The Two Most Important Content Marketing Success Factors

Brands think that content marketing is about the clever usage of text, video and other channels to attract prospects to you. It has to be about something more than this. It has to be about solving your customers’ pain points

>> Follow Joe Pulizzi

Marketing Content Must Reach Beyond Two-Way Dialogue – Marketing Interactions

Your ideas and expertise can be shared by your prospects with their buying committees if your content is designed to inspire conversations.

>> Follow Ardath Albee

SXSW Live Blogging Tips for Content Marketing – Online Marketing Blog

A big part of my “mission” for SXSXi is to create content after all. I have several other goals like networking (reconnecting and especially new contacts), competitive research, recruiting and potential client prospecting. But content marketing is our bread and butter. It can be an effective tactic for you too, especially if you can learn to be highly efficient at liveblogging conferences.

>> Follow Lee Odden

I plan to delve more into this subject over the next few months. It’s a subject I feel strongly about, so it’s worth spending extra time on it. And as always, when I come across good advice from other smart people ’round the web, I’ll be sure to pass their words along to you as well. For now, I’ll just leave you with this simple message.

Create Great Content, Then Market It!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ardath Albee, Content marketing, Internet Marketing, Joe Pulizzi, Lee Odden

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Hi, my name is Brandon and I’m addicted to link building. Now that we got that out, let me start by telling you that I see opportunities all over the place. One of my favorite methods for building links is to give a full RSS feed on established sites. I know there is still debate on whether or not full RSS feeds are a good idea, but I have good reason to put an end to the debate.

1. Source Content Vs. Duplicate Content

There is a good reason why Ezine Articles ranks #1 over other article directories and Ezilon Web Directory does great with Central and South America search results. The reason is they have the source content. They are the first to publish something so Google knows they created the content. Every other directory has duplicate content. Since you’re the first to post, Google knows you have the source content, so don’t worry about someone else duplicating your content.

2. Free Links!

Like I said, I’m addicted to link building and one of the easiest ways is through creating great blog content. Once you get a great piece of content up (pics, video, or content) make sure and link to your site somewhere in the body. When someone steals your content, it’s usually not personal – it’s automated. Since these content thieves aren’t reviewing each stolen post, it’s fair game for you to link to whatever you want. Of course you will find some that strip all HTML out before it gets posted, and there isn’t much you can do about that.

Want the Stolen Content Removed?

If someone is stripping your HTML and not providing you with value, and you want to remove that stolen content, you can start with some time consuming steps that often get expensive with legal fees or come to nothing because the content thief is in another country. If you’re still insistent on trying to remove your stolen content you should start by sending a letter to the website owner. Find the name and address through a Whois search. If that doesn’t work, contact their web host. Still no luck? You can file a DMCA.

Here are two links for help with filing a DMCA.

How to File a DMCA Complaint
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Google)

Good luck with DMCA. I’ve been down this road twice, both of which just wasted my time.

Brandon Hopkins does Madera website design. Contact him for a web design quote.

Note from Donna: I’ve actually had good luck with the DMCA process, but it’s time consuming, and only worth the effort if the thieve’s content has a chance of outranking your own. This rarely happens, but once in a while, the dirty scoundrels actually have a powerful site that is capable of out-ranking source content. For those rare instances, do try the DMCA route. But 99% of the time, Brandon’s method of letting the content thieves provide backlinks to your site is very good advice. I also totally believe in using full RSS feeds. Full feeds are what users want, and if full feeds also enable us to acquire a few backlinks from content thieves, that’s good for us as well.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Brandon Hopkins, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, duplicate content, Link Building

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Does your vision for your site’s content match the reality on the page?

“Conversion-killing” mistakes

In the movie Monsters vs Aliens, the President has two big red buttons … The one on the left launches every nuclear weapon in the country; the one on the right makes a latte. The President asks, “Who designed this ridiculous system?” His colleagues reply, “You did.”

>> Follow them (Sorry, they don’t have a Twitter account. I’ve encouraged them to do so, but for now, I can’t fill this in for you).

An Infomercial Selling Secret You Must Use in Your Marketing Materials

One of the most persuasive terms you can use in copywriting is “imagine.” Readers automatically visualize whatever words you place after this almost magical command statement.

>> Follow Tom Trush

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Conversions, site content, vision

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Of course, one of the first things I tell people when they start thinking about creating an online ebusiness is to do their keyword research. Basic keyword research can reveal a lot about whether or not the potential ebusiness is a viable one. I usually point them to Google’s free keyword tool and tell them to type in the general overall phrase that describes the niche, and to select Exact Match from the Match Type dropdown. That will give them a good idea of the kind of interest there is in the subject, and the kind of traffic they could expect if they ranked well for the search terms.

That process is a good one for determining the value of a niche, and also for finding good sub-niches to target. Once you get past this initial discovery stage, however, at some point you’re going to be hungering for more information. That’s when it’s time to use a few more tools.

Using Keyword Research To Strategize Content Development

The next two tools are fairly new to me, so while I don’t have a lot of experience with them, I did thoroughly enjoy the tests I ran. Ideas blossomed and strategies formed after looking at the results. That’s a pretty good sign that the tools are useful to me.

The first tool I played around with was Wordstream’s newish (and free) Keyword Niche Finder. The niche finder is designed to find tightly-related groups of topics that form sub-niches within your niche. It scans a keyword database of over a trillion search queries to find the most relevant and potentially profitable keyword niches, and then automatically groups keywords into closely related clusters. By identifying these groups, you can begin to form a content strategy. What are people most interested in? What groups of content can you create to target that interest?

Here’s what it looks like. Let’s say your niche is “adventure travel”. This screenshot above shows what pops up when I search for that phrase, and then choose to view the details of the “adventure travel >> alaska” group. When I scroll down, I see the entire list of 85 phrases for that grouping. One of them, for instance, is on the topic of backcountry jeep safaris in Alaska. That could make for some really interesting content that you may not have considered before.

This free tool is just one of several tools Wordstream has available. They actually have two other free tools, their original keyword tool, and the free keyword grouper. Each of these is related to the other in some way, so they can all be used for a different look at your niche.

More Details – More Ideas

Of course, they also have a paid tool that goes above and beyond all the free ones, enabling you to develop a really good ongoing content strategy. The paid tool, of course, goes deeper and gives more info than the free tools, but it’s also a bit more complicated to use and understand. I got bogged down a couple of times during my testing because I was unsure what to do next. Luckily they have lots of help and demo tutorials set up (plus some really nice people on staff who are more than willing to help), so there’s help when you need it. Once I fumbled around a little though, I could see the power behind the tool. I admit that I haven’t played with it long enough to be able to really vouch for the tool yet, but there’s a 7 day free trial, so feel free to play around with it yourself. That’s a better gauge of whether or not it will help you than anything I could share here. I can say it’s definitely worth looking at for yourself, to see if it can help you come up with your own content strategy.

I’ll talk about other tools in the future that can also help with your content strategy. For now, these should get the ideas flowing nicely.

Wordstream’s New Affiliate Program

While we’re on the subject of Wordstream, you should also know about their new affiliate program. It’s different than most, so it’s worth mentioning. They actually have two different types of payouts. Here’s how they describe those:

Pay-Per Lead for PPC – We have a keyword management solution for pay-per click advertising on search engine platforms such as Google AdWords. This product has it’s own pricing and we offer a free trial and frequently have potential customers request a live demonstration of the product. As such, we’ve decided to pay for leads people drive to this product.

Pay-Per Sale for SEO – We also have a lower priced product that is more focused at providing value for organic search, which we also make available via online billing (credit card payment). For this product, we’re offering affiliates who drive subscriptions that last at least 90 days a one-time payout of roughly 25% of the 90 day subscription.

If your niche is related, you may want to consider signing up for it.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Keyword research, keyword tool

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A quick explanation of CommentLuv: Basically, it’s a special comment feature that rewards people who comment here on the site with a link to their most recent blog post. The plugin grabs it automatically and does all the work without the commenter having to do anything special. The links are still nofollowed, so there’s no incentive for spammers, but hopefully commenters will get some real traffic from interested visitors to this site. Cool, huh?

Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. This one is about showing you how easy it is to give the commenter’s CommentLuv link some special CSS styling. I wanted to do this because I noticed that the post links didn’t stand out as much as I wanted them to. I wanted to put a little extra space between your comments and the actual CommentLuv latest post link, and I wanted to italicize it as well. So, I dug around in the source code for a second and realized that the plugin was using a class called “cluv”. That’s all I needed to know. Woot!

So, if you want to style your CommentLuv links, just go to Appearance / Editor and edit your blog’s stylesheet. Scroll down to the bottom and add the following line:

.cluv {margin-top:10px; font-style:italic;}

Save your edit, and that’s it! You’ve now added a little extra space between the comment and the link, and you’ve italicized it as well. Of course, feel free to style them any way you want. That’s just an example of what I did.

Let me know if you get any traffic from your CommentLuv links when you comment here. I really hope I can send some your way.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: commentluv, CSS

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Themeforest

Themeforest offers a dizzying array of themes to choose from, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one I didn’t like. This one might just be my favorite of them all.

iThemes

iThemes has some very nice themes, with two that are different, in that they have the ability to be extremely flexible (Flexx and Builder).

Woo Themes

Woo Themes are a favorite amongst many WordPress aficionados because it offers monthly membership to get new themes each month. You can still opt to just buy a theme without membership, however, and they are always giving free themes with each purchase, so good deals abound here.

Kadom

Kadom Themes hit my radar because I was trying out one of their plugins. They don’t have a lot of themes, but the ones they have are crisp and clean.

Templatic

Templatic changed its name recently but that didn’t distract from the quality of the themes. I like the wide array of “types” of themes that will work for many niches and business models.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes are not only outstanding, but the yearly price for complete access to all themes is ridiculously awesome.

Solostream

SoloStream has a more “classic” array of theme choices than most, but sometimes classic is just what someone is searching for.

WPRemix

WPRemix is really just one premium theme, but it comes bundled with over 50 layouts to choose from, so it’s an interesting and useful package.

Headway

Headway is less of a theme and more of a framework. This is for the do-it-yourself’er or designer who wants to create their own designs, but with an awesome place to start, and options designed to make the process easy.

Thesis

Thesis, like Headway, is a framework, that lets you create whatever design you want, while still starting from a powerful base. It also is designed to make the creation process easy, with options built in.

Those are my favorites. If you’re looking for a special theme, or like me, just like to browse for inspiration on rainy days, these are great places to find extreme themes and incredible inspiration.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: premium themes, WordPress

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Good Content = opportunties to:

1. rank in search engines
2. draw links from other sites
3. convert

More Good Content = More opportunties to do the above

Good Content = Hard work

More Good Content = More hard work

Based on those assumptions, many site owners decide to take shortcuts to increase the content on their site, without putting hard work into the process. Some of those shortcuts might work, especially if it simply involves outsourcing the work. In such a case, the hard work is still being performed, but it’s just been allocated to someone else. Outsourcing is a great idea, if the site owner can afford it, but that is not always the case for startup entrepreneurs working on a tight budget. When outsourcing isn’t an option, the shortcuts often involved cutting out the hard work completely from the process, and that’s usually when problems arise.

In most cases, removing “Hard work” completely from the equation turns this:

Good Content = Hard work

into this:

Lousy Content = Shortcuts

which results in this:

Lousy Content = opportunities to:

1. lose rankings in search engines
2. never obtain links from other sites
3. never convert

That’s not at all desirable, so now our site owner has to find a middle ground that will reduce the amount of hard work required to produce content, without hurting the quality of the content itself. Ask 100 successful site owners how they accomplish that, and you’ll probably get at least 50 different answers. Most will utilize several methods. Today’s post will focus on one of my favorite ways of coming up with new content without working harder than necessary.

PLR Content – Modify and Improve

PLR content is any content that is created and sold to multiple people, allowing each buyer to claim the content as her own, with the right to modify the content as she wishes. (PLR stands for Private Label Rights)

Don’t Do This With PLR Content

Some people will purchase PLR content and place it verbatim on their site. That’s definitely not the way to use PLR content, as that will produce the Lousy Content equation above. Why? Because many people are purchasing this content, and many of those people are placing that same content, verbatim, on their sites. Search engines don’t want to rank your tired, used-up, already done content, so don’t even bother trying. In addition, PLR content is often poorly written, which reflects badly upon you, and is unlikely to attract links from other sites, or convert well for you.

How To Turn PLR Content Into Good Content

1. Purchase the best quality content you can find. All PLR content is affordable; some is even free; all are easy to find just by doing a simple search like this one [plr content]. I’ve yet to find any that aren’t cheap enough for even the most modest of budgets, so cost really shouldn’t be much of a factor here. The goal then, is to focus on quality. You may be able to see samples for free, or you may have to spend a couple of dollars to buy a sample, but you should be able to test quality fairly quickly and without much cost. Once you find a good quality source, bookmark it. You’ll want to come back to it often.

   One of my favorite sources is EasyPLR*. The content is well-written, so I can focus on modifying it to suit my style, rather than modifying it to “fix the problems”.

2. If the content you purchase is a “pack” that consists of multiple pieces of content, read them all and then divide them up into three groups. Place the best content in a folder named “Use”; place the “ok” content in a folder named “Inspiration”, and delete the completely useless, lousy content.
3. The good content in the “Use” folder will be the content that you’ll modify and improve. My favorite way to turn PLR content into really good content for my sites is to illustrate it. Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve found a decent “how to” article that focuses on how to accomplish some task in your niche. Your goal is to carry out that how-to’s instructions, documenting the steps you take along the way, either by taking screenshots, photos, or video of the process. Once you’ve followed the how-to steps, and have media to document each step, you can turn that good PLR content into an outstanding media-filled article for your site. Of course, the text itself should be re-written in your own style, and while this entire process does require work, it isn’t nearly as hard as starting from scratch. Rewriting text is relatively easy in comparison.
4. The “ok” content in the “Inspiration” folder will be used strictly as a source of inspiration whenever you have writer’s block. These articles might be poorly written or even boring, but they may have awesome titles, or just great concepts to jumpstart your thoughts. Sometimes, the content just needs to be fleshed out and expanded upon.
5. Use content from either folder to create Top 10 lists or “Best Of” lists. Cherry-pick the best sentences from different articles, and compile those into one list-type article, rewriting the sentences so they flow well together.

Of course, you may find lots of other uses for PLR content, but the gist of this is that you’ll be taking some shortcuts without sacrificing quality. You’ll save time and money, but you’ll still end up with this equation:

Good Content = opportunties to:

1. rank in search engines
2. draw links from other sites
3. convert

Bottom line: Be smart. Use quality PLR content* and use it wisely. Let it create shortcuts for your content creation process, but don’t take the lazy path. Modify it and improve upon it. You’ll reduce the hard work, but you’ll still end up with good content.

*

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Internet Marketing, Private label rights

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I’m a big fan of motivational quotes because these are always words filled with something worth hearing. Hey, that’s why they get quoted in the first place, right? Someone, somewhere, at some time, has said something with an important message – and in a way that really resonates with lots of people. Those snippets of words get repeated for a reason. They matter. They have the ability to have an impact.

One other thing I like to do on this blog is to put out creative challenges once in a while. That’s what today’s post is – a creative challenge to each of you. I challenge you to read the two motivational quotes at the bottom of this page, think about them, meditate on them if necessary, and then act upon them.

What you do; what actions you take based upon those quotes is entirely up to you. If you decide to share the action you take with us here, that’s wonderful. If you decide to keep it private, that’s fine too. But I challenge you to take the time to stop the hectic pace of your day today, and do something different. Take the time to think about the words that appeared in the motivational section for you. Remember that they are random, so the two quotes you see will be different than the two someone else sees. If you were to refresh this page, you’d randomly be shown two other quotes. So, yes, you can refresh the page if you’d like, but I think it would be preferable to just use the two that chance has thrown at you right now.

If you’ve been putting something off; if you’ve been hesitating on starting something or creating something or even ending something; consider letting the motivational quotes resonate within you. Consider taking action. Let the motivation inspire you to take a step. Maybe it will be a different step than the one you’ve been considering. Maybe the step is one that seems to even go backwards rather than forwards. I don’t know. You’ll know. Read. Think. Act. That’s my challenge to you today.

UPDATE: By the way, you’ll only see the quotes if you’re reading this post here on my site, and not through your RSS feed reader. I forgot to mention that earlier, sorry for any confusion I caused.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Motivation

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But try remembering even those two things when you write posts for several blogs. If you’re anything like me, you never remember and you end up digging through old notes or View Source on blog posts to see what the format is. Don’t you wish you could just jot down a note on the WordPress admin dashboard to remind you of those little things? Guess what?

There’s a plugin for that!

Actually, there may be several, but the one I use is Dashboard Post-It. Here’s how it’s described:

Adds a simple ‘Post-it’ widget to the Dashboard that allows you to leave yourself or other authors a note. The plugin can be configured and moved around as any other Dashboard widget. It will accept plain text or (sanitized) HTML.

If you own a multi-author blog, this is a great way to make sure everyone remembers all the little rules you have. If you’re a blogger who posts for someone else, let them know about this little plugin. It can make things easier for everyone.

Sometimes it’s the tiniest things that increase productivity and keep us from tearing our hair out in frustration.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dashboard, HTML, plugin, WordPress

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Some ideas from SEP’s blog post include cleaning up your subject categories, finding and repairing broken links, remove widgets and plugins that are outdated, and update your copyright notice.

The one thing I suggest we all do is take an objective look at our sites, and de-uglify them as much as possible.

What? De-uglify is not a word? Sure it is! Well, it is now anyway.

If you’ve added lots of widgets and such that ended up turning your pristine site into a mishmash of ugliness, be bold, be daring, and rip 90% of those uglifying widgets right out of there!

If you’ve used a layout or color scheme that looks like it was created in 1995 for a geocities site, consider updating it to a new, fresh layout with colors that don’t cause people to run screaming, “my eyes, my eyes!”.

Cleaning up your site accomplishes a lot of things in one go. It helps keep visitors on your site. It creates a better user experience which will likely lead to better conversions, more traffic, links, buzz, etc.

So let’s all participate tomorrow in Blog and Site Spring Cleaning Day. Who’s with me???!!!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: pristine site, search engine, web property

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