Make your contribution to the ultimate content marketing A-Z. We want your recommendations for our complete glossary.
Content marketing is an estimated $44bn industry – so it’s probably worth getting to grips with some of the key terms.
We want to create a single page resource that content marketers can turn to in order to understand specific terms. We’ve completed and published an initial A-Z on the site, but this is in no way a comprehensive glossary – although with the help of others it could be.
We are looking for contributions from marketers and online companies looking to share with us their content marketing A-Z recommendations. It could be a cool content marketing tool, plugin or company that all content marketers should be using, or it just could be some common terms and references that we’ve missed off the list. Whatever it is – we want to know.
Industry speak can be a big hurdle, but rather than responding to alien terms with a baffled ‘Say whaaaat?’ a bemused ‘Come again?’ or a panicky ‘Omgihavenoideawhatthatmeans’ feast your eyes on our simple content marketing A-Z to get on track for content marketing success!
Sharing is caring, so leave your additions in the comments box below and help us to create the ultimate content marketing glossary!
Add your Content Marketing Recommendation below
Algorithm
This daunting word sounds like something nasty that might require a protractor. While the inner workings are admittedly fairly complex, all YOU need to know is this.
For the typical query, there are millions of web pages with potentially useful information all ready and waiting to receive your click. Algorithms are computer processes and formulae that take your search terms and whittle these web pages down, turning your query into an answer. They rely on more than 200 unique signals or ‘clues’ that allow them to guess what you might be seeking, including freshness of content, region and page ranking.
Still a bit puzzled? Not to worry, there’s a nice infographic explaining it right here.
Bloggers
Building relationships with bloggers often plays a major role in a content marketing campaign. Unearthing gems that are well-written, have a good following and are suitable to promote your brand’s message can send your readership soaring and considerably broaden your customer base.
From the quantity of comments to the number of Twitter followers, finding appropriate blogs is like going back to high school: popularity matters. You don’t want your bloggers shrinking out of the limelight – you need someone with a strong voice that people respect and listen to.
CMS
You might hazard a wild guess that this stands for ‘Content Marketing…Stuff’ or something similar and while this is understandable, it’s not quite right – but don’t panic!
CMS actually stands for content management systems. These are less scary than you think: while they may have a tech geek name, all it means is a software system which allows you to publish, edit and modify website content from a central interface. These systems are actually designed with non-technical people in mind and are incredibly easy to navigate, so whether you opt for WordPress or an in-house tool, odds are you’ll be Content with your Management System!
Copyright
Thanks to @iCopyright for their suggestion that unique digital content needs to be protected. Publishers and writers wanting to safeguard their content should keep an eye out for free plugins that help with copyright protection. See ‘W’ for more on plugins!
Domain strength
Essentially the domain strength of a site is one of the early ‘cascade’ algorithm markers that search engines use to give a site. The search engines will rank your site against signals such as authority, transparency and trust in your domain. If you get this fundamental building block wrong then it can hinder all of your content marketing initiatives. Domain strength is also really important for any blogger outreach activity you are undertaking; you want the best domains to link to your site. This is an important ranking criteria anyone looking to post on well known, well loved blogs.
It may not be as cutting-edge as the likes of Twitter and Pinterest, but email sure is reliable and holds considerable importance in the world of content marketing as it stands today. In fact, email marketing remains the channel with the best ROI (return on investment) and is the preferred interaction channel for business communication.
Email can help with all aspects of content marketing. Sign up for Google alerts to notify you when content in your field of interest pops up, helping you to stay in the know and providing a wealth of content ideas; use to contact potential bloggers and clients; and rest assured that when you share a post directly with someone on Google+ (see ‘G’) they will receive a Gmail notification, which is a great way to stand out and boost readership.
Read more about the importance of email in content marketing here.
Social media platforms are a sure-fire way to boost your online presence and interact with your readers and potential customer base. With over a billion monthly active users, Facebook is a great place to share your content and rake in likes and shares. If it piques the interest of enough people, the content often distributes itself.
Remember though, that Facebook is a communication platform, so embrace this to ensure you are maximising its potential. Video content is a great way to mix things up. Just be sure to reply when people comment on your posts – not only is it good manners, a busy looking profile will attract more Facebookers than a page which neglects its readers.
Google+
From circles to communities and from chat to the all-important +1 button, there are so many ways to communicate on Google+, which is what makes this platform so valuable in terms of content amplification.
A far cry from Twitter, where comments are limited to a sparing 140 characters, detailed and in-depth comments are encouraged on Google+. Comprehensive comments are a great way to boost engagement and readership and show that you are capable of listening and taking other people’s comments on board as well as broadcasting your own opinions. Social is more and more about listening, so joining platforms that actively promote this outlook isn’t a bad idea.
Guest Posting
Thanks to @neomammalian for this suggestion. Guest posting is an important element of any content strategy and is an invaluable way to amplify your content and get it out to the right audience! Guest blogging involves posting an article on a blog that is not your own and can enhance your online presence, boost your brand’s credibility and take your networking to new levels.
Headlines
It is impossible to put too much emphasis on the importance of a stand-out headline. With so much content at the tips of their fingers, you have quite literally got just seconds to seize someone’s attention and prompt the transformation from browser to reader.
No matter how juicy the content, an article with a boring headline is the biggest possible turn-off. Rather than swathing your content in reader repellent, magnetise your words by putting in the time and effort to come up with a show-stopping headline that is guaranteed to turn heads.
Add your Content Marketing Recommendation below
Infographics
Infographics may sound complex, but they are actually the complete opposite and often easier to read than text. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge – simples!
The reason for using an infographic rather than text is because people are more easily drawn to images and video. The thought of wading through a huge chunk of text can be quite daunting, whereas casting an eye over a well composed infographic is a much more attractive prospect. Whether you want to detail the anatomy of content marketing or lay out the content marketing landscape, why not branch out and do it infographic-style?
Integrity
Thanks to Claire Crew for this suggestion. It is important not to get the wrong end of the stick and see content marketing as a race to the top of the search engine rankings. Creating content for the sake of it, creating a very tenuous link between the content and your keywords and overdoing it on keywords is not going to get you anywhere; in fact, ever discerning readers will more than likely be put off by blatant sales tactics.
Algorithms have actually been adjusted so there is a greater focus on quality content, so brands that slot keywords naturally into engaging and relevant content that readers want to see will successfully build credibility and enjoy the well-deserved rewards of a top notch content marketing strategy.
Jenny MacLean – Authorship
One of the ways Google aims to increase the way it can verify a link is via Google+ Authorship. Google+ Authorship is a way for Google to confirm that the content was created by a real person with an interest in a topic, by pointing that back to a Google+ profile page. Crucially, this Google+ profile also links back to the website that you write for.
When Google trusts an author they add more weight to their content, ranking it higher; it verifies good content and ranks it ahead of unverified content. Not only does creating more content add value to your website, with Google+ Authorship in place it can generate lots of traffic to your website and increase your overall search rankings. Read more on Authorship - http://www.contentamp.com/what-google-authorship-means-for-your-content/
Keywords
The use of keywords is an important content marketing tool that helps to optimise your content and website for search engines. A list of keywords you wish to target is a crucial part of any content strategy, and the more research undertaken before incorporating them into your content, the more effective they will be.
Once you’ve got your keywords, great – but be wary of overusing them. Content stuffed to the gunnels with keywords not only looks unprofessional but is also a red flag to search engines, which aren’t afraid to penalise websites if they suspect they’re in content marketing purely for the SEO value.
Branching out into other social networking platforms is a great way to boost your amplification and get your brand message out there. In fact, research by analysis firm SocialBakers found that Facebook has lost nearly 9 million monthly visitors in the US and 2 million in the UK in the past six months, so casting the net a little wider certainly won’t do any harm.
LinkedIn is particularly good because you are broadcasting your content to a specific audience that is more likely to share the same interests. Find influencers in your industry, fill your network with relevant contacts and then get sharing! You can also join groups specific to your industry where you can post content or find invaluable tips.
Metrics
Everything is tracked online and content marketing is no exception. Nothing works online unless it is measured. The metrics you use to determine success will differ depending on your brand and business requirements – but you do need them. There’s no point creating a great piece of content if you have no way of knowing how effective it was. Look at your Google Analytics, your social followers, social interactions, your search rankings; and ultimately your sales. Content marketing takes time and effort, but set your metrics for success, experiment and see what works.
Native Advertising
Native content is set to become a multi-billion dollar a year industry. It takes content marketing to new levels of amplification, allowing all brands and businesses the opportunity to share their content and brand messages with relevant consumers who will then engage with and share that content.
The phenomenal rise of social media as a distribution platform and meeting house for consumers means that the right content, created for the right people, distributed to the right audience, can now offer rewards to brands that far outweigh anything that can be achieved with more traditional forms of captive advertising.
Consumers are turned off by intrusive advertising formats and are looking to have a conversation with brands online. Native content in its myriad different guises allows brands to market to their customer bases in a way that fits in with online behaviour, while still allowing them to achieve their marketing goals. It is multi-platform too, which is why brands love it.
Read the Guardian’s article ‘Native Advertising: What’s the Fuss?’ here.
Outreach
Switch round the syllables and this term is pretty much self-explanatory! Reaching out to bloggers and nurturing long-term relationships with them is key to any successful content marketing campaign. This means asking for regular feedback and insights and listening to what they have to say in order to establish an ongoing positive relationship – which will prove invaluable when you approach them for multiple campaigns.
It is a good idea to regularly refresh your database of bloggers and keep an eye out for any potential candidates to join your network. This means you won’t exhaust your blogger outreach resources and that you’ve got back-up if bloggers drop off.
Penguin/Panda
These two Google algorithm updates have made content marketing hot. Since the first launch of Panda back in 2011 and the subsequent updates to both Panda and most recently Penguin 2.0, the days of poor content and poor links have been numbered. Google updates mean that search engine optimisation is heavily reliant on content – and great quality content at that. Now the priority should be to turn your site into an authority by publishing and sharing great content.
Quick
Aesop may have taught us that slow and steady wins the race, but he clearly didn’t have content marketing on his mind when he dreamt up the famous tortoise/hare anecdote. The fact is, today’s hot stories can soon become yesterday’s news if the gap between a topic breaking and the time it is published is too wide.
This is particularly important in the world of online news, as readers will expect to see the freshest content. If you consistently publish stories late, your audience is hardly going to see you as the go-to source for the latest industry news.
Brushing up on your news-finding skills is essential to achieve top speeds. Google news is a good bet and social media can help you out too. Hashtags on Twitter are particularly useful in this respect, for example #ukemplaw throws up stories concerning the latest in UK employment law news.
RSS Feeds
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, but is often known as Really Simple Syndication – and that’s what RSS means for your content marketing. If you don’t use it yourself, others will. So ensure that your RSS feed is implemented on your site and that it is easy for those that like your site to implement. If done properly it can ensure the content on your blog is read often and, crucially, shared. Read more about why shares are more valuable than likes here.
SEO
SEO…SEO…more randomly assembled letters… Don’t hide from unfamiliar abbreviations, embrace them! This one stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which pretty much does what it says on the tin.
In basic terms, SEO is the discipline which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other web pages in response to a search query, ultimately driving more traffic to your site. There’s plenty of advice floating around in cyberspace, but not all of it will put you on the road to content marketing success – watch out for SEO myths!
If you haven’t already, now is the time to acquaint yourself with tweets, retweets and the infamous hashtag. Hashtags are a great way to source industry news and deliver relevant and contextual content to readers. In fact, it’s so good Google+ has adopted the hashtag too, so you’re not limited to Twitter with this useful technique.
Twitter activity is at its peak between 10am and 4pm, so your stuff is more likely to get read and commented on if you tweet during these hours. If you are following the right people i.e. people who will take an interest in your content because it is relevant and interesting to them, you will reap the rewards.
Keep up to date with the latest Twitter news on the Twitter blog.
Unique
Content can only be truly wonderful if it is unique. Not only is passing someone else’s work off as your own a breach of copyright, it’s also bypassing one of the most important aspects of content creation: that content must be fresh if it is going to stand out and grab the attention of both browsers and search engines.
This means starting from scratch and coming up with your own ideas. A blank piece of A4 is a pretty scary thing but there are ways to get it filled with masses of groundbreaking content ideas in a jiffy. How? With a good old fashioned brainstorm of course! You may not have brainstormed since you were at school, but it’s a great way to get the creative juices flowing.
Vine
Vine incorporates another important ‘v’ in content marketing – video. Vine is a Twitter creation which allows users to almost instantly create and share a six-second looped clip, complete with sound and motion.
What can the leap from characters to pixels do for you? Well, visuals tend to be far more compelling than text and can tell a brand’s story in an exciting way that text alone probably couldn’t do. Plus, the potential for a good Vine going viral is pretty darn good. At the beginning of June, Android users were finally welcomed into the Vine community, which has amassed an impressive 13 million users on iOS alone since the app launched for iPhone back in January.
WordPress
The mother of all content management systems and blog publish platforms – what would we do without WordPress? As well as being very widely used it is incredibly easy to navigate, saving brands on a tight schedule valuable time.
Not only is WordPress completely free to download, but you can also add a raft of additional features, or plug-ins, to enhance your experience. For example, Publicize lets you connect your WordPress account to social network sites including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and Akismet automatically removes spammers, relieving you of the hassle – and there’s plenty more where that lot came from.
XML Feeds
An XML Feed is a glorified RSS feed. It’s not uncommon for those looking to publish more and more content on their sites to outsource content to a content agency such as ourselves. But do you want a bunch of writers and editors playing around with your content management system? Invariably the answer is no. This is fine, because companies such as ours can ‘plug’ in to your site via an XML feed. This means that we supply you with a dedicated XML feed that can be pulled directly into your CMS for your own team to manage and publish.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, so it’s worth uploading videos onto the site based on this fact alone. But why else should brands turn to the small screen? The statistics say it all; sites that include a video thumbnail in search rankings can as much as DOUBLE their organic traffic.
If you were given the choice of reading two blog posts, one just text and one in video form, which would you choose? We are hardwired to find the easiest way round something, so of course the majority of people will opt for the video post. Content marketing is about creating content your readers love – so take a hint and get the cameras rolling!
Zemanta
Zemanta is a great ‘link recommendation’ tool that many bloggers and brands can use to deliver direct, organic traffic to their sites. It takes a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’ away from link building by suggesting your content to relevant bloggers at the time of publishing content to their site. http://www.zemanta.com
Add your Content Marketing Recommendation below
Dale Lovell
