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How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

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Previous Episode:Why You Should Build an Audience Before You Build a Business More Episodes Next Episode:Seth Godin on When You Should Start Marketing Your Product, Service, or Idea

All Episodes:

March 30, 2020

The Advantage of Email Marketing, Featuring Nathan Barry of ConvertKit

March 15, 2020

How to Write Content That Resonates

March 9, 2020

How to Conquer Your Fear of Selling, with Leah Neaderthal

March 2, 2020

How to Build Remarkable Products to Grow Your Business, with Ramit Sethi

February 17, 2020

What You Should Talk about on Your Podcast, with Tara McMullin

February 9, 2020

How to Win at Search in 2020

February 3, 2020

How to Turn Pro as a Freelance Writer

January 27, 2020

Marketing Segmentation and Personalization with Brennan Dunn of RightMessage

January 20, 2020

Podcasting Still Matters, with Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income

January 13, 2020

The New Look Copyblogger in 2020

January 8, 2020

New Year, New Copyblogger

October 23, 2019

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur with John Jantsch

October 2, 2019

Consistency Will Take You Further

September 25, 2019

The Past, Present, and Future of Online Learning

September 16, 2019

How to Get More of the Right Things Done

September 9, 2019

Why the Future Is Still Email

September 3, 2019

What’s Next for
Copyblogger Media?

August 26, 2019

How Smart, Nimble Companies Are Using Webinars Today

August 19, 2019

The Clarity Method: A Conversation with Tim Brownson

August 12, 2019

Digital Business Trends and the Latest on the Rainmaker Platform

August 5, 2019

4 ‘Naive’ Business Principles for Enduring Success

July 8, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 3: Polishing and Promotion

July 1, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 2: Getting It Written

June 24, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 1: Thinking and Research

June 17, 2019

3 Almost Magical Headline Ingredients for More Traffic, Engagement, and Shares

June 10, 2019

Lessons Any Business Can Learn from an Impressive Influencer Marketing Fail

June 3, 2019

13 Ways of Looking at a Headline

May 27, 2019

The 7 ‘Bad’ Habits of Incredibly Successful People

May 20, 2019

Writers: How to Move from Making a Living to Driving Revenue

May 13, 2019

Choose the Right Frame to Boost the Power of Your Content

May 6, 2019

How Copywriting Teacher Belinda Weaver Reenergized Her Email List for Massive Engagement

April 29, 2019

3 Reasons Why Really Good Writers Sometimes Can’t Find Great Clients

April 22, 2019

3 Slightly Embarrassing Emotions that Drive Effective Copywriting

April 15, 2019

Get 10 Content Marketing Boosters in 20 Minutes

April 8, 2019

Becoming the ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ of Your Copy and Content

April 1, 2019

One of the Most Important Marketing Decisions You’ll Ever Make

March 18, 2019

What Nobody Wants to Hear about Content Marketing

March 11, 2019

Getting Your Big, Scary Projects Finished: A Conversation about Growing Gills

March 4, 2019

When Is It Time to Bring in a Professional Copywriter?

February 25, 2019

Using Content to Systematically Move Prospects Toward a Purchase

February 18, 2019

Understanding the Lifecycles of Your Website, with Pamela Wilson

February 11, 2019

5 Ways to Manage a Stress-Induced Creative Slump

February 4, 2019

3 Ways Strategic Content Can Drive Measurable Business Outcomes

January 28, 2019

The Social Media Platform Every Content Creator Should Be Using in 2019 (Nope, It’s Not Facebook)

January 21, 2019

Real Talk about Generating High-Quality Content

January 14, 2019

A Conversation with Paul Jarvis about Staying a ‘Company of One’

October 29, 2018

The 3 Plus 1 Foundational Elements of Effective Persuasion

October 22, 2018

5 Essential Copywriting Techniques from Copyblogger

October 15, 2018

5 Ways to Recover Your Professional and Creative Confidence

October 8, 2018

5 Stinky Sardine Secrets to Make Your Content More Fascinating

September 24, 2018

The Mindset ‘Hack’ that Frees Your Creativity and Makes You Happier

September 18, 2018

How to Kill Your Sales and Mess up Your Business: Lessons from a Used Car Salesman

September 4, 2018

The 7 Things Writers Need to Make a (Good) Living

August 27, 2018

Are You Making These Social Media Marketing Mistakes?

August 20, 2018

Fix These 7 About Page Mistakes for More Traffic and (Possibly) Better SEO

August 13, 2018

7 Ways to Boost Your Creativity

August 6, 2018

A 10-Step ‘Checklist’ for Your Content Marketing Site

July 30, 2018

The 3 Keys to Publishing Strong Content … Even If You Aren’t a ‘Great’ Writer (Yet)

July 23, 2018

Fix These 3 Points of Failure to Get Better Results for Your Content

July 16, 2018

Big Changes at ConvertKit: A Discussion with Founder Nathan Barry

July 9, 2018

3 Skills to Master to Become a Marketing Badass this Year

June 18, 2018

The Quiet Power of Conversational Copy

June 11, 2018

5 Rules of Thumb to Relieve SEO-Induced Stress

June 4, 2018

How to Use the GDPR to Make Your Business Stronger than Ever

May 14, 2018

‘Good Karma’ Selling that Works: A Conversation with Tim Paige

April 30, 2018

How to Get More Comfortable (and Effective) at Selling

April 23, 2018

Privacy and Permission in the Wake of Cambridge Analytica

April 16, 2018

Seth Godin and How to Create Change

April 9, 2018

Email? Chatbots? Social? How Are We Supposed to Reach People?

March 26, 2018

The Double-Edged Sword that Can Make (or Break) Your Content

March 19, 2018

Make More Progress by Getting (Gently) Out of Your Comfort Zone

March 12, 2018

Are You Doing Content Marketing Wrong?

March 5, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 2 of 2)

February 26, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 1 of 2)

February 19, 2018

10 Quality Factors Search Engines Need to See on Your Site

February 12, 2018

A Simple Content Strategy to Make Your Site Massively More Useful

February 5, 2018

How to Avoid a Heartbreaking Business Failure

January 29, 2018

Hey Writers: Let’s Get You Paid What You’re Worth

January 15, 2018

5 Keys to Making Your Content More Shareable

December 18, 2017

3 Observations on Trends (but not Predictions) for 2018

December 11, 2017

3 Tips Now to Build a Strong Foundation in 2018

December 4, 2017

The 3 Success Factors that Help Writers Earn a Great Living

November 27, 2017

How to Recognize a Great Content Idea

November 20, 2017

How to Cultivate a More Meaningful Gratitude Practice

November 13, 2017

Advice for Poets, Advice for Killers

October 30, 2017

Face Your Business Fears on Halloween Week

October 23, 2017

How to Make Smarter Decisions about Your Website

October 2, 2017

A Series of Unfortunate Content Events

September 18, 2017

The Evolution of a Successful Copywriter

August 28, 2017

7 Ways to Improve Your Marketing by Harnessing the Power of Evil

August 14, 2017

Smart Questions from our Brilliant Audience

August 7, 2017

Does the Web Have Enough Patience for Your In-Depth Content?

July 31, 2017

How to Write (Much Better) Blog Comments

July 17, 2017

Which Works Better: Positive or Negative Content?

July 10, 2017

How to Attract the Exact Customers You Want

July 3, 2017

How to Create Stability and Success as an Artist

June 19, 2017

Two Powerful Resources for Life-Changing Growth

June 12, 2017

How to Turn All that Marketing Advice into Action

June 5, 2017

How to Develop a Compelling Marketing Idea in 4 Steps

May 30, 2017

Getting Over the Fear of Selling

May 22, 2017

Talking Community and Digital Business with Tara Gentile

May 15, 2017

Plagiarism, Self-Deception, Bad Sandwiches, and Other Interesting Disasters

May 1, 2017

Professional Writers: Find Out How to Get Certified by Copyblogger

April 17, 2017

The Painful Core Lesson Taught by 3 Astonishing Big-Brand Fails

April 3, 2017

5 Mindset Habits that Actually Work

March 27, 2017

On Grammar, Usage, and Not Being a Great Big Jerk

March 20, 2017

Creative Strategies for Content Writers

March 13, 2017

A New Ultra-Easy Resource for Creating Excellent WordPress Sites

February 20, 2017

Thriving Freelancers and Clients from Hell

February 13, 2017

Politics, Content Marketing, and the 2017 Super Bowl Ads

February 6, 2017

Copyblogger Book Club: Winning the Story Wars

January 23, 2017

3 Content Marketing Strategy Fails (and How to Fix Them)

January 9, 2017

The 2017 Content Excellence Challenge: Your January Assignments

December 19, 2016

Bad Writing Advice: The ‘Post Truth’ Episode

December 12, 2016

Get Ready Now for a Creative and Productive 2017

December 5, 2016

The 4 Pillars Every Online Business Is Built On

November 28, 2016

Orbit Media’s Latest Survey of 1000 Bloggers

November 14, 2016

Have You Already Missed the Podcasting Gold Rush?

November 7, 2016

Getting More Traffic, Links, and Shares to Your Content

October 31, 2016

5 Quick Wins for Content Marketers

October 24, 2016

Announcing: An Intriguing New Tool for Collaborative Content

October 17, 2016

A New Book to Make Content Marketing Easier

October 10, 2016

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

October 3, 2016

The ‘Obligatory’ Structure of Effective Content

September 26, 2016

7 Powerful Content Strategies Borrowed from Advertising Masters

September 15, 2016

How to Handle Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation (without Looking Like an Idiot)

September 8, 2016

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

September 1, 2016

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals

August 25, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part Two

August 18, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part One

August 11, 2016

Are You Leaving Money on the Table with Weak Headlines?

August 4, 2016

Content Marketing for Nonprofits

July 28, 2016

The One-Two Punch that Creates the Most Successful Copywriters

July 21, 2016

Pokémon Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

July 14, 2016

5 Suggestions When You’re Writing About Controversy

July 7, 2016

Announcing: A Breakthrough Educational Collaboration between Copyblogger and U.C. Davis

June 30, 2016

How to Break Past the #1 Conversion Killer

June 23, 2016

The New Age of Marketing Automation: Powerful, Simple, Cost-Effective

June 16, 2016

How to Make a (Really Good) Living as a Freelance Writer

June 9, 2016

Self-Publishing, Side Hustles, and Doing It All: A Conversation with Linda Formichelli

June 2, 2016

A Process for Content Marketing Success

May 26, 2016

Content Marketing Best Practices: Getting Email Opt-Ins

May 19, 2016

Behind the Scenes: Adventures in Advertising

May 12, 2016

Trump, Apple, and Facebook Advertising: Content Marketing News for May, 2016

May 5, 2016

Sally Hogshead and the Art of Fascination

April 28, 2016

Behind the Scenes at the Rainmaker Digital Company Meeting!

April 14, 2016

Social Media News, Social Media Constants

April 7, 2016

Strategies for B2B Podcasting, with Clark Buckner

March 31, 2016

Content Marketing Success Stories: Fitness Powerhouse Examine.com

March 24, 2016

Behind the Scenes: An Inside Look at the Rainmaker FM Redesign

March 17, 2016

Our Latest Advice and Resources for Digital Business Owners

March 10, 2016

Should Content Publishers Adopt Google’s New AMP?

March 3, 2016

7 Ways to Get Smarter with Social Media Listening

February 25, 2016

Content Marketing Shout-Out: Orbit Media and Andy Crestodina

February 18, 2016

The Tactic You Should Steal from Copyblogger

February 11, 2016

Content Marketing News for February, 2016

February 4, 2016

Email Marketing: The Misunderstood Powerhouse

January 28, 2016

The Secret Weapon Behind Great Websites: The Role of the Content Editor

January 21, 2016

Behind the Scenes: The Relaunch and Re-Imagining of Copyblogger.com

January 14, 2016

Trends and Predictions for Digital Commerce: A Conversation with Brian Clark

January 7, 2016

2016 Content Marketing Resolutions

December 28, 2015

The End of The Lede, The Beginning of Copyblogger FM

November 10, 2015

Constraints Can Be Blessings (Plus 2 Other Essential Lessons Jerod Re-Learned This Week)

November 3, 2015

Long or Short? The Content Length Question Answered, Once and For All

October 27, 2015

The Simple Publishing Hack That Gives Old Content New Life (Plus 3 More Tips)

October 20, 2015

The Surprising Truth about Earning a Profit from Your Content

October 13, 2015

How to Move Your Audience From Infatuation to Love

October 6, 2015

3 Things Your Audience Wants You to Know about Useful Content

September 29, 2015

Revisiting Authenticity: What It Is, What It’s Not, and Why It Matters

September 22, 2015

Publishing Lessons from Dave Pell, the Most Fascinating Email Newsletter Writer in the Business

September 15, 2015

Why Content Creators Should Kiss Their Programmers

September 8, 2015

Finally — A Podcast about the Superiority of Written Content

September 1, 2015

Hot Seat: Grilling Jerod on Using Audio Content to Seed a Content Arsenal

August 25, 2015

How to Optimize Your Headlines for Content Discovery with Vinegar (Before You Die of Cholera)

August 18, 2015

5 Stories That Explain Jerod Morris (Plus One Massive Marketing Lesson)

August 11, 2015

Lede Potpourri: A Big Idea, Talking About Demian Behind His Back, and Lessons from #PM15

August 4, 2015

How to Attend an Industry Conference Like a Boss

July 28, 2015

Getting the Most Out of a Conference When You’re There to Promote, Part 1

July 21, 2015

How Much Does the Modern Content Marketer Need to Know About SEO?

July 14, 2015

Are Podcasters Digitally Sharecropping Without Realizing It?

July 7, 2015

Celebrating Our 101st Episode (with a Special Guest Interviewer)

June 30, 2015

Why The Phrase ‘Leaders Are Readers’ Should Die

June 23, 2015

Why You Should Think Outside the Box About Online Courses

June 16, 2015

The Proper (and Safe) Way to Republish Old Articles

June 9, 2015

How to Grow an Audience on LinkedIn by Repurposing Content

June 2, 2015

Key Takeaways from Three-and-a-Half Hours with Henry Rollins

May 27, 2015

Rapid-Fire Takeaways from Authority Rainmaker

May 19, 2015

The Proper Way to Grow an Audience on Medium

May 12, 2015

The Introvert’s Guide to Launching a Successful Podcast

May 5, 2015

The One Quality All Popular Podcasts Share

April 28, 2015

Proof That Grit Is the Only Way to Reach Your Potential

April 21, 2015

Do We Celebrate Failure Too Much?

April 14, 2015

Choose Yourself Part 2: James Altucher Fights Back

April 7, 2015

Should We Fear Content Shock? (Or Could It Actually Be a Good Thing?)

March 31, 2015

Should You Really ‘Walk in the Direction of Your Fear’?

March 24, 2015

Is ‘Choose Yourself’ Good Advice … or New-Age Phooey?

March 17, 2015

Is Authority Earned or Bestowed?

March 3, 2015

Dan Pink on How to Succeed in the New Era of Selling

February 24, 2015

Here’s How to Answer the Most Important Question in Life (and Make a Living from It)

February 17, 2015

Sally Hogshead on How You Can Unlock Your Natural Ability to Fascinate

February 10, 2015

How to Learn from Your Successes

January 27, 2015

How to Learn From Your Mistakes

January 13, 2015

Lessons Learned from Conducting Two Monster Audience Surveys

December 16, 2014

Adaptive Content: A Trend to Pay Attention to in 2015

December 2, 2014

The Most Important Lessons You Should Have Learned in 2014

November 18, 2014

How We Built Our Careers Online (And What You Can Learn From It)

November 4, 2014

Interview with Brian Clark: How Customer Experience Maps Help You Develop a Smarter Content Strategy

October 21, 2014

How Empathy Maps Help You Speak Directly to the Hearts of Your Audience

October 7, 2014

How to Ignite a Feeling in Your Audience

September 23, 2014

Are You Overlooking This Cornerstone of a Smart Content Strategy?

June 26, 2014

How to Curate Knowledge, Turn it Into Wisdom, and Build Your Audience

June 19, 2014

How Successful Writers Curate Ideas

June 13, 2014

The 5 W’s of Link Curation

June 6, 2014

Why You Should Curate Content (And How to Do It Right)

May 30, 2014

How Freaks and Misfits Can Succeed in Business: A Conversation with Chris Brogan

May 23, 2014

The 2 Reasons People Don’t Click on Your Buttons … And How to Overcome Them

May 16, 2014

Chase Customers, Not Clicks

May 9, 2014

How to Be Authentic

May 2, 2014

How to Close With Style

April 25, 2014

The Best of Seth Godin on Copyblogger

April 17, 2014

How to Choose Arresting Images for Your Blog Posts (And Why You Should)

April 11, 2014

Removing Blog Comments: The View So Far

April 4, 2014

How to Use Internal Cliffhangers

March 28, 2014

Hangout Hot Seat with Brian Clark

March 21, 2014

How to Tell a Seductive Story

March 14, 2014

How to Create Exquisite Subheads

March 7, 2014

How to Write Killer Bullet Points

February 28, 2014

How to Write Damn Good Sentences

February 21, 2014

How to Use Persuasive Words

February 14, 2014

Michael Stelzner on Capturing Emails and Committing to Quality

February 7, 2014

How to Nail Your Opening

January 24, 2014

How to Write a Magnetic Headline (in Under 15 Minutes)

May 18, 2012

Seth Godin on When You Should Start Marketing Your Product, Service, or Idea

May 11, 2012

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

March 30, 2012

Why You Should Build an Audience Before You Build a Business

March 16, 2012

How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform

March 9, 2012

Jay Baer on How to Turn Interested Prospects into Lifelong Customers

March 2, 2012

A 30-Minute Copywriting Course from a Master of the Craft

February 24, 2012

The Path to a Legendary Copywriting Career

February 17, 2012

5 Tips for Affiliate Marketing Beginners

February 10, 2012

Why Not Sell Physical Stuff With Digital Media?

February 3, 2012

Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules

January 27, 2012

Answers to the 3 Biggest Email Marketing Questions We Get

January 20, 2012

How to Newsjack Your Way to Free Media Exposure with David Meerman Scott

January 13, 2012

Steven Pressfield and the War of Work

November 18, 2011

The Strategy Behind the Copyblogger Redesign

November 11, 2011

7 Ways to Create an Email Marketing "Snowball Effect"

November 4, 2011

Warning: If You're Not a Privacy Nut, You're Losing Sales

October 28, 2011

The 3 Kinds of Writing That Builds a Business

October 21, 2011

The Art of Seductive Writing: A Conversation with Robert Greene

October 7, 2011

Why Content Marketing Doesn't Suck

September 30, 2011

Are You Weird Enough to Succeed at Content Marketing?

September 23, 2011

What Works With SEO Right Now and Why No One Does What You Want

September 16, 2011

Are You Flushing Your Marketing Down the Social Media Toilet?

September 11, 2011

Seth Godin on Blogging, Business Books, and Creating Content that Matters

September 2, 2011

The Return of Copyblogger Radio …

June 10, 2011

Answered: Your Most Burning Content Marketing Questions

June 3, 2011

How to Get All the Clients and Customers You Can Handle

May 20, 2011

Is Content Marketing Worth the Work?

May 13, 2011

How to Write Nearly Undeletable Emails

May 6, 2011

Is the Online Gold Rush Over?

April 22, 2011

The Art of Enchanting Online Marketing with Guy Kawasaki

April 15, 2011

The Market for Something to Believe in is Infinite: An Interview with Hugh MacLeod

April 8, 2011

How to Constantly Create Compelling Content

March 25, 2011

The Content Marketing Question You Need to Answer … Now

March 18, 2011

Good SEO is Simple. Really.

March 4, 2011

Did Social Media Kill the Marketing Star?

February 25, 2011

How to Write (and Execute) a Simple but Powerful Business Plan

February 17, 2011

How to Kick Groupon to the Curb and Become a Local Hero

February 3, 2011

Convert … Or Die

January 27, 2011

Attention: Is Your Headline Getting Any?

January 20, 2011

How to Craft Landing Pages that Work

January 13, 2011

Why Every Smart Business is in the Media Business

January 5, 2011

2011 Content Marketing Predictions

December 15, 2010

Tim Ferriss on How to Reinvent Yourself with Blog Marketing

December 8, 2010

The 6 Elements of an Influential Web Experience

December 1, 2010

Your Staggeringly Unfair Marketing Advantage

November 17, 2010

How to Get Some Action

November 10, 2010

The Foundation of All Marketing that Works

November 3, 2010

Introducing Copyblogger Radio

May 11, 2012

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

Google’s been pissing people off lately. Panda, Penguin, Parakeet (okay, I made that last one up), who knows what’s next …

Then there are the social networking evangelists whose entire fortunes are deep in Zuckerberg’s asset.

And finally, the faithful content producers, who labor slowly and quietly to build their businesses one thousand words at a time.

It can all seem a bit much to keep up with. SEO isn’t bad. Social networking sites aren’t evil. Content marketing isn’t impossible. But it can feel like it sometimes.

To clear up some of this confusion and frustration for us, I’ve asked Lee Odden to jump on the show and tell us how the smart, systematic integration of search, social, and content can attract an audience … and keep businesses — both large and small — sanely profitable.

In this episode we discuss:

  • The 3 phases of a holistic customer attraction plan
  • What the changes in search algorithms really mean for online publishers
  • How to intelligently plan a content strategy that works
  • Why it’s now essential that you become a “holistic” content producer
  • 5 content optimization audits you need to perform
  • 3 steps to implementing your systematic content plan
  • How to scale your content efforts on a limited budget

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and SearchRobert Bruce
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The Transcript

Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.

________________

Robert: This is Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio . I’m Robert Bruce and I am here with Lee Odden, CEO of Top Rank Online Marketing and author of the book, Optimize: How to Attract and engage more customers by integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing.

Now Brian Clark has said he’s very glad that Lee wrote this book so that he wouldn’t have to. Copyblogger is behind Lee’s ideas here and I am hoping to get to the bottom of this very cool and very effective holistic view of attracting customers online. Lee, thanks for coming by the show. Are you ready to answer some of these questions that I’ve got about SEO, social media and content marketing?

Lee: I am happy to be here, ready to be interrogated, Robert.

Robert: Excellent. Well just kick back for just a moment, I need to do a word about our sponsor, and then we will get right back into it. This radio show is brought to you by Internet Marketing for Smart People, which if you haven’t heard is our online marketing course that we deliver straight to your email inbox.

Now this course consists of 20 highly useful emails and more if you decide to stay on. It covers everything from content marketing, to email marketing, to the basics of good copywriting, to social media strategy and much, much, more and by the way, it’s totally free.

If you want to join over 75,000 people who have signed up, just jump-start your online marketing efforts, if you want to skip a large part of your learning curve with all this stuff, if you want to learn how to use the online marketing strategies and tactics that actually work, get on the bus, sign up, it’s easy and it’s free. Just head over to Copyblogger.com, scroll down to about the middle of our homepage where you will see the headline, “Grab our free 20-part internet marketing course.” Drop your email address into the little box there, and we’ll take care of the rest.

How SEO has changed for online publishers

Robert: So let me make sure that I understand what you are getting at with your new book here, Optimize. And that is as far as I see it, the big picture with SEO is really now, a holistic picture with content, social and search being one thing. I am just wondering if you can explain this holistic concept in more detail.

Lee: There’s a lot of history to SEO. I mean even though it’s been around for 10 or 15 years at best, there has been a lot of changes. They say that the one constant with internet marketing, especially with search, is that things are going to change. You can look back. I started in the business in 1997 and I never, ever would have imagined back then that things would be in the state that they are now. There was no Google. We were in a world of Lycos, Alta Vista, Hotbot, right? It was really all about keywords and that was it.

Then Google came along and we had to bow down to the almighty link, and as things have progressed, and things got personalized, and things began involving different media types, in terms of universal search, and personalized social search and social signals, really, really growing and in many cases displacing the importance or at least augmenting the importance of standard links between pages as signals.

What it really all boils down to is the ability for a company that’s publishing information online to connect with an audience and to keep them around.

Optimize takes this sort of holistic approach and doesn’t just connect the dots of how those target customers, those customers that you are after, discover and consume and act on content, but also digs into what it is that they care about in the first place.

SEO as a tactic or discipline has been very focused on keywords. It’s been very focused on the notion of optimizing for search engines, the notion is, the better visibility, the more traffic, and what should follow are more leads and conversion and more sales. Optimize takes the approach that …look, that’s important. It is, but let’s find out what customers care about.

Let’s really identify common characteristics amongst groups of customers, let’s understand the sales cycle, and let’s actually map the information needs in terms of content, across that buying cycle and then identify search keywords, social topics, and places where those customers can be influenced to move through that journey of the sales cycle to buy, so that by the time we come to conversion, we’ve got a self-educated customer or prospect that has pulled themselves through that journey to buy and that shortens sales cycles, increases order frequency and volume, repeat orders and referrals, all kinds of good stuff.

Why it’s now essential that you become a “holistic” content producer

Robert: Would I be right in breathing kind of a sigh of relief about all of this stuff? Not that we’re talking about anything that is unscientific, not that we are talking about throwing away testing or keywords or anything that has gone before, but breathing a sigh of relief at this holistic approach, because in some sense it seems like, though not well, generally, it seems what a lot of people are already doing.

Lee: I think there is something to be said for the building blocks of marketing as having been often overlooked. People like to chase shiny objects like this whole notion of social media, social business, social this or that, without having any clear goals identified and not having a clear idea about what’s even possible if they approach things a little more holistically.

Here is an example, most people are investing in SEO from a marketing perspective because it’s all about customer acquisition, and that’s great. But companies produce lots of other types of content that doesn’t have to do with products or services being sold and they have particular audiences in mind.

At the same time, people search for many different reasons than just to buy stuff. So while the revenue opportunity is very significant and most formidable, what a lot of people are leaving in terms of money, on the table, is efficiency.

For example, you’ve got people who are already customers and they have a problem, they go to Google and they search for an answer to a problem, why wouldn’t a company optimize it’s knowledge base in FAQ content so that the customer can answer the question online, right within a click through from Google instead of having to pick up the phone and annoyingly navigating an auto attendance system to finally talk to a human being or fill out a form and who knows when they will get replied to.

Same thing with optimizing news content, so that journalists who are doing research on topics, companies and subject matter experts can actually write about a company because they were easy to find versus only relying on outbound media relations. There are lots of efficiencies and cost deflections and other business benefits that come with optimizing holistically and maybe it is blocking and tackling, but a lot of folks aren’t doing it and Optimize covers all that.

How to plan a holistic content strategy that works

Robert: Now you break your overall optimization strategy down into three major phases, which are planning, implementation and scale and we’re going to talk about those three here but let’s start with phase one. What are some of the best practices surrounding good optimization planning?

Lee: I think one of the first things to do is just to get a sense of what is possible. I just want to touch on a couple of different things so optimizing holistically is about taking a look at the totality of content and objectives for that content.

Who is the content for? We’ve got public relations content, marketing content, customer service content, we’re trying to recruit people, investor relations, right? Think about all that content and who the audience it’s intended for and make that part of your overall content plan.

The second thing that I think is important to take a look at is doing some research that’s competitive research, that’s doing audits, and SEO audits, a social audit, a link audit, and it’s doing some social media monitoring and capturing some idea about where conversation are actually happening on the social web relevant to what it is that your target audience cares about.

The other thing with planning has to do with translating some preliminary ideas about keywords and understanding market demand and rolling that all up into a firm set of hypotheses in terms of objectives.

We believe, for example, that if we optimize our marketing content and we increase traffic by “x” with these relevant keywords, our revenue could increase by “y.” Right?

At the same time we’re forecasting that if we’re able to optimize our customer service FAQ content, and we’re able to increase traffic by “x” percent then we will actually be able to improve customer service or, if you will, customer perception of us substantially or by a certain percent.

We can forecast what’s possible and that’s all part of the planning phase. Understanding the landscape you are dealing with, identifying benchmark measurements and setting up goals and metrics to put that plan in place and be able to understand how well you are doing and progressing towards your goals and having an adaptable approach to refining it as you go.

5 content optimization audits you need to perform

Robert: How does your company, Top Rank, and this is a big question, we can’t cover everything here, but can you give us an example of how Top Rank does optimizing planning?

Lee: The way we do optimization planning is that we initially identify or we execute a series of audits. We want to have a sense of what our starting point is. We want to establish some benchmarks.

A lot of companies coming into a situation where they believe they can advance their marketing effectiveness through optimization may have employed other optimization tactics in the past, either on their own or with another agency, and we need to uncover, we need to know the truth about really what our starting point is. So we are going to conduct a series of different audits, there are five actually.

We are going to do a keyword audit, so that we have some documentation on what demand there really is, what language there is, what language, or voice of the customer so to speak, from both a search keyword and a social topic standpoint.

We are also going to do a technical audit so we want to make sure that the website or websites can be crawled properly by Google Bot and MSN Bot.

We are also going to do on-page or content audit, so we want to make sure that not only does the existing content deserve search visibility, or social sharability according to the target keywords that we have established, but we also want to make sure that the storytelling that’s happening with the existing content supports the key messaging and what it is that our target audience cares about. We are also going to do an audit related to links, good old fashioned, Google-centric SEO and document where links are coming from, what the distribution of anchor text is and all that sort of thing.

The fifth type of audit has to do with a social audit. What is the social presence of the brand? What are people saying about the brand? What are competitors doing? What are people saying about the brand terms, keyword terms? What sentiment, and that sort of thing.

These audits all paint a very qualitative picture for planning and we bring that together into a strategy that goes forward and says, “Look, here is the content we need to create. Here is an editorial plan.”

This is really getting into implementation but that’s how we do optimization planning. We do that kind of research to inform us and arm us with the qualitative information that we need to most efficiently and effectively reach the customers that we are after, but at the same time, produce content that is going to keep them around.

3 steps to implementing your systematic content plan

Robert: Yes and you have perfectly, effortlessly led us into phase two, which is, of course, implementation. So specifically, you write about building an effective content plan through what you call attracting, and engaging, and inspiring. Can you explain this process for us? How can we start to build an actual content plan that works through implementation?

Lee: Sure. There is this sort of content marketing trilogy that I talk about and that is having empathy towards how your target audience discovers content, right? What are they searching on, what are they talking about on the social web.

The second thing has to do with consumption, what are their preferences for consumption whether it’s devices, smart phones, tablets or computers, as well as media format, videos, images, if it’s text, is it how-tos versus tips?

There are lots of different types of content formats and understanding what it is that will move and inspire your customers is essential.

The third thing is action, or engaging. What kind of content will actually motivate them to take the actions we want them to, like buy stuff?

Not everyone is going to be a customer, but if they are inspired by the content that you’ve created, the engagement opportunity you’ve given them, then they may refer you to others. So the oldest form of marketing is that sort of word of mouth referral and the sale that everyone can make is a social share.

The implementation phase of the book is centered around acting on the opportunity to optimize for discovery, consumption, and engagement. And we do that by first going through a customer segmentation exercise and identifying common characteristics amongst groups of customers.

To simplify this, I am going to boil it down to just two things in terms of customers segments and personas. Who is your best customer? Who is your worst customer? Because we sure as hell don’t want to optimize for our worst customers. We want to identify behavioral demographic information that we can collect from surveys, from site data, from web analytics, and conversion data that will help us paint a picture of those coming actionable characteristics about a group of customers that we can leverage for developing a content plan.

So once we understand our best and worst customers, and what their pain points are, what their goals are, what they care about, we can literally translate that into a content plan that transcends or moves across the buying cycle so, in other words, for a particular customer segment, what kinds of topics and content types and keywords are relevant for generating awareness, for generating interest, for consideration, for purchase?

To be honest, we go beyond that, we look at the entire life cycle experience and look at retention, and advocacy.

How to scale your content efforts on any budget

Robert: Phase three is scale, and this is really where the rubber meets the road for many businesses. What are the challenges of social optimization that small, medium, and large businesses face in scaling and how can they overcome those challenges? You’ve got five minutes to solve the scaling issues of businesses large and small right here, Lee.

Lee: On the planet earth? Buy Optimize! Go to OptimizeBook.com, there you go. It’s a great starting point and there is a lot of storytelling in that third phase, it gives some specific examples about different types of companies and the challenges that they face and really, there is no predictable way to say, “Well small businesses will deal with this and large businesses will deal with that.”

But what I can touch on is that with a small business I think one of the opportunities for scale is self-education. Imagine a small business owner wearing multiple hats, they don’t have a budget either and I think they would do well if they would just get some self-education about what’s possible and how these different puzzle pieces can work together.

It’s kind of like a recipe. People will use that same recipe in different ways to achieve an objective that is satisfying to them and to anyone else involved. I think it’s important that they do get some understanding about how some of these fundamentals will work in terms of search, social and content.

I didn’t talk about SEO mechanics, or social media mechanics, or link-building mechanics. All that stuff is in the implementation phase. But to scale you have to have some idea of what the hell it is that you are doing and have some processes in place.

I recommend, if nothing else, that if someone doesn’t have a lot of time for that, that they do engage in some kind of audit with a third party resource.

That’s true whether it’s a small or large business. I know with large companies, we work with small and large companies; we have one large company that is a one hundred billion dollar business. It’s a Fortune 14 company. We’ve been working with them about five years now, and believe me, working with them is very different than working with start-ups.

I think the political aspect, working with a large organization and having some identification of, “Okay if I can get PR and marketing and customer service and even HR working together, and I can help them each understand what they are going to get out of this, from this idea of optimizing their content because it’s about more than just marketing.”

If I can show them how they can reach their goals and how it will advance their reputation in the organization and that political ecosystem that exists in large companies and if I can leverage that and make it part of our process, part of our brand style guide, if you will, then I will be more successful implementing a holistic approach.

In a small business, it’s that business owner saying, “You know what? I just have to make a commitment and now let’s act on it.”

An example of how to capitalize on an opportunity

Robert: Yes, and these three phases, I want to make clear to everyone that we are just doing a broad overview of the three big sections of Lee’s book, but these three phases, they are cyclical as well. In order to scale properly, it begins with the planning and the implementation of course as we go through that it also comes back around over and over again as you make moves to serve your audience better.

Lee: That’s it exactly. It is a cyclical process of having an idea, doing homework, having an informed idea about what’s possible, making a plan, implementing it, monitoring your progress towards that plan, measuring success, and then refining based on insight from your analytics and your measurement efforts, and then coming back to planning again and adjusting.

As you go, you are going to see opportunities and I talk about, for example, that editorial plan, content marketing plan, that specifically identifies topics and types of content and media and where we are going to promote in advance, but at the same time it allows for wild cards .

Here is a practical example; I saw a notice yesterday that we are getting a ton of search traffic for a search phrase having to do with “what are the best social networks for business?” I thought, “What the heck is happening, that’s crazy?”

I look at web analytics and I am like, “Wow, this is trending up.” There is a bunch of demand for this and I haven’t written a post about it in two years. So what did I do? I made sure that I put up a survey today asking people what the best social networks are for business.

So I’ve capitalized on an opportunity that’s kind of “real time”, if you will. That’s a big part of this.

It’s about quality over quantity

Robert: That’s very different from capitalizing on an opportunity like that and what you did there is very different, we are not talking about blowing around with the wind even though you see that search term coming through in your analytics, you write about it specifically.

What you are writing is still … you push that through the lens of everything else, the bigger plan of what your company is about and the integration of everything we’re talking about here, right?

It’s through that specific lens, not just grabbing whatever is popular, you mentioned earlier we are so addicted to these shiny things. That is not what you are saying at all.

Lee: No, no. If I was talking about that, then I would be talking about national disaster and celebrity crotch shots and things like that. Bad choice of words.

Robert: Page views, man. Page views.

Lee: Wasn’t it Stalin that said that “quantity has a quality all its own”. I don’t know.

I think I’d rather go for quality, just a qualitative approach is, yes indeed, the lens through which these opportunities and situations are acted on. No doubt about it. There’s sort of a narrative or storyline that comes along with that editorial plan and being able to proactively news-jack situations is smart marketing.

Robert: Okay, man, is there anything else here that I’ve missed that you really want to communicate to businesses both large and small that are maybe struggling with this integration of SEO, social media, and content marketing?

Create a content plan to meet the needs of your customers

Lee: The thing that holds it together is customers and content. Folks are sitting there going, “You know, marketing is handling SEO, public relations is handling social media, and then we have copywriters and stuff.”

Really what ties it together is having a clear picture of who your customers are and understanding that it’s a work in progress and at the same time, creating a content plan to meet the needs of those customers.

If you give customers what they want in terms of information, then they will give you want you want in terms of buying and referring you to other people.

So I think that’s really the core and central message of the book and what so many people like Brian, and Chris Brogan, and Scott Monty, and John Jantsch, and Ann Handley, and Joe Pulizzi, and people like that have all endorsed the book because of having that common understanding that the customer is key and it’s a missing piece in a lot of SEO discussions that are out there today. Folks are still hanging themselves up on Panda, Penguin, and keywords and aren’t really thinking about what’s best for the customer.

Robert: Alright this has been Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio. Thanks for listening, everybody. If this show has done something to you or for you, please head over to iTunes when you can and drop a rating or a comment there. We really appreciate it when you guys do that for us and it helps the show out a lot.

Lee, where can people find you and your book out there on the internet?

Lee: Well you can go to OptimizeBook.com and there we are publishing chapter previews. We’ll be uploading videos in each chapter, there is a downloadable spreadsheet both for a keyword glossary and editorial plan that you can get there so there is a lot of stuff that we are publishing there that is of use.

I have also been publishing a blog for eight years and you can find that by going to Google and typing in “online marketing” and after that darn Wikipedia you should find TopRankBlog.com and there you will find over a million words that I’ve written over the last eight years on specifically search. And I didn’t call it content marketing three or four years ago, I called it editorial marketing but about these sorts of things with lots of tips, and interviews, and live blogs, and polls, and all kinds of good stuff.

Robert: Great, I will link both of those in the show notes. Mr. Odden, you are a pro and in writing this comprehensive book you have saved my boss much aggravation and, in turn, saved me from much of the same, thank you!

Lee: I appreciate that, thanks!

Other listening options:

  • Click here to download the mp3 | 30.1 MB | 25:02
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The Show Notes:

  • Internet Marketing for Smart People Course (free)
  • Optimize by Lee Odden
  • Top Rank Marketing
  • Content Marketing 101
  • SEO Copywriting Made Simple
  • Keyword Research for Content Producers
  • We left the building with Girl Talk …

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Comments

  1. Greg says

    May 11, 2012 at 7:30 AM

    Great overview.

    The biggest issue is justifying time to spend on content creation.

    Reply
    • Brian Clark says

      May 11, 2012 at 8:54 AM

      Pretty easy to justify the time for content creation given that you get no social traffic or search engine rankings without it.

      Reply
      • Derek says

        October 3, 2012 at 4:27 PM

        lol. So true. Content creation should be the top priority. You can’t get social traffic or search engine traffic if you have not content in the first place.

        Reply
  2. Amrit Hallan says

    May 11, 2012 at 8:13 AM

    It makes perfect sense to incorporate all major channels into your overall Internet marketing and promotion strategy rather than simply focusing on search engines or social media or white hat/white hat SEO.

    Eventually it all boils down to how your audience reacts to your content on your website, on your blog and on your social media and social networking platforms. So the right thing to do would be create as interesting content as possible and establish social media platforms to highlight your content. Search engines are automatically taken care of.

    Reply
  3. Bill says

    May 11, 2012 at 8:18 AM

    Its true Robert, Google makes us frustrated by NEW UPDATES but its for good course and reasons. From my own thought, i think we craft an Epic blog post that is similar to whitepaper as this will make the reader to be more interested with our content and thats what Google wants.
    To avoid these Google frustration, let us craft an interesting post that will appeal the masses and the search community.

    Reply
  4. Nick Stamoulis says

    May 11, 2012 at 8:47 AM

    Content, social and search all work so well together that it doesn’t make sense to keep them in separate silos! It might seem like a lot of work, especially if you are new to the game, but the long term benefits are well worth it. If you can learn to do it right you’ll never look back.

    Reply
  5. Lee Odden says

    May 11, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Thanks for doing the interview with me Robert.

    I think the key takeaway is the notion of optimizing for customers, experiences and business outcomes has little to do with risky Google and social media marketing and everything to do with growing a healthy business.

    The mutual achievement of goals between customers and companies through content is timeless and transcends platforms like search engines and social networks. However it is that target audiences discover, consume and act on information is what guides ongoing optimization.

    I hope that piques listener’s interest to get and talk about the book, Optimize 🙂 Thanks again Brian, Robert, and to everyone who listens to the podcast.

    Reply
  6. Greg De Tisi says

    May 11, 2012 at 10:31 AM

    For Sure Yes. The Key Is To Create Powerful Enough Content That You Can Sell From Time And Time Again. Build The Trust and give free value everytime and in time people be coming back to YOU for more.

    Cheers:)

    Reply
  7. Jason "J-Ryze" Fonceca says

    May 11, 2012 at 10:55 AM

    Fantastic interview Robert + Lee!

    I *love* the holistic view of things, it’s really refreshing.

    I’d like to highlight some of the intangible benefits from audits & tracking metrics, etc. — and that is that it boosts confidence and clarity in the expansion of your story and your audience-contact.

    I know for me, one of my least favorite things is “not knowing” or at least feeling confident that I’m increasing my (and my brand’s) impact — and holistically tracking and implementing campaigns is a great contributor to this.

    P.S. Cool to hear ‘Newsjacking’ come up towards the end, reminded me of one of your David Meerman Scott interviews 😀

    Reply
  8. Shawn Tuttle says

    May 11, 2012 at 12:58 PM

    Yay for Copyblogger radio! I’m not exaggerating when I say that I drove 12 hours to Portland last November and listened to episodes for about 10 of those hours. Hooked. Looking forward to catching this episode.

    Reply
    • Sonia Simone says

      May 11, 2012 at 1:01 PM

      That’s cool, thanks Shawn. 🙂 Glad to keep ya company.

      I used to listen to old Dan Kennedy CDs on my commute. Warped me for life, I think. 🙂

      Reply
  9. Mary says

    May 11, 2012 at 3:52 PM

    If Google’s dividing the cyber world into black & white, then their next algorithm change sure must be “Zebra” 🙂

    Reply
  10. Pauline Baird Jones says

    May 14, 2012 at 10:02 AM

    I feel a bit brassy coming here to award Copyblogger anything! But I also couldn’t, in good conscience, ignore this blog. It is my must read (though I rarely comment). I recommend this blog to my author friends, too, even though I write fiction. I’ve just learned so much from this blog and I wanted people who read my blog to know about the blogs that I follow, learn from and respect.. So, you don’t have to do anything about it, but I’m awarding you the Versatile Blogger Award. (details here: http://paulinebairdjones.blogspot.com/2012/05/got-versatile-blogger-award-and-paying.html ) And thank you so much for the wealth of knowledge that flows from this blog. 🙂

    Reply
  11. Pete Rockwell says

    May 17, 2012 at 2:27 PM

    Lee and Robert, great info. I’m wondering where I can find the keyword glossary and editorial plan spreadsheets you mentioned would be on your site? I’d love to have a look but can’t seem to find them. Thanks.

    Reply

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