Sure Oak: Digital Marketing, SEO, Online Business Strategy, & More

How to reach out to Scott: One hour can keep you ahead of marketing technology trends. Scott Brinker explains how digital marketers can take an hour to stay relevant to your market in a changing landscape. As a martech thought leader and VP platform ecosystem at HubSpot, Scott imparts his genius on this week’s podcast. Immersed in this rapidly evolving industry, Scott has a deep understanding (and enthusiasm!) for martech. He took a step back to survey what is happening in marketing technology, not just in 2018 but in the next 3 to 5 years. His analysis produced five major trends that are changing the way digital marketing and technology interact in the marketplace:  1. Digital Transformation This transformation goes beyond digital marketing. Customers are having a digital connection directly with the products and services themselves. Now, marketing, sales, and customer services must be connected, and this connection is smooth and digital. ‘Traditional’ digital marketing tactics, like email newsletters, may no longer be relevant to an audience who prefers their information from an Alexa skill. 2. Microservices And APIs Marketers are no longer dealing with one or two pieces of software. In the cloud, there are dozens of software programs in play and interacting with one another. And each department has their own group of programs. Microservices and APIs are solutions that allow open services and deeper connectivity. Businesses are starting to change the way we build interconnections between them, which will impact the way businesses operate in marketing and company-wide. 3. Vertical Competition Traditionally, competitors are businesses that offer the same product or service. Today, vertical competition exists with any business which has influence or power on how you reach your audience. In the channel from the marketer to the consumer, there is now a developing series of competitors. For example, in martech and advertising technology, internet services like Google and Facebook have their own rules and mediation on your interactions. On the client side, home conversation-bots like Alexa allow businesses like Amazon to control what you’re allowed to do on their platform.  4. Digital Everything Every part of our lives is becoming digital. Far beyond mobile apps, the Internet of Things, AR/VR, and the explosion of conversational interfaces is changing how people interact with their devices. It’s changing the way that people interact with the world. “There are so many digital touchpoints that we as marketers have to think about.” These touchpoints each present an opportunity and challenge. You can’t just put an advertisement on a refrigerator. Digital everything changes the way we market.  5. Artificial Intelligence “One of the best uses of AI that we’re seeing in marketing is natural language processing.” In these interactions, AI creates a friendly experience. And that example is just one of the forerunners of AI marketing tools. Machine learning and AI capabilities are changing the possibilities for marketers. We are capable of executing at a much larger scale in the digi...

How to reach out to Scott: One hour can keep you ahead of marketing technology trends. Scott Brinker explains how digital marketers can take an hour to stay relevant to your market in a changing landscape. As a martech thought leader and VP platform ecosystem at HubSpot, Scott imparts his genius on this week’s podcast. Immersed in this rapidly evolving industry, Scott has a deep understanding (and enthusiasm!) for martech. He took a step back to survey what is happening in marketing technology, not just in 2018 but in the next 3 to 5 years. His analysis produced five major trends that are changing the way digital marketing and technology interact in the marketplace:  1. Digital Transformation This transformation goes beyond digital marketing. Customers are having a digital connection directly with the products and services themselves. Now, marketing, sales, and customer services must be connected, and this connection is smooth and digital. ‘Traditional’ digital marketing tactics, like email newsletters, may no longer be relevant to an audience who prefers their information from an Alexa skill. 2. Microservices And APIs Marketers are no longer dealing with one or two pieces of software. In the cloud, there are dozens of software programs in play and interacting with one another. And each department has their own group of programs. Microservices and APIs are solutions that allow open services and deeper connectivity. Businesses are starting to change the way we build interconnections between them, which will impact the way businesses operate in marketing and company-wide. 3. Vertical Competition Traditionally, competitors are businesses that offer the same product or service. Today, vertical competition exists with any business which has influence or power on how you reach your audience. In the channel from the marketer to the consumer, there is now a developing series of competitors. For example, in martech and advertising technology, internet services like Google and Facebook have their own rules and mediation on your interactions. On the client side, home conversation-bots like Alexa allow businesses like Amazon to control what you’re allowed to do on their platform.  4. Digital Everything Every part of our lives is becoming digital. Far beyond mobile apps, the Internet of Things, AR/VR, and the explosion of conversational interfaces is changing how people interact with their devices. It’s changing the way that people interact with the world. “There are so many digital touchpoints that we as marketers have to think about.” These touchpoints each present an opportunity and challenge. You can’t just put an advertisement on a refrigerator. Digital everything changes the way we market.  5. Artificial Intelligence “One of the best uses of AI that we’re seeing in marketing is natural language processing.” In these interactions, AI creates a friendly experience. And that example is just one of the forerunners of AI marketing tools. Machine learning and AI capabilities are changing the possibilities for marketers. We are capable of executing at a much larger scale in the digital en...

How to reach out to Rich: With 20 years of digital marketing success with small- and medium-sized businesses and a successful podcast, Rich Brooks, of flyte new media, is concise. He has condensed his deep knowledge into the BARE Essentials: Build, Attract, Retain and Evaluate. Rich shares the best ways to promote your company in 2018, tactics for website visitor conversion, his favorite tools for measuring marketing success, and more on this week’s episode. Build You need to build a platform that converts visitors into customers. For the vast majority of companies, this vehicle is your website. Of course, you already have a website (if not, get on it!). However, it can be tweaked to better cater to your audience. Rich advises using the tools of psychology to trigger an action from the user. Increasing site speed, utilizing color consistency in calls to action, and even having the website photographs look where you want your audience to look are tactics to better build your platform. Attract “Looking into 2018, SEO continues to be a critical piece.” Rich notes that the majority of his client’s traffic comes from search engines and, of course, mostly from Google. Digital marketing and advertising, both paid search and paid social, have become increasingly important as an attraction tool. These are better bets for lead generation as they do not rely on organic social traffic. Rich reminds us that these tools are specific to the client. He works with a company looking to attract teachers. A social media marketing combination of Facebook ads and promoted Pinterest pins was successful. However, that same strategy would fail for a client looking to target entrepreneurs. Here, SEO and Linkedin prospecting is actually the right choice. Looking for a fail-safe approach? SEO. “Blogging and SEO are the cornerstone of our marketing.” Investing significant time in quality content followed by even more time on content promotion is a valuable, long-term strategy for the majority of businesses. Retain Once someone has visited your website, you need to retain their interest. Rich’s preferred tool? Email. Aim to capture their email address during their website visit. You can use a signup, a blog action, or even a pop-up offer (annoying but work well when done right). “When they’ve given you that email address, they’ve given you access to the most valuable piece of real estate on the internet, which is their inbox.” It’s a commitment from the visitor’s end. Email allows you to send them new information, advice, even an autoresponder mini-course. This access allows you to retain communication and better be able to convert. What happens if you can’t get their email? Then launch a retargeting campaign.

How to reach out to Rich: With 20 years of digital marketing success with small- and medium-sized businesses and a successful podcast, Rich Brooks, of flyte new media, is concise. He has condensed his deep knowledge into the BARE Essentials: Build, Attract, Retain and Evaluate. Rich shares the best ways to promote your company in 2018, tactics for website visitor conversion, his favorite tools for measuring marketing success, and more on this week’s episode. Build You need to build a platform that converts visitors into customers. For the vast majority of companies, this vehicle is your website. Of course, you already have a website (if not, get on it!). However, it can be tweaked to better cater to your audience. Rich advises using the tools of psychology to trigger an action from the user. Increasing site speed, utilizing color consistency in calls to action, and even having the website photographs look where you want your audience to look are tactics to better build your platform. Attract “Looking into 2018, SEO continues to be a critical piece.” Rich notes that the majority of his client’s traffic comes from search engines and, of course, mostly from Google. Digital marketing and advertising, both paid search and paid social, have become increasingly important as an attraction tool. These are better bets for lead generation as they do not rely on organic social traffic. Rich reminds us that these tools are specific to the client. He works with a company looking to attract teachers. A social media marketing combination of Facebook ads and promoted Pinterest pins was successful. However, that same strategy would fail for a client looking to target entrepreneurs. Here, SEO and Linkedin prospecting is actually the right choice. Looking for a fail-safe approach? SEO. “Blogging and SEO are the cornerstone of our marketing.” Investing significant time in quality content followed by even more time on content promotion is a valuable, long-term strategy for the majority of businesses. Retain Once someone has visited your website, you need to retain their interest. Rich’s preferred tool? Email. Aim to capture their email address during their website visit. You can use a signup, a blog action, or even a pop-up offer (annoying but work well when done right). “When they’ve given you that email address, they’ve given you access to the most valuable piece of real estate on the internet, which is their inbox.” It’s a commitment from the visitor’s end. Email allows you to send them new information, advice, even an autoresponder mini-course. This access allows you to retain communication and better be able to convert. What happens if you can’t get their email? Then launch a retargeting campaign.

How to reach out to Dan Shure: How do you rank a keyword with 10 searches a month and get thousands of monthly page views? Dan Shure, from Evolving SEO podcast and blog, lays out how use an SEO content strategy to rank a keyword in 10 searches a month and more in this week’s podcast. Rank higher and get more page views by implementing Dan’s commonly missed on-page factors, discover how Google is changing off-page SEO factors, and learn surprising SEO link building tricks. On Page SEO Ranking Factors With the 200+ ranking factors, it’s difficult to determine the crucial ones. Dan Shure highlighted four commonly missed but top ranking factors. 1. Keyword Alignment First things first: Understand your SEO keywords and know what you want the page to rank for. Seems obvious, right? But, Dan often finds clients who want to rank for a keyword, but don’t actually have content to support it. Find your target keyword and create content with ranking in mind. You’ll need to understand your business’ audience, their searches, research on current ranking sites, and more to properly align your keyword and your content. If you'd like expert help in your keyword alignment, we offer advanced keyword research services. 2. Keyword Placement Once you have the content, you need to ensure the keyword is included in a few key spots. It doesn’t need to be plastered in every possible location. Dan Shure recommends these places: Title tag URL Top heading (H1) (A little bit) in the content Don’t need to obsess over alt-tags and other headers. Focus on getting your keyword in the places that matter. 3. User Experience “2017 was the year that Google cleaned house on web pages designed to get users to do what you wanted, not what the user wanted to do,” Dan shares. A lot of successful websites were penalized for being focused on the site’s goal. Sites with distracting sidebars, sites designed to get emails, mobile sites with pop-ups all ranked lower because they were not user-focused. Design (or redesign) your site with a strong focus on supporting the user to avoid these penalties. 4. Comments While a number of major websites have removed the comments tool, Dan warns against following their lead. “Google has confirmed on a few occasions comments are indeed a ranking factor.” They are a sign of community and engagement, which Google values in their algorithms. He recommends maintaining the comments section and creating content that is comment-worthy to build genuine engagement. On-page optimization is a critical part of your SEO strategy - check our our SEO optimization services to see how we can help. Link Building Strategies On the episode, we also dug into off-site ranking factors. Dan highlighted user search behavior and site speed.

How to reach out to Dan Shure: How do you rank a keyword with 10 searches a month and get thousands of monthly page views? Dan Shure, from Evolving SEO podcast and blog, lays out how use an SEO content strategy to rank a keyword in 10 searches a month and more in this week’s podcast. Rank higher and get more page views by implementing Dan’s commonly missed on-page factors, discover how Google is changing off-page SEO factors, and learn surprising SEO link building tricks. On Page SEO Ranking Factors With the 200+ ranking factors, it’s difficult to determine the crucial ones. Dan Shure highlighted four commonly missed but top ranking factors. 1. Keyword Alignment First things first: Understand your SEO keywords and know what you want the page to rank for. Seems obvious, right? But, Dan often finds clients who want to rank for a keyword, but don’t actually have content to support it. Find your target keyword and create content with ranking in mind. You’ll need to understand your business’ audience, their searches, research on current ranking sites, and more to properly align your keyword and your content. If you'd like expert help in your keyword alignment, we offer advanced keyword research services. 2. Keyword Placement Once you have the content, you need to ensure the keyword is included in a few key spots. It doesn’t need to be plastered in every possible location. Dan Shure recommends these places: Title tag URL Top heading (H1) (A little bit) in the content Don’t need to obsess over alt-tags and other headers. Focus on getting your keyword in the places that matter. 3. User Experience “2017 was the year that Google cleaned house on web pages designed to get users to do what you wanted, not what the user wanted to do,” Dan shares. A lot of successful websites were penalized for being focused on the site’s goal. Sites with distracting sidebars, sites designed to get emails, mobile sites with pop-ups all ranked lower because they were not user-focused. Design (or redesign) your site with a strong focus on supporting the user to avoid these penalties. 4. Comments While a number of major websites have removed the comments tool, Dan warns against following their lead. “Google has confirmed on a few occasions comments are indeed a ranking factor.” They are a sign of community and engagement, which Google values in their algorithms. He recommends maintaining the comments section and creating content that is comment-worthy to build genuine engagement. On-page optimization is a critical part of your SEO strategy - check our our SEO optimization services to see how we can help. Link Building Strategies On the episode, we also dug into off-site ranking factors. Dan highlighted user search behavior and site speed.

How to reach out to Dmitry: The PR strategy that grew a startup from 0 to 40 Million pageviews. PR and SEO expert, Dmitry Dragilev, shared his strategies that led to those pageviews, two acquisitions, $150,000 in blog revenue, and more on this week’s podcast. With all these impressive numbers, Dmitry still offers practical SEO and PR tactics that you can start today. Look Long-Term Working with startups and small businesses on PR and SEO, Dmitry discovered a common trend: People want results. Right. Now. However, you need to think long-term as you do your short-term marketing. Dmitry asks: “How can I do something that in a month from now will keep giving me traffic? In 2 months from now?” It’s a rinse and repeat practice, not a one-off. “We use a combination of PR and SEO together where we create content that essentially would take a portion of someone else’s audience and move it back into our little corner of the internet.” 4 Steps to Create Content for Growth How are you going to bring people to your corner of the internet? And keep ‘em coming? Content. It’s all about strategically creating content that’s driving traffic. PR and SEO working together propels good content. But it’s gotta be good. Dmitry has four distinct steps to create content for SEO Growth: * Find the keyword search on Google that has the right user intent for buyer behavior on your site. * Look at the content that is currently ranking on that keyword. Ask: a. Can you do it justice? Or do it better? b. Is your site’s domain authority similar? If yes, you can outrank them. * Create superior content. * Once published, use PR. Guest post on other publications (ensuring a correct link!), plus organic social strategies. Do PR Like a Human After publishing 1,400+ articles and having two companies acquired, Dmitry knows a thing or two about PR. His key question: “How can I connect with [journalists] on a genuine level and build a relationship with them?” PR is not just getting a list of contacts and sending a ton of emails. Each email should be written as if you would talk to the journalist in person. It should not be a quick line about the journalist’s writing followed by four paragraphs about your startup. “Start talking to them as if you actually wanted to become friends.” 4 Strategies to Build Relationships with Journalists Dmitry offered a sneak peek into his upcoming talk on PR best practices. 1. Respond to their request Lots of journalists, influencers and bloggers already want to talk to you. Specifically, they want to speak to an expert in your field. You can use Dmitry’s Just Reach Out SEO PR service or sites like HelpAReporter.com, ProfNet, Radio Guest List, and more. “Type in keywords and magically these opportunities show up from journalists who want to talk to you.

How to reach out to Dmitry: The PR strategy that grew a startup from 0 to 40 Million pageviews. PR and SEO expert, Dmitry Dragilev, shared his strategies that led to those pageviews, two acquisitions, $150,000 in blog revenue, and more on this week’s podcast. With all these impressive numbers, Dmitry still offers practical SEO and PR tactics that you can start today. Look Long-Term Working with startups and small businesses on PR and SEO, Dmitry discovered a common trend: People want results. Right. Now. However, you need to think long-term as you do your short-term marketing. Dmitry asks: “How can I do something that in a month from now will keep giving me traffic? In 2 months from now?” It’s a rinse and repeat practice, not a one-off. “We use a combination of PR and SEO together where we create content that essentially would take a portion of someone else’s audience and move it back into our little corner of the internet.” 4 Steps to Create Content for Growth How are you going to bring people to your corner of the internet? And keep ‘em coming? Content. It’s all about strategically creating content that’s driving traffic. PR and SEO working together propels good content. But it’s gotta be good. Dmitry has four distinct steps to create content for SEO Growth: * Find the keyword search on Google that has the right user intent for buyer behavior on your site. * Look at the content that is currently ranking on that keyword. Ask: a. Can you do it justice? Or do it better? b. Is your site’s domain authority similar? If yes, you can outrank them. * Create superior content. * Once published, use PR. Guest post on other publications (ensuring a correct link!), plus organic social strategies. Do PR Like a Human After publishing 1,400+ articles and having two companies acquired, Dmitry knows a thing or two about PR. His key question: “How can I connect with [journalists] on a genuine level and build a relationship with them?” PR is not just getting a list of contacts and sending a ton of emails. Each email should be written as if you would talk to the journalist in person. It should not be a quick line about the journalist’s writing followed by four paragraphs about your startup. “Start talking to them as if you actually wanted to become friends.” 4 Strategies to Build Relationships with Journalists Dmitry offered a sneak peek into his upcoming talk on PR best practices. 1. Respond to their request Lots of journalists, influencers and bloggers already want to talk to you. Specifically, they want to speak to an expert in your field. You can use Dmitry’s Just Reach Out SEO PR service or sites like HelpAReporter.com, ProfNet, ...

How to reach out to Clark: How will visual image search change marketing? We sit down with Clark Boyd, digital marketing expert, to dig into Pinterest marketing. We also dig into UX as a ranking factor, site restructuring and repurposing as SEO wins, and not falling into the pun trap of ‘pinteresting’. SEO and Business Strategy Alignment A crucial aspect of SEO is really understanding what consumers want and what they’re thinking. There is no buying audience, success can only be gained from market knowledge. This knowledge is so well-aligned with overall business strategy, it’s being recognized within companies. “We’re starting to notice that people with SEO backgrounds are starting rise through the hierarchy.” SEO experts are landing CMO and similar positions. Where SEO was in the corner five or ten years ago, now it’s in the spotlight. Top Ranking Factor Seeing SEO’s rise in importance, we asked Clark to divulge his top ranking factor. He cautions: “A lot of things work in tandem. No one expects a silver bullet.” However, he shares his one key factor: Site experience. Look at user experience factors such as speed, content, crawlability, indexability, etc. These factors give the audience a better experience and give other sites something to link to. Speed is a crucial UX factor. It’s easy to identify as an issue, but not easy to fix. However, “sites that improve site speed see a phenomenal growth rate very, very, very quickly.” The Future of Landing Pages Clark shares the upcoming technology he’s most excited about: Dynamic Landing Pages Close attention to statistics and feedback will improve your site and conversion funnel. The data indicates how to tailor your site’s message to the audience. Yet, the page itself is static. But a big evolution is coming. “We could arrive at a stage where the whole experience of a website is changed based on how I interact with each page.” In the future, the CMS itself will be dynamic instead of tailoring over it. Individual and demographic statistics will work with machine learning to develop an exact site experience. Marketing on Pinterest Recently, Pinterest has opened up a new form of direct response marketing on their platform. It’s based on the Google Ads model but uses their new visual search technology. They’ve invested a lot into developing this technology so that it understands the image and related products. “Google is still at the stage of recognizing images and telling you what it is. Pinterest straight-away knows what it is, and now it’s trying to understand: ‘ok, what else might you like?’.” Clark gives the example of searching the image of a mug that someone owns. Pinterest will recognize the mug as well as its aesthetic. The Pinterest business account can then offer coasters or utensils that will match well with the mug. The tools it uses are similar to those in Google Ads, which should help the transition for certain marketers learning how to use Pinterest for Business. While It’s still a new tool, it can open up new revenue streams. If you're looking to use paid search on Pinterest or Google Ads, we can help.

How to reach out to Clark: How will visual image search change marketing? We sit down with Clark Boyd, digital marketing expert, to dig into Pinterest marketing. We also dig into UX as a ranking factor, site restructuring and repurposing as SEO wins, and not falling into the pun trap of ‘pinteresting’. SEO and Business Strategy Alignment A crucial aspect of SEO is really understanding what consumers want and what they’re thinking. There is no buying audience, success can only be gained from market knowledge. This knowledge is so well-aligned with overall business strategy, it’s being recognized within companies. “We’re starting to notice that people with SEO backgrounds are starting rise through the hierarchy.” SEO experts are landing CMO and similar positions. Where SEO was in the corner five or ten years ago, now it’s in the spotlight. Top Ranking Factor Seeing SEO’s rise in importance, we asked Clark to divulge his top ranking factor. He cautions: “A lot of things work in tandem. No one expects a silver bullet.” However, he shares his one key factor: Site experience. Look at user experience factors such as speed, content, crawlability, indexability, etc. These factors give the audience a better experience and give other sites something to link to. Speed is a crucial UX factor. It’s easy to identify as an issue, but not easy to fix. However, “sites that improve site speed see a phenomenal growth rate very, very, very quickly.” The Future of Landing Pages Clark shares the upcoming technology he’s most excited about: Dynamic Landing Pages Close attention to statistics and feedback will improve your site and conversion funnel. The data indicates how to tailor your site’s message to the audience. Yet, the page itself is static. But a big evolution is coming. “We could arrive at a stage where the whole experience of a website is changed based on how I interact with each page.” In the future, the CMS itself will be dynamic instead of tailoring over it. Individual and demographic statistics will work with machine learning to develop an exact site experience. Marketing on Pinterest Recently, Pinterest has opened up a new form of direct response marketing on their platform. It’s based on the Google Ads model but uses their new visual search technology. They’ve invested a lot into developing this technology so that it understands the image and related products. “Google is still at the stage of recognizing images and telling you what it is. Pinterest straight-away knows what it is, and now it’s trying to understand: ‘ok, what else might you like?’.” Clark gives the example of searching the image of a mug that someone owns. Pinterest will recognize the mug as well as its aesthetic. The Pinterest business account can then offer coasters or utensils that will match well with the mug. The tools it uses are similar to those in Google Ads, which should help the transition for certain marketers learning how to use Pinterest for Business. While It’s still a new tool, it can open up new revenue streams. If you're looking to use paid search on Pinterest or Google Ads, we can help.

How to reach out to Cyrus Shepard: The rules of the SEO game seem to be always changing. To understand how to rank higher, no matter the algorithm, we sat down with Cyrus Shepard. He has seen SEO evolve over nearly a decade and ran in-house SEO for the industry leader, Moz. He shares with us his strategies to understand Google’s black-box algorithms, do more with existing backlinks, manage client expectations and more. Guiding SEO Principles SEO can be thought of as full of tricks and algorithms, but Cyrus’s main principles are straightforward: * Long-term value over short-term gain * Create quality content “Think of your audience first, always,” says Cyrus Shepard. “Google is getting better and better at looking at audience signals and engagement signals” Therefore, if you are writing consistently creating valuable, quality content, you will at least earn back a little bit of success in SEO. For whatever content you create, do the best that you can do. “When we’re creating content, I like to create things that people can steal, and want to steal.” If people are stealing it, you are creating value and therefore will naturally earn backlinks and improve your ranking. Is SEO Valuable? Yet, those algorithms are important. “You can build the most perfect piece of content but Google won’t find it because they aren’t perfect,” states Cyrus Shepard. He hates when people say SEOs aren’t necessary. The algorithm mimics user signals, but SEOs ensure that content and websites are algorithm-ready. There are basic back-end tasks such as data structure and ensuring it's crawlable. There is also a lot of experimentation involved in SEOs expertise. “The Crushing Inadequacy of Best Practices” Cyrus reflects on the early days of SEO. In 2009, everyone followed the same “Web Developer's SEO cheat sheet”. That was enough to win lots of clients. But SEO has evolved. “A lot of people have this perception today that SEO is a scam because best practices are easy.” But those best practices are now out of date and not enough to rank. SEOs are continuously experimenting to determine which strategies and techniques provide results. These results depend on the latest algorithm and the vertical. See how your site is ranking today with Sure Oak's free SEO Analysis Tool. Test, Test, And Test Some More “Some people think of SEO as one and done. But it never ends, you can always make improvements.” More and more, Google is a black box. Ranking factors are developed through machine learning, leaving less direct information for marketers. The only way to really discover how to rank higher is through experimentation. Given testing is an essential part of SEO success, Cyrus advises to get a better understanding of: * Statistics * Significance

How to reach out to Cyrus Shepard: The rules of the SEO game seem to be always changing. To understand how to rank higher, no matter the algorithm, we sat down with Cyrus Shepard. He has seen SEO evolve over nearly a decade and ran in-house SEO for the industry leader, Moz. He shares with us his strategies to understand Google’s black-box algorithms, do more with existing backlinks, manage client expectations and more. Guiding SEO Principles SEO can be thought of as full of tricks and algorithms, but Cyrus’s main principles are straightforward: * Long-term value over short-term gain * Create quality content “Think of your audience first, always,” says Cyrus Shepard. “Google is getting better and better at looking at audience signals and engagement signals” Therefore, if you are writing consistently creating valuable, quality content, you will at least earn back a little bit of success in SEO. For whatever content you create, do the best that you can do. “When we’re creating content, I like to create things that people can steal, and want to steal.” If people are stealing it, you are creating value and therefore will naturally earn backlinks and improve your ranking. Is SEO Valuable? Yet, those algorithms are important. “You can build the most perfect piece of content but Google won’t find it because they aren’t perfect,” states Cyrus Shepard. He hates when people say SEOs aren’t necessary. The algorithm mimics user signals, but SEOs ensure that content and websites are algorithm-ready. There are basic back-end tasks such as data structure and ensuring it's crawlable. There is also a lot of experimentation involved in SEOs expertise. “The Crushing Inadequacy of Best Practices” Cyrus reflects on the early days of SEO. In 2009, everyone followed the same “Web Developer's SEO cheat sheet”. That was enough to win lots of clients. But SEO has evolved. “A lot of people have this perception today that SEO is a scam because best practices are easy.” But those best practices are now out of date and not enough to rank. SEOs are continuously experimenting to determine which strategies and techniques provide results. These results depend on the latest algorithm and the vertical. See how your site is ranking today with Sure Oak's free SEO Analysis Tool. Test, Test, And Test Some More “Some people think of SEO as one and done. But it never ends, you can always make improvements.” More and more, Google is a black box. Ranking factors are developed through machine learning, leaving less direct information for marketers. The only way to really discover how to rank higher is through experimentation. Given testing is an essential part of SEO success, Cyrus advises to get a better understanding of: * Statistics * Significance

Learn more about Mike Kawula How to reach out to Mike: How do you get over 100,000 Twitter followers? Mike Kawula sat down with us to tell us how. Check out his Twitter profile here with 100k+ followers. As CEO of Social Quant, Mike understands how to use Twitter’s features to grow a following. While it’s a number game, relevancy and strategy are still crucial. Social Listening And ROI Mike first found success on Twitter by simply doing social listening. In 2008, big companies were not paying attention to customer’s feedback and complaints online. This gap created a huge opportunity. Mike and his growing office supply store would listen to potential customer’s complaints. By responding at the right time, they won big business. One quick response to a frustrated customer’s tweet at a competitor resulted in a $27,000 contract. Social listening provides big ROI to small businesses. Twitter offers a free platform to engage and connect with potential customers. Growing your followers is not just a numbers game, but needs a strategy to ensure that you’re connecting with your target audience. Four Tasks To Build Your Followers Mike explains there are four key tasks to grow your followers: * Optimize your profile * Have a follow strategy * Share quality content * Engaging with people During the episode, Mike breaks down each of these tasks into manageable, action-oriented items. Optimizing Your Twitter Profile Your profile will determine whether or not someone follows you back, so it has to be great. Mike advises it takes less an hour to implement these 5 profile improvements: 1. Have a great Twitter cover: Think of it like a highway billboard. Within a second, the viewer should understand what you do. This information allows them to make an informed decision to follow you or not. 2. Very good profile picture “We don’t do business with logos.” Have a current, personal photo as your profile picture rather than a logo. 3. Create a compelling bio Perhaps it’s counter-intuitive, but Mike says, “never put a hashtag in your bio.” Your bio is searchable and can rank on Google, so it’s important to have keywords, not hashtags. Keep it engaging and educational, but with keywords in mind. 4. Link to your website Obviously. 5. Pinned tweet Your Pinned Tweet should speak to the potential follower’s pain point. Offer them something that is relevant to your business and will solve their problem. Have A Follow Strategy “If you want to grow your Twitter account, that’s the fastest way to get followers and the fastest way to get ROI.” A Follow Strategy is essential to gaining the right followers to your brand. Many people don’t like to admit they do it, but Mike explains that all successful brands use one. It is essentially composed of following relevant accounts, and if they don’t follow back, unfollow them. If you’re following people truly relevant to your industry, a minimum of 10% will follow you back. Not sure where to look? Mike offers a quick, repeatable tactic using the Live tweets feature.

Learn more about Mike Kawula How to reach out to Mike: How do you get over 100,000 Twitter followers? Mike Kawula sat down with us to tell us how. Check out his Twitter profile here with 100k+ followers. As CEO of Social Quant, Mike understands how to use Twitter’s features to grow a following. While it’s a number game, relevancy and strategy are still crucial. Social Listening And ROI Mike first found success on Twitter by simply doing social listening. In 2008, big companies were not paying attention to customer’s feedback and complaints online. This gap created a huge opportunity. Mike and his growing office supply store would listen to potential customer’s complaints. By responding at the right time, they won big business. One quick response to a frustrated customer’s tweet at a competitor resulted in a $27,000 contract. Social listening provides big ROI to small businesses. Twitter offers a free platform to engage and connect with potential customers. Growing your followers is not just a numbers game, but needs a strategy to ensure that you’re connecting with your target audience. Four Tasks To Build Your Followers Mike explains there are four key tasks to grow your followers: * Optimize your profile * Have a follow strategy * Share quality content * Engaging with people During the episode, Mike breaks down each of these tasks into manageable, action-oriented items. Optimizing Your Twitter Profile Your profile will determine whether or not someone follows you back, so it has to be great. Mike advises it takes less an hour to implement these 5 profile improvements: 1. Have a great Twitter cover: Think of it like a highway billboard. Within a second, the viewer should understand what you do. This information allows them to make an informed decision to follow you or not. 2. Very good profile picture “We don’t do business with logos.” Have a current, personal photo as your profile picture rather than a logo. 3. Create a compelling bio Perhaps it’s counter-intuitive, but Mike says, “never put a hashtag in your bio.” Your bio is searchable and can rank on Google, so it’s important to have keywords, not hashtags. Keep it engaging and educational, but with keywords in mind. 4. Link to your website Obviously. 5. Pinned tweet Your Pinned Tweet should speak to the potential follower’s pain point. Offer them something that is relevant to your business and will solve their problem. Have A Follow Strategy “If you want to grow your Twitter account, that’s the fastest way to get followers and the fastest way to get ROI.” A Follow Strategy is essential to gaining the right followers to your brand. Many people don’t like to admit they do it, but Mike explains that all successful brands use one. It is essentially composed of following relevant accounts, and if they don’t follow back, unfollow them. If you’re following people truly relevant to your industry, a minimum of 10% will follow you back. Not sure where to look? Mike offers a quick, repeatable tactic using the Live tweets feature.

Ask Amanda About Marketing: When companies want to start doing content marketing, they often make one big mistake: Companies want one piece of content to do way too much. This expert advice comes from Amanda Milligan, Branded Content Manager at Fractl. In this episode, she sits down with Tom to dig into the most important emotion, common mistakes and we have real talk about the actual amount of work needed to produce successful content. The Biggest Mistake Amanda cautions that each piece of content needs a role. One content piece cannot speak to your current customers and appeal to everyone else and get you links. However, many companies will create content that tries to do everything while actually doing none of it well. The content idea needs to be communicated in a compelling and easy to understand. Content can get too complicated, killing online performance. If the viewer can’t figure out what’s going on immediately, they’ll click out. Amanda finds the root cause of this mistake is the starting point: “When you decide to start doing content marketing, you don’t just start making content.” She advises that companies have to put in the time investment upfront. Determining content goals and priorities is a crucial first step in producing good content. Once these goals are established, Amanda notes that you need to assign tactics to them. Emotional Research: The Surprising Result Everyone knows emotion is a huge component of marketing. Amanda shared the results of a fascinating promotional viability study which Fractl completed. Using the top 50 Imgur images, they surveyed people on their emotional experience when looking at each photo. Positive images ranked higher than negative ones. This result surprised Amanda as she was expecting negative images to provoke a stronger emotional reaction. And the most common positive reaction? “Surprise was the number one emotion that people identified while looking at these photos.” The result makes a lot of sense to Amanda. Successful content needs to be newsworthy. And surprising content provides something unexpected. This newsworthiness means that viewers will want to consume and share the content. This emotion is found in any piece of viral content. “Leaving [surprise] out of your content is a huge mistake.” Learn from Failures There will be failures; however, Amanda cautions that you can’t consider pieces that didn’t work as failures. You need to analyze what happened. Sometimes there’s a creative issue, and sometimes you just get scooped. Reflecting is also a crucial part of the creative process. So much of content marketing is risk-taking and testing. Even with the push to ‘produce, produce, produce’, it’s crucial to take time to understand and improve your work. Key questions: * This idea worked really well. Why? * This idea did not work well. Why? To succeed in content marketing: “You have to be a student of what has worked. Does Content Really Pay Off? Then, we got real about the work. Given how much work goes into content creation (research, design, outreach, etc.), why is it worth it? What’s the value compared to other marketing forms? Amanda notes that it’s all about the long-term strategy. “We tell our clients: it’s never going to be an amazing campaign over and over and over.” This work is a long-term investment.