Prescription for Change 
Getting your web site found in the new era of search
What’s the Secret? Content, that’s what. Compelling, engaging quality content that makes your readers’ lives better, entertains them or solves a troublesome problem. Locking in loyalty is not as easy as it sounds, however. In the old days, content providers used SEO tricks and gimmicks to get the search engines to recognize and reward web sites that had well placed keywords to the top of the page rankings. Link building, keyword stuffing, technical search engine optimization and content once formed a sweet spot that if all the facets of the algorithms were met, your web site made it to the top of the search criteria.
Then it happened. Google, which controls the search criteria launched Google Panda, changed its criteria for being found. More focus was paid on quality content rather than keywords, links, etc. Then social media influenced the scene much quicker than expected, to things got a lot more complicated.
The old SEO experts who still cling to tradition will lose, and are already facing disgruntled clients that are not getting the results they hoped for. Traditionalists weren’t interested in leads, they were being paid for driving traffic, and were not getting paid on lead conversion, just traffic counts. Manipulating traffic is no longer an option.
Enter the Content Marketing Agencies!
Social media enthusiasts quickly learned that great content can be shared through this media, along with blogging, articles, white papers and eBooks. Interactive web sites with calls to action landing pages, quality content that solves a problem, doesn’t sell anything, perhaps entertains and has great appeal will be found on the net without so much emphasis on page rankings. Google has developed a methodology of tracking without reporting the organic traffic, keywords undisclosed.
Let’s not forget the “Like” buttons, followers on Twitter, and LinkedIn; its all still about content. Traffic is not as important as traffic converted to leads. What good are 5000 Likes if no one ever converts to a prospect or lead? What it tells me is that the company with 5000 Likes without conversion is a company with 5000 Suspects, that’s all.
Image courtesy of SEOMOZ
Gaining leads and customers has gotten more challenging. Today’s marketers have a lot to contend with versos the old style, Mad Men, that is. Today it’s all about creating significant amounts of quality content, so what’s a mother to do? Through the use of content providers like copywriters, ghostwriters, guest bloggers, increased offerings of eBooks, White Papers and a lot more blog posts, engaging quality content is not far away.
How are you addressing the increase in content creation?
Good & Happy Marketing!
