9 Tools to Help You Come Up With Content Ideas

One of the biggest challenges for content marketers is idea generation. Content marketing relies on quality and volume; you can't sacrifice one for the other.

Generating good quality content alone doesn't get the job done. A robust content marketing campaign needs a steady stream of publication-ready ideas that resonate with your customers.

If you're feeling like you're about to run out of ideas, it's time to look at some tools on the market. Here are 9 different strategies for writers and content marketers to quickly discover, develop, and test content ideas.

But first, if you're still wondering how to get started with your content strategy, refer to How to Build Your First Content Marketing Strategy and How to Create a Content Strategy for a B2B Business.

Read More :  9 Tools to Help You Come Up With Content Ideas

Google, Bing Gain Search Share to End 2013

Google's search share was at near record levels in the U.S. in December, while Bing also continued its pattern of slowly growing its share, according to the final 2013 installment of comScore's monthly look at U.S. search engine rankings.

Google came close to matching its all-time high of 67.5 percent (which it reached last February), growing its already dominant share of searches from 66.7 percent in November to 67.3 percent in December. In December 2012, Google's share of search was 66.7 percent.

Bing remained in second last month, growing its search share from 18.1 percent to 18.2 percent. In December 2012, Bing's share of search was at 16.3 percent.

As far Bing's search partner, Yahoo reached a new low of 10.8 percent last month, down from 11.2 percent in November. In December 2012, Yahoo's search share was 12.2 percent.

Read More : Google, Bing Gain Search Share to End 2013

How to Implement Adjusted Bounce Rate (ABR) via Google Tag Manager

Managing analytics tagging can be a tough situation for some companies.

Sure, if you're a business with a small and simple website, then slapping a tracking tag on each page is relatively easy to do. But what if you have a large and complex site that requires a number of different tracking tags? Managing them can easily get out of control, and could inhibit the accurate tracking of data across the site.

For situations like this, a tag management system can be a lifesaver. Enter Google Tag Manager, a free tag management system from Google.

Google Tag Manager (GTM) enables you to centrally manage tagging, while also enabling you to quickly deploy new tags to your production website. And when I say quickly, I'm not kidding.

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Google Images Makes it Easier to Search by Usage Rights

Google Images has made a great change to its search results. Users can now search for images with specific usage rates more easily. This will be extremely helpful for webmasters and others to find images that they can use for publishing on their own sites.

While Google has actually offered filtering based on photo licenses since 2009, it was a little-known search feature buried in the advanced search options. With the change, users can easily see it and filter the results accordingly.

To access it, simply click "Search Tools" on the image results page, and along with the usual search settings such as size and date, there is now a new drop-down for usage rights. The default is set to "not filtered by license" but users can change it to "labeled for reuse", "labeled for commercial reuse", "labeled for reuse with modification", and "labeled for commercial reuse of modification".

Read More : Google Images Makes it Easier to Search by Usage Rights

Linking the Google Way in 2014

My previous column showed you the right way to build links in 2014. Now it's time to show you a specific linking tactic that may blow your mind. You're about to learn how to link "Google style."
Internal Linking

It makes sense to initiate any linking campaign at your ownwebsite.

Begin by running a link check. Fix any broken links discovered.

The next step is leveraging the power and trust that is already flowing to your website. This is where competitor analysis comes in.

Now I'm going to let you in on a little secret of mine – the first place I look to for competitors is Google Ventures. And you should, too.

Read More : Linking the Google Way in 2014

Content Strategy for an International SEO Campaign

A content strategy is important for any marketing effort. But developing a content strategy for international marketing efforts has some unique challenges. Here's how to craft a content strategy as part of an international SEO campaign.
What is Content Strategy?

The term content strategyis how we refer to the purpose, creation, and distribution of information that we create. This includes:

    Written content such as blog posts, website copy, white papers, social media posts, press releases, and advertisements.
    Images and video.
    Interactive content or other things such as data visualization or infographics.

Most of this content is crawlable by search engines, thus it is something to be considered as part of your SEO efforts.

Read More : Content Strategy for an International SEO Campaign

10 Tools for Bloggers to Optimize Social Media and SEO

Bloggers, Podcasters and Web TV content creators converged in Las Vegas this past weekend for New Media Expo (NMX). NMX, which has immediately preceded the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the past two years, invited guests to learn and network with some the most successful new media content creators in their respective fields. The event featured three days of educational sessions presented by more than 175 industry leaders.

This was my third time attending, and I really enjoyed both the sessions and the networking. One of the sessions I particularly enjoyed was one on social media tools to become a more productive and effective blogger.

Read More : 10 Tools for Bloggers to Optimize Social Media and SEO

This was my third time attending, and I really enjoyed both the sessions and the networking. One of the sessions I particularly enjoyed was one on social media tools to become a more productive and effective blogger.
Read more at http://www.searchenginejournal.com/nmx-2014-10-tools-bloggers-optimize-social-media-seo/85253/#QhQsKklpCzEBwvDt.99

15 Ways Clients Can Build a Better Relationship With Their SEO Provider

After running a link agency for the past few years, I can safely say that some clients are easy to work with and some are nightmares. I can also say that the ones who are easy and fun to work with are the ones that truly bring out my passion for the work that we do, and as I see with my own employees, being receptive to listening to someone else's perspective is something that I highly value.

It doesn't matter if a client's niche is exciting or if their site is so amazing that I want to spend hours on it every week. A client who is willing to view our arrangement as a give and take relationship is the client for me.

Here are 15 pieces of advice that will help you build a better relationship with your SEO provider.

Read More : 15 Ways Clients Can Build a Better Relationship With Their SEO Provider

5 Ways to Have Killer Content in 2014

If there's one thing we heard ad nauseam in 2013 (and 2012, 2011, 2010...), it was that "content is king." Frankly, this phrase has been said so many times that it has lost its meaning. What exactly does that mean?

Content will continue to be a key part in SEO moving into 2014. I don't think that will ever change. But your strategy has to adapt if you're going to keep up.

Here are five ways to make sure your content will sustain in the New Year and move you past your competitors.

1. Marketing Automation to Measure It

Dave Snyder already hit the key KPIs to measure for content marketing, which is highly recommended reading. "Content has value beyond simple search engine optimization," Snyder wrote.

Read More : 5 Ways to Have Killer Content in 2014

Why Content Marketing is a Definitive Method for Success in 2014

Over the course of the past year, content marketing has really taken the spotlight. While the importance of quality content has been preached for a long time, in 2013 it proved to be the talk of the digital marketing industry and beyond.

A regular marketing tool for many companies, content creation became a prime method for success in 2013 and will become a definitive one in 2014.

While "content" is a common term, the past year has consisted of truly digging in and finding the precise definition and methods that go along with it. As a result of this yearlong brainstorm came a good amount of content strategy insights.

Read More : Why Content Marketing is a Definitive Method for Success in 2014

Home Depot's Richard the Cat Mocks How-To Helpless Humans

Think Grumpy Cat is the only moody spokescat on the Internet? Think again.

The Home Depot is using another surly feline, Richard the Cat, in its online springtime promotional efforts.

According to his Tumblr bio, Richard the Cat is an outdoor expert stuck with "‘how-to' helpless humans."

Distinctively disdainful of people -- particularly when it comes to springtime gardening -- Richard tweets messages like, "When the humans #DigIn outside, they say they're ‘planting.' So far, they've successfully grown a garden of weeds," from his Twitter handle, @RichardtheCat, which had 660 followers as of Wednesday.

However, according to an email from a Home Depot rep, "once you get to know Richard, you realize he's not so much surly as he is a mature feline who is impatient with the people (and pets) who surround him and are operating with less experience and knowledge than he."

The rep says Home Depot has created native experiences for Richard to "engrain him in spring scenery."

Home Depot's springtime campaign is tied together with the hashtag #DigIn on networks including Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Read More : No.1 Most Read Article of 2013: Home Depot's Richard the Cat Mocks How-To Helpless Humans

New Year 2014 Google Logo Keeps On Disco Dancing

Today’s Google logo ushers in the New Year with the same logo as yesterday’s New Year’s Eve disco-themed logo, with one small change: 2013 is now 2014.

The interactive logo includes the same spinning disco ball and vibrating speakers, but now the dancing numbers are 2014, as a sweaty number “3″ makes its way off the light-up dance floor. (The number appears to be mouthing something, but I’m not sure what it’s saying.) Clicking the logo returns results for “New Year 2014.”

Under the search box, is a link to the “Google Zeitgeist 2013″ site, a page with all the top searches performed on Google during the last year.

Search Engine Land wishes all our readers and happy and healthy 2014!

Read More : New Year 2014 Google Logo Keeps On Disco Dancing

Top 10 SEO New Year's Resolutions for a Successful 2014

It's been quite a year for SEO folk everywhere.

As 2013 shutters its doors and 2014 beckons, it's an opportune time to reevaluate, reassess, and revisit SEO tactics.

In the spirit of a New Year's Eve edition, I'm presenting some of the most popular (according to the US Government) New Years Resolutions through an SEO lens, in the hope of spreading some good cheer and great strategy along with a very happy new year to you and yours!

Without further ado... below are the top 10 SEO resolutions for your 2014 success!

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6 Major Google Changes Reveal the Future of SEO

The last few weeks have been amazing. Google has made some big changes and they are all part of a longer term strategy that has many components.

In short, Google is doing a brilliant job of pushing people away from tactical SEO behavior and toward a more strategic approach.

You could argue that "tactical SEO is dead", but that's not quite right. And don't run around saying "SEO is dead" because that is far from the truth, and I might just scream at you.

Instead, let's take a few steps back and understand the big picture. Here's a look at the major developments, some of Google's initiatives driving this change, and the overall impact these changes will have on SEO.

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5 Social Media Advertising Trends to Watch for in 2014

Social media advertising is what traditional search engine marketing was 5 years ago: constantly in development with major changes coming every other week. That's not to say that SEM has stagnated and development has stopped – it hasn't (enhanced campaigns anyone?).

The point is that 2013 has seen more changes and big leaps forward in social media advertising then any year before. The development boom hasn't slowed down at all this year and is propelling the entire social media space forward into 2014.

Here are five trends in social media advertising to watch out for next year.

Read More : 5 Social Media Advertising Trends to Watch for in 2014

How SEO Greed Can Ruin A Perfectly Good Linking Strategy

By now, you are likely aware of the Rap Genius “Tweet In Exchange For Anchor Text” link scheme, hencefore to be known as TieFating.

Barry Schwartz reported last week on John Marbach’s exposé of the popular music site, Rap Genius, which had started an “affiliate” program in order to get links pointing to their website. After it was exposed, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, said, “we’re aware and looking into it.” The site was then officially penalized for link schemes.

In a nutshell, the folks at Rap Genius offered to tweet a link with a URL to any blogger that linked to the Rap Genius site using specific keyword rich anchor text to the lyrics of very specific songs by very specific artists. In exchange for these keyword rich anchor text links, Rap Genius would then tweet out a link to the blogger’s site/post, and that would result in their site getting “massive traffic.”

Read More : How SEO Greed Can Ruin A Perfectly Good Linking Strategy

7 Dead Link Building Tactics in 2014

In 2008, link building was queen (or king) when it came to ranking well in search engines. Companies dumped most of their SEO budget into link building activities designed to increase link numbers, thus ranking higher in search engines over time. Link counts were closely measured, anchor text was optimized, page 1 rankings were achieved and there was much rejoicing!

What was once an effective SEO tactic that almost everyone was doing quickly backfired during the Google Penguin update in spring of 2012. Many marketers were left scratching their heads wondering if link building was still a worthwhile tactic. Some SEO firms simply abandoned link building in favor of other tactics. Rather than spending hours and hours on link requests, they began to focus on content marketing tactics to help build organic visitors. This was a positive strategy shift but a poor understanding of how link building can be used to generate results.

Read More : 7 Dead Link Building Tactics in 2014

Link Building 2013: Looking Back At This Year’s Top Link Week Columns

With each passing year, search engine algorithms grow increasingly sophisticated in their ability to identify (and penalize) spammy links. Among other things, this year marked the fourth and fifth releases of Google’s spam-filtering Penguin update (Penguin 2.0 and 2.1, respectively).

Additionally, many link building tactics that were once considered legitimate were unceremoniously moved to the “spam” column in 2013. Google updated its webmaster guidelines to provide additional guidance on what they now consider to be an unnatural link, and even Bing detailed several ways not to build links.

The launch of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm and its potential impact on link building activities was also a hot topic among the link building community. Add to that the possible death of Google Toolbar PageRank, and you have quite an eventful year for all the linkers out there!

Read More : Link Building 2013: Looking Back At This Year’s Top Link Week Columns

Google Reveals Top Searches of 2013: From Nelson Mandela to Twerking

What did you search for on Google in 2013? Were you curious about “twerking” like the many others who pushed that search query to the top of Google’s “what is” search list? Or perhaps you wanted to learn more about Nelson Mandela who garnered the No. 1 spot in Google search this year.

Whatever you searched, we lived, and Google once again made memories come alive in its end-of-year Zeitgeist video.

Read More :  Google Reveals Top Searches of 2013: From Nelson Mandela to Twerking

7 CRO Lessons Learned in 2013

For this month’s series, we’re providing a little bit of perspective on the hectic events of 2013. As we’ve left Enhanced Campaigns pretty well covered this year, this week we’ll be dedicating our time to some of the other (non-Enhanced Campaigns) initiatives, tactics, strategies, and features that we used to excel in 2013 here at PPC Hero.

As Eric explained yesterday, December’s series is related to those things in 2013 that our team has found to be the most enlightening or crucial to continued PPC growth and/or performance. The list of things that have changed over the last year is much more expansive, but when presented with the opportunity to discuss what I found most effective in the last year – I was a bit caught off guard. How does one narrow that list down and pick just ONE?? Really, in our case, we had to pick just FIVE…but you get it.





Read More : 7 CRO Lessons Learned in 2013