Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust Survey, Top Social Posting Times, YouTube’s Comment Hiding, Amazon’s Ad Share Growth & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust Survey, Top Social Posting Times, YouTube’s Comment Hiding, Amazon’s Ad Share Growth & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/digital-marketing-news-brand-trust.html

Buyers vs. Buying Committees: Not Knowing the Difference Could Cost You

Working as a marketing or sales professional in B2B presents a unique set of challenges and hurdles. One that probably doesn’t get discussed enough is the nuance of trying to reach and engage buying committees, as opposed to single customers. It’s a hugely important distinction that too many strategies fail to fully account for. If you’re not speaking to everyone, you might be speaking to no one. And we all know where that leads.

The Expanding Buyer Committee

A buyer (singular) is a sole decision maker responsible for researching solutions, vetting vendors, and authorizing purchases. It is exceedingly rare to see this type of setup in place anymore, unless at a startup or a very small company. Given the typical weight of these decisions, several people tend to now be involved with the process, and sign-off is often required from at least one high-ranking executive. Harvard Business Review reported a couple years ago the average number of people involved with B2B purchase decisions had risen to 6.8, and it’s fair to guess that figure has risen since. As Amanda Bulat wrote in a recent post for the LinkedIn Sales Solutions* blog, “Large enterprises sometimes have a dozen or more people with significant influence on purchases.”  This creates a conundrum for the modern B2B marketer. You could theoretically execute a masterful campaign, engaging a pivotal contact at a key account with compelling and persuasive content, only to have that company choose another solution because you failed to generate awareness with another key player who held more sway.  In the interest of helping you avoid such a disappointing outcome, we’ll cover some methods to ensure you’re fully understanding, and accounting for, the buying committee.

How B2B Marketers Can Reach the Whole Buying Committee

First, you map the buying committee out. Then, you develop a plan for comprehensive engagement. Finally, you put that plan into action. Let’s break down each of these steps. (Note that this guidance generally applies when you’ve already identified specific accounts to pursue, under an ABM-style framework, although you can also incorporate many of these tips more generally.)

Step 1: Map the Committee

There is no fail-safe way to ensure you’re accounting for each influencer on a buying committee. As an outsider, there’s an inherent level of obscurity involved with this process. But there are a few techniques for gaining a much clearer view. For example:

• Check the prospective account’s company website. Oftentimes, there will be an “Our Team” page or something similar, listing employees and their positions. Create your own rundown of executives and others with titles that frequently play a role in key business decisions.
• Research the company on LinkedIn. There are many handy features for B2B marketers on LinkedIn, and gaining insight around buying committees is one of them. The platform makes it easy to dial up a list of employees with a particular organization, plus accompanying job titles. Then it’s the same deal as above: spot the roles that are more likely to impact the buying committee. In some cases, people will actually list this as a job duty in their profiles, removing some of your guesswork.
• Ask your contacts. If you or another person on your team has an established relationship with someone who works in — or has worked in — the company you’re researching, it might not be a bad idea to ask about who in the business drives decisions, and who has their ear. 

Step 2: Coordinate with Sales

Alignment with sales is always critical for B2B marketers, but especially in this case, for two reasons:

1. Sales reps usually have the most direct contact with people at an account, and can get a closer read on who the influential players are. They can be very helpful with informing the step above.
2. Consistency in messaging is vital. You don’t want marketing content and salespeople to be sending a completely different message to different committee members, nor do you want to be repeatedly contacting the same member due to lack of communication. Formulate a plan in tandem with your partners in sales.

Step 3: Refine Your Targeting and Personas

Now that you’ve painted a picture of the buying committee’s composition, it’s time to adjust your marketing scope accordingly. When we say “refine your targeting” we mean it both in terms of how you’re delivering your content — you want to build concentrated awareness and engagement within an account, so tweak your ad targeting, email lists, social promotion, etc. to reflect — and also your tone and personalization.  Are you speaking directly to the specific individuals you need to win over? Is your content designed to create conversations within the buying committee? Does it answer questions that emerge in the late stages of a purchase decision? These are necessary questions to ask yourself in assessing whether your marketing approach is optimized for committees.

Shore Up Your B2B Marketing by Committing to Committees

Buying committees can vary greatly depending on the company and industry. As always, it’s essential to view this matter through the lens of your own context, and tap into the institutional knowledge of people who work closely with your customers and clients.  As our CEO Lee Odden wrote recently, “B2B purchasing is a team sport involving individuals at multiple levels from buying committees conducting research and making recommendations to executives with budgets to decide.” [bctt tweet="#B2B purchasing is a team sport. @leeodden" username="toprank"] Similarly, marketing to B2B committees is a team sport. Get your team aligned and focused on this objective, and you’ll be on your way to overcoming one of the toughest challenges in B2B marketing. At TopRank Marketing, we have many years of experience working with enterprise brands and helping them engage with large, distributed buying committees. Contact us today to learn more about our approach and philosophies. *Disclosure: LinkedIn Sales Solutions is a TopRank Marketing client

The post Buyers vs. Buying Committees: Not Knowing the Difference Could Cost You appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/buyers-vs-buying-committees-not-knowing.html

15 Reports Charting the Future of Content Marketing

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Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/15-reports-charting-future-of-content.html

12 Must-Have Skills for B2B Content Marketers

Scene from a dinner party: “So, Josh, what do you do?” “I’m in marketing.” “Oh, like Mad Men? Ad campaigns and stuff?” “No, it’s content marketing.” “Oh, like the Wendy’s Twitter account?” “...Sure... like that.” I’ve had variations on the above conversation more times than I can count. I’ll usually leave it at “Wendy’s Twitter account” in the interest of changing the subject. No one has the patience for, “I write business-to-business content designed to help people do their jobs better, which also builds affinity for a client brand, with the end goal of influencing purchase decisions.” So most people think I just write fun stuff all day, that it’s a purely creative job. But my fellow B2B marketers know better. Content marketing requires an incredibly diverse set of skills, and “innate writing ability” isn’t even the most important one. [bctt tweet="Most people think I just write fun stuff all day, that it’s a purely creative job. But as my fellow #B2B marketers know, #contentmarketing requires a diverse set of skills. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Here’s my list of must-have B2B content marketing skills. If you’re looking to get into the career, fill out your team, or, say, hire a marketing agency, keep these in mind.

12 Must-Have B2B Content Marketing Skills

This list is divided into two categories: The "hard skills" that you learn through instruction, and the soft skills that rely more on personal development and human interaction.

Four Hard Skills

#1 - Search Engine Optimization You don’t have to be a SemRushin’, Google Analytics wizard to be a content creator and strategist. But creating great content does require a solid understanding of modern SEO practices. You should know how to understand search intent, dig into ambiguous keywords, and create best-answer content that meets search demand. #2 - Social Media Marketing You may have a dedicated social media person or team, but content marketers should still know how to create compelling B2B social posts that attract attention without breaking the brand voice. You should be up to date on what type of content performs best on each platform. #3 - Influencer Marketing Content marketers should know how to co-create content with influencers. That means writing a framework that allows for collaboration, asking the right questions to guide influencer responses, and even conducting intelligent interviews. Content marketers' expertise makes all the difference in the resulting content feeling cohesive and compelling. #4 - Measurement Measurement is what turns content into content marketing. Content marketers should be able to strategize, create goals and metrics that match them, track progress, and ultimately optimize over time.

Eight Soft Skills

#1 - Empathy The heart and soul of any content marketing is empathy. You have to be able to take the customer’s perspective and make a human connection. Empathy is even more important in B2B content, because it keeps the content focused on people. It’s easy to lose the human connection when you’re writing about container-based software-as-a-service platforms. That empathy for the people, the buyer, the end user, should be what drives the content. [bctt tweet="That empathy for the people, the buyer, the end user, should be what drives the content. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] #2 - Creativity I would argue B2B content requires even more creativity than B2C. The difference is having to work within strict limitations. Big B2B brands have whole departments concerned with brand reputation, brand voice, standards and practices, approved image libraries and fonts… Content creators have to produce something eye-catching and meaningful without breaking any of these limitations. And they have to know when it makes sense to push the boundaries. #3 - Communication The success of B2B content depends on explaining complex concepts in simple terms. You may know all the ins and outs of your solution, but odds are your audience won’t. Clear, jargon-free, conversational writing that offers value is the only way to succeed. #4 - Organization This skill is important for any B2B marketer, but especially if you work at an agency. We’re working on a dozen different clients at any one time, each with multiple assets in various stages of development. Without organizational skills, it would be impossible to get everything done on time (even with a dedicated project manager on staff). #5 - Motivation I read recently about a man who had been on the payroll of a major corporation for over a year without ever doing any work. Seriously. Somewhere between restructuring and management turnover, he simply got separated from responsibility without losing his salary. via GIPHY That won’t ever happen for a B2B content marketer. There’s nowhere to hide: We’re responsible for concrete, quantifiable, and quality deliverables. There’s no such thing as slacking off, and there’s no such thing as writer’s block. The ability to push past obstacles, buckle down and get the work done is vital. #6 - Confidence Part of the job description is defending and explaining your work to stakeholders. For an agency, that includes account managers and clients. For a marketing department, that might include the executive suite, too. B2B content marketers need the (justified) confidence to advocate for content and approach they know will be effective. #7 - Humility The flip-side of confidence is the ability to put the content ahead of one’s individual ego. B2B content is bound to go through layers of review, with each stakeholder adding their own critique and suggestions. Humility means that you can take in constructive criticism and apply it with an eye toward producing the best content possible. While confidence is key, knowing your way doesn’t have to be the only way is equally important. #8 - Collaboration Finally, B2B content marketing is a team sport. It’s not about making a name for yourself — you have blog posts for that. It’s about partnering across areas of specialty to create something stunning. I found that my content got even better when I involved the design team from the start, for example. Working closely with design, SEO, influencer and social specialists only makes the work better. Here's a shot of the gang I get to work with every day:

B2B Content Marketing Is a Game of Skill

I’ll admit it: Before I got into the field, I thought content marketing was just getting paid to write all day. Now I know there’s a lot more to the job than just filling buckets with prose. Content marketers are writers, strategizers, empathizers, collaborators, and so much more. Need to level up your B2B content marketing? Our highly-skilled team is ready and waiting.

The post 12 Must-Have Skills for B2B Content Marketers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/12-must-have-skills-for-b2b-content.html

Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers

It's plain to see that B2B marketers, at large, see the value in social media. The latest B2B benchmarking research from CMI and MarketingProfs found that nearly two out of three respondents (61%) increased their usage of social media for content marketing purposes in the previous year. Another new report shows that social content is atop the list of focal areas for B2B marketers in the coming year. It’s also fair to say, based on various data points and conversations with folks in the biz, that most of us feel we could be doing better with social. The size of the audiences on these platforms make them essential to any digital strategy, but breaking through suppressive algorithms and showing clear ROI is a perpetual challenge for brands. One pivotal key to excelling with social media marketing is understanding all the tools you have at your disposal. Each platform offers a number of capabilities that seem to be underutilized by marketers who either don’t know they exist, or don’t fully recognize their potential impact. With this in mind, we’re setting out to highlight some of the most useful yet overlooked features for driving results on social media platforms. Today we're focusing on the channel most pertinent to B2B marketers: LinkedIn*, with its member base of more than half a billion professionals.

Take Notice of These 5 Marketing Tools & Features on LinkedIn

Whether your goal is building brand awareness, generating leads, or boosting conversions, these five fundamental functionalities can provide a big assist if you aren't taking advantage of them already.

#1: Robust (and Now Simplified) Audience Targeting

LinkedIn recently overhauled its Campaign Manager tool (the interface through which marketers build, manage, and measure ads) around an objective-based advertising framework. The basic purpose of this initiative was to make it easier for users to align every element of their campaigns with the overarching objective. One of the slickest improvements to come out of this is the audience setup experience, which is now simpler and more intuitive. From a B2B marketing perspective, the depth of available professional targeting parameters is by far LinkedIn’s biggest relative advantage compared to other social platforms. Nowhere else can you accurately filter audiences based on facets such as Job Title and Job Seniority. This provides unparalleled ability to reach decision makers and purchase influencers directly. The revamped interface makes it quicker and more straightforward to select a qualified audience in line with your campaign goals. [embed]https://youtu.be/AAx60JxxWFg[/embed]

#2: Revamped LinkedIn Analytics

The latest Social Media Marketing Industry Report via Social Media Examiner found more than half of respondents (54%) either uncertain or disagreeing that they are “able to measure the return on investment (ROI) for my organic social media activities.” This is another area of Campaign Manager that LinkedIn recently spruced up. Given that advertising on this platform tends to be more expensive than other social networks, it’s especially important to ensure you’re getting return on that spend. The new reporting experience makes it easier to see results at a glance, and make optimization tweaks on the fly. The underlying appeal of LinkedIn’s targeting facets also applies to its reporting mechanism; you can get an aggregated look at who is viewing and engaging with your content (i.e., which companies, which job titles, which experience levels). These insights can help you align your LinkedIn strategy and even your content marketing strategy more generally.

#3: Content Suggestions

Can’t figure out what to share on social media? That’s a common enough challenge. The Content Suggestions tab, found on the top nav bar within LinkedIn Page admin center, offers ample inspiration. It serves up a list of third-party articles your defined audience is engaging with — essentially a readily available stream of targeted, trending content. Not only does this make it easy for marketers and social media managers to find share-worthy content that’s more likely to resonate with their followings, but it can also fuel employee advocacy efforts.

#4: Website Retargeting

Retargeting is a popular digital marketing tactic, which involves serving ads to people who’ve already encountered your brand. The element of familiarity, plus a concrete demonstration of past interest, tends to drive considerably higher clicks and conversions than standard ads.   Through its Matched Audiences feature, LinkedIn allows you to place a pixel on your company’s website, then serve ads to people who’ve visited it before, while they’re on LinkedIn. It’s a great way to follow up with someone in a different context. One especially savvy approach is to create customized retargeting creative based on the specific section of your site a person visited (i.e., upper-funnel messaging for someone who went to your “About” page, and lower-funnel for someone who checked out a solution page.) [embed]https://youtu.be/SgXlOH-1pPk[/embed]

#5: Lead Gen Forms

This might be my favorite marketing tool on LinkedIn, and it definitely seems like one that more B2B brands could be utilizing. Lead Gen Forms are leveraged in combination with various types of ads, enabling your company to collect valuable contact info (and additional data about a prospect) from an individual who downloads something of value with minimal friction. Unlike most gated-asset forms, which require a user to tediously fill out multiple fields, Lead Gen Forms automatically populate based on the member’s LinkedIn profile data. As such, it takes only a couple of seconds to get through the process. Because you’re attaining a more comprehensive snapshot of people who download, you can better qualify them as leads in comparison with other form-fills that often procure only a name, phone number, and email. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Xe1E59N6A&feature=youtu.be[/embed]

Step Up Your LinkedIn Marketing Game

LinkedIn can be one of the most valuable components of a holistic B2B marketing strategy. As mentioned earlier, there’s no denying it’s a pricier place to play than most other social networks, but you’re also paying for access to a higher-quality audience. Using the five features above can help you understand, segment, reach, and engage this audience efficiently while closely tracking the impact of your efforts. Another underutilized tool on LinkedIn is video, which has been a key focus for the platform recently. Learn about all the metrics and specs for video on LinkedIn, as well as every other major social network! *Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/social-media-secrets-5-under-radar.html

Digital Marketing News: B2B Video & Social Usage Studies, LinkedIn’s Brand Refresh & Photo Tagging, Growing Digital Ad Sales

The post Digital Marketing News: B2B Video & Social Usage Studies, LinkedIn’s Brand Refresh & Photo Tagging, Growing Digital Ad Sales appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/digital-marketing-news-b2b-video-social.html

Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility

Recently, we’ve been running a series of posts here on the TopRank Marketing Blog called “Trust Factors,” where we explore techniques that modern brands can use to build trust and credibility with digital audiences. There are numerous examples of companies building trust with best-answer content and boosting credibility with influencer marketing for this purpose. Marketers are always seeking creative ways to forge genuine connections while standing out from the pack. New research from Edelman shows that consumers now have higher expectations than ever when it comes to brand responsibility. However, it’s worth pointing out that these efforts (even with the best of intentions) can backfire. When steps taken to strengthen trust instead have the opposite effect, we call these “Trust Fractures.” A recent example got me thinking about the subject, and why marketers everywhere should be cognizant of its lurking danger.

A (North) Face Plant on Wikipedia

Wikipedia. According to Moz, its domain authority is among the highest on the web. Search marketers are accustomed to competing with the community-driven online resource’s informational results atop SERPs of all kinds. Brands occasionally attempt to co-opt Wikipedia’s popularity and inherent trust factor in various ways. The North Face, an outdoor recreation product and clothing company, recently teamed up with agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made for a seemingly savvy initiative: taking high-quality photos of athletes in North Face gear at notable locations around the globe, then uploading them as featured pictures for the pages covering those landmarks on Wikipedia. The idea is pretty straightforward; when a user runs a Google search to learn about state parks and mountains and the like, they’ll click on the Wikipedia entry and find North Face products and logos within the imagery. In addition to the powerful authority for an image hosted on wikipedia.org helping these graphics rank very highly in image searches, there’s also the subconscious connection created in one’s mind when they see the North Face brand embedded in photos of these beautiful places. For a while, it seemed to be working, as explained by a recent writeup in AdAge. But when Wikipedia’s moderators became aware of the scheme, they were none too pleased. Unsurprisingly, this kind of activity goes against the non-profit website’s terms of service. “Adding content that is solely intended to promote a company or its products goes against the spirit, purpose and policies of Wikipedia to provide neutral, fact-based knowledge to the world. It exploits a free public learning platform for corporate gain,” said a representative from the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit that runs Wikipedia. (Source) “What The North Face and Leo Burnett did wasn't clever or impressive—it was duplicitous, using Wikipedia's openness against it, and in fact was directly contradictory to Wikipedia's Terms of Use,” one of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors told AdAge. This particular editor, William Beutler, also happens to be the CEO of his own agency (Beutler Ink), making his sharp words toward Leo Burnett extra-spicy. Wikipedia’s editors removed the offending images. North Face issued an apology. Perhaps they still consider the entire endeavor worthwhile given all the attention it garnered. But in their effort to gain brand trust and recognition by earning high search placements and associating (indirectly) with the Wikipedia name, North Face and its agency come out looking at best aloof, and at worst “duplicitous.”

How to Steer Clear of Trust Fractures

Sometimes, Trust Fractures are the simple results of blatant missteps by a brand or its representatives. These are relatively easy to avoid (don’t do shady stuff!). Instances like the one above, where a trust-diminishing situation arises as an unforeseen consequence, are tougher to eradicate but can be reduced through deeper and more comprehensive planning. Here are a few steps you can take to ensure your programs are strengthening trust rather than weakening it.

#1: Do Things for the Right Reasons

You can’t — for lack of a better term — “black-hat” your way into trust. There’s no gaming human emotions. If your brand’s actions aren’t genuine, people (and even search algorithms) will get wise, because both are growing a lot more adept. [bctt tweet="There’s no gaming human emotions. If your brand’s actions aren’t genuine, people (and even search algorithms) will get wise, because both are growing a lot more adept. @NickNelsonMN #TrustInMarketing" username="toprank"] If you create content solely for the purpose of ranking high on search, rather than fulfilling your audience’s questions and curiosities, then a best-answer approach isn’t going to deliver the results you desire. The former should arrive as a natural consequence of the latter. I’ve come across numerous keyword-stacked pages that bury you in lead-gen fields as soon as you arrive. Not only will users reject these kinds of tactics, but because of the correspondingly low time-on-page and high bounce rates, Google will too. The same goes for influencer marketing. When done right, as a mutually beneficial and fully engaged partnership, it’s a boon for credibility. But if you’re merely paying someone to associate your brand with them, it’s likely to be transparent to both their following and yours. We see this a lot in the B2C Instagram space, which (from my view) helps explain why millennials are reporting lower levels of influencer trust. So I repeat: do things for the right reasons. Was there a purpose in North Face’s Wikipedia-image play other than sneaking its brand name into objective informational content? Perhaps, but it doesn’t really come off looking that way.

#2: Avoid the Fauxthenticity Pitfall

I wrote about this last year, and it goes hand-in-hand with the point above. Basically, when brands try too hard to convey authenticity in hopes of building trust with their audience, it can make them look even more out-of-touch. This is the core issue afflicting many pay-to-play influencer engagements with Instagram celebrities, including one particularly cringeworthy example I cited in the linked post. When I see someone with millions of followers write nice but seemingly scripted things about a product, followed by hashtags indicating it’s an #ad, I have a really hard time trusting the legitimacy of the endorsement. I know I’m not alone.

#3: Think Through Outcomes and Next-Steps

Thinking strategically is always vital as a marketer, especially in cases like these. That means looking at the big picture. What was the end-game with North Face’s image play? Did their agency foresee this possibility? They probably should have, since Wikipedia’s terms aren’t locked up in secret somewhere. With any trust-building initiative, it’s important to account for what comes next. Where might things go wrong? Are there angles we aren’t considering? How might a certain action be perceived differently than we’re intending? Without the benefit of experience and seasoned perspective, it can be difficult if not impossible to think through all the effects that might ripple outward from a program or campaign. In this regard, it’s extremely helpful to enlist an agency partner with a strong track record of astute judgment.

Keep Marketing Trust Intact

When looking at the present digital marketing landscape, I frequently think about the saying that trust is gained in drops and lost in buckets. It’s so true, and so germane to this particular discussion. We as brands work so hard to establish and sustain genuine trust with our customers, prospects, and audiences that preventable backslides can be a real gut-punch. [bctt tweet="As the old adage goes: Trust is gained in drops and lost in buckets. #B2BMarketing #trust" username="toprank"] Here at TopRank Marketing, we’ve written often (and will continue to write often) about Trust Factors that can solidify relationships between your company and the people it serves. But it is equally important to be aware of potential Trust Fracture risks. By maintaining genuine intentions, avoiding forced authenticity, and adhering to a holistic strategic vision, you’ll be on track to stay clear of face plants and fissures in the delicate balance of trust. Want to learn more about the state of marketing trust today, with plenty of data-driven insight? Check out Tip of the Iceberg: A Story of Trust in Marketing as Told by Statistics

The post Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/trust-fractures-how-to-avoid.html

Key B2B Takeaways From the 2019 Internet Trends Report

The post Key B2B Takeaways From the 2019 Internet Trends Report appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/key-b2b-takeaways-from-2019-internet.html

Breadcrumbs & SEO: What Are They and How Their Important for SEO

A trail of breadcrumbs is a storytelling element used to describe a path that one leaves to find their way back to their starting point. It began in the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel and has since become a common reference seen throughout pop culture.

On your website, breadcrumbs are navigational tools that not only help users make their way around your site, but also appeal to Google’s search engine algorithm and have a great impact on your SEO.

Bottom line is, you need breadcrumbs on your website for both SEO and improvements to the user experience. The user experience should not be overlooked. It is one of the key factors in increasing your rate of retention, the backbone of profitability.

But what exactly are breadcrumbs? How do they help the user experience and your SEO campaign? And how can you implement them into your website?

What are Breadcrumbs?

Breadcrumbs are a navigational component of a website that helps users successfully navigate various pages without getting confused or lost.

Simply put, breadcrumbs are a text path on a website, usually placed at the top of a page, which shows the path you’ve taken to get to a certain section of the site.

Let’s say you’re on the Testimonial video page of a website. To get on that page you first visited the home page. Then you navigated to their clients page. Once there, you clicked on case studies, and from there you found the testimonial videos page.

A set of history based breadcrumbs that would highlight such a journey would look something like this:

Home > Clients > Case Studies > Testimonial Videos

The breadcrumbs showcase exactly how you journeyed throughout the site. It’s telling you not only where you are but where you’ve been previously. What’s more, each highlighted step of the journey can be clicked on to instantly navigate back to a previous page.

Another interesting factoid about breadcrumbs is that they can be featured in Google search engine results pages.

If you have breadcrumbs in place on your site, when you pop up in a Google search, the page that you’re linking to will have the breadcrumbs listed beneath the title of the page. This helps users understand where the pages they navigate to are on your site in relation to many of the main hubs.

It’s an extra feature that is more attractive to users. Even if the page the search engine is linking to is not what they’re looking for, a breadcrumb for something that they are interested in might catch their eye.

Types of Breadcrumbs

Website breadcrumbs are not so simply defined. In fact, there are multiple different types of breadcrumbs one might use on their website.

Namely, there are three different kinds of breadcrumbs. We will go into each of them in detail, explaining the differences so that you can decide which type you want to use on your site.

Hierarchy Based Breadcrumbs:

Hierarchy based breadcrumbs are the most common form of website breadcrumbs. If you’ve encountered breadcrumbs in the past, it’s very likely they were of this type.

Hierarchy based breadcrumbs tell you where you are in relation to major hubs that are found on the site. A prime example would be the home page.

Rather than tell you where you’ve been already, it navigates a path back to that main page. Meaning that no matter where you enter the site, you’ll always be able to find a way back home.

Attribute-Based Breadcrumbs:

Attribute-based breadcrumbs are usually found on an ecommerce website. They create a breadcrumb trail featuring the attributes of the product or products you’re searching for.

If someone was looking for a black men’s leather jacket in size XL, their attribute based breadcrumb trail would read something like this:

Home > Jackets > Men’s Jackets > XL > Black > Leather

This makes the product search far easier, allowing shoppers to backtrack when needed and refine their search parameters.

History Based Breadcrumbs:

As one could guess from the name, history-based breadcrumbs deal directly with your browsing history and how you’ve personally navigated the site. Breadcrumb links at the top of the page feature the various pages you’ve already visited, listed in the order that they were navigated to.

It shows the history of your journey throughout the site, negating the need to ever use a “back” button. If you entered the site via a contact us page, then navigated around to check out some features and read up on the staff before looking at the homepage, your history based breadcrumb trail would look like this.

Contact Us > Features > Staff > Home

Benefits of Breadcrumbs for Users

The main benefit that breadcrumbs have for users is that it enhances the user experience.

It cannot be overstated how vital user experience is for the success or failure of your site. You could have the greatest SEO on the planet, featured at number one for every keyword. But, if your user experience is lacking, you will find that those clicks are not converting.

You have to have a website that is both optimized for SEO and optimized for the user. Breadcrumbs help with both.

For users, they help people avoid becoming lost on your site. This reduces friction and frustration as users navigate through your pages.

Breadcrumbs are particularly helpful for users because they are a fairly common interface that your website visitors will be more familiar with.

By using breadcrumbs, it is far easier for the user to navigate back to an earlier page. They could even navigate back several pages with one click, something that a back button is unable to provide.

This should substantially lower the bounce rate of your site.

Another important function of breadcrumbs from the standpoint of website usability is that it gives users a path back to your homepage, even if they’ve never visited it previously. Remember: people don’t typically find websites through the homepage. Usually, it is through a product page or service function that was linked in a search engine results page.

That’s why every page of the site needs to be treated as an entry point, with breadcrumbs serving as a path for users entering through a product link.

Breadcrumbs serve an important function, offering an alternative navigational option so that users won’t leave. When a user enters your site through a product page, they need a clear path to the other sections of your site, particularly those where they can gain information and convert.

If they hit the back button from one of those entry points, they will just go back to the search engine results page, where they can find all of your competitors.

Make no mistake about it, the user experience matters.

Regardless of how good your SEO might be, a poorly optimized site could lead to a huge bounce rate. That’s because 79% of users will abandon a non optimized site. This is even more true for mobile users, who are five times more likely to bounce from your site if it is not set up accordingly.

Benefits of Breadcrumbs for SEO

We’ve covered why breadcrumbs are essential to the user experience, but how can they help those same users find you on Google?

Breadcrumbs are a huge bonus for Google and can have a great impact on your SEO score. It allows Google to more easily determine the structure of your site, which is more appealing in the long run toward a good score.

As we have mentioned before, breadcrumbs can become a feature on your Google search engine result, which is very appealing to users and is more likely to get clicks. This could be a great way to ensure that, even if you’re not the first option on the results page, you’re still getting a good amount of traffic.

When applying breadcrumbs to your site, it’s important to utilize structured data on the back end to make it more appealing to Google and easier to integrate into a search engine results page.

Structured data is able to directly communicate with the search engine, and completely takes all the guesswork out of the equation.

By adding breadcrumbs to your site and backing them up with structured data, you’re allowing Google to highlight your site more easily.

How to Add Breadcrumbs to Your Site

Now that we know all the benefits of adding breadcrumbs to your site, both for users and SEO, how can we go about actually doing it?

Luckily, the process has become highly simplified over the years, so you don’t need a web design degree and decades of experience to be able to incorporate them. (Though those do help)

The easiest way to incorporate breadcrumbs into your site would be to use a plugin system. There are many breadcrumb plugins that are available for a lot of the top website builders out there, including WordPress.

Using these applications, it becomes a simple matter to highlight what breadcrumbs you want and apply them, usually with nothing more than the click of a button. Obviously, this is the simplest way to incorporate breadcrumbs. Anyone can easily do this and it takes no website expertise whatsoever.

There are, of course, other more-involved ways in which to apply breadcrumbs to your site. These powerful navigational tools can also be plugged into the code manually by a web designer.

Remember, to be truly effective and catch the eye of Google’s search algorithm, breadcrumbs that are entered into a site need to be accompanied by structured data. This allows the breadcrumbs to be more easily integrated into a search engine results page.

That is why, despite the ease of WordPress or Wix plugins, it is usually best to entrust the application of website breadcrumbs to a professional web designer.

Whether this is someone working in-house or as a part of an outside firm (or freelance hire) does not matter, but if you’re going to be installing them manually with structured data, you might need some extra help.

Website code can be tricky, with one mistake leading to a slew of issues both to the design and functionality of your site. It is not something that should be left in the hands of amateurs.

When coding your breadcrumbs, remember that the breadcrumb code is often found within single.php and page.php files. These should also be inputted above the page title, so as not to cause a design issue.

When coding your breadcrumbs, make sure that you’re not adding the code to functions.php files. This will lead to otherwise preventable issues.

If this sounds like complicated technobabble to you then it’s time to invest in a professional website designer to make these structured changes.

In Conclusion

If you’re presenting a website without breadcrumbs to Google and your users, you’re doing a disservice to yourself.

When you consider how effective breadcrumbs are at creating a more informative search engine result and improving your overall customer experience, it becomes a no-brainer decision.

Incorporate website breadcrumbs into your site and help your SEO score while also making your site more accessible to users.

The post Breadcrumbs & SEO: What Are They and How Their Important for SEO appeared first on HigherVisibility.

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5 SEO Mistakes Killing Your Content Performance and a Fix for Each

The post 5 SEO Mistakes Killing Your Content Performance and a Fix for Each appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/5-seo-mistakes-killing-your-content.html

Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs

The post Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/spotlighting-organic-social-media-video.html

Infographic: 5 Must Have Ingredients for a Great Content Marketing Strategy

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Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/infographic-5-must-have-ingredients-for.html

Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, New Mary Meeker & Adobe Trends Reports, Google Buys Looker, & AV Studies

The post Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, New Mary Meeker & Adobe Trends Reports, Google Buys Looker, & AV Studies appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/digital-marketing-news-facebooks-video.html

B2B Demand Gen: The Next Evolution of 5 Tried-And-True Tactics

B2B demand gen used to be easier than B2C. Because, let’s face it, so much B2B marketing was deadly boring. A cool concept, a little creative design, or a dash of humor were like water in the desert. Now, though, it’s the norm for B2B marketing to be every bit as visually and emotionally compelling as B2C. Suddenly we’re selling water by a lake, not a desert. There’s no shortage of cool content. Audiences expect more, and marketers (including your competitors) are keeping up with demand. So it’s time to take B2B demand gen to the next level.

B2B Demand Gen Tactics: The Next Evolution

What follows are some logical upgrades for some of your favorite time-tested tactics. That’s not to say, of course, that you should stop doing things that are already working. But it’s worth testing these evolutions out to see what works for your target audience.

#1: Influencer Marketing to Influence 2.0

B2B influencer marketing has matured a great deal in the past few years. Marketers are looking at topically-aligned influencers with smaller but more relevant networks, and looking to create partnerships rather than paying for endorsements. But we still have room for improvement. Influence 2.0 seeks to build an always-on, continual process of influencer nurturing, community building, and content co-creation. Instead of individual campaigns, it’s about sustaining relationships, introducing influencers to each other, and continually producing content together. [bctt tweet="For any kind of content a business creates and publishes to the world, there is an opportunity for collaboration with credible voices that have active networks interested in what those voices have to say. - @leeodden" username="toprank"] When you have a sustainable community of influencers, you can integrate influencer content into virtually every part of your marketing efforts. That’s why I put it first on this list — you can add influencers to all of the following tactics for better amplification and engagement.

#2: eBooks to Interactive Content

The classic PDF-format, static eBook is a B2B content marketing staple. Over the last decade, we’ve seen eBooks becoming more dynamic, more visually compelling, more creative and fun. Like, say, this one from our client Pantheon. So I’m not here to put down eBooks. But as an agency, we’re starting to lean into more interactive content, and seeing some stellar results. Interaction can be as simple as adding animation or multimedia content to a slideshow or eBook. Or you can go more complex, ditching that page-based form factor completely. Some of our best-performing agency work recently is vertically-scrolling, animated, and interactive. The core content is much the same as a conventional eBook, but it’s much more likely to earn attention.

Click Here to see the Break Free from Boring B2B Guide in Full Screen Mode

#3: Gated Big Assets to Gated Bonus Content

The time-honored tradition in B2B marketing is that you gate your most valuable stuff. Then you give away smaller bits of content to entice people to fill out your lead gen form. Which means a small percentage of people actually see the asset you spent the most time and effort on. It’s a tactic that can still work, but it’s worth trying the other way around, too. Note that none of the assets I linked in the last section are gated. We put a ton of research, creativity and effort into making each one. And then we and our clients used them for demand gen. We found that influencers were more likely to amplify an ungated asset, and that meant more people got to see the thing than if it were gated. When you put an ungated big asset out there, make sure to include an opportunity for people to convert, of course. We have found that a simple but useful downloadable, like a checklist or worksheet, works well to convert traffic from our big ungated assets. Read: To Gate or Not to Gate? Answers to an Age-Old Digital Marketing Question

#4: Everyday Blogging to Everyday Multimedia

The blog post has been the “atomic unit” of content marketing for a long time now, and it’s easy to see why. All you need to make a blog post is a computer and a WordPress site (though hopefully you also have a strategy, research time, and an editorial calendar). The barrier to entry is low and the potential for engagement is good. We’re finally seeing the democratization of video and audio content, however. It’s now potentially easier to create simple video or record a podcast than to write a substantial blog post. Video content can be embedded on social sites (more on that in the next section), and podcasts can be syndicated in dozens of directories. There’s a ton of demand gen potential in trading some of your blogging time for multimedia time. [bctt tweet="There’s a ton of #demandgen potential in trading some of your blogging time for multimedia time. @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#5: Social Links to Social First

Social media has been a demand gen staple for marketers since the early days of Facebook and Twitter. The time-honored tactic for social media is to post links to blog content or gated assets, encouraging people off of the platform and onto your own real estate. The problem is that social media sites don’t want people clicking away from their feeds. They want posts that generate engagement while keeping people firmly inside the walled garden. The sites’ algorithms will reward posts that don’t link out, while actively limiting the reach for posts with external links. We have been exploring a “social first” model for demand gen on social media, and the early results are promising. With a handful of clients, we're testing long-form content on LinkedIn, with the goal of boosting engagement right in the news feed. These posts are outperforming their average for comments and reactions, and are driving new followers for the Showcase Page, too. In other words, instead of using social media to drive traffic to your content, bring your content to social media.

Practice Next Gen Demand Gen

Which demand gen tactics work best? The answer will vary depending on your industry and audience, of course. But in general, our time-tested tactics could stand to be augmented and upgraded. Marketers who can get ahead of changing audience preferences will stand a far better shot at earning and keeping attention. Looking for opportunities to evolve your content promotional strategies? Take a peek at these underutilized content promotion channels.

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Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/b2b-demand-gen-next-evolution-of-5.html

5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action

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Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/5-examples-of-remarkable-content.html

When & Why Net-New Content Creation Makes Sense—And When It Doesn’t

1996: The year content was named “king” in a burgeoning digital world. 2001: The year "content marketing" was officially coined and the modern content revolution began. 130 trillion and counting: The number of webpages currently indexed by Google. One zillion infinities: The number of pieces of content you stand to create during your B2B content marketing career. Zero: Perhaps the number of times you've asked yourself, “Do I really need to create a new piece of content?” If the last one strikes a little too close to home, we're not passing judgement — rather we're reminding you that you don’t always have to start from scratch. Consistent quality content creation comes with the territory; it’s an integral part of your B2B content marketing strategy. Content is how we reach, help, and educate our buyer audience. Furthermore, as buyers and buyer committees evolve, there’s always going to be a place for net-new creation. But many times, refreshing, repurposing, and optimizing can play a major role in the creation process, and sometimes you may just need to stand down.

Do You Really Need a New Piece of Content? Yes. No. Maybe So.

If you need to fill your editorial calendar…

Stop, collaborate, and listen. via GIPHY While no content marketer wants to admit they’ve created content for the sake of filling a spot on the editorial calendar, it happens all the time. Again, no judgement here. But we had to call it out. So, before you feel tempted to fill a calendar opening, consider channeling that time and effort into more research or an audit. For example, performing an SEO and content audit, a task that aims to assess the current state of your internal content ecosystem as well as external variables, can unearth unique opportunities that can fill your editorial calendar with net-new and refresh ideas.

If a relevant and previously uncovered topic, trend, or paint point presents itself…

Go for it. Your goal is to be the best answer for your audience. In order for your content ecosystem to thrive, you have to have your basics covered (i.e. product explainers or resource guides) and within reach for your audience. If you see gaps in those core areas, you need to fill them. But as buyers become more empowered and voice search and assistants gain increasing popularity, they’re regularly uncovering new problems they need solved and more pointed questions they need answered. This means regular review of who your audience is and the questions they’re asking is more important than ever. You should be regularly leveraging website analytics, Google Search Console, question analyzer tools, and the list goes on to unearth and inform content creation opportunities.

If no one’s talking about those relevant topics, trends, or pain points ...

Then you should absolutely go for it. Remember the legendary wisdom of Ricky Bobby’s pop: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” via GIPHY It’s rare that you’re given the opportunity to create thought leadership and demand around something that’s new to your internal and external content ecosystem. Of course, that window of opportunity won’t be open for long. HubSpot’s Brian Halligan famously did this with the term “inbound marketing” — a term that every marketing department now accepts, understands, and uses. One note of caution, however: Creating demand around an original idea or rising topic requires vigilance, creativity, and integration with a range of content marketing tactics (i.e. influencers, paid and organic social media, email marketing, etc.) SEO is a long-term factor, but in the short-term, don’t let low search volumes deter you.

And if everyone’s talking about those relevant topics, trends, or pain points ...

Proceed with cautious ambition. Tackling a highly-publicized or popular topic is worth it when you’re confident in your ability to provide new and/or better insight and expertise than your direct and indirect competition. Becoming the best answer for a topic, trend, or niche is both art and science: You need the right expertise and the topic needs to be relevant to your audience. You need credibility and authenticity. And it all needs to be backed by relevant data insights.

If you think that your existing content is too old to be relevant ...

Table net-new content creation … for now. Instead of throwing out or forgetting about the old, consider giving it a revamp. Refreshing content has numerous benefits — from sending positive SEO “freshness” signals to search engines to boosting your efficiency and productivity. Analyze the performance of that blog post, downloadable asset, or web page to understand traffic, rankings, engagement, and so on. Then couple those findings with first-hand research on other similar content in the external ecosystem. If you determine your existing content has potential for a second life, add new content, insight, resources, and so on. You can then republish and repromote, and continue to optimize. If you determine it’s a lost cause, recreate and redirect the old content to pass any remaining authority onto your new content.

If you’re trying to reach a new audience…

Net-new or net-old, this one’s a personal call. Talk of content personalization has reached a fever pitch. That means B2B marketers have more reason and opportunity than ever to create tailored content for new or specific audience. Identifying a new audience segment fills your content pipeline with additional repurposing opportunities — or it can be the repurposing opportunity. Have you seen the rise of a new purchasing stakeholder group? Develop specialized content just for them. Do you have targeted content on financial management for healthcare companies? Repurpose and personalize your content for your legal or technology verticals.

If your content will target a keyword you already own search real estate for ...

Press pause. Target keywords that are already mapped to other pages — especially your service pages — could hurt your search footprint and cannibalize traffic from other content. The good news is that your concept can be saved and utilized in a different way in the future. However, that’s not to say your content concept shouldn’t be saved and utilized for the future. For example, you could evolve your concept to target a longer-tail query that’s related to your original idea. And using the hub and spoke content model, you can build out your authority around the overarching topic and implement strategic cross-linking to turn it into a smart SEO play. Long-tail keyword phrases also allow you to more closely match your audience’s search intent, creating the potential for rising in the (search) ranks.

If new content runs the risk of being duplicative…

Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Duplicative content is a no-no, and has been and will be forever. via GIPHY

If you want to launch a new content type ...

You have the green light. Introducing new content types diversifies how your audience can discover, interact with, and digest your content. New content types also cater to changing audience preferences for content consumption. Maybe you want to evolve several statistical roundups into a single infographic. Or perhaps you want to enable your audience to solve problems and find answers to their questions through an interactive quiz. But a quick note here: This may also be an opportunity for refreshing, repurposing, or optimizing existing content. So, be intentional. Read: B2B Brands Go Bold: 7 Great Examples of Interactive B2B Content

Key Word: New

Net-new content creation should always be top of mind for content marketers. You should always be thinking about how you can inform, engage, and inspire your audience to action. But new content needs to provide new value — not fill an editorial gap. And not all new content needs to be built from scratch, rather there are several opportunities to refresh, repurpose, republish, and optimize for performance. If you’re ever in doubt on what to do, we hope this piece lends some perspective. But if doubt persists, remember this tidbit from the incomparable Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs: “We don’t need more content. We need better content!” [bctt tweet="We don’t need more content. We need better content! @annhandley of @MarketingProfs" username="toprank"] Want to identify areas where your content can be better? Use these Best Answer Content Examples to see how your internal and external content ecosystem measures up.

The post When & Why Net-New Content Creation Makes Sense—And When It Doesn’t appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-why-net-new-content-creation-makes.html