Brafton’s Weekly Content Marketing Roundup features the latest news and trends in the world of content marketing. This week we take a look at the very best news on the web, and from our blog. Take a look.
The ultimate SEO tool-kit
Brian Dean of Backlinko recently updated a massive resource center that every content marketer needs to have in their back pocket. It includes paid and free tools to help you evaluate link opportunities, technical SEO, keyword research, rank tracking, content optimization, and backlink analysis. If it exists, it’s in this list. And if you are a content marketer, you had better familiarize yourself with at least a few of these tools. Check it out now!
If you’re super ambitious, check out Cardinal Digital Marketing’s resource on SEO tools as well.
Get your feet wet with YouTube
Thought you could just create a 90 second company explainer video and you would be good to go? Wrong! With help from Brian Dean of Backlinko, we outline a winning strategy for getting your video marketing strategy off the ground and generating results. We promise, it’s going to save you a lot of money, and some uncomfortable conversations with your boss. Get started here.
It’s time to move on, seriously.
Content marketers live within this illusion that search engine marketing and optimization are static, known quantities rather than the constantly evolving, sophisticated AI that they truly are. It’s a mistake to assume things will stay the same, or even continue on the same trajectory. Rather, search is evolving at an exponential rate; what you thought you knew yesterday may not be true today, and may even hurt you. Read more here.
Your baby is ugly
Beware of the ugly blog. You can be a modern F. Scott Fitzgerald, but nobody is going to read your masterpiece in Web 1.0. Beware of such design follies as: small font size, overly wide columns of text, poor formatting, and terrible stock imagery. Check out our blog and infographic that will help keep you from being that person that is always showing pictures of their ugly baby to friends. Check it out.
Have yourself a nice conversation with a machine
How often do you find yourself talking to a robot? You might be surprised to learn that voice searching accounted for about 20% of all searches, as of last year. Dr. Pete from Moz evaluates the relationship between featured snippets and voice answers, which he found are generated for 71% of all searches that result in a featured snippet. Oh yeah, and there are some Easter eggs hidden in Google Home, so go find them.
Brafton becomes a Google Partner
It’s official, we have a badge (which won’t render properly on our website – but we promise it exists). After one year of consistent PPC utilization, eleven employees with Adwords Certifications, and a minimum of $10,000 spent over the past 90 days, we are now an official partner. So what’s next? First, we get that badge to show up properly somewhere on our site, then we tackle Google Premier Partner status. Read about it here.
Google hates cheaters
Remember back in the day when you could use white text on white background in order to fool search engines into ranking for keywords while avoiding disruption in user experience? Well, those days are certainly long gone, but Google’s algorithm has extended beyond hidden white-on-white text and is devaluing “hidden content.” Are you familiar with the experience of reading and article and having to click “read more” for the rest of the content to show up? Yeah, Google is aware of that, and doesn’t like it too much.
That’s it for this week. Did we miss any articles that you loved this week? Leave us a comment below and let us know.
