Want to Get Discovered? 6 SEO Rules for 2016

Like everything else these days, SEO has shifted. You put a lot of thought and effort into developing clever, insightful blogs, landing pages and social media posts. Here are 6 SEO Rules for 2016 to get the most out of your content investment.

1.Keywords: forget exact matches: think good intentions

You no longer need an exact keyword to offer a relevant search result. Now search engines are seeing how people are interacting with your website. It’s about the post-click activity. Not only do you have to get the clicks, but you have to satisfy user intent.

2. Keywords: they ain’t what they used to be

In the old days, we were told to load our landing page with our keywords. That was so yesterday. Then we were told to frontload them in the first paragraph and in our headlines. Now we learn that including keywords in headlines is becoming less important. Google has gotten smarter about interpreting our meaning. I love that technology is getting so smart. It used to be that if you wanted to rank for best restaurants, you had to say best restaurants three or four times. It’s still helpful to mention best restaurants, but the semantic meaning is becoming much more important. Now you can just talk about great dining experiences, good food and wine and the search engines will pick up on it.

Search engines are getting more intuitive; they’re anticipating

As the search engines get smarter, they start to anticipate, thinking about other words that you expect to be in that article, what will signal that this is an authoritative article on the topic. A good example: If you were writing an article about the Apple watch, you might have the words Apple, iPhone, watch, apps and time. If those are in the body copy, it sends signals to the search engines that this is a pretty good article.

Think really, really brief

Most search queries are between three and five words long, so you should write headlines accordingly. If people search for the word marketing, or any one- or two-word query, they don’t get the results they want. As content creators, if you’re thinking about optimization, you always need to be thinking about brevity and character limits. It’s a huge challenge.

3. Focus on the user experience

Google is making something like 500 algorithm changes a year. Every change is focused on making sure that when people search on Google, if they get the right result on the first few pages, they’ve got a great experience. The more original content that you can produce—whether it’s an image or a video, or long-form content, anything you can put together that’s going to justify someone’s wanting to read it or share it—the better.

Beware Top 5 articles

Those articles with a Top Five or whatever list format often are clickable, but use them sparingly. People like things that they can quickly digest, but it doesn’t necessarily have much weight with search. You have to make sure that whatever comes after the number makes sense and is useful. Don’t deceive your user. If you’re promising them the Top 5, deliver.

4. Size matters

This is a tough sell, but I’ve been preaching this one for years. These days, when everyone seems to be communicating in 140 character bites, it’s difficult to make a case for longer articles, between 1,200 to 1,500 words, but they perform better in search. It’s significantly different than it was two or three years ago, when 300 words was considered a pretty long page—and that was considered long! Longer articles are getting more traffic, and they’re ranking higher in SEO, especially for competitive terms. The changes that Google is making, and the reason they’re making these changes, is to make sure they’re sending traffic to pages that delight people.

Do make those long pages more accessible

Break them up with subheads, bullet points and images to make it easy for readers to quickly scan and digest them. Spend some time making your subheads interesting to seduce your readers, drawing them in to read more. Make them want to read on

5. Optimize for mobile

If you’re a desktop user, it’s time to emerge from Sleepy Hollow. The majority of people are now reading their content on their smartphones, so make your content searchable.

6. Use unique images

While images aren’t as big of a referral source in Google as they used to be, having unique images on your site is valuable. The same image can show up in hundreds of places around the web, but having unique content around those images is what makes it stand out. If you can create a custom image or use unique photography, it will pay off in the long run.”

The most important SEO tip for 2016 is to focus on your audience. Today it’s about delivering what people actually want to see that will give you an SEO ranking boost.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

Hashtags: Grouping Content to Increase Brand Awareness

We all hear about the power of hashtags, and we’re seeing them all over social media. It turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. The best way to think about hashtags is that they’re a grouping mechanism. Let’s say I post a blog, identify a keyword phrase, content marketing, and include a hashtag, #content marketing. Anyone who keys #contentmarketing into a search field is now more likely to pull up my blog. If you understand the purpose of hashtags and learn how to use them, they become a powerful tool that will help you reach and engage your target audience and increase brand awareness.

Using hashtags in your social media posts makes them visible to basically anyone who shares your interest. No longer are your posts limited to just your followers; your content now becomes accessible to all other users who are interested in similar topics. Choosing good hashtags can significantly broaden the reach of your social media posts.

Creating an Effective Hashtag

Hashtags can appear anywhere in your posts: front, middle or end. Positioning isn’t as important as their relevance and judicious application. Users are turned off by a post that’s cluttered with excessive or lengthy hashtags, e.g. #thisLongHashtagIsSoPointless. Brevity is critical on social media so a short, declarative post with a few well-chosen hashtags should be your goal.

Limiting the number of hashtags

In general, keep your hashtags to two-three on Twitter; Instagram’s ideal number of hashtags is five. Use hashtags on Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest. An article about hashtags on Facebook showed that engagement fell off significantly as the number of hashtags grew.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• A hashtag must be written as a single word, without any spaces
• You can include numbers in a hashtag, but punctuation and special characters ($ and %) won’t work
• Search for a hashtag using the search bar at the top of any browser window–it’s a searchable link
• Add context. A message, link, message or call to action
• Stay relevant. Don’t use a trending hashtag to draw users—even though it has nothing to do with your post. It happens.
• If you’re just getting started, use hashtags that directly relate to your brand, product or service until you’re comfortable with their use. Start noticing how others are using hashtags creatively and effectively.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

12 Ways To Dramatically Improve Email Open Rates

Email marketing never gets any easier

The competition is fierce, and your subject line needs to be clever and attention-getting, yet sincere and compelling. Mobile has made it even harder as we struggle to constrain subject lines to 50 characters. I recently drafted up a few potential subject lines for a client and asked for her feedback. Her response? “Does it matter?” Are you kidding? A subject line is everything! 33% of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based on subject line alone, and frankly, I’m surprised that the number isn’t higher.

Here are some subject line tips:

1. Short and sweet. A whopping 40% of emails are being opened on mobile first, so 50 characters is now the rule. Editing is a skill. Write your blog and subject line, then come back later and you may have new clarity. Take out those words which are nonessential and see if you’ve altered the meaning.
2. Use a familiar sender name—people are afraid of viruses and they have little interest in spam. If they see an email from info@something.com, they’re less inclined to open it than if it is coming from a real person or someone they recognize.
3. Personalize. This is a list thing. Include the first name of your contacts so you can address them in your emails. Who doesn’t want to get a personal email rather than Dear Friend?
4. List segmentation. This may/not be relevant for your audience, but if it is, spend the time to do this. Your clients will thank you for tailoring information just for them.
5. Be truthful. Do not make a cheesy promise in your subject line to encourage open rates, then not deliver on that promise. When there’s a total disconnect between the subject line and the subject, you have deceived your audience.
6. If you’re offering something special in your email, use your subject line tell your audience.
7. There are a gazillion schools of thought on this one. It used to be 10am on Tues or Wed, but now that everyone’s online 24/7, the rules have changed. Some recommend sending when people are likely to have time to read it—Sunday afternoon or evening, for instance, when many of us settle in to do some work to get ready for the week ahead. If you’re sending out an email about a new bar’s happy hour, the best time to send it is might be 4:30 or 5:00.
8. Concise language. You only have 50 characters. Put them to work. Use action verbs; try to create an image for your audience.
9. Make them feel special. Who doesn’t want this one? “A special offer just for you”, etc.
10. Create a sense of urgency. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate. Using deadlines like “today only” or “24-hour giveaway”.
11. Use a question. Make it compelling—it can be thoughtful and make people think.
12. NEVER use all caps. Enough on that one. It’s difficult to read and is perceived as shouting.

One more thing . . . 

Rather than just deleting all those blasts you get from others, start paying attention to them, including the subject lines. I end up reading a fair number of marketing emails because I’m always interested in potential blog topics. You may be surprised what you will learn.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

Create a sense of urgency. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate. Using deadlines like “today only” or “24-hour giveaway”.

1. Use a question. Make it compelling—it can be thoughtful and make people think.
2. NEVER use all caps. Enough on that one. It’s difficult to read and is perceived as shouting.

One more thing . . . 

Rather than just deleting all those blasts you get from others, start paying attention to them, including the subject lines. I end up reading a fair number of marketing emails because I’m always interested in potential blog topics. You may be surprised what you will learn.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We're content marketing experts. 

Time to Dump Your HTML Email in Favor of Plain Text?

When it comes to email marketing, you’ve probably tried a number of applications, from Constant Contact to MailChimp. You kill yourself coming up with snappy, attention-getting subject lines. You add clever graphics, agonize over content, how to making it relevant and accessible. You’re constantly tweaking subject lines, calls-to-action, images, headers, layout, link positioning, copy, length, tone, content. The list is endless. Yet your open and click-through rates remain stagnant. What are you doing wrong?

Probably nothing. There's one hard truth: nothing boosts opens and clicks as well as an old school, plain-text email. What? Yes. Forget fancy layouts and graphics. Forget the HTML emails you’ve been slaving over for years. Remember that mobile has altered the landscape dramatically. Everything these days calls for simpler and more accessible.

People say they prefer HTML emails

In a 2014 survey, HubSpot asked more 1,000 professionals whether they preferred HTML-based or text-based emails, and whether they preferred emails that consisted of mostly text or mostly images. Nearly two thirds of the respondents said they preferred HTML and image-based emails.

HubSpot experimented with varying degrees of HTML-richness -- plain HTML templates, snazzy and sleek HTML templates, beautiful headers, different sized and positioned images, various call-to-action buttons, and GIFs -- to see which would have the best result. The result? They Actually Prefer Plain-Text.

In every single A/B test, the more simply designed email won

The emails with fewer HTML elements won with statistical significance. Go figure. This doesn’t make sense, does it? Every other marketing channel is moving towards incorporating visuals and seemingly getting positive results. Think the overwhelmingly greater response to your Facebook posts that include an image, the trend toward videos, surge of social media sites that are image-centric, including Instagram, Snapchat, etc. People NEED to be entertained these days. Why, then, were emails performing worse when HubSpot attempted to make them more visual appealing?

The results confirmed original assumption: HTML emails decreased open rates

One thing that HubSpot noticed was that HTML and plain-text emails were both receiving the same deliverability rate. So if they were getting delivered at the same rate, how were HTML emails underperforming? To understand the full scope of what happened, HubSpot A/B tested their email sends. They tested various segments of their database in multiple regions to get a better picture of HTML vs. plain-text emails.

What was interesting, however, was that not only were HTML emails receiving lower open rates than their plain-text counterparts, the more HTML-rich an email was, the lower its open rate. Simpler HTML emails had better open rates than HTML-rich emails and plain-text emails performed best of all.

HubSpot’s conclusion: It’s all about deliverability

Just because something says it's been delivered doesn't mean it's actually in a noticeable place of someone's inbox. Email services are increasingly filtering emails (especially commercial ones) to provide a better experience for the user. We all know about Gmail's promotions folder--it automatically filters what it deems "commercial" emails out of the main inbox unless the user changes the settings—and no one in his/her right mind does that.

The simple explanation is that image tags and HTML-rich templates seem to be getting flagged by email providers as commercial email, which means they get filtered out of a recipient's main inbox--and people can't open them. They’re delivered all right, but they’re not getting opened.

We’ve come full circle . . .

We’ve all spent years and considerable effort making our HTML emails more graphically enhanced, clever and enticing. We’ve come full circle. The message is still important, but it may be time to get back to the basics, focusing on making them simpler and more accessible.

Are you ready to outsource your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.