Graham Charlton says, “As 2014 comes to a close, we asked a series of marketers for their thoughts on where content marketing is going and what brands and publishers have been doing particularly well this year.  What do you see as the key trends for content marketing in 2014? James Carson, Director at Digital Factoid: More and better video is being produced by brands all the time. With Facebook’s newsfeed and shorter formats, it’s easier than ever to get video seen. Indeed it’s hard for me to go to the Facebook newsfeed on my mobile and not watch a video. I can only see this trend get... [...]

Arnie Kuenn says, “As content marketing involves influencing customer purchase decisions through content creation and distribution, most marketers understand the necessity for compelling content. However, many often forget about the impact SEO can have on content marketing success. In addition to publishing high-quality, helpful content, your content and website must be well optimized in order to be found by search engines, and more importantly, your audience. Unfortunately, with the amount of misinformation about SEO published online, marketers make many SEO mistakes without even realizing... [...]

Adam Lundquist says, “Though pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and content marketing appear to be marketing islands unto themselves, many smart marketers use PPC to enhance their content marketing efforts. Both tactics are useful on their own, but when you combine them you create a powerful marketing double-team that allows you to use the reach and targeting benefits of PPC while harnessing the trust-building and thought leadership aspects of content marketing. This article will show you three ways you can use PPC to enhance your content marketing no matter your audience. 1. Use display advertising... [...]

Erin Hogg says, “Sherpas are renowned for their skills in mountaineering — ascending mountains and conquering the toughest conditions in the world. Sherpa Software (no relation to MarketingSherpa) faced a mountainous challenge in content production for lead generation. Leveraging blog microsites to display their content across multiple sites, the team received a wakeup call when Google changed its algorithm. Overnight, a strategy that was working was no longer viable. Learn how the team conquered this challenge by pivoting and restarting an inbound marketing effort, bringing all content back... [...]

Richard Baxter says, “As content marketing evolves, the list of media you could choose to communicate your message expands. So does the list of technologies at your disposal. But without a process, a project plan and a tried and tested approach, you might struggle to gain any traction at all. In this post, based on my MozCon 2014 presentation, I’d like to share the high level approach we take while developing content for our clients, and the lessons we’ve learned from initial research to final delivery. Hopefully there are some takeaways for you to enhance your own approach or... [...]

Verónica Maria Jarski says, “Captivating blog post images can help keep your visitors from straying from your site. Check out these tips for choosing the right images and avoiding copyright issues. “The quality of your images reflects the quality of your blog, so when choosing images, make sure you look for ones that are high quality,” suggests the following WhoIsHostingThis infographic. What’s a high-quality image? It’s one that has good exposure and lighting, clear and crisp details, good composition, and bright colors. And it has not been used on your other blog... [...]

Isla McKetta says, “You may have noticed a trend in the blog posts I’ve written for Moz lately: When Is a Blog the Right Form of Content Marketing? A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On “But How Do I Know if It’s Good?” How You Can Evaluate Content Quality (and Ditch Content Anxiety) Is that Mind-Blowing Title Blowing Your Credibility? You Decide Basically, I ask a lot of questions because I don’t like or trust hard and fast rules. And while every last one of these posts offers you a little bit of knowledge to then take back to your marketing campaigns... [...]

The Content Marketing Institute team says, “Marketers are in the midst of a content marketing arms race. More content is being created every day, and a myriad of technology options make it easier than ever to efficiently distribute that content to broad audiences. But as it becomes easier to distribute content, more of that content is failing. According to new research from TrackMaven, a growing majority of professional marketing content fails to have an impact. In other words, marketers have become very good at distributing content, but not very good at creating content that is worth distributing. In... [...]

Heidi Cohen says, “Content curation taps into the power of existing owned, social, and third-party media to enhance and extend your content marketing resources. This does NOT mean content curation is free. Rather, it’s more cost-effective than brand-spanking-new content and maximizes the full potential of your existing content. To ensure we’re on the same page, here’s my definition: Content curation assembles, selects, categorizes, comments on, and presents the most relevant, highest quality information to meet your audience’s needs on a specific subject. Curated content is neither... [...]

Keith Quesenberry says, “Do you create one post and push it out to all your social media channels? Have you thought about customizing that content to harness the strengths and characteristics of each channel? Consistency is important in an integrated marketing campaign, but that doesn’t mean posting the same content in every social channel. In this article we will look at three examples of how to adjust campaign content to optimize response in multiple social media channels. 1. Change up content across multiple channels, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest It’s easy to create... [...]