Wednesday 28 February 2018

How to Succeed at B2B Content Marketing with More Credible Content

Creating Credible B2B Content

Creating Credible B2B Content Ask any B2B marketer about their top digital marketing challenges and one of the first answers you’ll likely receive is: Getting in front of the right audience at the right time. In fact, Ytel’s 2018 State of B2B Marketing Communications survey revealed that 55% of respondents agreed that they have a hard time getting their message and content in front of their target audience. Why is that? Well, there’s more content at buyers’ fingertips than ever before, search engines are getting in touch with their human sides, and organic visibility on social media is effectively extinct. But, let’s real talk for a minute, marketers—this is all old news. In today’s digital marketing landscape, creating meaningful connections with your audience on any channel really comes down to trust and credibility. Consumers are increasingly numb to advertising and marketing messages—and they’re actively trying to avoid it all. Last year, PageFair reported that adblocking usage had grown by 30% globally. In addition, Facebook’s recent decision to de-emphasize brand content was in response to users saying that posts from businesses, brands and media were crowding their News Feeds. However, buyers are increasingly looking to those they know and those they think they know for insights, answers and recommendations. Multiple reports have shown that somewhere around 90% of consumers trust influencers or individuals over straight branded content. In addition, according to a recent report from CMI and SmartBrief, 40% of B2B decision-makers say that credibility trumps the source of the information. This means B2B brands and marketers need to double-down on creating quality, credible content to drive marketing objectives and wins. But how? By infusing credible voices, perspectives and insights from influential sources—namely industry experts and thought leaders—into the content marketing game plan. [bctt tweet="#B2B brands & marketers need to double-down on creating quality, #crediblecontent to drive #marketing objectives & wins." username="toprank"] To highlight how creating more credible content with influencers can help your B2B brand get in front of interested buyers, create an engaging experience, and inspire action, take a look at these three examples from the TopRank Marketing playbook of successful client influencer content marketing programs.

Case Study #1 – Introhive: Reaching, engaging and inspiring a niche audience.

Introhive is a leading customer relationship management (CRM) solutions provider. Working across a variety of industries, Introhive aims to help their clients gain and effectively leverage customer intelligence in a way that can grow their business. The Situation: The legal sector is one of Introhive’s focus industries. However, it’s an industry that’s been reluctant to adopt CRM technologies. Why? Oftentimes business development isn’t an established department within law practices, making it hard to justify investments in a “sales” technology. But law firms large and small have growth aspirations—and Introhive wanted to empower them to realize those opportunities. Another challenge with attorneys and other legal professionals is that they often build their careers on evidence and witness testimony. Essentially, this industry is by nature hard to reach without offering credibility, authority and proof. The Solution: With two unique challenges to overcome, our team knew that engaging other legal professionals to share their expertise and insights on business development, we could not only showcase the Introhive brand, but also needed to provide their audience with unique, relevant and trustworthy insights. TopRank Marketing worked with the team at Introhive to develop an integrated influencer content program that began with a survey of legal community members. Conducting the survey helped facilitate building influencer relationships, while also collecting valuable data that could be used to further bolster campaign content. Other pieces of the integrated content marketing mix included an eBook—our anchor asset—blog posts, organic social amplification, paid social, and email. Introhive Credible Content Case Study The Results: For starters, we saw 15% more eBook downloads in the first month than the benchmark asset had in its lifetime. During the same time period, the accompanying blog content garnered over 600% more views compared to benchmarks for average blog content. Finally and without specifics available, the Introhive team reports that the program has delivered “medium to huge” marketing qualified leads (MQLs). Suffice it to say, this program leveraged credible content within influencers and research to generate substantial results.  Read the full Introhive integrated influencer campaign case study.

Case Study #2 – Cherwell: Increasing brand visibility and thought leadership in a competitive space.

Cherwell Software is a leading IT service management (ITSM) company with a mission to help their customers leverage intuitive technology to enable better, faster and more affordable innovation. The Situation: Since its inception a little over a decade ago, Cherwell has been rapidly gaining traction in the competitive ITSM space—but they’re still one of the newer kids on the block with other new competitors emerging rapidly. To continue their growth and fend off competition, Cherwell wanted to expand its marketing channels, increase brand awareness, engage industry thought leaders and—of course—eventually drive leads. The Solution: Given Cherwell’s position in the competitive ITSM space, the team at TopRank Marketing worked to design an influencer content campaign that was highly-targeted to key the decision-makers they wanted to reach. How? We knew in order to stand out in news feeds and build near-instant credibility with our content, we needed to understand what influences the target audience the most. To uncover the people, publications, and content topics and types that “moved” our audience the most, as well as where they spent time on social media, we designed a new research tool—the RITHM report.  Using insights from the RITHM report to inform the content marketing approach, the resulting campaign included an eBook anchor asset, blog posts, an SEO-driven landing page, paid and organic social media. Cherwell Credible Content Case Study The Results: According to Alison Munn, Social Media and Digital Marketing Lead at Cherwell: “Not only did this program meet the defined goals and objectives, but the results and process exceeded my expectations!” With this campaign responsible for 22% of new revenue for Cherwell in 2017, it was a recent winner of the B2B Marketing Exchange "Killer Content Award". You can learn more about this program in the case study video below: [embed]https://youtu.be/cUf_a7RL9NY[/embed]

Case Study #3 – SAP SuccessFactors: Driving awareness and action by connecting to a specific audience pain point.

SAP SuccessFactors is a leading human capital management (HCM) suite that helps human resources (HR) professionals unleash the full potential of their workforce through transformation and engagement, and ultimately drive results across the business. The Situation: For this niche human resources audience, employee wellness programs are part of the strategy to unleash the potential of their employees. However, the pain point for many organizations is finding a holistic solution in one place that also provides understanding of the true impact their efforts can have on the workplace. SAP wanted to drive awareness around their holistic solution, while also educating and engaging their audience. The Solution: TopRank Marketing partnered with SAP SuccessFactors to craft an multi-pronged, influencer-driven content campaign that would not only raise awareness around their solution, but also provide their audience with credible, relevant, and actionable insights. This campaign was anchored with an influencer eBook that featured insights from 10 top workplace culture, wellness, and technology experts, as well as internal experts from SAP SuccessFactors. In addition, other tactics such as a well-optimized landing page, social media promotion, and customized motion graphics were part of the mix. SAP Credible Content Case Study Example The Results: For downloads, we saw a  272% increase over SAP’s established benchmark. In addition, the accompanying landing page boasted a 68% conversion rate. Lastly, organic social promotion of the content—from the brand and influencers—drove 86% of overall views and 69% of overall conversions. Read the full SAP SuccessFactors influencer-driven content campaign case study.

The Big B2B Takeaway for Credible Content

We’re in an era of a distrust and indifference to B2B marketing messages—which means if buyers don’t find your content credible and trustworthy, they’ll move on. From skepticism to standing out in a crowded and more seasoned field, each of the aforementioned brands were living the trends and looking for a way to capture the attention of their audiences. By cleverly leveraging influencers to create more credible and authoritative content and more trusted amplification, these brands were able to deliver their audiences with thoughtful opinions and diverse insights, bolster brand authority and make more meaningful connections with their audiences. But perhaps the most exciting campaign result was that building credibility led to audience activation—or conversions in other words. To put it simply, with the right strategy, insights and influencer infusion, credible content can help brands win over your audience at every stage of the buyer journey. [bctt tweet="With the right strategy, insights & influencer infusion, #crediblecontent can absolutely help brands win over your audience at every stage of the buyer journey. @CaitlinMBurgess" username="toprank"] Want to learn more creating more credible content? Check out our post on building credibility and authority with content marketing.

The post How to Succeed at B2B Content Marketing with More Credible Content appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.


Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/how-to-succeed-at-b2b-content-marketing.html

Monday 26 February 2018

50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Learn From in 2018 #SMMW18

Social Media Marketing Influencers 2018

It’s that time of year again for the conference extravaganza known as Social Media Marketing World.  Each year I pull together a list of influential voices that are engaging on social networks around the topic social media marketing. My goal? To help showcase speakers for people in the industry to learn from and follow.

Why are these people influential? That’s a great question. I would answer with, “Why is anyone influential?”. Because they have specific expertise that they share publicly, consistently and in a way that improves the knowledge, skills and perspectives of those who follow them.

Influence is not only popularity. Influence is the ability to affect action.

When I started out in my digital marketing career, it was thanks to connecting with some generous people that had a lot more experience than me that I was able to overcome introversion and reluctance to write and become an international keynote speaker, author and blogger with over 1.4 million words written so far. What I have learned about influence is that it is not self-assigned.

Influence is earned by being helpful, effective and relevant as well as having reach. Influence is also earned by mentoring those who are coming up in the industry. While working with influencers transfers influence by association, helping others become influential is when earned influence really skyrockets.

In this year’s list of Social Media Marketing Influencers there are many people who demonstrate this kind of helpfulness and I am encouraging those influencers as well as our community of readers to nominate up and coming social media marketing leaders. You can find more details on that at the end of the post.

About the Methodology for this List:

Specific Scope: Rather than scan the entire social web, the starting data set for this list is having been named as a speaker for the SMMW18 conference. Mike Stelzner and Phil Mershon of Social Media Examiner do an amazing job of hand picking speakers for this conference and this list is an extension of their research and expertise into finding, qualifying and recruiting over 180 social media marketing speakers.

IRM Platform Assisted: Ranking of the people in this list leverages data and algorithms from Traackr, an influencer relationship marketing platform. Unlike the vast majority of lists like this that are published online, this list considers many more data sources than just Twitter. To provide a better sample across the web, Traackr ranking can include citations and links from data sources such as blogs, publications, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+.

Ranking data sources and scoring: For the ranking, this list leverages a combination of data points including:

  • Relevance – A score that indicates how influential a person is to a specific topic based on the keywords you provide. Signals for relevance include keyword mentions, keyword diversity, content production rate, freshness of content and other contextual measures. In this case, it was “social media marketing” as well as 10+ derivative phrases.
  • Resonance – A score of how impactful the influencer is with their audience. Resonance measures engagement activity that occurs as a result of publishing (mostly social) content.
  • Reach – A score derived by the reach algorithm that takes into account followers, fans, subscribers, visitors and other audience metrics. Remember, this is more than just Twitter.
  • Audience – Overall social audience size

Each of these signal sources are factored into the algorithmic ranking for identified influencers with a focus on topical relevance, resonance of message with the audience and then audience reach. The result is a combination of broad based influencers as well as individuals with a very specific focus and very high resonance and relevance scores. What I like about pulling this list together is seeing a number of new faces as well as as a variety of disciplines and specialties represented.

This list of 50 industry experts speaking at Social Media Marketing World is worth checking out as you plan which presentations to see, who to follow online and who to meet.

Kim Garst @kimgarst
Live Streaming Strategist, Social Selling Pro, Keynote Speaker at Boom! Social
Presenting: How to Make Money With Live Video

Donna Moritz @sociallysorted
Digital Content Strategist, International Speaker, Visual Content Strategist at Socially Sorted
Presenting: Tips and Tools for Visual Storytelling on Instagram

Brian Fanzo @isocialfanz
Founder and CEO at iSocialFanz
Presenting: Facebook Strategy in Light of the Facebook Apocalypse

Koka Sexton @kokasexton
Advisor, SenderGen
Presenting: How to Turn LinkedIn Into a Funnel for New Leads

Madalyn Sklar @madalynsklar
Social Media and Digital Marketing Strategist, Blogger, Podcaster
Presenting: How to Up Your Twitter Game With Smart Tools

Dan Gingiss @dgingiss
Vice President, Strategic Group at Persado
Presenting: Why Social Media is Key to the Customer Experience

Ian Anderson Gray @iagdotme
Co-founder at Select Performers Internet Solutions
Presenting: How to Create Your Killer Live Video Show: Tools and Tips

Jeff Sieh @jeffsieh
Pinterest Manager at Social Media Examiner
Presenting: Visual Marketing for Non-Designers: Tips, Tricks, and Hacks

Viveka Von Rosen @linkedinexpert
LinkedIn and Personal Branding Expert, Co-founder and Chief Visibility Officer at Vengreso
Presenting: How to Best Use LinkedIn Native Video in Your Marketing

Neal Schaffer @NealSchaffer
CEO at Maximize Your Social
Presenting: How Brands are Breaking Through to Generate Results on LinkedIn

Josh Elledge @joshelledge
Founder at upendPR
Presenting: How to Get Traditional Media Exposure Using Social Media

Robert Rose @robert_rose
Founder at The Content Advisory & Chief Strategy Advisor at Content Marketing Institute
Presenting: Becoming an Audience First Company: How to Understand and Measure the Most Valuable Asset in Your Business

Gini Dietrich @ginidietrich
Chief Executive Officer at Arment Dietrich
Presenting: Crisis Communications: Tips From the Trenches

Carlos Gil @CarlosGil83
Founder, Gil Media Co.
Presenting: Snapchat Ads: How-to Use Snapchat’s Full Service Ad Platform

Darren Rowse @problogger
Founder and Keynote Speaker at ProBlogger
Presenting: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known about Blogging That Will Shortcut the Growth of Your Blog

Mark Schaefer @markwschaefer
Executive Director at Schaefer Marketing Solutions
Presenting: 10 Mind-Bending New Ideas for Our Social Media Marketing Future

Tamara McCleary @tamaramccleary
CEO at Thulium.co
Presenting: Innovating Your Way to Strong Social Media ROI

Mark Mason @masonworld
Quality Manager, Interface Products at Texas Instruments
Presenting: How to Make Your Podcast Stand Out: Tips from the Trenches

Rebekah Radice @rebekahradice
Founder at RadiantLA
Presenting: How to Make Visual Content Your Social Media Secret Weapon

Brooke B. Sellas @madsmscientist
Founder & Chief Executive Officer at B Squared Media
Presenting: Organizing for Social Success: Insource? Outsource? No Source?

Tyler Anderson @tylerjanderson
CEO / Founder at Casual Fridays
Presenting: Winning With Influencer Marketing: What Top Brands are Doing Now

Samantha Kelly @tweetinggoddess
Owner of Women’s Inspire Network
Presenting: How to Convert Twitter Conversations Into Customers

Ian Cleary @iancleary
Founder at RazorSocial
Presenting: 9 Content Marketing Tools to Drive More Traffic to Your Website

Mari Smith @marismith
Keynote Speaker, Brand Evangelist, Bestselling Author
Presenting: The Future of Facebook: What Marketers Need to Know for 2018 and Beyond

Mike Stelzner @mike_stelzner
CEO and Founder at Social Media Examiner
Presenting: Social Media Marketing in 2018: What the Newest Research Reveals

social media marketing speaker network connections

Andy Crestodina @crestodina
Strategic Director at Orbit Media Studios
Presenting: Building Better Mousetraps: A Content-Driven Approach to Conversion Optimization

Bernie Borges @bernieborges
Advisory Board Member at OneMob
Presenting: The Secrets to Getting Employees to Engage on Behalf of Your Brand

Alex Khan @1alexkhan
CEO at Attractive Media GmbH
Presenting: Mass Seduction: Proven Techniques to Engage and Build Your Audience

Peg Fitzpatrick @PegFitzpatrick
Director of Social Media + Marketing at Kreussler
Presenting: How to Use Pinterest to Drive Long Term Traffic

Chris Penn @cspenn
Vice President of Marketing Technology at SHIFT Communications
Presenting: Seeing Into the Future: Predictive Analytics for Social Marketers

Michael O’Neal @inmikeswords
Host of The Solopreneur Hour Podcast
Presenting: Becoming an Interview Master and How it Can Massively Grow Your Podcast or Livestream

Brian Solis @briansolis
Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group
Presenting: The Past, Present and Future of Social Media

Park Howell @parkhowell
Founder and President at Park&Co
Presenting: How to Invest in Brand Storytelling to Earn the Greatest Return

Nicky Kriel @nickykriel
Social Media Consultant & Social Media Strategist at Nicky Kriel Social Media
Presenting: How to Use Twitter Data to Improve Your Content Marketing

Melanie Deziel @mdeziel
Brand Strategy Consultant and Speaker at Mdeziel Media
Presenting: 5 Branded Content Best Practices From the World of Journalism

Andrea Vahl @andreavahl
Social Media Consultant at Andrea Vahl
Presenting: Facebook Ads Strategy for Small Businesses

Jay Baer @jaybaer
Founder at Convince & Convert
Presenting: How to Prove Social Media Works to Skeptical Managers

Steve Dotto @dottotech
President at Galileo Consulting and Producer of Dotto Tech
Presenting: YouMake YouFortune on YouTube: Making Money on YouTube

Ann Handley @marketingprofs
Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
Presenting: Creating Better Content in Less Time: 5 Real-World Writer Secrets

Lee Odden @leeodden
CEO at TopRank Marketing
Presenting: How Content Plus Influence Equals Results: The Confluence Equation

Guy Kawasaki @GuyKawasaki
Chief Evangelist at Canva
Presenting: Achieving Social Media Success by Defying Conventional Wisdom

Shaun McBride @Shonduras
Owner Esports/Shonduras Inc
Presenting: How to Influence Influencers: The Creative Process

John Jantsch @ducttape
President at Duct Tape Marketing
Presenting: How to Grow a Highly Profitable Consulting Practice Without Adding Overhead

Jessika Phillips @jessikaphillips
Relationship Marketing Evangelist, President at NOW Marketing Group
Presenting: Relationship ROI: How to Grow Your Business by Focusing on Repeat and Referral Relationships

John Lee Dumas @johnleedumas
Host of the EOFire Podcast
Presenting: How to Grow Your Podcast Audience and Fuel Your Business

Roberto Blake @robertoblake
Owner at Create Awesome Media
Presenting: Mastering and Measuring YouTube Analytics for Video Marketing

Shep Hyken @Hyken
Chief Amazement Officer and Owner, Customer Service Speaker and Expert at Shepard Presentations
Presenting: How to Turn Social Customer Service Into a Marketing Strategy

Jasmine Star @jasminestar
Owner at Jasmine Star Photography
Presenting: How to Create 30 Days of Instagram Content in a Single Day

Bryan Kramer @bryankramer
Keynote Speaker, Emcee and Event Host at PureMatter
Presenting: How to Humanize Your Social Brand for Better Conversions

Brian Peters @brian_g_peters
Digital Marketing Manager at Buffer
Presenting: How to Build and Maintain an Authentic Community on Instagram

If you want to follow all 50 of these fine folks, then check out the speaker list on the SMMW18 conference schedule page.

What about non-digital influence? 

I think this is a great question because not everyone that is influential (especially in the B2B world) spends as much time tweeting, blogging and posting Instagram photos as many of the influencers listed above do. And yet they are highly influential.

For example, here are several more speakers that are pretty influential to me, even though they are not on the list above: Amisha Gandhi (client), Beverly Jackson, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, Konnie Alex (client), LaSandra Brill, Shannon Paul, Tim Washer, and Ursula Ringham to name a few.

Suffice it to say, I think when you are deciding on which influencers to work with, it’s important to get out of the digital bubble and consider offline-specific influencers as well – especially in B2B.

Big Questions About Influencer Lists & Influencer Marketing:

  • How do you find the right influencers?
  • What do you collaborate with them on?
  • How do you measure influencer marketing performance?
  • Are there processes and formulas for success?

These are some of the most common topics that come up through my agency’s influencer content marketing consulting with brands like Dell, SAP, LinkedIn, 3M and even mid-market companies like DivvyHQ or Cherwell Software.  I’ll be tackling these questions and more in my presentation at Social Media Marketing World 2018. Here are the details:

How Content Plus Influence Equals Results: The Confluence Equation
Thursday, March 1st at 4:10pm Room: 32AB
Content marketing and influencer marketing are hot topics for marketers all over the world as two of the most promising strategies for attracting, engaging and converting ideal customers. But how do you find the right influencers? What kind of content should you collaborate on? How do you best measure influencer and content success? Join Lee Odden to learn from his experience working with brands big and small to develop efficient and effective formulas for influencer content success.

I hope to see you there!

NOMINATE YOUR PEERS!

I know some folks are feeling left out and others would have added other social media marketing speakers to this list. Lists are exclusive by nature, but I think it would be amazing for the experts on this list as well as our readers would nominate up and coming industry social media marketing pros that are consistently providing useful expertise, leadership and engaging with their communities.

Please leave full name, title, company and Twitter handle (or other social profile) of your nominee in the comments. I will follow this list up with a People’s Choice style list of Rising Social Media Stars after the conference.


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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2018. | 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Learn From in 2018 #SMMW18 | http://www.toprankblog.com

The post 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Learn From in 2018 #SMMW18 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.


Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/50-social-media-marketing-influencers.html

Friday 23 February 2018

Top Marketing News: Facebook Tests ‘Downvotes,’ Internet Rages at Google, Pandora Takes Aim

Six Essential Email Marketing Tips [Infographic] Looking for email marketing success? This six tips can help you — and your emails — reach the right target. MarketingProfs Google Brings the Popular Stories Format to AMP: Is It Worth Using? Google announced a new story format for AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) this week. Google describes the new shiny thing as "a visual driven format for evolving news consumption on mobile." Econsultancy Internet Rages After Google Removes 'View Image' Button, Bowing to Getty Google removed the "view image" button this week in response to a recent lawsuit from Getty. This move has enraged the internet, but was done with hopes to encourage clicks through to the image's hosting website. Ars Technica 45% Of Marketers Cite Content & Experience Management As Top Priority In 2018 Econsultancy's Digital Trends 2018 report found that 45% of professionals surveyed cite content and experience management as their top priorities for this year, followed by the 32% that cited analytics. Econsultancy Top Digital Advertising Trends MediaPost compiled a research brief to show top digital advertising trends, including evidence that Google and Facebook owned 63% US digital market in 2017. Microsoft made strides, but remains a distant third place with just 4%. MediaPost Google Announces Two Major Changes to Image Search Google has announced two major changes to image search — including the previously reported removal of the "view image" button and the removal of the "search by image" button. Publishers are happy about these changes, Google search users aren't so thrilled. Search Engine Journal Pandora Takes Aim At Spotify And IHeartRadio With Programmatic Audio Ads AdAge reports: "Pandora said Tuesday that it will now offer its audio inventory programmatically through popular demand-side platforms such as MediaMath, The Trade Desk and AdsWizz." AdAge Snapchat Gives Creators Access to Audience Analytics Some select content creators on Snapchat are being given access to analytics and data about their audience, such as story views, engagement and demographics. This is only available to those who are part of Snapchat's Official Stories program. Search Engine Journal B2B Demand Generation: Marketers' Favorite Tactics Recent research from Demand Gen Report shows that email remains a top demand generation channel for both top and bottom funnel prospects. MarketingProfs Facebook Is Testing A 'Downvote' Button CNBC Reports: "Facebook is testing a 'downvote' button that lets users flag and hide comments they deem inappropriate. The social network clarified that it is not a 'dislike' button and the test is running for a small set of people in the U.S. only." CNBC Google To Move More Sites To Mobile-First Index In Coming Weeks Google plans on rolling more sites into the mobile-first index in the next several weeks. It's time to make sure your site is optimized for mobile if you haven't already — the time has finally come. Search Engine Land On the Lighter Side Red Stripe Says That, Whatever the Cost, It Will Buy a New Bobsled for Jamaica - AdWeek TopRank Marketing (And Clients) In the News: Steve Slater - Your M-Commerce Deep Dive: Data, Trends and What’s Next in the Mobile Retail Revenue World - Big Commerce Lee Odden - Better Than Bonuses: 4 Motivators That Matter More Than Money - Workfront We'll be back next week with more top digital marketing news! If you need more in the meantime, follow @toprank on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Top Marketing News: Facebook Tests ‘Downvotes,’ Internet Rages at Google, Pandora Takes Aim appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.


Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/top-marketing-news-facebook-tests.html

Wednesday 21 February 2018

How to Create an Online Marketing Plan to Grow Your Business in 2018

Content

All online marketing plans are created with the objective of growing your business, improving customer loyalty and enhancing brand awareness. With the right strategy, you should have the ability to generate more traffic–which, can then boost your client numbers.

It certainly makes sense to create a marketing plan built for the digital environment–consumers are online so, it’s where you need to be. That is all well and good, but what if you don’t know where to start?

You’ve read as much content as you can digest on SEO, social media tips, content marketing strategy and business marketing. And, you are probably burnt out—confused about where to start.

Not to worry. We’ve curated a list of digital marketing strategies to help you achieve your online marketing goals. In addition, we provide options that are flexible enough to modify as needed. So, let’s get started.

Why You Need an Online Marketing Plan

While there is a universal challenge of figuring out where to start and how to draw up your online marketing strategy, it helps to know that this doesn’t have to turn into a massive report. In this piece, we emphasize the need to begin your focus with only one marketing channel. This helps to ease that overwhelming feeling of needing to master multiple marketing avenues at once.

Each technique must be evaluated, analyzed, prioritized and then put into action. Nonetheless, a marketing plan gives direction to the directionless. If you don’t have goals, you then will not put resources into any goals and you won’t achieve those goals. With an online marketing plan, you get a step-by-step guide towards success.

Another reason why you need a digital marketing plan is to help you better understand your online marketplace using digital tools and feedback. Furthermore, if you don’t have an online marketing strategy this year, you can be sure that your competitors will eat up your market share.

While you’re still trying to figure things out, your competitors are eating your digital lunch.

According to Coschedule, marketers who document their strategy are 538 percent more likely to report successes.

How goals relate to strategies and execution

As you begin the process of creating your online marketing plan, it is crucial to keep in mind the difference between goals, strategies and execution. Once you grasp the differences, you can improve your content marketing plan.

Plus, you’ll have a better idea of how to tie each function together for optimized results. To start, the goal is the umbrella of what you want to achieve this year. This is the first thing you want to focus on before any other details are produced. Your goal might be to generate $200 each day in revenue using your landing page and content.

As a result, the strategy is how you can achieve your objective of attaining $200 per day in revenue. So, your online marketing strategy would be to attract more business through a customized conversion funnel. Now, the execution might be to update your website so that it is more relevant to your target audience and to produce more personalized content with links to your products and a call-to-action at the end of every piece.

Many online marketing plans go awry when they fail to focus on just the execution and forget about the strategies and goals.

When setting up your execution, it’s important to have the bigger picture in mind and how your strategy helps to achieve your objective. If you can separate goals from strategies and executions, then you can immediately work on the steps you need to take to achieve your business goals.

And, you might keep the same goal, but you can always modify your strategies and executions depending on their results. If your website isn’t generating enough business as you would like, then continue tweaking and modifying. With this plan, you are better prepared to reach your goals and your target audience.

Start by creating a buyer persona

It’s a no brainer that you need to know more about the recipients of your online marketing plan. To create the best marketing plan for your business, you need to create detailed buyer personas. These are representations of your target and ideal customer(s).

You get the specifics for your personas by researching, polling and interviewing members of your target audience. In addition, it is better to base your persona on real data instead of assumptions. You’ll be happy to note that buyer personas are not difficult to create.

Think of it as creating a character for a fiction book, except this character is as close real life as it gets. If you’re still wondering why buyer personas are so critical, consider this: buyer personas make it easier to customize your messaging, branding, product development, services and content specifically to their needs, behaviors and expectations.

Depending on the size of your business, you might have between one and 20 buyer personas. If this is your first experience with creating a buyer persona, start with just one. As you get better at the process, you can always create more personas at a later date.

Once you have at least one buyer persona, you can personalize your marketing efforts for varying sectors of your target audience. As a result, you’re not creating messaging in the dark. So, let’s delve a bit deeper into the steps for setting up your first buyer persona:

  1. Search for trends around how your customers consume your content.
  2. Use web forms to capture content such as company size, job role, job responsibilities, location, age group, biggest challenges, marital status, educational background, shopping preferences and similar demographics.
  3. Ask your sales team or customer service representatives for feedback on the types of customers and prospects they interact with the most.
  4. Interview prospects and customers over the phone, in person or via online chat to find out what they like most about your products and services.
  5. Offer incentives, such as a gift card, to motivate interviewees to answer your questions. Then, make it easy for them to participate.
  6. Interview at least three to five people for each persona.
  7. Follow up each question with “why.”

Here is an example of a buyer persona:

James Cordova

Age: 33-42

Gender: Male

Race: Hispanic

Marital Status: Married

Education: Masters

Readability Level: Grade 10 – 12

Family Status: Young children 1yr – 7yr

Career Type: Full Time

Career Stage: Middle Management

Location: Southeast

Income Range: $65k – $80k

Homeownership: Own

Urbanicity: Suburban

Time Spent Online: 7 – 10 hrs

Interests: Business & Finance

General Notes: “I work closely with finance and business operations. My primary focus is managing financials from accounting to forecasting.” I want to… reduce spending while improving productivity, not deal with repeatable manual processes I like… finding answers (i.e., solving problems/puzzles) I like… being organized I like… being an enabler I don’t like… being inefficient…wasting time.

Isn’t it easier to now tailor your online marketing efforts when you have a descriptive buyer persona. 

Determine which digital tools you need

It’s important to have the right tools in place to measure your progress against your online marketing goals this year. For instance, if your goal is to generate 15 percent more online revenue, then you may have to figure out a way to produce 30 percent more leads through your website.

Regardless of your objective, you need to measure it with the appropriate digital tools. How you measure your results will vary depending on your needs and goals.

To illustrate, you might use a website tool such as Unbounce to test your landing pages. In terms of visuals for your content marketing, you could use the web-based design tool Canva to create unique pieces.

Audit current marketing channels and content

While working on your online marketing plan that grows your business, it’s also important to audit your current marketing efforts and content. In terms of content, the media you own can include:

  • Social media profiles
  • Your website
  • Images
  • Written content
  • Owned channels
  • Guest blog posts

You may also have earned media, which is recognition you have received through the press, interviews, company reviews and people who share your content. Another piece to audit is your paid media, such as your online advertising and anything else you paid for to improve brand awareness, exposure and to increase leads.

The goal is how you can get owned, earned and paid media to work together cohesively to meet your online marketing goals.

It also helps to understand how your marketing executions have worked so far. Yet, the most significant piece is your owned media. Any message you share about your brand is content–these can be articles, white papers, social media posts, product descriptions and more. When your content is optimized for your buyer persona(s), it brings more leads and traffic.

Whatever your objective, you will need to decide how your owned content can help reach your goals. Perhaps a new, and relevant, white paper will generate more leads through your site than what you accomplished last year. Or, maybe an eBook you shared last year was successful in driving more leads–if so, then you’ll want to build on that momentum and promote more eBooks this year.

So, with this audit, review all the pieces of owned content that performed best for your brand in the previous year–which pieces of content brought in the most leads? Then, look at your buyer personas and how you can revise some of your older content pieces to appeal to your newly-created buyer persona.

As you can see, the purpose of this audit is to figure out what works–do more of that this year–and to make revisions for media that could be improved. Click here some very interesting statistics on content marketing trends.

Stay on track and focus on just one marketing channel

To really jumpstart your online marketing momentum, it helps to first concentrate on paid search. You might have heard of paid search but are still unclear as to how it works. There are many definitions for paid search.

At its core, paid search marketing means you pay to become a sponsored listing on a search engine, and you pay when your ad is clicked (pay-per-click–PPC) or by the number of impressions (cost-per-impression — CPM). For instance, if you own a pet store and someone searches for “cat snacks” your ad would be listed on top of the search engine results page (SERP).

If you’re wondering why we’re directing your initial efforts towards paid search, the reason is simple: you want to get your company listed at the top of the SERPs. More than that, when your company is one of the top four results, it increases the opportunity for clicks and traffic.

And, paid search is the fastest and most efficient way to get to the top–especially if you still don’t fully understand how to optimize your content for SEO, which should be your next target. For now, paid search will produce the best results in the shortest amount of time.

In fact, the top three spots on Google get 58 percent of the clicks.

Additionally, tracking paid search is quite easy and straightforward. Every keyword and investment you make can be tracked.

More than any other media, paid search offers a lot of transparency–in real time too. You can see which keyword combinations and ads work best compared to ads that could use improvement.

What’s the result? You get a truly accurate ROI. To illustrate, if you invest $300/month and receive 50 conversions for every $100, then even a 10 percent return can equate to $5,000 in sales. It’s difficult to replicate these types of results through any other marketing channel when you are just starting out. Not to mention, paid search can give you immediate global reach–try doing that on your own.

Regardless of the size of your business, paid search can be tailored to your budget and needs.

Once your campaign is set up, you can get traffic in a matter of minutes. Still, it’s not just about the initial flow of traffic, this is about investing in paid search to receive consistent traffic every day.

Consistency is the key to success. Massive spikes and equally massive lulls can destroy a website. Another reason to invest in paid search is you can test and optimize your ads to ensure they are hyper-targeted.

This is relevant traffic because they saw your ad based on their search query. They did not bounce onto your site. This traffic wants to see what you have to offer.

If you wanted to build upon your current client base, you can do that as well. For example, you want to expand your business outside of your town or city. With paid search, you can target your prospects by zip code, radius, location and even household demographics. Without paid search, it would be difficult to compete with similar businesses in the cities you want to target.

One of the hidden advantages of paid search is the ability to see what your competitors are doing. Through your paid search campaign, you can see local and national businesses who are competing with you in your targeted markets. You might then hop on to their site to get a few ideas.

Also, think about how you might advertise a new location or perhaps you are moving to another address. It would take time to announce the news efficiently through organic methods.

Not having enough traffic at your new site or losing customers because they keep going to your old location can destroy your business. Instead, paid search gives you immediate presence which can be targeted to the areas around your new city or address.

Tie it all together

You’ve created a buyer persona, you’ve done the research, you’ve audited your content and are learning about paid search. You now have the components you need to build your online marketing plan.

It’s time to tie everything together to compose a comprehensive, cohesive and robust strategy. You want to ensure your plan maps out the executions you will make to achieve your business objectives. Set up your plan as a guide you can use for the next 12 months. For instance:

  1. In February, launch a new eBook customized for your buyer persona–promote through paid search.
  2. In July, start to audit the results of your website–tweak where necessary.
  3. In October, focus on attracting more media in the form of press releases, interviews and more–reach out to journalists and relevant publications.

With this format, you not only have a guide, but you also have a timeline to follow.

Wrapping up

The basis of a successful online marketing strategy boils down to a thoughtful plan.

Your outcome should be tailored to your business. This isn’t about a one-size-fits-all strategy–but, you can use the tips above to create some unique for your organization.

Keep in mind the reason for your plan is to direct the executions you will take to achieve your business objectives throughout the course of this year. Since you now understand the difference between goals, strategy and executions, you won’t have to worry about going around in circles. So, grow your business this year by working on your plan right now.

The post How to Create an Online Marketing Plan to Grow Your Business in 2018 appeared first on HigherVisibility.


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In a World of Diminishing Trust, Data-Driven Marketers Can Turn the Tide

Trusting Hands

Trusting Hands My first encounter with marketing data malpractice came at a young age. I wasn't old enough to understand what was going on at the time, but my dad loves to tell the story. As I've gotten older, the humor and timeless relevance of this anecdote have struck me more and more. It was the mid-90s. We received a piece of mail at our house addressed to Lucy Nelson. It was a credit card offer from one of the industry's heavy hitters. Nothing out of the norm so far, right? Here's the problem: Lucy was no longer alive. And the bigger problem: Lucy was not a human. She was our dog. As it turns out, my older brother had been cited by an officer at a nearby park many years earlier for walking Lucy without a leash. When asked to give a name, he stuttered out the Golden Retriever's, along with our family surname. Somehow "Lucy Nelson" ended up in a city database and the credit card company had plucked it out to add to its mailing list. Ultimately, this resulted in our dearly departed dog being pitched a deluxe platinum card. Woof. Flash-forward 20-some years. It's a different world now. The rudimentary practice of collecting names and addresses from public databases seems so quaint in the Age of Big Data. Businesses and institutions now have the ability to gather comprehensive insights about people, both in aggregate and at an individual level. For the general populace, this can feel unnerving. And unfortunately, almost everyone reading this has experienced some breach of trust when it comes to corporations or government and personal data. But for marketers, the sheer volume of information now readily available presents a significant opportunity to take our profession to all new heights. By getting it right, we can help stem the tide of rising consumer wariness.

A World of Distrust

In 2017, for the first time since being introduced almost two decades ago, the Edelman Trust Barometer found a decline in consumer trust toward business, media, government, and NGOs to "do what is right." That's bad. And even worse: the organization's Trust Index didn't rebound in the 2018 study, released in January. 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer "A World of Distrust," Edelman has dubbed it in 2018. And who can blame folks for losing faith? These days it can feel like the only major news story that isn't shrouded in doubt is when Equifax leaks the personal information of 150 million people. In such an environment, it's hard to not to squirm when learning that your Amazon Alexa, and even your smartphone, is listening to you pretty much at all times. While apprehension is understandable, these aren't people spying on us; they are robotic algorithms collecting data in efforts to understand us and better serve us. As marketers, we can play a major role in showing people the benefits of a data-focused marketplace. Customers rightfully have high expectations of our ability to offer high-quality tailored experiences, and we need to follow through. It's an historic opportunity. [bctt tweet="As marketers, we can play a major role in showing people the benefits of a data-focused marketplace. - @NickNelsonMN #CX #DataDrivenMarketing" username="toprank"]

Connecting the Dots

Our CEO Lee Odden recently wrote this in a blog about data creating better customer experiences: “One of the universal truths that we’ve operated under at TopRank Marketing,” he explained. “Is about the power of information specific to customers that are actively searching for solutions." In that post, Lee wrote about his experience searching online for a portable battery charger and then being served ads for purple mattresses. That's the kind of thing that drives me crazy. As Lee notes: "The data is there. Customers are telling you what they want. The question is, how to connect those dots of data to understand and optimize customer experiences?" The consequences of missing the mark are very real. A few years ago LoyaltyOne conducted a survey of 2,000 U.S. and Canadian customers on the subjects of data collection and privacy. Among the findings: only 35% were accepting of retailers using cookies to track their online behavior and just 27% were cool with location-based offers. How much less widespread resistance might we be seeing against these tactics if they were being utilized more effectively?   [bctt tweet="The data is there. Customers are telling you what they want. The question is, how to connect those dots of data to understand & optimize customer experiences? - @leeodden #CX #DataDrivenMarketing" username="toprank"]

The Data-Driven Marketer’s Imperative

The stakes are high. We need to piece the puzzle together correctly. If marketers and advertisers can start consistently delivering the sort of customized content and recommendations that data empower us to provide, it'll go a long way toward restoring customer faith. We should be using this information to optimize, not traumatize! Among the biggest areas for improvement I can see, from the perspective of both a marketer and customer:
  • Cut down on data fragmentation and organizational silos. This issue is abundantly common and extremely damaging. The "garbage in, garbage out" adage will never cease to be true. Make the necessary investments to unify your data and enhance the customer journey from attract to engage to convert and every step in between.
  • Be more transparent. Location-based tracking and other oft-used practices would be much less irksome if they didn't feel so sneaky. Inform customers when you're gathering info and why. Commit to opt-in policies wherever possible.
  • Follow the principles of the "virtuous cycle." LoyaltyOne CEO Bryan Pearson suggests that building trust is tantamount to developing face-to-face relationships. "In the beginning, we share a little. Then, once we show that we can be responsible with what the customer has shared, he or she will reveal a little more. And gradually the relationship deepens. This crawl-walk-run approach to sharing information is a sensible way for us to proceed in data collection and use. After all, as long as customer information is used to enhance the customer experience, taking small steps along the way can lead to big things."
Data has come a long way since the days of sending credit card offers to dead dogs. Marketers, let's make sure every campaign we create is reflecting this progress. [bctt tweet="We should be using the data & information we have to optimize, not traumatize. - @NickNelsonMN #DataDrivenMarketing #CX" username="toprank"] How can you build more trust with your audience? A more thoughtful approach to content marketing can help. Learn several ways to build credibility and trust with content.

The post In a World of Diminishing Trust, Data-Driven Marketers Can Turn the Tide appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.


Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-world-of-diminishing-trust-data.html

Monday 19 February 2018

This Changes Everything: How AI Is Transforming Digital Marketing

How AI Is Transforming Digital Marketing

How AI Is Transforming Digital Marketing Will artificial intelligence (AI) put marketers out of work? It’s a question I’m seeing a lot lately, and to me, it’s a strange one. It’s like if everyone 150 years ago was asking: “Will the tractor put farmers out of work?” Of course, John Deere didn’t put farmers out of business; better tools just made them more efficient and better able to scale. Granted, the tractor did reduce the demand for horses and farmhands. So, no, AI will not put you out of work…as long as your work is creative, innovative and intelligent. If all of your daily work can be done by a machine, eventually it will be. To be the farmer rather than the horse, you need to understand what AI can do to augment and scale your efforts, not replace them. Here’s what AI can do to improve your digital marketing efforts right now.

#1: Artificial Intelligence and SEO

If there’s one area of digital marketing that is most affected by AI right now, it’s SEO. Machine learning is directly affecting site visibility right now, and its influence will only increase in the future. A machine learning algorithm called RankBrain (link to Backlinko’s incredibly useful guide) is currently Google’s third most important ranking signal. In the past, Google’s developers monitored search results and tweaked algorithms to better suit search needs. SEO experts then tried to reverse-engineer each algorithm change to better position their content. With RankBrain in the driver’s seat, though, no human being will know why content is ranked up or down. The algorithm will continuously be testing and refining settings based on user behavior. This switch means some traditional SEO activities, like keyword lists and backlinks, will decline in importance. The ranking signals that will matter most will be those related to user activity:
  • Time on page
  • Bounce rate
  • Pogo sticking
  • Scroll depth
Any indicator that shows how a user found your content valuable is now an SEO indicator. SEO experts and content creators will need to work more closely together to ensure content meets a specific search need, addresses a specific audience, and is compelling to read. That’s not to say technical SEO is dead, but it is evolving. SEO experts should focus on structuring data, applying schema, implementing AMP, and optimizing for voice search. What do these tasks have in common? They’re all candidates for automation. SEO experts of the future will be feeding data into their own AI and using it to apply these ranking factors to content at scale. [bctt tweet="#SEO experts of the future will be feeding data into their own #AI & using it to apply ranking factors to content at scale. - @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#2: Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots

Chatbots are AI-driven programs that interact with users in a natural-language environment. These programs are rapidly becoming a major area of interest for marketers, as an increasing amount of social media traffic takes place on private messaging services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Buffer’s annual social media report found that there are more people on the top four messaging apps than on the top four social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn). That’s an engagement opportunity that’s hard to ignore. And, of course, chatbots can live on your brand’s homepage, answering questions and providing support. Most digital marketers see chatbots as a way to provide personalized customer service at scale – which is tangentially related to marketing, but not directly a marketing function. However, chatbots can also help guide users through a customer journey to a sale. A lot of the chatter (no pun intended) around chatbots is how to make them indistinguishable from interacting with a human. Marketers seem to care a great deal about this issue, but I would argue customers don’t. Customers want their questions to be understood and quickly answered; it doesn’t matter if it’s Robby the Robot or Robby the Call Center Rep who has the answers. Marketers can make use of chatbots themselves, too. There are a growing number of smart assistants available that can aggregate and report on data in real-time, through Slack and other private messaging services. [bctt tweet="Customers want their questions to be understood and quickly answered; it doesn’t matter if it’s Robby the Robot or Robby the Call Center Rep who has the answers. - @NiteWrites on #AI in #DigitalMarketing" username="toprank"]

#3: Artificial Intelligence and Content Marketing

If you’re a content creator, talking about AI and content marketing likely makes you feel the cold fingers of obsolescence tighten around your throat. Gartner says by the end of the year, 20% of business content will be authored by machines. AI is already being used for everything from white papers to earning reports. It’s enough to make you feel like a horse watching the farmer start up his tractor. Should you be worried about your job? Neigh. For one, AI right now isn’t quite ready to draft content with personality and a strong hook for the reader. Since SEO is increasingly about the reader’s experience, that means human-crafted content will win out for the foreseeable future. And even when AI can write convincingly like a human, it will still need creative input from humans. So think like a farmer: Use AI to take care of repetitive, mindless tasks like metadata tagging and adding recommended content to blog posts. And use it to deliver personalized content at scale. AI can use data from your site’s visitors to dynamically customize and display the content you create. As the content creator, part of your new AI-enhanced job will be to look at how your audience can be segmented by behavior, and draft modular content that the AI can put together based on user behavior. [bctt tweet="Marketers, think like a farmer: Use #AI to take care of repetitive, mindless tasks like metadata tagging & adding recommended content to blog posts. And use it to deliver personalized #content at scale. - @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#4: Artificial Intelligence and Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most effective forms of marketing out there. Sixty-one percent of consumers enjoy receiving weekly promotional emails. Which may explain why email marketing has higher conversion rates than social media and search combined. AI is making email marketing even better, both for you and your customer. Personalization at scale is every marketer’s dream – and AI makes it possible. AI can use data to create personalized emails to every one of your subscribers, based on their previous interactions with the brand. It can customize based on what content they’ve consumed, what’s on their wish list, what pages they have spent the most time on, and more. For example, if one user always visits links to product pages in your email, but another skips those links and goes straight for content, the AI can send different messaging with the most relevant links for each user. AI is also making drip campaigns more sophisticated. Instead of one or two triggers and a few customized emails, you can use “If/Then” statements to customize emails for dozens of different triggers. Rather than, “send an email in two weeks,” or “send another if they opened the last one,” you could say, “if they visited three product pages, send an email with a link to a related blog post and recommended products other people have purchased.” [bctt tweet="When it comes to #EmailMarketing, personalization at scale is every marketer’s dream & #AI makes it possible. - @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#5: Artificial Intelligence Influencers to Follow

As AI continues to evolve, one thing’s for sure: None of us know as much about it as we should (myself included). These four influencers are among the select few who really have a handle on AI’s potential to transform marketing. 1. Chris Penn, VP of Marketing Technology, SHIFT Communications Chris Penn of SHIIFT Communications Chris is a futurist, a keynote speaker, and AI visionary. His presentation at Content Marketing World last year alternately energized and scared the pants off me. Blog - LinkedIn - Twitter 2. Paul Roetzer, Founder, Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute (MAII) Paul Roetzer of Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute Through the MAII, Paul aims to do for AI what Joe Pulizzi did for content marketing: Provide resources to educate people on how to use AI in marketing, and develop the standards to make AI a useful strategic tool. Blog - LinkedIn - Twitter 3. Magnus Unemyr, Marketing Automation & AI Consultant Magnus Unemyr - Marketing Automation & AI Consultant Magnus has turned out a ton of high-quality content on marketing automation and AI in the past few years. He publishes daily newsletters available through his blog and Twitter feed, and has written a series of books on e-commerce and online marketing. Blog - LinkedIn - Twitter

I, for One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

Will AI put marketers out of a job? Not if you think like a farmer with a shiny new tractor. It’s a tool, not a replacement – a multi-use tool that will eliminate drudgework and help you reach your audience more easily and with more compelling, personalized content. The rise of AI in marketing is one of the top trends in 2018. Find out what other digital marketing trends deserve your attention in 2018 and into the future.

The post This Changes Everything: How AI Is Transforming Digital Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.


Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/this-changes-everything-how-ai-is.html

Friday 16 February 2018

To Disavow Links Or Not: Is It Necessary in a Post Real-Time Penguin World?

Link Building

The more relevant sites linking to your domain, the better it is for your rankings, correct? But, what happens to your site when non-relevant (or worse, spam) ones decide to start linking to you instead? These irrelevant sites linking to you could end up pulling down your ranking, and you can get penalized by Google for it. To avoid this, Google gave an amazing solution to this problem via the Disavow Tool in October of 2012. With this, one could separate the good from the bad backlinks.

This is also one of the reasons the launch of Penguin 4.0 on September 23, 2016, was a welcome change among site owners everywhere. While it took quite some time for Google to finally release the update, many would agree that the wait was worth it. In a nutshell, Google released the Penguin update to detect spam automatically. More impressively, the Penguin 4.0 update runs in real time when it comes to recognizing your site cleanup efforts, thereby eliminating the effect of your site being suppressed up until the next time they run the algorithm. That is, Penguin 4.0 stops your site from getting demoted when a spam is detected. Instead, it will just devalue that link and allow you to move on without benefiting (or suffering) from its presence.

While this update is definitely impressive, a crucial question now comes up among site owners: Is it still necessary to disavow links now that we are in a post real-time Penguin era?

What is the Disavow Tool?

The Disavow Tool has long been regarded as a necessary precaution for every site owner. Basically, it gives publishers a voice to tell Google that there are external sites they do not wish to be associated with. This is especially crucial whenever the search engine giant is ranking websites since number and quality of backlinks are two of the factors considered.

What happens is that a site owner creates a file that indicates the URLs or domains they do not approve of backlinking to them, and this is then uploaded to Google. When Google starts to crawl the web and stumbles upon the specific URL or domain included in the disavow file you gave them, these will no longer be included in the calculations when ranking your website. Apart from that, the Penguin algorithm will also disregard the links when it evaluates whether or not you’ve been web spamming.

What is Penguin 4.0 and what does it do?

Google launched Penguin as a webspam algorithm. It does not just specialize in links or domains but evaluates your site’s participation in any web spamming activity. It is essentially a filter exhaustive enough to isolate sites that are engaged in spamming the search results using measures that are against Google’s policies. Penguin is more powerful than the regular spamming methods used by the search engine.

Consequently, sites deemed as “spammy” would be punished regardless of their remedies after their violations. It would only be until the next instance that the algorithm is run that Google would note the changes – a process that could have months in intervals.

The release of Penguin 4.0 completely changed this system.

With the latest update, the corrections and changes from “spammy” sites could be noted in real time. This means that sites tagged with faulty or bad backlinks or domains no longer have to suffer for months until the next time the algorithm is run. So during the regular recrawling and reindexing of pages by Google, the sites could easily and quickly be added or removed from the spam list because Penguin 4.0 provides real-time updates.

Whole websites would no longer be demoted when web spamming activities are detected. Instead of doing this, Google would simply disregard or devalue the spammy links and exclude them in the calculations for site rankings. Ultimately, this latest update eliminated the punitive aspect of the algorithm.

The Dilemma and Google’s Response to the Disavow Tool

With the release of the Penguin 4.0 update, many publishers feel that the Disavow Tool has become redundant. In the beginning, this tool was provided by Google to supplement Penguin. However, the devaluation abilities coupled with the non-demotion of sites caught web spamming push site owners to question the purpose of disavowing.

Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller says that site owners should disavow links when these are incredibly problematic. However, you can simply just not disavow links that are no longer relevant to your site. Mueller basically says that if you are conducting site maintenance or applying some changes to your site, then you no longer need to include disavowing links in your list of things to do. With the launch of Penguin 4.0, site owners would only need to use the Disavow Tool for pressing matters like spotting an alarming link or domain associating with your site.

You also no longer need to disavow for links associated with items or services you no longer offer. Mueller notes that it’s normal to accumulate backlinks from various sites that you may no longer deem relevant right now, but was appropriate to your company’s needs at the time. In short, site owners would only need to focus their disavowing efforts to problematic links and keep the status quo when it comes to previously relevant links.

The Takeaway

In the past years, the SEO landscape has changed considerably. With the release of the Penguin 4.0, disavowing links may have just turned into a thing of the past. However, it never hurts to be absolutely certain that nothing is hurting your rankings. So, disavow when needed, but trust that Penguin 4.0 has your back.

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