world were 27 million pieces of content are shared across the web.
If your content hasn’t been working lately, it’s possible you’ve been missing important “value points” of great content or that you’re simply not giving readers material that is applicable to them.
Fortunately, these problems are easily fixable and content marketers who have been struggling to create successful content can do well to go back to the basic value points of fantastic content.
What are “Value Points?”
Value points are the things that make your content stand out from everybody else’s. For example, if there are 5,700 articles on the web on how to plant a garden correctly, the strength of your value points is what will make your article the one people choose to click on.
The 5 Value Points Your Online Content Should Have
Although the above definition sounds intimidating, value points can be broken down into very specific sections that outline how, exactly, content goes about providing unique value to its readers.
1) Your Content Should Be Capable of Shifting With its Audience
You’re a good content marketer so you’ve probably taken the time to develop target personas, right? The thing about even the best target personas, however, is that they change with time. Your target persona at the beginning of your business’s lifespan will absolutely not be the same as your target persona five years later.
Additionally, target personas can (and do) vary by product, location, form of content and even website or social media platform. The people you target on Instagram may not be the same people you target with your videocasts, and so on and so forth. With this in mind, one of the most notable value points of great content is that it is capable of shifting as its target persona does.
If all of the online content you create is aimed at Jane Doe, a 53 year old woman who lives in the Midwest, works a middle class job, is concerned about coupons and saving money, isn’t particularly tech-savvy and wants information about living frugally, all of the John Does and Laura Jones out there are going to be left in the dust and, as such, they won’t find your content interesting or valuable.
With that in mind, take the time to research all of your target audiences and then create content that caters specifically to them. Update your target personas as your business grows or your values change. A great way to stay on top of shifting trends is to use a tool like Prismatic or Klout, which allows you to keep tabs on the people you follow via keywords, so you can stay abreast of what’s going on in your industry.
Additionally, be conscious of the customer’s position in the buying journey. If they’re in the early phases of research or inquiry, they probably don’t want product-specific content. With that in mind, seek to offer content that isn’t directly related to your company’s product, good or service but that offers helpful information nonetheless (For example, consider clothing company ModCloth’s Twitter feed, which offers everything from tasty sangria recipes to shots of the company’s clothing).
This is a valuable and non-intrusive approach that is absolutely killer at attracting new customers Additionally, it is the primary way you can ensure your material provides solid value to readers and differentiates itself solidly from the churning sea of content consumers deal with daily.
2) Your Online Content Should Fill in the Gaps
With upwards of 27 million pieces of online content whipping around the web on a daily basis, it’s hard to imagine that there are any gaps anywhere, right? Think again. What takes content from being run-of-the-mill to outstanding is its ability to see the things other content misses.
Maybe those garden articles all tell customers how to plant a garden but they leave them wondering when and where. By providing an answer for these unanswered questions, you meet an important value point and set yourself up for success by dominating the market for those queries. By filing in knowledge gaps or acknowledging unacknowledged challenges, you can stand out in the eyes of customers who want valuable, solid information.
3) Your Content Should Play the Long Game
While it’s great for content to go viral, it’s also valuable for content to draw a steady stream of customers for months on end. With that in mind, don’t allow yourself to be perpetually obsessed with content that goes straight to the top of the charts immediately.
While viral content does offer specific value, the value is typically trend-based, which means it may not offer sustainable use to customers or readers. In order to reach its peak value potential, content needs to be able to play the long game, as well. By dedicating yourself to creating varied content with a wide array of goals and functions, you can provide a variety of valuable pieces to customers.
4) Your Content Should Be Unique
While it’s all well and good to cite statistics and provide great information, truly memorable content will stand apart via its use of new information, anecdotal evidence, themes relevant to a specific audience or well-placed action tips. Again, there’s a lot of content out there and everything sounds roughly the same. In order for your content to stand out, it needs to be unique and offer the value point of substance and relate-ability to customers.
With that in mind, offer anecdotes that come from your personal experience or that they can relate to directly and, once you’ve disseminated information, offer them a series of action tips on how to use it. Incorporate these things throughout all of your content. Think of it this way: ribs all taste the same; it’s the sauce that makes them definably different. When you bring a great sauce to your content, people will happily flock to it.
5) Your Content Should Be Elegant
Nobody is going to find clunky, badly written content useful, valuable or share-worthy. With this in mind, if your content isn’t working, it’s worth it to spend some time looking at your actual style of writing. Is it elegant? Is it concise? Is it clear and to the point? Can you outline concepts in a simple way that readers can understand without a diagram?
In order to be elegant, great content needs to be written in a clean and simple style; it needs to include unique images that add value to your message and pertain directly to your audience and it needs to be presented in a format that is capable of keeping people engaged. For a blog post, this might mean that text is broken up into headers, sub headers, bulletins and short paragraphs. For a podcast, it might mean that the audio is high quality and easy to download. For a videocast, it might mean the camera angle is appropriate and the image is clear. Making content elegant applies to any form of content you choose to use and should be one of your main considerations as you seek to create material that customers will love.
The Case for Value Points
Although seeking to stand out from the online content sea may seem intimidating, it’s really a simple process of learning what works and what doesn’t. At this stage in the journey of content marketing, we know that readers want value and that the best way to deliver that value to them is to write unique, elegant, interesting content that caters to their needs and concerns. By meeting the value points mentioned in this article, you can ensure that your content is always as good as it can possibly be.
Although there are millions of pieces of content available on the web today, the difference between good content and bad content is astounding. Fortunately, with these tips, you can ensure that your content always lands on the “good” side of the page. For great online content that brings in all the right value points, hire our industry expert copywriters to pen your content!
To be a “thought leader” is one of the most sought-after titles a marketer can hope for.
Thought leaders are influential individuals who play a huge role in informing the public, leading the direction of the industry, presenting new information and breaking barriers.
Theirs is the content that is loved; shared; read; and sought-after.
You can’t just go to school to be a thought leader, though. It requires the careful cultivation of a set of particular skills, strengths and networks. It’s not enough to simply be intelligent, hard working or interested: you also need to be passionate, unique and unafraid of pushing the boundaries of possibility.
What is a True Online Thought Leader?
Thought leaders are many things but, to put it simply, they’re the people to whom everyone else goes for new ideas and key questions. They are informed individuals who offer valuable opinions and inspiration for the people who learn from them and they serve the amazingly important purpose of turning intangible ideas into solid realities.
Thought leaders make things happen and, more often than not, they undertake the task of transforming industries and instigating great change across varieties of platforms.
Thought leaders in the content marketing world include Brian Clark, the CEO of CopyBlogger; Brian Halligan, the Co-Founder of HubSpot and Joe Pulizzi, the Founder of Content Marketing Institute.
How to Be a Thought Leader: 10 Solid Tips
Becoming a thought leader is a little bit like becoming a unicorn: it takes a lot of effort and just a little bit of magic. Fortunately, you’re totally capable of both of those things. In the world of content marketing, the process of becoming a thought leader boils down to having unique ideas, expounding upon them in a unique way and offering people real, tangible value.
Follow these 10 tips to become a thought leader in your industry.
1) Be Authentic
Although it’s part of a thought leader’s job description to create high-level content that answers tough questions and provides real value for readers, it’s also important to know yourself and know your audience. This is especially difficult when you take into account the external pressure that is exerted on though leaders all the time. While it can be tough to avoid becoming distracted by things like the analytics attached to your blog, it’s important to remember that those things don’t provide a real window the to the big picture.
Additionally, they make it hard to remember that there are actually people behind all those swoopy lines and numbers. Because of this, the first step to becoming a thought leader is to be authentic, both to yourself and your audience.
You came to this business because some aspect of it was interesting to you. Therefore, there is very little that is more important than continuing to chase that interest. By writing what you know and are passionate about, your content will already have an edge over a great deal of content available on the Internet. Additionally, doing this will allow you to draw a series of followers who genuinely care about your topic.
How We’re Being Authentic (On Social)
One way we’re working on our authenticity is bringing a new level of transparency in our social media. In August 2015 we opened an Instagram account. We’ve started to feature a weekly #virtualworkforceculture post about our remote writers, with a picture of their faces, in their location: and our CEO has been traveling weekly to local businesses for a #localbusiness feature. among other things. Here’s a glimpse:
A photo posted by Express Writers (@expwriters) on
This is the start to a very transparent social account that shows just what we’re up to in the office, and ties together faces in our work-at-home based team.
2) Seek to be a Hub of Information
Nobody wants another loudmouth marketer who takes over a huge portion of the Internet by hawking products or hard-selling readers. For this reason, one of the most important steps in becoming a thought leader is to dedicate yourself to being a hub of information rather than a blaring siren.
Business and personal blogs should act as platforms for reader engagement and should seek, primarily, to offer value to customers. Additionally, these platforms should offer a place for people to gather and engage in conversation via blog comments, tweets and re-tweets or social media shares. By doing that, you serve the most important purpose of a thought leader: inspiring ideas and facilitating cohesion.
3) Inspire Action
One of the most important purposes your content can serve is to inspire action within your readers. Your content should be so irresistible that people want to share it on social media, read the book you mentioned, try their hand at something new or travel to the exotic locale outlined in your most recent post. The goal can vary but the outcome should be the same: in order to be a thought leader, your content needs to move people to action.
4) Cultivate Your “Breakthrough Idea”
One of the traits of thought leaders everywhere is that they’re associated with a breakthrough idea. Depending upon your niche, your breakthrough idea could be an area of expertise or a particular approach to an old topic. Whatever your breakthrough idea is, it should inform the rest of your content.
For example, if you’re going to run a blog about optimizing efficiency and getting more done with less stress, your guests should be people who do that very well, your topics should be focused around wellness, productivity and success and your layout should be conducive to the rest of the message. The breakthrough idea informs the thought leader, who then informs the audience.
5) Be Consistent
Even if you write great content with a unique and inspiring message, it’s going to be tough for anyone to get onboard if they can’t predict where you’re going to go next. For this reason, thought leaders need to be consistent. Consistency promotes trust and accountability and gives people something to look forward to within your material.
6) Be Present
It’s hard to be a thought leader if you’re not actively participating in your industry and maintaining a consistent web presence. With that in mind, get out there and get published on a regular basis. It’s great to write several posts a week for your individual blog, but the true leaders will take this a step further by guest blogging, writing for authoritative sites, publishing a variety of content on dozens of different platforms and writing for industry leaders. This promotes a larger audience and contributes to a more recognizable brand.
7) Shoot for the Stars
Nobody ever became a thought leader refusing to hit for the bleachers. Because of this, it’s important to make big claims. Have confidence in your expertise and your brand and don’t be afraid to drive new ideas. This is one of the main things that set thought leaders apart from everyone else: thought leaders make big claims and they deliver results.
It’s impossible to make innovative change in your industry without doing this. Don’t worry about doing it all in a day, however. Just shoot for developing the ability to make big claims and, soon enough, your achievements will change as a result.
8) Network
Networking is an important part of becoming a thought leader. It’s tough to exist as an island and, in order to claim maximum success; you’ll need a network of like-minded individuals around you. In order to attain this, it’s important to work closely with influencers and mentors and participate on several social media platforms.
Additionally, you should be reaching out to followers by responding to comments, tweeting and re-tweeting and getting intimately involved in discussions on sites like Quora. Don’t miss opportunities to attend in-person events and conferences and call on your network when you need it. The easiest way to rise to the top is to have people prepared to help boost you.
9) Break Rules
This goes hand in hand with making big claims but it’s an important part of the equation. In order to become a thought leader, you need to get really comfortable with breaking rules and transcending boundaries. The fact that somebody said it’s not possible should mean next to nothing to you and, if anything, you should take it as inspiration to succeed. Think of it this way: boundaries are there to separate thought leaders from everyone else and it’s your job to figure out a way to jump over them.
10) Think Different
It’s no secret that one of Apple’s most successful slogans was “Think Different.” That’s exactly what Apple has always done and if there were ever a tech industry thought leader, it’s safe to say that it has been Apple and Steve Jobs. In order to become a through leader in any industry, though, it’s important to do just that: by thinking different you help yourself stand out from the crowd. You also fill gaps in content, provide new ideas and help customers connect to you.
Becoming a thought leader is not an overnight process but by working on these 10 points, you can be well on your way to becoming an industry thought leader in no time.
Sarah Shade is a Content Specialist at Express Writers.
Regardless of niche, vision, profit margins and aspirations, you and all business owners have one thing in common.
You give your best on different fronts to stand out from the crowd.
Quite often, you might engage your efforts in a battle with competitors, and also with your own limitations. During this process, you might rely on premium content to highlight your uniqueness, make your products more desirable and form solid communities around your brands.
However, achieving consistency in content creation is more difficult than you may think, especially when you are faced with multiple work-related challenges on a daily basis.
Truth be told, every once in a while, we all get distracted.
Sometimes, we are overwhelmed by all the tasks that require our full attention and prompt intervention.
We run out of fresh, creative ideas and we lose our motivation for a second or two.
Nonetheless, we shouldn’t let these temporary impediments stand in the way of our success.
Why Does Your Business Require a Steady Content Flow?
Nowadays, content is still a powerful game-changer that could represent the perfect liaison between businesses and their clients.
Robust, consistent, unique content is an invaluable asset that can separate you from your main competitors, boost your revenues, maximize your online visibility, tighten your bond with prospects and existing customers and give you hope for the future.
According to Brad Friedman from Social Media Today, by posting content regularly and keeping your website updated you could improve your search engine rankings and implement more effective link building strategies. After all, it’s always easier to find and use links that are relevant to your pages when you’re running a blog that counts hundreds of quality posts reflecting your grand vision, mission and purpose in business.
8 Ways to Stay Consistent with Your Web Content at All Times
A steady content flow can help you make a name for yourself in any field of activity, while managing to impress both human visitors and search engines with your commitment and consistency.
But churning out dozens of first-hand articles and blog posts is no easy task, especially when you’re writing with your audience in mind. A stream of unforgettable content requires a mix of inspiration, creativity, talent, motivation and hours of research.
If you want to be able to take pride in a flawless, uninterrupted content flow in the long term, here are a few key steps that you should follow to achieve your goal.
1. Stick to an Editorial Calendar That Makes Sense to You
We will let you in on a well-kept secret: even the most experienced bloggers, journalists and business owners count on an editorial calendar to control content publication across a great variety of channels, such as newspapers, blogs, social media platforms and email newsletters. An article published by CrazyEgg reveals that a good editorial calendar adapted to your goals can improve your current content strategy. Using this handy little helper you can manage and schedule social media posts, gather new ideas for inspiring articles and posts, track events that could become your most generous sources of inspiration, and schedule your own blog posts, as well as the ones signed by guest authors. Now you can make the most of three great editor calendar plugins for WordPress (CoSchedule, Editorial Calendar and EditFlow) to plan your every move in advance and make sure that deadlines will no longer catch you by surprise.
2. Explore Key Themes That Could Never Get Boring
Instead of creating dull, perishable content that essentially puts your products and services into the spotlight and praises the uniqueness of your brand, opt for a different approach. Tackle the real-world problems and concerns expressed by your audience. Humanize and personalize your brand. Be helpful. Be engaging. For once, put your skills, expert insight and experience to good use to explore a series of interesting themes and convey information-rich messages that will raise the interest of your audience.
3. Create, Publish and Distribute Evergreen Content
No matter how active you are in your field of activity, you may get hit by a serious case of writer’s block at some point. Does this mean that you should lay down your weapons, while praying for the return of your inspiration? Of course not! Instead of opting for a passive approach towards content creation, you should explore a series of evergreen content ideas that are long-lasting and sustainable and can continue to stay relevant long after their materialization. How-to tutorials, videos, list posts and product reviews match this description and can help you satisfy your readers’ hunger for premium content even when you don’t really have anything new and groundbreaking to write about. Choose high-interest evergreen topics (romance, pet care, weight loss, finance, parenting and so on) that are fully compatible with your business and find the most creative methods to add new meanings to old stories.
4. When Your Content Ideas Are Drying Up, Improvise!
At some point, you may get tired of crafting list posts and how-to articles. While these types of content will always return the desirable results as long as you keep your quality standards high, simply because they stress out the problems experienced by your readers and promise miraculously effective solutions to these issues, it is always recommended to play the diversity card to keep your readers engaged. By improvising every once in a while you could break the monotony and avoid dull topics that you may be tempted to use as a last resort. Here’s an idea worth exploring: talk to influent people in your industry and turn your dialogue into the essence of your new article or blog posts. Make a list of interview subjects and unleash your creativity. If everything goes according to plan, consider turning interviews into a prominent, regular feature of your content flow.
5. Unleash the Power of Multimedia Content
Your content shouldn’t be limited to chunks of text, especially today, when multimedia elements are more appreciated than ever. Podcasts, videos, infographics and quality images can enhance the appeal of your writing and stimulate other players in your industry to share your material and give you credit for it. Most importantly, you can use all these essentials as the food for thought that you may need to come up with new content ideas. For instance, you can build your new article or blog post around a clever, visually appealing infographic shared by a reputable source or a video that has gone viral on YouTube.
6. Make the Most of User-Generated Content
UGC (user-generated content) is a real gold mine for those who are desperately trying to avoid too generic, overdone topics that have no effect whatsoever on savvy readers. The opinions and suggestions that you could find on discussion forums can fuel your content creation efforts; and the same goes for blog comments, client testimonials and any other form of feedback provided by the members of your audience.
7. Hire Expert Writers
Sometimes, you may feel the need to upgrade your team by adding a few new talents who are familiar with your industry, brand and products. In this case, you need more than a good writer; you actually require the services of an experienced content creator who knows your niche, competitors and audience and has what it takes to tailor your messages based on these three key elements. You can use various types of user-generated content (such as photos posted by your satisfied customers on Instagram) to cultivate and provoke online conversations, build trust and credibility, reflect a sense of authenticity and ultimately, create and maintain an uninterrupted content flow with just a little bit of help from your prospects and existing clients.
8. Use Online Tools That Will Help You Stay Organized
Content creation can be a complex, laborious assignment. This is why you shouldn’t hesitate to simplify your workflow by counting on a generous selection of online tools designed to support your progress. For example, Google Hangouts and Skype can help you organize productive brainstorming sessions with clients and colleagues anytime, anywhere. Evernote enables you to track topics and pull out new inspiring ideas from your personal archive, while Trello gives you the chance to create boards for your buyer personas, work closely with your staff members, attach documents, create and assign new tasks, add due dates to help your team meet deadlines and vote on various content ideas. Identify, select and use the free online tools that could perfect your content flow to stay on top of your game without having to work extra to reach your target.
Maintaining a Balanced Flow of New Content Doesn’t Have to Be a Challenge
As a dedicated business owner, you know your products and your prospects better than anyone else; and still you’re having a hard time expressing your most creative content ideas.
Or maybe you’re just too busy juggling different work-related responsibilities on a daily basis and can’t find the time and energy to research new topics, identify and analyze new market trends or build a deeper bond with your audience.
In this case, rest assured knowing that a team of professional writers can help you maintain a high quality content flow.
Rely on quality web content writing services to stay relevant on your niche, impress readers and search engines and improve brand awareness, and let a team of creative minds pave the way for your success.
Sarah Shade is a Content Specialist at Express Writers.
The newest Panda is here.
Panda 4.2 is Google’s most recent updated to their algorithm software and it’s already befuddling content marketers everywhere.
It’s no secret that Google can be a little, well…secretive, about its updates so it’s no surprise that nobody really seems to know what’s going on with the 4.2 update.
Fortunately, we’re here to help. Here is what the Google Panda 4.2 updates mean for your web pages— in as plain English as I can utilize.
Let’s dig in…
Google Panda 4.2 Will Affect a Small Percentage of Search Queries
According to expert estimates, the Panda updates will affect some 2-3% of all web searches. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that this is Google we’re talking about so 2-3% equals roughly 36 million searches.
Panda 4.2 Still Insists Upon Quality Over Quantity
One thing that hasn’t changed with the Panda 4.2 update is the insistence upon quality content. The update puts a high premium on quality content and can be expected to punish scraped content and down rate sites that use shoddy content creation techniques.
As with previous Panda updates, Panda 4.2 is out to do away with keyword stuffing, content mills, ugly, broken or unscrupulous websites and black hat SEO practices that attempt to fly below Google’s algorithm radar.
“Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we’ve been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely. This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.”
For sites that are already creating high-quality content, these updates shouldn’t present a problem. For those that aren’t, however, it might be time for an about-face. Panda 4.2 will further emphasize Google’s insistence that sites need to focus on quality over quantity by producing original content that is well written and utilizes keywords correctly. Additionally, Panda 4.2 can be expected to crack down on ugly, overstuffed websites.
On this same note, any site that has been penalized by any of the previous Panda updates will now have a chance to reform and step over to the side of all that is good and just in the world of content marketing. Sites that were down rated by previous panda updates and have made the needed changes will now have the chance see an uptick in traffic, providing the changes made were up to snuff.
This is a double-edged sword, however, as sites that were not previously affected by the Panda updates may see a downtick in traffic due to the update and its accompanying requirements. If nothing else changes but you notice a lull in traffic post-Panda 4.2, it’s likely the new algorithm is to blame.
Google Panda 4.2 is the Slowest Panda Yet
Although this version of Panda was first introduced on July 18th of this year, the complete rollout is projected to occur slowly over the course of several months. This is not surprising, however, as Google’s updates have gotten slower and slower and the time between updates has expanded.
It’s been ten months since Panda’s 4.1 update and sites that were dinged by that round of updates are anxiously awaiting 4.2 to take hold, although it looks like they’ll have to wait just a bit longer. On that same note, sites that haven’t placed the needed level emphasis on quality content may notice some downticks in their traffic with the 4.2 updates. Unfortunately, once the update is released, it is too late to make changes to a site and those penalized by the new updates will simply have to wait until the next slow Panda comes along.
Because Google Panda 4.2 is such a slow-moving beast, SEOs may have a difficult time determining how and when the algorithm is affecting their site. On this same note, it will be somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly what Panda 4.2 is promoting or penalizing although it’s safe to say that this update, like all the others, was born for the purpose of buoying quality content to the top of the search rankings.
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
With this recent Panda update, SEO’s have all the same questions they always have: what is the update targeting? How will webmasters become aware of penalties to their sites? What kind of content is best for rankings?
Although the answers to these questions aren’t explicitly clear, it is a safe bet that this Panda is like all of the others in that it is seeking to promote and reward quality content. This means that sites that feature well-written, original content that utilizes high-quality links and has a high DA score are likely safe from any negative affects borne by the 4.2 update.
In light of that, the high ground remains the same: create original content that is high quality, well researched and valuable to your readers. Although Panda’s updates may seem complex, they all point to the same thing: the value of great content and a war on sneaky SEO tactics that allow black hats to trick the system and artificially inflate rankings.
This Panda, like all the other Panda’s in Google’s army, just wants to reward the sites that do the best job and let everyone else step to the back.
It might seem impossible that Google, the king of SEO, needs help with SEO or that Google needs an SEO guy at all. But, according to a recent posting on the Google Careers job board – it’s true. The job board calls for an SEO project manager and describes the job like this:
“As a Program Manager for Technical SEO, you will work with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Engineering and more to help drive organic traffic and business growth. You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites.” (Source: google.com/about/careers/search#!t=jo&jid=120105001)
Yes, even Google is hiring for an SEO expert to help them with their own rankings. No, that’s not ironic…at all…
Google Needs An SEO Guy: Why Even Google Needs Help
Regardless of whether you run the system or not, the process of increasing organic traffic is tough. Google’s lucky new SEO will be responsible for everything from developing web code to advising, collaborating with and synthesizing feedback from departments like Product and Engineering and Marketing.
Although Google employs a large team of technical developers, designers, writers and engineers, it is possible that the addition of a new SEO would indicate that, in a sea of content, Google has trouble standing out – just like everyone else.
It’s fair to say that whoever eventually fills this job description will be the envy of many SEO’s across the web. Being the SEO guy for Google is a little bit like being a member of the Kardashian’s camera crew – it’s an exciting role that offers plenty of behind-the-scenes intel and a fair amount of excitement. In order to be that lucky SEO, though, you’ll need the following qualifications:
BA/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent life experience.
4 years of experience developing websites and applications with applications and software such as SQL, HTML5, and XML.
At least 2 years SEO experience.
Experience working with Google App Engine, Google Custom Search, Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.
Experience creating and maintaining project schedules and extensive experience utilizing tools within project management systems.
How the New SEO Will Boost Google’s Rankings
Even if you are Google, there are no free lunches in terms of SEO.
In order to boost the company’s rankings and drive more organic traffic, Google’s SEO will have to focus on content rather than simply relying on technical SEO.
In addition to being vastly more evergreen than technical SEO, content is the #1 ranking factor these days and is the only sure way for a company, any company, to boost its rankings.
Although SEO is and will always be an important factor to understanding rankings and boosting a site’s position in the indexes, it’s clear that Google’s new SEO will have to focus on a bit more than SEO alone.
Why Content is King
Not much has changed since Bill Gates used the term “content is king” way back in 1996 and, today, it rings as true as ever. Cliché though it might be, content is king, and there’s really no way to get around that in the world of rankings.
The reason for this is that content is essentially the only thing that deems a page worthy of a search engine result. Keep in mind that it would, of course, be almost impossible to rank a blank page with SEO alone. That said, creating great content is integral for any company that wants to boost rankings in the long-term.
Content Meets Consumer Demand
Content is a product and it meets the consumer demand for information. Great content will quickly be passed around the web in order to satisfy the demand of a certain community of consumers and will be the subject of potentially infinite links and backlinks.
There is a huge abundance of content on the web and, in every niche far and wide, there is great content and there is poor content. The difference between the two is that great content satisfies a thirst while poor content simply clogs SEO indexes with badly written junk.
Great Content Provides Links
One of the most important purposes great content plays in creating natural traffic is driving links. Great content is optimized for linking and will quickly be shared across the web, driving traffic back to the home site and boosting its rankings in Google.
Regardless of what Google’s new SEO does, it is obvious that organic traffic comes, first and foremost, from content and all the technical SEO in the world isn’t worth much if there is not a great platform of content from which to spring.
A Suggested SEO Strategy for Google In 3 Steps
To give Google’s new SEO a leg-up, we’ve laid out a simple SEO strategy that helps drive organic traffic and boost ranking:
1) Begin With a Site Audit: Site audits are an important tool for anyone who wants to rank in search engines. Many sites have duplicate content hanging around that may damage rankings and even Google isn’t immune. Cleaning this up will go a long way toward producing better rankings and driving more traffic.
2) Conduct Some Keyword Research: Determine what keywords to start using and working into the new content you’re going to create. Keywords are a large factor in overall rankings and can help a page show up in Google’s indexes according to search terms and links.
3) Start Blogging and Creating Original Content: Remember – there are no free lunches and content is king. Start blogging and creating great, linkable, shareable original content and you will go far.
Creating organic traffic and ranking well is a process for any website and even giants like Google aren’t immune.
For now the SEO job position is still open but we trust that, once Google finds that special someone, the new SEO will spend a great deal of time focusing on content rather than technical SEO. As always, we wish them well.
