Google is the primary search engine, and Content Marketing is one of the best ways to rank content in Google Search Results. To do so, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of what kind of content is already there if you are going to be a serious competitor. Once you’ve researched the keyword(s) you’re planning to target, analyze the search engine results page (SERP) to see the articles you’re competing against. How can your content stand out? What is user intent? Are top results listicles or how-to articles? Commercial content?
If you’re competing against listicles, then your content must be better formatted, more thorough, and more up-to-date. If you’re competing against how-to articles, then your content must be more detailed and easier to follow. And if you’re competing against commercial content, then your content must offer more value for the user.
In short, if you want to rank on Page One of Google, you need to create content that is better than anything else that is currently available. Thankfully, this is something that can easily be achieved by following the content marketing tips that we will be discussing in this article. Read on to know more!
B2B Marketing News: Values-Driven Ads Gain Greater Trust, Podcast Engagement Rises, New Instagram Sharing Options, & Reddit’s IPO
People trust ads that talk about values, not products, finds Nielsen
89 percent of consumers place word-of-mouth as the more trustworthy form of advertising, followed by brand websites at 84 percent, while humor and brand values were seen as the top drivers of advertising response rates, with value-oriented ads gaining 10 percent from 2015 rates, according to newly-released Nielsen trust survey data of interest to digital marketers. The Drum
Instagram Adds New Option to Embed User Profiles on Third-Party WebsItes
Facebook’s Instagram social networking platform has rolling out new embedded mini-Instagram profiles for use on other web properties, which could bring new cross-platform sharing opportunities to influencers and digital marketers, Instagram recently announced. Social Media Today
What Are Advertisers’ Top Programmatic Priorities in the Coming Year?
40 percent of U.S. brand and agency programmatic ad buyers have said that increased viewability will be their top priority in the next year, with 37 percent listing increased consumer engagement and 36 percent noting supply path efficiencies, according to newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts
https://www.toprankblog.com/2021/12/b2b-marketing-news-12242021/
Local SEO Statistics that Tell Our Industry’s Story
The stats
- Small Business Saturday 2021 saw record-high $23.3 billion spending in the US, with 70% of survey respondents saying American Express’ campaign inspires them to encourage their connections to shop small and independent.
- There were 32.5 million independently-owned businesses in the US in 2021 with fewer than 500 employees and employing 46.8% of the private workforce. 81% of these firms are so small that they have no employees.
- There are more than 6 million single-unit physical business locations and 1.8 million multi-unit physical business locations in the US.
- 69% of people say at least half of their searches have a local intent and 37% say more than two-thirds of their searches are local.
- “Available near me” searches increased by 100% globally in 2020.
https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-industry-story
12 Headline Writing Tips To Drive Traffic & Clicks
1. Look At Google Search Results
Once you’ve researched the keyword(s) you’re planning to target, analyze the search engine results page (SERP) to see the articles you’re competing against.
How can your content stand out?
What is the user intent?
Are the top results listicles? How-to articles? Commercial content?
If you’re going to rank on Page 1, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of what kind of content is already there if you’re going to be a serious competitor.
2. Make An Emotional Connection
Emotional headlines dependably perform better than neutral ones.
Using power words to evoke emotions in your reader enhances their first impression of your content while building curiosity, dread, or anticipation to read more.
However, exercise caution when using emotional headlines. You don’t want to fall into the clickbait trap of not delivering what you promised readers.
3. Use Names
For this headline trick to be successful, the names need to be well-known to your target audience.
Brand names can be just as powerful as people.
For example, when targeting SEO topics, using “Google” in your headline will bring in clicks, as will using “John Mueller.”
These are widely recognized brands and figures within the industry.
The names you choose to feature in your headline should be tailored to your specific brand niche.
Read more: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/on-page-seo/headline-writing-tips/
How to optimize SEO titles with popular keywords
- Building traffic is important, but it is conversion rates that really matter
- The keyword “tail” should not “wag” your dog (marketing strategy). Keep the focus on the major keyword and keep it at the front of your title.
- Use association and keyword matching to group keywords. Rank your potential phrases for search popularity, but make sure you can compete for them and cascade down by adding modifiers to build a longtail title that will work.
- Never forget that a human user will determine your conversion rates, not the search engines
- Your titles must be readable and appealing
If you do all this along with writing high-quality content intended for people and optimized for Google, your articles, blog, or webpages will suddenly be ranking for multiple keywords with high conversion rates. You may even end up being in the first spot for a keyword that was never your main focus.
How To Optimize For Google Featured Snippets: A 12-step Guide
1. Identify Competitors’ Featured Snippets
Stealing competitors’ featured snippets is not easy.
Put the competitors’ URL in Semrush and look for the keyword groups that own featured snippets.
2. Gather The Keywords For Each FS-owned Content
Once you’re done with finalizing the content topics, it’s time to identify the keywords present on the content currently owning featured snippets.
3. Understand Searcher Intent
One of the most important considerations in optimizing for featured snippets is understanding the search intent behind each triggering query.
Three types of people search for your keywords:
- Potential customers.
- Influencers who persuade your potential customers to buy from you.
- And your competitors.
You’re going to write the content for the first two. Each will have different intents while searching, but it will always be informational (and navigational when users want to click through them).
Because there was only one search intent for a featured snippet, I thought to classify them further into four categories depending on whether they want:
- A specific answer.
- A brief answer.
- A comparison.
- A video.
Read more: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/featured-snippets-optimization/410622/
What We Can Expect from Core Web Vitals in 2022
What To Do When Optimizing a Site for Core Web Vitals
There are ways to enhance a website for each signal, although Core Web Vitals haven’t been well received. Consider these options to improving a site for Core Web Vitals:
- Cumulative Shift Layout: Use facades for late-loading content. Facades hold the place for content that will appear once a page finishes loading. Let’s say a site has product images it’s showcasing on its home page. Facades will hold their place as they’re loading so that the page won’t get rearranged once they do, because they’re the focal point and probably larger than other elements on a page.
- Largest Contentful Paint: Drop large elements beneath the fold. This allows more unstable elements, such as embedded content (images, ads, Tweets, etc.), to appear gradually as a page loads. If an ad needs to be displayed on a page, leaving it beneath the fold will help improve this metric.
- First Input Delay: Add interactive elements early on that serve a purpose. If a page has an element that needs to be clicked before users can view a site, it will cause a delay since the page is still loading in the background. One example of this type of interactive element is a cookie preferences overlay.
Improve Your SEO Results By Cleaning Up Your Content
Focus first on giving old content and blogs a fresh update. This will help boost SEO traffic and drive even more engaged visits by following a few basic best practices:
- Start with content that you still think brings value or has potential: Review them to make sure they’re still relevant in some way to your organization and your audience.
- Update any outdated references: Bring in new data points, provide more or additional context (where appropriate and necessary), and remove anything that is no longer applicable or relevant. Also, focus on content quality here, not just quantity.
- Optimize content according to your current SEO strategy: This includes technical SEO pieces and also metadata.
- Republish and re-promote: Include a note about when the content was originally published and when it was updated, when appropriate (like in the case of blogs, articles, whitepapers, etc.). Promote on social channels, in newsletters, on podcasts, etc., when relevant and appropriate.
What Can You Learn from Your True SEO Competition?
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