7 Ways to Get More Links From Every Piece of Content You Produce
Some amazing pieces of content have been created over the years that failed to gain links. Don’t let this happen to you. Here’s how to effectively plan your promotion strategy, put the content in front of the right audience, and increase reach.
Oh Where is Washington, NC? How to Fix a Google Map Error
Egregious mapping errors occur a lot less these days on Google Maps. While roads are still being lost or misnamed in New Jersey, we have seen no lost towns and misplaced communities like we saw in 2009 and 2010. And truth be told the problem with roads in New Jersey may be just a reflection of […]
4 Tactics to Drive Incremental Local SEO Performance
After you’ve covered all the local SEO basics, explore these additional opportunities to enhance the program and further improve results: Google+ verification, optimization, and promotion; Yelp optimization; and video production and optimization.
Live @ SMX West: Big Company/Big Brand Success Case Studies
Big companies and brands have big advantages, e.g. large budgets, staffs and data resources. They also have big challenges, like coordinating the assets of big departments with ownership of various marketing disciplines. Consider these findings that em…
Validating Your Content Marketing Business Case Using Lean Startup Methodologies
Annabel Hodges discusses the use of Lean Startup methodologies to create a more scientific business case approach to successful content marketing.
Post from Annabel Hodges on State of Digital
Validating Your Content Marketing Business Case Using Lean Startup Methodologies
Wow! See How Much Screen Real Estate Google Is Giving Rivals In Its EU Antitrust Settlement
Google’s finally reached a proposed agreement with the European Union over antitrust charges. Judging from screenshots the EU has released, it will give Google rivals unprecedented positioning in Google’s results, sometimes for free, sometimes for a fee. Consider how the EU is saying…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
75 Content Starters for Any Industry
Posted by Amanda_Gallucci
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.
Suffering from blank-page anxiety? Before you go on the hunt for inspiration all over the Internet and elsewhere, turn to the resources around you and realize that you can create exceptional content with what you already have at hand.
Thinking of content topics doesn’t have to be such a long and grueling undertaking. Use the following starting points the next time you need an idea.
Individual achievement
- Talk about a transition to a new role and how you had to adapt your skills to succeed.
- Think of lessons you learned the hard way and share with those who are just starting out.
- Describe your thought process for approaching different tasks in a way that will help others be better organized or prepared.
- Write about a mentor figure or a brand you admire. Explain why this person or company has excelled, and how others may be able to follow a similar path.
- Share your action plan for the future. Give people a sneak peak of what’s to come and talk through the steps you’ll take to accomplish your goals.
Shining example: Rand’s announcement of his changing role at Moz
Tools
- Create a video tutorial that walks people through how to use a tool for a specific task.
- Review a new or lesser-known tool that you believe more people should use.
- Present creative, alternate ways of using a tool, including plugins and combinations that make using multiple tools together advantageous.
- If there’s an in-house tool that you use, put together a case study of why it’s better than some of the commercial tools that other brands use.
- Perform the same task with a few different tools. Note which one is most cost effective, easiest to use, saved you the most time, etc.
Shining example: KISSmetrics’ Google Analytics Dashboard Secrets
Lists
- Compile resources for different subjects and skill levels.
- Gather content that shows the best examples of what people should be striving for.
- Rank your favorite tools, blogs, ads, etc.
- Give reasons why someone should or should not follow a certain tactic or strategy.
- Curate useful content and put together “best of” lists.
Shining example: Point Blank SEO’s Complete List of Link Building Strategies
Internal resources
- Ask the sales team what their most common roadblocks are. What content can you put together that will aid them in illustrating the solution?
- Sit in on meetings in different departments. Take what you’ve observed about their communication styles and workflow and turn it into content about processes such as effective ways to brainstorm or overcoming internal objections.
- Find out what questions your account managers get asked most frequently. Put together a blog post or other resource that lays out the answers.
- Request that every department share their biggest accomplishments on a monthly or quarterly basis. Select at least one to develop a case study.
- Get to know your coworkers. Find out more about their backgrounds, their daily routines, and future aspirations. You can highlight employees in a video or blog series introducing your team, or better yet, you can learn a new way of thinking or working that you can write about.
Shining example: Fi’s interactive Sony Case Study
Industry
- Find an opinion piece that people in your space are discussing. Back it up with new research or make a case for the other side of the argument.
- Explain the steps that your company is taking in response to a new policy affecting your industry.
- Introduce a new technique or strategy you’re using. Detail why this could work better than industry techniques that are becoming stale.
- Comment on a trend you see emerging and why or why not it should continue.
- Share tips and best practices.
Shining example: Copyblogger’s How to Write the In-Depth Articles that Google Loves
How-to
- Have each person on your team write down a five step process that takes them through a daily task start to finish. This can be used for an email campaign or a blog or video series.
- Ask your leadership team for pointers on how they’ve developed the business and how they keep it running smoothly.
- What skills would be helpful for your customers to have so that they could better understand your product/service or use it more easily? Teach them.
- Write down the steps you took in a successful campaign. Layout this process so that it can be repeated.
- Interview several experts on the same topic, asking each how he or she accomplishes a certain goal.
Shining example: Wistia’s Intro to Video SEO
Company culture
- Get involved in your community and volunteer. Talk about what you’re doing and why it’s important to you.
- Ask coworkers to each share one benefit of working at the company that they’ve never experienced at another job.
- Have someone from the leadership team discuss the company’s core values and why they are integral to the brand.
- Congratulate new hires and talk about why they’re great fits for the team.
- Let interns shadow an employee for a day and write about what a day in the life of someone in this role entails.
Shining example: Buffer’s transparent look at their salary formula
Educational series
- Teach a skill or illustrate how to use a tool or software.
- Put together a set of lessons that will take someone through an entire plan or strategy.
- Summarize long articles or eBooks into short snippets, highlighting the actionable takeaways.
- Create quizzes and interactive lessons and then post a walkthrough of how to arrive at the correct answer.
- Host a workshop or lunch and learn for your team internally, and film it or have someone create a summary.
Shining example: Field Museum’s The Brain Scoop
Events
- As soon as the list of speakers comes out for a big event in your industry, select a few who are covering topics in which your audience is interested and reach out to see if they will do an interview or guest post for your site.
- Scan the live tweets and recaps of conferences you weren’t able to attend. Find common themes and determine the hot button issues that emerged. Contribute your unique perspective on these subjects on your blog.
- If someone from your company speaks at an event, have him write a bonus blog post that expands on something in his presentation. Make sure he posts his slide deck on SlideShare and links to the blog post in it.
- Put together a list of all the conferences, meetups, and networking nights in your area. Rank them, talk about why people should attend, compile basic information like cost and dates… make this a robust, go-to resource.
- Go above and beyond the traditional recap of what you learned. After a set time period of putting those lessons into practice, demonstrate the use of your new skill set with a mini case study of your results.
Shining example: aimClear’s measurement of #NMX speakers
Research
- A/B test everything you do for your internal marketing. Write up the results and draw conclusions that can lead to best practices.
- Create a survey about the tools and tactics people in your industry are using and which they find most effective.
- Analyze market research about consumer behavior relative to your audience and present a study.
- Find a popular study done in the past few years and update it with new research and fresh insights.
- Walk your audience through the research and measurement process at your company.
Shining example: ESPN teaming up with Medium to ask people about the World Cup
Theories
- Write about why you believe a certain trend has emerged and what this means for the future.
- Give advice for a hypothetical client or user.
- Relay the possible causes for results that you’ve seen in your analytics data.
- Make a prediction about how a new policy or technology will impact how you do business in the future.
- If there was one aspect of your role you could add or takeaway to make your job easier, what would it be and how would it make you more productive? Make a case for it.
Shining example: Distilled’s Don’t Silo Me, Bro: Integrating Content Strategy Across Disciplines
Higher-level overviews
- Create a resource with the definitions of basic industry terms.
- Give a periodic update on the state of your industry.
- Take content filled with technical terminology and industry jargon and simplify it to a beginner’s version.
- Use an analogy to clarify and simplify a subject that would be otherwise difficult to explain to someone outside of your field.
- Illustrate how the different teams and departments in your company work together cohesively in a basic framework.
Shining example: Edelman’s Sponsored Content: An Ethical Framework
Promotional
- Host a contest and give away a new product, tickets to an event, or a free consultation.
- Highlight employees who have been nominated for or received awards and let people know why they deserved that honor.
- Share customer testimonials.
- Remind your audience about the details of your Twitter chat and prompt them to help generate questions for the discussion.
- Enumerate new features of your product or service.
Shining example: SMX’s “Biggest Search Geek” Contest
Seasonal
- On Valentine’s Day, reveal yourself as a not-so-secret admirer of one or more brands. Let them know why you enjoy their content and how you strive to emulate a certain aspect of their business.
- Give a shout out to some of your best employees for Labor Day.
- For Thanksgiving, personally thank some of your biggest brand fans.
- During the holidays, send small physical gifts to people in your audience or even industry peers and then write a blog post or make a video saying what you’re sending and why.
- Discuss your New Year goals and how the changes you plan on making will a better experience for your audience.
Shining example: Shopify’s 8 New Year’s Resolutions Every Ecommerce Entrepreneur Should Make
Out of the box
- Respond to email feedback (positive or negative) through a blog post or video.
- Write a satire piece about a recurring problem in your industry.
- Dig through old posts and republish with updates. Explain why your thoughts and recommendations have changed over time.
- Do some pro bono work and turn it into content about your capabilities.
- Make over your “About Us” section, spruce up your 404 page, or whatever else seems lackluster on your site, and then feature it in a special before and after content unveiling.
Shining example: Business Casual Copywriting’s “Dead Page”
Your turn
Whether or not you decide to use these exact ideas, I hope I’ve given you some directions to explore. Think hard, collaborate with smart team members, and make these your own.
Brainstorming should start broad before the content manager or editor-in-chief narrows down ideas based on marketing goals, target personas, and availability of resources. For a more in-depth look at that process, check out the eBook I created for iAcquire, Content Strategy for Digital Marketers: A Six Week Guide to Creating, Promoting, & Measuring Great Content. You want to make sure you have the right structure in place because as we all know probably too well, good ideas don’t always pan out the way we hope for when they’re not part of a well-crafted strategy.
No matter which post topics you choose, remember to infuse these ideas with personality, data, and insights that only you and your brand can offer. Publishing content that provides value no one else can is what truly leads to the traffic, social shares, and links you crave.
If you’ve had success with ideas like this in the past or if you have plans to try out something new, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
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Yelp Reports $233 Million In Revenue For 2013, Up 69 Percent From 2012
Yelp released its 4Q 2013 financial results today, reporting end of year net revenue at $233 million, representing 69 percent year-over-year growth from 2012. While delivering the earnings report call, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said, “It was a phenomenal year for Yelp.” Yelp’s…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
With Susan Wojcicki Heading YouTube, Google SVP Sridhar Ramaswamy Takes The Reigns Of Ads And Commerce
With today’s news that Google ads veteran Susan Wojcicki has is now heading YouTube, Google tells Search Engine Land that Sridhar Ramaswamy will lead the ads and commerce team. Ramaswamy and Wojcicki, who’ve both shared the title of SVP, Ads & Commerce, have been jointly running the…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 5, 2014
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: “When Do The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Start?” Whatever You Do, Don’t Ask Yahoo Who knew a simple question would be so hard to answer?…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Gives More Prominence to First Playable Music Video Search Result
Searching for a music video on Google? Maybe “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars or “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk? Now Google highlights the first playable video in the search results to push searchers to YouTube or other sources to view that video.
“When Do The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Start?” You May Be Surprised Which Search Engine Has The Best Answer
I didn’t realize how hard it would be, but yesterday I wanted to find out more about the Olympic opening ceremonies and when they would start. NBC, which is broadcasting the games in the U.S., appears to have nothing on its official website about the ceremonies or what time they’ll air…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Telenav Thinks Scout Can Take On Google Maps
Last week Telenav acquired Skobbler for roughly $24 million in cash and stock. Skobbler is based in Berlin, Germany and is to OpenStreetMap (OSM) what Red Hat is to Linux according to Ryan Peterson of Telenav. For those not aware, OSM is the Wikipedia of digital mapping. It relies on a global force…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Adds 1,000+ New Categories to Places Dashboard
Google is making some new changes to Google’s Places for Business in order to make it easier for users to find businesses in international countries. Google is adding more than 1,000 categories globally into the Places dashboard.
Bing Launches New Winter Olympics Search Features & Counter To Track Gold Medals
With opening ceremonies just two days away, Bing is upping its search game for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Now when Bing users search on specific sports and athletes the search engine will include Olympic-related schedules and content in…
Google, Europe Near Antitrust Deal, Really This Time?
With its latest offer, Google has effectively settled the three year probe and has dodged a potential $5 billion fine. While the European Commission has accepted the concessions, they must first be accepted by the complainants, including Microsoft.
Google Vows to Reduce Fake YouTube Views
It’s unclear how many “fraudulent” views YouTube videos have been racking up, but Google said that its incoming measures to monitor views should affect only a “miniscule fraction” of video clips on the website.
Microsoft’s $15 Million Check-in: Will Redmond Buy Foursquare?
Microsoft has invested $15 million in Foursquare and said it will license the former’s location data according to news released yesterday. Foursquare aspires to be “the location layer for the internet.” With real-time feedback about local data accuracy, based on user movements and…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Facebook Tests Mobile Graph Search
Facebook recently confirmed it’s testing a mobile version of Graph Search. While some are criticizing Facebook for a lag in mobile adoption of a feature that’s more than a year old, Facebook reminds us the functionality is not so simple.
“The SEO Butcher Is Not Working Anymore…”
This gem just landed in the inbox. Remember when you thought serving SMBs would be cool? From: [REDACTED] Subject: SEO Message Body: I do not mean to waste anybody’s time, nor do I wish to ask a taxi to drive me home for free, I have questions and spend countless hours thinking I have something […]
The post “The SEO Butcher Is Not Working Anymore…” appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

