By Alan Coleman on 10 Sep 2013
This is another interesting session I attended at Content Marketing World. Many of my clients just want to dominate the SERPS, and that in itself is what gives me my kicks. So I guess it was the title of this session that attracted me to the session. Now, Alan was like “Siobhan, you could give that talk in your sleep”, and perhaps he was right. But I was just afraid I would miss out on something important! Honestly, I didn’t learn anything. It was very basic stuff, and I wanted to argue with some of the things Brian spoke about. But I was just too focused on bringing you guys a good round up. What I DID get from this session was a deep-tissue massage for the ol' ego. I did, in fact, predict everything this Brian Clark guy was going to talk about. No surprises, the first thing Brian touched on was…
Google Authorship and Author Rank
Who writes your content is almost as important as the content itself. There is also the added benefit of increased CTRs as Google Authorship allows your photo to be shown beside you snippet on the SERPS which draws the eye. This should be nothing new to our readers…we’ve been beating this drum for a long time.
So what is included in the 5C approach?
1. Context Think about the journey. Find out your targets’ problems and desires, make them the hero and help them on their journey. Do your research, find out their pain points and create content to HELP them. Don’t write content for search engines, write it for PEOPLE. 2. Cornerstone This is a type of content. Some people call it pillar content. Think about what your targets need to know to convert into your customer. Educate them. For example, we educate you guys on PPC and Content Marketing and try to help you understand WHY you need us and our services. Without that, we wouldn’t be in business! 3. Connection content This is another type of content, the kind you publish to get attention…something to get you noticed. What do your targets need to engage with you? It’s more than getting keywords in the title. It’s about making at title that communicates the meaning of your content, but also fascinates. Meaning+Fascination=Engagement Of course, the fascination portrayed in the title needs to be fulfilled in the body. 4. Conversion What do your targets need to believe to do business with you? There usually exists some kind of sales goal at the end of this kind of content. This could be in the form of a webinar (for B2B) which highlights your expert and thought-leader nature, for example. Indeed it could also be an extension of your more educational content. 5. Copy What’s the offer? This is the section of your website that deals with your product or service. This needs to be well written, and of course needs to add value and meaning. It is another chance to educate. Think about the following for this C:
- Great product or service
- Fantastic value
- Communicate benefits
- Overcome lingering objections
- Reverse risk
We have been rewriting some of our content marketing client’s product and services pages and it’s something we are seeing lots of great benefits from in terms of increased organic traffic, as well as conversions from those pages. In essence, it was all a bit basic and I was hoping to get some more technical nuggets from this session...but I guess it's a content marketing conference not an SEO one! Nevertheless, interesting approach! Now...cocktails with the content bigwigs. Siobhán
