The Reach, Engagement, and ROI of Content Marketing vs. Native Advertising (New Research)

Posted by KelseyLibert

As the efficacy of outbound marketing continues to wane, more and more marketers are considering native advertising and content marketing as viable alternatives. According to our survey, 72% of clients have asked their content marketing agencies about native advertising.

While these two strategies have many similarities, one of their major differences is cost. Based on new exclusive research conducted by Fractl and Moz, these top-tier publishers require the following minimum spend to produce native advertising campaigns for brands:

Methodology

The goal of our research was to take a data-driven approach to comparing the efficacy of native advertising versus content marketing. For the first part of our study, we created a 14-question survey for content marketing providers which explored everything from the cost of their services to the reach of their campaigns. Our friends at Relevance were kind enough to offer the raw data on their native advertising cost research as well, allowing us to focus on gathering additional cost data from the top-tier publishers we maintain relationships with. After we received the survey responses from over 30 different content marketing agencies and cost data from close to 600 digital publishers, we began our analysis.

I. Identifying marketing objectives and challenges in the digital age

Before we dive into our findings, it's important to know the collective objectives and challenges of the inbound marketing age. Since Fractl and Moz spearheaded this study, we wanted to use an authoritative third-party source to support our research and set the stage for our discussion.

For that, we'll refer to HubSpot's State of Inbound 2014–2015 Report. The four graphs below shed light on marketing's key objectives, challenges, and wins.

1. The top 60% of marketing objectives focus on increasing leads, converting customers, and reaching relevant audiences.

2. The number one challenge marketers report is proving the ROI of their marketing activities.

3. SEO is the number one lead-generating source reported by inbound marketing professionals.

4. The companies with the highest ROI focus on blogging, organic search, and content amplification.

Right out of the gate we see that content, organic search, and content amplification are leading the way for marketers, priming content providers and promoters for exponential growth.

So how does content marketing compare to native advertising?

II. The landscape of content marketing and native advertising opportunities

The bullhorn of radio, television, print, and other one-way interruptive marketing approaches are quickly losing efficacy, allowing content marketing and native advertising to step in and solve the following problems:

• Banner blindness: The average click-through rate (CTR) of display ads is 0.1%.
• Eroding email engagement rates: Industry CTRs range from 1.5%–4.79%.
• Skipped pre-roll ads: 94% of people hit the skip button.
• Fragmented consumer attention: 77% of people watch TV while using another device.
• Inability to track outbound marketing ROI: Marketers can easily track content performance and conversion with inbound.
• High cost-per-lead for outbound marketing: Inbound leads are more cost-effective, with over 2x the marketers citing inbound (45%) as their primary source of leads versus outbound (22%) in 2014.
• Low brand engagement: While outbound marketing interrupts consumers, inbound marketing attracts and engages prospects in an organic way.

But what are the major differentiating factors between content marketing and native advertising?

Both content marketing and native advertising can be used to generate brand awareness and engagement. While top-tier publishers sell themselves on their large, built-in reach, sponsored content doesn't guarantee engagement. Below, we created a Buzzsumo analysis of 38 BuzzFeed native advertising campaigns in comparison to 58 Fractl content marketing campaigns. The BuzzFeed campaigns were calculated using all of the posts on a "Brand Publisher's" page (e.g. Kindle); while the Fractl campaigns were calculated using all of the campaigns executed for each of our client's during 2014.

At Fractl, we've earned an average of 90 links and 10,000 social shares per campaign, across 140 different campaigns executed between 2013 and 2015. In comparison, with native advertising, you're often just paying for the ability to publish content solely on the site you're partnering with. Although BuzzFeed boasts monthly traffic numbers in the multi-millions, this doesn't guarantee social engagement nor syndication of a campaign, as seen above.

Further into our research, you'll see that that content marketing agencies are doing the additional legwork with influencer marketing to amplify their content, which creates a larger reach than most top-tier publishers offering native advertising.

Furthermore, content marketing results directly impact a client's organic search positioning, whereas native advertising is limited by Google's guidelines:

• Content Marketing: ROI can be tracked through increased organic rankings as a direct result of earning a diverse, high-quality link portfolio.

• Native Advertising: Reach is limited to the number of paid publisher partnerships, and "sponsored links" are not allowed to pass value.

Has the cost of native advertising been inflated as a means of recovering revenue, or is it truly worth the tens of thousands of dollars that top-tier publishers are charging?

Let's dig further into the numbers to find out.

III. Cost analysis of the native advertising industry

Based on HubSpot's report, 93% of companies with an annual marketing budget between $1 and $5 million are practicing inbound.

Estimates from BI Intelligence show that spending on native ads will reach $7.9 billion in 2015 and grow to $21 billion in 2018, rising from just $4.7 billion in 2013.

But can most businesses afford the exorbitant costs for native advertising on top-tier publishers? Is the ROI worth it? Using native advertising cost data gathered by Relevance and Fractl, we analyzed the cost of native advertising on general news publishers with a domain authority (DA) greater than 80 and a social following greater than 100,000 – highly sought after placements for most brands.

The average cost of launching a native advertising program with a top-tier news publisher was $54,014.29. The highest cost was $200,000.

When we expanded our analysis to include all publishers who have a DA greater than 80, we found the average cost of launching a native advertising program was $35,482.50*.

*Average value derived from original cost totals and not the averages displayed in the image above.

When we evaluate all publishers and blogs below a DA of 80, we see the less valuable publishers (lower reach) offer a significantly reduced cost. For sites with a DA less than 80, the highest cost was $20,000 and the lowest cost was $10.

As outlined above, native advertising cost is largely associated with authority and reach. However, since engagement isn't a guarantee and the costs can be exorbitant for most brands, there's a need for other options that leverage and amplify content.

IV. Analysis of the efficacy of content marketing

Through our exclusive survey of over 30 content marketing agencies, we discovered how the content marketing landscape compares to native advertising.

1. 70% of content marketing agencies offer monthly retainers.

The industry is largely dominated by retainer packages, which often include production on multiple campaigns, influencer marketing, and on-site/overall strategy consultation. As represented in this pie chart, the pay-per-word structure is quickly eroding, and more comprehensive inbound marketing strategies are taking its place.

2. Retainers tend to fall into four buckets: $1,000–$5,000, $5,000–$10,000, $10,000–$50,000, and $50,000–$100,000.

Of all of our questions, this answer had one of the most evenly balanced responses, which demonstrates that there is a content marketing package that almost every business can afford. Similar to the native advertising scale, content marketing costs largely relate to the scope of the projects being produced (e.g., press releases versus interactive graphics) and their reach (e.g., influencer marketing versus no outreach).

3. On average, 65% of agencies produce between 1 and 10 campaigns per month for each client.

With content marketing campaigns, success is largely determined by a portfolio of executions: it's natural to have some campaigns flop for reasons outside of your control (i.e., poor publisher headlines, trending stories monopolize news, etc.), but over a portfolio of executions (i.e., three- to six-month retainers), most agencies can guarantee a base level of success.

4. Articles and infographics represent almost 60% of production, with case studies, interactive graphics, and videos accounting for close to 30% of production.

Based on our previous survey of 500 top-tier publishers, we found that articles and infographics were the most sought after content formats, so it's good to see most agencies are producing what's in-line with the publishers that will give them the largest reach.

5. Excluding outliers, the average content marketing campaign earns 27 links.

Across 38 native advertising campaigns produced by BuzzFeed, only eight backlinks were earned – an average of 0.18 backlinks per campaign. If you include the BuzzFeed article itself as a pickup (like we did in section II), you'll get an average number of campaign pickups of 1.18.

6. The average for each agency's "most successful campaign" is 422 links and the median is 150 links.

Again, we see a fairly even split with this response, likely relating back to the even split we saw with the monthly retainer.

7. Does agency cost correlate to performance?

Here, we see the sweet spot for success comes from agencies that are given the budget to produce larger-scope campaigns and invest in influencer marketing – those charging $5,000 to $50,000 per content marketing campaign or retainer.

8. 48% of clients measure content marketing success by the number of leads, high-quality links, and total social shares generated by each campaign.

Remember, marketing professionals listed two top objectives: increasing the number of leads and reaching the relevant audience. With content marketing, this translates directly into the number of leads generated from high-quality links/placements, and reaching the relevant audience translates into total social shares/engagement on a targeted campaign.

9. 39% use DA to evaluate the authority of a link.

While 39% of agencies use DA to evaluate the authority of a link, an almost equal number of agencies (35.7%) aren't tracking link authority. This is interesting, considering high-quality links were reported as the number two metric for content marketing success; however, high-quality links only accounted for 14.3% of the total pie, so DA might only be tracked by the agencies that have the budget to produce campaigns that earn high-quality links.

V. The ROI of content marketing vs. native advertising

As we saw in Section I, proving ROI is a marketer's biggest challenge. In fact, 20% of inbound marketers aren't measuring ROI. However, those who are measuring ROI have been able to prove that inbound unlocks ROI and ROI unlocks budget.

So, how do you prove ROI? And which tactic is best for your brand?

As a starting point, we'll refer to Neil Patel's estimates for content marketing by the numbers:

Using these metrics, we came up with a beta content ROI calculator which determines campaign ROI by analyzing traffic, social shares, links, and major placements:

When we plugged our most viral infographic to-date into our handy calculator, we found the client received a low estimated ROI of greater than 1,551% and a high estimated ROI greater than 2,942%.

Now, let's perform the same analysis for Intel's most successful BuzzFeed native advertising campaign "15 Things We Did At School That Future Students Will Never Understand," which earned 109,020 social shares and 1 backlink generated from BuzzFeed itself. Since there's no way for us to determine traffic data as an outsider, we'll assume this post made it to BuzzFeed's "top posts this week section." Out of the 20 top posts from this past week, the average view count was 989,332, which we'll use as our guesstimate for their traffic number.

At the $100K level a brand gets 3 custom pieces of content from BuzzFeed, meaning this single campaign cost $33,333.33. When we put the max value for links and major placements, and Neil Patel's highest estimated value for visitor and share, we find Intel's campaign ROI was:

This puts the high-performing campaign ROI for BuzzFeed at 720.53% and Fractl at 2,942%.

Based on all of the above, we know that the average content marketing campaign can deliver the same if not better KPIs than most native advertising campaigns. While some companies have the budget to invest in both tactics, others have to focus on the tactics driving the highest ROI. So, which tactic is right for your brand?

Whether you go with content marketing or native advertising, you'll always need to refine your processes to increase your content ROI. To do this, download our research bundle and leverage data-driven insights on content creation and pitching best practices.

In closing, we want to give a special thanks to Relevance for providing us with the raw native advertising cost data from over 500 publishers.

We'd also like to give a shout out to the 32 agencies that participated in our study and generously provided their sensitive data to produce our report.

What do you think about the value of native advertising versus content marketing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Twitch Phenomenon: Why Live Streaming Is Worth Your Time

Posted by troy.evans

It's safe to say that streaming video content online is quickly becoming the most accessible way to consume entertainment. The way we enjoy our favorite movies and television shows has been increasingly shifting towards uninterrupted (and possibly unhealthy) periods of ‘binge watching'. Easy and affordable alternatives like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go offer the option to forego traditional cable services altogether.

Portlandia, "One Moore Episode"

As the online video streaming movement grows, the concept of live streaming is also gaining popularity, and both these trends make a convincing case for considering a video-based content strategy to reach your target market. By far the best example of this is Amazon's newest acquisition, Twitch.tv.

What is Twitch.tv?

Unless you happen to be an online gamer or addicted to TechCrunch, you may not have had much experience with the site. It is a platform for gamers to broadcast their gameplay live online while others watch and actively participate with chat.

If you haven't heard about the site's boast-worthy statistics you may be wondering why you should even care. You're not wrong to be skeptical; gamers watching other gamers play games online most likely has nothing to do with your business or marketing.

However, the conclusions that can be drawn from Twitch.tv's annual reports about the future of online and video marketing are worth some level of consideration and provide some evidence that live video streaming could be the next big channel for engaging with your audience.

Why should you care?

Here is a quick breakdown of Twitch.tv's engagement from their 2014 report.

Pretty amazing stats when you consider that they launched in 2011. Even when you take into account that the main demographic of users are web-savvy online gamers, those numbers are impressive.

This statistic from their 2013 report, though, is what I find most interesting. Incredibly rapid engagement growth from 2012 on top of an unbelievable average user time on site (106 minutes watched each day). From a marketing perspective, this is what I consider to be a big opportunity.

The following chart shows the average time on site for other top social media sites. To come anywhere near the numbers from Twitch, it would require a significant number of repeat visits (20+ average) at these rates:

Since these two reports are not directly comparable, I thought it was valuable to translate some data gathered using Google's DoubleClick Ad Planner from back in 2011 to show some sort of comparison. (Granted, these have been converted from unique visitors' monthly time spent on Facebook (15.55 hours) and YouTube (5.83 hours). (source)

Now, you might be thinking that these statistics are not all that surprising for a site focused on live experiences. After all, we've known for some time now that a live broadcast will often produce a significant increase in viewership. By virtue of its unpredictability alone a larger audience is something to be expected. And let's be honest, it's one of the main reasons why TV news is so interesting.

How can I win with live streaming?

Entertainment is by far the most common live stream focus. Gaming, sports, music, tv shows, news, and events are found often, but there are also channels for technology, education, and even religion. There are also plenty of live animal streams. Mostly puppies and kittens, but also wildlife streams that might make good communities for environmentally focused marketing goals.

Coming up with creative ways to implement live-stream content into your marketing strategy might be difficult, but it is certainly not impossible, and you might just be surprised with the results. Keep in mind that the scope of your broadcast can start out small (just like any other content strategy), and the content of your feed could be just about anything that can be translated into a video format. Even this post could be converted into a live stream as a simple discussion. For the most part, all you need is a webcam and a good microphone. To get started, take a look at these options for producing live stream content for your business.

Youtube.com

YouTube is probably the easiest and most well-known platform to use for integrating live stream content. It offers solutions to quickly set up a live stream through your channel as long as it is verified and in good standing. There is a live chat feature that can be disabled if you so choose, although most live streams really do go well with an engaging live chat. YouTube is the perfect place to start up a live stream project at little to no cost. You most likely already have a channel and an audience to which you can start broadcasting.

Livestream.com

Another option worth considering is Livestream.com, which is great for broadcasting any kind of live event. For the most part, I have seen high quality productions on this site. Consider this one if you already have a video-based content strategy and a sizable following that is eager to consume your broadcasts.

Ustream.tv

This site is a bit different in that it offers solutions for a variety of high-quality live streaming options, even production services and a video advertising platform focused on lead generation. There is a variety of content with categories like sports, gaming, news, music, and general entertainment. Ustream has a wider range of content than livestream; you will find streams for technology, education, religion and even wildlife here, among others. Ustream also offers a basic ad-supported broadcasting option which would be perfect for an organization that is just starting to develop live stream content.

Notice how Ustream has no qualms with adverts!

Streaming through Twitter

If you are already using Twitter for your online marketing strategy, you should consider using something like Periscope or Meerkat to develop live-streaming engagement with your followers. These services are also a great way to kickstart the use of Twitter in your marketing arsenal and start to build a following if you haven't done so already.

You can give exclusive previews of products, how-to tutorials, a quick tour of your facilities, or show off your services. And, of course, you will have the potential to respond in real time to feedback from viewers. At the moment, both Periscope and Meerkat can only be used on iPhones, but Meerkat is developing an Android version.

Focused streaming sites

Let's not forget about the more focused platforms. Online communities that are ready and willing to engage with live streams do already exist outside the realm of gaming. They are worth exploring if you are working to promote something relevant to your customers interests.

Picarto.tv is for artists and graphic designers to show others how they do those amazing Photoshop things they do.

Chew.tv is a platform for DJs to play live sets to other DJs and music lovers.

Livecoding.tv is fairly new but given the nature of programmers there are almost always a few live streams on. This is a great place for newcomers and seasoned programmers to learn about coding by watching the experts in action.

Talktochef.com is a really cool site that lets people engage directly with experienced chefs. If you have anything to do with the food industry, there is likely value to be gained from using this site.

Cookstream.tv is also just getting started, but seems like a promising venue for those within the food industry.

Not ready to start live streaming? You can still gain insights by participating!

Even if you're not ready to live stream your own content, you can find value by doing a little live stream research or even getting involved in a relevant broadcast. Here are some things to think about during your search:

1. Get insights into popular topics just by scanning for high viewer count streams. If you market for or create content about anything related to animals, you might consider producing some blog posts about eagles; for some reason people seem to like watching them, as I found a number of eagle nest live feeds, some with over a thousands viewers at a time.
   
2. Take advantage of relevant live streams that receive significant viewers and get ideas for creating similar content in any form. Topics that resonate with viewers on live streams will most likely be easily translated into pre-recorded video or written content. If I were marketing for anything related to billiards, for example, I would check out the Accu-Stats On Location channel at Ustream that have over a thousand followers and had achieved over 250,000 views. Just from watching a few minutes I noticed that while they stream a live pool and billiards tournament they are also constantly raffling off prizes. A great idea for some social media content might be to create raffle targeting people who are interested in pool and billiards.
   
3. Listen to what viewers are saying on relevant streams. Broadcasters provide great insight as to what sort of content you could be creating but the viewers do as well. Part of the beauty of live streaming is that the viewers are constantly engaging via live chat while they watch. This provides a great way to get direct insight about your target audience. Chatting with viewers can provide a direct line to potential customers. Just make sure to follow the channel rules and avoid blatant promotional spam.
4. Live streams also offer opportunities for outreach to their broadcasters. Just as popular industry bloggers make great influencers, so do broadcasters. You could try to get in touch with a broadcaster to discuss some form of collaboration; this would likely work in the same manner as a collaboration with an industry blogger.

Start researching & streaming

I like to think of online marketers as masters of the interwebs, and as such I feel it's important to be at least aware of (if not knowledgeable about) every realm. It may not be as popular outside of the gaming space, but I anticipate the near future will bring live streaming growth in other focused markets. As this content becomes more prevalent, the applications toward online marketing will become more and more obvious. By learning how to navigate and identify relevant live stream communities you will be ready to get involved and apply them to your marketing efforts, whether that means starting up a broadcast of your own or collaborating with existing broadcasters.

Lastly, and there may not be much in this on a marketing level but I thought it was well worth sharing: Definitely one of my favorite streams so far, if this doesn't convince you that live streaming (and Animal Planet) is awesome, nothing will...

Live video by Animal Planet L!ve

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Why the Links You've Built Aren't Helping Your Page Rank Higher - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Link building can be incredibly effective, but sometimes a lot of effort can go into earning links with absolutely no improvement in rankings. Why? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows us four things we should look at in these cases, help us hone our link building skills and make the process more effective.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard. Click on it to open a high resolution image in a new tab!

Video transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're chatting about why link building sometimes fails.

So I've got an example here. I'm going to do a search for artificial sweeteners. Let's say I'm working for these guys, ScienceMag.org. Well, this is actually in position 10. I put it in position 3 here, but I see that I'm position 10. I think to myself, "Man, if I could get higher up on this page, that would be excellent. I've already produced the content. It's on my domain. Like, Google seems to have indexed it fine. It's performing well enough to perform on page one, granted at the bottom of page one, for this competitive query. Now I want to move my rankings up."

So a lot of SEOs, naturally and historically, for a long time have thought, "I need to build more links to that page. If I can get more links pointing to this page, I can move up the rankings." Granted, there are some other ways to do that too, and we've discussed those in previous Whiteboard Fridays. But links are one of the big ones that people use.

I think one of the challenges that we encounter is sometimes we invest that effort. We go through the process of that outreach campaign, talking to bloggers and other news sites and looking at where our link sources are coming from and trying to get some more of those. It just doesn't seem to do anything. The link building appears to fail. It's like, man, I've got all these nice links and no new results. I didn't move up at all. I am basically staying where I am, or maybe I'm even falling down. Why is that? Why does link building sometimes work so well and so clearly and obviously, and sometimes it seems to do nothing at all?

What are some possible reasons link acquisition efforts may not be effective?

Oftentimes if you get a fresh set of eyes on it, an outside SEO perspective, they can do this audit, and they'll walk through a lot of this stuff and help you realize, "Oh yeah, that's probably why." These are things that you might need to change strategically or tactically as you approach this problem. But you can do this yourself as well by looking at why a link building campaign, why a link building effort, for a particular page, might not be working.

1) Not the right links

First one, it's not the right links. Not the right links, I mean a wide range of things, even broader than what I've listed here. But a lot of times that could mean low domain diversity. Yeah, you're getting new links, but they're coming from all the same places that you always get links from. Google, potentially, maybe views that as not particularly worthy of moving you up the rankings, especially around competitive queries.

It might be trustworthiness of source. So maybe they're saying "Yeah, you got some links, but they're not from particularly trustworthy places." Tied into that maybe we don't think or we're sure that they're not editorial. Maybe we think they're paid, or we think they're promotional in some way rather than being truly editorially given by this independent resource.

They might not come from a site or from a page that has the authority that's necessary to move you up. Again, particularly for competitive queries, sometimes low-value links are just that. They're not going to move the needle, especially not like they used to three, four, five or six years ago, where really just a large quantity of links, even from diverse domains, even if they were crappy links on crappy pages on relatively crappy or unknown websites would move the needle, not so much anymore. Google is seeing a lot more about these things.

Where else does the source link to? Is that source pointing to other stuff that is potentially looking manipulative to Google and so they discounted the outgoing links from that particular domain or those sites or those pages on those sites?

They might look at the relevance and say, "Hey, you know what? Yeah, you got linked to by some technology press articles. That doesn't really have anything to do with artificial sweeteners, this topic, this realm, or this region." So you're not getting the same result. Now we've shown that off-topic links can oftentimes move the rankings, but in particular areas and in health, in fact, may be one of those Google might be more topically sensitive to where the links are coming from than other places.

Location on page. So I've got a page here and maybe all of my links are coming from a bunch of different domains, but it's always in the right sidebar and it's always in this little feed section. So Google's saying, "Hey, that's not really an editorial endorsement. That's just them showing all the links that come through your particular blog feed or a subscription that they've got to your content or whatever it is promotionally pushing out. So we're not going to count it that way." Same thing a lot of times with footer links. Doesn't work quite as well. If you're being honest with yourself, you really want those in content links. Generally speaking, those tend to perform the best.

Or uniqueness. So they might look and they might say, "Yeah, you've got a ton of links from people who are republishing your same article and then just linking back to it. That doesn't feel to us like an editorial endorsement, and so we're just going to treat those copies as if those links didn't exist at all." But the links themselves may not actually be the problem. I think this can be a really important topic if you're doing link acquisition auditing, because sometimes people get too focused on, "Oh, it must be something about the links that we're getting." That's not always the case actually.

2) Not the right content

Sometimes it's not the right content. So that could mean things like it's temporally focused versus evergreen. So for different kinds of queries, Google interprets the intent of the searchers to be different. So it could be that when they see a search like "artificial sweeteners," they say, "Yeah, it's great that you wrote this piece about this recent research that came out. But you know what, we're actually thinking that searchers are going to want in the top few results something that's evergreen, that contains all the broad information that a searcher might need around this particular topic."

That speaks to it might not answer the searchers questions. You might think, "Well, I'm answering a great question here." The problem is, yeah you're answering one. Searchers may have many questions that they're asking around a topic, and Google is looking for something comprehensive, something that doesn't mean a searcher clicks your result and then says, "Well, that was interesting, but I need more from a different result." They're looking for the one true result, the one true answer that tells them, "Hey, this person is very happy with these types of results."

It could be poor user experience causing people to bounce back. That could be speed things, UI things, layout things, browser support things, multi-device support things. It might not use language formatting or text that people or engines can interpret as on the topic. Perhaps this is way over people's heads, far too scientifically focused, most searchers can't understand the language, or the other way around. It's a highly scientific search query and a very advanced search query and your language is way dumbed down. Google isn't interpreting that as on-topic. All the Hummingbird and topic modeling kind of things that they have say this isn't for them.

Or it might not match expectations of searchers. This is distinct and different from searchers' questions. So searchers' questions is, "I want to know how artificial sweeteners might affect me." Expectations might be, "I expect to learn this kind of information. I expect to find out these things." For example, if you go down a rabbit hole of artificial sweeteners will make your skin shiny, they're like, "Well, that doesn't meet with my expectation. I don't think that's right." Even if you have some data around that, that's not what they were expecting to find. They might bounce back. Engines might not interpret you as on-topic, etc. So lots of content kinds of things.

3) Not the right domain

Then there are also domain issues. You might not have the right domain. Your domain might not be associated with the topic or content that Google and searchers are expecting. So they see Mayo Clinic, they see MedicineNet, and they go, "ScienceMag? Do they do health information? I don't think they do. I'm not sure if that's an appropriate one." It might be perceived, even if you aren't, as spammy or manipulative by Google, more probably than by searchers. Or searchers just won't click your brand for that content. This is a very frustrating one, because we have seen a ton of times when search behavior is biased by the brand itself, by what's in this green text here, the domain name or the brand name that Google might show there. That's very frustrating, but it means that you need to build brand affinity between that topic, that keyword, and what's in searchers' heads.

4) Accessibility or technical issues

Then finally, there could be some accessibility or technical issues. Usually when that's the case, you will notice pretty easily because the page will have an error. It won't show the content properly. The cache will be an issue. That's a rare one, but you might want to check for it as well.

But hopefully, using this kind of an audit system, you can figure out why a link building campaign, a link building effort isn't working to move the needle on your rankings.

With that, we will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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How to Create Boring-Industry Content that Gets Shared

Posted by ronell-smith

If you think creating content for boring industries is tough, try creating content for an expensive product that'll be sold in a so-called boring industry. Such was the problem faced by Mike Jackson, head of sales for a large Denver-based company that was debuting a line of new high-end products for the fishing industry in 2009.

After years of pestering the executives of his traditional, non-flashy company to create a line of products that could be sold to anglers looking to buy premium items, he finally had his wish: a product so expensive only a small percentage of anglers could afford them.

(image source)

What looked like being boxed into a corner was actually part of the plan.

When asked how he could ever put his neck on the line for a product he'd find tough to sell and even tougher to market, he revealed his brilliant plan.

"I don't need to sell one million of [these products] a year," he said. "All I need to do is sell a few hundred thousand, which won't be hard. And as far as marketing, that's easy: I'm ignoring the folks who'll buy the items. I'm targeting professional anglers, the folks the buyers are influenced by. If the pros, the influencers, talk about and use the products, people will buy them."

Such was my first introduction to how it's often wise to ignore who'll buy the product in favor of marketing to those who'll help you market and sell the product.

These influencers are a sweet spot in product marketing and they are largely ignored by many brands

Looking at content for boring industries all wrong

A few months back, I received a message in Google Plus that really piqued my interest: "What's the best way to create content for my boring business? Just kidding. No one will read it, nor share information from a painter anyway."

I went from being dismayed to disheartened. Dismayed because the business owner hadn't yet found a way to connect with his prospects through meaningful content. Disheartened because he seemed to have given up trying.

You can successfully create content for boring industries. Doing so requires nothing out of the ordinary from what you'd normally do to create content for any industry. That's the good news.

The bad news: Creating successful content for boring industries requires you think beyond content and SEO, focusing heavily on content strategy and outreach.

Successfully creating content for boring industries—or any industry, for that matter—comes down to who'll share it and who'll link to it, not who'll read it, a point nicely summed up in this tweet:

I just don't understand the mindset of 'build content --> build links to it'. Identify link opps FIRST, then create content to service them.

— Jon Cooper (@PointBlankSEO) April 7, 2015

So when businesses struggle with creating content for their respective industries, the culprits are typically easy to find:

• They lack clarity on who they are creating content for (e.g., content strategy, personas)
• There are no specific goals (e.g., traffic, links, conversions, etc.) assigned regarding the content, so measuring its effectiveness is impossible
• They're stuck in neutral thinking viral content is the only option, while ignoring the value of content amplification (e.g., PR/outreach)

Alone, these three elements are bad; taken together, though, they spell doom for your brand.

If you lack clarity on who you're creating content for, the best you can hope for is that sometimes you'll create and share information members of your audience find useful, but you likely won't be able to reach or engage them with the needed frequency to make content marketing successful.

Goals, or lack thereof, are the real bugaboo of content creation. The problem is even worse for boring industries, where the pressure is on to deliver a content vehicle that meets the threshold of interest to simply gain attention, much less, earn engagement.

For all the hype about viral content, it's dismaying that so few marketers aren't being honest on the topic: it's typically hard to create, impossible to predict and typically has very, very little connection to conversions for most businesses.

What I've found is that businesses, regardless of category, struggle to create worthwhile content, leading me to believe there is no boring industry content, only content that's boring.

"Whenever we label content as 'boring,' we're really admitting we have no idea how to approach marketing something," says Builtvisible's Richard Baxter.

Now that we know what the impediments are to producing content for any industry, including boring industries, it's time to tackle the solution.

Develop a link earning mindset

There are lots of article on the web regarding how to create content for boring industries, some of which have appeared on this very blog.

But, to my mind, the one issue they all suffer from is they all focus on what content should be created, not (a) what content is worthy of promotion, (b) how to identify those who could help with promotion, and (c) how to earn links from boring industry content. (Remember, much of the content that's read is never shared; much of what's shared is never read in its entirety; and some of the most linked-to content is neither heavily shared nor heavily read.)

This is why content creators in boring industries should scrap their notions of having the most-read and most-shared content, shifting their focus to creating content that can earn links in addition to generating traffic and social signals to the site.

After all, links and conversions are the main priorities for most businesses sharing content online, including so-called local businesses.

(Image courtesy of the 2014 Moz Local Search Ranking Factors Survey)

If you're ready to create link-earning, traffic-generating content for your boring-industry business follow the tips from the fictitious example of RZ's Auto Repair, a Dallas, Texas, automobile shop.

With the Dallas-Forth Worth market being large and competitive, RZ's has narrowed their speciality to storm repair, mainly hail damage, which is huge in the area. Even with the narrowed focus, however, they still have stiff competition from the major players in the vertical, including MAACO.

What the brand does have in its favor, however, is a solid website and a strong freelance copywriter to help produce content.

Remember, those three problems we mentioned above—lack of goals, lack of clarity and lack of focus on amplification—we'll now put them to good use to drive our main objectives of traffic, links and conversions.

Setting the right goals

For RZ, this is easy: He needs sales, business (e.g., qualified leads and conversions), but he knows he must be patient since using paid media is not in the cards.

Therefore, he sits down with his partner, and they come up with what seems like the top five workable, important goals:

1. Increased traffic on the website - He's noticed that when traffic increases, so does his business.
2. More phone calls - If they get a customer on the phone, the chances of closing the sale are around 75%.
3. One blog per week on the site - The more often he blogs, the more web traffic, visits and phone calls increase.
4. Links from some of the businesses in the area - He's no dummy. He knows the importance of links, which are that much better when they come from a large company that could send him business.
5. Develop relationships with small and midsize non-competing businesses in the area for cross promotions, events and the like.

Know the audience

(image source)

Too many businesses create cute blogs that might generate traffic but do nothing for sales. RZ isn't falling for this trap. He's all about identifying the audience who's likely to do business with him.

Luckily, his secretary is a meticulous record keeper, allowing him to build a reasonable profile of his target persona based on past clients.

• 21-35 years old
• Drives a truck that's less than fours years old
• Has an income of $45,000-$59,000
• Employed by a corporation with greater than 500 employees
• Active on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter
• Consumes most of their information online
• Typically referred by a friend or a co-worker

This information will prove invaluable as he goes about creating content. Most important, these nuggets create a clearer picture of how he should go about looking for people and/or businesses to amplify his content.

PR and outreach: Your amplification engines

Armed with his goals and the knowledge of his audience, RZ can now focus on outreach for amplification, thinking along the lines of...

• Who/what influences his core audience?
• What could he offer them by way of content to earn their help?
• What content would they find valuable enough to share and link to?
• What challenges do they face that he could help them with?
• How could his brand set itself apart from any other business looking for help from these potential outreach partners?

Putting it all together

Being the savvy businessperson he is, RZ pulls his small staff together and they put their thinking caps on.

Late spring through early fall is prime hail storm season in Dallas. The season accounts for 80 percent of his yearly business. (The other 20% is fender benders.) Also, they realize, many of the storms happen in the late afternoon/early evening, when people are on their way home from work and are stuck in traffic, or when they duck into the grocery store or hit the gym after work.

What's more, says one of the staffers, often a huge group of clients will come at once, owing to having been parked in the same lot when a storm hits.

Eureka!

(image source)

That's when RZ bolts out of his chair with the idea that could put his business on the map: Let's create content for businesses getting a high volume of after-work traffic—sit-down restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, etc.

The businesses would be offering something of value to their customers, who'll learn about precautions to take in the event of a hail storm, and RZ would have willing amplifiers for his content.

Content is only as boring as your outlook

First—and this is a fatal mistake too many content creators make—RZ visits the handful of local businesses he'd like to partner with. The key here, however, is he smartly makes them aware that he's done his homework and is eager to help their patrons while making them aware of his service.

This is an integral part of outreach: there must be a clear benefit to the would-be benefactor.

After RZ learns that several of the businesses are amenable to sharing his business's helpful information, he takes the next step and asks what form the content should take. For now, all he can get them to promote is a glossy one-sheeter, "How To Protect Your Vehicle Against Extensive Hail Damage," that the biggest gym in the area will promote via a small display at the check-in in return for a 10% coupon for customers.

Three of the five others he talked to also agreed to promote the one-sheeter, though each said they'd be willing to promote other content investments provided they added value for their customers.

The untold truth about creating content for boring industries

When business owners reach out to me about putting together a content strategy for their boring brand, I make two things clear from the start:

1. There are no boring brands. Those two words are a cop out. No matter what industry you serve, there are hoards of people who use the products or services who are quite smitten.
2. What they see as boring, I see as an opportunity.

In almost every case, they want to discuss some of another big content piece that's sure to draw eyes, engagement, and that maybe even leads to a few links. Sure, I say, if you have tons of money to spend.

(Amazing piece of interactive content created by BuiltVisible)

Assuming you don't have money to burn, and you want a plan you can replicate easily over time, try what I call the 1-2-1 approach for monthly blog content:

1: A strong piece of local content (goal: organic reach, topical relevance, local SEO)
2: Two pieces of evergreen content (goal: traffic)
1: A link-worthy asset (goal: links)

This plan is not very hard at all to pull off, provided you have your ear to the street in the local market; have done your keyword research, identifying several long-tail keywords you have the ability to rank for; and you're willing to continue with outreach.

What it does is allow the brand to create content with enough frequency to attain significance with the search engines, while also developing the habit of sharing, promoting and amplifying content as well. For example, all of the posts would be shared on Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook. (Don't sleep on paid promotion via Facebook.)

Also, for the link-worthy asset, there would be outreach in advance of its creation, then amplification, and continued promotion from the company and those who've agreed to support the content.

Create a winning trifecta: Outreach, promotion and amplification

To RZ's credit, he didn't dawdle, getting right to work creating worthwhile content via the 1-2-1 method:

1: "The Worst Places in Dallas to be When a Hail Storm Hits"
2: "Can Hail Damage Cause Structural Damage to Your Car?" and "Should You Buy a Car Damaged by Hail?"
1: "Big as Hail!" contest

This contest idea came from the owner of a large local gym. RZ's will give $500 to the local homeowner who sends in the largest piece of hail, as judged by Facebook fans, during the season. In return, the gym will promote the contest at its multiple locations, link to the content promotion page on RZ's website, and share images of its fans holding large pieces of hail via social media.

What does the gym get in return: A catchy slogan (e.g., it's similar to "big as hell," popular gym parlance) to market around during the hail season.

It's a win-win for everyone involved, especially RZ.

He gets a link, but most important he realizes how to create content to nail each one of his goals. You can do the same. All it takes is a change in mindset. Away from content creation. Toward outreach, promote and amplify.

Summary

While the story of RZ's entirely fictional, it is based on techniques I've used with other small and midsize businesses. The keys, I've found, are to get away from thinking about your industry/brand as being boring, even if it is, and marshal the resources to find the audience who'll benefit from from your content and, most important, identify the influencers who'll promote and amplify it.

What are your thoughts?

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An Introduction to Schema.org Markup for Emails

Posted by kristihines

If you are a Gmail user, you have likely received some emails that stand out from the rest with a call to action button within the subject line.

If you've booked a flight recently, your airline may have sent you an email that includes an interactive way to view your travel plans.

Similarly, Google Inbox app users might have seen emails that look like this.

These calls to action are courtesy of Schema.org markup for email. Just like Schema.org markup for web pages helps web pages stand out in search results, Schema.org markup for emails helps certain emails stand out from the rest in your inbox.

The goal of email markup is to allow people to take action on emails as quickly and simply as possible. For marketers, there are both pros and cons of this feature. In this post, we're going to look at the email markup options currently available, who can use it, and if it's worth it.

Should you use email markup?

Email markup is currently available for Gmail email recipients only. The number of Gmail users was over 350 million in 2012. To determine whether you should use it, you shouldn't go off a three-year-old statistic, but rather a survey of your own email list or customer database.

Most email service providers (like GetResponse, shown in the example below) allow you to search your subscriber list for specific criteria. Search yours for emails containing Gmail to determine the number of Gmail addresses your emails reach.

Of course, this isn't the whole picture. There are likely more people that use Gmail for business with their own domains. So although their emails do not say Gmail, they open their emails in the Gmail web browser or app.

Another consideration for using email markup is tracking. If you rely heavily on the ability to track email opens and clicks to trigger autoresponders and other marketing automation actions, you may not want to give your subscribers the option to bypass opening your email and clicking on your link.

Once you've determined the approximate number of Gmail users you reach and whether you need the ability to track email actions, your next job is to see if you qualify to use email markup.

Register for email markup with Google

Before you can use email markup, you must register with Google. Google will check to make sure you meet email sender quality guidelines, bulk sender guidelines, and action / schema quality guidelines.

Here are some of the key guidelines you need to know. Emails must be authenticated via DKIM or SPF. The domain of your from email must match the signed-by or mailed-by header.

You must send a minimum of a hundred emails per day to Gmail users for a few weeks before applying. Google will want to see that you have a very, very low rate of spam complaints from Gmail recipients.

Bulk email guidelines include using the same IP address to send bulk mail, using the same from email address, only adding subscribers to your list that have opted in (preferably with a double opt-in or confirmation), and allowing list members to unsubscribe easily. These guidelines will not only help you get approved for use of email markup, but will also help your emails get delivered to more Gmail users without being marked as spam.

Action / schema guidelines boil down to making sure you use the appropriate action markup when possible. When an action markup is not available, or the process is more complex than can be handled inside Gmail, a go-to action should be used. Go-to actions should link directly to a page where the email recipient can complete the action as labeled on the call to action button.

An introduction to email markup actions

Actions created by email markup allow email recipients to interact with your business, product, or service within Gmail. There are currently four types of actions to choose from using email markup.

One-click actions

One-click actions are those where a task can be completed with one click within Gmail or Inbox. For example, when someone signs up for an email list, they need to confirm their subscription.

One-click actions are broken into two categories: confirm actions and save actions. The above example is a confirm action. Save actions can include adding an item to a queue or saving a coupon. Both confirm and save actions can only be interacted with once.

RSVP actions

RSVP actions allow email recipients to confirm whether they will attend an event using an invite from Google Calendar. Your email will include the event card you usually see in emails from meeting invites.

Having people confirm their attendance to your event will help ensure that they don't forget by getting it on their calendar.

Review actions

Review actions allow email recipients to add a star and comment review for your business, products, and services right from the subject line of their email in Gmail.

You can see an end-to-end example of the scripting necessary to create a review action for a restaurant to get reviews from a Gmail user's inbox to the Datastore using Python.

Go-to actions

Actions that do not fall under the above types are considered go-to actions. These are used when you need to take an email recipient to your website to complete an action that is too complex to be handled within the recipient's Gmail or Inbox app.

All of the following are examples of go-to actions that take email recipients to do things on another website.

The call to action on these can be customized, so you are not limited to just viewing orders, tracking packages, and opening discussions. You can tailor them for specific uses, such as resetting a password, reviewing questionable transactions on your credit cards, and updating payment information.

An introduction to email markup Highlights

Another use for email markup is Highlights. Highlights summarize key information from specific types of email for users of the Inbox app. For example, Highlights are used for these order confirmations to show the products ordered.

Another example is this flight reservation using Highlights to show the round-trip flights purchased.

Specifically, there are six Highlights that businesses can use. They are as follows:

• Flight reservations - Includes options for displaying basic flight confirmation information, boarding pass, check-in, update a flight, cancel a flight, and additional options. This Highlight is also supported in Google Now.
• Orders - Includes options for displaying basic order information, view order action, and order with billing details.
• Parcel deliveries - Includes options for displaying basic parcel delivery information and detailed shipping information.
• Hotel reservations - Includes options for displaying basic hotel reservation information, updating a reservation, and canceling a reservation. This Highlight is also supported in Google Now.
• Restaurant reservations - Includes options for displaying basic restaurant reservation information, updating a reservation, and canceling a reservation. This Highlight is also supported in Google Now.
• Event reservation - Includes options for basic event reminders without a ticket, event with ticket & no reserved seating, sports or music event with ticket, event with ticket & reserved seating, multiple tickets, updating an event, and canceling an event. This Highlight is also supported in Google Now.

Note that while Highlights are a great feature, they only work for Gmail Inbox users. If Google continues to push Gmail users to using Inbox, this user base will grow exponentially.

Test email markup before sending

While you are waiting to be registered with Google, or prior to sending out emails with Schema.org markup, you should run some initial tests to ensure that your markup is correct. You can start by copying and pasting your code into the Email Markup Tester to check for basic errors.

You can also add email markup to emails you send from and to yourself on Gmail. It's important to test as one of the action / schema guidelines is a low failure rate and fast response for action handling. You can learn how to send test emails to yourself in this tutorial using script.google.com.

The tutorial gives you some simple code you can copy and paste as directed.

When you save and run the project as directed, you will immediately get the following result:

You can then begin to experiment with the code for the email markup you want to use.

Run your script again and again to produce new emails.

Any approved business can use the go-to actions to link the subject line of their email to any portion of their website. As you continue to experiment, think of new ways to engage your audience with email markup.

Final questions to answer

Here are some final questions you need to answer before you invest in email markup are the following.

1. Will you get more of your desired results by adding Schema.org actions to your emails? For example, if you use the review action, will you actually get more reviews for your business?
2. How much time will it take to revise your emails if / when Google standardizes email markup with Schema.org? It might pay to wait until email markup has been standardized and make the time and coding investment all at once.
3. Will email actions be supported by other email platforms in the future? Schema.org is a collaboration between Google, Bing, Microsoft, Yandex, and Yahoo. So while not guaranteed, it can be assumed that all of the major email platforms on the web could embrace email markup in the future.

If, after answering these questions, you can see a real need for email markup, then find out if you meet the guidelines set by Google to use it and register.

If your business uses email markup, be sure to share your experiences and results in the comments!

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