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Using Structured Data to Hack Your Rankings

Maybe you’ve decided to invest in content and want to do everything you can to make sure it ranks. Maybe you’ve already invested in content and are now wondering why it’s not ranking as well as expected. Either way, you should know that there’s more to optimizing content than keyword research, relevance, and density. Structured data markups is a simple, yet effective way to help your content rank more competitively and surpass your competitors. And there are many ways you can leverage it across many forms of content.

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Dominate search results by answering your audience’s FAQs

Search is the most targeted source of traffic online because it comprises users who are actively looking for what you’re trying to sell them. Channels such as email, social media, and retargeting lets you target users in the right place, but search allows you to target users also at the right time, when they’re actively making a purchasing decision. To that effect, search users are already one step down the conversion funnel.

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Content is an Investment in Infrastructure

There’s certainly no shortage of adages, slogans, or idioms about content marketing, why it’s the bee’s knees, and why your business should be doing it. But the truth is that if you’re not investing in content, then you’re not investing in your business’s infrastructure and its growth.

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Use PPC Data to Create Good Content that Converts

Everyone and anyone will tell you that you have to create ‘good’ content, but what the hooter does that even mean? Some of your content might be really good at explaining your product/service’s value-proposition, but who effing cares? I mean, can you remember the last time you were like “Yeah, you know what I’m in the mood for right now? I’m in the mood for an internet salesman to knock on my browser window with an unsolicited advertorial in the form of a blog post or facebook ad.”?

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4 Things I (Re)Learned About Content Marketing Writing for a Newspaper

Earlier this year, though, I had an opportunity to write a guest column for the Montreal Gazette. It was a learning experience, and it afforded me some first-hand insight into some the structural and cultural challenges that formerly print-publishers face as they continue to pivot into digital media. But it also made me better appreciate much of what I already knew as a content marketer. Here are a few of those tidbits of content marketing wisdom ;)

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5 SEO Rules for the Travel Industry

When it comes to SEO, there are best practices which are universal, immutable laws, and then there are a slew of strategies and tactics that you can/should employ depending on your industry, how competitive it is, and just exactly what it is that the competition is doing. While the travel industry is particularly competitive and widely varied, there are five (almost) immutable SEO laws that travel marketers should follow, regardless of the product/service they offer.

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Building a Brand Conscious Content Strategy

In a time when the adage “Content is King” is celebrated over and over as some kind of universal truth, many marketers fall into the trap of producing content for the sake of producing content. Just as your brand offers a unique selling proposition (USP) to its customers (e.g. user experience, loyalty rewards, etc.), so should its content; and by keeping your content strategy informed by your brand’s identity, voice, and USP, you can build a content strategy that helps you capture new customers and retain existing ones.

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The New Content Narrative: Syncing Social with SEO

In this digital age, “Content is King” is a catch phrase that gets thrown around ad nauseum. After all, content is one of the most meaningful and effective ways to engage people through social media and get a brand in front of consumers. But while it’s great to produce content that people engage with and share and remember, what does that really do for a brand’s bottom line?

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The 3 Things You Need to Know About Branded Content Strategy

Content is king. Sure, whatever. Water is also wet, but who cares? Every marketer should know that you need content, and good content, but what does your content really amount to if it’s no different from what everyone else is doing?

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 Some brands publish content sporadically, and some publish every single day. Why does content marketing work for some brands and fall flat for others? You want your content to be the person who everyone at the party talks to because it’s engaging, not because it’s in their face about how “the right insurance package is really about securing your family’s future in case of the worst.”

So how do you strike that balance where your content is remembered, but for the right reasons? Well, by (1) focusing on your readers’ needs, (2) standing out from the competition, and (3) consistently delivering on its value.

Think Like a Marketer AND a Publisher

Working with branded content is a constant give and take between the two-headed beast that is marketer vs publisher. Creatively speaking, marketers put their first foot forward by figuring out what it is they want to say. Which is fair; a good marketer knows their brand, and they know how to get their audience to also know the brand.

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Publishers on the other hand, reside at the other end of the spectrum; they’re all about what readers want to hear. And having this kind of publisher’s mentality is key to a successful content strategy. In short, your branded content should be all about connecting with your audience through meaningful interactions, not through aggressive value propositions and ad campaigns.

If your audience is already visiting your site, or reading what you have to say, chances are they don’t need the big push that comes from seeing a heavily branded message. This is why with branded content, you’re pushing your marketer’s instinct aside — but not completely away — while taking a customer driven view à la publisher. Yes, sometimes your content must be heavier on the branding (with branded storytelling for example), but subtlety is the golden rule, and all of your branded content should avoid directly schilling for your product or service.

Understand Your Competitive Mindset

Just as your brand (and its products/services) need to stand out from the competition, so does your content. As Nathan Lump pointed out while at his former post as Director of Branded Content for Condé Nast:

Brands should think about what differentiates them, not just from their business competitive set but from their content competitive set.

Essentially, just as your products/services have a unique selling proposition (USP) vis-a-vis your competition, so should your content. In other words, the kind of content you’re producing, and how you go about producing (and syndicating) it should reflect your brand and its USP.

And we’re already seeing this with particularly brand conscious organizations. Take Luxury Retreats, for example, a brand that distinguishes itself from the competition through the quality of its service and prestige of its product offering. When they launched their luxury travel magazine, it was probably because they knew that their old company blog was no longer equipped to meet the realities of modern content marketing. They needed something that was more focused on appealing to the interests and needs of luxury travelers specifically, rather than a platform that simply featured general travel advice/insight, company news, and seasonal promotions. By tailoring their content, in other words, to reflect both their brand and their customer’s unique interests, they’re able to connect with their audience better than ever.

Have a Sustained Commitment

Part of any brand is brand consistency, and if you’re going to be conscious about your content’s own brand and USP, then you have to be ready to commit to delivering that distinct value proposition on a consistent basis. This means developing a kind of editorial calendar and sticking with it so that your audience knows not only what they’re getting from your content, but when they can expect it.

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This is why it’s crucial to have an always on mindset vs an episodic one. You can’t produce branded content sporadically or whenever you want; give customers a constant stream of engaging material to check out. This being said, don’t overkill it because otherwise your brand will be just another content spammer that the internet hates. There’s a fine line between being the cool brand whose content is the stuff of water-cooler banter and being the lame eye-roll inducing label of the internet.

Don’t post because you have to, post content because you have something your audience is going to engage positively with. Going back to Luxury Retreat Magazine, they for instance publish once a day, seven days a week, which is enough for them to be consistent in their commitment, but not so much that they’re spamming readers (and customers) with content just for the sake of it.

Branded content is about community. You tell the story about your brand, the feelings and experiences that go with it, and you attract a target audience of like-minded people who share the same values and interests. But establishing who your brand is isn’t enough to sustain your community; you need to craft, foster, and maintain a content footprint that not only lasts with your audience, but also makes them want to come back to you time and time again.

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