Hi, I’m Katherine Griwert with your monthly content marketing recap from Brafton. There were a number of developments in October that might impact your content marketing strategy for the rest of 2013. These developments might influence the formats you create to the hottest channels for sharing and the way you measure results. Click play to watch the video, or read the full coverage below.
Cutts debunks SEO myths
Throughout the month, Matt Cutts did what he does best: Try to convince webmasters that SEO for the sake of SEO doesn’t work, talking about some core content practices that can’t be gamed for SEO value.
Cutts tackled the misconceptions about content “tricks” to boost SEO. Some have thought they could get better results using “Strong” tags instead of bolding text. But he suggested it’s virtually the same when it comes to ranking content.
He also said domains don’t automatically rank higher for having more pages. This isn’t to say there aren’t advantages to having info-rich sites; while more pages aren’t an SEO edge in and of themselves, each page presents an opportunity to answer a unique user question and attract inbound links. and that’s the SEO value in adding content.
We also got some clear-cut content guidance from Cutts on guest blogging. This isn’t a black har practice, but he emphasized that for search gains, content needs to be relevant and organic. Optimized anchor text should be used sparingly, and articles should offer unique insights from experts.
Your favorite analytics reports aren’t where you left them
There were also updates in October, that can change how you measure content. If it wasn’t enough that Google’s now ranking online content with the Hummingbird algorithm and withholding keyword data, it’s also changing content analytics reports.
Data about traffic sources is now under the Acquisitions tab and Content information is filtered into the Behavior section. There is also a new Conversions tab. Google made these changes to help marketers track website visitors as they move through the sales funnel, from the point of discovery through conversions.
Our Content Marketing Strategists also noticed that Google Analytics updates provide deeper insights about the people coming to your websites. The interests tab helps you better understand visitors by giving an overview of age, gender and “interest categories” so you can see differences between convering and non-converting traffic.
And of course, we always advise that you keep close tabs on the types of content that foster conversions – and you may see the best-performing content leans toward visual. In October, data showed Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat are gaining on Facebook and Twitter for user advocacy. Consumers love sharing curated content and brands are finding ways to engage on these new channels. Pinterest and Instagram both rolled out paid content options in October, which means companies can buy some space in users’ newsfeeds.
But it’s crucial marketers stay true to the medium – sharing only high-quality images that are relevant to target audiences. People get on these sites to be entertained, not to be sold, and brands that violate this rule will alienate prospective customers.
Those are some of this month’s biggest content marketing highlights – catch ongoing updates on Brafton.com.
